This study examines the political reception of a number of late medieval Middle English romances (Roberd of Cisely, Sir Gowther, Sir Isumbras, Henry Lovelich's History of the Holy Grail and Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur) in the fifteenth century. It identifies in the vernacular romances and political literature of the period common thematic threads expressed in shared vocabularies, arguing that the themes of regal behaviour, human suffering and genealogical anxiety are central to these texts and crucial to a better understanding of the place Middle English pious and Grail romances occupied in fifteenth-century culture.

Before embarking on an exploration of the contextual and methodological frameworks for the present analysis a few preliminary remarks are necessary. At first inspection, the critical literature that addresses my chosen corpus reveals that readings of fifteenth-century Arthurian and non-Arthurian romances have focused on their sources, usually in another language and composed in earlier centuries, thus leading to relatively isolated critical categories, organised by form (verse/prose), content (Arthurian/non-Arthurian), authorship (anonymous/known author) or status in the canon of English medieval literature (minor/major). Romance reception has been explored in relation to the conditions of the production and circulation of romance manuscripts, by identifying concerns typical of the social status and aspirations of the literate middle classes, who were the majority of romance owners and readers. The reading material preferred by these audiences included educational, moral, devotional, practical and leisure-oriented texts.