“Ymaried moore for hir goodes”: The Economics of Marriage in Middle English Poetry

Dissertation

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University

By David Wayne Sweeten, M.A. Graduate Program in English

The Ohio State University 2016

Dissertation Committee: Ethan Knapp, Advisor Richard Firth Green Karen Winstead

Copyright by David Wayne Sweeten 2016

Abstract In her larger discussion of marital authority, Chaucer’s Wife of Bath advises those other wives who will listen to “[w]ynne whoso may, for al is for to selle” (3.413-414).

This phrase, and the Wife of Bath’s Prologue at large, treats the dynamics of marriage in economic terms that the Wife of Bath can modify in order to attain authority over her husbands. This dissertation explores the larger trend of Middle English texts rendering marriage in economic terms and metaphor to determine what such treatment indicates about the shifting social relations of marriage in late medieval England. Previous scholarship has emphasized the role of antimercantilism in the period, pointing to a larger concern of the impact a market economy based on wages and exchange rather than social obligation would have on the social hierarchies of the period. This dissertation pushes back on this perspective, contending that the rising prevalence of market exchanges in every day life gives rise to the use of economic language and metaphor to better understand changing social relations. The Introduction establishes the historical basis of marriage in this period as well as the development of medieval economic thought in a burgeoning market economy. Chapter 1 focuses on two major Middle English texts,

Geoffrey Chaucer’s the Wife of Bath’s Prologue and William Langland’s The Vision of

Piers the Plowman, to consider how female figures taking part in the medieval marital market appropriate economic thought to dictate the parameters of their own exchange, the process of each commenting on the contradictory nature of the medieval marriage.

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Chapter 2 considers the role of avarice in John Gower’s Confessio Amantis and the anonymous Middle English poem Wynnere and Wastoure to plot how marriage is treated like local economies, where hoarding through avaricious desire harms all participants in the economy. Chapter 3 unpacks the function of widowhood in Chaucer’s Troilus and

Criseyde, ultimately contending that Crisyede’s plight demonstrates the socioeconomic vulnerabilities of unfixed marital statuses in late medieval England. Finally, Chapter 4 looks at the function of labor in marriage as both a demonstration of marital identity and methodology for agency within marriage, focusing on the Middle English Breton Lay

Emaré’s use of textile labor. This dissertation contends that rather than feeding instability economic language and metaphor comprise a new method for understanding those shifting social obligations. The shift into an exchange economy does not supplant social obligations but instead forms new methods of understanding and properly performing exchange in the interest of interpersonal relationships.

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Dedicated to my mother, Charlene Armstrong, who spent her life telling me:

Don’t Dream it, Be it.

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Acknowledgments

First, I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Ethan Knapp, for his continuous support throughout this project. His always cogent advice, helpful suggestions, and intellectual prodding pushed me to produce better and deeper work at each stage in the process. I would also like to express my gratitude to Dr. Richard Firth Green and Dr.

Karen Winstead for their aid both on and off this project, in and out of the classroom.

Without the assistance of my committee I would not have been able to develop my project into the form that lies below.

I likewise owe my wife, Regina Bouley Sweeten, and daughter, Lily Jean Bouley

Sweeten, a great debt towards the completion of this project. My wife has unerringly supported me throughout my graduate career, and I can imagine no one who has been more patient or who is happier to see the project, and my worries therof, completed. My daughter has been instrumental in putting my work in context with life’s expectations and ensuring a healthy sense of humility, as toddlers are wont to do. My family has been my strength from the start, and with Regina and Lily I can say I am strong indeed.

My work has also benefited significantly from the support of my peers. Dr. Erin

Wagner and Dr. Andrew Richmond have been the shining examples of those always one step ahead, always willing to offer advice, and always patiently lending an ear to the grief of a dissertating junior colleague. Jonathon Holmes has also provided a regular source of

v pedagogical discussion, suggestions for improvements on my chapters, and verbal détente that made this process much more manageable. I have been privileged to have an excellent crop of peers at OSU, and I can only hope to have provided a small help in return, whether it be a word of support, sharing of syllabi, or the occasional cup of coffee from the Denney 547 private stash.

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Vitae

2007………………………………………………...B.A. English/History, Summa Cum

Laude, Sam Houston State University

2011………………………………………………..M.A. English, Purdue University

2016……………….…………………………….....Graduate Teaching Associate,

Department of English, Ohio State

University

Fields of Study

Major Field: English

Area of Specialty: Late Medieval Literature, Gender Theory, Medieval Economic

Thought

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Table of Contents

Abstract...... ii

Dedication………………………………………………………………………………...iv

Acknowledgments…………………………………………………………………………v

Vita………………………………………………………………………………………..vi

Introduction...... 1

Chapter 1: Spending her Bele Chose: the Economics of the Marital Market…………....27

Chapter 2: Marital Avarice………………………………………………………………81

Chapter 3: The Economic Agency of Widowhood……………………………………..132

Chapter 4: Marital Labor……………………………………………………………….180

Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...208

Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………212

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Introduction

The prologue of Thomas Hoccleve’s Regiment of Princes follows a Boethian dialectic structure, the narrator confronted by an old man who offers advice for coping with his dire straits. Over the course of the prologue, the old man’s advice shifts from embracing poverty to actually writing to Prince Henry in order to request more reasonable remuneration for the narrator’s labor. In the middle of this shift, however, is a just over 200-line discussion of marriage, opening with the old man’s question: “Seye on the soothe, I preye thee hertily, / What was thy cause why thow took a wyf?”1 Up to this point, the matter of Hoccleve’s married state has not come up, and the nature of the old man’s advice, extolling the virtuous aspects of poverty, have centered exclusively on

Hoccleve’s personal mental, spiritual, or emotional state rather than how his conditions would affect Hoccleve’s spouse. The old man goes on to question Hoccleve on the reasons for his marrying, outlining the proper reasons to marry and engage in sexual intercourse within marriage, and to provide exempla for the necessity of maintaining a true marriage and marital identity. Only after this extended discussion of marriage does the old man finally advise Hoccleve to modify his economic state instead of accepting it, suggesting that the state of marriage carries economic connotations. Even the old man, in his Boethian function, recognizes that Hoccleve’s role as husband denotes certain

1 Thomas Hoccleve, The Regiment of Princes (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Pub., 1999), II.1555-1556. 1 economic responsibilities, feeding into a larger trend in Middle English literature of associating the state of marriage with the economic realities of a household. Similar representation of marriage through economic metaphor is present in several other Middle

English texts. While perhaps most famously in The Wife of Bath’s Prologue, The

Shipman’s Tale, and the Lady Mede sections of The Vision of Piers the Plowman, this representation also takes place in John Capgrave’s Life of St. Katherine, Emaré, and

Havelok the Dane. These Middle English texts discuss matters of the sexual obligation in economic terms, issues of labor and trade as modified through one’s marital status, and even the potential exchangeability of commodified marital goods. This trend begs an overriding question: why is marriage often dealt with through a representational scheme of economic metaphor?

As an institution which is defined both by the bonds it forms between individuals and the sociopolitical alliances it brokers between families, governing institutions, and business ventures, the stakes of marriage in late medieval England are difficult to overstate. These dynamics are brought into greater relief in the urban setting of London, where specific economic, legal, and political conditions both promote and control aspects of medieval marriage.2 Given the fact that marriage touches upon so many currents of society it is striking that Middle English literature so often chooses to turn to economic language in its representations of marriage. The representation of marriage through economic language and metaphor demonstrates a normalization of market transactions in everyday life. More importantly, however, this representation demonstrates the attempts

2 These dynamics are a large part of Barbara Hanwalt’s monograph. See The Wealth of Wives: Women, Law, and Economy in Late Medieval London (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007). 2 to understand the dynamics of marriage in a period of shifting social obligations brought upon by a growing market economy.

I. Marriage in Late Medieval England

The institution of marriage itself is a matter of great concern and debate in late medieval England. In Marriage, Sex, and Civic Culture in Late Medieval London,

Shannon McSheffrey is particularly interested in the social function of marriage:

McSheffrey argues that “bonds of marriage and sex were simultaneously intimate, deeply personal ties and matters of public concern, subject to intervention by everyone from a woman’s or man’s family, friends, and employers to the mayor of London himself.”3 The role marriage plays on a social level introduces the interests and interference of a number of groups and ideologies on what would otherwise seem to be solely a bond between two individuals. For McSheffrey, marriage and sexual relationships constituted “social acts” that were crafted by the specific conditions of time, place, and social dynamics; thus, marriage in late medieval London operates differently and distinctly from contemporary

York, for example, due to the specific cultural, social, and economic conditions of

London.4 McSheffrey argues that the marital dynamics of London in particular led to “a more conservative approach to marital strategies,” leading to increased involvement from the family and community at large when forming and negotiating marital contracts.5

During the process of engagement, banns would be read for the engaged couple at church for at least three weeks preceding the marriage, both announcing upcoming nuptials to

3 Shannon McSheffrey, Marriage, Sex, and Civic Culture in Late Medieval London (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006) 4. 4 McSheffrey, 5. 5 McSheffrey, 8. 3 the congregation and preventing potential fraud, bigamy, or coercion to marry.6 The reading of banns in particular highlights medieval marriage’s social function; the act of publicizing the potential marriage both places that union in the public eye and serves to curtail any legal transgressions that the marriage could represent.

Taking a more focused perspective on late medieval London, Barbara Hanawalt’s

Wealth of Wives looks at the impact wives—before, during, and after marriage—had on the city’s economic development. Going against the critical trend to focus on medieval women’s roles as laborers, Hanawalt argues that “women’s largest economic impact on

London’s economy, mercantile trade, and the stability of its government and society lay in the transfer of wealth through marriage.”7 Rather than solely considering women’s economic contributions through trade or labor, Hanwalt maintains that economic and legal conditions in late medieval London allowed for the horizontal distribution of wealth in both marriage and remarriage. Due to the increased legal protections of widows, for example, London women could enter second marriages with increased financial holdings, which could then stimulate their second husbands’ businesses through larger sources of available capital.8 While Hanawalt notes that mechanisms that limited the agency of women, economic and otherwise, were still in operation in medieval London, Hanawalt maintains that “not all women fell victim to [the patriarchal system].”9 Instead, many women were able to take advantage of key legal protections in medieval London to protect both themselves and their financial standing, such as invoking the legal status of

6 Many modern wedding ceremonies contain a holdover of this practice with the officiant’s question "If any of you has reasons why these two should not be married, speak now or forever hold your peace." 7 Hanawalt, 6. 8 Hanawalt, 6-8. 9 Hanawalt, 13. 4 femme sole, which allowed these women to file in legal cases as if they were unmarried and thus prevent the outcome from affecting the household.10 Both for wives and widows, Hanawalt’s perspective suggests that marriage in medieval London provided economic opportunities that, in addition to improving the financial status of some women, allowed for improved economic development in the city at large.

Moving largely from McSheffery’s work to provide a backdrop to Chaucer’s work, Cathy Hume’s Chaucer and the Cultures of Love and Marriage argues that as medieval marriage comprises an institution simultaneously social, economic, and legal in nature its cultural impact should be considered against each of these lines equally.

Specifically, Hume’s project has two primary aims; to better contextualize the conditions of medieval marriage for Chaucer’s audience and to use advice literature and collections of letters as “a proxy for those ‘horizons of expectation’ that Chaucer’s contemporary readers would have brought to his texts.”11 While Hume acknowledges the difficulty of reconstructing the expectations of a medieval audience, she utilizes advice literature and letter collections to demonstrate what Chaucer’s audience may find normative, subversive, humorous, or outright shocking. In building the context of medieval marriage, however, Hume challenges models that paint an overly monochromatic picture;

“in reality marriages seemed to have been organised for a wider range of reasons, some of which benefited the individuals concerned, and some of which served their families’

10 In “The Traffic in Medieval Women: Alice Perrers, Feminist Criticism, and Piers Plowman.” The Yearbook of Langland Studies, no 12. (1998): 5-27, Stephanie Trigg discusses the flexibility of femme sole status in legal proceedings as she plots Alice Perrer’s manipulation of the system. 11 Cathy Hume, Chaucer and the Cultures of Love and Marriage (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2012), 208. 5 interests.”12 For Hume, the narrative of medieval marriage becomes heavily nuanced depending on the context in which it is considered, with studies centered on sermons, legal proceedings, or class conditions providing variant and at times conflicting narratives. Class conditions in particular could result in widely divergent narratives of marriage; aristocratic families could rely more on the role of marriage to provide political and economic alliances, merchant and burger marriages could often be more concerned with the legal parameters of marital contracts, and laboring marriage couples might be more focused on the establishment of a stable household.13 Hume’s monograph demonstrates the necessity for more nuanced and contextualized discussions of medieval marriage that consider multiple sources of evidence, going against the nominal attempts of models such as George Duby’s that simply split the subject into two parts, idealized marriage from the church and aristocracy’s perspectives, respectively.14

One aspect of the ideal function of marriage, from the Church’s perspective, was to avoid sin through fornication, and both husband and wife were responsible for this prevention. Largely building from Paul’s points on the matter, the concept was generally referred to as the conjugal debt: “But to avoid fornication, every man should have his wife and every woman should have her husband. The husband should pay the debt to his wife, and likewise the wife to the husband.”15 In this case, sexual activity within the proper confines of marriage provided the only method for curtailing fornication outside of it, so it was the responsibility of either partner to grant sexual access to their spouse.

12 Hume, 12. 13 Hume, 16-19. 14 Hume, 12. 15 1 Corinthians 7:2-3. 6

Moreover, this obligation superseded the ownership of one’s own body: “The wife does not have power over her own body, but the husband does; and likewise indeed the husband does not have power over his own body, but the wife does.”16 On the surface conjugal debt would seem to offer equal treatment for husbands and wives as each owes, according to Paul, equal obligation to the other to prevent sinful activity.17 This dynamic, in practice, often fails to hold water, and even later theologians push against this concept.

Jerome, for example, famously said “I praise marriages, but because for me they produce virgins.”18 For Jerome, and the larger movement he is part of, virginity is the privileged state, making marriage appealing only for those unable to abstain from their base desires.

Despite this perspective, marriage is the common experience for late medieval England, with men and women engaging in active sexual activity within and often without it.

While conjugal debt provides the veneer of equal obligation between genders, sexual activity outside of marriage is treated with far more judgment for women than men, and women are often treated in Middle English texts as creatures unable to overcome their base desires.

In addition to the gender and financial aspects of medieval marriage, growing discourses of affection and the sacrament of marriage are of large import. In Emma

Lipton’s Affections of the Mind: The Politics of Sacramental Marriage in Late Medieval

English Literature, the robust popularity of this subject in England is tied to the growing

16 1 Corinthians 7:4. 17 Most famously the Wife of Bath tackles this matter directly in her Prologue, using conjugal debt as a foundation to establish her own authority. Like so many other matters with the Wife of Bath she takes it to great extremes, so much so that it subverts the issue at hand. For more on this see Chapter 1 below. 18 C. Brooke, The Medieval Idea of Marriage (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1989): 61-63. 7 power, economically and politically, of the “middle strata”19 and lay piety. Lipton argues that discussions of medieval marriage are either focused on hierarchy or sex, concerned with either the dynamics of power within the marriage or the sexual politics between man and wife. Lipton maintains that sacramental marriage serves as a third model, which provides an ideological staging ground for the middle strata to promote their respective

“social values of lay authority and a horizontal vision of governance.”20 Lipton suggests that this process places more power in the hands of the laity, as marriage is the only sacrament that does not require a priest, necessitating only the consent of the husband and wife. Additionally, Lipton points to various shifts in the perception of sacramental marriage that started building an ideology of marriage as an institution of love rather than sex; instead of marrying to avoid carnal sin, marriage due to affection for one's spouse was espoused by the laity.

Lipton’s perspective on the sacramental model of marriage, especially in regards to the middle strata, plays a vital role in understanding late medieval marriage, but the connection to the middle strata’s growing power is not alone sufficient to explain the economically charged depiction of marriage in Middle English literature. Beyond stating that growing economic power is important for the development of this group, Lipton pays little heed to economic dynamics, forces, or language in marriage in late medieval

England. Furthermore, a similar economic analysis is either undervalued or absent entirely from Hume and McShefferey’s books. This study seeks to fill this gap, more

19 Emma Lipton, Affections of the Mind: The Politics of Sacramental Marriage in Late Medieval English Literature, (Notre Dame: U of Notre Dame P, 2007). Lipton utilizes the term “middle strata” in place of the much more problematic “middle class.” For Lipton, the middle strata includes the rising bourgeois population, merchants, and the lower gentry. 20 Lipton, 4. 8 specifically considering the prevalent use of economic language and metaphor with marriage in Middle English texts along with medieval economic thought. The sacramental model of marriage is useful for understanding the sociopolitical dynamics of marriage among the middle strata and how these dynamics work alongside the hierarchal and sexual models that Lipton plots out. Rather than adding yet another model to the mix, this study’s focused economic analysis of the depiction of marriage in Middle English texts will work across all three of the models of medieval marriage plotted by Lipton

(sexual politics, power dynamics, and sacramental). For example, the negotiations of marital contracts uses economic language to designate and redefine the hierarchal model, discussions of the “conjugal debt” metaphor treat sexual desire within marriage as an economic institution, and the sacramental model shifts the focus of marriage from sex to love, but even these marriages are still subject to negotiations between the husband and wife, usually requiring clear designation of dowry, property, and financial arrangements both upon entering the marriage and if the marriage ends. By focusing on the use of economic language and metaphor in discussions of medieval marriage, this study seeks to provide a clearer image of how medieval thinkers considered the institution of marriage and the role of economic ideology outside of market transactions.

At the heart of this study lies the question of why Middle English texts often treat marriage in economic terms and metaphor. When these issues are noted, critics suggest that medieval marriage functions as an economic institution with little further discussion, pointing to either the economic realities of medieval married life or the emphasis on a dowry system of marital contracts. This study will push past such critical assumption to

9 better understand the dynamics at play in economic depictions of medieval marriage and what, accordingly, such depictions have to say about how medieval thinkers considered both marriage and economics. In part this approach will follow Joel Kaye’s discussion of monetary and market consciousness, plotting how shifting market and economic factors in late medieval Europe impact culture at multiple levels.21 In particular, late medieval

London contains a number of peculiar circumstances including but not limited to favorable trade routes due to events outside of England; a trend of embracing agricultural and market shifts in the local, national, and international economies; legal protections, including economic provisions, for otherwise legally vulnerable populations such as women; and an expanding urban populace requiring an increasing amount of food and commodities to be imported from further outside of the countryside immediately surrounding the city.22 If, as Kaye plots on a larger scale, poets understand that

“commerce and industry is essential to the welfare of their communities” in late medieval

London,23 the increasing role of the language of commerce outside of the jurisdictions of commerce in Middle English texts suggests a larger change in attitudes towards money

21 Joel Kaye, “Monetary and Market Consciousness in Thirteenth and Fourteenth Century Europe,” Ancient and Medieval Economic Ideas and Concepts of Social Justice, ed. S. Todd Lowry and Barry Gordon, (New York, NY: Brill, 1998): 371-374. 22 See Christopher Dyer’s Making a Living in the Middle Ages, (New Have: Yale UP, 2002), Barbara Hanawalt’s Wealth of Wives, and Pamela Nightengale’s Trade, Money, and Power in Medieval England, (Aldershot: Ashgate Variorum, 2007). John Hatcher’s Plague, Population and the English Economy 1348- 1530 (London: Macmillian Press LTD, 1977) also plots out similar trends of adaptability in London, but cautions that many of these claims are built on indirect evidence and thus should be approached cautiously (31). 23 Kaye, “Monetary and Market Consciousness in Thirteenth and Fourteenth Century Europe,” 399. 10 and trade.24 One way to understand these changing attitudes is to more closely consider the development of economic thought in the period.

II. Shifts in Late Medieval Economic Thought

Economic thought in late medieval Europe was anything but monolithic. The period of the twelfth through fifteenth centuries saw substantial changes in the availability of currency, the monetization of urban and agrarian markets, and how money and economics were perceived. When considering larger schemes of economic history, critics are easily tempted to be caught in the grand narratives that John Watt rails against in The Making of Polities is all too easy;25 grand narratives often simplify the impact of medieval Europe to just be the rise of the merchant class, a period in which trade increases in importance and commercializes society at all levels. While there is some basis for this reading, such studies often place medieval Europe as a stepping stone for a larger account of westernized economic development. Perspectives of this sort fail to take into consideration the substantial philosophical, economic, and class shifts that occur in medieval Europe. These changing perspectives are especially significant in late medieval

England, where ideological frameworks surrounding economics engage with yet often differ from the historical conditions of individuals within this period.

Economic development in late medieval England is a complex process that does not lend itself to teleological grand narratives. Lester Little’s Religious Poverty and the

Profit Economy in Medieval Europe plots this period into two feudal ages according to a

24 Some of these changes could also be due to the increasing roles of commercial specialization. See Richard H. Britnell, “Commercialisation and economic development in England, 1100-1300,” A Commercialising Economy: England 1086 to c. 1300, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995): 7- 26. 25 John Watts, The Making of Polities: Europe 1300-1500, (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2007). 11 shift in economic systems: an age of gift economies and an age of exchange economies.26

Little uses the examples of two distinct treatments of discovered hoards of wealth from the beginning and end of this period to illuminate his points: the first hoard is made into another object of wealth, but the second is distributed through the local economy in order to construct a new cathedral.27 Little argues that this demonstrates a larger shift in the perceived function of wealth: in a gift economy the gift represents social capital that develops and strengthens bonds between individuals, but in an exchange economy wealth represents the potential to purchase labor and commodities which can be put to specific uses. Martha C. Howell’s Commerce Before Capitalism slightly complicates this dynamic by suggesting that the social capital of gifts does not lessen with the rise of an exchange economy, arguing that at times the social bonds formed through gift exchange exceed the value of the gifts themselves.28 Little’s two-part interpretation of late medieval economics works against an entirely static view of economic development, yet these points become even further complicated when considering ideological developments in late medieval

England.

Rather than marking a single point of ideological shift, Diana Wood’s Medieval

Economic Thought argues that perceptions of money, trade, and merchants undergo a general positive shift over the period stretching from the twelfth through fifteenth centuries.29 Noting that many medieval writers of economics were clerics, Wood suggests

26 Lester Little, Religious Poverty and the Profit Economy in Medieval Europe, (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1983). 27 Little, 3. 28 Martha C. Howell, Commerce Before Capitalism in Europe, 1300-1600, (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2010): 146. 29 Diana Wood, Medieval Economic Thought, (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2002). 12 that economics is often ideologically tied to theology.30 Discussions of economics in this period are thus focused on the ethical application of money and exchange; the largest issues of contention are accordingly usury and profit from trade. The problems of lending money at interest are a common point of concern in this period, but Wood’s discussion of mercantile exchange gestures to concerns over the merchant who purchases commodities at low cost only to sell them at high.31 Wood considers theological writing that condemns merchants for this practice, but by the latter portion of this period the ideological tide turns in the merchant’s favor as dialogues move to defend the merchant’s right to a profit margin: the merchant takes on risk in order to purchase and transport his goods and thus should be remunerated for that risk.32 Beyond merchants, however, Wood plots a similar trend with the perception of money itself, as early writing from this period attempts to define the role of currency. If money is primarily an imperishable store of value, consisting of a precious metal, the exchange value could maintain stability, but the temptation would be to hoard money for the value of its precious metal content, removing that currency from the economy.33 Furthermore, due to practices such as siegnorage and revaluing, the exchange value of currency often failed to be consistent (such practices are of particular concern to Nicolas Oresme who rails against irresponsible uses of seigniorage in his De moneta).34 Yet, despite the early distrust of merchants and money,

Wood suggests that the ideological perspective towards each improves markedly by the

30 Wood, 3-5. 31 Wood, 111-113. 32 Wood, 117-120. 33 Wood, 83-84. 34 Charles Johnson, trans. The De Moneta of Nicolaus Oresme and The English Mint Documents, (Auburn, Alabama: The Ludwig Von Mises Institute, 2009). 13 latter part of the fourteenth century, suggesting large changes in medieval economic thought over this period.

These changes come from a long series of intertextual debates on economics when considering economic thought within Aristotelian scholastics specifically. In his

Economics in the Medieval Schools, Odd Langholm focuses solely on the shift in economic thought for scholastics either in or closely connected to the University of Paris from 1200-1350.35 Langholm’s sizable monograph self-consciously takes a somewhat unpopular perspective that views “history as anticipation,” arguing that this period of scholastic writing represents an evolution in economic thought that sets up the developments of the fourteenth century.36 In plotting the milieu of Parisian scholastics,

Langholm demonstrates that medieval economic thought involves a long tradition of work that builds upon itself, later scholars taking the positions of those that come before and further modifying them. Joel Kaye’s Economy and Nature in the Fourteenth Century takes a similar perspective, although one not as geographically limited, maintaining that

“the great majority of positions taken and points made were in response not to external experiences or influences, but to questions and positions defined by the ongoing debate.”37 Rather than coming from a fixed position, medieval economic thought is developed through a long series of intellectual engagements between contemporary scholastics and their predecessors. Kaye’s section on “just price,” for example, starts with the Aristotelian perspective of a fixed point of value, but then plots how this position is

35 Langholm, Odd. Economics in the Medieval Schools, (New York, NY: Brill, 1992). 36 Langholm, 5. 37 Joel Kaye, Economy and Nature in the Fourteenth Century: Money, Market Exchange, and the Emergence of the Scientific Thought, (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998): 5. 14 modified by Aquinas, Duns Scotus, Walter Burley, John Dumbleton, and Jean Buridan, each scholastic taking the positions that came before and altering them to fit their respective models.38 Rather than pushing slight variations of the short economic section in Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics, the development of scholastic economic debate demonstrates development through intertextual debate for medieval economic thought.

On “just price” alone, views ranged from a somewhat platonic perspective of a universal price which a judge can discern, a price that is determined by the intersection of need from the buyer and seller respectively, and the price a commodity actually sells for in the marketplace. While these arguments take their starting points from Aristotle, each present significant shifts of perspective as the realities of marketplace become regulated as part of everyday life.

The ethical consideration of Aristotelian scholastics provides the majority of late medieval writing on economics, but these ethical considerations were not always put into practice. In some cases, the positions of economic thinkers are informed by the failures of others to adhere to those ethical concerns. Nicolas Oresme’s De moneta, as mentioned above, has a large preoccupation with seigniorage, a tax applied by a governing body when reminting coinage. Usually, this process resulted in the coin returned to the economy containing less precious metals by weight than that which went into the process, literally and often dramatically devaluing the currency of the individuals required to change their money. For Oresme, this process, when done to replace worn coinage or in small amounts to recoup the cost of minting, can be just, but often this practice was

38 Kaye, 181-191. 15 instead seen as a source of income by governing bodies seeking liquid assets to fund royal expenses and war efforts.39 Upon first reading, Oresme’s preoccupation can come off as somewhat idiosyncratic, but, as Joel Kaye discusses in the introduction of his monograph, the currency was changed or revalued more than eighty times in France between 1337 and 1360, a period during Oresme’s lifetime. As a direct witness to the economic instability that ensues from monetary inconsistency, Oresme’s text demonstrates the impact that economic policies can have on medieval thinkers. Oresme’s

De moneta demonstrates the contention between the ideal practice of economic thought and the historical reality of economics in late medieval Europe.

One method for considering the shifts in economic thought in this period is to focus on the treatment of merchants in texts. According to Wood, the narrative of mercantile reception in late medieval England is one that moves generally in a positive direction over time. Complicating this perspective, Roger Ladd’s Antimercantilism in

Late Medieval English Literature discusses contradicting perspectives on merchants in fourteenth and fifteenth century literature.40 Moving from his pronouncement that

“Nothing makes ideologies more visible than conflict between them,”41 Ladd argues that a series of Middle English texts such as The Book of Margery Kempe and The Libelle of

Englyshe Polycye provide a positive depiction of merchants and the exchange economy.

Yet, other contemporaneous texts such as “London Lickpenny” and “Above All Thing

Thow Arte a Kyng” demonstrate that medieval thought on merchants is in great

39 Johnson, 9-13. 40 Roger Ladd, Antimercantilism in Late Medieval English Literature, (New York: Palgrave, 2010). 41 Ladd, 5. 16 contention.42 Ladd goes on to plot the growing economic and political power of merchants, especially in the lending of capital to royal causes and their involvement in local politics, placing the economic necessity of merchants at odds with theological ideology. However, the treatment of merchants as a homogenous group disguises the further conflict of interests within this group. For example, James Davis’ Medieval

Market Morality argues that, in urban settings such as London, local retailers conducted the lion’s share of day to day exchanges, making them the most active members in the urban economy.43 These retailers, however, had little of the power that Ladd ascribes to merchants, even finding themselves more vulnerable to trade regulations with the least political or economic power to compensate.44 The history of merchants in late medieval

England involves the contention between ethical concerns and rising commercialization in addition to the disparate experiences of powerful, politically influential merchants and victualers providing an urban population with day to day commodities. Even in a single demographic, medieval economic development is a complex process.

Another source of conflict between aspects of medieval economic thought and individuals in this period is the treatment of laborers in the fourteenth century. Many narratives of labor history suggest that laborers benefit from the changing markets of late medieval England, such as the growing monetization of labor and the post-plague labor shortage. Discussions of this economic development, such as Wood’s, emphasize the growing monetization of society, including agricultural laborers. In Money and its Use in

42 Ladd, 5-9. 43 James Davis, Medieval Market Morality: Life, Law, and Ethics in the English Marketplace, 1200-1500, (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2012). 44 Davis, 6-9. 17

Medieval Europe, Peter Spufford confirms the role of money in agricultural labor, but instead of a general point of commercialization Spufford argues that this was a seasonal process, payment for goods brought to harvest immediately turned over for supplies needed for the next year.45 Beyond the sale of goods, however, moves to manage wages from a governmental perspective directly impact the economic wellbeing of laborers in fourteenth century England. In The Laborer’s Two Bodies, Kellie Robertson argues that the labor statutes set out “to make labor (good or bad) a visible quantity.”46 Following the labor shortages caused by the plague, the labor statutes attempted to control fluctuating wages and prices through a series of laws. The reduced population allowed those laborers to negotiate for increased wages or to seek improved wages in different locales.

Accordingly, Robertson suggests, landowners offered more competitive payments or rents to keep or attract laborers. The labor statutes attested to regulate these conditions, fixing wages and prices, making “service compulsory for all landless, able bodied workers under the age of sixty,” and imposing harsh penalties for violating the statutes, such as facial branding for offending laborers.47 Laborers seizing upon economic opportunities were presumably punished for their efforts; furthermore, the statutes represent an ideological shift that, according to Robertson, recasts “workers as malicious and lazy.”48 Thus, while laborers may have benefited financially from the changing market conditions of late medieval England, medieval economic ideology could work against these laborers. Robertson’s monograph suggests that the historical reality of

45 Peter Spufford, Money and its Use in Medieval Europe, (New York: Cambridge UP, 1988): 263. 46 Kellie Robertson, The Laborer’s Two Bodies: Labor and the “Work” of the Text in Medieval Britain, 1350-1500, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006): 16. 47 Robertson, 14. 48 Robertson, 2. 18 workers in late medieval England was a mixed lot, containing aspects that were both beneficial and harmful to laborers.

These perceptions of labor further impact the treatment of women in the period, the condition of women through this period demonstrating shifting social and economic paradigms, especially in urban centers such as London. Much of the relevant scholarship has focused on the presence of women in trade, stemming from or at least citing A.

Abram’ 1916 article.49 Abram reports a remarkably large percentage of women in various trades throughout London, even arguing that these women were afforded certain advantages over men under the labor statutes.50 Scholarship following Abram’ trend plots a London urban center that was welcoming to the tradeswoman. Moving away from the weight of scholarship on women in trades, Barbara Hanawalt’s The Wealth of Wives argues that women had a significant impact on the economic development of medieval

England, not as tradeswomen or entrepreneurs but as wives and widows. Due to favorable inheritance laws that allowed women increased control of marital property, widowhood enabled horizontal economic growth through remarriage, bringing in greater sums of previous husbands’ property into new marriages and, in many cases, provided these new husbands with fresh capital for business ventures; for Hanawalt, “London laws and those men who administered them ... developed an understanding that keeping capital fluid and allowing widows to remarry was in their best interest for their trade.”51 Women,

49 A. Abram, “Women Traders in Medieval London,” The Economic Journal: The Economic Journal of the Royal Economic Society, no. 26 (1916): 276-285. 50 Abram, 276. 51 Hanawalt, 12. 19 being directly involved in trade or allowing the horizontal flow of capital, serve a vital role in the economic development of late medieval England.

The roles that women occupy in this development, however, do not necessarily come with economic agency. Similarly to Abram’ perspective on women traders in

London, many studies suggest a “pre-modern golden age” for women in the countryside,52 one which preceded the moves of a Victorian England to turn women “into social parasites or factory fodder under the corrupting hand of capitalism.”53 In Women in the Medieval English Countryside, Judith Bennett works against this trend to provide a more accurate picture of laboring women in this period.54 Bennett determines that some women in the countryside did enjoy increased economic freedoms, but these generally included widows who had inherited wealth and maidens who were accumulating money towards their dowry. Bennett argues that married women were instead legally subsumed under their husbands, as demonstrated by legal cases and property disputes being redirected to and often filed under their husbands’ name.55 Bennett’s research suggests that some working women, the maidens and widows, had increased legal equality, but this was a small percentage of the population. The narratives of women in urban centers and in the countryside differ both in their agency and role in economic development, suggesting a shifting landscape across gender and regional divides in the economic history of late medieval England.

52 See Caroline Barron, “The Golden Age of Women in Medieval London,” Reading Medieval Studies, 15 (1989): 35-58. 53 Olwen Hufton, “Women in History: Early Modern Europe,” Past and Present no. 101 (1983): 126. 54 Judith Bennett, Women in the Medieval English Countryside: Gender & Household in Brigstock Before the Plague (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1987). 55 Bennett, 7-9. 20

Rather than a “monolithic body of thought,” economic development in late medieval England, both the theoretical and historical components, differs significantly according to regional, social, and ideological differences. Economics in late medieval

England is marked by a negotiation between theoretical models and the historical realities of the marketplace, theological concerns over the ethics of money in direct contention with governing bodies and individuals from all social classes taking advantage of a society growing more commercialized over time. Thus, the nature of medieval economic thought involves a perpetual process of redefinition, debate, and application, producing widely different experiences between the individuals participating in market exchanges.

III. Economics of Medieval Marriage

The representation of medieval marriage through economic language and metaphor in Middle English literature requires an understanding of late medieval market consciousness and the conditions of marriage, both as an institution and in practice. This study focuses closely on late medieval London in order to evaluate the specific sociohistorical context of these texts and also considers the economic concepts of the medieval scholastics to better understand what the use of these concepts to negotiate social relations says about the medieval imaginary. The resulting analysis considers the treatment of the marital market, avaricious desire, marital consent in widowhood, and labor with a close eye on the use of economic language and metaphor. Each of these areas involves the necessary interaction between individuals as members of marriages or marriage like states but each is rendered through economic concepts that caste those marital dynamics in different light.

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The first chapter considers how both the Chaucer’s Wife of Bath and Langland’s

Meed deal with their roles as the objects of marital exchange. In her prologue the Wife of

Bath demonstrates her regular and active participation in the marital market, going through five husbands and welcoming the sixth. Yet, rather than operating as a passive object of marital exchange the Wife of Bath takes command of that exchange, using sex to control her first three husbands and, once in possession of their wealth, using that wealth to enable her last two marriages. In addition to seizing the means of marital exchange, the behavior across the Wife of Bath’s marriages demonstrates the economic complexities of late medieval marriage, occupying both ends of the supply and demand curves through her various marriages. Meed, on the other hand, seizes not the means but the rhetoric of marital exchange in her debate with Conscience. On the outside an allegorical exercise for how a governing body can use reward to pay or motivate, the attempt by the King to marry Meed and Conscience results in a debate between the two figures over Meed’s moral standing. Rather than standing silently as the potential bride, however, Meed takes up her own defense, turning much of Conscience’s own points and rhetoric around to demonstrate how Meed could be a valuable object of exchange. As transgressors of a simple object status in marital exchange, Meed and the Wife of Bath employ economic arguments to validate and rhetorically demonstrate their own positions.

My second chapter considers the role avarice has to play in economic perspectives of medieval marriage. Avaricious desire is destructive in nature due to its destabilizing effects on exchange. The ideal state of wealth in an economy is moving, transferring from various participants in the economy as they buy and sell commodities or services.

22

Avaricious desire, however, leads to a pooling of that wealth through hoarding, causing harm to the economy at large. When discussed in marriage, a similar dynamic of avaricious desire appears in both John Gower’s Confession Amantis and the Middle

English poem Wynnere and Wastoure. Book V of the Confessio Amantis presents an intriguing constellation in its conflation of love, sex, and economic greed, and, strikingly,

Gower chooses to imagine this system through the repetitive invocation of the image of money chests. The money chest stores wealth, both keeping it in an accessible location and securing it behind a lock, but this image comes to represent avarice, the chest hoarding wealth and harming the economy by withholding it from circulation. The focus of Book V revolves around equitable exchange between both participants in amorous exchange, constructing a local amorous economy that functions like an ideal marriage and speaking to Gower’s larger concerns about social stability. Similarly, the debate between allegorical representations of spending and earning in Wynnere and Wastoure presents concerns about either practice taken out of moderation, yet while Wynnere and

Wastoure debates conflicting economic practices, the respective positons of earning and spending are taken to task when they impact social obligations. Most notably, Wynnere’s adherence to avaricious practices undermine his responsibilities to his servants, to other members of his local economy, and to his wife. This study contends that Wynnere and

Wastoure has much less to do with finding an ideal state between spending and earning and more with how differing concepts of wealth’s use value affect social relationships and obligations. This study employs medieval economic models on the nature of money, the function of just price in market exchanges, and the harmful role of hoarding in local

23 economies to demonstrate how Wynnere and Wastoure is ultimately more concerned with how economic exchange should be used to support social bonds of mutual obligation.

Most demonstrative of this dynamic in the text is its curious discussion of marriage, where Wynnere cannot see marital bonds as anything but a frivolous loss of income while

Wastoure contends that the exchange of gifts from husband to wife fosters a support network whose benefits far exceed its costs. This chapter contends that, rather than viewing the economy as a reified concept that exists of and for its own sake, Wynnere and Wastoure brings to the forefront the idea that an economy is ultimately a collection of individuals exchanging together in the market and that the actions of those individuals can affect the economy at large. As an institution simultaneously economic and social in nature, marriage is a prime topic for exploring this concept.

My third chapter focuses on Chaucer’s treatment of widowhood in Troilus and

Criseyde. Widows are popular characters in a number of Middle English texts, and

Chaucer’s poetry features a range of widows including the Wife of Bath. The trend for

Middle English treatment of widows focuses on them as possessing voracious sexual appetites, an odd counterpoint to the chaste lives they are expected to live until remarried.56 Chaucer’s Criseyde takes a different tact, establishing her widowhood as an unfixed marital status that, combined with other factors in Troy, renders Criseyde vulnerable while providing the disguise of marital agency. The requirement of consent from both bride and groom, irrespective of outside forces, seemingly grants the

56 In Marriage Contracts from Chaucer to the Renaissance Stage, Kathryn Jacobs notes this as part of Chaucer’s larger “widow problem,” indicating that his treatment of Criseyde highlights the contradictory. treatment of expectations and treatment in Middle English fabliaux. For more see “The Legacy of the Marriage Contract,” Marriage Contracts from Chaucer to the Renaissance Stage, (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001): 70-92. 24 unmarried woman the potential of agency: as long as she has not consented to marriage she retains the potential to, at a future date, consent to or refuse marriage. Criseyde’s widowhood provides an interesting perspective on the matter, as she has once spent her potential agency in marriage but also regained it in widowhood. Yet, Criseyde’s potential marital agency is based on her unfixed status as widow and abandoned daughter, her possession of her father’s estate, and her presence in Troy under the protection of Priam’s sons. A shift in any of these three dynamics has drastic repercussions on Criseyde’s marital agency and, ultimately, her fleeting liberty. I argue that Chaucer’s treatment of

Criseyde’s marital status demonstrates the double standard of widowhood and marital agency in general; marital consent only grants the shadow of agency under the expectations that it will be relinquished. Criseyde’s attempts to hold on to that agency without consenting to marriage demonstrates just how vulnerable the state of the unmarried woman was in late medieval England.

My final chapter focuses on marital labor for wives in Middle English texts.

Focusing on the Breton Lay Emaré, I plot the way in which the titular hero is identified, commodified, and judged according to her association with textile labor, yet that very labor simultaneously provides Emaré with the ability to demonstrate her own value as a member of the households that take her in and, ultimately, to reunite with her husband and rightful role as his queen. Also touching on the examples of Margaret Paston and

Margery Kemp, I argue that labor within marriage becomes part of the identity of the wife, subsequently providing a demonstration of personal virtue, yet also providing some space for agency under the authority of the husband. Largely complicated by the function

25 of legal coverture and a general critical perception late medieval England as a “golden age” for women, the labor of wives must operate under the authority of their husbands.

On its surface Emaré would seem to fall under this designation as another of the

Custance tradition that emphasizes feminine passivity. Yet, at each stage of her exile

Emaré uses her labor to repay obligations, better her lot, and recover her rightful role as queen. Marital labor often operates under the auspices of a husband’s authority and becomes part of the wife’s identity, but that does not necessarily equate to passivity.

Ultimately, this dissertation seeks to investigate why the social dynamics of marriage are treated through economic terms. One current throughout each chapter follows the issues of potential female agency, how some wives are able to employ economic tactics to gain some ability to dictate their own fate despite legal and cultural conventions that could repress their agency, but that is not the primary issue at hand.

