Context and Judgment in the "General Prologue" Author(s): Malcolm Andrew Source: The Chaucer Review, Vol.

23, No. 4 (Spring, 1989), pp. 316-337 Published by: Penn State University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25094094 . Accessed: 05/09/2011 07:13
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CONTEXT AND JUDGMENT IN THE GENERALPROLOGUE

Malcolm Andrew by
from his influential book on Chaucer, stresses how important it is that the tellers of George Lyman Kittredge the Canterbury Tales should be travelers. He argues, in characteristic style: passage as everybody is for the time being a mighty Travel, knows, leveller of social distinctions, particularly when its concomitants same time throw the voyagers together while at the isolating them from the rest of the world. Think of the smoking-room of a small with only three of four dozen passengers. steamship These men might live side by side in one row of brick houses for a hundred faces. years and scarcely know each other's Break the shaft, keep them at sea for an extra week, and, if they are n't careful and if the cigars hold out, they will empty their hearts to one another with an indiscretion that may shock them
to death when they remember it ashore.1

In a well-known

Kittredge
age, that

goes on to maintain,
"the occasion . . .was

with
both

regard
religious

to the Canterbury
and social," and

pilgrim
that "the

are equal in God's sight, were of rank for the nonce" (159? in fact, partially anticipated These ideas were, 60). by James Russell he remarked both Lowell.2 Some forty-five years before Kittredge, that Chaucer's characters" met "on a common (194), "motley footing" as "a plane where and that the pilgrimage functioned all men are in view that equal, with souls to be saved, and with another world abolishes While received
recently

that all men various Pilgrims, knowing not indisposed to sink their differences

all distinctions" (198). attributed these perceptions?regularly a good deal of general endorsement over
attracted some closer attention. Thomas

to Kittredge?have the years, they have

Pison, writing in

its poten 1977, takes up the notion of "levelling," and seeks to develop to patterns of anthropological in relation tial significance thought.3 van Gennep's idea of the Arnold He cites two particular concepts:
THE CHAUCER Press, Vol. Park 23, No. 4, 1989. Published and London. by The State

REVIEW, University

Pennsylvania

University

MALCOLM ANDREW 317 liminal state (marked by les rites de passage) of a person "passing from to another," and thus temporar one fixed point in the social structure addi and homeless" (158); and Victor W. Turner's ily "ambiguous is characterized tional idea that the liminal phase by communitas, and an "egalitarian between persons stripped of status and relationship frame of the Canter (159). In Pison's view, the pilgrimage property" to the liminal phase. This has interpretation bury Tales corresponds similarities with that of James R. Andreas marked (1979), who relates to festive comedy, the "liminal impulse" citing the work of Mikhail on Rabelais L. Barber on Shakespeare.4 He con and of C. Bakhtin to establish in the Canterbury is seeking tends that Chaucer pilgrim
age an "essentially amoral zone of 'pleye' and 'game' . . . characteristic

or grotesque Glen humor" of medieval (3). Though carnivalesque as Recreation in the Later Middle Ages (1982), in Literature ding Olson, that they the ground about such readings?on reservations expresses to exaggerate which recreation was of opposition, the element tend some qualified to accommodate?he also offers endorse designed Not only does he take the domi ment for this kind of interpretation.* to be festive; he also discerns nant mood of the Canterbury pilgrimage to the a withdrawl from "social recreation" in the Parsons Prologue to quote a brief itmay be apposite essential matter of salvation. Here classic study: "Play is not of play from Johann Huizinga's definition or 'real' life. It is rather a stepping out of 'real' life into a 'ordinary' all of its own."6 One temporary sphere of activity with a disposition to another seem particularly relevant of this definition would aspect to Loy D. Martin, Chau view of the Canterbury According pilgrimage. cer uses his framing device to separate the pilgrims from specifically the departure "the locations of their daily lives," and "to emphasize from those lives represented itself."7 by the pilgrimage the temporary removal of the pilgrims from ideas concerning These and the context of their daily lives?initiated by Lowell and Kittredge, thus proved richly evoca variously developed by recent critics?have tive. I would argue that they may also prove fruitful and instructive by that of the legitimacy of assum serving to raise amajor critical problem: to establish an interpretation. a context This in order issue will ing It ismy contention constitute the essential subject of the present essay. on the General that analysis of typical scholarly and critical comment will reveal that the common practice of assuming a context has Prologue some highly unsatisfactory I shall focus on two particu consequences. which the first may and apposite types of writing?of larly prominent be termed "elucidation" and the second "moral comment." By "elucida to clarify particulars which, tion" Imean that type of writing designed because of their obscurity or unfamiliarity, impede our understanding

318
of the text. "moral

THE CHAUCER REVIEW

I mean the critical assessment of those

By

comment"

moral judgments which Chaucer is taken by some to have intended as an effect of his portraits.8 The first of these, elucidation, has been the basic concern of com on the General Prologue, and has involved the mentators of addressing a great range of relevant such as the following. Can the questions, was the Parvys (310) and Tabard (lines 20, 719)9 be identified? Where what was its function? Can we establish the significance of such terms as frankeleyn (331), contour (359), and vavasour (360)? If so, what may should they imply about the life and character of the Franklin? Why the Shipman's vessel be named the Maudelayne (410)? Do the symp toms and treatment mentioned with regard to the Summoner's dis ease (624?35) was the Prioress's indicate a specific condition? Where she have belonged? convent, and to what order would The answers to these and many other questions have been diligently of years. Indeed, it could be argued that elucida sought for hundreds on the General Pro tion is the first sustained activity of commentators In the early days, this takes the form of glossing difficult words? logue. which is done for the first time in Speght's edition of 1598.10 Though this is, plainly, a very limited form of elucidation, itwill be apparent that to gloss the Tabard or the Parvys is to go some considerable way toward allusions. The process gains momentum these particular elucidating the eighteenth century, with the full and helpful glossary by during to the otherwise Thomas poor edition of John Urry (1721), Timothy the somewhat the text and in the both beneath labored annotation, of Thomas Morell's edition (1737), and, above all, in the first appendix, set of notes on Chaucer, extensive those by Thomas in his Tyrwhitt notes may be seen as provid edition of 1775.11 Tyrwhitt's outstanding ing both the model and the impetus
whom should

for the major

be mentioned

nineteenth-century
not only the cele

commentators?among

brated scholars Richard Morris and Walter W. Skeat,12 but also a num ber of neglected (1845), (1810), John Saunders figures: Henry J. Todd (1854), and Stephen H. Carpenter (1872).13 John Mountenay Jephson the twentieth century, both in The process has continued throughout editorial annotation and in critical and scholarly writing.14
It is instructive to observe what happens when commentators ad

above. Almost dress questions such as those exemplified invariably, or the provision of a con their elucidation the assumption involves to define the words frankeleyn, contour, text. The process of attempting to envisage commentators the Franklin and vavasour has encouraged as social climber, dishonest relic from the world of official, diversely identifica of the poet.13 A putative and partial self-portrait romance, that tion for the Maudelayne leads almost inevitably to the assumption

