The representations about the royalty in the text The Governance of England of John Fortescue c. 1461 - c. 1471

• Grant number: 10/09767-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: February 01, 2011
• End date: December 31, 2011
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - Ancient and Medieval History
• Principal Investigator: Fabiano Fernandes
• Grantee: Wesley Corrêa
• Host Institution: Escola de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (EFLCH). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus Guarulhos. Guarulhos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This research intends to indentify the representations about the royalty in the Fifteenth England, in the period of Henry VI of Lancaster (king from 1422 to 1461 and from 1470 to 1471) - getting as the center line of analysis the writings and the life of Sir John Fortescue. Fortescue has a path so representative of men who got his social ascension in the use of writing and in serving the monarchical State in this time so disturbing of the middle Fifteenth. His closeness to the royal house, his cursus honorum and his writing to the dynastical propaganda are the aspects that will be emphasized in our considerations. Moreover, for his political closeness to Henry VI and for being part of the household, Fortescue became a "propagandist" with a distinguished perspective of other nobles less engaged to the house of Lancaster. The text "The Governance of England" was written in 1471 while Fortescue still was serving Henry VI, it tells about the diferences between the English and French government while it criticizes and urges a faith in a ideal system of govern. The text goes in a type of advice to Henry VI - and after his death, to Eduard IV (king from 1461-1470 and from 1471-1480) - in that disturbed moment of the Wars of the Roses. The text become fundamental while it synthesizes series of questions and the royalty representations in the English political society of the Late Medieval. Despite we do not accept an univocal feature of the text, we search such representations and questions in a deep analysis, in the text and in the context.