feast during war of the roses

Archbishop George Neville Serves a Magnificent Medieval Feast ~ A Guest Post by Lisa Graves

Archbishop George Neville Serves a Magnificent Medi... The Freelance History Writer welcomes Lisa Graves with an article about a medieval feast held during the Wars of the Roses in England. Lisa and her colleag... View on thefreelancehistorywrit... Preview by Yahoo

Thanks for the article on the archbishop's feast, Frederika. I'm glad to see that it contains no slurs against Richard (thought the sketch of him looks more like Edward!)

But your author makes one statement that I object to strenuously: "[Richard's] death in a 1485 battle drew to a close the Middle Ages in England."

How many times have we heard that assertion? Does it grate on anyone's nerves besides mine?

Yes, Bosworth was the last battle in which a king led his troops into battle, and perhaps Bosworth was the last gasp of chivalry (tournaments and heraldry excepted), and England's most notorious dynasty came into power, but Henry VII did not bring the Renaissance with him to England! To some extent, it had already arrived (the printing press, the occasional humanist scholar), and other aspects (revival of classical literature, the blossoming of poetry and drama, more realistic portrait painting, etc.) would have arrived in any case. Even if Elizabeth I could somehow be credited with Shakespeare's works, Henry VII had nothing to do with them. As for religious reformation (if we count that as part of the Renaissance), Henry VII was as much a "medieval" Catholic as Richard, and his son was a Catholic fanatic, violently opposing Martin Luther (as did Henry's friend, Sir Thomas More) until certain inconveniences regarding wives and heirs prompted him to make himself head of a new state church in 1536, fifty-one years after Richard's death.

What changed for England (as opposed to the Yorkists or those with Plantagenet blood--or, on the other side, for Henry's followers) when Richard died? They had a new king who marked himself as a tyrant immediately by attainting the followers of an anointed king. The reputation of the former king was blackened, his title to the crown burned and banned. Favorable propaganda helped support the shaky new crown, a few rebellions were put down, the real last battle of the "Wars of the Roses" was fought in 1487, but besides new taxes, Morton's Fork, and whatever other forms of tyranny Henry performed that caused Sir Thomas to celebrate his death with such enthusiasm, how was life different in Henty's England than in Richard's? True, Henry repealed Richard's statute banning "benevolences," but did that make him a Renaissance monarch? Yes, he protected himself and his regime by carefully avoiding the creation of "overmighty subjects," but did such actions make him an enlightened Renaissance king as opposed to an unenlightened Medieval one? I think people in general make too much of the Renaissance and too little of the so-called Middle Ages, but that aside, did anything of the glory that would attach to England in Elizabeth's time--at least as much a product of the times and the language as of the monarch--attach to Henry VII? How does the Renaissance magically begin as Richard dies on Bosworth Field and Henry seizes the crown to which he has so small a claim?

I have by no means done justice to this topic, but I just needed to sound off after hearing that assertion about the Middle Ages ending with one king's death one too many times.

Carol

Well said Carol! Can I add to your excellent summary the subject of music. Before Richard's death England was the most renowned producer of music composition in the world both religious and 'popular'. When Henry VIII destroyed the monasteries he destroyed the music and in fact much of the music which was claimed to come from the Tudor era came from the era before. If any of you get to listen to music by the York Waites you'll recognise some of it. And of course it was the Tudors who sponsored perhaps the greatest influencer of all - the printing press :) :) H
From: "justcarol67@... []" <>
To:
Sent: Monday, 1 August 2016, 21:02
Subject: End of the Middle Ages?

Thanks for the article on the archbishop's feast, Frederika. I'm glad to see that it contains no slurs against Richard (thought the sketch of him looks more like Edward!)

But your author makes one statement that I object to strenuously: "[Richard's] death in a 1485 battle drew to a close the Middle Ages in England."

How many times have we heard that assertion? Does it grate on anyone's nerves besides mine?

Yes, Bosworth was the last battle in which a king led his troops into battle, and perhaps Bosworth was the last gasp of chivalry (tournaments and heraldry excepted), and England's most notorious dynasty came into power, but Henry VII did not bring the Renaissance with him to England! To some extent, it had already arrived (the printing press, the occasional humanist scholar), and other aspects (revival of classical literature, the blossoming of poetry and drama, more realistic portrait painting, etc.) would have arrived in any case. Even if Elizabeth I could somehow be credited with Shakespeare's works, Henry VII had nothing to do with them. As for religious reformation (if we count that as part of the Renaissance), Henry VII was as much a "medieval" Catholic as Richard, and his son was a Catholic fanatic, violently opposing Martin Luther (as did Henry's friend, Sir Thomas More) until certain inconveniences regarding wives and heirs prompted him to make himself head of a new state church in 1536, fifty-one years after Richard's death.

What changed for England (as opposed to the Yorkists or those with Plantagenet blood--or, on the other side, for Henry's followers) when Richard died? They had a new king who marked himself as a tyrant immediately by attainting the followers of an anointed king. The reputation of the former king was blackened, his title to the crown burned and banned. Favorable propaganda helped support the shaky new crown, a few rebellions were put down, the real last battle of the "Wars of the Roses" was fought in 1487, but besides new taxes, Morton's Fork, and whatever other forms of tyranny Henry performed that caused Sir Thomas to celebrate his death with such enthusiasm, how was life different in Henty's England than in Richard's? True, Henry repealed Richard's statute banning "benevolences," but did that make him a Renaissance monarch? Yes, he protected himself and his regime by carefully avoiding the creation of "overmighty subjects," but did such actions make him an enlightened Renaissance king as opposed to an unenlightened Medieval one? I think people in general make too much of the Renaissance and too little of the so-called Middle Ages, but that aside, did anything of the glory that would attach to England in Elizabeth's time--at least as much a product of the times and the language as of the monarch--attach to Henry VII? How does the Renaissance magically begin as Richard dies on Bosworth Field and Henry seizes the crown to which he has so small a claim?

I have by no means done justice to this topic, but I just needed to sound off after hearing that assertion about the Middle Ages ending with one king's death one too many times.

Carol

Hilary..
Good old George...!
I did know that MB owned a home quite close to Croyland Abbey..the name escapes me at the moment , quite handy for meetings with Morton..but I didn't know she and George had owned Croyland...quite honestly I didn't know there was a town of Croyland..I had a picture in my head of the Abbey standing alone..in the middle of nowhere ..amongst the Fens..oh well...Eileen

Eileen,I think Morton spent most of Richard's reign in exile. He was imprisoned in Wales after the notorious council meeting and escaped to Flanders after the 1483 rebellion. He did not return until quite some time after Bosworth.
RegardsDavid


Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPad

On Tuesday, August 2, 2016, 13:19, cherryripe.eileenb@... [] <> wrote:

Hilary..

Good old George...!
I did know that MB owned a home quite close to Croyland Abbey..the name escapes me at the moment , quite handy for meetings with Morton..but I didn't know she and George had owned Croyland...quite honestly I didn't know there was a town of Croyland..I had a picture in my head of the Abbey standing alone..in the middle of nowhere ..amongst the Fens..oh well...Eileen

Never would have been too soon. From: mailto: Sent: Tuesday, August 02, 2016 2:34 PM To: Subject: Re: End of the Middle Ages?

Eileen, I think Morton spent most of Richard's reign in exile. He was imprisoned in Wales after the notorious council meeting and escaped to Flanders after the 1483 rebellion. He did not return until quite some time after Bosworth. Regards David

Carol, thank you for your contribution re the Middle ages ending with Richard's death. That statement certainly grates on my nerves each time it turns up again. One Author, I am sorry I don't know who it was, found the follwing answer:" as if Richard presonally had stammed himself against the approaching Renaissance."
People allways like to have fixed dates, which IMHO is riricious, for changes don't happen that way.
In Austria we learned at school that the Renaissance began with the discovery of the New World in 1492.
another arbitrary date. The Renaissance came from Italy and was in full bloom there long before it reached the
rest of Europe.
On the other hand the burning of countless "witches", that happened in the 16. century is commonly seen as typically medieval. It semms neither the "Dark Ages" nor Richard can ever win.

Eva