The Medieval Fictions of Thomas Warton and Thomas Percy

Abstract

The enthusiasm for the culture of the Middle Ages during the latter half of the eighteenth century finds various forms of expression. Yet the visitors who flocked to Walpole's Strawberry Hill instead of Glastonbury Abbey, the readers who purchased Thomas Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry instead of Joseph Ritson's scholarly editions, and the antiquarians who preferred Matthew Prior's prettified and sentimental version of 'The Nut-Brown Maid' to the original remind us that the pseudo-medieval was often more attrative than the genuine article. For the past was invested with a significance that might prove offensive to contemporary beliefs, tastes, and values: A medieval building carried an objectionable taint of Catholicism, and medieval poems wre considered to be ill-formed compositions of 'wild fancy' and 'rude meter.' These are but two of the qualities that offened an age which, as William Shenstone had repeatedly adivised Thomas Percy had little taste for 'unadulterated antiquity.' One writer expressed this predilection whe he declared that a'happy imitation is of much more value than a defective original.'