The Laborer's Two Bodies: Labor and the Work of the Text in Medieval Britain, 1350-1500 (New Middle Ages Series)

The Laborer's Two Bodies explores the intellectual, cultural, and political consequences of one of the most fundamental shifts in late medieval English society: the first national labor regulation in the wake of the 1348 plague. Bridging the medieval and early modern periods, this book analyzes a wide range of texts and images produced in this initial period of labor regulation (1349 to 1500), including texts by Chaucer, Gower, Langland, the Paston Family, and Barclay. The Laborer's Two Bodies demonstrates that the category of labor became increasingly problematic for writers who struggled to understand the meaning of work in a world where labor was simultaneously understood as punishment, virtue, and reward.

The Laborer's Two Bodies explores the intellectual, cultural, and political consequences of one of the most fundamental shifts in late medieval English society: the first national labor regulation in the wake of the 1348 plague.

Kellie Robertson currently serves as Director of the Medieval and Renaissance Studies Program at the University of Pittsburgh. She has published articles on Geoffrey of Monmouth, Chaucer, Milton, and postcolonial theory. She is editor (along with Michael Uebel) of a collection of essays, The Middle Ages at Work: Practicing Labor in Late Medieval England (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).