Sowing Draf out of my Fest: Chaucers Profane Apology to the Lollards in The Canterbury Tales
The idea that Chaucer's poetry conveys a pro-Lollard discourse is not the invention of modern historicist criticism, but was taken for granted by some of his nearer contemporaries.1 Modern critics who have raised the question of Chaucer's Lollard sympathies have had the advantage of greater documentary evidence to consider, but the disadvantage of being removed from the cultural context in which the poem's meaning was originally constructed. There are a number of reasons that allusions to Lollard ideas might be recognized in The Canterbury Tales , but simple allusion does not imply a rhetorical position. Furthermore, a certain degree of heterodoxy existed within the Lollard movement, so that what it meant to be a Lollard was problematic in itself. Because Wyclif was not altogether an original thinker2 beliefs identified as Lollardry might be derived from a number of different sources. Nevertheless, the progress of Lollardry in the late fourteenth century represents a cultural movement which influenced the creation and reception of The Canterbury Tales. In this paper, I intend to argue that while Chaucer agrees with Lollard principles of a true Christianity, he differs with the implied position of Lollardry towards his type of poetry, and that The Canterbury Tales is largely a demonstration of the possibilities of a poetry which, without being limited to biblical themes, is nevertheless truly Christian in a way that even a Lollard should
endorse.
Chaucer's Parson has been recognized as a Lollard poor priest by many readers, and denied as such by others, 3 but his explicit definition as such in the Epilogue to the Man of Law's Tale identifies Lollardry as an unsettled question in the text:
The parson hem answerde, benedicite!
What eyleth the man, so synfully to swere?
Oure host answerde, o jankin, be ye there?
I smelle a lollere in the wynd, quod he.
Now! goode men, quod oure hoste, herkeneth me;
Abydeth, for goddes digne passioun,
For we schal han a predicacioun;
This lollere heer wil prechen us somwhat.
Nay, by my fader soule, that schal he nat!
Seyde the shipman; heer schal he nat preche;
He schal no gospel glosen here ne teche.
We leven alle in the grete god, quod he;
He wolde sowen som difficulte... (1170-82)
The Parson's Lollardry like the poet's is a fact that must be smelled out. It is not explicitly stated, but only made apparent by his obvious sympathies. Along with the Host and the Shipman, the contemporary reader, whatever his own sympathies would have probably smelled the Lollard in the Parson's portrait in the General Prologue4 (477-528). As both the General Prologue and the Man of Law's Epilogue were written after the onset of the extreme persecution of the Lollard heresy by the English state, Chaucer's sympathetic rendering constitutes a political statement.
Because of the Lollards' Bible and their emphasis on preaching in the vernacular, the writing of English poetry had already taken on a particular political relevance in
relation to heresy.5 John Croft when he was arrested and lodged in Stortford castle in 1397 "...asked for pardon and renounced any heretical opinions he may have expressed. He took a comprehensive oath binding himself, among other things, not to read any English books of Lollard origin nor to suffer such books to be in his house" (Richardson 18). Under these political circumstances the odor of Lollardry about the Parson and several other suggestive elements of The Canterbury Tales must have forced a reading by contemporaries that emphasized Lollard issues.
For Peggy Knapp, Wyclif is present in Chaucer's poetry "...in the Bakhtinian manner" in which certain terms mark a "dialogically agitated...area of social life"6 (Knapp 65). Wyclif gave the English vernacular words like sugette, accydent, and transubstantiation ... (69).
As the Testimony of William Thorpe in 14077 demonstrates, the definition of these terms eventually became a litmus test for identifying Lollard heresy. They also comprise the punch line spoken by the Pardoner of what Paul Strohm refers to as "Chaucer's Lollard joke:"
O wombe! O bely! O stynking cod,
Fulfilled of dong and of corrupcioun!
At either ende of thee foul is the soun.
How greet labour and cost is thee to fynde!
Thise cookes, how they stampe, and streyne, and grynde,
And turnen substaunce into accident
To fulfille al thy likerous talent! (VI 534)
For Strohm, this joke functions in the text the way that humor functions in Freudian terms in the individual preconscious mind:
The thought seeks to wrap itself in a joke because in that way it recommends itself to our attention . . . because this wrapping bribes our powers of criticism and confuses them. We are inclined to give the thought the benefit of what has pleased us in the form of the joke. 8 (Freud in Strohm 35)
Whether owing simply to an indeterminate presence of dialogically agitated terminology,
or to the mobilization of that terminology in the indeterminate medium of a joke, the
rhetorical position of The Canterbury Tales towards the Lollard heresy, just as do the
Lollard sympathies of the Parson, remains disputable. The presence of an odor of
Lollardry throughout the poem is owing to the "close correspondence between Chaucer's
apparent thinking and Wyclif's expressed opinions and convictions" on a number of
political and theological issues:
...1) Wyclif's ideas on dominion; 2) Wyclif's criticism of the mendicant orders (largely for departure from the spirit and Rule of their founders); 3) Wyclif's so-called 'nationalistic' bias; 4) Wyclif's commitment to vernacular language and translation; 5) Wyclif's approach to grammar and logic; 6) Wyclif's central preoccupation with proper method in the interpretation of texts (especially with respect to authorial intention); 7) Wyclif's views on the role of reader intention in interpretation; 8) Wyclif's conviction concerning the relationship between matter and form in interpretation; and 9) Wyclif's arguments concerning truth and time, the use and value of historical authority. (Jeffrey 114)
To these points we may add an apparent valorization of willing poverty in the poor widow of the Nun's Priest's tale, in the Wife of Bath's tale, in the Clerk's Tale (Knapp 89), and in the Prologue to The Pardoner's Tale.9
Despite the striking congruencies between Lollard discourse and the values implicit in The Canterbury Tales, there remain some equally striking contradictions. Perhaps the most glaring is the fact that the narrative frame of the poem, a pilgrimage to the shrine of Thomas a Becket at Canterbury (possibly based on Chaucer's own pilgrimage in 1387), was, along with the related worship of carved and painted images, among the practices most universally condemned by acknowledged Lollards.10 Although "Wyclif himself does not appear to have been very interested in the question" and "admits the usefulness of images to the illiterate laity" (Hudson Writings 180),11 the eighth of the Twelve Conclusions of the Lollards affixed to the doors of Westminster Hall during the session of Parliament in 1395 "...is [žat] že pilgrimage, preyeris and offringis made to blynde rodys and to deue ymages of tre and of ston, ben ner of kin to ydolatrie..." (Hudson Writings 27)12. Although the Lollards had no such consistent explicit position towards the value of the emerging vernacular poetry represented by Chaucer, Gower, Langland, the Pearl poet, etc., a position may be inferred from their views on the related issues of the use of images, and the use of didactic fables in the preaching of friars.13
