Manhood and politics in the reign of Richard II

Past and Present

Volumn 189, Issue 1, 2005, Pages 3-39

  Fletcher, Christopher ^a  

^a PEMBROKE COLLEGE   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Bit error probability; Exact analysis; Soft decision Viterbi decoding; Trellis coded modulation (TCM)

Indexed keywords

EID: 33750118938     PISSN: 00312746     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/pastj/gti022     Document Type: Article

References (305)

1. For modern times, the seminal works are Anthony Steel, Richard II (Cambridge, 1941), esp. 8, 41-2
2. and Gervase Mathew, The Court of Richard II (London, 1968), e.g. 12, 25.
3. Comparable views were later revived by, for example, P. J. Eberle, 'The Politics of Courtly Style at the Court of Richard II', in Glyn S. Burgess and Robert A. Taylor (eds.), The Spirit of the Court (Cambridge, 1985)
4. G. B. Stow, 'Richard II and the Invention of the Pocket Handkerchief', Albion, xxvii (1995)
5. Caroline Barron, 'The Art of Kingship: Richard II, 1377-99', History Today, xxxv (1985), esp. 36
6. Caroline Barron, 'Richard II: Image and Reality', in Dillian Gordon (ed.), Making and Meaning: The Wilton Diptych (London, 1993)
7. Nigel Saul, Richard II (New Haven and London, 1997), e.g. 332-3, 449-53.
8. The idea of Richard's 'absolutism', the proof of Richard's corruption by French practice for Stubbs (William Stubbs, The Constitutional History of England, 3rd edn, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1883), ii, 484, 498, 508-9, 512), was revived by R. H. Jones, The Royal Policy of Richard II: Absolutism in the Later Middle Ages (Oxford, 1968).
9. Jones's views, combined with a stress on Richard's interest in ceremonial characteristic of Mathew, dominate the current literature. See, for example, Barron, 'Art of Kingship'
10. Barron, 'Richard II'
11. Nigel Saul, 'Richard II and the Vocabulary of Kingship', Eng. Hist. Rev., cx (1995)
12. Saul, Richard II, 93, 119, 248-50, 384-8, 441-5, 454
13. Nigel Saul, 'The Kingship of Richard II', in Anthony Goodman and James L. Gillespie (eds.), Richard II: The Art of Kingship (Oxford, 1999).
14. For a more nuanced account, see Simon Walker, 'Richard II's Views on Kingship', in Rowena Archer and Simon Walker (eds.), Rulers and Ruled in Later Medieval England (London and Rio Grande, 1995).
15. Barron, 'Art of Kingship', 13
16. Saul, 'Richard II and the Vocabulary of Kingship', 870
17. Saul, Richard II, 351-4
18. Saul, 'Kingship of Richard II', 41.
19. For the view that Richard and his government pursued a policy of peace in the 1380s and 1390s motivated in part by the distaste of the king and his courtiers for war, see, for example, Margaret Aston, 'The Impeachment of Bishop Despenser', Bull. Inst. Hist. Research, xxxviii (1965), esp. 138-41
20. Anthony Goodman, The Loyal Conspiracy: The Lords Appellant under Richard II (London, 1971), esp. 30-1, 48
21. John Taylor, 'Richard II's Views on Kingship', Proc. Leeds Phil. and Lit. Soc., xiv (1971)
22. J. J. N. Palmer, England, France and Christendom, 1377-99 (London, 1972)
23. Anthony Tuck, Richard II and the English Nobility (London, 1973), esp. 19-20, 102, 114
24. Anthony Tuck, 'Richard II and the Hundred Years War', in John Taylor and Wendy Childs (eds.), Politics and Crisis in Fourteenth Century England (Gloucester, 1990), esp. 122
25. Barron, 'Art of Kingship', 33-4
26. Barron, 'Richard II', 14, 16
27. Saul, Richard II, esp. chs. 7, 10, 17
28. Saul, 'Kingship of Richard II', esp. 42.
29. V. H. Galbraith, 'A New Life of Richard II', History, xxvi (1942)
30. Margaret Aston, 'Richard II and the Wars of the Roses', in F. R. H. Du Boulay and Caroline M. Barron (eds.), The Reign of Richard II: Essays in Honour of May McKisack (London, 1971). The former doubts the evidence for Richard's physical incapacity for warfare, the latter warns of the dangers of reproducing the Tudor legend of the king in attenuated form.
31. Saul, Richard II, 452.
32. Rotuli Parliamentorum, 1278-1503, ed. J. Strachey et al., 6 vols. (London, 1767-77) (hereafter RP), iii, 423.
33. Chronicles of the Revolution: 1397-1400, ed. and trans. Chris Given-Wilson (Manchester, 1993), 168-89, reproduces much of the 'Record and Process', although the editor only summarizes the sermon. Walsingham, Usk, the Eulogium continuator and the 'Manner of King Richard's Renunciation' all mention the sermon, citing the archbishop's text, though not giving the full sermon.
