Fifth Installation: M-N-O
M
Manton's - famous maker of dueling pistols, or, the
pistols themselves made by Manton.
mantua-maker - early term for a maker of gowns, seamstress.
Later, also called a modiste.
masque - a costume ball.
master of ceremonies - the man at an assembly ball who announces
which dance is next.
Mayfair - the most desirable neighborhood in Regency London,
located by Hyde Park. The thing that made Mayfair unique was that it was the first
London neighborhood created exclusively for the wealthy. Previously,
the rich had lived for centuries side-by-side with the poor throughout
London, everyone jostled together, with slums right around the corner
from palaces. Mayfair was desirable because it was all new, with
no place for the poor people to move in. The only poor people in
Mayfair lived in the servants' quarters inside the big, splendid
townhouses.
madeira - a sweet white dessert wine.
magistrate - a justice of the peace. Also, a police magistrate,
the “judge” before whom a suspected criminal is brought
upon being arrested.
marquess (or marquis) and marchioness - peer and peeress ranking
below duke/duchess and above earl/countess. (Both the English and
French spellings of this word were in use during the Regency, but
not matter how you spell it, it was spoken with the standard British
pronunciation: “MAR-kwess,” not the French style, “mar-KEE.”)
While the firstborn son of a marquess would probably have a courtesy
title of earl or viscount, any younger sons as well as daughters
would be styled Lord Firstname Surname or Lady Firstname Surname,
just like the younger sons and daughters of dukes (as in Lord Alec
Knight or Lady Jacinda Knight.)
marriage - the idea of marrying for love was a dangerous,
revolutionary, new idea at the time of the Regency period. Before
then, marriage was mainly a matter of wealth- and power- alliances
between families. If the people involved fell in love, that was
a nice extra, but basically irrelevant. As long as they treated
each other with reasonable courtesy, and the husband provided for
his family, and the wife bore him children, that was pretty much
all that anyone expected. In the old-style way of thinking, romance
and passion were generally sought outside of marriage in the form
of affairs with other married people or, for the man, in taking
a mistress.
The idea of marrying for love was part of the Romantic revolution
that placed a higher value on emotions, which had been scorned previously
in the Classical era’s favor of calm, cool, collect “Reason.”
The Romantics also placed a higher value on the individual, whereas,
previously, the individual was expected to acquiesce to his/her
“duty,” stoically fulfilling the role in life assigned
to him or her based on social rank/birth.
Note that both ideologies, Classical and Romantic, coexisted within
people’s minds, especially the young adults of the time, who
were in the thick of the fray with this cultural change. It gave
many people an inner conflict over their values as they became torn
between following traditional ways that had worked just fine for
hundreds of years, versus the new idea of following their hearts.
This inner conflict was expressed in many ways during the period
- from the music to the architecture—even in the layout gardens.
On the one hand you had the precision-sculpted, logical puzzles
of the garden mazes; on the other, you had Capability Brown landscapes
carefully sculpted to look wild, untamed, and picturesque, designed
to evoke emotion and introspection.
marriage licenses - In 1753, Lord Hardwick’s Act outlawed
clandestine marriages by minors, which had been carried out for
a small fee within the walls of Fleet Prison. By the Regency period,
there were two main ways that people could legally marry:
1) The traditional and most affordable way was the “reading
of the banns” for three consecutive Sundays in the parish
or parishes where each of the engaged pair was a permanent resident.
(ie. If the man and woman were from different parishes, the banns
had to be read at both places.) In an era before social security
numbers and ID cards, the reading of the banns was intended to give
anyone with an objection to the marriage ample opportunity to hear
about it and come forward, for example, if one of the people had
already been married somewhere else and had ducked out on their
previous wife or husband. When the banns had been read as proscribed,
then a regular marriage license would be granted. The marriage had
to take place in one of the parish churches, between the hours of
8:00 a.m. and noon.
2) The more private and expensive way, preferred by aristocrats
- and most romance novel heroes - was to purchase a “special
license” from the offices of the Archbishop of Canterbury
in Doctor’s Commons in London. The special license gave the
betrothed couple the luxury of being married anywhere whenever and
wherever they wanted—unlike with banns, the ceremony didn’t
have to take place in a chapel, and could be at any time of day.
