Libelle ofEnglyshePolycye, The

Abstract

The Libelle of Englyshe Polycye is an anonymous political poem written in the fifteenth century when the Burgundian alliance with France damaged trading relations between England and Flanders. Standing against the English foreign policy of the 1430s, the poem argues for expansionism in trade based on English naval power. The poem is valuable for its literary merit, political insight, and the evidence it offers for manuscript studies. The recopying of the poem in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries indicates that its ideas remained important and relevant beyond its immediate political moment. It was included by Richard Hakluyt in his Principle Navigations , first printed in 1589.