literature, spencer's The Faire Queen

1. The Wife of Bath’s
Prologue and Tale
CONTEXT

2. The Wife of Bath
 She doesn’t belong to any of the traditional medieval orders of society.
She’s a member of the rising middle class: she’s a merchant and a woman.
In describing her Chaucer uses a lot of irony
 The title tells us the social condition of this woman (she's a “wife”, actually
a widow) and where she is from (Bath).
 Chaucer describes various details of the Wife of Bath: • Her economic skills
(cloth-making) and social skills (she's very sociable and likes talking). • Her
clothes (very refined) • Her social status (rich and with a high reputation) •
Her physical appearance • Her personality (passionate)

3. Areas for Contextual Study
 Biographical Context
Geoffrey Chaucer
 Literary Context
The Canterbury Tales
The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale
Genre
 Social/Historical Context
Society/Three Estates/Gentillesse
The Black Death
Social Mobility/ The Peasant’s Revolt
The Church
Pilgrimages
Women
Marriage
Anti-Feminism
Ant-Feminist Literature

4. Literary Context

5. The Canterbury Tales
 The Canterbury Tales are a collection of stories, written in verse, apparently told
by an imaginary group of pilgrims on their way to visit the shrine of Thomas a
Beckett at Canterbury.
 They are described as setting off from the Tabard Inn in London during the
month of April. During the journey they tell each other stories for
entertainment.
 The work is generally thought to have been written in 1387 or 1388, and may
have been partly inspired by a pilgrimage which Chaucer made around that
time.
 Chaucer’s original plan, as revealed in The General Prologue, allowed for 30
pilgrims telling four tales each, making 120 tales in all. Only 24 tales exist,
however, four of which are unfinished.
 The role of pilgrimage in framing the narrative for The Canterbury Tales allows
Chaucer to gather a complete cross-section of the social hierarchy in
circumstances in which the characters can mingle on terms of near equality.

6. The Wife of Bath’s Prologue
 The Prologue is 856 lines long, more than twice the length of the Tale itself. In
it, Alison details her marriages with her five husbands, her attempts at
dominating them socially, sexually, economically and views on such concepts
as anti-feminism, church hypocrisy and medieval cultural misogyny.
 Rather than being described as an auto-biography (which didn’t exist at the
time), the Prologue’s genre can be categorised as a confessio (like a
confession) where the subject admitted their past sins and submitted to the
will of God.
 The Wife happily admits to her sins but she does not show the necessary
desire to change her ways. In fact, she revels in her sinful acts and enjoys
revealing them to the other pilgrims. Here, the genre is parodied and satirised
by Chaucer.
 Another of the genres parodied by Chaucer is the debate or sermon, which
involved arguing or teaching on various topics. Chaucer has the Wife
replacing the male clerics as the debater and the arguments used by Alison
are attacks on every man who has condemned women.

7. The Wife of Bath’s Tale- Genre
 The Tale told by the Wife of Bath belongs in the borders between
folktale/fairytale and romance.
 Medieval romances are narrative fictions representing the adventures and values
of the aristocracy. They celebrate an idealized code of civilized behaviour that
combines loyalty, honour, and courtly love.
 The hero of such a romance is usually a knight who engages in perilous
adventures, riding out and frequently fighting, sometimes to win or defend a
lady, sometimes to defeat enemies of the realm, and sometimes for no evident
reason at all.
 Romance typically includes a return from some kind of threatened or symbolic
death at the conclusion of a quest.
 Arthurian legends contain tales of knightly romances, in which a knight would
try to win the love of a lady or a damsel, while exhibiting courtly manner and
chivalry. Women are usually idealized and held in high regard by the hero
knight.
 Fairytales also have traditional characteristics, some of which appear in the the
Tale- love, magical transformations etc. They have been defined as stories where
impossible adventures are undergone by improbable and stereotyped
characters (types, rather than individuals), culminating so often in the familiar
happy ending.

