Guy of Warwick: Icon and Ancestor (Studies in Medieval Romance)

248 Pages·2007·1.82 MB·English

by  Alison Wiggins

Guy of Warwick
Icon and Ancestor
Guy of Warwick is England’s other Arthur. Elevated to the status
of national hero, his legend occupied a central place in the nation’s
cultural heritage from the Middle Ages to the modern period. Guy of
Warwick: Icon and Ancestor spans the Guy tradition from its begin-
nings in Anglo-Norman and Middle English romance right through to
the plays and prints of the early modern period and Spenser’s Faerie
Queene, including the visual tradition in manuscript illustration and
material culture as well as the intersection of the legend with local
and national history. This volume addresses important questions
regarding the continuities and remaking of romance material, and the
relation between life and literature. Topics discussed are sensitive to
current critical concerns and include translation, reception, magnate
ambition, East-West relations, the construction of ‘Englishness’ and
national identity, and the literary value of ‘popular’ romance.
Alison Wiggins is Lecturer in English Language at the University
of Glasgow.
Rosalind Field is Reader in Medieval Literature at Royal Holloway,
University of London.
Studies in Medieval Romance
ISSN 1479–9308
Series Editors
Corinne Saunders
Roger Dalrymple
This series aims to provide a forum for critical studies of the medieval romance,
a genre which plays a crucial role in literary history, clearly reveals medieval
secular concerns, and raises complex questions regarding social structures,
human relationships, and the psyche. Its scope extends from the early middle
ages into the Renaissance period, and although its main focus is on English
literature, comparative studies are welcomed.
Proposals or queries should be sent in the first instance to one of the addresses
given below; all submissions will receive prompt and informed considera-
tion.
Dr Corinne Saunders, Department of English, University of Durham, Durham,
DH1 3AY
Boydell & Brewer Limited, PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk, IP12 3DF
Volumes already published
I: The Orient in Chaucer and Medieval Romance, Carol F. Heffernan, 2003
II: Cultural Encounters in the Romance of Medieval England, edited by
Corinne Saunders, 2005
III: The Idea of Anglo-Saxon England in Middle English Romance, Robert
Allen Rouse, 2005
Guy of Warwick
Icon and Ancestor
Edited by
ALISON WIGGINS
ROSALIND FIELD
D. S. BREWER
© Contributors 2007
All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation
no part of this 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 of the copyright owner
First published 2007
D. S. Brewer, Cambridge
ISBN 978–1–84384–125–8
D. S. Brewer is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd
PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK
and of Boydell & Brewer Inc.
668 Mount Hope Ave, Rochester, NY 14604, USA
website: www.boydellandbrewer.com
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
This publication is printed on acid-free paper
Printed in Great Britain by
Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire
Contents
Illustrations vii
Contributors ix
Abbreviations xi
Editorial Introduction: Namoore of this! How to read xv
Guy of Warwick and why
1. Gui de Warewic at Home and Abroad: A Hero for Europe 1
Judith Weiss
2. Gui de Warewic in its Manuscript Context 12
Marianne Ailes
3. Guy of Warwick as a Translation 27
Ivana Djordjevic
4. From Gui to Guy: The Fashioning of a Popular Romance 44
Rosalind Field
5. The Manuscripts and Texts of the Middle English Guy of Warwick 61
Alison Wiggins
6. The Speculum Guy de Warwick and Lydgate’s Guy of Warwick: 81
The Non-Romance Middle English Tradition
A. S. G. Edwards
7. An Exemplary Life: Guy of Warwick as Medieval Culture-Hero 94
Robert Allen Rouse
8. The Visual History of Guy of Warwick 110
David Griffith
9. ‘In her owne persone semly and bewteus’: Representing Women 133
in Stories of Guy of Warwick
Martha W. Driver
10. Of Dragons and Saracens: Guy and Bevis in Early Print Illustration 154
Siân Echard
11. Guy of Warwick and The Faerie Queene, Book II: Chivalry 169
Through the Ages
Andrew King
12. Guy as Early Modern English Hero 185
Helen Cooper
Appendix: Synopsis of the Guy of Warwick narrative 201
Index 215
Illustrations
Between pages 106 and 107
Plate 1 Guy’s assault on the Sultan in the Smithfield Decretals (London,
British Library, Royal MS 10. E. IV, fol. 85v). © The British Library. All
rights reserved.
Plate 2 The Guy of Warwick mazer, maple wood bowl with silver and silver-
gilt mounts; c. 1340 (St Nicholas’s Hospital, Harbledown, near Canterbury,
on loan to the Museum of Canterbury). By permission of the Museum of
Canterbury.
Plate 3 Wenceslaus Hollar’s engraving of the sculpted figure of Guy