MALCOLM ANDREW 3 19 the Shipman must be modeled this particular vessel's master, upon to the life of that and that the portrait will therefore contain allusions disease has been interpreted individual.16 The Summoner's particular to medieval both literally, by reference (and, sometimes, modern) to patterns reference of Christian medical texts, and morally, by as a Benedictine (125) is identified Stratford atte Bowe thought.17 as endorsement for the long-held apparent priory?thus providing as a mem that Chaucer intends the Prioress to be envisaged sumption
ber of this order.18 It has therefore seemed to some commentators a

as described to assess her conduct, in the portrait, logical procedure to the ideals and proscriptions of the Benedictine Rule.19 by reference These should suffice to indicate that the process of eluci examples dation often I would involves the establishment of context. suggest, that this procedure and in certain ways, signifi is, sometimes however, own method. To put it starkly: the poet cantly at odds with Chaucer's a fiction which decontextualizes creates his pilgrims; the commenta tors employ a method which recontextualizes them. This is, of course, to overstate the case. My purpose is not to question the validity of as a scholarly activity: few would doubt elucidation that it is useful, even essential. Rather, I would wish to question some of the uses to which elucidation has been put, and some of the procedures which
"elucidators" have adopted. It would seem to me that the process of

the decontextualized in the name of elucidation has recontextualizing of several kinds. One of the most distortions generated regularly and familiar is that which arises from types of distortion prominent as reflections the portraits of "real life." This might be approaching termed "the literalist fallacy." Its essential presupposition is that Chau cer portrayed who actually lived and things which literally people it is supposed of painstaking that by means actually existed. Thus, the scholar can not only identify the person research in represented or the object (or event) referred the portrayal to in the allusion, but that by means of this procedure or the the essence of the portrayal of the allusion may be defined. significance A good case in point is that of the Prioress's convent. The allusion which has given rise to a vast deal of conjecture on this subject is, in taken to be. Chaucer than it is habitually fact, rather more oblique states not that the Prioress ismother superior of a certain convent, but that "Frenssh she spak ful faire and fetisly / After the scole of Strat ford atte Bowe" seem at least Thus it would that (124-25). possible the allusion is to the Prioress's rather than?as has early schooling been regularly assumed?to the post which we are intended to imag ine her currently holding. In either case, we can, I think, acknowledge that Chaucer to be inviting us to speculate about this appears particu

320

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in relation to his Prioress. Scholars have responded lar convent to this tacit invitation by identifying the house as the Benedictine priory of
St. Leonard's, Bromley?about which, over a period of time, they

a good deal of information and conjecture.20 Among the more to light by Herbert Thurston facts is one brought in the interesting 1920s: he cites a papal grant of Pope Innocent VI, which indi early cates that in 1354 Stratford had thirty nuns and was in financial diffi with Thurston, Ernest P. Kuhl culties.21 Exactly contemporaneously that by comparison with the neighboring Benedictine argues nunnery at Barking, was "relatively poor and obscure."22 He states Stratford its illustrious neighbor, it had "no distinguished that, unlike persons no connections with the court," and speculates and therefore that the nuns of Stratford may therefore have imitated those at Barking. A similar view is expressed is rather by John Matthews Manly?which as a nun at Stratford that he also emphasizes the presence odd, given of someone who had a very particular connection with the court: of Hainault.23 Manly sister, Elizabeth Queen Philippa's subsequently offer
argues that "Chaucer .... had abundant reason for interest in the

at Stratford"?specifying two reasons: to Aid its proximity where Chaucer that lived from 1374 to 1386, and the possibility gate, he might have been "in the train of Elizabeth, countess of Ulster, and her husband, Prince Lionel," when they visited Elizabeth of Hainault there in September 1356.24 Before finally taking leave of the Prioress's convent, it is interesting
to note one further ramification of the "literalist" approach. Accord

convent

the description of the Prioress ing to Sister Mary Madeleva, singing must the divine office indicate that Chaucer had personal (122-23) contact with a religious house?since she would outside her convent that have said rather than sung the office.23 It is perhaps surprising so wholeheartedly this view should be endorsed who by Robinson, states: "Sister Madeleva observes that the Prioress would have intoned the office only in the convent, not on a journey. So the passage implies that Chaucer, ties of kinship, was familiar with her through perhaps
community."26

this kind of of the main preoccupations of scholars who espouse for the pilgrims. While convic has been the pursuit of models approach of Chaucer tion that the pilgrims are based on actual contemporaries of possible back at least to the nineteenth goes century,27 investigation is associated with its most distinguished models proponent, primarily In his seminal book, Some New Light on Chaucer, John Matthews Manly. One that the Prioress's Manly argues with a nun identification suggest She is cited in the will of Elizabeth unusual name, Eglentyne (121), may likewise unusually named, Argentyn. of Hainault, who died in 1375. Manly

MALCOLM ANDREW 321 in 1375 was one "Ma that the prioress of St. Leonard's acknowledges dame Mary," about whom he professes ignorance, before going on to that Argentyn have succeeded her as prioress.28 Later, speculate might that this prioress, Mary Suhard, was still in office in discovered having his proposed the mid 1390s, Manly withdraws identification29?which will indicate the absolute literalness of his approach. Some subsequent commentators to reinstate this hypothetical have attempted identifica that a poet is free to alter facts in a work of fiction.30 Such tion, arguing not been typical of those who have views have, however, sought models for the pilgrims. Manly himself puts forward a case, based on the slight est of evidence and the most literal-minded of assumptions, concerning a putative model for the Nun's Priest.31 Having that the established nuns of St. Leonard's at the parish church of Bromley, he worshipped reasons that the Nun's Priest must therefore have been modelled upon the contemporary and expresses incumbent, regret that this individual cannot be named. Cases for the identification of the Merchant and the are propounded Monk, based entirely upon circumstantial evidence, by Edith Rickert and Ramona E^ressie respectively.32 Manly's account of seems more the putative model for the Shipman It is, substantial.33 to encounter the alternative?and therefore, disconcerting by no means negligible?case put forward by Margaret Galway.34 The reader is left to wonder how many more contemporary mariners could, by dint of careful research and selective presentation of the evidence, be made to sound like Chaucer's Shipman. 1950 the focus of scholarly and critical activity has shifted Since The cases propounded E. away from such investigations. by Huling seem therefore for the Clerk and the Physician Ussery curiously
dated, and are interesting more as surveys of late fourteenth-century

clerks and physicians than for their ostensible conclusions.33 Indeed, to the author, without I would venture to any discourtesy intending that they may well have been counter-productive?tending to suggest are not modelled readers that the Clerk and the Physician persuade of Chaucer.36 upon specific individual contemporaries I wish to consider Several type of elucidation. briefly one further commentators have maintained that many of the allusions in the Gen eral Prologue in Chaucer) may be explained (and elsewhere by refer ence to medieval and classical scientific and pseudo-scientific writings, those on physiognomy. The chief proponent of this ap particularly proach was, of course, Walter Clyde Curry, whose work came to at much the same time as Manly's. This is interesting, prominence since in certain ways their approaches are antithetical. While Manly are modeled that Chaucer's supposes upon actual individu portraits them to have been composed in accordance with als, Curry believes

