June 13, 1381

We learn about John Gower (1330 to 1408) that he was

'...a wealthy landowner, [who] wrote long poems in French, Latin, and English. Chaucer dedicated his romance "Troilus and Criseyde" to the "moral Gower"; the epithet "moral" has stuck to Gower's name and well describes his three main works — the "Mirour de l'Omme" (Mirror of Man), "Vox Clamantis" (Voice of One Crying Out), and "Confessio Amantis" (Lover's Confession) — all of which inveigh against the corruption of the times. Both the Mirour and the Vox are estates satires, that is, they attack the vices of the different estates. In the Confessio, the lover (a persona of the poet) confesses to a priest called Genius, who tells him stories illustrating the seven deadly sins. The Mirour, the French poem, was addressed primarily to a bilingual upper-class audience; the Vox,, the Latin, to a clerical audience; and the Confessio, the English, perhaps following Chaucer's lead, to all educated readers. Gower seems to have completed the Mirour and most of the poem that he entitled Vox Clamantis before the Uprising of 1381. Those events so upset him that he set about to write an allegory of the rebellion, which he made the first book of the Vox. "Vox Clamantis" refers to the saint whose name Gower bore, John the Baptist, whom all four gospels refer to as "the voice of one crying out in the wilderness"... who will prepare the way for the Lord, fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah 40.3. Gower ... cast his allegory in the form of a dream vision, a popular poetic genre in the fourteenth century, also employed by Chaucer. '

John Gower was appalled by the Peasants Revolt, and considered it evidence of a rejection of the order God imposed. In "Vox Clamantis" we see his assumptions about peasants who bore no respect for upper classes. He used animal metaphors, as we see in this translation from The complete works of John Gower. Ed. from the manuscripts with introductions, notes, and glossaries by G.C. Macaulay (1899-1902.)

'.... the three-legged dog limps [behind the other dogs] barking. These
cannot be soothed by stroking, but bare their teeth in anger against
you. They tear all whom they meet, and the more they devour the
less they are satisfied. Cerberus in hell hears their howl, and break-
ing away from his chains he joins himself to their company and becomes
their leader. ....
Another band took the form of foxes and cats. They ran
about and searched every cavern and every hiding-place, and made
their way into secret chambers. There was venom in their bite. The
caves of the wood send forth the foxes, who rob by day without fear,
and have a treaty of peace with the dogs. The cats leave the barns
and cease to catch mice....'

Thus he viewed the peasants, and with a minimum of historical imagination, we can grasp his logic. We have no exact dates for Gower, but history tells us that the Peasants' Revolt reached its culmination when a castle belonging to John of Gaunt was set on fire.  That was the Savoy Palace, on June 13, 1381.