'What world is this? How vndirstande am I?' A reappraisal of poetic authority in Thomas Hoccleve's series.

Aftir bat heruest inned had his sheeues, And bat the broun sesoun of Mighelmesse Was come, and gan the trees robbe of hir leeues, bat greene had been and in lusty fresshnesse, And hem into colour of yelownesse Had died and doun throwen vndir foote, bjar chaunge sank into myn herte roote. (1)

These lines, which begin Thomas Hoccleve's Series, have been described as the opening to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales transposed into a minor key. (2) Rather than begin his poem amid the 'shoures soote' and budding bulbs of April, Hoccleve chooses as his starting point the bitter cold and withering leaves of autumn. Chaucer begins his poem eagerly awaiting a pilgrimage, whereas Hoccleve lies in bed 'vexid' by a 'thoghtful maladie' (C, line 21). Far from boasting Chaucer's 'ful devout corage', Hoccleve bemoans his lack of 'lust' and his 'langour'. (3) By the end of his prologue, he has reversed the tone of Chaucer's opening entirely. He chooses to 'brast out on the morwe' not because of, but despite his surroundings. And unlike Chaucer, who gears up for a pilgrimage, Hoccleve sits down and begins to write. This instance of writing despite the bleakness of one's surroundings serves as a fitting introduction to the Series--a work that depicts the compromised state of English poets about two decades after Chaucer's death.

Hoccleve was writing the Series between 1419 and 1426, a period of considerable unrest for the English nation. (4) In 1422 Henry V died, leaving the English throne to his nine-month-old son. Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, struggled with John, Duke of Bedford, for the title of Protector, while England continued its war with France and its ongoing battle against heresy. (5) Fresh in the collective English memory was the Council of Constance (1414-18), which saw attempts by delegates from Italy, France, Spain, Germany, and England to reform the Christian Church in 'head and members', to end the papal schism, and to censure the heterodox views of heretics like John Wyclif and Jan Hus. (6) As England was 'home' to the Wycliffite heresy, it became a political necessity for Lancastrian spokesmen to stress England's 'return' to a simpler and more orthodox Christian faith in order to differentiate between the strong, reform-minded English nation and weak, heterodox interlopers like Wyclif. The idea of a 'pure' faith to which one could return was necessary if only to position heterodox views within the opposing camp of the impure. In order to be politically useful and therefore politically popular, English poets needed to participate in this game of polarizing people and ideas. In more political pre-Series poems like 'To Sir John Oldcastle', we see Hoccleve using the right language for this: he emphasizes the military prowess of the orthodox and the intellectual weaknesses of the heretics; he appeals to authorities like Justinian and Constantine and thereby links the English Church with a Christian tradition far removed from hazardous, contemporary attempts at theological enquiry. (7)

In the Series, however, Hoccleve indicates how this polarization of good and bad, pure and impure, orthodox and heterodox, can compromise the quality of poetry produced. At one point in the 'Dialogue' section of the Series, Hoccleve offers a detailed description of the death of a flower and he positions it between a series of allusions to Chaucer. (8) It becomes hard not to link the image of the withering flower and the words 'farwel colour' (9) to Hoccleve's earlier autumnal rendition of The Canterbury Tales' prologue and, indeed, to his own distance from Chaucer, his so-called 'flour of eloquence'. (10) What Hoccleve fears most, it seems, is that the cold wind of political scrutiny will reduce even poetry to a matter of right or wrong, moral or immoral, white or black--that it will attempt to rob poetry of its many gradations of meaning.

As we shall see, the Series does much to indicate that this may be happening. Particularly when discussing Hoccleve's poem 'The Epistle of Cupid', Hoccleve's Friend (11) insists on there being only one possible interpretation, and refuses to entertain any alternative, even though the alternative in question is put forth by none other than the author himself. The moralizations that the Friend tacks onto Hoccleve's translations offer similarly unilateral perspectives. They confirm the orthodoxy of the poems by offering interpretations in Christian terms, but do so by ignoring other possible interpretations. The very fact that these moralizations need to be 'knyt' to the poems suggests that they are, in fact, the official readings. The poems prove useful only insofar as their characters and plot-points can be made into signifiers for Christian doctrine. Similarly, books are praised for their ability to signify, rather than for literary merits. When the Friend suggests texts for Hoccleve to translate, he speaks of the specific ends for which they will be used. He imagines how well they will serve as possessions--as signs of socio-political status. This is an attack on poetry's ability to mean on a variety of levels, and it is an attack Hoccleve guards himself against fervently. He defends his poems, notes his Friend's errors, and encourages the reader to 'looke in the same book'--to judge the material for himself, instead of relying on society's simplification of the material. How a poet is read, ultimately, determines what authority he has. The gradations of meaning that surface when a poet paints life within the frame are lost if a text is not properly engaged with, if it is not read thoroughly. In the following article, I aim to point out the specific ways in which the act of reading is represented in the Series, and the political implications of these representations for contemporary English poets. We will study the Friend's attitude towards reading in the 'Dialogue' and the function of the prose moralizations, before moving on to the politics of book ownership. It should be said that the Series is by no means Hoccleve's admission of defeat as a poet. On the contrary, in writing a difficult and polyvalent text at a time in which it is more politically advantageous to appear guileless and frank, Hoccleve claims victory over the pressures of his age. Despite the hunt for heretics, and despite the cold wind of political scrutiny, Hoccleve is capable of fashioning a meaningful and multifaceted text for those readers still interested in reading.

We first see literature described in dichromatic terms in the 'Dialogue' section of the Series. In the course of deciding which text Hoccleve should translate for Duke Humphrey, the Friend points out that Hoccleve has offended women in the past. 'Thy wordes fille wolde a quarter sak', he says. 'Which thow in whyt depeynted haast with blak' (D, lines 669f.). (12) This rather peculiar metaphor allows the Friend to express literature in terms of white or black, right or wrong. The Friend argues that, were one to put Hoccleve's 'wordes' about women into a sack, Hoccleve would be obliged to paint over the sack's virgin white--the colour characteristic of women--and to label it instead with the black mark of error. The Friend suggests that by writing in praise of women, Hoccleve could potentially remove this former error; he could return the sack to its original white--to its original purity. The Friend's language reflects this dichromatic mentality of error and correction: 'Sumwhat now wryte in honour and preysynge / Of hem', he says. 'So maist thow do correccioun / Sumdel of thyn offense and misberynge' (D, lines 673-5; italics mine). Hoccleve's poetry has already been judged and painted 'black'--it has been announced impure, given to error. Hoccleve's only recourse is a return to purity through writing in praise of women.