The Lollards in anticipation of the Puritans of the following two centuries argued that the presence of artificial images in the church both imposed erroneous ideas on the imagination of the laity14 and distracted from the focus of the inward wits on the truth of scripture. When Archbishop Courtenay asked William Thorpe "... Losel, were it a faire žing to come into a chirche and se žerinne noon ymage," he answered "Ser, žei žat comen to že chirche for to preie deuoutli to že lord God moun in her inward wittis be že more feruent, žat alle her outward wittis ben schit fro alle vtward seeing and heeringe, and fro alle disturbaunce and lettyngis" (Hudson Texts 57). This principle carries over into the Lollard attitude towards the use of non-biblical texts and fables in the preaching of the friars. Non-scriptural mental images distract the wits from scriptural truths the same way that non-scriptural physical images do.15
In the age of John Wycliffe...the preaching of the faith in Christ had practically disappeared, and though the friars were preachers, their preaching was not the declaration of the truths and doctrines of the faith, but general harangues on whatever took their fancy, and their great aim was to attract the attention and sustain the interest of their hearers by any mans. The result was that their preaching often descended into vulgar jesting and buffoonery. (Carrick 166)
Peggy Knapp argues that "daun russell the fox" might be read "as a mendicant lurking to entrap the preacher-cock...enacting the competition among the clerics for control of the pulpit...alluded to throughout The Canterbury Tales" (Knapp 88). The Nun's Priest's Tale would then be a parody of:
...the preaching styles of monks, friars, pardoners, and other Wycliffite targets. The wandering, additive, inconclusive manner of the tale is what Wycliffite sermons and tracts charged contemporary popular preaching gave the people instead of the truth of the faith. Moral instruction is available in the flawless consistency of the Bible itself... (Knapp 89)
If, however, Chaucer is parodying the style of the friars in the story of Chauntecleer and perhaps in his other uses of fabliaux and fable, he is simultaneously defending their presence in his own poetry. In condemning the fables of the friars as destructive of true Christian faith, the Lollards implied a condemnation of all non-scriptural texts as incapable of the conferring of spiritual edification. It is the relationship of this issue to the issue of images and pilgrimages that fits a pilgrimage to Canterbury16 to the task of a defense of the edifying possibilities of vernacular poetry.
The questions of the worship of images and the practice of pilgrimages are always spoken of together in Lollard texts, and are part of a continuous discourse running from the eighth century iconoclastic controversy of the eastern church through the Puritan reformation of the seventeenth century. The Lollard condemnation of the worship of images whose principles extended to the non-scriptural preaching of the friars was based on the recognition that the object of worship underwent a transference from the signified to the signifier and that the worship of a saint was transferred from the divine principle that dwelt in heaven to the physical "stok or ston" that dwelt on earth.
The transference of the object of worship from a divine principle in heaven to a physical object in a terrestrial location gave rise to the practice of a physical pilgrimage and the belief that simple journey to the dwelling place of a sacred image or relic could purchase indulgence for one's sins. This is in fact the same confusion of substance and accidents that characterizes the Lollard position towards the eucharist, as well as their condemnation of non-biblical teaching. As the accidents of the eucharist are the bread and wine, the accidents of the pilgrimage are the physical images and relics, and those of the friars' preaching are the non-biblical narrative details used ostensibly to convey a biblical substance.17
When the Pardoner is asked by the Host to offer a tale, the other pilgrims expect the kind of mendicant fare condemned by the Lollards.
...but right anon thise gentils gonne to crye,
Nay, lat hym telle us of no ribaudye!
Telle us som moral thyng, that we may leere
Som wit, and thanne wol we gladly heere.
I graunte, ywis, quod he, but I moot thynke
Upon som honest thyng while that I drynke. (VI.323)
He consequently arrives at a tale which, although profane, is purportedly justified by its sacred moral. As a critique of the use of pagan fables18 by a Christian preacher, The Pardoner's Tale demonstrates that its ostensible substance, the condemnation of the deadly sin of avarice, remains an obscure Latin moral, incidental to the real interest of the tale, which is transferred to its amusing accidents.19 By parodying and exposing the practices of the Pardoner, Chaucer places his own poetry in opposition to the empty moralizing of his character's tale. While the Pardoner's Tale confuses substance with accidents,20 by parodying this confusion, Chaucer's poem reverses it. In this sense, he accomplishes what the Pardoner claims to do:
Thus kan I preche agayn that same vice
Which that I use, and that is avarice.
But though myself be gilty in that synne,
Yet kan I maken oother folk to twynne
From avarice, and soore to repente. (VI.427)
The structure of Chaucer's defense of poesy in The Canterbury Tales involves the juxtaposition of its various substantial and accidental elements, primarily figured in the juxtaposition of false to true pilgrimage21 as defined by the Lollards with the authority of St Augustine. Pilgrimages to Canterbury were condemned as false by the Lollards on a number of grounds. They were recognized as arising from the transference of supernatural power onto physical images or relics.22 It was furthermore argued that the belief that a simple physical journey could purchase indulgence for sins led to an attitude of misrule during the pilgrimage itself and that such pilgrimages served as substitutes for honest piety and study of scripture,23 besides encouraging the people to waste their possessions to the benefit of rich clerics in the vain pursuit of grace.24
Activities such as telling tales to while away the hours on the road to Canterbury would be held by the Lollards (along with the Miller's bagpipes and the Summoner and Pardoner's stiff burdens) as evidence of the general irreligiosity of contemporary pilgrimage practices. 25 Archbishop Courtenay's defense of such practices against Thorpe's condemnation26 recalls the observation of the Host:
For trewely, confort ne myrthe is noon
To ride by the weye doumb as a stoon;
And therfore wol I maken yow disport,
As I seyde erst, and doon yow som confort. (I.773)
In Paul Strohm's Freudian reading "the likely presence of some Lollard sympathies in Chaucer's audience by no means reduces, and may even enhance, a valence in which Lollards are twitted as obtuse and stubborn about accidents" (34)27, which they themselves argue is a scholastic category only recently invented by Aquinas with no basis in scripture.28 Even if Chaucer's fictional pilgrimage is subject to Lollard condemnation as little more than a moving ale-house party game, his poetry itself should not fall victim to a too severe iconoclasm that seeks to valorize spiritual substance by the denunciation of all non-scriptural accidents. Unlike that of the Pardoner, the profanity of the narrative accidents of Chaucer's poem can serve to convey a sacred subjective as effectively as the most austere Lollard sermon.
