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W2782223438 abstract "Ch ' Co B aucers urt aron : Law and The Canterbury Tales Mary Flowers Braswell University ofAlabama, Birmingham Here may one find all sufficiently and all fully the whole course of a court baron . . . and the accusations and the defences and the delays and the days of love and the office ofthe steward how he shall speak when he holdeth the courts. And herewithal may a young man learn how he shall speak and see the manner [manor} distinctly. The Court Baron1 Apor,,Ja< institution of medie,al life was the Manot, °' Leet, Court, held generally once a year for cases concerning nuisance and frank pledge. Such courts were established for the maintenance of the services and duties stipulated for by lords of manors as due from their tenants and for determining disputes where the debt or damages did not exceed 40 shillings.2 In the late 1380s, when Chaucer was presumably writing The General Prologue, he was engrossed in cases remanded to him from Manor Courts, for he was Justice ofthe Peace for Kent. Although the cases do not survive, the oath ofoffice administered to Chaucer in June, 1386, indicates what his duties would be. His concerns were with innkeepers and others who have offended in the abuse of measures and weights in the selling of foodstuffs, and also with certain laborers and craftsmen and serving people and others who have offended against the provisions ofordinances 1 F. W. Maitland and William P. Baildon, eds., The Court Baron, Selden Society, vol. 4 (London: Bernard Quaritch, 1890), p. 20. 2 The Oxford Companion to Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), s.v. 29 STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER and statures established in chis regard for the common good of our kingdom of England concerning workers, craftsmen, servants, innkeepers, and others. (This jurisdiction includes} such (members} of the aforementioned category who have attempted to commit offenses or those who from this time forward shall pre sume to offend or to attempt to do so.3 Thus Chaucer would have heard cases involving innkeepers violating hos telry regulations, traders measuring with false weights, cooks who broke the victualing laws, and apprentices who did not adhere to the terms of their contracts. In an article published in 1941, Margaret Galway sug gested Chaucer's further association with the Manor Court. She speculated that from 1385 to 1389, when the poet was living in Kent, he was in the service of the king and queen and acted as overseer of one of Richard's estates, probably Eltham, in Kent, or Sheen, in Surrey.4 Chaucer knew this court as Justice of the Peace-he observed its litigants and read its laws, and he may have witnessed it first hand. Here I will suggest that, under neath the literary techniques and stylized conventions of The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer placed a legal palimpsest, complete with judge, scribe, and squabbling narrators-individuals who told tales designed to promote their own interests and debase their peers, in a tale-telling contest of sorts. Winning was key to survival: much depended on whose account was best.5 3 Martin M. Crow and Clair C. Olson, eds., Chaucer Life-Records (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1966), p. 352, my translation. My thanks to Hubert H. Harper for his suggestions on this passage. 4 Margaret Galway,Geoffrey Chaucer,JP and MP, MLR 36 (1941): 23-24. Chaucer's association with the law is well known. An examination of those records pertaining co his life reveals that he was both defendant and witness. He acted as surety before the King's Bench, the Sheriff's Court, and the Court of Common Pleas. During the decade of the 1380s he served alternately asJustice of the Peace for Kent, Member of Parliament, andJustice ad Inquirendum. The two full-length studies of Chaucer and law include an unpublished dissertation by Carol Ann Breslin,Justice and Law in Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales' (Ph.D. diss., Temple University, 1978), andJoseph Hornsby,Chaucerand the Law (Norman, Okla.: Pilgrim Books, 1988). For a useful bibliography of articles on Chaucer and law, seeJohn A. Alford and Dennis P. Seniff, eds.,Literatureand Lawin the Middle Ages (New York: Garland, 1984), pp. 58-71. 5 Several critics have pointed to Chaucer's use of law in The General Prologue, but not in this context. Hornsby, Chaucerand the Law, has cited incidences ofperformance anddebt agreement, and Elizabeth A. Dobbs has noted examples ofcovenant and debt,action of account, and contractual obligations . . . to plead cases; Literary, Legal, and Last Judgments in The Canterbury Tales, SAC 14 (1992): 31-52. Recently John H. Fisher has argued that, inthe creation ofdifferent voices, personalities, and points of view for the different pilgrims, Chaucer was influenced by certain formularies (see n. 11 below) on letter writing-the an dictaminis used by the law court-that he learned during his clerical training in the inns of chancery; The Importance ofChaucer (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1992), pp. 37--69. 