Antimercantilism in Late Medieval English Literature

by R. Ladd

Overview

This study explores the relationship between ideology and subjectivity in late medieval literature, documenting the trajectory of antimercantile ideology against major developments in economic theory and practice in the later Middle Ages.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780230620438
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan US
Publication date:	10/18/2010
Series:	The New Middle Ages
Edition description:	2010
Pages:	218
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

ROGER A. LADD is Assistant Professor of English at University of North Carolina at Pembroke, USA.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xi

1 An Introduction to Late Medieval English Literary Merchants 1

2 Langland's Merchants and the Material and Spiritual Economies of Piers Plowman B 23

3 The Mirour de l'Omme and Gower's London Merchants 49

4 The Deliberate Ambiguity of Chaucer's Anxious Merchants 77

5 Mercantile Voices of the Early Fifteenth Century 101

6 The Mercers, Civic Power, and Charity in the York Cycle 133

Conclusion: From Finchale To York: Are Merchants Respectable by 1500? 157

Notes 161

Bibliography 195

Index 213

Editorial Reviews

"Ladd has provided us with a clear and thorough overview of merchant attitudes found in literature in the Late Middle Ages. This is an important foundational reading that now allows us to set off with all sorts of interesting questions." - The Medieval Review

"Ladd s is the first fresh re-thinking of the roles merchants play in late medieval English writing in at least forty years - if not the first ever to do so systematically and comprehensively. There are many dots to connect in the story he wants to tell, and his scholarly range abets him to link nearly all into a persuasive narrative drawn from the historical record and the literary canon. What he seeks in the authors he scrutinizes - some great, like Chaucer, Gower, and Langland, some anonymous or only dimly known, like the writers of the York cycle of mystery plays - is the presentation of the true mercantile voice, unfiltered through established (and hence distorting) lenses. Ladd s readings are even-handed, original and, time and again, spot on. Few will pick up this book and put it down uninformed." - RF Yeager, University of West Florida

From the Publisher