SRL11-FM.qxd 15/02/03 12:09 PM Page i 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. SRL11-FM.qxd 15/02/03 12:09 PM Page ii 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 SRL11-FM.qxd 15/02/03 12:09 PM Page iii CHIVALRY AND ROMANCE IN THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE Alex Davis D.S.BREWER SRL11-FM.qxd 15/02/03 12:09 PM Page iv © 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 SRL11-FM.qxd 15/02/03 12:09 PM Page v 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 SRL11-FM.qxd 15/02/03 12:09 PM Page vi SRL11-FM.qxd 15/02/03 12:09 PM Page vii 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. SRL11-FM.qxd 15/02/03 12:09 PM Page viii NOTE ON TRANSCRIPTION I have silently regularised early modern textual conventions such as long -s and consonantal iand uin accordance with modern usage. SRL11-Intro.qxd 15/02/03 12:11 PM Page 1 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