The questions we must ask ourselves at this early juncture, considering the nature of the debate, is why this king was able to persevere for so long on the throne despite his infirmities?
To be a King: changing concepts of kingship during the reign of Henry VI, 1422-1461
January 26, 2014 By
Sorcery at court and manor: Margery Jourdemayne, the witch of Eye next Westminster
October 29, 2013 By
One of the most sensational episodes of the mid-fifteenth century was the trial for treasonable witchcraft of Eleanor, duchess of Gloucester. As the wife of a royal duke, Humphrey of Gloucester, uncle to the young Henry VI, she not only moved in the highest circles but, since the king was still unmarried, was also amongst the first ladies in the land.
Sir John Fortescue and the French Polemical Treatises of the Hundred Years War
February 10, 2013 By
Inevitably Fortescue had to adopt new arguments for the defence of Henry VI. To this end he asserted that the Lancastrians now had a just title through divine and ecclesiastical approbation, popular consent and prescription, but the core of his case was a direct response to the Yorkist claim that they had a superior hereditary title to the throne.
Manhood, kingship and the public in late medieval England
December 26, 2012 By
Were medieval kings like other men? A century’s work on the sacrality of kingship has tended to stress how kings differed from their fellow adult males, even fellow nobles.
The Politics of Madness: Government in the Reigns of Charles VI and Henry VI
December 9, 2012 By
This approach is further hampered by the continually changing nature of modem psychology. Due to alterations in the criteria used for diagnoses, terms and illnesses become obsolete, thus negating our previous theories.
The King’s Mercy. An Attribute of Later Medieval English Monarchy
September 9, 2012 By
Modern assumptions about medieval justice still tend to see this process of amelioration as merely occasional and exceptional: mercy needed to be applied only where special circumstances made it inappropriate to apply the full rigours of the law. This, however, is seriously to misunderstand both the purpose and the pervasiveness of mercy in the operation of medieval justice.
“Be waar, Hoccleue, I rede thee”: Intertextual Subjectivity in Thomas Hoccleve’s Petitioning Poetry
July 20, 2012 By
The way these operate can be seen in the section of La Male Regle from which I excerpted my paper’s title. It comes about three-quarters of the way through the poem when the narrator relates a first-hand account of how he and his Privy-Seal Office colleagues handle a night of drinking.
Dynasty and Division: The Depiction of King and Kingdom in John Hardyng’s Chronicle
June 3, 2012 By
Throughout his life, John Hardyng (1378-c.1465), had many guises: soldier, esquire, spy, forger, chronicler, cartographer.
Writers in religious orders and their lay patrons in late medieval England
February 6, 2012 By
Critics have long recognized that the religious orders played an important part in the production of vernacular devotional literature in late medieval England. The orders were well suited to this task. Reading and writing were an important part of the life of those who lived under a rule.
A Norfolk gentlewoman and Lydgatian patronage: Lady Sibylle Boys and her cultural environment
August 30, 2011 By
A Norfolk gentlewoman and Lydgatian patronage: Lady Sibylle Boys and her cultural environment Bale, A. Medium Aevum, 78(2), (2009) Abstract The poetry of John Lydgate (c.1370–1449/50) is often discussed in terms of the poet’s illustrious and powerful patrons: literary commissions for royal figures such as Henry V (Troy Book), Henry VI (numerous mummings and pageant poems), […]
Material and Meaning in Lead Pilgrims’ Signs
April 24, 2011 By
Material and Meaning in Lead Pilgrims’ Signs Lee, Jennifer (Indiana University – Purdue University of Indianapolis) Peregrinations, Vol.2, Issue 3 (2009) Abstract Thanks to the increase in medieval archaeology over the last half century, pilgrims‘ badges, ampullae, and other wearable tokens of devotion, most often called ―signs‖ in medieval documents, are now more numerous than any […]
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