'This Ornament of Knighthood' and the 'Base Knight':The Order of the Garter and the Invention of the Medieval in Henry VI Part 1

In the collaboratively written play Henry VI Part 1, the character of Talbot tears the garter, a symbol of a knight belonging to the Order of the Garter, from the leg of the 'base knight' Fastolfe. In the few analyses of this play which focus on this scene, it is often read as a demonstration of Talbot's superiority over Fastolfe and as a means of reinforcing Talbot's characterisation as a 'man-out-of-time', the last remnant of a noble medieval past which he praises in this same scene. These analyses therefore rely on a clear distinction between a 'modern present' and a 'medieval past'. However, the Order of the Garter as an institution works to undercut this distinction through its bridging of this temporal divide. Knighthood was not an anachronistic social structure in the early modern period, especially in the reign of Elizabeth I, and the Order of the Garter is a prime means of demonstrating the ways in which medieval ideas were re-interpreted after the Reformation, as is the play Henry VI Part 1as a whole. By looking at the historiography surrounding the Order of the Garter's origin, specifically the versions of the tale which appear in Holinshed's Chronicles, a more complex picture begins to present itself, one which centres the necessity of 'base-ness' in the formation of nobility. This history is over-written by Talbot in Henry VI Part 1 in such a way that is likely to have been noticed by a contemporary audience. Therefore, Talbot's actions in this scene do not represent a clear distinction between a 'medieval past' and 'modern present', but the ways in which the past itself is formed through the projection of modern ideals into an imagined past to justify present actions.<br/>