322 the theories

THE CHAUCER REVIEW

of scientific and pseudo-scientific writers concerning the and ordering of phenomena. We are not without evidence perception to suggest that these two scholars were less than sympathetic to each other's views.37 Yet their approaches have an essential characteristic in common: to fact, to things objectively each is an appeal verifiable. seem something of a reaction against the more each would Moreover, and intuitive literary critical methods of contemporar impressionistic and John Livingston Lowes. ies such as George Lyman Kittredge has a good deal to recommend it. like Manly's, Curry's approach, states that the Franklin's complexion is sangwyn (333)? When Chaucer to take what is admittedly in the General the most obvious example an invitation to reflect upon the must plainly constitute Prologue?this to the Franklin. in relation Commentators temperament sanguine from the late nineteenth century onward have responded by first giv their readers a brief summary of humoral theory (usually with a ing to spec allusion to the writings of Galen), and then proceeding passing associated with the sanguine various characteristics traditionally ify and good cheer, the general man.38 Since these include generosity to the Franklin has been widely acknowledged. appropriateness
Other instances, however, depend upon reference to more obscure

writings strict myself

Curry:

and

of more complex the application to two of the most striking cases,

of the Pardoner's sexuality and

I shall re arguments. each presented first by

of the Summoner's dis

those

ease. With

reference

General Prologue,
Chaucer

to lines 675?91 of the Pardoner's as follows: comments Curry

in this passage the secret

portrait

in the

. . . indicates

of

the

Par

doner;

in his birth. He carries upon his he ismost unfortunate the marks and has stamped upon his mind and character body as a to the medieval is well known of what physiognomists
eunuchus ex nativitate.39

to the attributed characteristics Several of the physical by Chaucer are cited in support of this interpretation, the Pardoner especially hair, and beardless voice, glaring eyes, stringy yellow high-pitched ness. The condition also has a moral dimension. Curry states that "the this physical misfortune mind which accompanies is, like that of the avari sensual and lustful, dissolute, full of deceit, arrogant, Pardoner, While he refers to cious, and studious of all kinds of depravity" (598). is Antonius various writers on physiognomy, Curry's major authority who is said to have distinguished Polemon Laodicensis, clearly be In his account tween natural of the Sum eunuchs. and castrated from a number of moner's disease (624-33), Curry draws on evidence that the Sum in support of his assertion authors medical medieval

MALCOLM ANDREW 323 moner which

called ance

"is afflicted has already

alopicia."40 corroborates He

with a species of morphea known as gutta rosacea, to develop into that kind of leprosy been allowed
goes this on to assert and that that the the Summoner's of the diagnosis, cause appear is a disease

combination Pardoner?the
Curry observes:

of bad diet condition

and sexual incontinence. Thus?as with the has a moral as well as a physical dimension.

or foolishly The rascal is either criminally indifferent; ignorant of his time . . . that he might have learned from any physician with women af by illicit association lepra may be contracted and leeks produce fected with evil hu it, that garlic, onions, mors in the blood, and that red wine, of all others, is the most and heating of drinks. (401?02) powerful standard become Both of these interpretations and, with readings, have remained minor qualifications and modifications, such. Nonethe and less, while each is plainly by a good deal of evidence supported in its way, neither which is appealing is free has a certain absoluteness to question the theory con from difficulties. The first commentator is G. G. Sedgewick (1940), who cerning the sexuality of the Pardoner raises two objections.41 He contends, condi first, that the Pardoner's in line 691 ("I trowe he tion can hardly be "secret" since it is revealed or a mare"); were a geldyng "that and, second, that it seems unlikely were famil Chaucer and the Physician) of the pilgrims any (except iar .. .with the physiognomies" (435). Many readers will feel that both are fair points?though some (myself included) would regard the first as overly dependent on a simplistic reading of a singularly elusive and
ambiguous line.42 The theory concerning the Summoner's disease gen

but not entirely We are in dissimilar, different, problems. texts makes formed that a reading of contemporary it appar medical as a leper; but the question ent that the Summoner is portrayed of to the notion of a how Chaucer's audience have responded might tight-knit group of pilgrims going cheerily on their way with a mani fest leper in their midst is not addressed. Indeed, we may ponder not to the how Chaucer's actual audience would have responded only an idea in his fictional world, but also, inclusion of so preposterous within that fiction, how the fictive audience of pilgrims would have to so undesirable a fellow traveler and story-teller. responded Plainly this is a genuine It will hardly be solved by turning to critical problem. the modern medical and proclaiming that the Summoner is dictionary in fact suffering a from (lues II) specifically "secondary syphilis erates rosacea-\ike secondary with meningeal syphiloderm neurosyphilis."43 I would suggest that the difficulties by Curry's interpreta generated

324

THE

CHAUCER

REVIEW

tions

of

the

Pardoner's

sexuality

and

the

Summoner's

disease

are

of this type of reading. While characteristic it is relatively easy to an im establish a context for such an interpretation, and to provide to it may well prove difficult evidence, array of supporting pressive so established. define the limits of the context Its precise relationship to the fictional and actual worlds, to fictional and to actual experience, is habitually to defini left undefined, and will often prove resistant tion. This is also a problem which afflicts?if, less acutely? perhaps, that more general kind of elucidation which seeks to explain the char acters and allusions of the General Prologue by identifying them with models and objects I think, all (or events). We would, contemporary the relevance and appropriateness of investigating the acknowledge or Stratford atte Bowe, since each is Parvys specified as a setting of some to kind for one of the pilgrims. But it is a matter of some delicacy an how the information from such may judge gleaned investigation to a to recognize best be applied the point at and, indeed, reading, as which the world of Chaucer's fiction were rationalizing though ceases to be useful?or identical with that in which he actually lived even legitimate. Should we, for instance, endorse the following piece of reasoning? The Plowman is riding a mare, which could be one of
his plow team; "plow-oxen the Plowman were displaced have by lived.44 horses" ("or rather . . .

by mares")
suggest where

"very early" of

in the county
would

of Essex;
A

this may,
rather less

therefore,
extreme

instance
eral

distinguished
Prologue,

such reasoning may be cited from the work of a very scholar. On the basis of a passing comment in the Gen
J. A. W. Bennett maintains that Chaucer's Parson minis

ters to a parish quite unlike the compact village of (the Trumpington to a "wyd" that the allusion setting for the Reeve's Tale), contending (491) "suggests High Suffolk rather parish, with "houses fer asonder" than the Fens."40 It may, I think, reasonably be argued that readings of this kind are excessively literal and specific; perhaps, even, that in an their more extreme forms they constitute of the es infringement to the text of the text. As such, they distort response sential fictiveness a literal often based on tenuous reason by privileging interpretation or explicitly) what simultaneously ing, while demoting (implicitly would otherwise be seen as a clear (if, by its very nature, unspecific) that a mare symbolic or "poetic" meaning. We should surely recognize mount is the appropriate for the modest Plowman first and foremost as unfit for anyone of elevated it was traditionally because regarded from acknowledging the obvious status.45 Nor should we be diverted to the size of the Parson's parish: that it primary effect of the allusion serves to enhance to his of his selfless ministering the impression on foot, and deterred ne thonder (492). It is, neither flock, reyn by

