Lord Berners’s romance compositions mirror this didacticism as well as the larger historical developments of the genre as it widens to encompass new forms. Beginning his career with the chivalric romances of Arthur and Huon, Castle represents a shift towards the innovative humanist romance. By presenting Berners here as a case study and by positioning his auvre as a microcosm for Tudor romance production, the dynamism of the romance, as it evolves to embrace a multiplicity of permutations, influences, literary developments, and sociocultural and political changes, will be further illuminated. Romance’s metamorphic ability effectuates the genre’s continued dominance and its popularity with a wide range of reading publics throughout the century.
Whereas Arthur was Berners’s first romance to be written, it was the last to be printed, appearing only in 1560 and 1582.1 Translated from the French Artus de la Petite Bretagne, it recounts Arthur’s maturation from his birth to his preordained marriage to Florence. Each time Arthur and Florence are about to be united, Arthur’s incredible adventures intervene: he fights thousands of knights; defeats lions, giants, and monsters; rescues maidens and captive knights; and overcomes supernatural challenges and automata. Only once he has neutralized all threats to Florence’s empire and to his dukedom can they live happily ever after. Arthur’s popularity is suggested by its known readership. In his memoirs, Sir William Cornwallis fondly recalls his youthful, ennobling reading of Arthur (A. Davis 2003:30). It was an important source for Spenser’s Faerie Queene, and in The Complaint of Scotland (1570) a shepherd names ‘Arthour of litil bertange’ among the popular tales, songs, and dances then current in Scotland (Boro 2004: 239). Beloved of many, Arthur also came under attack by moralists. Thomas Underdowne objects to its violence and sexuality, while Nashe targets both Arthur and Huon as ‘lying [...] fantasticall [...] feyned [...] foolerie’ (Nashe 1958:11).
Like Arthur, Huon is a translation of an action-packed French chivalric prose romance. Printed three or four times between c.1515 and 1601, with a lost dramatic adaptation performed at least three times in 1593-4 (Boro 2004: 239-40), Huon narrates the fantastic adventures of the eponymous character as he witnesses the marvellous and accomplishes the unexpected, often with the assistance of Oberon, the fairy king. He meets Cain, Judas Iscariot, the pope, and many fairies; overcomes and converts armies of Saracens; defeats giants, knights, pirates, Moors, and griffins; discovers rejuvenating apples of youth, magical cups, swords, horns, stones, and a magnetic island filled with marvels; rescues captives; survives a shipwreck and tempest in a rudderless boat; travels through Europe to Persia and Jerusalem; marries his beloved; has a daughter who is blessed by fairies; and, finally, defeats King Arthur, thereby succeeding Oberon as king of Fairyland. Whereas Arthur is a biographical romance, Huon is genealogical: after Huon succeeds in his quests, the romance continues to relate the equally marvellous and exciting adventures of his progeny.
The various condemnations of the romance and the range of authors it inspired indicate that numerous people eagerly read Huon. ‘Hurtfull to youth’ is the charge levelled at Huon by Meres (1598: Mm4r-v). Dering declares it to be ‘full of synne and abominations [... and a] childish [...] vaine [...] wanton [...] ydle’ form of ‘wickednes’ and ‘bewytchjing...] spiritual enchauntmentes’ (1572: A2r-v). Huon was even implicated in Reformation politics: the 1539 ‘Declaration of the Faith' boasts that all individuals now have access to ‘the Holy Bible, and New Testament, in their Mother Tongue, instead of the old fabulous and phantasticall Books of the Table
On the possibility of an earlier edition, see Boro (2004: 237-8).
Round, Launcelot du Lac, Huon de Bourdeux, Bevy of Hamptoun, Guy of Warwick, &c. and such other whose impure Filth and vain Fabulosity, the Light of God has abolished utterly’ (A. Davis 2003: 8). Like Arthur and other contemporaneous fashionable romances, Huon is linked to the frivolous and the marvellous and opposed to Christian morals and mature understandings of honour. A varied readership is suggested by these condemnations of Huon as well as by its presence in the libraries of the nobility, gentry, and middle classes (Boro 2004: 239; A. Davis 2003:30).
