Chaucer, Gower, Hoccleve and the Commercial Practices of Late Fourteenth-Century London
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A01=Craig E. Bertolet
Author_Craig E. Bertolet
canterbury
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Chaucer's Canon
Chaucer's Merchant
Chaucer's Nun's Priest
Chaucer's Sir Thopas
Chaucer’s Sir Thopas
Commercial Polity
Cook's Tale
Dame Alice De Bryene
Edward III
Elys
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_business-finance-law
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Family Friend
Gower's Mirour
Henry IV's Reign
Henry IV’s Reign
Hoccleve's Persona
Hoccleve’s Persona
La Male Regle
Late Fourteenth Century London
Late Medieval London
London's Wealth
male
PMR
polity
Privy Seal
regle
Shipman's Tale
shipmans
sir
Sir Thopas
Tabard Inn
tale
tales
Tavern Owner
thomas
thopas
Vice Versa
Young Men
Product details
- ISBN 9781409448426
- Weight: 476g
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 09 Jan 2013
- Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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As residents of fourteenth-century London, Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower, and Thomas Hoccleve each day encountered aspects of commerce such as buying, selling, and worrying about being cheated. Many of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales address how pervasive the market had become in personal relationships. Gower's writings include praises of the concept of trade and worries that widespread fraud has harmed it. Hoccleve's poetry examines the difficulty of living in London on a slender salary while at the same time being subject to all the temptations a rich market can provide. Each writer finds that principal tensions in London focused on commerce - how it worked, who controlled it, how it was organized, and who was excluded from it. Reading literary texts through the lens of archival documents and the sociological theories of Pierre Bourdieu, this book demonstrates how the practices of buying and selling in medieval London shaped the writings of Chaucer, Gower, and Hoccleve. Craig Bertolet constructs a framework that reads specific Canterbury tales and pilgrims associated with trade alongside Gower's Mirour de L'Omme and Confessio Amantis, and Hoccleve's Male Regle and Regiment of Princes. Together, these texts demonstrate how the inherent instability commerce produces also produces narratives about that commerce.
Craig E. Bertolet is an Associate Professor of English at Auburn University, USA.