MALCOLM ANDREW 325 that the initial effect of the state ourselves similarly, worth reminding disease and the sexual peculiarity ments the Summoner's concerning an unspecific of the Pardoner would naturally be to generate response to the symbolic and evocative potential of these allusions. to several of the is also, clearly, a potential moral dimension There me to the second This brings I have mentioned. lines and passages which I earlier termed, I wish to discuss?that type of comment major I would include all In this broad category simply, "moral comment." on the presupposition Chaucer's writ that which is based commentary sets out to and which is informed by a coherent moral purpose, ing as it is manifested in particular that purpose and define investigate such an approach will probably be and lines. While works, passages, our minds in associated Jr., and his primarily with D. W. Robertson, in its more general least it actually goes back?at fellow "allegorists," in the second for instance, scholars. Thus, earlier much forms?to a thesis that the decade of this century, Frederick Tupper propounds of of a recurring the culmination Parsons Tale constitutes pattern and that in the Canterbury Tales to the Seven Deadly allusion Sins, themes of to Gower for the idea of exploring Chaucer was indebted of tales.47 It might well be argued in a collection love and sin together a failure to distinguish between Gower's that this represents relatively and static frame and Chaucer's more dynamic and flexible struc rigid
ture, and, moreover, between the fundamental concerns and charac

to the main antagonist teristics of the two poets. Interestingly enough, debate on this matter was John Livingston in the ensuing Tupper Lowes?a critic identified with the kind of essentially literary apprecia I earlier suggested, both Manly and Curry were tion against which, that he was lead one to suspect article might reacting.48 Tupper's with Chaucer's elusiveness frustration motivated by unconsciously a clear and unequivocal of the definition and by the desire to provide
poet's procedure and his message. Nonetheless, it must be acknowl

cannot be simply or entirely dismissed. argument edged that Tupper's to mind the sin A reading of the Franklin's portrait might well bring treatment of Gluttony, and its by writers of satiric and moral works. and since Tupper, have both before commentators, many Though all have provided this factor, by no means any theoretical recognized the and few indeed have analyzed for their observations, framework treatment of gluttony the traditional parallels and contrasts between in the portrait of the Frank of this material and Chaucer's handling are lin. The major exceptions with regard to the former procedure commentators that all of the "allegorist" school. It is their contention indeed all medieval medieval art, is informed by the spe literature, caritas and condemning of promoting cific purpose cupiditas. This

326 position
interpretation contending

THE CHAUCER REVIEW of

text. art functions

supplies
of that

a context
Chaucer's Gothic

supreme
It enables

clarity
essentially

and firmness
to move an abstract as

for

the

Robertson

from state

ment

of doctrinal truth to asserting that "the descriptions of the pil are merely more elaborate manifestations in the Prologue of the grims in the medallions at Paris and Amiens, or of techniques employed those used in the marginalia of psalters and books of Hours."49 Robertson does not comment in the Though directly on the Franklin book from of which
would

precision
assessment

this quotation is taken, A Preface to Chaucer, the context he establishes there makes it plain what
have been.00

the his

once his This is confirmed supposition get to fellow-"allegorists" work on the Franklin's Bernard F. Huppe deems the Frank portrait. lin "a voluptuary."01 Robert P. Miller offers the following assessment: A composite lin contains
tudes

of mutually the Frank correspondent prototypes, elements of "the Epicure," of Ami? recognizable the "false friend" in the Roman de la Rose?and of clerical plati
concerning "worldly wisdom."02

According aspiration
on medieval extravagance."04

to John Gardner, the Franklin and concupiscence."03 Robertson

London, It will terms be the apparent portrait that

"is ruled himself,

"a these caricature

entirely in his
of

by willful later book

Epicurean are re

interpretations

not just to the treatment of gluttony, but also to other as sponding of the portrait?Epicureanism, the holding of public office, even pects the sanguine This in the last, though relatively minor temperament.
present connection, is not entirely irrelevant. As I have already men

tioned, manuals
more

their interpretations scholars who derive from the medieval to be of physiognomy of this allusion take the implications and good cheer. Robertson detects positive?suggesting generosity
dubious connotations, describing the sanguine temperament as

[sic] that implied a desire for feminine companionship, to the Franklin as Epicu reference food, and gaiety."00 Chaucer's good rus owene sone (336) some more substantial provides grist for the "alle condemnation. mill, since it can be taken to signify unqualified gorist" as follows by Chauncey Wood: The case is articulated "a condition In the General
owene sone,"

Prologue
. . . , and

the Franklin
in Chaucer's

is presented
translation of

as "Epicurus
the Consola

tion of Philosophy we are told that Epicurus considered delight to In the Middle Ages, be the sovereign it (Bk. Ill, pr. 2). good was considered natural to seek the true good, or God, and this in the middle of the Divine is so basic a belief that squarely

MALCOLM ANDREW 327 on the subject. Thus, to turn away Comedy Virgil discourses and toward delight, like Epicurus from the true good, whether the Franklin, or towards any other lesser thing, was not consid
ered admirable or even natural. To turn away from the true

good dwelt

is to follow error, and one follows error because on transient, earthly overmuch things.Db

one has

as a holder of various public of to the Franklin Chaucer's allusions are also open to negative Robertson fices (355?59) interpretation. of complaints of evidence the dishonesty historical against applies
J.P.s to the Franklin's portrait, asserting that "any suspicions we may

have about his exercise of his various offices are fully justified."07 based on the assumption that Such readings are, plainly enough, to be unequivocal. It will be recalled the portrait is intended that I commentators in which the way the earlier mentioned discussing in relation to the concept of gluttony have sometimes Franklin (unlike the "allegorists") failed to provide any theoretical basis for their argu the very particular ways failed to recognize ments, and have habitually to in which Chaucer this material. The pre-eminent handles exception con the latter rule is Jill Mann.08 Her approach makes an interesting trast to that of Robertson and company, since much of their material stem from differ is in common, and their very distinct conclusions ences between and between their methods their initial assumptions. Mann starts from the premise to the that the General Prologue belongs literature. While that "franklins as a genre of estates acknowledging in estates class do not figure she goes on to argue that, literature,"
"from his presentation of the Franklin, it seems that Chaucer is using"

this term "as a way of linking together several of the offices of county and one important administration, aspect of the life of the gentry? the conduct of their feasts" (152). Mann sees the Franklin's gluttony in
relation to his sanguine temperament, commenting:

link the sanguine man and the gourmet? The Why did Chaucer connection between this humour and a liking for one's food is not automatic; in the Mirour de VOmme it is the phlegmatic man who is tempted by gluttony, while the sanguine man is inclined . . .The clue to lechery, pride and gaiety. may lie in the fact that of all humours, the sanguine is the most attractive. Chau
cer uses it... to persuade us of the healthy and generous na

ture of the Franklin's With

Mann

gourmandise.

