Duke Of Lancaster Research Articles

The Medieval Tournament as Spectacle: Tourneys, Jousts and Pas d’Armes, 1100–1600 ed. by Alan V. Murray and Karen Watts

Reviewed by: The Medieval Tournament as Spectacle: Tourneys, Jousts and Pas d’Armes, 1100–1600 ed. by Alan V. Murray and Karen Watts Jo Conde de Lindquist alan v. murray and karen watts, eds., The Medieval Tournament as Spectacle: Tourneys, Jousts and Pas d’Armes, 1100–1600. Woodbridge, U.K.: The Boydell Press, 2020. Pp. 265. isbn: 978–1–78327–542–7. $99. Alan Murray and Karen Watts present an edition of scholarly articles about tournaments in the Middle Ages. The content focuses on tournaments, weapons, armors, and physical layouts of the fields. In the introduction, bibliography, and analysis on the tactics and ethos of German tournaments, Murray, using literary works, concentrates on German tournaments in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Early on, two teams of knights fought in fields to avoid killing or injuring each other without armor and with blunt lances. The objective was to train knights for warfare while earning money, prizes, and fame. Tournaments later included themes such as ‘Arthurian-themed Round Tables and the pas d’armes, which showcased the prowess of individuals through jousting and offered a greater level of entertainment for spectators’ (pp. 42–43). Tournaments offered jousts, melees, and hand-to-hand combat where participants, promoters, and spectators profited from the spectacle. James Titterton proves that a knight’s goal was to distinguish himself above others, gain honorable recognition, have the right to bear arms, and obtain a hereditary coat of arms. Besides martial skills, a knight also needed manners, refinement, modesty, courtesy, and largesse. The knight, as member of a social group, a region, a kingdom, or a national team, could compete for a particular lady. Titterton shows that noblemen like William Marshal, Ulrich von Liechtenstein, Boucicaut, or King Francis I valued their honor above material gain. James Beswick reports that the much-despised Richard II used the patronage of the Smithfield tournament (1390) as a political weapon just like Edward I and Edward III used the tournaments to expand their political hold and solidified their power with the creation of the Order of the Garter (1349). Beswick believes that Richard II used the Smithfield tournament to show ‘domestic and international audiences a [End Page 110] spectacle that demonstrated the power and wealth of England’ (p. 67). Richard’s goal was to show unity in the aftermath of the Peasant Revolt of 1381 and the Wonderful Parliament incident of 1386. Scholarly consensus is that Richard was eager for peace, but Beswick believes that Richard showcased his magnificence and used the white hart device as symbol of loyalty to the king. Ralph Moffat relies on wills, inventories, household payments, and literary texts to present the evolutionary overview of the knight’s armor, weapons, and saddle. He relies on the documents of five prominent members of the court, the Duke of Lancaster, Henry, the chronicler Jean le Bel, the Earl of Salisbury, William Montague, the Dominican friar, John Bromyard, and the bishop of Burgos, Alonso. Moffat also hopes that the appearance of more documents will expand this field of study. To avoid fatal injuries, the lance was modified with the coronel, the grapper, and the vamplate to protect the knight against the opponent’s strikes. The armorers soon added the manifer and polder-mitton to safeguard the arm. The helm was modified according to the type of venue.Marina Viallon addresses the differences between the war saddle, the first tournament saddles, the high saddle, and the low saddles. In early tournaments knights used war saddles. When using a lance, the quick maneuverability of the war saddle endangered the rider and the horse. The war saddle was redesigned with a winged cantle to secure the knight’s hips, provide balance, keep the knight on the horse, and protect vital organs. In Germany, the high saddle appeared in 1360. The knight rode in a standing style, which means that the rider was standing on the stirrups, showing off his physique. This was a cumbersome situation because the knight could not mount the horse without help, and squires had to finish arming the knight while seated on the horse. It became obsolete by 1500. German low saddles, on the other hand, appeared in the mid-fifteenth...

