Akademik

(Worthies of the World)

   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.