Aristotle for Aristocrats and Poets: Giles of Rome's De regimine

principum as Theodicy of Privilege

Stephen H. Rigby
The Chaucer Review, Volume 46, Number 3, 2012, pp. 259-313 (Article)
Published by Penn State University Press
DOI: 10.1353/cr.2011.0033
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Aristotle for Aristocrats and Poets: Giles
of Romes De regimine principum as
Theodicy of Privilege
stephen h. rigby
I
It is a commonplace of literary criticism that relatively few works of medieval
imaginative literature were intended simply to provide personal entertain-
ment. Rather, as Janet Coleman put it, literary works of the period were meant
to instruct, exhort, and, ultimately, to inspire readers to reform social prac-
tice, by which was meant the behaviour of church om cials and the politically
and economically powerful.
1
Central to the didactic literary culture of the
later Middle Ages was the contemporary understanding of the ethical, politi-
cal, and social theory provided in Aristotles Ethics , Rhetoric , and Politics , along
with that contained in Pseudo-Aristotelian texts such as the Economics and the
Secretum Secretorum . Tese works circulated widely in England and on the
Continent in the form of the Latin translations that became available in the late
twelfh and thirteenth centuries. However, as Cary J. Nederman has empha-
sized, many of Aristotles key ethical and political ideas were, in fact, familiar
even before this date, either from his Organon or through the works of writ-
ers such as Seneca, Cicero, Macrobius, Lactantius, and Boethius.
2
Aristotles
In writing this article I have benefted from the advice of Mary Beagon, Catherine Feely, Paul
Fouracre, Till Geiger, and Ernesto Paparazzo. Te comments of David Matthews and of Rosalind
Brown-Grant, who both read the entire piece in draf, were particularly helpful as were the sugges-
tions made by two anonymous referees.
1. Janet Coleman, English Literature in History, 13501400: Medieval Readers and Writers
(London, :8:), :o. See also V. J. Scattergood, Politics and Poetry in the Fifeenth Century (London,
:,:), :; Anne Middleton, Te Idea of Public Poetry in the Reign of Richard II, Speculum ,,
(:,8): ::; and Geraldine Barnes, Counsel and Strategy in Middle English Romance (Cambridge,
U.K., :,), :o::.
i. Bernard G. Dod, Aritosteles latinus, in Norman Kretzmann, Anthony Kenny, and Jan
Pinborg, eds., Te Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy (Cambridge, U.K., :8:), ,,
CR 46.3_01_Rigby.indd 259 9/28/11 12:42 AM
The Chaucer Review 260
texts were intensively studied in the universities and were owned in papal,
royal, and episcopal households. His works acquired multiple commentaries
from philosophers and theologians, including that on the Rhetoric by Giles of
Rome, which seems to have infuenced the discussion of rhetorique in John
Gowers Confessio Amantis . Te arguments contained in Aristotles works were
also disseminated via the questiones used for university disputation, as well as
through glosses and expositions, digests, abbreviated versions, and indexes,
and by compendia of their key ideas and sayings, even if these cribs were not
always accurate representations of Aristotles own views or sometimes ascribed
to the Philosopher phrases that were actually drawn from his commentators,
particularly from Aquinas.
3
Tus, whilst late medieval England did not see
the Crown-inspired program of vernacular translation of (and commentary
on) the Philosophers works that was to be found in contemporary France,
English intellectuals were nonetheless well acquainted with his works on sci-
ence, logic, and ethics. Aristotles works were central to the curriculum at the
universities of Oxford and Cambridge where scholars such as Walter Burley
wrote commentaries on his logic and on his moral philosophy, although, in
general, the Ethics seems to have been better known in England than the Poli-
tics .
4
For Richard of Bury, bishop of Durham (d. :,,), the all-wise Aristotle
(herafer cited as Cambridge History ); Franoise Autrand and Philippe Contamine, Les livres
des hommes du pouvoir: de la pratique a la culture crite, in Monique Ornato and Nicole Pons,
eds., Pratiques de la culture crite en France au XV sicle (Louvain-la-Neuve, :,), :,:o, at
:; and Cary J. Nederman, Medieval Aristotelianism and Its Limits: Classical Traditions in Moral
and Political Philosophy, 12th15th Centuries (Aldershot, :,), I.,,,, II.:,:,, III.:,, XI.,,
XIII.o,:, XIII.,o,,.
. Charles H. Lohr, Medieval Latin Aristotle Commentaries, Traditio :, (:o,): ,:,:,, at ,:,;
Charles H. Lohr, Te Medieval Interpretation of Aristotle, in Cambridge History , 8o8; Georg
Wieiland, Te Reception and Interpretation of Aristotles Ethics, in Cambridge History , o,,,:;
Jean Dunbabin, Te Reception and Interpretation of Aristotles Politics, in Cambridge History ,
,:,,,; Georgina Donavin, Rhetorical Gower: Aristotelianism in the Confessio Amantis s treat-
ment of Rhetorique, in Malte Urban, ed., John Gower: Manuscripts, Readers, Context (Turnhout,
:oo), :,,,,; Peter Biller, Te Measure of Multitude: Population in Medieval Tought (Oxford,
:ooo), ::,:o, ,oo; Charles F. Briggs, Giles of Romes De regimine principum: Reading and Writing
Politics at Court and University, c.1275c.1525 (Cambridge, U.K., :), ,o; Jacqueline Hamesse, ed.,
Les auctoritates Aristotelis: Un forilge mdivale: Etude historique et dition critique (Louvain,
:,), , :oo; and Jacqueline Hamesse, ed., Auctoritates Aristotelis, Senecae, Boethii, Platonis,
Apulei et quorundam aliorum, Volume I: Concordance (Louvain, :,:), :.
. David Luscombe, Te Ethics and the Politics in Britain in the Middle Ages, in John
Marenbon, ed., Aristotle in Britain during the Middle Ages (Turnhout, :o), ,,,; Damian R.
Leader, Philosophy at Oxford and Cambridge in the Fifeenth Century, Te History of European
Universities (:8): :,o, at :o, ,:,,; Damian R. Leader, A History of the University of Cambridge,
Volume I: Te University to 1546 (Cambridge, U.K., :88), ,, :,:,,, :,,,, :o,o,; John M.
Fletcher, Te Faculty of Arts, and James A. Weisheipl, Science in the Tirteenth Century,
in Jeremy Catto, ed., Te History of the University of Oxford, Volume I: Te Early Oxford Schools
(Oxford, :8), ,o, at ,8,, and ,,o, at o:, respectively; John M. Fletcher, Developments in
the Faculty of Arts, :,,o:,:o, in Jeremy Catto and Ralph Evans, eds., Te History of the University
of Oxford, Volume II: Later Medieval Oxford (Oxford, ::), ,:,,, at ,:,:; Claire R. Sherman,
CR 46.3_01_Rigby.indd 260 9/28/11 12:42 AM
stephen h. rigby 261
was the Phoebus of philosophers, the arch-philosopher who, in the extent
of his reason, had been created by God only a little lower than the angels
even if, as a pagan, his understanding was necessarily partial and incomplete.
Christian preachers such as John Bromyard, Richard Fitzralph, Robert Rypon,
and Tomas of Wimbledon were thus perfectly happy to appeal to the wisdom
of Aristotle in their sermons, where they invoked not only his natural philoso-
phy but also his moral and social teachings.
3

It hardly needs saying that Aristotles ethical theory was also an infu-
ence on Middle English poets. Rechelesnesse in the C-Text of Piers
Plowman may have believed that Aristotle and Solomon were bothe in
helle, but even he admitted that their words were nonetheless wonder
goed and wisest in here tymes, whilst Langlands Holy Churche was
happy to appeal to the authority of Aristotle and Plato in support of the
Christian teaching that poverty was the prince of alle vertues.
6
Certainly,
Aristotles ethical theory has been seen as a source for authors such as the
Gawain poet, whilst Tomas Hoccleves Regiment of Princes famously hailed
Chaucer himself as the heir in philosophie/To Aristotle in our tonge.
7

Nevertheless, if Chaucers learned Clerk in the General Prologue is said to
have aspired to have twenty bookes of Aristotles philosophy beside his
bed (I :,o), the extent to which late medieval preachers and authors
even one such as Chaucer, whom Winthrop Wetherbee describes as prob-
ably the most learned of medieval English poetswere directly acquainted
Les thmes humanistes dans le programme de traduction de Charles V: compilation des textes
et illustrations, in Ornato and Pons, eds., Pratiques de la culture , ,:,,,; Jean-Philippe Genet,
La thorie politique en Angleterre au XIV sicle: sa difusion, son public, in Jrgen Miethke,
ed., Das Publikum politischer Teorie in 14. Jahrhundert (Munich, :,), :o:, at :,:; Jean-
Philippe Genet, Ecclesiastics and Political Teory in Late Medieval England: the End of
a Monopoly, in Barrie Dobson, ed., Te Church, Politics and Patronage in the Fifeenth
Century (Gloucester, U.K., :8), :,, at ,,; Nicole Oresme , Le Livre de Ethiques dAristote , ed.
A. D. Menut (New York, :o); Nicole Oresme, Le Livre de Politiques dAristote , ed. A. D. Menut,
in Transactions of the American Philosophical Society , n.s. oo/o (:,o); and Nicole Oresme, Le
Livre de Yconomique dAristote , ed. A. D. Menut, in Transactions of the American Philosophical
Society , n.s. ,/, (:,,).
,. Ernest C. Tomas, ed., Te Philobiblon of Richard de Bury (London, :888), ,o, o, :o,, ::,,
:,oo, :8o; Gerald R. Owst, Literature and Pulpit in Medieval England , :nd edn. (Oxford, :o:),
,n:, :8:8, :o8; Alan J. Fletcher, Preaching, Politics and Poetry in Late-Medieval England
(Dublin, :8), ,, :8o, :o:o,; and Ione K. Knight, ed., Wimbledons Sermon: Redde Rationem
Villicationis Tue: A Middle English Sermon of the Fourteenth Century (Pittsburgh, :o,), 8: (lines
,:,:,). On Oresme, see Claire R. Sherman, Imaging Aristotle: Verbal and Visual Representation in
Fourteenth-Century France (Berkeley, :,).
o. William Langland, Piers Plowman: Te C-Text , ed. Derek Pearsall (Exeter, :), C.::.::,:,
C.::.:,:,,. See also Tomas P. Dunning, Langland the Salvation of the Heath, Medium vum ::
(:,): ,,.
,. Tomas Hoccleve, Te Regiment of Princes , ed. Charles R. Blyth (Kalamazoo, :), :oo (lines
:o,8o).
CR 46.3_01_Rigby.indd 261 9/28/11 12:42 AM
The Chaucer Review 262
with Aristotles works (at least in their Latin form) is unclear.
8
It is thus
quite possible that when, in the Legend of Good Women , Chaucer quotes
Aristotles defnition of virtue as the mean between two opposing vices
(Vertu is the mene, as Etik seith [F :o,oo]), his source was a forilegium
such as the Parvi fores rather than frsthand acquaintance with the text of
the Ethics itself.
9

However, even when Aristotles works themselves had not been con-
sulted in the form of Latin translations or digests, his ethical, social, and
political thought was nonetheless very well known in late medieval England
thanks to its transmission via scholastic works that expounded Aristotelian
theory and cited Aristotles texts. Perhaps the most famous and infuential
of these was the De regimine principum of Giles of Rome (ca. ::,:,:o).
10

Giles (Aegidius Romanus, or Egidio Colonna as he was also incorrectly
known by the end of the fourteenth century) was an Austin friar and
Parisian scholar who eventually rose to be archbishop of Bourges.
11
Te
colossal impact in the medieval West of the De regimine principum , a polit-
ical treatise that was originally composed circa ::8o for the future King
Philip IV of France (::8,:,:), is attested by the fact that the number of its
surviving manuscripts is exceeded amongst medieval mirrors for princes
only by the Secretum secretorum . Tus, whilst Giles is probably best known
8. Jill Mann, Price and Value in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight , Essays in Criticism
,o (:8o): :,:8; Owst, Literature and Pulpit , :8:8,; Alastair J. Minnis, Medieval Teory of
Authorship: Scholastic Literary Attitudes in the Later Middle Ages , :nd edn. (Aldershot, :88), :8;
and Winthrop Wetherbee, Some Intellectual Temes in Chaucers Poetry, in George Economou,
ed., Geofrey Chaucer (New York, :,,), ,,:, at ,,. See also Kathryn L. Lynch, Chaucers Philo-
sophical Visions (Cambridge, U.K., :ooo), o; and Mark Miller, Philosophical Chaucer: Love, Sex
and Agency in the Canterbury Tales (Cambridge, U.K., :oo), :, :8:.
. Omnis virtus consistit in medio, scilicet inter defectum et excessum (Hamesse, ed., Les auc-
toritates Aristotelis , :,,; Aristotle, Te Nicomachean Ethics , ed. Harris Rackham [Ware, :o], :.o.:o
[cited by book, chapter, and section]). All quotations from Chaucer are from Te Riverside Chaucer ,
ed. Larry D. Benson, ,rd edn. (Boston, :8,).
1o. Tere is no modern edition of the Latin text of the De regimine principum . Below,
I have cited the edition published in Rome in :8: by Stephanus Plannck (cited by book, chapter,
and section). Book , of the De regimine principum , extracted from an edition of :oo,, is reprinted
in Egidio Colonna, De regimine principum, Libri III (Aalen, :o,). Book ,, extracted from a :,,o
edition, is reprinted in Aegidius Romanus (Colonna), De regimine principum, Libri III (Frankfurt,
:o8). See Jean-Philippe Genet, Les auteurs politiques et leur maniement des sources en Angle-
terre a la fn du Moyen Age, in Ornato and Pons, eds., Pratiques de la culture , ,,,, at ,o;
and J. Krynen, Lempire du roi: ides et croyances politiques en France, XIIIeXVe sicle (Paris,
:,), ::.
11. On Giless life and writings, see M. Anthony Hewson, Giles of Rome and the Medieval
Teory of Conception: A Study of the De formatione corporis humani in utero (London, :,,), ,,,.
An excellent biography and bibliography are also available in the entry for Egidio Romano by
Francesco Del Punta, S. Donati, and C. Luna, in Dizionario biografco degli Italiani (Rome, :,),
::,::.
CR 46.3_01_Rigby.indd 262 9/28/11 12:42 AM
stephen h. rigby 263
to modern readers as the author of the De ecclesiastica potestate (:,o:), a
tract that vigorously defended the papal position in Boniface VIIIs confict
with Philip IV, there are actually only six surviving medieval manuscripts
of this work compared to around ,,o copies of the De regimine principum .
12

Indeed, both Philippe de Mzires and Jean Gerson recommended Giless
text as one which was worthy for inclusion in a princely library alongside
the works of Aristotle and Boethius.
13
As Alastair Minnis puts it, Giless
work was Aristotle for aristocrats although, inevitably, the Aristotle that
resulted from Giless selective reading of him would not always have been
recognizable to the Philosopher himself.
14

More specifcally, Giless mirror for princes was a well-known text in late
medieval England where its authority has been described as approaching that
of the works of Aristotle himself.
13
Tere are sixty surviving manuscripts of
the text of English origin or provenance from the pre-Reformation period,
and the work was at the height of its popularity in the period when Chaucer
was writing.
16
Giless treatise was studied at Oxford and Cambridge and was
possessed by monastic libraries, including that of Westminster Abbey, where
it was included in composite volumes alongside pastoral preaching aids or
extracts from the Ethics and the Politics . However, its audience was not con-
fned to university scholars or to clerics. Copies were also owned in the late
fourteenth and ffeenth centuries by members of the royal family and by
magnates and gentry and were ofen bound up alongside other mirrors for
princes or with books on warfare and knighthood, Vegetiuss De re militari
being a particularly popular choice in the surviving English manuscripts.
It was such a familiar text that the author of the Gesta Henrici Quinti even
1i. Briggs, Giles of Romes De regimine principum , :o::, :,o,:; Krynnen, Lempire du roi ,
:,, :8,; and Giles of Rome, On Ecclesiastical Government: A Medieval Teory of World Govern-
ment , ed. Robert W. Dyson (New York, :oo), xxxiixxxiii.
1. Philippe de Mzires, Le Songe du Vieil Pelerin , ed. George W. Coopland, : vols. (Cam-
bridge, U.K., :o), ::::: (section ::); and Jean Gerson, Texte de la lettre addrese au prcepteur
du dauphin Loius, fls de Charles VI, entre :o8 et ::o, in A. Tomas, ed., Jean de Gerson et
lducation des dauphins de France (Paris, :,o), 8,o.
1. Alastair Minnis, Fallible Authors: Chaucers Pardoner and Wife of Bath (Philadelphia,
:oo8), ,:o; Roberto Lambertini, Te Prince in the Mirror of Philosophy. About the Use of
Aristotle in Giles of Romes De regimine principum , in B. Carlos Bazan, Eduardo Andjar, and
Lonard G. Sbrocchi, eds., Moral and Political Philosophies in the Middle Ages (New York, :,),
:,::,.
1,. Genet, La thorie politique, :,:; Paul A. Olson, Te Parlement of Foules : Aristotles
Politics and the Foundations of Human Society, Studies in the Age of Chaucer : (:8o): ,,o, at
,,,o; and Luscombe, Te Ethics and the Politics, ,.
1o. Charles F. Briggs, Manuscripts of Giles of Romes De regimine principum in England,
:,oo:,oo: A Handlist, Scriptorium , (:,): oo,,; and Briggs, Giles of Romes De regimine
principum , ::o, ::.
CR 46.3_01_Rigby.indd 263 9/28/11 12:42 AM
The Chaucer Review 264
describes the English forces as sometimes (but not always) following Giless
advice on military tactics at the siege of Harfeur. John Watts goes so far as
to describe English political theory in this period as being (like that of late
medieval France) mostly Egidian in its assumptions.
17

