MASARYK UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF EDUCATION Department of English Language and Literature

Representation of Women in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales Nikola Najbrová

Brno 2013

Prohlášení Prohlašuji, že jsem závěrečnou bakalářskou práci vypracovala samostatně, s využitím pouze citovaných literárních pramenů a dalších informací a zdrojů v souladu s Disciplinárním řádem pro studenty Pedagogické fakulty Masarykovy univerzity a se zákonem č.121/2000 Sb., o právu autorském, o právech souvisejících s právem autorským a o změně některých zákonů (autorský zákon), ve znění pozdějších předpisů. Nikola Najbrová .....................................................

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Abstract This thesis describes the representation of women in The Canterbury Tales, the groups they form and their position in the medieval society of England. It also aims to depict the relationship between men and women and to demonstrate the roles in which women at that time appeared.

Key words Women, medieval society, tales

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Anotace Tato práce se zabývá zastoupením žen v Canterburských povídkách, skupinami, které tvoří, a jejich pozicí ve středověké Anglii. Cílem této práce je také popsat vztahy mezi muži a ženami a vykresli role, ve kterých se ženy tehdejší doby objevovaly.

Klíčová slova Ženy, středověká společnost, povídky

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Acknowledgments I would like to thank my supervisor Mgr. Jaroslav Izavčuk for his inspirational observations and guidance. It helped me to find the right direction.

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Contents 1 Introduction ..............................................................................................7 2 Chaucer and The Canterbury Tales .......................................................8 3 Women in The Canterbury Tales ........................................................... 11 3.1 Women among the pilgrims..................................................... 11 3.2 Women in the tales ...................................................................12 3.2.1 3.2.2 3.2.3 3.2.4 3.2.5 3.2.6 3.2.7 3.2.8 3.2.9 3.2.10 3.2.11 3.2.12 3.2.13 3.2.14 3.2.15 3.2.16 3.2.17 3.2.18

The Knight’s Tale.................................................................... 13 The Miller’s Tale ..................................................................... 13 The Reeve’s Tale ..................................................................... 13 The Man of Law’s Tale ........................................................... 13 The Shipman’s Tale ................................................................ 14 The Prioress’s Tale .................................................................. 14 The Tale of Melibeus .............................................................. 14 The Monk’s Tale ..................................................................... 15 The Nun’s Priest’s Tale ........................................................... 15 The Physician’s Tale ............................................................... 15 The Wife of Bath’s Tale .......................................................... 16 The Friar’s Tale ....................................................................... 16 The Clerk’s Tale ...................................................................... 16 The Merchant’s Tale ............................................................... 17 The Squire’s Tale .................................................................... 17 The Franklin’s Tale ................................................................. 18 The Second Nun’s Tale ........................................................... 18 The Manciple’s Tale................................................................ 18

4 The role of women in the Middle Ages .................................................20 4.1 Male empowerment through means .......................................20 4.2 Male empowerment through dogma ......................................21 5 Types of women ......................................................................................24 6 Three female pilgrims ............................................................................28 7 Conclusion ..............................................................................................34 8 Bibliography ...........................................................................................37

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1 Introduction This thesis aims to analyze female characters in The Canterbury Tales. I will describe their qualities, group them according to their similarities and then compare them to the medieval image of women at that time. In the end I will present my findings and emphasize discrepancies between Chaucer’s female characters and the medieval England. I will also analyze the relationship between women and men, the unequal position women were in, and how they reacted to this oppression. To gain these information I will look closely at each character and I will analyze their behaviour in context to the situation.

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2 Chaucer and The Canterbury Tales Geoffrey Chaucer is considered to be one of the most relevant poets in the history of English literature. He was born in 1343 in London and died around 1400. As we can read in Brewer (Brewer), he led a diverse life, travelling all across Europe, and experiencing many different roles in his career. Along with the most-known writing activity, he was a page, diplomat and a bureaucrat, among the others. He also joined the English army in the Hundred Years’ War, where he was captured, and then released upon intercession of King Edward III. He was married to Philippa de Roet, queen Philippa’s lady’s maid, and had three or four children. It’s important to note that all these aspects had indeed contributed significantly to his literary production, especially in the one which will be object of this thesis. More specifically, his experiences allowed him to get to meet and know people of different social extraction, each with an own cultural mindset, character, and peculiarities; this helped Chaucer to enrich the ability to depict people’s characters and relationships among classes and people so well. Chaucer wrote several works, but the one for which he is best known is The Canterbury Tales. It is a collection of stories, mostly written in verse, in which the Author makes use of his observer skills to build an image of the English society at that time, through the description of significant example characters. The tone of the narration is mostly ironical, accurate, derisive, but also tactful. He explores this varied microcosm by describing

