Warwick and Wavrin: Two case studies on the literary background and propaganda of Anglo-Burgundian relations in the Yorkist period

358 Pages·2002·16.7 MB·English

by  Carolina Theodora Livia Visser-Fuchs

WARWICK AND WAVRIN
Two case studies on the literary background and propaganda of
Anglo-Burgundian relations in the Yorkist period
Carolina Theodora Livia
Visser-Fuchs
University College London
PhD thesis
2002
ProQuest Number: U642339
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Warwick and Wavrin
Two case studies on the literary background and propaganda of Anglo-Burgundian
relations in the Yorkist period.
I. The reputation of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, in the Burgundian Low
Countries from c. 1450 to 1471.
II. The work and anglophilia of Jean de Wavrin (1400-C.1475).
Contents
Abstract. 5
General introduction. 6
Acknowledgements. 14
Abbreviations. 15
List of illustrations. 17
General editorial remarks. 18
Part I.
The reputation of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, in the Burgundian Low
Countries from c.1450 to 1471.
Introduction. 20
Chapter 1. Ille perfidus Warvich: Warwick in prose.
1. Jean de Wavrin and Warwick’s ‘Apology’. 29
2. Thomas Basin. 52
3. Georges Chastelain. 57
4. Jean de Haynin. 64
5. Werner Rolevinck, Jan Veldener, Gouds
kronielge , Kattendijke Kroniek and related texts. 66
6. Olivier de La Marche. 69
7. Anthonis de Roovere and the Cronijcke van Vlaanderen. 71
8. Jan Allertsz. 78
9. Adriaan de But. 80
10. Philippe de Comines. 90
Chapter 2. Le conte dont on chante: Warwick in verse.
1. The earlier ballads. 94
2. The Latin poems of Jean Mielot. 105
3. The satyrical epitaphs. 114
4. The later ballads. 132
Conclusion 142
Appendix A; Warwick in Dutch/Flemish sources (texts). 147
Appendix B: The Flemish translation of the two epitaphs on Warwick in the Cronijcke van
Vlaenderen. 156
Part II.
The work and anglophilia of Jean de Wavrin (1400-C.1475).
Introduction. 162
Chapter 1. Jean de Wavrin.
1. Wavrin’s life. 163
2. Wavrin’s relatives and acquaintances. 166
3. Anglophilia. 172
Chapter 2. Wavrin’s books. 176
1. Books ascribed to Wavrin’s authorship. 178
2. Wavrin’s library and related books. 185
3. England and the English in Wavrin’s books. 189
4. The Wavrin Master and his workshop. 196
Chapter 3. The Recueil de croniques d’Engleterre. 200
1. The dedication and date, title and subject, structure, making and purpose of
the Recueil. 203
2. The beginning: Albina, foundress of Albion. 222
3. Wavrin’s sources and how he used them. 233
4. The end: contemporary newsletters. 264
Chapter 4. The manuscripts of the Recueil.
1. The manuscripts of t h e 287
2. The ‘Masters of the ReceuiV. 297
3. The readers of the i?ecwej7. 303
Conclusion: the value of the Recueil. 306
Appendix C. Family trees including Jean de Wavrin’s relatives, his acquaintances and literary
associates. 310
Appendix D. Manuscripts known to have been owned by Jean de Wavrin and manuscripts in
some way associated with him, his library or his friends and relations. 312
Appendix E. Pièces justificatives for part II, ch. 3, section 1. 319
Appendix F. Lists of manuscripts of the Recueil, of manuscripts relevant to the making and the
readership of the Recueil, and of the printed sections of the Recueil. 322
Appendix G. The work and milieu of the scribe and translator Jean du Chesne. 333
Appendix H. Some standard phrases in Wavrin’s account of the battle of Shrewsbury (4, 6, 2)
compared to similar phrases in some of the ‘historical novels’ associated with him.334
General conclusion. 336
Bibliography. 337
Abstract
This thesis is divided into two parts. The first part studies the reputation of Richard Neville,
Earl of Warwick, the Kingmaker, in the Burgundian Low Countries from c. 1450 to 1471 as far
as it can be gleaned from literary, non-archival sources. Warwick’s decision to support the
Lancastrian claim to the throne again in 1469, his military alliance with Louis XI of France and
his seizure of power in England in 1470 made him a dangerous and fascinating figure to the
subjects of the Valois dukes of Burgundy. The Anglo-French alliance that he embodied
threatened the very existence of the Burgundian ‘state’, and particularly in the Low Countries
Warwick’s name was intensely feared and hated. Burgundian authors voiced this hatred each
in their own way, both in prose and verse, until his death took away their fear as suddenly as it
had struck. The foibles of various chroniclers are revealed by their image of the English earl,
but it is interesting to see that general national or ‘racial’ prejudices against the English played
little part in their judgment. The many poems about Warwick written at the time, both popular
and ‘courtly’, present an interesting sample of such ‘cycles’ of political verse, which were not
unusual at the time, triggered by events that stirred people’s positive and negative emotions. In
this case the poems show what, on the one hand, ordinary, literate people and, on the other, the
nobility at the ducal court thought about the earl and the spectre of war and destruction that he
released. The poems, too, suggest that in the Low Countries there was not much national or
racial prejudice against the English.
