The Prioress's Tale
Encyclopedia
"The Prioress's Tale" follows The Shipman's Tale
in Geoffrey Chaucer
's The Canterbury Tales
. Because of fragmentation of the manuscripts, it is impossible to tell where it comes in ordinal sequence, but it is second in group B2, followed by Chaucer's Tale of Sir Topas
. The General Prologue names the prioress
as Madame Eglantine, and describes her impeccable table manners and soft-hearted ways. Her portrait suggests she is likely in the clergy as a means of social advancement, given her aristocratic manners and mispronounced French. She maintains a secular lifestyle, including keeping lap dogs that she privileges over other people, a fancy rosary and brooch inscribed with "Amor vincit omnia" (Love Conquers All).
Her story is of a child martyr
killed by Jews, a common theme in Medieval Christianity, and much later criticism focuses on the tale's anti-Semitism
.
city. A seven-year-old school-boy, son of a widow, is brought up to revere Mary. He teaches himself the first verse of the popular Medieval
hymn 'Alma Redemptoris Mater' ("Nurturing Mother of the Redeemer
"); though he does not understand the words, an older classmate tells him it is about Mary. He begins to sing it every day as he walks to school through the Jews' street.
Satan
, 'That hath in Jewes' heart his waspe's nest', incites the Jews to murder the child and throw his body on a dungheap. His mother searches for him and eventually finds his body, which begins miraculously
to sing the 'Alma Redemptoris'. The Christians call in the provost of the city, who has the Jews drawn by wild horses and then hanged. The boy continues to sing throughout his burial service
until the holy abbot of the community asks him why he is able to sing. He replies that although his throat is cut, he has had a vision in which Mary laid a grain on his tongue and he will keep singing until it is removed. The abbot removes the grain and he dies.
The story ends with a mention of Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln
, another child martyr supposedly slain by Jews.
The story is an example of a class of stories, popular at the time, known as the miracles of the Virgin such as those by Gautier de Coincy
. It also blends elements of common story of a pious child killed by the enemies of the faith; the first example of which in English was written about William of Norwich
. Matthew Arnold
cited a stanza from the tale as the best of Chaucer's poetry.
stories common at the time. Chaucer's attitude toward the tale is less clear.
The Prioress' French accent is a sign of social climbing, yet her speech is modeled after the Stratford-at-Bow school, not the more desirable Parisian French. She makes her oaths by "Seint Loy" (St. Eligius
), the patron of, among others, goldsmiths. Her overzealousness to her pet dogs and to mice killed in traps is perhaps misdirected in a nun
, who might otherwise be serving the poor. The necklace she wears on her neck bears the Virgil
ian motto 'Amor vincit omnia' (love conquers all) is a dubious maxim
for a nun which perhaps takes the place of a rosary
and further illustrates her fascination with courtly love. In addition, the fact that Chaucer chose to set her tale in elaborate rhyme royal
, a rhyme scheme generally used in tales of courtly love, seems at odds with her tale's apparent emphasis on simple piety. Thus her portrayal as a character is not wholly positive. In fact, the language and structure of her prologue and tale have led many literary critics to argue that Chaucer is mocking the Prioress.
The Jews were banished from England
in 1290, one hundred years before the tale was written and so it had to be set in some un-named Asian city. This means that the Jews are an even more distant and unfocused evil quality than is usual in such stories. The Physician's Tale
is a similar story about an innocent child persecuted by an implacable enemy but without the anti-Semitic tone.
Her tale, with its emphasis on infantile faith, balances the Shipman's story of a too-sophisticated monk who sleeps with the wife of a friend. Both tales seem to describe extremes, faith without knowledge versus knowledge without faith.
