"The Man of Law's Tale" is the fifth of the ''
Canterbury Tales
''The Canterbury Tales'' () is a collection of 24 stories written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. The book presents the tales, which are mostly written in verse (poetry), verse, as part of a fictional storytellin ...
'' by
Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer ( ; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for ''The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He w ...
, written around 1387.
John Gower
John Gower (; c. 1330 – October 1408) 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 ...
's "Tale of Constance" in ''
Confessio Amantis
''Confessio Amantis'' ("The Lover's Confession") 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. Accor ...
'' tells the same story and may have been a source for Chaucer.
Nicholas Trivet
Nicholas Trivet (or Trevet, as he himself wrote) (c. 1258 – c. 1328) was an English Anglo-Norman chronicler.
Life
Trivet was born in Somerset and was the son of Sir Thomas Trevet (died 1283), a judge who came of a Norfolk or Somerset family. ...
's ''Les chronicles'' was a source for both authors.
Wurtele provides a detailed compilation of the differences between Trivet's Chronicle and the poems of Gower and Chaucer.
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
A hagiography (; ) is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an wiktionary:adulatory, adulatory and idealized biography of a preacher, priest, founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religi ...
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”. Wurtele observes that Chaucer makes frequent use of the adjective "hooly" but Gower never uses this word.
[
]
Synopsis
(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 or CA[ (Middle English, based on Macaulay 1901)]
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[ or CA][ Constance's adventures and trials continue after she is shipwrecked on the ]Northumberland
Northumberland ( ) is a ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North East England, on the Anglo-Scottish border, border with Scotland. It is bordered by the North Sea to the east, Tyne and Wear and County Durham to the south, Cumb ...
coast. The validity of her Christian faith is proved by two miracles. Her companion Hermengyld heals a blind man.MLT[ or CA][ 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][ or CA][ Northumberland is a nominally pagan country where the King, Alla (based on Chaucer's understanding of the historical ]Ælla of Deira
Ælla or Ælle is the first known king of the Anglian kingdom of Deira, which he ruled from around 560 until his death in 588.
Biography
The ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' records that Ælla became king in 560.Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, s.a. 560 Anachr ...
) 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[ or CA][
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][ or CA][ 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][ or CA][ 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][ or CA][
]
Character of the Man of Law
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". Accepting the latter requires accepting the debatable claim that Gower was a practiced lawyer. 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. 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.
Man of Law as narrator
Introduction
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 The Host addresses the Man of Law with more respect than he does the Miller and the Reeve.[ The Man of Law's response to the host includes "behest romiseis debt" which is a quotation from ]Justinian
Justinian I (, ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was Roman emperor from 527 to 565.
His reign was marked by the ambitious but only partly realized ''renovatio imperii'', or "restoration of the Empire". This ambition was ...
.
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.[ Antiochus did not throw his daughter to the ground. The most debated passage in the Introduction is: ]
:But certeinly no word ne writeth he
:Of thilke wikke ickedensample of Canacee,
:That loved hir owene brother synfully –
:Of swiche cursed stories I sey fy! –
:Or ellis of Tyro Appollonius,
:How that the cursed kyng Antiochus
:Birafte his doghter of hir maydenhede,
:That is so horrible a tale for to rede,
:Whan he hir threw upon the pavement.[
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.][ After Gower became aware of this passage, the Epilogue of Confessio was altered to remove praise of Chaucer. The three common interpretations are:
* Gower was offended by this criticism and deliberately excised the praise of Chaucer which appears in the first recension of CA.][
* Macaulay argues the excision was an editing error, which was corrected in a subsequent recension of Confessio.
* ]Fisher
Fisher is an archaic term for a fisherman, revived as gender-neutral.
Fisher, Fishers or The Fisher may also refer to:
Places
Australia
* Division of Fisher, an electoral district in the Australian House of Representatives, in Queensland
*Elec ...
took the view that "moral Gower" was offended by the immoral tales found in the Canterbury Tales.
Tale
The narrator of the tale is less materialistic than the Sergeant of the Introduction (the description of the merchants' wealth is an exception ). "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."[ 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."][ "Tortuous"MLT an astrological term may be confused with "tortious" which is a legal term.][ ]Apostrophe
The apostrophe (, ) is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritical mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet and some other alphabets. In English, the apostrophe is used for two basic purposes:
* The marking of the omission of one o ...
is used in several places.[ Another marked stylistic trait is his use of those rhetorical questions which punctuate with the regularity of a refrain the two passages (][and ][) 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.]
Some scholars disagree with the arguments given above.