Some scholars, such as Lester Little, contend that late medieval England experiences a shift from gift giving to exchange economy which fostered a crisis of societal bonds: if the desire for money becomes more important than feudal models of social obligation, what is to stop the breakdown of the relationships formed from these obligations? This dissertation contends that rather than feeding instability economic language and metaphor comprise a new method for understanding those shifting social obligations. The shift into an exchange economy does not supplant social obligations as Little suggests but instead forms new methods of understanding and properly performing exchange in the interest of interpersonal relationships.

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Chapter 1: Spending her Bele Chose: the Economics of the Marital Market

In her prologue of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, the Wife of Bath pronounces “[w]ynne whoso may, for al is for to selle” (3.413-414).57 Dame Alice’s use of the Middle English term “wynne” here, especially in conjunction with “selle,” has a distinctly economic component, meaning to gain financial benefit.58 The context of this statement, however, comes in the Wife’s larger discussion of marriage and authority, establishing sexual activity within marriage as a market transaction which she will teach to “[y]e wise wyves that kan understonde” (3.225). Dame Alice’s appropriation of the conjugal debt narrative in The Wife of Bath’s Prologue has sparked a wide range of critical responses whose depictions of the wife range from proto-feminist figure to yet another iteration of misogynistic dialogue. Yet, the methodology that the Wife of Bath employs in her prologue uses Jerome’s arguments about conjugal debt to conflate marriage, sex, and economic exchange to, as she tells it, great benefit for herself. This conflation leads critics to question Alisoun’s ethical position, but her effectiveness on the marital market demonstrates the utility of treating the sexual components of marriage as a market exchange. Langland’s The Vision of Piers Plowman stimulates similar scholarly contention with Mede, a problematic allegorical figure who represents the exchange of

57 Geoffrey Chaucer, The Riverside Chaucer, ed. by Larry Benson, Robert Pratt, and F.N. Robinson (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987). All subsequent citations are from this edition. 58 “winen,” Middle English Dictionary, http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/m/mec/med- idx?type=id&id=MED52917. 27 mede as a reward for goods or services.59 While scholarly reception of Mede deals with her gender, agency, and morality, the overriding question is whether mede’s potential utility supersedes its potential for misuse.60 Mede is used by other agents in the text for unjust ends, but makes a convincing case for beneficial applications of mede, specifically how she herself may be used as a prospective wife. In Passus II-IV, the conundrum of

Mede’s marriage plots out the ethical dilemma surrounding the pragmatic use of mede; this dilemma is cast into greater relief with the personification of mede as a woman seeking a just marriage. Mede is defamed and used by those around her, but when she speaks on her own behalf Conscience, rather than discussing the ethics of mede, attacks the gender of Mede the woman. Despite the differences in their situations and methods,

Mede and Dame Alice operate within the context of a marital market which makes them the object of exchange, yet each woman employs economic tactics to negotiate those object positions. These contemporary texts present a dilemma between the pragmatics of marital exchange while questioning the hierarchies of the marital market at large.

Taken together, both of these women are problematic figures who, to one extent or another, identify and exploit the system of exchange in which they operate, using the repressive components of sexual commodification to their benefit by embracing their commodified states. Both the Wife of Bath and Mede use economic language and metaphor to act as agents of their own marital exchanges despite sociohistorical dynamics that otherwise repress the legal agency of wives. Shifts in legal and economic policies

59 “mede,” Middle English Dicitonary, http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/m/mec/med- idx?type=id&id=MED27143. 60 See John A. Yunck, The Lineage of Lady Meed: the Development of Mediaeval Venality Satire, (Notre Dame: Univeristy of Notre Dame Press, 1963). 28 afford more flexibility for women than were previously available, even allowing limited instances of economic agency for certain demographics, and the Wife of Bath and Mede take advantage of some of these dynamics. However, each woman demonstrates flaws within the social construction of late medieval marriage where, to navigate the lack of female authority in marriage, these women need to use exchange to circumvent rather than support the social order of marriage. In each case the plights of Mede and the Wife of Bath cast a sympathetic image of the place of women in marriage, but the tactics each woman employs is transgresses patriarchal marital authority. This chapter considers how each text, rather than offering solutions for issues of agency in marriage, ultimately uses economic language and tactics to raise questions about the social hierarchies of medieval marriage.

Chaucerians vigorously debate the matter of the Wife of Bath’s authority in marriage. Critics such as Mary Carruthers maintain that Alisoun possesses business experience as one who “is not a weaver but a capitalist clother, one of those persons who oversaw the whole process of cloth manufacture.”61 Critics following Carruthers hold that the Wife of Bath is able to apply her business experience to the management of her marriages in order to acquire authority. Alastair Minnis, on the other hand, challenges the idea that Alice is knowledgeable in business practices, claiming that her marriage to

Jankyn demonstrates a lack of experience in business dealings. For Minnis, a marriage which puts her wealth at risk is “hardly the action of a good businesswoman.”62 Critics in

61 Mary Carruthers, “The Wife of Bath and the Painting of Lions,” Feminist Readings in Middle English Literature: The Wife of Bath and All Her Sect, (New York: Routledge, 1994), 22-53. 62 Alastair J. Minnis, Fallible Authors: Chaucer’s Pardoner and Wife of Bath, (Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 2008), 250. 29 this camp, such as Susan Crane, argue that the Wife of Bath may have experience in sexual matters but that she fails to demonstrate good business practices. While her marriage to Jankyn does challenge Dame Alice’s judgment, I argue that this has more to do with the shift in her marital market than lack of experience. Moreover, while the Wife of Bath’s previous tactics fail against Jankyn she acquires authority in marriage by adjusting to shifting trends in the marital market. If anything, the Wife of Bath’s management of Jankyn demonstrates her ability to apply business experience to marriage; even in a situation that leaves her value as an object of marital exchange largely diminished, Dame Alice manages to change tactics and once again place herself in the role as a subject of marital exchange.

Issues of agency, marriage, and economics also appear in William Langland’s The

Vision of Piers Plowman, specifically regarding Mede. Studies of Langland’s Mede largely focus on determining the function of Mede and mede in the larger context of Piers

Plowman. James Simpson argues that Passus II-IV involve a semantic debate over the proper definition of mede, maintaining that it is “a word that refuses to be tied down in any fixed way, and that can provoke exclusive and opposed definitions.”63 D. Vance

Smith and Robert Adams discuss the grammatical function of mede and how that function both supports and obscures clear definitions.64 Diane Cady, however, considers the interplay of Mede’s gender and money, identifying “the indiscriminate manner in

63 James Simpson, Piers Ploman: an Introduction, (Exeter: U of Exeter P, 2007), 41. 64 Robert Adams. “Mede and Mercede: the Evolution of the Economics of Grace in the Piers Plowman B and C Versions,” Medieval English Studies Presented to George Kane, (Suffolk: D.S. Brewer, 1988): 217- 232 and D. Vance Smith, “The Labors of Reward: Mede, Mercede, and the Beginning of Salvation,” The Yearbook of Langland Studies, no 8. (1994): 127-54 30 which Mede bestows her sexual favors”65 as part of a larger discussion in medieval writing that warns “women, like money, are likely to wander if they are not controlled by society.”66 I maintain that the personification of mede as a woman seeking a just marriage reinforces the dilemma over mede’s use. Moreover, the positions taken in the debate between Conscience and Mede focus less on the ethical potential of mede and more with attacks on Mede’s gender, calling into question what is ultimately at stake in the debate.

While Piers Plowman scholars discuss various facets of her character, few consider

Mede’s marriage, gender, agency, and relation to the exchange of mede together.

In the first section of this chapter, I discuss how the Wife of Bath uses the language and practices of economic exchange to take command of her own marital exchanges. Criticism of The Wife of Bath’s Prologue largely focuses on the theological implications of Alice’s dialogue or the impact her expertise in the cloth industry, or lack thereof, has on her dealings in marriage. Even for the latter, the emphasis lies on the validity and extent of her business experience rather than how she applies that experience in her marriages. I argue in this chapter that the Wife of Bath uses her experience to take advantage of the system of economic exchange in marriage. Specifically, Dame Alice treats her sexual favors as a commodity that can be exchanged with her husbands. Rather than a simple exchange of her sexually commodified goods for authority in marriage, the

Wife of Bath’s treatment of her sexual favors as currency allows her to acquire agency in a social construction that would otherwise deny it, to manipulate the parameters of the marital exchange, and to moderate her sexual currency’s exchange rate. While the Wife

65 Diane Cady, “The Gender of Money,” Genders, no. 44 (2006): 18. 66 Cady, 19. 31 of Bath is not always successful in facilitating this exchange, her ability to apply economic tactics to the realm of marriage allows her to purchase authority from her husbands.

In the second section, I evaluate the complicated relationship between Mede, economic exchange, and marriage in Passus II-IV of the B text of The Vision of Piers

Plowman. Critical reception of this section focuses on Mede’s gender, position as an object of sexual commodification, or relation to the practice of exchanging mede. Critics rarely, however, consider how these components work together. In this section, I argue that these aspects of Mede’s character are interdependent. Mede’s ethical position in the text depends largely on how various agents in the text take advantage of one or more of these components, often in the context of marriage. Fals attempts to marry Mede by using mede to circumvent legal channels, treating her as an object in the process. Conscience’s polemical arguments against marrying Mede centers on what he views as amoral exchanges of mede, but he bases these complaints in arguments against her gender and sexuality. Despite these challenges, Mede argues on her own behalf in Passus III, shifting from the object of the mede debate to a potential subject of marriage arguing for her benefits to a prospective bridegroom. I maintain that she does so by implementing the same tactics that have been used against her in conflating the economic exchange of mede with her own identity as a woman and prospective bride. Ultimately, the text is a debate about the case for Mede’s marriage, and in using economic tactics Mede makes a strong case for both how she can be used and how she can directly aid the king. Mede’s presence in the text is seen as transgressive, but her treatment as a marital object within

32 an often misused marital system demonstrates the problems with exchange and marital agency. Reading the function of marriage in both The Vision of Piers Plowman and The

Wife of Bath’s Prologue with an economic perspective reveals how each text employs economic methodology to demonstrate the issues of marital authority and the agency of wives in late medieval England.

I. Spending her Bele Chose: the Wife of Bath’s Economic Agency

In her Prologue, the Wife of Bath appropriates arguments about conjugal debt to support her marital authority over her husbands.67 In the process, she uses economic concepts in both her religious commentary and her approach to marriage. The Wife of

Bath states that her husband can have her sexual favors “bothe eve and morwe, / Whan that him list” but only if he is willing to “come forth and paye his dette” (3.152-153).68

The Wife of Bath uses a creditor/debtor metaphor to establish her role in marriage as provider of sexual goods. The practice of money lending provides the necessary funds to build a business and generates profit through the temporary exchange of currency. The

Wife of Bath extends credit upon her own sexual goods, which her husbands may purchase by granting her authority. The process of money lending itself reinforces Dame

Alice’s authority: because her husbands are indebted to her the Wife of Bath has power over them. Dame Alice emphasizes this authority two lines later when she states that her

67 The concept of conjugal debt is first introduced by Paul in I Corinthians, contending that husbands and wives, in the state of marriage, relinquish the rights of their bodies to their spouse. Each spouse is accordingly responsible with providing their partner with sexual access in order to alleviate the stress of lustful desire and prevent fornication outside of the sanctified confines of marriage. Jerome takes up this narrative as well, but latches more on “better to marry than to burn” dynamic of Paul’s perspective. Taking up the stance in support of virginity as the ideal state, Jerome notes that the only celebration he sees in marriage is the production of new virgins. The Wife of Bath attacks Jerome’s perspectives in particular, arguing that she should have full range of sexual activity within marriage as her rightful due. 68 Geoffrey Chaucer, The Riverside Chaucer, edited by Larry Benson, Robert Pratt, and F.N. Robinson (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987). 33 husbands will be “bothe my dettour and my thral” (3.155). The Wife of Bath’s authority as creditor grants her “the power durynge al my lyf / Upon his propre body, and noght he” (3.158-159). As a theological concept, conjugal debt provides one area in which men and women should, ideally, be treated equally, husbands equally liable for providing sex to their spouses as wives are to their husbands. Conjugal debt should, accordingly, allow for the satisfaction of sexual desire for both spouses and prevent extramarital sexual activity and the sins that accompany it. Rather than acting as equal party in that conjugal debt, however, Dame Alice uses it as a precedent for authority that she can then appropriate to gain power over her husbands. Dame Alice’s husbands’ own bodies serve as collateral for the loan of sexual currency as Dame Alice’s authority is guaranteed

“[u]pon his flessh, whil that I am his wyf” (3.157). Alisoun’s husbands desire her sexual favors to such an extent that they grant her power over their “propre body” and “flesh,” granting her authority over them in the exchange. The Wife of Bath thus gains authority in marriage by mastering the exchange of her sexual goods, utilizing economic tactics to operate as a subject of marital exchange rather than its object.

Alisoun’s active role in the exchange of her sexual goods makes the sexual commodification at play in The Wife of Bath’s Prologue unique; objects in exchange rarely dictate the parameters of their own exchange. Many critics, including Jill Mann,

Carolyn Dinshaw, and R.A. Shoaf, identify the sexual commodification in the Wife of

Bath’s Prologue and incorporate it into their various argumentative structures, feminist,

34 queer, and media theories respectively.69 As I argue, the Wife of Bath’s acquisition of authority suggests more than just sexual commodification: she acts as her own agent in the marital market to exchange sexual access for authority in marriage. From within her multiple marriages, the Wife of Bath’s rhetorical tactics control the value of her sexual goods, her words carefully moderating that value in order to ensure the success of these exchanges. As this chapter deals with economic elements in the Wife of Bath’s Prologue,

I use a few key economic terms. I describe the process of Dame Alice’s husbands granting her authority as an exchange. A market exchange involves an agreement between two parties to exchange goods or currency for an agreed price.70 Since Alisoun’s husbands relinquish authority in marriage once they have access to her sexual goods, this process functions similarly to a market exchange. In addition, I use the term sexual currency to describe the process of exchanging her sexual goods for authority in marriage. As will be discussed in further detail below, the Wife of Bath’s sexual goods do not contain value based on an inherent quality; rather, the worth of these goods comes from her husbands’ need for them. Dame Alice demonstrates keen understanding of and the ability to moderate her husbands’ desire for her sexual goods. Through her economic language and tactics, the Wife of Bath takes on the role of merchant in the marital market to purchase authority from her husbands.

69 See Jill Mann’s Feminizing Chaucer, (Cambridge: Boydell, 2002), Carolyn Dinshaw’s Getting Medieval: Sexualities and Communities, Pre- and Postmodern, (Durham: Duke UP, 1999), and R.A. Shoaf’s Dante, Chaucer, and the Currency of the Word, (Norman: Pilgirm, 1983) for further discussion. 70 For more on the function of just price in late medieval market exchanges, especially in the context of debates over just price, see Joel Kaye’s Economy and Nature in the Fourteenth Century and Diane Woods’ Medieval Economic Thought. Craig Bertolet’s Chaucer, Gower, Hoccleve and the Commercial Practices of Late Fourteenth-Century London, (Burlington: Ashgate, 2012) also has an excellent discussion on how perspectives on trade are discussed in late medieval literature. 35

The Wife’s purchase of marital authority from her husbands is treated as a transgressive process, leading to questions of Alice’s ethical stance both from the other figures of The Canterbury Tales and critics alike. The appropriation of the conjugal debt metaphor certainly undercuts its theological basis, providing the Wife with a basis for marital supremacy rather than equal obligation. But this in many ways seems to be a part of the objective at play in Chaucer’s text. The Wife of Bath’s attainment of marital authority through economic exchange inverts the power dynamic of late medieval marriage, an institution that erases the legal identity of wives under the coverture of their husbands’ legal personhood. Urban areas such as London saw laws that pushed away from this, such as the application of femme sole status for wives, but the precedent for marital authority still remains predominantly in the hands of the husband. The Wife of

Bath’s Prologue uses an area of seeming equal footing, conjugal debt, along with economic methodology to invert this paradigm and demonstrate the problematic nature of marital authority residing solely in the hands of one spouse.

i. “Wynne whoso may, for al is for to selle”: The Wife of Bath’s Buying Position and Construction of Sexual Currency In one of her most quoted lines, the Wife of Bath pronounces that “every man this tale I telle, / Wynne whoso may, for al is for to selle” (3.413-414). As noted above,

Alisoun’s discussion deals primarily with the issue of authority in marriage, but her language employs a number of economic terms. In The Wife of Bath’s Prologue, there are seventy-seven instances of words used in a direct economic context.71 When discussing how to “wynne,” the Wife of Bath speaks at length about the use of sex to keep her

71 The number of potential economic words rises significantly if one includes possible economic puns. 36 husbands in control. In doing so, she uses the language of mercantile exchange and credit, conflating the giving or denying of her sexual favors with the sale of goods in a market. This language forms the basis for the Wife of Bath’s authority in marriage; by referring to her sexual favors as a good possessing exchangeable value, Dame Alice constructs a market for these goods. Her husbands, desiring her sexual favors, must pay the Wife of Bath’s price, granting her authority in marriage.

The Wife of Bath understands both her husbands’ desire for her sexual favors and the value those favors thus possess. Dame Alice chides one of her first husbands, asking

“What eyleth yow to grucche thus and grone? / Is it for ye wolde have my queynte alone”

(3.443-444). The Wife of Bath acknowledges her husband’s complaint and desire for sole ownership of her sexual goods, embodied through her “queynte.” To emphasize the value of her goods, the Wife comments on how she could take her goods to other markets:

“Wy, taak it al!…For if I wolde selle my bele chose, / I koude walke as fresh as is a rose”

(3.447-448). The pairing of “selle” with her “bele chose” again associates her sexual favors with commodities, and by mentioning the possibility of selling her sexual goods to other buyers, Dame Alice reminds her husband of their value. If Alisoun’s sexual commodities are valued by others on the market, the value of those commodities increases. She calms her husband’s concerns—“But I wol kepe it for youre owene tooth”

(3.449) —but the Wife of Bath uses this opportunity to reinforce the value of her sexual currency. This instance is a prime example of how Alice works to establish a strong buying position in the exchanges with her husbands. By using economic language, the

Wife of Bath establishes her sexual favors as an exchangeable good—a commodity she

37 produces and her husbands desire. By implying that she could take those sexual favors to other buyers on the market, Alice inspires desire for them. The Wife of Bath further improves her bargaining position with her appropriation of the conjugal debt metaphor, which places Alice in the position of creditor over her husbands. If her husbands already owe a debt to her, their relative bargaining positions are weakened. Thus, the Wife of

Bath acts as a skilled merchant in the exchange of sexual commodities, working from a strong bargaining position to improve her ability to purchase authority in marriage.

Marital authority, from a legal perspective in late medieval England, lay with the husband by default. As Sue Sheridan Walker notes, “Wife corresponds to the legal description of femme covert, one whose legal existence is ‘covered’ by her spouse.”72 The legal coverage of marriage subsumes the woman’s legal identity, leaving her bereft of both the benefits and risks of legal personhood. As Walker continues, “Common lawyers...agreed that in the eyes of the law husband and wife (baron and feme) were one person, and that person was the husband.”73 The function of this coverture subsumes the legal personhood of the wife under that of her husband,74 and the “legal reality” of the wife could only be recovered upon the death of that husband.75 According to late medieval English law, husbands were actually the caretakers of their wives, treating

72 Sue Sheridan Walker, Wife and Widow in Medieval England, (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993), 3. 73 Walker, 4. 74 In certain cases wives in late medieval England could apply for femme sole status, filing and responding to claims as if they were operating as single adult women. Most often this occurred with wives operating their own businesses outside of their husbands and was intended to insulate the risks and responsibilities of the wife from that of her husband’s property. 75 Walker, 4. 38

“husbands as householders and women as dependents.”76 Legally, men controlled property, goods, and business, and a woman “was subjected to her husband’s will as long as he lived.”77 What is intriguing about the marital authority in the Wife of Bath’s

Prologue is that Alisoun’s tactics allow her to be more than the object of marital exchange, controlling property and her husbands despite the social and legal conditions of late medieval marriage. Instead of limiting her agency, Alice is able to manipulate the marital market to purchase authority. By dictating the parameters of the exchange the

Wife of Bath obtains authority in a system whose typical operation would deny it to her.

Early on, the Wife of Bath employs her economic tactics by appropriating the conjugal debt metaphor. Even before discussing an exchange proper, the Wife uses economic language in her commentary on Jerome: “man shal yelde to his wyf hire dette…wherwith sholde he make his paiement”( 3.130-131). The use of “paiement” to describe the act of sex highlights the economic elements of the metaphor, supporting the series of economic puns that follow. Moreover, Alisoun boasts of how she managed to obtain the “lond” and “tresoor” of her first three husbands by making them “pitously a- nyght…swynke” (3.202-204). Here, “swynke” refers to physical labor, and in this context indicates the regular sexual activity between Dame Alice and her husbands. This labor, however, ends with the Wife obtaining her husbands’ property and her husbands obtaining the sexual activity they desire, a labor contract that puts Alisoun in control.

This exchange is the Wife of Bath’s primary tactic, as she continues to work for her

76 Judith Bennett, Women in the Medieval English Countryside: Gender & Household in Brigstock Before the Plague (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1987), 105. 77 Bennett, Women in the Medieval English Countryside, 110. 39

“profit” and “ese” (3.214), that she “governed hem so wel…That ech of hem ful blissful was and fawe” (3.219-220). Thus Dame Alice exchanges her sexual goods for authority in marriage and does so in a fashion that pleases her husbands, leaving them “blissful” and “fawe” in the process (3.220). By ensuring that her husbands are content with the exchange, the Wife of Bath decreases the chances of buyer’s remorse and enables future exchanges with her husbands.

Understanding her husbands’ valuation of her sexual commodities, Alice leverages that desire against their authority in marriage. She asks one of her husbands

“why hydestow, with sorwe, / The keyes of thy cheste awey fro me? / It is my good as wel as thyn” (3.308-310). Initially, this question could suggest a level of equality between the spouses, one perhaps beyond the gendered power dynamics typical of late medieval marriage.78 Yet, Alice refuses to relinquish both body and property, which she demands, to her husband: “Thou shalt not bothe…Be maister of my body and of my good” (3.313-

314). The state of marriage, by law, grants her husband authority over both, but Alice insists that her husband make a choice; she demands authority over one or the other. Her husbands choose to exchange their property for access to her body, but even here the

Wife of Bath remains the dominant figure: “Unnethe myghte they statut holde / In which that they were bounden unto me” (3.198-199). Here, “statut” refers to “a legally enforcible obligation, as to pay a debt,”79 and to be “bounden” is to “be under obligation,

78 Warren Smith’s discussion of this equality in “The Wife of Bath and Dorigen Debate Jerome” goes into this issue at length, even maintaining that the Wife of Bath is right to demand her debt (254). 79 “Statute.” Middle English Dictionary, http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/m/mec/med- idx?type=id&id=MED42693 40 be in duty bound.”80 Together, these terms suggest a legal or economic agreement, suggesting that Alice views marriage as a business contract. Most important, the Wife of

Bath leverages sex to retain control of property: “I hadde hem hoolly in myn hond, / And sith they hadde me yeven all hir lond” (3.211-212). Alice, through the exchange of her sexual goods, possesses the landholdings in the marriage. Possessing the property in their marriage, the Wife of Bath has leverage over her husband and maintains a strong buying position. The control of her husbands’ property is directly possible through the exchange of her own sexual currency, granting her economic power in marriage.

The economic concepts employed by the Wife demonstrates her effectiveness as a businesswoman. Specifically, her rendering of marital sex into an exchangeable commodity reflects a shrewd understanding of the process of market exchanges, a skill that she has likely learned from her dealings in cloth production. As stated above,

Carruthers contends that the Wife’s business acumen plays into her treatment of marital authority.81 Alisoun would have been responsible for producing the cloth cheaply enough to turn a profit, arranging its collection from the weavers and transport to the buyers, and identifying the most appropriate market for the cloth. Furthermore, Alice’s role would involve taking into consideration the need of the potential buyers and perhaps even haggling over the prices herself. As noted above, Minnis pushes back on the idea of the

Wife’s business acumen, noting the marriage with Jankyn as evidence.82 This perspective

80 “Binden.” Middle English Dictionary, http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/m/mec/med- idx?type=id&id=MED4667 81 Mary Carruthers, “The Wife of Bath and the Painting of Lions,” Feminist Readings in Middle English Literature: The Wife of Bath and All Her Sect (New York: Routledge, 1994), 22-53. 82 Alastair J. Minnis, Fallible Authors: Chaucer’s Pardoner and Wife of Bath, (Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 2008), 250. 41 fails to recognize, however, that the market conditions of the Wife of Bath’s fifth marriage have changed significantly: where Alice’s primary goal in her first marriages is authority, her sexual desire for Jankyn drives her last marriage. Minnis moves on to discuss the role of the Wife’s authority, delimiting it to “the relatively safe subjects of sex, marriage, and the ways of women.”83 While Minnis focuses on how Alice challenges religious authorities, ignoring her ability in negotiating marital sex for marital authority runs the risk of being reductive.

The significance of Dame Alice’s situation can be seen from the way in which she takes advantage of her commodified state. The Wife of Bath clearly understands her condition as she counters the arguments which place women in the same category as livestock and household goods (3.285-292), but even here she answers the arguments leveled by her husbands. Mark Miller identifies this dynamic in the Wife of Bath’s

Prologue and Tale, identifying the text as “the exploration of what it would be like to come into a sense of oneself as a woman, where the terms of that self-understanding are largely given by the patriarchal construction of ‘woman’ as, among other things, a commodified sexual object.”84 The Wife of Bath is certainly a product of this social construction, but she promotes the exchange of her own sexual goods. In particular,

Alisoun’s control of that exchange marks a significant deviance from the norms of medieval marraige. Shoaf comments that the Wife has taken advantage of the role society dictates for her: “from the age of twelve, she [Alice] has been a commodity for sale, a

83 Minnis, 253. 84 Mark Miller, Philosophical Chacuer: Love, Sex, and Agency in the Canterbury Tales, (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2004), 195. 42 wife, and she has had to advertise herself.”85 The Wife of Bath may not have attained this experience until her first marriage, yet she quickly learns to regulate her husbands’ desires. Alisoun has learned that by adjusting her husbands’ need she can manipulate the market in her favor.

ii. “Thou shalt not bothe, thogh that thou were wood, / Be maister of my body

and of my good”: The Wife of Bath’s Purchase of Authority in Marriage

Giving advice to other women, Dame Alice states that “[a] wys woman wol bisye hire evere in oon / To gete hire love, ye, there as she hath noon” (3.209-210). The process of inspiring desire in one’s husband, according to the Wife of Bath, requires continual work. Likewise, maintaining the exchange value of her sexual goods requires regular attention. A commodity’s exchange value is determined by the needs of buyer and seller, coupled with the conditions of the market, rather than any measure of intrinsic quality. To negotiate the respective needs of buyer and seller, currency operates as a medium of exchange to mediate those market factors. As Joel Kaye notes, the “understanding of money as measure is that money cannot measure things in themselves, nor can it commensurate and relate things in their proper measures.”86 Money measures a component of exchange that is not necessarily related to the item being exchanged: the need of the buyer and seller. A piece of fruit may normally be sold for two pence. Most buyers in the market, with moderate need, would be willing to pay this price, but if the seller were to increase the price to five pence, many buyers would simply go elsewhere

85 R. A. Shoaf, Dante, Chaucer, and the Currency of the Word, (Norman: Pilgirm, 1983), 177. 86 Joel Kaye, Economy and Nature in the Fourteenth Century: Money, Market Exchange, and the Emergence of the Scientific Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998), 233. 43 for their fruit. A starving man, on the other hand, may willingly pay those five pence or even much more than that, as his need is greater. Conversely, a fruit vendor with a large quantity of nearly spoiled stock needs to unload his supply more than he needs to obtain the highest possible return for it, causing him to lower his prices. Market conditions, including the dynamics of supply and demand, determine the value of a commodity in an exchange rather than intrinsic quality of the product itself. Issues of quality in addition to location and time of sale further affect the market conditions, but need above all other factors determines the price. Currency does not, therefore, serve as a measure of a product’s intrinsic value or quality. Instead, market value indicates the need attached to the commodity by the buyer and the seller, need that the Wife of Bath’s rhetoric effectively moderates within her marriages.

The Wife of Bath’s first three marriages in particular demonstrate her active role in maintaining authority using the tools available: her own rhetoric and sexual goods.

Even while dismissing Alice’s efficacy in business matters, Minnis identifies her experience in sexual matters: “the basic point here is that practice makes perfect, and the more practice the better; she has been well schooled by her five husbands.”87 The Wife’s experience, in the bedroom and in the marketplace, allows for the effective management of her first three husbands. Dame Alice’s experience allows her a great deal of control over her spouses: access to her husbands’ “purs and here cheste” (3.44b ), the ability to make her husbands “swynke” (3.202), freedom to act as a creditor, making her husbands both “detour” and “thral” (3.155), and the ability to govern her husbands “so wel, after

87 Minnis, 251. 44

[Alice’s] lawe” (3.219). The Wife of Bath openly acknowledges the relationship between experience and skill early on in her prologue: “[d]iverse scoles maken parfyt clerkes, /

And diverse practyk in many sondry werkes / Maketh the workman parfyt sekirly”

(3.44c-44e ). By sheer hours of experience, the Wife of Bath has learned how best to introduce, moderate, and exchange sexual goods in her specific market, ensuring a profitable exchange for authority in marriage. Dame Alice uses business and sexual experience concurrently to manage her husbands.

The value of a commodity is not based on quality itself, but rather need, which may be modified by perceptions of quality. As an exchange has at least two individuals, that exchange will possess at least two different perceptions of fair market value, that of the buyer and that of the seller. These perceptions can change depending on the needs, financial conditions, and the specifics of the exchange itself. Value is therefore not an absolute figure imprinted upon a commodity but the range between each party’s perception of the commodity’s value.88 In discussing the Wife’s pronouncement that “al is for to selle” (3.414), Kellie Robertson touches on the subjectivity of these exchanges:

“the logical consistency of her [Alice’s] position … depends on the subject position of the seller or commodifier” and that “wise wives need to value their own assets.”89 I argue, therefore, that the skill of the merchant in the exchange is in swaying the purchase price closer to his perception of the fair market value, whether in the role of buyer or seller. Dame Alice’s skill lies in her ability to manipulate her husbands’ need for access

88 Kaye’s description of how Buridan modifies Aristotle’s model of fair market value discusses this dynamic in great detail (144). 89 Kellie Robertson, The Laborer’s Two Bodies: Labor and the “Work” of the Text in Medieval Britain, 1350-1500, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 151. 45 to her body, thus pushing their perceptions of the fair market value closer to her concept of an even exchange. As long as the Wife of Bath and her husbands’ perceived value of the sexual goods and marital authority in the exchange remains constant, she is able to obtain the authority she desires. When that value decreases, however, so too does the

Wife’s buying power.

Through the use of careful rhetoric, the Wife’s regulates the exchange value of her sexual currency. Alice privileges the husband who allows his wife to do as she wishes: “Thou sholdest seye, ‘Wyf, go where thee liste, / Taak youre disport, I wol nat leve no talys; / I knowe you for a trewe wyf, dame Alis’” (3.318-320). This is more than just wishful thinking, however, as the Wife demands it, insisting that even when a husband tries to establish control over her she will simply shake off his imposed bounds:

“Thogh thou preye Argus, with his hundred yen, / To be my warde-cors, as he kan best, /

In feith, he shal nat kepe me but me lest” (3.358-360). More than preferring a less watchful husband, the Wife of Bath refuses to acknowledge the authority of his surveillance. By assuming her own freedom of action the Wife of Bath takes authority from her husband and places herself out of his scope of power. Alisoun takes care to remind her husband of their sexual contract, telling him just before dismissing his powers of surveillance that “For certeyn, olde dotard, by youre leve, / Ye shul have queynte right ynogh at eve” (3.331-332). Dame Alice feels free to dismiss her husbands’ control, but only after reminding him of the access he retains as long as he relinquishes marital authority. The Wife of Bath may enjoy marital authority not normally held by married

46 women in late medieval England,90 but this is possible due to careful rhetoric designed to maintain her husbands’ need for her sexual goods.

If her sexual currency were freely exchanged without any form of control, the

Wife of Bath would be less able to maintain her authority. With no method to control the supply of her sexual currency, demand for and the buying power of that currency would diminish. When inflation significantly affects a currency’s value, one tactic is to lessen the money supply in circulation. With less money circulating, the value of the currency increases as demand for that currency rises. Likewise, the inverse is possible if the institution in charge of the money supply allows too much currency to go into circulation.

The Wife of Bath proves to be a wise manager of the demand of her body as she controls the access to her sexual goods in order to increase their value: “I wolde no lenger in the bed abyde […] Til he had maad his raunson unto me” (3.409-411). If Dame Alice simply allows her husbands access to her body whenever they wish, she would lose buying power, causing them to feel less pressure to grant her “raunson.” But if that sexual access is denied them, the pressure for her sexual goods increases, leaving her husbands more willing to sell marital authority to the Wife in exchange for sexual activity. This is not to say that, in moderating access to her sexual goods, the Wife of Bath is unwilling to engage in sexual activity herself. Dame Alice is all too willing to fulfill her conjugal duties; she simply intends to turn a profit in the exchange.

90 In Women in the Medieval English Countryside: Gender & Household in Brigstock Before the Plague (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1987), Judith Bennett discusses how married women in late medieval England were legally subsumed by their husbands’ authority. While Emma Lipton’s Affections of the Mind: the Politics of Sacramental Marriage in Late Medieval English Literature (Notre Dame: U of Notre Dame P, 2007) focuses on how late medieval literature appropriated sacramental models of marriage, she discusses how the sacramental model led to “a depiction of marriage as the rule of the husband over his wife” (3). 47

The Wife of Bath’s method of acquiring marital authority is based upon keen understanding of her husbands’ need for her sexual goods. The value in that exchange comes directly from her husbands’ estimation of value for her sexual goods, and Alice’s first three marriages demonstrate the ability to cultivate and maintain that desire.

However, once extra-market factors affect the desire for her sexual goods, Alisoun’s purchasing power on the marital market diminishes. This dynamic is demonstrated in the

Wife of Bath’s marriage to Jankyn, where her age has diminished the perceived value of her sexual goods, her inherited possessions from her previous marriages makes her desirable for the very property she exchanged sexual goods for in the past, and her own desire for sexual access to Jankyn places Alice in a very poor buying position. iii. “me thoughte he hadde a paire / Of legges and of feet so clene and faire, / That al myn herte I yaf unto his hold”: the Wife of Bath in decline As long as the Wife is able to maintain desire for her sexual goods with rhetoric, she retains a strong bargaining position. Later, however, the conditions of the marital market begin to shift to such an extent that her tactics become less effective, particularly in her marriage with Jankyn. The Wife of Bath’s marriage to Jankyn forms the basis of

Minnis’ claim that she is an ineffective businesswoman, but his perspective does not take into account how significantly the market conditions have changed in this marriage. To begin with, Alisoun’s needs in this marital exchange have changed, subsequently altering the effectiveness of her bargaining position. Alice has taken on the lecherous qualities she took advantage of in her husbands: “I am al Venerien / In feelynge…Venus me yaf my lust, my likerousnesse” (3.609-611). This alters the market conditions of her sexual exchange as her need for sexual access to her husbands rises. Now older, Dame Alice’s

48

Venerian aspects make her more desirous to engage in sexual activity and thus alter the balance of sexual demand held with her first three husbands. How the Wife of Bath describes Jankyn further reveals the shift in her desires: “me thoughte he hadde a paire /

Of legges and of feet so clene and faire, / That al myn herte I yaf unto his hold” (3.597-

599). Aside from the fact that Jankyn is the only husband described, the focus on

Jankyn’s physical qualities demonstrates that the Wife is more interested in sex with a new young husband than marital authority over him. For her previous husbands, the primary desire Alisoun expresses involves authority or possession of their goods. With

Jankyn, her priorities shift. In marrying Jankyn, Alice relinquishes all of the wealth she has accumulated from her previous husbands: “Jankyn … wedded me with greet solempnytee, / And to him yaf I al the lond and fee / That ever was me yeven therebifore”

(3.628-631). As the holding of property is a source of her authority and part of the “dette” she insisted her previous husbands pay before gaining access to her sexual goods, the fact that she willingly relinquishes the possession of that property indicates that the Wife’s priorities have shifted. Alisoun’s need in the marital exchange has changed so much that she is willing to forgo, at least initially, the authority she so skillfully purchased in the past. The Wife’s altered perception of fair market value moves the market conditions of the exchange in Jankyn’s favor, placing her in a much weaker buying position. The effects of this change are only further emphasized by Jankyn’s diminished sexual demand for Alice’s sexual goods.

Jankyn differs largely from the Wife’s other husbands in a range of key areas that renders Alice in a poor buying position for marital authority. Jankyn is far younger than

49 she—or any of her previous husbands for that matter. Additionally, it is possible that

Alisoun’s age has affected the appeal of her sexual currency, her “hipes large” perhaps not sparking interest in this younger man (3.472). Rather than relinquishing authority to

Alice in exchange for her sexual goods, Jankyn works against her discourse with his own, citing various misogynistic texts to establish his own control over the marriage. He attempts to keep Alisoun from going out as she was accustomed in the past, even though she is resistant: “And walke I wolde, as I had doon biforn, / From hous to hous, although he had it swarn” (3.639-640). Rather than accepting an inability to control her, however,

Jankyn attempts to stop her in ways her previous husbands had not, preaching to her about activities using scholarly support, highlighting how Gallus “lefte his wyf, / And hir forsook for terme of al his lyf, / Noght but for … Lookynge out at his dore upon a day”

(3.644-646). Being a scholar, Jankyn uses the source of his own primary authority, education, to implement control. Jankyn reinforces his position with scriptural support:

“he upon his Bible seke…Wher he commandeth and forbedeth faste, / Man shal nat suffre his wyf go roule aboute” (3.650-653). Jankyn uses the patriarchal authority of

Church doctrine to shore up his own authority in the relationship. This focus on patriarchal authority represents the largest obstacle to the Wife’s normal tactics for purchasing authority in marriage. In her previous marriages, Alice was able to inspire and cultivate her husbands’ need. In Jankyn’s case, however, his need for authority outweighs his need for her sexual goods, placing the Wife in quite the poor bargaining position.

Jankyn counters her discourse with his own as he challenges Alisoun’s freedom,

50 questions the morality of her actions, and even manages to obtain her wealth, in effect disabling the tool that the Wife has used to hold authority in her first marriages.

Because her sexual currency has depreciated to such a degree, the Wife of Bath’s economic rhetoric fails to counter Jankyn’s patriarchal stance. Her rhetoric having failed,

Dame Alice moves away from speech into physical action. Tensions over Jankyn’s attempts to enforce authority come to a head, leading the Wife of Bath to strike out against the imposed authority:

Al sodeynly thre leves have I plyght Out of his book, right as he radde, and eke, I with my fist so took him on the cheke, That in our fyr he fil backward adown. (3.790-793) This action goes beyond the rhetorical tactics that the Wife of Bath has implemented before, but the attack itself targets words. As words have failed her, Dame Alice strikes out at words. This attack emphasizes the failure of the Wife’s ability to use discourse successfully in her fifth marriage. More than simply failing Alice, however, words work against her as Jankyn consults the writing of patriarchal figures to shore up his authority.

An attack on the written word is a violent act against Jankyn’s authority, but also represents the Wife of Bath’s own frustration at her loss of agency. This action does not come without retaliation, however, as Jankyn answers with a strike of his own: “with his fest he smoot me on the heed / That in the floor I lay as I were deed” (3.795-796). By stepping outside of discourse Alice also steps out of the comfort zone that has enabled her to acquire authority in the past. She does, however, capitalize on Jankyn’s blow to engage in another set of tactics: playing the defenseless woman.

51

The Wife of Bath uses her husband’s moment of anger to employ a different tactic, crying out “‘O! hastow slayn me, false theef?…And for my land thus hastow mordred me? / Er I be deed, yet wol I kisse thee’” (3.800-802). Having failed both in the use of economic discourse to exchange authority for her sexual goods and in obtaining that authority through direct attack, the Wife of Bath instead attempts to use her husband’s assumptions about and sympathies for the defenseless woman. Mann views this as a play on Jankyn’s emotions, stating “the Wife abandons belligerence for plaintiveness; she seizes the chance to exercise the moral superiority of the obvious victim, which Jankyn, aghast at the effects of his own violence, is obliged to recognize.”91 Alisoun, unable to obtain marital authority by manipulating the need for her sexual currency, instead exploits her husband’s need for moral superiority, in this case causing Jankyn’s need to maintain socially acceptable behavior to outweigh his need for authority. Jankyn immediately swears never to strike her again—“As help me God, I shal thee never smite” (3.805) —and, out of this guilt, he surrenders marital and economic authority to Alice: “atte laste, with muchel care and wo, / We fille accorded […] He yaf me al the bridle in myn hond / To han the governance of house and lond, / And of his tonge and of his hond also” (3.811-815). Alisoun does finally manage to reacquire authority, but only after seeking other avenues as the value of her sexual goods has depreciated.

The demand for the Wife of Bath’s sexual goods diminishes significantly by her marriage to Jankyn, but even then Alice demonstrates the ability to take a

91 Jill Mann, Feminizing Chaucer, (Cambridge: Boydell, 2002), 68. 52 disadvantageous situation and turn it to her profit. Dame Alice’s efficacy in acquiring authority in marital markets suggests an understanding of and ability to manipulate the merchants of that market, her husbands, by moderating their need for her sexual contact.

