The Friars.
- Author/Editor
- Röhrkasten, Jens.
- Title
- The Friars.
- Published
- Röhrkasten, Jens. "The Friars." In Historians on John Gower. Ed. Stephen H. Rigby, with Siân Echard (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2019), pp. 291-320.
- Review
- Röhrkasten traces the development of antifraternal criticism that rose in the University of Paris in the 1250s, came into sharp focus in 1255 in William of St. Amour's "De periculus novissimorum temporum," and gained a wider public in England in the 1350s when Richard FitzRalph's public preaching in London provoked a fiery outbreak of criticism centered on the "reopening of the question of Christ's poverty" (307). Internal debates within the Franciscan order (Conventuals versus Spirituals) and contentions between orders, Röhrkasten makes clear, contributed over time to a growing conflagration and he describes other flashpoints as well, laying the groundwork for an exhaustive survey of Gower's antifraternal comments in "Mirour de l'Omme" and "Vox Clamantis--a "formidable array of arguments against the mendicants" (314). The sheer capaciousness and inclusivity of this array, Röhrkasten tells us, leads to "disorderly presentation and lack of focus or direction for reform." Gower's "colourful collage of accusations" offers "a rather simplistic message": originally good, the mendicant orders "have deteriorated and become dangerous; they should reform and become good again" (317). Closing his survey with a description of mendicant presence in late-medieval England, Röhrkasten comments on possibilities and likelihoods of Gower's personal familiarity with friars and their communities. [MA. Copyright. The John Gower Society. eJGN 39.1]
- Date
- 2019
- Gower Subjects
- Backgrounds and General Criticism
Biography of Gower
Mirour de l'Omme (Speculum Meditantis)
Vox Clamantis
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations