ABSTRACT
This chapter reconsiders English writing of the fifteenth century. Some may see its title as self-explanatory and self-justifying, in line with the English fifteenth century's received reputation: the very scholars who have found it interesting enough to work on have been the first to assure people that it is dull. Dullness before the name of God is pious, proper and noble; it is also the utmost vindication of dullness. The guise of dullness in the English fifteenth century has many strands, and it is probably a mistake to examine any of them in isolation. The role of the dull fifteenth-century poet is to know on behalf of, together with, and as well as any man living. It is to be any man living—a supreme commonplace. Fifteenth-century English writing is, for want of a better word, a culture. It is in that light that people should examine its paradigms of public discourse.
