Trouthe is the Highest Thing by Robert B. Waltz - HTML preview

Index

Characters in medieval writings have the sources listed in (parentheses), e.g. “Absolon (The Miller’s Tale)” refers to the character Absolon in The Miller’s Tale in The Canterbury Tales.

 

3 Esdras 3

Abraham (Biblical Patriarch) 11

Absolon (The Miller’s Tale) 17, 67

Achilles (Troilus and Criseyde) 66, 71

Adam Scriven, Chaucer’s scribe 54–55

“Adam Scriven”: See: “Chaucers Wordes unto Adam, His Owne Scriveyn”

Æneas (Virgil) 51

Aeneid (Virgil) 51

Alcyone (The Book of the Duchess) 67

Alexander, Lloyd 60

Alighieri, Dante: See: Dante

Alisoun (The Miller’s Tale) 17, 65, 67

Alisoun, the Wife of Bath (Canterbury Tales) 18, 22–25, 35, 40, 61, 63

Anne of Bohemia, Queen of Richard II 70

Antenor (Troilus and Criseyde) 64, 71

Antony, Mark (Legend of Good Women) 46

Arcite (The Knight’s Tale) 5, 13–15, 17, 31, 36, 45, 49, 63–65, 67

Arthur, King 19–23, 40, 63–64

Arveragus (The Franklin’s Tale) 29–32, 42, 63–64, 68

Asperger’s Syndrome: See: Geoffrey Chaucer/autism and…

Augustine of Hippo, Saint 53

Aurelius (The Franklin’s Tale) 29–32, 63–64, 68

Baggins, Frodo (Tolkien) 60

Bailly, Harry: See: the Host

“Balade de Bon Conseyl” 61–62, 67

Balin, Sir (Malory) 42

“Beauty and the Beast” 18, 22

Becket, St. Thomas 41, 67

Bevis of Hampton 7

Bible

2 Timothy 3.16 61

3 Esdras 4.41 3

John  8.32 61

John 18.38 3

Matthew 20.26-27 23

Romans 15.4 61

Black Death 46

Black Knight (The Book of the Duchess) 42, 45, 63, 67

Blanche (The Book of the Duchess) 42, 67

Boccaccio, Giovanni 8–9, 11–15, 26, 31, 36, 45, 53

Boethius 14–15, 28, 40, 42

Book of the Duchess, The 42, 45, 48–49, 51–53, 56–57, 67

Brandybuck, Merry (Tolkien) 60

Breton Lays 26–28, 60

Calchas, father of Criseyde (Troilus and Criseyde) 64

Cambyuscan (Genghis Khan) (The Squire’s Tale) 68

Canon, The (Canterbury Tales) 69

Canon’s Yeoman (Canterbury Tales) 69

Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale 54, 57, 69

anterbury Tales

order of 24, 50, 67

Carroll, Lewis 52

Caxton, William, edition of Canterbury Tales by 24

Cecilia, Saint (Second Nun’s Tale) 69

 Chaucer, Geoffrey

as character in his own works 35, 51, 55–58, 63

Augustinianism, attitude toward 9

autism and 2, 44–47, 49–59

Bible of 3

books and reading, love of 53

careers of 48

cataloguing in verse 59

Catholic Church, attitude toward 24, 40

characterization in 45

charged with raptus 47–48

death of 50

depression in 46, 53

ending of Canterbury Tales 50

