Historians are offering £1,000 to anyone who can help them find a collection of Elizabethan manuscripts that vanished more than 250 years ago.

It is believed the 75-plus documents that were handwritten about 400 years ago could still be somewhere in Lincolnshire.

The topics covered include science, philosophy and the Roman poet Virgil, written in the sort of English used by Edmund, Lord Blackadder, in the hit TV comedy series Blackadder II set in Elizabethan times.

One of the curiously-titled papers is 'A Paradoxe, proving by reason and example that baldnesse is much better than bushie hair', which flies the flag for the follicly challenged.

The manuscripts were collected by a London clergyman called Abraham Fleming who visited his brother Samuel, a rector in Leicestershire, in 1607 when he became ill and died and was buried in the grounds of St Mary the Virgin Church in Bottesford.

Among Abraham’s possessions was his collection of manuscripts called MSs Flemingii, which cropped up more than 100 years later near Melton Mowbray in the hands of a Francis Peck.

When Peck died, his widow, Anne retired to Harlaxton, near Grantham.

How times have changed

She died in about 1758 and in that year Peck's library was sold by auction and MSs Flemingii vanished.

Now, the Philology Fellowship, a group of amateur and academic enthusiasts based in the USA, has launched an appeal to find them after all these years.

Stewart Wilcox, a member of the fellowship, told Lincolnshire Live: "For historians these manuscripts would be a great find, opening another window on the Elizabethan world.

"So, we are offering a reward of £1,000 to anyone who can lead us to the manuscript collection which we can read and verify as MSs Flemingii.

"We don't want to relocate them, we would just like access to study them.

"We believe they could be sat in someone's collection just gathering dust.

"It's doubtful that anyone would have travelled up from London when Francis Peck's library was auctioned off so it's likely that they were bought locally to Harlaxton.

"There's a good chance they are still in Lincolnshire."

An example of Elizabethan writing as used in the missing Fleming manuscripts

Mr Wilcox added that Elizabethan manuscripts are notoriously hard to read and decipher.

He said: "The written hands contain each writer’s personal writing idiosyncrasies, the spelling was not consistent, the language used was often hard to understand, certain letters were different and there were three distinct writing styles, (although the main style, secretarial, did have consistencies).

"Be that as it may, these old manuscripts hold a wealth of information throwing light on the Elizabethan people, their interests and culture.

"This period is one of the most interesting in English history, covering the English Renaissance, Shakespeare, Sir Walter Raleigh and the Spanish Armada, the great changes in the English Christian Church, and the founding of the New World."

The group believes that one place that might be worth investigating in Belvoir Castle because the Earls of Rutland were avid collectors of manuscripts at the time the collection vanished.

Anyone with information should email philologicalfellowship@gmail.com

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