England and Bohemia in the Age of Chaucer (Chaucer Studies, 49) 9781843845799, 9781805430896, 1843845792

Table of contents :
Front cover
Contents
Illustrations
Contributors
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Introduction
Lines of Communication
1 Richard II, Queen Anne, Bohemia
2 Recommended Reading: Richard Rolle in Bohemia
3 The Golden Book of the Knight Wenceslas
Cultural Analogues
4 Czech and English Vernacular Histories in the Fourteenth Century
5 Beyond Nations: Translating Troy in the Middle Ages
6 Mock Passions in England and Bohemia
7 The Evil Tale of Evil Briselda
8 The Image of the Tapster in England and Bohemia
9 Bohemian and English Painting in the Last Decades of the Fourteenth Century
Rethinking Queen Anne
10 Contextualising the Legend of Good Women
11 Anne of Bohemia, Chaucer, and the Virgin Mary
General Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

CHAUCER STUDIES XLIX ENGLAND AND BOHEMIA IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER

CHAUCER STUDIES ISSN 0261-9822

Founding Editor Professor Derek S. Brewer Editorial Board Professor Helen Cooper Dr Isabel Davis Dr Robert Meyer-Lee Dr William T. Rossiter Since its foundation, the series Chaucer Studies has played a highly significant role in the development and promotion of research on Chaucer and his many cultural contexts. It is an ideal forum for the publication of work by both younger and established scholars, comprising innovative monographs and essay collections together with indispensable reference books. Chaucer scholarship just would not be the same without it. Professor Alastair Minnis Douglas Tracy Smith Professor of English, Yale University The publisher welcomes new proposals for the series; monographs are particularly encouraged but volumes of essays will be included when appropriate. All submissions will receive rapid, informed attention. They should go in the first instance to Caroline Palmer, Editorial Director, at the following address: Boydell & Brewer, PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk, IP12 3DF, UK Previously published volumes in this series are listed at the back of this book

ENGLAND AND BOHEMIA IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER

EDITED BY PETER BROWN AND JAN ČERMÁK

D. S. BREWER

© Contributors 2023 All rights reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner First published 2023 D. S. Brewer, Cambridge ISBN 978 1 84384 579 9 (hardback) ISBN 978 1 80543 089 6 (ePDF) D. S. Brewer is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK and of Boydell & Brewer Inc. 668 Mt Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620–2731, USA website: www.boydellandbrewer.com The publisher has no responsibility for the continued existence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Cover image: Chaucer, reciting his poem at court, catches the eye of Anne of Bohemia? The figure between them, dressed in gold, may represent Anne’s husband Richard II. His face is damaged, perhaps deliberately by Lancastrians wanting to erase images of the usurped king. Detail from the frontispiece to Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde (early 15th cent.). Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 061, fol. 1v. With permission from The Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Design: Toni Michelle

Dedicated to the memory of Derek Pearsall (1931–2021): scholar, teacher, mentor, friend.

Contents List of Illustrations List of Contributors Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations

ix xi xiii xv

Introduction 1 Peter Brown and Jan Čermák Lines of Communication 1 Richard II, Queen Anne, Bohemia: Marriage, Culture and Politics Michael Bennett

13

2 Recommended Reading: Richard Rolle in Bohemia Michael Van Dussen

39

3 The Golden Book of the Knight Wenceslas: Travelling, Piety and Diplomacy in Late-Medieval Europe Marek Suchý

55

Cultural Analogues 4 Making Sense of the Past: Czech and English Vernacular Histories in the Fourteenth Century Helena Znojemská

85

5 Beyond Nations: Translating Troy in the Middle Ages Venetia Bridges

105

6 Mock Passions in England and Bohemia Lucie Doležalová

130

7 The Evil Tale of Evil Briselda: Griselda’s Wicked Counterpart Klára Petříková

150

8 The Image of the Tapster in England and Bohemia Jan Dienstbier

168

9 Bohemian and English Painting in the Last Decades of the Fourteenth Century: Tracing the Bohemian Influence Lenka Panušková

181

viii  Contents

Rethinking Queen Anne 10 Contextualising the Legend of Good Women: Some Possible Bohemian Perspectives Julia Boffey and A. S. G. Edwards

203

11 Humility and Empire: Anne of Bohemia, Chaucer, and the Virgin Mary 214 David Wallace General Bibliography 239 Index 267

Illustrations 1.1 The Luxembourg Family Tree. From ‘Luxemburg Dynasty (Czech Branch)’ in F. Šmahel, The Parisian Summit, 1377–8. Emperor Charles IV and King Charles V of France (Prague, 2014), p. 42. 15 8.1 Tapster tormented by devils, c. 1400. Misericord from Ludlow, St Lawrenceʼs church. Photograph © Colin Underhill / Alamy Stock Photo, reproduced by permission. 171 8.2 Hell, c. 1340. Wall-painting from Pičín, church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary. Photograph by Ondřej Faktor and reproduced by permission. 172 8.3 Hell (detail), c. 1320–30. Wall-painting from Dolní Slověnice, SS Leonhard and Nicholas church. Photograph © Institute of the Art History of the Czech Academy of Sciences / Jitka Walterová. Reproduced by permission. 174 8.4 Triumph of Death and a tapster, c. 1320–40. Wall-painting from Broumov, Parish House (former Charnel House or Cemetery Chapel). Author’s own photograph.

175

8.5 Tapster tormented by devils, c. 1400. Wall-painting from Rimavské Brezovo, church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary. Photograph © Peter Megyeši. Reproduced by permission.

177

8.6 Hell (detail), c. 1500. Wall-painting from Staré Prachatice, church of St Peter and Paul. Photograph by Ondřej Faktor and reproduced by permission. 178 9.1 God creating the sun, moon and animals: initial I(n principio) from the beginning of the book of Genesis in the Great Bible of Richard II, first quarter of the 15th century. London, British Library, MS Royal 1 E IX, fol. 3v (detail). © British Library Board. Reproduced by permission. 182 9.2 Richard II presented to the Virgin and Child by his Patron Saint John the Baptist and Saints Edward and Edmund, Wilton Diptych, inner side, London, National Gallery, c. 1395–99, egg on oak, 53 × 37 cm. Image: Ian Dagnall Computing / Alamy Stock Photo. 183

x  Illustrations

9.3 Coronation of the royal couple, Liber Regalis, 1390s. London, Westminster Abbey Library, MS 38, fol. 20r. © Dean and Chapter of Westminster, London. Reproduced by permission. 185 9.4 The Emperor Wenceslas IV with his first wife, Johanna: initial D(ises Buches), Bible of Wenceslas IV, c. 1380. Vienna, ÖNB, Cod. 2759, fol. 2r. © ÖNB Wien. Reproduced by permission.

186

9.5 Woman Clothed in Sun, Book of Revelation, ch. 12. Wall-painting from the western wall of the Lady Chapel, Karlstein Castle. © Adam Pokorný. 189 9.6 The Creation: initial I(n anegenge) from the Bible of Wenceslas IV, c. 1380. Vienna, ÖNB, Cod. 2759, fol. 2v. © ÖNB Wien. Reproduced by permission.

191

9.7 God creating Eve, from the Bible of Wenceslas IV, c. 1380. Vienna, ÖNB, Cod. 2759, fol. 4r. © ÖNB Wien. Reproduced by permission.

193

The editors, contributors and publisher are grateful to all the institutions and persons listed for permission to reproduce the materials in which they hold copyright. Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders; apologies are offered for any omission, and the publisher will be pleased to add any necessary acknowledgement in subsequent editions.

Contributors Michael Bennett is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Tasmania. The author of four books and many articles on the politics, society and culture of late-medieval England, he has recently published War against Smallpox: Edward Jenner and the Global Spread of Vaccination (2020). Julia Boffey is Professor Emerita of Medieval Studies in the Department of English at Queen Mary, University of London and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. Her interests include Middle English verse, medieval manu­ scripts and early printing. Venetia Bridges is Assistant Professor in the Department of English Studies at Durham University. She has published widely on medieval romance and is interested in narratives that cross linguistic, cultural and political boundaries. Her monograph, Medieval Narratives of Alexander the Great: Transnational Texts in England and France, appeared in 2018. Peter Brown is Professor Emeritus of Medieval English Literature at the University of Kent. Two recent essays explore Chaucer’s affiliations with Europe: ‘Canterbury’ in Europe: A Literary History, 1348–1418, ed. David Wallace (2016) and ‘Chaucer’s Travels for the Court’, in The Oxford Handbook of Chaucer, ed. Suzanne Conklin Akbari and James Simpson (2020). Jan Čermák is Professor of English Language in the Department of English Language and ELT Methodology at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague. His interests include Middle English verse and philological continuities between Old and Middle English. Jan Dienstbier is an art historian at the Institute of Art History of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague. He also teaches at Charles University. His research primarily deals with medieval wall paintings and secular iconography. Among other topics, he publishes on prayer books, anti-Judaism, biblical typology in medieval art, and monastic art. Lucie Doležalová is Professor of Medieval Latin at Charles University in Prague dealing primarily with late-medieval manuscript culture. Among other topics, she has published on biblical parody, the art of memory, medieval libraries and late-medieval devotion. A. S. G. Edwards is Honorary Visiting Professor in the School of English, University of Kent and at King’s and University Colleges, London. He is a Guggenheim Fellow and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and the English Association.

xii  Contributors

Lenka Panušková is an art historian at the Institute of Art History of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague. Her research focuses on medieval illuminated manuscripts in the context of female piety and devotion in the Middle Ages. She is also interested in the functioning of medieval diagrams and images in general. She edited the collective monograph The Velislav Bible: Finest Picture-Bible of the Late Middle Ages. Biblia depicta as Devotional, Mnemonic and Study Tool (2018). Klára Petříková is a researcher in medieval English literature at Charles University in Prague. Her main focus is on mystical and anchoritic literature and medieval translations with commentaries. Marek Suchý is a lecturer in medieval history in the Faculty of Humanities at Charles University in Prague. His main areas of interests are the social, economic and technological aspects of medieval building (especially St Vitus Cathedral in Prague) and Anglo-Bohemian relations in the late Middle Ages. Michael Van Dussen is Professor of Medieval Literature at McGill University. His publications include Richard Rolle: On Lamentations (2020), A Companion to the Hussites (ed. with Pavel Soukup, 2020), and From England to Bohemia: Heresy and Communication in the Later Middle Ages (2012). David Wallace, Judith Rodin Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Pennsylvania since 1996, has edited Europe: A Literary History, 1348–1418, and is currently editing National Epics, both for Oxford University Press. He has written extensively on Chaucer, Boccaccio and Europe, and is Director-in-chief of Bibliotheca Dantesca. Helena Znojemská is Lecturer in the Department of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague. Her research focuses on the study of Old English poetry and of the transformations of historical narrative from the Old to Middle English period. She also translates Old English poetry and prose.

Acknowledgements

A

t a crucial point in the development of this book we received invaluable help and support from the following, who stirred discussion and led sessions at a colloquium in Paris in the summer of 2018: Margaret Bridges, Helen Cooper, Vincent Gillespie, Stephen Morrison, † Derek Pearsall and Miri Rubin. On that occasion we were ably supported by the Office Manager of the University of Kent’s Paris School of Arts and Culture, Frank Mikus. We should also like to acknowledge financial support from Kent’s European Development Fund. In Prague, work on this book was supported by the Charles University project Progres Q07, Centre for the Study of the Middle Ages. It was also supported by the European Regional Development Fund project ‘Creativity and Adaptability as Conditions of the Success of Europe in an Interrelated World’ (reg. no.: CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_019/0000734) implemented at Charles University, Faculty of Arts, and carried out under the ERDF Call ‘Excellent Research’ with its output aimed at employees of research organizations and PhD students. In addition, work on this book was supported by the Cooperatio Programme, Charles University, Research Area Literature. We should also like to acknowledge the tireless administrative support of Barbora Kosíková of the Progres Q07 project and the constructive comments of the anonymous person who reviewed our book proposal on behalf of the publishers. As the book has made its way through the publishing process, Caroline Palmer has been a fount of good humour, patience and expert advice. We have also benefitted greatly from the judicious readings of her anonymous reviewers. We have also benefitted greatly from the judicious readings of her anonymous reviewers and from the expertise of her editorial and production team members, especially Elizabeth McDonald and Christy Beale. All quotations from Chaucer’s works are from The Riverside Chaucer, gen. ed. Larry D. Benson, 3rd edn (Oxford, 1988).

Abbreviations ABC APH Astr Bo CCR CFR ClT CPR EETS es Fœdera FormAge HF KMK KNM KnT LGW MilT MLT NKCR ns ÖNB ODNB os PF

An ABC Archiv Pražského hradu [Archives of Prague Castle] A Treatise on the Astrolabe Boece Calendar of Close Rolls Calendar of Fine Rolls The Clerk’s Tale Calendar of Patent Rolls Early English Text Society extra series T. Rymer, Fœdera, conventiones, litterae et cujuscunque generis acta publica, ed. G. Holmes, 20 vols (London, 1704–35) The Former Age The House of Fame Knihovna metropolitní kapituly [Metropolitan Chapter Library], Prague Knihovna Národního muzea [National Museum Library], Prague The Knight’s Tale The Legend of Good Women The Miller’s Tale The Man of Law’s Tale Národní knihovna České republiky [National Library of the Czech Republic], Prague new series Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography original series The Parliament of Fowls

xvi  Abbreviations

PrT Riverside Chaucer RvT SNT Tr TNA WBP

The Prioress’s Tale The Riverside Chaucer, gen. ed. Larry D. Benson, 3rd edn (Oxford, 1988) The Reeve’s Tale The Second Nun’s Tale Troilus and Criseyde The National Archives of the UK, Kew Wife of Bath’s Prologue

Introduction PETER BROWN AND JAN ČERMÁK

T

he seed of the present book was planted by virtue of a modern example of cultural exchange: the European Union’s Erasmus scheme for student and staff mobility. A dozen years ago, there appeared in Peter Brown’s undergraduate Chaucer seminar a student named Ondřej Tichý. In the course of a class visit to examine manuscripts in Canterbury Cathedral archives, he displayed a precocious knowledge of medieval language and literature. It emerged that he was in fact a graduate student from Charles University, Prague, working with Jan Čermák (at that time Chair of the Department of English Language), and meanwhile contributing to the revised, online version of the Bosworth-Toller Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. Subsequently, Ondřej relayed to his Canterbury tutor an invitation to deliver a talk in Prague. That done, Kent issued a reciprocal invitation to Jan Čermák. By this means, staff and postgraduates on both sides began to share their research agendas, talk about areas of mutual interest, and discuss possible historical periods for collaboration. The choice fell fairly naturally on the second half of the fourteenth century: a golden age in Bohemia, Geoffrey Chaucer’s heyday in England, and a central event connecting the two countries – the marriage in 1382 of Anne, daughter of Charles IV of Bohemia, to Richard II. We dubbed the nascent project ‘Chaucer in Bohemia’ and set about organising collaborative workshops in Canterbury and Prague. Their aim was to explore in more detail tentative themes and topics that might give substance to the project. Once we were sure of its viability, we announced the project at the International Congress of the New Chaucer Society held in Siena in the summer of 2010, and invited expressions of interest from other scholars. ‘Chaucer in Bohemia’ culminated in a colloquium held in Paris in July of 2018. The venue was Kent’s postgraduate and research facility, its Paris School of Arts and Culture, in Montparnasse, that area of the city to which artists and writers flocked from the late 1800s through to the mid-twentieth century to enjoy its hedonistic, creative atmosphere. In a secondary sense, therefore, Chaucer was ‘in Bohemia’. For the purposes of the colloquium, as well as inviting those who were part of the project from its inception, we

2  Peter Brown and Jan Čermák

extended invitations to other specialists of international standing known to be working in cognate areas. We were also fortunate in attracting some leading figures in medieval studies to chair individual sessions. Deliberately, the colloquium was kept small in order to facilitate debate, community and conviviality. The ideas flowed, and by the end of the three days we felt we had the makings of a book. Colloquium participants were invited to submit proposals for essays and thus the present volume took shape. The contributors to this volume have used the Paris colloquium as a springboard to develop their arguments, and to discuss them further with each other and with the editors. The result is not a set of conference proceedings but rather the fruit of a project that began a decade ago. In one sense, England and Bohemia is about specific processes and examples of cultural transmission and exchange in the later Middle Ages. Yet its perspective is also broader in that it incorporates the idea of analogue: that is, the congruence of two cultures some eight hundred miles apart, framed by the idea of transnational literary culture as a collective phenomenon. The book uses the two lenses of cultural transmission and analogue to provide a deep perspective on the extent to which Chaucer’s poetic was disturbed and stimulated by the Bohemian moment in English court culture, a moment that reached its apogee in the years 1378–94 – a period bookended by the marriage negotiations for Anne and her death at the age of twenty-eight. England and Bohemia come into focus as two locales operating not in sealed circles of local influence but rather across boundaries of language, culture and polity. As the following essays demonstrate, the cultural similarities of the two countries rise well above the familiar, binary interactions of Latinate and vernacular, learned and popular, and local and transnational. From the outset of his literary career, Chaucer’s imagination had been animated by the whole process of literary production. Prominent examples that surface in his poetry include the making of new stories out of old ones; the rhetorical tropes needed to achieve those transformations; the sudden appearance and disappearance of inspiration; the creation of an authorial persona; reverence for the authority of classical writers such as Virgil and Ovid; acts of writing and reading; choice of genre and style; the development of a distinctive authorial voice; the creation and fostering of a reputation; the performative publication of texts; their reception and interpretation by an audience; patronage; and a dialogue – sometimes overt, sometimes implicit – with other writers, active in Chaucer’s lifetime, whose own takes on literary production stimulated his own ideas. By 1382, Chaucer’s engagement with literary production was thoroughly European in scope. It included recognition of its Latin roots, while being closely engaged with contemporary practice in the vernacular. Here, literature written in French formed the bedrock. As a lingua franca in courts across Europe – major centres for literary production as well as diplomacy – French was the language of choice for many aspiring poets. It is entirely possible



Introduction  3

that Chaucer’s earliest lyric compositions were in French. French was a language Chaucer would have learnt as a page at the court of Lionel, duke of Clarence, and used on his many diplomatic missions to France and other European countries. In the circumstances, it was only natural that he should turn to French literature throughout his writing career, whether to translate it, use its verse forms, or adapt its narratives. Works by Jean Froissart, Chaucer’s colleague at Edward III’s court, and by the prominent French poet and musician, Guillaume de Machaut, were formative influences.2 The admiration was not all one way: Chaucer’s expertise with French won him plaudits from poets who wrote only in that language. Eustache Deschamps, writing c. 1385, hailed Chaucer as ‘grant translateur’. ‘Grant translateur’ – that is, from French to English.3 Somewhat against the grain for an English court poet, Chaucer chose to establish his reputation as one who wrote in a dialect of English, whatever his debt to French poetry was. It was a gamble, since he thereby restricted his audience, but it paid off handsomely. The very transposition of French poetry into English became part of his distinctive practice, a hallmark of his originality, part of the Chaucerian mode of literary production.4 Moving far beyond conventional translation, he transposed the work of writers such as Froissart and Machaut to an English idiom that was as much creative and cultural as it was philological, incorporating newly invented scenes and contexts alongside the verbatim Englishing of French originals. Risky as Chaucer’s decision to write in English was, it was at least anchored in texts and authors likely to be familiar to a bilingual audience who could thereby appreciate the twists and turns of his adaptations. Yet no sooner had he put his own stamp on literary production when he sprang another surprise. For the greater part of his narrative sources are not French at all, but Italian. Writings by his contemporaries, Giovanni Boccaccio and Francesco Petrarca, and by their admired precursor, Dante Alighieri, lie behind some of Chaucer’s greatest achievements. Chaucer discovered Italian literature in the course of two diplomatic missions: to Florence and Genoa in 1372–73, and to Lombardy in 1378. In Italy he encountered a vernacular literature which, 1

1 2 3

4

James I. Wimsatt, Chaucer and the Poems of ‘Ch’ in University of Pennsylvania MS French 15 (Cambridge, 1982). Ardis Butterfield, The Familiar Enemy: Chaucer, Language, and Nation in the Hundred Years War (Oxford, 2009), pp. 269–72. Laura Kendrick, ‘Deschamps’ Ballade Praising Chaucer and its Impact’, Cahiers de recherches médiévales et humanistes/Journal of Medieval and Humanistic Studies 29 (2015), 215–33, incorporating text and English translation. Tim William Machan, ‘Chaucer as Translator’, in The Medieval Translator: The Theory and Practice of Translation in the Middle Ages, Papers read at a conference held 20–3 August 1987 at the University of Wales Conference Centre, Gregynog Hall, ed. Roger Ellis with Jocelyn Price, Stephen Medcalf and Peter Meredith (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 55–67, esp. 63–7; B. A. Windeatt, ‘The “Troilus” as Translation’, in Geoffrey Chaucer, ‘Troilus and Criseyde’: A New Edition of “The Book of Troilus”, ed. Windeatt (London, 1984), pp. 3–18.

4  Peter Brown and Jan Čermák

unlike its English counterpart, was held in high esteem, its authors the object of public veneration.5 His decision to make extensive, creative use of work by Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio was yet more audacious than his earlier resolve to write in English: with some exceptions, and unlike its French counterpart, Italian culture – let alone its revered authors or its vernacular – was an unknown quantity to Chaucer’s insular audience. Nevertheless, he made the adaptation of Italian literature a central part of his process of literary production and, for the first time, embedded Boccaccio, Petrarch and Dante within English poetry. In doing so, as if learning a trick or two from Italian practice, he did not fail to lay claim to his own recognition as a highly accomplished poet worthy to follow in the footsteps of illustrious literary ancestors – as at the end of Troilus and Criseyde, where the narrator bids his poem follow in the footsteps of Virgil, Ovid, Homer, Lucan and Statius. Chaucer’s transactions with French and Italian literature are well known and extensively studied. The present volume argues that, in addition to France and Italy, there is a third area of Europe that merits equal consideration as a context for understanding Chaucer’s literary practice: Bohemia, in a period when both England and Bohemia were caught up in multiple channels of mutual transmission.6 At first glance, the claim seems outlandish, for Bohemia’s case is markedly different from that of France or Italy. Chaucer never visited Bohemia, had no access to the Czech language, and was not familiar with its vernacular literature. For Chaucer as a traveller abroad, Bohemia was on the eastern rim of his horizons – which is not to say that there was no cultural exchange between it and England. As Michael Van Dussen reminds us, in the sphere of religious writing, works by the hermit of Hampole, Richard Rolle, found an audience in Bohemia, as did the reformist ideas of John Wyclif, especially among the followers of John Hus.7 All the same, Chaucer’s awareness of Bohemia as a place of literary activity – if he thought of the country at all – is likely to have been very limited. In general terms, Chaucer probably knew of the Luxembourg dynasty’s penchant for literary patronage. For seventeen years, Machaut was secretary and clerk to Jean l’Aveugle, king of Bohemia and father of Charles IV. It was for Jean, who died a hero’s death at Crécy, fighting on the French side, that Machaut wrote Le Jugement dou roi de Behaigne (before 1346) – a poem that Chaucer imitated in his Book of the Duchess. And Froissart, Chaucer’s fellow-poet at Edward’s court, whose work was likewise an early source of inspiration, subsequently composed his long verse romance, Meliador (after 1369) for Charles IV’s son, Wenceslas, incorporating lyrics written by his patron. By the late 1390s, after the death 5 6 7

David Wallace, Chaucerian Polity: Absolutist Lineages and Associational Forms in England and Italy (Stanford, 1997), ch. 1. For an account of Chaucer’s general and extensive awareness of European culture, see Marion Turner, Chaucer: A European Life (Princeton, 2019), esp. ch. 13. See ch. 2, below.



Introduction  5

of Anne, Chaucer might have been interested in and amused by Deschamps’s own Bohemian moment. Sent there and to Moravia on a diplomatic mission, his lyrics express a mixture of admiration and disdain. In Bohemia he found the food revolting and the fleas vicious: the stinging refrain is ‘Poulz, pouces, puour et pourceaulx’ [Lice, fleas, pigs, mould].8 Whatever Chaucer did or did not know about the Luxembourgs, there was plenty of potential for a close fit between Bohemian and English literary culture. Evidently the Luxembourgs understood the importance of literature as a means of extending their renown and prestige, and bestowed appropriate status on the poets they patronised, giving them the sort of privilege and regard that Chaucer had admired and envied in Italy. The dynasty found its apogee in the court of Charles IV, king of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor. Charles, like his father, Jean l’Aveugle, was a Francophile and so, as was the case in England, French culture and the French language were part of the Prague court’s DNA. Similarly, both courts were polyglot, with vernaculars – Czech and German in the case of Bohemia – vying with French and Latin and producing their own literatures. More than that, Charles, as king of the Romans, was crowned as such in Rome, and visited Petrarch at Mantua, the birthplace of Virgil. As David Wallace notes, throughout his reign Charles exchanged letters with Petrarch, who visited Prague on two occasions.9 For Charles, the encouragement of literature was part of a wider vision of stimulating all kinds of cultural production, whether in painting, architecture or learning, all of which flourished under his reign – one that he traced back to ancient Troy, much as the myth of the Trojan origins of London was part of the fabric of fourteenth-century historiography in England, as Venetia Bridges reminds us.10 As a servant of the crown, Chaucer was periodically caught up in marriage negotiations, on behalf of the young Richard II, who was but ten years old when he ascended to the throne in 1377. In his Chroniques, Froissart himself recalls that Chaucer was present on a mission to Montreuil that very year, the purpose of which was to discuss with French representatives the possibility of a union with Marie, daughter of the king of France.11 In the opening essay of this volume, Michael Bennett notes that Chaucer was in the group of emissaries visiting Milan in the following year, with the purpose of exploring the possibility of a marriage with Caterina Visconti, daughter of Bernabò, duke

8 9 10

11

Eustache Deschamps, Selected Poems, ed. Ian S. Laurie and Deborah M. Sinnreich-Levi, trans. David Curzon and Jeffrey Fiskin (New York, 2003), pp. 17–18, 194–5. See below, pp. 218–21. See below, pp. 127–9. The metanarrative of the Trojan diaspora was European in scope: see Sylvia Federico, New Troy: Fantasies of Empire in the Late Middle Ages (Minneapolis, 2003). Jean Froissart, Chronicles, trans. Geoffrey Brereton, rev. edn (Harmondsworth, 1978), p. 194.

6  Peter Brown and Jan Čermák

of Milan.12 Although there is nothing to suggest that Chaucer was directly involved in the diplomacy that preceded the betrothal of Richard and Anne, he would surely have taken a professional interest in it. Negotiations began in 1380 and produced a rapid increase in the nature and level of contact between Prague and London. The English mission was led by Sir Simon Burley, Richard’s tutor and, as Julia Boffey and A. S. G. Edwards note, the owner of a significant collection of books.13 It is certainly the case that Chaucer took a creative interest in the process of betrothal: his Parliament of Fowls is at one level an allegorised account of the suitors vying for Anne’s hand, framed as a Valentine’s Day celebration of love. The channels of cultural transmission between England and Bohemia continued to widen, spurred on by political expediency, as Michael Bennett explains. With the marriage of Richard and Anne in 1382 the two courts realised their potential for connection – a process helped by the entourage of Bohemian courtiers who accompanied Anne. Bennett discusses how English chroniclers noted, sometimes with disdain, the style of their clothes and shoes, their social behaviour, extravagance and sexual attitudes. Notwithstanding the brickbats, there were further instances of intermarriage between members of the English nobility and the Bohemian immigrants. Thus, over some six years, until 1388 and parliament’s edict ordering the expulsion of most Bohemians, Chaucer’s audience contained a significant group of people for whom contemporary Italian literature and culture were not so remote.14 It can hardly be a coincidence that Chaucer’s masterpiece from this period, Troilus and Criseyde, is in dialogue with a courtly audience, set in a Troy not unlike medieval London, addressing the nature of love and sexuality in an aristocratic setting; and that it is based on a narrative by Boccaccio, incorporates references to Dante, and includes an embedded lyric by Petrarch, the poet so admired by Anne’s father. During this remarkable period of creative activity, Anne’s presence acted as a catalyst. Her role was that of an animatrice, someone who entered Chaucer’s structure of literary production if not as a patron, then as a muse. Like all good muses, she was protean, shifting identity as the poetic occasion demanded: now an eagle (Parliament of Fowls), now the first letter of the alphabet (Troilus), now Queen Alceste (Legend of Good Women), now an emperor’s daughter (Clerk’s Tale). Saying as much begs the question of Anne’s literacy in English – an issue raised by several contributors. There would have been little point in Chaucer’s burnishing of compliments if Anne could not have understood them. The dialogue of their alter egos in the Legend of Good Women suggests that, by then at least, English was not a stumbling block. It may also be significant that in the earlier poem, Troilus and Criseyde, Chaucer’s flattering allusion to Anne 12 13 14

See below, p. 17. As also David Wallace, p. 217, below. See below, pp. 206–7. See below, p. 19.



Introduction  7

takes the form of a reference to the alphabet – ‘oure firste lettre is now an A’ (i, 171) – as if in recognition of her success, or at least her efforts, in learning English.15 She would have had time to do so, Troilus having been completed several years after her arrival in England. And it is likely that Anne’s aptitude for language learning was of a high order. Well educated, she came from one multilingual court to another and allegedly possessed a copy of the gospels in English. That claim, attributed to archbishop Arundel in a Lollard tract with its own agenda, cannot be verified, but at the very least it reflects Anne’s reputation for linguistic prowess. This is far from being the first book to juxtapose Chaucer’s poetry of the 1380s with the distinctive circumstances of literary production emerging from Richard II’s marriage to Anne of Bohemia. Over fifty years ago, Gervase Mathew urged that a broad canvas of cultural production, especially in painting and sculpture, was helpful in understanding what he termed ‘international court culture’ and Chaucer’s place within it.16 More recently, scholars such as David Wallace and Alfred Thomas have given detailed attention to the Bohemian context, showing how it sheds light on Chaucer’s literary choices, practices and achievements. Their work is amply acknowledged in the pages that follow. Further afield, there has been a steadily increasing stream of new studies that open up for anglophone readers particular aspects of cultural exchange between England and Bohemia in the later Middle Ages. A notable example is Michael Van Dussen’s From England to Bohemia, which explores how diplomacy and religious controversy accelerated the circulation of texts.17 Similarly, a forthcoming collection of essays edited by Karl Kügle, Ingrid Ciulisová and Václav Žůrek, The Long Luxembourg Century (1310–1437) provides a survey of the four kings of the Luxembourg dynasty and their respective interactions with literature, music, artefacts and architecture.18 For those who wish to understand more about the Bohemian dimensions of Chaucer’s poetry, the books just cited contain important lessons in method and approach. The first is that of attentiveness to Luxembourg court culture – its principles, features, achievements and fault-lines. Here, linguistic versatility is an advantage, for, as the bibliography in this book demonstrates, the necessary scholarship is shared across four languages: Czech, English, French and German. The second lesson is implicit in the first: a readiness to cross often artificial divisions between academic disciplines. Politics and historiography, art history, religious studies, literary analysis, all have parts to play. Third, given 15 16 17 18

See below, pp. 20, 21–2, 205–6. Gervase Mathew, The Court of Richard II (London, 1968), chs 1–7. Michael Van Dussen, From England to Bohemia: Heresy and Communication in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2012). Karl Kügle, Ingrid Ciulisová and Václav Žůrek (eds), The Long Luxembourg Century, (1310–1437): Courtly Networks and Cultural Politics in Late Medieval Europe (Cambridge, forthcoming).

8  Peter Brown and Jan Čermák

that no one individual is likely to embody all the requisite skills, collaboration is essential – both across subject areas and across national borders. In terms of method and approach, the contributors have deployed strategies ranging from new archival investigation; to the investigation of significant contexts in diplomacy, textual exchange and intellectual networks; to the identification of specific literary analogues. The principles just outlined have guided the formation of the present book. It ranges across several disciplines – literature, art history, political history, religious studies – and it is the outcome of active collaboration between scholars based in the Czech Republic and others from the English-speaking world. In the latter respect the book is, to the best of our knowledge, the first of its kind in this particular area of Chaucer studies. The editors believe it makes a valuable contribution to a developing topic of research and hope it will encourage others to explore further the questions it addresses, such as: what impact did the arrival of Anne and her presence at court have on Chaucer’s poetry? how might we deepen our understanding of the interplay of Bohemian and English culture at that time? what were the significant contexts (religious, political, social) within which cultural exchange flourished? Those questions are reflected in the three sections that structure England and Bohemia in the Age of Chaucer. The first, ‘Lines of Communication’, considers some aspects of cultural transmission and exchange between England and Bohemia before, during and after Anne’s marriage to Richard. The second section, ‘Cultural Analogues’, looks at commonalities of historiographical, literary and artistic outputs in England and Bohemia in the age of Chaucer. ‘Rethinking Queen Anne’, the final section, examines in detail the impact on Chaucer’s work of Anne’s presence at the English court, especially as a mediatrix in the eyes of the England of her time, for Chaucer himself, and now, metaphorically, for the academic communities engaged in creating this book. A synopsis precedes each of the eleven essays, so it is unnecessary to provide here a detailed summary of content. Instead, to give the reader some idea of what to expect in navigating the book, we note the salient points, chapter by chapter, of each author’s contribution. The opening essay of the first section sets the scene for the book as a whole. In ‘Richard II, Queen Anne, Bohemia: Marriage, Culture and Politics’, Michael Bennett traces the life of Anne in England both as an agent and as an image, from her arrival in 1381 through to her death in 1394, with particular attention to the effect of her presence (and that of her entourage) on English court life, culture and politics. Archival research enables Bennett to create a vivid sense of how the Bohemian warp was interwoven with the English weft. Michael Van Dussen, in ‘Recommended Reading: Richard Rolle in Bohemia’, looks at cultural transmission in the opposite direction. He reveals more of the evidence he has discovered in central European archives demonstrating that Latin works by the English recluse were transmitted directly to Bohemia – to make it the site of some of their most intensive copying – and from Bohemia to other countries including Italy.



Introduction  9

The final essay of the section is ‘The Golden Book of the Knight Wenceslas: Travelling, Piety and Diplomacy in Late-Medieval Europe’, by Marek Suchý. Using codicological evidence, as well as narrative content, he examines in detail the journal – part travelogue, part pilgrim narrative – written by a Bohemian knight in the late fourteenth century during a prolonged visit to England, uncovering its author’s distinctive Bohemian perspective. The second section of the book, dealing with cultural analogues, consists of six essays which fall into three pairs. The focus of the first pair is on historiography. In ‘Making Sense of the Past: Czech and English Vernacular Histories in the Fourteenth Century’, Helena Znojemská examines the ways in which English and Bohemian chroniclers represented their respective countries. Looking at such texts as the Dalimil chronicle and Alliterative Morte Arthure, she finds broad similarities of approach as well as some sharp contrasts. Venetia Bridges, in ‘Beyond Nations: Translating Troy in the Middle Ages’, homes in on one area of shared mythology, the story of Troy, as found in authors writing in French, Latin and English. She argues that, in Bohemia as well as in Britain, it was a transnational legend inflected at a local level according to national circumstance and political priority. Narratives occurring in both England and Bohemia are also the subjects of the second pair of essays. Lucie Doležalová, in ‘Mock Passions in England and Bohemia’, identifies the corpus of a richly intertextual but neglected genre – part parody, part response to historical event – and raises the possibility of literary influence from England to Bohemia. In ‘The Evil Tale of Evil Briselda: Griselda’s Wicked Counterpart’, Klára Petříková’s focus is on the tale of Griselda, known in Bohemia and to Chaucer through Petrarch’s version. She introduces Griselda’s alter ego, the evil Briselda, who in turn has links to Criseyde, the eventual heroine of Chaucer’s Troilus. Visual culture links the final pair of essays. Jan Dienstbier’s ‘The Image of the Tapster in England and Bohemia’ presents evidence in literature, as well as wall painting, for a cross-cultural understanding of the tapster figure as a denizen of hell. In ‘Bohemian and English Painting in the Last Decades of the Fourteenth Century: Tracing the Bohemian Influence’, Lenka Panušková re-examines the much-disputed question of the influence of Bohemian artistic styles on English painting and finds the evidence inconclusive. The final section of the book contains two essays exploring Chaucerian texts in the light of Anne’s presence at the English court. In ‘Contextualising the Legend of Good Women: Some Possible Bohemian Perspectives’, Julia Boffey and A. S. G. Edwards highlight in Chaucer’s poem the links between representations of queens and tensions between their amatory and political identities. Considering the role of Anne as an influence on Chaucer’s poetry, they use collateral evidence from a neglected French analogue of the Legend. David Wallace, in ‘Humility and Empire: Anne of Bohemia, Chaucer, and the Virgin Mary’, provides a political and spiritual perspective to balance the political and courtly one with which England and Bohemia begins. He stresses the theme of ‘Marian dynamics’ as one that is greatly under-appreciated and

10  Peter Brown and Jan Čermák

therefore under-researched, and goes on to explore the Italian literary inheritance at the court of Charles IV, and Chaucer’s use of it in Troilus, the Clerk’s Tale and Man of Law’s Tale. Both of the final essays indicate that Anne of Bohemia’s presence and effect in Chaucer’s writing are deeper and more subtle than has hitherto been acknowledged.

Lines of Communication

1 Richard II, Queen Anne, Bohemia: Marriage, Culture and Politics MICHAEL BENNETT

This chapter discusses the impact of Richard II’s marriage to Anne of Bohemia on the political and cultural history of late fourteenth-century England. It sets the marriage in the context of England’s relations with the house of Luxembourg, the Holy Roman Empire and Bohemia, examines its role in the formation of Richard’s early regime, and assesses the scale of the Bohemian presence in England in the 1380s. It considers the role of Anne, both as image and agent, in opening England to new cultural influences and in presiding over a court that inspired poets and dismayed moralists, and explores the possible influence of imperial models on Richard’s political style and ambitions as a ruler, especially his growing perception of a grandiose role in Christendom. While it argues that Anne was more a symbol than an agent of change, and acknowledges continuities in England and commonalities in princely and court culture across Europe, it also suggests that the Bohemian connection, cosmopolitan as well as Czech, was a significant ingredient in the political drama and cultural vitality of the age.

A

week before Christmas 1381, a small sixteen-year-old princess came ashore at Dover. After the anxieties of the crossing, she must have been alarmed by the storm the next day that battered the ship that had carried her over.1 She had lost her father, the emperor Charles IV, in 1378, and was now far from home. She was not entirely alone, of course. Apart from her own entourage, she was met in Calais by English knights who had paid court to her in Prague and was escorted in Kent by a large retinue including the uncles of the fifteen-year-old Richard II, her future husband. As Kent and London were epicentres of the recent revolt in England, she may have found a lack of warmth among the populace. The marriage, pursued, it was said, ‘without the 1

The St Albans Chronicle: The Chronica Maiora of Thomas Walsingham, ed. J. Taylor, W. R. Childs and L. Watkiss, 2 vols (Oxford, 2003–11), i, pp. 574–5.

14  Michael Bennett

consent of the kingdom’, was not seen in England as advantageous.2 Far from bringing a large dowry, Anne had been bought dear, with a hefty loan to her half-brother Wenceslas (Wenzel), king of the Romans and Bohemia; a large price, the monk of Westminster wrote, for ‘tantilla carnis porcione’ [such a small piece of meat].3 It would nonetheless be a mistake to assume that she played a minimal role in the politics and culture of Ricardian England. Half a century ago, Gervase Mathew pointed to possible Bohemian strands in the internationalism of court culture in England following the marriage of Anne of Bohemia to Richard II in 1382.4 As the following chapter demonstrates, the profiles of Richard Rolle, John Wyclif and other Lollard writers in the late fourteenth century likewise raise questions about lines of communication and cultural exchange between England and Bohemia.5 In the strictest sense, Richard’s marriage to Anne was an alliance between the Plantagenets and the house of Luxembourg, a well-established dynasty on the borderlands between France and Germany. In terms of England’s foreign policy, it shows some continuity with Edward III’s marriage to Philippa of Hainault, which had been designed to secure a network of allies against France in the Low Countries and the Rhineland (Fig. 1.1).6 Anne was the nearest available kinswoman of Richard’s grandmother. On her journey from Prague, she was accompanied by Robert of Namur, Philippa’s brother-in-law, and spent several weeks with Count Wenceslas of Brabant, Anne’s uncle, and Countess Joanna, formerly Philippa’s sister-in-law. Since two members of the house of Luxembourg had been crowned emperor, the marriage needs also to be seen in the context of England’s relations with the Holy Roman Empire. Henry of Luxembourg, Anne’s great grandfather, was king of the Romans and then emperor from 1308 to 1313, during which time he negotiated the marriage of his eldest son John to the heiress of the crown of Bohemia. After Henry’s death, 2 3 4

5 6

Eulogium Historiarum sive Temporis, ed. F. S. Haydon, 3 vols (London, 1858–63), iii, p. 355. The Westminster Chronicle, 1381–1394, ed. L. C. Hector and B. F. Harvey (Oxford, 1982), p. 25. G. Mathew, The Court of Richard II (London, 1968), pp. 39–42, 76. The thesis was critically assessed in A. Simpson, The Connections between English and Bohemian Painting during the Second Half of the Fourteenth Century (New York, 1984) and has been more fully developed in A. Thomas, A Blessed Shore: England and Bohemia from Chaucer to Shakespeare (Ithaca, 2007), esp. chs 1–3. See also ch. 9 below, by Lenka Panušková. For the Chaucerian connection, see D. J. Wallace, ‘Anne of Bohemia, Queen of England, and Chaucer’s Emperice’, Litteraria Pragensia 5 (1995), 1–16; and A. Taylor, ‘Anne of Bohemia and the Making of Chaucer’, Studies in the Age of Chaucer 19 (1997), 95–119. See also M. Van Dussen, From England to Bohemia: Heresy and Communication in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2012). In general, see A. Tuck, ‘Richard II and the House of Luxemburg’, in Richard II: The Art of Kingship, ed. A. Goodman and J. L. Gillespie (Oxford, 1999), pp. 205–29.

Figure 1.1  The Luxembourg Family Tree. From ‘Luxemburg Dynasty (Czech Branch)’ in F. Šmahel, The Parisian Summit, 1377–8. Emperor Charles IV and King Charles V of France (Prague, 2014), p. 42.

16  Michael Bennett

Lewis of Bavaria emerged from a disputed election as king of the Romans and was crowned emperor in 1328 but proved unable to consolidate his position. Triumphant in the wars of France, Edward III of England was approached in 1348 as an imperial candidate but decided to give his support to Charles, John of Bohemia’s young son, in a coalition against the Emperor Lewis.7 Educated in France, Charles was a cosmopolitan, spending time in Italy, building up the kingdom of Bohemia, and setting the empire on foundations that would assure its survival for over four hundred years. From Richard’s perspective, the marriage was with ‘Caesar’s daughter’. Though the imperial title had little or no power or authority outside Germany, it gave some claim to leadership and precedence in Christendom. One of the articles of the treaty of marriage established freedom of trade between England and a large part of Europe.8 The marriage was not primarily about Anglo–Bohemian relations. The peoples of the two countries knew little of each other prior to the fourteenth century. England had a greater profile in Bohemia than Bohemia in England, and English power and influence in Christendom were further enhanced by Edward III’s military success in France in the 1340s and 1350s. As dukes of Luxembourg, the kings of Bohemia could not remain aloof from the Anglo–French conflict. In the early stages, John of Bohemia was engaged in attempts to mediate between the two parties. After making a full commitment to the French cause, he won international celebrity for his bravery at the battle of Crécy in 1346. Blind, he boldly instructed his retainers to lead him into the thick of the combat, where he was struck down, the battle’s notable casualty. The tradition that the Black Prince, Richard’s father, took the crest of ostrich feathers from John’s helm and adopted it as his badge is documented as early as 1376.9 Bohemian knights came to England as captives, some taking service with Edward III and his sons, including Bernard ze Sedlice (Bernard von Zedeletz) with the Black Prince.10 The chivalric reputation of the blind Bohemian king was soon matched by the high regard of Christendom for his son Charles, who developed his Bohemian realm as the power-house for a reinvigorated Empire. He embarked on a major programme of making Prague a notable royal city, building a great cathedral and palace, founding the University of Prague, and patronising scholastic learning, neo-classical literature, Czech vernacular culture and high craftsmanship.11 Bohemian nobles, scholars and artisans embraced the wider opportunities. Vojtěch Raňkův z Ježova (Adalbertus Ranconis de Ericinio)

7 8 9 10 11

W. M. Ormrod, Edward III (New Haven, 2011), p. 245. T. Rymer, Fœdera, conventiones, litterae et cujuscunque generis acta publica, ed. G. Holmes, 20 vols (London, 1704–35) [hereafter Fœdera], vii, p. 291. R. Barber, Edward III and the Triumph of England (London, 2013), pp. 237–40. C. Given-Wilson, The Royal Household and the King’s Affinity: Service, Politics and Finance in England 1360–1413 (New Haven, 1986), p. 162. P. Crossley and Z. Opačić, ‘Prague as a New Capital’, in Prague: The Crown of Bohemia, 1347–1437, ed. B. Drake Boehm and J. Fajt (New York, 2005), pp. 59–73.



Richard II, Queen Anne, Bohemia  17

studied at Oxford prior to becoming rector of the University of Paris in 1355, and endowed scholarships at Oxford as well as Paris for his compatriots in 1388.12 At his accession in 1377, Richard was the most eligible bachelor in Christendom, and Anne, the daughter of the emperor, a more than worthy match. Charles IV immediately wrote to England to offer his daughter’s hand. Although the alliance had attractions for both parties, it was only one of several possibilities entertained by them. Initially, the royal family and the council in England were set on a marriage with the Visconti of Milan, sending emissaries, including Geoffrey Chaucer, to open negotiations in spring 1378.13 The prospect of a large dowry from Milan and a formidable alliance in northern Italy offset the deficit in bloodline, and Michael de la Pole and two other knights were dispatched to negotiate terms in spring 1379. The schism of the church in 1378, with rival popes in Rome and Avignon contending for the allegiance of Christendom, was the catalyst for a change of plan. Shortly before his death in 1378, Charles IV declared his support for Pope Urban VI against his French-backed rival in Avignon. Urban naturally saw it in his interest to encourage a firm alliance between his two main supporters, England and Bohemia. Even as the English emissaries set out for Milan, a papal legate was already in Prague persuading Wenceslas, the new king of Bohemia, to renew the offer of Anne’s hand to Richard. In response, letters were sent from England instructing the emissaries to leave Italy and make their way to Prague. By the end of 1379, they had probably already sent Richard favourable accounts of the Bohemian princess. Captured by bandits on the way home, however, they were not able to report to the king in person until spring 1380. In May, a formal embassy to Prague, comprising Robert Braybroke, a kinsman of Joan of Kent and later bishop of London, Sir Simon Burley, Richard’s tutor, and Sir Bernard ze Sedlice (Bernard von Zedeletz), a Bohemian knight, was dispatched to convey to Anne the seriousness of Richard’s intent. After Anne agreed to the marriage in January 1381, proctors of the two parties met to negotiate terms in Bruges.14 Once agreement had been reached, the Bohemian delegation, led by Przemysław, duke of Teschen (Cieszyn), came to London to sign the treaty in May. Sir Simon Burley accompanied them on their return to Prague to assist in preparing Anne for her journey to England. Richard was eager for the match with Anne. Attracted by her imperial bloodline and presumably impressed by reports of her personal qualities, he was impatient for her arrival and instructed three knights, including his half-brother John Holland and the ubiquitous Burley, to receive her at Calais

12 13 14

R. F. Young, ‘Bohemian Scholars and Students at the English Universities from 1347 to 1750’, English Historical Review 38 (1923), 72–84 at 72. N. Saul, Richard II (New Haven, 1997), p. 84. Fœdera, vii, pp. 282–3.

18  Michael Bennett

and escort her to him.15 Anne lingered in Brussels, while her uncle, anxious about her security, sought assurances of safe passage from the king of France. Apprised of her imminent arrival in early December, Richard suspended parliament to ensure her honourable reception. Anne arrived in Dover on 18 December. According to Thomas Walsingham, monk of St Albans, ‘every single person worked with all his might to honour the marriage with presents as well as with service that showed their support for it’.16 John of Gaunt and Thomas of Woodstock, two of the king’s uncles, escorted her to Leeds Castle, where she spent Christmas. There is no evidence as to whether Richard met his bride before their wedding on 20 January.17 On her wedding day she rode through Cheapside, decorated with the English and imperial arms, to Westminster Abbey, and was crowned there two days later.18 The royal marriage had an immediate impact on English politics. Even as Anne was contemplating her future in England, a popular revolt in south-east England forced Richard to take refuge in the Tower of London. While the king and the nobles had succeeded in suppressing the rebellion and hanging large numbers of rebels over the summer, there were further disturbances in Kent that autumn. At Canterbury, Anne would have seen evidence of the destruction associated with the tumult. As part of the government’s efforts to pacify the realm, Anne had been pressed into service even before her arrival in England. In parliament in November 1381, the king proclaimed a general pardon for the rebels ‘at the special request of the noble lady, the Lady Anne, daughter of the noble prince Charles, late emperor of Rome, soon, if it please God, to be queen of England’.19 In welcoming her in January 1382, the mayor and aldermen of London, aware of the customary role of queens as intercessors, moved with unseemly haste to ask her to intercede with her husband to protect their liberties.20 The new queen did not receive universal approbation. Some Londoners tore down three shields depicting the arms of the king and emperor set up in Cheapside.21 All the chronicles regarded the match as a poor deal. Instead of receiving the handsome dowry on offer in Milan, the king provided a large loan to Wenceslas. The duke of Teschen and two of his companions on the embassy were granted annuities totalling 1,000 marks.22 The scramble to welcome Anne reflected an awareness of her likely political importance. John of Gaunt, who was suspected of seeking to supplant 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

Ibid., pp. 336–7. St Albans Chronicle, ed. Taylor et al., i, pp. 572–3. Saul, Richard II, pp. 89, 469. Westminster Chronicle, ed. Hector and Harvey, pp. 22–3. Rotuli Parliamentorum, ed. J. Strachey, 6 vols (London, 1767–77), iii, p. 103. P. Strohm, Hochon’s Arrow: The Social Imagination of Fourteenth-Century Texts (Princeton, 1992), p. 105. Calendar of Select Pleas and Memoranda Rolls of the City of London, 1381–1412, ed. A. H. Thomas (Cambridge, 1932), p. 3. Fœdera, vii, p. 288.



Richard II, Queen Anne, Bohemia  19

his nephew, and Thomas of Woodstock, who would emerge as the chief antagonist of the court party, made haste to put themselves at the head of her escort and had some success in winning her good will. In the event, though, the marriage helped to consolidate the power and influence of Sir Michael de la Pole and Sir Simon Burley in the king’s inner circle. In 1383, the king appointed de la Pole, a member of the first embassy to Prague, as his chancellor. Shortly after the marriage, Burley, who had twice gone as the king’s emissary to Anne in Prague, was elected to the Order of the Garter. As chamberlain of the household, he controlled access to the king and, allegedly, encouraged his friendship with Robert de Vere, the young earl of Oxford.23 Sir Ralph Stafford, another young gallant beloved of the king, was attached to the queen’s household and was soon held in ‘very great affection’ by her.24 The marriage brought Richard greater independence. He was able to expand his entourage, surround himself with people congenial or beholden to him, and gain access to funds from the queen’s dower lands. The wedding celebrations, the queen’s coronation and royal tours provided opportunities to project his regal image. Travelling around the kingdom, the royal couple were fêted by their hosts, with the king expecting gifts for the queen as well as himself. Their ten-day stay at the abbey of Bury St Edmunds cost the monks 800 marks, a sum equivalent to between a third and a quarter of the abbey’s annual income.25 When the king and queen passed through King’s Lynn (then Bishop’s Lynn), on return from the shrine at Walsingham, the burgesses gave presents to both of them.26 With regard to the gifts during this tour, Walsingham observed that, instead of being set aside for prudent use, they were ‘bestowed in great abundance upon the foreign countrymen of the queen, her Bohemians’.27 In reporting on the court at Christmas 1384, he vented his spleen at the Bohemians ‘who fed off the fat of the land, forgetful of their own country, and though only guests … shamelessly and grimly unwilling to return home’.28 The monk of St Albans was not alone in his animus. In 1388 parliament ordered the expulsion of all Bohemians, apart from approved servants of the queen, from the realm.29 In the early 1380s, Queen Anne’s personal agency was limited; she was able to do little more than play her part and lend her name. Anne was not a common name in England prior to her arrival, ranking as only the thirty-fifth most com-

23 24 25 26 27 28 29

Rotuli Parliamentorum, ed. Strachey, iii, p. 242. St Albans Chronicle, ed. Taylor et al., i, pp. 756–9. Ibid., pp. 688–9; R. Yates, History and Antiquities of the Abbey of St Edmund’s Bury, 2nd edn (London, 1843), p. 173. A mark was worth 13s 4d – two-thirds of £1. H. Harrod, Report on the Deeds and Records of the Borough of King’s Lynn (King’s Lynn, 1870), p. 3. St Albans Chronicle, ed. Taylor et al., i, pp. 690–1. Ibid., pp. 736–7. Rotuli Parliamentorum, ed. Strachey, iii, p. 247.

20  Michael Bennett

mon female name in the poll-tax returns of 1377–81.30 It is very probable she was the godmother of Anne, daughter of Thomas of Woodstock, born in 1383, and Anne, daughter of Roger Mortimer, born in 1390, both of whom proved great matriarchs. If so, she can be said to have played some part in setting the stage for the popularity of the name in Tudor times. Anne has also been credited with promoting the cult of St Anne. According to an early chronicler, she petitioned the pope to order its more solemn celebration in England.31 In fact, Urban VI issued a bull to achieve this end prior to the marriage in June 1381. He may, of course, have been acting in response to news of the marriage treaty in May, and since the bull was not promulgated in England until May 1383, it is conceivable that the queen prompted the archbishop of Canterbury to do so.32 Around this time, her name was co-opted in the cause of the vernacular Bible in England. In a treatise on the validity of biblical translation, John Wyclif invited his readers to consider the possibility that the queen had copies of the gospels in German and Czech as well as Latin.33 Given Wyclif’s contacts in court circles, he may have known that she read or heard the scriptures read in Czech. Anne and her compatriots were, unwittingly, exemplars of exotic styles. A moralist deplored the introduction of long, pointed shoes.34 Although the shoes had been known and indeed criticised in England before Anne’s time, it may be that their visibility in court circles gave new focus to the criticism. In evoking a courtly scene in the late 1380s, John Gower in his Confessio Amantis (viii, 2470) refers to the ‘newe guise of Beawme’.35 The novelty most associated with Anne was riding side-saddle, a Bohemian fashion for women that certainly caught on.36 The influence of the queen’s compatriots was presumably a function of their number and quality. While the chronicles imply a large Bohemian presence, the documentation is limited. With the departure of the duke of Teschen in autumn 1382, Anne was left without a compatriot of power and status to guide her.37 Margaret of Teschen, the duke’s daughter, was perhaps the only Bohemian of high birth who settled in England.38

30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

By the end of Henry VIII’s reign, it ranked as fifth: G. Redmonds, Christian Names in Local and Family History (Toronto, 2004), pp. 173, 178. Historia Vitae et Regni Ricardi Secundi, ed. G. B. Stow (Philadelphia, 1977), p. 134. D. Wilkins, Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hibernicae, 4 vols (London, 1737), iii, pp. 178–9. A. Hudson, Lollards and their Books (London, 1985), p. 154. Historia Vitae Ricardi Secundi, ed. Stow, p. 134. The Complete Works of John Gower, ed. G. C. Macaulay, 4 vols. (Oxford, 1899–1902), ii, p. 453. J. Stow, A Survey of London Written in the Year 1598, ed. W. J. Thoms (London, 1842), p. 32. Calendar of Close Rolls [hereafter CCR] 1381–5 (London, 1920), p. 155. A. Thomas, ‘Margaret of Teschen’s Czech Prayer: Transnationalism and Female Literacy in the Later Middle Ages’, Huntington Library Quarterly 74 (2011), 309–23.



Richard II, Queen Anne, Bohemia  21

There are notices of Bohemians coming and going. In October 1383 Richard issued a writ of passage for Sir Othes de Bergo of Bohemia, his companions and servants, and forty horses.39 There is a report of Bohemian knights and squires travelling in the Scottish marches in 1384.40 In a letter to Wenceslas, probably in the same year, Anne reported that Richard had taken into his service a knight named Nicholas, evidently known to Wenceslas.41 In June 1385, two Bohemian knights, Burȝebo and Hask, arrived as emissaries, served Richard with a small company in his Scottish expedition, and returned home in autumn well rewarded.42 In addition to the ladies who had accompanied her from Bohemia, Queen Anne requested that her brother send three more from Prague.43 The monk of Westminster wrote disapprovingly of Richard’s encouragement of marriages between the queen’s ladies and English men of rank.44 Margaret of Teschen married Sir Simon Felbrigg, one of the king’s knights, but she outranked her husband.45 The chronicler perhaps had in mind the irregular union between Agnes Lancecrona and Robert de Vere, two other marriages that perhaps fit the bill, notably one involving Sir Nicholas Sarnesfield, or other matches that have gone wholly unrecorded.46 There were doubtless some marriages between Bohemian knights and squires and English women. In 1387, Richard gave a silver cup to Roger Siglem, a Bohemian squire, on his marriage, but his bride may well have been a compatriot.47 The image of Queen Anne was in large measure constructed by the expectations and imaginings of other people. A key point is that her image was arguably more imperial than Bohemian. No contemporary source describes her as ‘Anne of Bohemia’. As ‘Caesar’s daughter’, she was an alluring cultural icon. In addition to her illustrious bloodline, she was brought up in the most mag39 40 41 42

43 44 45 46

47

TNA, C 81/1340/16. TNA, E 101/401/2. K. L. Geaman, ‘A Personal Letter Written by Anne of Bohemia’, English Historical Review 128 (2013), 1086–94 at 1089. TNA, E 403/508, mm. 15, 20, 24. In May 1386, Richard made a gift of silk cloth to Peter Leasynev, a Bohemian squire: TNA, E 101/401/16. A Bohemian squire, who accompanied the queen on the expedition, was involved in a serious affray in York. Geaman, ‘Personal Letter’, 1089. Westminster Chronicle, ed. Hector and Harvey, pp. 160–1. Thomas, ‘Margaret of Teschen’, 309–23. For Agnes Lancecrona, see below. Richard Long, king’s esquire, was married to Margaret, one of the queen’s ladies in 1385, and Sarnesfield was likewise married to Margaret, one of the queen’s ladies, in 1389. There is no firm evidence that either of them was Bohemian, but Biggs has made a persuasive case for Lady Sarnesfield: CCR 1385–89 (London, 1914), p. 74; Calendar of Patent Rolls [hereafter CPR] 1391–96 (London, 1905), pp. 121–2; D. L. Biggs, ‘Patronage, Preference and Survival: The Life of Lady Margaret Sarnesfield, c. 1381–c. 1444’, in The Ties that Bind: Essays in Medieval British History in Honor of Barbara Hanawalt, ed. L. E. Mitchell, K. L. French and D. L. Biggs (Farnham, 2010), pp. 143–58 at 144–5. TNA, E 403/518, m. 2. Roger Siglem is described as ‘dwelling with the queen’ in 1389: Calendar of Fine Rolls [hereafter CFR] 1383–91 (London, 1929), p. 310.

22  Michael Bennett

nificent court in Christendom and was the beneficiary of an unusually good education for a woman of her time. Charles IV, her father, was a great patron of learning and literature, both Latin and vernacular. The Italian poet and humanist scholar Petrarch exchanged letters with him and hailed him as the restorer of empire and civilisation. Even without any personal knowledge of her, writers and artists in England would have entertained hopes of Anne’s interest and patronage. David Wallace has argued that Anne’s arrival opened England, somewhat dependent culturally on France, to wider European influences and provided the conditions for a fuller importation of Italian models.48 In two visits to Italy, most recently in 1378, Geoffrey Chaucer found inspiration in Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio, and on his return drew on their writings for themes, techniques and tone to fashion a new sort of English poetry. The first literary notice of Anne appears in his Parliament of Fowls, in which Chaucer describes the god of Love presiding over a court in which three eagles, including a royal eagle, present themselves as suitors to the imperial eagle, evidently a figure for Anne (PF 631–51). Although the imperial eagle asks for another year to announce her decision, the reader is left in no doubt that the royal eagle has won the contest. In supplementing Wallace’s argument, it is worth noting the appearance in England of Baldassore Ubriachi (Embriachi), a Florentine merchant and cultural impresario, who specialised in supplying luxuries to princely courts. In seeking Anne’s assistance in obtaining permission to come to England with jewels and other merchandise, he reminded her of his services to her father and mother.49 Among his services, which were rewarded by his elevation to the dignity of count palatine by Emperor Charles in 1369, was his sending pearls worth 1,200 florins to Empress Elizabeth.50 Ubriachi appears to have been based in England between 1384 and 1387, evidently doing business for the queen. He was still sourcing precious commodities for Richard II in 1399.51 It is hard to discern direct evidence of Anne’s cultural agency. The presence of a young queen, for the first time in a generation in England, nonetheless had cultural consequences. In Troilus and Criseyde, Chaucer includes a compliment to the queen that gives the impression she is present symbolically if not physically (Tr i, 171–2). A retelling of an episode from the history of Troy, drawing on Boccaccio’s Il Filostrato, Troilus and Criseyde is no mere love story, but addresses larger issues of fate, free will and the human condition. His submission of it to the ‘correction’ of two philosophically minded colleagues attests to the moral seriousness of his work. But he can scarcely have 48 49 50

51

D. Wallace, Chaucerian Polity: Absolutist Lineages and Associational Forms in England and Italy (Stanford, 1997), pp. 345–70. TNA, Special Collections (SC) 8/221/11079. R. C. Trexler, ‘The Magi Enter Florence: The Ubriachi of Florence and Milan’, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, ns 1 (1978), 129–218 at 137–42. For a coffret in Prague made by the Ubriachi workshop, see Charles T. Little, ‘Coffret’ (catalogue item no. 55) in Prague, ed. Boehm and Fajt, pp. 189–90. Trexler, ‘Magi Enter Florence’, 137, 16–8.



Richard II, Queen Anne, Bohemia  23

intended so narrow a readership. A tale from another age and world, it would still have been broadly accessible in Ricardian England. According to legend, Britain had been founded by Brutus, a Trojan exile, and London was often figured in royal and literary circles as New Troy. The love affair of Troilus and Criseyde is set in a city under siege, not unlike London and environs in the mid-1380s, when French naval raids and invasion plans alarmed the capital. The setting for the drama is itself an imaginative feat. Chaucer creates the illusion of a city and a city-state, neither wholly like nor wholly unlike his own world. A notable feature of the poem is the construction in the narrative itself of an imaginary audience, remarkably inclusive, with which the narrator-persona constantly engages.52 It is, above all, a courtly audience, including men and women. Early readers, perhaps inspired by the fiction, believed that Chaucer presented the poem at court. The frontispiece to an early fifteenth-century manuscript presents Chaucer reciting the work to Richard II, Queen Anne and other male and female courtiers. Scholars have been hesitant to assume a significant female presence at the court of Richard II.53 The establishment of the queen’s household, however, certainly led to the expansion of the number of women in court circles in the 1380s.54 Since Anne was often in the king’s company, the queen’s and king’s households and their wider entourages would have often mingled, not least during courtly festivities, when they would have been joined by guests, magnates and other notables and their retinues. Initially at least, Joan of Kent had a key role in selecting her daughter-in-law’s ladies-in-waiting and servants. Lady Luttrell, the principal lady-in-waiting, had previously spent thirty years in the service of Edward III and the Black Prince and Princess Joan. In the mid 1380s, the sense of a courtly milieu developed as Richard and Anne invested in the comfort and ornamentation of their palaces, spent more liberally on feasts and tournaments, and aspired to elegance in dress, comportment and language. In 1383, they kept Christmas at Eltham ‘with a great deal of jousting and other pleasant diversions’.55 The festivities of the Order of the Garter, which often extended into May, increasingly came to involve ‘ladies of the party (secta) and livery of the Garter’. In April 1384 robes with Garter insignia were issued to the king’s mother, Queen Anne, the wives and daughters of his uncles, various countesses, and Lady Mohun, the widow of one of the original Garter knights. In 1385, Lady Despenser and Lady Poynings

52 53

54 55

P. Strohm, Social Chaucer (Cambridge MA, 1989), pp. 55–64. More positive are N. F. McDonald, ‘Chaucer’s “Legend of Good Women”: Ladies at Court and the Female Author(s)’, Chaucer Review 35 (2000), 22–42; and M. Turner, Chaucer: A European Life (Princeton, 2019), pp. 348–9. T. F. Tout, Chapters in the Administrative History of Mediæval England, 6 vols (Manchester, 1920–38), i, pp. 259–63. Westminster Chronicle, ed. Hector and Harvey, pp. 56–7, 154–5.

24  Michael Bennett

were added to the list.56 Over Christmas 1385–86, the court at Eltham gave a sumptuous welcome to the visiting king of Armenia. For general merriment, 128 long gowns and hoods were made, variously coloured, for sixteen teams of eight people to take part in dances and other games.57 Newly married and anxious to please, Anne would have graciously taken her place alongside her golden-haired husband presiding over the court of love. When the poet–narrator of Troilus and Criseyde addresses ‘young lovers’, he probably has in mind the young at heart, energised by the young queen and king, soliciting assistance from ‘yow that felyng han in loves arte’ (Tr i, 1333) in describing the physical consummation of the relationship between the Trojan lovers.58 As Derek Pearsall has observed, Troilus and Criseyde is ‘a revelation of what a “modern” story of love might be – unrestrained in its depiction of sexual love, with a frank acceptance of the woman’s sensuality and of the role of the go-between’.59 The focus on Criseyde, a widow of noble birth, and the sensitive and non-judgemental exploration of her feelings and dilemmas, would have appealed to ladies who no longer counted their years. The account of their affair is designed to tease and thrill but also to raise questions about the human condition, the experience of love and betrayal, and sensitive issues of morality and law like the status of clandestine marriage. Many women at court had experiences in life that would have inclined them to identify with the plot and the predicaments the poem presented. Joan of Kent, celebrated in her time as beautiful and amorous, had been involved in three marriages, all with Garter knights, two of which were clandestine.60 Isabella, Duchess of York, Richard’s favourite aunt, was reportedly ‘a lady of a sensual and self-indulgent disposition’.61 One of the most influential women at court was Joan, Lady Mohun. On her husband’s death, she sold the reversion of the lordship of Dunster for 1,000 marks and, though in her fifties, moved to the capital and established herself close to the pinnacle of high society. In 1388, Lady Mohun, her daughter Lady Fitzwalter, and Lady Poynings were expelled as malign influences in the purge of the king’s household.62 Geoffrey Chaucer probably knew all of them well. He was issued mourning robes on Joan of Kent’s death in 1385. His acquaintanceship with Blanche, Lady Poynings, who married for the fifth time in the 1390s, arose from their connection with John of Gaunt and his first wife. Lady Poynings was a close friend of Blanche 56

57 58 59 60 61 62

J. Anstis, The Register of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, 2 vols (London, 1724), i, pp. 10–12; J. L. Gillespie, ‘Ladies of the Fraternity of Saint George and of the Society of the Garter’, Albion 17 (1985), 258–78. TNA, E 101/401/16. B. Windeatt, Oxford Guides to Chaucer: Troilus and Criseyde (Oxford, 1992), p. 18. D. Pearsall, The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer: A Critical Biography (Oxford, 1992), p. 169. K. P. Wentersdorf, ‘Some Observations on the Concept of Clandestine Marriage in Troilus and Criseyde’, Chaucer Review 15 (2016), 101–26. St Albans Chronicle, ed Taylor et al., i, pp. 962–3. Ibid., pp. 848–9.



Richard II, Queen Anne, Bohemia  25

of Lancaster and was a key figure at her commemoration in 1374, which Chaucer probably attended. His Book of the Duchess was written as an elegy for Blanche. Chaucer’s wife, Philippa Roet, was a lady in Gaunt’s household, and his sister-in-law, Katherine Swynford, was Gaunt’s mistress. He would have known Gaunt’s daughters, Philippa and Elizabeth, from childhood. Chaucer’s next major work, the Legend of Good Women, offers a more fictional representation of the Ricardian court as a court of love. It also expects its audience to accept the premise that the royal couple knew Troilus and Criseyde and that it made some stir in court circles; for Anne, still in her teens, it would have been a revelation. In the prologue to the Legend, the author-persona declares his devotion to his sovereign lady, whose emblem is the daisy, a clear figure for Queen Anne. He reports that the queen is followed by nineteen ladies, describes their dancing and the division into two teams, the leaf and the flower. The serenity of the scene is broken by the sudden appearance of the god of Love, who is a clear figure for Richard, with his golden hair, fiery temper and sunburst emblem. He expresses his anger at the hapless author-persona for his calumny of women. Happily, Queen Alceste intervenes and calls on the god of Love to allow the author-persona a hearing. Interestingly, she comes close to making similar points as were being made more generally about Richard, counselling him not to behave like a tyrant or let his anger lead him to judge too harshly. She then proceeds to plead the poet’s cause, calling to mind his long service to the god of Love and excusing him by reference to the difficulties of his task. She proposes as punishment that the poet should be required to write a poem about virtuous women. Endorsed by the god of Love, the proposal sets the scene for the Legend of Good Women. All in all, it is, as David Wallace has shown, a remarkable affirmation of Chaucer’s investment in the power of female eloquence.63 Scholars are divided as to whether they see Alceste as a figure for Joan of Kent, who would have had some credit with the god of Love, or for Queen Anne, the poet’s sovereign lady. It may be that Alceste was a composite. It has been generally assumed that the royal marriage was loving and affectionate. The pilgrimage to Walsingham in early summer 1383 and Anne’s letter to Wenceslas, her brother, around 1384, indicate that they were hoping for children.64 In the mid-1380s, the royal couple could be readily imagined as presiding over a court of love. Evidence of costumes in which teams could engage in dancing and games suggests the interplay between life and art. Chaucer was not alone in invoking a court of love and co-opting the royal couple, at least figuratively, in poems that were ostensibly about love but had far larger concerns. Around 1385, John Gower interpreted a request from the king to write something new as a commission to write a love poem in English, 63 64

Wallace, Chaucerian Polity, pp. 365–9; and see below, ch. 10, by Boffey and Edwards, p. 213. Geaman, ‘Personal Letter’, 1089, 1094.

26  Michael Bennett

and with his Confessio Amantis took pleasure in producing a work that combined entertainment with edification. In his Boke of Cupide, Sir John Clanvowe, a knight of the king’s chamber, sets up a debate between cuckoo and nightingale over the nature of true love. Like Chaucer in the Legend of Good Women, however, he presents a far-from-flattering image of the god of Love. The cuckoo declares that he is wilful and capricious, while the nightingale finds him negligent in providing protection and justice. When called on to assist, the other birds insist on referring the dispute to a parliament to be held at Woodstock, before the window of the queen’s chamber, on St Valentine’s Day (281–5).65 By the mid 1380s, Richard and his inner circle were attracting moral censure. Earlier in the decade, in his letter of counsel to the young king, John Gower felt the need to stress that a man should have only one wife and warned, with Burley evidently in mind, about the malign influence of older men who tolerate and encourage vice.66 The royal couple were evidently close. In reporting on court festivities at Christmas 1384, it was observed that Richard ‘rarely if ever allowed [her] to be away from his side’.67 The king even took the queen on the campaign in Scotland in summer 1385. Still, it may be that mutual dependency was becoming the strongest bond. In reflecting on the circumstances of Edward II’s downfall and the repercussions of Joan of Kent’s marital entanglements, Richard may have seen the wisdom of keeping his wife close to hand, preventing her from becoming prey to temptation and shielding him from aspersions about his own sexuality.68 Walsingham criticised the men in the royal entourage as ‘more knights of Venus than Mars, showing more prowess in the bedroom than on the field of battle, defending themselves more with their tongue than with their lance, being alert with their tongues, but asleep when martial deeds were required’.69 There was concern about the king’s relationship with Robert de Vere, whom he loved, according to Walsingham, ‘not without the taint, it was said, of indecent intimacy’.70 A merchant of London, with whom Lady Mone ran up an account for costly furs, declared that Richard was not fit to rule and should stay in a latrine.71 Nor was the court a safe environment for younger women. John Holland, the king’s 65

66 67 68

69 70 71

The Works of Sir John Clanvowe, ed. V. J. Scattergood (Cambridge, 1975), p. 52. See L. Paterson, Acts of Recognition: Essays on Medieval Culture (Notre Dame, 2009), pp. 59–62. M. Bennett, ‘Gower, Richard II and Henry IV’, in Historians on Gower, ed. S. H. Rigby, with S. Echard (Cambridge, 2019), pp. 425–88 at 432–3, 435. St Albans Chronicle, ed. Taylor et al., i, pp. 736–7. M. Bennett, ‘Honi soit qui mal y pense: Adultery and Anxieties about Paternity in Late Medieval England’, in The Medieval Python: The Purposive and Provocative Work of Terry Jones, ed. R. F. Yeager and Toshiyuki Takamiya (New York, 2012), pp. 119–35 at 126–9. St Albans Chronicle, ed. Taylor et al., i, pp. 814–15. Ibid., pp. 798–9. CCR 1389–92, p. 527; TNA, Common Pleas [hereafter CP] 40/559, m. 271d.



Richard II, Queen Anne, Bohemia  27

half-brother, seduced Elizabeth of Lancaster, Gaunt’s daughter, requiring hasty annulment of a child marriage and a hurried wedding in 1386.72 Around this time, too, de Vere caused a major scandal by seeking an annulment of his marriage to Philippa, granddaughter of Edward III, and kidnapping Agnes Lancecrona, one of the queen’s ladies.73 Overall, Queen Anne retained her dignity and honour. The only occasion in which she is known to have made a stand against her husband is in relation to de Vere’s scandalous liaison with Agnes Lancecrona. Around 1386–87, the royal favourite arranged her abduction from Henley on Heath to Chester where he ‘copulated with her’.74 With Richard seeking neither to restrain nor reprimand his favourite, Anne made her displeasure known and persisted in her remonstrations.75 Although still in Richard’s company most of the time, de Vere made Chester Castle, in the words of Maude Clarke, ‘the headquarters of his splendid housekeeping’, initially in preparedness for an expedition to Ireland.76 In summer 1387, when the king and his ‘false counsellors’ were in the provinces, preparing for a showdown against the council appointed by parliament to govern in his name, they spent a fortnight in Cheshire.77 The political crisis, which began in autumn 1386 and escalated in 1387–88, disrupted the palace-based court milieu that had inspired love poetry in the mid-1380s. Interestingly, de Vere’s sojourn in Cheshire, where he recruited a royalist army on Richard’s behalf in December, brought a hint of Bohemia to Chester: an inventory of his chattels includes three Bohemian saddles.78 It also brought opportunities for patronage for men from the north-west Midlands, quite possibly including the author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Some scholars have noted possible connections between de Vere and the alliterative masterpiece, noting a possible play on his name, the affinities between the de Vere star and Gawain’s pentangle, the links between the court and Cheshire, and his status as a Garter knight.79 Even before he met Anne, Richard committed himself to marry her. Marriage to the daughter of the emperor Charles IV promised to be a source of great prestige. Chaucer knew how to please when he presented the imperial eagle as irresistibly drawn to the charms of the royal eagle, and it was the imperial 72 73 74 75 76 77

78 79

Westminster Chronicle, ed. Hector and Harvey, pp. 192–3. St Albans Chronicle, ed. Taylor et al., i, pp. 822–3; Westminster Chronicle, ed. Hector and Harvey, pp. 188–91. CPR 1388–92 (London, 1902), p. 20; M. V. Clarke and V. H. Galbraith, ‘The Deposition of Richard II’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 14 (1930), 125–81 at 168. Westminster Chronicle, ed. Hector and Harvey, pp. 190–1. M. V. Clarke, Fourteenth-Century Studies (Oxford, 1927), p. 118. P. Morgan, ‘Historical Writing in the North-West Midlands and the Chester Annals of 1385–88’, in Fourteenth Century England IX, ed. J. Bothwell and G. Dodd (Woodbridge, 2016), pp. 109–30 at 128. Clarke, Fourteenth-Century Studies, p. 118. A. W. Astell, Political Allegory in Late Medieval England (Ithaca NY, 1999), pp. 125–6.

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eagle, not the Bohemian lion, that was on display in London at the time of the marriage. To celebrate the royal couple’s visit to Norwich in 1383, the ceiling of the new chapel of the Great Hospital was painted with imperial eagles.80 In introducing his wife to England and hearing from her and others about the empire, Bohemia and Prague, Richard would have been further inspired to build on his royal heritage and to enhance and project his regal image. In 1385, he commissioned a series of sculptures of kings to set in Westminster Hall that matched similar initiatives in Paris and, as Anne and others would have told him, in Prague.81 Like his Plantagenet predecessors, Richard drew on the Arthurian legend to fashion a loose sort of imperial kingship. In summer 1385, he led a large expedition to Scotland to affirm English claims to suzerainty over Britain. On his return, he created new titles for members of the royal family and others who had participated in the campaign, notably the marquisate of Dublin for Robert de Vere. At Christmas, Richard hosted Leo, king of Armenia, who brought an alluring vision of a peace between England and France that would lead to Christian unity and the recovery of the Holy Land.82 Anne herself, of course, was not only the daughter of an emperor but the sister of kings and princes. In 1384, she and Richard received news of Bohemian successes in Poland and Hungary, where her brother Sigismund was crowned in 1387.83 Early in 1386, Richard and Anne likewise held a great feast to honour John of Gaunt and his wife prior to their departure for Spain to make good their claims to the Castilian throne and presented them with two gold crowns.84 The inspiration of the German empire and the Bohemian crown can also be discerned in Richard’s initiatives in Ireland. The marquisate granted to de Vere was ‘a new dignity unknown to the English’ but familiar to Anne as an imperial dignity, with the margravates of Moravia and Brandenburg attached to the Bohemian crown. Charles IV, her father, sought the support of the French duke of Bar by raising the duke’s lordship in imperial territory, Pont-à-Mousse, to the status of a marquisate. In 1384, the marquis de Pont-à-Mousse, the duke’s eldest son, married Marie de Coucy, a cousin of Richard II and sister of Philippa, de Vere’s wife. In 1386, Richard promoted the marquis of Dublin to ducal rank, making his favourite duke of Ireland and

80

81 82 83 84

D. J. King, ‘The Panel Paintings and Stained Glass’, in Norwich Cathedral: Church, City, and Diocese, 1096–1996, ed. I. Atherton, E. Fernie, C. Harper-Bill and H. Smith (London, 1996), pp. 410–30 at 412–13. P. Binski, Westminster Abbey and the Plantagenets: Kingship and the Representation of Power (New Haven, 1995), pp. 202–3. Westminster Chronicle, ed. Hector and Harvey, pp. 154–5. Geaman, ‘Personal Letter’, 1094. A. Goodman, John of Gaunt: The Exercise of Princely Power in Fourteenth-Century Europe (London, 1992), p. 118.



Richard II, Queen Anne, Bohemia  29

granting him palatine powers, intending, it was said, ‘that he should later be raised from duke to king, if fortune favoured him’.85 The royal marriage can be generally associated with an imperial strain in Richard’s political conceptions and style. Apart from the queen, none of the Bohemians who are known to have spent time in England suggest themselves as political advisers and culture-makers. It would be interesting to know more, though, about the queen’s confessors, Nicholas Hornyk and James Beuesschaw, both friars.86 There were doubtless important visitors who left no record. One possibility is John of Görlitz, Anne’s brother, but his visit to England can only be inferred from an undated letter of Richard requesting that the king of Scots grant him a safe conduct to travel through Scotland to take ship to Norway.87 Another is Anne’s younger sister: Margaret ‘of Bohemia’ was granted a writ of passage in June 1386 for her, her servants and ten horses on leaving for her homeland. 88 The royal couple maintained an active correspondence with Wenceslas and the dowager empress Elizabeth, the queen’s mother. Early in 1387, Anne received a letter from Wenceslas in which he informed her of the death of his first wife.89 It is likely enough that the emissaries bringing letters from Prague also brought gifts, possibly manuscripts and works of art that could have played some role in cultural exchange. It was not only Bohemians, of course, who could advise on the imperial style and neo-classical and cosmopolitan culture that flourished in the late fourteenth century. Baldassore Ubriachi, for example, probably visited Prague in the service of Charles IV. A patron of the arts in his own right, he founded the chapel of the Three Magi in the convent of Santa Maria Novella in Florence and was responsible for its decoration. It is not known what business he conducted in England. He is known to have traded in jewels, pearls and ivory work, and his enthusiasm for the cult of the three kings would have commended him to Richard.90 There were the Englishmen, too, who had travelled in the Empire and Bohemia. Michael de la Pole and Simon Burley had spent time in the royal city of Prague, and presumably visited Nuremberg and other imperial cities. An odd anecdote relating to the court of Richard II in late 1386 provides evidence of interest 85

86 87 88 89

90

St Albans Chronicle, ed. Taylor et al., i, pp. 780–1, 798–9; M. Bennett, ‘Richard II in the Mirror of Christendom’, in Ruling Fourteenth-Century England: Essays in Honour of Christopher Given-Wilson, ed. R. Ambühl, J. Bothwell and L. Tompkins (Woodbridge, 2019), pp. 263–88 at 285. Saul, Richard II, p. 93n; E. Perroy (ed.), The Diplomatic Correspondence of Richard II (London, 1933), p. 35; CPR 1391–96, p. 285. Perroy (ed.), Diplomatic Correspondence, pp. 20–1. TNA, C 81/1352/6 (I owe this reference to Philip Morgan). The identity of this lady is unknown. Margaret, Anne’s sister, was then only thirteen. Constantin Höfler, ‘Anna von Luxemburg. Kaiser Karls IV. Tochter, König Richards II. Gemahlin, Königin von England, 1382–1394’, Denkschriften der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Classe 20 (1871), 89–240 at 222. CPR 138–1–85 (London, 1897), pp. 593–4; J. Stratford, Richard II and the English Royal Treasure (Woodbridge, 2012), p. 35.

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in antique Roman style at court. After being forced to accept the rule of a council appointed by parliament, Richard had withdrawn to Windsor Castle with members of his inner circle, including his impeached chancellor, de la Pole. During a banquet at Christmas, Richard had him ‘reclining at his table … in a toga, which mode of dress has been allowed from ancient times only to kings’.91 From 1386 onwards, Richard’s wilfulness, extravagance and favouritism fed into a political crisis between an embattled court party and a broad coalition of magnates and gentry in parliament and the kingdom at large. In late 1387, after the defeat of de Vere’s army raised in the north-west, Richard was threatened with deposition and obliged to accept the condemnation of his ‘false counsellors’ as traitors and the purge of his household in the parliament of 1388. Anne remained at his side and attracted some attention by appealing for mercy, unsuccessfully, for Sir Simon Burley. One of the articles of Burley’s impeachment was that he had counselled the king to fill his household with ‘aliens, Bohemians and others’. One of the acts of the parliament was the expulsion from the kingdom of all Bohemians, except the approved servants of ‘the most honourable lady the queen’.92 The hostility appears a little confected, reflecting general xenophobia. Still, there may have been some fear that Richard might use the queen’s countrymen to strengthen his hand in England. In 1385, he recruited a company of Bohemian knights and squires to serve in his Scottish expedition. In 1387, there was a Bohemian merchant, Bernard Blessyng, who had a supply of breast-plates in London and there were Bohemian soldiers in the Calais garrison.93 After the king, the magnates and parliament committed themselves to accept the judgements of the parliament and to draw a line under recent antagonisms, Richard took his place on the throne in Westminster Abbey in June 1388, renewed his coronation oath, and again received oaths of fealty from his subjects. Less than a year later, he declared he was of an age to rule and appointed a new council. Ostensibly, he had learned some lessons from the recent past and made some show of seeking counsel from his uncles and senior statesmen. It is likely enough that Anne played some role in reconciling her husband to the new dispensation. From 1389 onwards, a surprising number of writers addressed books and treatises to him that were designed to instruct and inform him, including John Gower in his Confessio Amantis. In his ambition to be considered a wise king, Richard doubtless had in mind the emperor Charles IV, Anne’s father, as well as Charles V of France, both of whom patronised learning and collected books. Richard would have taken special delight in a handsome miscellany, dated 1391, whose compiler addressed him 91 92 93

St Albans Chronicle, ed. Taylor et al., i, pp. 800–1. Rotuli Parliamentorum, ed. Strachey, iii, pp. 242, 247. Calendar of Select Pleas and Memoranda of the City of London, A.D. 1381–1412, ed. A. H. Thomas (Cambridge, 1932), p. 128; TNA E 403/518, m. 2.



Richard II, Queen Anne, Bohemia  31

as a prince who ‘by a marvel of intellect and insight, not maintained for show but genuine, is seen to excel’ his contemporaries. It includes a short version of the Secreta secretorum, described as counsels of wise men necessary for ‘both a king and his realm, that his wisdom might shine forth the more, and all his subjects glory in his intellect and bless his rule’. In a treatise on geomancy, he was praised as a prince who ‘has not declined to taste the sweetness of the fruit of the subtle sciences for the prudent government of himself and his people’.94 King Wenceslas owned a slightly later manuscript including this work, suggesting some Anglo–Bohemian exchange.95 A treatise on heraldry was addressed to Queen Anne and an English treatise on urine was described as having been translated at the request of the king and queen.96 In seeking to rebuild his monarchy, Richard drew on English traditions of sacred kingship, reviewing the history of the crown and the regalia, promoting the cult of St Edward the Confessor and other royal saints, and staging crown-wearings in cathedral cities. His interest in the renovation of his kingship through a second coronation is a likely context of the sumptuous Liber Regalis, an order of coronation for the king and queen, which is now dated after 1389. In reassessing the style of the illustrations, Paul Binski has reinstated the possibility of Bohemian influence.97 Richard likewise set about the reconstruction of Westminster Hall to serve as a grand setting for displays of power and majesty and commissioned a larger-than-life portrait of himself enthroned in the pose of Christ in Majesty, seemingly unparalleled among paintings of contemporary monarchs.98 He increasingly expected his subjects in petitioning him to use the sorts of grandiloquent forms of address that were used by European chanceries, including the imperial chancery.99 Given the parallels between ambitions and initiatives of Richard and other rulers in fourteenth-century Europe, it would be a mistake to assume an exclusively imperial inspiration. Still, it is credible that Anne, ‘Caesar’s daughter’, played some role in nourishing and shaping Richard’s ambitions. The problems of identifying specific agents and vehicles of cultural transmission remain. Despite their expulsion in 1388, Bohemians – broadly defined to include Germans and others in the queen’s service – were still able to prosper in England. In

94 95 96 97

98 99

H. M. Carey, Courting Disaster: Astrology at the English Court and University in the Later Middle Ages (London, 1992), pp. 102–3. J. D. North, Chaucer’s Universe (Oxford, 1988), p. 237. M. Bennett, Richard II and the Revolution of 1399 (Stroud, 1999), pp. 43–4. P. Binski, ‘The Liber Regalis: Its Date and European Context’, in The Regal Image of Richard II and the Wilton Diptych, ed. D. Gordon, L. Monnas and C. Elam (London, 1997), pp. 233–46. Cf. Simpson, Connections; and see below, ch. 9, by Lenka Panuš­ ková, pp. 184–7. J. J. G. Alexander, ‘The Portrait of Richard II in Westminster Abbey’, in Regal Image, ed. Gordon et al., pp. 197–206. N. Saul, ‘Richard II and the Vocabulary of Kingship’, English Historical Review 110 (1995), 854–77.

32  Michael Bennett

1389, the king ‘caused’ Sir Nicholas Sarnesfield to marry his wife, perhaps to legalise her position in England or regularise a liaison.100 In 1393 he granted an annuity of 100 marks to Sir Nicholas de Bergo, known in England as Sir Nicholas Hawberk, ‘on condition of doing liege homage’.101 English lords, knights and clerks visited Bohemia. Sir Simon Felbrigg may have visited his future wife’s homeland when he set off ‘to see the world’ in 1390; his cousin Sir George Felbrigg was dispatched to Prague as an envoy to King Wenceslas in 1391; and Henry of Bolingbroke saw the sights, shopped, and made contacts in the Czech capital in 1392.102 Merchants who supplied princes knew no boundaries, the artists and craftsmen who worked for courts were highly mobile, and local artisans could find inspiration in illustrated manuscripts and pattern books. In any event, someone in London in 1393, whether English or Bohemian, oversaw the construction in St Paul’s of a ‘very unusual imperial shrine, the like of which had nowhere been seen before’ to commemorate the recently deceased empress Elizabeth, Anne’s mother.103 From 1389, the king and queen, still young and handsome, crowned and splendidly attired, began appearing together in public settings. In Westminster Abbey, Anne had her own stall, opposite Richard’s, in the choir.104 The king and queen were increasingly featured in images at the time and continued to travel together. The royal power couple were most impressively on display in the ceremonies marking Richard’s reconciliation with the city of London in 1392. Although the king’s quarrel was reportedly sparked by his anger at the unwillingness of Londoners to make loans to the crown, there can be little doubt that Richard was seeking to punish the city for its betrayal of his cause in late 1387. A campaign of intimidation in late spring and early summer 1392 involving the imprisonment of the mayor and sheriff, the withdrawal of the city’s liberties, the transfer of the central courts and government offices from Westminster to York, and the imposition of a heavy fine demonstrated the king’s power. In August 1392, he and his consort entered London to receive its formal submission. The ceremonies are described in all the chronicles, and most compellingly in a Latin poem by Richard of Maidstone, who sets the scene for Richard’s restraint by referring to the many ills and deaths he had

100 101

102

103 104

CPR 1388–92, pp. 121–2; Biggs, ‘Lady Margaret Sarnesfield’, p. 145. CPR 1391–96, p. 344. For the case for identifying Sir Nicholas Hawberk as a German in the service of Queen Anne, see N. Saul, Death, Art, and Memory in Medieval England: The Cobham Family and Their Monuments, 1300–1500 (Oxford, 2001), p. 28. CPR 1385–88, p. 188; Westminster Chronicle, ed. Hector and Harvey, p. 473n; Chris Given-Wilson, Henry IV (New Haven, 2016), pp. 72–4; with thanks also to Alixe Bovey for her paper, ‘Shopping in Bohemia: Henry of Derby’s trip to Prague in 1392’, delivered at the Paris colloquium on ‘Chaucer in Bohemia’ on 15 June 2017. Westminster Chronicle, ed. Hector and Harvey, pp. 516–17. Ibid., pp. 450–1.



Richard II, Queen Anne, Bohemia  33

suffered, unavenged, in his tender years.105 Richard is presented as handsome, as fair as Troilus or Absalom but, not unlike the god of Love in Chaucer’s Legend of Good Women, severe and serene. Anne is described as beautiful, wearing a gold crown, a dress adorned with jewels, and ‘her country’s fashion beautifying her even more’.106 She is accorded special praise for her imperial lineage, chosen by God for Britain’s sceptre, suited to be consort of empire, moderating the king’s firm rule.107 In the grand finale, she is addressed as Anna, the mother of the Virgin Mary, and makes an eloquent speech calling on the king to accept the city’s submission and restore its liberties.108 In June 1394, Anne died at Sheen, shortly after her twenty-eighth birthday. The cause of her death was unknown, but the end came quickly. After twelve years of marriage, the royal couple may have come to accept their childlessness.109 While the possibility of children was countenanced in treaties and legal documents, the issue of the succession to the throne can never have been far below the surface. The idea that Richard, like Edward the Confessor, dedicated himself to a chaste marriage lacks credibility, although over time his promotion of the cult of the Confessor may have provided convenient cover. In a letter after the queen’s death, Philippe de Mézières felt that he could refer to his childlessness and point to other great rulers in history who had not had children.110 Richard’s decision to take a five-year-old child as his second wife suggests that he was neither seeking sexual fulfilment in marriage nor showing any eagerness for progeny. Significantly, most of Richard’s closest favourites, including many clerics, were either unmarried or married with no children, notably Burley and de Vere in the 1380s and Edward, duke of Aumale, and Thomas Holland, duke of Surrey, among others, in the 1390s. Grief-stricken by Anne’s death, Richard organised a grand funeral. Her corpse and an effigy, the first for an English queen, were taken downriver, with great stands of wax candles set up at Southwark and three other staging-posts in London. She was buried in Westminster Abbey in the space chosen by Richard for his own interment, and plans were drawn up for a magnificent double tomb with elegant bronze effigies of the king and queen. The chronicles, her epitaphs, and three other newly discovered epitaphs record her imperial lin105 106 107 108 109

110

R. Maidstone, Concordia (The Reconciliation of Richard II with London), ed. D. R. Carlson, trans. A. G. Rigg (Kalamazoo, 2003), lines 29–30. Ibid., lines 105–29, 191–6. Ibid., lines 223–7. Ibid., lines 431–40, 467–92. After their pilgrimage to Walsingham in 1383, they never returned to renew their prayers for the blessing of progeny. The bill for medicines purchased for Anne in her last year may suggest the emergence of a serious gynaecological condition. Cf. K. L. Geaman, ‘Anne of Bohemia and Her Struggle to Conceive’, Social History of Medicine 29 (2016), 224–44. P. de Mézières, Letter to Richard II: A Plea made in 1395 for Peace between England and France, ed. and trans. G. W. Coopland (Liverpool, 1975), pp. 36–7.

34  Michael Bennett

eage and royal marriage and praise her piety, grace and charity.111 Although he had been so critical of the Bohemian connection, Walsingham praised her highly as a supporter of true faith and justice, but added that there were ‘many who spoke ill of her and slandered her’.112 Richard vowed that for a year he would not spend a night in any place where he had stayed with Anne. Setting out for Ireland in September and remaining until May, he appears to have held to his resolution. In Dublin, he received plans for a new palace at neighbouring Isleworth, the site of the future Syon Abbey, and ordered the destruction of Sheen and the use of some of the materials.113 By this stage, too, he was considering re-marriage. Drawn to a heady vision of a match that would bring peace with France, leadership of Christendom, and end the schism, he had decided by June 1395 to marry Isabelle, the five-year-old daughter of Charles VI of France. There was a brief cultural afterlife to Anne of Bohemia. Scholars have discerned international and possibly Bohemian influences in the painting of the tester of the double tomb in Westminster Abbey and in the enigmatic Wilton Diptych, in which Richard, supported by his patron saints in place of the Three Kings, kneels before the Virgin, accompanied by angels bearing white hart badges, and rededicates his kingship to the service of Christ.114 John Bowers has set his exegesis of Pearl, a courtly and sophisticated poem seemingly by the author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, in this rich allusive context. He proposes that in this elegy of a girl who after her death becomes a queen of heaven, the author had in mind Queen Anne, noting, for example, the striking similarity between his description of the girl’s crown and the queen’s most splendid crown.115 Given the age of the Pearl-maiden, he raises the intriguing possibility that she is figured for both Anne and Richard’s new bride, eliding ‘courtly elegy and biblical epithalamium’.116 Politically, too, there was an overhang. Anne’s death not only opened the prospect of the new marriage, with its intoxicating prospect of securing Christian unity and the recovery of the Holy Land, but also the chance to break with Wenceslas, who had failed to make good his imperial title. By spring 1397, German princes were considering Richard as a rival candidate to his brother-in-law, and the archbishop of Cologne and Rupert, count palatine of the Rhine, were actively cultivating him. Richard was sufficiently interested to grant them substantial annuities in return for their homage.117 In Italy, too, Baldassore Ubriachi continued to 111 112 113 114 115 116 117

Van Dussen, England to Bohemia, pp. 19–24, 129–41. St Albans Chronicle, ed. Taylor et al., i, pp. 960–1. M. Bennett, ‘Richard II, Henry Yevele and a New Royal Mansion on the Thames’, Antiquaries Journal 82 (2002), 343–9. Binski, ‘Liber Regalis’, p. 245; Thomas, Blessed Shore, pp. 67–73. J. M. Bowers, The Politics of Pearl: Court Poetry in the Age of Richard II (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 106–7. Ibid., pp. 178–81. Bennett, ‘Richard II in Christendom’, pp. 282–3.