Spearing downplays the notion that the narration is the voice of a lawyer. Pearsall found nothing specific to a lawyer other than the response to the Host in the Introduction.
Sources
The tale is based on a story within the ''Chronicles'' of Nicholas Trivet
Nicholas Trivet (or Trevet, as he himself wrote) (c. 1258 – c. 1328) was an English Anglo-Norman chronicler.
Life
Trivet was born in Somerset and was the son of Sir Thomas Trevet (died 1283), a judge who came of a Norfolk or Somerset family. ...
[ but the major theme in the tale, of an exiled princess uncorrupted by her suffering, was common in the literature of the time.][Laura A. Hibbard, ''Medieval Romance in England'' New York Burt Franklin,1963] Her tale is also told in John Gower
John Gower (; c. 1330 – October 1408) 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 ...
's ''Confessio Amantis
''Confessio Amantis'' ("The Lover's Confession") 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. Accor ...
'', and both are similar to the verse Romance
Romance may refer to:
Common meanings
* Romance (love), emotional attraction towards another person and the courtship behaviors undertaken to express the feelings
** Romantic orientation, the classification of the sex or gender with which a pers ...
''Emaré
''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'' ...
'', and the cycle is generally known as the "Constance" cycle.[ The oldest known variant of this particular type is '' Vitae duorum Offarum''.][ More distantly related forms of the persecuted heroine include '']Le Bone Florence of Rome
''Le Bone Florence of Rome'' is a medieval English chivalric romance.Carol Falvo Heffernan, ''Le Bone Florence of Rome'', p vii , Featuring the innocent persecuted heroine, it is subcategorized into the Crescentia cycle of romances because of two ...
'', and ''Griselda
Griselda, also spelled Grizelda, is a feminine given name from Germanic sources that is now used in English, Italian, and Spanish as well. According to the 1990 United States Census, the name was 1,066th in popularity among females in the Unit ...
''. An incident where Constance is framed for murder by a bloody dagger appears to be a direct borrowing from ''Crescentia
''Crescentia'' (calabash tree, huingo, krabasi, or kalebas) is a genus of six species of flowering plants in the family Bignoniaceae, native to Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, and northern South America. The species are moderate-size tre ...
''.
Sequence with other tales
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
An epilogue or epilog (from Greek ἐπίλογος ''epílogos'', "conclusion" from ἐπί ''epi'', "in addition" and λόγος ''logos'', "word") is a piece of writing at the end of a work of literature, usually used to bring closure to the ...
, while 22 others (including the Ellesmere Manuscript
The Ellesmere Chaucer, or Ellesmere Manuscript of the Canterbury Tales, is an early 15th-century illuminated manuscript of Geoffrey Chaucer's ''Canterbury Tales'', owned by the Huntington Library, in San Marino, California (EL 26 C 9). It is cons ...
) do not. In the epilogue, the host invites the Parson
A parson is an ordained Christian person responsible for a small area, typically a parish. The term was formerly often used for some Anglican clergy and, more rarely, for ordained ministers in some other churches. It is no longer a formal term d ...
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
In the Middle Ages, a squire was the shield- or armour-bearer of a knight. Boys served a knight as an attendant, doing simple but important tasks such as saddling a horse or caring for the knight's weapons and armour.
Terminology
''Squire'' ...
, or the Shipman, 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
"The Wife of Bath's Tale" () is among the best-known of Geoffrey Chaucer's ''Canterbury Tales''. It provides insight into the role of women in the Late Middle Ages and was probably of interest to Chaucer, himself, for the character is one of hi ...
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
"The Tale of Melibee" (also called "The Tale of Melibeus") is one of ''The Canterbury Tales'' by Geoffrey Chaucer.
This is the second tale in the collection told by Chaucer himself. After being interrupted by the host Harry Bailly (The Host in T ...
before he was assigned Custance's tale late in the composition of the ''Tales''.[
]
See also
* Calumniated Wife
*The Tale of Tsar Saltan
The Tale of Tsar Saltan, of His Son the Renowned and Mighty Bogatyr Prince Gvidon Saltanovich and of the Beautiful Swan-Princess ( ) is an 1831 fairy tale in verse by Alexander Pushkin.
As a folk tale it is classified as Aarne–Thompson type ...
References
External links
"The Man of Law's Tale", middle-english hypertext with glossary and side-by-side middle english and modern english
* ttps://medievalit.com/home/echaucer/modern-translations/the-man-of-laws-tale-translation/ Modern Translation of "The Man of Law's Tale" and Other Resources at eChaucerbr>"The Man of Law's Tale" – a plain-English retelling for non-scholars.
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The Canterbury Tales
1387 works