Chaucer’s Reeve’s Tale and its Old French Analogue

By Mary MacArthy

I. A comparison of the two works

Scholars refer to six of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales as “fabliaux”: the Miller’s Tale, Reeve’s Tale, Friar’s Tale, Summoner’s Tale, Merchant’s Tale, and the Shipman’s Tale. The definition of a fabliaux varies widely. D.S. Brewer defines a fabliau as

A versified short story designed to make you laugh, subject matter often indecent,

concerned either with sexual or excretory functions; plot usually in the form of a practical

joke carried out for love or revenge.[1]

While Brewer focuses on the fabliau’s subject matter and action, John H. Fisher focuses on the social status of the characters: the fabliaux concern “middle- and low-class characters and situations”[2] and “One of their principal devices is burlesquing the values and behavior of the courtly system”[3]. In her book on the Old French fabliaux, Marie-Thérèse Lorcin does not even attempt to provide a categorical definition of the genre, but rather admits the difficulty in “distinguishing the fabliau from other didactic narrative genres... such as the lay, the dit, and satirical stories”[4]. Despite the lack of an agreed-upon definition of the fabliau itself, critics unabashedly refer to Chaucer’s tales as fabliaux, to the degree that “Chaucer’s fabliaux” has become a sub-genre of its own. Janette Richardson wrote an entire book on Chaucer’s fabliaux without once stating the definition of the fabliau, without once referring to the relationship between Chaucer’s tales and the original Old French fabliaux[5]. In order to determine the relationship between the original Old French fabliaux and Chaucer’s versions, the Reeve’s Tale — the only one of Chaucer’s fabliaux for which a direct analogue exists among the Old French fabliaux — stands as an obvious point of departure. An examination of the relationship between the Old French Le Meunier et Les Deux Clercs[6] and the Reeve’s Tale should shed light upon the relationship between the original fabliaux and Chaucer’s fabliaux.

Le Meunier et Les Deux Clercs and the Reeve’s Tale share essentially the same plot: a miller steals from two clerks, who in turn seduce the miller’s daughter and have sexual relations with his wife. Despite the basic plot similarities, however, the dominant themes of each work differ enormously. The Old French version opens with a description of two clerks who have recently fallen upon hard times; a preoccupation with providing the necessities of material and physical survival reverberates throughout the fabliau. The quest to fulfill their material and physical needs — to “get... out of this bad year” (“nos giter de cest mal an,” line 42) in which they find themselves and to satisfy the “hunger that destroys” them (“la fain qui nos destraint,” line 27) — motivates the clerks’ actions and leads to all of their adventures. The clerks decide to become bakers, and after borrowing wheat and a horse from friends, they go to a mill to grind the wheat. Aided by his wife, the miller deftly steals both the horse and the wheat from the clerks, who once again find themselves possessionless.

Rather than seeking out the robber, the clerks resign themselves to their losses, calmly saying that “earthly possessions come and go like straw” (“avoirs vient et va comme paille,” line 134); the clerks do not lament their fate, but rather seek to fulfill their most immediate needs — finding lodging for the night. They arrive on the miller’s doorstep, who, although not pleased to see the clerks, cannot deny them a bed for the night; he says to himself that he would be “worse than a dog” (“seroit il pires que chien,” line 151) if he did not provide them with lodging. In comparing his actions to those of an animal, the miller reveals the baseness of his nature: rather than being motivated by empathy with fellow human beings, the miller responds in the manner of an animal, who cannot fathom anything more profound than the fulfillment of physical and material needs.

When the miller offers the clerks his floor for the night, they respond that the floor “is enough” (“ce est assez” line 156) for them. The rest of the events in the fabliau center around the idea of having “enough” (“assez”) to satisfy basic desires. Upon sitting down to dinner with the miller and his family, the clerks thoroughly satisfy their appetites, they “are given enough to eat” (“Au .II. clers assez en dona,” line 173). After having been satisfied by the miller’s daughter, one of the clerks encourages the other to have his fun with the daughter, saying that there is “enough” (“assez,” line 282) of her left to go around. This first clerk cannot separate his appetite for food from his appetite for sex: he compares the daughter to a piece of “bacon” (line 281) hanging from a cord, who waits to be consumed “all the way to the cord” (“jusqu’a la hart,” line 282).

At each instance in which physical and material needs motivate events in Le Meunier et Les Deux Clercs, social pressures and social tensions motivate events in the Reeve’s Tale. Whereas the first quarter of Le Meunier describes the clerks’ destitute situation, the first quarter of the Reeve’s Tale does not even mention the two clerks, but rather discusses the miller, named “Symkyn” (line 3941), and his family. Chaucer’s physical descriptions of the characters reveal concerns with social classes: the notes to John H. Fisher’s edition of the Canterbury Tales indicate that Symkyn’s “camuse” (line 3934) nose reveals his “plebeian background”[7], and that the daughter’s “kamuse nose and greye eyes” (line 3074) reveal her “mixture of plebeian and aristocratic characteristics”[8]. Symkyn’s obsessively protective behavior towards his wife stems from admiration neither for her character nor her physique but rather for her “noble” (line 3942) ancestry, for her aristocratic “kynrede... and nortelrie” (line 3967).

When the clerks, named “John... and Aleyn” (line 4013), finally do appear, Chaucer mentions their poverty only once (“Thanne were there yonge poure clerkes two,” line 4002); their lively and headstrong nature — “Testif they were, and lusty for to pleye,” line 4004 — rather than their desire to satisfy their hunger, leads them into contact with the miller. The adjective “lusty,” in addition to referring to the clerks’ liveliness, also suggests the modern meaning of being full of sexual desire; such a meaning would imply that Chaucer’s clerks, like Le Meunier’s clerks, are motivated by sexual longings. However, even though “lustiness” forms part of their nature, their lustiness does not determine their actions -- they do not constantly seek sexual satisfaction. Instead, John and Aleyn seek amusement and diversion, their lustiness lacks any urgency, they are “lusty for to pleye” (line 4004). One could argue that the word “pleye” contains sexual connotations, but other uses of the word in the Canterbury Tales do not have such a connotation. In the Tale of Melibee, Melibee goes into the country to amuse himself, he “for his disport is went into the feeldes hym to pleye” (paragraph 2); his solitude does not allow room for any sexual overtones. In the Shipman’s Tale, the verb “pleye” means not to have fun, but rather to engage in deceitful behavior: the merchant mentions to his wife that they might “pleye/ A pilgrimage” (lines 233-234) — they might pretend to be going on a pilgrimage — in order to avoid their creditors. These other uses of the word suggest that the use of “pleye” in the Reeve’s Tale refers more to the clerks fun-loving and conniving ways than it does to their sexual drives.

Chaucer’s clerks, aware of the miller’s dishonest nature, place a bet (“leye her nekke,” line 4009) that they will be able to outwit his thieving ways, that they will go to the mill and that “The millere sholde nat stele hem half a pekke” (line 4110) from them. Symkym couches his expression of dislike of the clerks not in a personalized statement against John and Aleyn, but rather in a generalized insult of all clerks: “The gretteste clerkes been noght wisest men” (line 4054). As in Le Meunier, the miller robs the clerks without their knowledge. Unconcerned about the material losses, Chaucer’s clerks instead fret over the humiliation that they will have to face: “Oure corn is stoln, men wil us fooles calle,/ Bathe the wardeyn and our felawes alle,/ And namely the millere” (lines 4111-13); the prospect of being humiliated by the lowly miller disturbs them much more than that of being humiliated by their peers.

The arrival of nighttime prevents the clerks from going home, so they seek shelter at the miller’s house. Whereas in Le Meunier the clerk’s decision to seduce the miller’s daughter stems purely from his sexual desire, in the Reeve’s Tale Aleyn’s decision to seduce the daughter derives from bitterness towards the wrongs committed against him. “For, John” (line 4180), says Aleyn, “ther is a law that says thus/ That gif a man in a point be ygreved,/ That in another he sal be releved” (lines 4180-82); vengeance, not desire, drives Aleyn to the daughter’s bed. Aleyn’s use of legalistic language emphasizes the fact that external social pressures, not internal desires, determine his actions. John, equally lacking in uncontrollable sexual desire as Aleyn, decides to seduce the miller’s wife only because he fears that he will be “halde a daf, a cokenay” (line 4208) if he does not. John’s behavior — motivated purely by peer pressure — contrasts with the concupiscent behavior of the second clerk in the fabliau, whose lustful jealousy of the first clerk “having his pleasures” (“fait ses buens,” line 231) motivates him to seduce the wife.

Although the fabliau’s dominant theme of fulfilling physical and material needs might appear more “innocent” than the Reeve’s Tale’s dominant theme of social pressures, the fabliau has a much darker tone than Chaucer’s tale. A sense of secrecy and hidden information permeates Le Meunier: characters repeatedly conceal their actions, and repeatedly hide objects or people. When the clerks first devise their plan to become bakers, the poet refers to their discussion as “their secret” (“lor secroi,” line 23). The first hiding action consists of an almost childlike game of “hide-and-seek”: upon observing the clerks’ arrival at the mill, the miller “goes to hide” (“s’en fu alé mucier,” line 68). One of the clerks goes to the miller’s home in search of him, and the miller’s wife purposely sends the clerk in the wrong direction; after his wife similarly misleads the second clerk, the miller seizes the clerks’ abandoned possessions and hides them in the barn (“Tant a en sa maison mucié,” line 97). In contrast to the light-hearted game of hide-and-seek, the miller’s action of hiding his daughter reveals more morbid overtones. Determined to protect his daughter’s virginity — or in the fabliau’s more straightforward language, “so that she would not get laid”[9] (“qu’el ne fust pointe,” line 162) — the miller forces her to sleep in a locked bin every night; the image of a person lying in a bin or a chest suggests the image of a body lying in a coffin.

While the fabliau casts shadows over all its events and information, the Reeve’s Tale sheds light: a sense of the public nature of all information emanates from Chaucer’s version. Whereas in the fabliau the clerks know nothing about the miller, in the Reeve’s Tale the clerks not only know the miller and his family but also know him to be a “theef outrageously” (line 3998). The scene in which the miller steals the clerks’ corn does not consist of the hide-and-seek game of the fabliau, but rather merely of a single ploy on the part of the miller — releasing the clerks’ horse. Even the most private of information takes on a public nature in the Reeve’s Tale: Aleyn knows without a doubt that the story of his sexual activities with the miller’s wife — or the lack thereof — will be recounted to others, that “this jape [will be] told another day” (line 4207). John’s use of the ambiguous word “esement” reveals his lack of distinction between public activities and private activities: “esement” refers to the comforts of life, but also possesses a legal definition, referring to the right or privilege of using something not one’s own. In determining to “have esement” (line 4186) with the daughter, John refers not only to the sexual comforts that she will provide but also to his legal right to use her granted to him by society: the “lawe” (line 4179) of the land grants him “esement” (line 4179) with her.

A comparison of the scenes in which the clerks seduce the daughter most dramatically reveals the contrast between the lighter, public tone of the Reeve’s Tale and the darker, secretive tone of Le Meunier. In the fabliau, the clerk premeditates the seduction: during dinner with the miller and his family, the clerk surreptitiously removes a ring from the andiron and hides it away (“bien l’a... mucié,” line 181) for later purposes. After everyone has gone to bed, the clerk approaches the daughter’s bin and, in a parody of courtly behavior, gallantly begs for her mercy upon his desires: he insists that he will “never have another day of joy” (“jamais nul jor joie n’avra,” line 207) unless she succumbs to him. He offers her the ring, pretending that it possesses the magic power of protecting the wearer’s virginity; deceived, she unlocks the bin and allows him entrance, and the sexual interaction takes place in the darkness and privacy of the bin.

Unlike the clerk in the fabliau, who must go to enormous lengths and even act deceptively in order to seduce the daughter, in The Reeve’s Tale John simply approaches the sleeping daughter’s bed. Rather than Aleyn seducing the daughter with gallant speeches or cunning tricks, mutual sexual desire allows the seduction to take place with almost no effort on the part of Aleyn. Just after he approaches close enough for her to “espie” (line 4195) him, the seduction is complete: “And shortly for to seyn, they were aton” (line 4197). In contrast to the private location of the sexual interaction in Le Meunier, in the Reeve’s Tale the sexual interaction takes place in the very room in which all of the characters are sleeping. The word “aton” emphasizes the public nature of the sexual interaction: the word suggests not only that the partners are “at one” in agreement, but also creates an image of the sexual act for everyone to see — their two bodies become one, are “at one”. The courtly parody in the Reeve’s Tale, which culminates the interaction between Aleyn and the miller’s daughter, puts the finishing touches upon its public nature. As Aleyn leaves the daughter’s bed the next morning, the two play the role of courtly lovers: Aleyn promises that “everemo” (line 4238) he will serve as her “awen clerk” (line 4239), and in responding to him she “almost she gan to wepe” (line 4248). Whereas in the fabliau the courtly parody helps the clerk to hide the truth from the daughter, in the Reeve’s Tale the courtly parody provides a means for the lovers to express their feelings for one another in a very public manner.

The differences between Le Meunier et Les Deux Clercs can be used as the basis of a general definition of the differences between the Old French fabliaux and Chaucer’s fabliaux: Chaucer, while reusing the original fabliaux’s plot schemes, creates tales that have very different themes and tones than the original versions. The Old French fabliaux concern themselves with issues of physical and material survival and satisfaction, while Chaucer’s tales deal more consciously with social pressures; the fabliaux have a darker and more mysterious tone, while Chaucer’s tales are of a more public nature. Such a distinction cannot be asserted without examination and discussion of other Old French fabliaux and others among Chaucer’s fabliaux; however, such a distinction serves as a starting point for comparisons between the originals and Chaucer’s versions.

II. Previous comparisons of the two works

Previous comparisons between the two works have not pointed out their differing themes and tones, but rather, have tended to focus exclusively on the superiority of Chaucer’s version. In his article Chaucer’s “Reeve’s Tale” and the Fabliau “Le Meunier et Les .II. Clercs,” Roger T. Burbridge insists upon the “depth and subtlety”[10] of Chaucer’s version in comparison to the original fabliau. Similarly, in his article The “Reeve’s Tale” as a Fabliau, Glending Olson states that “The Reeve’s Tale is richer than the Old French stories”[11]. Their arguments in praise of Chaucer’s version, however, demonstrate a lack of familiarity with and appreciation for the original Old French version.

The inadequacy of Burbridge’s discussion stems from his method of examining specific elements of the fabliau taken out of the context of the fabliau. For example, Burbridge criticizes the “wooden characters”[12] of Le Meunier in comparison to the “fully developed character”[13] of the miller in Chaucer’s version: “Chaucer’s miller… is a fully developed character, a swaggering, gaming bully and cheat whose social pretensions contrast ludicrously with his crude nature”[14]. In insisting upon the value of a “fully developed character,” Burbridge does not consider that the poet of the fabliau could have purposely left the characters undeveloped. In Le Meunier, the very fact that the miller has no identity other than as a miller — that he is a “wooden character” — amplifies the secretive and mysterious tone of the fabliau. The only background information that the poet provides about the miller serves to hide, rather than to develop, the miller’s identity: the poet emphasizes that the clerks have no knowledge of the miller’s character, saying that the mill “was very far away” (“si loin lor estoit,” line 53) from the clerks’ town, and “was not near any other town or home” (“Il n’ot ilueques environ/ borde ne vile ne maison,” lines 57-58). The poet of the fabliau, in the fashion of the miller himself — who hides everything from stolen goods to his daughter — seeks to conceal rather than to reveal information. Moreover, within the fabliau genre, “fully-developed characters” do not exist, but rather, the poet provides only the most necessary information about the character — which rarely consists of more than his or her social class. In his essay on the fabliaux, Per Nykrog explains that the fabliaux characterize an individual not by the “predominant trait of his individual psychology, as do modern poets”[15], but instead by his “social rank”[16]. By using the amount of “character development” as a measure of the quality of the Le Meunier, Burbridge demonstrates a lack of sensitivity not only to Le Meunier itself but also to the fabliau genre as a whole.