Until this point, Hoccleve and his Friend have not been discussing any of Hoccleve's poems in particular, and this vagueness proves much to the point. Metaphorically speaking, Hoccleve's words lay jumbled in a sack intended for grain, and Hoccleve himself has been told that these words are impure. Hoccleve listens to his Friend's reproach for about eighty lines before realizing that he is not, in fact, guilty. 'But what haue I agilt?' Hoccleve asks. 'Nat haue I doon why ... / Out of wommennes graces slippe or slyde' (D, lines 751-3). He questions what it is exactly that he has done wrong. The Friend offers Hoccleve's much earlier poem 'The Epistle of Cupid' (1402) as an example. He describes Hoccleve's enraged women readers as 'swart wrooth' (D, line 756)--black with rage--and thereby links the 'Epistle' with that black sack of Hocclevian error. As the two continue to talk, however, it becomes clear that the Friend has not, in fact, even read the 'Epistle':

'The book concludith for hem, is no nay, Vertuously, my good freend, dooth it nat?' 'Thomas, I noot, for neuere it yit I say.' 'No, freend?' 'No, Thomas,' 'Wel trowe I, in fay; For had yee red it fully to the ende, Yee wolde seyn, it is natas yee wende.' (D, lines 779-84) (13)

Hoccleve reassures his Friend that, were he to read the text 'to the ende', he would find Hoccleve innocent of the charges levelled against him. But his words fail to reassure the Friend. The stigmatization of Hoccleve's poetry apparently has little to do with the poetry itself, and more to do with an abstraction of the poetry. The Friend can only voice what he has heard from this anonymous population known to us only as 'wommen'. So apparently strong is this public opinion that the Friend has no qualms about delivering a verdict and punishing Hoccleve, his so-called 'friend', without even having read what Hoccleve has written. Reading the text 'fully' and 'to the ende', as Hoccleve suggests, is out of the question. Popular opinion deems Hoccleve's words black, and so black they remain, at least until he has consented to punishment.

This would all seem quite reminiscent of Chaucer's prologue to The Legend of Good Women were it not for the fact that Hoccleve is not in a dream-vision, cowering before the god of love--he is at work in his London home, talking to a visitor. The Friend's misreading of Hoccleve's poetry as offensive does not seem nearly so light-handed as the god of love's relatively whimsical dismissal of Chaucer's verse. When Chaucer is accused of offending women, he reverts to his usual excuse--he was only following the will of his 'auctour'--then he assents to Alceste's command that he write tales of good women. The danger is never real because the situation is never real: Chaucer is only dreaming. In the Series, however, the danger seems eerily present. As Hoccleve puts it, 'Thyng bat or this me thoghte game and play / Is ernest now' (D, fines 255f.). When responding to his Friend's reproach, Hoccleve seems shaken, even ungrounded, as a result of being so misunderstood. 'What world is this?' he asks. 'How vndirstande am I?' (D, line 774). These questions resonate, if only because the world of English politics and heretic hunting seems to have overlapped with the private world of Hoccleve's poetry-writing. The poet finds himself relinquishing ownership of his poems, or rather attempting to explain his poems to an audience that can only refer to an abstraction of his text, in which nuance is missing and the only relevant question is--pure or impure?

The language used in Hoccleve's 'Dialogue' becomes increasingly reminiscent of that used at the Council of Constance. Hoccleve says,

   Looke in the same book. What stikith by?
   Whoso lookith aright there in may see
   bat they me oghten haue in greet cheertee;
   And elles woot I neuere what is what. (D, fines 775-8)

Jan Hus finds himself in a similar situation. In an account of his examination at Constance on 7 June 1415, Hus can be seen defending the nuances of his work before a jury concerned with the broader task of cornering him into a position in which he might be seen, without nuance, as an upholder of impure beliefs. Hus's disciple Peter of Mladonovice records Hus's qualification of Wyclif's befief that a priest in mortal sin cannot consecrate, nor transubstantiate, nor baptize:

   Et [Hus] limitavit, quia digne talia non facit, sed indigne, cum
   pro tunc sit indignus minister sacramentorum del. Et ipsi dixerunt:
   'Ille stat simpliciter in libro tuo.' Et
   ipse respondit: 'Ego volo comburi, si non stat sic, sicut ego
   limitavi.' Et postea invenerunt illum sic limitate stare in
   tractatu, capitulo secundo Contra Palecz, in principio.

   ([Hus] qualified that he does not do so worthily, but unworthily,
   for he [the priest] was at the time an unworthy minister of God's
   sacraments. And they [the council] said: 'It is stated
   unqualifiedly in your book.' He replied: 'I am willing to be burned
   if it is not stated as I have qualified it.' Afterward they found
   it so qualified in the treatise Contra Paletz at the beginning of
   chapter two.) (14)

Like Hoccleve, Hus defends the nuances of his works against an enquiring body that wishes to label his writing impure. Like Hoccleve, he exhorts his accusers to engage with his work--to 'look in the same book', and thereby experience the text in its original, multifaceted state. I do not mean to imply that Hoccleve wanted to associate himself directly with the most notorious heretic still living at the time of the Council of Constance. The point is that in a time of political and ecclesiastical turmoil, nuance is among the first things to be forgotten. The delicacies of a text come second to identifying the enemy. And, employed as he is in the art of delicately conferring meaning at numerous levels, the poet has as much right as the heretic to rage when his accuser polarizes the subject matter of his poems in the hope of labelling them impure.

That Hoccleve should echo the Council of Constance in his portrayal of the polarization of literature is not altogether surprising. Hoccleve seems to be channelling Constance throughout the Series. For example, in the 'Complaint', Hoccleve mentions that 'the substance of [his] memorie / Wente to pleye' but returned 'at Alle Halwemesse' five years before he 'brast out on the morwe' to begin the Series (C, lines 5of., 55, 35). If John Burrow's dating of the 'Complaint' is correct, then the date of Hoccleve's figurative return to health would have been 1 November I414, which--as David Watt points out--was the projected opening date for the Council of Constance. (15) As a clerk of the Privy Seal Office, Hoccleve inevitably came across a large number of communications concerning the proceedings at Constance. (16) By connecting the return of his autobiographical narrator's memory with the opening at Constance, Hoccleve invites the reader to view Constance as a possible intellectual setting for the Series--as one of the 'worlds' in which Hoccleve finds himself during his dialogue with a friend. When read this way, it seems more feasible that Hoccleve would be using the language of Constance to express his own reservations concerning the Church's response to heresy and the effect of this response on the production of poetry. The Friend becomes a deputy of sorts, standing in for the major interrogators at Constance, individuals like Emperor Sigismund and Pierre d'Ailly of France.

The Friend also aligns himself linguistically with Duke Humphrey, who was swiftly becoming a symbol of orthodox chivalry at home. (17) In the 'Dialogue' Hoccleve describes Humphrey as a foil of sorts, an anti-Hoccleve who writes his autobiography not with a trembling hand, but literally with a 'swerd in steel' (D, lines 583f.). (18) When informing Hoccleve that he will be 'ouersee[ing]' the poet's return to purity, the Friend seems to position himself within Humphrey's camp of chivalric sword-writers by saying, 'Thow fynde me shalt also treewe as steel' (D, line 798; italics mine). To my knowledge, this is the only other use of the word 'steel' in the entirety of the Series. If the Friend was trying to scare Hoccleve, it seems to have worked. Hoccleve says, "Whan he was goon, I in myn herte dredde / Stonde out of wommennes beneuolence' (D, lines 799f.). And perhaps he is right to be scared. This 'Friend' has just visited him to remind him of a debt he owes Humphrey--the man who is, by 1422, in line to be Protector of England--and he has informed Hoccleve that popular opinion deems his writing impure. Hoccleve is evidently not in Chaucer's dream-court of love. He is far from it.

The final stanzas of the 'Dialogue' indicate how the imposition of the world of politics on the world of poetry can force even the poet to think in absolutes--in terms of black or white, good or bad. Hoccleve seems to recognize the sinister implications of his Friend's exhortation. He begins to speak in terms of war and peace. He addresses his women readers, but his language gestures more towards Humphrey--the man for whom he is translating the tale, the man he has portrayed as a symbol of orthodox chivalry. He says he would rather translate a tale for Humphrey 'than open werre / Yee make me, and me putte atte werre' (D, lines 818f.). He must show his allegiance through his craft of--as he says--'take my way for fere into France', that is, the site of England's current war, where he would truly be put to the test as a defender of his country and of his faith (D, line 823; italics mine). Unlike Hus, who insists on the integrity of his works until the day of his death, Hoccleve eventually bows to the demands of his accuser. (19) He agrees to recognize his poetry as impure and, therefore, to cooperate in the labelling of literature in terms of absolutes -if only to save himself. His deference to authority, however, is far from heartfelt--'I am al othir to yow than yee weene', he says at the end of the 'Dialogue'. 'By my wrytynge hath it, and shal, be seene' (D, lines 811f.). In other words, Hoccleve's writing has already absolved him of blame, but, as he is addressing a majority unwilling to read what he has already written, a majority that is only willing to discuss a polarized version of his texts, he will have to try again.

Hoccleve's Friend takes measures to ensure that even the poet's second try will appear adequately one-dimensional. Once Hoccleve has completed his translation of 'The tale of Jereslaus' wife', the Friend returns to track his progress. Having looked over Hoccleve's draft of the translation, the Friend notes that 'greet substance [is] aweye'--Hoccleve has forgotten to include the tale's moralization. (20) According to the Friend, the moralization is one of the most important elements of the tale. 'Of pat tale it is parcel', he says. 'Y seen haue it ofte, and knowe it wel' (JW, lines 97zf.). The Friend goes home to fetch this integral text and then returns, ordering Hoccleve to affix it to the end of his poem. Hoccleve assents, saying he will 'knyt' the moralization to the translation (JW, line 980). What follows is a one-dimensional reading of 'The tale of Jereslaus' wife' using Christian terminology. The text unambiguously positions Hoccleve's translation within the realm of the orthodox. It reduces the colourful characters and events put forth in the tale to vehicles for Christian meaning. The most striking scenes--the empress hanging by her hair from an oak tree, of a 'ship claf / In two' by 'an hidous storm' (21) (JW, lines 914f.)--become signifiers for the more popular ecclesiastical issues of the day: the need for penance after sin, the importance of confession, and the potential for 'inobedient flessh' to be tamed (JW, line 988). The emperor becomes Christ, the empress the soul, and the emperor's sinful brother becomes man. 'pat is to seyn' serves as a common refrain. The phrase allows people, objects, and actions to be efficiently paired with their equivalent Christian 'meanings'--

... the wrecchid flessh ... robbith the soule of hir clothes (pat is to seyn, goode vertues) and hir hongith on an ook (pat is to seyn, worldly delyt and delectacioun) by the heeres (pat is to seyn, by wikkid concupiscences and desirs) ... (JW, lines 1010-13)

This reading simplifies the tale by presenting it as a text with one real interpretation. Because the reader is assigned a reading of the poem, he or she no longer needs to seek out alternative readings.

In applying this moralization to Hoccleve's translation of 'The tale of Jereslaus' wife', the Friend participates in a specific literary tradition--that of the Gesta Romanorum. (22) The term 'Gesta Romanorum' is used to refer to a large corpus of manuscripts that contain stories from a variety of sources, several stories involving the bawdy misadventures of various Roman emperors. The manuscripts vary with regard to which tales they contain, but the majority of manuscripts agree in one respect--they follow each tale with a moralization. In her study of the Gesta Romanorum, Brigitte Weiske argues that these moralizations are the most vital components of the collections; many collections seem to have been arranged based on the thematic connections between the moralizations, and so each moralization enters the tale it follows into a greater system of Christian interpretation. (23) Each tale takes on secondary importance, in that it is read not for its own sake, but for the sake of the moralization, and, indeed, for the sake of the overarching doctrinal focus of the collection. Upon reading Hoccleve's translation, then, the Friend recognizes the tale from his copy of the Gesta Romanorum, and he dutifully pairs it with its pre-prepared Christian interpretation. In doing so, he mimics the compilers of the Gesta Romanorum: he finds a memorable secular tale and transforms it into a vehicle for Christian meaning.

Hoccleve presents this as an authoritative act on the Friend's part. He reminds us of the Friend's authority by using the verb 'ouersy' to describe his reading process. 'My tale anoon Y fette', Hoccleve says, 'and he it nam / Into his hand and it al ouersy' (JW, lines 957f.; italics mine). The word 'ouersy' reminds us of the Friend's self-assigned role as overseer of the poet's return to purity--'I wole it ouersee', the Friend says at the end of the 'Dialogue' (D, line 796). Whereas Hoccleve uses the verb 'rede' to describe his own reading of texts, (24) he underscores the authoritative position of the Friend by having him 'ouersy' the text. Hoccleve's use of the word arguably conflates the Middle English Dictionary's sense I (b), 'to read through, peruse', and sense I (d), 'to inspect in an official capacity'. (25) By reading Hoccleve's translation, the Friend does his duty as a Humphresian deputy: he inspects the tale for possible lapses in orthodoxy. When he subsequently announces that 'greet substance [is] aweye', the Friend is noting a blatant error on Hoccleve's part--Hoccleve has supplied the tale without including its official interpretation.

What the moralization attempts to cure, arguably, is the 'poetryness' of the poem. Without the moralization, the poem stands alone, and the reader is free to explore its different allusions and various layers of meaning. The topic of 'The tale of Jereslaus' wife' does lend itself, after all, to some rather striking readings. Lee Patterson offers one such example:

   [The tale] records, among other things, the political and sexual
   misbehavior of the emperor's brother while 'steward' of the empire
   in his brother's absence. Since Duke Humphrey was at this very time
   serving as the king's lieutenant in England while Henry was in
   France, Hoccleve's narrative has an obvious and stunningly tactless
   political relevance. (26)

As if to underscore the potential for such parallels to be drawn between the fictional world of the tale and the real world of contemporary politics, Hoccleve adds a series of suggestive passages to his source. He tells the reader, 'This chaunce shoop many a yeer agoon. / That tyme, par cas, was no swich array / As pat in sundry countrees is this day' (JW, fines 194-6). Such fines entice the reader to consider the text in a contemporary light. (27) The moralization, however, offers its own 'obvious' interpretation. The reader is asked to view the emperor's brother as 'man, to whom God committed and bytook the cure and the charge of his empire, pat is to seyn, of his body' (JW, fines 982-4). Instead of reading the tale as a commentary on Humphrey's leadership, then, we are instructed to see it as a lesson on the misuse of the divine body.