Minnis’ maintains that Dame Alice may have experience in the bedroom but lacks any in business matters; the failing of such a reading is the implication that these types of experience are mutually exclusive. For Alisoun, bedroom experience has provided the model for successful exchanges in the marital market. The Wife of Bath’s experience allows her to take the societal pressures that normally reduce a woman’s authority, specifically sexual commodification, and use them as tools to counter those societal pressures and purchase authority. By taking command of and restructuring the practice of sexual commodification within marriage, Alice is doing more than making the best of a bad situation; she makes that situation work for her, exploiting marital markets to obtain authority otherwise denied objects of exchange. In a similar fashion, Langland’s Mede advocates for her own exchange as a marital commodity, but, rather than having the benefit of experience from multiple marriages, Mede finds herself the target of patriarchal vehemence that attacks Mede the woman more than the practice of exchanging mede.

II. Lady Mede’s Economic Agency in the Vision of Piers Plowman

In the beginning of Passus III of the B text of the Vision of Piers Plowman, the

King’s clerk, in order to place Mede into safe keeping, “[t]ook Mede bi the myddel and

53 broghte hire into the chamber.”92 This moment epitomizes Lady Mede’s role in the text.

The clerk takes her by the waist—an intimate move with possible sexual connotations— guiding her by the “myddel,” a possible pun on balance and the appropriate use of mede.93 Balancing a set of scales is an important component of mercantile exchanges, measuring commodities or currency94 against a standard set of weights. Reaching a balance where both sides of the scale are in the middle ensures an exchange where neither party is at a disadvantage. However, scales used in these exchanges were infamously weighted to unjustly favor one party, causing the very mechanisms for balanced exchange to lead to unjust measuring.95 Any discussion of Mede in Piers

Plowman is, therefore, complicated by her simultaneous role as an object of sexual commodification, the embodiment of mede, and a woman. From the moment the narrator asks in Passus II “what she was and whos wif she were” to the final time she is mentioned in Passus IV, Mede thus complicates Langland’s already complex narrative

(2.18). Mede undergoes heavy manipulation in Passus II and III as many characters attempt to possess and/or use her for their own ends, often through the context of marriage. The King, for instance, steps in to prevent the union with Fals and attempts to

92 William Langland, the Vision of Piers Plowman, edited by A.V.C. Schmidt, (London: Everyman, 1995). All subsequent citations are from this edition. 93 “middel,” Middle English Dictionary, http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/m/mec/med- idx?type=id&id=MED27652. 94 Measuring currency in exchange becomes necessary due to inconsistent weights between coins, even in coinage stamped from the same governing body. Seigniorage practices often meant money was reprinted at lower weights than the previous mintage of the coinage, usually as a method to raise funds by a governing body. Coin clipping likewise led to inconsistent weights for currency. Measuring the weight of coinage against standard weights, ideally, would make for more just exchanges. 95 Improperly balanced scales were a rampant and hotly contested matter in late medieval English exchanges. Many merchants reputedly kept two sets of scales, one for purchasing and one for buying, which were each weighted for their favor. In Medieval Economic Thought, Diane Wood discusses the frequency of this practice and the legal statutes which attempted to reign it in. 54 ensure a proper marriage, but Mede’s marital destiny becomes a source of conflict. She debates at length with Conscience, whose opinion of marriage with Mede is summed up in his exclamation “Crist it me forbede” (3.120). Mede represents mede as a form of reward for goods or services,96 functioning both as a medium for and object of exchange, which operates alongside her gender and status as an object of sexual commodification.

Passus II-IV focus on three facets of Mede’s character: her role as a sexually commodified object of exchange, her relation to mede, and her gender. For most of this portion of the text, other agents use these facets to control Mede. Yet, in Passus III, Mede argues for her own sake in the marriage debate with Conscience by combining the economic aspects of her character with her gender, shifting from the object of potential marriage to a subject of potential marital exchange. Mede’s arguments force the debate to consider her as more than a personification of mede, yet that very conflation presents much of the issue surrounding her debate with Conscience.

This argument will have three parts, focusing on each facet of Lady Mede’s

Character. Mede’s use and misuse is central to all three sections. In the first section, I will argue that Mede functions as a medium of exchange, one which, like money, possesses the potential to be used unjustly. Furthermore, this use comes both for and in the context of marriage with Mede, Fals using mede to facilitate a marriage outside of the typical legal components of a marital contract. This amoral use is the basis for Conscience’s arguments against the possibility for mede to be used conscientiously and accordingly his arguments against a marriage with Mede. In the second section, I evaluate how Mede’s

96 “mede,” Middle English Dictionary, http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/m/mec/med- idx?type=id&id=MED27143. 55 role as a sexually commodified object impacts her control of her own exchange in the text. In Passus II and III depictions of Mede are highly negative. Rather than coming directly from Mede, however, information about Mede in these sections is filtered through other agents who either describe her to the narrator or act to take possession of her. Moreover, the questionable acts she commits in the early part of Passus III are carried out in the King’s “chambre,” where she is placed under the influence of individuals with their own ulterior motives (3.10). The third part discusses how Mede’s gender is used, both by her and against her. Conscience maintains a hard stance against both Lady Mede and mede. Yet, the polemical nature of Conscience’s position focuses less on the issue of exchanging mede and more on Lady Mede’s gender. The first moment in which Lady Mede speaks for herself comes in her attempt to counter Conscience’s arguments about their prospective marriage. Lady Mede elides her gender to the exchange of mede in order to argue for the beneficial uses of mede and, accordingly,

Mede herself as bride. In the process Mede appropriates her own commodified state in order to challenge Conscience’s authority. Conscience answers this challenge by dropping his arguments against the exchange of mede and attacking Mede’s gender.

Mede’s complex identity comes in large part from her connection to currency. In

Langland’s text, it is difficult if not impossible to separate the characters in Piers

Plowman from what they allegorically symbolize — Mede is no exception. The primary conflict in Passus II-IV is over the possession of Mede in marriage. This conflict is derived from the attempts to purchase, harangue, and acquire Mede as a sexualized commodity. Mede, like currency, functions as a medium of exchange, making any

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discussion of Mede economic. However, discussions of Mede are also sexual as the form

of mede being exchanged is Mede herself, the character being treated as a sexual

commodity. Mede may not be married, but allegorical debate between herself and

Conscience uses marriage as a metaphor, functioning on multiple levels, as Langland’s

allegorical figures often do, to both tease out the moral debate between these concepts

and present a woman who, bereft of her own agency and misused throughout the text,

argues the benefit of her potential exchange on the marital market. Pragmatically, Mede

offers a great range of benefits to the one who would marry himself to her exchange, but

the potential for corrupt usage of mede is so great that Langland suggests, through the

complex identity politics in Mede, that marrying Mede inevitably leads to the immoral

use of mede, a risk best not taken. In the end, Chaucer is willing to use economic

language and concepts to demonstrate a failing in the marital market, but Langland views

the risk of immoral applications of mede too great to risk. Langland’s Mede makes a

strong case, in many ways more convincing than Conscience’s, for mede’s use, but her

final act to circumvent justice demonstrates the risk of unjust exchange that will hang

over any individual using mede. Mede thus shifts from being the object of exchange

sought out by many male figures of the text to a subject of her own exchange and

potential utility, combining the sexual, economic, and gender facets of her character to

appropriate the tactics others have used against her. i. “Ther is another mede mesurelees, that maistres desireth”: Mede’s relationship to the system of exchanging mede The function, use, and potential misuse of mede is in large part responsible for

Mede’s desirability, reputation, and treatment in Passus II-IV. The specific definition of

57 mede is a source of contention both in the text and among scholars. James Simpson argues that Passus II-IV involve a semantic debate over the proper definition of mede, “a word that refuses to be tied down in any fixed way, and that can provoke exclusive and opposed definitions.”97 Conscience’s arguments demonstrate the difficulty of defining mede as he initially delineates its exchange as amoral but is forced to redefine and even accept certain types of mede. While mede involves a gift bestowed as a reward for goods or services,98 the specific reward and good or service exchanged can complicate matters.

A king granting a royal title, for example, is a common example of mede’s proper use, as granting titles can help to maintain social order and even encourage loyalty. Yet, mede can also be used as a form of bribery, the service rewarded involving manipulations of the legal system. Thus, mede does not carry an intrinsic positive or negative connotation; instead, the moral standing of mede depends upon how it is used. The status of Mede’s reputation therefore depends upon the actions and intentions of those exchanging mede.99

As an allegorical representation of mede, however, other characters use Mede as a medium of exchange to facilitate their own ends. Throughout most of Passus II-IV, Mede performs as both this medium of exchange and an object of marital exchange, making the

97 James Simpson, Piers Ploman: an Introduction, (Exeter: U of Exeter P, 2007), 41. 98 “mede,” Middle English Dicitonary, http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/m/mec/med- idx?type=id&id=MED27143. 99 For more discussion on the relationship between Lady Mede’s reputation and the C text’s added term of mercede, see D. Vance Smith’s “The Labors of Reward: Mede, Mercede, and the Beginning of Salvation.” The Yearbook of Langland Studies, no 8. (1994): 127-54, and Robert Adams’ “Mede and Mercede: the Evolution of the Economics of Grace in the Piers Plowman B and C Versions.” Medieval English Studies Presented to George Kane, ed. by Edward Donald Kennedy, Ronald Waldron and Joseph S. Wittig, (Suffolk: D.S. Brewer, 1988), 217-232. Vance Smith maintains that the relationship involved here is grammatical rather than involving the conditions of the individual user of mede. Adams, on the other hand, maintains that the introduction of mercede is an attempt on Langland’s part to clarify the distinction between the types of mede which, in the end, only serves to further complicate the issue. While this chapter disagrees with Vance Smith’s claim, the disagreement is largely a function of the difference between the B and C texts of Piers Plowman. 58 virtues or vices of Mede and mede at the whims of other agents of the text seeking to use her.

To better understand mede’s role in economic exchanges, I will briefly return to

Joel Kaye’s work, specifically in discussing the function of currency. As Kaye indicates in the late fourteenth century, money was considered to be “the medium and measure of all goods in exchange.”100 While this is discussed above in greater length, I return to this idea to clarify currency’s ability to measure the level of need in buyer and seller, thereby facilitating exchange. In a barter economy, the exchange of commodities can be a difficult matter; a fishmonger can attempt to exchange the day’s catch for the flour needed to bake his family’s bread, but determining different valuations of labor is difficult without a standard to compare against. The introduction of a currency-based medium allows each party of an exchange to quantify their desires on a comparable scale rather than debating the unique and otherwise incomparable specifics of their labor.

Personal perceptions of value may be represented in the price, increasing the fishmonger’s prices, but currency allows the exchanges to occur with much greater efficiency.

While mede is not entirely equivalent to currency, its use in exchange bears great similarities to currency. Most directly, the use of mede as a payment for wages operates like currency, providing a medium of exchange between the laborer and employer.

Furthermore, mede resembles currency in providing a form of payment for services. A lord granting land to a vassal is not exactly payment, but it does represent the exchange

100 Joel Kaye, Economy and Nature in the Fourteenth Century: Money, Market Exchange, and the Emergence of the Scientific Thought, (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998), 139, original emphasis. 59 of a commodity for the promised service of that vassal. Mede can therefore attribute an exchangeable value to the granting of a service that does not otherwise have a quantifiable price. While this includes the feudal and more socially acceptable forms of mede, the ability to purchase services that circumvent legal and social parameters are also included under mede. Fundamentally, a bribe involves the exchange of currency for a service. A king’s counselor offering to use his influence in exchange for wealth also falls under mede, as he is simply being rewarded for the service he has offered. Mede can, therefore, represent a reward for good or bad services, the morality of the exchange coming not from mede itself but from the actions of the one exchanging it.

Tension over mede’s potential for misuse comes to a head in the debate between

Conscience and Mede, in which Conscience goes to great lengths to define and denounce mede. Conscience attempts to construct a binary that differentiates the two types of mede: holy reward granted by God on the one hand and corrupting mede used for bribery on the other. However, Conscience is careful to separate these forms of mede from market transactions, stating “[t]hat laborers and lowe [lewede] folk taken of hire maisters, / It is no manere mede but a mesurable hire” and “[i]n marchaundise is no mede” (3.255-257).

This differentiation is vital for Conscience’s argument against the justness of Lady

Mede’s actions, since both labor and working for wages involve a fair market exchange,

“a permutacion apertly — a penyworth for another” (3.258). For Conscience, there is no issue with market trade or labor for wages, because these exchanges involve an even transaction, goods being traded for fair market value or services conducted for a reasonable, “mesurable” wage. Conscience’s suggestion is that mede, being without

60 measure, innately leads to unfair market transactions. The practice of exchanging mede for service, however, operates in the same manner as exchanging currency for goods or wages. Conscience moves to better define his construction of the mede binary, but only further blurs the difference between currency and mede in the process.

In an attempt to counter Mede’s examples of socially beneficial uses of mede,

Conscience states that mede can be split into two types. The first form of mede

Conscience discusses is “[t]hat oon God of his grace graunteth in his blisse / To tho that wel werchen whiel thei ben here” (3.232-233). This form of mede consists of the holy reward granted to those who do holy work, which Conscience supports with scriptural examples. This transaction involves a covenant between two parties, God and the doer of holy work, in exchange for the reward of God’s grace. The party carrying out the service, the doer of holy work, knows the parameters of this agreement. He must do “werkes with right and with reson,” not use “the lyf of usurie,” “enformeth povere men and pursueth truthe,” and “helpen the innocent and holden with the rightfulle” (3.239-242). By fulfilling this contract and carrying out these duties, the doer of holy work will receive the “mede / Of God at a grete nede, whan thei gon hennes” (3.244-245). Due to the social benefits it encourages, this form of mede appears at first glance to differ from the negative examples Conscience has railed against. Functionally, however, this mede represents the rewarding of a specific service with a spiritual commodity, holy works on earth for holy reward in heaven. Thus, spiritual mede’s positive societal impact comes more from its use rather than any innate quality.

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Conscience sets out to define the parameters of the negative form of mede by demonstrating its harmful social impact. Quickly following his initial outburst over the proposed marital union, Conscience works to defame Mede by stating that “she is frele of hire feith and fikel of hire speche,” she “maketh men mysdo many score tymes,” and

“[i]n trust of hire tresor she teneth ful manye” (3.122-124). While each of these attacks is aimed at Mede as a woman rather than what she represents, 101 they have in common the suggestion that mede itself is false and encourages falsehood. Conscience describes this form as “mede mesurelees,” further emphasizing that lords use it “[t]o mayntene mysdoers” ( 3.246-247). This injustice comes from the use of mede to circumvent legal channels, bribing key officials in order to limit punishment. To some extent, bribery is a form of market transaction, the party offering the bribe purchasing a service from the party accepting it. From this perspective, however, it is not the exchange of mede itself that creates the injustice but the use of mede to subvert the justice system. Conscience’s primary example of this unjust mede employs Saul’s refusal to burn all of Alamec and kill its denizens because he “coveited hir catel” (3.273). Conscience here tries to conflate

Saul’s greed with mede, but Saul’s failure is not quite that simple. In either of the forms suggested by Conscience, mede involves the repayment of a service with a reward. While

Saul’s acceptance of goods in exchange for the king’s life can represent a form of mede, this only occurs through Saul’s refusal to complete the contracted service in slaying the king and his cattle. The failure to commit to the spiritual service in exchange for spiritual mede is not a failure of the system itself but of Saul’s ability to follow it properly.

101 The attack on Lady Mede as woman is covered in more detail below. 62

Conscience’s example better demonstrates Saul’s inability to honor a contract than an

immoral aspect of mede.

Mede serves as a medium of exchange and is thus a useful tool in facilitating

exchanges that do not fit into the normal parameters of market transactions. As an

embodiment of mede, Mede is also a useful tool and is thus objectified. Her importance

in the text does not center on her social position, wealth, or parentage; instead, anxieties

over Mede focus on how others use her. Fals seeks to acquire Mede so that he may use

mede. Conscience’s issue with mede lies with its potential for misuse. Even the King,

who hopes to marry Mede to Conscience, does so only to ensure he can use her to support

his reign. Thus, while Mede’s association with the exchange of mede makes her an

important figure for Passus II-IV this relation also relegates her into an object of

exchange. As a tool to facilitate exchange as well as the object of marital exchange, the

focus of other agents in the text is on how Mede may be used for their profit, according to

their moral guidelines, or as a potential wife, not as a character able to speak or act on her

own behalf. It is only when Mede disruptively speaks up to defend herself against

Conscience that this pattern shifts. ii. “Mede is ymaried moore for hir goodes / Than for any vertue or fairnesse or any free kynde”: Mede as an Object of Sexual Commodification I argue that Passus II centers on the treatment of Mede as a sexually commodified

object. Mede’s connection to the exchange of mede is in part responsible for this

treatment. As a medium of exchange for services, mede functions much like currency.

However, mede can facilitate exchanges in areas where market transactions are not as

common, such as spiritual reward or even bribes. Mede may come in the form of

63 currency, but the term refers to the giving of rewards rather than the form of those rewards. As long as Mede is an object to be purchased, negative assertions about Mede, mede, and the trafficking of each abound. A commodity has no agency in an exchange, even though it is the object of that exchange, and it is therefore at the whim of the buyer and seller. In Passus II and III Mede is reduced to the value of her marital goods. In treating her as a commodity, those seeking to attain Mede place her in the role of an object of exchange. As long as Mede is the object of exchange, she remains unable to act at her own behest.

The perception of Mede as an object of sexual exchange is reinforced by the description of her physical appearance in Passus II. Rather than discussing her beauty, speech, or bearing the narrator’s first observation about Lady Mede involves her dress:

Fetisliche hire fyngres were fretted with gold wyr, And thereon rede rubies as rede as any gleede, And diamaunds of derrest pris and double manere sapphires… Hire robe was ful riche, of reed scarlet engreyned, With ribanes of reed gold and of riche stones. (2.10-2.16) Rather than shedding light on Mede’s character, this description only highlights the amount of wealth she possesses, further connecting Mede to commodities. After being confronted with this new figure, William does not inquire about Mede’s character but instead wonders “what she was and whos wif she were” (2.18). Even though no judgment has yet been made about her character, the narrator identifies Mede by her marital status rather than individual qualities. This perspective implicitly treats Mede not as a character to be evaluated in her own right, but as an object whose value can only be discerned in

64 the context of her owner, purveyor, or purchaser.102 The narrator’s initial observation of her material wealth only exacerbates the situation; focusing on her relation to commodities enforces the view of Mede as a commodity defined by her exchange value.

As, at this point in the text, Mede is treated as an object of marital exchange any judgments come not as a result of her own actions but from those observing her. In particular, Holi Chirche brings her own preconceived opinions into her descriptions of

Mede.

Impressions of Mede’s character in Passus II come not from her speech or actions but from Holi Chirche, a character hostile to Mede. William, the narrator, asks Holi

Church, his current guide, to identity of Mede. Holi Chirch immediately begins to condemn Mede, saying that she is a “bastard,” allying her parentage to “Fals,” and pronouncing that Mede has inherited the “fikel tonge” of her father (2.24, 25, 25-27).

Yet, Holi Chirch reveals her bias against Mede from the moment she identifies the woman to the narrator: “‘That is Mede the mayde,’ quod she, ‘hath noyed me ful ofte’”

(2.20). As one who has been “noyed” by Lady Mede, Holi Chirch’s opinion is skewed by the harm Mede has caused her. More than voicing her complaint, however, Holi Chirch goes on to mention that she “oughte ben hyere” than Lady Mede, feeling that she herself

“kam of a better” (2.28). This pronouncement suggests that Holi Chirch resents the fact that Lady Mede has been placed higher than she despite Holi Chirch’s parentage, further demonstrating Holi Chirch’s bias. Holi Chirch’s pronouncement that any man seeking

102 This dynamic falls under the femme covert legal status discussed by Walker. If the husband and wife are one legal identity, which is the husband, a woman must be defined by her husband. This process, however, does render her into an object in marital exchange, emphasizing her lack of agency within marriage. 65 after Mede “shal lese for hire love a lappe of Caritatis” loses credibility due to Holi

Chirch’s personal opinion of Mede (2.34-35). Thus, the identification of Mede as “a fendes biyete” comes from a figure whose opinion is biased (2.41). This initial perception sets the tone for how Mede is treated for the rest of the Passus.

The negative treatment of Mede continues as Fals works to acquire her through marriage, employing suspicious applications of mede in the process. Leaving Holi Chirch behind, William witnesses firsthand the events surrounding Fals’ attempted marital union with Mede. Out of the multitudes that assemble hoping to take possession of Mede, Fals succeeds in becoming “enjoyned” with Lady Mede (2.66). With Favel acting as a broker,

Fals not only manages physical possession of Mede but also gains the assent of Symonye and Cyvylle, both of whom are willing “for silver to seye as bothe [Favel and Fals] wolde” (2.65-68).103 Fals uses a form of mede to bypass normal legal channels to ensure marriage with Mede. As with other legal contracts, witnesses are vital to marriage and provide surety in future litigation surrounding marriage contracts, dowry agreements, or even whether the marriage happened in the first place.104 In using mede to hire false witnesses, Fals confirms the negative aspersions cast by Holi Chirch and continues to do so with public pronouncements of his deeds. Provided with a “feffement” formalizing the arrangement, Symonye and Cyvylle read the document aloud to the gathered throng

103 It is worth noting that Symonye and Cyvylle are themselves allegorical personifications of practices involving the misuse of mede, further layering the matter at hand as Langland is wont to do through the text. 104 In Marriage, Sex, and Civic Culture in Late Medieval, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006), Shannon McSheffrey discusses these practices and the vital role that witnesses play. In one particular example McSheffrey cites a case involving a father and son being held at knife point to force a marriage agreement between the son and the accosting father’s daughter. Witnesses were instrumental in preventing the son from legal liability in this attempted shotgun wedding. 66

(2.72). In particular, one point of the document reads “Mede is ymaried moore for hir goodes / Than for any vertue or fairnesse or any free kynde. / Falsnesse is fayn of hire for he woot hire riche” (2.76-77). This proclamation affirms some of Holi Chirch’s claims about Mede’s detriment to “Caritas”; while medieval marriage contracts often considered financial concerns, the implication here suggests that the arrangement was purely for financial gain without the other vital social aspects of marriage. The full repercussions of this union come not from the marriage itself, but from what Fals gains in addition to Lady

Mede: “[t]he countee of Coveitise and alle the costes aboute— / That is usure and avarice—al I hem graunte / In bargaynes and in brocages with al the burghe of thefte”

(2.86-88). The possession of Mede allows Fals greater access to greed and theft. Mede is thus, by association, further vilified, a status that is exacerbated by the fact that Fals uses a form of mede to accomplish such an end.

While the actions of Fals and his cohort are condemnable, Mede herself has done little at this point in the text to deserve the same treatment. Mede has no dialogue in

Passus II. Moreover, she performs no action but to appear before William, at which point others work to possess her. Once again serving as the object, Mede performs no action that is inherently positive or negative. Even Theologie, the sole proponent of Mede’s positive qualities in this Passus, defines her not according to her own actions but according to what others have done to her. Immediately after condemning the marriage announcement between Mede and Fals, Theologie pronounces that “Mede is muliere, of

Amendes engendered” (2.119). This statement counters Holi Chirche’s claims by redefining Mede’s lineage, but this positive image comes not from Mede’s own purity but

67 from her genealogy. Moreover, Theologie condemns the marriage to Fals not due to

Mede’s qualities but because “God graunted to gyve Mede to truthe” (2.120). While a union between truth and Mede sponsored by God would certainly improve Mede’s reputation, this further relieves Mede of agency. Mede has not chosen to be paired with truth or vice versa; rather she is a trinket that has been promised to him by God. As Mede lacks agency or even voice her reputation is at the whim of those using, abusing, or even defending her.

Even under the King’s protection, Mede is still in a position where others are able to use her as an object. The King, hoping to ensure a proper marital union for Mede, places her in a private room, one that ideally puts her out of reach of would-be grooms

(3.10). The “bour,” however, is compromised by others seeking to use Mede for their own ends, namely the justices, the clerk, and the confessor. The justices offer Mede their assistance as they bid her “ne make thow no sorwe” (3.16). They promise to use their influence so that she may “be wedded at thi [Mede’s] will and where thee leef liekth”

(3.18). The manipulative component here lies with the opportunity for Mede to finally have voice, but only if she acts immorally according to the justices’ will. In thanks, Mede practices the exchange of mede by giving these justices “coupes of clene gold and coppes of silver,” among other treasures (3.21-23). While Mede offers these riches in thanks for the services offered, she does so in response to the justices’ requests. Rather than acting as an active participant in the exchange, Lady Mede only reacts to the justices’ offer.

Likewise, her promise to aid “the clerke that I [Mede] loyve” only comes after the clerk pronounces that he will “werch thi [Mede] wille the while thow myght laste” (3.27-34).

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Mede bestows riches and political advancement to these figures, but her actions are responses to the requests of other agents rather than coming from herself. These exchanges further display how Mede can fulfill the desires of others, a tool to be used by others but not to act of her own accord. The confessor continues this trend, using her to satisfy his goals by manipulating her vulnerabilities.

Mede is vulnerable to exploitation because her status as the object and medium of exchange leaves her unable to dictate the parameters of her own exchange. The confessor offers Mede absolution and his services as her “bedeman” in exchange for a “seem of whete” (3.41, 3.40); the exchange itself, however, involves an immoral use of mede, assigning a price to a service that should be for spiritual benefit rather than sale. While this exchange is technically a potential function of mede, absolution from a confessor should be dictated by religious concerns rather than financial ones. Putting a price on absolution opens it to the market forces of economic exchange, allowing the purchaser of absolution to accommodate an inability to meet the religious requirements by simply raising the price.105 Mede accepts this exchange, despite the bastardization of absolution it suggests: “lewed men and lered men hadde leyen by thee [Mede] both, / And Falshede hadde yfolwed thee alle thise fifty wynter” (3.38-39). The King places Mede in this chamber to avoid the type of misuse used by Fals, but the confessor’s statement implies that she cannot escape this history without the confessor’s absolution. Mede’s only option is to accept his offer and “for hire mysdedes to that man [Mede] kneled, / And shrof hire of hire sherewednesse [...] Tolde hym a tale and took hym a noble” (3.43-44). Having

105 The granting of indulgencies could, arguably, fall under this designation. 69 exchanged his own religious services for her “noble,” the confessor forces another immoral exchange on Mede.

Due to the confessor’s influence, Mede speaks for the first time in the text. Rather than demonstrating agency, however, Mede’s speech demonstrates her object status; her words come only in response to the confessor’s influence. Continuing to take advantage of Mede’s vulnerable position, the confessor suggests another method for eliminating her checkered past. Specifically, the confessor indicates that he has “a window a-werchynge” which “wole stonden us [the church] ful hye” and that if Mede were to offer monetary aid for the construction her name would be placed therein and “Sykir should thi [Mede’s] soule be hevene to have” (3.48-50). More than offering absolution in exchange for a horse-load of wheat, this proposed exchange suggests that a monetary donation ensures salvation. More damaging than the theological implications, however, is how the confessor’s influence encourages Mede to act: “Wiste I that […] I would noght spare /

For to be youre frend […] Have mercy […] of men that it [synne of the sevene] haunteth

/ And I shal covere youre kirk” (3.58-60). Accepting the confessor’s offer, Mede returns with a counter-offer to provide even further financial assistance—including covering walls, glazing windows, and making cloisters (3.60-61)—in exchange for the salvation of all who have sinned in the same way as she. Functionally, Mede’s counter-offer returns the same exchange suggested by the confessor, only on a larger scale. Moreover, the counter-offer comes as a reaction to and perpetuates the exchange the confessor already offered. While obtaining salvation for those who have sinned as she has is commendable on Mede’s part, this action perpetuates the misuse of mede suggested by the confessor

70 and leads to the narrator’s twenty-two line condemnation of the misuse of mede by

“Maires and maceres” (3.76). Beyond taking advantage of her passivity, the confessor causes Mede to misuse what resources are available to her.

While Mede’s request to the mayor would appear to be her first moment of agency—she commits this act without any direct prompting—this moment comes as a result of the confessor’s influence rather than any agency of her own. The confessor has shown Mede that any sin is forgivable if one pays the right price, and she serves as a vessel to present his model to the mayor. Following the narrator’s condemnation of selling holy commodities for worldly currency, Mede requests that the mayor take bribes from merchants, that “For my [Mede’s] love…love hem echone, / And suffer hem to selle somdel ayeins reson” (3.91-92). By suggesting that the mayor accept silver from merchants in exchange for overlooking price gouging, Mede has followed her confessor’s model: buying absolution for morally ambiguous acts. Mede acts here, but as the object of the confessor’s manipulations she is only able to act as he has directed her. Her actions here have certainly added another element to the defamation of Mede’s character, but this defamation comes from the misuse of mede.

As an object and medium of exchange, the King also seeks to use Mede to his own ends. To better use mede without the disruptive issues that occurred in Mede’s marriage to Fals or under the influence of agents in the bower, the King hopes to marry

Mede to Conscience. The subsequent debate between Mede and Conscience, focusing on the valid use of mede, represents a bartering process—if the parties can agree upon a proper use of mede, the union can take place. Conscience maintains that the commodity

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he would receive in this exchange, Mede, presents such problems as to render it

valueless. In response to this, Mede defends her own value for fifty-one lines of Passus

III and argues that mede has provided real, definable benefits to the King and thus would

make a worthy bride. The focus on mede in this debate is vital, as it is both the medium

of and the conflict in this potential exchange, but the debate itself drifts from mede.

Conscience’s debate with Lady Mede may involve a bartering process for the possible

marital union, but the focus of his attacks upon her virtue calls more attention to her

gender. iii. “Wyves and widewes wantounness she techeth, / And lereth hem lecherie that loveth hire yiftes”: Trafficking in Mede In his attempts to dismiss her usefulness, Conscience associates Mede’s gender

with her function as mede. In his initial tirade, Conscience comments that mede can

“gyveth the gailers gold and grotes togidres / To unfetter the Fals – fle where hym liketh”

(3.139-140). This practice is a valid point of concern as it may allow the wealthy to

ignore the punishment imposed upon them. Conscience’s arguments, however, shift from

these directly relevant concerns to complaints that target Mede’s identity as a woman

more than a personification of mede: “Wyves and widewes wantounness she techeth, /

And lereth hem lecherie that loveth hire yiftes” (3.125-126). Conscience claims that the

mere use of mede encourages women to engage in sexual promiscuity, an equally

immoral influence on the married and unmarried alike. Conscience’s claims continue to

target sexual misbehavior: “Is noght a bettre baude, by Hym that me made, / Bitwene

heven and helle” (3.129-130). Here, Mede’s association with the exchange of mede

reduces her to little more than a prostitute, one “as commune as the cartwey to [knaves

72 and to alle]— / To monkes, to mynstrales, to messeles in hegges” (3.132-133). The argument that Mede is “commune” calls to attention the position of her gender in the text.

As a sexual commodity purchasable through marriage, Conscience’s estimation of

Mede’s exchange value is lessened if she has been possessed by others in the past. By suggesting she is sexually promiscuous, Conscience reinforces his previous arguments about the innate immorality of mede. Rather than attacking the ethical grounds of using mede, Conscience’s counter-arguments shift the discussion to misogynistic discourse against Mede’s gender.106

The issues that Conscience raises about Lady Mede’s promiscuity come largely from mede’s function as a medium of exchange that can travel between multiple parties, crossing social boundaries in the process. In her article “The Gender of Money,” Diane

Cady plots the dual treatment of currency and gender in medieval writing, stating that

“medieval discussions of money or women often perform a dual role: they simultaneously warn about the dangers inherent in both and the need to contain them within socially sanctioned institutions and practices.”107 Mede, as the embodiment of mede, represents a mechanism that can bypass legal or theological patriarchal sources of authority. The anxiety over monetary exchanges in unsanctioned venues that Cady describes relates to the need to control Mede, a woman using her own anatomized mede

106 The importance of Lady Mede’s gender has been a source of some contention. Elizabeth Robertson posits that one point of difficulty for feminist critics for Piers Plowman is that “female characters are treated in just about the same way as are the male ones” (168). In “Gender and Personification in Piers Plowman,” Helen Cooper maintains that Langland’s choices in regards to gender are more “than just a serendipitous extension of iconographic hints” and that these choices, “whether they are primarily literal or conceptual, are inseparable from the import of the poem” (38). For more see Cooper, Helen. “Gender and Personification in Piers Plowman.” The Yearbook of Langland Studies, no 5 (1991): 31-48. 107 Cady, 17. 73 to circumvent patriarchal authority. According to Cady, both women and currency present a potential challenge to societal structure, one that threatens the patriarchal power base. Cady elaborates that “the indiscriminate manner in which Lady Mede bestows her sexual favors recalls the amorality of ‘denier,’ who purchases goods and honors for whoever possesses it.”108 Lady Mede’s indiscriminate nature limits the ability of larger societal forces to impose control over Mede—anyone with enough wealth can exchange mede. I argue that this operation outside of patriarchal authority provides Conscience’s primary complaint against mede. The spiritual mede that Conscience praises is instituted by a strong patriarchal force, God and the church, which grants spiritual mede to approved doers of holy work. Other forms of mede follow a less strict form, allowing the exchange to occur between any two agreeable parties without the same form of institutional control. Mede’s gender is intertwined with the operation of currency, causing anxiety over societal control of both gender and money; in light of this, Cady maintains that Mede serves as “a reminder to the reader that women, like money, are likely to wander if they are not controlled by society.”109 Conscience’s attacks suggest an anxiety over the possibility of Mede, both the woman and the medium of exchange, operating outside of patriarchal power structures. Even the controlling factors of marriage, which would render Mede under Conscience’s identity rather than her own, is not enough to compensate for Mede’s previous exchangeability.

For fifty-one lines of Passus III, Mede steps outside of her objectified role and argues her own benefits as a subject of potential marital exchange. She does so by

108 Cady, 18. 109 Cady, 19. 74 implementing the same tactic that has been used against her, seizing control of her sexually commodified state and managing her exchange as mede. Mede focuses on the potential for social stability that comes with the exchange of mede: “It becometh to a kyng that kepeth a reaume / To yeve [men mede] that mekely hym serveth […] Mede maketh hym beloved and for a man holden” (3.209-212). By exchanging mede, one can encourage loyalty in his vassals, a point specifically relevant to Mede’s audience, the

King. Mede emphasizes her point by stating that mede allows the Pope to encourage men

“to mayntene hir laws,” that servants can accept mede as wages, and even priests “[a]sken mede and massepens and hire mete [alse]” (3.215-224). While Conscience maintains that mede leads to corruption, Mede provides a series of examples in which mede encourages stability, good will, and trade. Mede emphasizes trade: “[a]lle kynne crafty men craven mede for hir prentis. / Marchaundise and mede mote nede go togideres” (3.225-226).

Here Mede stresses the function of mede as a medium of exchange, one that supports not only social stability but trade. This point in particular directly counters Conscience’s earlier attempt to differentiate trade and labor from mede (3.255-257). Mede associates herself with mede, utilizing the characteristics that have been used against her as tools to shore up her own authority.

Further signifying her role as a subject of marital exchange, Mede advocates herself as the medium of exchange, taking command of her own role as an object of sexual commodification. Mede’s description of supporting the King’s war efforts in

Normandy involves an application of mede that suggests both loyalty and sexual activity.

To demonstrate her effectiveness to both the King and Conscience, Mede specifies that

75 she “lafte with my [Mede’s] lord his life for to save” (3.196). Her presence alone describes the role of a loyal vassal, but Mede’s role involves service of a different sort, as she upkeeps the soldiers’ morale: “I made his men murye and mournyne lette; I bated hem on the bak and boldede hire hertes” (3.198-199). By raising their spirits, Mede is not only aiding the King but helping make the most of a bad situation, a role Conscience fails to fill as he abandoned his liege lord to “hyedest homward for hunger of thi

[Conscience’s] wombe” (3.194). What is distinct about Mede’s method of raising morale is that she “dide hem hoppe for hope to have me at wille” (3.200). While the exchange of mede is the basis for this morale boosting, Mede’s presentation makes it inextricable from her sexual nature. Mede makes the King’s “men murye and mournynge lette” by providing them with mede (3.198). As Mede is mede, she improves the soldiers’ spirits by offering herself to them, implying sexual availability. Moreover, this use of her body more efficiently applies her sexually commodified status than other agents in the text, those that attempt to use this status against her.110 Mede’s arguments prove so effective that the King promptly proclaims that “By Crist, as me thynketh, / Mede is worthi the maistrie to have” (3.228-229). The efficacy of Mede’s argument causes Conscience to diverge from his argumentative approach, using patriarchal sources of authority in order to reinstate the gendered power dynamics that Mede has challenged.111

110 In her article “The Traffic in Medieval women: Alice Perrers, Feminist Criticism, and Piers Plowman,” The Yearbook of Langland Studies, no 12. (1998): 5-27. Stephanie Trigg develops a comparison between Lady Mede and Alice Perrers. This fits well with the argument here as Perrers like Mede controls the exchange of her own sexual and economic goods to curry favor in court, although the textual evidence to determine if Langland had Perrers in mind when constructing Lady Mede’s character is not present. 111 A point of interest here is that the function Mede espouses to support the King does not involve the marital union the King himself is promoting. Rather, Lady Mede possesses this agency only outside of marriage as it would be promptly superseded by her husband’s authority. For more on this dynamic, see 76

To answer Lady Mede’s points, Conscience leans on patriarchal sources of authority. As discussed in the previous section, Conscience turns to the example of Saul to counter Lady Mede, but this example proves ineffective in demonstrating a negative use of mede. Conscience’s rebuttal does, however, involve an attack on Lady Mede’s gender. Conscience begins his exegesis with “Ac reddestow nevere Regum, thow recrayed Mede, / Whi the vengaunce fel on Saul and on his children” (3.259-260). By implying that Mede has never read Regum, Conscience suggests that she is intellectually deficient, and, by referring to her as “recrayed Mede,” Conscience suggests that she is unfaithful despite her testimony of loyalty. For Conscience, Mede’s ignorance of this source shows that she is deficient because she is not beholden to its patriarchal authority.

Most important here, however, is that the biblical source Conscience relies on is itself a source of strong patriarchal power. Every source of authority Conscience cites in this rebuttal come from male characters; he claims that “Kynde Wit me taught” and even points to Reson as one who should “regne and reaumes governe” (3.284-285). Both reson and Kynde Wit are clearly depicted as male and serve to reinforce patriarchal authority through their influence and opinions.112 Conscience moves here not to counter the exchange of mede so much as to denigrate Mede’s gender in order to maintain patriarchal authority. Mede attempts to speak up once more to answer Conscience, proclaiming “I kan no Latyn? [...] Clerkes wite the soothe” and even goes so far as to cite scripture herself (3.332-336). Conscience quickly curtails Mede by further attacking her gender,

Elizabeth Fowler’s “Civil Death and the Maiden: Agency and the Conditions of Contract in Piers Plowman,” Speculum, no 70.4 (Oct. 1995): 760-792. 112 For more detail on Langland’s conscience gender choices, see Helen Cooper’s “Gender and Personification in Piers Plowman,” as discussed above. 77 stating that “thi [Mede’s] Latyn be trewe” but that she had only “radde a lesson ones” and was ultimately unable to understand its contents properly as she lacked “a konnynge clerk that kouthe the leef han torned” (3.336-347). Conscience implies that Lady Mede could only properly understand with the help of a clerk, a representative of the church’s patriarchal authority. With this, Conscience has moved past attempts to demonstrate the negative parameters of mede and focuses instead on Lady Mede’s gender. Doing so reinforces the patriarchal ability to control any possible exchange sanctioned by Mede and reduce her once more to an object of exchange.

The full impact of Mede’s subject status is difficult to discern due to how completely it is refuted; by the end of Passus III, Mede is once again solely an object of exchange. After Conscience’s final comments in Passus III, the King orders him to fetch

Reson’s council on the matter of Mede (4.6-4.12). With this request, the debate shifts out of Mede’s favor as the King asks for the advice of yet another male figure, without offering Mede the chance to speak again. Before Reson is able to weigh in on the matter of Mede’s marriage, the King hears a case involving a series of crimes committed by

Wrong. To avoid the punishment that awaits him, Wrong attempts “[t]o maken his pees with his pens” by taking “Mede myd hem mercy to wynne” (4.75-77). Once again the passive medium of exchange, Mede is unable to act on her own behalf, her final act in the text coming at Wrong’s request to offer “a present al of pure golde” to Pees (4.95).

Wrong’s attempts to use mede as bribery serves as the basis of Reson’s position against

Mede: “[s]holde nevere Wrong in this world that I wite myghte, / Ben unpunished in my power […] Ne for no mede have mercy, but mekenesse it made” (4.139-142). Reson

78 determines that all forms of mede are socially disruptive much like Conscience’s initial position. The King is swayed by this argument, dismissing Mede from the court and placing Reson in charge: “Mede overmaistreth Lawe and muche truthe letteth. / Ac Reson shal rekene with yow” (4.176-177). With the end of Passus IV, the King dismisses any remnant of the subject status Lady Mede once held. The possibility to command her exchange and move out of the object position vanishes once the patriarchal power structure is re-established.