In comparing the seduction scenes, Burbridge asserts that Chaucer’s version is “more effective” than the fabliau’s version, because the effortlessness on the part of Aleyn “proves the ridiculousness of the daughter’s pretensions to gentility”[17]. Although an accurate observation on the theme of social tensions in the Reeve’s Tale, Burbridge fails to recognize that the theme of social tensions does not exist to the same degree in the original version; accordingly, even if the fabliau did include an effortless seduction, it could not serve the same “effective” purpose as it does in Chaucer’s version. Commenting on the seduction scene in Le Meunier, Burbridge merely dismisses the image of the daughter being locked in a bin as “a clumsy device necessitated by the plot”[18]; his inability to relate the image of the bin to the theme of secrecy and concealment in the fabliau reveals his ignorance of the original work. Additionally, if Burbridge was familiar with the fabliau genre as a whole, he would recognize the theme of people being hidden in chests or bins as belonging to the fabliau genre and not appearing uniquely in Le Meunier. In Des Trois Boçus (The Three Hunchbacks), a lady locks three hunchbacks into chests in order to hide them from her husband; in Baillet, a woman conceals her lover in a meat safe.

Olson, in his attempt to define the relationship between Le Meunier and the Reeve’s Tale, states that

Chaucer altered motivations to diminish the sense of revenge and lust inherent in the plot so that he might attain a livelier atmosphere where one could enjoy a clever and satisfying plot without having to attend too closely to the moral implications.[19]

Although the original fabliau reveals a much stronger sense of lust than Chaucer’s version, Chaucer’s version reveals a much stronger sense of revenge: the clerks in the Le Meunier hold no personal vengeance against the miller, as Aleyn and John hold against Symkym. By saying that Chaucer’s version does not attend to the “moral implications” of the plot, Olson implies that the original version does – but one does not find profound moral implications in the original version. Many of the fabliaux either begin or end with a moralizing proverb[20], a pattern to which Le Meunier fails to conform. A familiarity with the fabliau genre as a whole would make the lack of a proverb in Le Meunier, and the consequent lack of moral implications, especially prominent to Olson. Le Meunier, rather than beginning or ending with a proverb, begins and ends with a discussion of the clerks’ concern with physical and material needs: the fabliau opens with a discussion of their need to “get... out of this bad year” (“nos giter de cest mal an,” line 42) in which they find themselves, and the very last line states that they indeed “got themselves out of the bad year” (“se sont do mal an gité,” line 322). While Le Meunier does not employ the fabliau convention of concluding with a proverb, the Reeve’s Tale does — finishing with “And therefore this proverbe is seyd ful sooth:/ Hym thar nat wene wel that yvele dooth” (lines 4319-4320).

The superficiality of Olson’s and Burbridge’s analyses of Le Meunier prevents them from being able to provide an accurate definition of the relationship between the two versions of the story. Two factors lead to the inaccuracy and superficiality of their analyses of the fabliau. First, both critics examine the fabliau through “Chaucer-colored glasses”: very familiar with Chaucer’s themes, they look for the same themes in the fabliau – and finding that the themes do not exist in the fabliau, criticize it for its lack of such themes. In approaching the fabliau only from a Chaucerian perspective, they fail to recognize the fabliau’s own merits. Second, even if they did acknowledge the merit of the fabliau, their lack of familiarity with the fabliau genre as a whole would prevent them from reaching a full appreciation of Le Meunier.

Although complex enough to form the subject of an entire analysis, a single fabliau must also be analyzed within the context of the fabliau genre — just as Chaucer’s fabliaux are analyzed not only by themselves but also within the context of the Canterbury Tales as a whole, or indeed within the context of all of Chaucer’s works. In his article “The Alterity and Modernity of Medieval Literature”[21], Hans Robert Jauss stresses the importance of reading a work not simply by itself but in relationship to other related works, of looking for the “intertextuality”[22] between works. While modern literature does not require such an approach —“The self-submersion of a solitary reader in a book... can describe the particular experience of autonomous art in the bourgeois era”[23] says Jauss — medieval literature insists upon it. Jauss asserts that the medieval reader innately possessed an intertextual approach to literature: the medieval reader

does not assume self-submersion in the unique world of a single work, but... rather presupposes an expectation which can only be fulfilled by the step from text to text, for here the pleasure is provided by the perception of difference, of an ever-different variation on a basic pattern.[24]

By comparing the Reeve’s Tale to Chaucer’s other tales, Burbridge and Olson demonstrate their awareness of the intertextuality at work in Chaucer’s tales; however, they fail to employ the same approach in analyzing Le Meunier. In order to accurately analyze the fabliau, they must first become familiar with the fabliau genre, they must be able to identify the basic patterns that appear and reappear throughout many of the fabliaux. Only after becoming familiar with the fabliau genre can they attempt to define the relationship between the original fabliau and Chaucer’s version.

Churlish Portraits of the Nobility

in Chaucer’s Summoner’s Tale and the Old French Fabliaux

Chaucer’s depiction of the interaction between peasants, clergy, and noblemen in the Summoner’s Tale reveals tensions in the traditional social order; Per Nykrog describes this as one of the prevalent themes in the Old French fabliaux, saying that many of the tales turn on the “depiction of class stereotypes”[25]. This discussion will focus on the similarities between the depiction of class tensions and class stereotypes in the Summoner’s Tale and in four of the Old French fabliaux — Du Provost a L’Aumuche, Le Vilain au Buffet, Le Pet Au Vilain, and Des Chevaliers, Des II Clercs, et Les Vilains. Both the Summoner’s Tale and the Old French fabliaux show characters who present a threat to or who mock the traditional social order; the texts ultimately point to the superficiality of the existing class stereotypes.

In the Summoner’s Tale, the ambiguous social status of the peasant Thomas creates the principal dramatic tension of the story. In the Old French fabliaux, Thomas would have been called a vilains riches, what Charles Muscatine describes as one of the stock figures of the genre:

The fabliaux represent in some detail... the element of newly rich peasants that we find in the historical records. Introduce “uns vilains riches” into a story, and you create at once a circle of dramatic and psychological possibilities.[26]

Nykrog explains the difficulty in determining who belongs to the vilains class:

The vilains of fabliaux are not exactly those of historical reality.... In the vilains group, the fabliaux mix peasants — rich and poor —, blacksmiths, millers, butchers, clothmakers, tavernkeepers, fishers, etc., although certain ones of these without a doubt would technically be considered bourgeois.[27]

In his interaction with the friar, Thomas does not demonstrate the passive behavior of a servant before his master, but rather, he acts proudly and defiantly. The Tale recounts the story of a greedy friar who attempts to swindle money from the old bedridden Thomas; well aware of the friar’s schemes, Thomas takes vengeance upon him by means of a typically fabliau-esque joke — by promising the friar a monetary gift, then paying him with a gift of flatulence. Thomas, despite his peasant status, is extremely generous: the friar knows that in Thomas’ house he “[is] wont to be / Refresshed moore than in an hundred placis” (1766-67)[28]. The large size of his household also reveals that he possesses a certain amount of wealth: his household is large enough to frighten away the friar when necessary (“His meynee, whiche that herden this affray, / Cam lepynge in and chaced out the frere,” 2156-57).

Although the friar associates with members of the lower classes, he seeks to present himself as belonging to the upper classes — as revealed by his use of French and Latin. “Now je vous dy sanz doute”[29] (1837) he says to Thomas’ wife, and “per consequens”[30] he says to his confessor. The friar’s concern with class becomes particularly evident when he responds to the unexpected “gift”. Upon being so viciously insulted by Thomas, the friar cries out “A, false cherl” (2153) and swears to revenge the act. He storms out of the house and consults his “confessour” (2164), whom he describes as “a man of greet honour” (2163); we would expect for the friar’s confessor to be a priest, but instead the confessor is “lord of that village” (2165). In choosing a politician rather than a priest as his confessor, the friar reveals his worldliness. The friar changes his behavior when in the presence of the “honourable” man, becoming nervous and feigning humbleness. When the confessor addresses him as “maister” (2184), the friar thinks that the confessor is referring to his university degree, a master of arts; the friar awkwardly corrects the confessor, saying “No maister, sire... but servitour / Thogh I have had in scole that honour” (2186). Earlier in the tale, however, the friar shows no objection to Thomas and Thomas’ wife respectfully addressing him as “maister” (1781, 1800, 1836). In order to prove to the confessor the profundity of his “honourable” education, the friar quotes scripture, saying: “God liketh nat that ‘Raby’ men us calle / Neither in market ne in youre large halle” (2188-89). While claiming modesty, the friar in fact vaunts his knowledge. The nature of the friar’s complaint to the confessor reveals his preoccupation with the fact of being insulted by a person of a low social status:

God yelde yow, adoun in youre village,

That in this world is noon so poure a page

That he nolde have abhomynacioun

Of that I have receyved in youre toun. (2177-80)

In complaining that not even the poorest “page” would be treated to such an insult, the friar insinuates that an individual should be treated according to his or her economic status.

In discussing Thomas’ act, the lord and his eavesdropping wife revert to the most common stereotypes about peasants: they employ what Patterson calls “typical defamations”[31]. The lord’s wife declares,“I seye, a cherl hath done a cherles dede. / What shold I seye? God lat hym nevere thee!” (2206-07). By asking God to prevent Thomas from “thee-ing” — from prospering — the lord’s wife assumes that the lower classes’ poverty results from their sinfulness; she assumes that their financial condition represents a punishment from God. The lord reiterates his wife’s wish a few lines later: “Ey, nyce cherl, God lete him nevere thee” (2232) he cries out. The wife questions Thomas’ sanity, saying “I holde hym in a manere frenesye” (2209). The husband responds that perhaps Thomas was inspired by the devil: “I trowe the devel putte it in his mynde” (2221) he says, and “I holde hym certeyn a demonyak!” (2240). The lord’s choice of the adjective “nyce” (2232) – foolish – to describe Thomas is ironic, because he also unabashedly admits the cleverness of Thomas’ plot: “How hadde the cherl this imaginacioun / To shewe swich a probleme to the frere?” (2218-19). While condescendingly discussing the nature of churls and churls’ deeds, the lord and the friar reveal the unloftiness — the ignoble nature — of their own concerns. “Now ete youre mete and lat the cherl go pleye” (2240) says the lord to the friar, himself thinking of nothing more profound than the next meal. The lord’s final comments to the friar not only point to the lord’s ignoble hedonism, but they also suggest that he did not attentively listen to the friar at all. When the friar first arrives, he finds the lord eating: the friar goes to “Where… this lord sat etyng at his bord” (2167). From the beginning to the end of his discussion with the friar, the lord has either been eating a meal or thinking about his next meal.

The lord agrees with the friar’s judgment of Thomas, but the lord acts as a very ineffective judge — he does not punish Thomas’ actions, and what is worse, his words and actions reveal his own nature to be as churlish as that of Thomas. After the discussion of Thomas’ churlishness, the Tale takes the opposite turn than we would expect it to take: rather than arriving at a final judgment about Thomas, the lord becomes obsessed with Thomas’ story. He proposes a competition to devise the best method by which “this fart sholde evene ydeled be” (2239) among the friar’s colleagues — for Thomas had made the friar promise to divide the gift evenly among his “covent”. The lord’s squire Jankyn then proceeds to describe an elaborate plan, which the other noblemen praise: they “[Say] that Jankyn spak in this matere / As wel as Euclide or Protholomee” (2288-89), and they award him with a “newe gowne” (2293). While revealing themselves to have a churlish sense of humour, the noblemen also join together to mock the friar: everyone compliments Jankyn’s story, “save the frere” (2287).

Regarding Thomas, the noblemen conclude not that he is a churl who did a churlish deed, but rather that he demonstrated great cunning:

Touching the cherl, they seyde, subtiltee

And heigh wit made hym speken as he spak... (2290-91)

All of the previous times that the word “churl” was employed in the tale, it was employed in a phrase of direct discourse: the friar, the lord, or the lord’s wife was aggressively referring to Thomas as a “cherl”. Here, however, the narrator refers to Thomas as a “cherl”, but only before describing him in very non-churlish terms. The lack of forcefulness with which the narrator calls Thomas a “cherl” suggests that the tale no longer centers on Thomas’ churlishness; indeed, the friar has taken Thomas’ place as the character being mocked. While the friar initially set out to take advantage of a peasant, he himself ends up becoming a victim of class discrimination: the friar serves as the butt of the noblemens’ humour.

In a discussion of “churlish” humor in Chaucer’s fabliaux, Laura Kendrick suggests that, when vulgar references or insinuations exist a text, only vulgar readers understand or react to this humor. Her discussion centers around the various possible meanings of the words “Goddes pryvetee” in the Miller’s Tale: “An housbande shal nay been inquisityf / Of Goddes pryvetee, nor of hys wyf. / So he may fynde Goddes foyson ther, / Of the remenant nedeth nat enquere” (3163-3166). Kendrick says that

Clearly I could not pass the buck for perception of a joke about God’s private parts to “gentils”, no matter how much the historical contexts in which they interpreted “Goddes pryvetee” overlapped that of “churls”. Even if “gentils” did perceive the innuendo, they would censor it in order to “take the morality,” as good men should, leaving the chaff of the sexual innuendo. They might read the Miller’s advice in one of several possible contexts that would help to point a moral warning against the search for forbidden or dangerous knowledge. For example, in the context of popular wisdom, “gentil” medieval readers might understand the Miller’s proverb as a warning not to go looking for trouble.[32]

In contrast to Kendrick’s belief that only vulgar characters respond to vulgar humor, the Summoner’s Tale shows noblemen enthusiastically responding to and participating in the churl’s joke[33]. Although it was Thomas who introduced the scatological element into the story, he had a valid reason to do so: he was seeking revenge upon the despicable friar. When the noblemen continue to discuss the vulgar act, however, they have no valid motivation for their behavior — other than reveling in the “churlish” humor. Rather than ignoring it or “[taking the morality]” from it, the noblemen expand upon the scatological element to an extreme and unnecessary degree.

Patterson gives a more accurate description of how the noblemen respond to vulgar humor than does Kendrick: he says that,

the Summoner’s Tale leads us to think that this gift always contained within it the wonderfully deflated meaning that the squire makes explicit, that… the seigneurial class lives off the humor of its agricultural workers as well as off their labor.”[34]

The noblemen, rather than being immune to or repulsed by churlish humor, actually delight in it, and depend upon it for their own entertainment. Another comment by Patterson, however, misleadingly implies that the noblemen somehow improve upon the churlish humor: “Thomas’ churlish wit is revealed to be in need of a supplementary interpretation that can be provided only within the context of aristocratic play,”[35] he says. In saying that Thomas’ joke “is in need of a supplementary interpretation” (my italics), Patterson suggests that Thomas somehow failed as a comedian. However, Thomas’ joke stands as the comic climax of the tale; the noblemen’s discussion of the fart, however amusing it may be, cannot compete with the surprise arrival of the fart itself. Rather than providing a “[needed]” supplement to Thomas’ humor, the noblemen imitate it but do not even come close to competing with Thomas’ comedic talents.

The Summoner’s Tale moves from an act that threatens the traditional social order — a churl’s defiant and grossly disrespectful treatment of a clergyman — to the clergyman’s search to reinstate the traditional social order; when the clergyman turns to a nobleman for justice, the nobleman not only fails to punish the churl, but the nobleman engages in a churlish game with the members of his court. The social order as it stands at the end of the tale does not represent the traditional hierarchy in which the peasant is inferior to the clergy and the nobility — but rather, the peasant “gets the last laugh”, the clergy remains humiliated, and the nobleman enthusiastically engages in churlish entertainment.

