Thomas Pope Goodwine’s Most Pleasant History of Blanchadyne (1595): The Silent Revival of a Text by Caxton in the Late 16^th Century

Par Cécile Decaix
Publication en ligne le 10 février 2022

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Thomas Pope Goodwine’s Most Pleasant History of Blanchadyne (1595): The Silent Revival of a Text by Caxton in the Late 16th Century (version PDF) (application/pdf – 532k)

1In 1595, Thomas Pope Goodwine, of whom very little is known today, published his Most Pleasant History of Blanchardine, Sonne to the King of Friz; and the faire Lady Eglantine Queene of Tormaday, (surnamed) the proud Ladye in Love,1 a book which, according to Goodwine in his prologue, he translated out of a Latin text, “forcing him to speak rude English, which floweth with eloquence in Latin”.2 But Goodwine’s book is no translation: it is indeed a paraphrase of one of William Caxton’s late works, Blanchardyn and Englantine, printed in 1489.3 Caxton’s Blanchardyn and Eglantine is actually a translation of a 15^th century French medieval prose entitled Blancandin et l’Orgueilleuse d’amours,4 which in turn is a prosified version of a French poem of the same name dating back to the 13^th century.

2Generally speaking, the three versions (the French prose, Caxton’s translation and Goodwine’s paraphrase) share the same plot: Blanchardine, a young prince and son to the King of Frise, leaves his realm to go on a quest and become a knight. As he rides towards Tormaday, he falls in love with the Queen of that country, Eglantine, otherwise called “the Proud Lady in Love.” Tormaday is then besieged by Alimodes, a neighbouring king who also wants to marry Eglantine and decides to invade the city after she refuses. After a series of great feats of arms on the battlefield, Blanchardine eventually comes back, frees his beloved and marries her, and have a son together.

3Very little survives of Goodwine’s rewriting of Blanchardine: only one copy has survived. However, analysing this copy allows for a better understanding and evolution of printed romances, and for an exploration of how, almost a century later, an obscure writer used a translation by Caxton with the hope of achieving a commercial success in the wake of the Elizabethan neo-medievalist revival.

4Caxton’s translation of the French, medieval Blancandin and the political dimension that lies in the translation and printing of this text will first be analysed in part one. Part two will then present a study of Goodwine’s Blanchardine in its material form will inform us on the type of readership Goodwine may have targeted and on marketing strategies that were put in place in order to do so. Goodwine’s neo-medieval revival of Caxton’s text also calls for a refashioning of the 1489 Blanchardyn: part three will focus on how Goodwine adapted the text to adapt it to Elizabethan tastes. Finally, part four will explore how the two successive English versions enrich the French Blancandin through the interweaving of classical and mythological allusions, and in doing so invite a more proto-feminist reception of these classical and medieval texts.

I. Caxton’s revival of a French medieval romance

5From Caxton’s 1489 Blanchardyn to Goodwine’s 1595 Blanchardine, printing practices and marketing strategies evolved from political statements about the new Tudor dynasty to a neo-medieval revival of an updated French romance in translation. This section will analyse Caxton’s political choice of text in promoting the Tudor dynasty.

6Never reprinted by Caxton’s successors or other printers, Caxton’s Blanchardyn and Eglantine has come down to us in only one, imperfect copy kept at the John Rylands Library.5 If another leaf has also survived. His translation may have in fact been a hapax or unique copy, given the political context in which it was produced and published. Indeed, Caxton specifies in his prologue that he translated the French prose at the request of Margaret Beaufort, the mother of Henry VII:

[…] I, wyllyam caxton […] presente this lytyl book unto the noble grace of my said lady: which boke I late receyved in frenshe from her good grace, and her commaundement with alle / for to reduce and translate it in to our maternal and englyshe tongue / whiche boke I had longe to fore sold to my sayd lady, and knewe wel that the storye of hit was honeste and Joyfull to all vertuouse yong noble gentylmen and wymmen for to rede therin, as for their passe tyme […]. wherfore, at thynstaunce and requeste of my sayd lady, whiche I repute as for a commaundemente, I have reduced this sayd boke out of frenshe in to our englyshe.6

7Caxton explains in this passage that Beaufort asked him to translate the French version of Blanchardine from a French book he had sold her. Margaret Beaufort was a prominent literary patron during her life. In “Royal Tudor Women as Patrons and Curators,” Valery Schutte explains that Beaufort had strong connections to books and literary cultures and that she often purchased books in French and Latin in order to have them translated and printed.7 She also started commissioning books in the 1490s, when her son Henry Tudor came to the throne, and so the commissioning of such a work would likely have had an inherently political dimension.