(156) as Epicurus
the condemnatory

regard
submits

to the designation
that Chaucer here

of the Franklin
"leaves aside

owne sone,
atti

tude which

the comparison

with

Epicurus

usually

implies"

(157). She

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goes on to argue that "any inclination on our part to read the Frank as a lin's admiration for Epicurus is sign of his selfish materialism with St. Julian." Apro swiftly counteracted by the second comparison, of public office, Mann that in estates pos the holding acknowledges satire such "lists of legal and administrative jobs are a conventional satire on the corruption of their officers," but way of introducing removes that Chaucer or "carefully argues any hint of corruption extortion from his account of the Franklin's public offices" (158). She concludes with satire both on gluttony and (159) that, by comparison on corrupt administrators, the Franklin's is conspicuous for portrait its lack of censure, and therefore the effect to be one of moral judges ambiguity. What is impressive about Mann's work is not only her scholarly and critical intelligence, to rec but also her willingness thoroughness that good literature may generate effects of great complexity ognize a and subtlety. Though she establishes particular context with admira ble precision as though the func and learning, she does not proceed tion of this context were to define and to restrict the of the meaning text. The contrast with the methods of both "literalists" and "allego rists" is striking. This is clearly apparent with regard to one of the which we have just been discussing: that of the Franklin and questions his public offices. While Robertson from historical gener extrapolates
alities to an assertion that the passage indicates the Franklin to be

of his fellow-"literalists" corrupt, Manly identify specific as bio in contemporary the allusions lives, and interpret parallels or autobiographical. with Mann's work, such graphical By comparison and limited. Moreover, if one appear both dogmatic interpretations will but accept that Chaucer's text is rich and complex, there is no need to regard the readings of Robertson and of Manly and company and several
as mutually exclusive?or, indeed, as exclusive of other possibilities.

Would

to have calculated an am it be entirely untypical of Chaucer a series of allusions, ironic effect from the combination of biguously of traditional accounts of corrupt officialdom, reminiscent potentially with some subtle echoes of his own career? This is not to deny that "moral comment" has contributed valuable insights to our reading of the General Prologue. Let me offer two brief the publication of Robertson's Seven years before influen examples. tial book,09 the question of the sexual peculiarity of the Pardoner, which we were discussing earlier, was given a new dimension by Rob
ert P. Miller, who relates the Pardoner's (assumed) eunuchry to con

in scripture and exegesis.60 The idea of the eu cepts of the eunuch nuchus Dei, one chaste for the sake of the Kingdom, is contrasted with
that of the eunuchus non Dei, one?such as a perverted churchman?

MALCOLM ANDREW 329 evil. In terms of spiritual chooses fruits, who, knowing good, eunuchus Dei is fecund, the eunuchus non Dei sterile. Miller argues
the Pardoner is portrayed as a eunuchus non Dei?and, as long as

the that
the

in too restrictive a fashion, itmay be acknowledged is the identifica and instructive. My other example in the line which says of the tion by R. E. Kaske of a biblical allusion and eek lekes" (634).61 It "wel loved he garleek, Summoner onyons, will be recalled that this line is taken by Curry as a literal statement of a diet which would have been harmful to someone from the suffering of leprosy called alopicia. Kaske detects here an echo of a passage type how the Hebrew from the Book of Numbers (11:5), which describes of lust and murmuring God, yearn for the diet against people, guilty in Egypt. He maintains that "Chaucer is using they previously enjoyed an already ugly picture of spiritual as well as this detail to deepen he provides further for support physical deformity." Subsequently, was this interpretation, that the text from Numbers demonstrating to exemplify used by commentators spiritual perversity.62 The read and elaboration from Chauncey receives further endorsement ing seem to me a positive example of the identifica Wood.63 This would tion of scriptural allusion and the application of exegetical tradition in so long as the context order to illuminate the text. Once more, is not too restrictively, the reading does not exclude others (includ applied It is not by chance that these last two examples deal ing that of Curry). In my view, what I have with particular, and relatively minor, details. termed "moral comment" functions most with specifics, successfully offering insights as to the way in which particular spiritual texts, and of Christian inform spe may particulars thought and iconography, idea is not applied as both convincing
cific lines, statements, and modes of perception. Conversely, such

seem to me least successful when applied generally would approaches and in a spirit of exclusion. It will have become that I find both "elucidation" and apparent as they have "moral comment," less than been practised, regularly each has contributed satisfactory. Each starts from a rational premise; to our understanding of the General Prologue. But each substantially some characteristic has tended to develop in its practitioners crudities of critical method, which prove particularly in relation to unfortunate the work of a poet like Chaucer. to impose an There is the desire on lines and passages at issue, and to exclusive interpretation deny the of other interpretations. There is the recurring assumption legitimacy that the particular can scheme being promulgated explain lines and the most sensitive and intelligent readings have often passages?when concluded that it is the essence of Chaucer's poetry to elude explana tion.64 Perhaps worst of all, there is a virtually habitual naivety about

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the nature ignore,

Prologue.

contravene,

to of fiction?which like a conspiracy may seem almost or disdain the essential fictiveness of the General

I would of the pilgrims from that the decontextualization argue to the meaning is essential and moral of the their physical settings General Prologue, them from in that it facilitates Chaucer's freeing contexts To speak of the for judgment. and clearly definable rigid one of such settings is itself, of course, a fallacy?though existence to have encouraged. which The fictional the poet could be claimed to mode of the General Prologue allows Chaucer, through his narrator, both to the pilgrims' physical refer, allusively and selectively, settings and to potentially moral settings. appropriate lives It is clear that the physical everyday settings of the pilgrims' as an effect of Chaucer's fictive technique. Though exist primarily (as in the pilgrims are regularly portrayed several critics have remarked) terms of their daily working lives, the physical settings in which we are are variously handled. invited to imagine them living and working is associated with a convent and the for instance, the Prioress Thus, and can be the former is named, Monk with a "cell"; but whereas we have no clue as to Benedictine identified with a particular priory, no certain indication even of the potential identity of the latter, and the precise the order to which it would have belonged. Conversely,
nature of the Prioress's connection with Stratford atte Bowe is not speci

is kepere of the celle that the Monk told plainly fied,60 while the Friar and the Pardoner Prioress and the Monk, the (172).66 Unlike as physical It are not associated with particular settings. buildings in the case of the Friar, as a that this is appropriate be argued might be qualified mendicant given the (though the point should, perhaps, in the Summoner's of his alter ego, friar John connection subsequent Tale, with a friary in urgent need of funds to defray building costs).67 with Rouncivale The Pardoner is, of course, associated (670), which a as a cell, situated in Charing?and has been identified comprising in the convent of Our Lady of Roncevalles and a chapel?of hospital to is designed that this allusion I would, Navarre. however, argue we are
function as a name rather than as a place: to release a set of traditional

build rather than to specify a particular and prejudices associations later asser from Chaucer's This may derive some corroboration ing.68 / Ne was ther swich into Ware, tion: "But of his craft, fro Berwyk would seem to confirm a certain another pardoner" (692?93)?which loca unlocated Indeed, the sole physical quality about the Pardoner.69 to receive any emphasis is that of an unspecified tion for the Pardoner in which he is portrayed church, (707-14) reading and singing with It is perhaps a typical Chau enthusiasm. if cynically motivated, great,

