Chapter 7 SOME VIEWS OF CHAUCER'S ON MEN AND THINGS

The late fourteenth century was a time of social and political upheaval. The Church, over-rich and over-powerful for her own good, had become terribly corrupt. The fact that great offices of state were held by bishops meant, of necessity, that more and more of their purely ecclesiastical work was delegated to subordinates. In the ten years between 1376-86, out of twenty-five bishops no fewer than thirteen held secular offices of importance. William of Wykeham was appointed Chancellor of England and Bishop of the great diocese of Winchester in the same month.

Spencer, Bishop of Norwich, led the English army in Flanders. No wonder that the power of the archdeacons, the oculi episcopi, increased tenfold. They frequently exercised authority in the bishop's court, and in those days the powers of ecclesiastical courts were considerable and their jurisdiction was wide. The sketch which prefaces the Freres Tale was probably drawn from the life:-

Whilom ther was dwellinge in my contree

An erchedeken, a man of heigh degree

······

For smale tythes and for smal offringe

He made the peple pitously to singe.

For er the bisshop caughte hem with his hook,

They weren in the erchedekenes book.

Add to this the fact that one in three of the archdeacons holding office in England at this time were foreigners, and it is easy to see how much ill-feeling was likely to be stirred up between them and the laity. Nor were the parish priests much better. The black death, which ravaged Europe from time to time, had swept across England with peculiar fury in 1348. Hundreds of the noblest and best of the clergy, who stayed gallantly by their flocks, had been swept away. There were not enough priests to administer the sacraments of the Church, and between this urgent necessity for ministers to bury the dead, to baptise and marry, and the fact that many of the richer livings had fallen into the hands of foreigners, who cared nothing for the peasants committed to their charge, or of the great Abbeys, which were ready enough to appoint some illiterate boor, just able to stumble through his office, to act as their deputy at a nominal salary, it is small wonder that crying abuses came into existence. "They have parish churches," writes Wycliff, "apropered to worldly rich bishops and abbots that have many thousand marks more than enow.... And yet they do not the office of curates, neither in teaching or preaching or giving of sacraments nor of receiving poor men in the parish: but setten an idiot for vicar or parish priest that cannot and may not do the office of a good curate, and yet the poor parish findeth him." Chaucer finds it among the striking virtues of his poor Parson that:-

He sette nat his benefice to hyre,

And leet his sheep encombred in the myre,

And ran to London, un-to seynt Poules

To seken him a chaunterie for soules,[169]

Or with a bretherhed to been withholde;

But dwelte at hoom, and kepte wel his folde....

and that he does not attempt to wring their last penny from his unfortunate parishioners:-

Ful looth were him to cursen for his tythes.[170]

Matters were further complicated by the wandering friars who recognised no jurisdiction save that of the Pope himself, and who, having fallen far from the noble ideal of poverty, chastity, and obedience, set by their founders, took unscrupulous advantage of the ignorance and superstition of the people, and, like the pardoners, often undermined the authority of the parish priests. The custom of commuting penance for a payment in money was spreading, and naturally opened the door to abuses of all kinds.

No wonder that Wycliff arose to thunder against these malpractices, and that his poor preachers gained such a following. It was not, in the majority of cases, that people had any quarrel with the doctrines of the Church-the number of recantations and paucity of martyrs among the early Lollards show that it was not doctrine that they wished to reform-but injustice and oppression were inevitably arousing a widespread, smouldering discontent which broke into flame now at this point, now at that. As we read the history of the time, we marvel at the patience and good-humour of the inhabitants of Merry England.

