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The ‘Parson's Tale’ and the Quitting of the ‘Canterbury Tales’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 July 2017

Lee W. Patterson
Lee W. Patterson*
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
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Extract

For most of Chaucer's readers the Parson's Tale provides a conclusion to the Canterbury Tales that is at best drab, at worst a betrayal of all that is thought to be most Chaucerian. Even sympathetic readers find it something to argue away rather than interpret, a strategy that finds its logical fulfillment in the unsympathetic claim that Chaucer is not really responsible for the tale at all. Manly expressed this view with admirable forthrightness: ‘the Parson's Tale… was probably never composed by Chaucer, the two uncomposed fragments of penitential treatises found in our MSS under that designation being at best only loose materials, translated by Chaucer for future use, and copied by his literary executor as the Parson's Tale only because Chaucer's chest contained no other piece of prose that seemed appropriate to the Parson.’ While few contemporary critics would have the temerity to engage in these bibliographical speculations, many of Manly's assumptions are in fact still with us. On the question of originality and date, for instance, Professor Donaldson has recently described the tale as ‘apparently translated by Chaucer from the Latin of some manual directed at helping priests in the performance of their spiritual duties,’ and adds that 'scholars generally agree that the translation was made at an earlier stage in Chaucer's career. ‘ On the work's coherence — or lack of it — another recent commentator has approvingly quoted a remark first made in 1901 by Mark Liddell: ‘none of the Latin, English, or French treatises on this subject that I have seen (and I have examined a great number in the hope of finding the source of Chaucer's work) is so confused and disproportioned as Chaucer's is.’ Similarly, in commenting on ‘the disjointed nature of the links' between the part on penance and that on the sins, Morton Bloomfield speculates that this ‘indicates an early stage in the combining. Chaucer, who left the Canterbury Tales unfinished, would probably have provided the proper links, but he did not have time. ‘ While this view of the Parson's Tale as journeyman's work completed early in the poet's career is not entirely unanimous, it is close to a consensus.

Type
Articles
Information
Traditio , Volume 34 , 1978 , pp. 331 - 380
Copyright
Copyright © 1978 New York, Fordham University Press 

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References

1 Manly, John M., ‘Tales of the Homeward Journey,’ Studies in Philology 28 (1931) 616. A more radical attack on Chaucerian responsibility for most of the tale was first mounted by Simon, H. in ‘Chaucer a Wicliffite: An Essay on Chaucer's Parson and Parson's Tale,’ Essays on Chaucer Part 3 (Chaucer Society, 2nd series 16; London 1876) 227–292, and by Eilers, Wilhelm, ‘Dissertation on The Parson's Tale and the Somme de Vices et de Vertus of Frere Lorens,’ Essays on Chaucer Part 5 (Chaucer Society, 2nd series 19; London 1884) 501–610. Simon tried to show that Chaucer wrote only those parts that were consistent with Lollard moral severity and Wyclif's rejection of auricular confession, and that the rest of the tale was a Popish interpolation; Eilers argued that the whole of the discussion of the sins was 'the work of a bungler of the lowest order. Can any one seriously persist in regarding these portions of the as Chaucer's, P. T. ?… No!‘ (609). These speculations were destroyed by the careful linguistic analyses first of Koeppel, Emil, Über das Verhältnis von Chaucers Prosawerken zu seinen Dichtungen und die Echtheit der “Parson's Tale,”’ Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen 87 (1891) 33–54, and then of Heinrich Spies, ‘Chaucers religiose Grundstimmung und die Echtheit der Parson's Tale: Eine textkritische Untersuchung,’ Festschrift für Lorenz Morsbach (Studien zur englischen Philologie 50 [1913]) 626–721. Both Koeppel and Spies show that Chaucer wrote the whole tale, but both see the part on the sins as written first and then later fitted into the newly composed part on penance.Google Scholar

2 Chaucer's Poetry (2nd ed.; New York 1975) 1112. On the question of translation, most writers opt for a French original: Pfander, H. G., ‘Some Medieval Manuals of Religious Instruction in England and Observations on Chaucer's Parson's Tale,’ Journal of English and Germanic Philology 35 (1936) 257; Elliott, Ralph, Chaucer's Language (London 1974) 143–144; Norton-Smith, John, Geoffrey Chaucer (London 1974) 155. For an account of the (Latin) sources as we currently understand them, see below, nn. 29, 45. The assumption of an early date is virtually unanimous, from Skeat on; for specific discussions, see Victor Langhans, ‘Die Datierung der Prosastücke Chaucers,’ Anglia 53 (1929) 235–268 (as early as 1358), and Owen, Charles A. Jr., ‘The Development of the Canterbury Tales,’ Journal of English and Germanic Philology 57 (1958) 449–476 (early 1390s).Google Scholar

3 Dunning, T. P., ‘Chaucer's Icarus-Complex: Some Notes on his Adventures in Theology,’ English Studies Today series 3, ed. Duthie, G. I. (Edinburgh 1964) 104, quoting Liddell, ‘A New Source of the Parson's Tale,’ An English Miscellany Presented to Dr. Furnivall (Oxford 1901) 256–257.Google Scholar

4 The Seven Deadly Sins (East Lansing, Mich. 1952) 192.Google Scholar

5 Koch, John, The Chronology of Chaucer's Writings (Chaucer Society, 2nd series 27; London 1890), proposed a late date, and the hypothesis of a deathbed repentance virtually requires one: see, e.g., Mathew, Gervase, The Court of Richard II (London 1968) 72–73. As to unity, Jordan, Robert, Chaucer and the Shape of Creation (Cambridge, Mass. 1967) 227–241, argues for at least a structural coherence.Google Scholar

6 All quotations from Chaucer are from Robinson, F. N., ed., Works (2nd ed.; Boston 1957). On the tale as a manual for confessors, see Donaldson 1112 and Mathew 72; as a sermon, Chapman, Coolidge O., ‘The Parson's Tale: A Medieval Sermon,’ Modern Language Notes 43 (1928) 229–234, Norton-Smith 155, and below, n. 28; as a penitential manual for laymen, Pantin, W. A., The English Church in the Fourteenth Century (Cambridge 1955) 226–227, and Robertson, D. W. Jr., A Preface to Chaucer (Princeton 1963) 335. Robertson, also argues that the phrase ‘this litel tretys’ refers not to the Parson's Tale but to the whole of the Canterbury Tales. This idea was originally refuted by Work, James A., ‘Chaucer's Sermon and Retractation,’ Modern Language Notes 47 (1932) 257–259, and again by Clark, J. W., “‘This Litel Tretys” Again,’ Chaucer Review 6 (1971–72) 152–156.Google Scholar

7 Pfander's article provides a useful beginning here, but he fails to note the structural distinctiveness of the Parson's Tale and for the most part avoids questions of character and quality.Google Scholar

