John Lydgate

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English monk and poet (c.1370–c.1451)Template:SHORTDESC:English monk and poet (c.1370–c.1451)

Portrait of Lydgate published in 1820

John Lydgate of Bury (c. 1370 – c. 1451)^[1] was an English monk and poet, born inLidgate, nearHaverhill,Suffolk, England.

Lydgate's poetic output is prodigious, amounting, at a conservative count, to about 145,000 lines. He explored and established every majorChaucerian genre, except such as were manifestly unsuited to his profession, like thefabliau. In theTroy Book (30,117 lines), an amplified translation of the Trojan history of the thirteenth-century Latin writerGuido delle Colonne, commissioned by Prince Henry (later Henry V), he moved deliberately beyond Chaucer'sKnight's Tale and hisTroilus, to provide a full-scale epic.

TheSiege of Thebes (4716 lines) is a shorter excursion in the same field of chivalric epic. Chaucer'sThe Monk's Tale, a brief catalog of the vicissitudes of Fortune, gives a hint of what is to come in Lydgate's massiveFall of Princes (36,365 lines), which is also derived, though not directly, fromBoccaccio'sDe Casibus Virorum Illustrium.^[2]

The Man of Law's Tale, with its rhetorical elaboration of apostrophe, invocation, and digression in what is essentially a saint's legend, is the model for Lydgate's legends ofSt. Edmund (3693 lines) andSt. Alban (4734 lines), both local monastic patrons, as well as for many shorter saints' lives, though not for the richer and more genuinely devoutLife of Our Lady (5932 lines).

Biography

Early life and education

In a graffito written towards the end of his life, Lydgate admitted to all manner of childhood sins: "I lied to excuse myself. I stole apples … I made mouths at people like a wanton ape. I gambled at cherry stones. I was late to rise and dirty at meals. I was chief shammer of illness".^[3] He was admitted to the Benedictine monastery ofBury St Edmunds Abbey in 1382, took novice vows soon after and was ordained as asubdeacon in 1389. Based on a letter fromHenry V, Lydgate was a student atOxford University, probablyGloucester College (nowWorcester College), between 1406 and 1408.^[4] It was during this period that Lydgate wrote his early work,Isopes Fabules, with its broad range of scholastic references.^[5]

Career

Manuscript ofDamage and destruction in realmes by John Lydgate, ca. 1450, in theHoughton Library atHarvard University.

Having literary ambitions (he was an admirer ofGeoffrey Chaucer and a friend to his son,Thomas) he sought and obtained patronage for his literary work at the courts ofHenry IV of England,Henry V of England andHenry VI of England. His patrons included, amongst many others, the mayor andaldermen ofLondon, the chapter ofSt. Paul's Cathedral,Richard de Beauchamp, 13th Earl of Warwick and Henry V and VI. His main supporter from 1422 wasHumphrey, Duke of Gloucester.

In 1423 Lydgate was made prior ofHatfield Broad Oak,Essex. He soon resigned the office to concentrate on his travels and writing. He was a prolific writer of poems, allegories, fables and romances. His most famous works were his longer and more moralisticTroy Book (1412–20), a 30,000 line translation of the Latin prose narrative byGuido delle Colonne,Historia destructionis Troiae, theSiege of Thebes which was translated from a French prose redaction of theRoman de Thebes and theFall of Princes. TheFall of Princes (1431-8), is the last and longest of Lydgate's works.^[6]

Of his more accessible poems, most were written in the first decade of the fifteenth century in a Chaucerian vein:The Complaint of the Black Knight (originally calledA Complaynt of a Loveres Lyfe and modelled on Chaucer'sThe Book of the Duchess);The Temple of Glas (indebted toThe House of Fame);The Floure of Curtesy (like theParlement of Foules, a Valentine's Day Poem); and the allegoricalReason and Sensuality.^[7]

His short poems tend to be the best; as he grew older his poems grew progressively longer, and it is regarding Lydgate's later poetry thatJoseph Ritson's harsh characterization of him is based: 'A voluminous, prosaick and drivelling monk'.^[7] Similarly, one twentieth-century historian has described Lydgate's verse as "banal".^[8]

At one time, the long allegorical poemThe Assembly of Gods was attributed to him,^[9] but the work is now considered anonymous. Lydgate was also believed to have writtenLondon Lickpenny, a well-known satirical work; however, his authorship of this piece has been thoroughly discredited. He also translated the poems ofGuillaume de Deguileville into English.

In his later years he lived and probably died at the monastery ofBury St. Edmunds. At some point in his life he returned to the village of his birth and added his signature and a coded message^[3] in agraffito onto a wall^[10] at St Mary's Church, Lidgate, discovered as recently as 2014.

Editions

J. Allan Mitchell, ed. John Lydgate,The Temple of Glass. Series: TEAMS Middle English Texts. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2007.

Modern renditions

A few of Lydgate's works are available in modernised versions:

John Lydgate's Troy Book: A Middle English Iliad (The Troy Myth in Medieval Britain Book 1) by D M Smith (2019 Kindle) - complete
John Lydgate Troy Book: The Legend of the Trojan War by D.J. Favager (2021 Kindle) - complete
The Siege of Thebes: A Modern English Verse Rendition by D.J. Favager (2018 Kindle)
The Legend of Saint Alban: In a Modern English Prose Version by Simon Webb (2016 the Langley Press)
Lydgate's Disguising at Hertford Castle Translation and Study by Derek Forbes (1998 Blot Publishing)

Quotations

"Who lesith hisfredam, in soth, he lesith all."
—an oldproverb Lydgate included in his moral fableThe Churl and the Bird^[1]
Lydgate wrote that King Arthur was crowned in "the land of thefairy", and taken in his death by four fairy queens, to Avalon where he lies under a "fairy hill", until he is needed again.^[11]
Lydgate is also credited with the first known usage of the adage "Needs must" in its fullest form: "He must nedys go that the deuell dryves" in hisThe Assembly of Gods.Shakespeare later uses it inAll's Well That Ends Well.

References

^^a ^bPlatt, Colin (1996).King Death: The Black Death and its aftermath in late-medieval England. London: UCL Press Limited.ISBN 1-85728-313-9.
^Mortimer, Nigel,John Lydgate's 'Fall of Princes': Narrative Tragedy in its Literary and Political Contexts (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005).
^^a ^bStummer, Robin (29 March 2014)."The message of love hidden in medieval graffiti".The Guardian. Retrieved12 April 2014.
^Ebin, Lois (1985).John Lydgate. Boston, Massachusetts: Twayne Publishing. pp. 2.ISBN 0-8057-6898-X.
^Edward Wheatley, Middle English Text Series, Kalamazoo MI 2013,Introduction
^The Oxford Companion to English Literature, 6th Edition. Edited by Margaret Drabble, Oxford University Press, 2000 p.616
^^a ^bThe Oxford Companion to English Literature, 6th Edition. Edited by Margaret Drabble, Oxford University Press, 2000 p.617
^Wolffe, B. P. (2001). Henry VI. Yale Monarchs (repr. ed.). London: Yale University Press., p.312
^See the edition of Oscar Lovell Triggs (1896).
^"John Lydgate linked to Suffolk church graffiti".BBC News. 31 March 2014. Retrieved1 April 2014.
^The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Fairies, Anna Franklin, Sterling Publishing Company, 2004, p 18