How far Chaucer was in sympathy with the Lollards it is difficult to say. His works contain but the barest reference to their existence, and the fact that the Host accuses the Parson of Lollardy, and that the Shipman expresses a pious horror of heresy, cannot be said to prove anything either way. It may be intended as a carefully concealed compliment to the influence of Wycliff, or, as seems more probable, it may simply be a chance reference in keeping with the spirit of the times. That the Shipman should be so terrified lest the saintly Parson should

... springen cokkel in our clene corn,[171]

that he feels impelled to break into his threatened sermon with the story of the merchant's wife and the monk, is a subtle enough piece of satire, but whether Chaucer so intended it, or whether it is one of the happy accidents of genius, we have no means of knowing. The Parson is a devout Catholic, the Monk, with all his faults, is at worst but a forerunner of the fox-hunting squarson of later days, with all the geniality and good-fellowship of his race. If Chaucer attacks the clergy, it is only for those things which the best Churchmen of the day were denouncing with less wit but no less bitterness. Saints are rare at the best of times, and Chaucer, whose mission is to paint life as he finds it, gives good measure when he allows the Parson and the Plowman to form two of his nine-and-twenty pilgrims.

Few things, indeed, are more striking in Chaucer than the manner in which he combines caustic observation of the weaknesses and hypocrisies of men, with innate reverence for all that is pure and noble. That the same man should enjoy the coarse humour of the Friar and the Reve, and yet treat womanhood and childhood with such tender reverence, is one of the mysteries of human nature. Prof. Ten Brink, as has been said, believes that Chaucer passed through a phase of intense religious feeling. "A worldling has to reproach himself with all sorts of things," he writes, "especially when he lives at a court like that of Edward III and is intimate with a John of Gaunt. Chaucer ... naturally seeks in religion the power for self-conquest and improvement. He was a faithful son of the Church, even though he had his own opinions about many things.... He was specially attracted by the eternal-womanly element in this system, which finds its purest realisation in the person of the Virgin Mother Mary. In moments when life seemed hard and weary, and when he was unable to arouse and cheer himself with philosophy and poetry, he gladly turned for help and consolation to the Virgin Mother." Certainly his poetry is never sweeter or more dignified than when he is addressing this "haven of refut," this

... salvacioun

Of hem that been in sorwe and in distresse.

Nothing better illustrates the simplicity and sincerity of Chaucer's religious feeling, than the tale of little St. Hugh. The story of the Christian child decoyed away and murdered by the Jews was commonly believed in the Middle Ages. Indeed, it is said that more than one anti-Semitic outbreak in Russia during the past forty years has been provoked by the relation of similar tales, and we have just seen the conclusion of a "Blood-ritual" case of the kind. The fierce racial and religious hatred which underlies belief in the possibility of such a thing, is in itself sufficiently terrible, and the story affords ample opportunity for the expression of animosity towards these

... cursed folk of Herodes al newe,

but Chaucer's religion would appear to consist less in the denunciation of the Church's enemies, than in affection for her saints. Dramatic justice is meted out to the murderers, but the poet takes no delight in dwelling on their dying agonies, or heaping abuse upon their memory. The point of the tale lies, not in the wickedness of the Jews, but in the simple, childish innocence and piety of Hugh, and the manner in which "Cristes moder" deigns to honour the service of this

... litel clergeon[172] of seven yeer of age.

The opening invocation is one of the most beautiful of all Chaucer's addresses to the Virgin:-

Lady! thy bountee, thy magnificence,

Thy vertu, and thy grete humilitee

Ther may no tonge expresse in no science;

For som-tyme, lady, er men praye to thee,

Thou goost biforn, of thy benignitee,

And getest us the light, thurgh thy preyers,

To gyden us un-to thy sone so dere.

From beginning to end the limpid simplicity of the poem is marred by no unnecessary word. The picture of the little boy doing his diligence to learn the Alma redemptoris, although

Noght wiste he what this Latin was to seye

For he so yong and tendre was of age,

and going to his school-fellow to have it explained, is absolutely natural. So is the school-fellow's hasty summary of the hymn, ending with

"I can no more expounde in this matere;

I lerne song, I can[173] but smal grammere."

