An Example of True Courtly Chivalry

Throughout most of our readings, it seems as though we've been lacking in the area where figures of authority, other than God or high up religious leaders, have actually shown chivalry in the proper way. My paper focuses on this lack of chivalry, and it was interesting to find a short story that actually seems to show chivalry in a benevolent light. The main character, despite being wronged by his enemies, forgives all his enemies that come before him, a markedly different approach from the knights of the Canterbury Tales. It might be useful in some of your papers, especially as it has some fairly strong connections to church and religious themes as well.

d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/shuffelton-codex-ashmole-61-knight-who-forgave-his-fathers-slayer

Article Review: “Theatrical Pragmatics: The Actor-Audience Relationship from the Mystery Cycles to the Early Tudor Comedies” by Hans-Jürgen Diller

In the article, Hans-Jürgen Diller argues that actor-audience relationships that were extremely important in the mystery plays. These relationships manifest in actors addressing their audience, “an important strategy to establish and sustain the W^d,” (Diller 157) or the “dramatic world” (156). Because the medieval dramatists did not have the technology to establish W^d (switch-off lighting, curtains, controlled and regulated seating), dramatists had to rely on spoken word and staging for W^d. The three types of actor-audience relationships are as follows: straddling, framing, and homiletic. Diller gives definitions and evidence (from the mystery plays and some comedies such as Magnyfycence) for each of these categories.

I recently received this article via Inter-Library Loan. Given its accessible (and interesting) theory-based discussion of medieval theater, it is likely relevant to all discussions of the N-Town Plays. So, if you’d like to read it let me know and I’ll send you the PDF!

Diller, Hans-Jürgen. “Theatrical Pragmatics: The Actor-Audience Relationship from the Mystery Cycles to the Early Tudor Comedies.” Comparative Drama 23 (1989): 156-165. Print.

"Gloria laus et Honor": Worshipping in the N-Town Plays

Hello, All,

I hope you are well and that most of you are weathering the aftermath of the storm with power and heat rather than without. Hopefully, when you have access to Wi-Fi, this post may be helpful for anyone whose interested in the "Passion Plays" section of N-Town.

I imagine that some of you, like myself, were curious as to what "Gloria laus et Honor" is--the song sung as Jesus is entering into the city of Jerusalem (218). I thought, to make it easy for us, I'd post the English and Latin lyrics together:

All glory, laud, and honor
to you, Redeemer, King,
to whom the lips of children
made sweet hosannas ring.
You are the King of Israel
and David's royal Son,
now in the Lord's name coming,
the King and Blessed One.


The company of angels
is praising you on high;
and we with all creation
in chorus make reply.
The people of the Hebrews
with palms before you went;
our praise and prayer and anthems
before you we present.


To you before your passion
they sang their hymns of praise;
to you, now high exalted,
our melody we raise.
As you received their praises,
accept the prayers we bring,
for you delight in goodness,
O good and gracious King!

(cf. hymnary.org; All Glory, Laud and Honor; http://www.hymnary.org/text/all_glory_laud_and_honor)

In Latin, as it would have been sung for the play:



(et. al, http://www.hymnary.org/text/gloria_laus_et_honor_tibi_sit)

And, lastly, if you'd like to listen to the hymn, originally written by Theodulf, Bishop of Orleans:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmyCH4sPm6U

Interestingly, reference to the Hebrews, who "with palms before you went" (v. 4 in the Latin version; v. 2 in the shortened English version), is actually in the past tense. Thus, like much of the N-Town text, the song was sung as though those singing were already Christians. To some extent, of course, this was true because those who would have been singing the hymn would have been either Christians in the audience or the Christian actors. Significantly, then, the entrance into Jerusalem was being played in such a way that it was at once an act and an opportunity to worship God for the audience members. As is evident when audience members are invited on stage, too, N-Town was not meant to be a mere performance; it was, in fact, to encourage proper participation in the drama and in the Christian life.