Similar to the Summoner’s Tale, the Old French fabliau Du Provost a l’Aumuche[36] tells the story of a vilains riches; the vilains’ name is Gervais, and he works as a provost for a rich landowner. Gervais is described as “vilains et pautoniers” (“a low fellow and a rascal,” 14) who has been corrupted by money: “richece l’avoit seurpris” (“wealth had overtaken him,” 15). The narrator emphasizes Gervais’ vilian-ish nature by presenting him in contrast to the landowner, who represents the epitome of knighthood. The opening lines of the fabliau describe the virtuousness of the landowner: although he is only a “chevalier” (“knight,” 1), he “semblant valoit un conte” (“was considered as good as a count,” 2). Highly respected both by his servents and neighbors, the knight “.XX. ans... et plus / vesqui sanz guerre et sanz meslee” (“For more than twenty years.... lived without war and without contention,” 6-7).

Unaware of Gervais’ vilain-ness, the knight entrusts his land to Gervais while he goes on a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. James. Before returning home, the knight sends his squire ahead of himself to prepare an elaborate homecoming feast; at the feast, the knight honors Gervais by having him “au mengier avoec un riche chevalier” (“seated to eat next to a rich knight,” 64). Despite being seated in a noble position at a noble feast, Gervais cannot control his vilain-ish nature. Upon seeing the main course — “le lart... gros et espés / qui en s’escüele s’aïme” (“the ham, big and thick / floating in a bowl,” 68) — Gervais can think of nothing else:

S’en pooit embler une piece, (If he could steal a piece,

qu’ele duerroit molt grant piece, ... it would last a good long time,

qui en voudroit fere mesure. (71-73) For anyone who would use it sparingly.)

Determined to steal the ham and keep it for himself, Gervais takes it and hides it under his cap, which is “parfonde et lee” (“deep and wide,” 83). Although not immediately discovered by the knight seated next to him, Gervais’ crime is soon discovered; because Gervais is seated close to the fire, the ham begins to heat up, and before long “le lart prist a degouter.../ si que par les iex li couloit / le saïn, et aval la face” (“the salt pork started dripping... / and the grease ran into his eyes, / and down his face,” 94-97). Realizing that he has been caught, Gervais attempts a quick exit.

The noblemen, however, will not let Gervais escape unpunished: a group of squires attack him. Although Gervais has been caught red-handed, his crime does not merit the viciousness of the assault. The squires

fierent en teste et en l’eschine. (hit him on the head and on the spine.

Li keu saillent de la cuisine; The cooks leaped out of the kitchen;

ne demanderent que ce fu, they didn’t ask what was going on,

ainz traient les tisons du fu but pulled hot coals out of the fire

si fierent sor lui a un tas. and threw a load of them at him.

Tant le fierent et haut et bas They beat him so much, both high and low,

que brisiés li ont les rains. that they broke his back.

Aus bastons, aus piez et aus mains, With their sticks and feet and hands,

li ont fet plus de .XXX. plaies they gave him more than thirty wounds,

et l’ont fet chier en ses braies. and made him shit in his pants.

A la parfin tant le menerent In the end they manhandled him so much

que par les bras le traïnerent that they dragged him by the arms

fors de la porte en un fossé out the door and into a ditch,

ou l’en avoit un chien tué: where someone had put a dog that had been molt li fist grant honte la chars. (114-27) killed: the meat brought him great shame.)

The mere theft of a piece of meat, even from a nobleman’s table, could not incite such aggression; the violence must stem from another motive. The squires’ anger could be attributed to resentment that a vilains was given an honored seat at the table, while “li escuier... servoient” (“the squires... were serving,” 110). While the squires take offense at the presence of a vilains in noble circles, the cooks — vilains themselves — may be jealous that one of their own has risen in society; in assaulting Gervais, they are not punishing his theft but rather punishing his attempt to climb the social ladder. Nykrog asserts that many of the fabliaux present vilains in a positive light — as “jovial and intelligent”[37] characters — but only when the vilains do not present a threat to the existing social order. However, once a vilains attempts to climb the social ladder or to “mix with the upper classes”[38], he is considered a threat and is no longer regarded positively. The violent reaction to Gervais’ behavior serves as an example of Nykrog’s assertion. Gervais’ theft — his inability to act virtuously and courteously at a nobleman’s table — reveals that a vilains can never escape his vilain-ish nature; even if he manages to attain a relatively high or honored position in society, his inherent vilians nature will prevent him from staying there for very long. In addition to his own nature preventing him from rising in society, other members of society prevent him as well: his fellow vilains look down upon his social climbing, and the nobility work to hinder his entrance into their society.

The conclusion of the assault reveals the depth of the attackers anger: when the squires bring Gervais outside and show him the dog’s body, the narrator says that “molt li fist gran honte la chars” (“The meat brought him great shame,” 127), which implies that the dog’s flesh is meant to remind Gervais of the meat that he stole. However, the dog also serves another purpose. Although the image of a dog’s carcass is already somewhat morbid, the manner in which the dog is described renders the image particularly morbid. “Ou l’en avoit un chien tué” (“Where someone had put a dog that had been killed,” 127) says the narrator, implying that a dog had been killed solely for the purpose of showing it to Gervais; in a contemporary account of criminals — fictional or non-fictional — such an act would be interpreted as a death threat, as a forewarning of what will happen to Gervais himself. Many of the Old French fabliaux conclude with physical fights between two people, or with a group of people attacking one person, but the fighting generally creates a comic tone; even when the assault becomes very heated, the victim generally escapes with few injuries[39]. This battle, however, contains no comic element: rather than concluding with Gervais’ escape, it concludes with him battered and lying in a ditch, staring at a dead animal.

Du Provost a l’Aumuche contains a scatological element, although this element does not play as large a role as it does in the Summoner’s Tale. The scatological comment — that Gervais “chier en ses brais” (“shit in his pants,” 122) — renders an already vulgar scene even more vulgar. Gervais’ act of vilonie resembles innocent child’s play in comparison to the squires’ gruesome and brutal actions. Had the story ended with Gervais’ act, it would have been a simple tale revealing that a vilains cannot escape his vilain-ish nature; however, the squires insist on taking the story further, on turning it into a dark tale of a vicious and vulgar punishment. The dark and coarse tone of the end of the fabliau represents the wishes of the squires: the squires’ vulgarity outdoes any vulgarity committed by Gervais. While condemning a vilains for his vilain-ish behavior, the squires reveal themselves to be far more vilain-ish than Gervais.

Le Vilain au Buffet tells the story of a vilains who, like Thomas, is virtuous and clever; as stated by Muscatine, “In Le Vilain au Buffet we see members of the lower classes, servants or peasants, quite successfully competing with hostile manorial officers”.[40] As in Le Provost a L’Aumuche, the story takes place in the household of a virtuous nobleman: the narrator describes a “preus et sages” (“worthy and wise”, 54) count who “menoit bone vie” (“leads a good life,” 38). While the author of Le Provost a L’Aumuche presents the vilains Gervais in contrast to the upright knight for whom he works, the author of Le Vilain au Buffet presents an evil seneschal in contrast to the upright count for whom he works. The seneschal is described as “vilain, et aver, et recuit: / de toz maus visces estoit plains” (“wicked, miserly, and crafty: he was full of all the evil vices”, 28-29). Whereas Le Provost a L’Aumuche presents the vilains as an overly-sensual being — a being concerned only with eating and with bodily functions — here the seneschal is described as overly-sensual.

Et li vilains, comme porciaus, (And the clod was getting fat

s’encressoit, et plains ses bouciaus As a pig, and was drinking his

bevoit de vin en larrecin; Paunch full of wine on the side;

maint cras chapon et maint poucin Many a fat capon and many a chick

menja toz seus en sa despensse... (47-51) He ate all by himself, as if he owned them...)

After describing the seneschal as having gluttonous tendancies, the narrator describes all of the noblemen and noblewomen as having the same inclinations. When the count holds court, the narrator subtly mocks the nobles’ gluttony, saying that the “Escuier, chevalier et dames, / ... tant por les ames feroit / com por les cors” (“Squires, knights, and ladies, /... were not doing as much for their souls / As they were for their bodies,” 59-61).

The generous count opens his court to everyone, and people come from far and wide. As he watches the guest partake in the feasting, the avaricious seneschal goes mad: “Il n’i metent gueres du leur” (“They aren’t contributing anything of their own”, 75) he cries out. Observing a vilains named Raoul who has just arrived, the seneschal devises a plan that will permit him to take out his anger on the vilains. Feigning a friendly welcome, the seneschal says:

“Je te presterai un seoir,” (“I’ll lend you a seat,”

ce dist le seneschaus par truffe; Said the seneschal, to trick him;

la paume hauce, une grant buffe[41] He raised his hand, and gave him

li done, puis fet un sifflet: A buffet, and then whistled:

“Siet toi,” fet il, “sor cest buffet “Now sit,” said he, “on this buffet

que je te preste; or te siet sus!” (118-123) Which I am lending you; now sit!”)

After insultingly slapping Raoul, the seneschal proceeds to treat Raoul as he has treated all of the other guests: he “se li a fet nape livrer / et mes et vin... / li fet doner a grant foison” (“he provide[s] a cloth for him, / And he [serves] him a great abundance / Of food and wine,” 125-127). While the seneschal serves the other guests in response to the count’s commands, a particular purpose drives the seneschal as he serves Raoul: he wants Raoul to be drunk so that he will have the chance to teach him a lesson about social roles — “qui il peüst le vilain batre, / que des or se gardast d’embatre / en la corte prince n’a conte” (“To give the peasant a beating / So that the peasant would never butt in / At the court of a prince or a count again,” 129-131). As in the case of Gervais, Raoul is punished for attempting to mix with the upper classes.

The revelry gets further underway when the count proposes a competition for the “meillor truffe” (“best trick”, 136); the winner will receive the count’s “robe d’escarlate nueve” (“new scarlet coat,” 137) as the prize. After several minstrels have given riveting performances, Raoul approaches the seneschal, who is seated next to the count. Raoul reaches out his hand and slaps the seneschal across the cheek, saying “Vo buffet... / vous rent” (“I’m giving you your buffet back,” 165-66). Such public aggression by a vilains against a nobleman is, of course, not taken lightly. Interestingly, it is the servants — and not the seneschal himself or his fellow noblemen — who initially punish Raoul; similar to the cooks who attack Gervais in Le Provost a L’Aumuche, here “Tantost la mesnie s’apreste / au conte por le vilain batre” (“Immediately the servants crowded around / The count to beat the peasant,” 170-71). As in Le Provost a L’Aumuche, the servants’ aggression may stem from their resentment towards any fellow vilains who acts out of line with his social position. While viciously and unhesitatingly beating Raoul, the servants’ express exaggerated sympathy for the seneschal: although the seneschal has merely been slapped, they “dolent sont quant voient abatre / le seneschal aus piez le conte” (“Were grieved when they saw the / seneschal beaten at the feet of the count,” 172-73). A profound belief in the traditional social order may motivate the servant’s defense and demonstration of sympathy, or they may merely be motivated by a selfish desire to ingratiate themselves to their boss the seneschal.

The virtuous count intercedes upon Raoul’s behalf, but only after Raoul has already been severely beaten by the servants: the count asks Raoul to explain his inappropriate behavior. Raoul’s recounting of his side of the story pleases not only the count but also everyone at court, who “geté en ris” (“break out laughing,” 13). The count decides that Raoul’s trick was cleverer than that of any of the minstrels, and awards Raoul his coat. The minstrels, despite having lost the contest to a vilains, heartily agree with the count, saying together

“Par foi, sire, vous dites voir (“In faith, sir, you are telling the truth

quar il le doit molt bien avoir: Because he really ought to have it.

ainz mes si bon vilain ne vi, I never saw such a good peasant.

vo seneschal a bien servi.” (23-35) He gave your seneschal what he deserved.”)

While Raoul hears praises from all sides, the seneschal hides away in shame: he “ne set que face, / qui sa main tenoit a sa face, / qui durement li frit et cuist” (“with his hand held to his face / Which was cruelly burning and scalding / did not know what to do,” 217-19). We thus see, in a dramatic public display, the prideful nobleman mocked and ridiculed, while the humble peasant departs wearing the count’s finest coat[42].

More than simply showing a reversal of the traditional social order, Le Vilain au Buffet asserts that a particular type of person is responsible for and capable of reversing the social order: the storyteller. Raoul turns the social order upside-down when he takes on the role of a storyteller; his talent as a storyteller — he is judged to be more talented than all of the professional minstrels — leads to the success of his revolutionary act. The cleverness of Raoul’s trick consists of much more than simply returning the seneschal’s “buffet”. Raoul counterbalances the physical slap with a moral slap: he preaches to the seneschal, saying “a homme fet mauvés prester / qui ne rent que l’en li preste” (“It’s bad to lend to a man / Who doesn’t give back what’s been lent to him,” 168-69); the fact of being preached to by a vilains must be as humiliating for the seneschal as the first slap. When the count demands that Raoul defend his behavior, Raoul shows no shyness, despite the fact that he is a humble vilains speaking before a count’s court. Rather, Raoul gives an eloquent 28-line discourse in his defense. With the ease of an experienced lawyer addressing a judge, he pads his explanation of the events with direct addresses to the count: “Sire... or m’entendez / et un petitet m’escoutez” (“Sir... hear me now / and listen to me a little,” 185-86) he says at the beginning, and he concludes by saying “Sire quens, ainz que vous lavez / jugiez si j’ai de rien mespris / por qoi je soie ceenz pris” (“Sir Count, before you wash up / Judge whether I have done any wrong / That I should be detained here for,” 205-06). Refusing to become impassioned, Raoul does not make any personal attacks upon the seneschal; instead, he speaks straightforwardly and sticks to the facts of the case.

Throughout Le Vilain au Buffet, the narrator makes comments that render us particularly aware of the role of the storyteller. The narrator opens the fabliau by asserting who should be a storyteller and why:

Qui biau set dire et rimoier, (He who knows how to speak and rhyme

bien doit sa science amoier Beautifully should direct his powers

a fere chose ou l’en aprenge, To make up something where one can learn

et dire que l’en n’i mesprenge. (1-4) And say something that’s not misunderstood.)

When Raoul speaks before the court, he follows the narrator’s storytelling guidelines exactly: he speaks clearly so as not to be misunderstood, and he speaks in order to teach the seneschal what is right. The narrator insists that the storyteller, because he has the ability to teach, plays an important role in society: “l’en devroit bien escouter / conteur... / ... Por ce c’on i aprent / aucun bien, qui garde s’en prent,” (“People should really listen / To a storyteller... / ... Because people who pay attention / Learn something from it,” 21-24). Later, we see the entire court listening to Raoul. The narrator even makes a reference to the tellers of fabliaux, saying that some of the minstrels “fabliaus conte” (“recited fabliaux,” 145). In placing a minstrel who recites fabliaux within his own fabliau, the narrator is in effect placing himself in his own story. Then, in ranking a vilains’ story higher than a fabliau in the storytelling competion, the authur is ranking the vilains’ story higher than his own work — the fabliau that we are reading. The story-within-the-story — Raoul’s story — becomes the superior story. More than simply portraying the vilains as a clever trickster, the narrator portrays him as a master artist. The fabliau thus consists of two revolutionary acts: Raoul’s revolutionary act of storytelling, and the narrator’s own revolutionary act of storytelling[43].

The last two fabliaux to be discussed — Le Pet au Villain and Des Chevaliers, Des II Clercs, et Les Vilains — are very different from the works examined up to this point. Rather than telling complicated and extended stories, these two fabliaux provide snapshot-like depictions of the social order; they are worth examining for their attempts to describe the social order, and because, as in the case of the other three texts, they apply vilian-ish attributes to the upper classes. Because these fabliaux do not consist of developed stories, they do not present us with developed characters — so we do not see the nobility taking on the characteristics of the lower classses. Rather, what we see is the narrators taking on vilain-ish characteristics: they condemn vilains’ vulgar and base ways, yet reveal themselves to have these very same characteristics.

