In 1415, Thomas Hoccleve called upon the Lollard rebel, Sir John Oldcastle, to abandon heresy and to confine himself to reading suitable for a ‘manly knyght’:

Alongside the Old Testament stories of famous warriors like Joshua and Judas Maccabeus, these chivalric tales were to provide Oldcastle with the appropriate models for knightly behaviour that would, in turn, restore him to the path of heterodoxy. Viewed from an English perspective, this choice of stories is far from surprising, given the popularity in late medieval England of romances and narratives recounting the tales of Greeks, Trojans and the court of King Arthur. Yet, it is extremely unlikely that in 1415, a French writer would have regarded these books as the quintessential guides to chivalry and warfare. This must raise important questions about writing and reading on these themes in England during the course of the Hundred Years War (1337–1453).

Hoccleve addressed Oldcastle on the eve of Henry V's great expedition to Harfleur, the revival of a conflict with the Valois monarchy that had dominated the martial and chivalric identity of generations of Englishmen. Such a moment might have inspired thoughts of recent military successes under Edward III and his son Edward of Woodstock, later known as the Black Prince. Writers in other genres, most notably Thomas Walsingham, were driven by the revival of the war to remember the great continental adventures that had foreshadowed Henry V's revival of the claim to the duchy of Normandy. That Hoccleve ignored the claims of recent English heroes must be explained as much as anything by his anxiety over engaging with recent history in light of the Lancastrian usurpation. But it is also important to note that there were few obvious chivalric narratives of the Anglo-French wars that he could have recommended to Oldcastle. The most famous chivalric chronicle of the first half of the Hundred Years War was that of Jean Froissart, whose work had a modest impact on the English after his death – not least in terms of inspiring subsequent writers.