Organización Internacional del Café (OIC)

As established in Chapters One and Two, the genre and tone of a medieval text is not limited to pre-determined generic structures; it is informed by literary influences from inside and outside the text. As we have seen in the shared rhetorics of violence in Middle English romances and British chronicles, these influences may come from linguistic borrowings or manuscript context; both of the latter feature strongly in the alliterative Morte Arthure, and make the romance an ideal subject for a study of the fluidity of medieval literary form.45 _{The prominent violence of the Morte Arthure is}

central to an understanding of the text’s material and linguistic connections with narratives of the Passion.46 _{Looking first at Lincoln Cathedral Library MS 91, I will}

draw out the concerns of the devotional material and the Liber de Diversis Medicinis, and contextualise them with reference to the language of bodily violence and

injuring in medical texts and Passion literature in general. I conclude with a study of the images of violence in the alliterative Morte Arthure, which illuminate an

affective rhetoric that is shared between genres, ultimately arguing for a fluid Middle English literary tradition. This makes for a fresh understanding of the Morte Arthure itself; the poem’s language of violence evokes similar emotional responses as requested by Passion narratives, and this informs a new reading of what has been perceived variously as a glorification and a criticism of chivalry in the Arthurian narrative.47

Robert Thornton and the Compilation of the Thornton MS

The impressive collection of material in Lincoln Cathedral Library MS 91 (the

45 _{The poem mixes chronicle, epic and romance motifs; see Maureen Fries, “The Poem in the}

Tradition of Arthurian Literature”, The Alliterative Morte Arthure: A Reassessment of the Poem, ed. Karl Heinz Göller (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1981) 30-43.

46 _{My discussion is limited to descriptions of violence and does not include any specific references to}

Christ found in the alliterative Morte Arthure; Roger Dalrymple has provided an excellent survey of pious tags in Middle English metrical romances dated before 1500. See Roger Dalrymple, Language

and Piety in Middle English Romance (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2000) 149-250. For the alliterative Morte Arthure, see page 179. For all tags referencing the Crucifixion, see pages 212-22.

47 _{Some of the research in Chapter Four may also be found in an article I wrote, “‘The rosselde spere}

to his herte rynnes’: Religious Violence in the Alliterative Morte Arthure and the Lincoln Thornton Manuscript”, for a volume entitled Studies on Robert Thornton and the Thornton Manuscript (edited by Michael Johnston and Susanna Fein), to be published by York Medieval Press in late 2013.

Thornton MS) includes not only the sole surviving copy of the alliterative Morte

Arthure, but also many romances and devotional texts. An understanding of the

manuscript’s contents and concerns gives context for how the alliterative Morte

Arthure – and its violence – was received by late medieval readers such as the

manuscript’s compiler, Robert Thornton. Much research has been undertaken on the Thornton MS since the latter half of the twentieth century, particularly by George Keiser and John Thompson, who have examined how Robert Thornton structured his manuscript. The first section comprises romances (ff. 1-178), the second religious works (ff. 179-279), and there is a final, medical, section (ff. 280-321). These interesting categorisations have prompted the question: how aware was Thornton of differentiation between genres and to what extent did Thornton separate these different genres? Thornton, like most medieval manuscript compilers, did not have access to all of his material at once; the nature of his collection, inevitably, depended on the availability of his exemplars. Both Keiser and Thompson argue that the prose

Life of Alexander was not the first item copied, but was added after the Morte Arthure and the Previte off the Passioune (f. 179), the first items Robert Thornton

copied.48 _{If the Alexander was acquired later, they claim, this would account for the}

(blank) areas for illumination set aside in Alexander which are not found in the rest of the MS, as well as the few blank pages left remaining after the Alexander (Keiser, “Lincoln Cathedral Library MS 91”, 178). Angus McIntosh argues persuasively that the alliterative Morte Arthure was taken from the same Lincolnshire exemplar as The

Previte off the Passioune, and that they were both copied down quite early in

Thornton’s collecting career.49 _{If the Morte Arthure was copied first, Thornton}

clearly decided to create this division from the beginning of his compilation: rather than continue copying the Previte on the remaining leaves of the quire with Morte

Arthure (F), he chose to begin a new quire (L). That is, Thornton desired to make

48 _{See John Thompson, “The Compiler in Action:Robert Thornton and the ‘Thornton Romances’ in}