While this says nothing about Chaucer's actual attitude toward Jews (and antipathy would have been entirely typical of the period), the Prioress's opinions should not be read as his own.
and the Prioress as the representatives of two radically different forms of religious expression. The Pardoner’s materialistic orientation, his suspicious relics and accusations of sinfulness (evident in his conflict with the Host) align him with Paul’s account of the “outward Jew, circumcised only in the flesh,” rather than the “inward” Jew of Romans
2.29 who is spiritually rather than literally circumcised: “the Pardoner, outwardly ‘a noble ecclesiaste,’ actually reduces Christianity to a code as rigorous and external as the Old Law itself.” In his tale, “the Pardoner presents death as the wages of sin, an effect of justice” while the “Prioress, through the paradox of martyrdom, shows it as mercy, an effect of grace.”
In “Criticism, Anti-Semitism and the Prioress’ Tale,” L.O. Fradenburg argues for a radical rereading of the binary oppositions between Christian and Jew, Old Law and New Law, literal and spiritual in the tale in part to critique the “patristic exegesis” of Sherman Hawkins’ earlier interpretation. Fradenburg challenges Hawkins’ “elision of the ‘literal’ or ‘carnal’ level of meaning in favour of the spiritual” by lingering on those moments in the tale, such as the “litel clergeon’s” transgressive rote memorization of the Alma Redemptoris, in which this elision fails, or succeeds only ambiguously . She traces the impossibility of ultimately separating and opposing Old and New Laws in the "Prioress’ Tale" back to a tension between letter and spirit internal to Paul’s discourse itself. Fradenburg gestures at a larger project of turning “patristic exegesis” against itself to read the contradictions revealed by the theological subtext of the tale.
Fradenburg notes that the substance of the "Prioress’ Tale" can be linked to the “’child-host’ miracle of the later Middle Ages
” which involved the substitution of the “actual body of the Christ Child” for the Eucharist
. Such miraculous tales appear designed to reaffirm faith in the miraculous efficacy of transubstantiation
in the face of the pressure of Lollard dissent, which broadly questioned the spiritual status of the Eucharist
and other Church traditions: relics, clerical celibacy, even pilgrimages. According to Fradenburg, these miraculous tales operate according to a paradoxical logic in which “visuality and carnality are used to insist upon the superior virtue of that which is beyond sight and flesh.” Yet such sacramental materialism remains vulnerable to the kinds of abuse more obviously associated with the Pardoner; Fradenburg cites the case of Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln
, the historical episode of the young English Christian supposedly martyred by Jews, “slayn also / With cursed Jewes, as it is notable / For it is but a litel while ago” (VII 684-686), tacked onto the end of the "Prioress’ Tale." The tale was intimately bound up with attempts to “aggrandise the spiritual prestige and temporal revenues” of the local cathedral. Thus the vivid “carnality” of the miraculous tale of martyrdom could be deployed as easily to enhance the worldly prominence of the Church as to refute heretical doctrine by reaffirming the spiritual legitimacy of Church rituals. The "Prioress' Tale" may approximate the greedy exploitation of spirituality embodied by The Pardoner's Prologue and Tale
insofar as it is indebted to tales of martyrdom circulated for worldly profit.
The Shipman's Tale
The Shipman's Tale is one of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.It is in the form of a fabliau and tells the story of a miserly merchant, his avaricious wife and her lover, a wily monk...
in Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer , known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages and was the first poet to have been buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey...
's The Canterbury Tales
The Canterbury Tales
The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer at the end of the 14th century. The tales are told as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together on a journey from Southwark to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at...
. Because of fragmentation of the manuscripts, it is impossible to tell where it comes in ordinal sequence, but it is second in group B2, followed by Chaucer's Tale of Sir Topas
Chaucer's Tale of Sir Topas
Sir Thopas is a story in Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales published in 1387.In Canterbury Tales, there is a character named Geoffrey Chaucer. Chaucer's portrait of himself is unflattering and humble. He presents himself as a reticent, maladroit figure who can barely summon a tale to mind...
