T H E N E W M I D D L E A G E S Money Commerce , , and Economics Late Medieval in English Literature Edited by Craig E. Bertolet and Robert Epstein The New Middle Ages Series editor Bonnie Wheeler English & Medieval Studies Southern Methodist University Dallas, TX, USA The New Middle Ages is a series dedicated to pluridisciplinary studies of medieval cultures, with particular emphasis on recuperating women’s history and on feminist and gender analyses. This peer-reviewed series includes both scholarly monographs and essay collections. More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14239 Craig E. Bertolet • Robert Epstein Editors Money, Commerce, and Economics in Late Medieval English Literature Editors Craig E. Bertolet Robert Epstein Auburn University Fairfield University Auburn, AL, USA Fairfield, CT, USA The New Middle Ages ISBN 978-3-319-71899-6 ISBN 978-3-319-71900-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71900-9 Library of Congress Control Number: 2017963273 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Classic Image / Alamy Stock Photo Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland To Anya and Miriam, whose support for us during this project cannot be adequately valued or possibly exchanged C ontents 1 Introduction: “Greet prees at Market”—Money Matters in Medieval English Literature 1 Craig E. Bertolet and Robert Epstein 2 Judas and the Economics of Salvation in Medieval English Literature 11 Rosemary O’Neill 3 “Whoso wele schal wyn, a wastour moste he fynde”: Interreliant Economies and Social Capital in Wynnere and Wastoure 31 David Sweeten 4 “The ryche man hatz more nede thanne the pore”: Economics and Dependence in Dives and Pauper 47 Elizabeth Harper 5 Summoning Hunger: Polanyi, Piers Plowman, and the Labor Market 59 Robert Epstein 6 Demonic Ambiguity: Debt in the Friar- Summoner Sequence 77 Anne Schuurman vii viii CONTENTS 7 Death is Money: Buying Trouble with the Pardoner 93 Roger Ladd 8 My Purse and My Person: “The Complaint of Chaucer to His Purse” and the Gender of Money 109 Diane Cady 9 The Need for Economy: Poetic Identity and Trade in Gower’s Confessio Amantis 127 Brian Gastle 10 “Money Earned; Money Won”: The Problem of Labor Pricing in Gower’s “Tale of the King and the Steward’s Wife” 143 Craig E. Bertolet 11 Crossing the Threshold: Geoffrey Chaucer, Adam Smith, and the Liminal Transactionalism of the Later Middle Ages 157 Andrew Galloway Index 179 L C ist of ontributors Craig E. Bertolet is Professor of English at Auburn University, Alabama, USA. He is the author of Chaucer, Gower, Hoccleve, and the Commercial Practices of Late Fourteenth-Century London (Ashgate, 2013). His research focuses mostly on issues of socioeconomics and on power relationships in late medieval English literature. His work has appeared in Studies in the Age of Chaucer, Chaucer Review, and Studies in Philology, among others. His special focus is on the works of John Gower and Geoffrey Chaucer. Diane Cady is Professor of English at Mills College. Her current work examines the intersections between gender ideology and the formation of late medieval ideas about money and value. Her publications on these topics include “The Gender of Money” (Genders, 2006), “Symbolic Economies” (21st Century Approaches to Medieval Literature, 2007), and “Damaged Goods: Selling Poetry in the Man of Law’s Tale” (New Medieval Literatures 17, 2017). Her book Gender, Money and Value in Late Middle English Literature is forthcoming from Palgrave in 2018. Robert  Epstein is Professor of English at Fairfield University, Connecticut, USA. He is the author of Chaucer’s Gifts: Exchange and Value in the Canterbury Tales (University of Wales Press, 2018). His arti- cles on Middle English literature include “Dismal Science: Chaucer and Gower on Alchemy and Economy” (Studies in the Age of Chaucer, 2014) and “The Lack of Interest in The Shipman’s Tale: Chaucer and the Social Theory of the Gift” (Modern Philology, 2015). ix x LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS Andrew Galloway is Professor of English at Cornell University, New York, USA. Among his publications are Medieval Literature and Culture (2006) and The Cambridge Companion to Piers Plowman (edited with Andrew Cole, 2014). Brian Gastle is Professor of English at Western Carolina University, North Carolina, USA. He is co-editor of the MLA Approaches to Teaching the Poetry of John Gower and Gower in Context(s): Scribal, Linguistic, Literary and Socio-historical Readings (MLA, 2011). He has published on mercantile and economic issues in the writings of Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower, Margery Kempe, and the Paston letters. Elizabeth Harper is Assistant Professor of English at Mercer University, Georgia, USA. Her publications include “Material Economy, Spiritual Economy, and Social Critique in Everyman” (co-written with Britt Mize), Comparative Drama 40 (2006), “Pearl in the Context of Fourteenth- Century Gift Economies” (The Chaucer Review, 2010), and “‘A Tokene and a Book’: Reading Images in Dives and Pauper” (The Yearbook of Langland Studies, 2014). Roger  Ladd is Professor of English and Director of the Graduate Program in English Education at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, North Carolina, USA. He is the author of Antimercantilism in Late Medieval English Literature (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010). Rosemary O’Neill is Associate Professor of English at Kenyon College, Ohio, USA. She has published or forthcoming work on Langland, Chaucer, and Teju Cole. Her article “Counting Sheep in the C Text of Piers Plowman” (Yearbook of Langland Studies, 2015) was recently awarded the Van Courtlandt Elliott Prize by the Medieval Academy of America. Her current book project investigates intersections between reli- gion and economics in late medieval English literature. Anne Schuurman is Assistant Professor of English and Writing at the University of Western Ontario, Ontario, Canada. She is the author of Shame and Guilt in Chaucer (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012) and various articles on Middle English literature, including “Pity and Poetics in Chaucer’s Legend of Good Women” (PMLA, 2015). Her current research focuses on economic theology, as well as affect and materialism in fourteenth-century England. David Sweeten received his PhD from the Ohio State University with a dissertation on economic interpretations of medieval English literature. He is now Assistant Professor of English at Eastern New Mexico University, New Mexico, USA.