8. The Wife of Bath’s Tale- Genre
 However, Chaucer subverts the conventions of the knightly romance/fairytale genre.
 The Wife’s opening words are typical of the genre, but she then subverts it due to
the characterisation of the Knight.
 The Knight isn’t the noble and chivalric figure one might expect and the main female
figure in the tale, rather then being in need of rescue, is the means by which the
Knight is rescued from a terrible fate.
 The sentencing delivered by the Queen and her ladies and the central importance of
the old hag foregrounds female authority in what is traditionally a male-centred
story.
 The Knight's quest to please the impossible demands of a queen is to be expected,
but not the resulting servitude to an ugly old woman.
 The sermons which obtrude into the text actually question the whole convention of
chivalry.
 The reader's expectations of a courtly tale in which women are rescued by men
(knights) is overturned – it is a powerful woman who rescues a powerless man.
 The fairy tale transformation at the end is only achieved on the woman's terms.
 He is sent out in peril of his life to discover what women really want. It is an
educative process for the Knight, but not one which requires any great valour. His
most valiant deed turns out to be that he honours his promise to the Old Woman
and surrenders his power.

9. Biographical Context

10. Geoffrey Chaucer and Cecilia Chaumpaigne
 A legal document dating from 1380 exists which is still not fully understood
by modern academics.
 The document names Geoffrey Chaucer and a man called John Grove as
being required to make a payment to a lady called Cecilia Chaumpaigne in
order to avoid proceedings taking place concerning her raptus.
 Raptus is an ambiguous word. It can mean abduction, either physically or in
the sense of seizing guardianship over a minor. However, it can also mean
rape.
 The payment was made and the issue settled, yet it is still unclear whether
not not Chaucer was the main defendant and if the charge was rape.
 Could this have had any influence on The Wife of Bath’s Tale, in which a
knight is punished for raping a young maiden?

11. Social/Historical Context

12. Medieval Society
 The time in which Chaucer lived and wrote was known as the Medieval
Period or Middle Ages, lasting from the 5th to the 15th Century.
 Medieval society featured a rigidly hierarchical social structure, comprising
of 3 classes, or estates: those who prayed (the clergy), those who fought
(the nobility) and those who laboured (ordinary people). Apart from
entering into the clergy, people were expected to remain in the rank to
which God was seen to have allocated them at birth. (Both Chaucer and
the Wife are social climbers).
 Men were in higher status than women.
 In the General Prologue of the Canterbury Tales, the pilgrims are
introduced roughly in order of their social rank, with the Knight, who
comes from the nobility, leading the order. The Wife of Bath, who comes
from the middle classes, is introduced approximately half way through.
 This rigid social structure, however, was affected somewhat by several
historical developments, including The Back Death and The Peasant’s
Revolt.

13. 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. In other words, these people were
considered to be naturally gentil in their behaviour.
 However, writers began to look beyond the superficial attributes of birth
towards the essential characteristics of a person. “Gentillesse” became
associated with moral qualities, aspects of a person’s virtue.
 In the Wife’s Tale, the hag’s main point is 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. Persons of low birth,
she argues, can be virtuous by nature too.
 The Wife of Bath perhaps wants to indicate that all men are at fault
because they do not live up to the ideals contained in the word
“gentillesse”.
 When applied to the Wife herself, it is evident that she lacks any of the
qualities signalled by “gentillesse”.
 As Chaucer’s own family rose in social status from fairly humble origins
then it is likely that Chaucer had a personal interest in the concept of
gentillesse”.

14. The Black Death
 The bubonic plague, otherwise known as The Black Death, arrived in
England in 1349.
 Considering the huge numbers of rats and the standard of
fourteenth-century hygiene, conditions were rife for an epidemic.
More and more people succumbed, their bodies becoming swollen
and blackened.
 It spread quickly, carried by black rats who nested on board ships, and
was transmitted to humans through flea-bites. Within a year of
arriving in England around a third of the population (1.5 million) were
dead.
 The deaths of so many people inevitably had a powerful effect on
medieval life and medieval social structures. Inevitably, there was
sudden scope for enterprising people from all ranks of society to seek
better conditions and better occupations.

15. Shifts in Social Structure
 Due to the devastating impact of the plague, peasant labour was in short
supply.
 Peasants who survived the plague found themselves in a far stronger
economic position. No longer locked into a system that kept them tied to
a single manor, they were mobile and able to insist on certain wages and
working conditions.
 They forsook their old estates and moved instead in greater numbers to
the cities where the wages were high, enabling those who survived to
profit financially.
 Also, others survived the plague often inherited the property and wealth
of those relatives who died.
 (While the Wife’s husband’s die of old age, her means of social
mobility was inheriting the land of others).
 People were no longer confined to the social class into which they were
born; the 14th Century saw a lot of social mobility.
 The social impact of the plague created a new social class of wealthy
town-dwellers: merchants, physicians, cooks and business people.
 Chaucer’s own family rose from being inn-keepers to moving in court
circles in less than 100 years.