34. See Thomas Walsingham, Historia Anglicana, ed. H. T. Riley, 2 vols (London, 1863-4), ii, 237
35. The Chronicle of Adam of Usk, ed. and trans. Chris Given-Wilson (Oxford, 1997), 68-9
36. 'Continuatio Eulogii', in Eulogium Historiarum sive Temporis, ed. F. S. Haydon, 3 vols. (London, 1863), iii, 384
37. Chronicles of the Revolution, ed. Given-Wilson, 166. It is commented on by Aston, 'Richard II and the Wars of the Roses', 306-7
38. Maurice Keen, England in the Later Middle Ages: A Political History, 2nd edn (London, 2003), 242.
39. The Vulgate text is in fact 'Ecce vir quem dixeram tibi; iste dominabitur populo meo' ('Behold the man whom I told you of; this one shall rule my people').
40. As suggested, for example, by Keen, England in the Later Middle Ages, 242.
41. 'Hec enim inconvenientia et nimis molesta regno, nec possibile est regnum feliciter stare ubi hee conditiones regnant. Set ab istis defectibus liberatur regnum cum vir dominatur, ad virum namque pertinet circa linguam servare custodiam. Modo autem non puer dominabitur set vir, de quo spero dici potest illud... Beatus vir qui non est lapsus in lingua' (RP, iii, 423).
42. 'Satis constat, et per hoc patet, quod ille qui regnabat sapiebat ut parvulus, vir enim non sapit talia, set sapientiam' (RP, iii, 423).
43. 'Ab isto periculo liberati sumus, quia vir dominabitur; Ille scilicet, qui dicit non sicut parvulus set sicut ratione perfectus' (RP, iii, 423).
44. 'Et ita loco pueri voluntarie lascivientis vir modo dominabitur in populo: Et iste vir est talis quod dicetur, regnabit rex, et sapiens erit, et faciet judicium et justiciam in terra' (RP, iii, 423).
45. For this dating, see C. D. Fletcher, 'Manhood, Youth and Politics in the Reign of Richard II' (Univ. of Oxford D.Phil. thesis, 2003), 26-7.
46. John Gower, Vox Clamantis, in The Complete Works of John Gower, iv, Latin Works, ed. G. C. Macaulay (Oxford, 1902), bk 4, ll. 555-64, quotations from ll. 555-8: 'Rex, puer indoctus, morales negligit actus,/In quibus a puero crescere possit homo:/Sic etenim puerum iuuenilis concio ducit,/Quod nichil expediens, sit nisi velle, sapit'; 563-4: 'Hii puerum regem puerili more subordnant,;/Pondera virtutum quo minus ipse gerit'.
47. Ibid., ll. 565-72.
48. Printed in Helen Barr, The Piers Plowman Tradition (London, 1993). References are to this edition.
49. Richard Redeless, i, 50-2, 83, 87, 92, 101 (against wilfulness, which is abandoning reason in favour of the flesh); ii, 112-18 (resulting from being spoilt in youth); iii, 116-25, 173-81 (the faults of believing in flatterers in showy dress).
50. See, for example, Eberle, 'Politics of Courtly Style'
51. Stow, 'Richard II and the Invention of the Pocket Handkerchief'.
52. Richard Redeless, iii, 181.
53. Historia Vitae et Regni Ricardi Secundi, ed. G. B. Stow (Philadelphia, 1977), 166-7.
54. 'Inerant enim ei crines glauci facies alba et rotunda et feminia' (ibid., 166).
55. 'interdum sanguinis fleumatice uiciata' (Philadelphia, 1977, 166).
56. 'lingua breuis et balbuciens, moribus inconstans' (Philadelphia, 166).
57. 'quia, spreto antiquorum procerum consilio, iuuenibus adherebat, magis eorum quam illorum consilium sequens. In dandis prodigus, in conuiuiis et indumentis ultra modum splendidus' (Philadelphia, 166).
58. 'ad bella contra hostes infortunatus et timidus, in domesticos iram multum attendens' (ibid.). In the past, for example by Given-Wilson (Chronicles of the Revolution, 240-1), 'domesticos' has been translated as 'servants'. However, the context of war, and the dichotomy between 'contra hostes' and 'in domesticos', makes it seem far more likely that the intended meaning is 'those at home' in the sense of 'his own people'.
59. 'Et cum multa ab eius fiscum sub colore inimicos expellendi accessisent, omnia per eius insolenciam inaniter sunt consumpta' (Historia Vitae et Regni Ricardi Secundi, ed. Stow, 167).
60. The Eulogium is a mid fifteenth-century compilation characterized by frequent inaccuracies and a consistently anti-Ricardian line. The argument of Antonia Gransden, Historical Writing in England, ii, c. 1307 to the Early Sixteenth Century (London, 1982), 138 n. 5 - that sections of this composite work were drawn up contemporaneously - does not greatly increase its trustworthiness as a source, given the distortions which are known to have resulted from the process of adaptation and compilation.