In the end, it is this fallout that makes any reading of Mede in Passus II-IV difficult. In the Wife of Bath’s Prologue, Dame Alice manages to assert and reassert her own authority in marriage even when it is taken from her. While this may be aided by the fact that she has the last word on the matter, the Wife of Bath’s Prologue nonetheless contains a clear depiction of economic rhetoric used to obtain and maintain authority in marriage. Langland’s text, while heavily engaged in economic issues, does not provide a unified answer on Mede and marriage. If Mede was offered the chance to challenge

Reson’s position, continuing the debate about what Mede and mede can mean in marriage, her role may have been clarified. If Conscience’s arguments focused more on defining his points than attacking Mede’s gender, the morality of mede and why Mede may be insufficient as a bride might be better understood. Much like other issues raised in the B text of Piers Plowman, Passus II-IV raises interesting questions about Mede’s morality and economic agency, but fails to provide hard answers to either.

Ultimately, the most telling component of these texts is how each renders transgressive female characters through economic language. The Wife of Bath’s basis

79 for authority comes from appropriation of Conjugal Debt that borders on bastardization, using a concept that nominally grants equal responsibility to both husband and wife to invert the gendered power dynamics of medieval marriage. Mede, on the other hand, has a remarkably short active period in her text, instead treated simultaneously as a sexual commodity to be trafficked and an ethically ambiguous economic tactic to be used by other agents in the text. Each of these treatments uses economic thought to demonstrate the dilemma of a medieval marital market that concurrently renders women as the objects of exchange and the subjects of marital responsibility, and each women appropriates her commodified state to negotiate on her own behalf with largely differing results. Perhaps the biggest take away from these treatments of women and economic thought are differing perspectives of Chaucer and

Langland. Chaucer inverts a system of marital authority to demonstrate the problematic components therein and the ultimate facetiousness of the conjugal debt narrative’s apparent equal liability. Langland uses the personification of Mede to make the case for mede’s use more compelling, even more logical than Conscience’s positions, yet, compelling or not, the potential for misuse far outweighs any benefit; the reader, like the text, should leave Mede behind and pursue more theologically fruitful endeavors.

80

Chapter 2: Marital Avarice and Economies of Love

By the nature of its influence, avarice functions as a social sin. By generating inappropriate levels of desire in those overcome by it, avarice leads to unjust exchange and hoarding, economic effects that spread beyond an avaricious individual. Market exchanges involve the negotiation between two parties, the buyer and seller, and each party’s estimated value of a commodity.113 The two parties negotiate price and ultimately decide on an amount which satisfies the respective needs of each, the buyer for the commodity and the seller for currency. The issue with avarice becoming involved in these exchanges is that the justness of an exchange relies on the needs of each party; if one party’s buying position is affected by avarice, that party may begin altering the dynamics of exchange to unjustly favor them, harming the other party’s potential to participate in future exchange.114 This potential for harm is likewise present in hoarding, as avarice may generate desire for wealth for wealth’s sake, causing the avaricious individual to acquire whatever wealth they are able without spending it accordingly. Like

113 My overview of market exchanges here comes largely from Joel Kaye’s Economy and Nature in the Fourteenth Century, built upon Kaye’s discussion of how medieval thinkers perceived exchange from a primarily Aristotelian perspective. Kaye’s work is discussed in more detail below. 114 In The Early History of Greed, (New York : Cambridge University Press, 2000), Richard Newhauser plots interpretations of avarice in the early Church and how these definitions of the sin change and build upon one another from one theologian to the next. While the specifics of what constitutes avarice changes based on how much the theologian embraces asceticism, the general trend that Newhauser plots moves from feelings that the very possession of money leads to avarice to an acknowledgment that the desire to possess is a beneficial force which encourages humanity to obtain what is necessary to survival and it is only when this escapes moderation that avarice comes into play. For the social harm caused by Avarice, Clement of Alexandria in particular identifies Timothy 6:10 “not with wealth itself but wealth that is not governed well, which is to say, not put to the use of one’s neighbor” (11). 81 water in systems of lakes and rivers, the continued health of the system requires the continued exchange of the system’s medium. If water ceases to circulate through a lake, the lake becomes stagnant. So too do economies stagnate without circulation; wealth pooling in the possession of a few individuals leaves a tight supply of currency for others in the economy to exchange, preventing them from conducting their own exchanges and leading to breakdown in the overall health of the economy. Avarice thus functions as a social sin, harming not only the person overcome with excessive desire for wealth but the entire economy that the avaricious individual harms, both through unjust exchange and hoarding of wealth.

The primary texts I consider in this chapter deal with Avarice and its harmful effects explicitly, but both consider the function of avarice both in a social and, more specifically, marital context. Most of the books of the Confessio Amantis focus on one primary sin and all follow a confessional structure, with Genius guiding the petitioner,

Amans, through each of the book’s subjects, using exempla to explain and demonstrate these sins and encouraging Amans to confess guilt when appropriate. Rather than straight confessional literature, however, the Confessio’s confessional structure works from the context of love, from Amans as the petitioning lover and from Genius as Venus’s priest.

This dynamic of romantic love forming the ethical framework for sins makes the

Confessio ideal for discussions of medieval marriage. Genius’ advice to Amans comes from a Christian context but also one read through the proper performances of “honeste love,” performances that Gower’s larger work views as best situated within marriage.

This chapter reads Book V, where Genius’ exempla focus on the various permutations of

82 avarice and encourage Amans to admit where he himself has avaricious desire for his lady. Book V particularly focuses on economic language and metaphor, and these economic concepts are considered within a frame of love and, in consideration of

Gower’s interests on the subject, marriage.115

The diametrically opposed issues of avarice and largess present the primary conflict in the mid fourteenth century Middle English poem Wynnere and Wastoure.116

Located at the end of British Library Additional MS 31042 with The Parlement of the

Thre Ages, Wynnere and Wastoure is an incomplete poem of just over five hundred lines in its sole extant copy, the majority of which is occupied by a debate between Wynnere and Wastoure, the personified figures of earning and spending wealth respectively. While nominally constructed as an even, if heated, dialogue between two figures, possibly leading to a Golden Mean narrative, the text condemns Wynnere much more heavily as a caricature of excessive thrift and greed. The majority of the incomplete text is taken up by each figure countering the previous claims against their activities and then condemning those of their opponent, with rampant insults and shifting of rhetorical position throughout the debate. The solution offered by the king at the end of the extant text has each figure switch roles, yet rather than leading to a synthesis of opposed viewpoints the king’s commandments reveal that to take on Wynnere’s role requires the outright robbery and assault of innocent individuals, emphasizing the larger dangers of avaricious desire. The conclusion of the debate, before the king’s pronouncement, is of

115 See J.A.W. Bennett’s “Gower’s ‘Honeste Love,’” Gower’s Confessio Amantis: A Critical Anthology. ed. Peter Nicholson, (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1991) and Conor McCarthy’s “Love and Marriage in the Confessio Amantis,” Neophilologus no. 84.3, (2000): 485-499 116 Wynnere and Wastoure The Parlement of the Thre Ages, Ed. Warren Ginsberg. (Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, 1992). All subsequent references come from this edition. 83 particular interest to this study. As a final point to their respective positions, Wynnere and

Wastoure discuss the exchange of wealth and commodities with wives, and their accusations and argumentation encapsulates how each of their positions relates to social bonds and, ultimately, that maintaining an avaricious approach to marriage undercuts the numerous socially supportive components of marriage. By reading the function of avarice within marriage both in Book V of the Confessio Amantis and Wynnere and Wastoure, this chapter seeks to evaluate how the application of economic metaphors on avarice and marriage demonstrates the inter-reliant nature of marriage for medieval thinkers.

I. Avarice and the Economy of Love in Book V of the Confessio Amantis

Book V of the Confessio Amantis presents an odd problem in its conflation of love, sex, and economic greed. The text’s conundrum is presented from the beginning in its Latin incipit: “Obstat auaricia nature legibus, et que / Largus amor poscit, striccius illa vetat. / Omne quod est nimium viciosum dicitur aurum, / Vellera sicut oues, seruat auarus opes. / Non decet vt soli seruabitur es, set amori / Debet homo solam solus habere suam”

(5.i.1-6).117 This syllogism presents seemingly contradictory points. Avarice’s destructive quality is that it keeps money and commodities outside of exchange, denying love’s request in a “vicious” manner. The solution to such crippling of exchange is to instead be free and generous with money, but, in the larger context of the Confessio, that freedom applied to amorous exchange would imply sexual largess, a concept that is highly problematic in the context of Christian ideologies of marriage, sexual monogamy, and

117 “Avarice obstructs the laws of nature, and those things that generous love requests, she (Avarice) very stingily denies. All gold that is excessive is called vicious; as a sheep preserves its coat, so an avaricious man preserves his wealth. It is not fitting that coin should be kept for one alone. So in love, one single man ought to have his sole woman.” All references to Gower’s Confessio Amantis in this chapter come from the TEAMS text edition, edited by Russell Peck. For the Latin incipits, I use Galloway’s translations as well. 84 sin. To prevent avaricious love, should the lover engage in amorous exchange many times? Sexual activity with multiple partners? Furthermore, would the very act of marriage, the sacramental state in which Christian love should be contained, be an act of hoarding, purchasing a lover once and then preventing them from reentering the sexual market? What is the ultimate benefit for Book 5’s treatment of love in economic terms?

Gower, at large, is concerned with the vulnerability of social stability. Whether unveiling the chaos caused by class conflict or the destructiveness of self-indulgent sin,

Gower’s work is preoccupied with the breaking down of social structure and the subsequent loss of stability. Book V of the Confessio deals with how avarice, and amorous desire, is destructive to societal balance and function.118 Warnings against such greed are common in anti-mercantile dialogues,119 yet, unlike many of those dialogues,

Genius’ advice to Amans does not involve a complete departure from the economics of monetary or amorous exchange. Instead, Genius promotes moderation of Amans’ desire and warns against the ill effects when that desire proceeds unchecked.120 In his discussion of Gilbert Maghfield’s account book, Andrew Galloway argues that Gower normalizes

118 Even from its prologue the Confessio Amantis is largely preoccupied with the concept of balance and operation in a metered function. The incipit and opening of Book I, for example, is littered with words referring to balance, measure, and acting in “kinde.” (need to expand this a touch and add specific references) 119 See Roger Ladd’s Antimercantilism in Later Medieval English Literature and Diana Wood’s Medieval Economic Thought, (New York: Palgrave, 2010). Both monographs plot the anti-mercantile trend in Middle English literature, but while Ladd adheres to this trend maintaining throughout the period, Wood plots a change in the treatment of mercantilism in later texts, likely generated through the growing importance of trade and merchants in Late Medieval London and through direct patronage carried out by merchants. While heavily informed by both texts, this study follows Wood’s perspectives on the role of trade, mercantilism, and money in Middle English literature, specifically the consideration of how the growing influence of currency and trade belies the perception of a primarily anti-mercantile culture in late medieval England. 120 The emphasis on moderation to combat avarice comes from a number of theologians, most notably Gregory the Great and Alcuin. Gregory the Great established a “justification for possessing wealth,” but Alcuin goes further to plot moral acceptance for the possession of wealth as long as one is guided by moderation (Newhauser 121). 85 the “technologies of mercantilism” by treating them as an assumed part of life, presenting the process of trade not as inherently sinful but instead pointing to the sin that arises from misuse of those technologies.121 Gower’s own long standing business with Maghfield is itself an example of how trade can build relationships that aid both parties. Desire for wealth itself is not the problem, but uncontrolled desire harms the participants of exchange and the economy at large. As Gower demonstrates in other texts, namely the

Tratié, the poet’s mechanism for keeping amorous desire in check is marriage, specifically a marriage of “honeste love” without avarice.122 The economic metaphors dealing with desire in Book 5 demonstrate how Amans’ immoderate desire harms both participants of amorous exchange, the lover and his lady. The incipit’s assertion that currency must not be hoarded thus works against the suggestion that a wife is a commodity to be purchased once and locked away in a chest and instead suggests that marriage itself forms an economy of “honeste love,” requiring reciprocity and balance in order to prevent the destructive influence of immoderate desire.

Before proceeding further, it is necessary to specify an issue throughout Book V in regards to the Amans’ lady. Throughout this text she is alternately treated as an object of exchange, one that Amans has immoderate desire for, and a potential subject of exchange, a partner with whom Amans could trade properly moderated desire and thus adhere to “honeste love.” This incongruity, where the lady is both the object and subject of exchange, reflects the nature of the medieval marital market itself. Unmarried women

121 Andrew Galloway, “The Account Book and the Treasure: Gilbhert Maghfeld’s Textual Economy and the Poetics of Mercantile Accounting in Ricardian Literature,” Studies in the Age of Chaucer, no. 33 (2011): 65-124. 122 See J.A.W. Bennet’s “Gower’s ‘Honeste Love’” and Conor McCarthy’s “Love and Marriage in the Confessio Amantis.” 86 are in many Middle English texts relegated to objects of marital exchange that are valued according to a number of factors that can affect their marital prospects.123 Reduced to objects of exchange, these women are commodified as a product on the marital market according to their perceived exchange value. However, once married a number of texts emphasize the role of women within marriage, as operators of the household, partners in conjugal debt, and, for Gower in particular, figures to enable “honeste love” with their husbands. This contradictory binary of object and subject that women hold in Middle

English texts complicates Amans and Genius’ respective treatments of the lady, with much of Amans’ desire based on viewing his lady as an object of desire, and Genius’ advice instructing for treatment of her as a subject of marital exchange. Approaching

Book V of the Confessio Amantis with an economic perspective is particularly revealing as it suggests how desire and exchange work in both treatments of the lady and shows how the relative positions of exchange can themselves dictate different treatment of women in Gower’s text.

Despite Amans’ role as a courtly lover, marriage lies at the heart of the

Confessio’s treatment of love and desire. J.A.W. Bennett’s and later Connor McCarthy’s respective studies claim the text’s insistence for “honeste love” can be equated to marriage, a mechanism that helps in controlling otherwise harmful desire.124 Yet, Roger

Ladd has demonstrated that even in the context of marriage Gower is still concerned with

123 See Barbara Hanawalt’s Wealth of Wives and Judith Bennett’s Women in the Medieval English Countryside. 124 Bennett, “Gower’s ‘Honeste Love’” and Conor McCarthy’s “Love and Marriage in the Confessio Amantis.” 87 immoderate desire’s destructive potential.125 The influence of marriage feeds into the economic components of Book V. As Barbara Hanawalt’s study on the flow of wealth to and through wives demonstrates, trade and mercantilism are innately interconnected with marriage in late medieval England. Specifically, the process of marriage and remarriage enables the horizontal flow of wealth that leads to new business ventures and fosters economic development in urban centers such as London.126 In the same way that these economic processes are treated as part of life, so too are they treated as part of marriage; if a contract is not mutually beneficial, allowing for reciprocity of exchange, then it is unjust and ultimately harms both members of that exchange and the economy at large.

The economy of marriage that Gower constructs is driven by love as a currency whose value is determined by desire. The immoderate desire expressed by Amans represents an unjust exchange; Amans is preoccupied with the concept of hoarding his lady’s affection, along with those goods that affection could purchase, and by not equitably exchanging that affection in return Amans harms the lady herself and the economy at large. For the purpose of this study, I use the term economy to refer to the equitable exchanges expected of a healthy medieval marriage. As a contract becomes void if both members are unable to fulfill their stipulated roles, Amans’ immoderate desire undercuts his lady’s ability to act and reciprocate “honest love,” even in the context of marriage.

Book V has presented a challenge to critics, especially when trying to produce an overarching reading for a book that is more than twice as long as any other in the

Confessio Amantis and spans a wide range of topics. While Book V does begin with the

125 Roger Ladd, Antimercantilism in Late Medieval English Literature. 126 See Barbara Hanawalt, The Wealth of Wives: Women, Law, and Economy in Late Medieval London. 88 same structure as the books that lead up to it—an initial declaration of sin, Amans’ response to that sin, and tales to demonstrate that sin—the text quickly reaches into other material that seems to shift away from topics such as an extended history of religion and eleven subdivisions of Avarice, many of which are not normally considered part of that sin. Acknowledging the problematic composition of this book, Peter Nicholson refers to it as “Gower’s loose baggy monster,” noting tales that “seem to have broken loose from the frame and often have little relation either to Amans or the announced lesson,” as well as Genius’ surprising rejection of Venus and a wide range of digressions.127 From a structural and ideological perspective, Book V seems to differ greatly from the formula of the books that lead up to it. Moreover, Genius’ message to Amans come across as less clear, his advice even seeming to lead to logical inconsistency within Book V. As

Nicholson puts it, “Gower has a great deal to answer for in this book, both to those who expect his poem to have a clear moral focus and to those who expect it to be orderly.”128

The reader is thus left with a book that initially seems ambiguous and inconsistent, obfuscating the intent of Gower’s discussion of Avarice.

The “loose baggy” nature of Book V has led to a wide range of readings on its nearly 8,000 lines. In Amoral Gower, Diane Watt maintains that the story of Tereus demonstrates an alternate perspective on rape in late medieval poetry; “Rape is, it appears, caused by internal factors and the failure of self-government on the part of the rapist—will and desire overcoming reason—rather than by the woman who might

127 Peter Nicholson, Love and Ethics in Gower’s Confessio, (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005): 254. 128 Nicholson, Love and Ethics, 254. 89 otherwise be thought to have inspired it” (83). Countering other critical claims of

Gower’s conservative gender politics, Watt suggests that Gower’s depiction of rape in

Book V presents a more sympathetic case for women than is seen elsewhere in the text.

Taking an entirely different focus, Andrea Boboc argues that the conflation of Perjury and “Se-duction” demonstrates that the latter is a direct challenge to the authority of the state; “Se-duction endangers the sovereign by encouraging him to take exception to the legal and moral order.”129 For Boboc, this section of Book V is part of the Fürstenspiegel tradition, which “teach[es] the king how to choose good over bad counsel.”130 “Se- duction” alters the king’s perception of proper counsel, leading to disorder and

“victimiz[ing] not only the king but also his family and subject.”131 Ethan Knapp focuses instead on the function of Egypt in the “Religions” section of Book V, maintaining that

“Egypt, for Gower, stands for the temptation to believe...that the human being is only one of many objects in the world, that the human has no spiritual or hermeneutic precedence over other beings.”132 For Knapp, Book V at large is about the proper relation to objects.

Worshipping objects is improper as it does not demonstrate the appropriate relation of

129 Andreea Boboc, "Se-duction and Sovereign Power in Gower's Confessio Amantis Book V." John Gower, Trilingual Poet: Language, Translation & Tradition, (Cambridge: D.S.Brewer, 2010): 129. 130 Boboc, “Se-duction and Sovereign Power,” 128. 131 Boboc, “Se-duction and Sovereign Power,” 129. While Boboc considers some of the historical issues surrounding Richard II’s court, it is interesting that she does not bring up Alice Perrers. While Perrers was more a thorn in the side of Edward III’s court, her use of her position as the Edward III’s mistress to manipulate the monarch’s decisions in her favor would seem a logical example of her larger argument. Furthermore, the close associations between Piers Plowman’s Lady Mede and Alice Perrers identified by Stephanie Trigg suggests that the memory of Perrers’ impact on the court is still fresh for a late fourteenth century audience. Trigg, Stephanie. “The Traffic in Medieval women: Alice Perrers, Feminist Criticism, and Piers Plowman.” The Yearbook of Langland Studies, no 12. (1998): 5-27. 132 Knapp, Ethan. “The Place of Egypt in Gower’s Confessio Amantis.” John Gower, Trilingual Poet: Language, Translation, and Tradition. Ed. by Elisabeth Dutton, John Hines, and R. F. Yeager, (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2010): 27. 90 humans to objects in the Christian context of the Greater Chain of Being, and in the same manner humans should not allow themselves to be ruled by the objects they own.

While likewise interested in what Book V offers as models of behavior, Nicola

McDonald takes a different tact by considering the conflicting nature Genius’ advice as evidence of poetic failure.133 For Nicola McDonald, the models of exchange espoused by

Genius fail to operate with consistency due to their conflation of sex and economics. For

McDonald, Book V “constructs a discourse of desire that elides the difference between the consumption of goods (including coin) and the consumption of sex.”134 McDonald ties this to her larger consideration of “ballok purse” imagery, the visual representation of money purses as genitalia in medieval art and statuary, which comprises half of her article. The sticking point for McDonald, however, is Genius’ advice that largess is the counter for avarice; in a strictly economic exchange, this advice fits within a Christian paradigm, but the conflated nature of sex and economics in Book V makes this difficult to resolve. As McDonald maintains, “[g]iven the carefully constructed economy of love that dominates Book V’s discussion, and denunciation, of avarice, it is virtually impossible to imagine any kind of sexual largesse that is compatible with Christian morality.”135 Sexual largess would seem to be in direct conflict with monogamy, especially if one takes Genius’ example as a promotion to give sexual goods to anyone

133 This chapter’s argument was informed by Andrew Galloway’s “The Account Book of Treasure” and Eliot Kendall’s “Service Allegory,” even though they did not find a place in this paper. Specifically, Galloway’s discussion of mercantile culture will be of particular value in further work on this project, and Kendall’s consideration of household economy will add context to reading Book 5’s exempla with this theoretical lens. 134 Nicola McDonald, “‘Lusti Tresor’: Avarice and The Economics of the Erotic in Gower’s Confessio Amantis.” Treasure in the Medieval West, Ed. by Elizabeth M. Tyler, (York: York UP, 2000): 144. 135 McDonald 149-50 91

“[w]hich thurgh poverte is falle in nede” (5.359). Here McDonald hits on two of the major issues with Book V, sexual largess and sexual commodification, and this book’s emphasis on avarice certainly stretches the Confessio’s frame of approaching sin through the context of love. While McDonald adds interesting context to the reading of Gower’s text, her emphasis on the incompatibility of largess with romantic love overlooks an underpinning concept to Gower’s approach to economic thought. Theological condemnations of exchange often push for a complete removal from trade, arguing that the exchange of currency is itself potentially corrupting to a point that it should be removed entirely.136 Rather than taking a stance of abstinence from exchange entirely,

Gower’s approach is that of moderation in exchange and, for amorous exchange, marriage is the tool to facilitate moderation. More than simply standing as a gaping contradiction to the poem’s overarching goals, Book V falls more in line with Christian context by suggesting largess in love but largess contained within the local economy of marriage.

While critics have considered Gower’s interest in marriage, both in the Confessio

Amantis and elsewhere, these discussions do not consider the economic ramifications of these marital interests in Book V specifically. As Conor McCarthy argues, Gower uses

“honeste” throughout the Confessio to designate being “in accordance with reason and nature,” specifically functioning within the desires brought upon by nature but moderated through rational thought, the characteristic that defines mankind against “bestes.”137

136 For examples of these condemnations and antimercantilism in general, see Roger Ladd’s Antimercantilism in Late Medieval English Literature as well as Diana Wood’s Medieval Economic Thought. 137 McCarthy, 486. 92

Furthermore, J.A.W. Bennett outlines how Genius promotes marriage as both a virtuous end to love, “a sign of ‘gentilesse,’”138and bulwark against unmoderated desire: “[t]he world will fail, Genius had argued, unless folk marry and bring forth children.”139 Thus,

Genius’ advice for Amans to moderate his desire is best fulfilled in the context of marriage, and Genius’ specific suggestions for avoiding avariciousness outline the operation of a local economy of amorous exchange within marriage. Rather than polygamy, largess of amorous exchange results in free exchange of desire with one’s spouse. To operate within the local economy of marriage, the lover must exchange with his wife and do so particularly if she were to “falle in nede.”140 Rather that functioning outside a Christian context of monogamous sexual relationships, Genius’ advice addresses how to operate within those relationships.

To punctuate the conflation of love, money, and desire in Book V, I revisit the opening incipit. While the previous four lines focus on a broader system of exchange, the final lines bring everything back into the context of love; “Non decet vt soli seruabitur es, set amori / Debet homo solam solus habere suam” (5.i.5-6).141 As stated above, these final lines seem to offer contradictory points, arguing against the act of hoarding currency

138 Bennett 56. 139 Bennett 61. Bennett also outlines Genius’ desire to see more children brought forth due to his character in the Roman de la Rose as “sponsor of reproduction” (58). Rather than undercutting a reading of Genius as promoter of marriage, this falls in line with the structure of marriage as Genius sees it, one that makes sexual desire into a virtuous force in fecund marriage. (need to flesh this out and clarify more, but if it does so much more it may need to move to body of text). 140 This falls in line with the Church’s perspective of the Conjugal Debt, in which both partied in marriage are obligated to provide sexual access to their partner to avoid sinful fornication. 141 “It is not fitting that coin should be kept for one alone. So in love, one single man ought to have his sole woman.” I follow Andrew Galloway’s translation here, but it is worth noting that Galloway has rendered “set” as “so” instead of the more usual translation of “but.” Following “but” as a translation instead may shift the tone slightly in this incipit, but the condractory nature I discuss is still at play throughout Book V and its rendering of avaricious love. 93 but immediately suggesting monogamy. The inclusion of love in this incipit, both in the second and fifth lines, implies that the gold that should not be kept in excess is sex, yet to allow only one individual access to one’s sexual currency would be to engage in the very act of stockpiling the incipit castigates. Part of the issue with amalgamated metaphors of sex and exchange here may revolve around the gendered assumptions one makes when encountering a system of sexual exchange. In her article “The Gender of Money,” Diane

Cady plots the dual treatment of currency and gender in medieval writing, stating that

“medieval discussions of money or women often perform a dual role: they simultaneously warn about the dangers inherent in both and the need to contain them within socially sanctioned institutions and practices.”142 Cady maintains that late medieval texts that involve both women and economics often take a misogynistic perspective, using economic metaphors to serve as a “reminder to the reader that women, like money, are likely to wander if they are not controlled by society.”143 However, Book

V places the onus of control on Amans and many male figures in its tales; even if these women are “likely to wander,” it is the men who construct the exchanges in the first place, including their choice of partner. Genius’ advice has little to do with avoiding women that may exchange poorly and much to do with Amans moderating his own levels of desire for a relationship to which he is already committed. As currency only represents the medium and measure of need in an exchange, what needs to be properly moderated is not sexual exchange itself but Amans’ desire for it.

142 Cady, 17. 143 Cady, 19. 94

The role of need and desire within medieval economic thought can be mediated through the role of currency. In his analysis of shifting economic thought from late antiquity through the fourteenth century, Joel Kaye describes how late medieval economic philosophers considered the role of money in market exchanges. Rather than being exchanged for the value of the currency itself, medieval theories of money held that

“[m]oney was invented so that it could be the medium and measure of all goods in exchange.”144 The concept of money as medium suggests that currency facilitates exchange rather than measuring fair market value. It is not so much that a carpenter has built a chair in order to obtain a certain amount of money, but rather that the money he exchanges for that chair will facilitate his own purchases of other commodities. This function of currency allows the carpenter to buy, by proxy of currency, food for his family with the chair his labor produces. Thus, the purpose for currency in exchange is to function as a placeholder for the respective desires of the buyer and seller, providing an easily quantifiable and portable medium to facilitate exchange; “[t]he natural measure of things in exchange is human need (indigentia humana), which is common to all commodities. And it is this common quality of indigentia that money is capable of measuring.”145 More than providing a more efficient method of exchange than a barter economy, Kaye’s point suggests that the heart of any economic exchange lies not with the value of the commodity itself but in the need for that commodity. Therefore, Genius’ focus on economics in Book V is on the nature of exchange itself; need overcome with avarice disrupts the proper flow of exchange, undercutting the proper system of need

144 Kaye, Economy and Nature in the Fourteenth Century, 139, original emphasis. 145 Kaye, 139 original emphasis. 95 based economics. In order to conduct exchange outside of Avarice’s corrupting influence, the proper balance of need and desire is necessary.

A primary tenet in ideal systems of exchange is that of balance, specifically between potential economic extremes. The emphasis on balance in economic systems derives from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and the Golden Mean; “[t]he equal part is a sort of mean between excess and deficiency; and I call mean in relation to the thing whatever is equidistant from the extremes.”146 (Aristotle 40, original emphasis). For

Aristotle, the Golden Mean represents ideal functionality that is neither gluttonous nor lacking to the point of harm. It is important to note that for Aristotle the Golden Mean is a geometric concept rather than arithmetical, that is, the Golden Mean is measured relative to the individual circumstances surrounding its particular application rather than an overriding Platonic ideal that each individual should aspire to: “mean in relation to us that which is neither excessive nor deficient, and this is not one and the same for all.”147

Aristotle’s primary example is that of nutrition, where one’s food intake should differ drastically based upon stature, sport, and athletic ability. However, systems of exchange differ drastically from nutrition in that they involve others, the action of an individual affecting how justly another is treated. In economics, it is thus vital to maintain the

Golden Mean in order to prevent mistreating others; one should adopt a system of exchange “intermediate between acting unjustly and being unjustly treated; for the one is to have too much and the other too little. Justice is a kind of mean . . . because it relates to

146 Aristotle. The Nichomachean Ethics, Translated by F.H. Peters, (New York: Penguin, 2004): 40, original emphasis. 147 Aristotle, 40, original emphasis. 96 an intermediate amount, while injustice relates to the extremes.”148 In a market exchange, acquiring too much wealth is to have wronged economically the other participant of exchange, but acquiring too little is to disable oneself from maintaining self-sufficiency.

The just system of exchange is thus the one that maintains the most balance, ensuring that both the buyer and seller are able to continue participating in further exchange.

Genius’ overarching condemnation of Avarice centers around the ills of hoarding currency, the desire to possess money destructively superseding the exchange or use value of that currency. The personified Avarice’s miserly quality has led him to keep possession of money for money’s sake alone; “Thus whanne he hath his cofre loken, / It schal noght after ben unstoken, / Bot when him list to have a syhte / Of gold, hou that it schyneth brihte, / That he there on mai loke and muse” (5.33-39). The money that

Avarice has hoarded within his chest is there merely to be looked upon and admired for its aesthetic qualities instead of its exchange value. As a medium of exchange, money has no intrinsic value in and of itself and once removed from the economy it no longer has use or exchange value. This process harms the economy it affects, tightening the money supply and inhibiting future exchanges. In modern economics, the hoarding process undertaken by Avarice can be described as sentimentalization, where the need to maintain possession of a commodity supersedes its exchange value. Wood touches on this issue in her larger discussion of the perceptions of medieval thinkers on economics, arguing that “the economy is seen as an organic whole, and all economic transactions are interrelated. Ideally, the different movements or flows should be in a state of equilibrium,

148 Diana Wood, Medieval Economic Thought, (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2002): 71. 97 so that the same money will go on circulating.”149 As an “organic whole,” the economy depends on the continued circulation of currency through exchange in order to operate efficiently. A disruption in the flow of currency from one area of the economy to another will harm its overall health.

In Avarice’s case, the unwillingness to let any gold leave his chest means that it cannot be spent on necessary commodities; “So is he povere, and everemore / Him lacketh that he hath ynowh” (5.42-43). Treating his hoarded wealth as a luxury commodity that cannot be exchanged, Avarice’s perceived purchasing power is stunted.

In addition to affecting his own comfort, Avarice’s hoarding prevents him from conducting exchange with others that depend on his currency, such as the laboring “oxe” and wool bearing “shep” (5.42-46). The process of sentimentalization harms not just the avaricious individual but each participant in his economy. This dynamic evokes the image of Wynnere, who has hoarded his wealth and goods to the point that they waste away in storehouses, unused, and the unwillingness to spend wealth creates little visible difference between a figure of Wynnere’s means and the “laddes on fote.”150 This treatment of wealth has two problematic results: it fails to perform according to expected social roles and it seizes the flow of currency from one part of the economy to the other.

Avarice is thus a social sin, one that harms the economy at large. Avaricious desire likewise destabilizes the amorous economy, causing Amans to cast his desire away to no profit and, if he is able to “purchase” his lady, suggesting that she would be relegated to nothing more than another commodity within the lover’s chest deprived of its true value,

149 Wood, 121. 150 See the discussion on Wynnere and Wastore below. 98 like the sheep that sees no profit for the sheering of its wool. Amans’ desire, if left unchecked, only serves to harm the potential amorous exchange with his lady.

The dynamics of Amans’ avaricious desire for his lady play out in the frame narrative of Book 5. After Genius introduces the ills of Avarice to Amans, focusing on the historical progression of greed, the confessor asks the lover if he suffers from this sin;

“Mi sone, as thou art amerous, / Tell if thou farst so” (5. 58-59). The question is not itself an indictment against Amans as it serves to follow the established confessional pattern.

However, Amans’ response reveals the excessive levels his desire for the lady has reached. Amans initially denies the sin, arguing that as he had never managed possession of his lady he could not be avaricious towards her; “In full possession of love / Yit was I nevere hiertofore, / So that me thenketh wel therfore, / I mai excuse wel my dede” (5.64-

5.67). Amans invokes the miserly example provided by Genius, arguing that as he has not followed the example literally he is not guilty of avarice. As with much of the Confessio,

Amans demonstrates his lack of understanding of Genius’ moral: the miser’s avaricious nature comes not from possessing gold but from immoderate desire for it. Thus following the miser’s example, Amans’ further lament demonstrates his own immoderate desire for the lady through the ranting tone and commodifying language he employs; “Bot of mi will withoute drede, / If I that tresor mihte gete, / It scholde nevere be forgete, / That I ne wolde it faste holde, / Til god of love himselve wolde / That deth ous scholde parte atuo”

(5.68-73). Here, Amans sees his lady as “tresor” that he desires possession of, and once that possession is accomplished he intends to keep hold of her until they are separated by death. Amans’ expressed desire directly evokes the miser with his chest of gold, hoarding

99 his lady away, keeping her out of circulation. Amans’ continued expression of desire reveals its avaricious nature as he further commodifies his lady. Amans compares the lady’s kiss to “[money] bagges in kiste,” values her as greater than “a myn / Of gold,” and claims that the lady is “a tresor for a king” (5.83-92). More and more, Amans’ language suggests that he desires possession of his lady above all else, that his desire for her far exceeds the value of any of the commodities he compares her to. The more that

Amans wants to obtain and hoard his lady, the more he creates an imbalanced exchange between them.

In considering the social aspect of systems of exchange, Andrew Galloway’s “The

Economy of Need in Late Medieval Literature” casts light on the necessity for mutual fulfillment in exchange. A large part of an economy of need is the symbiotic relationship between each participant in that economy; each participant in market exchanges needs the other participants of exchange to provide the commodities he is not able to provide himself and purchase those he has in excess. Andrew Galloway suggests that this comprises “a system based, overtly at least, not on profit and loss, but on satisfaction and need.”151 While profit may certainly be a product of exchange, Galloway argues that what is more important for medieval economic thought is that these systems facilitate mutual need and, in doing so, social relationships. However, for medieval economic thought the relationship between economies of need and profit is tenuous at best, profit models seemingly set at odds against the economy of need: “The system [of exchange that dominated the West] implies mutual need, since it could not be a system without that, but

151 Andrew Galloway, “The Economy of Need in Late Medieval English Literature,” Viator, no. 40.1. (2009): 311. 100 its principle is the personal desire for profit, its terms those of consumption and production.”152 If one is overcome by the desire for profit, the need to maintain fair and mutually beneficial exchange may dwindle. Drawing examples from a wide range of

Middle English texts, Galloway demonstrates that the risk to that system of mutual need has great potential for failure. Considering this aspect in Chaucer’s Pardoner, Galloway argues that “the lesson itself becomes simply a further vehicle for a need that lacks any capacity for mutual fulfillment, and thus seems to abolish all reciprocity of community...This might seem to define a profit economy.”153 The examples of the

Pardoner cited by Galloway demonstrate unchecked need, need for profit that overshadows the social aspects of exchange. If need and desire are allowed to become self-propagating, they can be destructive to the participants of exchange and the entire social network which that exchange reaches.

Unchecked need can disrupt the relationship between participants in exchange; for

Galloway, the role of mutual benefit in exchange thus also applies to romantic economies. If both parties of a romantic exchange fail to enter into that exchange with properly moderated desire, the continued success of that exchange can be drastically affected. Considering Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde as an example of this dynamic,

Galloway argues that the text “is haunted by a futile effort to insist on an economy of necessity and need as a simple and objective system.”154 Troilus’ inability to temper his need in accordance with the complex social context that the amorous exchange operates

152 Galloway, 310. 153 Galloway, 324-325. 154 Galloway, 324. 101 in leads to the tragic fallout. Need, while a more accurate measure of value in these exchanges than currency, also possesses greater potential to disrupt amorous exchanges when left unchecked. As Galloway maintains, “[r]ather than the most reliable principle of economic and spiritual transaction, need becomes the most treacherous one.”155 As the driving force to exchange, need is a market condition that is easily corruptible and, once altered, can cause the entire system of just exchange to break down.

Towards the end of Amans’ initial response to Genius, the lover switches focus.

Instead of continuing his denial of avarice, Amans recalls a portion of Genius’ speech;

“Bot, fader, I you herde seie / Hou th’averous hath yit some weie, / Wherof he mai be glad” (5.99-101). Instead of internalizing the message behind Genius’ introduction to

Avarice, Amans sees the avaricious man in an enviable position, one keeping his wealth locked away in chest to be looked upon and handled whenever he desires. Ignoring the negative aspersions that Genius has cast against the sin, Amans looks past Genius’ role as confessor and is instead preoccupied with the possibility of acquiring the lady. Moreover, the language of Amans’ following lines conflates sexual and economic elements in his expression of desire; “for he / Mai whanne him list his tresor se and grope and fiele it al aboute, / Bot I fulofte am schet thereout, / Ther as my worthi tresor is” (5.101-105). Even if it would place him in the same sinful state as the personified Avarice from Genius’ introduction, Amans expresses his desire to have the same continual access to his

“tresor,” access that would allow him to “grope” and “fiele” his lady. This language both sexually commodifies the lady and suggests a gendered power dynamic; if Amans has

155 Galloway, 329. 102 physical access to the lady “whanne him list,” she becomes an object without any agency outside of that which is in accordance with the lover’s desire. Amans concludes his response to Genius with a claim that he has been wronged in amorous exchange; “ye me tolden hier tofore, / Hou that an oxe his yock hath bore / For thing that scholde him noght availe. / And in this wise I me travaile” (5.107-110). Citing Genius’ example of improper exchange where domestic animals received no profit for their labor, Amans argues that his labor to attract his lady’s affection has come to no “availe.” Amans’ claim suggests that the lady has broken amorous contract with him, not paying him properly for the

“travaile” of love he has put forth. Yet, Amans’ complaint reflects how avaricious his desire has become, confusing his desire itself as labor for which his lady has not paid. By misinterpreting his desire for labor, Amans fabricates an exchange for which he feels wronged by not being properly paid. Amans’ desire does determine his perceived value of his love for the lady, but that desire does not itself comprise value; to return to Kaye’s discussion of Aristotelian economic thought, currency can only act as the medium of exchange and not a Platonic measure of value. Amans may estimate the value of his love for the lady highly, but without a proper exchange with that lady her perceived value, and the ultimate determination of fair market value for such an exchange, cannot be determined. Instead of properly circulating in the “honest love” of an amorous economy,

Amans’ desire disrupts his own perception of exchange with his lady and accordingly his overall perception of the marital economy.

Similarly, misplaced desire plays a large role in the Covetousness section of Book

V. As with the other sections of this book, this section explores another household

103 servant of Dame Avarice, in this case Covetousness, and plots out the figure’s respective duties. In doing so the text considers how this member of Avarice’s household both embodies and performs the sin it allegorically represents. Here, Covetousness “goth the large world aboute, / To seche th’avantages oute, / Where that he mai the profit winne /

To Avarice, and bringth it inne” (5.1977-1980).156 Covetousness’s duties comprise the generation of profit, seeking out new sources of goods to add to Avarice’s holdings. As with other allegorical figures in this book, however, Covetousness’ duties of profit generation reach excessive and harmful levels. The Latin incipit for this section begins this construction: “Agros iungit agris cupidus domibusque domosque, / Possideat totam sic quasi solus humum” (5.i-ii).157 By joining fields and other properties together, the cupidinous man increases the overall value of his lands, but by cornering the property market in this manner that man has also harmed the economy by pooling wealth in one source focused on generating more profit rather than exchanging what it has earned. This sentiment comes through explicitly as the incipit moves from the economic metaphor to that of the lover: “And he alone pursues the love of innumerable women, so that Venus, sacred to thousands, might be worshipped by him alone” (5.iii-iv). The flow of love here runs one way, towards the cupidinous man, and this process explicitly prevents others from engaging in the same exchange, the health of the economy of love smothered by the cupidinous man’s gratuitous accumulation of property and love. Returning to the

156 It is possible that “avantages” here plays on double meanings. According the MED “avauntage” can refer to a source of profit or revenue in exchange, but it can also mean a position of power in an exchange or dealing between two parties. As Covetousness’s, and Avarice’s, trend towards hoarding harm other members of their economies by preventing them from engaging in later exchange, it is possible that this word is intended to bring in both meanings. 157 “The cupidinous man joins fields to other fields, and houses to other houses, so that he alone might own nearly the whole landscape.” 104 allegorical figure of Covetousness, the all-encompassing nature of his desire is itself empty, generating a need that can never be fulfilled:

For riht as of an hungri pie The storve bestes ben awaited, Riht so is Covoitise afaited To loke where he mai pourchace For be his wille he wolde embrace Al that this wyde world beclippeth; Bot evere he somewhat overhippeth, That he ne mai noght al fulfille The lustes of his gredi wille. (5.1998-2006)

The image here of magpies glutting themselves on dead animals casts a dark tone on this section, bringing in the associations of carrion eaters never satisfied no matter how many have been slain. So too does Covetousness desire more wynning, always looking for more sources of revenue. That desire makes anything earned an empty acquisition as, regardless of its value, it cannot “fulfille / the lustes of his gredi wille” (5.2005-2006).

This self-perpetuating process of empty earning harms the covetous individual as anything gained in this process is valueless to them, failing to satisfy the desire for new sources of profit, and it harms the economy as the wealth or commodity thus gained is removed from the rest of the economy.