Both types of licenses expired after three months.
meal times - According to David N. Durant in Where Queen Elizabeth
Slept and What the Butler Saw, (St. Martin’s Griffin, 1998)
“Town hours,” or daily meal schedules, ran later than
“country hours” because in London, Parliament was running
later than previously, so the gentlemen of the ruling class didn’t
get home until later in the day. Even when retiring to the country,
the upper classes set themselves apart from the rustics by keeping
Town hours. The mealtimes at a typical country house weekend might
go like this: breakfast, 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon; 2:00-3:00 p.m.
luncheon (aka nuncheon); 5:00-6:00 tea; 7:00 p.m. dinner; 10:00-11:00
a light after-party or after-entertainment supper, served hot or
cold.
merchant class - business owners and their families. They
became increasingly powerful and important socially as the Industrial
Revolution wore on. The upper classes looked down on them as the
crass nouveau riche.
mews - Originally, it meant a place that housed hawks and
hunting falcons, but later it became associated with stables. As
fancy townhouses were built in London, their backs facing each other,
a row of stables or “mews” would be built down the center
behind them so that the residents would be able, conveniently, to
keep their riding and carriage horses there. The mews also included
the little private back alley that gave access to the stable areas.
Nowadays, many of these quaint old mews in London are being turned
into upscale “carriage house” apartments.
Michaelmas - September 29, the feast of St. Michael the Archangel.
middle class - similar to the “upper middle class”
of today, including the more genteel professions, such as barristers,
physicians (but not surgeons), clergy, politicians, professors and
high level scholars. You’ll notice that what all of these
jobs have in common is that nowhere does anyone even come close
to doing manual labor. The minute you seemed to be actively following
profit or had to use your hands to make your living, (other than
writing sermons, lessons, or prescriptions!) you descended on the
social scale. These professions were also open to gentlemen (see
definition) who had enough money not to have to work, but who
wanted to do something to occupy their time. They could do jobs
like the above without harming their place in the social pecking
order.
milliner's shop - ladies’ hat and bonnet shop.
Frequently also sold ribbons, feathers, and artificial flowers for
decorating your own hats. The art of millinery means designing hats.
mistress - a kept woman, said to be "under the protection"
of her male keeper. If a girl was poor but beautiful, this was one
route to a luxurious and fashionable (but not respectable) life.
As for the men, there was no real social sanction against them having
mistresses if they could afford it. Wives and respectable ladies
might not love these arrangements, but in their culture, they were
generally expected to turn a blind eye to it.
The current thinking, which became even more crisply defined in
the Victorian era to follow, was that the wife, the mother of a
man’s children, was to be put up on a pedestal, too “pure”
to be an object of lust: the angel in the home. The sultry sexual
role was saved for the mistress, who, in turn, was not seen as being
moral enough to be a good mother.
Thus, love and lust were kept in separate compartments, as were
the women who provided each; respectable ladies and women of ill
repute were generally forbidden to talk to each other (a dynamic
nicely depicted in Gone With the Wind in the scenes between Scarlett
O’Hara and the local madam, Belle Watling).
modiste - French term for a dress-maker. Also called by the
slightly earlier term, mantua-maker.
muff - a round fur-lined accessory for keeping ladies’
hands warm. Especially popular in the Regency were big, oversized
fur muffs.
muslin - a fine, thin, semi-transparent cotton available in
many different finishes. In all its varieties, muslin was hands
down the most popular material for ladies’ gowns for both
day- and evening-wear. It replaced silk in popularity because the
best silk was French, and England, until 1815, was of course at
war with France. Wearing muslin instead of silk was seen as being
more patriotic. Napoleon had the opposite problem in France, getting
the ladies to keep buying and wearing French silk in spite of the
trendy new English muslin.
N
nabob - an Englishman who went to India and made a fortune
there. (Someone who tried and failed to do so, or made very little
money in this effort was referred to as a ‘chicken nabob’!)
nankeen - a sturdy but lightweight yellowish cotton cloth,
especially popular for men’s pantaloons, first brought over
from China.
