The presentation, which included commentary by three eminent feminist Chaucer scholars, caused a stunned reaction among medieval scholars.Scholar Jonathan See put on twitterto “Beyoncé’s Album Drop”.
Their findings arrive at a particularly arduous time for medieval research, with fierce debates about race, gender and diversity spilling out into academic journals and on Twitter. , many scholars expressed fear that their findings would be weaponized against feminist academics. “Cancel Chaucer.”
Holly Crocker, a scholar of medieval literature at the University of South Carolina, called the new document “very exciting” but said the “story of indulgence” some had seen was exaggerated.
“While I look forward to seeing how the conversation unfolds, I continue to argue that the questions feminists have raised about the intersection of rape culture and women’s labor should shape our collective approach to these documents. .”
Chaucer’s case could touch on very hot and current issues like sex, power and consent. However, the discovery was the result of old-fashioned archival shoe leather.
For the past six years, Sobecki has been chatting with Roger, the Chief Medieval Record Specialist at the National Archives of England, on and off about where to find new material related to Chaucer’s life buried in miles of documents. said they had been discussing be archived.
In 1993, scholar Christopher Cannon caused a stir when he discovered a second copy of Sean Paen’s “Raptus” documents. In it, references to “Raptus” were removed, raising suspicions that there was some effort to clean up the story.