9lOe 
 CB9I 
 
 o 
 >- 
 
THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 
 
 The Vogue of Medieval Chivalric 
 
 Romance During the English 
 
 Renaissance 
 
 BY 
 
 RONALD S. CRANE 
 
 AN ABSTRACT OF 
 
 A THESIS 
 
 PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN 
 
 PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR 
 
 THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 VUf* (SoUtgiat» ^nmm 
 
 GEORGE BANTA PUBLISHING COMPANV 
 
 MENASHA. WISCONSIN 
 
 I9I9 
 
9l0e 
 C99) 
 
PREFACE 
 
 That the medieval taste for romances of chivalric adventure, 
 far from dying out with the advent of printing and the begin- 
 ning of the English Renaissance, persisted through the whole 
 of the sixteenth century and into the seventeenth, has been 
 recognized by numerous writers from Thomas Warton down. 
 Little attempt has been made, however, to study the question 
 systematically or in detail, though the value of such a study 
 for the right interpretation of the movement of the Renaissance 
 in England must be apparent to all. A number of years ago I 
 undertook an investigation of the whole subject for my doc- 
 torate dissertation. Some of the results of this investigation 
 appeared in the Publications of the Modern Language Association 
 for 1 91 5, in the form of a detailed monograph on the vogue of 
 the romance of Guy of Warwick after the introduction of 
 printing. The comprehensive treatment of the whole matter 
 which I promised at that time I have been unable as yet, owing 
 to the inacessibility during the War of many sources, to bring 
 to completion. What I offer here is therefore only a summary, 
 and on many points — as for example the relations of the 
 romances to Elizabethan literature — a very inadequate one. I 
 believe, however, that the critical bibliography of editions will 
 be of service to other workers in the general field, and that 
 some matters treated in the accompanying essay may not 
 seem altogether hackneyed. I hope before long to publish 
 other monographs similar to that on Guy of Warwick^ notably 
 one, now in preparation, on the reputation and influence in 
 England of Amadis de Gaule. 
 
 A word should be said as to the limits of treatment adopted 
 in the following pages. For various reasons I have restricted 
 myself to romances of a predominantly chivalric type; I have, 
 for example, omitted such works as the Gesta Romanorum and 
 
 A *> o «> rj :\ 
 
The Seven Wise Masters^ which, though associated with the 
 chivalric stories in the sixteenth century and later, yet differed 
 from them considerably in character. I have included the 
 Spanish romances of the Amadis and Palmerin type, though 
 they were scarcely medieval in the strict sense of the word, 
 partly because of their real affinity and indebtedness to the 
 earlier romances, and partly because of the tendency of readers 
 and critics in England in the years following their introduction 
 to bracket them with the older works. As for the period cov- 
 ered by the investigation, I have deemed it wise to begin with 
 the introduction of printing, though the Renaissance had 
 scarcely begun as yet, and to end with the Civil War. The 
 subsequent, or chapbook, period of the romances I hope to 
 treat in a later publication. 
 
THE VOGUE OF MEDIEVAL CHIVALRIC ROMANCE 
 DURING THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE 
 
 If an interest in chivalric romance in general persisted 
 through the long period from the introduction of printing to 
 the Civil War, the actual body of romances which fed this 
 interest was by no means the same at the end of the period 
 as at the beginning. The difference was due in part to the 
 dropping-out of individual romances, but chiefly to a group of 
 changes which took place toward 1575. Up to that time the 
 list of romances accessible to readers in current editions had 
 altered but little from the days of the first English printers; 
 it was made up in nearly equal parts of verse romances inherited 
 from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and of prose 
 romances translated more recently from the French. After 
 about 1575 the metrical romances, with one or two exceptions, 
 disappeared; some of the older prose romances followed them 
 into oblivion; and those that survived were eclipsed in the 
 favor of the public by a new stock of chivalric narratives, 
 imported, mainly through the French, from Spain. This 
 second phase of the chivalric vogue lasted until the eve of the 
 Civil War. 
 
 I. 
 
 FROM THE INTRODUCTION OF PRINTING TO THE DISAPPEAR- 
 ANCE OF THE METRICAL ROMANCES 
 
 In order to understand the history of the medieval romances 
 during the first hundred years after the advent of printing, 
 it is necessary to glance at their reputation in England during 
 the period immediately preceding that event. 
 
 Their position as the favorite type of fiction with all classes 
 of readers was still secure. Perhaps no other class of secular 
 literature so abounded in the libraries of the time. A charac- 
 
1 . MEDIEVAL CHIVALRIC ROMANCE 
 
 teristic collection was that of Robert Thornton (compiled 
 ca. 1440), which contained versions of Morte Arthure^ Octavian^ 
 Sir IsumbraSy Sir Degrevant^ Sir Eglamour, The Awntyrs of 
 Arthur^ Sir Perceval^ and others of less note. These were all 
 verse romances. In addition to these, not a few of the elaborate 
 prose romances which had largely superseded the older metrical 
 versions in France, were known in England, especially in the 
 world of the court and the higher nobility. About the middle 
 of the century, for example, the Earl of Shrewsbury presented 
 to Margaret, Henry VI's queen, copies of Ponthus et Sidoine, 
 Les ^uatre Fib Aimon^ and Percejorest} A few translations 
 dating from the same period also bore witness to the favor 
 accorded to the type by English readers: among these were 
 Merlin^ Ponthus and Sidone^ and the Arthurian compilation of 
 Sir Thomas Malory (finished in 1469). 
 
 In the light of these facts it is apparent that when the early 
 printers — Caxton, Wynkyn de Worde, Pynson, etc. — printed 
 romances, they did little more than recognize and perpetuate 
 a taste that was still vital among their customers. Their 
 publications reflected the two sides of this taste: from their 
 presses came in approximately equal numbers slightly modern- 
 ized texts of the older metrical tales, and translations of the 
 more recent and fashionable French prose romances. 
 
 The efi^orts of Caxton were confined to furthering the move- 
 ment, already well under way, of importation and translation. 
 He published between about 1475 and 149 1, seven romances, 
 all in prose, all French in immediate origin, all but one trans- 
 lated by himself. The first of the series — Raoul le Fevre's 
 Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye — was also the first work 
 issued by Caxton on his own account and the first printed book 
 in the English language; it was translated and printed while he 
 was still abroad, probably at Bruges, but it was intended, 
 according to Caxton's prologue, for readers in England as well 
 
 ^ Ward, Catalogue of Romances, I, 469-470, 622-624, 377-381. 
 
DURING THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE 3 
 
 as in Flanders. The other six romances appeared after Caxton 
 settled at Westminster. They were: The History of Jason 
 {ca. 1477), another translation from Raoul le Fevre; Le Morte 
 Barthur by Malory (1485) ; The Life of Charles the Great (1485), 
 a translation oiFierabras; Paris and Vienne (1485) and Blanch- 
 ardine and Eglantine (1489-1491), two comparatively recent 
 French romans d'aventure; and The Four Sons of Aymon 
 (1489-1491), like Charles the Great a representative of the 
 Charlemagne cycle.^ All of these romances Caxton printed m 
 expensive folio editions. For all but one of them he wrote 
 prologues or epilogues setting forth the circumstances of trans- 
 lation or of printing. 
 
 Why did Caxton confine himself to the diffusion of French 
 prose romances to the total neglect of the native metrical 
 versions? The reason was perhaps twofold. For one thmg, 
 Caxton's own taste for romances, which was a genuine passion 
 with him, would seem to have been formed, mainly if not entire- 
 ly, on the French texts that were current in Flanders. At any 
 rate, in the numerous enthusiastic outbursts concerning 
 romances which he scattered through his prefaces and epilogues 
 it was almost invariably French romances which he had in 
 mind. Thus the Recueil of Raoul le Fevre pleased him not 
 merely for the "novelty" of its "many strange and marvellous 
 histories," but also "for the fair language of French, which was 
 in prose so well and compendously set and written." And one 
 of the considerations which induced him to print Malory's 
 Morte Darthur was the fact that while abroad he had read 
 "many noble volumes" concerning Arthur in French. But 
 personal taste was not the only factor at work. Caxton was 
 extremely sensitive to the wishes of his clientele, and his 
 clientele, which was almost exclusively an aristocratic one 
 (witness his statements to this effect in the prologues of Le 
 
 2 For details concerning all of the editions of romances mentioned in 
 the text see below, Bibliography, I. 
 
4 MEDIEVAL CHIVALRIC ROMANCE 
 
 Morte Darthur and Blanchardine)^ demanded precisely the sort 
 of romances in which he himself was most interested. On 
 two occasions, indeed, the demand took on an explicit form: 
 once, shortly after his establishment in England, when he was 
 approached by "many noble and divers gentlemen," who were 
 interested in the "history of the saint greal and of . . . King 
 Arthur," and desired to have it printed in English; and again, 
 at a slightly later time, when there came other nobles, including 
 a member of the King's household, expressing a similar interest 
 in the romances relating to Charlemagne. 
 
 At Caxton's death in 1491 his business passed into the hands 
 of Wynkyn de Worde, who was active in Westminster and 
 London until 1535. Along with press and types De Worde 
 took over his master's interest in romances; throughout his 
 long career he was the chief purveyor of this type of literature 
 in England. Of the seven romances printed by Caxton, he 
 reissued four: Le Morte Darthur (1498 and 1529), The Recuyell 
 (1502), The Four Sons of Aymon (1504), and Paris and Vienne 
 (undated). In all of these editions except that of Paris and 
 Vienne he retained Caxton's elaborate format — a clear indica- 
 tion that he had in view the same general class of readers; 
 aside, too, from certain changes in spelling and detail of phrase- 
 ology, he reproduced Caxton's texts. As he was primarily a 
 commercial publisher, his selection of romances for reprinting 
 unquestionably reflected the relative success of Caxton's 
 enterprises. It is significant that his judgment was confirmed 
 by the continuous popularity of these four romances for more 
 than a century. 
 
 Much more important than these reissues of Caxton's 
 publications were the additions which De Worde himself made 
 to the body of printed chivalric fiction. Seven of these addi- 
 tions derived from the source which Caxton had exclusively 
 exploited — French prose romance. They were The History 
 oj King Ponthus (151 1), Helyas Knight of the Swan (15 12), 
 
DURING THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE 5 
 
 Oliver of Castile (15 18), William of Palerne {ca. 1520), Huon of 
 Bordeaux {ca. 1534), Robert the Devil (two impressions, undated) 
 and Valentine and Orson (undated). Who were the translators 
 of these romances? Three names have survived — Robert 
 Copland, who translated Helyas on a commission from De 
 Worde; Henry Watson, "an apprentice of London," who 
 translated Oliver of Castile and Valentine and Orson; and 
 Sir John Bourchier, Lord Berners, who wrote the charming 
 version of Huon of Bordeaux. Probably the others were hack 
 translators like Copland and Watson rather than noblemen of 
 letters like Berners. 
 
 The rest of De Worde's romance publications consisted of 
 texts (slightly modernized) of metrical tales popular in the 
 later fifteenth century, a type which Caxton had entirely 
 neglected. Among them were Bevis of Hampton, Sir Degore, 
 Sir Eglamour, Guy of Warwick, Ipomydon, Richard Coeur 
 de Lion (1509, 1528), Robert the Devil (a metrical version 
 based apparently upon the English prose), The Squire of Low 
 Degree, and perhaps Generides, Sir Isumbras, Sir Triamour, 
 and Torrent of Portugal. Most of these editions were undated; 
 some of them can be ascribed to De Worde only on rather 
 uncertain typographical evidence. It is obvious that he took 
 less pains with them, and intended them for a less exacting 
 public, than his editions of the French prose tales. Yet, as he 
 continued to issue them throughout his career, and as many of 
 them continued to be reprinted for still another generation, 
 they must have been a thoroughly successful venture. 
 
 Among De Worde's contemporaries and rivals a number 
 printed romances, though none of them approached him in 
 volume or variety of production. In 1492 Gerard Leeu, an 
 Antwerp printer who worked for the English trade, brought out 
 reimpressions of Caxton's Jason and Paris and Vienne. 
 Between 1495 and 1530 Richard Pynson, De Worde's chief 
 competitor in the London trade, printed editions of 
 
6 MEDIEVAL CHIVALRIC ROMANCE 
 
 metrical romances, Guy of Warwick and Bevis of Hampton, 
 and of one of Caxton's prose translations, Paris and Vienne. 
 Two undated issues of the metrical feast of Sir Gawayne, one 
 by John Butler, the other by Thomas Petit, and an edition by 
 Robert Redborne of Lord Berners' translation of the prose 
 Arthur of Little Britain, may have appeared during De Worde's 
 lifetime, but probably were somewhat later. 
 
 With his death the period of first editions for both the 
 metrical romances and the translations of French prose roman- 
 ces came to an end. The next notable publisher of romances, 
 William Copland (active between about 1548 and 1569), 
 added no new texts, but contented himself with a selection of 
 those issued by De Worde, part of whose business he seems to 
 have inherited. Thus of the metrical romances he printed 
 Sir Degore, Sir Eglamour, Sir Isumbras, The Squire of Low 
 Degree, Bevis of Hampton, Guy of Warwick, Sir Triamour, and 
 The Knight of Courtesy (no earlier edition of this romance has 
 survived, but in all liklihood it too had been issued by De 
 Worde) ; and of the prose romances. The recuile of the histories 
 of Troie (1553), The Four Sons of Aymon (1554), King Arthur 
 (1557), Valentine and Orson (two undated editions), Helyas, 
 The Knight of the Swan. A simple reproducer of the texts of 
 his predecessors, Copland played a far less important role in 
 the history of medieval romance than that of Caxton or Wyn- 
 kyn de Worde. Yet he did good service in keeping alive so 
 many of the older favorites for the public of the second half of 
 the century. 
 
 In this work of reviving the publications of the preceding 
 generation he was assisted by a number of his contemporaries: 
 by an unknown who issued Ponthus in 1548; by John King, 
 who printed Sir Degore and The Squire of Low Degree about 
 1560, and in 1 557-1 558 took out licenses for The feast of 
 Sir Gawayne and Sir Lamwell; by Thomas Marsh, John 
 Tysdale, and John Aide, each of whom secured licenses for 
 
DURING THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE 7 
 
 Bevis of Hampton between 1558 and 1569; by John Purfoot, 
 who secured licenses in 1 568-1 569 for Richard and Generides\ 
 by an unknown publisher, who printed Huon of Bordeaux in 
 1570; by John Cawood, who issued Guy of Warwick sometime 
 before 1572; and by John Walley, who printed Sir Eglamour 
 at an unknown date during the same general period. 
 
