Lies Slander and Obscenity in Medieval English Literature

Drawing on manuscript sources this book examines how the medieval clergy developed the authority and persuasive force to attempt to govern the day-to-day speech of Western Christians. It explores for the first time how Chaucer Langland Gower and the Patience poet presented and judged these attempts to label some political social and private speech as deviant and destructive--as lying slander blasphemy and other Sins of the Tongue.