The Nine Worthies were a group of historical and
legendary figures popular in the late Middle Ages
and Renaissance that became a common theme in
literature and in art. The Worthies were intended
to represent all aspects of the perfect chivalric
knight. Known as conquering heroes and powerful
warriors, as well as displaying the knightly virtues
of loyalty, integrity, generosity, etc., the Worthies
served as exemplars for contemporary knights
who, in the anachronistic view of their era, conceived of knighthood as an institution dating back
to ancient times. Thus as William CAXTON puts it
in the prologue to his edition of MALORY’s Le
MORTE DARTHUR (1485), the Worthies comprise
“three Paynims, three Jews, and three Christian
men.” The three pagans were Hector of Troy,
Alexander the Great, and Julius Caesar; the three
Jews were Joshua, King David, and Judas Maccabeus; and the three Christians were King
ARTHUR, CHARLEMAGNE, and Godfrey of Bouillon,
the leader and hero of the First Crusade, who was
credited with the conquest of Jerusalem.
This is the configuration proposed by the
Frenchman, Jean de Longuyon, in his Voeux du
Paon (Vows of the peacock, ca. 1312), the earliest
extant literary treatment of the Nine Worthies
theme, and the list remained quite standard—
whether in literature, painting, tapestries, stained
glass, sculpture, or woodcut—for hundreds of
years. Occasionally there was some variation. A
10th “Worthy” might be proposed: Some French
texts include Bernard du Guesclin, who was the
greatest French soldier of the 14th century and was
responsible for winning much of France back from
England in the Hundred Year’s War. But Gueslin
was never accepted outside of France itself. Occasionally substitutions are made: The ROMANCE hero
GUY OF WARWICK is substituted for Godfrey of
Bouillon in some configurations. In Love’s Labour’s
Lost (Act V, scene 2), Shakespeare includes Pompey
and Hercules among the Worthies, and in his incomplete list leaves off several others more commonly included. Sometimes, for the sake of
symmetry, a list of nine worthy women might also
be included, though there was never a standard list
of women as there was of men.
Most often the theme of the Nine Worthies was
used to demonstrate chivalric ideals as embodied
in these figures. The anonymous author of the late
14th-century MIDDLE ENGLISH poem The PARLIAMENT OF THE THREE AGES, however, uses the Worthies as examples of the transience of worldly glory
in the face of Fortune’s ever-turning wheel. The
French poet Eustache DESCHAMPS uses the Worthies, heroes of the past, to contrast with the degenerate, unchivalric present in a BALLADE written
in 1386. Caxton’s use of the tradition in his edition of Malory is not unlike Deschamps’s: In the
wake of the Wars of the Roses, Caxton points to the
noble deeds done in Arthur’s day and to the justice and virtue of his knights, and exhorts the readers of his own time to follow their example.
Bibliography
Caxton’s Malory. Edited with an introduction and
critical apparatus by James W. Spisak. Based on
work begun by the late William Matthews. With a
dictionary of names and places by Bert Dillon.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983.
Ginsberg, Warren, ed. Wynnere and Wastoure and the
Parlement of the Three Ages. Kalamazoo, Mich.:
Published for TEAMS by the Medieval Institute,
1992.