foreign languages and 58, 60

French capture of, in 1359 47, 55

handling of sources 13–14, 18, 21–22, 31, 34

humor in 46, 52

inability to finish writings 49–50

insight into animals’ perspective 51–52

insomnia of 53, 57, 63

knighthood, attitude toward 56

love in 5, 7, 15, 32, 37, 45–46

lovesickness of 48

magic in 40

masks and hiding the personality 58

natural philosophy (science) and 57

parents of 48

physical condition and weight of 55, 57

poetic forms in 28

portrays self as simple-minded 51

suicide in 29, 46

sympathy for women 51

synesthesia and 49

theology in 11, 24–25, 41, 61

trouthe and 1–4, 7–8, 12, 23, 31, 39, 42–43

war, attitude toward 55

worry and anxiety 57

Chaucer, John, father of Geoffrey 48

Chaucer, Philippa, wife of Geoffrey 44, 46–47

Chaucer, Thomas, son of Geoffrey 47, 56

“Chaucers Wordes unto Adam, His Owne Scriveyn” 54, 69

Chaumpaigne, Cecelia 47

Chauntecleer (Nun’s Priest’s Tale) 52, 63, 69

 Chrétien de Troyes 18, 39

Chronicles of Prydain (Alexander) 60

Clerk of Orleans (The Franklin’s Tale) 29–30, 32, 40, 63, 68

Clerk, The (Canterbury Tales) 24, 44, 53

Clerk’s Tale 8–12, 24–26, 32, 44, 50, 68

Cok and the Jasp, The (Henryson) 52

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor 45

“Complaint to His Purse” 56, 69

“Complaint Unto Pity,” The 38, 70

Confessio Amantis 18

Consolation of Philosophy 14, 40

see also: Boethius 

Constance (The Man of Law’s Tale) 34, 68

Conte del Graal (Chrétien) 18

Cook’s Tale 7, 49, 68

courtly love 15, 30

Cresseid (Henryson’s Testament of Cressied) 37

Criseyde (Troilus and Criseyde) 7, 36, 39, 45–46, 56, 59, 64–66, 71: See also Cresseid

Crow, Phebus’s 38, 69

Cupid and Psyche myth 9

Custance: See: Constance

Damian (The Merchant’s Tale) 68

Dante 40

Decameron (Boccaccio) 9

Diana 13

Diomedes (Troilus and Criseyde) 37, 64, 71

Dorigen (The Franklin’s Tale) 1, 29–32, 44, 46, 61, 63–64, 68

Douglas, Gavin 51

Edward I 56

Edward II 44, 56

Edward III 38, 53

Emaré 28

Emelye (The Knight’s Tale) 5, 13, 15–17, 63–65, 67

Eolus (The House of Fame) 49

Erle of Tolous 28

eucatastrophe (romance happy ending) 26, 31, 37

Euridice 28, 65

fabliau (tale-type) 6

Filocolo (Boccaccio) 26, 31

Filostrato (Boccaccio) 36

Floire et Blanceflor 26

–: See also Floris and Blanchefleur

Florent (Confessio Amantis) 18, 21–22

Floris and Blanchefleur 26, 34

Flower and the Leaf, The 25

Franklin, The (Canterbury Tales) 34, 64, 68

Franklin’s Tale 1–2, 4, 6–8, 14, 16, 23–24, 26, 28–32, 33–34, 39–40, 42, 50, 60, 68