. The General Prologue names the prioress
Priory
A priory is a house of men or women under religious vows that is headed by a prior or prioress. Priories may be houses of mendicant friars or religious sisters , or monasteries of monks or nuns .The Benedictines and their offshoots , the Premonstratensians, and the...
as Madame Eglantine, and describes her impeccable table manners and soft-hearted ways. Her portrait suggests she is likely in the clergy as a means of social advancement, given her aristocratic manners and mispronounced French. She maintains a secular lifestyle, including keeping lap dogs that she privileges over other people, a fancy rosary and brooch inscribed with "Amor vincit omnia" (Love Conquers All).
Her story is of a child martyr
Martyr
A martyr is somebody who suffers persecution and death for refusing to renounce, or accept, a belief or cause, usually religious.-Meaning:...
killed by Jews, a common theme in Medieval Christianity, and much later criticism focuses on the tale's anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
.
Plot
The story begins with an invocation to the Virgin Mary, then sets the scene in Asia, where a community of Jews live in a ChristianChristianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
city. A seven-year-old school-boy, son of a widow, is brought up to revere Mary. He teaches himself the first verse of the popular Medieval
Medieval poetry
Because most of what we have was written down by clerics, much of extant medieval poetry is religious. The chief exception is the work of the troubadours and the minnesänger, whose primary innovation was the ideal of courtly love. Among the most famous of secular poetry is Carmina Burana, a...
hymn 'Alma Redemptoris Mater' ("Nurturing Mother of the Redeemer
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
"); though he does not understand the words, an older classmate tells him it is about Mary. He begins to sing it every day as he walks to school through the Jews' street.
Satan
Satan
Satan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...
, 'That hath in Jewes' heart his waspe's nest', incites the Jews to murder the child and throw his body on a dungheap. His mother searches for him and eventually finds his body, which begins miraculously
Miracle
A miracle often denotes an event attributed to divine intervention. Alternatively, it may be an event attributed to a miracle worker, saint, or religious leader. A miracle is sometimes thought of as a perceptible interruption of the laws of nature. Others suggest that a god may work with the laws...
to sing the 'Alma Redemptoris'. The Christians call in the provost of the city, who has the Jews drawn by wild horses and then hanged. The boy continues to sing throughout his burial service
Requiem
A Requiem or Requiem Mass, also known as Mass for the dead or Mass of the dead , is a Mass celebrated for the repose of the soul or souls of one or more deceased persons, using a particular form of the Roman Missal...
until the holy abbot of the community asks him why he is able to sing. He replies that although his throat is cut, he has had a vision in which Mary laid a grain on his tongue and he will keep singing until it is removed. The abbot removes the grain and he dies.
The story ends with a mention of Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln
Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln
Hugh of Lincoln was an English boy, whose death prompted a blood libel with ramifications that reach until today. Hugh is known as Little Saint Hugh to distinguish him from Saint Hugh, otherwise Hugh of Lincoln. The style is often corrupted to Little Sir Hugh...
, another child martyr supposedly slain by Jews.
The story is an example of a class of stories, popular at the time, known as the miracles of the Virgin such as those by Gautier de Coincy
Gautier de Coincy
Gautier de Coincy was a French abbot, poet and musical arranger, chiefly known for his devotion to the Virgin Mary.While he served as prior of Vic-sur-Aisne he compiled Les Miracles de Nostre-Dame in which he set poems in praise of the Virgin Mary to popular melodies and songs of his...
. It also blends elements of common story of a pious child killed by the enemies of the faith; the first example of which in English was written about William of Norwich
William of Norwich
William of Norwich was an English boy whose death was, at the time, attributed to the Jewish community of Norwich. It is the first known medieval accusation of ritual murder against Jews....
. Matthew Arnold
Matthew Arnold
Matthew Arnold was a British poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the famed headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, literary professor, and William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator...
cited a stanza from the tale as the best of Chaucer's poetry.
- "My throte is kut unto my nekke boon,"
- Seyde this child, "and as by wey of kynde
- I sholde have dyed, ye, longe tyme agon.
- But Jesu Crist, as ye in bookes fynde,
- Wil that his glorie laste and be in mynde,
- And for the worship of his Mooder deere
- Yet may I synge O Alma loude and cleere.
