In his book Chaucer and the Subject of History, Lee Patterson identifies a problem of linguistic interpretation in The Canterbury Tales. After the Knight has related his tale Harry Bailey calls upon the Monk to tell a tale that will “quite” the Knight or repay him for his generosity. The Miller interrupts however, interpreting the word “quite” to mean “retaliate,” and then proceeds to tell a tale that mocks the values and sentiment of The Knight’s Tale.[1] Although this misinterpretation of language contains a comedic undertone, this disparity between signifier and signified proves significant as it establishes a pattern of narrative retaliation that serves to structure the text. It also reflects Chaucer’s larger theme: the difficulty of defining the self within a rapidly changing social landscape.
This problem of self-definition appears in the text from the very beginning, from the text’s own indeterminate nature to the characterizations of the pilgrims themselves. The tales fall into a jumble of genres and the connective material displays characteristics of several modes of discourse at once, refusing reduction into any particular one. Likewise nearly all of the characters embody a similar interpretive paradox in that the identities they fashion for themselves and present to the world do not correspond to the socially constructed roles they play. On one level Chaucer uses this disparity to mock the pretentiousness that he saw in members of English society. However even those characters that Chaucer presents in a genuinely positive light—namely the Clerk, the Plowman and the Parson—contain aspects that prove to be socially problematic for Chaucer since these three characters possess strong Wyclifite connotations.
As noted, Chaucer seizes on the problem of indeterminacy as a means of satirizing particular members of English society. In presenting the pilgrims he makes a series of delightfully backhanded compliments, describing the pilgrims in seemingly glowing terms that become highly ironic upon reflection. The prioress Madame Eglentyne stands perhaps as the most glaring example. Chaucer tells us that she has the most fastidious courtly manners, speaking French “ful faire and fetisly” (I [A] 124) and that “At mete wel ytaught was she with alle” (127).[2] Chaucer presents her as such an example of the finest courtly lady it surprises us to remember that for a nun she behaves inappropriately for her profession. By constructing her in a way that emphasizes the disjunction between her appearance and her identity Chaucer gains the ability to criticize subtly the hypocrisy surrounding religious professions.
Chaucer however spares the Clerk, the Parson and the Plowman from his satirical commentary. These three possess significance for many reasons, the first lying in the fact that their appearances conform to their professions. The Clerk is a poor scholar devoted to his studies, the Parson is a religious leader practicing what he preaches and the Plowman is a simple laborer working happily for his keep. Their appearances correspond to their identities. This alone seems enough to earn Chaucer’s respect but we must remember also that in Chaucer’s time each of these figures and their professions possessed symbolic meaning as well.
Chaucer constructs the Clerk in three ways: the way he describes the character in the General Prologue, the way the other pilgrims address the character and the way The Clerk’s Tale reveals the character’s values. To begin, the portrait of the Clerk that appears in the General Prologue provides us with a visual representation of the Clerk. The first aspect of his appearance discussed here refers to his physical shape. The text tells us that, “As leene was his hors as is a rake, / And he nas nat right fat, I undertake, / But looked holwe, and therto sobrely” (287-89). We could attribute this leanness of the Clerk to a type of asceticism since a clerk as a seminarian possesses a spiritual mentality, at least in theory. The statement that the Clerk looks “soberly” would support this interpretation. St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica designates sobriety as one of the seven virtues, countering the deadly sin of gluttony. To be sober then means to behave in a saintly manner. However such a conclusion ignores the fact that the horse’s physical state reflects its master’s. The Clerk’s “hollowness” therefore lacks volition. The phrase, “Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre” (298) confirms this deduction. What little income the Clerk receives comes from friends and benefactors and he prefers to use the money to buy books than feed himself or his horse. The Clerk inhabits the intellectual realm where the works of the mind concern him more than those of the body.