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individuals that are pretty different between each other, pointing out their features, virtues and vices, and letting them interact in many cases. While the stories are mostly self-contained and don’t lose their message when taken individually, yet we need to consider the book in its entirety in order to appreciate the complexity of this work. We can consider The Canterbury Tales as a sort of a big mosaic, where each tile ends up composing a whole, even more powerful picture when put together. On the other hand, the main idea that composes the frame tale – which serves as a container of the single stories, collates them, and drives the narration through, is pretty simple: a group of pilgrims is heading to the Cathedral of Canterbury, and to cope with the long journey they decide that each of them has to tell a story. The best one wins a prize. The number of pilgrims was pretty consistent, and hence the number of stories being narrated as well. After the initial General Prologue, where Chaucer introduces the main frame, 24 stories follow, narrated by each pilgrim: a knight, a miller, a reeve, a cook, a man of law, a married woman from Bath, a friar, a summoner, a clerk, a merchant, a squire, a franklin, a physician, a pardoner, a shipman, a prioress, Chaucer himself, a monk, a nun’s priest, a second nun, a canon’s yeoman, a manciple and a parson. This work has been object of several secular studies, in which it’s been analysed on several levels, and trying different reading keys. While many topics are, in fact, related to the one which is object of this thesis – for example the role of God in the medieval society – we will focus our attention on the role of women and men, and their relationship.

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As said, The Canterbury Tales gives us a very interesting insight of the society of the time, hence including the social structure, the relationships among different genders and classes, the cultural rules and limits, the moral questions, and so forth. Thanks to the characters depicted in the book we have a precious set of elements that help us have a better idea of how woman was living during Chaucer’s time. Or to be precise, the different ideas of a woman during that time: Chaucer appears willing to offer us different points of view on the matter, some of which are positive and some negative, depending mostly on which male pilgrim is speaking. The female pilgrims, on the other hand, appear to have a more consistent opinion, and we can see that in their selection of stories, in which women either play a positive role or fight back for it, and where emancipation is a recurring topic.

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3 Women in The Canterbury Tales In The Canterbury Tales there are several female characters, some of which are part of the group of storytellers (The Prioress, The Wife of Bath and The Second Nun), and others who appear as part of the stories being narrated. Among these characters, two were not actually human: a hen called Pertelote, introduced in The Nun’s Priest’s Tale, and a falcon, which is part of the The Squire’s Tale. The number of female characters is clearly disproportionate, as compared to the amount of characters involved all over the book; however it gives already a pretty good insight of the various kinds of women that Chaucer wanted to describe. In the following paragraphs we’ll briefly introduce the characters, using the words of Chaucer himself; later in the following chapters these will be mentioned again in a more detailed analysis.

3.1 Women among the pilgrims The Prioress is the first one mentioned in The Prologue. She is described as a vain, nobly acting woman who takes in great consideration the opinion that other people have about her:

And she took pains to reflect the manners Of court, and to be stately in her carriage, And to be held worthy of reverence. (Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales 9)

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The next character is The Wife of Bath. She is probably the most notorious character in the group, and perhaps Chaucer’s favourite. The author describes her as a strong personality, convivial and independent, characteristics that we can already see in The Prologue:

She was a worthy woman all her life: Husbands at church door she‟d had five, Not counting other company in youth— But we need not speak of them right now— […] She was full of laughter and of gossip. Of love remedies she knew by chance, For she knew the steps of that old dance. (ibid 27)

Later on, once it will be her turn in the story, Chaucer will give her an unusually big space where to host her confession, to the point that this part will end up being even bigger than the tale itself. The last female pilgrim was The Second Nun. In contrast to the others, we have a very risible set of information about her, which is possibly an intentional choice of the Author in relation to her full commitment and dedication to God, which inevitably wiped out most of her own personality.

3.2 Women in the tales Although we could find only three female storytellers, when it comes to the characters in stories we can appreciate how a female presence, may it be a main character or a counterpart, is introduced in almost all the stories.