Both Arthur and Huon are characteristic chivalric romances, especially in the way in which knightly prowess is made to agree with Christian virtue and morality. This typicality is evident in the Prologue to Arthur, which polarizes its entertaining and instructive potentials, stressing the value of the ‘auncient noble Hystoryes of the chyvalrous Feates and marcyall Prowesses of the vyctoryous Knyghtes of tymes paste’ and their ‘straunge and wonderfull adventure the whyche [...] seme in a maner to be supernaturall’ (1560: iv). This imitative, didactic reading methodology is evoked by Berners to defend his translation of Arthur from charges of ‘folye’ (iv), just as it is elaborated upon in Huons Preface to praise the author and encourage readers to purchase the text. In this preface the hero’s deeds are extolled as the ‘perfect ground of good and laudable example’ that will inspire youth with ‘the sparke of glorious imitation’ which ‘calles & invites them to the like honourable atchievements’ (1601: 2r).
When Berners turned to Castle, one of the first English humanist romances to be composed, the didactic potential of the genre was not forgotten. Yet, rather than focus on the hero's memorable deeds and adventures, Castle's lessons are rhetorical and political in scope. This shift, as will be explored below, is entirely in keeping with the new preoccupations of the humanist romance. Although the humanist romance did not flourish until the second half of the sixteenth century, Castle dates to the late 1520s. Based on the Spanish Cdrcel de amor by Diego de San Pedro and a French translation of the Spanish sentimental romance, Castle, printed in 1548?, 1552?, and c.1555, narrates the tragic love of Lereano and Laureola. Despite Lereano’s eloquent persuasions in the form of epistles and orations, Laureola will not requite him. The romance progresses through a series of oral and written exchanges between the lovers and the narrator-go-between. Speech cedes to action as Lereano defeats an envious rival in judicial combat. After the battle, the king imprisons Laureola, threatening to execute her. The queen, the cardinal, and Lereano attempt to persuade the king to release her, but their efforts are in vain. When rhetoric fails, Lereano assembles a small army, and despite the overwhelming odds against them, Lereano's inspirational discourse leads them to victory and frees Laureola. These displays of verbal and physical heroism do not convince Laureola, who remains firmly resolved against love. When Lereano dies from lovesickness, Laureola is seized with regret; she loved Lereano, but could not requite him without tarnishing her reputation. The small scale of the story, the focus on the characters' emotional dilemmas, the discursive space afforded to persuasive speech, the abundance of letters, formal orations, and laments, as well as the rhetorical nature of seduction, link Castle to the humanist romance. The features of the humanist romance typified in Castle are distinctive of the sentimental romance, the immensely popular sub-genre of medieval Spanish romance to which Castles source belongs.
In keeping with the rhetorical preoccupations of the humanist romance, the poems and marginal printed notes added to the second and third editions of Castle indicate a reading methodology centred on rhetorical instruction. The letters exchanged by Lereano and Persio contain marginal glosses which indicate the rhetorical divisions of their epistles, thus intimating that the letters were intended to function didactically. These glosses were likely added by Andrew Spigurnell, an unknown writer who is also responsible for several poems added to Castle, including a new verse prologue. Spig-urnell’s glosses indicate different rhetorical parts of the letters in the same manner adopted in instructional treatises, such as Erasmus’ De conscribendis epistolis (1521). These glosses show that a reader like Spigurnell could easily recognize these epistolary divisions, that he was interested enough to do so, and that he thought his annotations would appeal to his readers’ interest in rhetoric and epistolary composition.
The attention to epistolarity is reinforced by one of the poems that Spigurnell adds to Castle. The second stanza of the poem repeats ‘blyssed be’ followed by terms related to epistolary composition:
Blyssed be the hande that dyd wryte,
Blyssed be [the] pen that made the letter,
And blyssed be the memory that dyd indyght,
And blyssed be the paper and the messenger.
