The Clerk as Secular Cleric and Griselda as Ecclesiological Type.

Author / Editor
Walsh, Lora.

Title
The Clerk as Secular Cleric and Griselda as Ecclesiological Type.

Published
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 43 (2021): 75–109.

Description
Interprets Griselda of ClT "as the late medieval English Church wedded to a secular power [Walter] that would radically dominate and divest her in the name of reform." Resists "domineering exegetical acts," using "literary and feminist biblical-analytical methods" instead, and situating the tale historically. Considers source material to address the tale’s combination of emotional intensity and allegorical valence, and reads the Clerk as a "secular cleric" who "is not worldly enough to profit from the very arrangement he upholds between serviceable clerics and royal power."

Chaucer Subjects
Clerk and His Tale
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations