LYDGATE, JOHN (c. 1370—c. 1451), English poet, was born at the village of
Lydgate, some 6 or 7 m. from Newmarket. It is, however, with the Benedictine abbey
of Bury St Edmunds that he is chiefly associated. Probably he was educated at the
school attached to the monastery, and in his Testament he has drawn a lively picture
of himself as a typical orchard-robbing boy, who bad scant relish for matins, fought,
and threw creed and paternoster at the cock. He was ordained sub-deacon in 1389,
deacon in 1393,and priest in 1397. These dates are valuable as enabling us to fix
approximately’ the date of his birth, which must have occurred somewhere about
1370. Lydgate passed as a portent of learning, and, according to Bale, he pursued his
studies not only at both the English universities but in France and Italy. Koeppel (see
Laurents de Premierfait und John Lydgates Bearbeitungen von Boccaccios Dc
Casibus, Munich, 1885) has thrown much doubt on this statement as regards Italy, but
Lydgate knew France and visited Paris in an official capacity in 1426. Bale is also the
authority for another assertion that figures in what has been aptly termed the poet’s
“traditional biography,” viz, that Lydgate, on completing his own education, kept
school for ‘the sons of noblemen and gentlemen. This “traditional biography”
prolongs his life to the year 1461, but it is quite improbable that he lived many years
after 1446, when Abbot Curteys died and John Baret, treasurer of Bury, signed an
extant receipt for a pension which he shared with Lydgate, and which continued to be
paid till 1449. If it be true, as Bishop Alcock of Ely affirms, that Lydgate wrote a
poem on the loss of France and Gascony, it seems necessary to suppose that he lived
two years longer, and thus indications point to the year I 451, or thereabouts, as the
date of his death.
Lydgate had a consuming passion for literature, and it was probably that he might
indulge this taste more fully that in 1434 he retired from the priorate of Hatfield
Broadoak (or Hatfield Regis), to.which he had been appointed in June 1423.After
1390—bUt whilst he was still a young man—he made the acquaintance of Geoffrey
Chaucer, with whose son Thomas he was on terms of considerable intimacy. This
friendship appears to have decided Lydgate’s career, and in his Troy-book and
elsewhere are reverent and touching tributes to his “master.” The passages in question
do not exaggerate his obligations to the “ well of English.” The themes of all his more
ambitious poems can be traced to Chaucerian sources. The Story of Thebes, for
instance, was doubtless suggested by the “ romance which Cressida and her
companions are represented as reading when interrupted by Pandarus ( Troilus and
Cressida, II. xii.-xvi.). The Falls of Princes, again, is merely the Monk’s Tale “ writ
large.”
Lydgate is a most voluminous writer. The Falls of Princes alone comprises 7000
stanzas; and his authentic compositions reach the enormous total of 150,000 lines.
Cursed with such immoderate fluency Lydgate could not sustain himself at the highest
level of artistic excellence; and, though imbued with a sense of the essentials of
poetry, and eager to prove himself in its various manifestations, be stinted himself of
the self-discipline necessary to perfection of form. As the result the bulk of his
composition is wholly or comparatively rough-hewn. That he was capable of better
work than is suggested by his average accomplishment is shown by two ‘ allegorical
poems—the Complaint of the Black Knight and the Temple of Glass (once attributed
to Hawes). In these he reveals himself as a not unworthy successor of Chaucer, and
the pity of it is that he should have squandered his powers in a futile attempt to create
an entire literature. For a couple of centuries Lydgate’s reputation equalled, if it did
not surpass, that of his master. This was in a sense only natural, since he was the real
founder of the school of which Stephen Hawes was a distinguished ornament, and
which “held the field” in English letters during the long and dreary interval between
Chaucer and Spenser. One of the most obvious defects of this school is excessive
attachment to polysyllabic terms. Lydgate is not quite so great a sinner in this I
respect as are some of his successors, but his tendency cannot ,be mistaken, and John
Metham is amply justified in his censure— Eke John Lydgate, sometime monk of
Bury, His books indited with terms of rhetoric and half-changed Latin, with conceits
of poetry.
Pedantry was an inevitable effect of the early Renaissance. French literature passed
through the same phase, from which indeed it was later in emerging; and the ultimate
consequence was the enrichment of both languages. It must be conceded as no small
merit in Lydgate that, in an age of experiment he should have succeeded so often in
hitting the right word. Thomas Warton remarks on his lucidity. Since his writings are
read more easily than Chaucer’s, the inference is plain—that he was more effectual as
a maker of our present English. In spite of that, Lydgate is characteristically
medieval—medieval in his prolixity, his platitude, his want of judgment and his want
of taste; medieval also in his pessimism, his Mariolatry and his horror of death. These
attributes jarred on the sensitive Ritson, who racked his brains for contumelious
epithets such as “stupid and disgusting,” “cart-loads of rubbish,” &c.; and during the
greater part of the i8th and I9th centuries Lydgate’s reputation was at its lowest ebb.
Recent criticism has been far more impartial, and almost too much respect has been
paid to his attainments, especially in the matter of metre, though Lydgate himself,
with offensive light heartedness, admits his poor craftsmanship.
Lydgate’s most doughty and learned apologist is Dr Schick, whose preface to the
Temple of Glass embodies practically all that is known or conjectured concerning this
author, including the chronological order of his works. With the exception of the
Damage and Destruction in Realms—an account of Julius Caesar, his wars and his
death— they are all in verse and extremely multifarious—narrative, devotional
hagiological, philosophical and scientific, allegorical and moral, historical, satirical
and occasional. The Troy-book, undertaken at the command of Henry V., then prince
of Wales, dates from 14J2—142o; the Story of Thebes from 1420—1422; and the
Falls of Princes towards 1430. His latest work was Secreta Secretor’um or Secrets of
Old Philosophers, rhymed extracts from a pseudo-Aristotelian treatise. Lydgate
certainly possessed extraordinary versatility, whice enanied him to turn from
elaborate epics to quite popular poems like the Mumming at Hertford, A Ditty of
Women’s Horns and London Lick penny. The humour of this last is especially bright
and effective, but, unluckily for the author, the piece is believed to have been
retouched by some other hand. The longer efforts partake of the nature of translations
from sundry medieval compilations like those of Guido di Colonna and Boccaccio,
which are in Latin.
See publications of the Early English Text Society, especially the Temple of Glass,
edited by Dr Schick; Koeppel’s Lydgate’s Story of Thebes, eine Quellenuntersuchung
(Munich, 1884), and the same scholar’s Laurents de Premierfait und John Lydgates
Bearbeitungen von Boccaccios De Casibus Illustrium Virorum (Munich, 1885);
Warton’s History of English Poetry; Ritson’s Bibliotheca Anglo-Poetica; Furnivall’s
Political Poems (E. E. T. S.); and Sidney Lee’s article
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