Tag Archives: canterbury tales

Part VII

Last time, after having finished looking at Fragment III, I mentioned the Man of Law. His situation within tale ordering is one of the most unique, moving independently throughout several fragments contingent upon which manuscript you consult. In Hengwrt he follows the Wife-Friar-Summoner group, and intercedes right before the Squire-Merchant-Franklin (which were identified to be misordered in the previous part of this project). In Ellesmere the Man of Law follows the Cook, right before the Wife. Corpus Christi, New College, Petworth and several others maintain that he follows the Cook, but move the Squire and Merchant around to precede the Wife. We have already discussed why this won’t work.

Just like I had argued that the Clerk had to follow the Wife, I will state that the Man of Law needs to precede her, preferably right before without any tales separating the two. This means that even within the manuscripts where he comes right after the Cook, he is often too far removed from the Wife.  While there are many flaws within the Ellesmere, it appears it is one of the only manuscripts to have gotten this completely right, from ordering to spacing. However, recently I got a chance to inspect a digitized copy London British Library Additional MS 35286. The Ad3 manuscript has been for the most part marginalized due to how little is known about it, and the fact that it was produced so much later than the other manuscripts that are now considered authoritative.

The curious thing about Ad3 is that while it looks like a mini Ellesmere, it is not. It is not a verbatim copy of Ellesmere, nor is the scribe in any way connected to Ellesmere or Hengwrt, and therefore removed from its creation. While the scribe may have been inspired by the Ellesmere, that too seems unlikely since the Ellesmere was created for a private collection, unreleased to the public for hundreds of years, and more importantly it is the differences, not the similarities that demand this manuscript be regarded in its own right. More so, the Ad3 manuscript is incomplete, with multiple spelling deviations; it was not copied from a master manuscript, but rather compiled much like the others, with scribal intervention when needed. For my purposes here, however, I will note one similarity that Ad3 shares with Ellesmere and only a few others manuscripts – the Man of Law’s position separating the first and third fragment, with nothing in between. The same thought process previous scribes underwent was present here as well, and at the same level of mature thought as Adam Pinkhurst possessed when compiling his latter manuscripts.

If manuscript consensus is to be taken as authoritative, then the ordering I am arguing for here would be thought of as wrong. Yet much like the reasoning used to stipulate the Hengwrt is a prototype of the Ellesmere, I will state that the majority of manuscripts do not conform to this ordering due to a superficial link referenced in the Man of Law’s Epilogue. Further, I will rely on a more subtle connection to demonstrate the Man of Law’s right place – the same connection that some scribes must have made when choosing this ordering above the more popular one.

If Fragment I is undisputed as the start of the Canterbury Tales (which it is), then, following the introduction of “whan that aprill with his shoures soote / the droghte of March hath perced to the roote […] and the yonge sonne / hath in the Ram his half cours yronne” (Ellesmere), it makes sense for the following section to convene on “the eighte and twentithe day / of Aprill” (Ellesmere) or “the egthe and twenty day / of Aprill” (Ad3), the earliest possible day mentioned that could follow the GP and maintain accuracy. If this tale came at any later point in the Tales it would shift the General Prologue to almost a week earlier; as is, this would make it an approximation of the Ram’s midpoint on the calendar, thus it must be inserted as quickly as possible. Since we are still early on in the Tales it makes sense that Chaucer was writing them in order and had not yet started skipping around, so the train of thought from this fragment will be traced to the beginning of the next (when we get to the Epilogue).