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3.2.1 THE KNIGHT’S TALE Starting with The Knight‟s Tale, we find two main female characters: Hyppolyta and Emily. The first is quickly described as a bold amazon queen from Scithia, while the second – her sister – plays a more crucial role in the story: two knights fall in love for Emily, to the point that the competition makes the two friends hate each other and fight to death. Notable about this story is the passive role of Emily, who managed to make two knights fall in love with her, while in fact she did nothing to intentionally cause it.

3.2.2 THE MILLER’S TALE The next female character we find in The Miller‟s Tale is Alison. She marries an old man, but because she is still young and pretty she decides to betray her husband and start a relationship with a student living in the same house.

3.2.3 THE REEVE’S TALE In The Reeve‟s Tale we find other two female characters: the wife of a miller and her daughter. In this story the miller is a dishonest person, stealing from his customers. Two university students decide to keep an eye on his work, but he tricks them. They make up a plan to have a revenge on him. They sleep in the same room as his whole family, and during the night they have an intercourse with both daughter and wife.

3.2.4 THE MAN OF LAW’S TALE Next is The Man of Law‟s Tale, where the main character is Constance, chaste and virtuous Christian princess who suffers through her life because of her religion and beauty.

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3.2.5 THE SHIPMAN’S TALE In The Shipman‟s Tale there is a female character described as a wife of a merchant. The greed of this woman leads her to live with a wealthy husband for the sole purpose of having access to his money. One day, the man leaves for a business trip, during which time his friend visits her, offering money in exchange of sex. The wife accepts the offer, and the money, which ironically enough was the same money that the monk borrowed from her husband earlier on. Later, the man will tell his friend that his wife has got the money back, which obviously leads to a confrontation between the twos, which ends with her offer to pay him back with a sexual intercourse instead of the money.

3.2.6 THE PRIORESS’S TALE The Prioress‟s Tale introduces a woman in a new role: a mother. The story is of a little boy who wants to cherish Holy Mary through his singing, and for this he is murdered by some Jews. His mother, desperate for the disgrace, starts looking for the body of his beloved, and thanks to the intercession of the Holy Mary she finds him miraculously.

3.2.7 THE TALE OF MELIBEUS In The Tale of Melibeus we get to know another character called Prudence. This woman is the wife of an aristocrat, who one day decides to go around without her usual guards, while at some point the enemies attack her and her daughter. Her husband gets to know about the event and he is outraged, however Prudence begs him not to take any counteraction just according to his feeling, as he wouldn’t ponder the consequences.

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3.2.8 THE MONK’S TALE In The Monk‟s Tale we can find a collection of short stories with several female characters, most of which are already well known, as borrowed from other tales of the classical tradition. Among them we find the story of Samson and Delilah. It’s a story of unreciprocated love and betrayal, where the girl is described as cunning and perfidious, and represents the main idea that a woman cannot be trusted. The moral of the story that Chaucer suggest is, in short, that a woman should never be told a secret, especially when it’s a matter of life or death. Another known exemplum is the one of Heracles and Deianira. In this case Chaucer ends up suspending his judgement on her responsibilities: as the name suggests (―man-destroyer‖), she is known to have given death to Heracles by giving him the poisoned Shirt of Nessus, although naively tricked into believing that this robe would have stopped his beloved from being unfaithful. In the last story we have Phania, the daughter of Croesus, who interprets his dream and tragically foretells his near-to-come death by hanging.

3.2.9 THE NUN’S PRIEST’S TALE The Nun‟s Priest‟s Tale introduces an unusual element, since the female character is actually a hen, called Pertelote. The story is about a cock who had a bad dream and is worried about his life. His favourite hen Pertelote, who does not believe in hunches, asks the cock to behave more manly.

3.2.10 THE PHYSICIAN’S TALE In The Physician‟s Tale we see described a relationship between a father and a daughter. Virginia is beautiful and decent, and for this reason

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she attires the attentions of a judge, who wants to win her for himself. Her father does not accept the idea of letting this happen, so he cuts her head off.

3.2.11 THE WIFE OF BATH’S TALE The Wife of Bath‟s Tale is about a knight, sentenced to death for having raped a young lady, to whom the Queen offers a chance of redemption as long as he can answer an apparently simple question: ―What thing it is that women most desire?‖ The only one who knows the correct answer is a hag, who offers to help if the knight will marry her in exchange. Following the tradition of the ―loathy lady‖, the initially hideous appearance of the old lady fades away as soon as the knight, matured and redeemed after this life-threatening experience, manifests his intention to truly stay with her regardless.