Le Pet au Villain, written by Rutebeuf, opens with a declaration of the evil nature of vilains’ souls:

En paradis l’espiritable (People who are charitable have

one grant part la gent charitable... A great share in spiritual paradise...

Ce di je por la gent vilaine I say this because of the peasant folk

c’onques n’amerent clerc ne prestre; Whom clerks or priests never loved;

si ne cuit pas que Diex lor preste I don’t believe that God prepares

en paradis ne leu ne place. (1-11) For them a place in paradise.)

The story consists of a devil visiting a dying vilains in order to transport his soul to hell. The devil does not approach the vilains as he would approach a nobleman, but rather

Un sac de cuir au cul li pent (He hung a leather sack on the peasant’s ass

quar li maufez cuide sanz faille Because the devil believed without a fault

que l’ame par le cul s’en aille. (30-32) That the soul exits through the ass.)

The vilains “Tant ot mengié bon buef as aus” (“Had eaten so much beef with broth,” 39) that evening that the poor devil is in for a surprise: rather than his soul entering the sack, “un pes en saut” (“a fart [leaps] out,” 45). The devil unknowingly returns to hell and gives the sack to the other devils, who curse the disgusting gift and condemn vilains’ souls from ever entering either hell or heaven: “qu’en enfer ne en paradis; / ne puet vilains entrer sanz doute” (“never into Hell nor into Paradise / can a peasant enter,” 64-65). This fabliau promotes a Calvinistic theory of predetermination, in which the vilains represent the group that has not been “chosen” by God to go to heaven.

This fabliau is not ony vulgar but becomes increasingly scatological and graphic as it progresses. After describing the vilains as he gives the gift of flatulence to the devil, Rutebeuf describes the devil entering hell carrying the sack: “En enfer gete sac et tout, / et li pes en sailli a bout” (“He through the sack and all into Hell, / And the fart flew out of the sack,” 53-54). After concluding the vulgar story, Rutebeuf continues to ramble on in vulgar language, speaking about the final destination of vilains’ souls. “Ou el tiegne droite la voie / . . . c’est en la terre de Cocuce / ou Audegiers chie en s’aumoce” (“Or let it stick to the straight and narrow way... / That is the land of Cocuse, / Where Audigier shits in his hood,” 72-76). These comments have absolutely no bearing on the narrative; it is as if the author continues to speak for the sake of employing obscene terms, as if he takes pleasure in employing such terms. The vulgar discussion lends a comic tone to the story, making it impossible to take seriously the author’s mocking of vilains. Rather, by so aggressively condemning vilians yet at the same time reveling in their humor, Rutebeuf mocks social stereotypes; the obscene humor challenges the fabliau’s very own assertion about the tendencies of social classes. In his discussion of the fabliaux, Thomas Darlington Cooke asserts that he “can find no instances of a meaningful contrast between the voice of the narrator and the author of the poem”[44] in the Old French fabliaux, saying that this device was not a common medieval one.”[45] The narrator’s unawareness of his self-contradictions indicates a very “meaningful contrast between the voice of the narrator and the author” in Le Pet au Villian: the author of the fabliau mocks the narrator’s blindness to his own villain-ish ways.

The Des Chevaliers, Des II Clercs, et Les Vilains reveals a similar contrast between the voice of the narrator and of the author. The fabliau tells an anecdotal story that delineates the fundamental differences between noblemen, clerks, and vilains. Two knights, two clerks, and two peasants who stumble upon a beautiful clearing in the woods on separate occasions; their reactions to the place reveal the primary interests of their classes. Upon arriving at the clearing, the knights declare,

...Dieu merci (... God o’mercy,

com fet ore biau mangier ci! What a good spot this is for eating!

Qui averoit vin en bareil If anyone had wine in a barrel,

bons pastez et autre appareil Good paté and other things,

il I feroit plus delitable He would have a more delightful time

qu’en une salle a haute table. (6-11) Than in a hall at a high table.)

The clerks find the clearing inviting not as a place to devour food, but rather to devour women: “Qui averoit / ici fame qu’il ameroit / molt feroit biau jouer a li” (“Whoever had a woman whom he loved here / would have a very fine game with her,” 16-18). Finally, two peasants arrive, and the beautiful clearing inspires them to declare: “Com vez ci biau lieu por chier!” (“Look what a beautiful place this is for shitting,” 30). Each peasant then proceeds to “lors de chier chascuns s’esforce” (“do his best to shit,” 33) in the midst of the clearing. By having the narrator present class interests in such a caricatured form, the author insists that the narrator not be taken seriously. Although the scatological portrait of the peasants is far from flattering, the portraits of the clerks and the knights are not exactly complimentary either: the clerks and the knights appear not merely as hedonistic and sensual beings but as creatures obsessed with bodily pleasures.

Des Chevaliers, Des II Clercs, et Les Vilains is one of the shortest fabliaux, consisting of only forty-eight lines; after the descriptions of the members of each class reacting to the beautiful location, the fabliau moves directly into the parable — a parable that consists of nearly as many lines as the story itself. The parable reiterates the anecdote’s statement concerning peasants:

De cest example en est la force (The point of this parable is that qu’il n’est nus deduis entresait There is absolutely no pleasure fors de chiier que vilains ait. (34-36) Besides shitting that a peasant can have...)

Determined to make his point, the narrator describes the peasants’ pleasure with increasing graphicness: “qu’il i chient / par deduit et par esbanoi, / je voudroie... que vilains chiast des narrines” (“Since they shit for pleasure and for fun, I wish... that peasants would shit through their nostrils,” 38-42). Rather than reinforcing the narrator’s attitude towards peasants, the effect of the graphic description is to render the fabliau increasingly comic; the narrator seems to take as much pleasure in describing the peasants’ vulgar actions as he claims that the peasants take in carrying out the actions.[46]

The Old French fabliaux examine the tensions and stereotypes of the traditional social order to an even greater degree than does the Summoner’s Tale. The presentation of the differences between and characteristics of the social classes is much more caricatured in Des Chevaliers, Des II Clercs, et Les Vilains and Le Pet au Villain than in the Summoner’s Tale. The noblemen of Le Vilain au Buffet and Le Provost a l’Aumuche go to greater lengths to reinstate the traditional social order than does the Summoner’s friar, and the vilains of these fabliaux suffer a much worse punishment for their “inappropriate” actions than does Thomas: Thomas goes unpunished, while both Raoul and Gervais undergo severe beatings. All four fabliaux provide more extreme examples of the nobility’s fondness for scatological and extreme humor than does Chaucer’s tale. An awareness of the attitudes towards class tensions and class stereotypes in the Old French fabliaux provides us with a greater awareness of and sensitivity towards the same themes in the Summoner’s Tale.

Sex, Lies, and Money in

Chaucer’s Shipman’s Tale and the Old French Fabliaux

Although Chaucer’s Shipman’s Tale has no direct analogue among the Old French fabliaux, Thomas D. Cooke asserts that the tale “comes closest in both style and content of all of Chaucer’s fabliaux to the French”[47]. Cooke notes that among Chaucer’s six fabliaux only the Shipman’s Tale is set in France, and he comments upon Chaucer’s use of the fabliau convention of presenting stock figures, saying that the

brief introduction is all we are given of the very typical merchant and his wife, and that typecasting is underlined by their being left nameless, a usual omission in the French fabliaux but not in Chaucer.[48]

The plot of the Shipman’s Tale appears more times than any other plot in the Old French fabliaux: Per Nykrog defines the most typical fabliau plot as consisting of a “love triangle”[49] in which the denouement “is favorable to the lover”[50] but in which the “husband is happy”[51]. Charles Muscatine defines the fabliau as presenting “close... interconnections... between money, cleverness, and pleasure, especially sexual pleasure”[52]; such interconnections all appear very distinctly in the Shipman’s Tale. This paper will discuss the typical fabliau relationship between money, sexual pleasure, and cleverness as it appears in the Shipman’s Tale and also in four of the Old French fabliaux — Du Bouchier d’Abeville, De Boivin de Provins, De La Saineresse, and Des Deux Changeors. The discussion will first examine the fabliau phenomena of approaching money and sex with the same attitude, an attitude of unadulterated self-interestedness. Second, the discussion will look at the importance of cleverness — of the ability to manipulate truth and to tell stories — in the self-interested attitude of the fabliaux.

i. Sex and Money

In the Shipman’s Tale and in the four Old French fabliaux examined, the characters are defined neither by uncontrollable lust nor by extreme avarice; rather, they are defined only by a general self-interestedness that seeks out any kind of profit, either sexual or monetary or both. The Shipman’s Tale tells the story of a merchant and his wife who share a close friendship with a monk named “daun John” (43)[53], and the plot revolves around a series of economic and sexual exchanges between the three individuals. The wife asks daun John to loan her 100 francs, and daun John asks her to have sexual relations with him in exchange for the money; daun John later asks the merchant for a loan of 100 francs, which the merchant gladly gives. When the time comes for daun John to repay the merchant, the clever monk insists that he has already repaid the merchant, because he had given 100 francs to the wife. The association between sexual concerns and economic concerns takes place on the literal level — a sexual exchange becomes an economic exchange — but also on the level of word-play throughout the text.

The relationship between the merchant and his wife consists of the exchange of material goods for sexual acts: the merchant provides his wife with all of the necessities and luxuries — from “array” (247) to “vitaille” (247) — and she returns the exchange with gifts of her “joly body” (423). From the opening of the tale, the wife exists only in relation to material concerns. After saying that “A wyf he hadde of excellent beautee” (3), Chaucer does not discuss the merchant’s sentiments for the wife, but rather describes her financial relationship to the merchant, saying that she “is a thyng that causeth... dispence... (3-5)” for the merchant. The use of the ambiguous “thyng,” instead of a word such as “creature” or “person,” hints towards the wife’s role purely as an object: she exists merely as one of the many “thyngs” that are to be exchanged in the poem. Similarly, the wife describes her husband as an object, describing his economic worth: the wife complains to daun John of her husband’s incompetence in bed, saying that “he is noght worth at al /... the value of a flye” (170-171). When describing the merchant’s intimate activities with his wife, daun John says “Hath yow laboured sith the nyght began” (108); in using the word “labour” to describe sexual acts, the monk creates an equality between sexual activity and economic activity.

Upon agreeing to sleep with daun John, the wife employs the vocabulary of a business contract: she “acorded with daun John” (313) the terms of the deal, then soon afterwards “this acord parfourned was in dede” (317). Chaucer creates ambiguity about the true nature of the exchange being discussed by using the non-specific pronoun “it”: when daun John ask the merchant for the loan, the merchant replies, “Paye it again when it lith in your ese” (291). The merchant’s use of “it” emphasizes his naiveté regarding the true nature of the loan: while the merchant innocently thinks that “it” refers to the exchange of money, the monk — who knows the true nature of the exchange — knows that “it” actually refers to the wife’s sexual favors. The use of the word “lith” in the same line as “it” emphasizes that “it” refers to the wife and not to the 100 francs: the merchant speaks of the money “lying in” possession of the monk, whereas the monk thinks of the wife “lying in” bed with him (“it lith” in bed with him). The final word of the line, “ese” does not resolve but rather adds to the ambiguity of the line. While the merchant employs the word in the sense of a remission of a debt, the monk thinks of “ese” as physical comfort and pleasure, the monk thinks of the sexual pleasure that he found when lying with the wife.

Chaucer plays with the word “busy” to juxtapose the merchant’s business activities with the monk’s and the wife’s sexual activities. Lines 302-303 show the merchant ambitiously pursuing his work: “Now gooth this merchant faste and bisily / About his nede...”. A few lines later, we see the monk and the wife ambitiously pursuing each other: “In myrthe al nyght a bisy lyf they lede” (318). The tale ends with the merchant and his wife discussing the exchanges that have taken place, and Chaucer puns on the word “taille” (416). Defending herself against her husband’s accusations that she negligently handles his money, the wife reminds him that she has always diligently paid all of her financial debts to him in the bedroom. She tells him to tally up what she owes her, to “score it upon my taille” (416); “taille” refers to the tally and also to her body — to her “tail”.

The correspondence between sexual and economic concerns that appears in the Shipman’s Tale also appears in Huistace d’Amien’s Du Bouchier d’Abeville[54]. The fabliau tells the story of a butcher who seeks lodging at the home of a priest. After being rudely turned away by the priest, the butcher steals a sheep that belongs to the priest and returns to the priest’s home offering the sheep as payment for lodging; the butcher exchanges the skin of the stolen sheep for the sexual favors first of the servant girl, then of the wife, then he proceeds to sell the same sheepskin to the priest. From its opening, the tale speaks in economic terms. The butcher’s arrival at the priest’s home does not reveal a concern with rules of hospitality, but rather reveals only economic concerns: “I don’t want to cost you anything” (“je ne veuil rien coster,” 89) says the butcher. He offers to pay for his lodging in cash or to buy any product from the priest: “If you would like to sell me anything of yours, / I will willingly buy it” (“Se rien nule me volez vendre, / molt volontiers l’achaterai,” 86-87). Once he has gained entry into the home, the butcher “willingly” (“volontiers”) pursues not only economic exchanges but sexual exchanges as well: after giving the servant girl the skin of the stolen sheep, he convinces her to do “his will” (“sa volonté,” 228). At the end of the poem, when the butcher sells the stolen sheepskin to the priest, the poet again plays on the butcher’s “willingness” by having the butcher say that he “is willingly very grateful to [the priest]” (“por l’amor de vous volentiers,” 313) for buying the skin. By applying the poet’s “willingness” to both sexual exchanges and to material exchanges, the poet places the two types of exchanges in the same realm.

When propositioning the girl for sexual favors, the butcher does not employ subtle word-play, but rather, he unabashedly employs economic terms: “if you make me your lover” (“si fai ton ami de moi,” 205), he says, “then you will make a big profit” (“bien i porras avoir grant preu,” 207). In addition to the word “profit” (“preu”), the use of the “if-then” formula also reveals the market-driven mindset: the butcher places all interactions in the economic formula of profits and losses, he constantly calculates the final result of any type of exchange. He continues to employ business terms by speaking of the “contract” (“couvent,” 210) upon which he and the girl will agree. The butcher’s proposition of the priest’s lady involves the exchange of both the sheepskin and of cash for her sexual favors: he offers his “woolly fleece” (“piau lanue,” 281) and also “a heap of [his] money” (“grant plenté de [son] argent,” 282). The act of paying for material objects with sexual favors objectifies and quantifies the human beings involved in the exchange.

Similar to Le Bouchier d’Abeville, the anonymous fabliau De Boivin de Provins also involves a man tricking a woman into having sexual relations with him. Boivin stands outside a brothel, pretending to be counting out an enormous sum of money and to be in search of a long-lost niece. Determined to procure this money for herself, the prostitute Mabel claims to be his niece, inviting him into the brothel and offering him the girl Ysane to satisfy his sexual pleasures. Looking forward to the money that she and Ysane will steal from Boivin, Mabel claims to be unconcerned about profit: she tells him that “Just for keeping [Ysane] a virgin, / I would get a great deal of money” (“Por seul son pucelage avoir, / eüsse je molt grant avoir,” 255-56). When inquiring to Boivin about supposed long-lost relatives, Mabel says that the relatives must be very “wise” (“preu,” 191) by now; Mabel’s choice of the word “preu” — which in addition to meaning “wise” also means “profit” — reveals her profit-obsessed mentality.

The poet puns on the word “purse” (“borse”) throughout De Boivin de Provins. The tale opens with Boivin buying “a large purse” (“Une borse grant,” 17) which he attaches to his body. Boivin’s discussion of the purse is replete with sexual allusions:

Or ne lerai por nule paine (Not for any trouble

que ma borse qu’est toute plaine will I let my purse which is very full

ne soit vuidie de mon giron. (81-83) be emptied in my lap.)

