Secondary Sources
New CBEL 1:553–56, 804.
Manual 7:2195–2210, 2399–2418.
Beidler, Peter G., ed. John Gower’s Literary Transformations in
the Confessio Amantis: Original Articles and Translations.
Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1982.
Bennett, J.A.W. “Gower’s ‘Honeste Love.’” In Patterns of Love
and Courtesy: Essays in Memory of C.S. Lewis, ed. John
Lawlor. London: Arnold, 1966, pp. 107–21.
Burrow, John A. Ricardian Poetry: Chaucer, Gower, Langland
and the Gawain-Poet. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul,
1971.
Burrow, John A. “The Poet As Petitioner.” SAC 3 (1981):
61–75.
Fisher, John H. John Gower: Moral Philosopher and Friend of
Chaucer. New York: New York University Press, 1964.
Middleton, Anne. “The Idea of Public Poetry in the Reign of
Richard II.” Speculum 53 (1978): 94–114.
Minnis, Alastair J. “The Infl uence of Academic Prologues on the
Prologues and Literary Attitudes of Late Medieval English
Writers.” MS43 (1981): 342–83.
Minnis, Alastair J.,ed. Gower’s Confessio Amantis: Responses
and Reassessments. Cambridge: Brewer, 1983.
Nicholson, Peter, An Annotated Index to the Commentary on
Gower’s Confessio Amantis. MRTS 62. Binghamton: MRTS,
1989.
Olsson, Kurt. “Natural Law and John Gower’s Confessio Aman-
tis:” M&H n.s. 11 (1982): 229–61.
Pearsall, Derek. “Gower’s Narrative Art.” PMLA 81 (1966):
475–84.
Peck, Russell A. Kingship and Common Profi t in Gower’s Con-
fessio Amantis, Carbondale: Southern Illinois University
Press, 1978.
Pickles, J.D., and J.L. Dawson, eds. A Concordance to John
Gower’s Confessio Amantis. Cambridge: Brewer, 1987.
Scanlon, Larry. Narrative, Authority and Power: The Medieval
Exemplum and the Chaucerian Tradition. Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1993.
Schueler, Donald G. “Gower’s Characterization of Genius in the
Confessio Amantis.” MLQ 33 (1972): 240–56.
Simpson, James. Sciences and the Self in Medieval Poetry: Alan of
Lille’s Anticlaudianus and John Gower’s Confessio Amantis.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Strohm, Paul. “Form and Social Statement in Confessio Amantis
and The Canterbury Tales.” SAC 1 (1979): 17–40.
Wickert, Maria. Studies in John Gower. Trans. Robert J. Meindl.
Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1981 [only
book-length study of Vox Clamantis].
Yeager, R.F. John Gower Materials: A Bibliography through
1979. New York: Garland, 1981.
Yeager, R.F. “Pax Poetica: On the Pacifi sm of Chaucer and
Gower.” SAC 9 (1987): 97–121.
Yeager, R.F., ed. John Goiver: Recent Readings. Kalamazoo:
Medieval Institute, 1989.
Yeager, R.F. John Gower’s Poetic: The Search for a New Arion.
Cambridge: Brewer, 1990.
R.F. Yeager
GRASSER, ERASMUS (1445/1450–1518)
Born between 1445 and 1450 in Schmidmühlen near
Regensburg, this master builder and sculptor in both
stone and wood spent his career in Munich. Here he
acquired the status of master in 1477, repeatedly held
the offi ce of head of the painter’s guild, and occupied an
especially privileged position at the court of the dukes
of Bavaria. The strength of his sensual temperament is
apparent in the peculiar style of his early wood sculpture,
suggesting almost grotesque movements, which gives
way to calmer forms only in his late works. The series
of preserved architectural and sculptural works, of which
only the epitaph of Ulrich Aresinger from 1482 (Munich,
St. Peter’s) is signed and dated, allows the conclusion
that Grasser completed at least a six-year apprentice-
ship as a builder and stonecutter before the “quarrel-
some, confused, and deceitful” journeyman appeared
unexpectedly in Munich about 1474 (Frankl 1942: 257).
Only one of Grasser’s architectural projects still
stands—the ingenious extension added to the church of
the Virgin in Schwaz in Tyrol between 1490 and 1502.
Three other monuments are known through documents:
the cloister Mariaberg near Rorschach from 1487, the
tabernacle for the host at Freising Cathedral from 1489,
and the well-room with accompanying chapel at the
salt works at Reichenhall. Likewise four sculptures
or groups are documented from the oeuvre of maister
Erasem schnitzer (Master Erasmus wood-carver). Of
the original sixteen Morris Dancers carved for the Altes
Rathaus (old town hall) in Munich about 1480, ten are
preserved today in the city museum. Seven mourners
from a Lamentation group in limestone dated 1492
are preserved in Freising Cathedral. Wood fi gures of
the Virgin and Saints Leonhard and Eligius, carved
between 1502 and 1505, and the altar of St. Achatius
(1503–1506) are to be found in the church at Reichers-
dorf in Upper Bavaria (Otto 1988:31–37).
The attributed works are more numerous. A multi-
fi gured altar of the Holy Cross from about 1482 at the
church of the Assumption at Ramersdorf and a similar
small-scale monstrance altar from about 1483, now in
the Bavarian National Museum in Munich, reveal a
knowledge of Netherlandish carved altarpieces. The
often-cited infl uence of Nicolaus Gerhaert von Leyden
on Grasser’s style is visible in three groups representing
the Virgin and John the Evangelist under the cross: at
the church of St. Leonhard at Traidendorf in the Ober-
pfalz (after 1470), from the church of St. Wolfgang in
Munich (now Bavarian National Museum, 1485–1490),
and at St. Arsatius in Ilmmünster (about 1500). The
high- quality wood fi gure of a Throne of Grace (Gnaden-
stuhl) in Schliersee, from about 1480, depends closely
on an engraving of the same subject by the anonymous
Master E. S.
See also Nicolaus Gerhaert von LeydenFurther Reading
Frankl, Paul. “Early Works of Erasmus Grasser.” Art Quarterly
5 (1942): 242–258.GOWER, JOHN