The Air-brush and Red Blaming Pen of History

I've never read Froissart start to finish, only dipped into bits depending on what I'm researching at the time. And now that I've set out to read his Chronicles as a whole, I'm becoming increasingly relieved that I only ever quoted his version of Edward II's reign and deposition to demonstrate "tales that were told later about these events", rather than "how these events happened, no really, and this is crucial to my argument". I'm going to assume his 'historical' value rises as he gets closer to his own time and events that he witnessed, but the way he conflates certain characters and events and smooths over others is, in the light it sheds on the transmission and construction of history, more fascinating than accuracy.

Edward II, he claims, is "no part of our subject" (5)[1]. Still, he spends a few chapters narrating his reign - primarily, it seems, to provide contrast with those of his father and his son. For "it has often been observed that between two valiant kings there has most commonly been one less sufficient both in wit and valour" (4). When the recent family history of your (erstwhile/occasional) patron includes events like, oh, said patron's mother overthrowing his father with the help of her lover and setting the patron up as king in his father's place and then being overthrown by the new king who then hangs her lover like a thief, there's some delicate narration to be done, and this is probably going to necessitate finding a few scapegoats to shoulder all their own blame and as much as possible of everyone else's. Edward II is definitely one of Froissart's scapegoats. Positive references back to Edward I ("valiant, prudent, wise and bold" (5)) prove that Our Hero did come of good, strong lineage: his father was just an aberration.

Another scapegoat is Hugh Despenser, who takes the blame for his own deeds, most of Edward II's worst behaviour (as opposed to his simple incompetence), the entirety of the disputes between king and barons, the death of Thomas of Lancaster ("a wise and saintly man" (7)), and, obligingly, the role of Piers Gaveston. Gaveston doesn't appear in Froissart's history at all; instead, we are told that Edward II "truly governed his country with great cruelty and injustice, by the advice of Sir Hugh Despencer, with whom he had been brought up since childhood" (ibid). Now, on the face of it, this could be absolutely correct. He was, in the latter and most notorious part of his reign, strongly influenced by Despenser. And Despenser was one of the ten pueri in custodia hand-picked by Edward I as suitable companions to his growing son in the 1290s. But so was Piers Gaveston (Edward I really knew how to pick them), and it was he to whom the young Edward most adhered, he who was to influence the formation of his personality, political attitudes and developing relationship with his father and barons and his own crown until well after Gaveston was murdered in 1312. Despenser, by contrast, wasn't really in Edward's favour until 1316 at the earliest, and doesn't appear to have substantially affected his decisions before his appointment as chamberlain in 1318[2]. And that's without even considering all the lesser favourites in between and around those times, like Roger d'Amory and Arundel.

But that's complicated, and creates an unnecessary duplication of the main villain of the piece, which, as any film writer will tell you, confuses the audience. There was always a favourite, and he was someone who'd been raised with the king since childhood, and Edward's government was strongly influenced (or just carried out) by him. And Hugh Despenser fits that description, is easiest to villainise (Gaveston gave half the barons insulting nicknames, which is funny), is most memorable and got executed in a horrible way, so he's much the best candidate for the scapegoat hat.

However, there's absolutely no way we can make his hat big enough to take the blame for Isabella invading England, the dubious legality of deposing a king (or forcing him to abdicate, if you prefer). So we need scapegoat #3. The obvious candidate? Roger Mortimer.