The Man of Law is bid to tell his tale by the Host, urging him on because the morning is already coming to an end. Since travel could only be done by light and it is presumably around ten in the morning, they had only about six or seven more hours of travel. Let’s pause and look at the time frame. The day before, as the pilgrims were embarking on their journey, they stopped at the inn where they got to know each other, and Chaucer the pilgrim poetically illustrated each of their portraits in the General Prologue. At this point, the Host introduces the tale telling competition – it is well past noon. The Knight, Miller, and Reeve tell their tales, bringing us to a stopping point for the day. The next morning they run late (noted by the Host’s rushing), and begin with the Man of Law, followed by Fragment III of the Wife, Friar, and Summoner that lasts until the Summoner finishes, announcing “my tale is doon we been almoost at towne” (Ellesmere) or “my tale is doun we ben almost at toun” (Ad3), ending the tale telling for the day. Such a natural breakdown gives the Clerk enough time to ruminate over what he had heard, especially in consideration to the Wife, and in the morning as the Host notices the Clerk had not said anything yet, he bids him to tell a tale, which he will do in response to the previous day’s tale telling, and as I had discussed before, with a clerk’s (or scientist’s) inclinations. The tales told this day are lengthier, and thus take up the entirety of the day’s journey, ending with the Franklin’s pronouncement that he “kan nomore [his] tale is at an ende” (Ellesmere and Ad3), but not before asking the question of which character was the most generous in his tale (a weightier question than seemingly appears), and an appropriate end to the day so that the pilgrims may further discuss at dinner. The following Fragments VI and VII disrupt the cadence thus far established; their purpose will be discussed in another part of this project.

Aside from the Host’s words at the beginning of the Man of Law’s prologue indicating a start to the day, there seems to be no other reason thus far for why the Man of Law requires his current position, and it won’t be until his tale is told in which there are certain words and themes that are likely to have triggered the Wife’s “experience, though noon auctoritee” speech right after. The heroine of his tale, Constance, an allegorical name for a concept that in medieval times was synonymous with patience, is a widow, married on several occasions, abused, yet resilient in seeking happiness. Already the similarities are unfolding between her and the Wife. Also, much like the Man-of-Law, a lawyer, interprets the law, the Wife interprets written laws and traditions, especially biblical texts to manipulate these texts to suit her purposes. The Man of Law, through scholarship and actual profession embodies the “auctoritee” that the Wife lacks. However, the subject of the Man’s tale is removed from his field of expertise – the Wife can “debat” endlessly on marriage with nothing more than her “experience.” Also, she seems able to do so at the drop of a hat, with no need for time to think on anything, meaning she can therefore directly follow the Man of Law and respond his tale on a whim.

The last piece of evidence serves to both demonstrate why the Man of Law was not always appropriately placed and also makes the case for the times he was. There are several additional manuscripts (aside from Ad3) in which there was a Shipman’s Prologue – one that no longer exists among the authoritative manuscripts. This prologue was often written right after the Man of Law’s Epilogue, continuing the linking process. However, the idea was at one point abandoned either by Chaucer or the scribes, due to a better narrative, and the Shipman’s Tale, left on its own, was moved down the manuscript. If the Shipman’s Prologue was left intact and considered an extension of the Man of Law’s Epilogue two clues can be traced to make the case for the subsequent tales. First, at one point, the Host mentions the name “Iankin,” perhaps reminding the Wife of her latest husband and thus leading her into her enumeration of husbands. If this stanza was still intact then the name could be traced from here, to the Wife’s husband’s name, all the way to the end of the Summoner’s Tale where it is mentioned again. These three are the only references to the name within the Tales, and would function as a subtle linking point. The stipulation I would like to make is that that was the initial intention, but after writing the Shipman’s Prologue it was obvious that his tale would not fit into the tableau of Man of Law-Wife-Friar- Summoner, and thus the entire thing got dropped; during this process the Man of Law became disassociated from any fragment and became its own floating piece.

For those manuscripts where there may have been remnants of the Shipman’s Prologue, the Man of Law’s Tale moved even as the Prologue may have been discarded through scribal editorship. Yet even as the Shipman’s Prologue was abandoned, those who paid enough attention either saw the small connection, or were able to make the larger ones discussed above. The second clue is even more subtle, but also relies on the scribe having seen the Shipman’s Prologue before deciding to discard it. At one point in the short prologue the Shipman states “Heer schal he nat preche / he schal no gospel glosen here ne tech” in regards to the Parson (who ends up telling his tale right before the Retraction in most manuscripts). The Parson does not in fact preach, interpret, or teach gospel here because the Wife will do so in her prologue, not with the “auctoritee” the Parson has on the matter, but once again using her own “experience.” The type of tale the Shipman outlines fits with the Wife’s Prologue, just as her prologue fits to parallel the Man of Law. So while the Shipman’s Prologue served as the perfect link and clue for this ordering, at no point in this cohesive group is there room for the Shipman’s Tale (despite it’s content for which there can be some argument). The piece was expunged, erasing linking indications. However, when considered together, as much as Fragments IV and V were associated, so are II and III. They are not two separate fragments lacking a link, but rather one long segment with a portion removed from the middle, leaving two end pieces to be reconnected.