The Livery Collar in Late Medieval England and Wales: Politics, Identity and Affinity, by Matthew Ward

The livery collar, one of the most distinctive features of late medieval English material culture, has long been considered an important political symbol. It was both a sign of status, a gift from a ruling monarch or important magnate that denoted a degree of favour bestowed upon the wearer, and an indicator of political allegiance, particularly so during the dynastic conflicts of the fifteenth century. Matthew Ward’s carefully researched and well-written monograph studies the importance of two of the most familiar late medieval livery collars: the Lancastrian collar of ‘SS’ and the Yorkist collar of the sun and roses. The former, first distributed by John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, became, after Henry IV’s usurpation in 1399, the royal livery collar. It was then supplanted by the latter in 1461 when Gaunt’s great-grandson, Henry VI, was deposed by the Yorkist Edward IV. In 1485 the usurper Henry of Richmond began again to distribute the old Lancastrian collar of ‘SS’, perhaps to demonstrate his legitimacy by emphasising his links to the House of Lancaster.

A Critical Edition of Little John's Answer to Robin Hood and the Duke of Lancaster (1727)

This article is a critical edition of Little John's Answer to Robin Hood and the Duke of Lancaster, a newly discovered ballad dating to 1727. The discovery of the ballad in 2015 has mandated the curation of a critical edition with scholarly apparatus and bibliography.

Reformation of the Duchy of Lancaster in Shakespeare’s Henriad

This essay surveys the Duchy of Lancaster in Shakespeare’s Henriad. The Duchy territories, as a “constitutional anomaly” and the English kings’ private possession inherited through their “body natural,” enjoyed politico-juridical immunity. In Shakespeare’s history translation, like the English monarchs’ split selves—at once the English Crown and the Duke of Lancaster—Shakespeare breaks the political import of the Duchy territories into two. In the process, the grim aspects of the Lancastrians such as usurpation, treachery, and lawlessness are assigned to others in the provincial margins, whereas the proud national history of the Lancastrians is translated into the timeless figura of all subsequent English monarchs including the Tudors.

El control de los petristas: integración y segregación en los inicios del reinado de Enrique de Trastámara

La demanda sostenida por Juan de Gante, duque de Lancáster, del trono de Castilla en nombre de su esposa Constanza, hija del rey don Pedro, fue llevada adelante gracias al constante apoyo y empuje de los «petristas», un grupo de partidarios de Pedro I que, tras la muerte del monarca, se negaron a aceptar a Enrique de Trastámara como rey. En este artículo se aborda una aproximación a los orígenes de este movimiento entendiendo que su existencia representó un paso en el proceso de construcción de la llamada «monarquía Trastámara».

The Chronicle of Geoffrey le Baker of Swinbrook

Geoffrey le Baker's chronicle covers the reigns of Edward II and Edward III up to the English victory at Poitiers. It starts in a low key, copying an earlier chronicle, but by the end of Edward II's reign he offers a much more vivid account. His description of Edward II's last days is partly based on the eyewitness account of his patron, Sir Thomas de la More, who was present at one critical interview. Baker's story of Edward's death, like many other details from his chronicle, was picked up by Tudor historians, particularly by Holinshed, who was the source for Shakespeare's history plays. The reign of Edward III is dominated, not by Edward III himself, but by Baker's real hero, Edward prince of Wales. His bravery aged 16 at Crecy is presented as a prelude to his victory at Poitiers, a battle which Baker is able to describe in great detail, apparently from what he was told by the prince's commanders. It is a rarity among medieval battles, because - in sharp contrast to the total anarchy at Crecy - the prince and his staff were able to see the enemy's manoeuvres. Throughout the chronicle there are sharply defined vignettes which stay in the mind - the killing of the Scottish champion on Halidon Hill, the drowning of Sir Edward Bohun, the earls of Salisbury and Suffolk as prisoners carried in a cart, the death of Sir Walter Selby and his two sons, the bravery of Sir Thomas Dagworth against a cobbler's son, the duel between Otho and the duke of Lancaster, John Dancaster and the lewd washerwoman. Baker writes in a complex Latin which even scholars find problematic, and David Preest's new translation will be widely welcomed by anyone interested in the fourteenth century. There are extensive notes and an introduction by Richard Barber.

Tracing the ‘chemyn de Portyngale’: English service and servicemen in fourteenth-century Portugal

Three Anglo-Portuguese campaigns took English servicemen into Portugal in the 1380s. Two were largely guided by Plantagenet interests, in 1381–2 and 1386–7, respectively under the earl of Cambridge and the duke of Lancaster. The other, which began in 1384 under the regent João of Avis (later João I), involved entirely volunteer English forces. While the Lancastrian-led expeditions were largely political and military failures, servicemen recruited by the Portuguese in England achieved greater success, including victory at the Battle of Aljubarrota. This article compares these expeditions for the first time. It looks at their political, diplomatic, military, social and economic contexts, exploring motivations for English service in Portugal in particular, from that of the common soldier to that of the governments. By looking at the itineraries in Portugal of English soldiers, their presence is mapped and their continuance debated. The Anglo-Portuguese examples demonstrate how foreign military intervention and mercenary activity might be a driving force in social and economic relations between regions of Europe during the Hundred Years War.