Richard II, Queen Anne, Bohemia  35

look to Richard as a special patron. Informed about Richard’s plans in 1399, he commissioned the production of a Catalan world map to present to him at a great feast in Dublin but, before setting out, learned of his overthrow. Three years later, when he was planning to offer his services to the king of Aragon, he heard a rumour that Richard had escaped to Scotland. As he then told a friend, he would only be prevented from going to Aragon by his own demise or the return to power of ‘my most singular lord’, the king of England.118 After Anne’s death and the dissolution of her household, most of her Bohemian servants returned home, but several knights and ladies remained in England. For personal and political reasons, Richard maintained a connection with them. He set some store on Sir Roger Siglem and Sir Nicholas Hawberk as soldiers and diplomats in the last years of his reign.119 He remained especially close to Anne’s ladies who had married knights in his service. In 1396, he granted both Katherine Siglem and Margaret Sarnesfield two doles of Gascon wine.120 Recently widowed, Margaret was evidently a special favourite. She lived at court, was assigned an income from a royal manor, and made plans to accompany the royal expedition to Ireland in 1399. 121 Richard’s regard for Margaret of Teschen, kinswoman and compatriot of Queen Anne, presumably found expression in the patronage of her husband Sir Simon Felbrigg. His appointment in 1395 as the king’s standard-bearer, with an annual fee of £100, is perhaps the best indication of the date of the marriage.122 A grant in jointure to Sir William Arundel, a close friend of Felbrigg, and his wife Agnes in October 1393 may be another example of the king’s facilitation of marriages between his knights and the queen’s ladies.123 A scion of the earls of Arundel, Sir William was acknowledged as the king’s ‘beloved and faithful cousin’, prospering in the royal service even as his uncle, the fourth earl, an antagonist of the court party, was executed for treason in 1397.124 It is most remarkable that the family background of his wife has wholly foxed genealogists.125 The king evidently knew Lady Arundel personally. For the Garter feast in April 1399, he issued her robes as a lady of the Confraternity of St George and Society of the Garter. 126

118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126

Ibid., p. 286; Trexler, ‘Magi Enter Florence’, 147–8. TNA E 403/555, m. 19; E 403/557, m. 4; CPR 1396–99, p. 193; Given-Wilson, Royal Household and King’s Affinity, p. 225. TNA E 101/403/10, f. 48v. CPR 1396–99, p. 550; Biggs, ‘Lady Margaret Sarnesfield’, p. 151. CPR 1391–96, p. 563. Ibid., p. 178. Arundel and Felbrigg set out overseas together in 1390: CPR 1388–92, p. 188. G. F. Beltz, Memorials of the Most Noble Order of the Garter (London, 1841), pp. 352–3. Beltz, Memorials, p. 353. Beltz, Memorials, pp. 274–5, 369–74; Gillespie, ‘Ladies of the Garter’, 268.

36  Michael Bennett

The will of Lady Agnes Arundel in 1401 confirms her place in the select circle of Anne’s ladies and Richard’s knights.127 It also offers a valedictory glimpse of the social world that came together in the service of the royal couple. Widowed in 1400, she requests that her body be buried with Sir William in Rochester Cathedral in the tomb on which he and she were already depicted. She makes bequests to her husband’s grandmother, mother, brother and three sisters, but makes no reference at all to any member of her own family. She continues with specific gifts to five ladies who can be regarded as her closest friends. The first in line was ‘Dame’ Margaret Felbrigg, who was gifted ‘a box of sprus’, presumably a treasured item. The second and fifth of the group were ‘Dame’ Katherine ‘Seclend’ and Katherine, daughter of ‘Siclend’, the wife and daughter of the Bohemian knight Sir Roger Siglem.128 In third place was ‘Dame’ Isabel (Elizabeth) la Vache, wife of Sir Philip la Vache, who held office in Queen Anne’s household.129 The fourth in the group was ‘Dame’ Margaret (Margery) Lodewik, a lady-in-waiting of Joan of Kent and then Queen Anne.130 She nominates, as supervisors of her will, Sir Philip la Vache and Sir Lewis Clifford, knights of the chamber under Richard II and members of the Order of the Garter.131 While they were colleagues of Sir William, they were not mentioned in his will in 1400, and so can perhaps be regarded as her friends.132 The composition of Lady Arundel’s social circle is a revelation. Given that her best friend was Margaret of Teschen, that two of the other five were probably Bohemian, and that all five were closely connected to Queen Anne, it is very likely that she was also one of her ladies and, given the lack of reference to English relatives, one of the queen’s compatriots. While not an uncommon name, there seems to have been only one Agnes in the queen’s service: Agnes Lancecrona, who was abducted from the queen’s household and ‘married’ to Robert de Vere in 1387.133 It is not known what happened to her after De Vere’s flight overseas in December 1387 or, if she joined him in exile, after his death in Louvain in November 1392. It is certainly possible, chronologically, that she was the Agnes who married Sir William Arundel before October 1393. Given her documented friendship with members of Queen Anne’s circle, including 127 128 129

130 131

132 133

London, Lambeth Palace Library, MS Reg. Arundel 1, fols 183r–v. ‘Petit Siglem’, presumably Katherine Siglem’s daughter, was in Queen Anne’s household in 1394: Simpson, Connections, p. 48. Tout, Chapters in Administrative History, v, 264. Lady la Vache also had a senior role in Queen Isabelle’s household: Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council of England, i: 1386–1410, ed. Sir Nicholas Harris Nicolas (London, 1834), pp. 121, 137. CPR 1377–81, p. 483; CPR 1385–89, p. 11; CPR 1391-96, p. 558. Beltz, Memorials, pp. 260-4, 374-6; Given-Wilson, Royal Household and King’s Affinity, pp. 282–3. They were also friends of Geoffrey Chaucer: P. Brown, Geoffrey Chaucer (Oxford, 2011), pp. 73–8. Testamenta Vetusta, ed. Sir Nicholas Harris Nicolas, 2 vols. (London, 1826), i, 150. A. Tuck, ‘Vere, Robert de, Ninth Earl of Oxford, Marquess of Dublin, and Duke of Ireland (1362-1392)’, ODNB.



Richard II, Queen Anne, Bohemia  37

the queen’s Bohemian ladies, it seems very likely. The queen must surely have forgiven Agnes for her role in the scandal in 1387 and, after the queen’s death and the reburial of De Vere in England, Richard may have looked fondly on Agnes and William as reminders of happier times. According her the status of lady of the Confraternity of St George and Society of the Garter was a remarkable gesture. If indeed she was none other than Agnes Lancecrona, the Bohemian paramour of his dearest friend, it would be in character and entirely fitting to Anne’s memory, as well as de Vere’s, if Richard had been instrumental in bringing Agnes back, for a time, to a place in the sun. Although she came to England as a young girl and died without fulfilling her anticipated dynastic destiny, Anne of Bohemia made, wittingly or unwittingly, a significant contribution to English politics and culture in the late fourteenth century. The marriage between Richard II and the daughter of Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor and king of Bohemia, deepened and broadened, however modestly and temporarily, lines of communication and exchange between England and Bohemia. In relation to the impact of the alliance in England, it is necessary to consider imperial or cosmopolitan as well as specifically German or Czech influences and agencies. It is a moot point whether Anne, the ‘emperor’s daughter’ and queen of England, was generally known to contemporaries as ‘Anne of Bohemia’. It is nonetheless interesting that the men and women who came to England from the continent in her entourage, whatever their ethnicity, were described collectively as ‘Bohemians’. The number of Bohemians in England cannot have been large, but the list of names, to which it has been possible to add, is largely comprised of men of some status whose companions, dependants and servants remain undocumented. Their presence and the cultural exchange implicit in the alliance can be associated with some minor novelties and innovations and may have provided a catalyst for broader changes. It must be stressed, of course, that major cultural and political developments in the Ricardian age correspond, with the inflection of English traditions and historical contingencies, to developments elsewhere in northwest Europe in the late fourteenth century. Furthermore, it is hard to identify Bohemians in England who stand out as culture-makers and influencers, apart from the queen herself and perhaps some visitors, notably Baldassore Ubriachi, who, though not a Bohemian, had a long record of service with Charles IV. When it comes to Queen Anne herself, a great deal remains obscure. The limited evidence available suggests that she was bright and well educated, good-hearted as well as pious, outwardly complacent but quietly determined. From her arrival in England until her final illness, she can be seen to be more an icon and emblem than an active agent. Still, it took drive and discipline to thrive as a queen consort, presiding over court festivities in the mid-1380s and then playing a central role in the projection of regal power and splendour in the early 1390s. It was an unusually successful double act, a political performance commemorated in the double tomb in Westminster Abbey. Throughout

38  Michael Bennett

this time, she played an important behind-the-scenes role in managing Richard’s moods and moderating his impulses. The author of one of her epitaphs, who evidently could not bear to mention Richard, wrote that while she lived the ruin of the kingdom was averted.134 While Richard was devoted to Anne as a companion, his sexual interests may well have lain elsewhere. She was blamed for her childlessness, but she may not have escaped censure for her tolerance of a court that was less than wholesome to fourteenth-century eyes. Even before Anne’s death, the Bohemian presence in England was becoming attenuated, but Richard’s devotion to her memory and investment in the imperial connection kept it alive. His decision to wear his late wife’s livery when he met Charles VI of France and married his daughter in 1396 and his construction of the monumental tomb were emblematic of its importance to his self-image.135 Although Richard’s second marriage and his imperial ambitions complicated his relationship with Wenceslas, Anglo–Bohemian relations were not entirely severed. For all the significance of the French alliance, it was his marriage to ‘Caesar’s daughter’ that underpinned his imperial fantasies in the late 1390s, and his continuing patronage of Bohemian knights and ladies was not entirely a matter of sentiment. Far from marking a complete rupture, the deposition of Richard in 1399 led to a re-engagement. Facing threats of invasion from France, Henry IV was eager to strengthen England’s diplomatic relations with Germany and Bohemia.136 Knights from Bohemia continued to visit England, including a knight named Wenceslas who copied epitaphs of Queen Anne in St Paul’s, London.137 Many Czech clerks came to study in Oxford, meet followers of John Wycliffe, and return to Prague with Lollard texts. Naturalised by marriage to Sir Simon Felbrigg, Margaret of Teschen lived comfortably in Norfolk until her death in 1413, when she was laid to rest under a fine monument in Felbrigg church. Her book of hours, which includes prayers in Czech, survives to attest her personal piety and preference for her native language.138 Margaret, Lady Sarnesfield, who had been widowed in 1394, enjoyed Richard’s patronage until 1399 and then showed resourcefulness and tenacity in holding on to its fruits until her death in the early 1440s.139 Like Lady Arundel, she left no issue. As a formal presence in England, the Bohemians all but disappeared: none of the foreigners listed in the alien subsidy records of the 1440s is identified as Czech or Bohemian.140 134 135

136 137 138 139 140

Van Dussen, England to Bohemia, p. 130. L. Mirot, ‘Isabelle de France, reine d’Angleterre: le marriage d’Isabelle et l’entrevue de Charles VI et de Richard II à Ardres’, Revue d’histoire diplomatique,19 (1905), 63–95 at 87. Given-Wilson, Henry IV, pp. 72–3, 394, 460. Van Dussen, England to Bohemia, pp. 19–24; and see below, ch. 3, by Marek Suchý. Beltz, pp. 369–74; Thomas, ‘Margaret of Teschen’, 309–23. Biggs, ‘Lady Margaret Sarnesfield’, 148–58. England’s Immigrants 1330–1550 (englandsimmigrants.com).

2 Recommended Reading: Richard Rolle in Bohemia MICHAEL VAN DUSSEN

The writings of Richard Rolle, a fourteenth-century English hermit and contemplative, were among the most widely read texts in late-medieval England, written in both English and Latin. His Latin writings also circulated in impressive quantities on the European continent, with marked concentrations in central Europe. With the benefit of recent discoveries in Bohemian and related manuscripts, this chapter shows that Bohemia and its vicinity was the site of some of the most intensive copying of Rolle’s Latin texts. This activity took place during two main stages – beginning in Prague, and then fanning outward to southern Bohemia, Moravia, Poland, Austria and Germany. Nor was it the case that Rolle’s texts finally reached Bohemia after sweeping across parts of Europe that lie further to the west. Nearly all of them were transmitted directly to Prague from England, and they fanned outwards from there through subsequent copying. Further, this activity appears to have begun earlier than most circulation of Rollean texts elsewhere on the continent. There is inconsistent evidence, however, that Bohemian readers knew much about Rolle in his own right. Some copies of his texts reveal confusion about who he was, and his writings turn up in diverse contexts, participating in a heterogeneous intellectual and devotional environment. Clearly Rolle’s texts were widely circulated and respected in central Europe (particularly Bohemia), yet Rolle’s own reputation as an author was perhaps less of a reason for that phenomenon than it was in England.

T

he most active period of Anglo-Bohemian cultural contact, between the 1380s and the Council of Constance (1414–18), was marked by an impressive amount of textual transmission, mainly in the direction of Bohemia, which was at that time the political heart of the Holy Roman Empire. There was high demand in the empire for texts from across Europe, and the Anglo–Imperial alliance, formed in part to support the cause of the Roman pope during the Great Schism, helped facilitate the movement of people, books and other goods be-

40  Michael Van Dussen

tween these two regions in particular. For years, manuscript production in the empire proceeded at a greater pace than in any other European region, a trend that began during the Schism and continued through the introduction of print. According to Uwe Neddermeyer’s models, Bohemia contributed significantly to that trend, though this activity would become more subdued after the Council of Constance, when Bohemia suffered from internal conflict and took a defensive stance against much of the rest of Latin Christendom.1 A similar dampening of activity, though on a smaller scale, may have happened a few years earlier in England. At the peak of textual transmission from England in the first decade or so of the fifteenth century, many among the Wycliffites felt themselves to be under siege by secular and ecclesiastical authorities. The last generation of Wyclif’s Oxford disciples sent what they could, at times in the form of epistles written in a Pauline or apocalyptic vein, to a region that they considered to remain vibrant in reformist vigour.2 Indeed, some English Wycliffites seem to have overestimated the level of political support the Hussites enjoyed – evidently the grass seemed greener in Bohemia. Wyclif’s followers were hardly in a position to be importing books; exports were another matter, and even this activity was stifled by the Council of Constance. It should be stressed, however, that the reformist exchange was an effect or accident of broader political, social and material circumstances.3 This study attends to a group of relatively unexamined texts that passed from England to Bohemia and its vicinity during this same period, not always in connection with reformist interests. Thus far I have emphasised the quantities of texts that were transmitted. Yet quantitative approaches can give a sense of determinism and leave out much of what is unique to the manuscript medium and its deployment and present a perspective to which no participant had access. Were the English or the Czechs even aware that they were contributing to such a vibrant trade? In some cases, perhaps they had a glimpse of it, at least in terms of the ideological significance of what they were doing – as when Jan Hus received an exhortatory letter from the English Wycliffite Richard Wyche, translated it into Czech, and read it out during a sermon at Bethlehem Chapel;4 or when Hus’s associates funded students to travel to England to access more reliable exemplars of Wyclif’s texts.5 But in 1

2

3 4 5

Uwe Neddermeyer, Von der Handschrift zum gedruckten Buch: Schriftlichkeit und Leseinteresse im Mittelalter und in der frühen Neuzeit, 2 vols (Wiesbaden, 1998), esp. diagram 38b in ii, p. 657 and diagram 5 in ii, p. 619. See, for example, the letters sent by Richard Wyche and John Oldcastle to Bohemia in 1410, discussed in Michael Van Dussen, From England to Bohemia: Heresy and Communication in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2012), pp. 63–85. For discussion, see ibid., esp. the Introduction and ch. 1. Ibid., pp. 75–6. Anne Hudson, ‘From Oxford to Prague: The Writings of John Wyclif and his English Followers in Bohemia’, Slavonic and East European Review 75 (1997), 642–57 at 643–4.



Richard Rolle in Bohemia  41

other cases, including several that are discussed below, the answer is not so clear. These cases, I suggest, serve to caution against isolating a single cause, agent or movement that was responsible for the exchange and might curb the temptation to assign too much self-conscious organisation to a cultural interchange that proceeded through the manuscript medium. Large concentrations of manuscripts are nevertheless one sign that something significant was happening. There are three clusters of texts from England that would come to form substantial numbers in Bohemia and its immediate vicinity at about the same time, that is, beginning in the late fourteenth century, reaching a peak just before the Council of Constance, and continuing to be copied sporadically through the remainder of the century. These were the works of John Wyclif himself, texts written by his followers, and (the subject of this study) the writings of the English hermit Richard Rolle.6 The writings of Wyclif, the most familiar of these groupings, survive in more manuscripts of Bohemian origin than in insular copies.7 Some came from direct transmission between England and Bohemia, while others passed through university channels by way of Paris. As I have already mentioned, there is evidence, too, of at least one mission to England by Bohemian students to obtain more reliable copies of Wyclif’s texts. They found what they were looking for not only at Oxford but also in the houses of prominent English families and Wycliffite sympathisers.8 There is no evidence that Wyclif ever had contact with Bohemians, and of course he had already died before most if not all of the transmission of his texts began. Some of his English followers, however, are known to have had direct contact with Bohemian reformists. Richard Wyche and John Oldcastle corresponded with Hus and others in Bohemia, and the names of other Wycliffites also circulated.9 William Thorpe’s Latin account of his interrogation by Thomas Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury (1407), survives only in Bohemian manuscripts. Anne Hudson has cautiously suggested that Thorpe may even have fled to Bohemia shortly after this ordeal.10 Peter Payne certainly did flee to Prague, where he remained active for decades.11 The writings of 6

7

8 9 10 11

Other groups of texts, for example the writings of Robert Grosseteste, which survive in significant numbers in Bohemian and other central European manuscripts, may prove to be significant in this context as well, but thus far an English connection to this material specifically in Bohemia has not been fully researched. This can be seen even upon cursory examination of Williel R. Thomson’s The Latin Writings of John Wyclyf: An Annotated Catalog (Toronto, 1983), supplemented and corrected in Appendix II of Anne Hudson, Studies in the Transmission of Wyclif’s Writings (Aldershot, 2008). Other copies of Wyclif’s texts in central Europe have since been discovered. See Hudson, ‘From Oxford to Prague’, 642–3. Van Dussen, From England to Bohemia, esp. pp. 63–85. Hudson, ‘William Taylor’s 1406 Sermon: A Postscript’, Medium Ævum 64 (1995), 104. František Šmahel, ‘Magister Peter Payne: Curriculum vitae eines englischen Nonkonformisten’, in Friedrich Reiser und die ‘waldensisch-hussitische Internationale’ im

42  Michael Van Dussen

Wyclif’s followers also appear in large concentrations in Bohemia, though, as in England, they are usually unattributed. Some Wycliffite texts, like the Opus arduum, survive only in Bohemian copies today. Easily the most widely disseminated Wycliffite text, or text-group, in Bohemia and its immediate vicinity was the set of distinctiones known as the Floretum and its revised and abbreviated form, the Rosarium. Over half of the surviving copies are now found in central European manuscripts, nearly all of them Bohemian or Moravian. Richard Rolle is often mentioned in the same breath as the Wycliffites in the English context, though his appeal was impressively broad and was recognised well before Wyclif was active. Rolle was a self-styled hermit who died at Hampole, in South Yorkshire, in 1349.12 He ended his studies at Oxford prematurely, was never professed to any religious order, and was never ordained. Rolle believed that the eremitic life alone was consistent with the highest level of contemplation. At the same time, he respected the preacher’s calling, and many of his own writings were in a sense pastoral. Several of his texts were written for the instruction of particular secular priests or contemplative women, and he freely criticised clergy whom he saw to be unfit for office. Rolle is known primarily for his contemplative and devotional writings in English and Latin, but his lesser-known biblical commentaries in both languages make up well over half of his oeuvre. It is perhaps the result of the contingencies of modern disciplinary boundaries and national interests that Rolle’s Middle English writings and their English circulation have received the bulk of attention in scholarship, though medieval interest in Rolle fell along different lines. Rolle’s texts were certainly widespread in England. Ralph Hanna counts 123 manuscripts of his English writings, some of them now missing, and the insular Latin manuscripts, few of which overlap with manuscripts containing the English writings, come to almost twice that number.13 Rolle’s readership was not at all confined to England, however. The modern emphasis on his vernacular writings not only skews the impression of his true importance for England but also misses the fact that Rolle’s reach was broadly European, with a marked concentration in Bohemia and its environs. The Latin language, combined with a number of other factors like Rolle’s English popularity and the existing number of his manuscripts in England, allowed his Latin writings a kind of volatility, in the sense of their availability for ready dispersion, that his English texts could never enjoy in Europe. The circulation patterns in Bohemia and elsewhere can give a sense of how enthu-

12

13

15. Jahrhundert, ed. Albert de Lange and Kathrin Utz Tremp (Heidelberg, 2006) pp. 241–60. For examinations of Rolle’s biography, see H. E. Allen, Writings Ascribed to Richard Rolle, Hermit of Hampole, and Materials for His Biography (London, 1927); and Nicholas Watson, Richard Rolle and the Invention of Authority (Cambridge, 1991). See the manuscript lists in Ralph Hanna, English Manuscripts of Richard Rolle: A Descriptive Catalogue (Liverpool, 2010) and A. I. Doyle and Ralph Hanna, Hope Allen’s Writings Ascribed to Richard Rolle: A Corrected List of Copies (Turnhout, 2019).



Richard Rolle in Bohemia  43

siasm for Rolle among disparate groups in England was transmitted in some way to other regions. Even after the initial transmission to Bohemia, interest in Rolle – or at least his texts – continued. On the latest count, there are sixty-seven manuscripts currently held in continental European libraries that contain one or more of Rolle’s Latin writings, three of which (and perhaps a few others) were produced in England and later brought to their current locations.14 The manuscript that is now Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud misc. 202 is a continental production from Mainz. At least three other continental Rolle manuscripts no longer survive, from Bruges, Prague and Warsaw (this last destroyed in the Second World War).15 Of the surviving manuscripts that were produced on the continent, thirty-five, including Laud misc. 202, are from central Europe, found in modern-day Germany, Switzerland, Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary, and others (in Prague and Warsaw) once existed in the region. Eight of these, plus those that are now lost, are new to Rolle scholarship.16 Of the thirty-five surviving central European manuscripts, nineteen can be connected to Bohemia or Moravia. Further, whereas the most common Rollean texts elsewhere in Europe were the Emendatio vite and Incendium amoris (these were likewise popular in England), in Bohemia and Moravia the Latin Psalter was Rolle’s most widely copied text. H. E. Allen was aware of eight copies of the Latin Psalter in Central Europe, which, together with one in Paris that Jean d’Angoulême brought from England, comprised her census of continental witnesses.17 To this number can now be added six more, plus two that no 14

15

16 17

This number excludes the following brief, unattributed fragments in continental manuscripts: several copies of ‘De amore, sive ad quinque quaestiones’ (possibly by Wyclif), which begins with an excerpt from Rolle’s Form of Living, translated into Latin (see Doyle and Hanna, Hope Allen’s Writings, pp. 43–4; several copies of this text are found in Bohemian manuscripts); Prague, Národní knihovna České republiky [hereafter NKCR] XX.B.4, which introduces a commentary on the Song of Songs, possibly by Haimo of Auxerre, with a brief prologue to Rolle’s own commentary on that text (fol. 108r–v; excerpt discussed by Andrew B. Kraebel, ‘Rolle Reassembled: Book Production, Single-Author Anthologies, and the Making of Bodley 861’, Speculum 94 (2019), 959–1005 at 980 n. 72); Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek [hereafter ÖNB], Cod. 4133, the Bohemian manuscript that contains Richard Ullerston’s defence of biblical translation, which quotes briefly from Rolle’s Latin Psalter (discussed below); and Olomouc, Vědecká knihovna, MS I.300, which inserts an excerpt from the prologue to the Incendium amoris at the start of Bonaventure’s De triplici via (see Doyle and Hanna, Hope Allen’s Writings, p. 30; the same excerpt appears in other central European copies of De triplici via). For discussion of the lost Prague and Warsaw manuscripts, see Van Dussen, ‘Richard Rolle’s Latin Psalter in Central European Manuscripts’, Medium Ævum 87 (2018), 41–71 at 45–6. I outline the details of each manuscript more specifically in an adjacent publication. See Van Dussen, ‘Richard Rolle’s Latin Psalter’. The eight manuscripts that Allen listed (here updated to reflect accurate shelf-marks) were: Kraków, Biblioteka Jagiellońska 1628; Prague, Knihovna Metropolitní kapituly

44  Michael Van Dussen

longer survive.18 Indeed, more than half of all extant copies of Rolle’s Latin Psalter are found in central European, mostly Bohemian, manuscripts. Two copies of the Emendatio, three of the Incendium, and one copy of Rolle’s Lamentations commentary also appear in Bohemian witnesses.19 Nor was the transmission and copying activity a flash in the pan. These texts were produced throughout the later Middle Ages, with spurts of activity in the last years of the fourteenth century and early years of the fifteenth, again just before the Council of Constance, and yet again around the time of the Council of Basel (1431–49), though I would not like to suggest that this activity necessarily had anything to do with either council, as there is no evidence of a connection.20 Michael Sargent and Ian Doyle have shown that the Carthusians contributed to the spread of Rolle’s writings in Europe,21 but Carthusians were not responsible for the initial circulation. The earliest circulation of Rolle’s texts on the continent took place as the result of Anglo– Bohemian cultural contacts.22 The best evidence for Carthusian and related circulation comes from after 1415 and, as far as central Europe is concerned, is most obvious in western parts of the empire. In the next century, the earliest continental editions of Rolle’s Latin texts were produced in Cologne, followed by regular editions produced elsewhere on the continent throughout the early modern period.23 Taken as a whole, the picture of continental production gives the sense that Rolle enjoyed wide circulation and that certain regions were particularly important in establishing his reputation and readership base on the continent. But when we isolate the central European manuscripts, or focus exclusively on the Bohemian and related copies, the individual stories of these manuscripts present a less uniform picture. I have begun to indicate that the Bohemian and related circulation had a character all its own. This is shown, for example, by the

18 19

20 21

22 23

[hereafter KMK) B.32/1; KMK B.32/2; KMK B.32/3; Prague, NKCR IV.E.1; NKCR V.D.4; NKCR X.D.3; and Schlägl, Stiftsbibliothek Cpl. 80. These will be addressed below. These are as follows: Emendatio: KMK B.6.3, Bautzen, Stadtbibliothek 4o 25 (not listed by Allen); Incendium: NKCR V.A.23, KMK D.125 (not listed by Allen) and ÖNB 4483; Super threnos: KMK D.12 (not listed by Allen). Other fragments that were drawn from Rolle’s Incendium amoris, Form of Living, and commentary on the Canticum canticorum, though not attributed, appear elsewhere in Bohemian manuscripts. See n. 14 (above) for references. For the dating of the Latin Psalter Manuscripts, see Van Dussen, ‘Richard Rolle’s Latin Psalter’. Michael Sargent, ‘The Transmission by the English Carthusians of Some Late Medieval Spiritual Writings’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 27 (1976), 225–40; Ian Doyle, ‘Carthusian Participation in the Movement of Works of Richard Rolle between England and Other Parts of Europe in the 14th and 15th Centuries’, Analecta Cartusiana 55 (1981), 109–20. For discussion, see Van Dussen, From England to Bohemia, ch. 2. For early modern printed editions, see Allen, Writings, pp. 9–14.



Richard Rolle in Bohemia  45

preponderance of Latin Psalter manuscripts, already mentioned and, as I will elaborate, by the contexts in which Rolle is found. It is attractive to suppose that if multiple texts by a single author circulated in the same place at about the same time, the fact was generally known. Yet despite the impressive scale of copying activity of Rolle’s works in this region in the fifteenth century, there is only sporadic indication that his readers knew who he was or that they understood all of his texts to have come from the same author. The numbers would seem to suggest that Rolle was treated as an authority in Bohemia, but when we look to the individual copies, it is not clear on what grounds. A case in point is a puzzling colophon in MS A.117 of the Prague Metropolitan Chapter Library (Knihovna metropolitní kapituly), a codex that consists mainly of Apocalypse commentaries. The explicit to the final item, part two of Richard of St Victor’s Liber exceptionum, reads: ‘Explicit liber optimus magistri Ricardi canonici sancti Victoris Parisiacensis, heremite de Hampul, terminatus in vigilia corporis Christi’ (fol. 323v). Richard of St Victor and Richard Rolle of Hampole were not, of course, one and the same person, but there is a logic to the association. Rolle was demonstrably influenced by the elder Richard, and in the case of certain Middle English texts, at least, difficulties in determining authorship have hinged on the observation that the two Richards wrote in a remarkably similar vein. The Middle English adaptation of Richard of St Victor’s Benjamin minor was once considered to have come from Rolle’s pen, though now it is generally regarded as the work of the author of the Cloud of Unknowing.24 Rolle’s longer Passion meditation, which Allen termed Meditation B, shows signs of influence from the elder Richard’s Benjamin major.25 If the text referred to as ‘Of thre wyrkynges in mans saule’ is by Rolle, as Ralph Hanna has tentatively suggested,26 it advertises its reverence for Richard of St Victor explicitly. Both authors were contemplatives who wrote biblical, often didactic, commentaries (this is true of Rolle’s Latin as well as his English writings), and so an association like the one we see in MS A.117 arguably reveals a sensitive reading of both authors’ work. Of course, the colophon accompanies a text by Richard of St Victor, not Rolle, though clearly the A.117 scribe knew of Rolle from somewhere. The same scribe may, in fact, have produced the copy of Rolle’s Latin Psalter in KMK B.32/327 – the hands are very similar, though I hesitate to claim unequivocally 24 25 26 27

Ibid., pp. 241–2. Ibid., pp. 199, 201, 341–2. Ralph Hanna (ed.), Uncollected Prose and Verse with Related Northern Texts, EETS os 329 (2007), pp. 84–8 (text), 194–6 (notes). See Nicole Marzac, Richard Rolle de Hampole (1300–1349): vie et œuvres suivies du Tractatus super apocalypsim (Paris, 1968), pp. 24–5. Marzac discussed this reference as part of her attempt to argue that Rolle had spent time at the Sorbonne, which is not my purpose here. In fact, the legend has been decisively dismissed: see E. J. F. Arnould, ‘Richard Rolle and the Sorbonne’, Appendix II of Arnould, The Melos Amoris of Richard Rolle of Hampole (Oxford, 1957), pp. 210–38. Marzac considers the reference in

46  Michael Van Dussen

that they are one and the same. Perhaps the scribe encountered the work of the ‘heremita de Hampul’ named Richard in an exemplar he used when copying A.117. It is impossible to know if the opinion that Rolle was Richard of St Victor was more widespread in Bohemia, and no references to the Victorine Richard appear in other Bohemian manuscripts that contain Rolle’s writings (or vice versa). If the association was more commonplace, this could help to explain the apparent rapid acceptance of Rolle’s texts in Bohemia; they would have been regarded as the writings of a widely respected authority, thus earning Rolle an accidental fame. Aside from any textual associations, a simpler explanation for the scribe’s conflation of the two Richards also presents itself. The Victorines, of course, were Augustinians. And although the Abbey of St Victor housed a community of canons, not hermits, Augustinian canons and friars (the Ordo eremitarum sancti Augustini), including the Victorines, were both frequently regarded as hermits and took pains to promote this image.28 The common epithet for Rolle, the ‘eremita de Hampol’, lent itself to an Augustinian association, not least because Bohemian readers are unlikely to have assumed that the author of Rolle’s texts was an eccentric, self-styled hermit, unaffiliated with any order. Note, too, that the explicit to Rolle’s Latin Psalter in KMK B.32/3 (the copy that may have been written by the same scribe as that of the A.117 colophon) claims that it was written ‘per reverendum fratrem heremitam Richardum Hampul’ (fol. 238v) – the ‘fratrem’ suggesting affiliation with an order (and who in Bohemia would have guessed the whereabouts of ‘Hampole’?).29 Indeed, the scribe was not the only one to assume that Rolle was an Augustinian. The sixteenth-century English antiquarian and bibliographer John Leland, whom one might expect to have had greater knowledge of Rolle’s biography, likewise called him an Augustinian in his De viris illustribus.30 In the case of

28

29 30

KMK A.117 to be ‘le plus ancient témoignage sur cet aspect controversé [that is, the question of Rolle’s presence in Paris] de la vie de l’ermite de Hampole’ (p. 25). As I argue here, however, there are other, and I think more likely, explanations for the association of Rolle with Richard of St Victor based exclusively on textual associations and the coincidence of their names. For discussion, see Frances Andrews, The Other Friars: The Carmelite, Augustinian Sack and Pied Friars in the Middle Ages (Woodbridge, 2006), p. 158; Jean Leclercq, ‘Monks and Hermits in Medieval Love Stories’, Journal of Medieval History 18 (1992), 341–56 at 354; Darrel R. Reinke, ‘“Austin’s Labour”: Patterns of Governance in Medieval Augustinian Monasticism’, Church History 56 (1987), 157–71 at 171; and Jane Herbert, ‘The Transformation of Hermitages into Augustinian Priories in Twelfth-Century England’, in Monks, Hermits and the Ascetic Tradition: Papers Read at the 1984 Summer Meeting and the 1985 Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society, ed. W. J. Sheils (Oxford, 1985), pp. 131–45 at 133. In only one other Bohemian manuscript is Rolle called ‘frater’ – the Latin Psalter in NKCR X.D.3. Leland, De viris illustribus / On Famous Men, ed. and trans. James Carley with Caroline Brett (Toronto, 2010), p. 582. Leland refers to Rolle as an ‘eremita ejus sectae quam vocant Augustinianam’. A similar mistake is made in the catalogue entry for MS



Richard Rolle in Bohemia  47

the A.117 reference, a colophon, and not just marginal and other notes, can serve as a place in which a scribe works out problems of authorship and provenance – and in a space that participates in the authority of the text because it presents its last word. Evidence in other manuscripts, too, casts doubt on the authority of Rolle as Rolle in Central European manuscripts. I have mentioned that Rolle’s most widely copied text in Bohemia and its close vicinity was the Latin Psalter commentary. Perhaps the most intriguing copy in terms of what it shows about its use in Bohemia is now Prague, National Library (Národní knihovna; hereafter NKCR), MS X.B.22. This is not a straightforward copy of the text at all, in fact, but a kind of ‘cut-and-paste’ job, in which much of Rolle’s text has been disassembled and then arranged as marginal and interlinear glosses to the central Psalter text. The application of Rolle’s commentary appears to have been intended from the start, as can be seen by the script and placement of Rolle’s brief prologue in the central text column just before the first Psalm. From there, however, any sort of single plan was abandoned. One scribe has added brief interlinear glosses through Ps. 118. Most come from Gorranus, not Rolle, and a few are taken from the Glossa ordinaria. A second scribe has expanded many of the glosses that the first scribe initiated, even to the point of adding lengthy passages of commentary in the margins and directing the reader through their correct sequence with a system of signes de renvoi. Most of these passages, at least toward the beginning, come from Rolle, and for the early Psalms nearly the entirety of Rolle’s commentary appears, piecemeal, in these glosses. The use of Rolle diminishes as the scribe progresses, however; in later sections both Rolle and Gorranus are still represented, though Gorranus comes to dominate. Surely this use of Rolle’s commentary in X.B.22 demonstrates Rolle’s authority as a scriptural commentator? Yet while Gorranus and the Glossa ordinaria are cited at several points throughout the gloss, Rolle’s name never appears. Indeed, another manuscript that contains Rolle’s Psalter, Brno, Moravian Land Archive (Moravský zemský archiv), MS G.12, Cerr. II, 151, raises the possibility that Rolle was not always the main consideration in the first place. The Brno manuscript contains a partial copy of Rolle’s Latin Psalter (pp. 3–157). The Rolle section continues, without ascription, through Psalm 111. At this point (pp. 157–81), a second scribe continues, on the same folio, to copy another commentary, from Psalm 112 to the end (the author of this second commentary has not been identified).31 There are any number

31

390 (which contains Rolle’s Emendatio vite) in the Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum. See Emma Bartoniek, Codices manu scripti latini, i: Codices latini medii aevi (Budapest, 1940). On p. 347 Bartoniek refers to Rolle as ‘O. S. August.’, an association that is not registered in the manuscript. For further discussion of this manuscript, and the text that is added to Rolle’s commentary, see Van Dussen, ‘Richard Rolle’s Latin Psalter’, pp. 48–9.

48  Michael Van Dussen

of reasons why neither scribe continued to copy Rolle’s text to the end, but it is doubtful that any exemplar contained this combined text. It is striking, however, that both parts in the Brno manuscript rely heavily on the Psalter commentary of Peter Lombard, who in turn makes liberal use of the Glossa ordinaria. Both, too, present relatively brief commentary on each psalm, and of comparable length. Could it be, then, that Rolle’s (and in this case, the second commentator’s) commentary was considered not in its own right but rather for being a kind of digest of the Lombard’s? The same could perhaps have been true of the gloss in NKCR X.B.22, where the deployment of Rolle (though not necessarily known to be Rolle) may actually have been regarded as Lombard-by-way-of-Rolle, and then combined with useful passages from Gorranus and the Glossa. We could pursue this speculation further, but the point is that we cannot assume, based solely on manuscript quantities and distribution patterns, that Rolle was regarded as an authority in each case, or that his identity was clearly known. At the same time, there is evidence that some Czech readers were curious about this hermit as an author in his own right. The most familiar examples come from three related Bohemian copies of the Incendium amoris. It was perhaps the deeply intimate character of Rolle’s writing – a pronounced feature of the Incendium – that stimulated the probing interest in the author’s identity in the Bohemian copies of this text. I have discussed elsewhere that the initial transmission of the Incendium likely came not directly from England to Bohemia but to Prague by way of Rome, and that this took place much earlier than the transmission of Rolle’s other texts on the continent.32 Colophons in all three extant manuscripts (KMK D.125, NKCR V.A.23 and ÖNB, Cod. 4483) appear to associate the initial transmission of the text with Jan of Jenštejn, archbishop of Prague from 1378 until his retirement in 1396. Jenštejn took several trips to Rome, one of them to press for the more universal celebration of the Feast of the Visitation. There he probably met the Benedictine Adam Easton, who was also interested in the Visitation and who may be the English monk mentioned in the Vienna copy of the Incendium. The Vienna manuscript, which was in Prague until the sixteenth century, includes several badly obscured notes that reveal a keen interest in the author of the Incendium and in the text’s progress to Bohemia.33 The author of this version of the notes, who could not have been Jenštejn and clearly drew on fuller notes in his exemplar, records details about Richard the hermit that he received from a certain English doctor and a bachelor of theology, to which he adds details of his own conjecture. As Allen, who initially transcribed these notes, indicates, the annotator learned that the author was not a monk or a priest, but concluded from this that he was thus illiterate (in the sense of not knowing Latin), and that all of his works were originally written in English. 32 33

Van Dussen, From England to Bohemia, ch. 2. These notes are transcribed, as far as possible, in Allen, Writings, pp. 39–43.



Richard Rolle in Bohemia  49

He also learned that William Stopes, said to be a close associate of Richard, added the short compilation on the Holy Name that accompanies all Bohemian copies of the Incendium, and he claims that Stopes first translated the text into Latin. The claim that Rolle wrote only in English is contradicted by a later note that claims he wrote in Latin as well, though in this case the annotator has spotted the discrepancy and crossed out ‘tam in Latino’. A final note records many details about Rolle’s ascetic life, including his diet and austere manner of living, and mentions a certain Margaret – certainly Margaret Kirkby – who was deeply devoted to Rolle. This Richard, we are told, is now regarded for his holy reputation by everyone in England. The other two Bohemian manuscripts (NKCR V.A.23, KMK D.125) present a short form of the final note in the Vienna copy; they elevate the information to a colophon and also indicate Rolle’s English origin. One further piece of evidence that suggests an interest in Rolle comes from a colophon in Schlägl, Stiftsbibliothek, Cpl 80, a manuscript that was copied in the south Bohemian town of České Budějovice. The first colophon (of two) toward the end of the text reads: ‘Finit glosa psalterij breuis et utilis secundum Richardum hampul heremitam Symonis Anno 1438o sabbato et vigilia andree’. Allen considered the ‘Symonis’ to indicate the name of the scribe, which led her rather fancifully to connect the manuscript to a ‘Symon’ mentioned in a manuscript in Gdańsk, in which there is a colophon that in turn looks remarkably similar to one in a manuscript at Magdalene College, Oxford.34 However, the syntax of the Schlägl colophon seems clearly to suggest that ‘Symonis’ is the genitive form of a place, not a name.35 There is also a second colophon, in the same hand, recorded in the very next column, immediately following the pseudo-Augustinian De laude psalmorum that typically forms part of the final compilation attached to the Latin Psalter in Bohemian copies. In this colophon the scribe announces himself as ‘Wolfgang’ (as elsewhere in the manuscript).36 ‘Symonis’, I suggest, is a place – a corrupt form of a place – and the colophon should be read to suggest that Rolle was a hermit ‘of Syon’. Syon, of course, is one of the two monasteries (the other being its ‘brother’ house across the Thames at Sheen) which were responsible for transmitting many of Rolle’s texts to the continent. Rolle was not a hermit at Syon, which in any case was founded long after he had died, and after his texts were initially transmitted to Bohemia. Thus far I have found no link between Syon and the Bohemian manuscripts – the text of the Schlägl Psalter is 34 35

36

Ibid., p. 168. I have recently found a similar colophon in a second copy of the Latin Psalter from České Budějovice, in České Budějovice, South Bohemian Research Library (Jihočeská vědecká knihovna), 1 Bi 9, fol. 117r: ‘Finitur glosa psalterii breuis et vtilis secundum Richardum hampul heremitam Symonis’. For a fuller discussion of this manuscript, see Van Dussen, ‘Richard Rolle’s Latin Psalter’, pp. 52–3 and 58–9. Fol. 96v: ‘Explicit glosa psalterii finita per me Wolfgangum capellanum in budweis altaris sancta Barbare Anno 1438 in vigilia Andree.’

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derived from earlier Bohemian copies.37 Still, if I am correct in thinking that the manuscript contains a reference to Syon, this detail would seem to suggest that scraps of information concerning Rolle’s identity and associations in England, however muddled, continued to circulate among his Bohemian readers further into the fifteenth century. I have put off the discussion of reformist interest in Rolle’s writings in order to emphasise that no single agent, institution or interest group was responsible for the circulation of Rolle’s texts in Bohemia. Indeed, several manuscripts – for example, from the Metropolitan Chapter at Olomouc, the Dominican priory at Retz and the Church of St Nicholas in Budějovice, where Wolfgang was an altarista – suggest that Rolle’s Psalter also circulated among readers who were likely staunchly opposed to the various reformist factions in Bohemia. There is no avoiding, however, the substantial evidence of Hussite interest in Rolle. The only continental copy of Rolle’s Lamentations commentary, in KMK, MS D.12, follows a number of Hussite texts, including some of Hus’s sermons and polemical works, as well as Hus on the Sentences. Rolle’s text is immediately followed by a cluster of brief poems from England, which were probably encountered and collected in an ad hoc manner: the English anti-clerical poem ‘Heu, quanta desolatio Anglie prestatur’ – an ‘O and I’ poem with Wycliffite sympathies that also survives in a second Bohemian manuscript;38 a ten-line antifraternal poem;39 and a verse eulogy of Anne of Bohemia, which was once posted near her tomb at Westminster Abbey (the anticlerical poems could reasonably have circulated as cedulae, such as we see with the single leaf containing an ‘O and I’ poem that has been bound in with Peter Partridge’s notebook, Bodleian Library, MS Digby 98).40 Rolle’s Lamentations commentary is unattributed, however, listed in the contents only as ‘a certain beautiful and brief book on Lamentations, brought from England’. Perhaps Super threnos was recommended to the D.12 scribe in England, though its author’s identity was not transmitted along with it. The two Bohemian copies of Rolle’s Emendatio vite, in KMK B.6/3 and Bautzen, Stadtbibliothek, 4o 25, both contain reformist texts, including Wyclif’s De nova prevaricancia mandatorum. Further, one of the copies of the Latin Psalter in KMK B.32/1 includes in a later hand a previously unnoticed excerpt from Wyclif’s sermon on Trinity Sunday. The explicit in KMK A.117, 37

38

39 40

There may have been, however, some Bridgettine connection with the lost Warsaw manuscript. The brief text De laude psalmorum that followed Rolle’s Latin Psalter in that manuscript may in turn have been followed by an excerpt from the Revelations of Bridget of Sweden. See Van Dussen, ‘Richard Rolle’s Latin Psalter’, p. 46. That is, one of many complaint poems from England, in Middle English and occasionally in Latin, that begin their distinctive refrain with the phrase, ‘With an O and an I’ or similar. The second Bohemian copy is now in ÖNB, Cod. 3929, fols 223v–225r. A second copy of this poem is in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Ashmole 361, fol. 160r. Cedulae are independently circulating parchment leaves. The eulogy, along with two others, is edited in Van Dussen, From England to Bohemia, pp. 129–41.



Richard Rolle in Bohemia  51

linking Rolle with Richard of St Victor, provides intriguing evidence of possible Hussite or Wycliffite involvement in circulating Rolle’s texts, despite any confusion it may suggest about his identity: the manuscript also contains the Wycliffite apocalyptic commentary, Opus arduum. If the same scribe copied the Latin Psalter that is now KMK B.32/3, that may be implicated in reformist circles as well. Kraków, Biblioteka Jagiellońska 1628, which contains a Latin Psalter copied in 1413, includes two of Hus’s sermons, though his name has been obscured or rubbed out wherever it appears. Further, both sermons appear among others by Hus in the Brno manuscript that contains Rolle’s Psalter through Psalm 111. In the surviving medieval catalogue of the university in Prague, two copies of Rolle’s Latin Psalter are listed under the holdings of the natio Bohemorum, where Hussites were well represented. One is now NKCR V.D.4, though I have been unable to link the other to any extant copy. NKCR X.B.22, the manuscript of the Rolle gloss, may also have come from the same library. It has the old signature A.13, but the catalogue’s editors associate the corresponding entry in the medieval catalogue with another codex that bears the same signature.41 Yet X.B.22 arguably fits the fifteenth-century description more closely. The natio Bohemorum certainly had more than one manuscript of Rolle’s Psalter to draw from for such a gloss. Finally, even the copy of the Incendium in ÖNB 4483 – with its extensive notes on the text’s authorship and transmission – is now found in a compilation that includes texts by Wyclif, Hus and Jerome of Prague. At the same time, it contains texts related to the Feast of the Visitation, others by pre-Hussite reformers, as well as positions written by Hus’s opponents, and so the Hussite and Wycliffite material may have been compiled by an opponent of the Hussite programme. The amount of overlap with reformist texts in Bohemian manuscripts that contain Rolle material is striking in that no such correspondence is evident in insular manuscripts of Rolle’s Latin writings, nor to my knowledge are the Wycliffites known to have had anything to do with the Latin writings. In the English context, we have long known about Wycliffite interest in some of Rolle’s Middle English texts, the English Psalter and Form of Living.42 There are even two main Wycliffite revisions of Rolle’s English Psalter, which is later than the Latin Psalter but is far from being a mere translation of it.43 Perhaps Wycliffite interest in the Latin writings may be inferred by the clear Hussite interest in

41

42 43

The catalogue of the Bohemian nation, along with other medieval catalogues from Prague University, is found in Catalogi librorum vetustissimi Universitatis Pragensis, ed. Zuzana Silagiová and František Šmahel, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis 271, Magistri Iohannis Hus Opera Omnia XXXVII B Suppl. II (Turnhout, 2015). See Van Dussen, From England to Bohemia, pp. 53–4. The Wycliffite revisions of the English Psalter have been edited by Anne Hudson, Two Revisions of Rolle’s English Psalter Commentary and the Related Canticles, 3 vols, EETS os 340, 341 and 343 (2013–14).

52  Michael Van Dussen

Rolle and the unique proliferation of the Latin Psalter in Bohemia, if in fact these texts were transmitted through the aid of Wycliffite contacts – and after all, the English texts were unlikely candidates for transmission. But despite the large amount of evidence of Hussite interest in Rolle, who did the Hussites imagine Rolle to be? When we broaden our search, it seems likely that some readers were not entirely in the dark about the author of the Latin Psalter, at least, and his significance to English controversies, particularly the debate on the vernacular translation of Scripture. This protracted controversy, which had a focal point in a formal debate held at Oxford in 1401,44 was fed by concern over the Wycliffite translation of the entire Bible into English for the first time late in the fourteenth century, as well as increasingly widespread preaching and discussion of theological and ecclesiological matters in the vernacular among laypeople. The controversy continued to exercise Church officials, together with authors and readers of a range of genres in English and in Latin, throughout much of the fifteenth century, and Thomas Arundel made concerted, if unenforceable, attempts to limit vernacular writing and preaching through a series of constitutions (1407/9). News of the controversy reached Bohemia in several forms. In one of his sermons, Jan Hus tells an anecdote related to him by a Czech man, Mikuláš Faulfiš, who was one of the two students who went to England to copy Wyclif’s texts. Mikuláš, Hus says, once met an English cook who was caught red-handed by a bishop reading the scriptures in English. The story goes that: when the bishop asked [the cook] why he read the Scripture in English against his ban, [the cook] defended himself with Scripture. And then the bishop said to him: ‘Do you know with whom you are speaking?’ He answered that he was speaking with a bishop, [who was also] a man. And the bishop went on: ‘And do you dare, wretched layman, to speak to me from Scripture?’ And [the cook] answered him: ‘I know that you are no greater than Christ, and as for myself I hope I am no worse than the devil. And because gracious Christ quietly listened to Scripture from the devil, why wouldn’t you, as you are less than Christ, listen to Scripture from me, a man?’ And the bishop, losing his temper, no longer wanted to speak with him: so that the cook overcame the bishop with Scripture, just as Christ [overcame] the devil.45

The ‘ban’ in question almost certainly refers to Arundel’s Constitutions. Four anticlerical letters purporting to have been distributed broadly in the vernacular by the Scottish armiger Quentin Folkhyrde were transmitted to Bohemia in Latin and translated into Czech. Among Folkhyrde’s complaints was that the clergy fail to teach the essentials of the faith to the laity in the vernacu44

45

On this controversy, see Anne Hudson, ‘The Debate on Bible Translation, Oxford 1401’, English Historical Review 90 (1975), 1–18; repr. in her Lollards and their Books (London, 1985), pp. 67–84. Discussed in Van Dussen, From England to Bohemia, pp. 78–80.



Richard Rolle in Bohemia  53

lar. And the only surviving Latin copies of William Thorpe’s account of his ordeal with Arundel himself, in which Arundel withheld Thorpe’s copy of the Psalter (perhaps a Wycliffite revision of Rolle’s commentary?) and criticised Thorpe’s vernacular preaching and pastoral activity, survive in two Bohemian manuscripts (now ÖNB 3936 and KMK O.29). One of the primary positions of the Oxford debate of 1401, Richard Ullerston’s determinatio in favour of biblical translation, survives in full only in a Bohemian manuscript, now ÖNB 4133. This was copied by a certain Pavel Slawkowicz, who was a member of the Bohemian nation at Charles University, and who owned at least one other manuscript (ÖNB 3933) that incidentally contains texts by Wyclif and a copy of a Hussite catalogue of Wyclif’s writings. In the fifteenth-century catalogue of the library of the natio Bohemorum is listed what is almost certainly a second copy of Ullerston’s determinatio, but this has not been linked to a surviving manuscript.47 Most important for our purposes, however, is the fact that Ullerston’s position explicitly singles out Rolle’s work with the Psalter in his defence of translation. At one point, he mentions that Rolle (here called only ‘eremita’) translated the entire Psalter into the vernacular.48 Shortly thereafter he also quotes from Rolle’s Latin Psalter on Psalm 118, now calling Rolle ‘Ricardus Hampole’.49 It seems that the English debate over vernacular biblical translation and preaching held some interest in Bohemia, and it is also possible that Rolle himself was understood by reformers in Prague to be a revered figure by English Wycliffites in their evangelising efforts. Still, as the example of the colophon that mistakes Rolle for Richard of St Victor shows, we should not be too hasty to assume that Bohemian readers were aware of all the details that can now be pieced together, or that they even knew that all of Rolle’s texts that reached Bohemia were written by the same author. How, then, did such a large concentration of Rolle material in Bohemia and its environs come about? Did Wycliffites encourage their Bohemian associates, either in England or in Prague, to consider reading Rolle? Perhaps Rolle was recommended by English readers like the cook of Hus’s anecdote, or encountered alongside Wycliffite texts in English manuscripts that are now lost. It is intriguing to note that Sir William Beauchamp, the patron of Kemerton (where the two Bohemian students copied Wyclif’s De ecclesia), likely secured a living there for the Wycliffite preacher Robert Lychlade and had further associations with so-called Lollard knights, other Wycliffite preachers, and with Philip Repingdon, who abjured his Wycliffite views in 1382. Beauchamp’s own library held devotional texts by Rolle, the Two Ways of the alleged Lollard knight John Clanvowe, and a missal that contains the first 46

46 47 48 49

See ibid., pp. 76–7. The catalogue reference is found in Catalogi librorum vetustissimi Universitatis Pragensis, ed. Silagiová and Šmahel, p. 98 (sign. L 26). ÖNB 4133, fol. 198v. ÖNB 4133, fol. 199r.

54  Michael Van Dussen

known copy of the office for the Holy Name.50 It is in these kinds of environments that the likelihood of hearing Rolle mentioned in the same breath (or of seeing him in the same manuscripts) as the Wycliffites was greatest. It is important to remember, however, that Rolle’s commentary on the Psalter, which is less obviously contemplative in nature, was his most widely circulated text in Bohemia. Perhaps somewhere in the background of the initial transmission of this text was the notion that the Wycliffites regarded Rolle as one of the few acceptable moderni – along with Lyra, Gorranus, Grosseteste, FitzRalph, and even Richard of St Victor (all of whom were likewise highly regarded by Bohemian reformists). But even before any transmission that was likely to have involved the Wycliffites transpired, Jan of Jenštejn received the Incendium amoris through associates in Rome who had ties to England. Whatever events led to the eventual concentration of Rolle’s texts in Bohemia, we are not dealing with a wave of textual transmission that spread over the continent and eventually reached Prague and its environs at the end of the line. Bohemia received Rolle’s texts through several points of English contact before most if not all of the other continental transmission began; this was followed by subsequent copying throughout the fifteenth century and circulation that fanned outward from Prague to southern Bohemia, Moravia, Austria, Poland and Germany. Rolle’s texts did not reach Bohemia through any programme of centralised copying or transmission; nor was Rolle received there by a cohesive community of readers. His texts, I suggest, were caught up in multiple channels of transmission, including (but not exclusive to) Wycliffite networks. Certainly, the initial transmission of the Incendium, Latin Psalter, and Super threnos appears to have resulted from unrelated points of contact between England and Bohemia, and there is no evidence that more than one of Rolle’s texts were transmitted to Bohemia at the same time. His proliferation in Bohemia is likely attributable to Rolle’s existing reputation in England. Convergent transmission of the kind I have described becomes increasingly probable, after all, when the exchange involves multiple points of contact of Bohemian with English readers, among whom Rolle was already widely distributed, and indeed enjoying a revival. But with the translation to a new context, something was lost in transmission. Rolle’s texts continued to be copied, but that which originally underpinned his texts’ authority or appeal in England – often the figure of the author himself – was not necessarily retained; it was replaced, at times, by Rolle’s associations with, or recommendation by, co-reformists in England, or the assignment of his texts to another author or use-value altogether. Through the continued copying of Rolle’s texts in Bohemia, as we might expect, details of the authorship and origins of the texts most often fell away. So while Rolle’s writings were widely circulated in Bohemia, perhaps we should stop short of claiming unequivocally that Rolle the author was widely known or regarded there.

50

For discussion, see Van Dussen, From England to Bohemia, pp. 56, 60–1.

3 The Golden Book of the Knight Wenceslas: Travelling, Piety and Diplomacy in Late-Medieval Europe1 MAREK SUCHÝ

Written, pictorial, archaeological and other material evidence suggests that a manuscript kept in the Prague Castle Archives (H.15) was probably bound at the request of a knightly diplomat. He was in connection with the Imperial-Bohemian, French and English courts, probably at the end of the 1390s or in the 1400s. His travel diary, which constitutes the last quire of the manuscript, can be seen as a testimony of how a Bohemian knight would have looked at England at the turn of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. He was interested not only in castles, palaces and Arthurian legends but also the churches, relics and miracles connected with them, which suggests that he combined his diplomatic mission with a pilgrimage. His journey also confirms the notion that although Bohemia and England lost their close dynastic link after the death of Queen Anne, the contacts established in the previous years had by no means been lost by 1394. The situation was only changed by the Hussite wars (1419–36). The knightly member of the diplomatic mission sent by the Bohemian King George of Poděbrady to England in the mid-1460s also left written accounts of London, which resemble in many respects the analysed diary but, by contrast, do not even mention Queen Anne.

The Golden Book

T

he Anglo–Imperial alliance initiated by the marriage of Anne of Luxembourg, daughter of Emperor Charles IV, to Richard II, king of England, in 1382, had little immediate political impact.2 However, the dynastic connec1

2

Publication of this text was supported by the the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports – Institutional Support for Longterm Development of Research Organizations – Charles University, Faculty of Humanities (2020). See esp. Constantin Höfler, ‘Anna von Luxemburg: Kaiser Karls IV. Tochter, König Richards II. Gemahlin, Königin von England, 1382–1394ʼ, Denkschriften der Kaiser-

56  Marek Suchý

tion certainly opened the door for contacts between the two countries, reflected among other things by the increasing numbers of people travelling between the two courts along the Main–Rhine waterway in the 1380s and 1390s.3 Regular contact continued even after the death of Queen Anne in 1394; in this connection, the transfer of Wyclif’s teachings to Prague is commonly mentioned, although the actual evidence for individuals mediating such an exchange of ideas is rather scarce.4 However, not everyone travelling to England at the turn of the fourteenth century need necessarily have been interested in Wyclif and his writings. In this context, there is an interesting ‘Brief report’ about a manuscript from the Prague Metropolitan Chapter Library (D.12), in which F. M. Bartoš discovered a ‘long-forgotten sad obituary, written by an anonymous English poet after the queen’s death in 1394’. He published a transcription of the text in 1919 to complement the catalogue of manuscripts by Antonín Podlaha (1910), who had failed to notice the verses since they were included ‘in a trivial ten-line attack on monks and the well-known long Lollard song against Wyclif’s op-

3

4

lichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Classe 20 (1871), pp. 89–240; Jaroslav Goll, ‘Anna Lucemburská, králová anglickáʼ [‘Anne of Luxembourg, Queen of Englandʼ], Lumír 7 (1879), 117–20; Ferdinand Tadra, Kulturní styky Čech s cizinou až do válek husitských [‘Bohemian Cultural Contacts with Foreign Countries until the Hussite Warsʼ] (Praha, 1897), pp. 164–7; Édouard Perroy, L’Angleterre et le Grand Schisme d’Occident: Étude sur la politique religieuse de l’Angleterre sous Richard II, 1378–1399 (Paris, 1933), pp. 129–65; Rudolf Urbánek, ‘Anna Anglická, “dobrá královna”ʼ [‘Anne of England, “the Good Queen”ʼ], Královny, kněžny a velké ženy české [‘Czech Queens, Duchesses and Great Womenʼ], ed. Karel Stloukal (Praha, 1940), pp. 128–37; Amanda Simpson, The Connections between English and Bohemian Painting during the Second Half of the Fourteenth Century (New York, 1984), pp. 36–54; Katherine Walsh, ‘Lollardisch-hussitische Reformbestrebungen in Umkreis und Gefolgschaft der Luxemburgerin Anna, Königin von England (1382–1394)ʼ, Häresie und vorzeitige Reformation im Spätmittelalter, ed. František Šmahel and Elisabeth Müller-Luckner (München, 1998), pp. 77–108; Nigel Saul, Richard II (New Haven, 1999), pp. 83–95; Anthony Tuck, ‘Richard II and the House of Luxemburgʼ, Richard II: The Art of Kingship, ed. Anthony Goodman and James Gillespie (Oxford, 1999), pp. 205–29; Marek Suchý, ‘Anna Lucemburská, anglická královnaʼ [‘Anne of Luxembourg, Queen of Englandʼ], Lucemburkové: Česká koruna uprostřed Evropy [‘The House of Luxembourg: the Czech Crown in the Middle of Europeʼ], ed. František Šmahel and Lenka Bobková (Praha, 2012), pp. 763–6. Marek Suchý, ‘England and Bohemia in the Time of Anne of Luxembourg: Dynastic Marriage as a Precondition for Cultural Contact in the Late Middle Agesʼ, Prague and Bohemia: Medieval Art, Architecture and Cultural Exchange in Central Europe, ed. Zoë Opačić (London, 2009), pp. 8–21. Anne Hudson, ‘From Oxford to Prague: The Writings of John Wyclif and his English Followers in Bohemiaʼ, The Slavonic and East European Review 75 (1997), 642–57; Anne Hudson, ‘From Oxford to Bohemia: Reflections on the Transmission of Wycliffite Textsʼ, Studia Mediaevalia Bohemica 2 (2010), 25–37; František Šmahel, Život a dílo Jeronýma Pražského: Zpráva o výzkumu [‘The Life and Work of Jerome of Prague: A Research Reportʼ] (Praha, 2010), pp. 21–7, 41; see also ch. 1 and 2 above, by Michael Bennett and Michael Van Dussen, respectively.



The Golden Book of the Knight Wenceslas  57

ponents’. Nevertheless, several years later Podlaha noticed that in a different manuscript (H.15), the Latin version of Indian fables Liber Dimnae et Kalilae (fols 1r–89r) was followed by a poem to commemorate Queen Anne, and he registered it in part two of his catalogue (1922) as Epitaphium de Anna regina Angliae, filia imperatoris Karoli de Boemia (90r–92r), but he failed to identify the text with Bartoš’s poem.6 Both manuscripts were recently discovered by Michael Van Dussen, who edited the Bartoš obituary again, together with another two eulogies which follow it in Podlaha’s manuscript.7 Podlaha’s ‘epitaphiumʼ can be seen as just another piece of evidence about the anonymous poem commemorating Queen Anne in late medieval Bohemia, but it is interesting to note that the poems are followed by a text describing certain localities in France and England, which Podlaha registered as De locis praecipuis in Francia et Anglia atque de reliquiis, quae in eis asservantur (92r–93r). The following page of the manuscript was left blank (93v), but the next one bears a brief text in verse about the seven virtues and vices (94r).8 Envy, pride and some other sins are also acknowledged in the following prayer to Jesus Christ (94v–95v), when the author seeks forgiveness for them (95r).9 The next prayers mention also St Christopher, the patron saint of pilgrims (95v–96r), who is shown in a perfunctory drawing, bearing Jesus on his shoulders across water, symbolised by a fish and a crayfish. It is probably 5

5

6

7

8

9

František Michálek Bartoš, ‘Z dávných styků našich s Angliíʼ [‘From Our Ancient Contacts with Englandʼ], Časopis Musea Království českého 93 (1919), 203–4. For the well-known long Lollardic song (Heu quanta desolacio) see Anne Hudson, ‘Peter Pateshull: One-Time Friar and Poet?ʼ, Interstices: Studies in Middle English and Anglo-Latin Texts in Honour of A. G. Rigg, ed. Richard Firth Green and Linne R. Mooney (Toronto, 2004), pp. 167–83. For the catalogue entry see Adolf Patera and Antonín Podlaha, Soupis rukopisů knihovny metropolitní kapitoly pražské [‘A List of Manuscripts of the Prague Metropolitan Chapter Libraryʼ], i (Praha, 1910), pp. 325–6, no. 577. Archiv Pražského hradu (APH) [Archives of Prague Castle], Knihovna metropolitní kapituly u sv Víta (KMK) [Metropolitan Chapter Library], H.15; Antonín Podlaha, Soupis rukopisů knihovny metropolitní kapitoly pražské [‘A List of Manuscripts of the Prague Metropolitan Chapter Libraryʼ], ii (Praha, 1922), p. 127, no. 1070; Antonín Podlaha, Doplňky a opravy k Soupisu rukopisů knihovny metropolitní kapitoly pražské [‘Supplements and Corrections to the List of Manuscripts of the Prague Metropolitan Chapter Libraryʼ] (Praha, 1928), p. 16, no. 577. Van Dussen also edited Bartoš’s ‘ten-line attack on monks’: see Michael Van Dussen, ‘Three Verse Eulogies of Anne of Bohemiaʼ, Medium Aevum 78 (2009), 231–60, and his From England to Bohemia: Heresy and Communication in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2012), pp. 33, 129–41. For its Latin–German version in the fifteenth–century manuscript (with further references) see Klosterneuburg, Augustiner-Chorherrenstift, Cod. 278, fol. 221va, at http:// manuscripta.at/hs_detail.php?ms_code=AT5000-278&load=278 (accessed 19 September 2019). Domine Ihesu Christe qui in; the text also contains (with small differences) the Burnet Psalter (composed in the first half of the fifteenth century): Aberdeen, Aberdeen University Library, MS 25, fols 46r–49r. For an online edition with further references, see http:// www.abdn.ac.uk/diss/historic/collects/bps/text/046r.htm (accessed 19 September 2019).

58  Marek Suchý

not a coincidence that the drawing faces a text of a hymn which states that whoever keeps and venerates St Christopher’s image will not suffer a sudden death or a long illness.10 Neither do the following penitential verses Versus ad poenitentiam excitantes (96v–97r) and two texts about planets – De planetis (97r–98r)11 and De horis planetarum (98v–99r) – contradict the idea that all the listed texts are linked by the topic of pilgrimage or travel. This assumption seems to be confirmed by the travel itineraries from Prague (via Brussels) to Paris and then on to Calais, placed at the end of the manuscript (99r). What is more, the above-mentioned texts are recorded in the last quire, which had been folded in half lengthwise prior to being bound (unlike the others). Moreover, the first folio is also quite dirty, which might suggest that the quire in question had been used as the traveller’s notebook or diary and that the first folio was the inadvertent protective cover for the rest of the text.12 Of course, it is possible that the notebook became a part of the manuscript as a result of being bound by chance with the Latin version of some Indian fables, but the filigree designs seem to prove the opposite, as a dragon is to be found in the last quire as well as within the section of the manuscript containing fables.13 Moreover, the fact that the manuscript of the Liber Dimnae et Kalilae can be seen in connection with Central Europe already at the turn of the fourteenth century might be attested by the text of Chapter 12 (57r) being interrupted by pen trials also referring to King Wenceslas (57v), while the narrative only continues on the following (first) folio of the next quire (58r).14 What is more, the parchment cover of the manuscript bears the contemporary ownership title Liber Wenczeslai militis in addition to the title Liber Digne et 10

11

12

13 14

Tu Ihesus es testis (fol. 95v) is also to be found in the Burnet Psalter (fol. 23r-23v) and it is followed there (fol. 23v), as well as in our manuscript (fol. 96r – with some differences), by a prayer titled Concede quesumus omnipotens et. See also James Hall, Dictionary of Subjects and Symbols in Art, (London, 1992), p. 68. The text corresponds (with some differences) to ‘Cap. III–IXʼ and part of ‘Epilogusʼ of the treatise De planetis et eorum virtute, which has been published by Marek Gensler in ‘Gualteri Burlaei adscriptus tractatus De planetis et eorum virtuteʼ, Studia antyczne i mediewistyczne 37 (2004), 209–14, from another two MSS: London, Lambeth Palace Library, MS 74, fol. 8va (A); and MS 70, fol. 147vb (B). The editor claims that ‘the text is not an original contribution to either astrology or physiognomy but rather a popular presentation of existing knowledge about the subject, prepared, probably, for a curious dilettante’ (p. 209). I presented this preliminary conclusion at the British Archaeological Association Annual Conference in Prague in 2006. In the meantime, De locis praecipuis and the travel itineraries have been published with commentary by Michael Van Dussen. In my opinion, the texts offer wider possibilities for interpretation and therefore I present my own account based on manuscript H.15 below. See Suchý, ‘England and Bohemiaʼ, p. 17, n. 19; Michael Van Dussen, ‘A Late Medieval Itinerary to Englandʼ, Mediaeval Studies 76 (2014), 275–96. APH, KMK, H.15, fols 3, 5, 52, 87 x 95–97; for the watermarks see below, note 89. ‘contra aliquem nasciturʼ (57r) – ‘Wenceslaus Dei gracia Boemie Rexʼ (57v) – ‘aliquem nascitur repentine’ (58r).



The Golden Book of the Knight Wenceslas  59

Kalile. That could suggest that the manuscript had been owned by a knight, who might even be the author of the travel notes, which he had bound in a volume together with the fables. At any rate, the book was bought by Jan of Planá, as attested by the inscription on the inner front cover: ‘Liber aureus Johannis de Plana, quem emit pro X grʼ. The title seems to refer to the golden colour of the parchment cover, while the functional aspect of the limp binding and the paper text block corresponds with the very low price of ten Prague groschen.15 Unfortunately, we do not know where and when it was bought, nor how the manuscript came to Bartoloměj of Planá, as attested by another ownership title: ‘Bartholomei de Planaʼ. However, it probably reached the Metropolitan Chapter Library along with another manuscript (H.8), bearing the same ownership inscription and bound in a similar limp binding.16 This manuscript also contains a part of the Pseudo-Burley De vita et moribus philosophorum, the moral reading of which is assumed to have taken place already at the court of the Holy Roman emperor Charles IV, father of the Bohemian and Holy Roman King Wenceslas IV.17 Bartoloměj of Planá evidently took an interest in this kind of literature, since Liber Dimnae et Kalilae was characterised as ‘perhaps the most genuine trans-cultural political work of the Middle Ages, providing a set of moral-political examples for courtly life’.18 The book’s journey to the library could have been made by someone from the Prague Metropolitan Chapter. Some canons and even administrators of the Prague archbishopric did come explicitly from Planá in the second half of the fifteenth century, namely Wenceslaus (Bartlík)19 and Blasius Kremer, whose manuscripts are still kept in the library.20 At the same time, a house at Prague 15

16 17

18

19 20

In his useful chapter on limp bindings, Janos A. Szirmai describes several western European manuscripts of a similar type; see The Archaeology of Medieval Bookbinding, (Aldershot, 2001), pp. 285–319. Book prices in Bohemia have been analysed by František Šmahel, ‘Ceny rukopisných knih v Čechách do roku 1500ʼ [‘Prices of Manuscript Books in Bohemia before AD 1500ʼ], Sborník historický 14 (1966), 5–48. APH, KMK, H.8; see also the catalogue entry by Podlaha, Soupis rukopisů, ii, pp. 121–2, no. 1062. Anežka Vidmanová, ‘Nejstarší česká “beletrie” a její středolatinské kořeny a paralelyʼ [‘The Oldest Czech “Fiction” Extant and its Medieval Latin Rootsʼ], in Speculum medii aevi = Zrcadlo středověku [‘Speculum medii aevi = A Mirror of the Middle Agesʼ], ed. Lenka Jiroušková (Praha, 1998), pp. 137–43. Joan-Pau Rubiés, ‘Late Medieval Ambassadors and the Practice of Cross-Cultural Encounters 1250–1450ʼ, The ‘Bookʼ of Travels: Genre, Ethnology, and Pilgrimage, 1250–1700, ed. Palmira Brummett (Leiden, 2009), p. 71. ‘Bartlík’ is a name variant of ‘Bartholomeus’. See Veronika Macháčková, ‘Církevní správa v době jagellonské (na základě administrátorských akt)ʼ [‘Church Administration in the Time of the Jagellonian Kings (Based on the Acts of the Administrators of the Prague Archbishopric)ʼ], Folia Historica Bohemica 9 (1985), 238–9, 243–4, 261; Antonín Mařík, ‘Administrátoři a svatovítská kapitula v době poděbradské: Úřad administrátorů pod jednou a jeho představiteléʼ [‘Administrators of the Prague Archbishopric and the Prague Metropolitan Chapter in the

60  Marek Suchý

Castle, formerly owned by the noble Rosenberg family, was bought by the Metropolitan Chapter from an official of the Land Registry named Johannes of Planá, whose book also ended up in the Chapter Library.21 None of these people, however, can be connected with any certainty to our manuscript, but the fact is that there were some personal links between Prague Castle and Planá in the fifteenth century.22 On the other hand, the manuscripts could have reached the library at any time later but they were most likely catalogued, with the rest of the library in a newly reconstructed deans’ house (the former Rosenberg house), by Count Emanuel Arnošt of Valdštejn in the second half of the eighteenth century.23 Then the library changed its location several times again before it was stored in the Prague Castle Archives in the early 1960s. The manuscript still bears the shelf-mark H.15, which indicates its content, format and position on the shelf in the depository.24

21

22

23

24

Poděbrad Period: The Office of the Administrators of the Prague Archbishopric and its Membersʼ], Sborník archivních prací 51 (2001), 332, 335; his ‘Svatovítská kapitula za vlády Jiřího z Poděbradʼ [‘The Prague Metropolitan Chapter in the Time of George of Poděbradyʼ], Documenta Pragensia 20 (2002), 38–9, 44, 46, 51. For Blasiusʼs manuscripts see Patera and Podlaha, Soupis rukopisů, i, p. 55, no. 92 (A.59/4); pp. 155–6, no. 240 (A.136); p. 165, no. 266 (A.161/1); p. 190, no. 311 (B.17/2); p. 308, no. 542 (C.110); p. 327, no. 579 (D.14/1); pp. 401–2, no. 678 (D.109/1); Podlaha, Soupis rukopisů, ii, pp. 528–30, no. 1638 (O.54). The first of the manuscripts contains an inscription which informs us that Blasius acquired it from Wenceslaus Bartlík (after his death). There also appears in the sources a canon named George of Planá at the beginning of the sixteenth century; see Josef Hejnic, Latinská škola v Plzni a její postavení v Čechách (13. – 18. století) [‘The Latin School in Pilsen and its Position in Bohemia from the 13th to the 18th Centuryʼ] (Praha, 1979), pp. 14–15. See Robert Šimůnek, Správní systém šlechtického dominia v pozdně středověkých Čechách: Rožmberská doména 1418–1472 [‘Administration of the Aristocratic Domain in Late Medieval Bohemia: The Rožmberk Domain 1418–1472ʼ] (Praha, 2005), pp. 68, 181, 345, 532; Jana Maříková-Kubková and Iva Herichová, Archeologický atlas Pražského hradu, Díl I, Katedrála sv. Víta – Vikářská ulice [‘An Archaeological Atlas of Prague Castle, i: St Vitusʼ Cathedral – Vicar Streetʼ], Castrum Pragense 10 (Praha, 2009), pp. 79–80; Pavla Burdová, ‘Úřad desek zemskýchʼ [‘The Office of Land Registryʼ], Sborník archivních prací 36 (1986), 334. For the manuscript (L.43) see Podlaha, Soupis rukopisů, ii, pp. 225–6, no. 1286. There are, however, several locations which bear the name Planá in Bohemia; see August Sedláček, Místopisný slovník historický království českého [‘A Toponymic Lexicon of the Kingdom of Bohemiaʼ] (reprint, Praha, 1998), pp. 695–6. Antonín Podlaha, Series praepositorum, decanorum, archidiaconorum aliorumque praelatorum et canonicorum s. metropolitanae ecclesiae Pragensis a primordiis usque ad praesentia tempora (Praha, 1912), p. 274; Jana Chadimová, ‘Bibliofilství litoměřického biskupa hraběte Emanuela Arnošta Valdštejna (1716–1789) a jeho knihovnaʼ [‘The Bibliophily of Count Emanuel Arnošt of Valdštejn, Bishop of Litoměřice (1716–1789), and his Libraryʼ], Sborník k 80. narozeninám Mirjam Bohatcové [‘A Festschrift for Mirjam Bohatcová on the Occasion of her 80th Birthdayʼ], ed. Anežka Baďurová (Praha, 1999), p. 78. Shelf-mark ‘Hʼ denotes section ‘Historici sacri et profani; item politici in quartoʼ; see Podlaha, Soupis rukopisů, ii, p. vi. See also Jiří Vnouček and Marek Suchý, ‘Conserva-



The Golden Book of the Knight Wenceslas  61

The journey Following the manuscript itinerary,25 the route taken by the knight led from Prague via Rakovník, Mašťov and Loket to Cheb, and then further on to Germany along the Main–Rhine waterway. He probably hired a boat between Aschaffenburg and Cologne, while only a fortress tower dominating the town of Coblenz sufficiently attracted his attention to be noted in his diary in the monotonous list of town-names and their distances from each other in miles.26 In Cologne he left the river for Aachen, Maastricht, Tongeren, Leuven and Brussels. The next steps led south-westward to France, where he sometimes gives rather more information, mentioning a park in Le Quesnoy or a large church in St Quentin and the cult of the saint who gave his name to the town. Similarly, he noted St Eligius in Noyon. At Saint-Denis, his attention was attracted by a hand of St Thomas the Apostle, still bearing the flesh where he had touched Christʼs side, one of the six containers from the wedding in Cana of Galilee, and a claw of a griffon.27 Finally he reached Paris, where he noted the Sainte-Chapelle and Christʼs crown of thorns kept there.28 Once having reached the Île de la Cité, he could not resist visiting the two towers of

25 26

27

28

tion Database as a Precondition for the Administration of the Manuscript Library Stored in the Prague Castle Archivesʼ, Care and Conservation of Manuscripts 11 (2009), 189– 213; Marek Suchý, ‘Liturgické rukopisy a kapitulní knihovnaʼ [‘Liturgical Manuscripts and the Chapter Libraryʼ], Katedrála viditelná a neviditelná: Průvodce tisíciletou historií katedrály sv. Víta, Václava, Vojtěcha a Panny Marie na Pražském hradě [‘A Cathedral Visible and Invisible: A Guide to the Thousand Years of St Vitus, Václav and Virgin Mary Cathedral at the Prague Castleʼ], i, ed. Jana Maříková-Kubková (Praha, 2019), esp. pp. 362–3. See Appendices 1–3. He mentions that boats were hired in Koblenz but I assume that he took a boat between Aschaffenburg and Cologne, as he does not mention any distances here; see also ‘The diaryʼ below. I am deeply grateful to Eric Bortzmeyer for help with the French part of the journey. ‘...et circa Sanctum Dionisium habetur manus sancti Thome cum carnibus cum qua palpavit latus Christi et habetur una ydria ex sex que fuerunt in Gana Galileʼ. In between the lines there is written in smaller letters and in darker ink: ‘et pes de grifoneʼ. For the relics see Danielle Gaborit-Chopin and Daniel Alcouffe (eds), Le trésor de Saint-Denis: Musée du Louvre Paris, 12 mars–17 juin 1991 (Paris, 1991), p. 199 (St Thomas), pp. 223–5 (griffon), p. 313 (vase de Cana). I quote from the MS according to the reconstructed order of the journey, which does not always correspond to the sequence of the texts which is to be found in the edition by Van Dussen, ‘Late Medieval Itineraryʼ, pp. 291–6. I only indicate when my reading or interpretation differs from it substantially, as in the case of the griffonʼs claw where Van Dussen reads: ‘et pars de g … (possibly a reference to another passion relic)’, ibid., p. 291. ‘...et Parisiis habetur corona Christi in capella palacii Parisiensisʼ; see, for example, Peter Kováč et al., Kristova trnová koruna: Paříž, Sainte-Chapelle a dvorské umění svatého Ludvíka [‘Christʼs Crown of Thorns: Paris, Sainte-Chapelle and the Courtly Art of St Louisʼ] (Praha, 2009).

62  Marek Suchý

Notre-Dame Cathedral, one of which was said to have 359 steps.29 Back on the right bank of the river, he recorded the Louvre palace located opposite to the Hôtel de Nesle30 and he may also have visited the Hôtel de Bourgogne.31 He mentioned a castle located one French mile from the city, with eleven towers and a big one having 408 steps, which is probably the Château de Vincennes.32 Outside Paris he also recorded Saint-Cloud with a bridge over the Seine which no French king dared to cross on horseback.33 Before he takes the reader to England, he mentions Saint Catherine’s monastery, where he

29

30

31 32

33

‘...et habetur due turres circa beatam Virginem, in una sunt gradus CCC et LVIIIIʼ. Esquire Jaroslav, a member of a Bohemian diplomatic mission to France in 1464, had the same experience, but in his diary he did not record the number of steps which took him to a beautiful view of Paris; see Ivana Baboučková and Jaroslav Boubín (eds), ‘Nejstarší český cestopisʼ [‘The Oldest Czech Travel Bookʼ], Hledání nové Evropy: Projekt krále Jiřího [‘In Search of a New Europe: A Project of King Georgeʼ], ed. Jaroslav Boubín et al., (Praha, 2015), pp. 195–242 at p. 230. For the journey see also Martin Nejedlý, ‘Deník panoše Jaroslava o poselstvu z roku 1464 jako historický pramen k plánu protitureckého tažení Jiřího z Poděbradʼ [‘The Diary of Esquire Jaroslav Concerning a Diplomatic Mission of 1464 as a Historical Source for the Plan of the Military Campaign of George of Poděbrady against the Turksʼ], Křížové výpravy v pozdním středověku: Kapitoly z dějin náboženských konfliktů [‘The Crusades of the Late Middle Ages: Chapters from the History of Religious Conflictʼ], ed. Pavel Soukup, Jaroslav Svátek et al. (Praha, 2010), pp. 202–15, esp. p. 208. The web pages of the cathedral announce 387 steps in the South Tower, https://www.notredamedeparis.fr/en/visites-2/informations-pratiques/les-tours-et-la-crypte/ (accessed 20 September 2019). ‘...et habetur pulcrum castrum Lowrs ex opposito domus ducis Bituriensisʼ; for the location of the Royal Louvre and the Parisian residence of Jean, duke of Berry, uncle of King Charles VI, on the other bank of the river Seine see Elisabeth Taburet-Delahaye and François Avril (eds), Paris 1400: les arts sous Charles VI (Paris, 2004), p. 22. ‘domus videlicet Bu(rgun)ndi(ensis)(?)ʼ; for the Burgundian residence in Paris see Taburet-Delahaye and Avril (eds), Paris, pp. 22, 138. See also n. 82 below. ‘...et in distancia unius milliaris Francie habetur unum castrum et vocatur Pus et turres XI et una magna in qua sunt gradus CCCC et VIIIʼ. I assume that he was trying to record the place name as he heard it, similarly Dover became Dobra (see n. 37 and ‘The knightʼ below). The royal residence is supposed to have had nine towers and a donjon; see František Šmahel, Cesta Karla IV. do Francie: 1377–1378 [‘The Journey of Charles IV to France: 1377–1378ʼ] (Praha, 2006), pp. 300–1; František Šmahel, The Parisian Summit, 1377–78: Emperor Charles IV and King Charles V of France (Prague, 2014), pp. 350–3. However, it is possible that our writer made a mistake in the Roman numeral, in other words, writing ‘XIʼ instead of ‘IXʼ. Van Dussen, ‘Late Medieval Itineraryʼ, p. 291, states that the place was most likely Passy. ‘...et quivis equitaverit ad Sanctum Clavum, ibi est pons per quem nullus rex Francie equitat timendo ne secum caderet, quia est prophatia(?) de ruptura(?) […]ʼ. Van Dussen, ‘Late Medieval Itineraryʼ, p. 291, edits the text without the last two words and refers to the legend in another source. For the strategic position of the bridge see Chris Given-Wilson, Henry IV (New Haven, 2016), pp. 494–5.



The Golden Book of the Knight Wenceslas  63

measured a copy of Christ’s tomb, giving its dimension as three Prague ells.34 Last but not least, he mentions a great university in the city.35 His journey went on via Senlis and Clermont to Amiens, where he noted a beautiful church with the face of St John the Baptist;36 afterwards he continued to Montreuil, Boulogne and the English-occupied Calais. Then he sailed across the sea to England, explaining that the first small town there was Dover with a fine castle.37 The next steps led along the old pilgrimage route to Canterbury, where he saw the tomb of St Thomas Becket and many golden and silver images in a fine temple with many beautiful chapels and

34

35 36

37

‘...et circa Sanctam Katharinam est sepulcrum Christi consimile sepulcro Domini, continens 3es ulnas Pragensesʼ. There was a chapel of the Holy Sepulchre in Sainte-Catherine-du-Val-des-Écoliers at the end of the fourteenth century, decorated as a cave the way the tomb of Christ was in Jerusalem in 1420; see Catherine Guyon, Les Écoliers du Christ: l’ordre canonial du Val des Écoliers, 1201–1539 (Saint-Étienne, 1998), p. 274. Van Dussen, ‘Late Medieval Itineraryʼ, p. 292, suggests other locations: Hôpital Sainte-Catherine and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on rue Saint-Denis. Copies of Christ’s tomb (of a different nature) were quite widespread in medieval Europe; see Neil C. Brooks, The Sepulchre of Christ in Art and Liturgy: With Special Reference to the Liturgic Drama (Urbana, 1921); Justin E. A. Kroesen, The Sepulchrum Domini through the Ages: Its Form and Function (Leuven, 2000); Petr Uličný, ‘Kristův hrob a jeho pražští ochránci: z topografie kláštera božehrobců na Zderazeʼ [‘Christʼs Sepulchre and His Prague Guardians: From the Topography of Zderaz Monasteryʼ], Staletá Praha 30 (2014), 18–47. It is interesting that a 12th-century description of the Cambray Holy Sepulchre states that it was erected ‘rotundo schemate in modum silicet sepulchri quod est Jerosolimis. Unde et marmor superpositum sepulchro Cameracensi habet longitudinem 7 pedum quoniam et locus, ubi positum fuit corpus Domini eiusdem longitudinis existitʼ; the dimensions are in accordance with the measurements of the Tomb of Christ in Jerusalem in the second half of the seventh century; see Richard Krautheimer, ‘Introduction to an Iconography of Mediaeval Architectureʼ, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 5 (1942), 12. We have to take into account regional differences but it is not without interest that 7 (Bohemian) feet (7x0.29570=2.07m) roughly correspond to the 3 Prague ells (3x0.5914=1.77m) measured by our knight. This in fact indicates the importance of the proper dimensions of the tomb for its copies and their visitors. For the dimension of the Bohemian foot and Prague ell see Gustav Hofmann, ‘K převodu českých měr a vah na metrickou soustavuʼ [‘On the Conversion of Czech Measures and Weights to the Metric Systemʼ], Archivní časopis 27 (1977), 22–3. ‘...et est universitas magnaʼ. ‘Nota, quod in Ambiantz habetur facies sancti Jonannis Baptiste et eclesia pulcraʼ. The relic was carried into Amiens Cathedral from Constantinople as a result of the fourth crusade in 1206 and it is witnessed in the 1419 church inventory; see Soetkin Vanhauwaert, ‘A Chopped-Off Head on a Golden Plate: Jan Mostaert’s Head of Saint John the Baptist on a Plate Surrounded by Angelsʼ, Death, Torture and the Broken Body in European Art, 1300–1650, ed. John R. Decker and Mitzi Kirkland-Ives (Farnham, 2015), p. 57. ‘In Dobra unum pulcrum castrum et civitas parva et mare transit et mons ubi area(?) castri(?)ʼ; Van Dussen, ‘Late Medieval Itineraryʼ, p. 292, offers a different reading: ‘et civitas parva, (et mons [?] transit) et mons ubi circa transitur.ʼ

64  Marek Suchý

especially tombstones for bishops.38 The next twenty-four miles went on to Rochester and the same distance had to be covered to London,39 where he ‘countedʼ 358 churches.40 He crossed the Thames over a bridge, where he noted twenty-one vaulted arches and large houses lining a street.41 Across the river, 38

39

40

41

‘Et tunc in Caltmbergi est sepulcrum sancti Thome Carturiensis […] et multe ymagines auree et argentee et eclesia valde pulcra et capelle multe pulcre et specialiter sepultura episcoporumʼ; Van Dussen, ‘Late Medieval Itineraryʼ, p. 292, reads: ‘Cartuariensis archiepresulisʼ; he also states that ‘Caltmbergiʼ is followed by number ‘ivʼ (in the note 17: ‘viʼ), presumably the distance from Dover to Canterbury in Bohemian miles (Bohemian mile=7.53km, pp. 281, 295, nn 67–8). The Bohemian mile, however, was much longer in the Middle Ages, as contemporary sources prove the distance to be c. 11km; see August Sedláček, Paměti a doklady o staročeských mírách a váhách [‘Records and Documents of Old Bohemian Weights and Measuresʼ] (Praha 1923), esp. pp. 32, 184, nos. 133, 286. This is more or less in accordance with the distances provided by our traveller in the itineraries; see Appendix 1 (I calculated 10km to the Bohemian mile). Another problem is that I read the number inserted in between lines as IX (not IV or VI). Still, none of these figures correspond to the distance from Dover to Canterbury, either in English or Bohemian miles. ‘In Roczetr XXIIII milliaria, ad Londinum XXIIIIʼ. The same distance is given by Václav Šašek of Bířkov when describing his journey from Rochester to London in 1466, while the distance from Canterbury to Rochester was to be only 20 miles; see Karel Hrdina (ed.), Commentarius brevis et iucundus itineris atque peregrinationis, pietatis et religionis causa susceptae ab Illustri et Magnifico Domino, Domino Leone, libero barone de Rosmital et Blatna (Pragae, 1951), p. 35. For his journey see, for example, Jaroslav Pánek and Miloslav Polívka, ‘Die böhmischen Adelsreisen und ihr Wandel vom Mittelalter zur Neuzeitʼ, in Grand Tour: Adeliges Reisen und europäische Kultur vom 14. bis zum 18. Jahrhundert, ed. Rainer Babel and Werner Paravicini (Ostfildern, 2005), pp. 55–9. ‘In Londonia sunt eclesie CCC et L et VIIIʼ. It is probably an overestimation, as in reality there were slightly more than 120 churches, monasteries and chapels; see Wilberforce Jenkinson, London Churches before the Great Fire (London, 1917), esp. p. vii; James George White, The Churches and Chapels of Old London: With a Short Account of those who have Ministered in them (London, 1901), esp. p. 2. In the Prague conurbation and its immediate surroundings, the figure was over eighty; see Zdeňka Hledíková, ‘Církev v českých zemích na přelomu 14. a 15. stoletíʼ [‘The Church in the Czech Lands at the Turn of the 14th and 15th centuriesʼ], Zdeňka Hledíková, Svět české středověké církve [‘The World of the Church in Medieval Bohemiaʼ] (Praha, 2010), p. 210. Also Guillebert de Lannoy, a traveller in the service of the duke of Burgundy, exaggerated the number of churches in Novgorod (1413), giving a similar number, 350 (in reality there were around ninety churches and monasteries). Martin Nejedlý, Pohleďte do zrcadla!: Čtyři příběhy o autorech a čtenářích pramenů pozdního středověku [‘Look into the Mirror!: Four Stories about Authors and Readers of the Sources from the Late Middle Agesʼ] (Praha 2016), p. 127, states that he may have also counted private chapels but at the same time understands the high number rather as an expression of admiration for the number of church turrets on the town horizon. ‘...et est pons in quo sunt domus magne sicut una platea et habet testudines XXI et aqua cito transit supra cito infra et hoc propter aquas marisʼ. The bridge is supposed to have had nineteen pointed arches and a drawbridge, bearing 138 houses or hired-out units in 1404; see Vanessa Harding and Laura Wright (eds), London Bridge: Selected Accounts and Rentals, 1381–1538 (London, 1995), pp. viii, xvii–xix. Our traveller might have miscalculated the arches but a mistake could also have happened during the writing process, in other words, XXI was written instead of XIX. Moreover, he mentions that



The Golden Book of the Knight Wenceslas  65

he visited Westminster Abbey with its beautiful golden tomb of St Edward and many more tombs of kings and queens, particularly one of Queen Anne, the daughter of the emperor and king of Bohemia, Charles IV. The knight was also interested in the inscribed epitaphs, and probably copied the three celebratory poems commemorating Queen Anne as described in this small booklet.42 His next steps led to a very beautiful chapel with its ceiling painted in gold and with images, under which was another quite beautiful chapel. This must be identified with the two-storey chapel of St Stephen in the Palace of Westminster43 where the knight also saw a great hall with an extraordinary timber roof which evidently fascinated him: he did not hesitate to measure it with his sword, counting sixty-six in length and eighteen in width.44 He

42

43

44

there was a sea, which was actually the same impression gained by Václav Šašek of Bířkov in 1466, when he says that the city is located at a maritime bay; he also witnessed houses built along the whole length of the bridge; Hrdina (ed.), Commentarius, p. 35. They could have gained this impression because of the rising river levels caused by high tides, which must have been quite an unusual experience for inland Bohemians; for high tides in London see Christopher Thomas, The Archaeology of Medieval London (Stroud, 2002), pp. 35, 39. ‘...et est unum claustrum Veismostr ibi est sepulcrum pulcrum aureum beati Edwardi et alia multa sepulcra regum et reginarum et specialiter sepulcrum Regine Anne, que fuit filia Inperatoris Karoli IIIIti et Boemie regis et ibi sunt epitaphia multa, que superius sunt scripta in isto sexternoʼ. For St Edwardʼs Chapel see Warwick Rodwell, ‘The Cosmati Pavements and their Topographical Setting: Addressing the Archaeological Issuesʼ, Westminster I: The Art, Architecture and Archaeology of the Royal Abbey, ed. Warwick Rodwell and Tim Tatton-Brown (Leeds, 2015), pp. 158–79. For the copied poems see Van Dussen, ‘Three Verse Eulogiesʼ, and his From England to Bohemia, pp. 29–41 and 129–41, Appendix A, where he suggests that the poems may have comprised an obit roll. However, the epitaphs also could have been written on parchment attached to tablets hanging over the tombs; see William Richard Lethaby, Westminster Abbey and the Kingsʼ Craftsmen: A Study of Mediæval Building (London, 1906), pp. 332–9. Van Dussen, ‘Late Medieval Itineraryʼ, pp. 275, n. 2, 287, also argues that ‘in isto sexternoʼ (in this sexternion) refers to the last quire of the manuscript and the recorded eulogies of Queen Anne, that is, the traveller’s notebook, which may have originally consisted of six bifolia, not five (as is now the case). The sixth, outer bifolium (if it did exist) may have been used as a wrapper and been lost or redeployed before the gathering was bound together with Liber Dimnae et Kalilae. The quire originally did have six bifolios, as two folios have been cut off (probably for use as empty pages); in other words, there are missing folios between the present fols 93–4 and 99–100. That means that the first folded folio (90) of the quire could have been the ‘inadvertentʼ protective cover for the rest of the text (its counterpart was later cut off – probably from the already bound book). ‘Ibi etiam est capella valde pulcra picta cum auro desuper et imaginibus et subtus est alia cappella satis pulcraʼ; see John Goodall, ‘St Stephenʼs Chapel, Westminsterʼ, Westminster II: The Art, Architecture and Archaeology of the Royal Palace, ed. Warwick Rodwell and Tim Tatton-Brown (Leeds, 2015), pp. 111–19. Van Dussen, ‘Late Medieval Itineraryʼ, p. 275, reads (without identification): ‘et suscriptis; est alia cappella satis pulcraʼ. Ayers (forthcoming) also reads ‘subtusʼ and identifies the record with St. Stephenʼs chapel. ‘Ibi etiam est unum pallacium longitudo LXVI gladiorum et latitudo XVIII gladiorum et preparacio pallacii de lignis pulcra que nunquam est visa talis.ʼ This was without doubt the new unique open timber roof built by master Hugh Herland, which covers

66  Marek Suchý

equally admired the marble pillars and vaults and very beautiful carving of Westminster Abbey;45 in particular, he was impressed by the chapter house and its extremely large circular vault upon only a single slender central pillar reinforced with iron (bars).46 Our pilgrimʼs next steps led him to St Paulʼs Cathedral where he copied down the church dimensions almost verbatim from a table which was probably suspended on a pillar next to the beautiful tombstone of the duke of Lancaster:47 the area covered (3.5 acres, 1.5 rod and 6 perches), the length (690 feet), the breadth (130 feet), the height of the western dome or nave (102 feet) as well as the new work, the choir (88 feet) and the stone tower (260 feet) with timber spire (274 feet) over the crossing.48 He also noted the sepulchre or

45

46

47

48

one of the largest areas of any medieval timber roof in a single span without the need for pillars; see Thomas, Archaeology of Medieval London, p. 140; Eleanor Scheifele, ‘Richard II and the Visual Artsʼ, Richard II: The Art of Kingship, ed. Goodman and Gillespie (Oxford, 1998), pp. 260–1. His sword might have measured slightly over one metre – in other words, the data (1.11x 66=73.26m; 1.11x18=19.98m) correspond to the dimensions of the Great Hall (internal measures about 73.21x20.79 m); see Roland B. Harris, Daniel Miles and Thomas Hill, ‘Romanesque Westminster Hall and its Roofʼ, Westminster II, ed. Warwick Rodwell and Tim Tatton-Brown, pp. 24–5. For the length of medieval swords see Leonid Křížek and Zdirad J. K. Čech, Encyklopedie zbraní a zbroje [‘An Encyclopedia of Weapons and Armourʼ], 2nd edn (Praha, 1999), pp. 152–6, esp. p. 154; R. Ewart Oakeshott, Records of the Medieval Sword (Woodbridge, 1991). ‘In predicto claustro sunt statue marmoree et testudo de marmoreis circumferenciis et sculptura intus valde pulcra.ʼ Van Dussen, ‘Late Medieval Itineraryʼ, p. 293, reads: ‘marmoreis circumscripcioneʼ. Most of the church was built of Reigate and Caen stone but for the columns Purbeck marble was used as well; see Helen Howard and Marie Louise Sauerberg, ‘The Polychromy at Westminster Abbey, 1250–1350ʼ, Westminster I, ed. Warwick Rodwell and Tim Tatton-Brown, pp. 208–9, 212–14; Christopher Wilson, ‘The Chapter House of Westminster Abbey: Harbinger of a New Dispensation in English Architecture?ʼ, Westminster Abbey Chapter House: The History, Art and Architecture of ‘A Chapter House beyond Compareʼ, ed. Warwick Rodwell and Richard Mortimer (London, 2010), p. 65, assumes that the striped effect created by the use of alternating bands of Caen and Reigate stone misled the knight into thinking that the vaults were made of marble. ‘...et ibi etiam est una testudo rotunda valde magna que habet unam statuam valde subtilem in medio marmoream et combinatam ferro que nunquam talis est visa testudo in tam magna rotunditate super una statua et est capitulum eorum.ʼ His information is confirmed by the fact that the Purbeck marble capital of a central pillar contains radiating iron hooks for the attachment of tie-bars; see Tim Tatton-Brown, ‘The Fabric of the Westminster Chapter House: Filling in the Gaps from Salisburyʼ, Westminster Abbey Chapter House, ed. Rodwell and Mortimer (London, 2010), p. 98. ‘...et sepultura valde pulcra ducis Langastrieʼ. For the tomb created by Henry Yevele and Thomas Wreke (c. 1374–78) for John of Gaunt (d. 1399) and his first wife, duchess Blanche (d. 1376), see Carol Davidson Cragoe, ‘Fabric, Tombs and Precinct 1087– 1540ʼ, St Paulʼs: The Cathedral Church of London 604–2004, ed. Derek Keene, Arthur Burns and Andrew Saint (New Haven, 2004), pp. 139–41. ‘Eclesia sancti Pauli infra limites continet III areas (or arcas) et dimidiam, rodam dimidiam et sex virgas constratas. Longitudo eiusdem eclesie DC et XC pedes, latitudo C et XXX pedes. Altitudo occidentalis testudinis continet ab area (or arca) C et II pedes. Altitudo nove testudinis LXXXVIII pedes. Campanilis altitudo CC et LX, altitudo



The Golden Book of the Knight Wenceslas  67

altar with the relics of St Paul49 and a great cross made by Joseph, who buried Christ and then sailed across the sea to England, as is known from many miracles about it.50 He especially names the one in which the validity of a marriage is shown by testifying that the vow took place in front of the rood in the present tense.51 Last but not least he found a large bell worthy of mention.52 The traveller left no other reports from London but it is certain that he later went to Windsor, which was said to be five miles away,53 where he noted

49

50

51

52 53

lignorum CCLXXIIII pedes.’ There is probably a scribal error in the text, or there was a misunderstanding during the reading, as the St Paul tabula contained ‘acrasʼ (acres), and ‘ab araʼ (from the altar). The text of the table survived as a copy prefixed to a set of civic annals compiled c. 1442, A Chronicle of London from 1089 to 1483, ed. Nicholas Harris Nicolas and Edward Tyrrell (London, 1827), p. 174. Van Dussen, ‘Late Medieval Itinerary’, p. 293, reads: ‘arcasʼ and ‘ab arcaʼ; for the tables in medieval England in this connection see ibid., pp. 282–3, and Michael Van Dussen, ‘Tourists and Tabulae in Late-Medieval Englandʼ, Truth and Tales: Cultural Mobility and Medieval Media, ed. Fiona Somerset and Nicholas Watson (Columbus, 2015), pp. 238–54. For the cathedral fabric see Cragoe, ‘Fabricʼ, pp. 127–42. ‘...et ibi est sepulcrum sancti Pauliʼ. The same terminology is used by Beneš Krabice of Weitmile in his Chronicle when he names the sepulchre of St Vitus (‘sepulchrum sancti Vitiʼ) in St Vitus Cathedral at the Prague Castle (1374); see Josef Emler (ed.), Fontes rerum Bohemicarum, iv (Praha, 1884), p. 548. ‘...et est crux magna quam fecit Jozeff qui sepelivit Christum et post venit per aquas ad Angliam et dicitur quod multa miracula sunt per eam’. He might have derived some information concerning the rood by the north transept door and its connection to St Joseph of Arimathea from a hanging table and a story depicted in the stained glass of the window behind it; see Caroline M. Barron and Marie Hélène Rousseau, ‘Cathedral, City and State, 1300–1540’, St Paul’s, ed. Keene et al., pp. 40, 44; Alan Thacker, ‘The Cult of Saints and the Liturgy’, ibid., pp. 113–22, esp. p. 121; Cragoe, ‘Fabricʼ, pp. 132–3; Felicity Riddy, ‘Glastonbury, Joseph of Arimathea and the Grail in John Hardyng’s Chronicle’, Glastonbury Abbey and the Arthurian Tradition, ed. James P. Carley (Cambridge 2001), pp. 269–84, esp. pp. 278–9. For a discussion about the possible source of information see Van Dussen, ‘Late Medieval Itineraryʼ, pp. 283–5. ‘...et specialiter quomodo testimonium peribuit cuidam mulierum de matrimonio prefato et dixit viro: Tu contraxisti matrimonium cum ipsa per verba de presenti coram me et testificatus est tibi taliter dicens.ʼ Van Dussen, ‘Late Medieval Itinerary’, p. 294, reads: ‘et dixit, “vere tu coniunxisti matrimonium”.’ For the marriage vow ‘per verba de presenti’ and ‘de futuro’, see, for example, Jean Claude Bologne, Svatby: Dějiny svatebních obřadů na Západě [‘Weddings: A History of Marriages in the Westʼ], trans. Barbora Chvojková (Praha, 1997), pp. 106–10; Martin Nodl, ‘In facie ecclesiae’, Manželství v pozdním středověku: Rituály a obyčeje [‘Marriage in the Late Middle Ages: Rituals and Customsʼ], ed. Paweł Kras and Martin Nodl (Praha, 2014), pp. 53–61. It is not without interest that in 1465 John Paston urged his mother to take his sister to the rood to pray there that she might receive a good husband; see Barron and Rousseau, ‘Cathedral’, p. 40. Václav Šašek of Bířkov mentions in his diary that there was a wooden cross about eight miles from London which talked to humans: ‘celebre quoque nomen est lignae crucis cuiusdam octo milliaria Londino distantis, quam cum hominibus locutam esse pro certo affirmatur’; see Hrdina, (ed.), Commentarius, p. 38. It seems to be an example of misunderstanding or information error; otherwise there would have been two speaking crosses in medieval London and its neighbourhood in the fifteenth century. ‘...et etiam ibi est una magna campana etc’; see Cragoe, ‘Fabric’, pp. 135–6, 141–2. ‘5 milliaria a Londonia distat castrum Vinzurʼ. For the distance see ‘The diary’ below.