8Caxton’s decision to present the book to Margaret Beaufort may have resulted from a double-meaning at the heart of the name “Eglantine”. If the word “Eglantine” explicitly refers to the Queen of Tormaday’s name, the allusion to the wild rose may also have been read by Caxton and his contemporaries as a reference to the symbol of England and of both Houses during the War of the Roses. According to Helen Cooper, the conquest of Tormaday and of Eglantine could even be read in line with the Battle of Bosworth (1485), as Henry Tudor became king and married Elizabeth of York.8 Though the character is already called Eglantine in the French prose, a very careful examination of the texts and comparative work9 reveals that the name “Eglantine” is used much more often in Caxton’s version than in the French version, thereby multiplying the references to the political context in which it was produced and promoting the nascent Tudor dynasty.

II. Reprinting a text by Caxton: Goodwine’s Blanchardine and Eglantine and editorial strategies

9Goodwine, in turn, offers a neo-medieval revival of an updated French romance in translation, as the Frenchified title even suggests. If only fragments of Caxton’s version have survived to present day, his English translation certainly lasted well into the 16^th century. Yet, the fact that Goodwine openly lies about the source text he used in his preface, whilst remaining so close to the original title and its general content, questions the popularity – or at least the circulation – of Caxton’s translation, as well as the use of various sources. In his Prologue, Goodwine explicitly alludes to his supposedly Latin source text:

But having imagined many waies to present you with the testimonie of my humble loove, and finding none either more agreeing to mine estat, or fitting for your worship then thisnew translation of this pleasant history out of Latin, which I have at idel times undertaken : whose stile, although it may seeme rude and barberous and unfitting your Worship, yet I doe not mistrut but the matter beeing both pithie and plesaunt will incite you to read it at your leasures.10

10As argued above, Caxton selected this text for its political potential, and he apparently adapted his translation according to the context of the time. Goodwine’s Blanchardine and Eglantine, however, was produced and published in entirely different circumstances. Comparing the two English versions in their material forms allows for a better understanding of how texts deemed minor were produced and emphasises how much printing practices had changed in the hundred years or so that separate them. When printing his Blanchardyn and Eglantine, Caxton translated, edited, printed, published and sold his text, taking on the five roles of book production at the time. In 1595, however, Goodwine acted as a translator/rewriter, but his Blanchardine and Eglantine was printed by Edward Allde (who printed works from more famous authors such as Shakespeare or Marlowe) and published by William Blackwall. Allde, who also printed works from popular authors such as William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe, was what R. B. McKerrow called a “trade printer” – printers who “printed mainly or entirely for others”.11 A large part of his output is described as “popular and ephemeral” by McKerrow,12 which seems to imply that Goodwine was looking for quick and short-lived success. An analysis of Goodwine’s Blanchardine in its material form supports this idea, starting with typefaces. Although the names of the characters are in italics and the chapter headings in Roman type, which, though by around 1590, had become the standard type, the actual narrative of Blanchardine is printed in black letter, which was still being used to print popular texts.13 The presence of blackletter may also have been an indicator of the type of readership that Goodwine targeted. Charles C. Mish argues that black letter, which was used to print chivalric romances at the time, was used to print texts that would attract a middle-class readership, such as chivalric romances. 14

11Second, Goodwine’s editorial choices, which were also completely different to Caxton’s times, undoubtedly reflect different marketing strategies. Indeed, Goodwine’s Blanchardine was divided into two parts, published separately in 1595. The serial nature of Goodwine’s text led him to adapt the contents of the narrative to this new format. As a consequence, the first part ends after Blanchardine, held prisoner, sails back to Tormaday and gets ready to resume fighting to free the city. He sends a letter to Eglantine and the narrative stops after a suspenseful episode and a closing remark that will spur his potential readers to buy and read the next instalment.

