The transmission, circulation, and reception of Thomas Hoccleve's 'The Regiment of Princes'

Thesis

This thesis offers a survey of the transmission, circulation, and reception of Thomas Hoccleve’s The Regiment of Princes in late-medieval England through its forty-four surviving manuscripts. Hocclevean studies have historically been author-centric, with exciting recent palaeographical and historical discoveries drawing interest to the author and his work. However, Hoccleve’s scribes are just as worthy of study. They leave behind a wealth of manuscript material from across the fifteenth century which has hitherto been overlooked. By shifting attention away from the author and toward the scribes, this study provides a materially grounded reception history that broadens our understanding of late-medieval literary culture.

The first chapter explores the textual foundation for this study by proposing a stemma that reveals patterns of genealogical descent, clarifies relationships between manuscripts, and sketches the poem’s early transmission. The second and third chapters turn to the textual make-up of Regiment manuscripts, focusing on paratexts and co-texts respectively. Chapters four and five examine the circulation of manuscripts among lay and ecclesiastical readers, drawing on evidence both internal (within the manuscripts) and external (calling upon a variety of documentary records) to study the poem’s early owners. The sixth chapter maps out the regional, institutional, and personal networks that drove the early transmission of the text, using sociocentric network analysis to uncover the literary communities that formed around the Regiment. 

These chapters reveal a sustained interest in Hoccleve and mirrors for princes shared across the ecclesiastic and governing classes of England. The Regiment was continuously re-interpreted and re-framed by its scribes and readers long after its composition. The success of the poem stems from Hoccleve’s engagingly personal style, his method (by compiling together numerous sources which in turn authorised his readers to do the same), and the inherent malleability of his moral lessons which left the text open to various types of reading.

Authors: Ross, CE

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-zgp9d246x
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: Regiment of Princes; manuscript studies; Hoccleve; codicology; medieval literature
• Subjects: Manuscripts; English; Literature, Medieval; Poetry, Medieval