'By Extorcions I Lyve': Chaucer's Friar's Tale and Corrupt Officials

Author / Editor
Bryant, Brantley L.

Title
'By Extorcions I Lyve': Chaucer's Friar's Tale and Corrupt Officials

Published
ChauR 42 (2007): 180-95.

Description
Numerous fourteenth-century documents that address the practice of extortion by institutional "middlemen" point to systemic problems rather than to individual turpitude. FrT reflects this contemporary explanation, albeit without exonerating the Summoner's viciousness.

Chaucer Subjects
Friar and His Tale