Friar, The (Canterbury Tales) 68

Friar’s Tale 68

“Frog Prince, The” 18

Froissart, Jean 47

Gamelyn 7, 40

Gamgee, Sam (Tolkien) 60

Garden (of Eden, of Love, etc.) 29, 31

Gawain-Poet 39, 53

Gawain, Sir 19–22, 42, 63–64

General Prologue of the Canterbury Tales 5–6, 56, 58

gentilesse (gentillesse) 26, 31–32, 39–40

Gest of Robyn Hode 35, 40

Gollum (Tolkien) 60

Gower, John 18–19, 21–23, 56

Grandin, Temple 52

Great Schism 40

Green Chapel (Sir Gawain & Green Knight) 42

Griselda (The Clerk’s Tale) 1, 8–12, 15, 24, 31, 43–45, 61, 64, 66, 68

Gromer Somer Joure, Sir 19–20, 22, 63

Guinevere, Queen 22

Guy of Warwick A 35

Guy of Warwick B 35

Havelok the Dane 28, 34, 42

Henry II 44

Henry IV 38, 56, 69

Henryson, Robert 37, 52

Heurodis (wife of Orfeo) 26, 28, 65

Hortus Deliciarum 41

Host, The (Canterbury Tales) 6, 26, 32, 34, 41, 50, 55, 57–58, 64, 67, 69

House of Fame, The 28, 47, 49–53, 55, 57, 59, 70

Isaac (Biblical Patriarch) 11

January (The Merchant’s Tale) 7, 65, 68

Job (biblical sufferer) 11

John of Gaunt 44, 47, 56, 63, 67

John, King 44

Knight, The (Canterbury Tales) 7, 17, 35, 56, 65, 69

Knight’s Tale 5, 11, 13–15, 17, 25, 31–32, 34, 36, 38–40, 42, 46, 56, 67

“Lak of Stedfastnesse” 38, 70

Lay le Freine 27–28, 34

Lay of Aotrou and Itroun (Tolkien) 60

Legend of Good Women 13–14, 37, 46, 49, 59, 70

prologue of 25, 37, 53, 70

“Lenvoy de Chaucer a Scogan” 55, 70

Leonard, Saint 47

Loathly Husband 22

Loathly Lady (Wife of Bath’s Tale) 18–20, 22–24, 40, 63, 65, 68

: See also: Ragnall, Dame

Lord of the Rings, The (Tolkien) 5, 60

Malory, Sir Thomas 42

Man of Law’s Tale 14, 34, 68

Manciple’s Tale 38, 69

Marie de France 27–28, 32

Marriage Group in the Canterbury Tales 24

“Marriage of Sir Gawain” (ballad/romance) 18, 21

Mars 13, 63

May (The Merchant’s Tale) 7, 65, 68

Melibee (The Tale of Melibee) 35, 69

Melibee, Tale of 35, 55, 69

Merchant, The (Canterbury Tales) 22, 24, 32, 65

Merchant’s Tale 7, 22, 24, 28, 31–32, 45, 58, 68

“Merciles Beaute” 37, 70

Miller, The (Canterbury Tales) 17, 24, 56, 65, 67

Miller’s Tale 6, 17, 22, 56, 67

Miracle of the Virgin (tale-type) 6, 69

Monk, The (Canterbury Tales) 69

Monk’s Tale 59, 69

Morte Arthur (alliterative and/or stanzaic) 34–35

“My feerfull dreme nevyr forgete can I” 53

Nicholas (The Miller’s Tale) 17, 67

Nun’s Priest’s Tale 52–53, 69

Olympia (Boccaccio) 53

Orfeo (Sir Orfeo) 26, 40, 65

Orpheus 28, 65

Palamon (The Knight’s Tale) 5, 13–17, 31, 45, 63–65, 67

Pandarus (Troilus and Criseyde) 36, 46, 52, 56, 65–66, 71

Pardoner’s Tale 35, 39, 68

Parlement of the Thre Ages, The 53

Parliament of Fowls 5, 51–53, 57, 70

Parson, The (Canterbury Tales) 50

Parson’s Tale 4, 50, 69

Pearl (Gawain-Poet) 53

Percival 18

Percy Folio 18

Pertelote (Nun’s Priest’s Tale) 52, 63, 69

Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca) 9–12, 44

Phebus (The Manciple’s Tale) 38, 69

philosophical romance 14, 39

Physician’s Tale 35, 68

Piers Plowman 53

Pilate, Pontius 3

Pinkhurst, Adam: See: Adam Scriven, Chaucer’s scribe

Potter, Harry (Rowling) 60

Priam, King (Troilus and Criseyde) 65

Prioress, The (Canterbury Tales) 5

Prioress’s Tale 69

Prudence (The Tale of Melibee) 35, 69

Pyramus (Legend of Good Women) 46

Ragnall, Dame, Loathly Lady 19–21, 63–64