61. See C. L. Kingsford, English Historical Literature in the Fifteenth Century (Oxford, 1913), 28-31
62. Édouard Perroy, L'Angleterre et le grand schisme d'Occident (Paris, 1933), 154
63. J. I. Catto, 'An Alleged Great Council of 1374', Eng. Hist. Rev., lxxxii (1967), 765-7
64. Fletcher, 'Manhood, Youth and Politics in the Reign of Richard II', 177, 183.
65. 'Rex Ricardus in divitiis omnes praedecessores suos studuit excedere, et ad Salomnis gloriam pervenire' (Eulogium Historiarum sive Temporis, ed. Haydon, iii, 384).
66. m formidari quamvis prole careret et animo bellicoso' (ibid.).
67. 'In thesauris et jocalibus, in vestibus et ornamentis regalibus, in quibus vehementer excessit, in splendore mensae, in palatiis quae aedificavit, nullus in regibus eo gloriosior diebus suis' (ibid.).
68. C. D. Fletcher, 'Corruption at Court? Crisis and the Theme of luxuria in England and France, c. 1340-1422', in Steven Gunn and Antheun Janse (eds.), The Court as a Stage: England and the Low Countries in the Later Middle Ages, forthcoming
69. Kay Staniland, 'Extravagance or Royal Necessity? The Clothing of Richard II', in Dillian Gordon, Lisa Monnas and Caroline Elam (eds.), The Regal Image of Richard II and the Wilton Diptych (London, 1997)
70. James Sherborne, 'Aspects of Court Culture in the Later Middle Ages', in V. J. Scattergood and James Sherborne (eds.), English Court Culture in the Later Middle Ages (London, 1983).
71. The seminal article is Quentin Skinner, 'Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas', History and Theory, viii (1969).
72. J. G. A. Pocock, 'The Concept of a Language and the métier d'historien: Some Considerations on Practice', in Anthony Pagden (ed.), The Languages of Political Theory in Early-Modern Europe (Cambridge, 1987)
73. Peter Burke, 'Strengths and Weaknesses of the History of Mentalities', Hist. European Ideas, vii (1986).
74. For example Skinner, 'Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas';
75. Pocock, 'Concept of a Language and the métier d'historien'
76. Burke, 'Strengths and Weaknesses of the History of Mentalities'
77. Peter Burke, 'Reflections on the Historical Revolution in France: The Annales School and British Social History', Review, i (1978)
78. Peter Burke, History and Social Theory (Cambridge, 1992).
79. Foucault's work now constitutes a field of study in itself, but see, for example, Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization, trans. Richard Howard (London, 1967)
80. Michel Foucault, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences (London, 1970).
81. Lyndal Roper, Oedipus and the Devil: Witchcraft, Sexuality and Religion in Early Modern Europe (New York and London, 1994), introduction.
82. Carlo Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller (Baltimore, 1980).
83. Burke, 'Reflections on the Historical Revolution in France'
84. Burke, History and Social Theory, 119-20, 124-5.
85. See, for example, Michael Bennett, Community, Class and Careerism: Cheshire and Lancashire Society in the Age of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Cambridge, 1983)
86. Christine Carpenter, Locality and Polity: A Study of Warwickshire Landed Society, 1401-99 (Cambridge, 1992)
87. Chris Given-Wilson, The Royal Household and the King's Affinity: Service, Politics and Finance in England, 1360-1413 (New Haven and London, 1986)
88. Simon Walker, The Lancastrian Affinity, 1361-1399 (Oxford, 1990).
89. This attention to the social dimension of politics has not been restricted to the gentry, taking in town and village elites also. See, for example, Christopher Dyer, 'The Social and Economic Background to the Rural Revolt of 1381', in R. H. Hilton and T. H. Aston (eds.), The English Rising of 1381 (Cambridge, 1984)
90. Christian Liddy, 'Urban Conflict in Late Fourteenth-Century England: The Case of York in 1380-1', Eng. Hist. Rev., cxviii (2003).
91. John Watts, Henry VI and the Politics of Kingship (Cambridge, 1996)
92. G. L. Harriss, 'Introduction: The Exemplar of Kingship', in G. L. Harriss (ed.), Henry V: The Practice of Kingship (Oxford, 1985)
93. Christine Carpenter, 'Law, Justice and Landowners in Late Medieval England', Law and Hist. Rev., i (1983)
94. Rosemary Horrox, Richard III: A Study in Service (Cambridge, 1989), ch. 1
95. C. D. Fletcher, 'Narrative and Political Strategies at the Deposition of Richard II', Jl Medieval Hist., xxx (2004).
96. See Edward Powell, 'After "After MacFarlane": The Poverty of Patronage and the Case for Constitutional History', in Dorothy J. Clayton, R. G. Davies and Peter McNiven (eds.), Trade, Devotion and Governance: Papers in Later Medieval History (Stroud, 1994).