30 CHAUCER'S COURT BARON Stories (narrationes in Latin or tales in English)6 from the Manor Court can be found in court-keeping manuals, where details not available in the actual, often abbreviated, records are set down. These works proliferated in the late Middle Ages and were not merely available but, in fact, indispens able for anyone like Chaucer who was involved in law.7 Those who pled or held courts-for example, justices, stewards, bailiffs of various kinds were advised to know the customs of that county, hundred, court or manor, and the franchises pertain ing to the premises, for laws and customs differ in divers places, and should have the articles ofthe franchise and the customs and the attachments in his hand that the pleading may be in due order.8 Since all those connected with the court were expected to know as well the precedents of previous pleas, and since ignorance of them would directly affect one's quality of life, we may be certain that these manuals were put to considerable use. Chaucer's own references to the Manor Court seem carefully thought out. H. Y. Moffett notes that they represent intimate knowledge of the manor such as no mere city-dweller could possess. Every allusion to the details ofrural life is eloquent of the reality.9 Such particu lars are reflected in the Tales. The structure of the Manor Courts was always the same. Scheduled for April (or late March)--when all things are opening-they were con vened by a bailiff or bailee, who was instructed by the agricultural man uals to rise early in the morning10 and to maintain discipline among those assembled before him.11 The formularies began with a formal count, where each individual was introduced, often by his occupation (John the Innkeeper, Roger the Miller, Robert the Carpenter, Thomas the Clerk, and so on), and by a brief statement of his or her alleged transgression: 6 Henry Campbell Black,Black's LawDictionary, 5th ed. (St. Paul, Minn., 1951), defines a narrator as a pleader, and a tale as the plaintiff's count, declaration, or narrative of his case; s.v. 7 SeeJames R. Hulbert,Chaucer's OfficialLife (1912; rpt., New York: Phaeton, 1970), pp. 85-86. In their introduction co The Court Baron, p. 4, Maitland and Baildon note that manuals on court keeping were in considerable demand and contained similar material because contemporary publishers copied directly from one another.The authors go on to list a number ofthese manuscripts. 8 Maitland and Baildon, eds., Court Baron, p. 68. 9 H. Y. Moffett, Oswald the Reeve, PQ 4 (1925): 208. rn H. G. Richardson and G. 0. Sayles, eds., Fleta 2, Selden Society, vol. 72 (London: Bernard Quaritch, 1955), pp. 246, 244. 11 T. F. T. Plucknett, The Mediaeval Bailiff(London: Athlone, 1954), p. 6. 31 STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER John of the Jewry, taverner, has a lean-to at his little tavern, co the nuisance of riders and passers there.12 Or: Richard Lewin, baker . . . buys corn at Hertford mill, whereby the Bailiffs lose toll.13 The cast of characters reflected in the Leet rolls varies widely and ranges from wealthy merchants and secular clerics to the lowliest plowman (with an occasional prioress and mendicant friar). But certain figures appear with such regularity that one can assume their widespread association with this court. These are the dishonest reeve, the miller who sells by false weights, and the cook who warms up meat, fish and pasties after the second or third day.14 After all tales have been heard and all sentences meted out, the crew adjourns to an inn15 for soper and, no doubt, for mirth. With this information in mind, let us consider The Canterbury Tales. Like the assemblage at the Manor Court, Chaucer's pilgrims, too, convene in April, when the rain regenerates the crops, and are gathered together by Harry Bailly (Bail�), perhaps modeled on one Henri Bailiff, himself associated with law.16 The Host arises early-whan that day bigan to 12 William Hudson, ed., Leet Jurisdiction in the City of Norwich, Selden Society, vol. 5 (London: Bernard Quaritch, 1892), p. 7. In their introduction to The Court Baron, Maitland and Baildon define formularies as model court rolls, . . . little treatises in which stewards, clerks, and pleaders might learn their duties; p. 3. Although formularies are also books for the composition of charters, letters, and ocher grants (OxfordCompanion to Law, s.v.), it is in the former sense that the term will be used here. 13 Hudson, ed., LeetJurisdiction, p. 28. Although there are no studies on the importance of occupation to the Leet Court rolls,Jacques Le Goff, Time, Work, and Culture in the Middle Ages (Chicago: Universicy of Chicago Press, 1980), has examined the role of the professions in the confessional manuals. He notes chat in the late Middle Ages each man's new consciousness of himself came to him only through the estate to which he belonged, the professional group of which he was a part, or the trade in which he engaged; p. 114. Manuals began to group sinners not by the sins they committed but by their trades, i.e., not by sloth, luxuria, and wrath alone but by judges' sins, peasants' sins, mechanics' sins, etc.; p. 119. A comparison of chis aspect of confessional manuals with the roll call of the Leet Court should yield valuable insights into the concept of the medieval Estate. 