Chaucer and His Times

by Grace E. Hadow

In describing Cressida, Chaucer keeps fairly close to his original. We realise her beauty rather from the effect it produces on others than from any particular details. She is tall, but so well made that there is nothing clumsy or “manish” about her, and she dresses in black, as beseems a widow; this is practically all that we are told about her. The strong impression of sensuous beauty which she undoubtedly produces, is due to Chaucer’s power of creating an atmosphere rather than to actual description. We hear the nightingale singing her to sleep, or watch her colour come and go as Troilus draws near, and our mind is so filled with an image of youth and beauty that we never stop to think if she is fair or dark. It is the same with Troilus. We get a gallant impression of him as he rides past Cressida’s window, his eyes down-cast, and a boyish shyness tingeing his cheeks with red, but Chaucer thinks of his feelings rather than his looks. Later in the poem, as he rides towards the palace at the head of his men, the poet’s impatience of mere description shows itself still more clearly:—

  God woot if he sat on his hors a-right,

  Or goodly was beseyn,[148] that ilke day!

  God woot wher he was lyk a manly knight!

  What sholde I dreeche[149] or telle of his array?

  Criseyde, which that alle these thinges say,

  To telle in short, hir lyked al y-fere

  His personne, his array, his look, his chere ...

  Troilus’s looks are, in fact, of importance only because they win the heart of Cressida.

  But if Chaucer devotes little space to dilating upon mere beauty of person, he has a keen eye for anything in dress, manner, or appearance that is in the truest sense characteristic. The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales shows clearly enough how trifles may reflect personality. The grey fur that edges the Monk’s sleeves, and the love-knot of gold that fastens his hood, tell their tale, and a single glance at him gives us considerable insight into his character:—

  His heed was balled, that shoon as any glas,

  And eek his face, as he had been anoint.

  He was a lord ful fat and in good point;[150]

  His eyen stepe,[151] and rollinge in his heed,

  That stemed as a forncye of a leed;[152]

  His botes souple, his hors in greet estat.[153]

  Now certainly he was a fair prelat....

  The Christopher of silver that gleams on the Yeoman’s green coat; the thread-bare raiment and lean horse of the Clerk of Oxenford; the ruddy face and white beard of the Franklin, all serve to illustrate the same point. The very spurs of the Wife of Bath seem to have a subtle significance of their own.

  Once only does Chaucer go out of his way to give a detailed description of one of his heroines, and the passage is worth quoting in full because not only does it illustrate his careful observation of detail, but it shows also a dramatic fitness which is eminently characteristic. The Miller is describing Alisoun, and there is not a simile, among the many used, which would not spring naturally to the lips of a peasant:—

  Fair was this yonge wyf, and ther-with-al

  As any wesele hir body gent[154] and smal.

  A ceynt[155] she werede barred al of silk,

  A barmclooth[156] eek as whyt as morne milk

  Up-on hir lendes, ful of many a gore.

  Whyt was hir smok and brouded al bifore

  And eek bihinde, on hir coler aboute,

  Of col-blak silk, with-inne and eek with-oute.

  The tapes of hir whyte voluper[157]

  Were of the same suyte of hir coler;[158]

  Hir filet brood of silk, and set ful hye:

  And sikerly she hadde a likerous ye.[159]

  Ful smale y-pulled were hir browes two,[160]

  And tho were bent, and blake as any sloo.[161]

  She was ful more blisful on to see

  Than is the newe pere-jonette[162] tree;

  And softer than the wolle is of a wether.

  And by hir girdel heeng a purs of lether

  Tasseld with silk, and perled with latoun.[163]

  In al this world, to seken up and doun,

  Ther nis no man so wys, that coude thenche

  So gay a popelote,[164] or swich a wenche.

  Ful brighter was the shyning of hir hewe

  Than in the tour the noble y-forged newe.

  But of hir song, it was as loude and yerne[165]

  As any swalwe sittinge on a berne.

  Ther-to she coude skippe and make game,

  As any kide or calf folwinge his dame.

  Her mouth was swete as bragot[166] or the meeth,[167]

  Or hord of apples leyd in hey or heeth.