As a central work in the didactic, ethical, and political culture of the later
Middle Ages, Giless De regimine principum inevitably attracted the atten-
tion of those scholars who sought to translate Latin learning, particularly
works of political and ethical theory, into the vernacular. Teir audiences
ofen consisted of noble and courtly readers for whom didacticism and sen-
tentiousness were virtues and by whom even romances could be valued for
their moral content.
18
As Giles himself said, even if Latin is the most perfect
medium in which to discuss philosophical and scholarly issues, those who
actually possess political power are, in practice, most likely to study the moral
sciences of ethics, economics, and politics (to each of which is devoted a book
in the De regimine principum ) in the vernacular.
19
Accordingly, although it
was originally composed in Latin, Giless treatise also appeared in a number
of European languages including the somewhat abridged French translation
produced by Henri de Gauchy around ::8:, which circulated in late medieval
England alongside the original Latin text.
20
Giless De regimine principum was
also translated into Middle English at the end of the fourteenth century by
John Trevisa.
21
Trevisas translation is far more faithful to the original Latin
text than is de Gauchys French version (apart from those occasional pas-
sages where the Latin manuscript from which he was working seems to have
1,. Durant W. Robertson, Chaucers London (New York, :o8), :,, :oo, :o:, :o,, :o8;
Briggs, Giles of Romes De regimine principum , ,:, ooo:; Leader, Philosophy, ,,,,; Leader, A
History , :o,oo, :888, ,o; John Watts, Henry VI and the Politics of Kingship (Cambridge, U.K.,
:o), :o::, ,,; and Frank Taylor and John S. Roskell, eds., Gesta Henrici Quinti: Te Deeds of
Henry the Fifh (Oxford, :,,), :8:, o,.
18. Paul Strohm, Social Chaucer (Cambridge, Mass., :8), :8,; Jean-Philippe Genet,
Saint Louis: Le roi politique, Mdivales :, (:8): :,,, at :; Krynen, LEmpire du Roi , :,; and
Richard Firth Green, Poets and Princepleasers: Literature and the English Court in the Late Middle
Ages (Toronto, :8o), esp. :,,o,.
1. Egidius Romanus, De regimine principum (:8:), :.:.,8.
io. Briggs, Giles of Romes De regimine principum , ,,,o; Outi Merisalo and Leena Talvio,
Gilles de Rome en romanz: un must des bibliothques princires. Traduction en ancient franais
dun texte latin, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen (:,): :8,. For the text of de Gauchys trans-
lation, see Giles of Rome, Li livres du gouvernement des rois: A XIIIth Century French Version of
Egidio Colonnas Treatise De regimine principum , ed. Samuel P. Molenaer (New York, :8).
i1. For the text, see Giles of Rome, Te Governance of Kings and Princes: John Trevisas
Middle English Translation of the De regimine principum of Aegidius Romanus , ed. David C. Fowler,
Charles F. Briggs, and Paul G. Remley (New York, :,). Page references to this edition are given in
parentheses in the text below. On Trevisa, see David C. Fowler, Te Life and Times of John Trevisa,
Medieval Scholar (Seattle, :,), ::o, :o:, :; Briggs, Giles of Romes De regimine principum ,
888; Ralph Hanna, Sir Tomas Berkeley and His Patronage, Speculum o (:8): 8,8:o; and
Fiona Somerset, Clerical Discourse and Lay Audience in Late Medieval England (Cambridge, U.K.,
:8), chap. ,.
CR 46.3_01_Rigby.indd 264 9/28/11 12:42 AM
stephen h. rigby 265
obliterated Giless original sense) and, unlike de Gauchys adaptation, retains
Giless own division into books and chapters.
22
His Middle English translation
is cited here as a convenient form of access to Giless work although the
original Latin text is quoted where Giless own choice of words is particularly
signifcant for an understanding of his views.
Inevitably, the wide circulation of the De regimine principum meant that
Giless ethical and political theory was taken up by the didactic writers and
moralizing poets of the day. Tis was certainly the case in France where his
work was a source for authors such as Honor Bouvet and Christine de Pizan.
23

Te De regimine principum was also a direct infuence on English poetry, as is
shown by works such as Gowers Confessio Amantis and Hoccleves Regiment
of Princes , which cites Giless Regiment of Princes alongside the Secretum
secretorum and Jacobus de Cessoliss Ches Moralysed as one of its three
main sources.
24
Chaucer, too, may have been acquainted with Giless mir-
ror for princes at frsthand in the way that he was with John of Salisburys
Policraticus .
23
If not, he would certainly have been familiar with many of its
ideas indirectly, via the work of writers such as Gower, Dante, and Boccaccio.
It has been argued that Boccaccios Teseida , which was the basis for Chaucers
Knights Tale , shows a familiarity with the De regimine principum , whilst in
the Wife of Baths Tale (III ::o,:) Chaucer quotes part of the Convivio in
which Dante actually refers to Giles and his De regimine principum by name.
Certainly, a number of critics have used the ethical and political teachings set
out in Giless mirror for princes as a context within which to assess the virtue
of Duke Teseus within the Knights Tale .
26
If the De regimine principum was
Aristotle for aristocrats, then it also functioned as Aristotle for poets.
ii. Giles of Rome, Te Governance of Kings and Princes , ed. Fowler et al., xv.
i. George W. Coopland, Introduction, in Te Tree of Battles of Honor Bonet , ed. George
W. Coopland (Liverpool, :), :,o, at o:; Kate L. Forhan, Introduction, in Christine de Pizan,
Te Book of the Body Politic , ed. Kate L. Forhan (Cambridge, U.K., :), xiiixxiv, at xxi; Krynen,
Lempire du roi , :o:, ::, ,oon,:; and Suzanne Solente, ed., Le livre des fais et bonnes meurs du sage
roy Charles V par Christine de Pizan (Paris, :,o), xxxvivii, lxiivi. See also note :,, above.
i. Elizabeth Porter, Gowers Ethical Microcosm and Political Macrocosm, in Alastair
J. Minnis, ed., Gowers Confessio Amantis: Responses and Reassessments (Cambridge, U.K., :8,),
:,,o:, at :,,,; Alastair J. Minnis, Moral Gower and Medieval Literary Teory, in Minnis, ed.,
Gowers Confessio Amantis , ,o,8, at ,:,; James Simpson, Sciences and the Self in Medieval Poetry:
Alan of Lilles Anticlaudianus and John Gowers Confessio Amantis (Cambridge, U.K., :,), ::,:8;
Elliot Kendall, Lordship and Literature: John Gower and the Politics of the Great Household (Oxford,
:oo8), ,, :8; Hoccleve, Regiment of Princes , ed. Blyth, (lines :o,8,, :o,:,,), :o: (lines
::o::); and Nicholas Perkins, Hoccleves Regiment of Princes: Counsel and Constraint (Cambridge,
U.K., :oo:), 8,o.
i,. A. Linder, Te Knowledge of John of Salisbury in the Later Middle Ages, Studi Medi-
evali , ,a ser., :8 (:,,): ,:,oo, at ,,o.
26. Dante Alighieri, Il Convivio , ed. Bruna Cordati (Torino, :o), .:.; Barbara Nolan,
Chaucer and the Tradition of the Roman Antique (Cambridge, U.K., ::), :,,, :o,o8, ,,:n,o;
and David Anderson, Before the Knights Tale: Imitation of Classical Epic in Boccaccios Teseida
(Philadelphia, :88), :,,,,. On Giless thought as a context for interpreting KnT , see John A.
CR 46.3_01_Rigby.indd 265 9/28/11 12:42 AM
The Chaucer Review 266
Previous studies of the De regimine principum have focused on Giless
defense of strong monarchical power and on his selective adaptation of
his main sources, which included Aristotles Ethics , Rhetoric , and Politics ;
Vegetius on warfare; Aquinass On Princely Government , Summa Teologiae ,
and his commentaries on Aristotle; the work of Peter of Auvergne and
perhaps of Albertus Magnus; and Vincent of Beauvais on the education of
the children of the nobility.
27
Te political theory that Giles produced in the
course of the dispute over papal authority between Philip IV and Boniface
VIII has also attracted much scholarly attention.
28
Here, by contrast, we are
interested in how Giless political theory, particularly that of the De regimine
principum , was based on an appeal to more fundamental principles, prin-
ciples that he presented as being applicable throughout nature, society, and
politics. As a result, Giless work not only provided a justifcation for particu-
lar political arrangements (such as hereditary monarchy) but also defended
Burrow, Te Ages of Man: A Study in Medieval Tought and Writing (Oxford, :8o), ::; John A.
Burrow, Ricardian Poetry: Chaucer, Gower, Langland and the Gawain Poet (Harmondsworth, ::),
,, ::o:,, ::o:8; John A. Burrow, Essays on Medieval Literature (Oxford, :8), ,8:; John P.
McCall, Chaucer Among the Gods: the Poetics of Classical Myth (University Park, :,), :,:nn:::,,
:,nn:8:; Alastair Minnis, I Speke of Folk of Seculer Estaat: Vernacularity and Secularity in
the Age of Chaucer, Studies in the Age of Chaucer :, (:oo,): :,,8, at ,:,,; and Stephen H. Rigby,
Wisdom and Chivalry: Chaucers Knights Tale and Medieval Political Teory (Leiden, :oo), passim.
i,. Tomas Renna, Aristotle and the French Monarchy, ::oo:,o,, Viator (:,8): ,o:,
at ,:::,; Roberto Lambertini, A proposito della costruzione dellOeconomica in Egido Romano,
Medioevo : (:88): ,:,,o; Roberto Lambertini, Philosophus videtur tangere tres rationes. Egidio
Romano lettore ed interprete della Politica nel terzo libro del De regimine principum , Documenti
e Studi sulla Tradizione Filosofca Medievale : (:o): :,,:,; Roberto Lambertini, Il flosofo,
il principe e la virt. Note sulla ricezione e luso dell Etica Nicomachea nel De regimine princi-
pum di Egidio Romano, Documenti e studi sulla tradizione flosofca medievale : (::): :,,;
Roberto Lambertini, Tra etica e politica: la prudentia del principe nel De regimine di Egidio
Romano, Documenti e studi sulla tradizione flosofca medievale , (::): ,,:; Lambertini, Te
Prince, :,::,; Janet Coleman, Some Relations between the Study of Aristotles Rhetoric , Ethics
and Politics in Late Tirteenth- and Early Fourteenth-Century University Arts Courses and the
Justifcation of Contemporary Civic Activities, in Joseph Canning and Otto G. Oexle, eds., Political
Tought and the Realities of Power in the Middle Ages (Gttingen, :8), :,,; Janet Coleman,
A History of Political Tought from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance (Oxford, :ooo), o,:; and
Matthew S. Kempshall, Te Common Good in Late Medieval Political Tought (Oxford, :),
:,:,o. For Aquinas, see Commentary on Aristotles Nicomachean Ethics: St Tomas Aquinas , trans.
C. I. Litzinger (Notre Dame, :,); Paulette LHermite-Leclercq, La femme dans le De regimine
principum de Gilles de Rome, in Jacques Paviot and Jacques Verger, eds., Guerre, pouvoir et
noblesse au Moyen Age: Mlanges en Lhonneur du Philippe Contamine (Paris, :ooo), ,:,, at ,:;
and Krynen, Lempire du roi , :o,, ,::.
i8. Antony Black, Political Tought in Europe, 12501450 (Cambridge, U.K., ::), 8,;
Robert W. Dyson, Normative Teories of Society and Government in Five Medieval Tinkers: St
Augustine, John of Salisbury, Giles of Rome, St Tomas Aquinas and Marsilius of Padua (Lewis-
ton, N.Y., :oo,), ::8o; and Roberto Lambertini, Il sermo De potestate domini papae di Egidio
Romano e la difesa di Bonifacio VIII: Acquisizioni e prospettive della striografa pi recente, in
Le culture di Bonicacio VIII. Atti del Convegno organatizzo nellambito delle Celebrazioni per il VII
Centenario della morte, Bologna, 1315 dicembre, 2004 (Rome, :ooo), ,:o8.
CR 46.3_01_Rigby.indd 266 9/28/11 12:42 AM
stephen h. rigby 267
them in terms of a more general vindication of the need for hierarchy within
the cosmos. His treatise thus supplies us with a body of philosophical, ethical,
social, and political thought that poets such as Gower, Chaucer, and Hoccleve
all took for granted in their work.
II
Despite Giless loyalty to the Aristotelian natural philosophy whose rediscov-
ery led to such controversy in the thirteenth century, the basis of his ethical
and political outlook remained the traditional Platonic and Stoic conception
of nature as a pattern for human virtue: moral doynge is som del liche to
kyndeliche thinges (::o).
29
Art (i.e., human practice and creativity) should
follow kynde since nature never works in vain but rather provides us with
a model of how a divinely ordained and rational order is constituted (,,, :o:,
:o, ,,o, ,o,, ,,:, ,,,).
30
If Gods Creation provided a template for how human
life and society should be ordered, then for Giles, as for Aristotle, Augustine,
and Boethius, what nature frst showed was that all things within the universe
fondeth to come to here owne place. For instance, the heaviness or lightness
of all things assigns them a higher or a lower place in the world, one that is
natural to them and within which they seek to remain, a doctrine echoed by
the learned Eagle in Chaucers House of Fame (,8,, ::o::, :o, :::, :,,
::, ,,o).
31
Like Chaucers Parson (X ::o), Giles could have expressed this
idea with the help of Wisdom :::::, as he was to do in his De ecclesiastica
i. Plato, Timaeus and Critias , trans. Henry D. P. Lee (London, :,,), o:, :, ,:, ,8,
ooo:, o,; and Seneca, On Providence, in Te Stoic Philosophy of Seneca , trans. Moses Hadas (New
York, :o8), :,, ,:, ,oo, ,. For contemporary criticism of Aristotelian philosophy, see Condem-
nation of the :: Propositions, trans. Ernest L. Fortin and Peter D. ONeill, in Ralph Lerner and
Musin Mahdi, eds., Medieval Political Philosophy: A Sourcebook (New York, :o,), ,,,,; and Lohr,
Te Medieval Intetpretation of Aristotle, 8:88.
o. Aristotle, De Anima (On the Soul) , ed. Hugh Lawson-Tancred (Harmondsworth, :8o),
,. (cited by book and section). Tis argument sometimes led Giles into dim culties as nature was
not always in accordance with his own social teachings. Tus, although he opposed those philoso-
phers who argued in favor of appointing men to om ce for life, he realized that they too could appeal
to the example of nature, for instance, to veins of gold that never turn into veins of silver (:8).
Te problem of which aspects of nature were to be used as a model for human afairs is also evident
in Giless discussion of whether law should have the infexibility of iron or the malleability of lead
(,,8). See also below, section VII, on whether nature showed that women should do deeds of arms.
1. Aristotle, On the Heavens, in Jonathan Barnes, ed., Te Complete Works of Aristotle ,
: vols. (Princeton, :8), ::,:oa-b, ::,::a-b; Augustine, Concerning the City of God Against the
Pagans , trans. Henry Bettenson (Harmondsworth, :,:), ,.8, ::.:,:8, :,.:8, :.:: (cited by book and
section); Boethius, Te Consolation of Philosophy , in Te Teological Tractates and Te Consolation
of Philosophy , ed. Hugh F. Stewart, Edward K. Rand, and S. Jim Tester (Cambridge, Mass., :,,),
.m.o.:o:; Giles of Rome, On Ecclesiastical Government , ed. Dyson, ,,, :o,, :,:, :o:, :8,, :,,
,,o, ,o,; and Chaucer, HF , ,,oo.
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The Chaucer Review 268
potestate , so as to show that God has ordered all things in measure and
number and weight.
32
In the De regimine principum , by contrast, Giles
generally preferred to make his case without an appeal to scriptural authority,
seeking instead the support of Aristotelian natural philosophy, politics, and
ethics. He thus invoked the Aristotelian concept of the rightful mean,
presenting nature itself as working by the mean so that nothing within it is
marred by any excess or defciency, in order to argue that everything in the
world has its own proper function and place, a view that was the basis of
medieval natural philosophy (:,, :o,, :,,,, :,, ,,o).
33
Te Scriptures,
Christian theology, and the authority of Aristotle were all seen as being
fundamentally agreed on how nature worked and about the model that its
workings provided for human ethics and politics.
For Giles, the second major lesson that nature provided us with was the
superiority of diversity over simple unity. Since God, who is most good, is
most oon, we might expect that a city (i.e., a political community, whether
this is an individual city or a wider realm) or any other phenomenon would
be most good if it too was most oon. Yet, against what he saw as a Socratic or
Platonic belief in the superiority of unity, Giles countered with an Aristotelian
emphasis on the virtues of diversity.
34
Here, he interpreted unity to mean
uniformity and then followed Augustine and Aquinas in arguing that if
al thynges were euene peres, thanne thei were nou al thinges, since they
would then, in efect, all be the same in the frst place.
33
Consequently, the
perfection of the world requires thinges of diuerse kynde to exist. For
instance, the diverse doynges of the human body, such as movement, touch,
or sight, require diuerse membres and lymes, each of which performs its
own particular function and helps the other members. Similarly, if they are
to fulfll their purposes, a choir needs a variety of voices and a painting needs
a number of diferent colors: a painting comprised of only one color would
i. Giles of Rome, On Ecclesiastical Government , ed. Dyson, ,:; and Keith D. Lilley, City
and Cosmos: Te Medieval World in Urban Form (London, :oo), ,.
. Plato, Timaeus , trans. Lee, ,:,, (,,); Aristotle, Te Nicomachean Ethics , ed. Rackham,
:..,, :.:.o, :.o., :.o.,, :.o.; Aristotle, De Anima , ed. Lawson-Tancred, ,.; Augustine, City of God ,
trans. Bettenson, ::.::, ::.:, ::.:; and Sheila Delany, Chaucers House of Fame: Te Poetics of
Skeptical Fideism (Chicago, :,:), ,:.
. Te Republic of Plato , trans. Francis M. Cornford (London, ::), ,.o:o: (cited by
book and section); and Aristotle, Te Politics and the Constitution of Athens , ed. Stephen Everson
(Cambridge, U.K., :o), :.:, :., (cited by book and section). Giles was not familiar with Platos
Republic at frsthand.
,. Here, and below, thorns in Trevisas text have been changed to th . For Augustine
and Aquinas, see Arthur O. Lovejoy, Te Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea
(NewYork, :oo), o,, ,o,,.
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stephen h. rigby 269
not be a painting in the frst place (::, ,, :,, :,, :8,, :,, :,,o:, ::).
36