Note: I did not take time to mention the feminine pronouns used in regards to the Shipman that are often used to insinuate his space in the manuscript was initially reserved for the Wife simply because that argument has already been made several times and needs only a cursory mention at most.

Next time I wan to explore what happened to the Shipman’s Tale and how it relates to the other seemingly stray tales of Fragments VI and VII. Now that I have access to a few more digital manuscripts than I did last week, I hope to have another section done soon.

Part VI

Thus far I have spent the last few sections of this discussing the integrity of Fragments IV and V, attempting to demonstrate their completeness as one unit. As you can tell if you have been reading along, my progress has slowed. The problem is, I am running out of resources. I have digital copies of some manuscripts, and pictures of various parts of others, but the problem with independent research is that I have no access to massive data bases. If I was only doing a literary analysis that would hardly be a problem, but the nature of this project relies heavily on visualization, meaning that until I can get a better idea of the original works, I am a bit stumped.  Even within this section I will be focusing more on traditional literary analysis, with fewer references to the manuscripts.

After my argument for combining Fragments IV and V, I will refer to my previous (and brief) mention that several stories within these sections must follow the Wife of Bath, meaning that both Fragments must follow her as units. Further, Fragment III, containing the Wife, must remain intact as is, comprised of the Wife, Friar, and Summoner. As I inquired in the previous section, why? Part of the answer is very simple, and I will address this first.

Immediately preceding the Wife’s Tale the Friar and Summoner break out into an argument that will find it’s way into the prologues of the other two tales within this fragment, serving as the link between all three tales. Several other tales have endlinks or interruptions that introduce another character or form a connection, but here, among all three tales (four if you count the Wife’s Prologue, as I will do), it is always the same characters, binding not just two stories together, but an entire fragment from beginning to end. Yes, as was seen in the Merchant’s, Franklin’s and Squire’s prologues and endlinks, scribal insertions often occurred, but when they did, there were generally brief, lacking depth  and hardly adding anything to the stories. This is an argument that does add (albeit not to the stories themselves) to the overarching theme of the tales; commentary among members of the pilgrimage gave the frame narrative of a journey a certain three dimensional quality as opposed to a linear prologue-tale-prologue-tale mechanical organization. It also serves to remind the readers that there were other characters there. Much like the Host acts as an active audience member to the pilgrims’ stories, so too do the commentaries prompt us to reflect on what we have read.

On the topic of scribal insertion/authority, in the few places where the scribes interchanged the names of the pilgrims within endlinks or prologues (Merchant, Squire, Franklin), the disparity between who was being named and their statements made it immediately apparent that something was not right. With a little digging it was generally ascertained where the error occurred, especially when there was an absolute lack of contextual support for a revision of what may have been the original, and which made most sense.

Also, importantly, these three tales have never been separated from each other in any of the manuscripts. While manuscript consensus is not necessarily indicative of an absolute ordering, it does strongly imply that copies of these tales have never been received in a different order and quite possibly as one long piece making it impossible to recopy them in any other way. As scribes shuffled loose stories around, none would amend a continuous portion of text.

Moving away from the physical aspect of the quires containing the tales, I want to focus on the structural similarities within Fragment III, much like I had done with the components within Fragment IV and V. Since the Wife’s Prologue is quite lengthy (even more so than some of the tales), I will treat it as a tale, especially in light of the contextual parallels that are found between it and the three tales in this fragment. What I hope to present at the end of this is an illustration of four quarters that not only complement each other in completing the fragment through structural similarities, but remain in constant conversation, tying all the stories, including the Wife’s Prologue, together.

Unlike the tables I have tried constructing in previous posts, with four pieces it would be impossible, so I will outline the structure step by step.

Wife’s Prologue: WBP          Wife’s Tale: WBT          Friar’s Tale: FrT              Summoner’s Tale: SumT

The first set of similarities is among introductions, and obviously most tales and prologues throughout the Tales  have introductions, making this first section appear superfluous. However, I want to draw attention to the endings of each introduction where the similarities between these four segments are strictly characteristic of Fragment III.

