SOME VIEWS OF CHAUCER'S ON MEN AND THINGS
The late fourteenth century was a time of social and political upheaval.
The Church, over-rich and over-powerful for her own good, had become
terribly corrupt. The fact that great offices of state were held by
bishops meant, of necessity, that more and more of their purely
ecclesiastical work was delegated to subordinates. In the ten years
between 1376-86, out of twenty-five bishops no fewer than thirteen held
secular offices of importance. William of Wykeham was appointed Chancellor
of England and Bishop of the great diocese of Winchester in the same
month. Spencer, Bishop of Norwich, led the English army in Flanders. No
wonder that the power of the archdeacons, the _oculi episcopi_, increased
tenfold. They frequently exercised authority in the bishop's court, and in
those days the powers of ecclesiastical courts were considerable and their
jurisdiction was wide. The sketch which prefaces the _Freres Tale_ was
probably drawn from the life:--
Whilom ther was dwellinge in my contree
An erchedeken, a man of heigh degree
* * * * *
For smale tythes and for smal offringe
He made the peple pitously to singe.
For er the bisshop caughte hem with his hook,
They weren in the erchedekenes book.
Add to this the fact that one in three of the archdeacons holding office
in England at this time were foreigners, and it is easy to see how much
ill-feeling was likely to be stirred up between them and the laity. Nor
were the parish priests much better. The black death, which ravaged Europe
from time to time, had swept across England with peculiar fury in 1348.
Hundreds of the noblest and best of the clergy, who stayed gallantly by
their flocks, had been swept away. There were not enough priests to
administer the sacraments of the Church, and between this urgent necessity
for ministers to bury the dead, to baptise and marry, and the fact that
many of the richer livings had fallen into the hands of foreigners, who
cared nothing for the peasants committed to their charge, or of the great
Abbeys, which were ready enough to appoint some illiterate boor, just able
to stumble through his office, to act as their deputy at a nominal salary,
it is small wonder that crying abuses came into existence. "They have
parish churches," writes Wycliff, "apropered to worldly rich bishops and
abbots that have many thousand marks more than enow.... And yet they do
not the office of curates, neither in teaching or preaching or giving of
sacraments nor of receiving poor men in the parish: but setten an idiot
for vicar or parish priest that cannot and may not do the office of a good
curate, and yet the poor parish findeth him." Chaucer finds it among the
striking virtues of his poor Parson that:--
He sette nat his benefice to hyre,
And leet his sheep encombred in the myre,
And ran to London, un-to seynt Poules
To seken him a chaunterie for soules,[169]
Or with a bretherhed to been withholde;
But dwelte at hoom, and kepte wel his folde....
and that he does not attempt to wring their last penny from his
unfortunate parishioners:--
Ful looth were him to cursen for his tythes.[170]
Matters were further complicated by the wandering friars who recognised no
jurisdiction save that of the Pope himself, and who, having fallen far
from the noble ideal of poverty, chastity, and obedience, set by their
founders, took unscrupulous advantage of the ignorance and superstition of
the people, and, like the pardoners, often undermined the authority of the
parish priests. The custom of commuting penance for a payment in money was
spreading, and naturally opened the door to abuses of all kinds.
No wonder that Wycliff arose to thunder against these malpractices, and
that his poor preachers gained such a following. It was not, in the
majority of cases, that people had any quarrel with the doctrines of the
Church--the number of recantations and paucity of martyrs among the early
Lollards show that it was not doctrine that they wished to reform--but
injustice and oppression were inevitably arousing a widespread,
smouldering discontent which broke into flame now at this point, now at
that. As we read the history of the time, we marvel at the patience and
good-humour of the inhabitants of Merry England.
How far Chaucer was in sympathy with the Lollards it is difficult to say.