Tus, whilst unity was an ideal for Giles, one based on the nature of God
who rules over all things, the unity that he favored was not that of a simple
uniformity but rather, as in Augustines neo-Platonism, took the form of an
organic interdependence of a multiplicity of diferent parts, a harmonious
union in plurality (::, ,8,, :::, :,, :,,o:, ,:,).
37
Here, as in many other
areas of medieval thought, the revival of interest in Aristotles works in the
late twelfh and thirteenth centuries did not so much provide such thinkers
as Giles with a radically new content, but rather equipped them with new
modes of expressing (and new authorities for defending) what were ofen
very familiar ideas.
However, if Giles saw plurality and diference as being superior to uni-
formity, he also regarded such diversity as constituting a possible threat to
rightful order because of the potential for confict that it contained.
38
For
Giles, the third major lesson taught by the natural world was that the dangers
of diversity could be avoidedand its benefts retainedonly if a hierarchi-
cal ordering was adopted between the elements that made up any whole. As
he argued, where multitude is, there is confusioun unless, that is, the multi-
tude be vnder on that is cheef therof. Just as God has wisely ordained that all
things in the world should be under his direction, so, in turn, eche multitude
if it schal be ordinat mot be vnder oon (:,, :,8, :8o, ,:,).
39
Hence, God
has decreed that all things within Creation should be ranked hierarchically
according to their powers, perfection, and excellence, with things that are
lessperfect and possessed of fewer powers always serving and being subor-
dinated to the higher and more perfect, as when the stars and planets rule
over lower things, such as the bodily humors and the Earths climate (:8, :::,
::o, ::o, :8o, ,,:).
40
Indeed, so central was hierarchy to Giless outlook that,
o. Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson, :.,; and Lambertini, Philosophus videtur tres rationes,
:888.
,. Edward Grant, Planets, Stars and Orbs: Te Medieval Cosmos, 12001687 (Cambridge,
U.K., :), :8; Aristotle, On the Universe, in Te Complete Works of Aristotle , ed. Barnes,
::,:a-b, ::,oa-b, ::,,a, ::,a-b; Augustine, City of God , trans. Bettenson, ,.::, ::.,, ::.:,, ::.:8,
:.:::,, ::.:8, ::.:.
8. Giles of Rome, On Ecclesiastical Government , ed. Dyson, ,o,; Augustine, City of God ,
trans. Bettenson, ::.,o; and Emily Steiner, Piers Plowman, Diversity and the Medieval Political
Aesthetic, Representations : (:oo,): ::,, at ::.
. In the De ecclesiastica potestate , Giles cites the Teodosian Code as the origin of the
saying that where there is multitude, there is confusion (Giles of Rome, On Ecclesiastical Govern-
ment , ed. Dyson, :,), although its application there is rather more specifc than Giless aphorism
implies (C. Pharr, ed., Te Teodosian Code [Princeton, :,:], :,:.,).
o. Lambertini, Philosophus videtur tres rationes, :o; Lambertini, Tra etica e polit-
ica, :o; Lambertini, Il sermo De potestate domini papae, ,; and Lambertini, A proposito,
,,o.
CR 46.3_01_Rigby.indd 269 9/28/11 12:42 AM
The Chaucer Review 270
despite the disorder that medieval Christians, including Chaucers Parson
(X ::,), ofen saw as characterizing hell, he even identifed a hierarchy of
powers among the wicked demons, although here there were only four ranks,
rather than the nine found among the angels.
41

In this hierarchical perspective, material objects that lack souls, such as
water and earth, are seen as having been ordained for the nourishment of
plants that possess vegetative souls, whilst, in turn, plants are said to have
been ordained to feed animals that have sensitive souls. Similarly, humans,
who have not only vegetative and sensitive souls but also possess the powers
of the rational soul, enjoy the use of plants and animals that have been created
for their service (,,,o, :oo, :o,, :,, ,o,:, ,8,).
42
As the most worthi
of all Gods creatures, ones who possess prudence, reason, and creativity,
humans have a lordship over other creatures, whether tame or wild, who
work by natural instinct rather than by reason and are therefore the servants
of men, who have been set above them. As a result, humans have the right to
wage war against the beasts if they will not submit to their use (,o,:, :o:o,,
:,, :,oo, :o,, :,, ,8,), a doctrine echoed in the suppression of the rising
of the farmyard animals in Gowers allegorical account of the Peasants Revolt
of :,8: in his Vox Clamantis .
43

For Giles, this hierarchical ordering not only characterized the structure
of the cosmos as a whole but was also true of any individual object made up of
a number of diferent elements or parts. In this sense, any such object is, in its
form, a microcosm of the macrocosm of the universe, a central idea of medi-
eval cosmography.
44
Accordingly, where any particular thing is comprised of
many components, then, as in the cosmos as a whole, due order between them
can be achieved only when one element has more maystrie and the others
are obedient to it. Even objects that lack souls still contain a meister element
that, like the soul within the body, rules and holds together all of their com-
ponent parts, controls their movement, and propels them towards their own
1. Giles of Rome, On Ecclesiastical Government , ed. Dyson, ::,:, :,,,, :,. For the
disorder of hell, see Job :o:::, and Knight, ed., Wimbledons Sermon , oo (lines ,).
i. Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson, :.,. For the vegetative, sensitive, and rational souls,
see Aristotle, De Anima , ed. Lawson-Tancred, :.,; Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics , ed. Rackham,
:.8.:o; and Aegidius Romanus, Quodlibeta (:oo; repr. Frankfurt, :oo), :, :ooo:.
. Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson, :.,, :.,; and John Gower, Vox Clamantis , in Te Complete
Works of John Gower , ed. George C. Macaulay, vols. (Oxford, :8:o:), :,,:,.
. For this idea, see George P. Conger, Teories of Macrocosms and Microcosms in the His-
tory of Philosophy (New York, :::), esp. chaps. ::; Leonard Barkan, Natures Work of Art: Te
Human Body as Image of the World (New Haven, :,,), chap. :; Lambertini, Philosophus videtur
tangere tres rationes, :,; Aron J. Gurevich, Categories of Medieval Culture (London, :8,), ,,o:;
and Lilley, City and Cosmos , ,::. For references to primary sources, see Rigby, Wisdom and Chiv-
alry , :,8,.
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stephen h. rigby 271
rightful place in the world (:,,, :,,, ,:,). Tus, just as a choir is necessarily
made up of many voices but can come into harmonious accord only when
there is one voice that hath maistrie by the which all armonye is idemed,
so in all mixed material bodies the heavy element of earth has the mastery,
which means that they naturally move downwards, towards the center of the
Earth. Similarly, within the cosmos, the rotation of the Primum Mobile rules
the movings of all the rest of the heavens (:,,,, ,:,).
43
Such ideas about
the hierarchical nature of Creation were hardly original, but were the famil-
iar refrain of philosophers and theologians from Aristotle and Augustine via
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (whose works circulated widely in western
Europe from the twelfh century), Tomas Aquinas, and James of Viterbo, to
Jean Gerson.
46

Inevitably, Giles defended his claims for the necessity of hierarchy with
an appeal to the composition of the human body, which provided for medi-
eval philosophers a stock example of how, in any organism comprised of a
number of diferent members, there is always one member that controls the
others. In the case of the body, it is the heart from whos meuvynge springeth
all the other meuynges in the body and whose health is crucial for that of the
rest of the body (,8,, :::, ,:,, :o::). Alternatively, the head could be seen
as heiere and more excellent than the other parts of the body. Accordingly,
these other members should be subject and obedient to rule of the head and
should even be willing to sacrifce themselves for itas when the arm comes
to its defensesince without its primacy they themselves would be ischend
and iconfunded (,:, ,o, ,8, ::::). In either case, the fundamental point
about the need for hierarchical ordering within an organism or compound
remained the same.
Giles expressed this hierarchical understanding of the relationship between
the members of the body in terms of the Aristotelian concepts of commutative
and distributive justice.
47
As Aquinas explains in his Summa theologiae , com-
mutative justice deals with give-and-take transactions like buying and selling,
the quid pro quo of equitable exchange in which there is a balance of things
given to things received, that is, an arithmetic proportionality. For Aquinas,
,. Giles of Rome, On Ecclesiastical Government , ed. Dyson, :, :,,,, ,,, ,, ::, ::,, :,,,,
:,o:, :,8:, :8,, ,o,, ,:.
o. Robert Eccleshall, Order and Reason in Politics: Teories of Absolute and Limited
Monarchy in Early Modern England (Oxford, :,8), :::,, ,:, ,8, ,8; Jean-Michel Mehl, Le Roi
de lEchiquier: Approche du mythe royale a la fn du moyen age, Revue DHistoire et de Philosophie
Religeuses ,8 (:,8): :,o:, at :,; Otto Gierke, Political Teory of the Middle Ages (Cambridge, U.K.,
:oo), :o::, :8, ,o. For references to primary sources, see Rigby, Wisdom and Chivalry , ::,.
,. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics , ed. Rackham, ,.:.:::,.
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The Chaucer Review 272
such relations are those between part and part, between the members of
a larger whole. By contrast, distributive justice deals with the relationship
between the whole and its parts since it is concerned with the distribution of
a communitys goods to its members in proportion to the worth or status
of those individual members. Here, the share received by any individual part
is based on a geometric proportionality, that is, on inequality rather than on
the strict equality of commutative justice.
48
For Giles, insofar as the particu-
lar members of the human body, such as the eye or the foot, need each other
and perform their functions in a mutual exchange of services, they exist in a
relationship of commutative justice. However, the continued survival of the
body also requires that its parts are related in terms of distributive justice, so
that the heart, as the prime source of life, rules over the rest of the body, giving
spirit of leuyng and meuyng to all its members according to their hierarchical
dignite, such hierarchy being characteristic of all natural things (,,,, :,,
:,,,, ,o:, ::).
For Giles, the hierarchy that was the basis of order within the natural
world, including human physiology, provided a model of rightful moral-
ity. Here, he adopted the traditional conception of each human as being a
microcosm of the macrocosm of the universe in the sense that any individual
comprises within him all the steps of the natural hierarchy.
49
Each individual
person is therefore a lasse world in himself: like stones, he exists; like plants,
he grows; like animals, he has the fve principal senses; like angels (although
to a lesser extent), he possesses the power of reason that distinguishes him
from the animals. Accordingly, just as God rules the macrocosm of the
entire world, so reason should rule the microcosm of the individual, with
the rational soul governing the bodys lesser elements, so that reason controls
the appetites and passions located within the sensitive soul (::, ,,,o, :,8,
:o, ,o,:).
30
If humans are necessarily made up of both bodies and souls,
the rightful order that is virtue can be attained only when the soul, which
is the better, more perfect, and more noble element, has lordschipe and
maystrie and the body is its obedient servant (:o, ::, :,, ,88). Human
nature is therefore the mean between the higher nature of the angels and
the lower nature of the beasts. Accordingly, virtue consists of the exercise
8. Tomas Aquinas, Summa Teologiae: A Concise Translation , ed. Timothy McDermott
(London, :8), ,, ,8,88; and Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotles Nicomachean Ethics , ed.
Litzinger, :,o.
. For the idea of the microcosm and the macrocosm, see note , above.
,o. Aristotle, De Anima , ed. Lawon-Tancred, :.,; Augustine, City of God , trans. Bettenson,
:.:o, ::.:, ::.:, :.:,, :.:,, ::.:; and Aegidius Romanus, Quodlibeta (:oo), ,8.
CR 46.3_01_Rigby.indd 272 9/28/11 12:42 AM
stephen h. rigby 273
of reason, which we share with the angels, whereas sin involves the sensual
delectation, voluptuousness, and viciousness to which our lower, bestial
natures incline us (:::,, ,:, ,,, ::, ,, :,:, :o,, ,,, ,,8).
31
In this sense,
as Giles says in the De ecclesiastica potestate , sin itself can be seen in political
terms: it is a form of revolt in which the body (i.e., the inferior or servant)
disobediently rebels against the soul (the lord), whom it is appointed to
serve as its superior and perfection, and chooses instead a new lord for itself
so that it becomes a servant of sin.
32

III
Giless vision of the rightful hierarchical order that characterizes all of
Creation was not only the basis of his account of individual morality but also
provided him with a means with which to defend the existence of inequal-
ity within social and political life. If, as Pseudo-Dionysius had shown, even
the angels are ranked hierarchically, it followed that, as Giles said in the
De Ecclesiastica Potestate , the principalities and powers which exist among
men, whether within the Church or within secular society, must be even
more clearly ranked. Hence, whilst Giles was able to fnd biblical, patristic,
and philosophical authority for his belief in the inevitability and desirability
of hierarchy, like most ideological thinkers he also regarded his own outlook
as being self-evidently true. As he said, few examples were needed to justify
his arguments in favor of social hierarchy since all agree as to the truth of
these things.
33
In the De ecclesiastica potestate Giles was mainly concerned
to justify the hierarchical supremacy of the authority of the Church over the
power of temporal rulers. It is in the De regimine principum that he provides
a detailed account ofand justifcation forthe hierarchies of wealth, power,
and status within secular society.
As we have seen, Giless cosmology presented diversity as superior to
uniformity within Creation as a whole. However, Giles saw uniformity (or
euenesse) as being particularly unsuitable for a city because this human
community is inherently dependent uponindeed, is actually defned bythe
,1. Boethius, Te Consolation of Philosophy , ed. Stewart et al., .pr.,.:o; and Aquinas,
Commentary on Aristotles Nicomachean Ethics , ed. Litzinger, ::o.
,i. Giles of Rome, On Ecclesiastical Government , ed. Dyson, :, ,, :o,,, ,:,, ,,,. See also
Egidius Romanus, Tractatus de peccato originali (Oxford, :,), fols. ,, :; Egidius Romanus,
In Quosdam Aristotelis Metaphysicorum Locos Questiones (Venice, :), Book :, Question :; and
Augustine, City of God , trans. Bettenson, ::.:, :,.,, :,.:,, :,.:o, :.::::, :.:,, :,.::, :.:,.
,. Giles of Rome, On Ecclesiastical Government , ed. Dyson, :, :,:,, ,:, ,,, :o, ::, ::,,
:,,,, :,8:.
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The Chaucer Review 274
diversity of its members and the functions they perform: if it lacks diversity,
the cite is no citee. Tus, just as a choir needs a variety of voices, a painting
requires a number of diferent colors, and a body is necessarily comprised of
a number of diverse limbs, so a city must be made up of diuers persones if
it is to constitute a city and fulfll the purposes for which it was created. In
particular, the range of human needs, such as housing, clothing, food, and
drink, means that a citys members require a corresponding range of crafs and
trades for their survival. As with households, the larger a city is, the greater the
degree of specialization there will be in the tasks performed by its members
(8,,8, :,, :,, :o, :,, :,,o:, ,8,).
34

Giless outlook here was in line with Aristotelian tradition in which man
is seen as a companable beest, that is, as a social animal. Indeed, in pos-
sessing reason and using language, humans are even more companable than
othere beestes.
33
Nature has thus given humanity an inherent desire to create
cities, since its work would have been idle if it had created things, includ-
ing humans, but had not endowed them with the means to ensure their own
survival (:,, ,, 8, :o:o,, :,o, :,,, ::o, :888, ,o,, ,,:). Hence, if one man
has wheat and another has wine, or if one has much money and no wheat and
another has much wheat and no money, they can, by the commutative justice
of exchange, help each other so that the plenty and lack of each is imade
euene. As the necessities of life cannot all be produced by a single household
or may not always be available locally, people from separate households or
from diferent regions will come together to exchange goods and services, frst
by barter, and later, more conveniently, by using money. A wider realm is bet-
ter suited than a single city to providing the necessities of a life and also ofers
advantages in terms of internal peace and external security (,8,, :o:o,,
:o, :o,o,, :,, ,8). However, humans are reliant on their fellows not
only for the food, drink, clothing, and protection needed for physical survival,
but also for the education and government that allow them to live well and
virtuously. Whereas animals use their voices only to express pleasure and dis-
pleasure, humans can use speech to do good and avoid evil, a faculty put to its
most perfect use within the community of the city (:8,, ,:o::, ,8,8).
36

,. Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson, .:,.
,,. Lambertini, A proposito, ,,,; and Serge Lusignan, De communit appellee cit: les
lectures de Gilles de Rome et de Nicole Oresme de la Politique :, : dAristote, in Paul J. J. M. Bakker,
ed., Chemins de la pense mdivale: Etudes ofertes Znon Kaluza (Turnhout, :oo:), o,,,, at
oo:o,, oo.
,o. Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson, :.:, ,.; Augustine, City of God , trans. Bettenson, ::.:8;
Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotles Nicomachean Ethics , ed. Litzinger, :,,,o, :o; and Lusignan,
De communit appellee cit, oooo.
CR 46.3_01_Rigby.indd 274 9/28/11 12:42 AM
stephen h. rigby 275
For Giles, then, exchanging goods, such as wheat and wine (kyndelich
richesse), for money (crafiliche richesse) was lawful and natural for
humanity. Rulers should therefore regulate weights, measures, and prices to
ensure that their subjects are honestly provided with the necessities of life.
Because diferent countries use diferent currencies, it is also necessary to
change one type of money for another. Although Aristotle had seen profting
by exchanging money for money as morally dubious, Giles conceded that this
might be allowed, at least to merchants, if not to rulers who should be more
virtuous than other men. Similarly, whilst earning a living from trade, from
selling ones labor, or from a craf might be legitimate for most men, these
sources of income might be below the dignity of a prince (:,, ::, :,:, :,o,8,
:8,, :::::, ::o, :o,o, :,:,,, ,,:,,, ,,8, ,8, ,8,). In such cases, Giles
presented morality as being socially specifc, so that what might be virtuous
for some groups could be prohibited to others. Tus, whilst marriage and
procreation are permitted or even virtuous for those who follow the active
life within the world, they are prohibited to those whose pursuit of the angelic
perfection of the contemplative life required celibacy (:::,, :o,, :,8, ::,
:oo, ::).
37
By contrast, for Giles, usury (takos) was always wrong and so
should be prohibited to all men. Whilst renting out a house was perfectly
legitimate, as it involved the grant of the use of a thing without relinquishing
its substance, renting out money was a form of robbery since, unlike rent-
ing out houses, lending money should necessarily also involve a grant of its
substance, but this did not occur in the case of usury (,,, :o,,:).
38

However, whilst Giles saw diversity, diference, and complementar-
ity as central to human society, he also, as in his cosmology, argued that
the rightful ordering of the various elements that made it up required that
they should be ranked hierarchically. Indeed, since Giles equated uniformity
with equalite ( equalia ), diversity then became synonymous with inequal-
ity, so that the self-evident need for diference within society became, in
itself, a justifcation of the need for hierarchy.
39
As Giles said, because a
city is made up of a prince and its citizens and requires certeyn om cers
and maistres lasse and more, it necessarily involves the diversity whereby
some are lordes and somme sogettes (:,oo). Inevitably, to defend this
,,. Giles of Rome, On Ecclesiastical Government , ed. Dyson, ,, 8:; ::, ,::; Stephen H.
Rigby, Te Wife of Bath, Christine de Pizan, and the Medieval Case for Women, Chaucer Review
,, (:ooo): :,,o,, at :,; Minnis, I Speke of Folk of Seculer Estaat, ,,,,; and Lusignan, De com-
munit appellee cit, oooo:.
,8. Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson, :.:o. On usury, see Diana Wood, Medieval Economic
Tought (Cambridge, U.K., :oo:), especially chaps. ,8.
,. Egidius Romanus, De regimine principum (:8:), ,.:.8.
CR 46.3_01_Rigby.indd 275 9/28/11 12:42 AM
The Chaucer Review 276
outlook, Giles resorted once more to an analogy with the human body, this
being the pre-eminent symbol in terms of which society was conceived in
medieval thought.
60
Tus, just as the members of the body are not only in a
relationship of commutative justice but also one of distributive justice, by
which the heart endows each limb or organ with spirit, so a political com-
munity requires the distributive justice by which wealth, power, and status
are granted to the members of the community according to their dignite or
worth (,). Consequently, if Giles sometimes linked inequality (in the sense
of disproportion) with injustice and corruption, as in the inequality between
the humors that results in bodily sickness or even death, this association
certainly did not lead him to the conclusion that a healthy society required
a strict equality between its members. Following Aristotle and Cicero, who
had defned justice as the virtue which assigns to everyone his due, Giles
argued that social justice thus required the proportionate equality, that is,
inequality, in which men receive their deserts according to their unequal
dignitas . Te common goods of society, such as wealth, status, and honor,
should thus be distributed according to the status of the person who receives
them (:8, ,,oo, :8,, ,,,, ,88).
61

