Chaucer and His England

by G. G. Coulton

WISE AND UNWISE VIRGINS

We have seen how often women were forbidden attendance at all sorts of public dances, and even weddings; and how demurely they were bidden to pace the streets. The accompanying illustration from a 15th-century miniature given by Thomas Wright (“Womankind in Western Europe,” p. 157) shows on the one hand the formal way in which girls were expected to cross their hands on their laps as they sat, and on the other hand the licence which naturally followed by reaction from so much formality. Both sides come out fully in the Knight’s book. We see a girl losing a husband through a freedom of speech with her prospective fiancé which seems to us most natural and innocent; while the coarsest words and actions were permitted to patterns of chivalry in the presence of ladies. A stifling conventionality oppressed the model young lady, while the less wise virgin rushed into the other extreme of “rere-suppers” after bedtime with like-minded companions of both sexes, and other liberties more startling still.[216] In every generation moralists noted with pain the gradual emancipation of ladies from a restraint which had always been excessive, and had often been merely theoretical, though those who regretted this most bitterly in their own time believed also most implicitly in the strict virtues of a golden past. Guibert of Nogent contrasts the charming picture of his own chaste mother with what he sees (or thinks he sees) around him in St. Bernard’s days. “Lord, thou knowest how hardly—nay, almost how impossibly—that virtue [of chastity] is kept by women of our time: whereas of old there was such modesty that scarce any marriage was branded even by common gossip! Alas, how miserably, between those days and ours, maidenly modesty and honour have fallen off, and the mother’s guardianship has decayed both in appearance and in fact; so that in all their behaviour nothing can be noted but unseemly mirth, wherein are no sounds but of jest, with winking eyes and babbling tongues, and wanton gait.... Each thinks that she has touched the lowest step of misery if she lack the regard of lovers; and she measures her glory of nobility and courtliness by the ampler numbers of such suitors.” Men were more modest of old than women are now: the present man can talk of nothing but his bonnes fortunes. “By these modern fashions, and others like them, this age of ours is corrupted and spreads further corruption.” In short, it is the familiar philippic of well-meaning orators in every age against the sins of society, and the familiar regret of the good old times. The Knight of La Tour Landry, again, would place the age of real modesty about the time of his own and Chaucer’s father, a date by which, according to Guibert’s calculations, the growing shamelessness of the world ought long ago to have worn God’s patience threadbare.

Each was of course so far right that he lived (as we all do) in a time of transition, and that he saw, as we too see, much that might certainly be changed for the better. These things were even more glaring in the Middle Ages than now. We must not look for too much refinement of outward manners at this early date; but even in essential morality the girl-heroines of medieval romance must be placed, on the whole, even below those of the average French novel.[217] In both cases we must, of course, make the same allowance; it would be equally unfair to judge Chaucer’s contemporaries and modern Parisian society strictly according to the novelist’s or the poet’s pictures. But in either case the popularity of the type points to a real underlying truth; and we should err less in taking the early romances literally than in accepting Ivanhoe, for instance, as a typical picture of medieval love. No one poet represents that love so fully as Chaucer, in both its aspects. I say in both, and not in all, for such love as lent itself to picturesque treatment had then practically only two aspects, the most ideal and the most material. The maiden whose purity of heart and freedom of manners are equally natural was not only non-existent at that stage of society, but inconceivable. Emelye is, within her limits, as beautiful and touching a figure as any in poetry; but her limits are those of a figure in a stained-glass window compared with a portrait of Titian’s. Chaucer himself could not have made her a Die Vernon or an Ethel Newcome; with fuller modelling and more freedom of action in the story, she could at best have become a sort of Beatrix Esmond. But of heavenly love and earthly love, as they were understood in his time, our poet gives us ample choice. It has long ago been noted how large a proportion of his whole work turns on this one passion.[218] As he said of himself, he had “told of lovers up and down more than Ovid maketh of mention”: he was “Love’s clerk.” His earthly love we may here neglect, only remembering that it is never merely wicked, but always relieved by wit and humour—indeed, by wit and humour of his very best. But his heavenly love, the ideal service of chivalry, deserves looking into more closely; the more so as his notions are so exactly those of his time, except so far as they are chastened by his rare sense of humour.

