Clerks and Courtiers Chaucer, Late Middle English Literature and the State Formation Process

Johnston's dissertation forms a specialised and detailed study of Chaucer's vision of aristocrats, the clergy and the structure of the state in the Canterbury Tales . Johnston assesses Chaucer's place in the highly complex social organisation of 14th-century England and considers how Chaucer and his works were perceived by his close contemporaries, such as Hoccleve and Gower, and by subsequent writers.