The notion that such a tale could be presented without an official reading --and thereby left open to be freely interpreted by the reader--shocks the Friend. He 'marvels' that Hoccleve's source text would neglect to supply a moralization:

'Was ther noon in the book Out of the which pat thow this tale took?' 'No, certes, freend, therin ne was ther noon.' 'Sikirly, Thomas, therof I meruaille ...' (JW, fines 965-8)

Hoccleve seems to possess the version of the Gesta Romanorum that forces no single interpretation upon the reader, and thereby allows the reader to form his own conclusions. He refers to his source as 'the Roman stories' ('the Romayn Deedis' (D, fine 820); 'the Romain actes' (JW, fine I)) and indeed, stories are all his source seems to contain. His copy of the Gesta Romanorum --like Cambridge, University Library, MS Kk. I. 6--offers the stories without accompanying moralizations. (28) By presenting the tales without their prescriptive readings, manuscripts like Kk. I. 6 maximize referentiality: they allow readers to interpret the tales as they please. (29) The Friend evidently realizes how hazardous free interpretations can be. He touts the more common version of the Gesta Romanorum, in which the explanation of a tale in moral terms is at least as important as the tale itself. (30)

The Friend becomes an evangelist to the poet, essentially, spreading the gospel of good orthodox interpretation. He proves so eager to have this reading 'knyt' to Hoccleve's tale that he 'walke[s]' straight home, returns with the text, reads it out loud to Hoccleve, and even counsels the poet on how to copy the text into the manuscript. Hoccleve tells us, 'to this moralyzynge I me spedde, / In prose wrytynge it hoomly and pleyn, / For he conseillid me do so ...' (JW, lines 976-8; italics mine). As the text of the moralization is anti-poetic in its insistence on one authoritative interpretation, the language proves equally anti-poetic: it showcases none of Hoccleve's talents as a metrist or as a 'maker' of mellifluous verse. This new text--this 'greet substance' of the poem--is not a poem at all, but rather a block of prose, 'homely and plain'. Writing the moralization becomes an exercise, then, in not being a poet: Hoccleve must learn how to offer only one meaning, instead of a bouquet of redolent and colourful meanings. And, similarly, he must learn how to render prose that is homely and plain, rather than poetry that is rich and unique.

The Friend is not alone in demanding that the poet learn to write thus. In the prologue to his Fall of Princes, John Lydgate says that his patron has requested he

... writen as I fynde, And for no fauour be nat parciall-- Thus I meene to speke in generall, And noon estat syngulerly depraue, But the sentence of myn auctour saue. (FP, 1.444-8)

After discussing the 'fressh dite[s]' and 'fressh stories' of Cicero, Petrarch, Dante, Boccaccio, and especially Chaucer, (31) Lydgate declares that he will not be dealing with fresh material in his Fall of Princes. 'Off fressh colours I took no maner heede', he says (FP, 1.452). By announcing this, he seems to place himself in opposition to every poet he has just named. The Fall of Princes will not be 'fressh', he tells us, but derivative. After announcing that 'clerkis in writyng ... With ther colours agreable off hewe, / Make olde thynges for to seeme newe' (FP, 1.21, 27f.), Lydgate says he is bereft of colours. He writes 'Hauyng no colours but onli whit and blak' (FP, 1.465). His patron, after all, is none other than Duke Humphrey. And not surprisingly, Humphrey's advice accords with that of the Friend: he exhorts the poet to write 'pleynli' and with deference to authority (FP, 1.444-8, 453). Throughout the prologue, Humphrey becomes the 'upholder' not only of 'hooli chirch', but also of a particular school of poetry--a school in which old stories are not enlivened with new colour and meaning, but merely translated into English with the simplest palette possible. (32)

We begin to wonder, then, whether the Friend's insistence on including moralizations is less a matter of personal taste and more a reflection of Lancastrian social policy. It is with the moralizations, arguably, that the Friend holds sway over the poet's style and over his ability to convey meaning. When the Friend delivers 'The tale of Jonathas' from his own version of the Gesta Romanorum, noting that he is giving Hoccleve 'the copie verray' of the tale, (33) Hoccleve feels free to enliven the tale with his own asides and embellishments. (34) He often interjects his own opinions (TJ, lines 138-47, 246-52, 432-41), emphasizes the element of haste (TJ, lines 21, 121, 153, 258, 273, 328f., etc.), and strengthens the thematic connections between this tale, 'Learn to die' (TJ, lines 88f.), the 'Dialogue' (cf. TJ, lines 19of. with D, line 175; TJ, line 512 with D, line 85), and the 'Complaint' (cf. TJ, lines 244f. with C, lines 211f.; TJ, line 582 with C, line 70; and TJ, lines 194f. with C, lines 144f.). Hoccleve renders the tale's moralization, however, exactly as he finds it. His moralizations vary little, if at all, from other surviving moralizations of the tales in question. (35) Tampering with the moralization would mean disrupting the 'true message' of the tale. It would mean distorting the block of text that makes the Friend's copy 'verray'--that makes it true, just, and complete. While the Friend cannot stop Hoccleve from infusing his tales with allusions to other texts and to the contemporary socio-political climate, he can use prose moralizations to make Hoccleve's poems seem relatively harmless.

It is in his peddling of these orthodox interpretations that the Friend really shows himself to be 'treewe as steel'. We begin to see him as an upholder of a Lancastrian initiative to restore 'normality' in post-Council of Constance England. As Vincent Gillespie asserts, the 'blandness' of these prose moralizations is the point. They can be seen as part of the Lancastrian agenda to present England asa nation that has returned at last to a state of constancy and normality. Amid the hunt for heretics, 'dullness and predictability are a state to be aspired to'. (36) As a Humphresian deputy, the Friend supplies Hoccleve with moralizations in order to help his work better reflect this return to normality. The moralizations prove that their corresponding tales cooperate with the Lancastrian agenda. They can be seen as marks of approval, not unlike Archbishop Arundel's memorandum to Nicholas Love's Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ, which confirms the orthodoxy of the text and was compiled with the text in most manuscripts. (37) Unlike Love, however, Hoccleve is not the prior of a charterhouse. Nor is he actively seeking ecclesiastical or political approval. On the contrary, in the Series approval is being urged upon him.

