Piers Plowman and the New Anticlericalism
- Author / Editor
- Scase, Wendy.
Piers Plowman and the New Anticlericalism
- Published
- Cambridge and New York : Cambridge University Press, 1989.
- Physical Description
- xv, 249 pp.
- Series
- Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature, no. 04.
- Description
- The anticlericalism of "Piers Plowman" and its time period is not traditional, as has been assumed, but new and requires fresh examination. It transforms and unifies traditional attacks on monastics, friars, and secular clergy into an attack on all clergy. It is based on FitzRalph's analysis of dominion, natural and civil, a new examination of evangelical poverty, and a positioning of charity as the key to action and reform, including disendowment of the Church by lay power.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Background and General Criticism.