Unexpectedly, then, he barely appears at all in the account of the invasion. Edward II takes all the blame for this one. Isabella escapes his tyranny, fleeing to France with her son[3]. She hears the pleas of the oppressed English, wishes to help them, pleads with king of France and count of Hainault for help (on her knees, weeping, because this is proper and appropriate and very touching), Sir John of Hainault swears to her that "you may count on me as your own knight" (12), which is all very admirable, and he helps her enter England. Naturally, the country rises up to meet her and rejects Edward. Mortimer appears once, just after the queen has (independently) decided to answer her people's call:

Then she left her lodging as quickly and quietly as she could, with her son, who was then about fifteen years old, the Earl of Kent, Sir Roger Mortimer and all the other English knights that had come away with her. They passed right through France... (11)

So right now, Mortimer's function is to avoid stealing Isabella's glory (er, sorry - piety). We need Isabella to be a hero for now, and we don't need him as a villain yet, not until after Edward II and Despenser are out of the picture and we come to the awkward question of Isabella's tyranny. At that point, he will be necessary not only evilly convince Edward III to kill his uncle Kent and to be the focus of Edward III's coup, but also to retrospectively take the blame for any doubts still lingering about Isabella's actions in and after the invasion.

And then, of course, there's the awkward question of adultery. The woman in question is, remember, Froissart's patron's mother, and possibly the most influential woman in the country's memory. Froissart does his best to side-step it - largely by the simple expedient already mentioned, of leaving Mortimer out of the history altogether. If one were to try to pair Isabella's name with that of any man over the course of the campaign, it would be Sir John of Hainault: but he firmly defined their relationship at the outset as a very proper lady-and-her-champion courtly trope. There is a hint of adultery, or rather of some vague inappropriateness, before Mortimer's name is ever mentioned, when Isabella in France is warned that "in all truth, if she did not behave discreetly, the King her brother would have her sent back to her husband in England, and her son with her" (11). But this is muddied by context: it is preceded by Isabella's distress at hearing of England's unhappiness, and followed by "because it did not please the King of France that she should stay away from her husband" (ibid). So the indiscretion is there, if one knows the story, but it's as far from suggestive as he can manage.

Similarly, the only hint we have before the denouement of any relationship between Isabella and Mortimer is painted primarily as mutual interest and influence, and it comes on the very verge of their catastrophe, when Froissart is piling up the tension against them:

The young King of England was ruled for a long time by the advice of his mother and of Edmund Earl of Kent and Sir Roger Mortimer, as you have heard. At length jealousy arose between these two lords, to the extent that Sir Roger Mortimer, with the connivance of the Queen Mother, advised the King that the Earl of Kent was going to poison him... (51)

Leaving aside what Froissart may or may not have known about the actual accusations against Kent[4], this neatly places the Blame of Evilness on Mortimer, while allowing Isabella's "connivance" to the extent that it shows a powerful bloc working against young Edward taking on the full robe of government, elevating Edward III while demeaning his mother as little as possible. Where there is glory to be seen in the actions of Isabella's party, she is allowed to take full responsibility, adorned in the robes of chivalry's belle dame; where something unsightly peeks through, she is, naturally, a woman, and is absolved from true responsibility by the weakness of her sex.

But then, of course, came the part that Froissart couldn't ignore: that little detail where Isabella was suspected of being pregnant with Mortimer's child, and Mortimer's downfall. What he can do, of course, is a) assert that it was all rumour and he can't speak to its truth, and b) shift the focus away by using that as a prologue to AND THEN EDWARD REALISED MORTIMER WAS EVIL AND SMOTE HIM MIGHTILY. And to accentuate this MIGHTY SMOTIFYING, how was Mortimer killed? Not merely hanged as Murimuth and pretty much every contemporary source would have it, oh no:

[The barons and nobles] replied that Mortimer should suffer the same fate as Sir Hugh Despenser, and this sentence was carried out without delay or mercy. Mortimer was dragged through the streets of London on a hurdle, and then tied to a ladder in an open square. His private parts were cut off and thrown onto a fire, as were his hearts and entrails, since he was guilty of treason in thought and deed. His body was then quartered and sent to the four largest cities in England, the head remaining in London. Such was the fate of Sir Roger Mortimer; may God forgive him his sins. (52)

And so all the evil people were punished evilly for their evil, and the rest of them lived happily ever after.

