Mingling Kings and Clowns: Carnivalesque Politics of the Fifteenth
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Mingling Kings and Clowns: Carnivalesque Politics of the Fifteenth-Century King and Commoner Tradition Mark David Truesdale A thesis submitted in candidature for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Cardiff University 2015 i Summary This thesis analyses the political ideologies of the fifteenth-century King and Commoner tradition. This critically neglected yet widespread tradition occupied a unique political and cultural space in the literature of the later Middle Ages, leaving an indelible mark on British culture. Its influence and study impacts on outlaw literature, romance, and Shakespearean drama. This thesis provides the first detailed critical history and close textual analysis of the King and Commoner tradition as a whole. Drawing on Bakhtinian and Foucauldian methodologies, it examines this material’s amalgamation of carnival rituals with late- medieval complaint literature and insurgent demands. The Introduction traces King and Commoner analogues across other cultures, insular romance and chronicles. Chapter One focuses on King Edward and the Shepherd (c. 1400), arguing that this ‘bourde’ utilises the commoner’s carnivalesque poached feast and anti-noble complaints to invert social norms and deconstruct hierarchical boundaries. The King emerges here as a proto-panoptical spy, while the court is identified with corruption, oppression and alterity amid the commoner’s containment. Chapter Two explores this carnival inversion in John the Reeve (c. 1450), arguing that this text repeatedly stages a carnivalesque violence directed at the social body, culminating in John’s insurgent storming of the court. Chapter Three focuses on Rauf Coilȝear (c. 1460) and A Gest of Robyn Hode (c. 1500), contending that the tradition’s carnivalesque elements allow it to interact with both the worlds of Carolingian romance and outlaw literature in these hybrid texts. Chapter Four examines the King and Commoner ballads and chapbooks of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, arguing that this conservative, pro-monarchic material self-consciously contains and remediates the tradition. The Appendix to Chapter Four also identifies King and Commoner influenced ii drama from the sixteenth century onwards, highlighting the tradition’s absorption into an array of cultural narratives, from Robin Hood plays to national histories. iii Acknowledgements I am greatly indebted to my supervisor Rob Gossedge for his patience, encouragement and provision of innumerable insightful suggestions and comments. I must also thank Stephen Knight for enthusiastically introducing me to King Edward and the Shepherd and providing cherished advice during the initial stages of my research. Additionally, I am tremendously grateful to Helen Phillips, who read a late draft of this thesis and made many astute and helpful suggestions. I must also thank my parents, without whose inexhaustible support this thesis would not have been possible. Finally, my partner Helen Langdon has supported me throughout my PhD, acted as a sounding board for my ideas and provided many suggestions relating to clarity and matters of detail; I am eternally grateful to her. iv Contents Introduction: ‘A rolle he had reading, / A bourde written therein he ffound’..................... 1 - The King and Commoner Material in Criticism and Print.................................................. 8 - Methodology and Structure................................................................................................. 19 - King and Commoner Analogues in Other Cultures............................................................ 21 - Traces in the Chronicles: King Alfred, Walter Map, and Gerald of Wales........................ 27 - Disguised Knights and Kings in Insular Romance............................................................. 35 Chapter One: Feasts and Surveillance in King Edward and the Shepherd: ‘Wode has erys; fylde has siȝt’........................................................................................................................ 43 - Introduction........................................................................................................................ 43 - Establishing Boundaries and Commoner Complaint: ‘I am so pylled with þe kyng’........ 51 - The Carnivalesque Collapse of Boundaries in Adam’s Feast: ‘Þe scheperde ete tille þat he swatte’................................................................................................................................... 59 - Complaint and Insurgent Literature.................................................................................... 66 - The Proto-Panoptical King, and Court Containment: ‘Off thyngus þat fallis amysse’....... 71 Chapter Two: The Carnivalesque and Insurrection in John the Reeve: ‘I will cracke thy crowne!’................................................................................................................................ 85 - Introduction......................................................................................................................... 85 - Tempestuous beginnings: ‘Of Lords,’ sayes hee, ‘speake no more!’............................... 91 - John’s Feast: ‘Trace nor true mesure [...] but hopp as ye were woode’............................. 107 - Insurrection: ‘I will cracke thy crowne’............................................................................. 118 Chapter Three: Hybridity and Transformation: Rauf Coilȝear, A Gest of Robyn Hode, King Edward and the Hermit and The King and the Barker......................................................... 132 - Introduction......................................................................................................................... 132 - Rauf Coilȝear: Introduction................................................................................................ 133 - Anti-Noble Violence in Rauf Coilȝear: ‘To mak me lord of my awin’............................. 137 - Roland and Rauf: ‘I sall raise thy ryall array’.................................................................... 147 - The ‘Carll Knicht’ and the Saracen: ‘to threip is my thocht’............................................. 153 - A Gest of Robyn Hode: Introduction.................................................................................. 157 - Carnival Beatings in Robin’s Forest: ‘Smyte on boldely’................................................. 160 - The End of an Era: King Edward and the Hermit and The King and the Barker.............. 168 v Chapter Four: Containment in the Later Ballads: The King at the Keyhole...................... 176 - Introduction......................................................................................................................... 176 - King Henry II and the Miller of Mansfield: Introduction................................................... 182 - Rebellious Echoes and Conservative Ideology................................................................... 185 - Richard and the Containment of the Grotesque.................................................................. 191 - King Alfred and the Shepherd............................................................................................. 197 - King Henry VIII and the Abbot of Reading........................................................................ 206 - Conservative Propaganda: ‘I will betray you to [...] our King’.......................................... 213 - The Eighteenth Century: The Problem of James I and the ‘Goodman of Ballengiech’..... 224 Appendix to Chapter Four: The King and Commoner Tradition on the Stage: ‘Mingling Kinges and Clownes’............................................................................................................. 233 - Introduction......................................................................................................................... 233 - King and Commoner Drama: The Kings of Dark Corners................................................. 234 - Early Modern Clowns: ‘the aduise of fooles’..................................................................... 246 Conclusion............................................................................................................................ 250 Bibliography........................................................................................................................ 253 Appendix One: Selected King and Commoner Publication History.................................. 287 Appendix Two: Free Miners’ Brass.................................................................................... 293 1 Introduction ‘A rolle he had reading, / A bourde written therein he ffound’ In his seminal English and Scottish Popular Ballads, American scholar and ballad collector Francis James Child comments: Next to adventures of Robin Hood and his men, the most favourite topic in English popular poetry is the chance-encounter of a king, unrecognised as such, with one of his humbler subjects.1 The literature examined in this thesis emerged as a popular tradition in the fifteenth century to leave an indelible mark on English-language culture, influencing a vast array of literature ranging from outlaw ballads to Shakespearean national histories and nineteenth-century novels.2 But despite its past popularity and long-lasting influence, this ‘most favourite topic in English popular poetry’ has long suffered from critical neglect, with currently only a handful of articles devoted to its study. This thesis will attempt to go some way