Although Boivin doesn’t describe the purse itself with physical terms, he surrounds the purse with physical terms. He employs a word that describes physical pain or suffering — “paine” — then connects that word to the purse by rhyming it with “plaine”. The description of the full purse being emptied in the lap alludes to the later sexual interaction, when Boivin will empty another type of “purse” into the lap area. Before laying down with Ysane, Boivin cuts the purse off its straps and hides it. The poet describes Boivin’s sexual interaction with Ysane as a required task, as “a job”: “First he had to take off / his loin-covering to do the job” (“Adonc covint que il ostast / la coiffe au cul pour faire l’uevre,” 271-272). While Boivin begins to penetrate Ysane (“de la point du vit la point,” 277), she is busy “searching for the purse” (“la borse a cerchier,” 279). The image of Boivin and Ysane engaged in the sexual act reveals an intimate mingling of economic interchanges and sexual interchanges: despite both characters’ engagement in a mutual act, one seeks economic profit while the other seeks sexual profit.

Unlike De Boivin de Provins, Le Bouchier d’Abeville, and the Shipman’s Tale, in which the male character profits the most from the various exchanges, the anonymous De La Saineresse presents a woman character who comes out on top after all of the exchanges have taken place. The fabliau consists of a sexual exchange being described as a professional exchange of medical services. A wife deceives her husband by disguising a man as an old female blood-letter; while supposedly being treated by the blood-letter, the wife actually engages in a passionate sexual act with the man. When the blood-letter arrives, the wife says “I need your professional skills” (“il m’estuet de vostre mestier,” 34); while her husband understands this statement as referring to the skills of blood-letting, both the wife and the blood-letter know that she is really referring to sexual skills. The wife and the blood-letter climb upstairs, the sexual interaction takes place, then they descend to the first floor together and discuss the payment in front of the husband — who once again does not understand the true nature of the payment. He tells his wife to “Pay this woman very well” (“paiez cele fame molt bien,” 54). While presenting himself as financially generous, the husband in fact reveals his naiveté regarding his wife’s sexual treason.

De La Saineresse is remarkable for the degree to which it explicates the analogous relationship between an economic exchange and a sexual exchange. Even after the bloodletter has left, the wife continues the false discussion of an economic exchange: she sits down beside her husband claiming to be tired after having “worked too hard” (“je esté trop traveillie,” 68). While describing the man’s sexual organ to her husband, she pretends to be describing the old woman blood-letter’s medical tool:

L’oingnement issoit d’un tuiel (The ointment issued from a pipe

et si descendoit d’un forel Which came down from a small forest

d’une pel molt noire et hideuse... (93-95) With a very black and hideous skin...)

It is only after having delineated the most intimate details of the sexual exchange that the wife finishes her description.

In the fashion of De La Saineresse, the anonymous Des Deux Changeors also tells of a woman who obtains the maximum profit after the transactions have taken place. Similar to the Shipman’s Tale, the plot involves a love triangle in which the two men share a close friendship: two money-changers are very close friends, and after one of them marries, the other has an affair with his wife. From the beginning of the fabliau, the poet applies an economic vocabulary to non-economic concerns: describing the men’s friendship, the poet says that “The two of them” (“entr’aus .II.,” 15) remained together “for gain or for loss” (“a perdre ou a gaaignier,” 16). The poet juxtaposes the married money-changer’s economic exchanges with the single money-changer’s simultaneous seduction of his wife: while the married man is “sitting at the exchange” (“se seoit au chaunge,” 26), the single man is “[laying] in... bed” (“jut en... lit,” 29) with his friend’s wife. Later in the poem the poet again juxtaposes the single man’s sexual activities with the married man’s professional activities. In line 131 the poet uses the word “afere” to describe the married man’s “business”: “the husband had gone about / his business” (“li sires en son afere fu alez”). At lines 176-77, however, the single man uses the word “business” or “afere” when referring to his sexual liaison: “I was betrayed / When I began this business” (“Je sui trahiz / quant j’empri onques cest afere”), he claims.

When first seducing the wife, the money-changer insists that she would sleep with him if she “considered [him] dear in any way” (“rien nule m’avez chier,” 34). Because “chier” means not only “precious” or “cherished” but also “expensive,” the money-changer asks her not only to consider him a “dear” person but also to view him as “costly”; his word choice invites the wife to objectify him, and to consider the sexual interaction as the exchange of a costly object. After denuding the wife, the single man hides her clothes so that she cannot get dressed, covers her face, then invites the married man (her husband) into the room to view her body. The act of hiding the wife’s face renders her body an object, and the two men proceed to discuss the act of viewing her body in the manner in which they would discuss an economic exchange. Pleased with his viewing of the body, the husband says that he feels “very well paid” (“bien a paiez,” 121) by having seen it. In order to retaliate against her lover’s cruel teasing of her, the wife asks him to take a bath with her, then invites her husband into the room. When reproaching him for his unjust treatment of her, she applies the monetary term “exchange” (“eschange,” 264) to his action, saying that “such an exchange / should be made to a proven wretch” (“tel eschange / doit l’en fere au musart prové,” 264-265) but not to her.

ii. Lies: The Profit-Seeking Storyteller

In the Shipman’s Tale and in the fabliaux examined, the character who profits the most from the sexual and monetary exchanges possesses a particular skill, a skill that has no inherent relationship to the particular economic or sexual interests being pursued: the character possesses the ability to tell stories, to manipulate the truth in order to render the situation profitable to himself or herself. The monk in the Shipman’s Tale, the butcher in Du Bouchier d’Abeville, Boivin in De Boivin de Provins, and the wives in De La Saineresse and Des Deux Changeors manipulate reality in order to obtain a sexual or financial profit, or both. R. Howard Bloch describes the fabliaux as consisting of

a narrative competition between various protagonists. The one who invents the best tale triumphs over the others, as competing lies concerning sums of money, family, name, virginity, and fake gestures of generosity and of indignation, the costumes, props, and make-up come to constitute whatever can be affirmed with certainty about the fabliaux — that is, their function as performances[55].

He or she who puts on the best “performance” will obtain the most profit, whether sexual or financial or both. The profit-seeking character’s manipulation of the fabliau stories creates an ambiguity as to the truth of the story being told, and often leads to the creation of several simultaneous stories.

Throughout the Shipman’s Tale, two stories take place at once: the story as understood by daun John and the wife, and the story as understood by the merchant. The only character who knows the entire truth is daun John. Chaucer’s juxtaposition of the image of the merchant counting his earnings (“And up into his countour-hous gooth he / To rekene with hymself, wel may be,” 78-79) with the image of the monk and the wife in the garden (“This goode wyf cam walkynge pryvely / Into the gardyn there [daun John] walketh softe, / And hym saleweth as she hath doone ofte,” 92-94) emphasizes the simultaneity of the two stories[56]. A deft rhetorician, daun John alters his speech according to the audience. Early in the Shipman’s Tale, the monk insists upon the closeness of his relationship to the merchant: “The monk hym claymeth as for cosynage” (36). When in the company of the wife, daun John vehemently denies the relationship (“He is na moore cosyn unto me / Than is this leef that hangeth on the tree” 149-150), instead insisting that he claims to be the merchant’s cousin only in order to gain access to her: “I clepe hym so... / To have the moore cause of aqueyntaunce / Of yow...” (151-153), he tells the wife. Of course, when daun John later approaches the merchant to ask for the loan, he endearingly calls the merchant “myn owene cosyn deere” (279).

The use of the word “devyse” or “devise” throughout the Shipman’s Tale reveals that the monk plays the role of the storyteller. The word is first used in line 62, when the narrator speaks of “This noble monk of which I yow devyse”. Here, the action of “devysing” — the action of describing and recounting the events in the story — belongs to the narrator. Later in the Shipman’s Tale, however, the act of devysing belongs to the monk. The wife says to daun John that she will perform any service that he desires: “That I may doon, right as you list devise” (192). Here “devise” means “to command” — the wife will do anything that the monk commands. But the use of the word also reveals that the monk is engaged in “devising,” in recounting his own stories, in telling his own tales. The monk employs the word ironically when speaking to the merchant. The monk repeats to the merchant the declaration that the wife previously had made to him: he tells the merchant that he will do anything “as ye wol devyse” (269). The irony consists in the fact that the monk pretends that the merchant will be doing the “devysing,” when in reality it is the monk who is devising – it is the monk who is creating the stories to trick the merchant.

Daun John’s emphatic insistence upon the truth of everything that he says does not reinforce faith in his statements, but rather raises suspicion concerning their truth. Within a space of one conversation with the wife, John makes four oaths. He swears on his breviary (“For on my porthors I make an ooth” 131), he swears “by God and Seint Martin” (148), and he says “I swere you on my profession” (155). Having run out of people or things to swear by, the monk swears by his honor: “I you swere and plighte yow my trouthe” (198). The merchant’s declaration to the monk to “Paye it again when it lith in youre ese” (291) tells two stories: it speaks of the monk repaying the 100 francs to the priest, and it also speaks of the monk lying in bed with the wife. In addition to referring to the money lying in the monk’s possession and to the act of lying in bed, the word “lith” also refers to the a third type of “lying” — the “lying,” the deception and trickery, committed by daun John throughout the tale. The tale ends with the merchant and the wife attempting to resolve the two stories, but the merchant remains deceived to the very end; the creator of the stories, daun John, has already disappeared from the tale, having ridden off “out of this toun” (361), profit in hand.

The butcher in Le Bouchier d’Abeville manipulates the truth as skillfully as does daun John. The poet describes the butcher as highly capable of deception, saying that the butcher “tricked [the priest] and deceived him skillfully” (“bien l’a engingnié et deçut,” 114). The butcher’s seductions of the servant girl and of the priest’s lady succeed as a result of the butcher’s clever way with words. When the servant girl rejects his advances, he eloquently “[reassures] her so much” (“li a cele creanté,” 228) that she quickly succumbs. Employing daun John’s methods of persuasion, the butcher swears by God, insisting that he will never dishonor the girl’s name: “As I hope God will have my soul...” (“Se ja Diex ait part en m’ame...,” 224) he declares. He employs the same techniques with the priest’s lady, swearing “by God’s grace” (“por Dieu merci,” 273) that he will not leave until she gives in to his desires. The butcher then swears by his own word that he will not disclose her actions to anyone: “You can take my word,” (“Ma foi tenez” 286), he insists. The butcher simultaneously creates three stories by exchanging the same sheepskin with three different characters: the servant girl, the priest’s lady, and the priest each think that the skin belongs to him or her. The fabliau ends with the three deceived characters attempting to make sense among the three stories; as in the Shipman’s Tale, the storyteller himself, the only character aware of the truth, has already left the scene — he left town “before the sun had risen” (“ainz que fust levez li solaus,” 457).

Du Boivin de Provins consists of a competition between two clever storytellers, each hoping best to manipulate the truth in order to gain the most profit. The fabliau opens with Boivin dressing himself to play the main character in the story he is creating. Boivin dresses as a peasant, even growing a beard in order to authenticate the rustic costume: he “left his beard alone/ for over a month... / To seem more like a peasant” (“un mois/ sa barbe qu’ele ne fu rese /... por ce que miex samblast villain,” 14-17). Boivin’s peasant disguise deceives even the narrator of the fabliau, who soon begins to refer to Boivin as “the peasant” (“li villains,” 99).

Boivin must make an ambitious effort in order to deceive Mabel, a woman who “knew more about trickery and guile / than any woman that ever was” (“qui plus savoit barat et guile / que fame nule qui i fust,” 22-23). Boivin creates the story about looking for his long-lost niece; not realizing the fictional nature of Boivin’s story, Mabel creates her own fiction, pretending to be that niece. Despite Mabel’s attempt to create her own story, she is already unknowingly playing a role in Boivin’s tale, and Boivin emerges as the master storyteller — accordingly possessing the profit in the end. After leaving Mabel behind, Boivin goes to the magistrate and tells him the story, for which the magistrate pays Boivin; this act of re-telling the story emphasizes Boivin’s role as a creator of stories, as a teller of tales. Bloch points out the importance of Boivin’s final retelling of the story, saying that “The only moment of truth in De Boivin de Provins is found in the retelling of the sum total to the police”[57]. Bloch’s statement misleadingly implies that Boivin retells the story for the sake of telling the truth: it implies that Boivin desires that the fabliau close with “a moment of truth”. On the contrary, Boivin retells the story because he knows that he will gain a profit from it; Boivin is not a prophetic but rather a “profit-ic” storyteller.

Des Deux Changeors, like Du Boivin de Provins, presents a competition to tell the best story: the lover first tells a story, then the wife outwits her lover with her own story. The first four lines of the fabliau raise consciousness as to the truth of the story being told: the author affirms that he will “tell you the truth about” (“en dirai bien verité,” 4) what happened and not tell a “lie” (“fable,” 2). As in De Boivin de Provins, the characters engage in a game of disguises as they attempt to manipulate the truth. The lover disguises the wife as his own girlfriend, then shows the first moneychanger his wife in disguise. The lover succeeds in deceiving the husband, but in turn infuriates the wife. In revenge for her lover’s cruelty against her, the wife tricks her lover into taking a bath with her, then forces the lover to play a role in her own story: she disguises her lover as an old woman. The concluding lines of the fabliau assert the superior storytelling abilities of women, saying that a man reveals “folly and arrogance” (“folie et orgueil,” 282) when trying to out-deceive a woman.

De La Saineresse offers proof of the superior storytelling abilities attributed to women at the end of Des Deux Compteurs. The man’s arrival at the woman’s house in the disguise of an old woman blood-letter reminds us of the games of disguise in Des Deux Changeors and De Boivin de Provins. The wife possesses such advanced storytelling skills that she can tell two stories at once: she simultaneously tells the story of the bloodletter coming to treat her and the story of a passionate sexual encounter with a man. She tells all, recounting the most intimate and grotesque details of the sexual interaction, yet at the same time tells nothing — since her husband understands her to be speaking of a medical treatment. Like Boivin, at the end of her fabliau the wife derives a profit from retelling her tale: she recounts the true story to her arrogant husband. The wife considers herself “paid in full” (“paié a garant,” 105) by having successfully tricked her husband. In both De la Saineresse and Des Deux Compteurs, the wives’ profits are neither sexual nor monetary, but rather consist of the satisfaction of having successfully revenged the husband or lover.

The depiction of profit-seeking and profit-finding fabliaux characters as masters of deception should perhaps not come as a surprise, since self-interested individuals will often employ any means to arrive at a desired end. But the depiction of the successful characters as tricky tellers of tales stands out in contrast to the representation of typical “bourgeois” characters found in the texts. The fabliaux discussed here all present a typical bourgeois character — whose moral goodness, responsibility, and sensible nature should make him a profitable businessperson. In his article on the Shipman’s Tale, Gardiner Stillwell asserts that “the tale is remarkable for the merchant’s full exposition of bourgeois philosophy”[58]. Stillwell goes on to discuss the “seriousness and soberness”[59] that stand out as the merchant’s “dominant qualities throughout the tale”[60]. In having the “serious and sober” character outwitted by the self-interested storyteller, the fabliaux mock the bourgeois attitude — saying that cleverness, and not sensible business practices or a solid work ethic, results in profit.

In the Shipman’s Tale, the merchant is considered “wys” (2), and he has a reputation for generosity or “largesse” (22). Stillwell comments upon the repeated use of the adjective “sad” to describe the merchant’s sober, serious attitude towards all aspects of life[61]. Chaucer presents a portrait of the merchant busily at work, carefully calculating his business affairs: at daybreak the merchant goes into his “counter-hous... / To rekene with hymself” (77-78), and he does not come out until “passed pryme” (88). When describing his business affairs to his wife, the merchant refers not to himself but to all merchants, revealing that his bourgeois attitude is common to his profession: “... litel kanstow devyne / The curious bisynesse that we have. / For of us chapmen...” (224-26). His use of statistics — he says of of merchants that “Scarsly amonges twelve tweye shull thryve” (228) — reveals his logical nature. Despite the merchant’s serious dedication to his profession, the merchant is out-profited by the monk, whose only work ethic consists of ambitiously weaving webs of lies. Chaucer mocks the bourgeois attitude by so carefully delineating the merchant’s serious attitude, but then having the merchant outwitted by the playful and conniving monk.