97. For 'cynical' and 'innocent', see Burke, 'Strengths and Weaknesses of the History of Mentalities'.
98. See especially Alexandra Shepard, 'Meanings of Manhood in Early Modern England, with Special Reference to Cambridge, c.1560-1640' (Univ. of Cambridge Ph.D. thesis, 1998)
99. Alexandra Shepard, 'Manhood, Credit and Patriarchy in Early Modern England, c.1580-1640', Past and Present, no. 167 (May 2000)
100. Laura Gowing, Domestic Dangers: Women, Words and Sex in Early Modern London (Oxford, 1996)
101. Lyndal Roper, 'Stealing Manhood: Capitalism and Magic in Early Modern Germany', Gender and History, iii (1991)
102. Lyndal Roper, 'Blood and Codpieces: Masculinity in the Early Modern German Town', in her Oedipus and the Devil. Unfortunately this article was already complete when Alexandra Shepard, Meanings of Manhood in Early Modern England (Oxford, 2003) appeared.
103. Elizabeth A. Foyster, Manhood in Early Modern England: Honour, Sex and Marriage (London, 1999), 5.
104. For example Foyster, Manhood in Early Modern England
105. Roper, 'Blood and Codpieces'. Despite being concerned with 'meanings of manhood in early modern England', Alexandra Shepard nonetheless tends to treat 'masculinity' and 'manhood' as interchangeable in 'Meanings of Manhood in Early Modern England' and 'Manhood, Credit and Patriarchy in Early Modern England'. See, for example, 'Meanings of Manhood in Early Modern England', 28, which starts by noting that 'manhood' was discussed as a distinct phase in the life-course, but ends by treating 'manhood as a state of being' and 'masculinity as a state of being' as the same thing.
106. For example P. J. P. Goldberg, 'Masters and Men in Later Medieval Europe', in D. M. Hadley (ed.), Masculinity in Medieval Europe (London, 1999)
107. R. M. Karras, 'Sharing Wine, Women and Song: Masculine Identity Formation in Medieval European Universities', in Jeffrey Jerome Cohen and Bonnie Wheeler (eds.), Becoming Male in the Middle Ages (New York, 1997)
108. Michael Bennett, 'Military Masculinity in England and Northern France', in Hadley (ed.), Masculinity in Medieval Europe
109. Vein L. Bullough, 'On Being Male in the Middle Ages', in Clare A. Lees (ed.), Medieval Masculinities: Regarding Men in the Middle Ages (Minneapolis and London, 1994).
110. R. N. Swanson, 'Angels Incarnate: Clergy and Masculinity from Gregorian Reform to Reformation', in Hadley (ed.), Masculinity in Medieval Europe.
111. However, the figurative use of 'manhood' in sermons is revealing in this regard: See Fletcher, 'Manhood, Youth and Politics in the Reign of Richard II', ch. 2, and below.
112. There is perhaps reason to believe that, in terms of its simplest referents, the modern concept of 'masculinity' shares at least some of the ambiguity of late medieval ideas of 'manhood'. Studies often note that 'masculinity' is not a state automatically conferred on males, but rather a status difficult to win and hard to maintain. Thus it is perhaps the case that 'masculinity' ought to be seen more as the symbolic baggage attached to 'adult maleness' than to 'male sex' pure and simple. See David Gilmore, Manhood in the Making: Cultural Contexts of Masculinity (New Haven and London, 1990), 9-14
113. on the difficulty of gaining 'masculinity', followed by, for example, Shepard, 'Meanings of Manhood in Early Modern England', 19
114. Foyster, Manhood in Early Modern England, esp. chs. 2-6. For the present purposes this is no more than an aside, however, for, as we shall see, the specific content attached to 'manhood' in the fourteenth century differs considerably from the modern associations of 'masculinity'.
115. Joan Scott, 'Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis', Amer. Hist. Rev. xci (1986).
116. For what follows, see also Fletcher, 'Manhood, Youth and Politics in the Reign of Richard II', 42-108.
117. William of Palerne: An Alliterative Romance, ed. G. H. V. Bunt (Groningen, 1985). This text yields forty-six instances of 'manly', 'manhood' or 'manship' in its five and a half thousand lines, and is correspondingly but misleadingly dominant in existing dictionaries.
118. Of Arthour and of Merlin, ed. O. D. Macrae-Gibson (Early Eng. Text Soc., original ser., cclxviii, cclxxix, London, 1973-9), ll. 6821-8.
119. 'For you might win los and priis there,/And "manship" to you and all your kin': The Romance of Guy of Warwick: The First or 14th-Century Version, ed. Julius Zupitza (Early Eng. Text Soc., extra ser., xlii, xlix, lix, London, 1883-91), ll. 1911-12.
120. Lybeaus Desconus, ed. Maldwyn Mills (Early Eng. Text Soc., original ser., cclxi, London, 1969), ll. 172-80.
121. Der mittelenglische Versroman über Richard Löwenherz, ed. Karl Brunner (Wiener Beiträge zur englischen Philologie, xlii, Vienna and Leipzig, 1913), ll. 487-91.
122. Romance of Guy of Warwick: 14th-Century Version, ed. Zupitza (Caius MS; Auchinleck MS is similar), ll. 1227-32.
123. Of Arthour and of Merlin, ed. Macrae-Gibson (Auchinleck MS), ll. 4613-22.
124. Hans Kurath et al. (eds.), Middle English Dictionary (Ann Arbor, 1954-2001). The result of many hands over many years, the categorizations for 'manly' and 'manhood' in the MED should be treated with caution. For the present project every example cited in the MED was chased up and read in context.
