Fictions of Advice: The Literature and Politics of Counsel in Late Medieval England (review)

Reviews 155 and carefully edited. It is complemented by a selection of appropriate illustrations and valuable appendices. In this context, should the book be reprinted, some consideration should be given to providing an additional appendix with the transcription of at least the earliest surviving statutes of the Archangel Raphael. Scholars, students and general readers alike have much for which to be grateful. Lorenzo Polizzotto School of European Languages University of Western Australia Ferster, Judith, Fictions of Advice: The Literature and Politics of Counsel Late Medieval England (Middle Ages Series), Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996; cloth; pp. xii, 216; 2 b / w illustrations; R.R.P US$32.95. Books on advice and instruction for rulers were extremely popular in the Middle Ages. Contrary to Bacon's assertion that 'books will speak plain when counsellors blanch', most manuals were prosaic, ambiguous or tentative, their authors no doubt aware that to offer advice to rulers was by implication fraught with danger. In this stimulating and wide-ranging book, Judith Ferster offers an important intervention in the idea that medieval mirrors for princes were solely apolitical texts full of truism, platitudes and suggestions for health and wisdom. Indeed, Ferster claims that the Fiirstenspiegel offered one of the very few means by which historical actants could voice debates and concerns about the responsibilities and duties of rulers. Ferster's argument, that mirrors for princes possessed the potential for dissent in medieval court and political circles, commences with a brief overview of some recent literary criticism derived largely from Renaissance studies. Part of the appeal of this book is the way that Ferster has sought to counteract dominant-ideology theories of social power. Her main argument attempts to refute some of the 'new historicisf theories which claim that true resistance is impossible. Ferster takes issue with the notion of the binary nature of politics whereby the ruler and ruled exist in a determined and unequal dialectic of power. She contends that the writers of some important mirrors for princes were tactically appropriating the ambiguity and strength of the advice medium 'to show h o w they [mirrors for princes] engage the political conflicts of their day...using the elements of the Fiirstenspiegel as a camouflage for political commentary' (pp. 3-4). The medieval ambiguity of the Fiirstenspiegel is encapsulated in Ferster's tantalising title. Taking the ninth-century Arabic pseudo-Aristotelian Kitab sin al-asrar or Secretum secretorum as a focus, Ferster employs Aristotle's instruction book to King Alexander as the source text for those late-medieval English 156 Reviews vernacular derivations that she aims to historicise in her multi-disciplinary work. The 'fictions of advice' refer to both the literary works containing counsel to rulers, and the ways in which the authors of those works were compelled to discuss that counsel. To that end her second chapter delineates the historical context surrounding the dangers of spoken and written speech in the absence of any formal censorship laws. Ferster has provided a useful collation and summary of the cases of Peter de la Mare and Thomas Haxey which serves to sharpen the reader's awareness of the potential and actual perils of adverse kingly criticism. Ferster devotes the next two chapters to two English translations of the Secretum. Thefirstof these is the 'Govemaunce of Lordschipes' which was translated for the Bishop of Tripoli, Guy de Vere of Valence. She uses this text to analyse some of the key themes of the Secretum, such as h o w to choose advisers, w h o m to trust, the paradoxes of advice giving, and the hermeneutics of interpreting 'the secret of secrets'. The second translation is James Yonge's "The Gouemaunce of Prynces' (1422), written for his employer James Butler Earl of Ormonde w h o was Henry V's lieutenant in Ireland. Ferster argues convincingly that Henry V was the intended audience for the work although Yonge probably hoped to advance his o w n position by presenting the work to his master. The fragility of the Earl of Ormonde's position in Ireland and the veiled request to Henry V for reappointment to his lieutenantship is historically set amidst his bitter feud with...