His works contain but the barest reference to their existence, and the
fact that the Host accuses the Parson of Lollardy, and that the Shipman
expresses a pious horror of heresy, cannot be said to prove anything
either way. It may be intended as a carefully concealed compliment to the
influence of Wycliff, or, as seems more probable, it may simply be a
chance reference in keeping with the spirit of the times. That the Shipman
should be so terrified lest the saintly Parson should
... springen cokkel in our clene corn,[171]
that he feels impelled to break into his threatened sermon with the story
of the merchant's wife and the monk, is a subtle enough piece of satire,
but whether Chaucer so intended it, or whether it is one of the happy
accidents of genius, we have no means of knowing. The Parson is a devout
Catholic, the Monk, with all his faults, is at worst but a forerunner of
the fox-hunting squarson of later days, with all the geniality and
good-fellowship of his race. If Chaucer attacks the clergy, it is only
for those things which the best Churchmen of the day were denouncing with
less wit but no less bitterness. Saints are rare at the best of times, and
Chaucer, whose mission is to paint life as he finds it, gives good measure
when he allows the Parson and the Plowman to form two of his
nine-and-twenty pilgrims.
Few things, indeed, are more striking in Chaucer than the manner in which
he combines caustic observation of the weaknesses and hypocrisies of men,
with innate reverence for all that is pure and noble. That the same man
should enjoy the coarse humour of the Friar and the Reve, and yet treat
womanhood and childhood with such tender reverence, is one of the
mysteries of human nature. Prof. Ten Brink, as has been said, believes
that Chaucer passed through a phase of intense religious feeling. "A
worldling has to reproach himself with all sorts of things," he writes,
"especially when he lives at a court like that of Edward III and is
intimate with a John of Gaunt. Chaucer ... naturally seeks in religion the
power for self-conquest and improvement. He was a faithful son of the
Church, even though he had his own opinions about many things.... He was
specially attracted by the eternal-womanly element in this system, which
finds its purest realisation in the person of the Virgin Mother Mary. In
moments when life seemed hard and weary, and when he was unable to arouse
and cheer himself with philosophy and poetry, he gladly turned for help
and consolation to the Virgin Mother." Certainly his poetry is never
sweeter or more dignified than when he is addressing this "haven of
refut," this
... salvacioun
Of hem that been in sorwe and in distresse.
Nothing better illustrates the simplicity and sincerity of Chaucer's
religious feeling, than the tale of little St. Hugh. The story of the
Christian child decoyed away and murdered by the Jews was commonly
believed in the Middle Ages. Indeed, it is said that more than one
anti-Semitic outbreak in Russia during the past forty years has been
provoked by the relation of similar tales, and we have just seen the
conclusion of a "Blood-ritual" case of the kind. The fierce racial and
religious hatred which underlies belief in the possibility of such a
thing, is in itself sufficiently terrible, and the story affords ample
opportunity for the expression of animosity towards these
... cursed folk of Herodes al newe,
but Chaucer's religion would appear to consist less in the denunciation of
the Church's enemies, than in affection for her saints. Dramatic justice
is meted out to the murderers, but the poet takes no delight in dwelling
on their dying agonies, or heaping abuse upon their memory. The point of
the tale lies, not in the wickedness of the Jews, but in the simple,
childish innocence and piety of Hugh, and the manner in which "Cristes
moder" deigns to honour the service of this
... litel clergeon[172] of seven yeer of age.
The opening invocation is one of the most beautiful of all Chaucer's
addresses to the Virgin:--
Lady! thy bountee, thy magnificence,
Thy vertu, and thy grete humilitee
Ther may no tonge expresse in no science;
For som-tyme, lady, er men praye to thee,
Thou goost biforn, of thy benignitee,
And getest us the light, thurgh thy preyers,
To gyden us un-to thy sone so dere.
From beginning to end the limpid simplicity of the poem is marred by no
unnecessary word. The picture of the little boy doing his diligence to
learn the _Alma redemptoris_, although
Noght wiste he what this Latin was to seye
For he so yong and tendre was of age,
and going to his school-fellow to have it explained, is absolutely
natural. So is the school-fellow's hasty summary of the hymn, ending with
"I can no more expounde in this matere;
I lerne song, I can[173] but smal grammere."