Anti-Semitism
The tale is related to various blood libelBlood libel
Blood libel is a false accusation or claim that religious minorities, usually Jews, murder children to use their blood in certain aspects of their religious rituals and holidays...
stories common at the time. Chaucer's attitude toward the tale is less clear.
The Prioress' French accent is a sign of social climbing, yet her speech is modeled after the Stratford-at-Bow school, not the more desirable Parisian French. She makes her oaths by "Seint Loy" (St. Eligius
Saint Eligius
Saint Eligius is the patron saint of goldsmiths, other metalworkers, and coin collectors. He is also the patron saint of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers , a corps of the British Army, but he is best known for being the patron saint of horses and those who work with them...
), the patron of, among others, goldsmiths. Her overzealousness to her pet dogs and to mice killed in traps is perhaps misdirected in a nun
Nun
A nun is a woman who has taken vows committing her to live a spiritual life. She may be an ascetic who voluntarily chooses to leave mainstream society and live her life in prayer and contemplation in a monastery or convent...
, who might otherwise be serving the poor. The necklace she wears on her neck bears the Virgil
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...
ian motto 'Amor vincit omnia' (love conquers all) is a dubious maxim
Maxim (philosophy)
A maxim is a ground rule or subjective principle of action; in that sense, a maxim is a thought that can motivate individuals.- Deontological ethics :...
for a nun which perhaps takes the place of a rosary
Rosary
The rosary or "garland of roses" is a traditional Catholic devotion. The term denotes the prayer beads used to count the series of prayers that make up the rosary...
and further illustrates her fascination with courtly love. In addition, the fact that Chaucer chose to set her tale in elaborate rhyme royal
Rhyme royal
Rhyme royal is a rhyming stanza form that was introduced into English poetry by Geoffrey Chaucer.-Form:The rhyme royal stanza consists of seven lines, usually in iambic pentameter. The rhyme scheme is a-b-a-b-b-c-c. In practice, the stanza can be constructed either as a terza rima and two couplets...
, a rhyme scheme generally used in tales of courtly love, seems at odds with her tale's apparent emphasis on simple piety. Thus her portrayal as a character is not wholly positive. In fact, the language and structure of her prologue and tale have led many literary critics to argue that Chaucer is mocking the Prioress.
The Jews were banished from England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
in 1290, one hundred years before the tale was written and so it had to be set in some un-named Asian city. This means that the Jews are an even more distant and unfocused evil quality than is usual in such stories. The Physician's Tale
The Physician's Tale
The Physician's Tale is one of the Canterbury Tales written by Geoffrey Chaucer in the 14th century.This is a domestic drama about the relationship between a daughter and her father and it is one of the earliest extant poems in English about such subjects and relationships...
is a similar story about an innocent child persecuted by an implacable enemy but without the anti-Semitic tone.
Her tale, with its emphasis on infantile faith, balances the Shipman's story of a too-sophisticated monk who sleeps with the wife of a friend. Both tales seem to describe extremes, faith without knowledge versus knowledge without faith.
While this says nothing about Chaucer's actual attitude toward Jews (and antipathy would have been entirely typical of the period), the Prioress's opinions should not be read as his own.
The Prioress and the Pardoner
In “Chaucer’s Prioress and the Sacrifice of Praise,” Sherman Hawkins opposes the PardonerThe Pardoner's Prologue and Tale
"The Pardoner's Tale" is one of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. The story is in the form of an exemplum: the Pardoner first explains the theme he will address, then tells his story and finally draws the conclusion he had already mentioned in his introduction.-Summary:The tale is based on...
and the Prioress as the representatives of two radically different forms of religious expression. The Pardoner’s materialistic orientation, his suspicious relics and accusations of sinfulness (evident in his conflict with the Host) align him with Paul’s account of the “outward Jew, circumcised only in the flesh,” rather than the “inward” Jew of Romans
Epistle to the Romans
The Epistle of Paul to the Romans, often shortened to Romans, is the sixth book in the New Testament. Biblical scholars agree that it was composed by the Apostle Paul to explain that Salvation is offered through the Gospel of Jesus Christ...