12The second part was also printed in 1595, although at a later date, and features Blanchardine delivering the city and its queen and their subsequent wedding. This section is missing in the incomplete Caxton copy that has survived, so the French text is used for comparative purposes, but it is fair to assume that Caxton would have followed the French source text as he did for the rest of the translation.15 In the French medieval prose manuscript then, the romance ends on the birth of Raimbault the Frison – Blanchardine and Eglantine’s son – and his feats of arms. The narrative specifies that “Raimbault”16 proved to be a successful knight, and the character is directly inserted into the historical and literary context of the time, as Raimbault fought next to Roland and the (fictitious) Oliver from the Song of Roland, the well-known French epic poem composed in the 11^th century. The French prose romance ends on Blanchardine’s and Eglantine’s deaths after a long and peaceful life, and does not seem to imply that any sequel would be published:

Ceste histoire ne touche plus avant du gouvernement du roy Blanchandin ne de la royne sa femme.
Sy finerons nostre histoire en priant au Pere, au Fil et au Saint Esperit que en la fin de nos jours nous veulle sa grace ottroyer. Amen.
Chy fine l’ystoire du tresvictorieux Blanchandin, roy de Frise et de Tournaday.17

13Goodwine picks up this reference to start a new instalment. He ends his second part on parallel weddings, with the couplings of Blanchardine and Eglantine, and Sadony and Beatrix. The concluding event sees Sadony’s father, a Muslim, attend his son’s wedding and eventually convert to Christianism. But contrary to the French poem, Goodwine explicitly states that he already intends to write a sequel to Blanchardine’s adventures, as he mentions a “second part” that “will serve for the finishing of all his tragedies”:

Thus Gentlemen, to satiffie [sic] your expectations, and performe my promise, I send you the second part of Blanchardines adventures: whose succes (if [sic] I finde as fortunate as his first, looke shortly, so soone as time and leasure will serve, for the finishing of all his Tragidies. FINIS.18

14This ending clearly announces the publication of the next instalment.

15Instead of ending Blanchardine’s epic tale on the birth of Raimbault, Goodwine uses this information to create – and this time, to actually write – a story almost from scratch. The sequel was indeed published two years later, in 1597. It was printed in London by G. Shaw this time, for William Blackwall.19 Though there are only eights leaves that remain (now kept at the Huntington Library), one can gather from the existing fragments that the first chapter narrates the birth of Raimbault that appears at the end of the French romance and, just like Blanchardine, his desire to go on a quest. The third chapter focuses on Raimbault sharing his desire to leave Tormaday and to perform his “part”: “I perceive that this worlde is but a weary stage, where every one must play his part, first for the honour of God, Secondly for the benefit of his Cuntrey, and lastly for the grace of himself”.20 The theatrum mundi metaphor, which echoes the idea of the world as a stage and the men and women merely actors,21 certainly implies that Goodwine made an effort to offer a contemporary version of a medieval romance, in keeping with a popular theme repeated not long after in Shakespeare’s As You Like It.

16Though little is known of Goodwine and his rewriting, the fact that three of his instalments were published seems to imply that Goodwine’s Blanchardine may have enjoyed a fair share of popularity. This reflects how much book production has evolved between 1490 and 1595, as a narrative printed in instalments had to be promising enough for its sequel to be published, which would necessarily have had an impact on the way the book was produced as well as on the way the narrative was written. Thus, in reviving Caxton’s never reprinted Blanchardyn, Goodwine turned what was originally a translation of a prosified medieval poem into a fashionable text that reflected the popularity of neo-medievalism at the close of the 16th century.