14 See, for example, Hudson, ed., LeetJurisdiction in the City ofNorwich, pp. 13, 16, 32, 60, 71; Richardson and Sayles, eds., Fleta 2, p. 122. 1 � W. Carew Hazlitt, ed., Tenures of Land and Customs of Manors (London: Reeves & Turner, 1874), pp. 238-39. 16 See Dobbs, Literary, Legal, and LaseJudgments, p. 47. 32 CHAUCER'S COURT BARON sprynge (GP 822)17-and announces himself as judge,18 warning the pilgrims that Whoso be rebel to my juggement / Shal paye . . . (lines 833-34). Ultimately these characters, too, expect to feast at an inn, though Chaucer never carries his plan so far. And they, too, tell tales that reflect the tellers, stories dutifully recorded by a scribe. Mindful of his grave responsi bility in this regard, and wanting to make certain that his own copying is free from errors, Chaucer the pilgrim says (lines 731-36, 739): Whoso shal telle a tale after a man, He moot reherce as ny as evere he kan Everich a word, if it be in his charge, Al speke he never so rudeliche and large, Or ellis he moot telle his tale untrewe, Or feyne thyng, or fynde wordes newe. Crist spak hymself ful brode in hooly writ.... In these lines reherce, charge, feyne, untrewe, and writ are all part of medieval legal jargon. Like the narrator in a law court, Chaucer takes his oath: he will do the best he can to represent the lawbreakers in his own group. Chaucer's own awareness of the sacredness of language is repre sented in this passage: his persona reveres the spoken word, and as scribe he will make sure his transcription is correct. An examination of a typical court-keeping record furnishes additional parallels between the Manor Court and the Tales. The Modus Tenendi Curias, a manuscript dating from the reign of Edward III, represents an imaginary manorial court at Weston and is a formulaty designed to clarify procedure for legal assemblies.19 First the offenders are introduced to the court.Alongside the miller, the reeve, and the cook (all breaking their usual laws) are other familiar characters and motifs. A man with his dogs, for example, hunts the hare on his lord's property without license to do so. One individual counterfeits money, stealing gold and silver and melting and mixing it with tin. Another pilfers his neighbor's com at night by the horse-loads, and still another steals his lord's oxen, horses, pigs, and 17 All citations of Chaucer's works are from Larry D. Benson, gen. ed., The Riverside Chaucer, 3d ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987). 18 Earlier critics have noted Harry Bailly's magisterial qualities, but not in this context. See, for example, Rodney Delasanta, The Theme ofJudgment in The Canterbury Tales, MLQ 31 (1970): 298-307. Delasanta sees the Host as a parody ofa divine judge whose decrees must be obeyed upon pain ofpunishment; p. 299. 19 MS Cambridge University Library Ee.iv.20, reprinted in Maitland and Baildon, eds., Court Baron, pp. 93-106. 33 STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER sheep. A maiden is ravished against her will; a man is a nightwalker, haunting the tavern; a plaintiffis awarded a love-day. Additional properties are associated with this group assembled before the judge-a smith's coul ter, a disreputable tavern, a hidden treasure-all employed in some illicit way. Although the roll call ofthe Leet Court resembles in certain respects the listing of the Canterbury pilgrims-the Miller, the Reeve, and the Cook, for example, and Chaucer's use ofthe bailiff and the scribe--! do not mean to overstate my case here. Chaucer clearly uses other characters for which there are no manorial precedents. The origins for these may lie in people Chaucer actually knew, as John Manly has suggested, or in estates satire, as Jill Mann has proposed. Or, as Carl Lindahl has theorized, Chaucer might have been influenced by the membership list of some of the parish guilds.20 But, significantly, for those professions most often represented at the Manor Courts, there are no surrogates. Such characters come full blown into estates satire only with Chaucer21 and do not appear in the guild rolls at all.22 Furthermore, The Canterbury Tales employs a narrative strategy common to the court as well: after the group has been received by the bailiff, its members are called upon to tell their stories-their narrationes or tales which often stemmed from their professions or trades. Here the tale is literally an extension of the teller. When in The Canterbury Tales we find a Miller and a Reeve at odds, or when we see an Innkeeper and a Cook, a Summoner, and a Friar whose professional rivalries predate