The Antifraternal Tradition in Medieval Literature

Description: Hostile propositions about the friars ("antifraternalism") in polemical tracts, works of theology, and literary fictions belong to a common literary tradition that began with the polemics against the friars of William of Saint Amour, with arguments founded in biblical exegesis and proposed eschatological conclusions.; In England, the tradition continued with Richard FitzRalph, who concentrated more on ecclesiology than on eschatology, and John Wyclif, who identified the friars with "sign worship" and concentrated more on (conservative) eschatology than on ecclesiology.; Several minor English poems fit into the tradition, as do major works of Gower, Chaucer, and Langland. A reading of SumT displays its prominent antifraternalism and shows that its author "was preoccupied with decline and crisis."; The antifraternalism of "Piers Plowman" is both ecclesiological and eschatological; Langland's use of the tradition aids particularly in understanding the final passus of "Piers," which treats in its two halves respectively the imminent death of the narrator and the imminent end of the Church.