Starting as a blog of my reading process for candidacy exams in Middle English Literature, now a log of my research as I do righteous battle against the beast know as Dissertation.
Hanna, Ralph, III. "'Ledeþ hire to Londoun þere lawe is yshewed': Piers Plowman B, London 1377." London Literature, 1300-1380. Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature, 57. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Print.
Hanna's chapter fits in with the overall intent of his book, namely to discuss the specificity of fourteenth century literature to London. Overall, Hanna's book points out the uniqueness of this development despite the seeming lack of London features to develop a literary culture, such as a major university as that in Paris. In this chapter, Hanna's lengthy and in-depth discussion of Piers Plowman seeks to both localize this text to London and situate it as a distinctly Edwardian text. Hanna first takes on the manuscript evidence for Piers Plowman as a London text, extensively discussing the scribal evidence and provenance of known manuscripts. Hanna then moves on to discuss the Lady Mede section, both using the alliterative structure to place the text less in common with the Alliterative Revival and more with Wynnere and Wastoure and arguing that the specific arguments between Mede and Conscience mirror the specific political matters of Edward III's reign. Hanna closes the chapter with a discussion of how the latter sections of Piers Plowman aligns with the London Apocalpyse tradition, reading Piers' role specifically in this context. As a whole, Hanna's chapter is an interesting perspective on Piers Plowman that is deceptive in what it brings to the table. On the surface, the arguments that PP is a London text or the Lady Mede section mirrors the issues of Edward III's court may seem as already accepted readings, but Hanna provides close analysis of the evidence at hand to turn sharper perspectives on assumed readings. If I had any critique on this chapter, it would be the expansive material it covers in its 50+ pages which could have been broken into several smaller chapters. The construction of this chapter makes absolute sense in the context of this book, and is all related to the chapter's predominant purpose, but a certain point the copia of material can be nearly overwhelming.
Hilton, Rodney. "Women Traders in Medieval England." Class Conflict and the Crisis of Feudalism. London: Hambledon Press, 1985.
Hilton's essay has primarily three goals" 1) make the case for more equality among women in the labor class, 2) discuss the underrepresented role of women in trade in Medieval England, and 3) unpack the role of women in trade beyond simply being "ale-wives." In doing so, Hilton turns to strong documentary evidence but does so carefully. When covering the first of the above points, for example, Hilton tempers the improved equality by stating that, in the end, women are still operating under the ideological constraints imposed by male authorities in both the church and government.
Hilton first unpacks the significance of labor conducted within the domestic sphere, where trades such as reaping, plowing, and cloth manufacture would be equally divided between male and femal members of a household. Hilton moves from this model to discuss the role of urban labor for women traders, considering first the more common discussion of "ale-wives" but then also making an interesting case for women as victuallers. The latter in particular enjoys an ambiguous legal standing, as these were important for urban populations yet also garnered distrust among local authorities. Despite that distrust, victuallers were afforded certain leeway in regards to taxation that benefited women in particular engaging in these trades.
As a whole, Hilton's article may be brief, but it makes some strong points pulling from relatively convincing evidence that is presented with a grain of salt, calling to attention its own potential limitations.
Shoaf, R. A. Dante, Chaucer, and the Currency of the Word. Norman: Pilgirm, 1983. Print.
This is the second time I've gone to Shoaf's book, the first for a Dante paper from the second semester of my MA. Coming back to the text was interesting in that the process quickly revealed how much my perceptions have shifted. Shoaf argues that money is pervasive for Dante and Chaucer respective sociohistorical contexts, and money is itself a necessary but problematic medium of exchange vulnerable to constant falsification. However, Shoaf pushes this point further by arguing that for Dante and Chaucer words themselves function as money does, providing a medium for social, poetic, and semiotic exchange. If, according to Shoaf, words function like money and Dante and Chaucer are specifically concerned with the potential for money to be falsified, so too must these poets be concerned with the potential for words to be falsified. Shoaf unpacks this argument by first reading Dante's concerns on the matter, and then arguing that Chaucer was a careful reader of Dante, and that both Troilus and Criseyde and The Canterbury Tales are extended readings of Dante's concern of the falsification of words as currency.
Shoaf sets up some interesting economic arguments in this book, especially in his points about Criseyde's function as currency as others attempt to appropriate her for their own exchanges or outright re-mint her as well as his unpacking of the Wife of Bath's use of the exchangeability of words to make her anti-Jerome arguments. Yet, this points rely overly much on Chaucer being a close reader of Dante without, perhaps, the convincing evidence that would aid this reading or even, frankly, the necessity to do so. Shoaf's arguments on Chaucer would function as well by positing that Chaucer is in a similar sociohistorical context as Dante and as positioned to see and critique the function of money. Also, I appreciate better now the sections in which Shoaf brings in Aristotelian models of exchange, but having read more thoroughly on medieval economic thought this section now feels in need of greater expansion. This is of course rather unfair as scholarly work in that specific field has increased exponentially since Shoaf's text, and regardless of this issues Shaof's work is still a rather engaging combination of economic and semiotic arguments of two of the most well known medieval European poets.
Strohm, Paul. England's Empty Throne: Usurpation and the Language of Legitimation, 1399-1422. New Haven: Yale UP, 1998. Print.