III. Rewriting Caxton’s Blanchardyn: Goodwine’s Blanchardine as a 16^th-century literary, fashionable text

17Several elements show that Blanchardine is typical of the 16^th-century literary production and displays features of a fashionable text. First, stylistically: if Goodwine pretends to be translating from a Latin text, his prose does not reflect it at all. Instead, the 1595 Blanchardine is an example of euphuism, a style that was particularly popular from the 1580s onwards. The style is particularly known for being used and elaborated in Lyly’s Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit (1578) and its sequel, Euphues and his England (1579). It is an emphatic style that includes a variety of literary figures such as alliterations, comparisons, parallelisms, puns, rhetorical questions, and references to historical characters or mythological figures.22

18One of the most striking examples occurs when Blanchardine secretly leaves the Kingdom of Frise. The French text very briefly mentions the grief that the king and more particularly the Queen experience when they realise that their son fled the country. The third chapter is entitled “Le .iij.^e chapitle parle du partment de Blanchendin. Du dueil que la royne en fist et de ce que Blanchendin emporta du roy son père”.23

19This short chapter does not expand on the Queen’s grief:

Nous le laisons tirer chemin et retournerons pour aider a plourer le dolent roy pour l’absence de son chier filz. Dieu scet qu’il faisoit grant doeil, mais trop plus la bonne reyne, qui ne cessoit de prier pour la prosperité de son trésamé filz.24

20Although it is explicitly mentioned that Blanchardine’s parents experience deep sorrow, and that the queen prays for Blanchardine’s good fortune, the narrator does not dwell on it.

21The corresponding passage in Caxton’s Blanchardyn is expanded: the discovery that Blanchardine has left is dramatized and the whole country deplores the young knight’s running away. The King and Queen both faint:

whan the good kyng and the quene understode the voyce of theym that the pyteouse tydynges brought unto theim there nys no tonge humayn that coude to yow recounte ne saye the grete sorow and lamentacion that they bothe togidre made / and so dyde al they that were wythinne for the grete love that they al had unto the Jovencel. But the lamentable sorowynge that the king and the quene made passed all other / for they were bothe fal in swone so that no lyf coude be perceved in theire bodyes […].The kynge and the quene after that had layen in a swoune a goode while came ayen to theyme self. And the kynge ascryed hym self ahyghe saynge. O rightbeloved sone the gladnes and Joye of myn herte who moved you to leve me / and to parte too. Certeynly I perceyve ni me the shortynge of my dolaunt and sorowfull lyff.25

22As the he couple’s grief is more developed in Caxton’s version, direct speech is even introduced. Both rulers faint and the King shares his sorrow with his people – and the reader. If Caxton’s version emphasises emotions, Goodwine’s takes it further, adding to the Queen’s sorrow. She delivers a euphuistic speech that reflects her distress:

But when a moneth was past and no tidings brought to the King of his sonne: Oh the pitiefull outcries and continuall laments that both the King, the Queene and all the Court made, was farre exceeding my capacitie to conceive and much more my pen to write: But the Quene (whose tender care of her only sonne was greater than the rest, upon the present returne of the posts) sounded with greif, and remaining in this extasie the space of an houre, at length comming to her self beganne her exclaimes in this sort. Oh ungentle heavens by whose mightie powers all terrestriall things are governed, what disasters do you continually heap upon Our heads? oh accursed nature that thus unnaturallye thou shouldest bereave mee of the joy of my soule, when my only solace rested in the happie sight of my Blanchardine: and thou accursed earth, why hast thou given him leave to walke on thee from the sight of his Parents, whose solace is turnd to sadnes, whose mirth to mourning, whose blisse to bale, whose happines to heavines, whose life to dismall death? But ah fond Woman, what boot these bootelesse teares, these uncoth passions, and tragicall complaints, when there rests no hope of recoverie?26

23This passage emphasises the Queen’s emotions and feelings, instead of that of the King’s as in Caxton’s version. Moreover, her speech is marked by rhetorical questions when she addresses nature and the heavens (“Oh ungentle heavens”; “oh accursed nature”). In addition, a series of parellelisms containing antithetic words stress the sudden switch from felicity to sadness (“whose solace is turnd to sadnes, whose mirth to mourning, whose blisse to bale, whose happines to heavines, whose life to dismall death”). Finally this truly euphuistic paragraph conveys a typical musicality: repetitions of the sound /s/ in “oh accursed nature that thus unnaturallye thou shouldest bereave mee of the joy of my soule, when my only solace rested in the happie sight of my Blanchardine”; use of alliterations in parallelisms (solace / sadness; mirth / mourning, bliss / bale, happiness / heaviness). All of these elements add balance and rhythm to the Queen’s complaint, further amplifying her distress.