 Such, in brief, were the dealings of the English printers 
 with medieval romances to about 1575. That date marked 
 the end of a period, for afterwards, though a number of the 
 prose romances already translated continued to be reproduced, 
 printers for one reason or another ceased to concern themselves 
 any longer with the metrical romances. (There was one excep- 
 tion — Bevis of Hampton^ Except for certain scattered readers 
 who continued to thumb the copies already in existence, the 
 day of the metrical romances, at least in their original form, 
 was over. 
 
 In the meantime the public was not entirely dependent upon 
 the publications of English printers for its knowledge of medie- 
 val chivalric legends. During the early part of the period 
 especially, a certain number of fifteenth century manuscript 
 texts of romances continued to circulate. Nor had these 
 altogether ceased to function as a medium for the diffusion of 
 romances even after the middle of the sixteenth century: 
 witness the manuscript Richard Coeur de Lion owned in 1562 by 
 a certain James Haword, and the Morte Arthur (the metrical 
 version) owned in 1570 by one Robert Farrers.^ Then too, 
 just as in the years before the introduction of printing, a good 
 many of the French prose romances penetrated into England 
 in the original editions. In 148 1 five French romances, of which 
 at least four were printed about the same time in Lyons and 
 Paris, were in the library of Sir Thomas Howard, afterwards 
 Duke of Norfolk. A copy of the prose Merlin printed at 
 
 ' Ward, Catalogue of Romances, I, 949; J. D. Bruce, Le Morte Arthur, 
 E.E.T.S., E.S., LXXXVIII, p. vii. 
 
8 MEDIEVAL CHIVALRIC ROMANCE 
 
 Paris in 1498 by Antoine Verard found its way, sometime 
 before 1535, into the royal library at Richmond Castle. In 
 1526 an inventory of the library of the Earl of Kildare listed 
 French copies of Lancelot du Lake in three volumes and of 
 Ogier le Danois; these romances had been in print in France 
 since before the beginning of the century. In 1540 Thomas 
 Crull, a London grocer, owned among other works "two 
 ffrenche bokes of the life of King Arthur."* Again, general 
 familiarity with certain medieval legends, notably those of 
 Arthur and of Guy of Warwick, was promoted by the sum- 
 maries given in early sixteenth century chronicles. Accounts 
 of Arthur, based ultimately upon Geoffrey, could be read in 
 the histories of Fabyan (15 16), of Rastell (1529), and of 
 several minor historiographers. The legend of Guy's combat 
 with Colbrond, in a prose version taken directly from Lydgate's 
 poem, was recounted as sober history by Fabyan and Grafton 
 (1569). Finally, it would seem that local tradition counted 
 for something in the fame enjoyed by at least three of 
 the medieval heroes. There were "relics" of Arthur still 
 preserved at Winchester; Southampton cherished the memory 
 of Sir Bevis; at Warwick, Guy's sword was preserved in the 
 castle in the charge of a custodian appointed by royal patent, 
 a chapel and statue marked his hermitage at Guyscliff, and a 
 legend, not yet given literary form, of his combat with a 
 Dun Cow, was familiar to the populace.^ 
 
 Manuscripts, French editions, chronicles, local tradition — 
 all of these helped to keep alive a knowledge of the old romantic 
 legends among the Englishmen of the early sixteenth century. 
 They were, however, merely subsidiary influences: the chief 
 sources of information were the editions of romances issued by 
 the London printers. 
 
 * J. P. Collier, Household Books oj John Duke of Norfolk, l-ji; Etudes 
 romanes dediees a Gaston Paris, 9; Hist. MSS Com., App. Ninth Report, 288- 
 289; Transactions of the Bibliographical Society, VII, 120. 
 
 * Crane, P.M.L.A., XXX, 1915, 135-136, 152. 
 
DURING THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE 9 
 
 It is extremely difficult, owing to the lack of documents, to 
 form a precise idea of the diffusion of these editions during 
 this period, but it would seem that the romance-reading public 
 of the first hundred years after the introduction of printing 
 fell into two more or less distinct groups — a relatively small 
 aristocratic group which admired especially the translations of 
 French prose romances, and a larger group, undefinable 
 socially but including many readers of humbler means and less 
 fashionable tastes, and particularly many dwellers in the 
 country, who still found pleasure in the metrical romances of 
 the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Assuredly few outside 
 the wealthier classes could afford to buy the sumptuous and 
 expensive folios in which romances like Le Morie Darthur^ 
 The Recuyell, The Four Sons of Ay man appeared throughout 
 the period. The public of these romances was unquestionably 
 in the main an aristocratic one. The patrons, for example, for 
 whom Caxton prepared his editions were without exception 
 gentlemen or nobles. Le Morte Darthur he addressed to "alle 
 noble prynces, lords and ladyes, gentylmen or gentylwymmen, 
 that desire to rede or here redde of the noble and loyous 
 historye of the grete conquerour and excellent kyng, Kyng 
 Arthur." Charles the Great he turned into English at the special 
 urging of Sir William Daubeny, the treasurer of the jewels in 
 the King's household. The other translations had a similar 
 origin or were addressed in similar terms to readers of gentle 
 birth. And as with Caxton, so, in one instance at least, with 
 Wynkyn de Worde, whose edition of Helyas^ the Knight of the 
 Swan (15 1 2) owed its being to the interest of the Duke of 
 Buckingham in the exploits of one of his reputed ancestors 
 On the other hand, the small rudely printed quartos in which 
 appeared such romances as Sir Bevis, Sir Gwy, Sir Degore, Sir 
 Eg/amour, Richard Coeur de Lion^ were undoubtedly meant to 
 sell cheaply and to circulate widely among a somewhat humbler 
 public. Many of them were probably sold to country readers; 
 peddled about by travelling booksellers, they were the true 
 
lo MEDIEVAL CHIVALRIC ROMANCE 
 
 precursors of the chapbooks of the seventeenth century. One 
 of these itinerant booksellers, a certain John Russhe, bought 
 from Richard Pynson for sale in the country twenty bound 
 copies of Bevis of Hampton at lod apiece; they were among 
 the cheapest books in the lot, which included "bocas off the 
 falle of prynces" at 2s, the "canterbery Talys" at 5s, and 
 "Isoppys fabullys" at 3s. 4d. This was sometime before 
 1498. A score of years later, in 1520, John Dome, bookseller at 
 Oxford, sold Bevis, together with another small tract, for 6d, 
 Undo your Door, Sir Eg/amour, and Robert the Devil for 3d, 
 and Sir Isumbras for 2d. His sales also included two prose 
 romances — King Pothus (quarto) for 8d, and The Four Sons 0/ 
 Aymon (folio) for is, Bd.'' 
 
 Outside both of these groups of simple readers were the 
 scholars and men of letters. What was their attitude to the 
 romances? A few of them took the old stories seriously and 
 were influenced by them, if only slightly, in their work. The 
 translations of Caxton and Berners reflected a genuine personal 
 enthusiasm on the part of their authors. Stephen Hawes was 
 familiar with the Recuyell and with Malory; his Pastime of 
 Pleasure bore many traces of the attraction which the stories 
 of chivalry had for him. They had a certain attraction, too, 
 for John Skelton, though their influence on his poetry went no 
 deeper than occasional allusions (as in Phillip Sparrow) to 
 such romantic heroes as Guy of Warwick, Gawain, Lancelot, 
 Tristram. On the writers of drama, especially at court, the 
 influence of the romances was somewhat more marked. Robert 
 the Devil and Amys and Amyloun furnished material for dis- 
 guisings during Henry VIITs reign. A pageant on The Round 
 Table was presented before Henry and the Emperor in 1225 
 by the citizens of London. In 1547 a pageant on the theme 
 
 * The Library, N.S., X, 126-128; 'The Day-book of John Dome" in 
 Ox. Hist. Soc. Collectanea, First Series 
 
DURING THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE 1 1 
 
 of Valentine and Orson helped to celebrate the coronation of 
 Edward VI. 7 
 
 What sympathy there was for the romances among men of 
 letters was largely offset by the strong current of criticism 
 which made its appearance during this period. The impulse 
 to hostile criticism of the medieval romances was given by the 
 humanists, particularly by Erasmus and the Spaniard Juan 
 Luis Vives. Erasmus had for the stories of Arthur and Lancelot 
 the scorn of the classical-minded pedagogue; his chief com- 
 plaint was that these stories — "fabulae stultae et aniles" — 
 drew away the young student's interest from classical history 
 and poetry. 8 With Vives moral considerations were uppermost. 
 In two notable passages, both of which were known in England, 
 he warned his readers, in each case young women, against the 
 evils of romance-reading. Under no conditions, he maintained 
 in Be Institutione feminae christianae (1523), should women 
 be allowed to soil their minds with such pestiferous books as 
 "in Hispania Amadisus, Splandianus, Florisandus, Tirantus, 
 Tristranus; quarum ineptiarum nuUus est finis ... in 
 Gallia Lancilotus a lacu, Paris et Vienna, Ponthus & Sydonia, 
 Petrus Provincialis & Maguelona, Melusina, domina inexora- 
 bilis: in hac Belgica [he was writing at Bruges] Florius & Albus 
 flos, Leonella, & Cana morus, Curias & Floretta, Pyramus & 
 Thisbe ..." {Opera, Basle, 1555, II, p. 658). In this list 
 of romances to be tabooed, although he wrote with a view to 
 English as well as continental readers, he neglected to give any 
 specific English examples. x'\bout 1540 a translation of the 
 Be Institutione, the work of a certain Richard Hyrde, appeared 
 at London, and was reprinted in 1541, 1557, and 1592. Into the 
 passage condemning the reading of romances, Hyrde intro- 
 duced the names of several romances especially popular in 
 England: "In Englande, Parthenope, Genarides, Hippomadon, 
 
 ^ See Baskervill, Modern Philology, XIV, 1916, 477, 495. 
 
 8 See Ellison, The Early Romantic Drama at the English Court, 49~5°- 
 
12 MEDIEVAL CHIVALRIC ROMANCE 
 
 William and Melyour, Libius and Arthur, Guye, Bevis, and 
 many other ..." {The Instruction of a Christen Woman ^ 
 sig. E iiij — F). Vives' other warning against romances occurred 
 in his De Officio Mariti, in a section entitled "De Disciplina 
 Feminae." As translated sometime after 1546 by Thomas 
 Paynell, this passage ran as follows: "There be some kind of 
 letters & writynges that pertayne only to adourne & increase 
 eloquence withall. Some to delite and please. Some that make 
 a man subtile and craftye. Some to knowe naturall thynges, 
 and to instruct and informe the mynde of man withall. The 
 workes of Poetes, the Fables of Milesii, as that of the golden 
 asse, and in a maner all Lucianes workes, and manye other 
 whiche are written in the vulgar tonge, as of Trystram, Launce- 
 lot, Ogier, Amasus and of Arthur the whiche were written 
 and made by suche as were ydle & knew nothinge. These bokes 
 do hurte both man (^ woman, for they make them wylye & 
 craftye, they kyndle and styr up covetousnes, inflame angre, & 
 all beastly and filthy desyre." 
 
 The conception of the romances thus sketched by Erasmus 
 and Vives passed after the Reformation into the writings of 
 Protestant moralists and writers on education. The antipathy 
 of these men to the old stories was if anything more pronounced 
 than that of the earlier humanists, for to them the romances 
 were not merely extravagant and harmful fairy tales, but the 
 works of Papists. Tyndale gave passing expression to this 
 new attitude in a passage in The Obedience of a Christian Man 
 (1528). The clergy, he said, in forbidding lay people to read 
 the scriptures cannot have the souls of those people at heart, 
 for at the same time they permit them to read Robin Hood 
 and Bevis of Hampton, "with a thousand histories and fables of 
 love and wantonness, and of ribaldry, as filthy as heart can 
 think, to corrupt the minds of youth withal, clean contrary to 
 the doctrine of Christ and of his apostles." Roger Ascham set 
 forth the same view in Toxophilus (1545): "Englysh writers by 
 
DURING THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE 13 
 
 diversitle of tyme, have taken diverse matters in hande. In our 
 fathers tyme nothing was red, but bookes of fayned chevalrie, 
 wherein a man by redinge, shuld be led to none other ende, but 
 onely to manslaughter andbaudrye. Yf any man suppose they 
 were good ynough to passe the time with al, he is deceyved. 
 For surelye vayne woordes doo worke no smal thinge in 
 vayne, ignoraunt, and younge mindes, specially yf they be 
 gyven any thynge therunto of theyr owne nature. These 
 bokes (as I have heard say) were made the moste parte in 
 Abbayes, and Monasteries, a very lickely and fit fruite of suche 
 an ydle and blynde kinde of lyvyng." He returned to the 
 attack in The Scholemaster (1570), in a famous passage on 
 Malory's Morte Darthur^ beginning, "In our forefathers tyme, 
 whan Papistrie, as a standyng poole, covered and overflowed 
 all England ..." Two years after the publication of this 
 jeremiad, Edward Bering, a clergyman of Puritanical leanings, 
 wrote in a similar strain in the preface to his Bryefe and Neces- 
 sary Catechisme or instruction. Lamenting the taste of his 
 contemporaries for books "full of synne and abominations," 
 he likened it to the "wickednes" of their forefathers; who 
 "had their spiritual enchauntmentes, in which they were 
 bewytched, Bevis of Hampton, Guy of Warwike, Arthur of 
 the round table, Huon of Burdeaux, Oliver of the Castle, the 
 foure sonnes of Amond, and a great many other of such childish 
 follye." "These were in the former daies the subtile sleightes 
 of Satan to occupye Christian wyts in Heathen fansies." 
 
 II. 
 
 FROM THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE METRICAL ROMANCES TO 
 THE FIRST PROSE CHAPBOOK VERSIONS 
 
 Beginning with the seventies of the sixteenth century the 
 relative position of the medieval chivalric romances in the 
 total body of literature accessible to the general public under- 
 went an important change. Hitherto they had comprised 
 
14 MEDIEVAL CHIVALRIC ROMANCE 
 
 virtually the only fiction accessible to readers at large. Hence- 
 forth they were brought into sharp competition, first with a 
 growing mass of continental and especially Italian tales, and 
 second with a national literature that itself included among 
 its rapidly multiplying types not a few varieties of prose 
 fiction. A progressive relegation of the medieval romances 
 to the background of the public's consciousness was bound to 
 result. 
 
