The Clerical Proletariat and the Resurgence of Medieval English Poetry.

Author / Editor
Kerby-Fulton, Kathryn.

Title
The Clerical Proletariat and the Resurgence of Medieval English Poetry.

Published
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021.

Physical Description
xx, 388 pp.; 52 illus.

Series
The Middle Ages.

Description
Demonstrates the importance and central role of the "clerical proletariat"--i.e., clerics who worked "in liminal spaces between the ecclesiastical and lay worlds"--in the proliferation of late medieval books and literature in English, with primary focus on works of William Langland, Thomas Hoccleve, John Audelay, their various precedents and legacies, and related genres and forms. Attention to Chaucer's work is generally limited to his "alertness" to issues of clerical employment in GP and characters such as Nicholas in MilT and Jankyn in WBP.

Chaucer Subjects
Background and General Criticism
General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales
Miller and His Tale
Wife of Bath and Her Tale