Lies, Slander and Obscenity in Medieval English Literature: Pastoral Rhetoric and the Deviant Speaker (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature, Series Number 31)

Drawing on manuscript sources, this book examines how the medieval clergy developed the authority and persuasive force to attempt to govern the day-to-day speech of Western Christians. It shows how attempts were made to portray some political, social and private speech as deviant and destructive, labelling it lying, slander, blasphemy and other Sins of the Tongue. It explores, for the first time, how Chaucer, Langland, Gower and the 'Patience' poet use the different strains of this pastoral discourse not only to expose the destructive power of speech in political and social life but also to judge clerical claims to authority and efficacy in formulating and applying codes of speech.

Drawing on manuscript sources, this book examines how the medieval clergy developed the authority and persuasive force to attempt to govern the day-to-day speech of Western Christians. It explores, for the first time, how Chaucer, Langland, Gower and the Patience poet presented and judged these attempts to label some political, social and private speech as deviant and destructive-as lying, slander, blasphemy and other Sins of the Tongue.

This book examines how the medieval clergy tried to govern the day-to-day speech of Western Christians. It explores, for the first time, how Chaucer, Langland, Gower and the 'Patience' poet presented and judged these attempts to label Sins of the Tongue. As literacy increased among Western Europeans in the eleventh and early twelfth centuries, so, Brian Stock argues, did scripturalism, the practice of using the written word to establish norms and values and so to control conduct.