Dr. Jim Dean

ENGL. 322-010

22 March 2000

A knight is the stereotypical epitome of a woman's perfect man. Unfortunately, a woman's worth is not equally reciprocated to the knight's. According to Andreas Capellanus, chivalric heroes who refrain from love "deserve a greater reward from God" (Miller 357). The theme that "love is suffering" is illustrated in a few of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, implying that woman's seduction through beauty and vanity is the enemy of the humble knight. Interestingly, the pilgrims who appear to be the antagonists of the Tales, specifically the Pardoner and, to a lesser degree, the Monk, are described in considerable detail with regards to their dress, which are very ornate, much like that of a fashion-conscious woman's apparel. The connection made then is that evil and corruption are innately feminine and take the form of effeminate qualities in men if they are fraudulent beings, and that virility and masculinity are by-products of being virtuous and moral.

The first and most obvious example of the ideal knight is represented in the General Prologue of he Canterbury Tales. He is described as loving "chivalrie, trouthe and honour, freedom and curteisie" and wearing a "gypon al bismostered with his habergeon" (I.45-46, I. 75-76). He does not care that he appears tattered and torn because he has no concern for material things. This point is further reinforced through John Gower's remarks when he wrote, "Knights should have no cause to leave arms for desire of acquiring worldly riches" (Miller 189). Money and things divert a knight's attention from upholding the virtues of God. In the same respect, women are diversions too. Their attention to their own self-appearance is in stark contrast to a knight's indifference. Seduction through good looks is the knight's ultimate downfall: "When a man sees her womanly beauty . . . his mind's eye grows dull, blind from darkness of lust, and he sinks down to his own destruction" (Miller 197).

In some of the pilgrims' tales, Chaucer explores the amorous path and eventual ruin of the idealized knight when he intertwines chivalric honor with unrequited (or sometimes unwanted) love. Chaucer's first and probably most successful depiction of love as suffering is the Knight's Tale, with the prisoners Arcite and Palamon fighting over a woman, Emelye, neither of them have even met. Once solemn and devoted brothers, they concede to Andreas Capellanus' prediction that "no one is so bound by the bonds of affection or friendship that the other man is suing urgently for the love of . . . [some woman] . . . he will not at once be filled with a spiteful hatred toward him or conceive a venomous anger" (Miller 358). So terrible was their feud that, by accidental means, one of the men ends up dead. Seemingly, the strangest part of their plot is that Emelye remains the voiceless bystander in her own melodrama. And yet, so much emphasis is exacted on her dress and elegance that she becomes a concept representing those qualities instead of a physical entity wearing them. "Hir yelow heer was broyded in a tresse . . . She gadereth floures, party white and rede/ To make a subtil gerland for hire hede" (I.1049-54). Because Emelye does not seduce the brothers by dialogue or other personable means, her superficial traits trigger the downfall of Palamon and Arcite.

But Palamon and Arcite apparently are not the only victims of intrusive beauty in the Canterbury Tales. The Wife of Bath also narrates a story about how a knight's fateful rendezvous with lust almost cost him his life. Although this knight as compared to Palamon or Arcite is not so innocent, he rapes a young girl that is just as voiceless as Emelye in the Knight's Tale. While no physical details about her are ever mentioned, she is an allusion of lust itself. The knight succumbing to his desires for her strips him of any honor he formerly owned. Once again, a woman, or at least what she represents, is the motivator of evil in the spiritually pure.

One author that wrote extensively on the painfulness of chivalric love was John Gower, who Chaucer himself was greatly influenced by. Probably one of Gower's most powerful remarks states, "The world brings heavy burdens, but woman brings heavier ones" (Miller 200). This statement sums up the anti-feminism of the time and seems to be exercised in Chaucer's tales when he demonstrates women's power over men. These anti-feminist trends are also displayed in the formerly mentioned antagonists of the pilgrimage. Instead of using women as the evil influences of the trip, Chaucer applies effeminate qualities to specific pilgrims as a way of identifying their corrupt souls. Possibly the best example of an individual who embodies this principle is the Pardoner. He is the essence of hypocrisy. He sells phony relics to a repentant public. But while these actions are outwardly unjust, it is Chaucer's description of the Pardoner as a "gelding or a mare," fourteenth century idiom for a homosexual, that serves as an automatic implication of his malevolence (I.691). The Pardoner strives "for jolitee" and sets out to be fashionable (I.680). One would never see an honorable knight trying to distinguish himself like that. But the self-conscious woman would be inclined to define and beautify herself; she would be very interested in the latest style. The Pardoner exemplifies those partial traits found in women, and, therefore, is associated with their inherent wickedness.

In addition to the Pardoner, two other ecclesiastics of the Church, the Monk and the Friar, are conniving pilgrims with no remorse. Whereas the Monk is not as exaggerated in his feminine characteristics, he, too, has his "sleeves purfiled" and a "hors in greet estat" (I.193, I.203). His dress and sophistication reminded me much of the Prioress' ("ful fetys was hir cloke" [I.157]), and he reeked of all the materialism that a knight would deny. In fact, he is so far removed from his vow of poverty that he is much like the Prioress in that it seems awkward that he's involved with the Church at all.

Finally, there is the Friar, who, although he is not a display of great ornamentation, abuses his privileges by sleeping with the women of the town he collects money from. The assumption is that he blackmails these women for the actions they have committed with him. In that sense, his lust for women has forked his Godly-path. He is not concerned with taking the money himself. The Friar is a great talent who could probably persuade anyone to give him pocket change. "He knew the tavernes wel in every toun" (I.240). Yet, his greatest sin lies in producing funds for the Church as concealment, as an excuse even, for his fornication. Women, once again, were of greater consequence than a man's calling.

Materialism, women, and desire are the enemies of the innocent soul. According to Chaucer, when these evils invade and overcome the soul, they become apparent in the demeanor and appearance of the individual. Most of these traits, though, seem characteristic of women. As a sign of the anti-feministic time, women did become the enemy of the innocent, and God to some extent, because they diverted the spiritual defenders from their vocations. As a result, Chaucer took womanly qualities and applied them to men as an expression of innate corruptness. Virtue begets virility and fraudulence begets femininity. In Chaucer's world, a man tainted by vice is a man that has instigated his own destruction.