Nine Worthies

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Cologne, Germany
, is the earliest known representation of the Nine Worthies. From left to right are the three Christians: Charlemagne bearing an eagle upon his shield, King Arthur displaying three crowns, and Godfrey of Bouillon with a dog lying before him; then the three pagans: Julius Caesar, Hector, and Alexander the Great bearing a griffon upon his shield; and finally the three Jews: David holding a sceptre, Joshua, and Judah Maccabee.

The Nine Worthies are nine historical, scriptural, and legendary men of distinction who personify the ideals of

the Middle Ages, whose lives were deemed a valuable study for aspirants to chivalric status. All were commonly referred to as 'Princes', regardless of their historical titles. In French they are called Les Neuf Preux or "Nine Valiants",[1]
giving a more specific idea of the moral virtues they exemplified: those of soldierly courage and generalship. In Italy they are known as i Nove Prodi.

The Nine Worthies include three pagans (Hector, Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar), three Jews (Joshua, David and Judas Maccabeus) and three Christians (King Arthur, Charlemagne and Godfrey of Bouillon).

Origin

Statues of the Nine Worthies on the Schöne Brunnen (beautiful fountain) in Nuremberg (1385–1396). Visible on the fountain, from left to right are: Judah Maccabee, David (with harp), Julius Caesar, Alexander. The figure in the left foreground, St Mark, with his lion, is part of another group
David, in Livro do Armeiro-Mor (fl 1v), a Portuguese armorial from 1509. The book opens with ten full-page illustrations of the Nine Worthies and Bertrand du Guesclin.
Lucas van Leyden's depiction of the three Old Testament kings as exotic contemporaries, in an engraving of c. 1520 depicting the Worthies in three sections
The Three Good Pagans: Hector, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, from the woodcut series by Hans Burgkmair, 1519.
Nine Worthies (Alcalá de Henares, 1585).

They were first described in the early fourteenth century, by

Poitiers (1356). Francis I of France still occasionally paraded himself at court dressed in the "antique mode" to identify himself also as one of the Neuf Preux.[3]

The 1459

Louis XI of France, called "Louis the Prudent" as Dauphin, Ladislaus I of Hungary, and Otto III, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg of the House of Welf
).

Classification

The Nine Worthies comprise a triad of triads as follows:

Pagans

Jews

Christians

Cultural references

Literature

The Nine Worthies were also a popular subject for

Falstaff's bravery in fighting Ancient Pistol that she says he is "as valorous as Hector of Troy, worth five of Agamemnon, and ten times better than the Nine Worthies".[6]

Don Quixote evokes the Nine Worthies in Volume I, Chapter 5, telling a peasant (who is trying to get him to admit who he is) "I know that I may be not only those I have named, but all the Twelve Peers of France and even all the Nine Worthies, since my achievements surpass all that they have done all together and each of them on his own account".[7]

Art

The Nine Worthies had not devolved to folk culture even in the seventeenth century, for a frieze of the Nine Worthies, contemporary with Shakespeare's comedy, was painted at the outset of the seventeenth century at North Mymms Place, Hertfordshire, an up-to-date house built by the Coningsby family, 1599.[8]

The Cloisters, in New York City, has important portions of an early 15th-century tapestry series illustrating the surviving five of the Nine Worthies: King Arthur, Joshua, David, Hector, and Julius Caesar.[9]

I Nove Prodi, a fresco by the Maestro del Castello della Manta, an

anonymous master, painted c. 1420 in the sala baronale of the Castello della Manta
, Saluzzo, Italy. The series also includes depictions of their female counterparts.

Montacute House has sculptures of the Nine Worthies spaced along the upper eastern façade on the exterior of the long gallery piers. These figures are dressed in Roman armour.