68  Marek Suchý

the Brotherhood of St George, which convened annually.54 He also registered that King Arthur and other members (of the Round Table) were once present, namely Perceval, who in pursuit of knighthood left his mother and killed the Red Knight there.55 As elsewhere, he was fascinated by structures and their dimensions. He especially names a circular tower on an elevated place in the centre of the fortress whose roofs were all covered with lead.56 He also probably witnessed the water supply at the Upper Ward Quadrangle.57 Then he set off back to the continent via Guildford and Alton where he noted the St George Inn. His steps disappear in Havant58 but it is very probable that he took a boat to the continent from there. 54

55

56

57

58

‘...in quo sunt de fraternitate sancti Georgi XXIIII et quolibet anno faciunt solempniter missa et cetera officiaʼ. It is interesting that his number of the fraternity members – who met for annual St George’s Day celebrations – corresponds with the probably original number of twenty-four knights of the Garter, which was adapted (possibly in 1349) to twenty-six; see W. Mark Ormrod, ‘For Arthur and St George: Edward III, Windsor Castle and the Order of the Garter’, St Georgeʼs Chapel, Windsor, in the Fourteenth Century, ed. Nigel Saul (Woodbridge, 2005), pp. 13–34. ‘...et dicitur quod ibi fuit Rex Artuss et quomodo alii videlicet Percifal etc fuerunt ibi et quomodo prima vice perpetrando militarem statum venit a matre sua et ibi occidit rubeum militem’. For the Arthurian connection with the castle see Hugh E. L. Collins, The Order of the Garter, 1348–1461: Chivalry and Politics in Late Medieval England (Oxford, 2000), pp. 10, 31, n. 101; Ormrod, ‘For Arthur and St George’, pp. 22–3. Van Dussen, ‘Tourists and Tabulaeʼ, pp. 249–50, suggests that he perhaps recorded the information about the Arthurian legend from a table located there. ‘...et in medio castri est mons et in eodem pulcerrimum castellum parvum rotundum ad modum rote, et castrum totum coopertum cum plumbo etc’. For the castle see, for example, Christopher Wilson, ‘The Royal Lodgings of Edward III at Windsor Castle: Form, Function, Representation’, Windsor: Medieval Archaeology, Art and Architecture of the Thames Valley, ed. Laurence Keen and Eileen Scarff (Leeds, 2002), pp. 15– 94; Virginia Jansen, ‘Henry III’s Windsor: Castle-Building and Residencesʼ, ibid., pp. 95–109; Steven Brindle, ‘Windsor Castle: The 1992 Fire, the Restoration, Archaeology and History’, ibid., pp. 110–24; Tim Tatton-Brown, ‘The Constructional Sequence and Topography of the Chapel and College Buildings at St Georgeʼs’, St Georgeʼs Chapel, Windsor, in the Late Middle Ages, ed. Colin Richmond and Eileen Scarff (Windsor, 2001), pp. 3–38. ‘...et in eodem castro est quoddam foramen 3bus milliaribus longum sub turri quadam’. A new conduit was built in the middle of the sixteenth century, but the precursor of the fountain head was probably already witnessed by the view of Eton a hundred years before (a circular structure, possibly with a square base); see Richard Brown, ‘The Archaeology of the Upper Ward Quadrangle and the Evidence for the Round Table Buildings’, Edward IIIʼs Round Table at Windsor: The House of the Round Table and the Windsor Festival of 1344, ed. Julian Munby, Richard Barber and Richard Brown (Woodbridge, 2007), p. 61, Appendix A, pp. 159–60. The description of the castle attributed to John Stow mentions that the conduit stretched under the earth for more than four miles; see Robert Richard Tighe and James Edward Davis, Annals of Windsor: Being a History of the Castle and Town, with Some Account of Eton, and Places Adjacent, ii (London 1858), p. 44. See also Wilson, ‘Royal Lodgings’, pp. 17, 18 fig. I, 82 nn. 10–11. Van Dussen, ‘Late Medieval Itinerary’, p. 294, states that the text probably refers to the moat around the castle. ‘Nota, XXV milliaribus distat una civitas que vocatur Guldefordia – hospicium circa civitatem (written above the text); a Guldefordia est una civitas in distancia XVI mil-



The Golden Book of the Knight Wenceslas  69

The knight The fact that the travel itinerary starts in Prague, the ownership title on the parchment cover of the manuscript (Liber Wenczeslai militis), the measurements with the use of a sword, the interest in fortresses, palaces and parks,59 as well as the fondness for Indian fables and Arthurian legends,60 all serve to indicate that the original owner of the manuscript was a knight from Bohemia who retained an amateur interest in astrology.61 This seems to be confirmed by the occasional use of Czech words and names, such as ‘obora’ in connection with a park in Le Quesnoy, Artuš (‘Artuss’) for King Arthur in Windsor or ‘Jozeff’ for St Joseph of Arimathea. Sometimes the knight also recorded Czech place names for German towns such as Mohuč (‘Mohucz’), i.e. Mainz,

59

60

61

liaribus et vocatur Altun – hospicium circa Sanctum Georgium; ad Havam distancia XXV milliaria.ʼ It is probably not a pure coincidence that the George Inn is witnessed in Alton in 1666; see William Curtis, A Short History and Description of the Town of Alton in the County of Southampton (Winchester, 1896), p. 115. Van Dussen, ‘Late Medieval Itineraryʼ, p. 295, reads ‘Hantunʼ, which he identifies with Southampton. For the role of forests and parks in enhancing the power of royal and aristocratic palaces, castles and great houses since the early Middle Ages see David Rollason, ‘Forests, Parks, Palaces, and the Power of Place in Early Medieval Kingship’, Early Medieval Europe 20 (2012), 428–49. For the knowledge of them in contemporary Bohemia see Martin Nejedlý, Středověký mýtus o Meluzíně a rodová pověst Lucemburků [‘The Medieval Myth of Melusina and the Dynastic Legend of the Luxembourgsʼ] (Praha, 2007), pp. 234–5; Wojciech Iwańczak, Po stopách rytířských příběhů: Rytířský ideál v českém písemnictví 14. století [‘In the Footsteps of Knightly Stories: The Knightly Ideal in Czech Literature in the 14th Centuryʼ] (Praha, 2001), pp. 234–5; Alfred Thomas, ‘King Arthur and his Round Table in the Culture of Medieval Bohemia’, The Arthur of the Germans: the Arthurian Legend in Medieval German and Dutch Literature, ed. William Henry Jackson and Silvia A. Ranawake (Cardiff, 2000), pp. 249–56. For claims that this kind of literature was especially popular among the lesser nobility see Tomáš Baletka, ‘Rytířská kultura a recepce dvorské epiky na Moravě ve 14. a 15. století’ [‘The Culture of Chivalry and the Reception of Courtly Epic in 14th and 15th Century Moraviaʼ], Ad vitam et honorem: Profesoru Jaroslavu Mezníkovi přátelé a žáci k pětasedmdesátým narozeninám [‘Ad vitam et honorem: A Festschrift for Professor Jaroslav Mezník on the Occasion of His 75th Birthdayʼ], ed. Tomáš Borovský, Libor Jan and Martin Wihoda (Brno, 2003), pp. 491–6; Vojtěch Bažant, ‘Příběhy stadického krále: Několik pohledů na jednu událost’ [‘Stories of the King of Stadice: Several Perspectives on One Eventʼ], Středověký kaleidoskop pro muže s hůlkou: Věnováno Františku Šmahelovi k životnímu jubileu [‘A Medieval Caleidoscope for the Man with a Stick: for František Šmahel on the Occasion of His 80th Birthdayʼ], ed. Eva Doležalová and Petr Sommer (Praha, 2016), pp. 13–25. Similar interest was taken in the allegedly Arthurian castles in England and Scotland by the Burgundian traveller, diplomat and pilgrim Guillebert de Lannoy; see Martin Nejedlý, ‘Spisy středověkých cestovatelů jako podnět k “poutím mimo vyšlapané stezky”’ [‘Works of Medieval Travellers as an Impulse for Voyages “beyond Well-trodden Paths”ʼ], Guillebert de Lannoy: Cesty a poselstva, ed. Jaroslav Svátek, Martin Nejedlý, Olivier Marin and Pavel Soukup (Praha, 2009), p. 114. For astrology at the court of Wenceslas IV see, for example, Zdeněk Žalud, ‘Astrology, Particularly Court Astrology, in Bohemia in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries: A Surveyʼ, Historica: Historical Sciences in the Czech Republic, series nova 14 (2010), 108–11.

70  Marek Suchý

or Cáchy (‘Czach’), i.e. Aachen. On the other hand, the knight evidently had difficulties with French and English place names, which he often recorded as he heard them: Dover became ‘Dobra’ (‘good’ in Czech), for example. His interest in prayers, churches and relics would even allow us to contemplate a pilgrimage but since he also visited royal palaces in France and England, one cannot help suspecting that he might also have had a diplomatic mission behind his travel plans.62 That would confirm his choice of an old straightforward but demanding way through the Doupov Hills from Prague to Germany, which would show that he intended to reach his destinations as quickly as possible.63 The fact that our knight had some experience with diplomacy seems also to be affirmed by the pen trials, which reveal a part of a letter-greeting formula, possibly addressed to a royal counterpart (‘Serenissimo principi’).64 Moreover, another trial refers to King Wenceslas IV (‘Wenceslaus Dei gracia Boemie Rex’), who was even known for issuing blank charters for his diplomats to complete.65 Since the knight actually saw Queen Anneʼs tomb in Westminster Abbey, it is obvious that he must have travelled after 1394, or in fact several years later, when the tombstone of the royal couple is assumed to have been completed.66 62

63

64

65

66

For different aspects of late medieval travel, which often combined diplomatic missions with pilgrimage, see, for example, Katherine Walsh, ‘“Ecce arbor in medio terre”: Ein irischer Prälat an der Prager Juristenuniversität, das “Purgatorium sancti Patricii” und die Debatte um das Fegefeuerʼ, Husitství – reformace – renesance: Sborník k 60. narozeninám Františka Šmahela [‘Hussitism – Reformation – Renaissance: A Festschrift for František Šmahel on the Occasion of His 60th Birthdayʼ], i, ed. Jaroslav Pánek, Miloslav Polívka and Noemi Rejchrtová (Praha, 1994), p. 174; Martin Nejedlý, ‘Na dobrodružných stezkách: Zvědové pozdního středověkuʼ [‘On Paths of Adventure: Spies of the Late Middle Agesʼ], Historický obzor 19 (2008), 242–56; 20 (2009), 58–72, 155–75, 242–61. For the routes from Prague to Cheb see Jaroslav Fiala, ‘Staré cesty a celnice na Karlovarsku’ [‘Old Roads and Customs in the Karlovy Vary Regionʼ], Historický sborník Karlovarska 4 (1996), 5–27. Another pen trial, ‘Feste sempessem cum essemʼ, does not seem to contradict the idea. See, for example, Wenceslas IVʼs letter to the English king (24 September 1399): ‘Wenceslaus Dei gratia Romanorum Rex, semper Augustus, et Bohemiae Rex, serenissimo principi domino Ricardo, Angliae Regi illustri, fratri nostro carissimo, salutem et fraternae dilectionis continuum incrementum’; George Williams (ed.), Memorials of the Reign of King Henry VI: Official Correspondence of Thomas Bekynton, Secretary to King Henry VI, and Bishop of Bath and Wells, i (London 1872), pp. 287–8, no. 204; or a letter to the French king (16 October 1398): ‘Serenissimo principi domino Karolo regi Francorum illustri consanguineo carissimo Wenceslaus dei gratia Romanorum rex salutem et fraternae dilectionis mutuum incrementum’, Deutsche Reichstagsakten unter König Wenzel, III, 1397–1400 (München 1877), ed. Julius Weizsäcker, p. 62, no. 28. Ivan Hlaváček, K organizaci státního správního systému Václava IV.: Dvě studie o jeho itineráři a radě [‘On the Organization of the State Administration of Wenceslas IV: Two Studies about His Itinerary and Councilʼ] (Praha, 1991), p. 47. The tomb for the royal couple was commissioned in 1395, but the bronze effigy of Richard II was finished as late as 1398–99; see Dillian Gordon, ‘The Wilton Diptych



The Golden Book of the Knight Wenceslas  71

The journey of the Bohemian diplomat to London via Paris thus might point to broader tripartite dealings among the Luxembourgs, the Valois and the English royal family. In this context, it is interesting to note that soon after Queen Anne died (1394), the Anglo–French truce was concluded and sealed by the marriage of Richard II and the French princess Isabelle, daughter of Charles VI (1396); the understanding also included a plan to terminate the schism, via cessionis, for which the favour of the Roman king was to be won.67 It therefore comes as no surprise that the Anglo–French mission to Wenceslas IV in 1397 included Nikolaus Reibnitz, a knight who had arrived in England with Queen Anne and later became an ‘imperial specialistʼ of Richard II.68 Henry IV also established contact with Wenceslas IV in 1400 as a part of his diplomatic strategy,69 but since Wenceslas IV had been dethroned in August the same year, Wenceslasʼs rival, Count Ruprecht III of the Palatinate, became the German partner of the new king of England. Interestingly, Roger Siglem, another of the Bohemian courtiers to Queen Anne, later in the service of Henry IV, was involved in the diplomatic activity which finally led to the marriage of Blanche, princess of England, with Ruprechtʼs son Ludwig (1402).70 The diplomatic activity between the Luxembourgs and the rulers of England can be traced in the sources again only after the death of Ruprecht III when Wenceslasʼs brother Sigismund, king of Hungary, was elected Roman king (1411). The possibility cannot therefore be excluded that the journey of

67

68

69

70

as an Icon of Kingshipʼ, Making and Meaning: The Wilton Diptych, ed. Dillian Gordon (London, 1993), pp. 22–3, 63 n. 9. See Saul, Richard II, pp. 225–34, and Arnd Reitemeier, Aussenpolitik im Spätmittelalter: Die diplomatischen Beziehungen zwischen dem Reich und England 1377–1422 (Paderborn, 1999), pp. 182–212. See Reitemeier, Aussenpolitik, pp. 208, 363, 489, and Suchý, ‘England and Bohemia’, pp. 11, 15. It is not without interest that a French poet and diplomat, Eustache Deschamps, was probably staying in Prague at the time; see Martin Nejedlý, ‘Poezie Eustacha Deschampse jako historický pramen 14. stoletíʼ [‘The Poetry of Eustache Deschamps as a Historical Source for the 14th Centuryʼ], Český časopis historický 96 (1998), 62–3. His envoy Arnald Pallas made a detour to Wilsnack on his way to Bohemia in 1400–1; see Reitemeier, Aussenpolitik, pp. 214, 377, 418. Wilsnack was a popular pilgrim destination at the time and the local cult of the Holy Blood attracted even members of the Luxembourg royal family; see Jan Hrdina, ‘Braniborské poutní místo Wilsnack a Lucemburkové’ [‘Wilsnack, a Pilgrimage Site in Brandenburg, and the Luxembourgsʼ], Korunní země v dějinách českého státu IV: Náboženský život a církevní poměry v zemích koruny české ve 14. –17. století [‘The Crown Lands in the History of the Czech State IV: Religious Life and the Church in the Czech Crown Lands from the 14th till the 17th Centuryʼ], ed. Lenka Bobková and Jana Konvičná (Praha, 2009), pp. 223–41; Lenka Bobková, ‘Smělý cíl, malý úspěch: Jošt Moravský a markrabství braniborskéʼ [‘A Daring Goal, Small Success: Jodocus of Moravia and the Margraviate of Moraviaʼ], Morava v časech markraběte Jošta [‘Moravia in the Time of Margrave Jodocusʼ], ed. Libor Jan et al. (Brno, 2012), p. 71. Reitemeier, Aussenpolitik, pp. 212–50. For Roger see also Given-Wilson, Henry IV, pp. 335, 460; Suchý, ‘England and Bohemia’, pp. 11, 13, 15.

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our knight took place as a part of the Anglo–French–Imperial negotiations which resulted in Sigismundʼs visit to England in 1416. That might be supported by the fact that the English diplomatic mission to Sigismundʼs Hungarian court included a short stay in Prague in 1411.71 However, accepting the above-suggested interpretation of the manuscript, it seems to be more probable that the author of the records travelled in the diplomatic service to Wenceslas IV (†1419) and from Prague. Sigismund did not stay here between April 1403 and May 1420.72 The journey would probably have taken place before Wenceslas IV’s dethronement (1400) or at the end of the 1400s in connection with the Council of Pisa (1409), which acknowledged Wenceslas as the Roman king again. Franco–Brabantian negotiations with the Bohemian king took place in 1408–09 to obtain support for the planned council and a marriage of Wenceslas’s niece, Elisabeth of Görlitz, to Anthony of Burgundy, an heir of Joanna of Brabant (d. 1406). The wedding took place in Brussels in July 1409,73 and a Bohemian 71

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See Reitemeier, Aussenpolitik, pp. 255–320, 420–1, 487, 490–1; Martin Kintzinger, Westbindungen im spätmittelalterlichen Europa: Auswärtige Politik zwischen dem Reich, Frankreich, Burgund und England in der Regierungszeit Kaiser Sigmunds (Stuttgart, 2000); Attila Bárány, ‘Anglo-Luxembourg Relations during the Reign of Emperor Sigismund’, Sigismund von Luxemburg: Ein Kaiser in Europa, ed. Michel Pauly and Francois Reinert (Mainz am Rhein, 2006), pp. 43–59; Jana Nechutová, ‘De non comburendo libros: Stylistické a rétorické prostředky Husovy polemiky’ [‘De non comburendo libros: Stylistic and Rhetorical Means of Husʼs Polemicʼ], Středověký kaleidoskop, pp. 157–9. It seems that before this diplomatic activity Henry IV sent only six SS collars (which became an emblem of the English monarchy abroad) to the Bohemian court in 1405; see Given-Wilson, Henry IV, p. 394. Jörg K. Hoensch (ed.), Itinerar König und Kaiser Sigismunds von Luxemburg 1368– 1437 (Warendorf, 1995), pp. 71–101; Pál Engel and Norbert C. Tóth, Itineraria regum et reginarum Hungariae (1382–1438) (Budapest, 2005), pp. 80–106. See Dieter Veldtrup, Zwischen Eherecht und Familienpolitik: Studien zu den dynastischen Heiratsprojekten Karls IV. (Warendorf, 1988), pp. 439–41; František Graus, ‘Několik zpráv z bruselského státního archivu k čes. dějinám z let 1402–13’ [‘Several Notes on Czech History of the Years 1402–1413 from the State Archives in Brusselsʼ], Časopis Společnosti přátel starožitností 57 (1949), 107–8; Martin Nodl, Dekret kutnohorský [‘The Edict of Kutná Horaʼ] (Praha, 2010), pp. 223–8; Marie Bláhová, ‘Svatba Alžběty Zhořelecké s Antonínem Brabantským’ [‘The Marriage of Elisabeth of Görlitz to Anthony of Brabantʼ], Historie – Otázky – Problémy 7 (2015), 32–45, esp. 37–43; Marie Bláhová, ‘Edmont de Dynter – diplomat a historik: Diplomatická cesta vyslanců vévody Antonína Brabantského ke dvoru Václava IV. na podzim roku 1412ʼ [‘Edmont de Dynter – Diplomat and Historian: The Diplomatic Journey of the Duke of Brabant´s Envoys to the Court of Wenceslas IVʼ], Kapitoly z obecných dějin: Panu profesorovi s láskou... [‘Chapters from General History: To the Professor, with Loveʼ], ed. Martin Kovář and Václav Drška (Praha 2014), p. 46; Martin Nejedlý, ‘“Lucemburku, jsi světloplachý netopýr, mžourající sýček a přeušatý kalous”: Zápas o dědictví lucemburské dynastie pohledem “strůjce frašek a povyražení” Michaulta Tailleventaʼ [‘“Luxembourg, You Are a Timid Bat, a Squinting Little Owl and a Very Horned Owl”: The Struggle for the Heritage of the Luxembourg Dynasty as Seen by Michault Taillevent, an Author of “Entertaining Farces”ʼ], Historie – Otázky – Problémy 3 (2011), 161–80.



The Golden Book of the Knight Wenceslas  73

diplomatic mission also visited Paris in September of that year.74 At the same time, Anglo–French diplomatic cooperation over the schism resulted in a truce between the two countries and an English delegation was also sent to the general council of Pisa.75 On the other hand, Elisabethʼs marriage had already been a matter for diplomatic talks in the late 1390s, at that time with Louis, duke of Orleans. The Roman king Wenceslas IV even met King Charles VI of France in Rheims (1398) to negotiate the schism, or the resignation of both anti-popes.76 By coincidence, a grand duel was under preparation in England, planned for Gosford in September of that year, to resolve the dispute between Thomas Mowbray, duke of Norfolk, and Henry Bolingbroke, duke of Hereford. The king-to-be Henry IV ordered armour from Milan for that occasion and, interestingly enough, his opponent probably had armour imported from Central Europe, since he was attended by a Bohemian esquire. However, the duel was eventually called off because of Richardʼs intervention. Whereas Hereford, exiled for ten years, found refuge in Paris, Norfolk, who had been exiled for life,77 chose to make his subsequent pilgrimage to Jerusalem via Bohemia, which might confirm his previous contacts and the Bohemian origin of his armour.78 By an irony of fate, Thomas Mowbray might have visited Prague and Wenceslas IV in the same way his rival had done six years earlier during his pilgrimage to the Holy Land (1392).79 The possibility that our knight might have witnessed the Gosford event or that he met Richard II in England before his 74 75 76

77 78

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Ernest Petit, Itinéraires de Philippe le Hardi et de Jean Sans Peur: Ducs de Bourgogne (1363–1419), d’après les comptes de dépenses de leur hôtel (Paris, 1888), p. 372. James Hamilton Wylie, History of England under Henry the Fourth, iii: 1407–1410 (London 1896), pp. 337–89; Given-Wilson, Henry IV, pp. 328–31, 361–5. Reitemeier, Aussenpolitik, pp. 209–10; Bláhová, ‘Svatba’, pp. 35–6. They stayed in diplomatic contact regarding the schism at least until the beginning of 1399; see František Michálek Bartoš (ed.), Autograf M. J. Husi [‘M. J. Husʼ Autographʼ] (Praha, 1954), esp. pp. 5–12. Charles VIʼs influential uncle, Philip the Bold, even paid for ambassadors to King Wenceslas as late as May 1399; see Richard Vaughan, Philip the Bold: The Formation of the Burgundian State (Woodbridge, 2002), p. 108. See Saul, Richard II, pp. 395–402, esp. p. 400 (the armour). Mowbray was licensed to choose any port between Orwell and Scarborough for his shipment on 3 October 1398; see Calendar of the Patent Rolls: Richard II, VI, 1396– 1399 (London, 1906), p. 420. He hired a boat in Venice in February 1399; see George B. Parks, The English Traveler to Italy, i: The Middle Ages (to 1525) (Rome, 1954), p. 379; Danuta Quirini-Popławska, ‘Wenecja jako etap w podróży do Ziemi Świętej (XIII–XV w.)’, Peregrinationes: Pielgrzymki w kulturze dawnej Europy, ed. Halina Manikowska and Hanna Zaremska (Warszawa, 1995), p. 141 (with incorrect dating). For Wenceslasʼs itinerary, see Ivan Hlaváček, ‘Studie k diplomatice Václava IV.: IV. Itinerář krále Václava IV. (1361–1419)’ [‘A Study on the Diplomacy of Wenceslas IV: IV. The Itinerary of King Wenceslas IV (1361–1419)ʼ], Československý časopis historický 10 (1962), 82–3; Hlaváček, K organizaci, pp. 46, 64–5. For Henryʼs journey through Bohemia see Marek Suchý, ‘“Na cestě” in partibus Boemie: Svědectví cestovních účtů Jindřicha z Derby z roku 1392’ [‘“On the road” in Partibus Boemie: The

74  Marek Suchý

campaign in Ireland (1399) seems to be supported by the fact that he does not mention him in connection with Queen Anne’s tomb in Westminster Abbey. Richard II, however, who died the next year, was buried in the Dominican friary at Kingʼs Langley, where his body remained until 1413 when Henry V had it exhumed and reburied in its intended resting place at Westminster – which also makes it possible to think of the journey taking place in the late 1400s.80

The diary The manuscript quires in question can be associated with a Bohemian knight, who probably had them bound together. The exact genesis of the texts is difficult to reconstruct but it seems that most of the part describing several localities in France and England was written at one time since they are added in smaller letters behind the already recorded poems commemorating Queen Anne.81 Only some additions were inserted later into the existing series of jottings in even smaller letters and darker ink, which in fact seems to indicate that someone read the main text and recalled forgotten information.82 More­

80

81 82

Testimony of Henry of Derbyʼs Travel Accounts of 1392ʼ], Numismatický sborník 22 (2007), 115–40. It is also interesting in this context that the traveller mentions the splendid wooden roof of Westminster Hall, which was under reconstruction in the 1390s. The Parliament on St Lambertʼs Day 1397 had actually to meet in a temporary wooden structure that was erected in the palace yard. However, lead for the roof was purchased in 1395–96 and the glazing of the louvres took place in 1397–98, which would imply that the whole roof was in place at that time; see Julian Munby, ‘Late-14th-Century Reconstruction of Westminster Hall’, Westminster II, ed. Rodwell and Tatton-Brown (Leeds, 2015), pp. 120–32. Moreover, Richard IIʼs deposition and the enthronement of the new king, Henry IV, took place in the Great Hall in September/October 1399; see Given-Wilson, Henry IV, pp. 142, 145, 150, 152. See also itineraries of English and French kings, which allow us to think of both possible dates for the journey; Saul, Richard II, pp. 375, 422–9 and Appendix: ‘Richard II’s Itinerary, 1377–99’, pp. 473–4. For the itinerary of Charles VI see ‘Itinéraire des rois de France depuis et compris Louis VII. jusqu’à Louis XIV., inclusivement’, Pièces fugitives, pour servir à l’histoire de France, avec des notes historiques et géographiques, I/1, ed. Charles de Baschi, Marquis d’Aubais and Léon Ménard (Paris, 1759), pp. 92(612)–93(613). For Henry IV see James Hamilton Wylie, History of England under Henry the Fourth, iv: 1411–1413 (London 1898), Appendix Q, pp. 297–8; Given-Wilson, Henry IV, Appendix: ‘Henry IVʼs Itinerary 1399–1413’, pp. 544–5; Van Dussen, ‘Late Medieval Itinerary’, pp. 288–9, suggests that our itinerary was written between c. 1402 and c. 1413; the first date connects with the finishing of the timber ceiling at Westminster Hall, the second with Richard IIʼs burial in Westminster Abbey. He also mentions the possibility of dating the trip before 1411, as the traveller mentions the Hôtel de Nesle without saying anything about the unrest in Paris which demolished a part of the residence that year. For an alternative sequence of composition see Van Dussen, ‘Late Medieval Itinerary’, pp. 286–8. (f. 92r): ‘et pes de grifone – reges s.. LXX[…] – lat[…] magna et coruna magna cum(?) – et mensa nigra ad modum lapidem ubi […] aurum – et longitudo palacii – (f.92v) sunt



The Golden Book of the Knight Wenceslas  75

over, some of the factual errors which occur in the narrative seem to correspond with the idea that there was a not insignificant time-span between the experience and its written record.83 On the other hand, one can hardly imagine that the author would be able to remember the text of the St Paul tabula almost word for word for any longer period of time, which means that some notes could be expected even behind the surviving text, especially if there are also errors in the table part.84 The same applies to the itineraries. The recorded distances between the visited localities are mostly quite correct, if we accept several kilometresʼ tolerance resulting from differences in present-day routes and local variations of miles. Between Prague and Weissenstadt, the miles are in accordance with the Bohemian mile (c. 11km), then the given distances correspond to the German miles (6–7km).85 The fact that the traveller does not give any figures between Aschaffenburg and Cologne also indicates that he took a boat there. A slip of the eye seems to be the reason for Tongeren being recorded twice, while Maastricht was forgotten during the writing process. However, our writer realised the mistake instantly and added Maastricht in between the lines of the text together with the distance of four miles. The struck-out number 4 (IIII) after Tongeren probably originally applied to the distance between Aachen and Maastricht, while the new three miles denoted the distance from Maastricht to Tongeren.86

83

84

85 86

domus videlicet Bun…di(?) […] – Francie Boemie et est universitas magna – reges sunt(?) 3bus LXXX pall[…] – et pontes ad modum platearum – et castrum pulcrum sancti Michaelis’; for some different readings see Van Dussen, ‘Late Medieval Itinerary’, pp. 291–2. He also identifies the castle with Mont Saint-Michel, which is far from the travellerʼs route, suggesting that he was describing possessions or fortifications used by the French royalty, and not exclusively those located in Paris (not all of which he is likely to have visited). Similar mistakes appear in Václav Šašekʼs diary. Moreover, he and Gabriel Tetzel, another member of the mission who made his own description of the journey, give different numbers of towers in the Angers castle in their records; see Rudolf Urbánek, ‘České cesty na západ a nejstarší dva české cestopisy’ [‘Czech Travels to the West and the Two Oldest Bohemian Travel Booksʼ], Ve službách Jiříka krále: Deníky panoše Jaroslava a Václava Šaška z Bířkova [‘In the Service of Jiřík the King: the Diaries of Esquire Jaroslav and Václav Šašek of Bířkovʼ], ed. Rudolf Urbánek (Praha, 1940), pp. xxxii–xxxiii, xlii. It is interesting in this connection that Václav Šašek mentions that he was trying to note all the relics in London but was told that there were too many to be recorded. Not even two writers writing for two weeks would be able to record them; see Hrdina (ed.), Commentarius, p. 37. Also, Esquire Jaroslav, a member of a Bohemian diplomatic mission to France in 1464, probably kept notes during the journey which he later rewrote in the surviving diary; see Baboučková and Boubín, ‘Nejstarší český cestopis’, pp. 195–242, esp. p. 201. Sedláček, Paměti a doklady, pp. 32–3. See Appendix 1.

76  Marek Suchý

The knight uses French miles (4–5 km) from Brussels but the given distance of six miles between Paris and Senlis (on the way to Calais) must be a mistake or he counted in Bohemian miles there because he gives the same distance in the opposite direction (from Brussels to Paris) as a reasonable twelve (French) miles.87 He explicitly mentions Bohemian miles in Calais, however, without telling us where the forty miles (‘per aquam’) led. As he says elsewhere, however, that Dover was the first small town in England, one might assume that he meant the distance between the continent and the British Isles. The stated Bohemian miles would add up to approximately 400 kilometres, which do not correspond with the actual distance (c. 50 km). But the fact that he gives the Bohemian measures indicates that they were his own estimation, which is to say that he did not get the information from a local written or oral source. One might wonder how he arrived at this number, but his method might explain the discrepancy. Fortunately, he stuck again to local miles (c. 1.5–1.6km) in England. The figure of five miles from London to Windsor could be explained by a mistake or the use of Bohemian miles again.88

87

88

See Appendix 2. The use of local miles in travel literature was a usual practice. The opposite situation occurred when Guillebert de Lannoy travelled through Bohemia in 1414. He recorded that it was 26 miles from Svídnice to Prague, which is too few. The explanation is probably not his bad memory, as stated by Jaroslav Svátek, ‘“Do té země jsem přijel, ale zase ji rychle opustil…”: Návštěva burgundského cestovatele Guilleberta de Lannoy v husitských Čecháchʼ [‘“I Arrived in That Country Only to Leave It Soon…”: A Visit of Burgundian traveller Guillebert de Lannoy in Hussite Bohemiaʼ], Mediaevalia Historica Bohemica 11 (2007), p. 198. Guillebert just gave the distance in local miles (French miles: 26x5=130km; Bohemian miles: 26x10=260km; the distance today: c. 250km). But the use of Bohemian miles abroad is also witnessed in other sources; for example, Esquire Jaroslav, a member of a Bohemian diplomatic mission to France in 1464, gives a distance in Bohemian miles in connection with Saint Denis. The question is how he measured the miles but it is not without interest that he also recorded another distance by comparing it to the distance from Prague to its gibbet. Moreover, he was aware that one Bohemian mile was about 3 very short French miles (‘leukyʼ); see Baboučková and Boubín, ‘Nejstarší český cestopisʼ, pp. 218, 230. For the English mile see Ronald Edward Zupko, A Dictionary of Weights and Measures for the British Isles: The Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century (Philadelphia, 1985), pp. 248–9. A Bohemian craftsman and merchant, Jiří František Kreybich, names almost the same distance (four miles) from London to Windsor about two hundred years later (1688); see ‘Jiřího Františka Kreybicha cesty se sklem, 1685–1699ʼ [‘Jiří František Kreybichʼs Travels with Glass, 1685–1699ʼ], Česká touha cestovatelská: Cestopisy, deníky a listy ze 17. století, ed. Simona Binková and Josef Polišenský (Praha, 1989), p. 442. On the other hand, even greater geographical, chronological or currency mistakes appear in travel accounts compiled by Henry of Derbyʼs treasurer Richard Kingston upon their return to England from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. For the mistakes concerning the Bohemian part of the journey see Suchý, ‘“Na cestě”’, pp. 116–20.



The Golden Book of the Knight Wenceslas  77

The whole book contains three types of watermarks which correspond to dated examples from approximately 1411 to 1417.89 This would fit with the idea of a time-span between the journey and its record but, of course, it could also support a later date for the journey. At the same time, one must be aware that the filigrees might have already been in use for some time before the known dated examples of watermarks. We will perhaps never know for certain when and by whom the diary was written but it is likely that it was by a well-travelled diplomat based at Wenceslas IVʼs court. The question remains, of course, as to whether the writer was identical with the traveller and how many horses accompanied his mission. It is not without interest in this connection that one of Wenceslas IVʼs prominent knights, Bořivoj of Svinaře, who became his ‘imperial expertʼ after negotiating the Anglo–Imperial alliance in the 1380s, used to have a personal scribe.90 In 1396, together with his entourage, he joined the Brotherhood of St Christopher in Frankfurt-am-Main and owned the town Planá near Tachov at the end of the fourteenth century.91 It is even tempting to identify our traveller with Wenceslas Lotrian who appears in the Prague sources as the king’s messenger (‘nuntius domini regisʼ).92

89

90

91

92

See esp. (bi)folia 5–8, 51–2, 84–(cut off), 94–5, (cut off)–96, 93–7: Dragon, Riga, 1417, No. 124072; Nijmegen, 1411, No. 124084; Arnhem, 1413, No. 124105 – ff. 73–78; 75–76: Bull’s head, Würzburg, 1416, No. 68484; Würzburg, 1417, No. 68477 – ff. 59–71: Anchor, 1416, No. 117515, Piccard-Online www.piccard-online.de (accessed 29 September 2019). In our diary, as well as in Václav Šašekʼs diary, the third-person singular appears together with the first-person singular form; for Šašek see Urbánek, ‘České cesty’, pp. xxvi–xxvii. For Bořivoj see Walsh, ‘Lollardisch-hussitische Reformbestrebungen’, pp. 82–3. See also Vladimír Růžek, ‘Družina Bořivoje ze Svinař ve službách Václava IV.’ [‘The Retinue of Bořivoj of Svinaře in the Service of Wenceslas IVʼ], Minulostí Západočeského kraje 25 (1989), 57–90; for the writer see pp. 64–5. Literacy and knowledge of Latin among the members of lesser nobility were not impossible at the time, as is attested by Tomáš of Štítné; see Pavlína Rychterová, Die Offenbarungen der heiligen Birgitta von Schweden: Eine Untersuchung zur alttschechischen Übersetzung des Thomas von Štítné (um 1330 – um 1409) (Köln, 2004), pp. 111–40; Pavlína Rychterová (ed.), Vidění svaté Brigity Švédské v překladu Tomáše ze Štítného [‘Revelations of St Bridget of Sweden as Translated by Thomas of Štítnéʼ] (Praha, 2009), pp. 29–38. For noble students at Prague University see Jiří Stočes, Pražské univerzitní národy do roku 1409 [‘Prague University Nations before 1409ʼ] (Praha, 2010), pp. 209–19. His son Mathias bought a house (‘bath’) in Prague (in the Old Town) in 1418; see Wácslaw Wladiwoj Tomek, Základy starého místopisu Pražského, i: Staré město Pražské [‘Foundations of the Old Topography of Prague, i: Prague Old Townʼ] (Praha, 1866), p. 233, nos 875, 874. It would also be tempting to connect him with another house (in the New Town) which belonged (in 1388) to ‘Wenceslai militis’; see Wácslaw Wladiwoj Tomek, Základy starého místopisu Pražského, ii: Nowé město Pražské [‘Foundations of the Old Topography of Prague, ii: Prague New Townʼ] (Praha, 1870), p. 154, no. 479.

78  Marek Suchý

Moreover, the preserved contemporary heraldic sketchbook might even make us think of Wenceslas IVʼs herald.93 The cursive notes may have been intended to serve practical purposes, but the possibility cannot be excluded that their author was considering writing a book about his travels at a later date. It would not be the only case since a contemporary Burgundian courtier, pilgrim and spy, Bertrandon de la Broquière, kept a notebook to enhance his memory which he revised into an adventurous memoir in his old age.94 At all events, the extant notes are thus a testimony not only of how a Bohemian knight would have seen England at the turn of the fourteenth century; they also demonstrate that, although Bohemia and England lost their close dynastic link after the death of Queen Anne, the contacts established in the previous years had by no means been forgotten by 1394.

Epilogue The situation seems to be completely different less than half a century later when the new Bohemian king, George of Poděbrady, had to establish diplomatic contacts with Western Europe again after the Hussite wars. The members of his diplomatic mission left two independent written witnesses of London that resemble our knightʼs diary in many respects. The knight Václav Šašek of Bířkov and the merchant Gabriel Tetzel were attracted by distances, architecture and relics as well as tombs,95 but they do not even mention Queen Anne, who came to England from Bohemia. Significantly, both these travel accounts of the mid-1460s were written in Czech and German vernacular although, by an irony of fate, Šašekʼs Czech account survives only in its Latin translation (1577).96 Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century travellers to 93

94

95

96

See Vladimír Růžek, ‘Říšský a český erbovník Václava IV. a čeští heroldiʼ [‘The Imperial and Bohemian Heraldic Handbook of Wenceslas IV and Bohemian Heraldsʼ], Lucemburkové: Česká koruna uprostřed Evropy, ed. František Šmahel and Lenka Bobková (Praha, 2012), pp. 447–50. However, one must remember that the manuscript of Bohemian origin (c. 1400) would not necessarily have reached England by the time of Wenceslas IV, not to mention that its connection with our traveller is unprovable. Martin Nejedlý, ‘Paměti o varanovi “mňoukajícím víc než kočka” a o rubínu svatováclavské koruny, “velikém jako zralá datle”: Zvěd Bertrandon de la Broquière na cestách (sebe)poznání’ [‘Memories of a Monitor Lizard “Meowing More than a Cat” and of a Ruby from St Wenceslasʼ Crown, “Big as a Ripe Date”: Spy Bertrandon de la Broquière on Paths of (Self-)Explorationʼ], Studia mediaevalia Bohemica 2 (2010), 39–73, esp. p. 43. For the importance of tombstones in the social status display of nobility in post-Hussite Bohemia see Robert Šimůnek, Reprezentace české středověké šlechty [‘Representation of Czech Medieval Aristocracyʼ] (Praha, 2013), pp. 74–5. See Urbánek, ‘České cesty’, pp. ix–xlviii, and Lenka Líbalová (ed.), Gabriel Tetzel: Cestovní deník Lva z Rožmitálu a na Blatné 1465–1467 [‘Gabriel Tetzel: The Travel Diary of Lev of Rožmitál and Blatná 1465–1467ʼ] (Olomouc, 2003), pp. 7–14.



The Golden Book of the Knight Wenceslas  79

England do not seem to have lost interest in architecture, either, although the Reformation left traces in their perception of churches and their decoration. Queen Anne only appears occasionally in the written journey accounts as a daughter of Wenceslas IV (sic) who taught English ladies to ride side-saddle, died in Richmond, and rests with her husband in Westminster Abbey.97

97

A Journey into England by Paul Hentzner, in the year M.D.XC.VIII (Reading, 1807); see pp. 9–10 for Anne, daughter of the Emperor Wenceslaus (sic) and her tomb; ‘Zdeňka Brtnického z Valdštejna cesta do Anglie, 1600’ [‘Zdeněk Brtnický of Valdštejnʼs Travel to England, ad 1600ʼ], Česká touha cestovatelská: Cestopisy, deníky a listy ze 17. století [‘Czech Desire to Travel: Travelogues, Diaries and Letters of the 17th Centuryʼ], ed. Simona Binková and Josef Polišenský (Praha, 1989), pp. 33–64 at 59 for Anne, daughter of the Emperor Wenceslaus (sic), Richmond and side-saddles; Otakar Odložilík, ‘Cesty z Čech a Moravy do Velké Britanie v letech 1563–1620’ [‘Travels from Bohemia and Moravia to Great Britain, 1563–1620ʼ], Časopis Matice moravské 59 (1935), 241–320; Jan Vogeltanz, Věra Petráčková and Alena Šimečková (eds), Příběhy Jindřicha Hýzrla z Chodů [‘Adventures of Jindřich Hýzrle z Chodůʼ] (Praha, 1979), pp. 135–55; Martin Holý, ‘Jindřich Michal Hýzrle z Chodů (1575–1665) a jeho poznávací cesta po střední a západní Evropě v letech 1607 až 1608’ [‘Jindřich Michal Hýzrle z Chodů (1575–1665) and His Exploratory Tour of Central and Western Europe A.D. 1607–1608ʼ], Šlechtic na cestách v 16.–18. století [‘Travelling Aristocrats from the 16th to the 18th Centuryʼ], ed. Jiří Kubeš (Pardubice, 2007), pp. 35–66; Martin Holý, ‘“V pěkné a veselé rovině leží, povětří velmi zdravé má”: Evropská města pohledem cestovatelů z českých zemí v 16. a na počátku 17. století’ [‘“It lies on a Handsome and Merry Plain, Blessed with a Very Healthy Climate”: European Towns as Seen by Travellers from the Czech Lands in the 16th and early 17th Centuriesʼ], Historická geografie 36 (2010), 7–28; Martin Holý, ‘Iter Britannicum: Noble Visitors from the Bohemian Lands and Their Perception of the British Isles in the Second Half of the 16th and Early 17th Century’, Comenius: Journal of Euro-American Civilization 4 (2017), 121–33; Ondřej Podavka, Zdeněk Brtnický z Valdštejna: Učený šlechtic a jeho deník z cest [‘Zdeněk Brtnický of Valdštejn: A Learned Aristocrat and His Travel Diaryʼ] (Praha, 2017); ‘Bratří ze Šternberka výjezd šťastný do Nizozemí a Anglie, 1663’ [‘The Šternberk Brothersʼ Fortunate Travel to the Netherlands and Englandʼ], Česká touha cestovatelská, pp. 294–312; ‘Jiřího Františka Kreybicha cesty se sklem, 1685–1699ʼ, ibid., pp. 436–52.

80  Marek Suchý

Appendix 198 from/to de Praga ad Rakownik (Rakovník) et ad Masczow (Mašťov) et ad Cubitum (Loket) et ad Egram (Cheb) ad Veisynstat dorf (Weissenstadt) ad Culmach (Kulmbach) Veissenstat (Waischenfeld(?))99 ad Kalczpurg (Cadolzburg) ad Winczhem (Windsheim) ad Au (Aub) Bischoffhem (Tauberbischofsheim) ad Milberg (Miltenberg) ad Asnberg (Aschaffenburg) Francfurt (Frankfurt) Mohucz (Mainz/Mohuč) Pig (Bingen) Coblenecz (Koblenz) ibi est turris ubi naves comodant usque Colonia (Cologne) a(d) Czach (Aachen/Cáchy) Tricht100 (Maastricht) ad Tungar ad Tungar (Tongeren) ad Lowel (Leuven) de Lowl ad Brixl (Bruxelles) 98

99

100

H.15 miles 7 5 7 4 4 milliaria

=km x10=70 x10=50 x10=70 x10=40 x10=40

km today 61 48 65 33 40

sex 7 9 5 5 5

x7=42 x7=42 x7=63 x7=35 x7=35 x7=35

39 40 71 40 32 40

10 5

x6=60 x7=35

42 39

10 4 IIII 3 9 4

x7=70 x7,5=30 x7=21 x7=63 x7=28

71 38 20 66 28

My reading of the place names sometimes differs somewhat from that of Van Dussen, ‘Late Medieval Itineraryʼ, pp. 295–6, but I refer to differences only if our interpretation of the locality is different. Van Dussen, ‘Late Medieval Itineraryʼ, p. 295, identifies (probably) with Wiesenthau but the distance of c. 70 km does not correspond with the number of miles recorded by our traveller. The text is written in between the lines of the text (including the distance).



The Golden Book of the Knight Wenceslas  81

Appendix 2 from/to

H.15 miles =km

Bruxl ad Hal (Halle) (Bruxelles) de Hal ad Berg Henigow (Mons/ Bergen) ad Mushenad(?) (Haismont/ LeQuesnoy)101 ubi est obora et unus soltat102 pro aqua in longitudine 5 gladiorum meorum ad Bohan (Bohain) de Bohan ad Sant Quentin et ibi iacet sanctus Quentinus in magna eclesia ad Sant Logon (Noyon) et ibi iacet sanctus Logius (Eligius) in magna eclesia ad Cumpimon (Compiègne) ad Sant Lis (Senlis) ad Lowrs (Louvres) ubi persone(?) soltant(?)103 per capita de Lowris a(d) Sanctum Dionisium (Saint-Denis)

3 milliaria

x5=15

km today 18

9

x5=45

42

9

x5=45

46

7 4

x5=35 x5=20

35 21

12

x4=48

41

5 8 5

x5=25 x4=32 x4=20

28 33 20

5

x4=20

20

101 102

103

Van Dussen, ‘Late Medieval Itinerary’, p. 295, offers the (doubtful) reading ‘Vinshenad’, which he identifies, with some probability, with Valenciennes. Van Dussen, ‘Late Medieval Itineraryʼ, p. 295, reads: ‘unus saltavit in aquamʼ. Impressive leaping over the water in the hunting park is a possible explanation but I would rather read and interpret the text as a writer’s error, probably reflecting payment (solutio) paid per person for getting over the water using a bridge of the length of c. 5 metres (for the length of his sword see above, n. 44). Especially when almost the same expression appears again in connection with Louvres, in other words, remarkable jumping in two (not far distant) localities does not seem to me to be probable; see below, n. 103. Van Dussen, ‘Late Medieval Itineraryʼ, p. 295, reads: ‘pueri saltant per capitaʼ. Rather than jumping I would read and interpret the text as a writer’s error, probably reflecting payment (solutio) paid per person here, for example, for accommodation. Especially if almost the same expression appears again in connection with LeQuesnoy, see above, n. 102.

82  Marek Suchý

a Sancto Dyonisio

ad Parisiis (Paris) et circa 2 Sanctum Dionisium ibi […]

de Paris

ad Sant Lus (Senlis)104 ad Clermunt (Clermont) ad Palleart (Paillart) ad Ambiancz (Amiens) de Ambiad Blancort (Berteauancz court-les-Dames(?)105 de Blancor ad Montonai (Montreuil) ad Boloniam (Boulogne-surMer) et de Bolo- ad Kalys (Calais) nia Kales (Calais) per aquam

x5=10

11

6 6 8 sex 4

x10=60 x4,5=27 x5=40 x5=30 x5=20

50 26 39 30 25

12 7

x5=60 x5=35

70 39

7

x5=35

35

40 milliaria Boemie

Appendix 3 from/to Canterbury Rochester London Windsor Guildford Alton

104 105

H.15 miles Roczetr (Rochester) Londinum (London) Vinzur (Windsor) Guldefordia (Guildford) Altun (Alton) Havam (Havant)

=km

km today 24 milliaria x1,6=38,4 47,5 24 x1,6=38,4 51 5 x10=50 39 25 x1,6=40 40 16 x1,6=25,6 33 25 x1,6=40 43

Van Dussen, ‘Late Medieval Itinerary’, p. 295, identifies it with Saint-Leu-d´Esserent. Van Dussen, ‘Late Medieval Itinerary’, p. 295, identifies it with Bellancourt, but the distance of c. 40 km does not correspond with the number of miles recorded by our traveller.

Cultural Analogues

4 Making Sense of the Past: Czech and English Vernacular Histories in the Fourteenth Century HELENA ZNOJEMSKÁ

In both England and Bohemia, the fourteenth century saw the rise of more or less comprehensive accounts of national history produced in the ‘popular’ vernaculars: English and Czech. While the Czech side offers a single specimen, the highly influential metrical Chronicle of the Socalled Dalimil, the English material comprises a number of metrical and prose chronicles. In attempting to shape the national past into a coherent narrative relevant for the present moment, the author of the Czech chronicle faced a task different from that of his English fellowwriters. They had to accommodate the successive waves of invasions and lay claim to the famous exploits of British kings and their link with classical antiquity, while still maintaining that it all belongs to the ‘English story’. By contrast, Czech history was relatively homogeneous in ethnic terms – Czech through and through – but less promising as an account of a glorious past. Despite this basic difference, the texts show similar tendencies in their ‘writing of historyʼ. They project a strong vision of the ‘nationalʼ community through an opposition with some historical ‘otherʼ (Norman French, Scots, Germans). This basic scheme is subjected to various strategic adjustments, partly depending on the political stance of individual authors, partly resulting from their writing of history from the vantage point of the present, whether this takes the form of a teleological fashioning of the account or the highlighting of the exemplary character of specific events. Rather than producing a unified image of the past, however, such an approach makes these seemingly coherent accounts rife with tensions.

T

o understand the milieu in which Chaucer produced his works in the period from 1382 to 1394 – from the marriage of Richard II and Anne of Bohemia until her death – it is important to take account of the models of identity and allegiance available to his audience. That audience included members of Richard’s court and of Anne’s entourage. Both groups found common ground

86  Helena Znojemská

in the courtly values shared by élites throughout Europe – a context in which Chaucer, too, was at home. But those values are not the only factor informing the ways in which members of his audience thought of themselves. There are other affinities, as well as divergences, in the models provided by Czech and English vernacular histories.

Texts and contexts In both countries the fourteenth century saw the emergence of historical writings produced in the ‘popular’ vernaculars: English (as opposed to the more socially restricted vernacular, Anglo-Norman) and Czech. It is a matter of scholarly controversy whether this phenomenon reflects a more widespread concern with ‘(proto-)national’ identity (as argued, for the English context, by Thorlac Turville-Petre)1 or whether the individual works, with their specific biases, represent ‘fragmentary, sporadic, regional responses to particular circumstances’ by ‘culturally under-capitalised’2 authors, as suggested by Derek Pearsall. In fact the two interpretations need not be mutually exclusive: if a community asserts its identity through opposition to strategically selected ‘others’,3 this is a manoeuvre that is likely to be adopted in moments of perceived crisis and threat. Thus, for example, the metrical chronicle of Robert of Gloucester4 has been regarded as reacting to the events of the Second Baronsʼ War, while the central concern of the near-contemporary chapters in the chronicle by the Northerner Robert Mannyng of Brunne is the frustration from the apparently interminable conflict with the Scots, a sentiment which the author shares with his source, the Anglo-Norman chronicle by Peter Langtoft.5 The anonymous author of the Czech Chronicle of the So-called Dalimil closes his text with a record of the accession to the throne of Bohemia of John of Luxembourg, an event which he presents as an extremely tentative glimmer of hope after the period of chaos following the death of the last king of the Przemyslid dynasty in 1306.6 It is also significant that such specific crises were not addressed through a more temporally and/or thematically focused historical account; after all, exactly such a selective approach led to the excerpting 1 2 3 4

5 6

Thorlac Turville-Petre, England the Nation: Language, Literature, and National Identity, 1290–1340 (Oxford, 1996). Derek Pearsall, ‘Chaucer and Englishness’, Sir Israel Gollancz Memorial Lecture, Proceedings of the British Academy 101 (1999), 89. Ibid., 80. A conjectural attribution which agrees with a narratorʼs eye-witness remark incorporated in the text and the local information given; see William Aldis Wright (ed.), The Metrical Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester (London, 1887; repr. Cambridge, 2012), pp. x–xi. Nicole Nyffenegger, Authorising History: Gestures of Authorship in Fourteenth-Century English Historiography (Newcastle upon Tyne, 2014), pp. 16–17. Jiří Daňhelka et al. (eds), Staročeská kronika tak řečeného Dalimila [‘The Old Czech Chronicle of the So-called Dalimilʼ], 2 vols (Praha, 1988), ch. 103, lines 7–12.



Czech and English Vernacular Histories in the Fourteenth Century  87

of Langtoft’s record of the reign of Edward I as a self-contained narrative in some manuscripts,7 and Andrea Ruddick lists a number of fourteenth century Latin works with similarly clear thematic limits, still expressive of a distinctly ‘English’ stance.8 Bohemia likewise offers examples of this historiographical mode – most pertinently, with regard to the events to which Dalimil reacts, that of the Chronicon Aulae Regiae (1305–39), which documents the reign of the last three kings of the Przemyslid line and the accession of the Luxembourg dynasty. Yet, all the English vernacular chronicles produced in the fourteenth century, as well as Dalimil, the single Czech specimen,9 are ‘national’ histories, recounting the given community’s history from the origins to the near present. Even the fact that the texts were written, in the words of E. D. Kennedy, by ‘outsiders’,10 people with definite and often critical views of current politics and working independently, could be taken to indicate that the issue of ‘national’ identity was one that resonated in wider circles of society. Despite such larger analogies between the Czech and the English situation, it is necessary to note that in each country the authors of the vernacular national histories worked within a vastly different historiographical framework and hence had to grapple with different problems. Simply put, the Czech one was much sparser and, consequently, more homogeneous. The single available national history conceived as a coherent narrative was the early twelfth century Chronica Boemorum by Kosmas, the Dean of the Prague Chapter, which used as its starting point the biblical origines gentium (origins of peoples) tradition and followed the scriptural model in its tracing of the development of the ‘constitutional structures’ of the people – from judges to ‘kings’ – in the legendary ‘time of origins’. The focus in the rest of the history corresponds with the ‘regnal’ concerns raised in its initial section, developing examples of good rule in selected Przemyslid princes who serve as an implicit yardstick for the others. Kosmas’ history was subsequently complemented by additions for the period beyond its scope, without, however, the consistent plan characteristic of the former work. Beyond that, there were comprehensive monastic annals and more or less developed accounts for specific shorter periods that provided raw material for potential assimilation into a more sustained narrative. Dalimil

7

8

9

10

Thea Summerfield, The Matter of Kings’ Lives: Design of Past and Present in the Early Fourteenth–Century Verse Chronicles by Pierre de Langtoft and Robert Mannyng (Amsterdam and Atlanta, 1998), p. 22. For example, the chronicles of Robert of Avebury or Adam Murimuth. See Andrea Ruddick, English Identity and Political Culture in the Fourteenth Century (Cambridge, 2013), p. 38 and passim. The only other fourteenth-century vernacular chronicle by Přibík Pulkava of Radenín is the author’s own translation of his Latin text. It shows the growing importance of Czech as a literary language but cannot be labelled a vernacular history in its own right. Edward D. Kennedy, ‘Romancing the Past: A Medieval English Perspective’, The Medieval Chronicle: Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on the Medieval Chronicle, ed. Erik Kooper (Amsterdam, 1999), p. 16.

88  Helena Znojemská

thus would have worked with a number of sources (which he alludes to in the Prologue), yet he followed a single historiographical model with its characteristic construction of ethnic identity based on common descent and language.11 The English authors, in contrast, had much more to build on – but also to reconcile. Since Geoffrey of Monmouth’s seminal Historia Regum Britanniae, two major historiographical traditions, two competing versions of the insular past, coexisted side by side. The hitherto dominant English tradition took its clue from Bede’s providential model of history, explaining the passing of dominion between successive peoples in terms of spiritual downfall and ascendancy and positing the Britons as the God-forsaken losers in this scheme. The Welsh one followed a classical version of the origines gentium model,12 with Britons as heroes with glorious Trojan roots. If we accept the claim made in its epilogue, the two strands were brought together on equal terms in Geffrei Gaimar’s Anglo-Norman metrical history,13 and though the first part of this work, covering the history of the Britons, was soon ousted by Wace’s translation of the Historia Regum Britanniae, it would seem that Gaimar forged a pattern in welding the two contrary components into one comprehensive account of England’s past.14 Subsequent writers (and readers) could still adhere to one of the models by preference, or focus either on the history of the Britons or that since the Britons, but even so they might feel obliged to make a nod of recognition towards the occluded part.15 Gaimar also appears as a pathfinder in the genre in other ways especially pertinent to this study. First, as far as can be gathered from extant sources, he pioneered the use of metrical form in writing history, providing a model for the Anglo-Norman authors Wace and Langtoft and, by extension, for the fourteenth century English metrical chronicles: Robert of Gloucesterʼs Chronicle (around 1300), the Short Metrical Chronicle (after 1307), the so-called Castleford’s Chronicle (after 1327), and Robert Mannyng of Brunneʼs Chronicle (1338). Second, Gaimarʼs Estoire complemented with Wace probably formed

11 12 13 14 15

See Ruddick, English Identity, pp. 120, 158. Ruddick, English Identity, p. 180. Ian Short (ed.), Geffrei Gaimar: Estoire des Engleis: History of the English (Oxford, 2009), lines 6528–6531; Introduction, p. xvi. The extant second part, L’Estoire des Engleis, regularly appears paired with Wace, together forming a single account. Thus Henry of Huntingdon gives a summary account of Brutus’ ancestry and arrival in Britain, based on the Historia Regum Britanniae, in Historia Anglorum, Bk. I., ch. 9; conversely, Layamon inflects his rendering of Geoffrey’s history of Britons through inserting Bede’s ‘Non Angli sed angeliʼ anecdote together with the report on Augustine’s conflict with the British bishops and the killing of Bangor monks in Brut ll. 14696– 14923, enhancing the providential dimension of the ‘passage of dominionʼ narrative. See Diana E. Greenway (ed. and trans.), Henry of Huntingdon: Historia Anglorum: The History of the English People (Oxford, 1996); G. L. Brook and R. F. Leslie (eds), Layamon: Brut, EETS os 250, 277 (1963, 1977).



Czech and English Vernacular Histories in the Fourteenth Century  89

the source of the Anglo-Norman prose Brut,16 likewise translated into English around 1400. The first group of texts represents the obvious focus for comparison with the Czech Chronicle of the So-called Dalimil by virtue of their shared form and scope. At the same time, the inquiry cannot omit the prose Brut tradition as by far the most popular and enduring version of English ‘national’ history, reflecting the accelerating tendency in the vernacular historical writing of this period to abandon the verse form in favour of prose; its absence from the picture would seriously tilt the perspective. However, with respect to the formal distance, it will play only a supporting role in the analysis. Indeed, it is the afterlife of the texts in question that gives additional momentum to their vision of the past. Admittedly, not all of them made a great impact. Robert Mannyngʼs Chronicle may have been virtually unknown, judging from its two complete extant manuscripts;17 in that regard, his minor inflections of the narrative presented in his much more widely disseminated sources, Wace and Langtoft, would have negligible influence on the popular idea of the ‘history of England’. Nevertheless, they still provide valuable evidence of the problems and tensions that English history writers had to face, and of the approaches they adopted in resolving them. The same can be said of the practically isolated Castleford’s Chronicle. The Chronicle by Robert of Gloucester, on the contrary, is found in two versions and fourteen manuscripts dating from the fourteenth to the fifteenth century and was also translated into prose;18 moreover, Ewald Zettl proposes a number of instances in which his text had informed the Short Metrical Chronicle,19 which would extend its influence even further. The Short Metrical Chronicle itself exists in five complete manuscripts dating from the early fourteenth to the fifteenth century, two fragments and an early Anglo-Norman translation.20 Finally, the hugely influential prose Brut provided the key to English history for much of the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Dalimil’s impact in the Czech context is perhaps comparable to this last instance. It was re-edited and repeatedly copied during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries: we know of eight more or less complete manuscripts, coming from very varied social backgrounds.21 In 16

17

18 19 20 21

Jean Blacker, ‘Anglo-Norman and Continental French Reception of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Corpus from the 12th to the 15th Centuries’, A Companion to Geoffrey of Monmouth, ed. Joshua Byron-Smith and Georgia Henley (Leiden, 2020), p. 462. Through the reconstruction of its textual history, Sullens postulates two other intervening copies; Idelle Sullens (ed.), Robert Mannyng of Brunne: The Chronicle (Binghamton, 1996), pp. 29, 36. Kennedy, ‘Romancing the Past: A Medieval English Perspective’, p. 23. Ewald Zettl (ed.), An Anonymous Short English Metrical Chronicle, EETS os 196 (1935), p. l and passim. Ibid., pp. xi–xxxiv. Radko Šťastný even speculates that Cambridge MS O.7.38 of the text was commissioned for the purposes of influencing the reception of the new law code submitted by Charles IV for approval in the general assembly of the Czech nobility in 1355; see Radko Šťastný, ‘Cambridgský rukopis Dalimilovy kroniky a doba Karla IV.ʼ [‘The Cam-

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addition, the chronicle was printed in 1620 by Pavel Ješín, even though almost the entire print-run was destroyed after the battle of the White Mountain (Bílá Hora).22 Its version of specific events and the perspective underlying it was nevertheless most widely disseminated by having been adopted by the enormously popular sixteenth century Czech Chronicle of the extremely inventive Václav Hájek of Libočany, which informed the way Czechs thought of their past well into the nineteenth century and even beyond. It is this identity-forming potential which is not limited to their moment of production that makes it worthwhile to consider in greater detail the approach of the vernacular chronicles to their material, to identify and compare the strategies which they adopt to shape the past into a coherent narrative and make it relevant for the present, as well as the internal tensions that emerge during that process. The dilemmas which our writers had to face and solve stemmed from the historiographical tradition(s) within which they worked. The Czech past could not claim a link with the heroes of Classical Antiquity or with that seminal moment in the legendary history of Western kingdoms, the Trojan War; nor did it contain any record of successfully matching Imperial Rome or a figure with the international acclaim of King Arthur. It took greater effort to represent it as suitably dignified if the author, like the anonymous narrator of the Dalimil, wrote with the aim of increasing ‘the honour of our country’.23 On the other hand, the past could be relatively easily construed as Czech through and through. The writers of the English metrical chronicles generally acknowledged the fact that the ‘Inglis gest’ of ‘oure Inglis kynde’ properly begins with the Saxon invasions.24 Their problem was, first, how to render the transition from the Britons to the English in such a way as to be able to appropriate, as much as possible, the exploits and the glory of their predecessors and erstwhile enemies, and second, how to represent the Danish and Norman

22

23

24

bridge Manuscript of the Chronicle of the So-called Dalimil and the Time of Charles IVʼ], Česká literatura 31 (1983), 392–5. Staročeská kronika, ed. Daňhelka et al., pp. 8–73; Radko Šťastný, ‘Husitský rukopis Dalimilovy kroniky. Jeho autor, pořizovatel a místo vznikuʼ [‘A Hussite Manuscript of the Chronicle of the So-called Dalimil: Its Author, Commissioner and Place of Originʼ], Česká literatura 27 (1979), 480–4. Staročeská kronika, ed. Daňhelka et al., Prologue, line 52. History is by definition a record of ‘honourable deeds’: ‘Mnozí pověsti hledají,/ v tom múdřě a dvorně činie,/ ale že své země netbají,/ tiem svój rod sprostenstvím vinie./ Nebo ež by sě do nich které cti nadieli,/ své země by skutky jměli,/ z nichž by svój rod vešken zvěděli,/ a odkud by přišli, věděli.’ [Many people seek stories and they act wisely and courteously in that, but because they neglect their country, they accuse their ancestry of baseness. If they expected any honour in them, they would have the record of their country’s deeds, from which they would learn of their descent and would know whence they came.]; ibid., Prologue 1–8. All translations from the Dalimil are mine. Robert Mannyng, ed. Sullens, lines 38–48. See also Castlefordʼs Chronicle, or The Boke of Brut, ed. Caroline D. Eckhardt, EETS os 305 (1996), lines 229–34, Bk I., ch. i., lines 243–6.



Czech and English Vernacular Histories in the Fourteenth Century  91

invasions and still maintain the ultimate ‘Englishness’ of recent history.25 It is a question of strategies that allow Robert of Gloucester to claim that the descendants of the Danish conquerors ‘beþ noȝt ȝet wel y some’ [are not yet well merged] and that the Normans ‘a mong vs woneþ ȝetʼ [live among us still; emphasis mine],26 while presenting the leaders of the Second Barons’ War as thoroughly English heroes, defending the good ancient laws established by Edward the Confessor.27 The easy way of handling such complicating moments was simply to smooth or ‘gloss over’ potential tensions in the inevitably conflicting material to provide a maximally inclusive narrative. This is the approach adopted by the compact historical compendia, represented by both the Anglo-Norman and the English prose Brut as well as the Short Metrical Chronicle (with something of an exception in its Auchinleck MS version). Mannyng’s stance on the matter was, in a sense, articulated in his choice of the material he opted to reproduce, since it is already his source author, Langtoft, who maps – and simultaneously constructs – the emergence of an ‘English’ people in the period after the Norman Conquest, using strategies that will figure largely in the subsequent analysis.28 As Mannyng presents himself primarily as a translator of existing texts, his interventions are by definition relatively minor and subtle; hence, when he makes any, it is usually at especially charged moments of the historical narrative. Castleford’s Chronicle shows a similar balance in the way it introduces small but significant changes in the received story. Nevertheless, both these texts show a determination to confront and interpret points of rupture in what they present as the history of their country, which aligns them with the more radical approach of both Dalimil and Robert of Gloucester, who appear as the most innovative in their ordering and representation of 25

26 27

28

Castleford’s Chronicle initially asserts that the Saxons had won the land ‘forevyr to have’, only to insist later that William the Conqueror ‘fra Englisse blode Englande he refte’ and bound the English in servitude, ‘þai and þar blode euer in seruage’; Castleford’s Chronicle, ed. Eckhardt, Bk I., ch. i., line 244, Bk. X., ch. iii., lines 31925, 31938. In a sense, the remainder of its narrative tackles the problem of justifying the former statement in the face of the latter. Robert of Gloucester, ed. Wright, lines 51–5. All translations are mine. Robert of Gloucester, ed. Wright, lines 11015–18. The prose Brut uses the same configuration in rendering the conflict between John and his nobles: ‘þere bigan a grete debate bituen Kyng Iohnm; & þe lordes of Engeland, for encheson þat he wolde nouȝ[t] graunt þe lawes, & halde, þe which Seint Edward hade ordeyned’; Friedrich W. D. Brie (ed.), The Brut, or The Chronicles of England, EETS os 131 (1880), ch. cliii, p. 166, lines 21–4. Robert Mannyng applies the label of ‘þe Inglis dedes’ for the period from the last Briton king to his present (Robert Mannyng, ed. Sullens, lines 27–69). This is noted in Turville-Petre, England the Nation, p. 35. It is no coincidence that the editor of Langtoft’s chronicle, Thomas Wright, called it ‘thoroughly Anglicised’; Thomas Wright (ed.) The Chronicle of Pierre de Langtoft (Cambridge, 2012), p. ix. Mannyng’s case also shows that – from one point of view – it is problematic to draw a sharp dividing line between 14th century historiographical writing in English and Anglo-Norman.

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past events, combining various traditions and filtering them through a strong – one could say personal – ideological prism.

What history? Defining the perspective It is remarkable that, although they faced such vastly different challenges in their ‘writing of history’, the English and Czech authors use a number of shared tropes and strategies, the distinction lying more in differently placed emphasis. Looking at what the writers themselves announce to be their purpose and topic in their respective prologues, we can even find direct verbal parallels. So Dalimil speaks about the deeds of the country (země), subsequently specified as ‘all the Czech deeds’,29 just as Robert Mannyng identifies his matter as ‘alle þe story of Inglande’, which, nevertheless, only partly overlaps with ‘þe Inglis dedes’.30 The emphasis is predominantly on the narrative of origins: ‘They would learn of their descent/ and would know whence they came’.31 Mannyng states: it is wisdom for to wytten þe state of þe land, & haf it wryten, what manere of folk first it wan, & of what kynde it first began.32

And the Short Metrical Chronicle announces most succinctly: ‘…Ich wolle ȝou telle anon/ Hou Engelon furst gon.’33 The distinction in emphasis appears in closer analysis. The statement in the Chronicle of the So-called Dalimil is more complex than it appears to be: throughout the text, země denotes not only ‘country’ but in many contexts also the ‘commune’, the country’s political representation constituted by the members of the nobility.34 Considering the preoccupation of the introductory passage with the contrasting concepts of honour/gentility and baseness/ignoble birth, it is likely that it explores the polysemy of the word to conceive of 29 30 31

32 33 34

Staročeská kronika, ed. Daňhelka et al., Prologue, line 12. Robert Mannyng, ed. Sullens, lines 3, 55, 64. This passage is added in the second recension, preserved in the so-called Cerroni’s MS, dated to 1447 (Státní oblastní archiv [State Regional Archive], Brno, G 12, Cerr.II.108), to specify ‘odkud ʃu czechowe wyʃʃli/ kakoli ʃu v zemi prziʃʃli/ Czoli ʃu zleho trpieli/ kakoli ʃu ʃie biti ʃmieli’ [whence the Czechs came, how they entered the country, what evils they suffered and how they fought]; Staročeská kronika, ed. Daňhelka et al., Prologue, lines 7–8. Robert Mannyng, ed. Sullens, lines 11–14. Short English Metrical Chronicle, ed. Zettl, lines 3–4. Zettl notes that in the Auchinleck MS version, this reads, ‘Here may men rede whoso can/ Hou Jnglond first bigan’. Zdeněk Uhlíř, ‘Pojem zemské obce v tzv. Kronice Dalimilově jako základní prvek její ideologieʼ [‘On the Concept of the Community of the Realm in the Chronicle of the So-called Dalimil as a Cornerstone of Its Ideologyʼ], Folia Historica Bohemica 9 (1985), 9ff.



Czech and English Vernacular Histories in the Fourteenth Century  93

‘Czech identity’ in terms that merge the territorial principle with the ethnic and political one; it is the latter two that will be emphasised throughout the narrative, while the first one is more or less exhausted by the initial set-piece description of the virginal land of plenty settled by the eponymous ancestor of the Czechs.35 The ethnic principle is further foregrounded by tracing the origins of the Czechs to a single founding father, his extended family and household in the origo gentis tradition.36 In comparison, even Brutus’ Trojan folk is composite, as the initial expedition absorbs new members (admittedly all Trojan) at successive stations of the journey;37 likewise Hengist and Horsa are merely the leaders of the Saxons, not the forefathers of the English. The closest the English chronicles get to the idea of an ethnic group as defined by a principle of familial relationship is in the prose Brut, which claims that the Saxons called themselves ‘Englisshemen’ to commemorate that they come from ‘Engistes Kynrede’.38 Paradoxically, however, the importance of this ‘origin storyʼ is immediately minimised as, in contrast to the other English accounts, the moment of renaming does not signal the beginning of a wholesale displacement of the former masters of the land: the Britons are left to fade almost imperceptibly into the background rather than explicitly vacating their place.39 Instead of the ethnic key the writers of the English metrical chronicles tend to employ a territorial one, writing what could perhaps best be termed ‘our island story’. This approach is especially prominent with Robert of Gloucester, who opens his chronicle with a lengthy eulogy of England followed by a traditional chorographical description,40 which outlines the events and processes which made it the place that it is in his present, including administrative divisions, dioceses, important cities, communications, etc. Turville-Petre is undoubtedly correct in identifying the narrator’s present as the vantage point of the whole chronicle;41 however, by insisting that all the events – the conquest 35 36 37 38

39

40 41

Staročeská kronika, ed. Daňhelka et al., ch. 2, lines 29–34. Ibid., ch. 2, lines 3–12. It is worth noting that Kosmas, the main source for the account of the earliest history, explicitly refuses to tell anything specific about the first settler. All the accounts, except for the extremely condensed account of the Short Metrical Chronicle, agree in listing that fact. The Brut, ed. Brie, ch. xcvi, p. 95, lines 7–13. The captions for the individual chapters were adopted in the Castleford’s Chronicle MS (dated to the fifteenth century; see Castleford’s Chronicle, ed. Eckhardt, p. xii), but the actual content does not correspond to them. The Brut, ed. Brie, chs c-ci, pp. 100–2. It has been suggested that the omission of the episode of the divinely sanctioned ‘withdrawal of the Britons’, present in the prose Brut sources, Geoffrey of Monmouth and Wace, was politically motivated; C. W. Marx, ‘Middle English Manuscripts of the Brut in the National Library of Walesʼ, The National Library of Wales Journal 27 (1991–92), 377–80. For a more comprehensive discussion of the use of chorographical material in English historiography see Ruddick, English Identity, p. 53. Turville-Petre, England the Nation, p. 15.

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by the Romans, the incursions by the Scots and the Picts, the coming of the English and the Saxons, the Danish and Norman invasions – were happening in England,42 the narrator also makes the country a timeless entity which interconnects all its inhabitants, providing a source of identity that can be used to supress and override ethnic distinctions. It is, significantly, ‘þe noble folk, þat is of þis londe,/ Wan heo þe emperour of Rome, þat no lond ne myȝte of stonde,/ in bataille […]ʼ (emphasis mine).43 The same teleological perspective characterises also the Short Metrical Chronicle, which drastically cuts both the list of the legendary British kings and the account of their exploits to present a survey of town-founders, as if the contribution to the present shape of the English landscape was the most – even the only – important aspect of history; here, too, ‘England’ is the name used throughout irrespective of who possessed or ruled the country at any given moment. Not that this means that the chronicles do not appeal to the ethnic principle at all. At specific points of his narrative Robert of Gloucester strategically establishes kunde (‘kindredʼ, ‘native lineageʼ) as the central concept to comment on the rule of the ‘foreign kings’: the ‘kunde men’ are disinherited and England itself is ‘out of kunde’ (that is, deprived of the rightful dynasty, but also, through the polysemy of the word, ‘in an unnatural state’).44 Unlike in the Czech narrative, however, ethnicity cannot and does not serve as the exclusive source of ‘Englishness’. The bias towards the ethnic and territorial senses of identity, respectively, reflects the nature of the problems the narrators of the Czech and English chronicles had to tackle in organizing their material.

Language A comparable configuration may be seen in the thematisation of the issue of language. Mannyng explains his choice of the vernacular by addressing his chronicle to the lewed who know no Latin or French; ostensibly, at least, he makes it a matter of the level of education available to his audience, not its ethnicity. Later on, he identifies his target audience as þe comonalte, a term which, as Turville-Petre notes, has not just a social (‘the common people’)

42

43 44

See ‘Engolond haþ I be y nome and I worred y lome./ First þoru grete lordes þe emperoures of Rome,/ þat foȝte and wonne Engelond, and þat lond nome.ʼ [England has been taken and conquered often. First by the great lords, the emperors of Rome, who fought and won England, and took that country.]; Robert of Gloucester, ed. Wright, lines 43–4. This terminology is preserved throughout the narrative proper, so that Julius Caesar spots and proceeds to invade England (lines 1041–2), Cassibel refers to himself as ‘king of Breteyne’ (line 1070), and ‘Britain’ is the name of the country reported to Caesar (line 1044). While the term ‘England’ is thus, as it were, universally valid, ‘Britain’ is temporally limited and implicitly connected rather to the Britons’ ‘state’. [The noble folk that are of this land twice defeated the Roman emperor, whom no country could withstand, in battle.]; Robert of Gloucester, ed. Wright, lines 1299–1300. Robert of Gloucester, ed. Wright, lines 7581, 6464 and passim.



Czech and English Vernacular Histories in the Fourteenth Century  95

but also a political dimension (‘polity’).45 In this way he makes the use of English a potentially inclusive feature of identity. The narrator of the Chronicle of the So-called Dalimil comments on his choice of linguistic medium only obliquely, when he explains that his text purposes to provide instruction to all and that he has undertaken the task of writing his history because of his love for the Czech language.46 However, this statement also exploits the polysemy of the term jazyk (‘tongue’) through punning on its double meaning of ‘language’ and ‘nation’, an aspect insistently foregrounded throughout his narrative. This shows the central importance of language for his construction of identity, clearly visible, for example, in the passage in which Prince Oldřich defends his marriage with the peasant Božena, refusing the idea of a more ‘socially appropriate’ match with a German ‘queen’: Vřet´ každému srdce po jazyku svému, a pro to Němkyně méně bude přieti lidu mému. Němkyni německú čeled bude jmieti a německy učiti mé děti. Pro to bude jazyka rozdělenie a inhed zemi jisté zkaženie. [Everybody’s heart cleaves to their own language/nation, and so will the German woman be the less generous to my people. A German woman will have a German household and will teach German to my children. Thus the language/nation will be divided and soon the country/polity surely ruined.]47

The linguistic and the ethnic identity are therefore equated in an exclusive perspective.

Us and them: forging a community As the quotation above shows, the Chronicle of the So-called Dalimil establishes a strong confrontational tone, an ‘us and them’ vision in the recounting of past events which distinguishes it from its Latin sources (primarily Kosmas), where such a sentiment appears in isolated incidents, not as a consistent principle. Indeed, the motif is already introduced in the prologue in the survey of sources. His text, as the narrator (falsely) claims, is a faithful reproduction of one specific chronicle, which he found especially reliable in its account of the ‘conflicts of the homeland’;48 and while such a formulation covers both inter45 46 47 48

Robert Mannyng, ed. Sullens, lines 5–8, 123; Turville-Petre, England the Nation, pp. 34–7. Staročeská kronika, ed. Daňhelka et al., Prologue, lines 47, 60–62. Staročeská kronika, ed. Daňhelka et al., ch. 42, lines 23–8, emphasis mine. ‘Nalez kroniku u knězě starého u Boleslavi,/ ta všecky jiné oslavi,/ ta mi jístě vlastiny boje vypravi, […] jakž tam jest postaveno,/ takežť jest i mnú tuto ustaveno’ [I found a chronicle with an old priest in Boleslav,/ which excels all the others;/ it relates reliably

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nal and external struggles (alike a part of the narrative), the subsequent bid for the effort of more competent writers to render the chronicle more impressive by improving the verse form ‘for the confusion of our enemies’49 settles the attention squarely on the confrontation of ‘us’ with others. Within the narrative proper the motif first appears in the highly charged context of Libušeʼs prophecy, which serves the narrator to outline the basic imperatives of wise governance and political conduct: the necessity to respect and maintain the polity, to subordinate oneʼs interest to the common good, to beware foreigners, especially in positions of power, as they will prefer people of their own ‘tongue’ to the natives.50 This prophecy is also invoked in the final chapter of the chronicle, providing in this way a thematic framing for the entire narrative. Subsequently, the picture focuses: while the Czechs are confronted with various enemies, especially the Poles and later Hungarians, the role of the privileged ‘other’ is given to the Germans. They are presented as constantly encroaching on the Czech position, whether by attempts by various German emperors to assert an undue degree of control over Czech affairs – a tendency that must be countered by proving Czech superiority in battle alongside or against the emperor – or by their very presence in the princeʼs council. In the latter case, few specific reasons are ever given why this should be such an existential threat. Instead, the narrative provides stories of individuals who treacherously murdered their lords and who are endowed, independently of the sources, with a German descent. Such a one is Durynk (a Serbian in Kosmas), who beheads the infant son of his former lord to find favour with a new one (ch. 23), Lork, who repays the confidence of Prince Břetislav with a shot from a distance (ch. 55), and finally the anonymous murderer of the last king of the Przemyslid dynasty, in whom the series culminates (ch. 93). These individual examples of perfidy are complemented by general comments on the Germansʼ propensity for duplicity (for example, ch. 63, 68, 98).51 German influence is presented as ultimately corrupting and harmful even in cases of apparently positive or well-meaning incidents and individuals. The emperor’s support of the election by the Czech nobility of Vladislav, recounted in ch. 60, amounts to a recognition of the ‘constitution’ of the country and of the decisive role of its ‘commune’ (baruns, if we were to use the terminology of the English chronicles) – the more so that the election was made in express opposition to the emperorʼs decision (ch. 58); yet the punishment that he imposes on the rebellious nobles supporting the rival claimant to the throne in effect weakens the position of the legitimate ruler and the whole country. Hoger

49 50 51

all the conflicts of my homeland,/ […] as it is stated there, I set down here]; Staročeská kronika, ed. Daňhelka et al., Prologue, lines 27–9, 43–4. Staročeská kronika, ed. Daňhelka et al., Prologue, lines 50–5. Staročeská kronika, ed. Daňhelka et al., ch. 4, lines 5–30. Ruddick finds this a standard characterisation trope for the ‘enemyʼ, the other, in the English material. Ruddick, English Identity, pp. 148–9. For individual instances see below.



Czech and English Vernacular Histories in the Fourteenth Century  97

of Friedberg, who supports King Wenceslas I in a conflict with the emperor, receives in reward holdings in the country and is instrumental in introducing jousts and tournaments among the Czech nobles, which drains their economic resources and impairs their original prowess (ch. 79). In short, the position of the Germans in Dalimil is a model example of the principle of a community identifying itself through the ‘other’. As suggested above, the English case is more complicated because it is much more difficult to maintain the concept of one community throughout the history. Alongside constructing the oppositional vision, therefore, the writers also downplay or rewrite the inevitable ruptures caused by the established history of successive invasions to provide the ‘us’ with at least a minimal sense of continuity. In fact, the two strategies are complementary: maintaining a more or less stable set of ‘others’ for the various successive peoples of ‘England’ reinforces the impression of their affinity if nothing else. As Turville-Petre shows, in the ‘Inglis gest’ the English-speaking English, descendants of the Anglo-Saxons, are pitted against Normans and later the French;52 the two may be seen as linked, to an extent, through language, as foreign French is juxtaposed with indigenous English. So Robert of Gloucester remarks: Þus come, lo! Engelond into Normannes honde. And þe Normans ne couþe speke þo bote hor owe speche, And speke French as hii dude atom, & hor chyldren dude al so teche. So þat heiemen of þys lond, þat of hor blod come, Holdeþ alle þulke speche, þat hii of hom nome […] Ac lowe men holdeþ to Engliss, & to hor kunde speche ȝute. [Thus it was that England came into Norman hands, and the Normans did not then speak any other language but their own, and spoke French, as they did at home, and taught it also to their children. So that the nobility of this land, that comes of their blood, keeps that same language, which they got from them […] but the common people stick to English and their native language till now.]53

Castleford’s Chronicle makes the introduction of French as the language of law part of its picture of the subjugation of the Englissemen by William’s ‘aliens’.54 This is the ‘enemy within’ that, nevertheless, becomes incorporated with ‘us’ when confronted with an external French ‘other’: in the prose Brut, the English unite with the Normans under William I in a war against the French king, who has offended William,55 and the conflicts between England and France form a prominent theme in the subsequent narrative. As Robert 52 53 54 55

Turville-Petre, England the Nation, pp. 95–7. Robert of Gloucester, ed. Wright, lines 7537–43. Castleford’s Chronicle, ed. Eckhardt, Bk. X., ch. iii., lines 31923–50. The Brut, ed. Brie, ch. cxxxiii.

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maintains, when Henry III surrounds himself with Poitevin advisers, so that there ‘was so muche Frenss folc ibrouzt,/ That of Englisse men me tolde as rizt nouzt,’ [so many French were brought in that the Englishmen were counted as nothing], he met with opposition from his nobles:56 […] barons bispeke it vaste, that the kunde Englisse men of londe hii woulde out caste, & thut lond bringe adoun, zuf hor poer ilaste. [The barons objected strongly that they would cast out the native English from the country and destroy the land, if their power should last.]57

It is this situation that makes Derek Pearsall deny the possible existence of ‘nationalʼ identity in this period, as he observes that the leader of the baronial opposition was himself French and that ethnicity was a non-issue in the conflict.58 This is undoubtedly true for the reality but not for its representation in the chronicle, where a sense of community is forged through conflict with the French foreigners, which the prose Brut (in agreement with Castleford’s Chronicle) symptomatically refers to simply as ‘aliens’. The French as the favourite opponents within the island history also serve to connect the English with the Britons. The account of the individual conflicts is of course already a feature of the Latin or Anglo-Norman sources,59 but the English chronicles tend to expand on that. They often render the French more inferior60 (similarly to the representation of battles between the Czechs and the Germans in Dalimil) or comment on their moral standing and character in a manner precisely analogical to Dalimil’s presentation of the Germans. Robert Mannyng goes out of his way to label the French as ‘fickle’ while reporting Caesarʼs actions after his defeat by the British forces and subsequent flight over the Channel; his coaxing of the local lords through promises and gifts is not just a manifestation of his own cunning but also of his thorough knowledge of the French.61 In itself such a remark would be entirely marginal were it not for the fact that the treachery of the French and their king becomes a stable and consistently highlighted motif in Mannyngʼs account of the rule of Edward I. The same strategy is applied to the Scots once they appear on the scene. Robert of Gloucester transforms Geoffrey of Monmouthʼs reference to the enemies of the Britons using the depopulated Scotland as a beachhead for their attacks into a perennial feature: ‘For Scotlond haþ euer y be a luþer recet 56 57 58 59 60 61

Robert of Gloucester, ed. Wright, lines 10992–3. Ibid., lines 11001–3, emphasis mine. Pearsall, ‘Chaucer and Englishnessʼ, 89. While Geoffrey uses the term ‘Gaul’ in his Latin, Wace already identifies the enemy as French. See the description of the battle between Brutusʼ Trojans and the French in Robert of Gloucester, ed. Wright, lines 420–71. Robert Mannyng, ed. Sullens, line 4533.



Czech and English Vernacular Histories in the Fourteenth Century  99

y lome/ Wan þer any werrours toward þis lond come.’ [For Scotland has ever and frequently been a wicked shelter when any warriors came to this country.]62 The Scots are also listed as one of the peoples who ‘euer habbeþ þis lond y hated, bote it were for eye’ [have ever hated this land, if they were not intimidated], again a motif absent from the source which here speaks in entirely neutral terms of the renewed attacks by Guanius and Melga.63 And, like the French, the Scots can also serve to unite the so far distinct and opposed English and Normans. Robert Mannyng, following closely Peter Langtoft, animates his account of the confrontation between the forces loyal to King Stephen and the Scottish army supporting Empress Matilda with a rallying speech by Bishop Ralph of Orkney which curiously combines a reminiscence of the Norman victories (including the conquest of England) with an appeal to a common sense of identity: ‘for soth ȝe kenne/ þat Inglis & Normant be now ons men’ [for truly you know/ that the English and the Normans are now one people].64 Such confrontational positioning can nevertheless produce a substantial degree of tension if the two versions (with the French and the Scots as the enemy, respectively) suddenly collide. This happens in Robert of Gloucesterʼs account of the attack mounted by the Scottish king Malcolm Canmore and Edgar Atheling against the north of England in 1072. In the previously established English versus French perspective the sympathies of the narrator should rest with the side supporting (or supported by) the man who has been repeatedly labelled as the ‘kunde eyr’ [rightful heir]; yet it is the otherwise insistently vilified and thoroughly ‘unkunde’ William Rufus who suddenly becomes ‘oure kyng’.65 This last designation demonstrates a favourite shared strategy in suppressing the ethnic perspective of the successive protagonists of ‘English’ history: the combination of an oppositional vision with the use of deixis. Whoever is currently in the spotlight, and resisting the respective ‘other’, may be appropriated by a possessive pronoun. William fighting the Scots, Vortigern confronted with the Picts, Guiderius challenging the Romans, all these are ‘our kings of this land’. Sometimes such appropriation is employed on its own: ‘we werreyed among us’, remarks Mannyng about the Britons, in this way identifying the present inhabitants of Britain with their predecessors despite their different ethnicity.66 62

63 64 65 66

Robert of Gloucester, ed. Wright, lines 2175–6, emphasis mine; see Neil Wright (ed.) The Historia Regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth (Cambridge, 1985), Bk. VI, ch. 1. The motif reappears with the narrative of Hengistʼs flight to Scotland in lines 2901–5, again a time-specific piece of information in Geoffrey. Robert of Gloucester, ed. Wright, line 2254; Historia, ed. Wright, Bk VI, ch. 3. Robert Mannyng, ed. Sullens, lines 3796–7. Robert of Gloucester, ed. Wright, lines 7985, 7988. Robert Mannyng, ed. Sullens, line 5796; see Pierre de Langtoft, ed. Wright, line 4760: ‘Englays et Normaunz desore sunt une gentʼ.

