| Michael Travis BA/LLB (Hons) University of Auckland Please notify the author if you wish to cite this paper, or use extracts in your work. A PDF is also available via Google Drive. |
The world of
Chaucer’s fabliaux is above all permissive – they afford scope for the easement
of social and bodily repression, and wives may err without fear of
consequences.
The fabliau
was a genre of comic tale which Chaucer employed a few times in the Canterbury
Tales, notably for the Miller’s, Reeve’s, Shipman’s and Summoner’s tales. The
Riverside Chaucer defines the fabliau as “a brief comic tale in
verse, usually scurrilous and often scatological or obscene. The style is
simple, vigorous, and straightforward; the time is the present, and the
settings real, familiar places; the characters are ordinary sorts.”
What is
suggested by this definition is indulgence in a form of humour that is
comparatively low-brow, or perhaps even lower-class. Fabliaux often parodied
courtly literature, and the behaviour and customs of the aristocracy. However,
it was also just as likely to mock the aristocratic pretences of the
lower-class.
Consequently,
the subversive fabliaux were popular across all classes in that they provided a
release for the “social and bodily repression” of the Middle Ages. Stories
abound with forms of transgression – either of social relationships, or of the
polite boundaries set around the bodily functions.
Chaucer’s
fabliau which most obviously exemplifies this function is the Miller’s tale,
which openly indulges in adultery, scatology, slapstick and physical violence.
It’s crude contents are matched to a suitable narrator, the drunken Miller who
will “abyde no man for his curteisie” (3123), interrupting the Host and the
Monk who was to speak next.
In fact, the
Miller’s tale is of such “harlotrie” that Chaucer professes to excuse himself
as a recorder of the events, and asks to be ‘put out of blame’ (3185).
Thus the
stage is set for a juicy, subversive, and ultimately seedy tale – and the
Miller does not disappoint.
The Miller’s Tale
In the tale
we hear about an old carpenter who is married to an 18 year old wife, whom he
keeps in the colloquial gilded cage “for she was wylde and yong, and he was old
/ And demed himself been lik a cokewold” (3226).
However, the
old carpenter is no match for the clever boarder Nicholas, who hatches a scheme
that allows him to sleep with the wife of his host at leisure (not just
adultery, but an inhospitality).
The Miller
is crude even in describing these initial advances; as Nicholas “caughte hire
by the queynte … And heeld hire harde by the haunchebones.” (3276-9). Of course
Alison soon relents, and eventually “they goon to bedde” (3650) for a night of
passion.
The
unfortunate husband, however, is not the only person to suffer through this
arrangement. Meanwhile the local parish Absolon has also fallen for Alison, and
pines of unrequited love (his love for Alison is doubly transgressive, being
both adulterous and inappropriate for a religious figure).
When Absolon
comes to Alison’s window at night, he is tricked in the darkness and “with his
mouth he kiste hir naked ers / Ful savourly” (3734-5). This horrifies the
orally retentive Absolon, who returns with a red-hot poker and a vengeful
spirit.
This time
Nicholas attempts the trickery, letting “fle a fart / As greet as … a
thonder-dent” (3806-7) in the process. Nicholas meets his comeuppance when his
scatalogical gesture is met by the hot poker “amydde the ers” (3810) which
burns off the skin “an hande-brede aboute” (3811). Meanwhile, the cuckolded
husband suffers one final pratfall from the roof of his barn.
The humour
in this tale is pretty broad – the joke, while funny, is unsubtle, and relies
on bodily functions and comic violence. However, it certainly fits the
description of an ‘easement of bodily repression’.
In terms of
fabliau justice, both adulterous males are paid back for their social
transgression. But fabliau justice “does not always coincide with
conventional morality” (The
Riverside Chaucer), and the husband is punished merely for seeking to
protect his wife’s chastity.
Notably, the
wife escapes free from retribution, despite having cuckolded her husband and
humiliated a suitor. This tends to support the notion of ‘permissive’ fabliaux,
which allow wives to err without fear of consequences. Another good example is
the Shipman’s tale, a less bodily tale than the Miller’s.
The
Shipman’s Tale
This tale is
somewhat different to Chaucer’s other fabliaux as it is set in France, and uses
French phrases to give it a local colour. It describes a rich merchant, and his
beautiful wife with a shopping addiction. When her husband won’t give her money
for a shopping debt, she turns to Don John, a Monk who is such good friends
with her husband that they call each other ‘cousin’. Don John agrees to get her
the requisite 100 francs, in return for her attentions.
In a manner
similar to Nicholas in the Miller’s tale, Don John then “caughte hire by the
flankes / And hire embraceth hire” (202). Likewise, Don John’s intended
transgression is compounded by his friendship with the merchant, and his
supposed religious vows. In fact, the Monk even uses his friendship with the
merchant to enable this plan.
Don John
borrows the 100 francs from the merchant, and gives the money to the wife in
return for “hire in his armes bolt upright” (316). When the merchant asks for
his money, Don John tells him that he has paid it to the wife. When the
merchant then asks for the money from his wife, she tells him that she has
already spent it, but that he should “score it upon my taille” (416) – in other
words, she will repay the debt in sexual acts.
In this tale
then, the wife is again forgiven her trespasses, and not only has sex with both
her husband and his friend, but is also forgiven her debts. In contrast to
earlier fabliaux however, this doesn’t seem to take place at the husband’s
expense. True he is cuckolded, but appears none the worse for it. Afterall the
fabliau ends with a scene of marital conjugal bliss.
Correspondingly,
this tale has been described as “striking a note of relative innocence and
turning what are essentially sordid elements into a story of bright
sunlight" (Spargo, Chaucer’s Shipman’s Tale: The Lover’s Gift Regained).
Silverman,
however, reads this to be a much more sardonic tale. His suggestion is that the
closing lines of the tale are a continuation of the concept of sexual
debtorship; that “taillynge” is a pun similar to the one made by the wife on
“taille”.
Thus the
wife “makes her husband the real victim, for he becomes a cuckold, loses his
money, and ends up ridiculously accepting his own wife's favors as
compensation” (Silverman, Sex and Money in Chaucer’s Shipman’s Tale).
Either
rendition continues to satisfy the understanding of fabliaux as a release
mechanism for repressed intercourses, but which version of the tale we prefer
may effect the degree of ‘permissiveness’ we ascribe to it.
The Reeve’s Tale
In response
to the previously described Miller’s tale, the angered Reeve (who is also a
carpenter) decides to describe a tale in which a loutish Miller is cuckolded.
However, unlike the Miller’s and Shipman’s tales, the wife in the Reeve’s tale
is also a victim of trickery, though I will discuss this further afterwards.
The Reeve
describes a particularly disagreeable Miller, who has a round face and pug
nose, and carries an assortment of edged weapons. However, the Miller is
married to wife “ycomen of noble kyn” (3942) who was “yfostred in a nonnerye”
(3946). Likewise, the Miller’s daughter is intended for marriage into worthy
blood.
When two
clerks come to the mill to grind their corn, the Miller frees their horses and
then steals some of their flour while they are gone. The clerks, John and
Aleyn, form an intent to revenge themselves. That night they stay at the
Miller’s house, and the family have a large feast, and drink large amounts of
ale. Chaucer then describes the comical scene of the family all asleep in the
same room; the Miller is snoring drunkenly (“fnorteth” like a horse), as are
the wife and daughter “par compaignye” (4167).
Because the
snoring prevents him from sleeping, Aleyn slips into the daughter’s bed, and
before she can protest “they were aton” (4197). Not wanting to be thought an
fool for having been cheated by the Miller, John follows suit. He tricks the
Miller’s wife into getting into his bed by moving the baby cradle. When she
goes out to “piss” in the night, she finds her way to the bed by groping the
cradle. Thus she gets into bed with John by mistake, though she does not
realise it: “I hadde amost goon to the clerkes bed … Thanne hadde I foule
ysped” (4219).
The Miller’s
wife quickly falls prey to a proactive and amorous John: “And on this goode wyf
he Leith on soore … He priketh harde and depe as he were mad” (4230-1). This
frenzied coupling scene lasts most of the night until Aleyn, also tricked by
the new location of the cradle, leaves the daughter and enters the Miller’s
bed. This is followed by bedlam as the two begin to fight, and the wife
mistakenly enters the fray, only to injure her husband.
Thus Aleyn
and John make their getaway, having slept with the Miller’s wife and daughter.
It is unfortunate that by getting even with the Miller, the clerks are also
injuring the women – though the extent to which they are slighted is ambiguous.
The daughter
appears taken with Aleyn, calling him “deere lemman” (4240) and telling him
where to find his stolen flour. However her virtuous upbringing is now lost,
and Aleyn certainly has no intention of ever returning to her. Likewise, John’s
bedding of the wife is described as an act which she enjoys: “So myrie a fit ne
hadde she nat ful yore” (4230). However, it must remembered that she is
labouring under a mistake, and we have no way of really determining how she
will feel about the matter once she learns the truth of the deception.
The Reeve’s
tale, like the Miller’s tale, is full of coarse humour – drunkenness, snoring,
fighting – as well as crude sexual humour (notably the description of John’s
‘pricking’). It does seems more mean-spirited than the Miller’s though,
especially in that the two innocent women become victims is the plot.
What it does
share in common with the Miller’s tale then, is an outlet for sexual and bodily
humour.
The Summoner’s Tale
A final good
example of bodily release is presented in the Summoner’s tale, an
anti-fraternal story about a persistent and niggardly friar. The friar goes
begging from householders, and continues to persist at the house of an ill man
called Thomas. Thomas becomes very annoyed, but eventually agrees to give the
friar a donation, if the friar will promise to share it amongst his monastic
brothers.
Thomas
instructs him to “grope wel bihynde / Bynethe my buttok” (2141-2) and then lets
free a fart into the friar’s hand. Chaucer dwells on this incident, specifying
the “tuwel” (anus) as point of origin, and labouring to describe the quality of
the flatulence: “They nys no capul, drawynge in a cart, That myghte have lete a
fart of swich a soun” (2150-1).
When the
friar complains to the local lord, the lord is more interested in the
intellectual problem posed by the incident than by the insult. There follows a
comic discussion in which a method is devised whereby the friar can share a
fart amongst his brothers, in exact “ars-metrike”.
The twelve
friars are to surround a cartwheel, and “to every spokes ende … Shal holde his
nose upright” (2263-6). Afterwhich the friar in the center can fart and
“equally the soun … And eke the stynk” will be shared amongst the twelve
(2273-4). The friar at the center is also thus lucky enough to have had the
“firste fruyt” (2277).
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