IV
As Max Weber said, those who enjoy wealth, status, and power within society
usually justify their social superiority in terms of a specifc status-legend
that appeals to some special and intrinsic quality of those who are priv-
ileged.
62
Te status-legend with which Giles of Rome sought to legitimate
the distributive justice of the social and political arrangements of his own
day was the Aristotelian claim that those who enjoy power within society,
kynges and princes and generalliche alle lordes, deserve to rule as they
are its wiser and more rational part.
63
If it is inevitable that some must rule
oo. Mervyn James, Ritual, Drama and Social Body in the Late Medieval English Town,
Past and Present 8 (:8,): ,:, at o; and Lilley, City and Cosmos , :oo. For the use of this meta-
phor, see also Stephen H. Rigby, English Society in the Later Middle Ages: Class, Status and Gender
(Basingstoke, :,), ,o8; and Stephen H. Rigby, England: Literature and Society, in Stephen H.
Rigby, ed., ACompanion to Britain in the Later Middle Ages (Oxford, :oo,), ,,:o, at ,o,.
o1. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics , ed. Rackham, ,.,.:,:8; Augustine, City of God , trans.
Bettenson, :.::; Cicero, On Duties , ed. Miriam T. Grim n and E. Margaret Atkins (Cambridge,
U.K., ::), ,; and Aquinas, Summa Teologiae , ed. McDermott, ,, ,8,.
oi. Max Weber, Te Social Psychology of the World Religions, in Hans H. Gerth and
Charles Wright Mills, eds., From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (London, :8), :o,,o:, at :,o.
o. Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson, :.,, :.:,, ,.:; and Giles of Rome, On Ecclesiastical Govern-
ment , ed. Dyson, :o.
CR 46.3_01_Rigby.indd 276 9/28/11 12:42 AM
stephen h. rigby 277
within society and others must be subject to them, it is most reasonable and
benefcial for all if those who lakken vse of resoun and who are nyse
and foles are governed by those who are wise, good, redy, witty, and
cunnyng. For Giles, as for Aristotle, the rule of the more rational over the
less wise is natural and expedient, whereas the rule of the inferior over the
superior, or the equality of the two, is always hurtful (,, ,o,:, :o, :,,, :,,,
:::, :o,, :,,, :,,).
64
Giles applied this principle to a number of diferent social
relationships, including those between ruler and subject, master and servant,
husband and wife, and father and child.
For Giles, man is not only a social animal but also a cyuel beest and
politik, one who is naturally inclined to create political communities. It
was therefore no accident that he saw the hierarchical principle of distribu-
tive justice as being particularly evident in the realm of politics and in the
relationship between ruler and subject (:o:, :o,o, :8o ,8,).
63
Giles
justifed the political lordship of some people over others in terms of the
status-legend that those who possess good intellecte, vnderstondyng and
prudencia, and so have the ability to rule themselves, should also rule over
others, whereas those who cannot even govern themselves should be subject
to their intellectual and moral betters.
66
For Giles, not only the teachings of
philosophers but the forms of governance found throughout nature con-
frmed the inevitability and the virtue of this arrangement. If their greater
prudence means that humans naturally have lordship over the beasts, men
over women, the old over children, and masters over their servants, so, to
be kyndelich a lord, a king needs great prudence and intellect so as to rule
over those of lesser understanding. With the help of what Antony Flew calls
the No True Scotsman argument (No true Scotsman would ever beat his
wife; But I know a Scotsman who beats his wife; Well that just goes to
show that he is not a true Scotsman in the frst place), Giles was able to
argue that not only should a king have a wisdom superior to that of other
men but that he naturally does so since otherwise he would not be a true
king in the frst place but rather a servant of his own lower nature.
67
A ruler
who lacks prudence and is ruled by his own passions is thus not a kyndelich
rector, verrey kyng, or a king in dede, but is merely a tyrant not worthy
to be a prince, being a king only by name and simply the signe of a kyng
o. Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson, :.,.
o,. Aegidius Romanus, Quodlibeta (:oo), ,.
oo. Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson, :.,, :.:,.
o,. Antony Flew, Tinking about Tinking (or Do I Sincerely Want To Be Right?) (London,
:,,), ,,o.
CR 46.3_01_Rigby.indd 277 9/28/11 12:42 AM
The Chaucer Review 278
(,, :o::, ,:, o:, :,:, :,, :,, ,:, ,,,, ,,8, ,o:, ,,, ,,, ,,:, ,,,
,,,, ,8,, ,8,).
68

If lordship and government in general are natural and useful to human-
ity because they involve the rule of those who are more prudent, then what
is the best particular form of government: In answering this question, Giles
followed Aristotle in distinguishing three main kinds of polity according to
who exercises power: one man, a few people, or many people. In turn, each
of these three kinds of government can take either a virtuous or a corrupt
form depending on whether the rulers govern for the common good, which
should always come before singular proft (even though this should not in
itself necessarily be despised), bringing their subjects to peace, prosperity,
and virtue (as in a monarchy, aristocracy, or policia ), or whether they merely
pursue their own self-interest (as in a tyranny, oligarchy, or democracy) (,,
:,, :o, ,,, ::8:, :88, ,o, ,o, ,:,:o, ,:8, ,,,,, ,,:,,).
69

Giles regarded both the aristocracy and the policia (such as the Italian
city-states in which the people choose the rulers, om cers, and judges and
make the laws) as being perfectly legitimate forms of polity. Nonetheless, he
argued that the best type of government is monarchy, on the grounds that
a single ruler helps create strong government and internal peace: it is bet-
tre that a cite other a prouynce be irewled by on than by manye. For Giles,
experience showed that where one king rules, the result is pees and plente
whereas other forms of government lead to pouert and meschef. In more
general terms, just as nature shows us that eche multitude is reducte and
ireweled by oon that is chef, so it followed that the parft vnyte of monar-
chy is the best and most natural of all forms of government (,:o:8, ,,,).
70

In this sense, the ruler, as head of the realm, hath the liknesse of God that is
heed and prince of alle and is the cheef prince and kyng of kyngs (,o, 8:,
8,, ,,o).
71
In the same way that it is in the interests of the body to be ruled by
the soul and of an army to be obedient to its general, so it is in the interests
of the community to be ruled by its king, rendering obedience, worship, and
reverence to him (,888, ::::). In general, then, despite explicitly present-
ing the policia as a virtuous form of polity, Giles was suspicious of the comyn
puple who tend to value the delectation of the senses rather than the felicity
of the soul: the more people there are engaged in something, the less is their
o8. On prudence in Giles, see Lambertini, Tra etica e politica, passim.
o. Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson, ,.,, .:::; Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics , ed. Rackham,
8.:o.:; Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotles Nicomachean Ethics , ed. Litzinger, :o,:,8, :o,8; and
Egidius Romanus, Tractatus de peccato originali , fol. .
,o. Lambertini, Philosophus videtur tres rationes, ,o8.
,1. For references to this idea, see Rigby, Wisdom and Chivalry , ::o:.
CR 46.3_01_Rigby.indd 278 9/28/11 12:42 AM
stephen h. rigby 279
wisdom and wit (:o, :8:). Whilst Giles himself pointed out the dangers,
inem ciencies, and corruption that could arise when particular individuals
were given permanent grants of political om ce, he chose not to apply this
logic to royal om ce when arguing in favor of monarchy against more repre-
sentative forms of government (,o8).
72

In order to justify his belief that monarchy was the best form of gov-
ernment, Giles invoked the authority of Aristotle (,:8:). In fact, whilst
Aristotle had seen the monarchy of the perfect man as the ideal form of
constitution in theory, he had also argued that, in reality, such a god among
men is seldom or never to be found. He therefore concluded that, in practice,
the best form of polity may be one with a mixed constitution that combines
the virtues, or at least limits the vices, of the diferent forms of government.
73

Tis was certainly how his work was understood by many medieval politi-
cal theorists, from Aquinas in the thirteenth century to Fortescue in the ff-
teenth.
74
By contrast, whilst Giles recognized political rule (i.e., politik
or cyuyle rule), where the ruler is subject to law made by the citizens, as a
legitimate form of government, he himself favored royal rule (i.e., real or
regale rule), where the king takes counsel from others but still makes the
laws according to his own will. Giles saw this royal rule as being the most
rightful and natural form of rule, equating it with the rule of God within
the universe and of the supremacy of reason within the individual human
(:o:, ::,).
73

For Giles, lordship was linked with the possession of superior intellect
and prudence. In particular, kings, whose decisions afect everyone within
society, should be wiser and more prudent than other men. It may therefore
,i. Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson, :.,, ,.8.
,. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics , ed. Rackham, 8.:o.:; Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson,
:.o, .8::; Richard G. Mulgan, Aristotles Political Teory: An Introduction for Students of Politi-
cal Teory (Oxford, :,,), o8o, ,:, ,o,,, 8:, :oo::,; Christopher Shields, Aristotle (London,
:oo,), ,o,o8; Jean Dunbabin, Aristotle in the Schools, in Beryl Smalley, ed., Trends in Medieval
Political Tought (Oxford, :o,), o,8,, at o,o; Briggs, Giles of Romes De regimine principum , :,;
and James M. Blythe, Ideal Government and the Mixed Constitution in the Middle Ages (Princeton,
::), :o:.
,. Aquinas, Summa Teologiae , ed. McDermott, :o; John of Paris, On Royal and Papal
Power , ed. John A. Watt (Toronto, :,:), :oo8; James M. Blythe, ed., On the Government of Rulers:
De regimine principum. Ptolemy of Lucca with Portions Attributed to Tomas Aquinas (Philadelphia,
:,), ::.:; :::o; Oresme, Le Livre de Politiques , ed. Menut, :,:,,, :o,, :o:, :,; Sir John
Fortescue, In Praise of the Laws of England (sections , :,, ,,) and Te Governance of England,
in Shelley Lockwood, ed., On the Laws and Government of England (Cambridge, U.K., :,), :,:8,
:,; T. Osborne, Dominum Regale et Politicum: Sir John Fortescues Response to the Problem
of Tyranny as Presented by Tomas Aquinas and Ptolemy of Lucca, Medieval Studies o: (:ooo):
:o:8,; and Blythe, Ideal Government , passim.
,,. Blythe, Ideal Government , o,,o; and Lambertini, Philosophus videtur tres rationes,
,::,.
CR 46.3_01_Rigby.indd 279 9/28/11 12:42 AM
The Chaucer Review 280
seem that, as Giles himself conceded, it would be most logical to elect the
best and wisest man as king rather than leaving royal succession to the lot-
tery of inheritance (,:, ,,, ooo:, ,:,o). However, Giles argued that, in
practice, if not in terms of strict logic, hereditary kingship was actually the
best form of government. Although all human dealings involved some degree
of uncertainty and peril, monarchical government was the form most likely
to secure the common good and to prevent civil strife and tyranny. A heredi-
tary ruler who is to pass on his realm to his own heir is more likely to keep
his realm in good order than an elected monarch; he is likely to have better
morals than those who have been newly raised up; and he is more likely to be
obeyed by his subjects than one who does not come from a long-established
lineage. Furthermore, as fathers tend to love their eldest sons best and since,
in general, the younger should be obedient to the elder, it is preferable that
succession to the throne should be via primogeniture (Giless text was itself
addressed to the eldest surviving son of Philip III of France) (,, :::, ,:,:).
76

Reassuringly for the royal rulers for whom he was writing, Giles was able to
marshal the authority of Aristotle, the example of nature, and an appeal to
practical experience to show that hereditary monarchy was the best and most
natural form of government.
However, if Giles was an advocate of strong kingship, he certainly did not
seek to excuse tyranny or despotism or to provide a justifcation for cruelty
and oppression on the part of those with power. Rulers should be feared by
their subjects, for instance, by being seen to punish cruelliche all those, even
their own friends and family, who disturb the peace of the realm. Nevertheless,
in the long run, the security of the prince is best established when he makes
himself loved by his subjects for his virtue, for his defense of the realm, and
for his pursuit of the common good: political pragmatism and individual
virtue on the part of the ruler went hand in hand (,o:). Princes should
therefore listen to the counsel of others (particularly of the wise and of the
eldeste wise barons that loueth the regne) in the making of the law, in the
rule of their kingdoms and amidst the perils of war. Tey should also allow
their subjects to associate freelysomething feared by the tyrant (,,, ::,:o,
,:, ,:, ,,8, ,:, ,,o, ,,:oo, ,,o, :,). Rulers also have the duty to be liberal
and virtuous towards their subjects in order to win their love and so as to
protect those within their power. Te good ruler should use his knights not
only to defend against external enemies but also to prevent the ouersettynge
,o. Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson, ,.:; and Lambertini, Philosophus videtur tres rationes,
,o:, ,:o:8.
CR 46.3_01_Rigby.indd 280 9/28/11 12:42 AM
stephen h. rigby 281
of feble persones, such as orphans, by which the peace and common proft
of the realm is disturbed. He who fails to do so is a tyrant and so, as we have
seen, is not a true prince in the frst place (:o, ,,,o, ,:,, ,,:,, ,o:,
,o, ,). Tus, whilst the De regimine principum has ofen been seen as a
defense of untrammeled monarchical power, it should be stressed that Giless
treatise also ofered a warning against royal tyranny.
77
As a result, the prac-
tical implications of Giless political teachings were rather elastic and his
work was open to a number of diferent interpretations. It is not surprising,
therefore, to fnd that copies of the De regimine principum were owned not
only by Simon Burley, who has sometimes been seen as the inspiration for
Richard IIs absolutism, but were also possessed by those who opposed the
king, such as Tomas, duke of Gloucester. Similarly, Sir Tomas Berkeley
who was the patron of John Trevisa, the translator of Giless text into Middle
English, was an ally of Gloucester and a supporter of Bolingbroke, and was
actively involved in the deposition of Richard II in :,.
78

V
For Giles, hierarchy was as natural, inevitable, and desirable within society
as a whole as it was in the sphere of politics and government. Accordingly,
he sought to provide a defense of private property and ofered an apologia
for contemporary inequalities of wealth, power, and status, whether between
the social orders and classes or within families and households. In relation
to wealth, Giles argued that the possession of the necessities of life was nat-
ural to humanity, as can be seen by the fact that humans have been given
lordship and possession of the animals and of the other necessities of life
(:o,, :,oo). Nevertheless, this right of possession still lef it open whether,
,,. Perkins, Hoccleves Regiment of Princes , o.
,8. Richard H. Jones, Te Royal Policy of Richard II: Absolutism in the Later Middle Ages
(Oxford, :o8), :, :,,8, :o:o,, :,,; Kendall, Lordship and Literature , ,; Briggs, Giles of Romes
De regimine principum , :, o, ooo:, ,:, ; Somerset, Clerical Discourse , o,8; Jean Dunbabin,
Careers and Vocations, in Catto, ed., Te History of the University of Oxford , ::,o,ooo, at ,8,;
Nigel Saul, Richard II (New Haven, :,), :,; Fowler, Te Life and Times of John Trevisa , ::,:o;
Hanna, Sir Tomas Berkeley, 888:; Ulrike Grassnick, O Prince, Desyre to be Honourable:
Te Deposition of Richard II and Mirrors for Princes, in J. S. Hamilton, ed., Fourteenth-Century
England IV (:ooo): :,,, at :oo,; Lynn Staley, Languages of Power in the Age of Richard II
(University Park, Pa., :oo,), :. For Berkeley, see Chronicles of the Revolution, 13971400 , ed. Chris
Given-Wilson (Manchester, U.K., :,), :o, :8,; Chris Given-Wilson, ed., Henry IV: Te Parlia-
ment of :,, Text and Translation, Items , ,:, ,,,, in Te Parliament Rolls of Medieval England ,
ed. Chris Given-Wilson, Paul Brand, Seymour Phillips, W. Mark Ormrod, Geofrey Martin, Anne
Curry, and Rosemary Horrox, CD-ROM (Woodbridge, :oo,); and Te Chronicle of Adam Usk,
13771421 , ed. Chris Given-Wilson (Oxford, :,), oo.
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The Chaucer Review 282
as Socrates and Plato had argued, the wealth of society should be held in
common by all citizens, so as to help reduce conficts between them, or
whether private property, proper possessioun, was the best arrangement
(:oo, :8, ,o::, ,o,, ,:o::).
79
Giles accepted that, in theory, if all men
were perfect, it might be best if property were held in common. Indeed, in
ancient times, certain peoples had held everything in common. However, in
practice, given the corrupted nature of human appetites and desires as the
worlde stondeth now, it is private property that allows people, as Aristotle
had argued, to maximize their benefts (:o:, ,o:, ,o,o).
80