8 (1) The most thorough attempt to interpret the Parson's Tale as a norm to be applied to the rest of the tales is by Tupper, Frederick, ‘Chaucer and the Seven Deadly Sins,’ Publications of the Modern Language Association 29 (1914) 93–128, and ‘Chaucer's Sinners and Sins,’ Journal of English and Germanic Philology 15 (1916) 56–106; a slightly more subtle contemporary application may be found in Huppé, Bernard F., A Reading of the Canterbury Tales (Albany, , N.Y. 1964), and is indeed implicit in the many interpretations of individual tales which invoke the Parson's teaching on specific issues in order to pass judgment on the other pilgrims; see, e.g., Howard, Donald R., ‘The Conclusion of the Marriage Group: Chaucer and the Human Condition,’ Modern Philology 57 (1960) 213–232. For Jordan the Parson's Tale provides a structural norm or ‘paradigm.’ (2) The best known proponent of this retrospective application is Baldwin, Ralph, The Unity of the ‘Canterbury Tales’ (Anglistica 5; Copenhagen 1955). For recent applications, see John Leyerle, ‘Thematic Interlace in “The Canterbury Tales,”’ Essays and Studies 29 (1976) 107–121, and Howard, Donald, The Idea of the Canterbury Tales (Berkeley 1976): ‘One could say that the Parson's Tale imposes a retrospective structure comparable to what the General Prologue imposes sequentially…. The structure of The Canterbury Tales is like two mirrors set opposite one another with the “world” of the tales between them’ (216–217); (3) Finlayson, John, ‘The Satiric Mode and the Parson's Tale,’ Chaucer Review 6 (1971–2) 94–116; Allen, Judson B., ‘The Old Way and the Parson's Way: An Ironic Reading of the Parson's Tale,’ Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 3 (1973) 255–271; and, for a more challenging version of this argument, Kaske, Carol V., ‘Getting Around the Parson's Tale: An Alternative to Allegory and Irony,’ in Chaucer at Albany , ed. Robbins, Rossell Hope (New York 1975) 147–177; (4) Talbot Donaldson, E., ‘Medieval Poetry and Medieval Sin,’ in Speaking of Chaucer (London 1970) 164–174; Jordan, 111–115; Ruggiers, Paul G., The Art of the Canterbury Tales (Madison 1965) 249–252; Norton-Smith 155–159; and Howard, , Idea: ‘There are dozens of ways in which the Parson's Tale can be thought a suitable ending, but it is so different from everything else that… it tells us something about the whole book that has gone before, makes us turn from the world of that book and look to our selves in the world about us’ (380). It is not always easy to distinguish this position from (3), since many critics are unclear about the extent to which the Parson's Tale is subject to the dramatic context of the Tales as a whole.Google Scholar

9 Of the three kinds of spiritual sleep — ignorance, negligence, and concupiscence — Innocent designates ignorance as the worst: ‘Nam ex negligentia procedit delictum, ex con-cupiscentia procedit peccatum, ex ignorantia provenit delictum atque peccatum’; Mansi, J. D., Sacrorum Conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio (Venice 1778) XXII col. 974. Innocent's sermon is discussed by Arnould, E. J., Le manuel des péchés (Paris 1940) 6ff.Google Scholar

10 Gibbs, Marion and Lang, Jane, Bishops and Reform, 1215–1272 (London 1934) 94–179; Cheney, Christopher R., English Synodalia of the Thirteenth Century (London 1941). The relevant texts have been newly edited by Powicke, F. M. and Cheney, C. R., Councils and Synods with other Documents relating to the English Church, 2 volumes (Oxford 1964).Google Scholar

11 Efforts at instructing the clergy had been renewed even before the Lateran Council: Robert of Flamborough's, Liber poenitentialis, ed. Francis Firth, J. J. (Toronto 1971), was written prior to 1213 at the instigation of Richard Poore, at that time Dean of Salisbury; and a sub-dean of Salisbury, Thomas de Chobham, wrote a Summa confessorum , ed. Broomfield, F. (Louvain 1968), probably before 1215 and certainly before Poore issued his synodal statutes sometime before 1219. The vast majority of surviving discussions of penance are in handbooks for priests such as these or the works written in England in the early fourteenth century by, for instance, William of Pagula: Boyle, Leonard, ‘The Oculus sacerdotis and Some Other Works of William of Pagula,’ Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 5th Series 5 (1955) 81–110. A survey of this material is provided by Michaud-Quantin, Pierre, Sommes de casuistiques et manuels de confession au moyen-àge, XII e –XVI e siècles (Louvain 1962).Google Scholar

12 Grosseteste prescribes the ten commandments, seven sins, seven sacraments, confession, and baptism. He adds: ‘Habeat quoque quisque eorum saltem simplicem intellectum fidei, sicut continetur in simbolo, tam maiori quam minori, et in tractatu qui dicitur: Quicunque vult, qui cotidie ad Primam in ecclesia psallitur,’ i.e., the Apostles', Nicene, , and Athanasian, creeds; Powicke and Cheney I 268. Pecham's programme is much the same: the fourteen articles of faith, ten commandments, two ‘precepta evangelii, scilicet, gemine caritatis,’ seven works of mercy, seven sins ‘cum sua progenie,’ seven virtues, and seven sacraments; Powicke and Cheney II 900–901.Google Scholar

13 This is true of Stavensby, , Pecham, , Quinel, , and Grosseteste, . See the comment by Powicke and Cheney on Pecham's Constitutions: ‘A lengthy chapter (c. 9) preceding the sentences of excommunication is of a didactic sort more common in diocesan statutes. It provided parish priests with the rudiments of religious instruction which they needed for themselves and for the teaching of their flock. It is to be compared with other manuals of instruction issued by diocesan bishops in England and abroad in the xiii century [such as Stavensby's c. 29, Quinel's Summula, and Grosseteste's Templum Domini], but it is not to be traced to any single source. Copies of c. 9 were widely diffused apart from the other canons of the council; it was taken over by John Thoresby, archbishop of York, in 1367, received commentaries in Latin and in English in the later Middle Ages, and as late as 1554 formed the basis of Bonner's, Edmund article 34 for the diocese of Lincoln’ (II 887–888). Hodgson, Phyllis, ‘Ignorancia sacerdotum: A Fifteenth-Century Discourse on the Lambeth Constitutions,’ Review of English Studies 24 (1948) 1–11, discusses MS Bodley Eng. th. c. 57, one of the English redactions mentioned by Powicke, and Cheney, .Google Scholar

14 Statutes of Poore, Richard, c. 3; Powicke, and Cheney, I 61.Google Scholar

15 Powicke, and Cheney, II 901.Google Scholar

16 Part I, ed. Brandeis, Arthur (EETS o.s. 115; London 1900) viii. Other instances, among many, are Rich's, Edmund Le Merure de seinte église , ed. Robbins, Harry R. (Lewisburg, Pa. 1925), and Passavanti's, Jacopo Lo specchio di vera penitenzia , ed. Lenardou, Maria (Florence 1925), delivered as a set of sermons at S. Maria Novella in Florence in 1354.Google Scholar

17 Mansi col. 998; and see Arnould 11 n. 7; for Grosseteste, see Powicke, and Cheney, I 269. The didactic function of the confessional is also discussed by Bloomfield, xv; Moorman, John R. H., Church Life in England in the Thirteenth Century (Cambridge 1945); and Pantin, W. A. 192: ‘documents show that confessors were expected to cross-examine penitents on their religious knowledge as well as on their sins, and in this way the confessional was as important as the pulpit as a potential means of religious instruction.’ Google Scholar

18 For a discussion of the forma, see Bloomfield 387–388 n. 107. A concise example can be found in Horstmann, Carl, Yorkshire Writers: Richard Rolle of Hampole and His Followers (London 1896) II 340–343; versifications appear in Clark, Andrew, ed., The English Register of Godstow Nunnery (EETS o.s. 142; London 1911) 8–11, and Mackay Mackenzie, W., ed., The Poems of William Dunbar (London 1932) 163–167.Google Scholar

19 Instances of a dramatized confessio are Bowers, R. H., ‘The Middle English St. Brendan's Confession,’ Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen 175 (1939) 40–49; Gerson, Jean, La confession (Paris [1490]); La confession generale de frère Olivier Maillert (Lyons [1485]). The function of the confessio is explained in the fourteenth-century Clensyng of Mannes Sowle: ‘in this forme of confessioun whiche I write I schal schewe ʒow diuers spices of ech of hem which in general ben cleped ϸe seuene dedely synnes. Scheweth tho in which ʒe ben gilty and leueth the remenaunt’; MS Bodley 923, fols. 73v–74r. The requirement that the sinner must prepare for confession with a careful self-examination is stressed by virtually every writer on penance, e.g., Jacob's Well 173–174; Avis sur la confession, MS Harley 273 fol. 106v ; Bromyard, John, Summa praedicantium 6.17 (Antwerp 1614) I 126; Parson's Tale 1003–4.Google Scholar

20 Ed. Furnivall, F. J. (EETS o.s. 119, 123; London 1901, 1903) 2 vols.; a prose translation may be found in St. John's College, Cambridge, MS G. 30 (197) fols. 1v–87v, and is discussed by Arnould 292–334.Google Scholar

21 ‘The Cultural Tradition of Handlyng Synne,’ Speculum 22 (1947) 167.Google Scholar

22 Robertson, 183.Google Scholar

23 Lucydarye (London 1508) fol. 1v. Some writers, however, prescribed a more severe injunction, as in this passage from Ross, W. O., ed., Middle English Sermons (EETS o.s. 209; London 1940) 15: ‘Sir, ryght as Criste is well payed with euery man pat can is lawe, and ϸe more pϸat he can ϸer-of, ϸe bettur he is apeid, ryght so euery lewde man and laborere is exscused generally to beleue as all holychurche dothe with-owte more lernynge ϸer-of. ʒit he may not exscuse hym, but he muste do is diligence to knowe and to cunne hem, ϸe xij articles, as I haue seid hem; ϸe x Commaundementes; ϸe v wittys; and ϸe vij werkes of mercye, of ϸe wiche God at ϸe Day of Dome inspeciall shall reherse vs. And ϸer-for per may no Cristen man exscuse hym of ϸis, but ϸat he muste nedis kepe hem and fulfill hem. And ʒiff we do ϸus trewly, ϸan we shall verely at ϸe Daye of Dome vndirstonde Goddes lawe face to face.’ Google Scholar

24 A beginning towards such classifications, and a preliminary bibliography, is usefully provided by Jolliffe, P. S., A Check-List of Middle English Prose Writings of Spiritual Guidance (Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Subsidia Mediaevalia 2; Toronto 1974).Google Scholar

25 Of the texts consulted, the following are relevant to the comments that follow (bibliographical information, when not provided here or above, may be found in Jolliffe): Google Scholar

English: Michael, Dan, Ayenbite of Inwit (Jolliffe, A.1 (a)); Book of Vices and Virtues (A.1 (b); Ignorancia sacerdotum (A.2); A Myrour t***q Lewde Men and Women (A.3); Memorial credencium (A.4); MS Add. 30897 fols. 78r–137v (A.5 (b)); Disce mori (A.6); Ϸe Manuel of Zynnes (A.7); MS Douce 60 fols. 213v–228v (C. 17); MS Sloane 1584 fols. 63v–79v, 19v–21v (E.2); St. John's College, Cambridge, MS S.35 (E.12); The Clensyng of Mannes Sowle (E.14); The Weye to Paradys (E.15); Richard of Lavynham, A Lityl Tretys (F.2); The Book Royal (F.9); Manuale curatorum, MS Rawl. D.913 fols. 10r–19v; The Boke of Penance, in Cursor Mundi Part 5, ed. Morris, Richard (EETS o.s. 68; London 1878) 1470–1586; Speculum Christiani , ed. Holmstedt, Gustaf (EETS o.s. 182; London 1933); Myrc, John, Instructions for Parish Priests , ed. Peacock, Edward (EETS o.s. 31; London 1868); The Lay Folks' Catechism , ed. Simmons, Thomas F. and Nolloth, H.E. (EETS o.s. 118; London 1901); Handlyng Synne (op. cit); Speculum Gy de Warewyke , ed. Morrill, Georgiana Lea (EETS e.s. 75; London 1898); Chertsey, Andrew, Lucydarye (London 1508); Jacob's Well; The Pricke of Conscience , ed. Morris, Richard (Berlin 1863).Google Scholar

French: Avis sur la confession, MS Harley 273 fols. 103r–110v ; Rich, Edmund, Le Merure de seinte église; d'Abernun, Pierre, Lumière as lais, MS ULC Gg. 1.1. fols. 17r–111v; MS Trinity College, Cambridge, 0.1.20 fols. 325r–330v; MS Trinity College, Cambridge, 0.2.45 fols. 6r–7v; MS Trinity College, Cambridge, R.14.7 fols. 1r–120v; MS Douce 282 fols. 56r–62v; MS Bodley 82 fols. 39r–57v; MS Bodley 90 fols lr–77v; MS Bodley 654 fols. 119r–140v; MS Bodley Fr.f.l fols. 84v–105r; MS Rawl. C.46 fols. 300, 322v .Google Scholar

26 The Clensyng of Marines Sowle survives in four MSS; I have consulted MS Bodley 923. The Weye to Paradys is found only in MS Harley 1671; it appears to be an English redaction made in the fifteenth century of the fourteenth-century French prose treatise La voie de paradis: see the description of this work by Keith, George H., ‘A Medieval Prose Voie de Paradis,’ Romanic Review 58 (1967) 166–172. The Boke of Penance survives complete in one MS and partially in three others; it is printed by Morris as an addendum to Cursor Mundi. Both Clensyng and Boke date from the late fourteenth century.Google Scholar

27 This structure should be contrasted to that of a more generally didactic treatise such as Memoriale credencium, MS Harley 2398: ten commandments, seven deadly sins and remedies, penance, sacrament of the altar, tribulation and temptation, Pater noster, seven theological virtues, articles of faith, four further virtues, self-knowledge and the knowledge of God, seven sacraments, seven gifts of the Holy Ghost, seven works of mercy, and the contemplation of God in His creatures, in Scripture, and in Himself. For the development of the complicated structure of the Manuel des péchés, see Laird, Charlton, ‘Character and Growth of the Manuel des Pechiez,’ Traditio 4 (1946) 253–306.Google Scholar

28 The phrase is used by Lawrence, W. W., ‘The Tale of Melibeus,’ in Essays and Studies in Honor of Carleton Brown (New York 1940) 104, but the sentiment is ubiquitous: e.g., Speirs, John, Chaucer the Maker (London 1951) 200, or Robinson, Ian, Chaucer and the English Tradition (Cambridge 1972) 147.Google Scholar

29 Petersen, Kate O., The Sources of the Parson's Tale (Radcliffe College Monographs 12; Boston 1901); Wenzel, Siegfried, ‘The Source of Chaucer's Seven Deadly Sins,’ Traditio 30 (1974) 351–378; Wenzel, , ‘The Source for the “Remedia” of the Parson's Tale,’ Traditio 27 (1971) 433–453. There is a fourth source yet to be found, a probably French discussion of pride: see below, note 56. While of course an intermediary between these texts and the Parson's Tale may yet appear, Professor Wenzel's comments in his 1971 article bear repeating: ‘I would not be astonished if future investigations and finds made it more and more likely that Chaucer himself had put the Tale together from a variety of sources’ (453); in 1974 he said: ‘… the suggestion that Chaucer may have combined these ingredients himself still remains a distinct possibility’ (378). My own understanding of both the cohesiveness of the Tale and of its differences from similar works, as well as its unmistakeably Chaucerian stamp in detail and intention, leads me to agree with Wenzel's suggestion.Google Scholar

30 Augustine, , De civitate Dei 14.13.1 (PL 41.420–21), Contra Secundinum Manichaeum 1.15 (PL 42.590); Ladner, Gerhard B., The Idea of Reform (Cambridge, Mass. 1959).Google Scholar

31 Contra Faustum 22.27 (PL 42.418).Google Scholar

32 De civitate Dei 15.5.1 (PL 41.441).Google Scholar

33 On the progressus peccati, see Bloomfield 355 n. 12; and Kellogg, Alfred L., ‘An Augustinian Interpretation of Chaucer's Pardoner,’ Speculum 26 (1951) 465–481. In “‘Seith Moyses by the Devel”: A Problem in the “Parson's Tale,”’ Revue Beige de philologie et d'histoire 31 (1953) 61–64, reprinted in Chaucer, Langland, Arthur: Essays in Middle English Literature (New Brunswick, N.J. 1972) 339–342, Kellogg shows that lines 355–356 derive from the Summa de officio sacerdotis by Richard de Wetheringsett (or Wethersett) and refer precisely to the progressus peccati. Google Scholar

34 The definition is lacking in the case of luxuria, although the theoretical element is by no means absent or even reduced; see below, pp. 343–344.Google Scholar

35 The confused structure of the discussion of luxuria makes its argument difficult to follow, but it is present and may be outlined as follows: Google Scholar

I. Relation of luxuria to the preceding sin (gluttony): 836. II. Nature and gravity of luxuria :Google Scholar

1. of lechery: 837–839;Google Scholar

2. of adultery (discussed in terms of the first kind, ‘that is to seyn, if that oon of hem be wedded, or elles bothe’): 840–864, 873–890.Google Scholar

III. Kinds:Google Scholar

1. of lechery (1–3): 865–872, 912–914:Google Scholar

2. of adultery (2–5, number 1 having been discussed above): 890–911.Google Scholar

To sort out the argument in this way is to demonstrate its fundamental clarity, but obviously the exposition is imperfectly achieved.Google Scholar

36 An account of the traditional discussions of these themes may be found in Owst, G. R., Literature and Pulpit in Medieval England (2nd ed.; Oxford 1961).Google Scholar

37 The only exemplum in the work is the story, included in the remedium against ire, of the philosopher who loses his temper with a naughty pupil. In commenting on the relation of the remedia as a whole to their source, Siegfried Wenzel says: ‘The redactor — whether he was Chaucer himself or an intermediary — evidently went through the Latin work with care and selected what served his purpose, disregarding almost completely the wealth of authorities and of images that are so typical of popular preaching’ (‘The Source for the “Remedia” of the Parson's Tale’ 451).Google Scholar

38 As at lines 441, 620, 636, 718, 721, 792, 853, 855, 859, and 951.Google Scholar

39 As at lines 468, 568, 631, and 768.Google Scholar

40 As at lines 424, 858, 899, and 954; two of these (858, 899) occur in the source.Google Scholar

41 Owst 459.Google Scholar

42 13 lines, compared to 30 for invidia, 85 for superbia, and 121 for ira. On the tavern scene, see Owst, 425–449 and, of course, the Pardoner's Tale. Google Scholar

43 Chaucer's stylistic attention seems not to have been directed to the verbal level at all but to the larger units of his text. Schlauch, Margaret, ‘Chaucer's Prose Rhythms,’ Publications of the Modern Language Association 65 (1950) 568–589, finds only a slight incidence of the cursus effect so noticeable in both the Boethius and Melibee, and Ralph Elliott's survey of the verbal style of the Parson's Tale leads him to conclude that Chaucer is aiming for clarity above all: ‘In keeping with the serious aim of The Parson's Tale, language and style are carefully controlled. It is a very even work’ (146).Google Scholar

44 Although Chaucer has been chided for forgetting the etymology, it is in fact included in this discussion in a somewhat oblique fashion. According to the pseudo-Augustinian De vera et falsa poenitentia 19.35: ‘Poenitere enim est, poenam tenere: ut semper puniat in se ulciscendo, quod commisit peccando. Poena enim proprie dicitur laesio, quae punit et vindicat quod quisque commisit. Ille poenam tenet, qui semper vindicat quod commisisse dolet. Poenitentia itaque est vindicta semper puniens in se quod dolet commisisse’ (PL 40.1128–29). Chaucer includes this definition in the phrase: ‘Penitence… is verray repentance of a man that halt hymself in sorwe and oother peyne for his giltes’ (86b). I am indebted to Siegfried Wenzel for this information.Google Scholar

