University of Groningen A Southwark Tale: Gower, the Poll Tax of 1381, and Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales Sobecki, Sebastian Published in: Speculum-A journal of medieval studies DOI: 10.1086/692620 IMPORTANT NOTE: You are advised to consult the publisher's version (publisher's PDF) if you wish to cite from it. Please check the document version below. Document Version Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Publication date: 2017 Link to publication in University of Groningen/UMCG research database Citation for published version (APA): Sobecki, S. (2017). A Southwark Tale: Gower, the Poll Tax of 1381, and Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. 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Download date: 22-05-2019 A Southwark Tale: Gower, the 1381 Poll Tax, and Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales By Sebastian Sobecki During the second half of the 1380s, John Gower, the leading fourteenth-century poet and an acquaintance of Geoffrey Chaucer, was working on his longest En- glish poem, the Confessio Amantis. Chaucer, in turn, is believed to have been writ- ing some of the material that would later form The Canterbury Tales. In addition, Chaucer was probably finishing Troilus and Criseyde, which must have been avail- able before March 1388, at least in part, to Thomas Usk, the poet and undersheriff of London, who names the poem and borrows from Chaucer’s Boece in his Testa- ment of Love.1 It is in the Confessio and in the Troilus, that is, in works written in the second half of the 1380s, that Chaucer and Gower first refer to one another in a literary context.2 The only other instance that connects the two names is a 1378 le- gal record, in which Chaucer hands power of attorney to Gower and the lawyer Richard Forster.3 Rather than reading this document as proof of Gower and Chau- cer’s supposed personal friendship, I adduce new evidence for Gower’s legal train- ing that suggests that the 1378 record was a purely professional arrangement— Chaucer might simply have needed a team of lawyers at the time. There is no reason to read this document through the prism of an instance of poetically embedded praise some ten years later, particularly given Gower’s likely career as a lawyer. The new evidence for Gower’s legal training changes what we know of the rela- tionship between the two poets and, by virtue of pushing forward their literary ac- quaintance to the late 1380s, brings into sharp relief their deep ties to Southwark, where Gower may have resided at the time and where Chaucer launched his Can- terbury Tales. Furthermore, on closer inspection, this new focus on Gower’s and Chaucer’s work in Southwark has the potential not only to foreground the role of an emerging literary culture in the area but to challenge existing models of read- I would like to thank the Warden and Fellows of All Souls College, Oxford, for electing me to a visiting fellowship in Hilary Term 2016. The generous support I have received from the college made this work possible. I am indebted to the editor of Speculum, Sarah Spence, and to the journal’s two anonymous readers for their guidance and vital improvements to my argument. I am especially grateful to Simon Horobin, Kathryn Kerby-Fulton, Linne Mooney, Derek Pearsall, Marion Turner, Bob Yeager, James Simpson, Helen Cooper, Orietta Da Rold, Dan Wakelin, Phil Knox, Paul Strohm, Martha Carlin, and Steve Rigby for commenting on my article or discussing my ideas on various occasions. Earlier ver- sions of this article were presented at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, York, and Notre Dame, and at the New Chaucer Society Congress in London. 1 The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Larry D. Benson (Oxford, 1987), 1003 and 1020. Paul Strohm sug- gests that Usk’s brush with Troilus might have come slightly earlier, in 1385 or 1386 (personal com- munication). 2 Chaucer dedicates the Troilus to Gower (5.1855–56), whereas the first version of the Confessio includes lines of praise for Chaucer (8.2941–49). 