2.29 who is spiritually rather than literally circumcised: “the Pardoner, outwardly ‘a noble ecclesiaste,’ actually reduces Christianity to a code as rigorous and external as the Old Law itself.” In his tale, “the Pardoner presents death as the wages of sin, an effect of justice” while the “Prioress, through the paradox of martyrdom, shows it as mercy, an effect of grace.”
In “Criticism, Anti-Semitism and the Prioress’ Tale,” L.O. Fradenburg argues for a radical rereading of the binary oppositions between Christian and Jew, Old Law and New Law, literal and spiritual in the tale in part to critique the “patristic exegesis” of Sherman Hawkins’ earlier interpretation. Fradenburg challenges Hawkins’ “elision of the ‘literal’ or ‘carnal’ level of meaning in favour of the spiritual” by lingering on those moments in the tale, such as the “litel clergeon’s” transgressive rote memorization of the Alma Redemptoris, in which this elision fails, or succeeds only ambiguously . She traces the impossibility of ultimately separating and opposing Old and New Laws in the "Prioress’ Tale" back to a tension between letter and spirit internal to Paul’s discourse itself. Fradenburg gestures at a larger project of turning “patristic exegesis” against itself to read the contradictions revealed by the theological subtext of the tale.
Fradenburg notes that the substance of the "Prioress’ Tale" can be linked to the “’child-host’ miracle of the later Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
” which involved the substitution of the “actual body of the Christ Child” for the Eucharist
Eucharist
The Eucharist , also called Holy Communion, the Sacrament of the Altar, the Blessed Sacrament, the Lord's Supper, and other names, is a Christian sacrament or ordinance...
. Such miraculous tales appear designed to reaffirm faith in the miraculous efficacy of transubstantiation
Transubstantiation
In Roman Catholic theology, transubstantiation means the change, in the Eucharist, of the substance of wheat bread and grape wine into the substance of the Body and Blood, respectively, of Jesus, while all that is accessible to the senses remains as before.The Eastern Orthodox...
in the face of the pressure of Lollard dissent, which broadly questioned the spiritual status of the Eucharist
Eucharist
The Eucharist , also called Holy Communion, the Sacrament of the Altar, the Blessed Sacrament, the Lord's Supper, and other names, is a Christian sacrament or ordinance...
and other Church traditions: relics, clerical celibacy, even pilgrimages. According to Fradenburg, these miraculous tales operate according to a paradoxical logic in which “visuality and carnality are used to insist upon the superior virtue of that which is beyond sight and flesh.” Yet such sacramental materialism remains vulnerable to the kinds of abuse more obviously associated with the Pardoner; Fradenburg cites the case of Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln
Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln
Hugh of Lincoln was an English boy, whose death prompted a blood libel with ramifications that reach until today. Hugh is known as Little Saint Hugh to distinguish him from Saint Hugh, otherwise Hugh of Lincoln. The style is often corrupted to Little Sir Hugh...
, the historical episode of the young English Christian supposedly martyred by Jews, “slayn also / With cursed Jewes, as it is notable / For it is but a litel while ago” (VII 684-686), tacked onto the end of the "Prioress’ Tale." The tale was intimately bound up with attempts to “aggrandise the spiritual prestige and temporal revenues” of the local cathedral. Thus the vivid “carnality” of the miraculous tale of martyrdom could be deployed as easily to enhance the worldly prominence of the Church as to refute heretical doctrine by reaffirming the spiritual legitimacy of Church rituals. The "Prioress' Tale" may approximate the greedy exploitation of spirituality embodied by The Pardoner's Prologue and Tale
The Pardoner's Prologue and Tale
"The Pardoner's Tale" is one of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. The story is in the form of an exemplum: the Pardoner first explains the theme he will address, then tells his story and finally draws the conclusion he had already mentioned in his introduction.-Summary:The tale is based on...
insofar as it is indebted to tales of martyrdom circulated for worldly profit.