Chaucer does not, like so many hagiographers, forget the child in the
saint. The prevailing note throughout is one of happy childhood. The
tragedy is kept in the background. We catch a glimpse of the cruel steel
as the Jews cut the boy's throat: we see the white-faced mother hastening
from place to place in search of him; but our thoughts are with St. Hugh
and the gracious Queen of Heaven who comes to aid him:--
And in a tombe of marbul-stones clere
Enclosen they his litel body swete;
Ther he is now, god leve us for to mete.[174]
There is no tendency to over-elaborate the miracle or to explain it away.
Chaucer accepts the fact quietly and without comment, as he accepts the
miracles in the _Man of Lawes Tale_. In the story of Constance, indeed, it
would seem as if some momentary doubt of its possibility flashed across
his mind, for he goes out of his way to defend the miraculous element, but
the defence itself is one of simple acceptance of facts related in the
Bible, and shows none of that intellectual questioning which sometimes
manifests itself in his poetry:--
Men mighte asken why she was nat slayn?
Eek at the feste who mighte hir body save?
And I answere to that demaunde agayn,
Who saved Daniel in the horrible cave,
Ther every wight save he, maister and knave
Was with the leoun fret er he asterte?[175]
No wight but god, that he bar in his herte.
* * * * *
Now, sith she was not at the feste y-slawe,[176]
Who kepte hir fro drenching[177] in the see?
Who kepte Jonas in the fisshes mawe
Til he was spouted up at Ninivee?...
* * * * *
It is obvious that Catholicism appeals to his emotions, and that the
shortcomings of unworthy priests no more affect his pleasure in the tender
beauty of its point of view, than the moral errors of a Benvenuto Cellini
affect our pleasure in his craftsmanship. The poet's soul responded to the
poetry of worship, a poetry which underlies all forms and ceremonies,
which no unworthiness on the part of the officiant can wholly obliterate,
no superstition render wholly absurd. He recognises and rebukes the
hypocrisy of many who minister in the name of Holy Church, but he is quick
to separate wanton friar and idle priest from the religion whose dignity
they profane. The fact that religion lies in the spirit rather than the
observance is very clearly stated in the _Romaunt of the Rose_, ll.
6225-94.
As has been said, it is on the emotional side that Catholicism appeals to
him. Intellectually he finds many difficulties, and more than once his
poetry shows a tinge of scepticism which might well have brought him into
serious difficulties had his patron been a man less powerful and less
inclined to tolerate heretical sympathies than John of Gaunt. Again and
again Chaucer comes to the edge of an abyss, and, after one glance into
the depths, turns away with a shrug of the shoulders and a
half-whimsical, half-satirical smile on his lips. Does God ordain man's
life for him, from beginning to end, and has he no choice or freedom of
action left him? Chaucer plays with the question, turns it over, makes it
a trifle ridiculous by applying it to the death of a cock, and then, as we
have seen, tosses it aside with
I wol not han to do of swich matere;
The long disquisition on the subject--chiefly taken from his favourite
philosopher, Boëthius--which he puts into the mouth of Troilus (_Troilus
and Criseyde_, Book IV, stanzas 137-154) proves nothing, except Chaucer's
interest in the subject, which leads him to translate and insert so long a
passage, and the natural inclination to fatalism of Troilus himself.
The Prologue to the _Legend of Good Women_ begins with a characteristic
shelving of an important question:--
A thousand tymes have I herd men telle,
That ther is joye in heven and peyne in helle;
And I accorde wel that hit is so;
But natheles, yit wot I wel also,
That ther nis noon dwelling in this contree,
That either hath in heven or helle y-be,
Ne may of hit non other weyes witen
But as he hath herd seyd, or founde it writen
True, the poet goes on to protest the absurdity of refusing credence to
everything that we cannot see with our own eyes, but involuntarily we find
ourselves recalling his refusal to commit himself as to the probable fate
of Arcite's soul, and the fact that Arcite, although a hero, was a
heathen, does not seem entirely to account for it.