125. See Fletcher, 'Manhood, Youth and Politics in the Reign of Richard II', 87-107.
126. Middle English Sermons, ed. Woodburn O. Ross (Early Eng. Text Soc., original ser., ccix, London, 1940), sermon 42, p. 267.
127. Ibid., 268.
128. Ibid., 270-1.
129. See Fletcher, 'Manhood, Youth and Politics in the Reign of Richard II', ch. 2.
130. Joseph Bosworth, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (Oxford, 1898), 413. See text referring to n. 51 above.
131. For example, text referring to n. 52 above.
132. Fletcher, 'Manhood, Youth and Politics in the Reign of Richard II', 58-9, 82-5.
133. Ibid., 61-5.
134. The Canterbury Tales, 'General Prologue', ll. 165-207, in The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Larry D. Benson (Oxford, 1987)
135. Jill Mann, Chaucer and Medieval Estates Satire (Cambridge, 1973), 17-37, esp. 32-6.
136. Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum sive Originum, ed. W. M. Lindsay (Oxford, 1911), bk 11, ch. 17
137. cited in, for example, Vern L. Bullough, 'Medieval Medical and Scientific Views of Woman', Viator, iv (1973)
138. Danielle Jacquart and Claude Thomasset, Sexuality and Medicine in the Middle Ages, trans. Matthew Adamson (Oxford, 1988), 14
139. Thomas Laqueur, Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud (Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1990), 27.
140. On the transmission of classical medical models, see C. H. Talbot, Medicine in Medieval England (London, 1967), esp. chs. 1-4
141. Jacquart and Thomasset, Sexuality and Medicine in the Middle Ages, ch. 2
142. Joan Cadden, Meanings of Sex Difference in the Middle Ages: Medicine, Science and Culture (Cambridge, 1993), ch. 1.
143. For an introduction to the theory of humours, see Faye Marie Getz, Healing and Society in Medieval England: A Middle English Translation of the Pharmaceutical Writings of Gilbertus Anglicus (London, 1991), pp. xx, xxxii-xxxvii
144. Carole Rawcliffe, Medicine and Society in Later Medieval England (Stroud, 1995), 29-40.
145. See Talbot, Medicine in Medieval England, esp. ch. 5
146. F. M. Getz, 'The Faculty of Medicine before 1500', in J. I. Catto and Ralph Evans (eds.), The History of the University of Oxford, ii, Late Medieval Oxford (Oxford, 1992).
147. M. W. Twomey, 'Towards a Reception History of Western Medieval Encyclopaedias in England before 1500', in Peter Binkley (ed.), Pre-Modern Encyclopaedic Texts (Leiden, 1997).
148. On medical theory in encyclopedias, see, for example, Talbot, Medicine in Medieval England, 86-7.
149. On the use of medical theory in preaching, see Elizabeth Sears, The Ages of Man: Medieval Interpretations of the Life Cycle (Princeton, 1986), ch. 6.
150. Over a thousand manuscripts from this period contain some kind of medical material: See R. H. Robbins, 'Medical Manuscripts in Middle English', Speculum, xlv (1970)
151. L. E. Voigts, 'Scientific and Medical Books', in Jeremy Griffiths and Derek Pearsall (eds.), Book Production and Publishing in Britain, 1375-1475 (Cambridge, 1984).
152. John Gower, 'Confessio Amantis', in The English Works of John Gower, ed. G. C. Macaulay (Early Eng. Text Soc., extra ser., lxxxi, lxxxii, London, 1900-1), bk 7, and 522 n.
153. Viscount Dillon and W. H. St John Hope, 'Inventory of Goods and Chattels Belonging to Thomas, Duke of Gloucester', Archaeol. Jl, liv (1897).
154. On known and surviving manuscripts of the Tresor, see Brunetto Latini, Li Livres dou Tresor, ed. Francis J. Carmody (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1948), pp. xlvi-lvii.
155. On the Properties of Things: John Trevisa's Translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus, Dc Proprietatibus Rerum, ed. M. C. Seymour et al., 3 vols. (Oxford, 1975-88) (hereafter DPR), iii, 1.
156. DPR, bk 6, ch. 12, 'De masculis'.
157. Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum Naturaie (Venice, 1494), bk 31, ch. 114
158. 'The Isagoge', translated in H. P. Cholmeley, John of Gaddesden and the Rosa Medicinae (Oxford, 1912), 136-66, quotation at p. 143.
159. On the reception of Vincent, see Twomey, 'Towards a Reception History of Western Medieval Encyclopaedias', 340
160. Jacques Berlioz and Marie-Anne Polo de Beaulieu, 'Les Recueils d'exempla et la diffusion de l'encyclopédisme médiéval', in Michelangelo Picone (ed.), L'enciclopedismo medievale (Ravenna, 1994), 184-5, 190-1, 204.
