From: bq434@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Michael A. Chance)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: 15th century courtly poetry (longish)
Date: 14 Sep 1992 22:35:02 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


Unto the gathered folks of the Rialto,
GREETINGS!

What follows is not of my doing (would that I had this kind of
knowledge!).  It is the product of Dr. Juris Lidaka, PhD, originally
posted on MEDIEV-L, the Medieval Studies E-mail List.

A brief biography of Dr. Lidaka (written by himself):

"Final offspring of landless immigrants to US, eventually PhD-ed
from Northern Illinois University, specializing in Old & Middle English 
literature, philology (here meaning basically "history of the English
language"), & studies in medieval manuscripts & very early printed books.
Currently employed at West Virginia State College, w/ a few publications 
out & some hanging around, waiting for publication.  Several projects
underway include an edition of John Trevisa's 14th-cent. translation of
Richard FitzRalph's sermon DEFENSIO CLERICORUM, a Latin polemic against
the friars (in particular the Franciscans), originally preached before Pope 
Innocent VI in 1357."

NOTE:  Please direct any questions concerning this posting to Dr. Lidaka
directly, at "Lidaka@wvsvax.wvnet.edu".  Due to severe constraints on
his time, Dr. Lidika asks that only questions specifically concerning
this article be sent to him, rather than any general questions
concerning the topic.  Also, please respect the copyright notice at the
beginning.

Enjoy!

Mikjal Annarbjorn

======================== Begin forwarded text =======================

        Since the semester is about to begin, and since I am in a slightly
feisty mood, I thought I'd spread this around for comments.  It's a conference
paper I gave at Kalamazoo last May, and I've been thinking of sending it
to English Language Notes.  But before that, I just wondered what folks
might suggest for improvements.
        It's a bit long for a mail file, so you might want to save it first
as a file and then print it out or something.
        My thanks for constructive comments.
                Juris
Bitnet: Lidaka@WVNWVSC
Internet: Lidaka@WVSVAX.WVNET.EDU

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         Identifying 15th-Century English Courtly Verse
	(c) Copyright Juris G. Lidaka 1992

     Very often, comments about and discussions of verse in
courtly culture depend on hypotheses.  For example, a recent book
states that

          The "courtliness" of the poems is more a matter of
          their implicit values than of any connection with real,
          historical courts, although of course such associations
          may sometimes incidentally be present.  The values
          assumed in the poems (whether strongly and sincerely
          felt, or merely temporarily adopted for particular
          purposes) might be best described as those of a
          leisured, cultivated society, with time on its hands
          for the expression and elaboration of exquisite and
          refined sentiments.  (Boffey 4)

If one is in a curious mood, one can question the logic of this:
if no real connection with an actual court is necessary for
something to be considered "courtly," then "courtliness" is
irrelevant for reconstructing court culture, its development, and
its import.  We can, then, only hope that actual court culture
was ever interested in "expression and elaboration of exquisite
and refined sentiments."  Other such critical statements have
shown how a *locus* of interest--a particular, important
audience--has been supplanted by a genre.

     So let us approach this matter of courtly verse from another
direction.  Instead of posing answers, let us pose questions;
instead of giving examples and counter-examples, let us play with
reminders of a methodology that seems to have been forgotten--
induction, an old scientific and historical method of assembling
what the facts seem to be, and then using them to form general
conclusions.  And let us begin not with the "courtly" part of the
title, vut with the "fifteenth-century" part.

     For over a dozen years, on and off (though recently more off
than on), I have been working on a project I inherited from some
others: identifying 15th-century English verse from Brown &
Robbins' *Index of Middle English Verse* and its *Supplement* by
Robbins & Cutler.  The *Index* has 4,365 entries; to these the
*Supplement* adds about 1,500, making for some 5,865 in all, or
6,000 for a handy round number.  I do not know anyone who has
read all these, but I can say that I have read many of the
little-known ones while working on the project.