The cycle of desire generated by covetousness provides a distinct threat to a marital economy on both of these counts, harming the covetous partner and the other participant in the exchange. In Genius’ exempla of the Covetousness of Lovers, the “Tale of the King and His Steward’s Wife” plays out this cycle of unmoderated desire in one partner of marriage leading to an overall destabilization of the marriage’s economy. This tale comprises three major characters, the King, the Steward, and the Steward’s Wife, and

105 while the Steward’s actions harm the marriage economy, the King and the Steward’s

Wife function as examples of proper support of that economy. The impetus for the tale’s plot, the King seeks a “lusti wiht” to save him from his malady, as only by having such a woman “don him compaignie a nyht” can he be “al hol therby” (5.2661-2.664). Rather than a single act of carnal lust, the act of the King’s sexual activity with a woman is generative, producing a healthy monarch.158 In fact, once he has had his dalliance the

King is determined to turn that sexual activity into a more stable product, exchanging sex again with the Steward’s Wife and, once the Steward is banished, taking the Steward’s

Wife for his own wife; “The king hire weddeth and honoureth, / Wherof hire name sche socoureth, / Which erst was lost thurgh coveitise” (5.2821-2823). Technically the terms of exchange first proposed as a cure for the King dictate only a single act of sex in exchange for money, but the King turns this process into a long lasting marital contract with the continued exchange of love.

The Steward’s Wife similarly remains stalwartly committed to proper exchange in the marriage economy. As a “lusti ladi,” the Steward’s Wife is an attractive partner in marital exchange, and upon learning her husband’s plan she begs him to keep to the proper constraints of marriage:

And sche, which red for schame was, With bothe hire handes hath him preid Knelende and in this wise seid, That sche to reson and to skile In what thing that he bidde wile Is redy for to don his heste, Bot this thing were noght honeste,

158 This dynamic is also noteworthy as the sexual act operates within Genius’ role as the teller of the tale and the allegorical representation of sexual activity that is productive. 106

That he for gold hire scholde selle. (5.2736-2743)

As the Steward treats her as a sexual commodity that “he for gold hire scholde selle,” the

Steward’s wife is clearly ashamed. Yet, her response to the Steward demonstrates two key aspects of her commitment to the marriage economy. First, she indicates that, despite the shame this would bring upon her, she “is redy for to don his heste.” In forcing her to sleep with the King for profit the Steward shames and mistreats his wife, yet despite this treatment she keeps “to reson and to skile,” acquiescing to his desire in this context.

Second, in pleading for her husband not to carry through with his plan, the Steward’s

Wife indicates that ‘this thing were noght honeste.” Exemplifying Bennett’s work on the term “honeste love” in Gower’s work, the Steward’s Wife makes her appeal to the form of love that finds “its proper consummation in marriage.”159 By invoking “honeste” here,

Gower speaks through the Steward’s Wife’s pleading against a marriage that violates the proper exchange of love between husband and wife. The Steward’s Wife carries out her husband’s wishes, despite the shame they bring upon her and harm they cause to their marriage economy.

The main figure of this tale, the Steward, is overcome with covetousness for the

King’s money that causes him to offer up his own wife, but rather than falling to temptation in a weak moment the Steward has demonstrated a covetous tendency from the outset of his marriage. As Genius tells it, despite her attractiveness the Steward’s criteria in choosing his wife had little to do with love or her comeliness and everything to do with her dowry:

159 Bennett, 56. 107

This steward...A lusti ladi hath to wyve, Which natheles for gold he tok And noght for love, as seith the bok. A riche marchant of the lond Hir fader was, and hire fond So worthily, and such richess Of worldes good and such largesse With hire he gaf in marriage, That only for thilke avantage Of good this steward hath hire take. (5.2684-2695)

Against the proper reasoning for marriage outlined by Genius in the frame of this section, the Steward married his wife purely for the “richess of worldes good” offered up by her father, valuing the property that comes with his wife more highly than his wife herself.

From its onset this type of exchange works against a healthy marriage economy due to the displacement of desire. Desire comprises the currency that drives the marriage economy, each member of the marriage exchanging sexual acts brought upon by desire.

Yet, the Steward’s desire in this marriage lies not with his wife but the goods that can be obtained with her, causing a disruption to the flow of desire based currency in the this marital economy. This dynamic prevents, from the outset, a process of even exchange between these two parties: the Steward’s Wife is willing to exchange love and desire inside of their marriage, adhering to the marital obligations that come with these exchanges, but the Steward only truly desires that which is outside of the marriage economy and has little incentive to exchange properly within the marital economy, also demonstrating a willingness to forgo proper acts of “honeste love.” By destabilizing the marital economy from the outset, with proper exchange and social bonds only flowing in one direction, the Steward damages his marriage economy and prevents reciprocal exchange within his marriage. 108

The process of covetousness displacing desire and value within the marriage economy plays out again with the Steward’s plan to offer his own wife to the King in exchange for money. After convincing the King that “he mot give giftes grete” to attain the “gentile” and “lusti” lady, the Steward has a moment where the hundred pounds he has taken from the king actively takes over desire:

The steward tok the gold and wente, Withinne his herte and many a wente, Of coveitise thanne he caste, Wherof a pourpos ate laste Agein love and agein his riht He tok, and seide hou thilke nyht His wyf schal ligge be the king. (5.2725-2731)

The imagery here directly evokes the metaphorical act of the Steward placing the gold within his heart, making it the object of his affection and displacing any potential affection or loyalty for his wife. This displacement becomes further apparent as he carries forward with his plan “[a]gein love and agein his riht” (5.2729) to command his wife to lie with the King, a plan that goes beyond the economy of marriage and his rights within that economy. The Steward’s actions wreak such havoc on the marriage economy that the fallout reaches beyond his own marriage. The King, upon learning what the Steward has done, condemns him saying “Thou has both hire and me beguilded / And ek thin oghne astat reviled, / Whereof that buxom unto thee / Hierafter schal sche never be” (5.2805-

2808). The King lays out the three wronged parties of the Steward’s actions: the

Steward’s reputation, the Steward’s Wife, and the King himself. The Steward’s reputation clearly has taken a hit once his plan has come to light; the Steward’s pleading with the King to not reveal the mystery woman in “savinge of hire goode name” is almost

109 more of a request to save his own name (5.2794). The Steward’s wronging of his wife goes against his “riht” and her duties as wife. For the King, however, the Steward has falsely presented a woman who could have potentially become the King’s wife. The

Steward’s deception has thus not only harmed his own marriage economy but disrupted the potential marriage economy the King begins to seek out with the woman he has lain with. Ultimately, misplaced desire disrupts the flow of affection between both parties of marriage and leads to an inability for a marriage economy to operate healthily.

As troublesome as Amans’ potential covetousness is in regards to balanced sexual exchange, his regard to Stealth and Plundering further demonstrates how his excessive desire harms the amorous economy. Amans’ response begins promisingly with a pronouncement that he is not guilty of this behavior; “Nought ones take hire be the kne, /

To stele of hire or this or that, / And if I dorste, I wot wel what” (5.6566-6568). Amans not only pronounces that he has never taken his lady’s sexual goods by stealth, but that, as he respects her as a vassal respects his lord, he would not dare violate their contract;

“Thogh I be neverre man so povere, / I bere an herte and hire it is, / So that me faileth wit in this, / Hou that I scholde of myn acord / The servant lede agein the lord” (5.6580-

6584). Thus far, Amans seems to have acquitted himself well of the vice of robbery, suggesting that he would not violate his contract with his lady through that act. Such a stance is important as robbery by its nature creates an exchange bereft of mutual benefit, one party gaining goods without the exchange of currency and the other party derived of their goods without profit; this makes Amans’ rant against Danger more problematic.

Acknowledging the lack of access any man has to his lady, Amans describes her

110 guardian; “Sche hath a wardein redi ay...That him ne mai no mannes myht / With swerd ne with no wepne daunte, / Ne with no sleihte of charme enchaunte, / Whereof he mihte be mad tame” (5.6614-6619). Danger, as Amans describes him, appears to be an implacable guardian of his charge’s virtue, unable to be persuaded by force or charm, and performs a necessary function in protecting the lady’s sexual goods from robbery.

However, as Amans continues, his denial of robbery seems to stem less from his own personal conviction than the difficulty of accomplishing the act.

As Amans describes Danger further, the extreme levels of his desire come into sharper focus. Amans treats Danger’s effectiveness as guardian of virtue as complete and all encompassing. According to Amans, Danger “under lock and under keie, / That no man mai it stele aweie, / Hath al the tresor underfonge / That unto love mai belonge”

(5.6621-6624). Invoking the opening image of Avarice hording gold within his chest,

Amans emphasizes the security with which Danger guards the lady. However, the chest metaphor here is not one of keeping contained but of preventing illicit access. Danger is able to prevent even the “lokinge of hire yhe” and is ready to “sette a wyte” against any who would attempt to circumvent his surveillance (5.6625-6626). Yet, despite his denial of robbery Amans expresses desire to be able to steal his lady’s goods; “So thogh I wolde stalke and crepe, / And wayte on eve and ek on morwe, / Of Danger schal I nothing borwe. And stele I wot wel may I noght” (5.6638-6641). Amans has shifted from denying a willingness to steal his lady’s goods out of respect and acknowledgment of their contract to wanting to do so if he had access, wishing Danger “were ago / So fer that I nevere of him herde” so that Amans “mihte yit per cas / Of love make some pourchas /

111

Be Stelthe or be som other weie” (5.6646-6650). With Danger out of his way, Amans states that he would no longer have any obstruction from acquiring his lady’s sexual goods, implying his willingness to take them regardless of the immoral position this would place him in. Amans claims that this would comprise a “pourchas,” but it is important to note that stealing her goods by stealth would comprise of anything but. The theft of his lady’s sexual goods would involve taking them against her will, making the robbery metaphor an act of rape. Amans’ theft of his lady’s sexual goods and the rape it would involve would deny her any profit from the exchange as an unwilling participant, an unequal partner who would be unable to engage in a mutually beneficial economy of love and thus an act of innately imbalanced sexual exchange. By robbing the lady of her goods, Amans would be conducting an avaricious act where his desire pushes him to operate outside of the economy of love, inhibiting the health of that economy and denying the lady’s chance to exchange those goods properly herself.

While seemingly contradictory, Genius’ advice to maintain both sexual largess and monogamy is tied to developing a functioning system of amorous exchange. Rather than suggesting promiscuity, Genius’ ideal sexual largess operates within the economy of marriage; Amans should be generous not to any individual he comes across but to the other participant of amorous exchange, his lady. In the Traitié, the text in which he most explicitly discusses marriage, Gower warns against marriages “impregnated by Avarice” as no such nuptials can be virtuous, and states that the marriage formed from honest love from both partners “need not be afraid of dangerous changes” (IV.10-20).160 For Gower,

160 John Gower, Traitié, The French Balades, (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2011). 112 marriage’s ultimate benefit is to protect both partners from the harmful influences that will act against them, the “dangerous changes” of desire that can lead to harm if not channeled in the proper manner. As a contract protects both parties in an exchange as long as each upholds their contractual obligations, so too does the state of marriage protect lovers as long as that desire is not avaricious. Amans’ responses to Genius in

Book 5 of the Confessio demonstrate that the lover’s desire is already out of balance, treating his lady as a commodity to be hoarded away rather than as a partner in amorous exchange, exposing himself and that lady to the “dangerous changes” that befall those who allow avarice to rule desire.

II. The Economics of Social Bonds in Wynnere and Wastoure

The fourteenth century alliterative poem Wynnere and Wastoure centers around a debate over greed and prodigality between two primarily allegorical figures. The back and forth of their debate often devolves into ad hominem attacks, rarely maintains logical consistency, and even the respective class positions of the speakers shifts and changes over the course of the text as each figure debates contrasting economic perspectives.161

Despite the complexity or dissonance of the text, depending on one’s critical position, this poem expresses the concerns of a money economy in late medieval England. With the exchange of money for goods and services replacing many feudal arrangements, concerns rose over the potential for such exchanges to supplant social bonds.162 The

161 Stephanie Trigg plots the shifting of class and rhetorical positions in her article, “The Rhetoric of Excess,” The Yearbook of Langland Studies, 3.1. (1989): 91-108 162 For more on this transition see Christopher Dyer’s Making a Living in the Middle Ages: The People of Britain 850-1520 and Pamela Nightingale’s Trade, Money, and Power in Medieval England. Both Dyer and Nightingale plot shifting trade dynamics in late medieval England, particularly in urban centers, ultimately arguing that those best able to adjust to shifting trade and money practices in this period were 113 direct conflict between Wynnere and Wastoure reflects this tension between shifting perspectives of the role of money in late medieval England. In his larger monograph on economics and social bonds in medieval England, Lester Little argues that the twelfth through fifteenth centuries in England saw a progressive shift from a gift giving economy

– where money is treated as a material that establishes gift exchanges between individuals – to an exchange economy, where wealth is used to pay individuals to carry out specific tasks.163 The tension between these approaches, for Little, lies in their relation to societal bonds; the gift economy strengthens feudal relationships, social bonds, and class hierarchies, but the exchange economy fractures social bonds by having individuals conduct labor for wages instead of social responsibilities, leading to “acute problems involving impersonalism, money, and moral uncertainty.”164 If money becomes the impetus for action, superseding hierarchal models of social obligation, the concern for medieval thinkers is that those social relationships will break down along with the moral structures that surround them.

This debate mirrors that which takes place in Wynnere and Wastoure, where

Wastoure stands by his ability to forge and maintain social bonds while likewise shoring up the authority of social hierarchies. Wynnere, however, also warns against this process taken too far, where a lack of fiscal responsibility prevents even the bare maintenance of

best able to succeed, Nightingale further argues this is why London succeeded as a trade center in a period where other, previously stronger trade ports, saw great economic decline. However, it should be noted that market activity in the countryside was also important to the economic development of late medieval England; see M.M. Postan, The Medieval Economy and Society: An Economic History of Britain in the Middle Ages, (London: Penguin Books Ltd): 207. 163 Lester Little, Religious Poverty and the Profit Economy in Medieval Europe, (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1983), 19. 164 Little, 19. 114 those social bonds; it is one thing to lament a shift in social and economic practices that emphasized social order more than profit, but refusing to follow that shift could leave one financially destitute in the midst of drastically changing markets.165 Superficially reading

Little’s model into Wynnere and Wastoure would suggest that the Wynnere is the embodiment of all that is wrong with the shift to the profit economy while Wastoure upholds the old order, but the picture presented by both of these figures is more nuanced.

Wastoure is generally more concerned with social bonds, but rather than outright supplanting those bonds with business principles Wynnere pragmatically notes how the process of wynning enables the long term sustainment of those bonds. Wynnere and

Wastoure demonstrates that, when taken immoderately, the actions of the Wynnere become avaricious and undercut social bonds. Most relevant for the current study, this demonstration of the social repercussions of avaricious behavior is encapsulated in a discussion of the exchange of wealth with wives in the final portion of Wynnere and

Wastoure’s debate, including the larger discussion of the relationship between economics and social bonds within a discussion about economics and marriage.

165 A great deal of theological writing about money and trade condemns both, focusing on the potential corrupting influence that acts as a detriment to proper Christian social interactions and obligations. Roger Ladd’s Antimercantilism plots out this trend in several Middle English texts. However, in Medieval Economic Thought, Diana Wood notes that a shift occurs in late medieval England that takes a less absolute stance against money and trade; for Wood, this has a great deal to do with the increasing importance and presence of money and trade in the everyday lives of individuals in this period. As for the potential for economic failure by refusing to adhere to market changes, Christopher Dyer maintains in Making a Living in the Middle Ages that a large reason for economic growth in late medieval London lies with the ability of merchants to change strategies in response to market shifts. Pamela Nightingale supports this position in "The growth of London in the medieval English economy,” noting that due to its specific political, demographic, and market conditions London allowed merchants the ability to adjust more effectively than other English urban areas, leading London to economic growth while other major urban centers saw economic shrinkage in this period. 115

Despite its regular reference in other studies, Wynnere and Wastoure has been treated in depth less frequently than might be expected. The critical reception of Wynnere and Wastoure has followed two primary tracks: analysis of political significance and analysis of rhetoric. The former comprises the smaller part of the criticism, with research focused on either dating the poem or placing it in conversation with historical events, usually surrounding Edward III’s reign in the mid fourteenth century. Much as has occurred with the Vision of Piers the Plowman, Wynnere and Wastoure’s focus on the best method to ethically manage one’s household and wealth leads to larger speculation on what the poem says about these matters in their English historical context. Gardiner

Stillwell suggests that the poem browbeats the crown’s supporters into funding the war efforts,166 Jana Matthews focuses on concepts of misprison in the text and how they correlate with similar trials involving Judge Shareshull and fourteenth century legal cases,167 and Britton J. Harwood argues that the primary concern here is control of the peasantry in accordance with the labor statutes of 1351.168 However, much like studies on

Langland’s text, ambiguity and ethical uncertainty, especially in the poem’s final section, make these readings difficult to nail down in a larger teleological reading.169 Similarly, both Nicolas Jacobs’ article170 and Thomas H. Bestul’s monograph171 consider

166 Gardiner Stillwell, “Wynnere and Wastoure and the Hundred Years’ War,” A Journal of English Literary History, no. 8.4, (1941): 241-247. 167 Jana Matthews, “The Case for Misprison in Wynnere and Wastoure,” Notes and Queries, no. 46.3, (1999): 317-321. 168 Britton J. Harwood, “Anxious Over Peasants: Textual Disorder in Winner and Waster,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, no. 36.2, (2006): 291-319. 169 Many critics consider Wynnere and Wastoure in the context of Piers Plowman due to the shorter poem’s dialect and allegorical structure. While this study does not follow this trend, it is difficult to discuss the criticism of Wynnere and Wastoure without some brief mention of Langland’s text. 170 Nicolas Jacobs, “The Typology of Debate and the Interpretation of Wynnere and Wastoure,” The Review of English Studies, no. 36.144, (1985): 481-500. 116

Aristotelian aspects in the poem, plotting the debate between the titular allegorical figures in line with texts treating the Golden Mean. Ultimately, however, these readings are problematized by the king’s “solution.” In a Golden Mean dynamic, the final solution would normally create a synthesis that precludes the negative aspects of each extreme yet includes the beneficial qualities thereof. The king’s solution at the end of Wynnere and

Wastoure instead compartmentalizes and separates each figure and even encourages unethical behavior from them (456-503).172 Perhaps due to the difficulty of such readings in this text, the majority of criticism of Wynnere and Wastoure surrounds issues of poetic and rhetorical function.

The critical tradition surrounding the form of Wynnere and Wastoure focuses on the poem’s allegorical structure, the confusion of its plot, and potential incomprehension brought on by the allegorical figure’s shifting stances. Following Derek Pearsall’s brief argument that the poem serves as “a deliberate advertisement of the potential of alliterative verse,”173 Katherine Breen contends that Wynnere and Wastoure instead functions as an ars poetica for allegory, arguing that the poem demonstrates for Langland in particular the “use of speculative personification allegory to address an extramural audience considered unsusceptible to exemplary ethics.”174 Part of the reasoning for less thorough critical consideration of Wynnere and Wastoure may stem from a perception of

171 Thomas H. Bestul, Satire and Allegory in Wynnere and Wastoure, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1974). 172 While the end of the surviving text is incomplete, the king’s solution has already drifted from the usual dynamics of a Golden Mean allegorical debate. While it may be possible that the missing text brings these issues into an overarching synthesis, the tenor of what remains works against that possibility. 173 Derek Persall, Old English and Middle English Poetry, (Boston: Routledge & K. Paul, 1977): 160. 174 Katherine Breen, “The Need for Allegory: Wynnere and Wastoure as an Ars Poetica,” The Yearbook of Langland Studies, no. 26.1, (2012): 224. 117 confusion in its narrative, as each figure shifts topics and rhetorical positioning to construct and counter arguments. Stephanie Trigg argues that these shifting rhetorical positions make the ultimate construction of economic ideals difficult at best due to the lack of consistency, suggesting that the poem displays uncertainty and anxiety rather than a unified economic ideal.175 Later critics follow Trigg’s lead to focus on the rhetorical function of seeming confusion or ambiguity, arguing that this rhetorical confusion is ultimately a strategy for the real world application of the texts ideals, how households rely on a lack of clarity to function, and even that the confusion is a larger attempt to comment on various poetic forms being employed in the period.176 Critics discuss, at length, the role of incomprehension or poetic demonstration in Wynnere and Wastoure, but with the exception of a bare handful of studies little consideration of depth is given to the economic aspects of the poem.

In many ways, one could easily expect an allegorical representation of the generation of profit to be caricaturized in an Ebenezeer Scrooge like figure, one that lives solely and selfishly according to the health of their bottom line.177 Wynnere’s initial speech goes some distance towards supporting such an image, despite his self-

175 Stephanie Trigg, “The Rhetoric of Excess in Winner and Waster,” The Yearbook of Langland Studies, no. 3.1. 176 For these perspectives, see Allan Westphal, “Issues of Personification and Debate in Wynnere and Wastoure,” English Studies, no. 82.6, (2001): 481-496.; Cara Hersh, “‘Wyse wordes withinn’: Private Property and Public Knowledge in Wynnere and Wastoure.” Modern Philology, no. 107.4, (2010): 527; David V. Harrington, “Indeterminacy in ‘Winner and Waster’ and ‘The Parliament of the Three Ages,’” The Chaucer Review, no. 20.3, (1986); and Jerry D. James, “The Undercutting of Conventions in Wynnere and Wastoure,” Modern Language Quarterly, no. 25.3, (1964): 243-258. 177 The miser figure is first used as a demonstration of avarice by Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, who uses describes the miser through “a series of external signs which all point up his fear and anxiety at the though of giving up some of the immeasurable wealth which he thought would bring him security” (Newhauser 16). Gregory the Great builds on this example and further points out areas in which the “miserliness cloaks itself under the name of frugality” (Newhauser 104). 118 identification as “a wy that alle this werlde helpis” (222-23).178 Wynnere is quick to identify the two things that make him happy: thriftiness and income. Wynnere lauds

“[t]hoo that spedfully will spare and spende not to grete, / Lyve appon littill-whattes”

(224-225). Those that exercise restraint and thrift in their purchases are most deserving of praise, as this limits the reduction of wealth, feeding into the larger image of Wynnere stretching the holds of his storehouses. To further round off the caricature of the stingy, profit minded individual, Wynnere is most happy when hoarding his wealth: “Aye when gadir my gudes than glades myn hert” (227). Here, the gathering of goods could both refer both to the physical grouping of the goods already obtained by Wynnere or a more metaphoric representation of the generation of new profit by gaining new goods. In either case, Wynnere’s defining characteristic lies with the affection of physical objects, currency, or the generation of both.

This caricature continues with Wynnere’s first critiques of Wastoure. Wynnere opposes Wastoure’s spending because the process of spending itself reduces the wealth that Wynnere has stored:

Alle that I wynn thurgh witt he wastes thurgh pryde; I gedir, I glene, and he lattys goo sone; I pryke and I pryne, and he the purse opynes. Why hase this cayteffe no care how men corne sellen? His londes liggen alle ley, his lomes aren solde, Downn bene his dowfehowses, drye bene his poles; The devyll wounder one the wele he weldys at home, Bot hungere and heghe howses and howndes full kene. (230-37)

178 This and all subsequent citations of Wynnere and Wastoure come from the TEAMS text edition edited by Warren Ginsburg. Wynnere and Wastoure. Ed. Warren Ginsberg. (Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, 1992). 119

Wynnere’s first complaints stem from how his hoarding of wealth is undercut by

Wastoure’s spending. Wynnere emphasizes the labor involved with the obtaining of his goods, but despite his efforts to “gedir,” “glene,” “pryke,” and “pryne,” Wastoure spends those goods all too easily. Furthermore, Wynnere’s description of his and Wastoure’s respective efforts demonstrates the opposition of the two characters’ efforts. Wynnere’s efforts are all described with active verbs tied to agricultural or industrial labor that produces commodities needed at large. Wastoure’s spending, on the other hand, is described with verbs reflecting the squandering of that labor. Wastoure “lattys goo sone”

Wynnere’s goods and “the purse opynes,” as if those profits were livestock carefully herded and Wastoure, in a moment of flippant apathy, lets open the herding pen of the purse and allows them to wander away. Wynnere goes on to elaborate on this perceived laziness with outrage, wondering why Wastoure does not “care how men corne sellen,” how he could leave his lands “alle ley,” goods unsold, dovecotes and fish pools unstocked. Each of these components of domestic labor represent economic potential unfulfilled and wasted, so much so that Wynnere wonders how hunger and destitution are not the common condition in Wastoure’s household. For Wynnere, not exploiting one’s available economic resources amounts to waste that goes beyond unwise activity, ascribing moral judgment upon the lord who would fail to properly manage his household’s financial dealings.

Wastoure responds to Wynnere’s personal attacks in kind, but where Wynnere critiques Wastoure’s work ethic Wastoure points to how the process of hoarding renders

120 commodities and currency valueless. Wastoure describes Wynnere’s storehouse as a physical representation of hoarding:

When thou haste waltered and went and wakede alle the nyghte, And iche a wy in this werlde that wonnes the abowte, And hase werpede thy wyde howses full of wolle sakkes - The bemys benden at the rofe, siche bakone there hynges, Stuffed are sterlynges undere stelen bowndes. (248-252)

Wynnere’s storehouse is so full with food goods (bakone, wolle sakkes) and currency

(sterlynges) that the building itself is bowing beneath the weight of hanging goods and bulging from the sides. The image here is one of a building which has hoarded goods beyond the point of maintaining structural integrity, where possessing so many goods is ultimately too detrimental to that building’s long term function. Beyond the impact of excessive levels of hoarded wealth upon the building itself, Wastoure goes on to argue that the process of hoarding adversely impacts the value of both goods and currency;

“What scholde worthe of that wele if no waste come? / Some rote, some ruste, some ratons fede” (253-254). Here Wastoure serves up two main critiques of hoarding, the first involving a larger question about the role and function of wealth with the second a more specific example of the potential futility in storing wealth over long periods of time. The second line points to the potential degradation of the goods themselves, either through exposure of currency to the elements (ruste), the decomposition of food goods stored too long (rote), or the loss of some food product due to the infestation of pests (ratons fede).

Each of these cases argues against the efficacy of hoarding as a long term storage method, demonstrating that the storehouse is anything but a stasis chamber however safe it may feel. The implied conditional statement here suggests that if some wealth is to be

121 wasted whether it is hoarded or not, why keep it locked away, out of circulation and accordingly useless?

Wastoure’s larger point here is that the process of Wynnere’s hoarding harms society at large. After calling for Wynnere to “Let be thy cramynge of thi kystes for

Cristis lufe of heven,” Wastoure points out that the poor and wider public could make better use of stored wealth; “Late the peple and the pore hafe parte of thi silvere; / For if thou wydwhare scholde walke and waytten the sothe, / Thou scholdeste reme for rewthe, in siche ryfe bene the pore” (255-258). The overt thrust of this passage encourages

Wynnere to donate more charitable funds to the poor, directly emptying his coffers to help the needy, but the inclusion of “the peple” in this statement along with the wasting of currency and goods in storehouses suggests another aspect of the ills of hoarding, the removal of such wealth from circulating in the economy. By hoarding this wealth,

Wynnere prevents it from being exchanged with others within the economy; if Wynnere were to use his stored currency to purchase commodities, the sellers of those commodities would then have the necessary wealth to conduct exchanges of their own for other commodities, feeding a larger cycle of buying and selling that carries the potential to benefit all participants in the economy. For this cycle to operate, however, circulation is vital as the movement of wealth between participants allows for the continued operation of market exchanges; when an economy becomes stagnant, market exchanges become increasingly difficult and each participant in the economy suffers. Instead of doing as Wastoure suggests, Wynnere has seized assets and, in doing so, seized their movement through the economy. Without currency flowing through the market buyers

122 and sellers are less able to employ it as a medium of exchange for their own purchases, breaking down the larger cycle of exchange as the flow of wealth grinds to a halt.

Wastoure closes his response by indicating the judgment that Wynnere will face for the uncharitable act of hoarding, being “hanged in helle for that thou here spareste” (260).179

Wynnere indicates that his gathering of wealth guarantees against future periods of scarcity, but Wastoure argues that the sinful practice of such hoarding ultimately harms the hoarder on the day of judgment, suggesting that an investment of charity today brings a greater return of investment after death.

To defend his behavior, Wastoure notes how spending maintains social bonds and hierarchy and, inversely, that Wynnere’s actions harm those bonds. Specifically,

Wastoure notes that the spending of wealth aids in self-identification and failing to spend according to one’s station blurs the lines between individuals of different social standings: “Woldeste thou hafe lordis to lyfe as laddes on fote? / Prelates als prestes that the parischen yemes? / Prowde marchandes of pris as pedders in towne?” (375-377). By maintaining a lifestyle that is equal to someone of lower socioeconomic status, Wastoure argues that one equates themselves to the lower class. For Wastoure, the spending of wealth is a performance of one’s identity as defined by their economic potential.

Furthermore, this hierarchy of socioeconomic status is borne out by nature: “If fewlis flye schold forthe and fongen be never, / And wild bestis in the wodde wone al thaire lyve, /

And fisches flete in the flode, and ichone ete other, / Ane henne at ane halpeny by halfe

179 Ginsberg’s notes plot the allusion to Matthew’s Judgment of the Sheep and the Goats here, emphasizing the need for charitable acts in the Christian ethical structure. More than not acting charitably, however, Wastoure indicates that Wynnere’s hoarding directly harms others by denying them of currency needed to operate in the market. 123 yeris ende, / Schold not a ladde be in londe a lorde for to serve?” (384-388). The natural state of the world is dependent upon these hierarchies, with lower creatures staying within and hunted from their respective habitats. If the purpose of the lower creatures is to serve the higher creatures of their ecosystem, the subservient role of the lower classes operates within nature. In all of this, however, Wastoure acknowledges that those who would focus on the accumulation of wealth are dependent upon those who spend: “This wate thou full wele witterly thiselven, / Whoso wele schal wyn, a wastour moste he fynde, / For if it greves one gome, it gladdes another” (389-391). Wastoure plots out the reciprocal nature of an economy, where wealth needs to be spent in order for others to gain it. The identity of winners and wasters in this dynamic is dependent on the performance of the other; without anyone to buy, the seller cannot function as a seller, and without sellers buyers cannot buy. Furthermore, the lord is defined against his placement over the footman, and the footman in his duty to the lord. Thus, for Wastoure, spending fits in with the hierarchies of both natural and social construction, normalizing and performing the relationships by demonstrating their differences in spending. Without spending, these differences and the hierarchies surrounding them break down, destablizing social order.

In response Wynnere attacks the irresponsibility of Wastoure’s property management, specifically the trend to spend resources with little to no concern of future scarcity. Focusing on the management of logging rights, Wynnere accuses Wastoure of selling his wood even in times of plenty; “Ye sellyn wodd aftir wodde in a wale tyme,

Bothe the oke and the assche and all that ther growes” (396-397). The practice of forest

124 management is a point where Wastoure’s lack of foresight comes into play due to the necessity of planning over the course of generations. As a resource that requires decades to replenish itself, logging rights need to be carefully conserved and cultivated in order to sustain production over time, a process exacerbated with tree varieties such as oak and ash that require greater amounts of time to mature. Wynnere further undercuts

Wastoure’s emphasis on social bonds by identifying how the irresponsible management of these logging rights prevents the development of social bonds with Wastoure’s children: “The spyres and the yonge sprynge ye spare to your children, / And sayne God wil graunt it his grace to grow at the last, /For to save to your sones: bot the schame es your ownn” (398-400). In addition to shaming Wastoure for mismanagement of family property, Wynnere’s move also argues that social bonds must be maintained across generations rather than only across lines of feudal relationships. In addition to leaving his son bereft of the forest’s resources, Wastoure has also lost the venue for hunting, a place where guests could hunt “bukkes ynewe / To lach and to late goo, to lightten thaire hertis” (405-406). More than casting away resources for future generations, Wastoure has deprived himself of a place to engage in hunting, an activity that itself could further establish and strengthen social bonds. Wastoure maintains that spending is necessary for social order, but Wynnere argues that spending irresponsibly creates as much risk to social bonds as not spending at all.

While a multilayered retort to Wastoure’s points, Wynnere’s rhetoric in this section anomalously focuses on women. Wynnere indicates that Wastoure’s unwise logging practices stem from a desire to please his wife, “Lesse and ye wrethe your wifes,

125 thaire willes to folowe” (395) and that Wynnere “Wastes alle wilfully” for “your wyfes to paye” (408).180 For the first time in their debate Wynnere attributes his opponent’s prodigality to a desire to give wealth to his wife, indicating that the very nature of such a relationship is itself prodigal. The mismanaged wood pays for “slabbande sleves” and ermine lining, both clothing items of conspicuous consumption often targeted by

Sumptuary Laws.181 The conspicuous nature of such fashion commodities sits poorly with Wynnere as, from his perspective, they are the very nature of waste. Dagged sleeves are purely decorative feature of late medieval women’s fashion, using extra material not needed for a dress’s composition and often employing extraneous decorative elements, and ermine lining is a luxurious fur that has much more to do with displaying wealth than providing warmth. These items exist purely to promote social standing of the lady wearing them, promoting personal wealth and following the fashion trends of the elite, and provide no profitable benefit from Wynnere’s perspective. As a counter example,

Wynnere points to Mary, that “Allthofe scho walt al this werlde, hir wedes wer pore /

For to gyf ensample of siche, for to schewe other / For to leve pompe and pride, that poverté ofte schewes” (420-422). Rather than acting as a symbol of her social status, or that which she aspires to, Mary’s clothing is plain and poor despite her position as Queen of Heaven. As the ideal model of womanhood, the wives that have demanded wealth

180 While “wyfes” here is plural, I take it as a general approach owing to the allegorical nature of these figures. It is possible, however, that this refers more in general to Wastoure’s women, not his wife. This reading, however, does not detract significantly from my argument and still leans towards the contractual nature of the relationship between Wastoure and his “leman.” 181 See Frances Elizabeth Baldwin’s Sumptuary Legislation and Personal Regulation in England, (Baltimore: John Hopkins Press, 1926). 126 from Wastoure should, according to Wynnere, be content with poor clothing instead of flaunting wealth in textile form.

As might be expected, Wastoure responds that what Wynnere sees as impractical waste fosters social bonds and benefits. Wastoure once again returns to the core differences in valuation applied to commodities and services between himself and

Wynnere. In Wynnere’s argument, fanciful clothing carries significant cost of material and labor but only provides the benefit of serving the lady’s pride, thus making the giving of such clothing to one’s lady an indulgence in vice. Wastoure, however, questions

Wynnere’s estimation of the cost behind such clothing; “What hafe oure clothes coste the, caytef, to by, / That thou schal birdes upbrayd of thair bright wedis / Sythen that we vouchesafe that the silver payen” (425-427). Wastoure criticizes the antagonistic language leveled at women over these garments, suggesting that their cost proves insufficient to validate such an acerbic approach. Furthermore, Wastoure alludes to a geometric economic construction in the gifting of clothing to women: as it is the lords who have “the silver payen,” Wynnere cannot properly argue for the cost and benefit of that exchange. More to the point, Wastoure argues that giving wives expensive garments is itself a system of exchange between the lord and his lady:

It lyes wele for a lede his leman to fynde, Aftir hir faire chere to forthir hir herte. Then will scho love hym lelely as hir lyfe one, Make hym bolde and bown with brandes to smytte, To schonn schenchipe and schame ther schalkes ere gadird; And if my peple ben prode, me payes alle the better To see tham faire and free tofore with myn eghne. (428-434)

127

The lord provides his lady with the textile commodities in order to “forthir hir herte,” solidifying that lady’s affection for him. In exchange for this clothing, the lady will “love hym lelely” and the securement of the lady’s affection and loyalty bolsters the lord’s efficacy in combat in addition to avoiding shame and improper behavior in the eyes of the public (430-432). This exchange thus provides a contractual relationship between lord and lady similar to the feudal bonds that Wastoure upholds throughout his arguments.

The lord provides specialized clothing for his leman that displays their relationship, in this case rich clothing instead of livery, and in exchange that lady remains loyal to the lord and provides support in battle and social engagements. What Wynnere sees as frivolous spending on clothing without utility Wastoure argues is payment and public declaration of social relationship and obligation between lord and lady.

Ultimately, Wynnere and Wastoure demonstrates a larger concern with the role of money and social relationships. Generally, spending wealth is more beneficial to social bonds as it can instill and reinforce relationships and responsibilities. A focus on gaining wealth, however, leads to individuals putting personal economic benefit over that of the community. In regards to marriage, then, Wynnere is more concerned that his money is spent on frivolous things for his wife than in maintaining his social relationship through gifts that maintain her happiness. As can be seen through Wastoure’s arguments, those gifts come with a wide range of benefits that generally aid and support the health of the relationship, but Wynnere’s concern over initial cost overshadows any acknowledgment of long term, non-monetary benefit. This mercantile approach to the relationships follows

Little’s model, suggesting that the more one focuses on winning the more one tends

128 towards avaricious behavior which harms social bonds. In the context of marriage, avaricious desire leads to an improper exchange, both to a failure to consider the parameters of the exchange for both parties and a displacement of desire through a lack of moderation.

III. Conclusion

In their discussion of avarice through the context of marriage, both the Confessio

Amantis’ Book V and Wynnere and Wastoure are concerned with the deleterious effects that improper desire can have on the health of a marital economy. For the Confessio

Amantis, this concern is depicted through Amans’ ever increasing demonstration of avaricious desire, culminating in the possibility of taking his lady’s love, or at least sexual goods, by force or deception. For Wynnere and Wastoure, avaricious desire leads to inappropriate prioritization, with Wynnere becoming so concerned over the hoarding of his wealth that he ignores the benefits that the social contract of marriage provides.

Taken together, these texts’ on marriage use the economic dynamics of avarice, and the harm that avarice has on economies, to demonstrate the need for a reciprocal dynamic in marriage. The role of social support in marriage here is vital in how it complicates the narrative of marriage in late medieval England. Despite the academic push against progressive historical narratives, modern perspectives of medieval marriage often focus on how legal and theological perspectives restrict women within marriage. Yet, texts such as the Confessio Amantis and Wynnere and Wastoure suggest a more nuanced approach, one that certainly still operates within those restrictive perspectives but also suggest an

129 ideal of reciprocal exchange within marriage, that wives best function as partners of trade than solely as moeble.

Perhaps most interesting with both Wynnere and Wastoure and Book V of the

Confessio Amantis is that neither explicitly focuses on marriage, yet marriage demonstrates a key part of the ethical framework for each. In the Confessio, the confessional structure filters its Christian context through the role of Genius as priest of

Venus. Love thus underpins the entire text, and in Book V the solution to Avarice comes from the free exchange of a man with his lady, Gower’s emphasis on “honeste love” constituting marriage. Because of this filtering effect of Love on the Confessio Amantis, the larger issue with Avarice lies with its disruptive nature to the social bonds of lovers, disrupting marriage’s ability to weather the “dangerous changes” of the world. In

Wynnere and Wastoure, each allegorical figure’s perspective towards wives demonstrates the text’s larger issues with the relationship between excessive spending or earning in regards to social bonds. The marriage contract itself comprises a social compact dictating behaviors and levels of support between its members. Wastoure's perspective of that contract functions as synecdoche for the text’s larger commentary on the harmful effects of avarice on social bonds. On its surface, Wynnere and Wastoure performs as another text seeking the solution of an Aristotelian Golden Mean, but, much as Wastoure demonstrates a lack of understanding of social responsibilities in the compact of marriage, the text continuously portrays avarice as more dangerous to social hierarchies, obligations, and support. Rather than a text seeking a balance between the two, Wynnere

130 and Wastoure contends that both largess and avarice are dangerous, but ultimately it is avarice that breaks down social structures in pursuing further wealth.

Read together, these texts contend that avaricious desire disrupts the social contracts of marriage, disrupting the ameliorative effects of balanced marital exchange.

Furthermore, improperly moderated desire can lead to inappropriate treatments of wives as simply objects of exchange that can be hoarded or misspent to the detriment of the marriage at large. Rather than a commodity to be purchased, a wife represents a trading partner within the economy of marriage, and if that partner is not able to continue exchanging affection, through processes of either hoarding or devalued desire, the socially beneficial components of marriage also dissipate. For Gower, the objective is to moderate desire through the “honeste love” of marriage. For Wynnere and Wastore, wives represent the potential for partners that provide social support, as long as both parties adhere to the social contracts of marriage. Rather than seeing marriage as simply an outlet for lust, these texts construct marriage itself as an institution that benefits all parties involved, suggesting that more is to be gained from trading with a marital partner than from abstaining from the marital economy entirely.