In Du Boivin de Provins, a single character embodies both a bourgeois attitude and clever story-telling abilities: Boivin possesses the bourgeois traits of seriousness and soberness, but when necessary in order to turn a profit, will take on the role of a deft deceiver. Stillwell comments upon the butcher in Du Bouchier d’Abeville, saying that “In common to Chaucer’s merchant he has wisdom, devotion to his calling, vocational skill, business shrewdness, prudence”[62]. The opening of the poem describes the butcher as a “wise, courteous, and valiant” (“sages, cortois, et vaillanz,” 11) man disappointed with himself for not having optimally managed his time, for having “used his journey poorly” (“Povrement sa voie emploia,” 23). Like the Shipman’s Tale’s merchant, the butcher “wasn’t miserly or greedy” (“n’estoit avers ne covoitex,” 14-15). The butcher first offers to engage in an honest business exchange with the priest; when the priest rudely turns him away, however, the butcher begins his trickery. By rejecting his bourgeois characteristics, the butcher comments upon their inadequacy — saying that deception will bring a much larger profit than bourgeois business tactics will.

Ironically, even after delving into the role of the deceiver, the butcher cannot entirely escape his bourgeois mentality. Worn out from having seduced both the girl and the priest’s lady, the butcher does not stay in bed to rest himself any longer than usual. Rather, the bourgeois responsibly climbs out of bed on time the next morning: he “Got dressed and put on his shoes without waiting around, / Because it was certainly the hour to do so” (“se vest et chauce sans demeure, / quar bien en fu et tans et eure,” 237-38). Although no longer playing the role of the virtuous bourgeois, the butcher still feels called to adhere to the responsible bourgeois habits, to do things because one is supposed “to do so”.

In De Boivin de Provins, Boivin adopts bourgeois characteristics, but only in order to poke fun at them. The description of the disguised Boivin echoes descriptions of the serious and wise merchant of the Shipman’s Tale and of the virtuous butcher. Like the merchant, the disguised Boivin carefully counts out his money; his drawn-out calculations of sums which he does not in fact possess reads like a parody of the merchant sitting in his “counting-hous,” spending the entire day calculating sums. Determined to play the role of the wise bourgeois, the disguised Boivin counts out the money because “That’s what all wise men do” (“Ainsi le font tuit li sage homme,” 34). After having finished his calculations, he demonstrates bourgeois sensibility and practicality: “From now on it’s best / For me to hold on to them. That will be sensible” (“Des ore mes est il bien droiz / que je les gart; ce sera sens,” 102-103). Although very familiar with bourgeois business methods, Boivin himself does not adopt them, preferring instead to turn a profit via trickery.

Both De La Saineresse and Des Deux Changeors set up the contrast between bourgeois seriousness and the storyteller’s more profitable trickery as a contrast between males and females: the husbands represent the bourgeois character, and both husbands find themselves bitterly outwitted by their wives. De La Saineresse presents the husband as a “borgios” (1) whose excessive pride inspires his wife to seek revenge against him. The fabliau’s concludes saying:

There is no man in this country (Mes il n’est pas en cest païs

So well endowed with sense cil qui tant soit de sens espris

That he can keep watch enough qui mie se peüst guetier

That a woman can’t deceive him.... (111-114) que fame nel puist engingnier...)

The sensible bourgeois attitude proves worthless when faced with a woman’s sly ways. Des Deux Changeors asserts an identical judgment on women’s superior wit. After the wife cleverly deceives not only her money-changer husband but also her money-changer lover, the poet asserts that “A man commits folly and arrogance / Who takes it upon himself to trick a woman” (“que cil fet folie et orgueil / qui fame engingnier s’entremet,” 284-85).

Conclusion

Charles Muscatine defines the “fabliau ethos”[63] as one of “hedonistic materialism”[64]. If the ethos was purely materialistic, then one would expect to see characters like the Shipman’s merchant and the hard-working money-changer succeed; the hedonistic element, however, has no patience for the bourgeois individual’s time-consuming counting-out of sums and serious dedication to the accumulation of money; the hedonist wants immediate pleasure, pleasure either from money or from sex or from revenge — and the most effective method of obtaining pleasure consists of trickery. In the fabliaux, the serious and dedicated bourgeois businessman plays the role of an old man unable to keep up with the fast pace of the clever new generation: the bourgeois sits in the “counting-hous” while the clever storyteller runs off with all of the profits. The appearance of clever storytellers in the fabliaux not only mocks the sober bourgeois attitudes, but mocks the role of storytellers themselves: for in presenting the storyteller as a profit-driven trickster, the poet presents himself as a profit-driven trickster. The appearance of the clever storyteller calls us to reflect on the role of the poet: if the storytellers within the fabliaux tell stories only in order to gain profits, then we should perhaps presume that the authors of the fabliaux themselves are not any different.

Sex, Lies, and Money in

Chaucer’s Shipman’s Tale and the Old French Fabliaux

Although Chaucer’s Shipman’s Tale has no direct analogue among the Old French fabliaux, Thomas D. Cooke asserts that the tale “comes closest in both style and content of all of Chaucer’s fabliaux to the French”[65]. Cooke notes that among Chaucer’s six fabliaux only the Shipman’s Tale is set in France, and he comments upon Chaucer’s use of the fabliau convention of presenting stock figures, saying that the

brief introduction is all we are given of the very typical merchant and his wife, and that typecasting is underlined by their being left nameless, a usual omission in the French fabliaux but not in Chaucer.[66]

The plot of the Shipman’s Tale appears more times than any other plot in the Old French fabliaux: Per Nykrog defines the most typical fabliau plot as consisting of a “love triangle”[67] in which the denouement “is favorable to the lover”[68] but in which the “husband is happy”[69]. Charles Muscatine defines the fabliau as presenting “close... interconnections... between money, cleverness, and pleasure, especially sexual pleasure”[70]; such interconnections all appear very distinctly in the Shipman’s Tale. This paper will discuss the typical fabliau relationship between money, sexual pleasure, and cleverness as it appears in the Shipman’s Tale and also in four of the Old French fabliaux — Du Bouchier d’Abeville, De Boivin de Provins, De La Saineresse, and Des Deux Changeors. The discussion will first examine the fabliau phenomena of approaching money and sex with the same attitude, an attitude of unadulterated self-interestedness. Second, the discussion will look at the importance of cleverness — of the ability to manipulate truth and to tell stories — in the self-interested attitude of the fabliaux.

i. Sex and Money

In the Shipman’s Tale and in the four Old French fabliaux examined, the characters are defined neither by uncontrollable lust nor by extreme avarice; rather, they are defined only by a general self-interestedness that seeks out any kind of profit, either sexual or monetary or both. The Shipman’s Tale tells the story of a merchant and his wife who share a close friendship with a monk named “daun John” (43)[71], and the plot revolves around a series of economic and sexual exchanges between the three individuals. The wife asks daun John to loan her 100 francs, and daun John asks her to have sexual relations with him in exchange for the money; daun John later asks the merchant for a loan of 100 francs, which the merchant gladly gives. When the time comes for daun John to repay the merchant, the clever monk insists that he has already repaid the merchant, because he had given 100 francs to the wife. The association between sexual concerns and economic concerns takes place on the literal level — a sexual exchange becomes an economic exchange — but also on the level of word-play throughout the text.

The relationship between the merchant and his wife consists of the exchange of material goods for sexual acts: the merchant provides his wife with all of the necessities and luxuries — from “array” (247) to “vitaille” (247) — and she returns the exchange with gifts of her “joly body” (423). From the opening of the tale, the wife exists only in relation to material concerns. After saying that “A wyf he hadde of excellent beautee” (3), Chaucer does not discuss the merchant’s sentiments for the wife, but rather describes her financial relationship to the merchant, saying that she “is a thyng that causeth... dispence... (3-5)” for the merchant. The use of the ambiguous “thyng,” instead of a word such as “creature” or “person,” hints towards the wife’s role purely as an object: she exists merely as one of the many “thyngs” that are to be exchanged in the poem. Similarly, the wife describes her husband as an object, describing his economic worth: the wife complains to daun John of her husband’s incompetence in bed, saying that “he is noght worth at al /... the value of a flye” (170-171). When describing the merchant’s intimate activities with his wife, daun John says “Hath yow laboured sith the nyght began” (108); in using the word “labour” to describe sexual acts, the monk creates an equality between sexual activity and economic activity.

Upon agreeing to sleep with daun John, the wife employs the vocabulary of a business contract: she “acorded with daun John” (313) the terms of the deal, then soon afterwards “this acord parfourned was in dede” (317). Chaucer creates ambiguity about the true nature of the exchange being discussed by using the non-specific pronoun “it”: when daun John ask the merchant for the loan, the merchant replies, “Paye it again when it lith in your ese” (291). The merchant’s use of “it” emphasizes his naiveté regarding the true nature of the loan: while the merchant innocently thinks that “it” refers to the exchange of money, the monk — who knows the true nature of the exchange — knows that “it” actually refers to the wife’s sexual favors. The use of the word “lith” in the same line as “it” emphasizes that “it” refers to the wife and not to the 100 francs: the merchant speaks of the money “lying in” possession of the monk, whereas the monk thinks of the wife “lying in” bed with him (“it lith” in bed with him). The final word of the line, “ese” does not resolve but rather adds to the ambiguity of the line. While the merchant employs the word in the sense of a remission of a debt, the monk thinks of “ese” as physical comfort and pleasure, the monk thinks of the sexual pleasure that he found when lying with the wife.

Chaucer plays with the word “busy” to juxtapose the merchant’s business activities with the monk’s and the wife’s sexual activities. Lines 302-303 show the merchant ambitiously pursuing his work: “Now gooth this merchant faste and bisily / About his nede...”. A few lines later, we see the monk and the wife ambitiously pursuing each other: “In myrthe al nyght a bisy lyf they lede” (318). The tale ends with the merchant and his wife discussing the exchanges that have taken place, and Chaucer puns on the word “taille” (416). Defending herself against her husband’s accusations that she negligently handles his money, the wife reminds him that she has always diligently paid all of her financial debts to him in the bedroom. She tells him to tally up what she owes her, to “score it upon my taille” (416); “taille” refers to the tally and also to her body — to her “tail”.

The correspondence between sexual and economic concerns that appears in the Shipman’s Tale also appears in Huistace d’Amien’s Du Bouchier d’Abeville[72]. The fabliau tells the story of a butcher who seeks lodging at the home of a priest. After being rudely turned away by the priest, the butcher steals a sheep that belongs to the priest and returns to the priest’s home offering the sheep as payment for lodging; the butcher exchanges the skin of the stolen sheep for the sexual favors first of the servant girl, then of the wife, then he proceeds to sell the same sheepskin to the priest. From its opening, the tale speaks in economic terms. The butcher’s arrival at the priest’s home does not reveal a concern with rules of hospitality, but rather reveals only economic concerns: “I don’t want to cost you anything” (“je ne veuil rien coster,” 89) says the butcher. He offers to pay for his lodging in cash or to buy any product from the priest: “If you would like to sell me anything of yours, / I will willingly buy it” (“Se rien nule me volez vendre, / molt volontiers l’achaterai,” 86-87). Once he has gained entry into the home, the butcher “willingly” (“volontiers”) pursues not only economic exchanges but sexual exchanges as well: after giving the servant girl the skin of the stolen sheep, he convinces her to do “his will” (“sa volonté,” 228). At the end of the poem, when the butcher sells the stolen sheepskin to the priest, the poet again plays on the butcher’s “willingness” by having the butcher say that he “is willingly very grateful to [the priest]” (“por l’amor de vous volentiers,” 313) for buying the skin. By applying the poet’s “willingness” to both sexual exchanges and to material exchanges, the poet places the two types of exchanges in the same realm.

When propositioning the girl for sexual favors, the butcher does not employ subtle word-play, but rather, he unabashedly employs economic terms: “if you make me your lover” (“si fai ton ami de moi,” 205), he says, “then you will make a big profit” (“bien i porras avoir grant preu,” 207). In addition to the word “profit” (“preu”), the use of the “if-then” formula also reveals the market-driven mindset: the butcher places all interactions in the economic formula of profits and losses, he constantly calculates the final result of any type of exchange. He continues to employ business terms by speaking of the “contract” (“couvent,” 210) upon which he and the girl will agree. The butcher’s proposition of the priest’s lady involves the exchange of both the sheepskin and of cash for her sexual favors: he offers his “woolly fleece” (“piau lanue,” 281) and also “a heap of [his] money” (“grant plenté de [son] argent,” 282). The act of paying for material objects with sexual favors objectifies and quantifies the human beings involved in the exchange.

Similar to Le Bouchier d’Abeville, the anonymous fabliau De Boivin de Provins also involves a man tricking a woman into having sexual relations with him. Boivin stands outside a brothel, pretending to be counting out an enormous sum of money and to be in search of a long-lost niece. Determined to procure this money for herself, the prostitute Mabel claims to be his niece, inviting him into the brothel and offering him the girl Ysane to satisfy his sexual pleasures. Looking forward to the money that she and Ysane will steal from Boivin, Mabel claims to be unconcerned about profit: she tells him that “Just for keeping [Ysane] a virgin, / I would get a great deal of money” (“Por seul son pucelage avoir, / eüsse je molt grant avoir,” 255-56). When inquiring to Boivin about supposed long-lost relatives, Mabel says that the relatives must be very “wise” (“preu,” 191) by now; Mabel’s choice of the word “preu” — which in addition to meaning “wise” also means “profit” — reveals her profit-obsessed mentality.

The poet puns on the word “purse” (“borse”) throughout De Boivin de Provins. The tale opens with Boivin buying “a large purse” (“Une borse grant,” 17) which he attaches to his body. Boivin’s discussion of the purse is replete with sexual allusions:

Or ne lerai por nule paine (Not for any trouble

que ma borse qu’est toute plaine will I let my purse which is very full

ne soit vuidie de mon giron. (81-83) be emptied in my lap.)

Although Boivin doesn’t describe the purse itself with physical terms, he surrounds the purse with physical terms. He employs a word that describes physical pain or suffering — “paine” — then connects that word to the purse by rhyming it with “plaine”. The description of the full purse being emptied in the lap alludes to the later sexual interaction, when Boivin will empty another type of “purse” into the lap area. Before laying down with Ysane, Boivin cuts the purse off its straps and hides it. The poet describes Boivin’s sexual interaction with Ysane as a required task, as “a job”: “First he had to take off / his loin-covering to do the job” (“Adonc covint que il ostast / la coiffe au cul pour faire l’uevre,” 271-272). While Boivin begins to penetrate Ysane (“de la point du vit la point,” 277), she is busy “searching for the purse” (“la borse a cerchier,” 279). The image of Boivin and Ysane engaged in the sexual act reveals an intimate mingling of economic interchanges and sexual interchanges: despite both characters’ engagement in a mutual act, one seeks economic profit while the other seeks sexual profit.

Unlike De Boivin de Provins, Le Bouchier d’Abeville, and the Shipman’s Tale, in which the male character profits the most from the various exchanges, the anonymous De La Saineresse presents a woman character who comes out on top after all of the exchanges have taken place. The fabliau consists of a sexual exchange being described as a professional exchange of medical services. A wife deceives her husband by disguising a man as an old female blood-letter; while supposedly being treated by the blood-letter, the wife actually engages in a passionate sexual act with the man. When the blood-letter arrives, the wife says “I need your professional skills” (“il m’estuet de vostre mestier,” 34); while her husband understands this statement as referring to the skills of blood-letting, both the wife and the blood-letter know that she is really referring to sexual skills. The wife and the blood-letter climb upstairs, the sexual interaction takes place, then they descend to the first floor together and discuss the payment in front of the husband — who once again does not understand the true nature of the payment. He tells his wife to “Pay this woman very well” (“paiez cele fame molt bien,” 54). While presenting himself as financially generous, the husband in fact reveals his naiveté regarding his wife’s sexual treason.