Now, I don't suggest that every instance in which Froissart varies from what we (more or less) know to have happened is a deliberate and conscious attempt on his part to wrest history into a more fitting course. I haven't yet managed to track down a copy of Jean le Bel's chronicles, which I understand Froissart was to a large extent following (alright, copying) for the earlier books. So for some of the "Froissart"s above one perhaps ought to read "Jean le Bel" - and for some, one must surely read "rumour, folklore, that old bloke in the pub and Everyone Knows".

I skimmed through a high-school or undergrad level book yesterday on the events of the English Civil Wars (it had diagrams!). One phrase caught my eye - it said something about "to understand this period, one must..." Well, why must I? Why can't I just take the facts and - well, turn them around my way and make my own understanding of them?

To understand, one must make history into a story in one's mind. Froissart, and the people around him, had certain tropes and shapes into which the facts and events and clouds of history had to fit to become a good, coherent story. It can't be a story until it has meaning - and sometimes it needs to take a few hammer-blows first.


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[1] All quotes are from the edition of the chronicles trans. and ed. John Jolliffe (New York: Modern Library, 1968). Eventually I will get around to reading them in French.

[2] Adam Murimuth doesn't find it necessary to refer to him before his first exile in 1320.

[3] In itself another example of simplifying events by placing blame and telescoping the sequence. Isabella went to France on Edward's instructions to negotiate terms with the king, her brother, who eventually agreed to receiving homage (for the French lands held by the English crown) not from Edward II but from his son the prince. Edward II was reluctant to send his heir over into the custody of his wife and her family, but eventually consented, sending a large loyal retinue with him. Isabella managed to manoeuvre people and events such that the retinue was sent home, and she was left holding the baby, as it were.

[4] Though if he had heard that the charge was actually about trying to help his brother (former Edward II, officially dead) escape from the place where he had been firmly assured by many notable and trustworthy people that he was, in fact, still being held prisoner, and should probably still be king... well, that was probably a good version of the story to leave out, because there's a whole mess of nasty legitimacy business there that I can't imagine Edward III would have wanted him to drag out. Come to that, I translated Kent's answer to the charges the other day: maybe I should post that.

A verray, parfit gentil king (part 3): Froissart, Edward III’s public relations manager.

Part the third of a three-part post on The Perfect King and his Eyes of Flash, and the reason why I started them in the first place. Here are parts one and two.

So, if it’s all about the PR, Froissart was doing Edward III a good service. He was working for Edward III’s decidedly less martial grandson, in a court that was arguably falling away from the Arthurian ideals that Edward III had seemed to realise:

His Scottish and Irish campaigns notwithstanding, Richard was seen as a military failure in comparison to his father, the Black Prince, and, more especially, in relation to his grandfather, Edward III. Unlike Edward, who had painstakingly developed support for the war in France – and thus political support for himself – Richard embarked on a quest for peace … But the virtues of peace were contrused by Richard’s detractors as symptoms of the failures of warriors; as many chronicle accounts have it, in Richard’s court, a chivalric knight was not a fighting knight. Instead, the king was said to surround himself with his friends and favourites, with ladies, and with foreigners ... Ricardian knights are still vigorous and powerful, but this energy is misdirected toward the wrong place, the bedroom rather than the field, and deployed in the wrong way, with language rather than deeds. [1]

It was therefore very much in Froissart's interests as an employee (in the loose sense) to present his patrons and the whole Ricardian court with an image of the past that was at once perfect and glorious, and recognisably real. Ideals must be upheld, but they must also seem attainable, and not contradict the memories of anyone who still remembered the events recounted. Froissart’s Edward III fits perfectly into his world of martial prowess and honour, heraldry and chivalry and national (or bi-national) glory. In fact, I think it’s fair to say that he emerges as the epitome of this world, simultaneously held to and upholding a higher standard of it than anyone else. Froissart’s pen creates a chronicle, but also an adventure story, and a world that can contain and exult it. Every age, every social group, perhaps every person, has a similar world: a reflection of what the world in which we wish we could be set. Froissart creates that for Richard II’s court, creates a worthy setting for the king’s legend of a grandfather, and a grandfather worthy of that setting.