the pilgrimage, we praise Chaucer's originality in creating lifelike characters who interact. But in the manuscripts from the Manor Courts and on the manors them selves, such professional rivalry was the norm. One person could not carry out his assigned task because another trespassed or cheated or sold putrid food or measured out the flour falsely. And these people told their tales against each other, both their motivation and their bias being manifest.23 Perhaps in some ofthe lesser courts such individuals spoke for themselves. Generally, however, a professional pleader, a narrator, was called upon to 20 See, respectively,John Manley,Some New Light on Chaucer (New York: Holt, 1926);Jill Mann, Chaucer and Medieval Estates Satire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973); Carl Lindahl, Earnest Games (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), p. 26. 21 Mann, Chaucer and Medieval Estates Satire, pp. 160-70. 22 Lindahl, Earnest Games, p. 29. 23 J. H. Baker, An Introduction to English Legal History, 3d ed. (London: Butterworths, 1990), p. 91, notes the options open to the defendant. He might issue a denial (a traverse), a confession, or an avoidance. Or, after the plaintiffnarrated his facts, he could deny those facts (or one of them), or admit them and show that they did not entitle the plaintiff to succeed. See Dobbs, Literary, Legal, and LastJudgments, p. 44. 34 CHAUCER'S COURT BARON organize the information he had been given and to present the crude words of each defendant as truly as he could; his duty, therefore, was to tell their tales exactly as they spoke them. As M. T. Clanchy has noted, The 'narra tor' was thus a 'romancer,' a professional teller oftales in the vernacular, but his 'tales' were legal pleadings and not romances in the modem sense.24 Chaucer, of course, is a romancer in the modem sense, but when his work is placed in the legal context described above, certain words from the poet to his audience evoke the older, jurisprudential idea as well. Like the court narrator, he is interested in verisimilitude and in presenting his tales just right. And, like many a lawyer, he is concerned with the artistry ofthe story per se.25 But Chaucer goes well beyond the function of the attorney when he transforms his sources into art. Donald Howard has suggested that Chaucer's study of court cases af fected his art in another way: in his creation of memorable characters. The very open-endedness ofthese cases-a tale or a character left incomplete or with several alternatives suggested-led him to generate a particular lin guistic skill: He developed a way of saying only and exactly what he meant-and seemed to be implying something more, precisely because he said no more than what he did. The technique produced those ambiguous characters who are so lifelike because we know them as we know real people, incompletely: the Wife of Bath, with her unrecounted (but evidently significant) youth and her apparent child lessness; the Merchant, of whose indebtedness no one knew anything; the Prior ess, who emulated the appearances of the court. And Chaucer was drawn to ambiguous stories, stories that end in a question, a twist, or a surprise. Ambigu ity of this kind is not something one finds in medieval literature; one finds mystery and wordplay, and sometimes a playful tone on the author's part, but not this spare, inscrutable presentation of facts, themselves ambiguous, that are limited as evidence, invite questions-are, in the traditional phrase, moot. Cases are reported happenings about which the inquiring mind seeks to pass a judg ment, inquire out a meaning.26 24 M. T. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979), p. 221. Natalie Zemon Davis, Fiction in the Archives (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1987), pp. 18ff., notes the storytelling qualities in certain sixteenth-century French letters of remission. Because many of the advocates were highly educated and went on to write literature other than the legal (including poems and plays), and because the best pleas were often published and publicly admired, lawyers approached by a suppliant with a letter ofremission were likely to be interested not only in the law itselfbut also in the literary qualities of the material. 26 Donald Howard, Chaucer: His Life, His Works, His World (New York: Dutton, 1987), pp. 77-78. 