That this Series 'world' may be accurately mirroring Hoccleve's actual social climate is implied by the way these moralizations are glossed in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Arch. Selden supra 53 (s. XV2/4), by far the earliest of the five non-autograph Series manuscripts. Throughout 'The tale of Jonathas', the Selden scribe underlines those words that bear the most relevance to the tale's moralization. He pays particular attention to the words 'brooch', 'ryng', and 'clooth' (fols 136v-137v, 138v-139v, and 146r). These words are then underlined throughout the moralization, perhaps to afford the reader easy access to their 'true' meanings (fols 146v-147v). This apparently simple scribal gesture proves most illuminating. By underlining in the tale those words that are most relevant to the tale's moralization, the scribe locates the poem's authority in the moralization. He encourages the reader to read the poem in terms of its built-in interpretation and, thereby, to view the poem as relatively monovalent. (38)

This gestures to the way in which books could be made useful in early fifteenth-century England. The poems become all the more valuable for what they seem to be rather than for what they actually are. The Selden manuscript can therefore be passed from person to person, and even readers as averse to reading as Hoccleve's 'wommen' can tell from a cursory glance that the text is safely positioned within the realm of the orthodox. These moralizations therefore make the poems they interpret arguably more desirable to the politically cautious book owner. The tales travel with their own self-polarizations.

This proves especially necessary because, as the Series shows us again and again, the way a book is discussed takes precedence over the actual content of the book. When assembling the Series, for example, Hoccleve and his Friend place considerable emphasis on the way tales will be perceived, rather than on the literary merits of the given tales. Particularly when deciding which tale to translate for Duke Humphrey, Hoccleve and his Friend consider texts for their symbolic merit. In the 'Dialogue', Hoccleve mentions that he had thought about translating 'Vegece / Which tretith of the art of chiualrie' (D, lines 561f.). The text to which Hoccleve is referring, Vegetius's De re militari, had by the early fifteenth century become a mainstay in aristocratic libraries and an approved marker of orthodox chivalry. (39) The fact that the text was written in the late fourth century and treated much that was irrelevant to the early fifteenth-century knight is part of the point. (40) The text seems to have been touted for what it signified, rather than for what it actually discussed. Hoccleve had used it previously in 'To Sir John Oldcastle' (1415) as a text that would make Oldcastle seem orthodox and chivalric. (41) He places it in contrast to the difficult theological texts that Oldcastle has been reading, and even describes it as a text that can potentially 'correct' Oldcastle's former error:

Clymbe no more in holy writ so hie! Rede the storie of Lancelot de lake, Or Vegece of the aart of Chiualrie, The seege of Troie or Thebes thee applie To thyng pat may to thordre of knight longe! To thy correccioun now haaste and hie ... (SJO, lines 194-9)

De re militari had become the epitome of what an upright, orthodox individual should own. It seems perfectly sensible, then, that Hoccleve should align the work with Duke Humphrey. The text serves as an unassailable sign of the duke's unassailable orthodoxy.

This text, however, does not even seem to be a credible option for Hoccleve's commission. The poet rejects the idea of translating ir as soon as he has mentioned it. 'I thoghte han translated Vegece', he says. 'But I see his knyghthode so encrece / pat no thyng my labour sholde edifie ...' (D, lines 561-4). Another reason Hoccleve will not be translating Vegetius, perhaps, is because someone else has beaten him to it. In fact, in 1408 both John of Trevisa and John Walton produced English translations for Sir Thomas Berkeley. (42) Furthermore, De re militari provided the source material for Aegidius' De regimine principum, the text on which Hoccleve based much of his Regiment of Princes (c. 1411). (43) For Hoccleve, translating De re militari would have been tantamount to repeating himself. As in 'To Sir John Oldcastle', then, Hoccleve does not use De re militari as a book to be read, but rather asa name-marker that has come to signify 'orthodox chivalry'. In the Series, the text is useful because it allows Hoccleve to praise Humphrey as an upholder of English orthodoxy, and because it affords the poet an easy transition to discussing Humphrey's recent military victories. How masterfully Hoccleve might render De re militari in English, or what a pleasure his poetic rendition would be to read, is beside the point.

This issue of how books are 'seen' rather than how they are engaged with affords us a window onto a specific social space in the Series--the personal library. The books with which one surrounds oneself become in many ways markers of personal taste and socio-political status. As R. E Green states in Poets and Princepleasers, 'There [was] hardly a single aristocratic library which [did] not contain at least one copy of Vegetius, or, failing that, one of the works by Lull, Bonet, or Christine de Pisan.' (44) Such libraries became social spaces in which visitors might glimpse the interests and even the moral integrity of the book owners. In turn, book owners seem to have been more attentive to how a given book could be described to others. John Paston II offers a good example of this in his description of his copy of De re militari. He calls Vegetius' text 'my boke off knyghthod and ther-in ... off making off knyghtys, off justys.... and chalengys, statutys off weer and de Regimi ...'. (45) His description does not transcend the obvious; it comes to serve asa simple summary of a relatively innocuous text, a text that--in turn--can potentially confirm Paston's status as an orthodox and chivalric individual. (46) At a time in which Oxford rooms were being searched for the potentially hazardous texts of John Wyclif and Reginald Pecock, (47) an approved text like De re militari could position its owner safely within the camp of orthodoxy. How a text is discussed, therefore, is of the utmost importance. An individual hoping to be seen as unquestionably orthodox would not want to sully his hands with a text that might be read as heterodox, and therefore potentially hazardous to his reputation.

In imagining how Hoccleve's text will be discussed before it has even been written, Hoccleve and the Friend engage in the act of reducing literature to its essential usefulness. When the Friend suggests that Hoccleve write in praise of women, the poet admits that Humphrey would take little interest in such writing. 'What lust or pleisir', he asks, 'shal my lord haue in pat? Noon thynkith me' (D, lines 701f.). The Friend disagrees. He says that the duke will 'shewen' his lady friends 'this book' when they visit him:

   ... his lust and his desir
   Is, as it wel sit to his hy degree,
   For his desport and mirthe in honestee
   With ladyes to haue dalliance;
   And this book wole he shewen hem parchance. (D, lines 703-7)

The book will serve, it seems, as a conversation piece. When in 'dalliance' with his guests, Humphrey might gesture to the freshly bound manuscript on the table and mention how he has just received a fascinating tale written in praise of women. The book could potentially reflect the good interests of Humphrey himself and help to situate him asa defender of women. (48) Or, as the Friend suggests, Humphrey might serve as a 'mene' or intermediary for Hoccleve, through whom 'wommen' might forgive the poet for his previous 'offense and misberynge' (D, lines 709, 675). In either case, to be useful the poem would have to be seen as unequivocally written in praise of women. The poem must be capable of being easily described asa positive, rather than negative, text.

