The Author's Two Bodies?: Authority and Fallibility in Late-Medieval Textual Theory

Author / Editor
Minnis, A. J.

Title
The Author's Two Bodies?: Authority and Fallibility in Late-Medieval Textual Theory

Published
P. R. Robinson and Rivkah Zim, eds. Of the Making of Books: Medieval Manuscripts, Their Scribes and Readers. Essays Presented to M. B. Parkes (Aldershot, Hants: Scolar Press; Brookfield, Vt.: Ashgate, 1997), pp. 259-79.

Description
Explores the "complicated medieval matrix of ideas concerning the relationship between authority and fallibility," commenting on representations of the topic from Petrarch's depiction of Cicero to Chaucer's depiction of the Pardoner. As a preacher and an author, the Pardoner reflects late-medieval questions about the authority of immoral clerics, questions confronted in Archbishop Arundel's efforts to eradicate Wycliffite opinion in 1409.

Alternative Title
Of the Making of Books: Medieval Manuscripts, Their Scribes and Readers. Essays Presented to M. B. Parkes.

Chaucer Subjects
Background and General Criticism.
Pardoner and His Tale.