Strohm's text considers the various rhetorical strategies employed by the "Lancastrians," a term which could include the kings and their political allies or a general group's rhetorical mode during the Lancastrian monarchies. Strohm never quite pins this term down, to the frustration of several book reviewers, but his overall intent is to demonstrate how the Lancastrians and other figures in this period use revisionist strategies. In his first chapter, Strohm discusses how the kings and their supporters use these tactics, pointing to the re-population of a French town with English settlers. In doing so, the rhetorical strategies employed, both in action and writing, suggest that the English immigrants are the rightful holders of the lands and that the original French occupants are outsiders infringing on others' legal holdings. These acts included both written documents making that case and acts such as burning the French deeds in the village square to make their point. Despite the short lived success of this particular example, Strohm argues that a willingness to revise history through words and deeds falls into a general Lancastrian rhetoric that turns the current situation to the monarch's political advantage.
Reading Strohm's text, I can better understand the commentary on Nuttall's book being heavily dependent on this monograph (a matter even better understood considering that Strohm was her adviser). Like Strohm, Nuttall argues for a revisionist rhetoric, although she employs a linguistic model to explore the matter. Regardless, Strohm's text is an interesting use of both literary and historical models to consider how rhetoric employed both directly by and to the monarchy was willing to navigate careful reinterpretation of history, status, and tone. In particular, the chapter discussing Hoccleve and Lydgate shows how these poets use self deprecating rhetoric in order to create a specific rhetorical space between themselves and the monarch, casting themselves as less than they may actually be in order to offset potential royal displeasure. Thus, rather than seeing Hoccleve's complaints as solely biographical, it is possible that the poet emphasized his suffering position in order to better ingratiate himself with the monarch and, hopefully, counterbalance the critiques he offers.
Spufford, Peter. Power and Profit: The Merchant in Medieval Europe. London: Thames of Hudson, 2003.
Spufford's text is a much more extended endeavor than his earlier Money and its Use in Medieval Europe, and here Spufford considers merchants in a much broader sense. Going against the scholarly trend to focus on specific geographical regions and instead considers the role of the merchant across Europe. In some ways, this approach is both the strength and weakness of this text. Taking this perspective allows Spufford to consider larger commercial trends across Europe and how international trade across regions of various economic expansion or contraction affects these commercial trends. Unsurprisingly, this approach leads Spufford to spend a significant amount of time on merchants from Lombardy and other areas of northern Italy. The downside of this overarching approach, however, is that some of these trends feel somewhat glossed over, and more specific discussion of how they work in specific geographic and cultural contexts might have been more elucidating. Regardless, the ambition and scholarship of Spufford's text is strong and seeks to provide a worthy follow up to his previous text.
One interesting aspect of Spufford's approach is his focus on the demand side of medieval trade. Spufford comments that all too often scholars put too much weight on the supply side of trade in this period when the increased availability of currency and economic boom of the thirteenth century lead to increased buying power in medieval consumers. One of Spufford's expressed aims is therefore to shift the conversation back to demand side economics. I wonder if the scholarly conversation focuses on supply more due to the weight of more documentary evidence from producers and merchants in this period. As Spufford outlines, the growing international trade required an expansion in bookkeeping efforts from merchants, and guild records as well provide a great deal of our information about trade in general in late medieval Europe. There seems to somewhat less surviving evidence, however, documenting demand, which in many ways has to be read out of the aforementioned documents. It may be less that scholars are concerned with the wrong aspect of trade, as Spufford suggests, and more that they are concentrating on what's available.
Harriss, Gerald. Shaping the Nation: England 1360-1461. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007. Print.
I've placed above a gif of Grumpy Cat because, in the end, I just couldn't find a single image to encapsulate the work that Harriss does in this text. A massive 600+ page tome, Shaping the Nation sets out to cover a rather ambitious history of the political development of England from 1360-1461. In it, Harriss takes on several historical models and complicates them, producing interesting perspectives on long held assumptions in the process. In his initial section, for example, Harriss argues that England in this period developed into a Mixed Monarchy, maintaining components of Theocratic Monarchy while also making the king, to some extent, answerable to the people. Harriss uses this model to add nuance to the development of the English monarchy, especially when compared directly to the Absolute Monarchy of France.
In addition to methods of kingship, Harriss also suggests that social identity undergoes a significant change in this period. Esquires, for example, begin to take on equal social ranking with knights, without the stipulated military service, and knights themselves become both less numerous and less separated from the lower gentry. Thus, due in large part to a change in the military necessity for knights in the field the knight loses some of its social esteem, becoming more a marker of status.
In regards to the impact of the plague on England's economy, a heavily researched area, Harriss brings in recent research that both suggests that the illness(s) spreading were not likely the bubonic plague, and points to the decline in birth rates as a likely equal culprit to the decline in population during this period. Likewise, according to Harriss labor remained in high demand as grain prices remained strong, but as these fell landowners switched economic ventures, converting to pastoral agricultural due to the significantly decreased labor cost. This follows the lines of Nightingale's essay, suggesting that diversification in the face of unstable markets is what allows some areas and individuals to maintain stability despite the volatility around them.
And in the end diversification is a large part of Harriss' point. In his conclusion, Harriss suggests that the truly remarkable aspect of England during this period is the ability to survive and even thrive during such a significant range of political, social, and economic crises, which Harriss in the end attributes to the diversification going on in this period, the mixing of all ranges of society and economy that he sets up in his description of Mixed Monarchy.
Little, Lester. Religious Poverty and the Profit Economy in Medieval Europe. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1983. Print.
