"The Man of Law's Tale" is the fifth of the Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, written around 1387. John Gower's "Tale of Constance" in Confessio Amantis tells the same story and may have been a source for Chaucer. [1] Nicholas Trivet's Les chronicles was a source for both authors. [2]
Wurtele provides a detailed compilation of the differences between Trivet's Chronicle and the poems of Gower and Chaucer. [3] : 56–82 Gower strove for vividness and shortened the tale in places. Chaucer expanded the tale and emphasizes the holiness of Constance and how she was favoured by heaven.
Hagiographic motifs are most abundant in Chaucer's version, e.g. “the miracles God works though Custance and the way she is miraculously fed while at sea”.[ citation needed ] Wurtele observes that Chaucer makes frequent use of the adjective "hooly" but Gower never uses this word. [3] : 64–65
(References here are to line numbers in both Man of Law's Tale (MLT) and Confessio Amantis (CA).)
Constance (Custance in Chaucer) is the daughter of the emperor in Rome. Syrian merchants report her great beauty to the Sultan. A marriage contract is negotiated by her father which requires the Sultan and his subjects to convert to Christianity.MLT [4] : 134–245 or CA [5] : II.587–639
The Sultan's mother, enraged that her son would turn his back on Islam, connives to prevent this by massacring her son and the wedding party and having Constance set adrift on the sea. MLT [4] : 386–504 or CA [5] : II.665–715 Constance's adventures and trials continue after she is shipwrecked on the Northumberland coast. The validity of her Christian faith is proved by two miracles. Her companion Hermengyld heals a blind man.MLT [4] : 547–574 or CA [5] : II.759–775 A wicked knight who wishes to seduce Constance murders Hermengyld and attempts to frame Constance using the bloody dagger. He perjures himself and is mysteriously struck dead. MLT [4] : 582–686 or CA [5] : II.792–885 Northumberland is a nominally pagan country where the King, Alla (based on Chaucer's understanding of the historical Ælla of Deira [6] ) converted to Christianity after learning of the two miracles. Alla's evil mother intercepts and falsifies letters between the Alla and his constable, which results in Constance's being banished. MLT [4] : 386–875 or CA [5] : II.665–1036
Constance is forced to go to sea again and encounters one final antagonist. She runs aground in Spain; a would-be rapist (Thelous in CA) boards her ship but mysteriously falls overboard. MLT [4] : 911–945 or CA [5] : II.1090–1122 She is found by a Senator of Rome, who is returning from a mission to Barberie (Syria) where he revenged the slaughter of Christians by the Sultan's mother. MLT [4] : 953ff or CA [5] : II.1179ff The Senator takes Constance (and her child) back to Italy to serve as a household servant. King Alla, still heartbroken over the loss of Constance, goes to Rome on a pilgrimage, and fortunately finds Constance. The couple returns to Northumberland. Alla dies a year later, Constance returns to Rome, and their son becomes the Emperor of Rome. MLT [4] : 876–1150 or CA [5] : II.1077–1612
The Man of Law may have been based upon a real character. Two candidates are Thomas Pynchbek and Gower. Pynchbek "served as a justice of assize between 1376 and 1388 and was known for his acquisition of land, as well as for his learning; in 1388, as chief baron of the Exchequer, he signed a writ for GC's arrest in a case of debt". [7] [8] : 124 Accepting the latter requires accepting the debatable claim that Gower was a practiced lawyer. [9] Yeager asserts that Gower had a "lawyerly habit of mind" but there is no evidence that he received formal training in the law. Chaucer himself is another candidate. [10] Yet another view is taken by David who sees the Man of Law as "a representative of the self-appointed poetry critics with whom Chaucer disagreed. [11] : 219
The Man of Law (referred to here as 'A Sergeant of the Lawe') is a judicious and dignified man, or, at least, he seems so because of his wise words. He is a judge in the court of assizes (civil procedures), by letter of appointment from the king, and has many goods and robes. He can draw up a legal document, the narrator tells us, and "no wight pinchen at his writing". The Man of Law rides in informal, silk-adorned clothes. GP : 311–330 The Host addresses the Man of Law with more respect than he does the Miller and the Reeve. [4] : 33–38 The Man of Law's response to the host includes "behest [promise] is debt" which is a quotation from Justinian. [12] : 499