Chaucer does not, like so many hagiographers, forget the child in the saint. The prevailing note throughout is one of happy childhood. The tragedy is kept in the background. We catch a glimpse of the cruel steel as the Jews cut the boy's throat: we see the white-faced mother hastening from place to place in search of him; but our thoughts are with St. Hugh and the gracious Queen of Heaven who comes to aid him:-

And in a tombe of marbul-stones clere

Enclosen they his litel body swete;

Ther he is now, god leve us for to mete.[174]

There is no tendency to over-elaborate the miracle or to explain it away. Chaucer accepts the fact quietly and without comment, as he accepts the miracles in the Man of Lawes Tale. In the story of Constance, indeed, it would seem as if some momentary doubt of its possibility flashed across his mind, for he goes out of his way to defend the miraculous element, but the defence itself is one of simple acceptance of facts related in the Bible, and shows none of that intellectual questioning which sometimes manifests itself in his poetry:-

Men mighte asken why she was nat slayn?

Eek at the feste who mighte hir body save?

And I answere to that demaunde agayn,

Who saved Daniel in the horrible cave,

Ther every wight save he, maister and knave

Was with the leoun fret er he asterte?[175]

No wight but god, that he bar in his herte.

······

Now, sith she was not at the feste y-slawe,[176]

Who kepte hir fro drenching[177] in the see?

Who kepte Jonas in the fisshes mawe

Til he was spouted up at Ninivee?...

······

It is obvious that Catholicism appeals to his emotions, and that the shortcomings of unworthy priests no more affect his pleasure in the tender beauty of its point of view, than the moral errors of a Benvenuto Cellini affect our pleasure in his craftsmanship. The poet's soul responded to the poetry of worship, a poetry which underlies all forms and ceremonies, which no unworthiness on the part of the officiant can wholly obliterate, no superstition render wholly absurd. He recognises and rebukes the hypocrisy of many who minister in the name of Holy Church, but he is quick to separate wanton friar and idle priest from the religion whose dignity they profane. The fact that religion lies in the spirit rather than the observance is very clearly stated in the Romaunt of the Rose, ll. 6225-94.

As has been said, it is on the emotional side that Catholicism appeals to him. Intellectually he finds many difficulties, and more than once his poetry shows a tinge of scepticism which might well have brought him into serious difficulties had his patron been a man less powerful and less inclined to tolerate heretical sympathies than John of Gaunt. Again and again Chaucer comes to the edge of an abyss, and, after one glance into the depths, turns away with a shrug of the shoulders and a half-whimsical, half-satirical smile on his lips. Does God ordain man's life for him, from beginning to end, and has he no choice or freedom of action left him? Chaucer plays with the question, turns it over, makes it a trifle ridiculous by applying it to the death of a cock, and then, as we have seen, tosses it aside with

I wol not han to do of swich matere;

The long disquisition on the subject-chiefly taken from his favourite philosopher, Bo?thius-which he puts into the mouth of Troilus (Troilus and Criseyde, Book IV, stanzas 137-154) proves nothing, except Chaucer's interest in the subject, which leads him to translate and insert so long a passage, and the natural inclination to fatalism of Troilus himself.

The Prologue to the Legend of Good Women begins with a characteristic shelving of an important question:-

A thousand tymes have I herd men telle,

That ther is joye in heven and peyne in helle;

And I accorde wel that hit is so;

But natheles, yit wot I wel also,

That ther nis noon dwelling in this contree,

That either hath in heven or helle y-be,

Ne may of hit non other weyes witen

But as he hath herd seyd, or founde it writen

True, the poet goes on to protest the absurdity of refusing credence to everything that we cannot see with our own eyes, but involuntarily we find ourselves recalling his refusal to commit himself as to the probable fate of Arcite's soul, and the fact that Arcite, although a hero, was a heathen, does not seem entirely to account for it.