 And yet the decline was exceedingly slow. In spite of the 
 practical disappearance of the metrical versions at the begin- 
 ning of the period and of losses among the prose romances, the 
 vogue of chivalric romance in general more than held its own 
 through the last quarter of the sixteenth century and the early 
 years of the seventeenth. 
 
 Even the metrical romances did not pass entirely out of 
 circulation. One of them, Bevis of Hampton^ remained in 
 print until toward the middle of the seventeenth century, 
 and seems to have been widely read meantime. Of the others. 
 Sir Eglamour was licensed, and no doubt printed, as late as 
 1582, and made the subject of a play and a ballad even later; 
 Sir Isenbras, according to a passage in The Cobler of Canter- 
 burie (1590), was a favorite with "old wives" at the end of the 
 century; and Guy of Warwick^ though apparently not reprinted 
 after the seventies, remained in circulation until nearly 1640, 
 and was the source of several new versions during the interval. 
 The survivors, to be sure, were few, and of them probably 
 only Guy and Bevis enjoyed a very wide difi^usion (they were the 
 only two metrical romances mentioned for censure by Meres 
 in 1598). But it is noteworthy, in view of the old-fashoined 
 verse and the obsolescent language of this group of romances, 
 that even a few of them continued to interest the readers of 
 Elizabethan England. 
 
 The losses among the prose romances were less serious. 
 Malory's Morte Darthur was reprinted twice by East about 
 
DURING THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE 15 
 
 1585 and at least once by Stansby in 1^4; in addition, the 
 historical tradition of Arthur was continued by Holinshed and 
 Stow. The Four Sons of Aymon was licensed to East in 1582 
 and to Purfoot and Wolf in 1599. Blanchardine and Eglantine^ 
 after more than a century of oblivion, was revived in 1595 in a 
 new version by Thomas Pope Goodwin. The Recuyell of the 
 Histories of Troy was revised in 1596 by Thomas Fiston, and 
 went through several reimpressions between that date and the 
 Civil War. Paris and Vienna was licensed to Purfoot in 1586 
 as "an old booke"; it did not reappear again until the second 
 quarter of the next century, when several editions were printed 
 of a new translation by Matthew Mainwaring. The second 
 edition of Huon of Bordeaux appeared in 1570; the third, with 
 the "crude English corrected and amended," was issued by 
 Purfoot in 1601. Valentine and Orson was licensed to Purfoot 
 in 1586; an abridgment was printed by Purfoot's son in 
 1637; doubtless other editions intervened. Three other of the 
 prose translations of the early years of the century — Ponthus, 
 Oliver of Castile^ and Arthur of Little Britain — were licensed to 
 various printers in the eighties and at least one of them — 
 Arthur of Little Britain — was printed about the same time. 
 And in 1596 or shortly thereafter a French romance not hitherto 
 known in England was brought into the language — The 
 History of Mervine, Son to Ogier the Dane. In short, for a large 
 number of the prose "books of chivalry" of the French type 
 the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries brough 
 something like a revival, manifested in new versions and in 
 more or less painstaking revision of the old. 
 
 Meanwhile, whatever losses occurred among the older 
 types of chivalric fiction were more than compensated for by 
 the introduction of a body of romances similar to them in many 
 features and constantly associated with them by friend and foe 
 alike, but of a difl^erent provenience — the early sixteenth- 
 century Spanish romances of chivalry. Long before the 
 
i6 MEDIEVAL CHIVALRIC ROMANCE 
 
 seventies the fame of Amadis of Gaul, of Palmerln d'Oliva and 
 his numerous descendants, of Palladine of England, of Bellianis, 
 and of the Knight of the Sun, had spread from the Peninsula 
 into Italy and France; they had just passed the climax of their 
 reputation in these countries when the initiative of certain 
 booksellers brought them into England. Some of them, it is 
 true, were already familiar to a few Englishmen. Amadis in 
 particular had readers in England many years before it was 
 translated. Anything like a real vogue, however, came only 
 with the stream of translations which began in the late seven- 
 ties. These translations were the work of a number of more or 
 less obscure men working at the behest of a group of commercial 
 publishers. The leader among them was Anthony Munday, 
 who either single-handed or with the aid of assistants turned 
 out versions of six romances; much less notable were the con- 
 tributions of Margaret Tiler, of R.P., of L.A., and of Lazarus 
 Pyott (frequently but, as it would seem, erroneously identified 
 with Munday). For the most part these translators worked 
 from easily accessible French versions; only in one instance 
 {The Mirror of Knighthood) was recourse had to the original 
 Spanish; in one other instance {Bellianis) the source was 
 Italian. They by no means exhausted the texts available — of 
 the twenty-four books of the French Amadis only the first 
 four were translated before 1640 — but they considerably 
 increased the stock of chivalric stories accessible in English. 
 
 The movement of translation began, after a few preliminar- 
 ies, which included the non-narrative Treasurie of Amadis 
 (1567-68), with the first part of Book I of The Mirrour of 
 Knighthood, published by East in 1578; it reached its climax 
 in the nineties, and terminated soon after 1600. During this 
 interval there were published nine parts of The Mirror, com- 
 prising the first three books, the product of three different 
 translators and of two publishers; two parts of Gerileon of 
 England (translator unknown); three parts of Palmerin of 
 
DURING THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE 17 
 
 England (the first two parts, published by Charlwood between 
 1 58 1 and 1585, were the first to appear of Munday's transla- 
 tions) ; two parts of Palmerin d'Oliva (by Munday) ; Palladine 
 of England (by Munday) ; Palmendos (by Munday) ; two parts 
 of Primaleon of Greece (by Munday); the first four books of 
 Amadis de Gaule (the second by Lazarus Pyott, the rest by 
 Munday); and The Honour of Chivalry or Bellianis (by L.A.). 
 After 1 601, though some of these romances continued to be 
 reprinted, there were no additions to the list, incomplete as it 
 was, until the middle of the century. 
 
 In thus reviving old romances and furthering the translation 
 of new, publishers like East, the Purfoots, Stansby, Charlwood, 
 Burby, Creede — all men of essentially commercial interests — 
 were obviously working in response to a strong and constant 
 demand. From what classes of Englishmen did this demand 
 come? Who were the admirers of the medieval chivalric 
 romances during the last quarter of the sixteenth century and 
 the first quarter of the seventeenth ? 
 
 To a few of letters, including some whose general culture was 
 least medieval, the romances made a strong appeal on the score, 
 chiefly, of their substance. Such a one was Sidney, who at one 
 time, according to Jonson's statement to Drummond, planned 
 to transform the Arcadia into a collection of Arthurian legends, 
 and who was capable of admitting, in The Apology for Poetry^ 
 that even Amadis de Gaule^ imperfect poem as it was, had 
 moved men's hearts "to the exercise of courtesie, liberalites, 
 and especially courage." Such a one, at least in his youth, 
 was William Drummond of Hawthornden, who between 1606 
 and 1609 devoured seven out of the twenty-four volumes of 
 Amadis in French, and dipped into the English translation of 
 The Mirror of Knighthood."^ Such a one was Spenser, who in 
 numerous passages of The Faerie ^ueene betrayed his familiar- 
 ity with and his respect for medieval romances, both prose 
 
 * See ArchcEologica Scotica, IV, i (1831), pp. 73-74. 
 
1 8 MEDIEVAL CHIVALRIC ROMANCE 
 
 and verse, both English and French. Such also were two dis- 
 ciples of Spenser — Drayton, who wove the stories of Arthur 
 and Bevis and Guy into his Poly-olbion, and Milton, whose 
 early interest in the Arthurian legends dominated for a time 
 the conception of his future great work. Even Ben Jonson, 
 hostile to the romances though he was on the whole, could yet 
 assure Drummond in 1619 that "for a Heroik poeme . . . 
 ther was no such ground as King Arthur's fiction." And there 
 were many others — poets, dramatists, pamphleteers— who, 
 though they expressed no clear judgment on the romances, 
 yet showed through their imitations and passing allusions 
 that they did not think them beneath their notice. 
 
 On the whole, however, the attitude of the literary class 
 was not especially friendly. It became more and more the 
 custom to denounce the romances for their immorality, their 
 lack of verisirriilitude, their crudeness of form, and to sneer at 
 them because of their popularity with uncultured readers. 
 Much of the outright criticism, as had been the case in the 
 preceding period, was ethical. In 1577 Meredith Hanmer 
 lamented, in the Dedication to his Aunctent Ecclesiastical 
 Histories of the First Six Hundred Years after Christ , that 
 instead of reading works of divinity "manie now a daies had 
 rather read" the stories of King Arthur, Bevis of Hampton, 
 and "many other infortunate treatises and amorous toyes." 
 In 1579 E.K., glossing the term "ladyes of the lake" in the 
 Shepheardes Calender (iv, 120) referred, in the spirit of 
 Ascham, to "certain fine fablers or lewd lyers, such as were the 
 Authors of King Arthure the great, and such like, who tell 
 many an unlawfuU leasing of the Ladyes of the Lake, that is, 
 the Nymphes." In 1582, in his Playes confuted in five Actions, 
 Gosson, after noting that the London playwrights were accus- 
 tomed to draw on "Amadis of Fraunce" and the "Rounde 
 table" for plots, raised the question: "How is it possible that 
 our Playemakers headdes, running through Genus and Species 
 
DURING THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE 19 
 
 & every difference of lyes, cosenages, baudries, whooredomes, 
 should present us any schoolemistres of life, looking glasse of 
 manners, or Image of trueth?" In 1587 E. A.'s translation of 
 The Politicke and Militarie Discourses of Francois de la Noue 
 introduced English readers to a view of Amadis which resem- 
 bled strongly the view of the Morte Darthur set forth scarcely 
 two decades before by Ascham. The sixth discourse bore the 
 title: "That the reading of the bookes of Amadis de Gaule, 
 & such like is no lesse hurtful to youth, than the works of 
 Machiavel to age." The "fruites of these books" the author 
 developed at length under five heads: "the poison of Impietie," 
 "the Poison of pleasure," "the poyson of revendge," "forget- 
 fulnesse of trew duetie," and "partinent fables" (ed. 1587, pp. 
 87-95). I^ ^594 came a bit of invective evidently inspired 
 directly by The Scholemaster. "It were too long," wrote 
 Thomas Bowes in the introductory epistle to his translation 
 of the French Academic of La Primaudaye, "to set downe the 
 Catalogue of those lewde and lascivious bookes which have 
 mustered themselves of late yeeres in Paules Churchyard, as 
 chosen souldiers ready to fight under the divels banner, of 
 which it may bee truely said, that they prevaile no lesse (if 
 not more) to the upholding of Atheisme in this light of the 
 Gospel, then the Legend of Lies, Huon of Burdeaux, King 
 Arthur, with the rest of that rabble, were of force to maintaine 
 Popery in the dayes of ignorance." In 1598, in Palladis 
 Tamia, Francis Meres attempted to complete the work of 
 Francois de la Noue on Amadis by drawing up an extended list 
 of similar books likewise "hurtfull to youth." In the list he 
 included Bevis of Hampton, Guy of Warwick, Arthur of the Round 
 Table, Huon of Burdeaux, Oliver of Castile, The Four Sons of 
 Aymon, Gerileon, The Honour of Chivalry, Primaleon of Greece, 
 Palmerin d'Oliva, The Mirror of Knighthood, Blanchardine, 
 Mervine, Palladine, and Palmendos — in short, nearly all of the 
 chivalric romances most in demand at the end of the century. 
 
0.O MEDIEVAL CHIVALRIC ROMANCE 
 
 Similar convictions as to the harmfulness of reading romances 
 were expressed by Henry Crosse in a pamphlet called Vertues 
 Common-wealth (1603), by Burton in 1621 in two passages of 
 The Anatomy of Melancholy (Part 2, Sec. 2, Memb. 4, and Part 3, 
 Sec. 2, Memb. 2, Subs. 4), by William Vaughn in The Golden 
 Fleece (1626), and by many others. 
 
 Meantime the romances had been attacked from a more 
 purely literary point of view. Their remoteness from reality, 
 their improbability, their extravagant idealism were bound to 
 oflFend tastes formed on the literature of antiquity. One of 
 the first to apply the new standards of classicism and rational- 
 ism to the medieval tales was Thomas Nashe, who in The Ana- 
 tomie of Ahsurditie (1589) denounced "the fantasticall dreames 
 of those exiled Abbie-lubbers, from whose idle pens proceeded 
 those worne out impressions of the feyned no where acts, of 
 Arthur of the rounde table, Arthur of little Brittaine, sir 
 Tristram, Hewon of Burdeaux, the Squire of low degree, the 
 foure sons of Amon, with infinite others." Sir William Corn- 
 wallis, in a passage in his Essay es (1600) made explicit the 
 comparison with antiquity: "If in Arthur of Brittaine, Huon 
 of Burdeaux and such supposed chivalrie, a man may better 
 himselfe, shall he not become excellent with conversing with 
 Tacitus, Plutarch, Sallust, and fellowes of that ranke?" (Essay 
 15). Twelve years after this came the first English translation 
 of T)on Quixote (Part I) — the finest expression in the whole 
 period of the new attitude toward the romances, and an 
 unmistakable influence in shaping later opinion in England. 
 More in the manner of Nashe than of Cervantes was an allusion 
 to Guy, Bevis, Valentine and Orson, and King Arthur in Robert 
 Ashley's autobiography (1614) : they contained "fictas et futiles 
 fabellas," the work of idle monks in past centuries.^" But in 
 An Execration upon Vulcan (wr. 161 9-1 629, published in 
 Underwoods, 1640) Ben Jonson wrote as one familiar with 
 
 " Reprinted by Crane in Modern Philology, XI, 1913, 271. 
 
DURING THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE 21 
 
 Bon Quixote. He had lost his Hbrary by fire, and was unable 
 to understand the reason for the disaster. 
 
 "Had I compiled from Amadis de Gaul, 
 The Esplandians, Arthurs, Palmerins, and all 
 The learned library of Don Quixote, 
 And so some goodlier monster had begot. 
 
 Thou then hadst had some colour for thy flames, 
 On such my serious follies ..." 
 