45 Scholastic penitential theology taught that justification is fully accomplished only in the sacrament, and that while the penitent's disposition must be a sincere renunciation of sin it is only through the sacrament (ex opere operato) that grace is normally received. In fact, even if the sinner's disposition is incomplete (attritio) the sacrament itself can accomplish its transformation into justifying contrition (ex attrito fit contritus). With this doctrine scholasticism reaffirmed the importance of confession and satisfaction, and it firmly located the power of binding and loosing with the Church in its administration of the sacraments (vis clavium). Fourteenth-century nominalism, however, called this sacramentalism into question and urged a return to the contritionism of the prescholastics. Ockham quotes Lombard's distinction between an inner and outer penance and agrees with the Magister sententiarum that it is the inner quality alone which justifies. While confession is defended by insisting that the propositum confitendi is a part of contrition, the act itself is an effect of contrition and remission rather than a cause or means to it. It is contrition alone, proceeding at least in part ex puris naturalibus, by which sins are justified; Super IV libros Sententiarum 4.8–9.m–u, in Opera plurima (Lyons 1496) IV. Bradwardine, Even, with his fierce opposition to nominalistic voluntarism, agrees that remission flows only from true contrition and that the sacrament is not causa efficiens of grace but a 'signum sacrae rei per ipsum semper collatae, augmenti scilicet gratiae praecedentis'; see Oberman, Heiko A., Archbishop Thomas Bradwardine (Utrecht 1957) 163ff. and Leff, Gordon, Bradwardine and the Pelagians (Cambridge 1957) 203–206. As well as being discussed in these philosophical circles, contritionism was the natural teaching of the vernacular treatises. For one thing, their ethical and hortatory purpose assumed that salvation can be won through spiritual striving, and naturally part of their focus is on the quality of contrition. One need only note, for instance, the elaborate analysis of contrition in the Parson's Tale or Jacob's Well, both far more elaborate than the corresponding discussions in the summae confessorum, to see how the growth of a lay audience encouraged a contritionist attitude. Furthermore, there is the historical fact that most of the treatises were based ultimately on Pennafort's Summa with its strong contritionist bias; see Amadeus Teetaert, P., ‘La Doctrine penitentielle de Saint Raymond de Penyafort, O.P.,’ Analecta Sacra Tarraconensia 4 (1928) 156–158. Hort, Greta, Piers Plowman and Contemporary Religious Thought (London [1938]) 130–155, has convincingly demonstrated Langland's contritionist bias.Google Scholar

46 My outline here is in fact a clarifying reorganization, as the line numbering indicates. Moreover, there is a terminological muddle here between the circumstances that determine the gravity of a sin (the estate of a sinner, his age, intention, the nature of the act and its context, and so forth) and the conditions of a good confession. These two aspects are conflated in Chaucer's ‘condiciouns of a synne’ but are sorted out when the circumstances of a sin and the conditions of a confession are discussed (960–979).Google Scholar

47 Norton-Smith, 154.Google Scholar

48 Manly, John M. and Rickert, Edith, The Text of the Canterbury Tales (Chicago 1940) II 454.Google Scholar

49 Bloomfield, 192.Google Scholar

50 The most glaring instance of inaccuracy is the rubric that appears between lines 957 and 958: ‘Sequitur secunda pars Penetencie.’ In fact the discussion of the sins has already ended at line 955 so that the rubric interrupts a continuous discussion; and at any rate the ‘secunda pars Penetencie’ includes the sins rather than succeeding them.Google Scholar

51 See Dempster, Germaine, ‘The Parson's Tale,’ in Bryan, W. F. and Dempster, Germaine, eds., Sources and Analogues of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (Chicago 1941) 725.Google Scholar

52 Jordan, Robert rightly points out that ‘though the presentation of the deadly sins seems to bulge out of all proportion to its setting in the Parson's Tale, its relevance to confession justifies its presence. Once such an exterior connection is secured, considerations of size become immaterial, since the connected part retains its autonomy and is free to fulfill the requirements of its own nature’ (238–239).Google Scholar

53 The Weye to Paradys, on the other hand, places the account of the sins in approximately the same relation to the rest of the material on confession as does the Parson's Tale. Google Scholar

54 Three of the MSS in fact read suggestion: see Robinson 768.Google Scholar

55 Similar errors may be found at lines 365, 792, 867b, and 858. The paragraphing and punctuation in Robinson's edition also cause occasional difficulties.Google Scholar

56 The inclusion of jangling as a species of pride is common in French treatises on the sins, as in MS Bodley 82, MS Bodley 90, and MS Rawl. C.46. Wenzel points out that Chaucer used a different source for the discussion of pride than for the rest of the sins, and it seems likely that this source was indeed French. In not including a theoretical introduction and in relying upon a merely enumerative organization, the account of pride is more like the rather random French compileisons than it is to the rest of the Parson's Tale. Google Scholar

57 Similarly, line 959 awkwardly introduces two of the organizing structures common to confessional treatises — peccare in corde, in ore, et in opere, and the five wits — and then abandons them without comment. This follows upon a similar reference to the ten commandments, and we recognize here Chaucer turning away from the larger catechetical concerns that occupy other treatises.Google Scholar

58 This may be simply a textual error, with vi having been substituted for the similar iii. In the following passage, the enumeration of 4 kinds of manslaughter appears to be correct: 1) 571b; 2) 572–573; 3) 574–575; 4) 576–579. But for another view, see Johnson, Dudley R., “‘Homicide” in the Parson's Tale,’ Publications of the Modern Language Association 57 (1942) 51–56.Google Scholar

59 Medieval biblical commentaries also interpret the tree as a symbol of vainglory, and I have been able to find no precedent for Chaucer's comparison.Google Scholar

60 Dunning argues that in his discussion of marriage (917–943) Chaucer first presents a progressive position from which he then nervously withdraws by inserting a conservative statement that marital intercourse is venial sin. Unfortunately for Dunning's argument, the statement in question (920) appears in the source.Google Scholar

61 Unlike both The Boke of Penance and The Clensyng of Mannes Sowle, the Parson's Tale includes no discussion of the Wyclifite attack on the sacramental value of confession nor an account of attrition and contrition. The Boke of Penance also includes a justification of confession, deriving originally from Pennafort, that Chaucer omits. Theologically, the Parson's Tale can charitably be described as bland.Google Scholar

62 Summa de poenitentia et matrimonio (Rome 1603) 443.Google Scholar

63 Pennafort, 498–502.Google Scholar

64 E.g., The Clensyng of Mannes Sowle, Ignorancia sacerdotum, and MS Trinity College, Cambridge, R.14.7. The relevant folios from Clensyng are printed by Liddell, ; for the Ignorancia see Hodgson, .Google Scholar

65 For a discussion of the techniques of dilatatio, see Charland, T. M., Aries praedicandi (Publications de l'lnstitut d'Étude Médiévales d'Ottawa 7; Paris–Ottawa 1936) 194–211; Waleys' treatise is printed on 328–403; see especially 390.Google Scholar

66 For comparable but less well-organized discussions of the pains of hell, see Damian, Peter, Institutio monialis 12 (PL 145.745–746) and The Pricke of Conscience 174–203. See also the passage from MS Trinity R.14.7 printed by Bryan and Dempster 745–758.Google Scholar

67 PL 75.916.Google Scholar

68 The distinction between an exegesis that aims at general knowledge and one that aims at a passionate personal response is the same as that between scholastic lectio and monastic collalio. The discussion by Chenu, M.-D. on the scholastic development of a scientific her-meneutic is instructive in this regard; see Nature, Man and Society in the Twelfth Century , edd. and trans. Taylor, Jerome and Little, Lester K. (Chicago 1968) 301–302: scholastic lectio ‘was before anything else an exegesis, i.e., an interpretation attempting to explore the objective substance of a text, whatever the subjective needs or the results obtained. For thus the organized scholarly transmission of revelation demanded it; this is why it had to develop sooner or later into a science, moving further and further away from the personal and affective character of religious witness. The word of God was treated as an “object,” given, to be certain, within the context of the faith, but apart from one's own fervor and experience…. Scholastic objectivity robbed the traditional meditatio of its ends and its dynamism…. The pressure of faith, the light of grace were certainly everywhere present, but scientifically new — for the benefit of scientific lucidity. The summae were the masterpieces of this lucidity.’ In Form and Style in Early English Literature (London 1971) 50–53, for instance, Pamela Gradon stresses the dispassionate and intellective quality of the comparison in the Ancrene Riwle between the crucifixion and a shield.Google Scholar

