York Medieval Press Prestige, Authority and Power in Late Medieval Manuscripts and Texts (2000)

F -T O O L S F -T O O L S
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
k e r- s o ft w a k e r- s o ft w a
VISIT…
d:/3riddy/frontis.3d ± 31/7/0 ± 19:37 ± /mp
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Plate 1. Longleat House MS 24 fol. 3r reduced, actual size 450 6 310 mm

(photograph David Wiltshire, published by permission of the Marquess of
Bath).
d:/3riddy/pre.3d ± 31/7/0 ± 19:39 ± /mp
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
YORK MANUSCRIPTS CONFERENCES: PROCEEDINGS SERIES
University of York, Centre for Medieval Studies
(General Editor: A. J. Minnis)
ISSN 0955±9663
VOLUME IV
PRESTIGE, AUTHORITY AND POWER

IN LATE MEDIEVAL
MANUSCRIPTS AND TEXTS
Prestige, authority and power: what is the signi®cance of these three terms
for the study of late medieval manuscripts and texts? This collection of
essays, by leading scholars from Britain and North America, answers this
question in various ways: by discussing manuscripts as prestigious de luxe
objects, by showing how the layout of texts was used to confer different kinds
of authority, and by locating manuscripts and texts more dynamically in
what Foucault calls `power's net-like organisation'. All of the essays in the
volume embed the manuscripts they discuss in particular sets of personal
relationships, located in speci®c social environments ± in the schoolroom or
the monastery, at court, in the gentry household and the city, or mediating
between these. The essays address, among others, issues of gender, patron-
age, self-authorisation, and gentry and urban sociability, in studies ranging
from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries.
Felicity Riddy is Professor of English at the University of York.
d:/3riddy/pre.3d ± 31/7/0 ± 19:39 ± /mp
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
YORK MEDIEVAL PRESS
York Medieval Press is published by the University of York's Centre for

Medieval Studies in association with Boydell & Brewer Ltd. Our objective is
the promotion of innovative scholarship and fresh criticism on medieval
culture. We have a special commitment to interdisciplinary study, in line
with the Centre's belief that the future of Medieval Studies lies in those areas
in which its major constituent disciplines at once inform and challenge each
other.
Editorial Board (1998±2001):
Prof. W. M. Ormrod (Chair; Dept of History)

Dr P. P. A. Biller (Dept of History)
Dr J. W. Binns (Dept of English & Related Literature)
Dr E. C. Norton (Art History)
Dr N. F. McDonald (Dept of English & Related Literature)
Dr J. D. Richards (Dept of Archaeology)
All inquiries of an editorial kind, including suggestions for monographs and

essay collections, should be addressed to: The Director, University of York,
Centre for Medieval Studies, The King's Manor, York YO1 7EP (E-mail:
lah1@york.ac.uk).
Publications of York Medieval Press are listed at the back of this volume.
d:/3riddy/pre.3d ± 31/7/0 ± 19:39 ± /mp
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
PRESTIGE, AUTHORITY AND POWER

IN LATE MEDIEVAL
MANUSCRIPTS AND TEXTS
Edited by
FELICITY RIDDY
YORK MEDIEVAL PRESS

d:/3riddy/pre.3d ± 31/7/0 ± 19:39 ± /mp
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
# Contributors, 1994, 2000
All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation

no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system,
published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast,
transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means,
without the prior permission of the copyright owner
First published 2000
A York Medieval Press publication

in association with The Boydell Press
an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd
PO Box 9 Woodbridge Suffolk IP12 3DF UK
and of Boydell & Brewer Inc.
PO Box 41026 Rochester NY 14604±4126 USA
website: http://www.boydell.co.uk
and with the
Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York
ISBN 0 9529734 6 4
A catalogue record for this book is available

from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Prestige, authority and power in late medieval manuscripts and texts / edited by
Felicity Riddy.
p. cm. ± (York manuscripts conferences, ISSN 0955-9633; v.4)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0 9529734-6-4 (alk. paper)
1. Manuscripts, English ± Social aspects ± History. 2. Manuscripts, Latin
(Medieval and modern) ± Social aspects ± England. 3. English literature ±
Middle English, 1100±1500 ± Social aspects. 4. English literature ± Early
modern, 1500±1700 ± Social aspects. 5. Latin literature, Medieval and modern
± Social aspects. 6. Authority. 7. Prestige. I. Riddy, Felicity. II. Series.
Z106.5.G7 P74 2000
091±dc21 99±058712
This publication is printed on acid-free paper
Typeset by Joshua Associates Ltd, Oxford

Printed in Great Britain by
St Edmundsbury Press Ltd, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
d:/3riddy/pre.3d ± 31/7/0 ± 19:39 ± /mp
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
CONTENTS
List of Plates vi
Introduction
Felicity Riddy 1
Inventing Authority: Glossing, Literacy and the Classical Text
Suzanne Reynolds 7
Manuscripts of Nicholas Love's The Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus
Christ and Wyclif®te Notions of Àuthority'
Kantik Ghosh 17
The Patronage and Dating of Longleat House MS 24, a Prestige
Copy of the Pupilla Oculi Illuminated by the Master of the Troilus
Frontispiece
Kate Harris 35
Limner-Power: A Book Artist in England c. 1420
Kathleen L. Scott 55
A Poet's Contacts with the Great and the Good: Further
Consideration of Thomas Hoccleve's Texts and Manuscripts
John J. Thompson 77
The Politics of Book Ownership: The Hopton Family and Bodleian
Library, Digby MS 185
Carol M. Meale 103
Piety, Politics and Persona: MS Harley MS 4012 and Anne Harling
Anne M. Dutton 133
The Abbess of Malling's Gift Manuscript (1520)
Mary C. Erler 147
`Plutarch's' Life of Agesilaus: A Recently Located New Year's Gift
to Thomas Cromwell by Henry Parker, Lord Morley
James P. Carley 159
Manuscripts after Printing: Af®nity, Dissent and Display in the
Texts of Wyatt's Psalms
David R. Carlson 171
Index of manuscripts 189
Index of names and titles 192
d:/3riddy/pre.3d ± 31/7/0 ± 19:39 ± /mp
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
PLATES
1. Longleat House MS 24 fol. 3r (photograph David frontispiece

Wiltshire, published by permission of the Marquess of
Bath)
2. Longleat House MS 24 fol. 3r detail, lower portion of 40
page (photograph David O'Connor, published by
permission of the Marquess of Bath)
3. York Minster choir clerestory glazing Nix panel 2a, 43
arms of Henry, third baron Scrope of Masham
(photograph David O'Connor, published by kind
permission of the Dean and Chapter of York)
4. Longleat House MS 24 fol. 3ra detail, historiated initial, 46
the Annunciation (photograph David O'Connor,
published by permission of the Marquess of Bath)
5. Longleat House MS 24 fol. 3rb detail, historiated initial, 47
St Stephen (photograph David O'Connor, published by
permission of the Marquess of Bath)
6. York Minster St Stephen's Chapel east window, nII 49
(Royal Commission on Historical Monuments of
England # Crown Copyright)
7. York Minster St Stephen's Chapel east window, nII 50
panel 1a detail, head of St Stephen (photograph David
O'Connor, published by kind permission of the Dean
and Chapter of York)
8. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 61, Geoffrey opposite p. 57
Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde, fol. 1v, frontispiece of
Chaucer reciting below scene from poem; full frame
with sprays
9. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 61, Chaucer, 58
Troilus and Criseyde, fol. 1v, detail of frame and sprays
10. London, British Library, MS Royal 8.G.iii, Petrus de 64
Aureolis, Compendium super Bibliam, fol. 2r, Aureolis
preaching below the mons domini from the text; full
border
d:/3riddy/pre.3d ± 31/7/0 ± 19:39 ± /mp
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
Plates vii
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
11. Oxford, All Souls College, MS 302, Missal, fol. 124r, 66
three-sided border. By kind permission of the Warden
and Fellows of All Souls College, Oxford
12. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Auct.F.inf.1.1, Dionysius 68
de Burgo, Commentary on Valerius Maximus, fol. 1r,
border with arms of Ely, St Albans, England and
Humphrey, duke of Gloucester
13. London, British Library, MS Cotton Claudius D.i, letters 69
of John Whetehamstede, fol. 3r, full border with Gospel
symbols and arms of Ely and St Albans
14. London, British Library, MS Cotton Nero C.vi, John 70
Whetehamstede, Granarium de viris illustribus, fol. 1r,
full border with Gospel symbols and arms of Ely and
St. Albans
15. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby MS 185, fol. 1r, 107
quartered arms of Swillington and Rosse
16. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby MS 185, fol. 80r, arms 108
of Swillington impaled by Aylsford
initial with quartered arms of Swillington and Rosse
quartered arms of Swillington and Rosse impaled by
Ayslford
19. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby MS 185, fol. 157v, 111
heraldic scheme
20. Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery, MS 21040, fol. 7r, 155
dedicatory inscription
21. Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery, MS 21040, fol. 7v, 156
Annunciation
d:/3riddy/intro.3d ± 31/7/0 ± 19:38 ± diskB&B/mp
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
INTRODUCTION1
Felicity Riddy
Prestige, authority and power: what is the signi®cance of these three terms
for the study of medieval manuscripts and texts? This is the question that the
authors of the essays in this volume, ranging from the twelfth century to the
sixteenth, have sought to address, and they answer it in different, but
interrelated, ways. The essays are presented in chronological order, and in
this way fall into four groups. The ®rst two, by Suzanne Reynolds and Kantik
Ghosh, discuss ideas of textual authority. The second pair, by Kate Harris
and Kathleen Scott, are detailed studies of some de luxe manuscripts of the
early ®fteenth century, and present differing views about the patronage of
one of these in particular. The third group, by John Thompson, Carol Meale
and Anne Dutton, deals with prestigious ®fteenth-century writers and
readers of manuscripts and texts. The focus of the last group, by Mary
Erler, James Carley and David Carlson, is on manuscripts in the era of print,
during the reign of Henry VIII. Nevertheless the ideas of prestige, authority
and power cut across this ordering and suggest different juxtapositions as
well, as I shall show.
Prestige is probably the least problematic of the three terms; in fact, the
idea that manuscripts are a source of prestige in the late Middle Ages seems
so self-evidently true as to be hardly worth discussing. Written on parch-
ment, opulently illuminated and handsomely bound, expensive manuscripts
made for wealthy individuals or institutions were constituents of status; they
belong with the equally ®ne horses, clothes, jewels and other luxury goods
that were essential to aristocratic self-presentation, whether secular or
religious. De luxe manuscripts of various kinds are the ones non-specialists
are most familiar with: they are on display in exhibitions and in museums;
they are tourist attractions; they offer themselves as static icons of prestige.
If the prestigious manuscript is familiar, so is the authoritative one. The
idea that an auctor (author) was endowed with auctoritas (authority) through
the way the text was presented on the manuscript page is now thoroughly
familiar. It was initially an academic process: the scholarly commentaries and
1
All the essays in this collection were originally presented as papers at the Seventh
York Manuscripts Conference, held under the auspices of the Centre for Medieval
Studies, University of York, in 1994. The editor is grateful to the contributors for their
exceptional forbearance over the delay in producing the volume.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
2 Felicity Riddy
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
glosses that accrued to the `set texts' used in grammar schools were the
material means by which this kind of cultural status was constituted. The
hierarchy of scripts and the mise-en-page of text and gloss combined to
establish relations of authority between different elements and to control
the way in which a text was read. This kind of auctoritas moved from ancient
to modern texts, and out of the schoolroom into vernacular contexts, as my
colleague Alastair Minnis has shown so well,2 creating the possibility of new
kinds of auctores and auctoritas, including self-authorization.
All the essays in this volume deal with manuscripts that can be seen as
prestigious or authoritative, or both. The essays by Kate Harris, Kathleen
Scott, Carol Meale and Anne Dutton are probably most directly concerned to
show how a manuscript might be a means of asserting status. The ®rst three
use heraldry as part of their evidence. Harris argues that a particularly
beautiful copy of the Pupilla Oculi, Longleat MS 24, was probably commis-
sioned by Henry, third baron Scrope of Masham, whose obliterated arms
originally appeared in the manuscript, and who was a muni®cent donor to
York Minster. He may also have intended the manuscript as a gift to an
institution, but was executed for treason in 1415 leaving, Harris suggests, the
project un®nished. Scott disagrees, arguing that Scrope's brother Stephen,
archdeacon of Richmond, is a likelier candidate as the commissioner of
Longleat MS 24. She identi®es the illuminator of this and a group of other
texts with the Master of the Troilus frontispiece in Cambridge, Corpus Christi
College, MS 61, whom she thinks worked for Charles d'OrleÂans during his
captivity. Carol Meale focuses on a lesser but nevertheless elegant manu-
script, Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Digby 185, from the later ®fteenth
century. She identi®es the coats of arms that appear in it as belonging to
Yorkshire gentry families who had been involved with one another over
several generations through ties of kinship, friendship and political af®nity.
The commissioner of this well-planned assembly of texts, Meale argues, was
a member of one of these families who used the manuscript to invoke
regional and political identity, as well as pedigree. Meale sees the manuscript
primarily as an expression of male attitudes; Anne Dutton, on the other hand,
writes about a woman's book. Here an obliterated name, rather than a coat of
arms, has been recovered: it is that of Dame Anne Wing®eld, neÂe Harling.
This collection of religious texts is conventional, but Dutton argues that its
very conventionality endowed Anne Harling with moral authority, provid-
ing her with an identity as a devout and therefore respectable woman which
would have stood her in good stead when negotiating the dangerous waters
of court life in the absence of her husband.
Other kinds of authority inhering in texts are dealt with in other essays.
Suzanne Reynolds and Kantik Ghosh both show that the relationship
between texts and authority is much more complex than is often assumed.
2
See Medieval Literary Theory and Criticism c. 1100±1375: The Commentary Tradition, ed.
A. J. Minnis and A. B. Scott, with D. Wallace, rev. edn (Oxford, 1991), pp. 373 ff.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
Introduction 3
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Ghosh argues that Nicholas Love's Mirror of the Life of Christ, authorized by
Archbishop Arundel in 1410 in order to combat the appeal of the Wyclif®te
translation of the Bible, simultaneously rejects and accommodates Lollard
reverence for Scripture as the sacred word. Love expands the biblical text,
blurring the boundaries between the scriptural and non-scriptural in tradi-
tional meditative ways, while at the same time the rubrication or underlining
in the manuscripts of the Mirror, which picks out quotations from scripture,
serves to reinforce those boundaries. Reynolds is also interested in the
interface between text and reader. She reconstructs a twelfth/thirteenth-
century teaching context in which grammar masters' glosses to pagan
authors both establish these texts as authoritative and usurp their authority.
The teacher `polices access' (in Reynolds's words) to texts in accordance with
the readers' level of Latin competence: the more advanced the student, the
greater the risk of moral contamination, and so the auctor must say what the
teacher wants him to say. By seeking to control what his young pupils read
and how, the grammar master authorizes himself.
John Thompson's essay on Hoccleve's manuscripts is another study in self-
authorization. At the end of Hoccleve's life, ill and anxious, he shored up
fragments against his ruin ± his own poems, and hundreds of Chancery
documents ± by organizing, recopying and commenting on them, and was
apparently still assembling his Formulary of model documents when he died.
Hoccleve's poetic project, constructing himself as an author as he learns to die,
does not look so very different from that of the printer of Wyatt's translation of
the penitential psalms over a century later, who `determined to put it in printe,
that the noble fame of so worthy a knighte, as was the Auctor hereof, Syr
Thomas Wyat, shuld not perish but remayne'.3 The effect of print, as David
Carlson remarks in his essay on manuscripts after printing, turned reader-
ships into markets and writers into authors. Reading Reynolds's account of the
thirteenth-century treatment of auctores and Carlson's account of sixteenth-
century authorship alongside one another takes us from a world that is in
some ways the same ± the thirteenth-century grammar master teaching a class
of pupils from a single manuscript would have recognized the ways in which
the handwritten text constituted the relations of intimacy that Carlson
discusses ± and in others, of course, utterly changed by the new technology.
These essays show us that ®ne books are more than simply ìndices of
wealth', in Gurevich's phrase,4 and that authority is not constructed unpro-
blematically or uniformly. They do this by also invoking, implicitly or
explicitly, the third term with which I began: power. Introducing power
makes it possible to think about both prestige and authority dynamically
rather than statically. All of the essays in the volume embed the manuscripts
3
See David Carlson's essay in this volume, pp. 171±88.
4
See A. J. Gurevich, Categories of Medieval Culture, trans. G. L. Campbell (London,
1985), pp. 253±4. The phrase is used in the course of a discussion of medieval gift and
commodity exchange.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
4 Felicity Riddy
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
they discuss in particular sets of personal relationships, conducted in speci®c
social environments ± in the schoolroom or the monastery, at court, in the
city, or mediating between these ± and treat these contexts and relationships
in terms of power.
Foucault's model of power seems particularly relevant here, not because
these essays are all presented in his terms, but because they testify to a sense in
which we are all post-Foucauldians now. Foucault reminds us that power is
not just a form of domination exercised from the centre, nor is it simply a
matter of homogeneous repression, or of static kinds of authority and prestige:
Power must be analysed as something which circulates, or rather as

something which only functions in the form of a chain. It is never localised
here or there, never in anybody's hands. . . . Power is employed and
exercised through a net-like organisation. And not only do individuals
circulate between its threads; they are always in the position of simul-
taneously undergoing and exercising this power . . . [they] are the vehicles
of power, not its points of application.5
The usefulness of this model, in connection with the study of manuscripts, is

that it enables us to see them as participating in the circulation of power.
Kathleen Scott argues that the master limner of the Longleat MS and the
Troilus frontispiece did not belong to a high-status craft and yet seems to have
been so successful that he could pick and choose his customers among
members of the elite. The paradox of `limner-power' is supported by
Foucault's model; it shows the contradictions in the operations of a power
that individuals simultaneously undergo and exercise.
Manuscripts participate in the circulation of power in at least two ways.
The ®rst and more obvious is that they circulate literally, passing from hand
to hand. Several of the essays in this collection ± including those by John
Thompson, Mary Erler, James Carley and David Carlson ± are about books as
part of a complex system of exchange that is never conducted on equal terms.
They repay debts, they enforce obligations, they establish advantageous
networks. Mary Erler shows the Abbess of Malling making a nicely
calculated christening gift of a book of hours to the daughter of a local
gentry family. As Erler points out, it might be thought that nothing could
appear more untouched by power than a gift from a nun to an infant (she
refers to a `trope of helplessness') but her detailed study of the context
enmeshes it in `the bonds of patronage and clientage'. Whoever the superb
copy of Pupilla Oculi that Kate Harris discusses was intended for, the aim of
the commissioner was, as she points out, primarily to impress: it was
designed to bestow or seek a special mark of favour. There is something
almost intimidating about its spendour: as Harris shows, no other surviving
copy of this text has received the same grand treatment. But gifts may make
5
M. Foucault, `Two Lectures', in Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other
Writings 1972±1977, ed. C. Gordon (New York, 1980), p. 98.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
Introduction 5
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
more subtle points than this. James Carley suggests that Lord Morley's gifts
of books to Henry VIII's daughter, Mary, from which he seemed to derive no
particular bene®t, were tokens of affection. The gift of his own translation of
the Life of Agesilaus to Cromwell, however, seems to have been, like the
greyhound he had given Cromwell earlier, a way of looking for support. It
too was well judged: not quite such an elegant manuscript as those he gave to
the king and the princess, and so be®tting Cromwell's lesser status. John
Davis says about gift exchange generally that
Exchanges involve categories, classi®cations of intended results, commod-

ities and relationships. These are complicated, imprecise and incomplete,
and allow relatives, employers, companies, spouses, ma®osi, and statesmen
room for manoeuvre and manipulation.6
In a social world in which people were well attuned to the gradations of

hierarchy ± manifested in the regulation of dress, in where one sat at a feast or
walked in a procession ± knowing the meanings of gifts meant one knew how
generous one could afford not to be and still achieve one's ends.
There is another way, however, in which manuscripts can be seen as
participating in the circulation of power: they are in a sense the material
outcomes or matrices of power's `net-like organization'. They are the meeting
point of all the social interactions, the loans and purchases, the deals and
agreements that went into the assembling of their contents. Hoccleve's
holograph manuscripts, discussed by John Thompson, are only the most
explicit examples of this. Hoccleve, by recording what other manuscripts
omit ± whom the poems he includes were composed for and why ± makes
visible their relation to particular sorts of urban sociability. The manuscripts
Suzanne Reynolds discusses are brought into being by the interaction of
masters and pupils. Digby MS 185, discussed by Carol Meale, with the arms
of various Yorkshire landowners whose precise relationship is not recover-
able, is presumably the product of sociability of a different kind. She points
out, moreover, that the manuscript, like so many others, is composed of
separate books, so we can see in its makeup a process of assemblage that can
hardly have been exempt from the circulation of power. We do not know
how the texts in Anne Harling's manuscripts were brought together or by
whom ± part of Pore Caitiff, the lyric `Wofully araide', the pardon of Sheen
which is Syon, the four saints' lives, and so on. Were they bought? Borrowed?
Exchanged? Given? What discussions went into these transactions, what
arguments, what jokes? Unanswerable questions certainly, but they remind
us that these manuscripts are not dead: they come from the thick of human
contact, and they are alive with prestige, authority and power.
6
J. Davis, Exchange (Buckingham, 1992), p. 1.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
d:/3riddy/reynolds.3d ± 31/7/0 ± 19:39 ± diskB&B/mp
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
INVENTING AUTHORITY:
GLOSSING, LITERACY AND THE CLASSICAL TEXT
Suzanne Reynolds
The distinctive format of the glossed book, used especially for Biblical texts
and law, but later also for secular authors, is the most satisfying model of
authorship and textual authority which the Middle Ages has produced.1
This statement, taken from Mary Carruthers's study of medieval memoria,

seems at ®rst glance a convincing articulation of the relationship of authority
and the glossed book. It suggests that the ultimate purpose of glossing is to
make texts and, presumably, books authoritative. For certain kinds of manu-
script books (whether we look at them from the point of production or of
use), this may be true, but it is wrong to make this assertion global or to use it
simplistically as a way of èxplaining' glosses. The aim of this essay is to look
more closely at the question of authority in glossed manuscripts and examine
how it is constituted. I shall argue that this particular form of authority is
conditioned by external pressures, including what might be termed `cultural
anxiety' about authoritative texts, by the actual context of use, and by the
literacy of users. Moreover, glosses not only use a variety of strategies to
preserve and create authority, but also to undermine and, occasionally, to
usurp it. Once again, these strategies are closely informed by audience and
the context of use. When we take all this into account, and look at how
authority operates in practice, it becomes rather more problematic than
Carruthers's statement seems to allow.
I shall be talking in this essay about a particular kind of glossed manuscript
in use in a particular context. The general context is the educational system,
where the texts of auctores formed the basis of the curriculum, with the
trivium and quadrivium both constituted by a collection of authoritative
texts.2 I intend to explore the practice of using what we would call literary
texts in the earliest stages of this formal curriculum, in the art of grammar,
1
M. Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture, Cambridge
Studies in Medieval Literature 10 (Cambridge, 1990), p. 194. I would like to thank my
former colleague Valerie Edden for ®rst alerting me to the problems for authority
posed in Carruthers's study. In this essay, all translations are my own and I have
silently expanded abbreviated forms in the manuscript texts. References in the form
Munk Olsen with page number refer to B. Munk Olsen, L'Etude des auteurs classiques
latins aux xie et xiie sieÁcles, 3 vols. (Paris, 1982±1989), I (unless otherwise stated).
2
There is a useful introduction to these artes and their textbooks in The Seven Liberal
Arts in the Middle Ages, ed. D. L. Wagner (Bloomington, 1983).
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
8 Suzanne Reynolds
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
where the texts formed the basis of instruction in the Latin language itself.
Until the thirteenth century, these authorities were predominantly classical
and pagan, so that, for example, Alexander Nequam, writing at the end of the
twelfth century, will list Statius, Ovid (with the reservation that `certain
trustworthy writers are of the opinion that the love poetry should not fall into
the hands of adolescents'),3 Horace and Virgil among the texts to be read at
this earliest stage of the curriculum. In cathedral schools, classical authorities
were encountered by young pueri (seven to fourteen years of age), with a
minimal knowledge of Latin grammar, and at a stage of their social and
moral development at which they were deemed to be particularly vulner-
able.4 There are many anecdotes that seem to reveal a profound anxiety about
this entrenched educational practice and its potentially corrupting effects.5
One very striking example from an eleventh-century chronicle of the Abbey
of Saint-Riquier relates the troubled adolescence of Gervinus (abbot of
Centula from 1045±1074). We are told that Gervinus was devoted to the
study of literature from his early years, when he studied grammar at the
Cathedral of Notre Dame in Rheims. Then the trouble began;
Sed . . . cum adolescens grammaticae operem daret, et patulo sensu

ipsorum jam carminum vim perpenderet, animadvertit inter ea quaedam
quorum omnis intentio haec est, ut aut expletas luxurias referant, aut
quodmodo quis explere voluerit, vel explere potuerit, recenseant . . . diaboli
instinctu ad hoc coepit impelli, ut ea faceret quae tantorum poetarum
aestimabat narratione celebrari. Ad hoc igitur hortatu sodalium perductus
est, ut infaustos expeteret complexus. . . . Ventum itaque illa usque est, quo
castitatis iura frangeretur. Sed Deus omnipotens, qui sibi eum aptum vas
gratiae ordinarat, tanto eum subito pudore respersit, ut non solum male
cogitata non perageret, sed etiam talia voluisse visceraliter eum poeniteret
. . . ut ipsa priscorum poemata audire extunc desiverit ne, ut pene acciderat,
dum litteram disceret, animam jugularet. Hoc vero non ideo referimus
quod insolitum sit hominem carnis lascivia fuisse tentatum, sed quia tali
occasione meus probanda erat, quae iam disposuerat ®eri pudicitiae
habitaculum. Haec ergo causa ei fuit, qua secularia studia deservit. Unde
nec magnam illarum artium peritiam habuit.
3
Èlegias Nasonis et Ovidium metamorfoseos audiat sed et precipue libellum de
remedio amoris familiarem habeat. Placuit tamen viris autenticis carmina amatoria
cum satiris subducenda esse a manibus adolescencium' (`He may listen to the Elegies
and Metamorphoses of Ovid, but he should be particularly familiar with Remedy for
Love. Certain trustworthy writers are of the opinion that the love poetry of Ovid
should not be allowed to fall into the hands of adolescents'); from the Sacerdos ad altare
accessurus, now edited by T. Hunt in Teaching and Learning Latin in Thirteenth-Century
England, 3 vols. (Woodbridge, 1991), I, 258±72 (pp. 269±70).
4
There is a useful introduction to medieval thinking on pueritia in S. Shahar, Childhood
in the Middle Ages (London, 1990), pp. 24±26.
5
For a survey of this issue and bibliography see A. Scaglione, `The Classics in
Medieval Education', in The Classics in the Middle Ages, ed. A. Bernardo and S. Levin
(Binghamton, 1990), pp. 343±62.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
Inventing Authority 9
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
(`But when . . . as an adolescent he turned his attention to the study of
grammar, and now examined carefully the broader meaning of those
poems, he perceived among them certain of them whose whole intention
was this, either to represent ful®lled desire, or to survey the way in which
whoever wanted to satiate or could satiate [those desires, might go about it]
. . . he began to be impelled by the instigation of the devil to do those things
which he saw celebrated in the texts of the poets. Moreover, he was led to
this by the exhortation of his fellows, so that he might actually achieve these
misguided couplings. . . . And so, the laws of chastity might have been
broken. But almighty God, who had ordained him as a vessel ®t for His
grace, suddenly bestowed on him so much modesty (pudor) that not only
could he not go through with those evil things he had thought of, but also
he repented to the core of his being of having wanted such things . . . and
from that moment, he stopped listening to the poems of the ancients, lest, as
often happens, when he heard the text, his soul should perish. But we do
not refer to this because it is unusual that a man has been tempted by
desires of the ¯esh, but because it was by such events that he became a
dwelling-place of virtue. Therefore, this was the reason he abandoned
secular studies. And this is why he was not skilled in those arts.')6
In other words, the reverse side of this particular coin of authority is

contamination.
From the thirteenth century, the works of medieval auctores such as the
Liber parabolae of Alan of Lille began to take their place among the curriculum
texts.7 However, I propose to concentrate on the use of classical, pagan texts
in the earliest stages of medieval pedagogy, for it is here that authority is
potentially the most problematic. If the auctores are to be read as part of the
grammatical curriculum, they must be read literally; the techniques of
allegorical and integumental analysis used by commentators like William
of Conches and Bernard Silvester, and widely studied by modern scholars,
can have no place in a reading that is meant to inculcate the basics of the Latin
language itself.8 In other words, one very obvious technique for preserving
6
My translation. See Hariulf, Chronique de L'Abbaye de Saint-Riquier, IV, 13, ed. F. Lot
(Paris, 1894), 208; French translation by Le Marquis Le Ver, Chronicon Centulense ou
Chronique de L'Abbaye de Saint-Riquier, MeÂmoires de la SocieÂteÂ d'eÂmulation d'Abbeville
(Abbeville, 1899), pp. 219±20. Gervinus was studying in Rheims in the early years of
the eleventh century. I am grateful to Barrie Singleton for pointing this passage out to
me.
7
See now Hunt, Teaching and Learning, I, 59±79; V.-F. Riou, `Tradition manuscrite des
Carmina d'EugeÁne de ToleÁde; Du Liber catonianus aux Auctores octo morales', Revue
d'histoire des textes 2 (1972), 11±44.
8
On the notion of integumentum and allegorical reading see principally J. A. Dane,
Ìntegumentum as Interpretation: A Note on William of Conches' Commentary on
Macrobius', Classical Folia (formerly Folia) 32 (1978), 201±15; P. D. Dronke, Fabula:
Explorations into the Use of Myth in Medieval Platonism (Leiden, 1974); T. Gregory, `The
Platonic Inheritance', in P. D. Dronke, ed., A History of Twelfth-Century Western
Philosophy (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 54±80 (pp. 57±9); E. Jeauneau, `L'usage de la
notion d'integumentum aÁ travers les gloses de Guillaume de Conches', Archives
d'histoire doctrinale et litteÂraire du Moyen Age 24 (1957), 35±100. More particularly on
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
10 Suzanne Reynolds
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
authority is immediately ruled out by the very purpose of the glossing. This
is the fundamental question: if the pagan texts cannot be recuperated by
allegory, how can they be squared with a Christian curriculum?
We can test this question by looking at some examples of how pagan
texts were actually used in the curriculum I have described. My ®rst
example is from a northern French manuscript of Horace's Satires, which
dates from the third quarter of the twelfth century, Paris, BibliotheÁque
Nationale de France, MS latin 8216.9 As part of his meditation on the
advantages of the simple life in the ®rst satire, Horace uses the phrase
pauperrimus esse bonorum (`to be the poorest of the good').10 The glossator
comments (fol. 112r): Et sciendum quod ex natura superlativi non construitur
hoc superlativum `pauperrimus' cum hoc genitivo `bonorum' quia non signi®cat
rem ad quam ®at conparatio; hic est genitivus sed ex natura positivi (Ànd it
should be known that the superlative ``poorest'' is construed here with the
genitive `òf the good'' not on the basis of the nature of the superlative itself,
for `òf the good'' does not signify that thing with which the comparison is
being made. It is a genitive here on the basis of the nature of the positive
term itself' [i.e., pauper] ).11 The point is that Horace should, according to
strict grammar, only use the genitive òf the good' if he is saying `the best/
most good of the good', comparing like with like. But the construction of
pauper, which always takes the genitive, supervenes. Or again, an analysis
of the opening lines of the Eclogues of Theodolus (an unproblematic text in
terms of Christian audience)12 from a ®fteenth-century manuscript, but
whose technique dates back to the scholiasts of Late Antiquity: Ethiopum
allegory as a means of ideological `domestication', see R. W. Hanning, Ì shal ®nd it in a

maner glose: Versions of Textual Harassment in Medieval Literature', in Medieval Texts
and Contemporary Readers, ed. L. A. Finke and M. B. Schichtmann (Ithaca and London,
1987), pp. 27±50.
9
Munk Olsen, 484. For full description and bibliography see S. Reynolds, `Learning
Latin in the Twelfth Century: the Grammatical and Rhetorical Glosses on Horace's
Satires' (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Warburg Institute, University of London,
1992), pp. 326±331.
10
Satires I, 1, 79; Horace, Opera, ed. D. R. Shackleton Bailey (Stuttgart, 1985), p. 168.
11
This kind of approach to the problem is also found in Ralph of Beauvais, Liber tytan,
ed. C. H. Kneepkens (Nijmegen, 1991), for example in a comment on Ovid,
Metapmorphoses II, 206±7 (pp. 21±22): `Preterea nota quod omne comparativum ex
natura comparativi construitur cum ablativo designante rem ad quam ®t comparatio.
Preter hanc constructionem omne comparativum servat constructionem sui positivi,
ut `dives' cum genitivo construitur, `ditior' et `ditissimus' similiter cum genitivo
construuntur'. The same point about the natura positivi and the same example is
used in Robert of Paris, Breve sit, ed. C. H. Kneepkens, in Het iudicium constructionis:
Het Leerstuk van de Constructio in de 2de Helft van de 12de Eeuw, 4 vols. (Nijmegen, 1987),
II, 128.
12
For this text see R. H. P. Green, Seven Versions of Carolingian Pastoral (Reading, 1980),
pp. 26±35, and G. L. Hamilton, `Theodolus, a Medieval Textbook', Modern Philology 7
(1909±10), 169±85; R. H. P. Green, `The Genesis of a Medieval Textbook: The Models
and Sources of the Ecloga Theodoli', Viator 13 (1982), 49±106; R. J. Hexter, `Latinitas in
the Middle Ages: Horizons and Perspectives', Helios 14 (1987), 69±92 (pp. 70±80).
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
terras iam fervida torruit estas (literally, òf the Ethiops the land now the hot
scorched the summer') is glossed: Construe: fervida estas torruit, idest cremavit,
iam, idest illo tempore, terras ethiopum (`Construe: the hot summer now, that is
to say, in that time, scorched, that is to say, burned, the land of the
Ethiops').13
These examples raise some fundamental issues. First, it is clear that the
gloss's role is somehow to negotiate between what is actually there in the text,
linguistically speaking, and what the audience needs from it.14 In the ®rst
case, the text uses an acceptable construction, but one which nevertheless
must be explained. At the same time, it is made to serve as an example of a
technical grammatical point, the occasion, if you like, to generate a gramma-
tical rule: pauper and its derivatives always take the genitive. In the second
example, the text must be recast into a more accessible word order before any
further analysis can be undertaken. To put it more bluntly, the needs of the
audience shape the reception of the authoritative text; it has a waxen nose
indeed. Moreover, both examples demonstrate a primarily formal approach
to the text under scrutiny. This too is typical ± an interest in syntax and
grammar is always present alongside the lexical glosses (about which we
know a great deal more).15 This balance of semantic and formal concerns has
important rami®cations for the question of authority, since it implies that for
many so-called readers of the auctores, textual authority consists partially in a
series of words written in a bizarre order which contain examples of
interesting grammatical forms.
We must also be quite precise about the nature of the glosses themselves.
We have, since the ®rst publication of Michael Clanchy's From Memory to
Written Record, been keenly aware of the very strict separation of the skills of
reading and writing.16 Being able to read, even being able to read Latin, in no
way implies the capacity to record anything in writing. What then are we to
do with elementary readings that are recorded in written glosses? The kind of
reader who would need the information they convey is by de®nition the kind
of reader who cannot write, so that the only way to make sense of them is to
conclude that they are written by teachers for their pupils. At this point it
becomes important to look at the material conditions in which glossed texts
such as these were used. As far as we know, there is only one copy of the text
in the classroom, the teacher's copy; the students memorize the text and its
exposition.17 In this way, authority is invested not only in the text itself, but is
13
London, British Library, MS Additional 10089, fol. 2r.
14
Compare the argument in R. A. Kaster, Guardians of Language: The Grammarian and
Society in Late Antiquity (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 1988), pp. 76±97.
15
The emphasis of Hunt, Teaching and Learning, is resolutely on lexical glossing.
16
M. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record: England 1066±1307 (London, 1979), now
in an augmented second edition (Oxford, 1993). See also D. H. Green, Òrality and
Reading: The State of Research in Medieval Studies', Speculum 65 (1990), 261±80.
17
See, for example, the reconstruction of a typical Anglo-Saxon classroom in G. R.
Wieland, The Latin Glosses on Arator and Prudentius in Cambridge University Library MS
Gg. 5. 35, Studies and Texts 61 (Toronto, 1983), 192.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
12 Suzanne Reynolds
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
reinforced by the physical conditions of use itself in which the text remains at
all times and in all senses in the teacher's hands. This situation has important
implications for authority in practice. First, it means that the access to pagan
auctores is mediated through the interpretative ®lter of the teacher's exposi-
tion. Secondly, it surely invests the interpreter with something of the
authority of the text itself; there is a virtual identi®cation of authoritative
text and the teacher's version of it. Thirdly, it means that the teacher controls
and polices access.
At this point, the level of literacy of the students becomes vital. Where the
students are at a very elementary level, the teacher can afford to use even
the most risqueÂ of passages to advance basic information about the Latin
language. In other contexts, the same passage requires an utterly different
type of gloss. At the beginning of the eighth satire for example, Priapus
speaks the memorable lines, Olim truncus eram ®culnus, inutile lignum (Ònce
I was the trunk of a ®g-tree, a useless piece of wood').18 Consider the range
of the following comments and the different kinds of audience they
address. In Paris, BibliotheÁque Nationale de France, MS latin 7979, a very
early twelfth-century copy of Horace and Lucan from the south of France,
the glossing is purely formal in nature, using letters of the alphabet to work
the text into a more `logical' word order, re-linking noun and adjective (fol.
20vb):
a c b d e f
Olim truncus eram ®culnus, inutile lignum . . .
On the other hand, some glosses working at a more advanced level adopt a
distinctly rhetorical emphasis when looking at this passage and use terms
which we also ®nd in contemporary artes poetriae to describe Horace's use of
the trope `prosopopeia' or personi®cation.19 In Cambridge, Peterhouse, MS
229, glossed for classroom use in England in the early thirteenth century,20 the
gloss (fol. 46r) runs:
18
Satires I, 8, 1; Horace, Opera, p. 197.
19
For example, prosopopeia est conformatio novae personae, quando scilicet res non loquens
introducitur tanquam loquens (`personi®cation is the fashioning of a new person, when
what is a non-speaking thing is introduced as if it were speaking'): Geoffrey of
Vinsauf, Documentum, in Les Arts poeÂtiques du xiie et du xiiie sieÁcle, ed. E. Faral,
BibliotheÁque de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes 138 (Paris, 1924), 263±320 (p. 275).
Compare the gloss on the same passage in Rome, Biblioteca Casanatense, MS 537,
fol. 66r: Modo facit prosopopeiam de ®cu . . . prosopeia [sic], idest nove conformacione
persone. For a useful survey of de®nitions of this ®gure from Antiquity to the
Renaissance see M. Berisso, `Per una de®nizione di prosopea: Dante, Convivio, III, ix,
2', Lingua e stile 26 (1991), 121±32.
20
Munk Olsen, 442±3 and II, 531; M. R. James, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manu-
scripts in the Library of Peterhouse (Cambridge, 1899), pp. 282±3. The vernacular (Anglo-
Norman) glosses in this manuscript are edited in Hunt, Teaching and Learning, I, 64. For
more detailed information on this manuscript see S. Reynolds, `Learning Latin',
pp. 315±21.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
prosopopeia utitur, idest conformatione nove persone. Hic reprehendit
vene®cas que nullo modo a vene®ciis suis removeri possunt, et introducit
imaginem Priapi dei ortorum, referentem qualiter prius facta (read: factus)
fuerit et qualiter in orto ubi fuerit et qualiter in orto ubi pauperes prius
sepeliebantur, vene®cas terruerit.
(`He uses prosopopeia, that is the formation of a new person. Here he
reprehends the sorceresses who can never be torn away from their potion-
making and he introduces the image of Priapus, god of the gardens, talking
about how he was ®rst made, and how in the garden where he was and
how in the garden when they buried the poor, he terrorised the sorcer-
esses.')
Here, the text is used to introduce a new rhetorical trope.

This passage is also glossed in Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica
Vaticana, MS Reg. lat. 1780, a manuscript of the complete works of
Horace whose glosses represent the most advance literal reading I have
come across.21 They are packed with the exposition of rhetorical ®gures,
etymologies and derivations. At the beginning of the eighth satire, the
glossator asserts, like the Peterhouse glossator, that Horace's intention is to
`reprehend sorceresses' (reprehendere vene®cas). However, the gloss then goes
a step further and, after having claimed that the aim of this satire was also
to reprehend `the belief of the Romans' (®dem romanarum), he writes: Hic
reprehendit Oratius vene®cas . . . introducens Priapum deum earum opera
testi®cantem . . . vel ut beatus Geronimus perhibet, ritus genti1ium (et) idolatriam
deridet inhtrojducens ipsum Priapum deum ortorum (`Here Horace reprehends
sorceresses . . . introducing the god Priapus testifying to their deeds . . . and
as St Jerome asserts, he derides the rite of the pagans and idolatry, [by]
introducing Priapus, god of the gardens').22 This is far from a casual
reference. The gloss refers very closely to the passage in the Commentary
on Isaiah in which Jerome quotes the opening lines of this Satire in his
condemnation of false images: super quo et Flaccus scribit in Satyra, deridens
simulacra gentium (òn which even Horace writes in his satire, deriding the
idols of the people').23 Just for a moment, the teacher directs the reading of
Horace so that an explicitly Christian ®lter is applied to the text. Of course,
such a technique is an inevitable result of an educational system that uses
pagan texts as part of a Christian curriculum. But ± and this is perhaps
21
Munk Olsen, 505. On this manuscript see K. Friis-Jensen, `Horatius liricus et ethicus:
Two Twelfth-Century School Texts on Horace's Poems', Cahiers de l'Institut du Moyen
Age Grec et Latin 57 (1988), 81±147 (p. 89 and p. 147). Full bibliography and description
can be found in M. Buonocore, Codices Horatiani in Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana
(Vatican City, 1992), pp. 153±5, with plates on pp. 335±7.
22
Fol. 72r. Compare Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Reg. lat. 1729,
fol. 52r: hic reprehendit omnes romanos de superstitione, testamento hieronimo (`here he
reprehends all the Romans for their superstition, through the testimony of Jerome').
23
Jerome, Commentariorum in Esaiam, XII, xliv, 104, ed. M. Adriaen, CCSL 73A
(Turnhout, 1963), 500, on Isaiah 44.6±7.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
14 Suzanne Reynolds
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
more important ± it is also the function of an advance in literacy. The
audience for whom these glosses were intended has moved beyond basic
grammatical facts to issues of argumentation and rhetorical strategy. As
their increasing skills render the text more accessible, the teacher is forced
to direct and channel their reading, to `tame' the text. In other words, the
interaction of authoritative text and medieval reader needs to be articulated
not only in terms of a Christian recovery of pagan material, but also as the
encounter of textual complexity with very different levels of literacy. It is
the degree of Latin literacy that, in the end, shapes the reading of the text;
contamination is only a danger for the literate.
In this way, advances in literacy can also explain why certain passages
have to be omitted altogether; they are only too understandable to the
particular audience in question. Far example, in the Vatican manuscript
and in other glossed manuscripts of Horace, the second satire, where the
relative merits of prostitutes, married women and virgins are explored, is
passed over in silence.24 Students' access to the text was therefore limited by
ignorance (they understand only what the teacher chooses to explain), or,
when that safeguard fails, by intervention from the teacher. This intervention
can direct the reading of the text very closely, using one authority to shape
the reading of another, or, more pragmatically, can take the form of a de facto
censorship. In either case, the exposition uses the authority of the teacher to
safeguard the authority of the text and the pagan auctor.
The phenomenon of `saving the text' or, perhaps more accurately, `saving
the auctor', can be used to explain other glossing techniques. In the comment
on Horace and Jerome, for example, the gloss not only employs a Christian
®lter but also highlights the use of a ®ctional narrator ± Priapus ± whose
words Horace merely reports. The idea that the author is speaking in persona
aliorum has already been noticed in commentaries on Ovid's Heroides, where
a distinction is made between the intentions of the love-struck speakers ± to
seduce, lament and so on ± and the intention of the author (intentio auctoris),
which is to reprehend foolish and to recommend chaste love.25 The import-
ance of this technique lies in the way it can turn a potentially corrupting text
into a moral one; the author takes on the persona of a wicked narrator in
order to show us how not to behave whilst maintaining his own moral
authority.
This structure of what might be termed `negative example' is used in other
ways in the reading of the auctores. Opening comments on the ®fth satire in
the Vatican manuscript demonstrate a stylistic rather than moral application.
24
That is to say, there are very few glosses from fol. 62r to fol. 63v in an otherwise
heavily glossed text (see the photograph of fol. 92r [®nal lines of the Satires] in
Buonocore, Codices, p. 337 for a typical folio).
25
See the discussion in A. J. Minnis, Àuthors in Love: the Exegesis of Late Medieval
Love-Poets', in The Uses of Manuscripts in Literary Studies: Essays in Memory of Judson
Boyce Allen, ed. C. Cook Morse, P. Reed and M. Curry Woods, Studies in Medieval
Culture 31 (Kalamazoo, 1992), 61±91 (pp. 166±76).
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
The gloss summarizes the premise on which the text is based ± that is to say,
that Horace was sent to Brundisium to attempt a reconciliation of Mark
Anthony and Augustus Caesar ± and goes on to make a rather unexpected
point (fol. 68r): Oratius unde fuit missus ad eos reconciliandos, et ea que ei
contingerant obiter recitat. Non quia sit delectabile sed pocius tedium, at idea facit
a talibus narrationibus caveamus (`So, Horace was sent to reconcile them and he
recites all the things that happenened to him along the way. Not because it is
delightful, but rather [because it is] irksome, and he does this so that we
might avoid these kinds of narrations'). The text's stylistic authority is saved,
a strategy made necessary because the intended audience of the Vatican
glosses eminently capable of critical stylistic comment; it is their literacy that
demands such a comment.
There are other, more assertive types of gloss that seek not so much to
save the text as to control it. They occur sporadically in many glosses on
Horace and other school authors, but in one late eleventh-century school-
book from the monastery of Saint-Oyan in the Jura mountains (now Saint-
Claude, BibliotheÁque Municipale, MS 2) they are the predominant mode of
the entire analysis.26 This manuscript is an anthology of popular school texts,
including grammatical works by Donatus and Priscian, the Disticha Catonis,
and a variety of Trojan material, to which the Ars poetica and an incomplete
copy of the Satires have been attached.27 It employs what I shall term quare?
(interrogative) and certe (af®rmative) glosses as part of an extensive and
thorough paraphrasing of the text, and at certain points seems to use this
question and answer format to claim for the gloss what is normally reserved
for the text. Some instances are straightforward. For example, in the ®rst
satire, Horace uses the ant as an exemplum of hard work, and states in
parentheses, nam exemplo est (ànd this is by way of an example'). The gloss
in the margin asks, Quare eam introduxisti? (`Why have you introduced her
[the ant]?'), so that the text becomes the answer to a question posed by the
26
Munk Olsen, 493. Ex libris on fol. 115v: Ad fratrem humbertum abbas sancti eugendi
iurensis, that is Humbert de Buenc, Abbot 1234±1255: see A. Castan, `La bibliotheÁque
de l'abbaye de Saint-Claude du Jura', BibliotheÁque de l'Ecole des Chartes 50 (1889), 301±54
(p. 341). In the eleventh century, this foundation had one of the richest libraries in
France: see Castan, `La bibliotheÁque'; E. Lesne, Histoire de la proprieÂteÂ eccleÂsiastique en
France, 6 vols. (Lille, 1910±43), IV (1938), Les livres, Scriptoria et BibliotheÁques, pp. 519±21;
S. Tafel, `The Lyons Scriptorium XII: The Library of Saint-Oyan', in Palaeographia latina,
IV, ed. W. M. Lindsay (London, 1925), 40±70. A very fragmentary eleventh-century
inventory of the library is printed in L. Delisle, Le Cabinet des manuscrits de la
BibliotheÁque Nationale, 3 vols. (Paris, 1868±1881), III, 385±7, including (p. 386): LXXX
VIII: Item liber carminum juvenalis et ¯acci. A 1492 inventory is given in Castan, `La
bibliotheÁque', pp. 315±38, and includes (item 52, p. 331) a Priscian: Item ung aultre livre
en parchemin, de lectre fort useÂe, relier de meschent aiz, et y a marreglier dessus, intituleÂ
Prisciani Grammatici Peticiones, coctel XIcXXXVI.
27
A good description of contents can be found in M. Scaffai, `Tradizione manoscritta
dell'Ilias Latina', in In verbis verum amare; miscellanea dell'istituto di ®lologia latin e
medioevale dell'UniversitaÁ di Bologna, ed. P. Serra Zannetti (Florence, 1980), pp. 205±77
(pp. 210±11).
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
16 Suzanne Reynolds
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
gloss.28 There are more complicated examples that combine interrogative
and af®rmative glosses to impose a tightly controlled reading of the text. In
lines 132±4 of the second satire, Horace delineates the risky existence of the
man who persists in conducting adulterous relationships, and states that on
the husband's return:
Distincta tunica fugiendum est et pede nudo,

Ne nummi pereant aut puga aut denique fama.
Deprendi miserum est.
(Ì must run off, with clothes dishevelled and bare of foot, in fear
of my personal safety, my ®nances and my reputation. It is awful
to be caught'.)29
The text is paraphrased into a question ± et esse tunc metuendum et fugiendum?

(ànd is it then time to avoid and ¯ee?'), the question is answered ± certe est (ìt
certainly is'), and a clearer explanation provided in a marginal gloss ± alia
causa quare fugiendum est quia (ànd another reason why it is to be ¯ed is
because'), which is immediately adjacent to the text deprendi miserum est (ìt is
awful to be caught'). In this kind of exposition, the distinction between text
and gloss is completely blurred. The text is made to answer to an agenda set
by the glosses and its interpretation is kept within the strictest limits. But the
implications for authority are also clear; if there is no distinction between text
and gloss, between the voice of the auctor and the voice of the glossator/
teacher, both constitute àuthority'.
It is therefore wrong to assume that glossing confers authority in a simple
fashion. While the systematic exposition of a text of course implies something
about its perceived importance, looking more closely at the glosses them-
selves reveals how authority was mediated and shaped in practice. Some
forms of this mediation are obvious (using Christian auctores as a kind of
ideological control), others less so (®ctional narrators, negative examples,
tendentious paraphrasing of the minute detail of the text). In a manuscript
used in the classroom, authority was subject to the conditions and purposes
of its use; one might even broaden the point to say that its very nature was
contingent upon the contexts in which it operated. Auctoritas is not a cultural
monolith, as it seems to be understood by some critics; it is forged in practice
out of the interaction of texts and readers, and, therefore, reinvented for each
of the various purposes it is made to serve.
28
Satires I, 1, 33; Horace, Opera, p. 166; MS Saint-Claude, B.M. 2, fol. 121r.
29
Horace, Opera, p. 174; MS Saint-Claude, B.M. 2, fol. 123r.
I:/riddy/ghosh.3d ± 1/1/0 ± 15:22 ± diskB&B/mp
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
MANUSCRIPTS OF NICHOLAS LOVE'S

THE MIRROR OF THE BLESSED LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST
AND WYCLIFFITE NOTIONS OF ÀUTHORITY'
Kantik Ghosh
The Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ was one of the most popular of late-
medieval devotional and meditative texts.1 Written in the early ®fteenth
century by Nicholas Love, prior of Mount Grace Charterhouse in Yorkshire,
the work is extant in forty-nine complete or near-complete manuscripts and
is found in the form of fragments and extracts in another twelve.2 It therefore
forms, along with the Wyclif®te Bible, the Brut Chronicle and Walter Hilton's
Scale of Perfection, one of the most widely disseminated works in Middle
English prose. The Mirror was a free translation into the vernacular of a
Franciscan text generally ascribed to St Bonaventura in the Middle Ages, the
Meditationes vitae Christi.3 The Meditationes itself was one of the most protean
and popular of Franciscan devotional works, extant in hundreds of Latin
manuscripts and translated during the Middle Ages into almost every major
European tongue.4
Nicholas Love's translation was, however, endowed with a specially
I am grateful to Dr Richard Beadle and Professor Anne Hudson for their criticisms and
suggestions; and to the Japan Society for the Promotion of Sciences for their generous
award of a post-doctoral fellowship which enabled me to examine relevant manu-
scripts in Japanese collections. I am also indebted to Professor Toshiyuki Takamiya,
who kindly allowed access to the Mirror manuscripts in his possession; and to Dr
Michael Sargent, who generously sent me copies of his articles on Love.
1
The Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ, ed. M. G. Sargent (New York and London,
1992).
2
For a brief descriptive catalogue of the extant manuscripts, see Mirror, ed. Sargent,
pp. lxxii±lxxxvi. Printed editions before 1500 are by Caxton (1484, 1490), de Worde
(1494) and Pynson (1494). Pynson and de Worde brought out subsequent editions in
the early sixteenth century.
3
The Meditationes is printed in S. Bonaventurae Opera Omnia, ed. A. C. Peltier, 15 vols.
(Paris, 1864±71), XII (1868), 509±630. For its possible composition by John de Caulibus,
a Franciscan friar from San Gemignano, see Mirror, ed. Sargent, pp. xv±xvi; and
M. Deanesly, `The Gospel Harmony of John de Caulibus, or S. Bonaventura', in
Collectanea Franciscana II, ed. C. L. Kingsford, British Society of Franciscan Studies 10
(Manchester, 1922), 10±19. On the interrelationship of the Meditationes and the Mirror,
see Mirror, ed. Sargent, pp. xxx±xliv.
4
See M. G. Sargent, `Bonaventura English: A Survey of the Middle English Prose
Translations of Early Franciscan Literature', in SpaÈtmittelalterliche geistliche Literatur in
der Nationalsprache, ed. J. Hogg, 2 vols., Analecta Cartusiana 106 (Salzburg, 1983±84), II,
145±76 (pp. 149±151); also Mirror, ed. Sargent, pp. xix±xx.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
18 Kantik Ghosh
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
privileged status. It was licensed by Archbishop Thomas Arundel in 1410 as
an implied alternative to the Lollard Bible, the reading of which had been
restricted,5 and aimed, to quote his certi®cate of approval found attached to
twenty copies of the text, àd ®delium edi®cacionem, et hereticorum siue
lollardorum confutacionem' (àt the edi®cation of the faithful and the con-
futation of heretics or Lollards').6
The Mirror engages with Lollardy on several planes. There are passages of
doctrinal polemic combating Lollard views on confession, the Eucharist, the
giving of tithes, the dependence or otherwise of priestly teaching on priestly
morality. Such passages are accompanied in many copies by marginal notes
`contra lollardos'. Love also adds a `Treatise on the Sacrament' to the
Meditationes, thereby emphasizing orthodox views on the nature of the
Eucharist.7 More interestingly, however, the Mirror wages a hermeneutic
war on Lollard approaches to the scriptural text. Much more subtly articu-
lated than the anti-Lollard doctrinal propaganda, Love's conservative her-
meneutics is nevertheless central to the Mirror's orthodox polemic. However,
it is my contention that the Mirror is ultimately uneasy in its response to
Lollardy, so that an overt rejection of Lollard assumptions and aims coexists
with a complex and uncertain accommodation of certain primary hermen-
eutic emphases of the heresy. I argue that this element of uncertainty in
Love's polemical espousal of traditional hermeneutics is re¯ected in the
presentation of the text in most of the extant manuscripts of the Mirror, a
presentation which subtly refashions the theoretical assumptions of the
Meditationes regarding the interrelationship of scriptural and ecclesiastical
authority, and `correct' modes of reading the Bible.
Love's choice of the Pseudo-Bonaventuran meditations, in which tradi-
tional Franciscan spirituality ®nds one of its fullest and most de®nitive
expressions,8 was a calculated one. His translation as a whole is based on
what was, in the Lollard context, a reactionary approach to scriptural Word
and authority. The Mirror is not merely a translation of a much-venerated
Franciscan devotional work, it is also ± and more importantly ± a mediation
of the Bible characterized by its own rhetorical strategies, and it draws on a
textual-political ideology entirely removed from that of the Lollards.9 As has
5
The seventh of the Constitutions of Archbishop Arundel, drafted in 1407 and
formally promulgated in 1409, forbade the translation or the reading of the Bible in
English without special permission from the ecclesiastical authorities. See Concilia
Magnae Brittaniae et Hiberniae, ed. D. Wilkins, 4 vols. (London, 1737), III, 317.
6
For the complete text of the Memorandum, see Mirror, ed. Sargent, p. 7.
7
See Mirror, ed. Sargent, pp. xliv±lviii.
8
On the Meditationes and the associated devotional tradition in which the Mirror may
be located, see E. Salter, Nicholas Love's `Myrrour of the Blessed Lyf of Jesu Christ',
Analecta Cartusiana 10 (Salzburg, 1974); I. R. Johnson, `The Late-Medieval Theory and
Practice of Translation with special reference to Some Middle English Lives of Christ'
(unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Bristol, 1990); and Mirror, ed. Sargent, pp. ix±xx.
9
It is interesting to note how often the Meditationes is associated with established
power structures: Love's version received of®cial archepiscopal endorsement; Cam-
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
Nicholas Love and Wyclif®te Notions of Àuthority' 19
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
been pointed out by Michael Sargent, though the Mirror was extremely
successful in `confuting Lollard demands for an English Bible, it did not in
fact answer them'.10
The Lollards had emphasized the importance of a precise knowledge of the
exact words of Holy Writ, unadulterated by the `cautela diaboli'11 introduced
by ecclesiastical mediators. In theoretical terms, Wyclif himself had made a
®rm distinction between èxposition' and `text' in his seminal tract on the
nature of biblical meaning, the De veritate sacrae scripturae:
exposicio quidem non est scriptura sacra, sed eius preco vel ancilla, non
negans dominam suam, sed ex verbis propriis, que mutuatur de domina,
ipsam reverenter detegens et explanans.
(èxposition however is not sacred scripture but [as it were] her herald or
handmaid. She does not contradict her lady, but by means of special words
borrowed from her/ peculiar to and derived from her, reveals/ discloses
and explains her respectfully').12
Wyclif gives theoretical centrality to a concept of the Bible as a unique text,

demanding from the reader a constant and signi®cant awareness of its
separate hermeneutic status. De veritate postulates categories of scriptural
logic and form that dictate their own principles of explication to the properly
equipped, devout, rational reader.13 Such a reader is expected to attempt to
understand the Bible `literally', which in Lollard theory involves accessing
the divine intention.14 Ìnspiration' (from the Holy Spirit) and òpen reason'
form the twin exegetical positives;15 they are necessary correctives to the
bridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 213, Jean Galope's translation, was dedicated to the
`tres hault, tres fort, et tres victorieux prince Henri quint' (fol. 1r), a second copy being
presented to the Duke of Exeter; another French adaptation was completed for Jean,
duc de Berry in 1380; and M. Deanesly (`Gospel Harmony', p. 12) refers to a Spanish
translation made by the Franciscan bishop, Francis Ximenes.
10
Sargent, `Bonaventura English', p. 154.
11
The phrase is Wyclif 's; see Tractatio de of®cio pastorali, ed. G. Lechler (Leipzig, 1863),
p. 35.
12
De veritate sacrae scripturae, ed. R. Buddensieg, 3 vols., Wyclif Society (London, 1905±
7), I, 386 (ll. 15±18).
13
De veritate, ed. Buddensieg, I, 48 (l. 24); 52 (l. 1) and 195 (ll. 17±22). On Wyclif 's
hermeneutics, see K. Ghosh, ` `Àuthority'' and Interpretation in Wyclif®te, Anti-
Wyclif®te and Related Texts: c. 1375 ± c. 1430' (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation,
Cambridge, 1996), pp. 8±61.
14
On Wyclif and the `literal' sense, see A. J. Minnis, Àuthorial Intention and Literal
Sense in the Exegetical Theories of Richard Fitzralph and John Wyclif: An Essay in the
Medieval History of Biblical Hermeneutics', Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 75C
(1975), 1±31; G. R. Evans, `Wyclif on Literal and Metaphorical', in From Ockham to
Wyclif, ed. A. Hudson and M. Wilks, Studies in Church History, Subsidia 5 (Oxford,
1987), 259±66; R. Copeland, `Rhetoric and the Politics of the Literal Sense in Medieval
Literary Theory: Aquinas, Wyclif and the Lollards', in Interpretation: Medieval and
Modern, ed. P. Boitani and A. Torti (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 1±23.
15
De veritate, ed. Buddensieg, I, 194 (ll. 24±25), 200 (ll. 13±16) and 201 (ll. 17±20); also
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
20 Kantik Ghosh
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
human propensity to become false glossators of God's Word. A governing
fear in the work of Wyclif and his followers is the possibility of ìmposing' an
alien (human) hermeneutics or a fallen logic on the Bible;16 and an important
preoccupation is the need to distinguish between the authority of God and
the authority of lesser auctours, of however venerable a pedigree.17
An inevitable corollary of such an insistence on the unique and separate
validity of the scriptural text is the development of an academic scholarship
interested in the textual condition of the Bible, and the àuthenticity' of
interpolations/ interpretations sancti®ed by tradition. Wyclif 's own perfunc-
tory theoretical gestures in the direction of philological studies18 develop,
amongst his followers in the practical sphere, into a profound interest in
what we would now call textual criticism, and in matters of presentation of
the text, evidenced not only in the Wyclif®te Bible, but also in the Glossed
Gospels, and in the Long English Sermon Cycle. Because of a genuine attempt
at establishing a Bible `somdel trewe', to quote the Prologue to the Wyclif®te
Bible,19 and a ®rm belief that human additions to God's Word must be kept
rigorously distinct from what they attempt to elucidate, the Lollards display
a remarkably self-conscious interest in the presentation of texts. For instance,
in Cambridge, Trinity College, MS B.1.38, containing the Glossed Gospels, the
Prologue states:
e text of e gospel is set ®rst bi it silf. an hool sentence togider and anne
sue e exposicioun in is maner / First a sentence of a doctour declaringe
e text is set aftir e text / and in e ende of at sentence. e name of e
doctour seiynge it is set at men wite certeynli hou feer at doctour goi /
and so of alle doctours and lawis aleggid in is exposicioun. (fol. 7r)
The above passage is followed by a meticulously detailed explanation of the

work's code of reference. For instance:
whanne y seye austin here he is aleggid in hise twey bokis of e lordis

sermon in e hil which sermon conteyne e v and vi and vii chapters of
matheu / whanne y seye bede in his omelie. eer gregory in his omelie and
telle not in what omeli y take at sentence of alquyn on matheu. (fol. 7r)
What is noteworthy is that such academic precision of reference supports a

work declaredly meant for the unlearned or those possessing only basic
literacy: the Prologue states that it is a great work of mercy and charity to
see The Holy Bible . . . made from the Latin Vulgate by John Wycliffe and his Followers, ed.
J. Forshall and F. Madden, 4 vols. (Oxford, 1850), I, 3, 29, 30 and 43.
16
See Wyclif 's De apostasia, ed. M. H. Dziewicki, Wyclif Society (London, 1889), p. 49
(ll. 17±25), for an emphatic recognition of the power of glossing to `pervert' and
`negate' the Bible; also G. A. Benrath, Wyclifs Bibelkommentar (Berlin, 1966), pp. 363±65.
17
De veritate, ed. Buddensieg, I, 391 (ll. 1±10).
18
De veritate, ed. Buddensieg, I, 195 (ll. 1±16), 233±38.
19
Holy Bible, ed. Forshall and Madden, I, 57; also see Selections from English Wyclif®te
Writings, ed. A. Hudson (Cambridge, 1978), p. 67.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
`telle opinli e treupe of e holi gospel to lewid men and sympli lettrid
prestis' (fol. 7r).20
A similar textual consciousness informs the presentation of the text in the
Long English Sermon Cycle. Anne Hudson describes in her introduction to
the English Wyclif®te Sermons how meticulously the Lollards distinguish
between words of the sermon-lections and other quotations: `The care with
which the lection's words are marked off obviously re¯ects Lollard concern
for the precise words of scripture, and for the education of the laity and
clergy in the discernment of authority.'21 Similar is the case with the Lollard
revision of Richard Rolle's commentary on the Psalter, where much attention
is paid to distinguishing, by means of different scripts, between Latin biblical
text, translation and commentary.22 In a short tract on the Ave Maria, the
Lollard author condemns even apparently minor changes to biblical texts,
for, as he points out, if è pope may ¿ive pardoun bi addinge of es two
wordis, so may he adde oere mo, and widrawe, as him liki, and so turne
Goddis lawe into lawe of Antecrist'.23
Nicholas Love's translation is very different. Arundel's reply to the Lollard
emphasis on the necessity of general lay access to the exact words of Holy
Writ seems to have been to endorse and circulate a work which provides
anything but that, a work which offers scripture along with orthodox
interpretation and commentary, anti-Lollard polemic and non-biblical
20
Similar prologues, insisting on the necessity of distinguishing text and exposition,
and emphasizing the importance of speci®city of reference, are to be found in Oxford,
Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 143, Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Miscellaneous
235, London, British Library, MS Additional 41175. Also see H. Hargreaves, `Popularis-
ing Biblical Scholarship: the Role of the Wyclif®te Glossed Gospels', in The Bible and
Medieval Culture, ed. W. Lourdaux and D. Verhelst (Louvain, 1979), pp. 171±89; and his
`The Wyclif®te Versions', in The Cambridge History of the Bible: The West from the Fathers to
the Reformation, ed. G. W. H. Lampe (Cambridge, 1969), pp. 387±415 (p. 413), for a
citation of a remark by the Lollard scribe of London, Lambeth Palace, MS 1033, insisting
on the necessity of writing the biblical text `hool bi itself, and the glose in the margyn'.
21
English Wyclif®te Sermons, ed. A. Hudson and P. Gradon, 5 vols. (Oxford, 1983±96), I
(1983), 134±151 (p. 135); also see A. Hudson, The Premature Reformation: Wyclif®te Texts
and Lollard History (Oxford, 1988), where she points out that glosses (in the form of
double renderings or explanatory extra words) in the extant manuscripts of the
Wyclif®te Bible are underlined in red (p. 198).
22
For instance, in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Hatton 12 (original Rolle comment-
ary), Latin texts occur in red in a very large script; the unrubricated translation and
commentary form one undifferentiated whole. In another Bodleian Rolle Psalter, MS
Bodley 467, sporadic attempts at distinguishing translation and commentary through
a difference in script towards the beginning of the manuscript soon give way to an
undifferentiated presentation, to the extent that there is often no distinction made
between the Latin text and the rest. By contrast, the Lollard revision in Bodleian
Library, MS Bodley 877 meticulously underlines the translation in red. In MS Bodley
288, another Lollard revision, the visual hierarchy is further emphasized with Latin
text in dark textura, translation underlined in red and commentary unrubricated. See
also Hudson, Premature Reformation, pp. 259±64.
23
Select English Works of John Wyclif, ed. T. Arnold, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1869±71), III, 112.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
22 Kantik Ghosh
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
devotional material in one indivisible whole. The authority that the Mirror
upholds is that of the ecclesiastical establishment ± an authority that is
political, textual and hermeneutic. The Mirror, in many ways, endorses
precisely that concept of authority which the Lollards explicitly questioned
in The Lanterne of Li¿t:
Here summe obiectun at e gospel is not of autorite but in as miche as e

chirche ha autorised it & cannonisid it, for ei sein at no man knowi
suche wordes to be e gospel, but as e chirche ha determyned in her
determynacioun. is conclucion seme to smak heresie.24
As opposed to the Wyclif®te insistence on scripture as a text which

demands, indeed dictates, its own special and unique hermeneutics, and
the associated interest in establishing a correct biblical text which must not be
violated, Love's translation seeks to locate authority in a discourse outside
the text, in the interpretations dictated by the Church. Relevant biblical `text',
in this rhetorically conscious hermeneutic, is subject to modi®cation and
transformation according to the local needs of intended purpose and
audience, and according to the political and historical situation of the
interpreter. The aim is the creation of a `fructuose' ± to use one of Love's
favourite words ± meditative text.
Love's translation therefore bases itself on a literary-political ideology
which is much more self-consciously rhetorical, much less insistently textual.
The biblical text is used as the occasion for an affective and rhetorical literary
creativity which implicitly denies the Wyclif®te disjunction between divine
text and human hermeneutics. Instead, the Mirror in effect insists on the
univocity, the continuity of the divine Word and the human through a
constant violation of what Vincent Gillespie calls `the decorums of textual
boundaries'.25 This is pointed to at the very beginning by a reference to the
Pauline topos of `Quecum scripta sunt ad nostram doctrinam scripta sunt' in
a prologue added to the Meditationes. Love translates this as:
erfore to strenke vs & confort vs . . . speke e Apostle e wordes aforseid

to this entent seying at all thynges at ben written generaly in holi chirche ande
specialy of oure lorde Jesu cryste ey bene wryten to oure lore. [italics mine]
The critical assumptions underlying this passage should be noted. There is

®rst of all the rhetorical emphasis: `to strenke vs'; secondly, there is the
unsignalled hermeneutic act which interprets Paul's èntent' and issues in a
major unsignalled interpolation into the translated passage: `written generaly
. . . cryste'.26 The interpolation is of course central to Love's own rhetorical
24
The Lanterne of Li¿t, ed. L. M. Swinburn, EETS OS 151 (London, 1917), p. 31.
25
`Lukynge in haly bukes: Lectio in Some Late Medieval Spiritual Miscellanies', in
SpaÈtmittelalterliche geistliche Literatur, ed. Hogg, II, 1±27 (p. 23).
26
Compare the very different formulation of one of the Wyclif®te sermons: `Poul
bygynne at byleue, and sei at alle ingus at ben wryton in oer of Godys lawis
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
concerns: the non-Scriptural devotional material in his translation must be
shown to be as `fructuose' and therefore as àuthentic' as the actual biblical
passages, and the most ef®cient way of doing this is by citing a major
scriptural authority (è gret doctour & holy apostle Powle'). The saint's
waxen nose, to borrow Alan of Lille's celebrated image for the ¯exibility of
àuthorities',27 has been, after all, only slightly bent. The point made here is
taken up later:
Ande for is hope & to is entent with holi writte also bene wryten diuerse
bokes and trettes of // devoute men not onelich to clerkes in latyne, but
also in Englyshe to lewde men & women & hem at bene of symple
vndirstondyng. Amonge e whiche be wryten deuovte meditacions of
cristes lyfe more pleyne in certeyne partyes an is expressed in the gospell
of e foure euangelistes.
The èntent' of Holy Writ and other non-scriptural devotional material is held
to be the same, though works belonging to the second class may be `more
pleyne' than the gospel, the implication being a certain blurring of author-
itative boundaries. The Proheme continues:
Ande as it is seide e deuoute man & worthy clerke Bonauentre wrot hem to
A religiouse woman in latyne e whiche scripture and wrytyng for e
fructuouse matere erof . . . seme amonges oere souereynly edifying to
symple creatures.
Having underlined the rhetorical fruitfulness of his auctor, Love proceeds to

defend the meditative technique of creating ìmaginations' as ef®cacious in
`styryng symple soules to e loue of god'. He continues, further on in the
Proheme:
Wherfore we mowen to stiryng of deuotion ymagine & enke diuerse

wordes & dedes of him & oer, at we fynde not writen, so at it be not
a¿eyns e byleue, as seynt Gregory & oer doctours seyn, at holi writte may
be expownet & vndurstande in diuerse maneres, & to diuerse purposes.28
It is signi®cant that the defence of the spiritual ef®cacy of non-scriptural

devotional material should shade off into a defence of the ¯exibility of
biblical interpretation ± what is emphasized is the purpose of the devotional
ben wryton to oure lore . . .'; English Wyclif®te Sermons, ed. Hudson, I, 481. Wyclif
himself has `quecunque scripta sunt in scriptura divinitus inspirata, ad nostram
doctrinam scripta sunt'; De veritate, ed. Buddensieg, I, 131.
27
Àn authority has a wax nose, which means it can be bent into taking on different
meanings.' De ®de catholica, in Alani de Insulis . . . Opera Omnia, PL 210, 305±430 (333A);
trans. of cited passage in Medieval Literary Theory and Criticism c.1100±c.1375: The
Commentary-Tradition, ed. A. J. Minnis and A. B. Scott with D. Wallace (Oxford, 1988),
p. 323n.
28
Mirror, ed. Sargent, pp. 9±11, italics mine; all further references, unless speci®ed
otherwise, will be to this edition and given in parentheses in the text.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
24 Kantik Ghosh
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
work. It is rhetorical intentio that determines attitudes to both text and
hermeneutics; indeed, no real distinction is made between the two. Exposi-
tion or exegesis ultimately transforms, indeed constitutes `fruitful' scriptural
`text'; to borrow Rita Copeland's words, `rhetorical invention is constituted
through the modus interpretandi'.29
The determining importance of hermeneutic/rhetorical intention is later
underlined in Love's discussion of the Pater noster in a passage original to
him:
Bot one inge touchyng is praiere, soely I trowe at whoso wole ¿iue his
entent fort sey it with deuocion & ha an inwarde desire to e gostly
vndurstondyng erof . . . shale orh grace by processe of tyme ®nde so
miche confort erinne, at ere is none oere praiere made of man at shal
be to him so sauory & so effectuele. . . . And so shale he fynde in his soule
whan god wole ¿ife his grace with gret likyng diuerse vndurstandyng erof
most pertynent to his desire & at oere an is writen in e comune exposicion
erof. [p. 86; italics mine]
Textual meaning is here explicitly held to be dependent on readerly `desire'.

