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Ninth Century. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press,
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Van Moos, Peter. “Gottschalks Gedicht O mi custos—eine confes-
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E. Ann Matter
GOWER, JOHN (1330?–1408)
Poet and friend of Chaucer. Gower was probably born
of a Kentish family during the third decade of the 14th
century. He may have attended the Inns of Court, per-
haps with Chaucer, acquiring legal training possibly put
to use in land dealings recorded of a “John Gower” in the
Close Rolls ca. 1365–74. We have better evidence that
Gower the poet owned lands in Norfolk, Suffolk, and
Kent by 1382 and that he was familiar enough with the
Lancastrian house to be awarded a collar of silver “SS”
links upon the ascension of Henry IV in 1399.
In his later years Gower took an interest in the mon-
astery of St. Mary Overeys in Southwark, apparently re-
storing several of its buildings with his own and friends’
money. Sometime after 1377 he took his residence there,
probably as a lay brother, for he did not join the order. On
23 January 1398 Gower received a license from the see
of Winchester to marry one Agnes Groundolf (probably
his nurse) at his house on the priory grounds. Gower’s
will, dated 15 August 1408, divides substantial property
among several religious houses and his wife. It gives
no evidence of an earlier marriage or of children. An
elaborate tomb, surmounted by a near-life-sized effi gy
wearing the “SS” collar, representations of his three
major works, and protective angels, rests in the north
aisle of St. Saviour’s Church, Southwark.
A prolifi c and versatile writer, Gower composed
nearly 80,000 lines of poetry in French, Latin, and
English. Although the chronology of individual works
remains imprecise, it is generally thought that his earliest
compositions were in Anglo-Norman and that his Eng-
lish poems were the product of the last two decades of
his life. He continued to write in Latin and French until
the end, however, making him a truly trilingual poet—an
achievement unique among English literary fi gures.
French Works
Of the French poems the earliest and longest is common-
ly known by the title Mirour de I’Omme. (Alternative
names are Speculum Hominis or Speculum Meditantis,
but these are used infrequently.) The Mirour exists in
one manuscript only, copied by a single hand: CUL Add.
3035, presently containing 28,603 lines, but missing at
least a dozen leaves. It seems likely that the complete
poem consisted of approximately 31,000 lines. The
Mirour is written in twelve-line stanzas of octosyllabic
verse, rhyming aab aab bba bba.
The subject of the Mirour de I’Omme is the complete
moral life of man. To describe this Gower created a
poem in three parts, unequal in length but seemingly
equivalent in import. The fi rst section—about two-
thirds of the work— presents a complex but familiar
allegory: the begetting of Death by the Devil on Sin,
his own daughter; the subsequent coupling of Sin and
Death to produce seven “daughters,” the deadly sins or
Vices; the marriage of the World to the seven Vices, as
a strategy to beget helpers to seduce Man; their mutual
assault on Man; the prayer of Conscience and Reason
to God for assistance; the divinely arranged marriage of
the seven Virtues to Reason, and the description of their
daughters; the oppositional pairing of the Virtues and
their offspring against the Vices and their offspring. The
second section considers how the battle of good and evil
is going in the world. The Three Estates—clergy, knights
or lords, and peasants— are subdivided and examined,
from pope to parish priest, emperor to laborer; all are
found thoroughly corrupt and incapable of reforming
themselves without merciful grace. The poem concludes
with a third section describing the source of this ex-
traordinary succor—the Virgin Mary, whose life, joys,
and sorrows are related in some detail. The fi nal lines
of the Mirour as we have them are the poet’s prayer to
the Virgin for mercy and a list of her names and titles,
cut short by the missing manuscript leaves.
Gower’s remaining French poetry consists of two
sequences of ballades, one generally known as the Cink-
ante Balades, the other as the Traitié pour Essampler
les Amantz Marietz, or simply the Traitié. Although an
early date was once assumed for the Cinkante Balades
and a late one for the Traitié, in fact no fi rm evidence
exists to establish when, or in what context or order,
Gower composed these poems. Theories connecting the
former sequence with a still-fl ourishing merchant puy (a
bourgeois literary and social organization) in London, or
the latter with Gower’s marriage (whatever might be true
of individual ballades), are without fi rm foundation. The
Cinkante Balades (Fifty Ballades), despite the title found
in its unique manuscript, actually contains 54 poems,
each in seven- or eight-line stanzas and almost all with
standard four-line envois (short dosing stanzas). The
poems trace the correspondence of two lovers during an
affair, with both a male and female voice represented.
The collection is overtly critical of amoral dalliance and
seems created to offer alternative images of love and love
poetry compatible with Christian marriage.
The eighteen ballades known as the Traitié repeat the
same fi rm directives concerning the unique propriety
of lawful affection and (by extension) poetics. TheseGOWER, JOHN