ABSTRACT
Despite the misgivings of Sir Thomas More, the sixteenth-century politician and historian, later canonized by the Roman Catholic Church, the legend of "this woman" has proved a remarkably durable, endlessly adaptable, subject of popular culture. Representations of Jane Shore provide windows through which people may observe how their culture has fluctuated over the last four hundred years, while reminding them also about their relatively persistent fascination with sex and power, and the intersection between the two. Part of the legend's durability is doubtless due to its elasticity; that is, little enough is known of the "real" Mistress Shore that details of her story must perforce depend primarily on the teller. It is instructive that the popular culture manifestations of Jane Shore began to appear in England. Marriage and the family as the foundation of social order is a hallmark of modern western culture, and threats to it call for narrative containment.