Nine Worthy Women

In the late fourteenth century, Lady Worthies began to accompany the Nine Worthies, though usually not individualized and shown as anonymous Amazon-styled warriors. In later years, nine of the "Most Illustrious Ladies of All Ages and Nations" were chosen from scripture, history and legend to be placed alongside their male counterparts, though the choices for the Lady Worthies were not usually standardized and often varied by region, author and artist.

Penthesilea as one of the Lady Worthies

Hippolyte, Menalyppe, Semiramis, Lampetho, Thamarys, Teuta, Penthésilée
.

A very fine set of

National Gallery, London.[11]

In the

Renaissance Humanist circles, who may have helped choose the group. Apart from Veturia, mother of Coriolanus, who tried to save Rome from defeat by her son, the other pagan two were examples of chastity, responsible for no heroic acts except their defence of their own virtue. In contrast, two of the Jewish women, Judith and Jael, are known for their personal assassination of leaders opposed to Israel. Judith carries a sword in one hand and Holofernes's severed head in the other, and Jael carries the mallet with which she hammered a peg in the head of Sisera. The "Power of Women" and female violence was an interest of German artists at the time, and Lucas van Leyden, Albrecht Altdorfer and others made prints of Jael in the act.[12]

The Christian trio of saints, all very popular in Germany at the time, are all women who had been married - Bridget became an abbess as a widow. In addition, like three of the male worthies, Elizabeth of Hungary was an ancestor of Burgkmair's patron Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, and Helena was a Roman Empress. Unlike the other two groups, who all face each other, apparently in conversation, these three all look down, and may illustrate the female virtue of silence.[13] Burgkmair's conception was not very widely followed.

Nine Worthies of London

Further information: Nine Worthies of London

Nine Worthies of London is a book by Richard Johnson, written in 1592, which borrows the theme from the Nine Worthies. The book is subtitled Explaining the Honourable Excise of Armes, the Vertues of the Valiant, and the Memorable Attempts of Magnanimous Minds; Pleasaunt for Gentlemen, not unseemly for Magistrates, and most profitable for Prentises, celebrated the rise of nine famous Londoners through society from the ranks of apprentices or commoners.

The nine were Sir

Henry Pritchard, Sir Thomas White, Sir William Sevenoke, Sir John Hawkwood
, Sir John Bonham, Christopher Croker, Sir Henry Maleverer of Cornhill, and Sir Hugh Calverley.

The term "Nine Worthies" was later used to refer to nine of the privy councillors of William III: Devonshire, Dorset, Monmouth, Edward Russell, Carmarthen, Pembroke, Nottingham, Marlborough, and Lowther.

See also

References

  1. ^ Larousse Dictionnaire de la Langue Francaise Lexis, 1993: Brave, Vaillant
  2. ^ Johan Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages, (1919) 1924:61.
  3. ^ a b c d Huizinga 1924:61.
  4. Tenth Muse
    ".
  5. ^ "Love's Labor's Lost - Entire Play | Folger Shakespeare Library". www.folger.edu. Retrieved 2023-06-16.
  6. ^ Shakespeare, William, Henry IV, Part 2, Act 2, Scene 4.
  7. ^ Chapter V – In which the narrative of our knight's mishap is continued
  8. ^ "North Mymms Park – A short history. Chapter 3 – Wall Paintings". Archived from the original on 2011-05-14. Retrieved 2005-09-13.
  9. ^ "King Arthur: Tapestry Fragment from the Series, Five Worthies and Attendant Figures (with 32.130.3a, b) | All | The Cloisters | Collection Database | Works of Art | The Metrop..."
  10. ^ le chevalier errant, Bibliothèque nationale, Paris, mss. Fr. 12559, fol. 125v; manuscript dated to 1403-04
  11. ^ Artemesia in Milan Archived 2016-01-26 at the Wayback Machine, David in NGA Washington Archived 2008-09-25 at the Wayback Machine, Alexander in Birmingham
  12. ISBN 1-558-61039-1
  13. ISBN 1-55861-039-1

External links
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