35 STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER Ifthe poet found this implicit, ambiguous style ofthe courtroom compati ble with his own art, he would have had considerable opportunity to prac tice it. Although Howard did not discuss it further, this equivocal technique can be illustrated from the court-keeping manuals. Extant records of the Manor Courts, particularly formularies, often include pleas. These are, however, more elliptical than we would wish, for formularies were in tended merely to guide the court officials in carrying out their duties, not to provide a detailed accounting of events. But even in their incomplete form these documents present us with characters who are steeped in ambi guity and intrigue. An example from The Court Baron where a case is brought against one Thomas the Fishmonger, accused of selling stinking fish, will serve to illustrate. The case is set up as a dialogue, using first person narration. The bailiff begins by stating: Thomas the Fishmonger, thou art attached to answer in this court, wherefore on such a day . . . thou didst sell in full market fish stinking and rotten and in every wise corrupt against the establishment of the vill, to wit, that no fish monger do for the purpose of selling more dearly retain his fish so that it be cometh stinking and rotten or in any wise corrupt, whereby one may receive harm or damage or sickness of body; and as to this it is sufficiently testified by good folk of the vill that divers folk of the vill by reason of the stench and corruption of thy fish, which thou soldest on such a day, have had damage and great sickness of body. How wilt thou amend this trespass?27 If this charge against Thomas is true, then he is a rascal indeed. Hoping to hold out his fish for a better price, he kept them until they rotted. Al though aware ofthe pertinent laws (as all fishmongers were required to be), he nevertheless willingly sold his putrid merchandise to the unsuspecting public. As a result, many people became gravely ill. Yet this is but one side of the story. Now Thomas must have his say: Sir, for good fish and newly caught and without any kind of corruption, I bought it, and for such I sold it.28 Poor Thomas, it is not his fault. The blame, he notes, should rightly go to a third party, who sold the stinking cargo to the innocent fishmonger. As 27 Maitland and Baildon, eds., Court Baron, pp. 50--51. 28 Ibid., p. 51. 36 CHAUCER'S COURT BARON the bailiffmakes instantly clear, however, the story Thomas is telling is not quite the tale he had in mind: Thomas, right true it is that for good and new fish and without corruption thou boughtest it, but I tell thee well that by reason that thou didst long keep it to sell it more dearly did it become stinking and rotten. Such was the fish that thou soldest, and to this will thou answer? Thomas has been guilry ofprice gouging, an activiry deplored by medieval legal treatises. Thus he has committed two crimes. The alleged condition ofthe fish when he bought them is irrelevant, for he, not the original seller, is on trial. So Thomas tries again: Sir, that fish was good and not rotten or corrupt on the market day when I sold it and that never by reason ofthis fish was any ill or damage or sickness occasioned, of this I freely put myself on the vill. Regardless of the charge, Thomas counters, I am entirely innocent. Those who claimed my fish sickened them were liars. But can we believe the fishmonger's tale? The record ends with Ideo inquiratur (Therefore be this inquired), and we can never know whether Thomas callously and greedily committed the deed or whether the charge is against an innocent man. Throughout his tale-telling ordeal, Thomas is directed by a bailiff, who makes certain that the story to come is narrated his way. The fishmonger is to tell about the buying of stinking fish, and when he veers from his main story line to blame certain others, the bailiff refuses to listen-this is not the tale he called for, and Thomas must go back on track. Throughout the court-keeping manuals, the bailiff functions this way, and Chaucer's Harry Bailly--determined that this pilgrim will not preche and that that one will tell som myrthe or japes right anon and that still another will not tell his tale at all---evokes this manorial legal role. Elizabeth Dobbs has noted that the Host's speech to the pilgrims at the Tabard Inn (GP 788809 ) contains such specific legal language that he transforms a promise to tell tales and to obey into a legally binding agreement.29 And such language is sometimes carried over into the prologues of the individual 29 Dobbs, Literary, Legal, and Last Judgments, p. 41. 37 STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER tales, as when Harry Bailly reminds the Man ofLaw that he must Tell us a tale anon, as forward is-forward meaning not only a simple agree ment, but also a legal promise30 (MLP 34--42): Ye been submytted, thurgh youre free assent, To stonden in this cas at my juggement. Acquiteth yow now of youre biheeste; Thanne have ye do youre devoir atte leeste. Hooste, quod he, depardieux, ich assente; To breke forward is nat myn entente. Biheste is dette, and I wole holde fayn Al my biheste, I kan no bettre sayn. Without its legal context this interchange would indeed seem strange. It is apparent from the document of Thomas and his fish that persons who appeared before the law courts were presented in two distinctly con tradictory ways. Eager to escape punishment, the litigant (or, more likely, the litigant's pleader) would place himself in the best conceivable light. But the opposition simultaneously presented the individual in the worst possible way. Two