The Squire of Low Degree
Encyclopedia
The Squire of Low Degree, also known as The Squyr of Lowe Degre, The Sqyr of Lowe Degre or The Sqyr of Lowe Degree, is an anonymous late Middle English
or early Modern English
verse romance
. There is little doubt that it was intended to be enjoyed by the masses rather than the wealthy or aristocratic sections of society, and, perhaps in consequence of this, it was one of the better-known of the English romances during the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras, and again in the 19th century. There are three texts of the poem: it was printed by Wynkyn de Worde
c. 1520 under the title Undo Youre Dore, though only fragments totalling 180 lines survive of this book; around 1555 or 1560 another edition in 1132 lines was produced by William Copland; and a much shorter version, thought to have been orally transmitted, was copied into Bishop Percy's Folio Manuscript
around the middle of the 17th century. The precise date of the poem is unknown, estimates varying from 1440 to 1520, but Henry Bradley
's date of c. 1475 has been quite widely adopted. Standing as it does at the very end of the English Middle Ages it has been called "a swan song of the romance".
After seven years of undeclared love the squire opens his heart to the princess. She replies that she loves him, but that as a mere squire he will have to prove himself by fighting his way to Jerusalem and laying his sword on the Holy Sepulchre
. Only this, she believes, will be enough to convince her father that they should marry. Their conversation is overheard by the king's steward, who steals off to the king to report it, and adds the malicious lie that the squire has made an attempt on the princess's virtue. The king has a good opinion of the squire and is reluctant to believe this, but tells the steward to watch the princess's room closely to see whether the squire will visit her. The squire now goes to the king to ask his leave to go abroad adventuring. On being given this permission the squire sets out, but turns aside from his way to visit the princess's chamber and make his farewells. There, finding the steward and a numerous body of men-at-arms lying in wait for him, he asks the princess to let him in.
But she, as a virtuous unmarried lady, turns him from her door and tells him to win her in marriage. Now the steward and his men approach the chamber to take the squire prisoner. Though he resists to such good effect that the steward is killed, the squire is finally taken prisoner by the steward's men. These men mutilate the dead steward's face, dress him in the squire's clothes, and leave him at the princess's door hoping she will mistake him for the squire. The princess is taken in by this trick, embalms the body of the dead steward and keeps it in a tomb by her bed. Meanwhile the squire is taken to the king, who imprisons him. Finally, finding that his daughter is inconsolable, the king releases the squire and allows him to go abroad.
Having done all this he returns to Hungary. Here the princess, still lamenting her supposedly dead lover, has decided to retire from the world:
Her father now belatedly tells her that she has been mourning the steward, and that the squire has returned from Jerusalem. He gives the lovers his blessing, and they marry.
, Beaumont and Fletcher
, and other Elizabethan writers – Shakespeare
, for example, alludes to the poem when, in Henry V
, Act V, sc. i, Fluellen
says "You called me yesterday mountain-squire, but I will make you to-day a squire of low degree" – but as the 17th century advanced the poem fell into neglect. In the mid-18th century Thomas Percy acquired the famous Folio Manuscript
, with its version of The Squire of Low Degree, and came to the mistaken conclusion that the poem was one of the romances satirised by Chaucer
in his "Tale of Sir Thopas
", and must therefore have been written in the 14th century. He communicated these opinions together with an extract from The Squire of Low Degree to his friend Thomas Warton
, who included them in the 1762 edition of his Observations on the Fairy Queen of Spenser. Percy planned to edit The Squire as part of a proposed collection of Ancient English and Scottish Poems, but this plan fell through, and it was left to the medievalist Joseph Ritson
to make the Copland text available to general readers in 1802 in his Ancient Engleish Metrical Romanceës [sic]. Walter Scott
refers to the poem in several of his novels, and it particularly influences his Quentin Durward
and The Fair Maid of Perth
, in each of which the hero finds himself in a situation so parallel to that of the squire that he cannot help identifying with him. Thomas Love Peacock
and George Eliot
both used quotations from The Squire as epigraphs – to chapter 3 of Crotchet Castle
and chapter 62 of Middlemarch
respectively. The bibliographer William Carew Hazlitt
produced another edition of the Copland text in his Remains of the Early Popular Poetry of England (1864–1866), and shortly afterwards the Folio MS text was published for the first time by John W. Hales and Frederick J. Furnivall
in their edition of Bishop Percy's Folio Manuscript (1867–1868). James Russell Lowell
wrote that the romance "Has passages that are unsurpassed in simple beauty by anything in our earlier poetry." William Edward Mead, in his standard edition of the romance, published in 1904, expressed an opinion closer to that of most modern critics when he said that
Middle English
Middle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....