rash promise (folklore motif) 26, 30–31, 63

Reeve, The (Canterbury Tales) 56, 65

Reeve’s Tale 6, 17, 56, 67

Retraction of the Canterbury Tales 50, 61

Richard II 38, 53, 56, 69–70

Robert of Sicily 34

Robin Hood 7

Roët, Katherine and Philippa: See: Katherine Swynford and Philippa Chaucer

Romance of the Rose 49, 51, 53

Rowling, J. K. 5, 60

Saint’s Life (tale-type) 6

Second Nun’s Tale 69

Shakespeare, William 6, 46, 71

Shipman’s Tale 69

Shirley, John (scribe) 38, 61

Sir Anonymous, Rapist (The Wife of Bath’s Tale) 21–24, 65, 68

Sir Degaré 28, 34

Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnall 18–23, 63–64

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 34–35, 40, 42, 64

Sir Gowther 28

Sir Launfal 28

Sir Orfeo 26–28, 34–35, 40, 42, 60

Sir Thopas 34–35, 55, 69

sovereignty, as condition of marriages 18, 20, 24–26, 29, 32, 63

Squire, The (Canterbury Tales) 65

Squire’s Tale 7, 34, 40, 49, 68

St. Hilary, Marie, mistress of John of Gaunt 47

Strode, Ralph 56

Summoner, The (Canterbury Tales) 68

Summoner’s Tale 68

Swynford, Katherine 44, 47

tail rhyme 34

Tale of Beryn 50

Taran of Caer Dallben (Alexander) 60

Tarolfo (Boccaccio) 31

Teseida delle nozze d’Emelia (Boccaccio) 13–14, 36

Testament of Cresseid, The (Henryson) 37

textual criticism 61

Thebes (in the Knight’s Tale) 13, 65

Theophrastus 54

Theseus (The Knight’s Tale) 13, 16, 63–65

Thomas (Summoner’s Tale) 68

“Three Little Pigs, The” 6

Thynne, Francis (editor of Chaucer) 47

Tolkien, J. R. R. 1, 5, 60

Tournament of Tottenham, The 34

Treatise on the Astrolabe, A 47, 49, 57

Tristan (Beroul) 5

Troilus (Troilus and Criseyde) 36–37, 39, 42, 45–46, 56, 64–65, 71

Troilus and Criseyde 5–6, 36–37, 39–40, 42, 45–46, 49, 56–59, 71

trouthe

–: See also: Geoffrey Chaucer…trouthe and

Arcite’s 15–16, 31, 36

Arveragus’s 30–31

as expressed in vows, promises, commitments 3, 30–32, 39, 44

Aurelius’s 30–32

Clerk of Orleans’s 30

Dorigen’s 30–31

Griselda’s 10–11, 15, 31

Harry Potter’s 61

in the Book of the Duchess 42

in the Legend of Good Women 37

in the Pardoner’s Tale 35

in the Physician’s Tale 35

in Troilus and Criseyde 36, 39

Loathly Lady’s 23

Palamon’s 15, 31

Sam Gamgee’s 60

Sir Gawain’s 20, 23

Taran of Caer Dallben’s 60

Troilus’s 36–37

Walter’s 11

Wife of Bath’s 23

“Truth” (poem): See: Balade de Bon Conseyl

Twain, Mark 6

Two Noble Kinsmen, The (Fletcher & Shakespeare) 13

Venus 5, 13, 37

Virgil 51

Virginia (The Physician’s Tale) 35, 68

Walter (The Clerk’s Tale) 8–12, 15, 31, 64, 66, 68

Wheel of Fortune 41–42, 71

Wife of Bath, The: See Alisoun, the Wife of Bath

Wife of Bath’s Tale 6, 11, 18, 21–25, 26, 31–32, 38–40, 59, 68

Wycliffe, John 40

Wynnere and Wastoure 53

Yeoman, The (Canterbury Tales) 7

 

 1 3 Esdras 4:41. The reading magna est veritas, et praevalet does not appear to be original. It is the reading found in the Catholic Church’s Clementine Vulgate, as well as in the Vulgate copies made in Paris in the thirteenth century, but the first hand of the great Codex Amiatinus reads et instead of est, and the Paris manuscript Q omits the word est altogether. The critical edition of the Vulgate, p. 1917, also omits the word. But Chaucer would have known late Bible copies, so chances are that “magna est veritas, et praevalet” were the words Chaucer encountered.

