TheNine Worthies are nine historical, scriptural, and legendary men of distinction who personify the ideals ofchivalry established inthe Middle Ages, whose lives were deemed a valuable study for aspirants to chivalric status. All were commonly referred to as 'Princes', regardless of their historical titles. In French they are calledLes Neuf Preux or "Nine Valiants",[1] giving a more specific idea of the moral virtues they exemplified: those of soldierly courage and generalship. In Italy they are known asi Nove Prodi.
The Nine Worthies include three pagans (Hector,Alexander the Great, andJulius Caesar), three Jews (Joshua,David, andJudas Maccabeus), and three Christians (King Arthur,Charlemagne, andGodfrey of Bouillon).
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They were first described in the early fourteenth century, byJacques de Longuyon in hisVoeux du Paon (1312).[2] Their selection, asJohan Huizinga pointed out, betrays a close connection with theromance genre of chivalry. Neatly divided into a triad of triads, these men were considered to be paragons of chivalry within their particular traditions, whetherPagan,Jewish, orChristian. Longuyon's choices soon became a common theme in the literature and art of the Middle Ages and earned a permanent place in the popular consciousness. The medieval "craving for symmetry"[3] engendered female equivalents, theneuf preuses, who were sometimes added, though the women chosen varied.Eustache Deschamps selected "a group of rather bizarre heroines"[3] selected from fiction and history, among themPenthesilea,Tomyris,Semiramis. Literature and suites oftapestry featured the full complement of eighteen, whose allegorical figures precededKing Henry VI of England in his triumphalroyal entry to Paris, 1431.[3] A "tenth worthy"[4] was added by Deschamps, in the figure ofBertrand du Guesclin, the Breton knight to whom France owed recovery from the battles ofCrécy (1346) andPoitiers (1356).Francis I of France still occasionally paraded himself at court dressed in the "antique mode" to identify himself also as one of theNeuf Preux.[3]
The 1459Ingeram Codex presents the coat of arms of the Nine Worthies among a larger list ofattributed arms of exemplary individuals, as the three "better Jews", "best pagans" and "best Christians" alongside the arms attributed to three heroes ofKing David (glossed as "the first coats of arms"), theThree Magi, the "three mildest princes", the "three worst tyrants" (Nebuchadnezzar,Antiochos Epiphanes andNero), "three patient ones" (Alphonse the Wise,Job andSaint Eustachius), "three anointed kings" (France, Denmark and Hungary) and "three noble dynasties" (Louis XI of France, called "Louis the Prudent" asDauphin,Ladislaus I of Hungary, andOtto III, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg of theHouse of Welf).
The Nine Worthies comprise a triad of triads as follows:
The Nine Worthies were also a popular subject formasques inRenaissance Europe. InWilliam Shakespeare's playLove's Labour's Lost the comic characters attempt to stage such a masque, but it descends into chaos. The list of Worthies actually named in the play include two not on the original list,Hercules andPompey the Great. Alexander, Judah Maccabee, and Hector also appear on stage before the show collapses into complete disorder.[5] The worthies are also mentioned inHenry IV, Part 2 in whichDoll Tearsheet is so impressed byFalstaff's bravery in fightingAncient Pistol that she says he is "as valorous as Hector of Troy, worth five of Agamemnon, and ten times better than the Nine Worthies".[6]
Don Quixote evokes the Nine Worthies in Volume I, Chapter 5, telling a peasant (who is trying to get him to admit who he is) "I know that I may be not only those I have named, but all the Twelve Peers of France and even all the Nine Worthies, since my achievements surpass all that they have done all together and each of them on his own account".[7]
The Nine Worthies had not devolved to folk culture even in the seventeenth century, for a frieze of the Nine Worthies, contemporary with Shakespeare's comedy, was painted at the outset of the seventeenth century atNorth Mymms Place, Hertfordshire, an up-to-date house built by the Coningsby family, 1599.[8]
The Cloisters, in New York City, has important portions of an early 15th-century tapestry series illustrating the surviving five of the Nine Worthies: King Arthur, Joshua, David, Hector, and Julius Caesar.[9]
I Nove Prodi, a fresco by theMaestro del Castello della Manta, ananonymous master, painted c. 1420 in thesala baronale of theCastello della Manta, Saluzzo, Italy. The series also includes depictions of their female counterparts.
