The Merchant's prologue and tale AO3

Question 1

Contextual information on the feudal system

Answer 1

-Based on an ideal of service between the ‘three estates’ (those who pray; those who fight; those who work). It was believed that God had ordained this hierarchy with the King at the top and the peasants at the bottom.
•In The Canterbury Tales, the truly ‘good’ characters (the Parson, the Knight and the Ploughman) are representatives of these three estates.
•The three estates above apply to men, women also had three estates – Virgin, Wife and Widow (note Schwartz’s comment about this). It is interesting to note that a woman’s estate was determined not by her profession but by her sexual activity: she is defined in relationship to the men with whom she sleeps, used to sleep, or never has slept.

Question 2

what event caused significant social mobility

Answer 2

The Black Death created a social mobility not seen again until the C20th

Question 3

contextual information on a Changing Society

Answer 3

• People migrated from the countryside to towns, where they had no feudal masters and instead earned ‘wages’
• This (among many other things) created the beginning of a mercantile (money based) economy.
• The cloth trade boomed as a result.
• Some merchants became very rich, largely on the wool/cloth trade.
• Money wealth, however, was frowned on by the church (arisocrats were land wealthy) and in the bible Jesus explicitly states that it is ‘easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven’ … so Merchants built churches and donated money in their wills to the poor in order to buy their way into heaven.

Question 4

what was the contextual view of Italy and Pavia (setting of the tale)?

Answer 4

• Italy was viewed as an important, almost exotic place of culture
• Pavia was famous for two things the church disliked: banking and prostitution.

Question 5

what were the contextual views of privacy

Answer 5

• In medieval England, privacy of any sort was unknown to the majority of people.
• Only the powerful or rich could afford the new fashion - private rooms, where they could retire, with family or guests, from the ceaseless activities in the Great Hall.
• Some great men deplored the new fashion for privacy and felt that a lord should always be with his people.

Question 6

contextual views of women in marriage

Answer 6

• St Paul had decreed that Man was at the head of woman, just as Christ was at the head of the church – his simplistic view of marriage had a huge societal impact
• Widows were viewed as dangerous– a view carried on to the context of DOM

Question 7

common and significant ideas related to the Anti-feminist tradition

Answer 7

•In Anti-feminist writing women have weaker characters than men, they are seen to be: Excessively emotional and deficient in reason BUT wily and clever in a devious, quick-witted way; Excessively sexual and bodily BUT physically weak and passive; Lacking in self-control; unable to control speech, a “leaky vessel”; Resentful and prone to use manipulation and nagging to get their way because they have no recourse to direct means of power; Vain, greedy, and materialistic.
•Women were often considered the embodiment, or ultimate symbol and reminder of earthly sin: like sin itself, they were sources of temptation but they were dangerous, repugnant when seen clearly, and always in need of control, denial, and suppression.
•Anti-feminist writing pervaded the whole of medieval society – often quoted were St Jerome “The man who does not quarrel is a bachelor” and THEOPHRASTUS Golden Book of Marriage (found in St Jerome’s writing) “A wise man … must not take a wife.” He refers to a wife as a “burden” and that “the misery of having an ugly wife is less than the burden of keeping watch on a beautiful one.”
-‘two-legged she-beast’

Question 8

what are the common commponents of Medieval Chivalric Romances (MCR)?

Answer 8

• MCR used an ‘elevated style’ to suit the high social status of its characters and supposed audience (the court)
• MCR – celebrates the ideals of service and love (not lust)
• MCRs are set in exotic places
• MCRs enforce the ‘high’ values that make people better as a result of their lineage.

Question 9

what are the common components of Fabliaux?

Answer 9

• Fabliaux use a low style – crass, with a smutty and funny twist to the plot
• Fabliaux are set locally
• Fabliaux tend to have a young higher class character (a student or a squire) who comes up with a plot to deceive an older husband (who is usually a member of the newly emerging middle class)
• Fabliaux allowed the court audience to laugh at the emerging middle class.

Question 10

further contextual on the Canterbury tales as a whole

Answer 10

• Frame Tale structures with insert tales were common BUT by choosing to centre his around a pilgrimage, Chaucer adds a totally different aspect in that his tellers are from a wide cross-section of Medieval society.
• Most of the pilgrims come from the newly emerging middle class.
• The host begins the tales in status/rank order – he starts with the Knight and then turns to the Monk but the Miller is so drunk he interrupts and retells the Knights Epic Romance as a Fabliau.
• The moment the Miller interrupts and disrupts the hierarchy by telling a parody of the Knight’s Tale, Chaucer is encouraging us to challenge and question the roles in society.
• This mixed style results in a challenge to the ideals of the feudal system.