So, Froissart could do the PR gig with no problems. But the portrayal of Edward III as the epitome of Arthurian ideals wasn’t his idea. It was Edward III’s[2]. The man who created the Order of the Garter, who managed at age seventeen to not only draw together the support to overthrow his mother and Mortimer but to actually keep hold of those threads and build the support base that he did, who dealt with such sleight with the lingering shadow of his father’s deposition and possible murder, who combined the arms of England and France, was no amateur at self-representation. And remember whose son he was[4]:

... when the king sent his son to France, he ordered his wife to return to England without delay. When this command had been explained to the king of France and to the queen herself by the messengers, the queen replied, ‘I feel’, she said, ‘that marriage is a union of a man and a woman, holding fast to the practice of a life together, and that someone has come between my husband and myself and is trying to break that bond; I declare that I will not return until this intruder is removed, but, discarding my marriage garment, shall put on the robes of widowhood and mourning until I am avenged of this Pharisee.’ [5]

This accusation and the complementary image of Isabella as suffering widow were developed in various speeches and proclamations. By appearing to embrace gender norms, even as she took a lover of her own and led an army against her husband, she effectively turned the blame for the breakdown of the royal marriage on Edward and his (arguably) more scandalous affair[7]. And throughout her time in France and the subsequent invasion, she showed flare for public relations that tends to be obscured nowadays by the absolute debacle that arose when she and Mortimer were secure and appeared to forget that they had any need of it. Isabella’s mourning weeds, her care to keep her adulterous relationship with Mortimer out of sight, to identify her cause with Thomas of Lancaster (killed in 1322 for rising against Edward and the Despensers, but now widely regarded as a saint), to visit shrines as she travelled “as if on pilgrimage” [8], to stay on the right side of the populace and to present herself as a rejected wife anxious to save the country for its rightful heir, formed masterful and effective propaganda. And the boy who was to be Edward III was there, saw it all, and – clearly – learned.

So, Edward III seems to have been just as capable as Froissart at presenting an inspiring vision of reality and of himself. The idea of his reign as a golden age of chivalric perfection (at least prior to the return of the Black Death) was not purely Ricardian nostalgia – although that probably helped – but was an image that Edward III conceived of and worked for. How much artistic licence do we allow Froissart, then, in his depiction of individual scenes like the aftermath of the siege of Calais? Is the scene he depicts the sort of scene Edward was likely to have enacted? In its general scope? in precise details? at that time and place? If so (to any of those), how much was it embroidered or altered in the telling? Because it isn’t the historical accuracy of the scene that matters so much as the story: what people heard, how they heard it, whether the audience is Froissart’s or the people to whom it may have been recounted in Edward III’s time. It is a display and a fantasy, power designed to be seen and recounted, an allegorical enactment of the theoretical process of justice, whether or not he and Philippa actually performed this in real life. It is how he (or Froissart, or Richard II) wanted the process and the nature of kingship to be understood, perhaps in order that they might understand that this is what happens in the arena of justice, this is what kings are, even if they never actually see this for themselves. A way to read their own experiences of the actual king, perhaps.

So the question is a fairly straightforward one: how far was this image of kingship deliberately constructed according to existing tropes of idealised majesty? The complication lies in trying to find a subject, to turn that sentence into the active voice. I think it wouldn’t be too controversial to say that Froissart was intentionally portraying Edward III’s actions and manner in this way; but to what extent was Edward himself doing the same thing?


