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Arms of Clanvowe: *Paly of six or and azure, on a fess gules three mullets or*^[1]

Sir John Clanvowe (c. 1341–1391) was a Welsh diplomat, poet and chamber knight to Richard II. He was born to a Marcher family and was possibly of mixed Anglo-Welsh origin, holding lands that lay in the present-day Radnorshire district of Powys and in Herefordshire. ^[2]

Career

Clanvowe was born in Hergest, Herefordshire,^[a] and was a descendant of Hywel ap Meurig of Radnorshire.^[3] His royal career began in 1373 after passing into the service of Edward III, which was most likely due to his family connections with the monarchy after his father served as a squire for the same king's household.^[4] Clanvowe then built relations within the court of Edward III, most notably with William Neville, who also went on to be a chamber knight.^[5] It was in Richard II's reign however (1377-1399) that Clanvowe started to gain more political notoriety, becoming a chamber knight for the king in 1381, conveying the trust the monarch put in this particular knight.^[6] This role mainly involved maintaining and keeping the peace in his home county of Herefordshire, while also using his local following to increase the king's popularity.^[7]^[8] His role in the royal household ended in 1388 after being dismissed by Richard, however he was still politically active and was present in peace negotiations with France in 1389, resulting a three year truce.^[9] ^[10]

Outisde of the royal chamber Clanvowe was a personal friend of Geoffrey Chaucer.^[11]^[12] It is believed he was one of the first people to hear The Knight's Tale in its free standing form in 1380, before Chaucer incorporated this into The Canterbury Tales.^[13] Historian John Bowers has claimed that the main theme of The Knight's Tale was potentially written about the brotherhood and knightly love between Clanvowe and his companion Neville.^[14] In 1386 Clanvowe and Chaucer were both deponents in the Scrope v. Grosvenor case in the Court of Chivalry, in which Lord Scrope of Bolton and Sir Robert Grosvenor disputed over the right to bear a particular coat of arms. Chaucer and Clanvowe testified in favour of Scrope.^[15]

Clanvowe's death came 17 October 1391, venturing to Constantinople with his sworn companion William Neville, potentially on pilgrimage to the holy city. Neville died two days later (19 October 1391), apparently due to being inconsolable after the passing of his sworn companion Clanvowe.^[16] The pair were buried together in a joint tomb discovered in 1913 in Istanbul's Arap Mosque.^[17] Their tomb slab similarly suggests a very close relationship, with Neville's and Clanvowe's coats of arms on both shields impaling one another, a symbol usually reserved for married couples.^[18]

Militarily Career

The knight was most likely an apprentice of Humphrey Du Bohun, 7th Earl of Hereford, also from Herefordshire, and possibly joined the earl on crusade to Alexandria in 1365, where the city was famously sacked by the crusading party.^[19] Early in his career Clanvowe was involved in various military campaigns to France during The Hundred Years War, first being recorded as posted in Brittany in 1364.^[20] He later was involved in the 1373 and 1378 expeditions to France, both led by John of Gaunt.^[21] In 1390, Clanvowe enlisted on the Barbary Crusade led by Louis II, Duke of Bourbon against Tunis, for which traditional crusading indulgences were offered.^[22] This crusade ended with a peace treaty being agreed between the crusaders and the Muslim forces, after a nine week siege.^[23]

Religion

Sir John Clanvowe has been noted for his unorthodox and potentially heretical religious views. He was recorded by the English chronicler Thomas Walsingham as being one of the seven "lollard knights" in Richard II's reign.^[24] Despite this historians have debated the extent of Clanvowe's heretical views. Studying Clanvowe's devotional treatise "The Two Ways," McFarlane has argued that his heresy can be seen where the knight fails to discuss many parts of the English Church he would have rejected, for example the efficacy of the sacrament, and that Clanvowe's reliance on biblical texts in this work suggests he need no intermediary between him and God.^[25] Anne Hudson has however claimed that this work has nothing deriving from Wycliffe, and this treatise reflects Clanvowe's Puritanical views and not that of a heretic.^[26]

Works

Clanvowe mostly likely wrote The Two Ways, while on his expedition to Constantinople in 1391, and away from the authority of the English Church.^[27] In this work Clanvowe describes how one can follow the narrow way into heaven, and how to avoid the broad way into hell. It is here he condemns his own knightly class, claiming they (and other Christians) should live a meek life and avoid indulging in the pleasures of this world, for this can only lead to hell.^[28]

Clanvowe's best-known work however was The Book of Cupid, God of Love or The Cuckoo and the Nightingale, a 14th-century debate poem influenced by Chaucer's Parliament of Fowls. In the poem, the nightingale praises love, but the cuckoo mocks it for causing more trouble than joy. Staley has also claimed this poem can be seen as a criticism of elaborate courtly language in the reign of Richard II, with the nightingale complaining the cuckoo is too hard to understand.^[29] It is written as a literary dream vision and serves as an example of medieval debate poetry.