MALCOLM ANDREW 331 should be the only pilgrim cerian irony that the corrupt Pardoner at any length in the setting of a church. described briefly from the houses of God to those of men, variations Turning
of treatment may again be observed. Thus, for instance, Chaucer pro

for the Franklin and the Reeve, but not for the Knight or at Law. In the case of the Knight, this omission may be on service to his portrait's reference by readily explained emphasis it has the tangential effect of rendering the overseas; nonetheless, vides houses the Sergeant
Yeoman?generally understood as the Knight's personal servant70?a

a house, a forester with curiously dislocated figure (a servant without out a forest). The reticence about the dwelling-place of the Sergeant at to the (doubtless Law contributes about his calculated) uncertainty (320): is he buying for himself or for a client?71 To take a purchasyng final example, there is an interesting contrast between the treatment of the houses of the Franklin and of the Reeve. We are aware of the former as a barely specified and mainly interior presence throughout much of the portrait, while the latter is described sharply but elusively statement: was ful faire in a brief but highly evocative "His wonyng an heeth; /With grene trees was his upon yshadwed place" (606?07). Whatever the possible further of these lines, it would ramifications seem likely that they are intended to suggest both the status that the Reeve has acquired and the withdrawn and occluded quality of his
character.

Such suggestions that the portraits allude may serve as a reminder not only to implied physical contexts or but also to implied moral ethical contexts. The task of identifying these and of assessing how it is conspicuous that they work has been tackled variously?though or to formulate a single critics have tended upon adopt approach, which they then depend recent commentators the exclusively. Among the conviction be identified: of the may following major approaches are to be interpreted that the portraits to "allegorists" by reference Christian and iconography; at the notion that they represent, thought least in part, the pilgrims' own voices, and thus their presentations of the hypothesis that Chaucer filters his ideas through the themselves; of a fictional and obtuse narrator; and the recognition perceptions that he draws upon, but modifies, the traditional of estates stereotypes satire. This list?which could readily be extended?will suggest that view of the nature and function of the any attempt to form a balanced moral contexts implied in the General Prologue would be fraught with Such a recognition a counsel need not, however, constitute difficulty. of despair. I would that the key problem is the argue, once again, for critics to be dogmatic and to insist upon the primacy of tendency their particular If we acknowledge that Chaucer's tech approach.

332

THE CHAUCER REVIEW

nique is not only subtle and elusive but also complex and various, then we may be able to to the recognition that each of these ap proceed or exclusively so. not absolutely is valid?though proaches It is even possible to apply all these indeed, be fruitful) (and might, to any of the in a mutually manner, approaches, complementary as that of the Monk. Here, more complex portraits?such longer and the opening image of the virile and elegant man, an able monastic administrator for good horses and the chase, might and an enthusiast as a kind of implicit self-portrayal. In con be interpreted reasonably some less flatter trast, the final phase of the portrait clearly includes fat and bald, with a shiny (greasy?) of the Monk?as ing perceptions would and eyes grotesquely complexion rolling and glittering?which seem to justify in their signifi the connections, negative essentially with traditional cance, made by some commentators thought and ico The central passage of expostulation against the restric nography.72 to the world (173-88) tions of a rule deemed obsolete and irrelevant views but also his might well be taken to echo not only the Monk's to the (highly voice.73 This could in turn suggest an intended allusion at the Tabard Inn between the Monk idea of a conversation fictive) as fictional The striking line which gives first and Chaucer pilgrim.74 stan to views indefensible person endorsement by any appropriate either an ironic comment dards (183) may be taken to constitute by
the poet in his own voice or genuine endorsement by the fictional and

to the portrait, obtuse narrator.70 it is possible, throughout Finally, not a slavish one?to the traditional observe an indebtedness?though If such a reading is of the idle, lax, and greedy monk.76 stereotype for the General that Chaucer has devised allowed, we may conclude which the use of shifting facilitates, through Prologue a technique of the narrative and modulation voice, the presentation perspectives value and meaning, based on both of a great range of potential to (admittedly is, response fictive) particulars? "experience"?that I codes of judgment. and "authority"?that is, traditionally respected to offer a would go further and argue that, by doing so, he is able and elusive pro of the fascinating, fictional complex, representation and cess of assessing human and describing character, motivation,
conduct.

of judging the Canterbury the difficulty Against my thesis?that to a process of decontextualization?it might pilgrims may be related the context of the that Chaucer be objected emphasizes repeatedly lives. Such an argument would seem to me based on pilgrims' working in the General Prologue. a misconception of work of the treatment con is represented less as a rigid setting?a Work physical and moral as an ag of the pilgrim?than facilitate assessment text which might

MALCOLM ANDREW 333 gregate of ideas and images from which the reader gains a composite and of the pilgrim's fictive self-perception, experience, impression but not others invariably, by (usually, perception unspecified77). in part from satiric stereotypes, these ideas are so derived Though even as to give an impression of particularity, handled and articulated identifica often resistant to precise are, moreover, individuality. They of which tion with traditional views of society, as a consequence they are apt to be mildly that the match between subversive?implying and experience, is no longer complete theory and practice, authority as the fourteenth nears its end. In the General Prologue there is century a recurring to sense that status is not fixed or absolute, but something
be striven for, asserted, perhaps achieved: a competitive element,

contest. doubtless enhanced by the idea of the story-telling in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Critics sug an impression of people that the Canterbury gested pilgrims give in society. Some recent freed from their normal positions temporarily to patterns of anthropological this perception critics have related while others have explored various ways in which Chaucer's thought, of easy or absolute judgments inhibits the establishment technique from the pilgrims. There been a tendency, has, however, concerning on the for commentators the very beginnings of Chaucer scholarship, to impose contexts, in order to General Prologue implicit or explicit, or a basis for the interpretations to they wish provide judgments I have less than entirely satisfactory. consequences promulgate?with to free the creates a fiction of travel precisely that Chaucer argued
pilgrims the age from reader the contexts, to make and physical such restrictive moral, or which reductive would judgments. encour It

of the Canterbury Tales hardly adding that the framework effective medium which to explore the rich proves a uniquely through and varied potential of this procedure. The Queens University of Belfast

should

need

1. Chaucer and his Poetry 158. Mass., 1915), (Cambridge, 111 (1870): 2. "Chaucer," 154-98. in My Study North American Review Reprinted Windows 168-213. (Boston, 1871), 3. "Liminality in The Canterbury Tales," Genre 10 (1977): 157-71. 4. "Festive Liminality in Chaucerian Chaucer Newsletter l.i (1979): 3-6. Comedy," 5. Literature as Recreation in the Later Middle Ages (Ithaca, 155-63. 1982), 6. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture (1949; London, 1970), 26. to the Canterbury Tales" ELH 45 7. "History and Form in the General Prologue (1978): 1-17(4,5-6). a 8. There deal is, of course, good on in comment for instance, writing?as, discussed below. liarity of the Pardoner, of overlap between these two categories of the Summoner's disease and the sexual pecu