69 Norton-Smith, 80 n. 2, argues that the word ‘retracciouns’ refers not to the farewell paragraph itself but to an apocryphal work invented here by Chaucer himself: ‘It should be capitalized and italicized. Chaucer invents his own late work, “my Revisions,” citing items as an index.’ Sayce, Olive, ‘Chaucer's “Retractions”: The Conclusions of the Canterbury Tales and its Place in Literary Tradition,’ Medium Ævum 40 (1971) 230–248, shows that Chaucer's use of the word is in all likelihood a direct reference to Augustine's Retractationes, which is itself not the withdrawal or rejection of earlier work but its correction. Hence it is quite true that the term ‘retracciouns’ hardly fits the licentia auctoris itself.Google Scholar

70 Koeppel, 39–46 lists 33 echoes which he takes as evidence of both the Parson's Tale's authenticity and its early date. To his list I have added ParsT 464, 154, 73, and WBT 1158; and ParsT 884 and MerchT 1438–40. ParsT 248 refers to ‘thilke newe Frenshe song, “Jay tout perdu mon temps et mon labour,”’ a line which is also quoted in Fortune. Fortune is usually dated after 1390 and sometimes as late as 1393–94, but there is no way to tell which passage was composed first.Google Scholar

71 The other five instances are ParsT 389, MerckT 1640–41; ParsT 857–858, RvProl 3879–81, WBProl 291; ParsT 630, WBProl 244; ParsT 603, PardProl 350–351; ParsT 368, Mel 1079. Koeppel also lists (46–47) even less substantial parallels in phrasing and syntax.Google Scholar

72 See above, n. 42.Google Scholar

73 For the reference in the Somme, see Eilers, 38; Jacob's Well 161; and see Whiting, B. J., Proverbs, Sentences, and Proverbial Phrases from English Writings Mainly Before 1500 (Cambridge, Mass. 1968) M154.Google Scholar

74 Jacob's Well 153; Book of Vices and Virtues 62; and see Robinson's note, 730.Google Scholar

75 This is a list of all 21 passages: (1) ParsT 93, PhysT 286: Robinson 728; Whiting S335. (2) ParsT 155–157, WBProl 784–785: Proverbs 11.22; Robinson 702; Whiting W486; Pratt 623–624. (3) ParsT 407, GP 377, 449–452: Robinson 663; Mann, Jill, Chaucer and Medieval Estates Satire (Cambridge 1973) 122–123. (4) ParsT 484, PhysT 114–116: Middle English Sermons 50; as Siegfried Wenzel points out, Traditio 30 (1974) 355 n. 16, this definition of envy is ‘the standard definition in later Scholastic discussions.’ The suggestion by Fox, Robert that this definition comes to Chaucer from Aristotle's Rhetoric is most unlikely, ‘Chaucer and Aristotle,’ Notes and Queries 203 (1958) 523–524; and Charles Owen's use of this passage, and also of number 12 below, to settle the question of chronology overlooks also the conventionality of the phrase: ‘The Relationship between the Physician's Tale and the Parson's Tale,’ Modern Language Notes 71 (1956) 84–87. (5) ParsT 564, SumT 2009: Jacob's Well 93; Ayenbite of Inwit 30; Gower, , Confessio Amantis 3.1093ff. (6) ParsT 589, 592, PardT 633–637: Middle English Sermons 99–101, 109. (7) ParsT 591, PardT 472–475: see above, n. 74. (8) ParsT 593, PardT 648–650: Middle English Sermons 100. (9) ParsT 617, SumT 2075: Eilers, 530; Robinson 708. (10) ParsT 631–634, WBProl 278–280, Mel 1086: Robinson 742. (11) ParsT 710, 714, SNProl 1–3: Robinson 756. (12) ParsT 721, PhysT 101–102: Robinson 728. (13) ParsT 793, PardT 591–594: Jacob's Well 134–135. (14) ParsT 819, PardT 504: Phil. 3.18–19. (15) ParsT 819–820, PardT 529–533: Middle English Sermons 107; Speculum Christiani 68; Jacob's Well 141. (16) ParsT 822, PardT 558–559: Robinson 695, 730. (17) ParsT 836, PardT 481–484, PhysT 59, WBProl 464: Proverbs 20.1; Middle English Sermons 56, 107; Robinson 700, 727, 730. (18) ParsT 859, MerchT 1839–1840: see above, n. 73. (19) ParsT 884, MerchT 1438–40: Robinson 714. (20) ParsT 929, MerchT 1384: Robinson 714. (21) ParsT 100, Mel 1054: Whiting H166. These passages are all typically Chaucerian in both phrasing and diction, but the appearance of their substance in other texts makes it impossible to use them as evidence for the priority of the Parson's Tale. Google Scholar

76 Pratt, Robert A., ‘Chaucer and the Hand that Fed Him,’ Speculum 41 (1966) 619–642; Wenzel, Siegfried, ‘Chaucer and the Language of Contemporary Preaching,’ Studies in Philology 73 (1976) 138–161.Google Scholar

77 These instances are, respectively, numbers 18, 2, 9, 1, and 12 in the list above. The Pardoner's discussion of how blasphemers tear God's body (7) does not appear in the corresponding place in Primo/Quoniam but, Professor Wenzel informs me, does appear under Avarice. Of course the point is that the ubiquity of these images and proverbs in medieval homiletics makes any ascription of a specific source hazardous in the absence of other evidence.Google Scholar

78 Pratt, , op. cit., has shown that Chaucer's use of the Communiloquium, or an analogous preacher's handbook, is most extensive in his delineation of the Wife of Bath, the Pardoner, and the Summoner's preaching friar.Google Scholar

79 These four are: ParsT 464, 154, 73, WBT 1158; ParsT 600, PardT 631–632; ParsT 1008, SumT 2098; and ParsT 938–939, MerchT 1441–51.Google Scholar

80 As with the discussion of the tearing of God's body with oaths, the distinction between blasphemy and perjury appears in Primo/Quoniam under Avarice; see above, note 77. Pratt 631–635 traces the Pardoner's accounts of gluttony and hazardry to the Communiloquium. Google Scholar

81 Vogt, George M., ‘Gleanings for the History of a Sentiment: Generositas Virtus, Non Sanguis,’ Journal of English and Germanic Philology 24 (1925) 107; see also Romaunt 2181–82.Google Scholar

82 Pennafort and Chaucer both refer to 2 Peter 2.19, but as Petersen points out, the passage comes in fact from John 8.34; see also Romans 6.16–23 where Paul contrasts slaves of sin and slaves of righteousness.Google Scholar

