Who Murdered Chaucer"": A Medieval Mystery

This is an absolutely amazing feat. Impeccable scholarship, daunting research of primary artifacts, and a brilliant distillation of available evidence all merge for this beautiful publication. The end result is remarkable on a multitude of levels. The primary success is that this is a delightful read for anyone. The fact that it's title character is the father of English literature only adds to it's radiance. Those who dismiss this signature effort as little more than a well bound picture book, clearly failed to give it a read. It is exceptionally well presented because the work itself merits such attention. Mr. Jones vivacious presentation of this monolithic probe of Chaucer and his environment breathes such life into his subject that he is all but resurrected. He and his colleagues may not have proven Chaucer's murder, but vastly more than reasonable doubt arises after their case is made. Mr. Jones first work on Chaucer 25 years ago (Chaucer's Knight) was revolutionary. In that work, his exploration of Chaucer's intent insisted on reconsideration of the knight in The Canterbury Tales. He blew the dust off of the conventional interpretation of the knight's tale and revealed the actualities. In this regard, informed academia has never been the same since. Who Murdered Chaucer calls for another reassesment of this fourteenth century innovator. Those who wish to discount Mr. Jones authority because of his theatrical enterprises (which may well include the occaisional dubious historical stretch) are obviously unaware of his formidable expertise in this territory. He is one of the preeminent Chaucerian scholars of our day. The crowning glory of this endeavor is the animation of Chaucer himself. He is no longer a distant stick figure poised against a diorama. He lives and breathes in his truculent era. We are all the richer for being drawn into his world with our eyes open to it and him. You'll leave this treatise with an inkling that Chaucer might well be the hero in the end. A fine, fine, book.

Normally, when I read a history book, I am most interested in the factual content and the bibliography and footnotes. If I were to review this book based solely on academic content, I've got to be honest and say that the authors never really answer the question in the title or prove the thesis of the book. Instead they lay out the evidence for how and why Richard II was deposed and suggest what impact that may have had on Richard's servants and ministers like Geoffrey Chaucer. The footnotes and bilbiography are fairly thorough and add much to their description. I particularly liked how the original text is provided for all quotes along with modern English renderings of the Middle English and Late Latin citations. Moreover the sheer scope of materials consulted is impressive ranging from contemporary English and French chronicles to modern statistical studies and linguistic analysis. However, the central thesis still eludes this painstaking effort. In fact, the book may do much to show that the central thesis can never be proved. For one thing, the tremendous breadth of the evidence consulted suggests that every stone has been turned over and that we may never be able to answer the question of how Chaucer died at all if we must rely on the sources we now have. But the authors also admit as much. They acknowledge that it is not even clear if Chaucer was murdered at all. Instead, they use the conceit that they are laying out a coroner's case. As a lawyer, I find that description a little too generous. The prima facie case is still missing. But what they do lay out is a plausible motive and some evidence of opportunity. They describe the milieu Chaucer lived in near the time of his death and then suggest some areas where we might continue looking for clues to what happened to him in the end. That's enough to make a good book. . . and a book I would read for its content alone. But this book goes one better. The publisher has made an eye-catching package that I couldn't pass up. When I say the book is "beautiful" I'm not exaggerating. The entire book is illustrated like the finest manuscripts of the Middle Ages, --because the illustrations are from those manuscripts themselves. It is printed on sturdy white, glossy paper like a fine art book. Never have the late middle ages come so alive for me. It is as if we are reading an alternative account of the end of Richard II written almost contemporaneously with our received histories of that era somehow miraculously . If there had been op-ed features in medieval manuscripts this would be the counterpoint to our received Lancastrian opinion of history. It's more than just a deconstruction of history. It's a re-illumination of it. I think it may be the best book of its kind I have ever read.

Up front, let me say that I am not a literature scholar. My only familiarity with Chaucer is that I read the Canterbury Tales when I was in the Marines, and again in College (I enjoyed my earlier introduction to Chaucer much more than the latter). My eye got caught by the title of the book. Having been drawn in on a potential "murder" of a poet, I was hooked as soon as I started reading. I realized pretty quickly after starting the book that it was more an examination of the period of Richard II than it was a murder mystery. I wasn't disappointed. In fact, I now know there is not any evidence that Chaucer met with an evil end for political or other reasons. The fact that Chaucer just disappears from the public record is intriguing and it is this fact that Jones builds his story around. Jones is a terrific author of history. I found Who Murdered Chaucer to be easy to read and engaging. I was reminded just a bit of Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror in how the the book moved through its subject. Jones' writing style also reminds me of the french historian Fernand Braudel. Terry Jones is obviously highly versed in his subject. The love of his topic becomes apparent on the lines of each page. I highly recommend Who Murdered Chaucer by Terry Jones.

As a trained Chaucerian and devoted Python fan, I of course opened this book with high expectations for both historical accuracy and enjoyable, irreverent reading. Jones provides both in ample measure, but what really stands out about this book is how much more readable and engaging it is than anything written about Chaucer since the heyday of Furnivall and Skeat (that is, a century and a half ago). Jones & Co. (I'm not sure exactly what the precise balance of authorial array is here) adroitly blend readable historical anecdotes, weaving a compelling account of the extraordinary tensions between church and state, and within the state itself, in the last decade of Chaucer's life. The struggle over the meaning and value of texts written in the vernacular is at the center of this drama, and Chaucer -- as we should have known -- was not above politics, but right in the middle of them. I note that another reviewer has said that here we have *no* documentation -- that's true of Chaucer's death, but in fact we know ten times more about the details of Chaucer's life than Shakespeare's, and we may reasonably extrapolate a good deal more. In the past, such extrapolatin was done by people devoted to the idea of an ironic yet oddly toothless Chaucer who ultimately voted for the status quo -- here is an equally plausible but far more radical portrait, one that outshines all the others. For those who doubt that Chaucer's writings could in fact be seen as subversive, I myself know an account of a certain man by the name of John Baron, who was arrested in 1471 for the crime of owning vernacular books; among the titles he confessed to possessing was 'a boke of the tales of Caunterbury.' So there. Read this book and learn why.