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Studies in Renaissance Literature
Volume 11
CHIVALRY AND ROMANCE
IN THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE
This volume offers a reinterpretation of the place and significance of
chivalric culture in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and explores
theimplications ofthis reconfigured interpretation for an understanding of
the medieval generally.Received wisdom has it that both chivalric culture
and the literature ofchivalry – romances – were obsolete by the time ofthe
Renaissance,an understanding epitomised by the figure ofDon Quixote,the
reader of chivalric fictions whose risible literary tastes render him absurd.
Byway of contrast,this study finds evidence for the continued vitality and
relevance of chivalric values at all levels of sixteenth- and seventeenth-
century society, from the court entertainments of Elizabeth I to the civic
culture of London merchants and artisans.At the same time,it charts the
process by which,throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,the
chivalric has been firstly exclusively identified with the medieval and then
transformed into a virtual shorthand for ‘pastness’generally.
Dr ALEXANDERDAVISis Lecturer in English at the University ofSt Andrews.
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Studies in Renaissance Literature
ISSN 1465–6310
Founding Editor
John T.Shawcross
General Editor
Graham Parry
Editorial Board
Helen E.Wilcox
John N.King
Graham Parry
Paul Stanwood
Previous volumes are listed at the back ofthis book
Studies in Renaissance Literatureoffers investigations oftopics in English literature focussed
in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; its scope extends from early Tudor writing,
including works reflecting medieval concerns,to the Restoration period.Studies exploring
the interplay between the literature ofthe English Renaissance and its cultural history are
particularly welcomed.
Proposals or queries should be sent in the first instance to Graham Parry at the address
below,or to the publisher;all submissions receive prompt and informed consideration.
Professor Graham Parry,Department ofEnglish,University ofYork,Heslington,York YO1
5DD,UK
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CHIVALRY AND ROMANCE
IN THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE
Alex Davis
D.S.BREWER
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© Alex Davis 2003
All Rights Reserved.Except as permitted under current legislation
no part ofthis 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 ofthe copyright owner
First published 2003
D.S.Brewer,Cambridge
ISBN 0 85991 777 0
D.S.Brewer is an imprint ofBoydell & Brewer Ltd
PO Box 9,Woodbridge,Suffolk IP12 3DF,UK
and ofBoydell & Brewer Inc.
PO Box 41026,Rochester,NY 14604–4126,USA
website:www.boydell.co.uk
A catalogue record for this title is available
from the British Library
Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Davis,Alex.
Chivalry and romance in the English Renaissance / Alex Davis.
p.cm.– (Studies in Renaissance literature,ISSN 1465–6310 ;
v.11)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0–85991–777–0 (acid-free paper)
1. English literature – Early modern,1500–1700 – History and criticism.
2. Chivalry in literature.3. Literature and
history – England – History – 16th century.4. Literature and
history – England – History – 17th century.5. Medievalism –
England – History – 16th century.6. Medievalism – England –
History – 17th century.7. Romances,English – History and criticism.
8. Knights and knighthood in literature.9. Middle Ages in literature.
10. Renaissance – England.
I. Title.II. Series:Studies in Renaissance literature (Woodbridge,
Suffolk,England) ;
v.11.
PR428.C45 D38 2003
820.9'353 – dc21 2002154557
This publication is printed on acid-free paper
Printed in Great Britain by
St Edmundsbury Press Ltd,Bury St Edmunds,Suffolk
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgements vii
Note on Transcription viii
Introduction 1
Chapter 1
‘Not Knowing Their Parents’:Reading Chivalric Romance 40
Chapter 2
The Progress ofRomance (I):Kenilworth,1575 73
Chapter 3
Castles in the Air:Quixotic Representations on the 99
Seventeenth-Century Stage
Chapter 4
‘Gentleman-Like Adventure’:Duelling in the ‘Life’of 134
Lord Herbert ofCherbury
Chapter 5
‘The Lady Errant’:Katherine Philips as Reader ofRomance 169
Chapter 6
The Progress ofRomance (II):Kenilworth,Chivalry,and the 202
Middle Ages
Conclusion:
‘The Chronicle ofWasted Time’ 235
Bibliography 241
Index 259
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book originated as a doctoral thesis under the supervision of Professor
Lorna Hutson, to whom I owe my greatest debt of gratitude. Without her
encouragement, support and input, this project might never have been
completed;if it can even come close to matching the intelligence and origin-
ality of her own work, I will be more than satisfied. I would like to thank
Helen Hackett and Robert Maslen, who examined the thesis, for their
insightful commentary and suggestions; I am also grateful to the former for
looking at my work in its early stages.Thanks are also due to two colleagues
at St Andrews who were good enough to read my thesis and offered advice on
translating it into book form: Michael Alexander and, in particular, Neil
Rhodes.Mr Robert York,archivist of the College of Arms,was most helpful
when I came to examine the records ofthe Court ofChivalry.Finally,I should
like to acknowledge a debt to my family and friends,whose contribution to
this book is in no way diminished by the fact that it was not academic in
nature.
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NOTE ON TRANSCRIPTION
I have silently regularised early modern textual conventions such as long -s
and consonantal iand uin accordance with modern usage.
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INTRODUCTION
When in the chronicle ofwasted time,
I see discriptions ofthe fairest wights,
And beautie making beautifull old rime,
In praise ofLadies dead,and lovely Knights,
Then in the blazon ofsweet beauties best,
Ofhand,offoote,oflip,ofeye,ofbrow,
I see their antique Pen would have exprest,
Even such a beauty as you maister now.1
The opening lines ofShakespeare’s 106th sonnet introduce many ofthe themes
ofthis study.Fittingly,for a collection ofverse much concerned with questions
ofreading and writing – questions about the power ofliterary discourse – the
poem opens by referring to the poet reading a book.But what sort of book?
‘Chronicle’ seems to have been applied to a wide range of historical works
(including a number ofShakespeare’s plays) in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries,and so hardly helps us to pinpoint the sort oftext being mentioned.
As if aware of this vagueness,Shakespeare rapidly moves to narrow the field
ofreference.First we have the self-consciously archaic word,‘wights’;next we
are told that the people featured in this text are beautiful; then that it
comprises ‘old rime’.Taken with the preceding clues,‘Ladies dead,and lovely
Knights’suggests that when he describes himself reading in ‘the chronicle of
wasted time’,it is likely that Shakespeare is studying what we would now call
a romance, or, more specifically, a chivalric romance.2 This may come as
something of a surprise, since such volumes do not normally feature in
accounts ofhis reading.But the poem also gives voice to an attitude that is far
more in tune with modern assumptions about romances:they are ‘the chron-
icle of wasted time’– that is,they deal with time past (‘wasted’),but reading
them in itself constitutes a ‘waste of time’, time squandered on unprofitable
pursuits.In fact,the argument of this book is that writers on sixteenth- and
seventeenth-century culture have, consciously or unconsciously, gone one
1 William Shakespeare,Shakespeare’s Sonnets,ed.Stephen Booth (New Haven and London:Yale
University Press,1977),Sonnet 106.
2 Patrick Cheney argues that the volume in question is,quite specifically,The Faerie Queene.
‘Shakespeare’s Sonnet 106,Spenser’s National Epic and Counter Petrarchism’,English Literary
Renaissance31 (2001),pp.331–64.
1
Description:Chivalry and Romance in Renaissance England offers a reinterpretation of the place and significance of chivalric culture in the sixteenth and seventeenth-century and explores the implications of this reconfigured interpretation for an understanding of the medieval generally. Received wisdom has it t