  Winsinge she was, as is a joly colt,

  Long as a mast, and upright as a bolt.

  A brooch she baar up-on hir lowe coler,

  As brood as is the bos of a bocler.

  The poet who wrote this had used his eyes to some purpose. In certain of his descriptions—notably that of Chauntecleer with his scarlet comb, black bill, azure legs, white nails, and golden tail—we notice Chaucer’s love of brilliant colour, but this makes the comparative dullness and tameness of his marvellous palaces and enchanted castles all the more remarkable. He gives us a list of golden images, “riche tabernacles” and “curious portreytures” which stand in the Temple of Glass, but it is a mere auctioneer’s catalogue of valuables which conveys no real impression of beauty or strangeness. We read of Venus “fletinge in a sec,” her head crowned with roses,

  And hir comb to kembe hir heed,

  and feel as if we were looking up her attributes in a classical dictionary. The thrill of the Renaissance has not yet swept across Europe. The gods still sleep, before awakening to their strange sweet Indian summer of life. Classical mythology serves Chaucer as an additional storehouse of story and illustration, but it no more intoxicates him with rapture than does the Gesta Romanorum. Spenser’s Temple of Venus, in which:—

  An hundred altars round about were set,

  All flaming with their sacrifices fire,

  That with the steme thereof the Temple swet,

  Which rould in clouds to heaven did aspire,

  And in them bore true lovers vowes entire:

  And eke an hundred brazen cauldrons bright

  To bath in joy and amorous desire,

  Every of which was to a damzell bright;

  For all the Priests were damzells in soft linnen dight ...

  glows with colour and warmth. Chaucer’s perfunctory statement that the windows of his chamber were well glazed and unbroken,

  That to beholde it were gret joye,

  and that in the glazing was wrought

  ... al the storie of Troye,

  ····

  Of Ector and king Pirriamus,

  Of Achilles and Lamedon,

  Of Medea and of Jason,

  Of Paris, Eleyne, and Lavyne ...

  leaves us untouched.

  But if Chaucer is ill at ease within four walls, and takes but scant pleasure in looking at tapestries and pictures, the moment he slips out of doors he becomes a different being. He is no Wordsworth noting each twig and leaf, or watching with mystic gaze the shadows fall on the silent hills. He is content to fill his garden with flowers of the regulation

  ... whyte, blewe, yelowe, and rede;

  And colde welle-stremes no-thing dede,

  That swommen ful of smale fisshes lighte

  With finnes rede and scales silver-brighte,

  and it is probably just as well not to inquire too closely into the natural order of either blossoms or fish. Cressida’s garden is distinguished by the neatness of its fences, and the fact that its paths have recently been gravelled and provided with nice new benches. But even in these trim and formal gardens the spirit of spring is abroad, and once in the wood, Chaucer abandons himself to the sheer joy of nature. He passes down a green glade

  Ful thikke of gras, ful softe and swete,

  With floures fele, faire under fete....

  ·····

  For it was,
on to beholde

  As thogh the erthe envye wolde

  To be gayer than the heven

  To have mo floures, swiche seven

  As in the welken sterres be.[168]

  Hit had forgete the povertee

  That winter, through his colde morwes,

  Had mad hit suffre[n], and his sorwes;

  Al was forgeten, and that was sene.

  For al the wode was waxen grene.

  Swetnesse of dewe had mad it waxe ...

  and his heart keeps tune to the song of the birds. He has something of Milton’s power of giving a general sense of freshness and sweetness, and, again like Milton, his scenery always strikes one as peculiarly English. He tells us that Cambinskan reigns in Syria, but his picture of the birds singing for joy of the lusty weather and the “yonge grene,” is that of a Northern rather than an Eastern spring. His best-loved flower, the daisy, springs in every English hedgerow.

  The description of May in the Prologue to the Legend of Good Women is particularly charming. The poet declares that one thing, and one alone, has power to take him from his books. When May comes,

  Whan that I here the smale foules singe

  And that the floures ginne for to springe,

  Farwel my studie, as lasting that sesoun.

