Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T20:35:06.105Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Chaucer's Man of Law and the Tale of Constance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 2020

Walter Scheps
Walter Scheps*
Affiliation:
Ohio State University, Columbus
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The suitability of Chaucer's Man of Law's Tale to its teller can be demonstrated by analyzing: (1) those elements in the Man of Law's character that are dramatically prominent in the tale of Constance, (2) the references to legal proceedings and the use of legalistic rhetoric, especially exclamatio and interrogatio, in the tale, and (3) the affinities between the Man of Law's Tale and the other tales in the rhyme-royal group. As an example, the manner of the Man of Law's defense is heavily dependent upon the advice and examples given to lawyers in the Rhetorica ad Herennium, a dependence not found in those tales, like that of the Clerk, that at first might seem similar to the tale of Constance. Since all of the legal rhetoric and most of the references to the law are Chaucer's additions to Trivet, it is likely that Trivet's account was deliberately modified to suit the Man of Law.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 89 , Issue 2 , March 1974 , pp. 285 - 295
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1974

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Note 1 in page 294 These and all other citations of the text are to The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, ed. F. N. Robinson, 2nd rev. ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: Houghton, 1957).

Note 2 in page 294 Browne, “Notes on Chaucer's Astrology,” Modern Language Notes, 23 (1908), 53; Knowlton, “Chaucer's Man of Law,” Journal of English and German Philology, 23 (1924), 85; Duffey, “The Intention and Art of The Man of Law's Tale,” Journal of English Literary History, 14 (1947), 187; Beichner, “Chaucer's Man of Law and Dis-paritas Cultus,” Speculum, 23 (1948), 70–75; Hamilton, “The Dramatic Suitability of ‘The Man of Law's Tale,‘ ” Studies . . . in Honour of Margaret Schlauch, ed. Mieczys-law Brahmer, Stanislaw Helsztynski, and Julian Kryz'anow-ski (Warsaw: Pan'stwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1966), pp. 154–55; Lumiansky, Of Sondry Folk: The Dramatic Principle in the “Canterbury Tales” (Austin: Univ. of Texas Press, 1955), pp. 61–71 ; Wood, Traditio, 23 (1967), 149–90. In a recent essay, Morton Bloomfield says of the tale's narrator: “In the MLT, in the form of a man of law, he interrupts with apostrophes, similes and comparisons, apologies, and defenses, rhetorical quotations and forward-pointing paragraphs” (“The Man of Law's Tale: ATragedy of Victimization,” PMLA, 87, 1972, 385).

Note 3 in page 294 “The Man of Law's Head-Link and the Prologue of the Canterbury Tales,” Studies in Philology, 34 (1937), 8–35. The Man of Law's statement, “I speke in prose, and lat him [i.e., Chaucer] rymes make,” admits of several possible explanations, none of them very satisfactory. We could assume, with Brown and others, that the Introduction was intended to precede a tale in prose. Or we could accept Wood's explanation of the reference as “an elaborate joke” in which “the Man of Law contrasts his ‘prosy’ tale to the more ‘poetic’ tales told by one Geoffrey Chaucer” (p. 153). Another possibility—and I put this forward very tentatively since there is no MS evidence to support it—is that “prose” is an error for “proce[s],” in which case the Man of Law might simply be referring to his tale as narrative, or he could be contrasting his legalistic rhetoric—he had previously exchanged legal terms with the Host (11. 33–45)—to the “delicate” rhyming of Chaucer.

Note 4 in page 294 Yunck, “Religious Elements in Chaucer's Man of Law's Tale,” Journal of English Literary History, 27 (1970), 250; Coghill, The Poet Chaucer (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1967), p. 102; Huppé, A Reading of the “Canterbury Tales,” rev. ed. (Albany: State Univ. of New York Press, 1967), p. 96; Norman, “The Man of Law's Tale,” Studies in Language, Literature, and Culture . . ., ed. E. B. Atwood and A. A. Hill (Austin: Univ. of Texas Press, 1969), p. 322.

There is a third group of critics who should be mentioned, if only in passing. Though rather heterodox—primarily because their main concern is some critical problem other than the relationship between tale and teller—their view is generally that the rhetorical practice of the tale suits the Man of Law but the story of Constance itself does not. See, e.g., Raymond Preston, Chaucer (London and New York: Sheed and Ward, 1952), p. 204; Mary Giffin, Studies on Chaucer and His Audience (Hull, Quebec: Les Editions “Eclair,” 1956), p. 67; John Lawlor, Chaucer (New York: Harper, 1968), p. 110. However, Trevor Whittock, A Reading of the “Canterbury Tales” (Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1968), says, “The tale of Constance is not inappropriately fitted to the character of the Man of Law,” p. 115.

Note 5 in page 294 John M. Manly, Some New Light on Chaucer (New York: Holt, 1926), pp. 151–57.

Note 6 in page 294 “Chaucer's Man of Law as a Literary Critic,” Modern Language Notes, 68 (1953), 2–3.

Note 7 in page 294 Edward H. Warren, “Serjeants-at-Law: The Order of the Coif,” Virginia Law Review, 28 (1942), 912 (cf. General Prologue, 1. 319).

Note 8 in page 295 G. G. Coulton, Chaucer and His England (New York: Russell & Russell, 1957), p. 126. Coulton here cites the introduction to Riley's Liber Albus, which notes, inter alia, a complex system of laws that had the effect of permitting dogs belonging to noblemen to roam freely while the dogs of free citizens had to be removed from the streets (p. 127).

Note 9 in page 295 “The Man of Law vs. Chaucer: A Case in Poetics,” PMLA, 82 (1967), 217.