 Had he known, he went on, of the desire of Vulcan to hold a 
 triumph, he would gladly have supplied him with "many a 
 ream, to redeem" his own: 
 
 "The Talmud and the Alcoran had come, 
 With pieces of the Legend; the whole sum 
 Of errant knighthood, with the dames and dwarfs; 
 The charmed boats, and the inchanted wharfs. 
 The Tristrams, Lancelots, Turpins, and the Peers, 
 All the mad Rolands, and sweet Olivers; 
 To Merlin's marvels, and his Cabal's loss. 
 With the chimera of the Rosie-cross, 
 Their seals, their characters, hermetic rings, 
 Their jem of riches, and bright stone that brings 
 Invisibility, and strength, and tongues." 
 
 Not merely the improbabilities of the old romances but 
 their crudities of form as well excited the riducule of men who 
 derived their literary ideals from Greece and Rome. Thus 
 Nashe, following perhaps a hint given in Melbancke's Philoti- 
 mus (1583), made cruel sport in The Anatomie of Absurditie 
 of the rimes in Sir Bevis. "Who that reading Bevis of Hamp- 
 ton," he wrote, "can forbeare laughing, if he marke what 
 scambling shyft he makes to ende his verses a like? I will 
 propound three or foure payre by the way for the Readers 
 recreation." The first and the last of Nashe's examples were 
 as follows: 
 
22 MEDIEVAL CHIVALRIC ROMANCE 
 
 "The Porter said, by my snout, 
 It was Sir Bevis tliat I let out" 
 
 and 
 
 "Some lost a nose, some a lip, 
 
 And the King of Scots hath a ship." 
 
 "But," he concluded, "I let these passe as worne out absurdi- 
 ties. 
 
 Finally, the old romances incurred the riducule of men of 
 letters because of their popularity with uncultured or plebeian 
 readers. Not only in Beaumont's Knight of the Burning 
 Pestle (1610-1611), which was without question the master- 
 piece of this type of criticism,^^ but in countless dramas and 
 pamphlets of the early seventeenth century, it was constantly 
 insinuated that a taste for chivalric romance was especially 
 characteristic of tradesmen, country squires, apprentices, 
 servants, old women, the old-fashioned and the half-educated 
 of all classes.^2 So well established, indeed, in the dramaof the 
 time was the association between admiration of the medieval 
 romances and lack of culture or social position that Jonson in 
 The New Inn (1629), wishing to characterize favorably the 
 studies of Lord Beaufort, made Lovel, his former page, expressly 
 deny that he was a reader of romances. "I waited on his stu- 
 dies," said Lovel; "which were right. 
 
 He had no Arthurs, nor no Rosicleers 
 
 No knights o' the Sun, nor Amadis de Gauls, 
 
 Primaleons, Pantagruels, public nothings; 
 
 Abortives of the fabulous dark cloyster. 
 
 Sent out to poison courts and infest manners." 
 
 Instead his Lordship was a student of Homer's "immortal 
 phant'sy" and of Virgil, "that master of the epic poem": "these 
 he brought to practice, and to use" (Act I, Sc. i), 
 
 " See the edition by H. S. Murch, Yale Studies in English, XXXIII, 
 1908. 
 
 ^2 For the principal allusions of this sort in the drama see Koeppel, 
 Ben Jonson s WirkungauJ zeitgen'ossische Dramatiker, 1906, 195-222. 
 
DURING THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE 23 
 
 Such was the attitude of men of letters toward the old 
 romances — friendly in a few, hostile in the majority. Who, 
 then, bought and read all of the editions that issued from the 
 presses of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries? 
 Probably in the main the sort of people who were represented 
 as admirers of romances by the dramatists and pamphleteers. 
 These English Don Quixotes were by no means all to be found 
 among the lower or middle classes. To say nothing of Mary 
 Queen of Scots and Sidney at the beginning of the period, as 
 late as 1636 Edward Lord Conway commissioned Sir Kenelm 
 Digby to procure romances for him at Paris, and Sir Kenelm 
 replied that he was able to send him "La conqueste du sang 
 real," the "legend of Sir Tristram," and "a curious Amadis in 
 1 2 vols."^^ There can be little doubt, however, that the public of 
 the romances in this period was on the whole less distinguished 
 intellectually or socially than it had been during the generation 
 following the introduction of printing. Then the expensive 
 format of many of the romances kept them from penetrat- 
 ing very far down among the people; only the short and cheaply 
 printed metrical tales could have had a really popular sale. 
 Now, with one or two exceptions, all of the current editions of 
 romances were in quarto, and their diffusion must in conse- 
 quence have been far wider. Many copies of the new editions 
 seem to have gone into the country, where perhaps were to be 
 found the least critical readers of the old stories. The library 
 of Captain Cox, the Coventry mason described by Robert 
 Laneham in 1575, contained in all nine romances of the chival- 
 ric type, most of them apparently in the editions of Copland 
 or his contemporaries.^^ A little later than this Thomas 
 Marshe, a London bookseller, sold to Edward Wingfield, 
 Esquire, of Kimbalton Castle, Huntingdonshire, two parts of 
 
 " Cal. of State Papers, 1 636-1 637, pp. 378-379. 
 
 " See Furnivall's edition of Laneham's Letter in Captain Cox's Ballads 
 and Books, Ballad Society, 1871. 
 
24 MEDIEVAL CHIVALRIC ROMANCE 
 
 The Mirror of Knighthood and two parts of Palmerin of Eng- 
 land^ and to Richard Brett, a bookseller in York, twelve copies 
 of The Destruction of Troy}^ The vogue of stories of chivalry 
 among countrymen was alluded to in an anonymous pamphlet, 
 The English Courtier and Country -gentleman (1579): on winter 
 nights in the country, said one of the speakers in the dialogue, 
 "we use certaine Christmas games very propper, & of much 
 agilitie; wee want not also pleasant mad headed knaves, that 
 bee properly learned, and will reade in diverse pleasant bookes 
 and good Authors: As Sir Guy of Warwicke, the foure Sonnes 
 of Amon, . . . and many other excellent writers both witty 
 and pleasaunt." Children, too, probably formed no inconsider- 
 able part of the public of the romances in this period. ^^ 
 
 The most important result of the rejection of the romances 
 by the leaders of Elizabethan letters and their increasing relega- 
 tion to a somewhat humble public was to limit seriously their 
 influence on current literature. With a few exceptions, the 
 works — and they were fairly numerous — which drew inspira- 
 tion from them were essentially popular in character and 
 appeal. 
 
 The influence was greatest perhaps in the theater. Among 
 the plays produced at court in the decade 1 570-1 580, six at 
 least, it would seem, derived from medieval chivalric romances. 
 They were Paris and Vienna^ performed late in 1571 or early 
 in 1572 (lost); The Irish Knight^ performed 1576-1577 (lost; 
 based perhaps upon the French romance of Meliadus); The 
 Historie of the Solitarie Knight^ performed at Shrovetide, 1577 
 (lost; the source may possibly have been the twelfth book of 
 the French Amadis)\ The Rape of the Second Helen, 1 578-1 579 
 (lost; probably based upon the tenth book of the French 
 Amadis)\ The Knight of the Burning Rock, ^579 (lost; the 
 
 1^ r^^L/^rary, Third Series, VII, 1916,326,328. 
 
 ^^ See Robert Ashley's autobiography. Modern Philology^ XI, 271, and 
 Cornwallis, Essayes, 1600, No. 15. 
 
DURING THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE 25 
 
 source seems to have been The Mirror of Knighthood) \ Sir 
 Clyomon and Sir Clamydes^ probably first performed during this 
 decade (the source was Perceforest^ a French prose romance 
 apparently not translated). Though not strictly dramatic, 
 Leicester's entertainments for Elizabeth at Kenilworth in 
 1575 were allied to these court plays through their use of 
 material from Le Morte DarthurP By the beginning of the 
 eighties, if not before, plays based upon the romances were 
 also in vogue on the popular stage. In 1582 Gosson in his 
 Playes confuted mentioned among works "ransackt to furnish 
 the Playe houses in London," Amadis de Gaule and the 'Rounde 
 table." And the formulae for popular plays given by Gosson 
 in the same pamphlet and by Sidney in The Defense of Poetry 
 about the same date, pointed to dramas utilizing respectively 
 the themes of Guy of Warwick and of Sir Eglamour. To this 
 same early period, perhaps, belonged a play on the Eglamour 
 legend which was presented at Dresden in 1626 by Green's 
 troop of English players. ^^ The apogee of the chivalric vogue 
 in the popular theaters came in the nineties. Between 1593 
 and 1603 Philip Henslowe bought, or drew revenue from, six 
 pieces treating themes of medieval romance — Huon of Bor- 
 deaux (i 593-1 594); Uther Pendragon (1597); Valentine and 
 Orson by Munday and Hathway (1598), possibly but not 
 certainly a rewriting of the "enterlude of Valentyne and 
 Orsson" entered at Sationers' Hall on May 23, 1595 and again 
 on March 31, 1600; The Life and Death of King Arthur (1598); 
 Tristram of Lyons (1599); The Four Sons of Aymon (1603).^^ 
 This last play was still being performed in 1624. After the 
 end of Elizabeth's reign, however, the old romances apparently 
 
 ^^ See Ellison, The Early Romantic Drama at the English Courts pp. 
 2,1-2^^ 62-67, 72-79J 105-129. 
 
 1* Baskervill, Mod. Phil, XIV, 191 7, 759-760. 
 
 "Henslowe's Dairy, ed. W. W. Greg, I, 16, 52-53, 86-87, 9^-> ^i^. ^73' 
 176, II, 227. 
 
26 MEDIEVAL CHIVALRIC ROMANCE 
 
 lost most of their former popularity with the dramatists as 
 sources for plots. An exception was Guy of Warwick, several 
 plays dealing with which were performed between 1618 and 
 1639.2" 
 
 As with the drama, so with prose fiction: the influence of 
 the romances was largely confined to the period before 1600, 
 and it was greatest on works intended for a popular reading. 
 The only prose narrative, indeed, of a purely aristocratic 
 and literary character that owed much to the old stories was the 
 Arcadia, which, if Jonson's information was correct, Sidney 
 at one time planned to transform into a collection of Arthurian 
 legends, and which in its definitive form betrayed in several 
 places the influence of Amadis}^ Greene's Pandosto (1588), 
 which was indebted to The Mirror of Knighthood, was a work 
 of more popular appeal. -^ So also was Thomas Lodge's Life 
 of Robert the second Duke of Normandy, surnamed . . . Robin 
 the Divell (1591). And few indeed were the readers outside of 
 middle class and plebeian circles who could have relished such 
 crude adaptations of the old romance conventions as Robert 
 Johnson's very popular Seven Champions of Christendom 
 (i 596-1 597) and his Tom of Lincoln (1599), which was indebted 
 to Malory; Christopher Middleton's The Famous Historic of 
 Chinon of England . . . fVith the worthy Atchievement of 
 Sir Lancelot du Lake, and Sir Tristram du Lions (1597); Eman- 
 uel Forde's Parismus (i 598-1 599), Ornatus and Artesia {ca. 
 1598), and Montelyon (before 1616); and the anonymous 
 Heroicall Adventures of the Knight of the Sea. Comprised in the 
 Historic of . . . Prince Oceander (1600). 
 
 In poetry the only works of any artistic pretensions that 
 were influenced by the romances were The Faerie ^ueene, 
 Poly-Olbion, and Chester's Loves Martyr. Spenser's greatest 
 
 2" Crane, P.M.L.A., XXX, 161-165. 
 
 21 Brunhuber, Sir Philip Sidneys Arcadia und ihre Nachldufer, 1903. 
 
 ^^ de Perott, Englischt Stiidien, Bd. 39, 1908, 308-309. 
 
DURING THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE 27 
 
 debt, both in the general conception of his epic and in the 
 detail of its episodes and imagery, was to Malory; but he 
 adapted to his own purpose also material from Bevis 
 of Hampton, Huon of Bordeaux, The Squire of Low Degree, the 
 Conte du Graal, and doubtless others as well.^^ This material 
 he treated as he treated material from Ariosto, from Tasso, 
 from the ancients: never content simply to retell a story he had 
 read, he fused together elements from different sources, heigh- 
 tened some details and suppressed others, until the result 
 was an essentially new creation. Drayton's method was 
 simpler. Relying chiefly on chronicle accounts, but making 
 some use also of the romance versions, he retold at the appro- 
 priate points in his tour through Great Britain, the legends of 
 Bevis of Hampton (Song II), of King Arthur (Songs IV, V, 
 and passim), and of Guy of Warwick (Songs XII and XIII). 
 Chester's contribution, which formed only a part of Loves 
 Martyr, recounted, on the basis of Malory and of various 
 historians, "the Birth, Life and Death of honourable Arthur 
 King of Brittaine."24 The other poems of the period on 
 romance themes were of a more popular character. This was 
 especially true of two of the three versions of Guy of Warwick 
 that were written between about 1608 and 1636: Samuel 
 Rowlands's The Famous History of Guy Earle of Warwick {ca. 
 1608), a short poem in twelve cantos founded mainly upon the 
 metrical romance, and John Carpenter's The famous and worthy 
 
 23 On Spenser's knowledge and use of the medieval romances see Warton, 
 Observations on the Fairy ^ueen of Spenser (ed. 1807), I, pp. 27-75> ^I' PP- 
 144-145, 205; J. B. Fletcher, "Huon of Burdeux and the Fairie Queene" 
 (in The Journal of Germanic Philology, II, 1898, pp. 203-212); J. R. Mac- 
 arthur, "The Influence of Huon of Burdeux upon the Fairie Queene" {ibid., 
 IV, 1902, pp. 215-238); Marie Walther, M^/oryj Einfiuss auf Spensers Faerie 
 Queene (1898); Howard Maynadier, The Arthur of the English Poets, (1907), 
 pp. 257-277; Edgar A. Hall, "Spenser and Two Old French Grail Romances" 
 (in P.M.L.A., XXVIII, 1913, pp. 539-554)- 
 
 21 See Charlotte D'Evelyn in Jour, of Eng. and Ger. Phil., XIV, 75-88. 
 
28 MEDIEVAL CHIVALRIC ROMANCE 
 
 History of Guy Earle of Warwick (lie. 1636; no copy is known). 
 The other retelling of the story of Guy, John Lane's The cor- 
 rected historic of Sir Guy (finished in 1617, revised in 1621), 
 was a more ambitious work, but for some reason it remained 
 unprinted.^^ 
 
 Finally, there were a number of ballad versions of romance 
 subjects; An Adventurous Knyght of King Arthur s Courte 
 (lie. 1 565-1 566); Deloney's The Noble Acts of Arthur of the 
 round Table in The Garland of Good Will (1604; the source 
 was Malory); A plesante songe of the valiant actes of Guy of 
 Warwicke (lie. 1592); Courage Crowy^ed with Conquest; or^ A 
 brief Relation y how . . . Sir Eglamour bravely fought with . . . 
 a Dragon (cited in Rowlands's The Melancholic Knight , 161 5); 
 Valentine and Orson\ and almost certainly others. 
 
