that they were popular with audiences, writers seemed
to fi nd them embarrassingly archaic and condemned
them for celebrating violence. Some Protestants also
objected to the glorifi cation of Catholicism presented
in the medieval romances. Yet the chivalric elements,
such as the celebration of generosity, fi delity, piety,
appealed to 16th- and 17th-century writers and audi-
ences alike. Translations of Spanish romances and chi-
valric handbooks were particularly popular.
Renaissance romances were self-conscious reminis-
cences on the past. EDMUND SPENSER’s The FAERIE QUEENE
(1590–96), for example, resurrects a surreal landscape
of epic battles and virtuous knights challenged by
temptations of many kinds. That The Faerie Queene is
an allegory only serves to emphasize the otherworldli-
ness and unreality of the chivalric elements. SIR PHILIP
SIDNEY’s Arcadia is an even more traditional version of
a chivalric romance.
See also ARTHUR; CHIVALRIC OATHS; SIR GAWAIN AND
THE GREEN KNIGHT.
FURTHER READING
Aers, David. “ ‘In Arthurus day’: Community, Virtue, and
Individual Identity in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” In
Community, Gender, and Individual Identity: English Writing
1360–1430. London/New York: Routledge, 1988.
Field, Rosalind. “Romance in England, 1066–1400.” In The
Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature, edited by
David Wallace, 152–176. Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 1999.
Keen, Maurice. Chivalry. New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univer-
sity Press, 1984, 1987.
Lyons, Faith. “Aspects of the Knighting Ceremony.” In The
Medieval Alexander Legend and Romance Epic, edited by
Peter Noble, Lucie Polak, and Claire Isoz, 125–130. New
York: Kraus International, 1982.
Ramsey, Lee. Chivalric Romances: Popular Literature in Medi-
eval England. Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1983.
Candace Gregory-Abbott
CHRONICLE An early form of historical writing,
possibly associated with the annales of Latin classical
literature, the chronicle may consist simply of a record
of past events that sometimes mixes fact and legendary
fi ction (especially when the record stretches back for a
long period of time) or registers the passing of the years
by showing the annual changes in magistracies or com-
puting from the years in a king’s reign. Chronicles are
written in both verse and prose. If they deal with events
year by year, they are generally called annals; chroni-
cles tend to be more rhetorically polished, but the two
terms overlap.
Chronicles were very popular throughout medieval
and early modern European literature, especially in
Britain, as attested by the surviving number of manu-
scripts (nine pre-1400 C.E.; more than 100 dated
1400–75). Many chroniclers combined the duties of
secretary, councilor, diplomatic envoy, and historian,
and their activity was closely connected to royal or
church policy, even if they were not directly employed
by the Crown or by the ecclesiastical authority. Chron-
icles can also be read as a useful instrument for politi-
cal propaganda, and as such they met particular favor
in the late 15th and early 16th centuries.
Among the most famous examples of the genre, we
can cite the ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE, begun in the ninth
century and continued until 1154. Other well-known
examples include John Trevisa’s Polychronicon and
John Capgrave’s Chronicle of England, relating English
history until the year 1417. Some scholars consider
texts such as JOHN BARBOUR’s The BRUCE (1375) among
chronicles as well. Perhaps the most famous chronicle
is Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland
and Ireland (1577–87), from which WILLIAM SHAKE-
SPEARE drew much of his source material for his history
plays.
FURTHER READING
Hay, Denys. Annalists and Historians: Western Historiogra-
phy from the Eighth to the Eighteenth Centuries. London:
Methuen, 1977.
Alessandra PetrinaCLASSICAL TRADITION Allusions to and
incorporation of the themes, characters, and motifs of
classical Greek or Roman literature in medieval English
literature were limited to three primary areas: the Tro-
jan War (Matter of Troy), the stories of Alexander the
Great, and the founding of Rome (Matter of Rome). All
three areas were sometimes grouped together under116 CHRONICLE