Mark your calendars for the first Hoccleve at Home event of 2024:
Joyce Coleman (Oklahoma University)
“Hoccleve vs. Mowbray: Whose Book Is It?”
Monday, Feb 12, 2024
1pm Central (2pm Eastern, 7pm GMT) on Zoom
If you’re not on our mailing list, contact hocclevesociety@gmail.com for the link
Writing in 1994, Derek Pearsall suggested that, c. 1411-13, the future Henry V had commissioned Thomas Hoccleve to write The Regiment of Princes, and then to oversee the creation of copies to distribute among important courtiers, in “a concerted attempt … to cement relationships with possibly doubtful friends.”
Ten years earlier, however, Kate Harris had proposed that the arms in the initials under the famous presentation image and on ff. 1 and 71 of London, BL Arundel 38 were all linked to John Mowbray, the future duke of Norfolk—not to the prince and to Thomas FitzAlan, earl of Arundel, as had long been accepted. This discovery convinced some scholars that Mowbray had commissioned at least the Arundel manuscript, and that the kneeling presenter was Mowbray, not the author, Hoccleve. Alternatively, other scholars (and various online sites) claim that the image shows Henry presenting the book to the kneeling Mowbray. These theories have tended to overshadow Pearsall’s argument.
Prof. Coleman’s talk will re-examine this controversy, supporting Pearsall’s suggestions, and the kneeler’s authorial identity, via analysis of the layout of the presentation image and of the controversial pink gown.
Hoccleve Society 