May 1, 2015

Scandal In Fourteenth-Century England!

Paul Strohm, J.R.R. Tolkien Professor at Oxford University and the Garbedian Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University, introduces us to "whistleblower" poet and satirist John Gower (1330-1408) who wrote about fraud in the late 14th century English wool trade.  It was apparently endemic, as it infected businessmen and regulators alike. More here in Professor Strohm's entertaining piece for Lapham's Quarterly.



 MS Hunter 59 T-2-17 Portrait of Gower folio 6v John Gower Vox Clamantis Glasgow Univ Library www.lib.gla.ac.uk

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