Medieval monarchs feared political sorcery as a form of treason, but monarchs themselves were also accused of using magic, and several kings became intensely interested in the political and financial potential of occult traditions. Beginning in the twelfth century, rulers began to show interest in the political potential of astrological prognostications, although it was not until the fourteenth century that accusations of political sorcery first burst onto the scene in England. A succession of occult royal advisers, including Roger Bacon and George Ripley, attempted to assume the mantle of Merlin and counsel England’s kings, while Richard II went beyond other monarchs in defining himself as a royal magus. Medieval kings attempted to draw on occult knowledge for both warfare and financial aid in the Hundred Years’ War. Alchemists strove in vain to cure Henry VI of mental illness, while accusations of magic against the wife of Humphrey, duke of Gloucester destabilised the nation. During the Wars of the Roses, politically motivated accusations of sorcery played a key role in the rise of Richard III. The chapter highlights the ambiguity of magic and occult traditions in medieval politics, and their uses both positive and negative in the arts of politics.

During the Middle Ages, the iconography of Alexander the Great could be found in religious as well as lay environments. The diversity of illustrated media (mosaics and capitals as well as tapestries and manuscripts) in which his likeness was represented reflects the variety of appraisals assigned to him as a historical figure, from condemnation to admiration. The analysis of various manuscripts and artefacts illustrated with images of the Alexander saga show that the same story, written and illustrated in different contexts, allowed different and nuanced interpretations: historical, political, encyclopaedic, courteous etc. The figure of Alexander the Great was particularly used by medieval rulers to base their political claims and aspirations through an intentional remastering of classical sources and associated iconography.

For almost Chaucer’s whole life, England was at war. This chapter sets his own military career within the context of military activity. The principal conflict was between England and France (the Hundred Years War), with varying fortunes for both sides being revealed.It emphasises the significance of Scotland in this struggle, as the ally of France and thereby a thorn in the side of England. Large armies were sent to Scotland in 1385 and 1400. The heraldic dispute between Scrope and Grosvenor, in which Chaucer gave testimony, is linked to the 1385 expedition. The chapter also considers contemporary military organisation at the level of the army as a whole and of the individual soldier. It also looks briefly on the impact of war on politics and society in England.

This essay argues that Chaucer’s ‘English context’ cannot be divided from multiple other European and insular contexts. English as a language was the product of multiple waves of colonialism; England was a multilingual place; ‘English’ literature was heavily influenced by other literatures, especially literature written in Latin, French and Italian. It is traditional to assert that Chaucer mocked his English heritage through Sir Thopas, a pastiche of the popular ‘tail-rhyme’ genre. However, Chaucer was well aware of the variety and richness of English literary tradition. Manuscripts such as Auchinleck remind us of the many different things that English could do at this time, including estates satire, complaint and debate. Alliterative poems such as Pearl reveal contemporary poets’ ability to bring together diverse literary forms. Chaucer was exceptional not because he wrote in English but because of his unerring capacity to knit together multiple, interlinked, multilingual sources and traditions to create new things of wonder.

Thomas Hoccleve referred to Chaucer as the ‘firste fyndere of our faire langage’. The word fyndere is carefully chosen, as a modified translation of the first ‘canon’ of classical and medieval rhetoric, the ancestor of present-day English invention. Any assessment of Chaucer’s ‘poetic art’ requires us not just to identify the linguistic choices available to him, it also requires us to ask how those choices relate to his broader poetics. Chaucer’s use of ‘pronouns of power’, for example, do not only characterise particular choices from the linguistic resources of London Middle English, they are also a matter of style, a notion for which classical and medieval literary theoreticians had their own terminology, distinguishing high, middle and low styles, widely recognised as having distinct functions relating to social status and roles. It is conceivably as a metrist, however, that Chaucer’s skill as a ‘finder’ is perhaps most subtly demonstrated, as examples from his works show.

What is ‘heresy’? One answer would be, ‘that which orthodoxy condemns as such’; though we may also wish to consider when conscious dissent invites such a condemnation. The main ‘heresy’ in late medieval England was that usually termed Lollardy, understood to be inspired by the radical theological thought of John Wyclif (1328-1384), which among other things emphasised the overwhelmingly importance of Scripture, and of lay access to Scripture, through vernacular translation. Orthodox repression of heresy began in the late fourteenth century and developed in various ways in the fifteenth. There are small traces of these much wider battles in Chaucer’s oeuvre, but it would be very hard to say quite how he saw them. We might instead see the fluidity of attitude toward aspects of religion in Chaucer as a sign of his times. ‘Dissent’ can encompass more than that which is solidly decried as heresy, and ‘orthodoxy’ can turn out to be more than one mode of religious thought and expression.