As Copeland says: `Medieval exegesis replicates rhetoric's productive ap-
plication to discourse: as the orator ®tted a speech to the particular cir-
cumstances of persuasion, so in a certain sense the medieval exegete
remodels a text for the particular circumstances of interpretation.'30
In yet another passage, which follows an exegesis of the Ave Maria, the
reader is exhorted to be creative hermeneutically, provided that he abides by
the imperative of having a proper devotional entent:
Chese he that liste to rede or write this processe as hym semeth best / or in
other better manere ¿if he kan / so that be it one be it othere that the ende
and the entente be to the worschippe and the plesynge of oure lord Jesu and
his blessed moder marye.31
Such passages make clear the self-consciously active role that hermeneutics
assumes in the particular mode of biblical lectio embraced by Love.32 In such a
29
R. Copeland, Rhetoric, Hermeneutics, and Translation in the Middle Ages: Academic
Traditions and Vernacular Texts (Cambridge, 1991), p. 166. She traces the origins of these
ideas to Augustine's De doctrina christiana, in which inventio is de®ned as a `method of
discovering those things that are to be understood' (pp. 154±5). The two senses of the
word ìnvenire' ± `to invent' (`ymaginacioun' / rhetoric); and `to ®nd' (exegesis /
hermeneutics) ± coalesce.
30
Copeland, Rhetoric, Hermeneutics, and Translation, p. 64.
31
The textual authority of this passage is, however, problematic; see M. G. Sargent,
`Versions of the Life of Christ: Nicholas Love's Mirror and Related Works', Poetica 42
(1995), 39±70 (pp. 61±2). It is printed in The Mirrour of the Blessed Lyf of Jesu Christ, ed.
L. F. Powell (Oxford, 1908), p. 36.
32
Note that in Oxford, University College, MS 123, the Mirror is followed by a tract on
prayer (fols. 74v±75v) in which devotional entent is all-important: the tract teaches how
to moralize the various parts of one's bed into holy meditations. The entire compila-
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
theoretical framework, èxposicio', in the terms of Wyclif 's image, is no
longer àncilla textus', but has raised itself to the status of `domina'.
However, Love is conscious of what is, in the Lollard context, his
reactionary interpretative ideology. His work, while placing itself ®rmly in
the camp of orthodoxy, also shows an uneasy attempt at coming to terms with
the Lollard location of authoritative meaning in the literal sense of the exact
words of scripture understood according to the intention of the Holy Spirit.
This duality in Love ± emphasizing the hermeneutic authority of the Church,
and of the devout reader operating within the Church, while acknowledging
the textual authority of scripture ± ®nds, as I will go on to show, a parallel in
the presentation of the text in most of the extant manuscripts.
Love's problematic response to the way in which his source treats the Bible
®nds repeated, though necessarily oblique, expression in the course of the
Mirror. Being a self-conscious reader of the Gospels, he retains, often with
signi®cant modi®cations, the Pseudo-Bonaventuran references to suggestive
omissions in the evangelical narratives. For instance, the important passage at
the beginning of Caput 15, in which the Pseudo-Bonaventura explicitly
questions ± and offers his own hypothesis about ± the evangelical silence
in relation to Christ's youth and early manhood, is translated in full by Love,
with suggestive explicatory additions. `Nec in Scripturis reperitur, quod in
toto isto tempore aliquid fecerit' is rendered as `we fynde no¿ht expressed in
scripture autentike what he dide', thus implying that there is the required
information in the work of secondary authors. The Pseudo-Bonaventura's
glancing reference to his earlier statement that nothing is af®rmed which
cannot be proved by the authority of sacred scripture or the doctors33 is then
drawn out in full:
not fully affermynge in is or oer at we mowe not opunly preue by holi
writ or doctours apreuede¡ bot deuoutly ymaginyng to edi®cacion &
stiryng of deuocion, as it was seid in e proheme of is boke at the
begynnyng. (p. 61)
The adverb òpunly' is to be noted; it is an appropriation of the charged Lollard

adjective òpen' generally used to describe a category of scriptural meaning
held to be independent of the interpreting reader or institution.34 A marginal
tion seems to be a self-conscious one, for the tract on prayer is followed by a polemical
defence of the sacraments as being `grounded' in the Gospel. `Heretics' are criticized
for being `ful of wordis not vnderstandynge e gospel' (fol. 76r).
33
`Nulla tamen in hac meditatione tibi affermo, quae per auctoritatem sacrae
Scripturae, vel doctorum sacrorum non probantur, ut etiam in principio tibi dixi',
Meditationes, ed. Peltier, p. 531; all further references are to this edition and given in
parentheses in the text.
34
For Lollard usage of òpen', see, for example, Holy Bible, ed. Forshall and Madden, I,
2, for a reference to òpyn' and `derk' places of the scriptures; I, 43, for the necessity of
the òpen' grounding of spiritual readings; and English Wyclif®te Sermons, ed. Hudson,
I, 659, for an òpun' reading of Galatians 3. For discussion, see Ralph Hanna III, `The
Dif®culty of Ricardian Prose Translation: the Case of the Lollards', Modern Language
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
26 Kantik Ghosh
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
note found in many copies, a variant of which also accompanies a related
passage in the Proheme (p. 10), emphasizes Love's discretion: `Nota bene pro
sano intellectu'. Indeed, as one's acquaintance with such passages deepens,
one realizes that Love is almost on the defensive in relation to this meditative
technique of creating a sacred vita while in theory merely elucidating it. This is
understandable when one recalls Lollard warnings against curious tamper-
ings with God's Word: `hold we us payed on e mesure at God hath ¿yuen vs
and dreme we noht aboute newe poyntis at e gospel leuyth, for is is synne
of curioste at harmeth more an pro®¿teth'.35 Moreover, as Anne Hudson
points out, classical anecdote, moral exemplum and hagiography were
anathema to Lollard homiletics.36 It is worth noting at this point that the
Mirror itself is found associated with the lives of the saints Nicholas, Catherine
and Margaret in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 142; with the Legenda
Aurea in London, British Library, MS Additional 11565; with a Middle English
version of the Gospel of Nicodemus in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley
207; and with texts such as the `Charter of Jesus Christ', the `Fifteen Oes' and
the `Fifteen Joys of Our Lady' in Tokyo, T. Takamiya, MS 4.
The Pseudo-Bonaventura speculates about the food that the angels served
Jesus after his long fast: `De hoc Scriptura non loquitur; possumus autem hoc
victoriosum prandium, sicut volumus, ordinare' (pp. 539±40). Love trans-
lates: `Here of speke not holi writ, wherfore we mowe here ymagine by
reson & ordeyne is wori fest as vs like, not by errour affermyng bot
deuoutly ymaginynge & supposyng' (p. 74). Indeed, Love virtually intro-
duces into the Meditationes the concept of `resonable ymagynacioun' in
relation to the Gospels. The Pseudo-Bonaventura's rhetorical question
about the apostles' tears in the episode of the raising of Lazarus (Caput 66,
Ànnon credis, quod et ipsi fuerunt lacrymati?', p. 592) is rendered as: `& as
reson telle e disciples wepene' (p. 132). In an interpolated passage in the
course of the Thursday meditation, Love wonders what Jesus might have
done on the Wednesday preceding the Passion:
what dide oure lord Jesus & his blessed cumpany at day? We fynde not
writen expresse in e gospele . . . Me inke it resonably to be trowede, at
he was . . . occupiede in praiere. (p. 145)
In yet another passage original to him, Love speaks of the `vnresonable

ymaginacion' that blinds `gostly', making men believe that Jesus's godhead
Quarterly 51 (1990), 319±340; Ghosh, ` `Àuthority'' and Interpretation', pp. 131±141.

For further uses of òpen' in the Mirror, see especially pp. 33 (l. 26), 45 (l. 32), 84 (l. 19),
89 (l. 22), 103 (l. 8), 130 (l. 26), 135 (l. 1), 136 (l. 19), 140 (l. 22), 208 (l. 31), 230 (l. 7), 235 (l.
15), 236 (l. 36), 237 (l. 4).
35
English Wyclif®te Sermons, ed. Hudson, I, 241. The Prologue to the Wyclif®te Bible
speci®cally rejects `the book of the ¿ong childhed of the Sauyour, and the book of the
takyng up of the body of Seynt Marye to heuen' as unworthy of belief: Holy Bible, ed.
Forshall and Madden, I, 2.
36
Hudson, Premature Reformation, pp. 269±70.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
reduced the intensity of his sufferings as man (p. 161).37 This emphasis on
reason ties in with Love's general defensiveness in relation to the devout
imagination, which ìnvents' meanings (in both senses), and forms part of his
response to Wyclif®te insistence on òpen reason' in the interpretation of the
Bible.38
Love is also conscious of the Lollard emphasis on divine intentionality. The
key word in this context was èxpress', used, like òpen', to denote meanings
not requiring interpretation, meanings which are transparently informed by
authorial intention.39 Speaking of Mary and Martha, the Pseudo-Bonaventura
says: `Scire autem debes quod per istas duas sorores dicunt Sancti duplicem
vitam intelligi, scilicet activam, et contemplativam . . .' (p. 570). Love
translates this ®rst: `By ees tweyn sisteres . . . as holy men & doctoures
writen ben vndurstande tweyn maner lifes of cristen men' (p. 120). This piece
of traditional hermeneutics, where scriptural meaning is dictated from
without by the academic and spiritual establishment, is however followed,
a few pages later, by an emphasis on the ìntrinsic', ìntended' meaning of the
episode of the two sisters. Discussing John 11. 20, Love says:
And so it seme by ees wordes, so specialy after e letter tellyng howe
ese tweyn sistres Martha & Maria, diuersely hadden hem as anentes Jesu
at e holi euangelist John menede gostly here as he do in oere places . . . Lo
how expressly here also is tokened gostly what longe to e contemplatife.
[pp. 130±31; italics mine]
The impression produced by these slight but signi®cant modi®cations of

the Pseudo-Bonaventuran passages referring to the Gospel text, along with
his emphasis on `reason', suggest that Love was having to come to terms with
contemporary Wyclif®te criticism of the Church's `perverse' glossings of
God's Word and its emphasis on the non-canonical. Indeed, he occasionally
leaves out some of the apocryphal material in his original.40 Love's translation
thus seeks to accommodate, even while implicitly rejecting, the Lollard
valorization of sola scriptura understood according to God's intention.
37
On the interrelationship of `reason' and ìmagination' in various hierarchies or
syntheses of psychological categories in relation to faith, see A. J. Minnis, Àffection
and Imagination in ``The Cloud of Unknowing'' and Hilton's ``Scale of Perfection'' ',
Traditio 39 (1983), 323±66. Minnis cites (pp. 328±9) Richard of St Victor's Benjamin
major, in which Richard describes the six stages of mental ascent to God, beginning in
the ìmaginative', and ending in the supra- or the contra-rational. Love's psychological
theory is by no means as sophisticated, but he may have inherited some of his
terminology through Walter Hilton, to whom he refers (p. 124), and who emphasized
the need for the strict control of the vagrant imagination by the intellect.
38
Love's references to `reason' are numerous; see for instance Mirror, ed. Sargent,
pp. 49 (l. 25), 58 (l. 26), 98 (l. 20), 128 (l. 33), 145 (l. 17), 146 (l. 31), 152 (l. 24), 156 (l. 15),
162 (l. 39), 195 (l. 2), 211 (l. 5).
39
Wyclif 's De apostasia, for instance, argues that all relevant Christian truths are
contained èxpressly' in the Bible, and the more necessary and important, the more
èxpressly': ed. Dziewicki, p. 10.
40
See Mirror, ed. Sargent, p. 202 (ll. 4±6).
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
28 Kantik Ghosh
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Such an impression is further strengthened by the mise-en-page of the
Mirror manuscripts, which is characterized by a quite remarkable degree of
uniformity for a widely-disseminated vernacular text of this period. Ian
Doyle pointed to this a long while ago:
Most copies are on skin, of small quarto or folio size, by practised scribes,
with ample colour and illumination of initials, rubrics, headlines, etc., and
the Latin notes . . . contents-table, prologue, side notes, appended treatise
varying little in relative disposition, though not always all present.41
I have examined forty manuscripts,42 including one that contains substantial

extracts but not the whole text (Cambridge, University Library, MS Hh.i.11),
and found thirty-®ve of them to be very similar in general disposition and
layout. They include the important Cambridge, University Library, MS
Additional 6578 that Sargent chooses as his base manuscript, and which
might have been the very copy presented to Arundel for his approbation.43
They provide substantial evidence that the text, marginalia and pattern of
rubrication were standardized, presumably at some early point in the process
of transmission.
There are important implications of such standardization. The general
uniformity of the manuscripts suggests a careful interest in the ùncor-
rupted' transmission of the text. Sargent notes that `the number of major
alterations to the text of The Mirror . . . as compared to such contemporary
texts as Walter Hilton's Scale of Perfection, William Flete's Remedies Against
Temptations, or the works of Richard Rolle . . . is remarkably small, and the
degree of textual variation on the whole is remarkably little'. He suggests
that this textual uniformity ± and, one may emphasize, the uniformity of
presentation ± arises from the Mirror's embeddedness in the Lollard con¯ict:
41
A. I. Doyle, À Survey of the Origins and Circulation of Theological Writings in
English in the Fourteenth, Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries', 2 vols. (unpublished
Ph.D. dissertation, Cambridge, 1953), I, 143n. Also see his `Re¯ections on Some
Manuscripts of Nicholas Love's Myrrour of the Blessed Lyf of Jesu Christ', Leeds Studies
in English n.s. 14 (1983), 82±93.
42
The manuscripts I have examined are: Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MSS 142
& 143; Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS McClean 127; Cambridge, Trinity
College, MSS B.15.16 & B.15.32; Cambridge, University Library, MSS Additional
6578, Additional 6686, Ll.iv.3, Mm.v.15, Hh.i.11; Edinburgh, National Library of
Scotland, Advocates' Library, MS 18.1.7; Glasgow, University Library, MS Gen.
1130; Glasgow, Hunterian Library, MS T.3.15; London, British Library, MSS Addi-
tional 11565, Additional 19901, Additional 21006, Additional 30031, Arundel 112,
Arundel 364, Royal 18C. x; Manchester, Chetham's Library, MS 6690; Manchester,
John Rylands Library, MSS Eng. 94, Eng. 98, Eng. 413; New York, Pierpont Morgan
Library, MSS 226 & 648; Oxford, Bodleian Library, MSS Bodley 131, Bodley 207,
Bodley 634, Hatton 31, e Museo 35, Rawlinson A. 387B; Oxford, Brasenose College, MS
e. ix; Oxford, University College, MS 123; Oxford, Wadham College, MS 5; Tokyo,
T. Takamiya, MSS 4, 8, 20 & 63; Tokyo, Waseda University Library, MS NE 3691.
43
At the time of Arundel's approbation, the manuscript belonged to Mount Grace
Charterhouse. See Mirror, ed. Sargent, p. lxxiii.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
a polemical work must after all ensure that its polemic is transmitted
without change, and the Lollards were particularly careful about the
transmission of their own texts.44
More recently, Sargent has identi®ed what he designates as the b- and a-
recensions of the Mirror. The former he considers to be instances of a `pre-
publication' version of Love's text, circulating before it had been examined
of®cially, and betraying, through certain textual disruptions, an ongoing
process of composition and revision; the latter being a more ®nished, `post-
publication' version circulated after the approbation of Arundel had been
obtained.45 It is to be noted, however, that the same apparatus, in terms of
marginalia and patterns of rubrication, characterizes manuscripts of both
recensions. This would suggest that it formed an integral part of the very
conception of the Mirror, accompanying the text, in the terms of Sargent's
analysis, in both the (as it were) `draft' and `®nal' versions.
What is even more interesting is the nature of the mise-en-page. Much of the
marginal apparatus is devoted to the identi®cation of cited authorities, often
in scrupulous detail,46 and the quotation of biblical passages in the Latin of
which the translations are found in the body of the text. Almost all the
manuscripts display the same marginalia, with few variations.47 There are a
number which omit large sections, or discontinue the marginalia after a
certain point, but the bits and pieces that do appear belong recognizably to
the same apparatus. Among the manuscripts I have examined, this is the case
with sixteen;48 of the rest only two are without any marginalia at all (Cam-
bridge, University Library, MS Hh.i.11 and Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS
Bodley 634), the remaining ones displaying a full or nearly full apparatus.
Thus, despite some variation, there is a general uniformity in the presentation
of the text and the contents and location of the marginalia. This uniformity
44
Mirror, ed. Sargent, p. cvi. See also Anne Hudson, `Some Aspects of Lollard Book
Production', in her Lollards and their Books (London and Ronceverte, 1985), pp. 181±91;
also her Premature Reformation, pp. 228±277.
45
See his `Versions of the Life of Christ', especially pp. 51±62; also his `The Textual
Af®liations of the Waseda Manuscript of Nicholas Love's Mirror of the Blessed Life of
Jesus Christ', in Nicholas Love: Waseda 1995, ed. S. Oguro, M. G. Sargent and R. Beadle
(Cambridge, 1997), pp. 175±274.
46
See in particular Mirror, ed. Sargent, pp. 9, 10, 14, 38, 63, 72, 83, 84, 100, 101, 106, 109,
111, 116, 121, 127, 238.
47
Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS McClean 127 adds substantially new margin-
alia, consisting of two vernacular notes (fol. 2r & fol. 3r), and a number of Latin
paraphrases of the vernacular text, and quotations from the Bible in the Latin.
However, this manuscript seems to have been perceived as problematic, since the
text is extensively corrected in a contemporary hand.
48
Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MSS 142 & 143; Cambridge, Trinity College, MS
B.15.32; Cambridge, University Library, MSS Ll.iv.3 & Mm.v.15; London, British
Library, MS Arundel 364; Manchester, John Rylands, MSS Eng. 94 & Eng. 98; New
York, Pierpont Morgan MS 648; Oxford, Bodleian Library, MSS Bodley 131 & Hatton
31; Oxford, University College, MS 123; Oxford, Wadham College, MS 5; Tokyo,
T. Takamiya MSS 4 & 20; Tokyo, Waseda University Library, MS NE 3691.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
30 Kantik Ghosh
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
would suggest that the apparatus was authorially endorsed49 or at least
of®cially rati®ed50 so that scribal transmission was relatively careful and
regular.
The other major element in the presentation of the text is rubrication. There
is a more or less consistent attempt at distingishing biblical words from non-
scriptural material by rubrication, underlining or, as occasionally in Oxford,
Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 131, by using a different script. Once again,
there is a degree of variation, with some manuscripts being more careful in
separating biblical and non-biblical words than others. At their most
rigorous, the manuscripts give the Latin biblical text in the margin in red,
the vernacular translation being underlined in red in the body of the text. A
variant of this pattern involves incorporating the Latin biblical citations into
the body of the text in red, in which case the vernacular translations are often
left unmarked. Of the manuscripts I have studied, twenty-four display a
more or less uniform interest in rubrication; around twelve are lax, with
occasional bursts of precision,51 and only four are without any attempt at
rubrication. These are Cambridge, University Library, MS Hh.i.11, Glasgow,
University Library, MS Gen. 1130, and London, British Library, MSS Addi-
tional 11565 and Additional 19901.
What is fascinating about this careful and self-conscious presentation of
the text in the Mirror manuscripts is how substantially it differs from that of
the contemporary manuscripts of the Meditationes vitae Christi.52 The Medita-
tiones manuscripts from the fourteenth and ®fteenth centuries occur in a vast
variety of forms, from relatively lavish productions such as Cambridge,
University Library, MS Kk.iv.23, to little pocketbooks, such as Oxford,
Bodleian Library, MS Canon Liturg. 226, meant for quotidian personal
meditation. However, the typical mise-en-page, irrespective of the quality of
the manuscript, is characterized by an almost entire absence of scribal
marginalia and rubrication. The text, though divided into chapters preceded
by rubricated headings, is presented, within each chapter, as a solid,
49
It should be pointed out that Cambridge, University Library, MS Additional 6578,
the textually important copy, contains a full marginal apparatus.
50
On the Carthusian interest in textual uniformity, see M. G. Sargent, `The Problem of
Uniformity in Carthusian Book-Production from the Opus Pacis to the Tertia Compilatio
Statutorum', in New Science out of Old Books: Studies in Manuscripts and Early Printed
Books in honour of A. I. Doyle, ed. R. Beadle and A. J. Piper (Aldershot, 1995), pp. 122±41.
51
Manuscripts with uncertain rubrication are: Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS
McClean 127; Cambridge, Trinity College, MS B.15.32; Cambridge, University Library,
MSS Ll.iv.3 & Mm.v.15; London, British Library, MS Arundel 364; Manchester, John
Rylands Library, MSS Eng. 94 & Eng. 413; Manchester, Chetham's Library, MS 6690;
Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 131; Tokyo, T. Takamiya, MSS 4 & 20; Tokyo,
Waseda University Library, MS NE 3691.
52
Manuscripts examined include: Cambridge, St John's College, MS D. 8; Cambridge,
University Library, MSS Additional 6315, Hh.iii.13, Kk.iv.23; London, British Library,
MSS Royal 7A. i, Royal 7D. xvii; Oxford, Bodleian Library, MSS Bodley 162, Bodley
529, Canon Liturg. 226.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
undifferentiated mass. There is no attempt to distinguish scriptural words
from the rest ± even momentous utterances such as `Consummatum est'
remain unmarked. There is no marginal citation of authorities, though there
is intensive, unmarked citation within the text itself. A few manuscripts, such
as London, British Library, MS Royal 7D. xvii, underline the names of cited
authorities while ignoring biblical words; and one or two, such as Oxford,
Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 162, attempt to mark out scriptural words,
though occasionally underlining what is regarded as important non-
scriptural material as well. But most go for the undifferentiated presenta-
tion, the implied pattern of reading being obviously one with close af®nities
to the monastic lectio. The reader is expected, like St Cecilia, to `portare . . .
in pectore' the èvangelium Christi'.53
The Mirror manuscripts, on the other hand, give evidence that a great deal
of thought has been devoted to the presentation of the text. I have come across
only one manuscript that follows the Latin pattern with neither marginalia
nor biblical rubrication: Cambridge, University Library, MS Hh.i.11. This
manuscript, however, is a special case, since it consists of a miscellany,
probably made by nuns, with extensive extracts from the Mirror along with
extracts from The Prickynge of Love, The Seven Poyntes of Trewe Love and
Everlastynge Wisdome, the Middle English Revelations of Elizabeth of Hungary,
Flete's Remedies against Temptations, Walter Hilton and Anselm of Canter-
bury.54 Most other Mirror manuscripts are very different. Authorities are
marked and identi®ed, and biblical words are distinguished from non-
scriptural material. Of course, the precision of the latter falls far short of the
consistency and meticulousness one ®nds in Lollard manuscripts. Indeed, the
very form of the Mirror, based as it is on an inextricable mingling of the
scriptural and the non-scriptural, would make the achievement of anything
like Wyclif®te textual precision near impossible. Equally interesting are the
extensive marginal citations of authorities and the almost uniform omission of
Gospel-chapter citations in the chapter headings.55 The Pseudo-Bonaventuran
manuscripts regularly provide Gospel references in the capitula, and the
French version by Jean Galope in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 213,
for instance, largely follows this pattern. So does Paris, BibliotheÁque Natio-
nale, MS Ital.115, the Italian version on which Isa Ragusa's and Rosalie
Green's edition of the Meditationes is based.56
53
Meditationes, p. 510.
54
For discussions of MS Hh.i.11, see E. Colledge and N. Chadwick, `Remedies against
Temptations: The Third English Version of William Flete', Archivio italiano per la storia
della pietaÁ 5 (1968), 201±40 (pp. 206±8); and A. Barratt, `The Revelations of Saint
Elizabeth of Hungary: Problems of Attribution', The Library, 6th s. 14 (1992), 1±11
(pp. 3±4).
55
There is an erratic handful of speci®c references to the Bible; see Mirror, ed. Sargent,
pp. 9, 74, 79, 80, 108, 114, 126, 127, 128, 140, 198, 199, 210, 238. A few chapter headings
towards the end carry Gospel references (Chapters 53, 54, 58, 59, 60).
56
I. Ragusa and R. Green, Meditations on the Life of Christ: An Illustrated Manuscript of
the Fourteenth Century (Princeton, 1961).
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
32 Kantik Ghosh
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
What emerges from this evidence is a certain indeterminacy in authorial
and/or of®cial attitude towards the text. The meditative thrust of its
contents would seem to be in con¯ict with the academic, textual conscious-
ness implied by the ordinatio. At the same time, the relative paucity of
precise references to the Gospel chapters would ®t in with the transmission
of the Mirror as an implied substitute for the Gospel. As with Love's
attitude towards the tradition of meditative reinvention of the Gospels
which supports the Meditationes, there seems to be a central dubiety in his
attitude towards his chosen ordinatio and its ideological implications. In
mediating to a vernacular audience a familiar text with its own, associated,
modes of reading in a political context critical of received notions of text
and authority, Love shows himself to be caught between two worlds: one
insisting on the identity of the authority of scripture and that of the
ecclesiastical establishment, the other emphasizing the disjunction between
the two. The tradition of the exegetical reinvention of scripture, of which
the Meditationes forms an important part, was one which rendered un-
necessary an academic presentation that pointed out textual or authoritative
boundaries. In fact, the new textual consciousness extends, in Love's case,
to making a distinction between his additions to the Pseudo-Bonaventuran
text and the original. Twenty-seven manuscripts of the Mirror are preceded
by the following notice:
Attende lector huius libri prout sequitur in Anglico scripti, quod vbicum-
que in margine ponitur litera N verba sunt translatoris siue compilatoris. . . .
Et quando peruenitur ad processum & verba eiusdem doctoris [Bonaven-
tura] inseritur in margine litera B.
(`Note, reader of the following book written in English, that wherever the
letter `N' is placed in the margin, the words are added by the translator or
compiler. . . . And when it returns to the narrative and words of that doctor,
then the letter `B' is inserted in the margin.')57
But the actual realization of this principle, at least in all the manuscripts now
extant, is half-hearted, for it is only sporadically that the additions are indeed
signalled by a marginal `N'. This is in sharp contrast to the precision of
(possibly) another Carthusian of the time, `M. N.', the translator of Margarete
Porete's controversial Le Mirouer des Simples Ames.58 The translation survives
in three manuscripts, of which I have examined Cambridge, St John's College,
MS C. 21.59 M. N.'s additions take the form of distinct and separable units,
57
Mirror, ed. Sargent, p. 7; translation by Sargent, p. xxx.
58
M. Porete, Le Mirouer des Simples Ames Ìl movimento del libero spirito', ed.
R. Guarnieri, Archivio italiano per la storia della pietaÁ 4 (1965), 351±708 (pp. 513±635).
59
See ` ``The Mirror of Simple Souls'': a Middle English Translation', ed. M. Doiron,
Archivio italiano per la storia della pietaÁ 5 (1968), 241±356; also her `The Middle English
Translation of Le Mirouer des Simples Ames', in Dr L. Reypens Album, ed. A. Ampe,
Studien en Tekstuitgaven van Ons Geestelijk Erf 16 (Antwerp, 1964), 131±52.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
which makes his task relatively simple.60 In contrast, Love's inadequately
realized, yet, given the unexceptionable nature of his source-text, unusually
punctilious gesture in the direction of textual precision suggests once again
that ideas about textual authority akin to those of the Lollards are being
imposed upon a translation based on principles which simply refuse any such
imposition. For the Mirror does not subscribe to any conception of textual
®delity ± the alterations to the Meditationes are too minutely pervasive for it to
be really possible to separate addition from original. It is as if one were to sit
down with Chaucer's `translacioun' of Il Filostrato and try to place a marginal
`C' beside each of his ìn-echings'.
The Mirror thus articulates a hesitant and uncertain response to the
ideological implications of the modes of textual presentation favoured by
the Lollards. As I have argued, this uncertainty has its roots in Love's
fundamentally ambiguous conceptualization of the nature of valid scrip-
tural àuthority'. Thomas Netter of Walden, writing his monumental anti-
Wyclif®te encyclopaedia in the 1420s, is far less ambivalent about ®ghting
the enemy on its own ground. Extant manuscripts of the Doctrinale
antiquitatum ®dei catholicae ecclesiae61 such as Cambridge, University Library,
MSS Dd. viii. 16±17 or Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 262 scrupu-
lously distinguish Netter's own contributions from those of his authorities:
these original passages are always prefaced by the word àctor' in red.62
Netter adds his own ideological twist to such an ordinatio: while his
citations of all other auctours are always prefaced by the name of the
author in red, citations from Wyclif, though rigorously identi®ed, are never
honoured by rubrication.
Thomas Netter, however, was writing a work of reference in an
academic-ecclesiastical textual environment. As such, his self-conscious
interest in matters of presentation, though of heightened signi®cance in
the Lollard context, is not entirely unexpected. In contrast, the evidence of
the Mirror manuscripts is indeed remarkable. It is tempting to suggest that
the Mirror bears witness to orthodox recognition of an important Lollard
60
M. N. inserted his own comments because problematic passages in the original had
been misinterpreted. It is at least possible that M. N. was also aware of Porete's
condemnation as a heretic, which would provide a further reason for his care in
distinguishing addition from original. In any case, the extreme unconventionality of
Porete's text would make circumspection advisable, especially if the translation was
made in the ®fteenth century in England.
61
Ed. B. Blanciotti, 3 vols. (Venice, 1757±9). On the uniformity of the manuscripts and
their largely Carmelite provenance, see K. S. Smith, `The Ecclesiology of Controversy:
Scripture, Tradition and Church in the Theology of Thomas Netter of Walden'
(unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell, 1983), pp. 275±7; and M. Harvey, `The
Diffusion of the Doctrinale of Thomas Netter in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries',
in Intellectual Life in the Middle Ages: Essays presented to Margaret Gibson, ed. L. Smith
and B. Ward (London and Rio Grande, 1992), pp. 281±294.
62
See A. J. Minnis, Medieval Theory of Authorship, 2nd edn (Aldershot, 1988), p. 157, for
a reference to Vincent of Beauvais's preference for the word actor (as opposed to
auctor) when introducing opinions of his own or of the modern doctors.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
34 Kantik Ghosh
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
achievement: the breaking down of the barrier between an enclosed
academic milieu with its own rules and conventions of written commun-
ication, and a wider, comparatively unlearned world of lay devotion.
d:/3riddy/harris.3d ± 31/7/0 ± 19:37 ± diskB&B/mp
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
THE PATRONAGE AND DATING OF LONGLEAT HOUSE

MS 24, A PRESTIGE COPY OF THE PUPILLA OCULI
ILLUMINATED BY THE MASTER OF THE TROILUS
FRONTISPIECE
Kate Harris
The subject chosen for this paper is deliberately very speci®c or restricted:
Longleat House MS 24, however, considerably exceeds in size the `little bit
(two inches wide) of ivory' on which Jane Austen described herself as
working. Indeed, generous proportions are a unique and important char-
acteristic of this copy of John de Burgh's Pupilla oculi ± the manuscript's
vellum leaves measure 4506310mm, or roughly 1861214 in.1 My focus, in
addition, narrows to the ®rst page of text, fol. 3r (Plate 1), particularly to the
second historiated initial and to the coats of arms (both visible and now
largely invisible) in the lower margin. Dr Kathleen Scott's identi®cation of the
illuminator at work on the historiated initials on this page as the artist
responsible also for the frontispiece in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College,
MS 61 makes the explication of the Longleat manuscript's provenance and its
dating, which last follows on the identi®cation of the book's patron, crucial
for the understanding of a unique episode in the history of the illustration of
Middle English texts, `the introduction of a medieval English poem by an
exceptional piece of international Gothic painting'.2 Unlike the artist of the
Troilus frontispiece, I shall not be working with a laborious ®ne brush, for
part of my purpose is to put forward a hypothesis about the commissioning
1
Letter of 15 December 1816: `The little bit (two inches wide) of ivory on which I work
with so ®ne a brush as produces little effect after much labour'. A full account of MS 24
has been prepared for inclusion in the descriptive catalogue of the medieval manu-
scripts in the collection at Longleat House which I currently have in progress. I should
like to acknowledge the generous award from the British Academy Neil Ker Memorial
Fund which made possible the publication of the plates of Longleat MS 24 which
accompany this paper. My investigation into the provenance of the manuscript is
much indebted to the advice of David O'Connor and Hugh Murray.
2
For Dr Scott's account of the oeuvre of the artist of the Troilus frontispiece, see her
`Limner-Power: An English Book Artist of c.1420' in this volume, pp. 55±75. I should
like to thank Dr Scott ®rst for examining photographs and slides of fol. 3r in MS 24 and
then coming to Longleat to examine the illumination in the manuscript. (For Dr Scott's
view on this illuminator see also Later Gothic Manuscripts 1390±1490, 2 vols. (London,
1996), Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles 6, J. J. G. Alexander general
editor, II, 182±5, 186.) For the quotation see Elizabeth Salter's introduction to Troilus
and Criseyde Geoffrey Chaucer A Facsimile of Corpus Christi College Cambridge MS 61
(Cambridge, 1978), p. 15.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
36 Kate Harris
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
of this volume that relies on a piece of intrinsic evidence which now only
partially survives in the volume itself, on an investigation into the mystifying
iconography of the second historiated initial on fol. 3r and, ®nally, on a whole
panoply of supporting extrinsic evidence. I will seek to show that the
manuscript must be seen, because of its great size, the expertise of its scribes
and, above all, the presence of illumination of the highest quality, as an
extraordinary copy of John de Burgh's text. I will seek also to identify its
originator as a Croesus amongst patrons who met a sudden, dishonourable
and horri®c death before he saw his commission completed and to draw
some necessarily much more tentative inferences about the origin of Corpus
MS 61 itself.
John de Burgh, the author of the manual Pupilla oculi, was an academic
theologian, the Chancellor of Cambridge: his work, composed in 1385 as a
revision of William of Pagula's Oculus sacerdotis, was aimed at (and reached,
as the evidence of the reception of the manuscripts makes clear) an eÂlite
amongst the clergy, not a parochial eÂlite but one made up of men of
considerable learning, many of them ecclesiastical administrators.3 A feature
of copies of the Pupilla oculi is frequency of annotation: these volumes were
designed for use. I have seen some dozen or so copies of this text but rely
here mainly on Robert Ball's thesis, `The Education of the English Parochial
Clergy in the Later Middle Ages with Particular Reference to the Manuals of
Instruction', for a convenient overview of the basic physical properties of the
thirty-nine copies (or partial copies) known to him:4 these thirty-nine copies
did not include Longleat 24, which provides both a contrast to the manu-
scripts there described and, as it happens, a major addition to and con®rma-
tion of the understanding of the circulation of the text there, established
through extensive and detailed research.
Longleat MS 24 exceeds in height by roughly 100mm (4in.) even the largest
known copies of the Pupilla oculi, just as it exceeds them in breadth by about
75mm (3in.). Only three copies more or less approach MS 24 in size: MS 67
(C 17) in St John's College, Cambridge, measuring 3556230 mm (1469in.),
Oxford, Magdalen College, MS 104 measuring 3606235mm (1418 6914 in.) and
Oxford, Balliol College, MS 220, measuring 3656240mm (1438 6912 in.). As
many as nine of the manuscripts include a short text entitled Modus
pronunciandi sentencias excommunicationum. A considerable number have a
sequence, varying in length, of synodal constitutions: Oxford, Brasenose
College, MS 14, for instance, closes with a sequence of constitutions and
related material running fols. 136v±196r. In the large copy at Balliol, the
3
For John de Burgh see A. B. Emden, Biographical Register of the University of Cambridge
to 1500 (Cambridge, 1963), p. 107. There is no modern edition of the Pupilla oculi: the
text is usually cited from the ®rst edition published in Paris in 1510.
4
R. M. Ball, `The Education of the English Parochial Clergy in the Later Middle Ages
with Particular Reference to the Manuals of Instruction' (unpublished D.Phil. dis-
sertation, University of London, 1976): see pp. 411±53 of the bibliography for
descriptions of the manuscripts.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
The Patronage and Dating of Longleat House MS 24 37
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Pupilla oculi is part of a more extensive anthology containing some 120 folios
of other material, including works by Anselm and Augustine. If those
manuscripts containing only an index to the Pupilla oculi or only an extract
from it are excluded from the sample, and only those manuscripts that
contain substantially complete copies with index as the sole work in the
volumes in question, or substantially the sole work (that is with the Pupilla
accompanied only by minor additional texts), are included, the average size of
the thirty-two copies concerned emerges as 280mm (a fraction over 11in.) by
190mm (just under 712in.). If the four further copies containing more substantial
àccompaniments' to the Pupilla are included (and they have a relevance to the
Longleat copy), the average size rises a little to 285mm (1114 in.) by about
194mm (just over 712 in.). The smallest copy, Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS
Rawlinson C 284, measures only about 2006150mm (866in.). Of the half
dozen or so manuscripts I have so far come across in addition to those
described by Ball, several provide no useful comparison, as they are fragment-
ary or contain extracts only:5 the largest of the others, Oxford, New College,
MS 292, measures only 2856178mm (1114 67in.), so makes no modi®cation to
the contrast here put forward between the Longleat manuscript and all other
copies of this text.6
Less than half of the manuscripts have any form of illumination: such
decoration is frequently restricted to the ®rst initial H.7 Fourteen copies
(excluding the Longleat manuscript) have one or more illuminated initials
and/or champs; of these fourteen, a few copies, like Oxford, Exeter College,
MS 41 and Oxford, Magdalen College, MS 110, also have illuminated borders
to mark the beginning of each part of the text or, like London, British Library,
MS Royal 7 E V, such a border at the beginning of the work. Amongst copies
which are not illuminated, others, like Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley
424, Oxford, New College, MS 292 and London, British Library, MS Harley
5442 open with coloured, pen-work borders. Only one copy besides Longleat
MS 24 includes historiated initials. This is Durham Cathedral, MS B IV 33, in
which each part is introduced by such an initial, depicting the sacrament or
other matter treated in the part concerned. It has been suggested that the
Durham manuscript belonged to a collegiate church (it is inscribed on fol. 75v
`nota colleg.'):8 Ker associates it with Stanhope Church in County Durham.9
A manuscript of very considerable height and breadth but containing only
5
Cambridge University Library, MS Hh III 13 and MS Additional 5963 contain
fragments of the text, and MS Ii VI 15 in the same collection an extract from it.
Oxford, Trinity College, MS D 18 also contains extracts.
6
See also Cambridge University Library, MS Additional 2780, Harvard Law School,
MS 159 and Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania, MS 3.
7
Ball, Ènglish Parochial Clergy', p. 90 refers to à series of Pupilla manuscripts with
illuminated initial letters' as indicating `some pretension but no grandeur'.
8
Ball, Ènglish Parochial Clergy', p. 87 3n.
9
N. R. Ker, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books, 2nd edn
(London, 1964), p. 223: by 1529/30 the manuscript belonged to the rector (see fol. 1v).
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
38 Kate Harris
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
114 leaves, of which 107 contain the Pupilla oculi and index, as it now survives
(the book is defective at the end), Longleat MS 24 could even be described as
somewhat awkward in design, certainly ill-adapted to intensive use, hand-
ling, easy transportation and repeated consultation. This is not, of course, to
say that MS 24 was not consulted (cumbersomeness would have presented
no real impediment to use for, at this period, of course, demand for texts was
buoyant, even voracious): annotation, in fact, demonstrates clearly that the
volume was read. A quick calculation based on those copies described by Ball
as complete, save for the very smallest de®ciencies, produces an average of
178 leaves occupied by the Pupilla and any accompanying table or index: in
the larger copies like those at Balliol and St John's the text can occupy as few
as 120 or 125 leaves and, in London, British Library, MS Harley 5435,
measuring only 2256156mm (966in.), as many as 354.
Longleat MS 24 was written in expert textura by three scribes, whose work
is distinguishable by careful analysis of letter forms (particularly a, g, and ®nal
s) and marks of abbreviation (particularly the common mark of abbreviation
and ùr' abbreviation). Dr Malcolm Parkes has suggested: `To my eye the
quality of the textura (and especially that of the second scribe) is reminiscent
of the hands of foreign scribes working in England around this date.'10 The
®rst scribe wrote quires i±x, the lion's share of the Pupilla oculi, the second
quires xi±xii, the conclusion to the same, and the third copied quires xiii±xiv,
containing the index to the Pupilla and two further items: a collection of
canons of the council of the province of Canterbury held by Stephen Langton
at Oxford in April 1222 and a similar collection, now defective, deriving from
the council held by Stephen Pecham at Lambeth in October 1281.11 The latter
closes abruptly with quire xiv, which ends with a forlorn catchword, all other
matter being lost. These two texts, however, were originally left incomplete:
both are riddled with blanks waiting to receive rubricated headings. The text
of the headings, copied in a contemporary current hand, can be found in the
lower margins of the ®nal leaves in the manuscript, fols. 110±114.
The Longleat Pupilla oculi was designed not for use but primarily to
impress: the assumption that it was destined by its commissioners to
bestow a mark of special favour on some institution or to be a means of
seeking such favour for the donors would not be foolhardy even if it
preceded investigation of the manuscript's provenance. Both its incomplete-
ness and an erased coat of arms at the base of the opening page suggest that
the path of that commission may not have been uniformly smooth.
Cambridge was and remained the most important centre for production
and distribution of the Pupilla oculi throughout the ®fteenth century.12 Dr Ball
10
Private communication. I should like to thank both Dr Parkes and Dr Ian Doyle for
commenting on photographs of the work of the three scribes.
11
Fols. 110ra±114vb: Councils & Synods, with Other Documents Relating to the English
Church, ed. F. M. Powicke and C. R. Cheney (Oxford, 1964), II, part 1 (1205±1265), 100±
25 (see p. 106) and part 2 (1265±1313), 886±918 (see p. 892).
12
Ball, Ènglish Parochial Clergy', pp. 108±10, 148±9.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
names also, as centres in which the text is commonly found, Oxford, Exeter
and York13 and shows the text to have been especially popular with those
York Minster clergy who came north with Archbishop Thomas Arundel in
1388, when he was translated from Ely, and remained at York after his
departure for Canterbury in 1396: one such was Arundel's vicar general, John
Newton, treasurer of York, the foundation donor to the new Minster library,
who bequeathed a copy to his steward, Nicholas Ackeld, in 1414.14 Some sixty
of the hundred individual owners known to Ball were graduates (twenty-
four of them graduates in theology and nine holders of higher degrees): he
mentions two owners who were, like the book's author, chancellors of
Cambridge, three principals of Oxford halls, twenty-one fellows (twelve
Cambridge and nine Oxford) and two bishops:15 one of the last, noticed by
Ball as the owner of a recorded copy only, ®gures in what follows.
An account of the provenance of Longleat MS 24 begins most obviously
with the two visible coats of arms in the lower border of fol. 3r (Plate 2): on
the left, azure three chevronels in base interlaced or, a chief of the last
(FitzHugh), and on the right, barry of six or and azure, on a canton argent a
chaplet gules within a bordure sable (Holme). A cross crosslet (or botonny)
gules on the central chevronel of the FitzHugh arms possibly indicates the
bearer's clerical status: this is supported by a number of comparable cases,
including that of the arms of Stephen Mauley in the nave clerestory arcade in
York Minster. Mauley, who was archdeacon of York and died in 1317,
differenced the plain bend of his family arms with three cross crosslets.16
The left-hand coat may be identi®ed as the arms of Robert FitzHugh, bishop
of London from 1431 until his death in 1436. He was the son of the king's
chamberlain, Henry, Lord FitzHugh of Ravensworth Castle in Yorkshire.
Robert FitzHugh was appointed master of St Leonard's Hospital in York on 15
March 1415: he was also a canon of York, holding the prebendary of Grindale
13
Ball, Ènglish Parochial Clergy', pp. 110±11.
14
Ball, Ènglish Parochial Clergy', pp. 113±15, 139±40 and 152. On this milieu, the
presence of Arundel's men in York and the emergence of the Minster as a centre of
ecclesiastical training, see also J. Hughes, Pastors and Visionaries: Religion and Secular
Life in Late Medieval Yorkshire (Woodbridge, 1988), chapter IV, `Pastoral Care and Its
Adaptation to Eremitic Teaching in the Diocese of York, 1370±1430', pp. 174±250 (see
especially pp. 186±7, 192±202 and 208±9).
15
Ball, Ènglish Parochial Clergy', pp. 173±4, 206±7.
16
The evidence for the use of the cross crosslet as a priestly difference is not very
extensive: compare also, however, W. K. R. Bedford, Blazon of Episcopacy, 2nd edn
(Oxford, 1897), with notice of the arms of John Shirwood, bishop of Durham 1485±94
(p. 153, on his monument in Rome appear the arms on a chevron between three
estoiles a cross crosslet on a chief a mitre: the usual Shirwood arms are a chevron
between three estoiles), the arms of Thomas Charlton, bishop of Hereford 1327±44
(p. 59, the arms on his seal are semy of cross crosslets ®tchy a lion rampant: the
Charltons of Powys bore or a lion rampant gules) and the arms of Lewis Charlton,
bishop of Hereford 1361±9 (p. 60, a member of the same family, the arms on his tomb
are crusilly ®tchy a lion rampant gules quartering a lion rampant). (The present system
of cadency was only formalized by John Writhe, Garter, c.1500.)
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
40 Kate Harris
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Plate 2. Longleat House MS 24 fol. 3r detail, lower portion of page, actual

size (photograph David O'Connor, published by permission of the
Marquess of Bath).
1418±31. He was sometime chancellor of St Patrick's, Dublin and held the

archdeaconry of Northampton (1419±31) and the prebendary of Aylesbury in
Lincoln (1419±31): he was, further, a canon of Lich®eld and rector of
Fakenham, Norfolk and St Peter's, Northampton. FitzHugh was elected to
the see of Ely in 1435, but his death on 15 January 1436 prevented his
translation. Educated at Oxford University, he became warden of King's
Hall in Cambridge in 1424 (giving up the appointment in 1431): he was Henry
VI's proctor at the Roman curia, acted, in 1429, as an envoy to treat for an
alliance with Alphonso V of Aragon and was an ambassador to the Council of
Basel in 1434.17 The bishop left a number of books in his will, including a copy
of the Pupilla oculi, bequeathed to one of his executors, William Egmanton (a
fellow of King's Hall who had accompanied him to the curia), and volumes
bequeathed to Cambridge University Library and Christ Church Cathedral
Priory, Canterbury. The relevant passages from his will read:18
Item lego Willelmo Egmanton portiphorium meum parvum et minus

missale ac unum apparatum misse pro sacerdote et librum qui dicitur
17
See further Emden, Biographical Register, pp. 231±2 and see also A. B. Cobban, The
King's Hall Cambridge within the University of Cambridge in the Later Middle Ages
(Cambridge, 1969), pp. 284±5.
18
The Register of Henry Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury 1414±1443, ed. E. F. Jacob, 4
vols., the Canterbury and York Society, 42 (1937), II, 540±1.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Pupilla Oculi. Item lego magistro Willelmo Elot Bibliam meam minorem.
Item lego eidem librum qui dicitur Summa Confessorum ac parvum
libellum scilicet Flores Benedicti. . . . Item lego librarie communi
universitatis Cantebrigie textum moralis philosophie, item Codeton
super 4r libros Sentenciarum. Item lego ecclesie Christi Cantuariensi
exposicionem de Patrell' super librum Numeri et Ruth. . . . Item lego
magistro Waltero Belt librum de pastor[al]ibus, omeliis, dialogis et super
Cantica in uno volumine.
(Àlso I leave to William Egmanton my little breviary and my smaller
missal and a commentary on the mass for a priest and the book which is
called Pupilla Oculi. Also I leave to Master William Elot my smaller bible.
Also I leave to the same a book which is called Summa Confessorum and a
little book namely Flores Benedicti . . . Also I leave to the common library
of the university of Cambridge a text of moral philosophy, also Codeton
on the four books of Sentences. Also I leave to Christ Church, Canterbury
the exposition of Patrellus on the Book of Numbers and Ruth . . . Also I
leave to Master Walter Belt a book of pastoralia, homilies, dialogues and a
commentary on the Canticles in one volume.')
The second coat of arms is that of Richard Holme: presumably of the family
of Paull Holme in Yorkshire, he was a canon of York and prebendary of Holme
from 1393 until his death in 1424 and was also canon of Salisbury and
prebendary of Warminster 1391±3 and of Bishopstone 1393±1424. He was
proctor of the bishop of Salisbury at the Roman curia in June 1391. Holme
became a king's clerk under Richard II (by 1397) and, by 1408, was a member of
Henry IV's council. He appears as king's secretary in 1412. He had acted as
envoy to the French 1400±2 and 1408, and to the Scots 1409±11: he was envoy to
the duke of Burgundy in 1412±13. Appointed in 1417, Holme, was FitzHugh's
predecessor as warden of King's Hall, a position he held until his death.19 He
gave eleven manuscripts to the University Library, a two-volume Bible,
Nicholas de Lyra's commentary on the Bible in three volumes, a copy of St
Augustine's De civitate dei, `Liber decretorum' (surviving as Cambridge
University Library, Dd VII 20), Archidiaconus `Rosarium', `Decretales cum
constitucionibus Innocentii pape iiij et Constitucionibus Nicholai' (surviving
as Dd VII 18), Johannes Andreae Ìn novella super decretales' in two volumes,
`Liber sextus decretalium' with Dynus `Super regulis juris', Johannes Andreae
`Novella super sexto', Hostiensis `Summa', Johannes Andreae `Collectaria' and
Innocent IV `Super decretales' (surviving as Dd VIII 11).20 His surviving books
shed no light on the production history of Longleat MS 24: they are all much
earlier manuscripts. On his death, Holme gave money to build King's Hall
library and furnished it with many books.21 The Pupilla oculi manuscript has not
been traced amongst recorded or extant volumes from King's Hall.22
19
Emden, Biographical Register, pp. 311±12; Cobban, The King's Hall, p. 284.
20
Emden, Biographical Register, pp. 311±12.
21
C. H. Cooper, Memorials of Cambridge, 3 vols. (Cambridge, 1861±6), II, 205.
22
For extant King's Hall books, see Ker, Medieval Libraries, p. 26 and for the library see
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
42 Kate Harris
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Further evidence in the Longleat manuscript suggests that Holme and
FitzHugh may not have been the original commissioners of the volume or, at
least, that they were not the only parties to it. A third coat of arms was
originally placed in the centre of the lower margin. Although very thoroughly
erased, it can be blazoned as follows: azure on a bend an unidenti®able
device. Despite the doubts and uncertainties necessarily involved in the
treatment of such evidence, an important hypothesis, underscoring the
York connections of those commissioning the book, must not be left unstated.
It will be recalled that the manuscript is by no means complete: interrupted
production and eradication of the coat of arms accord well with the life, or
rather the sudden and disastrous fall, of Henry, third baron Scrope of
Masham, bearer of the arms azure on a bend or the shadow of a lion
(Plate 3). Although to associate Scrope with Corpus 61 must remain a
matter for speculation only, his fall accords equally, of course, with the
un®nished state of that manuscript: it accords further and precisely with
the defacement of the important male ®gure dressed in gold standing to the
left of the poet in the Corpus frontispiece, and sometimes identi®ed as a
representation of the book's patron (Plate 8). Thought to have been a close
friend of Henry V when he was Prince of Wales, Scrope had been Treasurer in
1410±11 and was frequently employed on embassy. With Lord FitzHugh, he
was prominent in the party that accompanied the Princess Philippa to
Denmark; he was sent as a commissioner to negotiate with France in 1409
and was involved in the embassy to Burgundy already mentioned in
connection with Richard Holme. He attended on the king's person in
Parliament and, as late as 22 July 1415, was appointed one of the feoffees of
Henry V's lands as duke of Lancaster. Concurring with the view that the
®gures in the Troilus frontispiece are not to be identi®ed with actual historical
characters at the court of Richard II, Elizabeth Salter ®rst conceded `The royal
and aristocratic dramatis personae whose literal presence in that crowded
parkland may be so unlikely are still part of the total history of the painting',
and then de®ned a role in the transmission of artistic styles across national
boundaries, for which Henry third baron Scrope might well have been
amongst those to audition successfully: `like their counterparts on the
continent, it is they and their ®fteenth century heirs who brought artists
travelling across frontiers to work for them and for their courtly circles, and
whose own travels, on errands of war and peace, must often have charted the
passage of books and forms of art between one country and another'.23
Scrope was executed at Southampton on 5 August 1415 for complicity in
the Southampton plot, the astonishing and reckless plot of his wife's stepson,
Richard, earl of Cambridge, the king's cousin, to depose Henry V and
C. E. Sayle, `King's Hall Library', Cambridge Antiquarian Society Proceedings and

Communications 24 (o.s. 72) (1923), 54±76 and Cobban, The King's Hall, pp. 246±58:
for John Leland's notice of the library see De rebus Britannicis collectanea (Oxford, 1715),
III, 17.
23
Troilus and Criseyde, p. 22.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Plate 3. York Minster choir clerestory glazing Nix panel 2a, arms of Henry,
third baron Scrope of Masham (photograph David O'Connor, published by
kind permission of the Dean and Chapter of York).
enthrone the ineffectual earl of March.24 (On his attainder, Scrope's con-
®scated estates were granted to his cousin, Henry V's chamberlain, Henry,
Lord FitzHugh.)25 His very closeness to the king has been adduced as one of
the reasons for the vehemence of Henry's sense of betrayal, a vehemence
which has been detected in his refusal to allow Scrope the same clemency
displayed in the commutation of the mode of execution in¯icted on his fellow
noble conspirators. The highly coloured account of Scrope's hypocrisy and
corruption by French gold, put forward by Thomas Walsingham in the St
24
See further T. B. Pugh, Henry V and the Southampton Plot of 1415, Southampton
Record Series, 30, 1988: for Scrope's involvement, see especially pp. 109±21.
25
Lord FitzHugh was the son of Henry, Lord FitzHugh (d. 1386) and Joan, daughter of
Henry, ®rst baron Scrope of Masham.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
44 Kate Harris
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Alban's Chronicle, gives him pride of place in the latter's listing of the
conspirators (`Primus et precipuus dominus Henricus le Scrop dicebatur in
cuius ®delitate totus animus regius requievit': `Named ®rst and foremost is
Henry Lord Scrope, on whose loyalty the king's whole heart/soul reposed').26
Of his in¯uence on the king, Walsingham writes: `Hic tantae fuit aestimatio-
nis penes Regem, ut si quando concilia privata vel publica tractabantur, hujus
dif®nitione terminabantur . . . quicquid ipse dictasset, velut oraculum e coelo
lapsum Rex oportere ®eri judicaret' (`This man was in such high esteem with
the king, that whenever there was discussion in private or public councils, it
was brought to an end by his intervention . . . whatever he said, like an oracle
fallen from heaven, the King judged ought to be done').27
The usual arms of the family of Scrope of Masham are azure a bend or, a
label of three points argent; Henry, Lord Scrope used the coat, azure on a
bend or the shadow of a lion, only during the last years of his life, following
his marriage in September(?) 1411 to Joan Holland, sister and co-heir of
Edmund, earl of Kent and widow of Edmund Langley, duke of York. The
ùmbra leonis' is said to be an allusion to the royal beast, the lion rampant.28
The Scropes were major patrons of the rebuilding and glazing of the choir in
York Minster, the former recently dated between 1393 and c. 1413.29 The arms
of Henry, Lord Scrope are amongst the large stone carved shields set in the
spandrels of the main choir arcades which seem to record ®nancial contribu-
tions to the bays in which they appear (the shield appears in the sixth bay
from the east on the north side).30 The arms of Archbishop Scrope also appear
(®fth bay on the south),31 as well as those of Scrope of Masham (sixth bay on
the south, probably representing Stephen, second baron Scrope, who died in
1406 and had been the ®rst to link the family closely with the Minster).32 The
glazing of the choir seems to date between about 1413 or 1414 and 1420: the
eight large windows of the choir clerestory are a single uni®ed scheme
depicting the arrival of Christianity in the north of England, and were,
presumably, a commission from the Dean and Chapter. The many coats of
arms in these windows, including those of the Scrope family, thus refer to
contributors to this scheme rather than, strictly, to donors. The arms of
Henry, Lord Scrope of Masham occur ®ve times in one of the north windows
(Nix);33 a detail of panel 2a is shown in Plate 3. The arms of Archbishop
26
The St Alban's Chronicle 1406±1420 edited from Bodley MS. 462, ed. V. H. Galbraith
(Oxford, 1937). p. 86.
27
Thomas Walsingham, Historia Anglicana (1272±1422), ed. H. T. Riley, Rolls Series, 2
vols. (1863±5), II, 305.
28
See H. S. London, `The Ghost or Shadow as a Charge in Heraldry', Archaeologia 93
(1948), 125±50 (especially pp. 141±4).
29
T. W. French, `The Dating of York Minster Choir', Yorkshire Archaeological Journal 64
(1992), 123±33.
30
French, `Dating', pp. 127 and 129 and ®g.3.
31
French, `Dating', p. 127 and p. 128 ®g.2.
32
French, `Dating', p. 127.
33
The numbering system used here is that of the Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi: for a
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Scrope and Scrope impaling Wells (representing Stephen, second baron
Scrope, who married Margery, daughter of John, Lord Wells) also appear.
Archdeacon Stephen Scrope was the donor of the east window in the
clerestory of the south choir transept (Svi): the window, pointedly facing
the image of St William (Svii), York's of®cial saint, on the west side of the
south choir transept given by another proteÂgeÂ of Archbishop Scrope and a
close associate of Stephen Scrope, Robert Wolvedon, shows `St' Richard
Scrope nimbed and, like St William, wearing full ponti®cals. It also shows
Stephen Scrope as a donor ®gure and includes the arms of Scrope of Masham
impaling Chaworth (3a: Sir John Scrope, younger brother of Henry, Lord
Scrope, married Elizabeth daughter of Sir Thomas Chaworth of Wiverton in
Nottinghamshire), Archbishop Richard Scrope (3b), Holtham (3d, Ivetta,
daughter of Sir Geoffrey Scrope and Ivetta de Roos married John de
Holtham) and Scrope of Masham (3e), the last probably representing the
archdeacon himself.34
The subject, the Annunciation, chosen for the ®rst historiated initial in
Longleat MS 24 (Plate 4) is identical with that selected in the Durham copy.
The ®rst of the ten parts into which the Pupilla oculi is divided is by far the
shortest and treats of the sacraments in general. (Parts two to ten, in order,
treat of baptism, con®rmation, the Eucharist, confession, extreme unction,
ordination, matrimony, tithes with residence, burials and wills, and, ®nally,
the decalogue, the articles and the sins ± in short, a programme of religious
instruction.) Part one contains two chapters only: like the rest of the text,
neither of them would prompt an opening illustration portraying St Stephen,
the second subject chosen to illustrate the ®rst page of the text in the Longleat
copy (Plate 5). The contents of the two chapters are described as follows in
MS 24 itself: `primum de sacramentorum numero et suf®ciencia. Secundum de
sacramentis iterandis et non iterandis et de caractere sacramentali'. Chapter
one describes the sacraments as giving visible form to the invisible and draws
out correspondences between the sacraments and Christ's wounds and the
seven virtues; it refers also to the two defects in man, original and actual sin.
Chapter two describes ®ve of the sacraments as compulsory for all Christians
and two (marriage and ordination) as optional: it describes baptism, con-
®rmation and ordination as unrepeatable and also sets out the difference
between the sacraments under the old and the new law, referring, further, to
the operation of grace and to the matter of circumcision. An explanation for
the choice of the subject for the second Longleat historiated initial has, thus,
to be sought outside the text, perhaps in St Stephen's Chapel in York Minster
numbered plan of the Minster windows see D. E. O'Connor and J. Haselock, `The
Stained and Painted Glass', in A History of York Minster, ed. G. E. Aylmer and R. Cant,
2nd edn (Oxford, 1979), p. 314.
34
The preceding account of the choir glazing draws on the unpublished research of
E. T. Owen and the guidance of D. O'Connor: for the pointed juxtaposition of images
of Archbishop Scrope and St William see O'Connor and Haselock, `The Stained and
Painted Glass', pp. 377±8
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Plate 4. Longleat House MS 24 fol. 3ra detail, historiated initial, the