This tendency to dwell upon insoluble problems manifests itself also in the strange attraction that dreams have for Chaucer. He is not content simply to use the conventional dream setting for his poems. He is continually harking back to the question: Do dreams contain some mysterious warning by which men may escape a threatened fate? In the Nonnes Prestes Tale the subject is treated satirically. Pertelote's arguments against belief in dreams are excellent, and most convincing. All sensible people must share her opinion that Chauntecleer is probably suffering from indigestion. Yet-the dream comes true. Only the fact that the whole story takes place in the hen-yard makes it impossible to take it seriously. But in Troilus and Criseyde, Chaucer deliberately interpolates three, quite unnecessary, stanzas in Book V, in which he discusses whence dreams spring:-

For prestes of the temple tellen this,

That dremes been the revelaciouns

Of goddes, and as wel they telle, y-wis,

That they ben infernals illusiouns;

And leches[178] seyn, that of complexiouns[179]

Proceden they, or fast, or glotonye,[180]

Who woot in sooth thus what they signifye?...

Again in the opening lines of the Hous of Fame he asks the same question:-

God turn us every dreem to gode!

For hit is wonder, by the rode,

To my wit, what causeth swevenes[181]

Either on morwes, or on evenes;

And why th' effect folweth of somme,

And of somme hit shal never come....

and again, characteristically, refuses to give any opinion on the matter-

For I of noon opinioun

Nil as now make mencioun.

But if Chaucer is chary of committing himself on speculative matters such as these, with regard to practical morality he has no such hesitation. It was the fashion of the day to draw a moral from the most unlikely stories, and Chaucer, while he never forces an application after the manner of Gower or the compiler of the Gesta Romanorum, is sufficiently in sympathy with the spirit of his age to conform to the practice when opportunity occurs. The Somnour, who, by the way, has just had a violent quarrel with the Friar, preaches an admirable homily against Ire, illustrating it, after the most approved method, with an apt anecdote. The Pardoner, as we have seen, inveighs against drunkenness, as does Chaucer himself in the Man of Lawes Tale. The simple statement of Averagus-

Southe is the hyeste thing that man may kepe-

is a sermon in itself, and the Maunciple ends his distinctly unmoral tale with some excellent advice of his dame's:-

My sone, keep wel thy tonge, and keep thy freend,

A wikked tonge is worse than a fend[182]

My sone, god of his endelees goodnesse

Walled a tonge with teeth and lippes eek,

For man sholde him avyse what he speke....

It would be possible to multiply instances almost indefinitely. Perhaps the most striking of all is the sudden, unexpected moral application which ends Troilus and Criseyde. We have followed the passion and sins of the lovers, we have wept with Troilus and forgiven Cressida in spite of ourselves, and all at once, while our minds are still tuned to the rapture and sweetness of a love-story, Chaucer turns to bid us note the end of life and love:-

O yonge fresshe folkes, he or she,

In which that love up groweth with your age,

Repeyreth hoom from worldly vanitee,

And of your herte up-casteth the visage

To thilke god that after his image

Yow made, and thinketh al nis but a fayre

This world, that passeth sone as floures fayre.

And loveth him, the which that right for love

Upon a cros, our soules for to beye

First starf, and roos,[183] and sit in heven a-bove;

For he nil falsen no wight, dar I seye,

That wol his herte al hoolly[184] on him leye.

And sin he best to love is, and most meke,

What nedeth feyned loves for to seke?

In politics, as in religion, Chaucer shows himself keenly alive to the evils and abuses of the day, and yet no partisan. The author of Piers Plowman has left us a picture of the bitter poverty of the peasant class. The complaint of Peace against Wrong (Passus 4), shows how he has carried off his wife and stolen both geese and grys (pigs):-

He maynteneth his men to murthere myne hewen,[185]

Forstalleth my feires,[186] and fighteth in my chepyng,[187]

And breketh up my bernes dore[188] and bereth awey my whete

········

I am noght hardy for hym unethe to loke;[189]

and how completely the poor were at the mercy of the rich. When a peasant died, his lord had a right to his best possession, and if he owned not less than three cows, the parson of the parish took the next best, a condition of things against which we find Sir David Lyndsay protesting, as late as 1560, in his Satyre of the Three Estaats. John Ball, "the mad priest of Kent," for twenty years combined the preaching of Lollardy with that of a kind of rough socialism, and the rude rhyme which contained the kernel of his teaching-

