Lydgate's Mesure: The <i>Echecs Amoureux</i> Tradition and the Theme of the <i>Fall of Princes</i>

This study shows the impact of the <i>Echecs amoureux</i> (1370) and related texts on John Lydgate's <i>Fall of Princes (1431-1439)</i>. Although the Fall of Princes is a translation of Boccaccio's <i>De casibus virorum illustrium</i> (1363, 1370) via Laurent de Premierfait's <i>Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes,</i> Lydgate is equally indebted to the Roman de la Rose tradition, and in particular to the <i>Echecs amoureux,</i> which he translated as Reson and Sensuallyte (c. 1410). In tracking key nouns in the text of the Fall of Princes (<i>resoun, sensualite, suffisaunce, mesure, remedie</i> and others), this study relates the <i>Fall of Princes</i> to <i>Reson and Sensuallyte</i>, to the <i>Echecs amoureux</i>, and to Evrart de Conty's <i>Eschez amoureux moralises,</i> re-contextualizing and re-evaluating Lydgate's project in terms of his philosophic and literary antecedents, English and Continental.