Little's monograph is an earlier study of the economic development of the 12th-15th century. As an earlier study, Little's text at times falls prey to the grand historical narratives that Watt castigates, specifically in suggesting that this period is marked by two fuedal ages. For Little, the first feudal age is marked by a gift giving economy and the second by an exchange economy. Little's first chapter opens with the illustrative example of two separate hoards of wealth found within this period. The first hoard of gold is melted down and turned into a new altar to rejoice the glories of God. The second hoard, however, is used to pay for the construction of a new church built by local workmen. In the first example, Little suggests that the transformation of wealth into another form of wealth demonstrates the quid pro quo of the first feudal age, one that privileges the giving of gifts and expected reciprocation to maintain social bonds. The second, according to Little, represents the move to a more commercialized society, one in which the wealth itself is used to raise a church in glory of God but in doing so introduces the wealth from the hoard into the local economy.
For Little, "life in the new profit economy raised acute problems involving impersonalism, money, and moral uncertainty" (19). As money grew in importance to a wider populace, Little argues that exchange began to supplant certain social hierarchy responsibilities, and bonds. A knight, for example, could pay a shield tax instead of serving the 40 days of military service required by his feudal oaths, which his lord could use to hire a mercenary in his place. In this case, money literally replaces the knight's feudal oath and makes his military service an exchangeable commodity. Little goes on to suggest that this property leads to social issues ranging to a rise in prostitution, which is aided by the growing anonymity of large urban centers, and the selling of church offices, which is less a matter of a new problem as a new perception of an already regular practice. Little spends his final latter chapters plotting the role of religious orders in this shift, eventually arguing that friars become ever more important in the world changed by the profit economy.
Marie de France. The Lays of Marie de France. Trans. Edward J. Gallagher. Cambridge, MA: Hackett Publishing Company, 2010.
Equitan
Le Fresne
Bisclavret
Lanval
The Lais of Marie de France are generally chocked full of awesome. This collection of Breton Lais are engaging and generally hilarious, not to mention outright interesting. I'll cover the four I've read (in this go around) below. "Equitan":
With "Equitan," we have another story of a king sleeping with his seneschal's wife. The other tale that has a similar thread is in Book 5 of Gower's Confessio Amantis, where the seneschal has his wife sleep with the king in order to make an extra buck, only to have the king eventually learn the truth, exile the seneschal, and marry the seneschal's wife. "Equitan" is a rather different story.
Our titular character is a remarkable, out right awesome king. However, he generally isn't interested in ladies, until he meets his seneschal's wife. This woman, who is generally pleasing to the eye, attracts the king with such fervor that he leaves a hunt early due to "sickness" and when she checks in on him he swears his love and, despite her misgivings, convinces her to begin a long term affair with him. Note, up to this point all of this has been the king's doing, yet the seneschal's wife is introduced as the kingdom's doom. Regardless, rumors of the need for the king to get married get back to the seneschal's wife, and she and the king concoct a plan to kill the seneschal, freeing her up to be married by the king. The king will request a bath with the seneshcal, only the wife will pour boiling water over the seneschal, killing him. The plan was set up to go, only the seneschal took so long arriving that the king decided to bide the time by dallying with the seneschal's wife. The seneschal finally arrives on the scene and, to hide his shame, the king dives into the nearest tub which, you guessed it, happened to be full of boiling water. The seneschal, realizing what was going on, throws his wife in as well, and thus the tale ends. I suppose that, in the end, the seneschal's wife was something of an evil Great White Buffalo.
"Le Fresne":
I was already familiar with "Le Fresne" as I've read the Middle English Breton Lay of the same name, but when I return to that poem I'll want to note the differences. That said, "Le Fresne" opens with a rather unpleasant woman who enjoys starting rumors and, when those rumors turn back on her, chooses to first murder and, when none of the nursemaids will help, abandon one of her twin daughters. Luckily, that daughter is found hanging in an ash tree and is named Le Fresne (note: FR frêne means "ash tree"). Raised in an abbey, Le Fresne eventually captures the attention of a young lord who convinces her to become his concubine. Eventually his people grumble that he needs a proper wife to produce an heir, so hemarries a woman that turns out to be, you guessed it, the twin sister of Le Fresne. Their mother, upon seeing the jewelry and scarf Le Fresne has decked out the bride chamber with, realizes that Le Fresne is her daughter, everyone is properly acquainted with one another, the bishop agrees to annul the lord's wedding so he can marry Le Fresne, and all ends well. Aside from the years of emotional abandonment and manner in which the horrible mother completely gets off scott free for her reprehensible actions, but whatever.
"Bisclavret":
If "Bisclavret" tells you anything its that you should find a really sweet spot to hide your clothes when you're going to change into a werewolf. Also, if you steal a werewolf's clothes, you and your grandchildren aren't going to have noses. In this lay, a knight's wife begs him to explain where he disappears to for a few days each month. After enough nagging, he explains that he goes to the woods to be a werewolf and that, if his clothes are stolen, he can never change back. His wife is so turned off by this news that she has a nearby knight steal the clothes, and after enough time without Bisclavret showing up marries said knight. Eventually, through some royal appreciation of a wolf acting like he's people, Bisclavret uncovers the plot (by biting off his wife's nose), regains his clothes, and his wife is exiled (and her children doomed to Voldemort lookalike contests).