131

Chapter 3: The Economic Agency of Widowhood

When thinking about Chaucer’s treatment of widowhood in Troilus and Criseyde, it is useful to consider the life of the poet’s own granddaughter, Alice de la Pole or Alice

Chaucer.182 While her father, Thomas Chaucer, had strong connections of his own, including some likely ties to John of Gaunt, Alice Chaucer used marriage, and remarriage, to climb the social ladder from lower aristocracy to the Duchess of Suffolk, her son even having a possible claim to the English throne.183 Alice Chaucer married three times: first to John Phelps, then Thomas Montagu, Earl of Salisbury, and finally

William de la Pole, Earl and later Duke of Suffolk.184 Alice’s final marriage resulted in a child and her becoming a notable, and notorious, figure at court: “In 1445 Alice accompanied the future Queen Margaret of Anjou to England and came to enjoy such prominence at court that her removal from the household was demanded in the parliament of 1450–51.”185 The scope of Alice Chaucer’s social climbing through remarriage saw her reach great heights, and her status as widow following Suffolk’s

182 Most scholarly interest in Alice Chaucer is invested in her possible reading habits, and her library has been the source of a range of speculation. For more see Carol M. Meale, “Reading Women’s Culture in Fifteenth-Century England: The Case of Alice Chaucer,” Medievalitas: Reading the Middle Ages. Piero Boitani and Anna Torti, eds, (Rochester, D.S. Brewer, 1996). 183 Karen K. Jambeck, “The Library of Alice Chaucer, Duchess of Suffolk: A Fifteenth Century Owner of a ‘Book of la Citee de Dames,’” The Profane Arts of the Middle Ages / Les arts profanes du moyen-âges, no. 7.2, (1998): 106-135. 184 Jambeck, 108. 185 Rowena E. Archer, “Chaucer , Alice, duchess of Suffolk (c.1404–1475),” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (Oxford University Press, 2004), online edn, May 2011, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/54434 132 death also found Alice in a position of power, possessing a sizeable estate, negotiating the potential marriage of her son to Richard, Duke of York’s daughter, and even serving as

Margaret of Anjou’s gaoler in 1471.186 Alice Chaucer’s narrative demonstrates two aspects of widowhood in late medieval England. First, that the common experience for widows, especially young ones, was to remarry and bring along some of their previous husbands’ wealth with them, allowing for the building of wealth and power from one marriage to the next. Second, and important for this chapter, is that a widow’s economic agency comes largely from her ambiguous marital status, as one once but no longer married. Young widows had the potential to marry once more and build the estate of their next husband. Older widows, on the other hand, possessed economic agency through control of their husband’s estate, controlling property either inherited directly, retained from their dower, or in trust until their children come of age. In Chaucer’s Troilus and

Criseyde, Criseyde attempts to retain the control of her estate as the latter category while still firmly in the former.

This chapter comes from two overarching questions: what is the function of

Criseyde’s widowhood and why is marriage not considered a viable option within the narrative? Chaucer emphasizes Criseyde’s identity as widow in her initial descriptions, seen solely in widow’s robes in books I and II and claiming her widowed status in the attempt to stave off Pandarus. Yet, beyond initial emphasis the text provides no details about Criseyde’s marriage and beyond book II Criseyde’s widowhood is seemingly

186 See Archer. 133 ignored.187 Criseyde’s identity is further complicated by her role as daughter of a disgraced father; she draws ire for Calkas’ traitorous actions yet also enjoys control of his goods in her father’s absence. The liminal state that Criseyde’s dual status as widow and daughter of a disgraced father both grants her economic liberty and renders her vulnerable, a matter that comes to a head in Criseyde’s interior monologue in Book II.

Considering a potential romantic union with Troilus, Criseyde is preoccupied with how such a union would affect her;

I am myn owene womman, wel at ese – I thank it God – as after myn estat, Right yong, and stonde unteyd in lusty leese, Withouten jalousie or swich debat: Shal noon housbonde seyn to me ‘Check mat!’ For either they ben ful of jalousie, Or maisterfull, or loven novelrie. (II.750-756)188 As both a widow and the daughter of an absent, and defamed, father, Criseyde is her

“owen womman,” in a position of relative autonomy, possessing control of her father’s goods as well as any property from her husband, and yet “unteyd in lusty leese.”

Furthermore, Criseyde indicates that a romantic engagement carries the risks of a partner who is jealous, domineering, or has fleeting interest that may move onto other women before long (II.753-756). Rather than a sudden realization of love for Troilus, Criseyde’s interior monologue here presents a careful consideration of both the costs and benefits of romantic involvement, consideration seated within her own relative position as an unattached woman.

187 Chaucer’s only mention of Criseyde’s previous marriage comes in Book V and is quite brief: “I hadde a lord, to whom I wedded was, / The whos myn herte al was, til that he deyde” (V.975-976). 188 Geoffrey Chaucer, The Riverside Chaucer, Larry D. Benson, ed, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987). All subsequent citations from this edition. 134

Much like Criseyde’s widowhood, the conundrum over potential marriage between Troilus and Criseyde raises further questions, especially when such a union would solve many of the problems facing the couple. No legal bar to marriage is present in either Troilus or Criseyde, both being unmarried and Criseyde beyond the legal age of consent. As a widow and possessor of her father’s property, guaranteed by Hector,

Criseyde retains a large enough estate to serve as dowry for the union. Outside of the romantic conventions of clandestine love affairs there seems to be little reason for the couple not to be wed, and many of the problems the lovers face would be solved by marriage. Criseyde’s reputation, which she fears would be tarnished if word of the affair gets out, would not be an issue if sexual activity with Troilus occurred under the coverture of marriage. The need for secrecy at large, including Pandarus’ continued role in matters, would be unnecessary with a marriage. If she were married to Troilus,

Criseyde would no longer need to worry about reprisals from the Trojan populace over her father’s betrayal as she would be more firmly under the umbrella of Troy’s royal family. Most importantly, Criseyde would not be as readily traded as a commodity in exchange for Trojan prisoners by the parliament as she would be under the coverture of

Troilus’ legal identity.189 Even if Criseyde is a commodity, marriage with Troilus would functionally make the widow his property, outside of the authority of her father’s household and under the political power of Priam’s household. Despite all of the potential

189 In “Woman in Medieval Society,” The Chaucer Review, no. 13.3 (1979): 177-200, David Aers notes that the exchange of Criseyde for Trojan prisoners functionally places her in the status equivalent of a prisoner in Troy, despite the legal protections and objections raised by Hector. Even Priam’s eldest son has little ground to sway parliament from trafficking Criseyde; Aers puts it, “she is being sold because she is a powerless commodity belonging to a male ruling group now prepared to cash her presently increased market value” (190). 135 solutions that marriage presents to the problems these lovers face, the only mention of matrimony comes with Troilus’ offer to elope; “And lat us stele awey bitwexe us tweye; /

And think that folie is, whan man may chese, / For accident his substaunce ay to lese”

(IV.1503-1505). Troilus makes a desperate plea, downplaying the troubles the couple would face in such a clandestine arrangement, but in many ways this suggestion is too little too late. The Trojan parliament has already made its arrangements, Calkas has already enforced his claim over Criseyde, and Criseyde’s potential marital agency as widow has reduced to that of a daughter under her father’s authority.190 Considering the lack of common romantic impediments to it and the range of problems it would solve for

Troilus and Criseyde, why is the option of marriage generally absent from their love affair?191

One angle to consider for Criseyde’s relative position in Troy is marital consent.

The function of marital consent in late medieval England would seem, on the outset, to distribute marital agency equally across genders. According to canon law, marriage in late medieval England required “nothing more than the willing consent of two eligible

190 For Aers, Criseyde’s counterpoints demonstrates how much she has been subsumed by male authority, that she puts her own happiness below the importance of male ownership, war, and political exchange of prisoners (193). 191 Some scholars have tackled this question with very different perspectives. In “Masochism, Masculinity, and the Pleasures of Troilus,” Men and Masculinities in Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, (Rochester, NY : D.S. Brewer, 2008), Holly Crocker and Tison Pugh suggest that one reason for Troilus not to consider marriage lies with his pleasure in suffering. If Troilus were to marry Criseyde, he would no longer suffer and thus be denied the performative source of his pleasure. Kathryn Jacobs, on the other hand, puts this in a larger conversation of Chaucer’s “widow problem,” noting that “most of Chaucere’s widows…have emerged from marriage much the worse for the experience. Neither wealthy nor socially prominent, they are mothers, literally or figuratively, not mates” (76). Chaucer certainly seems to take a different perspective on widowhood in various texts, the Wife a very different designation of widow from Criseyde, but this chapter will focus more on the function of her widowhood specifically. 136 persons.”192 Emma Lipton argues that this component of the sacramental model of marriage provides an ideological staging ground for “social values of lay authority and a horizontal vision of governance.”193 The requirement of consent from both bride and groom, irrespective of outside forces, seemingly grants the unmarried woman the potential of agency: as long as she has not consented to marriage she retains the potential to, at a future date, consent to or refuse marriage. For Lipton, this form of marital consent, a sacrament that does not require the priesthood, allows the laity to push back against the authority of the Church. Yet, the marital agency afforded by this model is more illusory than it appears at first glance. Tackling the issues surrounding agency, marriage, and political theory in Piers Plowman, Elizabeth Fowler points out the problematic nature of the potential agency of the unmarried woman taken alongside the legal conditions of marital coverture: “The pervasiveness of the sexuality created by the structure of coverture is powerful: it precedes the state of marriage. If women are brought up to be agents of other principals, to be obedient to the will of others, then with what free will do they consent? Their consent is impoverished by being produced by an endless consent they are brought up to give.”194 The agency of consent seemingly granted to the maiden is illusory when the choice it affords is to whom one will relinquish their legal personhood; the legal parameters of late medieval English marriage erases the identity of

192 Elizabeth Fowler, “Civil Death and the Maiden: Agency and the Conditions of Contract in Piers Plowman,” Speculum, no. 70. 4 (Oct., 1995), 766. For more on the legal conditions of marital consent in late medieval England, see Richard H. Helmholz, Canon Law and the Law of England, (London: Hambledon Press, 1987) and Charles Donahue, Jr., "The Canon Law on the Formation of Marriage and Social Practice in the Later Middle Ages," Journal of Family History, no. 8 (1983): 1-53. 193 Emma Lipton, Affections of the Mind: The Politics of Sacramental Marriage in Late Medieval English Literature. Notre Dame: U of Notre Dame P, 2007, 4. 194 Fowler, 785. 137 the married woman, placing her under the personhood of her husband. Potential agency for the unmarried woman exists only as long as she has not exercised it, rendered inert once the woman consents to marriage.

A useful comparison when thinking about the potential agency of the unmarried woman is to consider the concept in physics of potential kinetic energy. An object’s potential kinetic energy exists purely due to its position relative to other objects and outside forces; a ball at the top of a hill does not possess inherent energy in and of itself, but its position at the top of an incline, the gravitational pull of the Earth, and the physical interaction between the shape of the ball and the incline of the hill to overcome friction all together result in a potential of kinetic energy for the ball to roll down the hill. Once the ball has rolled down the hill into a valley, that potential energy is spent and the ball remains inert until acted upon by an outside force. In much the same way, the potential agency of the unmarried woman exists due to her liminal position in the social and economic conditions surrounding medieval marriage. Her position as an unmarried woman, the theological requisites of marital consent, and the economic components of a marital union, both for the new couple’s household as well as that of their respective families, provide the potential agency for that unmarried woman to choose to consent.

Yet, much like the ball at rest in the valley, once she has given her consent to marriage that potential agency is spent and she is placed under the legal identity of her husband.

The position of the unmarried woman presupposes the loss of that potential agency, allowing the nominal concept of agency all the while carrying the threat of ending legal personhood once that agency is enacted. In Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde, the titular

138 heroine attempts to maintain the potential marital agency provided by her status as a widow in Troy. Criseyde’s widowhood provides an interesting perspective on the matter, as she has once spent her potential agency in marriage but also regained it in widowhood.

Yet, that liminal state simultaneously grants her new potential agency while also rendering her vulnerable; Criseyde’s potential marital agency is based on her unfixed status as widow and abandoned daughter, her possession of her father’s estate, and her presence in Troy under the protection of Priam’s sons. A shift in any of these three dynamics has drastic repercussions to Criseyde’s marital agency and, ultimately, her fleeting liberty.

The complications of Criseyde’s widowed status and the lack of marriage both come from the same source: the widow’s unfixed status. As a widow, Criseyde maintains control over the dower from her marriage as well as a large portion of her husband’s property, and with his defection Criseyde retains control over her father’s estate as well.

Being thus unattached yet in control of wealth, Criseyde has a level of socioeconomic agency that is not subsumed under the authority of a male relative or spouse. However, that autonomy also renders Criseyde vulnerable to the threats and influence of other agents in the text, forcing her to seek protection from Hector and others. The text becomes preoccupied with fixing Criseyde under the authority of male characters, placing her under some form of protection from Hector, Pandarus, Troilus, Deiphobus, Calkas, and Diomedes. Criseyde’s widowed status allows her to operate as a femme sole with control of her husband’s and father’s property, yet that unmarried state also results in her being trafficked as a sexual commodity between these male figures. As a widow Criseyde

139 may not be subject to the legal coverture of a male authority, either through her father or a husband, but that state has also restored the potential for marital agency once more and placed Criseyde back into the market of marital exchange. If Criseyde marries Troilus, that agency is spent and she is once again subsumed under the legal identity of a male authority, no longer operating as femme sole. Criseyde’s deliberation over a union with

Troilus thus comes from an awareness of the vulnerable position she occupies, the threats to her property and person, and what Criseyde stands to lose if she mismanages her liminal marital state.

Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde has undergone regular critical scrutiny over the past several decades, ranging across a number of foci. Relevant to this study are two areas that have, in recent decades, fallen by the critical wayside: marriage and widowhood in Troilus and Criseyde. Following an apparently engaging panel at the

International Congress on Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo in 1973, Henry Ansgar Kelley and John Maguire both published articles reading the relationship between Troilus and

Criseyde as a clandestine marriage rather than a love affair, evoking the practice of such clandestine unions in Chaucer’s day and the legal difficulties surrounding them.195

Ultimately both Kelley and Maguire present Chaucer’s text as a moral on contemporary perspectives on sex, love, and marriage, starting from the assumption that extramarital love affairs are immoral and thus Chaucer could not write a text glorifying such a relationship. Both Kelley and Maguire plot out interesting points in Book III that resonate

195 Henry Ansgar Kelley, “Clandestine Marriage and Chaucer’s ‘Troilus,’” Viator, no. 4, (1973): 435-458, and John Maguire, “The Clandestine Marriage of Troilus and Criseyde,” The Chaucer Review, no. 8.4, (1974): 262-278. The age of both of these sources is best demonstrated in the stakes they establish in their discussions, yet they do highlight noteworthy aspects of Book III. 140 with late medieval marriage, but there is far more room for nuance in Chaucer’s text than either critic’s article indicates. Following these studies, and Karl P. Wentersdorf’s 1980 critique of Kelley’s argumentation,196 the matter of marriage in Troilus and Criseyde remains largely absent from criticism. In many ways this silence makes a great deal of sense: Kelley’s proof is demonstrated as tenuous at best, and the love affair between the text’s titular figures fits more smoothly within the tropes of courtly romance. Rather than reincarnate Kelley or Maguire’s positions on clandestine marriage, I would push back and say that the potential for marriage underlies a great deal of the text. As noted above, marriage seems to be the express solution for several of the issues faced by the lovers, and Criseyde herself has once been married. Yet, marriage as a topic is conspicuously absent from the text until Criseyde must leave Troy, where Troilus suggests eloping and raises concerns that her father will “glose [Criseyde] / To ben a wif” (IV.1471-1472).

Book III may not involve outright marriage, but it certainly evokes marital concepts through the issues, contract, and exchanges it raises.

Similarly absent from critical discussion are matters surrounding Criseyde’s widowhood. While Michelle L. Middleton wrote a Master’s Thesis on the subject in

2005,197 most studies touch, at best, tangentially on Criseyde’s status as a widow. T.E.

Hill’s 2006 "She, this in blak": Vision, Truth, and Will in Geoffrey Chaucer's Troilus and

196 Karl P. Wentersdorf, “Some Observations on the Concept of Clandestine Marriage in Troilus and Criseyde,” The Chaucer Review, no. 15.2, (1980): 101- 126. Wentersdorf lays out the contentious arguments put forth by Kelley, several of which Kelley noted himself, and breaks down the overall problems with this perspective. 197 Michelle Middleton, “In widewes habit blak”: Chaucer’s Criseyde and Late-Medieval Widows, Thesis submitted to Central Connecticut State University, 2005. While I feel it is necessary to briefly touch on this thesis as one of the only studies on Criseyde’s widowhood in the past twenty years, I must also acknowledge that, per the notes in the thesis itself, this study was completed as part of a continuing education MA degree. If Middleton had pursued the subject further for publication or doctoral work she likely would have touched on other issues, but I have to treat what we have available. 141

Criseyde utilizes the widow’s weeds as part of his larger argument of Criseyde as a knowing and willing subject in her love affair with Troilus, but the implications of her widowhood are not discussed in any great detail.198 Much as with marriage, the absence of scholarship on widowhood may reflect its treatment in the text. As noted above,

Criseyde is clearly identified as a widow early in the text and in Book II attempts to use her widowed status to deflect some of Pandarus’ manipulations, but after this point the only real indication that Criseyde has once been married is a brief aside in Book V. With widowhood not functioning as an explicit issue through most of Troilus and Criseyde lack of critical focus may seem logical, but I would contend that the economic realities surrounding late medieval widows hangs over the text and Criseyde’s role within it, implicitly driving the major issues of the text. Even Middleton’s thesis focuses much more on the theological perceptions of widowhood, suggesting at times economic risks associated therewith but not treating them with any detail.199 Within the walls of Troy

Criseyde’s widowhood places her in an unfixed status, not firmly under the authority of a male figure of husband or father. This unfixed nature certainly allows Criseyde a sense of economic agency, but it also renders her vulnerable to a range of threats to person, liberty, and estate. I argue that Chaucer emphasizes Criseyde’s widowhood early in the text to keep this unfixed nature close to mind as the romance progresses, raising the stakes for several of Criseyde’s choices but also demonstrating the complicated nature of

198 T.E. Hill, "She, this in blak": Vision, Truth, and Will in Geoffrey Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, (New York: Routledge, 2006). 199 Middleton does consult some of Hanawalt’s articles, but she would certainly have found Hanwalt’s Wealth of Wives very useful in adding some of this context, but this monograph came out two years after the submission of Middleton’s thesis. 142 late medieval widowhood as a state that simultaneously grants agency and vulnerability to late medieval women.

In recent decades, studies treating Criseyde in particular have often attempted to either castigate or exonerate the widow. Carolyn Dinshaw treats the former camp as

“masculine” readers, suggesting that the critical trend there lies with control of feminine voices; “Masculine reading in Troilus and Criseyde is dominated at last by a desire to contain instability, carnal appetite—those things that . . . medieval writers (and their descendants, modern critics) associate with femina.”200 The latter camp, seeking to defend Criseyde, largely comes from feminist approaches to Chaucer, focusing on the many disadvantages faced by the widow in Chaucer’s text. Pushing back on both camps,

Mary Behrman maintains that the prevalent criticism on Criseyde renders her as either the villain or victim to the major male figures of the text, but that both approaches are ultimately insufficient for properly understanding Crisyede’s interests in the text:

“Stripped of any motives of her own, Criseyde becomes a mere automaton, and the reader’s interest shifts to the men who manipulate her.”201 Behrman instead focuses on

Criseyde’s active role in the text, suggesting that we should instead focus on Criseyde as a hero of the text rather than a foil for its main figures.202 Other critical treatments of

Criseyde focus on how she, along with Troilus, may demonstrate contemporary philosophical concepts. Jelena Marelj contends that Criseyde functions as a nominalist in her interactions with Troilus, the widow’s pragmatic nominalism making her just as

200 Carolyn Dinshaw, Chaucer’s Sexual Politics, (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990), 39. 201 Mary Behrman, “Heroic Criseyde,” The Chaucer Review, no. 38.4, (2014): 315. 202 However, where Behrman contends that Criseyde goes on to beat Troilus at his own game of chivalric romance (317), I would point to the ways in which the very agreement that Criseyde seeks becomes turned against her as Pandarus presses for more guarantees of Criseyde’s love. 143 willing as Pandarus to reassign signs with signifiers as best fits her own interests.203

Interpreting Criseyde’s actions quite differently, Hill’s “She this in blak” argues that

Criseyde is the most philosophically flexible of the text’s main figures and thus the best able to adapt to the shifting landscape. Taken together, however, critical emphasis on

Criseyde focuses primarily on either judgments of the widow or how she can be used to demonstrate various philosophical positons. This chapter certainly, to an extent, defends

Criseyde, but the overall focus is less on whether we can judge her and more on what

Chaucer’s treatment of her as a widow says about the state of widowhood in late medieval England.

Criseyde’s consideration of the costs and benefits of an affair with Troilus come from the legal and economic dynamics of her position as a widow. Women in the late medieval Europe generally occupied one of three marital statuses—virgin, wife, or widow—and these states were usually defined according to their potential for maritally sanctioned sexual activity: “virgins were both potentially wives ... and potentially perpetually chaste; wives themselves could be chaste or procreative, but they also lived with the possibility of widowhood; widows were often chaste and thus aligned with virgins, or else they awaited remarriage and the return to the wifely state.” 204 Of these three states, Widowhood remained the most fluid, as women could shift into and out of this state multiple times throughout their lives. Legally, the differences between wife and widow are distinct in their allotment of responsibility. As Sue Sheridan Walker notes,

203 Jelena Marelj “The Philosophical Entente of Particulars: Criseyde as Nominalist in Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde,” The Chaucer Review, no. 47.2, (2012): 2016-221. 204 Cindy L. Carlson and Angela Jane Weisl, “Introduction,” Constructions of Widowhood and Virginity in the Middle Ages, edited by (New York: Saint Martin’s Press, 1999), 4. 144

“wife and widow are related but opposite terms. Wife corresponds to the legal description of femme covert, one whose legal existence is ‘covered’ by her spouse; widow denotes an autonomous status equivalent to the legal term femme sole, a woman who enjoyed full legal personality.”205 The legal coverage of marriage subsumes the woman’s legal identity, leaving her bereft of both the benefits and risks of legal personhood. As Walker continues, “Common lawyers ... agreed that in the eyes of the law husband and wife

(baron and feme) were one person, and that person was the husband.”206 The function of this coverture was to entirely subsume the legal personhood of the wife under that of her husband,207 and the “legal reality” of the wife could only be recovered upon the death of that husband.208 This legal personality functions to allow these widows control over goods and wealth in their possession without the intercession of a male authority through which their legal identity has been subsumed.

Legally and economically, then, widowhood provides a state in which late medieval women have both the access to goods and the legal protections thereof. This dynamic was particularly significant in the urban areas of late medieval England, where inheritance laws provided even greater protections for widows possessing both their dowry and a greater amount of their deceased husbands’ property. Barbara Hanawalt contends that these legal conditions allowed for the horizontal distribution of wealth and larger economic development of late medieval London. Because widows retained a

205 Walker, 3. 206 Walker, 4. 207 In certain cases wives in late medieval England could apply for femme sole status, filing and responding to claims as if they were operating as single adult women. Most often this occurred with wives operating their own businesses outside of their husbands and was intended to insulate the risks and responsibilities of the wife from that of her husband’s property. 208 Walker, 4. 145 significantly larger portion of their deceased husbands’ wealth due to the legal conditions of London, visitors from Florence were notoriously shocked at how such practices surely risked the rightful pooling of wealth through patrilineage.209 Yet, despite these legal protections for widows many of them did go on to remarry, Hanawalt noting that in some years nearly as many as 50% of marriages in fourteenth century London were remarriages for one or both spouses.210 Due to the increased legal protections of widows,

London women could enter second marriages with increased financial holdings, which could then stimulate their second husbands’ businesses through larger sources of available capital. While Hanawalt notes that mechanisms that limited the agency of women, economic and otherwise, were still in operation in medieval London, Hanawalt maintains that “not all women fell victim to [these limiting systems].” Instead, many women were able to take advantage of key legal protections in medieval London to protect both themselves and their financial standing, such as invoking the legal status of femme sole, which allowed these women to file in legal cases as if they were unmarried and thus prevent the outcome from affecting the household. Widowhood in late medieval

England was thus a state that brought an amount of legal and economic autonomy to women, yet the historic realities saw widows as attractive marital prospects that often reentered the coverture of marriage.

I. Liminality of Widowhood in Chaucer’s source

To demonstrate how Criseyde’s deliberation over a love affair comes from the liminal marital position of widowhood, I will turn to Boccaccio’s Il Filostrato, one of

209 Hanawalt, 113-114. 210 Hanwalt, 42. 146

Chaucer’s primary sources for Troilus and Criseyde. Boccaccio’s Crisieda has a similar interior monologue scene after discovering Troilo’s affection, but she demonstrates very different priorities and concerns from Chaucer’s heroine. In both Boccaccio’s and

Chaucer’s texts, the heroine is approached by her uncle who attempts to persuade that heroine to engage in a love affair with Troilus/Troilo, who has fallen sick in love of her.

After the uncle presents his case, the heroine considers the potential relationship in a scene of interior monologue. While both Chaucer’s Criseyde and Boccaccio’s Crisieda consider the possibilities of this affair, the tenor and content of that interior monologue differs significantly. In Boccaccio’s Il Filostrato, moments after learning of his love sickness Criseida is already filled with joy, sighing at the thought. Criseida moves on to consider her respective position as a widow in the context of this impending relationship:

“I am young, beautiful, lovely and gay, a widow, rich, noble, and beloved, without children and leading a quiet life. Why should I not be in love?” (Boccaccio II.69).

Criseida conducts a brief inventory of the resources available to her, noting her appearance, demeanor, marital status, and economic standing. The question that follows suggests that love is simply another luxury that she lacks, that possessing such an otherwise complete life is yet incomplete without love. This discrepancy comes into further relief as Criseida compares her situation to her contemporaries; “In this land I do not even know any woman without a lover, and, as I know, I see most people fall in love, and I lose my time for nothing” (Boccaccio II.70). Criseida views her unattached romantic status with a sense of loss: remaining single has generated no profit and wasted

147 the finite resource of time. Rather than hesitation over the affair, Criseida has a sense of loss over having not engaged in one earlier.

Criseida desires the benefits of a romantic liaison with Troilo but distinctly desires to do so outside the bounds of marriage. “Now is not the time for a husband and even if it were, to keep one’s liberty is much the wiser part” (Boccaccio II.73). Criseida notes the relative autonomy afforded by her widowed state, and indicates that marriage itself has the potential to turn a lively love affair mundane; “let beauty be as great as one wishes, it will soon grow distasteful to married men, who desire something fresh every day” (Boccaccio II.73). Criseida realizes that once married a wife’s amarous goods, as a commodity already purchased, have less value to her husband. A lover, however, remains in a state between not being romantically involved and unmarried, having access to the products of romantic engagements without the restrictions of marriage. Criseida suggests that this liminal state provides a more enjoyable experience; “Stolen water is a far sweeter thing than wine had in abundance; so the joy of love which is hidden surpasses greatly that of a husband always held in one’s arms” (Boccaccio II.74).When scarce, amorous goods possess greater value than when held in abundance, making the unmarried love affair Criseida considers all the more sweet. Criseyde, on the other hand, recognizes the large costs of an affair with Troilus and considers at length the dangers that affair presents to her own autonomy.

Up to this point Criseida has been taken with the benefits of an affair with Troilo: her youth won’t allow her many more opportunities like this one, Troilo himself abounds with positive qualities, and an affair would provide her the joy of love without the

148 restriction of marriage. Towards that monologue’s end Criseida turns to consider the potential risks of such a romantic engagement; “Do you not know what a cruel life languishing love draws with it in which it is always necessary that it exists in plaints, in sighs, and in suffering, and then it has, in addition, jealousy, which is much worse than a miserable death?” (Boccaccio II.75). A love affair would allow Criseida to enjoy Troilo’s affection without being legally covered by matrimony, but that ambiguous state also brings fears of inconstancy with the added pleasure, taking the form of jealousy, suffering, and other interpersonal conflicts arising from a love affair without a permanent structure. Beyond just jealousy, however, lies the social divisions between Criseida and

Troilo; “he who now loves you is of much higher rank than you are; this amorous desire will pass from him and he will hold you ever in scorn, and will leave you wretched, full of infamy and shame” (Boccaccio II.76). Criseida acknowledges the risk their differing social standings represent, and the possibility of Troilo coming to resent her because of those differences could spoil the delight of the affair itself. Criseida does recognize some of the risks that could come with the affair, but these risks are generally exterior to the affair itself, the results of pressure from outside forces or individuals on the affair itself.

More importantly, these risks are quite different from those recognized by Chaucer’s

Criseyde: Boccaccio’s Criseida worries about the potential for jealousy and the loss of delight, but these are common tropes of love affairs, especially those held in secret.

Chaucer’s Criseyde’s fears come from risks, both real and manufactured by Pandarus, to her personhood, her liberty, and her estate. The fears that Criseyde faces come from the

149 early emphasis on her ambiguous marital state, once again possessing potential marital agency while recognizing the risks that come from enacting it.

II. Criseyde’s Performance of Widowhood

In Chaucer’s text, Criseyde’s position in Troy is marked by its confluence of economic agency and vulnerability. Criseyde’s father, Calcus, has fled the city to defect to the Greek camp; “[Criseyde] was in gret penaunce, / For of hire life she was ful sore in drede, / As she that nyste what was best to rede; / For both a widewe was she and allone /

Of any frend to whom she dorste hire mone” (I.94-98). Criseyde has been left holding the bag, so to speak, for her father’s treachery, leaving her to suffer the ire of her fellow

Trojans. Furthermore, Criseyde’s status as widow emphasizes how alone she is, even her voyeuristic uncle Pandarus conspicuously absent when Criseyde is in need. Thus bereft of allies, Criseyde worries over her position in Troy and seeks the protection of its greatest hero:

This lady, which that alday herd at ere Hire fadres shame, his falsenesse and tresoun, Wel neigh out of hir wit for sorwe and fere, In widewes habit large of samyt broun, On knees she fil biforn Ector adown With pitous vois, and tendrely wepynge, His mercy bad, hirselven excusynge. (I.105-112) When fleeing the city Calkas left behind his property, but also bequeathed “falsnesse” and “tresoun” to Criseyde. Because of these burdens Criseyde must seek the protection of

Hector, donning the physical representation of her widowed state in the form of her

“widewes habit” to beg for his mercy. Hector offers her a guarantee; “And al th’onour that men may don yow have, / As ferforth as youre fader dwelled here, / Ye shul have,

150 and youre body shal men save, / As fer as I may ought enquiere or here” (I.120-123).

Here, Hector grants Criseyde the equivalent of femme sole status. By giving Criseyde femme sole status, Hector has guaranteed that she will be able to operate as an independent legal entity, and by bestowing “al th’onour” that Calkas possessed, Hector has likewise ensured Criseyde control of her father’s goods. Hector’s pronouncement further reveals the vulnerability of Criseyde’s status before his protection: the fact that

Hector promises that Criseyde’s “body shal men save” suggests that her body was in jeopardy before the protection, implying at the least the risk of bodily harm and at the worst a threat of rape. Calkas has left Criseyde uncovered by his role as father, leaving her with his goods but also his shame, simultaneously bequeathing her with property and vulnerability. In a sense, Calkas has left Criseyde in the role of widow to her father, a liminal legal state that contains economic advantages but, without specific legal protections from the state, represented here through Hector, also renders Criseyde vulnerable.

In the first two books of Chaucer’s text, Criseyde performs her widowed state through her outward appearance and personal enclosure. As noted above, widows with property were seen as desirable marriage partners, providing capital for the business ventures of a new household and leading to what Hanawalt describes as the horizontal distribution of wealth in late medieval London.211 Criseyde may carry her father’s disgrace, but she retains possession of his property and would thus seem to be an attractive marital prospect in Troy. Yet, Criseyde actively wears her identity as widow,

211 See above for more discussion on Hanawalt Wealth of Wives and the horizontal distribution of wealth that remarriages offered. 151 literally and figuratively. The celebration of Palladion’s Feast in Book I allows the opportunity for many a “lusty knyght,” “lady fresh,” and “mayden bright” to see and be seen “ful wel arrayed” (I.165-167). Criseyde’s presence and attractiveness at this public event is noted:

Among thise othere folk was Criseyda, In widewes habit blak; but natheles, Right as oure first letter is now an A, In beaute first so stood she, makeles. Hire goodly lokyng gladed al the prees. Nas never yet seyn thyng to ben preysed derre, Nor under cloude blak so bright a sterre As was Criseyde, as folk seyde everichone That hir behelden in hir blake wede. (1.172-177) The narrator’s description here emphasizes two items. First, Criseyde’s beauty surpasses any other thing “preysed derre,” a star so bright that she signs beyond the black cloud of her widow’s clothing. In addition to her father’s property, Criseyde carries beauty that stands out to all who look upon her, making her even more of an attractive potential marital prospect. In addition to her beauty, this section also emphasizes Criseyde’s dress as a widow. Beyond indicating that she wears the black clothing twice, that clothing itself is metaphorically represented in the black clouds that cannot quite hide the star of her beauty. What is interesting here, however, is the suggested role of that clothing to potentially obfuscate Criseyde’s beauty. Despite her beauty and property, Criseyde’s widowed identity, as expressed through her clothing, seems to nominally place her outside of the marital market.

152

Before the description of Criseyde’s dress, however, the time setting of this scene foreshadows the inability of the widow’s habit to no indefinitely insulate her from romantic interest:

And so bifel, whan comen was the tyme Of Aperil, whan clothed is the mede With newe grene, of lusty Veer the pryme, And swote smellen floures white and rede, In sondry wises shewed as I rede, The folk of Troie hire observaunces olde, Palladiones feste for to holde. (I.155-161) The setting of love narratives in spring is a common motif in Middle English texts, tying a budding love affair to the renewal of life after winter, but the specific description at hand establishes the inevitability of Criseyde’s love affair. Here we have the common images of spring and the renewal of reproductive life in the “swote smellen floures” to suggest the mentality of the people of Troy turning to romance and their own potentially generative pursuits. The description of April, however, as the time “whan clothed is the mede / With newe grene” should be considered in light of the emphasis on Criseyde’s clothes in the following section. Specifically, the use of “mede” here appears to be a multivalent pun from Chaucer. On the surface level “mede” is the Middle English term for meadow, the literal field that gains new growth of green grass in the spring. However,

“mede” here could also be punning for maiden, but a maiden that has been clothed in specifically “newe grene.”212 As a widow Criseyde is certainly not a maiden, but Troilus’ attentions and Pandarus’ machinations lead to Criseyde acting outside of her widowed

212 The Middle English Dictionary lists four main noun entries for the headword “mede,” including the drink made from fermented honey, a meadow, and a gift. However, the MED also lists “mede” as a spelling variation for “maide,” an unmarried young woman. Based on the variant spellings and the close sound of each meaning, I suggest that Chaucer is making a play on words here, as he is often fond of doing. 153 role, treated as a new prospect on the marital market whom “lusty Veer the pryme” has pushed outside of her aloofness as widow. It is at this point that Criseyde’s attempts to cling to her widowed status become less effective and those around her take note of

Criseyde not as the widow defamed by her father’s defection but as a woman of great romantic exchange value.

The metaphor of spring as renewal of generative potential continues with the incipit of Book II, just before Pandarus begins his campaign to make Criseyde accept

Troilus as lover.

In May, that moder is of monthes glade, That fresshe floures, blew and white and rede, Ben quike agayn, that wynter dede made, And ful of bawme is fletyng every mede, Whan Phebus doth his bryghte bemes sprede, Right in the white Bole, it so bitidde, As I shal synge, on Mayes day the thrydde. (II.50-56) The key aspect here is that May makes “fresshe floures” to “Ben quike agayn, that wynter dede made.” As the personification of late spring, May has the ability to render flowers that once bloomed and died “quike” again. The generative potential of those flowers has already been exhausted, having budded, procreated, and died in previous seasons, but this

“monthe glade” grants these flowers their generative potential once more. Furthermore, the “bawme” overflowing throughout the meadow operates as performance of that renewed life; the aromatic balsam released by new plant growth advertises that new life and welcomes in pollinating fauna for reproduction. Much as the meadow’s winter coverage of dead growth has been cast off for new life by the spring, Pandarus acts as his own May to renew Criseyde’s amorous potential. Interrupting Crisedye’s group reading

154 of the romance in her parlor, Pandarus asks the widow to forgo the somber subject matter for more happy activities:

But lat be this, and tell me how ye fare. Do wey youre barbe, and shew youre face bare; Do wey youre book, rys up, and lat us daunce, And lat us don to May som observaunce. (II.110-112) Criseyde’s “barbe” is a headdress much like a wimple, which would cover her hair and most of her head except for her face, partially obscuring her beauty. Removing this barbe would reveal her hair and neck, likely making her features stand out more, but also carries with it the symbolic act of no longer hiding those features. As a widow enclosed in her own parlor, with no men present but her visiting uncle, Criseyde’s wearing of a covering headdress such as this demonstrates an active choice to hide those features, even in a setting that is unlikely to have prying male eyes. Beyond asking her to cast off her widow’s accouterment, Pandarus also bids Criseyde to put the romance aside and “rys up” to dance in order to “don to May som observaunce.” Pandarus asks Criseyde to move from the enclosed activity of reading romance to the active physical demonstration of late spring and its amorous associations. Acting here as May, Pandarus attempts to encourage

Criseyde to cast off the dead growth of her widowed identity so that she will find new amorous life as the object of Troilus’ desire.

Faced with this request from her uncle, Criseyde embraces her performance as widow. Pushed beyond the initial line of defense contained in her choice of dress,

Criseyde attempts to draw clear lines of expected behavior between her position as widow and that of women still engaged in amorous exchange:

155

Be ye mad? Is that a widewes lif, so God yow save? By God, ye maken me right soore adrad! Ye ben so wylde, it semeth as ye rave. It satte me wel bet ay in a cave To bidde and rede on holy seyntes lyves; Lat maydens gon to daunce, and Yonge wyves. (I.113-119) In quick succession Criseyde playfully questions Pandarus’ sanity three times, describing the suggestion as “mad” or “wylde,” to establish how incongruous Pandarus’ request is to the “widewes life.” Instead, Criseyde suggests that, as a widow, her time would be better spent in somber contemplation, cloistered in a cave while she studies “holy seyntes lyves.” For Criseyde, that somber lifestyle is better suited for the widow and instead the maidens and “yonge wyves” should dance, both groups still embroiled in the midst of amorous exchange and, for “maydens,” still in possession of their potential marital agency. Criseyde’s quick attempts to discredit the validity of her uncle’s request belies the contradiction in her own designations of proper widowly behavior. Specifically, the widow should seek a hermetic life, yet Criseyde passes the time in social company of other women, reading not religious texts but romances. Criseyde uses the mantle of widowhood as an attempt to insulate herself from potential love affairs, yet her own behavior undercuts the efficacy of her arguments. Moving forward with his plan,

Pandarus remains undaunted by his niece’s performance of widowhood, and instead uses

Criseyde’s own liminal position as widow to manipulate her into the love affair with

Troilus.

III. Criseyde’s Socioeconomic Pragmatism

156

Unlike Boccaccio’s Criseida, Criseyde’s interior monologue, following the revelation of Troilus’ love, begins with trepidation. Even before Criseyde speaks to herself the narrator describes her hesitation; “So she gan in hire thought argue / In this matere of which I have you told, / And what to doone best were, and what eschue, / That plited she ful ofte in many fold. / Now was hire herte warm, now was it cold” (II.694-

698). Here Criseyde’s initial position seems less like a woman joyfully filled with the stirrings of love and rather more like a woman fearful of the options before her. Rebecca

Hayward notes that Criseyde’s consideration of her options makes Criseyde more thoughtful than flighty; “It is much more difficult to associate Criseyde with the facile misogyny applied to Criseida’s behavior, when she is portrayed as a person who considers her roles carefully and performs them to the best of her ability, according to the circumstances she finds herself in.”213 Criseyde opens her monologue noting positive qualities of Troilus, specifically his “worthyness” and “honour,” but immediately indicates that those very qualities apply outside pressure for her to accept the Trojan’s love;

Ek wel woot I my kynges sone is he, And sith he hath to se me swich delit. If I wolde outreliche his sight flee, Peraunter he myghte have me in dispit, Thorugh whicch I myght stonde in worse plit. Now were I wis, me hate to purchace, Withouten need, ther I may stonde in grace? (II.708-714) Troilus’ power as Priam’s son certainly adds appeal to his potential as a lover, but it also carries with it the pressure of his attention; spurring his affections could make an enemy

213 Rebecca Hayward, “Between the Living and the Dead,” Constructions of Widowhood and Virginity in the Middle Ages, edited by Cindy L. Carlson and Angela Jane Weisl, (New York: Saint Martin’s Press, 1999), 234. 157 of him, and Criseyde’s position in Troy is heavily dependent on the protection provided by Hector, Troilus’ elder brother. Furthermore, accepting Troilus as a lover would operate as no better guarantee of Criseyde’s position, as she knows full well that “Men loven wommen al biside hire leve, / And whan hem leste namore, lat hem byleve”

(II.734-735). Criseyde faces risk in either case: if she refuses or ignores Troilus’ suit, she could anger the very family that has supported her. Yet, if she takes Troilus as a lover, he could soon grow tired of her, potentially leading to the same result once he casts her aside.

In light of Criseyde’s tenuous position in Troy, it is little wonder that she approaches a romantic affair with Troilus with some hesitation. Unlike a marital union that would place Criseyde under the coverture of her husband’s legal identity, a romantic affair with Troilus brings with it greater risks for Criseyde, specifically to her economic liberty. Criseyde notes this in her monologue, remarking that she is her “owene womman.” While an affair with Troilus would not subsume her under his legal personhood, the relationship itself presents a potential disruption to Criseyde’s already vulnerable and liminal marital status;

Syn I am free, Sholde I now love, and put in jupartie My sikernesse, and thrallen libertee? Allas, how dorst I thenken that folie? I naughte wel in other folk aspie Hire dredful joye, hire constreinte, and hire peyne? Ther loveth noon, that she nath why to pleyne. (II.771-777) Both economically and socially, Criseyde’s state of widowhood has allowed her

“sikerness” and relative autonomy, yet a love affair with Troilus, or any man, threatens to

158

“thrallen libertee” by opening the widow to “dredful joye,” “constreinte,” and “peyne.”214

Criseyde’s position as widow insulates her from these potential negative repercussions of love, avoiding both the protections and constraints of coverture from either husband or father, yet that liminal position between wife and daughter is vulnerable to threat, even from a secret affair with a son of Priam.