Amor, che al gentil cuor ratto s’apprende—so sings Francesca in Dante’s “Inferno.” Love is to every “gentle” heart—to any one who has not a mere money-bag or clod of clay in his breast—not only an unavoidable fate but a paramount duty. As Chaucer’s Arcite says, “A man must needës love, maugre his head; he may not flee it, though he should be dead.” Troilus, again, who had come to years of discretion, and earned great distinction in war without ever having felt the tender passion, is so far justly treated as a heathen and a publican even by the frivolous Pandarus, who welcomes his conversion as unctuously as Mr. Stiggins might have accepted Mr. Weller’s—

Love, of his goodness, Hath thee converted out of wickedness.

But perhaps the best instance is that afforded by the famous medieval romance of “Petit Jean de Saintré” (chaps, i.-iv.). Jean, at the age of thirteen, became page to the chivalrous King John of France; as nearly as possible at the same time as Chaucer was serving the Duchess of Clarence in the same capacity. One of the ladies-in-waiting at the same Court was a young widow, who for her own amusement brought Petit Jean formally into her room. “Madame, seated at the foot of the little bed, made him stand between her and her women, and then laid it on his faith to tell her the truth of whatsoever she should ask. The poor boy, who little guessed her drift, gave the promise, thinking ‘Alas, what have I done? what can this mean?’ And while he thus wondered, Madame said, smiling upon her women, ‘Tell me, master, upon the faith which you have pledged me; tell me first of all how long it is since you saw your lady par amours?’ So when he heard speech of lady par amours, as one who had never thought thereon, the tears came to his eyes, and his heart beat and his face grew pale, for he knew not how to speak a single word.... And they pressed him so hard that he said, ‘Madam, I have none.’ ‘What, you have none!’ said the lady: ‘ha! how happy would she be who had such a lover! It may well be that you have none, and well I believe it; but tell me, how long is it since you saw her whom you most love, and would fain have for your lady?’” The poor boy could say nothing, but knelt there twisting the end of his belt between his fingers until the waiting-women pitied him and advised him to answer the lady’s question. “‘Tell without more ado’ (said they), ‘whom you love best.’ ‘Whom I love best?’ (said he), ‘that is my lady mother, and then my sister Jacqueline.’ Then said the lady, ‘Sir boy, I intend not of your mother or sister, for the love of mother and sister and kinsfolk is utterly different from that of lady par amours; but I ask you of such ladies as are none of your kin.’ ‘Of them?’ (said he), ‘by my faith, lady, I love none.’ Then said the lady, ‘What! you love none? Ha! craven gentleman, you say that you love none? Thereby know I well that you will never be worth a straw.... Whence came the great valiance and exploits of Lancelot, Gawayne, Tristram, Biron the Courteous, and other Champions of the Round Table?...’” The sermon was unmercifully long, and it left the culprit in helpless tears; at the women’s intercession, he was granted another day’s respite. Boylike, he succeeded in shirking day after day until he hoped he was forgotten. But the inexorable lady caught him soon after, and tormented him until “as he thought within himself whom he should name, then (as nature desires and attracts like to like), he bethought himself of a little maiden of the court who was ten years of age. Then he said, ‘Lady, it is Matheline de Coucy.’ And when the lady heard this name, she thought well that this was but childish fondness and ignorance; yet she made more ado than before, and said, ‘Now I see well that you are a most craven squire to have chosen Matheline for your service; not but that she is a most comely maiden, and of good house and better lineage than your own; but what good, what profit, what honour, what gain, what advantage, what comfort, what help, and what counsel can come therefrom to your own person, to make you a valiant man? What are the advantages which you can draw from Matheline, who is yet but a child? Sir, you should choose a Lady who....’” In short, the lady whom she finally commends to his notice is her own self. Little by little she teaches the stripling all that she knows of love; and later on, when she is cloyed with possession and weary of his absence at the wars, much that he had never guessed before of falsehood. The story is an admirable commentary on the well-known lines in Chaucer’s “Book of the Duchess,” where the Black Knight says of himself—

... since first I couth
Have any manner wit from youth
Or kindëly understanding	[natural
To comprehend in any thing
What love was in mine ownë wit,
Dreadëless I have ever yet	[certainly
Been tributary and given rent
To love, wholly with good intent,
And through pleasaunce become his thrall
With good will—body, heart, and all.
All this I put in his servage
As to my lord, and did homage,
And full devoutly prayed him-to,
He should beset mine heartë so
That it plesaunce to him were,
And worship to my lady dear.
And this was long, and many a year
Ere that mine heart was set aught-where,
That I did thus, and knew not why;
I trow, it came me kindëly.