That books are being discussed--and even produced--in terms of such abstracts becomes more evident in Hoccleve's prologue to 'The tale of Jonathas'. As the moralization to 'The tale of Jereslaus' wife' serves asa simple answer to a potentially complex text, 'The tale of Jonathas' is introduced as a simple answer to a complex social problem. The Friend says that his 15-year-old son has been cavorting with prostitutes. By translating a tale that highlights the inconstancy of women, the Friend argues, Hoccleve might correct the wayward teenager. In order to explain this idea further to a sceptical Hoccleve, the Friend resorts to his usual dichromatic terminology. He discusses two types of women--'wikkid wommen' and 'goode wommen' (TJ, lines 60, 62). The former he describes as 'blakid'--that is, blackened--with 'deshonour' (TJ, line 75). Hoccleve's task in writing the poem is to help the Friend's son distinguish between the wicked and the good, the black and the white. Far from announcing the tale as ah opportunity for Hoccleve to present a colourful array of diverse meanings, then, the Friend describes it as an opportunity for Hoccleve to depict in black what he has already depicted in white. The Friend admits that this tale is 'nat fer' from the Roman tale Hoccleve translated before (TJ, fine 29). As he focused on the 'white' before, however, he will now turn to focus on the 'black'. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the moralization to 'The tale of Jonathas' closely adheres to the Friend's wishes. It equates Jonathas's 'paramour' with 'wrecchid flessh' and presents Jonathas as a 'Cristen man' capable of overcoming the wiles of his (woman) flesh. And as the poem is positioned between Hoccleve's interlinking dialogue with his Friend and the moralization--two texts that declare the seemingly straightforward ends to which the poem can be used--it advertises its own simplicity: it touts its monovalence. (49)

As I have said, however, the Series is by no means Hoccleve's admission of defeat asa poet. Although Hoccleve agrees to make his poetry seem as if it can be reduced to mere 'black and white', in actuality he refuses to surrender his rich palette of colours. He continues to 'make olde thynges for to seeme newe'. As we have seen, the active reader can find in 'The tale of Jereslaus' wife' shades of the Council of Constance, the papal schism, and the leadership of Duke Humphrey. Hoccleve's conversational poems--the 'Dialogue' and the interlinking passages in the 'Roman tales' (JW, fines 953-80 and TJ, fines 1-84)--prove equally valuable. They echo the language of the English heresy hunt, evoke the interrogation halls at Constance, and gesture towards the Lancastrian social agenda that threatens to rob poetry of its inherent polyvalence.

Hoccleve's ultimate authority, it seems, lies in his ability to preserve his poetry through compilation. While the Friend's moralizations threaten to dull the effects of the tales they interpret, they also help to detract attention from the 'colourful'--and therefore politically hazardous--tales. By compiling the tales with their moralizations (and distancing himself from this act by making the Friend a presiding authority), Hoccleve allows the tales to survive in their original, 'uncensored' states. (50) The tales remain available for any readers willing to forge their own interpretations. What Hoccleve seems to be decrying, after all, is not so much a decline in his creative abilities, but rather the dearth of willing and capable readers. While the Series is certainly a reflection of the time in which it was made, it is also a poem in search of truer 'Friends'--readers willing to read, readers capable of appreciating the poem for its rich and diverse meanings.

Hoccleve gestures towards this in his envoi to the Durham manuscript--the only surviving autograph manuscript of the Series. He addresses his envoi to Joan Neville, Countess of Westmoreland, aunt of Duke Humphrey and Henry V, niece of Chaucer, acquaintance of Margery Kempe, and notable book patron. (51) Hoccleve seems to place Joan in contrast to that group of 'wommen' in the 'Dialogue' who insist on reading his poetry in only one way. He asks Joan to 'receyue' the Series 'for hir owne right' and to 'looke thow in al manere weye' (TJ, lines 738f., italics mine). Here, Hoccleve presents the Series asa book that should be interpreted not just in moral terms, but in 'al manere weye'--in every way possible. He welcomes the reader who would use his book not as an indicator of social standing or as a manuscript to be referenced while dallying with suitors, but as a text to be read privately and thoroughly--a text to be used for the reader's 'owne right'. (52)

This envoi also allows Hoccleve to position himself in relation to such readers. It avoids the usual confessions of 'unkonnyng' that we find at the end of poems like The Regiment of Princes and the Fall of Princes. (53) In the Series, after all, 'unkonnyng' is forced upon the poet. Having made this clear within the body of the text, Hoccleve relinquishes any claim to 'unkonnyng' in his envoi. The light touches of humility that he does employ seem to point not to his shortcomings but to his respect for the astute reader. His use of the phrase 'humble seruant' twice in the envoi recalls the earlier instance of the phrase in the 'Dialogue', where Hoccleve uses it to describe his allegiance to Duke Humphrey ('his humble seruant and his man' (D, line 560)). In the envoi, the poet's allegiance has evidently shifted. Hoccleve does not prostrate himself before the 'pure' or the 'orthodox', but rather before the astute English reader. With a final flourish, he signs himself over to the reader who is willing to engage seriously with his work--to the reader who is willing to 'looke in the same book' and to explore his poems 'in al manere weye'.

Sebastian James Langdell

University of Texas

Austin

NOTES

I wish to thank Vincent Gillespie for his abundant help with the development of this article. I would also like to thank the editors and the anonymous referee at Medium/Evum for their helpful suggestions.

(1) Thomas Hoccleve's Complaint and Dialogue, ed. J. A. Burrow, EETS, OS 313 (Oxford, 1999), 'Complaint', lines 1-7. Further references will be given as 'C' with line numbers. When citing Burrow's edition, I omit virgules, except where they denote a brief pause, in which case I tender them as commas.

(2) Ethan Knapp, The Bureaucratic Muse: Thomas Hoccleve and the Literature of Late Medieval England (University Park, Pa, 2001), p. 164.

(3) The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Larry D. Benson, 3rd edn (Boston, Mass., 1987), 'General Prologue', 1.22.

(4) Hoccleve claims to have begun the Series in November 1419 (see J. A. Burrow, Thomas Hoccleve (Aldershot, 1994), PP. 26f.); Burrow dates the original manuscripts of the Series, the Durham manuscript and 'the Variant Original', to the period between 1422 and 1426 (see Complaint and Dialogue, ed. Burrow, pp. x-xi, lxiii; and A Facsimile of the Autograph Verse Manuscripts." Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino (California), MSS HM III and HM 744, University Library, Durham (England), MS Cosin V. III.9, ed. J. A. Burrow and A. I. Doyle, EETS, ss 19 (Oxford, 2002), pp. xx-xxi).

(5) K. H. Vickers, Humphrey Duke of Gloucester (London, 1907), pp. 103-14.

(6) C. M. D. Crowder, Unity, Heresy, and Reform 137-1460: The Conciliar Response to the Great Schism (London, 1977), PP. 7-14.

(7) See 'To Sir John Oldcastle', in Hoccleve's Works: The Minor Poems, ed. Frederick J. Furnivall and 1. Gollancz, rev. J. Mitchell and A. 1. Doyle, EETS, ES 61, 73 (Oxford, 1892, 1925; repr. 1970), lines 185-92, 217-24, and 433-40. Further references will be given as 'SJO' with line numbers.