This tendency to dwell upon insoluble problems manifests itself also in
the strange attraction that dreams have for Chaucer. He is not content
simply to use the conventional dream setting for his poems. He is
continually harking back to the question: Do dreams contain some
mysterious warning by which men may escape a threatened fate? In the
_Nonnes Prestes Tale_ the subject is treated satirically. Pertelote's
arguments against belief in dreams are excellent, and most convincing. All
sensible people must share her opinion that Chauntecleer is probably
suffering from indigestion. Yet--the dream comes true. Only the fact that
the whole story takes place in the hen-yard makes it impossible to take it
seriously. But in _Troilus and Criseyde_, Chaucer deliberately
interpolates three, quite unnecessary, stanzas in Book V, in which he
discusses whence dreams spring:--
For prestes of the temple tellen this,
That dremes been the revelaciouns
Of goddes, and as wel they telle, y-wis,
That they ben infernals illusiouns;
And leches[178] seyn, that of complexiouns[179]
Proceden they, or fast, or glotonye,[180]
Who woot in sooth thus what they signifye?...
Again in the opening lines of the _Hous of Fame_ he asks the same
question:--
God turn us every dreem to gode!
For hit is wonder, by the rode,
To my wit, what causeth swevenes[181]
Either on morwes, or on evenes;
And why th' effect folweth of somme,
And of somme hit shal never come....
and again, characteristically, refuses to give any opinion on the matter--
For I of noon opinioun
Nil as now make mencioun.
But if Chaucer is chary of committing himself on speculative matters such
as these, with regard to practical morality he has no such hesitation. It
was the fashion of the day to draw a moral from the most unlikely stories,
and Chaucer, while he never forces an application after the manner of
Gower or the compiler of the _Gesta Romanorum_, is sufficiently in
sympathy with the spirit of his age to conform to the practice when
opportunity occurs. The Somnour, who, by the way, has just had a violent
quarrel with the Friar, preaches an admirable homily against Ire,
illustrating it, after the most approved method, with an apt anecdote. The
Pardoner, as we have seen, inveighs against drunkenness, as does Chaucer
himself in the _Man of Lawes Tale_. The simple statement of Averagus--
Southe is the hyeste thing that man may kepe--
is a sermon in itself, and the Maunciple ends his distinctly unmoral tale
with some excellent advice of his dame's:--
My sone, keep wel thy tonge, and keep thy freend,
A wikked tonge is worse than a fend[182]
My sone, god of his endelees goodnesse
Walled a tonge with teeth and lippes eek,
For man sholde him avyse what he speke....
It would be possible to multiply instances almost indefinitely. Perhaps
the most striking of all is the sudden, unexpected moral application which
ends _Troilus and Criseyde_. We have followed the passion and sins of the
lovers, we have wept with Troilus and forgiven Cressida in spite of
ourselves, and all at once, while our minds are still tuned to the rapture
and sweetness of a love-story, Chaucer turns to bid us note the end of
life and love:--
O yonge fresshe folkes, he or she,
In which that love up groweth with your age,
Repeyreth hoom from worldly vanitee,
And of your herte up-casteth the visage
To thilke god that after his image
Yow made, and thinketh al nis but a fayre
This world, that passeth sone as floures fayre.
And loveth him, the which that right for love
Upon a cros, our soules for to beye
First starf, and roos,[183] and sit in heven a-bove;
For he nil falsen no wight, dar I seye,
That wol his herte al hoolly[184] on him leye.
And sin he best to love is, and most meke,
What nedeth feyned loves for to seke?
In politics, as in religion, Chaucer shows himself keenly alive to the
evils and abuses of the day, and yet no partisan. The author of _Piers
Plowman_ has left us a picture of the bitter poverty of the peasant class.