Lincoln Cathedral MS 91”, Manuscripts and Readers in Fifteenth Century England, ed. Derek Pearsall (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1983) 116; George Keiser, “Lincon Cathedral Library MS 91: Life and Milieu of the Scribe”, Studies in Bibliography 32 (1979) 177-78. Joel Fredell and Thomas Crofts provide further proof of Thornton copying the Morte Arthure first in their studies of the Lincoln manuscript’s illustrations; see Joel Fredell, “Decorated Initials in the Lincoln Thornton MS”,

Studies in Bibliography 47 (1994) 78-88, and Thomas Howard Crofts, “The Occasion of the Morte

Arthure: Textual History and Marginal Decoration in the Thornton MS”, Arthuriana 20.2 (2010): 5- 27.

49 _{See Angus McIntosh,“The Textual Transmission of the Alliterative Morte Arthure”, English and} Medieval Studies Presented to J. R. R. Tolkien, ed. Norman Davis and C. L. Wren (London: Allen &

either two generically different manuscripts or one manuscript in which “romance” and “religion” were strategically kept separate, but still physically linked in the same volume. This indicates not only a keen awareness of different kinds of reading experiences, but also a “complete confidence in his ability to acquire other materials, both narrative and devotional, for his volume” (Keiser, 179). Copying the two into separate quires allowed him to fill each quire with similar material and indicates an interest in creating an organised plan for the manuscript.

Robert Thornton’s decision to copy the romance and the Passion piece

separately shows that he had reason to believe that he would be able to gain access to literary materials without great difficulty. It is likely that the final medical tract, the

Liber de Diversis Medicinis, was obtained from Richard Pickering, the rector of

Oswaldkirk – an area close to Thornton’s East Newton – as he is credited for supplying many of the medical recipes in the manuscript (Keiser, 168). He was presumably close to the Thornton family, as he left land to both Robert and his younger brother Richard in the 1440s, around the period the manuscript was probably compiled (Halliwell, xxvi). This rector (or, indeed, any other pious Christian in Yorkshire with whom Thornton had contact) may have contributed the manuscript’s devotional pieces. Several items similar to Thornton’s devotional material circulated in Yorkshire in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.50 _The

popularity of these works reflects how those who could afford books turned to them for guidance in private and individual devotional practice. It is uncertain, however, who the devotional material in the Thornton manuscript was meant for and exactly what purpose it served; was it for Thornton’s own personal spiritual benefaction, or was it for the instruction of his household? Thompson suggests that it functioned as a paternalistic spiritual guidebook meant for a female family member, due to the exclusion of a male-oriented address in some of the material, but then rightly points out that this is too insubstantial a claim.51 _{Indeed, this seems likely to indicate, if}

anything, only a broadening of the text so that it could be read and accessed by a

50 _{See Keiser, “Lincoln Cathedral Library MS 91”, 171-73 for a detailed account of the correlations}

found between Thornton’s religious content and the devotional material named in Yorkshire wills.

51 _{These comments were in reference to altered openings to Thornton’s copies of Mixed Life and Of} Angel’s Song. John Thompson, “Another Look at the Religious Texts in Lincoln, Cathedral Library,

MS 91”, Late Medieval Religious Texts and their Transmission, ed. A. J. Minnis (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1994) 179-80. On the role of women in the development of affective meditational practices, see Sarah McNamer, Affective Meditation and the Invention of Medieval Compassion (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010).

number of Thornton’s family and friends.

The general scope of Thornton’s religious interests could be described as the compiler’s own “particular brand of simple – some would say naïve – piety”

(Thompson, “Religious Texts”, 173). The texts range broadly from moral and religious stories to hagiographical and biographical narratives, common didactic pieces and popular affective lyrics. Most of his devotional works can be said to be for daily and practical purposes, rather than for deep meditation; given Thornton’s status in life – that of a devout but secular and public head of family and manor – this is hardly surprising. Yet the works by Walter Hilton and Richard Rolle may have been, as Thompson suggests, “intended to facilitate prayer, penance, and

contemplation among enthusiasts for the ‘mixed life’” which is alluded to in the Hilton piece of the same name (173). “Enthusiasts” may be too strong a word; perhaps “practitioners” is more accurate. Thornton’s particular compilation of devotional literature indicates that he was interested in having a book which would give him and his family a personalised guide for devotional practices. Thornton suggests this not only by means of his repetitious scribal tag, “Robertus Thornton qui scripsit sit benedictus amen”, attached to several of his devotional pieces, but also by supplying his own Christian name in the Latin orison on f. 176v: “libera me