(Berners 2007:118-19)
The poem proceeds by anaphora. The subsequent stanza follows the same model as the speaker welcomes, in successive lines, ‘myrth unto my harte’, ‘hope that shall not departe’, ‘pleasure unto my syghte’, and ‘my comforte that dayly fyghtes’ (119). The accumulation of clauses creates the effect of increasing happiness and solace from the pains of love. Two distinct but related language clusters are formed: one of positive amorous emotions, the other of epistolarity. This poem makes the specific link between the relief from the pains of love and the receipt of a letter, reflecting the importance of letters in Castle. The marginal note ‘Note the wrytyng of leters’ draws readers’ attention to the letter exchange thus further highlighting the text’s epistolary preoccupation (Berners 2007:108). Moreover, Spigurnell adds ‘To the good and vertuous Lady, the Lady Carewe, gretynge’ to the start of the Prologue, providing it with a salutation and thereby enabling it to function as another model epistle (Berners 2007: 91).
While such instances of exemplary rhetoric position humanist romances like Castle as pedagogically valuable, they also highlight the author’s skill at creating well-honed discourse: after all, he was the ultimate source for the hero’s persuasive speech. The more convincing the hero, the more worthy the author was perceived to be. Crucially, the author’s rhetorical skill did not merely indicate his linguistic proficiency; it highlighted his political value and his usefulness for the common weal as an adviser or policy-maker. Works by scholars such as Antony Grafton and Lisa Jardine (1990) have repeatedly established the link between literature and politics in the
Tudor period by focusing on the political motives leading to literary creation; by showing how individual works respond to particular concerns, circumstances, and needs at specific temporal moments; and by emphasizing how authors sought to gain preferment through their literary compositions. The firm link between politics and literature can be explained by their mutually close relationships to rhetoric, as well as by the predominant ethical component within the three disciplines. The poet and the politician were both skilled orators who relied upon rhetorical techniques to induce their audiences to follow a specific desired course of action. Literature had practical value. Like rhetoric, its form and style were exercised to persuade readers to action.2 As a result of their shared goals, manuals of poetics and rhetoric tend to cover the same material: figures and tropes, in addition to the deliberative, judicial, and demonstrative modes of composition. Furthermore, poetry, like rhetoric, is valued for its ability to move its audience to good. These ideas were not mere theoretical abstractions; students were taught to read and compose according to this ethical and rhetorical dimension. Literary analysis accompanied the earliest grammar school lessons as texts were dissected to reveal their grammatical, rhetorical, and ethical strengths.
Moreover, in reading both fictional and non-fictional texts, ‘What the contemporary reader sought and found [...] was a text that demonstrated not its own likelihood [...] but the discursive organisation that made it seem likely (“probability” in the Renaissance sense of being capable of being “proved” or developed through the techniques of dialectical argument)’ (Hutson 1993: 85). Readers would not differentiate between genres, nor would history, politics, and literature be read according to different methodologies; rather, the dominant drive was the harvesting of raw materials from textual sources out of which a probable case could be made. Accordingly, the text’s and author’s value would depend upon the quantity and quality of probability that the work contained. Therefore, the more instances of rhetorical dexterity and exemplarity there were to be noted in the margins for readers to analyse and emulate, the more useful the text and author were deemed. In the Tudor textual landscape, strewn with men with literary talents and courtly ambitions, the use-value of texts was pragmatic and political (see Grafton and Jardine 1990). Romances and other literature functioned as pleas for advancement within a male, homosocial, humanist-educated community, wherein authors used their texts to demonstrate their utility to the common weal. Well-written texts on the theme of counsel were equivalent to presenting a curriculum vitae: such compositions offered these scholar-advisers a way of exhibiting their credentials and showing themselves to merit important political positions. Aspiring men like Berners put literature to practical uses as they composed and presented texts to their monarchs and other useful patrons as advertisements or as reminders of their talents. In these texts, the author, hero, and reader are all simultaneously cast in the role of the prudent captain, poet-courtier, scholar-policymaker, or professional reader, all of whom dominated the political and literary scene.
2 Cf. Sidney’s influential Apology for Poetry (1595), in which he argues that poetry’s virtue is its ability to move readers to action. It is perhaps no coincidence that the writer of this totemic specimen of early literary theory also penned the romance The Arcadia (1590).