     As I inherited the project, its goal was very simple: to
list the *Index* numbers of 15th-century verse in 2 parts,
anonymous and nymous, whether authors, translators, or
significant others.  Since neither the *Index* nor the
*Supplement* noted dates, dating this corpus relied on the
commentaries and attributions of scholars indicated in the
*Index* bibliographies, as well as on additional resources, such
as the revised *Manual of Writings in Middle English* (and its
predecessor where the revision had not yet caught up), the "Plan
and Bibliography" for the *Middle English Dictionary*, and the
many catalogs, editions, and discussions which have become
available since the publication of the *Supplement* in 1966.

     Quite a few poems cited in the *Index*, however, have not
been discussed in the scholarly community or--if they have been--
the date was not considered; to this we can add cases of
disagreement not only for date but also for authorship, the
former more usually the case for verse in late fifteenth-century
(and later) manuscripts than elsewhere.  For example, Richard
Hill's commonplace book (Balliol College MS 354) was put together
slowly from around 1518 to 1536, but it has quite a few items
attested elsewhere as clearly originating in the fifteenth
century.  It has some fifty unique items listed in the *Index*.
However, since Browns's *Register* includes some of these unique
items, we should presume them to be fifteenth-century because
Brown assumed a sharp terminus of 1500, while the *Index* often
moved beyond that limit.  But Green's *Early English Carols* or
other sources specify them as early sixteenth-century poems.<<1>>
"The Nutbrown Maid" seems the best example: it is so well done
that medievalists are happy to take it as within their province,
but renaissance people like it so much that they call it their
own, saying it is too good for the Middle Ages.  Usually, in such
cases, it seems more prudent to follow the latest decision with
regard to both composition dates and manuscript dates when
lacking scholarly inquiry into composition.

     I totted up the results by eyeball and pencil-point: of
around 6,000 entries in the *Index*, I presently have 3,037 as
15th-century.  If more than half of Middle English verse is 15th-
century, then we may have to reevaluate our judgment that it was
dull, dreary, imitative, and simply a quiet period of transition
from the Ricardians to the Renaissance.  Clearly, at least in
terms of surviving materials, it was more productive than earlier
times; but just as clearly the sources of this material probably
changed as well.  As I noted at the beginning, there have been
many comments assuming that verse with certain qualities is
courtly in nature.  This need not be so; Boffey's discussion of
the owners of the manuscripts containing courtly love lyrics
emphasizes how often these owners were civil servants, merchants,
and provincials; we definitely ought to be very careful in
distinguishing between what courtly verse *was* and what
contemporaries *thought* it was.

     Courtly verse must have come from inside the court or
outside it.  For inside the court, we can rely on accepted
ascriptions of authorship from within the court itself.  A glance
over the names portion of the appendix shows this to be very
small: Richard Beauchamp, Charles d'Orleans, William de la
Pole,<<2>> an unnamed Duke of York, James I, and Anthony
Widvill.<<3>>

     For outside the court, we have to look for signs of
presentation to a courtly audience, and then we have to consider
whether or not it appreciated the work.  An additional problem is
whether or not the court received the work in question; for
example, Henry Scogan formally addressed a moral ballade to the
four sons of Henry IV, whose tutor he was.  Yet the ballade was
"to be read aloud at a public banquet of the Merchants Guild at
the house of Lewis John" (Robbins "Chaucerian Apocrypha" 1065).
The boys, then in their late teens, may very well not have
attended, but clearly the stated audience and the actual audience
were quite different.  I dare say that Hoccleve's attempts to
gain preferment, such as by dedicating the *Regement of Princes*
to Prince Hal, later Henry V, count as evident failures.

     Similarly, we cannot know if a work received was actually
appreciated; here I am thinking of the verse listed under the
name "Elisabeth" in the appendix and added at the end there.
This is a short poem preceding the hours of the guardian angel,
in a book evidently presented to "Elizabeth Woodville, who
married Edward IV in 1464" (Ker 166).  It seems unlikely that she
was ever referred to as "Elisabetha Timwaw," "Elisabeth Atimwaw,"
or even "Elisabeth at Imwaw," yet the poor quality of the verse
throughout makes it unlikely that the author ceased the acrostic
after only the first name.  No doubt the donor is named, the
woman pictured in a miniature as presenting a book to a queen.
But no evidence shows that the book was appreciated, much less
the dedicatory poem, and I have been unable to trace the name.