<i>The Royal Pardon. Access to Mercy in Fourteenth-Century England</i> (review)

Reviewed by: The Royal Pardon. Access to Mercy in Fourteenth-Century England Matthew Giancarlo The Royal Pardon. Access to Mercy in Fourteenth-Century England. By Helen Lacey. York: York Medieval Press, University of York; Rochester, NY: Boydell & Brewer, 2009. Pp. viii + 260. $95. Helen Lacey's exemplary new monograph investigates the king's pardon in England from the beginning of the fourteenth century to the reigns of Edward III and Richard II. During this period the royal pardon was not only important for the operation of justice and the courts—as Lacey notes, at least forty thousand pardons were issued from the accession of Edward I to the deposition of Richard II (p. 1)—it also evolved several new forms as the legal system changed and political [End Page 128] struggles flared. The Royal Pardon is the first comprehensive study in several decades of this vital part of the medieval English legal and political system. It represents yet another good product of the foundational work recently done on the documentary records in The National Archives. Drawing from the newly searched and indexed classes of petitions, pardons, parliamentary records, and various letter rolls (especially the patent rolls class C 66, the chancery pardon rolls class C 67, and the "Ancient Petitions" class SC 8), Lacey assembles a detailed yet clear assessment of how the royal pardon functioned as both a legal tool and a political symbol. The study convincingly reshapes our understanding of such central events as the Good Parliament of 1377 and the Uprising of 1381, and it also gestures toward a better understanding of how the royal pardon came to figure prominently in the popular literature of the period. The book is divided into three sections with eleven chapters and four appendices. After an Introduction to the historical and historiographical background of late-medieval pardons, Chapters 2-5 analyze the operation of "Individual Pardons"—pardons granted by the crown to individuals—by approaching each constituent element of the pardoning process: "Procedures," "Supplicant," "Intercessor," and "Monarch." The processes for obtaining, justifying, and "proving" a pardon are described first, with the early notice that in the operation of pardoning, "the king was supposedly guided by principles of equity that followed natural law . . . however such concepts did not merge easily with the common law of the English legal system" (p. 23). Supplicants did not necessarily petition directly for pardon themselves. More often trial judges recommended mercy on behalf of defendants. Nonetheless some five hundred direct petitions for pardon survive, and Lacey provides an illuminating assessment of the class, gender, circumstances, and language that variously characterize these documents. Here also Lacey looks at popular representations of "pardon scenes" in ballads and records, some with idealized portraits of royal clemency suggesting "the extent to which the law of the realm was regarded as personal to the king" (pp. 42-43). Even more interesting are the evaluations of the roles of intercessors and of the monarch. In Chapter 4 and in Appendix 4, Lacey quantifies the number and social positions of intercessors for pardons, those persons who actually bore the request for mercy to the sovereign and whose mediatory role became an intermittent focus of anxiety and legal control. Lacey demonstrates that the queens of Edward III and Richard II were prominent intercessors (as we might expect), but also that "in terms of sheer numbers of pardons secured . . . Edward III's military commanders stand out from other patrons" (p. 47). The numbers provided in Appendix 4 give a fascinating view of this. Men such as Henry Grosmont, the duke of Lancaster; Edward of Woodstock, the prince of Wales; and William de Bohun, the earl of Northampton, were responsible for dozens and sometimes hundreds of intercessions, especially at times of military muster when pardons could be used as a recruiting tool. Such intercession also led to abuse and inquiry. This is reflected both in attempts to regulate it and in contemporary comments about corruption (as in the Corpus Christi plays and Piers Plowman). The focal element of the pardon, the king himself, also provides a category for exploring the fundamental conflict inherent in a sociolegal system which looked to the sovereign as the personal embodiment of...

