Although Geoffrey Chaucer and William Langland together dominate fourteenth-century English literature, their respective masterpieces, "The Canterbury Tales" and "Piers Plowman", could not be more different. While Chaucer's writings suggest that he considered himself an heir, not a begetter, the notion of him as a father-figure standing at the head of a patrilineal literary tradition was formulated within a generation of his death. John Bowers asks how Chaucer, not Langland, was granted this position. His study becomes an examination of the political, social, and religious factors that...