After various manipulations from Pandarus, Criseyde agrees to receive a letter from Troilus. In the space between her uncle’s initial presentation of Troilus’ affection and the arrival of the letter, Criseyde runs through a range of positions on amorous entanglement. She notes the “tresoun that to women hath ben do” (II.793), but casts herself as a “humble subgit” of Love (II.827-828). Once Criseyde has seemingly settled on the benefits of a love affair, she argues against those who “seith that for to love is vice,

/ Or thralldom” (II.855-856). In many ways, this shift in position is perplexing as

Criseyde accepts the very strictures she had most fervently resisted, accepting the restrictions of amorous relationships in the language of “thralldom” while lamenting the possibility to be tied in “lusty leese” only a hundred lines earlier (II.750-756). In a perplexing dialogue, both internally and with Pandarus, Criseyde has shifted from sternly holding to her own liberty to accepting the bonds of love, the variance between a warm and cold “herte” as described by our narrator (II.698). Yet, when Pandarus presses

214 Jelena Marelj reads Criseyde’s pragmatism somewhat differently, suggesting that Criseyde’s potential nominalism suggests that she confuses the realization of love, by putting it into words, with the existence of love (208). For Marelj, Criseyde’s nominalism makes her just as willing to reassign signs with signifiers as best fits her own interests. While this provides possible reasoning for Criseyde’s quick shifts in affection and for her misinterpretation of amorous exchange with Troilus, I would contend that the situational threats surrounding Criseyde and her vulnerable status as widow has more at play in the text than nominalism. For more on Marelj’s perspective see “The Philosophical Entente of Particulars: Criseyde as Nominalist in Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde,” The Chaucer Review, no. 47.2, (2012): 2016-221. 159

Troilus’ letter into Criseyde’s hands and requests that “of some goodly answere yow

[Criseyde] purchace” (II.1125), Criseyde takes a stern position:

Scrit ne bill, For love of God, that toucheth swich matere, Ne bryng me noon; and also, uncle deere, To myn estate have more reward, I preye, Than to his lust! What sholde I more seye? (II.1130-1134) Refusing to accept the letter, Criseyde bluntly measures the value of Troilus’ pronouncement of love against the benefits of her estate, finding the benefits of Troilus’

“lust” wanting in comparison to the benefits afforded by her estate. Despite her shifting responses to the idea of a love affair, Criseyde’s mood cools on the subject of her property, suggesting that the need to retain possession of her estate, and the economic agency it affords outweighs her burgeoning love for Troilus. To convince Criseyde to accept the letter, and move forward with his plans, Pandarus must again apply pressure through his relationship with his niece and threats of self-harm, yet Criseyde remains largely concerned with the conditions, and freedom, of her estate.

IV. Criseyde’s Liminal Marital Contract

The establishment of Criseyde and Troilus’ affair in Book III comes in three stages: the contractual agreement, the role of Pandarus as witness and proctor, and the exchange of love tokens. This contract strongly resembles the components of a marriage ceremony, providing the contract of marriage, the witness of the marriage, and the exchange of rings as physical symbols of the marital union. As Richard Firth Green has noted, these three aspects are common to legal contracts in late medieval England and each has a specific purpose relating to the prospect of future litigation: the contract

160 provides the parameters of the agreement, the witness provides testimony against legal challenges to the agreement, and the physical token provides evidence of the agreement taking place.215 While both Kelley and Maguire suggest that the relationship established in Book III is implicitly one of marriage, 216 I would disagree and argue that the relationship Criseyde seeks to enter into is self-consciously not marriage. As stated above, marrying Troilus would render the liminal marital agency of Criseyde’s widowhood as fixed and, decidedly, under Troilus authority. Criseyde’s concerns in Book

III focus on retaining as much of her own liberty as possible, and while the end of this book finds Criseyde “kaught” by Troilus, the widow herself works to prevent this effect.217 Criseyde attempts to use the contractual aspects of marital agreements, having experience from her previous marriage, to carve out an agreement that would provide the benefits of a love affair with Troilus while affording her control of her own marital agency and possession of her estate.

Criseyde is persuaded to engage in the relationship with Troilus but insists on an agreement that carries certain conditions before engaging in the love affair. Criseyde’s deliberation over the love affair has raised concerns over how such relationships can entrap women, and she attempts to forge a contract with Troilus that would delimit her

215 Richard Firth Green discusses this dynamic in his larger discussion of trothplight in The Crisis of Truth, (Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999). For more on tokens, see Green’s discussion on “the Machinery of Trothplight” (50-57). Green also has an interesting discussion on the mechanisms of marital oaths, noting the difficulties and various interests surrounding the specific oral contracts (331-332). 216 Henry Ansgar Kelley, “Clandestine Marriage and Chaucer’s ‘Troilus’” and John Maguire, “The Clandestine Marriage of Troilus and Criseyde.” For more discussion on each see above. 217 In his discussion of the suffering that comes with courtly love in Troilus and Criseyde, Tison Pugh lays out the stakes at play for both Troilus and Criseyde, noting that Troilus’ lovesickness and Criseyde’s tremulous status in Troy make the game of courtly love carry the potential for great suffering for both parties (383). For more on Pugh’s larger discussion of the cruel side of this courtly game, in relief to Richard Firth Green’s discussion of “the pleasures in play, see “Christian Revelation and the Cruel Game of Courtly Love in Troilus and Criseyde” in The Chaucer Review, no. 39.5, (2005): 379-401. 161 vulnerability. In a sense, Criseyde’s conditions for entering into the affair with Troilus function like a modern pre-nuptial agreement, attempting to protect the widow from the legal and social entanglements that come from amorous involvement with Troilus. First acknowledging that the affair must keep her “honour sauf,” Criseyde constructs the parameters of the amorous exchange:

That he Wolde, in honour of trouthe and gentilnesse, As I wel mene, ek menen wel to me, And myn honour with wit and bisynesse Ay kepe; and if I may don hym gladnesse, from hennesforth, iwys, I nyl nought feyne. Now beth al hool; no lenger ye ne pleyne. (III.163-168) In order for Criseyde to “don hym gladnesse” without “feyne,” Troilus must agree to keep good faith in the arrangement, by “menen wel,” and to further promise to protect

Criseyde’s honor with “wit and bisynesse.” In a manner of speaking, this agreement extends the protections already afforded Criseyde by Troilus’ family, but here those protections are not for life or property but for honor.218 Yet, with Criseyde’s liminal state of widowhood a preservation of honor is vital if she retains control of both life and property. The reputation she carries of a widow, with a spent marital agency outside of the controls of a husband, allows her to retain independent control of her property. A strike against her honor puts that widowed identity into question and threatens the tenuous autonomy she retains in Troy. Criseyde goes on to outline the parameters of authority to be held in the relationship despite Troilus’ status in Troy: “A kynges sone

218 These initial conditions of this relationship also contain a clause that is beneficial to Criseyde outside of the direct amorous exchange, that of making Troilus no longer “pleyne.” If Troilus is able to, for once, cease his complaints, Pandarus’ threat of self-harm loses its teeth, and Criseyde no longer risks the loss of her nearest male relation and friend over the matter. 162 although ye be, ywys, / Ye shal namore han sovereignetee / Of me in love” (III.170-172).

Hearkening back to her fears of how an affair with Troilus could come at the cost of her liberty, Criseyde attempts to establish clear lines that would prevent this effect, even including a clause that would allow her to “wratthe” the knight if he were to “don amys”

(III.173-174). Criseyde seeks to use this pre-love affair agreement to shore herself against the risks that come with romantic entanglement.219 Her liminal status as widow insulates her from risks, as one whose marital agency has been spent, but this agreement is not as effective an insulator of her liberty as Criseyde might like.

In addition to the contract presented by Criseyde, Pandarus functions as both witness and functionary to push the burgeoning relationship along. Acting tirelessly,

Pandarus provides whatever mediation the lovers require:

And Pandarus, to quike alwey the fir, Was evere ylike prest and diligent; To ese his frend was set al his desir. He shof ay on, he to and fro was sent; He lettres bar whan Troilus was absent; That nevere man, as in his frendes nede, Ne bar hym bet than he, withouten drede. (III.484-490) As he has since Troilus first laid bare his love sickness, Pandarus takes it upon himself to serve the knight’s love interests, and after the terms have been set by Criseyde Pandarus functions as the medium of their love, exchanging messages and shoring up the desire of both parties. Here, Pandarus is both the proctor of the relationship and its witness, the

219 Mary Behrman similarly makes much of this scene in her larger attempt to push against critical trends to render Criseyde as either villain or victim, and I certainly agree with the agency that Criseyde, at least initially, demonstrates here. However, where Behrman contends that Criseyde goes on to beat Troilus at his own game of chivalric romance (317), I would point to the ways in which the very agreement that Criseyde seeks becomes turned against her as Pandarus presses for more guarantees of Criseyde’s love. For more see Mary Behrman, “Heroic Criseyde,” The Chaucer Review, no. 38.4, (2014): 314-336. 163 only individual outside of the couple witness to the affair as well as the primary party nudging them both on as necessary. When necessary, Pandarus also takes advantage of the weather to create opportune excuses for the couple to spend time together:

Now were it tyme a lady to gon henne! But good nece, if I myghte evere plese Yow of any thyng, then prey ich yow… To don myn herte as now so gret an ese As for to dwelle here al this nyght with me, For-whi this is youre owen hous, parde. For by my trouthe, I sey it nought a-game, To wende as now, it were to me a shame. (III.630-637) After the impending storm, great enough that all ladies in attendance had a “verray feere”

(III.625-628), sweeps in Pandarus quickly speaks up to encourage his niece to remain in his home. Pandarus utilizes the same complimentary language that has run throughout his dialogues with Criseyde, disguising manipulation and threats under the guise of kind concern for his neice. Pandarus requests that Criseyde treat his home as her “owne hous” and that, were she to leave, it would be a source of shame for him. Pandarus’ offer superficially appears as the offer of a gracious host, but the irony of his suggestion comes into relief when considering his exchange with Criseyde less than a hundred lines earlier.

Answering Pandarus’ invitation to dinner and noting the impending weather, Criseyde remarks “It reyneth; lo, how sholde I gon?” (III.562). Not to be denied, Pandarus refutes her concerns: “Lat be … ne stant nought thus to muse. / This moot be don! Ye shal be there anon” (III.563-564). Dismissing the threat of weather, Pandarus bluntly refuses to accept rain as a valid excuse for his niece’s absence, and refuses to accept any response but positive acceptance. Yet, once the storm strikes during dinner, Pandarus becomes greatly concerned for Criseyde’s well-being, indicating that were she not to remain in his 164 home it would be a great offense to him. Throughout Book III Pandarus cajoles, threatens, and pressures wherever necessary to ensure that Troilus and Criseyde’s relationship moves forward. Pandarus’s personal investment in seeing Troilus gain sexual access to Criseyde supersedes his function as functionary of the relationship.

To finalize the affair, the exchange of rings function as a symbolic representation to the lovers, but the interpretation of that symbol differs between the three figures surrounding exchange. Hearing yet another request from Panadarus to ease Troilus’ amorous suffering, Criseyde believes she knows just the cure:

Wol ye don o thing And ye therwith shal stynte al disese? Have here, and bereth hym this blewe ryng, For ther is nothyng myghte hym better plese, Save I myself, ne more hys herte apese; And sey my deere herte that his sorwe Is causeles; that shal be sene to-morwe. (III. 883-889)

In order to calm Troilus’ “disese,” Criseyde offers the exchange of her ring. The exchange of this object between lovers falls within the norms of courtly romantic exchange, and the gemstone of the “blewe” ring would suggest that the article itself is a precious commodity. The market value of the ring as a piece of jewelry, however, should be secondary to the value of the ring as a stand-in for the lover who gave it. Criseyde points to this function, noting that the only thing that would please Troilus better is the widow herself. This function also carries over into exchanges for courtly lovers, the token serving as a physical symbol and reminder of absent lovers often required to remain apart due to the clandestine nature of their relationship. For Criseyde, the offer of her ring follows this model with the ultimate purpose of showing Troilus the “causeles” nature of

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“his sorwe”; the ring as token should be enough to remind and comfort him of Criseyde’s love.

Criseyde offers this ring with all of its according symbolic attachments, but

Pandarus, as the mediator between the lovers, views this gift as insufficient to the task at hand: “Ye haselwodes shaken! / Ye, nece myn, that ryng moste han a stoon / That myghte dede men alyve maken: / And swich a ryng trow I that ye have non” (III. 890-893). For

Pandarus, the ring alone could only be valuable enough to serve this purpose if it contains miraculous properties, a simple “blewe” gemstone an unworthy gift to Troilus. The idea of this exchange is so preposterous to Pandarus that he suggests all “discrecioun” has left

Criseyde, her offered ring merely the “haselwodes shaken” instead of offering what

Troilus deserves. At stake here is the differing valuations of what the ring, as a symbol, represents. For Criseyde, the ring functions like other courtly love tokens, a stand-in for a lover’s affection that allows for continued discretion for a clandestine relationship.

Pandarus, however, has a completely different perception of Troilus’ need that leads him to view the ring as insufficient: “Woot ye not wel that noble and heigh corage / Ne sorweth nought, ne stynteth ek, for lite?” (III.897-898). From Pandarus’ perspective

Troilus is of such “noble and heigh corage” that his suffering must be equally great, a sorrow that cannot be stymied under the same system of amorous exchange that Crsieyde attempts to employ. After first noting that he would simply rebuke a man suffering of more shallow emotions, Pandarus plots out the fatal condition of Troilus’ love-sickness:

This is so gentil and so tender of herte That with his deth he wol his sorwes wreke; For trusteth wel, how sore that hym smerte, He wol to yow no jalous words speke. 166

And forthi, nece, er that his herte breke, So speke youreself to hym of this matere, for with o word ye may his herte stere. (III.904-910) The ring is insufficient as a medium of love’s exchange between Criseyde and Troilus because the knight’s suffering is too great. The perceived exchange value ascribed to the ring differs between Criseyde and Troilus, through Pandarus, because Troilus’ suffering has created greater need for access to Criseyde as balm for the knight’s love sickness. For

Criseyde the symbolic representation of her love through the ring should provide the cure, but Pandarus maintains that such a gesture is grossly insufficient for the knight’s needs. Here, Pandarus’ role as witness is superseded by his active role in guiding the relationship, pushing both his niece and Troilus along to consummate and fully engage in the love affair.220 Rather Pandarus takes on the role of medium through which the lovers can exchange words and tokens, but his own interests in seeing Troilus receive the larger profit promotes unjust exchange between the lovers.

Eventually, Troilus and Criseyde do exchange rings to mark their relationship, yet the shifts in context and the dynamics of agency in that relationship make the symbolic function of these rings different than that suggested initially by Criseyde. Pushing his

220 Along with this concept this scene’s exchange between Pandarus and Criseyde could also reflect larger concerns about geometrical concepts in love’s exchange. As stated in previous chapters, the geometric concept of exchange comes from Aristotelian’s Nichomachean Ethics, maintaining that just exchange could be proportional based on the requisite needs of each party in exchange. When pressed by Pandarus’ arguments about the ring being insufficient for exchange, Criseyde responds that “I am, til God me bettre mynde sende, / At dulcarnoun, right at my wittes ende” (III. 931). The “dulcarnoun” is a reference to Pythagorean Theorem, and refers to a common proposition in Euclidian geometry. Pandarus’ response that the “dulcarnoun” is otherwise called the “flemyng of wrecches” appears to be a misreading of a different geometric concept, but Pandarus’ intent here is to imply that the problem is actually very simple and only dunces would misinterpret it. Taken from the perspective of geometric proportions, the miscommunication between Crisedye and Pandarus over the differing valuations of what Criseyde’s ring represents could demonstrate a difference in geometric versus arithmetic concepts. Stephen A. Barney discusses this reference in some more detail in his explanatory notes of Troilus and Criseyde in The Riverside Chaucer, and he references Skeat’s work from 1871. 167 niece to further action beyond the gifting of the ring, Pandarus argues that Criseyde has an obligation to Troilus due to the inequity that exists between them: Troilus possesses all of the suffering while Criseyde retains the ability to ease that suffering. To rectify this,

Pandarus persuades Criseyde to see Troilus alone in his bedchamber, save for Pandarus himself who “drow hym to the feere” with a romance to allow the lovers privacy (III.974-

980). In the dialogue that follows, the power dynamic suggested by Pandarus seems to be in place. Troilus acts with hesitancy and shyness, even swooning with his sorrow despite having Criseyde at hand (III.1086-1092), and it is only once Criseyde directly engages in sexual activity with the knight, guided by Pandarus, that Troilus ceases his swooning and

“hire in armes faste to hym hente” (III.1187). I treat the conversation between Troilus and

Criseyde quickly here, with all of its romantic tropes of knightly suffering, but I want to pause on the shift in imagery that occurs as Troilus moves from a sexually passive to active role. Troilus’ suffering and meek approach to Criseyde places the widow, on the surface, in a position in power. Pandarus argues against just this matter, suggesting that because Criseyde possesses the ability to ease Troilus’ suffering she also possesses the moral obligation to do so. Of course, that easing of suffering comes through sex, with

Criseyde granting access to her body to Troilus. Despite being the cure to his love- sickness, the knight has to be persuaded to actually take advantage of this sexual access, holding on to his suffering as long as possible.221 All of this provides a constructed illusion where Criseyde presumably has the power in the relationship, where despite being prodded continuously by her uncle to this moment, despite being in a closed room

221 Pugh and Crocker maintain that this hesitance is because, ultimately, Troilus finds more pleasure in the masochistic act of that suffering than in sexual activity with Criseyde. 168 with two men with close physical access to her, despite being in the very situation in which she has feared would rob her of her widowed liberty, Criseyde is really the one in control. This illusion breaks down with the narrator’s description of their relationship after it has been consummated: “What myghte or may the sely larke seye, / Whan that the sperhauk hath it in his foot?” (III.1191-1192). The shift into hunting language, where

Criseyde is the “larke” to Troilus’ “sperhauk” inverts the previous power dynamic, demonstrating that for all of his stated meekness Troilus now holds the position of power over the widow “in his foot.” Further demonstrating the change in Criseyde’s position,

Troilus remarks in post-coital joy “O swete, as evere mot I gon, / Now be ye kaught; now is ther but we tweyne! / Now yeldeth yow, for other bote is non!” (III.1206-1208).

Criseyde’s concerns for liberty and maintaining her marital agency are now dashed as she is now “kaught,” brought under Troilus’ authority as part of his identity. Rather than the ambiguous position she sought to maintain, without the restrictions of marriage that risk her own freedom and control of her estate, Criseyde has instead been placed in an amorous contract that deprives her of those benefits without even the protections of

Troilus’ legal coverture: as a clandestine relationship, Criseyde appears on the surface as unfixed, despite her status as caught in the relationship with Troilus.

After their sexual exchange, Troilus and Criseyde exchange rings, but the conditions of that exchange and the relationship it signifies have shifted from Criseyde’s plans. One aspect that points to this shift is what is given by both parties:

Soone after this they spake of sondry thynges, As fel to purpos of this aventure, And pleying entrechaungeden hire rynges, Of whiche I kan nought tellen no scripture; 169

But wel I woot, a broche, gold and asure, In which a ruby set was lik an herte, Criseyde hym yaf, and stak it on his sherte. (III.1363-1372) Troilus and Criseyde give each other rings, Criseyde presumably giving Troilus the ring she offered through Pandarus earlier in Book III. The exchange of rings seems balanced on the surface, either party giving an equitable item to the other, but in addition to the ring Criseyde must give more in the form of the “broche.” As the text progresses, this brooch will serve the function as other love tokens in romance, standing in for Criseyde’s affection and, once it is in Diomedes’ possession, serving as a symbol to Troilus that

Criseyde is no longer his lady. What’s perplexing is the similarities between this brooch and the ring that Criseyde offered in the first place. Both seem intended to serve the same semiotic purposes, both appear to be valuable pieces of jewelry, and both contain a precious gemstone. The rings that the lovers exchange with one another should, presumably, serve as active symbols of mutual affection and dedication, yet Criseyde gives one gift further, a further demonstration of love required from the widow than is needed from the knight. Here, the brooch represents the dynamic that Book III has been at large concerned with: Criseyde attempting to establish a romantic exchange that retains her liberty but instead manipulated into convincing Troilus and Pandarus that her affections are as sincere and valid as Troilus’, leading to exchanges that are less advantageous for the widow.222

222 In light of all of this it is worth highlighting a brief point towards the end of Book III, before the lovers part with the dawn. Expressing the joy that the couple share in one another, the narrator states that “This is no litel thyng of for to seye; / This passeth every wit for to devyse; / For ech of hem gan others lust obeye” (III.1688-1690). This line is evocative of the Conjugal Debt narrative set out by Jerome and tackled more directly by Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath’s Prologue. I discuss the Conjugal Debt concept in more detail in 170

V. The Trafficking of Criseyde

Criseyde’s marital agency in Books I-III comes from her unfixed status, liminally positioned as a widow and the sole heir to an absent father’s property. When Calkas begins to reassert his rights of ownership in Book IV, Criseyde loses much of her marital agency and is instead trafficked between various male agents seeking possession of her.

In a period of truce between the Greeks and Trojans, Calkas makes a plea to the Greek leadership. Citing his haste in fleeing Troy to provide the Greeks with intelligence for their war effort, Calkas notes what he left behind:

Havyng unto my tresor ne my rente Right no resport, to respect of youre ese, Thus al my good I lefte and to yow wente, Wenyng in this yow lordes for to plese. But al that los ne doth me no disese. (IV.85-89) Calkas’ departure may have placed him on, according to his calculations, the winning side of the war, but it has likewise deprived him of his store of “tresor” as well as the means to future income in his “rente.” Calkas’ complaint here is an economic one, situated around how “al my good” remain behind Troy’s walls, the same city doomed to destruction by the Greeks. Moreover, Calkas reminds the Greek lords that this very act of abandonment was intended to “plese” them and demonstrate his loyalty to their cause, even in the midst of his complaint indicating that the “los” of this property has caused him “no disese.” Despite Calkas’ general ease about losing all of his worldly possessions, there is one piece of property he desires to retain: “I vouchesauf, as wisly have I joie, /

For yow to lese al that I have in Troie / Save of a doughter that I lefte, allas, / Slepyng at

Chapter 1 of this project, but here it does point to at least a reciprocal responsibility of each lover to provide for the other’s sexual desire. 171 hom, whan out of Troie I sterte” (IV.90-93). For Calkas, Criseyde clearly functions as part of his moeble, movable property that he failed to collect in his flight from the besieged city. In Troy without her father, Crisyede operates as an independent widow in relative control of her property and marital agency, but once in context with Calkas she falls under the coverture of his legal identity. In her context as Calkas’ daughter, Criseyde is reduced to a commodity that can be exchanged for Trojan prisoners. Hector, as the first

Trojan to pledge protection for Criseyde, calls out the commodification of the widow that the exchange represents: “Syres, she nys no prisonere…I not on yow who that this charge leyde, / But, on my part, ye may eftstone hem telle, / We usen here no wommen for to sele” (IV.180-182). Hector points out the lack of equivalency in this exchange: the assumption of its proposal is that Criseyde is like the Trojan prisoners, captives held by an opposing force. But Criseyde was abandoned in Troy, has legal rights to property and, per Hector’s guarantee, her “body shal men save” (I.122). Despite all of this, the Trojan council overrules Hector’s concerns, the cost of an abandoned widow small price in exchange for needed men in the defense of Troy. In spite of her legal rights, the protection of Priam’s sons, and her innocence in her father’s actions, Criseyde is rendered as a commodity to be traded as her father’s possession once more.

Here I return to one of the questions that opened this chapter: why do Troilus and

Criseyde not marry? If Criseyde were married, she would fall under Troilus’ authority and Priam would be bound to respect the matrimony despite the Greek’s protest; this very issue precludes the entirety of the Trojan War with Paris and Helen. It would stand to reason that a similar solution could be made for Troilus and Criseyde’s love, and

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Pandarus even advises Troilus to “Go ravysshe here,” eloping and taking Criseyde away from Troy (IV.530). Despite his great, suffering love, Troilus refuses to cause any political trouble:

First, syn thow woost this town hath al this were For ravysshyng of wommen so by might, It sholde nought be suffred me to erre, As it stant now, ne don so gret unright. I sholde han also blame every wight, My fadres graunt if that I so withstoode, Syn she is changed for the townes goode. (IV.547-553) Troilus’ notes that he very “werre” at the gates of Troy comes from the “ravysshyng” of women, stealing them from those holding legal possession over them. With Calkas absent

Criseyde’s unfixed status allowed no issue for her affair with Troilus, but with her father’s reasserted claim Troilus has no legal ground to stand against the exchange.

Troilus further notes that to “erre” by pressing a claim with Criseyde now would upset his father’s authority, disrupting a peaceful agreement between the Trojans and Greek that is for the “townes goode.” Troilus considers asking his father for Criseyde, but notes that doing so can only serve as an “accusement” against the widow and, ultimately, that his father will not allow “his lettre be repeled” (IV.554-460). At this point Troilus knows he has no legal recourse to seek Criseyde’s hand; the marital agency granted by the widow’s unfixed status in Troy has dissipated as her father reasserts his legal coverture over his daughter. As Troilus “may hire nought purchace” (IV.557), he and Criseyde must find other solutions outside the standard process of marriage.

Troilus and Criseyde scramble to save their love affair, but in the process they each suggest competing plans. Applying economic understanding of her own status as

173 widow and marital commodity, Criseyde suggests a plan that takes advantage of her father’s covetousness: “My fader, as ye knowen wel, parde, / Is old, and elde is ful of coveytise, / And I right now have founden al the gise, / withouten net, wherewith I shal hym hente” (IV.1368-1371). Knowing her father’s focus on worldly goods, Criseyde’s idea uses that greed against him: as Calkas treats Criseyde as moeble, the widow plans to exchange herself for the property her father left behind in Troy: “The moeble which that I have in this town / Unto my fader shal I take…And that shal ben an huge quantite – /

Thus shal I sayn – but lest it folk espied, / This may be sent by no wyght but by me”

(IV.1380-1389). Taking the property left by Calkas himself and treating it as new wealth,

Criseyde hopes to convince her father that more wealth awaits him from Criseyde’s friends in Troy. Criseyde plans to support Calkas’ greedy desire with her own speech and promise of further wealth from Trojan friends: “I shal hym so enchaunten with my sawes

/ That right in hevene his sowle is, shal he mete…Desir of gold shal so his soule blende /

That, as my lyste, I shal wel make an ende” (IV.1395-1400). Criseyde, knowing her father’s desire for wealth, plans to encourage that desire to distract Calkas from her own absence. Criseyde’s attempt would bribe her father with his own property, exchanging some of his own wealth for possession of Criseyde herself. Overall, Criseyde’s plan doubles down on her unfixed status as widow: using the wealth left behind by her father,

Criseyde keeps herself from being exchanged by replacing Calkas’ desire to possess her once again with the possession of wealth, allowing Criseyde to return to Troy without being under the legal coverture of her father or a husband.

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Troilus has less faith in Criseyde’s plan, contending that once the widow is in her father’s possession again she will be unable to find a way out of it. After noting that, even with a peaceful resolution, Calkas is unlikely to ever return to Troy, Troilus raises concerns of her father’s influence on Criseyde:

Ye shal ek sen, youre fader shal yow glose To ben a wif; and as he kan wel preche, He shal som Grek so preyse and wel alose That ravysshen he shal yow with his speche, Or do yow don by force as he shal teche. (IV.1471-1475) Troilus’ concerns revolve around the potential exchange of Criseyde as a marital commodity. Once in her father’s possession again, Criseyde could be under pressure to make an advantageous marital union with a Greek, Calkas attempting to “glose” his daughter into marriage for his own benefit. Troilus also notes Calkas’ skill in oratory, suggesting that with the right speech he will either persuade Criseyde or threaten her into submission. These concerns stem from the shifted position of Criseyde’s marital agency once under her father’s legal coverture, again placed in a fixed position that does not allow Criseyde the same options she retained in Troy. Troilus also raises concern that, under Calkas’ influence, Criseyde will fall prey fear raised by her father’s calculations:

And over al this, youre fader shal despise Us alle, and seyn this cite nys but lorn, And that th’assege nevere shal aryse, For-whi the Grekis han it alle sworn, Til we be slayn and down oure walles torn. And thus he shal yow with his wordes fere, That ay drede I that ye wol bleven there. (IV.1478-1484) Conflating Calkas’ abandonment of Troy with disdain for the city and its residents,

Troilus worries that the conclusions that drove Calkas to leave the city will persuade

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Criseyde as well. Well aware that Calkas’ predictions contend that Troy’s people will be

“slayn” and its “walles torn,” Troilus fears that Criseyde will be overtaken with “drede” and, even if she avoids attachment to a Greek knight, will refuse to return to Troy out of fear for her life. Together, Troilus’ concerns demonstrate a larger distrust of Criseyde’s ability to carry out her plan once her marital agency changes, that the Criseyde in Troy is a different woman from Criseyde in the Greek camps with her father.

Despite his earlier rejection of eloping with the widow, Troilus’ counter-proposal is to steal away from Troy with Criseyde: “A thousand tymes mercy I yow preye…lat us stele awey bitwixe us tweye” (IV.1500-1503). When rejecting Pandarus’ suggestion,

Troilus hesitated due to the political pressure his father was under and how he himself had no legal claim to Criseyde. As the departure of his lover comes closer to being,

Troilus becomes more willing to steal away with the widow in order to conserve their love. Seeing only uncertainty ahead once she enters the Greek camp, Troilus wants to hold on Criseyde and their relationship as it stands now:

I mene thus: that syn we mowe er day Wel stele awey and ben togidere so, What wit were it to putten in assay, In cas ye sholden to youre fader go, If that ye myghten come ayeyn or no? Thus mene I: that it were a gret folie To putte that sikernesse in jupertie. (IV.1506-1512) For Troilus, the love that he and Criseyde share is certain and real while the chances of

Criseyde’s plan succeeding in reuniting the two a hazy future that seems less and less possible. Furthermore, as the constant sufferer of lovesickness, the loss of Criseyde means a loss of “sikerness” for Troilus, an absence only certain to reignite his own pain

176 with Criseyde’s absence. The more present the threat of losing Criseyde becomes the more Troilus is willing to abandon Troy and his responsibilities there to elope with her.

Troilus even plans for their monetary success by emptying their individual coffers of moveable wealth to sustain their lives in exile: “And vulgarly to speken of substaunce /

Of tresour, may we bothe with us lede / Inough to lyve in honour and plesaunce / Til into tyme that we shal ben dede” (IV.1513-1516). Troilus no longer considers the violation of his father’s will an obstacle, or even his own duties to defend Troy, and plans to take what he and Criseyde can carry with them and “eschuen al this drede” (IV.1517), both the end of their love and the end of Troy. Ultimately, Troilus cannot trust in Criseyde’s plan because he has not been able to trust in the widow herself. Troilus, and Pandarus, have already required exhaustive demonstrations of Criseyde’s fidelity and affection while she was relatively free to dictate her own fate within the walls of Troy. Troilus’ faith in Criseyde’s love cannot extend beyond those walls.

In the end Criseyde’s plan proceeds, the widow going to her father and planning on returning to Troy on the tenth day. However, Troilus’ fears are realized as Criseyde finds her place in the Greek camp more difficult to escape than expected: “Allas, and I ne may it nat amende, / For now is wors than evere yet I wende! / My fader nyl for nothyng do me grace / To gon ayeyn, for naught I kan hym queme” (V.692-695). Despite her predictions of her father’s greed, Criseyde is unable to persuade him to allow her to leave. Once placed back in her father’s possession, the liminal status Criseyde enjoyed as a widow in Troy has shifted to overarching control from Calkas, her very movements

177 relegated to his permission. Even sneaking away to Troy carries with it great risks that

Criseyde had not foreseen:

And if that I me putte in jupartie To stele awey by nyght, and it bifalle That I be kaught, I shal be holde a spie; Or ells – lo, this drede I moost of alle – If in the hondes of som wrecche I falle, I name but lost, al be myn herte trewe. (V.701-707) Leaving the military encampment under the cover of darkness carries two main risks: either Criseyde is mistaken for a “spie” and imprisoned or she is captured by “som wrecche,” taken into possession, physically and sexually, by a strange man. Here

Criseyde learns the primary difference between her marital agency within and outside of

Troy’s walls. Inside her city she was insulated by the legal protection of Hector’s family and the possession of her father’s wealth, granting her some level of limited agency.

Outside of Troy Criseyde’s relative position has shifted, no longer having the protection of Priam’s sons or possessing her father’s wealth. Instead here Criseyde falls under her father’s legal coverture, rendered once more as a sexual commodity that Calkas may exchange for his benefit. It is of little wonder then that this final book of Chaucer’s romance contains the first full description of Criseyde’s physical appearance. All of the aspects of her physical beauty are outlined under Diomedes gaze: her “mene” stature, the fair shape her face, her hair bound with “thred of gold,” all only partially spoiled by the final detail of “hire browes joyneden yfeere” (V.806-814). While in Troy, Criseyde’s unfixed marital status also left her physical features undefined, always described in context to her identity as widow and the habits she wore accordingly. Here, Criseyde’s status has become fixed under her father’s authority, making her physical features 178 become the defining aspects of her character. Criseyde the abandoned widow garnered sympathy and could use her liminal status to stake out some agency of her own. Criseyde the refugee daughter has no such benefit, becoming a sexual commodity to be appraised and sought by Diomedes. Criseyde’s attempts to appropriate the unfixed status of her widowhood demonstrates the problematic nature of potential marital agency. While

Criseyde remained in that unfixed state in she seemed to retain some sense of agency, yet the unfolding of the Pandarus’ manipulations and Calkas’ exchange for her demonstrates that agency as a false front. Widowhood may have provided a range of opportunities to late medieval women in England, but those opportunities were often seated in the widow’s potential for remarriage, making Criseyde’s attempts to remain maritally unfixed a risky tactic.

179

Chapter 4: Marital Labor

In late medieval marriage, the control of economic ventures of a household by wives is common. In a series of correspondence between members of the Paston family,

Margaret Paston’s letters demonstrate her efficacy in managing the business practices of her household. In one such letter, dated 8 April 1465, Margaret shows concern over the household’s malt sales, stating that “if it would please you, it seems to me that you need to send us word what arrangements to make for your old malt.”223 As her husband, John, is imprisoned at this time, her involvement in these matters is to some degree a matter of necessity. Moreover, Margaret’s request reinforces her husband’s authority, opening with

“if it would please you” and clarifying that it is “your [John’s] malt” rather than simply belonging to the family. Two sentences later, however, Margaret reveals that she has

“sold 100 coombs of malt that came from Guton to James Golbeter…for 2s 2d per pound, and to be paid at Midsummer and Lammas.”224 Operating on her own management skills,

Margaret has already sold a portion of the property and established a payment schedule.

In the same letter, Margaret outlines the recent events of a land dispute with the Duke of

Suffolk, providing her own close analysis of the pertinent documents and lays out a plan for managing the family’s tenant properties. 225 While she couches the letter as a request

223 Diane Watt, The Paston Women: Selected Letters, (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2004), 71. 224 Watt, 72. 225 Watt, The Paston Women, 71. 180 for her husband’s wishes in these matters, Margaret Paston shows skill in handling things herself. Even though she makes it clear that her husband holds authority under the parameters of his legal coverture, Margaret’s role as wife includes management of the family’s business dealings and the labor contained therein. Margaret Paston carefully negotiates her active management of the household with the need to cater to her expected role as wife. In similar fashion Emaré, a fifteenth century Middle English Breton Lay, finds its titular heroine identified, commodified, and judged according to her association with textile labor, yet that very labor simultaneously provides Emaré with the ability to demonstrate her own value as a member of the households that take her in and, ultimately, to reunite with her husband and rightful role as his queen. Both Margaret

Paston and Emaré make performative gestures towards passivity, but their use of labor within their identities as wives demonstrates more than submission.

In her work dealing with the relationship between labor and corporeality, Kellie

Robertson reads Margaret Paston’s role in the household as both providing and delimiting agency. Focusing on Margaret’s extensive lists in the letters to her husbands, Robertson states that “they are proof of Margaret’s proficiency as a household provider, documenting her ability to purvey and provision.”226 Robertson further maintains that these lists represent an “argument for her efficiency as a household manager,” Margaret

Paston’s letters “anatomiz[ing] the workings of the household, making them available for the absent lord’s control and ultimate approval.”227 While Margaret’s management of

226 Kellie Robertson, The Laborer’s Two Bodies: Labor and the “Work” of the Text in Medieval Britain, 1350-1500, (New York: Palgrave, 2006), 144. 227 Robertson, The Laborer’s Two Bodies, 146. 181 household concerns in the letter demonstrates agency in these matters, the need to report these actions to her husband constantly places her and her work under the surveillance of her husband. Robertson describes this as “a kind of ‘distaff drag,’ where the housewife parades the household goods before her husband in the text, while, at the same time, affirming her dependence on her husband to provide these goods.”228 Despite her command of household matters, Margaret’s agency and identity as manager of household goods is dependent upon her husband, subject to his discretion. Robertson argues that to maintain her role in the household “Margaret’s gender identity…comes to be stabilized through both her self-anatomization in descriptions of her clothing and the lists of household objects that conflated her body with her work in the household.”229 Margaret is herself treated as a household object that guarantees the smooth operation of household business. For Margaret Paston, labor within marriage delimits her role as wife, her ability to take action as a provider of labor, and her anatomized identity as part of the household’s property. In similar fashion, the titular character of Emaré is embodied through the lavish robe she wears, which represents her marital labor of silk work, her exchangeability as a marital commodity, and her personal virtue. As a study on this function of the robe, this chapter will focus on how the relationship between this robe and marital labor.

Before tackling Emaré directly, the context of marital labor requires further discussion. Labor in marriage provides an odd condition for wives as necessary practices for the ongoing stability of the household and the agency of the wife as laborer, yet the

228 Robertson, The Laborer’s Two Bodies, 149. 229 Robertson, The Laborer’s Two Bodies, 149. 182 very practice of this labor delimits the wife’s role in marriage. To take an example from a much maligned figure in Middle English literature, Margery Kempe takes on the roles of marital labor early on in The Book of Margery Kempe.230 Early in her narrative, Margery attempts new practices of “huswyfré,” first trying her hand at brewing and then turning to milling. While initially successful in each business, both fail for reasons that are not immediately clear. What is clear, however, is the moral judgment that follows these failed ventures. Kempe herself interprets the failure of her ventures into “huswyfré” as a judgment from God; “this creatur, seyng alle this adversytes coming on every syde, thowt it weryn the skourges of owyr Lord that wold chastise hir for fir synne” (1.216, 1.235-

238). Margery reacts according to her interpretation of events, forsaking “hir pride, hir coveytyse, and desyr that sche had of the worshepys of the world” (1.238-239). Without entering into a debate about the potential performativity at play in Kempe’s account, her reaction to the failure of these ventures demonstrates that the failure of marital labor is seen as a failure of the wife’s duty. The townspeople ascribe similar moral judgments for

Margery’s failures, claiming that “sche was acursyd,” that “God toke opyn venjawns upon hir,” or even that “Jhesu Cryst clepyd and kallyd hir fro the pride and vanyté of the wretthyd world” (1.233-236). The labor conducted within marriage, that “huswyfré,” becomes both the required role of the wife and also another aspect through which she can be judged by other agents in the text.

Some scholars view late medieval England as a golden age for women in trade, citing the rising numbers of women in business ventures and growing legal protection.

230 All citations from this text come from The Book of Margery Kempe, edited by Lynn Staley. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1996. 183

Abram argues that the percentage of women active in trades shows a marked increase in late 14th century London, even suggesting that some policies actually advantaged women active in trade over men.231 For Abram, the increased presence of women in medieval trades suggests increased agency; “we are led to the conclusion that women traders of medieval London were persons of strong character and undeniable business ability, and that they played a not inconsiderable and very useful part in the industrial life of the city.”232 While Abram’ research is promising for the scholar searching for instances of female agency in medieval England, these figures can be misleading. To begin with, the recorded number of women engaged in trades may show a great increase in this period, but much labor conducted by women under their husband’s legal identity may be underreported. Additionally, the increased number of women engaged in trade does not denote the quality of that involvement, even in organizations such as guilds designed to protect their members. In their evaluation of female enrollment in guilds, Maryanne

Kowaleski and Judith Bennett argue that guilds could provide another power structure to inhibit female agency and gender discrepancy; one area where this divide becomes clear is in trade apprenticeship, where women were taken on in smaller numbers than men, allowed to work only in trades relegated to “women’s work” such as the textile industry,

231 Despite the age of this study, Abram’ article is footnoted in many more recent articles such as Mary Carruther’s “The Wife of Bath and the Painting of Lions” and Stephanie Trigg’s “The Traffic in Medieval Women: Alice Perrers, Feminist Criticism, and Piers Plowman,” possibly due to its statistical information and positive opinion of women’s plight in medieval London. For more see A. Abram, “Women Traders in Medieval London,” The Economic Journal: The Economic Journal of the Royal Economic Society, no. 26 (1916): 276-285. 232 Abram, 285. 184 and “seldom became fully independent journeywomen.”233 For Kowaleski and Bennett, the increased number of women in the workforce can also represent increased methods for reducing their agency as producers in the marketplace.