Holy Medicine and Diseases of the Soul: Henry of Lancaster and Le Livre de Seyntz Medicines

Henry of Grosmont (c.1310–61) was one of the most outstanding English aristocrats of the mid-fourteenth century. A second cousin of Edward III, and duke of Lancaster from 1351, he served the king as military commander, diplomat, and political adviser. As a member of the social elite, Henry would have enjoyed a high standard of education. In fact, during his lifetime he composed two treatises: the first, a work on the laws of war; the second, a devotional book entitled Le livre de seyntz medicines (The book of holy medicines).1

The Worthiness of Chaucer’s Worthy Knight

The Worthiness of Chaucer’s Worthy Knight Gerald Morgan Hony soyt qui mal pence.1 Were anyone, therefore, to say that those who are engaged in a career of arms would not be able to save their souls, they would not know what they were saying, for in all good, necessary, and traditional professions anyone can lose or save his soul as he wills. —Geoffroi De Charny, Le Livre De Chevalerie2 [End Page 115] Per pale argent and gules, a bend counterchanged. —Chaucer Arms3 King Edward : Upbraidst thou him, because within his faceTime hath engraved deep characters of age?Know that these grave scholars of experience,Like stiff-grown oaks, will stand immovableWhen whirlwind quickly turns up younger trees. —Shakespeare, Sing Edward iii, III.iii.126–304 The Great Age of English Chivalry (1330–1370) There are classic patterns, both good and bad, of the careers of knights in all ages, and not least in the fourteenth century, the great age of English chivalry. Although this is a period remote from the perceptions of scholars in the twenty-first century, it was not remote to those who lived through it, and hence we must accord a special respect in these matters to Geoffrey Chaucer, who wrote directly from the experience of life in the royal households of Lionel of Antwerp, John of Gaunt (and possibly also their yet more celebrated brother, Edward of Woodstock, the Black Prince), and also their father, the king himself, Edward III (1327–77). A royal household [End Page 116] was organized above all for war, and all its male members, from the king and princes, dukes and earls, downwards through barons and bannerets and knights-bachelor, to esquires and valets or grooms, were expected to accompany their lord to war.5 Hence Chaucer, a page (presumably) in the household of Elizabeth de Burgh, Countess of Ulster, in 1357, and then valettus on the merging of her household with that of her husband, Lionel of Antwerp, in 1359,6 found himself on Edward’s campaign in France of 1359–60 that ended the first phase of the Hundred Years War with the Treaty of Brétigny on May 8, 1360. The king was present with his three eldest sons, Edward (Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, and Earl of Chester), Lionel (Earl of Ulster), and John of Gaunt (Earl of Richmond), and also the famous Henry of Grosmont (Duke of Lancaster and Earl of Derby).7 Thus Chaucer would have seen in the field (as distinct from the royal household)8 all the great knights of [End Page 117] that early and (from an English point of view) triumphant phase of the war with France (men such as Sir James Audley, Sir John Chandos,9 Sir Reginald Cobham,10 and Sir Walter Mauny/Manny11). Chaucer was not present as a [End Page 118] reporter or observer but as a participant, and indeed was captured some time after the action at Réthel near Rheims, to which he refers in his deposition at Westminster on October 15, 1386, in favor of Sir Richard (le) Scrope’s right to bear the arms Azure, a bend or.12 As a valettus in the household of the Earl of Ulster, Chaucer was significant enough to be ransomed and for the king to be involved in the paying of a contribution of £16 towards his ransom.13 He lacked at this time the stature of Richard Stury, for whom as an esquire of his own household the king contributed a sum of £50 for his ransom on January 12, 1360,14 but he was not the lowest in degree of those ransomed on this occasion. Thus the sum of £16 was paid for Geoffrey Chaucer on March 1, 1360, whereas no more than £10 was paid for George, a valettus in the household [End Page 119] of the Countess of Ulster.15 It seems that by the beginning of 1360 Chaucer had already come to the attention of Edward III himself, hardly surprising, perhaps, in the light of his outstanding abilities. Chaucer’s Career As Squire and Diplomat Chaucer lived out his life at the...

