Whan That Januarye — Lucas Blogs About The Canterbury Tales: Part 8

Even in the New Year, I retain the same header image!

The Intro

Well, it's a new year and I'm starting it off (well, starting off the first entry in Whan That Month for the year) with a new to me tale. You may recall that we closed out Novembre with tales by the Squire and the Franklin. Then existing manuscripts break off, ending the fifth fragment. You know what that means, it's time to start in on the sixth, and it just jumps right in with—

The Physician's Tale

The Roman historian Livy tells (or, you know, Chaucer borrows from Le Roman de la Rose) the story of Virginius a wealthy, worthy, popular, and honorable knight, and his beautiful daughter, Virginia. After extolling Viriginia's beauty and chastity for a couple of pages, the Physician finally comes to the point of the matter. One day, when she's twelve and a half years old, Virginia walks through town, and catches the eye of Apius, a lecherous old judge who immediately comes up with a plan to abduct her. He hires Claudius, a churl, to aid him in this scheme. Soon afterwards, Claudius files a statement with the court, claiming that Virginia is not Virginius' daughter, but in fact, a servant of Claudius whom Virginius kidnapped in her childhood. At trial, Apius silences Virginus and orders that Viriginia be handed over into the custody of the court. Virginius knows that there's only one way to resolve this injustice. He goes to Virginia and tells her that the only way to preserve her honor is to kill her. Virginia is obviously taken aback by this, but ultimately agrees with her father and asks only for a few minutes to process her imminent death. Her lamentations end when she swoons and Virginius decapitates her and takes her head to Apius who decrees that he shall be hanged. At this point, the people of the town — having known about Apius' lechery and being suspicious of Claudius' testimony from the begnning — spring Virginius from the clink and imprison Apius who then commits suicide. And what of Claudius, well, Viriginius takes pity on him and exiles him rather than hang him. It just goes to show that if you don't forsake sin, then sin will forsake you.

How'd Lucas Like the Physician's Tale?

Wait, what? That's the moral? That can't be right. As you can see, this is yet another example of a tale that fails to please due to shifting moral values. Obviously it's meant to be instructive, but the intended lesson misses the mark for the modern reader. It also doesn't hold up well by its own logic.

All right, so at the end when the mob sides with Virginius against Apius, the physician states that everyone knew that he was a lecher and that his ruling was unjust. So why did they wait until after Virginius had killed his daughter to take up his cause? I mean, at that point shouldn't they turn on Virginius as well? It's really tough to sell this as a happy ending, given the circumstances.

This is also one of those tales where the story is broken up either by editorializing or rhetorical flourishes by the physician. For example, at the start of the story Nature addresses the audience to talk about how she alone has the power to bestow people with virtues. And while it is possible to appreciate Chaucer's language and the poetic devices he uses to give variety to the text, it does interrupt the flow of the story. Especially when it breaks into the narrative after only a few lines. And maybe I'm less inclined to be charitable to this tale because it doesn't jibe with my own values, but, oh well. Let's move on to—

The Pardoner's Prologue

Hold the phone, what's a pardoner again?

Hey, Hypothetical Reader! You know what an Indulgence is, right?

Yeah, it's that thing in Catholic doctrine where you can do something in life to reduce the amount of punishment you receive in the afterlife. It's like in that Kevin Smith movie, Mallrats.

I think you mean Dogma.

Whatever.

Anyway, that's right, in Medieval Europe, it became a way to fund big projects like cathedrals and crusades. Pardoners were sent out to collect alms in exchange for indulgences.

That sounds suspiciously like that simony thing we discussed back in July.

It does. The office of pardoner was rife with corruption. This became a point of contention in the Protestant Reformation.

Anyway, the prologue actually begins with—

The Introduction

Harry Bailly is disgusted by the conduct of that wretched cherl. Though, oddly not with that of the daughter-murdering knight. In any case, following his faintly blasphemous lamentations about how being rich and beautiful can be burdensome because of the jealousy they provoke, he asks the Pardoner to tell a merry tale to raise everyone's spirits. But the other pilgrims want no part of that, instead of ribaldry they want moral instruction. The Pardoner says that he'll think of something moral to say after they stop at a nearby inn for a beer.