3.2.12 THE FRIAR’S TALE In The Friar‟s Tale the female character is a widow. She is a good, decent woman. One day a summoner accuses her on groundless allegations, with the sole purpose of elicit some money from her, but the widow appears strenuously resistant to the official’s invites to sort the situation off through a bribe. At the end, enraged, she asks the devil to take him to hell. Irony of fate, the devil was actually there, under human appearances, accompanying the summoner for the day, and he feels obliged to obey to her request.

3.2.13 THE CLERK’S TALE In The Clerk‟s Tale we can find a very strong female character called Griselda, a poor and kind girl from a village, who is chosen by Walter, marquis of Saluzzo, as his future wife. The nobleman, being insistently pushed by his family to stop being a bachelor and finally provide an heir, 16

falls in love with her modesty and her promise to honour his very every wish, but still he feels unsure about her loyalty. For this reason, he decides to test her love and devotion through very cruel deceits: he pretends to have killed her two babies, and to have cancelled the marriage in favour of another bride. What captures the attention of the reader is how Griselda simply obeys, without a protest, and with great humbleness. The author explains that men are not as able as women to be this humble, even though Griselda is an exceptionally rare from this point of view. Along with this, another message passes: although obedience can be considered a virtue, a woman should recognize its limit and never let a man be cruel to her.

3.2.14 THE MERCHANT’S TALE May is the main female character in The Merchant‟s Tale. She is a very young woman married to an old man. He is jealous and she would like to cheat on him with another man. This story resembles the plot of The Miller‟s Tale. What is different is the intervention of gods, namely Pluto and Proserpina. Proserpina’s role in this story is to save the dignity of the convicted woman. In the end the woman manages to soothe her husband, so the goddess was successful, but her victory was built on a lie, so she was not a moral winner. And that is the lesson of the story.

3.2.15 THE SQUIRE’S TALE In The Squire‟s Tale there are two female characters. One is a princess Canace and the second one is a falcon. Canace can understand the birds talk thanks to a precious gift received from visitors of her father. She sees a falcon grieving and lamenting and she wants to help her. The falcon tells her about her man who let her fall in love and then went around the

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world with a promise that he would come back but he did not. He left her for another one instead.

3.2.16 THE FRANKLIN’S TALE The main character in The Franklin‟s Tale is Dorigen, a faithful wife patiently waiting for her husband to come back home from his travels. In the meantime another man falls in love with her and courts her against her will. To get rid of him Dorigen promises to love him back if he can do an impossible task. The man manages to accomplish that task with a help of a magician. Dorigen is desperate but her husband tells her that she has to keep her word and sends her to him. The man is moved by this act and sets her free in the end. The most interesting part of this story is the beginning, where the husband gives promises to his wife. He promises not to be oppressive and he wants her to feel equal. This way they could have a happy marriage full of love and respect. Chaucer presents an idea that if a man and a woman have the same rights, they can respect each other and have a stronger relationship.

3.2.17 THE SECOND NUN’S TALE In The Second Nun‟s Tale we can read about the life of Saint Cecilia, about her deeds and Christian miracles. She is described as a pure, strong woman completely devoted to Christianity. She represents the ideal model for other women.

3.2.18 THE MANCIPLE’S TALE The last story, called The Manciple‟s Tale, is part of the Ovid’s Metamorphoses, featuring Phoebus Apollo’s wife. Apollo is very jealous of his wife, and wants to keep her shut in the house to keep an eye on her. 18

However, according to the narrator, her true nature can’t be tamed, to the point that she ends up inviting her lover into their house when Apollo is not present. Apollo’s white crow is a witness of this affair, and when he gets back home, it reveals him everything. Apollo, enrage by the discovery, kills his wife, however this ends up making him feel doubtful and regretful, to the a point that, at the end, he blames the crow for the tip-off and punishes him by making it black.

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4 The role of women in the Middle Ages The role of women in the medieval society is described in detail by Edith Ennen. She depicts the relationship between men and women as fundamentally unequal, for the reason that men ruled over women, being empowered into doing this by means and dogma. In the following section I will try to examine the background of the misogynistic environment of that time.

