'I speke of folk in seculer estaat' : Vernacularity and Secularity in the Age of Chaucer

Author / Editor
Minnis, Alastair.

Title
'I speke of folk in seculer estaat' : Vernacularity and Secularity in the Age of Chaucer

Published
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 27 (2005): 25-58.

Description
Traces late medieval "vernacular secularity," particularly the influences of Aristotle's "Ethics," "Politics," and "Economics" and Boethius's "Consolation" as transmitted to England by Giles of Rome, Nicole Oresme, Nicholas Trevet, Jean de Meun, Guillaume de Machaut, etc. Comments on issues of audience and patronage. Explores the secularity of Chaucer's "renegotiations of Boethian matter" in KnT, FranT, and TC, as well as his representation of the Aristotelian virtue of magnificence in Theseus of KnT.

Alternative Title
Biennial Chaucer Lecture, The New Chaucer Society, Fourteenth International Congress, 15-19 July 2004, University of Glasgow.

Chaucer Subjects
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations.
Knight and His Tale.
Franklin and His Tale.
Troilus and Criseyde.