Money in Late Medieval English Literature and Culture

Money has always shaped both matters of governance and personal anxieties. The fourteenth century brought to England many demographic, commercial, and political changes, of which one of the most significant was a change in the understanding and use of money. Money in Late Medieval English Literature and Culture argues that writers of the period, such as Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower, William Langland, Thomas Hoccleve, Margery Kempe, the Paston, Cely, and Stonor families, and the anonymous authors of Winner and Waster, Piers Ploughman's Creed, and the York Mystery Cycle, addressed many of these changes in their writings, whether they understood the changes or not.Rather than examining how individual authors viewed money matters, this book takes a thematic approach, exploring coins, taxes, property, donations, and luxury purchases across multiple texts. By reading these works through the lens of economic and cultural transformation, it reveals how late medieval writers captured what their contemporaries were coming to understand: that in an age of upheaval, money matters.