Article Review: At Home; Out of House

So I've gotten a few emails regarding the article I presented on (that I forgot to publish on here). It is from The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Women's Writing book on reserve at the library, but I have a PDF of the chapter if anyone would like it! It focuses on women as a representation of the home. Some of the main points focus on how women were to be a literal representation of the home, even if they were outside of it. They needed to be clothed in "proper" attire, surrounded by servants/maids, and even her speech had to point back to her house. Another interesting point was that the woman was not to travel far from the house which is in contrast with the Wife of Bath's pilgrimages (which she did even while married). A woman outside of the house was seen as a sexual deviant. Also, a woman located next to a window was seen as a sexual object because she was flaunting herself as outside of her home- which is also interesting when considering the Canterbury Tales and how the lover (or criminal) comes to the window.

Salih, Sarah. "At Home; Out of House". The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Women's Writing.

Article Review: “The Audience-Interactive Games of the Middle English Religious Drama” by Peter Ramey

Ramey’s article creates a framework for understanding medieval religious drama using a very unlikely source—videogame design theory. Borrowing videogame design theory’s understanding of multiplayer internet-based games as “systems of uncertainty,” (56) Ramey builds a definition of the medieval game as “meaningful play” (57) within an interactive and rule-governed encounter, which given religious drama’s emphasis on audience response, can be understood as the play itself.

Using this framework, Ramey analyzes three “dramatic games” (57): the Coercion Game as utilized by tyrant characters, the Subversion Game as utilized by “underlings” (63), and the Conversion Game as utilized by the Christ character. Each Game has a different understanding of meaningful play: Coercion Game as power, Subversion Game as pleasure, and Conversion Game as presence. Ramey expounds on each of these games and definitions of play throughout the article, using the York, Towneley, and Chester cycles as support. While the article is more explorative than conclusive, Ramey ultimately argues for a revision of how modern viewers understand medieval theater; it is a participatory experience that requires the audience member to be more than a passive spectator.

Ramey does not explicitly quote or reference the N-Town Plays. However, his article is useful in its thorough treatment of other plays and of medieval audience writ large, and is therefore a worthwhile read!

Ramey, Peter. “The Audience-Interactive Games of the Middle English Religious Drama.” Comparative Drama 71.1 (2013): 55-83. Proquest. Web. 13 Nov. 2015.

A Book Suggestion for Anyone That's Tackling Melibee

In Chaucerian Polity: Absolutist Lineages and Associational Forms in England and Italy, Wallace covers a lot of ground (it's a huge book). I requested this book as an Interlibrary Loan because of a chapter that Amanda Walling referenced in the article we looked at in class. Chapter 8, "Household Rhetoric: Violence and Eloquence in the Tale of Melibee" addresses the influence of Albertano, a popular medieval author, and his work Liber consolationis. In Liber, Prudentia leads her husband into penitence through her rational argumentation, preventing him from impulsively resorting to violence. This persuasion parallels Prudence's argumentation with Melibee. Wallace argues that both Prudence and the Wyf of Bath "threaten to uncover disequilibrium, if not violence and unruliness, within [male] critical discourse" (223).

Wallace goes on to suggest that the Wyf and Prudence have much more in common than scholars usually credit. Both wives are attempting to dissuade men from engaging in violence. In the Wyf's tale, the violence of rape is protested by the court of ladies, but they spare his life in an attempt to prevent further violence. Melibee is distraught over the violence done to his daughter, but Prudence persuades him to not seek revenge through violent means. The way both women go about this is through a feminized "glossynge" of texts. Wallace argues that both women combat the necessarily masculinized (which I'm not sure about) desire to ignore the inherently contradictory nature of texts. In this way, they are able (to varying degrees of success) gain auctoritee through a non-exigetical interpretation of texts. This connects to the discussion that I'm creating in my longer paper. Importantly, they are only able to do so in the private sphere of the home (the Wyf tearing Janekyn's page, Prudence and Melibee conversing in private). A gaining of auctoritee in the public sphere is only possible through the fantasy of the Wyf, where the court is largely ruled by ladies who get to interpret texts (and male understandings of women) as they see fit.

Anyway. Cool book. If you want to borrow it you can!

Wallace, David. Chaucerian Polity: Absolutist Lineages and Associational Forms in England and Italy. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997. Print.