"Lanval":
As with "Le Fresne," I've read the Middle English "Launfal" and was familiar with the basic plot of this lay. Lanval, a great knight of Arthur's court, is overlooked during gift giving time, and no one speaks up for him out of jealousy. In a huff, Lanval leaves court and happens upon some amazing handmaidens who lead him to wondrous lady (who clearly seems to be of fairy origin). She promises to grant him his desire to be his lady, and anything else he wishes, so long as he never tells anyone about her. Lanval returns to court, and takes many "private" asides to summon his new fairy lady and...well...enjoy his time with her. Guinevere finds this behavior odd, and offers her sexual goods to him in exchange for revealing his secret. Lanval refuses, saying his lady is so awesome her handmaiden is more splendid than Guinevere. Pouting, the queen brings Arthur in on this business, and Lanval has to go to trial where he will be guilty if he cannot provide proof of his lady. Unfortunately, by speaking of her, much like Fight Club, Lanval has betrayed the first rule of their relationship and lost her favor. Just when it appears that Lanval is doomed, however, his fairy lover appears, clears him of the charges, and he leaps upon her horse's back so that they can ride off into the sunset. For me, the image of Lanval clinging to the lady, riding from behind her, screaming out "weeeeeee!" as they ride for Avalon is the best image of the entire lay.
King Arthur’s Death: The Middle English Stanzaic Morte Arthur and Alliterative Morte Arthure. Revised Edition. Ed. Larry D. Benson and Edward E. Foster. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 1996.
·Alliterative Morte Arthure
The above sentiment ran through my head the whole time I was reading the Alliterative Morte Arthure. The text opens with Arthur and court enjoying yule time games which are interrupted by a senator from Rome. This senator announces insults Arthur pretty heavily and demands the tribute that is owed to Rome. Arthur consults with his knights, and spurred on by their war hawkishness proceeds to pick a fight. Thus commences the primary focus of this text, the exploits of Arthur the Conqueror. Arthur proceeds to the continent, kicks giant ass, kicks the ass of the Roman allies that are harming his people, and eventually kicks Lucius' ass. Instead of trooping on home, however, Arthur decides that conquering is kind of a good gig, and proceeds to conquer Germany as well. Everything is going well until Arthur gets news of Mordred's inevitable betrayal and rushes home to take care of business.
To further the pro-Englishness of the text, the knight to end all knights here is Gawain. A good ol' Orkney boy, unlike the French Lancelot, Gawain gets the most action time in the text, slaying armies by the hundreds until he is finally done in by Mordred. Gawain is so awesome that even after killing him Mordred breaks down in tears, and praises him as the greatest of the knights. Gawain's death provides the final fuel for Arthur, who upon finding his friend's body proclaims that he will not engage in any hunt or leisure activity until Gawain is avenged.
For the most part, this text is heavily weighted to the battles, but there are few points that need highlighting.
Domestic leisure vs. warfare: A common issue in Arthurian texts is the idea that too much time at home, in leisure, weakens the knight's strength. This can be seen in Sir Perceval's need to go off questing despite his newlywed status, for example. This text sidesteps the issue nicely with the immediate need to go to war before the yuletide games have even ended, and without some of the debates of the matter that are present in other Arthrian texts.
Primogeniture: Despite his marriage to Guinevere, Arthur has produced no male heirs. This is part of why he places Mordred, his nephew, in command in his absence, and also leads to some oddities such as naming Cador his lawful heir later in the text. As is the case in a few other Arthurian traditions, this text seems to suggest that the fault lies with Arthur himself; after all, Mordred seems to have no trouble begetting Guinevere with multiple children. Almost inevitably, nothing of Arthur's reign will remain after his death because he has left no heirs, holds his substantial lands by strength of will and arms alone, and frankly makes poor decisions about who to leave in charge.
Wheel of Fortune: One would be remiss not to note the Wheel of Fortune sequence in Arthur's second dream vision. It does a fair job in itself of plotting out the concept of the Wheel of Fortune, with the Lady favoring Arthur at one moment while refuting him another without provocation.
Giant: Seriously, the sexual menace from
the giant is intense. This is one of the texts that deals with this giant and
indicates that the act of his rape also kills the ladies he's captured, unlike
other texts where the ladies die just before it can happen or the whole
potential rape component is just glossed over. Also, his beard is glossed over
in this text but there's a really interesting article (that I can't recall at
the moment but read in Armstrong's Arthurian lit class) that plots how the
giant's beard demonstrates some of the text's overall concerns.
For anyone not getting the initial reference in the post, see the below video with a slight NSFW warning.
Nuttall, Jenni. The Creation of Lancastrian Kingship: Literature, Language and Politics in Late Medieval England. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2007. Print.
Nutall's text argues that the political events surrounding the usurpation of Richard II, specifically the rhetoric employed by Henry Bolingbroke and his supporters, shaped the rhetoric of the literature produced by Lancastrian poets, creating a dialogue that was aware of the financial responsibilities of kingship, supportive of Henry IV's reign, and critical of how Henry IV failed to meet some of the ideals set forth during the usurpation. Nutall employs a linguistic framework, following Pocock's model, to locate the linguistic "coordinates" of historical aspects within these texts. Of particular interest is Nutall's second section, which lays out the emphasis of fiscal responsibility put forth by Henry IV's supporters. As part of the validation for deposing Richard II, the rhetoric focused on financial irresponsibility on Richard's part, which cast him as both Wynner and Wastore, so to speak. Henry IV's substantial land holdings and sources of revenue were considered enough to make the Lancastrian monarchy self sufficient, not requiring special taxes or levies to raise funds for defense or governance. Ideally, this would match well with the promises that Henry IV made during the usurpation, that he would not use such tactics to raise capital, and nicely opposed the image of Richard II as financially unstable that Lancastrian rhetoric had set up. Yet, as Nutall argues, that same rhetoric would come to be used by such Lancastrian poets as Hoccleve to call some of the Lancastrian monarchy's practices into question. In sum, Nutall suggests that rather than simply serving as critique or propaganda, Lancastrian poets instead appropriate the rhetoric put forth by Henry IV in order to do both simultaneously, encouraging the monarchy to adhere to the ideals set forth at its inception while calling out where it seems to be failing to do so.