or early Modern English
Early Modern English
Early Modern English is the stage of the English language used from about the end of the Middle English period to 1650. Thus, the first edition of the King James Bible and the works of William Shakespeare both belong to the late phase of Early Modern English...
verse romance
Romance (genre)
As a literary genre of high culture, romance or chivalric romance is a style of heroic prose and verse narrative that was popular in the aristocratic circles of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a knight errant portrayed as...
. There is little doubt that it was intended to be enjoyed by the masses rather than the wealthy or aristocratic sections of society, and, perhaps in consequence of this, it was one of the better-known of the English romances during the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras, and again in the 19th century. There are three texts of the poem: it was printed by Wynkyn de Worde
Wynkyn de Worde
Wynkyn de Worde was a printer and publisher in London known for his work with William Caxton, and is recognized as the first to popularize the products of the printing press in England....
c. 1520 under the title Undo Youre Dore, though only fragments totalling 180 lines survive of this book; around 1555 or 1560 another edition in 1132 lines was produced by William Copland; and a much shorter version, thought to have been orally transmitted, was copied into Bishop Percy's Folio Manuscript
Percy Folio
The Percy Folio is a folio book of English ballads used by Thomas Percy to compile his Reliques of Ancient Poetry. Although the manuscript itself was compiled in the 17th century, some of its material goes back well into the 12th century...
around the middle of the 17th century. The precise date of the poem is unknown, estimates varying from 1440 to 1520, but Henry Bradley
Henry Bradley
Henry Bradley was a British philologist and lexicographer who succeeded James Murray as senior editor of the Oxford English Dictionary .-Early life:...
's date of c. 1475 has been quite widely adopted. Standing as it does at the very end of the English Middle Ages it has been called "a swan song of the romance".
Synopsis
It was a squyer of lowe degré
That loved the kings doughter of HungréHungaryHungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
.
After seven years of undeclared love the squire opens his heart to the princess. She replies that she loves him, but that as a mere squire he will have to prove himself by fighting his way to Jerusalem and laying his sword on the Holy Sepulchre
Church of the Holy Sepulchre
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, also called the Church of the Resurrection by Eastern Christians, is a church within the walled Old City of Jerusalem. It is a few steps away from the Muristan....
. Only this, she believes, will be enough to convince her father that they should marry. Their conversation is overheard by the king's steward, who steals off to the king to report it, and adds the malicious lie that the squire has made an attempt on the princess's virtue. The king has a good opinion of the squire and is reluctant to believe this, but tells the steward to watch the princess's room closely to see whether the squire will visit her. The squire now goes to the king to ask his leave to go abroad adventuring. On being given this permission the squire sets out, but turns aside from his way to visit the princess's chamber and make his farewells. There, finding the steward and a numerous body of men-at-arms lying in wait for him, he asks the princess to let him in.
Anone he sayde: "Your dore undo!
Undo," he sayde, "nowe, fayre lady!
I am beset with many a spy.
Lady as whyte as whales bone,
There are thyrty agaynst me one."
But she, as a virtuous unmarried lady, turns him from her door and tells him to win her in marriage. Now the steward and his men approach the chamber to take the squire prisoner. Though he resists to such good effect that the steward is killed, the squire is finally taken prisoner by the steward's men. These men mutilate the dead steward's face, dress him in the squire's clothes, and leave him at the princess's door hoping she will mistake him for the squire. The princess is taken in by this trick, embalms the body of the dead steward and keeps it in a tomb by her bed. Meanwhile the squire is taken to the king, who imprisons him. Finally, finding that his daughter is inconsolable, the king releases the squire and allows him to go abroad.
Anone the squyer passed the se.
In TuskayneTuscanyTuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....
and in LumbardyLombardyLombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe...
,
There he dyd great chyvalry.
In PortyngalePortugalPortugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
nor yet in SpayneSpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
,
There myght no man stand hym agayne;
And where that ever that knyght gan fare,
The worshyp with hym away he bare.