(8) Roger Ellis notes the echo of Chaucer's Shipman's Tale in line 276 (see Shipman's Tale, VII.9; see also Thomas Hoccleve: 'My Compleinte' and Other Poems, ed. Roger Ellis (Exeter, 2001), p. 157). There is also an allusion to the Monk's Tale at lines 281f. of the 'Dialogue' (see Monk's Tale, VII. 2211-14).

(9) Complaint and Dialogue, ed. Burrow, 'Dialogue', line 273. Later references will be given as 'D' with line numbers.

(10) Thomas Hoccleve: The Regiment of Princes, ed. Charles R. Blyth (Kalamazoo, Mich., 1999), line 1962.

(11) This individual is called 'freend' throughout the Series. He has no proper name.

(12) A 'quarter sack' is a 'sack capable of holding a quarter (eight bushels) of grain'--a double sack (see Selections from Hoccleve, ed. M. C. Seymour (Oxford, 1981), p. 138; and 'My Compleinte', ed. Ellis, p. 159).

(13) Hoccleve punctuates this passage rather heavily in the Durham manuscript (Durham, University Library, MS Cosin V. III. 9), and Burrow preserves the marks of punctuation in his edition of the 'Dialogue'. I have omitted the paraphs that denote change of speaker, and have substituted commas in each instance of a virgule.

(14) Peter of Mladonovice's account was printed in Vaclav Novotny, 'Historicke spisy Perra z Mladonovic a jine zpravy a pameti o M. Janovi Husovi a M. Jeronymovi z Prahy', in Fontes rerum Bohemicarum (Prague, 1932), VIII, 25-120 (p. 77); the translation is from John Hus at the Council of Constante, trans. Matthew Spinka (New York, 1965), p. 172.

(15) David Watt, 'The thoughtful maladie: melancholy and society in Thomas Hoccleve's Series' (unpub. Ph.D. diss., University of Oxford, 2004), p. 195.

(16) For information regarding Hoccleve's career as a Privy Seal clerk, see Knapp, Bureaucratic Muse.

(17) In the prologue to Fall of Princes, John Lydgate describes Humphrey as a 'verray support, vpholdere and eek guide' to 'hooli chirch ... That in this land no Lollard dar abide.' He is a 'punysshe[r]' of 'all tho that do the chirch wrong' (See Fall of Princes, ed. Henry Bergen, EETS, ES 121-4, 4 vols (London, 1924-7), I, lines 400-6; further references to this work will be given as 'FP' with line numbers). In the 'Dialogue' (lines 561-616), Hoccleve regales the Friend with accounts of Humphrey's fearsome 'knyghthode'.

(18) 'For to reherce of telle in special / Euery act pat his swerd in steel wroot there / And many a place elles ...' (D, fines 582-4).

(19) John Hus, trans. Spinka, p. 229.

(20) Ellis, 'My Compleinte', 'Fabula de quadam imperatrice Romana', line 963. Later references will be given as 'JW' ('Jereslaus' wife') with line numbers.

(21) This latter example shows how Hoccleve's images can prove not only striking but also polyvalent. In post-Council of Constance England, the ship became a popular symbol for the Christian Church. We see this metaphor used ubiquitously (see, for instance, Lydgate's 'A defence of Holy Church', lines 43-70, and the moralization to Hoccleve's 'The tale of Jonathas', line 726). One macaronic sermon in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 649 refers to Henry Vas a 'maistur mariner' who has successfully steered the ship of the Church to safe waters. In his poem 'Ad Spiritum Sanctum', Hoccleve shows this 'Church-ship' to be not in safe waters, but 'shipbrech[ed]' (line 57). In 'The tale of Jereslaus' wife', similarly, Hoccleve transforms the ship into a site for prayer (JW, fines 657f.), and then destroys it immediately afterwards. He adds to his source the fact that the ship is 'claf in two'--evoking one of the main problems addressed at Constance: the papal schism. By both laying claim to papal power, John XXIII and Benedict XIII threatened to pull the Church-ship in separate directions and thereby cleave it 'in two'. (Lydgate's reference is to The Minor Poems of John Lydgate, ed. Henry Noble MacCracken, EETS, ES 107 (Oxford, 1911; repr. 1967); for 'The tale of Jonathas' see 'Fabula de quadam muliere mala' in 'My Compleinte', ed. Ellis; I am indebted to Vincent Gillespie for the information on the macaronic sermon in question; the portion I quote appears in 'Sermo 25' in A Macaronic Sermon Collection from Late Medieval England: Oxford, MS Bodley 649, ed. Patrick J. Horner (Toronto, 2006), p. 527; Hoccleve's 'Ad Spiritum Sanctum' appears in Hoccleve's Works, ed. Furnivall and Gollancz.)

(22) 'Gesta Romanorum' is an abbreviated rifle by which the collections are currently known. Some original manuscripts were disseminated under the more specific title 'Gesta Romanorum Moralizata' (see The Early English Versions of the Gesta Romanorum, ed. Sidney J. H. Herrtage, EETS, es 33 (London, 1879), p. xiii).

(23) See Brigitte Weiske, Gesta Romanorum, 2 vols (Tubingen, 1992), I, 129-41. See especially P. 131: 'Die Allegorese bezieht die Texte in ein Deutungssystem ein, in dem jeder einzelne Text zur Demonstration einer die Sammlung als ganze uberspannenden Heilslehre dient.' For an introduction to the Gesta Romanorum, see Weiske, Gesta, I, 1-126; also Gesta, ed. Herrtage, pp. vii-xxviii; and Gesta Romanorum, ed. Hermann Oesterley (Hildesheim, 1872; repr. 1963), pp. 1-269.

(24) See, for example, C, line 314 ('For whan I had a whyle in the book red ...') and D, line 17 ('And right anoon I redde him my conpleynte').

(25) 'Oversen (v.)', in Middle English Dictionary Online, ed. Frances McSparren <http://ets. umdl.umich.edu/m/med/> (accessed 19 December 2008).

(26) Lee Patterson, 'Beinecke MS 493 and the survival of Hoccleve's Series', in Old Books, New Learning: Essays on Medieval and Renaissance Books al Yale, ed. Robert G. Babcock and Lee Patterson (New Haven, Conn., 2001), pp. 80-92 (p. 86).

(27) For further examples, see JW, fines 246-66, 385-99, 484-97, and 575-81.

(28) MS Kk. 1.6 is by no means the only Gesta Romanorum manuscript without moralizations. The following also have no moralizations: Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 3040; Zurich, Zentralbibliothek, MS Car. C 113; Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Ms. germ. fol. 942; Vienna, Osterr, Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 15325; and Heidelberg, Universitatsbibliothek, Cpg 101. Furthermore, Gottingen, Niedersachs. Staats- und Universitatsbibliothek, 40 Cod. Ms. Theol. 94 is almost completely without moralizations, and the following manuscripts include a mixture of stories with and without moralizations: Dresden, Sachs. Landesbibliothek, Cod. C. 398; Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 4721; Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 12730; and Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cgm 414. I take my information on manuscript contents from Gesta, ed. Oesterley, pp. 5-260, which is still the most detailed list in existence, and I have updated the manuscript shelfmarks according to Weiske's fist in Gesta, ed. Weiske, II, 12l-44.