[1] Federico, Sylvia, “The Place of Chivalry in the New Trojan Court: Gawain, Chaucer and Richard II,” Place, space, and landscape in medieval narrative, ed. Laura L. Howes (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2007), 172. Incidentally, a page earlier she makes a similar comment about the bedroom, with reference to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Troilus and Criseyde: “…the intersections of historical place and chivalric identity ... [are] two of the main issues of concern in the chronicles of the late fourteenth century. These texts identify martial failure as a central element of Richard’s rule and further assert a relationship between the misdirection of knightly prowess and the physical site of its occurrence: the bedroom is where Ricardian chivalry is lost.” (171) I’d qualify this with a resounding “Step forward, Erec and Enide”, which rather stars the emasculating bedroom some time before anyone could possibly have been concerned about Richard II (or even Richard I), but it is an interesting point which is certainly not invalidated by the fact that Chrétien de Troyes got there first. Suddenly I have an urge to explore every bedroom scene in Ricardian literature. I imagine the Wife of Bath’s bedroom and the wedding bed of her fictional knight would both contribute to and cheerfully twist any conclusions I could make.
[2] Actually, one could blame Roger Mortimer for the magnificent Arthurian-themed tournaments he held while he was ‘regent’ at Isabella’s side, at which he actually represented Arthur himself at least once[3]. One can always blame Roger Mortimer for anything. Someone usually does.
[3] Cue vague, incomplete citation: I read this either in the first chapter of Ian Mortimer’s biography of Edward III, or the last few of his biography of Roger Mortimer. As I have access to neither now, I can’t check page references, but: The greatest traitor: the life of Sir Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March, Ruler of England, 1327-1330 (London: Jonathan Cape, 2003), and The perfect king: the life of Edward III, father of the English nation (London: Jonathan Cape, 2006).
[4] No, not Edward II’s. Well, indisputably Edward II’s, unless you buy into the theories that he was actually Edward I’s bastard after a really, really long pregnancy, or that Roger Mortimer was hopping into Isabella’s bed a lot earlier than is in any way feasible. But Edward II, whatever his other qualities, was resoundingly rotten at public relations.
[5] Vita Edwardi Secundi: the life of Edward the Second: re-edited text with new introduction, new historical notes, and revised translation based on that of N. Denholm-Young, eds. Wendy R. Childs and N. Denholm-Young (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005). 243.
[7] Ormrod hints at this when he argues that both Edward II and Edward III worked to “rehabilitate [Edward II] both as heterosexual and king... through the representation of the marriage of Edward II and Queen Isabella as a normal and functional relationship, disrupted not by the intervention of Piers Gaveston and the Despensers but by the queen’s own adultery with Roger Mortimer and by her usurpation of kingly power and prerogative”. (27) (“The Sexualities of Edward II”. The Reign of Edward II: New Perspectives, eds. Gwylim Dodd & Anthony Musson (York: York Medieval Press, 2006. 22-47.)
[8] “... quasi peregrinando” Annales Paulini, in Chronicles of the reigns of Edward I and Edward II, ed. William Stubbs, (London: Longman, 1882). 314.

A verray, parfit gentil king (part 1): Pick the history from the hoax.

Part the first of a three-part post on The Perfect King and his Eyes of Flash.
Part two.
Part three.


This was going to be one post, but it turned into three. These things just happen in my life.

Firstly, consider the following four extracts, all written in the fourteenth century (or fifteenth century, following a fourteenth century text, in one case), all narrating a similar test of royal authority. Three are fiction - chivalric literature, the pinnacle of idealised knighthood and kingship - and one is history. Pick which is which.