David Jeffrey argues that The Canterbury Tales are constructed according to Wycliffite ideas of the form of holy scripture.29 It is then possible to read the poem, as some critics have done, as essentially a finished work despite its stated plan,30 or at least as a work in progress that although possibly expandable, the poet given more years, is complete in its incompleteness. As in Wycliffite principles of biblical exegesis, the internal contradictions of individual tales are subsumed by transcendental truths conveyed in the form of the whole. "...the true meaning of Scripture is not arrived at by exegesis of passages out of context, but rather with respect to a sense of canon, to the largest patterns of scriptural discourse. We are to read Scripture in sua integra, ex quibus sensus scripture colligitur" (Jeffrey 137).
To read The Canterbury Tales as a group of passages out of context, is to assume that sixty tales are meant to follow The Parson's Tale for the homeward leg, that the various fragments can be read in any order without altering the poem's substance. To read according to Wycliffite biblical principles allows us to take the fragmentary nature of The Canterbury Tales in the same light as the fragmentary nature of holy writ as an illusory characteristic of its physical accidents, concealing a substance of meaning which is complete.31 In such a reading The Parson's Tale stands as the knitting up of the poem's substantial meaning while it appears to fail to knit up the poem's accidental structure. The Augustinian distinction between true32 and false pilgrimage adopted by the Lollards33 serves therefore as a metaphor for the distinction between a true and false reading both of scripture and of The Canterbury Tales. In keeping with Wyclif's own principles of biblical exegesis,34 the practice of hiring minstrels as entertainment for pilgrimages is condemned as the confusion of a literal interpretation of scripture for its true allegorical meaning.35 The Platonic idealism which characterizes Lollard approaches to the questions of the eucharist,36 the value of non-scriptural narratives, the worship of images and relics, and the practice of pilgrimage37 is finally manifested in a Platonic literary theory which separates the substance of textual meaning from the accidents of the text, its matter from its form.38
This Platonic approach to scriptural truth through allegorical interpretation should not be confused with the kind of allegory employed by the Pardoner.39 Wyclif certainly opposed the "turning away from clear biblical injunctions by making fancy allegorical maneuvers..." (Knapp 83), such as those which allow an allegory condemning avarice to serve the avaricious interests of the Church. An approach to poetry in accordance with Wycliffite allegorical principles40 also implies that the tropological reading of the Pardoner teaching "how men shudden lyve here in vertues," should be accompanied by an allegorical reading, figuring "what thing shal falle here bifore the dia of dome" on the level of political history. In such a reading the corruption of the Pardoner becomes a metaphor for the corruption of the false church.41 Likewise the partnership between the Summoner and Pardoner represents the "complicity between the ecclesiastical courts and the practice of pardoning, which ought to have been regulated by it" (Knapp 78). The implications of a Lollard discourse at the end of the fourteenth century are:
...first ...theological, on the eucharist, the sacraments, confession, images, pilgrimages, purgatory, and prayers to the saints; ...second ecclesiastical, the nature of the church, the papacy and church hierarchy, the temporal wealth and power of the church, 'private religions', the duty of the clergy; ... [and] third political, the relation of the secular ruler to the church, the problem of dominion, the notion of common property, the questions of war and oaths, the sources of law. (Hudson Premature 279)
While Lollard polemic was primarily theological, it earned the widespread support of nobles and commoners alike largely owing its political implications.42 While the peasant's led in revolt by John Ball in 1381 might not have concerned themselves with Aristotelian interpretations of the eucharist, their emergent nationalism aggravated their sense of resentment at the weight of the Roman yoke, against which Wyclif's ideas had first been mobilized.
The eighteen articles sent to England in 1377 by Pope Gregory XI declaring Wycliffe's works to be damnable "referred exclusively to problems of politics, principles of property and power, [and] relations of Church and State." Wyclif argued for the exaltation of the State above the Church, the subjection of the clergy to the judgment of the laity, and the duty of secular lords to confiscate ecclesiastical property when it is abused. He told the Parliament of October 1377 that it was lawful to withhold treasure from the Pope and they accepted his opinion (Hearnshaw 208).
Wyclif was "first and foremost a nationalist" brought up during the Hundred Years War. For many Englishmen of his generation the Papacy was "merely a French institution." His "ideal was a national State with a national Church subordinate to it," and it was this that had originally "commended him to the court of Edward III" to be sent to the Conference of Bruges. His "exaltation of the State" anticipated that of Machiavelli, Bodin, Luther, and Hobbes (Hearnshaw 216).
Wyclif's first appeal was to "a country financially pressed by its war with France while sending sizable revenues to a French pope." His theology served the "interests of national policy, especially as outlined by John of Gaunt..." (Knapp 70).43 Wyclif and Chaucer both received patronage at various times from John of Gaunt (Knapp 63), and Wood's History of Oxford states that Wyclif, while he was warden at Canterbury, lectured to Chaucer, "who, following the steps of his master, reflected much upon the corruption of the clergy," and Thomas Speght also argues in 1598 that Chaucer and Wyclif were together at Oxford44 (Jeffrey 113). Roger Loomis understood Chaucer's sympathy with Wycliffite ideas as a declared stand (Knapp 61).
A similarity between the services of Chaucer and Wyclif to John of Gaunt's political interests is implied in the historical argument of Professor J. L. Hotson45 on the Tale of Melibee. "Mr. Hotson shows the striking parallels between the situation of Melibeus and that of John of Gaunt when he contemplated going to war to enforce his claim on the throne of Castile, and he suggests that Chaucer made that translation to dissuade his patron from that undertaking" (Benson 847).46
The corruption of Chaucer's Pardoner also serves as a defense of Gaunt's political interests. Peggy Knapp points out that "...the hospital "of Rouncivale" ...was noted for financing its operation through grants of indulgence, one of them having been sent to bishops and archbishops in 1372 by John of Gaunt... [Its]...mother house, [was] Rouncevalles in Spain...(Knapp 78) The corruption of the Pardoner is therefore not simply a moral issue, but a political one. Because Rouncivale was connected with a scandal involving the misappropriation of funds the Pardoner stands as a symbol, not only of the cozening of individuals by a clergyman, but of England by her foreign enemies:
But with thise relikes, whan that he fond
A povre person dwellynge upon lond,
Upon a day he gat hym moore moneye
Than that the person gat in monthes tweye;
And thus, with feyned flaterye and japes,
He made the person and the peple his apes. (I.701)
Applying Wycliffite principles of textual exegesis to The Canterbury Tales allows the tales of the marriage group to also be read in terms of ecclesiastical politics. Since the resumption of the Hundred Years War, the "...papal overlord of England [at Avignon had been...] the pliable dependent of England's most deadly foe and ...the ecclesiastical treasure of the nation... prostituted to the comfort and encouragement of the enemy" (Hearnshaw 196). The Miller's Tale which shows the cuckolding of a poor English carpenter by a wily cleric who succeeds by scaring him with stories of impending apocalypse conveys the way that the power of the church can be misused to make apes of an unsuspecting people.