The Prologue

As he finishes his beer, the Pardoner tells the company that whenever he preaches to raise alms, his theme is always "Radix malorum est cupiditas." (or "The love of money is the root of all evil." 1 Timothy 6:10) And how he preaches so well that people will pay alms to touch his fake relics. He's also quite forthright about the fact that he doesn't care about saving people's souls, only making money, and that he earns 100 marks a year (according to the footnotes that was more than 66 pounds a year in the 14th century, or about four times more than Chaucer would have made at the customs house). As an illustration of his skill he offers up—

The Pardoner's Tale

So in Flandres, there are these three young folk who spend all their time in taverns, drinking, gambling, and whoring. One day, one of their servants tells them of a bandit named Deeth. It turns out that Deeth has been slaying people all over.  Someone else in the tavern confirms it, saying that Deeth has laid waste a nearby village, killing man, woman, and child and that only a fool would seek him out. The revelers, apparently immune to metaphor, swear that they shall kill Deeth and free the people of his tyranny. They set out and on the way meet an old man and ask him why it is that he is so old. The old man replies that no young person will trade their youth for his old age, and that even Deeth has rejected him. The revelers reveal that they're hunting Deeth and the old man directs them up a crooked road to a grove where he says he left Deeth underneath a tree. In the grove, the revelers do not find Deeth but instead a trove of florins (nearly eight bushels worth by their reckoning) and they immediately forget about their pledge and try to figure out how they can get the florins out of the grove without appearing suspicious. They decide to draw straws, the loser will go to town to buy them food and drink and while the other two guard the florins until they can move them under cover of darkness. The youngest draws the short straw and goes into town. Meanwhile, the other two plot to stab him to death upon his return so they only have to split the florins into two shares rather than three. At the same time, the youngest decides that he can take the florins for himself if he poisons the other two, so he stops at an apothecary to pick up some rat poison and puts it in their wine. When he returns to the grove, the others set upon him and stab him to death. Having worked up an appetite, they drink the poisoned wine and die. The Pardoner then addresses the company on the road to Canterbury to deliver the message of the sermon, again, Radix malorum est cupiditas, and encourages them to make offerings in exchange for indulgences, especially Harry Bailly who must be more burdened by sin than any of the others. Harry Bailly is understandably put off and threatens to castrate the pardoner and enshrine his testicles in a hog's turd. The Knight, wanting to keep the peace on the road insists that Harry Bailly and the Pardoner kiss and make up, which, surprisingly, they do.

How'd Lucas Like the Pardoner's Tale?

This one holds up much better than the Physician's Tale. It's also one of the tales that I read back in the day. I don't remember if this one was assigned in class, but Chaucer's portrait of the Pardoner in the prologue is so specific and bizarre that it made me want to know what kind of tale he would tell. Just a quick primer on his description (should I have been doing this for everyone along the way? If so, it's too late to go back). The Pardoner is androgynous with no beard, a soft voice, and long, stringy, waxy hair. He appears to believe himself to be clothed in the latest fashion, and he carries around a lot of fake relics and possibly counterfeit Bulls of indulgence from Rome. Chaucer speculates about the possibility that he's a woman or a eunuch. In any case, he's also the last of the pilgrims to be given a lengthy description. But for all that the Pardoner stands out as unusual, it doesn't seem to have hindered his ability to perform his job of selling indulgences. I'm not saying that the Pardoner is a good example of gender-non-conforming people integrating into medieval society; but, like the Wife of Bath, the Pardoner is an interesting example of a character that you might not expect to encounter in Medieval literature.

In other ways he fits in quite well. Like the Friar and the Summoner, he's presented as being more concerned with petty earthly matters than with spirituality. However, unlike either of former, he does not tell an anti-clerical story. Instead he confesses to his fellow travelers that he's a fraud who preaches the evils of avarice solely for financial gain. This much is to be expected from Chaucer's description of him, but it is fun to see him explain this immediately after the other pilgrims ask him to speak on some moral subject. And then for him to give an example of a sermon he might preach to encourage people to give alms, immediately followed by such a call which is received about as well as one might expect.

And for all that, he's right, it is an effective story. The three protagonists (who unusually go unnamed) are undone by their greed. It does still suffer from the "a few lines of set up followed by dozens of lines of sermonizing before the story continues" problem that the Physician's tale does, but since it is literally an example of a sermon that the Pardoner routinely delivers this is less of a problem. I also love the conceit that the revelers are too dense to realize that calling Death a bandit is a metaphor (or is it, I suppose you could make the case that the old man himself is Deeth). Oh, and the fact that the Pardoner is so into his routine that even though he's already explained that he's a fraud, he tries to collect alms at the end of the story as if he were preaching at a church. This is one of my favorites so far.

The Outro

Well, that was the sixth fragment, it seems to be a stand-alone, but who knows maybe in the next Whan That Month, we'll find that the seventh fragment begins right after Harry Bailly and the Pardoner have kissed and made up. We'll see what Februarye brings.