Clerks and Courtiers: Chaucer, Late Medieval Literature and the State Formation Process. By Andrew James Johnston. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag C. Winter, 2001.

Clerks and Courtiers makes two ambitious and intriguing claims for late medieval English literature. First, it argues that the question preoccupying medievalists for nearly two decades what is the social role of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century English literature?— is really the question of how English poets participated in the process of state formation. This process was characterized by the rise of a new class of clerks, who acquired political power through the display of cultural capital. By "cultural capital" the author is referring to a wide range of medieval literate skills, from record-keeping to political philosophy, ultimately derived from university learning. This clerkly or "intellectual" culture, the social product of what the author calls the "class of Boethius" (p. 316), is distinct from aristocratic culture insofar as it depends upon a "virtual possession" both visibly acquired and seemingly available. As the author explains, "while aristocratic culture seeks to hide its constructedness and aspires to a self-image of naturalness . . . intellectual culture quite often consciously displays its acquiredness . . . clerkly culture styled itself as a visible achievement" (p. 312–13). And whereas medieval aristocratic culture claimed exclusivity as a mark of social distinction, clerkly culture pretended to universality anyone, theoretically, could acquire the education necessary to wield power within the "social field" of clerks.

Emily Steiner
University of Pennsylvania