The Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale

Summary

I. John Gower, Confessio Amantis, Bk. 4 725

(ed. G. C. Macaulay)

II. William Langland, Piers Plowman, Passus XI 727

(ed. George Kane)

III. John Lydgate, Secrees of Old Philosoffres 728

(ed. Robert Steele)

IV. Thomas Norton, The Ordinal of Alchemy 729

(ed. John Reidy)

V. Ramón Llull, Libre de Meravelles 731

(ed. Salvador Galmés)

VI. Don Juan Manuel, El Conde Lucanor 733

(ed. John England)

VII. Desiderius Erasmus, Colloquies 734

(trans. Craig Thompson)

VIII. Giovanni Sercambi, Novelle 736

(ed. Giovanni Sinicropi)

IX. Pseudo-Albertus Magnus, Libellus de Alchimia 738

(ed. A. and A. Borgnet)

X. Arnaldus de Villa Nova, De Lapide Philosophorum 738

XI. Arnaldus de Villa Nova, Rosarium 740

(ed. J. J. Manget)

XII. Senior Zadith, Tabula Chemica 741

(ed. H. E. Stapleton and M. Hadayat Husain)

XIII. Anonymous, L’Obratge dels Philosophes 742

(ed. Suzanne Thiolier-Méjean)

XIV Pseudo-Thomas Aquinas, Aurora Consurgens 742

(ed. Marie-Louise von Franz)

APPENDIX

XV. Decree of Pope John XXII against the crime of alchemy 743

XVI. Christine de Pizan, Lavision 744

XVII. Petrus Bonus, Pretiosa margarita novella 745

XVIII. Roger Bacon, Opus Majus 746

XIX. Jean de Meun, Le Roman de la Rose 746

The Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale is extraordinary among The Canterbury Tales in having neither any known major sources nor analogues that suggest the early existence of a primary source. This anomaly has encouraged various suppositions about the autobiographical nature of the tale, resulting in a body of mid-twentieth-century criticism focusing on Chaucer’s putative suspicion of alchemy or the equally factitious hypothesis that Chaucer was himself the dupe of an alchemical trickster; this latter is an ancient Chaucerian tradition given authority by Tyrwhitt, who had written that the poet’s “sudden resentment had determined Chaucer to interrupt the regular course of his work, in order to insert a Satire against the Alchemists.” This theory was advanced by such influential twentieth-century scholars as John Matthews Manly, who adduced a wealth of historical documentation of alchemical activity in Chaucer’s milieu to hint at his likely acquaintance with the alchemist William Shuchirch, and to conclude with this disingenuous suggestion:

Is it too wild a speculation to wonder whether Chaucer himself had been a victim? Is there no hint of bitterness in his satire?