Medieval English Literature

Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, like the works of Homer, stand as a piece of literary history and also as an indication of actual history. For nearly a millennium Europe was absent of any significant works of literature; between the time of the Romans to Dante, virtually no literary indications of what medieval life was like have survived or stood the test of time. Dante himself -- writing in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries -- provides the modern reader with little by way of what daily life consisted of during his time. Instead, Dante generates a brilliant critique of the role of the Church in medieval Europe, while leaving the more subtle aspects of medieval society unmentioned. Chaucer, on the other hand, brings together a series of stories that seem to defy categorization: they seem to mimic the epics of ancient times, but are put in a uniquely medieval English perspective. At the same time, Chaucer clearly seems to borrow ideas from Dante and the handful of other medieval writers who emerged in the thirteenth century; the most obvious of these inspirations being the deliberate choice to write in the English vernacular -- like Dante's choice to write in the Italian vernacular. Ultimately, Chaucer's approach to poetry allows his work of fiction to, perhaps, come closer to accurately describing the people of medieval England than any other existing piece of literature.

Nevertheless, this presents the modern reader with something of a dilemma. Although we must treat Chaucer's characterization of the people in fourteenth century England as close to accurate in a relativistic sense, we should not allow his unique place in literature to fool us into thinking that personal bias does not exist in The Canterbury Tales. In other words, although the pilgrims and even their stories might represent a large piece of cultural history, the fact that Chaucer himself was one man, living in the midst of the complex social situation that was fourteenth century England, should suggest that everyone in The Canterbury Tales is seen through a particular lens.

With this in mind, it is possible to analyze the female characters that Chaucer presents in a way that goes beyond the one-dimensional tallying of their individual actions and motivations. Certainly, the women of The Canterbury Tales can be, to some extent, understood simply through the way Chaucer intends to present them; but Chaucer's very conception of what a woman is can also be utilized as a method toward grasping the essential role of women in medieval society. Chaucer, as a member of the dominant culture in medieval Europe -- wealthy men -- necessarily creates and describes his female characters in terms of their relationship to specific archetypes. Yet, in this respect, Chaucer is exceedingly innovative -- for his time -- regarding the creation of all his characters: each character is, in a way, held up to the ideal model of what it means to be a monk, a friar, a prioress, or a knight, and shown to somehow diverge from their associated epitome. So in general, "Chaucer was very careful to make his pilgrims representative of contemporary society," (Halliday 95).

Each pilgrim is described by the narrator both in terms of what he or she is, and in terms of what he or she is expected to be. The Monk is the most obvious example of this; he is exceedingly hansom and active for a Monk, and although he purports to take his duty to God seriously, he explicitly scoffs at certain restrictions upon his lifestyle which he sees as unnecessary. He hunts and ostensibly lives the life of a young, carefree lord. When he rides, "Ginglen in a whistlinge wind as cleere / And seed as loude as dooth the chapel belle," (Chaucer 170-71). Chaucer presents the Monk in this ironical way: the jingling bridle of his hunting horse is, for him, the chapel bell of his true calling. So although he is decidedly offered by the narrator in positive terms, it immediately becomes apparent that the characters of this tale are not going to fit the stereotypical molds of their stations. Instead, they will be far more three-dimensional and realistic characters than the simply facts of their social status might superficially indicate. Still, it remains the narrator's and the audience's implicit expectations as to what each character should be that reveals the most about what they are, and what role they actually serve in Chaucer's story.

The Knight is chosen to tell the first tale of the journey by drawing straws. The Knight seems to fulfill the narrator's expectations -- with respect to his social role -- far better than the other characters. He exhibits all the fundamental characteristics that were essential to life as a knight: "chivalrie" (prowess), "trouthe" (fidelity), "honour" (reputation), "fredom" (generosity), and "curteisie" (refinement), (Chaucer 45-46). The Knight also possesses a lengthy and remarkable military career; he has "ridden to battle in both Christian and heathen lands and in every instance served his king well. Despite his valorous deeds, the Knight never boated of his actions nor bored his listeners with his feats," (Nicoll 12). It may also be significant that the Knight, though having fought in dozens of battles, has never engaged in a secular war for his king. This clearly indicates some level of devotion to the principles of right and wrong -- as he understands them -- as well as his loyalty to God.

If any flaw could be found in the Knight's success in living up to the expectations of knighthood it would be that he is overly fond of the particular codes of chivalric action; he seems to be committed to the chivalric code through love of it, and not through a true understanding of it. In this way, his son, the Squire, parallels his father: his love is vested in the courtly love that knights are supposed to uphold. Accordingly, the woman the Squire courts is not necessarily the object of his affections, but the end result of his love for chivalry. Similarly, the Knight is not an honorable character because he possesses honor but, instead, he is an honorable character because he loves and strives for honor.