According to an "allegoric undirstondinge" the issue of marriage in the marriage group conveys Wycliffite principles of dominion in the marriage of Church and State. The array of corrupt monks, friars, summoners, and pardoners, cuckolding and otherwise abusing inattentive men and women throughout The Canterbury Tales allegorize the abuses that Wyclif's theory of dominion attributed to the subjection of the State to the rule of a foreign Church.47 Like "hende nicholas," the Roman Church was an unwanted house guest threatening England's domestic bliss. Wycliffite literary theory would also suggest that the meaning of the tales of the marriage group must be understood in the context of the whole structure of the poem, as the separate episodes of the Bible in the context of one Word of God. The historical allegory expressed in terms consistent with Wycliffite exegesis and Wycliffite politics culminates in the lengthy Parson's Tale by a narrator consistent with the definition of a Wycliffite poor priest.48
According to Peggy Knapp, "to choose the message of the relatively disenfranchised parson is to disregard the direct license from the Pope in favor of the warrant given by the inner man and his ethical conduct, in essence a subversive judgment, although one the text...strongly invites" (78). While the text invites the reader to choose the Parson's message, it does not necessarily invite a reading of his tale. For F. N. Robinson, the Parson's Tale is "undeniably dull, as compared with Chaucer's original tales in verse." It is, in fact a sermon, written in "accordance with the principles of mediaeval sermon writing..." (Robinson). While part of The Canterbury Tales is a sermon, its context and position imply a denial of the sufficiency of the sermon alone to convey sacred truths.
Ultimately, then, a Wycliffite reading of the poem leads to a contradiction of Lollard injunctions against the use of non-scriptural texts. The Nun's Priest's Tale had been a
...sharp-witted, but inconclusive, commentary on the role of fictions in moral teaching... The prologue [includes a] ...rejection of the Monk's handling of his avowedly didactic tragedies... The Knight and Host make a telling point about the matter... when they interrupt the Monk to remind him that a "sentence" requires an audience.49 Stories offer useful instruction only if they effectively induce the listener's interest and good will... (Knapp 85)
Most of the tragedies of the Monk's Tale were probably written early in Chaucer's career (along with the Life of St Cecilia) and the Knight and Host may represent early criticism which influenced him to turn from pure didacticism to devices like allegory and humor. Ten years later he was still writing such purely didactic works as Melibeus and the seven deadly sins segment of The Parson's Tale,50 but he had also turned to the allegory of Boece and his own Parliament of Fowls as effective vehicles for serious subjects.
If the Monk's tragedies threaten to put the pilgrims to sleep, the Parson's sermon, far longer and with far fewer narrative distractions, must finish them off. The average modern reader rarely gets around to reading more than a few pages. Its theology is conventional and familiar, and without a plot, there is little motivation to work through to its end. As a sermon, "the original tale was a Wycliffite treatise,51 to which orthodox additions were made in the first decade of the fifteenth century" (Simon).
According to Wycliffite discourse :
...goddis word had been encumbered and obscured by centuries of commentary and ...the time had come to deemphasize them and deliver the scripture itself in English to lay people ...[this] severe textual commentary and moral instruction practiced by the poor priests...[was] known as "gospel glossing"...when the Host asks the Parson to preach, [the Shipman insists that] "He schal no gospel glosen here ne teche" (Knapp 75)
Sensitivity to the taste of his audience forces Chaucer to postpone the Parson's Tale to a terminal position where its reading is more or less optional. Its inclusion in the poem is not, however, optional. Its function is reflected in the fact that, before including it in the larger structure of The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer seems to have added the treatise on repentance to the earlier treatise on the seven deadly sins. The Parson's Tale stands at the end of the poem like Lent in the Christian calendar as a form of text almost devoid of the gratifications of poetic literature. Its meditation on sin is a form of textual penance perhaps for the enjoyment of the Knight's romance and the Miller's fabliau.
For Wycliffe "...the pictorial and spectacular teaching of the Church should be superseded by the simple preaching of the simple gospel, and ... an end should be made of theatrical instruction. ...his "poor preachers" were sent forth russet-clad to preach in market-places, village-greens, at roadsides and crosses... (Carrick 174). The Canterbury Tales offer a form of theatrical instruction that is analogous to that of the morality plays criticized by Wyclif, and, as the Host argues to the Monk, its theatricality is an effective form of moral teaching, because its sugar coating induces people to swallow the medicine of its sentence.
The Friar's Tale and the Summoner's Tale demonstrate the way that profane satire can be used as a rhetorical device to accurately and effectively attack the targets of Lollard critique, where the obsequiousness of the Parson, although pious, merely allows him to be superseded by the corruption of spiritual truths he purports to oppose.52 In the end, he must be goaded into delivering his pious message:
Sire preest, quod he, artow a vicary?
Or arte a person? sey sooth, by the fey!
Be what thou be, ne breke thou nat oure pley;
For every man, save thou, hath toold his tale.
Unbokele, and shewe us what is in thy male;
For, trewely, me thynketh by thy cheere
Thou sholdest knytte up wel a greet mateere.
Telle us a fable anon, for cokkes bones! (X.22)
His tale in its knitting up of the poem's great matter "can only make the tale-telling game "unplayable." The tale then situates itself not as a fulfillment, but as an alternative to the rest of the Canterbury fiction ...itself a part of the whole it dismisses" (Knapp 93).
Although the Parson's Tale may invalidate the remnant of the pilgrimage, the construction of The Canterbury Tales ultimately rejects this invalidation. Although the Parson's extended sermon remains true to its pious Lollard precepts, it would be far less effective in forwarding its own political interests standing alone than in its place among the profanities and allegories of the larger poetic culture of the English pilgrims. The Parson begins by stating the Lollard position against the kind of tale told by most of the other pilgrims:
This persoun answerde, al atones,
Thou getest fable noon ytoold for me;
For paul, that writeth unto thymothee,
Repreveth hem that weyven soothfastnesse,
And tellen fables and swich wrecchednesse.