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THE CHAUCER REVIEW

9. All quotations to Chaucer are based on The Works of from and references Geoffrey 2nd ed. (Boston, Chaucer, ed. F. N. Robinson, 1957). 10. The Works of our Antient and Learned English Poet, Geffrey Chaucer, newly Printed, ed. Thomas 1598). (London, Speght 11. The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, ed. John Urry (London, 1721); The Canterbury Tales . . . , ed. Thomas in the Original, from theMost Authentic Manuscripts Morell of Chaucer, 4 vols. (London, (London, 1737); The Canterbury Tales of Chaucer, ed. Thomas Tyrwhitt, in fifth vol., 1778. 1775), with glossary 12. Morris's Chaucer: The Prologue, the Knightes edition, Tale, the Nonne Prestes Tale, is revised in 1889. Many of Morris's 1867), from the Canterbury Tales (Oxford, by Skeat views are subsequently absorbed into the notes of the great Oxford edition, The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, ed. Walter W. Skeat, 6 vols. (Oxford, 1894). 13. Henry Illustrations (Lon J. Todd, of the Lives and Writings of Gower and Chaucer Cabinet Pictures don, Saunders, 1810). John 1845). (London, of English Life: Chaucer writes the notes on the Canterbury Tales in Poetical Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, ed. Jephson 8 vols. Robert H. Carpenter, Bell, 1854-56). (London, Stephen English of the XlVth illustrated by notes . . . on Chaucer's Prologue and Knight's Tale (Boston, 1872). Century, are those 14. The most notes editorial in Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey significant Chaucer, ed. John Matthews (New York, 1928), and The Complete Works of Chaucer, Manly an effective notes constitute ed. F. N. Robinson of (Boston, 1933). Robinson's summary c. 1930. It is not generally to the notes that the revisions scholarly opinion, appreciated in the second edition of 1957 (see footnote 9 above) are relatively slight. 15. The notion that the Franklin is a "social climber" may be traced back to such critics as Robert Root Kilburn (The Poetry of Chaucer: A Guide to its Study and Appreciation Discussion of Mar ("Chaucer's 1906], 271) and George Lyman Kittredge 9 [1912]: 458). He is taken to be a dishonest official by D. W. Robertson, Jr., Franklin and his Tale," Costerus n.s. 1 (1974): to the world 1-26, and related and the Literary Vavasour," "Chaucer's Franklin ChauR 8 by Roy J. Pearcy, of Chaucer's Frank Roland Blenner-Hassett, (1973): 33-59. Aspects "Autobiographical own in the portrait 28 (1953): detects echoes of Chaucer's lin," Speculum 791?800, career. returns of Dartmouth 16. A vessel of this name from the Custom-house is identified 'The Maudelayne,' and His Barge with Notes "Chaucer's by P. Q. Karkeek, Schipman on Chaucer's Chaucer Horses," Essays on Chaucer, his Words and Works, part v, 453-500, in 1386 was that the ship's master 19 (London, 2nd series, 1884). He indicates Society, one Peter Risshenden. On with a good deal of additional this basis, together evidence, was the of the Shipman the theory that Risshenden (New Light, Manly develops original 169-81). 17. The classic account in terms of medieval medicine is that of Walter Clyde Curry, MP 19 (1922): 395-404, in his Chau "The Malady of Chaucer's Summoner," reprinted cer and theMediaeval Modern Sciences 37-47. medical is 1926), (New York, terminology An Example of the Assimilation Summoner: "Chaucer's applied by Thomas J. Garbaty, [Boston, riage," MP "Chaucer's of romance and "The Summoner's 47 (1962): 605-11, PMASAL Occupational Lag in Scholarship," those who the disease 1 (1963): 348-58. Disease," Medical History Among by interpret are Paul Zietlow, "In Defense to patterns of the Sum of moral reference thought A. McVeigh, "Chaucer's of the 1 (1966): ChauR Portraits moner," 15, and Terence Tractatus de Simonia," Classical Folia 29 (1975): and Wyclif's and Summoner Pardoner 55-56. in the Ellesmere 18. This view apparently goes back to the artist of the miniature a Benedictine habit. See The Ellesmere Miniatures the Prioress MS, who depicted wearing 3rd ed. (Mannheim, ed. Theo Stemmler, 1979), 7, xv. of the Canterbury Pilgrims, and Benedictine 19. As, for instance, "The Prioress' Dogs by John M. Steadman, as in Rita 1-6. The MP 54 (1956): may be taken to extremes, procedure Discipline," of the Benedictine "The Prioress's Disobedience Rule," College Lan Simons, Dandridge guage Association J ournal 20. The identification 77?83. 12 (1968): as a Benedictine house is first made by Todd (1810), 233.

MALCOLM

ANDREW

335

Notes on Chau Barrett Hinckley, first in Henry of its name occurs Precise specification on the 11. cer: A Commentary Mass., 1907), Prolog and Six Canterbury Tales (Northampton, Month 142 (1923): 528. 21. "The Mediaeval Pardoner," 22. "Notes on Chaucer's Prioress," PQ 2 (1923): 306-09. 23. New Light, 203-09. that "an Elizabeth also mentions 24. Canterbury Tales, 505. Manly Chaucy, supposed a nun at Barking in 1381. to have been a sister or a daughter of the poet," became 12. Chaucer's Nuns and Other Essays (New York, 25. "Chaucer's Nuns," 1925), in the 2nd ed. (654). 26. Complete Works, 755. The note reappears unchanged on 27. See, for instance, (London, Early English Literature J. H. Hippisley, Chapters Chaucer's En Browne and Matthew 154-55, Rands), (that is, William 1837), Brighty in much This view is also implicit 1869), 2: 24-25. nineteenth-century gland (London, on Chaucer. writing on this unaware was apparently of the comments 28. New Light, 210?11. Manly 11. matter in Hinckley, twenty years earlier nearly published TLS (November of Stratford," 29. "The Prioress 10, 1927): 817. 30. Among in his edition of Chaucer's Major Poetry (New York, them Albert C. Baugh 1963), 240. 31. New Light, 221-25. Account 24 "Extracts from a Fourteenth-Century 32. Edith Rickert, Book," MP "A Governour 54 Ramona and Wys," MLN 249-56. Bressie, 111-19, (1926): Wily (1939): 477-90. 33. New Light, note 16 above. 169-81. This account is considerably indebted to Karkeek (1884): see