16. The Peasant’s Revolt
 Despite the upward mobility of certain people in society, those who
previously held power felt threatened and various steps were taken to curb
the social order.
 Laws were passed to make it illegal for peasants to seek higher wages or
work for different masters. Attempts were made to restore wages and
conditions to pre-plague levels and a poll tax of one shilling was imposed
on every adult in the country, irrespective of whether they were rich or
poor.
 The people grew discontented and then rebellious, resulting in the
Peasant’s revolt of 1381. Due to perceived social and economic injustices,
wealthy landlords and the Church found themselves targets of the uprising.
 Violence broke out in the South-East and spread to London, thousands
pouring into the city at Aldgate (one of the six xity gates), below Chaucer’s
house.
 The attacks culminated in the execution of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
The violence was eventually brought under control but English society was
rapidly changing.
 These social conditions would have enabled someone like the Wife of Bath
to thrive.

17. The Medieval Church
 The church had a powerful influence on virtually every aspect of 14th Century
life. Everyone was expected to attend Masses, go to confession, and contribute
to church funds.
 The Church had real political and economic power but, like any powerful
institutions, it was corrupt. In towns and cities such the new middle class
became openly critical. Members of the clergy were regularly satirised in
literature for being greedy, corrupt and hypocritical (The Wife pokes fun at
the Friar’s moral laxity in her Tale).
 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.
 In England, the effects of the upheaval in the Church were felt particularly in the
work of John Wycliffe, a reformer who attached papal authority. He argued that
every man had the right to examine the Bible for himself and his work led to the
movement known as Lollardy.
 It is debatable whether or not Chaucer had Lollard sympathies; yet in The
Canterbury Tales he attacks abuses within the Church in a way with which
Wycliffe would have sympathised.

18. Pilgrimages
 By the fourteenth Century, it was common practice for people to make
journeys to places of special religious significance, for example, a saint’s
shrine. Such journeys were usually undertaken for the purpose of religious
devotion, to offer thanks, or to atone for sins.
 By the time that Chaucer’s pilgrims were gathering to make the journey to
Canterbury, pilgrimages were undertaken not just for devotional reasons.
 The journeys themselves came to be seen as opportunities for business
enterprise or as a popular pastime- hotels on certain routes, at shrines,
selling relics etc.
 The Wife of Bath, who seems to be almost a professional pilgrim, may well
have been using her trips for business purposes or tourists reasons, rather
than for devotional purposes.
 Certainly, her showy clothes do not seem to bear any resemblance to those
humble garments usually associated with traditional pilgrims.
 The Wife may even be on this pilgrimage to seek out Husband Number 6!
 A pilgrimage is a special kind of physical journey , where the goal is a holy
or sacred place. The parallel with the journey of life gains an extra
significance, because the pilgrimage’s sacred purpose is the equivalent of
the soul’s journey through life towards God. (The Wife clearly distorts this
view of pilgrimages).

19. Women
 Medieval society was a patriarchal society and was dominated entirely by men:
women had virtually no political, legal or economic power in their own right. They
were considered to be little more than property; even rape was seen as a property
crime.
 In addition to being members of one of the three estates, medieval women were
also placed in one of three categories: virgin, wife or widow. They tended to be
thought of as inferior in consequence and importance to men.
 Even in a climate of change in Medieval society, the options open to women were
limited. They effectively had two choices- to marry or to enter the Church.
 A woman was always considered to be under the authority of her husband and the
idea of an independent lifestyle for women was not an option. They were denied
access to all positions of public authority and even privately were supposed to be
under the control of men (husbands or fathers) or, in the case of women who
became nuns, the male members of the Church.
 In this context, the Wife’s challenge to “authority” seems all the more remarkable.