Clanvowe is first mentioned in modern times in the History of English Literature by F. S. Ellis in 1896. The Cuckoo and the Nightingale had previously been attributed to Chaucer, but the Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature notes the absence of direct evidence linking Clanvowe with the work.^[30]

Footnotes

^ There are two villages in Herefordshire called Hergest: Lower Hergest and Upper Hergest, It is unclear which was his birthplace.

References

^ Sir John Maclean and W. C. Heane, eds., The Visitation of the County of Gloucester Taken in the Year 1623 by Henry Chitty and John Phillipot as Deputies to William Camden Clarenceux King of Arms, etc, London, 1885, p. 130, pedigree of Poyntz, as quartered by Poyntz (mullets or "according to official record in the Heralds' College", footnote 1)
^ McFarlane, K.B. (1972). Lancastrian Kings and Lollard Knights. Clarendon Press. pp. 163–165, 231. McFarlane believed that his mother was a Talbot from the diocese of Hereford.
^ "CLANVOWE, Thomas (d. 1410), of Hergest and Yazor, Herefs". History of Parliament Online. The Institute of Historical Research. Retrieved 17 October 2020.
^ McFarlane, K.B (1972) p.163-5
^ McFarlane, K.B (1975) p.165-6
^ Scattergood, V.J. (1975). The Works of Sir John Clanvowe. Rowman and Littlefield. p. 26.
^ Hefferan, Matthew (2019). "Household knights, chamber knights and king's knights: the development of the royal knight in fourteenth-century England". Journal of Medieval History. 45 (1): 92. doi:10.1080/03044181.2018.1551811.
^ Scattergood. V.J (1975) p.26
^ Patterson, Lee (1992). Court Politics and the Invention of Literature: The Case of Sir John Clanvowe. In D. Aers (Ed.), Culture and History 1350-1600 (pp. 7-42). Wayne State University Press. p.12
^ Scattergood, V.J (1975) p.27
^ "Clanvowe, John". Encyclopaedia of Medieval Literature. Retrieved 17 October 2020.
^ Thomas Garbaty, Medieval English Literature (1984).
^ Bowers, J.M (2004). "Three Readings of The Knight's Tale: Sir John Clanvowe, Geoffrey Chaucer, and James I of Scotland". Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies. 34 (2): 279–280.
^ Bowers, J.M (2004) p.284
^ Edith Rickert, Chaucer's World (1962), p. 147.
^ Bowers, J.M (2004) p.283
^ Dull, S; Luttrell, A; Keen, M (1991). "Faithful Unto Death: The Tomb Slab of Sir William Neville and Sir John Clanvowe, Constantinople 1391". The Antiquaries Journal. 71 (1): 177–182.
^ Dull, S, Luttrell, A, & Keen M. (1991) p.183
^ Guard, Timothy (2013). Chivalry, Kingship and Crusade: The English Experience in the Fourteenth Century. Boydell & Brewer. p. 142.
^ Scattergood V.J (1975) p.25
^ Scattergood, V.J (1975) p.25
^ Guard, Timothy (2013) p.58
^ Housley, Norman (1992). The Later Crusades, 1274-1580: from Lyons to Alcazar. Oxford University Press. p. 286.
^ Walsingham, Thomas. (2005). The Chronica Maiora of Thomas Walsingham. (D. Preest, Trans.) Boydell Press. (Original work published 1422). p.250
^ McFarlane, K.B (1972) p.205
^ Hudson, Anne (1988). The Premature Reformation: Wycliffite Texts and Lollard History. Oxford University Press. p. 387.
^ Scattergood, V.J (2010). "The Date of Sir John Clanvowe's 'The Two Ways' and the 'Reinvention of Lollardy'". Medium Ævum. 79 (1): 117.
^ Clanvowe, John. (1975). The Two Ways. In J. Scattergood (Ed.), The Works of Sir John Clanvowe (pp. 55-80). Rowman and Littlefield. (Original work published 1391). p. 55,70
^ Staley, L (2000). "Gower, Richard II, Henry of Derby, and the Business of Making Culture". Speculum. 75 (1): 75.
^ Robert T. Lambdin, Laura C. Lambdin, Clanvowe, Sir John Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature (2000), pp. 104–105.