Corceca in The Faerie Queene

Corceca is the mother of Abessa, minor characters who appear in Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene.

Corceca and her family represent the Catholic Church, and Corceca in particular represents the blind commitment to ritual and empty prayers, as Corceca is frequently seen spending an inordinate amount of time at home doing nothing but empty rituals.

This was a common critique by Protestants of the Catholic Church at this time. Think of it as the modern-day criticism of “thoughts and prayers”.

See our complete list of Arthurian characters for more entries like this one.

Arthurian Bibliography

• Norris Lacy, Geoffrey Ashe, Debra Mancoff – The Arthurian Handbook (Second Edition)
• Alan Lupack – The Oxford Guide to Arthurian Literature and Legend
• Ronan Coghlan – The Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Arthurian Legends
• Anonymous – Lancelot-Grail, the French Vulgate
• Sir Thomas Malory – Le Morte d’Arthur