24Second, there are compelling gender implications in the two English versions as the use of classical intertextuality illustrates. Both were published in the overarching context of the Querelle des Femmes – a European debate on the condition of women that stretched from the medieval Christine de Pisan into the 17^th century, and which is sometimes translated into English as the Battle of the Sexes. The very fact that Margaret Beaufort commissioned Caxton’s Blanchardyn immediately calls for attention.

25Caxton shares his interpretation of the romance with his readers in his prologue:

[I] knewe wel that the storye of hit was honeste and Joyefull to all vertuouse yong noble gentylmen and wymmen for to rede therin, as for their passe tyme; for under correction, in my Jugement / it is as reqesyte other whyse to rede in Auncyent hystoryes of noble fayttes and valiaunt actes of armes and warre, whiche have ben achieved in olde tyme of many noble prynces, lords, and knyghtes / as wel for to see and knowe their walyauntnes for to stande in the special grace and love of their ladyes, And in lykewyse for gentyl yonge ladyes and damoysellys, for to lerne to be stedfast and constaunt in their parte to theym that they ones have promised and agreed to suche as have putte their lyves ofte in Jeopardye for to playse theym to stande in grace, As it is to occupye theym and studye over moche in bokes of contemplacion.27

26If chivalric romances were often destined to provide an example to young princes, Caxton in this instance underlines the double nature of his Blanchardyn, which will also be useful to young ladies who can read “bokes of contemplacion”. He explains that feats of arms were a way for young princes and knights to impress and prove their worth to a lady, and that Blanchardyn provided codes and a pedagogical example to both men and women on how to behave in a courteous way, making battle scenes a part and parcel of courtly romance.

27Conversely, Goodwine dismissed most of the battle scenes, which shifted the impact on characterisation and the conception of love for Blanchardine and Eglantine. In Goodwine’s text, Eglantine is clearly a strategic stake for Blanchardine in order to control the city and the country. Goodwine’s disinterest in battle scenes and courtly love only reflects a tendency redefine the text in line with a more Elizabethan conception of love.

IV. Reviving a French medieval romance: Gender implications

28In both English versions, Virgilian and Ovidian references are interwoven with the French medieval romance, which reveals a more proto-feminist approach to the reception of the French Blancandin and its female characters.

29In part 2 chapter 8 of his rewriting, Blanchardine learns about the death of his friend Sadony and decides to leave Tormaday to help Sadony’s men resist against Alimodes. While, in Caxton’s version, Blanchardine and Eglantine kiss, Eglantine laments about his going, but he promises to return, Goodwine may have modelled here his key scene on Virgil’s sequence in Aeneid Book 4, which sees Aeneas leave Carthage causing Dido’s subsequent suicide. Goodwine rather narrates the lovers’ departure in the reverse order: when Blanchardine learns about Sadony’s death, he then decides to leave Tormaday. Unlike Dido, Eglantine, although reluctantly, encourages him to leave: “goe Blanchardine goe, and in your absence I will mourne, weepe, and wring my hands, (but withal) never cease to entreate the Gods for your speedy returne […]”.28 She then tries to keep him in Tormaday:

Thus this poore passionate Queene sometime with sighes, sometime with teares, solicited him to stay, but his brotherly care of Sadony farre exceeded the Queenes perswasions. So pacing lovingly with her into the Cittie, which he found most sumptuouslye adorned against his coming, he sported with his fayre Quene a day or two, till his shipping was in a readiness, and then with a warlike company of brave Cavaliers, he bent his course after the Pagan Alimodes.29

30The tone of the passage – the Queen’s lamenting, her being in a trance, the lovers walking in the sumptuous city – are reminiscent of Virgil’s epic tone. Afterwards, Blanchardine and his fleet go through a storm – which marked, in Virgil’s narrative, the beginning of Dido and Aeneas’ love affair in the famous cave.