Montacute House has sculptures of the Nine Worthies spaced along the upper eastern façade on the exterior of the long gallerypiers. These figures are dressed in Roman armour.
In the late fourteenth century, Lady Worthies began to accompany the Nine Worthies, though usually not individualized and shown as anonymousAmazon-styled warriors. In later years, nine of the "Most Illustrious Ladies of All Ages and Nations" were chosen from scripture, history and legend to be placed alongside their male counterparts, though the choices for the Lady Worthies were not usually standardized and often varied by region, author and artist.
Eustache Deschamps addedneuf preuses (women) to the list ofneuf preux , includingPenthesilea,Tomyris, andSemiramis. Together with their male counterparts, they precedeHenry VI as he enters Paris in 1431, and figure inLe Jouvencel (1466). The list ofpreuses was however less fixed, and not always structured in pagan, Jewish and Christian triads.Thomas III of Saluzzo[10] has:Deiphille,Synoppe,Hippolyte,Menalyppe,Semiramis,Lampetho,Thamarys,Teuta,Penthésilée.
A very fine set ofSiennese fifteenth century panel paintings, attributed to theMaster of the Griselda Legend and others, now incomplete and widely dispersed, showed male and female worthies - the remaining paintings were reunited in a 2007 exhibition at theNational Gallery, London.[11]
In theGerman Renaissance,Hans Burgkmair made a set of sixwoodcuts, each showing three of the "Eighteen Worthies". In addition to the usual males, his prints showed the PaganLucretia,Veturia andVirginia, the JewishEsther,Judith andYael, and the Christian SaintsHelena,Bridget of Sweden andElizabeth of Hungary. Burgkmair was in touch withAugsburgRenaissance Humanist circles, who may have helped choose the group. Apart from Veturia, mother ofCoriolanus, who tried to save Rome from defeat by her son, the other pagan two were examples of chastity, responsible for no heroic acts except their defence of their own virtue. In contrast, two of the Jewish women, Judith and Jael, are known for their personal assassination of leaders opposed to Israel. Judith carries a sword in one hand andHolofernes's severed head in the other, and Jael carries the mallet with which she hammered a peg in the head ofSisera. The "Power of Women" and female violence was an interest of German artists at the time, andLucas van Leyden,Albrecht Altdorfer and others made prints of Jael in the act.[12]
The Christian trio of saints, all very popular in Germany at the time, are all women who had been married - Bridget became anabbess as a widow. In addition, like three of the male worthies, Elizabeth of Hungary was an ancestor of Burgkmair's patronMaximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, and Helena was a Roman Empress. Unlike the other two groups, who all face each other, apparently in conversation, these three all look down, and may illustrate the female virtue of silence.[13] Burgkmair's conception was not very widely followed.
Nine Worthies of London is a book by Richard Johnson, written in 1592, which borrows the theme from the Nine Worthies. The book is subtitledExplaining the Honourable Excise of Armes, the Vertues of the Valiant, and the Memorable Attempts of Magnanimous Minds; Pleasaunt for Gentlemen, not unseemly for Magistrates, and most profitable for Prentises, celebrated the rise of nine famous Londoners through society from the ranks of apprentices or commoners.
The nine were SirWilliam Walworth, SirHenry Pritchard, SirThomas White, SirWilliam Sevenoke, SirJohn Hawkwood, Sir John Bonham, Christopher Croker, Sir Henry Maleverer of Cornhill, and Sir Hugh Calverley.
The term "Nine Worthies" was later used to refer to nine of the privy councillors ofWilliam III:Devonshire,Dorset,Monmouth,Edward Russell,Carmarthen,Pembroke,Nottingham,Marlborough, andLowther.
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