Berners belonged to this class of literary scholar-politicians. He wrote to influence, gain favour, and demonstrate his value to the political regime. As a courtier during the reigns of Henry VII and VIII, he relied on the patronage of his superiors. The dedications of his works to prominent and well-connected figures such as Henry VIII, Lord Hastings, Francis Bryan, and Elizabeth Carew are revelatory of his attempts to gain advancement though his literary output. Occupying several important political, military, and diplomatic positions throughout his career, such as Chancellor of the Exchequer and Deputy of Calais, his endeavours appear to have met with success.
Not only does Castle function as a repository of exemplary rhetoric and debate, but its focus on the politics of counsel and good kingship position Berners as a prized adviser. The consequences of accepting bad counsel are explored in Castle as Laureola is unjustly imprisoned because her father, the king, heeds the unsound advice of malicious advisers. His subjects must devise a way to inform their tyrannical ruler that he is behaving unjustly and steer him back to virtue. Like so many contemporary texts, such as Berners’s own translations of Jean Froissart’s Chronicles (1523) and Antonio de Guevara’s Golden Book of Marcus Aurelius (1535), Castle engages with issues of political leadership: how to give and recognize good counsel, what is tyranny, and how leaders can take responsibility for errors in judgement and still preserve their honour. In these texts, good leadership is advanced: counsel is advocated; tyranny is condemned; rulers are encouraged to place the benefit of the common weal above their own personal interest; and advisers who speak fearlessly and temperately are valorized. As such, Castle functions as a speculum principis and, like other texts of this advisory genre, as a behavioural manual more generally. Monarchs and all their subjects are taught the values of justice, mercy, honesty, and discernment, while they learn the rhetorical means necessary to persuade others to embrace those virtues. The careful handling of the political and rhetorical subject matter in Castle emphasizes Berners’s mastery of the complexities of these twinned arts, thereby alerting prospective patrons to his suitability for political advancement. As various characters try to reform the king, the importance of counsel and the range of benefits to be gained through counsel are highlighted. From the queen’s heartbreakingplanctus through the heroine’s reasoned persuasions to the cardinal’s lengthy oration, counsel is urged over and again (see Berners 2007: 125, 149, 141, 134-6). The king’s eventual adoption of wise counsel, which enables his final recuperation, highlights the effectiveness of their discourse and hence Berners’s advisory capabilities. Moreover, the skill with which Berners unconditionally reintegrates the king as the rightful leader of a just society further demonstrates his nuanced understanding of the politics of counsel and kingship and his worthiness of courtly advancement.
Despite the unmistakable political use-value of Castle, Berners did not offer it to a high-ranking member of the court and it was only printed posthumously. His reasons for limiting the text to the private sphere may be explained by the rapidly changing political climate in the late 1520s, when Castle was finished. At that time, Cardinal Wolsey was falling from grace; it would have been inadvisable to seek preferment on the basis of a text that glorified a cardinal as a repository of wisdom and which could have so easily been linked to the disgraced politician. Moreover, a veritable dearth in literary publication marked the late 1520s to the late 1540s (Fox 1989: 126, 207). This absence of literature paralleled changes in the Henrician court as the atmosphere became more hostile and the frank expression of ideas more dangerous. The stifling environment was perpetuated by new treason and censorship legislation introduced in 1534,1536,1538, and 1543. John King observes that these two decades are marked by ‘sub-literary rhetorical forms, including appeals to the monarch, complaints against religious and social abuses, and barely fictionalised dialogues’ (1982: 4). Romances, satire, drama, and court festivities suffered imaginative declines, while royal propaganda thrived. Henry’s death and the ascendancy of Edward initiated a reversal of this oppressive trend. Treason, heresy, and publishing laws were relaxed (but not completely repealed) in 1547: previously banned texts, such as works by Martin Luther, were printed; and some exiles, like John Bale, returned to England. The years 1547-50 witnessed the highest rate of printing ever seen in England, which was not surpassed until 1579 (King 1982: 88). In addition to Castle, these three years witnessed the publication of several earlier romances, including Mighty Prince Ponthus of Galicia and Little Britain (1548), Sir Eglamour (1550?), and Helyas, Knight of the Swan (1550?).