Why sholde I sowen draf out of my fest,
Whan I may sowen whete, if that me lest? (X.30)
And yet it is ultimately Chaucer who stands self-accused of sowing draf when the Parson's Tale is proof that he may sow whete when him lest. It is for the sowing of this draf that the Parson is made to offer his textual penance and for which Chaucer asks forgiveness in his own voice in the following retraction.53
While Chaucer distinguishes in his retraction between the sacred Boece and the profane Canterbury Tales , he offers a defense against Lollard condemnation of non-scriptural text with an appeal to scripture itself ("For oure book seith, al that is writen is writenFor our doctrine...") which suggests the possibility of valid Christian use of profane literature.
As to the question of Chaucer's Lollardry, it would probably be difficult to find an Englishman of any social class in the late fourteenth century who did not share some Lollard sympathies, whether rationalist theology or nationalist politics. Accusations of Lollardry were reserved for those (individuals and texts) who preached specific heresies, and The Canterbury Tales like the Parson despite their distinct odor of heresy, would probably have escaped direct denunciation by the inquisition54 "...but the principal preoccupations of Chaucer the poet, reading, interpreting Scripture, and characterizing narrowly personal judgment, make of his use and exaltation of scriptural tradition a worthy complement to Wyclif's own writings. (Jeffrey 137)
Notes
1 John Foxe [1563] "marvels that the bishops who condemned Wyclif and others of his party should have allowed 'the works of Chaucer to remain . . . who seemeth to be a right Wicklevian, or else there never was any.'" (Jeffrey 113)
2 "...he followed Plato in his exaltation of ideas ; Augustine in his conception of the Church ; Grosseteste (whom he considered a greater man than Aristotle) in his
antagonism to the Papacy ; Bradwardine in his leaning toward predestination ; Ockham in his insistence on priestly poverty ; Fitzralph in his theory of dominion." (Hearnshaw 200)
3 "The sketch of the Parson is an ideal portrait of a good parish priest. It should not be taken to represent Wyclif or one of his followers. To be sure, it praises the virtues on which the Wycliffites laid emphasis and condemns certain abuses which they were always attacking. The Parson, too, is contemptuously addressed as a Lollard in the man of Law's Epilogue (II, 1173). Probably Chaucer would not have described him in just the terms he uses if reform had not been in the air. The poet himself was in intimate relations...with some of the most influential patrons of the Lollards. But the Parson is not represented as holding some of the most distinguishing beliefs of the Lollard party. Moreover Wyclif, who died in 1384, presumably three or four years before the Prologue was written, was repudiated as a heretic in his last days." (Robinson 873)
"...the portrait of the Parson, though it displays from a Catholic point of view a heretical taint, from the Protestant point of view is orthodoxy itself." (Loomis 22)
The idea that the Parson was a Wycliffite is now "generally abandoned" Simon, H. "Chaucer a Wycliffite" Chaucer Society Essays, Pt. iii, 1876
4 The more literate reader of English texts might also have remarked that the Lollard Bible also begins with a "General Prologue."
5 "The condemnation of Wycliffism in 1382 had created a less favorable climate for English works, and even in 1386 John Trevisa was conscious of the need to justify his translations of Latin works for his patron, Lord Berkeley. Yet at this very time Chaucer was addressing his first masterpiece, Troilus and Criseyde, to a courtly audience. At this time, too, John Gower, who had previously written only in French and Latin, was encouraged to undertake his most ambitious project in English by Richard II himself." (Bennett 7)
6 M. M. Bakhtin "...provides useful commentary with which to analyze the Wycliffite challenge to "the forces that serve to unify and centralize the verbal-ideological world" (Dialogic Imagination, p.270)...any single utterance will participate in both the centralized language and one or more "linguistic dialects" which represent special interests and promote linguistic disunity. The Wycliffite case fits this patter neatly..." (Knapp 63)
7 "And I seide, 'Ser, as I vndirstonde, it is al oon to graunte, eižer bileue, žat žere dwelliž no substaunce of breed and to graunte, or to bileue, žat žis moost worži sacrament of Cristis owne bodi is an accident wižouten soget. But, ser, forži žat 3oure axinge passiž myn vndirstondinge, I dar neižer denye it ne graunte it, for it is scolemater aboute whiche I neuer bisied me for to knowe in. ... But, ser, že determynacioun of žis mater which was brou3t in siž že fend was losid bi frere Tomas Alquyne, specialli clepinge že moost worschipful sacrament of Cristis bodi an accident wižouten soget, which terme, siž I knowe not žat Goddis lawe appreuež it, in žis mater I dar not graunte." (Hudson Texts 55)
8 "...I have employed certain Freudian formalisms (thus far of a nature as much tactical as theoretical) to suggest that, despite a permissive historical situation and the bribe of its risible wrapper, its "thought" is hostile to emergent Lollard theology ...the joke is the wrapping or envelope (or, in Freudian terms, the Hulle) and...the Lollard thought is its content (or, in Freudian terms, the Kern) [It might be argued with] ...equal plausibility [that ...the Lollard thought here finally functions as the hull, or wrapping, for the vital center of this passage and that the kernel, or center, is precisely the joke itself...limitlessly anarchic." (Strohm 37)
9 What, trowe ye, that whiles I may preche,
And wynne gold and silver for I teche,
That I wol lyve in poverte wilfully?