The complaint of Peace against Wrong (Passus 4), shows how he has carried
off his wife and stolen both geese and grys (pigs):--
He maynteneth his men to murthere myne hewen,[185]
Forstalleth my feires,[186] and fighteth in my chepyng,[187]
And breketh up my bernes dore[188] and bereth awey my whete
* * * * *
I am noght hardy for hym unethe to loke;[189]
and how completely the poor were at the mercy of the rich. When a peasant
died, his lord had a right to his best possession, and if he owned not
less than three cows, the parson of the parish took the next best, a
condition of things against which we find Sir David Lyndsay protesting, as
late as 1560, in his _Satyre of the Three Estaats_. John Ball, "the mad
priest of Kent," for twenty years combined the preaching of Lollardy with
that of a kind of rough socialism, and the rude rhyme which contained the
kernel of his teaching--
When Adam delved and Eve span,
Who was then the gentleman?--
went the round of the Midlands and helped to fan the flame of discontent
which finally broke into the wide-spread conflagration of the Peasants'
Revolt. It was a time when new ideals were slowly struggling to find
expression, and the old order of feudalism was passing away for ever. But
while the nobles were divided by factions among themselves, and the poor
beat bleeding hands against the prison walls that hemmed them in, the
middle class was steadily increasing in wealth and prosperity, and it is
with this class that Chaucer chiefly concerns himself. The majority of the
Canterbury pilgrims are prosperous, well-to-do tradesmen and artisans:--
Hir knyves were y-chaped[190] noght with bras
But al with silver, wroght ful clene and well,
Hir girdles and hir pouches every-deel.
Wel semed ech of hem a fair burgeys
To sitten in a yeldhall[191] on a deys.[192]
Everich, for the wisdom that he can,
Was shaply[193] for to been an alderman.
For catel hadde they y-nogh and rente,
And eek hir wyves wolde it wel assente;
And elles certain were they to blame.
It is ful fair to been y-clept "_ma dame_,"
And goon to vigilyes[194] al bifore,
And have a mantel royalliche y-bore.
This is something very different from Langland's[195] picture of Dawe the
dykere dying of hunger, or the poor farmer dining on bean-bread and bran.
Even the Plowman seems fairly well off:--
His tythes payed he ful faire and wel,
Bothe of his propre swink[196] and his catel,
and the general impression is one of comfort, which even rises to a
certain mild luxury. The pilgrims are well fed and well clothed, they have
horses to ride, and can afford to call at the ale-house as they pass. They
fill the air with the sound of laughter and song as they ride, and we can
well understand the Lollard Thorpe's complaint (made more than ten years
after Chaucer wrote his _Canterbury Tales_) that, "What with the noise of
their singing, and with the sound of their piping, and with the jangling
of their Canterburie bells, and with the barking out of dogges after them
... they (_i. e._ pilgrims) make more noise than if the king came there
away with all his clarions and many other minstrels" (_Wycliff's Works_,
ed. Arnold, I. 83). Even in the tales themselves little hint is given of
the darker side of the picture. We get a glimpse of the relation between
lord and vassal, in the _Clerkes Tale_, but no comment is made on it.
Griselda is carrying her water-pot back from the well, when she hears the
marquis calling her:--
And she set doun her water-pot anoon
Bisyde the threshfold, in an oxes stalle,
And doun up-on hir knees she gan to falle,
And with sad contenance kneleth stille
Til she had herd what was the lordes wille.
Apparently there is nothing in this incident to attract the attention of a
fourteenth-century poet. It is quite natural to kneel on the floor of the
cow-shed when your lord honours you by seeking you there and giving his
commands in person.
That Chaucer has no very high opinion of the intelligence or reliability
of a mob is shown, not only by his sketches of crowds, but by such
passages as that in the _Clerkes Tale_ where he breaks off the story to
apostrophise the people:--
O stormy peple! unsad[197] and ever untrewe
As undiscreet and chaunging as a vane,
Delyting ever in rumbel that is newe,
For lyk the mone ay wexe ye and wane;
A ful of clapping,[198] dere y-nogh a jane[199]
Your doom is fals, your constance yvel preveth,[200]
A ful greet fool is he that on yow leveth.
But at the same time he realises that poverty has its rights. The earlier
version of the Prologue to the _Legend of Good Women_ contains much
excellent advice to King Richard:--
For he that king or lord is naturel,
Him oghte nat be tiraunt or cruel,
As is a fermour,[201] to doon the harm he can.
He moste thinke hit is his lige man,
And that him oweth, of verray duetee
Shewen his peple pleyn benignitie
And wel to here hir excusatiouns,
And hir compleyntes and peticiouns....
