ABSTRACT
Artegall’s encounter with Munera and Pollente (FQ V ii 4-28) deals with the evils of aristocratic violence in contrast to the plebeian challenge to distributive justice in the second half of the canto (29-54). The combination of Pollente (L ‘powerful’), a mighty warrior who has ‘great Lordships got and goodly farmes,/Through strong oppression of his powre extort,’ his servant whose livery is a shaven head, and his daughter Munera (L ‘rewards, gifts’), suggests particularly the evils of ‘livery and maintenance’ (the wrongful upkeep and protection from law of armed retainers by a powerful magnate) against which the Tudors repeatedly legislated. An example in the 1570s of the oppression and corruption of justice to which this practice led is that of Lord Chandos, who ‘used armed retainers with guns at the ready to frighten off the under-sheriff, protected servants of his who robbed men on the highway…and put in a high constable of the shire who used his office to levy blackmail on the peasantry’ (Stone 1965:229-30).