Annunciation, enlarged (photograph David O'Connor, published by
permission of the Marquess of Bath).
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Plate 5. Longleat House MS 24 fol. 3rb detail, historiated initial, St Stephen,

enlarged (photograph David O'Connor, published by permission of the
Marquess of Bath).
(the easternmost two bays of the north aisle of the presbytery), which had
become the Scrope mausoleum following the death of Richard Scrope,
archbishop of York in 1405. It became the focus of his cult and was
`commonly called Scrop Chapell'.35
In his will Stephen Scrope, second baron Scrope of Masham, who died six
months after his brother, the archbishop, and had been head of the family
since 1392, asked to be buried in the middle of the chapel in front of the altar
steps.36 Three of his sons were also buried there: in 1418, Stephen Scrope,
archdeacon of Richmond, in 1455, John, fourth baron Scrope of Masham and
in 1463, William Scrope, archdeacon of Durham. An eminent Cambridge
scholar, who was Chancellor of the University in 1414, Stephen Scrope had
been secretary to his uncle, the archbishop, until the latter's death and, in his
will, had asked to be buried near the archbishop `juxta Dominum meum
Archiepiscopum Ebor., qui mihi in vita sua manus porrexit adjutrices, quem
in celis, jam exoro ut pro me fundat preces' (`beside my lord the archbishop
35
See the will of John, fourth baron Scrope, 1451, Testamenta Eboracensia, or Wills
Registered at York ed. J. Raine, 6 vols. [VI ed. J. W. Clay], Surtees Society 4, 30, 45, 53, 79,
106 (1836, 1855, 1865, 1869, 1884, 1902), II, 185.
36
Testamenta Eboracensia, Surtees Society 45 (1865), III, 32.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
48 Kate Harris
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
of York, who when he was alive reached out his helping hands to me, and
now he is in heaven I beg that he may pour out prayers on my behalf'.37
Thomas, ®fth baron Scrope of Masham founded a chantry in St Stephen's
Chapel on 7 June 1459 (licensed on 27 June) for two chaplains to pray for his
family.38
Below the Passion scene in the main lights of the east window of the chapel
(nII, Plate 6 and detail, nII 1a, Plate 7) are, to left and right, scenes from the
life of St Stephen (the central light includes a fourteenth-century intrusion).
Usually said to be of a date with the glazing of the choir clerestory and the
work of John Thornton at the east end, but possibly slightly later than either,
this glass is certainly stylistically distinct from both and thus probably
ascribable to an individual (Scrope?) donation also distinct from the more
major `corporate commission' promoted by the Dean and Chapter.
In his will of 23 June 1415, drawn up in anticipation of departure for the
Agincourt campaign, and, doubtless, best known for the many books it
mentions, Henry, third baron Scrope made alternative provisions for his
burial in York Minster, depending on the agreement of Joan Holland to be
buried there with him.39 If she was so willing, their tomb was to be placed
ìnter Duas Columpnas, ex parte Boreali, retro Magnum Altare' (`between
two columns, at the north part, behind the high altar').40 Scrope's alternative
provision refers to the placing of his tomb in the Chapel of St Stephen to the
north of his father's burial place, `habens Nomen meum & Obitum scriptum
in illa parte Tumba versus Ecclesiam, & Imaginem mei super dictam
Tumbam, armatam in Armis meis, cum Umbra Leonis in le Bende, prout
vivens utor' (`having my name and the date of my death written on that side
of the tomb facing the church, and my statue on the said tomb, armed in my
arms, with the shadow of a lion on a bend, just as I bear them in life'). 41 In his
will, he left £60 for three mass priests to say masses and prayers for his soul
ùbi Tumba mea erit, si ibi sit Altare, & aliter in Capella Sancti Stephani'
(`where my tomb is, if there is an altar there, and otherwise in the chapel of St
Stephen')42 and for the souls of departed members of his family (including the
archbishop) and others and for the living (including Henry, Lord FitzHugh).
At the end of the will there is a direction to his executors to use the residue of
his estate to found a perpetual chantry in the Chapel of St Stephen. All three
priests involved were to celebrate mass in the Chapel of St Stephen if he was
37
For the will see Testamenta Eboracensia, Surtees Society 4 (1836), I, 385±9; the
quotation appears p. 385.
38
See further T. W. French, `The Tomb of Archbishop Scrope in York Minster',
Yorkshire Archaeological Journal 61 (1989), 95±102; H. Murray, `The Scrope Tapestries',
Yorkshire Archaeological Journal 64 (1992) 145±56 (see pp. 151±2).
39
PRO E41/364: T. Rymer, Foedera (®rst published 1740, reprinted Farnborough,
1967), IV, 131±4.
40
Rymer, Foedera, p. 131a.
41
Rymer, Foedera, p. 131a
42
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Plate 6. York Minister St Stephen's Chapel east

window, nII (Royal Commission on Historical
Monuments of England # Crown Copyright).
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
50 Kate Harris
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Plate 7. York Minister St Stephen's Chapel east window, nII panel 1a detail,
head of St Stephen (photograph David O'Connor, published by kind
permission of the Dean and Chapter of York).
buried there. If he was buried behind the high altar, the third was to celebrate
at the altar planned to be built in front of the shrine behind the high altar
(presumably the shrine of St William in the ®rst of the four northern bays
behind the altar ± perhaps a clue to the place of burial intended). The relevant
portion of the will reads `Volo quod Duo celebrent in Capella Sancti Stephani,
& Tertius illorum ad Altare quod erit ante Feretrum retro Summum Altare, &
inter dictum Altare & Cathedram Archiepiscopalem, & quousque illud
Altare aedi®cetur, celebret in Capella praedicta cum Duobus Capellanis
praedictis' (Ì want two to celebrate in the chapel of St Stephen, and the
third of them at the altar which will be in front of the shrine behind the high
altar, and between the said altar and the archbishop's throne, and until that
altar is built he may celebrate in the said chapel with the two chaplains
aforesaid').43 Besides £20 left to the new works in the Minster, a wealth of
silver gilt images (images a yard high of the Virgin Mary and St Peter and St
Paul, and an image of St John the Baptist with St Catherine, the object of
Scrope's special devotion) left to the high altar in the Minster, with a great
silver gilt cross, a pair of silver gilt covered basins, `Duo Texti magni de
pulcrioribus Argentei & Deaurati' (`two of the most beautiful great silver and
gilt Texts', apparently Epistles and Gospels), vestments, a red and black
canopy covered with swans and lions for use in Palm Sunday processions,
43
Rymer, Foedera, p. 134b. My interpretation of the place of intended burial differs
from that put forward by French, `The Tomb of Archbishop Scrope', pp. 98±9.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
altar frontals and a pair of great silver gilt candlesticks, Scrope left to the altar
of St Stephen a panel painted with àntiquis Armis meis in dorso' (`with my
ancient arms on the back'), altar frontals, hangings, vestments, including
Òrfreys imbroudandis cum armis meis'(òrphreys embroidered with my
arms'), a silver gilt image of St John the Baptist, a pair of candlesticks, a silver
gilt pax, a silver cruet and bell, ùnam Crucem parvam, cum Maria &
Johannes, quam feci Londoniae' (à little cross, with Mary and John, that I
had made in London') and three further panels to be selected by his
executors.44 Scrope's attainder, of course, thwarted all the provisions of his
will: that document nevertheless makes apparent his intention to leave a
permanent mark on York Minster and on the Scrope chapel there, a memorial
much more multi-faceted than his funerary monument itself. Destined only
to have a transient memorial in York (his head displayed on Micklegate Bar),
Scrope's letter to the king written after his condemnation on 5 August 1415,
and now surviving in very fragmentary form, shows that his planned
memorial in York Minster was still a matter of urgent concern to him.45 It
is possible that Longleat MS 24 may have been intended as part of such a
memorial and also possible that Scrope was the kind of patron to have
commissioned such a book, a patron with access to the best arti®cers in all
spheres, not just in that of book production.
Whether Scrope was also the exceptional patron behind that enigma, the
Corpus Troilus, is, of course, incapable of proof. Indeed, it may be that the
characteristics of a traitor's books would include the eradication of marks of
ownership and that this itself is responsible for the impenetrable obscurity
surrounding the origins of Corpus MS 61. There is, however, no means of
demonstrating that the vandalism perpetrated on the Corpus frontispiece
was concerted rather than casual. There is no more reason to associate
Scrope with Corpus MS 61 than there is so to associate either of the other two
patrons known to have employed the Troilus master as a border artist.46 The
coincidence of the fall of an overweening subject and the abandonment of
this project of unprecedented ambition is startling, but it is poetic rather than
a matter of fact. The ambition of the design of the Troilus has been analysed
by Dr Parkes in his introduction to the facsimile edition in these terms:
`Books copied in this script [the display script littera quadrata usually
reserved for liturgical manuscripts and de luxe books] were almost twice
as expensive as books copied in other scripts, and the programme of
illustrations on the scale suggested by the gaps and in the manner of the
frontispiece would have required considerable outlay.' Despite the absence
44
Rymer, Foedera, p. 131b.
45
PRO E163/7/7 (Exchequer Miscellanea): for a modern English edition see Pugh,
Henry V and the Southampton Plot, pp. 170±1. The letter mentions particularly the three
great images identi®able in Scrope's will amongst the many objects left to York Minster.
46
For Dr Scott's identi®cation of Charles d'OrleÂans and John Whetehamstede as
owners of manuscripts including borders by the artist of the Troilus frontispiece see
`Limner-Power', pp. 55±75.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
52 Kate Harris
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
of proof, it has to be said that what is known of Scrope's career and his
activity as a patron, particularly as the latter is demonstrated by that second
extraordinary book, the Longleat copy of the Pupilla oculi, does correspond
with the sequence of events and the pro®le of the patron conjured up by
Parkes to explain the vaulting ambition of the Troilus manuscript and the
abandonment of the same before completion. He writes, mildly enough if
Scrope's own fate is borne in mind:47
Some change of circumstances seems to have led to the abandonment of the

project. The book seems to have been planned on a scale of magni®cence
which, although it must have re¯ected the taste of whoever commissioned
the book in the ®rst instance, was too ambitious in terms of what any other
®fteenth-century patron in England was prepared to accept, either ®nan-
cially or in terms of literary and artistic taste. The book was not a service
book or a book of Hours, but a copy of a recent vernacular text. . . . The fate
of this manuscript may serve as a salutary reminder of the limits of English
taste or extravagance or both, in the early ®fteenth century, by contrast with
what had become acceptable on the continent.
An administrator of system and rigour, Scrope seems to have brought

something of a `Midas touch' to the of®ce of Treasurer. Pugh describes him as
`more competent in the dif®cult task of handling the king's ®nances than any
of his predecessors since 1399', and records that ìt was a notable achieve-
ment that he managed to secure a surplus of more than £8,750 in the Treasury
when he resigned'.48 Of the substantial means of this acquisitive patron there
can be no doubt. A landowner in nine English counties besides Yorkshire and
in the Welsh counties of Carmarthen and Pembroke, Scrope's annual joint
income with his second wife, Joan Holland, has been estimated as amounting
to at least £1800 and the value of his forfeited personal property to £6000.49 He
was obviously enriched by his two highly pro®table marriages: his second
marriage has in fact been described as an àmbitious business merger' and it
has even been suggested that it was Scrope's concern for the security of large
loans he had advanced to the impecunious earl of March that led to his fatal
failure to denounce the Southampton conspirators to the king.50
It is not practicable here to analyze in detail the manifold book bequests in
Scrope's will or the books listed in the inventory of his goods at Pontefract
Castle drawn up in December 1415.51 Only some salient characteristics can be
47
Troilus and Criseyde, p. 13.
48
Pugh, Henry V, p. 111.
49
Pugh, Henry V, p. 110, p. 111, p. 113, p. 117 and p. 121 13n.
50
Scrope married ®rst the heiress, Philippa de Bryan. Pugh writes (Henry V, p. 117)
`His concern for the security of his money mattered more than his loyalty to the king,
and his preoccupation with keeping his wealth cost him his life.' See further p. 112,
p. 113 and pp. 118±119.
51
For the last, a Priscian, Bede's De gestibus Anglie, the Sermones Dominicales in
Evangelia, a glossed Psalter and a Bible appearing in the great wardrobe account of
Henry VI from 1422 (PRO E101/407/13 fol. 4v) down to at least 1445 (E101/409/12
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
given brief notice: ®rst, the sheer number of books, their plentiful supply
emphasized by the frequency with which Scrope, in his will, leaves the choice
of books to be given to a particular bene®ciary as a matter for the discretion of
his executors; secondly, the range of texts ± English and especially French
texts for the women, learned Latin works for bene®ciaries like the dean of his
chapel, or the bishop of Durham or Scrope's brother, Stephen. The will and
inventory reveal as much about contemporary northern spirituality (notably
the background against which Ball cast the playing out of the reception of the
Pupilla oculi in York)52 as contemporary production of ®ne illuminated
manuscripts. The inventory is dominated by chapel books but also mentions
a life of St Bridget besides ùnum librum pro missa et matutinis de sancto
Johannes Bridlyngton' (à book for mass and matins of St John of Bridling-
ton');53 the will mentions, besides a bequest to the chaplain àpud [at]
Clemetthorp', `St' Richard Scrope's place of execution, and another to
Èlizabethae quondam Servienti Anchoritae de Hampole' (Èlizabeth for-
merly servant of the anchorite of Hampole'),54 the Revelations of St Bridget
left to Stephen Scrope, as well as ùnum Librum qui incipit, Cum Libro vocato
Sintillar, & in [quo] continetur incendium Amoris, quem Richardus Heremita
composuit, & unum Quaternum, parvum, in quo continetur expositio super
Judica me Deus, quod Richardus Heremita composuit & scripsit' left to
`Consanguineo meo', Henry, Lord FitzHugh `pro Remembrancia' (à book
which begins Cum Libro vocato Sintillar, containing the Incendium Amoris
which Richard [Rolle] the hermit composed, and a little booklet containing
an explanation of Judica me Deus, which Richard the hermit composed and
wrote down', left to `my kinsman' Henry, Lord FitzHugh, às a remem-
brance').55 An earlier family collection of books clearly passes under the will:
Scrope is concerned to ensure the reversion of such bequests to his heir. The
`Librum vocatum Apocalipsi in Latinis & Gallicis bene illuminatum cooper-
tum cum Panno Lineo' (À ®nely illuminated book called Apocalypse in Latin
fols. 47v, 51v, 106r), see J. Stratford, `The Royal Library in England before the Reign of
Edward IV', ed. N. Rogers, England in the Fifteenth Century: Proceedings of the 1992
Harlaxton Symposium (Stamford, 1994), pp. 187±97 (p. 196 and 38n: thanks are due to Dr
Stratford for discussing Scrope's books with me). For the Pontefract inventory, see C.L.
Kingsford, `Two Forfeitures in the Year of Agincourt', Archaeologia 20 (1920), 71±100.
For books in the inventory see p. 83, p. 91 and pp. 93±94. Service books predominate:
the books included a copy of Genesis in French, seven antiphoners, ùnum martilo-
gium de usu Ebor.', three missals (one of them described as `de usu Bangorensi'), two
gospel books, three lectionaries (`j magnam Legendam temporalem', `j magnam
legendam Sanctorum' and `j integram legendam'), six graduals, a collectar, three
ordinals, ìj Jornalia pro missa beate Marie', an invitatory, eighteen processionals, a
manual, ùnum librum de vita Sancte Brigid' and ùnum librum pro missa et matutinis
de sancto Johanne Bridlyngton'.
52
Ball, Ènglish Parochial Clergy', chapter II, `The Distribution of the Manuals', part ii,
`Geography of Religion', and see further pp. 347±8.
53
See 51n above.
54
Rymer, Foedera, p. 132b.
55
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
54 Kate Harris
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
and French, bound in a linen cloth book cover') that he left to his ®rst wife's
mother clearly belonged to an earlier age.56 The case of the `pulchrum Librum
de Matutinis & aliis Orationibus coopertum cum Panno lineo' (à beautiful
book of matins and other prayers covered with linen cloth') left to the same
bene®ciary is less clear-cut, but the psalter left to Scrope's brother, John, was
de®nitely both new and illuminated: it is referred to as ùnum Psalterium
novum glossatum, elumpnatum, cum Armis meis & Uxoris meae' (à new
glossed psalter, illuminated, with my arms and those of my wife').57 The
purchase of books is referred to on three occasions in the will: twice the
reference is merely to missals to be bought by his executors to ful®l the terms
of the will, but the Revelations of St Bridget, left to Stephen Scrope, also
appears as ùnum Librum de Revelationibus Sanctae Brigidiae Virginis quem
emi Beverlaci' `(a book of the Revelations of St Bridget the Virgin which I
bought in Beverley').58
If the hypothesis put forward here about the identi®cation of the manu-
script's ®rst patron is correct, both the book's incompleteness and the fact
that the arms of this patron's immediate successors in supporting the
production of the book, Holme and FitzHugh, are of a piece with the rest
of the decoration on fol. 3r suggest ®rmly that the volume dates from the very
year of Scrope's fall, 1415. If the hypothesis is correct, it still remains unclear
whether the historiated initial showing St Stephen in the Longleat Pupilla
oculi was intended to signal a general allusion to the Scrope family and their
Chapel of St Stephen, a speci®c memorial to Stephen, second baron Scrope, or
a speci®c association with Archdeacon Stephen Scrope ± or all three. It is also
unclear how far the message it contained was understood: it is notable that
the initial escaped the eradication meted out to the coat of arms. Given the
nature of the text it contains, I cannot think that Longleat MS 24 was intended
for the Scrope chapel but it possibly bears repetition that the early ®fteenth-
century àge of library building' included the library and choristers' school
on the west side of the south transept of York Minster, begun with the
bequest of treasurer John Newton in 1414 and certainly complete by 1421.59
By 1418, when Archdeacon Stephen Scrope left some of his books to the
library, a bequest acknowledged by the inclusion of his arms in the library
glazing scheme, such a bequest had become common practice for those
Minster clergy, whose interest in John de Burgh's text is so well attested and
may have been in the forefront of the mind of the commissioner of the very
unusual copy in the library at Longleat House.
56
57
58
Rymer, Foedera, p. 132b and p. 133a.
59
See C. B. L. Barr, `The Minster Library', in A History of York Minster, ed. Aylmer and
Cant, pp. 487±538 (especially pp. 494±6). For Newton's will see Testamenta Eboracensia,
Surtees Society 4 (1836), I, 364±71: see also Emden, Biographical Register, pp. 421±2.
d:/3riddy/scott.3d ± 31/7/0 ± 19:39 ± diskB&B/mp
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
LIMNER-POWER: A BOOK ARTIST IN ENGLAND c. 1420
Kathleen L. Scott
If we surmise that a limner might obtain ascendancy in the ®fteenth century,

the quality of his work was almost certainly his main entreÂe to the corridors
of power and to the patrons who walked those tiled ¯oors. The limners' guild
seems not to have been a considerable presence nor to have had much
in¯uence on city affairs,1 even if its members must have possessed a talent
not available to ambition or to purchase. A youth might have learned the skill
to be a draper but not the talent of a limner, and this talent is of course a
special form of power. Once an individual artist was admitted ± at whatever
remove ± to the employment of dukes, bishops, and abbots, he could, if
exceptional, apparently exact at least one useful privilege ± that of a reduced
limning load. That he could also be more selective among prospective
customers is another possible if perhaps less provable hypothesis. The
artist whom I intend to discuss in this paper as representative of limner-
power is already widely appreciated: he is the master of the frontispiece of
Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 61, the justly famous copy of
Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde.2 I shall suggest here four further manuscripts
± and two other possible manuscripts ± that were either illustrated or
decorated (or both) by this illuminator, demonstrate his usual procedure in
completing work on each manuscript, and point to a consistency in the type
of patron for whom he worked, both as of interest in itself and as a possible
indication of his capacity to select among patrons.
The master of the Corpus frontispiece (Plate 8) was an exceptional painter
whose style was strongly in¯uenced by Parisian book illustration.3 The
1
The limners' guild was not among the twelve great livery companies (G. Unwin, The
Gilds and Companies of London (London, 1908) ), and none of the Àldermanic Families'
listed by S. L. Thrupp (The Merchant Class of Medieval London [1300±1500] (Ann Arbor,
1989), pp. 321±77) belonged to the limners' guild. C. P. Christianson in A Directory of
London Stationers and Book Artisans (New York, 1990), pp. 37±9, describes the guild as
`never more than a minor mistery'.
2
The frontispiece is on fol. 1v. Discussion and bibliography of the manuscript to about
1989 appears in my Later Gothic Manuscripts, vol. VI of A Survey of Manuscripts
Illuminated in the British Isles, gen. ed. J. J. G. Alexander, 2 vols. (London, 1995), II,
no. 58. The present study was originally planned to precede this catalogue entry.
3
I agree with Elizabeth Salter, who believed that èither the immediate or the
ultimate in¯uences upon the stylistic modes of the miniature' were not to be
`sought anywhere but in that Parisian work of the late fourteenth and early ®fteenth
centuries to which so many brilliant Italian and Flemish artists contributed' (`The
``Troilus Frontispiece'' ', in Troilus and Criseyde: Geoffrey Chaucer: A Facsimile of Corpus
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
56 Kathleen L. Scott
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Corpus Master's work might be described as Ìnternational French', or,
probably an English artist, he may have been trained either on the Continent
or by a French artist in England, who had absorbed some aspects of English
book illustration, notably the border design. As we shall see, this French
connection may prove important with respect to the standing ®gure whom
the author/speaker in the pulpit seems to address. As far as the date of the
frontispiece is concerned, Salter stated that, on grounds of costume, the
Corpus miniature could not refer to à period later than the second decade of
the ®fteenth century'.4 Because of its association with a datable manuscript
(see below), I would re®ne that period to between 1415 and c. 1420. But before
further discussion of MS Corpus 61, I wish to identify a basic assumption in
my paper, namely, that the artist of the frontispiece and the maker of the
frame and sprays are here taken to be the same person. Even if they were not,
the border work alone would establish a connection among the group of
manuscripts to be described below, and there is, as we shall see, only one of
these manuscripts that might call the hypothesis of a common illustrator and
frame artist in MS Corpus 61 into question.5
Because I here use the Corpus miniature and the decorative work on its
frame as the standard of comparison, I want to point especially to those
characteristics of colouring, motif and style that recur in the other manu-
scripts. The colours used on the Corpus page for drapery are intense pink
and blue, a darker blue and an orange-red, all of which are modulated by
deeper tones of self-colour. Costumes are ®nished with belting or with panels
of worked gold over the shoulder, around the neckline or down the front of
the garment. In several instances the neckline is V-shaped with a turned-back
collar that exposes a white lining.6 Two personages do not conform to this
pattern: the speaker, taken to be Chaucer, who is dressed in a self-effacing
pinkish tan and the standing ± or outstanding ± ®gure who is dressed,
uniquely in the picture, in a costume entirely of gold brocade studded with
blue jewels. I see this singularly designated personage as the patron of the
manuscript. Importance is drawn to the speaker, on the other hand, by means
of a drop of red material over the front of the lectern. Heads are drawn in a
Christi College Cambridge MS 61, with introductions by M. B. Parkes and E. Salter

(Cambridge, 1978), pp. 19 and 21).
4
`The ``Troilus Frontispiece'' ', p. 15.
5
If the illustrator of MS Corpus 61 were to be found in a manuscript with a different
border or frame artist, I would then be inclined to view the Corpus frontispiece as by
two separate limners.
6
White is also used on the costume as the exposed lining of sleeves and once to point
up a band of gold embroidery across the bodice and down the front of a female ®gure
in the foreground.
Plate 8. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 61, Geoffrey Chaucer,

Troilus and Criseyde, fol. 1v, frontispiece of Chaucer reciting below scene
from poem; full frame with sprays.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
Limner-Power: A Book Artist in England 57
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
¯attened manner and thrust slightly forward from the neck on some ®gures,
and faces are rendered in a light tan or slightly orange tone, with some at the
rear in a green cast. Necks tend to be long and graceful, whether or not
hidden by a high collar. Features are shown as lengthened noses, narrow
elongated eyes set wide apart, and small mouths. Hair is visible mainly on
the Chaucer-®gure and on two males at left rear, one of whom has ¯uffy
blond hair shaded in orange. The background is stippled gold worked with
long vines of spoon leaves and barbed ¯owers. The miniature frame (Plates 8
and 9) is composed of a continuous band of circular vines that enclose ¯owers
with folded and lobed petals and twisted leaves in various forms, all
rendered in intense tones of blue, pink and orange. The gold stippled
ground again uses single spoon leaves as the main motif. The spraywork
outside the band frame contains pen vines with tiny green lobes (feathering),
large gold balls and unusual, rather ¯amboyant motifs of tightly curled
leaves, some with twisted lobes, and smaller gold balls. An important motif
found in the related manuscripts is a pear shape drawn in pen and ink that
encloses a minute circle and has on the outside three small green lobes and an
elongated pen squiggle (Plate 9). In the related books both this pear-shaped
motif and a stack of pen circles on a gold motif are characteristic of the artist.
The frontispiece is the only miniature in MS Corpus 61, and there are about
ninety spaces for other miniatures left blank throughout the text.7 The easy
assumption might be that the artist of the frontispiece would have continued on
to ®ll these blanks, but in fact this would probably not have been the case. The
completion of full sequences of pictures or of borders was, as the following
manuscripts will demonstrate, not the normal modus operandi of this artist.
One of the more important surviving manuscripts with work by the
Corpus Master ± and the only other one as yet identi®ed with illustrative
work by the Master ± is Warminster, Longleat House, MS 24,8 a copy of John
de Burgh's Pupilla oculi9 with an index and, on fols. 110r±113r, Constitutions
for the Province of Canterbury of 1222, promulgated by Stephen Langton,
archbishop of Canterbury. This book has illumination only on the introduc-
tory text page (Plate 1), consisting of two historiated initials, an Annunciation
and a three-quarter ®gure of St Stephen10 (Plates 4 and 5), framed by an
7
The most recent comment on these spaces, with a new estimate of their number at
eighty, is given by Phillipa Hardman, Ìnterpreting the Incomplete Scheme of
Illustration in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 61', English Manuscript Studies
1100±1700 6 (1997), 52±69.
8
For further discussion of this manuscript, see Kate Harris's contribution to this
volume, pp. 35±54 and her forthcoming catalogue of the manuscripts at Longleat
House. I am grateful to Dr Harris for sharing her views on Longleat MS 24 with me.
9
De Burgh was Proctor (1370±71) and Chancellor (1384±86) of the University of
Cambridge, with ties to Lincoln and York. See A. B. Emden, A Biographical Register of
the University of Cambridge to 1500 (Cambridge, 1963), p. 107.
10
The measurement of the picture space within the Annunciation initial is 665cm and
of the space for the second initial 2.962.4cm The only other representational work in
the Longleat manuscript is a pen-drawn nota bene hand in a sleeve on fol. 5r.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Plate 9. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 61, Chaucer, Troilus and

Criseyde, fol. 1v, detail of frame with sprays.
exceptionally ®ne border. The main colour masses of the Annunciation are
rendered in the same intense pink, orange, and orange-red of the Corpus
frontispiece, with a darker blue for the Virgin's robe,11 these being placed
against a gold ground stippled with single leaves on vines. The neck opening
of the Virgin's robe laps back in two points, one of which she holds in a piece
of stage business more suitable to the Corpus frontispiece than to a Virgin
Annunciate. With the other hand she turns the page of her prayerbook, which
rests on a tasselled cloth or cushion. The angel's drapery, in pink shaded to
dark red, ¯utters away from its body at rear, with the form otherwise soft and
languid in the manner of the Corpus ®gures. The main difference with regard
to drapery is the use of a dark or light green rather than white for the lining of
the robe. Faces are rendered in a complexion tone shaded in white with pale
tan features; hair is ¯uffy yellow tinted near the face with tan and orange. The
angel has a ¯attened head shape, and chins are thrust forward from a long
neck. The scene is placed well behind the framing initial H, with shaded tiles
to give a further illusion of depth; the Virgin's halo nevertheless overlaps
illogically the upper framing line.
The second Longleat initial shows Stephen as a young tonsured saint in
deacon's dress, holding a clutch of stones in his left hand (Plate 5). The
ecclesiastical dress con®rms the artist's inclination to use dark blue for robes,
11
This dark blue also occurs on a female ®gure in the Corpus frontispiece, i.e. on the
outer robe of the central female in the upper level of the scene.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
to reveal a white lining at the neck and to decorate costume with bands of
stippled gold. The hair is softly rendered in yellow and rust, the facial
expression is slightly apprehensive, and the gesture of the right hand is
perhaps dismissive or deprecatory in intent. Features are in a pale or darker
brown, with a rosy complexion, the line of the eyebrows is high, and the head
¯attened in shape. The design of the background is a plain circular band
enclosing a stippled circle, all in gold.
The border (cf. Plates 1 and 2) uses the same colour range of pink, blue
and red-orange as that employed for the Corpus frame and is designed as a
band of gold on which lies a bar frame and a curving vine that supports
rows of single leaves. The leaves may be simple spoon shapes, larger and
deeply folded, or curled back on themselves. At the corners of the bar
frame, roundels are formed of a circular vine with a pinwheel of leaves
outside; and from painted vine stubs on the bar delicate pen vines grow
into the margins, decorated with single tightly curled leaves. The border
contains the characteristic pear-shaped pen design drawn on gold points
outside the initial. There are fewer of the unusual coloured leaves in the
sprays than on the Corpus spraywork and, for some reason, no large gold
balls were entered. Like the page with the Corpus frontispiece, the
introductory page of Longleat MS 24 (fol. 3r) is the only leaf with work
by this artist, and, from fol. 4r, main text divisions of the Pupilla were
®nished with spray initials by other craftsmen,12 one of whom made gold
letters in®lled with white designs outlined in black.13 I associate this style of
initial with eastern England, in particular Lincolnshire, and it is likely that
Longleat MS 24 was decorated at two different locales, at one site by the
Corpus Master and at a different, probably regional site by the limners of
the spray initials. A similar kind of initial is in the Wollaton Antiphonal, one
of whose illustrators worked in an anglicized International mode approx-
imating that of the Corpus Master.14
The production of copies of the Pupilla oculi had, according to the
important work of Hughes, wide social and theological implications,15 and
12
A spray initial, sometimes employed in the ®fteenth century at textual sub-divisions
instead of a partial border, is de®ned as an in®lled coloured letter on a gold ground
with sprays that contain both coloured and gold motifs. The initials here are actually of
a mixed type, having the gold letters on a rose/blue ground characteristic of champ
initials. I have continued to call these spray initials because of their large size and type
of spraywork.
13
See for example fol. 53v.
14
The antiphonal in Nottingham University Library, MS 250, was made for Sir
Thomas Chaworth of Wiverton, Nottinghamshire, probably in a shop located in
eastern England. The artist mentioned above is designated Hand A (of three different
illustrators) in my Later Gothic Manuscripts, II, no. 69; his work occurs on fols. 34r, 135r,
200v, 213r, 220v, 246v, 339v and possibly on 166r. See also T. Turville-Petre, `Some
Medieval English Manuscripts in the North-east Midlands', in Manuscripts and Readers
in Fifteenth-Century England, ed. D. Pearsall (Cambridge, 1983), p. 132 and pl. 2 (of
fol. 34r).
15
J. Hughes, Pastors and Visionaries: Religion and Secular Life in Late Medieval Yorkshire
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
the Longleat copy is not unique in being illustrated or in having a good
quality of decoration. Durham Cathedral Library, MS B.IV.33, for instance,
contains a sequence of nine miniatures with borders, and other copies were
made with a full complement of borders, raising them above the level of
average production.16 The two coats of arms superimposed at the bottom of
the introductory leaf of Longleat MS 24 have been identi®ed by Kate Harris17
as those, at the left, of Robert Fitzhugh, canon of Lincoln (1418±31), canon of
York (1418), archdeacon of Northampton (1419±31), canon of Lich®eld (1420),
and bishop of London (1431; died January 1436) and, at the right, of Richard
Holme, canon of Salisbury and afterwards of York and member of Henry IV's
council (died 1424).18 These men have in common family origins in Yorkshire,
(Woodbridge, 1988), Chapter 4, `Pastoral Care and its adaptation to Eremitic Teach-
ings in the Diocese of York, 1370±1450', pp. 174±250 (pp. 193±4, 208, 240±1, 243).
16
The pictorial subjects in Durham MS B.IV.33 are sacramental in nature, apart from the
®rst (fol. 3r), which is, like that in Longleat MS 24, an Annunciation (with no particular
iconographic or stylistic connection between the two). The other Durham miniatures
are of a Baptism scene (fol. 5r), a con®rmation ceremony (fol. 14v), the sacrament of the
Holy Eucharist (fol. 16v), a confession scene (fol. 38r), a viaticum or Extreme Unction
(fol. 101v), an ordination scene (fol. 104v), marriage ceremony (fol. 137r) and the
dedication of a church (fol. 164r). Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Rawlinson A. 359,
written in Exeter, late fourteenth century, is another manuscript context for the Longleat
copy; it has ®ne workmanship of page design, ¯ourished letters, cadels on ascenders
and partial borders with large initials throughout. See similarly Oxford, Magdalen
College, MS 110, of c. 1400, with a full border at fol. 1r and partial borders of good
quality elsewhere, apart from a ¯ourisher's error on fol. 48r; the manuscript is noted in
J. J. G. Alexander and E. Temple, Illuminated Manuscripts in Oxford College Libraries, the
University Archives and the Taylor Institution (Oxford, 1985), no. 376. London, British
Library, MS Royal 7.E.v, fols. 4r±166r, c. 1400±1410, has a good full border at fol. 4r, with
gold letters and sprays at other main text divisions. This copy was owned by Thomas
Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury (fol. 4r); on the connection of Arundel's circle with
the Pupilla oculi, see Hughes, Pastors and Visionaries, pp. 194, 240 and 243.
Kate Harris and I disagree on the point of a decorative context for Longleat MS 24.
Although agreeing that the Longleat page is of exceptional quality, I see the presence of
a series of nine miniatures in the Durham manuscript as a context, even if we do not
today perhaps admire the style as much, and the Rawlinson series of borders also as an
intention to present the text in a worthy context. Even popular texts such as the Prick of
Conscience and Piers Plowman did not excite the presentation of the Pupilla copies, nearly
half of which as Kate Harris says, were decorated (see `Patronage and Dating', p. 37).
17
See Harris, `Patronage and Dating', pp. 39±41.
18
For mention of Fitzhugh, see DNB, VII, 177±8; L. B. Radford, Henry Beaufort: Bishop,
Chancellor, Cardinal (London, 1908), p. 197; Emden, Biographical Register, pp. 231±2; R. A.
Grif®ths, The Reign of King Henry VI: The Exercise of Royal Authority, 1422±1461 (Berkeley
and Los Angeles, 1981), pp. 43, 46, 66, n. 62, 98, 103, and 105, n. 20; A. B. Cobban, The
Medieval English Universities: Oxford and Cambridge to c. 1500 (Berkeley and Los Angeles,
1988), pp. 315, n. 63 and 316; and Harris, `Patronage and Dating', pp. 35±54. Fitzhugh,
son of Henry Lord Fitzhugh of Ravensworth Castle, Yorkshire, was also Chancellor of
Cambridge University (1423±28), with degrees of doctor of theology from both Oxford
and Cambridge. His obit occurs in at least three ®ne illustrated manuscripts, which are
not certainly connected to him directly: Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 49,
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
tenure as warden of King's Hall, Cambridge, service to a king of England,
and the benefaction of books to Cambridge University library, as Kate Harris
has shown. In view of Hughes's suggestion that the Pupilla oculi was adapted
by John de Burgh from Pagula's Oculus sacerdotis `to meet the special
requirement of an elite group of Cambridge graduates and bene®ce holders'
and that Cambridge University and York Minster were important `distribu-
tion' centres for the text,19 the presence of the Fitzhugh and Holme arms in a
copy of the Pupilla would ®t the `pattern of circulation' among Cambridge
graduates and northern ecclesiastics.20 And this copy, like that of Archbishop
Arundel (London, British Library, MS Royal 7.E.v), stands as exceptional
evidence of the connection.21
A third coat of arms has been thoroughly erased but identi®ed tentatively
by Kate Harris as those of Scrope of Masham. Harris suggests that Holme and
Fitzhugh were not `the original commissioners of the volume or, at least. . .not
the only parties to it' and that Henry Scrope, third baron Scrope of Masham,
may have been the instigator of Longleat MS 24.22 Given the central position
of the erased arms, it is indeed likely that the bearer was involved in its
production. If the Scrope arms were, as would have been normal, simul-
taneous with the other two, then we are, as often, not certain of the relation-
ship of the arms to each other (did three persons or families sponsor one
book?) and to the production of the book (did one person commission the
book and make allusion to the others through the arms?). Harris has expertly
established a connection for the initial of St Stephen with the Scrope family
and with York Minster, in particular describing the possible patronage of
Henry, third baron Scrope, who died in 1415.23 While agreeing with Harris's
context, I should nevertheless like to propose a different member of the
family as the originating patron: Stephen Scrope, archdeacon of Richmond,
son of Stephen, second baron Scrope of Masham, brother of Henry, third
baron Scrope, and nephew of Richard Scrope, archbishop of York.24 Stephen
Scrope had an important Cambridge connection through his Chancellorship
of the University in 1414, and his death in September 1418 would ®t better
Hours, fol. 1r; London, British Library, MS Cotton Tiberius B.iii, Poem on the Litany,
fol. 2r (damaged; thirteenth-century manuscript to fol. 142r); and former Rothesay, Isle
of Bute, Library of the Marquess of Bute, MS G.28, Hours, fol. 42v. For Holme, see
Emden, Biographical Register, pp. 311±12; J. L. Kirby, Henry IV of England (London, 1970),
p. 259; and Harris, `Patronage and Dating', pp. 35±54.
19
Hughes, Pastors and Visionaries, pp. 193±4.
20
Hughes, Pastors and Visionaries, pp. 194 and 208.
21
See note 16 above.
22
See Harris, `Patronage and Dating', pp. 35±54, and for further information concern-
ing Scrope.
23
See Harris, `Patronage and Dating', pp. 35±54.
24
For other honours and holdings of Stephen Scrope, see Emden, Biographical Register,
p. 515. His will is in Testamenta Eboracensia or Wills Registered at York, ed. J. Raine, 6
vols. (VI ed. J. W. Clay), Surtees Society 4, 30, 45, 53, 79, 106 (London, 1836, 1855, 1865,
1869, 1884, 1902), I, 355±9. I have not been able to locate his coat of arms.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
with the period of decoration of MS Corpus 61, of sometime after 1415 (see
below). The subject of the second miniature in Longleat MS 24 would have
commemorated both his father and his own namesake saint, Stephen, whose
costume as deacon would parallel his own. Stephen Scrope's devotion to his
uncle Richard, for whom he was secretary, is established by his request for
burial in the St Stephen chapel near the latter's grave and to York Minster by
his donation of glazed windows and bequest of four books to the library.25 He
was donor of, and is pictured in, the east window of the clerestory of the
south choir transept, kneeling below the larger standing ®gure of Archbishop
Scrope.26 This York clergyman, Chancellor of Cambridge University and
practising ecclesiastic, would be a more likely patron of a copy of the Pupilla
oculi than Henry Scrope and, like the bearers of the companion arms in the
manuscript, more likely to have used it.
It is of further interest that the Fitzhugh and Holme arms should appear
together in a book of English statutes, San Marino, Huntington Library, MS
HM 19920.27 This attractively decorated manuscript, datable after 1407, with
York saints in the Calendar and containing the Decretals of Walter Grey,
archbishop of York (d. 1255), has the arms of Fitzhugh once in the same form
(azure three chevronnels interlaced and a chief or) as in Longleat MS 24, as
well as three versions of the Holme arms: 1) as in Longleat MS 24 (barry of six
or and azure, on a canton argent a chaplet gules); 2) Holme impaling
Wastneys (sable a lion rampant argent); and 3) Holme with a bordure
(engrailed gules). The Holme arms of the ®rst type appear in each lower
border, always in the central position, with the impaled arms always in the
left corner or side of the lower margin. The other sites ± the upper right corner,
the middle of the right vertical bar and the lower right corner ± show the arms
of England, England and France, and various other coats. From the placement
and frequency of the Holme arms, it is likely that an early owner was a
member of the Holme family and that, like the arms of England, the Fitzhugh
arms were introduced as a compliment or sign of friendship rather than as an
indication of ownership. The Huntington cataloguer tentatively identi®ed
`the arms' as those of John Holme, of Paull-Holme, who married Elizabeth,
daughter of Sir Adam Wastneys, and died in 1438.28 This identi®cation should
25
Emden, Biographical Register, p. 515. Money would not have been a question, as the
`wealthiest of all the York canons were the dean, treasurers, and archdeacons of
Richmond': B. Dobson, `The Later Middle Ages 1215', in A History of York Minster, ed.
G. E. Aylmer and R. Cant (Oxford, 1977), pp. 104±5.
26
The window is numbered SVI in D. E. O'Connor and J. Haselock, `The Stained and
Painted Glass', in A History of York Minster, ed. Aylmer and Cant, pp. 314 and 377±8. It
is reproduced in F. Harrison, The Painted Glass of York: An Account of the Medieval Glass
of the Minster and the Parish Churches (London, 1927), plate facing p. 98.
27
The Fitzhugh arms are on fol. 227r and the Holme arms on fols. 1r, 173r and 227r.
For the other arms, see C. W. Dutschke, Guide to Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts
in the Huntington Library, 2 vols. (San Marino, 1989), II, 608±18.
28
Dutschke, Guide to Huntington Manuscripts, p. 618. The engrailed Holme arms are
not identi®ed. The description of arms in my text is indebted to this catalogue entry.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
only apply to the impaled arms, and the central Holme arms, like those in
Longleat MS 24, should be understood as those of Richard Holme. Since there
is a third type of Holme arms also in the lower margins, the most plausible
explanation is probably that three separate persons of the Holme family are
indicated here, possibly collaborating to fund the book. Since Richard Holme
died in 1424, both Longleat MS 24 and MS Huntington HM 19920 can be dated
before that year.
The next book with work by the Corpus Master is London, British Library,
MS Royal 8.G.iii, the Compendium super Bibliam of Petrus de Aureolis. An
autograph inscription on fol. 1v written in February 1422 by Philip Reping-
don, sometime supporter of John Wyclif, four times chancellor of Oxford,
bishop of Lincoln and longtime friend and confessor to Henry IV, states his
intention of giving the book to the new library at Lincoln Cathedral, but
reserving it for the use of Richard Frisby, canon of Milton, until his death.29
The book was therefore complete by early 1422, and Repingdon was almost
certainly the original patron of it. The borderwork on the introductory page ±
but not the miniature ± is by the Master of MS Corpus 61 (Plate 10). The
border shows tightly curled or folded coloured leaf and ¯ower motifs in rows
on the frame, some of an unusual type, the pear-shaped pen design (above
the miniature), and a band of gold pricked with leaf and vine or circle
designs. Sprays outside the frame contain stacked circles sometimes ending
in three minute leaves, large gold-ball motifs, new gold motifs (kidney, oak
and trefoil leaves), and a rationale for the border in the form of a mound of
earth at the bottom. The colouring of leaf and ¯ower motifs is less intense,
perhaps due to a different ageing or wearing process but more likely to a
different choice of pallette. The design of this border, with branches of leaves
interrupting the straight bar and with embryonic roundels at the lower
corners, has elements that develop more explicitly in subsequent work by
the artist or a follower of his. After this page no further work by the Corpus
Master appears in the manuscript, although there are decorated initials by
two other, possibly regional illuminators; the latter made two-line champ
initials with sprays of daisy buds.30 It should be emphasized that this book
29
For a short period in 1382 Repingdon was actually excommunicated from the
church, but within months abjured his heresies; he was consecrated bishop in March
1405 and resigned his see in November 1419: DNB, XVI, 912±14. In the inscription,
although dated 1422, Repingdon still refers to himself as Ègo Philippus de Repyndon
episcopus nuper Lincolniensis.' Frisby had died by September 1424; see G. F. Warner
and J. P. Gilson, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King's Collections,
4 vols. (London, 1921), I, 274±5, where the note is printed in full. For further
concerning Repingdon, see K. B. McFarlane, Lancastrian Kings and Lollard Knights
(Oxford, 1972), pp. 217±18 and 223; Kirby, Henry IV, pp. 118±19 and 283; and M. Aston,
` ``Cain's Castles'': Poverty, Politics and Disendowment', in The Church, Politics and
Patronage in the Fifteenth Century, ed. B. Dobson (Gloucester and New York, 1984),
pp. 66±7.
30
The two quires between fols. 10r±25v are certainly by a different hand from the
remainder of the initials after the ®rst quire.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Plate 10. London, British Library, MS Royal 8.G.iii, Petrus de Aureolis,

Compendium super Bibliam, fol. 2r, Aureolis preaching below the mons domini
from the text; full border.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
must have been written and decorated by 1422, when Repingdon wrote the
inscription. The note establishes a certain period in which the Corpus Master
was working and indicates, probably safely, ®ve-year work periods before
and after 1422.
Even if not by the Corpus Master, I want to remark on the structure of the
Royal miniature (Plate 10). This scene represents the same type of simul-
taneous pictorial moment as occurs in the Corpus frontispiece: below, in each
case, the apparent `real' (but not historical) episode of an author's recitation
of his work and, above, a scene or phrase from the story or text made visual.
In both miniatures the picture space is divided between the author's reality
and a pictorial version/vision of his words. This handling of the introductory
miniature may be nothing more than a coincidence, but it is rare in English
book illustration and, since the Corpus Master worked on both books, I
wonder whether he or a common supervisor may not have been the guiding
intellect behind the design of both miniatures. The Royal manuscript is,
however, the one that most causes me to question my assumption that the
Corpus Master was both illustrator and border artist: it is dif®cult to
understand why an artist of his capability would have been commissioned
here to do only the border and not the miniature as well.
In a setting already diverse in textual content, the next manuscript
illuminated by the Corpus Master is even more anomalous. Oxford, All
Souls College, MS 302, containing a calendar and missal,31 is the only book in
the group related to MS Corpus 61 with a liturgical text. Although Ker
identi®ed it through the second folio as the sixth of nine missals which were
in the college chapel in the ®fteenth century,32 its production must have
predated by about ®fteen or twenty years its acquisition by the college, not
founded until 1438. The missal lacks some twenty-seven leaves, and the only
surviving border, on fol. 124r (Plate 11), is of a three-sided format, unusual by
the standard of the Master's work in the previous manuscripts. That other
borderwork was formerly present in MS All Souls 302 is evident from an
offset of the lost ®rst leaf. The surviving border is, apart from the omission of
worked detail on the gold ground, particularly close in rendering to those in
MS Corpus 61 and Longleat MS 24 and is probably of the same period,
namely, late in the second decade of the ®fteenth century.33
31
See E. Craster, À Medieval Service Book from All Souls', Bodleian Library Record 3
(1950±1), 120; N. R. Ker, Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, 4 vols. (Oxford, 1983),
III, 586±9; Alexander and Temple, University Archives and the Taylor Institution (Oxford,
1985), no. 348; and A. G. Watson, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Medieval Manuscripts of
All Souls College Oxford (Oxford, forthcoming).
32
N. R. Ker, Records of All Souls College Library, 1437±1600, Oxford Bibliographical
Society, n. s. 16 (Oxford, 1971), p. 167.
33
Ker (Medieval Manuscripts, p. 586) considered the production period of the missal to
be ®rst quarter of the century, and Watson (All Souls Catalogue) records the script as
`XV in.', with the border as contemporary with the script. Alexander and Temple, on
the other hand, believed the script to be of `XIV ex.', with the border a later addition
(University Archives and the Taylor Institution, no. 348). The only other illumination that
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Plate 11. Oxford, All Souls College, MS 302, Missal, fol. 124r, three-
sided border. By kind permission of the Warden and Fellows of All
Souls College, Oxford.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
The next three manuscripts form a group through the authorship and/or
patronage of John Whetehamstede, abbot of St Albans between 1420±40 and
again between 1451 and 1465.34 Two of these are either possible late work by
the Corpus Master or work together with an assistant trained under his
direction, but all three nevertheless contain, as usual, only the introductory
border either by the Master or in his style. The borders in these books show a
movement away from the lusher ¯oral and leaf work of the Corpus, Longleat
and Royal copies towards a more stripped-down bar frame that was perhaps
a design preferred by Whetehamstede. Each border has in a left corner
roundel the arms of the St Albans Abbey (azure a saltire or) and in a right
roundel the arms of the diocese of Ely (gules three crowns or) (Plates 12 and
13).35 Probably the ®rst border chronologically, to judge by the presence of
leaves on the bar frame, is in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Auct.f.inf.1.1,
which contains Part II of Dionysius de Burgo's Commentary on Valerius
Maximus, with a tabula by John Whetehamstede, of after 1420. The Corpus
Master's illuminated border (fol. 1r; Pl. 12) ) has his typical twisted and folded
leaf motifs and the characteristic pen-drawn pear motifs but there are now on
the frame also fully developed roundels of leaves at corners that enclose the
arms just described and on the right vertical frame the new development of
two looped vines that support the sprays of single coloured leaves and gold
balls. The Bodleian border is extremely important as a transitional design
survives is three 3- or 4-line initials of gold letters on a quartered rose/blue ground

in®lled with white reservework or a vine interlace (fol. 86v), with sprays of feathering
and coloured leaves. More than one artist may have made these: compare the spray
initial on fol. 86v with that on fol. 130v.
34
For these and other manuscripts with connections to Whetehamstede or St
Albans, see D. R. Howlett, `Studies in the Works of John Whetehamstede' (unpub-
lished D. Phil. dissertation, Oxford, 1975); Howlett, `Fifteenth-century Manuscripts
of St. Albans Abbey and Gloucester College Oxford', in Manuscripts at Oxford: an
exhibition in memory of Richard William Hunt (1908±1979), ed. A. C. de la Mare and
B. C. Barker-Ben®eld (Oxford, 1980), pp. 84±7, no. XX; and A. I. Doyle, `Book
Production by the Monastic Orders in England (c. 1375±1530): Assessing the Evid-
ence', in Medieval Book Production: Assessing the Evidence, ed. L. L. Brownrigg (Los
Altos Hills, 1990), pp. 3±5.
35
The second arms are described in F. Madan et al., Summary Catalogue of Western
Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, 7 vols. (Oxford, 1895±1953), no. 2439, and
in Duke Humfrey and English Humanism in the Fifteenth Century: Catalogue of an
Exhibition held in the Bodleian Library Oxford (Oxford, 1970), p. 10, no. 19, as those of
Tynemouth Priory, a cell of St Albans. Since they are elsewhere more commonly
attributed to the diocese of Ely, I have used this designation; see J. P. Brooke-Little,
rev., Boutell's Heraldry (London and New York, 1973), p. 188; R. Marks and A. Payne,
British Heraldry from its Origins to c. 1800 (London, 1978), p. 74, no. 135; and J. G.
Storry, Church Heraldry (Oxfordshire, 1983), p. 4, in colour. The arms of St Edmund
are azure three crowns or and the basis for those of the See of Ely (Brooke-Little,
Boutell's Heraldry, pp. 188 and 205). This border also encloses in the lower corners the
arms of England and quarterly the arms of France modern and England differenced
by a bordure argent, i.e. those of Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, a patron of
Whetehamstede.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Plate 12. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Auct.F.inf.1.1, Dionysius de Burgo,

Commentary on Valerius Maximus, fol. 1r, border with arms of Ely, St Albans,
England and Humphrey, duke of Gloucester.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Plate 13. London, British Library, MS Cotton Claudius D.i, letters of John
Whetehamstede, fol. 3r, full border with Gospel symbols and arms of Ely
and St Albans.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Plate 14. London, British Library, MS Cotton Nero C.vi, John

Whetehamstede, Granarium de viris illustribus, fol. 1r, full border with
Gospel symbols and arms of Ely and St Albans.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
between the Corpus, Longleat and Royal borders and the more sparse,
controlled presentation of the other Whetehamstede borders. The Bodleian
border in fact demonstrates how an artist or his follower could reduce the
decorative content of a border to suit changing styles or patronage. The
second border surviving in some of the Whetehamstede books is an even
more reduced border of pen ¯ourishing.36
The next book in this group is London, British Library, MS Cotton
Claudius D.i, letters and acts of John Whetehamstede. Here the illuminated
border on the ®rst text page (Plate 13) contains both the Evangelist symbols
appropriated by Whetehamstede and the arms of Ely and St Albans, strongly
suggesting that he was the commissioning party and original owner. A
second border may have been entered at the beginning of the Acts, where
leaves are missing; otherwise, decorated initials are composed of parted red
and blue letters or of simple blue letters ¯ourished in red. After the ®rst quire
of eight the scribal and ¯ourishing hands change (fol. 10v), suggesting either
a gap in time or a piecework approach to the book.37 Howlett, however, saw
the ®rst scribe as writing through the letters and acts of Whetehamstede for
the ®rst seven years (1420±27), i.e. through fols. 1±75, with the rest copied by
another hand; there is indeed a scribal tag at the end of the acts for year
seven, with a clear change of scribe,38 indicating that the ®rst border could
certainly have been done shortly after 1427, and now, given an earlier break
in continuity of script at the end of the ®rst quire, the period for this border
would be after 1420 (the beginning of Whetehamstede's abbacy) and before
1427.39
The other Whetehamstede manuscript, which contains Part I (A±L) of his
Granarium de viris illustribus, composed during the ®rst abbacy, is less
certainly by the Corpus Master. The drawing, pallette of motifs and arrange-
36
The ¯ourishwork borders were made in red and blue ink with corner roundels
containing symbols of Whetehamstede's namesake saints, John the Evangelist and
John the Baptist; in MS Auct.f.infr.1.1. this type of border is at the tabula (fol. 169r)
compiled by him. Because of the change in technique, it is not possible to tell whether
the Corpus Master also did the ¯ourishwork borders. The border in MS Auct.F.inf.1.1
is reproduced in Howlett, `Fifteenth-century manuscripts of St. Albans Abbey', ®g. 57.
37
I am grateful to A. C. de la Mare for examining the manuscript and con®rming the
change of scribal hand after the ®rst quire. The ®rst scribe appears again at fols. 66r±
75v.
38
The scribal tag at fol. 75v reads: `Septenis annis abbatis gesta Iohannis/Scemate quo
viguit/iam stilus exposint' suggesting a break in the continuity of writing or of
compiling the acts. On fol. 170v, near the end, another colophon reads: `Scripta patet
modico magni prioris acta register. Cui pro perpetuo sit laus sit gloria cristo'. Fols.
171r±72v contain additions made during the abbacy of Thomas Ranryge.
39
A number of changes in the appearance of the script from fol. 11r±75v suggest a
process of scriptus interruptus, or a series of breaks in the copying between fols. 1±75.
Howlett (`Studies of John Whetehamstede', p. 62) noted that `the different scribes and
different scribal habits probably point to the work of different men as well as different
times'. Fols. 76r±170v, i.e. to Àcta Anni vicesimi', appear to be more consistent in
presentation, but even so perhaps not all written at one period.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
ment of arms and symbols on the ®rst border (Plate 14) of London, British
Library, MS Cotton Nero C.vi is a virtual duplicate of the border in MS Cotton
Claudius D.i. Both have initials with the fresh Corpus colouring, similar
curled motifs, and borders with similar penwork and stippled gold. But,
although the two Cotton borders are so alike as to seem to have been made in
the same week, the Cotton Nero volume contains documents datable 1439 and
a rubric in the ®rst quire that refers to Whetehamstede as òlim abbatis'.40 All
subsequent borders in Cotton Nero are by a second illuminator, who, to judge
from the style, entered them at a later date, probably 1440±50.41 The problem is
how two nearly identical borders can have been made with a considerable
chronological gap between them, in this case of at least about thirteen years if
between 1420±c. 1427 and c. 1440. The dif®culty is compounded by the fact
that the style of the two borders is that of the 1420s not of the 1440s. Neither
border seems to be an imitation of the other made at a different period, but
both, as I say, made at a stroke by the same illuminator.
One or two resolutions to this conundrum are possible. If it is the MS
Corpus 61 limner, he may still have been living in the early 1440s and
Whetehamstede, admiring his work, had the old-fashioned (but still hand-
some) borderwork put on the ®rst page of the Cotton Nero manuscript; if
this is true, then it seems likely, because of the similarity of the renderings,
that MS Cotton Claudius had been left un®nished and had its ®rst border
entered at the same time.42 This hypothesis would presuppose a perhaps
overly long working life for the Corpus Master, i.e. from c. 1415 to the early
1440s, long but a matter of record for other limners or craftsmen in the book
trade.43 A second possibility is that a follower/trainee of the Master was
responsible for part or all of the Cotton Claudius and Nero borders, a
possibility because of a change in rendering of spraywork on the two Cotton
borders: the green is paler and the lobes of feathering tinted only on one
side. In this scenario one might propose that the òlim abbatis' rubric was
added later and that the text of this manuscript begun by Whetehamstede in
40
These items were ®rst noticed in print by D. R. Howlett, in À St Albans Historical
Miscellany of the Fifteenth Century', Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society
6 (1974), 200, n. 5, where he notes ìnternal evidence for compilation after 1439' on fols.
89r±90v. Watson, following Howlett (thesis), calls this manuscript `the master copy of
the Granarium', and also dates it after 1440; see A. G. Watson, Catalogue of Dated and
Datable Manuscripts c. 435±1600 in Oxford Libraries, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1984), I, 19, no. 104,
re Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 585.
41
See fols. 25r, 33v, 40v, 63r, 71r, 93r, 102r, 124v, 144r, 177r and 179r.
42
Howlett (`Studies of John Whetehamstede', p. 174) attributes the writing of MS
Cotton Nero to Whetehamstede's own hand, and this probably accounts for the sense
in the manuscript of `work-in-progress'. There are corrections, spaces left under letter-
headings for additions (A: fols. 11v±12r), changes of ink (e.g. fol. 24v), variation in the
script throughout, and on fols. 15v±16v the remarkable practice of extending begin-
ning and ending strokes of letters in order to ®ll the space left for a text that did not ®ll
the remaining lines on the page. There is also a different hand at fols. 124r±131v.
43
See Christianson, Directory of London Stationers, for Abel, Barough, Bylton, Edward
and Fysshe.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
the 1420s was added non-sequentially through 1439 (as would have been
possible in an alphabet-based text by leaving blank spaces). Both borders
could, then, have been produced in the 1420s, where they ®t much better
stylistically. Although involving a greater number of assumptions and
complexity, the second hypothesis seems to me preferable, namely, that
Abbot Whetehamstede liked the style and had the borders put in the ®rst
quires of un®nished books, one of which was not ®nished until the 1440s.44
Now I come to a manuscript that I am deliberately discussing out of what
may be the approximate chronological order. This is the Book of Prayers in
Paris, BibliotheÁque Nationale, MS lat. 1196, made for Charles d'OrleÂans,
probably in London, certainly after 1415 and probably before 1424, that is,
after he had become a hostage at Agincourt and before he entered on a period
of extreme hardship in captivity. This elegant book was illustrated by four
artists, none of whom was the MS Corpus 61 Master, and was decorated by
eleven border artists, one of whom was, I think, likely to be the Corpus
Master. This manuscript may be more dif®cult to accept because all the
borderwork is in a two- or three-sided format (con®rming nevertheless that
the All Souls manuscript may not be unique), because the important borders
have no spraywork, and because here the artist made many more than one
border, but not clearly the introductory border.45 The borders in the prayer-
book relevant to the Corpus Master show comparable twisted leaf motifs, the
use of intensely coloured leaf forms on a stippled gold base, and the pear
motif in pen and ink. The tightly rolled leaves in the upper left of fol. 149v are
identical to some in the right margin of the Corpus border.
It would be satisfying to be certain that the Corpus Master worked on a
manuscript commissioned by Charles d'OrleÂans, for his patronage would
explain a number of aspects concerning MS Corpus 61. If OrleÂans had book
craftsmen brought over in the ®rst years of his con®nement, as he would have
been freely allowed to do, it would explain the presence in England of an
exceptionally ®ne French-trained artist, and if OrleÂans had kept the artist in
44
Another book connected with the Whetehamstede group is London, British Library,
MS Cotton Tiberius D.v, called `secunda pars' of the Granarium in the colophon (fol.
180r) but having entries from A to Z. The manuscript, while retaining the style and
brilliant colouring of the original master, was almost certainly decorated outside of the
1420s time-frame. It is extensively damaged, especially on the important ®rst leaf,
where there are remains of a border similar to the design of other introductory
Whetehamstede borders. Of what must have been an historiated initial, it is just
possible to make out the remains of a tiled ¯oor; and in the right corners of the border,
roundels are still visible, with a lamb, chalice and staff in a red radiance. Neither the
rendering nor the position of this symbol matches the other borders. Twenty further
initials, probably by the hand of the ®rst border, survive at letter-headings throughout
the rest of the manuscript in an attractive style but not by the Corpus Master.
45
The ®ne border on fol. 1r is close in style and rendering and may be by the artist
who trained the Corpus Master. Although similar, there is none of the distinguishing
penwork of the Corpus Master. The main divisions decorated by the Corpus artist are
at fols. 46r, 81r, 145r, 149v and 153r, as well as initials variously elsewhere; see my
Later Gothic Manuscripts, II, no. 57.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
England to work on a second book, it would explain how the Master had
become known and had come to acquire such a high-placed clienteÁle. This
hypothesis encourages me, notwithstanding Pearsall's and Salter's justi®able
warnings about an historical interpretation of the Corpus frontispiece,46 to
propose another name for the standing ®gure in gold brocade. My proposal
is, not unexpectedly, Charles d'OrleÂans, who lived as a hostage in England
between 1415 and 1440 and who during the ®rst two years lived, without
guard, in royal style at the expense of Henry V.47 As a poet in his own right
and follower of Chaucer,48 he might have thought of himself as standing at
the feet of Chaucer or of Chaucer addressing him. Even the un®nished state
of the Troilus might be explained by OrleÂans' patronage. At the time when
Henry V was about to mount his second invasion of France, circumstances
changed drastically for OrleÂans, apparently at the instigation of the king. He
was more literally put into custody and in June 1417 moved to Pontefract
Castle, Yorkshire, where his life nevertheless may have still been reasonably
comfortable. This period might well have put him or the work of the Corpus
Master in contact with the Yorkshire patron(s) of Longleat MS 24. As the king
grew more suspicious of his French prisoners, OrleÂans was later moved to
Fotheringhay Castle and moved again after Henry died in 1422, with the
payments for his keep decreased.49 From 1424, OrleÂans had to live wholly at
his own expense; between 1424±28 he was in virtual solitary con®nement;
and by 1427 he had to order the sale of his possessions and of his beloved
library at Blois.50 MS Corpus 61 was perhaps a casualty of this period,
OrleÂans having been forced to leave the magni®cent Troilus with its miniature
spaces blank. If my suggestion concerning the patron of MS Corpus 61 is
correct, then its production was certainly begun after his capture in 1415 and
probably stopped by 1424, and perhaps sooner.
Now to return to the Corpus Master and his potential for exercising power.
That he was able to attract the commission of one of the most prestigious ± if
constrained ± book patrons of around 1420, a prince of the French realm,
Charles d'OrleÂans, is reasonably certain from the prayerbook, and that the
commission may have introduced either his work or the artist himself to
England follows from this. That his work may have been compelling enough
to attract OrleÂans' patronage twice has been the hypothesis here concerning
MS Corpus 61. Charles d'OrleÂans was, as far as yet known, the extent of the
artist's grasp. His other patrons were ecclesiastics: Philip Repingdon, bishop
of Lincoln; John Whetehamstede, of considerable stature in the Benedictine
order in England and prominent author, book patron and owner; the
46
D. Pearsall, `The Troilus Frontispiece and Chaucer's Audience'. The Yearbook of
English Studies 7 (1977), 70; and E. Salter, `The ``Troilus Frontispiece'' ', pp. 21±2.
47
E. McLeod, Charles of Orleans: Prince and Poet (London, 1969), pp. 129±30, 131, 134±7
and 143±4.
48
I am grateful to Vincent DiMarco for his advice on this point.
49
McLeod, Charles of Orleans, pp. 144±5, 150±1, 159 and 161.
50
McLeod, Charles of Orleans, pp. 161 and 163±4.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
unknown ecclesiastic who commissioned the All Souls missal; and possibly
Stephen Scrope, archdeacon of Richmond. The Corpus Master is in fact one of
only a few limners in ®fteenth-century England who can be certainly traced
as working for the same patron (Whetehamstede) more than once ± and I take
this continuity of patronage as indicative of a certain power. Since no
surviving books decorated by this limner were commissioned by anyone of
lesser social standing than an abbot from an important Benedictine house, it
appears that the artist had some option in taking commissions and in
selecting among potential patrons.51
If one were forced to propose a site for the Corpus Master's shop after a
possible association with OrleÂans, London or St Albans would be the best
guesses, or London with temporary residence or several stays in St Albans.
The ongoing relationship with Whetehamstede does not necessarily indicate
that the Corpus Master had a permanent shop in St Albans, nor that he was a
Benedictine. It would in fact be rash to place him anywhere in view of his
habit with English patrons (the All Souls' missal being the only surviving
exception) of working solely on the introductory leaf of a text. With the
apparent power of his work to attract high-placed patrons, commissions ± in
the form of a ®rst leaf or quire ± may have been brought to his shop from
various parts of England, hence the repeated instances of a second artist in
his books, no one of whom can be shown to have worked with him more than
one time.
If the frontispiece of MS Corpus 61 has existed for my reader in a special
kind of isolation, then this study may leave a wrenched or disoriented
feeling. Certainly, ®nding these other manuscripts over the years has had
that effect on me, and I force myself to remember what I know, namely, that
there is a context of other books and texts that the artist worked on, and a
context of scribes, patrons and other artists whom the Corpus Master perhaps
knew to some degree. If the Master has been taken out of his grand isolation, I
hope my reader will ®nd the new context worth the wrenching, and if he or
she regrets, as we all must, the blank spaces in MS Corpus 61, think that `to
leave great themes un®nished is perhaps the most satisfying exercise of
power'.52
51
I cannot of course produce the negative evidence that the Corpus Master turned
away gentry, merchants, or other `middle-class' suppliants for his talent.
52
G. MacBeth, `The Spider's Nest', in Collected Poems 1958±1982 (London, 1989),
pp. 43±4. I am endebted to Kelvin W. M. Scott for his researches in heraldry on my
behalf in the Widener Library, Harvard University.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
I:/riddy/thompson.3d ± 1/1/0 ± 15:14 ± diskB&B/mp
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
A POET'S CONTACTS WITH THE GREAT AND THE GOOD:

FURTHER CONSIDERATION OF THOMAS HOCCLEVE'S
TEXTS AND MANUSCRIPTS
John J. Thompson
On the occasion of a York manuscripts conference dealing with questions of

prestige, authority and power, it seems timely and appropriate to look again
at some of the ®fteenth-century texts and manuscripts that can be associated
with the later life and writings of Thomas Hoccleve. Hoccleve is the English
poet who worked for nearly forty years, from c. 1387±c. 1425, as a clerk in the
of®ce of the Privy Seal.1 We already know much about the manner in which
that important government of®ce functioned and developed during these
years, but whether or not Hoccleve enjoyed a successful career as a Privy
Seal clerk must remain a matter of some debate.2 Although the extant
Chancery records show that a number of grants and annuity payments
were made by the Exchequer to the poet, the precise nature of many of his
secretarial responsibilities at Westminster and beyond has not yet been
clearly established. Hoccleve's career must also have brought him into
contact with many of the most powerful public ®gures in Lancastrian
England, some of whom he describes as having acted as his patrons and
benefactors. And, whether we take his word for this or not, Hoccleve must
surely have been rewarded on occasions with certain forms of remuneration,
An early version of this paper was also read in April 1995 at the Eighth International
Conference of the Society for Textual Scholarship. In revising the text for publication, I
have been very grateful to Felicity Riddy for a number of suggestions for improving it.
1
As with so many other biographical details concerning Hoccleve, the documentary
evidence is patchy and requires interpretation. I here follow John Burrow's suggested
datings for Hoccleve's Privy Seal career in his Thomas Hoccleve, Authors of the Middle
Ages 4 (London, 1994), 2±3 and 29±30. Burrow's short literary biography is an
extraordinarily useful work of reference: it includes as an appendix transcripts of
the more than sixty documents referring to the poet in the public records; and its
bibliography lists the extant manuscripts, prints and modernizations containing
Hoccleve's works, also the few books and many articles on the poet published by 1993.
2
For a career pro®le of Hoccleve as àn average clerk' see A. L. Brown, `The Privy Seal
Clerks in the Early Fifteenth Century', in The Study of Medieval Records: Essays in
Honour of Kathleen Major', ed. D. A. Bullough and R. L. Storey (Oxford, 1971), 260±81;
for Hoccleve as à conspicuous under-achiever, a man who did not or could not avail
himself of the opportunities open to him', see M. Richardson, `Hoccleve in his Social
Context', Chaucer Review 20 (1985±6), 313±22 (p. 313). Burrow inclines towards Brown's
interpretation, describing Hoccleve as someone who `would not have counted as an
important person . . . but neither was he a mere civil service nobody' (Thomas Hoccleve,
p. 6).
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
78 John J. Thompson
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
privileges and informal support that are unlikely to have been listed in the
public records.3 His long years of service at the Privy Seal are nevertheless
usually seen in the context of a career dogged by ®nancial insecurity, mental
health problems, and associated intellectual and artistic dif®culties. Such
details are key features of the life of `Hoccleve the poet', a life that has been
largely reconstructed from many apparently autobiographical allusions in La
Male Regle, the Regiment of Princes, and the pair of linked short items in his
Series known as the `Complaint' and `Dialogue with a Friend'.4
There has been much lively and informed scholarly discussion of the
autobiographical or self-referential element in Hoccleve's poetry. The poet's
modern biographers have stressed the likely documentary accuracy of his
comments about himself, while others who have contributed to the recent
small ¯ood of Hoccleve publications are keener to point out that this poet's
self-representations are more literary in character and owe much to the semi-
autobiographical courtly writings of Machaut, Froissart, Deschamps, Chris-
tine de Pizan, and also, of course, Chaucer.5 Yet Hoccleve scholars have often
failed to make the case forcefully enough that the poet may have written about
himself differently at different stages in his life and career, and perhaps also
for different audiences. Nor, for that matter, has suf®cient attention been paid
in this context to the fact that towards the end of his life Hoccleve was acting as
both an anthologizer and copyist of his own poetry, determinedly gathering
together short poems written over a lengthy literary career while also
projecting an image of himself as a poet who had remained in touch with
some of the diverse currents of political power in Lancastrian England. In this
paper, therefore, I want to reconsider the sources of power and in¯uence in
3
The terms in which annuities were renewed for the ®rst time under Henry V offer
some indication that government clerks in Hoccleve's position probably bene®ted
greatly from many such contacts. Hoccleve's con®rmation (dated September 1413), for
example, made the renewal of his annuity conditional on the fact that he was not
already being retained by someone else (pro termino vite sue cum aliquo alio preterquam
nobiscum non retineatur). The introduction of such a clause certainly offered the
Exchequer another reason for failing to pay certain annuities to its chancery clerks,
but whether or not it proved a practically effective means of curtailing their
extramural activities is quite a different question.
4
It should also, of course, be noted that the task of assigning probable dates to many
of Hoccleve's poems, and thereby reconstructing some important aspect of his poetical
career, is now largely dependent on his references in such semi-autobiographical verse
to prominent public ®gures and important, frequently dateable, events.
5
Two important recent studies that offer interestingly differing perspectives on the
topic are J. A. Burrow, Àutobiographical Poetry in the Middle Ages: the Case of
Thomas Hoccleve', Proceedings of the British Academy 68 (1982), 389±412, and D. C.
Greetham, `Self-Referential Artifacts: Hoccleve's Persona as a Literary Device', Modern
Philology 86 (1989), 242±51. Hoccleve's literary creativity as a follower of the so-called
`pseudo-autobiographical' tradition of French courtly writing is the starting point for
the recent discussion of his poetry in William Calin, The French Tradition and the
Literature of Medieval England (Toronto, 1994), pp. 399±418. See also J. A. Burrow,
`Hoccleve and the Middle French Poets', in The Long Fifteenth Century: Essays for
Douglas Gray, ed. H. Cooper and S. Mapstone (Oxford, 1997), pp. 35±49.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
A Poet's Contacts with the Great and the Good 79
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Hoccleve's world that have determined the manner in which he has repres-
ented himself in some of his last major English works. These works are, ®rstly,
the poem from his Series known as the `Dialogue with a Friend' which
Hoccleve was probably working on from about 1419 as a sequel to the ®rst
item in the same poetical compilation called `the Complaint', and, secondly,
the literary holographs that he produced in the early 1420s.6 There are three of
these: Durham, University Library, MS Cosin V. iii. 9, preserving Hoccleve's
®nal text of the Series; and MSS HM 111 and HM 744 at the Huntington Library
in California, both of which may have once formed a single large `selected
works' anthology volume.7 There is no extant holograph copy of the Regiment
of Princes or of a number of other short poems with which Hoccleve's name can
still be associated. Hoccleve was, however, engaged during the early 1420s in
compiling material for his Formulary, a collection of Privy Seal documents in
Latin and French that is still extant as London, British Library, MS Additional
24062.8 This is an important document for my purposes here since the task of
producing it during the last ®ve or six years of a busy life must have given
Hoccleve many opportunities to re¯ect upon both his own career at the Privy
Seal and also the bureaucratic responsibilities of good government.
Hoccleve's `Dialogue with a Friend'

In the `Dialogue with a Friend' Hoccleve grants his readers some insight into
the dif®culties faced by a poet called Thomas at a late and complicated stage
in his life. Thomas describes how, having reached the age of ®fty-three and
survived at least one serious mental illness, he ®nds himself still thinking and
worrying about both himself and his writing. He informs an unnamed friend
that his current writing commission, a text that Thomas calls `lerne for to
6
All line references and quotations from the Series are taken from Thomas Hoccleve's
Complaint and Dialogue, ed. J. A. Burrow, EETS OS 313 (Oxford, 1999); see also the full
text of the Series in Hoccleve's Works: The Minor Poems, ed. F. J. Furnivall and I. Gollancz,
revised by Jerome Mitchell and A. I. Doyle, 2 vols. in 1, EETS ES 61 and 73 (London,
1892 and 1925, rev. repr. 1970). Elsewhere, I have preferred to quote from Selections
from Hoccleve, ed. M. C. Seymour (Oxford, 1981), always indicating the change of
edition in my notes. For the holograph status of the Durham and Huntington
manuscripts, see H. C. Schultz, `Thomas Hoccleve, Scribe', Speculum 12 (1937), 71±81.
7
C. W. Dutschke, Guide to Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Huntington
Library, 2 vols. (San Marino, 1989), I, 144±4, 247±51. It was Ian Doyle who ®rst
tentatively suggested that the Huntington manuscripts look as if they may have
been intended as different parts of the same volume; from this has grown the theory
that the manuscripts represent `the earliest extant ``collected poems'' made by a
known English author'. See A. I. Doyle and M. B. Parkes, `The Production of Copies of
the Canterbury Tales and the Confessio Amantis in the Early Fifteenth Century', in
Medieval Scribes, Manuscripts and Libraries, ed. M. B. Parkes and A. G. Watson (London,
1978), pp. 163±210, at p. 182, n. 38 ; J. M. Bowers, `Hoccleve's Huntington Holographs:
the First ``Collected Poems'' in English', Fifteenth-Century Studies 15 (1989), 27±51.
8
All references to the text are taken from `The Formulary of Thomas Hoccleve', ed.
E.-J. Y. Bentley (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Emory University, 1965).
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
80 John J. Thompson
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
dye', has been undertaken at the urging of an unnamed `devout man' of his
acquaintance:
And whanne that endid is / I neuere inke.

