Owing to the political, religious and social instabilities of 15th century England, poetry and other art forms suffered greatly. Although the carol attained its fullest development maybe because man seems to get very religious in times of great troubles or challenges, and the ballad was just rising.
Ballad according to the Webster dictionary is “a narrative composition in rhythmic verse suitable for singing.”
However because of the highly turbulent time of this period, we will look at what literary minds churned out.
First, the period under scrutiny
The late 15th/early 16th centuries, was a period of political, social and religious challenges in England. In 1485, King Henry VII (7th – Henry Tudor) defeated Richard III in the final battle of the War of the Roses, the Battle of Bosworth. He took the English throne, and married the daughter of the former king of England, Edward IV, who reigned before Richard III, and named Edward IV as his predecessor instead of the defeated and killed-in-battle Richard III, according to his promise that he would, in order to unite the families.
So, Henry the 7th married Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV, and they had a son named Arthur; a second son followed named, Henry who later succeeded his father as Henry the 8th.
Because war times are periods of instability, England really suffered during the civil war of the War of the Roses until Henry the 7th won the war and began to restore order and stability in the country. So, nothing great was happening in his days, and he eventually died of Tuberculosis after a 24-year reign.
His son, Henry the 8th took over, married his elder brother’s wife, Catherine of Aragon, a Spanish princess who on swearing that her marriage to Arthur, Prince of Wales (Henry the 7th older son), wasn’t consummated, got wedded to Henry the 8th. After some years, and because she was unable to produce a son, her husband wanted a divorce.
This would interest you. Until this time, England was under the Roman Catholic Church with Clement VII as Pope.
So, King Henry VIII wanted a divorce from Catherine of Aragon, but the Pope refused him consent. And the very glamorous king, decided not only to leave the Roman Catholic Church, but to pull the entire country out of Catholicism. He succeeded, got his divorce and married Anne Boleyn who also gave him a daughter (Queen Elizabeth 1) instead of an heir.
The king accused her of high treason (incest, witchcraft, adultery, superstition) and she was found guilty as charged by the judges and was beheaded.
The king married Jane Seymour who gave birth to the next king of England after his father, called Edward VI. But, Jane died after childbirth.
Well, King Henry the 8th wasn’t done at this time with marrying wives. The widowed king married Anne of Cleves who was said to be less pretty than her portrait, because she was chosen from a portrait. The king divorced her later.
The fifth wife of Henry the 8th was Catherine Howard who was later beheaded for same criminal offences as Anne of Boleyn.
The king’s sixth and last wife was yet another Catherine – this time, Catherine Parr – who outlived the king. In fact, Henry the 8th has an English rhyme that goes like this:
To six wives he was wedded
One died, one survived,
Two divorced, two beheaded.
Because of the king’s religious schism (taking England out of the Roman Catholic Church), the country suffered all manners of challenges, plus the social trauma brought by Henry the 8th’s unstable home affairs (at a point, no woman wanted to marry him – that was why he married Anne Cleves after he saw her portrait for she wasn’t living in the same place as the king, but when she came, he discovered that she was prettier on canvass than in person!).
The wealth left Henry 8th by his father dwindled. He left his country in great distress. His young son’s reign was no better.
Edward VI (Henry the 8th son) was very young and the country was administered by a regency council and marked by economic instability, social unrest, and riots and rebellion happened. Edward VI died young.
When the young King Edward VI died at 15, Mary Tudor (Queen Mary 1 of England), his half sister took over,and took England back to the Roman Catholic Church, and persecuted the Protestants – her reign was a time of greater troubles and challenges (in fact of terror) than her half brother, Edward’s reign,.
Mary Tudor (Queen Mary 1) was called Bloody Mary for the much blood she wasted, having about 300 people burned at the stake for their religious belief! (Protestantism)
Her younger half sister, Elizabeth was imprisoned on the suspicion that she was helping Protestant rebels. When Mary Tudor died, Elizabeth the First took over and brought England back to Protestant worship!
Owing to all the things we shared above, England under majority of the Tudor monarchs was neither prosperous nor stable. So, arts and culture did not flourish.
However, as I said earlier, the hymns and saintly arts found expression because the people suffered gross challenges in social, religious and economic life.
Literarily, the 15th century is looked upon as a stretch of plain in between the mountains of Chaucerian Age and the Elizabethan Golden Age of Literature.
The 15th century period is called The Tudor Age. Queen Elizabeth 1 was the last Tudor monarch. England’s intellectual and cultural development; Architecture, Visual Arts, Philosophy, suffered great decline at this time.
Poets of The Tudor Age are:
John Skelton 1460-1523
Robert Henryson 1425 – 1500
Stephen Hawes 1502 – 1523
John Audelay 1425 – 1426-1426, etc.
Some good things also happened during this period. The rising of the middle class, the depletion of the aristocrats, hunger to copy texts and study them by the middle class led to some general enlightenment.
William Caxton established England’s first printing press in 1476 and Johann Gutenberg invented movable type for printing press. This move radically and permanently changed the availability of literary works and the written text as the principal medium of poetic exchange.
The poets of the 15th century generally relied and imitated the 14th century masters like Chaucer and Gower. They did not exhibit the great qualities of the great traditional poets; their works were sententious, had rhetorical pomp aeration, that is the use of polysyllabic Latinism – they used allegories and dream visions but were poor at reproducing what they imitated.
Some of Stephen Hawes (1502 – 1523) poems are:
An Epitaph
The Pastime of Pleasure
The True Knight
The Passetyme of Pleasure is a lengthy allegory in seven lines of stanza reproducing man’s life in this world. This poem was printed in 1509, same year Henry the 8th ascended the throne. It tells of the life of a knight, Graunde Amoure. It reads:
2nd stanza
O erthe, on erthe it is a wonders cace
That thou arte blynde and wyll not the knowe.
Though upon erthe thou hast thy dwellynge-place.
Yet erthe at laste must nedes the overthrowe.
Thou thynkest the to be none erthe I trowe;
For yf thou dydest, thou woldest than apply
To forsake pleasure and to lerne to dy.