The Archival Iceberg: New Sources for Literary Life-Records.
- Author/Editor
- Roger, Euan.
Prescott, Andrew.
- Title
- The Archival Iceberg: New Sources for Literary Life-Records.
- Published
- Roger, Euan, and Andrew Prescott. "The Archival Iceberg: New Sources for Literary Life-Records." Chaucer Review 57, no. 4 (2022): 498-526
- Review
- This essay is part of a special issue of "Chaucer Review" that reports newly discovered legal records that pertain to Geoffrey Chaucer, Cecily Chaumpaigne, and the mention of "raptus," and explores the implications and new pathways marked by these records. The essay itself advocates the use of archival research in historical and literary research, particularly legal records found in The National Archives of the UK; it includes a section describing not-before-noticed--relatively minor--records that pertain to Chaucer, Gower, John Skelton, and Sir Thomas Malory, as well as records that pertain to the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. The brief sub-section on Gower (pp. 513-15) describes two new life-records. The first (TNA, C 52/4/5/7 [Kent]) is a writ in the "Brevia" files that accompany Court of Common Plea rolls; it supplements a previously known record of Gower's action against Walter Cook concerning a contract to build a house in Aldyngton, or Aldington. The "contents of the writ are largely the same as that recorded on the plea roll," but it provides a "far more accurate time frame" for the action (the writ was issued October 16, 1381) and "two names endorsed on the writ, John Petyt and John Roger," which may offer "new leads" in helping to examine Gower's "presence in Aldyngton at this time" (514). The second new Gowerian life-record (TNA CP 52/5/1/1/7 [Norfolk]) pertains to "Gower's 1399 debt dispute with William and Denise Fisher in Norfolk" and, like the first example, gives only "fragments of new information": evidence that Gower was "personally present in Westminster" sometime during the week of October 12, 1399, and, again, the names of two men involved, Edmund Nevyll and John Davy, who in this instance stood surety that Gower "would prosecute the action" (514-15) against the Fishers. Roger and Prescott recognize that the records they discuss are not nearly as significant as those that pertain to Chaucer and Chaumpaigne, but, importantly, exemplify how even minor records, as they accumulate, "provide new insight" into literary lives and the "national and local events" that shaped these lives. Their Gower records are tidbits, but most welcome nevertheless. [MA. Copyright. John Gower Society eJGN 41.2.]
- Date
- 2022
- Gower Subjects
- Biography of Gower