     However, we do know that sometimes the court commissioned
works; we can, I hope, safely assume that it would not do so
unless the author was known to write verse it appreciated.
Lydgate wrote the *Troy-Book* and perhaps the *Life of Our Lady*
for Henry Vth, *The Pilgrimage of the Life of Man* for the Earl
of Salisbury, and the *Fall of Princes* for Humphrey of
Gloucester.  Lydgate himself says "Ss. Edmund and Fremund" was
commissioned by Abbot William Curteys as a gift for Henry VI
(Renoir and Benson 1832).  Lydgate also tells us he wrote "A
remembrance of a pedigree how that the king of England, Henry the
VIth, is truly born heir unto the crown of France by lineal
succession" at the order of Richard Beauchamp (MacCracken 613, my
modernization of the prefatory note).  John Shirley, Beauchamp's
secretary, claims Lydgate also wrote the "Fifteen Joys and
Sorrows of Our Lady" (#447) and the life of "St. Edmund and St.
Fremund" (#3440) for him (Robbins "Chaucerian Apocrypha" 1078).
Stowe claims Lydgate's "Fifteen Joys" (#533) was written for
Isabelle, Beauchamp's second wife (MacCracken 260).  Despite
these connections with Beauchamp, I find it curious that the only
English manuscript known to have been Beauchamp's is a copy of
Trevisa's translation of Higden's *Polychronicon* (Doyle 175).

     Two MSS claim Lydgate wrote his "Guy of Warwick" "at the
request of Margarite Countess of Shrowesbury, Ladye Talbot
fournyual and Lisle" (MacCracken 516), but a modern commentator
announces that this romance "has been said to illustrate
Lydgate's lowest style" (Renoir & Benson 1850).  We must be very
careful with spurious claims of commission, but at least we can
be certain that to some degree the court did appreciate Lydgate's
verse.  Does that mean Lydgate is a sure example of "courtly
verse"?  I shudder to think so, but we have to agree--to a point.

     For he wrote to other audiences as well, and so we would
have to begin distinguishing between the verse he wrote for the
court and that he did not.  He wrote the "Lives of SS Alban and
Amphibal" for John Whethamstede, abbot of St. Albans, and several
works for his own Bury St. Edmunds.  If we were to trust the
rubric, "Bycorne and Chychevache" was devised "at the request of
a werthy citeseyn of London" (MacCracken 433), evidently not a
member of the court but probably a merchant, at least someone we
would consider middle class.  Similarly, "The Mumming at
Bishopswood" was for the "Shirreves of London" (668) and others
were for the Mercers and Goldsmiths (695, 698).  Lydgate's
"Ballade on an Ale-Seller," "Against Millers and Bakers,"
"Dietary," "Tretise for Lauandres," "Nine Properties of Wine,"
and *Stans puer ad mensam* (429-32, 448-49, 702-7, 723-24, & 739-
44) are subjects we may not expect to find in courtly verse, but
that is our expectation, neither proved nor disproved by any
evidence.

     The recent reminder of Trevisa also should serve to point
out how the interests of the court extended well beyond secular
verse: he and his successor John Walton evidently translated at
least Higden's *Polycronicon*, Bartholomaeus Anglicus' *De
proprietatibus rerum*, Giles of Rome's *De regimine principum*,
Boethius' *Consolation of Philosophy*, Vegetius' *De re
militari*, and perhaps the *Gospel of Nicodemus* and Palladius'
*De re rustica*.  All these more instructional or practical
works, and perhaps more, were for Thomas Lord Berkeley and his
family, including his daughter and heir Elizabeth, who married
Richard Beauchamp, whom we heard about earlier.

     Moreover, the extent of religious influence is no doubt
deeper than we might like to think when considering courtly
reading matter: Queen Anne of Bohemia evidently had the glossed
gospels in English, Thomas of Woodstock and Thomas of Lancaster
both apparently had deluxe copies of the Wycliffite Bible (Doyle
168-69), and other religious texts, including more verse by
Lydgate, were not hard to find in courtly hands.

