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Art in the Age of Chivalry
Bornstein, Diane. “William Caxton's chivalric romances and the Burgundian Renaissance in
England,” English Studies 57 (1976), 1-10.
Bornstein seeks to prove William Caxton’s affiliation with the “Burgundian movement and to point out its lingering influence in England” (1). To achieve this, Bornstein uses Caxton’s printed works to verify that his works were relevant to English attitudes of the time along with many secondary works printed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and Edmund Spencer’s Faerie Queen. Much like Kekewich, Bornstein establishes the connections linking the English and Burgundian courts together through Caxton’s involvement with both England and Burgundy and Edward IV as well as the Woodville connection. But where Kekewich paid more attention to Edward’s collection and how Caxton’s publication reflected it, Bornstein focuses on Caxton’s work and its direct correlation to the rising influence of the Burgundian court style and how that style continued to influence English chivalric culture into the Elizabethan era.
Bornstein’s work, like Kekewich’s, establishes the cause for the changing image of English chivalry. Chivalry still meant proving prowess and earning honor just in a more romantic, organized fashion. Bornstein, in the last paragraph, shows how Burgundian influence reached into the Elizabethan era and how it influenced Elizabethan tournaments.
Goodman, Jennifer R. Chivalry and Exploration, 1298-1630. Boydell Press, 1998.
Like her article, “European Chivalry in the 1490s,” Goodman hopes to advance the study of chivalric literature and exploration. Generally, the closing remarks in the chapters encourage further research and to expand the understanding between chivalry and exploration. Goodman’s desire for her work to be a starting point for research leads her to leave questions unanswered in hope someone else will answer them. The introduction of this work voices this hope along with another. Goodman writes about the imagination’s agency in history as a tool for the historian and as an active element for the individuals historians’ hold in high esteem. Her argument, in this work, is that historians “can better understand European explorers and conquistadors by understanding their fantasies” via the literature that influenced their imaginings (219). To support this, Goodman generally uses the first publication or good translations of them as her evidence along with often citing Maurice Keen’s book, Chivalry (1984). She wants to see why and how explorers justified, “perceived,” their actions rather than a contemporary explanation of their actions and does this through the chivalric literature these explorers read and wrote. Goodman also wants to reestablish chivalry as a part of the early modern mind set explorers, nobles, and royals possessed and as an element that must be included in future research to better understand their actions. This appeal is in her conclusion, but brings her back to the introduction’s call for the of use imagination (within in reasonable limitations) as a tool for the historian and to recognize its agency in history.
Goodman’s book works to expand the perception of chivalry and exploration. “The Matter of England: Ralegh among the Amazons,” is a bit of a misleading title in which Goodman examines Ralegh’s Discoveries of Guiana and his “most flamboyant” descriptions and explanations for why he failed and why Elizabeth must support a second expedition. Throughout the chapter, Goodman references Ralegh’s chivalrous acts, such as telling his men not to steal (which fails), rescuing Natives from the clutches of the dreaded Spanish, and not enforcing religious conversion on a people who were so willing to name Elizabeth as their Queen. Goodman reads Ralegh’s actions as attempts to earn glory as a true English knight. However, the Black Legend hung over Spain and her actions in the New World. England would want to prove themselves better than Spain, especially after the Armada’s defeat in 1588, and to do this, Ralegh treats himself as the most chivalric knight errant; adhering to the chivalric code by protecting the weaker and defenseless natives terrorized by Spain. Goodman also notes that, “Ralegh makes chivalry and pragmatic self-interest… one and the same course of action” (176). But this is what nobles like the Earl of Essex and his followers did in the 1580s and 90s, which is best described by McCoy’s Rites of Knighthood. Young nobles came into the carefully balanced Elizabethan court, wanting to display their power, both politically and physically, which coalesced in the Accession Day Tilts explored by Yates, McCoy, and Kipling. The Accession Day Tilts were designed for nobility to pay homage to Elizabeth, their chance to engage in martial activity, and to show Elizabeth as a powerful monarch via the power of her loyal nobles. Like Ralegh, whose work serves more to promote himself as a great explorer and conqueror, the knights participating in the 1580s and 90s Accession Day Tilts promoted themselves and their power, tested the Queen’s authority, and how far they could extend their reach before Elizabeth reacted.
Kipling, Gordon. The Triumph of Honour: Burgundian Origins of the Elizabethan Renaissance
(Leiden: Leiden University Press, 1977).