 Thus during the last quarter of the sixteenth century and 
 the first few years of the seventeenth many of the old chivalric 
 romances were reprinted, new ones of the same general char- 
 acter were translated, and both old and new enjoyed a vogue 
 which, though greatest among the uncultured and the old- 
 fashioned, yet touched all classes of the reading public. 
 
 The decline which followed, and which became marked 
 after 1625, manifested itself in two ways. First, there took 
 place a gradual reduction in the number of romances in circu- 
 lation. Between 1625 and 1640 only the following seem to have 
 been reprinted, though others certainly continued to be read: 
 Paris and Vienna (Mainwaring's version), Le MorteDarthur^ The 
 Destruction of Troy, Pahnerin d'Oliva, Valentine and Orson, 
 Bevis of Hampton, and Palmerin of England. The number was 
 still further reduced during the second half of the century. 
 Second, the surviving stories became more and more the pecu- 
 liar property of the least cultured type of readers. Appreciated 
 as late as the third quarter of the sixteenth century by English- 
 men of all classes, they had largely ceased by the middle of the 
 
 ^^On these versions see Crane, P.M.L.A., XXX, 152-161. 
 
DURING THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE 29 
 
 seventeenth to appeal to any except servants, ignorant country 
 folk, and children. As a means of fitting them to this narrower 
 public — the public of the cheaper booksellers and the travelling 
 chapmen — a number of the longer romances were abridged, and 
 those still in verse were turned into prose. The process began 
 shortly before 1640 with Valentine and Orson. It continued 
 through the period of the Civil War with Martin Parker's 
 prose abridgment of Guy ^ and culminated after the Restoration 
 with five new chapbook redactions of Guy, two prose renderings 
 of Bevis, at least four new abridgments of Valentine and Orson, 
 and abridgments of Amadis, Bellianis, King Arthur, and 
 Pahnerin of England. 
 
30 MEDIEVAL CHIVALRIC ROMANCE 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 I. 
 
 EDITIONS OF ROMANCES PRINTED IN ENGLAND OR FOR ENGLISH 
 READERS BETWEEN I475 AND 1 64O 
 
 In this list I have given for each edition (/) a brief title, 
 {2) an indication of the publisher and of the date and place of 
 publication {if no place is mentioned it may be assumed that the 
 edition was printed at London)^ (j) a statement of the for 7n at, 
 {f) a reference to the whereabouts of the most easily accessible 
 copy, or if no copy is known^ to some source attesting the existence 
 of the edition, (5) a reference to a ?nodern reprint, wherever one 
 exists, and {6) such other information as I have been able to 
 collect regarding date, source, translator, etc. The general order 
 of the list is chronological; the order within single years is, except 
 for a few years in which the time order is ascertainable, alpha- 
 betical. 
 
 ca. 1475 
 
 The Recuyell of the Hi story es of Troye ... by Raoul le 
 Fevre . . . translated ... by Willyam Caxtoji. W. 
 Caxton and Colard Mansion, Bruges. Fol. B. L. 
 
 B.M. Reprinted by H. Oskar Sommer, 2 vols., London, 1894. 
 
 ca. 1477 
 
 {The History of Jason. Translated from the French of 
 Raoul le Fevre by Caxton. Caxton, Westminster, 1477."] 
 Fol. B.L. 
 
 B.M. Reprinted John Munro, E.E.T.S., E.S. CXI, 1913. 
 
 1485 
 
 Le Morte Darthur ... by Syr Thomas Malory. Cax- 
 ton, Westminster, July 31, 1485. Fol. B.L. 
 
 John Rylands Library, Manchester. Repr. Sommer, 3 vols., London, 
 1889. 
 
 Charles the Crete. Caxton, [Westminster], Dec. i, 1485. 
 Fol. B.L. 
 
 B.M. Repr. Sidney Herrtage, E.E.T.S., E.S., XXXVI, XXXVII, 
 
 1880, 1 88 1. A translation by Caxton of the French prose romance ot 
 Fierabras. 
 
. DURING THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE 31 
 
 Parys and . . . Vyenne. Caxton, Westminster, Dec. 
 
 19, 1485. Fol. B.L. 
 
 B.M. Repr. W. C. Hazlitt, Roxburghe Library, 1868. Translated 
 by Caxton from an unidentified French edition. 
 
 I489-149I 
 
 {The Four Sons of Aymon. Caxton, Westminster.] 
 Fol. B.L. 
 
 John Rylands Library. Repr. Octavia Richardson, E.E.T.S., E.S., 
 XLIV, XLV, 1884, 1885. Translated from the French by Caxton at the 
 request of John, Earl of Oxford. The date rests on typographical evi- 
 dence. 
 
 [Blanchardyn and Eglantine. Caxton, Westminster.] 
 Fol. B.L. 
 
 B.M. Repr. Leon Kellner, E.E.T.S., E.S., LVIII, 1890. Translated 
 by Caxton from an unidentified French edition. The evidence for the 
 date is typographical. 
 
 1492 
 
 The veray trew history of the valiant Knight lason. Gerard 
 Leeu, Antwerp, June 2, 1491. Fol. B.L. 
 
 University Liorary, Cambridge. A reprint of Caxton's translation. 
 
 Thystorie of Parys and Vyenne. Gerard Leeu, Antwerp, 
 June 23, 1492. Fol. B.L. 
 
 Trinity College, Dublin. A reprint of Caxton's translation. 
 
 After 1494 
 
 [Sir Eglamour. Wynkyn de Worde, Westminster?] 
 4°. B.L. 
 
 University Library, Cambridge (one leaQ. The type is Wynkyn de 
 Worde's No. 4, which made its appearance about 1494. See DufF, 
 Fifteenth Century English Books, igiy, pp. 37, 127-129. A copy of 
 "Syr eglamour" was sold by John Dome, an Oxford stationer, in 1520. 
 See "The Day-book of John Dome," No. 152, in Ox. Hist. Soc. Collec- 
 tanea^ First Series, p. 82. 
 
 \Guy of Warwick. Wynkyn de Worde, Westminster?] 
 4°. B.L. 
 
 Bodleian (fragm.). The type is No. 4. See Duff, op. cit., 46, 129, 
 and Crane, P. M. L. A., XXX, 1915, 129 n. 
 
 1^4-1 j'98 
 
 [Bevis of Hampton. Wynkyn de Worde, Westminster.] 
 4°. B.L. 
 
 Bodleian (fragm.). Type No. 4 (Duff, op. cit., 128). For the facts 
 upon which the terminal date rests see The Library, N.S., X, 122, 127. 
 
32 MEDIEVAL CHIVALRIC ROMANCE 
 
 1498 
 
 [Le Morte Darthur.] Wynkyn de Worde, Westminster, 
 March 25, 1498. Fol. B.L. 
 
 John Rylands Library. A reprint of Caxton's edition, with numerous 
 verbal changes. Illustrated. Cf. Sommer, Le Morte Darthur, II, 5-6. 
 
 Before 1501 
 
 [Guy of Warwick. Richard Pynson.] 4°. B.L. 
 B.M. (fragm.). Pynson's type No. 2 (Duff, op. cit., 132). For the 
 date, source, etc. see Duff, p. 46, and Crane, P.M.L.J., XXX, 191 5, 1 29 n. 
 
 1 502-1 503 
 
 The recuyles . . . of the hystoryes of Troye. Wynkyn 
 de Worde, 1502. Fol. B.L. 
 
 B.M.; Pepys collection. The British Museum copy is dated 1503. A 
 reprint of Caxton's translation. Illustrated. 
 
 1504 
 
 The foure Sonnes of Aimon. Wynkyn de Worde, 1504. 
 Fol. B.L. 
 
 Univ. Lib., Camb. (fragm.). A reprint of Caxton's edition. The 
 date is established by the colophon of William Copland's edition of 1554. 
 
 \The History of King Richard Coeur de Lion^ Wynkyn 
 de Worde, 1509. Fol. B.L. 
 
 Bodleian; John Rylands. See below under 1528. 
 
 1511 
 
 The noble hystory of . . . kynge Ponthus. Wynkyn de 
 
 Worde, 151 1. 4°. B.L. 
 
 Bodl. See on the sources, etc. of this version, F. J. Mather, P.M.L.A., 
 XII, 1897, xxi ff., and F. Brie, Archiv. CXVIII, 1907, 325-328 and CXXI, 
 1908, 129-130. 
 
 1512 
 
 The knyght of the swanne. Wynkyn de Worde, 151 2. 
 4°. B.L. 
 
 The only known copy (printed on parchment) in the Library of 
 Richard Hoe, N.Y. (sold in 191 1). Repr. for the Grolier Club, New 
 York, 1901. The source was probably the Paris, 1504, edition of Le 
 Chevalier au Cygne. 
 
 1518 
 
 Olyver of Castylle. Wynkyn de Worde, 151 8. 4°. B.L. 
 Britwell. Repr. R. E. Graves, for the Roxburghe Club, 1898. Trans- 
 lated by Henry Watson, "an apprentice of London," from the French. 
 
DURING THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE ^^ 
 
 The first French edition appeared at Geneva in 1482, The original, 
 which purported to be a translation from the Latin but which was prob- 
 ably written in French by Philippe Camus, could not have been much 
 older than this. 
 
 Before 1520 
 
 [Sir Isumbras.] 
 
 Two copies sold by John Dome at Oxford in 1520. See his "Day- 
 book," ed. cit., Nos. 1 137, 1 188. 
 
 Undo youre dor e. Wynkyn de Worde? 4°. B.L. 
 Britwell, (fragms.). Repr. W. E. Mead, The Squyr of Lowe Degre. 
 Albion Series, 1904. Two copies (of this edition?) were sold by Dome 
 in 1520 (Nos. 621, 1 103). 
 
 ca. 1520 
 
 [Ky77g Wyllyam of Palerne. Wynkyn de Worde?] B.L. 
 Private library (fragm.). Ed. Friedrich Brie in Archiv, CXVIII, 
 1907^ 3'^3-3'^S- On the date, printer, and source, see The Academy, 
 March 11, 1893, 223, and Brie, be. cit., 319-322. 
 
 1528 
 
 Kynge Rycharde cuer du lyon. Wynkyn de Worde, 
 1528. 4°. B.L. 
 
 B.M. Illustrated by ten woodcuts. The text bears a close resem- 
 blance to the Caius College MS of the romance; see Weber, Metrical 
 Romances, 18 10, I, xlviii. 
 
 1529 
 
 \Le Morte Darthur.] Wynkyn de Worde, 1529. Fol. 
 B.L. 
 
 B.M. On the relation of this edition to its predecessors see Sommer, 
 Le Morte Barthur, II, 6-7, 43-145. 
 
 1501-1530 
 
 [Bevis of Hampton.] Richard Pynson. 4°. B.L. 
 Bodleian (impf.). Koelbing prints readings from it in the notes of 
 his edition of the romance in E.E.T.S., E.S., XLVI, 1885. The date of 
 publication can be fixed only within the limits of Pynson's removal to 
 the sign of the George in 1501 and his death in 1530. The "beuis of 
 hampton" sold by John Dome in 1520 may have belonged to this edition 
 ("Day-book," No. 2033). 
 
 [Paris and Vienne. Richard Pynson?] 4°. B.L. 
 B.M. Attributed to Pynson by the compilers of the B.M. Catalogue. 
 
34 MEDIEVAL CHIVALRIC ROMANCE 
 
 1501-1535 
 
 Syr Degore. Wynkyn de Worde. 4°. B.L. 
 Britwell. I group under these dates all of the undated romances 
 printed by Wynkyn de Worde between his removal from Westmintser 
 to Fleet Street, late in 1500 or early in 1501, and his death in 1534 or 1535. 
 
 [Generides. Wynkyn de Worde?] 4°. B.L. 
 Trinity College, Camb. (fragm.). See Hazlitt, Handbook, i1j^. 
 Repr. by Furnivall in his Roxburghe Club edition oi Generides, 1865. 
 
 Ipomydon. Wynkyn de Worde. 4°. 
 
 B.M. (fragm.). Cf. Hazlitt, Handbook, 291, and E. Koelbing, Ipome- 
 don, 1889, xiv. 
 
 Thystory of the knyght Parys mid of the fayr Vyene. 
 Wynkyn de Worde. 4°. B.L. 
 Bodl. (fragm.). 
 
 Robert the devyll. Wynkyn de Worde. 4°. B.L. 
 
 B.M.; Univ. Lib., Camb. These two copies appear to represent 
 different impressions. It is possible that to one of them belonged the 
 copy of "robert the deuill" sold by John Dome in 1520 ("Day-book," 
 No. 1325). There is a modern reprint in Thoms, Early English Prose 
 Romances, Vol. I, 1858. The source of this translation was some con- 
 temporary edition of the French prose Robert le Diable. 
 
 A verse romance entitled The Lyje of Roberte the Deuyllvfus printed by 
 Herbert in 1798 from an Elizabethan transcript of a quarto edition, now 
 lost with the exception of a fragment preserved in the Bodleian (Hazlitt, 
 Handbook, 510), but believed to have been printed by either Wynkyn de 
 Worde or Pynson. A comparison of texts shows that the metrical version 
 was in all probability based upon the prose translation. 
 
 [Torrent of Portugal. Wynkyn de Worde ?1 4°. B.L. 
 Bodl. (fragm.). See Torrent of Portyngale, E.E.T.S., E.S., LI, 1887, 
 pp. v-vi, 93-100. 
 
 [Sir Try amour. Wynkyn de Worde?] 4°. B.L. 
 Univ. Lib. Camb. (fragm.). 
 
 ca. 1529 
 
 Syr Gawayne. John Butler. 4°. B.L. 
 
 Lambeth (fragm.). Ed. Madden, Syr Gawayne, Bannatyne Club, 
 1839. Butler is known to have printed a number of books, but the only 
 fixed date in his career is 1529, when he issued his only known dated book, 
 the Parvulorum institutio. 
 
 i 
 
DURING THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE 35 
 
 ^533-^535 
 
 The boke of duke Huon of burdeux. [Wynkyn de Worde ?] 
 