We learn a little more about the Clerk from the prologue to his tale. Here the Host calls the Clerk’s masculinity into question. He says, “Ye ryde as coy and stille as dooth a mayde / Were newe spoused, sitting at the bord” (IV [E] 2-3). Harry Bailey compares the clerk to a virgin girl at her wedding banquet, anxious about the events of the night to come. Although the comment refers to the Clerk’s apparent shyness the statement serves to suggest that Harry Bailey regards the Clerk as ineffectual or effeminate. In the reader’s mind this connects the Clerk with the Summoner whose tale precedes the Clerk’s in the Ellesmere manuscript. It also recalls The Miller’s Tale, particularly the foppish character of Absolon. Harry Bailey’s comment constructs the Clerk in a manner that proscribes his behavior and his tale. “Even before he says a word, then, literary, philosophical, and spiritual discourses compete to define the subjectivity of the Clerk.”[3]
Chaucer makes it clear however that the Clerk’s apparent shyness comes from circumspection. As the General Prologue states:
Noght o word spak he moore than was neede,
And that was seyd in forme and reverence,
And short and quyk and ful of hy sentence;
Sownynge in moral vertu was his speche,
And gladly wolde he lerne and gladly teche. (I [A] 285-308).
The Clerk does not engage in unnecessary verbosity. He therefore presents a stark contrast to some of the other pilgrims, notably the Wife of Bath. This quietude also appears in the protagonist of his tale, the patient Griselda. Borrowed from Boccaccio’s Decameron the story of Griselda exemplifies the moral virtue of sufferance. Griselda tolerates the abuse of her husband without complaint. Griselda and the Clerk exhibit obvious parallels. She obeys the man who rules over her just as the Clerk pays “obeisance” to the man that “han of us as now the governance” (IV [E] 23-24).
Ironically the parallels between Griselda and the Clerk reinforce the Host’s assessment of the Clerk’s silence but within the Tales' larger thematic context the parallels reinforce the Clerk’s moral superiority over the other characters including the Host himself. Griselda’s peasant upbringing results in her famed patience. While her husband the Marquis raises her social standing by marrying her she has no illusions about herself and refuses to behave with an inflated sense of entitlement. She knows her state of being and does not try to deny it. The same holds true for the Clerk. He does not claim any identity other than that of a poor scholar and he remains silent because he refuses to speak about that which he does not know.
At the other end of the continuum stands the Plowman who inhabits the realm of the physical. Chaucer reveals the Plowman’s simple character to us only in the General Prologue. It appears that in the England of Chaucer’s creation plowmen tell no tales. We should however take into account that the real England of Chaucer’s time produced the work Piers the Plowman, a text which we reasonably can presume Chaucer knew. We can therefore export socially current ideas regarding plowmen from that text to flesh out our understanding of Chaucer’s Plowman.
In the General Prologue we learn that the Plowman is brother to the Parson and like his brother, “A trewe swynkere and a good was he, / Lyvynge in pees and parfit charitee” (I [A] 531-32). The Plowman plays the part of the model Christian loving his neighbor as he loves himself and helping his community without thought of reward. More importantly he proves himself a model citizen for the Plowman exists as a laborer in a post-Peasants’ Revolt England who pays his taxes in full and without complaint (539).
Like the Clerk the Plowman recognizes his place in the social hierarchy and accepts it. Moreover he possesses a Christ-like quality. As noted, he follows the example set by Jesus and in doing so embodies exemplarity himself. Just as Jesus fulfilled the archetype of the God Incarnate the Plowman affects the world physically, working with his body to plant and grow crops in order to meet the needs of the body. In using his body in this way he fulfills the promise of Adam working happily in the Garden. The Plowman’s body therefore becomes the locus of teleological argumentation, proving the divine nature of man by embodying the essence of Christ.
Between these two characters stands the Parson. Like the Clerk and the Plowman, the Parson comes from the third estate. As a parson he possesses a religious vocation which places him in the realm of the soul. Moreover this vocation creates a spiritual fraternity between the Parson and the Clerk just as there exists a physical fraternity between the Parson and the Plowman. The Parson thus unites the three positive figures in the Tales in a fusion of the realms of the mind, the soul, and the body.