Nay, nay, I thoghte it nevere, trewwly! (439)
10 "žes pilgrimagis and offryngis semen brou3te vp of cautelis of že fend and žes coueytouse and worldly clerkis, for comunely siche pilgrimagis ben mayntenyng of
lecherie, of gloterie, of drunkenesse, of extorsiouns, of wrongis, and worldly vanytes. For men žat may not haunt hore leccherie at home as žei wolden, for drede of lordis, of maystris, and for clamour of ne3eboris, žei casten many dayes byfore and gederen what žei may, sore pynyng hemsilf to spare it, to go out of že cuntrey in pilgrimage to fer ymagis, and lyuen in že goinge in leccherye, in gloterie, in drunkenesse, and mayntenen falsnesse of osteleris, of kokis, of tauerners, and veynly spenden hore good and leeue že trewe labour žat žei shulden do at home in help of hemsilf and hore ne3eboris, bostyng of her gloterie whan žei comen home, žat žei neuer drank but wyn in al že iourney, bi whiche myssespendyng gret partye of že puple faris warre in žeire houshold že halue žeer after, and in happe bycomen in dette žat žei neuer quyten. But men žat don extorcionis and falsly geten catel ben li3tly assoylid therof, and charged in confessioun to do siche pilgrymagis and offryngis. And summe men don it of her owne grett wille rather to se faire cuntreys žan for ony swete deuocioun in her soule to God" (Hudson Writings 85)
11 "...all Lollard texts show disapproval of contemporary excesses in honour given to images and in value attached to pilgrimages, but some writers carry their hostility to an advocacy of total iconoclasm, whereas others only urge the suppression of abuses, mostly financial and involving clerical advantage, whilst yet others acknowledge the potential use of images for the illiterate but point out that actual images mislead rather than educate." (Hudson Premature 279)
12 "že žridde Sonedai after Ester in že 3eer of oure Lord a žousand foure hundrid and sevene, William Thorp cam into že toun of Schrouesbirie, and, žoru3 leue grauntid to him for to preche, he seide openli in seynt Chaddis chirche in his sermoun žat ...ymagis schulden in noo wyse be worschippid; and žat men schulden not goon in pilgrimage..." (Hudson Texts 42)
13 "... Wycliffite preaching...refuses to tell and allegorize non-biblical stories... Allegorized stories [came] from various sources ...Dominicans, were especially strongly associated with their colorful presentation." (Knapp 75)
14 "For first men erren in makyng of ymagis whanne žei maken ymagis of že Godhed, as of že Trinite, peyntyng že Fadir as an olde man, and že Son as a 3ong man on a crosse, and že Holy Gost comyng furže of že Fadur mowže to že Son as white dowfe. For in že olde testament God comaundid žat no man shulde make ony ymage or lickenesse of hym, nowžer in lickenesse of žingis in heuene, ne in erže ny in water." (Hudson Writings 83)
15 "And že Archebischop seide to me...[for whanne žese men] resceyuen her lordis lettris, in which žei seen and knowen her willis and že heestis of her lordis, in worschip of her lordis žei don of her cappis or her hoodis to her lettris. Whi not žanne, siž in ymagis maad wiž mannes hond we moun rede and knowe manye dyuerse doings of God and hise seintis, schulen we not worschipen her ymagis?' And I seide, 'Ser, I doute not žat if žese peyntours žat že speken of or ony peyntours vndirstonde [truli] be textis of Moyses, of Dauiž, and of že Wise Man, and of že profete Baruk, and of ožer seintis and doctours, žese peyntours schulen be moued for to schryue hem to God wiž ful entere sorowe of hert, takinge vpon hem to do ri3t scharpe penaunce for že synful and veyn craft of keruynge, 3etynge or of peyntynge žat žei haden vsid, bihootinge to God and holdynge couenant neuer to do so after, knowelechynge opinly bifore alle men her repreuable errynge."
(Hudson Texts 57)
16 "But we preye že, pilgrym, us to telle qwan žu offrist to seyntis bonis enshrinid in ony place, qwežir releuis žu že seynt žat is in blisse, or že pore almes hous žat is so wel enduwid? For men ben canonizid, God wot how, and for to speken more in playn, trewe cristemen supposin žat že poyntis of žilk noble man žat men clepin seynt Thomas, were no cause of martyrdom." (Hudson Writings 27)
17 "The friars are particularly associated with eucharistic error." (Hudson Premature 287)
18 thanne telle I hem ensamples many oon
Of olde stories longe tyme agoon.
For lewed peple loven tales olde; (VI.435)
19 Pardoner's role in the The Canterbury Tales a kind of master key...riddling equivocation concerning both preacherly intent and the value of fiction in teaching
Christian virtue, and one touched at many points by its involvements in Wycliffite language. (Knapp 83)
20"Peggy Knapp sees "Old Man...[who] describes himself as a "restelees kaityf"...who stands in every way as a clear contrast to the Death-seeking rioters" as "linked linguistically with the way Wycliffites often referred to themselves." (Knapp 83)
21 "...when Christ, his mother, or disciples went to the temple they did so to hear or to preach the word of God. So we should engage in pilgrimage, and not visit shrines made out of cupidity for money rather than for concern with men's souls. ...pilgrimage nowadays is accompanied by noise, revelry, song and the chief joy of pilgrims on their return are the badges of their journey. True pilgrimage does not ignore other obligations, and uses its own goods; contemporary pilgrimage is carried out on borrowed money. True pilgrims put their faith in God and his saints, not in images or the error of false tales; they give their money to the poor. Spiritual pilgrimage is the pathway to God through faith and hope in the way of the commandments." (Hudson Premature 306)
22 "If žei seyen žat žei beileeuen not žat žer is any vertu žeryne but oneli in God žat louež more and worchež in oo place žan in aonožer, it wole seme if it be prouyd žat žei lien falseli, for if men stele aweie žat ymage žat žei seche, žei wolen cese of hire pilgrymage in a schort tyme-and 3et is God as my3ti as he was, and že place žere stille." (Hudson Premature 306n168)
23 "...examyne whoeuere wole and can twenti of žese pilgrimes, and žere schulen not be founden ofte žree men or wymmen among žese twenti žat knowen žriftlili oon heest of God, neižer žei cunnen seien že Pater noster, neižer že Aue neižer že rede in ony manere language. And, as I žane lerned and also I knowe sumdel bi experience of žese same pilgrimes, tellinge že cause whi žat manye men and wymmen now gon hidir and židir on pilgrymage, it is more for že helže of her bodies žan for že helže of her soulis, more for to haue richessis and prosperite of žis world žan for to be enrichid wiž vertues in her soulis, more for to haue here worldli or fleischli frendschip žan for to haue frendschip of God or of hise seintis in heuene." (Hudson Texts 63)
24"siche madde peple hasten blamfulli Goddis goodis in her veyne pilgrymageyng, spendynge žese goodis vpon vicious osteleris and vpon tapsters, whiche ben ofte vnclene wymmen of her bodies, and at že waste of hor goodis, of že whiche žei schulden do werkis of mercy aftir Goddis heeste to pore nedi men and wymmen, žese pore mens goodis and her lyflode žese renners aboute offren to riche preestis whiche haue moche moore lyfelode žan žei neden ..." (Hudson Texts 64)