Giles ofered a number of reasons why private property was, in practice
at least, superior to the common ownership of wealth. Firstly, if even in soci-
eties with private property, where people are busy pursuing their own good,
many people still live in need, such poverty would be even more prevalent if
common property were to be established, as this would reduce the incentive
of each individual to create wealth. Secondly, common ownership of things
did not reduce strife but ofen generated more contention, as could be seen
between brothers who came into a joint inheritance. If brothers, who should
have more love between them than other men, are inclined to fght in such cir-
cumstances, then confict between other men was even more likely.
81
Tirdly,
citing the problems that arise when a task is delegated to too many servants
and each then leaves it to the others, Giles repeated his claim that citizens
would work more bysiliche, with more order and less strife, if they each had
their own individual property (:o:o:, ,o:, ,o,o). Besides, even if all things
were to be owned in common, the actual use and enjoyment of them would
still be individual: the food that nourishes one man does not sustain another.
Te result, once more, would be more social confict, not less, because each
man would tend to see himself as better than others and so would believe
that he deserved a commensurately greater reward from the common pool.
Hence, whilst cities were ordained for the good of all of their members, the
achievement of this common good did not require the establishment of com-
mon property (,o::). Indeed, Giles assumes that, confronted with their own
mortality, men will seek to be perpetual by living on through their children
(whether natural or adopted) so that each man will desire to ordeyne his
eyre afer his own wille afer his deth. Rulers should therefore ensure that
mens inheritances should be secure in order to maintain peace within the
community (:,o, :,, ,,,).
,. Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson, :.:,. Plato, Te Republic , trans. Cornford, ,.o,o.
8o. Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson, :.,.
81. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics , ed. Rackham, 8.::.o.
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stephen h. rigby 283
Giless discussion of the need for social hierarchy not only echoes
Aristotles rejection of common property but also developed the arguments
of the Philosopher against thinkers such as Phaleas, who, whilst not actually
favoring communism, had still advocated a relative equality of wealth within
the community on the grounds that this would help reduce crime and social
confict amongst the citizens (,::::).
82
Against this view, Giles argued that
just as the continued existence of the body requires that its parts are related
in terms of distributive justice (above, section II), so no city or realm can
endure without the iusticia distributiua by which the ruler endows them
with wealth according to their unequal worthiness and dignite (,8,).
As he says when criticizing Socrates and Platos arguments in favor of citi-
zens holding the wives and children of a community in common (:ooo:,
:,8), frendschipe within a city is not created when the children of the
noblemen ( nobiles ) who defend the city have the same kepynge as those of
plowmen ( agricole ) and foule persones ( persone viles ), as would be neces-
sary if wives and children were to be in common.
83
True friendship arises
not from strict equality (euene proporcioun) but rather when each man,
whether he is gentel, good, worthi, and a knight, or foule, unworthi,
and a plowman, is rewarded in proporcioun to his own estate, as when
vnnoble men serve the noble and, in return, are repaid in relation to their
specifc service (,o,).
84
Consequently, whilst a city requires its members to
perform a variety of diferent functions, as when some till the land and others
defend it, this reciprocal exchange of services need not entail an equality of
status or of wealth between them. Rather, those who use their skills in deeds
of arms to defend the city are more noble and worthi and should enjoy a
greater dignitee than those who plow the soil. Accordingly, they should be
given a larger share of societys total product to maintain that dignity, even if
their numbers should not be so excessive that they impoverish a country, but
should rather be in proportion to its resources and to the external threats that
it faces (,oo, ,o:o, ,,).
Even if an equality of riches could be created, which Giles regarded as
unlikely, it would soon be undermined by the fact that some people have
many children and others have few to inherit their property, and, as even
Phaleas had admitted, it is even harder to recreate equality once inequality
has come into being than it is to establish it from the foundation of a city.
Equality could be produced only by raising up the poor and by humbling the
8i. Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson, :.,.
8. Egidius Romanus, De regimine principum (:8:), ,.:.:o.
8. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics , ed. Rackham, 8.:.
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The Chaucer Review 284
rich, which, for Giles, would inevitably generate social evils as the children
of the newly elevated poor would become proud and do wrong to other
men whilst the ofspring of the rich would be aggrieved at seeing themselves
despised and poor men being honored.
83
Finally, if all citizens had an equality
of poverty, this would mean that no one could do virtuous deeds of liberality,
whereas, conversely, if everyone had an equality of plenty, they would live in
luxury rather than pursuing the virtue of temperance (,:::).
Accordingly, whilst Giles accepted that it was useful to have laws con-
cerning property, as in ancient Locres where the citizens were not allowed
to sell of their inheritance except in a case of emergency so that a certain
degree of equity was kept amongst them, he did not see it as spedful to
legislate that all citizens should have a strict equality of wealth (,:, ,8,).
86

On the contrary, following Aristotle, he took it for granted that all cities and
realms would necessarily be divided into three parts: the rich, the poor, and
those in between (,8,).
87
Giles was hostile to social mobility between these
groups, preferring, as usual, that everything and everyone should remain in
its natural place. Once more, he could have appealed to biblical authority, as
Tomas Wimbledon did in his famous sermon of :,8 when he invoked Saint
Pauls teaching that each man should deferentially abide in the same calling
in which he was called (: Cor. ,::o).
88
Instead, as usual in the De regimine
principum , Giles preferred to buttress his argument with the authority of
Aristotle, who had argued that those who have been newly elevated to wealth
and power from lowly estate are generally less virtuous than those who rise
slowly or whose lineages have long enjoyed such privileges. Such arrivistes
are particularly likely to succumb to the temptations of pride and vainglory:
a riche noble man of olde tyme can bettre haue hemself in alle things than
can a cherle that is newelich imad riche (:,o, :8,, ,,o,:).
89
Rulers should
therefore take care not to raise men to great lordship too quickly but should
promote them gradually and only once their virtue has been tested (,,o).
Yet, if Giles rejected the arguments of those ancient authors who had
favored common property and social equality, he was generally unwilling
83. Aristotle, On Rhetoric: A Teory of Civic Discourse , ed. G. A. Kennedy (New York, ::),
:.:o. (cited by book, chapter, and section).
8o. Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson, :.,.
8,. Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson, .,.
88. Knight, ed., Wimbledons Sermon , o, (lines :o:). On the reality of social mobility in
late medieval England, see Stephen H. Rigby, English Society in the Later Middle Ages: Defer-
ence, Ambition and Confict, in Peter Brown, ed., A Companion to Medieval English Literature and
Culture, c.1350c.1500 (Oxford, :oo,), :,,, at :8,.
8. Aristotle, On Rhetoric , ed. Kennedy, :.:o..
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stephen h. rigby 285
to dismiss earlier philosophers as having been totally mistaken, but instead
sought to save their opinions by fnding some element of truth within
them. Tus, if Plato and Socrates were wrong to favor common ownership of
property and of wives and children, Giles nonetheless agreed with them that
the wealth of society should be used for the common good, for instance by
being shared with others through the virtue of liberality, and that each citizen
should cherish and care for the wives, children, and possessions of his fel-
lows (,o,8, ,oo, ,:o::).
90
Giless defense of private property was not, there-
fore, meant as a justifcation of a limitless, individualistic pursuit of riches.
Of course, many people are prone to this failing since humans are inclined
to love themselves, to guard over their own wealth, and to be diligent in pur-
suing their own good. Against such greed, nature teaches a diferent lesson:
whilst a bird in an egg is nourished by its yolk or a young mammal is fed with
its mothers milk, nature does not need to provide them with endless nourish-
ment. Similarly, in human afairs, whilst a smith requires anvils and hammers,
he does not need an infnite number of them. Likewise, rather than seeking
endless wealth, each man should be apaied with so greet richesse and pos-
sessioun as needeth for here astaat, earning what is sum cient to maintain his
rank or staat (s tatus ) (,o, ,o, :oo, :,:,, :oo,, :,:, ,,o).
91

Accordingly, whilst urging women to dress moderately and to avoid
grete araye, Giles explained that, in practice, what this meant was that they
should dress according to here own astaat. Whilst it would be vainglorious
for women to dress in a manner above their own estate (and wrong to use
cosmetics to make themselves seem more beautiful than they really were), it
would be negligent, slothful, and perhaps even a form of sinful pride for them
to dress worse than here astaat axeth: a knights wife ( uxor militis ) should
be better dressed than the wife of a symple citeseyne ( civis simplicis ) and a
princes wife better still.
92
Each husband should therefore see that his wife has
fair array and ornaments according to his own staat and faculte of richesse,
as defned by the customs of his country, since the rendering of worschepe
is one of the purposes of clothing and what is of worship to the wife is also of
worship to the husband.
93
Meekness and humility are virtues, but excessive
humility, deieccioun, or wrecched lownesse, by which we lower ourselves
beneath our own estate, is irrational and bestial. Tus, whilst women should
dress themselves moderately and meekly, they should also do so semliche
o. Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson, :.,, :.o.
1. Egidius Romanus, De regimine principum (:8:), :.,.::.
i. Egidius Romanus, De regimine principum (:8:), :.:.,:.
. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics , ed. Rackham, .,.:,.
CR 46.3_01_Rigby.indd 285 9/28/11 12:42 AM
The Chaucer Review 286
and wel. Tis, along with their fairness of body, would please their husbands
and so withdrawe hem fro fornicacioun (,, :888, :o,,, :,,,o).
Similarly, whilst we should all eat and drink mesurableliche, what counts as
measured is determined by the condicouns of the persone and by estaat of
his gentelnesse. A mans house should also be constructed according to his
richesse and catel. Princes, for instance, should build magnifcent houses
for themselves as heere astaat axeth, so that their magnifcence makes their
subjects afraid to conspire against them (,o, :o,, :,:, :,o,,). Likewise, refer-
ring to a key debate in the reception of Aristotles work, Giles argued that
whilst humility is a Christian virtue, princes also need the virtue of magna-
nimity, which relates to the receipt of great honor, and so should avoid the
excessive humility that is actually a form of boasting (8,, ::,::).
94

For Giles, the inevitability of inequality within the community applied not
only to power and to wealth but also to status. Indeed, those who are wealthy
are more likely to be angered at being denied the social honor to which their
position entitles them than by any material grievances.
93
Rulers should there-
fore allow their leading subjects to display their magnifcence, even if their
glory should not outdo that of the prince himself: only the tyrant seeks to pre-
vent such grandeur (,,,). It is thus important that a ruler should not only see
that property is proportionately distributed within society according to mens
estate, but also that worschep be semelich and ritfullyche ideled (,::,,
,8). It is vainglorious to seek honor as an end in itself, but such worship
( honor ) is rightful when it motivates us to do great deeds, provided we do
not receive too much (nor too little) reverence from others (8o, ,).
96

VI
At times, Giless discussion of social inequality in terms of an exchange of
services between knights and plowmen is reminiscent of traditional medieval
accounts of society as being made up of the functionally defned estates of
those who work, fght, and pray.
97
Tus, whilst Giles objected to Socrates
and Platos claim that a citys fghting men should be separate from its other
citizens on the grounds that all citizens had an obligation to defend their
own country, he nonetheless distinguished these citizens, who had the right
. Lambertini, Il flosofo, :oo8; and Lohr, Te Medieval Interpretation of Aristotle, 88.
,. Aristotle, On Rhetoric , ed. Kennedy, :.:o.:8.
o. Egidius Romanus, De regimine principum (:8:), ,.:.:8.
,. For references, see Rigby, English Society , :8:,, :o, ,o,8; and Rigby, England: Lit-
erature and Society, ,oo,o:.
CR 46.3_01_Rigby.indd 286 9/28/11 12:42 AM
stephen h. rigby 287
and duty to bear arms, from those lesser members of society who tilled the
land and who did not play a part in cyuel life. He also maintained the tra-
ditional distinction between the noble (or the gentle), whose task was not to
perform manual labor but to defend the city, and those such as the plowmen
and crafsmen who worked with their hands (::,, :, ::, ,o::, ,:,).
In general, however, the reliance of the De regimine principum on the
works of Aristotle, particularly on the Politics , means that Giless claims for
the inevitability of social hierarchy are most apparent in his discussion of the
structure of the household.
98
For Giles, man is an animal domesticum even
more than he is an animal politicum, since the household is the basis of all
human society, even if it is less perfect than other, more complete forms of
community, such as the city or the realm (:o,o,).
99
Te household itself is
comprised of three diferent relationships or communities. Firstly, there is
the relationship between husband and wife, which creates the household; sec-
ondly, that between master and servant, which maintains it; and fnally that
between parent and child, which perfects and completes it (:ooo, :,:,o).
As in his discussion of the relationship between ruler and subject, Giles pres-
ents each of these three communities in terms of a mutually benefcial but
hierarchical arrangement in which those of greater wisdom and reason rule
over those of lesser wit, who, in return, obey and render service to their supe-
riors in the knowledge that they are being ruled for their owne good and
proft (::).
100

Tat lords beneft from the work of servants within their households is
readily apparent. Afer all, unlike the obedient and hardworking statues of
Daedalus, tables do not lay themselves nor doors open of their own accord,
which means that the master of a household needs servants to do these things,
since it would not be semelich for him to perform such tasks himself.
101
Just
as the heart gives life to the rest of the body that is subject to it, so, ultimately,
a master controls everything within his household. Nonetheless, just as it is
unseemly that the highest elements in the cosmos should control the lowest
elements directly, and so instead do so by means of some intermediate power,
so within the household the lord should govern his soulless possessions, such
as tables and doors, via those of his instruments who possess souls, that is, his
servants and ministers. In turn, his servants and om cers should themselves
8. Giles does not seem to have drawn on the pseudo-Aristotelian Economics (Lambertini,
Aproposito, ,:,; and Lambertini, Te Prince, :,:,).
. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics , ed. Rackham, 8.::.,; and Lambertini, A proposito, ,,,o:.
1oo. Lambertini, A proposito, ,:o.
1o1. For Daedalus, see Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson, :..
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The Chaucer Review 288
be ranked hierarchically, with chief proctors and servants ruling over the
others, these higher om cials having been promoted only afer lengthy service
in which they have proved themselves hardworking and faithful (,, :,,,,
:,8,, :8,8). A human household should be a microcosm of Creation,
which is itself the hous of the heiest prince that is God.
102
Accordingly, just
as everything is not arayed iliche nother ben iliche fayre within Creation,
so, within a household, the clothes provided to each servant should not only
demonstrate his lords identity and magnifcence but should also be graded
according to that servants specifc degree and staat. Giles recognized that
the details of such arrangements would vary according to the customs of each
diferent country (customs that men learn to love as children), but regarded
such variety as being perfectly legitimate provided that any particular usage
was not morally corrupt (:,8o, ,o).
103

However, whilst masters proft from the services of their servants, Giles
denied that the domynatiuum, rewlyng dominatif, or seruyle rule of the
master over his servants is exercised merely for the beneft of the master him-
self.
104
Rather than being one-sided or exploitative, this relationship is actu-
ally spedful to both parties, each of which is isaued by the other (:,o,:,
:,o, :). Like God, who rules all of Creation with his prudence and wisdom,
all lords should helpe, sokere, and saue those who are subject to their
rule (:::). As we have seen, Giles assumed that lords tend to be men of good
wit and vnderstondyng, but, following Aristotle, he argued that those who
are wise and redy and witty are generally lacking in physical strength. It is
those with nesch fesch and tendre who have the sharpest wits. As physical
labor makes the fesh hard, sitting and resting is a better preparation for
intellectual study and wisdom than is manual work. By contrast, a man with
grete bodilich strengthe generally lacks wit and kunnyng and so can not
rule hymself. It therefore profts the servant to be soget and serue hym that
is prudens and wise. Like a blind man who needs to be led by someone who is
sighted, a servant needs a master for his owne sauacioun: wise men scholde
be lordes and vnwise men obedyent. Following Aristotle, Giles equates the
mastery of the wise over the unwise with that exercised by civilized peoples
over barbarians who are wild, lakken vse of resoun, and cannot rule them-
selves. Even though, in general, men do not have the right to wage war against
other men except to correct a particular wrong, war can lawfully be waged
1oi. Aristotle, Metaphysics, trans. W. D. Ross, in Te Basic Works of Aristotle , ed. Richard
McKeon (New York, :oo:), ::.:o (cited by book and section).
1o. Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson, ,.:,.
1o. For the case where Giles argues the opposite, see section XI, below.
CR 46.3_01_Rigby.indd 288 9/28/11 12:42 AM
stephen h. rigby 289
against such barbarians if they will not submit to their rightful superiors
(,,,o,:, :,o,:, :,, :,, :o,, :,, :8, ,oo).
103

As usual, Giles appealed to nature as a justifcation for his preferred
social arrangements. Just as all mixed bodies require one element to be
mayster therinne, so it is natural that a plurality of people can only become
one companye or a laweful comynte when some men are lords and oth-
ers are servants. If men in general are lords over the other animals, then
amongst humans it is natural that the unwise are subject to the wise (,o,:,
:,,,,). Giles was aware of the argument (one that could appeal to Justinians
Institutes ) that thraldom (s ervitus ), in which men are unfree, should be seen
as invalid since, by the law of nature, all men from the creation of the world
onwards were ibore fre.
106
Against this logic, Giles countered that what was
unnatural could actually be understood in two diferent senses: frstly, it
could refer to that which is not a direct gif of nature (as, say, herbs are) but is
instead produced by the crafe of men; secondly, and more accurately, what
was unnatural could be defned as that which was against reason. Hence,
although clothing is aenst kynde in the frst sense, since all men are born
naked, it is still natural in the second sense because it is based on reason and
serves the common good. Similarly, in the second sense, it is not against the
law of nature that som men seruen othere and ben obedient to them as this
too is rational and maximizes the common good (,8:).
Giles thus saw it as natural and spedful to human society if summe
be seruantes and somme be lordes. However, in addition to this kyndlich
service, by which the wild, foolish, and barbarous serve the wise, Giles also
set out a second type of service: the positif or laweful seruage in which
those who are defeated in battle serve those who have conquered them.
107
Just
as the wise, being superior in the powers of the soul, should be lords of those
of lesser reason, so it is lawful that those of superior bodiliche strengthe and
cyuyle myt and power should be the lords of those they have overcome in
battle. Tis arrangement might lack the perfection of kyndelich lordship,
but nevertheless it is still laweful and positif. Indeed, in practice, it is usu-
ally rather more evident which men have been victorious in battle than which
enjoy a superiority of inner virtue and reason. Again, Giles saw this positive
servage as benefting both parties. On the one hand, it encouraged people to
fght for the common good, as they would share in the profts of victory; on
1o,. Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson, :.8, ,.:.
1oo. Egidius Romanus, De regimine principum (:8:), ,.:.,:; and Paul Krueger, ed., Corpus
Iuris Civilis , , vols. (Berlin, ::8), ::: (:., [cited by book and chapter]).
1o,. Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson, :.o.
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The Chaucer Review 290
the other, it also benefted the defeated, since it gave the victors an incentive
to save their lives in order to have them as seruynge men and wymmen.
Giles therefore adopted the standard medieval etymology of the Latin word
for slave ( servus ) as meaning one who has been saved from death by his
captor in order to have some proft of him (:,,,o, ,o,,o).
108

Giles also distinguished two other types of service. One is when a man
becomes a servant for wages ( mercenarius ) because he cannot make a living
from other forms of economic activity such as growing crops, keeping
animals, hunting, fshing, selling agricultural produce, trading, following a
craf, or profting from commercial speculation. It is rightful, by the prin-
ciple of commutative justice, that the workman, who is worthy of his hire
(Luke :o:,), is paid for his labors. Te fnal and best of all forms of service
is when men serve not only for money but principally out of virtue, love,
and good entent. Both of these forms of service are necessary for society
because, although nature requires that the unwise should obey the wise, the
fact that they lack goodness means that, in practice, they are ofen unwilling
to serve. Similarly, since servants are not always available to those of greet
blood as a result of conquest, lords have also to call on those who work for
huyre or for loue (:o:, :,:,:, :,o,,, :88,).
Although he defended the legitimacy not only of service but also of
thraldom and was happy to see servants as characteristically being crea-
tures of lesser reason, Giles did not claim that masters could mistreat those
beneath them. As we have seen, Giles regarded nature as a mean in which
everything was ordained in due proportion. Accordingly, if virtue should be
modeled on nature, it followed that, as Aristotle had famously argued (and
Boethius had repeated), virtue itself was a mean between two opposites, one
of defciency and one of excess, an idea adopted by both Chaucer and Gower.
For instance, liberality is the virtuous mean between avarice (a defciency of
generosity) and prodigality (an excess of it) even if, in practice, this mean is
more likely to be called upon to overcome our tendency to avarice than to
restrain prodigality, and so is closer to the latter than to the former rather
than being the strict midpoint between them (:, ::, o:o,, o,, ,o,8,
, 8, :o:, :,o, :,, :,, :8, :,, ,8,).
109
Similarly, if masters should not be
1o8. Krueger, ed., Corpus Iuris Civilis, ::: (:.,); and Isidore of Sevilles Etymologies , ed. Priscilla
Troop, : vols. (Charlotte, N.C., :oo,), ::,.:,.,:; ::.., (cited by book, chapter, and section).
1o. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics , ed. Rackham, :.:.o8; Lambertini, Il flosofo, :,,;
Chaucer, LGW , F :o,oo; Chaucer, Tr , I, o8,8; Chaucer, ParsT , X 8,,; Gower, Confessio Amantis ,
,.,o:,; Boethius, Te Consolation of Philosophy , ed. Stewart et al., .pr.,.,o; and Chaucer, Bo ,
IV.pr.,.o:oo. For references to other thinkers on this idea, see Rigby, Wisdom and Chivalry , ,:,
::, 8:, ::, ::,, :,, :,:,:, ::.
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stephen h. rigby 291
overly familiar with their servants, which could lead to their losing the latters
respect, this did not imply that they should fall into the opposite vice of being
cruel and heuy towards them as a tyrant is towards his subjects. Rather,
displaying the moderation of the magnanimous man, they should adopt a
virtuous middle course between the two extremes, although the higher the
rank of the lord, the less homlich he should be to those beneath him.
110

