Alternative Possibility in Fourteenth-Century Philosophy and the Development of Allegorical Narrative in the Work of Robert Holcot and Thomas Hoccleve

Imagining the various alternative possibilities that might happen in the future fascinated as well as disturbed fourteenth-century philosophers and poets, just as it does popular science writers and science fiction authors today. But unlike modern novels, a large portion of late-medieval literary production was engaged in the retelling of already existing stories, the outlines and outcomes of which were not open to change.¹ How, then, within a fixed narrative framework, could the notion of alternative possibility—so central to human experience, and so rigorously disputed in late-medieval theology—be presented or conveyed?² The objective of this article is to challenge the view that traditional forms of medieval storytelling such as the moral allegory limited an author’s ability to communicate the rich dynamics of human experience in a contingent universe.³ Through an examination of Thomas Hoccleve’s Middle English verse translation of the Gesta Romanorum narrative Fabula de quadam imperatrice Romana, I suggest that in modifying a narrative by temporarily withholding the final moral, Hoccleve was able to generate a space in which thinking about alternative possibilities for plot action—and alternative interpretations of plot action—resulted in critical reflection on human experience.

Narratives such as Hoccleve’s Fabula de quadam imperatrice Romana and Chaucer’s Man of Law’s Tale are adaptations of stories found in the didactic literature produced by the classicizing friars, such as Robert Holcot and Nicholas Trevet.⁴ These authors were writing at a time when the notion of God as an essentially unlimited power was taking center stage in philosophical discussion, and a formalized reasoning about the proper meaning of “possibility” was emerging as philosophers started to think carefully about different kinds of possibilities and how they might be reconciled with divine Providence. Arising out of such discussions were questions about the nature of human free agency, and about the human capacity to acquire knowledge and have certitude in a contingent universe.

Robert Holcot is renowned for his contribution to late-medieval debates about future contingents. His work is especially valuable for thinking about the way that late-medieval narratives functioned as spaces in which alternative scenarios might operate, because Holcot had a philosophical interest in the way we shape our thinking about alternative possibilities, as well as an interest in the exercise of telling stories and creating fictional texts for the edification of a lay audience. Holcot’s work offers us a connection between what appears to be a somewhat remote discussion of modal logic (the study of the truth and falsity values of propositions with modal operators—such as, “it is possible that” or “it is necessary that”—and their logical relationships with one another) and the production of literary narratives. It does so through the idea that we can both construct stories that represent alternative possibilities for us, and that we can take already formulated scenarios and speculate on them, in order to explore the kinds of alternative possibilities the scenario might represent.

It is not always possible to draw direct lines between the works of philosophers and the writing of popular poets in the late Middle Ages. However, there is sufficient evidence to suggest that Robert Holcot’s opinions had a notable measure of influence over the popular imagination in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. Holcot’s biblical commentary Super Sapientiam Salomonis was an extremely popular and widely distributed work.⁵ As Beryl Smalley informs us: “Almost every good library in England and the rest of Latin-speaking Europe had Holcot on Wisdom in one or more copies.”⁶ A more general claim for the continuity of Holcot’s influence into the late Middle Ages has recently been made by Hester Gelber in her article “Laughter and Deception: Holcot and Chaucer Remain Cheerful,” explaining that by the late fourteenth century, “in the England in which the Canterbury Tales is set,” the views of John Duns Scotus, William Ockham, and Holcot had become “established staples in the schools,” and that their opinions were made even more infamous...