WBP: Alisoun introduces herself in her infamous “experience, though noon auctoritee” speech.  Before she begins her list of husbands and marital vignettes, she attacks the institution of marriage as it is preached (not practiced), and the traditional conventions associated with it. Marriage, a beautiful concept when taken more loosely, is the subject of her harangue in its strict state that prohibits any joy a woman might have.

WBT: In her tale the Wife introduces the Knight, and immediately tells us of his conundrum, namely that he raped a maiden and is about to have his head lopped off. Interestingly that entire part gets glossed over and instead the Wife narrates a grievance against the imposition of chastity.

FrT: The Friar in his tale introduces his two main characters, the Archdeacon and Summoner. Unlike the Wife’s Prologue, and Tale in which she railed against concepts (as outrageous as they may be), here the Friar directly offends the Summoner to the point where the latter interjects.

SumT: The Summoner retaliates against the Friar and tells a bawdy tale involving the humiliation of friars to where the Friar interjects (which conveniently brings me to my next point).

Once all four tales have had their introductions, before the body of any tale, there is an interruption. Yet unlike the other tales where interruptions halt the tales completely, here the story tellers continue on either on their own or with encouragement from the Host.

WBP: The Pardoner interrupts the Wife’s tirade against the sanctity of marriage. Even though he only does so to praise her words, she advises that he has not heard all she has to tell (and indeed she has about 700 more lines before she even begins her story).

WBT: After she harshly reprimands the Pardoner for interrupting her prologue no one else dares stop Alisoun in her story, however, at one point (as several others have also pointed out in their criticism), she uncharacteristically steps out of the role of narrator. After introducing her Knight in King Arthur’s court she uses the first and second person pronouns for the brief section. This is the only point in the story where this appears, and only continues for a few stanzas. While it is not an interruption per se, and not even very distracting (often not caught on the first read), it is an intrusion into her narrative.

FrT: As the Friar and Summoner are on a retaliatory path, as the Friar introduces his lecherous summoner, the pilgrim Summoner interjects. He does not openly show offense, but if we learned anything from the Miller and Reeve previously, we can already deduce what tale the Summoner will tell. Also, if the Host had not called for “pees” the two may well have gone back and forth over the depiction of summoners.

SumT: Yes, the Summoner begins a tale about a corrupt friar, and the Friar interrupts his tale. Once again the Host calls out for “pees” and the tale resumes.

The third set of structural similarities is concerned with each character’s pursuit. Unlike several other tales that simply tell a story, or convey a moral, here each one is actually in search for something whether tangible or not.

WBP: Alisoun makes it clear that despite having had five husbands at church’s door, she is in search for number six, and uses her marital stories to illustrate what she is and is not looking for in a mate.

WBT: The Knight of this tale is in search for the answer to the question of what women want. In a sense this is almost a direct answer to the Wife’s Prologue; if all of her previous marriages were combined, her ultimate goal, much like the Knight tells the queen, is sovereignty.

FrT: The summoner travels around looking for money and how to obtain it from people.

SumT: The friar goes from home to home, much like the summoner in the previous tale, searching for monetary gain. Even as the means are different (here people give money out of charity and perhaps due to trickery, but for the previous summoner it was out of fear), the end is the same.

Once the tales are told each has an ambiguous conclusion.

WBP: After telling the audience all about her husbands, especially those who were cruel, the Wife claims she has obtained “by maistrie, al the soveraynetee.” However, in the last few lines of her prologue she relates what a “trewe” wife she was to her husband, kinder than any woman from “Denmark to Inde,” which seems a complete negation of her previous sentiments.

WBT: In her tale, practically a parallel to her prologue,the Wife asserts that the Knight was taught a good lesson about the “governance” women hold. And the woman in the story, much like the Wife, chooses to use her power in the end to make the man happy and surrender to his desires as the old crone turns into a beautiful maiden and swears loyalty to the Knight.

