Copyright by William Joseph Taylor 2009 The Dissertation Committee for William Joseph Taylor certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: ‘That country beyond the Humber’: The English North, Regionalism, and the Negotiation of Nation in Medieval English Literature Committee: _________________________ Elizabeth Scala, co-supervisor _________________________ Daniel Birkholz, co-supervisor _________________________ Marjorie Curry Woods _________________________ Mary Blockley _________________________ Geraldine Heng ‘That country beyond the Humber’: The English North, Regionalism, and the Negotiation of Nation in Medieval English Literature by William Joseph Taylor, B.A., M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin December 2009 For Laura Poi le vidi in un carro trïumfale, Laurëa mia con suoi santi atti schifi sedersi in parte, et cantar dolcemente. (Petrarch, Canzoniere CCXXV) Acknowledgements A number of individuals have supported me throughout the writing of this dissertation and in my graduate work. It gives me great pleasure to acknowledge their contributions here. First, I want to thank my two advisors and mentors, Elizabeth Scala and Daniel Birkholz. Liz Scala, for several years now, has provided me a steady balance of tough love, rigorous expectation, and critical acumen for which I can never repay. Her advice, her tutelage, and her direction were vital to my development as a scholar and to the success I have already known in academia. Months of dissertation anxiety and the crafting of a far-fetched project were met by Liz’s emphatically simple suggestion: “Why don’t you work on the North?” She could only ask this because she visited each of my professors individually to inquire as to my interests in seminars, and her inquiry testifies to her dedication as an advisor and teacher. Dan Birkholz, mad wizard of medieval maps, geographies, and literature beyond the canon, has sustained my energy throughout this project. His intense interest in the shaping of this document and his always prolific suggestions about both canonical and non-canonical texts have been invaluable not only to my dissertation but to my future as a medievalist. His friendship, his advice, his thinking-outside-the-box, and his sheer drive will continue to inspire and influence me as I move forward in the profession. Marjorie Curry Woods is the reason I came to the University of Texas. Her genuine interest in me as an admissions candidate, her correspondence, and, of course, her scholarship made my decision to attend an easy one. Since coming to Texas, Jorie v has afforded me the opportunity to assist her in her life-work, a seminal accounting of the medieval and early modern commentaries on Geoffrey de Vinsauf’s Poetria Nova. This experience, and Jorie’s scholarly rigor in the process, were a great model for a young scholar in training, and her advice, “counseling sessions,” and friendship have made graduate school an enjoyable as well as a shaping experience for me. Mary Blockley introduced me to Middle English dialects and to the North of England. This project emerged from her linguistics course. But beyond this, Mary has had a lasting impact on my studies. As most graduate students know, Mary knows everything there is to know about her subject, and, as we say, “yours as well.” Her love of reading and knowledge broadly demonstrates for all of us what it means truly to be an academic. In addition, she is a fine cello player, she maintains a bevy of one-liners fit for any party, and she maintains an intense love for the Green Bay Packers (or is it Brett Favre? or both?). Though leave-time and schedule conflicts have prevented her involvement on this project for the duration, Geraldine Heng has nevertheless offered timely suggestions and commentary (including the recommendation of Robin Hood texts as a point of interest) that have positively enhanced this project as well as my own breadth as a medievalist. I owe these scholars and advisors a great debt for their time and investment in my work over the last five years and I thank them. This project and its author have further benefited from numerous productive relationships with colleagues and friends over the last five years. Jonathan Lamb and Gregory Foran have been intense collaborators, great listeners, therapists, and readers vi extrordinaire. This project could not exist without their suggestions, their comments, and their proofreading. Zeitgeist! Their friendships will remain invaluable to me far beyond academia. Brooke Hunter, my “medieval sister,” has spent significant time reading various parts of this project and its several revisions. Her helpful suggestions about the project and about academia in general have benefitted me greatly, and I look forward to our continued collaboration as Chaucerians in the future. It’s all about confidence! To my other colleagues both at Texas and abroad—Randy Schiff, Tim Turner, Jason Leubner, Donna