While some of the book reviews of this text tended towards the scathing, I found it mostly interesting. The rhetorical function of economic matters is of particular interest to me, and I found the discussion of how Hoccleve appropriates this language compelling. That said, I generally found the linguistic model to be somewhat odd. Perhaps I missed the section where it was plotted out in greater detail, but it read rather as a model whose complexity exceeded its utility, and that's coming from someone who sadly has history employing models that are far more complex than are useful. In addition, I would rather like to see this argument put in conversation with Matthews' Writing to the King (acknwoledging that Matthews' text was published five years after Nutall's), specifically in regards to the rhetoric of addressing one's monarch and considering Matthews' engages with several of the same texts as Nutall. Regardless, Nutall raises some interesting points that have shaded in another corner of my understanding of Middle English literature.
Spufford, Peter. Money and its Use in Medieval Europe. NY: Cambridge UP, 1988.
Spufford's monograph seeks to inject issues of money into the scholarly discussion of medieval Europe, bringing in points from numismatics, issues of bullion shortage and surplus, and matters of credit. In general, I would say that Spufford's goal is successful as, since it was published in 1988, matters of money have taken a stronger role in the commentaries of social and political development of late medieval Europe, or at least in several that I've read. What's interesting in Spufford's text is the plotting of economic contraction or expansion in accordance to the supply of raw silver or gold bullion in Europe. Spufford is careful to point out that he is not drawing a direct correlation between the two, but rather that surpluses of bullion allowed for more opportunities for economic growth. If silver, for example, is in greater supply, more coinage may be minted from it, which better allows for international trade opportunities.
Spufford also ties the monetization of late medieval England to the better access to coinage, as this better allowed agricultural laborers to engage in a money economy when they previously operated in more of a commodity economy to pay land rents and tithes. Interestingly, Spufford has an excellent section that breaks down the economic differences between agricultural and urban laborers in fourteenth century Europe. Agricultural laborers' participation in the money economy was seasonal, as they sold harvests at market and generally immediately used that currency to purchase the commodities or tools that were needed for their sustenance or continued labor. After domestic necessities and plowshares were purchased, Spufford suggests that these agricultural laborers would leave the markets with purses empty. Urban laborers, on the other hand, engage in a money economy throughout the year in wages, making them much more accustomed to and dependent upon the exchange of currency for goods. The difference between agricultural and urban laborers is important to remember in topics such as economic development in which scholars lean towards generalization rather than specifics.
Chaucer, Geoffrey. Troilus and Criseyde. The Riverside Chaucer. 3rd ed. Ed. Larry D. Benson, et al. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987. Print.
For some time, I've known that I really need to read Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, but I've never seemed to have the chance to read it, or at least do so in a manner that did the text justice. Today I finally had the chance, as required for my exam reading, and I'm pretty blown away by just how generally good it is. I'm no new proponent of Chaucer and have been a fan of his texts since I began college (I remember very little of what I read in high school, which my five year break between public and higher education did not help), but Troilus and Criseyde might be the best structured of his texts. His use of Homeric similie is well placed and aesthetically pleasing, his invocation of multiple muses, or muse-like figures, in separate books marks tone shifts, and he generally just shows off in his construction of the poetry. I don't know how I've necessarily gone this long without reading this text, but I am very glad I have now.
Chaucer's characters in this text are interesting. In some ways, we seem to have relatively standard romance figures with Troilus, but I find Pandarus and Criseyde compelling in how they don't necessarily seem to fitting their respective molds. With Pandarus we have both an uncle who is supposed to be looking out for his niece's best interests, especially considering her father has abandoned the city and cast shame upon her, as well as a friend who is trying to see his friend out of depression and get him, for lack of a better term, laid. These roles seem as if they should be at odds with one another, as protecting one's niece should probably include not escorting guys into her room for long, private romance sessions. Yet, this seems part of Pandarus' larger moves to bend the truth, and reality, when it suits his goals. When it is necessary to conspire a socially acceptable reason to get Troilus and Criseyde into the same house, and get the Trojan royalty on Criseyde's side, Pandarus appears to invent an outside threat to Criseyde's household, or at least bring it up when it has had no previous context and when his previously expressed plans included nothing of the sort. Pandarus makes a similar move later when Troilus is hiding in his house for a chance at alone time with Criseyde, telling the latter that she is accused of loving another to put her on the defensive and make her more willing to be open with Troilus. In other words, Pandarus only really emphasizes his role as Criseyde's uncle when it is advantageous to his goals; otherwise he functionally operates as Troilus' wingman, more interested in his friend's happiness and romantic well-being than his niece's.