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In contrast to the initial ethnic perspective applied by Geoffrey of Monmouth (Britons versus Saxons), the vernacular chronicles, even though they thematise the English descent from Hengistʼs Saxons,67 subsequently prefer to foreground religion as the main distinction between the two peoples. With the conversion of the Saxons and the indictment of the sins of the Britons the way is open to make, by divine dispensation, the now-civilised English spiritual heirs to the former glory of the dispossessed Britons, who conveniently vacate the land68 – a pattern already established by Bede but made more streamlined in our texts.69 At the same time it becomes a mechanism that later explains the Anglo-Saxons’ loss of the land to the Normans: As ych understonde, þat yt was þoru Gode’s wylle ydo. Vor þe wule þe men of ys lond pur heþene were, Non lond, ne non folc aȝen hem in armys nere. Ac nou suþþe þat þet folc auong Cristendom, And wel lute wule hii hulde þe biheste, þat he nome […] As þe gostes in a uysyon to Seynt Edward seyde Wu þer ssolde in Engelond come such wrecchede Vor robberye of hey men, vor clerken hordom, Hou god wolde sorwe sende in þys kynedom. [As I understand, it was through the will of God; for while the men of this land were just pagans, no country or people could equal them in fight. But since the people had accepted Christianity, but would keep the principles they had embraced but for a while […] so the spirits told Saint Edward in his vision why such misery should come to England, how for the thievery of the nobles and the lechery of the clergy God would send sorrow in this kingdom].70

67

68 69

70

See Robert Mannyng, ed. Sullens, lines 35–40: ‘After þe Bretons þe Inglis camen,/ þe lordschip of þis lande þai namen,/ […] when þai first [came] amang þe Bretons,/ þat now ere Inglis, þan were Saxonsʼ; see also The Brut, ed. Brie, ch. xcvi., p. 95, lines 7–13; Castleford’s Chronicle, ed. Eckhardt, Bk. VIII., ch. v., lines 24449–52. Robert of Gloucester, lines 4655–5119, after Geoffrey of Monmouth, with the account of the missions augmented from Henry of Huntingdon. In a centrally important departure from their ultimate sources, Geoffrey of Monmouth and Wace, most English chroniclers strategically employ the famous ‘non Angli sed angeli’ Bedean anecdote to provide providential approval for the English supremacy. Castleford’s Chronicle is perhaps the most radical in this respect, as it claims that the Saxons called their new country ‘Aenglande –/ Lande of Anglis, to understande –/ For it es fair and delitable’ [England,/ that is, to wit, the land of angels/ because it is fair and pleasantʼ]; Castleford’s Chronicle, ed. Eckhardt, Bk. VIII., ch. v., lines 24451–3; and that they were called Angles, even while pagans, for their fair form (Bk. VIII., ch. v., lines 24455–62). There is a manifest destiny for the Saxons/Angles in the making, in keeping with the religious bias of this chronicler in general. Robert of Gloucester, ed. Wright, lines 7503–13. See also lines 5138–9 for a parallel between the Britons and the English dispossessed by the Norman Conquest. A comparable statement is made in Robert Mannyng, ed. Sullens, lines 1598–621. For similar –

Czech and English Vernacular Histories in the Fourteenth Century  101 Mannyng envisages a similarly imaginary merger in tracing the name of England to a British hero who so impressed the recently settled Saxons that they elected him their king; in this way the English become, as it were, ‘British by adoption’.71 Finally, there remained the rather extreme option of cheerfully ignoring all existing historical tradition and claiming, with the Auchinleck MS version of the Short Metrical Chronicle, that Hengist was a somewhat mysterious but incredibly successful British king (to judge by his successor King Leir) who conquered all the neighbouring countries, civilised Scotland and Wales and established laws and even measures; conversely, that the person who gave her name to England, the Spanish ‘maiden Inge’ rejected by Mannyng,72 spoke Anglo-Norman (quoted in the text).73

Past and present: issues of polity The basic ethnic divisions drawn by the respective authors – Czech versus German for Dalimil and English versus Norman-French for the English chronicles – have also an integral social dimension that produces another kind of opposition, that between the commons and the nobility. This redrawing of the ‘us’ and ‘them’ scheme creates one of the major differences between the English and the Czech chronicles in that the former take the standpoint of the English-speaking commons (Robert of Gloucester’s lowe men) against the heye men of Norman descent; while Dalimil, increasingly so as the narrator progresses towards his present, equates Germans with the bourgeoisie established in the thirteenth century colonisation and, by extension, at times with the non-aristocratic classes in general.74 Yet this viewpoint is complicated by another shared feature of these texts – their concern with the present state of affairs. While the English chronicles may be said to explain the present through the past events that led up to it,75 Dalimil generally projects its present into the past in a series of anachronisms (deliberations in parliament, the principle of primogeniture or the relationship between the kingdom of Bohemia and the Holy Roman Empire, to name but

71 72 73 74

75

admonitory – use of the pattern in Anglo-Saxon England see Nicholas Howe, Migration and Mythmaking in Anglo-Saxon England (New Haven, 1989), pp. 8–32. Robert Mannyng, ed. Sullens, lines 14813–14; Turville-Petre, England the Nation, pp. 86–7. Robert Mannyng, ed. Sullens, lines 14835–8. Short Metrical Chronicle, ed. Zettl, lines 645–874, 1263–344. He refers specifically to the German burghers of Kutná Hora, confronting with force the representatives of the nobility (ch. 95), and to the imprisonment of some nobles by the burghers of Prague (ch. 98). The behaviour of the Prague burghers occasions a long comment on the conduct and morality of the common people (chlapi); Staročeská kronika, ed. Daňhelka et al., ch. 98, lines 47–54. See the prologue to Robert of Gloucester’s Chronicle discussed above, pp. 93–4.

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the most significant),76 using past situations as templates for the resolution of current ones. Indeed, historical causality seems to play little role in its account. This is due to the fact that the narrator moulds the individual events into recognizable patterns to produce a series of types and antitypes which reinforce the exemplary value of his text. One characteristic example of such shaping is the report of the 1179 battle of Loděnice between Soběslav II and a rival Przemyslid pretendent to the throne, supported by a German contingent (ch. 68). Reinventing this incident as a magnified echo of an earlier confrontation between Soběslav I and Holy Roman King Lothar III, where the latter was taken prisoner (ch. 65),77 the author introduces a completely fictitious Holy Roman emperor as the leader of a punitive expedition with the aim of ‘destroying all Czechs’ who is killed in the wholesale routing of the entire German army. The name with which he endows this person is ‘second Lothar’, which Marie Bláhová interprets as an indication of his ignorance of, or lack of concern for, the succession of the rulers of the Holy Roman Empire.78 With regard to the fact that the manuscript reads the names of both ‘emperors’ as Lotr, it is more than likely, however, that the phrase, instead of giving a proper title, should be understood to mean ‘a second Lothar’, drawing an explicit parallel between the two events. In addition, the form Lotr is the same as the common noun lotr, meaning ‘knave, rascalʼ (a word which also appears in the text). Considering the way in which the author consciously exploits the polysemy of his key terms such as země and jazyk, we are justified to perceive his usage as a rather vicious pun. In this way, an episode in the prolonged and convoluted struggle among individual members of the Przemyslid dynasty for the throne of Bohemia is transformed into a model situation in the narrator’s vision of the Czech past: a fight for survival with a formidable enemy that has to be constantly renewed and vigorously pursued. In such a scheme it does not matter whether the events represented are documented or legendary; what matters most is their exemplary value for the present. How does the approach to the past informed by current issues then complicate the social dimension of the ‘us’ and ‘them’ scheme in the English and 76

77

78

Marie Bláhová, Staročeská kronika tak řečeného Dalimila v kontextu středověké historiografie latinského kulturního okruhu a její pramenná hodnota, III: Historický komentář [‘The Old Czech Chronicle of the So-called Dalimil in the Context of Latinate Medieval Historiography and Its Relevance as a Source, III: Historical Commentaryʼ] (Praha, 1995), pp. 275–80. In both cases the confrontation is preceded by the prince’s rough treatment of Germans which the ‘emperor’ wishes to avenge by destroying all Czechs; there are distinct verbal echoes in the two passages: see ‘Ciesař Lotr, chtě tehdy Němcóv pomstiti,/ počě do Čech mocně jíti/ řka: “Chci sě tiem oplatiti/ i chci všechny Čechy zbíti”’ with ‘Ciesař, chtě Němcóv mstíti/ počě do Čech s velikú silú jíti’ [Emperor Lothar, wishing then to avenge the Germans, invaded Bohemia with a great force, saying, ‘I wish to requite them and kill all the Czechs’] (Staročeská kronika, ed. Daňhelka et al., ch. 65, lines 5–8; ch. 68, lines 53–54). Bláhová, Staročeská kronika, p. 368.

Czech and English Vernacular Histories in the Fourteenth Century  103 Czech chronicles, respectively? In Turville-Petre’s reading, the chronicle of Robert of Gloucester foregrounds the theme of the gradual restoration of the liberties lost with the Conquest.79 When the Norman aristocracy opposes the attempts by the monarch to circumscribe those liberties, it becomes incorporated with the ‘us’ and the predominant social opposition of commons versus nobility is suppressed. For Dalimil, one of the major current concerns is the mutual relationship and the participation in the affairs of the state of the monarch and the aristocracy seen as representing the country and its indigenous population (especially in the event of the failure of the Przemyslid line). For this purpose it becomes convenient to erase the boundaries of class and to think instead in terms of a ‘continuum’ of an ethnic community comprising both the aristocracy and the low-born people – hence the repeated thematisation of the humble origins of the Przemyslid dynasty. Although the Chronicle of the So-called Dalimil directly courts the favour of aristocratic readers by listing the legendary military exploits of their forefathers, it nevertheless sharply denounces the aspects through which the aristocracy defined itself as a class in cultural terms. Elements of chivalric lifestyle are condemned as foreign – German – influences which incapacitate the original manly valour of Czech aristocracy, rendering it weak and effeminate (ch. 81, 84). In this respect the concept of a socially inclusive ethnic community (again defined through contrast with the customary ‘other’) overrules the otherwise plain and outspoken aristocratic bias. Conveniently, the terms země and zeměné, referring to the country’s political representation constituted by the members of the nobility, are sufficiently vague to be expanded to include the ‘commons’ once the political situation changes, which explains the appeal of the chronicle for Hussite readership.80 It could be argued that Dalimil’s embattled vision of the Czech past represents an appeal for unity to the political representation of the country, an aim that he appears to share with the English chroniclers. At the same time, it might be seen to offer a suitably heroic grand narrative which compensates for the lack of aggrandizing connections with the universally recognised heroes and cultures of Classical Antiquity. In that respect, his approach would be a response to the implication made in the prologue, namely, that the author had 79 80

Turville-Petre, England the Nation, pp. 98–100. One of the manuscripts was made for an affluent Hussite burgher of Kutná Hora, established in the town after the expulsion of German burghers, and two others can likewise be placed in a Hussite context. Moreover, Šťastný documents the widespread presence of ideas advocated in Dalimil in the polemical writings of the Hussite period (Šťastný, ‘Husitský rukopis Dalimilovy kronikyʼ, 480–4). See also Radko Šťastný, ‘Rukopis Dalimilovy kroniky z poděbradské doby. Autor, dobové a literární souvislosti, ideové zaměřeníʼ [‘A Manuscript of the Chronicle of the So-called Dalimil from the Poděbrady Period: Its Author and the Historical, Literary and Ideological Contextʼ], Česká literatura 28 (1980), 537–51; Radko Šťastný, ‘Dalimilovy ideje v husitstvíʼ [‘Dalimilʼs Ideas in Hussitismʼ], Česká literatura 37 (1989), 385–97.

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undertaken the writing of the chronicle ‘for the honour of his country and the confounding of its enemiesʼ, to establish in the audience an awareness of the magnificent past of their country. Yet, the chronicle’s cyclical presentation of history, reiterating a limited number of typical situations, ultimately induces frustration rather than pride. Foreign interventions are repeatedly invited by the nobility plotting against the reigning monarch, while the rulers, in their turn, show contempt for the privileges of the indigenous aristocracy by seeking foreign counsellors or aspiring, at least verbally, to absolutist rule. Even promising ruler-figures, initially hailed with praise, more often than not ultimately merit an ignominious end (Přemysl Otakar I, II). In short, the use of the past as an exemplary narrative proves deeply ambiguous in its import. In conclusion, the fourteenth-century texts in the English/Czech vernacular, although they operate within different historiographical traditions that present their peculiar challenges for the writing of a ‘national’ history, nevertheless adopt similar strategies in their representation of the past. They project a strong vision of the ‘national’ community through opposition to some historical ‘other’ (Normans, Germans) at the same time as they subject it to various strategic adjustments to accommodate their political stance, which results in a deeply tensioned account. Another disruptive force is the (acknowledged or implicit) writing of the history from the vantage point of, and for the benefit of, the present, whether this takes the form of a teleological fashioning of the account or the highlighting of the exemplary character of specific events. Ultimately, the strategies designed to shape a coherent narrative of national past reveal the limitations of that project.

5 Beyond Nations: Translating Troy in the Middle Ages VENETIA BRIDGES

The following essay considers three important Troy works: Benoît de Sainte-Maure’s Roman de Troie (c. 1165), Guido de Columnis’ Historia destructionis Troie (1287), and John Lydgate’s Troy Book (1412–20). It concludes with some reflections on their relevance for future research on Troy material in Bohemia. A comparative approach attempts to refocus critical attention on the wider connections between the works, transcending local limitations. The essay goes on to consider how each of the texts performs its translatio upon the Troy narrative by focusing on their interaction with sources and other texts. It analyses three key moments in each of the works (the prologue, the story of Medea and Jason, and the description of Hector’s tomb and preserved body), which together highlight important literary concerns of the medieval period such as historiography, the depiction of love, and marvels. The essay ends by highlighting Czech Troy texts that may also draw on texts and traditions from throughout Europe and concludes that Troy literature does not circulate in sealed circles of local influence but across boundaries of language, culture and polity.

W

hat does the story of Troy tell us about literary cultures in the later Middle Ages? This is a large question which the present essay considers with reference to two apparently different linguistic, cultural and political contexts as exemplified, first, by Benoît de Sainte-Maure’s Roman de Troie (c. 1165) and Guido de Columnis’s Historia destructionis Troie (1287) and, second, by John Lydgate’s Troy Book (1412–20).1 The first context is the 1

The editions used are Guido de Columnis, Historia destructionis Troiae, ed. Nathaniel Edward Griffin (Cambridge MA, 1936); Benoît de Sainte-Maure, Le Roman de Troie par Benoît de Sainte-Maure, ed. Léopold Constans, 6 vols (Paris, 1904–12); and John Lydgate, Lydgate’s Troy Book, ad 1412–20, ed. Henry Bergen, 4 vols, EETS es 97,

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transnational Latin and French literary culture of the late thirteenth century that is found in a variety of intersecting forms across Europe (Troie and the Historia);2 the second is the more local English-language situation specific to England (Troy Book), which may be instructive for Bohemian Troy material despite the latter’s cultural and linguistic separation from English since Czech literature, like that of England, is written in a vernacular with a limited rather than a transnational dissemination. Although these two contexts – the ‘learned’, Latinate transnational literary culture and the more demotic, vernacular local or (proto)national one – appear to be so different, there are in fact important connections between them that result from a shared approach to translatio studii, the ‘transfer of learning’, across Troy literature. The recognition of mutual translatio helps to nuance what can appear to be binary distinctions between these contexts (Latin/vernacular, learned/popular, local/ transnational), distinctions that can prohibit accurate understanding of the complex interactions of literary cultures across Europe.

Troy in medieval Europe: transnational travels and local interactions The story of Troy is vital to the intellectual, cultural and political development of central and north-western Europe during the Middle Ages.3 In literary terms, Troy’s medieval narrative is one of linguistic and cultural expansiveness as the tale moves from the late antique and historically focused Latin narratives of Dares and Dictys into lengthy French romances in the twelfth century, back into Latin in the thirteenth century, and then into more ‘local’ vernaculars in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.4 The Roman de Troie (c. 1165) travelled away from its putative origins in the court of Henry II of England and Normandy and became the source for the influential Latin Historia, which in turn was the basis for canonical works in Italian (Boccaccio’s

2

3 4

103, 106, 126 (1906–35). For translations of Guido’s and Benoît’s texts, see Historia destructionis Troiae, trans. Mary Elizabeth Meek (Bloomington, 1974) and The Roman de Troie by Benoît de Sainte-Maure, trans. Glyn S. Burgess and Douglas Kelly (Cambridge, 2017). Far from being monolithic, this culture is characterised by its multifaceted variety, as this essay will demonstrate. The idea of transnational literary culture as a collective phenomenon is used here specifically in the context of its comparison with the more local situation in England. This observation is also true throughout eastern Europe, where Greek texts that did not circulate in the Latin West remained important. A useful overview is given by Marilynn Desmond, ‘Trojan Itineraries and the Matter of Troy’, in The Oxford History of Classical Reception in English Literature, i (800– 1558), ed. Rita Copeland (Oxford, 2016), pp. 251–68. See also The Trojan War: The Chronicles of Dictys of Crete and Dares the Phrygian, trans. R. M. Frazer, Jr (Bloomington, 1966), pp. 7–15; Nathaniel Edward Griffin, An Introduction to the Study of Medieval Versions of the Story of Troy (Baltimore, 1907).



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Il Filostrato) and English (Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde), to name only the best-known of these languages’ Troy texts.5 In political terms, too, the Troy narrative spread widely, as Sylvia Federico sums up succinctly: ‘Scores of European states and their rulers claimed Trojan precedent in efforts to achieve, consolidate, and maintain their power’.6 Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britannie (c. 1136) locates British history’s origins in Troy, and both Philip the Good of Burgundy and various Bohemian rulers in the fourteenth century make similar dynastic claims.7 Whether inspiring literary innovation or underpinning a dynasty’s political claims, or both simultaneously, this most transnational of tales became ubiquitous across western Europe. Despite Troy texts’ transnational travels, however, it is their involvement in the more local languages and contexts of north-western and central Europe during the Middle Ages that has been the focus of modern scholarship. Studies of English Troy material are often concerned with its engagement with the broad theme of imperialism in terms of the specifics of English politics of the later fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, performing literary–historicist analysis with a strong regional (or even local) focus. Texts including Lydgate’s Troy Book, the Laud Troy Book, and the Destruction of Troy (all dating from the first part of the fifteenth century) have all been considered from this perspective.8 Although French has a far wider linguistic remit in the Middle Ages than English, a similarly ‘local’ (if less historicist) approach is seen in scholarship considering the foundational French Troy texts of the twelfth century.9 Detailed literary studies of Latin texts are few and far between, 5

6 7

8

9

On the Roman de Troie’s influence in terms of its MSS dispersal, see Marc-René Jung, La Légende de Troie en France au moyen âge: analyse des versions françaises et bibliographie raisonée des manuscrits (Basel, 1996). Sylvia Federico, New Troy: Fantasies of Empire in the Late Middle Ages (Minneapolis, 2003), p. xii. See Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of the Kings of Britain, trans. Lewis Thorpe (London, 1966). Alfred Thomas, Reading Women in Late Medieval Europe: Anne of Bohemia and Chaucer’s Female Audience (Basingstoke, 2015), pp. 123–4, highlights the fact that Philip the Good of Burgundy (1396–1497) owned seventeen Troy manuscripts, and Bohemian rulers included the narrative in pictorial representations of their family tree. Such analysis is the dominant critical theme of the recent major studies of English material: see Francis Ingledew, ‘The Book of Troy and the Genealogical Construction of History: The Case of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britannie’, Speculum 69 (1994), 665–704; James Simpson’s response to Ingledew, ‘The Other Book of Troy: Guido delle Colonne’s Historia destructionis Troie in Fourteenth- and Fifteenth-Century England’, Speculum 73 (1998), 397–423; Federico, New Troy; Christopher Baswell, ‘Troy Book: How Lydgate Translates Chaucer into Latin’, in Translation Theory and Practice in the Middle Ages, ed. Jeanette Beer (Kalamazoo, 1997), pp. 215–37; Alex Mueller, Translating Troy: Provincial Politics in Alliterative Romance (Columbus, 2013). Scholarship on the Roman de Troie focuses on thematic and generic relationships rather than on historicist readings, but the local effect is much the same. The major studies are Aimé Petit, Naissances du roman: les techniques littéraires dans les romans antiques

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perhaps because Latin is the most transnational language of all.10 Local, synchronic and single-language analyses of course provide useful insights into the works’ immediate contexts, but the unintended consequence of this focus is that the wider, diachronic and multilingual networks in which these texts are implicated (and to which they may contribute) are overlooked. Scholarship that reconstructs this wider perspective, such as the comparative work on England and Bohemia undertaken in the present book, is vital in providing a more nuanced approach. However, comparative studies of, for example, English- and Czech-language texts, texts that do not circulate widely because of their languages’ limited medieval remit, can only gesture partially towards the wider multilingual situation.11 Integrating them with other Troy narratives and traditions, such as those exemplified by Troie and the Historia, is crucial in developing a more sophisticated understanding of medieval Troy translatio.

Troie, the Historia and the Troy Book: intertwined texts and competitive translatio Connecting these three texts – composed in different languages, at different dates and in a variety of places – necessitates defining more specific grounds within which such an integrated approach can be seen to operate across languages and time periods. An important link between them is the concept of translatio studii et imperii, the ways in which each text translates, adapts and reworks its narrative from its source(s). Encompassing both linguistic translation and the transmission of ideas and narratives, the practice of translatio is inevitable in Troy texts, as each retells its version influenced by a variety of cultural, literary (studii) and political (imperii) factors. The Prologue to Chrétien de Troyes’ Cligès (c. 1176) is often cited as the origin for translatio’s explicit conceptualisation, where it relates to knowledge and power moving from Greece and Rome to France.12 This formulation, linking physical, political and linguistic movement, is a useful shorthand summary of translatio studii as a transnational and multilingual practice. However, it also emphasises

10

11

12

du XIIe siècle, 2 vols (Paris, 1985), and Petit, L’Anachronisme dans les romans antiques (Villeneuve d’Ascq, 1985; repr. Paris, 2002). The Historia is a good example of this scholarly lacuna. Of the twenty items listed on the International Medieval Bibliography (as of June 2020), none is a literary study of the Historia itself; most are concerned with its manuscript traditions or its status as a source for vernacular translations. It is worth noting, however, that simply because a work is composed in a language without a wide geographical dispersal, it does not follow that its literary attitudes to sources and narrative, for example, are inevitably ‘local’. The c. 1300 translatio of the English-language romance Kyng Alisaunder is much more influenced by transnational French and Latin texts and traditions than it is by Anglo-Norman cultural productions: see Venetia Bridges, Medieval Narratives of Alexander the Great: Transnational Texts in England and France (Cambridge, 2018), pp. 201–6, 234–5. Chrétien de Troyes, Cligès, ed. Claude Luttrell and Stewart Gregory (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 33–5.



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chronology, which is less frequently noted; the movement from East to West is entwined with the passage of history, with the temporal journey from ancient to medieval times.13 So translatio is both a transnational and transhistorical phenomenon, but also fundamentally a historicist one in that it is rooted in individual historical moments. This model of translatio is highly apt to the present study as it unites the local with the transnational, situating it within wider synchronic and diachronic perspectives.14 At a more granular level, the three works are related by their intertextuality: Troie is the narrative source for the Historia, which in turn is that for the Troy Book. Second, all three texts may be linked by an intriguing suggestion that each is competing with its source or other related texts. Francine Mora has shown, with reference to Troie and Joseph of Exeter’s Ylias, that the later twelfth century in northern France was a moment in which French and Latin, both with claims to international literary status, tussled for control over the prestigious Troy narrative.15 The competition Mora describes operates in three interrelated contexts: it is a generic battle fought between the developing romance genre and Latin epic, a linguistic struggle between French and Latin as languages suitable for a prestigious narrative tradition, and a hermeneutic fight between common romance tendencies – such as lengthy description or erotic emphasis – and the historiographical acuity most frequently ascribed to Latin works.16 The idea of competition therefore engages with related concepts of genre, language and hermeneutics. The latter concept can be thought of as overlapping particularly with genre, for example in terms of approaches to material perceived as apt for history or romance; but it is also important to highlight the fluidity of generic boundaries throughout the Middle Ages, meaning that interpretative habits are unlikely to be defined completely by generic identity. Crucially, competition is defined by a transnational approach to the texts that participate in it; perceiving interactions of genres, languages and concepts is only possible via multilingual and cross-generic comparison, which are key aspects of transnational literary culture and the concept of translatio studii described above. So the sense of competitiveness is itself an indication 13 14 15

16

An exception is Serge Lusignan, ‘Translatio studii and the Emergence of French as a Language of Letters in the Middle Ages’, New Medieval Literatures 14 (2012), 1–19. For a more developed discussion of translatio studii conceptualised in this way, see Bridges, Medieval Narratives of Alexander the Great, pp. 19–22. Francine Mora, ‘L’Ylias de Joseph d’Exeter: une réaction cléricale au Roman de Troie de Benoît de Saint-Maure’, in Progrès, réaction, décadence dans l’occident médiéval, ed. E. Baumgartner and L. Harf-Lancner (Geneva, 2003), pp. 199–213. Although in this context the Ylias is trying to outdo Troie (not vice versa), the French text is imitating and perhaps seeking to surpass its romance contemporaries, the Roman de Thèbes and the Roman d’Énéas: see Emmanuèle Baumgartner, ‘Tombeaux pour guerriers et amazones: sur un motif descriptif de l’Énéas et du Roman de Troie’, in Contemporary Readings of Medieval Literature, ed. G. Mermier (Ann Arbor, 1989), pp. 37–50. Baumgartner concludes that Troie’s tomb descriptions deliberately rival those of the Énéas, possibly under Byzantine influence (p. 45).

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of a transnational approach, one that may not be confined to Troie and the late twelfth century but could also be important for later Troy material. This idea of competitive translatio, defined by a transnational, inter-generic and multilingual approach, enables Troy texts to participate in both diachronic and synchronic contexts; it is thus a useful tool for considering works both with historicist precision and from a transhistorical perspective. The productive concept of competitive translatio can be extended both to the situation of the Historia in the later thirteenth century and to that of the Troy Book in the early fifteenth. Scholars have observed that the Historia tries to ‘deromanticise’ its narrative (inherited from Troie) and that the Troy Book displays poetic rivalry to the Historia and Troie.17 Both observations suggest that the idea of competition with other Troy narratives does indeed define all three works’ translatio. However, it is unclear whether the competitiveness apparently shared by the Historia and Troie is defined by similar trans-generic and multilingual concerns as Troie’s twelfth-century version. Does the desire to outdo other Troy works operate in a similarly wide-ranging literary context in the later texts, or has it transformed into something more locally and linguistically focused, demonstrating a shift in the approach to translatio? The following analysis will consider the texts’ performance of translatio upon the Troy narrative with this question in mind.

Textual backgrounds The Roman de Troie is huge and was apparently hugely read. Over 30,000 lines long in its most expansive version, it survives in over forty manuscripts in different varieties of French. As mentioned above, it was originally composed around 1165 by Benoît de Sainte-Maure, who was the author of the Chronique des ducs de Normandie for Henry II; it is therefore generally assumed that Troie was also intended for the Angevin court, although exactly what any such proximity means for the text is open to question.18 Based on both Dares and Dictys, the fighting is bookended at the start by the story of the Golden Fleece, the first destruction of Troy and Hesione’s capture, and at the end by the betrayal of Troy by Aeneas and Antenor, the return of the Greeks and Agamemnon’s death at the hands of Orestes. It is the first extant work in which the love story of Briseida/Criseyde and Troilus occurs; it is also characterised by lengthy descriptions of ‘marvels’ such as cities, tombs and women. Its more positive portrayal of the protagonists (particularly Helen 17

18

Historia, trans. Meek, p. xiv and Troy Book: Selections, ed. Robert R. Edwards (Kalamazoo, 1998), p. 3. Although Edwards attributes the idea of poetic rivalry to Walter Schirmer, John Lydgate: A Study in the Culture of the XVth Century, trans. Ann E. Keep (London, 1961), pp. 42–3, there is no trace of it in Schirmer’s chapter on the Troy Book (pp. 42–51). For a useful overview of the text’s narrative and its themes, see Troie, trans. Burgess and Kelly, pp. 8–30.



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and Paris) and its erotic tendencies are what Mora claims attracted hostility on moral grounds from Joseph of Exeter, the author of the Ylias, in the 1180s.19 The Historia, a far shorter Latin prose work, uses Troie as its major source. Mary Elizabeth Meek characterises Guido’s text as ‘a Latin prose paraphrase, and in many instances a fairly close translation’ of the French text, which is a generally accurate description.20 It survives in around 150 manuscripts.21 Structurally, Guido’s text follows Benoît’s quite closely: the sequence of events is the same, but Guido reduces the number of battles from twenty-three to twelve and to some extent cuts the lengthy descriptions of marvels characteristic of Troie – for example, the famous Chamber of Beauties in the heart of the Trojan palace, which occupies nearly 500 lines in the French text, is much reduced. Most scholarship on the Historia has focused on the vernacular texts it inspired rather than on its own merits.22 Whilst James Simpson’s analysis of the ‘Guido tradition’ follows this trend, he also usefully outlines the nature of the Historia itself. ‘Relentlessly exemplarist in its presentation’, the Historia is ‘intensely historical’ but from an explicitly ethical perspective: ‘History is … the story of societies imploding under the pressure of poor decisions and the cumulative weight of events’.23 This translatio, which indicates a greater interest in the ethical and intellectual than the political possibilities of the story, may underpin the Historia’s wide-ranging popularity. Lydgate’s Troy Book, based upon the Historia, follows the same basic narrative. However, Lydgate’s text is far longer, coming in at around 30,000 lines, like Troie. He frequently expands Guido’s work so that a particular episode or theme is treated more fully; he also takes a moralising approach in some of his additions, and his authorial presence is explicit.24 Lydgate often displays his knowledge of both classical authors and of Chaucer, who is another pervasive intertextual presence.25 In addition, as mentioned briefly above, the Troy Book’s context, both linguistic and cultural, is different from that of both Troie and the Historia. Whereas the latter texts are widely disseminated beyond their immediate 19 20 21 22

23

24 25

Mora, ‘L’Ylias de Joseph d’Exeter’, p. 212. Historia, trans. Meek, p. xi. Griffin in his edition gives 136 MSS (p. xi); Meek in her translation cites c. 150 (p. xi). See John Finlayson, ‘Guido de Columnis’ Historia destructionis Troiae, The ‘Gest Hystorial’ of the Destruction of Troy, and Lydgate’s Troy Book: Translation and the Design of History’, Anglia 113 (1995), 141–62. Simpson, ‘Other Book of Troy’, p. 404. Simpson in effect conflates the Historia with the alliterative Destruction of Troy as the ‘Guido tradition’, so that the Latin and the English poems take the same approach. See Troy Book, ed. Edwards, pp. 1–11. On Chaucer’s importance for the Troy Book, see Nicholas Watson, ‘Outdoing Chaucer: Lydgate’s Troy Book and Henryson’s Testament of Cresseid as Competitive Imitations of Troilus and Criseyde’, in Shifts and Transpositions in Medieval Narrative: A Festschrift for Elspeth Kennedy, ed. Karen Pratt (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 89–108, and Baswell, ‘How Lydgate Translates Chaucer’, passim.

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circumstances of composition (in England, northern France and Sicily, respectively), a consequence in part of the transnational nature of their languages, the Troy Book’s context and impact are English. Yet this more limited linguistic and geographical remit does not mean that the Troy Book’s influence is restricted: it is a key work for a prose Siege of Troy, the first printed work in English (Caxton’s The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, c. 1475), and for later narratives including stage dramas such as Thomas Heywood’s 1614 version, The Life and Death of Hector, and of course Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida (1609).26 Its ongoing impact (also suggested by the surviving number of manuscripts) indicates the Troy Book’s cultural and literary importance in later medieval and early modern England.27 Lydgate’s work is therefore an excellent lens through which to examine the ongoing influence of the Historia and its complex translatio. The ‘Englishness’ of Lydgate’s work, in linguistic but also perhaps in stylistic and cultural terms, is evident in his desire to ‘ywriten as wel in oure langage / As in Latyn and in Frensche’ so that ‘of the story the trouthe we nat mys / No more than doth eche other nacioun’.28 The poem’s commissioning in 1412 by Henry, Prince of Wales (soon to be Henry V), also suggests that a historicist and nationalist impulse, relating to England and its situation in the early fifteenth century, is behind its composition. Such a compositional impulse contrasts with the transnational situation of Troie and the Historia, both in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and subsequently, and may therefore have an impact on Lydgate’s approach to his source. If so, does Lydgate’s reworking reflect this more nationalistic and historicist situation, not just in terms of specific references but in terms of his translatio? And what part does this translatio’s relationship to the Historia play in this context? Scholarly studies of Lydgate’s poem, such as that of Christopher Baswell, have frequently interpreted it in a historicist and nationalist, even imperialist, light as an attempt to revive Troy’s empire for England under Henry V. They undoubtedly reflect an important aspect of Lydgate’s translatio, but for the most part do not engage in detail with the Troy Book’s relationship with Historia, and thus do not seek to analyse the latter’s translatio in terms of its influence upon fifteenth-century English incarnations. An exception is James Simpson’s analysis, which, as mentioned above, sees the Historia as exemplifying an anti-imperialist tradition of Troy narration. The Historia’s approach, focused apparently upon historical and moral imperatives, may therefore be opposed to, or at least in tension with, the implicit (and sometimes explicit)

26 27

28

Troy Book, ed. Edwards, p. 1. On the MSS in general, see A. S. G. Edwards, ‘Lydgate Manuscripts: Some Directions for Future Research’, in Manuscripts and Readers in Fifteenth-Century England: The Literary Implications of Manuscript Study, ed. Derek Pearsall (Cambridge, 1981), pp. 15–26; and Troy Book, ed. Edwards, pp. 6–7. Ibid., Prologue, lines 114–17.



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nationalism seen as characteristic of Lydgate’s Troy Book. The contrast between them further develops the question posed above concerning the Troy Book’s translatio: if its source is not characterised by the imperialistic impulse described by Baswell, then perhaps the English text’s approach, in terms of its association with the imperialism of the early fifteenth century, needs to be reconsidered. It may be the case that the Historia’s translatio is more of a factor in Lydgate’s work than has previously been assumed. To compare these three substantial works, I shall focus on three key moments: the prologue, the story of Medea and Jason, and the description of Hector’s tomb and preserved body. They are crucial episodes, in which the idea of competitive translatio, as highlighted by Mora, may be demonstrated, as well as its re-framing in different linguistic, chronological and geographical contexts, thus clarifying the interactions between the texts and their wider literary cultures. The prologue describes the authors’ apparent historiographical intentions and their relationships to previous material; the Medea episode engages with the theme of erotic love so newly important to literary culture (especially romance) in the high Middle Ages; and Hector’s tomb is an opportunity for ekphrasis and indulgence in ‘marvels’, vital elements in medieval literary discourses including both romance and epic poetry.

Prologue: competitive historiography Benoît’s prologue is lengthy and learned, highlighting his historiographical approach. He tells his audience that he is writing ‘estoire’, a word with multifaceted meanings including ‘a sense of history’, and goes into detail about this process, with discussion of Dares’ and Dictys’ greater historical reliability as eye-witnesses than Homer, the ‘clerc merveillos’. This discussion of different models of historiography displays his evident immersion in Latinate intellectual culture, a culture on which he also relies in describing his poetics. Here he describes his approach as a literal one – ‘le latin sivrai e la letre’ – but leaves significant room for innovative manoeuvre by saying he will add ‘bon dit’ where he can.29 The phrase ‘bon dit’, with its implicit introduction of an ethical perspective, also connects Benoît’s historiographical musings with the prologue’s major statement of intent for the work: ‘Qui vueut saveir e qui entent, / Sacheiz de mieuz l’en est sovent.ʼ30 [You should be aware that things often improve for whoever desires to learn and makes an effort to do so.] Here, knowledge (of the fall of Troy) leads to improvement not just in the reader’s historical perspectives but in their ethics, in line with the idea promoted in twelfth-century schools that learning was a moral activity.31 Benoît’s 29 30 31

Troie, ed. Constans, i, lines 139 and 142; trans. Burgess and Kelly, p. 43. Troie, ed. Constans, i, lines 25–6. See A. Minnis and A. B. Scott with D. Wallace, Medieval Literary Theory and Criticism c.1100–1475: The Commentary Tradition, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1991), p. 14: ‘Grammar

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Troie justifies its translatio by promoting sophisticated historiographical knowledge via an ethical viewpoint; it therefore foregrounds interpretation as a key act of history-writing. Benoît’s justification of course highlights the potential criticisms that could be levelled at his work, namely, that it was not proper history and that it was not an ethically appropriate story, both of which criticisms relate at bottom to his use of the French vernacular and its wider comprehensibility. Crucially, his response is revealing in its reliance on intellectual (and hence Latinate) ideas about the purpose of the Troy narrative; he defends his innovative vernacular work on deeply traditional and Latinate grounds. This shows clearly how indebted this romance text is, despite its linguistic and stylistic novelty, to Latinate intellectual culture. Benoît’s lengthy defensiveness is an important insight into the need for early romance authors to justify their incursion into Latinate narrative worlds. For Latin authors, too, defensiveness about translatio studii could be a feature of their work, as Joseph of Exeter’s Troy work (written c. 1183–90, perhaps in response to Benoît’s Troie) demonstrates in its apparent repudiation of the classics’ ‘mentita licentia pagi / Et […] figmenta’ [licensed fabrications and lies].32 Yet not all authors felt this need as strongly. The prologue to the Historia does not defend its translatio of the Troy narrative on ethical grounds as explicitly as does Benoît’s text, despite the latter being its source. Et antiquorum scripta, fidelia conseruatricia premissorum, preterita uelud presentia representant, et viris strenuis quos longa mundi etas iam dudum per mortem absorbuit per librorum uigiles lectiones, ac si viuerent, spiritum ymaginarie uirtutis infundunt. [Writings of the ancients, faithful preservers of tradition, depict the past as if it were the present, and, by the attentive readings of books, endow valiant heroes with the courageous spirit they are imagined to have had, just as if they were alive, heroes whom the extensive age of the world long ago swallowed up by death.]33

Here, Guido takes it as read that the vivid translatio of the past is a good thing in and of itself since it causes ‘viris strenuis’ [heroes] to be alive once more. Admittedly there is an implicit morality involved – these ‘heroes’ are possessors of ‘spiritum’ [courage] – yet there is none of the didactic morality of learning advocated by Benoît. Nor is there a similarly learned focus on historiography at this point; in fact, past and present are deliberately and consciously confused so that they become the same – ‘preterita uelud presentia’ [the past as if it were the present]. Later in the prologue, Guido does engage in

32

33

[…] was an art of living as well as an art of language, and the single method of instruction was the explication of the poets (enarratio poetarum).’ Joseph of Exeter, Ylias, in Werke und Briefe von Joseph Iscanus, ed. Ludwig Gompf (Leiden, 1970), i, lines 30–1. The full passage is lines 24–31. The translation is by A. G. Rigg, Joseph of Exeter: Iliad (Toronto, 2005), http://medieval.utoronto.ca/ylias/. Historia, ed. Griffin, p. 3, lines 8–12; trans. Meek, p. 1, lines 8–12.



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historiographical analysis when he discusses the fictions of poets concerning the history of Troy, following Benoît, but with a different emphasis. Whereas Benoît is keen to depict how his own translatio relates to his Latin source in terms of fidelity and (moral) style, Guido is concerned with facts he feels were omitted in other Latin accounts, such as the definition of Italy.34 The emphasis here is on factual inclusion or omissions of the narrative, not upon the moral and stylistic effects of that narrative. The difference between the two authors can, albeit simplistically, be summed up as a greater interest in historiography (Benoît) or in history (Guido). This difference is why Guido’s text happily elides the past and the present in the sentence quoted above; it seems paradoxical, given his interest in accurate facts, but his point is that the vivid re-presentation of the past brings it (and its accurate facts) into the present. Lydgate’s approach to the Historia is amplificatory, as the prologue’s length demonstrates; the Historia’s sixty or so lines of Latin prose here become nearly 400 lines of English verse. The prologue begins with a long invocation to Mars, which also mentions Clio (the muse of history) and Calliope (that of epic), before praising Henry, Prince of Wales (Henry V from 1413), and telling of his commissioning of the work and its date. It continues with a lengthy discussion of ancient writers, both true and false, ending with praise of ‘Guydo’, before Lydgate asks for God’s help in his undertaking. The invocation to Mars and the two Muses, which is wholly absent from the Historia, situates Lydgate’s work as an epic in the ancient and medieval senses; it relates both to classical poets like Virgil and Statius (who feature later on) and also, perhaps even consciously, to Chaucer, who also invokes Clio in Troilus and Criseyde (Tr ii, 8–10).35 It is a claim to authority and prestige, and as such is an implicit assertion if not of superiority, certainly of equality with these predecessors. A similar claim is made in the long discussion of authors and their truthfulness (or lack therof), which occupies lines 149–374, the majority of the prologue. Whilst Lydgate follows Guido’s outline – praise of ancient writers but criticism of those who are false poets – in the first section he expands considerably on the theme of writing. He discusses how ancient authors divided ‘the verreie trewe corn’ from the ‘chaf’ (150 and 151) and how death not only enables oblivion but also allows clerks to write without fear of retribution: ‘for after deth clerkis lityl drede / After desert for to bere witnesse’ (184–5). He draws a moral from this, namely, that men should live well so as to be written of favourably (189–94), and goes on to say that in the past authors were cherished by ‘lordes’, whose brave deeds they would record (195–205). He uses Statius’s Theban epic as an example of such worthy ancient authorship (perhaps anticipating his own Siege of Thebes), and as an introduction to his Trojan theme. 34 35

Historia, ed. Griffin, p. 4, line 32–p. 5, line 4, ‘vt appellation Grecie non Magna Graecia … demonstrabit’; trans. Meek, p. 2, lines 55–61. On Chaucer’s influence in the Troy Book, see Baswell, ‘How Lydgate Translates Chaucer’.

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Lydgateʼs amplificatio on the theme of authorship not only enhances the prologue’s sense of learning but in doing so it also develops the theme in a more sophisticated manner. Ancient authors are not only ‘faithful preservers of tradition’, as in the Historia, but intelligent literary critics who make crucial judgements about what to include, separating the ‘corn’ from the ‘chaf’. Likewise, they are in effect the equals of great lords, whose deeds would be forgotten without them. The effect of this is to elevate writers and the act of authorship in a way absent from the Historia but also to suggest a need for accurate critical judgement in writing, and thus a certain anxiety about the process. This concern is surely heightened by the fact that the authors here are anonymous, part of a literary tradition that cannot therefore be easily identified and thus interpreted.36 Lydgate’s attempt to make his craft, and perhaps his own work, more illustrious also reveals an anxiety about the interactions of authorship and politics; the introduction of threats in the shape of ‘tyraunt[s]’ (even dead ones) to ‘clerkes’ (184, 186) perhaps indicates a concern about speaking literary truth to power. So this section of the prologue, original to Lydgate, turns the narrative inherited from the Historia into a meditation upon the need for interpretation and (potentially) political wisdom in writing. When read alongside the following passage, closely based on Guido’s work, about the falsity of some authors, it gives a new and more ambivalent meaning to the claims about truth and poetic fables. Distinguishing between them is a serious business, less clear-cut than in the Historia, which may in turn have serious consequences. The new moral and intellectual context raises the literary stakes. Benoît and Guido are intrigued by the history of the Trojan War, but from slightly different historiographical perspectives. These perspectives are rooted in contemporary views of history and its writing; they display knowledge of the issues in twelfth- and thirteenth-century translatio, such as the nature of historiography, the increasing importance of fictive writing, and the developing vernaculars.37 The idea that the Historia is consciously trying to outdo Troie is perhaps present in Guido’s addition of learned facts to the narrative inherited from Benoît; these changes at minimum suggest an awareness of different forms of historical writing and hence potential debate or competition about approaches to take. Interestingly, however, this more learned translatio does not make the Historia more historiographically sophisticated; it is the vernacular text that demonstrates such sophistication, with its reflections on what it means for the author that ‘le latin sivrai’ and to add ‘bon dit’.

36

37

Alan Ambrisco and Paul Strohm make this observation, noting that this ‘compilation … nowhere exists’, and that it is an ‘imaginative construct’ that highlights ‘the rift between the unknowable historical event and its subsequent narrative reconstructions’; see their ‘Succession and Sovereignty in Lydgate’s Prologue to The Troy Book’, Chaucer Review 30 (1995), 40–57 at 41. See, for example, D. H. Green, The Beginnings of Medieval Romance: Fact and Fiction, 1150–1220 (Cambridge, 2002).



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Likewise, Lydgate’s translatio consciously develops the Historia’s prologue into something more intellectually sophisticated by subtly introducing the problem of literary interpretation into its praise and blame of ancient authors. One effect is to highlight Lydgate’s own skill and learning at Guido’s expense, supporting the idea that he sees his source in terms of competition, but the larger effect is to remind the reader of the literary traditions of writing and interpretation that precede the Troy Book. Lydgate is inserting his work into a literary network in a much more explicit fashion (which explains the discussion of Statius). His consciousness of the transnational literary contexts in which the Troy Book participates is just as important an aspect of the prologue as the more ‘local’ dedication to Henry. Lydgate, then, is also engaging with a literary network which his approach here suggests is multilingual, transnational and competitive. All three texts engage with the question of what it means to write history, specifically Trojan history, in their translatio. All three conceive of historiography as something that requires care, whether that care is in factual addition or in the need for interpretation. Especially important is the fact that Troie and the Troy Book are the works that display greater concern about hermeneutics, here specifically meaning the act of historical interpretation and its value. Such a concern is probably related to their vernacular rather than Latin status, and hence need to justify such an incursion, but it nevertheless demonstrates that the vernacular texts are participants in a historiographical culture that transcends the boundaries of language and nation. Their approach, as well as their range of reference, is truly a transnational one.

Medea: love and learning Like its near-contemporary, the anonymous Roman d’Énéas, Troie introduces love as a major factor in a war narrative and sets the scene for a defining feature of romance works thereafter.38 It is this innovative eroticising approach, with its often positive presentation of the protagonists, that is a feature of the late twelfth-century competition between Troie and the Ylias noticed by Mora. Love and its depictions are therefore valuable contexts in which to consider approaches to translatio. Benoît includes the story of Jason and Medea as part of the introductory narrative to the Greek invasion of Troy, the first of several such episodes that he adds to the tale; the others are the story of Briseida, Troilus and Diomedes, and the love of Achilles for Polyxena. The narrative follows the received tale of Medea helping Jason to retrieve the Golden Fleece because of her love for 38

The Roman d’Énéas includes lengthy sections describing Énéas and Lavine’s love for one another and their marriage that are absent from the Aeneid: see Le roman d’Énéas, ed. and trans. Wilfrid Besnardeau and Francine Mora-Lebrun (Paris, 2018), lines 7939– 9178 and 9741–10024.

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him but adds great detail about Medea (her emotions, her skills, her beauty). As a key element of this wider erotic theme, the story is just as important in establishing the depiction of women and erotic relationships as it is in developing the plot, and in both respects is hugely influential for future versions of the episode in all genres. The long description of Medea in Troie highlights important characteristics of Benoît’s translatio of this story: C’ert une fille qu’il aviet, Qui de mout grant beauté esteit. Il n’aveit plus enfanz ne eir. Trop iert cele de grant saveir. Mout sot d’engin, de maïstrie, De conjure, de sorcerie; Es arz ot tant s’entente mise Que trop par iert saive e aprise; Astronomie e nigromance Sot tote par cuer dè s’enfance. D’arz saveit tant e de conjure De cler jor feïst nuit oscure. S’ele vousist, ce fust viaire A ceus por cui le vousist faire. Les eves faiseit corre ariere. Scïentose iert de grant maniere… Quant gentement se fu vestue Si est des chambres hors issue; Set puceles mena o sei De ci qu’el fu davant lo rei. Trop fu bele, de grant maniere De cors, de faiçon e de chiere. Bendee fu d’un treceor – Onques hon nez n’en vi meillor – A ses cheveuz esteot ors laiz. Autre parole ne vos faiz, Mais el païs ne el regné Nen esteit riens de sa beauté. Par mi la sale vint le pas; La chiere tint auques en bas, Plus fine e fresche e coloree Que la rose quant el est nee. [She was (Aëtes’) only daughter and a very beautiful woman; he had no other child or heir. She was a maiden of very great learning, skilled in and master of the magic arts and necromancy; she could conjure and practise sorcery. She had applied herself to studying these arts in such a way that she was extremely wise and learned. While still a child, she had learned everything about astronomy and necromancy by heart and had such command of these arts and spells that she could turn bright day into dark night. If she wished, you would appear to be flying through the air. She made riv-



Translating Troy in the Middle Ages  119 ers flow upstream and was exceptionally knowledgeable … When she was elegantly attired, she came forth from her chambers, bringing her maidens with her until she came before the king. Medea was extremely beautiful in body, shape and countenance. Her hair was held back by a headband; no one had ever seen one finer. A net of gold thread covered her hair. I shall not describe her appearance any further, except to say that there was no more beautiful lady in the country or the realm. She walked at a seemly pace through the hall, tilting her face down somewhat, a face that was more exquisite, fresh and well-complexioned than a budding rose.]39

Although her magical skills are described here, Medea’s first (and indeed primary) characteristic is beauty, which is amplified in the later lines in the description of her clothing and most of all by the sense of wonder in the narrator’s tone – ‘Mais el païs ne el regné / Nen esteit riens de sa beauté’ [there was no more beautiful lady in the country or the realm] (1247–8). It is clear from the length and detail of this description that her extraordinary beauty is Medea’s most important characteristic. The fact that she is skilled ‘d’engin, de maïstrie, / De conjure, de sorcerie’ [master of the magic arts and necromancy; she could conjure and practise sorcery] (1209–10), which is crucial in terms of plot, is far less emphasised. Whilst her magical knowledge enables Jason to gain the Golden Fleece, it is her beauty and her erotic relationship with him that are the main descriptive foci of the episode.40 Troie’s translatio, then, constructs a Medea who is as much, if not more, woman than witch, beginning an erotic and gendered theme that the stories of the other loves in the romance develop. The Medea depicted in the Historia is also extremely beautiful, but a comparison of the two parallel passages clearly shows their different emphases and levels of detail: Erat enim Oetis regis filia, Medea nomine, virgo nimium speciosa, patri vnica et sola futura heres in regno… Set eius margarite scientia ex qua potius prepollebat erat illa ars mathematica, que per uires et modos exorcizationum nigromanticos lucem uertebat in tenebras, subito uentos inducebat et pluuias, corruscationes et grandines, et timidos terremotus. [King Aëtes had a daughter called Medea, an extremely beautiful girl, her father’s only child and the future heiress of the kingdom… But the most precious knowledge in which she was highly skilled was the numerical art, through which by using powers and necromantic means of incantations, she turned light into dark, suddenly raised up winds and storms, lightning and hail, and fearful earthquakes.]41

39 40 41

Troie, ed. Constans, i, lines 1205–28 and 1237–52, trans. Burgess and Kelly. Troie, ed. Constans, i, lines 1463–649. Historia, ed. Griffin, p. 15, lines 24–6, 30–p. 16, line 1; trans. Meek, pp. 13–14, 174–6, 181–6.

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Medea’s beauty is hardly described at all: she is simply ‘virgo nimium speciosa’ [an extremely beautiful girl]. Similarly, in the Historia passage in which her appearance at the feast occurs, which in Troie is an excuse for the long description quoted above, her briefly mentioned beauty is an occasion for an antifeminist moment: ‘conata est, ut mulierum est moris, speciem addere speciei per speciosa uidelicet ornamenta’ [she tried, as is the custom of women, to add beauty to beauty, that is, through beautiful ornaments].42 Of much greater importance in Historia is Medea’s magical power, which occupies around another forty lines in this passage. This long magical excursus is absent from Troie, and, although related to Medea, is an excuse for Guido to demonstrate his knowledge of astrology, eclipses and other phenomena. It is also a moment for Guido to introduce a Christian viewpoint that is anachronistic to the Troy narrative. He espouses God’s power over creation (quoted below) and later denies that Medea had caused an eclipse, since that power belongs only to God: Nam ille summus et eternus Deus, qui in sapientia, id est in Filio, cuncta creavit, celestia corpora planetarum propria sub lege disposuit, et ea statuens in eternum preceptum imposuit eis quod non preteribunt. [For the high and eternal God, who in his wisdom, that is, in the Son, created all things, placed the heavenly bodies of the planets according to his own law, and placing them, he imposed on them for all eternity an injunction that they will not disregard.]43

Guido goes on to say that the only true eclipse was at the moment of Christ’s crucifixion. In this passage, Medea’s significance is less as a woman than as a magician, and in the latter role she serves mainly as a way of introducing a learned discourse about celestial phenomena and a confession of God’s power. The Christian reference-points render her presence very different from her appearance in Troie. Although the Historia does contain the love scenes between Medea and Jason, the Christian context means that her identity even in those scenes is less important in erotic and therefore female terms than it is in Troie; in addition, there she is subject to implicit moral criticism, which is not the case in the French text.44 It provides opportunity for another excursus, this time against sexual indulgence, also wholly absent from the scene in Troie. In the Historia, Medea’s prime importance is therefore not as a woman emphasising the importance of love as a narrative motivation, as she appears in Troie, but as a means of introducing learning, confessional perspectives and moral criticism. This intellectual, Latinate and ethical translatio is a deliberate 42 43 44

Historia, ed. Griffin, p. 17, lines 10–11; trans. Meek, p. 15, lines 236–8. Historia, ed. Griffin, p. 16, lines 23–6; trans. Meek, p. 14, lines 210–14. It is notable that Medea’s lust is increased by her night with Jason: see Historia, ed. Griffin, p. 25, lines 9–18; trans. Meek, p. 24, lines 116–26. This idea is not found in Troie.



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rewriting of the narrative as seen in Troie; interestingly, the Historia’s emphasis is much more akin to that of the Ylias, to some extent replicating that text’s hermeneutic relationship to the French text. The competitive and transnational nature of the translatio seen in the later twelfth century context between Troie and the Ylias thus re-appears. The episode of Medea and Jason in the Troy Book follows a similar narrative structure to that in the Historia, although at nearly 2,200 lines it dwarfs the earlier text. As with the prologue, it amplifies its inherited narrative along similar themes. However, there are important moments where the amplificatio alters the nature of the tale. One such occurs after Medea has sat with Jason at supper and fallen in love with him. In the Historia, in a short passage of some ten lines, she retreats to her room and is tormented by love.45 In the Troy Book, however, Lydgate interpolates a passage of about fifty lines (2072–135) in which he deplores women’s ability to deceive men, citing Guido, and then says in propria persona that he thinks that ‘Þei ben so gode and parfyte euerechon’ (2105), and that Guido should be blamed, not Lydgate, for this: ‘Where he mysseyth, late hym bere þe wyte’ (2119).46 He goes on to discuss Guido’s antifeminism in terms of sin and confession, ‘so bitter penaunce pleynly he schulde haue’ (2131). The interpolation has two effects. First, it again demonstrates Lydgate’s awareness of literary traditions, here specifically Guido’s text and antifeminist writings, as previously demonstrated in the prologue. Second, it sets the scene for a more favourable portrayal of Medea than is the case in the Historia. At several points, Lydgate is keen to depict Medea more favourably than Guido, whilst staying close to the latter’s narrative. One such moment occurs just beforehand, when Medea admits to herself she wishes to marry Jason. In the Latin text, she deceives herself that her intentions are pure: ‘sibi ipsa daret intelligi inculpabili affectione illud appetere quod culpa et crimine non carebat’ [she might allow herself to believe that it was because of innocent affection that she was longing for what was not devoid of sin and guilt].47 In Lydgate’s version, however, her intentions appear to be more genuinely so: she says ‘For my menyyng is with-owten synne, / Grounded and set vp-on al clennes, / With-oute fraude or any doubilnes’ (2068–70). Although Lydgate goes on to write that women ‘wel can feyne’ (2073), Medea here is not explicitly deceiving herself as she is in Guido’s text, and, combined with the repudiation of Guido’s antifeminism in the following lines, this marks a more sympathetic portrayal. Similarly, when she spends the night with Jason, she ‘ment nat but honeste’ (2940) and is ‘liche a maide innocent of age’

45 46

47

Historia, ed. Griffin, p. 18 line 27–p. 19 line 2. Lydgate also criticises Guido’s treatment of Criseyde in the same way (Troy Book iii, 4264–445); see C. David Benson, ‘Critic and Poet: What Lydgate and Henryson Did to Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde’, Modern Language Quarterly 53 (1992), 23–40 at 31–3. Historia, ed. Griffin, p. 18, lines 22–4; trans. Meek, pp. 16–17, lines 292–4.

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(2948), in contrast to Jason’s ‘fleschely fals delite’ (2949); in the Latin, however, it is her lust that is unquenchable: ‘non euanuit scintilla cupidinis in eadem’ [the spark of lust did not die down in her].48 Finally, at the end of the episode, Lydgate sympathetically narrates Medea’s terrible fate, consciously drawing attention to the fact that it is not described in the Historia but in Ovid; thus the medieval author combines a more favourable version of Medea with another moment of conscious literary invocation.49 Troie’s and the Historia’s representations of Medea are thus quite distinct, although they share the same basic narrative. Where Troie depicts her primarily as a beautiful woman in love, establishing the erotic theme that is such a strong feature of the poem and of romance narratives more widely, the Historia is much more interested in her witchcraft as a means of introducing learned, confessional and moral discourse. Guido’s essentially didactic interpolations help to construct an intellectual framework for the Historia, moving it away from developing romance themes such as eroticism (although this aspect does remain as an essential part of the narrative) and towards a more traditionally learned and Latinate culture. In rewriting the Medea narrative in this way, the Historia is here implicitly defining itself in opposition to Troie. Its tendencies might seem to support the idea that their opposition, or competition, is generically focused: romance versus history. However, the idea that the Historia ‘rehistoricises’ the Troy narrative from its romance treatment in Troie is not straightforwardly supported by the nature of the Latin text’s translatio. In many cases, the Historia’s additions and alterations complicate the narrative’s historicity, introducing religious anachronism and ethical didacticism, for example, which are characteristics frequently found in romances as well as in self-proclaimed histories.50 It is thus too simplistic to align these different, competing forms of translatio with genre, especially since both authors conceive of their works as historiography; it is as history-writers that they are rivals in Guido’s eyes. Crucially, however, whether this conflict is generically focused or historiographical, its result is the same; both texts are engaging in an implicit debate about the writing of history that crosses boundaries of language, genre and polity. Lydgate’s translatio of Medea’s narrative adds literary sophistication in its highlighting of different possible interpretations of her behaviour via criticism of Guido, in line with the prologue’s approach. His literary sophistication, as well as overt criticism, is a clear sign of Lydgate’s desire to outdo his source. Lydgate also presents Medea more sympathetically than the Historia, which interestingly aligns the Troy Book more with Troie (where moral criticism of her is absent) and potentially with Criseyde in Troilus and Criseyde. Again, 48 49 50

Historia, ed. Griffin, p. 25, line 12; trans. Meek, p. 24, line 19. Troy Book, ed. Bergen, i, bk i, 3936ff. A similar mixture of learned digressions, historical interest, and marvels characterises the Roman de toute chevalerie (c. 1175), for example; see the analysis in Bridges, Medieval Narratives of Alexander the Great, pp. 151–70.



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both these features relate to a wider, transnational literary culture, one that is not narrowly local.51

Hector’s tomb and body: transnational translatio The final episode to be discussed is the description of Hector’s tomb. Such ekphrastic moments, which often feature as impossible and magical monuments, are distinctive features of twelfth- and thirteenth-century romances in particular, but they are also vital in other modes of writing from this period: the widely read Latin epic the Alexandreis of Walter of Châtillon (composed c. 1180) contains three lengthy ekphrases, two of which are tomb descriptions, which are frequently excerpted in manuscripts.52 Tomb descriptions are therefore a contemporary literary fashion that transcends putative generic and linguistic boundaries, and as such are an arena for potential conflict or competition within translatio. In Troie, Hector’s tomb is an architectural marvel: Car] d’un jargonce granat chier Firent li sage lo primier, L’autre, d’un prasme verdeiant. D’un lonc esteient e d’un grant. Li tierz esteit d’une geteine, Soz ciel n’a pierre a si grant peine Sei eüe ne conquestee, Ne qui plus chier seit achatee … Li quarz pilers fu d’un pedoire. Ensi cum nos retret l’estoire, Dedenz le flun de Paredis A un arbre d’estrange pris: Pome charge qui au fonz vet. Cele qui set anz i estet Devient pierre serree e dure. Vertuz a granz e tiel nature Qu’ome desvé, sans escïent, Qui rien ne siet ne rien n’entent, Rameine tot en sa memoire; C’est la nature del pedoire.

51

52

Although Chaucer’s work is in English, its debts to Italian and French relate it strongly to the transnational literary culture under discussion; see Elizabeth Salter, English and International: Studies in the Literature, Art and Patronage of Medieval England, ed. Derek Pearsall and Nicolette Zeeman (Cambridge, 1988), where Salter calls Chaucer’s writing ‘a triumph of internationalism’ in a context that is ‘essentially European, not narrowly insular’ (pp. 239, 244). Camille’s tomb in the Énéas is a striking romance example; see Énéas, ed. and trans. Besnardeau and Mora-Lebrun, lines 7445–638. For the Alexandreis, see Maura K. Lafferty, ‘Mapping Human Limitations: The Tomb Ecphrases in Walter of Châtillon’s Alexandreis’, Journal of Medieval Latin 4 (1994), 64–81.

124  Venetia Bridges [The clever artists made the first pillar with precious jacinth of garnet-red colour; the second one was made of green prase. These were of the same volume and size. The third pillar was made of an Egyptian stone. Here below there is no stone that is obtained or acquired with such great difficulty, nor one that required a higher price … The fourth pillar was made of a very precious stone. As our Source tells us, there is a tree of immense value in the river flowing through Paradise. It is laden with apples that drop to the bottom of the river; those that remain there for seven years become hard and strong stones. They have such virtues and such characteristics that they can restore memory to a madman who is completely out of his mind and neither knows nor understands anything. That is what distinguishes this stone.]53

These pillars support a vault with two thrones, one of which displays Hectorʼs body, while the other contains a statue of the Trojan hero brandishing a sword in threat of future revenge against the Greeks (text not given here). The wondrous construction expresses the equally extraordinary nature of its occupant, further highlighted by the precious stones, statues and four columns, in a vivid and expansive fashion aimed to inculcate awe. It is highly likely that the description, in its exotic impossibility, was deliberately designed to outdo the tomb ekphrases of the Roman d’Énéas. If so, it represents a deliberate literary challenge that reinforces the sense of textual competition in the later twelfth century, but this time a challenge that is perhaps aimed first at other romance works.54 In Guido’s text, the tomb is still a marvel, with precious stones, golden columns and a similar threatening statue, but there is a much longer section describing Hector’s body that is new to the Latin work. Here Hector’s corpse is ingeniously preserved by a balsam, poured throughout his body, so that he seems still to be alive. Guido provides a substantial description of the balsam’s operation on Hector’s body. Sic et liquor ipse descendens per utrunque latus, copiose diffusus, latera ipsa sic conseruabat in statu ut quasi viui latera viderentur. Qui continuis installacionibus ad continencias pectoris emanabat et per eas perueniebat ad crura, a quibus continuo cursu perueniebat ad pedes. In cuius pedibus erat quoddam aliud vas balsamo puro plenum. Et sic per has apposiciones cadauer Hectoris quasi corpus viui ficticie presentabat, in multa durabilitatis custodia conseruatum. [And so this liquid, descending on each side, flowing copiously, preserved the flanks in such a condition that they appeared to be living flanks. By continuous instillations it spread itself to the contents of the body and through them reached the legs, from which in a continuous course it arrived at the feet. In his feet there was another vase full of pure balsam. And thus through 53 54

Troie, ed. Constans, iii, lines 16669–76, 16681–92; trans. Burgess and Kelly, p. 246. See n. 16 above and Baumgartner, ‘Tombeaux pour guerriers et amazones’.



Translating Troy in the Middle Ages  125 these applications, the corpse of Hector appeared falsely to be just like a living body, since it was preserved with many precautions for endurance.]55

This is an extrapolation from the French text, which simply mentions a ‘vert basme e de la licor / Li entröent par mi lo cors’ [a green balm and liquid that penetrated the whole body].56 A similar addition to those seen in the Historia’s version of the Medea episode, Guido’s alteration again increases the sense of learning, here a physical lore that is absent from Troie. More competitive rewriting on Guido’s part seems to be a factor here, and it has a two-fold impact. First, it adds to the depiction of Hector’s tomb and body as a marvel by including an arcane physical process, which increases the wonder characteristic of such translatio in romance. Second, it makes such a romance description more akin to the ekphrases seen in the Alexandreis, for example, which are much more interested in intellectual pursuits (especially geographical and historical learning).57 These two effects are not quite mutually exclusive, but they are certainly pulling in opposite directions. The Historia’s translatio shows Guido reworking a motif associated with romance poetics into a more intellectual form, in a similar fashion to the Medea episode, a practice that also increases the sense of wonder that is another key characteristic of his poetics. Guido’s rewriting therefore both decreases and increases the romance sensibilities of the text. This elusiveness makes it difficult to define the nature of his translatio here in generic terms; it invokes different poetic ideas found in a variety of genres, not just in romance and historiography, so any conflict is hard to attribute solely to generic difference. What is clear is that his invocation of different ideas and texts is again one that crosses borders of language, period and polity. In the Troy Book, the episode of Hector’s tomb and body is amplified less than in the Medea narrative, and follows Guido explicitly – ‘as Guydo can yow telle’ (5745) – in its particulars, such as Hector’s preserved body and the threatening statue, the jewels and the lamps. However, there is a significant difference between the two texts in the way in which Lydgate contextualises the tomb. Where Guido begins with an admittedly vivid description of the Trojans’ grief at Hector’s death, Lydgate starts with a lyrical and personal lament, claiming that the Muses themselves are unable to help him write of such grief, and he must invoke the Furies and Niobe: But now, allas! How shal I procede In þe story, þat for wo and drede Fele myn hond boþe tremble and quake, 55 56 57

Historia, ed. Griffin, p. 178, lines 8–15; trans. Meek, p. 171, lines 76–84. Troie, ed. Constans, iii, lines 18782–82. See Venetia Bridges, ‘“L’estoire d’Alixandre vos veul par vers traitier […]”: Passions and Polemics in Latin and Vernacular Alexander Literature of the Later Twelfth Century’, Nottingham Medieval Studies 58 (2014), 87–113.

126  Venetia Bridges O worþi Hector, only for þi sake, Of þi deth I am so loth to write. O who shal now help me to endyte Or vn-to whom shal I clepe or calle? … Nouþe to Clyo or Callyope, But to Allecto and Thesyphone, And Megera, þat euere doth compleine … Wherefore, helpe now, þou woful Nyobe, Som drery ter, in al þi pitous peyne, In-to my penne dolfully to reyne …58

Lydgate goes on to beg Ixion, Sisyphus and Tantalus for help in his painful endeavour. This highly stylised lament is a showcase for Lydgate’s rhetorical and learned abilities, which he indulges fully. It is also another discourse on authorship, as well as a lament; the main point (delivered at some length) is the impossibility of conveying such grief in writing or performance. Consciously intruding his authorial persona, as in the Medea episode, Lydgate feels his hand ‘tremble and quake’ (5424) and his ‘troubled penne’ needs Niobe’s tears for its ink (5444, 5460); he also compares his miserable tale to ‘tragedies, al to-tore and rent … in þe theatre’ (5440, 5442). The tragedy of Hector’s death, and the subsequent extraordinary monument and preservation of his corpse, are thus foregrounded by a lament that encompasses the complete literary spectrum of grief, from Lydgate as the immediate, present author through to the inspirational Muses and the authors of Hell, the Furies, who in turn are the ‘authors’ of the classical underworld. Lyric, epic, history, drama and myth all contribute to this lament for Hector, which is also (ironically) an expression of literary impotence. It is difficult not to read Lydgate’s expansive and allusive rhetoric as a deliberate literary challenge to his predecessors (as well as his contemporaries), providing his tomb description with its own literary ‘marvel’ as a counterpart, and thus as a passage that is again engaging with a wide-ranging literary competition. Once again, Lydgate’s amplificatory translatio explicitly sets his subject (Hector) in an intertextual, transnational literary world. In the episodes discussed above, all three texts engage in a competitive translatio that relates to wider, transnational themes and debates – a form of rewriting that is found first in the twelfth century but which appears consistently in various forms in the later Middle Ages. For Troie, in its twelfth-century context, the rewriting takes the form of questions about how new possibilities for composition en romanz relate to Latin texts and traditions as well as to the emerging romance genre. For the Historia, the rewriting expresses its translatio in terms of increased learning, whether that be the addition of historical facts, natural and physical processes, or religious didacticism; this approach broadly confirms Simpson’s analysis of the historical and ethical focus of 58

Troy Book, ed. Edwards, bk iii, lines 5423–29, 5445–47, 5458–60.



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‘the Guido tradition’ as demonstrated by the Historia. Such additions create a sense of competition with Troie, as the Historia tries to become more ‘learned’ than its source. Its competitive intellectualism relates to a literary culture of historiography that is multilingual, cross-generic and transnational. Finally, the Troy Book expands on the Historia to highlight processes of authorship, and in so doing engages with a wide range of material, English and continental, past and present. One factor involved in Lydgate’s expansive translatio is surely a desire to outdo Guido, a need particularly present in his reproof of the Latin author in the Medea episode, but his desire is not confined to Guido’s work alone; Lydgate’s consistent intertextual references extend this need to a broader range of literature, situating his work in a wider context that is transnational. Crucially, this textual interaction demonstrates that Lydgate’s work participates in the same wide-ranging, multilingual and frequently competitive literary network as the other two Troy texts. This mutual participation is more striking given that the Troy Book’s translatio studii is not identical to that of the Historia (its source), a difference that might be ascribed to the former’s linguistic and cultural ‘Englishness’. As demonstrated in the passages here, the Troy Book is keen to outdo (implicitly and explicitly) its Latin source, often developing and/ or contradicting the Historia’s moral and historiographical perspectives, which indicates a similar approach within both works, if a competitive one on the part of the English text. However, Lydgate’s habit of relating these perspectives to contemporary literary and political anxieties differentiates his work from the Historia, situating the Troy Book more explicitly in an English context. The Troy Book thus unites the translatio inherited from the Historia with a more historicist and local approach, making it a multifaceted text that closely examines English concerns but also looks beyond these to shared transnational literary traditions. The translatio of Troy texts, as exemplified by Troie, the Historia and the Troy Book, cannot be confined within simple binaries such as local/ international, vernacular/Latin, or romance/history, but demands a broader and more sophisticated understanding of European literary culture.

Troy and Bohemia A wider European understanding of Troy literature is important for Bohemian as well as English material, particularly since the Historia was widespread in Bohemia as well as England in the later Middle Ages. It was translated twice into Czech in the fourteenth century and was the first book to be printed in that language, in 1468, as the Kronika trojánská [Trojan Chronicle].59 The appearance of English and Bohemian versions of the Historia at roughly the same time raises the question of whether it influenced these two vernacular and apparently ‘local’ linguistic contexts in similar ways. Are English and Bohemian Troy narratives that use the Historia as a source performing a similar form of 59

Thomas, Reading Women, p. 123.

128  Venetia Bridges

translatio studii despite their different linguistic and cultural contexts? And, if so, can this shared translatio be characterised as an identifiably transnational one? Considering these questions will suggest how England and Bohemia may have participated in the transnational translatio of Troy demonstrated above. In light of the Historia’s interest in historical facts and ethical extrapolation, and in particular its ‘anti-imperialist’ tendencies highlighted by Simpson, it is suggestive that the Kronika trojánská’s appeal was apparently not connected to the dynastic impulse to claim Trojan genealogical descent, unlike elsewhere in Europe; rather, it related to interest in ‘exciting and exotic reading material’ in the context of chivalric literature more widely.60 Jan Hus’s condemnation of the aristocratic fashion for wall paintings of Troy scenes derived from the Historia hints at a key facet of this interest, namely the translatio and subsequent interpretation of the Kronika trojánská. His concern suggests that the Trojan narrative was read as ethically instructive for the Bohemian nobility, a role more suited in his opinion to the Bible; the Kronika trojánská was evidently seen as exemplary in a broadly chivalric sense and thereby in alignment with the ‘relentlessly exemplarist’ Historia.61 Antonín’s description of the work fits such an interpretation.62 The Historia, its English descendants and the Kronika trojánská are thus united in a broad sense by their similar approach to the Troy legend: historical but not historicist, aware of intellectual and literary traditions, and concerned with ethical interpretation. Given the omnipresent Historia, this is not wholly surprising, but importantly it indicates that reading vernacular reworkings of the Troy story as first and foremost reflective of local political contexts occludes the wider transnational similarities between them. However, there is another connection between the ‘anti-imperialist’ tradition of the Historia identified by Simpson in English Troy texts and the Kronika trojánská, one that paradoxically relates them via local political contexts. Alfred Thomas claims that ‘the absence of the imperialist tradition of the Troy legend in Czech literature reflected the long-established distrust of royal (and imperial) encroachments on the feudal prerogatives of the powerful Bohemian nobility’, giving as an example of this distrust a manuscript of the Kronika trojánská owned by a Hussite knight rebelling against the Empire.63 The anti-imperial concerns of the Historia reflected in the Czech text are therefore indirectly related to the political situation of Bohemia in the fourteenth century. There are parallels with late-medieval English vernacular translatio as exem60

61 62 63

Marie Bláhová and Alena Linhartová, ‘The Genealogy of the Czech Luxembourgs in Contemporary Historiography and Political Propaganda’, The Medieval Chronicle 9 (2014), pp. 1–32 at 17. See also Richard Antonín, The Ideal Ruler in Medieval Bohemia (Leiden, 2017), p. 168. Antonín, Ideal Ruler, p. 168, and Simpson, ‘Other Book of Troy’, p. 404. Antonín, Ideal Ruler, pp. 168–71. Alfred Thomas, A Blessed Shore: England and Bohemia from Chaucer to Shakespeare (Ithaca NY, 2007), p. 76.



Translating Troy in the Middle Ages  129

plified by Lydgate’s Troy Book, suggesting that Troy works derived from the Historia are influenced by political concerns in both England and Bohemia, even if those political concerns are different; both works are in some sense reactions to local imperial tendencies and tensions. Ironically, this means that what seems to be a rather local form of political translatio has in effect become a transnational, or at least a mutual, one. Yet just as Lydgate’s Troy Book is best thought of as encompassing both specifically English concerns and also wider European literary perspectives, so the broadly ethical nature of the Kronika trojánská’s approach should not be overlooked in preference for this apparently more precise political interpretation. It is telling that it appears to be the ethical, and hence the fundamentally ahistorical, features of the Kronika trojánská’s translatio studii that gave rise to its condemnation by Hus and its adoption by Bohemian nobles as an exemplary text; paradoxically, the work’s ability to transcend history through its ethical valency has resulted in its historicist interpretation and importance. Finally, the Historia also seems to have inspired particular episodes in other Czech texts that are not Troy narratives. Penthesilea, the queen of the Amazons who fights for the Trojans and falls in love with Hector, is a likely model for Vlasta, leader of the warlike maidens in the sixteenth-century Dalimil chronicle.64 Whilst this Czech work may invoke the character from Troie and the Historia in the service of a locally inflected historicist interpretation65 – the same anti-imperial situation noted above with reference to the Hussite manuscript of the Kronika trojánská – its modelling of a local character on a woman from the Latin and/or French text again gestures to the Troy story as it operates beyond the linguistic, cultural and political limits of Bohemia. From these examples it is clear that late-medieval Troy literature does not – cannot – circulate in hermetically and hermeneutically sealed circles defined by linguistic and political boundaries; consciously or otherwise, it draws on texts and traditions from throughout Europe, even if these intertextual relationships are concealed and/or indirect. Since even Lydgate, whose remit appears to be so deeply local, can be shown simultaneously to engage in both a transnational culture and also a specifically English context, perhaps other Czech authors and their works (in addition to those noted briefly here) may participate in that culture in previously unnoticed ways and areas. If such a mutual reliance were established, it would add significantly to the growing recognition of the vital roles played by European cultural and textual networks in constructing apparently ‘local’ literary cultures such as those in England and Bohemia during the later Middle Ages.

64 65

Ibid., p. 121. For further discussion of Dalimil, see ch. 4, above, by Helena Znojemská. It ‘reflects the Czech author’s belief that Bohemia should be ruled by and for the Czech nobility without foreign and royal interference’; Thomas, Blessed Shore, p. 121.

6 Mock Passions in England and Bohemia1 LUCIE DOLEŽALOVÁ

I

This study offers a comparative perspective on several medieval narratives of historical events shaped on the Passion story as presented in the Gospels, which are strongly intertextual (in their use of quotations, allusions, paraphrases and the like) and which happen to have survived only in the British Isles and Bohemia. The corpus consists of the British Narratio de passione iusticiariorum (1289), Passio Scotorum periuratorum (1307), Passio Francorum secundum Flemingos (describing a 1302 battle but preserved only in the much later chronicle of Adam of Usk) and the Bohemian Passio Iudeorum Pragensium secundum Iesskonem, rusticum quadratum (after 1389), Passio raptorum de Slapanicz, secundum Bartoss, tortorem Brunnensem (after 1401) and Passio Magistri Johannis Hus secundum Johannem Barbatum (soon after 1415). While direct influence cannot be proved, the texts in this small corpus do have an affinity which does not appear anywhere else.

n Chaucer’s Miller’s Tale, the student Nicholas, motionless, gapes upwards at the ceiling as a part of his complex trick on the old carpenter John, designed – successfully – to seduce Johnʼs wife, Alison. When John finds Nicholas in his trance, he shakes him, saying, ‘Awak, and thenk on Cristes passioun!ʼ (MilT 3478). The urgent call to be mindful of Christ’s Passion appears suddenly and, as a piece of sacred history, seems so inappropriate in the context of the lewd deceit that it has an immediate comic effect. The attempt to wake someone up from a trance by reminding him of an event long gone, and only known from hearsay, rather than by calling attention to his actual situation and surroundings, may seem ironic. Yet, especially during the late Middle Ages, Christ’s Passion was not only an important historical event, it was a crucial narrative re-enacted at every mass and the centre 1

Research leading to this study was supported by the European Regional Development Fund project KREAS, reg. no.: CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_019/0000734, as well as by the Cooperatio Programme, Charles University, Research Area Literature. I am very grateful to Michael Van Dussen for his numerous corrections and useful suggestions.



Mock Passions in England and Bohemia  131

of daily Christian practice, the liturgical calendar and, importantly, personal salvation. The reminder to medieval Christians to ponder the Passion was implicit at all times.2 Moreover, the coupling of laughter and the Passion was widespread throughout the Middle Ages. Texts that contain this combination are usually called parodic but are not necessarily rooted in folk culture, or critical of the institution of the church, as much previous research has suggested. Many of them were written in Latin and were fully integrated into mainstream Christian writings. Without wishing to redefine medieval parody, or draw the borderlines of a curious literary type, this study focuses on a specific corpus of medieval Latin texts classified as mock Passion narratives (a full list appears in the Appendix).3 These narratives model particular historical events after the Gospel treatments of Christ’s Passion. While there are many parodic and satirical texts using the Gospels in the Middle Ages, those that depict actual historical incidents seem to survive only from England and Bohemia.4 If there was a direct influence, as suggested by Jan Vilikovský, and assumed by Barbara Newman, it came from England – where this type might have originated – to Bohemia, and only after much delay: the English sources (A1–A4 in the Appendix) were written at the turn of the fourteenth century; the Czech ones (B1–B3) are one hundred years younger.5 The corpus itself is quite small. 2

3

4

5

See, for example, Alasdair A. MacDonald, Bernhard Ridderbos and Rita Schlusemann (eds), The Broken Body: Passion Devotion in Late-Medieval Culture (Groningen, 1998); Stephen Kelly and Ryan Perry (eds), Devotional Culture in Late Medieval England and Europe: Diverse Imaginations of Christ’s Life (Turnhout, 2014). Two basic reference works on medieval parody are Paul Lehmann, Die Parodie im Mittelalter (Stuttgart, 1963) and Martha Bayless, Parody in the Middle Ages: The Latin Tradition (Ann Arbor, 1996), but many problems remain open and the theme is far from exhausted. Relevant texts include, for example, the so-called money-Gospels, Evangelium secundum marcas argenti [‘The Gospel According to the Silver Markʼ] or, closer to the Passion theme, the Passio cuiusdam nigri monachi secundum luxuriam [‘Passion of a Certain Black Monk According to Luxuryʼ], preserved in Třeboň, Státní oblastní archiv [State Regional Archives], A 7, fols 146r–147r, edited in Lehmann, Die Parodie, pp. 183–4, and also by Martha Bayless, Fifteen Medieval Latin Parodies (Toronto, 2018), pp. 82–92. Later, there are two long and elaborate mock Passions from Germany, but these are already connected to the Reformation and print culture. Theodorich Morung (1469–1508) wrote, probably in 1482, Passio dominorum sacerdotum; see Wilhelm Engel, ‘Passio dominorum. Ein Ausschnitt aus dem Kampf um die Landeskirchenherrschaft und Türkensteuer im spätmittelalterlichen Frankenʼ, Zeitschrift für bayerische Landesgeschichte 16 (1951), 265–316, with edition at 304–16. The second is the curious Passio Lutheri, ed. J. Schilling, Passio Doctoris Martini Lutheri: Bibliographie, Texte und Untersuchungen (Gütersloh, 1989); see also Rebecca Semmel, ‘The Passio Lutheri: Parody as Hagiographyʼ, Journal of English and Germanic Philology 95 (1996), 157–74. Jan Vilikovský, Latinská poesie žákovská v Čechách [‘Latin Student Poetry in Bohemiaʼ] (Bratislava, 1932), p. 94. Although Newman states, ‘When Richard II married Anne of Bohemia in 1382, the floodgates of cultural exchange between London and Prague sprang open, and Bohemia acquired not only Wycliffite ideas, but also a taste

132  Lucie Doležalová

It is possible, in fact, that the satirical treatment of the Passion went largely unappreciated in the Middle Ages and that the surviving texts witness to what was no more than a passing fashion. The mock Passion texts blend the Gospel narrative with description of historical events in ways that would later strike modern scholars as inappropriate: the punishment of deceitful judges by Edward I (A1), punishing the burglars of the royal treasury at Westminster Abbey in 1303 (A4), or executing evil robbers of Šlapanice (B2) are all compared to Christ’s innocent sacrifice on the cross. Each of the known mock Passions has unique features: Passion of the Judges (A1) uses the Bible abundantly but the Gospels only very little. Passion of the Franks (A2) survives only in an English copy but might have been written in Bruges. Passion of the Scots (A3) is a fragment but also the only one of the mock Passions that we know was quoted in the Middle Ages. Passion of the Monks of Westminster (A4) is not extant but is referred to in several manuscripts. Passion of the Jews of Prague (B1) describes Jews assuming the role of Christ. Passion of the Robbers of Šlapanice (B2) is not documented as a historical event and thus might be a piece of fiction. Passion of Jan Hus (B3) was originally meant as a solemn reminder of Husʼs martyrdom and was turned into parody in only one manuscript copy. Further details of their individual traits are specified in the Appendix. In spite of their differences, all the known medieval mock Passion narratives are treated here as a group, so that their common features become more apparent. One such feature is that, except for Passion of the Jews (B1), they have been largely neglected. For historians, the relevance of the mock Passions is limited by their high level of intertextuality: it is difficult (if not impossible) to determine which of the described details reflect the historical event and which were merely taken over from the biblical narrative. Literary historians have paid little attention to this sort of crude humour. Thompson, the editor of the chronicle of Adam of Usk, did not include the translation of Passion of the Franks (A2), saying: ‘The mock chronicle is so offensively profane that it is better left without translation.ʼ6 Bute called Passion of the Scots (A3) ‘a would-be comic narrativeʼ7 and ‘a piece of sustained and cold-blooded profanityʼ.8 Nielson considered it a ‘grotesque and

6 7

8

for the political passio’, she offers no evidence to support her assumption; see Barbara Newman, Medieval Crossover: Reading the Secular against the Sacred (Notre Dame, 2013), p. 183. Lehmann, Parodie, pp. 121–3, argues that the parodic Passion became fashionable in England c. 1300 perhaps because satirical writing was enjoying a resurgence there. Edward Maunde Thompson (ed.), Chronicon Adae de Usk, ad 1377–1421 (London, 1904), p. 107. Marquess of Bute, ‘Notice of a Manuscript of the Latter Part of the Fourteenth Century, entitled Passio Scotorum perjuratorumʼ, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, ns 7 (1885), 166–92 at 166. Ibid., 186.



Mock Passions in England and Bohemia  133

cruel productionʼ. Only Tout, the editor of Passion of the Judges (B1), was more favourable, saying that ‘[t]he introduction of characters, the play upon names, the twisting of well-known phrases to suit the purpose of the tale, are managed with skill, and produce a clever, if extraordinary, medleyʼ and ‘the solemn mockery … is as ingenious as it is profane; as well worth reading as impossible of translation.’10 Yet, he also says that ‘for profanity, grim humour and misapplied knowledge of the Vulgate the “passions” of this period have no equal.’11 Several scholars have referred to a vogue for mock Passions at the end of the thirteenth century in England, and then further afield.12 There is some evidence for the reception of these texts, but the existing corpus is not large enough to discern a pattern. In addition, since they can be interpreted as variations of liturgical parody that were widespread throughout Europe, and since no immediate textual borrowing has been identified, direct influence between England and Bohemia cannot be considered manifest: these texts might have originated independently of one another, sharing merely their method. For example, Passion of Jan Hus (B3) was surely an ad hoc creation, a sort of report on the Constance event drafted very soon after it. The original author of its solemn version surely did not anticipate that his work could be inverted so easily, which suggests that mock Passions were not commonplace; otherwise the author of a work like Passion of John Hus (B3) would have avoided laying himself open to parody. Mock Passions might have been simple topical compositions, reactions to particular events, quick jokes. As applications of an immediate exigency, working with the element of surprise (or even shock), they would lose their appeal if they became commonplace. But what do they mock? Every narrative includes a conflict in which one side is compared to Christ, the victim, the other to those who attack him. All the mock Passion narrators seem either to write from the perspective of those who attack or at least to side with them, so, curiously, it is the victims of attack, explicitly compared to Christ, who seem to be ridiculed.13 This may sound surprising, but selective comparison, that is, a connection made on the basis of a particular aspect rather than the overall meaning, was in fact com9

9 10

11 12 13

George Nielson, ‘Chronicon Adae de Usk (book review)ʼ, Scottish Historical Review 2 (1905), 214–15 at 214. Ed. Thomas Frederick Tout and Hilda Johnstone, ‘Appendix I: The Passion of the Judgesʼ, State Trials of the Reign of Edward the First 1289–1293 (London, 1906), p. 93. The edition is based on two manuscripts as the editors did not know the Harley MS. Thomas Frederick Tout, ‘A Medieval Burglaryʼ, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 2 (1914–15), 348–69, reprinted in Tout, Collected Papers, ii, pp. 108–13 at 110. ‘[T]he species of composition called a “Passion” was particularly in vogue at the turn of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuriesʼ (Tout, ‘Medieval Burglaryʼ, p. 110). The author of Passion of the Jews (B1) is a Christian, not a Jew; the author of Passion of the Scots (A3) is English, not a Scot; the narrator of Passion of the Robbers of Šlapanice (B2) is one of the attackers; the author of Passion of the Franks (A2) sides with the Flemish, and so on.

134  Lucie Doležalová

mon in medieval exegesis, preaching, exempla and other genres that stood in any relationship to the Bible. Yet in the case of the mock Passions, it may be that the specific violent event of the narrative is made ridiculous through comparison with the events of sacred history. Or perhaps these texts have a different aim altogether, such as showing their authors’ erudition. It is possible, of course, that disapproval played a role in limiting the dissemination of these texts. However, there is no trace of medieval criticism of these opuscula, and so to attribute their limited circulation to audience squeamishness may be to project modern concepts of humour on to the Middle Ages. All the surviving texts are anonymous, which adds to the difficulty in pinning down their origins. Tout imagined the author of Passion of the Monks (A4) as an ordinarily serious person who conceived his text in a particular, light mood.14 Several titles of the mock Passions conclude with a personal name after ‘according toʼ (secundum): secundum Iohannem (‘according to Johnʼ in Passion of the Monks [A4]), secundum Iesskonem (‘according to Ješekʼ, a diminutive nickname for John, in a version of Passion of the Jews [B1b]), secundum Bartoss, tortorem Brunnensem (‘according to Bartoš, the executioner of Brnoʼ, in Passion of the Robbers [B2]), secundum Iohannem Barbatum (‘according to the bearded Johnʼ, in Passion of Jan Hus [B3]), and researchers have repeatedly interpreted these to be references to their respective authors.15 Yet the attributions in fact provide another link to the Gospels (as in secundum Iohannem – ‘according to Johnʼ), accentuating the mocking character of the compositions as a whole. Such an interpretation is confirmed by variants that do not feature proper names: secundum Bumbum (‘according to a heavy drinkerʼ, in one manuscript witness of Passion of the Judges [A1]), secundum opera sua (‘according to his deedsʼ, in another witness of Passion of the Judges [A1]), or secundum blasphemiam (‘according to blasphemyʼ, in a version of Passion of the Jews [B1c]), as well as by further additions to the authorial figure, especially the rusticum quadratum (‘square-set countrymanʼ, that is, country bumpkin, in one version of Passion of the Jews [B1b] and in Passion of Jan Hus [B3]).16 The authorial figures mentioned in the titles should thus be 14 15

16

Tout, ‘Medieval Burglaryʼ, p. 110. For Passion of Jan Hus, see Václav Novotný, ‘Úvodʼ [‘Introduction’], Fontes rerum Bohemicarum, viii (Praha, 1932), pp. v–ix; for Passion of the Monks of Westminster, see Henry Richards Luard (ed.), Flores Historiarum, iii: ad 1265–ad 1326 (Cambridge, 1890). There has been extensive discussion on the meaning of rusticus quadratus in Czech scholarship. The current consensus is that it is a mocking reference. See František Mareš, ‘Jessko rusticus quadratus’, Český časopis historický 9 (1903), 202–3; Anežka Vidmanová, ‘Sedlák hranatý, nebo chlap jak se patří?ʼ [‘A Square-set Countryman or a Proper Guy?ʼ], Listy filologické 123 (2000), 52–8; Jana Nechutová, Caesarius z Heisterbachu: Vyprávění o zázracích: středověký život v zrcadle exempel [‘Caesarius of Heisterbach: Tales of Miracles or Life in the Middle Ages as Reflected in Exemplaʼ] (Praha, 2009), p. 325; František Šmahel, Život a dílo Jeronýma Pražského: zpráva o výzkumu [‘Life and Works of Jerome of Prague: A Research Reportʼ] (Praha, 2010), p. 121.



Mock Passions in England and Bohemia  135

understood as part of the intertextual character of the text, not as pointing to real authors. As for the readership of the mock Passions, when editing Passion of the Scots (A3), Bute noted: ‘Whoever it was, he was also a person of singular brutality and cruelty of disposition, the lowest possible taste, and a turn for pleasantry of a very degraded and degrading kind.ʼ17 Leaving aside the moral profile of the readers, it is certain that they would have had to be educated enough to have sufficient knowledge of Latin and the Bible in order to decipher the intertextual allusions. The seeming contrast between this type of ‘low entertainmentʼ and the education necessary to enjoy it is in fact characteristic of all medieval Latin parody.18 In this case, the biblical allusions are mostly familiar phrases which also appeared in liturgy, and thus even a less elite audience could have been familiar with them. A closer comparison of the mock Passions reveals that they do indeed share a common method, if not a uniform selection of allusions. Yet there is no evidence of direct influence among the individual texts (except, of course, among the versions of Passion of the Jews (B1), which are closely intertwined). Although all the mock Passions employ Matthew more than any other Gospel account, most of the biblical references used in each of these texts appear only in that one mock Passion. A few biblical lines are included in more than one mock Passion, but even these are used in various ways. Yet a closer look at the biblical verses that do repeat can help us understand the strategy behind quoting Scripture. What inspired the application of the Gospel framework to the narrative of a particular event is difficult to determine. Tout claimed that the mock Passion described ‘some incident of more or less undeserved sufferingʼ.19 Indeed, each mock Passion depicts an occasion involving a violent, often brutal, death. In fact, in every case, the victims are many as opposed to the singularity of Christ.

Setting: In illo tempore Most of the mock Passions (all the English ones, the ‘according to blasphemyʼ version of Passion of the Jews [B1c], and Passion of the Robbers [B2]) open with In illo tempore (‘At that timeʼ, Matthew 11:25 and 12:1), thus explicitly comparing the historical time to the time of Christ’s sacrifice. They twist the perspective: by setting a recent event within the Gospel framework, they juxtapose linear experience and timeless sacred authority. Christ’s Passion was 17 18

19

Bute, ‘Noticeʼ, p. 186. On these grounds, he refuses the idea that it might have been written for Edward I, but suggests it was meant for Edward II. See Lehmann, Parodie; Bayless, Parody; Bayless, Fifteen Medieval Latin Parodies; also Mikhail M. Bakhtin, Rabelais and his World (Bloomington, 1941), to whose theory of carnival most of the discussions still return. Tout, ‘Medieval Burglaryʼ, p. 111.

136  Lucie Doležalová

above linear time in the Middle Ages, always present, presented, and represented, the ultimate point of departure and arrival. Juxtaposing it to a worldly experience of violence is striking, and the texts are well aware of the shock they produce. The pogrom described in Passion of the Jews (B1) actually took place at Easter. The otherwise undocumented punishment of the robbers of Passion of the Robbers (B2) is also located at Easter time. Perhaps this setting followed from the choice of narrating the event in the style of a Passion. Or perhaps it was the other way around: the author may have decided to narrate the event in the Passion style because the event he describes actually happened at Easter. While none of the other mock Passions describes an Easter event, some might have been influenced by a similar confluence of their subject matter and the Easter season. Passion of the Scots (A3) may have been written during the Lenten period, which could have influenced the choice of the Passion framework.20 The burglary of Passion of the Monks (A4) was discovered soon after Easter, while the trials of Passion of the Judges (A1) began during the Easter law term of 1290. If the texts were presented around Easter time (a hypothesis that cannot yet be proven), the juxtaposition of the historical and sacred temporalities would make the parodic elements more readily apparent and easily understood by even a less learned audience.

Inevitability The Gospel framework adds an air of inevitability to the events of the mock Passions. The sense is that whatever is being described was meant to be and happens as a fulfilment of God’s will. Other references – for example, allusions to Christ’s prayer at Gethsemane – further confirm this impression. References are made especially to the chalice, the moment of Christ’s doubt and eventual acceptance of the will of the Father: ‘Pater mi, si possibile est, transeat a me calix iste: verumtamen non sicut ego volo, sed sicut tu’ [My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me. Nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt] (Matthew 26:39), followed by the theme of the weakness of the flesh: ‘Spiritus quidem promptus est, caro autem infirma’ [The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh weak] (Matthew 26:41). In Passion of the Scots (A3), the meaning is reversed by adding a single word, evadere [escape]:21 ‘Et pater addens dixit: “Si possibile est, transeat a me calix iste. Spiritus quidem promptus est evadere, caro autem infirma.” [And the father said moreover: ‘If it be possible, let this cup pass from me. The spirit indeed is willing to escape,

20 21

‘The tone of the religious services of the period certainly seems a sufficiently probable explanation of the peculiar form of this profane skitʼ; Bute, ‘Noticeʼ, p. 185. Translations from the mock Passions are mine; translations from the Vulgate are based on the King James version of the Bible.



Mock Passions in England and Bohemia  137

but the flesh is weak.ʼ] Similarly, in Passion of the Jews (A1), the biblical quotations are manipulated and their meaning reversed: 22

Ieško quadratus ait: ‘Non iocundabor ad plenum, donec inebrietur gladius simul et animus meus de sanguinibus Iudeorum. Spiritus quidem meus ad hoc promptus est et caro non infirma.ʼ Conversus autem ad alios, hortabatur eos, ut et ipsi protinus confirment fratres suos, orentque et vigilent, ne in Iudaicam intrent temptacionem: ‘Ut non sicut ipsi volunt, sed sicut nos volumus. Calix, quem disposuit eis Deus Pater, non transibit ab eis, sed bibent illum. Fiat voluntas nostra.ʼ [Then the square-set Ieško said: ‘I will not fully rejoice until my sword and my spirit grow drunk on the blood of the Jews. My spirit is willing for it and my flesh is not weak.’ Turning then to others, he urged them, too, to strengthen their brothers immediately, to pray and to watch lest they succumb to the Jewish temptation: ‘Not as they will, but as we will. The chalice, which God the Father has prepared for them, will not pass from them but they will drink it. Our will be done.ʼ]

In Passion of the Robbers (B2), the biblical reference remains the same, but there is a shift in its use: scribe Caspar applies the chalice theme to try to avoid the danger of the fight, and the reference to weak flesh becomes a simple statement of physical impediment: Pridiem pro omnibus Caspar scriba dixit: ‘Ego ad hec natus sum et ad hoc fato urgente in hunc locum veni, non ut pugnem, sed ut scribam litteras. Obsecro, mi domine, ut si fieri potest, transeat a nobis calix iste, calix inquam presentis periculi et futuri patibuli. Spiritus quidem promptus est, caro autem omne nostrum ac vires adeo fragiles et infirme, ut tante civium multitudini resistere non possimus. Verum non sicut nos volumus, sed sicut tu vis, fiat voluntas tua!ʼ23 [The day before, the scribe Caspar said in front of everyone: ‘I was born for this and driven by fate I came to this place not in order to fight but in order to write letters. I implore you, my Lord, that, if it be possible, let this cup pass from us, I mean the cup of the present danger and of future gallows. Indeed, the spirit is willing but our whole flesh and strength are so fragile and weak that we may not be able to withstand such a multitude of citizens. Truly not as we will but as you will, thy will be done!ʼ]

In Passion of the Franks (A2), it is the context in which the otherwise unchanged quotations are placed that is striking: Petrus iterum percussit et dixit: ‘Sic respondes pontifici?ʼ Et procidit comes in terram et oravit dicens: ‘Pater, si possibile est, transeat a me calix iste. 22 23

Bute, ‘Noticeʼ, p. 179. Fols 61v–62r.

