context

against Jovinianus- St Jerome

• written in response to Jovinianus

• references heavily from Theophrastus’ Golden Book of marriage

• ‘A wise man therefore must not take a wife’

• a wife is the only thing not shown before she is married (unlike horses, cows, slaves etc)

• women are hard work

• a wise man must instead be surrounded by good men (…)

who are the church fathers

• ancient, influential christian theologians/ writers who established the intellectual and doctrinal foundations of christianity

• worked from the 1st-8th century (patristic era), flourishing esp in 4th/5th when christianity was established religion of the roman empire

• very anti-feminist.

the sermon form

• the WoB takes on the characteristics of a medieval sermon and becomes a kind of ‘mock preacher’

• the prologue is based in the medieval genre of allegorical ‘confession’. In a morality play, a personified vice such as gluttony or lust ‘confesses’ their sins to the audience in a life story

• the wife is exactly what the medieval church saw to be a ‘wicked woman’

• the medieval sermon could be considered to have rhetorical features (trying to convince people to follow God’s path)

• this means viewing the prologue as straightforward work of rhetoric might be foolish

WoB and ‘glossing’

• WoB reads scripture, glosses, and has didactic moral storytelling

• she quotes scripture, but pushes her luck with readings

• her messages are subversive and potentially amoral. (e.g. marrying so many times, and ideas of virginity not being for everyone)

• potentially, chaucer himself is sermoning- perhaps the WoB is an allegory for the sins of women

knights

• churches created monastic groups of knights (e.g. the knights templar, knights hospitallers) during the crusades

• these orders blended monastic vows and blessings to go forward and protect the church by the use of arms → was a ‘work around’ the inevitable violence and brutality of holy warfare

• the nature of knighthood was that of a skilled warrior in war and a landholder in times of peace

• knights were expected to abide by a code of chivalry, functioning as the secular arm of the church

• every knight had to swear to defend his uttermost the weak, the orphan etc

• embodies st augustine’s holy war

ovid’s art

• ancient wikihow on women

• book 1- shows man how to find a woman

• book 2- shows man how to keep a woman

samson’s weakness

• samson gets with delilah

• delilah gets offered large amounts of money by philistines to find the source of samson’s strength

• delilah makes samson admit he would lose his strength if his head was shaved so delilah cut his hair when he slept and gave it to the philistines

the pardoner

• someone who collected money on behalf of a religious foundation

• worked under authority of bishop

• sold indulgences

• commonly fraudulent → developed a profitable sideline selling fake relics (e.g. selling ‘pigges bones’ as bones of saints)

• implied that our pardoner is a eunich (voice like agoat and no facial hair)

tropes of courtly love

• knight going on quest of discovery

• female centric romance- greater emphasis of needs of woman

• heroic deeds

• pastoral (ideal country life) imagery + ideas

• fairy tales/ fantasy/ magic

• chivalry and honour

introduction of courtly love

• troubadours were poet-musicians who emerged in south of france C.12-13

• combined poetry and music in service of courtly love

• courtly love/ fine amour was the source of all true virtue and nobility.

fabliau

• in the WoB’s tale, many critics feel that due to her social standing and the content of her prologue, alisoun would be more likely to tell a tale in the form of a fabliau

• however, she selects the genre of courtly romance which is more commonly associated with the court

• v/ crude, comic, mildly erotic, scatological

women

• 3 categories: maidens, nuns, married (wives/ widowed)

• once a woman is married, she is unable to resist a man’s sexual advances, cannot borrow money without his consent or make a will

• women were blamed for all of the physical, intellectual and moral weaknesses of society

• period blood was ‘female seed’ → v dangerous, through contract trees lack fruit, dogs go mad and the sky darkens

• satan chose eve to poison men’s souls and the wickedness of women is the greatest wickedness

marriage and relationships

• a man may legally beat his wife, she may accuse him in a church court of cruelty, but a man cannot as no court would sympathise with a man so feeble that he cannot defend himself from his own wife

• most girls of good birth were married by sixteen

• only husbands get punished for crime (woman says she was following man’s orders)

social mobility

• society was structured into: those who fight, work and pray

• crude model (greater division)

• plague made people challenge idea of strict social heirarchy → as population shrank so did work force, leading to greater freedom for maj of population as healthy workers needed

religion

• was catholic

• 2% adult men clergymen

• played a large role in social services (e.g. education, hospitals, caring for poor)

i rente out of his book a leef

in medieval europe there existed a ‘book curse’ in which if you tore a page out of a book, you would die an agonising death

friars

• swore oaths of poverty, chastity, and obedience

• taught people about spirituality through preaching and service

• well-known for begging for money/charging for their services

• wife suggests that many friars were corrupt

• they were notorious for having sex with women in the neighbourhood

how does the wife tell ovid’s story of midas wrong?

• originally, midas tells his secret to his barber who then can’t keep it

• the wife makes it so that midas tells his wife the secret and she can’t keep it

• mistelling portrays women as untrustworthy

• matches the views of the church = women were degraded for being lustful traitors

gower

• wob’s story based on gower’s ‘tale of florent’

• loathly lady motif →a woman who appears unattractive/ugly but undergoes a transformation upon being approached by a man in spite of her ugliness

lollards

• a group of english christians who questioned the catholic church in the late 14th century

• proto-protestant movement

• they believed the Bible should be up to interpretation

• they questioned the catholic church

• they wanted to rid the church of corruption e.g. fraudulent pardoners/friars

3 estates model

• feudal society was traditionally divided into three states
  First estate- church, clergy = those who prayed
  Second estate- nobility, those who fought = knights.
  Third estate- the peasantry.

• Everyone else GENDER SPECIFIC as they are defined by what a man does for a living. - Women estates not determined by profession but by sexual activity.

• in prologue, introduced in order of social rank → middle class WoB introduced half way through (e.g. knight at beginning)

gentillesse

• This was a concept which linked virtue with high birth. It was thought that members of the nobility automatically inherited the virtues of chivalry, courtesy, generosity and morality.
  "Gentillesse" became associated with moral qualities, aspects of a person's virtue.

• hag's main purpose is to argue that these qualities belong to character, not social rank or birth. She dismisses the medieval view- that a person's quality is determined by their birth- and endorses the modern view that a person's quality is demonstrated in the quality of their life and actions.

great schism

• 1378

• In 1378 the Great Schism took place- this was a rift in the Church that resulted in the election of two popes. The Italians had elected Urban VI as pope, but the French appointed Clement VII. Like the Peasant's Revolt, the Great Schism led to further questioning of the authority of established powers, and a greater willingness on the part of ordinary people to press their own claims for rights and privileges.

women’s fashion

• Generally, women's fashions in the medieval era were fairly bland and non-descript; clothing usually involved draped fabrics, which were usually baggy and mundanely coloured and they generally dressed in what their husband's wanted them to wear, rather than what they liked themselves.

• Unmarried women commonly wore their hair down while married women wore their hair up and covered it with a cloth; this was a symbol of humility.

• This greatly contrasts to the Wife's clothes.

roman de la rose

• a popular medieval allegory about love

• la vielle is key influence on wob → cynical, experienced woman who gives advice on love and marriage

• chaucer develops WoB into more complex and nuanced figure in canterbury tales

• presents a dream vision of a man’s quest for a rose (symbolising his lady) and explores the complexities of courtly love

literacy levels

10% of men, and hardly any women were literate