Criseyde, on the other hand, is something of a puzzle. She is at times aloof to romantic advances, yet expresses tears and all the other performative behaviors of a lover. As with other romances, Criseyde is the object of affection rather than its subject, providing a source for Troilus to obsess over instead of expressing great interest of her own. As with other romances, she has to be persuaded to love, with great words and acts from Troilus to engage her feelings, which seem to overflow once accessed (at least until she heads to the Greek camp). Unlike many other romances, however, Criseyde is a widow. It's interesting to consider how much of a role this status actually plays throughout the text. In fact, her status as a widow is only really emphasized in three parts of the text: when she is introduced wearing widow's weeds, when she tells Troilus she shall don these garments again when in the Greek camp, and when speaking to Diomedes about the possibility that she could love him. The latter involves the only real mention of her late husband, and even then no details about who he was are revealed. Despite this lack of emphasis, I felt that Criseyde's widowhood largely changed how I read her character. Her depression early on is as a woman who has lost both a husband and a father, left with nothing but her grief and shame. Her reluctance towards romance seems to make more sense then, as she knows the grief of losing a love. Looking back at the manner in which Troilus and Pandarus work to persuade her, it seems that a great deal of effort had to be put in to get Troilus out of her friendzone, involving a significant amount of emotional manipulation.
In addition to widowhood, marriage itself seemed to cast a shadow over the text for me. Having never read the text before, I actually thought that Troilus and Criseyde became married before political events forced their separation. Instead, they carry out an extended illicit affair in private, going to great lengths to prevent knowledge of its existence. Some of this comes out of Troilus' desire to not be called out for hypocrisy in love, and some to protect Criseyde's honor, but both of these effects would be either ameliorated or removed entirely if they had simply become married. I even read the initial emphasis on Criseyde's widowhood as preamble for why she was available for marriage now. Even the people's outcry to exchange Criseyde for Atrenos may have been delimited by a marriage between this lady and one of Troy's greatest heroes. This stood out as further odd when considering the treatment of Helen, who was another man's wife when taking in secret by Paris and is yet held in a fair amount of respect as Paris' wife. After the announcement of how Criseyde will be exchanged, Troilus and Pandarus discuss the various reasons why he couldn't simply take her for his own at this point, but they never actually discuss the possibility of marrying her, despite Pandarus' supposedly protective role.
In many ways, Troilus and Criseyde's relationship carried several of the aspects of medieval marriage. According to Green's lecture in a seminar last semester, medieval contracts contained
three parts: a ritual or exchange of oath, an exchange of a physical object symbolizing the contract, and witnesses to the making of the contract. According to Green, marriage ceremonies followed this process, with the exchange of vows, exchange of rings, and presence of witnesses to the wedding. Troilus and Criseyde swear oaths to be loyal to one another and exchange tokens of affection, but they fail to do so with witnesses. By keeping a relationship private that, if it had been brought into the proper public form, would otherwise have been socially acceptable, Troilus and Criseyde are unable to publicly challenge the threats to that relationship. In a way, illicit affairs in romance such as this are problematic because they ignore the necessarily social component of marital/romantic exchange, doomed to failure because of the employment of subterfuge. In short, If Troilus really liked it, he should've put a ring on it.
Strohm, Paul. Social Chaucer. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1989. Print.
Strohm's Social Chaucer is one of those academic texts that I constantly hear referenced in discussion but never had the time to go back and read myself (which I suppose is what exam reading is for). As I read through it, I found the arguments to be interesting and well formed, but it felt like much of what I was reading presented a basis for reading Chaucer that was part of the way in which I already read these texts. Rather than some incredible cleverness of my own, this is in the end related to the opening sentence of this paragraph; Strohm's text is not only well cited but has clearly shaped the readings, or at least provided tools, for the professors whom I've had the pleasure of studying Chaucer with.
Strohm primarily argues that Chaucer's poetry is influenced by the poet's personal social position, as an esquire in a liminal social position, as a poet writing for other poets, and as an official whose texts may be connected to his own political leanings. Thus, Strohm argues for a reading of Chaucer that pushes against a monolithic voice of Middle English literature and instead keeps ever present the idea that in the end Chaucer was an individual who existed in the middle of a series of interpersonal relationships and social positioning. While noting that Chaucer does not, in his extant Canterbury Tales, have either a lord or peasant tell a tale, Strohm suggests that the complex social position and relations of and between the pilgrims demonstrates the complex social aspects that Chaucer operated within and was influenced by. While I may have been familiar with some of Strohm's core points, it was nonetheless a pleasure to see how those points were laid out and supported with a surprising range of evidence.
Ladd, Roger. “Margery Kempe and her Mercantile Mysticism.” Fifteenth-Century Studies 26 (2001): 121-141.
Ladd's article follows the models of anti-mercantilism set out in his monograph, applying them to the Book of Margery Kempe. Ladd constructs a nuanced argument by plotting how Kempe acts to limit her connections to the material world and privileged past, yet constantly hearkens back to her business and economic experience in her spiritual dealings. In retrospect, it sadly appears that my Kempe paper last year was functionally combining this article and Gastle's, making me wonder how I could have possibly missed reading either before this. Regardless, Ladd argues that anti-mercantile ideology is internalized in Kempe, guiding her attempts to distance herself from her mercantile past and current wealth while still guiding her actions, such as dealing with spiritual issues as economic exchanges.
While I find Ladd's argument effective, I would still like to see more of the economic thought I mentioned in my post on his monograph integrated. According to Diana Wood, the spiritual standing of merchants had somewhat ameliorated by the later fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, so I wonder how this would complicate Ladd's reading of Kempe. It might suggest that Kempe's behavior, in distancing herself from wealth, is more performative than stemming from guilt, hearkening to a slightly older anti-mercantilism sentiment. Regardless, Ladd's points are well laid out and argued, and this article adds a vital component, I think, to studies on Margery Kempe.