1. So hit befelle that the Emperour ... sente unto [the king] messyngers commaundynge hym for to pay his trewage that this auncettryes [ancestors] have payde before hym. Whan [the king] wyste [understood, had heard] what they mente he loked up with his gray yghen [eyes] and angred at the messyngers passyng sore. Than were this messengers aferde and knelyd stylle and durste nat aryde, they were so aferde of his grymme countenaunce.... Than one of the knyghtes messyngers spake alowde and seyde,
'Crowned kynge, myssedo [mis-do, harm] no messyngers, for we be com at his commaundemente, as servytures sholde.'
Then spake the Conquerrour, 'Thou recrayed and coward knyghte, why feryst thou my countenaunce?'
.... 'Sir,' seyde one of the [messengers], 'so Cryste me helpe, I was so aferde whan I loked in thy face that myne herte wolde nat serve for to sey my message....'
'Thow seyste well,' seyde [the king], 'but for all thy brym [rash, fierce] wordys I woll nat be to over-hasty, and therfore thou and thy felowys shall abyde here seven dayes... and whan we have takyn our avysement [come to a judicious decision] ye shall have your answere playnly, suche as I shall abyde by.'

2. [At the surrender of a town who has dared defy our Idealised King.] The King was in his chamber with a large company of earls, barons and knights [when the deputation from the town was brought to him].... The King kept quite silent and looked at them very fiercely, for he hated the people of [the town] because of the losses they had inflicted on him at sea in the past. The six burghers knelt down before him and, clasping their hands in supplication, said: 'Most noble lord and king, here before you are we six citizens of [Mystery Town].... We surrender to you the keys of the town and the castle, to do with them as you will. We put ourselves as you see us entirely in your hands.... We pray you by your generous heart to have mercy on us also.'
None of the brave men present, lords, knights or men-at-arms, could refrain from shedding tears of pity when they heard this....
But the King continued to glare at them savagely, his heart so bursting with anger that he could not speak. When at last he did, it was to order their heads to be struck off immediately.
All the nobles and knights who were there begged the King to have mercy, but he would not listen.... At this the King ground his teeth and said: 'That is enough... my mind is made up. Let the executioner be sent for. The people of [this town] have killed so many of my men that it is right that these should die in their turn.'
Then the noble Queen... pregnant as she was, humbly threw herself on her knees before the King and said, weeping, 'Ah, my dear lord, since I crossed the sea at great danger to myself, you know that I have never asked a single favour from you. But now I ask you in all humility, in the name of the Son of the Blessed Mary, and by the love you bear me, to have mercy on these six men.'
The King remained silent for a time, looking at his gentle wife as she knelt in tears before him. His heart was softened, [and he granted her request].... They were given new clothes and an ample dinner. Then each was presented with six nobles and they were escorted safely through the English army and went to live in various towns in Picardy.

3. [Our perfect king (well, duke, in this instance, though his wife is still called a queen) comes across two young men duelling in the forest, both of them banished from his realm. They confess their identity and their transgression, and eagerly dob each other in.]
This worthy duc answerde anon agayn,
And seyde, "This is a short conclusioun.
Youre owene mouth, by youre confessioun,
Hath dampned [damned] yow...
Ye shal be deed, by myghty Mars the rede!"
The queene anon, for verray wommanhede,
Gan for to wepe, and so dide [another woman],
And alle the ladyes in the compaignye....
And alle crieden, bothe lasse and moore,
"Have mercy, Lord, upon us wommen alle!"
And on hir bare knees adoun they falle
And wolde have kist his feet ther as he stood;
Til at the last aslaked [slaked, calmed] was his mood,
For pitee runneth soone in gentil herte.
[He declared them pardoned, but ordered that they resume their duel in a year's time in the context of a highly organised tournament, to be arranged and paid for by himself, where each of the two young knights will lead a team of the mightiest warriors in the land and certain measures will be taken to reduce actual fatalities.]