The Edwardian and Marian editions of Castle move the romance out of the political sphere, rooting it in a familial context, with women as its intended audience. The title page and dedicatory letter present the romance to Lady Elizabeth Carew, Berners’s niece. In justifying his choice of dedicatee, Berners declares that ‘the matter is very pleasante for yonge ladyes and gentle women’ (Berners 2007: 91). In addressing the text to a female readership, Berners mirrors the predominance of female dedicatees for the humanist (and sentimental) romances: the French and Italian translations of Castle are both dedicated to women, as are numerous English romances, such as those by Pettie, Riche, Greene, and Sidney. In fact, while male readers and writers dominated the genre, by the latter half of the sixteenth century romance had achieved the status of a derided, popular, and decisively female literary form. The genre was feminized through a variety of textual and paratexual strategies including prefatory dedications and narratorial asides to female readers, the popularity of female eponymous characters, and moral attacks and satires of female readers of the genre. Comments about the genre written by and directed to men present romance reading as a sexualized experience whereby male readers can spy on a private female sphere (Newcomb 2002: 104-17; Hackett 1992: 39-67). Yet while these factors gender the genre as feminine, they do not necessarily point to an audience comprised exclusively, or even preponderantly, of women. Scholars of romance and of female reading practices have identified this association of genre and gender as a potent literary convention serving to validate male authorship at the expense of a largely imagined female readership (Newcomb 2002: 37-47,104-17; Hackett 2002: 4-19). Whether writers attempted to avoid the stigma of print by rhetorically seducing female readers through their romances, or whether they tried to debase romance in order to point to their superior authorial skills in other genres, scholars have demonstrated that, for male romance writers and readers, the trope of
The feminized romance was central to homosocial strategies of literary advancement. Despite their conventional feminization, the authoring and reading of romance were primarily masculine activities. The publication history of romance, its regular presence in library inventories, the evidence of its manuscript circulation, and the abundance of romances adapted into dramatic form suggest its continued appeal to both sexes.
Twinned with the feminization and subsequent dismissal of romance was the perception of the genre as dangerous. Reading such tales of amorous adventures could morally corrupt women, as they tended to present modes of behaviour in stark opposition to that of the ideal woman—stationary, domestic, chaste, silent, and obedient—which women were consistently encouraged to emulate. Romances often narrate the adventures of female protagonists fighting seemingly insurmountable obstacles in order to achieve emotional fulfilment. Many scholars have convincingly argued for the possibility of subversive female reading practices, in which romance was read for its prioritization of matters of the heart over the intellect, for the daring behaviour of their heroines, and as a means of mentally escaping the moral and social restrictions which governed women’s lives (Krontiris 1998: 26-8; Alwes 2000: 390-4). Given the consistent aspersions cast on the morality of women who read romance, Lynette McGrath and Tina Krontiris characterize the very activity of reading them as rebellious (McGrath 2002: 116-17; Krontiris 1998: 28). Yet, however much men dominated the reading and writing of romance, it is important to recognize that women like Elizabeth Carew did read romances and that they may have read them subversively.
In his additions to Castle, Spigurnell reacts to the dangerous potential of romance; he exhibits discomfort with the prospect of women reading the text. In his Prologue to the second and third editions, he objects to Berners’s decision to translate Castle ‘for a Ladye’s sake’, arguing that it is ‘a present moche unworthie | To be presented to a Lady or a Quene’ since it recounts ‘a Ladye’s crueltie’ (Berners 2007: 93). Female unkindness, in his opinion, contravenes women’s ‘naturall dispocisyon’ of‘pytie mercy and grace’. But his concern is not that women will be offended, nor is he worried that the reputation of the female sex will be tarnished; rather, he fears that women may emulate Laureola’s cruelty. Acknowledging that Laureola would have tarnished her reputation by heeding Lereano’s requests, he concludes:
Pytie she shold have
And not her lover’s lyfe deprave
For though honour before lyfe is to be preferred
Yet another’s lyfe is to be regarded.
(93)
By ascribing more importance to her life than to her lover’s, Laureola has failed to act according to her natural femininity, thereby further damaging her honour. Laureola’s final despondency appeases Spigurnell, however, allowing him to concede that she may serve as an example to other merciless women who fail to understand the value of pity and the insignificance of their own lives and desires. The romance is of value:
But to the intent that women in generall By theyr disdayne and lacke of pytie Shal note what inconvenyence mai come and fal To lovers that be tormented crewly.