4.1 Male empowerment through means One of the most important means that enabled men to be in charge was money. Power was directly proportional to the amount of money (and possessions) owed. There were laws that made it really difficult for women to get access to money and capitalize it; for instance, they were not allowed by law to manipulate money physically, or to deal with the offices unless specifically granted the authority and freedom to do so by their husbands. Also, when a husband died, the inheritance of money and property was not always guaranteed to the widow, as any potential male heir found in the family tree had right of pre-emption; only once a thorough search confirmed that the woman was a sole heiress, she could then gain some freedom and power together along with the money. (Ennen) Also, women had the duty to obey continuously to a male figure, may it be their fathers at first, or their husbands and after marriage. This obedience was fundamental for them to keep their rights: if they, for

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example, wanted to marry someone against the will of their father, they could lose the right to obtain their dowry. (ibid) There were also laws related to infidelity. The law persecuted both male and female transgressors, however the punishments were unbalanced, as they tended to be of an inferior impact to the male counterpart. There were cases in which a man killed his wife, but was then released from the court room without a punishment, for the reason that he could prove that he acted in affect. (ibid) Also, beating a woman was generally allowed, and the only recommendation related to this matter was to perform this activity in privacy. (ibid)

4.2 Male empowerment through dogma In order to maintain this power over women, men had to exhibit an unquestionable proof of their superiority. The solution was facilitated by the fact that the medieval society was extremely religious, to the point that clergy men were considered role models, points of reference, and relevant authorities in both spiritual and secular matters, this of course implying that their interpretation of the Bible not only was believed as correct by principle, but also determined the morality and the lifestyle of the people living at that time. They were the arbiters of what was a good behaviour and they set out what was to be considered as out of limits. In the end it is indeed in the Bible that we can find the God’s justification for men to rule over women. Specifically, in Genesis 3:16 we read:

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“Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.” (King James Bible Online)

Besides that, the Book of Genesis also clear defines the role of the woman as inferior in the act of creation of the human being itself: God created a man first, then he took his rib and made a woman to make him company and to be a help to him. (ibid) All over the other books of the Bible we can find other excerpts which support the idea that women are not equal and need to be taken care of. However this is valid also for the rest of most of the catholic literature of that time, for example, historical figures such as Saint Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, but also Aristotle. Each of them had a different reason which supported their idea, but the conclusion remained the same. Women were inferior to men. Clergy men simply took their interpretations of the relationship between men and women and applied them in practice. (Le Goff a Schmitt) A very interesting insight regarding this topic can be also found in Encyklopedie středověku (Le Goff a Schmitt) in the section called Sexuality, written by Jacques Rossiaud. Women are, once more, described as animal, weak, they subject to their desires easily and it is necessary to guide them and repress any gentleness. The author reveals some of the medieval opinions, among them there is one related to rape. As the medieval women were presented as lascivious, it was commonly believed that a woman while being raped experienced a great pleasure.

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Another interesting point appears when the author describes the role of parents. He says that according to the tradition of Aristotle philosophy there is only one true parent and it is the father. To understand this idea we have to explore the act of reproduction in its simplicity. Men perform the active part when distributing their seed, women, on the other hand, play a passive role. They only receive and foster children but they do not ―own‖ them. If we stay on this topic and go further, we can discover why sexuality was so oppressed at that time. As the author claims, there were philosophers and patriarchs preaching about harmfulness of sexuality, and it included both physical and spiritual body of a man. There were opinions that every emission of semen shortens the life, makes the body weaker and the brain slower. Coitus was restricted only for the purposes of reproduction and women had to remain passive and let their husbands take control over all actions. With this information in our minds it is possible to pervade into thinking of these people and to get a better understanding of the negative image of women created by the medieval society.

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5 Types of women In The Canterbury Tales there are several types of women with similar characteristics and it is possible to group them according to their relationship towards men. The first type I would call The holy target. Here we can place for example Saint Cecilia from The Second Nun’s Tale. This type of a woman is not honoured for her physical dispositions, but for her moral codes and bravery. It is an ideal woman, a good example to be followed. And the important fact is that this type is very asexual with thinking aiming to heaven, as we can see in the story of Saint Cecilia, where she is not allowed to share bed with her husband after a proper marriage. Then another type tightly follows and could be called Proving of my virtues. This group includes for example Griselda from The Clerk’s Tale or Constance from The Man of Law’s Tale. These women are virtuous, but they are not saint or asexual. It means that they have to prove their qualities in difficult life situations, and only if they suffer immensely and remain resilient, they deserve to be honoured. The next type is a group I call Loyal women. Here we can include for example the falcon in The Squire’s Tale and Dorigen from The Franklin’s Tale. Loyalty is one of the most appreciated characteristics in the stories told on the way, but there is a difference between the loyalty of a woman and a man. Women are obliged to be loyal. When they are, they do not have to be appreciated for that, like in The Squire’s Tale. If they are not,