3 Martin M. Crow and Clair C. Olson, Chaucer Life-Records (Oxford, 1966), 54. Speculum 92/3 (July 2017). Copyright 2017 by the Medieval Academy of America. DOI: 10.1086/692620, 0038-7134/2017/9203-0002$10.00. This content downloaded from 129.125.148.019 on July 04, 2017 05:25:55 AM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). A Southwark Tale 631 ing The Canterbury Tales and modify our understanding of what Chaucer had in mind when he embarked on this collection of tales. Lawyerly Gower There exists broad consensus that Gower possessed a certain degree of legal ex- pertise.4 Although no evidence has been found to support John Speght’s claim that Gower and Chaucer were Inner Templars,5 Gower’s writings betray an intimate fa- miliarity with legal forms and subjects, terminology, and procedures.6 In addition, we know of a series of property transactions, which point to Gower’s fluency in le- gal idioms.7 Gower’s legal expertise is showcased in the Septvauns affair, where he acquired the manor of Aldington Septvauns from William Septvauns, a royal ward.8 Lord John Cobham of Cooling in Kent, owner of the neighboring manor of Aldington Cobham, initiated a legal inquiry into William’s minority. It was asserted that Wil- liam was still a minor at the time of the sale, and because he was a royal ward and the property would have involved the alienation of Crown lands, a royal commis- sion was tasked with determining William’s age. The Septvauns affair has prompted readers to question Gower’s ethical standards, and a recent commentator has given his discussion of this case the apt heading “Gower’s Black Eye.”9 And yet Gower’s 4 On Gower’s legal background, see David R. Carlson, John Gower: Poetry and Propaganda in Fourteenth-Century England (Cambridge, UK, 2012), 178; Matthew Giancarlo, “The Septvauns Af- fair, Purchase, and Parliament in John Gower’s Mirour de l’Omme,” Viator 36 (2005): 435–64, and Parliament and Literature in Late Medieval England (Cambridge, UK, 2007), 9–112; Conrad van Dijk, John Gower and the Limits of the Law (Cambridge, UK, 2013), 4–5; Matthew W. Irvin, The Poetic Voices of John Gower: Politics and Personae in the “Confessio Amantis” (Cambridge, UK, 2014); Candace Barrington, “John Gower’s Legal Advocacy and ‘In Praise of Peace,’” in John Gower, Trilingual Poet: Language, Translation, and Tradition, ed. Elizabeth Dutton, John Hines, and R. F. Yeager (Cambridge, UK, 2010), 112–25; and Yeager, “John Gower’s Poetry and the ‘Lawyerly Habit of Mind,’” in Theorizing Legal Personhood in Late Medieval England, ed. Andreea Boboc (Leiden, 2015), 71–93. 5 Crow and Olson, Chaucer Life-Records, 54. 6 Sebastian Sobecki, Unwritten Verities: The Making of England’s Vernacular Legal Culture, 1463– 1549 (Notre Dame, 2015), 25–34, for a summary of training in the early Inns of Court. The standard discussions of the history of the late medieval and early modern Inns of Court are Walter Cecil Rich- ardson, A History of the Inns of Court: With Special Reference to the Period of the Renaissance (Baton Rouge, 1975), 1–15; J. H. Baker, An Introduction to English Legal History (London, 2002), 159–60; and Baker, “Oral Instruction in Land Law and Conveyancing, 1250–1500,” in Learning the Law: Teaching and the Transmission of Law in England, 1150–1900, ed. Jonathan A. Bush and Alain Wijffels (London, 1999), 157–73. Legal education prior to the emergence of the Inns is examined by Paul Brand, “Legal Education in England before the Inns of Court,” in Learning the Law,51–84. For legal education generally, see James A. Brundage, The Medieval Origins of the Legal Profession: Canonists, Civilians, and Courts (Chicago, 2008). 7 The property transactions are given by John H. Fisher, John Gower, Moral Philosopher and Friend of Chaucer (New York, 1964), 58–67. By far the most detailed treatment of the Septvauns af- fair is Giancarlo, Parliament and Literature in Late Medieval England,94–105. 8 The following summary of the Septvauns affair is taken from Giancarlo, Parliament and Literature in Late Medieval England, 95. 9 Van Dijk, John Gower and the Limits of the Law,1. Speculum 92/3 (July 2017) This content downloaded from 129.125.148.019 on July 04, 2017 05:25:55 AM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). 632 A Southwark Tale handling of this case was impressive: he had anticipated the potential for compli- cations and, in advance of the transaction, had made a Chancery inquisition in March 1365 to establish whether his purchase was illegal—an inquisitio ad quod damnum.10 This is a common if sophisticated legal tool, and its use by Gower re- veals familiarity with the legal mechanisms at the Court of Chancery.11 In fact, Matthew Giancarlo, the best modern commentator on the Septvauns affair, is so impressed by Gower’s skill in this affair that he endorses the view that Chaucer may have modeled the Man of Law, who was a serjeant-at-law, on Gower.12 Seven years later, Gower sold most of Aldington Septvauns, together with the manor of Kentwell, to a consortium led by Lord Cobham,13 who went on to be singled out for considerable praise by Gower in the Cronica Tripertita.14 At the start of the Septvauns affair, in 1365, the chancellor was Simon Langham, who was preparing to assume the see of Canterbury.