When Adam delved and Eve span,

Who was then the gentleman?-

went the round of the Midlands and helped to fan the flame of discontent which finally broke into the wide-spread conflagration of the Peasants' Revolt. It was a time when new ideals were slowly struggling to find expression, and the old order of feudalism was passing away for ever. But while the nobles were divided by factions among themselves, and the poor beat bleeding hands against the prison walls that hemmed them in, the middle class was steadily increasing in wealth and prosperity, and it is with this class that Chaucer chiefly concerns himself. The majority of the Canterbury pilgrims are prosperous, well-to-do tradesmen and artisans:-

Hir knyves were y-chaped[190] noght with bras

But al with silver, wroght ful clene and well,

Hir girdles and hir pouches every-deel.

Wel semed ech of hem a fair burgeys

To sitten in a yeldhall[191] on a deys.[192]

Everich, for the wisdom that he can,

Was shaply[193] for to been an alderman.

For catel hadde they y-nogh and rente,

And eek hir wyves wolde it wel assente;

And elles certain were they to blame.

It is ful fair to been y-clept "ma dame,"

And goon to vigilyes[194] al bifore,

And have a mantel royalliche y-bore.

This is something very different from Langland's[195] picture of Dawe the dykere dying of hunger, or the poor farmer dining on bean-bread and bran. Even the Plowman seems fairly well off:-

His tythes payed he ful faire and wel,

Bothe of his propre swink[196] and his catel,

and the general impression is one of comfort, which even rises to a certain mild luxury. The pilgrims are well fed and well clothed, they have horses to ride, and can afford to call at the ale-house as they pass. They fill the air with the sound of laughter and song as they ride, and we can well understand the Lollard Thorpe's complaint (made more than ten years after Chaucer wrote his Canterbury Tales) that, "What with the noise of their singing, and with the sound of their piping, and with the jangling of their Canterburie bells, and with the barking out of dogges after them ... they (i. e. pilgrims) make more noise than if the king came there away with all his clarions and many other minstrels" (Wycliff's Works, ed. Arnold, I. 83). Even in the tales themselves little hint is given of the darker side of the picture. We get a glimpse of the relation between lord and vassal, in the Clerkes Tale, but no comment is made on it. Griselda is carrying her water-pot back from the well, when she hears the marquis calling her:-

And she set doun her water-pot anoon

Bisyde the threshfold, in an oxes stalle,

And doun up-on hir knees she gan to falle,

And with sad contenance kneleth stille

Til she had herd what was the lordes wille.

Apparently there is nothing in this incident to attract the attention of a fourteenth-century poet. It is quite natural to kneel on the floor of the cow-shed when your lord honours you by seeking you there and giving his commands in person.

That Chaucer has no very high opinion of the intelligence or reliability of a mob is shown, not only by his sketches of crowds, but by such passages as that in the Clerkes Tale where he breaks off the story to apostrophise the people:-

O stormy peple! unsad[197] and ever untrewe

As undiscreet and chaunging as a vane,

Delyting ever in rumbel that is newe,

For lyk the mone ay wexe ye and wane;

A ful of clapping,[198] dere y-nogh a jane[199]

Your doom is fals, your constance yvel preveth,[200]

A ful greet fool is he that on yow leveth.

But at the same time he realises that poverty has its rights. The earlier version of the Prologue to the Legend of Good Women contains much excellent advice to King Richard:-

For he that king or lord is naturel,

Him oghte nat be tiraunt or cruel,

As is a fermour,[201] to doon the harm he can.

He moste thinke hit is his lige man,

And that him oweth, of verray duetee

Shewen his peple pleyn benignitie

And wel to here hir excusatiouns,

And hir compleyntes and peticiouns....

The Lenvoy which ends the balade of Lak of Stedfastnesse holds up a noble ideal of kingship:-

O prince, desyre to be honourable,

Cherish thy folk and hate extorcioun!

Suffre no thing, that may be reprevable

To thyn estat, doon in thy regioun.

Shew forth thy swerd of castigacioun,

Dred God, do law, love trouthe and worthinesse,

And wed thy folk agein to stedfastnesse.

And in the Persones Tale the duties of the rich towards the poor are set forth in considerable detail. Superfluity of clothing and absurdly slashed and ornamented garments are to be avoided because "the more that clooth is wasted, the more it costeth to the peple for the scantnesse; and forther-over, if so be that they wolde yeven such pounsoned and dagged[202] clothing to the povre folk, it is nat convenient to were for hir estaat, ne suffisant to bete hir necessitee, to kepe hem fro the distemperance of the firmament." Lords are bidden to take no pride in their position, and do no wrong to those dependent on them: "I rede thee, certes, that thou, lord, werke in swiche wyse with thy cherles, that they rather love thee than drede. I woot wel ther is degree above degree, as reson is; and skile it is that men do hir devoir ther-as is due; but certes, extorciouns and despit of youre underlinges is dampnable." Chaucer's inborn sense of justice will not allow him to condone oppression, and his speculative and inquiring mind is fully conscious of the artificiality of rank. From the Parson we might expect a homily on the fact that "we ben alle of o fader and of o moder; and alle we been of o nature roten and corrupt, both riche and povre," but it is more surprising to find the Wife of Bath holding forth in the same strain. Her tale describes the bitter feeling of Florent when he finds himself bound to a wife old, ugly, and of base degree. The bride answers with a disquisition on true nobility:-

But for ye speken of swich gentillesse

As is descended out of old richesse,

And that therfore sholden ye be gentil men,

Swich arrogance is nat worth a hen.

Loke who that is most vertuous alwey,

Privee and apert,[203] and most entendeth

To do the gentil dedes that he can,

An tak him for the grettest gentil man.

Crist wol, we clayme of him our gentilesse,

Nat of our eldres for hir old richesse.

For thogh they yeve us al hir heritage,

For which we clayme to been of heigh parage,[204]

Yet may they nat biquethe, for no-thing,

To noon of us hir vertuous living,

That made hem gentil men y-called be.

······

Heer may ye see wel, how that genterye

Is nat annexed to possessioun

······

Redeth Senek, and redeth eek Boece,

Ther shul ye seen express that it no drede is

That he is gentil that doth gentil dedis.

John Ball himself could hardly go further.

Possibly Chaucer's personal experience of the occasional difficulty of making both ends meet, quickened his sympathy with poor men. It is true that Florent's wife, in the lines which follow those just quoted, goes on to defend poverty against riches on the ground that it is

A ful greet bringer out of bisinesse,

but though she calls cheerful poverty "an honest thing," she is forced to own that at best it is "hateful good." The Man of Law, in the prologue to his tale, speaks of it with undisguised bitterness:-

Herken what is the sentence of the wyse:-

"Bet is to dyen than have indigence;"

"Thy selve neighebour wol thee despyse;"

If thou be poore, farwel thy reverence!

······

If thou be povre, thy brother hateth thee,

And all thy freendes fleen fro thee, alas!

O riche marchaunts, ful of wele ben ye,

O noble, O prudent folk as in this cas!

And Chaucer's lines to his empty purse show that he had no wish to share the pleasant security of those who are able, as Florent's wife says, to sing and play in the presence of thieves.