(93-4)
Spigurnell’s interpretation of the text results from his anxieties surrounding its possible reception. Not only does Castle contain defences of the female sex in the form of Lereano’s extended deathbed recitations of the lives of exemplary women and of twenty ‘reasons [...] whereby that men are bound to love women’ (159), but it seriously engages with Laureola’s predicament as she is forced to choose between her reputation and Lereano’s life. Laureola has ample space to analyse her feelings, and her struggle is vividly and sympathetically portrayed. Moreover, her decision to remain chaste is supported by Lereano, who chooses to die rather than damage her reputation. Why Spigurnell thought the romance could incite unruly female behaviour is perfectly clear. Castle is dangerous: it promotes female agency and selfactualization. Spigurnell therefore uses the Prologue to transform Castle from a site of proto-feminism to one of repressive condemnation. The added Prologue is at odds with the romance and is equally opposed to the values Berners expresses in dedicating his work to his niece. Yet, Spigurnell’s and Berners’s polarized reactions to Castle are an accurate reflection of contemporary attitudes to female romance readers.
As the genre appealed to such diverse reading publics, romance elicited different and dichotomous responses from a broad spectrum of readers depending on their cultural and moral dispositions, their expectations, and their reasons for reading. Readers turned to romances written by Berners, his contemporaries, and his literary ancestors and descendants to satisfy professional, personal, and intellectual needs. They sought eloquence, rhetorical skills, a mastery of dialectic probability, and models of professional, personal, and amorous success. Romances like Arthur, Huon, and Castle fulfilled all these pedagogical functions. In reading romances, young men were exposed to positive models of masculinity in the form of exemplary language and/or action, which they could then adapt to their own lives and texts. Chivalric and humanist romances alike taught them how to be effective lovers, husbands, landowners, orators, and politicians. Through their active female protagonists and exploration of women’s emotional, social, and gendered predicaments, romances ascribed value to women’s feelings and experiences while exposing women to alternative modes of thought and behaviour. Authors often turned to the form for highly politicized reasons. By using their romances to showcase their rhetorical skills coupled with their nuanced understanding of political theory and current events, romance writers like Berners could present themselves as valuable advisers to prospective patrons. Yet, despite these important and varied didactic and social functions, moralists and pedagogues fearfully condemned romances because of the genre’s perceived ability to corrupt its readers. The censure offers persuasive evidence of romance’s ability to influence, for good or ill. Furthermore, taken as a whole, these attacks, the printing history, manuscript circulation, known ownership, and adaptations of romances, in addition to countless allusions to them, incontestably substantiate the broad appeal of this dynamic genre throughout the Tudor period and beyond. Thus, rather than think of Berners as ‘the last of the great medieval translators’, as C. S. Lewis labelled him for posterity (1954:149), Berners would be more accurately remembered as one of the first great Tudor romancers: his chivalric and humanist romances anticipate and mirror important Tudor literary trends, and accordingly, they were beloved by male and female readers and theatregoers with divergent interests, expectations, reading agendas, and social backgrounds throughout the Tudor period.
PRIMARY WORKS
AscHAM, Roger (1570), The Scholemaster.
Berners, John Bourchier, Lord (1560), Arthur ofLytell Brytayne (London).
-(1601), Huon ofBurdeux (London).
-(2007), The Castle of Love: A Critical Edition of Lord Berners’s Romance, ed. Joyce Boro,
Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 336 (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies).
Dering, Edward (1572), A Briefe & Necessary Instruction, Verye Needefull to Bee Knowen of All Housholders.
Gosson, Stephen [1582], Playes Confuted in Five Actions.
Henslowe, Philip (2002), Henslowe’s Diary, ed. R. A. Foakes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Meres, Francis (1598), Palladis Tamia; or, Wits Commonwealth.
Nashe, Thomas (1958), Works, ed. R. B. McKerrow (Oxford: Blackwell).
Underdowne, Thomas (1587), An Aethiopian Historie.
PART II 1530-1559
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THOMAS MORE, WILLIAM TYNDALE, AND THE PRINTING OF RELIGIOUS PROPAGANDA
World History
