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Monk-Poet of Bury St. Edmunds Abbey

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Monk-Poet of Bury St. Edmunds Abbey JOHN LYDGATE: MONK-POET OF BURY ST. EDMUNDS ABBEY A dissertation submitted to Kent State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Timothy R. Jordan December, 2012 Dissertation written by Timothy R. Jordan B.A., Muskingum University, 2003 M.A., Indiana State University, 2006 Ph.D., Kent State University, 2012 Approved by Susanna Fein, Professor of English, Chair, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Don-John Dugas, Associate Professor of English, Member, Doctoral Dissertation Committee David Raybin, Professor of English, Member, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Jeffrey H. Wattles, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Member, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Jennifer Larson, Professor of Classics, Member, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Accepted by Robert W. Trogdon, Chair, English Department Raymond A. Craig, Dean, College of Arts and Sciences ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ILLUSTRATIONS……………………………………………………………………….vi TABLES………………………………………………………………………………...viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………………ix INTRODUCTION—Considering the “driveling monk”………………………………….1 Lydgate and Bury St. Edmunds Abbey……………………………………………4 Literature Review………………………………………………………………….7 Chapter Summaries………………………………………………………………13 CHAPTER 1—Lydgate’s Abbey Poetry………………………………………………...18 Themes of Grace and Social Tension……………………………………………21 Fifteenth-Century Benedictine Politics and Spirituality…………………………24 Abbey Advocacy in the Cartae Versificatae…………………………………….32 The Abbey Devotional Poems…………………………………………………...44 Monastic Exemplars in Minor Saints’ Legends………………………………….49 CHAPTER 2—Lydgate and the English Benedictine Lives of St. Edmund Tradition….60 The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Memorial Coinage, and the Obscure Beginnings of the Cult…………………………………66 Abbo of Fleury and Benedictine Reform………………………………………...70 iii Ælfric of Eynsham, Kings, and Their People……………………………………75 Geoffrey of Wells’ New Beginning for a New King…………………………….86 Roger of Wendover, Good Counsel, and Royal Responsibility…………………97 CHAPTER 3—Empowerment and Reciprocity in Lydgate’s Lives of Ss Edmund and Fremund…………………………………..110 Royal and Abbey Politics……………………………………………………….112 Defining the Theme of Grace…………………………………………………..116 The Effect of Grace……………………………………………………………..121 The Abbey and Its Saint………………………………………………………..130 Henry and His Saintly Models………………………………………………….134 The Consequences of Opposition………………………………………………139 CHAPTER 4—Monastic Self-Depiction in Harley 2278………………………………145 Harley 2278 as Abbey Production……………………………………………...148 The Visual Identity of Black Monks……………………………………………155 Visual Loyalties and the Abbey’s Coat of Arms……………………………….160 Depictions of Henry VI, Lydgate, Curteys, and Their Brethren………………..167 The Community of Witnesses…………………………………………………..173 Aylwin the Holy Shrinekeeper……………………………………..…………...178 CHAPTER 5—Lydgate’s Extra Miracles of St. Edmund and Social Unrest…………..185 The Lydgatean and Suffolk Provenance of the Extra Miracles………………...187 The History of Social Conflict in Bury St. Edmunds…………………………..191 iv The Social Tensions of the Extra Miracles……………………………………..206 Monastic Intercession and Privilege……………………………………………214 CONCLUSION—The “Monk of Bery”………………………………………………..221 Lydgate and the St. Edmund Legend…………………………………………...222 Lydgate and his Abbey…………………………………………………………227 Lydgate the Monk-Poet…………………………………………………………231 APPENDIX—Geffrei Gaimar’s Chivalric Counter-Image…………………………….236 WORKS CITED………………………………………………………………………..244 v ILLUSTRATIONS Illustration 2.1—An example of an early coin from Edmund’s reign…………………...68 Illustration 2.2—An example of the memorial coinage…………………………………68 Illustration 4.1—The universal adoration of the Virgin from the Bedford Hours……..158 Illustration 4.2—King Edmund’s personal banner……………………………………..163 Illustration 4.3—The coat of arms of Bury St. Edmunds Abbey……………………….163 Illustration 4.4—King Edmund fights the Danes at Thetford…………………………..163 Illustration 4.5—St. Edmund slays Swein Forkbeard…………………………………..163 Illustration 4.6—Henry VI at St. Edmund’s shrine…………………………………….170 Illustration 4.7—The presentation of the Lives of Ss Edmund and Fremund…………..170 Illustration 4.8—A young King Edmund sits at court………………………………….170 Illustration 4.9—Lydgate prays to St. Edmund………………………………………...170 Illustration 4.10—Fremund and his clerks go into exile………………………………..176 Illustration 4.11—Clerks pray as Leoffstan chases a woman into Edmund’s shrine…..176 Illustration 4.12—Knights steal horses from Edmund’s shrine………………………...176 Illustration 4.13—The horse-stealing knights receive their penance…………………..176 Illustration 4.14—A Flemish thief bites off more than he can chew…………………..176 