In yet a third respect, Chaucer shows himself able to discriminate between the use and abuse of a thing. He can expose and denounce hypocrisy without losing his reverence for true religion; he can point out evils in social life, without siding wholly with nobles or people; he can laugh at the folly which allows itself to be deluded by charlatanism, without losing his respect for science. Two hundred years had yet to pass before Bacon should raise science, once and for all, above the level where it lay confused with magic and the black art. A generation to whom gunpowder was a novelty, and spectacles an almost miraculous aid to sight, found nothing strange in the sight of learned men seeking for the elixir of life, or the philosopher's stone. In a world which was but just becoming dimly conscious of the mighty forces which lie at man's command, limitations were unknown, and the boundary line between the possible and impossible was so uncertain as to be negligible. The populace which believed that every sage could summon legions of devils to his assistance, was not likely to criticise his pretensions too closely, and doubtless many a quack saw, and seized, the opportunity for imposing on the easy credulity of a greedy and wonder-loving people.

Chaucer shows a real interest in such rudimentary science as he was able to pick up in the midst of his other avocations. Clocks of any kind were rare in the fourteenth century, and the practice of telling the time by astronomical observations was a common one. There is nothing peculiar in noting the season or the hour by such statements as that

the yonge sonne

Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne.

or,

He wiste it was the eightetehe day

Of April, that is messager to May;

And sey wel that the shadwe of every tree

Was as the lengthe the same quantitee

That was the body erect that caused it.

And therefore by the shadwe he took his wit

That Phebus, which that shoon so clere and brighte,

Degrees was fyve and fourty clombe on highte;

And for that day, as in that latitude,

It was ten of the clokke, he gan conclude;

but Chaucer not only follows this method with an amount of detail and a persistency which show that he enjoyed it for its own sake, he also, as we have seen, writes a treatise on the use of the Astrolabe, for the instruction of his little son. The modesty and sincerity shown in the introduction are worthy of a true scientist. After saying that he purposes to teach little Lewis "a certain nombre of conclusions," Chaucer continues, "I seye a certein of conclusiouns, for three causes. The furste cause is this: truste wel that alle the conclusiouns that have ben founde, or elles possibly mighten be founde in so noble an instrument as an Astrolabie, ben un-knowe perfitly to any mortal man in this regioun, as I suppose. A nother cause is this; that sothly, in any tretis of the Astrolabie that I have seyn, there ben some conclusiouns that wole nat in alle thinges performen hir bihestes; and some of them ben harde to thy tendre age of ten yeer to conseyve." He then explains his reason for writing in English instead of Latin, and finally declares: "I nam but a lewd compilatour of the labour of olde Astrologiens, and have hit translated in myn English only for thy doctrine; and with this swerd shall I sleen envye." The whole Prologue is well worth reading if only for the light it throws upon Chaucer's view of education and the power it displays of entering into a child's mind. Scattered references to astronomy, medicine, chemistry, and even astrology, are to be found throughout the Canterbury Tales. The Franklin shows himself well abreast of scientific discovery when he speaks of

This wyde world, which that men seye is round.

Chaucer himself in the Prologue reels off a list of medicaments which might be expected to improve the Somnour's complexion. Pertelote shows a housewifely knowledge of the properties of herbs.

One tale, indeed, turns on the pseudo-science of the day. After the second Nun has finished her tale of St. Cecilia the pilgrims ride in silence for awhile, till, close to Boghton under Blee, they are joined by a Canon and his man. The Canon's Yeoman soon begins to boast of his master's marvellous powers, how

That al this ground on which we ben ryding,

Til that we come to Caunterbury toun,

He coude al clene turne it up-so-doun,

And pave it al of silver and of gold.

Whereupon the Host blesses himself, and asks, not unnaturally, why if the Canon "is of so heigh prudence," he wears such poor and dirty clothes? The Yeoman answers that

-whan a man hath over-greet a wit

Ful oft him happeth to misusen it;

So dooth my lord ...

and is proceeding to dilate upon the hard share of the work that falls to himself, when the Canon, who is nervous as to what he may be saying, with some sharpness bids him hold his tongue. The Host, however, has no intention of allowing his authority to be over-ridden:-

"Ye," quod our host, "telle on, what so bityde;

Of al his threting rekke nat a myte!"[205]

"In feith," quod he, "namore I do but lyte."

On which the Canon sets spurs to his horse and gallops off, leaving his character behind him, and the Yeoman settles down to tell the story of the foolish priest and the charlatan. The false Canon borrows a mark from the priest, promising to return it within three days:-

And at the thridde day broghte his moneye,

And to the preest he took his gold agayn,

Whereof this preest was wonder glad and fayn.

The Canon protests that under no circumstances would he ever dream of breaking his word:-

"ther was never man yet yvel apayd

For gold ne silver that he to me lente ...

and in token of friendship he offers, if the priest will send for some quicksilver, to show him a marvel.

"Sir," quod the preest, "it shal be doon y-wis."

He bad his servant fecchen him this thing....

The Canon then orders a fire to be prepared, and with much parade makes ready a crucible. He carefully shuts the door and pretends to be most anxious lest any one should see what they are doing. Not till the servant has gone out, and he and the priest are alone, does he solemnly cast various powders on to the blazing coals, "To blynde with the preest." Finally, while his unfortunate victim is busy blowing the fire and making himself generally useful, the false Canon so manipulates things that an ingot of silver appears in the crucible. He repeats the trick three times, and so impresses "this sotted preest" that the poor dupe

the somnee of fourty pound anon

Of nobles fette,[206] and took hem everichon

To this chanoun, for this ilke receit....

After which, needless to say, the Canon disappears.

The whole story teems with technical terms, with descensories, and sublimatories, and cucurbites, with bole armoniak and orpiment, and the like. It shows an intimate knowledge of the laboratory work of the day, of vessels and retorts, of chemicals and minerals and their various properties. At the same time, it proves that Chaucer was well aware of the ease with which a very little knowledge combined with a great deal of assurance would enable a quack to impose on the absolute ignorance of the uninitiated. The charlatan who tried to impose upon the author of the Chanouns Yemannes Tale would soon have found out his mistake.

And yet, with all his shrewdness, Chaucer was not wholly exempt from the superstition of his age. Such vulgar trickery as that just described would never have imposed on him, but he is too truly fourteenth century in his point of view always to distinguish between astronomy and astrology. The thought that a man's destiny may be written in the stars appealed to this lover of dreams. In the Man of Lawes Tale he breaks away from his original, to speculate on this subject:-

Paraventure in thilke large book

Which that men clepe the heven, y-writen was

With sterres, when that he (i. e. the Soldan) his birthe took

That he for love shulde han his deeth, allas!

For in the sterres, clerer than is glas,

Is writen, god wot, who-so coulde it rede,

The deeth of every man, withouten drede.

And again, after describing the grief of Constance at parting from her parents, he vehemently exclaims against the unfortunate conjunction of constellations which wrought such havoc, and asks if there were no "philosophre" to advise the emperor to consult some astrologer as to which was the auspicious time for him to marry.

Certain aspects of Chaucer's character stand out with unmistakable clearness in his works. The most careless reader could hardly fail to be struck by his wide sympathies, ready humour, keen observation, and honesty of mind. His idealism, his poetic sensitiveness to the more imaginative side of life, are perhaps less often insisted upon, but are no less real. He is no visionary, afraid to face the facts of life, dwelling in a world of beauty and delight which has no counterpart on earth, but a poet who takes no shame in human nature, whose eyes see so clearly that they are not blinded by evil, who dares to say, with his Creator, that the world is good. In the Book of the Duchesse is a passage which explains much of Chaucer's so-called worldliness. He is speaking of Blanche's innocent kindliness, and how he never knew one less

Harmful, than she was in doing;

and he adds, in words as bold as Milton's own,

I sey nat that she ne had knowing

What was harm; or elles she

Had coud[207] no good, so thinketh me.

He has little respect for a fugitive and cloistered virtue. But if he is, perhaps, over-ready to plunge into the dust and din of ordinary life, he never forgets the wonder and mystery that lie behind the commonplace.

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