Noble counsel in the age of Chaucer and Langland: Authority, dissent and the political community (Geoffrey Chaucer, William Langland)

This dissertation begins with the widely held premise that medieval political institutions were centered around a royal or noble household and characterized by their largely personal nature. The abilities of an effective king might magnify his power and influence. But the shortcomings of a weaker king such as England's Richard II (1377--1399) would all the more profoundly hinder his ability to rule. The irreducibly personal aspect of a king's authority and of the political advice he received, therefore, meant that a king and his advisors were under close and constant scrutiny. Considering these circumstances, the dissertation asks---"how might we describe the exact nature of the authority wielded by the king's advisors?"; The answer is sought in a number of sources, both conventional and less so. The first chapter begins with a look at the Furstenspiegel , or mirror for princes, genre. The chapter also considers the influence of Thomas Aquinas' delineation of a three-fold hierarchy of counsel-divine, noble, and common-which provides a useful framework for understanding the various criticisms of bad counsel and ineffective rule. The second chapter examines Merlin in his role as advisor, warrior, magician, and founder, focusing especially on two aspects of his role that would have a lasting influence on the notion of counsel---his embodiment of a noble ethos of generosity; and the deep and abiding nostalgia for it that he represents. The third chapter examines Ricardian political and legal texts, which, though largely critical, look toward the 'ideal' counsel imagined by the advice manuals. The fourth and final chapter examines consiliar thought in Ricardian literature, including the description of Chaucer's Knight, along with "The Merchant's Tale," the "Tale of Melibee," and the Alliterative Morte Arthure, as well as political poems, Langland's Piers Plowman, and Richard the Redeles.; The dissertation concludes that what we might call 'consiliar literature' is centered around a particularly compelling combination of aspects derived from the advice manuals and Arthurian literature. The conflict at the center of that literature---how to reconcile the personal demands of the king with the political demands of the community---resides ultimately in the noble ethos at its heart. The king's noble household turns out to be the center at once of what is imagined as the ideal embodiment of his authority, in its several aspects: the ethical, in his role as magnanimous lord; the political, in his role as ruler of the community; and the consiliar, in his role as the giver and receiver of ideal counsel. The persistence of that ideal suggests that if Langland and Chaucer are at all 'like' us, then it is by virtue not of their liberal stance (which may in any case be a moot question) but because of their still recognizably modern faith in traditional institutions.