The _Lenvoy_ which ends the balade of _Lak of Stedfastnesse_ holds up a
noble ideal of kingship:--
O prince, desyre to be honourable,
Cherish thy folk and hate extorcioun!
Suffre no thing, that may be reprevable
To thyn estat, doon in thy regioun.
Shew forth thy swerd of castigacioun,
Dred God, do law, love trouthe and worthinesse,
And wed thy folk agein to stedfastnesse.
And in the _Persones Tale_ the duties of the rich towards the poor are set
forth in considerable detail. Superfluity of clothing and absurdly slashed
and ornamented garments are to be avoided because "the more that clooth is
wasted, the more it costeth to the peple for the scantnesse; and
forther-over, if so be that they wolde yeven such pounsoned and
dagged[202] clothing to the povre folk, it is nat convenient to were for
hir estaat, ne suffisant to bete hir necessitee, to kepe hem fro the
distemperance of the firmament." Lords are bidden to take no pride in
their position, and do no wrong to those dependent on them: "I rede thee,
certes, that thou, lord, werke in swiche wyse with thy cherles, that they
rather love thee than drede. I woot wel ther is degree above degree, as
reson is; and skile it is that men do hir devoir ther-as is due; but
certes, extorciouns and despit of youre underlinges is dampnable."
Chaucer's inborn sense of justice will not allow him to condone
oppression, and his speculative and inquiring mind is fully conscious of
the artificiality of rank. From the Parson we might expect a homily on the
fact that "we ben alle of o fader and of o moder; and alle we been of o
nature roten and corrupt, both riche and povre," but it is more
surprising to find the Wife of Bath holding forth in the same strain. Her
tale describes the bitter feeling of Florent when he finds himself bound
to a wife old, ugly, and of base degree. The bride answers with a
disquisition on true nobility:--
But for ye speken of swich gentillesse
As is descended out of old richesse,
And that therfore sholden ye be gentil men,
Swich arrogance is nat worth a hen.
Loke who that is most vertuous alwey,
Privee and apert,[203] and most entendeth
To do the gentil dedes that he can,
An tak him for the grettest gentil man.
Crist wol, we clayme of him our gentilesse,
Nat of our eldres for hir old richesse.
For thogh they yeve us al hir heritage,
For which we clayme to been of heigh parage,[204]
Yet may they nat biquethe, for no-thing,
To noon of us hir vertuous living,
That made hem gentil men y-called be.
* * * * *
Heer may ye see wel, how that genterye
Is nat annexed to possessioun
* * * * *
Redeth Senek, and redeth eek Boece,
Ther shul ye seen express that it no drede is
That he is gentil that doth gentil dedis.
John Ball himself could hardly go further.
Possibly Chaucer's personal experience of the occasional difficulty of
making both ends meet, quickened his sympathy with poor men. It is true
that Florent's wife, in the lines which follow those just quoted, goes on
to defend poverty against riches on the ground that it is
A ful greet bringer out of bisinesse,
but though she calls cheerful poverty "an honest thing," she is forced to
own that at best it is "hateful good." The Man of Law, in the prologue to
his tale, speaks of it with undisguised bitterness:--
Herken what is the sentence of the wyse:--
"Bet is to dyen than have indigence;"
"Thy selve neighebour wol thee despyse;"
If thou be poore, farwel thy reverence!
* * * * *
If thou be povre, thy brother hateth thee,
And all thy freendes fleen fro thee, alas!
O riche marchaunts, ful of wele ben ye,
O noble, O prudent folk as in this cas!
And Chaucer's lines to his empty purse show that he had no wish to share
the pleasant security of those who are able, as Florent's wife says, to
sing and play in the presence of thieves.
