The Age of Richard II

by James L. Gillespie (Editor)

An international group of distinguished medieval historians here offers a fresh appraisal of the diverse reputation which Richard left behind from the tyrannical opponent of the Peasants' Revolt, and the great literary patron of Chaucer and Gower, to the inventor of the handkerchief. While the focus is on political and legal topics, including Haxey's petition of 1397 and the Oxford trial of 1400, the essays look at such diverse themes as public health, foreign trade, courtly art, and religious foundations. Also probed are some less commonly examined aspects of the age, such as relations with other realms and the roles of chivalry and warfare in Ricardian kingship.

256 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1997

Reviews

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Age of Richard II is a collection of 11 essays relating, roughly speaking, to the reign of Richard II. These cover a wide range of topics from a couple directly related to Richard II’s style of kingship, to Anglo-Portugal relations, public health, St Antony’s Hospital, the narrative sources of Richard’s reign, the Lancastrian ‘SS’ collar and a couple of fairly neglected cases, such as the Oxford trials in 1400, dealing with the remnants of the Epiphany Rising.

To be perfectly frank, I found the vast majority of these to be dull and obscure, the result being I skimmed about half. Essays that I thought would be interesting turned out to be furphies – I was interested, for instance, in the Oxford trials but found that it was almost entirely composed of biographical sketches of the jury rather than who was on trial and what happened. The narrative sources of the reign is basically a history of the publication and translation of the chronicles relating to Richard II’s reign with almost nothing about Richard II or his chroniclers themselves.

However, James L. Gillespie’s two essays on facets of Richard II’s kingship are fascinating and must-reads for anyone wanting to look beyond the stereotypical views of Richard II. The essay about the Lancastrian collar of esses is fascinating, though there is never any real effort shown in trying to find its origins or the significance of the ‘S’.

[Mercedes Rochelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

I bought this book in essence "sight unseen", because there were no reviews on Amazon and only one line of description. I had hoped to discover some kind of Everyday Life of... or Life and Times of... or something about what's going on in the 14th century. I expected a coherent narrative by one author. This book is none of these things. What we get instead is a collection of academic treatises (complete with exhaustive footnotes) written by different contributors with no real theme tying them together. The articles are thorough explanations of relatively obscure subjects that the average reader wouldn't particularly care about. For instance, we have a whole paper on "Haxley's Case, 1397: The Petition and its Presenter Reconsidered". Haxley was Parliament's scapegoat for presenting a petition criticizing the king's household expenses. This could be informative but we get his whole life's story, which I don't really care about. Another article called "The Lancastrian Collar of Esses: Its Origins and Transformations Down the Centuries" is somewhat interesting, but not very helpful in studying Richard II. We do get some fairly useful articles like "Richard II: King of Battles?" or "Richard II: Chivalry and Kingship", but they are very dry reading and only for the truly interested. Some of the treatises are written better than others, but I didn't find any of them easy to read.
In all fairness, here are the chapters:
1. POLITICS, PROCEDURE AND THE 'NON-MINORITY OF EDWARD III: SOME COMPARISONS.
2. ANGLO-PORTUGESE RELATIONS IN THE 14TH CENTURY.
3. NARRATIVE SOURCES FOR THE REIGN OF RICHARD II.
4. RICHARD II, YORK, AND THE EVIDENCE OF THE KING'S ITINERARY.
5. HAXEY'S CASE...
6. RICHARD II: CHIVALRY AND KINGSHIP.
7. RICHARD II: KING OF BATTLES?
8. THE OXFORD TRIAL OF 1400: ROYAL POLITICS AND THE COUNTRY GENTRY.
9. THE LANCASTRIAN COLLAR OF ESSES...
10. THE REGULATION OF PUBLIC HEALTH IN LATE MEDIEVAL ENGLAND.
11. ST. ANTHONY'S HOSPOTAL, LONDON: A PARDONER-SUPPORTED ALIEN PRIORY, 1219-1461.
I stuck with it but didn't retain very much! Had I known what I was buying I would have given it a pass.