31Goodwine also inserts Ovidian allusions to mythological figures in Eglantine’s speech:

[…] ah too true I finde, that the constellation of my starres, with the calculation of my nativitie, have still allotted me, with Ixion to be rolled on the tormenting wheele, dayly to turne the stone with Sisiphus, and for ever to fill the bottomlesse tubs with the daughters of Belus: the ashes of the olde Phenix ingender anew, and with me the end of one sorrowe is the beginning of another.30

32Eglantine makes references to Ixion and to the daughters of Belus, the Danaids who are destined to perform endless tasks. I find the mentions to Belus’ daughters and to Phoenix particularly interesting, as both echo William Caxton’s use of the figures in his Eneydos – his translation of Virgil’s Aeneid, which places great emphasis on the figure of Dido. I have argued elsewhere31 that Caxton’s Eneydos draws a specific and original link between Belus and Dido-as-Fenyce since he makes him her father, thereby associating her with the Danaids:

Oute of the whiche Fenyce and prosapye auncyenne | as it is to byleve by theyr wrytyngys | yssued a kynge named Belus | After the dethe of whome | one his sone named pygmaleon succeded hym | And obteyned the Royalme of the Fenyces. He hadde also a doughter named Elysse. whiche afterwarde was named dydo and was maryed to one named Acerbe.32

33Moreover, the positive image of the Pheonix rising from the ashes of its predecessor – or “engender[ing] anew”, in tune with Goodwine’s adaptation of the Aeneid Book 4, allows for a more positive representation of the figure of Dido than is usually presented.33 Indeed, instead of committing suicide, Eglantine lets Blanchardine leave and resists the subsequent siege of the city by her opponent. Goodwine thus uses a positive representation of the Queen of Carthage to bolster his 16^th century rewriting of Eglantine’s character – partaking, as my previous research argues, of the same mythological strategies as Caxton had used when he produced his own Eneydos. Thus, although he departs from Caxton’s Blanchardyn in several ways as he adapts his narrative to 16^th century tastes and interweaves episodes from different source texts, Goodwine is nevertheless faithful to Caxton’s translation strategies when it comes to using a more positive representation of female characters. Successive versions of the text therefore enrich the French medieval poem, which feature such classical or mythological intertexts or allusions. Caxton’s and Goodwine’s rewriting strategies successively add to the French text, shaping it to a social, political and/or literary context and reflecting a more proto-feminist understanding and reception of female figures in classical and medieval literature. If the French medieval romance is revived twice, in the 15^th and in the 16^th centuries, its “Renaissance” does not only correspond to a resurgence of the text – it is also a complete refashioning.

Conclusion

34Though much remains to be discovered from the translations of Blanchardine, a careful and comparative examination of three versions reveals new readings of each of these texts. A philological approach allows for a more comprehensive understanding of what Goodwine’s intentions may have been as he chose to rewrite and publish his Blanchardine, as well as of the readership for which he was writing. Studying this this non-canonical, 16^th century chivalric romance adapted from a translation by Caxton almost a century earlier also emphasises how one single text could be transmitted and reshaped to different contexts, different epochs, and different readerships. Using textual transmission and comparing Caxton’s fragmentary version with its source text as well as a later version of it also allows for a literary reconstruction of the lost fragments of Blanchardyn.

35The two English versions of Blanchardine are complex and fairly long narratives, which have long been overlooked. In this article, I chose to focus on some specific aspects – political, commercial, and social – in order to offer a broad vision of how Caxton’s output greatly impacted 16^th-century literary production, through the examination of what is deemed today as a minor text. Goodwine’s Blanchardine, while densely written, and deserves further study: rich with classical and medieval intertexts that Goodwine added and/or adapted, it also combines typical Elizabethan motives: the theatrum mundi metaphor, the use of euphuism, and pastoral elements, taking its cue from medieval themes and building it into a true Renaissance.

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