  Instead of poring over some ponderous tome, he wanders out into the meadows to watch the daisy open to the sun:—

  And whan the sonne ginneth for to weste,

  Than closeth hit, and draweth hit to reste,

  So sore hit is afered of the night,

  Til on the morwe, that hit is dayës light.

  All day long he roams till

  —closed was the flour and goon to reste,

  and then he speeds swiftly home:—

  And in a litel erber that I have,

  Y-benched newe with turves fresshe y-grave,

  I bad men shulde me my couche make;

  For deyntee of the newe someres sake

  I bad hem strowe floures on my bed.

  But here again it is impression rather than actual description.

  True to the city-bred instinct, Chaucer sees winter rather as the king of intimate delights and fire-side pleasures, than as having an especial beauty of his own. The Frankeleyns Tale contains a picture of December which brings the comfort of ingle-nook and steaming cup vividly before us:—

  The bittre frostes, with the sleet and reyn,

  Destroyed hath the grene in every yerd.

  Janus sit by the fyr, with double berd,

  And drinketh of his bugle-horn the wyn.

  Before him stant braun of the tusked swyn,

  And “Nowel” cryeth every lusty man.

  We almost feel the pleasant glow of the fire, and hear the great logs hiss and crackle.

  It is impossible to read Chaucer’s descriptions of nature without being struck by his love of birds and animals, and especially of the smaller and more helpless kinds. Birds occupy a large place in his affections. He is perpetually pausing to call attention to them and spring is to him pre-eminently the time when “smale fowles maken melodye.” Here again he shows little minute observation or discrimination, it is birds in general, rather than any bird in particular, that he loves. To praise the song of a nightingale can hardly be reckoned any proof of special bird-lore, and except in the Parlement of Foules, Chaucer scarcely mentions any other bird by name. The crow, who is the real hero of the Maunciples Tale, and who distinguishes himself by singing, “cukkow! cukkow! cukkow!” can no more be regarded as an ordinary, unsophisticated bird than can the eagle who acts as Jove’s messenger in the Hous of Fame, or the princess disguised as a falcon who seeks Canace’s aid. The Parlement of Foules, it is true, shows that Chaucer knew the names of a considerable number of birds, but the epithets that he applies to each show no more real knowledge of their habits than the epithets which he (or rather, Boccaccio) applies to the various trees, in an earlier stanza, show any love of forestry. The oak is useful for building purposes, and the elm makes good coffins. In like manner, the owl forebodes death, and the swallow eats flies, or rather, if we are to believe Chaucer, bees. Regarded as individuals, the birds are delightfully convincing: regarded as birds they are dismissed rather carelessly, though, since it is Chaucer who dismisses them, an occasional happy phrase redeems the passage from dullness and monotony.

  But it is not only in a love of birds, which, after all, is common to most poets, that Chaucer shows this side of his nature. Reference has already been made to the whelp and the squirrels which he introduces into the Book of the Duchesse. The little coneys who hasten to their play in the garden of the Parlement of Foules are due in the first place to Boccaccio, but the Italian merely tells us that they “go hither and thither.” His picture is dainty and pretty, but it lacks the half-amused tenderness of Chaucer’s. Chaucer, it is evident, loves them all, bird and beast, sportive coney and timid roe, not forgetting the

  Squerels, and bestes smale of gentil kinde.

  The following stanza affords illustration of another point in Chaucer’s descriptions. Master of melody as he is, he has not learned the subtle art of suiting sound to sense, and producing a definite sensuous impression by sheer music. It is impossible to read of these

  —instruments of strenges in acord

  which make so ravishing a sweetness, without finding one’s thoughts involuntarily carried on to Spenser’s enchanted garden in which

  Th’ Angelicall soft trembling voyces made

  To th’ instruments divine respondence meet....

