century Moralities is literature of the first rank, though both the
Castle of Perseverance and Pride of Life contain passages ringing
with a passionate sincerity that communicates itself to the
hearer or reader. But it was not until the beginning of the
16th century that a Morality of permanent human interest
appeared in Everyman, which, after all, is a translation from
the Dutch, as is clearly proved by the fact that in the two prayers
near the end of the play the Dutch has complicated but regular
stanzas, whereas the English has only irregularly rhymed
passages.
Besides the Mysteries and Moralities, the 15th century had also Miracle Plays, properly so called, dealing with the lives, martyrdoms and miracles of saints. As we know these only from records of their performance or their mere existence—no texts have been preserved to us, except the very curious Play of the Sacrament—it is impossible to speak of their literary or dramatic qualities. The Miracle Play as a form was, of course, not confined to the 15th century. Notwithstanding the assertions of historians of literature that it died out in England soon after its introduction at the beginning of the 12th century, its existence can be demonstrated from c. 1110 to the time of Shakespeare. But records seem to indicate that it flourished especially during this period of supposed barrenness.
What was the nature of the “Komedy of Troylous and Pandor” performed before Henry VIII. on the 6th of January 1516 we have no means of knowing. It is very early indeed to assume the influence of either classical or Italian drama, and although we have no records of similar plays from the 15th century, it must be remembered that our records are scanty, that the middle ages applied the dramatic method to all sorts of material, and that it is therefore not impossible that secular plays like this were performed at court at a much earlier date. The record at any rate does not indicate that it was a new type of play, and the Griselda story had been dramatized in France, Italy and the Netherlands before 1500.
That not much good prose was written in the 15th century is less surprising than that so little good verse was written. The technique of verse composition had been studied and mastered in the preceding age, as we have seen, but the technique of prose had apparently received no serious consideration. Indeed, it is doubtful if any one thought of prose as a possible medium of artistic expression. Chaucer apparently did not, in spite of the comparative excellence of his Preface to the Astrolabe and his occasional noteworthy successes with the difficulties of the philosophy of Boethius; Wycliffe is usually clumsy; and the translators of Mandeville, though they often give us passages of great charm, obviously were plain men who merely translated as best they could. There was, however, a comparatively large amount of prose written in the 15th century, mainly for religious or educational purposes, dealing with the same sorts of subjects that were dealt with in verse, and in some cases not distinguishable from the verse by any feature but the absence of rhyme. The vast body of this we must neglect; only five writers need be named: John Capgrave, Reginald Pecock, Sir John Fortescue, Caxton and Malory. Capgrave, the compiler of the first chronicle in English prose since the Conquest, wrote by preference in Latin; his English is a condescension to those who could not read Latin and has the qualities which belong to the talk of an earnest and sincere man of commonplace ability. Pecock and Fortescue are more important. Pecock (c. 1395–c. 1460) was a man of singularly acute and logical mind. He prided himself upon his dialectic skill and his faculty for discovering arguments that had been overlooked by others. His writings, therefore—or at least the Repressor—are excellent in general structure and arrangement, his ideas are presented clearly and simply, with few digressions or excrescences, and his sentences, though sometimes too long, are more like modern prose than any others before the age of Elizabeth. His style is lightened by frequent figures of speech, mostly illustrative, and really illustrative, of his ideas, while his intellectual ingenuity cannot fail to interest even those whom his prejudices and preconceptions repel. Fortescue, like Capgrave, wrote by preference in Latin, and, like Pecock, was philosophical and controversial. But his principal English work, the Difference between an Absolute and a Limited Monarchy, differs from Pecock’s in being rather a pleading than a logical argument, and the geniality and glowing patriotism of its author give it a far greater human interest.
No new era in literary composition was marked by the activity of William Caxton as translator and publisher, though the printing-press has, of course, changed fundamentally the problem of the dissemination and preservation of culture, and thereby ultimately affected literary production profoundly. But neither Caxton nor the writers whose works he printed produced anything new in form or spirit. His publications range over the whole field of 15th century literature, and no doubt he tried, as his quaint prefaces indicate, to direct the public taste to what was best among the works of the past, as when he printed and reprinted the Canterbury Tales, but among all his numerous publications not one is the herald of a new era. The only book of permanent interest as literature which he introduced to the world was the Morte Darthur of Sir Thomas Malory, and this is a compilation from older romances (see Arthurian Legend). It is, to be sure, the one book of permanent literary significance produced in England in the 15th century; it glows with the warmth and beauty of the old knight’s conception of chivalry and his love for the great deeds and great men of the visionary past, and it continually allures the reader by its fresh and vivid diction and by a syntax which, though sometimes faulty, has almost always a certain naïve charm; “thystorye (i.e. the history) of the sayd Arthur,” as Caxton long ago declared, “is so gloryous and shynyng, that he is stalled in the first place of the moost noble, beste and worthyest of the Crysten men”; it is not, however, as the first of a new species, but as the final flower of an old that this glorious and shining book retains its place in English literature.
Whatever may have been the effect of the wars and the growth of industrial life in England in withdrawing men of the best abilities from the pursuit of literature, neither these causes nor any other interfered with the activity of writers of lesser powers. The amount of writing is really astonishing, as is also its range. More than three hundred separate works (exclusive of the large number still ascribed to Lydgate and of the seventy printed by Caxton) have been made accessible by the Early English Text Society and other public or private presses, and it seems probable that an equal number remains as yet unpublished. No list of these writings can be given here, but it may not be unprofitable to indicate the range of interests by noting the classes of writing represented. The classification is necessarily rough, as some writings belong to more than one type. We may note, first, love poems, allegorical and unallegorical, narrative, didactic, lyrical and quasi-lyrical; poems autobiographical and exculpatory; poems of eulogy and appeal for aid; tales of entertainment or instruction, in prose and in verse; histories ancient and modern, and brief accounts of recent historical events, in prose and in verse; prose romances and metrical romances; legends and lives of saints, in prose and in verse; poems and prose works of religious meditation, devotion and controversy; treatises of religious instruction, in prose and in verse; ethical and philosophical treatises, and ethical and prudential treatises; treatises of government, of political economy, of foreign travel, of hygiene, of surgery, of alchemy, of heraldry, of hunting and hawking and fishing, of farming, of good manners, and of cooking and carving. Prosaic and intended merely to serve practical uses as many of these were, verse is the medium of expression as often as prose. Besides this large amount and variety of English compositions, it must be remembered that much was also written in Latin, and that Latin and French works of this and other centuries were read by the educated classes.
Although the intellectual and spiritual movement which we call the Italian Renaissance was not unknown in England in the 14th and 15th centuries, it is not strange that it exercised no perceptible influence upon English literature, except in the case of Chaucer. Chaucer was the only English man of letters before