138  Lucie Doležalová Non tamen sicut ego volo, sed sicut tu vis, Petre.ʼ … Venerunt Flemyngi, ut viderent corpora defunctorum, et dixerunt: ‘Dormite jam et requiescite. Spiritus quidem promptus est, caro vero infirma.ʼ [Peter struck him again and said: ‘This is the way you reply to a duke?’ And the count fell on the ground and prayed saying: ‘Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. But not as I will but as you will, Peter.’ … The Flemish went to see the corpses of those who died and they said: ‘Sleep now and rest. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.’]

The idea of God’s noble intention and the inevitability of the course of events that he devised are alluded to repeatedly in each of the mock Passions and juxtaposed with the characters’ base desires and distasteful acts. The resulting striking contrast is one of the main features the mock Passions share.

Fulfilling the Scripture Although – with the exception of Passion of Jan Hus (B3) – the historical and biblical events stand in stark contrast, the authors of the mock Passions generally exercise great creativity in aligning the two. The parallels between the Bible and the historical event, as well as the various transformations of the biblical text, are pervasive, striking and witty. Thus, it was surely not due to lack of imagination or the failure to find a link between the Bible and reality that when they use the biblical phrase ut impleretur scriptura (‘so that the Scripture is fulfilledʼ),24 they often simply invent a ‘quotationʼ.25 In Passion of the Franks (A2), for example, we read: …ut impleretur quod dictum est in Evangelio: ‘Melius est cum uno oculo intrare prelium Francorum, quam duos oculos habere et mori a Flemyngis.ʼ […so that what is said in the Gospel might be fulfilled: ‘It is better to enter the battle of the Franks with one eye than to have two eyes and be killed by the Flemish.ʼ]

Or, the ‘according to Ješkoʼ version of Passion of the Jews (B1b):

24

25

John 17:12: ‘Cum essem cum eis, ego servabam eos in nomine tuo. Quos dedisti mihi, custodivi: et nemo ex eis periit, nisi filius perditionis, ut Scriptura impleatur’; John 19:36: ‘Facta sunt enim haec, ut Scriptura impleretur…’ Alternatively, they use a real quotation but with a shift, as in Passion of the Robbers (B2): ‘Hoc autem totum factum est ut impleretur Scriptura dicens: “videbunt in quem transfixerunt”’ [But all this was done so that the Scripture might be fulfilled, saying: ‘they shall look on him whom they piercedʼ] (John 19:37). Or, in Passion of the Scots (A3): ‘Hoc autem totum factum est ut impleretur Scriptura: “Sicut fecit gladius tuus mulieres absque liberis, sic erit mater tua absque filio inter mulieres hodie”ʼ [Now all this was done that the Scripture might be fulfilled: ‘As thy sword hath made women childless, so shall thy mother be this day childless among women’] (1 Sam 15:33).



Mock Passions in England and Bohemia  139 At illi Iudei accesserunt ad eos et dixerunt: ‘Amici, ad quid venistis?ʼ Dixerunt Cristiani ad invicem: ‘Ad quid tam diu sumus hic? Ut quid stamus ociosi? Comprehendamus et interficiamus Iudeos, ut per hoc impleantur Scripture.ʼ [And the Jews came to them and said: ‘Friends, why did you come?ʼ Christians said to each other: ‘Why are we here for such a long time? So that we stand doing nothing? Let’s put ourselves together and kill the Jews so that the Scripture might be fulfilled.ʼ]

These pseudo-quotations from the Bible in a text that abounds in biblical quotations and paraphrases show that the authors of the mock Passions did not go for the obvious but preferred self-conscious misdirection.

Trustworthy narrative As for the use of validating strategies, the expected eye-witness element is often turned upside down in these narratives.26 For example, the author of Passion of the Robbers (B2) – reworking John 19:35 – says that he did not see any of what he narrates because he stayed in Brno and offers his ‘testimonyʼ based on rumour and hearsay to his readers to believe it if they choose to.27 This is a sophisticated biblical allusion, too: the author of history uses the biblical paradox of faith and, pointing to the disbelieving Thomas, suggests that one should believe without proof exactly because the story sounds so unbelievable. All of the elements discussed above, namely, the setting In illo tempore, inevitability, fulfilling the Scripture and trustworthy narrative, concern the framework: mock Passions contrast linear and sacred time, a mundane event with the inevitability of God’s plan, worldly validation with God’s omniscience. The joke is neither deep nor complex; it works with disparity and surprise.

History versus fiction: the manuscript evidence Did the mock Passions aim to be part of historiography or fiction?28 Were they written to add amusement to chronicles or to bring an element of real-life experience to primarily entertaining texts? While questions of purpose can 26 27

28

See Marcus Bull, ‘Eyewitness and Medieval Historical Narrativeʼ, The Medieval Chronicle 11 (2017), 1–22. ‘Hic autem, qui scripsit, premissa non vidit, sed manens in Brunna audivit ex fama sicque et ex auditis testimonium perhibuit, ut et vos, si vultis, credatis.’ The biblical verse reads: ‘Et qui vidit, testimonium perhibuit: et verum est testimonium ejus. Et ille scit quia vera dicit: ut et vos credatis.’ [And he that saw it, hath given testimony, and his testimony is true. And he knoweth that he saith true; that you also may believe.] The distinction between history and fiction may itself be questionable. For discussion and further references, see Medieval Narratives between History and Fiction: From the

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hardly be answered at such a remove from their originary context, it is possible to trace their reception: the context in which they were seen to fit in their medieval manuscript transmission, and thus the context in which they were subsequently read.29 The evidence from Bohemia is not very revealing. The single witness of Passion of the Robbers (B2) is included in a collection of ancient and medieval literary curiosities gathered at the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries, and thus reflecting a later antiquarian approach rather than medieval reception of the text.30 Passion of Jan Hus (B3) appears within nine leaves which were taken from another codex and which all relate to Jan Hus, specifically the sentence passed on him, the oldest narrative of his trial, one of his letters, and a Latin and Czech song about the Council of Constance; the mock Passion is included at the end, and is perhaps a result of thematic collecting.31 The manuscripts of Passion of the Jews (B1) are miscellaneous in character. Thus, the individual witnesses are too specific and no general conclusion about the typical manuscript context of the mock Passions from Bohemia can be drawn. Nor is there any contextual material that would support the idea of the Bohemian mock Passions being inspired by those from England.32 Almost all of the English manuscript copies of the mock Passion are found within historiographical codices, and yet they are sometimes set aside within them. Adam of Usk copied Passion of the Franks (A2) into his chronicle as a curiosity, a chance find that caught his interest. Passion of the Monks (A4) is only referred to within the chronicle, not copied into it. Passion of the Scots (A3) is inserted but not integrated with a chronicle, as Passion ends abruptly. In addition, it is preceded by a story of trees selecting their king, which would seem to be even further removed from the concerns of historiography. On the other hand, Passion of the Judges (A1), the oldest known mock Passion, survives in three manuscripts, of which one is a miscellany of legal material,33 while another puts the Passion in the vicinity of political songs. In fact, the Passion here is immediately followed by Latin satirical verses that describe the same event.34 The third manuscript, London, British Library, MS

29 30 31 32

33 34

Centre to the Periphery of Europe, c.1100–1400, ed. Panagiotis A. Agapitos and Lars Boje Mortensen (Copenhagen, 2012). For the method, see Stephen G. Nichols and Sigfried Wenzel (eds), The Whole Book: Cultural Perspectives on the Medieval Miscellany (Ann Arbor, 1996). Just after the Passion, it includes biblical Parody Sermo de sancto Nemine [‘Sermon on St Nobodyʼ], ed. Bayless, Parody, pp. 292–300. Novotný, ‘Úvodʼ, p. vii. That holds true for the provenance, too: Passion of the Jews of Prague (B1) was always associated with Prague University by scholars, although direct evidence is missing. No specific contacts among the other places of origin of the manuscripts have been found. London, British Library, MS Add. 31826. Oxford, All Souls College, MS 39. The poem on the punishment of the judges is edited by Tout and Johnstone, ‘Appendix Iʼ, pp. 98–9.



Mock Passions in England and Bohemia  141

Harley 2851, which is actually the oldest manuscript with a mock Passion narrative, was classified as a ‘literary miscellanyʼ by A. G. Rigg.35 The Passion is followed there by a liturgical parody,36 the Missa Gulonis.37 Thus, the earliest associations of mock Passions are with topical songs (political satires) and literary biblical parody. Confirmation for both these links may be found in the transmission of Passion of the Jews (B1): one of the manuscripts of the ‘according to Ješkoʼ version includes, just before the Passion, a note on drunken priests.38 In another witness of the same version, the Passion is immediately followed by Pater noster peccatoris [The Lord’s Prayer of the Sinner], a curious and entertaining opuscule.39 In yet another Passion of the Jews witness, there is a short collection of historical material intermingled with political lyrics: historical notes, Passion of the Jews in the ‘according to blasphemyʼ version (B1c), followed by satirical verses on the same event (the Jewish pogrom of 1389), notes on the solar eclipses of 1406 and 1415 (added by a later hand), Passion of the Jews in the ‘according to Ješkoʼ version (B1b), a letter of Pope Gregory XII to the antipope Boniface XIII (from December 1406) with a colophon in which the scribe expresses his desire for a beer,40 and finally notes on the ages of the world.41

35

36

37

38

39

40 41

A. G. Rigg, A History of Anglo-Latin Literature 1066–1422 (Cambridge, 1992), p. 238. Several texts were printed from this manuscript by Thomas Wright, A Selection of Latin Stories, from Manuscripts of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries: A Contribution to the History of Fiction During the Middle Ages (London, 1841). For their discussion, see Lehmann, Parodie; Bayless, Parody; Sander L. Gilman, The Parodic Sermon in European Perspective: Aspects of Liturgical Parody from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century (Wiesbaden, 1974). The Missa Gulonis is better known as Missa de potatoribus or Missa potatorum. See Hans Walther, Initia carminum ac versuum medii aevi posterioris Latinorum (Göttingen, 1959), no. 3145; Parodie, ed. Lehmann, pp. 233–41. An edition taking into account this particular manuscript witness is Thomas Wright and James Orchard Halliwell (eds), Reliquiae Antiquae: Scraps from Ancient Manuscripts Illustrating Chiefly Early English Literature and the English Language, ii (London, 1843), pp. 208–10. Praha, Archiv Pražského hradu, fond Knihovna Metropolitní kapituly u sv. Víta [Prague Castle Archives, Library of St Vitus Metropolitan Chapter]. See Adolf Patera and Antonín Podlaha, Soupis rukopisů knihovny metropolitní kapituly pražské [‘A Catalogue of Manuscripts of the Library of the Metropolitan Chapter in Pragueʼ], ii (Praha, 1922), no. 1587, pp. 455–8. Třeboň, Státní oblastní archiv, MS A 4. See Michal Dragoun, Adéla Ebersonová and Lucie Doležalová (eds), Soupis rukopisů středověkých knihoven augustiniánů kanovníků v Třeboni a Borovanech. I. Rukopisy a inkunábule [‘Catalogue of Manuscripts from the Medieval Libraries of Augustinian Canons in Třeboň and Borovany, i: Manuscripts and Incunablesʼ] (Praha, 2021), pp. 1148–94. ‘Magister, date numum pro cervisia quod bibam et laudabo Deum pro vobis’ [Master, give [me] money for beer which I will drink and I will praise God for you]. Praha, Národní knihovna, MS XI D 7. Digital copy and description on www.manuscriptorium.com.

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Thus, there are two occasions – Passion of the Judges (A1) and Passion of the Jews (B1) (the oldest mock Passion from England and Bohemia, respectively) – when the Passion is supplemented by a satirical poem that describes the same event.42 The genre of ‘political lyricʼ is tricky. When Thorlac Turville-Petre undertook the task to analyse this category within the vernacular context,43 he took as his point of departure the famous manuscript London, British Library, MS Harley 2253, which includes a poem on the execution of Simon Fraser – the event at the centre of Passion of the Scots (A3)44 – and also one on the battle of Courtrai, described in Passion of the Franks (A2).45 Although both these poems mock the victims of the violence they describe (the one the Scots, the other the French), there is no further similarity between the mock Passions, whether in their biblical references or in their manipulation of events to fit the biblical scheme. In fact, as far as reflection on historical events is concerned, the political lyrics are much more informative and provide their readers with a clearer idea about what happened than the mock Passions. In the mock Passions, history and the Gospels are so intertwined as to be inseparable, and if their readers did not know what happened beforehand, they would surely be no better off after reading them. Thus, although the texts were compiled with material that does not seem to be random, there is probably no direct relationship between the individual texts; one version is certainly not a reworking of the other in a different genre. What these instances show is simply the fact that the events they describe were considered to be apt subjects of mockery. One significant manuscript context can easily pass unnoticed precisely because it is ubiquitous in the later Middle Ages: in nearly all of the manuscripts, the mock Passions appear in the vicinity of a variety of solemn texts on the Passion, confession and moral education.46 The huge quantities of confessional and biblical texts were indeed written and copied for a reason.47 With our predilection for fictional and ‘originalʼ compositions, we tend to disregard

42

43 44 45

46 47

See Daniel Soukup, ‘Latinské a české verse o pražském pogromu roku 1389. Ke dvěma pozapomentým žákovským skladbámʼ [‘Latin and Czech Verses on the Prague Pogrom of 1389: On Two Nearly Forgotten Student Poemsʼ], Česká literatura 60 (2012), 711– 26. Thorlac Turville-Petre, ‘Political Lyricʼ, in A Companion to the Middle English Lyric, ed. Thomas G. Duncan (London, 2005), pp. 171–88. Incipit ‘Lystneth, lordynges! A newe song Ichulle bigynneʼ, cf. https://d.lib.rochester. edu/teams/text/fein-harley2253-volume-2-article-25. Incipit ‘Lustneth, lordinges, bothe yonge ant oldeʼ, cf. https://d.lib.rochester.edu/ camelot/text/fein-harley2253-volume-2-article-48. For edition and translation of all the contents of Harley 2253, cf. The Complete Harley 2253 Manuscript, ed. and trans. Susanna Greer Fein, David Raybin and Jan Ziolkowski, 3 vols (Kalamazoo, 2014–15). MS Harley 2851 also includes a pen drawing of the Crucifixion, on fol. 31r. Kelly and Perry, Devotional Culture; Walter Haug and Burghart Wachinger (eds), Die Passion Christi in Literatur und Kunst des Spätmittelalters (Berlin, 1993).



Mock Passions in England and Bohemia  143

this material as secondary, repetitive and unimaginative.48 Yet the mock Passions show that their medieval authors always had the biblical Passion on their minds as a ready-made framework for interpreting (or ridiculing) worldly experience. The mock Passions are creative appropriations of the familiar narrative: perhaps a little extreme, perhaps somewhat problematic even when they were first written, and perhaps actually not that successful when judged by their audience reception, but nevertheless clear reflections of the specific character of medieval textual culture, so strongly embedded in the Bible.

Appendix: The corpus What follows is an overview of all the known medieval mock Passion narratives. Since dating of the manuscripts is often only approximate, the texts are ordered according to the time of the events they describe. This is most likely the order of the texts’ origin, too: as pieces of medieval journalism and political satire, they were probably written very soon after the incidents they depict.49

Witnesses from England A1 Passio iusticiariorum Anglie [Passion of the Judges of England]50 Event: 12 August 1289 – summer 1293: Edward I punishes his judges. • Manuscripts: London, British Library, MS Additional 31826 (c. 1300–fifteenth century, owned by Rievaulx Abbey), fols 54r–54v as Narratio de passione iusticiariorum [Narrative of the Passion of the Judges]; London, British Library, MS Harley 2851 (c. 1290–1300),51 as Passio iusticiariorum Anglie, sequencia evangelii secundum Bumbum [Passion of the Judges of England, Sequence of the Gospel according to Bumbum]; Oxford, All Souls College, MS 39, fols 109v–110v (early fourteenth century) as Passio ministrorum domini Edwardi I. regis Angliae secundum opera sua [Passion of the Ministers of Edward I, the King of England, according to Their Deeds]. 48

49 50 51

For a critical discussion of this point, see Paolo Borsa, Christian Høgel, Lars Boje Mortensen and Elizabeth Tyler, ‘What Is Medieval European Literature?ʼ, Interfaces: A Journal of Medieval European Literatures 1 (2015), 7–24. Cf. Lehmann, Parodie, p. 122. Cf. Tout and Johnstone, ‘Appendix 1’, pp. 95–8. See also Lehmann, Parodie, pp. 199– 202. Tout did not know this manuscript. According to Biggs, Chaucer might have seen this manuscript: see Frederick M. Biggs, Chaucer’s Decameron and the Origin of the Canterbury Tales (Cambridge, 2017), pp. 59–60.

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This oldest mock Passion differs from the later variants in several respects. Most importantly, it refers to a longer period of time rather than a single event: Edward I, upon his return from Gascony on 12 August 1289, met with many complaints about the mismanagement of the country in his absence. As a result, he put his judges and other officials on trial, a process which lasted for over three years (from April 1290 till the summer of 1293). One judge, Thomas de Weyland, immediately escaped; others, such as Adam de Stratton, were imprisoned in the Tower of London and had to pay fines; yet others were later reinstated.52 There are ample sources documenting the individual trials,53 as well as several historiographical sources on the event.54 The Passion opens with the departure and return of the king. Surprisingly, the majority of the text consists of dialogues. It draws on many other parts of the Bible besides the Passion – in fact, less than two-thirds of the allusions are from the Gospels, and only very few of them are from the part describing the Passion. A2 Passio Francorum secundum Flemingos [Passion of the Franks according to the Flemish]55 • Event: 11 July 1302: battle of Courtrai (Kortrijk). • Manuscript: London, British Library, MS Additional 10104 (15th century). This text is unique since it is the only mock Passion narrative that was supposedly preserved outside England or Bohemia: the Welsh chronicler Adam of Usk (1352–1430) writes that he found a manuscript with this text in Bruges, at the abbey of St Bartholomew in Eeckhoute, which he visited in 1406.56 The text now survives only within the additional part of his Chronicle covering the years 1404–21, which was detached from the manuscript some time between 52 53 54

55

56

Paul A. Brand, The Making of the Common Law (London, 1992), p. 103; Michael Prestwich, Edward I (New Haven, 1997), p. 229. Edited by Tout and Johnstone, State Trials. For example, the Waverley Annals, preserved in London, British Library, MS Cotton Vespasianus A.XVI.14; ed. Henry Richards Luard, Annales Monastici, 2nd edn, ii (Cambridge, 2012), pp. 129–412 at 408. Thompson (ed.), Chronicon, pp. 107–10. (The same editor also published the chronicle in 1876 but that was before the additional quire with the Passion was found, so the Passion is not included in the earlier edition.) A more recent edition is that of Chris Given-Wilson (ed.), The Chronicle of Adam Usk 1377–1421 (Oxford, 1997), pp. 219–25. For a Dutch translation, see Hélène van Coppenolle (trans.), Passio Francorum secundum Flemingos (Antwerp, 1944). See also Jozef Maria De Smet, ‘Passio Francorum secundum Flemyngos’, De Leiegouw 19 (1977), 289–319; Paul Lehmann, ‘Leidensgeschichte der Franzosen bei Courtraiʼ, Beispiele zur lateinischen Parodie im Mittelalter (München, 1923), pp. 26–30. ‘A.D. 1406. Dum eram apud Brugges, erant et dicti comes in monasterio de Ekows … Et in dicti monasterii cronicis hoc quod sequitur, in Passio derisum Francorum, quia per Flandenses alias devictorum, compositum inveniʼ. Thompson (ed.), Chronicon, p. 107.



Mock Passions in England and Bohemia  145

the seventeenth and early nineteenth centuries and is now kept in the library of the duke of Rutland at Belvoir Castle. Thus, the sole surviving manuscript is over one hundred years younger than the described event. The battle of Courtrai, also known as the Battle of the Golden Spurs, was a specific event, described in English historiography: the noble army of the Count of Artois was defeated by simple Flemings led by the weaver Peter de Coninck and the butcher Jan Breydel. The text is a true mock Passion narrative: centred around a single defeat which it ridicules, with ample use of the Gospels. A3 Passio Scotorum periuratorum [Passion of the Perjurious Scots]57 • Event: February 1306 – 17 February 1307: Edward I had the supporters of the newly crowned Robert Bruce punished in various ways. • Manuscript: Reigate, Surrey, Cranston Library, no shelf-mark (second half of the fourteenth century), fols 275v–278v. This text survives in a sole codex where it is inserted between two parts of a chronicle and ends abruptly; it is not clear if the end is missing or the piece was never finished.58 Just preceding it, in fact probably meant as an inherent part of it, there is another idiosyncratic text entitled Lectio actuum Scotorum infra librum Iudicum [Lesson on the Acts of Scots beyond the Book of Judges]. It tells a story of trees electing their king, alluding to Judges 9:8–15, but in fact reporting on the election of Robert the Bruce as the Scottish king. The Passion itself appears under the heading Omelia eiusdem [Homily of the Same One], and the whole is thus, in its quasi-liturgical structure, strongly reminiscent of liturgical parody. The narrative is stretched over a period of one year and describes Edward I’s actions against the supporters of Robert the Bruce in 1306 and early 1307. The tone of this text is safe and secure and thus it seems certain that it originated before the death of Edward I (7 July 1307) and even before the change of luck on 19 March, that is, very soon after the events described, during the Lent period. A variety of biblical, mostly Gospel, quotations are used in the text. It is the longest known mock Passion. In this special case, there is clear evidence of its reception: Matthew of Westminster amply quotes from it in his Chronicle.59

57 58 59

Bute, ‘Notice’, pp. 167–84. The editor of the text is not very sorry: ‘If it is really to be regretted that any more of this stuff is lost to us...ʼ; ibid., p. 184. Ibid., pp. 186–90; Tout says about the writer that he ‘showed an increasingly inhuman lack of personalityʼ, and that his ‘misapplied love of Scripture leads him to introduce whole paragraphs from the profane parodies of Holy Writ called “passions”, then at the very height of their popularity. He writes serious history from the “passion of the perjured Scots” and the “passion of the monks of Westminster according to John”ʼ. See Thomas Frederick Tout, ‘The Westminster Chronicle attributed to Robert of Readingʼ,

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[A4] Passio monachorum Westmonasteriensium secundum Iohannem [Passion of the Monks of Westminster according to John]60 • Event: 24 April 1303 – October 1305: burglary of the royal treasury at Westminster Abbey. • Manuscript: Manchester, Chetham Library, MS 6712 (A.6.89), fol. 262r. This Passion describes a robbery of the royal treasury at Westminster Abbey, which was investigated and the main villain, Richard Pudlicote, was hanged.61 The text cannot be analysed because it is not extant; it is only referred to in Flores Historici, in the so-called ‘Westminster continuationʼ of the text. The reference states (fol. 262ra): ‘Subsequitur Passio monachorum Westmon[asteriensium] secundum Iohannem, cuius copiam non habentes querant et invenient et postulantes accipient’ [The Passion of the monks of Westminster according to John follows; those who do not have it should search and they shall find, and asking they shall receive].62 In the Chetham manuscript, there is a marginal addition in a later hand (fol. 262rb): ‘Queratur Passio monachorum Westmon[asteriensium] apud sanctum Augustinum, Cantuarie, et similiter apud Dovoriam’ [The Passio of the monks of Westminster should be searched for at St Augustineʼs [abbey] of Canterbury, and similarly in Dover]. Unfortunately, the manuscripts with the full text have not been found. It is possible that in-depth research into the continuations of the Flores historici will restore a complete manuscript witness of the text.63 The case of A4 suggests that there were probably more Passions of this kind in circulation but not every medieval historian decided to include them in his or her own narrative.

60 61

62 63

English Historical Review 31 (1916), 450–64, republished in T. F. Tout, The Collected Papers of Thomas Frederick Tout (Manchester, 1934), ii, pp. 289–304 at 296–7. The reference is edited in Luard, Flores, p. 117; cf. also William Stubbs (ed.), Chronicles of the Reigns of Edward I and Edward II, 2nd edn, i (Cambridge, 2012), p. cxxix. Tout, ‘Medieval Burglaryʼ, 348–69, repr. in Tout, Collected Papers, ii, pp. 108–13; Antonia Gransden, Legends, Tradition and History in Medieval England (London, 2010), p. 251. The reference itself includes a biblical allusion to Matthew 7:7: ‘Petite, et dabitur vobis: quaerite, et invenietis.’ [Ask, and it shall be given you, seek, and you shall find.] This research could not be carried out here but the current state of the art suggests that new discoveries continue to be made; cf. Antonia Gransden, ‘The continuations of the Flores historiarum, from 1265–1327ʼ, Mediaeval Studies 36 (1974), 472–92; Trevor Russell Smith, ‘Further Manuscripts of Matthew Paris’ Flores historiarum and Continuationsʼ, Notes and Queries 67 (2020), 6–7; Judith Collard, ‘Flores historiarum Manuscripts: The Illumination of a Late Thirteenth-Century Chronicle Seriesʼ, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 71 (2008), 441–66.



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Witnesses from Bohemia There are two surviving instances of the mock Passion from Bohemia, with a third that is rather problematic. They are all much later than those from England and, unlike the English witnesses, they appear mostly out of the context of historiography. B1 Passio Iudeorum Pragensium [Passion of the Jews of Prague]64 • Event: Easter 1389: pogrom in Prague. B1a Historia de cede Iudeorum Pragensium [History of the Slaughter of the Prague Jews] • Manuscript: Kraków, Biblioteka Jagiellońska, MS 2538 DD XIX 4, fols 92v–93v. B1b Passio Iudeorum Pragensium secundum Iesskonem, rusticum quadratum [Passion of the Jews of Prague according to Ješko, a Square-set Countryman] • Manuscripts: Třeboň, Státní oblastní archiv, MS A 14, fols 68r–70r; Praha, Archiv Pražského hradu, fond Knihovna Metropolitní kapituly u sv. Víta, MS O 3, fols 176r–177r; Praha, Národní knihovna, MS XI D 7, fols 131vb–133rb (acephalous). B1c Passio Pragensium Iudeorum secundum blasphemiam [Passion of the Prague Jews according to Blasphemy] • Manuscript: Praha, Národní knihovna, MS XI D 7, fols 130va–131va. The text surviving in three versions describes the greatest Jewish slaughter in Prague in medieval history, which is documented in a number of other sources in Latin, Czech, German and Hebrew.65 The pogrom took place at Easter 1389 (between 16 and 20 April), when most of the Jews were killed, both the synagogues and many houses burnt down, and the Jewish cemetery destroyed. Here, the parodic subversion is especially striking since Christians

64

65

Eva Steinová (ed.), ‘Passio Iudeorum pragensium: Kritická edícia Pašijí pražských židovʼ [‘Passio Iudeorum pragensium: A Critical edition of the Passion of the Jews of Pragueʼ], M.A. thesis, Masarykova Univerzita, Brno, 2010. This remains the most detailed analysis of this text, providing numerous further references. An older uncritical edition is that of Václav Vladivoj Tomek, ‘Passio Judaeorum Pragensiumʼ, Věstník Královské české společnosti nauk 1 (1877), 11–19. See Eva Steinová, ‘Passio Iudeorum Pragensium: Tatsachen und Fiktionen über das Pogrom im Jahr 1389ʼ, “Avigdor, Benesch, Gitl” – Juden in Böhmen, Mähren und Schlesien im Mittelalter. Samuel Steinherz (1857 Güssing – 1942 Theresienstadt) zum Gedenken, ed. Helmut Teufel, Pavel Kocman and Milan Řepa (Essen, 2016), pp. 159– 86, with further references.

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from Prague stand for the biblical Jews and the Prague Jews for the crucified Christ.66 This is the only Passion in the corpus that has received substantial scholarly attention, not only in itself but also for its links to history, parody, inversion, Host desecration and Holy Week violence.67 It is also the only one that was written at the time of Chaucer. The shortest and probably the oldest version is B1a, surviving in a sole manuscript. The version secundum Iesskonem (B1b) is preserved in three manuscripts and is the most elaborate one, with the most numerous biblical references. Secundum blasphemiam (B1c) is a shortened version included in one of the secundum Iesskonem manuscripts. B2 Passio raptorum de Slapanicz secundum Bartoss, tortorem Brunnensem [Passion of the Robbers of Šlapanice according to Bartoš, the Executioner of Brno]68 • Event: Easter 1401: robbers in Šlapanice are overcome by the burghers of Brno. • Manuscript: Praha, Národní knihovna, MS III E 27, fols 61r–63r. This text is unique within the corpus because it describes an event that is otherwise not recorded and so its historicity may be questionable: a group of robbers led by a Polish villain comes to Šlapanice (a village near Brno, Moravia) and takes over a church. The burghers of Brno attack the robbers, capture fifty-six, and hang them. Although there have been attempts to use the text as an historical source on robbers’ practices in Moravia,69 such applications are limited because of its literary and intertextual character, as in its accounts of darkness over the earth and earthquake. The text contains many dialogues as well as a lengthy list of the robbers’ names, partly historical, partly fictional. 66

67

68

69

For a detailed analysis of this turn, see Barbara Newman, ‘The Passion of the Jews of Prague: The Pogrom of 1389 and the Lessons of Medieval Parodyʼ, Church History 81 (2012), 1–26. See Steinová, ‘Passio Iudeorum Pragensium’, where numerous further references can be found. See also Eva Steinová, ‘Jews and Christ Interchanged: Discursive Strategies in the Passio Iudeorum Pragensiumʼ, Graeco-latina Brunensia 17 (2012), 93–106; Daniel Soukup, ‘Kterak Židé mučili Boží tělo – edice a komentářʼ [‘On How the Jews Tortured the Body of Christ – Edition and Commentaryʼ], Česká literatura 5 (2011), 697–712; Newman, Medieval Crossover, pp. 264–71 (which includes an English translation of the text). František Šujan (ed.), ‘Pašije šlapanických loupežníkůʼ [‘Passion of the Robbers of Šlapaniceʼ], Sborník historický 3 (1885), 245–52 and 301–3. A new critical edition is that by Lucie Doležalová, ‘The Passion of the Robbers of Šlapanice according to Bartoš: The Executioner of Brno between History and Parodyʼ, Graeco-latina Brunensia 26:1 (2021), 37–51. See František Hofman, ‘Pašije šlapanických loupežníkůʼ [‘Passion of the Robbers of Šlapaniceʼ], K poctě Jaroslava Marka: Sborník prací k 70. narozeninám prof. dr. Jaroslava Marka [‘In Honour of Jaroslav Marek: A Collection of Essays on the Occasion of Prof. Jaroslav Marekʼs 70th Birthdayʼ], ed. Lubomír Slezák and Radomír Vlček (Praha, 1996), pp. 149–68.



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B3 Passio Iohannis Hus secundum Iohannem Barbatum, rusticum quadratum [Passion of John Hus according to the Bearded John, a Square-set Countryman]70 • Event: 6 July 1415: Jan Hus burnt at the stake at the Council of Constance. • Manuscript: Třeboň, Státní oblastní archiv, MS N 179, fols 7v–9r. This text is curious because it did not originate as a mock Passion. It was originally an eye-witness account of the death of Jan Hus composed by one of his supporters. The author created a number of parallels between the death of his hero and the death of Christ: for example, Hus is described as literally climbing Mount Calvary.71 In one manuscript copy, this almost hagiographical endeavour was turned upside down and the anticipated veneration became mockery. Only a few textual interventions by a later hand were necessary to achieve this goal. Yet it remains the best textual witness of the Passion of Hus. Thus, Passio Johannis Hus is not quite a mock Passion narrative: it becomes mockery only in this single witness and, also, the biblical allusions are much fewer in number than is the case with the other mock Passions. Finally, there is a difference in the choice of the event: unlike in the other mock Passion cases, the described event itself was much closer to Christʼs Passion. Hus actually might have perceived himself as following in Christ’s footsteps, and thus the Passion framework chosen might not be so much a literary manipulation of the events as a reflection of the historical reality of Hus’s self-fashioning and controlling of his last moments.72

70

71 72

Ed. by Václav Novotný (ed.), Fontes rerum Bohemicarum 8 (Praha, 1932), pp. 121–49; cf. František Palacký (ed.), Documenta Mag. Ioannis Hus vitam illustrantia (Praha, 1869), pp. 556–8. See Thomas A. Fudge, ‘Jan Hus at Calvary: The Text of an Early Fifteenth-Century Passioʼ, Journal of Moravian History 11 (2011), 45–81. See Lucie Doležalová, ‘Passion and Passion: Intertextual Narratives in Late Medieval Bohemia between Typology, History, and Parodyʼ, in Biblical Typology as a Mode of Thinking in Medieval Historiography, ed. Marek Thue Kretschmer (Turnhout, 2014), pp. 245–65.

7 The Evil Tale of Evil Briselda: Griselda’s Wicked Counterpart KLÁRA PETŘÍKOVÁ

This essay focuses on a unique text composed in Bohemia as a counterpart to the tale of patient Griselda, which reached the Czech lands in Petrarch’s rendering at the beginning of the fifteenth century. The analysis first explores how various redactions of the Griselda tale available in Bohemia differ from each other. It then goes on to consider the motifs used in the Tale of Evil Briselda and how they relate to those of the original Griselda story.

T

he tale of Griselda was bound from the very beginning to elicit a strong response from its audience, both real and fictitious. For it recounts Griselda’s steadfast resolution to keep the oath of obedience given to her husband and lord, her self-abnegation, the meek surrender of her children (reminiscent of the Virgin Mary’s sacrifice), and the stoic, Job-like endurance with which she faces her husband’s bestial trials. Griselda began her journey across European literatures in Boccaccio’s Decameron (c. 1353), in its final narrative – the tenth tale of the tenth day. The ladies in the patrician company that forms Boccaccio’s fictional audience animatedly discuss her story ‘at length, some drawn one way and some another, some blaming an action which some others praised’.1 That such debates might have their counterparts in real life is attested by the anonymous conduct book intended for a young man’s wife: Le Ménagier de Paris (1393). Here, the husband presents the Griselda story to his wife not because she might emulate Griselda’s superhuman patience and obedience; rather he wishes to make her acquainted with the story so that she herself could take part in the public debate which the tale has engendered.2 Two other, this time original, responses to the tale are recorded in one of Petrarch’s letters. One of the poet’s friends, who had been given Petrarchʼs own version of the tale (1374) to read, was moved by Griselda’s ordeals to such an 1 2

Boccaccio, Decameron, trans. J. G. Nichols (Reading, 2008), p. 633. K. P. Clarke, Chaucer and Italian Textuality (Oxford, 2011), p. 109.



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extent that he was quite unable to finish the story.3 In contrast, the response of the other friend of Petrarch’s was not so much emotional as governed by reason, giving way to disbelief that such a woman could ever have existed.4 Similarly, Chaucer in the Clerk’s Tale represents Griselda as someone who lived a long time ago and whose equal it is impossible to find (ClT 1177–82). In fact, in the Clerk’s words, to follow Griselda in her humility would be ‘inportableʼ [intolerable] (ClT 1144). Petrarch himself was well aware of the idea that Griselda sets an example too extreme to follow when he equipped the tale with a conclusion inviting the reader to consider the text to be read as an allegory of Christian submission to the will of God rather than an example of a wifely obedience which would hardly be imitable (‘vix imitabilisʼ).5 Despite such caution, Griselda’s tale was often used precisely as an exemplum of wifely obedience to her husband. Evoking Christ in her humility, Griselda, a paragon of woman’s constancy, became a champion for women in the querelle des femmes debates.6 The clash between the wifely ideal and reality, as well as the long tradition of misogynistic complaints against women’s fickle nature – the idea of women seen as second Eves – also led to Griselda being pitted against counterparts who embodied misogynist fears of a shrewish, loud, lustful and unfaithful spouse. Thus in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, the tale of illustrious Griselda prompts the Merchant briefly in his prologue to mention his wife, ‘the worste that may be’ (MerT 1220), who would outmatch the devil were she married to him. Yet it is especially the Wife of Bath, a self-designated whip to her spouses, who can proudly bear the title of Griselda’s fully fledged antithesis. In the prologue to her tale, she successfully subverts the tale of male dominance and dutiful marital obedience as it is she who exhorts her husband to suffer her sovereignty and be ‘al pacient

3

4

5 6

‘A Paduan friend of ours, a man of the highest intellect and broad knowledge, read it for the first time; scarcely past the middle of the letter, he stopped, being overcome by sudden weeping; but after a while, when he took it in hand again and was about to read it through now that he had composed himself, a groan once more interrupted the reading as though it had made an appointment to come back then. So he confessed that he could not proceed, and handed it to one of his company to read, quite a learned man at that.ʼ (Seniles, XVII, 4, in Francesco Petrarch, Letters of Old Age, Vol. 2: Books X–XVIII, trans. A. S. Bernardo (New York, 2008), p. 669). ‘I too would have wept, for the touching subject and the words fit for the subject prompted weeping, nor am I hard-hearted; but I believed, and still do, that the whole thing was made up. For if it were true, what woman anywhere, whether Roman or of any nation whatever will match this Griselda? Where, I ask, is such great conjugal love, equal fidelity, such signal patience and constancy?ʼ (ibid., pp. 669–70). Petrarch, Seniles, XVII, 3, online edition available at: http://www.bibliotecaitaliana. it:6336/dynaweb/bibit/autori/p/petrarca/seniles. For more on these debates on the nature of women see e.g. ‘The Querelle des Femmes in Renaissance Italyʼ, The Feminist Encyclopedia of Italian Literature, ed. R. Russel (Westport, 1997), pp. 270–3.

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and meke, / And han a sweete spiced conscience, / Sith ye so preche of Jobes pacience’ (WBP 434–6). In Czech literature, also, there exists a response to the Griselda tale, one that provides an antithesis to the tale of wifely obedience. Here, it is the husband who should prove his faithfulness to the marriage vow. The tale is extant in a Latin version and its Czech rendering and, in both cases, it immediately follows that of patient Griselda. The Latin text bears the title Historia infidelis mulieris and is preserved in a manuscript dating to 1459–60.7 Its Czech translation, titled O Bryzeldě řeč zlá o zlé [An Evil Tale of Evil Briselda], is from 1472 and is extant in a manuscript owned by the Monastery of the Knights with the Red Star.8 With the exception of one close study which accompanies the edition of the Latin and Czech redactions of the tale and one study identifying one of the possible sources of the tale,9 the text has mostly been viewed as a marginal curiosity, noted merely as a ‘proof of the early naturalization of Griselda in the Czech milieu’10 yet at the same time ‘a not very fortunate amalgam of various romance elements’.11 However, its ambition to enter into a dialogue with the tale of patient Griselda makes it worthy of closer attention. In addition, the Bohemian text is useful in unlocking themes and motifs circulating in medieval Europe which also found their way into Chaucer’s work.

Petrarch and Bohemia Since the Griselda and Briselda narratives are so closely entwined, first, the tale of Griselda will be discussed in terms of its reception in medieval and early humanist Bohemia. 7

8 9

10 11

Originally from the Carthusian monastery of the Holy Trinity in Brunn–Königsfeld, the MS is now kept in Wien, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod 4739 Han – Verschiedene Theologische Sammelhandschrift, fols 190v–302r. In the context of Czech literature, the second half of the fifteenth century is considered an era of early humanism, yet part of the literary production was still medieval in character as the onset of the Renaissance was delayed by the Hussite movement until the sixteenth century. The National Library of the Czech Republic, sign. LV D 1, pp. 245–69. J. Polívka, Dvě povídky v české literatuře XV. stol. [‘Two Short Stories in the Czech Literature of the Fifteenth Centuryʼ] (Prague, 1889). Polívka’s palaeographic edition also contains the Czech redaction of the Griselda tale from the manuscript of the National Museum Library KNM, sign. II F 8, fols 153a–160a. Milan Kopecký identified the Trojan Chronicle as one of the sources of the tale in his study ‘O vztahu mezi Trojánskou kronikou a historií o Bryzelděʼ [‘On the Relationship between the Trojan Chronicle and the History of Bryzeldaʼ], Rodné zemi [‘To the Native Country’], ed. R. Fukal and M. Kopecký (Brno 1958), pp. 371–6. J. Fiala, M. Sobotková and J. Špička, ‘Olomoucká Griseldaʼ [‘The Olomouc Griseldaʼ], Zprávy Vlastivědného muzea v Olomouci 306 (2013), 56. B. Václavek, Historie utěšené a kratochvilné člověku všelikého věku i stavu k čtení [‘Stories Entertaining and Pleasant for Men of Various Ages and Estatesʼ] (Praha, 1950), p. 366.



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The Griselda tale reached the Czech lands, as it had Chaucer, in Petrarch’s rendering, which, as already noted, equipped the story with a moral conclusion that encouraged the tale to be read as an allegory of meek and humble submission to the will of God.12 The spread of Petrarch’s writings in Bohemia was facilitated by the fact that, at the court of the Holy Roman emperor Charles IV (1316–1378), Petrarch was a well-known and respected figure, personally acquainted with the ruler with whom he exchanged a series of letters.13 It was Petrarch who, in 1350 or 1351, first approached the new emperor, unusually without any previous contacts, to plead with him to turn his attention to Italy and revive the Roman empire to its former, classical glory. Though Charles was reluctant to act upon Petrarch’s bidding, which he declined in an elegantly styled letter,14 he valued the poet and politician highly and their correspondence continued. During Charles’s coronation tour, the two met in person in Mantua, where they, as Petrarch later recalled, ‘went on speaking and conversing in private from the torches’ first lighting into the dead of the nightʼ.15 The letters reveal that Charles asked Petrarch for some of his writings, and the emperor also requested that the poet dedicate to him his work De viris illustribus; yet Petrarch refused to oblige, claiming that the emperor should first prove himself worthy of such an honour.16 Petrarch’s esteem as the leading intellectual authority of the time was further consoli12

13

14

15

16

Unlike Petrarch, Boccaccio, the true father of the Griselda story, was not in favour in Bohemia partly because he was deemed too pagan (the Decameron was denounced by the Church), partly because of his open antipathy towards, and criticism of, Charles IV, which he expressed in some of his eclogues (especially VII, IX of his Bucolicum carmen). His works were fully studied (often indirectly, via Latin translations of Italian humanist writers like Beroald or Leonardo Bruni) only in the Renaissance in the sixteenth century. In medieval Bohemia, his exemplary works were known only in excerpts which could be used to moral effect (De claris mulieribus, De casibus virorum illustrium or Genealogie deorum gentilium). For more on Boccaccio in Czech literature see A. Cronia, Boccaccio v čes. písemnictví [‘Boccaccio in Czech literatureʼ] (Praha, 1949). For Petrarch’s letters to Charles IV in English translation see Francesco Petrarch, Letters on Familiar Matters, Vol. 3.: Books XVII–XXIV, trans. A. S. Bernardo (New York, 2005). A summary of the relations between Charles IV and Petrarch is provided by F. L. Borchardt, ‘Petrarch: The German Connectionʼ, Francis Petrarch, Six Centuries Later, ed. A. Scaglione (Chapel Hill, 1975), pp. 418–31; or, more recently, by J. Špička, Petrarca: Homo politicus (Praha, 2010), pp. 161–92; and J. Špička, ‘Francesco Petrarca Travelling and Writing to Prague’s Courtʼ, Verbum Analecta Neolatina XII/1 (2010), 27–40 (also available online at http://www.verbum-analectaneolatina.hu/pdf/12-1-02. pdf). Ironically, the letter is thought to have been drafted by Cola di Rienzo, himself a fervent though failed advocate of a restored Roman republic who was at that time held as noble prisoner in the archiepiscopal prison in Roudnice. Familiares, XIX, 3; Petrarch, Letters, trans. Bernardo, p. 79, and see Špička, Petrarca: Homo Politicus, p. 172. In 1368, the emperor and Petrarch met again in Udine and Padua. Familiares, XIX, 3; Petrarch, Letters, trans. Bernardo, p. 79.

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dated when the emperor requested his linguistic skills to help him refute the authenticity of documents, miraculously discovered in 1358 by Rudolph of Habsburg, claiming that the Roman emperors Nero and Julius Caesar granted Austria independence from the Roman empire. In exchange for his precise expertise in the matter, which proved the documents to be fake, Petrarch was presented with a golden engraved goblet which was accompanied by an invitation to Prague. Petrarch had already visited the city in 1356 but was reluctant, despite repeated pleas from the emperor, to embark on another journey. However, it seems that worsening chaos in Italy prompted Petrarch to contemplate seeking refuge in Prague, which, most likely, was to be a long-term arrangement since he planned to take his library with him. Yet, in the end, Petrarchʼs plans, of which no further details are known, did not come to fruition. Petrarch not only exchanged letters with the emperor but also strengthened his political ties to the Bohemian royal court by corresponding with some of its other prominent members.17 Most letters to Prague, thirty-six in total, were addressed to the emperor’s chancellor, the bishop of Olomouc, Johannes von Neumarkt (Jan ze Středy), who admiringly designated himself ‘a pupil of Petrarch’. Their polite, mutually complimentary letters bear witness to Petrarch’s writings reaching Bohemia, some on Petrarch’s own initiative, soon after they were written. In one of the letters, Johannes asked Petrarch to send to Prague his best-known works, among them De viris illustribus. Although Petrarch was reluctant to grant this request,18 in 1361 he obliged Johannes by sending him a copy of Bucolicum carmen. Among others of Petrarch’s works mentioned in his letters to Prague is his fiery treatise against the papal curia, Liber sine nomine. Although he initially promised to send the work to the Prague archbishop, Ernst of Pardubitz (Arnošt z Pardubic), he later apologised for not keeping his word, declaring his intention to keep it secret and publish it only after his death.19 In Bohemia it was two centuries before Petrarch’s works became widely known and translated, during the humanist era of the sixteenth century, yet his writings, as shown above, had been part of the Czech literary milieu since the Middle Ages. Most of the medieval codices containing his works were kept in Moravia,20 namely in Olomouc, thanks to the efforts of the local archbishop, 17

18 19 20

It was also to Prague that Petrarch sent his only letter addressed to a woman (Familiares, XXI, 8). The empress Anna von Schweidnitz (Anna Svídnická) herself informed Petrarch of the birth of her daughter, to which Petrarch replied with a congratulatory letter including a list of exemplary women to console the empress for not producing an heir. Possibly due to his reluctance to dedicate the work to Charles IV; see above. In the end, only excerpts from the work were available in medieval Bohemia. Familiares XXI, 1; Petrarch, Letters, trans. Bernardo, pp. 165–6. Also see Špička, Petrarca, p. 180. In the Olomouc chapter library, copies of medieval codices are kept with works which reached Moravia due to the initiative of Johannes von Neumarkt. Among them are MSS C.O.177 and C.O.509 from the end of the fourteenth century, which contain works by Petrarch and Johannes von Neumarkt, and MS C.O.365 from the beginning of the



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Johannes von Neumarkt. And it was also in Moravia where a ‘cult of Petrarch’ flourished and where the court of margrave Jobst (Jošt) (1354–1411) was in close contact with the first generation of Petrarch’s students.21 It is therefore hardly a coincidence that the counterpart to Petrarch’s Griselda tale originated in this part of the Czech kingdom.22 Among Petrarch’s works present in medieval Czech codices, the most frequent is Psalmi penitentiales, which was copied twelve times. This is followed by Griseldis, extant in nine Latin manuscripts. The treatise De vita solitaria is preserved in five codices; Bucolicum carmen in four; a collection of stories on the mutability of human existence, De remediis utriusque fortunae, and the treatises Invectiva contra quondam magni status hominem and Invective contra medicum are present in three codices; and Secretum (Latin dialogues examining Petrarch’s faith), the epic Africa, and Liber sine nomine – a collection of letters attacking the Avignon court – are all preserved in two copies.23 From the nature of Petrarch’s works preserved in medieval manuscripts in Bohemia, it becomes evident that it would be misleading to consider his influence at the court of Charles IV proto-humanistic, as has sometimes been suggested.24 As Pelán points out,25 these works were firmly rooted in the tradition of medieval moral treatises and reflected Petrarch’s fervent religious feeling and moral introspection rather than humanist tendencies.26 That Petrarch in Bohemia was first embraced as a continuer of medieval religious tradition is also apparent from the context in which his works appear; in codices, his texts are often accompanied by theological and mystical treatises as well

21 22 23

24

25 26

fifteenth century with Petrarch’s texts. Other copies of the manuscripts, which the archbishop of Olomouc brought to Moravia and which included copies of Petrarch’s works, are those originally belonging to the library of Rajhrad Monastery, nowadays kept in the University Library in Brunn: MS R 349 from the beginning of the fifteenth century and MS 357 from 1422, copied from the original of 1366. See A. Vidmanová, Laborintus, latinská literatura středověkých Čech [‘Laborintus: Latin Literature in Medieval Bohemiaʼ] (Prague, 1994), pp. 145–6. Borchardt, ‘Petrarch’, p. 8. See n. 7, above. See J. Pelán, Kapitoly z francouzské a italské literatury [‘Chapters from French and Italian Literatureʼ] (Prague, 2000), pp. 353–4. The first systematic exploration of medieval codices with Petrarch’s texts was undertaken by A. Cronia, Inchiesta petrarchesca in Cecoslovacchia: Contributi bibliografici, L’Europa orientale III–IV, 1935, no 35, 164–79. For example, P. Piur, Petrarcas “Buch ohne Namen” und die päpstlische Kurie, Deutsche Vierteljahrschrift für Litteraturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte, Buchreihe VI (Halle, 1925), p. xl; or I. Hlobil and E. Petrů, Humanismus a raná renesance na Moravě [‘Humanism and the Early Renaissance in Moraviaʼ] (Praha, 1992), pp. 17–26. Pelán, Kapitoly, p. 354. Similarly, Vidmanová also points out that the so-called Czech proto-humanism ascribed to the influence of Johannes of Neumarkt is a mere illusion and that ‘both Petrarch as well as Johannes von Neumarkt grew out of the notary tradition of the Middle Ages and continued in the tradition of medieval worksʼ (Vidmanová, Laborintus, p. 144).

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as moral, educational works.27 The same manuscript context – of theological, didactic and moral-educational works – is also shared by both the Latin and Czech versions of the Griselda and Briselda tales.28

The Bohemian reception of Griselda By the time Petrarch composed his version of Boccaccio’s novella, his contact with the Bohemian court had ceased.29 His tale thus reached Bohemia indirectly, though not long after its composition, at the beginning of the fifteenth century.30 As already noted, the text survives in nine Latin manuscripts and in the first half of the fifteenth century it was also translated into Czech. The oldest extant Czech redaction of the Griselda tale, from 1459–69, is preserved in the manuscript of the Museum of the Czech Kingdom in Prague (MS A);31

27

28

29

30 31

For example, in the Codex R 349 in the Moravian Library in Brunn, penitential Psalms appear together with prayers by St Augustine, Sedulius’s Carmen paschale and a collection of texts praising the Virgin Mary; in the codex of the Prague Chapterhouse D 57 (Archive of the Prague Castle), Psalmi are accompanied by anti-heretic treatises against Wycliffites, adherents of Jakoubek of Stříbro and the Poor Men of Lyon, as well as by letters of John Hus and the Roudnice Augustinian Petrus Clarificator, and also by Marian texts by Jan of Jenštejn (Pelán, Kapitoly, p. 355). For example, the 1472 MS (detailed in n. 12, above), which comprises both Griselda and Briselda Czech redactions, also contains the following works: the Gospel of Nicodemus; eight chapters on how the emperor Tiberius sent Volusian to Jerusalem to seek Christ; Encouragement of the ill in the time of death; another Encouragement; Five chapters on the holy reasons for shunning heresy; On obedience; Five reasons which cause God to strike humankind with illness; A Sermon of John Hus; On the expelling of heretics; On who is to become a priest; Why it is better to trust God more than people; Why the priests ought to be subordinate to the kings; A dispute of St Augustine with a soul; A good tale of good Griselda; An evil tale of evil Bryzelda; Salomon’s speech; On love and what is love; On eight kinds of inner pride; On knowing our Lord and who is God; On marriage, widowhood and virginity; A man has five senses; On seven mercies to the soul; On eight blessings; On seven deadly sins; On seven holy things; On three stages of holy penance; What is a deadly sin; What is a venial sin; The life of John Hus; His epistles which he wrote in prison; On signs and miracles which precede the Judgement Day; Mandeville’s Travels. After the meeting of Petrarch and the emperor Charles IV in Italy in 1368, all their contact was lost. Petrarch’s letter to Boccaccio which contains his Latin translation of the tale of Griselda was written in 1373. J. Křesálková, ‘Il tardo Petrarchismo in Boemia e Slovacchia’, Aevum 77 (2003), 673– 82 at 674. This MS (KNM sign. II F 8, ff. 153a–160a) is referred to as the Pivnička Miscellany after the scribe Johannes of Domažlice, also known as Pivnička, who copied the majority of the works in the manuscript. It contains historiographic as well as entertaining and morally instructive works (Dalimil, The New Advice by Smil Flaška of Pardubitz, The Groom and the Student, the verse romance Tandarias and Floribella and prose Apollonius of Tyre). This redaction (with variants from the 1472 version) was published in a palaeographic edition by Polívka, Dvě povídky.



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the other two Czech versions date to 1472 (MS B) and 1520 (MS C).32 All three extant manuscripts are copied from an unknown lost original which was based directly on Petrarch’s version of the tale.33 The story, as in other European literatures, proved popular and gradually entered the stream of folk and fairy tales.34 It was also performed successfully on stage and reprinted in chapbooks well into the nineteenth century.35

The Bohemian and Latin versions of the Griselda tale compared Comparison of the Czech renderings of the Griselda tale with Petrarch’s Latin version led to the conclusion that, in Czech, the translation follows Petrarch faithfully and that apart from minor errors, omissions and stylistic simplifications the story remains practically unchanged.36 One error derives from the name of the man who, in Petrarch, is married to Walter’s sister: Count Panico. Because of the similarity of his name to the Old Czech expression for ‘lad’ [panic] it was misunderstood in both Czech redactions: Petrarch’s ‘Panico comesʼ [Count Panico] they translate as hrabě s panicem [the count with a young lad]. To make the tale more accommodating to a Czech readership, all the Czech versions omit Petrarch’s detailed geographic introduction. There are minor differences in the way Griselda is first introduced. Petrarch describes Griselda as ‘forma corporis satis egregia, sed pulchritudine morum atque animi adeo specioseʼ [remarkable for the beauty of her body, but of so

32

33 34 35

36

The previous shelf-marks of these MSS were XII A 4 and XXII A 16. Following the traditional practice, they are referred to here respectively as B and C, and are now kept in the National Library of the Czech Republic under the shelf marks LV D 1, pp. 245–69, and LVII D1, fols 75a–99a. Apart from a few differences (mainly linguistic in nature), the 1520 version of the tale is close to the redaction titled Kronika o té stále trpělivé a poctivé paní Kryzeldě [‘A Chronicle of the Still Patient and Honourable Lady Griseldaʼ] printed in 1779 in Olomouc; see Polívka, Dvě povídky, p. 17. The present essay accesses the text of the 1520 redaction through the 1779 print, edited by Fiala, Sobotková and Špička, Olomoucká Griselda, 65. See Polívka, Dvě povídky, p. 22, and Fiala, Sobotková and Špička, ‘Olomoucká Griselda’, 60. The tale is found in fairy tales from the south-western Chod region, northern Giant Mountains region and Moravia. The oldest print of the Griselda story, by printer Kašpar Aorg from Prostějov and dated to 1560, is documented, but none of the copies has survived. Nine prints of the Griselda tale are known from the period up to the eighteenth century, see Fiala, Sobotková and Špička, ‘Olomoucká Griseldaʼ, 63–7. It was often printed together with the Chronicle of Lucrece. A meticulous and still valid comparison of the Czech versions with that by Petrarch was carried out by Polívka, Dvě povídky, pp. 17–23. In the following description of the differences between the individual versions, I am indebted to his conclusions, which were checked against the original. The list of the differences here is selective, focusing on the more prominent changes between the versions. The two oldest extant manuscripts, from 1459 and 1472, follow the original more closely than the 1520 version.

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beautiful a character and spirit that no one excelled her].37 In the Latin version, the beauty of her soul is given greater importance than her physical beauty, while in the Czech versions A and B, both spiritual and corporal beauty are viewed as equal. Manuscript A claims that Griselda was ‘byla dosti pěkná a ctných mravůʼ [rather pretty and of honourable conduct]. In manuscript B, Griselda was ‘velmi pěkná a poctivých mravůʼ [very pretty and of honourable conduct].38 All the Czech versions leave out that ‘Walter oculos defixerat non juvenili lascivia sed senili gravitateʼ [Walter cast his eyes upon this little maid, not with the lust of youth, but with the sober thoughts of an old man]. Moving further into the tale, when Petrarchʼs Walter demands that Griselda give up her child, he does so in a rather stern manner: ‘volo autem tuum mihi animum accomodes patientiamque illa praestes, quam ab initio nostril coniugii promisistiʼ [I wish you to accommodate your will to mine and to show that obedience which you promised at the outset of our married life]. In Manuscripts A and B, Walter comes across as somewhat kinder, saying ‘protož přetrp to mile a nebuď ti těžko, co s tím dítětem učinímʼ [therefore suffer it with a good cheer and do not take it hard what I intend to do with the child]. In Petrarch, when Walter informs Griselda of his intention to take a new wife he adds, rather derisively, ‘non mihi licet quod cui libet liceret agricolaeʼ [it is not permitted me to do what any peasant may]. In Manuscripts A and B he responds with the neutral and formulaic ‘co se nelíbí jiným, i mně nehodí seʼ [what others do not like I do not care for either]. Walter’s proverbial ‘nulla homini perpetua sors estʼ [no good fortune lasts forever] which, like the voice of fate, offers scant consolation to Griselda, is missing from all the Czech versions. Another omission common to all the Czech versions affects Petrarch’s short, again proverbial, sentence ‘sed sunt qui, ubi semel inceperint, non desinant, imo incumbant haereantqueʼ [there are those who, when once they have begun anything, do not cease] with which he explains Walter’s sadistic desire to test yet again the obedience and constancy of his wife. Finally, unlike the later version C, the A and B redactions leave out the final mention that Walter had Griselda’s daughter married nobly and honourably. Version C, in contrast, omits Walter’s invitation to his father-in-law to stay. When comparing the two earlier versions with the later redaction C, from 1520, the most obvious difference is that the humanist version abridges the story, making it more concise. In terms of the plot, there are two major differences from Petrarch’s text. The first concerns the passage in which Walter’s

37 38

All translations of the Latin text are taken from R. D. French, A Chaucer Handbook (New York, 1927). Closer to Petrarch’s original seems to be Manuscript C, in which Griselda ‘nebyla ani velmi pěkná, ani velmi škaredá, než velmi šlechetná a všech dobrých obyčejů plnáʼ [was neither very pretty nor very ugly but mightily noble and full of all good manners]. See Fiala, Sobotková and Špička, ‘Olomoucká Griseldaʼ, 63.



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servant comes to take Griselda’s child away from her. While in Petrarch’s version as well as in the Czech redactions A and B the servant breaks off his speech, leaving Griselda to surmise that her baby is going to be killed,39 in C the narration is made simpler and more straightforward by the servant’s bluntly stating that ‘pán můj rozkázal jest mi dítě vzíti a zabiti’ [my lord ordered me to take the child and kill it].40 The second way in which the later version of the Griselda tale significantly differs from Petrarch, or the earlier Czech versions, is that it makes Walter seem even more cruel when he publicly announces not only that he regrets marrying such a poor and peasant wife but that she herself is the reason why her children had died.41 Finally, the C version entirely leaves out Petrarch’s final moral explication, which shifts the tale more into the realm of popular folk tale and away from moral exemplum. This leads to the question of what function the Griselda tale had in Bohemia.

Griselda’s function in Bohemia The overall faithful rendering of Petrarch’s Griselda tale in Bohemia was different from the fate the tale met in Germany. There, the work was not so much translated as reworked. In 1432, the Carthusian monk Erhart Gross of Nurenberg wrote his version of Petrarch’s tale. In it, he especially elaborated on the motif of a young man who refuses to marry, turning it into a lengthy dialogue in the tradition of uxor ducenda between Walter and one of his trusted courtiers called Marcus.42 Even though it is necessary for the benefit of the community, the welfare of which relies on Walter’s producing an heir, he resists marriage, using arguments taken from the tradition of molestiae nuptiarum and presenting a series of examples of bad women, fickle wives.43 Yet Marcus steadfastly opposes him, using counterarguments in the vein of the commendatio matrimonii tradition, and presents a series of exemplary women who are the true epitome of love, faithfulness and constancy. Gross’s version was then taken over by Albrecht von Eyb in his Ehebüchlein, a popular treatise on the benefits of marriage (1472). Similarly, the translation by Heinrich

39

40 41

42 43

‘Kazalt mi gest toto diete wzeti a vciniti s nim a w tom slowie zalkne sie zalosti, zie nedopowiede ostatka’ [He ordered me to seize this child … and while uttering this word he choked with grief and could not finish the rest]. See Polívka, Dvě povídky, p. 51. Fiala, Sobotková and Špička, ‘Olomoucká Griseldaʼ, 65. ‘I pustil jest margrabě Valterus hlas, že by mu tuho líto bylo, že by sobě z tak chudého a selského řádu ženu pojal, že by ona byla příčina zmordování dětí jeho’ [Then margrave Walter announced that he sorely regretted marrying such a poor and peasant wife and that she herself was the cause why her children were slain], ibid., 66. See the description of Gross’s Grisardis in M. Rüegg, The Patient Griselda Myth (Berlin, 2019), pp. 124–5. P. Strauch, Die Grisardis des Erhart Grosz (Halle, 1931) pp. 10–11.

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Steinhöwel44 (1461), in which Griselda is the example of a good wife, uses the shorter version of the tale with the purpose of promoting marriage.45 Regarding the A and B redactions of the Griselda tale, although they do not significantly alter Petrarch’s version, their function inclines to the German tradition, in which Griselda served a didactic purpose, promoting marriage and setting a model of exemplary wifely conduct. The evidence that the Czech versions were also used for this purpose can be found in their final moral explications, which diverge slightly, but significantly, from their Latin source. Petrarch says that he wrote the story [N]on tam ideo, ut matronas nostri temporis ad imitandam huius uxoris pacienciam, que michi vix imitabilis videtur, quam ut legentes ad imitandam saltem femine constanciam excitarem, ut quod hec viro suo prestitit, hoc prestare Deo nostro audeant. [Not so much to encourage the married women of our day to imitate this wife’s patience, which to me seems hardly imitable, as to encourage the readers to imitate at least this woman’s constancy, so that what she maintained toward her husband they may maintain toward our God.]46

In Petrarch’s version, Griselda’s constancy to her husband is to be understood allegorically. It is not intended for imitation in marriage, as that would be all too hard to accomplish, but it should serve as an example of devotion 44

45

46

Steinhöwel’s translation was known in Bohemia. Olomouc Research Library has one of the eight extant incunabula of his translation, printed in Ulm in 1473 by Johannes Zainer de Reutlingen. For an overview of the Czech Griselda manuscripts and prints see Fiala, Sobotková and Špička, ‘Olomoucká Griseldaʼ, 55. See N. Allweier, Griseldis – Korrektur, Liebe und Ehe in der Grisardis des Erhart Gross von 1432 (Freiburg im Breisgau, 2012), p. 207. In this respect it ought to be noted that the elements of the Griselda tale which stress how important it is for a ruler to choose the right spouse, secure an heir and hence political stability to his subjects also had a strong resonance in the English historical context of the last decade of King Richard’s reign in which Chaucer’s translation of Petrarch’s story originated. Richard’s marriage to Queen Anne of Bohemia failed to produce an heir, creating a threat of the realm being usurped by a ‘strange successorʼ (ClT 138). After her death, before Richard’s second marriage to Isabelle of France, Philippe of Mézières, a friend of Petrarch’s and first translator of the Griselda tale into French, wrote a letter to Richard, urging the king to marry a ‘wife such as Griselda, the wife of the Marquis Saluzzoʼ (Philippe de Mézières, Letter to King Richard II: A Plea Made in 1395 for Peace between England and France, trans. G. W. Coopland (Liverpool, 1975), p. 42, quoted in W. T. Rossiter, Chaucer and Petrarch (Cambridge, 2010), p. 186). Yet intertextual links between Griselda and Queen Anne as she appears in contemporary sources have been pointed out as well (strengthened by theories that the original version of the Clerk’s Tale might have been written during Anne’s life): namely her being an unpopular choice at first or her subsequent intercessory role for the people. For a detailed discussion of this topic, see Rossiter, ibid., or Michael Hanrahan, ‘“A straunge successour sholde take youre heritage”: The Clerk’s Tale and the Crisis of Ricardian Ruleʼ, The Chaucer Review, 35 (2001), pp. 335–50. Francesco Petrarch, Letters of Old Age, Vol. 2: Books X–XVIII, transl. A. S. Bernardo (New York, 2005), p. 668.



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to God. In the Czech versions A and B, the explication is more in favour of taking the text literally. The older manuscript, A, does not present the tale as a parable since it entirely leaves out the final mention of God; instead, the text is explained as an exemplum of marital fidelity and wifely obedience: Toto gest proto psano, aby byl prziklad dan netolito [sic] ginym zenam ale take y muzuom, aby wieru drzieli swym manzelom, iakzkoli muoz takowa zena nalezena byti, na niez by takowa wiera a trpeliwost takowych tiezkych puotkach shledana byla. Amen.47 [This is written to give an example not only to other women but also to men so that they be faithful to their spouses however (hard) it might be to find such a woman as faithful and patient in such hard trials. Amen.]

In version B, the exemplum is expanded, using the Petrarchan notion that a man should take an example from Griselda’s patience and suffer God’s trials with the same obedience, yet the first part remains unchanged – it still encourages its audience to understand the tale literally, as an example of marital obedience: Toto gest proto psano, aby byl prziklad dan netolito (sic) ginym zenam, ale take y muzuom, aby wieru obogi sobie drzieli swym manzelom w manzelstwi …48 a zwlastie, aby kazdy wzal dobry priklad na te dobre a poctiwe zenie, iakoz gesti ona tak smrtedlneho clowieka milowala wiernie a swu woli s geho woli sgednala we wšech, aby tez člowiek w stiesti y w nestiesti y w protiwenstwo pana boha, sweho mileho stwořitele nade wšecky wiecy milowal a swu woli s geho woli sgednal, a w nizadnem protiwenstvi proti niemu nereptal a tak swog žiwot aby dokonal. Amen. [This is written to give an example not only to other women but also to men so that they be faithful to their spouses in marriage … and especially that everyone took a good example from that good and honest woman who loved that mortal man so devotedly and bent her will to his in everything she did and so that a man loved his beloved Creator, Lord God, in happiness, sorrow and adversity and always acted in accord with His will and never complained of any hardship and thus lived his life to the end. Amen.]

What both versions explicitly stress is that the tale should serve as an example of marital fidelity as much to women as to men. And here lies an explanation of why the tale of evil Briselda was created in Bohemia as an antithesis to the tale of the good lady Griselda.49 In the first place, the Czech tale offers 47 48 49

Polívka, Dvě povídky, p. 56. The omitted text is the same as in version A. In MS B, the two tales are explicitly bound together with the following text: ‘Dokonala se řeč velmi pěkná a lidem poslúchati velmi užitečná o poctivé a všie chvály hodné Gryzeldys jménem, kterak mnohé zármutky a protivenství utrpěla od svého muže. Již se pak počíná o druhé ženě nešlechetné jménem Bryzelidys, kterak mnoho zlého činila jest muži svému a kterak jie pán bóh pomstil.’ [Here ends the very ennobling and useful tale of the honest and praiseworthy lady called Griselda, how she suffered much grief and

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a much better and clearer example of a husband’s faithfulness and devotion to his wife than the tale of patient Griselda could ever provide. At the same time, it reflects – and continues – the medieval tradition of perceiving women through the dichotomy of Eve and Mary, of women who are constant, saintly and virginal and those who are their very opposite in shrewishness, lecherousness and mutability.50 Griselda’s Czech counterpart in the Evil Tale of Evil Briselda has a different starting point from that in the Griselda story: it begins with a married couple. A beautiful and at first virtuous noblewoman, in the Czech translation named Briselda,51 is married to an illustrious knight, Rudolph of Slüsselberg. After having lived together for a long time, their children are born – a boy and a girl. The main turning point comes when Briselda is suddenly stricken with leprosy, foreshadowing her future treachery and sinful nature which thus far remain hidden.52 Initially, the leprosy’s key function is as a plot device initiating the test of Rudolph’s faithfulness to his wife. The threat that the disease could spread to their children, and thus put an end to Rudolph’s line, is reason enough for him to abandon his wife, yet he declines to do so. As in the tale of patient Griselda, the people approach their lord with advice. Three times a messenger comes to persuade Rudolph to repudiate his unclean wife. Each time, Rudolph resolutely declines and sends the messenger away. Steadfast in his loyalty to his wedded wife, he claims (in anticipation of the future development of the plot) that marriage is from God and that man has no right to abandon his wife unless she is unfaithful to him.53 Just as Griselda gives up what is dearest to her – that is, her children – Rudolph, a man of high standing and rank, sacrifices his lands and position and becomes a knight errant. While in Griselda, a marriage that secures an heir to justly rule the land and its people is viewed as a means of maintaining the welfare of the community, so in Briselda marriage to the wrong woman – as it turns out – proves destructive for the community. Hence the importance, which is especially emphasised in Boccaccio’s version of the story, of choosing the right spouse.

50 51 52

53

trials caused by her husband. And here begins [the tale] of the other, dishonest woman called Briselda, of how she did much evil to her husband and how Lord God punished her for this.] See B. Newman, From Virile Woman to Woman Christ (Philadelphia, 1995), p. 6. In the Latin version of the tale, the wife has no name. In medieval sermons, leprosy is often viewed as a representation of sins of the soul, as punishment for loose and lustful living. See B. L. Grigsby, Pestilence in Medieval and Early Modern English Literature (Abingdon, 2003), p. 95, and C. Rawcliffe, Leprosy in Medieval England (Rochester NY, 2006), p. 46. Briselda’s plight suggests some parallels with the Testament of Cresseid by Robert Henryson (c. 1460–1500) in which Cresseid is blighted by leprosy as the outcome of her infidelity to Troilus. However, it is not very likely that the author of Briselda was acquainted with Henryson’s work. Cf. R. Henryson, Testament of Cresseid, ed. by D. Fox (London, 1968). Polívka, Dvě povídky, p. 61.



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With Rudolph becoming a knight-errant, the tale becomes a fully fledged romance since the tests of his marital devotion are, in practice, mixed with the feats of arms he must undertake as a knight whose duty is to offer his service in battle whenever needed. While for Griselda, the test of her womanhood is to prove her unshakeable stabilitas, ‘the supreme criterion for assessing women in a culture obsessed with feminine “weakness”’,54 Rudolph’s test of faithfulness to his wife takes the traditionally masculine form of proving his courage in battle and knightly honour. In Portugal, where he arrives with his family, Rudolph fights like a true miles Christi against the forces of two pagan kings. After he proves his valour in the service of a widowed Christian queen, he faces temptation when the grateful queen offers him her lands together with her own hand in marriage. Yet Rudolph’s moral integrity again passes the test. The final test of his love for Briselda comes when he does not hesitate to put his own life at stake for his wife and battles with poisonous snakes guarding a magic fountain which has the power to cure Briselda of her foul illness. Yet once she regains her former good looks, Briselda’s character, corrupted by her beauty, changes. She betrays her husband when she all too easily lets herself be persuaded to become the wife of a wealthy pagan king, the very one against whom Rudolph fought in Portugal. In this respect, the plot mirrors the earlier advances made to Rudolph by the Portuguese queen, but this time the woman, fickle by her very nature, fails and betrays her husband. Briselda leaves Rudolph, taking her children with her, and sails away to marry the foreign king, who, as it turns out, is the brother of the pagan king Rudolph had killed in Portugal. Rudolph yet again sells all his property and, in disguise as a merchant, follows Briselda. As in Griselda, children play an important part in the plot, bringing the tale to its conclusion. At the end of the tale of good Griselda, the family is united at the feigned wedding of Walter with his own daughter. In the tale of evil Briselda, the conclusion is graver, since Rudolph avenges himself on his evil wife. After the son recognises his father and mentions this to his mother, Rudolph is, at the direct behest of Briselda, captured, brought to a chamber, and tied to a stake surrounded by hot embers, where he is further tortured by the sight of Briselda frolicking in bed with her new husband.55 Rescued by his son from certain death, Rudolph is reunited with him rather than with his wife: he slays her and their daughter, and the pagan king, with a single stroke of his sword. Briselda is a romance with a moral.56 It indicates the popularity of the romance tradition that flourished in Bohemia from the fourteenth century and 54 55

56

A. Blamires, The Case of Women in Medieval Culture (London, 1998), p. 168. The exact source of the romance motifs in Briselda is hard to pinpoint, but the motif of a husband tied to a stake to be burnt and to first witness the adultery of his wife can be traced to the German rendering of the originally Polish romance Walter and Helgunda. See T. Roscoe, German Novelists, ii (London, 1826), pp. 223–4. Use of romance as means of enlivening moral treatises was a practice common in Bohemia until the sixteenth century. See J. Kolár, Česká zábavná próza 16. století a tzv.

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that was later channelled into chapbooks. The tale borrows from a variety of romance sources, though these were used far less haphazardly than has been suggested. Rather, they form a coherent plot and were chosen to create a tale which draws on the Griselda narrative but subverts it to form its antithesis.

Briselda and her sources An exemplum of marital fidelity in the romance vein, Briselda is interspersed with didactic exhortations as well as misogynist rants against the fickle nature of women. In general, the Czech translation follows the Latin original closely, yet there are two major differences which merit closer attention. First, the Czech redaction contains a whole paragraph bemoaning women’s mutability (in the manuscript marked as chapter 10), which does not occur in the Latin version: Ale Rudolfe, kterak tě tak mladost připudila blúditi ukrutnost, aby ženským pochlebenstvím a pláčóm věřil a ochotnostem lstivým. Zajisté ženám jest od přirozenie dáno, aby v nich nižádná nebyla pevná ustavičnost, kterýchžto žen když jedno slzí oko, směje se jejie druhé oko vnitřní. Jichžto proměna a nestálost ku klamání mužóv wzdycháním přivodí a čímž viece milosti mužóm ukazují, hned když od jiných budú nabádáni milostí svú ukázanú neustavičnosti brzo proměnie a převrátie. A jestli že žádný nabádač jim se nezjeví. oni když chodie aneb se túlají, častokrát v okéncích aneb kdyžto sedie na ulicéch tajným vyznáním milovníkóv sobě hledají. Protož nižádná v pravdě naděje nenie tak falešná, jako ta, kteráž v ženách přebývá a pocházie od nich.57 [How come, Rudolph, that youth has tricked you in such a way as to trust the sweet talk of women, their tears and cunning complaisance? Surely women, by their very nature, are never constant. They weep with one eye, laugh with the other. Their mutability and inconstancy make them trick men. The more love they show to one man, the more they fall for another who approaches them. Their love soon turns into fickleness. When it so happens that there is no one to chase them when they walk or wander, they often sit in their windows or in the streets, searching for lovers with their cunning [amorous] confessions. For this reason, there is no hope as vain as the one that is entrusted in women.]

Second, the evil wife in the Latin original remains unnamed: it is only in the Czech translation that she is specifically referred to as Briselda (Bryzelda). The literary historian Milan Kopecký has plausibly identified the inserted passage as a paraphrased quotation from the Trojan Chronicle,58 which like-

57 58

knížky lidového čtení [‘Czech Entertaining Prose of the Sixteenth Century and the Socalled Chapbooksʼ] (Praha, 1960), p. 21. Polívka, Dvě povídky, p. 83. Polívka, Dvě povídky, p. 83.



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wise rails against the treacherous and mutable nature of womankind. Troilus is warned not to trust women, for they cry with one eye but laugh with the other, wandering through the streets looking for a lover, and when one lover leaves them they go and find another: Ó Troile, který tě v taký blud vede dóvěra, že Briseidy toliko slzám věříš a jejieho líbánie ochotenstvím dáš se uloviti! Zajisté obecněť jest ženám vtěleno od přirozenie, aby jich mysl nikdy pevné stálosti nejměla; jejiežto oko pláče-li jedno, druhéť se směje a druhdy radost vnitřní smutkem zevnitřním zastierá; jichžto nestálost a vrtkost k oklamání mužuov nabádá. A kdyžť najviece milosti znamenie kterému muži okazuje, kterážto již myslí k jinému se přivinúti, aneb se jest již přivinula a žádostí tělesnú mysli své radost přikrývá, aby dřěvniho a vnově zvolaného milého rozum ona omýlila svú chytrostí. A byť ižádný k ní nenabiedl o milost její, ale onať svú přípravú aneb svým vzhlédáním aneb svým ochotenstvím vždy někoho aneb v domu neb na ulici aneb v chrámě přivábí. A protož nenieť mylnějšie naděje nežli ta, kteráž na ženě jest založena anebo od ženy vycházie. A tak bláznivý jest ten mládenec a ovšem pak muž věku dospělého, ktož lahodným jich řečem neb slzám neb ochotenství věří aneb se jemu mocně poručí. [Woe is thee, Troilus, who so wrongly believe that Briselda’s tears are true and let yourself be captured by her willing kisses! Certainly women, by their very nature, have a fickle and unstable mind: when she weeps with one eye, she laughs with the other and masks her inner joy with outer sadness. Her mutability and inconsistency urge her to trick men. When she shows most love to a man, she already thinks on another or has already seduced another and hides her inner joy behind lechery so that she would beguile her previous as well as new lover. Even when no one woos her, she is so willing in her demeanour that she always lures someone to her, be it in the house, on the street or in the temple. For this reason, there is no hope falser than that which comes from the woman or is based on her alone. Who falls for her sweet words or tears or willingness and devotes himself to her completely is considered foolish, be it a young or a mature man.]59

The connection of the Briselda tale with the Trojan Chronicle might be yet closer, with the Trojan Chronicle a major inspiration for the moral exhortations and admonitions against women found in Briselda. Although the author does not quote them directly, he uses the same stylistic means of admonishing the wickedness of women through the person of the narrator.60 And there are further similarities. The Trojan Chronicle, very close to the paragraph para-

59 60

See J. Daňhelka, Kronika trojánská [‘The Trojan Chronicleʼ] (Praha, 1951), p. 171. ‘O přenevěrná manželko, neřádný falši! Pověz, nešlechetná ženo a na věky hanebně zlořečená! Což viece měl tobě učiniti neb mohl nejvěrnější manžel tvój?’ [O most unfaithful wife, wicked and false! Tell me, you dishonest woman shamefully cursed forever! What more should your most faithful husband have done for you?]; see Polívka, Dvě povídky, pp. 81, 83.

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phrased in the Briselda tale, recounts how Hector and Achilles agree to fight together alone, the loser consenting to leave the field with his whole army. Similarly, in Briselda, Rudolph agrees to fight alone with a knight from the pagan camp, having agreed that the one who is defeated will then leave the city and cease all fighting. Again, Briselda does not leave her husband strictly of her own accord but is coaxed into leaving by a wicked steward who acts on behalf of the pagan king who desires her. Similarly, in the Trojan Chronicle, Briseis, like Eve, is shown to be easily manipulated and lacking any firm constancy. Finally, the moment when Briselda leaves her husband and sails away to become the wife of another king could have perhaps been inspired either by the story of Helen of Troy or by Briseis herself.61 The name Bryzelda, given to the wicked wife in the Czech version of the tale, does not seem to have been chosen simply because of its similarity to Griselda, and thus to underline that the two women are mutual opposites, as has been suggested.62 Rather, the name seems designed to associate it with Briseis,63 the daughter of the priest Calchas, lover to Troilus and subsequently to Diomede. Given the popularity of the Trojan Chronicle, and the fact that it was one of the most common sources containing misogynistic commentaries on women available at that time, it might well be that Briseis became an epitome, a set literary type which immediately connoted a bad and treacherous woman and, as such, was deemed fit for the tale.64 To conclude, in the Czech literary context, Petrarch’s version of the Griselda tale is viewed as a continuation of the medieval moral, didactic exemplary tradition, with the patient lady Griselda understood as a paragon of exemplary wifely conduct. While Chaucer retells the tale, amplifying its problematic nature when compared to real human experience (Walter’s incomprehensible cruelty, Griselda’s obstinate resolution to keep her troth), the Czech version preserves the tale as Petrarch wrote it – which might indicate lasting reverence for the leading intellectual of his time, whose works were read and highly valued in medieval Bohemia. In both the Czech and English literary contexts, the Griselda tale provoked a response. Against the moral example of the grave 61

62 63 64

What remains unclear is whether the Latin version of the tale could indeed be directly modelled on the Trojan Chronicle and whether the Czech translator recognised it as its source and added one more, well-known misogynist passage as well as the name of the notorious woman, or whether the tale only reminded the translator of the style which he knew from the Trojan Chronicle, which then prompted him to directly incorporate a name and a misogynist passage from it into the tale. See Polívka, Dvě povídky, p. 27. Kopecký, ‘O vztahuʼ, p. 372. The Trojan Chronicle was translated into Czech at the end of the fourteenth century from the Latin Historia destructionis Troiae, written in the thirteenth century by Guido de Columnis as a paraphrase of the French verse Roman de Troie by Benoît de Sainte-Maure. It survives in six MSS and seven prints, and its lasting popularity is proven by the fact that in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it was reprinted several times as a chapbook.



The Evil Tale of Evil Briselda  167

and noble Griselda, Chaucer sets the Wife of Bath, a supreme advocate of all things worldly, who stresses, both in her Prologue and Tale, how important it is for both spouses to share sovereignty and mutual respect in marriage. In the Czech context, Griselda’s counterpart, Briselda, is still trapped in the medieval tradition of schematic exempla, reduced to a static example of an evil woman through whom the exemplarity of virtue is amplified. The tales of patient Griselda as well as fickle Briseis of the Trojan Chronicle used common motifs circulating in medieval European literature. Their treatment in early Czech humanist literature and in Chaucer, who might be taken for a predecessor of humanism, points towards different literary developments. In the Czech literary context of the second half of the fifteenth century, part of the literary production is, due to the influence of the Hussite movement, still partly medieval in nature, using moral stories in entertaining, often romance, form to educate its readership, a tradition which continued until the nineteenth century in the form of popular chapbooks. Although the Evil Tale of Evil Briselda is now little more than a footnote in the history of Czech literature, its creative use of available motifs which were specifically put together to mirror and respond to the Tale of Patient Griselda makes it a text worthy of scholarly attention.

8 The Image of the Tapster in England and Bohemia JAN DIENSTBIER

This essay focuses on the tapster figure in medieval literature and art. The subject appears marginally in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales but in one of the anonymous sequels, the so-called Prologue to the Tale of Beryn, the figure of the tapster or barmaid plays a significant role. It also occurs in several other works of English medieval literature, such as the Harrowing of Hell of the Chester Mystery Cycle, in Langland’s Piers Plowman, and Skelton’s Tunnyng of Elynour Rummyng. At the same time tapsters, especially women, appear in illuminated manuscripts, wall paintings, misericordia carvings and architectural sculptures. The figure of the tapster is also found in Old Czech literature, with an important example in a play about the Resurrection of Christ. Both male and female tapsters appear in German theatre plays, particularly those dealing with the Harrowing of Hell. On the continent, as in England, the tapster figure is present in various artworks, especially wall paintings. The topical figure of the tapster persisted at the intersection of literature, drama, and the visual arts, deep into the early modern period.

O

ne of Chaucerʼs remarkable metaphors in the Canterbury Tales compares human life to a large barrel that is slowly tapped until there is nothing left. In the Prologue to his Tale, the Reeve tells us that Death, as a tapster, began emptying the cask at his birth and has been emptying it ever since, so it is now almost empty. Chaucerian scholarship has paid well-deserved attention to this metaphor, with V. A. Kolve being the first to show how it relates to other images that frame and organise the different parts of the Canterbury Tales.1 Although the metaphor is otherwise widespread, as we will see below, the Reeveʼs brief remark is the only passage in Chaucerʼs masterpiece to feature the fascinating tapster figure, other than the line mentioning ‘any gaylard tappestere’, allegedly visited by Absolon in the Millerʼs Tale (MilT 3336). However, the tapster plays a prominent role in the early fifteenth-century continua1

V. A. Kolve, Chaucer and the Imagery of Narrative: The First Five Canterbury Tales (Stanford, 1984), pp. 223–33.



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tion of the Canterbury Tales preserved in Alnwick, duke of Northumberland’s Library, MS 45,2 known as the Prologue to the Tale of Beryn. It is a relatively extensive story, more than half of which describes the adventures of the Pardoner. During the pilgrimsʼ dinner at The Checker of the Hoop inn, the Pardoner starts flirting with a tapster named Kitt. Displaying all its Chaucerian wit,3 the text hints at the subject in one of the first verses: ‘He toke his staff to the tapster. – “Welcom, myne owne brothere,”/ Quod she with a frendly look, al redy for to kysʼ (23–4).4 The handing over of the pilgrimʼs staff, an object which the symbolic imagery of the Middle Ages and beyond associated with the male sexual organ,5 has an important place in the story, openly alluding to the nature of the encounter between Kitt and the Pardoner. More details are used to illustrate the protagonistʼs flirtatious and uncourtly behaviour. Notably, the barmaid attempts to break the Pardonerʼs fast with alcohol. She fails, but the Pardoner still gives her a coin, confirming the false courtesy of their exchange. From the beginning, the ‘courtship’ between the girl and the pilgrim is nothing but a sham, both on the part of the lecherous Pardoner and the cunning tapster – ‘for the more cher she made of love, the falsher was hir lay’ (124). Their behaviour signals how the story will unfold. In the same passage – quite early on in the text – the anonymous author informs his readers that they will soon find ‘howe the Tapster made the Pardoner pull/ garlik at the long nyght, til it was nerend day’ (122–3). As expected, the nocturnal rendezvous that the Pardoner arranges with Kitt does not turn out as he hopes. The tapster reveals the Pardonerʼs intentions to the innkeeper and to her paramour, with whom she merrily dines and drinks at the foolish pilgrimʼs expense. At night, the distraught Pardoner finds Kitt in her room accompanied by her lover, who desires nothing else but to thrash the pilgrim with his own staff that the girl had stowed away at the beginning of the story. In the grotesque and chaotic brawl that ensues, kitchen utensils are used instead of weapons, and everybody gets hurt except for the sly tapster. The wretched Pardoner does not spend the night in the girlʼs bed but in the dogʼs litter, hiding from the innkeeper and Kittʼs paramour and trying not to attract 2

3

4 5

The text has been dated to the beginning of the fifteenth century. However, various places of origin and dates of composition have been proposed. Cf. Matthew W. Irvin, ‘The Merchantʼs Tale: Beryn and the London Company of Mercersʼ, Studies in the Age of Chaucer 40 (2018), 113–53; Peter Brown, ‘Journeyʼs End: The Prologue to The Tale of Berynʼ, Chaucer and Fifteenth-Century Poetry, ed. Julia Boffey and Janet Cowen (London, 1991), pp. 141–74. The Beryn-Writer tried to emulate the Chaucerian paradigm quite faithfully. See John Burrow, ‘The Tale of Beryn: An Appreciationʼ, Chaucer Review 4 (2015), 499–511; Karen A. Winstead, ‘The Beryn-Writer as a Reader of Chaucerʼ, Chaucer Review 22 (1988), 225–33. Line references are to John M. Bowers (ed.), The Canterbury Tales: Fifteenth-Century Continuations and Additions (Kalamazoo, 1992). Malcolm Jones, The Secret Middle Ages: Discovering the Real Medieval World (Stroud, 2002), pp. 256–7.

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the unwanted attention of ‘a grete Walssh dogg’ (633). Chaucerʼs anonymous continuator confirms that Kitt is true to type in multiple places throughout the text. For example, the Pardoner, as he lies in the dogʼs litter, regrets his nocturnal adventure by ‘remembryng his foly,/ that he wold trust a tapster of a comon hostry’ (653–4). In another passage, the Beryn writer moralises: ‘Therefor, anenst hir estates I woll in no manere/ deme ne determyn, but of lewd Kittes/ as tapsters and other such that hath wyly wittes/ to pik mennes purses and eke to bler hir eye’ (122–5). Female tapster figures like the treacherous Kitt appear in other works of medieval English literature from the fourteenth century onwards and they are quite well researched.6 Such figures include the Good Gossip of Chester, featured in the Harrowing of Hell of the Chester Mystery Cycle, part of the play performed by Cooks, Tapsters, Ostlers and Innkeepers,7 Beton the Brewstere in William Langlandʼs Piers Plowman,8 and, perhaps the best-known of them, John Skeltonʼs Elynour Rummyng.9 The tradition further developed in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries and is reflected in popular opinions and laws. For example, in 1540, the city fathers of Chester ordered that no woman between the ages of fourteen and forty years old should keep an alehouse. The council justified its decision by the ‘wantonness, brawls, frays, other inconveniences’ that allegedly occurred in female-owned alehouses.10 Naturally, the scarcely preserved sources show that such misdeeds were just as common in alehouses and breweries run by men. Literature was not the only medium helping to foment popular distrust in female innkeepers. On the evidence of extant material, visual representations of sinful tapsters being dragged to hell by devils were quite common in late-medieval England. They appear in wall paintings, such as the depictions of the Last Judgement at the Holy Trinity in Coventry (mid-fifteenth century) and at St Thomas Becket Church in Salisbury (about 1470), on roof bosses, such as in the nave of Norwich Cathedral (after 1463), and on misericords such as that at St Lawrence in Ludlow, c. 1415–25 (Fig. 8.1).11 6 7

8 9 10 11

They are summed up by Judith M. Bennett, Ale, Beer and Brewsters in England: Women’s Work in a Changing World (Oxford, 1996), pp. 122–5. See Robert M. Lumiansky and David Mills (eds), The Chester Mystery Cycle, EETS ss 3 (1974), pp. 337–8; Robert M. Lumiansky, ‘Comedy and Theme in the Chester Harrowing of Hellʼ, The Chester Mystery Cycle: A Casebook, ed. Kevin J. Harty (New York, 1993), pp. 162–70. It is notable that the Chester Harrowing pageant was performed by tapsters. William Langland, The Vision of Piers Plowman, ed. A. V. C. Schmidt (London 1984), passus V, lines 297–385. John Skelton, ‘The Tunnyng of Elynour Rummyngʼ, in The Poetical Works of John Skelton, ed. Alexander Dyce (Boston 1864), i, pp. 109–31. Bennett, Ale, Beer and Brewsters, p. 122. All of these examples are discussed in Theresa A. Vaughan, ‘The Alewife: Changing Images and Bad Brewsʼ, AVISTA Forum Journal 2 (2011), 34–41. For misericords, see also Paul Hardwick, English Medieval Misericords: The Margins of Meaning (Wood-



The Image of the Tapster in England and Bohemia  171

Figure 8.1  Tapster tormented by devils, c. 1400. Misericord from Ludlow, St Lawrenceʼs church. Photograph © Colin Underhill / Alamy Stock Photo, reproduced by permission.

Sometimes these depictions give just the slightest hint of the womenʼs guilt: tapsters hold various jugs and cups, suggesting that they swindled their customers – a theme resonating in the Chester Mystery Cycle or Skeltonʼs Elynour Rummyng. This is also the case with the earliest English depiction, in the Holkham Bible Picture Book (1327–35), where the Last Judgement image shows the devil carrying a naked figure with long hair waving a jug over her head.12 Further visual representation suggests prostitution and other forms of sexual misbehaviour of the sort that also resonates in the Prologue to the Tale of Beryn. This particular variation is featured in the series of connected marginal illustrations in the Smithfield Decretals (c. 1340).13 Here, the illuminations depict a fabliau about a hermit seduced by a female tapster. When a jealous miller disturbs their sexual act, the hermit breaks not only his vow of chastity but also of non-violence and kills the miller. The story concludes with the hermitʼs repentance: he turns into a hairy anchorite and spends the

12 13

bridge, 2011), pp. 28–31; Christa Grössinger, The World Upside-Down: English Misericords (London, 1997), pp. 53–4, 80–1. For the bosses, see Martial Rose and Julia Hedgecoe, Stories in Stone: The Medieval Roof Carvings of Norwich Cathedral (Norwich, 1997), pp. 111–13. London, British Library, MS Additional 47682, fol. 42v. London, British Library, MS Royal 10 E IV, fols 113v–118v.

172  Jan Dienstbier

Figure 8.2  Hell, c. 1340. Wall-painting from Pičín, church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary. Photograph by Ondřej Faktor and reproduced by permission.

rest of his life in prayers, reminiscent of St John Chrysostom in the popular late-medieval legend.14 The figure of the tapster and related figure of the alewife have been examined extensively over the past years, and it is difficult to add anything regarding the extant English material.15 However, the corresponding continental tradition has remained relatively unexplored, except for links to French literature.16 In this respect, the Bohemian and generally Central European perspec-

14

15

16

The legend was popularised by the Leben der Heiligen printed in 1471 by Günther Zainer in Augsburg. Later on, several prominent artists of the German Renaissance treated the theme, including Albrecht Dürer, Lucas Cranach the Elder and Hans Baldung Grien. See Ariane Mensger (ed.), Weibsbilder. Eros, Macht, Moral und Tod um 1500 (Basel, 2017), pp. 150–1; Charles Allyn Williams, The German Legends of the Hairy Anchorite (Urbana, 1935), pp. 34–40. See n.11, above. In many cases it is nearly impossible to distinguish between the brewster and the tapster. While both occupations could be quite distinct, they often overlap in literature and in visual arts. For the social–historical perspective see Barbara A. Hanawalt, Of Good and Ill Repute: Gender and Social Control in Medieval England (Oxford, 1998), pp. 104–23; A. Lynn Martin, Alcohol, Sex, and Gender in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Basingstoke, 2001), pp. 58–78. For the case of the Prologue to the Tale of Beryn, see the observations of Bradley Darjes and Thomas Rendall, ‘A Fabliau in the Prologue to the Tale of Berynʼ, Mediaeval Studies 47 (1985), 416–31. For Chaucer, see, for example, Frederick M. Biggs, Chaucerʼs Decameron and the Origin of the Canterbury Tales (Cambridge, 2017), pp. 128–52.



The Image of the Tapster in England and Bohemia  173

tive provides an interesting context for the roots and general categorization of the tapster and alewife in English literature and art. Several wall paintings from early fourteenth-century Bohemia show the tapster or alewife figure in a fashion similar to the contemporary or slightly later English depictions. Although only partially uncovered, the wall paintings at the Church of the Virginʼs Nativity in Pičín (c. 1340) (Fig. 8.2) constitute one such example. Among the figures of doomed sinners is a damaged figure in female attire, tapping a large barrel to fill a jug.17 Two devils push her from behind while another sits on top of the barrel in front of the woman. The devil on the tun holds a mirror, an object traditionally associated with earthly vanity and luxury. We can only guess the story behind this depiction. The presence of the mirror suggests that the womanʼs sins include not just swindling but also overdressing, loosely associated with sexual misbehaviour. Albeit much later, this motif appears in the form of the elaborate headdress in the depiction of alewives at the Holy Trinity in Coventry. In the earlier depiction of the Last Judgement at St Leonhard and Nicholas Church in Dolní Slověnice (c. 1320–30), two tapsters are accompanied by a smaller figure of a drinking man (Fig. 8.3).18 While one of the women tastes the cupʼs contents with her forefinger (perhaps indicating a spoiled drink), the second is happily tapping what appears to be a keg attached to the devilʼs back (the painting is damaged in this area). The scene represents only a small part of the larger depiction of spoiled crafts, similar to that found in the Holkham Bible, where a baker and a priest are carried to hell along with tapsters.19 Among cheating craftsmen, there is one individual with a drill and set of cubes, probably a dice maker. This is not surprising, keeping in mind the fact that various hazard games were associated with pubs and tapsters. The damaged wall paintings of the Triumph of Death in the former charnel house or cemetery chapel in Broumov (Braunau, probably the 1320s or 1330s) provide a further example (Fig. 8.4).20

17

18 19 20

Zuzana Všetečková, ‘Die Wandmalereien in der Maria-Geburts-Kirche in Pičínʼ, in King John of Luxembourg (1296–1346) and the Art of his Era, ed. Klára Benešovská (Praha, 1998), pp. 320–31. See also Jan Dienstbier and Ondřej Faktor, ‘Obrázky z pekla. Souvislosti několika vyobrazení Posledního soudu z počátku 14. stoletíʼ [‘Images from Hell: On Several Early Fourteenth-century Depictions of the Last Judgment and Their Contextʼ], Umění/Art 63 (2015), 434–57. Ibid., pp. 438–40. Available at http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=add_ms_47682_fs001r. For details, including the transcription of the accompanying inscriptions, see Jan Dienstbier, Ondřej Faktor and Jan Royt, ‘Středověké nástěnné malby v suterénu broumovské faryʼ [‘Medieval Wall Paintings in the Basement of the Presbytery in Broumovʼ], Průzkumy památek 22:2 (2015), 3–18; Dienstbier and Faktor, ‘Obrázky z peklaʼ, 440–1.

