Mercy gramercy' : a study of Henry of Grosmont

This thesis concerns Henry of Grosmont, first duke of Lancaster, focusing in particular on his 1354 Livre de Seyntz Medicines (Book of Holy Medicines), a protracted penitential allegory in which he characterizes his soul as a wounded, infected body. Grosmont deserves attention for several reasons. For a start, he was one of the fourteenth century's most prominent historical characters. An outlying member of the Plantagenet dynasty, he was born around 1310. At his death in 1361 he was England's wealthiest, highest-ranking aristocrat and, like his grandfather Edmund, an individual 'of European stature'. The king and Black Prince excepted, he was England's most important commander of the early Hundred Years War. He was active for thirty years as king's lieutenant, heading English armies or diplomatic missions and governing Aquitaine and Brittany. Most notably, he preserved Aquitaine from French seizure in the 1340s. In European terms, therefore, he was a significant figure.