The Electoral Patronage of the Duchy of Lancaster, 1604-28

The Electoral Patronage of the Duchy of Lancaster, 1604-28⋆ R. C. L. Sgroi History of Parliament In 1614 the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, Sir Thomas Parry, was expelled from parliament after it was learned that he had used his authority unlawfully to determine the outcome of the Stockbridge election. In Parry's defence, the attorney general Sir Francis Bacon asserted, with some deliberate exaggeration, that it was 'the prescription of the chancellor to have the nomination of one of the burgesses in every of the duchy towns'.1 By suggesting that attempts by the crown's servants to pack the house of commons were a long-established and normal practice, Bacon intended to quash suspicions of a sinister 'undertaking' to manage this particular parliament in the interests of the king. Unfortunately, his comment has produced a tendency among observers both then and now to over-estimate the extent of duchy patronage in early Stuart elections. Following the lead of Colonel Wedgwood, historians such R. E. Ruigh in his study of the 1624 parliament, and J.K. Gruenfelder, whose Influence in Early Stuart Elections 1604-40 (1981) remains the only major study of the duchy's role in elections at this time, have erred on the side of assuming that the duchy always or usually made nominations in boroughs it owned. Gruenfelder tallied a total of 80 returns to parliament which he believed could be attributed to the duchy, of which 51 were in Lancashire boroughs. In reality fewer than half this number can be identified as duchy nominees with any certainty.2 The aims of this paper are therefore to examine the true extent of the electoral patronage of senior duchy officers between 1604 and 1628, as far as the evidence permits, and to re-evaluate the significance of the duchy of Lancaster as an electoral agent under the early Stuarts. The estates of the duchy passed to the crown upon the death of the last duke of Lancaster, John of Gaunt, in 1399. Comprising extensive possessions not just in the north-west of England but throughout the realm, the duchy was retained as a separate administrative department, with its own officers and courts. This meant that by 1604 there were a total of 19 boroughs in which the duchy had at one time [End Page 310] exercised some control over parliamentary seats. As well as the Lancashire towns of Lancaster, Preston, Liverpool, Wigan, Clitheroe and Newton, and the Yorkshire boroughs of Aldborough, Boroughbridge, Knaresborough and Ripon, these included Newcastle-under-Lyme (Staffordshire), Higham Ferrers (Northamptonshire), Thetford (Norfolk), Sudbury (Suffolk), Stockbridge (Hampshire), East Grinstead (Sussex), Monmouth boroughs, Huntingdon, and Leicester.3 In a few cases the duchy itself was directly responsible for obtaining parliamentary representation for a borough on its estates, as it secured the franchise at both Newton and Sudbury in 1559, and at Stockbridge in 1563.4 On paper, the duchy would seem to have had extensive opportunities for parliamentary patronage at its disposal. However, this impression is misleading, because in practice duchy land-ownership did not guarantee influence over elections. The parliamentary constituencies of East Retford (Nottinghamshire) and Boston (Lincolnshire) also lay within the duchy's estates, but had never exhibited any sign of duchy electoral patronage. On the contrary, there was no real sense of a 'right of nomination' beyond the willingness of most boroughs to retain the goodwill of their patrons. Influence in reality depended to a great extent on the personal connexions and exertions of individual chancellors, and upon their interactions with other local patrons. The inaccuracy of Bacon's representation of duchy influence is immediately apparent when earlier periods are considered. J.E. Neale once described the distribution of duchy electoral patronage under Elizabeth I as 'haphazard and chaotic'.5 Duchy influence seems to have stagnated after the chancellorship was kept vacant for six years following the death of Sir Thomas Heneage in 1595.6 The post was still in commission at the general elections of 1601, by which time the main duchy administration was in the hands of Elizabeth's cousin Sir John Fortescue.7 The History of Parliament's House of Commons 1558-1603 survey indicates that the...

The last knight: the twilight of the Middle Ages and the birth of the modern era

A portrait of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster and celebrated knight, is set in a context of the late-fourteenth-century pre-Renaissance era and identifies him as Europe's richest man, a patron of Chaucer, a last leader of the Plantagenet family, and a founder of the Lancastrian Dynasty. 50,000 firs

An Aesthetic of Permeability: Three Transcapes of the Book of the Duchess

On September 12, 1368, Blanche of Lancaster, daughter of Henry, duke of Lancaster, died of plague1 at Bolingbroke Castle in Lincolnshire, England.2 Only nine years earlier she had married John of Gaunt, fourth son of King Edward III. Previously earl of Richmond, Gaunt earned through wedlock title of earl of Lancaster and, on Henry's death, that of duke. When Blanche's sister died without issue in 1362, Gaunt became the richest man in England and, with his brothers away and his father soon to retire, was the dominant figure at court.3 Serving at that court was Geoffrey Chaucer, who had worked for Gaunt's sibling Lionel and had been transferred by 1367 to act as a valet tus in king's household.4 Records show that Chaucer received annu ities as an esquire of royal familia and remuneration for tasks rendered during Gaunt's military expeditions to France.5 For this reason, com mentators have justifiably suggested that Chaucer, Gaunt, and Blanche are likely to have met and must have known each other for some ten years.6 Nonetheless, at least one critic has remarked that:

