A poet and disciple of CHAUCER, Thomas Hoccleve
is best known as the author of the Regement of
Princes (ca. 1409–12), a book of advice for Prince
Hal, the future King Henry V of England. Recently,
critics have been interested in Hoccleve’s candid
discussion of his mental breakdown of 1417, the
only such discourse in MIDDLE ENGLISH.
Perhaps Hoccleve received his name from
Hockliffe, a village in Bedfordshire where he may
have been born around 1368. He seems to have received a good education, and he says in one poem
that he sought to become a priest, but being unable
to receive a benefice, he opted to marry in about
1411. In another poem he speaks of leading a dissolute life as a youth, drinking, gambling, and
chasing women—a situation that seems to have
turned around with his marriage. Whether these
things are true or simply a part of Hoccleve’s poetic persona is impossible to determine. We do
know that at about the age of 19, Hoccleve became
a clerk in the Office of the Privy Seal, and that he
continued in that office for some 35 years. In 1399,
Hoccleve was granted an annuity of 10 pounds per
year for life, a grant that was increased to 20 marks
(something over 13 pounds) in May of 1409. Despite this income Hoccleve complains in a number of poems about his difficult financial situation.
Still records show that he was paid regularly on a
semiannual basis. He was also, at this point, at the
height of his literary career, beginning his composition of the Regiment of Princes.
Sometime around 1417, Hoccleve suffered an
emotional disorder, which he says made him lose
the substance of his memory. He never says how
long his illness lasted, but in his Complaint (1422),
he describes his efforts to readjust to normal life,
and tells of the actions of his friends, at the Privy
Seal and elsewhere, who mistrust his recovery and
try to avoid him. The last official references to
Hoccleve in government documents come in 1426,
and it is likely that he died shortly after that.
Hoccleve’s earliest poem, The Letter of Cupid
(1402), is based on a French poem by CHRISTINE DE
PIZAN called Epistre au Dieu d’Amours. Other
minor poems include a controversial Address to
Oldcastle (1415)—a poem supporting orthodoxy
against the LOLLARD heresy addressed to the famous Lollard knight (and eventually martyr) Sir
John Oldcastle; an admired poem in praise of the
virgin entitled The Mother of God; and a number of
“begging” poems, like The Balade to King Henry V
for Money, bewailing his financial straits.
Hoccleve’s major works begin with La Male
Règle (1406), a didactic poem in which he describes his misspent youth. The Regement of
Princes (1409–13) follows, describing do’s and
don’ts for rulers and addressed to Prince Henry.
Then, after his mental illness, appears a group
known as the “Series” poems (1422): These include
the aforementioned Complaint as well as the Dialogue with a Friend, Jereslaus Wife, Learn to Die,
and The Tale of Jonathas. These five poems are
linked by dialogues between a speaker and a friend
who gives literary advice.
For many readers Hoccleve is most important as
a follower of Chaucer. Indeed, the best-known passages of the Regement of Princes are Hoccleve’s
lament for Chaucer’s death and praise of Chaucer as
his “maister.” Particularly important is the portrait
of Chaucer that appears in the British Museum
Harley manuscript of the poem, which Hoccleve
says he has included so that people will not forget
what his master looked like. The Hoccleve portrait
seems to have been the model for all subsequent
portraits of Chaucer that have come down to us.
Whether Hoccleve actually knew Chaucer or simply
revered him as his greatest poetic predecessor is a
matter of some debate. However, Hoccleve clearly
uses Chaucer as the model for his verse. Most of his
poetry, including the Regement, is in Chaucerian
RHYME ROYAL stanzas. His first major work, La Male
Règle, is in eight-line stanzas rhyming ababbcbc—a
stanza form Chaucer invented for The MONK’S TALE.
Hoccleve alludes to The LEGEND OF GOOD WOMEN
in The Letter of Cupid and to The WIFE OF BATH’S
TALE in his Dialogue with a Friend.
Hoccleve’s poetry is generally regarded as conventional and uninspired. It is, however, quite representative of its time, and Hoccleve is important as
a link between Chaucer and his Tudor successors
such as Skelton. But for readers the most interesting aspects of Hoccleve’s poetry are his autobiographical passages, with his frank discussions of his
youthful transgressions and his ill health, which
make him an individual in the readers’ eyes.
Bibliography
Blyth, Charles R., ed. Thomas Hoccleve: The Regiment
of Princes. Kalamazoo: Western Michigan University for TEAMS, 1999.
Knapp, Ethan. The Bureaucratic Muse: Thomas Hoccleve and the Literature of Late Medieval England.
University Park: Pennsylvania State University
Press, 2001.
Mitchell, Jerome. Thomas Hoccleve: A Study in Early
Fifteenth-Century English Poetic. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1968.