De La Saineresse is remarkable for the degree to which it explicates the analogous relationship between an economic exchange and a sexual exchange. Even after the bloodletter has left, the wife continues the false discussion of an economic exchange: she sits down beside her husband claiming to be tired after having “worked too hard” (“je esté trop traveillie,” 68). While describing the man’s sexual organ to her husband, she pretends to be describing the old woman blood-letter’s medical tool:

L’oingnement issoit d’un tuiel (The ointment issued from a pipe

et si descendoit d’un forel Which came down from a small forest

d’une pel molt noire et hideuse... (93-95) With a very black and hideous skin...)

It is only after having delineated the most intimate details of the sexual exchange that the wife finishes her description.

In the fashion of De La Saineresse, the anonymous Des Deux Changeors also tells of a woman who obtains the maximum profit after the transactions have taken place. Similar to the Shipman’s Tale, the plot involves a love triangle in which the two men share a close friendship: two money-changers are very close friends, and after one of them marries, the other has an affair with his wife. From the beginning of the fabliau, the poet applies an economic vocabulary to non-economic concerns: describing the men’s friendship, the poet says that “The two of them” (“entr’aus .II.,” 15) remained together “for gain or for loss” (“a perdre ou a gaaignier,” 16). The poet juxtaposes the married money-changer’s economic exchanges with the single money-changer’s simultaneous seduction of his wife: while the married man is “sitting at the exchange” (“se seoit au chaunge,” 26), the single man is “[laying] in... bed” (“jut en... lit,” 29) with his friend’s wife. Later in the poem the poet again juxtaposes the single man’s sexual activities with the married man’s professional activities. In line 131 the poet uses the word “afere” to describe the married man’s “business”: “the husband had gone about / his business” (“li sires en son afere fu alez”). At lines 176-77, however, the single man uses the word “business” or “afere” when referring to his sexual liaison: “I was betrayed / When I began this business” (“Je sui trahiz / quant j’empri onques cest afere”), he claims.

When first seducing the wife, the money-changer insists that she would sleep with him if she “considered [him] dear in any way” (“rien nule m’avez chier,” 34). Because “chier” means not only “precious” or “cherished” but also “expensive,” the money-changer asks her not only to consider him a “dear” person but also to view him as “costly”; his word choice invites the wife to objectify him, and to consider the sexual interaction as the exchange of a costly object. After denuding the wife, the single man hides her clothes so that she cannot get dressed, covers her face, then invites the married man (her husband) into the room to view her body. The act of hiding the wife’s face renders her body an object, and the two men proceed to discuss the act of viewing her body in the manner in which they would discuss an economic exchange. Pleased with his viewing of the body, the husband says that he feels “very well paid” (“bien a paiez,” 121) by having seen it. In order to retaliate against her lover’s cruel teasing of her, the wife asks him to take a bath with her, then invites her husband into the room. When reproaching him for his unjust treatment of her, she applies the monetary term “exchange” (“eschange,” 264) to his action, saying that “such an exchange / should be made to a proven wretch” (“tel eschange / doit l’en fere au musart prové,” 264-265) but not to her.

ii. Lies: The Profit-Seeking Storyteller

In the Shipman’s Tale and in the fabliaux examined, the character who profits the most from the sexual and monetary exchanges possesses a particular skill, a skill that has no inherent relationship to the particular economic or sexual interests being pursued: the character possesses the ability to tell stories, to manipulate the truth in order to render the situation profitable to himself or herself. The monk in the Shipman’s Tale, the butcher in Du Bouchier d’Abeville, Boivin in De Boivin de Provins, and the wives in De La Saineresse and Des Deux Changeors manipulate reality in order to obtain a sexual or financial profit, or both. R. Howard Bloch describes the fabliaux as consisting of

a narrative competition between various protagonists. The one who invents the best tale triumphs over the others, as competing lies concerning sums of money, family, name, virginity, and fake gestures of generosity and of indignation, the costumes, props, and make-up come to constitute whatever can be affirmed with certainty about the fabliaux — that is, their function as performances[73].

He or she who puts on the best “performance” will obtain the most profit, whether sexual or financial or both. The profit-seeking character’s manipulation of the fabliau stories creates an ambiguity as to the truth of the story being told, and often leads to the creation of several simultaneous stories.

Throughout the Shipman’s Tale, two stories take place at once: the story as understood by daun John and the wife, and the story as understood by the merchant. The only character who knows the entire truth is daun John. Chaucer’s juxtaposition of the image of the merchant counting his earnings (“And up into his countour-hous gooth he / To rekene with hymself, wel may be,” 78-79) with the image of the monk and the wife in the garden (“This goode wyf cam walkynge pryvely / Into the gardyn there [daun John] walketh softe, / And hym saleweth as she hath doone ofte,” 92-94) emphasizes the simultaneity of the two stories[74]. A deft rhetorician, daun John alters his speech according to the audience. Early in the Shipman’s Tale, the monk insists upon the closeness of his relationship to the merchant: “The monk hym claymeth as for cosynage” (36). When in the company of the wife, daun John vehemently denies the relationship (“He is na moore cosyn unto me / Than is this leef that hangeth on the tree” 149-150), instead insisting that he claims to be the merchant’s cousin only in order to gain access to her: “I clepe hym so... / To have the moore cause of aqueyntaunce / Of yow...” (151-153), he tells the wife. Of course, when daun John later approaches the merchant to ask for the loan, he endearingly calls the merchant “myn owene cosyn deere” (279).

The use of the word “devyse” or “devise” throughout the Shipman’s Tale reveals that the monk plays the role of the storyteller. The word is first used in line 62, when the narrator speaks of “This noble monk of which I yow devyse”. Here, the action of “devysing” — the action of describing and recounting the events in the story — belongs to the narrator. Later in the Shipman’s Tale, however, the act of devysing belongs to the monk. The wife says to daun John that she will perform any service that he desires: “That I may doon, right as you list devise” (192). Here “devise” means “to command” — the wife will do anything that the monk commands. But the use of the word also reveals that the monk is engaged in “devising,” in recounting his own stories, in telling his own tales. The monk employs the word ironically when speaking to the merchant. The monk repeats to the merchant the declaration that the wife previously had made to him: he tells the merchant that he will do anything “as ye wol devyse” (269). The irony consists in the fact that the monk pretends that the merchant will be doing the “devysing,” when in reality it is the monk who is devising – it is the monk who is creating the stories to trick the merchant.

Daun John’s emphatic insistence upon the truth of everything that he says does not reinforce faith in his statements, but rather raises suspicion concerning their truth. Within a space of one conversation with the wife, John makes four oaths. He swears on his breviary (“For on my porthors I make an ooth” 131), he swears “by God and Seint Martin” (148), and he says “I swere you on my profession” (155). Having run out of people or things to swear by, the monk swears by his honor: “I you swere and plighte yow my trouthe” (198). The merchant’s declaration to the monk to “Paye it again when it lith in youre ese” (291) tells two stories: it speaks of the monk repaying the 100 francs to the priest, and it also speaks of the monk lying in bed with the wife. In addition to referring to the money lying in the monk’s possession and to the act of lying in bed, the word “lith” also refers to the a third type of “lying” — the “lying,” the deception and trickery, committed by daun John throughout the tale. The tale ends with the merchant and the wife attempting to resolve the two stories, but the merchant remains deceived to the very end; the creator of the stories, daun John, has already disappeared from the tale, having ridden off “out of this toun” (361), profit in hand.

The butcher in Le Bouchier d’Abeville manipulates the truth as skillfully as does daun John. The poet describes the butcher as highly capable of deception, saying that the butcher “tricked [the priest] and deceived him skillfully” (“bien l’a engingnié et deçut,” 114). The butcher’s seductions of the servant girl and of the priest’s lady succeed as a result of the butcher’s clever way with words. When the servant girl rejects his advances, he eloquently “[reassures] her so much” (“li a cele creanté,” 228) that she quickly succumbs. Employing daun John’s methods of persuasion, the butcher swears by God, insisting that he will never dishonor the girl’s name: “As I hope God will have my soul...” (“Se ja Diex ait part en m’ame...,” 224) he declares. He employs the same techniques with the priest’s lady, swearing “by God’s grace” (“por Dieu merci,” 273) that he will not leave until she gives in to his desires. The butcher then swears by his own word that he will not disclose her actions to anyone: “You can take my word,” (“Ma foi tenez” 286), he insists. The butcher simultaneously creates three stories by exchanging the same sheepskin with three different characters: the servant girl, the priest’s lady, and the priest each think that the skin belongs to him or her. The fabliau ends with the three deceived characters attempting to make sense among the three stories; as in the Shipman’s Tale, the storyteller himself, the only character aware of the truth, has already left the scene — he left town “before the sun had risen” (“ainz que fust levez li solaus,” 457).

Du Boivin de Provins consists of a competition between two clever storytellers, each hoping best to manipulate the truth in order to gain the most profit. The fabliau opens with Boivin dressing himself to play the main character in the story he is creating. Boivin dresses as a peasant, even growing a beard in order to authenticate the rustic costume: he “left his beard alone/ for over a month... / To seem more like a peasant” (“un mois/ sa barbe qu’ele ne fu rese /... por ce que miex samblast villain,” 14-17). Boivin’s peasant disguise deceives even the narrator of the fabliau, who soon begins to refer to Boivin as “the peasant” (“li villains,” 99).

Boivin must make an ambitious effort in order to deceive Mabel, a woman who “knew more about trickery and guile / than any woman that ever was” (“qui plus savoit barat et guile / que fame nule qui i fust,” 22-23). Boivin creates the story about looking for his long-lost niece; not realizing the fictional nature of Boivin’s story, Mabel creates her own fiction, pretending to be that niece. Despite Mabel’s attempt to create her own story, she is already unknowingly playing a role in Boivin’s tale, and Boivin emerges as the master storyteller — accordingly possessing the profit in the end. After leaving Mabel behind, Boivin goes to the magistrate and tells him the story, for which the magistrate pays Boivin; this act of re-telling the story emphasizes Boivin’s role as a creator of stories, as a teller of tales. Bloch points out the importance of Boivin’s final retelling of the story, saying that “The only moment of truth in De Boivin de Provins is found in the retelling of the sum total to the police”[75]. Bloch’s statement misleadingly implies that Boivin retells the story for the sake of telling the truth: it implies that Boivin desires that the fabliau close with “a moment of truth”. On the contrary, Boivin retells the story because he knows that he will gain a profit from it; Boivin is not a prophetic but rather a “profit-ic” storyteller.

Des Deux Changeors, like Du Boivin de Provins, presents a competition to tell the best story: the lover first tells a story, then the wife outwits her lover with her own story. The first four lines of the fabliau raise consciousness as to the truth of the story being told: the author affirms that he will “tell you the truth about” (“en dirai bien verité,” 4) what happened and not tell a “lie” (“fable,” 2). As in De Boivin de Provins, the characters engage in a game of disguises as they attempt to manipulate the truth. The lover disguises the wife as his own girlfriend, then shows the first moneychanger his wife in disguise. The lover succeeds in deceiving the husband, but in turn infuriates the wife. In revenge for her lover’s cruelty against her, the wife tricks her lover into taking a bath with her, then forces the lover to play a role in her own story: she disguises her lover as an old woman. The concluding lines of the fabliau assert the superior storytelling abilities of women, saying that a man reveals “folly and arrogance” (“folie et orgueil,” 282) when trying to out-deceive a woman.

De La Saineresse offers proof of the superior storytelling abilities attributed to women at the end of Des Deux Compteurs. The man’s arrival at the woman’s house in the disguise of an old woman blood-letter reminds us of the games of disguise in Des Deux Changeors and De Boivin de Provins. The wife possesses such advanced storytelling skills that she can tell two stories at once: she simultaneously tells the story of the bloodletter coming to treat her and the story of a passionate sexual encounter with a man. She tells all, recounting the most intimate and grotesque details of the sexual interaction, yet at the same time tells nothing — since her husband understands her to be speaking of a medical treatment. Like Boivin, at the end of her fabliau the wife derives a profit from retelling her tale: she recounts the true story to her arrogant husband. The wife considers herself “paid in full” (“paié a garant,” 105) by having successfully tricked her husband. In both De la Saineresse and Des Deux Compteurs, the wives’ profits are neither sexual nor monetary, but rather consist of the satisfaction of having successfully revenged the husband or lover.

The depiction of profit-seeking and profit-finding fabliaux characters as masters of deception should perhaps not come as a surprise, since self-interested individuals will often employ any means to arrive at a desired end. But the depiction of the successful characters as tricky tellers of tales stands out in contrast to the representation of typical “bourgeois” characters found in the texts. The fabliaux discussed here all present a typical bourgeois character — whose moral goodness, responsibility, and sensible nature should make him a profitable businessperson. In his article on the Shipman’s Tale, Gardiner Stillwell asserts that “the tale is remarkable for the merchant’s full exposition of bourgeois philosophy”[76]. Stillwell goes on to discuss the “seriousness and soberness”[77] that stand out as the merchant’s “dominant qualities throughout the tale”[78]. In having the “serious and sober” character outwitted by the self-interested storyteller, the fabliaux mock the bourgeois attitude — saying that cleverness, and not sensible business practices or a solid work ethic, results in profit.

In the Shipman’s Tale, the merchant is considered “wys” (2), and he has a reputation for generosity or “largesse” (22). Stillwell comments upon the repeated use of the adjective “sad” to describe the merchant’s sober, serious attitude towards all aspects of life[79]. Chaucer presents a portrait of the merchant busily at work, carefully calculating his business affairs: at daybreak the merchant goes into his “counter-hous... / To rekene with hymself” (77-78), and he does not come out until “passed pryme” (88). When describing his business affairs to his wife, the merchant refers not to himself but to all merchants, revealing that his bourgeois attitude is common to his profession: “... litel kanstow devyne / The curious bisynesse that we have. / For of us chapmen...” (224-26). His use of statistics — he says of of merchants that “Scarsly amonges twelve tweye shull thryve” (228) — reveals his logical nature. Despite the merchant’s serious dedication to his profession, the merchant is out-profited by the monk, whose only work ethic consists of ambitiously weaving webs of lies. Chaucer mocks the bourgeois attitude by so carefully delineating the merchant’s serious attitude, but then having the merchant outwitted by the playful and conniving monk.

In Du Boivin de Provins, a single character embodies both a bourgeois attitude and clever story-telling abilities: Boivin possesses the bourgeois traits of seriousness and soberness, but when necessary in order to turn a profit, will take on the role of a deft deceiver. Stillwell comments upon the butcher in Du Bouchier d’Abeville, saying that “In common to Chaucer’s merchant he has wisdom, devotion to his calling, vocational skill, business shrewdness, prudence”[80]. The opening of the poem describes the butcher as a “wise, courteous, and valiant” (“sages, cortois, et vaillanz,” 11) man disappointed with himself for not having optimally managed his time, for having “used his journey poorly” (“Povrement sa voie emploia,” 23). Like the Shipman’s Tale’s merchant, the butcher “wasn’t miserly or greedy” (“n’estoit avers ne covoitex,” 14-15). The butcher first offers to engage in an honest business exchange with the priest; when the priest rudely turns him away, however, the butcher begins his trickery. By rejecting his bourgeois characteristics, the butcher comments upon their inadequacy — saying that deception will bring a much larger profit than bourgeois business tactics will.