4. [Two ambassadors arrive and demand that the king swear allegiance to their emperor.]
The kynge blyschit one [looked at] the beryne [man] with his brode eghne [eyes]
That fulle brymly [fiercely] for breth brynte [burnt] as the gledys [hot coals]...
Luked as a lyone [like a lion, or as a lion would], and on his lyppe bytes!
The [ambassadors] for radnesse [dread] ruschte to the erthe [rushed to the ground, ie, fell on their faces/knees, quailed]...
Thene couered vp a knyghte [one of the ambassadors rose], and criede ful lowde,
"Kynge corounede [crowned] of kynd [by/in/above all nature/race], curtays and noble,
Misdoo no messangere for menske of thi seluyne [honour of yourself, ie, by (or for the sake of) your honour]...
We come at his [our lord's] commaundment; haue vs excusede" [pardon us].
Then carpys [speaks] the conquerour crewelle [hard] wordez, -
"Haa! crauande [craven] knyghte! a cowarde thee semez!..."
"Sir", sais the [messenger], "so Crist mott [might] me helpe, [ie, may Christ help me, an intensifying oath]
The voute of thi visage has woundyde vs alle!
Thow arte the lordlyeste lede [lord] that euer I one lukyde [that every I looked on, saw];
By lukynge [by looking, ie, to the eye], with-owttyne lesse [truly], a lyone the semys!" [you seem to be a lion!]
"Thow has me somonde [summoned me]," quod the kynge, "and said what the lykes [said what you would];
ffore sake of thy soueraynge [for your lord's sake] I suffre the the more [I grant you greater license]...
[The king says that he will take counsel with his dukes, etc, while the ambassadors stay a week and are entertained with great extravagance, treated royally:]
"Spare for no spycerye [spices], bot spende what the lykys,
That there be largesce one lofte [largesse on high, ie, great largesse], and no lake foundene [and no lack be found]."

And of course, even if you recognised none of those, it’s obvious that when I used the word ‘history’ to describe one of them (the second, Froissart’s account of the siege of Calais[1]), I did so reservedly. It’s less obvious, though equally true, that I used ‘fiction’ in the same way. There is, of course, a genre division between the chronicle and such a poem as the Knight’s Tale[2]; but the division is far from distinct, and the boundaries are blurred by the insistence on historical and literary authority in the latter (Chaucer claims to be recounting his own experience of hearing a knight recite a tale he in turn insists is not his invention but drawn from “olde stories”) and the influence on the former of the shape that the author feels a story ought to be - not to mention the distortion to the same effect imposed by his sources, be they written or oral, and the expectations of patrons or audience. The first and fourth extracts are from two different versions of the Morte d’Arthur, Malory’s first[3] and the anonymous alliterative version[4] (his source for that particular scene) last[5], and they also straddle the boundary between romance fiction and chronicle to an extent that modern readers don’t always appreciate. Geoffrey of Monmouth’s history of England, after all, was the literary source of the vast bulk of Arthurian romance that blossomed in the following centuries, and Arthur stalked through his pages alongside kings that we would nowadays regard as perfectly historical. This is a familiar topic to anyone accustomed to the literature (of any sort) of the fourteenth century, so I won’t labour the point.

In any case, the passages above rather speak for themselves in their similarity. According to them, the perfect king:
- has really flashy eyes
- is fierce and furious in his defence of his kingdom, his people and his own authority
- cuts a fine figure of dignity and power (and theatricality) in front of his court
- looks like a lion, especially with those flashy eyes
- is not afraid to temper justice with compassion, and compassion with justice
- knows the political value of generosity, and of making shows of largesse
- did I mention the flashy eyes?
- is far, far more civilised than you, especially if you’re the emperor of Rome or a pair of hormonal teenagers scrapping in the woods
- would happily sing along with the chorus of Sir Joseph Porter’s ode to the common British tar:

His foot should stamp and his throat should growl,
His hair should twirl and his face should scowl;
His eyes should flash and his breast protrude,
And this should be his customary attitude -- (pose). [6]

Post #2 tomorrow. More actual content guaranteed.


