Who Murdered Chaucer? A Medieval Mystery
- Author / Editor
- Jones, Terry, Robert Yeager, Terry Dolan, Alan Fletcher, and Juliette Dor.
Who Murdered Chaucer? A Medieval Mystery
- Published
- New York: St. Martin's Press, 2004; London: Methuen, 2003.
- Physical Description
- x, 408 pp.; 130 illus.
- Description
- A biography and social history of Chaucer's final years, focusing on Henry Bolingbroke's Lancastrian overthrow of Richard II and the political and social turmoil from which the usurpation resulted and to which it contributed. The book presents Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, as a key figure, both in the political arena and in efforts to suppress CT for its scandalous depictions of the Church.
- Obscurities surrounding Chaucer's death may indicate that Arundel's suppression was effective, perhaps deadly to Chaucer himself. The study assesses "censorship" of the illustrations to the Ellesmere manuscript and reads ABC, ParsT, and Ret as Chaucer's responses to suppression. Reprises suggestions by early biographers that Chaucer may not have died until 1402, perhaps finding temporary refuge in Holland.
- Contributor
- Yeager, Robert.
- Dolan, Terry.
- Fletcher, Alan.
- Dor, Juliette
- Chaucer Subjects
- Chaucer's Life.
- ABC
- Parson and His Tale
- Chaucer's Retraction