The increased role of women in London’s marketplace comes in large part from shifts in demographics and trade in late medieval England. Barbara Hanawalt posits that

“[w]omen in London were in a unique position to have an impact on the city’s growing economy in the late Middle Ages.”234 Hanwalt further suggests that these changes in

London allowed not only opportunities for women but growing legal rights such as

“courts to preserve their rights, and city officials oversaw the administration of laws regarding women, their children, and their property.”235 This level of legal protection is in contrast to policies under English common law, under which Judith Bennet suggests

“[w]ives ceased to be treated by the court as legally competent adults” but “enjoyed the shelter of their husband’s authority.”236 Abram comments that one such policy was an

Act passed in 1363 that “ordered men to keep to one trade, while women were left free to follow as many as they chose.”237 Later critics such as Hanawalt are careful to temper these growing opportunities for women with the relatively small percentage of documented women taking on business and entrepreneurial roles. It should be noted, however, that many of these opportunities come through the avenue of marriage, either

233 Maryanne Kowaleski and Judith Bennett. “Crafts, Guilds, and Women in the Middle Ages: Fifty Years after Marian K. Dale.” Sisters and Workers in the Middle Ages, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), 14. 234 Hanawalt, The Wealth of Wives, 1. 235 Hanawalt, The Wealth of Wives, 2. 236 Judith Bennett, Women in the Medieval English Countryside: Gender & Household in Brigstock Before the Plague, (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1987), 105. 237 Abram, 276. 185 through the inheritance of a deceased husband’s business practices or the horizontal distribution of wealth that marriage and remarriage allowed.238 In particular, policies like that of femme sole allowed even married women “to be responsible for their own businesses and for the debts that they incurred.”239 The function of femme sole status can be heavily manipulated in legal cases, but this legal designation exhibits the shifting role and importance of the labor of wives within marriage.240 For Emaré, the introduction of her textile labor shifts the context of what would otherwise be another tale in the

Constance tradition. Most importantly, the role of Emaré’s textile labor makes the Breton

Lay less about patience and more about using domestic labor to repay obligations and demonstrate Emaré’s virtue as a marital commodity.

I. The Economics of Exogamy, Marriage, and “sylkyn werke” in Emaré

In Emaré, the emperor gives his daughter, the titular character, a robe made of an incredibly expensive cloth. Upon seeing her for the first time since childhood, the emperor is overcome by desire to marry his daughter, leading him to commission a robe241 for her made from the cloth, to seek papal approval to marry her, and, when

Emaré refuses him, to cast her out to sea in a rudderless boat. The robe comes to represent Emaré’s state as a marital commodity, creating a pattern throughout the text where various agents, seeing Emaré in the robe, are overcome with desire to possess her

238 Hanawalt, The Wealth of Wives, 12. 239 Hanawalt, The Wealth of Wives, 10. 240 Stephanie Trigg discusses the flexibility of femme sole status in legal proceedings as she plots Alice Perrer’s manipulation of the system. For more see Trigg’s “The Traffic in Medieval women: Alice Perrers, Feminist Criticism, and Piers Plowman.” The Yearbook of Langland Studies, no 12. (1998): 5-27. 241 Due to the ambiguity of the Middle English terms used to refer to the garment, scholarly treatments of Emaré refer to it as a cloth, cloak, robe, or dress, just to name a few. While any or all of these may be applicable to Emaré’s garment, this chapter will use the term “cloth” to refer to the material of the garment itself and “robe” to refer to the garment that Emaré wears through most of the text. 186 through marriage. The robe, wrought of such quality and material that it represents an exorbitant material cost, becomes the physical demonstration of Emaré’s exchange value.

Unlike other texts following the Constance tradition, such as Chaucer’s Man of Law’s

Tale, Emaré adds the device of the rich cloth which has a distinct effect on the text at large. For the emperor, this marital exchange value overcomes any qualms he might have had over marrying his daughter. For Emaré’s eventual husband the king, the robe advertises her potential value as a wife. For Emaré herself, the cloth demonstrates the text’s larger conflation of marital identity through sexual exchange value, courtesy, and textile labor. Further complicating the tropes of Constance narratives, the robe also serves as a symbol for Emaré’s ability to use textile labor to advertise her own marital exchange value and repay the households that take her in, making Emaré a tale less of a heroine’s patience and more of her ability to trade labor for security.

i. Emaré’s Robe and Active Labor

Emaré’s commodified state, coupled with her multiple exiles to sea, would seem to suggest a passive role for the woman, with scholars such as Maldwyn Mills suggesting that Emaré is a study on passivity.242 However, this approach to Emaré overlooks the very active role Emaré takes in mediating her marital exchange value. Here, I use the term marital exchange value to refer collectively to the various aspects of Emaré character that comprise her value upon the marital market; while some of these elements may not deal directly with her sexual potential, they comprise core components of her duties as a future wife. For Emaré, these includes her anatomized sexual goods, virtue,

242 Maldwyn Mills, Ed, Six Middle English Romances. London: Orion Publish Group, 1993. xxv. 187 courtesy, and skill in textile production. Thus, Emaré’s active participation in the text involves the consideration, management, and appropriation of her marital exchange value. When the Emperor attempts to purchase her sexual goods for himself, Emaré balks to the point of being exiled. When she is taken in by the steward and merchant respectively, Emaré works to repay her host through her textile labor and even teaches the trade of silk working, establishing herself as an important member of each household.

Even when reconciling with her husband, Emaré applies her skill in textile production to dress her son and, with her specific instruction, acts through him to reunite their family.

Rather than standing as another innocuous example of the Constance tradition, Emaré reinterprets the role of the patient, virtuous woman to one that accepts the judgment of others but uses domestic labor to repay obligations and better her lot.

As the item that provides the most distinct diversion from the Constance tradition, it may be most appropriate to begin discussion of Emaré with an evaluation of the cloth that accompanies the heroine throughout her exile. The cloth itself, presented by the King of Sicily,243 is made of “ryche golde” and precious stones (113), but depicts four specific love scenes whose material construction is specifically outlined by the text. One corner depicts the story of “Ydoyne and Amadas” wrought in “carbunkull and safere, /

Kassydonys and onyx so clere / Sette in golde newe, / Deamondes and rubyes, / And othur stones of mychyll pryse, / And menstrellys wyth her glewe” (122-132). While little detail is given to the referenced love story, the text specifically outlines the materials used to construct it on the cloth, granting more importance to the commodities used to

243 It is worth noting that Sicily was well known for its production of silk. For more, see Laskaya’s notes in the TEAMS edition of the text. 188 produce the image of the lovers than their story itself. This trend is carried out with all four scenes, with an image of “Trystram and Isowde” comprising of “topase and of rubye” among other precious stones (134-144), “Florys and Dam Blawncheflour” depicted with “Emerawdes of gret vertues” in addition to diamonds and crystal (146-

156), and “Babylone the Sowdan sonne” with the “Amerayles dowghtyr” wrought in

“stones that wer sowght wyde” (157-168).244 Each of the individual materials described on the cloth is itself an expensive commodity with exchange value independent of the cloth. The inclusion of this wide range of materials would mark the cloth as having a remarkable exchange value from its materials alone. However, the use of these precious materials to produce the tales of lovers serves to commodify those tales, the telling of their stories relegated to the material cost of their telling through the cloth. As this cloth becomes Emaré’s totemic symbol, the specter of commodified love hangs over the text.

Despite the cloth’s material properties, however, critical attention is mixed when dealing with the robe, the heroine, and Emaré in general.

While the Middle English Breton lays have received more recent critical attention,

Emaré has not been treated with any great regularity in the past thirty years of scholarship. Ad Putter suggests that the lack of scholarly interest likely stems from what he identifies as an overly generic text, one that lacks historic or thematic elements that make it unique.245 Emaré certainly fits within the “Constance” tradition of medieval texts, such as the more popular examples of the Man of Law’s Tale and Gower’s “Tale of

244 The fourth love scene has the least description of the specific materials, and thus spends more time describing the scene than the other three corners. Laskaya’s notes suggest that this story is present in several other Middle English texts, which may explain the greater amount of detail on the story itself. 245 Ad Putter, “The Narrative Logic of Emaré.” The Spirit of Medieval English Popular Romance, (New York: Longman, 20000, 158. 189

Constance,” and criticism on Emaré usually only touches on the Breton Lay in order to discuss its relationship with these other texts. Geraldine Heng’s Empire of Magic, for example, has a chapter in which she reads Constance characters as objects of desire for the sexualized Orient.246 Heng does touch on Emaré in particular, suggesting that the robe conflates desire for the character with desire for the treasures of the east and briefly touching on the correlation between her overall argument about the Orient with the issues of incest in the text, but this is only a small part of her larger argument. Similarly, D.

Thomas Hanks Jr. also discusses Emaré strictly in the context of how it relates to other

Constance tales, specifically suggesting that the Breton lay was an influence on the Man of Law’s Tale.247 Hanks provides a close reading of Emaré, but this only takes the form of comparing plot and verbal similarities between the two texts. This critical trend seems to follow Putter’s suggestion, considering Emaré primarily for what its supposedly small role in the tradition rather than its own innovations of the Constance tales. This trend fails to consider, however, the innovations Emaré introduces to the Constance tradition.

ii. Emaré’s Personal Virtue

Throughout its text, Emaré conflates textile labor, personal virtue, and courtesy all through the totemic function of Emaré’s robe. This trend begins with Emaré’s foster education, where the lady is taught “curtesye,” “Thewe,” and “Golde and sylke for to sewe” (58-59). These skills are given equal weight in the brief description of her education, suggesting that knowledge of textile labor, courtesy, and manners were of

246 Geraldine Heng, Empire of Magic, (New York: Columbia UP, 2003). 247 D. Thomas Hanks, Jr., “Emaré: An Influence on the ‘Man of Law's Tale.’” The Chaucer Review, no. 18.2 (Fall, 1983): 183. 190 relatively equal importance in Emaré’s upbringing. Throughout the text, Emaré and her son are described through periodic use of the same epithet, “worthy unther wede.”248 The construction of this epithet serves a range of functions. The inclusion of “wede” identifies

Emaré according to the robe that she wears throughout her ordeals. Furthermore, the designation of “worthy” indicates personal virtue to the one wearing the robe. The one that bears this robe is worthy, despite the hardships she faces. The application of this epithet to Segramoure later in the text demonstrates the passing of Emaré’s qualities to her son, extending both the ability to endure suffering and retain personal virtue on to the product of her marriage with the King. Likewise, the term courtesy in various forms appears repeatedly to describe Emaré and her son.249 This pairing designates the multivalent function of the term courtesy, serving as another description of personal virtue as well as a performative skill which can be taught. Emaré herself learned

“curtesye” from Arbo, and the lady passes on this skill both to Kadore’s household and her own son. Segramoure himself has the most common occurrences of this term in the short portion of the text involving the child, and his ability to perform courteously proves instrumental to reuniting the King with Emaré. All of these qualities, however, are associated with or contained under Emaré’s skill in textile labor. The crosscutting of that domestic labor throughout Emaré exhibits the text’s perspective on Emaré as a productive laborer in textiles and courteous behavior.

248 This epithet is applied to Emaré as she stands against her father’s desires (250) and upon hearing the message that she is to be put to see once more (612). The epithet is applied to Segramour first to describe his quality of state at seven years of age (736) and his noble bearing, reunited with his father, while meeting Artyus for the first time (988). 249 “curteys” appears once to describe Artyus, but this is immediately before his decision to marry his own daughter (74). For Emaré, the term is used to describe her education (60), her ability to instruct others in a household (425), her personal virtue (724), and her son’s virtuous behavior (738, 850, 868, 872, and 894). 191

Despite the trend to deal with the text only in part, some critics have paid close attention to Emaré itself. While also discussing Emaré alongside other texts, Gail Ashton treats the Breton lay more thoroughly than Heng or Hanks.250 Focusing on three versions of the Constance tradition, Ashton discusses how the daughter functions in regards to the construction of family and patriarchy. Ashton ultimately argues that the daughter’s role is strictly to support the patriarchy, her potential relegated as the potential mother of future male heirs. Considering these characters together, Ashton argues that “[t]he Constance-

Emare figure is, thus, unsignified, property to be traded amongst men.”251 For Ashton, the way that identity, or the lack thereof, plays out in these texts is directly related to the trafficking of these women and their eventual use to reconstruct patriarchal structure and authority. In regards to Emaré in particular, Ashton suggests that the process of renaming herself creates a dual paradigm of naming in the text; “this duality reminds that she both is and is not ‘daughter,’ the property he lost.”252 For Ashton, Emaré’s eventual reunion with her rightful husband reconstructs the proper social order as she moves from being a

“daughter-wife” to the proper “mother-wife.”253 Interestingly, Ashton makes a side argument of the role of textile production in the text; “Just as cloth is wrought into a robe for Emaré, in both Wales and Rome Emaré's active influence is seen in the way she teaches women to sew, to embroider silks and fabricate garments.”254 Her discussion of

Emaré comprises a relatively small portion of her chapter, but Ashton keys in on an issue

250 Gail Ashton, “Her Father's Daughter: The Realignment of Father-Daughter Kinship in Three Romance Tales.” The Chaucer Review, no. 34.4 (2000): 416-427. 251 Ashton, 418. 252 Ashton, 424. 253 Ashton, 426. 254 Ashton, 424. 192 this paper will expand, more closely evaluating Emaré’s direct participation in the text.

One key to this evaluation, and a problematic area for scholarly discussion, is in dealing with the totemic cloth.

When dealing with Emaré, many critics have attempted to discern the function of the robe in this text. Anne Savage discusses the robe in the context of her larger discussion of paternal incest, suggesting that the garment, like Griselda’s clothing, represents a “familiar social role: all have been bestowed by a father-husband for the purpose of claiming her publicly as his own.”255 Ross Arthur, on the other hand, considers Emaré’s garment as part of a textual interest in Augustinian signification, discussing the role of the specific gems and materials of the robe and how they fit in with his paradigm.256 While an interesting philosophical exercise, Arthur’s points seem more interested in using the Breton lay to explore Augustine’s work than actually considering the text itself. Chrstine Li-ju Tsai takes a slightly different perspective, suggesting that the cloth itself functions within the psychological side of medieval gift giving, which can either support or disrupt social order.257 For Tsai, the emperor’s act of forcing the cloth on his daughter also forces the love narratives inscribed upon it on her in order to satisfy his own desires, creating disorder through the act of gift giving. Tsai’s approach does suggest a potentially interesting perspective on the intentionality of giving the cloth as a

255 Anne Savage, “Clothing Paternal Incest in The Clerk’s Tale, Emaré, and the Life of St Dympna.” Medieval Women: Texts and Contexts in Late Medieval Britain, (Turnhout: Brepolis, 2000), 354. 256 Ross Arthur, “Emaré’s Cloak and Audience Response.” Sign, Sentence, Discourse: Language in Medieval Thought and Literature. Edited by Julian N. Wasserman and Lois Roney, (Syracuse: Syracuse UP, 1989), 80-94. 257 Chrstine Li-ju Tsai, “Emaré’s Fabulous Robe: The Ambiguity of Power in a Late Medieval Romance.” Medieval Forum, 2003. 193 gift, but she fails to treat Emaré’s use of the cloth throughout the rest of the text, the robe becoming a symbol for her rescue in both Wales and Rome.

While Anne Wilson considers Emaré alongside two other texts, she evaluates the role the cloth continues to play with Emaré, arguing that “[t]he robe bestows upon the heroine a sense of her value and her splendor, and she takes these feelings with her into exile, where they have roles to play.”258 For Wilson, Emaré is in the end concerned with purification, and Emaré eventually comes to purify her father’s socially disruptive desires through her suffering. Elizabeth Scala takes a rather different approach, considering the robe itself as representation of the larger material culture surrounding the manuscript itself. For Scala, “interpreting the cloth amounts to interpreting the poem itself and possibly the medieval culture that produced and consumed it.”259 Scala’s larger interest is in considering what the cloth itself says about the role of written texts within medieval merchant culture, suggesting that the circulation of Emaré and her robe represent the way that manuscripts were exchanged between families. These approaches provide reasoning for Emaré close association with the cloth, but both Wilson and Scala see the relationship between the heroine and the cloth as primarily passive with little in the way of active participation from Emaré.

In addition to its demonstration of Orientalized and sexually commodified issues in the text, Anne Laskaya suggests that Emaré “participate[s] in an entire set of cultural naratives that perpetuate crucial assumptions about reality and gender” that “lends

258 Anne Wilson, Plots and Powers: Magical Structures in Medieval Narrative, (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001), 75. 259 Elizabeth Scala, “The Texture of Emaré.” Philological Quarterly, no. 85.3. (2006): 224. 194 support to a culture that tolerated a high degree of actual violence, specifically, in this case, sexual and physical violence against women.”260 For Laskaya, the function of

Emaré’s robe is to disguise the overhanging threat of physical and sexual violence, creating a detached and uncaring response towards these acts. Laskaya reads the robe as an embodiment of the larger social practice of obfuscating this violence alongside its other roles in the text; “The jewel-studded robe echoes these contradictions and tensions: it is war booty and wedding gift; an incestuous gift and a sign marking and protecting

Emaré in exile; a depiction of passionate (even adulterous) lovers and a lapidary of virtuous stones.”261 According to Laskaya, even while the robe functions to save and vindicate Emaré it also disguises her suffering; thus, the text’s pronouncement to provide mirth alongside tragedy softens the impact of the latter, presenting them in a socially acceptable form. For Laskaya, the normalization of incest and sexual violence is not a process that should be hid beneath a robe, no matter how ornate. While the threat of physical violence hangs over the text, the manner in which Emaré takes control of the labor that the cloth represents, using it to validate her place within the households in

Wales and Rome, suggests that more is at work in the text than simply obfuscation.

iii. Textile Labor

Critical focus on the cloth’s function in the text has the unfortunate effect of taking the attention away from Emaré’s role in the Breton Lay. Nicholas Perkins, for example, suggests that Emaré operates as an “object in the narrative, whose circulation

260 Anne Laskaya and Eve Salisbury, eds, The Middle English Breton Lays, (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2001), 98. 261 Laskaya, 109. 195 accrues debts, obligations and also inspires desire and wonder, is important not only to the narrative cohesion of the plot, but also to the claim that romance itself makes on its audience – that same ability to provoke emotion, bring an audience together and nourish social relations.”262 Perkins is more interested in plotting the rhetorical function of ekphrasis in Emaré, but viewing Emaré strictly as the object to be exchanged overlooks her role in cloth production. Amanda Hopkins shifts some of this focus back to Emaré, suggesting that “the robe begins as and remains an ironic emblem of Emaré’s vulnerability and of the wrongs done to her.”263 Rather than being overshadowed by it,

Hopkins argues that the robe reinforces what has happened to Emaré. Furthermore,

Hopkins maintains that Emaré’s labor operates as her defining characteristic; “the sewing-motif, with its continually evoked link with courtesy, expresses the heroine’s character; the cloth does not.”264 Hopkins does much to shift the focus back to the heroine’s role and touches on the critically undervalued role of textile labor in the text.

To better consider how Emaré’s labor functions in the text, a consideration of the historical association of textile production in late medieval Europe is beneficial.

A vital component in considering the use value of Emaré is the gendered aspect of textile production in late medieval Europe.265 Ruth Karras treats this component of textile

262 Nicholas Perkins, “Ekphrasis and Narrative in Emaré and Sir Eglamour of Artois.” Medieval Romance, Medieval Contexts, (London: D.S.Brewer, 2011), 53. 263 Amanda Hopkins, “Veiling the Text: the True Role of the Cloth in Emaré.” Medeival Insular Romance, (London: D.S. Brewer, 2000), 81. 264 Hopkins, 81. 265 While only Karras and Burns are cited here, this study was informed by several other texts on medieval textile labor. For more on medieval textile production, see Elizabeth Barber’s Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years: Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times, (New York : Norton, 1994), T.H. Lloyd’s The English wool trade in the Middle Ages, (New York: Cambridge UP, 1977), John Munro’s Textiles, Towns and Trade : Essays in the Economic History of Late-Medieval England and the Low Countries, 196 labor in detail, suggesting that capability in textile labor could be seen as an indicator of the character of the woman herself; “Textile work was distinguished from other types of crafts in that it remained a symbol of feminine virtue even after women no longer formed the main body of workers.”266 Textile labor can thus operate as a performative act through which Emaré can demonstrate her personal virtue. Beyond a signifier of virtue, however, textile production provided a significant economic boon to the household.

Karras argues that the household production of textiles maintained importance for the economic development of households despite the rising availability of such commodities in the market economy of late medieval Europe.267 Emaré’s passing on of these skills could thus be a welcome contribution to the household’s income. It is worth noting, however, that Emaré specifically “tawghte hem to sewe and marke / All maner of sylkyn werke” (376-377). More than other forms of textile production, silk work was a particularly highly valued commodity in late medieval Europe. In her larger discussion of the role of silk production in Medieval Europe, Jane Burns suggests that silk in particular was one of the “most highly valued and high-volume commercial commodities in the medieval Mediterranean.”268 While Burns focuses on how the production of silk functions in medieval French texts, the emphasis these texts place on the economic value of silk production, such as Yvain’s three hundred ladies dedicated solely to silk work,

(Brookfield: Variorum, 1994), and Medieval Fabrications: Dress, Textiles, Clothwork, and Other Cultural Imaginings, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), edited by Jane Burns. 266 Ruth Mazo Karras, “‘This Skill in a Woman is By No Means to Be Despised’ Weaving and the Gender Division of Labor in the Middle Ages,” Medieval Fabrications: Dress, Textiles, Clothwork, and Other Cultural Imaginings, Edited by Jane Burns, (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2004), 98. 267 Karras, 90. 268 E. Jane. Burns, Sea of Silk: a Textual Geography of Women’s Work in Medieval French Literature, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), 43-44. 197 underscores the impact this skill can have on the household economy. Emaré’s skill is thus in itself a vital commodity, one that she passes on to the households that take her in.

iv. Emaré’s Robe and the Misappropriation of Marital Exchange Value

While the cloth comes to represent the sexual commodification of Emaré, this process begins earlier in the text, stemming from the Emperor’s disassociation from his daughter. Syr Artyus, the emperor, is said to have been “the best manne / In the worlde that lyvede thanne” but has unfortunately been left a widower after his wife gives birth to their daughter, Emaré (37-38). The widower-father is a common trope of medieval

Breton lays, but, where other widower-fathers tend to keep their daughters nearby, Artyus sends Emaré to be fostered by a lady, where she is taught “curtesye and thewe, / Golde and sylke for to sewe, / Amonge maydenes moo” (55-60).269 In fostering Emaré outside of his home, Artyus provides an avenue for her to acquire the social and economic skills that her mother’s absence would disallow, investing in the future marriageable capital of his daughter. Furthermore, this initially seems to avoid some of the incestuous problems as seen in Degaré and Book VIII of the Confessio Amantis, taking away the opportunity for the widower-father to develop a sexual relationship due to her physical absence.

Rather than preventing the incestuous relationship, Emaré’s absence until adulthood merely delays the process. Having not seen his daughter since her childhood, Artyus, a widower who “myche loved playnge” (78), is presented with a “mayden that was of

269 Degaré, another medieval Breton lay, opens with a similar widower-father motif and demonstrates similar concerns over the threat of incest, but father in that poem keeps his daughter close at hand, having an explicit sexual relationship with her and actively working to keep potential husbands away from her. In the “Apollonius of Tyre” section of Gower’s Confessio Amantis, the widower-father figure likewise keeps his daughter at hand and engages in an explicit sexual relationship, going so far as to dare potential suitors to accuse him of this act of incest with his riddle game. 198 sembelant swete … [t]he fayrest wommon on lyfe” performing courteous skills gained in her foster care (220-224). Making matters worse, Artyus has lost a wife known for her beauty and complexion as “Whyte as whales bone” (33), and the young woman presented to him as daughter contains similar qualities, being a maiden “whyte as lylye flour”

(205). In a mixture of alienation from his daughter, and the familial obligations contained therein, and conflation of her beauty with that of his last wife, Artyus’ need to function according to the socially established role of a father is overcome by his estimation of her value as a potential bride.

Artyus’ estimation of Emaré’s marital exchange value is further modified by the

King of Sicily’s gift. The cloth’s depiction of love through valuable materials establishes a precedence for commodification, making the exchange value of its love stories more important than the content of the stories themselves. It is perhaps little wonder then that

Artyus desires to see his daughter again immediately after receiving the cloth; “Now remeveth thys nobyll kyng [the King of Sicily, after giving the cloth to the emperor]. /

The Emperour aftur hys dowghtur hadde longyng, / To speke wyth that may [maiden]”

(187-189). Thus, the text immediately moves from an in-depth description of the commodities used to craft the cloth’s images of famous lovers to Artyus’ desire to see his daughter again, seemingly for the first time since her childhood. The textual proximity of this desire to the cloth’s description puts the two moments in conversation with one another, encouraging the reader to draw a connection between them. The connection is further emphasized when Artyus, moving forward with his plan to marry Emaré, has the cloth retailored into a garment for his daughter (241-243). Once Emaré is accoutered in

199 the cloth, her beauty value reaches unnatural heights; “And when hyt was don her upon, /

She semed non erthely wommon, / That marked was of molde” (244-246). For Artyus the cloth functions as both the impetus and representation of his desire to possess Emaré’s in place of the wife he has lost.

v. Emaré’s Active Patience

The usual expectations of the sexual commodification of women are that the process inhibits agency in those commodified individuals,270 products on the market not generally dictating the manner or price of their sale. When presented with her father’s proposal, however, Emaré does not passively accept Artyus’ will, exclaiming “God of heven hyt forbede, / That ever do so we shulde” (251-252). Rather than invoking a religious argument in her refusal, a problematic approach considering the papal approval of the marriage, Emaré argues against the effect such a union would have on her father’s reputation; “The worde shulde sprynge fer and wyde; /In all the worlde on every syde /

The worde shulde be borne. / Ye ben a lorde of gret pryce, / Lorde, lette nevur such sorow aryce” (256-260). While involving Artyus’ reputation, Emaré’s use of the term

“pryce” is particularly telling. Laskaya glosses this Middle English term as “renown,” but the Middle English Dictionary indicates that it also carries the connotation of possessing monetary wealth. Accordingly, Artyus’s position as a “lorde of gret pryce” involves both his nobility and monetary value. Emaré thus suggests that in making this union the emperor will be sacrificing both reputation and, to some extent, wealth. If considering

Emaré’s role as a commodified object in the text, the idea that Artyus would lose wealth

270 Maldwyn Mills’ introduction to Six Middle English Romances, (London: Orion Publish Group, 1993) takes this perspective, and the general sentiment of passivity is shared by several critics of Emaré. 200 by possessing Emaré’s sexual goods may seem counterintuitive. Yet, from the perspective of exogamy Artyus’ union with Emaré would represent a distinct loss to his household. Specifically, the exchange of daughters to outside families fosters connections that create biological, social, and economic benefits. Emaré’s fostering involves an extended process of investment, improving her potential marital exchange value. If she is never exchanged, her economic potential is rendered null as she never reaches market, making the investment process of her fostering sunk costs that cannot be recovered. In marrying his own daughter Artyus would be consuming commodities he produced himself, undoing his own economic investments. Thus, in refusing to marry her father

Emaré attempts to dictate the parameters of her own exchange, setting a trend in which she appropriates and uses her commodified state to her advantage.

Emaré’s close association with the cloth, and the commodification that relationship suggests, continues with the discoveries of her rudderless boat on the shores of Wales and Rome. Rather than being limited by that association, however, Emaré uses the skills that comprise her sexual exchange value to better her position. After the vessel has washed upon the shore of Galys, Emaré is discovered by the king’s steward. Sir

Kadore finds Emaré’s boat, but rather than noticing the woman herself the steward is instead attracted by the cloth; “A boot he fond by the brym, / And a glysteryng thyng theryn, / Therof they hadde ferly. / They went forth on the sond / To the boot…And fond theryn that lady” (349-344). Kadore takes pity on Emaré’s near starving state and takes her into the household. However, once recovered Emaré begins to repay the steward for his kindness; “When that lady, fayr of face, / Wyth mete and / drynke kevered was, / And

201 had colour agayne, / She tawghte hem to sewe and marke / All maner of sylkyn werke”

(373-377). While her skill in textile labor came as part of the investment in her sexual exchange value, Emaré puts it to use to repay Kadore for taking her in:

Of her they wer full fayne. She was curteys yn all thyng, Bothe to olde and to yynge, I say yow for certeyne. She kowghthe werke all maner thyng That fell to emperour or to kyng, Erle, barown or Swayne. (378-384) Emaré’s production of textiles, and passing on of those skills to the household, serves two purposes. First, Emaré has established herself as an industrial asset, not only repaying the investment Kadore has made in housing and feeding here but actually increasing that household’s economic potential. Second, Emaré’s performance of skill in textile production demonstrates, as Karras argues, her feminine virtue, showing the household that she “was curteys yn all thyng.” Emaré’s renaming of herself to Egaré271 would suggest that she is outcast, without her familial connections; without clear parentage, her marital exchange value would be adversely affected. Emaré’s use of her skill in silk work operates to increase that exchange value, both by demonstrating the economic benefits she could bring to a household and reinforcing her feminine virtue. The robe, while a representation of Emaré’s commodification, has thus served as an advertisement of sorts, catching the steward’s attention with the commodities that Emaré can produce, materially and within marriage.

271 When Kadore asks for her name, Emaré states that she is called “Egaré.” According to Laskaya’s notes in The Middle English Breton Lays, “‘Egaré’ comes from the OF esgaree, meaning ‘outcast.’ The word ‘Emaré,’ stems from OF esmeree, meaning "refined" or "excellent"; although it also could come from OF esmarie, meaning ‘afflicted or troubled’ (128). 202

The advertising potential of Emaré’s robe continues even after she is taken in by

Sir Kadore. Holding a feast for the king, the steward has Emaré serve. However, rather than dressing in the livery of the household Emaré serves at the feast dressed solely in her robe:

The lady that was gentyll and small In kurtull alone served yn hall, Byfore that nobull kyng. The cloth upon her shone so bryghth When she was theryn ydyghth, She semed non erthly thing. (391-396) Emaré is dressed in a garment certain to make her stand out, both due to its expensive materials, which “shone so bryghth,” and its commodified love scenes. Much as it had affected Artyus, the cloth leads the king to desire Emaré’s sexual goods:

The kyng loked her upon, So fayr a lady he sygh nevur non: Hys herte she hadde yn wolde He was so anamered of that syghth, Of the mete non he myghth, But faste gan her beholde. (397-402) The very sight of Emaré causes the king to fixate upon her, ignoring the feast itself. This effect has led some scholars to suggest that the cloth itself has fairy like powers, as other totemic items in Breton Lays sometimes do. However, considering the sexual and economic connotations the text attributes the robe, the king’s reaction is to the wide range of signification seated in the cloth, including Emaré’s beauty, her courtesy, and her skill in textile labor.

Filled with this desire for the maiden, the king’s reaction to seeing her in the robe nearly mirrors the emperor’s, calling together his counselors (409-414) and seeking the

203 blessing of an established authority, his queen-mother in place of Artyus’ papal bull (440-

452). In considering the union, however, the king asks his steward about Emaré’s background; “Syr, whenns ys that lovely may / That yn the halle served thys day” (418-

419). This step is critical for the king in establishing a potential union as her parentage could drastically alter her sexual exchange value, and from the king’s perspective

Emaré’s identity is certainly confusing. She serves at the feast like a servant of the household, is dressed in a phenomenally expensive garment, and has a bearing and demeanor that stems from her courteous upbringing. This set of confusing characteristics makes the estimation of her exchange value difficult at best, forcing the king to seek more information. Sir Kadore, for reasons that are not disclosed in the text, fabricates a background for Emaré:

Hyt ys an erles thowghtur of ferre londe, That semely ys to sene. I sente aftur her certeynlye To teche my chylderen curtesye, In chambur wyth hem to bene. She ys the konnyngest wommon, I trowe, that be yn Crystendom, Of werke that y have sene. (422-429) Kadore’s invention of Emaré’s background is intriguing as it provides specific answers both to the oddity of the maiden’s identity and to her potential as a spouse for the king.

As the daughter of a minor noble, Emaré’s role as a servant dressed in expensive clothing is explained, and her noble lineage, although from an apparently poor and minor family, would allow for marriage to the king. While the text does not provide reasoning for the steward to have fabricated this story for Emaré, a consideration of what she has provided

Kadore may shed some light on the matter. The steward may have given Emaré room and 204 board, but in exchange the maiden has both produced textiles that would fetch a high price for the household and passed on this skill to the household itself, granting the steward economic benefits that far exceed what the steward has invested in Emaré.

Regardless of Kadore’s unexplained reasoning, Emaré is in the position to benefit from his fabrication due to her demonstration of her sexual exchange value, both through her silk work and courteous bearing; rather than passively awaiting the assistance of another—the norm in other Constance tales—Emaré works to repay the steward’s kindness and eventually benefits through Kadore’s enablement of her union with the king.

Emaré’s appropriation of her skills in courtesy and textile production reaches its full potential during her second exile. After the deception from her mother-in-law that comprises another trope of the Constance tradition, Emaré is taken in by a merchant in

Rome.272 Now with her child Segramowre, Emaré once again repays her host by both producing and teaching the process of silk work (721-732). Unlike her stay under Sir

Kadore, however, Emaré begins to invest her skills in her son. Much like her own foster education, Emaré begins to teach her son:

When the chylde was seven yer olde He was bothe wyse and bolde, And wele made of flesh and bone; He was worthy unthur wede And ryght well kowthe pryke a stede; So curtays a chylde was none. (733-739) Through Emaré’s tutelage, Segramowre gains a repute that closely mirrors her own, developing peerless courtesy, and gains the epithet “worthy unthur wede,” much as his

272 It is worth noting that Emaré’s savior here is a merchant of great wealth and is likely well equipped to recognize the value of the robe she wears and the economic potential it represents (685-696). 205 mother is described throughout the text. Segramowre becomes an extension of Emaré’s exchange value, the realization of her reproductive and courteous potential as well as an agent through which Emaré is further able to take an active role in improving her lot.

Specifically, when Emaré learns that the king is to attend a feast at the merchant’s home, she uses her son as an agent of reconciliation. Dressing him in a “kurtyll of ryche palle,” representing her skill in textile production, Emaré instructs her son to attend the king

(849-861). Upon seeing this child in his remarkable clothing the king is struck with thoughts of his own lost son, leading to an odd request from the merchant; “Syr, yf hyt be thy wyll, / Yyf me thys lytyll body! / I shall hym make lorde of town and towr; / Of hye halles and of bowre, / I love hym specially” (896-900). The sight of this child, the culmination of Emaré’s exchange value, causes the king to desire possession of the child, much as both the king and Artyus desire to possess Emaré upon first sight of her, but rather than sexual possession the implication here is that Segramowre will become the king’s heir, functionally replacing the son that king believes he has lost.

As an extension of her own potential exchange value, Emaré is able to use her son to investigate her husband’s demeanor and reconcile their family. Following his mother’s instructions, Segramowre reports what the king has said. Giving her son a new set of instructions, Emaré organizes the meeting with her husband:

Soone, when he shall to chambur wende, Take hys hond at the grete ende, For he ys thy fadur, ywysse; And byd hym come speke wyth Emaré, That changed her name to Egaré, In the londe of Galys. (904-909)

206

By acting through their son, Emaré capitalizes on her husband’s affection for

Segramowre to draw him to meet with her. While acting through an agent, Emaré nonetheless takes an active role in facilitating reconciliation with the king; “Ayeyn hem come the lady gent, / In the robe bryght and shene. / He toke her yn hys armes two, / For joye they sowened, both to, / Such love was hem bytwene” (932-936). Through the investiture of the skills that comprise her own sexual exchange values, Emaré thus reunites her family, countering her mother-in-law’s treachery and once again taking on the role of queen that represents the proper culmination of her marital potential, performed through her skill in courtesy and textile labor.

Emaré’s active role in manipulating her skills in courtesy and textile production to further her own ends stands in sharp contrast to other heroines of the Constance tradition who predominately demonstrate their virtue by quietly accepting their fate. While Emaré does not argue the judgment of either exile, she moves to establish herself as a productive member of the houses in Wales and Rome rather than simply waiting for providence.

Emaré’s use of marital labor, in silk work as well as the production and education of her son, offers a very different character than Chaucer’s Custance. Rather than relying on chance to right her ill-fortune, Emaré recovers from each exile, uses the assets available to her, and improves her station. Much as with Margaret Paston, Emaré’s domestic labor becomes a part of her marital identity, but Emaré actively takes up that labor to fulfill obligations, promote her own marital value, and ultimately see her family reunited.

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Conclusion

Here, at the end of this study, I want to return to the question I opened with: why is marriage in Middle English texts often dealt with through a representational scheme of economic metaphor? As the preceding chapters demonstrate, the specific aspects and designations of marriage differ between these texts, but the treatment of those aspects with economic metaphor remains consistent. The analysis conducted in this dissertation is one part corrective, one part contextualizing, and one part deepening. As corrective, this study pushes back on the monolithic perspective of antimercantilism in late medieval

England. As I discuss in the introduction, studies such as Roger Ladd’s Antimercantilism in Late Medieval English Literature carry on the perspective that merchants and trade in

England of this period were predominantly viewed pejoratively. While I certainly agree that unjust merchants and trade are common sources of complaint in Middle English texts, the representation of each goes beyond simply negative depictions. Diana Wood plots how the increasing presence of market transactions in the everyday lives of late medieval urban Londoners leads to an ameliorative shift in cultural perception of merchants and money, even leading to the production of some ballads and other texts featuring merchants as heroes.273 Andrew Galloway notes the normalization of trade

273 Diana Wood, Medieval Economic Thought, (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2002): 117-120. In some cases these texts could result from direct patronage from merchants or guilds, and these texts might feature heroes simply acting as merchants. In A Gest of Robyn Hode, Robin acts as both liege lord and merchant to 208 practices on Middle English poets, most notably discussing John Gower’s account books, his financial dealings, and his larger penchant for money chests in the Confessio

Amantis.274

To contextualize, this dissertation uses medieval economic thought as the lens for reading economic language and associations in Middle English texts. Many studies considering economic currents in this period focus predominantly on specific records of trade in the period or apply overtly modern economic perspectives backwards. The former can give a good understanding of how exchanges took place but does less to elucidate the full cultural impact of economic language in Middle English texts. The latter leans too heavily towards anachronistic argumentation, something that may be difficult to avoid, and that this dissertation may not be entirely innocent of, yet also offers a skewed perspective of the range of associations that come with economic metaphor. By pushing back on overwhelming critical reliance on antimercantile perspectives and using medieval economic thought to understand the function of economic associations in their own context, this dissertation seeks to deepen our understanding of Middle English texts that render marriage in economic terms and metaphor.

This study focuses on texts that consider marriage in economic contexts but is by no means an exhaustive exploration of the Middle English poetry that does so. By focusing my first chapter around marital markets and authority in The Wife of Bath’s

Prologue and the Mede section of The Vision of Piers the Plowman, I focus on how the knight he takes in, granting the destitute man sets of his livery but also lending him money. The sum lent is explicitly drawn out in contract, requiring a surety, and even mandates a schedule of repayment. 274 Andrew Galloway, “The Account Book and the Treasure: Gilbhert Maghfeld’s Textual Economy and the Poetics of Mercantile Accounting in Ricardian Literature,” Studies in the Age of Chaucer, no. 33 (2011): 65-124. 209 economic language is tied up with sexual commodification, marital agency, and the precarious legal position of wives. Each of these women’s economic tactics is transgressive, but that very transgression demonstrates the problems with marital authority at large. My second chapter’s focus on avarice in marriage considers how the function of greed is a socially destructive act, best exemplified through the text’s confluence of love, sin, and social relations in Gower’s Confessio Amantis. This confluence operates much like marriage, and Wynnere and Wastoure’s debate of avarice through marriage puts this dynamic in relief with its socially disruptive dynamics. My chapter on Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde focuses on widowhood rather than outright marriage, but the larger tensions that I plot out suggest that the shadow of marriage, both

Criseyde’s past marriage and the potential of one with Troilus, hangs over the text.

Criseyde’s illusory agency comes from marital potential, but the narrative of Troilus and

Criseyde demonstrates that this potential, much like Troy, is defined by its inevitable end.

My final chapter discusses the function of labor within marriage as a performative embodiment of wifely identity that also enables her to dictate some aspects of her fate.

The discussion of Emaré stands in contrast to most Constance narratives; a defining aspect of these narratives is the passivity of their heroines, yet Emaré, while appearing passive at face value, appropriates the textile labor that has defined her and uses it to regain all that she has lost. There are yet more insights to be gained from evaluation of other Middle English texts as well as other aspects of medieval marriage, insights I intend to push forward with in future work.

210

Too often today we think of the Economy, with a capital E, as a reified concept that exists of and for its own sake. Markets and businesses operate according to the bottom line and decisions that harm individuals can be defended according to the needs of the Economy. Too often, we bring this perspective to our reading of medieval texts, but, beyond anachronism, doing so obfuscates an important distinction. Medieval economic thought demonstrates that an economy is ultimately a collection of individuals exchanging together in the market, becoming reliant upon each other. The rendering of marriage through economic terms demonstrates a further iteration of this concept.

Marriage forms the smallest unit of social interrelation in the late medieval context. The husband and wife have a relationship that comprises of a simultaneously social and economic dynamic, a contract of social interdependency that reinforces interpersonal bonds, generates offspring, and contains the labor production of the household. Marriage likewise bore marks of the larger shifts to the markets, labor, and social dynamics of late medieval England. Treating marriage with economic language and metaphor provides a medium to negotiate these shifting dynamics. Much as currency provides a medium between buyer and seller, economic language and metaphor serves as a medium to better understand the social relations within marriage.

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