Indeed, when servants work out of love, which is the most virtuous form
of service, they should be cherished as if they were the lords own children,
should be the best rewarded of any servants, and should even be allowed to
know the lords preuey counsaile (8, :,,, :8).
VII
Giless analysis of the relationship between husband and wife within the
household is, in its basic principles, very similar to his account of that
between master and servant. For Giles, as for Aristotle, the human is an
animal coniugale, one who is naturally inclined to marriage for reasons
of fellowship as well as for the procreation within which man is the active
worker and woman is the fongere (i.e., recipient) of his seed.
111
Accord-
ingly, those who do not marry, like those who refuse to live in any human
community, are either less than human, in that they live a bestial life of lech-
ery and fornication, or, like monks and hermits who live a life of abstinence,
are in some sense above the human in seeking to rise towards the perfect
and the divine (:,o, :,,8, :8,, :o:). Husbands and wives provide each
other with companionship, and (unlike some species of birds and animals
where the female rears the children alone) both partners are needed to raise
and maintain human ofspring, the cases where women can aford to do this
on their own being the exception rather than the norm (:,8:). However,
there is a division of labor between the two partners, with men being chiefy
concerned with business outside the household whereas women perform
work inside the home, including domestic tasks such as weaving and spin-
ning silk (although Giles was aware that womens work varied according to
their country and their social status), each thereby contributing to the good
of the whole (:,,, :,8).
112

11o. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics , ed. Rackham, .o.8.
111. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics , ed. Rackham, 8.::.,.
11i. For the debate on change in the sexual division of labor in late medieval England, see
Stephen H. Rigby, Gendering the Black Death: Women in Later Medieval England, Gender and
History :: (:ooo): ,,,.
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The Chaucer Review 292
Unsurprisingly, Giles did not see this gender division of labor simply in
terms of an egalitarian commutative exchange, but rather understood it in
terms of hierarchical or distributive justice. Just as the master of a house-
hold is like a prince whose servants are his subjects, so, in the community
of wedlock between male and female, the husband is loord and maister,
one who exercises a coniugale rule over his wife who should always be
obedient to him (:,,,o).
113
Inevitably, just as Giles justifed the lordship
of the master over the servant in terms of the masters superior wisdom, so
he defended the superiority of a husband over his wifeindeed, of men in
general over all womenin terms of the males supposedly greater ratio-
nality. It is natural that women should be subject to men in marriage for
a man passeth womman in prudencia, wit and wisdom. If humans enjoy a
lordship over the beasts who have little prudence, so, as Aristotle had said,
men should always enjoy a lordship over women who lacketh prudencia of
men and so are less able to reason (,o,:, :8:, :,,).
114
Tis view of women
as being of lesser prudence provided Giles with a reason for rejecting Platos
and Socrates claim that women should be taught to do deeds of arms: not
only did women not possess the bravery and physical strength required for
hand-to-hand combat; they also lacked the cautels and wisdom that were
particularly needed for victory in battle. Women should therefore be allowed
to fght only in an emergency, for instance, where a city was attacked when its
men were out fghting in the feld (::, :8, ,oo,, ,::).
113
Tus, although he
was happy to cite the example of the bees when arguing for the advantages of
monarchical rule (,:,), Giles objected to those who similarly appealed to the
behavior of eagles, falcons, and hawks in order to argue that women should
do deeds of arms, arguing instead that animals lack reason and that we should
not follow them in things that they do withoute resoun (:8, ,o,).
Giless belief in mens superior rationality and ability to restrain the pas-
sions meant that when arguing for hereditary over elective monarchy, he also
insisted that the kingly dignity should only pass in the male line (,,:). Male
superiority also provided Giles with a ground on which to reject polyandry,
where one woman has a number of husbands. He argued that nature had
ordained that whilst a single person could be the lord of many, one person
in the same werkes should never be subject to two or more others. Tus,
11. LHermit-Leclerqc, La femme, ,:,.
11. Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson, :.,, :.::, :.:,.
11,. Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson, :.o; Plato, Te Republic , trans. Cornford, ,.,:,,; and
James M. Blythe, Women in the Military: Scholastic Arguments and Medieval Images of Women,
History of Political Tought :: (:oo:): ::o.
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stephen h. rigby 293
although it may seem that a man is ruled by both a mayor and a king, in fact,
in such cases the mayor himself is ordained by and is subject to the king: the
higher rules the lower through the intermediate. Similarly, a woman, being
of inferior prudence, wit, and wisdom, should always be subject to a man.
However, if she had two or more husbands, this would mean that she would
be subject to two men, something which was aenst kynde. Tus, whilst he
saw polygamy in general as unnatural and unreasonable, since it promoted
lust and was unsuitable for the raising of children, Giles regarded polyandry
as being an even more detestable arrangement, one which was found nowhere
amongst human societies (:8o8).
116

Just as Giles saw children as being less compleet and parft versions of
adults, so, since he regarded women as being of lesser reason, he saw females
as being like imperfect males. Tis imperfection explains why women are
particularly eager for praise from other people, even when this is for praise
of the lesser external goodness of physical beauty (:oo, :,8, :oo,). Giles
admitted that, in practice, some women are prudent and that some women
are even more prudent than some men. However, as fewe suche women are
found, these exceptions do not undermine the general need for women to
be subject to men. In the same way that it is natural for humans to be right-
handed (since the heart, which is the bodys welle of meuyng, particularly
infuences the right-hand side of the body), even though many individuals
are actually both lef-handed and right-handed, so social arrangements must
not be based on particular cases but rather on what is naturally the norm and
on what is generally true (,:, :8:, :::, ,,:, :o).
117

As Giles saw women as being of lesser reason, it followed that he saw
their advice as generally being less useful than that of men. Accordingly, he
argued that their counsel should not normally be relied upon even though
he realized that, in reality, men were ofen inclined to follow the will of their
wives. Furthermore, out of a desire to do what is forbidden and an eagerness
for the friendship and the approval of others, women are particularly likely
to reveal counsel to others that was supposed to have remained confdential
(,:, :oo8, :8, ,,, ,,,). Te one exception to Giless warning against taking
11o. Giles also opposed polyandry on the grounds that it would cause confict between the
multiple husbands who would have to compete for the vse of a single woman. Other disadvan-
tages of polygamy were that a man would be less likely to care for his children if he could not be sure
that they were his, that women who had sex with a number of men were more likely to be barren,
and that it would prevent a man from producing children whilst his wife was bearing the child of
another man, thus frustrating the procreation that was one of the purposes of marriage (:8,8).
11,. Giles could be seen as contradicting his own point about men only being right-handed
in general when he quotes Aristotle to the efect kynde is alwey whereas vsage is ofe (::8).
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The Chaucer Review 294
female counsel was in those circumstances where advice was needed quickly.
His argument here was based on the Aristotelian claim that nature brings
imperfect things to completion sooner than others because it devotes less
attention to foul and euel things than it does to more important works.
Accordingly, just as womens bodies arrive at their mature form sooner than
mens, since women, being more vile, nature recceth lasse of them, so
womens counsel is sooner arrived at than mens even if, in general, that of
men is more parft (:oo,).
More generally, whilst all humans are inclined to evil, Giles saw this as
being especially true of women, who, since they are of lesser reason than
men, are particularly likely to be ruled by the intemperate appetites and the
transgressive desires that lead to sin, especially if they are married at too
young an age (:8, :,, :o,8, :,, :).
118
If they are feble, nesche, and
vnstable in terms of their complexioun (i.e., physiological makeup), so
women (particularly young women) are nesche and vnstable in desire and
in wil. Being less bridled by reason than men, they are more inclined to
intemperately follow their passions, to ianglen and stryuen and chiden,
and to be vnstedefast and vnstable (:, :,, o). In this perspective,
those men who are intemperate and lecherous, like King Sardanapalus, Nero,
and Julius Caesar, are themselves guilty of becoming wommanlich in their
nature (:o, ,,, ,o).
119

Giles associated womens supposed lesser reason with their lack of
physical strength compared to men and with the physiological inferiority
that resulted from their coldnesse of complexioun. As in other animals,
males are more likely to be conceived in the winter when the north wind
blows, as its coldness causes the body to retain within itself the heat that
makes it mightier and stronger, although an excess of heat is also bad for the
body.
120
Te north wind also makes the air pure and clear and so creates the
best generacioun, which also tends to lead to male children. Indeed, men
of the north are generally stronger and bolder than are those of the south,
who are more likely to be feeble and fearful (o,, o, :o,, :, :,, ,o,,
,,8).
121
Women, by contrast, are of a feble complexioun, their bodies
being, as we have seen, nesche and vnstable. Just as humans are superior
118. Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson, ,.:o.
11. Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson, ,.:o.
1io. Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson, ,.:o. For this reason Giles recommends exposing chil-
dren under seven years old to the cold so that the health and strength of their bodies are improved
and they are prepared for deeds of arms (:,8). See also Biller, Te Measure of Multitude , :,8.
1i1. For the boldness of those of the north, see Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson, ,.,; and Geof-
frey Lester, ed., Te Earliest English Translation of Vegetius De re militari (Heidelberg, :88), ,o.
CR 46.3_01_Rigby.indd 294 9/28/11 12:42 AM
stephen h. rigby 295
in their complexion to the beasts, so mens complexion is superior to that of
women. Even though some women are tall and strong, this is not actually the
result of a good bodily complexioun, but is rather the product of a nesch
and tendre makeup caused by an excess of phlegm. For Giles, the inferior
complexion of womens bodies was linked with a tendency to follow the pas-
sions, whereas mens physical superiority was associated with the possession
of better faculties of the soul and a superior use of reason. He argues that
comynliche, the soule folweth the complexioun of the body, which means
that women, who are nesche and vnstable of body, are also vnstedefast and
vnstable in their desire and will (:,,, :o:o:, :, :oo,).
In its own terms, Giless claim that the alleged superiority of male ratio-
nality is linked with the excellence of the males bodily complexion is inter-
nally consistent in the sense that, although he frequently asserted that the
soul should rule over the body as a noble lord rules over a servant, he also
allowed that, in turn, the complexioun of the body has an infuence on the
soul (:o, o8,:, :,:, :,8, :,, :, :o:, ::, :,o, :,, ,:,, ,88).
122
An obvi-
ous example of this is the efect of drinking excessive amounts of wine, which
produces heat within the body, thus disrupting our ability to use our reason,
and so inclining us towards lechery and promoting wrath and strife (:,:).
Rather, the problem with Giless attempt to link the supposed inferiority of
womens reason with the alleged inferiority and neschness of their com-
plexion was that he himself had employed precisely the opposite argument in
his defense of the lordship of masters over servants. Here he had claimed that
those who were wiser (and so more suited to be masters) tended to be of ten-
dre fesch and skyn and failleth in bodiliche strengthe, which he linked with
a good complexioun, whereas those who were servants had great bodily
strength but lacked wit (:,:, :,:, ,oo).
123
Yet, despite presenting mas-
ters and servants as being inversely related in terms of reason and strength,
Giles argued for a direct correlation of reason and bodily strength when it
came to justifying the superiority of men over women. Perhaps the contradic-
tion between these two logics was not apparent to Giles since both arguments
served to buttress his prior assumptions about the inevitability of masters
ruling servants and of men being set above women.
Despite his negative assessment of female rationality, Giles did not
conclude that women were incapable of virtue. Trough the rule of their hus-
bands, including punishment for the things in which they trespassen ofe,
1ii. Aristotle, De Anima , ed. Lawson-Tancred, :., :..
1i. Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson, :.,o.
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The Chaucer Review 296
women can be brought to chastity and honesty (which reassures a man that
his heir is his own child), to sofness and stillness, to abstinence in clothing,
food, and drink, and to the silence that is the ornament of women. A wife
can also be improved through the help of women of good reputation and by
being kept busy with household work or with schooling and book-learning,
depending on the customs of the country, so that she does not fall into the
idleness that tends to lead to sin. In particular, young women should be for-
bidden from strayenge and rennynge aboute so that they do not have the
opportunity to sin, do not lose the schamefastnesse that restrains them from
lechery, and do not become accustomed to the company of men (:8, :oo:,
:o8, :,, :,8).
124
By refraining from excessive dedes of wedloc, a hus-
band can also help his wife avoid the lechery that generates further intemper-
ate desires and impairs the bodies and souls of both partners, even though,
of course, procreation is natural and necessary if humanity is to survive (:,
,,, o,o, :,,, :o::). Nevertheless, although a husband should rule over his
wife and should punish her when necessary, he should avoid the inordenate
forbedying by which his own jealousy actually provokes his wifes desire for
that which is prohibited. Being forbidden something makes all humans tend
to desire it the more, but this is particularly true of women who hauen more
defaute of reson than men (:oo8).
In general, rather than ofering only a negative view of female behavior,
Giles presented women in terms of extremes of gentleness and of cruelty:
when they are mild, they are swithe mylde, whereas when they are cruel,
they are prepared to perform deeds so foul that few men could match them.
However, even when women do have inner, moral goodness, they generally
possess it in an vnparft manere, since their virtues tend to be the prod-
uct of their fearfulness, which is the product of their coldnesse of complex-
ioun rather than of their reason. Tus, because women are by nature fearful,
they are generally schamefast (i.e., they possess a strong sense of shame),
which is itself a form of fearfulness, and so will tend to forsake evil deeds
even when they are not prompted to do so by reason. Similarly, if children
tend to be merciful because they trust in the innocence of others, and if the
old are prone to mercy as they themselves desire compassion from others,
then women are generally merciful not necessarily on the basis of reason or
virtue, but because they are nesche of herte and cannot endure hardship
and so tend to have pity on others who sufer adversity (:,,o, :,, :o,
,o,, o:).
1i. On womens silence, see Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson, :.:,.
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stephen h. rigby 297
Nonetheless, just as the young and the old can overcome the character-
istic faults of their age, such as the changeability of youth and the miserli-
ness of old age, and just as the noble, the rich, and the mighty can overcome
the euel maners to which their particular social positions incline them, so,
Giles argued, by the use of their reason, women can overcome their natural
inclinations and appetites (:8, :,o, :,o,,). Tough this task is harder for
women than for men, nevertheless it is not inpossible. In the end, even if
women have characteristic faults, such as revealing the confdential counsel
of their husbands to others, particularly, as is the case with Chaucers Wife of
Bath (III,::), to their female friends, a man must judge and treat his wife
according to his experience of her own individual virtue. He should there-
fore avoid feeling an excessive jealousy towards his wife and always thinking
the worst of her, even when she is good and true, since this generates strife
between them and distracts him from his public duties. As his wifes compan-
ion, the husband should give her love and friendship, even if he should avoid
lavishing her with the excessive tokenes of loue that make women proud
and think themselves their husbands maistres and ladies (:o,8).
As in his justifcation of the rule of masters over servants, Giless defense
of the superiority of the husband over the wife was not therefore intended
as an excuse for the exercise of tyranny within the household. On the con-
trary, he argues that as the household is a microcosm of a city, it contains
within itself both of the forms of power by which a political community
can be ruled: the complete regal power that characterizes the rule of the
father over his children, and also the partial political power that charac-
terizes the nupciale rule of the husband over the wife.
123
Whereas a father
rules over his children as hym liketh, a husband, although naturally set
above his wife, is also bound by the law of marriage and by certain condi-
ciouns and couenantes, which are like the charters and contracts between a
political ruler and his subjects. Unlike children, who do not choose their
father, a wife does select her husband, and so, in a sense, is his peer and
his fellow (:8:8,, :o:, :, :o,, ::,). God, who is the master crafsmen
of Creation, has laid down that in nature a thing is best ordered when it is
ordained for one particular purpose. Accordingly, as the om ce of wives is
not to serve but to bear and to bring up children, they should not be treated
like servants, as they are by barbarous peoples of lesser reason or by poor
men who cannot aford servants and so use their wives and children in their
1i,. Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson, :.::; and James M. Blythe, Family, Government and the
Medieval Aristotelians, History of Political Tought :o (:8): ::o, at ,::.
CR 46.3_01_Rigby.indd 297 9/28/11 12:42 AM
The Chaucer Review 298
place.
126
Even though men are the lords of women, husbands should be
loving, friendly, and respectful towards their wives (although the specifc
forms that this takes will depend upon the manners of a particular country),
remaining faithful to them even if they are unable to have children, despite
the fact that this is one of the main purposes of marriage (,o,:, :,8o,
::, :, :o:o, ::, :,,).
127
It is therefore best if married couples avoid
the excessive vneuennesse of status or age that tends to generate strife
between them (:8,88). Te special love that should be between husband
and wife also provided Giles with one of his reasons for opposing polygamy,
as having many wives would mean that a man could not show the devotion
to each that he was required to render his partner (:8o).
128
Te need for love
between spouses was also a reason why Giles opposed incestuous marriage:
if the natural love found between close relatives was added to that which
should be between husband and wife, this would lead to such a degree of
feschlich likynge that it would blind their reason and lead to the sin of
lechery (:8o).
129