The Hybridity of Melibee

In this article, Foster posits the Tale of Melibee as an embodiment of both oral and literate communication. Many scholars doubt that the Tale of Melibee could be performed, being that it would result in over two hours of talking, but Foster regards this view as anachronistic because that would establish Melibee as a relatively short sermon. The Parson’s Tale was even longer, and was definitely read aloud in front of an audience. Additionally, the lengthy prose of Melibee is “dedicated to citing oral discourse, such as proverbs, sermons, and debates, as well as texts that are themselves mixtures of oral and literate communication, most notably the Bible” (411). Melibee is then a hybrid, which is really interesting historically, as it potentially reflects the messy shift from a strictly oral tradition to that of a fully literate culture. Foster’s positioning of Melibee as so allows the tale to operate in a space of possibility of shifting traditions and uncertain ground. Perhaps this is why Prudence is able to be more successful in her negotiations with Melibee (it doesn’t help that she’s incredibly rhetorically skilled, either). The article also argues that Melibee is ultimately a communal discourse, but I think that ignores the importance of Prudence's radically different interpretive approach to texts, which is especially significant because she is a woman and is actually reading in a way that prevents the "carnal literalism" of the Wyf. 

This intermingling of orality and literate communication has definite connections to the paper that I’m working on right now. I’m hoping Foster’s argument will serve the establish the context of Melibee so that I can talk about the ways in which Prudence utilizes/interprets texts in a way that allows her to prevent the violence of Melibee’s wish to avenge. If anyone else is working with Melibee, this is a really helpful article specifically as it relates to orality and literacy, but also as a historical overview for the various rejections/acceptances of Melibee over the years. 

Foster, Michael. "Echoes of Communal Response in the Tale of Melibee." The Chaucer Review 42.4 (2008) : 409-430. Web. 11 Nov. 2015.

Article Review: “Performing Communities: Civic Religious Drama” by John McGavin from The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Literature in English

The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Literature in English is located in the Whitworth Library: PR 255.095.

McGavin opens his discussion of Medieval Drama with an anecdote about a contemporary performance of a medieval Passion Play in Winchester. He argues that, although not “purely medieval,” the Winchester Passion Play was medieval in “matching its scope to the capacity of the providers and the occasion; its mixed clerical and lay involvement; its processional form; its blending of biblical and imagined discourse, stylized and naturalistic acting, historical and contemporary reference, received and innovative iconography” (201). By using a contemporary example, McGavin creates the space to argue that medieval drama was, in fact, radical.

The article is informative and well-researched, but most importantly, it offers excellent context for our discussions of the N-Town Plays. While McGavin does not give a thorough treatment of the N-Town Plays, he does connect the cycle to the medieval “project” of localization and adaptation of drama to communities (pages 202-203). I hope to utilize this perspective in my paper.

The four sections of the article are: one, “Performing the Medieval” (discussed above); two, “The Show Must Go On”; three, “The Shared Experience”; and four, “Spectatorship.” The fourth section, “Spectatorship” provides an excellent insight into the medieval audience member—what the medieval spectator would expect and how they would respond to certain performances. If you choose to consult this article, this section is perhaps the most worthwhile.

McGavin, John J. "Performing Communities: Civic Religious Drama." Ed. Elaine M. Treharne and Greg Walker. The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Literature in English. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2010. 200-18. Print.

Source Suggestion (for research and for fun): Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog: Medieval Studies and New Media

Yes, you read that correctly. There is a source entitled Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog: Medieval Studies and New Media. Written by Brantley L. Bryant and published in 2010, Medieval Studies and New Media examines the cultural phenomena “Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog” as well as the implications for resurgent medievalism in popular culture. The source also includes various essays on the origin and growth of the blog.

I understand that this source may not be of use to us in our research processes. However, it is too entertaining not to bring up (whether on the blog or in class). The blog has been moved onto Twitter, so in lieu of excerpts from the blog, here are some tweets:

• Science kan teche yow to freeze folk yn carbonyte. The humanityes kan teche yow that the best answer to 'Ich love thee' ys 'Ich knowe.'
• Putte a fowel vpon yt
• Nat all those who wandir are lost. Except for me. Ich am definitlye lost. Ich have passid that donut shoppe lyke ten tymes nowe. Helpe!