161. On the Isagoge's use in medical schools, see Getz, 'Faculty of Medicine', 375
162. Talbot, Medicine in Medieval England, 66.
163. The widespread role of heat in establishing the superiority of men over women in medieval medical theory has often been noted. See, for example, Jacquart and Thomasset, Sexuality and Medicine in the Middle Ages, 51, 59-60, 68, 117
164. Cadden, Meanings of Sex Difference in the Middle Ages, 52-3, 171-2, 181, 184-5.
165. Avicenna, Canon Medicinae (Venice, 1486), bk 1, fen 1, doctr. 3, ch. 3. Cf., for example, DPR, bk 4, ch. 1.
166. Thomas of Cantimpré, Liber De Natura Rerum, i, Text, ed. H. Boese (Berlin, 1973), bk 1, ch. 80.
167. Cf. Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum Maius, 4 vols. (Douai, 1624)
168. and Speculum Naturale, bk 30, ch. 82
169. both cited by Michael E. Goodich, From Birth to Old Age: The Human Life Cycle in Medieval Thought, 1250-1350 (London, 1989), 121.
170. For women as 'unperfected' men, see Jacquart and Thomasset, Sexuality and Medicine in the Middle Ages, 17-18
171. Laqueur, Making Sex, ch. 2
172. Bullough, 'Medieval Medical and Scientific Views of Woman', 487.
173. Sears, Ages of Man, 14-15, 25-30
174. J. A. Burrow, The Ages of Man: A Study in Medieval Writing and Thought (Oxford, 1986), 12-30
175. Goodich, From Birth to Old Age, chs. 4-6
176. DPR, bk 6
177. Speculum Naturale, bk 31, ch. 83.
178. Citations below are from Henry de Gand's French translation of De Regimine Principum, produced c.1285, which would have been the form in which the lay aristocracy of fourteenth-century England would have been most likely to encounter Giles's treatise. The edition used is Li Livres du gouvernement des rois, ed. S. P. Molenaer (London, 1899) (hereafter LGR), since it is convenient, although it should be noted that it is a transcription based on a single manuscript (the Kerr MS) rather than a thorough scholarly edition. Such an edition does not, at the moment, exist for this highly important text, although there is a great need for one.
179. See also Fletcher, 'Corruption at Court?'
180. For example LGR, I. iv. 2, 4.
181. On women, see ibid., II. ii. 15
182. on youths, ibid., i. iv. 2.
183. Ibid., I. iv. 2.
184. Ibid., I. iv. 2; II. ii. 15.
185. Ibid., I. iv. 2.
186. Margaret Aston long ago put forward an argument which tends in this direction, in 'Richard II and the Wars of the Roses', esp. 316-17.
187. Galbraith, 'New Life of Richard II', 227.
188. See nn. 1-4 above.
189. Richard of Maidstone, 'Concordia: Facta inter Regem Riccardum II et Civitatem London', ed. and trans. C. R. Smith (Princeton Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1972), ll. 106-18.
190. On Venus and Nature, see Philippa Tristram, Figures of Life and Death in Middle English Literature (London, 1976), 49-54.
191. Maidstone, 'Concordia', ll. 21-6, 144-8; pp. 145, 148.
192. Paul Strohm, Hochon's Arrow (Princeton, 1992), 108.
193. Maidstone, 'Concordia', ll. 229-32.
194. See Paul Strohm, 'Queens as Intercessors', in his Hochon's Arrow.
195. For the role of inspiring mercy played by women see also Jill Mann, Geoffrey Chaucer (Hemel Hempstead, 1991), esp. 3-4, 165-94
196. Susan Crane, Gender and Romance in Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales' (Princeton, 1994), 18-23.
197. I am not sure, however, that this necessarily 'feminized' the man so softened, rather than stressing the mixture of vigour and residual changeability which characterized an adult male before he settled into the cold-dry rigidity of old age. See Burrow, Ages of Man
198. J. A. Burrow, 'Chaucer's Knight's Tale and the Three Ages of Man', in his Essays on Medieval Literature (Oxford, 1984).
199. Vox Clamantis, bk 5, ll. 335-8, 511-13.
200. Maurice Keen, Chivalry (New Haven and London, 1984), 13.
201. The Canterbury Tales, Fragment I, ll. 79-100, in Riverside Chaucer, ed. Benson
202. Romance of Guy of Warwick: 14th-Century Version, ed. Zupitza, ll. 185-748, 1115-1250
203. The Parlement of the Thre Ages, ed. Israel Gollancz (London, 1915), ll. 174-81, 197-203, 246-9.
204. Burrow, 'Chaucer's Knight's Tale and the Three Ages of Man', 32-4.
205. M. V. Clarke, 'The Wilton Diptych', in her Fourteenth Century Studies, ed. L. S. Sutherland and May McKisack (Oxford, 1937)
206. Palmer, England, France and Christendom, 242-4
207. Dillian Gordon, 'A. New Discovery in the Wilton Diptych', Burlington Mag., cxxxiv (1992), esp. n. 22
208. Nigel Morgan, 'The Signification of the Banner in the Wilton Diptych', in Gordon, Monnas and Elam (eds.), Regal Image of Richard II and the Wilton Diptych