More is englissh / after be occupied.
I may not labour / as I dide and swinke.
Mi lust is not ther to / so wel applied.
As it hath ben / it is ny morti®ed.
Wherefore I cesse inke / be is doon.
The ni¿t approche / it is fer past noon (ll. 239±45)
Thomas says that he has lost so much of his taste for mental effort (`my
conceit') that `nowe al a nother / is my sentement' (l. 252). Notwithstanding
such a declaration, he reassures his friend that he is in a ®t state to ensure that
he will only work on this latest commission as the mood takes him: if it
becomes too much for him, he will say adieu to his studies and simply close
his book.
The friend in the `Dialogue' is generally supportive but he still has a few
embarrassing issues to raise: doesn't Thomas recall that he already owes a
book to no less a person than `my lord of Gloucestre'? Thomas freely
concedes that this commission for Humphrey, duke of Gloucester is still
outstanding; no sooner did he hear of the duke's recent return from France
than he resolved to prepare a new book for him. He next launches into an
account of Gloucester's pre-eminence in the recent French campaign and the
need to re¯ect this success in the `good mateer and vertuuous' that he feels
should be at the heart of the proposed volume containing `many a balade' for
Humphrey. A vigorous intervention by the friend then introduces another
awkward new angle: Thomas enjoys a dismal literary reputation at home
among female English readers, while Humphrey, by contrast, is complimen-
ted by the friend for his `desport / & mirthe in honestee / with Ladyes / to
haue daliance' (ll. 705±6). Fifty lines later it emerges that Hoccleve's Letter of
Cupid is the text that the friend speci®cally has in mind as the source of our
poet's current unpopularity among women. The proposed and much-
delayed book for Humphrey may therefore offer an ideal opportunity to
make amends for offence and hurt caused by a work that had been written at
a much earlier stage in the poet's life.
Modern readers will recognize the appeal of Hoccleve's self-characterization
as a hard-pressed English poet in the `Dialogue', but there remains the
problem of knowing quite how to disentangle autobiographical fact from
poetic fantasy in a poem where such a high priority has apparently been
given to the delicious stuff of gossip and hearsay.9 Hoccleve has, never-
9
My account here has obviously been much in¯uenced by John Burrow's sympathetic
appreciation of not only the literariness of Hoccleve's endeavour (the aspect also
stressed by Greetham in `Self-Referential Artifacts') but also its `deep roots in painful
human experience'; see `Hoccleve's Series: Experience and Books', in Fifteenth-Century
Studies: Recent Essays, ed. R. F. Yeager (Hamden, Ct., 1984), 259±73; `The Poet and the
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
theless, taken particular care in the `Dialogue' to locate the occasion on which
he is writing this poem in relation to other major political events. As John
Burrow has recently shown, the synopsis of Humphrey's recent military
campaign at lines 563±616 was based on events that took place in the years
1417±19, following which Humphrey was made regent of England while
Henry V, his brother, remained in France.10 The only other topical reference
in the `Dialogue' that can be dated with any certainty is Hoccleve's mention
of a statute against counterfeit and light coin at lines 136±140. The legislation
alluded to here was introduced in the parliament of May 1421 and eventually
became law in November 1421. The lines in question form part of a longer
diatribe against `feble moneie' which was originally written, Thomas tells us
at lines 134±6, when there was no statute of the realm to protect innocent
victims such as himself against the evils of coinclipping and the like. The
detail suggests that Hoccleve updated this part of the `Dialogue' some time
after it was ®rst written to take account of the passing of the new law at the
end of 1421. This in itself may re¯ect his obsessive concern as à man in his
conceit' to ensure that the major linking poem in the Series retained some
element of topicality. While obviously anxious to display knowledge of this
new law, however, it is perhaps odd that Hoccleve makes no explicit
reference in the `Dialogue' to the recent successes of Humphrey's 1421±22
French campaign. The absence of any such allusion apparently contradicts
the strong impression given by Thomas that the `Dialogue', and perhaps the
rest of the Series, were written to celebrate the current pre-eminence of its
intended royal patron.11
On the other hand, Thomas in the `Dialogue' presents us with the image of
a poet who ®nds himself forced to work on more than one commission at the
same time. Set against the urgency with which the anxious Thomas says that
he now needs to prepare some kind of topical new book for Humphrey is the
apparent counter-claim of the `devout man' and his request for the item
known as `Learn to Die' (Hoccleve's translation of part of the Horologium
Book', in Genres, Themes and Images in English Literature from the Fourteenth to the
Fifteenth Century, eds. P. Boitani and A. Torti (TuÈbingen, 1988), 230±45 (esp. pp. 241±
45). As the following discussion will demonstrate, I am less inclined than Burrow to
argue that Hoccleve exercised a relatively high level of artistic control over the
undeniable impression that his Series creates òf a book whose contents are being
inscribed, as it were, before the reader's very eyes' (`Hoccleve's Series', p. 265).
10
The dating evidence is summarized in Burrow, Thomas Hoccleve, pp. 26±7; see also
Burrow, `Thomas Hoccleve: Some Redatings', Review of English Studies, n.s. 46 (1995),
366±72.
11
Hoccleve's Latin sidenote in the holograph version of the `Dialogue' (MS Cosin V. iii.
9) was probably even added so that Humphrey's second coming from France in late
1419 could be distinguished from his third return in March or April 1422 (for details,
see Burrow, Thomas Hoccleve, p. 30, n. 124). For reasons that will be discussed further
below, Hoccleve may well have deemed it prudent or necessary when making the later
holograph copy in the 1420s to highlight the point that the `topical' allusions to
Humphrey in the `Dialogue' originally referred to the earlier period.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
82 John J. Thompson
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Sapientiae). Thomas claims in the `Dialogue' that this will be the last English
work that he intends to write. In Hoccleve's completed Series, `Learn to Die' is
abruptly `sandwiched' between the `Tale of Jereslaus's Wife' (written, the
poet says, for both Humphrey and the displeased women at the English
court) and the `Tale of Jonathas' (written to warn the 15-year-old son of the
unnamed friend against the wiles of women, according to the short linking
passage that immediately precedes it in the Series). These are the pair of tales
that Hoccleve had derived from the Gesta Romanorum in an apparent attempt
to deal in a quasi-Chaucerian manner with the various `problem-with-
women' questions raised by his friend in the last part of the `Dialogue'.
Within such a framework setting, `Learn to Die' quite naturally re¯ects the
spirit of Chaucer's `Parson's Tale' or `Retractions', thus reinforcing the
impression that it was being inserted in the Series as a direct result of our
middle-aged poet's less ebullient mood in the ®rst part of the `Dialogue'.
There the sombre prospect of translating `Learn to Die' for a `devout man' is
introduced almost 300 lines before the friend eventually reminds Thomas of
another unful®lled promise to ®nd something suitable for `my lord of
Gloucestre'.
It was not only Thomas in the `Dialogue' who once identi®ed `Learn to Die'
as a separate short work. In two of its nine extant manuscripts ± that is in
Hoccleve's holograph, San Marino, Huntington Library, MS HM 744, and
London, British Library, MS Harley 172 ± `Learn to Die' is preserved entirely
apart from the sequence of other linked short Series items with which it is
usually found. The textual fragment of `Learn to Die' in MS HM 744 is of
particular interest and importance since it was set into a new anthology
context created by the poet himself.12 On fol. 52v there is a two-line passage in
which Hoccleve describes the `Learn to Die' text that begins on the following
page as a `lessoun of heuynesse' with which to follow òur song / our mirthe
& our gladnesse'. This last is a reference to a cluster of three short jocular
items on fol. 52. These are formally grouped together under the title `trois
chaunceons' on fol. 51v, while the Latin incipit for `Learn to Die' on fol. 53r at
the beginning of a new quire describes this item as àrs utillissima sciendi
mori'. Hoccleve's formal headings therefore acknowledge the distinctive
textual identities of the material now preserved in two separate but adjacent
quires in MS HM 744. The two-line passage on fol. 52 seems to be a way of
linking this disparate material together. It was presumably composed after
Hoccleve had ®nished copying the three `chaunceons' at the end of one quire
and had set them next to the quire containing `Learn to Die'. This raises the
12
For a detailed textual analysis of the HM 744 version, see J. M. Bowers, `Hoccleve's
Two Copies of ``Lerne to Dye'': Implications for Textual Critics', The Papers of the
Bibliographical Society of America 83 (1989), 437±72 which builds upon Schultz's early
recognition (`Thomas Hoccleve, Scribe', pp. 74±76) that a poet acting as scribe could
have been responsible for mechanical errors and other changes in his own work'. For
the editorial implications, see also Burrow, Hoccleve's Complaint and Dialogue, esp.
pp. 111±18.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
possibility that the information given by Thomas in the `Dialogue' is both
accurate and autobiographical: Hoccleve's partial translation of the Horolo-
gium Sapientiae may have originally been an entirely separate short commis-
sion which was then given a new textual identity by being incorporated into
the Series as `Learn to Die'.
If we are prepared to take the words of Thomas in the `Dialogue' on trust, it
is even possible that `Learn to Die' was the last English work that the poet
ever wrote.13 If so, he would have been still working on the text after 1 May
1421, since John Burrow has recently shown that Hoccleve's short jocular
poem to Henry Somer as a member of the `Court of Good Company' makes
reference to a proposed meeting of the club on that date.14 During the 1420s,
Hoccleve may well have been writing a number of other short undated
English works, of course, and he was also preparing the holograph copies
which have provided a permanent home for so many of his earlier writings.
Much of his professional attention at Westminster would have been taken up
with his Formulary. It need hardly surprise us therefore that the words of
Thomas in the `Dialogue' imply that the translation of `Learn to Die'
continued to sap the poet's imaginative energies during these years.15
Hoccleve's ®nal version may well have been incorporated late into the
Series, following which the dialogue in the `Dialogue' was itself partly
adjusted. This peremptory action allows the anonymous `devout man' to
be set alongside the larger-than-life ®gure of Humphrey, duke of Gloucester,
as another possible patron that the poet Thomas must attempt to please.
But why might Hoccleve have experienced such apparent dif®culty in
completing the Series? In order to attempt to answer this question we have to
look once more at the manner in which Hoccleve himself seems to have been
obsessed with the need to revise and update the `Dialogue'. Hoccleve had
probably commenced working on the `Dialogue' during Humphrey's ®rst
period as regent of England, from December 1419 to December 1421. Yet the
issue of when ± or indeed if ± Humphrey ever actually read the poet's words
complimenting him for his conduct during the French campaign of 1417±9
and referring to his glowing reputation among the ladies must remain
something of a mystery, since there is no record of any presentation copy
13
Burrow is cautious about taking Thomas' words seriously at this point; see Thomas
Hoccleve, p. 30, n. 122.
14
But see also n. 37 below.
15
Thomas uses his own incompetence as an excuse for prematurely abandoning
`Learn to Die' (ll. 918±38), but Hoccleve's Horologium Sapientiae version represents a
fairly disciplined expansion and reworking of his Latin source to which was
eventually appended a carefully considered prose translation of the ninth lesson of
All Hallow's Day from the Sarum Breviary; see further B. P. Kurtz, `The Prose of
Occleve's ``Lerne to Dye'' ', Modern Language Notes 39 (1924), 56±7, and `The Relation of
Occleve's ``Lerne to Dye'' to its Source', Publications of the Modern Language Association
of America 40 (1925), 252±75. Both the HM 744 holograph and the Harley 172 text end
abruptly before the point where Hoccleve had stopped translating from the Horolo-
gium Sapientiae.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
84 John J. Thompson
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
having been made for the duke. Humphrey was away in France on his latest
military campaign from June 1421 until probably about March 1422. And it
was probably no earlier than November 1421 that Hoccleve inserted his
topical reference to the new law against coinclipping in the `Dialogue'. Other
political and amorous events during Humphrey's second term as regent may
well also have contributed to the poet's apparent dif®culties in completing
his promised literary commission. When Hoccleve began work on the Series,
for example, Humphrey was still an unmarried prince. During the course of
diplomatic negotiations in 1419 with both French factions his brother, Henry
V, had unsuccessfully attempted to ®nd him a suitable bride.16 By the autumn
of 1422, however, Humphrey had courted and entered into marriage with
Jacqueline of Bavaria, countess of Hainault, despite the fact that she was still,
technically, the wife of John, duke of Brabant, her second husband. It was
also Humphrey, of course, who at some time between 1419 and 1421 had
been praised for his dalliance with the ladies by the poet's unnamed `friend'
in the `Dialogue'. This is the friend who, twelve lines earlier, had claimed that
he was taking the Wife of Bath as his authority.
Hoccleve's hesitation and delay in completing the `Dialogue' and the rest
of the Series can be contrasted with the alacrity of another Lancastrian poet,
John Lydgate. At around the same time as Jacqueline, who had ¯ed to
England, was enjoying the king's lavish hospitality as a prelude to becoming
Humphrey's wife, Lydgate had penned a short poem enthusiastically
praising the future match. Òn Gloucester's Approaching Marriage', is
dedicated to Jacqueline and was written, according to John Shirley's rubric
in Cambridge, Trinity College, MS R. 3. 20, `to fore e day of eyre maryage
in e desyrous tyme of eyre truwe lovyng'.17 Lydgate praises Gloucester's
future wife for combining beauty and virtue, while Humphrey's prowess
during times of both war and peace is also highlighted. Jacqueline has
Helen's beauty, but Humphrey is as handsome as Paris and ìn trouth of
loue with Troyllus he dooe shyne' (l. 136). Lydgate tactfully avoided making
any comparison of Jacqueline to Criseyde. His balade instead offers a vision
of all England rejoicing at a love match that will be politically advantageous
to both sides and usher in a time of harmony. Not all the inhabitants of
England need have shared the Bury monk's enthusiasm for the match, of
course, but many people in London and elsewhere must have been left agog
16
The ups and downs of Humphrey's love life and Lancastrian attempts to ®nd him a
wife are outlined in K. H. Vickers, Humphrey Duke of Gloucester (London, 1907), esp.
pp. 74±76 (marriage negotiations on Humphrey's behalf following the conquest of
Rouen in January 1419); 91±96 (the beginning of Lancastrian fascination with Jacque-
line of Hainault following the death of her ®rst husband in the spring of 1417); 125±61
(courtship and marriage of Jacqueline by Humphrey in late 1422; the formal
recognition of their union by the Prior of St Albans at Christmas 1423; the struggle
to have the marriage recognized following Humphrey's arrival in Hainault during
1424, and the continuing indecision of the Pope in 1425 etc).
17
Text in The Minor Poems of John Lydgate, ed. H. N. MacCracken, 2 vols., EETS ES 107
and OS 192 (London, 1911±1934), II, 601±8.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
by the rapidly-developing story of Humphrey's courtship of a European
princess in an English setting. This story was unfolding at a time when
Hoccleve seems to have been unable to complete his promised work for
Humphrey as èvery woman's friend'.
When revising the `Dialogue', Hoccleve seems to have decided not to add
any explicit reference to the important events taking place in Humphrey's life
after 1419. Yet his career as a clerk at the of®ce of the Privy Seal during these
years must have placed him in a good position to pick up Westminster gossip
concerning the affair with Jacqueline. We know that Hoccleve retained a
professional interest in such political matters because he transcribed for his
Formulary a number of of®cial communications relating to earlier Lancastrian
diplomatic efforts to win Jacqueline. Preserved among the items in his
`Missives' section, for example, are Hoccleve's model transcriptions of a
letter that Henry V had written to Jacqueline in March 1418 following her
father's death and the death of her ®rst husband, both in the previous year.18
This formed part of Henry's unsuccessful diplomatic effort to persuade
Jacqueline to resist the overtures of John of Brabant ± proposed by John
`the Fearless', duke of Burgundy ± and marry instead his older brother, John,
duke of Bedford. And an item in the section on `Sauf Conduyts et Autres
Garranz Overtes' coincidentally records Hoccleve's certain knowledge of
another episode in the Lancastrian diplomatic adventure. The circumstances
in which this document was originally issued are anonymously described as
`por receivre tieles dames en tiel chastel a quele heures gales vienent' but the
model is Hoccleve's transcription of a March 1421 Privy Seal document of
safe conduct for Jacqueline and her mother.19 The original had enabled
Jacqueline to ¯ee her aged second husband and travel via Calais to England
where she was met by Humphrey.
In devising and adjusting his Series during the last years of his life,
Hoccleve must have taken some account of the changed circumstances in
which he found himself still writing a poem about writing a book to please
Humphrey and English women. There may well have been a number of
factors that prevented him from satisfactorily completing his already much-
delayed commission: the poet's illness through overwork, or complete
uncertainty as to how to proceed, or the ®ve years that it can take a man
ìn his conceit' to prepare himself for such efforts are all mentioned by
Thomas. Since the Privy Seal acted as the Lancastrian secretariat for foreign
affairs, however, Hoccleve may well have been away from London and his
Westminster desk on other duties during these years.20 Another `safe
conducts' section in the Formulary is particularly interesting in this respect:
18
See Formulary, items 739 and 747 (for reasons that are not clear to me Hoccleve
copied the same letter twice).
19
Ibid., item 550.
20
Burrow, Thomas Hoccleve, p. 7, n. 22 notes, for example, that John Welde, Hoccleve's
under-clerk, was paid in May 1418 for work òver the last three years, both at Calais
and within the kingdom of England'; see also Minor Poems, ed. Furnivall, I, p. lxii, n. 5.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
86 John J. Thompson
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
here three model documents that supposedly once allowed a certain `TH' to
travel to France and Picardy have been preserved in the section describing
warrants to the chancellor.21 Because of the lack of corroborating evidence,
the authenticity of the original documents cannot automatically be taken for
granted, yet the `TH' in the form must surely refer to Hoccleve himself.
Hoccleve's opportunities for foreign travel because of his job at the Privy Seal
may also have given the edge to a detail in the linking envoy at the end of the
`Dialogue': here the beleaguered poet Thomas slyly raises the possibility of
having to `take my way / for fere in-to France' (l. 823) if he fails to please the
English ladies for whom he now says that he is writing the next part of his
work.
The Holograph Manuscripts

One of Hoccleve's other roles during the 1422±26 period was as the compiler
and scribe of his own poetry. We should be glad that Hoccleve went to the
trouble of copying out a good number of his earlier short items in new
manuscript settings since many would otherwise have completely disap-
peared from sight; in fact most of the poems he transcribed in MSS HM 111
and HM 744 survive solely in these copies. `Learn to Die', on the other hand,
is the only item that Hoccleve is known to have copied twice, once for the
Durham holograph as part of the completed Series, and once, under the quite
different conditions discussed brie¯y above, for MS HM 744.22 Until recently,
Hoccleve's modern editors have usually accepted the textual authority of
these holograph copies without investigating much further the implications
of Hoccleve's having retained an active and continuing interest in some of his
earlier poetic writings during the last years of his life. In his text of the Series
for MS Cosin V. iii. 9, however, it is puzzling that Hoccleve's own copy has
not preserved intact the apparently authentic Latin marginal notation that
now acts as a framing apparatus for the `Complaint' part of the Series in other
extant manuscripts.23 This puzzling state of affairs is nevertheless consistent
with the view that Hoccleve himself probably released differently presented
texts of the Series during his last years. The Durham text with its uniquely
surviving dedicatory stanza at the end directing Hoccleve's signed work in
this book to Joan Beaufort (here described as `my lady / of Westmerland')
21
Formulary, items 159, 160 and 161. The `self-referential' aspect of these items is
discussed in Ethan Knapp, `Bureaucratic Identity and Literary Practice in Lancastrian
England', Medieval Perspectives, The Journal of the Southeastern Medieval Association
9 (1994), 63±72 (pp. 68±9).
22
See n. 12 above.
23
First noted by A. G. Rigg, `Hoccleve's ``Complaint'' and Isidore of Seville', Speculum
45 (1970), 564±74 (pp. 564±5 and n. 4). Bowers has interestingly pointed out that
Hoccleve was less scrupulous in copying the Latin glosses for the MS HM 744
fragment of `Learn to Die' than for the text in MS Cosin V. iii. 9 (`Hoccleve's ``Lerne
to Dye'' ', p. 463, n. 41). See also J. A. Burrow, `Hoccleve's Complaint and Isidore of
Seville Again', Speculum 73 (1998), 424±28.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
probably represents just one of the poet's efforts to complete and issue the
Series as a whole.24 Such an attempt must surely be associated with
Hoccleve's own late endeavours to secure the support of a prominent
public ®gure who was not only the aunt of his erstwhile Lancastrian
patron but also a powerful and in¯uential woman in her own right.
The survival of the three holograph manuscripts obviously raises a number
of fascinating questions associated with both this poet's ®nal sense of his own
achievement and also our sense of the real and imagined ®fteenth-century
audiences for his poetry. Although Hoccleve had probably stopped writing
entirely new works in English during the last two or three years of his life, he
seems to have consolidated his reputation as a Lancastrian poet in the 1420s
by personally ensuring that some record was kept of the circumstances in
which so many of his English writings had once been commissioned and
written. He did this by providing explanatory manuscript titles and headings
for his own late copies of earlier literary works.25 These headings are usually
written in French and show Hoccleve providing his readers with the
documentary details that contribute so much to our strong sense of the
òccasional' nature of his English writings. His headings usefully record, for
example, that some of the short poems now in MS HM 111 had once been
incorporated in other longer books as inscriptions. One had earlier been
written for John, duke of Bedford, so Hoccleve describes in his heading on
fol. 37v how `Ce feust mys en le liure de Monseigneur Iohan, lors nommez,
ore Regent de France et duc de Bedford'.26 A few pages later, Hoccleve has
transcribed another brief inscription as a separate short balade. On fol. 39v
readers are informed that `Ceste balade ensuyante feust mise en le ®n du
liure del Regiment des Princes'. There then follows a short item that is also
found as the concluding envoy in the extant Regiment texts that are intact at
this point. This HM 111 balade item therefore enjoys the distinction of being a
24
Facsimile of this part of the Durham text in Doyle and Parkes, `Production', pl. 54. If
my argument concerning Hoccleve's revisions is taken to its logical conclusion, the
Durham holograph may well represent the only properly completed text of the Series to
have been written. Hoccleve's general cleverness in concluding the Series with a
dedicatory envoy to a female English reader and book lover who becomes for the poet
a representative of all nobility and womanhood is discussed further in A. Torti,
`Hoccleve's Attitude Towards Women `Ì shoop me do my peyne and diligence / To
wynne hir loue by obedience'' ', in A Wyf Ther Was, ed. J. Dor (LieÁge, 1992), pp. 264±74
(esp. pp. 272±3); and K. A. Winstead, ` `Ì am al othir to yow than yee weene'':
Hoccleve, Women and the Series', Philological Quarterly 72 (1993), 143±55 (p. 152).
25
I am obviously much indebted here to the work of John Bowers who has also argued
that the headings in the Huntington holographs contribute to the impression that
readers are being offered à kaleidoscopic retrospective of the poet's career' (`Hoccle-
ve's ``Lerne to Dye'' ', pp. 466±8).
26
Text in Selections from Hoccleve, ed. M. C. Seymour (Oxford, 1981), p. 57. The poem is
addressed to Bedford but directed for the attention of `my maistir Massy', a ®nancial
and legal of®cer in the Bedford household whose other associations with Hoccleve (if
any) are unknown; see discussion and further references in Burrow, Thomas Hoccleve,
p. 23.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
88 John J. Thompson
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
much-recopied òccasional' poem that was incorporated early into the
Regiment but just as easily extracted again by its maker when he felt the
need to `bestowe many a balade' upon some new reader. The poem
beginning on fol. 32v imaginatively describes some such process in action.
The heading identi®es it as a `Balade to my gracious Lord of York', and in its
opening lines Hoccleve explains how it is being presented as a promised
`little pam®let' for the duke. This has been designed to enable its ®rst
intended Lancastrian recipient ± but apparently not his wife, if Hoccleve's
tongue-in-cheek comments are to be taken literally ± 'to haue of my balades
swich plentee / As ther weren remeynynge vnto me' (ll. 13±14).27
Hoccleve must have spent a signi®cant part of his later life imaginatively
contemplating how he would issue some of his writings in short semi-
autobiographical `books of balades'. The survival of MS HM 111 shows
one of the ways in which he ®nally managed to achieve such an ambition.
Here his manuscript headings provide a very simple but highly appropriate
semi-autobiographical frame or structure for the selection of recycled short
works that are now preserved in this volume. Such a framing device not only
indicates that some of the poet's patrons or would-be patrons included
members of the most politically powerful aristocratic families in the land,
of course, but it also offers a great roll call of other important people and past
events in Hoccleve's world. Hoccleve's headings in MS HM 111 suggest that
this is a world that was nostalgically rooted in the events of Henry V's reign
(1413±22).28 One dedicatory manuscript heading on fol. 26r commemorates
the late king's accession to the throne on `le jour que les seigneurs de son
Roialme lui ®rent lour homages a Kenyngtoun', while the next pair of items
27
Selections, ed. Seymour, pp. 55±6. The poem is addressed in its opening lines to `my
gracious lord of York' with one eye also on the reception that the promised little book
will receive from not only the leading female member of the York household but also
`my maistir Picard' (l. 40); discussion and further references in Burrow, Thomas
Hoccleve, pp. 23±4. `Picard' may have had some link with the family of the same
name who are referred to in the 1420±21 household accounts of Richard Beauchamp,
Earl of Warwick. John Shirley, the ®fteenth-century London copyist, compiler and
book owner, also had secretarial responsibilities in the Beauchamp household; he
followed his àmerous balade by Lydegate made at departyng of Thomas Chauciers
on the kynges ambassade into Fraunce' with a `Devynayle par Pycard' in British
Library, MS Additional 16165 (quoted from the list of Àddenda and Corrigenda to the
Forewords' added by J. Mitchell and A. I. Doyle in Minor Poems, ed. Furnivall, I, p. l).
28
Seymour has characterized Hoccleve during the years 1413±15 as Henry V's
àcknowledged quasi-of®cial writer of verse on political occasions' (Selections, pp. xiii
and 125); see also the discussion of Hoccleve's Regiment in R. F. Green, Poets and
Princepleasers, Literature and the English Court in the Late Middle Ages (Toronto, 1980),
also the extraordinarily rich and provocative development of the idea of Hoccleve as a
writer of royal propaganda in D. Pearsall, `Hoccleve's Regement of Princes: the Poetics
of Royal Self-Representation', Speculum 69 (1994), 386±410. This formed the basis of
Professor Pearsall's paper at the York conference. I am particularly grateful to him for
allowing me to read a draft of his paper before the conference and much in advance of
its publication.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
in the manuscript `feurent faites au tresnoble Roy H. le quint (que dieu
pardoint) et au tres honurable conpaignie du Iarter' (fol. 27r).29 Another poem
in MS HM 111 was written `tost apres que les osses du Roy Richard feurent
apportez a Westmonster' (fol. 31v).30
Hoccleve's verse Àdmonition to Oldcastle', now uniquely surviving in MS
HM 111, is also ®rmly associated with the life and times of the late king,
without directly claiming Henry as its patron. Its heading on fol. 1r instead
claims that `Ceste feust faicte au temps que le Roy Henri le Vt (que Dieu
pardoint) feust a Hampton sur son primer passage vers Har¯ete'.31 The
heading contrasts sharply with this poem's last lines where Oldcastle's
stubborn stance at home is imaginatively compared to the manner in
which the king has already left England and is now labouring in arms
`beyond the see' (l. 500).32 Such inconsistency between the information
provided by the poem and that provided by the later heading is a useful
reminder that we know very little about the manner in which the Àdmoni-
tion' presumably circulated among its ®rst English readers before the 1420s.
Oldcastle was caught and executed in 1417 and may never have received a
copy of the poem, of course. Until 1415, however, Hoccleve's work at
Westminster must have brought him into close contact with one of Old-
castle's family relatives (John Prophet, Keeper of the Privy Seal from 1406 to
1415 and member of the King's Council between 1409±15), and the Oldcastle
business must have been regularly in and out of the news at Westminster
Hall and on the London streets from late 1413 until December 1417.33 John
29
Selections, ed. Seymour, pp. 58±60.
30
Minor Poems, ed. Furnivall, I, pp. 47±9. This poem consists of four stanzas that
tactfully bewail the spread of heresy (Àllas! an heep of vs, the feith werreye;/ we
waden so deepe in presumpcion,/ at vs nat deyneth vn-to god obeye'; ll. 6±8); the ®nal
two stanzas (a two-stanza envoy?) then turn to consider Henry V's act of `remem-
brance' in 1413, the year in which the Lancastrian king arranged for Richard II's bones
to be ceremoniously reburied at Westminster. Pearsall, `Poetics', 391 makes an estimate
of the likely propaganda value attached to Henry's commemorative gesture.
31
Selections, ed. Seymour, pp. 61±74. I am not entirely happy with the idea that the
king or anyone else from the Lancastrian political establishment need necessarily have
èmployed' or `commissioned' Hoccleve to write the Àdmonition' during the Old-
castle era (I am here using these terms in the necessarily quali®ed way that Pearsall
proposes in `Poetics', 391, 393).
32
While such a detail contradicts Hoccleve's claim to have originally written the poem
while Henry was at Hampton preparing to go to France, the textual dif®culty is itself
open to various interpretations; see the excellent notes accompanying Seymour's
edition in which he raises the possibility that the second part of the poem, at line
273 and following, was added at a later date: Selections, pp. 129±30. This may well have
been when the outcome of the Oldcastle episode had become more certain. Burrow,
Thomas Hoccleve, p. 21, similarly detects a change of tone at line 273 and aptly describes
the ®nal lines of the poem (ll. 489±512) as a `three-stanza envoy'. For the varying levels
of disapproval for Oldcastle expressed by contemporary poets see John Scattergood,
Politics and Poetry in the Fifteenth Century (London, 1971), pp. 132±4.
33
Prophete's family connection with Oldcastle is described in Brown, `The Privy Seal
Clerks', p. 276 (also noted by Burrow, Thomas Hoccleve, p. 21).
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
90 John J. Thompson
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Lydgate's short anti-Lollard work known as À Defence of Holy Church'
perhaps offers us another gauge of the of®cial anxiety that may have been
around at the time because of the prospect of continuing civil unrest
following the Oldcastle and Lollard disturbances of 1413±14.34 It is therefore
probably no accident that both Hoccleve and Lydgate were simultaneously
putting into verse their similarly orthodox imaginative visions of the civil
and religious observances that would always see England through troubled
times. About seven years after Hoccleve says that he had originally written
the poem, his manuscript heading offers a secure and well-documented
`Lancastrian' setting where contemporary readers were presumably encour-
aged to re¯ect upon the changed circumstances of the 1420s in which they
found themselves now reading the Àdmonition'.35
Much remains to be discovered about the range of Hoccleve's possible
contacts with the other establishment ®gures who are also remembered in MS
HM 111. The name of Henry Somer, Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1410
to 1439, appears in a heading on fol. 38v, for example, and is thereby wittily
associated with a petitionary balade and accompanying song to summer/
Somer.36 These works were apparently written by Hoccleve on behalf of
himself and three of®ce colleagues at an earlier stage in Somer's life, `quant il
estoit Souztresorer'. A few pages later, another heading on fol. 41v describes
how `Ceste balade ensuyante feust, par la Court de bone Conpaignie, enuoiee
a lonure sire Henri Somer Chaunceller de leschequer & vn de la dite court'.
Somer and the successful progress of his political career thereby seems to
have been associated with a dining club called the `Court of Good Company'
that presumably also counted Hoccleve and some of his friends as mem-
bers.37
34
Text in Minor Poems, ed. MacCracken, I, pp. 30±35. Seymour notes that `Lydgate's
poem is shorter, more literary and less personal' and speculates that Hoccleve may
have been seeking to surpass the Bury monk in writing his Àdmonition' (Selections,
p. 130). It might also be added that Hoccleve's writing seems the more anxious and
inconsistent of the two and may somehow re¯ect the uncertainties of the poet's own
political position regarding Oldcastle in 1415.
35
Oldcastle had been caught and executed in 1417, and Hoccleve was recopying `the
Admonition' some time after 1422 when both Henry V and Charles VI of France had
died suddenly within six weeks of each other, leaving a Lancastrian infant on the
English throne and quarrels still to be settled in France.
36
Selections, ed. Seymour, pp. 25±8 (where these linked texts are set in sequence with
Hoccleve's other poem to Somer, discussed in the following note); see also Burrow,
Thomas Hoccleve, pp. 15±16.
37
Largely because of the semi-autobiographical allusions in this balade to Somer,
Hoccleve has been memorably characterized by Stephen Medcalf as àn impecunious
but clubbable London clerk of literary leanings': The Later Middle Ages, p. 127. Burrow has
recently also used the startlingly precise details given in the poem and its heading to
deduce that the meeting proposed by the Privy Seal clerks (at which their successful
former colleague was expected to pay for dinner) was due to have taken place on
Thursday, 1 May 1421: Thomas Hoccleve, p. 29. Hoccleve was still working on his
`Dialogue' at this time: here he not only makes reference to the dangers of putting
oneself under female `rule and gouernance' (`Dialogue', line 718) but also to the terrible
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
On fol. 43v, another prominent London ®gure ± here described as `Meistre
Robert Chichele' ± is named as the person who had originally ordered the
translation of the next balade, a conventionally pious Marian lyric in the style
of a chanson d'aventure, now the ®nal item in MS HM 111.38 There seems no good
reason to doubt the authenticity of Hoccleve's later holograph attribution, but
the original occasion and purpose for which Hoccleve prepared the Chichele
commission are completely unknown. Chichele was Lord Mayor of London in
1411 and again in 1421. His generous benefactions to the city of London in
November 1439 suggest, moreover, the secular nature of much of his charity. It
is therefore interesting that letters patent of 1413±14 instructed Chichele, along
with the mayor of the time, Richard Whittington and others, `to make search
for and commit to prison, all Lollards within the city and suburbs'.39 Such
attempts to suppress civil unrest on urban streets at a time when Oldcastle was
at large in the city and elsewhere ®t well with the conventional utterances of
religious and political orthodoxy variously expressed in Hoccleve's Àdmoni-
tion'. They are also perhaps re¯ected in the unimpeachable religious ortho-
doxy celebrated by the poet's inoffensive Marian lyric for Chichele.
The name of `Carpenter' appears under particularly unusual circumstances
in MS HM 111. On fol. 41r Hoccleve has inserted Carpenter's name in the
briskly written opening line of a petitionary poem. This line now reads `See
heer, my maistre Carpenter, I yow preye', placing Carpenter in the role of the
powerful ®gure who will assist the poet to resist the importunate demands of
his creditors.40 But Carpenter's name has been inserted over an earlier erasure
and the text may well have been addressed to someone else when Hoccleve
®rst made this copy. The ruse of simply changing the name of the person being
petitioned in order to catch their attention would surely have been as
transparent to Carpenter as it has been to later readers of MS HM 111.
reputation that Thomas enjoys among English women because of the `Letter of Cupid'
(`writen in the ayer / the lusty moneth of May'/ [at the court of Cupid],/ A thousand and
foure houndred / and secounde', according to lines 472±76 of that poem). The
autobiographical accuracy of Hoccleve's allusion in the Somer balade to the poet's
anticipated presence at the latest in a series of dinners organized by an apparently all-
male gathering called the `Court of Good Company' is therefore not entirely above
suspicion.
38
Text in Minor Poems, ed. Furnivall, I, pp. 67±72; see also discussion and document-
ary references in H. E. Sandison, ` `Èn Mon Deduit a Moys de May'': the Original of
Hoccleve's ``Balade to the Virgin and Christ'' ', in Vassar Medieval Studies, ed. C. F.
Fiske (New Haven, 1923), pp. 235±45.
39
Quoted from Sandison, ` `Èn Mon Deduit'' ', p. 237. Sandison also notes the record
in Stow's Survey, ed. C. L. Kingsford, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1908, rpt. 1971), I, p. 109, that
describes how Chichele's will made provision so that òn his minde day, a competent
dinner should be ordained for 2400. poore men housholders of this Cite, and euerie
man to haue two pence in money'.
40
Selections, ed. Seymour, p. 24. In the accompanying notes (p. 110) Seymour rightly
queries whether this text represents Hoccleve's `fair copy' and speculates that
Carpenter's singular generosity may have prompted Hoccleve to alter later his
holograph text.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
92 John J. Thompson
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Hoccleve's text also records the poet's promise, or threat, to identify his
creditors by name (`tho men / whos names I aboue expresse', according to
line 8). As if to tactfully underline this general point without giving speci®c
examples, Hoccleve has added an explanatory marginal note next to the line
containing Carpenter's name and the earlier erasure. This reads, À de B & C
de D &c / Ceste balade feust tendrement considere & bonement execute'. Such
a formula gives the impression that Hoccleve's poem may have been written to
be recycled; it was then copied for the holograph collection before being
redirected to Carpenter. The same point does not hold true for the surrounding
petitionary items in MS HM 111, however, because the poem for `Carpenter'
has been placed between a begging poem that was originally directed to a king
(presumably Henry V since the item is headed Ìtem au Roy que dieu
pardoint'), and the balade for Somer, supposedly written by one member of
the `Court of Good Company' and speci®cally addressed to another.41
The `Carpenter' referred to in Hoccleve's poem has been identi®ed as John
Carpenter, the common clerk of London from 1417 to 1438 and a trained
lawyer who remained one of London's most prominent citizens until his
death in 1442.42 Carpenter served under the mayoralties of both Henry
Chichele and Richard Whittington and in 1423 acted as chief executor for
the latter. His leading role in the carefully organized distribution of
Whittington's wealth no doubt meant that his name gained in prestige
during the 1420s and after because of its unmistakable association with
many charitable ventures in the `common pro®t' culture of the time. Such
metropolitan ventures included the 1425 founding of the Guildhall Library,
but Carpenter has also recently been shown to have had a hand in many
other small acts of piety and generosity, and in much more modest
enterprises, including the production and circulation of the small `books
for the common pro®t' that were sometimes made from the proceeds of the
estates of devout London layfolk.43 By the time that Hoccleve was redirecting
his begging poem to Carpenter, the town clerk of London may well have
been associated with so many different groups and interests that some part of
his reputation for being charitable was bound to have been known by the
London poet. On the other hand, one also does not have to look far for points
of similarity between the careers of the two men: within two years of his
41
For the royal petitionary poem see Selections, ed. Seymour, pp. 53±4. Another text of
this poem found its way into Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Fairfax 16, one of the so-
called Òxford-group' Chaucer anthology manuscripts for which see J. Boffey and
J. Thompson, Ànthologies and Miscellanies: Production and Choice of Text', in Book
Production and Publishing, ed. J. Grif®ths and D. Pearsall (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 279±
315 (pp. 280±3 and refs.).
42
My discussion of Carpenter's piety and charity is much indebted to W. Scase's
excellent, `Reginald Pecock, John Carpenter and John Colop's ``Common-Pro®t''
Books: Aspects of Book Ownership and Circulation in Fifteenth-Century London',
Medium Aevum 61 (1992), 261±74.
43
For which see V. Gillespie, `Vernacular Books of Religion', in Book Production and
Publishing, ed. Grif®ths and Pearsall, pp. 317±44 (pp. 319±20 and refs.).
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
appointment as town clerk, Carpenter had completed a manuscript compila-
tion for the city which is known as the Liber Albus and preserves the laws,
observances, rights and franchises of late medieval London as a permanent
record of good practice in urban government.44 A few years later Hoccleve
was working on a similarly ambitious set of Privy Seal `remembrances' in the
shape of his Formulary, a project upon which he was to spend the rest of his
professional life at Westminster.
By the 1420s Hoccleve must also have been well aware of Carpenter's likely
political interests and sympathies. Before he became town clerk, for example,
Carpenter had already signed a number of proclamations in favour of Henry
V's dealings in France.45 He had also loyally given a retrospective account of a
speech that was made by Henry V in March 1415 before the mayor of London
and other assembled dignitaries, including Bedford and Gloucester. Carpen-
ter's account suggests that he recognised the historical importance of this
moment when the reigning monarch chose to announce his new French
campaign in a metropolitan setting. His introductory preamble sets out
clearly how the event exempli®ed for him the importance of writing down
such accounts, or, to quote from the modern translation of Carpenter's ornate
Latin, that ìt is not ®tting to disguise beneath an absurd silence the solemn
acts of sound government that have been planned designedly and of
purpose, and which are of a dignity that commends them to memory in
the future'.46 No doubt some similar conviction later in life prompted
Carpenter to make a written report of the 1432 entry into London of Henry
VI, an event that may well have been carefully staged in imitation of the
metropolitan pageants that had once greeted Henry V on his return from
France.47 The eminent town clerk apparently ensured that the Lancastrian
poet John Lydgate was in a position to commemorate the same event in
suitable English verse since Carpenter's written record became Lydgate's
main source. Less than ten years before this episode, Hoccleve had already
con®dently associated the name of `Carpenter' with a system of benefaction
that he must have known and worked with for most of his life.
44
Some account of the Liber Albus can be found in T. Brewer, Memoir of the Life and
Times of John Carpenter (London, 1856), esp. pp. 17±22.
45
Two such documents dated 6 Henry V (1418) and carrying Carpenter's name now
survive on fols. ccxii and ccxvii of Letter Book I in the Corporation of London Record
Of®ce. Both concern the speeding of men to the English army in Normandy ± the
introductory section of the ®rst is written in French while the remainder of this and all
of the second is in English; see Memorials of London and London Life in the XIIIth, XIVth
and XVth Centuries, ed. H. T. Riley (London, 1868), pp. 664±5.
46
For a convenient modern translation of the original Latin document (now extant in
Letter Book I, fol. cl); see Memorials of London Life, ed. Riley, pp. 603±5.
47
See H. N. MacCracken, `King Henry's Triumphal Entry Into London, Lydgate's
Poem and Carpenter's Letter', Archiv 126 (1911), 75±102. For a ME poem celebrating
the London pageants that greeted Henry V, see J. Boffey and C. Meale, `Selecting the
Text: Rawlinson C. 86 and Some Other Books For London Readers', in Regionalism in
Late Medieval Manuscripts and Texts, ed. F. Riddy (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 143±69 (p. 163).
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
94 John J. Thompson
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
In MS HM 744 Hoccleve preserves the name of another prominent
Londoner who may have had some important but hitherto not completely
understood in¯uence on both his writing and career. This is `T. Marleburgh'
whose name has been added in a marginal sidenote on fol. 36r, next to the
opening lines of a short two-part verse `remembrance' of the Virgin.48
Although the note beside the prologue indicates that `Ce feust faite a linstance
de T. Marleburgh', the nature or extent of Marleburgh's involvement in the
production of this composite item is completely unknown. Discussion of the
matter is complicated by the manner in which Hoccleve has presented the
`Prologue' and the accompanying `Miracle' text as separable components in
this anthology setting. Here the `Prologue' forms the third item in a cluster of
short Marian pieces and ends with space to spare on fol. 36v, following the
words Èxplicit prologus & incipit fabula'. Hoccleve's formal explicit for the
`Prologue' obviously forges a link between it and the accompanying `Miracle'
that now begins on a fresh page in his collection. The items are presented as if
they are meant to belong together, but it is quite unclear whether Marleburgh
is therefore being credited in the sidenote on fol. 36r with having originally
prompted the poet to write both parts of this item simultaneously, or whether,
alternatively, he had simply offered the poet an opportunity to update the
earlier `Miracle' text by appending his `Prologue'.
Such codicological niceties are of some larger interest because
`T. Marleburgh' has been identi®ed as the respectable London stationer
who by 1423 had become the Master of the guild of Limners and Text-
writers.49 Paul Christianson's patient research has also identi®ed Marleburgh
as a prominent member of an active community of textwriters, scriveners,
stationers and limners in Chaucer's London who had many continuing
associations with the shops in Paternoster Row during Hoccleve's lifetime.
Hoccleve's own association with the organized production and dissemina-
tion of English writings in London is most clearly documented by his brief
contribution as one of several London copyists who together produced the
manuscript of John Gower's Confessio Amantis that now survives as Cam-
bridge, Trinity College, MS R.3.2.50 At a later stage in his career Hoccleve may
48
Text in Minor Poems, ed. Gollancz, II, pp. 289±93.
49
Ten years earlier, on 25 June 1413, Marleburgh had however stood accused at the
King's Bench with Robert Bradfelde ± the late king's `Custodem librorum' ± of having
appropriated nine books belonging to Henry V's father; see C. Meale, `Patrons, Buyers
and Owners: Book Production and Social Status', in Book Production and Publishing in
Britain: 1375±1475, ed. Grif®ths and Pearsall, pp. 201±38 (p. 203 and n. 10). For an
account of other aspects of Marleburgh's career (including the information that he
dealt in second-hand books), see Doyle and Parkes, `Production', pp. 197±8 and n. 88,
also further details of his professional life in the London book trade in C. P.
Christianson, À Community of Book Artisans in Chaucer's London', Viator 20
(1989), 207±18.
50
Doyle and Parkes have linked the production of this manuscript to the activities of
`scribes who were copying English works in the London area during the ®rst quarter
of the ®fteenth century': `Production', p. 163.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
also have been associated with the group effort that led to the production and
distribution of the 1413 Middle English prose version of Guillaume de
DeGuileville's Pelerinage de l'Ame.51 And it has been surmised that he may
have had a part to play in early ®fteenth-century efforts to organize the
Canterbury Tales after Chaucer's death, a project that Christianson plausibly
suggests could have been directed by Marlburgh or some of his neighbours at
Paternoster Row.52 Marleburgh's professional interests and Hoccleve's lit-
erary aspirations probably therefore both had a part to play in determining
the earliest textual history of the poet's `Miracle of the Virgin' and accom-
panying `Prologue'.
Some time after both poet and stationer had died, there is evidence of a
continuing commercial interest in Hoccleve's `Prologue' and `Miracle'
because this composite item was copied for one of the `booklets' in Cam-
bridge, Trinity College, MS R. 3. 21, a manuscript that can be associated with
the work of the proli®c London copyist known as the `Hammond' scribe.53
The same combination of Marian material was also eventually pressed into
service as Chaucer's `Plowman's Tale' in the copy of the Canterbury Tales now
extant in Oxford, Christ Church MS 152.54 Although the precise nature of
Hoccleve's possible contacts with Marleburgh or with the owners of the
sources used by later professional London copyists remain unclear, the
circumstantial evidence enabling us to associate all these ®gures through
the London book trade seems strong enough. Marleburgh was obviously an
important and in¯uential ®gure in Paternoster Row during the period when
Hoccleve not only praised Chaucer for having written `full many a line' in
praise of the Virgin but also perhaps entertained his readers by trying on for
himself the mantle of his literary master.
The different circumstances in which Hoccleve has recorded Marleburgh's
name in MS HM 111 and inserted the name of Carpenter in HM 744 serve as
salutary reminders that both these Londoners were probably members of a
secondary audience for Hoccleve's works about whom we still know very
little. The existence of such a readership is con®rmed, however, by the not
infrequent survival of Hoccleve poems in multiple ®fteenth-century copies ±
these works are, notably, the Letter of Cupid, his Regiment of Princes, and the
Series, as well as his translated de Deguileville material. The manner in which
these and some other short items once circulated among certain English
51
The nature of Hoccleve's involvement in the de Deguileville project will require
further discussion elsewhere, but see A. I. Doyle's brief comment on Hoccleve's
possible role as an English translator of the French prose in his The Vernon Manuscript:
a Facsimile (Cambridge, 1987), p. 16.
52
'A Community of Book Artisans', p. 218.
53
Summary details of this scribe's career in Boffey and Thompson, Ànthologies and
Miscellanies', pp. 287±90 and refs.
54
Described in The Text of the Canterbury Tales, ed. J. M. Manly and E. Rickert, 8 vols.
(Chicago, 1940), I, 85±91. For the spurious linking passage by which Hoccleve's work
has been grafted on to Chaucer's framework see The Canterbury Tales: Fifteenth-Century
Continuations and Additions, ed. J. M. Bowers (Kalamazoo, 1992), pp. 23±5.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
96 John J. Thompson
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
readers is likely to have varied considerably. It is nevertheless worth noting
that both the Regiment and the Series are now found side by side in at least
seven manuscript anthologies. These provide the best indication we have that
later readers appreciated Hoccleve's efforts and wanted to have copies of
`selected works' with a Chaucerian tinge that had earlier been written for
Henry V when he was Prince of Wales, or, in the case of the Series, had been
associated with an un®nished commission for someone as eminent as the
duke of Gloucester. That this pairing should have been produced and
recopied on more than one occasion presumably hints at some early and
reasonably well organized effort to issue or reissue both items simultan-
eously in which the poet himself may well have played a part.55
In the last few years of his life, therefore, Hoccleve may have been kept
aware of current metropolitan interest in certain types of polite reading
through continuing and long-established professional contacts with ®gures
such as Marleburgh or Carpenter or other as yet unidenti®ed ®gures
associated with the London book trade.56 The unnamed friend's discussion
with and advice for the poet Thomas in the Series offers us a ®ctional
representation of how such conversational contacts worked to the poet's
apparent advantage. When seen in such a context, the friend's allusion in the
`Dialogue' to the poet's supposed `misogynism' because of the Letter of Cupid
actually gives Hoccleve an opportunity to promote one of his own much
55
Seymour links the organized distribution of Hoccleve's Regiment and Series to the
period immediately after Hoccleve's death (Selections, p. xxxii), while Burrow, Thomas
Hoccleve, p. 28, is more circumspect. The likelihood that some early Regiment texts were
produced and issued in an orderly and systematic manner is discussed in D. C.
Greetham, `Challenges of Theory and Practice in the editing of Hoccleve's Regement of
Princes', in Manuscripts and Texts: Editorial Problems in Later Middle English Literature,
ed. D. Pearsall (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 60±86.
56
Among the Bridge House Deeds (portfolios H and I) in the Corporation of London
Records Of®ce, for example, Paul Christianson has uncovered a document in which
the textwriter Thomas Marleburgh (written as `Madelburgh') and the limner Thomas
Fysshe are two of the witnesses for the 1429 transfer of the shop in the tavern or
tenement known as `le Petre et Paule' in Paternoster Row from Robert Mokkyng,
vintner, to one John Carpenter junior. By 1468, ownership of the property had passed
to Richard Collop, parchmener. See À Century of the Manuscript-Book Trade in Late
Medieval London', Medievalia et Humanistica n.s. 12 (1984), 143±65 (at p. 149). In all
probability, the Carpenter referred to here is the renowned town clerk because, in his
will and elsewhere Carpenter identi®ed himself as Carpenter `junior' to distinguish
himself from his older brother who was also called John (see Brewer, Memoir of
Carpenter, pp. 4, 131±44). Richard Collop was probably the stationer of that name and a
younger relative of the John Collop with whom Carpenter had many dealings: Scase,
` ``Common Pro®t'' Books', esp. pp. 261±2. It is worth noting that Carpenter's
extraordinary will probably only lists a selection of his books but these include a
copy of the pseudo-Aristotelian Secreta Secretorum. This was a widely-copied work that
had also once acted as a source for the Regiment of Princes. In view of Hoccleve's
possible contacts with Carpenter and Marleburgh, it is attractive to speculate that
some of the poet's sources had also once passed through the hands of these two men
and their Paternoster Row associates.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
earlier courtly writings: he does so, of course, through the persona of
Thomas, the anxious and unpopular old court poet who still feels that he
can count among his supporters some of the most powerful ®gures in the
land.
The Formulary
Hoccleve was producing the three extant small holograph manuscripts and
probably still revising the `Dialogue' part of his Series around the same time
as he was compiling his huge formulary of Privy Seal documents.57 Even for
à man in his conceit', the compilation of such a volume was an extraordin-
arily ambitious undertaking that could probably only have been completed
over a number of years by someone with a lifetime's experience of writing
and processing the documents that passed through an important and busy
government of®ce. It was clearly not a task for the fainthearted since it
involved ®nding and searching through multitudes of Privy Seal documents,
some of which presumably had to be retrieved from copies already sent to the
Chancery or Exchequer. Hoccleve then selected and transcribed the appro-
priate models or forms in Latin and French that the junior clerks in his of®ce
might be expected to follow as examples of good practice. Having discovered
the original documents that he wanted to reproduce, he usually removed
most of their identifying features as he copied them. This frequently but not
invariably means that he ignored the of®cial opening preamble in his
originals and lightly disguised in one way or another the identities of the
parties named in the document, their names and where they lived or owned
land and property. These details were usually reduced to initials such as
`TH', ÈB in the county of N' or à de b' or to the French equivalent of `such
and such a person from such and such a place'. As I indicated brie¯y above,
the result was not always complete anonymity, and in several cases, Hoccleve
simply recorded the actual names, dates and places found in the originals.
The main point of Hoccleve's last and presumably most time-consuming
Privy Seal writing task was so that an older and wiser hand could provide
younger and less experienced colleagues with a convenient and permanent
work of reference. Yet since so few original Privy Seal documents have
survived, the Formulary has also quite naturally been seen by modern
scholars as a valuable source of documentary information concerning the
rapid development under the Lancastrians of the of®ce to which Hoccleve
devoted his professional working life. Some ®ve or ten years before Hoccleve
is known to have started work on his Formulary, however, another Privy Seal
colleague had already used the resources available in that of®ce to compile
another quite different anthology of of®cial correspondence. This manuscript
57
As far as I am aware, Hoccleve never alludes to the Formulary in his poetry,
suggesting perhaps that he really had stopped writing imaginatively in English by the
time that he was completing his work for this enormous project.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
98 John J. Thompson
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
now survives as London, British Library, MS Harley 431, a collection of
letters on ecclesiastical matters, particularly diplomatic and other concerns
related to the Council of Pisa in 1409. It was compiled by John Prophet, the
relative of Oldcastle mentioned brie¯y earlier, who until 1415 was Keeper of
the Privy Seal.58 Prophet had been a Privy Seal clerk from 1386, just a year
before Hoccleve is likely to have entered the same government of®ce. He
must have been one of Hoccleve's earliest colleagues and was probably
someone whom Hoccleve would have known for most of his working life.
Such professional contacts with a fellow clerk ± and perhaps Hoccleve's other
political experience at Westminster, London or elsewhere about which we
can only speculate ± may well have in¯uenced the way in which he ®rst
approached the daunting task of compiling his Formulary.
The bulk of the documents in the Formulary were originally written during
Hoccleve's lifetime. Its practical value as an of®ce reference work would have
been drastically reduced within a relatively short period, however, since
Hoccleve only recorded Latin and French copies of the of®cial documents he
had earlier selected. Although both Latin and French would continue to be
used for of®cial documents for many years after Hoccleve's death, he must
have been aware, by 1425, that government documents were increasingly
being written in English in preference to French.59 His failure to include any
English models or accompanying marginal glosses and his inclusion of so
much earlier material in the Formulary both strongly suggest that Hoccleve
may have shared with John Carpenter ± and, perhaps, also some of his own
superiors at the Privy Seal ± a genuine concern for recording documentary
evidence that would ensure that good governing practices were perpetually
remembered. This may be why Hoccleve chose a number of his models from
documents associated with the administration of Edward III (1327±77), for
example, or why, by the 1420s, he felt free to include other examples written
in Richard II's reign, during which he had himself ®rst entered the Privy Seal
Of®ce. The latest document in Hoccleve's hand can be dated 5 July 1424 (by
coincidence the day after his corrody in Southwick Priory was authorized).60
Among the main items in the ®rst part of the Formulary, however, is a writ of
58
For Prophete see n. 33 above, also `Formulary', ed. Bentley, pp. iii, xxi. In view of his
family link with Oldcastle, it would be clearly worthwhile to investigate further
Prophete's likely personal interest in Harley 431, a small collection of English
ecclesiastical documents that included a record of the diplomatic preparations for
an international Council where a third pope was elected to match those already in situ
at Rome and Avignon.
59
This important development in the 1420s may have been actively encouraged by
Henry V; see J. H. Fisher, `Chancery and the Emergence of Standard Written English in
the Fifteenth Century', Speculum 52 (1977), 870±99 and À Language Policy for
Lancastrian England', PMLA 107 (1992), 1168±80; M. Richardson, `Henry V, the
English Chancery and Chancery English', Speculum 55 (1980), 726±50 (esp. p. 727, n.
4 where Privy Seal documentation is cited to illustrate `the sudden shift to English'
that becomes discernible around 1422).
60
For this document (written in French) see Burrow, Thomas Hoccleve, p. 48 (item 63).
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
28 June 1425 that represents the work of another scribe whose entries mainly
survive in the latter part of the manuscript and who may well have been
drafted in to facilitate the completion of Hoccleve's ®nal task. Although the
date on which a copy of this writ was inserted is unknown, its status as a late
`post-Hoccleve' addition is indicated by the fact that it was never listed in the
carefully itemized table of contents that Hoccleve himself wrote for the ®rst
half of the Formulary manuscript.
The Formulary was Hoccleve's book and he was able to continue working
on the shape of his collection over a fairly extended period of time simply
because the individual items were organized into discrete manuscript
sections. Hoccleve also provided extensive marginal notation so that indi-
vidual items could be readily identi®ed within each section. And he
eventually produced a partial `calendar' or table of contents for about half
of his material. The `calendar' is keyed to an early foliation system of which
there are some remaining signs in most of the surviving unevenly sized
quires.61 It begins with a description of the individual warrants to the
Chancellor that now form the Formulary's opening section (àu Chanceller').
This is presented in four columns on each page and ®lls all of the ®rst quire
(A), itself made up of just two bifolia, making it the smallest gathering in the
entire manuscript. Hoccleve then continued copying his table in the last
surviving quire fragment (quire V), informing readers by a note in Latin at
the end of the ®rst small quire that they should now turn to the last part of his
assembled volume. The second part of the table accurately describes the
Formulary material surviving in quires B-J, with blanks left to record further
late additions; although many blank spaces were left at corresponding places
in his manuscript, these were usually never ®lled once the table had been
written. A Latin note on fol. 102v at the end of quire J con®rms that
Hoccleve's table ends at this point and that Hoccleve wrote both book and
`calendar'. The information that this manuscript was written by Hoccleve, a
clerk of the Privy Seal in the time of Chaucer, is recorded twice, in French, by
at least one other ®fteenth-century hand on the present opening leaves of the
manuscript.
61
Bentley makes no attempt to describe the physical make up of the Formulary
manuscript and her account of the original foliation is also very confusing. I have
therefore followed Burrow's example and refer throughout the following description
of the collation to the modern foliation. It should be noted, however, that this foliation
system takes no account of blank pages or physical losses in the manuscript. In the
absence of most signatures, I have alphabetically listed the quires in the order in which
they are now assembled; this does not always seem to have been the sequence in
which Hoccleve copied them. My suggested collation is: A4 (fols. 1±4); B6 (fols. 5±6c);
C14 (fols. 7±18); D14 (fols. 19±32); E12 (fols. 33±45, with fol. 35 inserted as a parchment
strip after ii); F14 (fols. 46±59); G10 (fols. 60±69); H10 (fols. 70±79); I18 (fols. 80±94); J8
(fols. 95±102); K10 (fols. 103±112); L4 (fols. 113±114); M8 (fols. 115±122); N4 (fols. 123±
125); O10 (fols. 126±135); P8 (fols. 136±142); Q4 (fols. 143±144, with iii±iv cut out); R8
(fols. 145±152); S16 (fols. 153±169, with fol. 158 inserted as a parchment strip after v);
T12 (fols. 170±181); U12 (fols. 182±193); V12? (fols. 194±203, with x±xii missing?).
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
100 John J. Thompson
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Hoccleve occasionally wrote his own brief explanatory notes in the
Formulary, helpfully informing later readers of earlier mistakes or later
changes of mind. On fol. 102r at the end of a section addressed Às
Seneschalx &c', for example, he instructs his readers to pass over the
following leaves in his book until they come to the beginning of a section
that is aptly identi®ed as Òmnegadrum' because of the miscellaneous nature
of its contents. Fol. 102 is the last leaf in quire J and Òmnegadrum' begins on
the verso of the ®rst leaf in quire M (fol. 115v). In effect this instruction
encourages readers to ignore his carefully organized material in the sections
described as `Lettres Patentes' and `Guyene' (items relating to Gascony), now
occupying quires K and L and the opening recto leaf of M. As far as it is
possible to tell, Hoccleve's original foliation system also seems to have
broken down in quire M (fols. 115±22). Many of the Roman numerals on
the leaves of this and other quires in the last half of the manuscript have been
erased; of those left unscathed, several obviously represent attempted
corrections that have themselves been inserted over earlier numbers that
were also once erased. A second early system of foliation based on Arabic
numerals commences abruptly on the ®rst leaf in quire K and seems to
represent another attempt to make good the apparent defect in the earlier
foliation attempts. Since Hoccleve's table of contents does not describe any of
the items now found in quire K or the rest of the manuscript, this may have
been the responsibility of the second scribe whose contribution to the
Formulary is mainly found in this latter part of the manuscript. Another
peculiarity is that Hoccleve's quire and leaf signatures for S, T and U are
numbered xiiij, xv, and xvj respectively, yet these quires now survive as the
nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-®rst quires in his assembled manuscript.
Although Hoccleve was probably responsible for assembling all the irregu-
larly sized quires in their present sequence, such details strongly imply that
that sequence may well not have been completely settled at the time when he
was drawing up his preliminary list of contents.
The likelihood that work on the manuscript has been frozen at a stage of
possible near completion stands as a ®tting testimonial to the enormous and
open-ended project that was rapidly concluded soon after Hoccleve's own
®nal departure from Westminster. Hoccleve's last recorded annuity payment
for his work at the Privy Seal is dated February 1426 and he is now generally
assumed to have died at some time between March and May of the same
year: his last recorded payment for the purchase of wax for his of®ce is dated
4 March 1426, and his Southwick corrody was awarded to someone else on 8
May 1426.62 Such details leave open the possibility that Hoccleve enjoyed a
period of semi-retirement from his other professional responsibilities at the
Privy Seal during which he was able to organize his Formulary work with the
degree of thoroughness and dedication that the task itself would seem to
have required. He probably worked on his massive task for as long as he was
62
Burrow, Thomas Hoccleve, p. 49 (items 68 and 69).
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
able, perhaps looking for or discovering new ways to group together the
material in his loosely assembled unbound quires. The nature of his task was
such as to ensure that Hoccleve never had to think seriously about complete
retirement from all that his work at Westminster and the Privy Seal repres-
ented for him. Being pensioned off was perhaps for Hoccleve a less attractive
option than maintaining established contacts with benefactors, colleagues, or
other likely London readers. It was presumably through the of®ce of the
Privy Seal and other professional contacts that Hoccleve continued to keep
himself informed of current metropolitan, national and international political
developments, Lancastrian intrigue and London gossip. Towards the end of
his life Hoccleve's appetite for writing English poetry may indeed have been
exhausted, as the words of Thomas in the `Dialogue' seem to suggest. On the
other hand, only death itself, it seems, was to prove powerful enough to
break this London poet's longstanding attachment to the idea of going `hoom
to the priuee seel'.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
d:/3riddy/meale.3d ± 31/7/0 ± 19:38 ± diskB&B/mp
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
THE POLITICS OF BOOK OWNERSHIP:

