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Sir Thomas Berkeley and His Patronage

Sir Thomas Berkeley (the fourth Lord Berkeley of that name) has scarcely more than a liminal status among literary scholars and historians, even those who study fourteenth-century England. We may rather dimly remember him as an aristocratic spear carrier in Shakespeare's Richard II, a reflection of real activities known to historians. Or we may recall that he sponsored an extraordinarily prolific and important translator, the Cornishman John Trevisa.' But I think it arguable, in spite of a relative lack of documentation, that Thomas Berkeley is a figure of some importance. Scholars have always tended to assume that Ricardian provincial magnates were substantially involved in the creation of medieval English literary culture, perhaps particularly alliterative poetry (and secondarily Lollard polemic). But this putative activity, by and large, has resisted localization, and, in such a context, Berkeley's demonstrable literary interests may provide information useful in the reconstruction of magnate culture during this formative period. Moreover, the past lack of interest in the Berkeley evidence largely reflects standards imposed by a modern literary canon. Although Thomas Berkeley invested in literary activities to a degree unmatched in fourteenth-century England, his presence within the literary scene has generally been ignored, since he was primarily interested in literal prose translation. Such work, although not of great interest to most literary historians, has, of late, begun to appear a central magnate concern from the later fourteenth century through to the end of the Middle Ages. A sophisticated rural magnate's efforts at sponsoring such activities may thus redirect critical interest to a substantially ignored portion of the total literary scene. I intend to concentrate upon a very few of Thomas Berkeley's private relations, so far as these can be known. This task involves a considerable amount of inferential argument. The surviving Berkeley muniments are exceedingly fragmentary, the result initially of fifteenth-century disruptions,