Anxieties with Political and Social Order in Fifteenth-Century England

Abstract

In this chapter, I examine how late fifteenth-century books published by William Caxton were part of a broader dialogue about social order and moral anxieties. It is possible to infer emotional states through the political and social fears felt inside mercantile and gentry communities and which were manifested as a heightened concern for moral standards. Analysing fears concerning disorder is a way to see how the mercantile and gentry classes demonstrated their interest in establishing moral authority and status. As England’s first publisher, Caxton’s books deserve special attention for how early print responded to, and exacerbated, anxieties with political and social order. Caxton’s literature was reflective of English political events and cultural changes particularly associated with England’s loss of its French territories and the civil conflict created by the Wars of the Roses. While escalating military and political intrigue was felt most strongly inside royal and aristocratic circles, other social groups, particularly England’s middling ranks of merchants and gentry, responded in their own ways to anxieties and disorder in political rule. Manuscripts and print offered a tool through which fears relating to order and governance could be discussed. Awareness of social and political disorder leads to an interest in how to resolve insecurities and focus on future stability.