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A Myrrovre for Magistrates: the Sociology of a Mid-Tudor Text

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A Myrrovre for Magistrates: the Sociology of a Mid-Tudor Text A MYRROVRE FOR MAGISTRATES: THE SOCIOLOGY OF A MID-TUDOR TEXT by Michael Timothy Sirles Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English Middle Tennessee State University December 2018 Dissertation Committee: Dr. Marion Hollings, Chair Dr. Kevin Donovan Dr. Philip E. Phillips This dissertation is dedicated to my mother, Linda, who told me I could, to my dearest Rebecca, who told me I should, to Clancy and Libby, who taught me why, and to the memory of Dr. Elizabeth Oakes, who taught me how. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: This work would not have been possible without the unwavering support of Professor Marion Hollings, who has been a continual source of inspiration and encouragement. I would also like to acknowledge a few of the many other professors who have paved this way for me: Kevin Donovan, Philip Phillips, Ted Sherman, Lloyd Davies, Sandy Hughes, Katie Green, and Elizabeth Weston. I owe a debt of gratitude for the support of Ryan Farnau, Terry Smith, Christopher Rush, Betty Dennis, Jay Christian, Josephine Larson, Alex Brazil, Adam Trumbo, Hailey Gallivan, Kelly Kaiser, Anastassiya Andrianova, Russell Bernstein, Ashley Garrett, and Zach Derbyshire for getting me through a tough time in this process. I would also like to thank Aziz at NY Pizza in Nashville and the good people, past and present, at Nashville Pedicab, especially Andrew Ward, Dustin Olsen, Alex Haddad, Shawn Orphey, Bobby Brown, Craig Davis, Jes Knapp, Richard McBride, Dan Clendenon, Janelle Faiman, Ash Buehl, Chris Sanders, and Justin Allen. You have done more for me than you can know. Thanks also to Andrew Watters, Alexa Piekarski, Ryley Erhardt, Charlie Brown, David Ames, David Kramer, Brooke Trout Paulus, and Sean Doyle for showing me the festival life. A big thank you to Brian Owenby, Erik Palmer, and to Nico Lambert at BNAGO. I am honored to have been given access to resources from the Morgan Library in New York City and the Abbot Hall Art Gallery in Kendal, UK. A finally, a very, very special thanks to Tommy Womack. iii ABSTRACT: A Myrrovre for Magistrates: The Sociology of a Mid-Tudor Text William Baldwin’s mid-sixteenth-century collection, A Mirror for Magistrates, enormously popular in its own time, had been relegated to the footnotes and appendices of what were considered by scholars of literary history to be more prominent Tudor texts. Its timely and topical subjects combined with a problematic narrative frame and complicated publication history—not to mention a verse style that critics have long seen as tedious—renders A Mirror for Magistrates more noteworthy as historical artifact than a work worthy of study as meaningful, imaginative literature. Recent scholarship has changed the way that A Mirror for Magistrates is viewed. Paul Budra, Scott Lucas, Harriet Archer, Andrew Hadfield, Sherri Geller, and Mike Pincombe, among others, have brought A Mirror for Magistrates into the mainstream of academic research, and scholars have explored it beyond its simple place as a bridge text between the medieval works of Chaucer or Boccaccio, for instance, and the early modern works of Shakespeare and Spenser. Following Scott Lucas’s lead, I examine A Mirror for Magistrates as a voice in the dialogue of the English Reformation. Focusing specifically on the suppressed 1554, the 1559, and the 1563 editions, my dissertation claims that in laying bare the sociological history of A Mirror for Magistrates as a material object, genre piece, and political commentary, a distinctly Protestant form of collaborative composition emerges. The first chapter introduces the significance of A Mirror for Magistrates by giving a brief overview of its composition and critical reception. The second chapter addresses the material study of books in the age of the printing press and the biography of William Baldwin in the context of mid-Tudor print culture. Chapter Three examines the de casibus tradition, its medieval roots/routes, and the ways in which A Mirror for Magistrates both embraces and confounds the parameters of the genre. Chapters Four and Five examine, respectively, mid-Tudor political and religious crises to relocate within them the textual difficulties of A Mirror for Magistrates as emblematic of a specific mid-Tudor moment. Reconsidering this important book, long-neglected by scholars, in the light of recently renewed interest, I take a multi-faceted approach to study what D.F. McKenzie (whose Bibliography and the Sociology of Texts inspired this dissertation’s iv title) called “the social and technical circumstances of . production.” In studying the Mirror and attempting to position it within its historical, political, religious, and sociological context, I have found it necessary to construct a portrait of its times that is panoramic in scope. This portrait consistently finds A Mirror for Magistrates at its center—a focal point and crossroads of a mid-Tudor panorama that encompasses all these various socio-political elements and combined, provides a clearer understanding of mid-sixteenth-century England. My contention is that study of A Mirror for Magistrates can act as a proxy and an exemplar for the study of an age. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF FIGURES . viii CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION—A MEMORIAL OF SUCHE PRINCES . 1 CHAPTER II: WILLIAM BALDWIN, RENAISSANCE MAN . 46 CHAPTER III: BOCHAS AND THE DE CASIBUS TRADITION . 72 CHAPTER IV: CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY AND THE COURT OF KING EDWARD VI . 98 CHAPTER V: COLLABORATIVE POETICS AND PROTESTANT EGALITARIANISM . .120 vi CONCLUSIONS. .163 BIBLIOGRAPHY. .166 APPENDICES . .171 APPENDIX A: CONTENTS OF DE CASIBUS ILLUSTRIUM VIRORUM . .171 APPENDIX B: CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS. .173 APPENDIX C: ACTS PASSED DURING THE “REFORMATION PARLIAMENT” 1529-1536 . 177 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Figure 1: The Great Picture, painted by Jan van Belcamp, 1648 . 5 Figure 2: Extant verso page of John Wayland's aborted printing of A Memorial of suche princes showing Wayland’s patent to print from Queen Mary. Note the extensive handwritten margin notes to the left of the text. Photo by Michael T. Sirles, taken at The Morgan Library and Museum, New York City. Not for Reproduction. 19 Figure 3: Various 1574 and 1578 editions. Image taken from Early English Books Online. 22 Figure 4: Final two editions: 1587 and 1610. Left photo by Michael T. Sirles, taken at The Morgan Library and Museum, New York City. Not for Reproduction. Right image taken from Early English Books Online. 23 Figure 5: “William Baldwin to the Reader” from the 1559 edition of A Mirror for Magistrates. Image taken from Early English Books Online. 44 Figure 6: Page 1 of The Pilgrimage of the Soul. Caxton’s date for publication is included at the top of the first page of text with the regnal year included. Image taken from Early English Books Online. 53 Figure 7: Page 1 and 117 of John Mirk’s Festial—note the absence of an introductory dating on page 1, as compared to what is seen in Figure 3. In this volume, Caxton has chosen to place his dating and printing information at the end of the book’s final leaf and omit the regnal year and the name of Richard III. Image taken from Early English Books Online. 54 viii Figure 8: A sample page from A Mirror for Magistrates showing alternating textual sizes of type. Note that the verses on the left side are in a smaller type than the prose at the bottom of the same page and the page opposite. Image taken from Early English Books Online. 70 Figure 9: The first chapter—Adam and Eve—from Lydgate's Fall of Princes. Photo by Michael T. Sirles, taken at The Morgan Library and Museum, New York City. Not for Reproduction. 81 Figure 10: Title page of Wayland's printing of Lydgate's Fall of Princes. Photo by Michael T. Sirles, taken at The Morgan Library and Museum, New York City. Not for Reproduction. 83 Figure 11: Thomas Lanquet, An Epitome of Cronicles, London, 1559. Image taken from Early English Books Online. 100 Figure 12: “To the Christian Reader.” A poem included in a John Day-printed coterie text, signed by a “G.B.,” believed to be Giulemus Baldwinus, i.e. William Baldwin. Image taken from Early English Books Online. 126 Figure 13: Title Script from A Commission Sent to the Bloody Butcher, etc., printed anonymously by John Day. Image taken from Early English Books Online. 128 Figure 14: A closeup of the bottom of John Day's title page border with his motto, "Arise for it is Day" in the foreground. Photo by Michael T. Sirles, taken at The Morgan Library and Museum, New York City. Not for Reproduction. 129 Figure 15: Title page of A Memorial of suche princes— Photo by Michael T. Sirles, taken at The Morgan Library and Museum, New York City. Not for Reproduction. 131 ix Figure 16: First Page of Gloucester Poem from the 1578 edition of the Mirror. Image taken from Early English Books Online. 157 x 1 CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION: “A Memorial of suche Princes” “It could be argued that we reach the border between bibliography and textual criticism on the one hand and literary criticism and literary history on the other. My own view is that no such border exists.” —D.F. McKenzie, Bibliography and the Sociology of Texts1 At the Abbot Hall Art Gallery in Kendal, a little town in the Lake District in the North West region of England, hangs a massive triptych oil painting.2 The painting stands over eight feet high, and each of its three panels measures almost four feet broad. A frame around each section adorns the entire work with embellishments of fleur-de-lis, harps, and Tudor Roses.
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