 2 John 18:38: “quid est veritas”; Vulgate, p. 1692.

 3 Definitions of trouthe include the following:

 Howard, p. 65: “‘Truth’ (better, ‘troth’) was your ability to make good all vows and obligations owed in a hierarchical world — to God, to your overlord, to all oaths you have made, to your lady, to your vassals.”

 Burrow/Turville-Petre (text modified to spell out the sources they cite): “treuthe, trouthe n. pledge [Peterborough Chronicle], justice [Piers Plowman, St. Erkenwald], integrity, honesty [Piers Plowman], treothes pl. pledged [Peterborough Chronicle] [OE trēowþ].”

 Tolkien’s glossary in Sisam has “Treuthe; Trouthe, Trowthe [Gower]; Trawþe [Gawain-poet]; Truth(e) [Gest Hystoriale]; n. truth [Gest Hystoriale]; (personified) [Piers Plowman]; fidelity [Gower]; faith, (plighted) word, troth [Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Piers Plowman, Confessio Amantis]; compact [Sir Gawain]; honesty [Piers Plowman]; equity [The Pearl]. [OE trēowþ.]”

 4 Stevens, pp. 64-65. Dr. David Engle points out to me that this same constellation of meanings is associated with the German word “treue.”

 5 ChaucerDonaldson, p. 1127.

 6 “To hold together at every need [situation], In word, in work, in will, in deed.” Amis and Amiloun, lines 151-152; cf. Gervase Mathew, “Ideals of Knighthood in Late-Fourteenth-Century England,” Fox, p. 69.

 7 “Trouthe is the highest thing that man may keep.” The Franklin’s Tale, line 1479.

 8 Bisson, pp. 25-27.

 9 Howard, pp. 65-66.

 10 The General Prologue, line 162. Note that Latin “amor” is a somewhat ambiguous word, since — unlike “caritas,” commonly used to render the Greek word agape — it is often used of romantic love. It may well be that Chaucer is using it here ironically, of a nun who thinks a little too much of the secular world — but this point is disputed; ChaucerNorton, p. 465. It is certain that there was a tendency in Chaucer’s time to blur the distinction between religious experience and the feelings of ordinary love, and this blurring is perhaps most evidence in the romances; Stevens, chapter 6, “Religion and Romance,” especially p. 135; also p. 138, which explicitly cites Troilus and Criseyde.

 11 ChaucerNorton, p. 464, notes that Prioresses — who after all already lived in a consecrated community — were not supposed to go on pilgrimages. And many have observed that she seems somewhat less demure than fits her station.

 12 ChaucerBrewer, p. 20.

 13 ChaucerDonaldson, p. 1129; also quoted in Benson, p. 44.

 14 Waltz, p. 5. Stevens, p. 84, notes that even the Tristan legend, usually considered a pure love tale, is not always so; “far from being a great love-story, Beroul’s telling of the legend seems to stress other idealisms, idealisms in fact which I see as being more apposite to the condition of Man Alone than the condition of Man in Love.”

 15 Gervase Mathew, “Ideals of Knighthood in Late-Fourteenth-Century England,” Fox, p. 69. Mathew, p. 72, goes on to suggest that French romance, and Chaucer, were by this time moving past this sort of loyalty. But while the other romances may have been changing, Chaucerian irony seems to be much more prevalent in his other writings than in his romances; in the romances, he (mostly) held to the old virtues..

 16 Howard, p. 442, points out that Tolkien’s success has made Chaucer more understandable to modern readers than he had been before the publication of The Lord of the Rings, and Stevens, p. 9, observes that Tolkien’s work is one of several that have collectively eliminated the need to justify the romances.

 17 J. A. Burrow, “The Canterbury Tales I: Romance,” Boitani/Mann, p. 109.

 18 “Tales of greatest significance [the best lessons'7d and most solace/pleasure/fun.” The General Prologue, line 798; for the significance, see Bisson, p. 40.

