Cultural Politics in Fifteenth-century England: The Case of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester

Table of Contents Introduction: A definition of humanism in early fifteenth-century England This definition updates Weiss’s still pivotal work, and at the same time offers a view of English humanism in a European perspective, but less conditioned by the comparison with Italian humanism that so far has been proposed in every study dedicated to the subject. 1. Robert Weiss’s inheritance and the state of current studies 1.1 Early studies on English humanism 1.2 Roberto Weiss 1.3 After Weiss: reactions, refutations, continuations This is a detailed survey of the studies on the subject, including literary criticism and historiography, and can constitute a useful reference to future scholars of the field; the focal point of the survey is constituted by Weiss’s work, but through this survey the reader can also measure the achievements of twentieth-century philology and scholarship, the impact caused by the discovery of new documents, and the conclusions reached by the most recent work on the subject. 2. The beginning of humanism in England 2.1 Divinae and humanae litterae 2.2 The establishment of English as the language of policy and state This chapter provides the background against which Humphrey’s contribution must be analysed. After identifying the episodes which may be said to mark the development of early humanism in England, I discuss the role religious literature played in this movement, and the equally fundamental influence of the language issue, which brought to the emergence of standard English as the language of literature and officialdom in the fifteenth century. 3. A sense of history: Duke Humphrey living and writing his own times 3.1 Duke Humphrey’s failure as a politician 3.2 Protector of England 3.3 The care and education of the future king 3.4 The 1430’s and the beginning of Humphrey’s activity as a patron 3.5 The 1440’s: Duke Humphrey’s downfall and death Through a chronological account of Humphrey’s life and political activity, I highlight the political choices that can help the reader understand Humphrey’s intellectual activity as an expression of the same ideology that prompted his policy. 4. Collecting and donating books 4.1 Building a library: the shape of ideology 4.2 The book donations to the university of Oxford This chapter concentrates on Humphrey’s library first; through the information provided by the surviving manuscripts and by the reconstruction of previous scholars, I read Humphrey’s attempt to build a bibliotheca universalis in order to provide a reference point for English intellectual life, exemplified by his own Greenwich circle. With the donations to Oxford library, discussed in the second part of the chapter, I show how this policy takes into account also one of the major centres of learning in England. 5. Curiosity and erudite humanism: Duke Humphrey as a patron of letters 5.1 The translations and the new role of the vernacular 5.2 Commissioning literary and non-literary works 5.3 English humanists around Duke Humphrey: monks and poets This concluding chapter is a study of Humphrey’s relations with some of the most important writers and scholars in England. In this case we see the patron at work, and the result of his attempt to put ideology into practice through the texts he commissioned, or that were dedicated to him.