And thus he travayled seven yere
In many a land bothe farre and nere,
Tyll on a day he thought hym tho
Unto the sepulture for to go.
And there he made his offerynge soone,
Right as the kinges doughter bad him don.
Having done all this he returns to Hungary. Here the princess, still lamenting her supposedly dead lover, has decided to retire from the world:
And, squyer, for the love of thee,
Fy on this worldes vanyté!
Farewell golde pure and fyne;
Farewell velvet and satyne;
Farewell castelles and maners also;
Farewell huntynge and hawkynge to;
Farewell revell, myrthe, and play;
Farewell pleasure and garmentes gay;
Farewell perle and precyous stone;
Farewell my juielles everychone;
Farewell mantell and scarletScarlet (cloth)Scarlet was a type of fine and expensive woollen cloth common in Medieval England.The name derives from the Latin scarlata, from the Arabic siqillat "fine cloth" and that again from the Persian saqirlat. The weaving technique also had its origin in Central Asia, and made the cloth elastic by...
reedRedRed is any of a number of similar colors evoked by light consisting predominantly of the longest wavelengths of light discernible by the human eye, in the wavelength range of roughly 630–740 nm. Longer wavelengths than this are called infrared , and cannot be seen by the naked eye...
;
Farewell crowne unto my heed;
Farewell hawkes, and farewell hounde;
Farewell markesMark (money)Mark was a measure of weight mainly for gold and silver, commonly used throughout western Europe and often equivalent to 8 ounces. Considerable variations, however, occurred throughout the Middle Ages Mark (from a merging of three Teutonic/Germanic languages words, Latinized in 9th century...
and many a pounde;
Farewell huntynge at the hare;
Farewell harte and hynde for evermare.
Nowe wyll I take the mantell and the rynge,
And become an ancresseAnchoriteAnchorite denotes someone who, for religious reasons, withdraws from secular society so as to be able to lead an intensely prayer-oriented, ascetic, and—circumstances permitting—Eucharist-focused life...
in my lyvynge.
And yet I am a mayden for thee.
Her father now belatedly tells her that she has been mourning the steward, and that the squire has returned from Jerusalem. He gives the lovers his blessing, and they marry.
Reception
There are many references to the poem in the works of Edmund SpenserEdmund Spenser
Edmund Spenser was an English poet best known for The Faerie Queene, an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognised as one of the premier craftsmen of Modern English verse in its infancy, and one of the greatest poets in the English...
, Beaumont and Fletcher
Beaumont and Fletcher
Beaumont and Fletcher were the English dramatists Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, who collaborated in their writing during the reign of James I ....
, and other Elizabethan writers – Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
, for example, alludes to the poem when, in Henry V
Henry V (play)
Henry V is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to be written in approximately 1599. Its full titles are The Cronicle History of Henry the Fifth and The Life of Henry the Fifth...
, Act V, sc. i, Fluellen
Fluellen
Fluellen is a fictional character in the play Henry V by William Shakespeare. Fluellen is a Welsh Captain, a leader of a contingent of troops in the small army of the English King while on campaign in France during the Hundred Years' War.-The name:...
says "You called me yesterday mountain-squire, but I will make you to-day a squire of low degree" – but as the 17th century advanced the poem fell into neglect. In the mid-18th century Thomas Percy acquired the famous Folio Manuscript
Percy Folio
The Percy Folio is a folio book of English ballads used by Thomas Percy to compile his Reliques of Ancient Poetry. Although the manuscript itself was compiled in the 17th century, some of its material goes back well into the 12th century...
, with its version of The Squire of Low Degree, and came to the mistaken conclusion that the poem was one of the romances satirised by Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer , known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages and was the first poet to have been buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey...
in his "Tale of Sir Thopas
Chaucer's Tale of Sir Topas
Sir Thopas is a story in Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales published in 1387.In Canterbury Tales, there is a character named Geoffrey Chaucer. Chaucer's portrait of himself is unflattering and humble. He presents himself as a reticent, maladroit figure who can barely summon a tale to mind...
", and must therefore have been written in the 14th century. He communicated these opinions together with an extract from The Squire of Low Degree to his friend Thomas Warton
Thomas Warton
Thomas Warton was an English literary historian, critic, and poet. From 1785 to 1790 he was the Poet Laureate of England...