In yet a third respect, Chaucer shows himself able to discriminate
between the use and abuse of a thing. He can expose and denounce hypocrisy
without losing his reverence for true religion; he can point out evils in
social life, without siding wholly with nobles or people; he can laugh at
the folly which allows itself to be deluded by charlatanism, without
losing his respect for science. Two hundred years had yet to pass before
Bacon should raise science, once and for all, above the level where it lay
confused with magic and the black art. A generation to whom gunpowder was
a novelty, and spectacles an almost miraculous aid to sight, found nothing
strange in the sight of learned men seeking for the elixir of life, or the
philosopher's stone. In a world which was but just becoming dimly
conscious of the mighty forces which lie at man's command, limitations
were unknown, and the boundary line between the possible and impossible
was so uncertain as to be negligible. The populace which believed that
every sage could summon legions of devils to his assistance, was not
likely to criticise his pretensions too closely, and doubtless many a
quack saw, and seized, the opportunity for imposing on the easy credulity
of a greedy and wonder-loving people.
Chaucer shows a real interest in such rudimentary science as he was able
to pick up in the midst of his other avocations. Clocks of any kind were
rare in the fourteenth century, and the practice of telling the time by
astronomical observations was a common one. There is nothing peculiar in
noting the season or the hour by such statements as that
the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne.
or,
He wiste it was the eightetehe day
Of April, that is messager to May;
And sey wel that the shadwe of every tree
Was as the lengthe the same quantitee
That was the body erect that caused it.
And therefore by the shadwe he took his wit
That Phebus, which that shoon so clere and brighte,
Degrees was fyve and fourty clombe on highte;
And for that day, as in that latitude,
It was ten of the clokke, he gan conclude;
but Chaucer not only follows this method with an amount of detail and a
persistency which show that he enjoyed it for its own sake, he also, as we
have seen, writes a treatise on the use of the Astrolabe, for the
instruction of his little son. The modesty and sincerity shown in the
introduction are worthy of a true scientist. After saying that he purposes
to teach little Lewis "a certain nombre of conclusions," Chaucer
continues, "I seye a certein of conclusiouns, for three causes. The furste
cause is this: truste wel that alle the conclusiouns that have ben founde,
or elles possibly mighten be founde in so noble an instrument as an
Astrolabie, ben un-knowe perfitly to any mortal man in this regioun, as I
suppose. A nother cause is this; that sothly, in any tretis of the
Astrolabie that I have seyn, there ben some conclusiouns that wole nat in
alle thinges performen hir bihestes; and some of them ben harde to thy
tendre age of ten yeer to conseyve." He then explains his reason for
writing in English instead of Latin, and finally declares: "I nam but a
lewd compilatour of the labour of olde Astrologiens, and have hit
translated in myn English only for thy doctrine; and with this swerd shall
I sleen envye." The whole _Prologue_ is well worth reading if only for the
light it throws upon Chaucer's view of education and the power it displays
of entering into a child's mind. Scattered references to astronomy,
medicine, chemistry, and even astrology, are to be found throughout the
_Canterbury Tales_. The Franklin shows himself well abreast of scientific
discovery when he speaks of
This wyde world, which that men seye is round.
Chaucer himself in the _Prologue_ reels off a list of medicaments which
might be expected to improve the Somnour's complexion. Pertelote shows a
housewifely knowledge of the properties of herbs.
One tale, indeed, turns on the pseudo-science of the day. After the second
Nun has finished her tale of St. Cecilia the pilgrims ride in silence for
awhile, till, close to Boghton under Blee, they are joined by a Canon and
his man. The Canon's Yeoman soon begins to boast of his master's
marvellous powers, how
That al this ground on which we ben ryding,
Til that we come to Caunterbury toun,
He coude al clene turne it up-so-doun,
And pave it al of silver and of gold.
Whereupon the Host blesses himself, and asks, not unnaturally, why if the
Canon "is of so heigh prudence," he wears such poor and dirty clothes? The
Yeoman answers that
--whan a man hath over-greet a wit
Ful oft him happeth to misusen it;
So dooth my lord ...
and is proceeding to dilate upon the hard share of the work that falls to
himself, when the Canon, who is nervous as to what he may be saying, with
some sharpness bids him hold his tongue. The Host, however, has no
intention of allowing his authority to be over-ridden:--
"Ye," quod our host, "telle on, what so bityde;
Of al his threting rekke nat a myte!"[205]
"In feith," quod he, "namore I do but lyte."