THE HOPTON FAMILY AND BODLEIAN LIBRARY,
DIGBY MS 185
Carol M. Meale
The possession and use of books as a means of registering and af®rming

cultural identity within both private and public spheres is a familiar, and
transhistorical, phenomenon. A more precisely focused insight into the roots
of this phenomenon during the medieval period, one dependent upon the
recognition of historical contingency, has come to characterize much of the
recent work on the book collections established by royal and noble patrons in
England. It is now widely accepted, for example, that the volumes acquired
from Flemish workshops by Edward IV and various of his associates, both in
the choice of subject matter and in their lavishness of production, served to
ally the Yorkist regime with a politically and culturally dominant elite within
the French-speaking north of Europe.1 But signi®cant as the book-collecting
activities of members of this particular class undoubtedly were, any analysis
of cultural formations in England during the later Middle Ages should also
acknowledge the centrality of the gentry as commissioners and owners of
books for, just as the gentry's power as a social and political force within the
country was developing during this period,2 so this grouping formed a major
1
See J. Backhouse, `Founders of the Royal Library: Edward IV and Henry VII as
Collectors of Illuminated Manuscripts', and P. Tudor-Craig, `The Hours of Edward V
and William Lord Hastings: British Library Manuscript Additional 54782', in England
in the Fifteenth Century: Proceedings of the 1986 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. D. Williams
(Woodbridge, 1987), pp. 23±41 and 351±69.
2
Amongst the many studies on this subject that have proliferated during recent years,
the following deserve special mention (listed in chronological order of publication):
N. Saul, Knights and Esquires: The Gloucestershire Gentry in the Fourteenth Century
(Oxford, 1981); M. J. Bennett, Community, Class and Careerism: Cheshire and Lancashire
Society in the Age of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Cambridge, 1983); S. M. Wright,
The Derbyshire Gentry in the Fifteenth Century, Derbyshire Record Society 8 (Chester-
®eld, 1983); P. Fleming, `The Character and Private Concerns of the Gentry of Kent,
1422±1509' (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wales, 1985); D. A. L.
Morgan, `The Individual Style of the English Gentleman', in Gentry and Lesser Nobility
in Later Medieval England, ed. M. Jones (Gloucester, 1986), pp. 15±35; A. J. Pollard,
North-Eastern England during the Wars of the Roses: Lay Society, War and Politics, 1450±
1500 (Oxford, 1990); C. Richmond, The Paston Family in the Fifteenth Century: The First
Phase (Cambridge, 1990) and The Paston Family in the Fifteenth Century: Fastolf 's Will
(Cambridge, 1996) (subsequent volumes forthcoming); S. J. Payling, Political Society in
Lancastrian England: The Greater Gentry of Nottinghamshire (Oxford, 1991); E. Acheson, A
Gentry Community: Leicestershire in the Fifteenth Century, c.1422±c.1485 (Cambridge,
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
104 Carol M. Meale
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
± and expanding ± constituency for those involved in the professional
production of books. It is this coincidence, or interrelationship, between the
political and the more broadly de®ned `cultural', that I intend to explore in
the following discussion of Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Digby 185.
Digby is notable as a book for the generic eclecticism of its contents ± which
range from the Middle English Brut (this version of which ends with the
capture of Rouen by the English in January 1418/19, fols. 1r±79r);3 to poems
by Hoccleve (The Regement of Princes, and the Gesta Romanorum tales of the
Emperor Gereslaus and of Jonathas, from the so-called Series, fols. 80r±144v,
145r±157r, 157r±165r);4 to a (near-) contemporary translation into English of
the French prose romance of Ponthus et Sidoine (fols. 166r±203r);5 and for its
decoration, which consists primarily of armorial shields incorporated within
elaborate initials which, in the main, are placed at the openings of the texts
that now comprise the volume. The manuscript's connection with the gentry
family of Hopton has long been accepted.6 Yet the signi®cance of the heraldic
devices with which it is embellished has never been questioned in detail, in
terms either of justifying any presumption as to who the book's commis-
sioner was, or in suggesting a rationale for its production. Using the heraldic
material as a starting point, I should therefore like to consider the volume
both as an artefact, and as an expression of cultural positioning, within the
context of gentry patronage.
The supposition generally made by those who have catalogued the
volume, and by the editors of the texts within it, has been that it was
copied for Sir William Hopton of Swillington in Yorkshire and Westwood
in Blythburgh, Suffolk, who died in 1484.7 The prominence of the Swillington
1992); C. Carpenter, Locality and Polity: A Study of Warwickshire Landed Society, 1401±
1499 (Cambridge, 1992); C. Moreton, The Townshends and their World: Gentry, Law and
Land in Norfolk, c. 1450±1551 (Oxford, 1992); P. J. C. Field, The Life and Times of Sir
Thomas Malory (Cambridge, 1993). I continue to be grateful to the participants in the
annual colloqium on Gentry Culture for their stimulating discussion on the questions
surrounding gentry status and identity, which has helped me in much of my thinking.
3
The Brut or The Chronicles of England, ed. F. W. D. Brie, 2 vols., EETS OS 131 and 136
(London, 1906±8).
4
Hoccleve's Works: The Regement of Princes, ed. F. J. Furnivall, EETS ES 72 (London,
1897) (all following line citations, although not quotations ± which are taken from MS
Digby 185 ± are to this edition); Hoccleve's Works: The Minor Poems, ed. F. J. Furnivall
and I. Gollancz, EETS ES 61 and 73 (London, 1892±1925); rev. by J. Mitchell and A. I.
Doyle and repr. in 1 vol. (London, 1970), 140±74, 219±240.
5
King Ponthus and the Fair Sidone, ed. F. J. Mather, Publications of the Modern Language
Association of America, 12 (1897), i±lxvii (Intro.), 1±150 (Text); A Manual of the Writings in
Middle English 1050±1500, I, ed. J. Burke Severs (New Haven, Conn., 1967), 22.
6
W. D. McCray, Catalogi Codicum Manuscriptorum Bibliothecae Bodleianae Pars Nona,
Codices a Viro Clarissimo Kenelm Digby, Eq. Aur., Anno 1634 Donatos . . . (Oxford, 1883),
assumes possession by the Swillingtons (cols. 195 and 196), in contrast with those
scholars and literary historians whose works are cited in the following note.
7
Since the publication of King Ponthus, ed. Mather, xxiv±xxv, the Hopton connection
has been followed, e.g., by G. Guddat-Figge, Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Middle
English Romances (Munich, 1976), pp. 255±7 (p. 256); D. Pearsall, `The English Prose
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
The Politics of Book Ownership 105
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
arms within the decorative programme (argent, a chevron azure, differenced
here with a label of three points ermine), often displayed in conjunction with
those of Rosse of Wissett in Suffolk (gules, a grif®n segreant argent) assumed
spuriously by the Hoptons,8 of itself offers suf®cient evidence to assign the
commissioning of the volume to a member of the Hopton family, since the
Swillington inheritance reverted in 1430 to John Hopton, heir of Thomas
Hopton, the illegitimate son of Sir Robert Swillington, following the failure of
the main Swillington line.9 The attribution of patronage to Sir William
Hopton, however, seems to have been made primarily on the grounds that,
to the perceptions of modern commentators, at least, he achieved greater
social and political pre-eminence during his relatively long life than any of
his immediate predecessors or descendants. In addition to being active in
local government in Yorkshire and East Anglia, he was for some years
associated with Richard, duke of Gloucester, which service culminated in
his knighting at Richard's coronation after the latter's assumption of the
throne in late June/early July of 1483 and, on 4 July 1483, in his creation as
Treasurer of Richard's household, which post he held until his death on 7
February 1484.10 Sir William is not, though, the only contender to be
considered as the possible patron of MS Digby 185. Although his father,
John, the subject of Colin Richmond's admirable biography, was never made
Romance in the Fifteenth Century', Essays and Studies n.s. 29 (1976), 56±83 (p. 75); and
L. M. Matheson, `The Middle English Prose Brut: A Location List of the Manuscripts
and Early Printed Editions', Analytical and Enumerative Bibliography 3 (1979), 254±66
(p. 265). M. C. Seymour, `The Manuscripts of Hoccleve's Regement of Princes',
Transactions of the Edinburgh Bibliographical Society 4:7 (1974), 253±97, is more circum-
spect about Sir William's commissioning of the book, although he accepts his
ownership of it (p. 277), and G. Keiser, `The Romances', in Middle English Prose: A
Critical Guide to Major Authors and Genres, ed. A. S. G. Edwards (New Brunswick, N. J.,
1984), pp. 271±89, whilst acknowledging Hopton ownership, is still more cautious,
suggesting it was commissioned by `some member of the . . . family, which . . . had its
origins in the Yorkshire gentry' (p. 278).
8
Joan Corder, A Dictionary of Suffolk Arms, Suffolk Records Society 7 (Ipswich, 1965),
cols. 15 (5) and 143 (2) for the Swillington/Hopton arms; J. W. Papworth with A. W.
Morant, An Alphabetical Dictionary of Coats of Arms . . . forming an . . . Ordinary of British
Armorials (London, 1874), p. 981, for Rosse of Wissett. The incorporation of the Rosse
arms seems to have occurred through the introduction of a `®ctitious' generation and
marriage, interpolated between the generations of Thomas Hopton and his son, the
`Suffolk gentleman', John; see The Visitation of Suffolk, 1561, II, ed. J. Corder, Harleian
Society NS 3 (1984), 300±5 (p. 302). It is unclear when this spurious addition to the
pedigree was made, though for Swillington/Hopton land-holdings in Wissett and
Wissett Roos see C. Richmond, John Hopton: A Fifteenth Century Suffolk Gentleman
(Cambridge, 1981), pp. 10, 23, 25, 50, 61, 77±8 and 132.
9
Richmond, John Hopton, p. 2. The extent to which I am indebted to Professor
Richmond's work on the Hoptons, and to his generosity in sharing ideas and
information with me, will become evident in the following pages.
10
Richmond, John Hopton, pp. 136±9; R. L. Storey, Ènglish Of®cers of State, 1399±
1485', Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 31 (1958), 84±92 (p. 92); C. Ross,
Richard III (London, 1981), p. 111 n. 18.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
106 Carol M. Meale
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
knight, and seems to have been little interested in affairs outside his own
locale of East Anglia, his candidature cannot be dismissed out of hand.11
Neither can that of Sir William's son, George, whose death at under thirty
years of age on 6 July 1489 came unexpectedly soon after that of his father: he
received a general pardon from Henry VII four months after the latter's
victory at Bosworth, was knighted, and then created banneret after ®ghting
for the new monarch at the battle of Stoke in June, 1487.12 It is only through a
more detailed examination of the manuscript ± the precise identi®cation of
the heraldic charges it contains, and its probable date of production ± that it
may be possible to comment on the respective claims for patronage between
these three men and, perhaps, a female member of the family, possibly
Thomasin Hopton, John Hopton's third wife, and Sir William's stepmother,
whose taste for books is established by her will.13
MS Digby 185, as noted, opens with a copy of the Brut, and the initial `H'
with which the text begins contains the quartered arms of Swillington and
Rosse, surmounted by a crest described variously as the head of a savage,
and a friar's head proper, hooded argent (Plate 15). I have not been able to
ascertain at what date, or to which member of the family, this crest was
granted, although Sir George is recorded in an early Tudor manuscript,
London, British Library, MS Harley 6163, as having for a crest a monks head
proper, hooded or.14 By the time of the 1561 Visitation of Suffolk, however,
the crest ascribed to the Hoptons was a grif®n passant argent, holding in the
dexter claw a pellet sable.15 The same coat of arms, quarterly Swillington and
Rosse, minus the crest, reappears on fol. 104r, in the initial which marks the
beginning of the dedication of The Regement of Princes to Henry, Prince of
Wales (l. 2017; Plate 16). The lengthy introduction to the Regement com-
mences, on fol. 80r, with the depiction of a large shield supported by straps
11
Cf. Richmond's comments on the care John Hopton took over the education of his
son and stepson: John Hopton, p. 134.
12
Visitation of Suffolk II, ed. Corder, 303.
13
London, PRO PCC Prob.11/11, fols. 151r±2v. I list the books in my article, `The
Morgan Library Copy of Generides', in Romance in Medieval England, ed. M. Mills,
J. Fellows and C. M. Meale (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 89±104 (p. 103 n. 60). Colin
Richmond was the ®rst to raise the possibility that Digby may have belonged to
Thomasin: see John Hopton, p. 131 n. 108.
14
J. Foster, Two Tudor Books of Arms: Harleian MSS. Nos. 169 & 6163, The De Walden
Library (1904), p. 306, fol. 123, and cf. p. 210, fol. 51b for the Swillington arms alone as
adopted by the Hoptons, although there is an error in the former entry whereby the
Rosse arms are attributed to the Swillingtons. It should be noted that Macray's
identi®cations of the various coats in Catalogi . . . Bibliothecae Bodleianae are almost
entirely erroneous (he is the one to describe the crest as the `head of a savage', col. 195),
and Macray's conclusions as to the heraldry are followed, with minor corrections, by
Mather in his edition of King Ponthus, xxiv±xxv. It is Mather who describes the crest as
that of a friar's head, hooded argent: but the colouring within the manuscript is not
always reliable: cf. my comments on the restrictions of the artist(s)' palette, below,
n. 76.
15
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Plate 15. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby MS 185, fol. 1r, quartered arms of
Swillington and Rosse.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
108 Carol M. Meale
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Plate 16. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby MS 185, fol. 80r, arms of
Swillington impaled by Aylsford.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Plate 17. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby MS 185, fol. 104r, initial with
quartered arms of Swillington and Rosse.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
110 Carol M. Meale
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Plate 18. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby MS 185, fol. 166r, quartered arms
of Swillington and Rosse impaled by Aylsford.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Plate 19. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby MS 185, fol. 157v, heraldic
scheme.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
112 Carol M. Meale
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
and hung from an exuberantly executed initial `M' (Plate 17). This shield
bears the arms of Swillington impaled by those of Aylsford (quarterly argent
a bend sable thereon three mullets sable, and gules fretty argent).16 The
Aylsford arms reappear in the pendant shield with which the romance of
Ponthus is prefaced, on fol. 166r, where they impale the quartered arms of
Swillington and Rosse (Plate 18). To return to fol. 80r, other shields may be
glimpsed amongst the strapwork ¯ourishes which form the initial. Those at
the top left and right depict respectively the arms of Swillington and Rosse.
The two lower blazonings reading, again from left to right, argent a saltire
gules; and barry of six ermine and gules, over all three crescents sable, are
those of the families of Neville of Hornby in Lancashire, and Waterton of
Waterton in Lincolnshire and Methley in Yorkshire.17
The most complex heraldic scheme is to be found at the head of
Hoccleve's translation from the Gesta Romanorum of the tale of Jonathas,
on fol. 157v (Plate 19). Some of the shields here repeat those which appear
elsewhere in the book: the series opens (outside the body of the initial `S')
with those of Rosse and Swillington; the Waterton arms occur within the
initial itself on the central shield of the second row; and the third row
comprises those of Neville of Hornby, and Aylsford. The four remaining
coats are those, in the second row, of Vavasour of Haslewood, Spaldington,
etc. and Gascoigne of Gawthorpe, all places in what is now West Yorkshire
(argent, a fess dancette sable; argent, a pale sable, thereon a conger eel's head
erect and couped, of the ®eld);18 and in the ®nal row, again external to the
initial, those of Dyneley (or Dingley, Dynley), by the late Middle Ages of
Bramhope, Manston and of Swillington, all in Yorkshire (argent, a fess sable,
in chief three mullets of the last),19 and Houghton (or Hoghton, Hoton), a
northern family, a branch of which apparently held lands in Ackton and
Arthington in the west of the county (barry of six, argent and sable).20 At the
16
See the arms attributed to one Alayn de Ellesfeld in a roll temp. Edward I in J. Foster,
The Dictionary of Heraldry: Feudal Coats of Arms and Pedigrees, with intro. by J. P. B.
Brooke-Little, Norroy and Ulster King of Arms (London, 1992), p. 73.
17
N. Harris Nicolas, The Controversy Between Sir Richard Scrope and Sir Robert Grosvenor
in the Court of Chivalry, A.D. MCCCLXXXV±MCCCXC, 2 vols. (London, 1832), II, 293±5
(p. 295) and 190±2 (p. 192); Papworth, Ordinary of Arms, pp. 1057 and 599. Also for the
Waterton arms see J. Foster, Pedigrees of the County Families of Yorkshire: West Riding, 3
vols. (London, 1874), II (no pagination).
18
For Vavasour see Nicolas, Scrope and Grosvenor Controversy, II, 179±80 (p. 180) and
Foster, County Families of Yorkshire, II (no pagination); and for Gascoigne, Papworth,
Ordinary of Arms, p. 1006 and Foster, County Families of Yorkshire, I (no pagination).
19
Papworth, Ordinary of Arms, p. 717; Foster, County Families of Yorkshire, I (no
pagination).
20
Papworth, Ordinary of Arms, p. 54. I am only too conscious of making an
interpretative leap here, which may or may not be justi®ed, in choosing to assume
that it is a branch of the Hoton or Houghton family, principally of Cheshire and
Lancashire, which held lands in Yorkshire on the basis of connections through land-
holdings in Arthington in the early thirteenth century between the Vavasours and the
Hotons; and in the early ®fteenth century between the Nevilles and the Hotons in
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
foot of the end ¯ourish of the letter is a drawing of a scourge on a cloth,
pinned by what may, perhaps, be a representation of the nails of Christ's
passion. This last could conceivably be an heraldic badge, though I have not
been able to trace its provenance: if this was indeed the reason for its
presence, it was possibly used by the Hoptons at the period when the
manuscript was commissioned, although by the early sixteenth century their
badge seems to have been similar to the crest recorded in the 1561 Suffolk
Visitation.21
The explanation for the presence of all these arms, which do not at ®rst
glance seem to have an immediate relevance to the later-®fteenth-century
Hoptons, can, I believe, be found in the family's origins, and continuing
interests, in Yorkshire. The majority of the families whose arms are shown in
Digby 185 had roots or connections with the county, and were linked with the
Swillingtons ± and thus the Hoptons ± through their land-holding interests,
through their activities in the spheres of local and national politics and, not
least, through the ties of marriage. The presence of the Aylsford arms in such
a prominent position, for instance, would seem to be due to the facts that
Margaret, the wife of Sir Robert Swillington, from whose liaison with Joan
Hopton the Hopton line issued, married, after Swillington's death, John
Aylsford; whilst his grandson, another Sir Robert (d. 1420, s. p. ), and the last
of the Swillington line, is said to have had to wife Margaret Aylsford.22
Tangential though these putative relationships may appear to us to be to
the later Hoptons, they offer the only logical explanation of why the
Aylsfords should be represented armorially. Marriage would similarly
account (if only partially, as I shall attempt to demonstrate) for the inclusion
of the Neville arms, since Sir Robert's legitimate male heir, Sir Roger
Swillington, married as his ®rst wife Joan Neville (dead by 1407), daughter
of Sir Robert Neville of Hornby, Lancashire and Farnley, Yorkshire (d.
1413);23 and there is some record of a fourteenth- or ®fteenth-century
Swillington-Gascoigne marriage, although there is a considerable degree of
confusion in the genealogies as to which generation this alliance ± if it existed
Ackton: see West Yorkshire: an Archaeological Survey to A.D. 1500, ed. M. L. Faull and
S. A. Moorhouse, 3 vols. (Leeds, 1981), II, 307, 295. My rationale for linking these
families with the armorials within MS Digby 185 is elaborated upon, below; see esp.
pp. 114±15 and n. 26.
21
See A. C. Fox-Davies, Heraldic Badges (London, 1907), pp. 114±15.
22
Richmond, John Hopton, Genealogical Table 1, between pp. xvii and 1, pp. 7 and 12;
the Rev. Canon Beanlands, `The Swillingtons of Swillington', Thoresby Society
Miscellanea 15 (1909), 185±211, `Sketch Pedigree', 192±3; and 209±9 for the supposed
match between Sir Robert Swillington and Margaret Aylsford. It should be observed,
though, that Richmond, John Hopton, p. 13, states that Sir Robert died unmarried, in his
early twenties, at the siege of Melun in 1421, not 1410, as Beanlands asserts. Whatever
the confusion, some marital relationship between the two families does seem to have
existed.
23
Richmond, John Hopton, Table 1 and p. 8; J. S. Roskell, L. Clark and C. Rawcliffe, The
History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1386±1421, 4 vols. (Stroud, 1992), III, 822
and 824.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
114 Carol M. Meale
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
at all ± belonged.24 There is more solid evidence for a connection between the
last-named two families in that the William Gascoigne who was called as a
witness in the Scrope-Grosvenor controversy was appointed as one of the
executors of Sir Robert Swillington (d. July 1391), father of Thomas Hopton.25
Indeed, many members of the families mentioned continued their associa-
tion throughout the period from the late fourteenth century through to the
sixteenth, as evidenced both by wills and by records of land-holdings and
transactions within the west of Yorkshire, and it is clear that a regional
af®nity formed part of the ties that bound them together.26 The implication
that some of these relationships continued to hold signi®cance for one of the
claimants for the role of manuscript patron is the suggestion that a connec-
tion, perhaps friendship, between William Hopton, his brother John, and
John Dyneley (probably of Downham in Lancashire, the son of another John,
head of a cadet branch of the family), appears to have extended over decades:
as Colin Richmond has noted, the three men were together at Blythborough
24
Beanlands, `The Swillingtons of Swillington', 202±3, offers the suggestion that the
manor of Thorp-on-the-Hill came to the Gascoignes through the marriage of Elizabeth,
half-sister of Sir Robert Swillington, with a Gascoigne, whereas in West Yorkshire, ed.
Faull and Moorstone, II, 537±8, tenure by the Swillingtons, only, is attested to through
into the ®fteenth century. Foster, County Families of Yorkshire, I, records a ®fteenth-
century union between `John Gascoigne, of Gawthorpe, and j. u. of Thorp-on-the Hill'
and Èlizabeth, daughter and heiress of Sir William Swillington of Thorp, Knt.', but
this Swillington is clearly of a line co-lateral with that which came to an end with the
death of the younger Sir Robert.
25
His will is PRO, PCC Prob.11/1, fol. 59r; rather unsatisfactory summaries are given
in Early Lincoln Wills, ed. A. Gibbons (Lincoln, 1888), p. 77 and North Country Wills,
1383±1558, ed. J. W. Clay, Surtees Society 116 (London, 1908), 248. Quotations and
summaries are also given in S. Walker, The Lancastrian Af®nity 1361±1399 (Oxford,
1990), pp. 98, 102, 110 and 111; and A. Goodman, John of Gaunt: The Exercise of Princely
Power in Fourteenth-Century Europe (Harlow, 1992), pp. 242 and 257.
26
For evidence from wills additional to that cited elsewhere in this paper, see, e.g.,
Testamenta Eboracensia, or Wills Registered at York ed. J. Raine, 6 vols. (VI ed. J. W. Clay),
Surtees Society 4, 30, 45, 53, 79, 106 (1836, 1855, 1865, 1869, 1884, 1902), II, 277±9, where
in the 1466 will of John Langton, esquire, it is said that he made a `state' to Sir Henry
Vavasour (great-nephew to the Sir William Vavasour who testi®ed in the Scrope-
Grosvenor controversy and husband of Joan, daughter of Sir William Gascoigne of
Gawthorpe) and others of his right to various manors, including that of Farnley, which
came into his family through the marriage of Sir Robert Neville of Hornby and
Margaret de la Pole. References to connections through land-holdings are too
numerous to mention in detail here, but see West Yorkshire, ed. Maull and Moorhouse,
III, Index, for references to the families of Dyneley, Gascoigne, Hoghton (Hoton),
Neville of Hornby, Swillington, Vavasour and Waterton. Swillington itself was in
Skyrack wapentake, for which see West Yorkshire, ed. Maull and Moorhouse, II, 526±8;
and 380 for an example of the complicated relationships based on land, in which it is
recorded that John de Dyneley and his wife, at the time of John's death c. 1369, held a
messuage and sixty acres of land in the vill of Garforth, also in Skyrack wapentake,
from Robert de Swillington. Compare also p. 309, the entry for Manston in Skyrack
wapentake, where it is recorded that in 1488 Nicholas Leventhorp and two others
conveyed the manor for life to Roger Dyneley and his wife, Alice, with reversion to
George Gascoigne, son of George and Alice.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
in 1455±56, and twenty years later, all three were involved, together with
others, in a transaction concerning the estate of Whitkirk in the West Riding.27
But another potentially important factor in any decoding of this elaborate
system of visual signi®ers is the fact that several of the male representatives
of these families, through more than one generation, were joined together
through their wider political af®nities, and particularly through their shared
service with John of Gaunt and his direct Lancastrian descendants. Sir
Robert Swillington, a wealthy man in his own right, but a trusted and
especially well-paid retainer of the duke between 1362 and 1387, was one of
Gaunt's counsellors and chamberlain of his household in 1383/4, leaving
him, his `tresgracieuse seigneur', bequests of his best horse and his hanaper
in his will, and requesting him to be one of the two overseers of its
execution.28 Another Swillington-Neville bond derives directly from this
af®liation, in that the Neville castle of Hornby was jointly leased to Sir
Robert and Sir Michael de la Pole: Swillington and Sir Robert Neville
accompanied Lancaster on two of his foreign expeditions, in 1367 and
1369, and Sir Michael de la Pole, the ®rst earl of Suffolk, was brother-in-
law to Sir Robert Neville of Hornby, the latter, of course, as already noticed,
being father-in-law to Sir Roger Swillington.29 Fellow-retainers and associ-
ates of Gaunt included Sir Hugh Waterton, whose service extended from
1377 to 1399, who was named one of Gaunt's executors, and who died in
1409; three members of the Hoghton family; and Robert Dingley who,
although of Downham, in 1376 and 1383, was described as òf Yorkshire
and Lancashire'. Although not an actual retainer of Gaunt's, the duke gave
him gifts of venison in 1372 and the following year.30
Amongst those men whose own careers and interests and those of their
families survived the shift to the Lancastrian regime, Waterton, Gascoigne
and Neville stand out. Sir Hugh Waterton and other of his relatives, includ-
ing his brother John, MP for Surrey in 1402 and Master of the Horse to Henry
V (d. ?1417), and one Robert (d. 1424/25), Master of the Horse in Henry IV's
27
Richmond, John Hopton, p. 140; and for this branch of the family, Roskell, Clark and
Rawcliffe, House of Commons 1386±1421, II, 786±789; Foster, County Families of Yorkshire, I.
28
For Sir Robert's personal wealth and his retainership fee, which achieved a peak at
seventy pounds a year, see Walker, Lancastrian Af®nity, pp. 91 and 282, and passim for
his career with Gaunt; further details of his service are given by Goodman, John of
Gaunt, pp. 186, 218, 251, 314 and 330. See also the numerous references in John of
Gaunt's Register, 1379±1383, 2 vols., ed. E. C. Lodge and R. Somerville, Camden Society
3rd s. 56 and 57 (London 1937). For details of Swillington's will see n. 25 above.
29
Walker, Lancastrian Af®nity, p. 142.
30
On Sir Hugh Waterton, who also served as chamberlain to Gaunt's son, Henry, earl
of Derby see Walker, Lancastrian Af®nity, pp. 37 and n. 127, 89, 90, 107 and n.161 and
284; John of Gaunt's Register, ed. Lodge and Somerville, I, 10, 40 no. 93, p. 68 no. 206
(described as `nostre bien ame esquier Hugh de Waterton') and 194 no. 595; II, 308 no.
993. For the Hoghtons see Walker, Lancastrian Af®nity, p. 271 for retainership, and
passim for individual references; also John of Gaunt's Register, ed. Lodge and Somer-
ville, I and II, passim. And on Robert Dingley, see Roskell, Clark and Rawcliffe, The
House of Commons 1386±1421, II, 786±8.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
116 Carol M. Meale
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
retinue, as suggested by these brief details, gave faithful and prolonged
service to the later Lancastrian kings; and, from what can be gathered from
the confusing and often contradictory pedigrees, various later branches of the
family remained staunch Lancastrians. The wife of one Robert Waterton,
Margaret Clarel, widow of a Fitzwilliam of Sprotborough in Yorkshire,
interestingly, shortly after the death of her second husband in the same
year as that of the previously mentioned Robert, was married clandestinely
to William Gascoigne, esquire, of Gawthorpe.31 This William Gascoigne's
father, also named William, died in 1422, probably during Henry V's siege of
Meaux; and his grandfather, another William, created a judge in 1401,
became Chief Justice of England, dying in 1419.32 With regard to the Nevilles,
Sir Robert's distinguished career as M. P. for Yorkshire, as JP, and as
Constable of the Lancastrian castle of Pontefract, is well documented. And,
once more, his political af®nities lasted through generations of his family: the
Lancastrian bond was of a strength suf®cient to allow Gaunt's legitimate heir,
31
For (sometimes con¯icting) histories of this family see the Rev. H. Armstrong Hall,
`Some Notes on the Personal and Family History of Robert Waterton, of Methley and
Waterton', Thoresby Society Miscellanea 15 (1909), 81±102; J. W. Walker, `The Burghs of
Cambridgeshire and Yorkshire and the Watertons of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire',
Yorkshire Archaeological Journal 30 (1930±1), 311±419 (esp. pp. 356±97); and, most
recently, Roskell, Clark and Rawcliffe, The House of Commons 1386±1421, IV, 784±7
for the M. P., brother of Sir Hugh, where it is remarked (p. 785) that in àccordance
with family tradition, [John] Waterton began his career in the service of John of
Gaunt'. Details about the family that do appear to be veri®able include the facts that
Sir Hugh was chamberlain of the duchy of Lancashire and that his wife, Katherine,
was `mestresse' to Henry IV's daughter, Philippa, from at least 1402±3 until her
marriage to Eric, king of Denmark, in 1406 (see Nicholas Orme, From Childhood to
Chivalry: The Education of the English Kings and Aristocracy 1066±1530 [London, 1984],
p. 26 n. 127; Walker, `Burgh and Waterton families', 367). J. L. Kirby, Henry IV of
England (London, 1970), p. 203, notes that Àll the Waterton family were amongst
Henry's devoted followers': see the Index for numerous citations of their service. See
also C. Allmand, Henry V (London, 1992), passim, for references. For a summary of the
career of a later Lancastrian supporter, probably the son of the M. P. John, see the entry
on Richard Waterton of Lincolnshire (1405±8), in J. C. Wedgwood, History of
Parliament: Biographies of the Members of the Commons House, 1439±1509 (London,
1936), pp. 924±5. The clandestine marriage between William Gascoigne and Margaret
Clarel is noted in the biography of his father, Roskell, Clark and Rawcliffe, The House of
Commons 1386±1421, III, 162, but it is not speci®ed here whether she was previously
married to a Waterton: see Walker, `Burgh and Waterton Families', 384 and Foster,
County Families of Yorkshire, I, for the additional details, which are veri®ed in West
Yorkshire, ed. Maull and Moorhouse, II, 357.
32
On Chief Justice Gascoigne see The Dictionary of National Biography, ed. Sidney Lee et
al., 21 (London, 1890), 45±7 and Testamenta Eboracensia, ed. J. Raine, Surtees Society 4
(London, 1836), I, 390±5; the will of his second wife, Joan, is on p. 410 of the same
volume and that of his son and heir, William, by his ®rst wife, Elizabeth ± evidently
made in haste ± is on pp. 402±3. See further on the younger of these men, Roskell,
Clark and Rawcliffe, The House of Commons 1386±1421, III, 161±2, and on this latter
William's great-grandson, Knight of the Body to Henry VII from 1487±1509 (and
therefore perhaps acquainted with George Hopton), Wedgwood, Biographies of the
Members of the Commons House, p. 364.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Henry IV, to sanction the marriage of Neville's granddaughter to the king's
legitimized stepbrother, Thomas Beaufort, the third of Gaunt's sons by his
then mistress, Catherine Swynford.33
But, having identi®ed the shields in Digby, the problem of how to interpret
their presence remains. Undoubtedly Thomas Hopton's illegitimacy must
have had some bearing on the emphasis placed on the Swillington line, but
why did the book's commissioner choose to have depicted the arms of well-
established families whose connection with the Hoptons was not primarily one
of blood relationship? What seems to be invoked, rather than pedigree alone, is
regional and political identity. And given this bias, the candidature of one
Hopton as commissioner can probably be ruled out: that of Thomasin Hopton.
Her own familial origins and earlier marital connections lay in the south-east,
not the north-east, of England, and it seems inconceivable that a woman whose
personal sense of identity was so strong that she may have given a public
demonstration of it during her lifetime by initiating the heraldic programme of
carved wooden shields ± stressing the female line ± which decorated the church
of St Peter in Yoxford, Suffolk, and which was supplemented by later female
descendants, should have commissioned a manuscript that gives no hint of her
history.34 (On this score it can be no coincidence that the arms of Barrington of
Rayleigh, Essex, were incorporated within the sixteenth-century family armor-
ial, by which time the importance of her contribution to the family's standing ±
she was daughter and heir of John Barrington ± was readily acknowledged.)35
Equally, her Hopton husband's apparent preference for East Anglia over
Yorkshire, and his lack of political activity on a national scale, makes his
patronage of MS Digby 185 unlikely. Which process of elimination leaves two
remaining candidates to be discussed, his son and grandson.
William's sense of regionalism, in contrast to that of his father, lay in the
north, and until John's death in 1478 he styled himself òf Swillington'. And
although he married into the branch of the Yorkshire family of Wentworth
whose land-holdings were in Nettlestead in Suffolk, and served as sheriff for
Norfolk and Suffolk in 1465 and again in the late 1470s, he was more
regularly employed on commissions in the West Riding, apparently only
moving back to East Anglia around the time of his father's death.36 It is,
33
Roskell, Clark and Rawcliffe, The House of Commons 1386±1421, III, 823±4.
34
I am grateful to Colin Richmond for his kindness in showing me the draft notes and
conclusions on Thomasin Hopton's connection with Yoxford Church made by Dr J. M.
Blatchly, President of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History, in private
correspondence dated 6 August 1991. The brief guide to the church, also written by Dr
Blatchly, includes a description of the elaborate brass commemorating Thomasin's
daughter by her second marriage, Thomasin Sidney/Tendering. On what may be
inferred about the strength of character and familial ties of the elder Thomasin, third
wife of John Hopton, see the comments by Richmond, John Hopton, passim.
35
Visitation of Suffolk II, ed. Corder, 300±2; The Visitations of Essex . . . 1552 . . . 1558 . . .
1560 . . . 1612 . . . and 1634, ed. W. C. Metcalfe, Harleian Society 13 (London, 1878), 146±
8 (pp. 147±8).
36
Richmond, John Hopton, p. 138 and ns. 137±9.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
118 Carol M. Meale
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
however, vital to take into account at this point the Lancastrian bias of the
heraldic scheme within the manuscript. Although, as we have seen, William
was closely connected with the royal court for periods throughout his life,
and as a young man he was for a time a member of Henry VI's household, he
was primarily ± through his close connection with the duke of Gloucester ± a
Yorkist in his af®liation.37 If he were the volume's patron, it must therefore
have been produced during the early 1450s, a period that, admittedly, would
not contradict the majority of previous and unsatisfactory proposals as to its
date, which range across half a century.38 Additional weight might be lent to
this argument by the contention that the Digby Hoccleve texts are closely
related to those in London, British Library, MS Royal 17. D. VI, a volume
owned by William Fitzalan, earl of Arundel, and his wife, Joan Neville,
countess of Salisbury, sometime between their marriage in 1438 and Joan's
death in 1462.39 In the absence of the authority of a holograph manuscript of
the Regement, it is notable that Royal and Digby contain similarly fairly
reliable versions of this poem, closely related in the editorial stemma; and
Digby, in spite of its relatively late date, preserves on fol. 139r the marginal
annotation `Chaucers ymago', alongside the lines of the Regement that refer to
the portrait of the older poet (ll. 4994±98), of which Royal contains one of the
few surviving copies, ultimately deriving from those in what are presumed to
have been the presentation manuscripts of the poem.40 It may also be
signi®cant that the tales of Jereslaus and Jonathas in Digby, extracted from
the Series, are otherwise only found in the Royal manuscript, although the
latter also includes `Learn to Die'.41
Against this, though, it can be argued that either the apparently now-lost
exemplar of MS Royal 17. D. VI remained available for potential commercial
copying or, since William Fitzalan did not die until 1487/8, and the manu-
script subsequently remained with the Fitzalans, it could still have been
37
Richmond, John Hopton, pp. 136±7, 138.
38
King Ponthus, ed. Mather, xxv `(circa 1465)'; on this page Mather mistakenly also
assumes that William was Treasurer to Edward IV, which error, together with the
dating proposed by Mather, is followed by Pearsall, `The English Romance in the
Fifteenth Century', 75. Seymour, `The Manuscripts of Hoccleve's Regement of Princes',
277, hedges his bets in the formulation àfter 1430'; Guddat-Figge, Catalogue of
Manuscripts Containing Middle English Romances, p. 255, gives a date of mid-®fteenth-
century, as do O. PaÈcht and J. J. G. Alexander, Illuminated Manuscripts in the Bodleian
Library Oxford, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1966±73), III, 86 no. 996. J. A. Burrow, Thomas Hoccleve,
Authors of the Middle Ages 4 (Aldershot, 1994), 50, suggests 1450±75.
39
Seymour, `The Manuscripts of Hoccleve's Regement of Princes', 277, 273.
40
See D. C. Greetham, `Challenges of Theory and Practice in the Editing of Hoccleve's
Regement of Princes', in Manuscripts and Texts: Editorial Problems in Later Middle English
Literature, ed. D. Pearsall (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 60±86 (p. 66, ®g. 1a); Burrow, Thomas
Hoccleve, 50. On the Chaucer portrait tradition see D. Pearsall, The Life of Geoffrey
Chaucer: A Critical Biography (Oxford, 1992), Appendix 1, pp. 285±305; and for
comments on the `somewhat clumsily executed' portrait in the Royal MS, with its
`much coarsened' `facial features', pp. 289±91 and plate 8 for a reproduction.
41
Burrow, Thomas Hoccleve, pp. 51±2.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
suf®ciently in circulation for a copyist or patron with knowledge of the family
to borrow.42 More crucially, Digby itself offers evidence of a somewhat later
date of production, one that would not con¯ict with its possible commission-
ing by Sir George Hopton. Although the scribe's hand may look a little old-
fashioned for the late 1480s ± it is a mixed cursive book-hand, retaining such
anglicana features as the looped `b', `d', `h', `l'and `w' and the long form of `r'
± even more conservative styles of writing are represented, for example, in
copies of Chaucer's poems,43 whilst the strapwork decoration of fols. 80r and
157v would certainly ®t more easily with the later date. That this latter,
complex, form of embellishment, with its interweaving of heraldry and
calligraphy, was an integral part of the design of the book, and not added
as an afterthought, is strongly indicated by the way in which appropriate-
sized spaces have been left by the scribe for the decorator, especially the
elongated area, stretching halfway down the page, on fol. 80r. Whilst foreign-
trained scribes, such as Ricardus Franciscus, had been accustomed to using
strapwork ¯ourishing on initials from the mid-®fteenth century onwards, the
closest parallel in terms of design I have come across is in Bodleian Library,
MS Bodley Rolls 5, which contains a genealogy of the kings of England down
to Richard III, together with a chronicle of the Percy family which ends in the
year 1485.44 Decorative work of this type became increasingly popular with
book artists and early printers alike during the late-®fteenth and early-
sixteenth centuries, but neither Digby nor the Bodley Roll show the clumsy
and sclerotic characteristics evident in some later examples, for instance in
42
See the stemma in Greetham, `Challenges of Theory and Practice', p. 66, for the loss
of hypothetical exemplars. With regard to the theory that Arundel may have allowed
his manuscript to be borrowed by either Sir William or Sir George Hopton, with their
differing political allegiances, it may be noted that the earl successfully negotiated his
own career, despite his notable Yorkist sympathies, through the reigns of Henry VI,
Edward IV, Richard III and Henry VII.
43
See, e.g., the reproduction from Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Digby 181 containing
part of Troilus and Criseyde, The Parliament of Fowls and other poems by Chaucer,
Hoccleve and Lydgate, dated to the last quarter of the ®fteenth century by M. B.
Parkes, English Cursive Book Hands 1250±1500 (London, 1979), plate 3 (ii); and the
conservative Hand 2 in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Rawlinson poet. 163, illustrated
in R. K. Root, The Manuscripts of Chaucer's Troilus, Chaucer Society Publications s. 1 (98)
(London, 1914), plate XX (facing p. 40).
44
See PaÈcht and Alexander, Illuminated Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, III, plate
CVI no. 1138 for what may be an example of the work of Ricardus Franciscus (active in
England from c. 1447); also K. Scott, À Mid-Fifteenth-Century English Illuminating
Shop and Its Customers', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 31 (1968), 170±
96 (p. 170 n. 3); M. Drogin, Medieval Calligraphy: Its History and Technique (New York,
1980), plates 65, 68, 142 and 143 and C. P. Christianson, A Directory of London Stationers
and Book Artisans 1300±1500 (New York, 1990), p. 107 and cf. the strapwork of the
inscription, dated 1434, on the Van Eyck Arnol®ni `marriage' portrait, now in the
National Gallery, London, a recent stimulating study of which is L. Seidel, Jan van
Eyck's Arnol®ni Portrait (Cambridge, 1993). For MS Bodley Rolls 5 see PaÈcht and
Alexander, plate CV no. 1121a. The list of late-medieval insular manuscripts contain-
ing similar forms of calligraphy would be an extensive one; see also below, n. 76.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
120 Carol M. Meale
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
another Percy manuscript, Bodleian Library, MS Arch. Selden B. 10, the latter
part of which was copied in the ®rst quarter of the sixteenth century from
Wynkyn de Worde's `prouerbes of Lydgate vpon the fall of prynces' (1519).45
On the basis, then, of features of script and decoration, there is support for
arguing for a date of production for MS Digby 185 in the second half of the
1480s. And that George Hopton, rather than his father, had reason to
commission a book such as this, as I shall now go on to suggest, offers a
plausible explanation not only of its heraldic components but also of the
choice of its contents, both prose and poetic, and of the relationship between
these texts and their accompanying images.
George Hopton, after his reconciliation with the ®rst of the Tudor
monarchs, had good grounds for assuming that his fortune was on the
ascent, illusory as this was proven to be by his early death. Colin Richmond's
phrasing describing George's career at this period, and the naming of his
second son as Arthur, is telling: as he observed, his ènthusiasm for the new
monarch . . . has every appearance of a son looking to atone for the sins of his
father'.46 In terms of any hereditary claim to the throne, Henry VII was reliant
on his Beaufort descent from John of Gaunt, and hence Edward III.47 This,
albeit tenous, claim to legitimate rule was, I suspect, re¯ected with deliberate
intent by Digby's commissioner, with the heraldic elements recalling the
members of Gaunt's af®nity and, in particular, the prominence of Sir Robert
Swillington within that grouping.
It can, I think, be no coincidence that the volume opens with the Brut ± the
most popular of all the histories of England written in the vernacular,48 this
copy of which ends, as noted, with the triumph of Henry V at Rouen ± and
with a representation of Swillington arms impaled by those of Rosse (Sir
George is reported to have borne the arms of Swillington at the battle of
Stoke),49 surmounted by a crest of which the earliest known possessor was
George. It signals a status for the owner within a national sphere of in¯uence.
And there is a further piece of evidence within this copy of the Brut which
indicates that the patron saw his family as active participants in the country's
history. On fols. 40v and 41v the three-line lombard initials that introduce
45
Parkes, English Cursive Book Hands, plate 15 (ii). Compare work of the same hand in
another Percy volume, London, British Library, MS Royal 18. D. II originally owned by
William Herbert, 1st earl of Pembroke (d. 1469) and his wife, Anne Devereux:
materials relating to the Percy family, including Skelton's Ùpon the Dolorus Dethe
and Muche Lamentable Chaunce of the Mooste Honorable Erle of Northumberlande',
were appended to the Lydgate texts that originally constituted the book. For a
description see G. F. Warner and J. P. Gilson, British Museum Catalogue of the Western
Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King's Collections, 4 vols. (London, 1921), II, 310.
46
Richmond, John Hopton, p. 139.
47
See, e.g., S. B. Chrimes, Henry VII (London, 1972), pp. 3, 50 and 62.
48
See Lister M. Matheson, `Historical Prose', in Middle English Prose, ed. Edwards,
pp. 209±47; Antonia Gransden, Historical Writing in England, II, c.1307 to the Early
Sixteenth Century (London, 1982), Chapter 8.
49
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
new chapters have a painted in®lling, rather than the usual decorative
penwork; this takes the form of the Swillington arms, which reappear on
fol. 43v, on a shield in the lower margin, pendant to another coloured initial.
These additions are unobtrusive to a casual peruser of the book, but were
clearly resonant to the commissioner, and they imply that the volume was
meant to be read, not simply placed on display in a domestic setting as an
article of conspicuous consumption. These small shields occur during the
account of Edward I's reign, the latter two in chapters relating to Edward I's
political campaigns against the Welsh and the Scots (the treachery of David,
prince of Wales in 1294/95, and the temporary accord with the Scots at
Edward's Michaelmas parliament in 1305).50 Edward's militarism at this time
may have had a personal signi®cance for the Swillingtons' ®fteenth-century
descendants that is no longer completely recoverable, but several men
amongst the late thirteenth-century Swillingtons were knights, and would
thus have presumably taken part in Edward's campaigning activities. The
actions of one of them, however, Adam Swillington of Kywardby, Lincoln
(father of Sir Robert Swillington) can hardly be said to have covered the
family with glory, since in 1306 he is recorded as being ordered under arrest
with the accompanying clause that his lands and goods were to be seized, as
the result of his unlicensed departure from the king's army in Scotland. He
apparently recovered from his temporary disgrace, though, and it is with him
that the Swillington allegiance to the Lancastrians is ®rmly established, in his
attachment to Edward II's powerful and politically dissident cousin, Thomas,
earl of Lancaster. For this allegiance Adam received a royal pardon in 1318/
19, although in 1322 he paid the price for his loyalty to Lancaster, being
imprisoned after supporting the earl's lost cause at Boroughbridge.51
The Lancastrian bias continues through the text that follows, Hoccleve's
Regement. The work's dedication c. 1411 to Henry, prince of Wales, is too
well known to need any elaboration here, but it is only in recent scholarship
that the importance of the poem to Henry, as a subtle but nevertheless
propagandist and politically inspired declaration of his competence and
worthiness to rule, and the legitimacy of the Lancastrian dynasty, has been
fully recognized.52 Thus the praise of the personal conduct and wise
governance of Henry's grandfather, John of Gaunt, voiced by the Beggar
(ll. 512±20), assumes its role within the work's thematic scheme of dynastic
justi®cation. To Gaunt, in Hoccleve's words, àl knyghtly prowesse / Was . . .
50
Brut, ed. Brie, 196 and 183. The chapter numbers in Digby do not coincide with
those in Brie's edition, and the signi®cant textual variations amongst the surviving
manuscripts (estimated by Matheson, `The Middle English Prose Brut', at over 160)
have not as yet received suf®cient analysis.
51
Beanlands, `The Swillingtons of Swillington', 201±2, 204; cf. Walker, The Lancastrian
Af®nity, pp. 28 and n. 81 and 152. Again, the early Lancastrian bias within the Brut may
be worth stressing in the context of Hopton ownership: see, e.g., the terms used to
describe Thomas of Lancaster ± `the Gentil Knyght', `The gentil Erle' ± and the
emphasis placed upon his piety, prior to his execution: Brut, ed. Brie, I, 219±20.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
122 Carol M. Meale
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
girt: o god! his soule blisse!' (ll. 517±18). Given the circumstantial similarities
of Hoccleve's career and that of George Hopton, both men being dependent
to a large degree on royal, and speci®cally Lancastrian, patronage, it is
entirely appropriate that the most elaborate of Digby's heraldic miniatures
should decorate the pages of Hoccleve's texts, and that on fols. 80r and 157v
they illustrate the extent of the lordship established by Gaunt.
Overall, Digby gives an impression of con®dence in the social position on
the part of its patron, but it is not unique amongst contemporary and near-
contemporary manuscripts ± many of them made for members of the gentry ±
in utilising heraldic display to this end. Kathleen Scott, for instance, has drawn
attention to the ways in which standard components of illustrative and
decorative programmes could be varied in order to satisfy the particular
requirements of individual book commissioners, and amongst the numerous
examples she gives are some that are adapted to give heraldry an especial
prominence. In one volume she discusses, New Haven, Yale University
Library, MS Beinecke 281, a copy of Lydgate's Life of Our Lady, the shield
and crest of the Carent, or Caraunt, family (members of whom, again, were
closely connected with the Lancastrian court) displace what had become the
traditional opening picture of the Nativity, and they thus function as a
frontispiece to the book as a whole.53 And there are several other manuscripts
that may be cited where book decoration, not possession alone, constituted a
means whereby status was overtly proclaimed. Oxford, University College,
MS 85, for example, a volume of translations tentatively dated to the latter part
of the period between 1450 and 1475, that includes a uniquely surviving
52
See, e.g., D. Pearsall, `Hoccleve's Regement of Princes: The Poetics of Royal Self-
Representation', Speculum 69 (1994), 386±410; Larry D. Scanlon, `The King's Two
Voices: Narrative and Power in Hoccleve's Regement of Princes', in Literary Practice and
Social Change in Britain, 1380±1530, ed. L. Patterson (Berkeley, 1990), pp. 216±47.
53
K. Scott, `Caveat Lector: Ownership and Standardization in the Illustration of
Fifteenth-Century English Manuscripts', in English Manuscript Studies 1100±1700 1,
ed. P. Beal and J. Grif®ths (Oxford, 1989), 19±63 (pp. 26±7); and for the Carent
af®liation to Lancaster, A. R. Myers, `The Household of Queen Margaret of Anjou,
1452±3', Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 40 (1957±8), 79±113, 391±431 (pp. 91 and n. 2
and 420 and n. 2); R. A. Grif®ths, The Reign of Henry VI: The Exercise of Royal Authority,
1422±1461 (Berkeley, 1981), pp. 258, 272 n. 141 and 368 n. 19 (referring to p. 332); A. B.
Emden, A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1957), I, 353;
Wedgwood, Biographies of the Members of the Commons House (London, 1939), pp. 154±5.
An inscription on a ¯yleaf of the Beinecke manuscript reads: `thys boke yevyn / to e
quene our sovreyn[e] / lady ffor to se e converssac / off our moost blessed lady off /
hevyn ffor to conffort / and to passe tyme in / redyng and ovyr / seyng thys lytyll /
trety off hyr blessed', and it has been assumed (e.g. by Grif®ths, Reign of King Henry VI,
p. 272 n. 141) that the book was given by a Carent family member to Margaret of
Anjou: the case, however, remains open. There are other, numerous, instances of
gentry self-identi®cation through the use of heraldry: see, e.g., Thorlac Turville-Petre,
`The Relationship of the Vernon and Clopton Manuscripts', in Studies in the Vernon
Manuscript, ed. D. Pearsall (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 29±42 (p. 36 and facing plate, for
arms associated with the Clopton family, fol. 1r of Washington, Folger Library, MS
V.b.236).
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Middle English version of Alain Chartier's Quadrilogue Invectif, repeatedly
features the arms, motto and device of an uncertainly-identi®ed gentry family,
possibly the Wheatleys of Eching®eld in Sussex; whilst an apparently more
widely circulating translation of the same text, Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS
Rawlinson A. 338, assigned a date in the last quarter of the ®fteenth century,
has the arms of the Heydon family of Norfolk painted within the opening
initial on fol. 1r, and was probably made for Sir Henry Heydon (d. 1503),
steward of Cecily, duchess of York.54 An equally valid comparison may be
drawn between Digby 185 and Cambridge, Trinity College, MS 0. 5. 2, a
volume containing the stanzaic version of the romance of Generides and
Lydgate's Troy Book, that is lavishly decorated with arms suggesting a
connection with another two East Anglian families, the Thwaites and the
Knevets. Some of these are placed within painted borders; others in the
margins of pages otherwise unadorned; and some are even featured within
the miniatures illustrating the Lydgate text: as Derek Pearsall has pointed out,
the followers of Achilles at the siege of Troy bear the arms of the Knevets
(perhaps a not entirely unambiguous visual reference, given the context).55
MS Digby 185 sits comfortably within this category of manuscript,
although there are some important distinctions I would wish to make in
connection with the choices the patron made with regard to decoration. There
are, for instance, some interesting parallels between Digby and MS TCC 0. 5.
2, in that the impaling and quartering of the arms in Trinity was, to quote
Derek Pearsall, carried out ìndiscriminately, the apparent purpose being to
provide decorative variation rather than to convey signi®cant genealogical
information' (my emphasis) and, like Digby, Trinity may owe its present
form to particular historical circumstance, if, as has been proposed, its two
constituent texts were joined on the occasion of a marriage occurring between
the two families.56 But there, it seems to me, the comparison must ®nish. The
two manuscripts were clearly divergent in their mode of production for,
whilst many of the arms in the margins of Trinity seem to have been inserted
at a post-production date, by a different artist to the one responsible for
illustrating the Troy Book ± presumably as a way of imposing a kind of visual
unity on what were originally two distinct codices57 ± those within Digby, as I
54
Fifteenth-Century English Translations of Alain Chartier's Le TraiteÂ de l'Esperance and Le
Quadrilogue Invectif, ed. M. S. Blayney, 2 vols. EETS OS 270 and 281 (London, 1974±80),
I, opening plates (note the strapwork embellishment on the stem of the `b', top-line,
col. 1 of MS Rawlinson A.338); and II, 40±1 and 6±7. The copying of the University
College manuscript has been attributed to Ricardus Franciscus: see Christianson,
Directory of London Stationers, p. 107 and cf. above, n. 44.
55
D. A. Pearsall, `Notes on the Manuscript of Generydes', The Library 5th s. 16 (1961),
205±10 (p. 208).
56
Pearsall, `Notes on the Manuscript of Generydes', 206; Generydes, ed. W. A. Wright, 2
vols. EETS OS 55 and 70 (London, 1873±8), vi.
57
Pearsall, `Notes on the Manuscript of Generydes', 208. It should be observed, though,
that the Troy Book and Generydes were either the work of the same scribe, or of two with
very similar hands.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
124 Carol M. Meale
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
have argued, give every sign of having been integral with the design of the
book. Whilst it must be admitted that the shields on fols. 1r, 104r and 166r,
placed conventionally within initials, could have been a later addition,
having been left blank originally (as clearly happened with a number of
manuscripts),58 those on fols. 80r and 157v are too coherently planned to
represent anything other than adherence to a previously-formulated scheme.
Although relatively modest in its execution when compared with some of the
other books I have mentioned (it contains no full-page borders, or miniatures
and the heraldry is somewhat crude in its execution), Digby was, never-
theless, obviously intended as a prestige book. There is no suggestion that
expense was deliberately spared in its construction: although not over-large
(it now measures, after some cropping, certainly of the upper margin,
approximately 2806188mm), the material is parchment; individual lines,
as well as the writing space, are ruled on each page ± the pricking is still
visible in places; the Hoccleve poems are copied in single columns, the verses
being bracketed in red; coloured lombard initials with accompanying scroll-
work decoration punctuate the various texts; and, within the Brut and
Ponthus, touches of colour on individual letters relieve what could otherwise
be the monotonous appearance of the lines of prose. But the question remains
as to whether, in its carefully orchestrated organization of heraldic and
textual reference, Digby articulates a set of values, a mentaliteÂ, that was
speci®c to the gentry; or whether it participates in a culture that derives from
elsewhere, and by thus allying itself with that culture, con®rms an existing
value-system.
The text of King Ponthus and the Fair Sidone offers a useful starting point for
discussion of this point, since recent criticism on romance has in part focused
on it as a genre that has the potential either to reinforce social conservatism,
or to render it problematic ± for example through a privileging of the female
discourses embedded within it.59 In one of the few literary-critical considera-
tions of the work, that of George Keiser, emphasis has been placed on the
inherent didacticism of Ponthus, and on its links with texts such as the
contemporary Instructions written by Peter Idley, an Oxfordshire gentleman,
for his son. The assumption made by Keiser is that Ponthus, in common with
58
See, e.g., Cambridge University Library, MS Additional 6686, p. 190, the opening
page of the Sunday section of Nicholas Love's Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ,
which has three shields incorporated within the lower bar of the border decoration,
but which are all blank except the right-hand one, which has dry-point scoring,
tentatively (but unveri®ably) associated with the Bruce family: see p. cliii, plate 10 in
the edition of the text by Michael Sargent (New York and London, 1992).
59
See, e.g., the essays by R. Allen and J. Weiss in Romance in Medieval England, ed.
Mills, Fellows and Meale; A. S. G. Edwards and A. Diamond in Readings in Medieval
English Romance, ed. C. M. Meale (Cambridge, 1994); M. Robson and E. Williams in
Romance Reading on the Book: Essays on Medieval Narrative Presented to Maldwyn Mills,
ed. J. Fellows, R. Field, G. Rogers and J. Weiss (Cardiff, 1996); and J. Weiss and
F. Alexander in Women and Literature in Britain 1150±1500, ed. C. M. Meale, 2nd edn
(Cambridge, 1996).
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
certain other romances of the period, such as the Yorkshireman Robert
Thornton's unique copy of the Prose Alexander, is re¯exive in its encoding
of a particular set of `values and beliefs', its informing ethos bearing a direct
relationship to the audience [sic] for which it was intended, i.e. one of gentle
status.60 Ponthus is, undoubtedly, a narrative that derives meaning from its
moralizing tenor. The hero typically exempli®es behavioural norms that have
their grounding in a combination of the secular and the religious, and
lectures on how to conduct oneself with propriety serve as a commentary
on the action. The following passage, describing Ponthus's education by his
tutor, is representative in its detail:
And Herland gouerned Ponthus and he lered hym all maner of disportes ±
hawkyng, huntyng, playing at the chesse, daunsyng and synghyng. Myche
was the worschip thurgh oute all Bretayn that sprong of the grete beautie,
governaunce, and curtesie of Ponthus; and thei spake of hym both farre and
ner. And aboue all thing he loued God and the chirche, and his ®rst
ocupacion in the morowe was to wesch his hondes, to say his prayers, and
to her his messe full devoutely, and wold neuer ete ne drynke vnto the tyme
that he had his prayers all said. And of suche as he hade, he wold gyf to the
poer men prively parte. And he wold neuer swer grete othe bot `Truly' and
`Às God me helpe.'' And he wold be as glade when he loste and when he
wan; if any man dide hym wrong, he wold sey att few wordes in faire
maner that he had wrong, and he wold yeve upp his gamme in faire maner
rather or he wold strive; and no man couth make hym wroth in his playng.
And he lovyd neuer mokkyng ne scornyng. And if any man speke of any
vices or harme by man or womman, he wold breke his tayle. And he wold
neuer play at gamme that was hurt or angre to any man, for he was the best
taght that any man sen in any place, and the best and the fairest schapen in
his live dayes. He semed like an aungell.61
But the attempt to locate the romance socially on the basis of this pedagogic
slant fails to take into account the fact that the Middle English version is a
close translation of the French, and that the French version itself has been
attributed to Geoffroi IV, Chevalier de la Tour Landry, whose modern
reputation, of course, rests on the courtesy book that he composed for his
daughters.62 The assumption that seems to underlie much current criticism
60
Keiser, `The Romances', p. 278; and see Peter Idley's Instructions to His Son, ed.
C. D'Evelyn (Boston, 1935).
61
King Ponthus, ed. Mather, 11±12. Cf. 32, 61, 74, 149 and esp. 144±47, in which latter
section, an exhortatory tour de force, Ponthus instructs his cousin Pollides on how to
govern his life, his wife and his kingdom. It is hard for this reader, at least, not to react
ironically to parts of this text, and not to feel the power of the prevailing masculine
ethos within the societies in which it was composed and reproduced.
62
Thus Manual of the Writings in Middle English, I, 22, correcting King Ponthus, ed.
Mather, iv. For Geoffroi IV and his courtesy book, see the two translations into
English, The Book of the Knight of La Tour-Landry, ed. T. Wright, EETS OS 33 (1868) and
Caxton's 1484 edition, The Book of the Knight of the Tower, ed. M. Y. Offord, EETS SS 2
(1971).
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
126 Carol M. Meale
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
± that instructive literature is designed for consumption by those who are
aspiring, rather than by those who have arrived ± is an oversimpli®cation.
The French text was in circulation in England contemporaneously with the
English, and included within its audiences were members of royalty and the
nobility. It was one of the romances copied into London, British Library, MS
Royal 15. E. VI, the anthology compiled in France and presented to Margaret
of Anjou by John Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury, in ?1445; and `Pontius', possibly
also in French, may have been chosen by John Howard, duke of Norfolk, as
reading material for his voyage to Scotland in 1481; it certainly seems to have
been in his possession.64 (It is just possible that Howard's copy was a printed
book, since Pontus et Sidoine had recently been published in France, but in the
absence of surviving material evidence, it is impossible to be sure either
way.)64 Given that this chivalric romance appealed to different sections of
society65 it would, I think, be a mistake to read it as a text representative of a
newly emergent culture promoted by, and re¯ecting, the speci®c preoccupa-
tions of the gentry. Its inclusion within Digby could be more usefully
construed as an illustration of one way in which, during the late Middle
Ages, a dominant, court-based culture came to accommodate itself to social
and political change, its literary terms of reference broadening to encompass
the interests of a group on which it was increasingly dependent for its
survival. Viewed from this perspective, the text of Ponthus whilst con®rming
the value system, or ideology, of a military and governmental elite, through
its employment of didacticism as a narrative feature, allows for the incor-
poration within that value system of potentially oppositional, or divergent,
concerns.66
In this respect, Ponthus is not an anomalous component within Digby:
Hoccleve's Regement, as both its inception and its later reception reveal,
demonstrates a similar alliance of con®rmation of, and conformity with,
63
Warner and Gilson, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts, II, 177±9 (`vng noble liure du
roy Pontus ®lz du roy Thibor . . .' occupies fols. 207r±226v) and Le Rommant de Guy de
Warwik et de Herolt D'Ardenne, ed. D. J. Conlon (Chapel Hill, 1971), pp. 16±26; The
Household Books of John Howard, Duke of Norfolk, 1462±1471, 1481±1483, Intro. by
A. Crawford (Stroud, 1992), Intro. p. xix and Household Book II, p. 277.
64
B. Woledge, Bibliographie des Romans et Nouvelles en Prose FrancËaise AnteÂrieurs aÁ 1500
and its SuppleÂment, 1954±1973 (Geneva, 1975), p. 99. Howard's booklist deserves
further consideration, to determine which texts may have been in English, rather
than French, and which are more likely to have been printed editions than manuscript
copies.
65
A folio paper fragment of the English Ponthus survives as Oxford, Bodleian Library,
MS Douce 384, written in a secretary script (see Guddat-Figge, Catalogue of Manuscripts
Containing Middle English Romances, pp. 268±9): whilst the difference in quality of
production between Digby and Douce does not, in itself, indicate social difference in
ownership of the romance, the subsequent publication of an apparently different
translation by Wynkyn de Worde issued three times between ?1505 and 1511, clearly
widened the scope of the work's potential audience, and indicates its appeal.
66
My thinking here has been in¯uenced by Raymond Williams, Marxism and Literature
(Oxford, 1977), esp. II:8, `Cultural Theory: Dominant, Residual, and Emergent'.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
accepted notions of social organization and hierarchy, and what may, for
convenience, be called a process of democratization. Whilst stating its
pedigree as a poem directly associated with royalty, it offers moral advice
of a kind generally applicable to whoever may have read it. This was a feature
of its writing that was evidently not lost on the readership of the Digby copy,
since many of the aphorisms that characterize Hoccleve's mode of composi-
tion are crudely underlined. This annotation, though impossible to date, is
especially frequent in the opening section, the dialogue between Hoccleve
and the Beggar. The poetic register of such proverbial commonplaces as `full
seld is that yong folk wyse ben', or Àl thyng save folie in a yonge man dieth'
(fols. 81v, 87r, ll. 147, 609) is only too obviously popular, and the number of
extant manuscripts, together with the diverse nature of their ownership, is
testimony to the wide social distribution that the Regement enjoyed.67 That
possession by members of the gentry of texts such as Ponthus, the Regement
and extracts from the Series, with its own aristocratic associations,68 signals
socio-political aspiration is, therefore, a matter for debate. I have argued the
case for MS Digby 185 that its making was an expression of con®dence, not
social anxiety, on the part of its probable patron, George Hopton, following
the accession of Henry VII, and the presence within the volume of the
substantial and highly in¯uential national record, the Brut, and its discreet
accompanying heraldic devices, is further suggestive of the investment that
he apparently felt his family had in their country's past and, by extension, its
present and future. To conclude this exploration of Digby I should like to
carry this argument forward, by looking at the terms in which the volume has
been characterized ± and categorized ± by commentators, since I believe that
these are more revealing about modern literary-historical practice than they
are of the mentality which promoted its original production.
The description of the manuscript that has been most in¯uential is that it is
à sort of family book', and I quote here from Mather's edition of Ponthus, in
which he considers how the individual contents of the codex relate to one
another:
A father, who must have played some small part in the history of the day,
chose the prose chronicle of England; his daughter chose, perhaps for the
67
Cf. the highlighting on fol. 82r of `Wo be to hym that liste to be alone / ffor if he fall
helpe hath he noon / To rise. . . .' (ll. 205±7); it is tempting to interpret this as a call to
social solidarity amongst the gentry. On the manuscripts as a group see Seymour, `The
Manuscripts of Hoccleve's Regement of Princes', which should be supplemented by R. F.
Green, `Notes on Some Manuscripts of Hoccleve's Regiment of Princes', British Library
Journal 4 (1978), 37±41 and A. S. G. Edwards, `Hoccleve's Regiment of Princes: A Further
Manuscript', Transactions of the Edinburgh Bibliographical Society 5:1 (1978), 32.
68
The Series was directed to Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, brother of Henry V, but
no dedication copy survives. The dedicatory verses in the holograph, Durham,
University Library, MS Cosin V. III. 9, are to Joan, countess of Westmoreland,
fourth child of John of Gaunt by Catherine Swynford. The Lancastrian bias within
MS Digby's texts is, again, striking.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
128 Carol M. Meale
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
education of her children, Hoccleve's De Regimine Principum; her husband,
with a feeling for something less ponderous than Hoccleve, and yet
suf®ciently edifying, chose the new and fashionable romance of Ponthus.69
Digby becomes, through this formulation, the equivalent of the `household