  Chaucer’s little wind—“unethe it might be lesse”—which makes a soft noise in the green leaves, is too fresh ever to blow across the flowers of Acrasia’s garden, but the Bower of Bliss casts a spell over us of which Chaucer has not the secret. He is too frankly of this world to be at home in fairy-land, and the note of sincerity which sounds throughout his verse would accord ill with such intoxicating sweetness. Lady Pride and her followers, Dame Cælia and her fair daughters, Fidelia, Speranza, and Carita, find a natural home in Spenser’s world of wonders. But Chaucer’s allegorical personages must needs either come to life and turn into actual human beings, like the birds in the Parlement of Foules, or remain stiff abstractions, like Plesaunce, and Delyt, and Gentilnesse, and the other symbolic inhabitants of the garden of the Rose.

  * * *

  CHAPTER VII

  SOME VIEWS OF CHAUCER’S ON MEN AND THINGS

  The late fourteenth century was a time of social and political upheaval. The Church, over-rich and over-powerful for her own good, had become terribly corrupt. The fact that great offices of state were held by bishops meant, of necessity, that more and more of their purely ecclesiastical work was delegated to subordinates. In the ten years between 1376-86, out of twenty-five bishops no fewer than thirteen held secular offices of importance. William of Wykeham was appointed Chancellor of England and Bishop of the great diocese of Winchester in the same month. Spencer, Bishop of Norwich, led the English army in Flanders. No wonder that the power of the archdeacons, the oculi episcopi, increased tenfold. They frequently exercised authority in the bishop’s court, and in those days the powers of ecclesiastical courts were considerable and their jurisdiction was wide. The sketch which prefaces the Freres Tale was probably drawn from the life:—

  Whilom ther was dwellinge in my contree

  An erchedeken, a man of heigh degree

  ······

  For smale tythes and for smal offringe

  He made the peple pitously to singe.

  For er the bisshop caughte hem with his hook,

  They weren in the erchedekenes book.

  Add to this the fact that one in three of the archdeacons holding office in England at this time were foreigners, and it is easy to see how much ill-feeling was likely to be stirred up between them and the laity. Nor were the parish priests much better. The black death, which ravaged Europe from time to time, had swept across England with peculiar fury in 1348. Hundreds of the noblest and b
est of the clergy, who stayed gallantly by their flocks, had been swept away. There were not enough priests to administer the sacraments of the Church, and between this urgent necessity for ministers to bury the dead, to baptise and marry, and the fact that many of the richer livings had fallen into the hands of foreigners, who cared nothing for the peasants committed to their charge, or of the great Abbeys, which were ready enough to appoint some illiterate boor, just able to stumble through his office, to act as their deputy at a nominal salary, it is small wonder that crying abuses came into existence. “They have parish churches,” writes Wycliff, “apropered to worldly rich bishops and abbots that have many thousand marks more than enow.... And yet they do not the office of curates, neither in teaching or preaching or giving of sacraments nor of receiving poor men in the parish: but setten an idiot for vicar or parish priest that cannot and may not do the office of a good curate, and yet the poor parish findeth him.” Chaucer finds it among the striking virtues of his poor Parson that:—

  He sette nat his benefice to hyre,

  And leet his sheep encombred in the myre,

  And ran to London, un-to seynt Poules

  To seken him a chaunterie for soules,[169]

  Or with a bretherhed to been withholde;

  But dwelte at hoom, and kepte wel his folde....

  and that he does not attempt to wring their last penny from his unfortunate parishioners:—

  Ful looth were him to cursen for his tythes.[170]

  Matters were further complicated by the wandering friars who recognised no jurisdiction save that of the Pope himself, and who, having fallen far from the noble ideal of poverty, chastity, and obedience, set by their founders, took unscrupulous advantage of the ignorance and superstition of the people, and, like the pardoners, often undermined the authority of the parish priests. The custom of commuting penance for a payment in money was spreading, and naturally opened the door to abuses of all kinds.

  No wonder that Wycliff arose to thunder against these malpractices, and that his poor preachers gained such a following. It was not, in the majority of cases, that people had any quarrel with the doctrines of the Church—the number of recantations and paucity of martyrs among the early Lollards show that it was not doctrine that they wished to reform—but injustice and oppression were inevitably arousing a widespread, smouldering discontent which broke into flame now at this point, now at that. As we read the history of the time, we marvel at the patience and good-humour of the inhabitants of Merry England.