Hobbs, Meghan Andrews, and Kevin Psonak—their aid on this project and other essays, conversations, and readings have been significantly helpful. I am further indebted to a number of faculty who have impacted this project and my training as an academic over the course of my undergraduate and graduate career. Anthony Colaianne introduced me to Chaucer and to medieval literature in general. He remains an inspiring teacher. When in need of inspiration, I always recall his intense passion for literature and its teaching. Dan Mosser remains a friend and mentor whose advice and teaching laid a foundation for my scholarship and for my knowledge of medieval language and literature. Paul Heilker, David Radcliffe, and Ernest Sullivan were pivotal figures in my early academic training, and I cherish their advice and their insights on pedagogy. Janine Barchas taught me that books are, in fact, material objects (who knew?), and I have benefitted greatly from her knowledge of “the book” and her witticisms. Her influence will be clear and significant in my future projects. Wayne vii Lesser provided for me, as he has every student in the program at Texas, invaluable advice, direction, attention to academic detail, and opportunities for funding. He remains essential to the prosperity of our graduate program. Linda Ferreira-Buckley, Diane Davis, Trish Roberts-Miller, Jamie Duke, Patricia Schaub, and Amy Stewart have been great friends, mentors, and administrators throughout my development as a teacher, and I thank them for their time and attention over the years. Thomas Cable, Douglas Bruster, Wayne Rebhorn, Jackie Henkel, and Ian Hancock all contributed to an exceptional educational experience in texts, methods, and languages that has only added to this project and to my development as a scholar. The Department of English at Virginia Tech and the Departments of English and of Rhetoric and Writing at the University of Texas at Austin provided generous funding, teaching opportunities, and teacher and technology training, for which I am grateful beyond words. The Graduate School at the University of Texas awarded me a one-year dissertation fellowship, without which this project could not have been completed in a timely manner. Most important, I want to thank my family for their love and support over the years. My mother, Patsy, read to me religiously every day from the time I could remember (including a timely children’s version of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight when I was seven). Both she and my stepfather Douglas encouraged (and enforced) my early education even if I was at times resistant, and for which I am very grateful. I thank my sisters, Monica and Crystal, for their love and support, and my late father, William viii Earl, for his presence and character, which are an inspiration. Finally, and most significantly, I thank my beautiful wife Laura. I would not have enrolled in graduate school if not for her encouragement and her goading me to pursue my true passion. I would not have made it through this process without her patience and support, nor would I have had inspiration to continue this journey. She is my great love and I celebrate this culmination with her and because of her. My daughters Elisabeth and Annabel (forthcoming) are our great collaborations and I eagerly await our futures together. I thank God for his presence and his peace. ix ‘That country beyond the Humber’: The English North, Regionalism, and the Negotiation of Nation in Medieval English Literature William Joseph Taylor, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2009 Supervisors: Elizabeth Scala and Daniel Birkholz My dissertation examines the presence of the “North of England” in medieval texts, a presence that complicates the recent work of critics who focus upon an emergent nationalism in the Middle Ages. Far removed from the ideological center of the realm in London and derided as a backwards frontier, the North nevertheless maintains a distinctly generative intimacy within the larger realm as the seat of English history—the home of the monk Bede, the “Father of English History”—and as a frontline of defense against Scottish invasion. This often convoluted dynamic of intimacy, I assert, is played out in those literary conversations in which the South derides the North and vice versa—in, for example, the curt admonition of one shepherd that the sheep-stealer Mak in the Wakefield Master’s Second Shepherd’s Play stop speaking in a southern tongue: that he “take out his southern tooth and insert a turd.” x The North functioned as a contested geography, a literary character, and a spectral presence in the negotiation of a national identity in both canonical and non-canonical texts including Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, William of Malmesbury’s Latin histories, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, and the Robin Hood ballads of the late Middle Ages.