"And, 3if žes makers of ymagis žat stiren men to offer at hem seyen žat it is bettere to že puple for to offur her godis to žes ymagis žen to visit and help here pore ne3eboris wiž hor almes, žei ben exprestly a3en Crist and oute of cristen bileue, and bryngen že symple puple in heresie." (Hudson Writings 83)
25 "žei wolen ordeyne biforehonde to haue wiž hem bože men and wymmen žat kunnen wel synge rowtinge songis, and also summe of žese pilgrimes wolen haue wiž hem baggepipis so žat in eche toun žat žei comen žoru3, what wiž noyse of her syngynge, and wiž že soun of her pipinge, and wiž be gingelynge of her Cantirbirie bellis, and wiž že berkynge out of dogges aftir hem, žese maken more noyse žan if že king came žere awey wiž his clarioneris and manye žer mynystrals. And if žese men and wymmen ben a moneže oute in her pilgrymage, manye of hem an half 3eere aftir schulen be greete iangelers, tale tellers and lyeris.'" (Hudson Texts 64)
26 "it is wel done žat he or his felowe take žanne vp a songe, eižer ellis take out of her bosum baggepipe for to dryue awei wiž siche myrže že hurt of his sore, for wiž siche solace že traueile and werinesse of pilgrymes is li3tli and myrili brou3t forž.'" (Hudson Texts 65)
27 "...by metonymic inference, the embarrassing remainder of Lollard [eucharistic] theology, the Lollard "conclusion" itself, is dung, is shit." (Strohm 37)
28 Wyclif claims "that early tradition, as witnessed by Dionysius the Areopagite, by Augustine, and indeed by all before Innocent III, spoke of the sacrament as bread and wine... (Hudson Premature 286)
29 "The question of form, in Wyclif's thought, is one which pertains to the shape of meaning, the intrinsic structure of a textual disclosure... The true meaning of Scripture is arrived at not by extracting pieces out o context for a disembodied (or disinherited) disputation, but by a consideration of the whole text. ...While he does not at all argue against the evidence that partes scripture habeant privatum sensum alique historicum, alique propheticum, et alique sapiencialem vel misticum, he refers all of these for larger understanding to their place in the larger order of discourse of the whole text, in which the eternal perspective, tota scriptura sacra est unum dei verbum." (Jeffrey 131)
30 ...ech of yow, to shorte with oure weye,
In this viage shal telle tales tweye
To caunterbury-ward, I mene it so,
And homward he shal tellen othere two, (I.791)
31 "I think it might be argued that Wyclif's thought in this area is paralleled by Chaucer's, if not directly followed. I refer here to the elaboration of a structural model for reading CT as an essentially finished work composed of three general groups of movements of tales, in which the 'matter' (the tales taken both individually and together) may be read best according to the 'form' of the scriptural coda, like Wyclif's notion of the "gospel" in Isaiah, or Chaucer's "new tydings" in relationship to the House of Fame, is essentially a translation of the evangelium rather than a valorization of Chaucer's own immediate literary structure." (Jeffrey 139)
32Forth, pilgrim, forth! Forth, beste, out of thy stal!
Know thy contree, look up, thank God of al;
Hold the heye wey, and lat thy gost thee lede;
And trouthe thee shal delivere, it is no drede. (Truth 18-21)
33 "And žerfore, ser, howeuere myn enemyes haue certified to 3ou of me, I toolde at Schrouesbirie of two manere of pilgrimagis, seiinge žat žer ben trewe pilgrimes and fals pilgrimes.' And že Archebiscbop seide to me, 'Whom clepist žou trewe pilgrimes? 'And I seide, 'Sere, wiž my forseid protestacioun, I clepe hem trewe pilgrymes travelynge toward be blis of heuene whiche, in že staat, degree or ordre žat God clepiž hem to, bisien hem feižfulli for to occupie alle her wittis, bodili and goostli, to knowe treweli and to kepe feižfulli že heestis of God, hatynge euere and fleynge alle že seuene dedli synnes and euery braunche of hem, reulynge vertuousli, as it is seide bifore, alle her wittis, doynge discretli, wilfully and gladli alle že workis of mercy, bodili and goostli, aftir her kunnynge and her power..." (Hudson Texts 61)
34 "...It is seid comounly that holy writt hath foure undirstondingis. The first undirstondinge is pleyne, bi letter of the storye. The secounde undirstondinge is clepid
witt allegoric, whan men undirstonden bi witt of the lettre, what thing shal falle here bifore the dia of dome. The thridde undirstondinge is clepid tropologik, and it techith how men shudden lyve here in vertues. The fourthe undirstondinge is clepid anagogike, and it tellith how it shal be with men that ben in hevene." (Knapp 72)
35 "...že musyk and že mynstralcie žat Dauiž and ožer seyntis of že olde lawe speken of owen not now to be taken neižer vsid after že letter. But žese instrumentis wiž her musyk owen to be interpretid goostly...For seint Poul seiž "Alle siche žingis bifellen to vs to figure." And žerfore, sere, I vndirstonde žat [že lettre of žis psalme of Dauiž and of siche ožere psalmes and sentencis sleen hem žat taken hem now aftir že lettre. This sentence I vndirstonde, sere,] Crist appreuež himsilf, castynge out mynstrals or žat he wolde quyken že dede damysel.'" (Hudson Texts 65)
36 "že secunde conclusion is žis. Oure usuel presthod, že qwich began in Rome, feynid of a power heyere žan aungelis, is nout že presthod že qwich Cryst ordeynede to his apostlis." (Hudson Writings 25)
37 "And I seide, 'Ser, žou3 holi chirche be euere oon in charite, 3it it haž two parties: že firste and že principal haž ouercomen perfitli al že wickidnes of žis lyf and regnež ioifulli in heuene wiž Crist; and že tožer part is here 3it in erže, bisili and contynueli fi3tinge dai and ni3t a3ens temptaciouns, že fend forsakinge and hatinge že prosperite of žis world, dispisinge and wižstondinge her fleischii lustis, whiche oonli ben že pilgrymes of Crist wandrynge towardis heuene bi stable feiž, bi stidefast hope and bi parfit charite." (Hudson Texts 51)
38 "And he seide to me, 'Whi wolt žou not swere bi že holi gospel of God žat is Goddis word, siž it is al oon to swere bi že word of God and to swere bi God himsilf?' And I seide, 'Ser, [I vndirstonde] žat že holi gospels of God mown not be touchid wiž mannes hond.'... že lettre žat is touchid wiž mannes honde is not že gospel but že sentence žat is verily bileued in mannes herte žat is že gospel." (Hudson Texts 78)
39 "The Pardoner's prologue demystifies the techniques he uses to establish his authority in the pulpit: his Latin phrases; his "lige lordes seel;" his papal bulls; his holy relics; his position above the people; his rhetorical ploys..." (Knapp 80) As with the Canon's Yeoman, Chaucer's use of the character to expose his own charlatanism neutralizes its power. Again, profane poetry serves as a medium of truth.