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Figure 8.3  Hell (detail), c. 1320–30. Wall-painting from Dolní Slověnice, SS Leonhard and Nicholas church. Photograph © Institute of the Art History of the Czech Academy of Sciences / Jitka Walterová. Reproduced by permission.

Just next to the fragments of Death riding a horse and holding a large sickle is a heavily damaged depiction of what appears to be a female figure filling a cup from a larger jug (Fig. 8.3). She appears to be serving customers sitting at the table. As in Pičín, the devil is pulling her hair. A portentous Latin inscription frames the scene: MORS IUVENES RAPIT ATQUE SENES [Death reaps the young and the old alike]. The tapster figure is probably a reference to hell, connected to the Triumph of Death which in Broumov is surrounded by other memento mori motifs – the Last Judgement with sinners dragged to hell, the Three Living and the Three Dead, and the parable of the Ten Virgins.



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Figure 8.4  Triumph of Death and a tapster, c. 1320–40. Wall-painting from Broumov, Parish House (former Charnel House or Cemetery Chapel). Author’s own photograph.

A loose textual analogue to all these depictions appears in the Old Czech Play about Christʼs Resurrection. Although the sole manuscript containing the text dates to the early sixteenth century, the play itself is, judging by its language, much older and dates back to the end of the fourteenth century. Its content is similar to that of the Chester Harrowing of Hell. After their humiliating defeat by Christ, the devils bring various sinners with them to inhabit their realm. Among these sinners is the soul of a male tapster who proclaims: ‘Já sem byl na onom světě šenkéř,/ dával jsem málo piva za haléř;/ když sú přišli sedláci s ženami,/ dalť jsem jim s kvasnicemi./ Rádať sem přičítala/ a k tomu se věrtovala.’ [I gave too little beer for a penny, and when the peasants came with their wives, I gave them beer with yeast, I liked to add more to the bill, and I falsely swore that the bill was right.]21 Similar misdemeanours feature in the lament of the brewster in the Chester Harrowing: she uses short measures (‘Of cannes I kepte no trewe measure’) and adulterates her ale (‘With hoopes I made my ale stronge,/ ashes and erbes I blende amonge,/ and marred so good maulte’) just to swindle more money from her customers (‘Mysspendinge moche maulte, brewinge so theyne,/ sellinge small cuppes moneye to wyn’).22 Their sins are almost the same, but the Prague tapster is a man, while the Chester tapster is a woman. To what extent, then, was the tapster type as21 22

Josef Hrabák (ed.), Staročeské drama [‘Old Czech Dramaʼ] (Praha, 1950), p. 48. Lumiansky and Mills (eds), Chester Mystery Cycle, pp. 337–8.

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sociated exclusively with women? The Old Czech play is closely related to the Harrowing plays from medieval Germany, sometimes called the ‘Devilʼs Playsʼ (Teufelspielen). Similar to the Prague example, their plot describes the devilsʼ struggle to repopulate their underground realm once the righteous men and women of the Old Testament were freed from it by Christ. They recruited replacements from all kinds of sinners representing different estates of medieval society.23 The Innsbruck Passion Play, probably originating in Thuringia between 1327 and 1347 and now preserved in a single manuscript completed in 1391,24 and the Vienna Passion Play, perhaps Rhenish, from the 1320s or 1330s,25 already include a comprehensive catalogue of sinners listed by their profession. Later plays further extend the number of different crafts and social positions. As for tapsters, brewers and similar occupations, men predominate in extant Central European devil plays: the Innsbruck Play features a ‘byrschencker’ [one who serves beer], the Erlauer Play a ‘leutgeb’ [taverner], the Berlin Play a ‘pincerna’ [one who serves wine] and the so-called Passion of Pffarkirch a ‘weinschenckh’ [one who serves wine].26 The varying expressions, all meaning ‘bartenderʼ or ‘tapsterʼ, reflect language differences and the alcohol preference in each of the locations. A female tapster, identified by the German word krögersche [hostess] and Latin tabernatrix [she-taverner], appears only in the play from Redentin, a homestead of Doberan Abbey. However, the situation is reversed in Central European wall paintings – here, tapsters are depicted most often as women. In addition to the Bohemian examples mentioned above, one can point to the Church in Strzelcze pod Sobótką (Strehlitz) in the territory of the former Duchy of Opole (third quarter of the fourteenth century), to the charnel house in the Bystrze (Bisterfeld) in Pomerelia (c. 1400),27 or to one of the reliefs in the Church of Our Lady in Marienhafen in Lower Saxony (c. 1260).28 Depictions of male tapsters seem to be less common. However, it is difficult to support this claim with statistics. It appears that nobody has systematically examined across different European countries the visual representation of tapsters sentenced to hell. One early example of a male tapster is in the paintings in the Church of Our Lady in Bergen on Rügen (beginning of the thirteenth century). The damaged and later overpainted Doom scene in Bergen is inhabited by various representatives of 23

24 25 26 27 28

See overviews in Rolf Max Kulli, Die Ständesatire in den deutschen geistlichen Schauspielen des ausgehenden Mittelalters (Bern, 1966); Hellmut Rosenfeld, ‘Die Entwicklung der Ständesatire im Mittelalterʼ, Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 71 (1951–2), 196–207. Kulli, Die Ständesatire, p. 20. Ibid., p. 32. Ibid., p. 135. Jerzy Domasłowski et al., Gotyckie malarstwo ścienne w Polsce (Poznań, 1984), pp. 303–5. Hemmo Suur, Die Alte Kirche zu Marienhafen in Ostfriesland (Emden, 1845), Tafel V; Johann Gerhard Schomerus, Die Marienkirche von Marienhafen (Norden, 1993).



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Figure 8.5  Tapster tormented by devils, c. 1400. Wall-painting from Rimavské Brezovo, church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary. Photograph © Peter Megyeši. Reproduced by permission.

different crafts. It features a baker, a blacksmith forging a large knife or dagger, and a male tapster, bending over to tap one of several kegs. Occasionally, male tapsters appear even in late medieval art, as is the case of the Danish Tuse Church (c. 1480).29 On the other hand, in Upper Hungary, todayʼs Slovakia, the female tapster became an entirely independent topic. She even appears separately, outside the usual Last Judgement setting. In the murals of Liptovské Sliače (c. 1400) and the recently discovered wall paintings in Rimavské Brezovo, from the 29

For details see Marie-Louise Jorgensen, Mogens Vedso, Hugo Johannsen et al., Danmarks kirker: HolbækAmt, IV (Copenhagen, 1979), pp. 587–617.

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Figure 8.6  Hell (detail), c. 1500. Wall-painting from Staré Prachatice, church of St Peter and Paul. Photograph by Ondřej Faktor and reproduced by permission.

second half of the fourteenth century (Fig. 8.5), a female tapster is depicted in the western part of the nave. In both examples, the anonymous painters surrounded the figure with the tools of her craft (various cups, barrels and casks), with devils tormenting her and spoiling the brew.30 The paintings in Rimavské Brezovo include a pair of gamblers in combat, a motif which also appears in Silesian Strzelcze pod Sobótką. As we shall see later, in medieval literature, the dice playing was often criticised in association with alehouses and taverns. The negative visual type of the tapster remained stable for centuries, and in the sixteenth century, it appeared as often as it did two hundred years before. In Bohemia, the wall painting in the St Peter and Paul Church in Staré Prachatice (c. 1501–20) exemplifies the sixteenth-century occurrence of the motif. The crowd of sinners baking in hell includes a familiar figure: a woman holding a jug in one hand and a tankard in the other (Fig. 8.6). She appears to serve the alcohol directly to the belly-mouth of the devil who oversees her and the other sinners. The painter copied the composition 30

Both paintings are discussed by Peter Megyeši, ‘The Landlady from Hell. The Iconography of the Medieval Wall Paintings in Rimavské Brezovo and Liptovské Sliačeʼ, Ars 54:2 (2021), 170–7. The painting in Liptovské Sliače was discussed in the older literature as well: see Vlasta Dvořáková, Josef Krása and Karel Stejskal: Středověká nástěnná malba na Slovensku [‘Medieval Wall Painting in Slovakiaʼ] (Praha, 1978), pp. 141–2.



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of the Doom, including hell itself, from an anonymous German broadsheet.31 However, comparison with the broadsheet reveals that the female figure with a jug and tankard was designed independently of this source. The unknown painter may have followed a local tradition or influence, or a theatrical production, which must have been widely popular at the time, although only a fragment of the periodʼs production has survived. In this later period, too, the female tapster figure was widespread and reached the eastern borders of Central Europe. Numerous examples appear in depictions of the Last Judgement in the West Carpathian icons of todayʼs Slovakia and Poland (sixteenth to eighteenth centuries). In some cases, as in the icon in the St Cosmas and Damian Church in Lukov-Venezia (late sixteenth century), the tapster is identified by an inscription – ‘seńkarka’ [tapster].32 The woman fills a wooden cup from a jug while a small devil embraces her from behind. These visual depictions find analogues in attacks by church moralists on scandalous behaviour in inns and alehouses. Such exempla in turn provide a context for satirical writing in a secular vein, which fostered some ambitious works – a situation that echoes the formation of the pilgrim portraits in the Canterbury Tales.33 A remarkable example from Old Czech literature, the socalled Hradec Králové Codex, was discovered by the famous Czech linguist Josef Dobrovský in Hradec Králové at the beginning of the nineteenth century.34 Originally coming from the library of Prague Jesuits, or another library in the Bohemian capital, the manuscript is now kept in the National Library in Prague. According to the script and other codicological characteristics, it dates to the fourteenth century or earlier. The codex contains various religious texts adapted for common usage – mostly legends and narrative texts relating to Christʼs Passion. However, the codex also incorporates fables and moral 31

32

33

34

Richard S. Field (ed.), The Illustrated Bartsch, German Single Woodcuts before 1500, vol. 162, Anonymous Artists (.401–.735) (New York, 1989), p. 204, ill. 606. The only known example is preserved in the Stadtbibliothek Braunschweig. For this particular depiction, see Dienstbier and Faktor, ‘Obrázky z peklaʼ, 451. For a brief overview of the motif, see John-Paul Himka, Last Judgement Iconography in the Carpathians (Toronto, 2009), pp. 69–71. See Jill Mann, Chaucer and Medieval Estates Satire (Cambridge, 1973). Her work has been re-evaluated and set against the wider cultural background by Steve Rigby (ed.), Historians on Chaucer: The ‘General Prologue’ to the Canterbury Tales (Oxford, 2014). The MS is kept in the National Library in Prague under shelf-mark XXIII G 92. For its origins, see Josef Volf, ‘Tak zvaný Hradecký rukopis. (Dějiny jeho osudů)ʼ [‘The So-called Hradec Manuscript. (A History of its Fortunes)ʼ], Časopis československých knihovníků 5 (1926), 25–31, 144–52, and the edition by Josef Hrabák (ed.), Staročeské satiry Hradeckého rukopisu a Smilovy školy [‘The Old Czech Satires of the Hradec Manuscript and of the Smil Schoolʼ] (Praha, 1962), pp. 161–3. Alfred Thomas’s suggestion that the manuscript was written in Hradec Králové is unsubstantiated (see Alfred Thomas, Anne’s Bohemia: Czech Literature and Society 1310–1420 [Minneapolis, 1998], p. 4).

180  Jan Dienstbier

satires, including the nameless text known as the Satire of the Artisans and Aldermen. It enumerates the sins specific to several professions – cobblers, aldermen, maltsters, butchers, barbers, and bakers – and describes various forms of their trickery. However, this basic structure is then developed to create more extended anecdotes. The story of the cobblerʼs wife is of particular interest since it describes her vain efforts to get her husband out of the alehouse where he is engaged in dice-gambling with a male tapster. The vices sprouting in alehouses and inns, gambling included, are denounced in a fashion similar to that found in English satires, with their cast of alewives and female tapsters. Visual culture was clearly in dialogue with such literary images, as demonstrated by the aforementioned paintings in Rimavské Brezovo. In Bohemia, the tapster motif survived well into modern times. At the very end of the seventeenth century, Evermod Jiří Košetický, a learned Premonstratensian, country pastor and aristocratic educator, recorded a popular drama titled The Mirror of the Carnival, which he probably encountered somewhere in the Bohemian countryside.35 One of the scenes evokes the negative image of women tapsters found across fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Europe. A dissolute band of lawbreakers meets in an alehouse to sell items stolen from their masters. They want to exchange their ill-gotten gains for wine and beer and are readily helped by a tapster, whose attitude recalls that of the alewife in the Chester Mystery Cycle. In the Czech play, the tapster boasts about her sins, describing how she spoils the beer by mixing it with water and doubles the bills with ‘a double chalk’. Naturally, she is more than ready to exchange her customers’ stolen goods for a glass or two. The tapsterʼs bravado is disturbed only when personified Death appears and mercilessly reaps the ugly company. The dialogue between the tapster and Death reveals the extent of the womanʼs sins and the cowardice of her husband, who quietly supported her crimes. The pub scene in The Mirror of the Carnival is in many ways analogous to the early fourteenth-century wall paintings in Broumov. Both tell us that the end of merry drinking can be speedy and that even the petty crimes of drinkers and tapsters can have gruesome consequences. Moreover, even though both scenes differ in the aspect of unpredictability from the Reeveʼs speech mentioned at the outset, they show the seemingly strange connection between death and drinking that is also apparent in the Reeveʼs Prologue. When Harry Bailly orders the Reeve to stop his ‘sermonyng’ (RvT 3899), it is as if he has recognised a common moralising trope that runs counter to his professional interests – an attempt to spoil every good cup or tankard with an unwelcome reminder of the undeniable and gloomy fact that all casks have their bottoms.36 35

36

Zdeněk Kalista (ed.), Selské čili sousedské hry českého baroka [‘Czech Peasant or Neighboursʼ Plays of the Baroque Periodʼ] (Praha, 1942), pp. 137–82. The short prologue to the play mentions that it was ‘hastily’ composed by some unnamed ‘Czech German’ (p. 211). The author is grateful to the editors for valuable comments that significantly improved the manuscript.

9 Bohemian and English Painting in the Last Decades of the Fourteenth Century: Tracing the Bohemian Influence1 LENKA PANUŠKOVÁ

I

In 1984, Amanda Simpson published a dissertation titled ‘The Connections between English and Bohemian Painting during the Second Half of the 14th Centuryʼ. By means of stylistic analysis and wider comparisons, Simpson concluded that she was not able to trace any Bohemian elements in the English book and panel painting that originated after the arrival of Anne of Bohemia in England. However, a decade later, Hana Hlaváčková suggested a new dating for the Bible of Wenceslas IV, a pivotal Bohemian manuscript of the late fourteenth century. Its dating to the late 1370s or earlier 1380s is now widely accepted, reopening discussions on the Bohemian influence on English art after Richard’s marriage to Anne and bringing her back on stage in the role of mediator of the Bohemian soft style in an English context. In this essay I first tackle the term ‘Bohemian soft style’, looking at its sources and development. Next, I focus on the works of art which can be connected with the royal court of Richard II. Using detailed formal analysis as well as stylistic comparison, I then look at East Anglian art production at the end of the fourteenth century in order to examine its synthesis of styles for indications of Bohemian influence.

n 1901, John Bradley established a connection between the dramatic change of style in English medieval art at the end of the fourteenth century and the marriage of Richard II to Anne of Bohemia. In Bradley’s words, ‘she was the moving spirit of this change which her immediate popularity soon rendered

1

This chapter was written as part of the project ‘John the Blind and Bonne of Luxembourg as Patrons of Guillaume de Machaut: Intention and Reception of Machautʼs Work in its Historical Context’, funded by the Czech Science Foundation, No. 19-07473S.

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Figure 9.1  God creating the sun, moon and animals: initial I(n principio) from the beginning of the book of Genesis in the Great Bible of Richard II, first quarter of the 15th century. London, British Library, MS Royal 1 E IX, fol. 3v (detail). © British Library Board. Reproduced by permission.

universal in every native scriptorium’.2 He even went so far as to claim that Bohemian illuminators had accompanied the Emperor’s daughter on her way to England. Bradley’s idea was later refuted by Elfrida Saunders and Eric Millar, whose work provoked a meticulous study by Emanuel Dostál.3 The latter 2

3

John W. Bradley, Historical Introduction to the Collection of Illuminated Letters and Borders in the National Art Library, Victoria and Albert Museum (London, 1901), pp. 128, 156. Elfrida Saunders, Englische Buchmalerei (Munich, 1928), p. 136; Eric G. Millar, English Illuminated Manuscripts of the XIVth and XVth centuries (Paris, 1928), pp. 30–3,



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Figure 9.2  Richard II presented to the Virgin and Child by his Patron Saint John the Baptist and Saints Edward and Edmund, Wilton Diptych, inner side, London, National Gallery, c. 1395–9, egg on oak, 53 x 37 cm. Image: Ian Dagnall Computing / Alamy Stock Photo.

based his research on a detailed comparison of the so-called Bible of Richard II (Fig. 9.1) with contemporaneous Bohemian works of art, in order to prove a distinctive influence of Bohemian art production on English art at the turn of the fourteenth century.4 Dostál, like previous researchers, came to the con-

4

69–71; Emanuel Dostál, Příspěvky k dějinám českého iluminátorského umění na sklonku XIV. století [‘Contributions to the History of the Czech Art of Illumination about the Year 1400ʼ] (Brno, 1928); for English summary see pp. 148–71. On the issue of illuminators in Anne’s entourage see Paul Binski, ‘The Liber Regalis: Its Date and European Context’, The Regal Image of Richard II and the Wilton Diptych, ed. Dillian Gordon, Lisa Monnas and Caroline Elam (London, 1997), p. 343, n. 35. It seems, however, that Bradley’s supposition has not found any acceptance by later scholarship. Although Susan Groag Bell in ‘Medieval Women Book Owners: Arbiters of Lay Piety and Ambassadors of Culture’, Signs 7 (1982), 742–68, speculated again on Bohemian painters who revitalised English art, she was not able to prove the presence of painters from Bohemia working in England. London, British Library, MS Royal 1 E IX, first quarter of the fifteenth century. See Scot McKendrick, John Lowden and Kathleen Doyle (eds), Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination (London, 2011), no. 23, pp. 142–3. For further reading on the ownership of the manuscript see Jeanne E. Krochalis, ‘The Books and Reading of Henry V and his Circle’, Chaucer Review 23 (1988), 49–77 at 58; Kathleen L. Scott, Later Gothic Manuscripts 1390–1490, 2 vols (London, 1996), i, no. 26, pp. 100–6.

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clusion that several elements of various sources, including the Bohemian ‘soft style’, were merged together to form the style of English book illumination of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries.5 Czech scholars accepted Dostál’s conclusions without further investigation into the topic, but a range of English scholars either confirmed or denied the presence of Bohemian influence in English book and panel painting until Amanda Simpson argued that no Bohemian elements can be recognised in English art after 1380.6 New discussions emerged in the 1990s, after the Wilton Diptych (Fig. 9.2) was cleaned and conserved in the National Gallery in London and presented to the public in an exhibition.7 Soon afterwards a volume appeared focusing on art production in Ricardian England.8 Here, two contributions need to be taken into account when considering Bohemian influence on English book and panel painting. The first is Paul Binski’s paper, concentrating on the Liber Regalis;9 the second is the contribution by Hana Hlaváčková on the Bible of Wenceslas IV and court art at the end of the fourteenth century.10 In his contribution, Binski argued for a later date for the Liber Regalis, conventionally dated to 1383–84 and associated with the Litlyngton Missal. The Liber was presumed to have originated before the Missal, probably on the occasion of Richard’s or Queen Anne’s coronation.11 On the basis of stylistic analysis, Binski recognised clear affinities between the Liber and English illuminated manuscripts of the 1390s.12 Additionally, Binski went on to acknow­

5

6 7

8 9 10

11 12

‘Just at that time there are influences passing from one centre of art to another so similar in their main tendencies that it is impossible to determine from which source any particular element derives.’ (Dostál, Příspěvky, p. 171). Amanda Simpson, The Connections Between English and Bohemian Painting in the Second Half of the Fourteenth Century (New York, 1984). London, National Gallery, NG4451, online at https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/english-or-french-the-wilton-diptych (accessed 17 June 2020). The exhibition was ‘Making and Meaning: The Wilton Diptych’, London, National Gallery, autumn 1993. See also Dillian Gordon, The Wilton Diptych (New Haven, 2015), a revised and extended version of the first account of the Wilton Diptych published in the exhibition catalogue. Gordon et al. (eds), Regal Image. London, Westminster Abbey Library, MS 38, 1390s. See Paul Binski, ‘The Liber Regalis: Its Date and European Context’, The Regal Image, ed. Gordon et al., pp. 233–46. Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 2759–2764, Prague, c. 1380–1400. See Hana Hlaváčková, ‘The Bible of Wenceslas IV in the Context of Court Culture’, The Regal Image, ed. Gordon et al., pp. 223–31. See also her ‘Courtly Body in the Bible of Wenceslas IV’, Künstlerischer Austausch: Akten des 28. internationalen Kongresses für Kunstgeschichte, ed. Thomas W. Gaehtgens, 2 vols (Berlin, 1993), ii, pp. 371–82. The Liber Regalis in London, Westminster Abbey Library, MS 37, 1383–84. Binski, ‘Liber Regalis’, p. 240, claims that ‘the evidence suggests that the Liber Regalis may date to after the Litlyngton Missal, and in comparative terms to the later 1380s or 1390s’.

Figure 9.3  Coronation of the royal couple, Liber Regalis, 1390s. London, Westminster Abbey Library, MS 38, fol. 20r. © Dean and Chapter of Westminster, London. Reproduced by permission.

Figure 9.4  The Emperor Wenceslas IV with his first wife, Johanna: initial D(ises Buches), Bible of Wenceslas IV, c.1380. Vienna, ÖNB, Cod. 2759, fol. 2r. © ÖNB Wien. Reproduced by permission.



Bohemian and English Painting  187

ledge that two Bohemian manuscripts, the Willehalm Codex and the Wenceslas Bible, also bear a strong resemblance to the Liber Regalis (Fig. 9.3). Since both manuscripts were presumed to originate in the late 1390s, scholars before Binski had excluded them from close comparison with the supposedly earlier Liber Regalis.13 However, Binski referred to the hypothesis by Hana Hlaváčková in her contribution of an earlier dating for the Wenceslas Bible. She demonstrated that work on the Bible began at the end of the 1370s or early in the 1380s, just before Wenceslas’ half-sister, Anne, left Bohemia for England. The earlier dating of the Bible was not accepted until the late 1990s, following a reconsideration of Hlaváčkováʼs arguments.14 The most compelling one concerns the historical evidence to which she points. Fol. 2r (Fig. 9.4) shows the royal couple in full regalia, with imperial crowns on their heads. Wenceslas’ first wife, Johanna, was crowned queen of Bohemia in 1370, two months after her marriage, and queen of the Romans in 1376, when her husband, Wenceslas IV, also became emperor. His second wife, Sophia, whom Wenceslas married in 1389, three years after Johanna’s death, was not made queen of Bohemia until 1400 and never received the imperial crown. These historical circumstances suggest that work on the manuscript commenced shortly after 1376. Misidentification of the queen as Sophia had led scholars to a much later dating of the Bible, which in turn undermined the idea of Bohemian influence on English book painting since the Wenceslas Bible was supposed to post-date Anne’s arrival in England in 1381. By contrast, the recent dramatic change in the dating of both the Liber Regalis and the Wenceslas Bible means that work on the latter would thus have preceded the production of the Liber. The Willehalm Codex15 originated within the same group of illuminators as the Wenceslas Bible. The illumination on 13 14

15

Thus in Connections, Simpson considered only those Bohemian manuscripts that originated in the time of Charles IV (1346–78), the Bohemian king and emperor. In this discussion, Gerhard Schmidt played the most distinctive role. He repeatedly insisted on the dating to the 1390s and linked work on the manuscript to the marriage between Wenceslas IV and Sophia of Bavaria; see Hedwig Heger, Ivan Hlaváček, Gerhard Schmidt and Franz Unterkircher, Ausgabe im Originalformat der Codices Vindobonensis 2759–2764 der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek Wien, Codices selecti, 70/1–9 (Graz, 1981–2001); Marcel Thomas and Gerhard Schmidt, Die Bibel des Königs Wenzel (Graz, 1989); Horst Appuhn (ed.), Wenzelsbibel: König Wenzels Prachthandschrift der deutschen Bibel (Dortmund, 1990). See also Gerhard Schmidt, ‘England and the Emergence of a New Figure Style on the Continent during the 1340s’, England and the Continent in the Middle Ages: Studies in Memory of Andrew Martindale, ed. J. Mitchell and M. Moran (Stamford, 2000), pp. 129–36; Ulrike Jenni and Maria Theisen, Mitteleuropäische Schulen IV. die Hofwerkstätten König Wenzels IV. (ca. 1380–1400). Verzeichnis der illuminierten Handschriften und Inkunabeln der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek, 2 vols (Vienna, 2014). Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. Ser. n. 2643, Prague, c. 1387 (dated according to the colophon on fol. 421r). For detailed information on the codex see Jenni and Theisen, Mitteleuropäische Schulen, iv, cat. no. 4, pp. 132–58, and Maria Theisen, History buech reimenweisz. Geschichte, Bildprogramm und Illuminatoren der Wille-

188  Lenka Panušková

fol. 397r shows Queen Kyburg asking her husband, King Willehalm, to enter a monastery. It has strong similarities with the portrait of the enthroned imperial couple in the Wenceslas Bible (see Fig. 9.4). In each example, the elaborate architecture of the throne creates a frame for the central scene. Nevertheless, the throne structure in the Wenceslas Bible evokes three-dimensionality more effectively than in the Willehalm Codex. Moreover, the acanthus leaves twisting around the stake in the margin and the softly shaped monochromatic acanthus within the initial D(ises) unmistakably refer back to the visual tradition established in Bohemian book painting by the Liber Viaticus, as discussed below. The Willehalm and Kyburg scene, for its part, develops the earlier style by advancing the soft modelling of garments to a higher level. Margaret Rickert was among the first to observe features shared by those Bohemian manuscripts such as the Wenceslas Bible and the Willehalm Codex and the Liber Regalis – common features that Binski later reiterated: receding chins and heavy, extended eyelids and, in particular, the technique of mother-of-pearl shading of pinks, greens, and whites in the flesh tones.16 The same technique has been recognised in the Wilton Diptych as well as in a number of English manuscripts of the late 1380s and 1390s, for example, the Bergavenny Missal17 or the Book of Statutes.18 Apparently, these English manuscripts originated either in the same workshop or in workshops similarly receptive to Italian influence, although their illuminations lack the illusion of space, and the acanthus leaves derive from the early Gothic French production as demonstrated by the R(ichardus)-Initial in the Book of Statues, fol. 133r.

16

17

18

halm-Trilogie König Wenzels IV. von Böhmen. Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Ser. n. 2643 (Vienna, 2010). Margaret Rickert, The Reconstructed Carmelite Missal: An English Manuscript of the Late XIVth Century in the British Museum (Chicago, 1952), pp. 76–80. On the issue of illuminators in Anne’s entourage see Binski, ‘Liber Regalis’, p. 343, n. 35. It seems, however, that Bradley’s supposition has not found any acceptance by later scholarship. Although Susan Groag Bell in ‘Medieval Women Book Ownersʼ, 742–68, speculated again on Bohemian painters who revitalised English art, she was not able to cite any historical evidence speaking indisputably of the presence of painters from Bohemia. Oxford, Trinity College, MS 8, end of the fourteenth century, f. 214v; see Lucy Freeman Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts 1285–1385, 2 vols (London, 1986), p. 166–7, no. 144. Sandler argues for a later dating (1397–1403) on the basis of calendar entries marking dates of birth of Sir William Beauchamp’s children. William Beauchamp (c. 1343–1411) became the first baron of Bergavenny on 23 July 1392 after he inherited the lordship of Abergavenny (Monmouthshire, Wales) in 1389. The missal is best known for containing the earliest surviving exemplar of the Mass for the Holy Name of Jesus. Statuta Angliae, Cambridge, St John College, MS A 7, c. 1388–89. For further information on the manuscript and its illumination see https://www.joh.cam.ac.uk/library/ special_collections/manuscripts/medieval_manuscripts/medman/A_7.htm (accessed 12 August 2020).



Bohemian and English Painting  189

Figure 9.5  Woman Clothed in Sun, Book of Revelation, ch. 12. Wall-painting from the western wall of the Lady Chapel, Karlstein Castle. © Adam Pokorný.

Binski made a striking comparison between the Liber Regalis and a painting on the western wall of the Lady Chapel at Karlstein Castle: Woman Clothed in Sun (Fig. 9.5).19 19

See Jaromír Homolka, ‘Umělecká výzdoba paláce a menší věže hradu Karlštejnaʼ [‘Pictorial Decoration of the Palace and the Little Tower of Karlstein Castleʼ], Magister Theodoricus: Dvorní malíř císaře Karla IV. Umělecká výzdoba posvátných prostor hradu

190  Lenka Panušková

The painting dates back to 1360, more than twenty years before the Liber Regalis was produced. The prevalence of a strongly Italianate style in Bohemian production goes back to Charles IV’s imperial journey to Rome, where he was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 1355. His return to Prague was soon followed by the appearance of a group of sumptuously illuminated manuscripts. The first of these is associated with Johannes of Neumarkt, the imperial chancellor.20 However, the Liber Viaticus,21 a breviary made very probably for Johannes’ personal use, provides the best evidence that its makers accompanied Charles to Rome. Their response to Italian art, once merged with the prior training they had received in their homeland, established the foundations of the Bohemian Soft Style, which then evolved into the socalled Beautiful Style.22 As exemplified by the Liber Viaticus, we find monochromatically shaded acanthus leaves in the staves, combined with slender figures whose voluminosity is achieved through the modelling of the drapery folds. Stakes richly entwined with acanthus leaves with climbing angels decorate the margins. The corners include medallions with busts of the Virgin Mary holding Jesus, a kneeling donor, and his coat of arms depicted on a golden background. Hana Hlaváčková has suggested the atelier of the Liber Viaticus worked primarily for members of the royal court and, as such, constituted the cornerstone for later production.23 The evolution of the colourful acanthus decoration culminates in the I-initial to the Liber Genesis in the Wenceslas Bible (Fig. 9.6).

20

21

22

23

Karlštejna [‘Magister Theodoricus: Court Painter of the Emperor Charles IV. Pictorial Decoration of the Shrines at Karlstein Castleʼ], ed. Jiří Fajt (Prague, 1998), pp. 95–154. Max Dvořák was the first to investigate the group of manuscripts that originated soon after Charles IV and Johannes returned to Prague from their Italian journey; see his ‘Die Illuminatoren des Johann von Neumarktʼ, Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses 22 (1901), 35–126. Later, Hana Hlaváčková attributed these manuscripts to a ‘court workshop’ working for members of the Bohemian royal court. Another workshop, active in the fourteenth century in Prague, produced ecclesiastical manuscripts for liturgical purposes of the Church (for example, antiphonaries, psalters, pontificals); see Hana Hlaváčková, ‘Pražské iluminátorské dílny doby Karla IV. a jejich stylʼ [‘Prague Scriptoria in the Time of Charles IV and Their Styleʼ], Imago/ Imagines. Výtvarné dílo a proměny jeho funkcí v českých zemích od 10. do první třetiny 16. století [‘Imago/Imagines: The Artwork and Metamorphosis of Its Functions in the Czech Lands from the 10th Century to the 1530sʼ], ed. Kateřina Kubínová and Klára Benešovská, 2 vols (Prague, 2020), ii, pp. 540–72. Prague, National Museum Library, MS XIII A 12, after 1355. See Pavel Brodský, Kateřina Spurná and Marta Vaculínová (eds), Liber Viaticus Jana ze Středy [‘Liber Viaticus of Jan of Středaʼ], 2 vols (Prague, 2016), with additional bibliography. Jaromír Homolka, Studie k počátkům krásného slohu v Čechách: K problematice společenské funkce výtvarného umění v předhusitských Čechách [‘On the Beginnings of the Beautiful Style in Bohemia: Toward the Social Function of the Visual Art in Pre-Hussite Bohemiaʼ] (Prague, 1974). Hlaváčková, ‘Pražské iluminátorské dílnyʼ, passim.

Figure 9.6  The Creation: initial I(n anegenge) from the Bible of Wenceslas IV, c. 1380. Vienna, ÖNB, Cod. 2759, fol. 2v. © ÖNB Wien. Reproduced by permission.

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The six days of the Creation are incorporated into medallions made by intertwined acanthus leaves, supplemented with enthroned prophets on both sides. In accordance with the king’s fondness for beautiful books, the Bible constitutes a luxurious exemplar of the love of books that Wenceslas IV shared with other European rulers of the time.24 Moreover, the symbols of a knightly order established by Wenceslas – bath maids, love-knots and kingfishers, together with the imperial and Bohemian coats of arms – are spread over each page.25 The workshop responsible for the production of manuscripts in the 1380s and 1390s would naturally consist of several chief masters who played a decisive role in the creation not only of the Wenceslas Bible but also of such other manuscripts as the Willehalm Codex.26 Images in the manuscripts they produced provide compelling comparisons with various aspects of the style found in the Liber Regalis, from facial features to the wasp waists of the slender figures and spatial composition. A similar stylistic plurality may be observed in another manuscript of presumably English origin: the Bible of Richard II, also known as Richard’s, or the Great, Bible (see Fig. 9.1).27 In much the same way as the Liber Regalis, the Great Bible, too, had previously been viewed as an example of Bohemian influence, particularly by Emanuel Dostál.28 Rather, it exemplifies a confluence of various influences highly symptomatic of the turn-of-century period. The catalogue accompanying the exhibition of the Royal Manuscripts defines the Great Bible as being among those manuscripts which opened a new chapter in the history of English illumination.29 To the main characteristics of that new style belong soft modelling and elegant figures wearing three-dimensional robes, a description that, generally speaking, corresponds with that of the Bohemian Beautiful Style. All the same, the integration of the Creator’s figure into the composition appears more natural in the Wenceslas Bible, thus enhancing the corporeality of all the protagonists (Fig. 9.7). 24

25

26 27 28 29

Jean, duc de Berry, is one of the most famous medieval bibliophiles together with his brothers, the French king Charles V and Philip the Bold, duke of Burgundy, as well as with his nephew Charles VI, the son and successor of Charles V; see Jules Guiffrey, Inventaires de Jean, duc de Berry (1401–1416) (Paris, 1894); Léopold Delisle, Recherches sur la librairie de Charles V, roi de France, 2 vols (Paris, 1907); François Avril, La Passion des manuscrits enluminés: Bibliophiles français 1280–1580 (Paris, 1991). For a more comprehensive bibliography see Elisabeth Taburet-Delahaye and François Avril (eds), Paris 1400: les arts sous Charles VI (Paris, 2004). For more on the emblems in Wenceslas’ manuscripts see Milada Studničková, ‘Hoforden der Luxemburger’, Umění/Art 40 (1992), 320–8; ‘Gens Fera: The Wild Men in the System of Border Decoration of the Bible of Wenceslas IV’, Umění/Art 62 (2014), 214–39, with additional bibliography. Jenni and Theisen, Mitteleuropäische Schulen, i, pp. 23–64. See above, n. 4. Dostál, Příspěvky k dějinám, pp. 9–49. Royal Manuscripts, pp. 142–3. The catalogue was titled ‘Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination’.

Figure 9.7  God creating Eve, from the Bible of Wenceslas IV, c. 1380. Vienna, ÖNB, Cod. 2759, fol. 4r. © ÖNB Wien. Reproduced by permission.

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The differences between the Bohemian illumination and the Creation scene are such that the possibility of Bohemian influence on the Great Bible has recently been discarded in favour of the impact of Dutch and Flemish artists working in London.30 One of them has been identified as Hermann Scheerre because the Great Bible features the device that appears in manuscripts signed with his name. Scheerre is attested to have worked in London between 1405 and 1422.31 Scheerre was not the first artist of Flemish origin to have resided in England longer-term. As early as the 1350s Michiel van der Borch left Ghent for England, very probably Norwich, where he established himself as a distinguished illuminator in the English milieu. Mary C. Joslin and Carolin C. Joslin Watson32 have succeeded in proving that van der Borch was the artist of the picture bible known as the Egerton Genesis. Extensive comparisons with Italian manuscripts suggest that van der Borch was acquainted with both the style and iconography of contemporaneous Italian art. Since Otto Pächtʼs pioneering study,33 it has been widely accepted that, even earlier in the century, East Anglian artists were borrowing Italian painting techniques for the modelling of flesh and draperies as well as for the creation of three-dimensional 30 31

32

33

Royal Manuscripts, pp. 142–3. Royal Manuscripts, pp. 142–3; see also Charles L. Kuhn, ‘Herman Scheerre and English Illumination of the Early Fifteenth Century’, The Art Bulletin 22 (1940), 138–56; Susie Vertongen, ‘Herman Scheerre, The Beaufort Master and the Flemish Miniature Painting: A Reopened Debate’, Flanders in a European Perspective: Manuscript Illumination around 1400, Flanders and Abroad: Proceedings of the International Colloquium, Leuven, ed. Maurits Smeyers and Bert Cardon (Leuven, 1995), pp. 251–65; in the same volume, Sylvia Wright, ‘Bruges Artists in London: The Patronage of the House of Lancaster’, pp. 93–109. Mary Coker Joslin and Carolyn Coker Joslin Watson, The Egerton Genesis (London, 2001), particularly p. 203 onwards. For the complete manuscript see http://www.bl.uk/ manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=egerton_ms_1894_fs001r (accessed 10 August 2020). Otto Pächt, ‘A Giottesque Episode in English Medieval Art’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 6 (1943), 51–70. Pächt enumerates early fourteenth-century manuscripts from British collections in which Italian script combines with typically English decoration. These can be almost exclusively attributed to East Anglian churches (dioceses of Norwich and Peterborough). Among them, the most remarkable is the Gorleston Psalter (London, BL, MS Add. 49622) of 1310–25, containing a whole-page miniature of the Crucifixion (fol. 7r). It was added into the manuscript after the Psalter passed to Norwich Cathedral Priory in the early 1320s; see http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=add_ms_49622_fs001r (accessed 20 August 2020). Based on the manuscript production in East Anglia in the fourteenth century, scholars agree that local workshops presented a melting pot of various influences. See esp. Francis Wormald, ‘The Fitzwarin Psalter and Its Allies’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 6 (1943), pp. 71–9, and also Lynda Dennison, ‘The Fitzwarin Psalter and Its Allies: A Reappraisal’, England in the Fourteenth Century: Proceedings of the 1985 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. W. Mark Ormrod (Woodbridge, 1986), pp. 42–66, and Nicolas Rogers, ‘The Original Owner of the Fitzwarin Psalter’, The Antiquaries Journal 69 (1989), 257–60.



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effects. Lynda Dennison, who has researched stylistic sources of the Bohun workshop in the second half of the fourteenth century, notes that painters were especially keen to experiment, even to the point where their style was transformed altogether.34 There is no doubt that East Anglia – thanks to its location – played a decisive role in the mercantile and cultural economy of the country. Particularly during the Hundred Yearsʼ War, many artists coming from the Low Countries were able to find shelter and sustenance with East Anglian patrons. The figures in a Crucifixion painting (around 1400),35 now at Norwich Cathedral, display striking similarities to those in the Liber Regalis: head-types with receding chins, heavy eyelids, greens and whites in the flesh tones. The stylistic uniqueness commonly ascribed to the Liber is far from being isolated within the context of English medieval art. Besides, Paul Binski alludes to another pertinent fact: the Liber Regalis includes no mention of its patron and lacks any indication that it was intended for Richard II.36 He concludes that the book is Ricardian only in a general sense. The same applies to the Great Bible, considered to have been Richard’s commission but which later may have belonged to Henry IV, father of Henry V, whose last will of 1421 refers twice to the Great Bible. Nevertheless, a number of sumptuously illuminated manuscripts were provably made for Richard. They include Roger Dymock’s treatise, Determinationes, on the twelve heretical statements of the Lollards, 34

35

36

The group of richly illuminated manuscripts associated with the Bohun family has been thoroughly investigated by Lucy Freeman Sandler in a number of case studies, such as The Lichtenthal Psalter and the Manuscript Patronage of the Bohun Family (London, 2004) and, more recently, Illuminators and Patrons in Fourteenth-Century England: The Psalter and Hours of Humphrey de Bohun and the Manuscripts of the Bohun Family (Toronto, 2014), as well as by Lynda Dennison, ‘The Stylistic Sources, Dating and Development of the Bohun Workshop 1340–1400ʼ, unpublished PhD thesis (Queen Mary, University of London, 1988). See also John B. Friedman, Northern English Books, Owners and Makers in the Late Middle Ages (Syracuse IL, 1995). Pamela Tudor-Craig, ‘The Wilton Diptych in the Context of Contemporary English Panel and Wall Painting’, The Regal Image, ed. Gordon et al., pp. 207–22, esp. pp. 209–13. See also her ‘Medieval Panel Paintings from Norwich, St Michael at Plea’, The Burlington Magazine 98 (1956), No. 642, 332–4; ‘The Despenser Retable’, Age of Chivalry: Art in Plantagenet England 1200–1400, ed. J. J. G. Alexander and Paul Binski (London, 1987), cat. no. 711–12, pp. 516–17. After comparing the articles it becomes obvious that the captions below illustrations 125 and 127–28 in Tudor-Craig’s contribution in The Regal Image must have been mistaken. In ‘The Despenser Retable’, cat. no. 712, p. 517, Tudor-Craig correctly designates the Entombment panel (Ipswich Museums and Galleries, R1936–41) as stylistically connected with another pair of panels (early fifteenth century) which were found in the panelling of a Norwich cottage (now in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge). To this group another two panels depicting the Kiss of Judas and Crucifixion from the Norwich Cathedral can be added. See also T. A. Heslop, ‘The Norwich Cathedral Passion Altarpiece (“The Despenser Retable”)’, Norwich: Medieval and Early Modern Art, Architecture and Archaeology, ed. T. A. Heslop and Helen E. Lunnon (Leeds, 2015), pp. 201–15. Binski, ‘The Liber Regalisʼ, p. 237.

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which the Dominican friar dedicated to Richard, a presentation copy of which includes the King’s portrait – along with the royal arms and his White Hart badge – on the opening page; and a Liber Geomancie, which is again dedicated to Richard and illustrated with his portrait.37 All these manuscripts fit in very well with the concept of kingship that Richard developed in the 1390s following the humiliation he suffered in connection with the Merciless Parliament in 1388. Inspired by the De regimine principum, a treatise written by Giles of Rome, Richard perceived himself as vicarius Christi, as a ruler of almost priest-like character,38 which is the reason for the new vocabulary with which he was to be addressed by his subjects: the more traditional ‘My Lord’ was replaced by ‘Your Highness’ or ‘Your Majesty’. According to Patricia Eberle, ‘[I]n commissioning a handbook of geomancy, Richard was demonstrating not only his learning in an abstruse divinatory art but also his interest in legitimation and maintaining his power as a kingʼ.39 Commissioning the Liber Regalis might have followed the same intention, although, unlike the Oxford Liber Geomancie, it does not contain any note to Richard II as a potential patron. Also, the Liber Regalis does not include any hints to assume that any mention of Richardʼs patronage was erased as it was in the case of the Libellus Geomancie. Richard’s interest in manuscripts was motivated primarily by political considerations, and there is sufficient evidence to suggest that he was a distinguished patron of art works. Historical as well as visual sources remain silent, however, as regards the patronage of Queen Anne, no matter how much she might be indirectly associated with artistic production. Thanks to John Wyclif’s note we know that she had a gospel book in three languages – German, Latin and Czech – and that Archbishop Arundel in his funeral speech praised

37

38

39

Roger Dymock, Determinationes, Cambridge, Trinity Hall MS 17, c. 1395, fol. 1r. For the opening folio see https://www.trinhall.cam.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/ trh_17_f_1r.jpg (accessed 12 August 2020). Liber Geomancie, Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 581, depicting Richard II on fol. 9, probably the king’s presentation copy, is contemporary with the Libellus Geomancie, London, British Library, MS Royal 12 C V, after 1391. The latter omits all the references to Richard in the Prologue that are to be found in MS Bodley 581. See the volume English Court Culture in the Later Middle Ages, ed. V. J. Scattergood and J. W. Sherborne (London, 1983), containing studies by J. J. G. Alexander, ‘Painting and Manuscript Illumination for Royal Patrons in the Later Middle Ages’, pp. 141–62, and by V. J. Scattergood, ‘Literary Culture at the Court of Richard II’, pp. 29–43. For more information on MS Royal 12 C V see Joanna Frońska’s entry in McKendrick, Lowden and Doyle, Royal Manuscripts, cat. no. 97, pp. 300–1. See also Hilary M. Carey, Courting Disaster: Astrology at the English Court and University in the Later Middle Ages (New York, 1992), pp. 92–116. Eleanor L. Scheifele, ‘Richard II and the Visual Arts’, Richard II: The Art of Kingship, ed. Anthony E. Goodman and James L. Gillespie (Oxford, 1999), pp. 255–71, esp. pp. 264–5. Patricia J. Eberle, ‘Richard II and the Literary Arts’, Richard II: The Art of Kingship, ed. Anthony E. Goodman and James L. Gillespie (Oxford, 1999), pp. 231–53, p. 244.



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her for having all the four gospels in English.40 We are also very well informed as to her role as an intercessor who used to kneel in front of the king for several hours to ask pardon for his subjects. She appears interceding with her husband in the Shrewsbury Charter41 which Richard issued on 22 September 1389 to confirm the rights bestowed on the people of Shrewsbury. A letter Anne wrote almost immediately after her arrival in England provides another piece of information connecting the queen with objects of high value. Here, she mentions jewels and various valuable objects being sent to her mother, the Empress Elizabeth.42 We lack any mention, however, of any objects being sent from Prague to the English court.43 We can only suppose there must have been gifts exchanged not only on the occasion of the marriage but also in regular diplomatic correspondence. Bradley’s statement claiming that there were 40

41

42

43

Karl A. C. von Höfler, Anna von Luxemburg, Denkschriften der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften Philosophisch-Historische Klasse, Bd. 2 (Wien 1871), p. 134, n. 1. Höfler discovered a short note in a Wycliffite manuscript in the National Library of Czech Republic (the then-University Library), MS X E 9, fol. 139v, which reads: ‘Et ex eodem patet eorum stulticia qui volunt dampnare scripta tamquam heretica propter hoc quod scribuntur in Anglico et acute tangunt peccata que conturbant illam provinciam. Nam possibile est quod nobilis regina Anglie soror Cesaris Evangelium habeat in lingua triplici exaratum sc. in lingua bohemica, in lingua theotunica at latina et hereticare ipsam propterea implicite foret luciferina superbia et sicut Teutonici volunt in isto rationabiliter defendere linguam propriam sic et Anglici debent de racione in isto defendere linguam suam.’ [And from the same is evident the folly of those who want to condemn the writings as heretical for the reason that they are written in English and acutely touch the sins that disturb that province. For it is possible that the noble queen of England, sister of Caesar, may have the Gospel written in the three languages, in Czech, in German and in Latin, and therefore it would be implicit to make her a heretic and proud like Lucifer, and like the Germans want to defend their own language reasonably in this so also the English ought to defend their language on this account.] The note must have been added by the scribe or copied from another manuscript. Moreover, Höfler points out that the note cannot be traced back to any of Wyclif’s treatises. Rather, it is to be found in Jan Hus’s tract against Johannes Stockes composed in 1411. Cf. Michael Van Dussen, From England to Bohemia: Heresy and Communication in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2012), pp. 12–36. Here, the author gives detailed information on relevant historical sources and their editions. Shrewsbury, Shrewsbury and Atcham Borough Council, Guildhall, Muniments I.24. For an art-historical analysis see Janet Backhouse, The Age of Chivalry: Art in Plantagenet England 1200–1400, ed. J. J. G. Alexander and Paul Binski (London, 1987), cat. no. 716, p. 520; Elizabeth Danbury, ‘The Decoration and Illumination of Royal Charters in England 1250–1509: An Introduction’, England and her Neighbours 1066– 1453: Essays in Honour of Pierre Chaplais, ed. Michael Jones and Malcolm Vale (London, 1989), pp. 157–79, esp. 165. Marek Suchý, ‘England and Bohemia in the Time of Anne of Luxembourg: Dynastic Marriage as a Precondition for Cultural Contact in the Late Middle Agesʼ, Prague and Bohemia: Medieval Art, Architecture and Cultural Exchange in Central Europe, ed. Zoë Opačić (Leeds, 2009), pp. 8–21 at 13. For the edition of the letter dated ‘on octavo die Februarii 1382ʼ see Foedera, conventiones, literæ, etc., ed. Thomas Rymer, vol. III/ II, (The Hague, 1745), p. 134. See ch. 3 above, by Marek Suchý.

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some illuminators in Anne’s entourage remains very dubious since there are no sources confirming it.44 It is highly probable that the gospel book in three languages Anne brought with her would have been richly illuminated, and its images could have influenced some of the painters working on royal commissions. Such a supposition might help to account for the similarities between the murals at Karlstein and the Liber Regalis. However, the suggestion is an extremely speculative one. Two further manuscripts hypothetically relating to Anne must be mentioned. The first one is a Flemish Book of Hours from the end of the fourteenth century, and showing Brabant influence, that Wenceslas of Brabant, Anne’s uncle, presented to her – according to Patrick de Winter – while she was staying in Brussels on her way to Calais.45 The manuscript, however, includes no hints pointing to Anne as its user. This presupposition is based on a misinterpreted nineteenth-century fake picturing the marriage of Richard II and Anne of Bohemia (fol. 65v).46 A second Book of Hours (1390–95), written in Old Czech, is definitely of Bohemian origin.47 Here, folio 77r presents a typical depiction of a crowned female donor, possibly Anne of Bohemia. According to some scholars, this identification derives from the H-initial with a picture of St Ludmila (fol. 61v), one of the patron saints of the kingdom of Bohemia. The golden letters AB inscribed on the corner of the church may 44 45

46

47

Bradley, The Historical Introduction, p. 128. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Lat. liturg. fol. 3. See Patrick M. de Winter, La Bibliothèque de Philippe le Hardi, duc de Bourgogne (1364–1404): étude sur les manuscrits à peintures d‘une collection princière à l‘époque du ‘style gothique international (Paris, 1985), cat. no. 19, pp. 227–30, esp. p. 229. For a review of this attribution see Anne Hagopian van Buren in Art Bulletin 70 (1988), 699–705 at 704. For more on the figure of Wenceslas of Brabant and his role in negotiating Anne’s marriage see Jana Fantysová-Matějková, Wenceslas de Bohême: un prince au carrefour de l’Europe (Paris, 2013), esp. pp. 536–42. The Book of Hours is partly digitised on https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/5ca7ccd2-c893-499c-85b8-90061b25dc0b/ (accessed 12 August 2020). Various coats of arms in the manuscript include the eagle and the lion (fols. 15v, 70r, 71r, and 95v) similar to those in Bohemian royal heraldry, but Lucy F. Sandler points out that these are mere approximations and are heraldically incorrect. See Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts, p. 21, ft. 33 on p. 54. She also identifies the blue garment of the female figure on both the fols 65v and 118r as being covered with fleur-de-lis, a typically French attribute. Prague, National Museum Library, MS V H 36, 1390–95. See Pavel Brodský, Katalog iluminovaných rukopisů Knihovny Národního muzea v Praze [‘Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts in the National Museum Library in Pragueʼ] (Prague, 2000), cat. no. 58, p. 69, with bibliography, and Hana Hlaváčková, ‘Czech Hours of the Virginʼ, Prague: The Crown of Bohemia, ed. Barbara Drake Boehm and Jiří Fajt (New York, 2005), cat. no. 83, pp. 218–9. For more on the text see Kateřina Voleková, ‘Mariánské hodinky v kontextu staročeského překladu žaltářeʼ [‘Marian Hours in the Context of the Old Czech Psalter’], Karel IV. a Emauzy: Liturgie – text – obraz [‘Charles IV and Emmaus Monastery: Liturgy – Text – Imageʼ], ed. Kateřina Kubínová et al. (Prague, 2017), pp. 220–30.



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stand for Anne of Bohemia. However, we are sure that this manuscript can have reached neither England nor Anne since she died in 1394. My account of the Bohemian influence on English painting at the end of the fourteenth century is far from complete but is extensive enough to demonstrate the lack of evidence for Queen Anneʼs role in establishing a new English style in late-fourteenth-century painting. The process of both artistic and stylistic exchange needs to be seen in a much wider context, which includes the mobility of art objects and artisans, and the emergence of the International Gothic across Europe in the last decades of the fourteenth century and beyond. At that time, Europe was a big melting pot of the International Gothic. Certainly, the fourteenth-century Bohemian art produced a distinctive synthesis of French, Italian and Flemish elements, and along with local workshops made a major contribution to the development of that style.49 At the same time, in an English context, we must take into consideration the stylistic features of East Anglian art and, later in the century, the productions of the workshop active for the Bohun family. As regards the Liber Regalis, this manuscript did not emerge all of a sudden. At the time of its production, political circumstances within the English kingdom were in favour of a stylistic plurality that reflected French, Flemish and Italian and maybe even Bohemian influences. We cannot altogether rule out the hypothesis that Bohemian art also played its role in the formation of English painting style in the late fourteenth century, but we do lack enough evidence to show that it was Anne of Bohemia who mediated that influence. 48

48

49

For the assumption that St Ludmila might present here the patron saint of the donor see Barbara Brauer, ‘The Prague Hours and Bohemian Manuscript Painting of the Late 14th Century’, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 52 (1989), 499–521. Jan Royt, among others, recognised Flemish elements in the panel paintings made by the so-called Master of the Třeboň Altarpiece. Royt even speculated about the Flemish origin of the Třeboň Master-in-chief; see Jan Royt, The Master of the Třeboň Altarpiece (Prague, 2014). Panel paintings that used to belong to the altarpiece are now kept in the National Gallery in Prague. It was very probably made for the Augustinian Church of St Giles in Třeboň (South Bohemia); see Kateřina Kubínová, ‘Spirituality of the Augustinian Canons and the Visual Artsʼ, Art in the Czech Lands, ed. Taťána Petrasová and Rostislav Švácha (Prague, 2017), no. 58, pp. 217–19.

Rethinking Queen Anne

10 Contextualising the Legend of Good Women: Some Possible Bohemian Perspectives JULIA BOFFEY AND A. S. G. EDWARDS

I

This chapter assesses the body of evidence that suggests Chaucer’s work may have been shaped in various ways by aspects of Bohemian culture. It examines some of the features of Bohemian culture transmitted to England in Chaucer’s lifetime and the means by which these might have been accessible to courtly circles. Chaucer’s response to certain of these features is explored through consideration of the possible role of Anne of Bohemia as an influence on the Legend of Good Women, and through analysis of the Legend’s preoccupation with the failings of queenly rulers as demonstrated in the representations of Cleopatra and Dido.

n terms of literary history, the relationship of Chaucer and Bohemia is not easy to document. Unlike the Bohemian connections of other English literary figures, such as Wyclif and Rolle, whose works are known to have circulated in Bohemian circles,1 Chaucer’s links were forged through the presence in the English court of Richard II’s queen, Anne of Bohemia (1366–94). She is acknowledged in his deft compliment early in Troilus and Criseyde: ‘Right as oure firste letter is now an A’ (Tr i, 171).2 And Alceste’s injunction in the F Prologue to the Legend of Good Women that the completed work be given to ‘the queen, / On my behalf, at Eltham or at Sheene’ (LGW F496–7) suggests that Chaucer wished to perform an act of literary submission that would 1

2

See ch. 2, above, by Michael Van Dussen; his From England to Bohemia: Heresy and Communication in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2012); his ‘A Late Medieval Itinerary to England’, Medieval Studies 76 (2014), 275–96; his ‘Richard Rolle’s Latin Psalter in Central European Manuscripts’, Medium Ævum 87 (2018), 41–71; J. Patrick Hornbeck II and Michael Van Dussen (eds), Europe After Wyclif (New York, 2017); Lenka Jiroušková, ‘Prague’, in Europe: A Literary History, 1348–1418, ed. David Wallace, 2 vols (Oxford, 2016), ii, pp. 617–51 esp. 642–3. The Bohemian connections of Richard II’s court have recently been most fruitfully explored by Alfred Thomas, The Court of Richard II and Bohemian Culture: Literature and Art in the Age of Chaucer and the Gawain Poet (Cambridge, 2020).

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present her as having an important role in the circumstances of the poem’s creation.3 The nature of Anne’s role in the genesis of the Legend remains unresolvable. Lydgate’s claim in his Fall of Princes, made more than half a century after the event, that Chaucer wrote the Legend ‘at request off the queen’ (i, 330) cannot be wholly discounted given his own evident access to members of the Chaucer family; but it may have been made on the basis of hearsay or wishful thinking.4 It is clear, however, that Alceste’s injunction forms part of a larger texture of literary reference in which Anne seems to have played an important part.5 Such reference is indicated elsewhere in Clanvowe’s Boke of Cupid, for example, a work replete with Chaucerian allusions, which concludes with mention of ‘the egle … our lorde’ and the promise that the debate on which the poem turns will be resolved The morwe of Seynt Valentynes day Vnder the maple that is feire and grene, Before the chambre wyndow of the Quene At Wodestok … (282–5).6 3

4

5

6

Paul Strohm, ‘Queens as Intercessors’, in his Hochon’s Arrow (Princeton, 1992), pp. 95–109; David Wallace, ‘Anne of Bohemia, Queen of England, and Chaucer’s Emperice’, Litteraria Pragensia 5 (1995), 1–16, developed in Chaucerian Polity: Absolutist Lineages and Associational Forms in England and Italy (Stanford, 1997), pp. 355–70; Andrew Taylor, ‘Anne of Bohemia and the Making of Chaucer’, Studies in the Age of Chaucer 19 (1997), 95–120; Carolyn P. Collette, Performing Polity: Woman and Agency in the Anglo-French Tradition, 1385–1620 (Turnhout, 2006), pp. 99–121; Kristen L. Geaman, ‘A Personal Letter Written by Anne of Bohemia’, English Historical Review 128 (2013), 1086–94, and her ‘Beyond Good Queen Anne: Anne of Bohemia, Patronage, and Politics’, in Medieval Elite Women and the Exercise of Power, 1100– 1400: Moving Beyond the Exceptionalist Debate, ed. Heather J. Tanner (London, 2019), pp. 667–89; Lynn Staley, ‘Anne of Bohemia and the Objects of Ricardian Kingship’, in Medieval Women and their Objects, ed. Jenny Adams and Nancy Mason Bradbury (Ann Arbor, 2017), pp. 97–122; Following Chaucer: Offices of the Active Life (Ann Arbor, 2020), pp. 17–56; and Thomas, Court of Richard II, pp. 46–9, 66–76. Lydgate’s Fall of Princes, ed. Henry Bergen, 4 vols, EETS es 121–3 (1924); Lydgate’s detailed account of the Chaucer canon here (i, 236–357), the first after Chaucer’s death, suggests that he had access to authoritative information about the poet’s works. He evidently knew Chaucer’s son Thomas, to whom he addressed a poem; see H. N. MacCracken (ed.), The Minor Poems of John Lydgate, Part II: Secular Poems, EETS os 192 (1934), pp. 657–9. Alfred Thomas, Anne’s Bohemia: Czech Literature and Society, 1310–1420 (Minneapolis, 1998); his A Blessed Shore: England and Bohemia from Chaucer to Shakespeare (Ithaca NY, 2007); his Reading Women in Late Medieval Europe: Anne of Bohemia and Chaucer’s Female Audience (New York, 2015); his ‘Bohemia’, in A New Companion to Chaucer, ed. Peter Brown (Oxford, 2019), pp. 71–86; Michael Van Dussen, ‘Three Verse Eulogies of Anne of Bohemia’, Medium Ævum 78 (2009), 231–60. V. J. Scattergood (ed.), The Works of Sir John Clanvowe: The Boke of Cupide and The Two Ways (Cambridge, 1975), p. 52.



Contextualising the Legend of Good Women  205

Clanvowe’s address, in conjunction with Chaucer’s in the Legend, situates Anne as part of a circle engaged in courtly, sophisticated, literary games, in which, as these allusions imply, she had a significant role. Gower may also link her, albeit more obliquely, to such literary courtly games in his mention of Bohemia. In Book 8 of the Confessio Amantis he speaks of his vision of companies of people Some of the lef, some of the flour, And some of grete Perles were; The newe guise of Beawme there, With sondri thinges wel devised, I sih … (2468–72).7

‘The newe guise of Beawme’ hints at the novelty of such games, perhaps directly deriving from the advent of the queen to courtly society. All of these references suggest that Anne’s presence in England contributed in some perceptible way to the circles associated with social and literary life at court. The praise bestowed on her by Chaucer, Clanvowe and Gower is partly, if only partly, intelligible through other evidence of Anne’s interests, both literate and literary. We have recently been reminded that ‘some of the most accomplished works written in medieval Czech and Latin were commissioned by female readers’.8 It is possible that she became literate in English, possibly owning a manuscript of the Wycliffite Bible (she could evidently read Czech, German and Latin, and possibly French as well);9 and archbishop Arundel is said to have praised her at her funeral ‘for, notwithstanding her foreign birth, having in English all the four gospels together’.10 There are obvious difficulties with any assessment of Anne’s abilities to read English, most obviously the relatively short interval that seems likely to have existed between her arrival in England in late 1381 and the likely dates of composition of poems such as those by Chaucer and Clanvowe mentioned above. Equally tantalising, and equally indeterminate, are the possible connections between Anne and Wyclif’s Oxford college, Queen’s, to which she is said to have written a letter in praise of learning.11 These connections further raise the possibility of her awareness of vernacular literacy (especially when one recalls that John Trevisa, the most prolific English prose translator of the 7 8 9 10 11

G. C. Macaulay (ed.), The Works of John Gower, 4 vols (Oxford, 1899–1902), iii, 483. Thomas, Anne’s Bohemia, p. 33. Margaret Deanesley, The Lollard Bible and Other Medieval Biblical Versions (Cambridge, 1920), pp. 278–81. Nigel Saul, ‘Anne of Bohemia (1366–94)’, ODNB (www-oxforddnb-com, accessed 23 June 2020). The existence of this letter is reported in Agnes Strickland, Lives of the Queens of England from the Norman Conquest (Philadelphia, 1841), p. 327, n. 2. We have not been able to identify it.

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late fourteenth century, was variously a fellow or resident of Queen’s during Anne’s queenship).12 Anne is known to have owned books, among them a book of hours with her arms and portrait, now Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Lat. liturg. (fol. 3), that seems to have been made expressly for her and illuminated by Flemish artists.13 There is evidence for her connections with scholars and writers in the fact that she appears to have commissioned a Latin work on heraldry from an individual known only as Johannes de Bado Aureo.14 Made ‘ad instantiam Dominae Anne quondam Reginae [sic] Angliae’, the work may reflect Anne’s knowledge of the armorial interests of Bartolo da Sassoferrato, a member of her father’s council in Bohemia. Johannes’ Latin treatise, De arte heraldica, became reasonably well known and was in the fifteenth century available in an English translation.15 The documented interests of some of the English people close to Anne suggest that she would have enjoyed access to circles of readers and book-owners.16 One key member of all the embassies sent to negotiate her 12 13

14 15

16

On Trevisa’s time at Queen’s see David C. Fowler, John Trevisa (Aldershot, 1993), pp. 12–18. Its production is dated to 1382–94 by Otto Pächt and J. J. G. Alexander, Illuminated Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, 3 vols (Oxford, 1966), i, 23 (no. 299). The online description at https://medieval.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/catalog/manuscript_6539 notes that although the manuscript includes the arms of both England and Bohemia, Anne is depicted uncrowned (fol. 118); production may therefore date from the period after marriage negotiations had begun (1380) but before she married Richard II in January 1382. Some images are available at https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/; see also Amanda Simpson, The Connections between English and Bohemian Painting during the Second Half of the Fourteenth Century (New York, 1984), pp. 129–30, 136, pls 192, 193, 194, 196, 224; and the remarks by Lenka Panušková, above, p. 198. Anne has been suggested as a possible owner of the Czech Hours of the Virgin, now Prague, Národní Museum, MS KNM VH 36: see Barbara Drake Boehm and Jiří Fajt (eds), Prague: The Crown of Bohemia 1347–1437 (New Haven, 2005), pp. 218–19. Westminster Abbey MS 38, the sumptuously illuminated Liber Regalis, is said to have been made for use at Anne’s coronation in January 1382; see Liber Regalis, seu, Ordo consecrandi regem solum. Ordo consecrandi reginam cum rege. Ordo consecrandi reginam solam. Rubrica de regis exequiis. E codice Westmonasteriensi editus (London, 1870); Paul Binski, ‘The Liber Regalis: Its Date and European Context’, in The Regal Image of Richard II and the Wilton Diptych, ed. Dillian Gordon, Lisa Monnas and Caroline Elam (London, 1997), pp. 233–46. Richard Moll (ed.), A Heraldic Miscellany: Fifteenth-Century Treatises on Blazon and the Office of Arms in English and Scots (Liverpool, 2018), pp. 28–34. Richard Sharpe, A Handlist of Latin Writers of Great Britain and Ireland before 1540, with Corrections and Additions (Turnhout, 2001), p. 210, lists five MSS of the Latin; Moll (ed.), Heraldic Miscellany, lists nine. A finely produced copy of an anonymous fifteenth-century English translation is in Bodleian Library, MS Laud misc. 733; see Pächt and Alexander, Illuminated Manuscripts, iii, 79 (no. 905); some images are available at https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/. For an account of members of the teams sent to Prague to negotiate Anne’s marriage to Richard, and then to accompany her to England, see Nigel Saul, Richard II (New



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marriage to Richard was the king’s former tutor, Sir Simon Burley, whose goods (inventoried after his execution in 1388) included twenty-one books.17 Another of the negotiators sent to Prague in 1380, Sir George Felbrigg, was a member of a family whose Bohemian connections were strengthened by marriage, and who owned books. San Marino, California, Huntington Library MS HM 58285, is a book of Hours of the Virgin; it was evidently at some stage in the possession of George Felbrigg’s relative Sir Simon Felbrigg, who married Margaret of Teschen, a member of Anne’s entourage whose Bohemian connections are reflected in a Czech translation of a Latin elevation prayer that has been copied into the manuscript.18 Simon and Margaret’s daughter, another Anne, made an embroidered binding for a family psalter, now London, British Library, MS Sloane 2400, that she later bequeathed to her own religious house of Bruisyard.19 The cult of St Anne that grew up around the queen (and that may have prompted the naming of Anne Felbrigg) is instanced in the presentation to her of a gold tablet, somehow bearing the story of St Anne, by the mayor and people of London on 21 August 1392 on the occasion of her entry, with Richard, into the city.20

17 18

19

20

Haven, 1997), pp. 87–9; Édouard Perroy, L’Angleterre et le grand schisme d’Occident (Paris, 1933), pp. 145–55; and Thomas, Court of Richard II, p. 7. On the continuing connections between Anne’s circle and Bohemia more generally, see Marek Suchý, ‘England and Bohemia in the Time of Anne of Luxembourg: Dynastic Marriage as a Precondition for Cultural Contact in the Later Middle Ages’, in Prague and Bohemia: Medieval Art, Architecture and Cultural Exchange in Central Europe, ed. Zoë Opačić (Leeds, 2009), pp. 8–21. V. J. Scattergood, ‘Two Medieval Book Lists’, The Library, 5th ser., 23 (1968), 236–9. On Burleyʼs indictment, see Thomas, Court of Richard II, p. 7. Peter Kidd, ‘Supplement to the Guide to Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Huntington Library’, Huntington Library Quarterly 72:4 (2009), 1–101 at 50–6, with plate; Alfred Thomas, ‘Margaret of Teschen’s Czech Prayer: Transnationalism and Female Literacy in the Later Middle Ages’, Huntington Library Quarterly 74:2 (2011), 309–23. The prayer is among the images reproduced from the manuscript on the Digital Scriptorium website: http://www.digital-scriptorium.org/. See Penelope Wallis, ‘The Embroidered Binding of the Felbrigge Psalter’, British Library Journal 13 (1987), 71–8. Images are available through the British Library Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/welcome.htm and the British Library Database of Bindings at https://www. bl.uk/catalogues/bookbindings/Default.aspx. Sir Simon Felbrigg’s own document pouch, probably dating from his involvement in the Agincourt campaign, has been preserved at The National Archives (TNA E 101/45/3). Among other Anglo–Bohemian marriages, the Czech Roger Siglem married an English wife (see Saul, Richard II, p. 92), and in 1386 Robert de Vere divorced his wife and married Agnes Lancecrona, possibly German by birth but a member of Anne’s household who came with her from Prague (see ODNB: ‘Robert de Vere’). See also above, pp. 27, 36–7. Jenny Stratford, ‘Richard II’s Treasure and London’, in London and the Kingdom: Essays in Honour of Caroline M. Barron, ed. Matthew Davies and Andrew Prescott (Donington, 2008), pp. 212–29 at 223–4.

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At Anne’s death in 1394 her executors included Clanvowe and other members of the group of so-called ‘Lollard knights’, especially Lewis Clifford, whose association with Chaucer and Deschamps is a matter of record.21 Even as early as 1380–81 and the negotiations for her marriage to Richard, the various embassies and reception parties included individuals likely to have been known to Chaucer: Philippe la Vache, probably to be the dedicatee of one version of Chaucer’s Truth, was among a reception party at Dover headed by John Montacute, father of the John Montacute, earl of Salisbury, who would achieve renown as a poet in French, and John Holland, earl of Huntingdon and duke of Exeter, whose later affair with a daughter of John of Gaunt may inform Chaucer’s Complaint of Mars.22 Interests in courtly poetry shared by this group of men close to Richard and his new queen are demonstrated not only in Clanvowe’s Boke of Cupid but also in their circles of acquaintance and the manuscripts they are known to have owned: Sir Richard Stury, for example, another of the ‘Lollard knights’, knew Froissart, left his name in a collection of the works of the Hainault poet Baudouin de Condé, and (like Sir Simon Burley) owned a copy of Le Roman de la rose.23 The distinctively international literary culture of their milieu would not have been unfamiliar to Anne, whose father and brother, Charles IV of Bohemia and his heir Wenceslas (later Wenceslas IV of Bohemia), were demonstrably interested in and patrons of art and de luxe manuscripts.24 Anne would evidently have been well attuned to cultural activity relating to the commissioning and collecting of books. There are other grounds for supposing that Anne’s possible involvement in the creation of Chaucer’s Legend is not inherently improbable in terms of her background. Among the kinds of works known to her in Bohemia that would have been relevant to Chaucer’s Legend, there would certainly have been saints’ lives of various kinds, offering common ground with English readers like Burley whose inventory includes a legendary described as ‘1 liure de vies des Seintz’.25 Such books are also likely to have included history: Burley had a Brut; Charles IV, Anne’s father, had serious historical interests given visual 21 22 23

24

25

See Charles Kightly, ‘Lollard Knights’, ODNB; K. B. MacFarlane, Lancastrian Kings and Lollard Knights (Oxford, 1972), esp. pp. 160–85, 207–20. Perroy, L’Angleterre et le grand schisme, p. 154n. Elizabeth Salter, English and International: Studies in the Literature, Art and Patronage of Medieval England, ed. Derek Pearsall and Nicolette Zeeman (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 243–4. On the general flavour of such culture, see Gervase Mathew, The Court of Richard II (London, 1968), especially pp. 1–52; and on the specifics of the patronage of Charles and Wenceslas, see Boehm and Fajt, Prague; Iva Rosario, Art and Propaganda: Charles IV of Bohemia, 1346–1378 (Woodbridge, 2000); Hermon Sharon, ‘Illuminated Manuscripts of the Court of King Wenceslas IV of Bohemia’, Scriptorium 9 (1955), 115–24; Josef Krása, Die Handschriften König Wenzels IV (Prague, 1971); Binski, ‘The Liber Regalis’. Thomas, Anne’s Bohemia, pp. 88–109, and his Reading Women, pp. 79–110; Jiroušková, ‘Prague’, pp. 623–6. On Burley’s inventory, see above, n. 17.



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form in the (now lost) ‘Luxembourg genealogy’ painted at his commission on the walls of Karlstein (Karlštejn) Castle.26 In the circles important to Anne’s cultural formation there is also evidence of shared interest in the contemporary Europe-wide literary debates about women that Chaucer was to invoke in his secular legendary. Petrarch’s epistle De laudibus feminarum, a key text in these debates, like Boccaccio’s De claris mulieribus and Christine de Pizan’s later Cité des dames, was addressed to Charles IV’s third wife, Anne of Schweidnitz, after Petrarch visited Prague in 1356.27 A work interested in both history and the woman question, one with a wide international circulation that could well have recommended it to circles including both Chaucer and Anne, is the somewhat overlooked compendious Histoire ancienne jusqu’à César.28 Conceived in the thirteenth century, and surviving in some eighty-nine manuscripts, this began as an amalgam of biblical and classical history, from Adam to Caesar and beyond. Its second, mid fourteenth-century redaction has a more pronounced focus on Trojan and Roman history. Most significantly for Chaucer’s practice in the Legend, this second redaction gives special prominence to women by the insertion, at appropriate points, of French prose versions of some of Ovid’s Heroides, duly illustrated in some of the miniatures.29 Christine de Pizan, among others, was to use the Histoire ancienne extensively, and its influence was clearly of an international kind. The earliest surviving manuscript of the second redaction, now London, British Library, MS Royal 20 D I, was made at the Angevin court in Naples but travelled fairly quickly to France, where it entered the collection of Charles V. It figures in the inventory of the library made in 1380 after the king’s death, and was used as an exemplar for other copies.30 There is no way of knowing whether Anne of 26

27

28

29 30

Jiří Fajt, ‘Charles IV: Toward a New Imperial Style’, in Boehm and Fajt (eds), Prague, pp. 3–21. A record of the wall paintings survives in the form of copies in the sixteenth-century Codex Heidelbergensis in the National Gallery, Prague (Archives, AA 2015). See further Joan A. Holladay, Genealogy and the Politics of Representation in the High and Late Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2019), pp. 82–98. Thomas, Anne of Bohemia, p. 41. Petrarch’s friends at Charles’s court included Bishop John of Neumarkt (bishop of Olomouc 1364–80), in whose library was a copy of De claris mulieribus; see Jiroušková, ‘Prague’, p. 621. For an edition of the first redaction, see Marijke de Visser-van Terwisga (ed.), Histoire Ancienne jusqu’à César (Estoires Roger), 2 vols (Orléans, 1999), and for further discussion, Gabrielle M. Spiegel, Romancing the Past: The Rise of Vernacular Prose Historiography in Thirteenth-Century France (Berkeley, 1993); Marilynn Desmond, ‘Trojan Itineraries and the Matter of Troy’, The Oxford History of Classical Reception, i: 800–1558, ed. Rita Copeland (Oxford, 2016), pp. 252–68; and the website associated with a study of the Histoire ancienne currently ongoing at King’s College London: https://tvof.ac.uk/about/project-partners-and-link. Doris Oltrogge, Die Illustrationszyklen zur ‘Histoire ancienne jusqu’à César’ (1250– 1400) (Frankfurt, 1989). It can be identified as ‘Dez faiz de Troye, des Roumains, de Thèbes, de Alexandre le Grant, hystorié au commencement, escript de lettre boulenoise, et sont les ystoires

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Bohemia knew this work (or still better, talked – in French? – with Chaucer about it), but we can be fairly safe in assuming that her father Charles IV saw it when he visited Paris in 1378 and admired the books in the royal library accumulated by his nephew. The visit is described and illustrated in Charles V’s own copy of the Grandes Chroniques de France, now Paris, Bibliothèque nationale fonds français 2813.31 Books in general are central to the project of the Legend of Good Women – a work in which Chaucer presents himself as undergoing a process of literary re-education through the examples of classical women (‘in thy bookes alle thou shalt hem fynde’, the god of Love points out, F556).32 The books specifically recommended to the dreamer–narrator are those containing narratives of female subjects: ‘goode women, maydenes and wyves’ (F484, G474), and Chaucer’s nine legends duly mine a range of sources for a selection of exemplary cases. Significantly for the work’s dedicatee and likely commissioner, though, two of the female lives are recounted in ways that make them sit rather uneasily within the definition ‘good women’. And these are the only two narratives in which women are depicted in roles as queens. The narratives of Cleopatra and Dido are respectively the shortest (125 lines) and the longest (443 lines) of Chaucer’s legends. And they manifest an especial interest in the tensions between amatory and queenly or political identity. Both Cleopatra and Dido begin their narratives as queens before their roles are reshaped by the force of love that causes their own destruction. Cleopatra (in the first of the legends, perhaps significantly) is introduced as ‘queene Cleopatras’ (582), but by the end of her legend she is a lover: And she hire deth receyveth with good cheere For love of Antony that was hire so dere. And this is storyal soth, it is no fable. Now, or I fynde a man thus trewe and stable, And wol for love his deth so frely take I preye God let our hedes nevere ake! (LGW 700–5)

31 32

par les marges très anciennesʼ listed in the catalogue of Charles’s Louvre library; see Léopold Delisle, Recherches sur la Librairie de Charles V, 2 vols (Paris, 1907), ii, 196, no. 1211. Paulin Paris (ed.), Les Grandes Chroniques de France, selon que elles sont conservées en l’église de Saint-Denis en France, 6 vols (Paris, 1836–38), vi, 357–412. ‘Books’ is both a crucial word and a crucial concept in this prologue. In the F Prologue the word occurs ten times; in the G prologue, twelve. At their most general books are the ‘key of remembraunce’; at their most particular they define the figure of Chaucer himself and provide the grounds for the specific assignment imposed on him as a poet– clerk in the service of the god of Love and his consort. See further Carolyn P. Collette, Rethinking Chaucer’s Legend of Good Women (York, 2014), pp. 23–8.



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The fulfilment of her relationship with Antony is marked by a change in her status from queen to wife: ‘she wax his wif and hadde hym as hire leste’ (615): her rule becomes personal rather than political. Her power, the power of ‘love’ over Antony, is reiterated: But love hadde brought this man in swich a rage And hym so narwe bounden in his las, Al for the love of Cleopataras, That al the worlde he sette at no value. Hym thoughte there was nothyng to hym so due As Cleopatras for to love and serve … (LGW 599–604)

The subjection of Antony to Cleopatra becomes, after Actium, a submission to inevitable death: he ‘rof hymself anon thourghout the herte’ (661). It is only after her betrayal has caused Antony’s death that the narrator seeks to present Cleopatra as the embodiment of female fidelity: But herkeneth, ye that speken of kyndenesse. Ye men that falsly sweren many an oth That ye wol deye if that youre love be wroth, Here may ye sen of wemen which a trouthe! (LGW 665–8)

Such fidelity is expressed through her own death, immediately before which, for the only time in the poem, she is allowed a passage of direct speech (681– 95). Here the word ‘love’ is reiterated in her opening and closing lines (681 and 695); when she concludes ‘Was nevere unto hire love a trewer queen’ (695) the reassertion of her political identity as queen is linked to her personal one as lover in a way that it is possible to see as self-exposing. The narrative demonstrates her inability to function appropriately in either role. The relationships between love, marriage and royal identity are represented in a similarly equivocal way in the legend of Dido. Aeneas is introduced into ‘the reyne of Libie … / Of which that Dido lady is and queen’ (LGW 992–3). Dido’s personal and political identities, as both ‘lady’ and ‘queen’, are connected to the wider causality of her tragic fate. More so than with Cleopatra, there is reiterated emphasis on her royal identity: she is designated further as ‘queen’ another eleven times (1035, 1053, 1057, 1061, 1109, 1126, 1135, 1146, 1150, 1243, 1283) and a further six times as ‘noble queen’ (1004, 1143, 1164, 1210, 1222, 1309). At times her royal and personal identities are linked in further repetitions. She herself insists ‘I am a gentil woman and a queen’ (1306) and is defined as ‘this amorous queene’ (1189) and ‘this lusty freshe queene’ (1191). The word ‘queen’ is used twenty-one times in the narrative. But at other, usually more personal, moments she is not defined by her royal identity but is simply ‘Dido’ (nine times: 927, 956, 995, 1017, 1124, 1201, 1290, 1330, 1333) or, as the narrative moves to its climax, ‘sely Dido’ (1157,

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1237, 1336). The differentiation of personal name and political identity provides the means to distinguish her shifting roles, political, personal and gendered, as the narrative develops. As with Cleopatra, it is only in the final section of her narrative that Dido is allocated direct speech. As she responds to Aeneas’s announcement of his departure her words reveal an incoherence of thought and expression designed to stress her incompatible identities as impending mother as well as aspiring wife and actual queen. This to Aeneas as he leaves: … ‘Have mercy; let me with yow ryde! These lordes, which that wonen me besyde Wole me distroyen only for youre sake. And, so ye wole me now to wive take, As ye han sworn, thanne wol I yeve yow leve To slen me with youre swerd now sone at eve! For thanne yit shal I deyen as youre wif. I am with childe, and yeve my child his lyf! Mercy, lord! Have pite in youre thought!’ (LGW 1316–24)

The desire for wifehood, bracketed by the repeated word ‘mercy’ (1316, 1324) at the beginning and end of this passage, is stressed; the emphasis on their relationship is expressed through the plethora of personal pronouns in this passage (‘I’, ‘me’, ‘ye’, ‘yow’, ‘youre’) that here eclipses her identity as queen. Marriage is more important than queenship, perhaps here an implicit reminder that the relationship between ruler and state was often seen as a figurative marriage.33 The narrative of Dido may be linked explicitly to that of Cleopatra by a deliberate verbal parallel. At the moment of Dido’s death ‘with his swerd she rof hyre to the herte’ (1351), just as Antony ‘rof hymself anon thourghout the herte’ (661). The parallel is undeveloped but it presses home the concern of both narratives to delineate the tragic ends of queens who abandon their roles as queens to seek love. Even such summary analysis of Chaucer’s sense of his female queens in the Legend suggests a preoccupation with the disjunctive relationship between their amatory and their political identities, and the difficulties that ensue from their inability to reconcile them. It would be both facile and implausible to read any coded comment on contemporary events into Chaucer’s representations of queens whose fates were shaped by love with such destructive political consequences. But the stress of Dido’s identity as queen, in a work designed for presentation to one, seems so insistent as to suggest that some point is being made.

33

Michael Wilks, ‘Chaucer and the Mystical Marriage in Medieval Political Thought’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 44 (1962), 489–532.



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Certainly there are no grounds for questioning the reality or intensity of Richard II’s love for Anne of Bohemia, the poem’s dedicatee, or of his grief at her death in June 1394. Yet the underlying edginess of Chaucer’s representations of his queens, Cleopatra and Dido, stands rather apart from his more sympathetic treatment of other female martyrs to love elsewhere in the Legend of Good Women. In the Prologue to the Legend we see figures who seem to be reflections of the potentiality of royal power. And such representations show the ability of Queen Alceste to mitigate such power, to soften the king’s (playful) anger and through her intervention to shape a different direction on the unfolding course of events. Anne’s own courtly role, like that of her fictional alter ego, was often presented as an intercessory one. This capacity to mitigate sets her apart from Cleopatra and Dido, who can only in their different ways destroy themselves personally and politically. The implicit contrast to Anne of Bohemia may be more than another form of courtly compliment. To a poet as concerned with order and stability as Chaucer was, it may be an acknowledgement of his sense of the importance of her role in national polity. To think about queenship in the Legend, as well as about the work’s analogues in internationally current narratives concerned with history, genealogy, power and gender, reminds us that Chaucer was highly conscious of both the literary and political dimensions of his larger European environment. His self-awareness in this regard is manifested in the way he represents himself in the Legend as a comically maladroit reader and poet, one in need of re-education and clear orders if he is to fulfil his courtly role properly. Writing for the queen, Anne of Bohemia, offered ways of positioning himself in that environment and making himself a part of that European world. Inevitably, any attempt to assess Chaucer’s relationship to Bohemian culture is far harder to bring into focus than other aspects of his literary indebtedness, such as his awareness of vernacular traditions in French or English. His acquaintance with Bohemian culture is, however, likely to have been largely shaped by the inevitably unrecoverable aspects of personality and public identity embodied in the figure of Anne. We can only tease out hints of what these aspects may have signified for Chaucer, and their potential implications, particularly for the creation of the Legend of Good Women. The inferences that we draw from both context and text do, however, raise some suggestive possibilities concerning his sense of the importance of the queen to the courtly milieu of which he was a part.

11 Humility and Empire: Anne of Bohemia, Chaucer, and the Virgin Mary DAVID WALLACE

‘Humility and Empireʼ triangulates the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God and Queen of Heaven; Anne of Bohemia, queen of England and daughter to a Holy Roman Emperor; and Geoffrey Chaucer, Esquire. It explores the dizzying dynamics of Marian devotion, a subject that still generally embarrasses Chaucer criticism, as its alternating of intimacy and awe plays out through Chaucer’s poetry and, suggestively, through the court of Richard II. It reconsiders the long and complex process, acted out across Europe and meshed in necessities of war and Church schism, that brought Anne of Bohemia to Westminster in 1382 as Richard’s bride. It examines Chaucer’s role in this process, and how he recovered from initial wrong-footedness by making Queen Anne the most significant historical surrogate of his poetic corpus. It elucidates the wish that one of his protagonists, also an emperor’s daughter, might become ‘of al Europe the queene’, and it ponders the futurity of combining heavenly humility with limitless imperial power.

T

his chapter is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God and Queen of Heaven; Anne of Bohemia, queen of England and daughter to a Holy Roman Emperor; and Geoffrey Chaucer, Esquire. Use of forenames puts them on the same plane, suggesting some degree of commensurability. The addition of titles opens up vast vertical distances, neck-craning separations. Such is the peculiar dynamic of late-medieval Catholic imagining, alternating comforting intimacy with a distancing so extreme it can feel like abandonment. And since medieval heaven is a court, with Mary ‘quen of cortasyeʼ,1 comparable dynamics play out between those at the heart of a secular court and those lurking uncertainly at its fringes. This essay explores relations

1

Pearl, in The Poems of the Pearl Manuscript, ed. Malcolm Andrew and Ronald Waldron (London, 1979), line 432.



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between the English poet and the Bohemian English queen by triangulating them with the Virgin Mary, chiefly as represented through Chaucer’s poetry. The most famous and dramatic shifting of ground from first-name intimacy to titles-only distance in Catholic culture is supplied by the Ave Maria, ‘the child’s first prayer, the dying person’s lastʼ:2 Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen. [Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.]

The first three lines here stitch together Gabriel’s greeting to Mary in Luke 1:28 and Elizabeth’s greeting to Mary in Luke 1:42 (with names added).3 They form the ‘Ave Marieʼ spoken by Chaucer’s ‘litel clergeonʼ in the Prioress’s Tale whenever he sees an image of the Virgin, and they almost certainly form the first item in his school text, or ‘prymerʼ (PrT 503, 506–8, 517). This formula of greeting and praise, anciently adopted by Syrian and Coptic churches and found in the West from the time of Gregory the Great (d. ad 604), was supplemented centuries later with the last three lines, a petition. Elements of this petitionary section evolve through later medieval texts, east and west, and are found combined, as we know them, in the Dominican Girolamo Savonarola’s Ave Maria commentary (published a few years before his death by hanging in 1498).4 The expanded form was taken up by the Dominican Pope Paul V in his revision of the Roman breviary in 1568 and made part of the Divine Office. It might be thought that the full Ave Maria’s dramatic transition from earthly intimacy to cosmic distance is predominantly expressive of the reactive and reformist zeal of the Council of Trent. But this dizzying, eye-blink progression from Annunciation (the first half of the full prayer) to the Ascension (the

2 3

4

Miri Rubin, Mother of God: A History of the Virgin Mary (New Haven, 2009), p. 319. ‘Wyclif himselfʼ, says Megan E. Murton, ‘cautiously affirmed the usefulness of the Ave Maria on the grounds that its language was drawn directly from the Bibleʼ, and he wrote two English tracts on the prayer: Chaucer’s Prayers: Writing Christian and Pagan Devotion (Cambridge, 2020), p. 24 and n. 62. Nicholas Ayo, The Hail Mary: A Verbal Icon of Mary (Notre Dame, 1994), p. 11. Savonarola omits our from ‘now and at the hour of our deathʼ.

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second), signifying Mary’s ‘special statusʼ,5 was captured and wondered at by reflective medievals – such as Julian of Norwich, as Jesus shows her Mary: ‘Right as I had seen her before litille and simple, right so he shewed her than high and noble and glorious and plesing to him above all creatures.ʼ6 Turn-on-a-dime dynamics, instant transitioning from intimacy to awe, security to danger, are familiar from Julian’s contemporary, Chaucer, too. Two moments in his poetry, to be revisited later, succinctly capture such Marian dynamics. The Legend of Good Women sees the dreaming Chaucer lying in a meadow ‘To seen this flour that I so love and dredeʼ (LGW F211, love and fear). The volatile god of Love, finding Chaucer kneeling ‘so nygh myn oune floure, so boldelyʼ, is so enraged that the presumptuous Chaucer, without an advocate, may die (‘if that thou lyveʼ, F339). In An ABC, his alphabetical hymn to the Virgin Mary, the penitent Chaucer knows that he may perish without advocacy: ‘Help that my Fader be not wroth with meʼ (ABC 52).7 In each instance, the indispensable advocate is a queenly intercessor: Alceste, the in-poem surrogate for the poem’s dedicatee, Anne of Bohemia; and Mary, like Anne at once intimate and imperial in aspect, inspiring ‘love and dredeʼ.8 In defending the hapless Chaucer of the Legend, the queen tells the king that ‘this man is nyceʼ (LGW F362: not the sharpest knife in the pantry). Chaucer’s own brief foray into international marital diplomacy, which begins this essay, supports such an observation: from this queen’s perspective, Chaucer backed the wrong bride. But Chaucer’s deep immersion in Italian will eventually pay dividends, since Petrarch forms a powerful linkage between Rome and Prague, particularly in energising visions of empire that involve not just Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor, but also Anne’s mother, crowned empress, and even the queen from whom Anne took her name. And England, after the western papal schism of 1378, deeply identified with Rome. Following his slow start, Chaucer catches up with this new, imperial-centred reality, stitching Anne into the fabric of his poetry with a series of tags or signatures. And by deploying Marian dynamics, a greatly under-appreciated aspect of his poetics, he accentuates a softly feminine core, suggesting approachability,9 while expanding the hard edge of imperial possibility. 5

6 7

8

9

Anke Bernau, ‘Bruno Latour and the Loving Assumption of [REL]ʼ, Romanic Review 111.1 (May 2020), 151–72 at 167. ‘Mary’s special status,ʼ says Bernau, was ‘inaugurated by the Annunciation and confirmed by the Assumption.ʼ A Revelation of Love, in The Writings of Julian of Norwich, ed. Nicholas Watson and Jacqueline Jenkins (University Park PA, 2006), 25.21–3 (p. 205). The ‘Mʼ stanza, which forms the midpoint of the poem (eleven stanzas preceding, eleven more to come), invokes, says William A. Quinn, ‘mystical memories against anagogic dreadʼ; see ‘Chaucer’s Problematic Priere: An ABC as Artifact and Critical Issueʼ, Studies in the Age of Chaucer 23 (2001), 109–41 at 120. The Council of Nicaea, which in AD 325 recognised Mary as Theotokos, definitively associated her ‘with the tastes and interests of the powerful imperial establishmentʼ (Rubin, Mother of God, p. 19). But not for all: see Bernau, ‘Bruno Latourʼ, p. 162.



Anne of Bohemia, Chaucer, and the Virgin Mary  217

In September 1378, Chaucer returned to London following the most important diplomatic mission of his career. He had serious news, tydynges, scoop: he had seen the future queen of England, and her name was Caterina Visconti. Two Italians had travelled back from Milan with him, and they wintered in London.10 Chaucer, from the evidence of his own writings, understood Italian superlatively well, and was excellently placed to answer any and all questions: what is the bride-to-be like? Is her father, Bernabò, as terrifying in person as his reputation suggests? The currency of Chaucer’s tydynges remained strong into the summer of 1379 as Bernabò continued sending messengers to Westminster.11 But as that summer advanced, the new Roman pontiff, Urban VI, continued working to weaken ties between the French Valois monarchy and the house of Luxembourg. Urban VI had been elected on 8 April 1378 as the first Roman pope of the papal schism, and on 26 July he confirmed by bull the election of Wenceslas IV, son of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV of the House of Luxembourg. Bernabò was wooed away from planned dynastic union with the Plantagenets by papal dispensations allowing Caterina’s incestuous marriage to his nephew, Gian Galeazzo.12 Richard II and his counsellors knew that the Italian match was off, stale news, long before poor Chaucer caught wind. Richard’s royal council decided in principle to negotiate a Luxembourg match in May 1380, the same month that the Cecilia Chaumpaigne raptus case officially ended with Chaucer’s legal release (4 May). Next month, ambassadors left London to negotiate a royal marriage with representatives of Wenceslas. Among them was Robert Braybrooke, a cleric appointed secretary to the young Richard II on 20 August 1377.13 In May 1381, Braybrooke was commissioned to travel again, help conclude the marriage, and escort the new bride back to London.14 In his absence, on 13 June 1381, rebels flooded beneath Chaucer’s dwelling above Aldgate, besieged the neighbouring Tower, and beheaded Simon Sudbury, archbishop of Canterbury. Things had quietened down (reprisals were in full flow) when Braybrooke returned to London on 20 September. Sudbury’s decapitation led to the translation of William Courtenay from London to Canterbury; Braybrooke was consecrated bishop of London on 5 January 1382 and married Richard to his bride at Westminster on 20 January. In 1390, Braybrooke baptised a Jewish Sicilian man at Langley 10

11 12 13 14

See Chaucer Life-Records, ed. Martin M. Crow and Clair C. Olson (Oxford, 1966), pp. 53–61; Édouard Perroy, L’Angleterre et le grand schisme d’occident (Paris, 1933), p. 138. These included two of Chaucer’s travel companions from his 1378 mission (return leg): see Perroy, Grand Schisme, p. 139, n. 2. The man who would eventually assassinate him, in 1385: see Monk’s Tale, 2399–406 (‘De Barnabo de Lumbardiaʼ). R. G. Davies, ‘Braybrooke, Robert (1336/7–1404)ʼ, ODNB online. Fritz Quicke, Les Pays-Bas à la veille de la période bourguignonne (1356–1384) (Brussels, 1947), p. 402.

218  David Wallace

Place, one of the royal properties overseen by Chaucer as Clerk of the King’s Works (1389–91). Richard II was present, and the new Christian was given £10 annually for life, plus the baptismal name of Richard.15 Chaucer was likely working at the London custom house during the royal nuptials of 1382.16 He could have been overseeing any number of building projects in 1390, the year in which he was twice required to erect scaffolds to seat noble spectators and lists for tourneying knights, invited from overseas by Richard II. Robert Braybrooke, a close personal friend of the royal couple, moved close to the centre of court dynamics; Chaucer caught glimpses from the periphery. The House of Fame, in which Chaucer is recognised as ‘Geffreyʼ, ends with the marriage or compounding of truth and lies, ‘a lesyng and a sad soth saweʼ (HF 2089), in the whirling cage of hearsay. News of ‘love-tydyngesʼ draws a great and rambunctious crowd, with Chaucer at the back. Finally, someone who seems to be ‘a man of gret auctoriteʼ appears (2158), and hopefully he might have reliable news (of a royal wedding?). But the poem advances no further. The overseas bride who married Richard II on 20 January 1382 was not, then, Caterina Visconti but Anne of Bohemia, eldest daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV of Luxembourg, half-sister to Wenceslas, king of the Romans, and full (elder) sister to Sigismund, later (much later) Holy Roman Emperor. But she was just fifteen years old on her wedding day, and the simple designation du jour would have been emperor’s daughter. And Charles IV, who had died as recently as 29 November 1378, was no ordinary emperor but a colossus of the age. Early on, he had authored Latin lives both of Wenceslas, saint and martyr, and of himself. His autobiography begins with a figure that might put us in mind of the House of Fame, or the Parliament of Fowls: a talking eagle.17 It goes on to tell of Charles’s childhood at the court of French kings, his teenage campaigning in Italy (including Milan and Pavia) with his father in 1332 and 1333, his early governing experiences in Bohemia and his coronation as king of the Romans in 1346. This last seriously engaged the attention of Petrarch, cultural colossus, laureated at Rome on Easter Sunday 1341. For more than two decades, these two viri illustres argued out by letter and in person the most compelling political imperative of the age, or any age, as they saw it: empire.18 15

16

17

18

See Davies, ‘Braybrookeʼ; Michael Adler, The Jews of Medieval Britain (London, 1939), p. 323; R. F. Yeager, ‘Gower’s Jewsʼ, in John Gower: Others and the Self, ed. Russell A. Peck and R. F. Yeager (Cambridge, 2017), pp. 183–203 at 194. On the extreme importance to the national economy of Chaucer’s Wool Wharf years, see Paul Strohm, Chaucer’s Tale: 1386 and the Road to Canterbury (London, 2015), pp. 101–10. Balázs Nagy and Frank Schaer (eds), Autobiography of Emperor Charles IV and his Legend of St Wenceslas, introd. Ferdinand Seibt (Budapest, 2001), cap. 1 (p. 2). The eagle here is that of St John the Evangelist. See C. C. Bayley, ‘Petrarch, Charles IV, and the “Renovatio Imperii”ʼ, Speculum 17 (1942), 323–41.