VIII
Finally, if no community is well ordered unless some people rule and oth-
ers are subject to them, this applies not only to masters and servants and to
husbands and wives, but also to fathers and children (:,,). Indeed, as we have
seen, Giles saw the paternale rule of the father over his children as being
regal in nature, that is, as being more natural and complete even than that
of husbands over their wives. Like the rule of masters over their servants and
of husbands over their wives, Giles presented the rule of parents (particularly
fathers) over their children as being benefcial to those who were subject to
it. Whilst higher things should always rule over lower things, as when God
rules the world, or the stars and planets infuence material objects, all supe-
riors have the duty to protect those in their power. Accordingly, fathers and
mothers should rule over, love, and safeguard their children as nature has
1io. Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson, :.:, o.8; Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics , ed. Rackham,
8.::.,; and Lambertini, A proposito, ,,,.
1i,. Giles thus inevitably opposed divorce (:,8,).
1i8. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics , ed. Rackham, .:o.
1i. Giles also opposed incestuous marriage on various other grounds, including the prag-
matic argument that marriage to non-kin allowed rulers to extend their circle of friends and rela-
tives. However, he did allow that dispensation could be given for the marriage of kinfolk, provided
that they were not too closely related, if this would bring some greater good (such as peace) or
would prevent some greater evil (:88o).
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stephen h. rigby 299
enjoined humans to do. For parents, procreation enables them to come to
their own perfeccioun (since all things are perfected when they bring forth
something like themselves) and allows them, in a sense, to overcome their
own mortality. In turn, for children, parental control provides for their physi-
cal, material, intellectual, and spiritual proft and growth, because in nature
things always develop from their imperfect to their more perfect form, as in
the growth from child to adult. Children should therefore love, honor, and
worship their fathers and mothers and be subject to them, although Giles
believed that the love that mothers and fathers have for their ofspring is
generally greater than that which children feel towards their parents. Tat
children should be subject to their fathers and mothers provided Giles with
one of the grounds for his objection to the incestuous marriage of parents to
their own children, as the reverence due to parents was incompatible with
the dedes that ben ido between husbands and wives (8, o:, :oo, :,, :,o, :8,,
:o:, ::o,, :,, ,,,, ,,o,:).
130

Although he focused on the rule of parents over children, Giles also
saw this relationship as illustrating the more general need for the younger
to be subject to the elder. Tis principle is yet another expression of the nat-
ural superiority of those who have more prudence since the old are more
expert in workes and in dedes than are onelinges. It follows that just as
our concupiscible appetites should be ruled by our reason, so children, who
are prone to lechery, falsehood, and speaking withoute avisement, should
be governed not only by their parents but also by their teachers and so led
to virtue and away from evil at the age when they are most nesche and
impressionable. For instance, as they are naturally inclined to lechery, the
young should not be allowed the sight of foule thinges, such as images of
naked women, as this would only stimulate their lusts even further (,o,:,
::o,o, :,o, ,,:).
131
Whereas birds and beasts tend to live by instinct, humans
rely more on understanding and reason, so that education in lore, man-
ners, and virtues is all the more necessary for them when they are young and
impressionable (::::, :,,,, :,). It is especially important that children
should continue to be obedient to their fathers and elders even afer the age
of fourteen, when their growing capacity to reason ofen leads them to the
1o. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics , ed. Rackham, 8.::.:,. Giles discusses the reproduction
of the self through procreation in terms of the rhetorical device of antonomasia (:,), for which see
Geofrey of Vinsauf, Poetria nova , trans. Margaret F. Nims (Toronto, :o,), .
11. Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson, ,.:, ,.:,. On the concupiscible and irascible drives within
the soul, see Rigby, Wisdom and Chivalry , ,,.
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The Chaucer Review 300
premature belief that they are already worthy to be lords and so should not be
subject to others (::,).
Giles potentially undermined his own argument about the young being
ruled by their elders when he adopted the Aristotelian arch in which the life
cycle is divided into the three phases of ascending youth, descending old age
and, in between them, at the apex of the arch, the perfection of mene age. It
is in middle age that men are most likely to possess the characteristic virtues
of the young and the old whilst lacking their typical vices, although even indi-
viduals who are middle-aged may, in practice, possess corrupt appetites and
so lapse into evil ways (:o,o).
132
Logically, this three-part scheme should
have led to the deduction that both the young and the old should, in general,
be subject to those at the peak of maturity. In practice, however, Giles did
not reach this conclusion but instead simply argued that it is semelich that
kynges and princes scholde be olde in maneres, and so he lapsed back into
a binary equation of wisdom with age and ignorance with youth that was at
odds with his own Aristotelian, tripartite division of the life cycle (:,,, ,:o).
IX
Given that Giles regarded the subordination of some things to others as inevi-
table and divinely ordained, whether in nature, politics, or society, it is hardly
surprising that, like Aristotle, he regarded the obedient submission of those
who are lower to those who are rightful superiors as a key virtue.
133
Indeed,
for Giles, the justicia legalis, by which subjects are obedient to the law, in
a sense comprises all virtue since it requires all people to behave morally, as
when a law against adultery requires temperance on the part of a spouse.
Without such justice there would be no ordre, and society would be
destroyed by unrestrained vice (,,8, :8o8:).
134
As we have seen, Giles saw
such obedience as perpetuating the rule of those who were wiser and more
prudent over those of lesser reason, and so as promoting the common good
of all, ruler and ruled alike. Accordingly, wives should be obedient to their
husbands, children to their fathers and their elders, and servants and thralls
to their masters, even if they should not be so hasty in their obedience that
1i. Aristotle, On the Universe, o:a; Aristotle, On Youth, Old Age, Life, Death and
Respiration, in Te Complete Works of Aristotle , ed. Barnes, ::,o:; Dante, Il Convivio , ed. Cordati,
.:,.:o; Michael E. Goodich, From Birth to Old Age: Te Human Life Cycle in Medieval Tought,
12501350 (Lanham, Md., :8), ,, :o,; and Burrow, Te Ages of Man , ,::.
1. Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson, :.,.
1. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics , ed. Rackham, ,.:.:,:o; Aquinas, Commentary on
Aristotles Nicomachean Ethics , ed. Litzinger, 8,::.
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stephen h. rigby 301
they fail to understand the commands that they have been given (::, :,,,
::,, :,, ,8:).
However, Giless views about obedience as a virtue are perhaps most
clearly set in relation to subjects and rulers since, if all within society expect
lowere men to render them the worship and obedience due to them, then a
failure to show such respect is particularly likely to provoke anger on the part
of a prince. As the function of the true prince and lawgiver (as opposed to a
tyrant) is to lead his subjects to virtue, it naturally follows that those citizens
who are virtuous will with most besynesse studie to be obedient to the kyng
and to avoid breaking his laws: a man is a good citeseyn if he is obedient to
the prince and to hym that eueth laws. Even those who will eventually be
rulers should be obedient to their elders when they themselves are young since
no man is a good prince but he lerne frste to be suget (::,, ,8,o).
Giless emphasis on obedience made him wary of frequent changes to the law
even if these changes were actually for the better. Anticipating Webers stress
on the role of tradition in converting mere power into legitimate authority, he
argued that whilst art and science are based in reason, the strength of law
ofen comes from established usage. Here, customary practice itself becomes,
as it were, another kynde, so that to change a particular law can undermine
respect for the law in general.
133
Nevertheless, Giles did concede that the law
should be reformed when it was clearly contrary to reason, for instance, if it
allowed wives to be sold (,:8:, ,,:, ,oo, ,8o8,, o).
Consequently, whilst we today are likely to be suspicious of obedience,
associating it with subservience to tyranny or totalitarianism, Giles argued
that, in fact, obedience to the king and his laws is no thraldom but is a form
of fredom ( non est servitus sed libertas ).
136
Like the Stoics, who had argued
that the true slave is not he who is owned by another but is rather the man who
is the servant of his own lower passions, Giles claimed that it is those bestial
people who disobey the law who were most of thral kynde.
137
Paradoxically,
it is those who are obedient to the king who are really free. Such obedience on
the part of the subject, which is as much a form of wisdom as that required
to be a ruler, is proftable and spedful to all, as it fosters the security of
the realm, encourages the material prosperity and security of its citizens, and
1,. Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson, :.8; Max Weber, Economy and Society , : vols. (Berkeley,
:,8), ::::,, ::o:.
1o. Egidius Romanus, De regimine principum (:8:), ,.:.,.
1,. Erskine, Te Hellenistic Stoa , , ,, ,o; Seneca, On Clemency, in Te Stoic Philosophy
of Seneca , trans. Hadas, :o,; Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotles Nicomachean Ethics , ed. Litzinger,
,o.
CR 46.3_01_Rigby.indd 301 9/28/11 12:42 AM
The Chaucer Review 302
allows their moral virtue to be maintainedall the outer and inner goods
which a tyrant seeks to prevent his subjects from achieving (,, ::, ,,, ::,,
,o:, ,8,o, ,o).
138
Subjects should therefore avoid provoking the wrath
of their ruler by obeying his commands, by rendering him the honor due to
him, by respecting his prerogative rights, and by safeguarding his family and
his realm. If we should follow the commands of a physician who seeks to
bring our body to health, then how much more should we obey the princes
laws that bring the community to peace and our souls to virtue (,88o):
Such obedience should be freely rendered out of love for the prince and the
common proft rather than being imposed upon unwilling subjects, as it is
by the tyrant (,,,). For Giles, disobedience and rebellion are associated with
civil war and with the poverty that results from the consequent disorder and
economic disruption. As a result, whilst tyranny is wrong, a certain degree of
tyranny may be preferable to the harms that arise when men ben vnobedient
to the prince and breken his lawe (,888).
X
In line with his stress on obedience and deference, Giles assumed that a vir-
tuous society would be one characterized by a comune loue between its
members, the establishment of such love and peace being the chief purpose
of any wise and virtuous ruler. Nevertheless, Giles did not expect social har-
mony to be easily attained since, when men are thrown together in society,
it is never long before strife aryse bytwene hem (,o,, ,,,, ,,). He realized
that such discord does not always arise from within the lowest ranks of soci-
ety or occur between the lower and the higher. Although poor men, who
lack material goods, are most likely to come into confict with their superiors
in arguments over possession of outward thinges, worschepful and gra-
cious men of higher status can also be aggrieved and cause strife. Tis is
especially likely to occur when such men do not receive the honor they see as
their due, particularly as men tend to regard themselves as more worthy than
they really are. Men are also likely to confict with their fellows and equals,
not just their inferiors and superiors, as they tend to be most envious of those
who are their peers: crockers [potters] hauen envie to crockers and smethes
to smethes.
139
Indeed, Giles saw conficts among the rich and powerful as
18. Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson, ,.:o.
1. Other sources of confict are when men lecherously do wrong to the wives and daughters
of other men, as Apius does in Chaucers PhysT , or when they seek to prevent others from enjoying
their pleasures.
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stephen h. rigby 303
being particularly dangerous for social and political order (:,,, ,::,, ,,,
,,o, ,,o, ,8).
140
Consequently, rulers need civil might and military force
so that not only can foreign enemies be defeated and the weak protected at
home, but revolts by the citizens can be put down and conficts between them
prevented (,:o, ,,o,:, ,,). Foreign war and fear of external threats can
also help to bring internal accord and make a rulers subjects more obedient
(,). Internal strife can also be reduced by the prince regularly circulating
om ces amongst a number of men rather than appointing om cials for life and
so generating discontent amongst those who are excluded from favor (,o8).
141

However, if confict amongst the rich and powerful is particularly peril-
ous for society, confict is especially likely to arise between the rich and the
poor. As Giles, following Aristotle, admitted, in general, the very rich ( valde
divites ) cannot bere hemself resonableliche towards the poor, but rather
tend to despise, aggrieve, and oppress them for little reason. Similarly, the
very poor ( valde pauperes ) do not love or act reasonably towards the rich
and mighty, but are rather inclined to make discencioun and strif.
142
Tey
are thus ful wikked and gileful towards the rich, envying them their wealth
and seeking to fnd ways in which they might sleliche and preueyliche stele
heere good and catel. If they were to attain power, then they would treat the
rich wel euel, just as the rich tend to wrong them (,8o). Likewise, the inevi-
tability of greet strif between masters and servants is one of the grounds on
which Giles opposed common property and social equality, arguing that if
social confict arose when some citizens were set above others, then it would
be even more likely where no citizen was subject to another (,o,o).
Giles suggested three practical remedies for the social confict between
rich and poor. Te frst, as we have seen, is for princes to make sure that the
rich and powerful do not abuse their position by oppressing those beneath
them (,:,, ,o). Te second is for the prince to create social unity by employ-
ing his might to subdue confict between citizens and to suppress the risings
of subjects and servants against those who are set above them. Only a tyrant
seeks to divide his subjects and to set them against each other in order to
1o. For such confict in the age of Chaucer, see Stephen H. Rigby, Society and Politics, in
Steve Ellis, ed., An Oxford Guide to Chaucer (Oxford, :oo,), :o, at ,8,.
11. Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson, :.,.
1i. Egidius Romanus, De regimine principum (:8:), ,.:.,,; Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson,
.::. For social confict in late medieval England, see Rigby, English Society , chaps. :; Jane Whittle
and Stephen H. Rigby, England: Social Confict and Popular Politics, in Rigby, ed., A Companion ,
o,8o; and Stephen H. Rigby, Social Structure and Economic Change in Late Medieval England,
in Rosemary Horrox and Mark Ormrod, eds., Cambridge Social History of England, 12001500
(Cambridge, U.K., :ooo), :,o, at :,, :o::.
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increase his own power (,:, ,o). Finally, following Aristotle, Giles argued
that if all communities must include the rich, the poor, and those in between,
social harmony is most likely to be created when there is a large number of
mene persones ( persone medie ) whose members are less inclined to envy
the rich or to despise the poor and are more able to live in equity with each
other.
143
Hence, even though he criticized Phaleass arguments in favor of the
equality of all citizens, he nonetheless favored laws restricting mens ability
to sell of their inheritances so as to maintain som manere equite amongst
them (,8,8,).
Te one occasion when Giles was willing to consider revolt as legiti-
mate or, at least, not to condemn it entirely was when a realm was ruled by a
tyrant. Unlike many medieval political thinkers, Giles did not follow Cicero
in explicitly arguing that, where necessary, a tyrant could be overthrown
or even that it was positively virtuous to do so.
144
Yet, because tyranny was
illegitimate and unnatural, he believed that it was unlikely that it would be
willingly endured by anyone.
143
Human weakness means that, in practice,
virtually all kings will perform some acts of tyranny, as only a ruler who is a
half god can avoid the temptation to such sinalthough this is the degree
of virtue that rulers should aspire to achieve (,,, ,,:). Nevertheless, when
a king is excessively tyrannical, he is likely to face the opposition of excel-
lent men and noble whom he has sought to destroy. Accordingly, despite
his stress on the virtues of obedience, particularly on the part of those who
are noble, and on the dangers that are likely to arise from civil disobedience,
Giles did not argue that any amount of tyranny was to be preferred to the
evils that were created by rebellion. Rather, like Aquinas, Giles claimed sim-
ply that som tyraundise or som what of tyraundise may be a lesser evil
than that caused by the subjects disobedience to the ruler. Tis lef it rather
open as to exactly how much tyranny was to be tolerated in any particular
case (,8,8).
146
Whilst he did not explicitly advocate overthrowing a tyrant,
Giles, in line with Aristotle, Cicero, and many medieval political thinkers,
did conclude that tyranny would always destroy itself, as its evil cannot be
long endured and it inevitably generates resistance from those subject to it:
the more tyrannical a ruler is, the shorter his reign will be (:,, ::,:o, ,:8:,
1. Egidius Romanus, De regimine principum (:8:), ,.:.,; and Aristotle, Politics , ed. Ever-
son, .::.
1. Cicero, On Duties , ed. Grim n and Atkins, :o,, :::; and Rigby, Wisdom and Chivalry ,
:8:8,.
1,. Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson, ,.:,.
1o. Aquinas, On Princely Government, in A. P. Entrves, ed., Selected Political Writings
(Oxford, :,), :.o (cited by book and section).
CR 46.3_01_Rigby.indd 304 9/28/11 12:42 AM
stephen h. rigby 305
,,:,8, ,o).
147
By contrast, Giles was far less ambivalent about rebellion
by the lower ranks of society. Just as humans, with their greater rationality,
have been set above the animals and so have the right to war against them, so
the citizens of a community hauen ritful werre aenst cherles if thei wollen
not be sogettes to hem (,,, :o,).
148

XI
Giless De regimine principum was an attempt to provide a comprehensive jus-
tifcation of inequality between rulers and ruled, between the social classes,
and between the members of the household. Yet, as no text or discourse is self-
interpreting, there is always the potential that it can be read against the grain
and put to uses that may well have surprised its original author.
149
Indeed, it
has been said that it is almost impossible to formulate a utopian alternative
to societys dominant ideology without making use of concepts borrowed
from the dominant ideology.
130
Certainly, aspects of Giles of Romes thought,
in particular his Christian emphasis on the superiority of spiritual goodness
over material wealth and of moral worth over noble birth, had the potential
to be put to purposes of which Giles himself would hardly have approved. In
practice, however, Giles himself anticipated and tamed the potentially radi-
cal implications of his own arguments so that, rather than undermining the
ideological outlook that he ofered in the Deregimine principum , they actu-
ally came to bolster it.
It hardly needs stating that, as for all medieval theologians, Giless hierar-
chical view of existence involved judging the things of the spirit and the soul
as being superior to material objects and the body. Accordingly, he adopted
the traditional teaching that, as the story of Midas showed, true felicity lies
not in earthly riches or in the goods of the body but rather in virtuous deeds
and the good of the soul (:o, :8:, ,o).
131
Yet, he did not conclude from this
that earthly things should be scorned or rejected, or that the rich should be
dispossessed of their wealth. Of course, men should not be so miserly or so
1,. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics , ed. Rackham, .,.,; Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson, ,.:o;
Cicero, On Duties , ed. Grim n and Atkins, ,:; and Rigby, Wisdom and Chivalry , :8,.
18. Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson, :.,, :.8.
1. Robert Lapsley and Michael Westlake, Film Teory: An Introduction (Manchester, U.K.,
:88), o,oo; and Stephen H. Rigby, History, Discourse and the Postsocial Paradigm: A Revolution
in Historiography:, History and Teory , (:ooo): :::o.
1,o. Nicholas Abercrombie, Class Structure and Knowledge (Oxford, :8o), o. For medieval
examples, see Owst, Literature and Pulpit in Medieval England , :o,o:; and Rigby, English Society ,
,:o:o.
1,1. Boethius, Te Consolation of Philosophy , ed. Stewart et al., Book ,.
CR 46.3_01_Rigby.indd 305 9/28/11 12:42 AM
The Chaucer Review 306
greedy that they become the slaves of their own possessions or lapse into the
idolatrous worship of an inferior material object. Nonetheless, ownership
is natural to man and each man is naturally inclined to loue hymself and
so to hold onto his own property (,o,8, :,oo). Riches may not bring
the true felicity of virtue, but, like other outer goods such as civil power,
social honor, fame, and bodily health, they are legitimate sources of happi-
ness and are a blessing from God, provided they are used as the means to
achieve a rightful and virtuous end rather than being overvalued as an end
in themselves. If the outer goods are of a lesser value than the inner good of
the soul, the ruler still has need of riches as a means by which to achieve the
virtue of magnifcence, and has to possess civil might if he is to restrain those
who would otherwise do evil deeds (:8:, 8,, :o, :::, :,,,, :,,,, :8,,
:,:,, :oo,).
Tus, instead of repudiating the ownership of wealth per se, Giles, like
other medieval moralists, urged those who possessed wealth to adopt an
appropriate attitude to it, using it as a way to achieve both true individual
felicity and the common good rather than overvaluing it and so turning it
into a source of pride or a lure to intemperance (:,:,,, ,o,o). Such thinkers
did not teach that men should not be wealthy, but rather that they should not
be avaricious.
132
It is not love of the self that is wrong, since all men naturally
love themselves, but rather an excessive and immoderate love of the self of
the kind that led Dionysius of Sicily into vice and tyranny (,o, :::o). Giles
was therefore able to harmonize the ideals of Christian spirituality with the
reality of medieval social inequality by turning his criticism against the sin of
greed rather than against the possession of material riches. As Giles said, it
was not possessions in themselves but rather coueitise that was the rote of
euel and malice (,:).
Giles attempted a similar reconciliation between, on the one hand, the
Christian belief in the spiritual equality of all humans (Gal. ,::8; Col. ,:::)
and, on the other, his own acceptance of the social superiority of those
of noble status. Here, he distinguished two types of nobility or good-
ness. Firstly, there is the outward nobility that is associated with ones
blood, richesse, and cyuel myt and power and most evident to comyn
men. In particular, people are considered noble when they are icome of
greet blood as of riche men and myty and that of old tyme. In the usual
meaning of the term, gentility and nobility are not elles but oolde blood
1,i. Elaine Clark, Institutional and Legal Responses to Begging in Medieval England,
Social Science History :o (:oo:): ,,,, at ,:.
CR 46.3_01_Rigby.indd 306 9/28/11 12:42 AM
stephen h. rigby 307
igrounded in richesse. Such nobility, like all status distinctions, is based on
the oppynyoun and trowynge (evaluation) of other people (:,o, :8o8:).
Secondly, however, in addition to such outward good, there is the supe-
rior nobility or inner goodness of those who surpass others in their ver-
tues and good of the soul and goodnesse of maners (:8o8:). For Giles,
those who possess such virtues and obey the rightful laws of the kingdom
are truer citizens of a realm than those who simply have wealth, power, and
noble kin (,8,). In a similarly egalitarian vein, Chaucer has the loathly lady
of the Wife of Baths Tal e quote a passage from Book of Dantes Convivio
based upon the De regimine principum , to which, as we have seen, it refers
by name, in order to support her argument that true nobility is not that of
those of swich gentillesse/As is descended out of old richesse but rather
of those who perform gentil dedes (III ::o:o, :::,).
133

