LEADER 04086nam 2200637Ia 450 001 9910463222103321 005 20200520144314.0 010 $a0-8122-0571-5 024 7 $a10.9783/9780812205718 035 $a(CKB)2670000000418269 035 $a(OCoLC)859160888 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebrary10748567 035 $a(SSID)ssj0001053289 035 $a(PQKBManifestationID)11674606 035 $a(PQKBTitleCode)TC0001053289 035 $a(PQKBWorkID)11114080 035 $a(PQKB)10878568 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC3442141 035 $a(MdBmJHUP)muse26106 035 $a(DE-B1597)449718 035 $a(OCoLC)979756379 035 $a(DE-B1597)9780812205718 035 $a(Au-PeEL)EBL3442141 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebr10748567 035 $a(CaONFJC)MIL682482 035 $a(OCoLC)932313075 035 $a(EXLCZ)992670000000418269 100 $a20080625d2008 uy 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aurcn||||||||| 181 $ctxt 182 $cc 183 $acr 200 10$aFallible authors$b[electronic resource] $eChaucer's Pardoner and Wife of Bath /$fAlastair Minnis 210 $aPhiladelphia $cUniversity of Pennsylvania Press$dc2008 215 $a1 online resource (527 p.) 225 1 $aThe Middle Ages series 300 $aBibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph 311 $a1-322-51200-0 311 $a0-8122-4030-8 320 $aIncludes bibliographical references (p. 467-488) and indexes. 327 $t Frontmatter -- $tContents -- $tPreface -- $tIntroduction: Authority and Fallibility in Medieval Textual Culture -- $tChapter 1. De officio praedicatoris: Of Preaching, Pardons, and Power -- $tChapter 2. Moral Fallibility: Chaucer's Pardoner and the OfWce of Preacher -- $tChapter 3. De impedimento sexus: Women's Bodies and the Prohibition of Priestly Power -- $tChapter 4. Gender as Fallibility: Chaucer's Wife of Bath and the Impediment of Sex -- $tList of Abbreviations -- $tNotes -- $tBibliography -- $tGeneral Index -- $tIndex of Biblical Citations -- $tAcknowledgments 330 $aCan an outrageously immoral man or a scandalous woman teach morality or lead people to virtue? Does personal fallibility devalue one's words and deeds? Is it possible to separate the private from the public, to segregate individual failing from official function? Chaucer addressed these perennial issues through two problematic authority figures, the Pardoner and the Wife of Bath. The Pardoner dares to assume official roles to which he has no legal claim and for which he is quite unsuited. We are faced with the shocking consequences of the belief, standard for the time, that immorality is not necessarily a bar to effective ministry. Even more subversively, the Wife of Bath, who represents one of the most despised stereotypes in medieval literature, the sexually rapacious widow, dispenses wisdom of the highest order.This innovative book places these "fallible authors" within the full intellectual context that gave them meaning. Alastair Minnis magisterially examines the impact of Aristotelian thought on preaching theory, the controversial practice of granting indulgences, religious and medical categorizations of deviant bodies, theological attempts to rationalize sex within marriage, Wycliffite doctrine that made authority dependent on individual grace and raised the specter of Donatism, and heretical speculation concerning the possibility of female teachers. Chaucer's Pardoner and Wife of Bath are revealed as interconnected aspects of a single radical experiment wherein the relationship between objective authority and subjective fallibility is confronted as never before. 410 0$aMiddle Ages series. 606 $aLiterature$xHistory and criticism 608 $aElectronic books. 615 0$aLiterature$xHistory and criticism. 676 $a821/.1 700 $aMinnis$b A. J$g(Alastair J.)$0185619 801 0$bMiAaPQ 801 1$bMiAaPQ 801 2$bMiAaPQ 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910463222103321 996 $aFallible authors$92490392 997 $aUNINA