Robertum famulum tuum”. The prayer and its English instructions – similar to others of its kind, meant to be recited often by “busy men and women of the world” and carried around on scraps of paper, is turned into Thornton’s own prayer

(Thompson, “Religious Texts”, 174). Thornton’s compilation contains a number of instructional programmes which revolve around standard elements of instruction and devotion, such as the Ten Commandments, the Seven Deadly Sins, the Gifts of the Holy Ghost, Mary and the Passion of Christ; all of these, though often repeated, reflect the religious interests of many men of middling wealth and land in the late Middle Ages, secular men concerned about how to live the spiritual side of their life in order to attain salvation. Even his more “theoretical” Hilton inclusions (Of Angel’s

Song, Of Mixed Life, and the extract from the Scale of Perfection, ff. 219v-30) are

tempered with a sense of practicality; Of Mixed Life offers guidance on how to live a spiritual secular life, Of Angel’s Song cautions against false ecstasies, and the extract from the Scale assures that you do not need to have mystical experiences to attain salvation. His inclusion of some of Richard Rolle’s treatises (which I will discuss in detail later) could be a result of Rolle’s general popularity and the wide circulation of

clusters of Rolle-related devotional materials, but it may also further indicate local interest in the hermit, both by Thornton and in Yorkshire itself.

As regards Thornton’s secular literature, we do not have any specific evidence of origin, but he certainly had connections with influential secular men in the area; he was a witness to certain documents detailing local property transactions in the 1440s, all of which may have put him in contact with men who “held

prestigious rank” and “must have been fairly well educated” – men like John Kempe, archbishop of York; Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury; Ralph, baron of Graystock and John Thryske, mayor of York (Keiser, “Lincoln Cathedral Library MS 91”, 161). Although such putative connections do not indicate that he had access to these men’s libraries, they do show that Thornton was in contact with diverse members of

society. His social circle would have extended even further in the 1450s, when he was appointed one of six to collect taxes in the North Riding.52 _{Such a public service}

would have not only extended Thornton’s connections amongst his fellow Yorkshire gentry, but also would have made his figure more known amongst the people he was collecting tax from, either in town or manor.53 _{It is certainly not unusual for a man of}

Thornton’s position to have owned books – his fellow tax collectors, William Gascoigne and Brian Stapleton, well-connected members of parliament, were book owners (Keiser, 166). The nearby city of York was a commercial centre and would have been conducive to book trade, so it is likely that a man with an avid interest in compiling a manuscript – such as Thornton – would have been able to gather more material there. The presence of several romances in the manuscript, some unique (Sir

Percyvelle of Galles and the Morte Arthure), is another indication of the particular

interest and dedication Thornton had to reading and gaining knowledge through literature. Where and how Thornton got his large selection of romances, however, is less certain.54 _{Thornton’s social circles and connections allowed him “some degree}

of choice” in how he compiled his manuscript (Keiser, 178). Whatever his reasons,

52 _{For further insight into Thornton’s role in society, see Michael Johnston, “A New Document}

Relating to the Life of Robert Thornton”, The Library 8.3 (2007): 304-13.

53 _{Keiser even suggests that Thornton’s position may have got him in to trouble during the}

disturbances in Yorkshire due to an increase in Neville-Percy rivalries and the appointment of Richard Neville as chancellor in 1454. It is interesting that Thornton was temporarily relieved of his position as tax collector – and then re-appointed in 1454 - if Thornton was indeed an acquaintance of the Earl of Salisbury (163).

54 _{John Finlayson argues that Thornton also exercised some degree of organization in the layout of his}

romances; see John Finlayson, “Reading Romances in Their Manuscript: Lincoln Cathedral Manuscript 91 (‘Thornton’)”, Anglia 123.4 (2005): 632-66.

Thornton had a keen interest in collecting material of varying literary genres and dividing them as best he could, seemingly guided by how the work would be read and what it would be used for. It is clear that Thornton physically separated the romance and religious items in the manuscript, but that does not mean that the items he chose fit neatly in their designated section. Indeed, there is also a mixture of the secular and the devotional in many of Thornton’s texts, and it is to this I turn next.

