Kingship and Masculinity in Late Medieval England

Katherine Lewis

• Editorial: Routledge
• Año: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781134454600
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Histoire
• Categoría: Histoire du monde

Kingship and Masculinity in Late Medieval England explores the dynamic between kingship and masculinity in fifteenth century England, with a particular focus on Henry V and Henry VI. The role of gender in the rhetoric and practice of medieval kingship is still largely unexplored by medieval historians. Discourses of masculinity informed much of the contemporary comment on fifteenth century kings, for a variety of purposes: to praise and eulogise but also to explain shortcomings and provide justification for deposition.

Katherine J. Lewis examines discourses of masculinity in relation to contemporary understandings of the nature and acquisition of manhood in the period and considers the extent to which judgements of a king's performance were informed by his ability to embody the right balance of manly qualities. This book's primary concern is with how these two kings were presented, represented and perceived by those around them, but it also asks how far Henry V and Henry VI can be said to have understood the importance of personifying a particular brand of masculinity in their performance of kingship and of meeting the expectations of their subjects in this respect. It explores the extent to which their established reputations as inherently 'manly' and 'unmanly' kings were the product of their handling of political circumstances, but owed something to factors beyond their immediate control as well. Consideration is also given to Margaret of Anjou's manipulation of ideologies of kingship and manhood in response to her husband's incapacity, and the ramifications of this for perceptions of the relational gender identities which she and Henry VI embodied together.

Kingship and Masculinity in Late Medieval England is an essential resource for students of gender and medieval history.

1

KINGSHIP AND MASCULINITY IN LATE MEDIEVAL ENGLAND

Having explored the ideas and assumptions underpinning medieval masculinity and its meanings it is necessary to establish some equivalent working definitions of kingship, and to examine how it was understood and judged in late medieval England.¹ As Ormrod notes, kingship was an issue ‘on which almost everyone living in late medieval England may be assumed to have had some opinion’.² It was not an issue about which people would have been objective, because an individual’s performance of kingship was seen and felt to have direct ramifications for his subjects’ quality of life. Thus the personal character and competence of individual kings was vital both to the direction and well-being of his realm. Within a medieval context this almost goes without saying, but, as Watts points out, it needs to be explored in direct relation to contemporary concepts of kingship in order to understand more precisely what was expected of a king and how government was supposed to work.³ This enables a more subtle assessment of the relative success and failure of different kings in ways that avoid simply pigeonholing them as ‘good’ or ‘bad’, ‘strong’ or ‘weak’, by asking exactly how forceful a ‘good’ king needed to be, and in which areas of government, or considering precisely what qualities a king had to display in order to be identified as dangerously feeble.⁴ The substantive backdrop against which such questions can be posed and answered is what Watts terms ‘a clear and coherent conceptual framework for politics and a language in which to express it’ as this emerges from the copious surviving literature describing the terms and limits of ideal kingship.⁵

The didactic genre known as ‘mirrors for princes’ presents a particularly useful source for investigating this framework.⁶ These mirrors took the form of moral and practical guides outlining the properties and accomplishments of the ideal Christian ruler, revolving around the four cardinal virtues of justice, prudence, temperance and fortitude. They often claimed authority from a tradition of advice which Aristotle was believed to have given to Alexander the Great.⁷ One of the most influential was Giles of Rome’s De Regimine Principum (On the Government of Rulers) which was originally written for the future king Philip IV of France (who became king in 1285) and survives in 350 copies.⁸ Another, known as the Secreta Secretorum (Secret of Secrets), was particularly popular in England and survives in a number of different Middle English versions.⁹ These mirrors often drew on Vegetius’ fifth-century De Re Militari (On Military Matters) to provide guidance on specifically military issues, such the tactics required by different sorts of battles and sieges, and the training and management of soldiers.¹⁰ De Re Militari emphasized the centrality of successful warfare to successful government and was also popular reading matter in its own right, often found in manuscript compilations alongside mirrors, demonstrating the existence of a recognized canon of advice literature in this period.¹¹ All later medieval kings of England had texts of this type written specifically for them; perhaps the most famous of these being Thomas Hoccleve’s Regiment of Princes composed for the future Henry V (probably in 1411).¹² It was deemed vital that a king understood his role properly, for example the coronation rite stipulated that throughout the ceremony the abbot of Westminster or another specially appointed monk should remain by the king’s side ‘to instruct the king in matters touching the solemnity of the coronation so that everything may be done aright’.¹³ But it is difficult to know whether the mirrors dedicated to individual kings were ever actually read by them, or, if they were read, whether they were properly understood. Besides, the chief means by which high status young men more generally learned their roles (especially with respect to warfare) was via observation of their elders and the practice of appropriate skills, not from reading books.¹⁴ Even if such books remained on the shelf, however, it was still crucial for kings to be represented as receptive to their advice and engaging with an ongoing process of education, which involved reflecting on their role and its demanding responsibilities.¹⁵ Given that the majority of English kings in fifteenth-century England were not actually born to be king, there may have been a heightened significance to their status as recipients of instruction and advice in this period.

