The Language of Empire and Nation in John Leland’s Antiquarian (1503—1552)

This article looks at how the main categories of Late Medieval and Early Modern imperial and proto-national discourses are represented in the works of John Leland, an English antiquary of the first half of the 16th сentury. The study focuses on antiquarian texts such as The New Year’s Gift, Antiphilarchia, How England Should Have Hommage and Feaulty of Scotlande, Assertio inclytissimi Arturii Regis Britanniae (The Assertion of Famous Arthur, King of Britain), Cygnea Cantio (The Swan Song) and De viris illustribus (On Famous Men). It demonstrates that Leland’s works reflected ideas about the content and conceptual relationship of such concepts as “empire” and “nation” which were of certain importance to the European intellectual discourse of the 1530s — 1540s. Their manifestation is associated with the circumstances of Leland's literary activity aimed, firstly, at legitimizing the sovereign ecclesiastical policy of Henry VIII and the dynastic rights of the Tudors, and, secondly, at multiplying the international prestige of the Tudor monarchy by glorying the “British nation”.