Nash, John - the star architect
to the Prince Regent who planned out Regent’s Park, Nash was
the first to cover London houses in stucco in 1782 (in Bloomsbury
Square). He worked for a while in Wales, and early in his career
hooked up with famous landscape gardener, Humphrey Repton.
Repton was working on the grounds at the Marine Pavilion at Brighton
for the Prince when Nash was brought in to design a conservatory.
Nash made a favorable impression on the Prince (though there is
speculation that it might have been his lovely young wife that caught
the royal eye first, before the Prince realized Nash’s genius).
“In 1806, when he was fifty-four, he accepted the obscure
post of architect to the department of Woods and Forests and this
was soon to launch him into the most brilliant phase of his whole
career.” Nash won an in-house competition for the building
to be done on Marylebone (later Regent’s) Park. Other architects
suggested boring tracts of row houses, but Nash turned it into an
upscale residential estate meshing urban convenience with a park-like
setting. His design left plenty of open space for outdoor recreation,
horseback riding, walking, etc. “as allurements for the wealthy
part of the Public to establish themselves there.”
In order to attract the right clientele to buy property in the new
development, (they especially wanted members of Parliament), Nash
realized he needed to make the commute back and forth to Whitehall
more convenient. This led to major downtown reconstruction, as we
would say, building the grand, new Oxford and Regent Streets. This
required a whole re-envisioning for major portions of London.
The Prince Regent got behind Nash’s ideas in a competitive
spirit, eager to make his capital rival Napoleon’s Paris.
John Bull and the English public, however, were not quite so enthusiastic
at the time, watching so much of their tax revenue go to giving
London a facelift rather than fixing the country’s economic
woes.
Eventually, when his patron, Prince and later King George IV died,
Nash was dismissed on account of the public outcry over the expenditures.
Nevertheless, even today, visitors to London can still appreciate
the magnificent vistas that Nash brought to life. (See Regency London
by Stella Margetson, Chapter Four, “The Regent and His Architect.”)
negus - a warm mulled mixture of water, sugar, and strong
wine, such as port or sherry. It was popular at balls and parties,
especially when guests were just coming in from the cold outdoors.
Newgate - the most formidable prison in London for criminals
(as opposed to debtors). Also the site of public executions. It
was located next to the main criminal courthouse, the Old Bailey.
(You can read actual transcripts and sentences handed down in real
trials that took place during the 1700-1800’s at the Old Bailey
at www.oldbailey.org. One of the best sites on the web for history
buffs!)
nuncheon - another word for lunch. Possibly a combination
of noon + luncheon?
nurse - the nanny for small children before they were put
in the care of a governess. Could also refer to a wet nurse, a nursing
or pregnant woman who was hired to breastfeed an upper class baby
so the real mother wouldn’t have to be inconvenienced!
nursery - usually located out of earshot on the top floor
of a residence, the nursery was the childcare area of a home with
children’s beds and furniture, play areas, and schoolroom
areas, as well as quarters for the nurse, nanny, governess and/or
any nursery maids, females servants whose job it was to help watch
and clean up after the kids.
O
of the first stare - in the most fashionable style
on-dit - a piece of gossip, translated from the French it
means “it is said” or “they’re saying”
opera - hugely popular form of entertainment for the Regency
upper classes. Though some operas were German and a handful were
in English, the prevailing form was the Italian. The typical Regency
person’s education included learning at least some Italian
in order to enjoy this quintessentially civilized art form. The
main place to see/hear opera in London was (and still is) the King’s
Theatre, also known as the Royal Italian Opera House. A season subscription
for an opera box could cost as much as £2,500. (Contrast this
with the annual salary of Jane Austen’s clergyman father,
approximately £150/year, or a private in the army, at just
under £18/year.) “The doors opened at six and performances
began at seven.” (Hendrickson, Emily. The Regency Reference
Book, p. 24.)
orangery - an indoor ‘winter garden,’ greenhouse,
or conservatory where oranges, lemons, pineapples, and other popular
exotics could be grown year-round. (A huge status symbol.)
ormolu - a style of decorating furniture, especially small
tables and fancy chairs, to look like they were made of solid gold.
Also used on clocks, vases, desk sets, etc. and other small, elegant
household objects.
|