Chaucer and War by John H. Pratt (review)

MLR, 98.1, 2003 161 topic he introduces, that authority is undermined by his repeated inconsistencies and blunders, so much so that our coming to understand issues and possibilities must depend to some extent upon rereading the poem and reframing the questions. In? deed, as Bullon-Fernandez has ably shown, Gower's ultimate point may be that the individual, as reader or human being, is not a fixed self, but is constructed through iterative reflection; thus at the end of the work, Amans-'John Gower', despite having rejected his priest fornot taking his plight seriously, promises to reconsider the points of his confession. For setting us analogously on a course of re-examining the poem, as well as its challenges to patriarchal authority, we can thank Bullon-Fernandez. University of Idaho Kurt Olsson Chaucer and War. By John H. Pratt. Lanham, MD, New York, and Oxford: University Press of America. 2000. xvi+ 259 pp. $42.50. ISBN 0-76181588 -0. Through ten clearly paced, sensibly written chapters?in themselves a methodical campaign?John Pratt leads us to a Chaucer who is neither pacifistic nor bellicose. Instead Pratt depicts a poet who in part has absorbed the militarism of his age; who accepts legally defined just war; who knows that war will not soon disappear from an unstable world and who knows that men like his Knight might be relied upon in times of danger; and who no doubt admired the veteran knights of his day, many of them firmlyplanted in his memory of the time when they were alive and great soldiers, men, such as John of Gaunt's famous father-in-law,Henry Grosmont, the Duke of Lancaster, the Black Prince, and Sir John Chandos. But he must also have admired some of the knights around whom he patterned the portrait of his Knight, the Scropes no doubt, Sir Lewis Clifford,and more than likelyHenry Bolingbroke, who took afterhis grandfather,Henry Grosmont. (pp. 211-12) Although Pratt discusses words, lines, and passages from several poems?principally Troilus and Criseyde and the Knight's portrait and tale?his strengths are not, in this study at least, those of a supple reader focused on the subtleties of complex passages; indeed, his commentary is sometimes offhanded and deflating. Rather, Pratt would illuminate Chaucer's knowledgeof the instruments and armaments ofmedieval warfare, along with Chaucer's realistic touches; moreover, he would clear Chaucer's Canterbury pilgrim Knight from any hint of the mercenary. Pratt succeeds nicely in the firsttask and credibly if not altogether persuasively in the second. We have misunderstood some of Chaucer's military terms and we have not precisely noted how discriminating Chaucer is when writing about warfare as distinct, say, from tournament competitions. Pratt suggests that 'armee' in the Knight's portrait might be an 'armada', that 'mortal batailles' might include a reference to the main battle group of medieval armies; and that the formal duels or 'lystes' might have been single combats against enemies ofthe Faith. He shows, perhaps most famously and following Derek Pearsall, that Chaucer can be precisely realistic just where many readers find his writing grotesquely exaggerated, as when he has Arcite and Palamon fightlike crazed lions, like wild boars: 'up to the ancle foghte they in hir blood'. Pratt, definitively, corrects our misimpression that the two fought ankle-deep in blood; Chaucer here describes only the mundane effectof surface wounds, with blood running down 'their thighs into their chausses and grevieres" (p. 182). His second endeavour ends mixed. Pratt, anxious to redeem the Knight of any taint, of anything other than excusable imperfection driven by exigency, goes out of 162 Reviews his way to spiritualize the Knight's love of 'chivalrie, | Trouthe and honour, fredom and curteisie' (GP, 45-46). That in turn leads to the otherwise inexplicable suggestion that 'in his lordes were' means God's wars. This deviation aside, Pratt's commentary on the Knight's campaigns, informed by an impressive array of medieval accounts and commentaries, is invaluable. Pratt also deftly questions what we know for sure about English views of the campaigns at Alexandria and other sites Chaucer lists; showing that on the whole those attitudes are positive, he moves...