 Fol. 
 
 Private library. Repr. Sidney Lee, E.E.T.S., E.S., XL, XLIII, L, 
 1882, 1884, 1887. A translation from the French, probably from a Paris 
 edition of 15 13, by Sir John Bourchier, Lord Berners. According to 
 the prologue of "the printer," Berners was encouraged in his work by 
 Lord Hastings, Earl of Huntingdon, who also was responsible for getting 
 the book printed. From the latter circumstance, and indeed from the 
 whole tone of the prologue, it would seem that the romance was printed 
 after Berners' death, which took place in 1533. The printer was almost 
 certainly Wynkyn de Worde: the type would appear to have been his, 
 and in 1553 ten copies of the romance formed part of the stock of books 
 remaining in his house in Fleet Street {The Library, Ser. Ill, Vol. VI, 
 1915, 232). 
 
 Before 1535 
 
 [The Graylef Wynkyn de Worde?] 
 
 In an account of the contents of the printing house formerly owned 
 by Wynkyn de Worde, later by Edward Whitchurch, drawn up in 1553 
 {The Library, Ser. Ill, Vol. VI, 1915, 231) occurs the following item: 
 "vnum librum voc. a Grayle in parchment." Does this refer to a transla- 
 tion of the Histoire du Saint Graal, of which the current French version 
 appeared about 1514? 
 
 [Valentine and Orson. Wynkyn de Worde?] 4°. B.L. 
 
 Library of the Duke of Devonshire (fragm.). Translated from the 
 French by Henry Watson. The ascription to Wynkyn de Worde is 
 conjectural, but it is somewhat strengthened by the fact that Watson 
 in 1 51 8 translated Oliver of Castile at De Worde's request (see his state- 
 ment in the preface). 
 
 A History of . . . Ponthus . . . and . . . Sidonia. 
 
 1548. 4°. 
 
 Hazlitt, Handbook, 475. 
 
 '^^^^ 
 
 The recuile of the Histories of Troie. William Copland, 
 
 1553. Fol. B.L. 
 
 B.M. A reprint of Caxton's translation. ?)ttSomm&T,The Recuyell^ 
 I, xcviii-ci. 
 
 I536-1554 
 
 Syr Gawayne. Thomas Petyt. 4°. B.L. 
 B.M. (fragm.). Petyt printed between about 1536 and 1554. 
 
36 MEDIEVAL CHIVALRIC ROMANCE 
 
 1554 
 
 The foure sonnes of Aimon. William Copland for 
 Thomas Petet, 1554. Fol. B.L. 
 B.M. A reprint of De Worde's edition. 
 
 1 548-1 557 
 
 Valentyne and Orson. William Copland for John Walley. 
 4°. B.L. 
 
 Private library. The date is fixed within these limits by a statement 
 in the colophon that it was printed at the Rose Garland. See Hazlitt, 
 Handbook, 624, and cf. DufF, A Century oj the English Book Trade, 32. 
 
 1557 
 
 The Story of the moste noble and worthy Ky?jge Arthur. 
 William Copland, 1557. Fol. B.L. 
 
 B.M. A reprint of Wynkyn de Worde's edition of 1529. See Som- 
 mer, Le Morte Darthur, II, 7-8. 
 
 1557-1558 
 
 A feast of syr Gawayne. Lie. to John King between 
 July 19, 1557 and July 9, 1558. 
 Stationers' Registers, I, 79. 
 
 Syr LamwelL Lie. to King between July 19, 1557 and 
 July 9, 1558. 
 
 Stat. Reg., I, 79. Two fragments of this romance, both printed appar- 
 ently in the sixteenth century but belonging to distinct impressions, are 
 preserved in the Bodleian. They are printed in The Percy Folio Manu- 
 script, I, 522-535. One of them may belong to King's edition. For an 
 earlier edition, probably by John Rastell (active 1516-1533), see The 
 Library, Ser. Ill, Vol. VI, p. 233. 
 
 1558-1559 
 
 Bevys of Hampton. Lie. to Thomas Marshe between 
 July 10, 1558 and July 10, 1559. 
 Stat. Reg., I, 95. 
 
 1560 
 
 Syr Degore. John King, 1560. 4°. B.L. 
 Bodl. Licensed June 10, 1560 (Stat. Reg., I, 128). 
 
 The Squyr of Low degre. Lie. to John King, June 10, 
 1560. 
 
 Stat. Reg., I, 128. 
 
DURING THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE 37 
 
 1561 
 
 Bevys of Hampton. Lie. to John Tysdale, May 1 1, 1561. 
 Sfat. Reg., I, 156. 
 
 1561-1562 
 
 Bevis of Hampton. William Copland. 4°. B.L. 
 Hazlitt {Handbook^ 38) lists an edition by Copland printed "in the 
 vinetre upon the thre Crane wharf." Copland printed at this address 
 between sometime before 1561 and 1562 (Duff, A Century of the English 
 Book Trade, 2'^~23)- 
 
 Syr Tryamour. William Copland. 4°. B.L. 
 
 B.M. The colophon reads: "Imprinted at London in Temes strete 
 vpon the thre Crane wharfe." Repr. Utterson, Select Pieces of Early 
 Popular Poetry, 18 17, 1, 5-72. 
 
 Before 1566 
 
 The hy story of . . . Arthur of lytell brytayne. Robert 
 Redborne. Fol. B.L. 
 
 John Rylands Library. Translated by Lord Berners from the French 
 Artus de Bretagne (prose). Repr. Utterson, London, 18 14. The transla- 
 tion must have been finished before 1533, when Berners died, and it was 
 probably first printed not long after. Redborne is mentioned in various 
 connections in the Stationers' Registers up to 1566 (see Duff, A Century 
 of the English Book Trade, 131). 
 
 1567-1568 
 
 The treasurie of Amadis of France. H. Bynnemann for 
 T. Racket. 4°. B.L. 
 
 B.M. Licensed to Hacket between July 22, I567and July 22, 1568 
 {Stat. Reg., I, 359). A translation by Thomas Paynell of Le Tresor des 
 Amadis: contenant les Epitres, Complaintes, Condons, Harangues, Deffis, 
 ^ Cartels: Recueillis des douze Livres d' Amadis de Gaule: pour servir 
 d" example, a ceus qui desirent apprendre d bien ecrire Missives, ou parler 
 Francois, a compilation of which numerous editions appeared in France 
 after 1559. 
 
 1548-1569 
 
 Syr Degore. William Copland. 4°. B.L. 
 B.M. Re-pr. Utterson, Select Pieces,!, iij-i^^. Under these dates, 
 which represent the approximate limits of Copland's activity, I bring 
 together those editions which lack any precise indication of date or 
 address. 
 
 Syr Eglamour of Artoys. William Copland. 4°. B.L. 
 Bodl. See Schleich, Sir Eglamour (Palaestra LIII), 92. 
 
38 MEDIEVAL CHIVALRIC ROMANCE 
 
 Syr Isenbras. William Copland. 4°. B.L. 
 B.M. Repr. Utterson, Select Pieces, I, 77-112. 
 
 The Knight of Curtesy and the Fair Lady of Faguell. 
 William Copland. 4°. B.L. 
 
 Bodl. Repr. W.C. Hazlitt, Remains of the Early Popular Poetry of 
 England, II, 1866, 65-87. 
 
 The Knyght of the Swanne. William Copland. 4°. 
 B.L. 
 
 B.M. Repr. Thorns, Early English Prose Romances, III. A reprint 
 of Robert Copland's translation as printed by Wynkyn de Worde. 
 
 The Squyr of lowe degre. William Copland. 4°. B.L. 
 B.M. Repr. W. E. Mead, Albion Series, 1904. The same text as 
 Wynkyn de Worde's Undoyoure dore. 
 
 1 562-1 569 
 
 Syr Beuys of Hampton. William Copland. 4°. B.L. 
 B.M. This and the two following romances were printed "in Loth- 
 bury," Copland's address between 156a and his death in 1568 or 1569 
 (Duff, A Century of the English Book Trade, 22)- 
 
 Guy of Warwick. William Copland. 4°. B.L. 
 B.M. See Crane, P.M.L.A., XXX, 191 5, 129 n. 
 
 Valentyne and Orson. William Copland. 4°. 
 B.M. See Hazlitt, Handbook, 624. 
 
 1568-1569 
 
 Beves of Hampton. Lie. to John Aide between July 
 22, 1568 and July 22, 1569. 
 Stat. Reg., I, 389. 
 
 Generydes. Lie. to Thomas Purfoot between July 22, 
 1568 and July 22, 1569. 
 
 Stat. Reg., 1, 389. See Wright, Generydes, E.E.T.S., O.S., LXX, 1878 
 vii. Earlier editions of Generides must have existed, for it is mentioned 
 in Hyrde's translation of Vives' Instruction of a Christen Woman {ca. 
 1540) among romances especially popular in England. See P.M.L.A., 
 
 XXX, 137-138. 
 
 Kynge Rychard Cur de Lyon. Lie. to Thomas Purfoot 
 between July 22, 1568 and July 22, 1569. 
 Stat. Reg., I, 389. 
 
DURING THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE 39 
 
 1570 
 
 [Hnon of Bordeaux.] 
 The colophon of the 1601 edition of this romance sets forth that it 
 was "translated out of frenche into English by Syr lohn Bourchire, 
 Knight, Lord Berniers, at the request of the Lord Hastings Earl of Hun- 
 tinton, in the years of our Lorde God, one thousand fiue hendrede and 
 three score and Ten, and now newlie reuised and corrected thys present 
 yeare, 1601." As the date of either the translation or the first edition, 
 1570 is clearly out of the question (see above under 1 533-1 535); but it 
 may well have been a confusion on the part of the publisher of the 1601 
 edition, Thomas Purfoot, for the date of a second edition. That there 
 actually was such an edition is implied in the statement on the title page of 
 Purfoot's reprint, that the work was "now the Third time imprinted.' 
 See Sidney Lee, E.E.T.S., E.S., XL, Ivi; L, 782. 
 
 Before 1572 
 
 Guy of JVarwick. John Cawood. 
 See Crane, P.M.L.A., XXX, 130 n. 
 
 1577 . 
 
 Gerileon of England. Lie. to John Jugge, May 20, 1577. 
 Stat. Reg., I'l, 312. 
 
 The Mirrour of Princely deedes and Knighthood. Thomas 
 East. 4°. B.L. 
 
 B.M. A translation by Margaret Tiler of the first part of Book I 
 of the Spanish romance, Espejo de Principe s, by Diego Ortunez de Cala- 
 horra. The translation was licensed to East on August 4, 1578 {Stat. 
 Reg., II, 334). Two other undated editions by East of this part of the 
 romance are listed by Esdaile, p. 105. 
 
 1581 
 
 Palmerin of Englande. Lie. to John Charlwood, 
 Feb. 13, 1581. 
 
 Stat. Reg., II, 388. Concerning the date of publication of this 
 romance, which was translated by Anthony Munday from a French 
 version, there are several bits of evidence in addition to the entry in the 
 Stationers' Register. In the first place. Parts I and II were published 
 separately (see "The Epistle Dedicatory" in the 1609 edition of The 
 First Part, sig. A3 verso). In the second place, the two parts were in 
 print before 1585, for sometime before that year Thomas Marshe, a 
 bookseller, sold to Edward Wingfield, Esq., of Kimbalton Castle, Hun- 
 tingdonshire, among various other books, "Palmeryng, 2 parts." {The 
 Library, Third Series, VII, 328). As no edition of Palmerin d'OIiva 
 appeared before 1588, the reference here must be to Palmerin of England. 
 
40 MEDIEVAL CHIVALRIC ROMANCE 
 
 In the third place, the priority of the first two parts of Palmerin of Eng- 
 land to Palmerin d'Oliva is established by Munday's epistle "To the 
 Reader" in The First Part of the latter romance (ed. 1637, sig. A4). 
 Palmerin of England, though the first translated, forms in reality the last 
 part of the Palmerin cycle. 
 
 1582 
 
 Sir Eglamour. Lie. to John Charlwood, Jan. 15, 158 1-2. 
 Stat. Reg., II, 405. The copyright belonged formerly to Sampson 
 Awdley. 
 
 Kinge Pontus. Lie. to John Charlwood, Jan. 15, 158 1-2. 
 Stat. Reg., II, 405. The rights in "King Pontus" belonged formerly 
 to Sampson Awdley, who died in 1575. 
 
 The ffoiire Somies of Amon. Lie. to Thomas East, 
 March 12, 158 1-2. 
 Stat. Reg., II, 408. 
 
 Olyver of Castell. Lie. to Thomas East, Mareh 12, 
 
 1581-2. 
 
 Stat. Reg., II, 408. 
 
 Arthur of Little Britaine. Thomas East. 4°. B.L. 
 
 See Hazlitt, Handbook, 14, and Coll. and Notes, Fourth Series, 12. 
 The copy described here probably belonged to the edition licensed to 
 East on March la, 1581-82 {Stat. Reg., II, 408). 
 
 Gerileon of Englande. For Miles Jennings, 1583. 4°. 
 B.L. 
 
 Bodl. Jennings acquired Jugge's rights in this romance on April 6, 
 1579 {Stat. Reg., II, 351). The source was the French translation by 
 Estienne de Maison-neuve (1572). 
 
 The Second part of the Myrror of Knyghthood. Thomas 
 
 East, 1583. 4°. B.L. 
 
 B.M. Licensed to East on Aug. 24, 1582 {Stat. Reg., II, 414). 
 Between this "Second part" and the portion of the romance published in 
 1578 intervened in the original Spanish two "parts"; these East promised 
 in his address "To the Reader" in the Second part to issue "with as much 
 speede as may be." The translation was made by R.P. from the Spanish 
 text. 
 
 1 546-1 586 
 
 Syr Eglamour e of Artoys. John Walley. 4°. B.L. 
 B.M. The date can be fixed only within the extreme limits of Wal- 
 ley's career. 
 
DURING THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE 41 
 
 1582-1586 
 
 The storye of the most noble and worthy Kynge Arthur. 
 Thomas East. Fol. B.L. 
 
 Esdaile (p. 97) lists two editions of Malory by East, one in the B.M,, 
 the other in Univ. Lib., Camb. Both are undated. Two facts serve to 
 place one or both of them between 1582 and 1586. (i) East's license to 
 print "Kinge Arthure" was obtained on March 12, 1582 {Stat. Reg., II, 
 408). (2) A copy of "K Arthure booke" was purchased on May 7, 
 1586 for Elizabeth, Countess of Rutland (Hist. MSS Com., The MSS 
 of . . . the Duke of Rutland, IV, 388). The source of the text was Cop- 
 land's edition of 1557. 
 