Anne of Bohemia, Chaucer, and the Virgin Mary  219

Petrarch first writes to Charles on 24 February 1351, from Padua. The letter, Familiares 10.1, supposedly shudders at the gulf dividing it from ‘most glorious Caesarʼ: ‘born in the shadows, it is shaken by the splendor of your most illustrious name.ʼ19 But the missive soon unfurls from abjection into ‘querulous discourseʼ, like an abandoned lover: ‘Why have you become unmindful of us, and, if I may say so, of yourself?ʼ No response being received, Petrarch writes again (Familiares 12.1). When a response to Familiares 10.1 finally arrives, Petrarch writes an even longer letter, chiding Charles about his imperial responsibilities and completing a ‘threefold summonsʼ (p. 43) to Rome. This becomes Familiares 18.1, and the fact that all three letters to Charles head up books of the Familiares figures the pre-eminent importance, for Petrarch, of empire and the revival of Rome. Familiares 19 opens with yet another letter to Charles, acclaiming (at last!) his descent on Italy, to be graced with ‘your imperial presenceʼ (p. 74). Finally, on 15 December 1354, Roman laureate and Holy Roman Emperor met at Mantua, birthplace of Rome’s greatest imperial poet.20 Petrarch tells us of this encounter in a long and gossipy letter to his close friend Lelius, Pietro Stefano dei Tosetti (Familiares 19.3). Charles, it seems, had requested a copy of De viris illustribus (perhaps hoping to find himself added to the viri illustres); such a gift will only be forthcoming, Petrarch hints, once Charles fulfils his destiny as Roman emperor. Charles responds ‘with a cheery twinkle in his eyeʼ (p. 79); Petrarch gifts him ancient Roman coins, some featuring the head of Caesar Augustus. Charles IV did descend deeper into Italy, receiving the imperial crown at Rome on 5 April 1355, but then beating a retreat to Bohemia immediately afterwards. Petrarch writes a shorter, terse letter (Familiares 19.11), and thus their relationship continues to play out. Petrarch would like to see Charles as a permanent fixture in Rome, and Charles envisions Petrarch as a priceless addition to the imperial court at Prague. And in 1356, Petrarch left his Visconti patrons at Milan on a three-month trip to Prague, spending about a month in the city (Seniles 17.2). Familiares 21.1, written the following year, remembers ‘having seen nothing less barbarous, nothing more human than Caesarʼ (p. 165); Familiares 21.2 remembers Caesar (Charles) making him a Count Palatine (p. 167). And Familiares 21.8, completing a sequence of six Prague-directed letters in this book, congratulates the empress Anna on the birth of a child:

19

20

Francesco Petrarca, Letters on Familiar Matters, Rerum Familiarum Libri, trans. Aldo S. Bernardo, 3 vols, I–VIII (Albany, 1975), IX–XVI and XVII–XXIV (Baltimore, 1982– 5), 10.1 (p. 49). ‘Mantua me genuitʼ, according to the tomb inscription at Naples at the Parco Vergiliano a Piedigrotta; and see Dante’s Purgatorio, where Sordello greets his compatriot Virgil as ‘O Mantuanoʼ: Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy, trans. and with a commentary by Charles S. Singleton, 3 vols (Princeton, 1975), 6.74.

220  David Wallace Nor indeed is your joy … diminished because your first child is a girl, for as wise men are wont to say, better fortune often follows upon a weak beginning. Those who strive after great achievements begin humbly; this is what, I believe, nature has done with you, and with this first happy childbirth of yours – she promises you many more happy ones. It is sufficient for me and for whoever wishes happy news of you and your illustrious consort [Charles] to know that now you have become a child-bearing member of the Roman empire. (p. 175)

Anna had thought to share her good news with Petrarch by sending him ‘an eloquent announcement and friendly letterʼ (p. 175); Petrarch honours her here by responding, the only letter addressed to a woman in any of his collections. And he goes on to further favour her by extending Familiares 21.8 into a brief treatise de mulieribus claris, of illustrious women (none of them post-classical). His wish that Anna should be favoured with a masculine child comes true in 1361, with Wenceslas; she dies, while in childbirth for the third time, on 11 July 1362, aged 22 or 23. Less than a year later Charles IV marries his fourth wife, Elizabeth of Pomerania. The first of her eight children, assuming the name of the deceased third queen, is Anne, born at Prague on 11 May 1366. When Anne’s mother, Elizabeth of Pomerania, died in 1393 Richard II appointed a requiem mass at St Paul’s, London.21 Charles remained keen that Petrarch should join him at Prague in the early 1360s, and Petrarch was prevented from travelling there from Padua in 1362 only by conditions of war. Meanwhile he proved his worth as imperial philologist: documentary claims that Austria lies beyond the Empire, advanced by Rudolph IV of Austria and supposedly derived from Julius Caesar and Nero, are exposed as patent forgeries: ‘quid quod data literarum apertissime falsa estʼ [what about the documentʼs date, which is most obviously false?].22 Petrarch presses his case that Charles should again cross the Alps, since his coronation at Rome has made him no longer Bohemian, but Italian and Roman. In 1368, such a wish came true: but be careful what you wish for. Following negotiations with Pope Urban V at Avignon, Charles descended on Italy as part of a bid to restore the papacy to Rome, and to protect papal patrimony from its chief antagonists: the Visconti. Petrarch was thus caught between the Visconti, whom he had long served, and his commitment to Roman imperium and a Rome-based papacy. He was dispatched to meet with the emperor, twice, at Udine and at Padua (3 and 17 May 1368). Petrarch returned to the Visconti at Pavia on 30 May 1368; Charles IV triumphantly re-entered Rome on 19 October 1368, and pope and emperor issued a joint statement celebrating a new, Rome-cen21 22

According to the Westminster Chronicle: see Nigel Saul, Richard II (New Haven, 1997), p. 92 n. 35. Francis Petrarch, Letters of Old Age: Rerum Senilium Libri, trans. Aldo S. Bernardo et al., 2 vols (Baltimore, 1992), 16.5, 2.621–5 (p. 624); Bayley, ‘Petrarch, Charles IVʼ, p. 333.



Anne of Bohemia, Chaucer, and the Virgin Mary  221

tred age. Charles’s fourth wife, Elizabeth of Pomerania, travelled with him to Rome, and Urban V crowned her, the mother of Anne of Bohemia, empress.23 All this supplies European context for the famous ‘Visconti weddingʼ, contracted at the church door of Milan cathedral on 28 May or 5 June 1368 between thirteen-year-old Violante Visconti, daughter of Galeazzo Visconti and Bianca of Savoy, and Lionel, duke of Clarence, third son of Edward III. Chaucer had first served Lionel as master, but by now was valettus to Edward III. He was licensed to cross the Channel on 17 July 1368, and there is no further record of him in England until 31 October.24 He thus might have made it to Lombardy in 1368, but he missed the wedding. He would have heard much about it, however, since Lionel was accompanied across the Channel by a huge entourage of 457 men.25 And although Petrarch was the chief celebrity on hand at Milan, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV would have been chief spectre at the feast. For although the Visconti strove to tether Petrarch and his cultural cachet to their Ghibelline courts of Milan and Pavia, his most consistent and natural cathexis was with the emperor; he was, after all, crowned ‘the lauriate poeteʼ (ClT 31) at Rome. He even made a late-life attempt, scuppered by illness, to transfer to Rome in the spring of 1370 (as he tells Urban VI in Seniles 11.17). So while ten years later Chaucer, following his documented trip to Milan, may have been disappointed to see his tydynges of a second Visconti wedding turn stale, he would quickly appreciate the potential of a Bohemian alliance. For whereas Lombard literary culture lacked distinction or cohesiveness, Prague’s imperial curia and its peripheries boasted the richest such culture in trecento Europe. And where Lombard tyrants developed a culture of terror, based on the ruler’s arbitrary will, Bohemia modelled an imperium of Roman pedigree, buttressed by law, in which the ruler was bound to respect the rights of each single subject.26 Chaucer tags all the major works he draws from Italian with motifs that point, obliquely or otherwise, to Richard II’s Bohemian bride. Perhaps he himself felt tagged, after 1378, as willing and active agent of a lost Italian match; perhaps he is trying to make amends. His Knight’s Tale early on tells 23

24 25

26

Ivan Hlaváček, ‘The Luxemburgs and Rupert of the Palatinate, 1347–1410ʼ, in The New Cambridge Medieval History, vi: c.1300–c.1415, ed. Michael Jones (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 551–69 at 555. See Chaucer Life-Records, ed. Crow and Olson, p. 30. And with ‘no fewer than 1280 horsesʼ: W. M. Ormrod, ‘Lionel [Lionel of Antwerp], Duke of Clarence (1338–1368)ʼ, ODNB online. Lionel of Antwerp collected more than 120,000 Florentine florins from the Lucchese merchant Simone Boccella as he passed through Flanders in 1368: see Bart Lambert, ‘“Nostri Fratelli da Londra”: The Lucchese Community in Late Medieval Londonʼ, in Anglo-Italian Cultural Relations in the Later Middle Ages, ed. Helen Fulton and Michele Campopiano (York, 2018), pp. 87–102 at 90. See David Wallace, Chaucerian Polity: Absolutist Lineages and Associational Forms in England and Italy (Stanford, 1997), pp. 320–6; Lenka Jiroušková, ‘Pragueʼ, in Europe: A Literary History, ed. David Wallace, 2 vols (Oxford, 2016), i, 617–51.

222  David Wallace

how a queen coming to nuptials in a new country very nearly perishes at sea. Spoken under occultatio (the trope of talking about what you are not going to talk about), this detail appears neither in the Teseida, Chaucer’s immediate source, nor in the Thebaid of Statius. But rather like Chaucer’s Amazon queen Ypolita, battered by a ‘tempest at hir hoom-comyngeʼ before she can enjoy ‘the feste that was at hir weddyngeʼ (KnT 883–4), Anne, incoming from Bohemia and Brussels,27 very nearly perishes before her new life can begin. Her risky winter passage from Calais to Dover on 18 December 1381 ends with heavy groundswell, as Walsingham tells it; ships in Dover harbour collide, and hers is smashed to pieces just after she touches terra firma.28 Petrarch remarks that in picking up a book we gravitate to the beginning and the end, since the most important things are generally placed there.29 Four books of Familiares open with letters to Charles IV, emphasising the importance of empire, plus the last letter of book 23: ‘Farewell, O you who are our honor, our joy, and our hopeʼ (23.21, 3, p. 305). Quite early on in Troilus and Criseyde, Chaucer plants another compliment to Anne, dropping the simile of roses surpassing violets in Filostrato 19.3–5 for an alphabetical simile: Right as our firste lettre is now an A, In beaute first so stood she, makeles.    matchless (Tr i, 172–3)

The ‘nowʼ here is striking: now our alphabet begins with an A. Chaucer’s alphabetical poem to the Virgin Mary, known as An ABC, is still logged as an early work,30 but evidence is frail. Thomas Speght suggests in his 1602 edition that the poem was made, ‘as some say, at the request of Blanche Duchess of Lancaster, as praier for her privat use, being a woman in her religion very devoutʼ.31 None of the sixteen manuscripts supports this case for early composition, although it was happily taken up by the Reverend Walter Skeat, the most influential of all nineteenth-century Middle English editors. For Skeat, as for some other Anglican critics, Marian-focused content seems intrinsically problematical.32 Excessive devotion to mother Mary, for Skeat, suggests an 27 28 29 30

31 32

Anne spent the month of November, 1381, at Brussels: see Quicke, Les Pays-Bas, p. 404. Thomas Walsingham, Historia Anglicana, ed. H. T. Riley, 2 vols (London, 1863–4), i, p. 46. See Seniles, trans. Bernardo et al., 17.3 (to Giovanni Boccaccio). See A New Companion to Chaucer, ed. Peter Brown (Oxford, 2019). ‘Wolfgang Clemen,ʼ says Quinn, ‘found Chaucer’s ABC stylistically superior to … any comparable lyric of the fourteenth centuryʼ (‘Chaucer’s Problematic Priereʼ, p. 110). As cited in Riverside Chaucer, p. 1076. In moving away from chapter 25 of Julian’s A Revelation of Love (as cited above), Watson and Jenkins comment that ‘the glorification of Mary … now gives way to that of Jesus, as the contemplation of Mary is seen as no more than a stage on the way to the higher contemplation of Godʼ. And, further, that ‘despite chapter 25’s attention to Mary “in specialle” (line 31), Jesus’ words of wooing leave little room for devotion to anyone



Anne of Bohemia, Chaucer, and the Virgin Mary  223

immature phase of spiritual development (that of a ‘litel clergeonʼ, perhaps),33 and hence correlative immaturity of poetic craft. But the craft dedicated to An ABC is highly sophisticated, dedicated to intensifying those Marian moments that might spook Protestantism. The eight-line stanza form ababbcbc is that of Lenvoy de Chaucer a Bukton (usually dated to 1396), the Former Age, the Monk’s Tale, and the Complaint of Venus (translating Oton de Grandson, d. 1397). The syntax, at times vertiginously plastic, suggests long study of poetic lines that, repeatedly spilling through line endings, strain the limits of stanzaic form: that of the Filostrato and Teseida.34 The translation shows intimate knowledge not just of the source lyric, by Guillaume Deguileville, but of the entire Pèlerinage de la vie humaine in which the French ABC comes embedded.35 All this takes us far from the Book of the Duchess, the poem commemorating the death of Blanche of Lancaster, John of Gaunt’s first wife, on 12 September 1368.36 Internal signatures link the Book of the Duchess to Blanche of Lancaster, John [of Gaunt], and Richmond, Gaunt’s Yorkshire seat.37 Reference to ‘th’emperour Octovyenʼ (368) has been taken to refer to Edward III, although (for English monarchs) such identification was merely aspirational. The only genuine Caesar Augustus riding through Europe in 1368 was Emperor Charles IV, descending on Rome as Edward’s son, Lionel, was ailing in Lombardy, where he died on 17 October.38 Chaucer may not have written An ABC expressly for Anne of Bohemia, but the ‘now an Aʼ of Troilus I, 171 supplies a handy linkage. In introducing his Treatise on the Astrolabe, Chaucer speaks of ‘the king, that is lord of this langageʼ (Astr 56–7). This phrase, cited as ‘the earliest occurrence of the notion of “the King’s English”ʼ,39 prompts us to wonder what a queen’s English might look like: one hoping to serve an immigrant queen, fluent in French and conversant in Latin, but (like almost all continental Europeans) innocent of English. An ABC, translated from French, would serve the need of England’s new, ‘firste lettreʼ queen. This is not to suggest that she be dispatched for remedial study with the ‘litel clergeonʼ, but that some firm ground in English letters and devotion be supplied. Such grounding is never outgrown. Medieval

33

34 35 36

37 38 39

other than himselfʼ (A Revelation, p. 206). This last echoes commentary offered on the shorter A Vision (p. 90). More recent studies tend to assume, says Murton, ‘that when Chaucer engages with highly emotional forms of Marian devotion, he disapproves of themʼ: Chaucer’s Prayers, p. 26 and n. 6. See especially lines 89–96 (M stanza), 137–44 (S). The case is convincingly made by Helen Phillips, ‘Chaucer and Deguileville: The ABC in Contextʼ, Medium Ævum 62 (1993), 1–19. Henry Yevele helped fashion a tomb at St Paul’s; Gaunt was buried beside Blanche on 16 March 1399. See Simon Walker, ‘John [John of Gaunt], duke of Aquitaine and duke of Lancasterʼ, ODNB online. See lines 1318–19 and note, Riverside Chaucer, p. 976. Ormrod, ‘Lionelʼ. Riverside Chaucer, p. 1095.

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schoolroom education began with an abecedary, an alphabet-as-poem, and with An ABC, Christopher Cannon argues, Chaucer ‘marks his poetic beginnings with a poem-as-alphabetʼ. This is not to say that Chaucer’s ABC was a youthful composition, but rather a poem affirming ‘that what he first learned in school shaped his writing ever afterwardsʼ.40 An ABC is voiced by an abject (‘venquisshedʼ) petitioner who evokes, from the first, Mary’s paradoxical combining of qualities: Almighty and al merciable queene, To whom that al this world fleeth for socour,     flees To have relees of sinne, of sorwe, and teene,    forgiveness trouble Glorious virgine, of alle floures flour,        flower of all flowers To thee I flee, confounded in errour. Help and releeve, thou mighti debonayre,       gracious one Have mercy on my perilous langour. Venquisshed me hath my cruel adversaire. (ABC 1–8)

‘Almightyʼ yet ‘merciableʼ, ‘mightiʼ yet ‘debonayreʼ, Mary is yet appealed to as ‘thou ground of our substanceʼ (87). But soon, in the second (B) stanza, the petitioner feels the ground sinking. Mary, ‘haven of refut [refuge]ʼ, must respond before his boat breaks up: ‘Help, lady bryght, er that my ship tobresteʼ (14–16). Mary is ‘lady bryghtʼ as maris stella, star of the sea, a conceit added here by Chaucer but elsewhere much favoured by the monk Deguileville (who sang the Ave maris stella in many a liturgy). The Benedictine made images of shipwreck and sinking central to both versions of his Pèlerinage de la vie humaine while scattering Marian acclamations (Ave maris stella, Ave Maria) like lifebelts. Chaucer follows suit, but more so,41 intensifying density and desperation of reference. Telling Ave Marias and Pater nosters represents the basic work, opus Dei, of the rosary.42 The bidding of beads is the bargain price for retaining the greatest and boldest of lawyers; there is … advocat noon that wole and dar so preye for us, and that for litel hire as yee       wages That helpen for an Ave-Marie or tweye.     two (ABC 102–4)

The sinuous S stanza speaks of God making Mary imperial vicar [‘vicaire and maistresse / Of al this worldʼ], and also ‘governouresse / Of heveneʼ (140–2), 40 41 42

Christopher Cannon, From Literacy to Literature: England, 1300–1400 (Oxford, 2016), p. 8. See Phillips, ‘Chaucer and Deguilevilleʼ, p. 8. As Giorgiana Donavin notes, An ABC’s final phrase, ‘merci ableʼ (184) returns us to the opening ‘Almighty and al merciableʼ (1), thereby ‘imitating the rosary’s never-ending cycle of prayerʼ; see Scribat Mater: Mary and the Language Arts in the Literature of Medieval England (Washington, 2011), p. 181.



Anne of Bohemia, Chaucer, and the Virgin Mary  225

with governouresse deriving from gubernator, one who directs the rudder of a ship. Mary wills and dares to face up God; this ancilla (handmaiden, or even slave)43 rules heaven and earth, clasps our petitionary documents (109–10), rules her own court: Ladi, unto that court thou me ajourne    appoint a day That clepid is thi bench, O fresche flour,   is called your court Ther as that merci evere shal sojourne. (ABC 158–60)

Chaucer again portrays himself defended by a female advocate against godly wrath in the Legend of Good Women, a text that shares space with An ABC in four manuscripts.44 The poem opens by affirming belief ‘that ther ys joy in hevene and peyne in helleʼ (LGW F2), although Chaucer’s persona little seems to realise (as he does in An ABC) that judgement is nigh. He is bookish and devout, and his ‘reverenceʼ is for she who is ‘of alle floures flourʼ (F53). This epithet is, as we have just seen, applied to Mary in the A stanza of An ABC (ABC 4); it occurs again as the Legend etymologises this flower as ‘The “dayesye,” or elles the “ye of day”, / The emperice and flour of floures alle’ (LGW F184–5). The daisy is heliotropic, opening and closing according to the (relative) motion of the sun. As the poem progresses, it is clear that ‘the myghty god of Loveʼ, who comes ‘corowned with a sonneʼ (F230), is this planet. The sunburst was a favourite personal device of Richard II; sunbursts adorn the robes on his tomb effigy in Westminster Abbey, where he lies beside Anne of Bohemia.45 And Anne, while not an ‘empericeʼ, is an emperor’s daughter. The Legend, written as ‘penaunceʼ (F495), is to be presented to her, says the god of Love, once complete: ‘And whan this book ys maad [made], yive [give] it the quene, / On my behalf, at Eltham or at Sheene’ (F496–7). In summarising Chaucer’s chief crimes, the god of Love first specifies his presumption in moving to the feminine heart of the court from its periphery (LGW F312–18), and then thinks of his Roman de la rose translation, ‘and of Creseydeʼ (F332). Given ‘how that Crisseyde Troylus forsokʼ (G265), perhaps the ‘now an Aʼ compliment has backfired. In An ABC, Chaucer-petitioner knows that ‘stinke eterneʼ awaits (ABC 56) if his mediatrix, Mary, fails; 43

44 45

Ancilla can also designate female slave in trecento Europe: see Susan Mosher Stuard, ‘Ancillary Evidence for the Decline of Medieval Slaveryʼ, Past and Present, 149 (November 1995), 3–28. One Genoese transaction sees a slave sold for 40 pounds (‘livresʼ), with part payment made in the form of a book, the Office of Our Lady, the Virgin Mary: see Robert Delort, ‘Quelques précisions sur le commerce des esclaves à Gênes vers la fin du XIVe siècleʼ, Mélanges d’archéologie et d’histoire. École Française de Rome, 78 (1966), 215–50 at 241, n. 1; David Wallace, ‘Genoaʼ, in his Premodern Places (Oxford, 2004), pp. 181–202 at 190. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MSS Bodley 638 and Fairfax 16; Cambridge, Cambridge University Library, MS Gg 4.27; Cambridge, Magdalene College, MS Pepys 2006. See Dillian Gordon, Making and Meaning: The Wilton Diptych (London, 1993), p. 52.

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Chaucer-dreamer of the Legend also needs an advocate, if he is not to ‘repenten this, / So cruellyʼ (LGW F339–40). Anne of Bohemia played the role of mediatrix from her earliest days in England, often kneeling before the king, seeking mercy for 1381 rebels, for Wyclif, for the citizens of Shrewsbury, for the citizens of London, and many more.46 The task of her surrogate, Alceste, in the Legend is delicate: she insists on Chaucer’s right of reply (F343), knowing that he would bring down godly rage the minute he opened his mouth. And so, in talking to stop Chaucer from talking, she develops bravura advocacy, worthy of Mary, soothing the breast of a savage god. One of her tropes, or instructions, is pleasingly personal for Alceste-Anne: ‘And nat be lyk tirauntz [tyrants] of Lumbardye, / That han no reward but at tyrannye’ (F374–5). You could have been married to Caterina Visconti, with Bernabò as father-in-law (had Chaucer’s 1378 mission panned out); instead you get me, kneeling before you, daughter to the Holy Roman Emperor. The most famous scenes of submission in Chaucer, set in Lombardy, are staged in the Clerk’s Tale, as Griselde kneels before Walter. The tale itself opens by making obeisance to ‘Fraunceys Petrak, the lauriat poeteʼ, whose prowess in ‘rethorike sweeteʼ is compared to that of ‘Lynanʼ, Giovanni da Legnano (c. 1320–83), in other disciplines: ‘philosophieʼ, ‘laweʼ, and ‘oother art particulerʼ (ClT 31–5). Giovanni da Legnano, a polymath trained in both canon and civil law, was best known in England for his support of Urban VI before and into the 1378 papal schism, most notably with his De fletu ecclesiae.47 Although born in Milan, he sided with the papacy and against the Visconti, singling out Lombardy, in his De amicitia, as a place especially plagued by tyrannical government.48 His manuscripts are to be found in Prague, and in London, but not in the Visconti and Sforza inventories of 1426 and 1459. Charles IV made Legnano, like Petrarch eleven years earlier, a Count Palatine in 1368, the year in which his queen, Anne’s mother, was crowned empress in Rome.49 Taken together, then, Petrarch and Legnano form a robust pro-papal, pro-imperial, pro-Roman archway into the Lombard territory of the Clerk’s Tale. 46 47

48

49

See Paul Strohm, Hochon’s Arrow: The Social Imagination of Fourteenth-Century Texts (Princeton, 1992), pp. 105–19; Wallace, Chaucerian Polity, p. 363. Composed in stages between 1378 and 1380, with many MSS surviving in Rome and two in London: British Library, MSS Royal 7 E x fols 77v–85v and Harley 1006, fols 238v (297v)–239 (298). See John P. McCall, ‘The Writings of John of Legnano with a List of Manuscriptsʼ, Traditio 23 (1967), 415–37 at 425, 435. Legnano was the only major apologist name-checked in the only schism dispute held before Richard II (in 1384): see McCall, ‘Chaucer and John of Legnanoʼ, Speculum 40 (1965), 484–9 at 488; Walter Ullmann, The Origins of the Great Schism (London, 1948), pp. 126–7. ‘ut sepe hodie fit altissimo permittente gubernationem tyrannicam, maximus in partibus Lombardiae.ʼ [And often, nowadays, with the highest in charge allowing it, a tyrannical government comes about, especially in parts of Lombardy.] The preface to De bello also sides with the papacy and against the Visconti: see McCall, ‘Writingsʼ, pp. 416–17. Ibid., pp. 416–17.



Anne of Bohemia, Chaucer, and the Virgin Mary  227

When the marquis Walter accedes to the ‘meeke preyereʼ of his people that he should take a wife, he imposes one condition: that What wyf that I take, ye me assure To worshipe hire, whil that hir lyf may dure,    honour In word and werk, both heere and everywheere, As she an emperoures doghter weere. (ClT 165–8)

last

As if she were an emperor’s daughter: a remarkable hypothetical. Where Petrarch’s Seniles 17.3 has ‘as if she were a daughter of a prince of Romeʼ,50 Chaucer specifies imperial pedigree. Just one person in England, for his first audience, could come to mind. Chaucer’s secunda pars shifts scene from ‘thilke paleysʼ to ‘a throop, of site delitableʼ, a delightfully situated ‘villageʼ (197–200). This lateral shift suggests temporal distance since people here live in the ‘blisfulʼ manner of ‘the firste age of menʼ. This last is from Boece, Chaucer’s prose translation of Boethius, De consolationae philosophiae, a poem celebrating long-ago people living happily from what ‘the trewe feeldesʼ would provide, who slept ‘holsom slepes uppon the gras, and drunken of the rennynge watresʼ (Bo ii, metrum 5, lines 3–17), and so on. Chaucer was at some point moved to elaborate this prosified metrum back into verse in a poem known (from its second line) as ‘The Former Age’: A blysful lyf, a paisible and a swete,       peaceful Ledden the peples in the former age. They helde hem payed of the fruites that they ete, satisfied with Which that the feldes yave hem by usage;     without cultivation They ne were nat forpampred with outrage.        pampered with excess (FormAge 1–5)

‘The Former Age’ quickly establishes a fundamental contrast between such innocent, subsistence living and the eco-violence of farmers, fashionistas, importers of fancy goods, miners (9–30) and tyrants: ‘Thise tyraunts putte hem gladly nat in pres [did not bend their energies] / No wildnesse ne no busshes for to winne [to claim wilderness territory]ʼ (33–4). There were then no ‘paleis-chaumbresʼ, feather beds or bleached sheets, ‘No lord, no taylage by no tyrannye [taxation by tyrants]: Humblesse and pees, good feith the emperice’ (54–5). The empress who rules in this ‘former ageʼ, preceding lordly tyranny and all his works, is humility, peacefulness and good faith: abstractions made flesh and blood in Griselde, a heroine who drinks water, eats boiled and shredded ‘wortesʼ, edible greens, and prefers a hard bed. The secunda pars of the Clerk’s Tale may be seen as Chaucer’s third iteration of Consolatio II,

50

Translation from Chaucer: Sources and Backgrounds, ed. Robert P. Miller (New York, 1977), p. 142.

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metrum 5, following the essays of Boece and ‘The Former Age’. Temporal tension between the innocence of then and the tyranny of now is now laid out spatially, between court and village. But just before we meet Griselde in her aetas prima domain, Chaucer adds a further complication. Her father, Janicula, is said to be the poorest of the poor, ‘But hye God somtyme senden kan / His grace into a litel oxes stalle’ (ClT 206–7). Griselde, before we meet her for the first time, has been pre-emptively figured as both Mary, ancilla Dei, and ‘an emperoures doghterʼ. The Marian association strengthens as Walter approaches her humble abode: And as she wolde over hir thresshfolde gon, The markys cam and gan hire for to calle, And she set doun hir water pot anon, Biside the thresshfold, in an oxes stalle, And doun upon hir knees she gan to falle, And with sad contenance kneleth stille,    steadfast Til she had herd what was the lordes wille. (ClT 288–94)

This moment is liminal, caught between time and the supernatural: Chaucer, who stages many such moments,51 repeats ‘thresshfoldeʼ (limen) to keep us focused. As Griselde kneels here, as Mary kneels at the Annunciation, it seems that the annunciator (Walter, to Griselde) has all the power. But Griselde, like Mary, and like Anne on her wedding day, has the power of consent. And thus, for a moment, all hangs on her word: what if Griselde, Anne or Mary says no? This possibility, a whole alternative cosmology, is generally smuggled out of view in theological discussions, and in the Clerk’s Tale it is muffled (but still audible, as Walter asks Griselde ‘wol ye assente … ?ʼ). This moment between petition and assent is one of maximal masculine vulnerability, when the humblest of handmaidens is truly almighty, peerlessly ‘soveraynʼ.52 Once ‘translated’ (385) from village to court, the ‘favour sente hireʼ by God’s ‘grace’ becomes visible to all, so That it ne semed nat by liklynesse That she was born and fed in rudenesse,     unsophisticated conditions As in a cote or in an oxe-stalle,          peasant hovel But nourisshed in an emperoures halle.   nurtured (ClT 396–9)

51 52

See David Wallace, ‘Thresholds, Portals to Beyondʼ, in his Geoffrey Chaucer: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2019), pp. 95–100. The ‘royal terselʼ in the Parliament of Fowls, while clearly the most pedigreed suitor for the ‘formel egleʼ (female eagle), can but petition for her favour, and not demand it: at such a moment, the ‘royal tercelʼ recognises, she is ‘my soverayn lady, and not my fereʼ, or equal (416).



Anne of Bohemia, Chaucer, and the Virgin Mary  229

Here Chaucer contrivedly conflates associations of Mary, who ‘set doun hir water potʼ (gave birth) ‘in an oxes stalleʼ (290–1), with Anne, who was certainly nurtured and educated ‘in an emperoures halleʼ. Anne soon proved her worth in her new, alien land as mediatrix, we have noted, and by other involvement in matters of state, writing or dictating letters in French, as needed.53 Griselde promotes ‘the commune profitʼ and, in her husband’s absence, defuses angry disputes so effectively that she seems ‘from hevene sentʼ (431, 440). Like Mary ‘alone of all her sexʼ,54 she too must suffer. In An ABC, the petitioner–poet Chaucer draws a veil over Mary’s most extreme suffering. In the Clerk’s Tale, Griselde chooses to provide no external and visible signs of her suffering as her boy-child is taken off, so she assumes, to die: ‘Ladi, thi sorwe kan I not portreye / Under the cros … ’ (ABC 81–2); ‘Grisildis moot (must) al suffre and al consente’ (ClT 537). The Clerk’s Tale, famously confused about its own referentiality, struggles for closure. It is not directed at women, it first proposes, but to ‘every wightʼ (ClT 1145): we might all be Griseldes. But then later it does address women directly, specifically ‘noble wyvesʼ (1183). Anne of Bohemia is not, as in some roman à clef, Griselde. But possibilities of sympathetic identification, open to all, are for her uniquely strong. Brought as an innocent girl, not yet sixteen, to an alien paleys, she is at once empowered as royal consort and, kneeling at her spouse’s feet, immediately subject to his will and whim. She is one of a kind: an emperor’s daughter called upon to imitate Mary as ancilla Dei, obedient to sovereign masculine will (but yet choosing to be so). Such triangulation between the Virgin Mary, an emperor’s daughter, and a Chaucerian protagonist plays out yet more dramatically in the Man of Law’s Tale, in which the protagonist is an emperor’s daughter. The Man of Law’s Tale’s Custance legend was originally composed in Anglo-Norman, c. 1334, as part of a chronicle of world history. Written by the Dominican Nicholas Trevet, it was intended for the royal princess Marie, daughter of Edward I, notionally a nun at Amesbury. Although Constantinople should properly dominate the sixth-century, Islamic-era saga of Custance, Rome is emphatically established as the centre, beginning and end of the Man of Law’s Tale. Loyalty to Rome is accentuated by Chaucer’s Second Nun’s Tale, where ‘good Urban the oldeʼ (SNT 177) heroically loiters among the catacombs. This reference to Pope Urban I might also glance at Urban V, who crowned Anne of Bohemia’s mother empress at Rome, and Urban VI, co-architect of her marriage to Richard II and first Roman pope of the western schism. The Scots sided with France and against Rome in 1378, which perhaps helps further explain the alacrity with which King Alla, Custance’s

53 54

Saul, Richard II, p. 456. Marina Warner, Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and Cult of the Virgin Mary (New York, 1976).

230  David Wallace

English husband, rushes off ‘To Scotlond-ward, his foomen for to sekeʼ (MLT 718), having paused just long enough to impregnate his wife. Custance is designated ‘Emperoures doghterʼ three times across the Man of Law’s Tale, once with the intensifying adjective ‘yongeʼ (MLT 447). The first comes as ‘th’excellent renoun / Of the Emperoures doghterʼ (150–1) is reported to Syrian merchants, who then carry their sighting of her to their ‘Sowdanʼ, or Sultan (177). Roman ships, following in their wake, will twice traverse the eastern Mediterranean before the tale is done, fulfilling the imperial imperative sounded in the first acclamation, by the people of Rome, of the emperor’s daughter: This was the commune voys of every man: ‘Oure Emperour of Rome – God hym see! –    protect A doghter hath that, syn the world bigan,     since To rekene as wel hir goodnesse as beautee, Nas never swich another as is shee.’ (MLT 155–9)

Custance is here acclaimed as alone of all her sex, a woman without peer in the whole history of humanity. ‘The common voysʼ of Rome goes on to list her virtues, which include ‘humblesseʼ, exemplary ‘curteisyeʼ, and a heart that is ‘verray chambre of hoolynesseʼ (165–7). Custance is thus from the start set in comparative relation to Mary, a comparison that she will, at her own moment of maximal agony, deny. The second apostrophe to Custance as emperor’s daughter comes just after the Syrian wedding feast massacre, when she is set adrift in a rudderless boat: O my Custance, ful of benignytee, O Emperoures yonge doghter deere, He that is lord of Fortune be thy steere.     (MLT 446–8)55

rudder, gubernator

Custance’s ‘benignyteeʼ here again suggests kinship with Mary, since this is the key quality associated with Mary at the end of Troilus. It is, in fact, the last word of the poem, which expires with a double Mary citation: ‘For love of mayde and moder thyn benigneʼ (Tr v, 1869). The prayer offered up by Custance as she floats westward in the Man of Law’s Tale (MLT 451–62) is to the ‘hooly croysʼ, identifying her rudderless vessel with the ship of the Church.56 Having left pagan Syria, she crosses the full length of the Mediterranean and then ‘dryveth forth into our occian / Thurghout oure wilde seeʼ (505–6) before beaching in pagan Northumberland. Here she is framed for murder. Chaucer’s Man of Law compares her pallor, her ‘pale faceʼ, to that of 55 56

The exclamation mark at the end of line 448, added by editors, turns serious statement into melodrama – so I have removed it, and a few from stanzas following. See V. A. Kolve, Chaucer and the Imagery of Narrative: The First Five Canterbury Tales (Stanford, 1984), pp. 297–358.



Anne of Bohemia, Chaucer, and the Virgin Mary  231

a prisoner being led to execution, ‘wher as hym gat no graceʼ: a familiar sight, he assumes, for Londoners (645–51). Custance pleads her innocence to ‘Marie … doghter to Seint Anneʼ (641). The Man of Law then accentuates, perorating, the loneliness of an ‘emperor’s daughterʼ far from her friends and family: O queenes, lyvynge in prosperitee, Duchesses, and ye ladyes everichone, Haveth som routhe on hire adversitee!      An Emperoures doghter stant allone;      She hath no wight to whom to make hir mone.   O blood roial, that stondest in this drede, Fer been thy freendes at thy grete nede.     (MLT 652–8)

pity   stands person complaint far away

Saved by divine intervention, and ‘a Britoun bookʼ (666), Custance contracts a royal marriage and gives birth to a boy-child. Things unravel again, and she is sentenced to return to the boat that brought her. And here, ‘knelynge on the strondeʼ (825), a location liminal between wet sea and dry land,57 she launches a ferocious Marian prayer with her eyes upcast ‘into heveneʼ (840). This prayer is spoken as she actively comforts her boy-child – ‘she lulleth it ful fasteʼ (839) – suggesting identification with Mary. The scene not countenanced by An ABC, 58 that of Mary’s greatest agony, is here steadily contemplated:59 ‘Mooder,’ quod she, ‘and mayde bright, Marie, Sooth is that thurgh wommanes eggement     egging on, instigation Mankynde was lorn, and damned ay to dye,    lost For which thy child was on a croys yrent.    torn on a cross Thy blisful eyen sawe al his torment; Thanne is ther no comparison bitwene Thy wo and any wo man may sustene. Thow sawe thy child yslayn bifore thyne yen,   And yet now lyveth my litel child, parfay.    Now, lady bright, to whom alle woful cryen, Thow glorie of wommanhede, thow faire may, Thow haven of refut, brighte sterre of day,    Rewe on my child, that of thy gentillesse     Rewest on every reweful in distresse.’ (MLT 841–54) 57 58

59

 before your eyes  by my faith maid  haven of refuge take pity

See David Wallace, ‘Afterword: Sea, Island, Mudʼ, in The Sea and Englishness, ed. Sebastian I. Sobecki (Cambridge, 2011), pp. 207–18. ‘Ladi, thi sorwe kan I not portreye / Under the crosʼ (81–2; see above, pp. 222–5). The verb kan here, stronger than modern can, implies technical ability and intelligent comprehension. The steadiness of Custance here associates her not with Mary spasimo, swooning at the foot of the cross, but with the clear-eyed Mary, who, said Dominican Thomas de Vio, ‘shared in the passion of her Son not only in her feelings but also in her mindʼ (cited in Rubin, Mother of God, p. 362).

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Through juxtaposing ‘thy childʼ with ‘my childʼ, Custance recognises that her suffering bears ‘no comparisonʼ to that of Mary. The entire tale pivots at this moment of recognition, or divine recognition of human recognition, since what has hitherto been a story developed from Trevet’s world chronicle now becomes, for a crucial passage of the tale, a Marian legend. Mary now becomes protagonist, activating the grace-filled promise of the Ave Maria.60 Custance has a sticky moment when her ship beaches beneath a pagan castle. A lapsed Christian attempts to have his way with her, ‘but blisful Marie heelp hire right anonʼ (920): whereas in Trevet and Gower Custance employs trickery to see off the would-be rapist, in Chaucer he simply falls overboard ‘al sodeynlyʼ (922). When Custance is restored to Rome, Mary is moralised as the agent of happy homecoming: ‘Thus kan Oure Lady bryngen oute of wo / Woful Custance, and many other mo’ (977–8). Once reunited with her father the emperor in Rome, Custance is not keen to return to England: ‘Sende me namoore unto noon hethenesseʼ (MLT 1112). But needs, or affairs of state, must, and poor Custance sails back to Northumberland. Her kingly husband lives for just a year, and so she repatriates back to Rome. Custance’s aventure, as the tale drops finally into romance register, is not said to be over until her final Roman homecoming: To Rome is come this hooly creature, And fyndeth hire freendes hoole and sounde;   healthy Now is she scaped al her aventure. And whan that she hir fader hath yfounde, Doun on hir knees falleth she to grounde; Wepynge for tendrenesse in herte blithe, She heryeth God an hundred thousand sithe.   praises In vertu and in hooly almus-dede They lyven alle, and never asondre wende;   Til deeth departeth hem, thys lif they lede. (MLT 1149–58)

times

depart from one another

The travails of this emperor’s daughter, as directed by the Virgin Mary, thus end with the effective sealing, or reintegration, of the imperial household. Such a denouement was never an option for Anne of Bohemia, for whom such a tale could only be wishful thinking, or (thinking generically) religious romance. But the tale’s insistent recursiveness to Rome does align with that of her mother and father, as emperor and empress, and of England itself after 1378. England was famously designated (and has recently been redesignated)

60

Luther objected to the phrase gratia plena in the Ave Maria since, says Miri Rubin, ‘it suggested too active a role for Mary in generating or containing that graceʼ (Mother of God, p. 367).



Anne of Bohemia, Chaucer, and the Virgin Mary  233

‘Mary’s dowerʼ in the late fourteenth century,61 with the Wilton Diptych as prime exemplar of artistic devotion. An earlier lost altarpiece, in the English College at Rome in the seventeenth century, depicted the Virgin and child as centrepiece, with Richard II and Queen Anne being presented by Saint George, John the Baptist, and two other saints. Richard, according to a manuscript of c. 1606, lifts his eyes to the Virgin, offering her a ‘globe or patterne of Englandʼ; below the panels was the inscription Dos tua, Virgo pia Haec est, quare rege, Maria. [This is your dowry, O holy Virgin, Wherefore O Mary, may you rule over it.]62

Mary should rule in England as she does across the Mediterranean, in the Man of Law’s Tale, in ‘Asyeʼ (in the Prioress’s Tale, 488), and in Rome: both of Chaucer’s nuns’ tales open with elaborate petitions to Mary, and the Prioress grounds her tale in the Little Office of the Virgin. As a young man, Anne of Bohemia’s father, the future Charles IV, experienced a powerful visio on the most important Marian holy day: the Feast of the Assumption. Campaigning in Italy, he spends the night of 15 August 1333 at Terenzo (a village some thirty kilometres south-east of Parma). An angel drags him upward by the hair, ‘to where a great battle array of armed knights w[as] standing before a fortress prepared for battleʼ.63 Another angel strikes a man in the battle line, severing his genitals (‘absidit sibi membrum genitaleʼ). This is punishment ‘propter peccatum luxurieʼ [because of the sin of debauchery], and the man, the angel says, will die. Charles tells his father, John of Luxembourg, but his father is sceptical: ‘noli credere sompnisʼ [do not believe dreams].64 But the man does die, and Charles has much to think about. Some years later, while riding in the Alps, he ponders on the miracle or vision, ‘de miraculo, seu visioneʼ [about the miracle or the vision] that came to him ‘on the day of the Holy Virgin, the Assumption of Mary, when I was in Terenzoʼ.65 He continues:

61

62 63

64 65

England was rededicated as ‘Dowry of Maryʼ on Sunday 29 March 2020, by Vatican decree: https://www.vaticannews.va/en/church/news/2020-03/england-dowry-mary-dedication-richard-walsingham.html As cited in Saul, Richard II, p. 306. Karoli IV Imperatoris Romanorum Vita ab eo ipso conscripta [Autobiography of Emperor Charles IV], ed. Balázs Nagy and Frank Schaer, introd. Ferdinand Seibt (Budapest, 2001), p. 61 (parallel text): ‘usque super magnam aciem armatorum equitum, qui stabant ante unum castrum parati ad preliumʼ (p. 60). Ibid., p. 62. ‘quod in die beate virginis, in assumpcione sancte Marie, in Tharunsoʼ: ibid., pp. 144, 145.

234  David Wallace Et ab eodem tempore concepi ad eius honorem gloriose virginis horas cottidie decantadas in Pragensi ecclesia ordinare, ita ut de ipsius vite gestis et miraculis cottidie nova legenda legerentur. Quod postea factum est. [From that day on I resolved in her honour to institute daily hymns of supplication to the Glorious Virgin in the church of Prague, so that every day a new legend about the deeds and miracles of her life should be read. Afterwards this was done.]66

The ‘church of Pragueʼ here is in fact the new metropolitan cathedral of St Vitus, and Charles’s plan to institute a daily votive office to the Virgin Mary received papal confirmation on 30 April 1344, the same day that the Prague bishopric was upgraded to archbishopric. A Collegium mansionariorum was founded, consisting of two dozen priests and clerics who were also known as speciales ministri Beatae Mariae Virginis. They were tasked, inter alia, with offering intercessional prayers on the tombs of Bohemian kings and queens in the western loft of the cathedral (where Charles himself hoped to be buried). By integrating the matura, the morning votive mass to the Blessed Virgin Mary, into the votive portions of the liturgy at Prague cathedral, Charles made his cathedral a powerful new centre of Marian devotion, one especially dedicated to intercession for kings and queens.67 St Vitus also possessed a relic of Mary’s veil as bloodied at the foot of the cross.68 Anne of Bohemia brought knowledge and experience of this and much more to Westminster, where she would find her spouse (unlike his father, who favoured the Trinity cult) receptive. In 1383, the year after his marriage, Richard visited the shrine of Our Lady at Walsingham. He made further such visits, sometimes with the queen, throughout his reign.69 In 1396 he made an offering to an image of the Virgin at Tewksbury Abbey, where the Virgin was patroness.70 The Wilton Diptych was created at about this time. Anne of Bohemia had died on 7 June 1394, becoming one of those that Richard, as depicted before the Virgin in the diptych, would pray for. When Chaucer visited Anne’s hearse and then, in 1397, her tomb, he had ample opportunity to read the Latin verse eulogies appended there.71 ‘Anglica 66 67

68 69

70 71

Ibid., pp. 144–7 Tomáš Slavický, ‘Czech Rorate Chants, Missa Rorate, and Charles IV’s Foundation of Votive Officium in Prague Cathedralʼ, Hudební věda (Musicology) 55.3–4 (2018), 239–64. A ritual was developed for displaying this peplum cruentatum to pilgrims and visiting persons of rank; see Rubin, Mother of God, p. 248. On 26 March 1387, Richard and Anne were admitted to the confraternity of Lincoln cathedral, site of the shrine of the boy-martyr, Hugh of Lincoln (PrT 684–90). Philippa, but not Geoffrey, Chaucer had become a member of the fraternity, along with Lancastrian luminaries, on 19 February 1386; the patron of this cathedral was the Virgin. Saul, Richard II, p. 307. Michael Van Dussen, ‘Three Verse Eulogies of Anne of Bohemiaʼ, Medium Ævum 78 (2009), 231–60.



Anne of Bohemia, Chaucer, and the Virgin Mary  235

reginaʼ [English queen] announces itself as ‘Epitaphium de Anna Regina Anglie filia Imperatoris Karoli de Boemiaʼ [Epitaph of Anne Queen of England, daughter of the Emperor Charles of Bohemia], and soon characterises Anne as ‘inclita filia cezaris et pia coniuga regisʼ [illustrious daughter of Caesar and devoted spouse of the king]. The line just above expressing the bare facts of her life, now ended, intuits disasters to come: ‘Dum vixit domina, fuit Anglis nulla ruina.’ [While this lady lived, no ruin befell the English.] This epitaph and the next, ‘Femina famosaʼ [Famous Woman], and also the inscription on her Westminster tomb, recall Anne’s habit of visiting and comforting pregnant women. Such activity connects her with her name-saint, St Anne, patron of pregnant women, while also exposing the awkwardness of her having left no child of her own.72 While alive, Anne, like Mary, could kneel as mediatrix between ‘usʼ and divine or god-like authority. Now dead (and all three eulogies end with this emphasis), she needs our prayers. In reading the third epitaph, ‘Nobis natura floremʼ [Nature brought forth a flower for us], Chaucer could relive his own past history, the high-water mark of his own diplomatic career. In a strange break from eulogistic into narrative mode, ‘Nobis natura floremʼ describes how King Richard ‘was an illustrious king and lacked a wifeʼ (34). A consilio or council of nobles resolves to find ‘a suitable maiden … lest he go to wasteʼ (35–6). And so, following this scene reminiscent of the Clerk’s Tale’s opening, albeit from a Lords, not Commons, perspective, a European diplomatic initiative is launched ‘so that the king may be a husbandʼ (38): ‘Sponse sunt vise variae varios deceantque / Reges, sed nostro traditur Anna placens.’ [Various spouses are seen which would befit various kings, / But Anne, pleasing, is bequeathed to ours] (39–40). Chaucer, we have seen, had returned to Westminster as part of this initiative with first-hand tydynges, and sightings, of a potential bride: Caterina Visconti. But evolving politics, putting England firmly in the Roman, papal and imperial camp, led to a quite different choice of sponsa. With some ground to make up, Chaucer sutures the ‘emperoures doghterʼ into his poetry. The Legend of Good Women represents his most intensive effort here, figuring Anne as ‘the good Alceste / The dayesieʼ (LGW F518–19) and making her the work’s dedicatee (F496–7).73 But as ‘Nobis natura floremʼ makes clear, from the very start, all has changed: Nobis natura florem produxit ad ortum, Qui modo in mort marcidus ecce cadit. Floruit in regno quod dicitur esse Boemum. Flos campi de quo scribimus Anna fuit.

72 73

Ibid., 243. On the complex genealogy of Chaucer’s Alceste, going back to the self-sacrificing Greek queen Alcestis, see Chaucer’s Dream Poetry, ed. Helen Phillips and Nick Havely (London, 1997), pp. 283–6.

236  David Wallace [Nature brought forth a flower for us, Which now, behold, falls withered in death. It flowered in the kingdom which is said to be Bohemia. The flower of the field of which we write was Anna.ʼ] (1–4)

‘Anna fuitʼ: her deadness here is definitive, recalling the very first words spoken to Dante by Virgil: ‘Non omo: omo già fuiʼ [Not a man: I was once a man] in Inferno 1.67. Virgil goes on to say ‘poeta fuiʼ: but not now (1.73). The poem commissioned for presentation to the queen ‘at Eltham or at Sheeneʼ (LGW F496–7) is now homeless, since ‘the queneʼ is dead and the king has destroyed the manor house at Sheen, where she died.74 Destruction of fabric extends to Cambridge, University Library, MS Gg 4.27, where the ‘quene / Sheeneʼ couplet is excised, along with characterisation of the daisy as ‘of alle floures floureʼ (F53) and as ‘empericeʼ (F185); so too thoughts of ‘my lady sovereyneʼ (F275).75 MS Gg 4.27, however, contains both An ABC and the Man of Law’s Tale,76 and it is perhaps through this particular Canterbury tale that Anne of Bohemia’s inspirational legacy as ‘emperour’s doghterʼ lives on. This poem sees an ‘emperour’s daughterʼ, possessed of many Mary-like traits, actually cede her role as protagonist for a crucial stretch of the poem: the stanzas that end with her restoration to Rome. Her key insight, itself the cue for Mary becoming protagonist, is that there can be ‘no comparisonʼ between herself and Mary (MLT 846). And the brute summary logic of ‘Anna fuitʼ in ‘Nobis natura floremʼ confirms this: once dead, Anne cannot help us, but needs our help. Her father, Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, dates the ‘miracle or visionʼ of his own Marian conversion to 15 August, the holy day that sees Mary assumed bodily into heaven. So where Anne’s body rots, in her Westminster tomb, Mary reigns. Just after the first citation of Custance as ‘Emperour’s doghterʼ (MLT 151) we find her acclaimed by vox populi Romani, ‘the commune voys of every man’ (155) in terms again inviting comparison with Mary. She is alone of all her sex: ‘syn the world bigan … nas never swich another as is sheeʼ (157–9). Like Mary, she possesses that perfect humility evoked by the first half of the Ave Maria. Like Mary also, as articulated by that prayer’s second half, her rule is remote, from on high, imperial. Or at least ‘the commune voysʼ, speaking aspirationally, would like it so to be: ‘I prey to God in honour hire susteene, / And wolde she were of al Europe the queene’ (160–1). Richard Hakluyt, two centuries later, would light upon Chaucer as a ‘cunning Cosmographerʼ, pointing the way for English expansion across 74 75 76

This according to the Evesham chronicler; see Saul, Richard II, p. 456. For details of these and other cuts, and their implications, see Wallace, Chaucerian Polity, pp. 373–5. Gg 4.27 presents the Canterbury Tales in ‘Ellesmere orderʼ: see Ralph Hanna in Riverside Chaucer, p. 1121.



Anne of Bohemia, Chaucer, and the Virgin Mary  237

the Mediterranean. Hakluyt singles out Chaucer’s Knight for his trail-blazing travels, but he might have turned to Custance, an itinerant English queen. He did not, of course, because England was no longer cathected with Rome, or identified (except by Catholics, underground) as ‘Mary’s dowerʼ. And because another English queen had assumed the iconography of Mary: not just her virginity, but her globe-spanning or globe-palming reach.78 That subjunctive acclamation of Chaucer’s immaculate daughter by ‘the commune voysʼ, so enigmatic, reads both as failed hope, following the Syrian massacre, and the germ of future imperial possibility. 77

77 78

Wallace, Premodern Places, p. 120. As in the ‘Armada portraitsʼ, in which Elizabeth lays her right hand on the globe. For the Woburn Abbey exemplar, see https://www.woburnabbey.co.uk/abbey/art-and-thecollection/the-armada-portrait/.

General Bibliography Adler, Michael. The Jews of Medieval Britain (London, 1939). Agapitos, Panagiotis A. and Lars Boje Mortensen (eds). Medieval Narratives between History and Fiction: From the Centre to the Periphery of Europe, c. 1100–1400 (Copenhagen, 2012). Alexander, J. J. G. ‘Painting and Manuscript Illumination for Royal Patrons in the Later Middle Ages’, in English Court Culture in the Later Middle Ages, ed. V. J. Scattergood and J. W. Sherborne (London, 1983), pp. 141–62. _________. ‘The Portrait of Richard II in Westminster Abbey’, in Regal Image of Richard II, ed. Dillian Gordon, Lisa Monnas and Caroline Elam (London, 1997), pp. 197–206. Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy, trans. and with a commentary by Charles S. Singleton, 3 vols (Princeton, 1975). Allen, Hope Emily. Writings Ascribed to Richard Rolle, Hermit of Hampole, and Materials for His Biography (London, 1927). Allweier, Nina. Griseldis – Korrektur, Liebe und Ehe in der Grisardis des Erhart Gross von 1432 (Freiburg im Breisgau, 2012). Ambrisco, Alan and Paul Strohm. ‘Succession and Sovereignty in Lydgate’s Prologue to The Troy Book’, Chaucer Review 30 (1995), 40–57. Andrew, Malcolm and Ronald Waldron (eds). The Poems of the Pearl Manuscript (London, 1979). Andrews, Frances. The Other Friars: The Carmelite, Augustinian Sack and Pied Friars in the Middle Ages (Woodbridge, 2006). Anstis, John. The Register of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, 2 vols (London, 1724). Antonín, Richard. The Ideal Ruler in Medieval Bohemia (Leiden, 2017). Appuhn, Horst (ed.). Wenzelsbibel: König Wenzels Prachthandschrift der deutschen Bibel (Dortmund, 1990). Arnould, E. J. F. The Melos Amoris of Richard Rolle of Hampole (Oxford, 1957). Astell, Ann W. Political Allegory in Late Medieval England (Ithaca, NY, 1999). Avril, François. La Passion des manuscrits enluminés: bibliophiles français 1280–1580 (Paris, 1991). Ayers, Tim. https://www.virtualststephens.org.uk/welcome (forthcoming). Ayo, Nicholas. The Hail Mary: A Verbal Icon of Mary (Notre Dame, 1994). Baboučková, Ivana and Jaroslav Boubín. ‘Nejstarší český cestopis’, in Hledání nové Evropy: Projekt krále Jiřího, ed. Jaroslav Boubín et al. (Praha, 2015), pp. 195–242. Backhouse, Janet. ‘Charter of Richard II to Shrewsburyʼ, in The Age of Chivalry: Art in Plantagenet England 1200–1400, ed. J. J. G. Alexander and Paul Binski (London, 1987), cat. no. 716, p. 520. Bakhtin, Mikhail Mikhailovich. Rabelais and his World (Bloomington, 1941).

240  General Bibliography Baletka, Tomáš. ‘Rytířská kultura a recepce dvorské epiky na Moravě ve 14. a 15. století’, in Ad vitam et honorem: Profesoru Jaroslavu Mezníkovi přátelé a žáci k pětasedmdesátým narozeninám, ed. Tomáš Borovský, Libor Jan and Martin Wihoda (Brno, 2003), pp. 491–6. Bárány, Attila. ‘Anglo-Luxembourg Relations during the Reign of Emperor Sigismund’, in Sigismund von Luxemburg: Ein Kaiser in Europa, ed. Michel Pauly and Francois Reinert (Mainz am Rhein, 2006), pp. 43–59. Barber, Richard. Edward III and the Triumph of England (London, 2013). Barron, Caroline M. and Marie Hélène Rousseau. ‘Cathedral, City and State, 1300–1540’, in St Paul’s: The Cathedral Church of London 604–2004, ed. Derek Keene, Arthur Burns and Andrew Saint (New Haven, 2004), pp. 33–44. Bartoniek, Emma. Codices manu scripti latini. I. Codices latini medii aevi. A Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum Országos Széchényi Könyvtárának címjegyzéke 12 (Budapest, 1940). Bartoš, František Michálek. ‘Z dávných styků našich s Anglií’, Časopis Musea Království českého 93 (1919), 203–5. _________ (ed.). Autograf M. J. Husi (Praha, 1954). Baschi, Charles de, Marquis d’Aubais and Léon Ménard (eds). ‘Itinéraire des Rois de France depuis et compris Louis VII. jusqu’à Louis XIV., inclusivement’, Pièces fugitives, pour servir à l’histoire de France, avec des notes historiques et géographiques, I/1 (Paris, 1759), pp. 75(595)–165(685). Baswell, Christopher. ‘Troy Book: How Lydgate Translates Chaucer into Latin’, in Translation Theory and Practice in the Middle Ages, ed. Jeanette Beer, Studies in Medieval Culture 38 (Kalamazoo, 1997), pp. 215–37. Baumgartner, Emmanuèle. ‘Tombeaux pour guerriers et amazones: sur un motif descriptif de l’Énéas et du Roman de Troie’, in Contemporary Readings of Medieval Literature, ed. G. Mermier (Ann Arbor, 1989), pp. 37–50. Bayless, Martha. Parody in the Middle Ages: The Latin Tradition (Ann Arbor, 1996). _________. Fifteen Medieval Latin Parodies (Toronto, 2018). Bayley, Charles Calvert. ‘Petrarch, Charles IV, and the “Renovatio Imperii”ʼ, Speculum 17 (1942), 323–41. Bažant, Vojtěch. ‘Příběhy stadického krále: Několik pohledů na jednu událost’, in Středověký kaleidoskop pro muže s hůlkou: Věnováno Františku Šmahelovi k životnímu jubileu, ed. Eva Doležalová and Petr Sommer (Praha, 2016), pp. 13–25. Bell, Susan Groag. ‘Medieval Women Book Owners: Arbiters of Lay Piety and Ambassadors of Culture’, Signs 7 (1982), 742–68. Beltz, George Frederick. Memorials of the Most Noble Order of the Garter (London, 1841). Bennett, Judith M. Ale, Beer and Brewsters in England: Women’s Work in a Changing World (Oxford, 1996). Bennett, Michael. Richard II and the Revolution of 1399 (Stroud, 1999). _________. ‘Richard II, Henry Yevele and a New Royal Mansion on the Thames’, Antiquaries Journal 82 (2002), 343–9. _________. ‘Honi soit qui mal y pense: Adultery and Anxieties about Paternity in Late Medieval England’, in The Medieval Python: The Purposive and Provocative Work of Terry Jones, ed. R. F. Yeager and Toshiyuki Takamiya (New York, 2012), pp. 119–35.

General Bibliography  241 _________. ‘Gower, Richard II and Henry IV’, in Historians on Gower, ed. S. H. Rigby, with S. Echard (Cambridge, 2019), pp. 425–88. _________. ‘Richard II in the Mirror of Christendom’, in Ruling Fourteenth-Century England: Essays in Honour of Christopher Given-Wilson, ed. R. Ambühl, J. Bothwell and L. Tompkins (Woodbridge, 2019), pp. 263–88. Benoît de Sainte-Maure. Le Roman de Troie par Benoît de Sainte-Maure, ed. Léopold Constans, 6 vols (Paris, 1904–12). _________. The Roman de Troie by Benoît de Sainte-Maure, trans. Glyn S. Burgess and Douglas Kelly (Cambridge, 2017). Benson, C. David. ‘Critic and Poet: What Lydgate and Henryson Did to Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde’, Modern Language Quarterly 53 (1992), 23–40. Bergen, Henry (ed.). Lydgate’s Fall of Princes, EETS es 121–3 (1924). Bernau, Anke. ‘Bruno Latour and the Loving Assumption of [REL]ʼ, Romanic Review 111.1 (May 2020), 151–72. Biggs, Douglas L. ‘Patronage, Preference and Survival: The Life of Lady Margaret Sarnsfield, c. 1381–c. 1444’, in The Ties that Bind: Essays in Medieval British History in Honor of Barbara Hanawalt, ed. Linda E. Mitchell, Katherine L. French and Douglas L. Biggs (Farnham, 2010), pp. 143–58. Biggs, Frederick M. Chaucerʼs Decameron and the Origin of the Canterbury Tales (Cambridge, 2017). Binková, Simona and Josef Polišenský (eds). Česká touha cestovatelská: Cestopisy, deníky a listy ze 17. století (Praha, 1989). Binski, Paul. Westminster Abbey and the Plantagenets: Kingship and the Representation of Power (New Haven, 1995). _________. ‘The Liber Regalis: Its Date and European Context’, in The Regal Image of Richard II and the Wilton Diptych, ed. Dillian Gordon, Lisa Monnas and Caroline Elam (London 1997), pp. 233–46. Blacker, Jean. ‘Anglo-Norman and Continental French Reception of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Corpus from the 12th to the 15th Centuriesʼ, in A Companion to Geoffrey of Monmouth, ed. Joshua Byron-Smith and Georgia Henley (Leiden, 2020), pp. 454–66. Bláhová, Marie. Staročeská kronika tak řečeného Dalimila v kontextu středověké historiografie latinského kulturního okruhu a její pramenná hodnota, vol. 3: Historický komentář (Praha, 1995). _________. ‘Edmont de Dynter – diplomat a historik: Diplomatická cesta vyslanců vévody Antonína Brabantského ke dvoru Václava IV. na podzim roku 1412’, in Kapitoly z obecných dějin: Panu profesorovi s láskou…, ed. Martin Kovář and Václav Drška (Praha, 2014), pp. 42–59. _________. ‘Svatba Alžběty Zhořelecké s Antonínem Brabantským’, Historie – Otázky – Problémy 7 (2015), 32–45. Bláhová, Marie and Alena Linhartová. ‘The Genealogy of the Czech Luxembourgs in Contemporary Historiography and Political Propaganda’, The Medieval Chronicle 9 (2014), 1–32. Blamires, Alcuin. The Case of Women in Medieval Culture (London, 1998). Bobková, Lenka. ‘Smělý cíl, malý úspěch: Jošt Moravský a markrabství bra­ niborskéʼ, in Morava v časech markraběte Jošta, ed. Libor Jan et al. (Brno, 2012), pp. 59–80. Boccaccio, Giovanni. Decameron, trans. J. G. Nichols (Reading, 2008).

242  General Bibliography Boehm, Barbara Drake and Jiří Fajt (eds). Prague: The Crown of Bohemia 1347– 1437 (New Haven, 2005). Bologne, Jean Claude. Svatby: Dějiny svatebních obřadů na Západě, trans. Barbora Chvojková [from the French original Historie du mariage en Occident] (Praha, 1997). Borchardt, Frank L. ‘Petrarch: The German Connectionʼ, in Francis Petrarch, Six Centuries Later, ed. A. Scaglione (Chapel Hill, 1975), pp. 418–31. Borsa, Paolo, Christian Høgel, Lars Boje Mortensen and Elizabeth Tyler. ‘What Is Medieval European Literature?ʼ Interfaces: A Journal of Medieval European Literatures 1 (2015), 7–24. Bowers, John M. (ed.). The Canterbury Tales: Fifteenth-Century Continuations and Additions (Kalamazoo, 1992). _________. The Politics of Pearl: Court Poetry in the Age of Richard II (Cambridge, 2000). Bradley, John W. Historical Introduction to the Collection of Illuminated Letters and Borders in the National Art Library, Victoria and Albert Museum (London, 1901). Brand, Paul A. The Making of the Common Law (London, 1992). Brauer, Barbara. ‘The Prague Hours and Bohemian Manuscript Painting of the Late 14th Century’, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 52 (1989), 499–521. Bridges, Venetia. ‘“L’estoire d’Alixandre vos veul par vers traitier […]”: Passions and Polemics in Latin and Vernacular Alexander Literature of the Later Twelfth Century’, Nottingham Medieval Studies 58 (2014), 87–113. _________. Medieval Narratives of Alexander the Great: Transnational Texts in England and France (Cambridge, 2018). Brie, Friedrich W. D. (ed.). The Brut, or The Chronicles of England, EETS os 131 (1880). Brindle, Steven, ‘Windsor Castle: The 1992 Fire, the Restoration, Archaeology and History’, in Windsor: Medieval Archaeology, Art and Architecture of the Thames Valley, ed. Laurence Keen and Eileen Scarff (Leeds, 2002), pp. 110– 24. Brodský, Pavel. Katalog iluminovaných rukopisů Knihovny Národního muzea v Praze (Prague, 2000). Brodský, Pavel, Kateřina Spurná and Marta Vaculínová (eds). Liber Viaticus Jana ze Středy, 2 vols (Prague, 2016). Brook, George L. and Roy F. Leslie (eds). Layamon: Brut, EETS os 250, 277 (1963, 1978). Brooks, Neil C. The Sepulchre of Christ in Art and Liturgy: With Special Reference to the Liturgic Drama (Urbana, 1921). Brown, Peter. ‘Journeyʼs End: The Prologue to The Tale of Berynʼ, in Chaucer and Fifteenth-Century Poetry, ed. Julia Boffey and Janet Cowen (London, 1991), pp. 141–74. _________. Geoffrey Chaucer (Oxford, 2011). _________. ‘Canterbury’, in Europe: A Literary History, 1348–1418, ed. David Wallace, 2 vols (Oxford, 2016), i, pp. 191–207. _________. (ed.). A New Companion to Chaucer (Oxford, 2019). _________. ‘Chaucer’s Travels for the Court’, in The Oxford Handbook of Chaucer, ed. Suzanne Conklin Akbari and James Simpson (Oxford, 2020), pp. 11–25.



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Brown, Richard. ‘The Archaeology of the Upper Ward Quadrangle and the Evidence for the Round Table Buildings’, in Edward III’s Round Table at Windsor: The House of the Round Table and the Windsor Festival of 1344, ed. Julian Munby, Richard Barber and Richard Brown (Woodbridge, 2007), pp. 60–5 and Appendix A, pp. 155–77. Bull, Marcus. ‘Eyewitness and Medieval Historical Narrativeʼ, The Medieval Chronicle 11 (2017), 1–22. Burdová, Pavla. ‘Úřad desek zemských’, Sborník archivních prací 36 (1986), 273–81. Burrow, John. ‘The Tale of Beryn: An Appreciationʼ, Chaucer Review 49 (2015), 499–511. Bute, Marquess of. ‘Notice of a Manuscript of the Latter Part of the Fourteenth Century, entitled Passio Scotorum perjuratorumʼ, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, new series 7 (1885), 166–92. Butterfield, Ardis. The Familiar Enemy: Chaucer, Language, and Nation in the Hundred Years War (Oxford, 2009). Calendar of Close Rolls, 1381–85 (London, 1920). Calendar of Close Rolls, 1385–89 (London, 1921). Calendar of Close Rolls, 1389–92 (London, 1922). Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1381–85 (London, 1897). Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1385–89 (London, 1900). Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1388–92 (London, 1902). Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1391–96 (London, 1905). Calendar of Patent Rolls: Richard II, VI, 1396–99 (London, 1906). Calendar of Select Pleas and Memoranda Rolls of the City of London, 1381– 1412, ed. A. H. Thomas (Cambridge, 1932). Cannon, Christopher. From Literacy to Literature: England, 1300–1400 (Oxford, 2016). Carey, Hilary M. Courting Disaster: Astrology at the English Court and University in the Later Middle Ages (New York, 1992). Chadimová, Jana. ‘Bibliofilství litoměřického biskupa hraběte Emanuela Arnošta Valdštejna (1716–1789) a jeho knihovna’, in Sborník k 80. narozeninám Mirjam Bohatcové, ed. Anežka Baďurová (Praha, 1999), pp. 69–91. Chaucer, Geoffrey. ‘Troilus and Criseyde’: A New Edition of ‘The Book of Troilus’, ed. B. A. Windeatt (London, 1984). _________. The Riverside Chaucer, gen. ed. Larry D. Benson, 3rd edn (Oxford, 1988). Chrétien de Troyes. Cligès, ed. Claude Luttrell and Stewart Gregory (Cambridge, 1993). Clarke, Kenneth P. Chaucer and Italian Textuality (Oxford, 2011). Clarke, Maude Violet. Fourteenth-Century Studies (Oxford, 1927). Clarke, Maude Violet and Vivian Hunter Galbraith. ‘The Deposition of Richard II’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 14 (1930), 125–81. Collard, Judith. ‘Flores historiarum Manuscripts: The Illumination of a Late Thirteenth-Century Chronicle Seriesʼ, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 71 (2008), 441–66. Collette, Carolyn P. Performing Polity: Woman and Agency in the Anglo-French Tradition, 1385–1620 (Turnhout, 2006). _________. Rethinking Chaucer’s Legend of Good Women (York, 2014).

244  General Bibliography Collins, Hugh E. L. The Order of the Garter, 1348–1461: Chivalry and Politics in Late Medieval England (Oxford, 2000). Coppenolle, Hélène van (trans.). Passio Francorum secundum Flemingos (Antwerp, 1944). Cragoe, Carol Davidson. ‘Fabric, Tombs and Precinct 1087–1540’, in St Paulʼs: The Cathedral Church of London 604–2004, ed. Derek Keene, Arthur Burns and Andrew Saint (New Haven, 2004), 127–42. Cronia, Arturo. Inchiesta petrarchesca in Cecoslovacchia. Contributi bibliografici, L’Europa orientale III–IV, 1935, no. 35, 164–79. _________. Boccaccio v čes. písemnictví (Praha, 1949). Crossley, Paul and Zoe Opačić, ‘Prague as a New Capital’, in Prague: The Crown of Bohemia, 1347–1437, ed. B. Drake Boehm and J. Fajt (New York, 2005). Crow, Martin M. and Clair C. Olson (eds). Chaucer Life-Records (Oxford, 1966). Curtis, William. A Short History and Description of the Town of Alton in the County of Southampton (Winchester, 1896). Danbury, Elizabeth. ‘The Decoration and Illumination of Royal Charters in England 1250–1509: An Introduction’, in England and her Neighbours 1066– 1453: Essays in Honour of Pierre Chaplais, ed. Michael Jones and Malcolm Vale (London, 1989), pp. 157–79. Daňhelka, Jiří (ed.). Kronika trojánská (Praha, 1951). Daňhelka, Jiří, Karel Hádek, Bohuslav Havránek and Naděžda Kvítková (eds). Staročeská kronika tak řečeného Dalimila, 2 vols (Praha, 1988). Darjes, Bradley and Thomas Rendall. ‘A Fabliau in the Prologue to the Tale of Berynʼ, Mediaeval Studies 47 (1985), 416–31. Davies, Richard G. ‘Prague as a New Capital’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online). de Mézières, Philippe. Letter to Richard II: A Plea Made in 1395 for Peace between England and France, ed. and trans. G. W. Coopland (Liverpool, 1975). De Smet, Jozef Maria. ‘Passio Francorum secundum Flemyngosʼ, De Leiegouw 19 (1977), 289–319. de Visser-van Terwisga, Marijke (ed.). Histoire Ancienne jusquʼà César (Estoires Roger), 2 vols (Orléans, 1999). de Winter, Patrick M. La Bibliothèque de Philippe le Hardi, duc de Bourgogne (1364–1404): étude sur les manuscrits à peintures d‘une collection princière à l‘époque du ‘style gothique international’ (Paris, 1985). Deanesley, Margaret. The Lollard Bible and Other Medieval Biblical Versions (Cambridge, 1920). Delisle, Léopold. Recherches sur la librairie de Charles V, roi de France, 2 vols (Paris, 1907). Delort, Robert. ‘Quelques précisions sur le commerce des esclaves à Gênes vers la fin du XIVe siècleʼ, Mélanges dʼarchéologie et dʼhistoire. École Français de Rome 78 (1966), 215–50. Dennison, Lynda. ‘The Fitzwarin Psalter and Its Allies: A Reappraisal’, in England in the Fourteenth Century: Proceedings of the 1985 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. W. Mark Ormrod (Woodbridge, 1986), pp. 42–66. _________. ‘The Stylistic Sources, Dating and Development of the Bohun Workshop 1340–1400’, PhD thesis, Queen Mary, University of London, 1988.



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Deschamps, Eustache. Selected Poems, ed. Ian S. Laurie and Deborah M. Sinn­ reich-Levi, trans. David Curzon and Jeffrey Fiskin (New York, 2003). Desmond, Marilynn, ‘Trojan Itineraries and the Matter of Troy’, in The Oxford History of Classical Reception, vol. 1: 800–1558, ed. Rita Copeland (Oxford, 2016), pp. 252–68. Dictys of Crete. The Trojan War: The Chronicles of Dictys of Crete and Dares the Phrygian, trans. R. M. Frazer, Jr (Bloomington, 1966). Dienstbier, Jan and Ondřej Faktor. ‘Obrázky z pekla. Souvislosti několika vyobrazení Posledního soudu z počátku 14. stoletíʼ, Umění/Art 63 (2015), 434–57. Dienstbier, Jan, Ondřej Faktor and Jan Royt. ‘Středověké nástěnné malby v suterénu broumovské faryʼ, Průzkumy památek 22/2 (2015), 3–18. Doležalová, Lucie. ‘Passion and Passion: Intertextual Narratives in Late Medieval Bohemia between Typology, History, and Parodyʼ, in Biblical Typology as a Mode of Thinking in Medieval Historiography, ed. Marek Thue Kretschmer (Turnhout, 2014), pp. 245–65. _________. ‘The Passion of the Robbers of Šlapanice according to Bartoš, the Executioner of Brno: Between History and Parodyʼ, Graeco-latina Brunensia 26:1 (2021), 37–51. Domasłowski, Jerzy et al. Gotyckie malarstwo ścienne w Polsce (Poznań, 1984). Donavin, Giorgiana. Scribat Mater: Mary and the Language Arts in the Literature of Medieval England (Washington, 2011). Dostál, Emanuel. Příspěvky k dějinám českého iluminátorského umění na sklonku XIV. století (Brno, 1928). Doyle, Anthony Ian. ‘Carthusian Participation in the Movement of Works of Richard Rolle between England and Other Parts of Europe in the 14th and 15th Centuries’, Analecta Cartusiana 55 (1981), 109–20. Doyle, Anthony Ian and Ralph Hanna. Hope Allen’s Writings Ascribed to Richard Rolle: A Corrected List of Copies (Turnhout, 2019). Dragoun, Michal, Adéla Ebersonová and Lucie Doležalová. Středověké knihovny augustiniánských kanovníků v Třeboni a Borovanech. I. Rukopisy a inkunábule (Praha, 2021). Dvořák, Max. ‘Die Illuminatoren des Johann von Neumarktʼ, Jahrbuch der kunst­ historischen Sammlungen des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses 22 (1901), 35–126. Dvořáková, Vlasta, Josef Krása and Karel Stejskal. Středověká nástěnná malba na Slovensku (Praha, 1978). Dyce, Alexander (ed.). The Poetical Works of John Skelton, i (Boston 1864). Dymock, Roger. Determinationes, Cambridge, Trinity Hall MS 17, c. 1395, fol. 1r. https://www.trinhall.cam.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/trh_17_f_1r.jpg. Eberle, Patricia J. ‘Richard II and the Literary Arts’, in Richard II: The Art of Kingship, ed. Anthony E. Goodman and James L. Gillespie (Oxford, 1999), pp. 231–53. Eckhardt, Caroline D. (ed.). Castlefordʼs Chronicle, or The Boke of Brut, EETS os 305 (1996). Edwards, A. S. G. ‘Lydgate Manuscripts: Some Directions for Future Research’, in Manuscripts and Readers in Fifteenth-Century England: The Literary Implications of Manuscript Study, ed. Derek Pearsall (Cambridge, 1981), pp. 15–26. Emler, Josef (ed.). Fontes rerum Bohemicarum, IV (Praha, 1884).

246  General Bibliography Engel, Pál and Norbert C. Tóth (eds). Itineraria regum et reginarum Hungariae (1382–1438) (Budapest, 2005). Engel, Wilhelm. ‘Passio dominorum. Ein Ausschnitt aus dem Kampf um die Landeskirchenherrschaft und Türkensteuer im spätmittelalterlichen Frankenʼ, Zeitschrift für bayerische Landesgeschichte 16 (1951), 265–316. Eulogium Historiarum sive Temporis, ed. F. S. Haydon, 3 vols (London, 1858– 63). Fajt, Jiří. ‘Charles IV: Toward a New Imperial Style’, in Prague: The Crown of Bohemia 1347–1437, ed. Barbara Drake Boehm and Jiří Fajt (New Haven, 2005), pp. 3–21. Fantysová-Matějková, Jana. Wenceslas de Bohême: un prince au carrefour de l’Europe (Paris, 2013). Federico, Sylvia. New Troy: Fantasies of Empire in the Late Middle Ages (Minneapolis, 2003). Fein, Susanna Greer, David Raybin and Jan Ziolkowski (eds and trans.). The Complete Harley 2253 Manuscript, 3 vols (Kalamazoo, 2014–15). Fiala, Jiří, Marie Sobotková and Jiří Špička. ‘Olomoucká Griseldaʼ, Zprávy Vlastivědného muzea v Olomouci 306 (2013), 55–74. Fiala, Jaroslav. ‘Staré cesty a celnice na Karlovarskuʼ, Historický sborník Karlovarska 4 (1996), 5–27. Field, Richard S. (ed.). The Illustrated Bartsch, German Single Woodcuts before 1500. Vol. 162 Anonymous Artists (.401–.735) (New York, 1989). Finlayson, John. ‘Guido de Columnis’ Historia destructionis Troiae, The ‘Gest Hystorial’ of the Destruction of Troy, and Lydgate’s Troy Book: Translation and the Design of History’, Anglia 113 (1995), 141–62. Fowler, David C. John Trevisa, Authors of the Middle Ages 2 (Aldershot, 1993). French, Robert Dudley. A Chaucer Handbook (New York, 1927). Friedman, J. B. Northern English Books, Owners and Makers in the Late Middle Ages (Syracuse IL, 1995). Froissart, Jean. Chronicles, trans. Geoffrey Brereton, rev. edn (Harmondsworth, 1978). Frońska, Joanna. ‘Liber iudicorumʼ, in Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination, ed. Scott McKendrick, John Lowden and Kathleen Doyle (London, 2011), cat. no. 97, pp. 300–1. Fudge, Thomas A. ‘Jan Hus at Calvary: The Text of an Early Fifteenth-Century Passioʼ, Journal of Moravian History 11 (2011), 45–81. Gaborit-Chopin, Danielle and Daniel Alcouffe (eds). Le trésor de Saint-Denis: Musée du Louvre Paris, 12 mars – 17 juin 1991 (Paris, 1991). Geaman, Kristen L. ‘A Personal Letter Written by Anne of Bohemia’, English Historical Review 128 (2013), 1086–94. _________. ‘Anne of Bohemia and Her Struggle to Conceive’, Social History of Medicine 29 (2016), 224–44. _________. ‘Beyond Good Queen Anne: Anne of Bohemia, Patronage, and Politics’, in Medieval Elite Women and the Exercise of Power, 1100–1400: Moving Beyond the Exceptionalist Debate, ed. Heather J. Tanner (London, 2019), pp. 667–89. Gensler, Marek. ‘Gualteri Burlaei adscriptus tractatus De planetis et eorum virtute’, Studia antyczne i mediewistyczne 37 (2004), 209–14.



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Geoffrey of Monmouth. The History of the Kings of Britain, trans. Lewis Thorpe (London, 1966). Gillespie, James L. ‘Ladies of the Fraternity of Saint George and of the Society of the Garter’, Albion 17 (1985), 258–78. Gilman, Sander L. The Parodic Sermon in European Perspective: Aspects of Liturgical Parody from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century (Wiesbaden, 1974). Given-Wilson, Chris. The Royal Household and the King’s Affinity: Service, Politics and Finance in England 1360–1413 (New Haven, 1986). _________ (ed.). The Chronicle of Adam Usk 1377–1421 (Oxford, 1997). _________. Henry IV (New Haven, 2016). Goll, Jaroslav. ‘Anna Lucemburská, králová anglickáʼ, Lumír 7 (1879), 117–20. Goodall, John. ‘St Stephen’s Chapel, Westminster’, in Westminster II: The Art, Architecture and Archaeology of the Royal Palace, ed. Warwick Rodwell and Tim Tatton-Brown (Leeds, 2015), pp. 111–19. Goodman, Anthony. John of Gaunt: The Exercise of Princely Power in Fourteenth-Century Europe (London, 1992). Goodman, Anthony and James Gillespie (eds). Richard II: The Art of Kingship (New York, 1998). Gordon, Dillian. ‘The Wilton Diptych as an Icon of Kingship’, in Making and Meaning: The Wilton Diptych, ed. Dillian Gordon (London, 1993), pp. 22–58. _________. Making and Meaning: The Wilton Diptych (London, 1993). _________. The Wilton Diptych (New Haven, 2015). Gordon, Dillian, Lisa Monnas and Caroline Elam (eds). The Regal Image of Richard II and the Wilton Diptych (London, 1997). Gransden, Antonia. ‘The Continuations of the Flores historiarum, from 1265– 1327ʼ, Mediaeval Studies 36 (1974), 472–92. _________. Legends, Tradition and History in Medieval England (London, 2010). Graus, František. ‘Několik zpráv z bruselského státního archivu k čes. dějinám z let 1402–13’, Časopis Společnosti přátel starožitností 57 (1949), 107–8. Green, Dennis Howard. The Beginnings of Medieval Romance: Fact and Fiction, 1150–1220 (Cambridge, 2002). Greenway, Diana E. (ed. and trans.). Henry of Huntingdon: Historia Anglorum: The History of the English People (Oxford, 1996). Griffin, Nathaniel Edward. An Introduction to the Study of Medieval Versions of the Story of Troy (Baltimore, 1907). Grigsby, Byron Lee. Pestilence in Medieval and Early Modern English Literature (Abingdon, 2003). Grössinger, Christa. The World Upside-Down: English Misericords (London, 1997). Guido de Columnis. Historia destructionis Troiae, ed. Nathaniel Edward Griffin (Cambridge MA, 1936). _________. Historia destructionis Troiae, trans. Mary Elizabeth Meek (Bloomington, 1974). Guiffrey, Jules. Inventaires de Jean, duc de Berry (1401–1416) (Paris, 1894). Guyon, Catherine. Les Écoliers du Christ: l’ordre canonial du Val des Écoliers, 1201–1539 (Saint-Étienne, 1998). Hall, James. Dictionary of Subjects and Symbols in Art (London, 1992).

248  General Bibliography Hanawalt, Barbara A. Of Good and Ill Repute: Gender and Social Control in Medieval England (Oxford, 1998). Hanna, Ralph (ed.). Uncollected Prose and Verse with Related Northern Texts, EETS os 329 (2007). _________. English Manuscripts of Richard Rolle: A Descriptive Catalogue (Liverpool, 2010). Hanrahan, Michael. ‘“A straunge successour sholde take youre heritage”: The Clerk’s Tale and the Crisis of Ricardian Ruleʼ, The Chaucer Review 35 (2001), 335–50. Harding, Vanessa and Laura Wright (eds). London Bridge: Selected Accounts and Rentals, 1381–1538 (London, 1995). Hardwick, Paul. English Medieval Misericords: The Margins of Meaning (Woodbridge, 2011). Harris, Roland B., Daniel Miles and Thomas Hill. ‘Romanesque Westminster Hall and its Roof’, in Westminster II: The Art, Architecture and Archaeology of the Royal Palace, ed. Warwick Rodwell and Tim Tatton-Brown (Leeds, 2015), pp. 22–71. Harrod, Henry. Report on the Deeds and Records of the Borough of King’s Lynn (King’s Lynn, 1870). Haug, Walter and Burghart Wachinger (eds). Die Passion Christi in Literatur und Kunst des Spätmittelalters (Berlin, 1993). Heger, Hedwig, Ivan Hlaváček, Gerhard Schmidt and Franz Unterkircher. Ausgabe im Originalformat der Codices Vindobonensis 2759–2764 der Öster­ reichischen Nationalbibliothek Wien, 9 vols, (Graz, 1981–91). Hejnic, Josef. Latinská škola v Plzni a její postavení v Čechách (13.–18. století) (Praha, 1979). Henryson, Robert. Testament of Cresseid, ed. D. Fox (London, 1968). Herbert, Jane. ‘The Transformation of Hermitages into Augustinian Priories in Twelfth-Century England’, in Monks, Hermits and the Ascetic Tradition: Papers Read at the 1984 Summer Meeting and the 1985 Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society, ed. W. J. Sheils (Oxford, 1985), pp. 131–45. Heslop, Thomas Alexander. ‘The Norwich Cathedral Passion Altarpiece (“The Despenser Retable”)’, in Norwich: Medieval and Early Modern Art, Architecture and Archaeology, ed. T. A. Heslop and Helen E. Lunnon (Leeds, 2015), pp. 201–15. Himka, John-Paul. Last Judgement Iconography in the Carpathians (Toronto, 2009). Historia Vitae et Regni Ricardi Secundi, ed. G. B. Stow (Philadelphia, 1977). Hlaváček, Ivan. ‘Studie k diplomatice Václava IV.: IV. Itinerář krále Václava IV. (1361–1419)’, Československý časopis historický 10 (1962), 64–94. _________. K organizaci státního správního systému Václava IV.: Dvě studie o jeho itineráři a radě (Praha, 1991). _________. ‘The Luxemburgs and Rupert of the Palatinate, 1347–1410ʼ, in The New Cambridge Medieval History, vi: c. 1300 – c. 1415, ed. Michael Jones (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 551–69. Hlaváčková, Hana. ‘Courtly Body in the Bible of Wenceslas IV’, in Künstlerischer Austausch: Akten des 28. internationalen Kongresses für Kunstgeschichte, ed. Thomas W. Gaehtgens, 2 vols (Berlin, 1993), ii, pp. 371–82.

General Bibliography  249 _________. ‘The Bible of Wenceslas IV in the Context of Court Culture’, in The Regal Image of Richard II, ed. Dillian Gordon, Lisa Monnas and Caroline Elam (London, 1997), pp. 223–31. _________. ‘Czech Hours of the Virginʼ, in Prague: The Crown of Bohemia, ed. Barbara Drake Boehm and Jiří Fajt (New York, 2005), cat. no. 83, pp. 218–19. _________. ‘Pražské iluminátorské dílny doby Karla IV. a jejich stylʼ, in Imago/ Imagines. Výtvarné dílo a proměny jeho funkcí v českých zemích od 10. do první třetiny 16. století, ed. Kateřina Kubínová and Klára Benešovská, 2 vols (Prague, 2020), ii, pp. 540–72. Hledíková, Zdeňka. Svět české středověké církve (Praha, 2010). Hlobil, Ivo and Eduard Petrů. Humanismus a raná renesance na Moravě (Praha, 1992). Hoensch, Jörg K. (ed.). Itinerar König und Kaiser Sigismunds von Luxemburg 1368–1437 (Warendorf, 1995). Höfler, Constantin. ‘Anna von Luxemburg: Kaiser Karls IV. Tochter, König Richards II. Gemahlin, Königin von England, 1382–1394’, Denkschriften der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Classe 20 (1871), pp. 89–240. Hofman, František. ‘Pašije šlapanických loupežníkůʼ, in K poctě Jaroslava Marka: Sborník prací k 70. narozeninám prof. dr. Jaroslava Marka, ed. Lubomír Slezák and Radomír Vlček (Praha, 1996), pp. 149–68. Hofmann, Gustav. ‘K převodu českých měr a vah na metrickou soustavu’, Archivní časopis 27 (1977), 20–6. Holladay, Joan A. Genealogy and the Politics of Representation in the High and Late Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2019). Holý, Martin. ‘Jindřich Michal Hýzrle z Chodů (1575–1665) a jeho poznávací cesta po střední a západní Evropě v letech 1607 až 1608ʼ, in Šlechtic na cestách v 16.–18. století, ed. Jiří Kubeš (Pardubice, 2007), pp. 35–66. _________. ‘“V pěkné a veselé rovině leží, povětří velmi zdravé má”: Evropská města pohledem cestovatelů z českých zemí v 16. a na počátku 17. stoletíʼ, Historická geografie 36 (2010), 7–28. _________. ‘Iter Britannicum: Noble Visitors from the Bohemian Lands and Their Perception of the British Isles in the Second Half of the 16th and early 17th Centuryʼ, Comenius: Journal of Euro-American Civilization 4 (2017), 121–33. Homolka, Jaromír. Studie k počátkům krásného slohu v Čechách: K problematice společenské funkce výtvarného umění v předhusitských Čechách (Prague, 1974). _________. ‘Umělecká výzdoba paláce a menší věže hradu Karlštejnaʼ, in Magister Theodoricus: Dvorní malíř císaře Karla IV. Umělecká výzdoba posvátných prostor hradu Karlštejna, ed. Jiří Fajt (Prague, 1998), pp. 95–154. Hornbeck, J. Patrick II and Michael Van Dussen (eds). Europe after Wyclif (New York, 2017). Howard, Helen and Marie Louise Sauerberg. ‘The Polychromy at Westminster Abbey, 1250–1350’, in Westminster I: The Art, Architecture and Archaeology of the Royal Abbey, ed. Warwick Rodwell and Tim Tatton-Brown (Leeds, 2015), pp. 205–61. Howe, Nicholas. Migration and Mythmaking in Anglo-Saxon England (New Haven, 1989).

250  General Bibliography Hrabák, Josef (ed.). Staročeské drama (Praha, 1950). _________ (ed.). Staročeské satiry Hradeckého rukopisu a Smilovy školy (Praha, 1962). Hrdina, Jan. ‘Braniborské poutní místo Wilsnack a Lucemburkové’, in Korunní země v dějinách českého státu IV: Náboženský život a církevní poměry v zemích koruny české ve 14.–17. století, ed. Lenka Bobková and Jana Konvičná (Praha, 2009), pp. 223–41. Hrdina, Karel (ed.). Commentarius brevis et iucundus itineris atque peregrinationis, pietatis et religionis causa susceptae ab Illustri et Magnifico Domino, Domino Leone, libero barone de Rosmital et Blatna (Pragae, 1951). Hudson, Anne. ‘The Debate on Bible Translation, Oxford 1401’, English Historical Review 90 (1975), 1–18. _________. Lollards and their Books (London, 1985). _________. ‘William Taylor’s 1406 Sermon: A Postscript’, Medium Aevum 64 (1995), 100–6. _________. ‘From Oxford to Prague: The Writings of John Wyclif and his English Followers in Bohemia’, Slavonic and East European Review 75 (1997), 642–57. _________. ‘Peter Pateshull: One-Time Friar and Poet?ʼ, in Interstices: Studies in Middle English and Anglo-Latin Texts in Honour of A. G. Rigg, ed. Richard Firth Green and Linne R. Mooney (Toronto, 2004), pp. 167–83. _________. Studies in the Transmission of Wyclif’s Writings (Aldershot, 2008). _________. (ed.). Two Revisions of Rolle’s English Psalter Commentary and the Related Canticles, 3 vols, EETS os 340, 341 and 343 (2013–14). Ingledew, Francis. ‘The Book of Troy and the Genealogical Construction of History: The Case of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britannie’, Speculum 69 (1994), 665–704. Irvin, Matthew W. ‘The Merchantʼs Tale: Beryn and the London Company of Mercersʼ, Studies in the Age of Chaucer 40 (2018), 113–53. Iwańczak, Wojciech. Po stopách rytířských příběhů: Rytířský ideál v českém písemnictví 14. století (Praha, 2001). Jansen, Virginia. ‘Henry III’s Windsor: Castle-Building and Residences’, in Windsor: Medieval Archaeology, Art and Architecture of the Thames Valley, ed. Laurence Keen and Eileen Scarff (Leeds, 2002), pp. 95–109. Jenkinson, Wilberforce. London Churches before the Great Fire (London, 1917). Jenni, Ulrike and Maria Theisen, Mitteleuropäische Schulen IV. die Hofwerkstätten König Wenzels IV. (ca. 1380–1400). Verzeichnis der illuminierten Handschriften und Inkunabeln der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek, 2 vols (Vienna, 2014). Jiroušková, Lenka. ‘Prague’, in Europe: A Literary History, 1348–1418, ed. David Wallace, 2 vols (Oxford, 2016), ii, pp. 617–51. Jones, Malcolm. The Secret Middle Ages. Discovering the Real Medieval World (Stroud, 2002). Jorgensen, Marie-Louise, Mogens Vedso, Hugo Johannsen et al. Danmarks kirker: HolbækAmt, iv (Copenhagen, 1979). Joseph of Exeter. Ylias, in Werke und Briefe von Joseph Iscanus, ed. Ludwig Gompf (Leiden, 1970). _________. Iliad, trans. A. G. Rigg (Toronto, 2005).



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Joslin, Mary Coker and Carolyn Coker Joslin Watson, The Egerton Genesis (London, 2001). Jung, Marc-René. La Légende de Troie en France au moyen âge: analyse des versions françaises et bibliographie raisonée des manuscrits (Basel, 1996). Kalista, Zdeněk (ed.). Selské čili sousedské hry českého baroka (Praha, 1942). Keene, Derek, Arthur Burns and Andrew Saint (eds). St Paulʼs: The Cathedral Church of London 604–2004 (New Haven, 2004). Kelly, Stephen and Ryan Perry (eds). Devotional Culture in Late Medieval England and Europe: Diverse Imaginations of Christ’s Life (Turnhout, 2014). Kendrick, Laura. ‘Deschamps’ Ballade Praising Chaucer and Its Impact’, Cahiers de recherches médiévales et humanistes/Journal of Medieval and Humanistic Studies 29 (2015), 215–33. Kennedy, Edward Donald. ‘Romancing the Past: A Medieval English Perspectiveʼ, in The Medieval Chronicle: Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on the Medieval Chronicle, ed. Erik Kooper (Amsterdam, 1999), pp. 13–39. Kidd, Peter. ‘Supplement to the Guide to Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Huntington Library’, Huntington Library Quarterly 72: 4 (2009), 1–101. Kightly, Charles. ‘Lollard Knights’, ODNB (online). King, David J. ‘The Panel Paintings and Stained Glass’, in Norwich Cathedral: Church, City, and Diocese, 1096–1996, ed. Ian Atherton, Eric Fernie, Christopher Harper-Bill and Hassell Smith (London, 1996), pp. 410–30. Kintzinger, Martin, Westbindungen im spätmittelalterlichen Europa: Auswärtige Politik zwischen dem Reich, Frankreich, Burgund und England in der Regierungszeit Kaiser Sigmunds (Stuttgart, 2000). Kolár, Jaroslav. Česká zábavná próza 16. století a tzv. knížky lidového čtení (Praha, 1960). Kolve, Verdel A. Chaucer and the Imagery of Narrative: The First Five Canterbury Tales (Stanford, 1984). Kopecký, Milan. ‘O vztahu mezi Trojánskou kronikou a historií o Bryzelděʼ, in Rodné zemi, ed. Rudolf Fukal and Milan Kopecký (Brno, 1958). Kováč, Peter et al. Kristova trnová koruna: Paříž, Sainte-Chapelle a dvorské umění svatého Ludvíka (Praha, 2009). Kraebel, Andrew B. ‘Rolle Reassembled: Book Production, Single-Author Anthologies, and the Making of Bodley 861’, Speculum 94 (2019), 959–1005. Krása, Josef. Die Handschriften König Wenzels IV (Prague, 1971). Krautheimer, Richard. ‘Introduction to an “Iconography of Mediaeval Architecture”’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 5 (1942), 1–33. Křesálková, Jitka. ‘Il tardo Petrarchismo in Boemia e Slovacchiaʼ, Aevum 77 (2003), 673–82. Krishna, Valerie (trans.) The Alliterative Morte Arthure: A New Verse Translation (Lanham, 1983). Křížek, Leonid and Zdirad J. K. Čech. Encyklopedie zbraní a zbroje, 2nd edn (Praha, 1999). Krochalis, Jeanne E. ‘The Books and Reading of Henry V and his Circle’, Chaucer Review 23 (1988), 49–77. Kroesen, Justin E. A. The Sepulchrum Domini through the Ages: Its Form and Function (Leuven, 2000).

