Shades of Gower: Latin Texts and Social Contexts.
- Author/Editor
- Bennett, Michael.
- Title
- Shades of Gower: Latin Texts and Social Contexts.
- Published
- Bennett, Michael. "Shades of Gower: Latin Texts and Social Contexts." In Richard Firth Green and R. F. Yeager, eds. "Of latine and of othire lare": Essays in Honour of David R. Carlson (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 2022). Pp. 101-19.
- Review
- Bennett's essay deals, per its title, with Gower's "social contexts"--that is, "Gower and his milieu at a key stage in his life and literary career, namely between the late 1360s and the early 1380s, when he assumed a position in landed society" (101). The essay has two parts. In the first, Bennett focuses particularly on two sets of documents: those related to the land transaction known as "the Septvauns affair," which ultimately brought the manor at Aldington into Gower's hands, but not before significant legal embroilment, and an embarrassing forced appearance before parliament for judgment; and a descriptive, primarily genealogical roll written in the 1380s ("possibly" by Gower [111]), which describes in some detail the fortunes of the Northwood family, close neighbors of Gower's at Aldington. Following the roll, Bennett traces the well-connected Northwoods through the generations, showing that Gower crossed paths with several members at different points, most significantly perhaps in 1366, when rents from Horton manor, near Canterbury, and properties in Southwark, were granted to Gower by a Northwood heir (107)--suggesting a family connection of some sort, though the roll provides no evidence for this (110). Bennett captures the interrelations of Kentish landed families, turning up names of importance at various points in Gower's life: Sir Arnold Savage, Sir John Cobham, third Lord Cobham, the Grandison family, and a "cousin from Savoy, Sir Otho de Graunson," the poet (112), well known to Chaucer and probably Gower as well. In the latter portion, Bennett discusses conditions in Kent in the 1360s, when the county served Edward III as a launching point for his army into France--an army in which, Bennett speculates, Gower may have participated "in some capacity" (114). [RFY. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 42.1]
- Date
- 2022
- Gower Subjects
- Biography of Gower
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations