Introduction. The Clericus class, underemployment, and the golden age of Middle English poetry -- Part I. Clerical proletarians and the resurgence of English poetry : vocational crisis and self-representation -- Precedents for clerical crisis and authorial intervention in early Middle English -- Poetry of vocational crisis in Langland's Apologia and the early Langlandian tradition -- Career disappointment and Langlandian tradition I : Hoccleve's missed opportunity and self-portraiture in vocational crisis - Career disappointment and Langlandian tradition II : John Audelay as the voice for a lost generation -- Part II. The ligurgical and cathedral service class and resurgent English verse -- Cathedral songs : lyric genres of the choral service class and resurgent English -- Satire, drama, and censorship : submerged literary circles at the cathedral -- The clerical proletariat and public genres of the cathedral world : St. Erkenwald as a St. Paul's text -- Conclusion. The poet as public intellectual : achievements and characteristics of proletarian writers.
Summary:
"Summary: The clerical proletariat has been long known to modern historians as an amorphous group of clerically educated men who failed nonetheless to secure a church living or "benefice." The clerical proletariat normally earned much less than their beneficed brethren and were much more numerous: in cities such as London, there were at least four times the number of trained clerics as there were benefices in the late fourteenth century. These men became the underemployed of the clerically educated world. But unbeneficed medieval clerks did find employment for themselves across a startling range of professions, some of it unexpectedly productive and rewarding. It is the contention of this book that the unbeneficed contributed disproportionately to the resurgence of Middle English literature, which also, often, contains poetry recording or representing their plight. Needing a day job, they fanned out into a wide range of professions. As such, this amorphous group makes a complex challenge for medieval church historians and scholars of literacy, liturgy, academia, law, and social class-and now especially for literary scholars, because the clerical proletariat has mostly flown under our radar since Pantin"-- Provided by publisher.
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