     Because of the sheer mass of 15th-century verse--some 3,000
items, over half the items represented by the *Index* and its
*Supplement*--and because of the social changes occurring over
the course of the 15th century, establishing a more precise
definition and corpus of "courtly" verse should precede
discussions of that corpus and of it as an element of courtly
culture.  Robbins, long ago, briefly suggested a distinction
between "palace" and "court"; Pearsall more carefully
distinguished "court" from "courtly," and briefly considered the
spread of this taste to provincial courts and to the urban middle
class.  Both Robbins and Pearsall, looking at works, saw this
occurring from the beginning to the end of the 15th century; A.
I. Doyle, however, looking at manuscripts, sees it beginning
already at the turn of the century (Doyle 163-81).

     I suggest we think in terms of a typology first, from which
we then might with greater certainty identify the features of
court or courtly verse.  First, we should inspect the verse of
persons known to be insiders of the court.  Their ability to
reproduce what they desire is not the purpose here, since they
may be rotten poets; the point is that any features of "courtly
verse" that members of court circles liked are most probably what
they tried to reproduce when they wrote poetry.

     Second we should look at verse coming from outsiders but
clearly appreciated by the court.  Lydgate is an obvious place to
start: if his verse were not appreciated, then he would not have
been asked to write so much for the court.  Whether we like what
Lydgate wrote is irrelevant; the issue is what features of
Lydgate's verse appealed to the court.  At the same time,
comparison with Hoccleve should be instructive for the contrasts,
as would comparison with Lydgate's works not written for the
court.

     Third, we may consider verse of unknown sources evidently
appreciated by the court, as best these might be identified.
Evidence might be manuscript-based (e.g., Scott's article), but
could include dedicatory information, whether first- or second-
hand.  These three would let us compile more certain a list of
shared features.  Just as importantly, this method would not
allow us to exclude verse that it is not courtly love verse;
defining courtly verse while excluding works commissioned by the
court itself is an obvious disregard of evidence and can only
lead to false conclusions.

     Then, we should look at works whose audiences are known not
to be courtly: Lydgate's works are useful here, too; so also the
evidence of inscriptions, dedications, authorship, MS provenance,
and so on.  Again, the features of such must be identified, and
then these must be compared with the features of verse
appreciated by the court.  When we find what features are
peculiar to the court, only then would we have a far better idea
of what "courtly" truly means.  And then the "contextless" other
thousands may be sorted out (cf. Burrows).

     Very often beginning with a mode of thought is stifling; it
can be instructive, but very often it is destructive in fitting
ovoid pegs into oblong holes.  Rather, we should begin with a
known body of information, study that, and then move on to cases
of uncertainty.  Perhaps Shirley did take true courtly verse and
help disseminate it outside the court; if so, then the "Craft of
Lovers," though described by Skeat as "too bad even for Lydgate,"
must be considered not just "courtly verse" but also "courtly
love verse."  We may surprise ourselves, just as we did earlier
when it became clear that the bawdy fabliaux--long presumed to be
course, rude, and obviously geared for rustic bumpkins--were
appreciated in courtly circles, if not designed for them.
Robbins' comment that the *Canterbury Tales* were "non-court" may
be accurate, but it also may not.<<5>>

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                              Notes

     <<1>> In a few cases, Green himself changed his mind about
the dates of certain items when passing from the second edition
of his *Early English Carols* to his work on carols for volume
six of the revised *Manual*, which appeared only three years
later.

     <<2>> I am for the time being holding in abeyance Jansen's
rejection of authorship, until this is more generally accepted.

     <<3>> There are poems not included in the *IMEV*; most notably,
the Scots writers, somewhat expanded in the *Supplement*, are
nevertheless quite thin, so that--from among the known poets
cited in Dunbar's "Lament for the Makars"--Patrick Johnston, John
Reid of Stobo, and Quentin Schaw are apparently not represented,
nor is John Roull and his deliciously sinful 287-line curse on
those who stole his five geese (Craigie 161-9), though this is no
doubt too late to be included; only one of Lichtoun's two works
and of Clerk's five in the Bannatyne MS are entered, and only one
of Mersar's four known poems.  These and the many others suggested
for addition (in *IMEV* reviews and other articles, for instance),
I have disregarded, for such additions would demand a completely
different product that what had been planned.