(29) It seems plausible that such collections would have been used by individuals like Hoccleve who wanted to make use of the tales but not of the accompanying interpretations. Chaucer makes use of a Roman tale similar to 'The tale of Jereslaus' wife' (or perhaps it is the tale itself) for his Man of Law's Tale. In his edition of the Middle English Gesta Romanorum, Herrtage prints a very similar version of the tale with the subtitle 'The story of Constance in Chaucer's "Man of Lawe's Tale"' (p. 311). Ellis points out similarities between Hoccleve's translation and Chaucer's tale in his edition of the Series, p. 191. Of course, Chaucer's version includes no moralization. One might say it does not 'require' one.

(30) Glossing Hoccleve's source ('the Romayn deedis' (D, fine 820); 'the Romain actes' (JW, line I)) as 'the Gesta Romanorum' is therefore somewhat problematic. Hoccleve's source is not the Gesta Romanorum as we know it. It is not the Gesta Romanorum moralizata--the Roman tales with their accompanying moralizations. Hoccleve's source is simply a collection of the tales themselves.

(31) Lydgate repeatedly labels the writings of these individuals 'fressh'. See fines 1.244, 246, 256, 262, 352, 358, and 364.

(32) This declaration of colourlessness has much to do with Lydgate's subject matter. In order to appear harmless, Lydgate must put himself forward as one who is merely translating the text and not hinting at more pertinent, contemporary examples of 'the fall of princes'.

(33) This comment appears at line 34 of 'Fabula de quadam muliere mala' in 'My Compleinte', ed. Ellis. Further references to this tale will be given as 'TJ' (Tale of Jonathas) with line numbers.

(34) See A Manual of the Writings in Middle English 1050-1500, vol. III, ed. Albert E. Hartung (Hamden, Conn., 1972), pp. 751 f.; Cf. 'The tale of Jereslaus' wife' with Gesta, ed. Herrtage, pp. 311-19, and, for a Latin version, Gesta, ed. Oesterley, pp. 648-57; cf. 'The tale of Jonathas' with Herrtage, pp. 180-95 and Oesterley, pp. 466-9.

(35) Cf. Herrtage, pp. 193-6 and 319-22.

(36) Vincent Gillespie (unpub. lecture, University of Oxford, 2007).

(37) The Idea of the Vernacular, ed. Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, Nicholas Watson, Andrew Taylor, and Ruth Evans (Exeter, 1999), p. 252.

(38) The scribe glosses 'The tale of Jereslaus' wife' in a similar way. He tends to underline names rather than objects throughout the tale, however, probably because the names prove more relevant to the tale's moralization (see fols 111i-114v; and for the moralization, fol. 116r-v).

(39) See R. F. Green, Poets and Princepleasers: Literature and the English Court in the Late Middle Ages (Toronto, 1980), pp. 144f.

(40) Ibid.

(41) For more information on De re militari, see Ruth Nisse, '"Our fadres olde and modres": gender, heresy, and Hoccleve's literary politics', Studies in the Age of Chaucer, 21 (1999), 275-99 (pp. 291-9). Nisse describes De re militari as the epitome of 'a text without thought'. She calls it 'a blunt how-to manual for winning a war with the Roman army' (p. 295).

(42) 'My Compleinte', ed. Ellis, p. 158.

(43) Green, Poets and Princepleasers, p. 144.

(44) Ibid.

(45) Ibid., p. 145.

(46) This was evidently of importance to Paston, a gentleman who signed his communications 'John Paston, Knight', or, more frequently, 'J. P., K.' In 1467 Paston joined the king and Lord Scales for a tournament at Eltham. The following year, he employed William Ebesham as a scribe for his 'Great Book'--a collection of chivalric treatises and other verse and prose texts (The Paston Letters and Papers of the Fifteenth Century, ed. Norman Davis, EETS, ss 22, 3 vols (Oxford, 2004), I, p. lviii).

(47) For more information on Oxford after Wyclif, see The History of the University of Oxford, II: Late Medieval Oxford, ed. J. I. Catto and Ralph Evans (Oxford, 1984), pp. 240-6; for information on the search for Pecock's books, see Wendy Scase, 'Reginald Pecock', in Authors of the Middle Ages: English Writers of the Late Middle Ages, vol. III, ed. M. C. Seymour (Aldershot, 1996), p. 114.

(48) From 1421 onwards, Humphrey was, after all, attempting to legitimize his relationship with one woman in particular, Jacqueline of Hainault--the woman whom he 'considered his wife'. His requests for a papal annulment of Jacqueline's first marriage were met with scorn by Martin V (Margaret Harvey, England, Rome and the Papacy 1417-1464: The Study of a Relationship (Manchester, 1993), P. 140).

(49) The rubrics that Hoccleve uses for the 'Roman tales' in the Durham manuscript underscore the compositional differences between the two tales. Hoccleve introduces the first tale as simply, 'Fabula de quadam Imperatrice Romana' (fol. 26v). He passes no moral judgement on the empress and allows the reader to proceed without preconception. By the time he introduces the second tale, however, Hoccleve has been forced to present the tales as moral concepts, rather than as polyvalent stories. His title for the second tale therefore carries with it a moral judgement: he calls it, 'fabula de quadam muliere mala' (fol. 79r).

(50) In 'Beinecke MS 493 and the survival of Hoccleve's Series', Lee Patterson presents another instance of compilation-for-the-sake-of-textual-survival. Patterson hypothesizes that the Series is paired with Lydgate's 'Dance macabre' in all non-autograph manuscripts because John Carpenter, an influential acquaintance of Hoccleve's, felt it necessary to link the baffling Series with a text more suitable to contemporary tastes. According to Patterson, Lydgate's 'unexceptional' and 'conventional' text served as the 'small tail ... [that helped] to ensure the survival of the large, rather ill-behaved dog of Hoccleve's Series' (Patterson, 'Beinecke', p. 89). We might view the Friend's moralizations as Hoccleve's built-in equivalents--as conventional add-ons that attempt to secure the survival of the texts they follow.

(51) See John Bowers, 'Thomas Hoccleve and the politics of tradition', Chaucer Review, 36/4 (2002), 352-69 (p. 356); see also Complaint and Dialogue, ed. Burrow, pp. lv-lvii; and Patterson, 'Beinecke', p. 87; for Joan Neville and Margery Kempe, see The Book of Margery Kempe, ed. Barry Windeatt (Woodbridge, 2006), p. 265.

(52) In 1425, Joan's affluent husband Ralph Neville died. It seems credible that the Durham manuscript may have been Hoccleve's bereavement gift for the countess. Part of what she seems to be inheriting, after all, is the sceptre of astute, English reading.

(53) For further examples of professed 'unkonnyng', lack of talent, and dullness, see David Lawton, 'Dullness and the fifteenth century', ELH, 54/5 (1987), 761-99.