Kipling sets out to “modify Huizinga’s concept” of the fifteenth century Burgundy culture, which, according to Huizinga was in a state of decline and to “explore the impact of Burgundian culture on Tudor England (2). The English adoption of the Burgundian model signified a dawning rather than a decline in chivalric imagery. Kipling uses Richmond Palace, which began its construction in 1497, under Henry VII, as an example of Burgundian influence in England. Kipling argues that the Burgundian influence dominate the construction of Richmond from its windows to the Royal Library. He supports his argument with construction plans for Richmond Palace, chivalric literature procured for the Royal Libraries, numerous memoires, many secondary sources. Beginning with Edward IV’s interest in Burgundian literature, Kipling demonstrates the increasing romanticization of chivalry in Tudor England, culminating in Henry VII’s quest to identify and establish the Tudor dynasty as the finest in Europe, or at least ranking among the best. Kipling closes with Elizabeth I’s Accession Day Tilts celebrating her as Queen and the literature reflecting Burgundian influence like Edmund Spencer’s Faerie Queen. Kipling achieves his purpose, illustrating the death of a martial form of chivalry and the birth of a romantic chivalry that was once confined only to romances, as represented by Henry VII’s Burgundian romantic jousts and pageants and Elizabeth’s Accession Day Tilts.
Chivalry’s shifting identity during Henry VII’s reign found solid, even if uneasy, footing in Elizabeth’s reign. It acted as a means of maintaining a balance between nobles and the monarch with Elizabeth as the ultimate deciding authority. Kipling’s analysis of a modifying English chivalry influenced by Burgundian chivalric displays, allows the increasing romance of chivalry to take center stage in Elizabeth’s court. However, this also highlights the expiration of the chivalry developed in the Middle Ages where the knight was loyal to chivalry. Now the knight is supposed to be loyal to their monarch, but the growing desire to display individual glory, like the Earl of Essex, increased throughout Elizabeth’s reign.
Kekewich, Margaret. “Edward IV, William Caxton, and Literary Patronage in Yorkist England,”
The Modern Language Review Vol. 66, No. 3 (Jul., 1971), pp. 481-487.
Kekewich argues for William Caxton’s Burgundian influence on English chivalric literature and to show Edward IV as a king who collected numerous printed and illuminated manuscripts. Kekewich starts by establishing the close ties of marriage and a common enemy, France, between Burgundy and England. She then goes on to demonstrate Edward’s appreciation for literature after his impressionable visit to the library of Louis of Burges in 1470, when there was a brief Lancastrian revival in England. Edward obtained many books that were in Louis library, for his own collection. Caxton’s contribution to literature came from his time spent in Burges and the opportunity presented to him under the Woodville dominance at court, which support their Burgundian heritage. Kekewich makes use of Royal Museum sources, many nineteenth and twentieth century publications of chivalric literature, and secondary sources to prove her argument. Kekewich concludes that Caxton’s “choice of works” reflects Edward IV’s “personal collection of books” showing the influence that Burgundian court culture and literature had on English court culture and literature for years to come (487).
Kekewich’s argument helps emphasize the changes English chivalry underwent during the Tudor Dynasty. Henry VII manipulated chivalry so it became a form of praise and support for Tudor rule, while Elizabeth I manipulated it to achieve a closer connection with Henry VIII and create an atmosphere conducive to approaching and supporting a female monarch much like The Courtier. However, Elizabethan chivalric culture kept one of the more fundamental elements of chivalry mostly intact and that was the need to prove honor in combat. Moreover, in the Elizabethan court’s later years with the rise of younger nobility, a need to achieve self-greatness rather than praise for the sovereign as it had been previously developed. The enthusiastic Earl of Essex is an excellent example of this mentality in the tiltyard and Sir Walter Ralegh displays this ideal in his exaggerated retelling of his conquest in Guiana.
McCoy examines the uneasy balance between the nobility and the Queen through chivalric displays like the tilts. This book reflects his 1983 article, “‘A dangerous image’: the Earl of Essex and Elizabethan Chivalry.” However, where the article only examined the Earl of Essex, McCoy includes examinations of Elizabethan literature, by Samuel Daniel, who praised Essex as the “incarnation of contemporary chivalric heroism” in his first edition of The Civil Wars, and Edmund Spencer, whose writings are “tied to the heroes and ideals of Elizabethan chivalry” (127). McCoy also includes Robert Dudley, Sir Philip Sidney, and, of course, the Earl of Essex as examples of how far chivalric imagery was taken. McCoy uses many works by Shakespeare, Spencer, and Daniel along with other works written at the time. He makes use of records from royal archives and numerous secondary sources including Yates.
While the whole of the book is fascinating, it is highly likely that only the first chapter will be used in the paper. It focuses on the role of balance chivalry played in the Elizabethan court and the rather temperamental nature of that balance. The other chapters focus more on how an individual disrupted that balance. Moreover, the “chivalric compromise and conflict” (first chapter’s title) of the Elizabethan court shows in the writings of Walter Ralegh as he tries to paint himself as the humble servant furthering Elizabeth’s glory and authority, while also praising himself for undertaking such dangerous work and succeeding in a blaze of glory.
