Auctorite/Auctour

Summary

Womanly Noblesse

Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale

Troilus and Criseyde

House of Fame

Experience, though noon auctoritee

Were in this world, is right ynough for me

To speke of wo that is in mariage.

(3.1–3)

SO BEGINS THE Wife of Bath's Prologue, with three of the most famous lines in all of Geoffrey Chaucer's oeuvre and what is certainly his most memorable use of the word “auctorite.” Alisoun of Bath begins by making an epistemological distinction, that knowledge—in this case specifically the knowledge of the “wo” found in marriage—can come either from experience or authority. Given how fundamental this claim is to the Wife of Bath's opening monologue, it is surprising to note that this is the only time she uses the word “auctorite.” But the word requires further definition as Alisoun abandons it in favour of more specific targets. At first, she seems to mean the “scriptural authority” of the Christian Bible, but she quickly reveals herself willing to use that authority to make her own points. Instead, Alisoun narrows in on “clerical authority,” excoriating clerks, those members of the clergy and other associated men who spend their time reading and writing about the Church and who cannot help themselves in disparaging women: “it is an impossible /That any clerk will speke good of wyves /But if it be of hooly seintes lyves” (3.688–90). By the time one reaches this “impossible,” it has become abundantly clear that the opening semantic ambiguity has become pragmatically determinate. The Wife begins by saying either “Experience, even if there were no authority in this world …” or “Experience, even if I had no authority in this world …”: that is, either no clerk would agree with her or she has no personal authority. In the end, clerks do agree with her about marriage being full of “wo,” but it doesn't matter because she is a woman and therefore without any authority in the mind of clerks. The epistemological reveals itself to be political as well: it becomes a question of what can justify speech. Indeed, much of the Wife of Bath's Prologue can be understood as the Wife clearing up the semantic ambiguity of these opening lines, and of the word “auctorite” more specifically.