Thomas Hoccleve

Thomas Hoccleve , c.1368-c.1450, English poet, an imitator of Chaucer. He was a clerk in the office of the Privy Seal. His longest work, The Regiment of Princes, a didactic poem on the virtues and vices of a ruler, was addressed to the future King Henry V. Hoccleve's main importance is historical. His typically medieval lyrics to the Virgin, his ballades to patrons, and his versified moral tales are characteristic of his times.

Bibliography: See study by J. Mitchell (1968).

Hoccleve, Thomas (or Thomas Occleve), (?1369–1426), apart from Lydgate the most significant named English poet of the 15th cent. He was a clerk in the office of the Privy Seal. Most of his small corpus is taken up with moral writings, but a significant part of his output describes the events of his own life, in ‘La Male Regle de Thomas Hoccleve’, the prologue to The Regiment of Princes (1411–12), and in a number of his ‘Series Poems’, such as ‘The Complaint’ and ‘The Dialogue with a Friend’. Of his ‘autobiographical’ writings, the most interesting deal with his mental breakdown. Traditionally he has been regarded as a poor imitator of Chaucer; more sympathetic recent accounts examine him in his own right and find him less wanting.