Whatever the identity of the narrator, his knowledge of literature is erratic. Some of the Chaucerian works have not been 'published', which suggests he is part of Chaucer's literary circle. He confuses the Muses with the Pierides. [4] : 92 Antiochus did not throw his daughter to the ground. The most debated passage in the Introduction is:
Gower retold these two stories in Confessio. David observes that MLT is placed after somewhat immoral tales told by the Miller, the Reeve and the Cook. [11] : 220 After Gower became aware of this passage, the Epilogue of Confessio was altered to remove praise of Chaucer. The three common interpretations are:
The narrator of the tale is less materialistic than the Sergeant of the Introduction (the description of the merchants' wealth is an exception [15] : 157 ). "The tale, on the other hand, quite clearly reveals its narrator to be a devotee of justice in some ideal order, rather than a legal technician grown wealthy through sharp practices." [12] : 501 The events of the tale are the crimes discussed in Bracton's De legibus. "Simply from this point of view, and with respect to both style and substance, the received story as an aggregation of incidents is well suit for retelling by a Sergeant of the Law." [12] : 509 "Tortuous"MLT: 302 an astrological term may be confused with "tortious" which is a legal term. [12] : 504 Apostrophe is used in several places. [16] : 584 Another marked stylistic trait is his use of those rhetorical questions which punctuate with the regularity of a refrain the two passages ( [4] : 470–594 and [4] : 932–945 ) emphasizing at some length the dangers that beset Constance when she is at the sultaness' feast, when she is drifting from Syria to Northumberland, and when the second miscreant assaults her. [16] : 585
Some scholars disagree with the arguments given above. Spearing downplays the notion that the narration is the voice of a lawyer. [17] Pearsall found nothing specific to a lawyer other than the response to the Host in the Introduction. [18]
The tale is based on a story within the Chronicles of Nicholas Trivet [2] but the major theme in the tale, of an exiled princess uncorrupted by her suffering, was common in the literature of the time. [19] : 24–25 Her tale is also told in John Gower's Confessio Amantis , and both are similar to the verse Romance Emaré , and the cycle is generally known as the "Constance" cycle. [19] : 24–25 The oldest known variant of this particular type is Vitae duorum Offarum . [19] : 23 More distantly related forms of the persecuted heroine include Le Bone Florence of Rome , and Griselda . [20] An incident where Constance is framed for murder by a bloody dagger appears to be a direct borrowing from Crescentia . [21]
The tale is the first in Fragment 2. Fragment 1 contains tales told by the Knight, Miller, Reeve and Cook. The various manuscripts of the Tales differ in the sequence of the tales. 35 manuscripts contain the Man of Law's epilogue, while 22 others (including the Ellesmere Manuscript) do not. [22] In the epilogue, the host invites the Parson to speak next, but the Parson is interrupted before he can begin and a different speaker tells the next tale. In the various manuscripts, the interrupter is Summoner, the Squire, or the Shipman, [22] but it is the Shipman whose character best matches the rude remarks (although the mention of his "joly body" sounds closer to something the Wife of Bath might say). What this probably shows is that Chaucer had not fixed his overall plan. There are also hints, with his claim he will talk in prose despite rhyming throughout, that the Man of Law originally told the Tale of Melibee before he was assigned Custance's tale late in the composition of the Tales. [11] : 217
The Canterbury Tales is a collection of twenty-four stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. It is widely regarded as Chaucer's magnum opus. The tales are presented as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together from London to Canterbury to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. The prize for this contest is a free meal at the Tabard Inn at Southwark on their return.
According to Roman tradition, Lucretia, anglicized as Lucrece, was a noblewoman in ancient Rome. Sextus Tarquinius (Tarquin) raped her and her subsequent suicide precipitated a rebellion that overthrew the Roman monarchy and led to the transition of Roman government from a kingdom to a republic. After Tarquin raped Lucretia, flames of dissatisfaction were kindled over the tyrannical methods of Tarquin's father, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, the last king of Rome. As a result, the prominent families instituted a republic, drove the extensive royal family of Tarquin from Rome, and successfully defended the republic against attempted Etruscan and Latin intervention.