 1586 
 
 Paris and Vienna. Lie. to Thomas Purfoot, Aug. 8, 
 1586. 
 
 Stat. Reg., II, 453. Described in the entry as "an old booke." 
 
 Valentine and Orson. Lie. to Thomas Purfoot, Aug. 8, 
 1586. 
 
 Stat. Reg., II, 453. 
 
 1588 
 
 Palmerin d'Oliva. J. Charlwood, 1588. 4°. B.L. 
 See Hazlitt, Handbook, 436. Translated from the French by Anthony 
 Munday. The two parts of the work as Munday divided it were pub- 
 lished separately (see his address "To the Reader" in The First Part, 
 ed. 1637). The second part was out before his translation oi Palladine of 
 England (see "To the Friendly Readers" in Palmerin d'Oliva, The Second 
 Part, ed. 1637). 
 
 Palladine of England. E. AUde for L Perin, 1588. 
 4°. B.L. 
 
 Bridgewater. A translation by Munday of UHistoire Palladienne 
 (1555), itself a translation of the Spanish romance, Florando de Inglaterra 
 (1545). Though often connected with the Palmerin cycle (as by Esdaile, 
 108), it is in reality as independent romance. The translation was in 
 press at the publication of the Second Part of Palmerin d'Oliva (see the 
 preceding note). The same work was licensed to V. Syms on Nov. 12, 
 1595 {Stat. Reg., Ill, 52) and to John Danter on Aug. 27, 1596 {ibid.^ 
 Ill, 69). 
 
 ca. 1589 
 
 Syr Bevis of Hampton. Thomas East. 4°. B.L. 
 Bodl. The date is fixed approximately by the address; "Aldersgate 
 Street at the Sign of the Black Horse" (see Sayle, Early English Printed 
 Books in the University Library Cambridge, I, 317.) 
 
4a MEDIEVAL CHIVALRIC ROMANCE 
 
 1589 
 
 Palmendos^ Sonne to the famous and fortunate Prince 
 Palmerin d'Oliva. I. C[harlwood] for S. Watersonne, 
 1589. 4°. B.L. 
 
 Huth Collection. A translation by Munday of the first twenty chap- 
 ters of Vernassal's French version of Primaleon de Grece. Licensed to 
 Charlewood, together with Primaleon of Greece, Jan. 9, 1589, {Stat. 
 ^^^•,11,513). 
 
 Primaleon of Greece. Lie. to John Charlwood, Jan. 
 
 9, 1589. 
 
 Stat. Reg., II, 513. 
 
 Amadis de Gaule. Books I-IV lie. to Edward Allde, 
 Jan. 15, 1589. 
 
 Stat. Reg., II, 514. The entry indicated that these books were not 
 yet translated. 
 
 1592 
 
 Amadis de Gaule. Books II-V lie. to John Wolf, Apr. 
 
 10, 1592. 
 
 Stat. Reg., II, 607. 
 
 Gerillion. Parts I, III, IV lie. to Abel Jeffes, Oet. 6, 
 1592. 
 
 Stat. Reg., II, 621. 
 
 The Second Part of the History of Gerileon of England. 
 For C. Burbie, 1592. 4°. 
 
 See Hazlitt, Handbook, 47. Translated from the French by Anthony 
 Munday. On August 8, 1592 the right to translate Le Second Livre de 
 . . . Gfn7fow^'y/«^/f/^rrd' was given to Thomas Scarlett. {Stat. Reg.,\\,6icj) 
 
 The history of Palmeryn. John Charlwood's copies 
 
 transferred to James Roberts, May 31, 1594. 
 Stat. Reg., II, 651-652. 
 
 Amadis de Gaule. Books II-XII licensed to Adam 
 
 Islip and W. Moring, Oct. 16, 1594. 
 Stat. Reg., II, 662. 
 
 1595 
 
 \The first Book of Amadis of Gaule. 1595?] 4°. B.L. 
 B.M. See Hazlitt, Handbook, 7. Translated by Anthony Munday 
 from the French of Herberay des Essarts. 
 
DURING THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE 43 
 
 The Seconde Booke of Amadis de Ganle. For C. Burbie, 
 1595. 4°. B.L. 
 
 B.M. The translator, "Lazarus Pyott," has usually been identified 
 with Munday, but excellent reasons for regarding him as a distinct person, 
 a victim of Munday's unscrupulousness, have been set forth by Henry 
 Thomas in Transactions of the Bibliographical Society, XIII, 1916, 135- 
 
 Blanchardine ...&... Eglantine. For W. Black- 
 wall, 1595. 4°. B.L. 
 
 Britwell. The license was dated May 10, 1595 {Stat. Reg., 298). A 
 new version of the romance, the work of Thomas Pope Goodwin. See 
 E.E.T.S., E.S., LVIII, 225-234. 
 
 The first Booke of Primaleon of Greece. For C. Burby, 
 1595. 4°. B.L. 
 
 Private library. See Esdaile, 108. Translated by Anthony Munday 
 from Vernassal's L'Histoire de Primaleon de Grece. The license for the 
 first two books was given to Burby on Aug. 10, 1594 {Stat. Reg., II, 657). 
 Before that John Charlwood had held the copyright (above under 1589). 
 
 The Aimcient Historie, of the destruction of Troy. T. 
 Creede, 1596. 4°. B.L. 
 
 Bodl. A revision of Caxton's Recuyell by William Piston. 
 
 The historye of Sir Mervyn soyi to Ogyer the Dane. Lie. 
 to Richard Jones, Feb. 3, 1595-6. 
 
 Stat. Reg., Ill, 58. There is no trace of an edition of this romance 
 earlier than that of 161 2, but it is mentioned by Meres in 1598 {Palladis 
 Tamia, in Elizabethan Critical Essays, ed. Gregory Smith, II, 308-309). 
 
 [Palmerin of England. T. Creede?] 1596. 4°. 
 Britwell; see Esdaile, 109. Two parts of this romance were licensed to 
 Creede on Aug. 9, 1596 {Stat.. Reg., Ill, 68). 
 
 The second Book of Primaleon of Greece. L Danter for 
 C. Burby, 1596. 4°. B.L. 
 
 Private library; see Esdaile, 108. Translated from the French by 
 Munday. 
 
 1597 
 
 Blanchardine and Eglantine. G. Shaw for W. Blackwall, 
 
 ^597. 4°.. 
 
 Public Library, Hamburg. A reprint of the 1595 edition. Cf. 
 Stat.Reg.,\y,i,^^. 
 
44 MEDIEVAL CHIVALRIC ROMANCE 
 
 The Second Part of . . . Palmerin d'Oliva. T. Creede, 
 
 1597. 4°. B.L. 
 
 Private library; see Esdaile, 107. Two parts licensed to Creede on 
 Aug. 9, 1596 {Stat. Reg., Ill, 68). 
 
 ^598 
 
 The Honour 0/ Chivalrie. Set downe in the . . . Historic 
 
 of . . . Don Beiiianis. T. Creede, 1598. 4°. B.L. 
 
 B.M. "Englished out of Italian, by L. A." The source was the 
 Historia del Magnanimo et invincibil Principe Don Be/ianis, Ferrara, 
 1586, itself a translation of a Spanish original. 
 
 The first parte of the historic of Durine of Grece Translated 
 out of French by H. W. Lie. to Thomas Purfoot Sr. and 
 Jr., Dec. 8, 1598. 
 
 Stat. Reg., II, 132. Book IV of Primaleon of Greece. 
 
 The sixth Booke of the Myrrour of Knighthood. Being 
 the first Booke of the third Part. E. Allde for C. Burby, 
 
 1598. 4°. B.L. 
 
 Univ. Lib., Camb. Translated by R. P. from the Spanish of Pedro 
 de la Sierra, or Marco Martinez. 
 
 The Seventh Booke of the Myrrour of Knighthood. Being 
 the Second of the third Part. T. Purfoot for C. Burby, 1598. 
 4°. B.L. 
 
 B.M. The dedication is signed L. A. 
 
 The Second part of the Myrror oj Knighthood. T. Este, 
 1598. 4°. B.L. 
 
 Bodl. A reprint of the 1583 edition. 
 
 ^599 
 
 The history of the iiij sons of Aymon. Lie. to Thomas 
 
 Purfoot, Feb. 5, 1598-9. 
 Stat. Reg., Ill, 137. 
 
 The Last part of the ffowre sonns of Aymon. Lie. to 
 John Wolf, Feb. 22, 1598-9. 
 Stat. Reg., Ill, 139. 
 
 The Second part of the first Booke of the Myrrour of 
 
 Knighthood. T. Este, 1599. 4°. B.L. 
 
 B.M. Translated from the Spanish by R. P. The British Museum 
 contains an undated edition by East of The Third Part of the first booke, 
 
DURING THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE 45 
 
 which probably appeared about the same time. It is possible of course 
 that both of these impressions were reprints of earlier editions. In the 
 1583 edition of The Second part East had promised to bring out "with as 
 much speede as may be" the two intervening parts, namely, the second 
 and third of the first book. 
 
 The Eighth Booke of the Myrrour ot Knighthood. Being 
 the third or the third Part. T. Creede for C. Burby, 1599. 
 4°. B.L. 
 
 B.M. The dedication is signed L.A. 
 
 1601 
 
 The Ninth part of the Mirrour of Knight-hood. Being the 
 fourth Booke of the third part thereof. For C. Burble, 1601. 
 
 4°. B.L. 
 
 B.M.; Univ. Lib., Camb. 
 
 The Historic of Huon of Bordeaux. T. Purfoot, 1601. 
 4°. B.L. 
 
 B.M.; Bodl. Described on the title page as "Being now the Third 
 time imprinted, and the rude English corrected and amended." The 
 variants from the first edition are given by Lee in his E.E.T.S. reprint. 
 Purfoot's rights in Huon passed at his death to his son {Stat. Reg., Ill, 
 576)and in 1639 to Thomas Wright {Stat. Reg., IV, 454). 
 
 1602 
 
 The Third and last part of Palmerin of England. L 
 R[oberts] for William Leake, 1602. 4°. B.L. 
 
 B.M. A translation by Munday of Mambrino Roseo's Palmerino 
 d'Inghilterra, Part III (1558), an Italian continuation of the Spanish 
 Palmerin. No French version of this part is known. The license for The 
 Third Part is dated March 10, 1595 {Stat. Reg., II, 672). 
 
 1607 
 
 The A undent Historie of the destruction of Troy. T. 
 
 . Creede, 1607. 4°. B.L. 
 
 B.M. A reprint of Fiston's revision of The Recuyell. 
 
 The third Book of Primaleon of Greece. Lie. to Mistress 
 
 Burby, Oct. 6, 1607. 
 Stat. Reg., Ill, 360. 
 
 1609 
 
 The first parte of the Hystorye of Bon Silves de Silva. 
 
 Lie. to William White, May 29, 1609. 
 
 Stat. Reg., Ill, 410. The thirteenth book of Amadis in the French 
 translation. 
 
46 MEDIEVAL CHIVALRIC ROMANCE 
 
 The Fist Part of . . . Palmerin of England. T. Creede, 
 1609. 4°. B.L. 
 
 B.M. A reprint of Munday's translation. 
 
 1612 
 
 The most Famous and renowned Histoj-ie of . . . Mer- 
 vine, Sonne to . . . Oger the Dane. R. Blower and V. 
 Sims, 1612. 4°. B.L. 
 
 B.M. Translated from the French by I. M. ( = Gervase Markham?). 
 In the B.M. copy of this edition the second part is bound with the first in 
 continuous pagination. The Dedication of Part I, however, indicates 
 that that part originally appeared before its successor. See above under 
 1596. 
 
 1616 
 
 Palmerin of England. T. Creede and B. Alsop, 1616. 
 4°. B.L. 
 
 Private library; see Esdaile, 109. Contained Parts I and II. 
 
 Palmerin d'Oliva. T. C[reede] and R. A. for R. Higgen- 
 botham, 1616. 4°. B.L. 
 
 Private library; see Esdaile, 107. Contained the first and second 
 parts. 
 
 1617 
 
 The A undent H is tori e, of the destruction of Troy . . . 
 The fifth Edition. B. Alsop, 1617. 4°. B.L. 
 B.M. Piston's revision. 
 
 1618-1619 
 
 The Ancient^ Famous and Honourable History of Amadis 
 de Gaule. N. Okes, 1619 (Books I, II), 1618 (Books III, 
 IV). Fol. 
 
 B.M.; Newberry Library, Chicago. Contains the first four books, 
 I, III, and IV translated by Munday, II by Lazarus Pyott. No earlier 
 edition of the third and fourth books is known. In his dedication of the 
 Fourth Book Munday promised translations of Books V and VI. 
 
 1619 
 
 Primaleon of Greece. T. Snodham, 1619. 4°. B.L. 
 B.M. Contains the first three books, all in Munday's translation. 
 In the "Epistle Dedicatorie" of Book III Munday promised a version of 
 Book IV, a copy of which had recently come into his possession. 
 
DURING THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE 47 
 
 1620 
 
 Vienna: no art can cure this hart. N. Okes for John 
 Pyper, 1620. 4°. 
 
 Bodl. See Hazlitt, Handbook, 438. A new version by Matthew 
 
 Mainwaring. 
 
 162I 
 
 The Honour of True Love and Knighthood^ wherein are 
 storied the Noble atchievements of Sir Paris of Vienna and the 
 f aire Frincesse Vienna. B. Alsop, 1621. 4°. 
 
 See Hazlitt, Coll. and Notes, 318. Mainwaring's translation. 
 
 ca. 1628 
 
 Vienna. G. Percivall. 4°. 
 
 B.M. Mainwaring's translation. Licensed to Percivall on May 25, 
 1628 {Stat.Reg.,\Y, 198). 
 
 1634 
 
 The most Ancient and Famous History of the renowned 
 
 Frince Arthur King of Britaine. W. Stansby for I. Bloome, 
 1634. 4°. B.L. 
 
 B.M. A reprint of East's edition of 1 582-1 586, the rights to which 
 Stansby acquired in 1626 from Mistress Snodham, whose husband had 
 taken them in 1609 at East's death {Stat. Reg., Ill, 413; IV, 152-153). 
 For other evidence of the dependence of this edition upon East's see 
 Sommer, Le Morte Darthur, II, 16-17. 
 