FrT: The Friar ends his tale with his summoner being taken off to Hell and a brief reminder that we should not sin lest we also end up there. However, the lesson that is more apparent (especially when regarding the Friar in terms of how he was introduced in the General Prologue, along with keeping in mind Chaucer’s propensity for making unstated commentary) is that there is a difference between verbalized speech and actual meaning. Much like the man with the cart who the devil would not haul away because he did not mean it when he sent his cart to Hell, the old woman does mean it when she sends the summoner to Hell, but under this same premise we are invited to analyze the sincerity of the Friar’s words as he preaches virtue in the ending lines. As the Friar endeavored to defame the Summoner with his tale, he managed to draw attention to himself.

SumT: The Summoner’s tale is a bit more subtle in the secondary meaning. While the Friar is obviously attacked as a charlatan taking advantage of a grieving family, the Summoner finishes by praising Jankin, a churl, for his wit and rhetoric comparable to the likes of “Euclide or Ptholomee,” and much like the Friar had done at the end of his tale, the Summoner draws attention to himself; he not only applauds those traits that the Friar feels belong to him, but puts them onto a man who’s other attributes (that are far more disagreeable) parallel the Summoner instead.

When looking at the stories piece by piece their structures overshadow their disparity in genre and superficial style. Fragment III, unlike any other fragment is a mini tapestry that weaves the Wife, Friar and Summoner in and out on too many occasions to argue against their coherence. So while on the surface it is difficult to see why these characters might be so right together considering they come from different social classes, tell tales of different genres, and the Wife’s Prologue stands out more so than the others, they remain intact on the page because they were clearly written together. As for why they were written together, there are many theories, and I have one myself, but in truth, only Chaucer knows.

So far I have managed to cover four out of the ten fragments. Some, like Fragment I, don’t necessarily warrant explication in the sense of ordering as I can’t imagine anyone disputes the Tales start with the General Prologue. The same can be said about Fragment X, except there is some debate as to what comprises that fragment along with the Retraction. In the next part of this I want to look at the Man of Law’s relationship to his own fragment (II) along with his influence on Fragment III, and I want to explore how his tale has moved throughout the various manuscripts.

Part V

In continuing my argument for the consolidation of Fragments IV and V in the Canterbury Tales, I left off discussing the connection between the Merchant’s and Squire’s tales, contingent upon the Merchant’s endlink appearing within manuscripts. Thus far I have established that the Merchant follows the Clerk, who is in turn followed by the Squire.

However, at the first line of the introduction to the Squire’s Tale, some manuscripts, including Hengwrt and Petworth, read “Sire Frankleyn” instead of “Squire.” The heading in Hengwrt states, “Here folwen the wordes of the worthy Hoost to the Frakeleyn,” and the Franklin’s Tale follows. The variations among the ordering of the tales in various manuscripts indicates that there was no predominant ordering to be had and thus the tales were introduced in the order in which the scribes wrote them. Again, referring to the Ellesmere and Hengwrt, only after haphazard copying is the manuscript edited to create the Ellesmere with the ordering edited to reflect content along with common sense.

If the Host’s invitation to the next story teller is to the Franklin, and it reads “Sire Frankeleyn, com neer, if it youre wille be,” then it is extrametrical. For an author who so meticulously oversees his form, as can be surmised from the General Prologue down to the structural similarities between tales that I outlined in the previous section of his project, it is most bizarre that this line should stick out so obviously. Surely Chaucer did not momentarily forget how to count only to resume flawlessly in subsequent lines. Chances are, as the tales were being copied in no particular order other than the one in which they were received, the scribe noticed introductions or words of encouragement for the other tale tellers, and lacking one here, he improvised before reading the actual tale which would have given him some clues.

The lines directly following the “Franklin’s” invitation to tell a tale are: “and sey somwhat of love, for certes ye/ Konnen theron as much as any man.” (with obvious variations on spelling between manuscripts). While the Host is often off the mark when drawing his conclusions on the various tales, he is not so removed that he would ask the grumpy Franklin to tell a sappy love story – a topic much better suited to the Squire, “a lovyere, and a lusty bacheler”… merrily riding along, covered in “fresh floures, whyte adn rede.” That sounds much more like someone who should be telling love stories. And that is exactly what he does. Following in the footsteps of the Knight’s Tale of Arcite and Palimon, two courtly lovers who all but botch the concept of chivalry, the Squire tells an even more absurd tale of love, as only a young man could. In fact, the tale is so terrible, it is not left unfinished as some scholars speculate, but is rather interrupted by the real Franklin who had just about had enough.

