London, British Library, Additional MS 59495 (previously known as the Trentham manuscript) is a trilingual manuscript of Gower’s verse that has long been associated with the earliest years of Henry IV’s reign. An inscription on the manuscript’s first leaf suggests that Gower had the book made for Henry “att <or before> his Coronation.” The laudatory Latin poems addressed to the new king in the manuscript would have been appropriate for such an event, but the manuscript was definitely completed after October 1399. Additional MS 59495 certainly includes verse that was written earlier: R. F. Yeager dates the Cinkante balades to the 1390s and the Traitié selonc les auctours pour essampler les amantz marietz before 1390. Critics now tend to agree that the manuscript’s only English poem provides the best evidence about the date of the manuscript as a whole, and Sebastian Sobecki makes a compelling case that “In Praise of Peace” and Additional MS 59495 were completed “between Henry IV’s coronation in October 1399 and his confirmation of the truce with France on 18 May 1400. The occasion for this poem and for the compilation of the Trentham manuscript was the prospect of imminent war with France in early 1400.” Once the truce with France had been signed, Sobecki argues, the manuscript was no longer relevant, and it remained with Gower at St Mary Overys. Although I agree with most of Sobecki’s argument, I nonetheless propose to reconsider his assertion that the truce “remov[ed] the need for Gower’s manuscript.” “In Praise of Peace” certainly expresses Gower’s concern about the war in France, but it also reveals his concern about division in the Church, which Gower identifies as the cause of the war, and the appearance of “mescreantz,” which he sees as a consequence of war and schism. The diction Gower uses when articulating these concerns suggests that he knew of the diplomacy that culminated in the Greek Emperor, Manuel II Palaeologus, arriving in England at the end of 1400 and staying until early 1401 in order to seek help for the defense of Constantinople against the Ottoman Turks.

This essay connects Gower’s discussion of “mescreantz” and schism to the plight of Constantinople and, ultimately, the Greek Emperor’s visit.