Alfred Thomas 
The Court of Richard II and Bohemian Culture 
Literature and Art in the Age of Chaucer and the Gawain Poet

First detailed exploration of the role played by Bohemian tradition and customs on the court of Richard II.


Bohemian culture exercised an important influence on the court of King Richard II, but it has been somewhat overlooked, with previous scholarship on its writers and artists generally confined to the role played by the French courtof King Charles V and the Italian city states of Milan and Florence. This book aims to fill that gap. It argues that Richard’s marriage to Anne of Bohemia, daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, one of the greatest rulersand patrons of the age, exposed England to the full extent of this international court culture. Ricardian writers, including Chaucer, Gower and the
Gawain-poet, wrote in their native language not because they felt ‘English’ in the modern national sense but because they aspired to be part of a burgeoning vernacular European culture stretching from Paris to Prague and from Brabant to Brandenburg; thus, one of the major periods of English literature can only be properly understood in relation to this larger European context.


ALFRED THOMAS is Professor of English at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Table of Content

Richard II and the Luxembourg Court

The Familiar Patron: Collaboration and Conflict in Chaucer and Late Medieval European Courtly Writing

Scandals at Court: Pride and Penitence in
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the
Alliterative Morte Arthur

Pearl in its Setting: Piety and Politics at the Luxembourg and Ricardian Courts

Conclusion: The End of the Ricardian Court Culture

Bibliography

About the author

ALFRED THOMAS is Professor of English at the University of Illinois at Chicago.