book', a descriptive phrase only recently coined by codicologists and literary
historians in the attempt to supply a pseudo-scienti®c system of classi®cation
in their studies of the history of the book.70 I cannot help wondering, though,
how useful this terminology is and whether, in its over-inclusiveness, it
serves to obscure the necessarily individual circumstances of manufacture
rather more than it illuminates them. With regard to Digby, if the label is
applied without quali®cation, it acts to falsify the history of the manuscript
on three counts: those of production, politics and gender (in reference to the
latter note the implicit assumptions that inform Mather's assigning of the
choice of the different texts to those of different generations and sex within
the same imagined family).
This is not to say that Digby is not a `household book', but its distinctive-
ness must be recognized: there is a thematic coherence in its contents that is
not typical of other vernacular books so described, with their combination of
the pious, the didactic and the entertaining.71 And the physical evidence of
compilation itself does not offer unequivocal support for the idea that the
contents were originally designed to be joined together within the boards of
one volume. As it now stands, the manuscript shows clear signs of having
been compiled in three distinct stages. The chronicle, the Hoccleve section
and the romance each bear independent sets of signatures, redundant leaves
at the conclusions of each section have been cut out (and, infuriatingly, the
lower two-thirds of the ®nal leaf, following the conclusion of Ponthus has also
been removed for some reason), and these features, together with the wear on
69
King Ponthus, ed. Mather, xxvi; he is quoted without quali®cation by Guddat-Figge,
Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Middle English Romances, pp. 256±7.
70
See, e.g., the facsimile of Cambridge University Library MS Ff.2.38, Intro. by
F. McSparran and P. R. Robinson (London, 1979), pp. vii and xii.
71
See, e.g., in addition to Cambridge University Library, MS Ff.2.38, Robert Thorn-
ton's two `household' books, Lincoln Cathedral, MS 91 and London, British Library,
MS Additional 31042; Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Ashmole 61 and Aberystwyth,
National Library of Wales, MS Porkington 10. There is also, of course, the matter of
potential overlap between some of these categorizations: some amateur-produced
`miscellanies' and ànthologies', too, originated in a household context, as did the
majority of surviving commonplace books, although for brief discussion of sixteenth-
century manuscript `commonplace books' with a court genesis (the late date of which
may be signi®cant), see the essay by David Carlson in this volume. The use of the term
`household' also begs the question of representativeness: we may choose to construe
monastic organizations to be a form of household grouping, in which case even the
Glastonbury collection that is the subject of A. G. Rigg, A Glastonbury Miscellany of the
Fifteenth Century: A Descriptive Index of Trinity College, Cambridge, MS 0.9.38, Oxford
English Monographs (London, 1968) may be included within the categories of both
`household' and `commonplace' books.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
the outer leaves of each of the booklets, suggest that each of them was
unbound at some (unknown) point in their history previous to their
acquisition by Sir Kenelm Digby. I would therefore suggest that although
the same scribe and the same patron were involved in the enterprise of
production, we cannot, at this remove, be certain of the exact sequence of
copying or of the ordering of the contents ± or at the least whether the
Hoccleve section preceded the romance, or vice versa, given that the ®rst
initial of the Brut is distinguished by the presence of both arms and crest,
which is usual for the opening of a book: this does not preclude the
possibility, though, that the Brut was actually copied last. The opposing
argument is, of course, that the contents of Digby are interrelated, and that, as
I have attempted to show, the patron's choice of texts was governed by
certain principles relating directly to personal circumstance. As a correlative
to this, I think that there is an additional re®nement to be made to the
interpretation I am advancing that would strengthen the book's claim to be
representative of a `household's' taste.
To be sure, the book both commemorates and celebrates the Swillington/
Hopton family at a politically appropriate historical moment, but Sir George
Hopton may have had another, related, motivation in his commissioning of
it. He was the father of two sons, the oldest of whom, John, died only a few
months after his father, in January 1490. At the time of the ®rst Inquisition Post
Mortem on George, 12 September 1489, John was stated to have been two
years old, and it is therefore likely that he was born around the middle of
1487. His younger brother, Arthur, judging from the evidence of John's
Inquisition on the 31 October 6 Henry VII (i.e. 1490), in which he was said to
be over eighteen months old, must have been born in early 1489.72 (Could this
naming of their younger son after the heir of Henry VII [born to Elizabeth of
York on 19 September 1486] be construed as an act of sycophancy, or of
decently calculated loyalty, on the part of Sir George and/or his wife? On this
score it may well have been an acknowledgement of the prior importance of
familial ties that John, even though he, too, was born after Prince Arthur, was
not named after him.)73 The manuscript, taking all these factors into account,
could therefore have been in the making after the battle of Stoke, that is, after
72
The various inquisitions, cited here in chronological order, may be found in Calendar
of Inquisitions Post Mortem . . . Preserved in the Public Record Of®ce, Henry VII, I (London,
1898), 242 no. 589; 204 no. 480; 263 no. 643. The system of dating by regnal year in these
documents probably accounts for the discrepancy in the date of George's death given
by Richmond, John Hopton, p. 139 (July, 1489), and in Visitation of Suffolk II, ed. Corder,
303 (July, 1490): Henry VII dated his rule from 21 August 1485, and hence the ®rst I. P.
M., of 12 September 5 Henry VII, in which George is stated to have died `6 July last'
means that 1489 is the accurate dating. (George would, by this calculation, have died
in the same calendar year as his earliest I. P. M., but in a different regnal year ± i.e. 4
Henry VII.)
73
Richmond, John Hopton, p. 139, notes the connection between the naming of Arthur
Hopton and of Henry VII's heir, but makes no comment on George's ®rst son being
called, presumably, after his grandfather and/or his uncle.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
130 Carol M. Meale
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
16 June 1487, and around the time of the birth, or anticipated birth, of
George's eldest child; it could therefore have had an additional intended
function, as a book of instruction for his presumably hoped-for heir and,
eventually, for both his sons. They could have learnt of good conduct from
both the Regement and Ponthus. And the tales of Jereslaus and Jonathas could,
from a masculine viewpoint, have been taken as a lesson in the duality of the
nature of women: in support of this interpretation I would cite the marginal
annotation in red on fol. 140v of the Regement, reading `Nota de muli-/
eribus', opposite ll. 5104±05, Ìf that this come vnto the audience / Of
wommen I sur am I schal be shent', in the passage in which Hoccleve, in
somewhat ambivalent terms, refers to women's [sic] desire for sovereignty
over their husbands. And loyalty ± and political loyalty especially ± is a
concept invoked both textually, by Hoccleve, and in the Brut and in Ponthus;74
and heraldically, in the emphasis placed on Gaunt's af®nity, during what
was undoubtedly the most noteworthy period, the glory days, in the family's
fortunes. In this reading of text and image the female ± I regret to admit ± is
marginalized, although intention is not always ful®lled in reality, and it is
important to remember that George's widow, Anne Sotell, may have played a
vital educative role in the early training of her only surviving son by her ®rst
husband, perhaps by teaching him to read, or by having the texts within
Digby read aloud to him. Lacking any detailed information on Anne, we can
only guess, and hope that she was, perhaps, at times a resisting reader.75 But
that the volume, or the individual texts, continued to be read after George's
death is indicated by what look to me to be ?early-sixteenth-century
annotations made in the margins of the pages of the Brut.
To the extent, then, that the book may have been intended for use by more
74
Ponthus is a romance that invokes the ethical concept of loyalty, in that treachery
and religious con¯ict form the bases of the plot, whilst the author/translator's
sententiousness throughout ampli®es upon these narrative elements; see, e.g.
Ponthus's advice to Pollides, a portion of which runs:
be meke and amyable, large and free, aftre your power,
to youre barounes and to youre knyghtes and squyers, of whome
ye shall haue nede; and if ye may not shewe theym largesse
and fredome of your goodes, at the lest, be to theym curtes and
debonere, both to the grete and to the litle. The grete shall
love, the litle shall prase you ouer all of your goode cher;
and so it shal gretly avale you, ± so much ye shall be prased ouer all.
(King Ponthus, ed. Mather, 145±6).
75
For evidence of the potential ability of women of gentry and noble standing to
control the early education of their children see, e.g., Orme, From Childhood to Chivalry,
pp. 16±17; S. Shahar, Childhood in the Middle Ages, trans. C. Galai (London and New
York, 1990), Chapters 8, 10 and 11; M. T. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record:
England 1066±1307, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1993), pp. 13, 112, 198, 245 and 252; and cf. my
suggestions regarding the role of John de la Pole's mother in his education, in
`Reading Women's Culture in Fifteenth-Century England: The Case of Alice Chaucer',
in Mediaevalitas: Reading the Middle Ages, ed. P. Boitani and A. Torti (Cambridge, 1996),
pp. 81±101 (pp. 98±100).
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
than one member of the family, the descriptive term of `household book' is
justi®ed. However, the historical, as well as familial, particularity of its
commissioning must also be recognized and acknowledged in our under-
standing of it as an artefact. No manuscript, whatever our necessarily
incomplete understanding of the circumstances of its production, and no
matter how we may choose to categorize it, comes into existence within a
cultural vacuum. Issues of gender, domestic and national politics, all have a
bearing. And whilst there remain (as yet unanswered) questions concerning
Digby ± where it was copied and decorated, and by whom76 ± some
clari®cation of its genesis has, I trust, been achieved.
76
Little consensus has been reached as to the dialect(s) represented in Digby;
Seymour, `The Manuscripts of Hoccleve's Regement of Princes', af®rmed that this
copy of the text was not written by a northern scribe (p. 277), whilst Mather (King
Ponthus, xxx), concluded that `the translation was made in standard [London] English
of the time and slightly Northernized by the scribe'. A. M. McIntosh, M. L. Samuels
and M. Benskin, A Linguistic Atlas of Late Middle English, 4 vols. (Aberdeen, 1986), I,
147, do little more than repeat Mather's conclusions (including the mistake that Sir
William was Treasurer to Edward IV) in the comment: `Language somewhat north-
ernized, but of late type'. Even if it were possible to localize the scribe's origins, this
would give little certainty as to where the book was produced. On the other hand, the
palette employed by the book artists was a limited one (no gold is used ± the colours
are restricted to white-grey, green, blue, an orangey-red, a light-brown wash, often
utilized as a substitute for gold in the shields, dark brown and black) and this may
imply provincial production. Given the accomplished use of strapwork on fols. 80r
and 157v, the possibility of involvement of artists and/or scribes whose main activities
were in the production of town or legal records may well be worth pursuing. I would
base this suggestion on the evidence, e.g., of the decorative calligraphy of the London
Bridge Hands Accounts from 1484 onwards (see C. P. Christianson, Memorials of the
Book Trade in Medieval London: The Archives of Old London Bridge [Cambridge, 1987],
plates XVII±XXIV); and of the particularly ®ne interlacing on initials on fols. 13r 38r
and 111v etc. of San Marino, Huntington Library, MS HM 1, the Towneley Plays,
perhaps not to be dated before 1500. (Less striking instances of strapwork are
prevalent throughout the volume; see the facsimile, The Towneley Cycle, Intro. by
A. C. Cawley and M. Stevens (San Marino, 1976).) Parallels to this calligraphy have
been found in records of the city of York and in the Wake®eld Manor Court Rolls; see
The Towneley Plays, ed. M. Stevens and A. C. Cawley, 2 vols. EETS SS 13 and 14
(Oxford, 1994), I, xv. There are also stylistic similarities between MS HM 1 and a
volume produced in London towards the end of the 1520s, Oxford, Bodleian Library,
MS Ashmole 45, which may also have been written (though not necessarily illustrated)
by a scribe who had training outside the commercial book-trade: see C. M. Meale,
` ``Prenes: engre'': An Early Sixteenth-Century Presentation Copy of The Erle of Tolous',
in Romance Reading on the Book, ed. Fellows, Field, Rogers and Weiss, pp. 221±36
(pp. 226±8). This line of enquiry, which would of necessity be collaborative, entailing
the study of documentary records as well as literary texts, promises to be a rewarding
one (even if massive and complex), and should produce much information on scribes,
decorators and illuminators, their training and occupations, and perhaps break down
some of the arti®cial barriers that have been erected, albeit inadvertently, between
specialists in the disciplines of history, art history and literature.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
d:/3riddy/dutton.3d ± 31/7/0 ± 19:36 ± diskB&B/mp
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
PIETY, POLITICS AND PERSONA:

MS HARLEY 4012 AND ANNE HARLING
Anne M. Dutton
Objects tell us much about their owners. If individual inhabitants of medieval

England seem impossibly remote, it is in part because they have left little of
themselves behind for twentieth-century eyes and imaginations. Moreover,
the meaning with which a particular object is invested may change over time
to re¯ect different cultural practices and expectations, thus making the
interpretation of its ownership fraught with dif®culties. This paper examines
a manuscript ± London, British Library, Harley 4012 ± owned by a ®fteenth-
century gentry woman from East Anglia, in an attempt to uncover various
ways of interpreting manuscript ownership.
Harley 4012 is a collection of Middle English religious treatises, in both
prose and verse. A full list of the contents is contained in the appendix.
Although the book contains no illumination, it is nonetheless carefully
presented, with red titles, blue and red paraphs, blue initials with red
¯ourishing, and some initials in gold leaf with purple, blue and green
foliage, that extend into the borders of the folios. It is, in fact, an extremely
pretty, if unassuming, manuscript, and in both its physical appearance and
its contents, it is representative of the religious books (i.e. not books of
hours or psalters) in women's hands in the ®fteenth century.1 On fol. 153r,
partly visible to the eye but quite clear under ultraviolet light, is an
inscription written in a ®fteenth-century hand: `Thys ys the boke of dame
anne wyngefeld of ha[r]lyng' ( [-r] is no longer visible).
Dame Anne Wing®eld, neÂe Harling, was born c. 1426, the daughter and
heiress of Sir Robert Harling of East Harling, Norfolk, and his wife Jane
Gonville, daughter and heiress of Edmund Gonville, and sole heiress of the
Gonville family of Norfolk who had founded Gonville College, Cambridge.2
In 1435, Sir Robert Harling was killed in battle in France, leaving Anne an
heiress of considerable landed wealth; as the heiress of both the Harling and
Gonville families, she owned at least ®fteen manors and ten advowsons in
Norfolk, as well as four manors and one advowson in Suffolk, and four
1
This observation is drawn from an examination of some 70 manuscripts containing
religious texts, originally owned by women in England between 1350 and 1500. See
A. M. Dutton, `Women's Use of Religious Literature in Late Medieval England'
(unpublished D.Phil. dissertation, University of York, 1995).
2
Anne Harling is discussed in G. M. Gibson, The Theatre of Devotion: East Anglian
Drama and Society in the Late Middle Ages (Chicago and London, 1989), pp. 96±106.
However, Gibson is apparently unaware that Anne was the owner of Harley 4012.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
134 Anne M. Dutton
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
manors in Cambridgeshire.3 Anne was a valuable enough commodity for
there to be some dispute over the rights to her wardship, which was sold, by
a rather circuitous route, to Sir John Fastolf in 1437.4 The laws concerning
wardship make no formal provision for the care of the ward herself, and we
do not know what happened to Anne herself during her wardship, whether
she continued to live under her mother's care and tutelage, or whether she
moved to live in the household of her guardian.5
Anne was married successively to three men of high standing, and she was
three times widowed. In 1438, at the age of 12 or 13, she married Sir William
Chamberlain of Weston Favell, Northamptonshire, who was an English
captain in the French wars, and for whose bravery was made Knight of the
Garter by Edward IV in 1461.6 The marriage settlement, dated 2 August 1438,
is found among the Fastolf papers at Magdalen College, Oxford.7 Sir William,
it states, was to pay Fastolf, 1,000 òf gold in noblis' before the marriage, and
another 1500 marks of gold within twelve months of the marriage, an
enormous total that indicates clearly the value of Anne's land-holdings.
Chamberlain died in March or April 1462, leaving Anne a childless widow.
Her second husband, Sir Robert Wing®eld, whom she married by 1469, was
the second son of Sir Robert Wing®eld of Letheringham, Suffolk.8 The
Wing®eld family was active in East Anglian politics, and Sir Robert the
younger was himself a man of political ambitions, having been a servant of
the duke of Norfolk (who had probably arranged his marriage to Anne
Harling) before moving into the service of Edward IV.9 Wing®eld went into
3
F. Blome®eld, An Essay Towards a Topographical History of the County of Norfolk, 11
vols. (London, 1805±10), I, 316±21; Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem Henry VII
(London, 1915), II, 73±6 and 127±8.
4
Calendar of Close Rolls 1435±41, 102; PRO C.54.287, m. 21d; Calendar of Patent Rolls
1436±1441, 41; PRO C.66,440, m. 29; A. R. Smith, Àspects of the Career of Sir John
Fastolf (1380±1459)' (unpublished D. Phil. thesis, Oxford University, 1982), pp. 135±8;
A. R. Smith, `Litigation and Politics: Sir John Fastolf 's Defense of his English Property',
in Property and Politics: Essays in Later Medieval English History, ed. T. Pollard
(Gloucester and New York, 1984), pp. 59±75 (pp. 65±6).
5
I do not know when Anne's mother, Joan, died. She was still alive in 1438, when the
contract for Anne's ®rst marriage was drawn up.
6
G. F. Beltz, Memorials of the Most Noble Order of the Garter (London, 1841), pp. xxiii;
lxvii±lxviii, n. 3; clxii.
7
Oxford, Magdalen College Fastolf Papers, no. 17.
8
For the Wing®eld family, see T. Blore, The History and Antiquities of the County of
Rutland (Stanford, 1811), pp. 65±7; J. M. Wing®eld, Some Records of the Wing®eld Family
(London, 1925).
9
Sir Robert's father, Sir Robert (1400±54), was MP for Hertfordshire 1449±50, and his
elder brother, Sir John (1428±81) was MP for Suffolk in 1478. Our Sir Robert (the
younger) was MP for Suffolk 1455±56, and for Norfolk 1472±75. See J. C. Wedgwood
and A. D. Holt, History of Parliament: Biographies of the Members of the Commons House
1438±1509 (London, 1936), pp. 955±7. Our Sir Robert was also Marshal of the King's
Marshalsea in 1462 (see Calendar of Close Rolls 1461±8, p. 153) and served on the
Norfolk commissions from at least 1464 until 1480, and was the King's Knight in 1471
(see Calendar of Patent Rolls 1467±77, p. 308).
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
Piety, Politics and Persona 135
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
exile with Edward, and his loyalty to the king resulted in his becoming the
controller to the king's household 1474±81.10
Wing®eld died shortly before 13 November, 1481, and sometime after 9
February, 1491, Anne married John, ®fth Lord Scrope of Bolton.11 She was his
third wife, just as he was her third husband. Anne Harling's third marriage
was the shortest lived of all three: Scrope died in 1498, and Anne herself died
only a few weeks later, on 18 September 1498. She was 72 or 73, and childless.
It was during her marriage to Sir Robert Wing®eld, or during her time as
his widow (i.e. between c. 1469 and 1492), that Anne wrote her name in what
is now Harley 4012. On the basis of dating and contents, it is very likely that
the manuscript was made for Anne in the 1460s. Internal evidence suggests
production in the mid-®fteenth century: one of the texts contained within it,
The Pardon of the Monastery of Shene which is Syon (fols. 110r±113r), contains
references to John Stafford, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1443 to 1452, and
Walter Lyhert, alias Hart, Bishop of Norwich from 1446 to 1472. Thus the
manuscript cannot date from before 1446 at the earliest. More tellingly, the
hand, which is consistent throughout the manuscript, has been dated by M. B.
Parkes as c. 1460; clearly suggesting production in the 1460s or even 1470s.12
That the book was made for Anne is also suggested through the appearance
of at least two texts in Harley 4012 that have a particular signi®cance for her:
The Life of St Anne (fols. 130v±139v) and The Pardon of the Monastery of Shene
which is Syon (fols. 110r±113r). St Anne was not only Anne Harling's name
saint, but also a saint to whom Anne had a particular devotion. In her will,
dated 28 August 1498, Anne commends her soul to St Anne, and requests
burial in the chapel of St Anne in her parish church at East Harling, a chapel
that Anne herself probably founded.13 A connection with Syon Abbey, which
explains the appearance of the Pardon of Syon, further suggesting that the
manuscript was made for Anne, is also provided by Anne in her will, when
she bequeaths `to the hous of Syon, where I am a suster, xl s.', which possibly
meant that she was a member of a lay confraternity there.14
Although the manuscript appears to have been a professional production,
there is little indication of where it was produced. The Harley hand is similar
10
Sir Robert was also JP for Norfolk 1469±70 and 1470±76, the gap occurring because
of his exile with Edward IV. His accounts as controller for 1479±80 are among the
Exchequer Accounts in the PRO.
11
For Sir Robert's death see Calendar of Patent Rolls 1476±85, p. 285. For John, Lord
Scrope of Bolton, see G. E. C., The Complete Peerage, ed. G. H. White
12
Parkes's identi®cation is cited in E. Wilson, À Middle English Manuscript at
Coughton Court, Warwickshire, and British Library MS. Harley 4012', Notes and
Queries 22 (1977), 295±303, (p. 299).
13
PRO, Prob. 11/11, 26 Horne. Anne's will is also printed in Testamenta Eboracensia: A
Selection of Wills From the Registry at York, ed. J. Raine, 4 vols., Surtees Society 4, 30, 45,
53 (Durham, 1836±69), IV, 149±54.
14
Anne's name is not, however, found among the nomina specialium benefactorum et
amicorum in the Martirloge of Syon Abbey; see Wilson, À Middle English Manuscript',
p. 302.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
136 Anne M. Dutton
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
to that of the scribe named by PaÈcht and Alexander `The Master of Sir John
Fastolf ', named after Oxford, Bodleian Library, Laud Misc. 570, containing
Livres des quatre vertus and Christine de Pisan's EÂpõÃtre d'OtheÂa, made for
Fastolf and bearing his motto `Me fault fayre' and the date on fol. 93.15 Other
manuscripts attributed to this scribe include Oxford, University College 85,
containing treatises on the governance of princes; Oxford, Bodleian Library,
Ashmole 764, containing treatises on heraldry; Oxford, Bodleian Library,
Auct. D. inf. 2. 11, a book of hours of the use of Sarum that is held to have
belonged to Henry VIII; and Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hatton 45, a psalter,
made for use in London or in the adjoining counties.16 N. Davis noted that the
hand of the manuscript resembles that of a scribe of Fastolf 's in three letters
dated from 1455 to 1456, written at Caistor.17 The fact that Anne was brie¯y
Fastolf 's ward lends support to the notion that her manuscript was written
by the so-called Master of Sir John Fastolf, but tells us nothing de®nitive.
Harley 4012 bears certain similarities to a manuscript now at London,
Lambeth Palace MS 3579, which was formerly amongst the Throckmorton
collection at Coughton Court, Warwickshire. A comparison of the two
manuscripts was published by Edward Wilson in 1977.18 The hand of what
looks to be the original contents of Lambeth Palace 3597 has been dated by
M. B. Parkes as the third quarter of the ®fteenth century.19 The two manu-
scripts share eight items (if The Mirror of St Edmund, incomplete in Harley
4012, is included); these are the ®rst eight texts in Harley 4012, and all but two
of what appear to be the original contents of Lambeth 3597. They occur in
slightly different orders in the two manuscripts, but their similarity does
suggest that the two books derive from a common ancestor. Like Harley 4012,
Lambeth Palace 3597 was a woman's book; it belonged to a certain Èlyzbeth',
whose name appears on fol. 95r. Wilson suggests that this Elizabeth may be
Elizabeth Baynham, second wife of Sir Robert Throckmorten (1451±1519), or
Elizabeth Throckmorten, Sir Robert's sister, who was the last abbess of Denny
Abbey in Cambridgeshire.20
One of the dif®culties in interpreting manuscript ownership is that the
rationale behind the selection of the texts is seldom apparent. We do not
know who chose the contents of Harley 4012, whether it was Anne herself,
using contacts made during the brief period of her wardship under Fastolf,
through connections with various religious houses where she had kin, or
where she was a `sister', or through social and cultural networks that
facilitated the borrowing of books. We know that Anne borrowed books,
for the inventory of John Paston II, drawn up before 1479, lists à boke of
15
Wilson, À Middle English Manuscript', p. 299; O. PaÈcht and J. J. G. Alexander,
Illuminated Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1966±73), I, no. 695, p. 54.
16
PaÈcht and Alexander, Illuminated Manuscripts, I, nos. 670, 696, 726; pp. 53±55 and 57.
17
Cited in Wilson, À Middle English Manuscript', pp. 299±300.
18
Wilson, À Middle English Manuscript'.
19
Cited in Wilson, À Middle English Manuscript', p. 296.
20
Wilson, À Middle English Manuscript', p. 298, and n. 5.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Troylus whyche William Bra[. . .] hath hadde neer x yer and lent it to Da[. . .]
Wingfeld'.21 The people to whom Anne bequeathed books in her will (see
note 26) might represent a personal book-borrowing and lending network
during Anne's lifetime; studies of the libraries and literary connections of
these six people might tell us more about the kinds of texts likely to have been
used by Anne Harling. On the other hand, the choice of texts in Harley 4012
may be the work of someone else, perhaps a confessor or a friend.22 Whose
agenda is represented by the compilation of texts owned by Anne? Although
it is unlikely that this will ever be determined, we can be sure that someone
felt that the religious treatises contained within Harley 4012 were appropriate
reading ± or listening ± material for a wealthy, married or recently widowed,
gentry woman.
The most striking aspect of Anne's programme of devotional reading (or
listening, for we do not know if Anne was able to read) is the penitential
nature of much of its contents. The tone of the collection is set by the ®rst text,
The Cleansing of Man's Soul (fols. 1r±68v), which occupies over one-third of the
manuscript as it now exists, although this proportion would be smaller if the
manuscript originally contained the full text of The Mirror of St Edmund (fols.
101r±103v). The Cleansing is a penitential compilation, written primarily for
lay people, consisting of three sections, on contrition, confession and
satisfaction.23 The Four Manners of Washings (fol. 105r±v, beginning imperfect)
is perhaps the conclusion to or an excerpt from a longer work on confession
or penance similar to The Cleansing of Man's Soul.24 The Four Manners of
Washings summarizes four ways by which the soul is washed: contrition,
penance, satisfaction, and (here differing from The Cleansing) charity. The
penitential theme of the book continues in The Charter of Our Heavenly
Heritage (fols. 69r±72r), in which the audience is exhorted to forsake sin,
undertake penance, and to think about the last day, considering the judge-
ment that one will receive for one's actions. The author of The Mirror of
Sinners (fols. 73r±77r) takes a very similar position to that of The Charter,
urging men and women to prepare themselves for death and divine judge-
ment by amending their behaviour: Ànd therfore amende ee now, whiles
tyme is of mercy, so at ow be not dampned in the dreedful day of goddes
greete vengeaunce', concludes the text,
21
Paston Letters and Papers of the Fifteenth Century, ed. N. Davis, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1971,
1976), I, 517.
22
Gibson says that Anne was a member of the literary circle grouped around Alice
Chaucer. See Gibson, The Theatre of Devotion, p. 96.
23
See M. G. Sargent, `Minor Devotional Writings', in Middle English Prose, ed. A. S.
G. Edwards (New Brunswick, NJ, 1984), pp. 147±75 (p. 158); C. L. Regan, `The
Cleansing of Man's Soul' (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University,
1963).
24
R. R. Raymo, `Works of Religious and Philosophical Instruction', in A Manual of the
Writings in Middle English, gen. ed. A. E. Hartung, 8 vols. (New Haven, 1967±89), VII,
pp. 2255±2378 and 2470±2582 (p. 2303).
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
138 Anne M. Dutton
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Leerne wel, eer ow go hennes, to sauoure, to vnderstonde, and wisely to
purueye ee for the laste inges; so at ow bee euere-moore reedy, what
tyme at oure lord cometh to clepe thee, for to entre with hym in to the
blisse at euer schal laste.25
Further concern for the fate of the soul after death, speci®cally with
purgatory, is demonstrated through the appearance of The Pardon of the
Monastery of Shene, which is Syon (fols. 110r±113r), a list of indulgences
granted to those who come to Syon and recite certain prayers. Fascination
with the subject of purgatory may explain the appearance of The Life of St
Patrick (fols. 140r±151v, ending imperfect), containing part of St Patrick's
Purgatory, following the lives of the three female saints ± Katherine, Margaret
(who frequently appear together) and Anne, whose signi®cance for Anne
Harling has already been discussed.
The interest in sin, penance, and purgatory displayed in Harley 4012 ± and
let us, for the moment, assume that this is indicative of Anne Harling's
interest in such spiritual matters (after all, the ownership note in the back of
the book suggests that the book was of some value to Anne) ± mirrors the
concern with purgatory displayed in Anne's will, in her many requests for
masses, dirges, and prayers, and in her ®nal request that her executors `desire
all suche personys as I have in this my testament geven eny thinge, that they
of theire charite pray to Almighty God for my sowle and for myn auncestres'
sowles'. It suggests that this concern was not simply a deathbed one, but was
rather something that occupied Anne's conscience throughout her lifetime,
and con®rms the conclusions drawn from testamentary studies that late
medieval piety was dominated by the fear of purgatory. Anne's interest in
these spiritual matters of sin, penance, and purgatory must have been
stimulated by the fact that she had been widowed; her ®rst husband, Sir
William Chamberlain, was presumably (or so Anne would have believed) in
purgatory and it would be understandable for Anne to be concerned about
such matters.
The religious signi®cance of Anne's ownership of Harley 4012 is para-
mount. It tells us something of Anne's spiritual interests or, in the event that
Anne did not play a role in deciding the contents of her book, what someone
believed her spiritual interests to be. It is a valuable addition to her will in
that it offers a second view into her personal piety, and we are lucky to have
both sources surviving for the same individual. Interestingly, Harley 4012
does not appear among the books bequeathed by Anne in her will, which
include a psalter, two primers, Christine de Pisan's Epistle of OtheÂa, an
unidenti®ed French book and a book of prayers.26 Nevertheless, Anne's
25
Yorkshire Writers: Richard Rolle of Hampole and his Followers, ed. C. Horstmann, 2 vols
(London, 1895±6), II, 440.
26
Bequeathed, respectively, to her mother-in-law, probably Elizabeth Scrope, wife of
the fourth lord Scrope of Bolton; her godson Edmund de la Pole, earl of Suffolk; her
god-daughter Anne Fitzwater; Thomas Howard, earl of Surrey; her nephew Sir
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
possession of the manuscript has a social and a political signi®cance as well
as a religious one. It is a mark of Anne's social status. Certainly the cost of a
professionally produced book such as Harley 4012 would prohibit many
people from owning one. Moreover, lay women's ownership of religious
treatises (as opposed to psalters and books of hours) appears to have been
predominantly, although not exclusively, aristocratic.27 This is not simply due
to the nature of the evidence, viz. extant manuscripts and wills. Although the
vast majority of surviving manuscripts known to have been in the possession
of lay women belonged to members of the aristocracy, considerable numbers
of wills survive for women of lower social standing. In these wills (pre-
dominantly those of the merchant elite) I have found primers and psalters,
but I have found little evidence of such women owning the sorts of texts
found in Harley 4012 until the end of the ®fteenth century.
Anne's ownership of such a collection of religious texts is also a mark of
her spiritual status, for even amongst aristocratic ladies the possession of the
type of religious texts contained in Anne's book does not appear to have been
all-pervasive. Psalters and books of hours appear to have been far more
common. Seen in this context, the ownership of a collection of predominantly
penitential treatises such as Harley 4012 takes on a greater signi®cance. It is a
visible, obvious indication not only of wealth, but also of piety, and it would
therefore have helped to establish Anne as a devout woman.
Anne's construction of herself as a pious woman is also seen in her will.28
This document, written only a few weeks before her death, is exceptionally
lengthy and detailed. In it, she leaves bequests to an astonishing number of
churches, chapels, and monastic houses, bequests, for the most part,
Edward, probably Sir Edward Wing®eld; and Dame Joan Blakeney, a Norwich
widow.
27
A. M. Dutton, `Passing the Book: Testamentary Transmission of Religious Literature
To and By Women in England 1350±1500', in Women, the Book and the Worldy, ed.
J. Taylor and L. Smith (Cambridge, 1995). On lay aristocratic ownership of religious
literature, see S. H. Cavanaugh, À Study of Books Privately Owned in England 1300±
1450' (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1980); M. Deanesly,
`Vernacular Books in England in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries', Modern
Language Review 15 (1920), 349±58; J. Hughes, Pastors and Visionaries: Religion and Secular
Life in Late Medieval Yorkshire (Woodbridge, 1988), J. T. Rosenthal, Àristocratic Cultural
Patronage and Book Bequests, 1350±1500', Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library
of Manchester 64 (1982), 522±48. Studies of the wills or urban inhabitants have only
rarely yielded evidence of ownership of such books by the laity of lower rank; Norman
Tanner found only three bequests in the wills of Norwich testators between 1370 and
1532 ± all of them, incidentally, in the wills of women. See N. P. Tanner, The Church in
Late Medieval Norwich 1370±1532 (Toronto, 1984), pp. 110±12; 193±7. Similarly, P. J. P.
Goldberg, in his study of the wills of York testators between 1321 and 1500, found only
fourteen bequests of devotional books: seven of these were bequeathed by members of
the gentry, six by lay clerks, and one by a merchant. None appeared in the wills of
artisans. See P. J. P. Goldberg, `Lay Book Ownership in Late Medieval York: The
Evidence of Wills', The Library 6th s. 16 (1994), 181±9 (p. 183).
28
PRO, Prob. 11/11, 26 Horne.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
140 Anne M. Dutton
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
consisting not only of money but also of strikingly visible evidence of her
benefaction: altar cloths, vestments, frontals, and stained glass windows, all
bearing her own arms, those of her husbands, and sometimes those of her
parents. For example, to her parish church at East Harling she left two altar
cloths and a frontal `with my bothe husbondes armys and myn departed in
the corneres'. Among her bequests to the chapel of St Anne in the same
church were two vestments for the chaplain, similarly decorated with her
arms and those of her husbands. And to the Carmelite friars in Cambridge
she left a vestment and two altar cloths with her arms and those of her
husbands, as well as 40s. `to sette vp both my husbondes armys & myn
departed in the pryncipall wyndowe of the quire'. Of course, as a childless
widow and as the last member of two families, Anne was leaving visible
reminders of herself, her husbands and her family in order to stimulate
prayers from the living; but she was also leaving a high-pro®le record of
herself as a generous benefactress, an involved parishioner, a pious woman.
No one who entered those churches could have failed to notice Anne.
I believe that Anne's possession of Harley 4012 can be seen not only as
evidence of Anne's personal piety, but also as part of a strategy to construct
herself as a pious, and thus respectable, woman.29 Piety (orthodox piety, that
is) implied propriety: a pious woman was necessarily a chaste woman; a
pious woman was a respectable woman. Such a reputation would have been
extremely bene®cial to a woman in Anne Harling's position, and it is to this
position that I shall now turn.
Anne acquired the book probably in the 1460s and wrote her name in when
she was the wife or widow of Sir Robert Wing®eld. It is to this period of her
life that we must look if we are to understand her ownership of Harley 4012.
Sir Robert was a politically ambitious man. A servant of the duke of Norfolk,
he later entered the service of Edward IV, following his king into exile in
1470. Wing®eld was rewarded for his loyalty: in 1471, after his return to
England, he was described as `the King's Knight', and he was the Controller
to the Household of Edward IV from 1474 to 1481. I do not know what
happened to Anne while Sir Robert was in exile with Edward, whether she
accompanied him or remained behind to administer what were, in fact, her
own estates in Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. It is not unlikely that
she stayed in England, to ensure that her own and her husband's land
interests were protected. As the wife of an absent man whose loyalty lay with
a king who was no longer on his throne, Anne would have needed the
protection offered by an irreproachable reputation: piety had a political
value. From a practical viewpoint such a reputation was extremely valuable
insofar as it could protect a woman with an absent husband against slander,
29
That Anne had both her name and place of residence recorded in the book suggests
that it might have been lent to others ± and thus, that Anne's possession of the book
was known. We know that Anne herself borrowed books (see note 21 above), so it is
likely that she lent them as well, ensuring that the borrower knew to whom and where
to return it.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
against accusations of marital in®delity, as well as engendering respect and
trust in those with whom she had business dealings.
Anne's activities after Edward's return to England and the subsequent
appointment of her husband to the position of Controller of the Household
also remain unrecorded. She might have remained at her principal manor of
East Harling to oversee the administration of her estates; equally she might
have followed her husband into royal service, becoming a member of the
household of Queen Elizabeth. We know from earlier household accounts of
both Elizabeth and her predecessor Queen Margaret of Anjou that the wives
of prominent members of the king's household were often ladies-in-waiting
to the queen.30 In either case, it is quite likely that Anne would have spent
time at court. She was certainly acquainted with the king, for she later
bequeathed in her will à Premer whiche kynge Edward gauffe me' to her
godson the duke of Suffolk. The gift from the king suggests a connection
between Anne and Edward; it may have been in acknowledgement of
service. Anne's construction of herself as a pious woman, and the contem-
porary equation of piety with moral righteousness and sexual propriety
would have bene®ted her at court, an environment believed to be licentious
and morally reprehensible.
This view of the court is a common one in both literary and historical
writing. Caxton's translation of The Curial, made in 1484, portrays courtiers as
self-obsessed, deceitful and corrupt. A life at court, he says, is àn euyl lyf '. It
is moreover, a licentious life: ànd also it may be called of them that ben
amorouse, a deserte lyberte'.31 John Blacman, writing retrospectively about
the court of Henry VI, contrasted the licentiousness of court with the
behaviour of Henry VI, in order to establish Henry as a man of piety
bordering on asceticism. He describes how one courtier brought before
Henry à dance or show of young ladies with bared bosoms who were to
dance in that guise before the king' and the king's resultant disgust, and how
Henry, anxious to ensure the virtue of his household members, `kept careful
watch through hidden windows of his chamber, lest any foolish impertinence
of women coming into the house should grow to a head, and cause the fall of
any of his household'.32 Certainly his successor Edward had a reputation for
intemperance with respect to sex and food: `No man ever took more delight
in his pleasures than he did, especially in the ladies, feasts, banquets and
hunts', declared Philippe de Commynes;33 and Dominic Mancini condemned
Edward as a man
30
A. R. Myers, `The Household of Queen Margaret of Anjou', in his Crown, Household
and Parliament in Fifteenth Century England, ed. C. H. Clough (London, 1985), 135±209;
and his `The Household of Queen Elizabeth Woodville, 1466±7', in ibid., 251±318.
31
W. Caxton, trans., The Curial made by Maystere Alain Charretier, ed. P. Meyer and F. J.
Furnivall, EETS ES 54 (London, 1888), p. 14.
32
J. Blacman, Henry the Sixth: A Memoir by John Blacman, trans. M. R. James (Cam-
bridge, 1955), p. 8. I am indebted to P. H. Cullum for this information.
33
P. de Commynes, Memoirs, trans. M. Jones (Harmondsworth, 1972), p. 414.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
142 Anne M. Dutton
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
licentious in the extreme: moreover, it was said that he had been most
insolent to numerous women after he had seduced them, for, as soon as he
grew weary of dalliance, he gave up the ladies much against their will to
the other courtiers. He pursued with no discrimination the married and
unmarried, the noble and lowly: however, he took none by force . . . he had
many promoters and companions of his vices.34
Whether Edward was indeed a man of inordinate lust, and whether the
court was truly a place of dubious morality, are themselves both questionable
and irrelevant. What matters is that they were seen to be so. This belief must
have been especially harmful to women at court; aspersions of sexual
impropriety might have been cast at them through association. The fact that
there seem to have been few women at court would have made women's
position there more vulnerable. A reputation for piety, which brought along
with it a reputation for chastity and good behaviour, would have been an
excellent defence against slander. Christine de Pisan understood this well, and
she states ®rmly in The Treasure of the City of Ladies that `there is no doubt that a
lady is more feared and respected and held in greater reverence when she is
seen to be wise and chaste and of ®rm behaviour', and that `certainly there is
nothing so great in this world that she could have and nothing she should so
much love to accumulate . . . [than] a good name'.35 Christine was writing with
experience of the French court, but the experience of women at the English
court must not have differed greatly from that of their French sisters. The
Knight of the Tower echoes Christine's advice: `My dere doughter yf ye wyst
and knewe the grete worship whiche cometh of good name and Renomme, ye
shold peyne your self to gete and kepe it . . . the good woman . . . payneth her
selfe to kepe her body clene and her worship also.'36 The reputation, and
especially the sexual reputation, of women of lesser social standing than Anne
Harling was important enough to warrant litigation if it was slandered; it is
likely that aristocratic women took steps to ensure their good name.37
The alternative to respectability, according to the Knight of the Tower, was
dishonour and shame. Improper or forward behaviour could ruin a woman's
prospects for marriage, or damage her existing marriage, and the Knight
warns his daughters against having extra-marital affairs, and even against
the reputation of having such affairs, `for by such a cause many good
maryages haue ben left & forgoten'.38 Thomas More was of the same opinion,
34
D. Mancini, The Usurpation of Richard III, trans. C. A. J. Armstrong, 2nd edn (Oxford,
1969), p. 67
35
C. de Pisan, The Treasure of the City of Ladies, trans. S. Lawson (Harmondsworth,
1985), pp. 76 and 56.
36
The Book of the Knight of the Tower, trans. W. Caxton, ed. M. Y. Offord, EETS SS 2
(London, 1971), p. 151.
37
See R. H. Hemholz, ed., Select Cases on Defamation, Seldon Society 101 (1985); J. A.
Sharpe, Defamation and Sexual Slander in Early Modern England: The Church Courts at
York, Borthwick Paper 58 (York, 1980). I am indebted to Sarah Salih for these
references.
38
The Book of the Knight of the Tower, p. 172.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
stating that Edward IV's affairs were `to the destruction of many a good
woman'.39
To interpret Anne's ownership of Harley 4012 purely in terms of political
expediency would be overly simplistic if not downright foolish. Outward
signs of devotion would have been meaningless without inner fervour, and it
is unlikely that they would have been able to establish reputation for piety
without such fervour. That Anne's piety was genuine I do not doubt, but the
possession of genuine piety does not preclude its use to political advantage.
Harley 4012 can be seen not only as evidence of Anne Harling's personal
piety, but also as part of her construction of herself as a pious, and thus
respectable, woman. A man, we are told, is judged by the company he keeps.
A man ± and a woman ± is also judged by what he or she owns, what he or
she does, how he or she presents himself or herself. Anne Harling must
surely have been aware of this.
I am grateful to Felicity Riddy, Jeremy Goldberg, and Kim Phillips for their
interest, criticism and shared information, and to the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada for ®nancial support.
39
Cited in C. Cross, Edward IV (London, 1974), p. 315.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
144 Anne M. Dutton
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
APPENDIX: CONTENTS OF HARLEY 4012
An excellent description of the manuscript is given in E. Wilson, À Middle

English Manuscript at Coughton Court, Warwickshire, and British library
MS. Harley 4012', Notes and Queries 22 (1977), 299±301. I give here a brief list
of the contents, along with bibliographic references for the texts. The
following abbreviations have been used: IMEV: C. Brown and R. H. Robbins,
The Index of Middle English Verse (New York, 1943); IPMEP: R. E. Lewis, N. F.
Blake, and A. S. G. Edwards, Index of Printed Middle English Prose (New York
and London, 1985); Jolliffe: P. S. Jolliffe, Check-List of Middle English Prose
Writing of Spiritual Guidance (Toronto, 1974); Raymo: R. R. Raymo, `Works of
Religious and Philosophical Instruction', in A Manual of the Writings in Middle
English, gen. ed. A. E. Hartung, 8 vols. (New Haven, 1967±89), VII, 2255±2378
and 2470±2582.
1 1r±68v The Clensynge of Mans Sowle

[The Cleansing of Man's Soul]
Raymo 84
2 69r±72r The Charter of oure eritage
[The Charter of Our Heavenly Heritage, an extract from the Pore Caitiff]
IPMEP 166
Jolliffe B
3 73r Foure thingis be nedefull to euere cristen man and woman to rule
theem bi to obtayne e blisse of heuen.
[Four Things Be Needful]
Jolliffe I.9
Raymo 147
4 73r±77r Here is the mirroure of sinnes [sic]
[The Mirror of Sinners]
IPMEP 213
Jolliffe F.8
5 77v±78r Theis be the wordis that oure saueoure Ihesu spake to his holy
spouse and virgen Sent Moll
[God's Words to Saint Moll]
Jolliffe I.31(b)
Raymo 142
6 79r±83v Here beginneth a tretis of mekenes withoute which noman maie
com to ane other vertue or loue of godd for hit is the ground of all perfeccion
of goodnes and vertue
[The Twelve Degrees of meekness]
Jolliffe G.19
Raymo 77
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
7 83v±100v Here foloing be the artikell of the faith redy for euery man to
rede and se
[Article of the Faith]
Raymo 41
8 101r±103v theis Chapers foloing

[List of the 30 chapters of the Mirror of St Edmund, and chapters 1 to 3 (ending
imperfectly at the foot of f. 103v in mid-sentence)]
IPMEP 800
9 104r±v [acephalous text beginning `for rememeber ther also ther be
many thingis at be not exceptable before god and but if a man euer refuse
them he shall neuer com wher god is not none of his Sentis . . .]
Jolliffe lists this as part of item 10 below, under E.8.
10 105r±v [acephalous text beginning `Herfor now breuely I will make a
nende and a recapitilacon of e forsaide fowre maner of wasshingis . . .]
[The Four Manners of Washings]
Jolliffe lists this, together with item 9 above, under E.8.
Raymo 93
11 106r±108v Ihesu the sonne of mare mylde
[poem]
IMEV 18779
12 109r±v Hosumeuer saith is praier in e worship of e passion shall
haue C 3ere of pardon. Wofully araide
[Appeal of Christ to Man from the Cross]
IMEV 497
13 110r±113r Here begynneth the pardon of the monastery of Shene
whiche is Syon
[The Pardon of the Monastery of Shene which is Syon]
IPMEP 184
14 113v±114v Here is folung a short and a frutefull tretes how that ther
was assembled viii wise men and masters for to declare what meret
tribulacion is mor manne mekely suffred
[Seven Masters on Tribulation]
IPMEP 287
Jolliffe J.2(d)
15 115r±123v Here begynneth e life of Sent Katryne
The Life of St Katherine
Prose version c.1
IPMEP 28
1
S. Nevanlinna and I. Taavitsainen, eds., St Katherine of Alexandria: The Late Middle
English Prose Legend in Southwell Minster M7 (Cambridge and Helsinki, 1993), p. 11.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
146 Anne M. Dutton
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
16 124r±130r Here begynneth e lif of Sent Margaret
[The Life of St Margaret (prose)]
17 Here begynneth e lif of Sent Anne
[The Life of St Anne]
IMEV 3207
18 140r±151v Here is e lif of Sent Partick and extract sui purgatorii
[The Life of St Patrick. Ending imperfect]
IMEV 3038
d:/3riddy/erler.3d ± 31/7/0 ± 19:37 ± diskB&B/mp
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
THE ABBESS OF MALLING'S GIFT MANUSCRIPT (1520)
Mary C. Erler
In 1520 the abbess of Malling, Kent, gave a Sarum book of hours (now
Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery, MS 21040) to her godchild, the infant
Margaret Neville, at her christening.1 A collection of notes in the book's
calendar, discovered and published by F. J. Furnivall, gives a remarkably
complete outline of Margaret Neville's subsequent life. The annotations
record the death of her mother when she was seven; her marriage to Sir
Robert Southwell at age sixteen; the births of her ®ve children; the death, ®rst
of her father, Sir Thomas Neville, and then of her husband; and ®nally her
second marriage to William Plumbe. Her death and Plumbe's remarriage
complete this series of events, which spans the years from 1520 to 1579.2
The unusually comprehensive nature of this family record, centred as it is
on the life of a single woman, and contained in the gift book that she received
from another woman, might suggest that this book falls into a familiar
category: a token of affectionate regard whose status as a family heirloom
owes much to personal feeling. Ex dono inscriptions in books most often
af®rm ties either of blood or of affection, or they gesture toward a community
of interest in which reading plays a central role.
Much rarer are exchanges of books that reveal a relationship of power. Yet
in the abbess's gift such pressures are perceptible. Here the reality of self-
interest is disguised by the festive and occasional nature of this gift; disguised
also by the passage of the book between two women; and ®nally, hidden by
the tropes of helplessness which these particular women, a nun and an infant,
embody. Nevertheless the abbess's gift constitutes an element in the struggle
for power between monastic houses and local magnates, a struggle particu-
larly intense in early sixteenth-century Kent. In the manuscript's ownership
history, it is often clear that relations of kinship and friendship underlie its
1
The book is Blackburn Museum and Art Galleries, MS 21040 (Hart Collection no. 6).
It was brie¯y described in HMC Sixth Report, Appendix, MSS of Lord Lecon®eld,
Petworth House, p. 288. It appears in Sotheby's Lord Lecon®eld sale. `Catalogue of . . .
Important English Books and Manuscripts from the Library of Henry Percy, 9th Earl of
Northumberland', 23 April 1928, where it is lot 65; the Annunciation miniature (fol.
7v) and facing page (fol. 8) are reproduced. The manuscript was included in the
exhibition Medieval and Early Renaissance Treasures in the North West, ed. J. Alexander
and P. Crossley (Manchester, 1976), pp. 28±9, where a miniature of the nailing of
Christ is reproduced as plate II. Most recently it has been described by N. R. Ker,
Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries (Oxford, 1977), II, 109±110.
2
F. J. Furnivall, `The Nevile and Southwell Families of Mereworth in Kent', Notes and
Queries 4th s. 2 (1868), 577±8.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
148 Mary C. Erler
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
movement from hand to hand. Simultaneously, the sterner obligations
produced by the realities of political power can be discerned as well.
Hence the book's markings might be seen as representing both horizontal
lines of force ± the ties of affectionate regard ± and vertical ones ± the bonds of
patronage and clientage.
The Benedictine abbey of Malling, founded by Gundulf, bishop of
Rochester in 1090, lay in west Kent not far from Maidstone. At the dissolution
it housed twelve nuns and hence should be considered a house of medium
size.3 Of the 106 female houses in England it ranked among the twenty most
wealthy, with an annual income between £200 and £300. Among its resources
were the manors of West Malling, Ewell, East Malling, Parrock, Leyton and
Great Cornard, three rectories and two secular prebends. It held two annual
markets and at the dissolution is recorded as possessing a fulling mill.4 It thus
constituted if not a splendid prize at least a not inconsiderable one, despite
the protest of one of the many applicants for its stewardship that he had been
tardy in suggesting himself `thinking that few . . . would apply for so small an
of®ce'.5
Peter Clark's magisterial account of religion, politics, and society in early
modern Kent describes the vestigial aristocratic feuding that continued in
west Kent into the sixteenth century. He says: `There can be little question
that the two magnate families, the Guldefordes and Nevilles, regarded this
area with its developing industrial and agrarian economy, as a prize worth
®ghting for. The result was frontier violence down the Medway valley and
into the Weald.'6 In these struggles the three Neville brothers played a central
role: the eldest, George, ®fth lord Abergavenny, Sir Edward, and Sir Thomas,
the father of Margaret Neville, our book's recipient.7
Patronage was central to maintaining county loyalties and both Sir Thomas
Neville's brothers moved effectively in this sphere. As the only county with
two episcopal sees, Canterbury and Rochester, Kent's clerical patronage was
immense. Lord Abergavenny was steward of the great liberties of the
Archdiocese of Canterbury in eastern Kent, à position which he sought to
buttress by becoming steward to the second largest county landowner,
Christchurch priory'.8 His brother Sir Edward Neville was steward of the
see of Rochester whose land lay mostly in west Kent and the Weald.
The career of the third brother, Sir Thomas, was somewhat more court-
oriented than that of his brothers. He was a member of Henry VIII's
3
Victoria County History (henceforth VCH) Kent (London, 1926), II, 148.
4
E. Power, Medieval English Nunneries (Cambridge, 1922), p. 2.
5
The phrase comes from a letter of Sir Edward Wotton to Cromwell on 27 February
1535 (Letters and Papers of Henry 8th (henceforth L&PH8) VIII, 275).
6
P. Clark, English Provincial Society from the Reformation to the Revolution: Religion,
Politics and Society in Kent 1500±1640 (Cranbury, New Jersey, 1977), p. 14.
7
For George Neville, ®fth lord Abergavenny, see Dictionary of National Biography
(henceforth DNB).
8
Clark, Provincial Society, p. 15.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
The Abbess of Malling's Gift Manuscript 149
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
household and council, from 1514 Speaker of the House of Commons, and
responsible for the development of the of®ce of liveries from about 1514 to his
death in 1542. He received what might be regarded as the urban equivalent of
his brothers' Kentish stewardships when in 1532 he was named steward of
Westminster Abbey.9 His long-continued interest in the nunnery of Malling
was probably attributable to its location, only three miles north of his seat at
Mereworth.
Clark's picture of county strife between great families is further compli-
cated by the Kentish activity in the 1520s of Wolsey, in the 1530s of
Cromwellp ± the former attempting to increase royal power and to decrease
that of the old families, the latter pursuing a policy at least partially self-
interested. Particularly notable in the early 1520s was Wolsey's utilization of
several Kentish religious houses to found his new Cardinal College at
Oxford. The dissolution of Tonbridge Priory and Bayham Abbey, both in
west Kent, the former particularly close to Malling, according to Clark, `had
been enforced arbitrarily and in probable complicity with the land-hungry
local gentry'. He goes on: `much of the [Kentish] anti-clerical enthusiasm was
self-interested. . . . Landowners, especially those in west Kent, waited
expectantly for the collapse of minor monastic houses. Gentry . . . swooped
about the priory lands of Tonbridge [in 1525] hoping for rich pickings.'10
Against such a political background, abbess Elizabeth Hull's 1520 gift of
her illuminated manuscript to Sir Thomas Neville's heir may appear slightly
less altruistic. It is not until ®fteen years later, however, in the middle of the
1530s, that it is possible to see Neville's relation with Malling in less shadowy
fashion. In that hectic decade, not only Malling but also two other Kentish
female houses suffered interference in their internal affairs.
Abbess Hull died in 1524, four years after she made the gift. She had been a
member of the Malling community for at least forty years (she was men-
tioned in a will of 1484) and had been abbess since 1495.11 Her successor ruled
only brie¯y, and in 1524 Elizabeth Rede was elected.12
The new abbess was the daughter of Sir Robert Rede, chief justice of the
common pleas, founder of the Rede lectures at Cambridge, and himself a
Kentishman. Among her four sisters were Dorothy, wife of Sir Edward
9
Besides the DNB account, Sir Thomas Neville's life is treated in S. T. Bindoff, The
House of Commons 1509±1558, 3 vols. (London, 1982), III (N-Z), 10±11. For his career as
Speaker of the House, see J. S. Roskell, The Commons and Their Speakers in English
Parliaments 1376±1523 (New York, 1965), pp. 317±20. His central role in Henry VIII's
council is emphasized by W. H. Dunham, Jr., `The Members of Henry VIII's Whole
Council, 1509±1527', English Historical Review 59 (1944), 187±210, p. 203.
10
Clark, Provincial Society, pp. 31, 29. For the suppression of these Kentish houses, see
D. Knowles, The Religious Orders in England, 3 vols. (Cambridge, 1976), III, 162.
11
L. L. Duncan, Testamenta Cantiana (London, 1906), p. 51, the 1484 will of William
Pellycan (PCC 4 Milles). PRO Prob 11/8, fol. 26r±v. The VCH Kent gives her dates as
1495±1524 (II. 148). Lady Elizabeth Hull, abbess, was put in charge of William Hull's
minor children in his 1519 will (DRb/Pwr 7, fol. 175r±v).
12
VCH Kent, II, 148, based on Rochester Episcopal Register IV, fol. 120v.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
150 Mary C. Erler
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Wotton, and Bridget, married to Sir Thomas Willoughby, a justice of the
common pleas.13 All three of these women become visible in February 1535,
when surviving letters from the abbess and others reveal the intense pressure
to which she was subjected as the stewardship of Malling became vacant.
The high stewardship of monastic institutions was generally held by some
powerful person, either lay or religious, who might, in exchange for the
annual stipend, serve as the house's protector and advisor. Patronage could
be deployed: the of®ce provided an opportunity for intervention in a house's
internal affairs in ways advantageous to the steward ± for instance, in the
choice of head or in the conferral of livings. One writer comments: `The
eagerness with which grasping politicians like Wolsey and Cromwell sought
for the of®ce, or had it thrust on them by the religious, shows what
opportunities it must have furnished.'14
Five contenders presented themselves for Malling's stewardship. On 17
February 1535 Abbess Rede received Cromwell's letter directing that the
of®ce be conferred on his nephew Richard.15 Three days later her letter to the
poet Thomas Wyatt revealed that she had been directed by the king to confer
the stewardship on him, although she mentioned that Sir Thomas Neville
had also written requesting the of®ce. In both these letters the abbess noted
that she had already promised the stewardship to her brother-in-law Sir
Thomas Willoughby for his son, her sister's child.16 Subsequently on 27
February a note from the abbess' other brother-in-law, Sir Edward Wotton, to
Cromwell revealed that the abbess had instead given the stewardship to him,
since in that letter he protested Cromwell's command to return his patent.17
Perhaps the most interesting letter in this series is the last, in which Wotton
provided details of his conversation with his sister-in-law Abbess Rede.
When she resisted his attempts to transfer the stewardship from himself to
Thomas Wyatt, he threatened her that `more danger used to grow towards
her than the keeping of the of®ce could be commodity to me'. He left the
patent with her, and the stewardship did go to Wyatt, but the abbess' parting
words to Wotton were telling. `She said she might have bestowed the of®ce
upon divers which would much better have shifted therewith than I have
done.'18
13
DNB, Sir Robert Rede. The foundation book for Rede's chantry is PRO E 315/150.
His 1518 testament is PRO Prob 11/19, fol. 97r; in it he leaves his daughter Elizabeth
®ve marks, by licence of her abbess, and a salt with a cover of silver and gilt. Malling,
where he was a brother, received 40s and `my little basin and ewer of silver parcel gilt
to the intent they shall more specially pray for my soul'. I am indebted to Professor
Colin Richmond for these two references.
14
G. Baskerville, English Monks and the Suppression of the Monasteries (New Haven,
1937), p. 58.
15
L&PH8, VIII, 230.
16
L&PH8, VIII, 249; printed in Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies, ed. M. A. E. Wood,
3 vols. (London, 1846), II, 150±2. The following two letters are summarized by Wood.
17
L&PH8, VIII, 275.
18
L&PH8, VIII, 349.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Abbess Rede's resignation in September 1536, a year and a half later,19 has
been attributed to Cromwell's displeasure over this episode, though it may
have had as much to do with the needs of another Cromwell proteÂgeÂe,
Margaret Vernon, the former prioress of Little Marlow, Bucks., a house which
was dissolved in June 1536. A contemporary letter to Cromwell notes that
`my lady [Vernon] takes her dischange [from Marlow] like a wise women. . . .
She trusts entirely to you for some reasonable pension', and the writer
suggests èither this or her promotion to some other house of religion'.
Cromwell apparently accepted this latter recommendation, as his client
Margaret Vernon subsequently was appointed abbess of Malling.20
Elizabeth Rede thus erred in preferring the claims of family (her brothers-
in-law Willoughby or Wotton) over those of political patronage (Wyatt or
Neville or Richard Cromwell). That two other female houses in Kent
experienced similar pressures at about the same time perhaps indicates
both the charged political climate in Kent, and the development in that
county of what Clark, with some hesitancy, has called a Cromwellian `party'
± that is, a coalition of interests linked by patronage, pursuit of religious
reform and sometimes kinship.21
The ®rst instance concerns the stewardship of Dartford, the only female
Dominican house in England. When in 1534 Cromwell requested the of®ce
for one Mr. Palmer, a connection of his, Prioress Elizabeth Cressener wrote
protesting that in the past Dartford's stewards had always been members of
the king's council, and requesting Cromwell himself to accept the of®ce, `with
the fee thereunto belonging'.22 Such an appeal to personal interest, resulting
perhaps in special protection for Dartford, might be thought particularly
acute on the prioress' part.
In the second instance Cromwell was not involved. Alice, the sister of
Archbishop Cranmer, was appointed to Minster in Sheppey, Kent, at the 1534
death of its prioress when its nuns obligingly relinquished the election to the
archbishop.23 Taken together, these examples at Dartford and at Minster
provide a sense of the forces to which religious houses were subject, both
from lay and ecclesiastical allies, and make it clear that Sir Thomas Neville's
relation to Malling was by no means unusual.
At Malling's end, Neville was present once again, together with many of
the same cast of characters: Sir Thomas Wyatt, Cromwell, and the new abbess
of Malling, Margaret Vernon. The issue in 1535 had been the abbey's
stewardship. Now, as the dissolution loomed, it was the house itself and
its possessions that attracted suppliants. A collection of letters written in the
19
L&PH8, XI, 490. These events are summarized in C. R. Councer, `The Dissolution of
the Kentish Monasteries', Archaeologia Cantiana 47 (1935), 126±43.
20
L&PH8, X, 495 (William Cavendish to Cromwell, 23 June 1536).
21
Clark, Provincial Society, pp. 50±2.
22
Letters of . . . Ladies, ed. Wood, II, 154±5. L&PH VII, 1634 (dated 1534)
23
G. Baskerville, À Sister of Archbishop Cranmer', English Historical Review 51 (1936),
287±9.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
152 Mary C. Erler
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
six months preceding the house's autumn dissolution in 1538 illustrates the
strenuous efforts made by a variety of people to obtain Malling's holdings.
The earliest of these mentions Neville's suit: it comes from Neville's son-in-
law Robert Southwell who two years earlier had married Margaret Neville,
the infant recipient of the book.24 The second is from Margaret Vernon, now
Malling's abbess; she tells Cromwell that when she heard Sir Thomas Neville
`made labour' for Malling, `she said she would rather Mr. Stathum had it
than that it should go to another who would not inhabit there'. But after she
spoke with Cromwell, she desired him `to make no suit therein, trusting to
enjoy it during her life'. She adds that ùnless all [religious houses] shall be
dissolved, she would like to keep it according to Cromwell's promise'.25 (That
Neville did not intend to live at Malling, and that Cromwell had promised its
abbess six months before Malling's dissolution that it would be allowed to
remain, are both points of interest.) Thomas Wyatt's letter to Cromwell
recommending his suit for the monastery came in June,26 just a few days
before another Vernon letter in which she notes in a tone of amused
exasperation that Stathum and Wyatt have both told her they possess
Cromwell's favour, and she asks what Cromwell wishes her to do.27
In the end, none of these supplicants received the sought-for prize, though
all were awarded something. The abbess received a pension of £40, a
generous sum in the middle range between the great abbesses' pensions
(Shaftesbury £133; Wilton £100) and the pittance that superiors of small local
houses received (Shuldham, Norfolk, £5). Her thanks to Cromwell are on
record.28 Sir Thomas Wyatt was not awarded Malling; instead he was given
Boxley, Malling's neighbouring male Cistercian abbey.29 And six months
after Malling's dissolution Sir Thomas Neville was granted, for £400, the
manor of Shelwood, Surrey.30
The person who became Malling's owner was, in fact, not one of the
applicants at all. Thomas Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, received the
house from the king in exchange for various possessions belonging to his
see in Kent and Surrey.31 A 1539 rental from Malling survives, which is
annotated in what Dugdale identi®es as the hand of Archbishop Cranmer.
In order to arrive at a yearly pro®t ®gure, the annotator has totalled the
house's debits, including its pensions: £40 for the abbess, £4 each to nine or
ten nuns. and ± in a signi®cant coda ± Ìtem for the old abbesse pension xx
marks'.32 Elizabeth Rede was still a member of the community.
24
L&PH8, XIII(l), 407. For Southwell's career, see Bindoff, House of Commons, III, 354±5.
25
L&PH8, XIII(l), 808.
26
L&PH8, XIII(l), 1229
27
L&PH8, XIII(l), 1251.
28
L&PH8, XIII(2), 856.
29
L&PH8, XV.g.942(49), grant dated 10 July 1540.
30
Bindoff, House of Commons, `Neville', III, 10±11.
31
L&PH8, XV.g.613 (32), grant dated 28 April 1540.
32
W. Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, 8 vols. (London, 1817±30), III, 382±6. The rental
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Thus Sir Thomas Neville's predatory attentions to this neighbouring institu-
tion were twice thwarted: the ®rst time by Thomas Wyatt, the second by
Archbishop Cranmer. The elements Clark described as linking Cromwell's
interests in Kent ± kinship, patronage, religious reform ± are all visible in
Neville's career. Although the latter was not related by blood to Cromwell, the
two had close personal ties. Marriage negotiations were undertaken in the
1530s between Margaret Neville, to whom Abbess Hull had given the manu-
script, and Cromwell's son Gregory, and although these did not succeed,
Margaret's husband Robert Southwell was a Cromwell dependent, whose
brother Richard had been tutor to Cromwell's son.33 Neville was perhaps also
liberal in religion as Thomas Becon, the Kentish divine, dedicated to him his
Christmas Basket and his Potation for Lent.34 To these overlapping bonds created
by marriage, by clientage, by religious sympathy, might be added the god-
mother±godchild relation established at Margaret Neville's baptism, in which
religious ritual was employed to forge quasi-kinship bonds.
Whether or not the initiative in forming this connection came from Abbess
Hull, her 1520 gift to Thomas Neville's daughter seems particularly fore-
sighted. What was the nature of the book which she gave to this neighbour's
child?
Written about 1440, according to Jonathan Alexander, the manuscript is
lavishly illustrated. Besides the full-page annunciation it contains twelve
half-page pictures, seven of them comprising a Passion series, plus ®ve more
including a Last Judgement, a corpse in a winding sheet under a catafalque,
angels bearing souls to God, a Man of Sorrows and Emblems of the Passion.
Alexander describes its acanthus and gold spray borders as Flemish in style,
and the entire effect is lavish and splendid.35
Although the abbess was the book's donor, she had not owned it herself for
very long. Of the book's many inscriptions, perhaps the most signi®cant is the
most modest. A calendar entry at 28 July records the birth of `R Tanffeld
junioris' in 1463.36 The Tan®elds were a Northamptonshire family: one of
their manors was at Gayton, about ®ve miles southwest of Northampton, and
in 1441/2 a Robert Tanfeld (or Tan®eld) was recorder of that city. He was a
lawyer whose life was divided between the capital and the provinces: a
London customer, he was also MP for Middlesex.37 His grandson, the Robert
is printed, `copied from the original in the chapter-house at Westminster'. See also
T. Tanner, Notitia Monastica (London, 1744), p. 211.
33
Bindoff, House of Commons, `Southwell', III, 354±5.
34
DNB, Sir Thomas Neville.
35
Medieval . . . Treasures, ed. Alexander and Crossley, pp. 28±9.
36
Ker, Medieval Manuscripts, II, 109; the birth date gives the regnal year, 3 Edward IV.
37
`Liber Custumarum Villae Northamptoniae, circa 1460', Northamptonshire Notes &
Queries VI (1896), 90±102, p. 97. J. C. Wedgwood, History of Parliament: Biographies of the
Members of the Commons House 1439±1509 (London, 1936), pp. 840±41, provides
biographies of the father and grandfather of the Robert Tan®eld born in 1463; all
three shared the same name. For the initial suggestion that the Tan®elds were a
Northamptonshire family I am indebted to Professor Richard Marks.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
154 Mary C. Erler
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Tan®eld whose birth is noted in the Malling book, grew up to marry
Catherine Neville, a member of the Kentish family of Nevilles to which Sir
Thomas and his daughter Margaret belonged. She was half-sister to George
Neville, fourth baron Abergavenny, the father of Sir Thomas Neville.38 Her
husband Robert Tan®eld was dead by 20 September 1504.39 The book which
recorded his birth probably passed into the abbess of Malling's hands
sometime between that year and 1520, when Abbess Hull gave the book as
a gift. How she obtained the book is unknown, but the Kentish Catherine
Neville, wife of Robert Tan®eld, seems the likeliest link.
The book was an appropriate gift in several ways. The abbess must have
been conscious that in presenting the Neville infant with this volume she was
returning the book into family hands, since Catherine Neville Tan®eld had
been half-sister to the child's grandfather. (The extremely punctilious char-
acter of the book's sixteenth-century inscriptions might be clari®ed if they
were understood not as initiating but as continuing a record of family
ownership.) In addition the book's contents make it a suitable token in a
very particular way. Its last item, added in a hand different from that of the
main scribe, is a verse life of St Margaret (1MEV 2672). Whether the abbess
chose this gift on learning the name Neville's daughter was to bear, or
whether the splendid gift determined the child's name, is impossible to tell.
The book itself records the abbess of Malling's gift in two places. At the
bottom of the calendar leaf for September, the month in which Margaret
Neville was born and baptized, a Latin inscription notes her birth, her
parentage, and the joint baptismal sponsorship of the abbess of Malling
and the nearby abbot of Boxley.
A second Latin inscription differs in character. Written after Abbess Hull's
death, it prefaces the whole book, ®lls an entire page, and is in some sense the
counterpart, in its formal introductory character, of the large Annunciation
miniature with which it shares a single leaf (Plates 20 and 21). The inscription
declares that the abbess of Malling gave this book to Margaret Neville at her
baptism on 26 September 1520; that her father was Sir Thomas Neville,
knight, councillor to Henry VIII and that his elder brother was George
Neville, Lord Bergavenny, knight of the garter, and that Thomas Neville's
wife was Lady Katherine Fitzhugh (she was a titled widow when she married
Neville). It goes on to record the abbess' death in 1524.40
In this inscription the realities of power lie open to view, not only through
38
H. J. Swallow, De Nova Villa or The House of Nevill (Newcastle on Tyne, 1885), p. 231.
39
G. Baker, The History and Antiquities of the County of Northampton, 2 vols. (London,
1822±30), II, 275±6; J. Bridges, The History and Antiquities of Northamptonshire, 2 vols.
(Oxford, 1791), I, 263, for the pedigree of Tan®eld of Gayton.
40
Both nuns and monks were frequently forbidden to act as baptismal sponsors.
Power, Nunneries, p. 380, gives examples of episcopal injunctions from the fourteenth
to the sixteenth centuries, and quotes G. G. Coulton's suggestion that the relation was
unwise `because it entangled [religious] with worldly folk and affairs' ± an apt
description of the situation at Malling.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Plate 20. Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery, MS 21040, fol. 7r, dedicatory
inscription.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
156 Mary C. Erler
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Plate 21. Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery, MS 21040, fol. 7v,
Annunciation.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
the genealogical information about Margaret Neville's descent, but through
the visibility given to wealth and position. The lengthy inscription likewise
registers the contemporary sense of value that the gift evoked. In preserving
the gift's occasion and its circumstances these lines reveal a complex set of
forces at play, of which the book remains the sign. Its history acknowledges
the reality of family bonds, as the book that seems to have been a possession
of the Tan®eld-Neville marriage is returned to a Neville owner. The strength
of local regard likewise makes its presence felt in the gift from the abbess to a
neighbouring aristocrat's infant daughter. At the same time, patronage
connections are acknowledged, and perhaps reinscribed, in the creation of
the godmother/child connection. The local ties and local struggles which the
book makes visible have left their marks on its pages, testifying to its claims
to be regarded not only as a memento of affection, but also as a tribute to
power.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
d:/3riddy/carley.3d ± 31/7/0 ± 19:36 ± diskB&B/mp
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
`PLUTARCH'S' LIFE OF AGESILAUS: A RECENTLY

