A Clerk ther was of Oxenford also,
That un-to logik hadde longe y-go.
As lene was his hors as is a rake,
And he nas nat right fat, I undertake;
But loked holwe, and ther-to soberly.
Ful thredbar was his overest courtepy;
For he had geten him yet no benefyce,
Ne was so worldly for to have offyce.
For him was lever have at his beddes heed
Twenty bokes, clad in blak or reed,
Of Aristotle and his philosophye,
Than robes riche, or fithele, or gay sautrye.
But al be that he was a philosophre,
Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre;
But al that he mighte of his freendes hente,
On bokes and on lerninge he it spente,
And bisily gan for the soules preye
Of hem that yaf him wher-with to scoleye.
Of studie took he most cure and most hede.
Noght o word spak he more than was nede,
And that was seyd in forme and reverence,
And short and quik, and ful of hy sentence.
Souninge in moral vertu was his speche,
And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche.
Would it be possible to find a clearer picture of what in those days we should perhaps call a 'lower middle class' woman than that of the Wyf of Bath? She is dressed in all the splendour that she can afford: she frankly loves fine dress.
A good Wyf was ther of bisyde Bathe,
But she was som-del deef, and that was scathe.
Of clooth-making she hadde swiche an haunt,
She passed hem of Ypres and of Gaunt.
In al the parisshe wyf ne was ther noon
That to the offring bifore hir sholde goon;
And if ther dide, certeyn, so wrooth was she,
That she was out of alle charitee.
Hir coverchiefs ful fyne were of ground;
I dorste swere they weyeden ten pound
That on a Sonday were upon hir heed.
Hir hosen weren of fyn scarlet reed,
Ful streite y-teyd, and shoos ful moiste and newe.
Bold was hir face, and fair, and reed of hewe.
She was a worthy womman all hir lyve,
Housbondes at chirche-dore she hadde fyve,
Withouten other companye in youthe;
But thereof nedeth nat to speke as nouthe.
And thryes hadde she been at Ierusalem;
She hadde passed many a straunge streem;
At Rome she hadde been, and at Boloigne
In Galice at seint Iame, and at Coloigne.
She coude muche of wandring by the weye.
Gat-tothed was she, soothly for to seye.
Up-on an amblere esily she sat,
Y-wimpled wel, and on hir heed an hat
As brood as is a bokeler or a targe;
A foot-mantel aboute hir hipes large,
And on hir feet a paire of spores sharpe.
In felawschip wel coude she laughe and carpe.
Of remedyes of love she knew per-chaunce,
For she coude of that art the olde daunce.
. . . . . . .
She is frankly sensual and self-indulgent: she likes everything that is pleasant: food, drink, love. Observe also the restlessness of the woman: she can never have enough of pilgrimage: she loves the company: the change: the things that one sees: the people that one meets. She has journeyed three times to Jerusalem and back: once to Rome: once to Bologna: once to St. Iago of Compostella: once to Cologne: apart from the English shrines. We may be quite sure that so good an Englishwoman would not neglect the saints of her own country: after Canterbury she would pilgrimise to Beverley and to Walsingham, and to Glastonbury, and many a local saint's shrine. She had a ready wit and could give reasons for everything, especially for her five marriages and her avowed intentions to take a sixth husband when her fifth should die. Yet, she declared, she honoured holy virgins.
Let them be bred of purëd whete seed
And let us wyves eten barley brede:
And yet with barley bred men telle can
Our Lord Ihesù refreisshed many man.
Many of this company play and sing. The Prioress herself sings the divine service, intoning it full sweetly by her nose: the Limitour plays on the rote: the Miller plays the bagpipe: the Pardoner could sing 'full loud:' the Knight's son could both sing and play. Music, in fact, as an accomplishment was far more common in the fourteenth than in the nineteenth century.
Chaucer seems to speak of palmers as if they were the same as pilgrims. The latter, however, simply journeyed from home to the shrine and back again: the former was under vows of poverty, and continually travelled from shrine to shrine. The Canterbury Pilgrims were not, therefore, palmers. The first meaning of a palmer was that he could carry a palm in token of having visited the Holy Land.
When the Prioress spoke the French of Stratford le Bow it is not intended that she spoke bad French, but the Anglo-French which was spoken at Court, in the Law Courts, and by English ecclesiastics of higher rank. But why of Stratford le Bow? Because here was a Benedictine nunnery dating from the eleventh century. The beautiful little Parish Church of Bow was formerly the chapel of the nunnery. The Wyf of Bath is 'gat toothed,' i.e. her teeth are wide apart: Professor Skeat has discovered that an old superstition attaches to such teeth, that, like the Wyf of Bath, those who have such teeth will travel far and be lucky. Popular superstitions are so long lived that one has little doubt about Chaucer's meaning. Certainly his Wyf of Bath had travelled far.