Note: the stipulation that the tale was unfinished is due to the fact that it does indeed stop mid sentence. While it can be argued that it was left unfinished because it was honestly a terrible tale, the notion that the tale was purposefully interrupted seems more feasible; the tale had been bad for quite some time, and not looking as though it would get any better, thus if it was meant to be abandoned altogether Chaucer would have done so much sooner. It is more likely that it went on and on as it did to demonstrate cause for its interruption – the Franklin just couldn’t stand it anymore (and the audience would thank him kindly). Yet, since the Franklin stops the Squire and offers nothing but praise for a tale well told, there have been many who have accepted the Franklin’s words at face value, refusing to take diplomacy, common courtesy, or downright sarcasm into account, using his apparent praise to argue that the Squire’s Tale is unfinished, and not interrupted. However, if the tale displeased him, no one should expect the Franklin, a man with a public persona and agenda for social ascension, to outright tell the noble boy to shut up.

Another clue (right at the beginning) that the introduction by the Host to the Squire, is actually intended to the Squire and not the Franklin, has to do with the way in which the words are read, keeping in mind Chaucer’s love for word play.

The Host intuits that the teller of the next tale “konnen theron as much as any man” on the subject of love. The obvious reading is that he knows as much as any other man and therefore has a means for telling a tale on the subject. However, a dual connotation is that he knows as much as *a* man, implying that the teller is not in fact yet a man, but a boy. Much of Chaucer’s language is generally (and often intentionally) ambiguous, making it extremely difficult to discern absolute meaning, but in conjunction with the previous pieces of this argument, it is difficult to ignore the possibility of the second reading.

Further, a look at the way these tales were physically written provides the last clue to their ordering. According to Cooper’s analysis of the manuscript’s binding, in the Hengwrt, the Merchant’s endlink and Franklin’s Prologue are written on an inserted leaf. Also, simply looking at pictures one can tell that there is far more room in between the two then there is text – half the page is empty. Thus the scribe wrote the pieces in anticipation of… well, I don’t know what. There are theories of what he may have been waiting for, but all seem very far fetched attempts at answering a rather mysterious question. What was he waiting for? I personally believe he didn’t even know, but left the blank space because something about the current ordering of the tales was askance – the blank space is less of a mystery of “what” and rather an indication as to his hesitancy in placing the Franklin’s Prologue after the Merchant’s endlink. As evidence, when the same scribe later copied the Ellesmere, the Merchant – Squire – Franklin piece was rearranged as we have it now, and the manuscript flows smoothly with no indication of a break. In other words, he was far more sure of himself here, and felt no need to leave empty space.

Returning to context, this is the heading at the top of the next leaf:

Heere folwen the wordes of the

Frankeleyn to the Squire, and the

wordes of the Hoost to the Frankeleyn (spelling again varies, I am using Ellesmere).

Several manuscripts such as Christ’s Church, Corpus Chrisi, and New College omit these lines altogether. (Note: This is actually a rather important point, but unfortunately I don’t have access to digital images of the Christ’s Church manuscript, so I am relying on others’ transcripts… if I ever make more of this project, this will have to be better looked into, and I think to fully flesh out the evidence I should also look closer at Petworth and Lansdowne, if not others). Hengwrt (and perhaps other manuscripts) use the Squire’s endlink to introduce the Merchant’s Tale, and the word “Marchantes” replaces “Frakeleyn.” So, why do these other manuscripts omit these lines altogether? It might not make it correct, but consensus among a majority of manuscripts would heavily tilt the argument towards acceptance of one or the other. However, so few manuscripts seem to have these words, the only evidence we can rely on for accuracy once again looks at rhyme and meter.

Where Ellesmere’s “That knowe I wel, sir, quod the Frankelyn” (only a little below the lines quoted a paragraph earlier), is looked at in terms of Hengwrt’s “That knowe I wel sir, quod the Merchantes certeyn,” it is an obvious attempt to maintain the rhyme, and in doing so, the line becomes extrametrical. This time it is better masked than the previous time that an extrametrical unit was introduced, due to the rhyme of the words, but when read within the surrounding text something about the line just stands out, and upon a second (or perhaps third or fourth) look, it is discovered.