     <<4>> Robbins "Middle English Court Love Lyric" 207.
However, since the very next page describes Chaucer's *Canterbury
Tales* as "non-court," I am not certain the distinction between
palace and court was taken very seriously even by Robbins
himself.
     Pearsall 212-13.  His taste leaning towards courtly love
literature, however, quickly leads him away from more fully
establishing the social differences.  This is most apparent in
his disparaging comment about Lydgate's extensive court
commissions that were not about love: "This is court-poetry of a
kind, indeed, but hardly courtly" (215).  With no careful
distinction between audience and genre, discussions of audience
taste are woefully distorted.

     <<5>> A version of this paper was originally presented at
the International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo MI,
USA, in May 1992.  My thanks for many suggestions are extended to
Gregory Sadlek (organizer of the session), Stephen Reimer, and
the many members of ChaucerNet, MedTextL, and ANSAXNET.  Its
obvious oral format has generally been retained.

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                           References

Boffey, Julia.  *Manuscripts of English Courtly Love Lyrics in
     the Later Middle Ages*.  Woodbridge: Brewer, 1985.

Brown, Carleton, and Rossell Hope Robbins.  *The Index of Middle
     English Verse*.  Index Society.  New York: Columbia UP,
     1943.

Burrows, J. A.  "Poems without Contexts: The Rawlinson Lyrics."
     *Essays in Criticism* 29 (1979): 6-32.  Rpt. in his *Essays
     on Medieval Literature*.  Oxford: Clarendon, 1984.  1-26.

Craigie, William A., ed.  *The Maitland Folio Manuscript:
     Containing Poems by Sir Richard Maitland, Dunbar, Douglas,
     Henryson, and Others*.  STS ns 7 & 20.  Edinburgh:
     Blackwood, 1919-27.

Doyle, A. I.  "English Books In and Out of Court." *English*
     *Court Culture in the Later Middle Ages*.  Ed. V. J.
     Scattergood and J. W. Sherborne.  London: Duckworth, 1987.
     163-81.

Green, Richard Leighton.  "Carols."  *Manual* 6: 1743-52, 1940-
     2018.

---, ed.  *The Early English Carols*.  Oxford: Clarendon, 1935.

---, ed.  *The Early English Carols*.  2nd ed.  Oxford:
     Clarendon, 1977.

Jansen, J. P. M.  *The "Suffolk" Poems: An Edition of the Love
     Lyrics in Fairfax 16 Attributed to William de la Pole*.
     Groningen: Universiteitsdrukkerij, 1989.

Ker, N. R.  *Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries III:
     Lampeter-Oxford*.  Oxford: Clarendon, 1983.

MacCracken, Henry Noble, ed.  *The Minor Poems of John Lydgate*.
     EETS es 107 and os 192.  London: Oxford UP, 1911-34.

*A Manual of the Writings in Middle English: 1050-1500*.  Gen.
     eds. J. Burke Severs and Albert E. Hartung.  8 vols. to
     date.  New Haven: Connecticut Acad. of Arts and Sciences,
     1967-1989.

Pearsall, Derek.  *Old English and Middle English Poetry*.
     London: Routledge, 1977.

Renoir, Alain, and C. David Benson.  "John Lydgate." *Manual* 6:
     1809-1920, 2071-2175.

Robbins, Rossell Hope.  "The Chaucerian Apocrypha." *Manual* 4:
     1061-1101, 1285-1306.

---     .  "The Middle English Court Love Lyric."  *The Interpretation
     of Medieval Lyric Poetry*.  Ed. W. T. H. Jackson.  New York:
     Columbia UP, 1980.  205-32.

---     , and John L. Cutler.  *Supplement to the* Index of Middle
     English Verse.  Lexington: U of Kentucky P, 1965.