40 "...Wyclif, as the leading English scholar of scriptural tradition during the formative years of Chaucer's writing, should be regarded seriously as a source of insight into Chaucer's literary use of the Bible and literary theory adapted to it." (Jeffrey 138)
41 "While the ecclesiastical hierarchy defined the church in terms of its visible organization, "Wycliffite thought counted the church as the collective name of those truly saved." This contrast is figured in the contrast between the Pardoner and the Parson..." (Knapp 78)
42 "...although Wycliffe's theory of dominion was unintelligible to the multitude, his denunciations of the worldliness and wealth of the clergy were greeted with the warmest approval by the party of John of Gaunt, by the majority of the Parliament, and by the commonalty generally." (Hearnshaw 206)
43 When archbishop Courtenay called Wyclif to answer for his anti-clerical teachings, Wyclif brought the Duke of Lancaster with him with a company of armed men. The hearing was reduced to furious wrangling between "...the fiery bishop and the impious duke..." during which Wyclif remained a "passive spectator" (Hearnshaw 207).
44 "...during what have been called the "lost years" (1360-1367), Chaucer may have been a student at Oxford, supported there by John of Gaunt. ...a student at the Temple after 1361." (Jeffrey 112)
45 Stud. Phil., XVIII, 429-52
46Wyclif was similarly preoccupied by the cause of peace. "že ende conclusiun is žat manslaute be batayle or pretense lawe of rythwysnesse for temperal cause or spirituel withouten special reuelaciun is expres contrarious to že newe testament... and knythtis žat rennen to hethnesse to geten hem a name in sleinge of men geten miche maugre of že King of Pes; for be mekenesse and suffraunce oure beleue was multiplied, and fythteres and mansleeris Iesu Cryst hatith and manasit. Qui gladio percutit, gladio peribit." (Hudson Writings 28)
47 "...the State represents the divinity of Christ, while the Church represents but his humanity. The king is God's vicar in the government of his people...more than even Hooker urged." (Hearnshaw 218)
48 "Wherfore Poul seiž žus "že Lord haž ordeyned žat žei žat prechen že gospel schullen lyue of že gospel. ...for certis, in whateuere dignite or ordre žat ony preest is, if he conforme him not to sue Crist and hise apostlis in wilful pouerte and in ožer heuenli vertues, and specialli in trewe prechinge of Goddis word žou3 suche oon be nempned a preest, he is no but a prest in name." (Hudson Texts 69)
49 Hoo! quod the knyght, good sire, namoore of this!
That ye han seyd is right ynough, ywis,
And muchel moore; for litel hevynesse
Is right ynough to muche folk, I gesse.
...Ye, quod oure hooste, by seint poules belle!
...Sire monk, namoore of this, so God yow blesse!
Youre tale anoyeth al this compaignye.
Swich talkyng is nat worth a boterflye,
For therinne is ther no desport ne game.
Wherfore, sire monk, or daun piers by youre name,
I pray yow hertely telle us somwhat elles;
For sikerly, nere clunkyng of youre belles,
That on youre bridel hange on every syde,
By hevene kyng, that for us alle dyde,
I sholde er this han fallen doun for sleep,
Althogh the slough had never been so deep;
Thanne hadde your tale al be toold in veyn.
For certeinly, as that thise clerkes seyn,
Whereas a man may have noon audience,
Noght helpeth it to tellen his sentence.
And wel I woot the substance is in me,
If any thyng shal wel reported be. (VII.2767)
50 "This point...is that of both Dame Prudence...and also the Parson, in his 'conclusive' ingathering of the tales and their 'telling' significances. The patient method of Prudence, correcting specious and shallow reading by a careful comparison of scriptural authorities placed in their full scriptural context, and the careful contextual method of the Parson, who shows us from his opening text in Jeremiah 6 to his concluding allusion to John 14 that nothing is said openly in the prophets that is not said in the Gospels as well, are both resonant with an attitude to reading and to Scripture which Wyclif was popularizing among a wide range of Chaucer's contemporaries." (Jeffrey 137)
51...Parson's Tale...congruence...in their patterns of quotation from authorities. Augustine ...most frequently ...Gregory is cited nine times in the tale, eight in the
sermons; Jerome seven times in the tale, once I the sermons, Bernard twice in each. (Knapp 93)
52 "When Harry Bailey thought he smelled a "Lollere in the wynd," the Parson meekly stepped down-and whether he was displaced by the Shipman's tale of monastic corruption and cupidity or the Wife of Bath's exemplary decontextualizings and perversions of scripture, the effect of this displacement must have been to heighten the reader's sense of contrast between those very things which Wyclif and Chaucer in these tales both criticize, and the exemplification of their contrary virtues in Melibee and the Parson's tale." (Jeffrey 137)
53 ...And if ther be any
Thyng that displese hem, I preye hem also that
They arrette it to the defaute of myn unkonnynge,
and nat to my wyl, that wolde ful fayn
Have seyd bettre if I hadde had konnynge./
For oure book seith, al that is writen is writen
For our doctrine, and that is myn entente./
Wherfore I biseke yow mekely, for the mercy
Of god, that ye preye for me that crist have
Mercy on me and foryeve me my giltes;/ and
Namely of my translacions and enditynges of
Worldly vanitees, the whiche I revoke in
My retracciouns:/ as is the book of troilus;
the book also of fame; the book of
The xxv. Ladies; the book of the duchesse;
The book of seint valentynes day of the parlement
of briddes; the tales of counterbury,
Thilke that sownen into synne;/ the book of the
Leoun; and many another book. If they were
In my remembrance, and many a song and
Many a leccherous lay; that crist for his grete
Mercy foryeve me the synne./ But of the translacion
of boece de consolacione, and othere
Bookes of legendes of seintes, and omelies and
Moralitee, and devocioun./ That thanke I oure
Lord jhesu crist and his blisful mooder, and
Alle the seintes of hevene... (X.1083)
54 Perhaps Harry Bailey's nose (or his instinct for self-protection) did not that much mislead him. Chaucer's Parson need not at all have been a "Lollere," especially in that fifteenth-century context in which we have come to define the term. Wyclif himself was certainly not such a "Lollere..." (Jeffrey 137)
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Hearnshaw, F. ed. The Social and Political Ideas of Some Great Mediaeval Thinkers: A Series of Lectures Delivered at Kings College University of London. London: Harrap, 1923.
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------------ ed. Two Wycliffite Texts: The Sermon of William Taylor 1406; The Testimony of William Thorpe 1407. EETS 301. Oxford: Oxford U P, 1993.
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