Pilgrimage; the Three Estates; Idleness

The General Prologue

Vignette: Pilgrimage to Canterbury

Thomas Stothard, “The Pilgrimage to Canterbury,” 1806-07

A ritual of journey to a sacred place. Not confined to Christianity. Ubiquitous in medieval Christianity, both as actual practice and as metaphor. Life as pilgrimage.

Penitential: i.e. for forgiveness of sins. Medicinal: i.e. to pray for healing. Devotional: i.e. to pay respects to a saint and her/his relics at a shrine or holy site, and make offerings. Touristic: shrines looked very much as a tourist site would to us today.

By fourteenth century, becoming a controversial practice among a group of serious Christians. Useless, ministering to Church greed and corruption, and adoring idols, that is, giving worship to saint’s relics and their sumptuous surround, rather than to the true God. Practice ceases (sort of) after English Reformation.

Pilgrimage

Thomas à Becket, 1118-1170Chancellor of Henry II and Archbishop of Canterbury. Also a London citizen. Also a close friend of HenryFamously murdered by Henry’s knights in Canterbury Cathedral, at issue (more or less) the rights of the church in the English state

Canonized (formally made a saint) very soon after and used by the Church to support its view of its independence from state interference. Enormous cult springs up, centered in Canterbury but all over Europe. Understood as vitally important historical event.

Controversial for two reasons. 1) Thomas was martyred but not otherwise easily described as saintly; 2) theory of Church independence from state or “temporal” power regularly challenged by pro-state intellectuals. Challenges active in Chaucer’s lifetime.

In the Reformation, which repudiated most saints and their cults, Becket was a main target. This was because the English Reformation proclaimed the ruler the “Supreme Head” of the Church.

Pilgrimage and veneration of St Thomas are both conventional. Everybody does it. In theory, they are sacrificial, rigorous spiritually and physically. But not necessarily true in practice.Thus pilgrimage is controversial, because it seems too ‘worldly’, a hollow, perhaps hypocritical exercise.Becket occupies the same mixed position: a political saint.Chaucer thus leaves the nature of the pilgrimage open, and the nature of his poem as a result.He particularly allows us to see pilgrimage as natural, not religious, and as passing the time (through story-telling).

How does all this matter for the poem?

Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote The droghte of March hath perced to the roote, And bathed every veyne in swich licourOf which vertu engendred is the flour, Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth Inspired hath in every holt and heeth The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne Hath in the Ram his halve cours yronne, And smale foweles maken melodye, That slepen al the nyght with open ye (so priketh hem Nature in hir corages), Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages, And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes, To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes; And specially from every shires ende Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende, The hooly blisful martir for to seke, That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke. (lines 1-18)

Pilgrimage and Nature

Ye goon to Caunterbury - God yow speede,

The blisful martir quite yow youre meede!And wel I woot, as ye goon by the weye,Ye shapen yow to talen and to pleye,

775 For trewely, confort ne myrthe is noonTo ride by the weye doumb as stoon;And therfore wol I maken yow disport,As I seyde erst, and doon yow som

confort.

How the Host Understands Pilgrimage

Literature or fiction: may seem obvious, but it’s not. The Host’s reference to “passing the time” and “comfort.”

Key words otium (leisure), otiositas (idleness)Chanson d’aventure, or “One day I got up, it was a fine spring morning, and I went out to see what I could see.”

See also Epic (just): Zephirus as the museSatire, specifically “Estates Satire.”

Satire: depicts and critiques human behavior, often comically, by comparing it to ethical norms.

Estates Satire: Segments objects of satirical analysis into “estates” or professions, each with own

characteristics and ideals. Poem becomes an analysis of human society as a whole.

The Genres of The Canterbury Tales

1. Clerical versus Lay. How the church sees things, and also in theory the law courts.

1. “Clergy” divided into REGULAR and SECULAR

2. Borderline cases: church employees; educated people not part of church: lawyers, doctors, etc.

2. Three Estates: “Those who fight, those who work, those who pray”: Knights, Plowmen, Priests.

1. Incorporates division between church and state and between ruler and ruled.

2. Goes back to Anglo-Saxon England; is fundamentally rural (cf the “manor” house and its lands)

Social categories in the Fourteenth Century: The Theory

“Those who fight”: Knight, Squire

Problem cases: Franklin

“Those who pray”: Monk, Prioress, Second Nun, Nun’s Priest, Friar, Parson

Problem cases: Summoner (clerical employee); Man of Law? Physician? Clerk? Pardoner? Chaucer?

“Those who work”: Yeoman, Plowman

Problem cases: Merchant, Guildsman, Cook, Miller, Reeve, Shipman, Wife of Bath, Host

Social Categories in the Fourteenth Century: The Practice (General Prologue)

Three factors lead to this set of complications: 1) Growth of specialization of learning and complexity of

church structure; 2) growth of complexity of urban and rural society3) wealth, in particular trade.

Consequences:4) The representatives of the original, ‘three estates’ model

do not always live as they ideally should:Monk and Prioress; Knight; compare Parson, Plowman

5) Borderline members of the estates behave as though they are full members or suffer anxiety about their status:

Pardoner; Franklin

6) There is social tension between members of the same estateFriar and Summoner; Monk and Nun’s Priest; Miller and Reeve

7) We have to take great care in assessing the viewpoint of the speaker. We have to assess relation between Ideal and Practice (this is the special domain of satire)