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RELIGIOUS OATHS in the CHAUCERIAN FABLIAUX Luke RELIGIOUS OATHS IN THE CHAUCERIAN FABLIAUX Luke William Mills A dissertation submitted to the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English and Comparative Literature. Chapel Hill 2013 Approved by: Charlotte Gross Shayne Legassie Theodore Leinbaugh Patrick O’Neill Joseph S. Wittig © 2014 Luke William Mills ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT Luke William Mills: Religious Oaths in the Chaucerian Fabliaux (Under the direction of Joseph S. Wittig) My dissertation examines religious oaths and asseverations in the fabliaux of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. To contextualize Chaucer’s fabliaux, I look at some of his possible sources and analogues—Dame Sirith, the first extant English fabliau, the Old French fabliaux, and Boccaccio’s Decameron. Using religious oaths to underscore the contrast between idealized values and earthly, temporal values, Chaucer prods readers to locate themselves both within their social and their spiritual communities. Asking believers to consider what it means to make a powerful faith-based promise, especially when the circumstances surrounding that guarantor have been ironically charged, Chaucer actively troubles the creation of self, the establishment of community and the place of the swearer within that community, noting the degree to which all three fail to achieve the spiritual ideal of the oath-state. My dissertation explores that dissonance writ large within and across the Tales. iii For Gina, Evelyn, and Heidi iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS “For men use, if they have an evil turne, to write it in marble, and whoso doth us a good tourne, we write it in duste, . .” —Sir Thomas More, The History of King Richard III I am grateful to my academic mentors over the years. Thanks to Shayne Legassie, Ted Leinbaugh, and Patrick O’Neill for serving on my dissertation committee. I appreciated your generosity, keen insight, and advice; to Megan Matchinske, for good humor and help with my job applications; to Robert Babcock, for serving on my exam committee, showing me great generosity and kindness, and teaching me Latin; to Don Kennedy, another exam committee member, for support, and for sharing that passage from one of Furnivall’s introductions, the one where he talks about offering, along with his wife, free classes for working girls. I appreciated that lighthearted and humane perspective on scholarship; to Charlotte Gross, for taking time out of your schedule to help me with Old French, for reading rough drafts of conference presentations and article drafts, for advising and encouraging me, and for inspiring me to study medieval literature in the first place; to Joseph S. Wittig, for wise guidance and forebearance, for continuing to teach me how to think about literature, for being precise about words—for more than I can think of here, I’m sure. Studying under you has been one of the great blessings of my life. Thanks to my “parfit leches,” Drs. Bob Johnson and David Becker. And thanks to my friends; to Hank and Maxine Rowland, for my desk; to Tom Elrod, for encouragement, support, and conversations about Breaking Bad; to John and Crystal Treece, for good fellowship; to Vaughn Stewart, for help with technology and being such an excellent co-laborer; to Paul Stapleton and Robert Erle Barham, for being brothers. v Thanks to the UNC Graduate School and Matthew J. Burbank for my summer fellowship; to the Department of English and Comparative Literature and the family of Ruth Rose Richardson for another fellowship Spring, 2013. Finally, thanks to my family; to Andy and Carolyn Facemire; to Justin and Dusty Morris and their little ones, Jack (Runboy) and Rebecca (Kittygirl); to Grandma Dot and Granddaddy William, for a free trailer and all sorts of help along the way; to Grandma Lou, for a place in Raleigh with an office. This office proved to be a life-saver; to Jimmy, for being Jimmy; to my in-laws, for their amazing generosity and goodness to me; to my parents, for support, encouragement, help, more help, advice, insight, you name it; and to my wife, Gina, for suffering and rejoicing with me, for truly living out those wedding vows. Marrying you is the smartest thing I’ve done. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………………………….1 CHAPTER 1: RELIGIOUS OATHS AND ASSEVERATIONS IN DAME SIRITH…………….........