Lydgate, John (c. 1371-c. 1449)

John Lydgate was a poet and monk of the Benedictine abbey of Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk, England. Adept at writing for a variety of patrons and purposes and in a wide range of styles, he penned short devotional lyrics as well as vast moralistic tomes running to tens of thousands of lines each. Although after the Protestant Reformation, his reputation waned, during the 15th century Lydgate was the most popular didactic poet in England. Some of his works survive in more late-medieval manuscript copies than even certain poems by Geoffrey Chaucer, whom modern readers generally consider to be Lydgate's superior as a poet. The longwinded didacticism of “the Monk [Page 795]of Bury” has left him open to the frequent charge of tediousness. This and the apparent irregularity of his meter (in comparison with Chaucer's) drew widespread critical disparagement from the 19th to well into the 20th century. In the context of discussions about time, however, Lydgate is interesting both because of his attitudes toward the history of civilizations and because of his place in the history of literature.

Born around 1371, the poet apparendy followed customary practice among medieval monks by taking his surname from his place of birth, in this case what is now the modern village of Lidgate in the county of Suffolk. He entered St. Edmund's Abbey as a teenager and was sent to the University of Oxford for further training in theology. Although he was a Benedictine monk, he spent plenty of time in the world outside the cloister and, because of his skill as a moralistic versifier, garnered the patronageessential to premodern poetsof some of the most illustrious figures of his day. These included Henry V (whom he evidently met at Oxford), Henry VI, and Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, among others; they were either the recipients of or the guiding influences behind some of Lydgate's longest productions. For example, The Troy Book (c. 1420–1422) addresses Henry V's victory over the French at Agincourt, while The Lives of Saints Edmund and Fremund was written to commemorate Henry VI's Christmastide sojourn at St. Edmund's in 1433–1434. The immense Fall of Princes (c. 1431–1439), Lydgate's longest work at over 36,000 lines, was commissioned by Duke Humphrey.

Both in his so-called courtly works, written for royal or aristocratic patrons, and in his less ambitious poems, Lydgate was chiefly concerned to praise God and his saints and remind his readers of their own dependence upon them. As creatures living out their lives in earthly time, Lydgate's readers were expected to conform their wills to Christ's in eternity and to prepare their souls for final judgment at his hands.

Until late in the 20th century, literary critics dazzled by Chaucer and other contemporary poets like William Langland and the anonymous (presumed) author of Pearl and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight found little to commend in the writings of a derivative, digression-prone moralist. Since the 1980s, however, scholars have returned to literary history with a keen interest in the relationship between writers and the sociopolitical conditions of their times. Much has been done of late to salvage modern understanding of his importance by situating Lydgate in the contexts of contemporary court politics and religious devotion.

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