 1636 
 
 The Auncient Historic., of the destruction of Troy . . . 
 The Sixth Edition. B. x-\lsop and T. Fawcet, 1636. 4°. 
 B.L. 
 Bodl. 
 
 Before 1637 
 
 Vienna. No Art Can Cure This Hart. For R. Hawkins. 
 
 Bodl. Mainwaring's translation. Hawkins was dead by June 12, 
 1637, for at that time his interest in Vienna was transferred at the request 
 of his widow to Mead and Meredith {Stat. Reg., IV, 420). 
 
 1637 
 
 Falmerin d'Oliva. B. Alsop and T. Fawcet, 1637. 4°. 
 B.L. 
 
 B.M. Parts I and II. 
 
48 MEDIEVAL CHIVALRIC ROMANCE 
 
 Valentine and Orson. T. Purfoot, 1637. 4°. B.L. 
 B.M. An abridgment of the version printed by De Worde and 
 Copland. The pubHsher was the son of the Thomas Purfoot to whom the 
 romance was licensed in 1586 {Stat. Reg., II, 453; III, 576). On Feb. i, 
 1638-9 the younger Purfoot's rights were assigned to Thomas Wright 
 (/•^/W., IV, 454). 
 
 1626-I 639 
 
 Syr Bevis of Hampton. William Stansby. 4°. 
 
 See Hazlitt, Handbook, 38. The date of this edition can be placed 
 only within the above limits. In 1626 Stansby acquired the right to 
 print Syr Bevis which had formerly been in the possession of Thomas 
 Snodham, to whom it had passed from Thomas East. In 1639 his right 
 was transferred at his death to Richard Bishop. See Stat. Reg., Ill, 
 413; IV, 152-153, 458-460. Not only do these facts throw light on the 
 date; they also show that the version printed by Stansby was a reprint of 
 that published by East. 
 
 The British Museum has an undated edition of Syr Bevis, printed by 
 C.W. for W. Lee, which the Catalogue dates "1620?" 
 
 1639 
 
 The First and Second Parts of Palmerin of England. 
 
 B. Alsop and T. Fawcet, 1639. 4°- ^-L- 
 B.M. 
 
 1639-1650 
 
 Sir Bevis of Hampton. Richard Bishop. 4°. 
 Bodl. See note under 1 626-1 639 above. Bishop printed until 1649- 
 1650. 
 
 II. 
 
 MODERN WORKS RELATING TO THE REPUTATION AND INFLUENCE 
 
 OF THE MEDIEVAL ROMANCES DURING THE ENGLISH 
 
 RENAISSANCE 
 
 / have omitted from this section of the bibliography all merely 
 general works such as the studies of the novel by Raleigh and 
 Jusserand, ''The Cambridge History of English Literature.,'' 
 etc., and all collections or editions of texts mentioned in their 
 appropriate places under section I. 
 
 Arber, Edward (ed,). The Register of the Stationers' Com- 
 pany, 1^^4-1640. 5 vols. London, 1 875-1 894. 
 
 Ayres, H. M. "The Faerie ^ueene and Jmis and Jmiloun.'* 
 Modern Language Notes, XXIII, 1908, 177. 
 
DURING THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE 49 
 
 Barwick, G. F. a Book bound for Mary ^ueen of Scots . . . 
 
 with Notes on other Books bearing ^ueen Mary's Insignia. 
 
 London, for the Bibliographical Society, 1901. 
 Baskervill, C. R. "An EHzabethan Eglamour Play." 
 
 Modern Philology, XIV, 1917,759-760. 
 Baskervill, C. R. "Some Evidence for Early Romantic 
 
 Plays in England." Modern Philology , XIV, 191 6, 229- 
 
 251,467-512. 
 Brie, Friedrich. "Roman und Drama in Zeitalter Shake- 
 
 speares." Jahrbuch der deutschen Shakespeare-Gesellschaft, 
 
 XLVIII, 1912, 125-147. 
 Brunhuber, K. Sir Philip Sidneys Arcadia und ihre Nach- 
 
 I'dufer. Niirenburg, 1903. 
 Claudin, a. Histoire de Vlmprimerie en France au XV^ 
 
 et auXVI^ silcle. 3 vols. Paris, 1 900-1 904. 
 Crane, R. S. "The Reading of an Elizabethan Youth." 
 
 Modern Philology, XI, 19 13, 269-271. 
 Crane, R. S. "The Vogue of Guy of Warwick from the Close of 
 
 the Middle Ages to the Romantic Revival." Publications 
 
 of the Modern Language Association, XXX, 191 5, 125-194. 
 D'EvELYN, Charlotte. "Sources of the Arthur Story in 
 
 Chester's Loves Martyr T Journal of English and Germanic 
 
 Philology,X\Y, 1915,75-88. 
 Ellison, L. M. The Early Romantic Drama at the English 
 
 Court. University of Chicago Dissertation. Menasha, 
 
 Wis., George Banta, 1917. 
 EsDAiLE, Arundell. A List of EngUsh Tales and Prose Roman- 
 ces Printed before 1740. London, for the Bibliographical 
 
 Society, 191 2. 
 
 Fletcher, J. B. "Huon of Burdeux and the Faerie Queene." 
 The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, II, 1898, 
 
 203-212. 
 
 Fletcher, R. H. The Arthurian Material in the Chronicles 
 especially those of Great Britain and France. [Harvard] 
 Studies and Notes, vol. X, 1906. 
 
 FuRNivALL, F. J. (ed.). Captain Cox's Ballads and Books. 
 London, Ballad Society, 1871. 
 
50 MEDIEVAL CHIVALRIC ROMANCE 
 
 Hall, E. A. "Spenser and Two Old French Grail Romances." 
 P.M.L.A., XXVIII, 1913, 539-554. 
 
 Hand-lists of Books Printed by London Printers^ i§oi-i^^6. 
 London, for the Bibliographical Society, 1913. 
 
 Hazlitt, W. C. Handbook to the Popular and Dramatic Litera- 
 ture of Great Britain. London, 1867. 
 
 KoEPPEL, E. "The Prince of the Burning Crowne and Pal- 
 merin d'Oliva." Archivfilr das Studium der neueren Sprach- 
 en und Literaturen^ C, 1898, 23-30. 
 
 KoEPPEL, E. "Reflexe der Ritter-Romane im Drama." 
 Ben Jonsons Wirkung auf zeitgenossische Di'amatickery 
 
 1906, 195-222. 
 
 KoEPPEL, E. "Spensers 'Blatant Beast.* " Jrchiv, XCV, 
 
 1893, 164-168. 
 Macarthur, J. R. "The Influence of Huon of Burdeux upon 
 
 the Fairie Oueene." Journal of English and Germanic 
 
 Philology^ IV, 1902, 215-238. 
 Maynadier, Howard. The Arthur of the English Poets. 
 
 Boston, 1907. 
 Murch, H. S. (ed.). The Knight of the Burning Pestle. Yale 
 
 Studies in English, XXXIII, 1908. 
 DE Perott, Joseph. "Beaumont and Fletcher and the 
 
 Mirrour of Knighthood.'' Modern Language Notes, XXII, 
 
 1907, 76-78. 
 
 DE Perott, Joseph. "Die Hirtendichtung des Feliciano de 
 
 Silva und Shakespeares Wintermarchen." Archiv, CXXX, 
 
 1913.53-56- 
 DE Perott, Joseph. "The Mirrour of Knighthood." The 
 
 Romanic Review, IV, 19 13, 397-402. 
 DE Perott, Joseph. "Robert Greenes Entlehnung aus dem 
 
 Ritter Spiegel.'' Englische Studien, Bd. 39, 1908, 308-309. 
 Plomer, H. R. "Books Mentioned in Wills." Transactions 
 
 of the Bibliographical Society, VII, 1902-1904, 99-121. 
 Plomer, H. R. "An Inventory of Wynkyn de Worde's House, 
 
 'The Sun in Fleet Street,' in 1553." The Library, Third 
 
 Series, VI, 191 5, 228-234. 
 Plomer, H. R. "The Lawsuits of Richard Pynson." 
 
 The Library, New Series, X, 1909, 1 15-133. 
 
DURING THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE 51 
 
 Plomer, H. R. "Some Elizabethan Book Sales." The Library y 
 Third Series, VII, 1916, 318-329. 
 
 Tatlock, J. S. P. "The Siege of Troy in Elizabethan Litera- 
 ture, Especially in Shakespeare and Heywood." P.M.L.A.j 
 XXX, 1915, 673-770. 
 
 Thomas, Henry. "The Palmerin Romances." Transactions 
 of the Bibliographical Society ^ XIII, 1913-1915, 97-144. 
 
 Thomas, Henry. "The Romance of Amadis of Gaul." Tran- 
 sactions of the Bibliographical Society^ XI, 1909-1911, 251- 
 
 TiEjE, A. J. "The Critical Heritage of Fiction in 1579." 
 
 Englische Studien, Bd. 47, 19 14, 415-448. 
 Walther, Marie. Malorys Einfluss auf Spensers Faerie 
 
 ^ueene. Eisleben, 1898. 
 Ward, H. L. D. Catalogue of Romances in the Department of 
 
 Manuscripts of the British Museum. 3 vols. London, 
 
 1883-1910. 
 Warton, Thomas. Observations on the Fairy ^ueen of Spenser. 
 
 New Edition. 2 vols. London, 1807. 
 
INDEX OF ROMANCES 
 
 Amadis de Gaule, n, i6, 17, 18, 19, Ipomedon, 5, n, 34 
 
 ai, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 29, 37, 42, Isumbras, Sir, 2, 5, 6, 10, 14, 33y 3^ 
 
 43', 45,' 46 Jason, 3, 5, 30, 31 
 
 Amis and Amiloun, 10 Jeast of Sir Gawain, 6, 34, 35, 36 
 
 Arthur of Little Britain, 6, 15, 20, Knight of Courtesy, 6, 38 
 
 37, 40 
 
 Awntyrs of Arthur, 2 Lamwell, Sir, 6, 36 
 
 Lancelot du Lake, 8, 1 1, 12 
 
 Bellianis, 16, 17, 19, 29, 44 ^, ,. ^ 
 
 Bevis of Hampton, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 1°, Mehadus, 24 
 
 12,13,14,18,19,^0,21,27,28, Melusme,!! 
 
 .9,3^,33,36,37,38,41,48 Merhn,2,7 
 
 Blanchardine and Eglantine, 3, 4, I5> f^''"'"'';^; '-V ' ', ,, ,, ,0 
 
 Mirror of Knighthood, 16, 17, 19, 
 
 ^^''^^' 22,24,25,26,39,40,44,45 
 
 Charles the Great 3, 9, 30 Morte Arthuie (metrical), 2, 7 
 
 T^ c- . A n o. 06 -JT Morte Darthur (Malory), 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 
 
 Degore, S,r 5, 6 9, 34, 36, 37 ^ ^ ,3_ ,„_ ,,_ 
 
 Degrevant, S,r, . 9' ^ ^^_ ^^_ ^3_ ^^_ ^^_ ^^^ ^^_ ^^^ 
 
 Eglamour, Sir, 2, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 14, 41^ ^y 
 
 25,^8,31,37,40 Octavian,2 
 
 Fierabras, 3, 30 Ogier le Danois, 8, 12 
 
 Floras and Blancheflour, 1 1 Oliver of Castile, 5, 13, I5> ^9, 3^, 
 
 Four Sons of Aymon, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 10, ^q 
 
 13, 15, 19, .0, 24, 25, 31, 32, 36, p^ii,dine of England, 16, 17, I9,4i 
 
 '^°' "^^ Palmendos, 17, 19, 4^ 
 
 Generides, 5, 7, n, 34, 3^ Palmerin d'Oliva, 16, 17, 19, 28, 41, 
 
 Gerileon of England, 16, 19, 39, 40, 44,46,47 
 
 42 Palmerin of England, 17, 24, 28, 29, 
 
 Graal, Conte du, 23, 27, 35 ^9, 4^, 43, 45, 4^, 48 
 
 Guy of Warwick, 5,6,7,8, 9, 10, 12, p^^jg ^^j Vienne, 3, 4, 5, 6, n, i5> 
 
 13, 14, 18, 19, 20, 24, 25, 26, 27, 24,28,31,33,34,41,47 
 
 28, 29, 31, 32, 38, 39 Parthenope, 1 1 
 
 ■^ Helyas, Knight of the Swan, 4, 5, Perceforest, 2, 25 
 
 6, 9, 32, 38 Perceval, Sir, 2 
 
 Huon of Bordeaux, 5, 7, ^3, ^5, ^9, Ponthus and Sidoma, 2, 4, 6, 10, 11, 
 
 20,25,27,35,39,45 i5,32,35>40 
 
 5^ 
 
DURING THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE 
 
 53 
 
 Primaleon of Greece, 17, 19, 22, 42, 
 
 43> 44> 45> 46 
 Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, 
 
 2j 3> 4, 6, 9, 10, 15, 24, 28, 30, 32, 
 
 35> 43^ 45> 46, 47 
 Richard Coeur de Lion, 5, 7, 9, 32, 
 
 33,3^ 
 Robert the Devil, 5, 10, 26, 34 
 
 Squire of Low Degree, 5, 6, 10, 20, 
 
 ^7, 33, 36, 38 
 Torrent of Portugal, 5, 34 
 Triamour, Sir, 5, 6, 34, 37 
 Tristram, Sir, 20, 23, 25 
 Valentine and Orson, 5, 6, 11, 15, 
 
 20,25,28,29,35,36,38,41,48 
 William of Palerne, 5, 12, 23 
 
14DAVS»«»*°^ 
 
 FROM 
 
 
 
 This 
 or 
 
 ,%y?"^2'' 
 
 (Q?i"78Bl 
 
 
RETURN CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT 
 TOh^ 202 Main Library 
 
 LOAN PERIOD 1 
 HOME USE 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 
 
 1 -month loans nnay be renewed by calling 642-3405 
 
 6-month loans may be recharged by bringing books to Circulation Desk 
 
 Renewals and recharges may be made 4 days prior to due date 
 
 DUE AS STAMPED BELOW 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 iN STACKS 
 
 
 
 : -: 1977 
 
 
 
 REC. CIK.AUB ?:'■ 77 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 FORM NO. DD 6, 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY 
 BERKELEY, CA 94720