In the General Prologue Chaucer establishes further thematic connections between the Parson and the other two exemplars. Although educated the Parson lives in poverty like the Clerk. Likewise, “Benygne he was, and wonder diligent, / And in adversitee ful pacient, / And swich he was ypreved ofte sithes” (I [A] 483-85). In Griselda’s manner he does not complain about mistreatment or the vicissitudes of the world but bears it all patiently. Also like the Clerk the Parson keeps to himself and his field of expertise: “The Parson entirely constrains his body to the geographical extent of his parish, incessantly retracing its limits with his feet. This image is a stark contrast to the outriding Monk, with his stable full of horses, overseeing the far-flung properties of a prosperous abbey. The Parson’s exertions are restricted to the smallest ecclesiastical unit—a unit moreover with its roots not in ecclesiastical organization, but in the feudal estate.”[4] Chaucer points out that unlike those other spiritual counselors the Parson lives as a member of his community and does not seek promotion: “He was a shepherde and noght a mercenarie” (I [A] 514). The pastoral imagery that Chaucer employs in the description of the Parson further separates the character from the Church and connects him with the agrarian sphere of influence.
A simple man like his brother the Plowman the Parson recognizes and accepts his place in English society. As the General Prologue says:
Ful looth were hym to cursen for his tithes,
But rather wolde he yeven, out of doute,
Unto his povre parisshens aboute
Of his offryng and eek of his substaunce.
He koude in litel thyng have suffisaunce. (486-90).
In glossing this passage in The Riverside Chaucer the editors state that the Parson feels reluctant to condemn members of his flock for not contributing tithes to the parish. However a more thematically contextual reading would state that the Parson does not feel reluctant to share the wealth of the parish. Just as his brother pays his taxes willingly the Parson does not stint in his tithing.
The Parson’s most defining characteristic though serves to most delineate him from the rest of the religious figures in the text. He practices what he preaches, teaching his parishioners through example: “This noble ensample to his sheep he yaf, / That first he wroghte, and afterward he taughte” (496-97). This practice stands in stark contrast to the Pardoner, for example, who capitalizes on his own hypocrisy in his preaching. Chaucer the narrator clearly approves of the Parson’s practices:
For if a preest be foul, on whom we truste,
No wonder is a lewed man to ruste;
And shame it is, if a prest take keep,
A shiten shepherde and a clene sheep.
Wel oghte a preest ensample for to yive,
By his clennesse, how that his sheep sholde lyve. (501-06).
The Parson’s exemplarity carries over to The Parson’s Tale. More a manual on the sacrament of penance than an actual tale The Parson’s Tale functions as an expression of the appropriate mode of discourse for a parson: “Addressed by the Host as ‘Sire preest,’ he speaks as a priest about the speech appropriate for a priest.”[5] As with the other tales this one enhances our understanding of the teller’s character and as with The Clerk’s Tale we see that the character matches the profession.
Judging from the Clerk, the Plowman and the Parson we can reasonably presume that Chaucer valued the qualities of veracity, integrity and humility. Chaucer also believed evidently that these are rare traits and that members of the first and second estates lacked them. This latter opinion contains a fairly subversive quality for Chaucer’s time and the fact that the three positive characterizations found in The Canterbury Tales all had strong Wyclifite associations further compounds that subversiveness.
Chaucer would have known the Wyclif controversy and the related Lollard heresy very well. He had connections with Oxford where John Wyclif taught and also had connections with several professed “Lollard knights.” Wyclif himself had close ties to John of Gaunt as did Chaucer: “When he was first under attack from the pope and the English hierarchy, Wyclif found a protector in John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster, who was also the patron and friend of Chaucer.”[6] Indeed, many of the ideas and themes that Chaucer explores in his writing show an understanding if not an appreciation of Lollard ideals: “Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales are proof that he shared many of Wyclif’s views on the corruption of the Church, the friars and the sale of indulgences. Above all, there are hints in his writing, as in his choice of friends, that Chaucer sympathized with Wyclif’s posthumous followers, commonly known as Lollards.”[7] While we must note that Chaucer does not present the Clerk, the Parson and the Plowman as Lollards he does give these characters attributes that the English people of the time would on some level have connected with that group. The Clerk we are told comes from Oxford. Of course this detail in itself lacks special significance as English clerks would either have to come from Oxford or Cambridge and those who would appear in London would most likely come from the former university as a matter of geographical proximity. But Chaucer points out that the Clerk has a preoccupation with books and language. The Wyclif controversy we must remember arose from the fact that he argued for translating the Bible into English so that the common people had easy access to the word of God. A Clerk from Oxford with a predilection for books and a concern for language would thus present a mildly suspicious figure.