Landholding, Leasing, and Inheritance in Richard II

A recent description of the rules of succession to the throne in modern Britain states that "under the common law, the Crown descends on the same basis as the inheritance of land." 1 It is evident that Richard II takes for granted an analogy between succession to the kingship and succession to at least the lands and titles of nobility. As Shakespeare presents the situation, the duke of York warns Richard that if he seizes John of Gaunt's lands and title, he will "take from Time / His charters and his customary rights" 2 and will "Be not thyself; for how art thou a king / But by fair sequence and succession?" (II.i.198-9); and likewise Bolingbroke argues, returning to claim that inheritance, "If that my cousin king be King in England, / It must be granted I am Duke of Lancaster" (II.iii.123-4). The point now is to strengthen the material content of the play's discourse about property and kingship by paying attention to the practices of humbler land transactions as well. The noblemen's critique of Richard's conduct is expressed not only through this argument about succession or inheritance but also through an analogy with forms of property ownership and use that applied among commoners. Some of these had great urgency, for landowners and tenants both, in the economy of Shakespeare's own time.

“A Wrong Whom Conscience and Kindred Bid Me to Right:” A Reassessment of Edmund of Langley, Duke of York, and the Usurpation of Henry IV

Edmund of Langley, Earl of Cambridge, Duke of York. Just the mention of the name for most historians conjures the image of an historical figure with all the moral fortitude and intelligence of Rowan Atkinson's Black Adder. The fourth surviving son of Edward III, born too late to join in the glorious campaigns of his father, young Edmund became a pawn in the futile games of Plantagenet martial diplomacy. After his father's death, all of Edmund's incursions into the political arena resulted in total failure. Abroad, Earl Edmund's “monumental stupidity” in Portugal tore asunder John of Gaunt's grand strategy to acquire the throne of Castile. At home, Edmund of Langley's “lazy and indifferent” support of Richard II during the appeal of treason against the Duke of Ireland and a number of the young king's other favorites ensured the success of Thomas of Woodstock and the appellants. Though Edmund served as custodian of the realm during Richard's Irish campaign of 1394 and presided over Parliament the following year, such high office overmatched the Duke of York's abilities. Duke Edmund's “fatuous” vacillation in the face of Henry of Lancaster throughout the summer of 1399 cost Richard his throne. As the noted historian and natural philosopher David Hume observed, “The Duke of York was left as guardian of the realm; a place to which his birth entitled him, but which both his slender abilities, and his natural connections with the Duke of Lancaster, rendered him utterly incapable of filling in such a dangerous emergency.” Edmund of Langley's choice to “remain as neuter” in response to Henry of Bolingbroke, along with his treacherous submission to Duke Henry, allowed him and his family to survive the usurpation unscathed. But the new king could find no use for a man who possessed such titanic infidelity, and Henry quickly cast the loathsome York from council and government. Though York lived on until 1402 he remained on the periphery of the Lancastrian establishment. Even Duke Edmund's death attracted little notice, being, as-it-were, only a footnote to his colorless, uninspiring existence.

The First Parte of the Life and Raigne of King Henry the Fourth

The noble and victorious prince, king Edward the third, had his fortunate gift of a long & prosperous raigne over this realme of England much strengthned and adorned by natures supply of seven goodlye sonnes: Edward his eldest sonne, prince of Wales, commonly called the Blacke Prince; William of Hatfield; Lyonel, Duke of Clarence; John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster; Edmund of Langley, Duke of Yorke; Thomas of Woodstocke, Duke of Gloucester; and William of Windsore.

"Katherine" by Anya Seton for High School Seniors

well-drawn. Many of my students say that once they get into it, they have trouble putting it down. Furthermore, it gives the students some excellent background for the study of English literature-particularly for the works of Chaucer and Shakespeare. Geoffrey Chaucer, the brother-in-law of the protagonist Katherine, is himself a minor character in the story. Many other characters in the story have roles of varying importance in Shakespeare's historical plays. The historical personages of the story come alive. At the beginning, we find Katherine on a journey to the court where her sister is already a Lady-inWaiting to the Queen. The sister later marries Geoffrey Chaucer, and Katherine marries Sir Hugh Swynford, a knight-atarms in the service of John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster and the third son

The King's Lieutenant Henry of Grosmont, First Duke of Lancaster 1310-1361. Kenneth Fowler

<i>The King's Lieutenant Henry of Grosmont, First Duke of Lancaster 1310-1361</i>. Kenneth Fowler

The King's Lieutenant: Henry of Grosmont, First Duke of Lancaster, 1310-1361

The King's Lieutenant: Henry of Grosmont, First Duke of Lancaster, 1310-1361