Ironically, even after delving into the role of the deceiver, the butcher cannot entirely escape his bourgeois mentality. Worn out from having seduced both the girl and the priest’s lady, the butcher does not stay in bed to rest himself any longer than usual. Rather, the bourgeois responsibly climbs out of bed on time the next morning: he “Got dressed and put on his shoes without waiting around, / Because it was certainly the hour to do so” (“se vest et chauce sans demeure, / quar bien en fu et tans et eure,” 237-38). Although no longer playing the role of the virtuous bourgeois, the butcher still feels called to adhere to the responsible bourgeois habits, to do things because one is supposed “to do so”.

In De Boivin de Provins, Boivin adopts bourgeois characteristics, but only in order to poke fun at them. The description of the disguised Boivin echoes descriptions of the serious and wise merchant of the Shipman’s Tale and of the virtuous butcher. Like the merchant, the disguised Boivin carefully counts out his money; his drawn-out calculations of sums which he does not in fact possess reads like a parody of the merchant sitting in his “counting-hous,” spending the entire day calculating sums. Determined to play the role of the wise bourgeois, the disguised Boivin counts out the money because “That’s what all wise men do” (“Ainsi le font tuit li sage homme,” 34). After having finished his calculations, he demonstrates bourgeois sensibility and practicality: “From now on it’s best / For me to hold on to them. That will be sensible” (“Des ore mes est il bien droiz / que je les gart; ce sera sens,” 102-103). Although very familiar with bourgeois business methods, Boivin himself does not adopt them, preferring instead to turn a profit via trickery.

Both De La Saineresse and Des Deux Changeors set up the contrast between bourgeois seriousness and the storyteller’s more profitable trickery as a contrast between males and females: the husbands represent the bourgeois character, and both husbands find themselves bitterly outwitted by their wives. De La Saineresse presents the husband as a “borgios” (1) whose excessive pride inspires his wife to seek revenge against him. The fabliau’s concludes saying:

There is no man in this country (Mes il n’est pas en cest païs

So well endowed with sense cil qui tant soit de sens espris

That he can keep watch enough qui mie se peüst guetier

That a woman can’t deceive him.... (111-114) que fame nel puist engingnier...)

The sensible bourgeois attitude proves worthless when faced with a woman’s sly ways. Des Deux Changeors asserts an identical judgment on women’s superior wit. After the wife cleverly deceives not only her money-changer husband but also her money-changer lover, the poet asserts that “A man commits folly and arrogance / Who takes it upon himself to trick a woman” (“que cil fet folie et orgueil / qui fame engingnier s’entremet,” 284-85).

Conclusion

Charles Muscatine defines the “fabliau ethos”[81] as one of “hedonistic materialism”[82]. If the ethos was purely materialistic, then one would expect to see characters like the Shipman’s merchant and the hard-working money-changer succeed; the hedonistic element, however, has no patience for the bourgeois individual’s time-consuming counting-out of sums and serious dedication to the accumulation of money; the hedonist wants immediate pleasure, pleasure either from money or from sex or from revenge — and the most effective method of obtaining pleasure consists of trickery. In the fabliaux, the serious and dedicated bourgeois businessman plays the role of an old man unable to keep up with the fast pace of the clever new generation: the bourgeois sits in the “counting-hous” while the clever storyteller runs off with all of the profits. The appearance of clever storytellers in the fabliaux not only mocks the sober bourgeois attitudes, but mocks the role of storytellers themselves: for in presenting the storyteller as a profit-driven trickster, the poet presents himself as a profit-driven trickster. The appearance of the clever storyteller calls us to reflect on the role of the poet: if the storytellers within the fabliaux tell stories only in order to gain profits, then we should perhaps presume that the authors of the fabliaux themselves are not any different.

Works Cited

Bloch, R. Howard. The Scandal of the Fabliaux. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986.

Brewer, D.S. The Fabliaux. Companion to Chaucer Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968.

Burbridge, Roger T. Chaucer’s “Reeve’s Tale” and the Fabliau “Le Meunier et Les .II. Clers”. Annuale Mediaevale, Volume 12, 1972.

Cooke, Thomas D. The Old French and Chaucerian Fabliaux: Their Comic Climax. Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 1978.

DuVal, John and Eichmann, Raymond. The French Fabliau B.N. MS. 837. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1985.

Fisher, John H. The Complete Poetry and Prose of Geoffrey Chaucer. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1989.

Harrison, Robert. Gallic Salt: Glimpses of the Hilarious Bawdy World of the Old French Fabliaux. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974.

Jauss, H.R. The Alterity and Modernity of Medieval Literature. New Literary History, Volume 10, 1979.

Kendrick, Laura. Comedy and Control in the Canterbury Tales. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988.

Lorcin, Marie-Thérèse. Façons de Sentir et de Penser: Les Fabliaux Français. Paris: Librairie Honoré Champion, 1979.

Ménard, Philippe. Fabliaux Français du Moyen Age. Geneva: Libraire Droz, 1979.

Muscatine, Charles. The Old French Fabliaux. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986.

Nykrog, Per. Les Fabliaux. Genève: Librairie Droz, 1973.

Patterson, Lee. Chaucer and the Subject of History. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991

Olson, Glending. The “Reeve’s Tale” as a Fabliau. Modern Language Quarterly, Volume 35, Number 3, September 1974.

Richardson, Janette. Blameth Nat Me: A Study of Imagery in Chaucer’s Fabliaux. Paris: Mouton & Co. Printers, 1970.

Stillwell, Gardiner. “Chaucer’s Sad Merchant.” Review of English Studies, Vol. XX, No. 77, January 1944.

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[1] Brewer, D.S. The Fabliaux. Companion to Chaucer Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968, p. 247.

[2] Fisher, John H. Introduction to Part I of the Canterbury Tales. The Complete Poetry and Prose of the Canterbury Tales. New York: Holt, Rinehert and Winston, Inc., p. 8.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Lorcin, Marie-Thérèse. Façons de Sentir et de Penser: Les Fabliaux Français. Paris: Librairie Honoré Champion, 1979, p. 3 (my translation).

[5] Richardson, Janette. Blameth Nat Me: A Study of Imagery in Chaucer’s Fabliaux. Paris: Mouton & Co. Printers, 1970.

[6] Le Meunier et Les Deux Clercs exists in two very similar anonymous versions, known as the “A” and the “B” manuscripts; the “A” manuscript presents a longer and more complete version of the fabliau, and all line references here refer to the “A” manuscript. Translations from Old French to modern English are mine unless otherwise noted. Citations from Le Meunier come from Philippe Ménard’s collection Fabliaux Français du Moyen Age.

[7] Fisher p. 70.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Here I used Robert Harrison’s modern English translation. Harrison, Robert. Gallic Salt: Glimpses of the Hilarious Bawdy World of the Old French Fabliaux. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974, p. 159.

[10] Burbridge, Roger T. Chaucer’s “Reeve’s Tale” and the Fabliau “Le Meunier et Les .II. Clercs”. Annuale Mediaevale, Volume 12, 1972, p. 30.

[11] Olson, Glending. The “Reeve’s Tale” as a Fabliau. Modern Language Quarterly, Volume 35, Number 3, September 1974, p. 230

[12] Burbridge p. 31.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Nykrog, Per. Les Fabliaux. Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1956, p. 108 (my translation).

[16] Ibid.

[17] Burbridge p. 34

[18] Ibid.

[19] Olson p. 227.

[20] On p. 101 of his essay, Nykrog states that “The obstination of the authors of fabliaux in trying to derive moral lessons from their tales is so widespread that one cannot but conclude that moralizing constitutes almost a fundamental trait of the genre”.

[21] Jauss, H.R. The Alterity and Modernity of Medieval Literature. New Literary History, Volume 10, 1979, p. 189.

[22] Ibid.

[23] Ibid.

[24] Ibid.

[25] Nykrog, Per. Les Fabliaux. Geneva: Libraire Droz, 1973, p. 56. Translations of Nykrog’s work are my own.

[26] Muscatine, Charles. The Old French Fabliaux. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986, p. 40.

[27] Nykrog p.127.

[28] Fisher, John H. The Complete Poetry and Prose of Geoffrey Chaucer. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1989, p. 135. (All citations of Chaucer are from this text.).

[29] (The italics appear in the original manuscript.)

[30] (The italics appear in the original manuscript.)

[31] Patterson, Lee. Chaucer and the Subject of History. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991, p. 320.

[32] Kendrick, Laura. Chaucerian Play: Comedy and Control in the Canterbury Tales. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988, p. 9.

[33] Kendrick’s assertion contradicts Nykrog’s argument that literature containing obscene elements invariably belongs to the upper classes: “Certainly, the people’ love improper anecdotes and dirty swearwords, but authentically popular literature is almost always very pure in this respect. The fact that a solid tradition of European literature... places the recounted events in a falsely rustic milieu in no way proves that such literature is directed to peasants. Very much to the contrary, libertine literature — the prose and verse nouvelles, poems and chansons — have always been a specialty of educated milieu, whether university, bourgeois, or aristocratic. And the fabliaux are in no way an exception to this rule.” (Nykrog p. 214.)

[34] Patterson p. 319.

[35] Ibid.

[36] Eichmann, Raymond and DuVal, John. The French Fabliau B.N. MS. 837, Volumes I and II. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1985. (All citations of the Old French fabliaux are from this text.)

[37] Nykrog p. 129.

[38] Nykrog p. 129.

[39] cf. De Sire Hain et de Dame Anieuse, De Boivin de Provins, D’Aloul, D’Estormi, and Du Prestre Crucifié.

[40] Muscatine p. 41.

[41] This fabliau turns on the double-meaning of “buffet” in Old French: it refers to a “bellows,” but it also means “a slap on the cheek.”

[42] Le Vilain au Buffet bears many resemblances to Matthew 22: 1-14, which consists of Jesus’ parable about the wedding feast: a king gives a wedding feast, but when the invited guests do not arrive, he opens the feast to everyone. The king sees a man who is not wearing the wedding garment, and he has the man bound and thrown into the streets. The parable concludes with the proverb “Many are invited, but few are chosen.” This fabliau could be read as a parody or a re-writing of the biblical text.

[43] R. Howard Bloch provides a negative interpretation of the story-within-a-story presented in Le Vilain au Buffet, saying that “… the poet himself is a trickster who, in exposing the creation of stories within stories, merely exposes himself. We have seen that poetry is identified with trickery in Le Vilain au Buffet, but the example is hardly unique” (Bloch, Howard R. The Scandal of the Fabliaux. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1986, p. 99). The poets – the author of the fabliau and Raoul himself – do not expose themselves, but rather expose the villain-ish and unjust behavior of the seneschal, of the servants who beat Raoul, and of the traditional social order itself.

[44] Cooke, Thomas Darlington. The Old French and Chaucerian Fabliaux: A Study of their Comic Climax. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1978, p. 64.

[45] Ibid.

[46] Cooke reads Des Chevaliers, Des II Clercs, et Les Vilains literally, saying that this fabliau provides “a clear example of the importance of values and norms in the fabliaux, since the confict between the values in this tale is the source of the humor. The conflict is not just between the first two groups and the third; it is also between the nature of the setting and the value which the peasants place upon it. That conflict between setting and action is intensified by the one between characters” (Ibid p. 63). The use of the word “values” is superficial, because the fabliau could not be said to exhort any particularly worthy values – it is hard to consider eating or love-making as “values”. Also, Cooke overlooks the fact that the narrator who exhorts these “values” is one who speaks enthusiastically and insistedly about “shitting.”

[47] Cooke, Thomas D. The Old French and Chaucerian Fabliaux: Their Comic Climax. Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 1978, p. 172.

[48] Ibid.

[49] Nykrog, Per. Les Fabliaux. Genève: Librairie Droz, 1973, p. 61. (My translation from the French.)

[50] Ibid.

[51] Ibid.

[52] Muscatine, Charles. The Old French Fabliaux. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986.

[53] When citing Chaucer I am using John H. Fisher’s The Complete Poetry and Prose of Geoffrey Chaucer. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1986. The numbers in parentheses refer to the line numbers in the tales.

[54] All citations of the Old French fabliaux come from Raymond Eichmann’s and John DuVal’s collection of forty fabliaux with facing Modern English translations (The French Fabliau B.N. MS. 837. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1984, Volumes I and II). I found this collection very helpful when I was having difficulty with the Old French because the translations are not in verse and are nearly word-for-word. Because several different versions exist in separate manuscripts of most of the fabliaux discussed here (Du Bouchier d’Abeville exists in five manuscripts, De Boivin de Provins exists in two manuscripts, De La Saineresse exists in two manuscripts, and Des Deux Compteurs exists in only one manuscript) I also looked at the Receuil général et complet des fabliaux des XIIIe et XIVe siècles (Montaiglon, Anatole de and Raynaud, Gaston. 6 volumes. Paris, Librairie des Bibliophiles, 1872-1890) which contains all of the different versions. In every case, all of the versions were so similar that I did not end up having to compare different versions of the same fabliau. The numbers in the parentheses refer to the line numbers in the fabliaux.

[55] Bloch, R. Howard. The Scandal of the Fabliaux. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986, p. 98.

[56] The image of the woman committing adultery in the garden also alludes to other similar scenes in Chaucer’s fabliaux and in the Old French fabliaux. In the Clerk’s Tale, Mayus commits adultery with Damien in the garden. In D’Aloul, the title character meets the wife of a rich nobleman in a garden and tricks her into having sexual relations with him.

[57] Bloch p. 98.

[58] Stillwell, Gardiner. “Chaucer’s Sad Merchant.” Review of English Studies, Vol. XX, No. 77, Jan. 1944, p. 3.

[59] Ibid.

[60] Ibid.

[61] Ibid pp. 1-2.

[62] Ibid p. 5.

[63] Muscatine p. 72.

[64] Ibid.

[65] Cooke, Thomas D. The Old French and Chaucerian Fabliaux: Their Comic Climax. Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 1978, p. 172.

[66] Ibid.

[67] Nykrog, Per. Les Fabliaux. Genève: Librairie Droz, 1973, p. 61. (My translation from the French.)

[68] Ibid.

[69] Ibid.

[70] Muscatine, Charles. The Old French Fabliaux. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986.

[71] When citing Chaucer I am using John H. Fisher’s The Complete Poetry and Prose of Geoffrey Chaucer. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1986. The numbers in parentheses refer to the line numbers in the tales.

[72] All citations of the Old French fabliaux come from Raymond Eichmann’s and John DuVal’s collection of forty fabliaux with facing Modern English translations (The French Fabliau B.N. MS. 837. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1984, Volumes I and II). I found this collection very helpful when I was having difficulty with the Old French because the translations are not in verse and are nearly word-for-word. Because several different versions exist in separate manuscripts of most of the fabliaux discussed here (Du Bouchier d’Abeville exists in five manuscripts, De Boivin de Provins exists in two manuscripts, De La Saineresse exists in two manuscripts, and Des Deux Compteurs exists in only one manuscript) I also looked at the Receuil général et complet des fabliaux des XIIIe et XIVe siècles (Montaiglon, Anatole de and Raynaud, Gaston. 6 volumes. Paris, Librairie des Bibliophiles, 1872-1890) which contains all of the different versions. In every case, all of the versions were so similar that I did not end up having to compare different versions of the same fabliau. The numbers in the parentheses refer to the line numbers in the fabliaux.

[73] Bloch, R. Howard. The Scandal of the Fabliaux. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986, p. 98.

[74] The image of the woman committing adultery in the garden also alludes to other similar scenes in Chaucer’s fabliaux and in the Old French fabliaux. In the Clerk’s Tale, Mayus commits adultery with Damien in the garden. In D’Aloul, the title character meets the wife of a rich nobleman in a garden and tricks her into having sexual relations with him.

[75] Bloch p. 98.

[76] Stillwell, Gardiner. “Chaucer’s Sad Merchant.” Review of English Studies, Vol. XX, No. 77, Jan. 1944, p. 3.

[77] Ibid.

[78] Ibid.

[79] Ibid pp. 1-2.

[80] Ibid p. 5.

[81] Muscatine p. 72.

[82] Ibid.