The second part of this thesis attempts to evaluate the sources and method used by
Jean de Wavrin in his ‘Collection of Histories of England’, and at the same time establish what
his feelings - and those of his friends and relations - were about England and the English. In
his work, too, there is little sign of prejudice, but more importantly Wavrin’s history of
England is particularly interesting because of his access to otherwise unknown contemporary
sources and it deserves closer study than the preliminary researches presented here. It is hoped
that, at the least, the value of and the need for further and fuller analysis of all his sources and
the way he used them become evident in this study.
The general preliminary conclusion of this very partial study of the literary
background and propaganda of Anglo-Burgundian relations in the Yorkist period is that there
was much interest in English affairs at the Burgundian court and in the Low Countries, but
little prejudice against the English people. Warwick was feared and hated, but not because he
was an Englishman; Wavrin was interested in England, but his priority was the recording of
deeds of chivalry, whatever the nationality of its exponents, for the entertainment of his peers.
General Introduction
This study started out as a first attempt at describing and analysing how, in roughly the Yorkist
period (1460-1485), literate people in England on the one hand, and in the lands ruled by the
duke of Burgundy on the other, regarded each other, and what they thought and were meant to
think about the relations between their two ‘nations’. The excuse for studying this subject was
first of all a personal wish to know. It was also hoped that any closer look at the sources
available would help fill in the background of Anglo-Burgundian relations in the fifteenth
century. Much has been written on relations between England and the Netherlands in the
sixteenth century and it may be interesting and revealing to find out more about attitudes in the
preceding period. Huizinga wrote:
The opinions of a people concerning the character and characteristic traits of a
neighbouring people are as a rule remarkably constant, and once formed in all their
superficiality they are hardly subject to change’.'
If he was right, and I think he was, even this partial study may contribute to the general picture
of England’s relations with ‘the parties across the sea’.
Ideally one would like to know what people in general thought, said and wrote about
the physical characteristics of the neighbouring country and its inhabitants, in the present and
in the past. What ideas and prejudices existed on either side concerning the character and
achievements of their neighbours? Which aspects of the ‘others’ were of most interest? How
were they depicted in literature and art?^ Were these ideas permanent or constantly changing
and were they positive, negative or mixed? How were they fed, by travel, reading, the visual
arts or official propaganda? Each of these questions raises a number of others and only a very
few can be considered here in detail.
To justify a study of the subject it has to be postulated that both England and
‘Burgundy’ saw themselves as entities and unities, separate from others and therefore able to
have opinions about ‘others’, that is their neighbours. By a circular process a study of such
opinions should help prove that they did feel separate and, more or less, unities. It is here
assumed that the English, whatever their internal problems, did feel themselves one people,
one ‘nation’, separate from others, and had done so for several centuries. Their identity had
been put into clearer perspective by the Hundred Years War and by opposing and contrasting
themselves to the French.^
The sense of separate identity and unity of people living in the lands ruled by the
Valois dukes of Burgundy is far more questionable. In the period under discussion, ‘Burgundy’
1 Huizinga, ‘Voorgeschiedenis’, p. 146.
2 Lnteresting is Rickard, Britain, passim.
7
consisted of the duchy and county of Burgundy and a few other regions together forming a
single unit in the south, and a larger and wealthier cluster of territories in the north; Flanders,
Brabant, Hainault, Artois, Namur, Boulogne, the Somme region, Zeeland and Holland, with
Limburg and Luxemburg ‘hanging on’. The greater part of these possessions had been ‘in the
family’ since the early years of the century, and the duke of Burgundy, to most people living
there, was - by direct or rather more indirect inheritance - their natural and legitimate
overlord, and so they were told over and over again. Much has been written on the question
whether this collection of territories constituted a nation or not, and the problem is complicated
and obscured by later developments."^ All that matters, in practice, is the perception and attitude
of those who lived in these lands and it is here assumed that the mass of the people, without
sophisticated maps, with only limited means of communication and no prophetic foresight,
assumed that they belonged together for the single and crucial reason that the duke ruled them
all and that this situation was a permanent one.