Yet, in practice, just as literary critics have seen Chaucer as containing
the social radicalism implicit in the loathly ladys belief in the primacy of
moral worth over noble birth, so any radical potential within Giless distinc-
tion between outer social nobility and true moral gentility was almost imme-
diately undercut by his claim that, in fact, those who are noble of blood are,
in general, also more noble of maners than other people, which explains the
common equation of the two kinds of nobility (:8o8:).
134
For Giles, social
nobility and moral superiority tend to be connected for two main reasons.
Firstly, in the same way that humans are born from other humans and ani-
mals from other animals, so comynliche of good men cometh good men
and of wise men comen wise men.
133
It is natural that the efecte be ileche to
the cause and the makynge be ileche to the maker, as when a couple who
are very young, and so physically imperfect, produce a child who is feeble in
body, mind, and soul, or when parents who are attractive have good-looking
children.
136
If goodness is dependent on the prudence that allows us to choose
virtuous ends and the means to achieve them, then this faculty of the soul
1,. For Dante, see note :o. See also Maurice Keen, Nobles, Knights and Men-at-Arms in the
Middle Ages (London, :o), :8,:::.
1,. Stephen Knight, Geofrey Chaucer (Oxford, :8o), :o,; and Minnis, Fallible Authors ,
,:,,:.
1,,. Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson, :.,.
1,o. For this reason, and because early childbirth was dangerous for women, Giles recom-
mended that women should only do dedes of wedloc when they were at least eighteen years
old. However, they would beget the most parft children when they were twenty-eight years old.
Similarly, men should ideally procreate when they are physically fully grown, which normally
means that they should be aged at least twenty-one, although it may be spedful for them to
marry before this age (:,o, :,,). See also Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson, ,.:o; and Biller, Te
Measure of Multitude , chap. ::.
CR 46.3_01_Rigby.indd 307 9/28/11 12:42 AM
The Chaucer Review 308
seems to be heritable, so it is probable that inner moral nobility and social
gentility will be linked. Tose who are of noble status are also more likely
to be superior in their morals as a result of their superior nourishment and
health, since the good complexioun of their body tends to be linked with
the possession of a soul that is wel disposed, making them wise and able to
learn and so more predisposed towards virtue than other men (,8, :,o,:,
:8, :,, :8:).
Secondly, even when nature fails and goodness is not inherited, the chil-
dren of those who are noble will still tend to seek to emulate their ancestors
in their worthiness, magnanimity, and magnifcence. In particular, the fact
that those of noble status are commonly in the public eye means that they
are more ashamed to commit evil deeds than are other men, but will instead
strive to be an example to others. Tus courtesy is so called because it is
linked with the court, that is, with the households of the noble and great
men of the realm, such courtesy being not simply a matter of good manners
but also being linked with the virtues of liberality, magnifcence, temper-
ance, chastity, and afability. Indeed, gentelnesse and noblenesse of maneres
are the foundation of all the virtues: if it is the law that prohibits vice, it is
curtesye that teaches virtue, so that even the servants of a lord or prince
should display such good manners. By contrast, churls ( rustici ), who lead a
solitary life, tend to be boistous (coarse) and boynardes (fools or scoun-
drels) (,, ,8, :,o,:, :::, :8o8,, ,,,).
137
Similarly, because gentil men
( nobiles ) have a greater love of honor and fear of dishonor than do those who
are cherles ( rurales ), they are likely to make better fghters since they are
more ashamed to fee in battle.
138
Tis is reinforced by the fact that gentlemen
are generally wisere and more sley than cherles and so have the wiles that,
even more than physical strength, are needed for victory in battle, especially
for mounted combat, although the physical strength of churls may make
them more suitable for fghting on foot (o:,).
Ironically, then, if Giless claim that true nobility lies in ones deeds not
ones lineage was potentially egalitarian in its implications, in practice, he was
actually able to deploy this belief to justify the continued social superiority
of those of noble blood, even if they have the duty to match in their deeds
the worthiness of their birth (:,,, ,88,). Giles therefore took it for granted
that princes, having worthinesse of blood, would choose as wives women
who were also of worthi and noble blood. Similarly, in contrast to tyrants,
1,,. Egidius Romanus, De regimine principum (:8:), :..,.
1,8. Egidius Romanus, De regimine principum (:8:), ,.,.,.
CR 46.3_01_Rigby.indd 308 9/28/11 12:42 AM
stephen h. rigby 309
virtuous rulers would show particular love and honor to the nobles, barons,
and gentlemen as heere astaat axeth and by which the good astaat of the
regne may be saued, although those nobles who abused their status could be
deprived of their lordship and, if needs be, even of their life (,,, ::,, :8o8,,
,,o, ,,, ,,o). Likewise, one of the reasons why Giles argued against a soci-
etys wives and children being held in common by all its citizens is that such
an arrangement would require all children to have the same kepynge, such
equality then leading to the absurdity that gentel men scholde be despised
and plow men and foule persones scholde be worschepped (,o:).
139
If it is
useful for everyone in society that some people should be assigned to defend
it and others to grow the crops to feed it, then it is inevitable that those who
are the wardeyns of the city will be seen as more noble and worthi than
those who work with their hands (,oo, ,::). In accepting the legitimacy of
wealth and in equating social and moral nobility, Giles was thus able to rec-
oncile a belief in the superiority of the things of the spirit with an acceptance
of the contemporary inequalities of wealth, power, and status. He thus fused
an Aristotelian sociobiology, whereby from the hour of their births, some
men are marked out for subjection, others for rule, with a Christian-feudal
moral imperative, whereby the princes and nobles who are destined to rule
have the obligation to prove themselves morally superior to other men (:,,
,:, ,,, :o:, ::o, ::, ::, :,,,8, :::, :, :8:8:, ,8,, ,,).
160

Nevertheless, at one point, in discussing the exercise of power within
the household, the De regimine principum does arrive at an unusually critical
assessment of the relationship between superiors and inferiors, one mark-
edly out of line with the rest of its social analysis. As we have seen, Giles
usually presented relationships between social superiors and inferiors as
being benefcial to both parties. Tis is certainly the case in his account of
the four diferent forms of service that a master can receive from a servant.
Firstly, in relation to kindly or natural service (the rule of those who are
prudent over those of lesser wisdom), Giles followed Aristotle in seeing this
relationship as being natural, in accordance with reason and as maximizing
the common good.
161
Secondly, Giless argument that those who are enslaved
following conquest at least avoid the death that would otherwise await them
1,. Giles also argued that such arrangements were impractical because men would still have
a greater afection for those children who physically resembled them. Wives and children being
held in common would also would reduce family ties, diminish the love that each man felt for his
own children, generate lechery, and lead to unwitting incest (,o:).
1oo. Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson, :.,.
1o1. Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson, :.,.
CR 46.3_01_Rigby.indd 309 9/28/11 12:42 AM
The Chaucer Review 310
actually provided a rather more laudatory assessment of positive servitude
than that ofered by Aristotle.
162
Tirdly, Giles saw the service for money of
the mercenarius as involving a just, commutative exchange between the two
parties, whilst, fnally, service out of love was praised by him as being posi-
tively virtuous (,, ,o,:, :,o,:, :,o, :,, :,, :o:o,, :,:,:, :,,,,,
:88,, ,o,,o, ,8:, ,oo).
However, the encyclopedic thoroughness of Giless scholastic
Aristotelianism also led him to a far more negative characterization of the
relationship between master and servant. As we have seen, Giles argued
that the household, as a microcosm of the city, involves two forms of ruling:
the ruling politicum of the husband over the wife by certeyn lawes and
couenantes, and the regale rule by which a father governs his child accord-
ing to his own will but for the good of the child. However, as Giles pointed
out, there is also a third form of rule, whether within the city or within the
family, that is, the regymen despoticum or ceruyle, in which, as in the
case of regal power, the ruler governs according to his own will, but unlike
the regal ruler does so for his own proft rather than for that of those beneath
him. Surprisingly, Giles argued here that, unlike the power exercised by the
parent over the child, the dominatiuum exercised by the master over his
servants is done for his owne good and proft and not for here good and
proft. In efect, the master then becomes more like a tyrant who rules for
his own singular proft than a true ruler who reigns for the common good
(::,:, ,,,).
163
In baldly contrasting the regal power of the father over the
child with that of despotic power of the master over his servant, Giles went
even further than Aristotle, who had argued that whilst the relation of master
and slave can be expedient and natural to both parties, in practice, the
opposite is sometimes the case.
164

However, the claims that Giles made here about the despotic nature of the
masters power over his servants are at odds not only with what he said else-
where about this particular relationship, but also with his general outlook in
which inequalities of power were regarded as being necessary and inevitable
within human society. As he said, no human community can be seen as well
ordered but therinne be sum whaat that reuleth and sum what part is irew-
led and sum what is cheef and souereyn and som soget and obedient (:,,).
Tus, unlike Augustine, Giles, along with other thirteenth-century thinkers,
1oi. Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson, :.o.
1o. Egidius Romanus, De regimine principum (:8:), :.:.,; and Knight, ed., Wimbledons
Sermon , 8: (lines ,:,:,).
1o. Aristotle, Politics , ed. Everson, :.,,.
CR 46.3_01_Rigby.indd 310 9/28/11 12:42 AM
stephen h. rigby 311
was prepared to accept that the dominion of some people over others (if of a
nondespotic variety) had existed even before the Fall, being, in Aristotelian
terms, an expression of human nature and a means of meeting basic human
needs.
163
Afer the Fall humanitys sinful state inevitably means that there is
always a danger that the dominion exercised by some men over others will
be used for the rulers own personal proft or to satisfy what Augustine had
called the libido dominandi , but, nonetheless, superiors can still seek to rule
those subject to them with virtue and in charity.
166
As a result, although Giles
claimed that the rule of the master over the servant is exercised for the mas-
ters own individual beneft, when he contrasted this relationship with that
between parent and child, the overall thrust of his argument was, neverthe-
less, that som seruage is kyndelich and so is spedful even to those who are
in the subordinate position (:,,,,).
XII
In the De regimine principum Giles of Rome appealed to the concept of
hierarchy in order to provide a justifcation of the inevitability of inequality
at all levels of existence: from the natural world, through the political sphere,
the social order, and the household, down to individual creatures and even
inanimate objects. Yet, like most philosophical abstractions, the concept of
hierarchical order was not a deductive premise from which certain conclu-
sions necessarily had to fow. Rather, Giless Aristotelian natural philoso-
phy and political theory provided a rhetoric by which a variety of diferent
(and even contradictory) viewpoints could be legitimated.
167
Tus, whilst
the recovery of Aristotles works in the thirteenth century had, as Walter
Ullmann argued, the potential to lead to a shif away from a descending
view of political authority towards an ascending or populist conception
that culminated in the views of Marsilius of Padua, this was certainly not the
1o,. Robert A. Markus, Two Conceptions of Political Authority: Augustine, De Civitate
Dei , XIV.::,, and Some Tirteenth-Century Interpretations, Journal of Teological Studies n.s.
:o (:o,): o8:oo, at 8,; Blythe, Ideal Government , ,,, :oo, :o; G. McAleer, Giles of Rome on
Political Authority, Journal of the History of Ideas oo (:): ::,o, at :o:,; and Robert W. Dyson,
Introduction, in St Tomas Aquinas: Political Writings , ed. Robert W. Dyson (Cambridge, U.K.,
:oo:), xxivxxx.
1oo. McAleer, Giles of Rome on Political Authority, :,o; Robert A. Markus, Saeculum:
History and Society in the Teology of St Augustine (Cambridge, U.K., :,o), ,o; Aquinas, Summa
Teologiae , ed. McDermott, :,; and Tomas Aquinas, Selected Political Writings , ed. Alexander P.
Entrves (Oxford, :,), :o,,.
1o,. David E. Luscombe, Hierarchy in the Later Middle Ages: Criticism and Change, in
Canning and Oexle, Political Tought , ::,:o.
CR 46.3_01_Rigby.indd 311 9/28/11 12:42 AM
The Chaucer Review 312
only use to which the Philosophers works could be put. As the De regimine
principum shows, texts such as the Ethics and the Politics were open to widely
divergent readings and were capable of being marshaled to legitimate a wide
range of diferent political arrangements including, in Giless case, monarchi-
cal absolutism.
168

Similarly, there was no necessary reason why the rediscovery of Aristotles
Politics had to lead to an outlook in which the separate parts that made up
social or political order were regarded as interdependent or communal, a
view at odds with a view of them as being hierarchical or stratifed, or in
which the function of the state was seen as that of reconciling diverse social
interests rather than simply perpetuating them.
169
On the contrary, the view
that the state was a human creation was perfectly compatible with the idea
that humans should model their social and political arrangements on the
hierarchical structure that God had ordained for the cosmos and within
which inequality was to be perpetuated precisely so that conficting interests
could be reconciled in an ordered fashion.
It was precisely this outlookone that fused the discourses of neo-
Platonism, Stoicism, Aristotelianism, and Christian theologythat Giles
adopted in the De regimine principum so as to justify the continuing supe-
riority of the ruling elites of late medieval society. Te result was a philo-
sophical outlook that presented all of Creation in homologous terms, from
soulless objects, plants, and animals through to human beings and the orders
of angels. For Giles, all of these levels of Creation could be seen as combina-
tions of diverse elements whose potential for confict was constrained and
turned into order through the hierarchical subordination of the lower to
the higher. By this means, harmony could be created as each thing, whether
within nature or human society, sought its own place and performed its own
particular function for the good of itself, but, even more importantly, for the
beneft of the more perfect whole of which it was a part. He was thus able
to invoke the divine will, the natural order, the wisdom of the ancients, the
attainment of virtue, the exercise of reason, the demands of common sense,
and the achievement of the pragmatic benefts of peace and prosperity, in
order to justify the social, economic, and political inequalities of his own
day. In this outlook, the higher and wiser (rulers, masters, husbands, fathers)
should constrain the lower and less prudent (subjects, servants, wives,
1o8. Walter Ullmann, Principles of Government and Politics in the Middle Ages (London,
:o:), :,:,; and Francis Oakley, Celestial Hierarchies Revisited: Walter Ullmanns Vision of
Medieval Politics, Past and Present oo (:,,): ,8, at ,:.
1o. Strohm, Social Chaucer , :,:.
CR 46.3_01_Rigby.indd 312 9/28/11 12:42 AM
stephen h. rigby 313
children) for the common good of all. Te result was what Weber called a
Teodizee des Glckes, a theodicy of privilege that reassuringly presented
the good fortune of the social elite as being deserved from the religious point
of view.
170

Yet, as Giles himself realized, the utopian vision of unity and hierarchy
ofered in the De regimine principum was by no means an accurate portrayal
of medieval society. Indeed, while presenting society in terms of competing,
self-interested, and antagonistic groups has been seen as a sign that a medi-
eval author such as Chaucer was challenging the orthodox social theory of
his day, this view of contemporary reality could quite easily be adopted by
traditional estates satirists and by conservative philosophers such as Giles of
Rome.
171
Far from denying the reality of social confict, they tended to take
its likelihood as the starting point of their analysis, as the social ill for which
they were presenting a remedy. Tus, just as Giless mirror for princes held up
an image of how rulers would behave if their wisdom and virtue surpassed
that of other men (::o), so his social theory was not intended as a descrip-
tion of how society was actually constituted, but rather provided a normative
prescription of how it should ideally be. It was the very reality of contempo-
rary confict and change that made Giless social imagining of obedience and
stability so appealing to those who enjoyed wealth, status, and power within
late medieval society.
University of Manchester
Manchester, England
(stephen.h.rigby@manchester.ac.uk)

1,o. Weber, Te Social Psychology, :o,,:, :,, :8,8, :o; Max Weber, Gesammelte Auf-
stze zur Religionssoziologie (Tbingen, ::o), ::::; Weber, Economy and Society , ::::; and
Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Teory of Practice (Cambridge, U.K., :,,), :88. See also Stephen H.
Rigby, Historical Materialism: Social Structure and Social Change in the Middle Ages, Journal of
Medieval and Early Modern Studies , (:oo): ,,,::, at ::.
1,1. David Aers, Chaucer (Brighton, :8o), :; and Jill Mann, Chaucer and Medieval Estates
Satire: Te Literature of Social Classes and the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales (Cambridge,
U.K., :,,), ,,.
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