in Real Life," MLR 34 (1939): 497-514. 34. "Chaucer's Shipman for Chaucer's 35. "Fourteenth-Century Possible Models Clerk," English Logicians: 18 (1970): for Chaucer's TSE "Possible Models Chaucer's Physician: 1-15; Physician," in Fourteenth-Century Medicine and Literature (New Orleans, 1971), 61-89. England to remind 36. It is, therefore, ourselves that the cases for the identification salutary seem irrefutable. On of the Cook and the Host with contemporaries of Chaucer would " see Edith Rickert, TLS (October the Cook, "Chaucer's 20, 1932): 'Hodge of Ware,' On the Host, 52 (1937): 491-94. Cook," MLN 761, and Earl D. Lyon, "Roger de Ware, see Manly, to be some New Light, 77-83. While there would also appear (limited) at Law (131-57), of the Sergeant for Manly's his identification justification proposed to strained from this case to that of the Franklin (157-68) attempt provides extrapolate a further of the claims to which illustration of the tenuousness the "literalist" approach lead. may sometimes 37. See, particularly, New Light, The 292-94. also be inference 225-27, might drawn from Chaucer and theMediaeval Sciences, 49?50. 38. See, for instance, Skeat's note in Complete Works, 5: 32. 39. "The Secret of Chaucer's 18 (1919): 593-606 (597). This essay Pardoner,'7?G/> is reprinted, with minor in Chaucer and theMediaeval revisions, Sciences, 54?70. 40. "The Malady 395. of Chaucer's Summoner," 41. "The Progress of Chaucer's 1 (1940): 431-58. Pardoner, 1880-1940," MLQ 42. On this line, see, for instance, and the Par "Animal Beryl Rowland, Imagery 48 (1964): 56; Edward I. Condren, doner's Abnormality," "The Pardoner's Bid Neophil for Existence," R. Howard, The Idea of the Canterbury Tales Viator, 4 (1973): 190; Donald "The Pardoner's and How it 1976), 343; Monica (Berkeley, McAlpine, Homosexuality PMLA 95 (1980): 11. Matters," 43. Garbaty, "The Summoner's 352. Disease," Occupational 44. A. A. Dent and Daphne The Foals of Epona: A History of British Machin Goodall, Ponies from the Bronze Age to Yesterday (London, 117. 1962), 45. Chaucer at Oxford and Cambridge 109. (Oxford, 1974), 46. A view regularly commentators. See, for in by nineteenth-century expressed in Bell's edition of Chaucer "Chaucer's stance, (1: 100), and Karkeek, Jephson, . . With Notes . on Chaucer's Horses" (496). Schipman

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"Chaucer and the Seven Deadly Sins," PMLA 29 (1914): 93-128. "Chaucer and the Seven Deadly Sins," PMLA 30 (1915): 237-371. to Chaucer: Studies inMedieval D. W. Robertson, (Prince Jr., A Preface Perspectives ton, 1962), 247. as "a 50. Since in which is described, without it is a context the Prioress qualification, " seem little room for doubt on the matter. (247), there would 'grotesque' 51. A Reading 1964), 164. of the Canterbury Tales (Albany, to Chaucer Studies, ed. Beryl Row in the Canterbury 52. "Allegory Tales," Companion land (New York, 1968), 286. 53. The Poetry of Chaucer (Carbondale, 1977), 237. 18. 54. Chaucer s London 1968), (New York, 55. The Literature ed. D. W. Robertson, 1970), Jr. (New York, England, of Medieval 47. 48. 49. Chaucer and the Country of the Stars: Poetic Uses of Astrological Imagery (Princeton, 1970), 270. 8. 57. "Chaucer's Franklin and his Tale," 58. Chaucer and Medieval Estates Satire: The Literature of Social Classes and the "General to the "Canterbury Tales" (Cambridge, 152-59. 1973), Prologue" Engl., to Chaucer. 59. A Preface 60. "Chaucer's and the Pardoner's the Scriptural Pardoner, Eunuch, Tale," Specu 180-99. lum 30 (1955): 74 (1959): 481-84. 61. "The Summoner's and eek Lekes," MLN Garleek, Oynons, of Medieval Literature: in the Criticism the Defense," Critical 62. "Patristic Exegesis to ed. Literature: Selected Papers from the English Medieval Institute, 1958-1959, Approaches Bethurum 1960), 27-60 (49-51). (New York, Dorothy " of Chaucer's Summoner's and eke Lekes,' 63. "The Sources 'Garleek, Oynons, 240-44. ChauR5(\91\): commentators. 64. This is a view taken by many of the best modern See, in particular, of Clarity," E&S n.s. 25 (1972): 23-44. E. Talbot and the Elusion "Chaucer Donaldson, 65. See above, p. 319. was in I take this to signify that the Monk 66. Along with most commentators, a subordinate see, for example, monastery: Manly, Canterbury Tales, 509, and charge of "Daun Piers, Monk and Business Paul E. Beichner, Administrator," C.S.C., Speculum 34 is propounded alternative case, that the phrase means "cellarer," (1959): 613. The by J. Revue Germanique "Notes sur Chaucer," 204, and revived by Peter 6(1910): Deroquigny, on Chaucer: lO.iii-iv M. Farina, "Two Notes (1) The kepere of the celle (GP, 172)," LangQ (1972): 23-24. 67. See the Summoner's Tale, D 2099ff. Satire L. Kellogg "Chaucer's 68. See, for instance, Alfred and Louis A. Haselmayer, of "The Pardons of the Pardoner," PMLA 66 (1951): 274, and Morton W. Bloomfield, B XVII 252 (C XX 218)," PQ of Rounceval: Piers Plowman and the Pardoner Pamplona 487. 56.

35 (1956): 67.

into Ward has regularly taken it to signify 69. Discussion of the phrase fro Berwyk in view to the South of England." This "from the North reading requires qualification thus hardly have and would north of London, of the fact that Ware is about 25 miles as indicative of the South. Londoners been regarded by medieval The is defined 70. The of the late Middle yeoman by Mildred Campbell, Ages as "a and the Early Stuarts Yeoman under Elizabeth 1942), 8-9, (New Haven, English . . . , a person service or servitor, but honorable retainer or attendant giving not menial of feudal and semifeudal that half-military, type of service characteristic half-personal relationships." 88-89. is raised by Mann, 71. The question is offered from this viewpoint of the portrait examination 72. A thorough by Ed Tales: The Monk's of the Canterbury Surface "The Symbolic mund Portrait," Reiss, nature of this description is 3 (1968): ChauR 2 (1968): 254-72; 12-28. The unflattering stressed Kane, The Liberating Truth: The Concept of Integrity in Chaucer's Writ by George 16. 1980), ings (London,

MALCOLM ANDREW 337

73. As by various commentators, "Narrator's Points of including Edgar Hill Duncan, to the Canterbury Tales" Essays inHonor in the Portrait-sketches, View Prologue of Walter A. Owen, and Storytelling in 1954), 94, and Charles Clyde Curry (Nashville, Jr., Pilgrimage the Canterbury Tales: The Dialectic 1977), 60?61. of'Ernest' and 'Game' (Norman, 74. This idea has been stressed S. P. commentators, by many including John "Chaucer's 55 (1940): Chaucer: A Critical Tatlock, 351, Paull F. Baum, Monk," MLN "Chaucer the Man," Com N.C., (Durham, 1958), 64, and Albert C. Baugh, Appreciation 14. panion to Chaucer Studies, 75. The latter approach associated with E. Talbot Donaldson's is, of course, mainly seminal PMLA see "Chaucer the Pilgrim," 69 (1954): 928-36 article, (on the Monk, 930-31). 76. See Mann, 17-37. 77. The is occasionally viewpoint

specified,

as in lines 605

and 628.