Note 10 in page 295 This is suggested by the fact that the Man of Law's summary names eight women who are not actually treated —and omits two who are—in the Legend of Good Women as we have it; see Robinson's note, p. 690. Another possible explanation is that the Man of Law's vaunted memory is deficient, perhaps deliberately so, since his list makes Chaucer appear to be far more prolific than he actually was.

Note 11 in page 295 Robert Enzer Lewis interprets the Man of Law's rhetorical question, “What sholde I tellen hem, syn they been tolde?” (1. 56), as meaning that he will not tell of a noble lover—an apparent inconsistency given the nature of the tale of Constance. But the Man of Law seems to distinguish between “[t]hise noble wyves and thise loveris eke” (1. 59), and I believe that what he means here quite simply is that he will not relate a story already told by Chaucer. See Lewis' essay, “Chaucer's Artistic Use of Pope Innocent iii's De Miseria Humane Conditionis in the Man of Law's Prologue and Tale,” PMLA, 81 (1966), 485–92, esp. 485.

Note 12 in page 295 P. 96. Huppé says, “Poverty, which Christ praised, is here anathematized; it is one of the great ills of the world, but, as Innocent subtly shows, not in itself, only as it may lead to Envy and Malice, when the poor man blames Christ and begins to hate his neighbours.”

Note 13 in page 295 Frederick Tupper argues that the impatient poverty here described is especially associated with lawyers; see his “Wilful and Impatient Poverty,” The Nation, 99 (9 July 1914), 41, and “Chaucer and the Seven Deadly Sins,” PMLA, 29 (1914), 93–128; esp. 102–03, 118.

Note 14 in page 295 It is perhaps more than coincidental that the major problem facing Innocent upon his being elected Pope concerned Constance, the widow of the German Emperor Henry vi, and her infant son.

Note 15 in page 295 Passages marked by an asterisk indicate Chaucer's additions to Trivet. I am much indebted to the meticulous and exhaustive study by Edward A. Block, “Originality, Controlling Purpose, and Craftsmanship in Chaucer's Man of Law's Tale,” PMLA, 68 (1953), 572–616. A useful extension of Block's study is the essay by Robert A. Pratt, “Chaucer and Les Cronicles of Nicholas Trivet,” Studies in Language, Literature, and Culture . . ., ed. E. B. Atwood and A. A. Hill, pp. 303–11. Pratt argues convincingly for Chaucer's having used in the Man of Law's Tale and elsewhere that section of Trivet's chronicle which discusses the career of Maurice.

Note 16 in page 295 Ed. and trans. Harry Caplan (Cambridge, Mass. : Loeb Classical Library, Harvard Univ. Press, 1954). All references are to this edition.

Note 17 in page 295 For a list of specific figures of speech, tropes, and figures of thought in treatises derived from the Rhetorica, see the tables compiled by Edmond Faral, Les Arts poétiques du xü' et du xiüc siècle (Paris: Librairie Ancienne Honoré Champion, 1924), pp. 52–54.

Note 18 in page 295 See Caplan's “Introduction” to the Rhetorica, pp. xvii, xlviii. This idea, of course, is hardly the discovery of medieval rhetoricians. Neither the Sophists nor Aristotle would have found it unfamiliar, and, indeed, forensics is one of the three fields of oratory distinguished by Aristotle.

Note 19 in page 295 Faral, p. 231. This order is followed also in Evrard d'Allemand's Laborintus (11. 451–54, p. 352). For obvious reasons, exclamatio addressed to God is not mentioned in the Rhetorica, but it is listed in the Poetria nova (11. 412–30, pp. 209–10).

Note 20 in page 295 Pp. 161–62. Interestingly, trial by ordeal “was formally abrogated by Innocent iii.” G. G. Coulton, Medieval Panorama: The English Scene from Conquest to Reformation (Cleveland and New York: World, 1966), p. 378.

Note 21 in page 295 One last bit of evidence is the Shipman's remark in the Epilogue that his tale will not contain “termes queinte of lawe” (1. 1189).

Note 22 in page 295 Studies in Chaucer: His Life and Writings (New York : Harper. 1892), ii, 485–98.

Note 23 in page 295 E.g., Bertrand Bronson. In Search of Chaucer (Toronto : Univ. of Toronto Press, 1963), p. 25; Paul G. Ruggiers, The Art of the “Canterbury Tales” (Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1967), p. 169; Raymond Preston, pp. 201–02; Charles Muscatine, Chaucer and the French Tradition (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press, 1964), p. 193. Robert O. Payne, The Key of Remembrance: A Study of Chaucer's Poetics (New Haven and London: Yale Univ. Press, 1963), would also add the Physician's Tale (pp. 162–66).

Note 24 in page 295 Griselda apostrophizes her child (iv [E]: 11. 554–60; cf. Constance ii [B1 ]: 11. 855–57); the people apostrophize public opinion (11. 995–1001); Griselda thanks God for preserving her children (11. 1086–92) and addresses them, perhaps in the form of an apostrophe (11. 1093–99).

Note 25 in page 295 Cecile prays to God (viii [G]: 11. 134–37), Urban to Christ (11. 190–99), and the ministers to Christ (11. 414–20).

Note 26 in page 295 Her apostrophes are addressed to the Jews (viii: 11. 574–78), to Hugh, the “martir, sowded to virginitee” (11. 579–85), to God (11. 607–08) and again to Hugh (11. 684–90).

Note 27 in page 295 “ ‘The Man of Law's Tale,‘ ” Sources and Analogues of Chaucer's “Canterbury Tales,” ed. W. F. Bryan and Germaine Dempster (New York: Humanities Press, 1958), p. 161.

Note 28 in page 295 Robert Payne suggests the view of most readers, I suspect, when he says parenthetically, “It always surprises me to check the line numbers and realize that the Man of Law's tale is actually not twice as long as the Clerk's, but a hundred lines shorter” (p. 166).