Ethan Campbell argues that a central feature of the Gawain-poet's Middle English works' moral rhetoric is anticlerical critique. 



Written in an era when clerical corruption was a key concern for



polemicists such as Richard FitzRalph and John Wyclif, as well as satirical poets



such as John Gower, William Langland, and Geoffrey Chaucer, the Gawain poems feature an explicit attack



on hypocritical priests in the opening lines of Cleanness as well as more subtle critiques embedded within



depictions of flawed priest-like characters.



Ethan Campbell is Associate Professor of English & Literature and Coordinator of the English Major at The King's College in New York City.



1. Introduction: The Sullied Sacrament2. The Textual Environment of Fourteenth-Century English Anticlericalism3. The Anticlerical Poetics of Cleanness4. The Reluctant Priest of Patience5. The Late-Arriving Priest of Pearl6. The Devilish Priest of Sir Gawain