252  General Bibliography Kubínová, Kateřina. ‘Spirituality of the Augustinian Canons and the Visual Artsʼ, in Art in the Czech Lands, ed. Taťána Petrasová and Rostislav Švácha (Prague, 2017), pp. 214–16. Kügle, Karl, Ingrid Ciulisová and Václav Žůrek (eds). The Long Luxembourg Century, 1310–1437 (Cambridge, forthcoming). Kuhn, Charles L. ‘Herman Scheerre and English Illumination of the Early Fifteenth Century’, The Art Bulletin 22 (1940), 138–56. Kulli, Rolf Max. Die Ständesatire in den deutschen geistlichen Schauspielen des ausgehenden Mittelalters (Bern, 1966). Lafferty, Maura K. ‘Mapping Human Limitations: The Tomb Ecphrases in Walter of Châtillon’s Alexandreis’, Journal of Medieval Latin 4 (1994), 64–81. Lambert, Bart. ‘“Nostri Fratelli da Londra”: The Lucchese Community in Late Medieval Londonʼ, in Anglo-Italian Cultural Relations in the Later Middle Ages, ed. Helen Fulton and Michele Campopiano (York, 2018), pp. 87–102. Leclercq, Jean. ‘Monks and Hermits in Medieval Love Stories’, Journal of Medieval History 18 (1992), 341–56. Lehmann, Paul. ‘Leidensgeschichte der Franzosen bei Courtraiʼ, in Beispiele zur lateinischen Parodie im Mittelalter, ed. P. Lehmann (München, 1923), pp. 26–30. _________. Die Parodie im Mittelalter (Stuttgart, 1963). Leland, John. De viris illustribus/On Famous Men, ed. and trans. James Carley with Caroline Brett (Toronto, 2010). Lethaby, William Richard. Westminster Abbey and the Kingsʼ Craftsmen: A Study of Mediæval Building (London, 1906). Líbalová, Lenka (ed.). Gabriel Tetzel: Cestovní deník Lva z Rožmitálu a na Blatné 1465–1467 (Olomouc, 2003). Liber Regalis, seu, Ordo consecrandi regem solum. Ordo consecrandi reginam cum rege. Ordo consecrandi reginam solam. Rubrica de regis exequiis. E codice Westmonasteriensi editus (London, 1870). Luard, Henry Richards (ed.). Flores Historiarum, iii: A.D. 1265–A.D. 1326 (Cambridge, 1890). _________ (ed.). Annales Monastici, 2nd edn, ii (Cambridge, 2012). Lumiansky, Robert M. ‘Comedy and Theme in the Chester Harrowing of Hellʼ, in The Chester Mystery Cycle: A Casebook, ed. Kevin J. Harty (New York, 1993), pp. 162–70. Lumiansky, Robert M. and David Mills (eds). The Chester Mystery Cycle, i, EETS ss 3 (1974). Lusignan, Serge. ‘Translatio studii and the Emergence of French as a Language of Letters in the Middle Ages’, New Medieval Literatures 14 (2012), 1–19. Lydgate, John. Lydgate’s Troy Book, AD 1412–20, ed. Henry Bergen, 4 vols, EETS es 97, 103, 106, 126 (1906–35). _________. Troy Book: Selections, ed. Robert R. Edwards (Kalamazoo, 1998). Macaulay, George Campbell (ed.). The Works of John Gower, 4 vols (Oxford, 1899–1902). MacCracken, Henry Noble (ed.). The Minor Poems of John Lydgate, EETS os 192 (London 1934). MacDonald, Alasdair A., Bernhard Ridderbos and Rita Schlusemann (eds). The Broken Body: Passion Devotion in Late-Medieval Culture (Groningen, 1998).



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MacFarlane, Kenneth Bruce. Lancastrian Kings and Lollard Knights (Oxford, 1972). Macháčková, Veronika. ‘Církevní správa v době jagellonské (na základě administrátorských akt)’, Folia Historica Bohemica 9 (1985), 235–90. Machan, Tim William. ‘Chaucer as Translator’, in The Medieval Translator: The Theory and Practice of Translation in the Middle Ages, Papers read at a conference held 20–23 August 1987 at the University of Wales Conference Centre, Gregynog Hall, ed. Roger Ellis with Jocelyn Price, Stephen Medcalf and Peter Meredith (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 55–67. Maidstone, Richard. Concordia (The Reconciliation of Richard II with London), ed. David R. Carlson, trans. A. G. Rigg (Kalamazoo, 2003). Mann, Jill. Chaucer and Medieval Estates Satire (Cambridge, 1973). Mareš, František. ‘Jessko rusticus quadratusʼ, Český časopis historický 9 (1903), 202–3. Mařík, Antonín. ‘Administrátoři a svatovítská kapitula v době poděbradské: Úřad administrátorů pod jednou a jeho představiteléʼ, Sborník archivních prací 51 (2001), 313–58. _________. ‘Svatovítská kapitula za vlády Jiřího z Poděbradʼ, Documenta Pragensia 20 (2002), 25–53. Maříková-Kubková, Jana and Iva Herichová. Archeologický atlas Pražského hradu, Díl I, Katedrála sv. Víta – Vikářská ulice (Praha, 2009). Martin, A. Lynn. Alcohol, Sex, and Gender in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Basingstoke, 2001). Marx, C. William. ‘Middle English Manuscripts of the Brut in the National Library of Walesʼ, The National Library of Wales Journal 27 (1991–92), 377–80. Marzac, Nicole. Richard Rolle de Hampole (1300–1349): vie et œuvres suivies du Tractatus super apocalypsim (Paris, 1968). Matheson, Lister M. The Prose Brut: The Development of a Middle English Chronicle (Tempe, 1998). Mathew, Gervase. The Court of Richard II (London, 1968). McCall, John P. ‘Chaucer and John of Legnanoʼ, Speculum 40 (1965), 484–9. _________. ‘The Writings of John of Legnano with a List of Manuscriptsʼ, Traditio 23 (1967), 415–37. McDonald, Nicola F. ‘Chaucer’s “Legend of Good Women”: Ladies at Court and the Female Author(s)’, Chaucer Review 35 (2000), 22–42. McKendrick, Scott, John Lowden and Kathleen Doyle (eds). Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination (London, 2011). Megyeši, Peter. ‘The Landlady from Hell. The Iconography of the Medieval Wall Paintings in Rimavské Brezovo and Liptovské Sliače’, Ars 54/2 (2021), 170–7. Mensger, Ariane (ed.). Weibsbilder. Eros, Macht, Moral und Tod um 1500 (Basel, 2017). Millar, Eric G. English Illuminated Manuscripts of the XIVth and XVth centuries (Paris, 1928). Miller, Robert P. (ed.). Chaucer: Sources and Backgrounds (New York, 1977). Minnis, Alistair and Alexander Brian Scott with David Wallace. Medieval Literary Theory and Criticism c.1100– 1475: The Commentary Tradition, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1991).

254  General Bibliography Mirot, L. ‘Isabelle de France, reine d’Angleterre: le marriage d’Isabelle et l’entrevue de Charles VI et de Richard II à Ardres’, Revue d’histoire diplomatique, 19 (1905), 63–95. Moll, Richard (ed.). A Heraldic Miscellany: Fifteenth-Century Treatises on Blazon and the Office of Arms in English and Scots (Liverpool, 2018). Mora, Francine. ‘L’Ylias de Joseph d’Exeter: une réaction cléricale au Roman de Troie de Benoît de Saint-Maure’, in Progrès, réaction, décadence dans l’occident médiéval, ed. E. Baumgartner and L. Harf-Lancner (Geneva, 2003), pp. 199–213. Morgan, Philip. ‘Historical Writing in the North-West Midlands and the Chester Annals of 1385–88’, in Fourteenth Century England IX, ed. J. Bothwell and G. Dodd (Woodbridge, 2016), pp. 109– 30. Mueller, Alex. Translating Troy: Provincial Politics in Alliterative Romance (Columbus, 2013). Munby, Julian. ‘Late-14th-Century Reconstruction of Westminster Hall’, in Westminster II: The Art, Architecture and Archaeology of the Royal Palace, ed. Warwick Rodwell and Tim Tatton-Brown (Leeds, 2015), pp. 120–32. Murton, Megan E. Chaucerʼs Prayers: Writing Christian and Pagan Devotion (Cambridge, 2020). Nagy, Balázs and Frank Schaer (eds). Karoli IV Imperatoris Romanorum Vita ab eo ipso conscripta, intr. Ferdinand Seibt (Budapest, 2001). Nechutová, Jana. Caesarius z Heisterbachu: Vyprávění o zázracích: středověký život v zrcadle exempel (Praha, 2009). _________. ‘De non comburendo libros: Stylistické a rétorické prostředky Husovy polemiky’, in Středověký kaleidoskop pro muže s hůlkou: Věnováno Františku Šmahelovi k životnímu jubileu, ed. Eva Doležalová and Petr Sommer (Praha, 2016), pp. 151–61. Neddermeyer, Uwe. Von der Handschrift zum gedruckten Buch: Schriftlichkeit und Leseinteresse im Mittelalter und in der frühen Neuzeit, 2 vols (Wiesbaden, 1998). Nejedlý, Martin. ‘Poezie Eustacha Deschampse jako historický pramen 14. století’, Český časopis historický 96 (1998), 26–71. _________. Středověký mýtus o Meluzíně a rodová pověst Lucemburků (Praha, 2007). _________. ‘Na dobrodružných stezkách: Zvědové pozdního středověku’, Historický obzor 19 (2008), 242–56 [part 1]; Historický obzor 20 (2009) 58–72 [part 2]; 155–75 [part 3]; 242–61 [part 4]. _________. ‘Spisy středověkých cestovatelů jako podnět k “poutím mimo vyšlapané stezky”’, in Guillebert de Lannoy: Cesty a poselstva, ed. Jaroslav Svátek, Martin Nejedlý, Olivier Marin and Pavel Soukup (Praha, 2009), pp. 101–30. _________. ‘Deník panoše Jaroslava o poselstvu z roku 1464 jako historický pramen k plánu protitureckého tažení Jiřího z Poděbrad’, in Křížové výpravy v pozdním středověku: Kapitoly z dějin náboženských konfliktů, ed. Pavel Sou­ kup, Jaroslav Svátek et al. (Praha, 2010), pp. 202–15. _________. ‘Paměti o varanovi “mňoukajícím víc než kočka” a o rubínu svatováclavské koruny, “velikém jako zralá datle”: Zvěd Bertrandon de la Broquière na cestách (sebe)poznání’, Studia mediaevalia Bohemica 2 (2010), 39–73.

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256  General Bibliography Parks, George B. The English Traveler to Italy, i: The Middle Ages (to 1525) (Rome, 1954). Patera, Adolf and Antonín Podlaha. Soupis rukopisů knihovny Metropolitní kapitoly pražské, i (Praha, 1910). _________. Soupis rukopisů knihovny metropolitní kapituly pražské, ii (Praha, 1922). Paterson, Lee. Acts of Recognition: Essays on Medieval Culture (Notre Dame, 2009). Pearsall, Derek. The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer: A Critical Biography (Oxford, 1992). _________. ‘Chaucer and Englishness’, Proceedings of the British Academy 101 (1999), 77–99. Pelán, Jiří. Kapitoly z francouzské a italské literatury (Prague, 2000). Perroy, Édouard. (ed.). The Diplomatic Correspondence of Richard II (London, 1933). _________. L’Angleterre et le Grand Schisme d’Occident: Étude sur la politique religieuse de l’Angleterre sous Richard II, 1378–1399 (Paris, 1933). Petit, Aimé. L’Anachronisme dans les romans antiques (Villeneuve d’Ascq, 1985; repr. Paris, 2002). _________. Naissances du roman: les techniques littéraires dans les romans antiques du XIIe siècle, 2 vols (Paris, 1985). Petit, Ernest. Itinéraires de Philippe le Hardi et de Jean Sans Peur: Ducs de Bourgogne (1363–1419), d’après les comptes de dépenses de leur hôtel (Paris, 1888). Petrarch, Francesco, Letters on Familiar Matters, Vol. 3: Books XVII–XXIV, trans. A. S. Bernardo (New York, 2005). _________. Letters of Old Age, Vol. 2: Books X–XVIII, trans. A. S. Bernardo (New York, 2008). Phillips, Helen. ‘Chaucer and Deguileville: The ABC in Contextʼ, Medium Aevum 62 (1993), 1–19. Philipps, Helen and Nick Havely (eds). Chaucerʼs Dream Poetry (London, 1997). Piur, Paul. Petrarcas “Buch ohne Namen” und die päpstlische Kurie (Halle, 1925). Podavka, Ondřej. Zdeněk Brtnický z Valdštejna: Učený šlechtic a jeho deník z cest (Praha, 2017). Podlaha, Antonín. Series praepositorum, decanorum, archidiaconorum aliorumque praelatorum et canonicorum s. metropolitanae ecclesiae Pragensis a primordiis usque ad praesentia tempora (Praha, 1912). _________. Soupis rukopisů knihovny metropolitní kapitoly pražské, ii (Praha, 1922). _________. Doplňky a opravy k Soupisu rukopisů knihovny metropolitní kapitoly pražské (Praha, 1928). Polívka, Jiří. Dvě povídky v české literatuře XV. stol. (Prague, 1889). Prestwich, Michael. Edward I (New Haven, 1997). Quicke, Fritz. Les Pays-Bas à la veille de la période bourguignonne (1356–1384) (Brussels, 1947). Quinn, William A. ‘Chaucerʼs Problematic Priere: An ABC as Artifact and Critical Issueʼ, Studies in the Age of Chaucer 23 (2001), 109–41.



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258  General Bibliography Rubiés, Joan-Pau. ‘Late Medieval Ambassadors and the Practice of Cross-Cultural Encounters 1250–1450’, in The ‘Book’ of Travels: Genre, Ethnology, and Pilgrimage, 1250–1700, ed. Palmira Brummett (Leiden, 2009), pp. 37–112. Rubin, Miri. Mother of God: A History of the Virgin Mary (New Haven, 2009). Ruddick, Andrea. English Identity and Political Culture in the Fourteenth Century (Cambridge, 2013). Rüegg, Madeline. The Patient Griselda Myth (Berlin, 2019). Russell, Rinaldina (ed.). The Feminist Encyclopedia of Italian Literature (Westport, 1997). Růžek, Vladimír. ‘Družina Bořivoje ze Svinař ve službách Václava IV’, Minulostí Západočeského kraje 25 (1989), 57–90. _________. ‘Říšský a český erbovník Václava IV. a čeští heroldi’, in Lucemburkové: Česká koruna uprostřed Evropy, ed. František Šmahel and Lenka Bobková (Praha, 2012), pp. 447–50. Rychterová, Pavlína. Die Offenbarungen der heiligen Birgitta von Schweden: Eine Untersuchung zur alttschechischen Übersetzung des Thomas von Štítné (um 1330 – um 1409) (Köln, 2004). _________ (ed.). Vidění svaté Brigity Švédské v překladu Tomáše ze Štítného (Praha, 2009). Rymer Thomas. Foedera, Conventiones, Litterae etc., ed. G. Holmes, 20 vols (London, 1704–35). _________ (ed.). Foedera, conventiones, literae, et cujuscunque generis acta publica, inter reges Angliae et alios quosvis imperatores, reges, pontifices, principes, vel communitates, ab ineunte saeculo duodecimo, viz. ab anno 1101. ad nostra usque tempora, habita aut tractata: ex autographis, infra secretiores archivorum regiorum thesaurarias per multa saecula reconditis, fideliter exscripta. (The Hague, 1745). Salter, Elizabeth. English and International: Studies in the Literature, Art and Patronage of Medieval England, ed. Derek Pearsall and Nicolette Zeeman (Cambridge, 1988). Sandler, Lucy Freeman. Gothic Manuscripts 1285–1385, 2 vols (London, 1986). _________. The Lichtenthal Psalter and the Manuscript Patronage of the Bohun Family (London, 2004). _________. Illuminators and Patrons in Fourteenth-Century England: The Psalter and Hours of Humphrey de Bohun and the Manuscripts of the Bohun Family (Toronto, 2014). Sargent, Michael. ‘The Transmission by the English Carthusians of Some Late Medieval Spiritual Writings’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 27 (1976), 225–40. Saul, Nigel. ‘Richard II and the Vocabulary of Kingship’, English Historical Review 110 (1995), 854–77. _________. ‘Anne of Bohemia (1366–94)’, ODNB (online). _________. Richard II (New Haven, 1997). _________. Death, Art, and Memory in Medieval England: The Cobham Family and Their Monuments, 1300–1500 (Oxford, 2001). Saunders, Elfrida. Englische Buchmalerei (Firenze, 1928). Scattergood, Vincent John. ‘Two Medieval Book Lists’, The Library, 5th series, 23 (1968), 236–9.

General Bibliography  259 _________ (ed.). The Works of Sir John Clanvowe: The Boke of Cupide and The Two Ways (Cambridge, 1975). _________. ‘Literary Culture at the Court of Richard II’, in English Court Culture in the Later Middle Ages, ed. Vincent John Scattergood and James W. Sherborne (1983), pp. 29–43. Scattergood, Vincent John and James W. Sherborne (eds). English Court Culture in the Later Middle Ages (London, 1983). Scheifele, Eleanor L. ‘Richard II and the Visual Arts’, in Richard II: The Art of Kingship, ed. Anthony E. Goodman and James L. Gillespie (Oxford, 1999), pp. 255–71. Schilling, Johannes. Passio Doctoris Martini Lutheri: Bibliographie, Texte und Untersuchungen (Gütersloh, 1989). Schirmer, Walter. John Lydgate: A Study in the Culture of the XVth Century, trans. Ann E. Keep (London, 1961). Schmidt, A. V. C. (ed.). William Langland, The Vision of Piers Plowman. A critical edition of the B-text based on Trinity College Cambridge MS B.15.17 (London, 1984). Schmidt, Gerhard. ‘England and the Emergence of a New Figure Style on the Continent during the 1340s’, in England and the Continent in the Middle Ages: Studies in Memory of Andrew Martindale, ed. John Mitchell and Matthew Moran (Stamford, 2000), pp. 129–36. Schomerus, Johann Gerhard. Die Marienkirche von Marienhafen (Norden, 1993). Scott, Kathleen L. Later Gothic Manuscripts 1390–1490, 2 vols (London, 1996). Sedláček, August. Paměti a doklady o staročeských mírách a váhách (Praha 1923). _________. Místopisný slovník historický království českého, reprint (Praha, 1998). Semmel, Rebecca. ‘The Passio Lutheri: Parody as Hagiographyʼ, Journal of English and Germanic Philology 95 (1996), 157–74. Sharon, Hermon. ‘Illuminated Manuscripts of the Court of King Wenceslas IV of Bohemia’, Scriptorium 9 (1955), 115–24. Sharpe, Richard. A Handlist of Latin Writers of Great Britain and Ireland before 1540, with Corrections and Additions (Turnhout, 2001). Short, Ian (ed.). Geffrei Gaimar: Estoire des Engleis: History of the English (Oxford, 2009). Silagiová, Zuzana and František Šmahel (eds). Catalogi librorum vetustissimi Universitatis Pragensis, l, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis 271. Magistri Iohannis Hus Opera Omnia XXXVII B Suppl. II (Turnhout, 2015). Simpson, Amanda. The Connections between English and Bohemian Painting during the Second Half of the Fourteenth Century (New York, 1984). Simpson, James. ‘The Other Book of Troy: Guido delle Colonne’s Historia destructionis Troie in Fourteenth- and Fifteenth-Century England’, Speculum, 73 (1998), 397–423. Šimůnek, Robert. Správní systém šlechtického dominia v pozdně středověkých Čechách: Rožmberská doména 1418–1472 (Praha, 2005). _________. Reprezentace české středověké šlechty (Praha, 2013).

260  General Bibliography Slavický, Tomáš. ‘Czech Rorate Chants, Missa Rorate, and Charles IVʼs Foundation of Votive Officium in Prague Cathedralʼ, Hudební věda (Musicology) 55.3–4 (2018), 239–64. Šmahel, František. ‘Ceny rukopisných knih v Čechách do roku 1500’, Sborník historický 14 (1966), 5–48. _________. ‘Magister Peter Payne: Curriculum vitae eines englischen Nonkonformisten’, in Friedrich Reiser und die ‘waldensisch-hussitische Internationale’ im 15. Jahrhundert, ed. Albert de Lange and Kathrin Utz Tremp (Heidelberg, 2006), pp. 241–60. _________. Cesta Karla IV. do Francie: 1377–1378 (Praha, 2006). _________. Život a dílo Jeronýma Pražského: zpráva o výzkumu (Praha, 2010). _________. The Parisian Summit, 1377–78: Emperor Charles IV and King Charles V of France (Prague, 2014). Smeyers, Maurits and Bert Cardon (eds). Flanders in a European Perspective: Manuscript Illumination around 1400, Flanders and Abroad: Proceedings of the International Colloquium, Leuven (Leuven, 1995). Smith, Trevor Russell. ‘Further Manuscripts of Matthew Paris’ Flores historiarum and Continuationsʼ, Notes and Queries 67 (2020), 6–7. Soukup, Daniel. ‘Kterak Židé mučili Boží tělo – edice a komentářʼ, Česká literatura 5 (2011), 697–712. _________. ‘Latinské a české verse o pražském pogromu roku 1389. Ke dvěma pozapomentým žákovským skladbámʼ, Česká literatura 60 (2012), 711–26. Špička, Jiří. ‘Francesco Petrarca Travelling and Writing to Prague’s Courtʼ, Verbum Analecta Neolatina XII/1 (2010), 27–40 (also available online at http:// www.verbum-analectaneolatina.hu/pdf/12-1-02.pdf). _________. Petrarca: Homo politicus (Praha, 2010). Spiegel, Gabrielle M. Romancing the Past: The Rise of Vernacular Prose Historiography in Thirteenth-Century France (Berkeley, 1993). The St Albans Chronicle: The Chronica Maiora of Thomas Walsingham, ed. John Taylor, Wendy R. Childs and Leslie Watkiss, 2 vols (Oxford, 2003–11). Staley, Lynn. ‘Anne of Bohemia and the Objects of Ricardian Kingship’, in Medieval Women and their Objects, ed. Jenny Adams and Nancy Mason Bradbury (Ann Arbor, 2017), pp. 97–122. _________. Following Chaucer: Offices of the Active Life (Ann Arbor, 2020), pp. 17–56. Šťastný, Radko. ‘Husitský rukopis Dalimilovy kroniky. Jeho autor, pořizovatel a místo vznikuʼ, Česká literatura 27 (1979), 477–87. _________. ‘Rukopis Dalimilovy kroniky z poděbradské doby. Autor, dobové a literární souvislosti, ideové zaměřeníʼ, Česká literatura 28 (1980), 537–51. _________. ‘Cambridgský rukopis Dalimilovy kroniky a doba Karla IV.ʼ, Česká literatura 31 (1983), 385–400. _________. ‘Dalimilovy ideje v husitstvíʼ, Česká literatura 37 (1989), 385–97. Steinová, Eva. ‘Passio Iudeorum pragensium: Kritická edícia Pašijí pražských židovʼ, M.A. thesis, Masarykova univerzita, Brno, 2010. _________. ‘Jews and Christ Interchanged: Discursive Strategies in the Passio Iudeorum Pragensiumʼ, Graeco-latina Brunensia 17 (2012), 93–106. _________. ‘Passio Iudeorum Pragensium: Tatsachen und Fiktionen über das Pogrom im Jahr 1389ʼ, in “Avigdor, Benesch, Gitl” – Juden in Böhmen, Mähren



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262  General Bibliography Szirmai, Janos A. The Archaeology of Medieval Bookbinding (Aldershot, 2001). Taburet-Delahaye, Elisabeth and François Avril (eds). Paris 1400: les arts sous Charles VI (Paris, 2004). Tadra, Ferdinand. Kulturní styky Čech s cizinou až do válek husitských (Praha, 1897). Tatton-Brown, Tim. ‘The Constructional Sequence and Topography of the Chapel and College Buildings at St Georgeʼs’, in St George’s Chapel, Windsor, in the Late Middle Ages, ed. Colin Richmond and Eileen Scarff (Windsor, 2001), pp. 3–38. _________. ‘The Fabric of the Westminster Chapter House: Filling in the Gaps from Salisbury’, in Westminster Abbey Chapter House, ed. Warwick Rodwell and Richard Mortimer (London, 2010), pp. 91–101. Taylor, Andrew. ‘Anne of Bohemia and the Making of Chaucer’, Studies in the Age of Chaucer 19 (1997), 95–119. Thacker, Alan. ‘The Cult of Saints and the Liturgy’, in St Paulʼs: The Cathedral Church of London 604–2004, ed. Derek Keene, Arthur Burns and Andrew Saint (New Haven, 2004), pp. 113–22. Theisen, Maria. History buech reimenweisz. Geschichte, Bildprogramm und Illuminatoren der Willehalm-Trilogie König Wenzels IV. von Böhmen. Öster­ reichische Nationalbibliothek, Ser. n. 2643 (Vienna, 2010). Thomas, Alfred. Anne’s Bohemia: Czech Literature and Society, 1310–1420 (Minneapolis, 1998). _________. ‘King Arthur and his Round Table in the Culture of Medieval Bohemia’, in The Arthur of the Germans: Arthurian Legend in Medieval German and Dutch Literature, ed. William Henry Jackson and Silvia A. Ranawake (Cardiff, 2000), pp. 249–56. _________. A Blessed Shore: England and Bohemia from Chaucer to Shakespeare (Ithaca NY, 2007). _________. ‘Margaret of Teschen’s Czech Prayer: Transnationalism and Female Literacy in the Later Middle Ages’, Huntington Library Quarterly 74: 2 (2011), 309–23. _________. Reading Women in Late Medieval Europe: Anne of Bohemia and Chaucer’s Female Audience (New York, 2015). _________. ‘Bohemia’, in A New Companion to Chaucer, ed. Peter Brown (Oxford, 2019), pp. 71–86. Thomas, Christopher. The Archaeology of Medieval London (Stroud, 2002). Thomas, Marcel and Gerhard Schmidt. Die Bibel des Königs Wenzel (Graz, 1989). Thompson, Edward Maunde (ed.). Chronicon Adae de Usk, A.D. 1377–1421 (London, 1904). Thomson, Williel R. The Latin Writings of John Wyclyf: An Annotated Catalog (Toronto, 1983). Tighe, Robert Richard and James Edward Davis. Annals of Windsor: Being a History of the Castle and Town, with Some Account of Eton, and Places Adjacent, ii (London 1858). Tomek, Wácslaw Wladiwoj. Základy starého místopisu Pražského, I: Staré město Pražské (Praha, 1866). _________. Základy starého místopisu Pražského, II: Nowé město Pražské (Praha, 1870).

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264  General Bibliography van Buren, Anne Hagopian. ‘La bibliothèque de Philippe le Hardi, duc de Bourgogne (1364–1404). Étude sur les manuscrits à peintures d’une collection princière à l’époque du “style gothique international”, by Patrick M. de Winterʼ, Review, Art Bulletin 70 (1988), no. 4, 699–705. Van Dussen, Michael. ‘Three Verse Eulogies of Anne of Bohemia’, Medium Aevum 78 (2009), 231–60. _________. From England to Bohemia: Heresy and Communication in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2012). _________. ‘A Late Medieval Itinerary to England’, Medieval Studies 76 (2014), 275–96. _________. ‘Tourists and Tabulae in Late-Medieval Englandʼ, in Truth and Tales: Cultural Mobility and Medieval Media, ed. Fiona Somerset and Nicholas Watson (Columbus, 2015), pp. 238–54. _________. ‘Richard Rolle’s Latin Psalter in Central European Manuscripts’, Medium Aevum 87 (2018), 41–71. Vanhauwaert, Soetkin. ‘A Chopped-Off Head on a Golden Plate: Jan Mostaert’s Head of Saint John the Baptist on a Plate Surrounded by Angels’, in Death, Torture and the Broken Body in European Art, 1300–1650, ed. John R. Decker and Mitzi Kirkland-Ives (Farnham 2015), pp. 55–85. Vaughan, Richard. Philip the Bold: The Formation of the Burgundian State, reprint (Woodbridge, 2002). Vaughan, Theresa A. ‘The Alewife: Changing Images and Bad Brewsʼ, AVISTA Forum Journal 21.1/2 (2011), 34–41. Veldtrup, Dieter. Zwischen Eherecht und Familienpolitik: Studien zu den dynastischen Heiratsprojekten Karls IV. (Warendorf, 1988). Vertongen, Susie. ‘Herman Scheerre, The Beaufort Master and the Flemish Miniature Painting: A Reopened Debate’, in Flanders in a European Perspective, ed. Maurits Smeyers and Bert Cardon (1995), pp. 251–65. Vidmanová, Anežka. Laborintus, latinská literatura středověkých Čech (Praha, 1994). _________. ‘Nejstarší česká “beletrie” a její středolatinské kořeny a paralely’, in Speculum medii aevi = Zrcadlo středověku, ed. Lenka Jiroušková (Praha, 1998), pp. 124–49. _________. ‘Sedlák hranatý, nebo chlap jak se patří?ʼ, Listy filologické 123 (2000), 52–8. Vilikovský, Jan. Latinská poesie žákovská v Čechách (Bratislava, 1932). Vnouček, Jiří and Marek Suchý. ‘Conservation Database as a Precondition for the Administration of the Manuscript Library Stored in the Prague Castle Archives’, Care and Conservation of Manuscripts 11 (2009), 189–213. Vogeltanz, Jan, Věra Petráčková and Alena Šimečková (eds). Příběhy Jindřicha Hýzrla z Chodů (Praha, 1979). Voleková, Kateřina. ‘Mariánské hodinky v kontextu staročeského překladu žaltářeʼ, in Karel IV. a Emauzy: Liturgie – text – obraz, ed. Kateřina Kubínová et al. (Prague, 2017), pp. 220–30. Volf, Josef. ‘Tak zvaný Hradecký rukopis. (Dějiny jeho osudů)ʼ, Časopis československých knihovníků 5 (1926), 25–31 and 144–52. von Höfler, Karl A. C. Anna von Luxemburg (Wien, 1871). Všetečková, Zuzana. ‘Die Wandmalereien in der Maria-Geburts-Kirche in Pičínʼ, in King John of Luxembourg (1296–1346) and the Art of his Era, ed. Klára Benešovská (Praha 1998), pp. 320–31.



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Walker, Simon. ‘John [John of Gaunt], duke of Aquitaine and duke of Lancasterʼ, ODNB (online). Wallace, David. ‘Anne of Bohemia, Queen of England, and Chaucer’s Emperice’, Litteraria Pragensia 5 (1995), 1–16. _________. Chaucerian Polity: Absolutist Lineages and Associational Forms in England and Italy (Stanford, 1997). _________. Premodern Places (Oxford, 2004). _________. ‘Afterword: Sea, Island, Mudʼ, in The Sea and Englishness, ed. Sebastian I. Sobecki (Cambridge, 2011), pp. 207–18. _________. Geoffrey Chaucer: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2019). Wallis, Penelope. ‘The Embroidered Binding of the Felbrigge Psalter’, British Library Journal 13 (1987), 71–8. Walsh, Katherine. ‘“Ecce arbor in medio terre”: Ein irische Prälat an der Prager Juristenuniversität, das “Purgatorium sancti Patricii” und die Debatte um das Fegefeuer’, in Husitství – reformace – renesance: Sborník k 60. narozeninám Františka Šmahela, I, ed. Jaroslav Pánek, Miloslav Polívka and Noemi Rejchrtová (Praha, 1994), pp. 167–90. _________. ‘Lollardisch-hussitische Reformbestrebungen in Umkreis und Gefolgschaft der Luxemburgerin Anna, Königin von England (1382–1394)’, in Häresie und vorzeitige Reformation im Spätmittelalter, ed. František Šmahel and Elisabeth Müller-Luckner (München, 1998), pp. 77–108. Walsingham, Thomas. Historia Anglicana, ed. Henry Thomas Riley, 2 vols (London, 1863–64), 2.46. Walther, Hans. Initia carminum ac versuum medii aevi posterioris Latinorum (Göttingen, 1959). Warner, Marina. Alone of all Her Sex: The Myth and Cult of the Virgin Mary (New York, 1976). Watson, Nicholas. Richard Rolle and the Invention of Authority (Cambridge, 1991). _________. ‘Outdoing Chaucer: Lydgate’s Troy Book and Henryson’s Testament of Cresseid as Competitive Imitations of Troilus and Criseyde’, in Shifts and Transpositions in Medieval Narrative: A Festschrift for Elspeth Kennedy, ed. Karen Pratt (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 89–108. Watson, Nicholas and Jacqueline Jenkins (eds). A Revelation of Love, in The Writings of Julian of Norwich (University Park, PA, 2006). Weiss, Judith (ed. and trans.). Waceʼs Roman de Brut: A History of the British (Exeter, 2002). Weizsäcker, Julius (ed.). Deutsche Reichstagsakten unter König Wenzel, III, 1397–1400 (München, 1877). Wentersdorf, Karl P. ‘Some Observations on the Concept of Clandestine Marriage in Troilus and Criseyde’, Chaucer Review 15 (2016), 101–26. The Westminster Chronicle, 1381–1394, ed. Leonard Charles Hector and Barbara Fitzgerald Harvey (Oxford, 1982). White, James George. The Churches and Chapels of Old London: With a Short Ac­count of those who have ministered in them (London, 1901). Wilkins, David. Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hibernicae, 4 vols (London, 1737). Wilks, Michael. ‘Chaucer and the Mystical Marriage in Medieval Political Thought’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 44 (1962), 489–532.

266  General Bibliography Williams, Charles Allyn. The German Legends of the Hairy Anchorite (Urbana, 1935). Williams, George (ed.). Memorials of the Reign of King Henry VI: Official Correspondence of Thomas Bekynton, Secretary to King Henry VI., and Bishop of Bath and Wells, i (London, 1872). Wilson, Christopher. ‘The Royal Loggings of Edward III at Windsor Castle: Form, Function, Representation’, in Windsor: Medieval Archaeology, Art and Architecture of the Thames Valley, ed. Laurence Keen and Eileen Scarff (Leeds, 2002), pp. 15–94. _________. ‘The Chapter House of Westminster Abbey: Harbinger of a New Dispensation in English Architecture?’, in Westminster Abbey Chapter House, ed. Warwick Rodwell and Richard Mortimer (London, 2010), pp. 40–65. Wimsatt, James I. Chaucer and the Poems of ‘Ch’ in University of Pennsylvania MS French 15 (Cambridge, 1982). Windeatt, Barry. Oxford Guides to Chaucer: Troilus and Criseyde (Oxford, 1992). Winstead, Karen A. ‘The Beryn-Writer as a Reader of Chaucerʼ, Chaucer Review 22 (1988), 225–33. Wormald, Francis. ‘The Fitzwarin Psalter and Its Allies’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 6 (1943), 71–9. Wright, Neil (ed.). The Historia Regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth (Cambridge, 1985). Wright, Sylvia. ‘Bruges Artists in London: The Patronage of the House of Lancaster’, in Flanders in a European Perspective, ed. Maurits Smeyers and Bert Cardon (Leuven, 1995), pp. 93–109. Wright, Thomas (ed.). A Selection of Latin Stories, from Manuscripts of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries: A Contribution to the History of Fiction During the Middle Ages (London, 1841). _________ (ed.). The Chronicle of Pierre de Langtoft (Cambridge, 2012). Wright, Thomas and James Orchard Halliwell (eds). Reliquiae Antiqua: Scraps from Ancient Manuscripts Illustrating Chiefly Early English Literature and the English Language, ii (London, 1843). Wright, William Aldis (ed.). The Metrical Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester (London, 1887; repr. Cambridge, 2012). Wylie, James Hamilton. History of England under Henry the Fourth, III: 1407– 1410 (London, 1896). _________. History of England under Henry the Fourth, IV: 1411–1413 (London, 1898). Yates, Richard. History and Antiquities of the Abbey of St Edmund’s Bury, 2nd edn (London, 1843). Yeager, Robert F. ‘Gowerʼs Jewsʼ, in John Gower: Others and the Self, ed. Russell A. Peck and Robert F. Yeager (Cambridge, 2017), pp. 183–203. Young, Robert F. ‘Bohemian Scholars and Students at the English Universities from 1347 to 1750’, English Historical Review 38 (1923), 72–84. Žalud, Zdeněk. ‘Astrology, Particularly Court Astrology, in Bohemia in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries: A Survey’, Historica: Historical Sciences in the Czech Republic, series nova 14 (2010), 91–123. Zettl, Ewald (ed.). An Anonymous Short English Metrical Chronicle, EETS os 196 (1935). Zupko, Ronald Edward. A Dictionary of Weights and Measures for the British Isles: The Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century (Philadelphia, 1985).

Index Adam of Usk  140, 144 Allen, H. E.  43, 45, 48, 49 Ambrisco, Alan  116n36 Anna von Schweidnitz, Holy Roman Empress  154n17, 209, 219–20 Anne, Saint  20, 207, 235 Anne of Bohemia, Queen of England books and the arts Books of Hours in her possession  198–9, 206, 207 Chaucer’s literary production, role in  6–7, 8, 22–3, 25, 203–4, 208–9, 216, 221–2 English medieval art, influence on  181–2, 196–9 gospels in her possession  20, 196–7, 198, 205 heraldry treatise, commissioning of  31, 206 literacy in English  6–7, 205 literary life of the court, influence on  204–5 valuable objects sent to her mother 197 death  2, 4–5, 208, 213 epitaphs (verse eulogies)  33–4, 38, 50, 57, 65, 234–5 Westminster Abbey double tomb  33, 34, 37, 38, 50, 65, 70, 74, 225, 234–5 intercessor/mediatrix role  18, 197, 213, 226, 229, 235 Marian devotion presented to Virgin Mary with Richard II (lost altarpiece)  233 Walsingham shrine visits  19, 25, 33n109, 234 marriage to Richard II  1, 2, 5–6, 7, 55–6, 160n45, 217–18, 229 see also Anne of Bohemia, Chaucer, and the Virgin Mary (D. Wallace); Chaucer’s Legend of Good Women (J. Boffey and A. S. G. Edwards); Richard II’s marriage to Anne of Bohemia (M. Bennett)

Anne of Bohemia, Chaucer, and the Virgin Mary (D. Wallace) abstract and main points  9–10, 214 Catholic culture Ave Maria  215–16, 232, 236 intimacy and distancing  214– 15, 216 Marian dynamics in Chaucer’s work  216 Charles IV, Emperor and Anne’s father empire and Petrarch  218–21, 222 imperium and ‘Visconti wedding’  221 Marian devotion  233–4 Chaucer and Anne of Bohemia Anne’s marriage to Richard II 217–18 Anne’s place in his poetry  216 Anne’s tomb and verse eulogies  234–5 Chaucer’s backing of the wrong bride  216, 217, 221, 235 Chaucer’s works celebrating the new queen  221–2 Chaucer’s Marian material and Anne of Bohemia An ABC  216, 222–5, 229, 236 Clerk’s Tale  226–9, 235 Legend of Good Women 216, 225–6, 235–6 Man of Law’s Tale  229–33, 236–7 other works by Chaucer Boece 227–8 Book of the Duchess  223 Complaint of Venus  223 Former Age  223, 227–8 House of Fame 218 Knight’s Tale  221–2 Lenvoy de Chaucer a Bukton  223 Monk’s Tale  223 Parliament of Fowls 218, 228n52 Prioress’s Tale (Ave Marie)  215, 233

268  Index Le Roman de la rose, translation of  225 Second Nun’s Tale  229 Treatise on the Astrolabe  223 Troilus and Criseyde  222, 223 Anthony of Burgundy, Duke of Brabant  72–3 anticlerical poems  50 Antonín, Richard  128 Armada portraits  237n78 Arnošt z Pardubic see Ernst of Pardubitz (Arnošt z Pardubic), Archbishop Arthurian legend  28, 68, 69, 90 Arundel, Agnes, Lady  35, 36–7, 38 Arundel, Richard Fitzalan, 4th Earl of Arundel  35 Arundel, Thomas, Archbishop  41, 52–3, 196–7, 205 Constitutions  52 Arundel, William, Sir  35, 36–7 Atheling, Edgar  99 Augustinians 46 Ave Maria  215–16, 224, 232, 236 Bartolomej of Planá  59 Bartoš, F. M.  56–7 Baswell, Christopher  112, 113 Baudouin de Condé  208 Beauchamp, William, Sir  53 Beautiful Style see Bohemian Soft (Beautiful) Style Bede  88, 100 Bell, Susan Groag  183n3, 188n16 Bennett, Michael  5, 6 see also Richard II’s marriage to Anne of Bohemia (M. Bennett) Benoît de Sainte-Maure Chronique des ducs de Normandie 110 Roman de Troie (c. 1165) book’s journey from Henry II’s court to Chaucer  106–7 contents, length and readership 110–12 context of Latinate learned transnational culture  105–6 descriptions of marvels  110, 111 erotic tendencies  111 forty manuscripts and different varieties of French  110 and Guido’s Historia, competition with 110

and Guido’s Historia, narrative source for  109, 111 Hector’s tomb as architectural marvel  123–4 and Joseph of Exeter’s Ylias, competition with  109, 110, 111 and Lydgate’s Troy Book, competition with  110 Medea story, eroticizing approach  117–19, 122 prologue (historiographical approach)  113–14, 116, 117 rewriting and competitive translatio 126 scholarly studies  107n9 see also Troy literature in the Middle Ages (V. Bridges) Bergavenny Missal  188 Bergo, Nicholas de see Hawberk, Nicholas, Sir (Nicholas de Bergo) Bergo, Othes de, Sir  21 Berlin Play 176 Bernard ze Sedlice (Bernard von Zedeletz)  16, 17 Bernau, Anke  216n5, 216n9 Bertrandon de la Broquière  78 Beuesschaw, James  29 Bianca of Savoy, Lady of Milan  221 Bible The Egerton Genesis 194 Holkham Bible Picture Book 171, 173 vernacular Bible controversy  20, 52–3 Oxford debate (1401)  52, 53 Wycliffite Bible  52–3, 205 Bible of Richard II see Great Bible of Richard II Bible of Wenceslas IV  184, 187, 188, 192 God creating Eve  192, 193 initial D (Emperor with first wife)  186, 188 initial I (The Creation)  190, 191 biblical parody  141 Biggs, D. L.  21n46, 143n51 Binski, Paul  31, 184, 187, 188, 189, 195 Bisterfeld see Bystrze (Bisterfeld) charnel house, Pomerelia Bláhová, Marie  102 Blamires, A.  163n54

Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster  24–5, 66n47, 222, 223 Blanche of England  71 Blessyng, Bernard  30 Boccaccio, Giovanni Charles IV, criticism of  153n12 Chaucer’s creative use of his work  3, 4, 6, 22 De claris mulieribus  153n12, 209 Decameron, Griselda in tenth tale of tenth day  150, 153n12, 156, 162 Il Filostrato, Troilus and Criseyde  22, 106–7, 222, 223 Teseida  222, 223 Boethius, De consolationae philosophiae  227–8 Boffey, Julia  6 see also Chaucer’s Legend of Good Women (J. Boffey and A. S. G. Edwards) Bohemia Bohemian nation (natio Bohemorum)  51, 53 Charles IV’s development of realm 16–17 ‘Chaucer in Bohemia’ project  1–2 and England Bohemian moment in English court culture  2, 14 Bohemia’s connections with England  4–8, 16–17, 39–40 expulsion of Bohemians except Queen Anne’s servants  19, 30, 31–2 visitors to English court  20–1, 35–7, 38, 55–6, 69–71 knights and ladies from  21, 30, 35–6, 38 Bohemian influence on English art (L. Panušková) abstract and main points  9, 181 academic debate  181–4 Anne of Bohemia’s influence on English art  181–2, 196–9 Bohemian Soft (Beautiful) Style  184, 188, 190, 192 dating of Liber Regalis and Wenceslas Bible  184, 187–8 features shared by Bohemian manuscripts and Liber Regalis  188–90, 192 manuscripts hypothetically relating to Anne  198–9, 206–7

Index  269 manuscripts relating to Richard II  195–6 stylistic plurality  192–5, 199 works with illuminations Bible of Wenceslas IV  184, 186, 187, 188, 190, 191, 192, 193 Great Bible of Richard II  182, 183, 192, 194, 195 Liber Regalis  184, 185, 187, 188, 189–90, 192, 195, 196, 198, 199 Litlyngton Missal  184 see also Karlstein Castle, Lady Chapel (wall painting)  189– 90, 189, 198; Wilton Diptych  183, 184, 188 Bohemian nation (natio Bohemorum)  51, 53 Bohemian Soft (Beautiful) Style  184, 188, 190, 192 Bohun illuminated manuscripts  195, 199 Bolingbroke, Henry see Henry IV, King of England (aka Henry Bolingbroke, duke of Hereford) Book of Statutes  188 Books of Hours Czech Hours of the Virgin  198–9, 206n13 Flemish Book of Hours  198, 206 Hours of the Virgin  207 Borch, Michiel van der  194 Bořivoj of Svinaře  77 Bowers, John M.  34 Bradley, John W.  181–2, 183n3, 188n16, 197–8 Braybrooke, Robert, Bishop of London  17, 217–18 Bridges, Venetia see Troy literature in the Middle Ages (V. Bridges) Bridget of Sweden  50n37 Briselda see The Evil Tale of Evil Briselda (K. Petříková) Brno see Robbers of Šlapanice (near Brno) Broumov, Parish House, Triumph of Death and a tapster (wall painting)  173–5, 175, 180 Brown, Peter  1 Brut  208 Layamon’s poem  88n15 prose  89, 91, 93, 97, 98 Brutus (Trojan exile)  23, 88n15, 93

270  Index Burley, Simon, Sir  6, 17, 19, 26, 29, 30, 33, 207, 208 Bury St Edmunds Abbey  19 Bute, Marquess of  132, 135, 136n20 Bystrze (Bisterfeld) charnel house, Pomerelia 176 Cannon, Christopher  224 Carthusians 44 Castleford’s Chronicle  88, 89, 91, 91n25, 93n38, 97, 98 Catholicism late-medieval Catholic culture  214–15 Western (Great/Papal) Schism  17, 39–40, 73, 216, 226, 229 see also Mary, Virgin Caxton, William, The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye 112 cedulae  50 Čermák, Jan  1 Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor autobiography  218, 233–4 Boccaccio’s criticism of  153n12 cosmopolitanism and empire  16 development of Bohemian realm 16–17 Edward III’s support  16 Francophile  5 Giovanni Legnano made Count Palatine by  226 Marian devotion, vision on Feast of Assumption  233–4, 236 marquisate as imperial dignity  28 marriage of daughter Anne to Richard II  1, 13–14, 16, 17 new law code (1355) and Dalimil  89n21 Paris, visit to (1378)  210 patron of literature and learning  4–5, 16, 22, 30, 208–9 Petrarch, correspondence/relationship with  5, 6, 22, 153–4, 216, 218–21, 222, 226 Rome, imperial journey to  190 Urban VI, support for  17 Charles V, King of France  30, 209–10 Charles VI, King of France  34, 38, 71, 73 Charles University, Prague Bohemian nation (natio Bohemorum)  53 ‘Chaucer in Bohemia’ project  1–2

foundation of university  16 Chaucer, Geoffrey biographical details Cecilia Chaumpaigne raptus case 217 diplomatic missions  3 marriage negotiations  5–6, 17, 216, 217 in the service of Edward III  221 in the service of Lionel of Antwerp  3, 221 work as Clerk of the King’s Works  218 work at London custom house 218 ‘Chaucer in Bohemia’ project  1–2 engagement with European culture French language/literature, expertise with  2–3 Italian narratives, use of  3–4, 6, 22 literary practice and EnglandBohemia connections  4–7 part of transnational literary culture  123n51 involvement with Ricardian court acquaintanceship with ladies of the court  24–5 friendships at court  36n131 identity and allegiances of his audience  85–6 imperial eagle  27 Queen Anne’s impact on his work  6–7, 8, 22–3, 25, 203–4, 208–9, 216, 221–2 life-barrel metaphor and tapster figure  168, 180 and Lydgate’s Troy Book  111, 115 and Passion of the Jews of Prague 148 and Passion of the Judges of England  143n51 works An ABC (The Prayer of Our Lady)  216, 222–5, 229, 236 Boece 227–8 Book of the Duchess  4, 25, 223 Canterbury Tales  151, 168–9, 179 Clerk’s Tale (Griselda tale)  6, 10, 151–2, 160n45, 166, 226–9, 235 Complaint of Mars 208

Complaint of Venus  223 Former Age  223, 227–8 House of Fame 218 Knight’s Tale  221–2 Legend of Good Women  6, 25, 26, 33, 204, 210–13, 216, 225–6, 235–6 Lenvoy de Chaucer a Bukton  223 Man of Law’s Tale  10, 229–33, 236–7 Miller’s Tale  130, 168 Monk’s Tale  223 Parliament of Fowls  6, 22, 218, 228n52 Prioress’s Tale  215, 233 The Reeve’s Tale  168, 180 Le Roman de la rose, translation of  225 Second Nun’s Tale  229 Treatise on the Astrolabe  223 Troilus and Criseyde  4, 6–7, 22–3, 24–5, 107, 115, 122, 203, 222, 223, 230 Truth 208 Wife of Bath  151–2, 167 see also Anne of Bohemia, Chaucer, and the Virgin Mary (D. Wallace); Chaucer’s Legend of Good Women (J. Boffey and A. S. G. Edwards) Chaucer’s Legend of Good Women (J. Boffey and A. S. G. Edwards) abstract and main points  9, 203 Anne of Bohemia’s literary life books, access to  206–7 books, collecting and commissioning of  206, 208 literacy in English  205 role in genesis of Chaucer’s work  203–4, 208–9 role in literary life at court  204–5 Chaucer’s connection with Anne association with members of the court 208 international literary culture of milieu 208 Chaucer’s queens in Legend of Good Women Cleopatra  210–11, 212, 213 Dido  210, 211–12, 213 implicit comment on Anne’s importance  213

Index  271 works relevant to Legend of Good Women Boccaccio’s De claris mulieribus 209 books recommended to the narrator 210 Christine de Pizan’s Cité des dames 209 Histoire ancienne jusqu’à César 209–10 Ovid’s Heroides  209 Petrarch’s De laudibus feminarum 209 saints’ lives  208 Chaumpaigne, Cecilia  217 Chester  27, 170 Chester Mystery Cycle, Harrowing of Hell  170, 171, 175, 180 Chrétien de Troyes, Cligès, Prologue to 108 Christine de Pizan, Le Livre de la Cité des dames 209 Chronicle of the So-called Dalimil anonymous author  86 ethnicity emphasis on ethnicity principle  92–3 emphasis on socially inclusive ethnic community  103–4 equation of Germans with bourgeoisie 101 rationale behind use of Czech vernacular  95 ‘us and them’ narratives  95–7, 98 influence  89–90 inspired by Guido’s Historia 129 ‘national’ history and scope  87 projection of present into the past  101–2, 103 example of Loděnice battle (1179)  102 radical ideological approach  91–2 text ending with glimmer of hope 86 Chronicon Aulae Regiae 87 Churches Bergen on Rügen, Church of Our Lady 176–7 Marienhafen, Lower Saxony, Church of Our Lady  176 Pičín, Church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary  172, 173, 174

272  Index Rimavské Brezovo, Church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary  177, 177–8, 180 Ciulisová, Ingrid  7 Clanvowe, John, Sir Boke of Cupide  26, 204–5, 208 Two Ways  53 Clarke, Maude V,  27 Cleopatra, in Chaucer’s Legend of Good Women  210–11, 212, 213 Clifford, Lewis, Sir  36, 208 Cloud of Unknowing  45 Cooks, Tapsters, Ostlers and Innkeepers  170 Cosmas of Prague see Kosmas Council of Basel (1431–49)  44 Council of Constance (1414–18)  39, 40, 41, 44, 140, 149 Council of Nicaea (AD 325)  216n8 Council of Pisa (1409)  72, 73 Council of Trent (1545–63)  215 court of love  24–6 Courtrai, battle of (or battle of the Golden Spurs,1302), in Passion of the Franks  132, 137–8, 140, 142, 144–5 Crécy, battle of (1346)  4, 16 crown-wearings  31 cultural analogues  2, 8, 9 cultural transmission  2, 6, 8, 31 Custance legend  229 Czech histories see Czech and English vernacular (H. Znojemská) Czech Hours of the Virgin  198–9, 206n13 Dalimil see Chronicle of the So-called Dalimil Dante Alighieri  3, 4, 6, 22 Inferno  236 Purgatorio 219n20 Dares  106, 110, 113 De locis praecipuis in Francia et Anglia atque de reliquiis  57–8 Deguileville, Guillaume de, Le Pèlerinage de la vie humaine  223, 224 Dennison, Lynda  195 Deschamps, Eustache  3, 5, 71n68, 208 Despenser, Lady  23–4 Destruction of Troy  107, 111n23 ‘Devil’s Plays’ (Teufelspielen) or Harrowing plays  176

Dictys  106, 110, 113 Dido, in Chaucer’s Legend of Good Women  210, 211–12, 213 Dienstbier, Jan  9 see also tapster figure in England and Bohemia (J. Dienstbier) Dobrovský, Josef  179 Doležalová, Lucie  9 see also mock Passions in England and Bohemia (L. Doležalová) Dostál, Emanuel  182–4, 192 Doyle, Anthony Ian  44 Dvořák, Max  190n20 Dymock, Roger, Determinationes  195–6 eagles, imperial  6, 22, 27–8, 228n52 East Anglian artists  194–5, 199 Easton, Adam  48 Eberle, Patricia J.  196 Edward, Duke of Aumale  33 Edward I, King of England  87, 98, 132, 135n17, 143, 144, 145, 229 in Passion of the Judges of England  132, 143–4 in Passion of the Perjurious Scots  132, 135n17, 136–7, 145 Edward II, King of England  26, 135n17 Edward III, King of England  3, 14, 16, 23, 27, 221, 223 Edward the Black Prince  16, 23 Edward the Confessor, English king and saint  31, 33, 91 Edwards, A. S. G.  6, 9 see also Chaucer’s Legend of Good Women (J. Boffey and A. S. G. Edwards) Edwards, Robert R.  110n17 The Egerton Genesis 194 ekphrasis  113, 123, 124, 125 Elisabeth I, Queen of England, Armada portraits  237n78 Elizabeth of Görlitz, Duchess of Luxembourg  72–3 Elizabeth of Lancaster, Duchess of Exeter  25, 27 Elizabeth of Pomerania, Holy Roman Empress  29, 32, 197, 216, 220, 221, 226, 229 Eltham Palace  23, 24, 203, 236 Embriachi see Ubriachi (Embriachi), Baldassore empire

imperial eagles  6, 22, 27–8 imperial kingship  28–9 translatio studii et imperii 106, 108–9, 113, 126–8 England Anglo-French conflicts  16 and Bohemia Bohemian moment in court culture  2, 14 Bohemian visitors  20–1, 35–7, 38 connections with  4–8, 16–17 expulsion of Bohemians except Queen Anne’s servants  19, 30, 31–2 and Holy Roman Empire  14, 16 and Luxembourg dynasty  71 as ‘Mary’s dower’  232–3, 237 Peasants’ Revolt (1381)  18, 217, 226 Second Barons’ War (1264–67)  86, 91 as seen by knight Wenceslas  63–8, 74–5 English art see Bohemian influence on English art (L. Panušková) English book illumination  184, 192, 195–6 Bohun illuminated manuscripts  195, 199 see also Bohemian influence on English art (L. Panušková) English College, Rome, lost altarpiece  233 English histories see histories in Czech and English vernacular (H. Znojemská) Epitaphium de Anna regina Angliae, filia imperatoris Karoli de Boemia  57 Erasmus scheme  1 Erlauer Play 176 Ernst of Pardubitz (Arnošt z Pardubic), Archbishop  154 The Evil Tale of Evil Briselda (K. Petříková) abstract and main points  9, 150 Griselda tales Boccaccio’s Decameron  150, 153n12, 156, 162 Chaucer’s Clerk’s Tale  151–2, 160n45, 166 Le Ménagier de Paris  150

Index  273 Petrarch’s Tale of Griselda  150– 1, 153, 156 Petrarch and Bohemia correspondence and friendship with Charles IV  153–4 correspondence with members of Bohemian court  154 popularity of his works  154–5, 166 texts present in medieval Czech codices  155–6 works reflecting religious feelings rather than protohumanism  155–6 Petrarch’s Griselda in Bohemia 3 translations into Czech  156–7 9 manuscripts of his Latin version  156 broadly faithful rendering of his version  157, 159, 166 discrepancies between his version and Czech versions  157–9 similarities of Czech versions with German didactic tradition  159–61, 166 versions of story in folk tales, chapbooks and on stage  157 tale of evil Briselda as antithesis to Griselda Historia infidelis mulieris (Latin version)  152 O Bryzeldě řeč zlá o zlé (An Evil Tale of Evil Briselda)  152 reflection of ‘saintly vs shrewish women’ dichotomy  161–2 similarities between Czech version and Trojan Chronicle  164–6, 167 summary of story  162–4 Trojan Chronicle and choice of name Bryzelda  164, 166 Wife of Bath (Chaucer’s) and Briselda compared  167 Eyb, Albrecht von, Ehebüchlein  159 Federico, Sylvia  107 Felbrigg, Anne  207 Felbrigg, George, Sir  32, 207 Felbrigg, Margaret  36 Felbrigg, Simon, Sir  21, 32, 35, 38, 207 Felbrigge Psalter  207 FitzRalph, Richard  54

274  Index Fitzwalter, Lady (née Mohun)  24 Flemish Book of Hours  198, 206 Floretum 42 Folkhyrde, Quentin  52–3 France Anglo-French conflicts  16 Chaucer’s expertise with language/ literature  2–3 French culture at Prague court  5 as seen by knight Wenceslas  61–3, 74 Franks, Passion of the Franks  132, 137–8, 140, 142, 144–5 Fraser, Simon  142 Froissart, Jean  3, 208 Chroniques  5 Méliador 4 Gaimar, Geffrei, Estoire des Engleis 88–9 Gautier de Châtillon see Walter of Châtillon Geoffrey of Monmouth Historia Regum Britanniae 88, 98–9, 98n59, 100, 107, 108n10 Wace’s translation of the work  88, 89, 98n59 George of Poděbrady, King of Bohemia 78 Giles of Rome, De regimine principum 196 Glossa ordinaria  47, 48 Golden Book of the Knight Wenceslas (Marek Suchý) abstract and main points  9, 55 Golden Book (Liber aureus) Anne’s marriage to Richard II and travelling between the courts  55–6 discovery of Epitaphium de Anna regina Angliae  56–7 discovery of travel notes and other texts with obituary  57–9 manuscript’s journey to Prague Chapter Library  59–60 ownership inscriptions on book  58–9 reference to golden colour of parchment  59 references to Queen Anne in later travel accounts  78–9

the journey Germany 61 itinerary from Prague  61, 80–2 London and other English places  63–8, 74–5 Paris and other French places  61–3, 74–5 the knight Liber Wenczeslai militis  58–9, 69 other evidence of ownership by Bohemian knight  69–70 pilgrimage and diplomatic mission 70 possible diplomatic missions (1394 to late 1400s)  70–4 sequence of composition possibly bound together by knight  74 recorded distances mostly correct  75–6 travel notes mostly written at one time  74–5 watermarks (1411–17)  77 writer’s identity possibly well-travelled diplomat 77 possibly writer different from traveller 77–8 suggested names of diplomats 77–8 use of cursive notes  78 Golden Spurs, battle of see Courtrai, battle of (or battle of the Golden Spurs,1302) Gorranus, Nicolaus  47, 48, 54 Gothic, International Gothic  199 Gower, John Confessio Amantis  20, 25–6, 30, 205 ‘Tale of Constance’  232 Les Grandes Chroniques de France 210 Grandson, Othon de  223 Great Bible of Richard II  183, 192, 194, 195 initial I (book of Genesis)  182 Great Schism see Western (Great/Papal) Schism Gregory the Great  215 Griselda tales

Boccaccio’s Decameron (tenth tale of tenth day)  150, 153n12, 156, 162 Chaucer’s Clerk’s Tale  6, 151–2, 160n45, 166, 226–9, 235 Gross’s Die Grisardis  159 Le Ménagier de Paris  150 Petrarch’s ‘Tale of Griselda’ see under The Evil Tale of Evil Briselda (K. Petříková) Gross, Erhart, Die Grisardis  159 Grosseteste, Robert  41n6, 54 Guido de Columnis Historia destructionis Troie (1287) and Benoît’s Roman de Troie, as narrative source  109, 111 and Benoît’s Roman de Troie, competition with  110 context of Latinate learned transnational culture  105–6 Dalimil inspired by  129 Hector’s tomb and balsam operation on body  124–5 Kronika trojánská (Czech translation of Historia)  127–9 and Lydgate’s Troy Book competition with  110 narrative source for  109, 111, 112–13 manuscripts (c. 150) and readership 111–12 Medea and Guido’s antifeminism  119–21, 122 prologue (historiographical approach)  114–15, 116 rewriting and competitive translatio 126–7 widespread in Bohemia and England 127 see also Troy literature in the Middle Ages (V. Bridges) Guillebert de Lannoy  64n40, 69n60, 76n87 Hájek of Libočany, Václav  90 Hakluyt, Richard  236–7 Hanna, Ralph  42, 45 Harrowing of Hell (Chester Mystery Cycle)  170, 171, 175, 180 Harrowing plays or ‘Devil’s Plays’ (Teufelspielen)  176

Index  275 Hawberk, Nicholas, Sir (Nicholas de Bergo)  32, 35 Hector  113, 123–6, 129, 166 see also Troy literature in the Middle Ages (V. Bridges) Hengist  93, 99n62, 100, 101 Henry II, King of England  106, 110 Henry III, King of England  98 Henry IV, King of England (aka Henry Bolingbroke, duke of Hereford)  32, 38, 71, 73, 195 Henry V, King of England  74, 112, 115, 117, 195 Henry VII, Holy Roman Emperor  14 Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum  88n15 heraldry, treatise on  31, 206 Hereford, duke of see Henry IV, King of England (aka Henry Bolingbroke, duke of Hereford) Heywood, Thomas, The Life and Death of Hector 112 Histoire ancienne jusqu’à César 209– 10 histories in Czech and English vernacular (H. Znojemská) abstract and main points  9, 85 Chaucer’s English and Czech audiences at court  85–6 histories and contexts all ‘national’ histories  86–7 Czech histories sparser/more homogeneous 87–8 English histories with two competing versions of Britain 88 English metrical histories  88–9, 90–1, 93–4 impact of English prose Brut and Czech Dalimil 89–90 strategies to shape Czech past  90, 91–2 strategies to shape English past 90–2 perspectives and vernaculars Czech emphasis on ethnic principle  92–3 English emphasis on territorial principle  92, 93–4 use of Czech as feature of exclusive ethnic identity  95

276  Index use of English as inclusive feature of identity  94–5 ‘us and them’ and ethnicity enemies of the Czech (Poles, Hungarians and Germans)  95–7, 98 enemies of the English (Normans, French and Scots)  97–9 suppression of ethnic perspective in English histories  99–101 ‘us and them’ and polity Czech commons versus German bourgeoisie 101 English-speaking commons versus Norman nobility  101 past informed by current issues in Czech chronicle  101–2, 103–4 in English chronicle  103, 104 see also Chronicle of the So-called Dalimil Hlaváčková, Hana  184, 187, 190, 190n20 Holkham Bible Picture Book  171, 173 Holland, John, Duke of Exeter  17, 26–7, 208 Holland, Thomas, 1st Duke of Surrey  33 Holy Roman Empire England’s relations with  14, 16 and textual transmission  39–40 Holy Trinity Church, Coventry  170, 173 Homer  4, 113 Hornyk, Nicholas  29 Horsa  93 Hours of the Virgin  198n47, 206n13, 207 Hradec Králové Codex 179–80 Satire of the Artisans and Aldermen 180 Hudson, Anne  41 Hus, Jan (John) ‘bishop and cook’ anecdote  52, 53 condemnation of Guido’s Kronika trojánská 129 condemnation of wall paintings of Troy scenes  128 correspondence with Wycliffites  41 letter from Richard Wyche  40 Hus’s texts found with Rolle’s Bohemian manuscripts  50, 51

Hussites’ funding of students to access Wyclif’s texts in England 40 Hussites’ impact on Czech literary production 167 Hussites’ interest in Rolle and Wyclif 4 Passion of Jan Hus  132, 133, 134, 138, 140, 149 icons, West Carpathian icons  179 illuminated manuscripts see Bohemian influence on English art (L. Panušková); English book illumination Innsbruck Passion Play 176 International Gothic  199 intertextuality  109, 111, 132, 135 Isabelle de France, queen consort of England  34, 38, 71, 160n45 Italian narratives, Chaucer’s use of  3–4, 6, 22 Jan of Jenštejn, Archbishop  48, 54, 156n27 Jan of Planá  59 Jan ze Středy see Johannes von Neumarkt (Jan ze Středy) Jaroslav, esquire  62n29, 75n84, 76n87 Jean d’Orléans, comte d’Angoulême  43 Jean l’Aveugle, King of Bohemia  4, 5, 14, 16 Jenkins, Jacqueline  222n32 Jerome of Prague  51 Ješín, Pavel  90 Jews, Passion of the Jews of Prague  132, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138–9, 140, 141–2, 147–8 Joan of Kent  17, 23, 24, 25, 26, 36 Joanna, Duchess of Brabant  14, 72 Jobst, Margrave of Moravia  155 Johanna of Bavaria, Queen of Bohemia and Queen of the Romans  187 Johannes de Bado Aureo, De arte heraldica 206 Johannes of Planá  60 Johannes von Neumarkt (Jan ze Středy)  154–5, 155n26, 190, 209n27 John, Duke of Görlitz  29 John Chrysostom, Saint  172 John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster  18– 19, 24, 25, 27, 28, 66, 208, 223

John the Blind (John of Luxembourg), King of Bohemia  14, 16, 86, 233 Joseph of Exeter, Ylias  109, 111, 114, 117, 121 Joslin, Mary Coker  194 judges, Passion of the Judges of England  132, 133, 134, 136, 140–1, 142, 143–4 Julian of Norwich, A Revelation of Love  216, 222n32 Karlstein Castle ‘Luxembourg genealogy’ (now lost)  209 Woman Clothed in Sun (Lady Chapel)  189–90, 189, 198 Kennedy, Edward D.  87 kingship imperial kingship  28–9 sacred kingship  31 Kirkby, Margaret  49 knights and ladies (from Bohemia)  21, 30, 35–6, 38 Kolve, V. A.  168 Kopecký, Milan  152n9, 164–5 Kosmas, Chronica Boemorum 87, 93n36, 95, 96 Kremer, Blasius  59 Kronika trojánská (Czech translation of Guido’s Historia)  127–9 see also under Guido de Columnis Kügle, Karl  7 Kyng Alisaunder 108n11 la Vache, Isabel (Elizabeth)  36 la Vache, Philip, Sir  36, 208 Lancecrona, Agnes de  21, 27, 36–7, 207n19 Langland, William, Piers Plowman  168, 170 Langtoft, Peter  86, 87, 88, 89, 91, 99 Laud Troy Book 107 Layamon, Brut  88n15 Legnano, Giovanni De amicitia 226 De fletu ecclesiae 226 Leland, John, De viris illustribus 46 Leo, King of Armenia  24, 28 Lewis of Bavaria see Louis IV (Lewis of Bavaria), Holy Roman Emperor Libellus Geomancie 196 Liber Dimnae et Kalilae  57, 58–9, 65n42 Liber Geomancie 196

Index  277 Liber Regalis Coronation of the royal couple  185, 199, 206n13 date and possible Bohemian influence  31, 184, 187, 188, 189–90, 192, 198 Richard II’s patronage issue  195, 196 Liber Viaticus  188, 190 Libuše 96 Lincoln Cathedral, confraternity  234n69 Lionel of Antwerp, Duke of Clarence  3, 221, 223 Liptovské Sliače murals (Slovakia)  177–8 Litlyngton Missal  184 Loděnice, battle of (1179)  102 Lodewik, Margaret (Margery), Lady  36 Lollard movement  7, 14, 38, 53, 56–7, 195–6 Lollard knights  208 Lombard, Peter  48 London Richard II’s quarrel and reconciliation with city of  32–3 as seen by knight Wenceslas  64–8, 74–5 Long, Richard  21n46 Lothar III, Holy Roman Emperor  102 Lotrian, Wenceslas  77 Louis I, Duke of Orléans  73 Louis IV (Lewis of Bavaria), Holy Roman Emperor  16 love court of love  24–6 god of Love  22, 25, 26, 33, 210, 216, 225 Lucan 4 Ludwig III, Elector Palatine  71 Lusignan, Serge  109n13 Luther, Martin  232n60 Luttrell, Lady  23 Luxembourg dynasty accession of in Chronicon Aulae Regiae 87 and art world, interactions with  4–5, 7 and England, diplomatic activity with  16, 71 Family Tree  15 Karlstein Castle ‘Luxembourg genealogy’ wall painting  209

278  Index and Plantagenets, alliance with  14 and Valois monarchy, weakening of ties with  217 Lychlade, Robert  53 Lydgate, John Fall of Princes, on Chaucer’s Legend of Good Women and Queen Anne 204 Siege of Thebes  115 Troy Book (1412–20) context of local vernacular culture  105, 106 English concerns and wider European perspectives  128, 129 Englishness and historicist/ nationalist impulse  112–13 evidence of influence  112 and Guido’s Historia and Benoît’s Troie, competition with  110 and Guido’s Historia as narrative source  109, 111, 112–13 Hector’s tomb and lyrical lament  125–6 length 111 Medea and repudiation of Guido’s antifeminism 121–2 moralising approach  111 prologue (historiographical approach)  115–16, 117 revealing knowledge of Chaucer  111, 115 rewriting and competitive translatio 127 scholarly studies  107, 112–13 see also Troy literature in the Middle Ages (V. Bridges) Lyra, Nicholas of  54 Machaut, Guillaume de  3 Le Jugement dou roi de Behaigne 4 Maidstone, Richard, Concordia  32–3 Malcolm III (‘Canmore’), King of Scots 99 Mannyng of Brunne, Robert, Chronicle  86, 88, 89, 91, 92, 94–5, 98, 99, 101 Margaret ‘of Bohemia’  29 Margaret of Teschen  20, 21, 35, 36, 38, 207 marvels  110, 111, 113, 122n50, 123–5, 126, 165 Mary, Virgin Ave Maria  215–16, 224, 232, 236

England as ‘Mary’s dower’  232–3, 237 Marian devotion to  233–4 in Pearl (poem)  214n1 see also Anne of Bohemia, Chaucer and the Virgin Mary (D. Wallace) Mathew, Gervase  7, 14 Matilda, Holy Roman Empress  99 Matthew of Westminster  145 Medea  105, 113, 117–23 see also Troy literature in the Middle Ages (V. Bridges) medieval parody  131, 132, 133, 135, 148 Meek, Mary Elizabeth  111 Le Ménagier de Paris  150 Merciless Parliament (1388)  196 Mézières, Philippe de  33, 160n45 Millar, Eric  182 The Mirror of the Carnival (Czech drama)  180 misogyny  151, 164, 166 Missa Gulonis (Missa de potatoribus)  141 mock Passions in England and Bohemia (L. Doležalová) abstract and main points  9, 130 background Christ’s Passion in medieval Christian practice  130–1 medieval parody  131, 135n17 common features anonymous texts  134–5 dating and size of corpus  131–2 Gospel narrative mixed with historical events  132 largely neglected by scholars  132–3 no evidence of direct influence between England and Bohemia  133, 135, 140 probably not commonplace  133, 134 readers, moral profile and education level of  135, 136 victims of attacks compared to Christ and ridiculed  133, 135 violent events narrated from attackers’ perspective  133–4 common method in illo tempore setting  135–6, 139 inevitability of course of events  136–8, 139



Index  279 ‘so that the Scripture is fulfilled’ and pseudo-quotations  138–9 trustworthy narrative and paradox of faith  139 history or fiction evidence as revealed by manuscripts  139–40 evidence from Bohemia  140 evidence from England  140–2 evidence of association with political satire and biblical parody 141 much less informative than political lyrics  142 reflections of textual culture embedded in Bible  142–3 Passion of Jan Hus according to the Bearded John, a Square-set Countryman  132, 133, 134, 138, 140 reference of manuscript and overview 149 Passion of the Franks according to the Flemish  132, 133n13, 137–8, 140, 142 reference of manuscript and overview  144–5 Passion of the Jews of Prague  132, 133n13, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138–9, 140, 141–2 references of manuscripts and overview 147–8 Passion of the Judges of England  132, 133, 134, 136, 140–1, 142, 143 references of manuscripts and overview  143–4 Passion of the Monks of Westminster according to John  132, 134, 136, 140, 145n19 reference of manuscript and overview 146 Passion of the Perjurious Scots  132, 133n13, 135, 136–7, 138n25, 140, 142 reference of manuscript and overview  145 Passion of the Robbers of Šlapanice according to Bartoš, the Executioner of Brno  132, 133n13, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138n25, 139, 140

reference of manuscript and overview 148 Mohun, Joan, Lady  23, 24 Mone, Lady  26 Montacute, John, Baron  208 Montacute, John, Earl of Salisbury  208 Mora, Francine  109, 111, 113, 117 Mortimer, Anne de  20 Mortimer, Roger, 4th Earl of March  20 Mowbray, Thomas, Duke of Norfolk  73 Murimuth, Adam  87n8 Murton, Megan E.  215n3, 223n33 natio Bohemorum (Bohemian nation)  51, 53 Neddermeyer, Uwe  40 New Chaucer Society, International Congress (Siena, 2010)  1 Newman, Barbara  131 Nicolas de Gorran see Gorranus, Nicolaus Nicolaus de Lira see Lyra, Nicholas of Nielson, George  132–3 Norman Conquest  91, 94, 97, 99, 100n70, 103 Norwich Cathedral  28, 170, 194n33 ‘The Despenser Retable’  195 occultatio 222 Oldcastle, John  40n2, 41 Opus arduum  42, 51 Order of the Garter  19, 23–4, 27, 35, 36, 37, 68n54 origines gentium (origins of peoples) tradition  87, 88, 93 Ovid  2, 4, 122 Heroides 209 Pächt, Otto  194 painting see Bohemian influence on English art (L. Panušková) Panušková, Lenka see Bohemian influence on English art (L. Panušková) Papal Schism see Western (Great/Papal) Schism Paris, as seen by knight Wenceslas 61–2 parody biblical parody  133, 140n30, 141, 145, 148 medieval parody  131, 132, 133, 135, 148 Passion of Pffarkirch 176

280  Index Passions see mock Passions in England and Bohemia (L. Doležalová) Paul V, Pope  215 Payne, Peter  41 Pearl (poem)  34, 214n1 Pearsall, Derek  24, 86, 98 Pelán, Jiří  155 pen trials  58, 70 Petrarch, Francesco Bohemian connection correspondence with members of Bohemian court  154 correspondence/relationship with Charles IV  5, 6, 22, 153–4, 216, 218–21, 222, 226 letter to Anna von Schweidnitz (only letter addressed to a woman)  154n17, 219–20 popularity of his work in Bohemia  9, 150, 151, 152–5, 157–61, 166, 209 questioning of his protohumanistic influence on Bohemian court  155–6 works present in medieval Czech codices  155–6 Chaucer’s creative use of his work  3, 4 Visconti family, relationship with  219, 220, 221 works and letters Africa  155 Bucolicum carmen  153n12, 154, 155 De laudibus feminarum 209 De remediis utriusque fortunae  155 De viris illustribus  153, 154, 219 De vita solitaria  155 Invectiva contra quondam magni status hominem  155 Invective contra medicum  155 letters (Familiares)  153n15, 153n16, 154n17, 154n19, 219–20, 222 letters (Seniles)  151n3, 151n5, 219, 221, 222n29, 227 Liber sine nomine  154, 155 Psalmi penitentiales  155, 156n27 Secretum  155 Tale of Griselda see under The Evil Tale of Evil Briselda (K. Petříková)

Petříková, Klára see The Evil Tale of Evil Briselda (K. Petříková) Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy 107 Philippa de Coucy, Countess of Oxford, Duchess of Ireland  27, 28 Philippa of Hainault, Queen consort of England 14 Philippa of Lancaster, Queen consort of Portugal  25 Phillips, Helen  223n35 Planá (town)  59–60, 77 Plantagenets  14, 217 Play about Christ’s Resurrection (Old Czech)  175–6 Podlaha, Antonín  56–7 Pole, Michael de la, Sir  17, 19, 29, 30 ‘political lyric’ genre  141, 142 Poynings, Blanche, Lady  23, 24–5 Prague, development under Charles IV  16–17 Prologue to the Tale of Beryn 168, 169–70, 171 Protestantism  223 Przemysław I Noszak, Duke of Cieszyn (Teschen)  17, 18, 20 Przemyslid dynasty  86, 87, 96, 102, 103 Pulkava of Radenín, Přibík  87n9 querelle des femmes debates  151 Quinn, William A.  216n7, 222n30 The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye 112 Reibnitz, Nikolaus  71 Repingdon, Philip  53 Richard II, King of England in Chaucer’s Legend of Good Women  25 illustrated manuscripts, interest in  195–6 kingship, concept of  196 Marian devotion presented to Virgin Mary (Wilton Diptych)  34, 183, 184, 188, 233, 234 presented to Virgin Mary with Queen Anne (lost altarpiece)  233 Walsingham Shrine visits  19, 25, 33n109, 234 marriages

to Anne of Bohemia  1, 2, 5–6, 7, 55–6, 160n45, 217–18, 229 to Isabelle of France  34, 38, 71, 160n45 tomb buried at King’s Langley first  74 Westminster Abbey double tomb  33, 34, 37, 38, 50, 65, 70, 74, 225, 234–5 Westminster Abbey portrait  31 see also Great Bible of Richard II; Richard II’s marriage to Anne of Bohemia (M. Bennett) Richard II’s marriage to Anne of Bohemia (M. Bennett) abstract and main points  8, 13 marriage not seen as advantageous  13– 14, 18 political significance  14, 16 pre-marriage Anglo-Bohemian relations 16–17 Western (Great/Papal) Schism and marriage treaty  17 new royal couple Anne’s arrival in England and crowning  13, 17–18 Anne’s political importance and Richard’s entourage  18–19 customary intercessor role of queens  18 royal tours and regal image  19 Queen Anne and her impact assessment of her contribution  37–8 character and personality  37 good education  22, 37 imperial rather than Bohemian image 21–2 Italian/European influences on literature/culture  22–3 limited personal agency (early 1380s)  19 name ‘Anne’ gaining popularity 19–20 pointed shoes and riding sidesaddle 20 promotion of cult of St Anne  20 promotion of vernacular Bible 20 remonstrations re. de Vere/ Lancecrona affair  27 role during political crisis  30

Index  281 role in managing Richard’s moods  38 role in shaping Richard’s ambitions  31 role/portray in Maidstone’s Concordia  32–3 support for Burley  30 treatise on heraldry addressed to  31 women in greater numbers at court  23–4 women’s experiences and court of love 24–6 the Queen’s compatriots Bohemian visitors  20–1, 35–7, 38 expulsion of except her servants (1388)  19, 30, 31–2 no more formal presence by 1440s  38 the Queen’s death childlessness and sudden death  33 grand funeral and effigy  33–4 Richard’s grief and choice of second wife  33, 34 the Queen’s death and after Bohemian cultural influences  34–5 Richard’s devotion to her memory  38 Richard’s patronage of Bohemians in England  35–7, 38 Richard’s relations with Wenceslas IV (Wenzel)  34, 38 successor’s re-engagement with Bohemia  38 Richard’s imperial style imperial eagles  27–8 imperial kingship  28–9 influence of Bohemians and other culture-makers  29 interest in antique Roman style  29–30 sculptures of kings, Westminster Hall 28 tensions and political crisis (1386–88) moral censure against Richard and his inner circle  26–7 Richard’s relationship with Robert de Vere  26

282  Index Robert de Vere and Agnes Lancecrona  27, 36–7 Robert de Vere and political crisis  27, 30 towards rebuilding the monarchy coronation oath and new council  30 desire to be seen as ‘wise’  30–1 English traditions of sacred kingship  31 English-Bohemian cultural links  31–2 royal couple’s appearances in public  32 royal couple’s attendance at city of London ceremonies  32–3 Richard of St Victor  45–6, 51, 53, 54 Benjamin minor  45 Liber exceptionum  45 Rickert, Margaret  188 Rigg, A. G.  141 Robbers of Šlapanice (near Brno), Passion of the Robbers of Šlapanice according to Bartoš, the Executioner of Brno  132, 133n13, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138n25, 139, 140, 148 Robert Bruce, King of Scots  145 Passion of the Perjurious Scots  132, 133n13, 135, 136–7, 138n25, 140, 142, 145 Robert of Avebury  87n8 Robert of Gloucester, Chronicle 86, 88, 89, 91–2, 93–4, 97–9, 100n68, 100n70, 101, 103 Robert of Namur  14 Roet, Philippa  25, 234n69 Rolle, Richard  4, 14, 203 see also Rolle in Bohemia (M. Van Dussen) Rolle in Bohemia (M. Van Dussen) abstract and main points  8–9, 39 context textual transmission in Holy Roman Empire  39–40 varying levels of trade in Bohemia and England  40 from England to Bohemia Richard Rolle’s texts  41 Wyclif’s and Wycliffite texts 40–2 Rolle and Europe biographical details  42 English and Latin texts  42 European readership  42–3

manuscripts in European libraries  43–4 production throughout later Middles Ages  44 role of Carthusians  44 wide circulation but unclear reputation  44–5, 54 Rolle’s authority in Bohemia in doubt confusion with Richard of St Victor  45–7, 53 Latin Psalter section mixed with unattributed commentary 47–8 Latin Psalter with glosses from Gorranus  47, 48 Rolle’s identity, evidence of interest in Incendium amoris (3 related copies)  48–9 Schlägl Latin Psalter  49–50 Rolle’s relevance for reformists Emendatio vite with reformist and Wyclif’s texts  50 Incendium amoris with texts by Wyclif, Hus and Jerome of Prague  51 Lamentations commentary with Hussite texts and anticlerical poems  50 Latin Psalter in natio Bohemorum catalogue  51 Latin Psalter with Hus’s sermons  51 Latin Psalter with Wyclif’s sermon  50–1 vernacular Bible controversy, Hussites and Rolle  52–3 Wycliffites’ role in transmitting Rolle’s texts  53–4 Rolle’s texts Emendatio vite  43, 44, 50–1 English Psalter  51, 53 Form of Living  43n14, 44n19, 51 Incendium amoris  43, 44, 48–9, 51, 54 Lamentations commentary  44, 50 Latin Psalter commentary  43–4, 45, 46, 47–8, 49, 50–2, 54 ‘Of thre wyrkynges in mans saule’ (tentatively attributed)  45 Passion meditation (Meditation B)  45 Super threnos  44n19, 50, 54

Le Roman de la rose  208, 225 Roman de toute chevalerie  122n50 Roman d’Énéas  109n16, 117, 123n52, 124 Rosarium 42 Rosenberg family  60 Rubin, Miri  216n8, 232n60 Ruddick, Andrea  87, 96n51 Rudolph IV, Duke of Austria  154, 220 Ruprecht III of the Palatinate, King of Germany 71 sacred kingship  31 St Cosmas and Damian Church, LukovVenezia  179 St Lawrence’s Church, Ludlow, tapster tormented by devils (wall painting)  170, 171 St Leonhard and Nicholas Church, Dolní Slověnice  173, 174 St Paul’s Cathedral, London John of Gaunt and Blanche of Lancaster’s tomb  223n36 as seen by knight Wenceslas  66–7, 75 shrine to empress Elizabeth  32, 38, 220 St Peter and Paul Church, Staré Prachatice  178–9, 178 St Thomas Becket Church, Salisbury 170 St Victor, Abbey of  46 St Vitus Cathedral, Prague  234 Sandler, Lucy Freeman  188n17, 195n34, 198n46 Sargent, Michael  44 Sarnesfield, Margaret, Lady  35, 38 Sarnesfield, Nicholas, Sir  21n46, 32 Šašek, Václav  64n39, 67n51, 75n83, 75n84, 77n90, 78–9 Satire of the Artisans and Aldermen (Hradec Králové Codex)  180 Saunders, Elfrida  182 Savonarola, Girolamo, Ave Maria commentary  215 Scheerre, Hermann  194 Schmidt, Gerhard  187n14 Scotland, Passion of the Perjurious Scots  132, 133n13, 135, 136–7, 138n25, 140, 142, 145 Secreta secretorum  31 Shakespeare, William, Troilus and Cressida 112 shoes, fashion for long pointed shoes 20

Index  283 Short Metrical Chronicle  88, 89, 91, 92, 94 Auchinleck MS version  91, 93n37, 101 Shrewsbury Charter (1389)  197 side-saddle riding  20 Siege of Troy 112 Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor  28, 71–2, 218 Siglem, Katherine, Lady  35, 36 Siglem, Roger, Sir  21, 35, 36, 71, 207n19 Simpson, Amanda  181, 184, 187n13 Simpson, James  111, 112, 126–7, 128 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight  27, 34 Skeat, Walter, Revd  222–3 Skelton, John, Elynour Rummyng 168, 170, 171 Slawkowicz, Pavel  53 Smithfield Decretals 171–2 Soběslav I, Duke of Bohemia  102 Soběslav II, Duke of Bohemia  102 Sophia of Bavaria, Queen of Bohemia 187 Speght, Thomas  222 Stafford, Ralph, Sir  19 Št’astný, Radko  89n21, 103n80 Statius  4, 115, 117 Thebaid 222 Steinhöwel, Heinrich, translation of Griselda  159–60 Stephen, King of England  99 Stopes, William  49 Strohm, Paul  116n36 Strzelcze pod Sobótką (Strehlitz) church  176, 178 Stury, Richard, Sir  208 Suchý, Marek see Golden Book of the Knight Wenceslas (Marek Suchý) Sudbury, Simon, Archbishop of Canterbury 217 Swynford, Katherine, Duchess of Lancaster (née Roet)  25 tapster figure in England and Bohemia (J. Dienstbier) abstract and main points  9, 168 Chaucer’s life-barrel metaphor and tapster figure  168, 180 female tapsters in English literature in anonymous ‘Prologue to the Tale of Beryn’  169–70, 171 in Harrowing of Hell (Chester Mystery Cycle)  170, 171, 175

284  Index in John Skelton’s Elynour Rummyng  170, 171 in Langland’s Piers Plowman 170 popular distrust and laws against female innkeepers  170 female tapsters in English visual representations Holkham Bible Picture Book (illustration)  171, 173 Holy Trinity Church, Coventry (wall painting)  170, 173 Norwich Cathedral (roof bosses in nave)  170 St Lawrence’s Church, Ludlow (misericords)  170, 171 St Thomas Becket Church, Salisbury (wall painting)  170 Smithfield Decretals (illustrations)  171–2 female tapsters in wall paintings in Bohemia Broumov, Triumph of Death and a tapster  174–5, 175, 180 Church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, Pičín  172, 173 St Leonhard and Nicholas Church, Dolní Slovênice  173, 174 St Peter and Paul Church, Staré Prachatice  178–9, 178 male tapsters in Czech and German plays Play about Christ’s Resurrection (Old Czech)  175–6 Teufelspielen (‘Devil’s Plays’ or Harrowing plays)  176 tapsters in Central European wall paintings mostly female figures  176–7 Slovakian female tapsters (formerly Upper Hungary)  177–8 wall painting from Liptovské Sliače  177, 178 wall painting from Rimavské Brezovo church  177–8, 177, 180 West Carpathian icons with female tapsters  179 tapsters in Czech literature The Mirror of the Carnival 180 Satire of the Artisans and Aldermen 179–80

Teschen see Margaret of Teschen; Przemysław I Noszak, Duke of Cieszyn (Teschen) Tetzel, Gabriel  75n83, 78 Teufelspielen (‘Devil’s Plays’ or Harrowing plays)  176 Tewksbury Abbey  234 Thomas, Alfred  7, 107n7, 128, 129n65, 179n34, 203n2, 205n8 Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester  18, 19 Thompson, Edward Maunde  132 Thorpe, William  41, 53 Tichý, Ondřej  1 tomb descriptions  109n16, 123–4 Tout, Thomas Frederick  133, 134, 135, 143n51, 145n59 translatio studii et imperii  106, 108–9, 113, 114, 126–8 travel writing see Golden Book of the Knight Wenceslas (Marek Suchý) Trevet, Nicholas  229, 232 Trevisa, John  205–6 Trojan Chronicle  164–6, 167 Trojan narrative  5, 22–3 see also Troy literature in the Middle Ages (V. Bridges) Trojan War  90, 116 Troy literature in the Middle Ages (V. Bridges) abstract and main points  9, 105 contexts and texts Benoît de Sainte-Maure’s Roman de Troie  105–6, 107n5, 109n16, 110–11 Guido de Columnis’s Historia destructionis Troie  105–6, 111 John Lydgate’s Troy Book  105, 111–13 local English-language context 106 transnational Latin and French context  105–6 Troy literature and translatio studii 106 diachronic/transnational vs synchronic/local narrative’s journey from antiquity to Chaucer  106–7 rulers/states’ use of narrative 107 scholarly focus on local literaryhistoricist analysis  107–8

towards a transnational, diachronic perspective  108 translatio studii et imperii concept 108–9 transnationality and competitive translatio  109–10, 113, 126–8 Hector’s tomb and body authors’ use of ekphrases and marvels  113, 123–4 Benoît: tomb as architectural marvel  123–4 Guido: focus on balsam operation on body  124–5 Lydgate: lyrical and personal lament  125–6 Medea author’s approach to women  113 Benoît’s eroticizing approach  117–19, 122 Guido’s antifeminism  119–21, 122 Lydgate’s repudiation of Guido’s antifeminism 121–2 Prologue authors’ historiographical intentions  113 Benoît’s approach  113–14, 116, 117 Guido’s approach  114–15, 116 Lydgate’s approach  115–16, 117 Troy and Bohemia Dalimil inspired by Guido’s Historia 129 Kronika trojánská (Czech translation of Guido’s Historia)  127–9 see also Benoît de Sainte-Maure; Guido de Columnis; Lydgate, John Tudor-Craig, Pamela  195n35 Turville-Petre, Thorlac  86, 93, 94–5, 97, 103, 142 Tuse Church, Denmark  177 Ubriachi (Embriachi), Baldassore  22, 29, 34–5, 37 Ullerston, Richard, determinatio  43n14, 53 University of Kent ‘Chaucer in Bohemia’ project  1–2 School of Arts and Culture (Montparnasse, Paris)  1–2 University of Oxford, Queen’s College  205–6

Index  285 University of Prague see Charles University, Prague Urban I, Pope  229 Urban V, Pope  220, 221, 229 Urban VI, Pope  17, 20, 217, 221, 226, 229 urine, treatise on  31 Valdštejn, Emanuel Arnošt, Count of 60 Valois dynasty  71, 217 Van Dussen, Michael  4, 57, 58n12, 61n27, 62n32, 62n33, 63n34, 63n37, 64n38, 65n42, 65n43, 66n45, 66n48, 67n51, 68n55, 68n57, 68n58, 74n80, 74n82, 80n98, 80n99, 81n101, 81n102, 81n103, 82n104, 82n105 From England to Bohemia 7 see also Rolle in Bohemia (M. Van Dussen) Vere, Robert de, 9th earl of Oxford and Duke of Ireland  19, 21, 26, 27, 28–9, 30, 33, 36–7, 207n19 Vidmanová, Anežka  155n26 Vienna Passion Play 176 Vilikovský, Jan  131 Vio, Thomas de  231n59 Virgil  2, 4, 5, 115 Visconti (family)  17, 219, 220, 221, 226 Visconti, Bernabò, Lord of Milan  5–6, 217, 226 Visconti, Caterina  5–6, 217, 218, 226, 235 Visconti, Galeazzo II, Lord of Milan 221 Visconti, Gian Galeazzo, Duke of Milan 217 Visconti, Violante  221 Vojtěch Raňkův z Ježova (Adalbertus Ranconis de Ericinio)  16–17 Wace translation of Historia Regum Britanniae  88, 89, 93n39, 98n59, 100n69 see also Geoffrey of Monmouth Wallace, David  5, 7, 22, 25 see also Anne of Bohemia, Chaucer and the Virgin Mary (D. Wallace) Walsingham, Thomas  18, 19, 26, 34, 222 Walsingham Shrine  19, 25, 33n109, 234 Walter of Châtillon, Alexandreis  123 Warner, Marina  229n54 Watson, Carolin C. Joslin  194 Watson, Nicholas  222n32

286  Index Wenceslas (knight)  38 see also Golden Book of the Knight Wenceslas (Marek Suchý) Wenceslas, Count of Luxembourg and Duke of Brabant  14, 198 Wenceslas I, Duke of Bohemia (saint and martyr)  218 Wenceslas I, King of Bohemia  97 Wenceslas IV (Wenzel), King of Bohemia Anglo-French mission to (1397)  71, 72 Anne of Bohemia’s correspondence with  21, 25, 29 Anne of Bohemia’s marriage to Richard II  14, 17, 18 Charles VI of France, meeting with (1398)  73 dethronement  71, 72 diplomats in service of  72, 77–8 George Felbrigg envoy to  32 marriage to Johanna  186, 187 marriage to Sophia  187, 190 patron of the arts  31, 69n61, 181, 184, 192, 208 pen trial referring to  70 Richard II, relations with after Anne’s death  34, 38, 70n64 treatise on geomancy  31 Urban VI’s confirmation of his election 217 see also Bible of Wenceslas IV Wenceslaus (Bartlík)  59 West Carpathian icons  179 Western (Great/Papal) Schism  17, 34, 39–40, 71, 73, 214, 216, 217, 226, 229 Westminster Abbey Anne’s and Richard II’s choir stalls  32 Anne’s and Richard II’s double tomb  33, 34, 37, 38, 50, 65, 70, 74, 225, 234–5, 236 Passion of the Monks of Westminster according to John  132, 134, 136, 140, 145n59, 146 Richard II’s portrait  31 as seen by knight Wenceslas  65–6 Westminster Hall reconstruction under Richard II  31, 74n80 sculptures of kings  28 Willehalm Codex  187–8, 192

William I (the Conqueror), King of England  91n25, 97 William II (William Rufus), King of England 99 Wilton Diptych  34, 183, 184, 188, 233, 234 Winter, Patrick de  198 Woburn Abbey, Armada portrait  237n78 women feminine ‘weakness’ in medieval culture  163 Medea figure in Troy literature  113, 117–22 querelle des femmes debates  151 at Ricardian court  23–6 see also Chaucer’s Legend of Good Women (J. Boffey and A. S. G. Edwards); The Evil Tale of Evil Briselda (K. Petříková); tapster figure in England and Bohemia (J. Dienstbier) Wyche, Richard  40, 40n2, 41 Wyclif, John Anne of Bohemia’s intercession for 226 audience in Bohemia  4, 14, 203 connection with Queen’s College, Oxford  205 writings on Anne of Bohemia’s gospels in Czech and German  20, 196–7 on Ave Maria  215n3 De ecclesia  53 De nova prevaricancia mandatorum  50 sermon on Trinity Sunday  50 Wycliffites meetings with Czech clerks in Oxford  38 role in transmission of Rolle’s texts to Bohemia  53–4 transmission of their texts to Bohemia  40–2, 50, 51–2, 56 Wycliffite Bible  52–3, 205 Yevele, Henry  66n47, 223n36 Zettl, Ewald  89, 92n33 Znojemská, Helena see histories in Czech and English vernacular (H. Znojemská) Žůrek, Václav  7