209. Maurice Keen, 'The Wilton Diptych: The Case for a Crusading Context', ibid.
210. See especially G. B. Stow, 'Chronicles Versus Records: The Character of Richard II', in J. S. Hamilton and Patricia J. Bradley (eds.), Documenting the Past: Essays in Medieval History Presented to George Peddy Cuttino (Woodbridge, 1989)
211. G. O. Sayles, 'King Richard II of England: A Fresh Look', Proc. Amer. Phil. Soc., cxv (1971)
212. G. O. Sayles, 'Richard II in 1381 and 1399', Eng. Hist. Rev., xciv (1979).
213. See, for example, Barron, 'Art of Kingship'
214. Barron, 'Richard II'
215. Caroline Barron, 'The Deposition of Richard II', in Taylor and Childs (eds.), Politics and Crisis in Fourteenth Century England.
216. Stow, 'Chronicles Versus Records', 168
217. Saul, Richard II, 452
218. Nigel Saul, Richard II and Chivalric Kingship (Egham, 1998).
219. The Westminster Chronicle, ed. L. C. Hector and Barbara F. Harvey (Oxford, 1982), 450-1
220. Galbraith, 'New Life of Richard II', 226.
221. Jean Froissart, Œuvres: Chroniques, ed. M. le baron Kervyn de Lettenhove, 25 vols. (Brussels, 1867-77), xiv, 261-2.
222. Saul, Richard II, 453
223. Westminster Chronicle, ed. hector and Harvey, 164; National Archives, London, Public Record Office (hereafter PRO), E 101/401/16, m. 2.
224. Saul, Richard II, 453.
225. Stow 'Chronicles Versus Records', 168
226. James L. Gillespie, 'Richard II: King of Battles?', in James L. Gillespie (ed.), The Age of Richard II (New York, 1997).
227. As argued by J. J. N. Palmer, 'English Foreign Policy, 1388-99', in Du Boulay and Barron (eds.), Reign of Richard II
228. and (ironically) Malcolm Vale, 'Review of J. J. N. Palmer, England, France and Christendom', Eng. Hist. Rev., lxxxviii (1973), which takes Palmer to task for, amongst other things, suggesting that the government was pursuing a consistent, thought-out peace policy in the 1380s.
229. The most nuanced account of the negotiations of the post-1389 period is Christopher John Phillpotts, 'John of Gaunt and English Policy towards France, 1389-1395', Jl Medieval Hist., xvi (1990). He does not, however, touch on Richard's possible earlier involvement in wrangles over diplomacy and war in the 1380s.
230. See Tuck, 'Richard II and the Hundred Years War', esp. 121-3
231. Anne Curry, 'Richard II and the War with France', in Gwilym Dodd (ed.), The Reign of Richard II (Stroud, 2000).
232. It does indeed seem that in the mid 1390s Richard himself was closely involved in the negotiations which finally brought a long truce. However, his influence seems more to have been directed towards reducing the concessions which the English king would make to the French, and hence making a truce rather than a final peace. See Phillpotts, 'John of Gaunt and English Policy towards France'.
233. J. J. N. Palmer, 'The Anglo-French Peace Negotiations, 1390-1396', Trans. Roy. Hist. Soc., 5th ser., xvi (1966), 81, 83.
234. Palmer, England, France and Christendom, ch. 3, argues that before 1386 this policy is to be ascribed to Michael de la Pole, and that after that date it was taken up by the king.
235. Saul, Richard II, e.g. 141, 166, argues that the policy was already Richard's by this date. See also the references in nn. 3-4 above.
236. Saul, Richard II, 206-8
237. Philippe de Mézières, Letter to King Richard II, ed. G. W. Coopland (Liverpool, 1975)
238. Palmer, England, France and Christendom, 181-2
239. P. J. Eberle, 'Richard II and the Literary Arts', in Goodman and Gillespie (eds.), Richard II, 232, 249-51.
240. Fletcher, 'Manhood, Youth and Politics in the Reign of Richard II', 175-8 (for May 1382), ch. 5 (for the return of this proposal in Oct. 1382, Feb. 1383, Oct. 1383, Nov. 1384, Oct. 1385 and Oct. 1386).
241. Saul, Richard II, 157
242. Aston, 'Impeachment of Bishop Despenser', 138.
243. Saul, Richard II, 104 n. 63, suggests that the scheme for a royal expedition was put up as a straw man, a plan so expensive that the Commons would be forced to reject it out of hand, and to find some alternative.
244. Palmer (especially England, France and Christendom, 48-9) argues along similar but more subtle lines that, between 1383 and 1386, the royal government sought excessively large grants of funds, which they really did not expect the Commons to provide (although they would have been happy to use these funds if they had done), so that in refusing them the Commons would give the government a mandate to pursue peace.
245. Saul, Richard II, 155.
246. Palmer, England, France and Christendom, ch. 4, e.g. p. 67, ascribes the policies of this year exclusively to Michael de la Pole.