The devotional material, which reveals something of the relationship between secular and spiritual in the manuscript, sheds light Thornton’s rationale for interests and concerns copying the alliterative Morte Arthure. Derek Brewer claims that Thornton made copies of circulating treatises “when a piece was particularly valued” (x). What did Thorton “particularly value” about the De miraculo beate Marie (f. 147), the Latin orison with a Middle English proeme (f. 176v), and Active and

Contemplative Life (or Of Mixed Life) (f. 223-29)? On examination, there emerges a

distinct overlap of secular and religious interests, and a concern with the practical application of religious literature. This overlap reflects the multi-faceted nature of private devotion among fifteenth-century English laity, which can be better

understood by taking a closer look at these “mixed” pieces. De miraculo beate Marie borrows from both romance and devotional literature; it is a tale of the reformation of an errant knight, the salvation of a secular man by the Virgin Mary. It neatly bridges the gap between the secular adventures of the knights in Thornton’s

romances and the requests for mercy in the affective piety in the devotional section. The wicked knight “bothe fers and felle” refuses to go to church and scorns the teachings of a local friar (l. 13). When the knight – prone to anger, greed and pride – comes upon the friar preaching, he is enraged at being chastised for his sins, and rushes to attack the holy man. He is stopped by the friar’s prayer to Mary; she drives away the knight’s demonic spirits: “for sorowe þay cryed schill” (l. 113). The knight regrets his previous wrong-doings and the friar gives him absolution, asking Mary “to forgyffe hym his werkes wylde” (l. 118). The tale concludes with a warning to all men, threatening that those who “tane with ryfe & raffe, / With falsehed & with wrange” will not achieve Heaven’s bliss (ll. 130-31). Thornton’s choice of this piece for inclusion is of note for two reasons: the secular status of the main character, the knight, and the role of Mary in his absolution. The plenitude of religious prayers in the manuscript indicates a man who was concerned for his soul and, like most pious Christians in the Middle Ages, he would have identified with the character of the

“sinner”. The knight commits several of the seven deadly sins, including lust, anger, greed, envy and pride: he lusts after women, “glomede als he were wrathe”, is not charitable with his goods, has “grete envy” and “Full sone […] garte þam be slayne” those who insult him (ll. 30, 46, 23). The De Miraculo shows concern for the lot of the secular gentleman and his religious redemption. Mary’s role in the knight’s salvation is reflective of her status in late medieval devotion;55 _{she is celebrated as a}

merciful, mediating figure between the sinner and God, and this is her role in all the Thornton Marian pieces, including A Preyere off the ffyve Ioyes of owre lady (f. 177v). The prayer details the five joys and the five sorrows of Mary, with the sinner reiteratively asking for mercy of the “Modir of Mercy, socoure and comforthe to þe saluacyone of all Mankynde” (Preyere off the ffyve Ioyes, 379). In the prose treatise

Active and Contemplative Life, when addressing the subjects for meditation, the

author asks that the reader “mynd of oure Lady Saynt Marie abowne all oþer sayntes” in order to understand “þe abowdance of grace in hire haly saule […] þat owre Lorde gafe hir allane, passand all oþer creatours”(39). Mary’s other virtues are praised – her purity, meekness, and charity – but it is her grace that is specifically emphasised above others, indicating her main function as an instrument of forgiveness. In addition, not only does the sinner seek mercy from the Virgin, but they should also be moved by the beauty of her holiness: “The behaldynge of þe fairehede of þis blyssid saule sulde stirre a mans herte vn-to gostely comforthe gretly” (39). She, as a mother-figure, fulfils a role which offers benevolent

reassurance to the Christian sinner. Thornton, like other Christians of the fifteenth century, took great interest and comfort in the cult of the Virgin.56

Thornton certainly copied some of these prayers for his own devotions, including a Latin orison with an English proeme on f. 176v. Eamon Duffy points out the similarity between this prayer and many popular lay devotions in fifteenth- century England which requested deliverance from enemies (spiritual and physical) and were used like a charm, which blurs the line between religion and magic (267- 69). Thornton’s orison, among the usual requests for mercy and a remission of sins, asks that all his enemies be dispersed and confused [“dispergantur et confundantur

55 _{See Karen Saupe’s introduction to Middle English Marian Lyrics, ed. Karen Saupe (Kalamazoo,}

MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 1999).

56 _{See Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400-1580 (New}