LOCATED NEW YEAR'S GIFT TO THOMAS CROMWELL
BY HENRY PARKER, LORD MORLEY1
James P. Carley
Although the literary merits of his writings have been called into question,2 it
has been generally acknowledged that Henry Parker, eighth Baron Morley
(c. 1481±1556) was an innovator in his choice of form and of subject matter.3
He was one of the ®rst English writers in the Renaissance to translate
Boccaccio or Petrarch and he also attempted to adapt àn Italion ryme
called soneto' to English more or less contemporaneously with Wyatt and
Surrey.4 He presented his translations, given as New Year's gifts, to Henry
VIII, to Henry's daughter Mary, and to Thomas Cromwell.5 Most of his
1
Much of the research for this paper was undertaken when I was an Academic Visitor
at the London School of Economics and Political Science and I am grateful for the
hospitality I received there. Various individuals have read the paper in draft and have
made helpful suggestions: Michelle Brown, David Carlson, A. S. G. Edwards, Sir
Geoffrey Elton, Ceridwen Lloyd-Morgan, Jennifer Loach, and Richard Rex. For a fuller
analysis of Morley's literary career see my `The Writings of Henry Parker, Lord
Morley: a Bibliographical Survey', in `Triumphs of English.' Henry Parker, Lord Morley:
Translator to the English Court, ed. M. Axton & J. P. Carley (London, 2000), pp. 27±68.
2
E. P. Hammond, English Verse Between Chaucer and Surrey (Durham, N.C., 1927),
p. 384, has asserted that `[a] mere glance over Morley's work will show the inadequacy
of his imagination and the poverty of his ear'; and J. K. McConica, English Humanists
and Reformation Politics Under Henry VIII and Edward VI (Oxford, 1965), p. 152, referred
to him as an ìndustrious and mediocre man'.
3
See, for example, the comments of D. D. Carnicelli in Lord Morley's `Tryumphes of
Fraunces Petrarcke': The First English Translation of the `Trion®' (Cambridge, Mass, 1971),
p. 3: Às a translator of Latin as well as Italian works, Morley is a noteworthy ®gure in
English literary history, one of the main links between Caxton and the great
Elizabethan translators. As a ``courtly maker'' in the court of Henry VIII, he wrote
lyrics that invite comparison with the work of major ®gures such as Wyatt and Surrey
and minor ones such as Robert Fairfax, George Boleyn, and Thomas Chaloner.'
4
See Hammond, English Verse, p. 391; also Susanne Woods, `Lord Morley's ``Ryding
Ryme'' and the Origins of Modern English Versi®cation', in Henry Parker, ed. Axton &
Carley, pp. 201±11.
5
In his unprinted bibliography of Morley's writings (London, BL MS Additional
20,768, fol. 4r) John Holmes argued that Morley was responsible for the translation of
Jacques LefeÁvre d'Etaples's Epistres et Evangiles pour les cinquante et deux dimenches de
l'an found in London, BL, Harley 6561 and presented to Anne Boleyn in the winter of
1532±33. Although the attribution has been generally accepted, this was actually the
work of Anne's brother, George Boleyn, Lord Rochford: see my ` ``Her moost lovyng
and fryndely brother sendeth gretyng'': Anne Boleyn's Manuscripts and their
Sources', in Illuminating the Book, Makers and Interpreters: Essays in Honour of Janet
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
160 James P. Carley
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
writings were presented in manuscript form, but Morley did venture into
print on two occasions: in 1539 his Exposition and Declaration of the Psalme,
Deus ultionum Dominus, made by Syr Henry Parker knight, Lord Morley, dedicated
to the Kynges Highnes was printed by Thomas Berthelet, and in the early 1550s
a printed version of his translation of Petrarch's Triumphs, dedicated to
Henry Fitzalan, Lord Maltravers, was published by John Cawood, the
Queen's printer.6
During the late 1520s and the 1530s Morley seems to have associated
himself with three different factions ± the Boleyns, Mary and Thomas
Cromwell ± and his con¯icting loyalties led to potentially dangerous situ-
ations. Regularly, he used books (or at least the written word) as a means of
wooing or placating patrons.7
Morley had various links with the Boleyns, with whom his own family had
been connected as early as the ®fteenth century:
In 1489, for example, Sir William Boleyn had served as one of the executors
of the will of Henry Lovel, seventh Lord Morley, a responsibility that has
special signi®cance for the Boleyns because some thirty years later Sir
Thomas was to contract a marriage for his son with a daughter of that same
Lord Morley's nephew, Sir Henry Parker, who acquired his uncle's title in
1523. From his youth, Parker had served in the household of Lady
Margaret, countess of Richmond, the mother of Henry VII and the guardian
of Buckingham during his minority. The Howards also had a connection
with the Parkers, as after Alice Lovel Parker, Henry's mother, was
widowed, she married Sir Edward Howard, the Lord Admiral who was
killed at Brest in 1513.8
Backhouse, ed. Michelle P. Brown & Scot McKendrick (London, 1998), pp. 261±80
(pp. 267±8). The Commentary on Ecclesiastes, dedicated to Edward Seymour, Duke of
Somerset (now BL, MS Royal 17 D.xiii) and attributed to Morley by modern scholars,
cannot be his, although it may have been written by his son and namesake Sir Henry
Parker: see Carley, `The Writings', pp. 37±9.
6
For a discussion of why he may have dedicated the Triumphs to Maltravers see K. R.
Bartlett, `The Occasion of Lord Morley's Translation of the Trion®: The Triumph of
Chastity over Politics', in Petrarch's `Triumphs': Allegory and Spectacle, ed. K. Eisenbichler
and A. A. Iannucci (Ottawa, 1990), pp. 325±34. For a general discussion of the
translation of the Triumphs see Marie Axton, `Lord Morley's Tryumphes of Fraunces
Petrarcke: Reading Spectacles', in Henry Parker, ed. Axton & Carley, pp. 171±200.
7
In spite of all his networks ± beginning with a youth spent in the household of Lady
Margaret Beaufort and culminating in the strategic marriages of his daughters ±
Morley's career seems slightly muted and he achieved neither high of®ce nor great
wealth. See S. J. Gunn, `Henry Bourchier, Earl of Essex (1472±1540)', in The Tudor
Nobility, ed. G. W. Bernard (Manchester & New York, 1992), pp. 134±179 (p. 154): `he
was not even appointed to the commission of the peace until 1530, when he was well
into middle age, and all his obvious loyalty brought him only one stewardship of
crown lands, tentative royal assistance in a dispute with the canons of Norwich, and
the chance to purchase at the normal price some monastic estates in 1540'.
8
R. M. Warnicke, The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn: Family Politics at the Court of Henry
VIII (Cambridge, 1989), p. 30.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
`Plutarch's' Life of Agesilaus 161
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
One of Morley's daughters, Margaret, married Sir John Shelton the younger,
son of Thomas Boleyn's sister Anne.9 It was, however, the alliance of another
daughter Jane that was most in¯uential. Like her elder brother Henry, Jane is
known to have spent much of her youth at court. She took part in a pageant
with seven other court ladies in March 1522, appearing as Constancy; the
king's sister Mary was Beauty, the countess of Devonshire, Honour, Anne
Boleyn, Perseverance, and Anne's sister Mary, Kindness.10 By the end of 1525
Jane was married to George Boleyn and Henry VIII supplied a portion of the
dowry.11 Jane was in Calais in 1532 and was a member of the great masque
organized by Anne for Francis I's state banquet.12 Presumably, Jane's status
helped account for her brother Henry's creation as a Knight of the Bath at
Anne's coronation.13
By 1535 at the latest Jane had deserted the Boleyns and in June of that year
she was arrested for consorting with Henry's daughter, Mary.14 In 1536 she
was a chief witness against her husband.15 After George's execution Jane
appears quickly to have regained favour, since her father-in-law, Thomas
Boleyn, was subsequently forced to augment her living to £100 a year.16
The fall of Anne and her execution on 19 May 1536 did not necessarily
ensure victory for Mary's faction.17 In June 1536 Lady Hussey, wife of the
9
See Warnicke, The Rise and Fall, p. 46. Morley's daughter was therefore the sister-in-
law of Mary Shelton, a major contributor to the Devonshire manuscript: see P. G.
Remley, `Mary Shelton and Her Tudor Literary Milieu', in Rethinking the Henrician Era:
Essays on Early Tudor Texts and Contexts, ed. P. C. Herman (Urbana and Chicago, 1994),
pp. 40±77.
10
See E. W. Ives, Anne Boleyn (Oxford, 1986), pp. 47±8.
11
On the marriage see Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII . . .,
catalogued by J. S. Brewer et al. (hereafter LP), 21 vols. in 33 (London, 1862±1910) iv/1.
1939 (14); also J. S. Block, Factional Politics and the English Reformation 1520±1540
(London, 1993), p. 12. Concerning Henry's contribution towards the £300 dowry
demanded by Thomas Boleyn, see M. L. Bruce, Anne Boleyn (London, 1972), p. 59; also
S. E. Lehmberg, The Later Parliaments of Henry VIII 1536±1547 (Cambridge, 1977), p. 32,
who pointed out that at the time of Jane's marriage Morley's daughter-in-law
bene®ted from private acts.
12
See Ives, Anne Boleyn, pp. 199±200.
13
See Ives, Anne Boleyn, p. 219.
14
See LP ix. 566; also Ives, Anne Boleyn, p. 339. On Chapuys's account of her earlier
banishment from court for plotting with Anne Boleyn to pick a quarrel with Henry's
(unidenti®ed) new lady see Ives, Anne Boleyn, pp. 242±3. As Ives has observed, p. 243,
Ànother problem [with the story] is the role of Lady Rochford, who is otherwise
known as Anne's enemy.' See also Block, Factional Politics, pp. 62±3.
15
See Ives, Anne Boleyn, pp. 376±7, who has noted that she may have been motivated
by jealousy as well as change of allegiance.
16
See The Lisle Letters, ed. M. St Clare Byrne, 6 vols (Chicago & London, 1981), III, 380±
1. In his letter to Cromwell her father-in-law observed that he increased the sum
àlonely for his [Henry's] pleasure'.
17
See E. W. Ives, `Faction at the Court of Henry VIII: The Fall of Anne Boleyn', History
57 (1972), 169±88 (p. 176): `The faction advancing the claims of Mary had been the
faction which had triumphed through the fall of Anne Boleyn. By stamping in June on
its pretensions to restore Mary, Henry was disengaging himself and at the same time
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
162 James P. Carley
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
former chamberlain of Mary's household, was sent to the Tower for
conspiring to secure Mary's recognition as heir apparent; at Hunsdon she
had referred to Mary as princess rather than the Lady Mary.18 During the
course of her interrogation Lady Hussey indicated that Lord Morley, along
with his wife and daughter, had been at Hunsdon at the same time, and one
would presume they too must have come under suspicion.19 Most scholars
have assumed that Morley's acquaintance with Mary dated back many years,
but David Starkey has recently shown that this is not necessarily the case.20
However, the tone of the dedicatory letters to Mary, and the dates of the New
Year's gifts, some seemingly presented during periods when Mary had little
or no in¯uence, do indicate that Morley was genuinely devoted to her21 and
that his gifts, like his prayers, came from `the verey harte of me'.22
During the period immediately after Cromwell succeeded Thomas Boleyn
as Lord Privy Seal, Morley stood in need of a powerful patron and he turned
quite naturally to Cromwell, a long-standing acquaintance, ®rst met no doubt
during the days of Wolsey's ascendancy,23 and one whose services he had
already solicited earlier in the decade.24 In 1535, when he was involved in one
restoring a balance at court.' See also G. W. Bernard, `The Fall of Anne Boleyn', English
Historical Review 106 (1991), 584±610; E. W. Ives, `The Fall of Anne Boleyn Recon-
sidered', EHR 107 (1992), 651±664; G. W. Bernard, `The Fall of Anne Boleyn: A
Rejoinder', EHR 107 (1992), 665±74.
18
On Mary's insistence that she be addressed as Princess see D. Loades, Mary Tudor: A
Life (Oxford, 1989), p. 82.
19
It is possible that Morley was alluding to the same occasion in the dedicatory letter
to his translation of Johannes de Turrecremata's Exposition of Psalm 36 that he
presented to Mary: Ì do remembre, moste noble Lady Mary, that I apon a certeyn
tyme waytynge on your Grace at Honesden, and youe, after your accustomede
maners, talkynge with me of thynges touchynge to vertue, that ye dyd greately
commende thys same Psalme.' See Forty-six Lives Translated from Boccaccio's `De Claris
Mulieribus' by Henry Parker, Lord Morley, ed. H. G. Wright, EETS OS 214 (London, 1943
[for 1940] ), p. 170.
20
See his Àn Attendant Lord? Henry Parker, Lord Morley', in Henry Parker, ed. Axton
and Carley, pp. 1±25 (pp. 14±18). See Forty-six Lives, ed. Wright, p. 173. McConica
(English Humanists and Reformation Politics, p. 152) has suggested that Morley may
have formed part of the literary society around Catherine of Aragon.
21
McConica has observed (English Humanists and Reformation Politics, p. 157) that `[h]is
unwavering devotion to the Princess Mary, even at times when such loyalty must have
risked disfavour, silences the accusation of mere trimming which his persistent
compliments to those in power might otherwise imply'.
22
In the dedicatory letter accompanying the manuscript of Richard Rolle's comment-
ary on the Psalms, for example, Morley observed that he did not `loke to haue fauour
of youe'. Altogether eight presentation manuscripts to Mary survive.
23
On Morley's letters to Wolsey in 1523 see Forty-six Lives, ed. Wright, pp. xv±xix.
24
On a letter (presumably dated to early 1534) in which he addressed Cromwell as `my
synguler goode frende and olde aqwayntanse' see Forty-six Lives, ed. Wright, pp. xxiv±
xxv. Morley was not, of course, the only one of the conservatives to seek Cromwell's
patronage after 1536, the list of whom included Mary herself. In `Morley, Machiavelli
and the Pilgrimage of Grace', Henry Parker, ed. Axton & Carley, pp. 77±85, K. R. Bartlett
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
of a series of disputes with the prior of Norwich Cathedral, he sought
Cromwell's patronage: Ì therfore, hauyng no seurer porte to ¯e to in thys
grete tempest then to yow, refare yt holey to God, to my Prynse and to yow,
to do wythe me as yt shall plese you in the sauyng of my pore honeste.'25 The
suit appears to have been successful and Morley duly presented Cromwell
with a greyhound.26 Over the next few years, the requests for favours
continued and the tokens of appreciation increased in magnitude.27 Morley's
allegiance to Cromwell, however, seems to have been conditional at best and
like his daughter Jane he was almost certainly sympathetic to the conserva-
tive faction that supported Cromwell's overthrow and the Howard marriage
in 1540.28
Like Cromwell himself, Morley was aware of the potential of books for
furthering policy. Take, for example, his gift of Machiavelli's Istorie Fiorentine
and Il Principe to the Lord Privy Seal, sent on 12 February 1537 or 1539.29 The
latter text, Morley explained, would provide a good model for Cromwell and
Henry ìn Council'. In 1538 Reginald Pole claimed that Cromwell had read Il
Principe as early as 1528 (presumably in manuscript, since it was printed only
in 1532); either Morley did not know this information or Pole's recollection
was inaccurate.30 Concerning the Istorie Fiorentine, Morley pointed out that
has argued that Morley would have been in a particularly vulnerable position in the
aftermath of the Pilgrimage of Grace.
25
See Forty-six Lives, ed. Wright, pp. xxv±vi.
26
See Forty-six Lives, ed. Wright, p. xxvi. On the aptness of this gift see A. G. Dickens,
Thomas Cromwell and the English Reformation (London, 1959), p. 40: `[Cromwell's]
favourite sport was hawking, and he was best pleased by gifts of hawks, spaniels or
greyhounds.'
27
On this topic see Forty-six Lives, ed. Wright, pp. xxvi±xxxi.
28
Jane Rochford was one of the witnesses concerning the non-consummation of
Henry's marriage to Anne of Cleves. Later Matron of the Queen's Suite to Catherine
Howard, she was executed on 12 February 1542 as the principal accomplice in the affair
with Thomas Culpeper: see Carley, `Presentation Manuscripts from the Collection of
Henry VIII: the Case of Henry Parker, Lord Morley', in Order and Connexion. Studies in
Bibliography and Book History, ed. R. C. Alston (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 159±76 (pp. 171±
3); also James Simpson, `The Sacri®ce of Lady Rochford. Henry Parker, Lord Morley's
Translation of De claris mulieribus', in Henry Parker, ed. Axton & Carley, pp. 153±69.
29
On the alternative dates see Forty-six Lives, ed. Wright, p. xxix. n. 7. Following LP
xiv/1. 285, Wright and Elton assign the letter to 1539, but Dickens accepts Henry Ellis's
date of 1537. In terms of what is known about Morley's activities 1537 would make
better sense, since on 18 January 1537 Morley had approached Cromwell for assistance
on a matter, presumably relating to a dispute with the prior and chapter at Norwich,
and on 25 March he sent Cromwell thanks for `youre speciall helpe'. There was also a
dispute over lands belonging to Beeston Priory in this year. He does not appear to
have availed himself of Cromwell's services in 1538 or 1539. For a detailed discussion
of the context of this gift see Bartlett, `Morley, Machiavelli and the Pilgrimage of
Grace'.
30
For inconsistencies in the Pole story see Dickens, Thomas Cromwell, pp. 76±7; also
G. R. Elton, Reform and Renewal. Thomas Cromwell and the Common Weal (Cambridge,
1973), p. 17.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
164 James P. Carley
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
since the revolt of the Florentines against Sixtus IV had many parallels with
Henry's own struggles, he hoped that Cromwell would:
schew the very wordes unto the Kynge. For I do thynke his Majestie shall
take great pleasure to see them. In conclution bycause my Letter schuld not
be to tedyous to youe, in suche places as the Auctor touches any thing
consernyng the Bysschop of Rome, I have notyd it with a hand or with
wordes in the marjant to the intent it schuld be in a redynes to youe at all
tymes in the redyng.31
Morley ended this letter with an unspeci®ed request: Ì pray youe . . . to

tender me in suche things as Maister Rycharde Croumwell schall sew to
youre Lordschip for me.'32
At least two books written by Morley himself can be dated to the period
when Morley was one of Cromwell's clients: one of these is a printed book,
one a manuscript; one was dedicated to Henry VIII and one to Cromwell.
Although issued in 1539, The Exposition and Declaration of the Psalme, Deus
ultionum Dominus33 carries on the title page the date 1534 and John N. King
has speculated that Morley wrote this tract at the time of the Reformation
Parliament, presenting it in manuscript form to Henry some ®ve years before
the printed version appeared.34 This theory, as attractive as it may at ®rst
seem, does not take into account the fact that Berthelet and his successors
used this border (À compartment with cherubic head above and 1534 in the
sill') in a number of books published up to 1569.35 No connection can be
made, in other words, between the date on the title page and the date of
composition of the tract.
31
Quoted from Bartlett, `Letter of Henry Parker, Lord Morley, to Thomas Cromwell',
in Henry Parker, ed. Axton & Carley p. 230.
32
Richard Cromwell (alias Williams) was Thomas Cromwell's nephew, the son of his
sister Catherine.
33
I.e. Psalm 94 (Vulg. Ps. 93). See A. W. Pollard and G. R. Redgrave, A Short-Title
Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland, & Ireland . . . 1475±1640, 2nd edn rev. W. A.
Jackson and F. S. Ferguson, completed K. F. Pantzer, 2 vols (London, 1976), no. 19211.
The book survives in three copies, none of which is the presentation copy: London,
Lambeth Palace Library 1553.07 (3); Oxford, Bodleian Library, Mason CC. 37; BL
292.a.33. It has been edited by Richard Rex in Henry Parker, ed. Axton & Carley,
pp. 232±40.
34
See J. N. King, Tudor Royal Iconography: Literature and Art in an Age of Religious Crisis
(Princeton, 1989), pp. 80, 145, n. 35; also `Henry VIII as David: The King's Image and
Reformation Politics', in Rethinking the Henrician Era, ed. Herman, pp. 78±92 (86±87):
'The Exposition and declaration of the Psalme . . . embodies a representation of the king that
originated within courtly circles before it was published for popular consumption. The
commentator originally prepared his manuscript and dedicated it to the king in 1534,
at the approximate time when the Reformation Parliament proclaimed the king to be
supreme head of the Church of England. . . . Publication of Parker's text by the king's
printer, Thomas Berthelet, suggests that Henry VIII favored its dissemination.'
35
See R. B. McKerrow & F. S. Ferguson, Title-page Borders Used in England & Scotland
1485±1640 (London, 1933), no. 30. It was used even later with the date deleted.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Outspokenly antipapal, The Exposition and Declaration is typical of the kinds
of books being written by the conservatives during the late 1530s.36 Originally
presented as a New Year's gift in manuscript to Henry ± Ì than offer unto
your hyghnesse this newe yere, dere and dred soveraygne lorde, this psalme
of king David' ± it was then passed on to Berthelet for printing, and Berthelet
included the original letter of gift in his edition. The time lag between
presentation and printing, moreover, was not necessarily a long one. In
`Morley and the Papacy' Rex has argued that The Exposition and Declaration
was probably written in the wake of the so-called Exeter Conspiracy of 1538
as a vindication of Morley's credentials as a faithful subject. He has also
suggested that the more Henry's relationship with the papacy deteriorated
throughout 1538 the more appropriate a tract like The Exposition and
Declaration would become. It would seem likely then that the manuscript
was written for presentation on New Year's Day 1539.
As a rule Morley himself showed no ambition to have his work published
and the circumstances of the publication of The Exposition and Declaration
therefore bear closer investigation.37 King viewed The Exposition and Declara-
tion as a `reformation hymn' in which David's slaying of Goliath is a
pre®guration of Henry's repudiation of the Pope.38 Both the independence
of England and its imperial status, so important to the politics of the
Supremacy, are forcefully emphasized, as is the tyranny of the Pope:
For where as unto this presente tyme of your most happy reigne, this youre
Empire mooste triumphant, hath ben wrongfully kept, as tributarie unto
the Babylonicall seate of the Romyshe byshop, your moste sage and
polytike wisedome hath benne suche, that as it maye be well thoughte,
by divine inspiration, ye have taken a very kynges harte, whiche seketh, as
it ought, to rule, and nat to be ruled, and hath set the Englysshe nation at
fredoome and lybertie.
Henry's reforms are seen as the instrument through which `God . . . intendeth
to execute his ryghtuouse sentence ayenst this sect of Sathan, ageinst this
dronken strompette, soused in the bloudde of sayntes and martyrs.' As
scriptural exegesis, moreover, The Exposition and Declaration shows precisely
how the Bible could be used to justify the Henrician position and it thus ®ts
very neatly into the programme that culminated the publication of The Great
Bible in the spring of 1539.39
36
See Rex, `Morley and the Papacy: Rome, Regime and Religion', in Henry Parker, ed.
Axton & Carley, pp. 87±105.
37
On this topic see the comments of W. Boutcher, `Florio's Montaigne: Translation and
Pragmatic Humanism in the Sixteenth Century' (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation,
University of Cambridge, 1991), p. 47: `Morley is in fact disdainful of the medium
of print, and very clearly distinguishes the world of printers, pro®t and popular taste
from the closed aristocratic circles of Erasmian readers.'
38
See King, Tudor Royal Iconography, p. 80.
39
In `Henry VIII as David', p. 87, King has observed that Morley's exempli®cation of
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
166 James P. Carley
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Morley translated four `Plutarch' Lives from Latin into English. Three of
these were dedicated to Henry VIII: the Lives of Scipio and Hannibal
(actually written rather than merely translated by Donato Acciaiuoli as
Morley believed (London, British Library, MS Royal 17 D.xi) ); Plutarch's
Life of Theseus, taken from the Latin version of Lapo da Castiglionchio
(Lapus Florentinus Minor) (British Library, MS Royal 17 D.ii); and the Life of
Aemilius Paullus, from the Latin version of Leonardo Bruni Aretino (Oxford,
Bodleian Library, MS Laud misc. 684). The choice of Cromwell rather than
Henry as recipient for the fourth translation, the Life of Agesilaus, is
somewhat of an aberration.
The Life of Agesilaus that Morley translated into English was, in fact,
Xenophon's Life which circulated widely under Plutarch's name. The
translation from Greek to Latin was done by Battista, son of Guarino
Veronese, rather than Antonio Pacini da Todi (Antonius Tudertinus) as
early printers thought.40 Morley dedicated the Life to Cromwell as the
`right honorable Baron . . . Lord Pryvy Seall', which means that it must
have been presented between July 1536 and Cromwell's execution in 1540. In
a private communication Jennifer Loach raised the possibility that the
extended discussion of councillors in the Life should be seen in the context
of the debate over `counsel' in the later 1530s. In particular it could well relate
to the claim of the pilgrims in 1536 that the council was being packed by men
of low birth and the replies to this claim by Sir Richard Morison and others.
In 1537, moreover, Morley was involved in a particularly vitriolic dispute
with the prior and chapter of Norwich concerning the priory of Aldeby.41
Although a letter dated 25 March (on which see n. 29) makes clear that
Cromwell had assisted Morley in the matter, the monks continued to offer
resistance and the chapter wrote a letter of protest to Cromwell on 15 April.
On 21 April Morley wrote again to Cromwell `praying your Lordshipp further
to goo thorowe with me and not to forsake me in this my sute'.42 Although
Morley triumphed in the long run, since the manor was his by 1547, the
precise details of what occurred after the letter of 21 April are unknown.
Nevertheless, Morley would have felt a strong indebtedness to Cromwell
during 1537, and New Year's Day 1538 may well have have been the occasion
when he presented the Life of Agesilaus to him,43 especially since in the
Henry as a modern King David ìs closely aligned with Holbein's juxtaposition of
Henry VIII and David in the Coverdale Bible border'. See also R. Rex, Henry VIII and
the English Reformation (New York, 1993), p. 103: `His [Henry's] iconoclasm, like his
supremacy, was justi®ed by an appeal to the word of God. And the natural
concomitant of this appeal was the of®cial publication of an English Bible, to reveal
to people the scriptural authority claimed for his policies.'
40
See V. R. Giustiniani, `Sulle traduzioni latine delle ``Vite'' di Plutarco nel quat-
trocento', Rinascimento 2nd s. 1 (1961), 3±62 (33±4). For a full study of the Lives
translated by Morley see Jeremy Maule, `What did Morley Give when He Gave a
``Plutarch'' Life?', in Henry Parker, ed. Axton & Carley, pp. 107±30.
41
On the dispute see Forty-six Lives, ed. Wright, pp. xxvi±viii.
42
Quoted in Forty-Six Lives, ed. Wright, p. xxviii.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
appended `comparcuyon' between Henry VIII and Agesilaus Morley stated
that Henry had ruled `wellnere' thirty years and the thirtieth year of Henry's
reign began on 22 April 1538.44
Last recorded as MS 9375 in the Phillipps Collection, the Life of Agesilaus
was subsequently lost to view and modern descriptions have been based on
Horace Walpole's observations in his Catalogue of the Royal and Noble Authors
of England.45 In fact, subsequent to Phillipps's ownership it formed part of the
collection of Major Albert Addams-Williams of Llangibby Castle, Mon-
mouthshire.46 In 1939 the National Library of Wales acquired the collection
on deposit from the trustees of Major Addams-Williams, and then purchased
it from Major Hopton Addams-Williams in 1945. The Life of Agesilaus is now
catalogued as Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales, MS 17038C.47 It
measures approximately 2636185mm and was rebound in full morocco
with gilt tooling in the nineteenth century. Made up of i + 35 folios, the
written surface covers approximately 135691mm and it is ruled for 22 lines
per page, except on the last where it is ruled for 23 lines. Written on paper in a
later court hand, NLW 17038C contains strapwork capitals on fols 1v, 2r, and
5v, but it is, nevertheless, considerably less elegant than most of the manu-
scripts presented by Morley to Henry VIII and to Mary.
On fol. 1r ± which consists almost entirely of pen trials reproducing
`Gramatice partes quot sunt octo' in different forms ± and erased in the
upper margin of fol. 11r the phrase `monye makethe my . . .' is found in a
contemporary script. This same phrase, rendered as `mony makithe myrthe /
quod Pears', appears (perhaps in the same hand) on fol. 263r of another
manuscript, now London, British Library, MS Harley 4775. Slightly lower on
fol. 263r of Harley 4775 the same individual has written `Remember the ende
of thy faythfull frynde quod R. Pears.' Harley 4775, which consists of a
beautifully written late ®fteenth-century copy of The Gilte Legende,48 contains
43
In the dedicatory letter to the Life Morley observed that Cromwell had been ìn
other urgent causys of myne a schyld inexpungnable'. As pointed out above, n. 29,
there are no surviving records of Cromwell's patronage of Morley in 1538 or 1539.
44
Both the dedicatory letter and comparison have been edited by Carley in Henry
Parker, ed. Axton & Carley, pp. 226±9.
45
On the history of the manuscript, see Forty-six Lives, ed. Wright, pp. liv±lvi. After a
careful search for it Wright admitted defeat, observing that Ì have not succeeded in
tracing it, either in Great Britain or America' (p. lvi.).
46
I assume it went directly from Phillipps to Major Addams-Williams, but have no
proof of this. On fol. 1r £21 occurs in pencil, but no date or lot number is given.
Addams-Williams was a keen collector with a special interest in Monmouthshire
material: see G. Tibbott, `The Llangibby Castle Collection', National Library of Wales
Journal 1 (1939±40), 47±49. Presumably he bought the manuscript because of its post-
Henrician association with the Marches of Wales, on which see below.
47
I am grateful to Dr Ceridwen Lloyd Morgan, Department of Manuscripts, National
Library of Wales, for providing me with a micro®lm of the manuscript at short notice
and for giving me generous hospitality when I later examined it in situ.
48
On this manuscript, see Three Lives from The Gilte Legende, ed. R. Hamer (Heidelberg,
1978), pp. 31±2.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
168 James P. Carley
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
a number of signatures, some with aphorisms appended, primarily on fols
263r+v.49 One of the signatures is that of `Harry Morley', who has added the
phrase `Quis prohibeat sperare meliora' below his name.50 Morley's wife has
signed as Àlys Seynt Jhon' and Àlys Morley'.51 Signatures of various other
members of the St John and Parker family also appear.52 Presumably, then,
this was a manuscript that came to Morley (assuming it was his) through the
St John connection.
That the same, elsewhere unattested, adage ± `mony makithe myrthe' ± is
found in both manuscripts indicates that they are likely to have been together
at some point and that the phrase was added in NLW, 17038C before the
manuscript was presented to Cromwell rather than afterwards. After
Cromwell's fall his books were presumably sequestered along with his
other goods, although the chronology of their absorption into the royal
collection is not clear. A letter to the council by Ralph Sadler, dated 11
April 1545, responds to a question by the council concerning books belonging
to the Of®ce of Arms that had `remained in the hands of the Augustynes, late
the Lord Crumwell's':
Neither Duresme [Cuthbert Tunstall] nor he remember ®nding any such

books; but of all such books, records, letters and writings as they found they
delivered a calendar to the King. Except certain treaties delivered into the
treasury of the Exchequer and a few books had into the King's library, all
remain in the late lord Crumwell's library in the Augustynes.53
On fol. ir of NLW 17038C there are a number of pen trials and the draft of a
letter dated November 20 1602 from Ludlow and addressed to Edward La
Zouche, `Lord President of the Queenes majesties Counscill in the Marches of
Wales'. The author of this letter was one William Kenrick, clerk of the Court
of the Council, who `happeninge upon this smale boke', which he took `to be
the verey same booke that was ®rst dedicated and presented', determined
that he would offer it ìnsted of other presents' to La Zouche. Kenrick's
presentation thus mimics in miniature Morley's original gesture. In the letter
49
For a partial list of signatures see C. E. Wright, Fontes Harleiani. A Study of the Sources
of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts Preserved in the Department of Manuscripts in the
British Museum (London, 1972), p. 245, and the references cited.
50
For attested examples of Morley's signature see, inter alia, London, BL, MS Cotton
Vitellius B. xx, fol. 285v, 286v. For the use of this motto by the Parker family see Elvin's
Handbook of Mottoes, rev. R. Pinches (London, 1971), p. 168.
51
Morley married Alice St John, daughter of John St John of Bletsoe: see M. K. Jones
and M. G. Underwood, The King's Mother: Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond
and Derby (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 114, 241 and 280.
52
These include Harry St John (fol. 5r); John St John (fol. 109v, 263v); Margaret St John
(fol. 263r); Oliver St John (fol. 263r); William St John (fol. 263v); Kathryn Parker (fol.
263r) Francis Parker (fol. 263r); Elizabeth Parker (fol. 263r).
53
See LP 20/1. 506. I thank Pamela Selwyn for this reference. On 10 June 1540 the
king's men seized Cromwell's home at Austin Friars: see B. W. Beckingsale, Thomas
Cromwell, Tudor Minister (London, 1978), p. 141.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Kenrick does not, however, explain where he `happened' upon the book and
there is no indication of how it got to Ludlow.
The name Kenrick does, in fact, come up in connection with another book
that left the royal library in the second half of the sixteenth century. The
presentation copy to Henry VIII of John Leland's Genethliacon Illustrissimi
EaÈduerdi principis Cambriae, printed by Reyner Wolfe in 1543, now survives as
Cambridge, Clare College, O 6 26.54 Printed on vellum, it is still in the original
binding: dark green morocco and on both front and back a Tudor rose
surmounted by the royal crown within a frame stamped in gold and HR at
the margins. How the book got to Clare is unknown, but on the back ¯yleaf
the name Roland Kenrick occurs twice, the second time in the version
`Rolandi Kenrik et amicorum 1568'.
Although nothing is known about Roland Kenrick's origins, apart from the
fact that he was probably an Anglesey man, it can be established that he had
entered the service of Thomas Moyle, surveyor general of the Court of
Augmentations, by 1550.55 After Moyle's death in 1560 he was active in
civic life in Beaumaris, Anglesey, and was returned as a MP for Anglesey in
1572. In Anglesey Kenrick became involved in some sort of dispute with Sir
Richard Bulkeley which led in 1580 to a three-month period of custody.
Earlier, in 1572, Agnes, second wife of the same Sir Richard, was accused of
adultery and of attempting to poison her husband. The ®rst of her alleged
lovers was òne William Kendricke a young gallant'; apparently she `declared
to Rowland Kenericke, the father of the sayd William that shee would marrie
his sonne William when her husband Sir Richard should die.'56 William
Kenrick, then, was the son of Roland, who in turn can be shown to have
possessed Henry's copy of Leland's Genethliacon. Roland must have acquired
another book from the royal collection (i.e. the Life of Agesilaus, absorbed
into the collection at some point after Cromwell's fall), perhaps during the
period of his service to Moyle57 and at least one of these books subsequently
passed to his son William, who later decided to present it to La Zouche.
54
Robert Costomiris ®rst pointed out to me that this book could be found at Clare
College.
55
On Kenrick see The History of Parliament: The House of Commons, 1558±1603, ed. P. W.
Hasler, 3 vols. (London, 1981), II, 393. I am grateful to Dr Lloyd-Morgan for further
details: he was, for example, a witness as a notary public to two deeds relating to lands
in p. Llangoed, co. Anglesey (National Library of Wales Deeds, 1436±7).
56
See `History of the Bulkeley Family (NLW M5 9080E)', ed. E. G. Jones, introduction
by B. D. Roberts, Transactions of the Anglesey Antiquarian Society and Field Club (1948), 1±
99 (pp. 17±18).
57
If he acquired Clare 0 6 26 only in 1568, however, then it must have been from a
difference source, given that Moyle died in 1560.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
d:/3riddy/carlson.3d ± 31/7/0 ± 19:36 ± diskB&B/mp
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
MANUSCRIPTS AFTER PRINTING:

AFFINITY, DISSENT, AND DISPLAY IN THE TEXTS OF
WYATT'S PSALMS
David R. Carlson
Marshall McLuhan had all the press: he coined the smart phrases ± `the
medium is the message', `global village', and so on ± that have continued to
reverberate in the popular imagination, thirty years after. As McLuhan
acknowledged, however, his own work, from The Mechanical Bride (1951) to
Understanding Media (1964), by way of The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962), rested on
the thinking of another Canadian (who was McLuhan's Dean at the
University of Toronto at one point), Harold Adams Innis. Born in 1894,
Innis is remembered chie¯y as a political economist and, in Canada, as an
early exponent of anti-imperialism in cultural affairs ± in the Cold War
period, inveighing against what he called `the jackals of communication
systems', for example, out `to destroy every vestige of [Canadian] sentiment
toward Great Britain, holding it of no advantage if it threatens the
omnipotence of American commercialism'. Innis turned to the history of
communication and communications theory only in the last decade of his
life, when, in the late 1940s, he began working with the hypothesis that
McLuhan was to do so well out of in the 1960s, that the nature of the media
of communication in use in¯uences the nature of the information to be
conveyed, thereby determining institutional structures and the course of
historical change:1
I thank the American Council of Learned Societies, for helping to pay the cost of my
travel to the York Manuscripts Conference in July 1994, and Professor Felicity Riddy,
for her criticism and encouragement.
1
Innis's chief writings on communications are Empire and Communications (Oxford,
1950), the Beit Lectures on Imperial Economic History delivered at Oxford in 1950, and
the several lectures and papers, dating from the late 1940s, collected in The Bias of
Communication, ed. P. Heyer and D. Crowley (1951; rpt. Toronto, 1991). A good
introduction is J. W. Carey, `Harold Adams Innis and Marshall McLuhan', The Antioch
Review 27 (1967), 5±39, esp. 6±14; see also G. Patterson, `Harold Innis and the Writing of
History', Canadian Literature 83 (1979), 118±130. McLuhan's `The Late Innis', Queen's
Quarterly 60 (1953), 385±394, is chie¯y a curiosity, though in it McLuhan acknowledges
his debt, as he does also in the introduction he wrote for the 1951 edition of Innis's Bias
and revised in 1964 (1951; rpt. Toronto, 1964), pp. vii±xvi. The quotation in this
paragraph is from Innis, The Strategy of Culture (Toronto, 1952), p. 19.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
172 David R. Carlson
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
We can perhaps assume that the use of a medium of communication over a
long period will to some extent determine the character of knowledge to be
communicated and suggest that its pervasive in¯uence will eventually
create a civilization in which life and ¯exibility will become exceedingly
dif®cult to maintain and that the advantages of a new medium will become
such as to lead to the emergence of a new civilization.2
`Monopolies of knowledge', created and fostered by dependence on par-

ticular media, grown in¯exible and unresponsive, invite subversion: altern-
ative media, alternative knowledge, and eventually new social order.
Monopolies of knowledge had developed and declined partly in relation to

the medium of communication on which they were built and tended to
alternate as they emphasized religion, decentralization, and time, and force,
centralization, and space. . . . Concentration on a medium of commun-
ication implies a bias in the cultural development of the civilization
concerned either towards an emphasis on space and political organization
or towards an emphasis on time and religious organization. The introduc-
tion of a second medium tends to check the bias of the ®rst and to create
conditions suited to the growth of empire.3
Not as snappy as McLuhan, admittedly, nor as glibly talk-show apt: one of

the strengths of Innis's analysis is his circumspection, in his attention, not
only to the social impact of media change, but also to the interactions among
the differing media current at a certain time. What Innis returns to again and
again is the interplay in ancient civilization between the durable though
importable media on the one hand ± baked clay tablets, for example, or the
mountainsides on which imperial histories were inscribed ± and, on the
other, the portable though perishable media like papyrus and, later, paper.
Different from one another as such media are in the bias they impart to
communications, always they coexist and interact. Media were always parts
of systems involving various media in Innis's history of communications; as
McLuhan put it, Ìnnis is concerned with the unique power of each form to
alter the action of other forms it encounters, . . . the action and counteraction
of forms past and present.'4
This àction and counteraction' of forms of communication, altering one
another by interacting with one another, would have been an especially vivid
matter for a writer like Thomas Wyatt or others of his generation, living and
working in the period of media change in the decades around 1500. For Innis,
as for McLuhan, these decades were a crucial period in communications
history. Innis was inclined to set more weight by the contemporary shift from
vellum to paper, while McLuhan and others have emphasized the shift from
manuscript books to printed ones. It has proved easy to caricature this latter
2
The Bias of Communication, ed. Heyer and Crowley, p. 34.
3
Innis, Empire and Communications, pp. 210 and 216.
4
In McLuhan's introduction to The Bias of Communication (rpt. 1964), p. x.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
Manuscripts after Printing 173
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
shift. McLuhan as much as anyone is culpable in this respect, though others,
less ¯amboyantly, have done as he did, suggesting that the printing press
was an agent of major changes.5 Of course printing changed things, some-
what, though chie¯y in the matter of quantity rather than quality. In any case,
the difference between manuscript books and printed is not great ± it is more
akin to the difference between ®lm and video, perhaps, than to that between
clay and papyrus, or even roll and codex. Also, especially in the short term,
there was much confusion ± much deliberate effort to obliterate what
differences there were between manuscript and print. That printers imitated
manuscript models, in type design, layout, and other particulars, has long
been recognized, and manuscript-makers also soon found themselves imit-
ating printed books. Striking evidence of these obfuscatory practices has
recently been published by Mary Erler ± examples of English manuscript and
printed books, dated c. 1480±1533, featuring pasted-in illuminated initials
that had been printed, from woodcuts or engravings, in imitation of the hand-
drawn and hand-painted initials of the manuscript tradition ± showing
manuscript-makers imitating printers imitating manuscript-makers.6 More-
over, in the short term, printing and manuscript publication remained
alternatives, each viable. What the introduction of the new medium did
was not to replace the old, but alter the ratios of the whole system of
communications. Manuscripts worked differently, and meant differently,
once printed books had arrived as an alternative to them. In choosing to
use manuscripts in the period after printing's advent, Wyatt and others like
him made use of the complexities that printing had imported into the system.
Of necessity, printing brought commercial elements into literary relations.7
It costs so much to prepare to print the ®rst copy that, to recover the cost,
printers have to make numerous additional copies and dispose of them.
Printing single copies does not make sense in technical terms; the machine's
logic imposes an obligation to propagate books and sell them, turning what
had been audiences or readerships into markets, and turning writers into
authors, whose names could be used to help printers make their appeals to
book markets. The uses that manuscripts had for Wyatt and his contempor-
aries, after printing, devolved from this element of commercialism intro-
duced by printing.8
5
A good critique of McLuhan's exorbitance is Raymond Williams's review of The
Gutenberg Galaxy, À Structure of Insights', University of Toronto Quarterly 33 (1964),
338±340. Innis discussed the changes in communications around 1500 in two chapters
in Empire and Communications: `Parchment and Paper', pp. 140±172, and `Paper and the
Printing Press', pp. 173±217.
6
M. C. Erler, `Pasted-In Embellishments in English Manuscripts and Printed Books c.
1480±1533', The Library, 6th s., 14 (1992), 185±206.
7
This matter is discussed in A. S. G. Edwards and C. M. Meale, `The Marketing of
Printed Books in Late Medieval England', The Library, 6th s., 15 (1993), 95±124.
8
To say so much is not, I hope, to reinvent the `stigma' of print, which is usefully
criticized in S. W. May, `Tudor Aristocrats and the Mythical ``Stigma of Print'' ', in
Renaissance Papers 1980, ed. A. L. Deneef and M. T. Hester (Durham, USA, 1981),
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
The mass production of books that comes with printing diminishes the
value of individual books. With printing, copies become common. Although
the cost of making ready to print is high, the cost can be distributed widely,
over whole press runs; and consequently, any individual copy is also a
comparatively cheap thing to make or to buy. By contrast, manuscripts ±
always rare, always unique ± are also always more costly to make than
individual printed books. Apart from matters of decoration and support,
scribal irregularities remained to show the expenditure of more labour on
writing out the individual manuscript copy. Also, by contrast with publica-
tion in print, manuscript circulation was intimate. Circulating in smaller
quantities, often passed hand to hand among family and friends, and, in
some cases, including the case of Wyatt, issued directly from the hands of the
author of the writings in them, manuscripts are personal. With printing, the
mass production of copies dissipates intimacy; machines and business ± the
presses themselves and the apparatus of attendant technologies, capital, and
labour that goes with them ± always interpose between writer and reader.
Finally, by comparison with printing ± which requires a considerable
physical plant, a labour force and capital ± manuscript manufacture is so
thin technologically and low cost that it can be kept invisible to authority. It is
the better medium for subversion. For this reason, there was a resurgence of
manuscript circulation in the pre-revolutionary years of the seventeenth
century; also for this reason, the troubles of radicals in the early nineteenth
century are especially pathetic, after printing had been industrialized by the
introduction of steam-powered presses. One number of the paper Bonnet
Rouge survives from 1832 with a note explaining why it was such a mess
typographically:
Application was made to several printers to print this number but they
refused owing to its being strong destructive principles, it was ultimately
printed by a man living in a garret in Holywell St. who was drunk at the
time which may account for the misplacing of the pages. [sic]
In the 1830s, radicals had resort to drunken hand-printers working out of

attics; in the early sixteenth century, manuscripts remained an alternative.9
pp. 11±18. Instead, I hope to show ways in which the advent of printing would have
made manuscript publication more attractive, in certain circumstances, to certain
writers: not any stigmatizing effects of the new medium, but the bene®ts that accrued
to the old by virtue of peculiarites of the new.
9
On the usefulness of manuscripts after printing, a good general discussion is
D. Nebbiai, `Per una valutazione della produzione manoscritta cinque-seicentesca',
in Alfabetismo e cultura scritta nella storia della societaÁ, ed. A. Langeli and A. Petrucci
(Perugia, 1978), pp. 235±267; there is also discussion in A. F. Marotti, John Donne Coterie
Poet (Madison, 1986), esp. pp. 3±14, and D. R. Carlson, English Humanist Books 1475±
1525 (Toronto, 1993), esp. pp. 118±122. The note on the number of Bonnet Rouge is
quoted in P. Hollis, The Pauper Press: A Study in Working-Class Radicalism of the 1830s
(Oxford, 1970), pp. 127±128; and on the usefulness of manuscripts for propagating
dissent in the early seventeenth century, see C. Hill, `Censorship and English
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
II
These attributes of manuscript publication that the invention of printing

clari®ed and heightened ± its potential for extravagance, its intimacy and its
aptness for subversion ± ®gure in the uses to which Wyatt and his
contemporaries put manuscripts during the ®rst half of the sixteenth century.
Each of these attributes informs the literary history of the transmission of
Wyatt's paraphrase of the seven penitential psalms ± an instructive example
because of the variety of texts that survive: there are both printed and
manuscript copies dating from the sixteenth century, and there are manu-
script copies of differing kinds.
Manuscript foul papers survive, in the so-called Egerton manuscript
(properly, London, British Library, MS Egerton 2711), in which Wyatt
composed and revised his psalms.10 At the back of this book is a run of
about thirty-®ve folios (fols. 66±101), in which Wyatt can be watched at work,
in effect, drafting and revising as he goes. This section includes the
un®nished, cosmographical Ìopas Song' (`When Dido festid ®rst the wan-
dryng Troian knyght'), the long canzone headed Ìn Spayne' (`So feble is the
threde that dothe the burden stay') probably dating from late in Wyatt's
Spanish ambassadorship of 1537±39, a handful of short lyrics, and the
holograph copy of Wyatt's paraphrase of the seven penitential psalms ±
Wyatt's weightiest, longest poetic opus, written late in his life, probably after
his return from Spain in 1539, and completed before his death in 1542.
Wyatt came to be drafting and revising on these pages of the Egerton
manuscript because they had been left blank at the back of a book he
owned and probably had commissioned. The pages remained blank after
the better part of the book had been ®lled up with other poetry written out,
if not by professionals, then by persons doing a careful job, mostly, as
professionals would have done. In these non-holograph portions, Wyatt's
manuscript book is akin to a small, distinct group of other early sixteenth-
century manuscripts: collections of verse, predominantly brief lyrics, pre-
dominantly love poems, composed (as far as can be determined) by
courtiers attached to the court of Henry VIII. Four other manuscripts
complete the group: the so-called Devonshire manuscript (London, British
Literature', in The Collected Essays of Christopher Hill, 3 vols. (Brighton, 1985), I, 32±71,
esp. pp. 41±46.
10
On the Egerton manuscript, see esp. R. Harrier, The Canon of Sir Thomas Wyatt's
Poetry (Cambridge, USA, 1975), pp. 1±15; this book also contains a close transcript of
the Egerton manuscript, with detailed annotations, in the holograph sections
attempting (convincingly) to differentiate the stages of revision by which Wyatt
proceeded. See also R. Southall, Àppendix A: The Egerton Manuscript Collection of
Early-Tudor Poetry', in The Courtly Maker (Oxford, 1964), pp. 160±170, and J. Daalder,
Àre Wyatt's Poems in Egerton MS 2711 in Chronological Order?', English Studies 69
(1988), 205±223.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Library, MS Additional 17492); the Blage manuscript (Dublin, Trinity
College Library, MS 160); the Park-Hill manuscript (London, British
Library, MS Additional 36529); and the Arundel manuscript (at Arundel
Castle still).11 This last book includes a text of Wyatt's psalms, in a scribal
fair copy probably made from the Egerton manuscript holograph. Wyatt
and Surrey are by far the best represented poets in this group of ®ve
manuscript verse collections, though the rate at which items are attributed
to one or the other of them is suspiciously high; also represented, though,
are a number of other named courtier poets, among them George Boleyn,
Francis Bryan, John Dudley, Edmund Knyvet, Anthony Lee, Anthony St
Leger, Edward Seymour, Thomas Seymour, and Thomas Vaux.
The lyrics in the manuscripts of this group often sound the same, and
consequently there have been great scholarly rumbles this century, to no
clear end, about the poems' attribution. Fundamentally, the problem is that
these early Tudor courtier love lyrics were meant to sound the same ± the
point of writing them was to demonstrate belonging rather than distinction,
to show you were like everyone else in the courtly circle rather than that you
were different. Àll that one can say of the identity of Wyatt at present', wrote
Raymond Southall, ìs that it is not that of a particular historical ®gure, but
that of a corpus of early Tudor poetry'; though in certain poems a distinctive
11
Each of these manuscripts, as well as the minor ones, is discussed in some detail
in Harrier, Canon, pp. 16±79; see also P. Beal, Index of English Literary Manuscripts, 3
vols. (London, 1980), I, pt. 2, 589±626; and H. A. Mason, Editing Wyatt (Cambridge,
1972), also contains a great deal of useful information. On the Devonshire manu-
script, see K. Muir, Ùnpublished Poems in the Devonshire Manuscript', Proceedings
of the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society Literary and Historical Section 6 (1947),
253±282; E. Seaton, ` ``The Devonshire Manuscript'' and its Medieval Fragments',
Review of English Studies n.s. 7 (1956), 55±56; Harrier, À Printed Source for ``The
Devonshire Manuscript'' ', Review of English Studies n.s. 11 (1960), 54; Southall, `The
Devonshire Manuscript Collection of Early Tudor Poetry, 1532±1541', Review of
English Studies n.s. 15 (1964), 142±150, The Courtly Maker, pp. 15±25 and 171±173,
and `Mary Fitzroy and `Ò Happy Dames'' in the Devonshire Manuscript', Review of
English Studies n.s. 45 (1994), 316±317, and H. Baron, `Mary (Howard) Fitzroy's Hand
in the Devonshire Manuscript', Review of English Studies n.s. 45 (1994), 318±335,
reassessing the distribution of hands proposed by Southall; P. G. Remley, `Mary
Shelton and her Tudor Literary Milieu', in Rethinking the Henrician Era, ed. P. C.
Herman (Urbana, 1994), pp. 40±77; and E. Heale, `Women and the Courtly Love
Lyric: The Devonshire Ms (BL Additional 17492)', Modern Language Review 90 (1995),
296±313. On the Blage manuscript, see also Muir, `Surrey Poems in the Blage
Manuscript', Notes and Queries 205 (1960), 368±370, and Sir Thomas Wyatt and his
Circle: Unpublished Poems edited from the Blage Manuscript (Liverpool, 1961); and
Baron, `The ``Blage'' Manuscript: The Original Compiler Identi®ed', English Manu-
script Studies 1100±1700 1 (1989), 85±119. On the Arundel manuscript, see R. Hughey,
`The Harington Manuscript at Arundel Castle and Related Documents', The Library,
4th s., 15 (1935), 388±444, and The Arundel Harington Manuscript of Tudor Poetry, 2
vols. (Columbus, 1960). And on the Park-Hill manuscript, see also F. M. Padelford,
`The Manuscript Poems of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey', Anglia 29 (1906), 273±338;
and Hughey, `The Harington Manuscript', pp. 408±414, and Arundel Harington
Manuscript, I, 40±44.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
voice is apparent, the bulk of the lyric poetry only `provided part of the social
background of life at Court'.12
Because the Egerton manuscript belonged to Wyatt, and because it does
contain holograph matter ± not only whole poems, but also holograph
corrections to other poems, and even what may be his signature `Tho'
juxtaposed to several ± there has been an in¯ationary tendency to attribute
to Wyatt everything in the Egerton manuscript, along with a good deal else
as well.13 However, absent particular reason for attributing particular
poems ± explicit information, external or internal, preferably reliable ±
these attributions remain factitious: wishful thinking that runs counter to
the best textual evidence. All the Egerton manuscript can properly be made
to do, together with the other related manuscript material, is attest to the
earliest stages of the creation and transmission of the courtier poetry of the
early Tudor period.
These earliest stages were deliberately, meaningfully manuscript stages,
in which individual poems, having circulated separately to begin with, were
collected, in the ®rst instance by courtiers and the courtier poets themselves,
in anthologies and commonplace books that characteristically incorporated
poems from more than one hand, even in instances where the anthologist
was among the poets represented. There is equivocal evidence suggesting
that some Henrician courtier poetry may have been performed in the ®rst
instance: sung perhaps, with simple instrumental accompaniment. John
Stevens was sceptical about the importance of such performance (`Whatever
the mainspring of the early Tudor court lyric, it was not, as I see it, music')
and dismissive of Wyatt's capacity (`Wyatt's lack of interest in music is, on
the whole, con®rmed by his poetry. All his references to music are vague
and conventional. . . . I suspect that musical intentions of any kind that
could be called `àrtistic'' were far from Wyatt's mind when he wrote, and
far, too, from the minds of his contemporaries').14 Moreover, counterposed
to the various `lute' poems in the Wyatt corpus (`My lute, awake' and so on,
of which Stevens wrote: `He blames his lute, or not, as fancy takes him, but
never talks about it in the way of a man who really understands and cares
for it'), there are also poems (`My pen, take payn a lytyll space', for
example) that represent the poet, not as a singer-entertainer, but as a
12
Southall, The Courtly Maker, pp. 6 and 22; cf. H. A. Mason's discussion of the same
problem, in Humanism and Poetry in the Early Tudor Period (London, 1959), pp. 167±
178.
13
Cf. Southall, The Courtly Maker, pp. 2±4, on the problem of attribution of the writings
in the Egerton manuscript: `the fact of ownership does not establish the fact of
authorship' (p. 2); `there is ample ground for scepticism as to Wyatt's authorship of
many of the poems in the best manuscript' (p. 4).
14
J. Stevens, Music and Poetry in the Early Tudor Court (1961; rpt. Cambridge, 1979),
pp. 116±143, and on Wyatt in particular, pp. 132±138; the quotations are from pp. 136,
138, and 139. See also the complementary discussion of J. Boffey, Manuscripts of English
Courtly Love Lyrics in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 99±108.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
writer, working pen in hand, as Wyatt can be seen to do in sections of the
Egerton manuscript.15
Wyatt's poetry, like other cognate courtier poetry, was most likely
circulated in written form ®rst, in ephemeral, uncollected manuscript
copies ± fair copies prepared from the kind of foul drafts that cover the
concluding folios of the Egerton manuscript. These initial copies would have
been single sheets, perhaps scraps of paper even, containing texts of single
poems or small groups of poems. The evidence for circulation by such means
is often literary; given the nature of such copies and the uses to which they
were put, their survival is unlikely. Nevertheless, there are examples,
possibly including some of the oddly-sized pages bound in the Blage
manuscript, where differing inks, hands, and possibly paper stocks would
suggest that the copies originated elsewhere.16
III
The Egerton manuscript and the other manuscript collections of early Tudor
courtier poetry ± Devonshire, Blage, Park-Hill, and Arundel ± attest to the
next stage in the process of this poetry's transmission, when the poetry was
®rst collected, in manuscript, by one of two methods, `the important
distinction', as Julia Boffey has written, being `between the planned and the
chance copying of lyrics'.17 In some cases, poems were copied seriatim, as they
became available, in commonplace books of aristocratic provenance. Manu-
scripts of this sort are characterized by the large numbers of different hands
contributing and the lack of evident foresight about the contents. The chief
example of this type is the Devonshire manuscript, though later sections of
other collections are comparable. In the Devonshire manuscript, contribu-
tions from nineteen hands have been differentiated, though eight of them
were responsible for the better part of the early copying, and some of these
have been identi®ed. Margaret Howard, Henry Stuart, Mary Shelton,
Thomas Howard, Mary Fitzroy, and others wrote poems in the book, and
added marginalia and annotations, over a period of some years, evidently as
the book circulated among them. The several hands leave off and take up
15
Stevens, Music and Poetry, p. 134. `My lute, awake' and `My pen, take payn a lytyll
space' are nos. 66 and 179 in the Muir-Thomson edition: The Collected Poems of Sir
Thomas Wyatt, ed. K. Muir and P. Thomson (Liverpool, 1969).
16
Dublin, Trinity College, MS 160, fols. 176 and 178 would appear to have had
separate circulation. Use of such single-sheet ephemeral copies among early Tudor
humanists is discussed in Carlson, English Humanist Books, pp. 99±100 and 144±146; for
some earlier instances, see Boffey, `The Reputation and Circulation of Chaucer's Lyrics
in the Fifteenth Century', The Chaucer Review 28 (1993), 33±35; and for the form that
such copies may have taken, see G. Warkentin, `Sidney's Certain Sonnets: Speculations
on the Evolution of the Text', The Library, 6th s., 2 (1980), 434±436.
17
Boffey, Manuscripts of English Courtly Love Lyrics, p. 7; cf. pp. 6±33, characterizing the
different kinds of surviving collections of the ®fteenth- and early-sixteenth centuries.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
copying again later, sometimes replying to one another's contributions;
sometimes they contribute poems evidently of their own composition, and
sometimes they copy out poems that they attribute to others.18
In other cases, available poems were incorporated into designed antho-
logies, again of aristocratic provenance, characterized by professional (or
near-professional) copying, in small numbers of hands, and by the concern
about an order of contents evidently expended in advance. Examples of this
type include the Arundel manuscript, the contents of which were divided
into sections by author and, within the author sections, by subject. Though
many folios have been lost from this book, especially at its beginning, the
plan is still apparent, in some particulars at least: a well-de®ned Surrey
section, of poems attributed expressly to him, is followed by an equally well-
de®ned section of poems by Surrey's social inferior Wyatt ± the principle of
order observed also by Tottel; moreover, matter within the Surrey section is
arranged so that the lighter verse, erotic and occasional, precedes the
weighter, Surrey's biblical paraphrases, of psalms and of Ecclesiastes, and
Wyatt's poems too are arranged by subject, likewise roughly from lighter to
graver: sonnets, epigrams, and occasional verse, then the so-called satires and
the paraphrase of the penitential psalms.19
The Blage manuscript appears to have started as such a planned
anthology, though it also exhibits characteristics of the other type, the
improvised commonplace book. Its contents were to be arranged alpha-
betically, by ®rst word, and the better part of the copying was done in
accordance with this plan, one lyric per page, by a pair of copyists who
worked one after the other. Pages were left blank, however, evidently with
the intention to provide for more poems being inserted later, as they came
to hand, and various additions were made: by John Mantell, an associate
of Wyatt's, recently shown to have been the manuscript's ®rst keeper and
probable compiler; by George Blage, another of Wyatt's associates, who
acquired the manuscript after Mantell's execution in 1541; and by un-
identi®ed others as well, not always with due respect for alphabetical
order. Although this manuscript belonged to George Blage (as Egerton
belonged to Wyatt) and, besides correcting the copyists' work in the
manuscript, Blage also wrote poems of his own in it (as Wyatt did in
Egerton), by no means are all the poems in the Blage manuscript to be
ascribed to Blage; in fact, it contains poems it ascribes to Wyatt, Surrey
and Thomas Vaux, and poems attributed elsewhere with authority to
18
The identi®cation of these hands and their copying stints have been discussed most
recently by Southall, `Mary Fitzroy', and Baron, `Mary (Howard) Fitzroy's Hand',
correcting particulars but not fundamentally altering the view articulated in earlier
accounts, that the manuscript was kept and passed around among the members of this
circle of courtly relatives and friends in the early sixteenth century. See also Remley,
`Mary Shelton', and Heale, `Women and the Courtly Love Lyric.'
19
These points about the arrangement of the contents of the manuscript are made by
Hughey, Arundel Harington Manuscript, I, 27.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Wyatt and John Cheke, though of course most of the verse is unattributed
in it.20
We have no direct access to the original performances of early Tudor
courtier poetry, if there were performances; for the most part, the uncol-
lected, ephemeral copies of single items that once circulated have also
disappeared; contemporary manuscript commonplace books are few, and
the surviving manuscript anthologies too are rare, though these are the most
important surviving materials from a textual perspective. The literary-
historical point that bears emphasis here, though, is that, at the time, in the
early sixteenth century, access to the courtier poetry at any of these points ±
performance, initial circulation in single copies, or collection in commonplace
books or anthologies ± came only through access to courtier circles. Access
early in the sixteenth century bespeaks closeness to the courtier poets.
Excepting performance, access at these early stages was only by means of
manuscripts ± the proper medium for connoting intimacy. Used in this way,
manuscripts were means for expressing af®nity ± the cohesion of the social
grouping with access to the poetry, writing it, reading it and passing it about.
IV
The next stage in the transmission of Wyatt's psalms occurred mid-century,

about 1550, when they were printed, and when also, simultaneously it would
seem, a de luxe manuscript presentation copy was produced, now London,
British Library, MS Royal 17 A. xxii.21 The circumstance in which Wyatt's
psalms came to be printed helps clarify another of the ways in which
20
On Mantell and Blage, see Baron, `The ``Blage'' Manuscript', pp. 85±91; and see also
Hughey, Arundel Harington Manuscript, II, 441±443. Harrier, Canon, pp. 55±62, estab-
lished that Blage acquired the manuscript already largely made, though with the
various blanks remaining, on which additional items were belatedly written; this
analysis is con®rmed by Baron, who also identi®es Mantell as `the original compiler'.
In the Blage manuscript, poems signed by Blage and in his hand occur at fols. 58r
(`Whan shall the cruell stormes be past'), 101r±101v (À voyce I have and yk a will to
wayle'), 102r±103r (`Holde over us o Lorde thy holly hande'), 124r±124v (`Let the
hethen whyche trust not in the Lorde'), 152r (`Ryd of bondage, fre from kaer seven
yeiers spase and mor'), and 177r (`Tho I seyme ded unto the daslynge iy'); corrections
apparently in Blage's hand to other poems occur at fols. 67r, 68r, 75r, 86r, 100r, 112r,
113r, 121r, 125r, 129r, and 186r; and of the poems that Blage altered, the ones at 68r (Àt
moste myschyef ') and 125r±125v (`My lut awake performe the last') are both
attributed to Wyatt in Egerton and Devonshire; cf. Harrier, Canon, pp. 73±74, and
Baron, `The ``Blage'' Manuscript', pp. 109±115. The attributions to Wyatt, Surrey, and
Vaux occur on fols. 123r, 178r, and 181r, respectively, of the Blage manuscript, and the
Cheeke poem occupies fol. 186r.
21
The printed edition is: Certayne Psalmes chosen out of the Psalter of David, commonlye
called thee .vii. penytentiall psalmes, drawen into englyshe meter by Sir Thomas Wyat knyght,
wherunto is added a prologe of the auctore before every psalme, very pleasaunt and profettable
to the godly reader (London: Thomas Raynald for John Harington, 31 December 1549
(STC 2726) ); the manuscript is: London, BL, MS Royal 17 A. xxii.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
manuscript circulation had been appropriate for them before they were
printed: Wyatt's poems were political trouble, not suitable for the kind of
broadcasting that printing entailed. Likewise, the contemporary appearance
of the de luxe presentation copy will help show a ®nal way that manuscript
books were useful after printing, by contrast with printed books: for the
display of wealth.
A startling feature of the life records of the Henrician courtier poets is the
high rate of early death among them, often enough by juridical murder, and
their high rate of incarceration and subjection to other forms of torture. There
is an astonishing story in Holinshed about the penal amputation of the right
hand of Edmund Knyvet at court in 1541 ± a sentence the execution of which
devolved upon the kitchen staff of Greenwich Palace apparently (`the maister
cooke . . . with the knife' and so on) ± with Knyvet reprieved at the last
moment, when his hand was on the block.22 Instances can be multiplied,
though rarely such dramatic ones: three generations of Wyatts were subject to
similar discipline. The poet's father was imprisoned and racked in the reign
of Richard III; the poet's son was imprisoned and executed as a rebel in 1554;
the poet himself was imprisoned repeatedly and made to watch the execu-
tions of others while under threat of execution himself:
These blodye dayes have broken my hart.