247. James Sherborne, 'The Defence of the Realm and the Impeachment of Michael de la Pole in 1386', in Taylor and Childs (eds.), Politics and Crisis in Fourteenth Century England
248. J. S. Roskell, The Impeachment of Michael de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, in 1386, in the Context of the Reign of Richard II (Manchester, 1984), 67-83
249. Palmer, England, France and Christendom, ch. 2
250. L. Mirot, 'Une tentative d'invasion en Angleterre pendant la guerre de Cent Ans', Revue des études historiques, lxxxi (1951)
251. Fletcher, 'Manhood, Youth and Politics in the Reign of Richard II', 227-32.
252. Fletcher, 'Manhood, Youth and Politics in the Reign of Richard II', 227-8
253. Sherborne, 'Defence of the Realm', 102-4.
254. Palmer, England, France and Christendom, 73-4.
255. Gaunt departed on 9 July. See P. E. Russell, The English Intervention in Spain and Portugal in the Time of Edward III and Richard II (Oxford, 1955), 417.
256. On preparations for de Vere's departure, see Saul, Richard II, 471
257. Palmer, England, France and Christendom, 70.
258. Sherborne, 'Defence of the Realm', 103-4.
259. Ibid., 102-4
260. PRO, E 403/5 12, m. 20.
261. In the October parliament Michael de la Pole asserted that the decision to summon that assembly had been taken in a council at Oxford. See RP, iii, 215. The last time Richard was at Oxford before this parliament, on the evidence of signet warrants, was between 6 and 11 August. See PRO, C 8 1/1353/4-13
262. Saul, Richard II, 156. The evidence of charter witness lists issued at
263. 'Quia certes rumores audiuimus iam de nouo' (PRO, C 76/71, m. 23).
264. 'le Roi nadgairs de sa propre motion et corage avoit pris purpos de passer la Meet en propre persone, ove son Roiale poair, a grever et guerroier ses Einemys es parties de dela' (RP, iii, 215).
265. Ibid.
266. PRO, E 403/512, m. 20.
267. PRO, E 403/512 (6 and 17 Sept.)
268. Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1385-9, 208 (20 Aug.)
269. PRO, E 101/42/21
270. Sherborne, 'Defence of the Realm', 105.
271. PRO, E 403/512, m. 20.
272. PRO, E 403/5 15, mm. 1-12.
273. Sherborne, 'Defence of the Realm', 107.
274. Ibid., 108.
275. RP, iii, 215.
276. 'pur ce qe l'en avoit dit devant ces heures qe le Roi ne vorroit travailler en propre persone, le Roi, pur eschuire tielle eselandre, et par cause q'il est a present plus a sa governance demesne q'estre ne soleit, si ad pris le purpos avant dit' (ibid.).
277. 'La quarte encheson et la darrein, pur conquerre honour et humanite' (ibid.).
278. Knighton's Chronicle, 1337-1396, ed. and trans. G. H. Martin (Oxford, 1995), 354-5.
279. Sherborne, 'Defence of the Realm'
280. Roskell, Impeachment of Michael de la Pole
281. J. J. N. Palmer, 'The Parliament of 1385 and the Constitutional Crisis of 1386', Speculum, xlvi (1971)
282. J. J. N. Palmer, 'The Impeachment of Michael de la Pole in 1386', Bull. Inst. Hist. Research, xlii (1969).
283. The growth of the Commons' demands for the regulation of royal finances from the Good Parliament to the crisis of 1386 is explored in depth in Fletcher, 'Manhood, Youth and Politics in the Reign of Richard II', chs. 4-5.
284. Goodman Loyal Conspiracy, 9
285. Palmer, 'Parliament of 1385 and the Constitutional Crisis of 1386', 477-8
286. Tuck, Richard II and the English Nobility, 72-86
287. Saul, Richard II, 112-27, 129.
288. Fletcher, 'Manhood, Youth and Politics in the Reign of Richard II', chs. 4-5. The new interpretation sketched out below will be explored in greater detail in a forthcoming monograph. Restrictions of space allow only an outline to be presented here.
289. Ibid., 136-47.
290. Ibid., 147-50.
291. Ibid., 150-63.
292. Ibid., 164-71, 149-50, 178-80, 182-3, 204-7, 215-20.
293. Ibid., 236-49.
294. Ibid., ch. 6.
295. Ibid., 25-6, 118-27, 137-50, 240-1, 245-7.
296. The articles of Richard's deposition make a similar accusation: RP, iii, 419, item 32 (art. 15).
297. See Fletcher, 'Corruption at Court?'
298. On the signet: T. F. Tout, Chapters in the Administrative History of Medieval England, 6 vols. (Manchester, 1920-33), v, 195-208
299. Tuck, Richard II and the English Nobility, 63-70.
300. On the promotion of those close to him: Tuck, Richard II and the English Nobility, 72-86
301. Goodman, Loyal Conspiracy, 9
302. Palmer, England, France and Christendom, 477-8
303. Saul, Richard II, 112-27, 129.
304. On the chamber: Given-Wilson, Royal Household and the King's Affinity, ch. 6, esp. 85-6
305. Tuck, Richard II and the English Nobility, 63-8.