Nationalism is made up of illusions and images and it will continue to be defined and
appreciated differently in different periods. It is therefore less relevant to philosophise about
nationalism, national consciousness and patriotism in general, trying to fit fifteenth-century
conditions into our system, then to find out what was actually written and said in the period:
... pour éviter l’anachronisme il n’est besoin que de se placer au point de vue des
contemporains. Les contemporains, dira-t-on, mais ils étaient bornés, ignorants; il leur
manquait les vues générales qui nous permettent de juger la situation; ils étaient pris
dans leur illusions loyalistes et féodales. Il me semble que c’est justement ces illusions
qu’il importe de connaître afin de bien comprendre l’histoire. Parce qu ’au fond ce sont
des illusions qui dominent les actions politiques du moyen âge bien plus que n’ont fait
la raison, le calcul, l’intérêt bien compris’ (my italics, and 1 have consciously not
included ‘du moyen âge’).^
It may perhaps also be said that the human mind adapts itself quickly. What has happened two
or three times is already a ‘tradition’.^ A situation that has obtained for a generation is felt to
have existed ‘since time out of mind’. A concept that was new to our parents often seems
undeniable and inevitable to us. Images that have been around for a while become
representations of reality. If this is a timeless rule it is conceivable that in the 1450s, 60s and
70s the concept of ‘Burgundy’, not only as something permanent, but also as a unity, as
‘belonging together’ vis-à-vis the rest of Europe - even France, in spite of the complex
3 E.g. Thomson, Transformation, pp. 75-80; Goodman, History, pp. 1-7, who mentions the
importance of ease of communications for a sense of unity; Scattergood, Politics, pp. 41-46.
4 Huizinga discussed the subject particularly in relation to ‘the Netherlands’; see his ‘L’état’,
‘Voorgeschiedenis’, ‘How Holland became a nation’, ‘Burgund’. The problem is summarised by
Prevenier and Blockmans, Burgundian Netherlands, pp. 198-213. Wouters,
‘Nationaliteitsbesef, discussed several chroniclers, and found them all wanting. Vaughan,
‘Burgundian state’.
5 Huizinga, ‘L’état’, p. 168.
8
relations with the ‘mother country’ - had taken hold of the minds of most men and women
living within the confines of the dukes’ lands.
The views of England that these ‘Burgundians’ held must have differed greatly, just as
their relations with the island - if they had any - differed, being defined by geographical
position and economic activity. To set the scene it will be useful describe briefly the relations
between England, Burgundy and France as they stood at the beginning of the Yorkist period
and, after that, look at a contemporary work which had a purpose partly similar to that of the
present study and though only concerned with the views of the French and the English, is
contemporary with the period to be studied here and reveals the contemporary attitude to the
subject, showing the range and limits of literate people’s knowledge and interest.
Because Flanders was partly a possession of the French crown relations between
England and the Low Countries had always been complicated by the Anglo-French wars,
though less so for the northern provinces, whose commercial exchange with England had
flourished naturally for centuries.^ The acquisition of Flanders by the French Valois dukes of
Burgundy in 1369 and Henry V’s conquests in France from 1415 did not change this situation,
but the ill-advised murder of Jean sans Peur, Duke of Burgundy, by the future king of France in
1419, completely upset the balance for a while, forcing the next duke, Philip the Good, to take
a pro-English position, which essentially made the English king also king of France, and
generally pleased the Flemish and other northern subjects of the duke because it benefited
them economically, but it did not last more than fifteen years. In 1435 the peace of Arras
between France and Burgundy restored ‘natural’ relations within the Anglo-French-
Burgundian triangle, including the mutual commercial activity of the lands on either side of the
North Sea - however much subject to the political whims of their new overlords - but the link
between the ‘mother country’, France, and the Burgundian lands was weakened forever. At the
same time England was heading for the first climax of its dynastic problems, while its
economic interests in the Low Countries and its military ones in France were being used and
abused by the protagonists of the two factions.
In this subtly balanced, triangular world, influenced mainly by economic interests but
also by political, military and emotional ones, did such men as Richard Neville, Earl of
Warwick, and Jean de Wavrin, Lord of Forestel, and their friends and relations lead their lives,
shape their careers and write their books.
6 Compare Bloch, Feudal Society, vol. 1, p. 114.
7 On this and what follows Owen, Connection, Barron and Saul, England, introduction,
Thielemans, Bourgogne.