Illustration 4.15—Osgoth the Dane……………………………………………………180 Illustration 4.16—Aylwin and the East Anglian people pray to Edmund……………...180 Illustration 4.17—Aylwin delivers St. Edmund’s warning to Swein…………………..180 vi Illustration 4.18—The London bishop fails to steal Edmund’s reliquary……………...180 Illustration 5.1—13th century tenement density………………………………………...194 Illustration 5.2—14th century tenement density………………………………………...194 Illustration 5.3—15th century tenement density………………………………………...194 Illustration 5.4—16th century tenement density………………………………………...194 Illustration 5.5—15th-16th century relevia density……………………………………...195 Illustration 5.6—The greater geographic area of Bury St. Edmunds…………………..201 vii TABLES Table 5.1—1523-24 Lay Subsidy and Anticipation……………………………………195 viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I extend the deepest gratitude to a number of individuals. Foremost is Susanna Fein for her patience, insight, and timeliness in directing me on this project. I also thank those serving as readers on my dissertation committee: Don-John-Dugas, David Raybin, Jeffrey Wattles, and Jennifer Larson. Additional thanks goes to Isolde Thyret and Ronald Corthell for their work as readers earlier in the project. A more personal thanks goes to my family, especially my parents, John and Kathy, and my siblings, Karen and John. I have been blessed with a more extensive network of friends in Kent, Newark, and the surrounding areas than I can individually thank. Among them, however, I wish to give special mention to Russ Brown, Dick Shiels, and Carl Beamer. Their experiences with writing their own dissertations made their sympathy and encouragement especially meaningful. ix Introduction—Considering the “driveling monk” [Lydgate is a] voluminous, prosaick, and driveling monk . and these stupid and fatigueing productions, which by no means deserve the name of poetry, and their stil more stupid and disgusting author, who disgraces the name and patronage of his master Chaucer are neither worth collecting . nor even worthy of preservation. (Ritson 87-88) Joseph Ritson’s 1802 estimation of John Lydgate has had enduring effects on Lydgate studies. First of all, his comments provided a precedent followed by generations of later scholars for negative characterizations of Lydgate. Second, Ritson’s statements present an origin point for attack by scholars who would defend Lydgate against the charge of bad poetry (Renoir 7; Schirmer 258). However, I find an irony in this second group’s defense. Despite the obvious, to quote Derek Pearsall, “dyspeptic anticlericalism” in Ritson’s charge that Lydgate is a “voluminous, prosaick, and driveling monk,” no scholar has attempted to place Lydgate’s monastic profession at the forefront of a major study of this poet (John Lydgate 3). My dissertation takes such an approach. The two most prominent angles for studying Lydgate are those of Chaucerian continuator and of Lancastrian propagandist. Lydgate’s birth around 1371 meant that his first and Geoffrey Chaucer’s last twenty-nine years overlapped, locating the younger poet in a time when Chaucer’s influence was being realized most prominently. Although there 1 2 is no evidence to suggest that the two knew one another, Lydgate did foster relationships with Chaucer’s son, Thomas, and granddaughter, Alice, the Duchess of Suffolk. The poems “On the Departing of Thomas Chaucer” and “Poems on the Mass,” written for Alice, show these connections. Even more prominently connecting Lydgate and Chaucer are allusions and stylistic connections to his predecessor that permeate Lydgate’s poetry. Lydgate’s Siege of Thebes, framed as a continuation of the Canterbury Tales, complete with Lydgate’s own self-drawn pilgrim persona, serves as the most obvious example. The Siege of Thebes’ prologue also contains a passage where Lydgate eulogizes Chaucer as the “Floure of poetes thorghout al Breteyne” (40). Less explicit Chaucerian influences also appear in Lydgate’s poetry. Linguistically, Lydgate made use of many words Chaucer coined, establishing them in the English language (Pearsall, John Lydgate 50- 51). Stylistic influences that Chaucer had over Lydgate include an attitude of self- deprecation to his audience and sources. From Lydgate’s historical vantage point, this attitude of self-deprecation also defines his relationship to Chaucer (Lerer 3). In addition to exploring Lydgate’s use of Chaucer, scholars have been interested in Lydgate’s service to the Lancastrian court. Lydgate’s first known connection to the Lancastrians dates from 1406–1408 when the future Henry V intervened on Lydgate’s behalf to allow the monk to continue studies at Oxford’s Gloucester College (Pearsall, Bio-bibliography 15). Henry V, his brothers, and his son all patronized Lydgate. Examples of their commissions include the 30,117-line Troy Book, the 5,932-line Life of Our Lady, and the short poems “The Title
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