…..5 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………..26 CHAPTER 2: RELIGIOUS OATHS AND ASSEVERATIONS IN SOME OLD FRENCH FABLIAUX….......................................................................................................29 Les Quatre Sohais saint Martin…………………………………………………………………..40 Les Trois Dames qui troverent un vit……………………………………………………………..45 Le Chevalier a la Corbeille……………………………………………………………………….47 La Gageure……………………………………………………………………………………….51 Le Chevalier qui fist parler les Cons……………………………………………………………..53 Le Meunier et les Deus Clers……………………………………………………………………..55 MS B……………………………………………………………………………………..55 MS C……………………………………………………………………………………..59 La Vescie a Prestre……………………………………………………………………………….63 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………..67 CHAPTER 3: RELIGIOUS OATHS AND ASSEVERATIONS IN SELECTED NOVELLE FROM BOCCACCIO’S DECAMERON......................................................……72 Day 2, Tale 10…………………………………………………………………………………….73 Day 7, Tale 9……………………………………………………………………………………...77 Day 8, Tale 1……………………………………………………………………………………...80 Day 8, Tale 2……………………………………………………………………………………...82 Day 9, Tale6………………………………………………………………………........................86 vii Conclusion......................................................................................................................................89 CHAPTER 4: RELIGIOUS OATHS AND ASSEVERATIONS IN CHAUCER’S CANTERBURY TALES………………………………………………………….......……..94 The Miller’s Tale……………………………………………………………………………..….101 Analysis…………………………………………………………………………………104 The Reever’s Tale……………………………………………………………………………….109 Analysis…………………………………………………………………………………111 The Summoner’s Tale…………………………………………………………………………...113 Analysis…………………………………………………………………………………117 The Merchant’s Tale…………………………………………………………………………….122 Analysis…………………………………………………………………………………127 The Shipman’s Tale……………………………………………………………………………...130 Analysis………………………………………………………………………………....134 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………136 REFERENCES………………………………………………………………………………………...…142 viii INTRODUCTION This project was born of an essay I wrote in my Early Middle English seminar in the Spring of 2008. In that essay, which became the basis for Chapter 1, I noted the large number of religious oaths in Dame Sirith, the first extant Middle English fabliau, and considered their significance. In the end, I concluded that the author of Dame Sirith included so many religious oaths intentionally, to provide an ironic contrast between religious ideals and the profane context in which they appear. So, for example, I mentioned the cleric Wilekin, who in his quest to seduce Margery, another man’s wife, swears religious oaths profusely, even swearing at one point “bi the holi roed [cross]” that he will be complicit with Dame Sirith, the procuress he has hired, in her nefarious scheme to trick Margery. Wilekin’s behavior is, without a doubt, outrageously opposed to Christian ideals and his vocation, and his frequent religious references by means of oaths constantly reminds the reader of this fact; these dissonant notes are struck too frequently to be accidental. I concluded, then, that the Dame Sirith Poet wanted his audience to note this contrast, not for “moral instruction,” but rather, to embrace the ironic aspects of human nature. In providing some kind of context for my reading of Dame Sirith, I examined for the first time some English translations of the Old French fabliaux, a genre popular especially in 13th-century northern France, and, to a lesser extent, Anglo-Norman England, too. I noticed in reading these tales a similar, if less stark and biting, contrast between sacred ideals and profane reality. To confess, I also found the fabliaux pleasurable reading, even if crude from time to time. More often, they were funny and charming, even moving: there is, for instance, an account in one fabliau of a beggar who, alone and unobserved, dies and is so apparently unimportant that neither devil nor angel bothers to fetch his soul (his soul eventually makes its way into heaven!). The pleasure I took in reading these fabliaux, including Dame Sirith, was similar, I realized, to my experience reading Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. In particular, I felt a similar kind of frisson in the Tale’s ironic contrast of sacred and profane—in the frame, where the often sordid 1 behavior of pilgrims grates against the purpose of their pilgrimage, and in the tales, too, where one can often see a similarly blatant and provocative disregard for religious ideals. Most of all, I perceived the similarity between Dame Sirith and the Tales, for in the one tale, religious oaths, because they are used so frequently by all characters, seem to satirize not just the clergy (or whatever else) but everyone; it is a satire of human nature. Likewise, in The Canterbury Tales, pilgrimage, already a well-worn motif symbolizing the human condition, only confirms Chaucer’s intent for broad commentary, suggested already by the pilgrims, coming as they do from every estate. Thus, the pell-mell of the actual pilgrimage, in contrast to the ideal one, satirizes human nature. Both Dame Sirith and The Canterbury Tales present the reader
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