83 Summae virtutum ac vitiorum 2.6.28–29 (Antwerp 1587) 137–138.Google Scholar

84 Pratt 624–627 adds further sources from Communiloquium to those already known to he behind the Wife's discussion.Google Scholar

85 Discussions of these passages may be found in Kelly, Henry A., Love and Marriage in the Age of Chaucer (Ithaca 1975); Mogan, Joseph, ‘Chaucer and the Bona Matrimonii,’ Chaucer Review 4 (1969–70) 123–141; and the articles by Kaske, and Donaldson, cited in note 8 above.Google Scholar

86 Wenzel, , Traditio 27 (1071) 449–450.Google Scholar

87 I have repunctuated Robinson's text slightly.Google Scholar

88 This phrase also appears in the Parson's Tale (801) and not in the source.Google Scholar

89 Justinus' advice to January about the morality of conjugal love is also part of this pattern: Google Scholar

I hope to God, herafter shul ye knowe Google Scholar

That ther nys no so greet felicitee Google Scholar

In mariage, ne nevere mo shal bee,Google Scholar

That yow shal lette of youre savacion,Google Scholar

So that ye use, as skile is and reson,Google Scholar

The lustes of youre wyf attemprely,Google Scholar

And that ye plese hire nat to amorously,Google Scholar

And that ye kepe yow eek from oother synne. (1674–81) Google Scholar

90 In the General Prologue the Friar identifies himself as a penitenciary: ‘For he hadde power of confessioun, / As seyde hymself, moore than a curat’ (218–219); see Williams, Arnold, ‘Chaucer and the Friars,’ Speculum 28 (1953) 499–513.Google Scholar

91 In The Clensyng of Marines Sowle, for instance, there is a fairly full account both of to whom one should confess and of the reserved sins, but no mention of the problem of repeated confession.Google Scholar

92 A good indication of the issues dealt with in discussions of the repetition of confession is provided by the Manipulus curalorum by de Monte Rocherii, Guido, a popular handbook for priests written in 1330. Guido outlines four cases in which a penitent should reconfess a sin: 1) if he is sent to a superior to confess a sin that his curate cannot absolve (but there is no mention of whether he should confess all his sins or only the reserved one); 2) if he has been wrongly absolved of a sin by a priest who does not have that authority; 3) if he has failed to do satisfaction for a sin; 4) if a sin has been maliciously held back: then all the others, plus the sin of lying at the first confession, must be reconfessed. At the end of his discussion Guido says: ‘Et quod in istis quattuor casibus sit confessio iteranda de necessitate concordant omnes doctores. Sunt tamen alii casus in quibus doctores variantur. Primus est propter peccati obliti recordationem. Secundus est propter recidiuationem’ (Strasburg 1489) 2.3.7. In the ensuing discussion of these cases there is no mention of Chaucer's instance, the reconfession of unreserved sins when a reserved sin is confessed to a penitenciary. A similar treatment is provided by another popular handbook, the Summa de casibus written by Bartholomeus of Pisa (Bartolommeo da San Concordia) in 1338: ‘Utrum aliquo casu teneatur quis confessionem iterare…. Iterare tenemur in quattuor casibus. Primus est si sacerdos non potuit absoluere. Secundus est si nesciuit descernere. Tertius si confessio non fuit Integra ut quia scienter tacuit aliquod mortale. Quartus si cóntempsit uel neglexit satisfacere et oblitus est satisfactionem iniunctam’ (Speyer 1477) fol. 40r . Guido, Like, Bartholomeus then discusses more complex issues, such as ‘utrum recidiuans teneatur confiteri priora peccata.’ Google Scholar

As for vernacular treatments, the Boke of Penance is typically brief in discussing only two cases and in its reliance on Pennafort. If, having repented, you then fall into a new sin, must your subsequent confession repeat all previous sins? No, as Raymund says, late repentance revives the earlier, so only the unconfessed sin must be shown to the priest, unless this is a new priest who does not know ‘quatkin man’ you have been before (26432–498). This is the second of Guido's two additional cases. But if the penitent confesses some sins and not others, and then later becomes truly contrite, must he confess all his sins again? Yes, ‘Raymund here answares til vs’: ‘For ϸof man scriue him of a sin / And in a-noϸer ligges in, / Man mai well wit alkin right, / ϸat neuer was forgiuen his plight' (26904–917). This latter case, in other words, is a question of false or fraudulent confession (Guido's fourth case, Bartholomeus’ third).Google Scholar

93 The Parson is supported here by, for instance, Burgo, John in his Pupilla oculi (1384), a revision of William of Pagula's Oculus sacerdotis: ‘Item sacerdos facta sibi confessione a subdito suo de peccato de quo non potest eum absoluere: debet eum absoluere a peccatis illis de quibus habet potestatem. Et quoad aliud ipsum mittere ad superiorem cui penitens idem peccatum de quo non est absolutus a proprio sacerdote confiteri debet et absolui ab eodem. Nec oportet confessionem proprio sacerdoti prius factam: si forte integra fuerit iterare. Nam absolutio proprii sacerdotis que precedere debet cum absolutione superioris sequente vnam sufficientem complent absolutionem’ (London 1510), 5.3.G. fol. 28v. For a similar discussion, see the Summa de casibus conscientiae written by Astesanus of Asti in 1317 (Venice 1478), 5.18, fol. gg.2v .Google Scholar

94 Norton-Smith comes to essentially the same conclusion: ‘The effect of reading (with attention) the Parson's treatise is to enter into a closely interconnected, logical and analytic account of man's nature which has no connections with the characterization and debate which have been carried on in the “Canterbury wey” before this moment. The verbal construction, ethical method and religious “reasoning” combine to give the impression of triumphant autonomousness. Its laws of development and analytical procedure leave the rest of the tales behind’ (p. 157). See also the comments by Jordan, Robert, in responding to Ralph Baldwin: ‘The universality of the Parson's Tale, its transcendence of the particular and the “dramatic,” is the insight which should emerge from Baldwin's analysis’ (p. 115).Google Scholar

95 On fabula as designating specifically a beast fable, see Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum doctrinale 3.113 in Bibliotheca Mundi (Douai 1624) II col. 289; and Bromyard, , Summa praedicantium 6.14. Wyclif's strictures are quoted by Simon 239.Google Scholar

96 See Norton-Smith, 146.Google Scholar

97 These two kinds of medieval narrative form are discussed by Singleton, Charles, ‘Meaning in the Decameron,’ Italica 21 (1944) 117–124; Baldwin, Ralph discusses Singleton's distinction in relation to the Canterbury Tales and attempts to see the pilgrimage frame as providing a sovrasenso equivalent to that of the Divine Comedy. Google Scholar

98 The phrase is used by Reiss, Edmund, ‘The Pilgrimage Narrative and the Canterbury Tales,’ Studies in Philology 67 (1970) 295–305.Google Scholar