On which the Canon sets spurs to his horse and gallops off, leaving his
character behind him, and the Yeoman settles down to tell the story of the
foolish priest and the charlatan. The false Canon borrows a mark from the
priest, promising to return it within three days:--
And at the thridde day broghte his moneye,
And to the preest he took his gold agayn,
Whereof this preest was wonder glad and fayn.
The Canon protests that under no circumstances would he ever dream of
breaking his word:--
"ther was never man yet yvel apayd
For gold ne silver that he to me lente ...
and in token of friendship he offers, if the priest will send for some
quicksilver, to show him a marvel.
"Sir," quod the preest, "it shal be doon y-wis."
He bad his servant fecchen him this thing....
The Canon then orders a fire to be prepared, and with much parade makes
ready a crucible. He carefully shuts the door and pretends to be most
anxious lest any one should see what they are doing. Not till the servant
has gone out, and he and the priest are alone, does he solemnly cast
various powders on to the blazing coals, "To blynde with the preest."
Finally, while his unfortunate victim is busy blowing the fire and making
himself generally useful, the false Canon so manipulates things that an
ingot of silver appears in the crucible. He repeats the trick three times,
and so impresses "this sotted preest" that the poor dupe
the somnee of fourty pound anon
Of nobles fette,[206] and took hem everichon
To this chanoun, for this ilke receit....
After which, needless to say, the Canon disappears.
The whole story teems with technical terms, with descensories, and
sublimatories, and cucurbites, with bole armoniak and orpiment, and the
like. It shows an intimate knowledge of the laboratory work of the day, of
vessels and retorts, of chemicals and minerals and their various
properties. At the same time, it proves that Chaucer was well aware of the
ease with which a very little knowledge combined with a great deal of
assurance would enable a quack to impose on the absolute ignorance of the
uninitiated. The charlatan who tried to impose upon the author of the
_Chanouns Yemannes Tale_ would soon have found out his mistake.
And yet, with all his shrewdness, Chaucer was not wholly exempt from the
superstition of his age. Such vulgar trickery as that just described would
never have imposed on him, but he is too truly fourteenth century in his
point of view always to distinguish between astronomy and astrology. The
thought that a man's destiny may be written in the stars appealed to this
lover of dreams. In the _Man of Lawes Tale_ he breaks away from his
original, to speculate on this subject:--
Paraventure in thilke large book
Which that men clepe the heven, y-writen was
With sterres, when that he (_i. e._ the Soldan) his birthe took
That he for love shulde han his deeth, allas!
For in the sterres, clerer than is glas,
Is writen, god wot, who-so coulde it rede,
The deeth of every man, withouten drede.
And again, after describing the grief of Constance at parting from her
parents, he vehemently exclaims against the unfortunate conjunction of
constellations which wrought such havoc, and asks if there were no
"philosophre" to advise the emperor to consult some astrologer as to which
was the auspicious time for him to marry.
Certain aspects of Chaucer's character stand out with unmistakable
clearness in his works. The most careless reader could hardly fail to be
struck by his wide sympathies, ready humour, keen observation, and honesty
of mind. His idealism, his poetic sensitiveness to the more imaginative
side of life, are perhaps less often insisted upon, but are no less real.
He is no visionary, afraid to face the facts of life, dwelling in a world
of beauty and delight which has no counterpart on earth, but a poet who
takes no shame in human nature, whose eyes see so clearly that they are
not blinded by evil, who dares to say, with his Creator, that the world is
good. In the _Book of the Duchesse_ is a passage which explains much of
Chaucer's so-called worldliness. He is speaking of Blanche's innocent
kindliness, and how he never knew one less
Harmful, than she was in doing;
and he adds, in words as bold as Milton's own,
I sey nat that she ne had knowing
What was harm; or elles she
Had coud[207] no good, so thinketh me.
He has little respect for a fugitive and cloistered virtue. But if he is,
perhaps, over-ready to plunge into the dust and din of ordinary life, he
never forgets the wonder and mystery that lie behind the commonplace.