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they are evil. It is also difficult to be certain about someone’s loyalty without a proof as we can see in the previous group. Then there is another type in which women have a slightly different role, they become an object of men’s attention. I could find two motifs. Among the first type we can place for example Emily from The Knight’s Tale and again Dorigen from The Franklin’s Tale, but this time I would like to consider her relationship with her beau. I would like to call this group The object of love. This type of a woman is usually unapproachable and this fact stimulates men’s attention. It is not important for the story what qualities the main female character obtains because what matters are only the acts of the man who is desperately in love. The stories as told seem to give power to those beloved women over the lives of their charmers, it celebrates their beauty and uniqueness, but the fact is that no one seeks for their opinion. It does not matter whether they reciprocate the love offered to them, and therefore they are only an object of someone’s attention. Emily does not know about the acts of the two knights until almost the end of the story and she does not even wish to get married, but she has to obey. And if we take for instance the character of Dorigen, we see clearly how much she loves her husband and that her will is not to betray him. Then there is another type I call The object of honour. It is similar to the previous group but from a different perspective. Here we can place several characters. The wife and the daughter of the miller from The Reeve’s Tale, Virginia from The Physician’s Tale and Dorigen from The Franklin’s Tale. In this group there are women who are objects of men’s dignity. The wife and the daughter of the miller help him with stealing. Dorigen on the 25

other hand tries not to betray her husband and Virginia is chaste. It does not matter whether the woman obtains good manners or not, if someone touches her, the man in the story loses his honour. The last type forms the biggest group of women and it could be called Considered to be evil. Among these women we can place for instance Alison from The Miller’s Tale, Delilah in The Monk’s Tale or May in The Merchant’s Tale. The most common and prominent characteristic, which granted those women to be called evil, was their infidelity. This group contradicts the previous types. They are not virtuous and chaste, they are the common type of perfidious women that can be found in many medieval texts written by men. And it does not matter what circumstances led them to this path. Our society would have a better understanding for a young woman married to an old man against her will and thus unfaithful in her marriage as May or Alison, but for the medieval society this was not determinative. It is important to remember that there is majority of male narrators in The Canterbury Tales and therefore the types listed above create an image of women perceived by men. We can notice the peculiarity of the roles that women had to play at that time and their unenviable position. There were privileged categories which were very difficult to achieve for common women and even if the situation had been different, being a member of these groups was not anything desirable. Women who were living average lives either contributed to the ―Considered to be evil‖ group or were at least under suspicion for being evil and perfidious. We also have to take in consideration the important role of

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honesty. Infidelity is one of the cruellest ways how to make a husband lose his dignity, hence there is the agitation of men against unfaithful women.

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6 Three female pilgrims The three female narrators represent three different ways of coping with the role that women at that time had to play. I will try to look at them closely and find some clues to support this idea. I will start with The Second Nun. This character is barely depicted in The Prologue, but we understand from her behaviour that she is truly committed to God and chaste. The story about Saint Cecilia she chooses to tell and her speech is a way how to recognize her personality. She decided to follow the ideal picture of a chaste and devoted woman. She does not oppose, she accepts this role. She fits to one of the patterns constructed by men and therefore she does not feel the need to change her path or to complain about her destiny. The Prioress, on the other hand, stays in the middle. She does not fight or oppose, but she revolts in a peaceful way against some of the rules of the society. To understand this we have to read her description in The Prologue where it is said: At table well taught was she withal: She let no morsel from her lips fall, Nor wet her fingers in her sauce too deep. Well could she convey a spoonful, and take care That no drop fell upon her breast. She took much pleasure in etiquette. (Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales 9)

She did not follow strictly the rules of church. She behaved more like an aristocrat and we cannot see any true devotion to her vocation. It seems that

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she did not become a nun because it was her inner will, but because of some life circumstances. She became a prioress but she enjoyed her little joyful moments at the same time. To what extend these moments were joyful we can just guess. As Robert Barnard pointed out, we do not know what her broach with Amor vincit omnia means. Does she mean love toward men? (Barnard) And then there is The Wife of Bath. This character fights against all possible structures made by men. It is difficult to fit her to any type group because she is unique. Her opinions are very courageous and provocative. She is much emancipated compared to any other female characters in the book. Most of the information we can find in the prologue to her story where she argues in a very clever way to justify her behaviour, which is considered to be inappropriate for a woman. I will select some parts of her speech to demonstrate all the ideas mentioned above. In the beginning of her prologue she defends the fact that she had more than one husband. She gives several reasons for that. She got married at the age of twelve for the first time, so we can assume that she was married to an old man who died soon after. She justifies remarrying by saying: When my husband is from this world gone Some Christian man shall wed me anon; For then the apostle says that I am free To wed, on God‟s behalf, where it pleases me. He says that to be wedded is no sin: Better to be wedded than to burn. (ibid 237)