Furthermore the Christ-like figure of the Plowman plays into the Lollard heresy as well. Some Lollards believed in holding land in common, land they would work communally for the needs of the community. Thus as evidenced by Piers the Plowman the plowman became a Lollard icon. By presenting the plowman as a Christ-figure the Lollards made the claim that peasants inherited the true spirit of Christianity, a claim that negated the authority of the clergy.
But the most damning connection between the Tales and Lollardy lies in the Parson. The central tenet of Lollardy holds that every individual had the right to an education in the Bible and lay preachers had the ability to provide that education. In The Epilogue of the Man of Law’s Tale, a passage expurgated apparently from later versions of the manuscript, Harry Bailey explicitly accuses the Parson of being such a preacher:
Oure Host answerde, “O Jankin, be ye there?
I smelle a Lollere in the wynd,” quod he.
“Now! Goode men,” quod oure Hoste, “herkeneth me;
Abydeth, for Goddes digne passioun,
For we schal han a predicacioun;
This Lollere heer wil prechen us somwhat.” (II [B1] 1172-77).
Of course, simply calling the Parson a “Lollere” does not make him one but this passage and its use of the term puts the idea in the mind of the reader. “While this use certainly does not establish the Parson as a Lollard, it should suggest that Chaucer wanted his readers to think of the Parson in relation to Lollardy.”[8] The Parson’s Tale also shows the taint of Lollardy. Although the Tale does not follow this epilogue in the Ellesmere manuscript it does exactly what the Host here says it will. The Parson “asserts that pastoral discourse on specific sins is a powerful instrument for moral analysis and religious/social formation.”[9] The Parson like a Lollard teaches directly from the Bible and by living his own life according to the lessons of the Bible he becomes a living version of the Gospels himself. “In thus emphasizing the biblical authority and origin of the Parson’s preaching, Chaucer draws attention to the absence of the church.”[10]
Of course, we cannot say that Chaucer participated in the Lollard heresy himself. In fact he seems to have gone out of the way to distance himself from any accusation of Lollardy. It appears though that both Chaucer and the Lollards held the same opinion on the practice of pilgrimage: “The very concept as well as the execution of the Canterbury Tales might be seen as a satire on pilgrimage, which Wyclif denounced as idolatry and commercial exploitation. Except for the Parson, every one of the men and women in holy orders, as well as their lay accomplices such as the Summoner, are shown as corrupt, selfish, lustful or hypocritical, or all these things at once.”[11] This similarity between Chaucer and Wyclif’s followers however does not mean that they colluded with each other. It rather seems to indicate a common attitude of discontent with the Church that grew during the fourteenth century. After all, the work of continental writers and thinkers of the time exhibit this attitude as well. In the Divina Commedia, for example, Dante criticizes the Church harshly for its politicizing of the Christian faith. This discontent will later result in the Reformation in the sixteenth century. However by observing English society and documenting it Chaucer played a crucial role in planting the seeds for that later social change.
Ultimately that very sense of reportage serves to define The Canterbury Tales. The problems of self-definition exhibited in the text reflects the shifting ideas of self-identity caused by the Black Death. People saw that their social roles no longer defined them, resulting in a society-wide identity crisis. Chaucer himself existed between classes and represented a living embodiment of this unstable sense of identity. Seen in this light The Canterbury Tales becomes an important historical document as it captures the tensions of its place and time.
[1] Lee Patterson, Chaucer and the Subject of History (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991), 244.
[2] All quotations from Chaucer come from Larry D. Benson, gen. ed., The Riverside Chaucer, 3rd ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987).
[3] Warren Ginsberg, Chaucer’s Italian Tradition (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002), 241.
[4] Larry Scanlon, Narrative, Authority, and Power: the Medieval Exemplum and the Chaucerian Tradition, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature, no. 20 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 10-11.
[5] Edwin D. Craun, Lies, Slander, and Obscenity in Medieval English Literature: Pastoral Rhetoric and the Deviant Speaker, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature, no. 31 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 187.
[6] Richard West, Chaucer, 1340-1400: the Life and Times of the First English Poet (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2000), 166-67.
[7] Ibid., 167.
[8] Katherine Little, “Chaucer’s Parson and the Specter of Wycliffism,” Studies in the Age of Chaucer 23 (2001): 225-26.
[9] Craun, 189.
[10] Little, 239.
[11] West, 179.