Sir Perceval of Galles and Ywain and Gawain. Ed. Mary Flowers Braswell. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1995.
Sir Perceval is one of these Middle English texts that, as I'm reading, I'm wishing was made into a film due to the sheer awesomeness/comedic value that is in the text. In this case, I'll borrow a point made by Russell Keck in an Arthurian seminar we took that, in many ways, Sir Perceval has been translated into The Waterboy.
Sir Perceval opens with the aggrandizement of Perceval Sr., a pillar of knighthood who is slain by a jealous rival in a joust. His widow, distraught at her husband's death, takes their newborn child into the woods vowing that he will never leave them. Perceval Jr.'s mother proceeds to keep him in the dark of courtly knowledge and behavior. This works until she decides to teach him about God, saying that he could meet his maker some day if he acts properly. Rather than taking a lesson on behavior, Perceval exclaims about the possibility of meeting such a person and dashes out of the house (or hovel I suppose) in search of him. After a run-in with three of Arthur's knights, Perceval returns home determined to become a knight, leaving for Arthur's court astride a pregnant mare.
This aligns quite nicely with the Waterboy, whose mother keeps him intentionally ignorant of the world so that he will stay near her. After a chance occurrencedemonstrates his ability, Bobby Bouche secretly begins to play football behind his mother's back. Bobby's method of conveyance? A riding lawnmower, a sight at least as comedic as a ludicrously pregnant horse.
Once at Arthur's court, Perceval runs into the Red Knight, whom he has just discovered killed his father. Perceval proceeds to chase the Red Knight quite a distance (which is hilarious in my mind with Perceval atop this horse that is great-with-foal dressed in nothing but goat skin and carrying only a spear chasing a fully armed and accoutered knight). Despite his lack of training, Perceval slays the knight with a single cast of his spear, wonders why the now dead knight doesn't get up to fight more, then shrugs and decides that since he can't get the armor off he'll just burn the knight out.
Like Perceval, Bobby Bouche has no previous football training to speak of, but his pent up rage becomes a great tool in taking down his opponents. Once Bobby understands how to channel that rage, he leads the team to surprising levels of victory.
Perceval continues his great acts, slaying a Sultan's army and then the Sultan himself, marrying the lady who he saved in the process, and becoming both a great knight and king. Eventually, however, Perceval remembers that while he has done great things he has left his mother on his own. He returns and, after defeating the Black Knight and then his giant master, Perceval finds his mother has gone "wode" in the "wodde" (trust me, that ME pun is golden). He returns to her and returns her sanity, and all ends well.
There is a similar event in Waterboy, as Bobby mother gets "sick" right before the big game as a tactic to bring him back to her. Bobby returns, remembering how important she is to him, and they are eventually reconciled. Bobby, and Perceval, may be men with mommy issues, but no one doubts that they love their mommas.
Ywain and Gawain. Sir Perceval of Galles and Ywain and Gawain. Ed. Mary Flowers Braswell. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1995.
While I've read the French romance that Ywain and Gawain is based on (or at least a translation of Chretien de Troyes' work), this text offered some interesting items that I failed to notice in that previous reading. In this romance, Ywain, a knight of Arthur's court, rushes off to avenge his cousin's defeat by a mysterious knight. After striking a mortal blow upon this knight and chasing him down to his castle, Ywain hides out, with assistance from a maiden of the keep, and eventually falls in love with the now widow of his foe. Due to the maiden, Lunet's, clever planning, Ywain is forgiven by the lady of the castle and taken as her husband. Alundyne, upon Ywain's request, even agrees to allow her new husband to go off adventuring in knightly fashion, as long as he promises to return in a year, by St. John's day. As might be expected with so specific a request, Ywain fails to do so, is called out for his failure in front of the entire court, and goes mad. After years as wandering the forests, in which Ywain earns the loyalty of a lion and has many adventures, Ywain builds up a reputation as the Knight with the Lion that has ladies seeking out his assistance, eventually leading to the reconciliation with his wife.
As a whole, this text seems to involve warring responsibilities. Ywain swears to Alundyne that, without fail, he will return, but his knightly duties distract him to the point that he fails to do so. Once Ywain is helping out ladies in distress, he offers assistance that has him fighting multiple battles in the same day and, eventually, his own fellow knight Gawain (although each is in disguise). This isn't exactly part of the rash boon motif, but the conflicting responsibilities is similar and puts Ywain's duties at odds with one another.
One scene that stood out to me in particular is where Ywain, seeking shelter for the night, stays at "The Castel of the Hevy Sorow" (whose name should really have been a sign). Once trapped inside,
he discovers that two demon knights have trapped a king and make him deliver thirty virgins of high
birth to them each year. When speaking to some of these captured women, Ywain learns that they are
forced to labor day and night working gold and silver for their captors. Following some of the points I've
seen in Capgrave's Life of St. Katherine and Gower's Confessio Amantis Book 5, unmarried women,
in being removed as marriageable goods from the marital market, are rendered valueless in accordance
to marital exchange value. These maidens working clear commodities of gold and silver is something of a
representation of that squandered marital exchange value, as even these goods do not appear to be
released into market circulation but are held solely for the enjoyment of the demon knights. Thus,
imposing the state of continued unmarriedness harms the potential marital potential of these maidens,
something that is perhaps heightened by the specific mention of their high birth.
Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Legend of Good Women. The Riverside Chaucer. 3rd ed. Ed. Larry D. Benson, et al. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987. Print.
As one of the few Chaucerian texts on my list that I had not read, I've been looking forward to The Legend of Good Women. I know that I will gain greater context once I've read the Romance of the Rose, but it was interesting to see parallels in Chaucer's text that I've seen in work from Christine de Pizan, Boccaccio, and Gower. Specifically, these texts also lay out their own versions of the tales Chaucer is retelling, each set within its own frame narrative with very different purposes, but what Chaucer chooses to emphasize, reinvent, or outright leave off is interesting. The Medea section, for example, leaves off the most infamous act of this classical figure, the slaying of her own children to spite Jason. Chaucer is certainly not the only one to do so, I believe Christine de Pizan does as well, but doing so softens the image of Medea and casts an even more negative light on Jason.
The latter aspect is a good example of the more significant thing I see in this text, the establishment of just how bad these men are alongside their female counterparts. The Medea section, for example, opens with Jason's treatment ofHypsipyle, in which Jason arrives, takes what he wants from the woman, and leaves her with two children, quickly forgetting/forsaking his vows to her. Jason follows the model almost exactly in Chaucer's tale when he leaves Medea, earning castigation from the narrator. Despite the supposed focus of this section, the main focus here is on Jason's betrayal, both examples demonstrating just how untrue he is (and here I use the term in what Green designates as the legal sense). This trend carries throughout Chaucer's text, as the only real positive aspects of women is their steadfastness against the horrible treatments they receive. From what I recall, The Legend of Good Women doesn't feature much, if at all, in Mann's Feminizing Chaucer, but I can't help but wonder how this text would problemitize that core argument. There, Mann argues that Chaucer promotes a more nuanced definition of positive feminine figures, yet in this text women are only as good as the go against the bad examples their male counterparts provide. What I want most, after reading The Legend of Good Women, is to see the conclusion to the frame narrative, where ideally Chaucer could thematically close the text and cast light on the overall function of the text, much as Gower does with the end of the Confessio Amantis. Alas, that ending, if it was ever written, is lost to history.
Green, Richard Firth. Crisis of Truth: Literature and Law in Ricardian England. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999. Print.
As a whole, Green's Crisis of Truth is a well written, intriguing exploration of the legal history of the fourteenth century. Green's analysis, interestingly, centers not around new evidence or theory but on a philological reading centered on the semantic shift of the word "truth." Per Green's text, the term only began to gain the sense in which it is currently used, that of the actual events or facts, which had previously been contained in the Middle English term "sooth." Green unpacks three other major sense of the term that were much more common in Ricardian England: legal, "a promise, a pledge of loyalty, a covenant," ethical, "fidelity, loyalty," and the theological, "divine righteousness...belief" (9). Green argues that this semantic shift mirrors a shift in legal systems in late medieval England, shifting away from local law that Green terms "folklaw" towards more centralized legal systems under royal authority. Green's discussion of several anecdotes marking the tension over this shift is engaging, making a strong case for the inferential evidence of "folklaw." If I had any critique over the text, it would be the application of the Nigerian novels as a model to consider the above mentioned tension. While this makes for a rather interesting comparison, at times it seems like the comparison is difficult to make and potentially problematic. I enjoy it thoroughly as a thought exercise, it can at times slightly distract from the main thrust of a chapter. That said, these sections do certainly fit thematically in each chapter, making for strong food for thought.
Gastle, Brian. “Breaking the Stained-Glass Ceiling: Mercantile Authority, Margaret Paston, and Margery Kempe.” Studies in the Literary Imagination 36.1 (2003): 123-147.
In his article, Gastle discusses the role of women in business in late medieval England, focusing on how certain texts demonstrate the differing roles of authority women in business employed. Gastle spends a large chunk of his article initially laying out the presence of women within guilds and how these guilds simultaneously offered opportunities to and control over women. Certain guild statutes, according to Gastle, worked to limit the role women could play in the day to day trade of guilds, yet even these limits could be advantageous as they at least set the conditions under which women could operate. Much of what Gastle outlines here runs in accord with the work I've read from Judith Bennett, but Gastle advances an interesting suggestion that, rather than solely relying on their limited membership in guilds, women formed their own sorority of tradeswomen, so to speak, often relying on other women rather than even their husbands for advice, assistance, and navigating tricky legal situations. I would be curious to see this concept fleshed out with more evidence, but the idea of a less formalized social network among medieval tradeswomen is an interesting one.
The latter portion of Gastle's article is broken in two parts, first considering the textual authority in Margaret Paston and then in Margery Kempe. For the former, Gastle argues that Paston's letters begin with some trepidation over completely managing her family's estates in her husband's absence, but over time the letters show remarkable familiarity and aptitude in doing so. I wonder if Gastle overemphasizes the discomfort in the early letters, but Paston's aptitude in the latter letters is intriguing.
I rather wish I'd read this article before giving a paper last year on Margery Kempe, as some of Gastle's arguments preclude my paper in a more succinct and efficient manner. Gastle argues that Kempe's business acumen carries over into her spiritual endeavors, as she works to negotiate and market herself and her spiritual practices in order to pursue her calling. Gastle ties some of Kempe's later negotiation with the Virgin Mary to late medieval English property rights, suggesting that Kempe uses her own legal status to attain the best spiritual benefit. In sum, Gastle's article raises some rather interesting points that I would be interested in hearing more fleshed out.