It may be because of the Knight's high level of congruity with the stereotypical notion of what it means to be a knight that he is the first to tell his tale. Accordingly, the Miller's interruption and subsequent tale should be viewed as a deliberate contrast, on Chaucer's, part between the two characters and the ways in which they view the world. Although both men are capable of exhibiting their physical prowess, the Miller is the one who is rowdy, aggressive, boastful, and obnoxious. The Knight is a far more well-developed character in The Canterbury Tales, so it is appropriate to see the Miller as a mechanism used by Chaucer to put the Knight and his tale into a different perspective -- that of the common people. The Miller is abrasive, brash, and quick to action in every way that the Knight is calm, methodical, and peace-loving. Their stories mirror this obvious contrast. Therefore, the Knight's Tale and the Miller's Tale cannot be approached as just haphazardly connected pieces of fiction.

The Canterbury Tales must be treated as a whole, with delicate considerations made for each pilgrim and each story he or she relays: "Chaucer's adoption of a Canterbury pilgrimage was not a mere excuse for story-telling. Most readers, I am aware, treat this great masterpiece simply as a storehouse of fiction, and so do many critics. Yet everybody feels, I am sure, that Chaucer was quite as much interested in the pilgrims themselves as in their several narratives," (Kittredge 153). So the issue of the women depicted in these tales is exceedingly more intricate than the reader may have initially imagined. Ultimately, this is because the audience is separated three times over from the characters in the tales: first, there is the pilgrim telling the tale; second, there is Chaucer the narrator describing the pilgrims; and third, there is Chaucer himself, who uses all of these characters to mold his complete story and link his audience to his subject.

It has sometimes been argued that Chaucer uses women in a manner that mimics the idealized social role of women in the medieval tradition (Hallett 481). Essentially, the assertion is put forward that women in medieval England could only have been conceived of by men as their opposite, their social "other," (De Beauvoir 1407). Nicky Hallett characterizes this conception of Chaucer by presenting a vision of femininity represented in The Sound of Music (1959) which she feels is congruous with the chivalric traditions of western culture: "You wait, little girl on an empty stage / for fate to turn the light on; / Your life, little girl, is an empty page / That men will want to write on," (Hallett 480). Fundamentally, this is the version of femininity in accordance most with the code of honor by which the Knight and his son operate: one in which females stand as the objects of men's proper and forthright affections. Since they are blank pages, the women possess no direct say in which man will use her to write his story. The result is that men will compete over her and she will remain largely passive in this pursuit. This motif is used by Chaucer both within the Miller's and Knight's tales, and between these two pilgrims; men compete for women in both stories, just as the Knight and Miller compete for the praise of the travelers. The Miller and the Knight are social opposites, and Chaucer makes use of this to convey two stories that each says something very different about life in medieval England, yet maintains many of the basics of Chaucer's personal views of women and society.

In this way, the first story unfolds largely as the typical Medieval audience may have anticipated. The Knight tells the story of Palamoun and Arcite and their love for Emilye. The primary image within the Knight's Tale is that of fate: to the knight, fate acts like a revolving wheel. Chaucer writes, "For certes, lord, ther is noon of us alle / That she nath been a duchesse of a queene. / Now be we caitives, as it is wel seene, / Thanked be Fortune and hir false wheel, / That noon estaat assureth to be weel," (Chaucer 921-25). Essentially, Palamoun and Arcite are caught upon the edge of fate's revolving wheel: when the four widows kneel before Theseus and beg for his intervention, they are on the bottom of fate's wheel; but when Theseus acts on their behalf fate acts to save them while forcing Palamoun and Arcite into prison. This suggests some level of divine balance within the world illustrated by the Knight. Yet because fate behaves in such a revolving fashion, the prisoners find love while in their incarcerated state -- they fall in love with Emilye after seeing her through their prison window. So although they are in a desperate state while imprisoned by Theseus, their confinement allows them the possibility of experiencing the medieval archetype of love -- courtly love.