, who included them in the 1762 edition of his Observations on the Fairy Queen of Spenser. Percy planned to edit The Squire as part of a proposed collection of Ancient English and Scottish Poems, but this plan fell through, and it was left to the medievalist Joseph Ritson
Joseph Ritson
Joseph Ritson was an English antiquary.He was born at Stockton-on-Tees, of a Westmorland yeoman family. He was educated for the law, and settled in London as a conveyancer at the age of twenty-two. He devoted his spare time to literature, and in 1782 published an attack on Thomas Warton's History...
to make the Copland text available to general readers in 1802 in his Ancient Engleish Metrical Romanceës [sic]. Walter Scott
Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time....
refers to the poem in several of his novels, and it particularly influences his Quentin Durward
Quentin Durward
Quentin Durward is a historical novel by Walter Scott, first published in 1823. The story concerns a Scottish archer in the service of the French King Louis XI ....
and The Fair Maid of Perth
The Fair Maid of Perth
The Fair Maid of Perth is a novel by Sir Walter Scott. Inspired by the strange story of the Battle of the North Inch, it is set in Perth and other parts of Scotland around 1400....
, in each of which the hero finds himself in a situation so parallel to that of the squire that he cannot help identifying with him. Thomas Love Peacock
Thomas Love Peacock
Thomas Love Peacock was an English satirist and author.Peacock was a close friend of Percy Bysshe Shelley and they influenced each other's work...
and George Eliot
George Eliot
Mary Anne Evans , better known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, journalist and translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era...
both used quotations from The Squire as epigraphs – to chapter 3 of Crotchet Castle
Crotchet Castle
Crotchet Castle is the sixth novel by Thomas Love Peacock, first published in 1831.As in his earlier novel Headlong Hall, Peacock assembles a group of eccentrics, each with a single monomaniacal obsession, and derives humour and social satire from their various interactions and conversations.The...
and chapter 62 of Middlemarch
Middlemarch
Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life is a novel by George Eliot, the pen name of Mary Anne Evans, later Marian Evans. It is her seventh novel, begun in 1869 and then put aside during the final illness of Thornton Lewes, the son of her companion George Henry Lewes...
respectively. The bibliographer William Carew Hazlitt
William Carew Hazlitt
William Carew Hazlitt was an English bibliographer.The son of barrister and registrar William Hazlitt and grandson of essayist and critic William Hazlitt, Hazlitt was educated at the Merchant Taylors' School and was called to the bar of the Inner Temple in 1861...
produced another edition of the Copland text in his Remains of the Early Popular Poetry of England (1864–1866), and shortly afterwards the Folio MS text was published for the first time by John W. Hales and Frederick J. Furnivall
Frederick James Furnivall
Frederick James Furnivall , one of the co-creators of the Oxford English Dictionary , was an English philologist...
in their edition of Bishop Percy's Folio Manuscript (1867–1868). James Russell Lowell
James Russell Lowell
James Russell Lowell was an American Romantic poet, critic, editor, and diplomat. He is associated with the Fireside Poets, a group of New England writers who were among the first American poets who rivaled the popularity of British poets...
wrote that the romance "Has passages that are unsurpassed in simple beauty by anything in our earlier poetry." William Edward Mead, in his standard edition of the romance, published in 1904, expressed an opinion closer to that of most modern critics when he said that
We can praise The Squyr of Lowe Degre only with considerable reservations, and do not seek a place for it among the great creative poems of the world. But it is interesting, at times charming, and it more than holds its own among poems of its class.
Modern editions
- William Edward Mead (ed.) The Squyr of Lowe Degre Boston: Ginn, 1904. Reprinted Whitefish, Montana: Kessinger, 2007.
- Walter Hoyt French and Charles Brockway Hale (eds.) Middle English Metrical Romances New York: Prentice-Hall, 1930. Reprinted New York: Russell & Russell, 1964.
- Donald B. Sands (ed.) Middle English Verse Romances New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1966. Reprinted Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1986.
- Erik Kooper (ed.) Sentimental and Humorous Romances: Floris and Blancheflour, Sir Degrevant, the Squire of Low Degree, the Tournament of Tottenham, and the Feast of Tottenham Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2006.