 19 ChaucerNorton, p. 471.

 20 This principle — of ornamentation or even, one might say, of distraction — is known to every teller of folktales. Most tales have some sort of lesson or moral. This lesson can usually be expressed in a sentence, and the plot can be summarized in two or three. But no one would listen to that. It is the surrounding detail that keeps our interest and attention. Consider, for example, “The Three Little Pigs.” We can summarize the whole plot by saying, “Three pigs built three homes. Two built hastily, of straw and of sticks. The third took more time and built a strong home of stone. A wolf was able to knock down the homes of hay and sticks, and eat the two pigs. It could not break the home of stone; so that pig lived. Moral: Do the work you need to do.” But do you care about this telling? No, you listen because of the two foolish pigs enjoying themselves, and the Big Bad Wolf huffing and puffing, and the conversations along the way.

 21 Burrow/Turville-Petre, p. 288.

 22 Bisson, p. 131.

 23 A tale, ironically, preserved only in certain manuscripts of The Canterbury Tales (Sands, p. 154), where it is used as a substitute for the truncated Cook’s Tale (ChaucerRiverside, pp. 1121, 1125). But Gamelyn is closely related to the tales of Robin Hood; if Chaucer had chosen to use it, it would surely have been the tale of the Yeoman. Contrary to some editors, though, I do not think Chaucer would have used Gamelyn, at least in anything like its current form. Even Chaucer’s most bitter tales — e.g. the Merchant’s Tale — often revolve around a clever trick, as May tells January that her adultery was all to bring back his sight. Gamelyn is simply too mindless for Chaucer.

 24 Sands, pp. 154-155. Stevens, p. 83, declares that Gamelyn is “for all the world like a good TV western.” The description is apt, although I’m not so sure about the “good” part. Stevens, pp. 81-83, mentions Bevis of Hampton as another romance of “the fantasy of the rippling biceps.”

 25 ChaucerDonaldson, p. 1127.

 26 J. Burke Severs, “The Tales of Romance,” Rowland, p. 272. As a matter of fact, I omitted it from the list of romances in my own Romancing the Ballad. Not having studied Chaucer’s motives at that time, I omitted The Clerk’s Tale; after all, it has none of the hallmarks of typical romances — no magic, no big special cause, no larger-than-life characters. In hindsight, I think I was wrong; The Clerk’s Tale is a romance, but of a special, uniquely Chaucerian kind.

 27 DecameronMusaBondanella, p. 141.

 28 “Griselda is dead, and also her patience, And both together buried in Italy.” The Clerk’s Tale, lines 1177-1178. It is not clear whether this is to be the Clerk’s epilogue or Chaucer’s; the point is that this was the way the world used to be — evidently it’s a standard account of the “good old days.” (Great. The Good Old Days were the days when men were sociopaths and no one cared....) Howard, p. 445, suggests that the song cancels all that has gone before — but, in another sense, it attests that the event is something that could actually happen, somewhere, once upon a time.

 29 Reprinted in Wagenknecht, pp. 226-239.

 30 Many argue that Chaucer, in addition to using Petrarch and/or Boccaccio, had before him a French version of the tale. Haldeen Braddy, “The French Influence on Chaucer,” Rowland, p. 145; ChaucerRiverside, p. 880. But this French version, assuming it has been correctly identified, itself derives from Petrarch.

 31 DecameronMusaBondanella, p. 161.

 32 James Sledd, “The Clerk’s Tale: The Monsters and the Critics,” Wagenknecht, p. 229; compare ChaucerDonaldson, p. 1080, who calls it “a moralized version of a very old folk-story about the mating of a mortal woman with an immortal lover whose actions are controlled by forces entirely incomprehensible to her human mind.”

 33 Robert P. Miller, “Allegory in the Canterbury Tales,” Rowland, p. 337.

 34 George Lyman Kittredge, “Chaucer’s Discussion of Marriage,” Wagenknecht, p. 189.

 35 Hoy/Stevens, p. 52.