20. Women (cont.)
 There was little formal education for women, as the schools were run by
monasteries. Very few women would have extended access to “book learning”
enjoyed by their male counterparts, and so male auctoritee was sustained, at
least on the surface of medieval life.
 (The Wife’s knowledge can be seen as second-hand: coming from either
Chaucer himself or the misogynistic rants of Jankin).
 Women of low social standing could train to become skilled in one of the trades,
such as brewing, leatherwork or weaving.
 Woollen manufacture was big business and this is the Wife’s own trade.
 Although it was not unknown for women to sun businesses at this time, it is
doubtful that there were many female entrepreneurs like the Wife in 14th Century
England.
 No matter how successful a woman might be, she was still considered to be
under the authority of her husband, and she would have no public power in what
was a male-dominated society.

21. Marriage
 Marriages did not happen for love. Rather, they took place on purely
economic grounds. There were even cases of young daughters actually
being sold by parents to “suitable” partners.
 The Wife herself mentions that she was married for the first time at the
age of 12, and we could possibly assume from this that Alison’s parents
may have been in financial need.
 (The Wife seeks out wealthy husbands for financial benefit and
clearly has little love for them, based on what she puts them
through!)
 Husbands were to hold all power and authority in their marriage.
 However, when husbands were away from home on business, wives were
expected to manage estates and act for their husbands in a legal
capacity. (This is reflected in the hands-on approach that the Wife
takes with her husbands in her numerous marriages).
 The Church viewed marriage as necessary, but undesirable due to the
anti-feminist view of women as being inherently full of vices and certain
to bring misery to her husbands.

22. Anti-
Feminism
 The terms anti-feminist and misogynist both simply mean anti-women.
 In Medieval society, women were still thought of as inferior in intellect and power to
men.
 This view had its source in biblical writings and was perpetuated by the teaching of
the Church which stated that women were the root of all humanity’s sufferings. This
was because of Eve in the Book of Genesis: she ate the apple she was told not to touch
and she therefore succeeded in getting herself, Adam and all their descendants
expelled from Paradise.
 All women were to be blamed ever after as Eve’s descendants, accused of being weak-
willed and prone to error.
 Medieval scholars perpetuated the view that women were full of vices and inferior to
men in all things. They presented all women as weak and unintelligent and likely to
sin, fond of causing trouble and bound to make any man miserable who was foolish
enough to marry them.
 Their bodies were regarded as filthy and inferior, and on the other as a terrible
temptation to men, put there by the devil.
 (In The Wife of Bath’s Prologue, Jankin reads Alison the section from “the Book
of Wicked Wives” referring to Eve’s wickednesse in brining about the downfall
of mankind).
 What does Chaucer have to say about these anti-feminist views through his depiction
of the Wife?

23. Anti-Feminist
Literature
 In addition to the Old Testament story of Adam and Eve, there were many of other writings
which condemned women or supported the idea that marriage was undesirable.
 St Jerome- Jerome held extreme views, believing that all desires of the body were sinful
and therefore expressed that eating, drinking and sleeping should be done as little as
possible. He also believed that sexual desire should not be indulged in at all. He felt women
were instrumental in tempting men to this sinful act and so his writings are full of
condemnations of females.
 He constantly paints pictures of the worthlessness of a woman’s life. He describes women
concerned only with their make-up, their hair, their flirtations; they are always spiteful,
quarrelsome, jealous.
 St Paul- In his letter to the Corinthians, he begins by saying that the ideal state is celibacy,
but that marriage is preferable to promiscuity. He frequently returns to the wish that all
men remain virgins, and expresses the his wish that unmarried women and widows should
remain celibate. The Wife refers to this in lines 49-52.
 Theophrastus- A Greek Philosopher who was the alleged author of a misogynist work
called The Golden Book on Marriage. This book states that married women are always
complaining, wanting fine clothes and jewels so they can show off to their friends. They are
also depicted as being shrewish, jealous nags who suspect their husbands of having affairs
and who want to prevent their husbands from having a life outside of the home.
 The Wife, in lines 235-241, uses his words in a humorous reversal to depict Theophrastus as
a shrew.

24. The Wife and the Anti-Feminist Tradition
 Through Chaucer’s depiction of the Wife of Bath, it seems that she conforms to the
prevailing misogynistic, or anti-woman view displayed by the clerics.
 She even admits to these traits of character, and explains why she behaves as she
does, sometimes even boasting about her tactics.
 However, she is not weak spirited, unable to help her own nature, not at all the
typical woman portrayed by the anti-feminists.
 Instead, she is shrewd, clever, an excellent debater to match any man’s glosing and
willing to exploit her situation to her own advantage.