My lust, my youth dyd then departe,
And blynd desyre of astate;
Who hastis to clyme sekes to reverte:
Of truthe, circa regna tonat.
The bell towre showed me suche syght
That in my hed stekys day and nyght:
Ther dyd I lerne, out of a grate,
Ffor all [f]avour, glory, or myght,
That yet circa regna tonat.
By proffe, I say, ther dyd I lerne,
Wyt helpythe not deffence to yerne,
Of innocence to pled or prate:
Ber low, therffor, geve God the sterne,
Ffor sure, circa regna tonat.23
'Wyatt', as Colin Burrow has written, is only `the ®nest product of

Henrician repression.' Of course, the monarch still depended on the good
22
Quoted in Hughey, Arundel Harington Manuscript, II, 13±14.
23
`Who lyst his welthe and eas retayne' (Muir-Thomson no. 176), lines 11±25; cf. also
Ìn mornyng wyse syns daylye I increas' (Muir-Thomson no. 146), another poem
attested only by the Blage manuscript, Wyatt's authorship of which is dubious. The
evidence concerning Henry Wyatt is reprinted in Muir, The Life and Letters of Sir
Thomas Wyatt (Liverpool, 1963), pp. 1±2, and concerning the poet's imprisonments, in
Muir, Life and Letters, pp. 25, 28±36, and 172±210; for events of the younger Wyatt's
rebellion, see A. Fletcher, Tudor Rebellions, 2nd ed. (London, 1973), pp. 78±80.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
will and good of®ces of his aristocrats, not to mention the material resources
they disposed; nevertheless, nobles might be troublemakers for the king and
were treated accordingly. By no means are the aristocrats to be regarded as a
progressive force for change. They were reactionaries, nostalgic for old days
of aristocratic privilege, when nobles were not answerable and monarchs did
not pretend to absoluteness. As the early Tudor kings aggrandized mon-
archic power, however, aristocratic nostalgia could take on a volatile anti-
absolutist tinge.24
The courtly love lyrics written and circulated among the aristocratic
Henrician courtiers were circulated in manuscript ± the more intimate
medium ± as a way of asserting af®nity among the members of this group.
The political poetry of the same courtiers, of which a fair amount survives,
had also to be circulated in manuscript ± from this perspective, the more
evasive, discrete medium ± because in the early decades of the sixteenth
century another characteristic of belonging to this same group was political
disaffection. Within the group, in positive, inclusionary terms, group
identity rested on shared history and possessions, shared accomplishments
and interests, including the interest in love-lyric writing, copying, and
reading attested by the poems and the early manuscript collections; in
relation to the world outside the group, in negative, exclusionary terms, the
group identity also rested on shared political discontent with creeping
absolutism. Af®nity with this group of aristocrat courtiers entailed dissent.
Given the political circumstance of the poetry, the Henrician courtier poets
would not have wanted, for all of their remarks and views, the wide
dissemination that printing gave, nor would printers have wanted to
involve themselves.25 In such circumstance, manuscripts served.
24
These political developments are outlined in P. Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist
State (London, 1974), pp. 118±127.
25
The possibly seditious import of some of the courtier poetry is discussed by
C. Burrow, `Horace at Home and Abroad: Wyatt and Sixteenth-Century Horatianism',
in Horace Made New, ed. C. Martindale and D. Hopkins (Cambridge, 1993), esp. pp. 34±
41, emphasizing the chilling effect of the Treason Act, revised in 1534, `which brought
expressing or wishing to encompass the death of the king ± words and thoughts ±
within the de®nition of treason' (p. 36); the quotation is from Burrow's `Tudor
Sanctuaries', Essays in Criticism 41 (1991), 60. See also S. Brigden, `Henry Howard,
Earl of Surrey, and the ``Conjured League'' ', The Historical Journal 37 (1994), esp.
pp. 508±509 and 530±531, and, more generally, A. Fox, Politics and Literature in the
Reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII (Oxford, 1989), arguing that a `striking phenomenon
about early Tudor literature is that it was almost invariably concerned with politics,
either directly or indirectly, and that this political bearing had a major impact on the
nature of its literary forms' (p. 3), esp. pp. 257±299 on Wyatt and Surrey. It is
conceivable that printers would have avoided courtier poetry during the reign of
Henry VIII because the poetry was political trouble, though state censorship in the
period tended to fall on printers for publishing religious rather than political dissent,
and printers were often enough willing to risk sanctions anyway, provided that the
potential for pro®t was suf®cient: see D. M. Loades, `The Press under the Early
Tudors: A Study in Censorship and Sedition', Transactions of the Cambridge Biblio-
graphical Society 4 (1964), 29±50, and H. W. Winger, `Regulations Relating to the Book
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Wyatt's penitential psalms may seem awkward to situate in relation to
these terms of reference. They are religious poetry, for one thing, of reforming
tendencies,26 and they were also collected among love lyrics in the Arundel
manuscript. On the other hand, like Wyatt's satires and briefer political
poems, these psalms bear an unavoidable political charge, in large measure
by virtue of Wyatt's decision to frame his paraphrases with the biblical
narrative of King David, Bathsheba, Uriah and Nathan. Managing the source
materials he had to choose from, Wyatt made of his psalm paraphrase a story,
incorporating lyric insertions, of a king who is willing to murder a promin-
ent, loyal subject (Uriah), in order to indulge an illicit lust (for Uriah's wife
Bathsheba), and about what happens when another of the king's subjects
(Nathan) decries the king's wrongdoing in public.26 It is not subtle. Surrey's
sonnet con®rms that, from Surrey's perspective too, Wyatt's psalm para-
phrase was a denunciation of tyrannical abuse of power:
The great Macedon that out of Perse chasyd

Darius, of whose huge power all Asy rang,
In the rich arke if Homers rymes he placyd,
Who fayned gestes of hethen prynces sang;
What holly grave, what wourthy sepulture
To Wyates Psalmes shulde Christians then purchase?
Wher he doth paynte the lyvely faythe and pure,
The stedfast hope, the swete returne to grace
Of just Davyd by par®te penytence,
Where rewlers may se, in a myrrour clere,
The bitter frewte of false concupiscence,
How Jewry bought Uryas deathe full dere.
In prynces hartes Goddes scourge yprinted depe
Myght them awake out of their synfull slepe.27
Trade in London from 1357 to 1586', Library Quarterly 26 (1956), 157±195. Printers seem
not to have perceived any market potential for printed editions of courtier poetry until
later, c. 1550; in any case, the chief factor keeping the courtier poetry out of print until
the period after the death of Henry VIII would have been the courtiers' own wish for
privacy.
26
On the protestantism of Wyatt's psalm paraphrases, see Mason, Humanism and
Poetry, pp. 213±220; R. G. Twombly, `Thomas Wyatt's Paraphrase of the Penitential
Psalms of David', Texas Studies in Literature and Language 12 (1970), 345±380; and
Brigden, `Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, and the ``Conjured League'' ', pp. 513±515,
and ` ``The Shadow That You Know'': Sir Thomas Wyatt and Sir Francis Bryan at Court
and in Embassy', The Historical Journal 39 (1996), 28±29.
27
The Surrey sonnet is quoted from Surrey: Poems, ed. E. Jones (Oxford, 1964), p. 29.
The political import of Wyatt's choices is discussed in A. Halasz, `Wyatt's David',
Texas Studies in Literature and Language 30 (1988), 320±344, esp. 325±335; and cf. R. Zim,
English Metrical Psalms (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 46±74, esp. 73±74. The identi®cation of
Henry VIII and David that Wyatt develops is shown to have been current by P. Tudor-
Craig, `Henry VIII and King David', in Early Tudor England: Proceedings of the 1987
Harlaxton Symposium, ed. D. Williams (Woodbridge, 1989), esp. pp. 191±198; see also
J. N. King, Tudor Royal Iconography (Princeton, 1989), pp. 76±81. Wyatt's relations with
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
When Wyatt's psalms were written, in the 1530s, their political charge
made manuscript circulation as proper for them, though for different
reasons, as it had been for the love lyrics. When Wyatt's paraphrase came
to be printed in 1549, political circumstances had so changed that, far from
being subversive any longer, the psalms could be diversely pro®table. Wyatt
died in 1542; Henry VIII died as well, in 1547, and the protectorate that
followed deregulated the printing of religious matter. For a period of about
two years, there was no prior censorship of the press. By 1550, along with
much else of a more radically Puritan bent (this being the time that Piers
Plowman was ®rst printed), half a dozen English psalm translations were in
print.28 Among them was the edition of Wyatt's penitential psalms, printed
by John Hereford for John Harington the elder, father of the Elizabethan
courtier poet, and a person whose role in the transmission of Wyatt's writings
is the stuff of paranoid delusion: at one time, Harington owned the Egerton
manuscript; two of the other chief manuscript collections incorporating
Wyatt poems ± Arundel and Park-Hill ± were owned and probably commis-
sioned by him; and textual evidence suggests that the other manuscript of
Wyatt's psalms, the Royal manuscript, to which I have already alluded, may
also be a John Harington job.29
To his 1549 edition of Wyatt's psalms, Harington contributed a preface in
which he eulogized Wyatt in terms that would have galled Henry VIII:
Harington explains that he had `determined to put it [sc. Wyatt's paraphrase
of the psalms] in printe, that the noble fame of so worthy a knighte, as was
the Auctor hereof, Syr Thomas Wyat, shuld not perish but remayne, as wel
for hys singuler learning, as valiant dedes in marcyal feates'. Henry VIII's
vanity about his own ability at chivalric `marcyal feates' is notorious, and
Wyatt may have rivalled him; moreover, calling Wyatt `so worthy a knighte',
an unmistakably Chaucerian phrase, associates Wyatt with the medieval,
feudal legacy ± the Wars of the Roses and the over-mighty aristocratic subject
± that Henrician absolutism opposed and dissident Henrician courtier poets
espoused. Harington's praise of Wyatt here, however, is subordinate to his
praise of William Parr, `my singuler good lord', whom the preface addresses,
Henry VIII are also discussed in M. Holahan, `Wyatt, the Heart's Forest, and the
Ancient Savings', English Literary Renaissance 23 (1993), 46±80.
28
See King, `Freedom of the Press, Protestant Propaganda, and Protector Somerset',
Huntington Library Quarterly 40 (1976), 1±9, and English Reformation Literature (Prince-
ton, 1982), esp. pp. 76±121. The various psalm translations are surveyed in H. Smith,
Ènglish Metrical Psalms in the Sixteenth Century and their Literary Signi®cance',
Huntington Library Quarterly 9 (1946), 249±271, L. B. Campbell, Divine Poetry and Drama
in Sixteenth Century England (Berkeley, 1959), esp. pp. 34±45, and Zim, English Metrical
Psalms.
29
On Harington the elder and his role in the transmission of the Tudor courtier poetry
manuscripts, see Hughey, Arundel Harington Manuscript, I, esp. 36±46 and 63±67, and
John Harington of Stepney (Columbus, 1971); Baron, `The ``Blage'' Manuscript', p. 103,
connects Blage and Harington; and for Harington's involvements with printers, see
the revised Short-Title Catalogue, III (London, 1991), 77.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
and to whom the book is dedicated, `for the inestimable bene®tes that your
noble progenitors and also your good Lordship hath shewed unto my
parentes and predycessors, and also to my selfe, as to one least able to do
anye acceptable service, thoughe the wil be at all tymes most ready': Ì
thought that I could not ®nd a more worthy patron for soche a mans [sc.
Wyatt's] worke then your Lordship, whom I have alwayes knowen to be of so
godlye a zeale to thee furtheraunce of gods holy and a secret gospel.' The
brother of Henry VIII's last queen, Parr was a prominent member of the
protectorate governments that ran the country after Henry VIII's death.30
What had been composed late in the 1530s, in the bad, late years of Henry
VIII's reign, to castigate the earlier monarch, had become, by 1550, after
Henry's death, an instrument for Harington to use to court the favour of
England's new rulers. Also behind the outpouring of printed psalm transla-
tions in 1549±50, including the Wyatt psalms put into print at Harington's
instigation, would have been the printers' new commercial interest. With the
risks of government sanction allayed and the protectorate encouraging the
publication of protestant propaganda, printers were in a position to take
pro®ts from what had been an underexploited market for English Biblical
translations, and take pro®ts they did. That it was only in circumstances so
altered that a printed edition of Wyatt's psalms appeared, broadcasting his
writing, clari®es the meaning of the writing's earlier, more restricted
circulation in manuscript: manuscripts were useful for circulating dissident
matter.
In this circumstance, what is odder than the printing of Wyatt's psalms in
1549 is their apparently simultaneous appearance in the de luxe manuscript
presentation copy, Royal 17 A. xxii. Textual variants of this presentation
manuscript indicate that it is closely related to the printed edition, most likely
serving as the printed edition's exemplar.31 The manuscript in question is
30
Harington's preface is quoted from sigs. a1v±a2v of Certayne Psalmes. Henry VIII's
enthusiasm for chivalric display is discussed in S. Anglo, Spectacle, Pageantry, and Early
Tudor Policy (Oxford, 1969), pp. 108±123; Wyatt's participation is mentioned, e.g., in
Muir, Life and Letters, pp. 4±5. On the patronage of the Parr family and circle, including
Catherine Brandon, to whom Harington dedicated his translation of The Booke of
Freendeship of Marcus Tuliie Cicero (London: Thomas Berthelet, 1550 [STC 5276] ), sigs.
A2r±A2v, see J. K. McConica, English Humanists and Reformation Politics (Oxford, 1965),
pp. 200±234; W. Haugaard, `Katherine Parr: The Religious Convictions of a Renais-
sance Queen', Renaissance Quarterly 22 (1969), 347±351; and King, English Reformation
Literature, pp. 103±113, and `Patronage and Piety: The In¯uence of Catherine Parr', in
Silent But For The Word, ed. M. P. Hannay (Kent, USA, 1985), pp. 43±60.
31
The best evidence of the printed edition's derivation from the royal manuscript
seems to me to be the variants at lines 69 and 674, where the printed edition tries to
repair errors peculiar to the royal manuscript; however, there is also evidence
suggesting that each of the non-autograph texts (the Arundel and royal manuscripts
and the printed edition) had independent access to the autograph draft in the Egerton
manuscript. See Mason, Editing Wyatt, pp. 140±154, and Harrier, Canon, pp. 217, 227,
242, 244, 246, and 250. Muir, `The Texts of Wyatt's Penitential Psalms', Notes and
Queries 212 (1967), 442±444, is called èye-wash' by Mason.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
now in the royal collection, where it has been since 1661 at the latest, and
probably longer. Inscriptions at the front and back of the book indicate that it
once belonged to Ànne Essex', probably William Parr's ®rst wife, though
how it would have passed from her possession into the royal collection, if she
was its ®rst owner, is not known to me.32 Be that as it may, certainly, in design
and execution, it is the kind of manuscript that was presented as a gift to
members of the royal family, as to other aristocrats: on vellum pages, not
paper, small though with ample margins, it is a calligraphic rendition of
Wyatt's poem. The carefully drawn, ornate italic hand advertises the mid-
sixteenth-century writing master's craft. Laying out the manuscript and
drawing it was many hours' intensive labour, letter by ligatured letter ±
precisely the sort of ligaturing, the avoidance of which the technical
conception of printing with movable types was based on: separable, inde®-
nitely recombinable pieces of type, not bound to one another by ligatures. By
virtue of the materials and labour involved in producing it, this royal
manuscript copy of Wyatt's psalms, the product of manual copying, is
ostentatiously a more costly thing than any printed copy. The somewhat
peculiar publishing practice involved ± the giving of manuscript copies when
printed copies were also available and, from some perspectives, would have
made equally good or better gifts ± is attested to earlier in the sixteenth
century;33 in the case of the Wyatt psalms, as in others, what the practice
con®rms is that the rarer, the more costly item made the proper present for
persons of distinction. Unavoidably, c. 1550, the rarer and more costly
present was a manuscript book, written out by hand.
The royal manuscript copy of the penitential psalms is the last Wyatt
manuscript: the last manuscript the production of which was animated by
an intention to transmit the poetry of Sir Thomas Wyatt or other Henrician
courtier poets. Individual pieces of Wyatt's continued to be written out by
hand for the rest of the century; however, the so-called minor manuscripts
transmitting poems, some possibly by Wyatt, are all devoted to other
contents in the main, in which the Wyatt poems have had to ®nd room, on
¯yleaves and the blanks between sections.34 At the same time that the royal
32
There is a summary description of the manuscript in George Warner and Julius
Gilson, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King's Collections, 4 vols.
(London, 1921), II, 219; the inscription à anne essekes' is repeated on the manuscript's
®rst and ®nal pages.
33
Cf. Carlson, English Humanist Books, pp. 102±122.
34
Items copied this way are enumerated in Beal, Index, I, 2, 589±626; and thorough use
of the minor manuscripts was made in preparing the edition of R. A. Rebholz, Sir
Thomas Wyatt: The Complete Poems (Harmondsworth, 1978), though Rebholz provides
no descriptions or index.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
manuscript ended the circulation of Wyatt's poems by means of manuscripts
made for the purpose, the 1549 printed edition of the psalm paraphrase
inaugurates the series of printed editions ± the work of publishers and
printers like Hereford and Harington, persons other than the poet ± on the
basis of which Wyatt's work has subsequently been known. Most important
of these, of course, was Tottel's Songes and Sonettes, ®rst printed (three times)
in 1557 and reprinted seven more times before 1587, though there were
Tottel's various imitators as well. In Tottel, Wyatt's poems were extensively
modernized, not only re-spelled and lexically updated: forms were altered
even, so that three rondeaux, with refrains, written out as ®fteen lines in the
manuscripts, were remade into sonnets, for example, and political poems
were given headings that describe them as love poems: for example, `The
lover lamentes the death of his love' is put over Wyatt's sonnet (apparently)
decrying the execution of Thomas Cromwell.35
At least as meaningful as such changes, however, was the transformation
of the material context in which the poems were transmitted. Wyatt's writing
changed at this point, when it became printed property. The peculiar textual
changes that characterize the printed editions can be found occurring in some
of the manuscript anthologies, most notably the Arundel collection.36 Also,
Wyatt himself may have had a hand in the process of moving his work into
print: the earliest printed book to contain writing of his, a 1528 edition of his
prose translation of Plutarch's De tranquilitate animi, printed by the royal
printer Richard Pynson, includes Wyatt's ®rst-person prefatory remarks
addressed to Queen Katherine of Aragon, suggesting that someone near
them, if not Katherine or Wyatt himself, had supplied Pynson copy to print.37
In other words, in the case of Wyatt, too, the boundary keeping manuscript
and print distinct was permeable, both ways. Nevertheless, fundamentally,
what happened to Wyatt's writing c. 1550, as it moved from manuscript to
print, was that it was deracinated. It was removed from its original situation ±
35
On the Songes and Sonettes, see esp. H. E. Rollins, Tottel's Miscellany (1557±1587),
2 vols., 2nd ed. (Cambridge, USA, 1965); the editing the texts underwent is discussed
at II, 94±101. The rewritten rondeaux are `Behold love thy power how she dispiseth'
(Muir-Thomson no. 1 = Tottel no. 69), `What vaileth trouth or by it to take payn' (Muir-
Thomson no. 2 = Tottel no. 70), and `Goo burnyng sighes unto the frosen hert' (Muir-
Thomson no. 20 = Tottel no. 103), all attested by the Egerton manuscript. The example
of manipulative retitling is `The piller pearisht is whearto I lent' (Muir-Thomson no.
236), no. 102 in Tottel; others include `Caesar when that the traytour of Egipt' (Muir-
Thomson no. 3), headed Òf others fained sorrow, and the lovers fained mirth' in
Tottel (Tottel no. 45) and `The ¯aming sighes that boile within my brest' (Muir-
Thomson no. 238), headed `The lover describeth his restlesse state' in Tottel (Tottel no.
101). Some of these alterations are discussed in J. Kamholtz, `Thomas Wyatt's Poetry:
The Politics of Love', Criticism 20 (1978), 350±351, 355±358, and 361±362.
36
Hughey, Arundel Harington Manuscript, I, 46±58, gives instances of modernization of
forms, metrical smoothing, improved diction, and other editorial changes that occur in
the Arundel manuscript texts.
37
This matter is reprinted in Muir and Thomson, eds., Collected Poems of Sir Thomas
Wyatt, pp. 440±441.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
the social, political, and personal context, within which it was conceived, by
which it was determined. At the time, necessarily this was a manuscript
context, in which the use of manuscripts, by virtue of their differences from
printed books, informed the meaning that the poetry had.
I:/riddy/indmanu.3d ± 1/1/0 ± 15:18 ± diskB&B/mp
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
INDEX OF MANUSCRIPTS
Aberystwyth: University Library, MS Dd VIII 11: 41

National Library of Wales, MS University Library, MS Dd VIII 16±17:
17038C: 167 33
National Library of Wales, MS University Library, MS Ff. II. 38:
Porkington 10: 128 n. 128 n.
Arundel: University Library, MS Hh. I. 11: 28
Arundel Castle, MS Harington: 176 and n., 29, 30, 31
and n., 178, 179, 184 University Library, MS Hh. III. 13:
Blackburn: 30 n., 37 n.
Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery, University Library, MS Ii. VI. 15: 37 n.
MS 21040: 147 and n. University Library, MS Kk. IV. 23: 30
Cambridge, Massachusetts: and n.
Harvard Law School, MS 159: 37 n. University Library, MS Ll. IV.3: 28 n.,
Cambridge, UK: 29 n., 30 n.
Clare College, MS O 6 26: 169 and n. University Library, MS Mm.V.15:
Corpus Christi College, MS 61: 2, 35, 28 n., 29 n., 30 n.
55±75 passim Dublin:
Corpus Christi College, MS 142: 26, Trinity College Library, MS 160: 176
28 n., 29 n. and n., 178, 179, 180 n.
Corpus Christi College, MS 143: 28 n., Durham:
29 n. Cathedral Library, MS B. IV. 33: 37, 60
Corpus Christi College, MS 213: 31 and n.
Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 49: 60 n. University Library, MS Cosin V. III. 9:
Fitzwilliam Museum, MS McClean 79, 86 and n., 127 n.
127: 28 n., 30 n. University Library, MS HM 111: 79,
St John's College, MS 67: 36, 38 86, 87 and n., 88, 89, 90, 91, 95
St John's College, MS C. 21: 32 University Library, MS HM 744: 79,
St John's College, MS D. 8: 30 n. 83 n., 86, 95
Trinity College, MS B.1. 38: 20 Edinburgh:
Trinity College, MS B.15. 16: 28 n. National Library of Scotland,
Trinity College, MS B.15. 32: 28 n., Advocates' Library, MS 18.1.7:
30 n. 28 n.
Trinity College, MS O. 5. 2: 123 Glasgow:
Trinity College, MS R. 3. 2: 94 Hunterian Library, MS T. 3. 15: 28 n.
Trinity College, MS R. 3. 20: 84 University Library, MS Gen. 1130:
University Library, MS Additional 28 n., 30
2780: 37 n. Lincoln:
University Library, MS Additional Cathedral, MS 91, 128 n.
5963: 37 n. London:
University Library, MS Additional British Library, MS 292.a.33: 164 n.,
6315: 30 n. 169 n.
University Library, MS Additional British Library, MS Additional 11565:
6578: 28 and n., 30 n. 26, 28 n., 30
University Library, MS Additional British Library, MS Additional 17492:
6686: 28 n., 124 n. 175±76 and n., 178
University Library, MS Dd VII 18: 41 British Library, MS Additional 19901:
University Library, MS Dd VII 20: 41 28 n., 30
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
190 Index of manuscripts
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
London: (cont.) British Library, MS Royal 17 D. xi:
British Library, MS Additional 20768: 166
160 n. British Library, MS Royal 17 D. xiii:
British Library, MS Additional 21006: 30 n., 31, 159 n., 160 n.
28 n. British Library, MS Royal 18. C. x:
British Library, MS Additional 24062: 28 n.
79 British Library, MS Royal 18. D. ii:
28 n. Lambeth Palace Library, MS 1033:
128 n. Lambeth Palace Library, MS 1553.07
British Library, MS Additional 36529: (3): 164 n.
176 and n., 178, 184 Lambeth Palace Library, MS 3579: 136
British Library, MS Additional 41175: Manchester:
21 n. Chetham's Library, MS 6690: 28 n.,
British Library, MS Arundel 112: 28 n. 30 n.
British Library, MS Arundel 364: John Rylands Library, MS Eng. 94:
28 n., 29 n., 30 n. 28 n., 29 n., 30 n.
British Library, MS Cotton Claudius John Rylands Library, MS Eng. 98:
D. i: 69, 72 28 n., 29 n.
British Library, MS Cotton Nero C. vi: John Rylands Library, MS Eng. 413:
70, 71, 72 28 n., 30 n.
British Library, MS Cotton Tiberius New Haven:
B. iii : 61 n. Yale University Library, MS Beinecke
British Library, MS Cotton Tiberius 281: 122
D. v: 73 n. New York:
British Library, MS Cotton Vitellius Pierpont Morgan Library, MS 226:
B. xx: 168 n. 28 n.
British Library, MS Egerton 2711: 175 Pierpont Morgan Library, MS 648:
and n., 177 and n., 178, 184, 185 n. 28 n., 29 n.
British Library, MS Harley 172: 82, Nottingham:
83 n. University Library, MS 250: 59 n.
British Library, MS Harley 431: 98 Oxford:
and n. All Souls College, MS 302: 65, 66, 75
British Library, MS Harley 4012: 133 Balliol College, MS 220: 36, 38
British Library, MS Harley 4775: 167 Bodleian Library, MS Arch. Selden
British Library, MS Harley 5435: 38 B. 10: 120
British Library, MS Harley 5442: 37 Bodleian Library, MS Ashmole 45:
British Library, MS Harley 6163: 106 131 n.
British Library, MS Harley 6561: Bodleian Library, MS Ashmole 61:
159 n. 128n.
British Library, MS Royal 7. A. i: 30 n. Bodleian Library, MS Ashmole 764:
British Library, MS Royal 7. E. v: 37, 136
61 Bodleian Library, MS Auct. D. inf. 2.
British Library, MS Royal 8. G. iii: 63, 11: 136
64, 65, 71 Bodleian Library, MS Auct. F. inf. 1.1:
British Library, MS Royal 15. E. vi: 67, 68, 71
126 Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 131:
British Library, MS Royal 17 A. xxii: 28 n., 29 n., 30 and n.
180 and n., 184, 185 and n. Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 143:
British Library, MS Royal 17 D. ii: 166 21 n.
British Library, MS Royal 17. D. vi: Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 162:
118 and n. 30 n., 31
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
Index of manuscripts 191
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 207: 26, Christ Church MS 152: 95
28 n. Exeter College, MS 41: 37
Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 262: 33 Magdalen College, MS 104: 36
Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 288: Magdalen College, MS 110: 37, 60 n.
21 n. New College, MS 292: 37
Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 424: 37 Trinity College, MS D 18: 37 n.
Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 467: University College, MS 85: 122, 136
21 n. University College, MS 123: 24 n.,
Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 529: 28 n., 29 n.
30 n. Wadham College, MS 5: 28 n., 29 n.
Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 634: 29, Paris:
28 n. BibliotheÁque Nationale de France, MS
Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 877: ital. 11: 31
21 n. BibliotheÁque Nationale de France, MS
Bodleian Library, MS Bodley Rolls 5: latin 1196: 73
119 and n. BibliotheÁque Nationale de France, MS
Bodleian Library, MS Canon Liturg. latin 7979: 12
226: 30 and n. BibliotheÁque Nationale de France, MS
Bodleian Library, MS Digby 181: latin 8216: 10
119 n. Philadelphia:
Bodleian Library, MS Digby 185: 2, 5, University of Pennsylvania, MS 3:
104±31 passim 37 n.
Bodleian Library, MS Douce 384:
Rothesay, Isle of Bute:
126 n.
Library of the Marquess of Bute, MS
Bodleian Library, MS e Museo 35:
G. 28: 61 n.
28 n.
Saint-Claude:
Bodleian Library, MS Fairfax 16: 92 n.
BibliotheÁque Municipale, MS 2: 15
Bodleian Library, MS Hatton 12: 21 n.
San Marino:
Bodleian Library, MS Hatton 31: 28 n.,
Huntington Library, MS HM 1: 131 n.
29 n.
Huntington Library, MS HM 744: 82,
Bodleian Library, MS Hatton 45: 136
94
Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 235:
Huntington Library, MS HM 19920:
21 n.
62, 63
Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 570:
136 Tokyo:
Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 684: T. Takamiya, MS 4: 26, 28 n., 29 n.,
166 30 n.
Bodleian Library, MS Mason CC. 37: T. Takamiya, MS 8: 28 n.
164 n. T. Takamiya, MS 20: 28 n., 29 n., 30 n.
Bodleian Library, MS Rawlinson T. Takamiya, MS 63: 28 n.
A. 338: 123 and n. Waseda University Library, MS NE
Bodleian Library, MS Rawlinson 3691: 28 n., 29 n., 30 n.
A. 359: 60 n. Vatican City:
Bodleian Library, MS Rawlinson Biblioteca Apostolico Vaticana, MS
A. 387B: 28 n. Reg. lat. 1729: 13 n., 14
Bodleian Library, MS Rawlinson C Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS
284: 37 Reg. lat. 1780: 13
Bodleian Library, MS Rawlinson poet. Warminster:
163: 119 n. Longleat House, MS 24: 2, 4, 35±54
Brasenose College, MS 14: 36 passim, 57, 58, 59, 60 and n., 61, 62,
Brasenose College, MS e. ix: 28 n. 63, 65
d:/3riddy/indnames.3d ± 31/7/0 ± 20:27 ± diskB&B/mp
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
INDEX OF NAMES AND TITLES
This index contains the names of people and titles of works mentioned in the text and
footnotes. It does not include the titles of works or names of authors which are cited
but not discussed.
Abel (London stationer): 72 n. Bede, De gestibus Anglie: 52 n.

Acciaiuoli, Donato: 166 Bedford, John, duke of: 85, 87 and n., 93
Ackeld, Nicholas: 39 Belt, Walter: 41
Addams-Williams, Albert: 167 and n. Bentley, E.-J. Y.: 99 n.
Alexander, J. J. G.: 65 n., 136, 153 Berry, Jean, duc de: 19 n.
Alexander, Prose: 125 Berthelet, Thomas: 160, 163 n., 164 and
Aragon, Alphonso V of: 40 n., 165
Arundel, William Fitzalan, earl of: 118 Bible, Lollard: see Bible, Wyclif®te
Andreae, Johannes, Ìn novella super Bible, Wyclif®te: 17, 20
decretales': 41; `Collectaria': 41 Blacman, John: 141
Anjou, Margaret of, queen: 126, 140 Blage manuscript: 176 and n., 178 and
Aquinas, Thomas, Angelical Salutacion: n., 179, 180 n.
162 n. Blage, George: 179, 180 n., 184 n.
Aragon, Katherine of, queen: 162 n., 187 Blakeney, Dame Joan: 139 n.
Archidiaconus, `Rosarium': 41 Blatchly, J. M.: 117 n.
Aretino, Leonardo Bruni: 166 Boccaccio, Giovanni, Il Filostrato: 33, 159
Arthur, prince: 129 Boffey, Julia: 78
Article of the Faith: 145 Boleyn, Anne: 159 n., 161 and n.
Arundel, Thomas, abp: 3, 18 and n., 21, Boleyn family: 160
39 and n., 60 n., 61, 119 n. Boleyn, George: 159 n., 161, 176
Augustine, St: 41; De civitate dei: 37 Boleyn, Mary: 161
Aureolis, Petrus de, Compendium super
Boleyn, Sir William: 160
Bibliam: 63, 64
Boleyn, Thomas: 161 and n., 162
Austen, Jane: 35
Bonaventura, St: 17
Aylsford family: 112, 113
Bonnet Rouge: 174
Aylsford, John: 113
Bowers, J. M.: 82 n., 86 n., 87 n.
Aylsford, Margaret: 113 and n.
Brabant, John, duke of: 84, 85
Bradfelde, Robert: 94 n.
Ball, Robert: 36, 38, 53 Brandon, Catherine: 185 n.
Barough (London stationer): 72 n. Bridget of Sweden, Revelations: 54
Barrington of Rayleigh: 117 Bridlington, John of: 53
Barrington, John: 117 Brown, A. L.: 77 n.
Bartlett, K. R.: 162 n. Brown, Michelle: 159 n.
Baynham, Elizabeth: 136 Bruce family: 124 n.
Beadle, Richard: 17 n. Brut chronicle: 17, 104, 106, 120, 121 n.,
Beanlands, Rev. Canon: 113 n. 122, 124, 127, 129, 130
Beaufort, Joan: 86 Bryan, Francis: 176
Beaufort, Lady Margaret: 160 and n. Bryan, Phillipa de: 52 n.
Beaufort, Thomas: 117, 120 Buenc, Humbert de: 15 n.
Beauvais, Ralph of: 10 n Bulkeley, Agnes: 169
Beauvais, Vincent of: 33 n. Bulkeley, Sir Richard: 169
Becon, Thomas, Christmas Basket: 153; Burgh, John de, Pupilla oculi: 2, 4, 35, 36
Potation for Lent: 154 and n., 37, 38, 57, 59, 60 n., 61, 62
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Burgo, Dionysius de, Commentary on Commynes, Philippe de: 141
Valerius Maximus: 67, 68 Conches, William of: 9
Burgundy, John `the Fearless', duke of: 85 Copeland, Rita: 24
Burrow, Colin: 181 Corpus Master: 55±75 passim
Burrow, John: 77 n., 80 n., 81 and n., 83 Costomiris, Robert: 169 n.
and n., 90 n. Coulton, G. G.: 154 n.
Bylton (London stationer): 72 n Cranmer, Alice, prioress: 151
Cranmer, Thomas, abp.: 151, 152, 153
Cressener, Elizabeth, prioress: 151
Cambridge, Richard, earl of: 42 Cromwell, Catherine: 164 n.
Canterbury, Anselm of: 31, 37 Cromwell, Gregory: 153
Carent family: 122 and n. Cromwell, Richard: 150, 151, 164 n.
Carley, James: 1, 4, 5 Cromwell, Thomas: 5, 148 n., 149, 150,
Carlson, David: 1, 3, 4, 128 n., 159 n. 151 and n., 152, 159, 160, 161 n., 162
Carpenter, John (senior): 96 n. and n., 163, 164, 166, 167 n., 168 and
Carpenter, John: 91 and n., 92 and n., 93 n., 169, 187
and n., 96 and n., 98 Cullum, P. H.: 141 n.
Carruthers, Mary: 7 Culpeper, Thomas: 163 n.
Castiglionchio, Lapo da (Lapus
Florentinus Minor): 166
Davis, John: 5
Caulibus, John de: 17 n.
DeGuileville, Guillaume de, Pelerinage de
Cavendish, William: 151 n.
l'Ame: 95
Cawood, John: 160
Derby, Henry, earl of: 115 n.
Caxton, William: 17 n., 141, 159 n.
Deschamps, Eustache: 78
Chaloner, Thomas: 159 n.
Devereux, Anne: 120 n.
Chamberlain, Sir William: 134, 138
Devonshire, countess of: 161
Chapuys, Eustace: 161 n.
Devonshire manuscript: 161 n., 175±76
Charles VI, king of France: 90 n.
and n., 178
Charlton, Lewis, bp: 39 n.
Digby, Sir Kenelm: 129
Charlton, Thomas, bp: 39 n.
DiMarco, Vincent: 74 n.
`Charter of Jesus Christ, The': 26
Dingley, Robert: 115
Charter of Our Heavenly Heritage, The:
Disticha Catonis: 15
137, 144
Donatus: 15
Chartier, Alain, Quadrilogue Invectif: 123;
Doyle, Ian: 28, 38 n., 79 n., 94 n., 95 n.
The Curial: 141
Dudley, John: 176
Chaucer, Geoffrey: 33, 56, 57, 74, 78,
Dugdale, William: 152
95 n., 99, 118 and n., 119; Canterbury
Dutton, Anne: 1, 2
Tales: 95; `Parson's Tale': 82;
Dyneley, Alice: 114 n.
`Plowman's Tale': 95; `Retractions': 82;
Dyneley family: 112, 114 n.
The Parliament of Fowls: 119 n.; Troilus
Dyneley, John: 114
and Criseyde: 35, 51, 55, 56, 74, 119 n.
Dyneley, John de: 114 n.
Chaucer, Alice: 135 n.
Dyneley, John (senior): 114
Chaworth of Wiverton, Sir Thomas: 45,
Dyneley, Roger: 114 n.
59
Dynus, `Super regulis juris': 41
Cheke, John: 180 and n.
Chichele, Robert: 91 and n., 92
Christianson, Paul: 94, 96 n. Edden, Valerie: 7 n.
Clanchy, Michael: 11 Edward (London stationer): 72 n
Clarel, Margaret: 116 and n. Edward I, king: 112 n., 121
Clark, Peter: 148, 149, 151, 153 Edward II, king: 121
Cleansing of Man's Soul, The: 137, 144 Edward III, king: 98, 120
Cleves, Anne of, queen: 163 n. Edward IV, king: 103, 118 n., 119 n.,
Collop, John: 96 n. 131 n., 134, 135, 140, 142, 143
Collop, Richard: 96 n. Edwards, A. S. G.: 159 n.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
194 Index of names and titles
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Egerton manuscript: 175 and n., 177 and Gaunt, John of, see Lancaster, John, duke
n., 178, 184, 185 n. of
Egmanton, William: 40 Generides: 123 and n..
Ellesfeld, Alayn de: 112 n. Gervinus, abbot of Centula: 8, 9 n
Elot, William: 41 Gesta Romanorum: 104, 112
Elton, Sir Geoffrey: 159 n. Ghosh, Kantik: 1, 2
Eric, king of Denmark: 116 n. Gillespie, Vincent: 22
Erler, Mary: 1, 4, 173 Gilte Legende, The: 167
Essex, Anne: 186 Glossed Gospels: 20
Exeter, duke of: 19 n. Gloucester, Humphrey, duke of: 67 n.,
80, 81 and n., 83, 84 and n., 85, 93, 96,
127 n.
Fairfax, Robert: 159 n. Gloucester, Richard, duke of: 105, 118
Fastolf, Sir John: 134 God's Words to Saint Moll: 144
`Fifteen Joys of Our Lady, The': 26 Goldberg, P. J. P.: 139 n., 143
`Fifteen Oes': 26 Gonville, Edmund: 133
Fitzalan, Henry, Lord Maltravers: 160 Gonville family: 133
and n. Gonville, Jane: 133
FitzHugh, Robert, bp: 39, 42, 60 and n. Gower, John, Confessio Amantis: 94
FitzHugh, Henry, lord: 39, 42, 43, 48, 53, Green, Rosalie: 31
60 n. Grey, Walter, abp: 62
FitzHugh, Henry, lord (² 1386): 43 n. Gundulf, bp: 148
FitzHugh, Joan, neÂe Scrope: 43 n. Gurevich, A. J.: 3
Fitzhugh, Lady Katherine: 154
Fitzroy, Mary: 178
Fitzwater, Anne: 138 n. Hainault, Jacqueline of Bavaria,
Fitzwilliam of Sprotborough: 116 countess of: 84 and n., 85
Flete, William, Remedies Against Hamilton, G. L.: 10 n.
Temptations: 28 Harington, John: 184 and n., 185, 187
Foucault, M.: 4 Harling, Anne: 2, 5, 133±43 passim
Four Manners of Washings, The: 137, 145 Harling family: 133
Four Things Be Needful: 144 Harling, Joan: 134 n.
Franciscus, Ricardus: 119 and n., 123 n. Harling, Sir Robert: 133
Frisby, Richard: 63 and n. Harris, Kate: 1, 2, 4, 57 n., 60 and n., 61
Froissart, Jean: 78 Henry IV, king: 63, 115, 116 n., 117
Furnivall, F. J.: 147 Henry V, king: 42, 43, 74, 78 n., 81, 84,
Fysshe, Thomas: 72 n, 96 n. 88 and n., 89 and n., 90 n., 93 and n.,
96, 98 n., 120, 127 n.
Henry VI, king: 40, 52 n., 118, 119 n., 141
Galope, Jean: 19 n., 31 Henry VII, king: 106, 116 n., 119 n., 120,
Gascoigne, Alice: 114 n. 129 and n., 160
Gascoigne, Elizabeth: 116 n. Henry VIII: 1, 5, 136, 149 n., 159 and n.,
Gascoigne family: 112 n., 114 n., 115 161 n., 163 and n., 164 and n., 165,
Gascoigne, George: 114 n. 166 n., 167, 169, 182 n., 183 n., 184, 185
Gascoigne, George (senior): 114 n. Henry, prince of Wales: 106
Gascoigne, Joan: 116 n. Hereford, John: 184, 187
Gascoigne, John, of Gawthorpe: 114 n. Heydon, Sir Henry: 123
Gascoigne of Gawthorpe: 112 Hilton, Walter: 17, 27 n., 28, 31; Scale of
Gascoigne, William, of Gawthorpe: 116 Perfection: 17, 28
and n. Ho(u)ghton: 112 n., 114 n., 115
Gascoigne, William (² 1419): 116 and n. Hoccleve, Thomas: 3, 5, 77±101 passim,
Gascoigne, William (² 1422): 116 104, 112, 118, 119 n., 122, 124, 127, 129;
Gascoigne, William, witness to Scrope- Àdmonition to Oldcastle': 89 and n.;
Grosvenor case: 114 `Balade to my gracious Lord of York':
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
88, 91; `Complaint': 78, 79, 86; Keiser, George: 124
`Dialogue with a Friend': 78, 79, 80, Kenrick, Roland: 169
81 n., 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 90 n., 96, 97; Kenrick, William: 168, 169
Formulary: 3, 79, 83, 85, 93, 97 and n., Kent, Edmund, earl of: 44
98, 99, 100; La Male Regle: 78; `Learn to Ker, Neil: 37, 65
Die': 81, 82 and n., 83 and n., 86 n., King, John N.: 164, 165
118; Letter of Cupid: 80, 95, 96; `Miracle Knevet family: 123
of the Virgin': 94, 95; `Prologue': 94, Knight of the Tower-Landry, see Tour
95; Regiment of Princes: 78, 79, 87, 95, Landry, Geoffroi IV de la
96 and n., 104, 106, 118, 121, 126, 127, Knyvet, Edmund: 176, 181
128, 130; Series: 79, 81, 84, 95, 96, 97,
104, 127 and n.; `Tale of Jereslaus's
Lancaster, John, duke of: 115 and n.,
Wife': 82, 104, 118, 130; `Tale of
116, 117, 120, 121, 122, 127
Jonathas': 82, 104, 112, 118, 130
Lancaster, Thomas, earl of: 121 and n.
Holinshed, Raphael: 181
Langland, William, Piers Plowman: 60 n.,
Holland, Joan: 44, 48, 52
184
Holme of Paull-Holme, John: 62
Langton, John: 114 n.
Holme, Richard: 41, 42, 60, 63
Langton, Stephen, abp: 38, 57
Holmes, John: 159 n.
Lanterne of Li¿t, The: 22
Holtham, Ivetta de, neÂe de Roos: 45
Lee, Anthony: 176
Holtham, John de: 45
LefeÁvre d'Etaples, Jacques, Epistres et
Hopton, Arthur: 129 and n.
Evangiles pour les cinquante et deux
Hopton family: 104 and n., 113, 117,
dimenches de l'an: 159 n.
121 n., 129.
Leland, John, Genethliacon Illustrissimi
Hopton, John (son of George): 129
EaÈduerdi principis Cambriae: 169
Hopton, John (brother of William): 105
Leventhorp, Nicholas: 114 n.
and n., 106 and n., 114
Liber Albus: 93
Hopton, Sir George: 106, 116 n., 119 and
Life of St Anne, The: 135, 146
n, 120, 122, 127, 129 and n., 130
Life of St Katherine, The: 145
Hopton, Sir William: 104, 105, 106, 114,
Life of St Margaret, The: 146
117, 118 and n., 119 n., 131 n.
Life of St Patrick, The: 138, 146
Hopton, Thomas: 105 and n., 114, 117
Lille, Alan of: 9, 23
Hopton, Thomasin: 106 and n., 117 and n.
Livres des quatre vertus: 136
Horace: 8, 10, 12 n., 13, 14, 15, 16
Lloyd-Morgan, Ceridwen: 159 n., 167 n.,
Hostiensis, `Summa': 41
169 n.
Howard, Catherine: 163 n.
Loach, Jennifer: 166, 159 n.
Howard, Margaret: 178
Long English Sermon Cycle, Wyclif®te:
Howard, Sir Edward: 160
20, 21
Howard, Thomas: 178
Love, Nicholas, Mirror of the Blessed Life
Howlett, David: 71 and n., 72 n.
of Jesus Christ, The: 3, 17±34 passim;
Hudson, Anne: 17 n., 21, 26; English
124 n.
Wyclif®te Sermons: 21
Lovel, Henry, seventh Lord Morley: 160
Hughes, Jonathan: 61
Lydgate, John: 84, 88 n., 90 and n., 93,
Hull, Elizabeth, abbess of Malling: 4,
119 n., 120 n.; À Defence of Holy
147, 149 and n., 153, 154
Church': 90; Fall of Princes: 120; Life of
Hull, William: 149 n.
Our Lady: 122; Òn Gloucester's
Hungary, Elizabeth of, Revelations: 31
Approaching Marriage': 84; Troy Book:
Hussey, Lady: 161
123
Lyhert, alias Hart, Walter, bp: 135
Idley, Peter: 124
Lyra, Nicholas de: 41
Innis, Harold Adams: 171, 172, 173 n.
Innocent IV, pope, `Super decretales': 41
`M. N.': 32, 33 n.
Jerome, St: 13 and n. Machaut, Guillaume: 78
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Machiavelli, Istorie Fiorentine: 163; Il Newton, John: 39, 54
Principe: 163 Norfolk, John Howard, duke of: 126
Malling, abbess of, see Hull, Elizabeth Norfolk, John Mowbray, duke of: 134
Mancini, Dominic: 141
Mantell, John: 179, 180 n. O'Connor, David: 35 n., 45 n., 46, 47
Mare, A. C. de la: 71 n. Oldcastle, Sir John: 89 and n., 90 and n.,
Margaret of Anjou, queen: 122 n. 98
Margaret, St: 154 OrleÂans, Charles d': 2, 51 n., 73, 74, 75
Marks, Richard: 153 n. Ovid: 8 and n., 15
Marleburgh, Thomas: 94 and n., 95, 96 Owen, E. T.: 45 n.
and n.
Mary, princess, sister of Henry VIII: 161
Mary, the Lady, dau. of Henry VIII: 5, PaÈcht, O.: 136
159, 160, 161 and n., 162 and n., 167 Pagula, William of, Oculus sacerdotis: 36,
Massy, `maistir': 87 n. 61
`Master of Sir John Fastolf ': 136 Pardon of the Monastery of Shene which is
Mather, F. J.: 106 n., 118 n., 127, 128 Syon, The: 5, 135, 138, 145
Mauley, Stephen: 39 Parker, Alice Lovel: 160
McCray, W. D.: 106 n. Parker, Elizabeth: 168 n.
McLuhan, Marshall: 171 and n., 172, Parker, Francis: 168 n.
173 n.; The Gutenberg Galaxy: 171; The Parker, Henry, eighth baron Morley: 5,
Mechanical Bride: 171; Understanding 159±88 passim; Exposition and
Media: 171 Declaration of the Psalme, Deus ultionum
Meale, Carol M.: 1, 2, 5 Dominus: 160, 164 and n., 165; Life of
Medcalf, Stephen: 90 n. Aemilius Paullus: 166; Life of
Meditationes vitae Christi: 17±34 passim Agesilaus: 5, 159, 166, 167, 169; Lives
Minnis, Alastair: 2 of Scipio and Hannibal: 166; Life of
Mirror of Sinners, The: 137, 144 Theseus: 166
Mirror of St Edmund, The: 136, 137, 145 Parker, Kathryn: 168 n.
Mokkyng, Robert: 96 n. Parker, Sir Henry: 160 n.
More, Thomas: 142 Parkes, Malcolm: 38 and n., 51, 52, 94 n.,
Morison, Sir Richard: 166 135, 136
Morley, Alice, neÂe St John: 168 and n. Park-Hill manuscript: 176 and n., 178,
Morley, Jane, see Rochford, Jane 184
Moyle, Thomas: 169 Parr family: 185 n.
Murray, Hugh: 35 n. Parr, William: 184, 185, 186
Paston, John II: 136
Pears, R.: 167
Nequam, Alexander: 8 Pearsall, Derek: 74, 88 n., 89 n., 123
Netter, Thomas, Doctrinale antiquitatum Pecham, Stephen, abp: 38
®dei catholicae ecclesiae: 33 Pembroke, William Herbert, ®rst earl of:
Neville, Catherine: 154 120 n.
Neville family: 112 n., 115, 116 Percy family: 120 n.
Neville, George, ®fth lord Abergavenny: Petrarch: 159
148 and n., 154 Philippa, princess: 42, 116 n.
Neville, Joan, countess of Salisbury: 118 Phillipps Collection: 167 and n.
Neville, Margaret: 147, 152, 153, 154 Phillips, Kim: 143
Neville of Hornby: 114 n. Picard, `maistir': 88
Neville of Hornby, Sir Robert: 113, 115, Pisan, Christine de: 78; EÂpõÃtre d'OtheÂa:
116, 117 136, 138; The Treasure of the City of
Neville, Sir Edward: 148 Ladies: 142
Neville, Sir Robert: 114 n. Plumbe, William: 147
Neville, Sir Thomas: 147, 148, 149 and Plutarch: 166; De tranquilitate animi: 187
n., 150, 152, 153, 154 Pole, Margaret de la: 114 n.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Pole, Sir Michael de la: 115 Scrope of Masham, John, fourth baron:
Pole, Reginald: 163 and n. 47 and n.
Ponthus and Sidoine: 104, 112, 125, 126 Scrope of Masham, Stephen, second
and n., 127, 130 and n. baron: 45, 47, 54
Pore Caitiff: 5 Scrope of Masham, Thomas, ®fth baron:
Porete, Marguerite, Le Mirouer des 48
Simples Ames: 32, 33 n. Scrope, Richard, abp: 44, 45, 47, 53, 61,
Priapus: 12, 13, 14 62
Prick of Conscience, The: 60 n. Scrope, Sir Geoffrey: 45
Prickynge of Love, The: 31 Scrope, Sir John: 45, 54
Priscian: 15 and n., 52 n. Scrope, Stephen adcn: 2, 45, 47, 53, 54,
Prophet, John: 89 and n., 98 and n. 61 and n., 62, 75
Pseudo-Bonaventura: 26, 27 Scrope, William, adcn: 47
Pugh, T. B.: 52 Secreta Secretorum: 96 n.
Pynson, Richard: 17 n. Selwyn, Pamela: 168 n.
Sermones Dominicales in Evangelia: 52 n.
Ragusa, Isa: 31 Seven Masters on Tribulation: 145
Ranryge, Thomas: 71 n. Seven Poyntes of Trewe Love and
Rede, Elizabeth, abbess: 149, 150 and n., Everlastynge Wisdome, The: 31
151, 152 Seymour, Edward: 176
Rede, Sir Robert: 149, 150 n. Seymour, M. C.: 89 n., 90 n.
Reed, P.: 14 n. Seymour, Thomas: 176
Repingdon, Philip, bp: 63 and n., 74 Shelton, Margaret, neÂe Parker: 161
Rex, Richard: 159, 165 Shelton, Mary: 161 n., 178
Reynolds, Suzanne: 1, 2, 3, 5 Shelton, Sir John: 161
Richard II, king: 41, 42, 89 n., 98 Shirley, John: 88 n.
Richard III: 119 n., 181 Shirwood, John, bp: 39 n.
Richmond, Colin: 105 and n., 106 n., 114, Shrewsbury, John Talbot, earl of: 126
117 n., 150 n. Sidney, Thomasin: 117 n.
Riddy, Felicity: 77 n., 143, 171 Silvester, Bernard: 9
Rochford, Jane: 161 and n., 163 and n. Singleton, Barrie: 9 n.
Rochford, Lady: 162 n. Sixtus IV, pope: 164
Rolle, Richard: 21 and n., 28, 162 n.; Skelton, John, Ùpon the Dolorus Dethe
Incendium Amoris: 53; Judica me Deus: . . . of the Mooste Honorable Erle of
53 Northumberlande': 119 n.
Rosse of Wissett: 105 and n. Somer, Henry: 83, 90 and n., 91 n., 92
Somerset, Edward Seymour, duke of:
Sadler, Ralph: 168 160 n.
Salih, Sarah: 142 n. Sotell, Anne: 130
Salter, Elizabeth: 35 n., 42, 55, 56, 74 Southall, Raymond: 176, 179
Sargent, Michael: 17 n., 19, 28, 29, 124 n. Southwell, Sir Robert: 147, 152 and n.,
Schultz, H. C.: 82 n. 153
Scott, Kathleen: 1, 2, 4, 35 and n., 122 St John, Harry: 68 n.
Scott, Kelvin W. M.: 75 n. St John, John: 168 n.
Scrope, Elizabeth, neÂe Chaworth: 45 St John, Margaret: 168 n.
Scrope-Grosvenor controversy: 114 St John, Oliver: 168 n.
Scrope, Margery, neÂe Wells: 45 St John, William: 168 n.
Scrope of Bolton, Elizabeth: 138 n. St Leger, Anthony: 176
Scrope of Bolton, John, ®fth lord: 135 St Patrick's Purgatory: 138
Scrope of Masham, Henry, ®rst baron: Stafford, John, abp: 135
43 n. Statius: 8
Scrope of Masham, Henry, third baron: Stevens, John: 177
2, 41, 42, 43, 44, 48, 50, 51, 52, 53, 61 Stratford, Jennie: 53 n.
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Stuart, Henry: 178 Vernon, Margaret, prioress: 151, 152
Suffolk, Edmund de la Pole, duke of: Veronese, Battista: 166
138 n. Veronese, Guarino: 166
Suffolk, John de la Pole, duke of: 130 n., Victor, Richard of St, Benjamin minor:
141 27 n.
Surrey, Henry Howard, earl of: 159 and Vinsauf, Geoffrey of: 12 n.
n., 179, 180 n., 182 n., 183 and n. Virgil: 8
Surrey, Thomas Howard, earl of: 138 n.
Suso, Henry, Horologium Sapientiae: 81,
83, 83 n. Wales, David, prince of: 121
Swillington family: 104 n., 112, 113, Walsingham, Thomas, St Alban's
114 n., 117, 120, 121, 129 Chronicle: 43
Swillington of Kywardby, Adam: 121 Warwick, Richard Beauchamp, earl of:
Swillington, Robert de: 114 n. 88 n.
Swillington, Sir Robert: 113 n., 114 n., Wastneys, Elizabeth: 62
115 n. Wastneys, Sir Adam: 62
Swillington, Sir Robert (² 1420): 105, Waterton family: 112 and n., 114 n., 115
113, 115, 120 Waterton, John: 115, 116 n.
Swillington, Sir Robert (² July 1391): 114 Waterton, John, M. P.: 116 n.
Swillington, Sir Roger: 113, 115 Waterton, Katherine: 116 n.
Swillington, Sir William: 114 n. Waterton, Richard: 116 n.
Swynford, Catherine: 117, 127 n. Waterton, Robert: 115, 116
Waterton, Sir Hugh: 115 and n.
Watson, A. G.: 72 n.
Takamiya, Toshiyuki: 17 n. Welde, John: 85 n.
Tanf[i]eld, Robert (senior): 153 Wells, John, lord: 45
Tan®eld, Robert (junior): 153 n., 154 Wentworth family: 117
Tanner, Norman: 139 n. Westmoreland, Joan, countess of: 127 n.
Temple, E.: 65 n. Wheatley of Eching®eld family: 123
Theodolus: 10 Whetehamstede, John 51 n. 67 and n.,
Thompson, John: 1, 3, 4, 5 69, 71 and n., 72, 73, 74, 75; Granarium
Thornton, John: 48 de viris illustribus: 70, 71, 73 n.
Thornton, Robert: 125, 127 n. Whittington, Richard: 91, 92
Throckmorten, Elizabeth, abbess: 136 Williams, Raymond: 173 n.
Throckmorten, Sir Robert: 136 Willoughby, Bridget, neÂe Rede: 150
Thwaite family: 123 Willoughby, Sir Thomas: 150, 151
Todi, Antonio Pacini da (Antonius Wilson, Edward: 136
Tudertinus): 166 Wing®eld, Anne, neÂe Harling, see
Tottel, Richard: 179; Songes and Sonettes: Harling, Anne
187 and n. Wing®eld family: 134
Tour Landry, Geoffroi IV de la, Wing®eld of Letheringham, Sir Robert:
Chevalier: 125 and n, 142 134
Towneley Plays: 131 n. Wing®eld, Sir Edward: 139 n.
Troy Book: 123 n. Wing®eld, Sir John: 134 n.
Tunstall, Cuthbert: 168 Wing®eld, Sir Robert (senior): 134 and n.
Turrecremata, Johannes de, Exposition Wing®eld, Sir Robert: 134 and n., 135
of Psalm 36: 162 n. and n., 140
Twelve Degrees of Meekness, The: 144 `Wofully araide': 5, 145
Wolfe, Reyner: 169
Van Eyck, Jan: 119 n. Wolsey, Thomas: 149, 150, 162 and n.
Vaux, Thomas: 176, 180 n. Wolvedon, Robert: 45
Vavasour family: 112 n., 114 n. Worde, Wynkyn de: 17 n., 120, 126 n.
Vavasour, Joan, neÂe Gascoigne: 114 n. Wotton, Dorothy, neÂe Rede: 149
Vavasour, Sir Henry: 114 n. Wotton, Sir Edward: 148 n., 150, 151
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
Writhe, John: 39 n. lent': 187 and n.; `What vaileth trouth
Wyatt, Henry: 181 and n. or by it to take payn': 187 n.; `Who
Wyatt, Sir Thomas: 3, 150, 151, 152, 153, lyst his welthe and eas retayne': 181
159 and n., 172±88 passim; Àt moste and n.
myschyef ': 180 n.; `Behold love thy Wyatt, Thomas (junior): 181 and n.
power how she dispiseth': 187 n.; Wyclif, John: 23 n., 63; De veritate sacrae
`Caesar when that the traytour of scripturae: 19
Egipt': 187 n.; Certayne Psalmes: 180 n.;
`Goo burnyng sighes unto the frosen Xenophon, Life of Agesilaus: 166
hert': 187 n.; Ìn mornyng wyse syns Ximenes, Francis: 19 n.
daylye I increas': 181 n.; 'Iopas Song':
175; Ìn Spayne': 175; `My lute, York, Cecily, duchess of: 123
awake': 177, 180 n.; `My pen, take York, Edmund Langley, duke of: 44
payn a lytyll space': 177; `The ¯aming York, Elizabeth of, queen: 129, 141
sighes that boile within my brest': 187
n.; `The piller pearisht is whearto I Zouche, Edward La: 168
d:/3riddy/endmatter.3d ± 31/7/0 ± 19:36 ± diskB&B/mp
PD PD
!
W
W
O
O
N
N
y
y
bu
bu
to
to
ww
ww
om
om
k
k
lic
lic
C
C
.c
.c
w
w
tr re tr re
.
.
ac ac
YORK MEDIEVAL PRESS: PUBLICATIONS
God's Words, Women's Voices: The Discernment of Spirits in the Writing of Late-
Medieval Women Visionaries, Rosalynn Voaden (1999)
Pilgrimage Explored, ed. J. Stopford (1999)
Piety, Fraternity and Power: Religious Gilds in Late Medieval Yorkshire 1389±1547,
David J. F. Crouch (2000)
Courts and Regions in Medieval Europe, ed. Sarah Rees Jones, Richard Marks and
A. J. Minnis (2000)
York Studies in Medieval Theology

I Medieval Theology and the Natural Body, ed. Peter Biller and A. J. Minnis
(1997)
II Handling Sin: Confession in the Middle Ages, ed. Peter Biller and A. J. Minnis
(1998)
York Manuscripts Conferences

Manuscripts and Readers in Fifteenth-Century England: The Literary Implications of
Manuscript Study, ed. Derek Pearsall [Proceedings of the 1981 York Manuscripts
Conference]
Manuscripts and Texts: Editorial Problems in Later Middle English Literature, ed.
Derek Pearsall [Proceedings of the 1985 York Manuscripts Conference]
Latin and Vernacular: Studies in Late-Medieval Texts and Manuscripts, ed. A. J.
Minnis (1989) [Proceedings of the 1987 York Manuscripts Conference]
Regionalism in Late-Medieval Manuscripts and Texts: Essays celebrating the

publication of À Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval English', ed. Felicity Riddy
(1991) [Proceedings of the 1989 York Manuscripts Conference]
Late-Medieval Religious Texts and their Transmission: Essays in Honour of A. I.

Doyle, ed. A. J. Minnis (1994) [Proceedings of the 1991 York Manuscripts
Conference]

York Medieval Press Prestige, Authority and Power in Late Medieval Manuscripts and Texts (2000)

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

York Medieval Press Prestige, Authority and Power in Late Medieval Manuscripts and Texts (2000)

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

F -T O O L S F -T O O L S

Plate 1. Longleat House MS 24 fol. 3r reduced, actual size 450 6 310 mm

PRESTIGE, AUTHORITY AND POWER

York Medieval Press is published by the University of York's Centre for

Editorial Board (1998±2001):

Prof. W. M. Ormrod (Chair; Dept of History)

All inquiries of an editorial kind, including suggestions for monographs and

PRESTIGE, AUTHORITY AND POWER

YORK MEDIEVAL PRESS

All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation

First published 2000

A York Medieval Press publication

A catalogue record for this book is available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

This publication is printed on acid-free paper

Typeset by Joshua Associates Ltd, Oxford

1. Longleat House MS 24 fol. 3r (photograph David frontispiece

Power must be analysed as something which circulates, or rather as

The usefulness of this model, in connection with the study of manuscripts, is

Exchanges involve categories, classi®cations of intended results, commod-

In a social world in which people were well attuned to the gradations of

This statement, taken from Mary Carruthers's study of medieval memoria,

Sed . . . cum adolescens grammaticae operem daret, et patulo sensu

In other words, the reverse side of this particular coin of authority is

allegory as a means of ideological `domestication', see R. W. Hanning, `I shal ®nd it in a

Here, the text is used to introduce a new rhetorical trope.

Distincta tunica fugiendum est et pede nudo,

The text is paraphrased into a question ± et esse tunc metuendum et fugiendum?

MANUSCRIPTS OF NICHOLAS LOVE'S

Wyclif gives theoretical centrality to a concept of the Bible as a unique text,

The above passage is followed by a meticulously detailed explanation of the

whanne y seye austin here he is aleggid in hise twey bokis of e lordis

What is noteworthy is that such academic precision of reference supports a

Here summe obiectun at e gospel is not of autorite but in as miche as e

As opposed to the Wyclif®te insistence on scripture as a text which

erfore to strenke vs & confort vs . . . speke e Apostle e wordes aforseid

The critical assumptions underlying this passage should be noted. There is

Having underlined the rhetorical fruitfulness of his auctor, Love proceeds to

Wherfore we mowen to stiryng of deuotion ymagine & enke diuerse

It is signi®cant that the defence of the spiritual ef®cacy of non-scriptural

Textual meaning is here explicitly held to be dependent on readerly `desire'.

The adverb `opunly' is to be noted; it is an appropriation of the charged Lollard

In yet another passage original to him, Love speaks of the `vnresonable

Quarterly 51 (1990), 319±340; Ghosh, ` ``Authority'' and Interpretation', pp. 131±141.

The impression produced by these slight but signi®cant modi®cations of

I have examined forty manuscripts,42 including one that contains substantial

THE PATRONAGE AND DATING OF LONGLEAT HOUSE

Plate 2. Longleat House MS 24 fol. 3r detail, lower portion of page, actual

1418±31. He was sometime chancellor of St Patrick's, Dublin and held the

Item lego Willelmo Egmanton portiphorium meum parvum et minus

C. E. Sayle, `King's Hall Library', Cambridge Antiquarian Society Proceedings and

Plate 4. Longleat House MS 24 fol. 3ra detail, historiated initial, the

Plate 5. Longleat House MS 24 fol. 3rb detail, historiated initial, St Stephen,

Plate 6. York Minister St Stephen's Chapel east

Some change of circumstances seems to have led to the abandonment of the

An administrator of system and rigour, Scrope seems to have brought

LIMNER-POWER: A BOOK ARTIST IN ENGLAND c. 1420

If we surmise that a limner might obtain ascendancy in the ®fteenth century,

Christi College Cambridge MS 61, with introductions by M. B. Parkes and E. Salter

Plate 8. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 61, Geoffrey Chaucer,

Plate 9. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 61, Chaucer, Troilus and

Plate 10. London, British Library, MS Royal 8.G.iii, Petrus de Aureolis,

survives is three 3- or 4-line initials of gold letters on a quartered rose/blue ground

Plate 12. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Auct.F.inf.1.1, Dionysius de Burgo,

whanne y seye austin here he is aleggid in hise twey bokis of e lordis

Here summe obiectun at e gospel is not of autorite but in as miche as e

erfore to strenke vs & confort vs . . . speke e Apostle e wordes aforseid

Wherfore we mowen to stiryng of deuotion ymagine & enke diuerse

And whanne that endid is / I neuere inke.