[1] Froissart, Jean, Chronicles, ed. Geoffrey Brereton (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978), 108-09.
[2] The third extract - The Knight’s Tale 1742-1761, from the Canterbury Tales, in Chaucer, Geoffrey, The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Benson, Larry D. (3rd ed). (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987). 48-49.
[3] Malory, Thomas, Le Morte Darthur: the Winchester manuscript, ed. Helen Cooper, (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1998). V.6..36
[4] Morte Arthure, ed. Edmund Brock, EETS OS 8 (London: Oxford UP, 1961), 116-165.
[5] I originally had the order of all four extracts in chronological order, but it occurred to me that starting with the alliterative Morte, the hardest of all four in terms of language, was an excellent way to befuddle anyone not entirely with alliterative Middle English. It is much easier to read after reading three scenes all essentially saying the same thing – so the temporal order was reversed.
[6] HMS Pinafore, Gilbert & Sullivan.

Notes for a PHD proposal

So, in between busily scribbling bits of thesis, I somehow have to find brain space to think about next year and PHD possibilities. Here's my current thoughts.


Gentle words: choosing the non-violent approach.


Summary

In the final book of Malory's Morte Darthur, a desperate and bereaved Gawain tries to provoke Lancelot into battle with accusations of adultery, falsehood and betrayal. In failing to defend himself, Lancelot risks validating the accusations and attracting the additional charge of cowardice - and yet he, the best of Arthur's knights, deliberately chooses not to take up arms against his friend and his liege lord, even if this choice undermines his very being as a knight. I propose to explore literary and cultural perceptions of the choice of non-violence in the changing world of England in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Considering the centrality of violence and force to both the chivalric ethos and to an effective justice system, I will also examine the effect such a choice might have on the formation of masculine identity and power. By studying literature such as political tracts, anonymous romances and saints' lives in addition to the more consciously constructed literature of writers such as Chaucer, Froissart, Malory and the Gawain-poet, I mean to examine the way in which the latter engaged with and rewrote cultural assumptions and constructs evident in the former.


Points to consider:

- The language of the formal university or theological disputatio was dominated by terms drawn from combat and physical dispute. Karras details the culture of masculine formation in late medieval universities and the transferral of aggressive response patterns from the physical military setting to the verbal university debate[1]. How was the non-violent choice depicted in this less literal setting? Did the virtual absence of women from the scene and the ban on marriage (where applicable) change the dynamic by depriving men of one possible way to prove their masculinity?

- Given the lower visibility of women in literature and the greater passivity of the female role in society and the home, can we determine to what extent these precepts were applied in the construction of feminine identity?

- Legends of saints' lives often celebrate the choice of non-resistance, the decision to suffer martyrdom unresisting for one's faith. This is one instance in which the author almost invariably commends the character unequivocably for the decision, though other characters in the narrative may mock or chide the saint for it. But is non-violence in the name of God an act of challenge and combat in itself? To what extent is the peaceful option as endorsed by religion used as an extenuating circumstance or justification for choosing to avoid violence in other situations?

- A fourteenth century political tract on good kingship would have it that "mercy with oute justise is no verrey mercy, but rathir it may be seid folye and symplesse. And also justise with oute mercy is crueltie and felonye, and thefore it is convenient that these II vertues be ever ensembled"[2]. This emphasis on judicious balance is paralleled by literary moments such as Theseus' careful retention of the power of both justice and mercy in The Knight's Tale and Froissart's depiction of a suspiciously similar Edward III during the siege of Calais. How do writers in the thirteenth and fourteenth century express concern with the upsetting of the scales of mercy and justice, or use their writing to explore and impose a more acceptable ideal?




That's all that springs to mind for now. It's a first draft, of course, and will probably be rewritten substantially. Of course, it would help if I knew what a PhD proposal is meant to look like... but finding out would involve research, which means time!



[1] Karras, Ruth Mazo. From Boys to Men: Formations of Masculinity in late medieval Europe. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 2002. 67-108.
[2] "The III Consideracions Right Necesserye to the good governaunce of a prince". Ed. Genet, Jean-Philippe. Four English Political Tracts of the Later Middle Ages. Camden Society, 4th Series (1977), 18. 200.