of Warwick from the chapel of Mary Magdalene within the Guy’s Cliffe
foundation in Warwick, in William Dugdale’s Antiquities of Warwickshire
(first edition, 1656), p.184. By Permission of Special Collections, University
Library, University of Birmingham.
Plate 4 Depictions of Guy in the Middle English Rous Roll flanked by Felice
receiving the half ring and by Reinbroun (London, British Library, Additional
MS 48976, figures 20, 21, 22, 23; 1483–85). © The British Library. All rights
reserved.
Plate 5 Felice receives the half ring in the Latin Rous Roll (London, College
of Arms, MS Warwick Roll, figure 20; 1477–85). By permission of the College
of Arms.
Plate 6 Reinbroun’s wife in the Latin Rous Roll (London, College of Arms,
MS Warwick Roll, figure 23a; 1477–85). By permission of the College of
Arms.
Plate 7 Guy and Felice with Reinbroun (Descents of the Houses of Warwick
and Essex, New York, The Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M. 956, fol. 1v;
sixteenth century). By permission.
Plate 8 Tied to the mast, The Beauchamp Pageants (L) (London, British
Library, Cotton Julius MS E. IV, Article 6). © The British Library. All rights
reserved.
Plate 9 Descendants of Anne Neville, Countess of Warwick, The Beauchamp
Pageants (LV) (London, British Library, Cotton Julius MS E. IV, Article 6).
© The British Library. All rights reserved.
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Plate 10 Guy fights Colbrond, in William Copland’s Guy of Warwick (1565),
page 258. By permission of Houghton Library, Harvard University.
Plate 11 Sleeping figure, in William Copland’s Guy of Warwick (1565), page
19; and Phyllis dreaming, in Samuel Rowlands’s Famous Historie (1609);
1625 copy, C.2.verso. Both by permission of Houghton Library, Harvard
University.
Plate 12 Ascopart carries Josian, Bevis, and Arondel, from Richard Pynson’s
Bevis of Hampton (1503). Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, Douce B.
Subt.234, fol. 40. By permission.
Plate 13 The Christmas Day battle and the boar fight, from Richard Pynson’s
Bevis of Hampton (1503). Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, Douce B.
Subt.234, fols 10 and 13. By permission.
Plate 14 Guy aids a lion against a dragon, in Samuel Rowlands’s Famous
History of Guy Earl of Warwicke (1609); 1625 copy, H.2 recto. By permission
of Houghton Library, Harvard University.
Plate 15 Guy kills the Dun Cow and the boar, in The history of the famous
exploits of Guy Earl of Warwick (1680), London, British Library 12450.f.8,
pages 10 and 14. © British Library. All rights reserved.
viii
Contributors
Marianne Ailes is College Lecturer in French at Wadham College Oxford and
Honorary Research Fellow at Reading University. Her recent publications
include The Song of Roland: On Absolutes and Relative Values (2002) and
an edition and translation of Ambroise’s The History of the Holy War (with
Malcolm Barber; 2003).
Helen Cooper is Professor of Medieval and Renaissance English at the Univer-
sity of Cambridge. Her many publications include The English Romance in
Time: Transforming Motifs from Geoffrey of Monmouth to the Death of Shake-
speare (2004).
Ivana Djordjevic is an Assistant Professor in the Liberal Arts College at
Concordia University, Montreal. She has published on Anglo-Norman and
Middle English romance and on the poetics of rewriting, especially transla-
tion.
Martha W. Driver is Distinguished Professor of English and Women’s and
Gender Studies at Pace University in New York. Her recent books are The
Image in Print: Book Illustration in Late Medieval England (2004) and The
Medieval Hero on Screen: Representations from Beowulf to Buffy (with Sid
Ray; 2004).
Siân Echard is Professor of English and Distinguished University Scholar at
the University of British Columbia. Her recent published research includes A
Companion to Gower (2004) and The Book Unbound: Editing and Reading
Medieval Manuscripts and Texts (with Stephen Partridge; 2004).
A. S. G. Edwards is Professor of Textual Studies at the Centre for Textual
Scholarship, De Montford University. His recent publications include A New
Index of Middle English Verse (with Julia Boffey; 2005) and A Companion to
Middle English Prose (2004).
Rosalind Field is Reader in English at Royal Holloway, University of London.
Her recent publications include Romance Reading on the Book: Essays on
Medieval Narrative presented to Maldwyn Mills (with Jennifer Fellows,
Gillian Rogers, and Judith Weiss; 1996) and Tradition and Transformation in
Medieval Romance (1999).
David Griffith is Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Birmingham.
His research interests include romance, vernacularity and literacy, visual
culture, and the life and reputation of John Rous of Warwick. His current
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