John Gower was an English poet, a contemporary of William Langland and the Pearl Poet, and a personal friend of Geoffrey Chaucer. He is remembered primarily for three major works—the Mirour de l'Omme, Vox Clamantis, and Confessio Amantis—three long poems written in French, Latin, and English respectively, which are united by common moral and political themes.
Rhyme royal is a rhyming stanza form that was introduced to English poetry by Geoffrey Chaucer. The form enjoyed significant success in the fifteenth century and into the sixteenth century. It has had a more subdued but continuing influence on English verse in more recent centuries.
The General Prologue is the first part of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. It introduces the frame story, in which a group of pilgrims travelling to the shrine of Thomas Becket in Canterbury agree to take part in a storytelling competition, and describes the pilgrims themselves. The Prologue is arguably the most familiar section of The Canterbury Tales, depicting traffic between places, languages and cultures, as well as introducing and describing the pilgrims who will narrate the tales.
Thomas Hoccleve or Occleve (1368/69–1426) was a key figure in 15th-century Middle English literature, significant for promoting Chaucer as "the father of English literature", and as a poet in his own right. His poetry, especially his longest work, the didactic work Regement of Princes, was extremely popular in the fifteenth century, but went largely ignored until the late twentieth century, when it was re-examined by scholars, particularly John Burrow. Today he is most well known for his Series, which includes the earliest autobiographical description of mental illness in English, and for his extensive scribal activity. Three holographs of his poetry have survived, and he also copied literary manuscripts by other writers. As a clerk of the Office of the Privy Seal, he wrote hundreds of documents in French and Latin.
"The Manciple's Tale" is part of Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. It tends to appear near the end of most manuscripts of the poem, and the prologue to the final tale, "The Parson's Tale", makes it clear it was intended as the penultimate story in the collection. The Manciple, a purchasing agent for a law court, tells a fable about Phoebus Apollo and his pet crow, which is both an origin myth explaining the crow's black feathers and a moralistic injunction against gossip.
"The Physician's Tale" is one of The Canterbury Tales, written by Geoffrey Chaucer in the 14th century.
Nicholas Trivet was an English Anglo-Norman chronicler.
Confessio Amantis is a 33,000-line Middle English poem by John Gower, which uses the confession made by an ageing lover to the chaplain of Venus as a frame story for a collection of shorter narrative poems. According to its prologue, it was composed at the request of Richard II. It stands with the works of Chaucer, Langland, and the Pearl poet as one of the great works of late 14th-century English literature. The Index of Middle English Verse shows that in the era before the printing press it was one of the most-often copied manuscripts along with Canterbury Tales and Piers Plowman.
In Greek and Roman mythology, Corone is a young woman who attracted the attention of Poseidon, the god of the sea, and was saved by Athena, the goddess of wisdom. She was a princess and the daughter of Coronaeus. Her brief tale is recounted in the narrative poem Metamorphoses by the Roman poet Ovid. Several other myths surround the crow about its connection to Athena.
Constance may refer to:
The Pattern of Painful Adventures (1576) is a prose novel. A later edition, printed in 1607 by Valentine Simmes and published by Nathaniel Butter, was a source for William Shakespeare's play Pericles, Prince of Tyre. There was at least one intermediate edition, around 1595.
Emaré is a Middle English Breton lai, a form of mediaeval romance poem, told in 1035 lines. The author of Emaré is unknown and it exists in only one manuscript, Cotton Caligula A. ii, which contains ten metrical narratives. Emaré seems to date from the late fourteenth century, possibly written in the North East Midlands. The iambic pattern is rather rough.
Harley MS 7334, sometimes known as the Harley Manuscript, is a mediaeval manuscript of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales held in the Harleian Collection of the British Library.
The Trinity Gower D Scribe, often referred to simply as Scribe D, was a professional scribe and copyist of literary manuscripts active during the late fourteenth and early fifteenth century in London, England. Although his real name long remained unknown, Scribe D has been described as "so well known to students of late Middle English manuscripts that he hardly needs any introduction".
John Hurt Fisher was an American literary scholar, English professor, and medievalist, who specialized in the study of Geoffrey Chaucer and John Gower.
Russell A. Peck was an American medievalist, scholar of medieval literature, and author. At the time of his retirement in 2014, he was John Hall Deane Professor of English at the University of Rochester, where he began teaching in 1961.