99 Ruggiers, Paul, ‘The Form of The Canterbury Tales: Respice Fines,’ College English 17 (1956) 439–444, does discuss the relevance of the Knight's Tale and the Man of Law's Tale as providing, respectively, a philosophical and religious guide for the pilgrimage, with the Parson's Tale then as a final admonition to those who have not followed this advice and have gone astray; see also his comments in The Art of the Canterbury Tales 5–11, 247–257. There are many discussions of the appropriateness of beginning with the classical values of the Knight's Tale, e.g., Westlund, Joseph, ‘The Knight's Tale as an Impetus for Pilgrimage,’ Philological Quarterly 43 (1964) 526–537.Google Scholar

100 Chaucer's Poetry 1113.Google Scholar

101 Reiss, 297.Google Scholar

102 In responding to Reiss's article, Wenzel, Siegfried, ‘The Pilgrimage of Life as a Late Medieval Genre,’ Mediaeval Studies 35 (1973) 370–388, discusses these, and other, pilgrimage allegories and shows to just how substantial a degree Chaucer's poem differs from them.Google Scholar

103 An account of the bipartite or ‘diptych’ form, with examples, is provided by Ryding, William W., Structure in Medieval Narrative (The Hague 1971) 116–137. Howard, Donald, Idea 224–225, 322–324, discusses binary structure, with interesting comments on its source in the relationship of the Old to the New Testament. It is worth remembering that the single most important source for the Canterbury Tales, the Roman de la Rose, is itself binary, the second part functioning as a revision and hence a gloss on the first: Jean de Meun promises 'si la chose espondre / que riens ne s'i porra repondre' (10573–574); ed. Lecoy, Felix (CFMA 95; Paris 1966) II 72.Google Scholar

104 My list. assumes the Ellesmere order, convincingly defended by Talbot Donaldson, E., ‘The Ordering of the Canterbury Tales,’ in Medieval Literature and Folklore Studies: Essays in Honor of Francis Lee Utley, edd. Mandel, Jerome and Rosenberg, Bruce A. (New Brunswick 1970) 193–204; but it can easily be accommodated to the Bradshaw shift. Indeed, nothing could more tellingly demonstrate the absence of a coherent, sequential order in the tales than the fact that readers are still arguing about the proper placement of over 3000 lines. What other masterpiece could survive such uncertainty? The point is that the different placements require only local adjustments, i.e., they make no difference to the total meaning of the poem because the ‘poem’ has no total meaning. Hence Donaldson is right to argue that the question of order is properly an editorial one, and to opt for Ellesmere because it has greater manuscript authority. The thematic connections between the Man of Law and the Wife of Bath have often been discussed: see, e.g., Cox, Lee Sheriden, ‘A Question of Order in the Canterbury Tales,’ Chaucer Review 1 (1966–67) 228–252. More important is the formal pairing: these two tales are the first of four pairs that are generically linked by the pattern of hagiography and confession, the other three being Clerk/Merchant, Physician/Pardoner and Second Nun/Canon's Yeoman. For discussions of this pattern in the last pair of the sequence, see Grennen, Joseph E., ‘Saint Cecilia's “Chemical Wedding”: The Unity of the Canterbury Tales, Fragment VIII,’ Journal of English and Germanic Philology 65 (1966) 466–481, and Rosenberg, Bruce A., ‘The Contrary Tales of the Second Nun and the Canon's Yeoman,’ Chaucer Review 2 (1967–68) 278–291. Of the other pairs listed, the only problematical one is the Shipman/Prioress, a difficulty that arises, I suppose, because of the incompleteness of the revisions. For the Squire/Franklin, see below, n. 105.Google Scholar

105 For this linking of Squire and Franklin, see Berger, Harry Jr., ‘The F-Fragment of the Canterbury Tales,’ Chaucer Review 1 (1966–67) 88–102, 135–156.Google Scholar

106 The reader will have noticed that the brevity of my discussion has allowed me to beg several important questions. The most recent and most ambitious attempt to demonstrate that a premeditated and fully articulated form lies ‘behind’ the Canterbury Tales is Howard's, Donald The Idea of the Canterbury Tales; I have offered a fuller critique of this project, both particularly and in general, in the University of Toronto Quarterly 48 (1978–9).Google Scholar

107 As Payne, Robert O., The Key of Remembrance: A Study of Chaucer's Poetics (New Haven 1963), has shown, Chaucer is fascinated with the relation of poetry to scientific and moral wisdom, to dreams, and to experience itself. But none of these relationships is anything less than complex and ambiguous, and in no case does the poem resolve itself into one pole of the dialectic. At the end of the General Prologue, for instance, the narrator defends the salty language he is going to use by reference to the demands of mimesis (731–736). Far from being a statement of theoretical intent, however, this passage is in fact a way of assuring a courtly audience that the bourgeois literature they are about to enjoy is authentic and gratifyingly vulgar. Chaucer is asserting not a realistic relationship of life to literature but defining the relation of one form of literature to another. Similarly local purposes are served by the other quasi-theoretical statements in the Canterbury Tales. The Physician's boast that the tale of Virginia ‘is no fable, / But knowen for historial thyng notable’ (155–156) is part of his larger effort at self-authorization; and when the Second Nun says that she is simply recording ‘the wordes and sentence / Of hym that at the seintes reverence / The storie wroot’ (81–83) she is defining a stance of spiritual humility rather than a poetics relevant to Chaucer, as the subtlety and elegance of the tale suggest.Google Scholar

108 ‘The Man of Law vs. Chaucer: A Case in Poetics,’ Publications of the Modern Language Association 82 (1967) 217–225.Google Scholar

109 Norton-Smith, , 150–151, connects the Cook to Bacchus, but sees the relationship as wholly comic. As a further link, see the passage quoted by Pamela Gradon 54, from Holcot, , In Librum Sapientiae; ‘Someone feigns the image of Drunkenness to have been thus depicted, the image of a child, having in his hand a horn and on his head a crown of [vine]. He was a boy in token that (drunkenness) makes a man speechless and senseless, in the manner of a child. He had a horn in his hand as a token that (the drunken man) conceals no secret but reveals (it) with clamour and clangour. He has a [vine] crown, because he considers himself glorious and wealthy, he who is drunk, whereas he has nothing.’ Google Scholar

110 Scattergood, V. J., ‘The Manciple's Manner of Speaking,’ Essays in Criticism 24 (1974) 124–116.Google Scholar

111 Scattergood points out the parallel between the Manciple as a servant to lawyers and Chaucer as patronized by the court, and adds: ‘Chaucer is particularly interested in the Manciple because the Manciple's way of using words bears some relation to the strategies he himself uses as a poet’ (143).Google Scholar

112 See my ‘Chaucerian Confession: Penitential Literature and the Pardoner,’ Mediaevalia et Humanistica 7 (1976) 153–173, and Ryan, Lawrence V., ‘The Canon's Yeoman's Desperate Confession,’ Chaucer Review 8(1973–4)297–310. The paratactic and digressive style in which these confessional prologues are couched provides a paradigm for the form of the Canterbury Tales as a whole, and, as the extent of the critical literature suggests, the Wife of Bath and Pardoner express literary values that are recognized as quintessentially Chaucerian.Google Scholar