ABSTRACT
The polity, according to many late medieval writers, should ideally function as a unified public arena, a place where there is no room for secrets and hidden knowledge. Keeping things private and, in particular, maintaining a discrepancy between the private and the public was seen as suspicious and dishonest by a wide variety of writers and politicians. Thomas Fovent's pamphlet about the Merciless Parliament of 1388, the earliest extant political pamphlet, is a relentlessly anti-Ricardian tract, celebrating the achievements of the Lords Appellant and the parliament they controlled. The Merciless Parliament is notorious for its condemnation and execution of a number of Richard II's supporters and favorites, including Robert Tresilian, chief justice of England. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight focuses on the discrepancy between Gawain's public and private morals; Gawain will never fail in a public test, he fails in secret, in a private chamber where he thinks he cannot be seen.