Scott, Kathleen.  "*Caveat Lector*: Ownership and Standardization
     in the Illustration of Fifteenth-Century English
     Manuscripts."  *English Manuscript Studies 1100-1700*.  Ed.
     Peter Beal and Jeremy Griffiths.  Oxford: Blackwell, 1989.
     1: 19-63.

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                            Appendix

                   Names of 15th-Century Poets

Adam of Cobson
George Ashby
James Auchinleck
John Audelay
Anthony Babington
Gilbert Banester
Henry Baradoun
William Barbor
Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick
Benedict of Norwich
Henry Berry
John Bewpe
Osbern Bokenham
H. Bowesper
Bowlay
John Bowyer
Thomas Brampton
Margery Brent
Buntyng
Benedict Burgh
John Butler, James Rice, & William Lyncolle
Richard Caistor
Jenkyn Calf
John Capgrave
William Caxton
George Cely
Alain Chartier
John Cok
Wyllyam Colyngbourne
John Crophill
Charles D'Orleans
William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk
Duke of York
Gawin Douglas
William Dunbar
Elisabeth
Walter Fry
Glassinbury
Greneacres
Halsam
Danyel Ham
John Hardyng
Blind Hary
Gilbert Hay
Robert Henryson
John Herryson
W. Hichecoke
Thomas Hoccleve
Richard Holland
William Huchen
Peter Idley
James I
Jevan ap Rydderch ap Jevan Lloyd
Walter Kennedy
John Kyng
Patrick Larrons
Henry Lovelich
William Lychefelde
John Lydgate
John Marion
Henry Medwall
John Merdeley
Mersar
John Metham
John Mirk
Johannes Mydwyntyr
Humfrey Newton
Thomas Norton
Wulstane P[  ]one
John Page
Palden
Robert Parker
John Paston I
John Paston II
Margery Paston
Pearce the Black Monk
Reginald Pecock
Nicholas Philipp
Piers of Fulham
John Piggot
Pycard
John Pympe
J. Quixley
John Reid of Stobo
Richardoun
George Ripley
Richard Roos
T. Roos
Rotheley
John Russell
James Ryman
Henry Scogan
Stephen Scrope
Richard Sellyng
John Shirley
Richard Spaldyng
R. Stokkys
Symon
John Talbot
William Thorpe
Tucket
Laurence Wade
John Walsingham
John Walton
Welles
William Wey
Anthony Widvill, Earl Rivers
Nycholas Wikes
Friar William of Touris
John Wilson
Andrew Wintoun
William Womyndham
Wynken de Worde


                    The "Elisabeth" Acrostic

     Everlastinge welthe withe owte disconfeture
     Lady souereyne princes moste fortunate.
     In the cowrte of fame euermore to endure.
     Surmountinge in glory regestirde youre astate.
     After all lowly obeisauns Ordinate.
     By hande of trowthe withe seruyce unfeynd.
     Enterely I youre subiecte, whiche promisid of late.
     Theis boke of youre grace, I troste not disdenyd.
     Have me Recommendid withe humbille subieccioun.
     And of your higthe [sic] bownte, so pore a gifte to take.
     To yow presentid of inwarde affectioun.
     I lowly beseke yow for youre suppleante sake:
     My promise obsauyd I troste that I did make.
     Which shulde have bene moche more illuynid withe plesure.
     And if I had tyme: whos ioie I undirtake.
     Welth everlastinge withe owghte disconfetur.


                                                  Juris G. Lidaka
                                                    Campus Box 32
                                                      Department of English
                                      West Virginia State College
BITNET Lidaka@WVNWVSC                              P. O. Box 1000
INTERNET Lidaka@WVSVAX.WVNET.EDU                    Institute, WV
                                                       25112-1000
                                                              USA

======================== End forwarded text =======================

-- 
Michael A. Chance          St. Louis, Missouri, USA    "At play in the fields
Work: mc3078@sw1sta.sbc.com                             of St. Vidicon"
Play: bq434@cleveland.freenet.edu
      mchance@nyx.cs.du.edu
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