Social Conscience and the Poets

Published: Francis X. Newman, ed. Social Unrest in the Middle Ages (Binghamton, N.Y.: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, 1986), pp. 113-48.

Description: Chaucer's work and alliterative poetry such as "Jack Upland" and the "Plowman's Tale" "shared a common audience." John Ball's letters, like Wycliffe's writings, invoked the mythic simplicity of the early Christian church, appealing urgently to unity, truth, and activism--motifs seen in Chaucer's Truth and ParsT.; More dangerous than Ball, Wycliffe abolished "the doctrinal distinction between clergy and laity." Penitential themes of Wycliffe are seen in ParsT and Ret; themes of conscience, in Mel, FrT, SNT, PardT, Bo, and Sted; right covernance, in Sted and Mel.; Connected with the Peasants' Revolt also are Wycliffite attacks on the church and ideas on the limits of the monarchy. Peck treats Wycliffite works attributed to Chaucer in the Reformation: "Piers Plowman's Crede," "The Plowman's Tale," and "Jack Upland." WBT and WBP may belong to church satire rather than the "Marriage Group."

Chaucer Subjects: Background and General Criticism; Chaucerian Apocrypha; Plowman and the Tale