In addition, since Chaucer typically introduced the themes of the tales within their headlinks, or the endlinks of the previous tales, in this case it would seem more likely that the theme of “gentillesse,” as it is introduced, is better fitted to the Franklin’s Tale, rather than the Merchant’s that appears to be the exact opposite of the concept.

Since the Franklin’s Tale does follow the Squire’s, we can begin comparing them to figure out why they were placed together (assuming Chaucer didn’t just happen to write them that way). McCall makes an interesting argument that the Franklin’s and Squire’s Tales belong together because they are both organized along temporal lines. Unlike the Bradshaw shift (mentioned in Part I of this project), that is an entire argument based on less than a handful of references to place names, this argument holds some weight as no other tales contain as many references to time, aside from the General Prologue. According to McCall (and the text, of course), the Squire’s Tale begins on March 15th and ends roughly two months later where the Franklin’s Tale begins on May 6th and ends in December. While this is even more proof that the Squire’s Tale was meant to be interrupted and not simply left unfinished, that is not my purpose here, (and I will probably have to reassess and rework this in earlier). McCall then states that the two tales contain key words in which the Squire’s Tale emphasizes youth and the Franklin’s Tale focuses on the old. But this argument can be taken so much further, and demonstrate parallels between the tales which indicate that Chaucer wrote each with the other in mind, and thus they must be linked together. Just like I had looked at the Clerk’s and Merchant’s tales earlier for contextual parallels that proved one would not simply follow the other, but do so closely, here I will look at different parallels, drawing the same conclusion. The structural similarities are too great for the tales to be separated.

First, I will outline these similarities in a “table,” but just like last time, it may or may not appear as a table on your end since I don’t know how to do it properly in the blog. Secondly, I am certain I am missing references, and will reread both tales again to pick up any missing words from my list here. These are simply the most obvious.

Squire’s Tale                                            Franklin’s Tale

“Ides of March”                                       “Frosty… December”

“Phebus… ful joly was”                        ” Phebus wax old”

***both of these are only one line below the previous example

“exaltacioun”                                           “declynacion”

“Ares”                                                          “Capricorn”

***exact same monthly references as the first example used

“sonne sheene”                                         “shoon ful pale”

“yonge grene”                                           “destroyed… grene”

“songen”                                                      “crieth”

 

The similarities are not solely in stray words, but these help illustrate how the stories reflect each other, and are almost a continuation. In the first, while not finished, the young woman laments her lover leaving her for another, while in the second, the man returns from war to find his wife has promised herself to another. We do not know the outcome of the first, but in the second, despite, and perhaps due to, the Franklin’s excessive desire towards appearing noble, the characters in the tale, including Dorigen, conduct themselves with utmost chivalry (the implications, and the outcome, are something to be discussed elsewhere another time). In every sense, the Franklin’s Tale appears to act as a second half, or a completion of the Squire’s Tale. Of course this leads to a completely different argument as to why the Squire’s Tale may not have been completed. (Obviously this project appears to need better organization because I seem to be jumping all over the place, and I am really trying not to – however, if I want to pursue this to its end, all of these little “extra” things should at some point be addressed).

Yet, in light of every clue presented in favor of the Franklin’s Tale following the Squire’s it must be noted that not as much evidence, if any, exists to the contrary. In fact, for every instance that I have so far noted where the ordering is different, there appears to be no reasoning behind it, and other scholars, far more advanced and invested than me, have also failed to find evidence in support of a different ordering. Even those who argue against the Squire-Franklin combination (very few, and an almost non existent argument in recent years), still do not offer an alternative.

The Clerk, Merchant, Squire, and Franklin, are simply meant to be together, in one long sequence, and dividing them into fragments, aside from creating an easy way of numerating them, is unnecessary.

Similar combinations of fragments also exist. The evidence may not be as strong, but enough remains in existence to argue the consolidation of fragments VI and VII, and IX and X.

However, next time I actually want to move backwards within the manuscripts and look at the Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale. A lot has already been done on her, so I will be brief; what I wish to look at is why she is (constantly) placed within the same fragment as the Friar and Summoner. Judging from their descriptions in the General Prologue it seems she is the odd one out of this Fragment, but there is in fact a reason to place her where she is, and why she has maintained that place among manuscripts.