It is significant that the Knight presents this version of love, and its relationship to medieval women, because it is the culmination of his personal passion for the chivalric code of honor. In accordance with the motif of fate's wheel, love acts to both save the pair of inmates at the same time as it dooms them: neither one can be completely happy while imprisoned, but neither one can be completely happy in their freedom in the absence of Emilye. Ultimately, this is why the Knight rhetorically asks his audience after Arcite is freed and Palamoun is left behind: "Who hath the worse, Arcite or Palamoun? / That oon may seen his lady day by day, / But in prisoun moot he dwelle always; / That oother wher him list may ride or go, / But seen his lady shal he neveremo," (Chaucer 1347-52). Throughout the tale, it is unclear who is in the better position, because fate offers both positives and negatives associated with every action.

Doubtlessly, the association of both positives and negatives around certain aspects of life is exemplified best by the Knight's depiction of courtly love. Of course, this must be the first version of love that Chaucer presents because it is the form of love believed to exist in the upper classes: "Though sex and marriage belonged to everyone, 'love' in Chaucer's time belonged to the upper classes," (Howard 103). Since the Knight is the pilgrim in the highest social station, it is essential that his notion of women and society be presented first. After all, this is the version of society and human interaction that makes it into the history books; history is written by the upper classes to detail their lives, actions, and beliefs. Accordingly, Chaucer begins by offering his audience something that is at least somewhat familiar.

The courtly love upheld by the Knight's honor code, and pursued by the Squire is precisely the variety of love exhibited by Palamoun and Arcite simply by seeing Emilye through a window: "

The Knight's Tale is a romance that encapsulates the themes, motifs, and ideals of courtly love: love is like an illness that can change the lover's physical appearance, the lover risks death to win favor with his lady, and he is inspired to utter eloquent poetic complaints. The lovers go without sleep because they are tormented by their love, and for many years they pine away hopelessly for an unattainable woman," (Gardner). So although love possesses the power to inspire and resurrect men from the depths of despair -- it at least partially redeems the inmates -- it also brings along the power to bring illness, torment, and violent hostility. In short, courtly love demands that Palamoun and Arcite eventually compete with one another, even if the object of their affections is completely unattainable.

Of course, Chaucer was no stranger to critiquing and poking fun at the conventions of courtly love. Much unlike the great poets who immediately preceded him -- Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio -- Chaucer explicitly claims to be an outsider when it comes to love. However, for a poet in fourteenth century England, not being proficient in courtly love and its rituals would have been completely ridiculous: "Talking about love was a great evening pastime, and talking about it well was a recognized skill. In this verbal aspect of courtly tradition Chaucer must have been exceptionally brilliant, so part of the humor in his pose came from its being incongruous, rather like the famous mathematician who says he can't add," (Howard 104). By Chaucer's time, the images of courtly love, with men pining after women to write upon their blank pages, were so well-known that they were almost classless (Howard 104). Nevertheless, it was chiefly among the nobility that it was pursued with any level of sincerity. Thus, Chaucer's claim of unknowingness is truly an indication of his understanding of humor with respect to the subject of love; so it should come as little surprise that Chaucer allows the Miller's tale to interrupt the tale of the Monk. By doing this Chaucer is able to both disrupt the implicit social order among the pilgrims -- which Bailey seemed intent upon allowing to progress along the lines of social rank -- and to sharply and humorously contrast the love of history books or fairy tales, with that of everyday life.

Furthermore, the Miller, besides offering a depiction of love quite divergent from that of the Knight, also creates a character that comically stands for the idealistic love promoted by the Knight: Absolon. The parish clerk, Absolon, is in love with the carpenter's wife, Alisoun. He attempts to go about winning her affections in the haphazard mimicry of a medieval prince: he serenades her, lavishes her with presents, thinks about her day and night, and even gives her money. However, Absolon's love for Alisoun is meant to be ironic in two ways: first it is ironic that the object of his polite and proper love is a married woman; and second, his use of princely tactics to win a carpenter's wife is completely out of place. The Miller shows how courtly love, in the context of the real world -- as he understands it -- is equivalent to awkwardness and unrealistic frivolity: "Taken together, the imbalances in [Absolon's] demeanor, as shown later in the tale -- courtly and infantile, eager and timid, sexually obsessed and over-idealistic -- create an element of psychological comedy, with probably an underlying current of homophobia," (Phillips 292).

Yet just as Absolon is presented as a ridiculous character, the narrator seems to express admiration or even praise for the Squire, who seems to exhibit many of the same characteristics -- lovelorn personality and fashion-conscious manner. Here we are forced to deal with one of the central controversies surrounding Chaucer's text: should Chaucer himself be believed to be classist, or should the audience believe that only the narrator sees class in such a manner? It is most likely that Chaucer, though not actually believing in the existence of true courtly love, saw its pursuit as an attribute among the upper classes -- where it belonged -- while it was a foolish vice of the lower classes: "Chaucer here shows himself the conservative member of the princely, courtly, circles in which he was a civil servant and retainer," (Phillips 293). In other words, Chaucer seems to recognize courtly love as a tradition of the nobility, but certainly not as an actual fact of medieval life.