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She also argues with Jesus and some of the religious interpretations when she says: Beside a well, that Jesus, God and man, Spoke in reproof to the Smaritan: „You have had five husbands,‟ said he, „And that same man who now has you Is not your husband; thus said he certain. What he meant thereby I cannot say. Except I ask, why the fifth man Was not husband to the Samaritan? How many might she have in marriage? Yet never have I heard tell in all my time Of this number an explanation. (ibid 235)

And in another part of her argument she is not afraid to put finger on important male figures from the bible as in: Lo, here the wise king, Lord Solomon; I believe he had wives more than one. Would to God it were allowed for me To be refreshed half so often as he! [...] I know well that Abraham was a holy man, And Jacob also, as far as I know; And each of them had wives more than two, And many another holy man also. (ibid 237)

The Wife of Bath shows her broad knowledge of the Bible and her ability to support her point of view by taking some facts and elaborating them. She does that on purpose to justify her behaviour but this is very provoking because the clergy men were in charge of the interpretation of the Bible and they were the ones who could change the meaning according to their thinking. (Le Goff a Schmitt) She also belittles the authority of the biblical figures mentioned in her speech and this way, implicitly, lowers the authority of holy men in general. She wants to be equal to men in her

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thinking and behaviour, she is strong and she is certain that she can manage to succeed. The Bible is not the only source she quotes. During her prologue she borrows sentences from authors of the ancient world and shows her abilities. In a different part of her speech there is another important aspect of the medieval society she does not fear to argue about and it is virginity. As I already pointed out, virgins were honoured at that time on the contrary to women who were more sensual. (Le Goff a Schmitt) We can read: Men may counsel a woman to be one, But counselling is no commandment: He put it in our own judgment. For had God commanded maidenhood, Then he would have damned wedding in that deed. And certainly, if there were no seed sown, Virginity, then whereof should it grow? […] Tell me also, to what purpose Were organs for procreation shaped And by so perfect a workman wrought? Trust right well, they were not made for nought. (ibid 237, 241)

In this part of her speech she implies that women are not obliged by any commands to remain virgins, they have the right to decide for themselves. And if they choose to use their bodies, it does not mean that they should feel inferior because what they do is natural and God created genital organs for reproduction. She wins the argument simply by showing how important reproduction is for the survival of humans. Throughout the whole prologue she gives examples of how she could gain control over her husbands. She claims that a clever woman can easily find a way how to come to power. In other words, she says that it

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does not matter how many laws men create to consolidate their superiority, women have the ability to overcome or circumvent it and thus they cannot be intellectually inferior. In another part she depicts the relationship between her and her fifth husband, who made her suffer by reading about perfidious female characters and also by making her feel inferior for her gender. She decides to act and throws his favourite book with quotations about women in the fire. Her husband hits her in anger but feels sorry afterwards. This is the following reaction of The Wife of Bath: And yet again I hit him on the cheek And said, „Thief! thus much I am avenged. Now will I die: I may no longer speak.‟ But at last, with much care and woe, We came to an agreement between us two. He gave me the bridle completely in my hand, To have the governance of house and land, And of his tongue and his hand also; And made him burn his book anon right then. (ibid 277)

She was not afraid to fight back even if she knew that there was a possibility of her being killed by her husband. Her sovereignty was much too precious to her. In the end she gained power over her husband and even over the money and property. The three female narrators show three different approaches or possible ways of living in the medieval patriarchal society, among which is certainly the most prominent and courageous the approach of The Wife of Bath. The first idea that might appear in our mind is that this character is strangely emancipated for that time. If we compare her behaviour to the moral codes given by the society, we can find a lot of discrepancies. 32

We also need to pay attention to their selection of stories because this can help us learn some more information about these characters. The Second Nun chooses to present Saint Cecilia, an ideal type of a Christian woman. She admires her virtues and follows the same path. In the story of The Prioress there is Holy Mary among the main protagonists, however, the narrator rather concentrates on the relationship between the little boy and his mother. And as for the main character, a hag, in the story of the last female narrator, it is a true resemblance of The Wife of Bath herself. Only with the use of her brightness she manipulates a young man into marriage, in spite of her old age and ugliness. The following example is illustrating: “Choose now,” said she,” one of these things two: To have me foul and old till that I die And be to you a true and humble wife, And never you displease in all my life, Or else you will have me young and fair, And take your chances with the crowd Who shall come to your house, because of me, Or in some other place, as may well be. Now choose whichever pleases you.” (ibid 299)

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7 Conclusion In the book of The Canterbury Tales Geoffrey Chaucer managed to create a markedly accurate miniature of people living in England in the fourteenth century in its complexity and naturalness. From the stories we could elicit, among the other, the peculiar relationship between men and women at that time. Through the characters and their behaviour it is possible to acquire broader information about women and their position in the medieval society, which corresponds with the findings presented by specialists researching this historical period, e.g. Ennen. The value of this masterwork lays in careful composition, where every character has its place and contributes with a specific story, which offers us a better understanding of the character itself. For the purposes of this thesis it was crucial to pay attention to the narrators when building the image of women. There were noticeable differences between male and female narrators in their choice of stories. While female narrators describe women as virtuous, clever or highlight their role as a mother, male narrators, on the other hand, either give an account of their negative qualities, or they create a garbled image of an ideal woman. This is dependent on the specific narrators, so The Knight, for instance, presents the story of Emily, an object of love of two knights, The Shipman or The Merchant choose to depict untrustworthy types of women and The Monk grumbles against women in general while listing significant perfidious characters from books. This division isn’t random and it helps us to understand the connections between the types of women presented in The Canterbury Tales and the attitude of

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the particular male characters and narrators toward them, and thus we can gain more general information about the relationship between men and women at that time. The categories of women created by male narrators put women in a very deplorable situation. There is an ideal image of a chaste and virtuous woman on one side and a horrid picture of a sinful and untrustworthy creature on the other side. The gap between these two cases seems to be immense, yet it is difficult to discover any neutral types in the middle. The ideal types of women are honoured but rare, the sinful types are common and laughed at. Sadly, the types in the middle are too silent and not appreciated enough. Chaucer presented various female characters with different approaches toward living in the world ruled by men. Some of them decide to obey the rules given to them and attempt to reach for the pedestal, e.g. Dorigen, some of them suffer but concede – Emily, other try to find a pleasant way of connecting their duties with their pleasures – The Prioress, and most of them simply ―accept‖ the pitiable label given to them by men and continue living their usual lives. It is extremely difficult to find any female characters that would fight for their rights or try to disobey the codes of the medieval society and therefore The Wife of Bath is a very prominent and exceptional character. Her voice claims all possible privileges that women are deprived of by men. In this character Chaucer portrayed a prototype of a strong, emancipated woman with tremendous abilities that was still rare at that time, and if we

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see to the fact that this character was depicted by a medieval man, it is hard not to be impressed. In The Canterbury Tales Chaucer managed to create a manual of the medieval society of England for further researchers, who might find different angles of perceiving his work and also ask different questions. It is very probable because this work is very complex and shows the society on several levels. However, it would be difficult to capture all the aspects at once, because some connections are not visible at the first sight. Still, The Canterbury Tales is a magnificent source that deserves to be examined further, because, as I believe, it contains much more unrevealed secrets of the medieval society and its protagonists.

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8 Bibliography Barnard, Robert. Stručné dějiny anglické literatury. Praha: Brána, 1997. Boccaccio, Giovanni. Dekameron. Brno: Levné knihy, 2010. Brewer, Derek. Chaucer a jeho svět. Praha: Odeon, 1988. Chaucer, Geoffrey. Canterburské povídky. Praha: Academia, 2010. —. The Canterbury Tales. Ed. W. Hanning Robert. Trans. Peter Tuttle. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2006. Ennen, Edith. Ženy ve středověku. Praha: Argo, 2001. King James Bible Online. 2013. 20 April 2013. . Le Goff, Jacques and Jean-Claude Schmitt. Encyklopedie středověku. Praha: Vyšehrad, 2008. Tuchmanová, Barbara. Zrcadlo vzdálených časů:14.století - století pohrom. Praha: BB/art, 2005. Vančura, Zdeněk. Pohledy na anglickou a americkou literaturu. Praha: Odeon, 1983.

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