In addition to royalty, these texts were also written for and owned by a wider audience of nobles and gentry. The discourse of ideal kingship informed other types of literature owned by royals, nobles and gentry too, especially romances and chronicles.¹⁶ For example the 1397 inventory of the goods belonging to Thomas of Woodstock, youngest son of Edward III, lists 84 books.¹⁷ As well as a copy of Giles of Rome these included a copy of the Roman de la Rose (Romance of the Rose) and works recounting the exploits of Hector, Alexander, Godfrey de Bouillon, Tancred, Arthur, Lancelot, Merlin and Bevis of Hampton.¹⁸ The inventory also lists several tapestries which depicted romance subjects, including the histories of Charlemagne, Godfrey de Bouillon and one which showed Gawain fighting Lancelot.¹⁹ Although Henry V did not have a great deal of time for reading we know that he owned a splendid copy of Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde and this may have inspired him to commission John Lydgate to write the Troy Book.²⁰ He also borrowed a book containing an account of the First Crusade from his aunt, Joan Beaufort, which was probably a version of William of Tyre’s chronicle.²¹ Like his great-uncle Thomas he owned tapestries of romance themes including Sir Perceval, Octavian, and Bevis of Hampton.²² Henry’s brothers John, duke of Bedford and Humfrey of Gloucester both owned a great number of books, although in Bedford’s case most of these came as a job lot in 1424 when he acquired over 800 books which had been part of the French royal library.²³ Gloucester showed a marked interest in contemporary humanist literature but also patronized more conventional writings and encouraged composition in Middle English, being the dedicatee of Lydgate’s Fall of Princes. At some point Bedford gave Gloucester a book including French accounts of the quest for the Grail and the death of Arthur.²⁴

The same ideas about kingship described in these texts were dramatized publicly in the form of royal pageants and other public ceremonials surrounding the monarchy.²⁵ The pageantry surrounding Henry VI’s coronations as king of England and of France offered him a whole host of Biblical, Classical and more recent models of kingship.²⁶ The Nine Worthies often made an appearance at such events; these were nine rulers presented in a group as the embodiment of virtuous warrior leadership and many of them were also the subject of historical or romance narratives.²⁷ Three are pagan (Hector, Alexander and Julius Caesar), three Jewish (Joshua, David and Judas Maccabeus) and three Christian (Arthur, Charlemagne and Godfrey de Bouillon). In addition to the portrait of Edward III with which I opened, the Brut provides a litany of good kings and their qualities, such as Arthur, Alfred, Edgar and Edward I and juxtaposes them with bad kings such as Eadwig, Harold Harefoot, William Rufus and John.²⁸ Representations of good and bad kingship are also to be found in pastoral, homiletic and hagiographic texts to which the majority of the population would have been exposed in some form. Heaven was regularly presented as a court, presided over by Christ the king, as described, for example, by John Mirk in his Festial, which was the most popular late-medieval English sermon cycle.²⁹ The Festial constitutes a précis in Middle English of Jacobus de Voragine’s hugely popular late thirteenth-century hagiographic collection the Legenda Aurea (Golden Legend).³⁰ Mirk, an Augustinian canon, originally wrote it in the 1380s and its utility is indicated by the survival of over forty manuscripts, as well as William Caxton’s printed edition of 1483 and twenty-two further editions produced before 1532.³¹ Mirk’s sermon for Rogation Day includes a metaphor explaining the significance of ringing bells which depicts Christ as a warrior king:

For ryȜt as a kyng, when he goþe to batayle, trompes gon before, þe baner ys desplayde and comyþ aftyr, þen comyþ þe kyng and his ost aftyr sweyng hym; ryght so in Cristys batayle þe belles, þat ben Godys trompes, ryngen, baners byn vnfolden, and openly born on high yn þe ayre. Then þe cros yn Cristys lykenes comyth as a kyng of christen men, and his ost, þat ys Cristys pepull, sweyþe hym. þus he dryuyþ out of hys lordschip and reueþ hym hys power. And, as a tyrand wold drede, and he herd þe trompes of a kyng þat wer his enmy, and seȜ hys baner dysplayde in þe feld; ryȜt soo þe fend, the curset tyrand of hell, dredyþe hym wondyr sore, when he heryþ þe Kyngys trompes of Heuen ryng, and the cros and baners broȜt about.³²

Significant here too is the fact that England had a particularly well-developed tradition of kingly sanctity.³³ The best known English king saints are Edward the Confessor (canonized in 1161) and Edmund of East Anglia (martyred by the Danes in 869 or 870).³⁴ But there is also evidence of devotion to several others, chief among them Edward the Martyr, Oswald of Northumbria, Æthelberht of East Anglia, and Alkmund, as well as to the Scandinavians Olaf and Magnus.³⁵ St Alkmund was the son of Alchred, king of Northumbria and was killed by a rival, Eardwulf, in around 800. Although he does not seem to have actually ruled as king he was subsequently commemorated as a king saint. He was the patron saint of the church in Shrewsbury which was attached to Mirk’s priory at Lilleshall.³⁶ Thus a unique Middle English life of Alkmund is included in the Festial, which describes him as a model king:

And for he was yn hys Ȝouthe of good maners, and curteyse, and hende, and full of all uertues, þat all men louyd hym, wherfor he was made kyng, not only for þe kyndom felle to hym by erytage, but also he was full of grace and alle good þewes: herefor all þe pepull made hym kyng. And þogh he wer þus avawnsyt passing aboue all oþer, he was neuer þe prowdyr of his state, but þe her þat he was avawnset, the lower he was yn hert, and þe more meke yn all his doing, thynkyng algates, þe more a man hath, þe more he hath to Ȝeue cowntys of, and þe more greuesly he schall be apechyt befor God. Wherefor to hom þat wern meke, he was logh and sympull, and to hom þat were rebel, he was styf forto Ȝeynstond hom yn all hor males. He had algatys gret compassion to all þat wern yn any dyses; and to þe seke and to þe pore he was boþe fadyr and modyr, to helpe hom and socoure hom to all þat þay haddyn nede to. H...