Still, the connecting theme between these two tales is the competition for female affection. Although the Miller's Tale offers a critique of courtly traditions, it does not come particularly close to exonerating the image of the woman in literature. In the Knight's tale, Emilye is almost wholly passive in the relationship between herself and the two captives; the only direct action she takes is to beseech Theseus on their behalf to spare their lives. But even after this she performs this deed out of compassion, we are given the only significant hint as to what her personal wishes are: "Chaste foddesse, wel wostow that I / Desire to be a maiden al my lif, / Ne nevere wol I be no love new if," (Chaucer 2304-6). Alisoun is somewhat freer than Emilye to choose the nature of love that she experiences -- she chooses Nicholas over Absolon and her husband. Yet Alisoun remains little more than an object to be won; even though she is not won by serenades or jousting tournaments, she is still won over by Nicholas' better age, appearance, and disposition to that of John and Absolon.

Overall, the females in both tales are completely defined in the terms that the men see them in. Since it is more appropriate for a carpenter's wife to be won by a young, hansom, clever student than by a pining, lovesick, serenading fop, Alisoun becomes the mistress of the student. Emilye, similarly, can only be described in relation to the men in her life; first, she is the sister-in-law of the Duke Theseus, and then she is the love interest of the two Thebans. So although the characteristics of the love exchanged in the Knight's and Miller's tales may be quite different in its particulars of how to win, the nature of love remains a competition among men -- this is the essence of patriarchal society.

Of course, the patriarchy has existed in many forms for millennia; even the ancient Greek gods mimic the ideals of the patriarchal family structure, with the father, Zeus, at the top, and his oldest sons occupying the other major seats of power. As history progressed, however, the roles of the woman and the man strayed even farther from what they biologically might be. Under the feudalistic kingdoms of the medieval period and the time of Chaucer, women became not only objects of romantic love, but also commodities with which to finalize peace treaties or consolidate lands. Thus, by the Victorian age, women had been crammed into the only role that the patriarchal organization of power had left open for them: the domestic sphere. Love as a purely human emotion became something that was severely limited; it could only be expressed or explored within the confines of arranged marriage and courtly expression. Yet, whereas it was socially acceptable for the male to engage in extramarital relationships, if the woman sought a partner outside of her marriage, she did so at the risk of her own life. Accordingly, it became convenient for men to advocate forms of love that celebrated the passivity or frailty of the woman, while emphasizing the active or powerful nature of the man.

Some critics of Chaucer argue that the depiction of women in his tales -- and truly any tales from medieval England -- are severely limited not only by the social norms of the period, but also by the very language used to express anything about them:

We might ask, to what are Chaucer's women subject? If forces have bearings, what effects do they have? Are women, even if they are individuated, really free to 'be themselves' if so being is itself constituted by ideas of what is possible at a given time? The act of becoming a woman might be pretty well prescribed; a choice of roads to a destination is itself mapped, a choice of scripts is not necessarily a choice of how to write them," (Hallett 485).

The general argument is that even though Chaucer has attempted, in the instance of Alisoun, to generate a more individualistic character than Emilye, she is still categorically limited by the male dominated system, which both defines her options and tells her story. Alisoun is not permitted, in medieval society, to abandon her husband and compete for a better man; this would result in social ostracism and penalties up to and including death. Consequently, her only legitimate options regarding love include her husband, Nicholas, and Absolon. From these three somewhat meager choices, Alisoun opts for the love of Nicholas. Her willing participation in this love is, as Emilye's story shows, not utterly necessary. Indeed, Nicholas initially forces himself upon her physically; it is only through his overt persistence that Alisoun eventually gives in.

Other social and literary minds have objected to the way language itself has been invented through the ages of the existing patriarchy. Simone De Beauvoir asserts that for human beings 'existence precedes essence.' This means that although human beings are brought into this world in a particular form, the precise way in which they interpret this form is generated by their own consciousness and the setting in which they live out their lives. It is from this philosophical belief that external definitions of femininity impress themselves upon individual women through speech and writing, alter the ways in which they view themselves, and alter the ways in which they behave. De Beauvoir, therefore, centrally sees the role of the woman as simply being the role of the "Other." Rather than possessing some mutual relationship with men, women assume the role of a minority -- something strange and different. Male run society provides one archetypal form of the ideal woman in order to mold this shapeless mass of humanity into a desirable quantity: