3 - Reading Griselda's Smocks in the Clerk's Tale

Summary

Ranging from the ostentatious and richly ornamented to the utmost in simplicity, the basic undergarment – the smock – speaks to the audience for medieval literature through the details of its fabric and/or construction as specified by individual medieval authors. It is often employed metaphorically in phrases such as “clad in his [or her] sherte alone,” as discussed when dealing with Geoffrey Chaucer's variations of this well-known metaphor in Troilus and Criseyde (IV, 96, 1522–23). These wearers of a “sherte alone” are presented in the state of virtual nakedness, bereft of all usual signs of social rank, and, on occasion, suffering humiliation. The smock, the feminine term for this garment, can also be incorporated in descriptions as an important costume sign representing social status or character: nobility or peasant status, dignified duty or servile subjection, humiliation or triumphant dignity, personal humility or pride – to mention only a few of the many possibilities. Chaucer employs smock imagery in his costume rhetoric in the Clerk's Tale (ClT) in all of these significations, separately and sometimes multivalently. And, while numerous critics supply informative commentary on the costumes mentioned in this tale, they rarely do so with concerted attention paid to the broad combined contexts of medieval material culture – the placement of each garment within the history of costume, the quality and value of its fabric and decoration, and its style and suitability to its wearer's social circumstances.