stories were told about the one man, and they did not coincide. Thus to an impartial observer the accused became an equivocality, a complex individual with mystery buried inside him. He alone knew exactly what he had done. The outsider could only scrutinize and, finally, could only guess. One who attended Thomas's trial was forced to wonder about the outcome at this juncture. At a later date the issue would presum ably be resolved. But one who only happened to be studying the court documents searching for precedents was destined to be mired in the ambi guiry ofthe situation, as though he had stumbled onto a single chapter in a novel and was forced to work forward and backward. Almost never is there a definite ending. There are alternatives to be sure, based on the various possible laws that might be applicable to the text. And there is often the frustrating etc., where the narrative was assigned to the oral tradition and is now forever lost. The bailiffwho assembled his group must decide which story, the prosecutor's or the defendant's, was superior to the other. Ulti mately the winner was the one who told the best tale. Throughout his legal career----as member of Parliament,Justice of the Peace,·andJustice ad lnquirendum---Chaucer would have listened to cases 30 Dobbs, ibid., p. 32, notes the legal definition offorward, or foreward, but not in connection with this pilgrim. 38 CHAUCER'S COURT BARON and studied documents like this one, and the characteristic ambiguity of such tales as Thomas's might well have influenced the poet's mature style. When one reads the portraits ofthose lawbreakers in The General Prologue, for example, one can clearly discern the court's two voices. The Monk is worthy to have been an abbot, yet he was a prikasour aright, breaking the very rules of an order he had sworn to uphold. The Friar was both a solempne and a worthy man, yet he shunned those lepers and beggars to whom he should have ministered in favor of franklins and worthy wommen ofthe toun. The Manciple set an example for all buyers in being so careful with his purchases, yet he stole from his master and deceived everyone. In determining the essence ofChaucer's characters, it is necessary to examine all the facts one can acquire and then to view them from first one side and then the other. Chaucer's most intricate characters are de picted in this spare, ambiguous way. From a legal perspective, one of Chaucer's most intriguing pilgrims is Roger the Cook. On the one hand, he obeys the laws ofa trade in which he excels. His dishes-mortreux and blankmanger-are delicacies. He is a master chefand is skilled in the use ofEngland's best spices. Yet, viewed from another angle, he is guilty ofprofessional violations. The mormal on his shin suggests a venereal disease-he is at least unclean. And, if Harry Bailly is correct in his accusations, the pasties in his shop hath been twies hoot and twies coold (CkP 4348). He is guilty ofthe same violation as the cooks ofmany a manor. These two voices, heard simultaneously, have been referred to as those of Chaucer the Pilgrim-ignorant and naive-and Chaucer the Poet-wise and aware. And this is true. But one can also determine two diametrically opposed case studies ofHodge ofWare, whose very identity is probably owing to his appearance as a nightwalker before a fourteenth-century London court.3l The ambiguity surrounding tale and teller places Chaucer's pilgrims squarely in the tradition of the fallible narrator, an issue central to any case at court. As V. A. Kolve has argued in another context, Chaucer ...brings forth every pilgrim portrait under the shadow ofthe phrase so it semed me (1.39), and in that modest stipulation ...he invites us into a realm more problematic by far, more painful in its uncertainties and in its steady sense ofhuman limitation.In The Canterbury Tales as a whole, no man's essence is ever free of accident, no human life entirely reducible to the clarity and consis tency of idea, and no man's privitee-his deepest and most inward being- . ll Earl D. Lyon, MLN 52 (1937): 491-94. 39 STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER ultimately knowable except by God alone. By turning his central characters into narrators, Chaucer was able to investigate human personality in its fullest and richest detail, without in any sense violating its ultimate mysteries.32 Such is the technique of the law courts and of Chaucer's mature art. Our attitude toward Chaucer's pilgrims helps us in judging their tales an assumption true in a court of law as well. To determine who is guilty, the people of the vill or Thomas the fishmonger, those present used their prior knowledge of the persons involved, listened to character witnesses on the stand, determined how those people felt, and then considered what the litigants themselves had to" @default.
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W2782223438 title "Chaucer’s “Court Baron”: Law and The Canterbury Tales" @default.
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