John Gower

John Gower (c. 1330–1408) was an English poet, a contemporary and friend of Chaucer, who called him moral Gower. A landowner of Kentish family, he lived for his later years in the priory of St Mary Overie in Southwark, where his tomb survives. He wrote major poems in three languages: the Mirour de l'Omme in French, on the vices and estates of society; the Vox Clamantis in Latin, which opens with the Peasants' Revolt of 1381; and the Confessio Amantis in English, more than a hundred tales within the frame of a lover's confession, written at the request of Richard II and later rededicated to the future Henry IV.