And, my personal favorites:

• Ich am a litel teapotte, short and stout. My deedes are known yn all landes, and Ich have servid many kynges. Unbreakable my word and sword.
• My home netwerke ys yclept 'The Wifi of Bath'

Enjoy at https://twitter.com/levostregc.

Religious Writings

Newhauser, Richard. “Reigious writing: Hagiography, Pastoralia, Devotional and Contemplative Works,”The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Literature 1100-1500 ed. Larry Scanlon. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 2009. 37-55.

While this article was not particularly helpful for me in terms of my paper, it was interesting to read in the terms of also reading the N-Town plays and some of the other readings that we have done in class. We have been read examples of saints' lives every day in class, and have also read them through several of the Canterbury Tales, and we read a pastoralia in the form of the "Parson's Tale," but I am curious to know what reading a devotional and contemplative work is like - have we read anything for this class that is comparable? I also think that it's interesting that dramas like the N-Town plays were not included in this list, since medieval drama seemed to fulfill the same purpose that religious works had in that they were designed to help the common person understand catechism and the Bible better. My question would the plays should or shouldn't be considered a literary religious work, since they were written down at one point.

Here are the main points of the article:

-Most Middle English literature is made up of religious works à mainly comprised of hagiography, contemplative and devotional writings, and pastoralia (edification in matters of doctrine by sermons, catechetical texts and other pastoral writings)

-Authorship of most religious works are not known, but it is clear that most of these texts were written by people of religious background

-Audience used to be mainly clergy but over the course of the middle ages it changed to include secular audiences as well.

-Writing of saints’ lives served to excite the minds of Christian readers to “imaginative association with the paradigmatic deeps of holy men and women” (p.41) – since the paradigm for these saints’ lives was the triumph of Jesus over torture and death, the narrative structure of saints’ lives were comedic, not tragic

-Chaucer includes two saints’ lives in The Canterbury Tales  - “Second Nun’s Tale” and “The Prioress’ Tale” with “The Man of Law’s Tale” considered by many to be one as well.

-Production of saints’ lives was markedly gendered in the late Middle Ages since women came to play a larger role in the consumption and composition of literature (which is in contrast to what an article I read earlier talked about).

-Constant that saints’ lives were used for both doctrinal instruction and entertainment

-Significant development of literature that focused on examining the interior spiritual life/the desire for perfection developed quite a bit over the twelfth century

-Contemplative writers are often very outspoken about their political opinions and sometimes used their writing to deliver clear critiques of the Church hierarchy or to defend the church against detractors.

-The goal of vernacular education in pastoralia was achieved not just orally by a preacher talking to his congregation but also by reading in environments not necessarily ecclesiastical in nature

-Most popular method of instruction in catechetical matters through preaching was with the use of short narratives in order to catch the reader or listener’s attention and to make the comprehension of doctrine easier

-Secular authors eventually contributed to the composition of major treatises of religious inspiration like Chaucer in “The Parson’s Tale”

Medieval Drama

Beckwith, Sarah. “Drama,” The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Literature 1100-1500 ed. Larry Scanlon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. 83-94.

I thought this was an interesting article in light of the fact that we began reading the N-Town plays this week. It provides a good background about Middle English drama, particularly the cycles of mystery plays that we talked a little bit about in class. It gives a summary about each of the four different cycles and states the key differences between them. It also talks a little bit about other types of drama besides the mystery plays. One thing the article specifically points out is that the N-Town plays are just as interested in the life of Mary as they are in the life of Jesus. Since we are reading the Mary plays for class tomorrow, this will be interesting to think about, as I think it would have had a pretty profound effect on how people reacted and responded to the plays - it would have given them an element that they, as regular people, could really connect with.

Here are the article's main points:

-“Middle English Drama” is considered to be the category referring to the textual remnants of a vast, expansive, very imaginative performative culture that was largely non-textual.

-Many texts we consider traditionally to be ‘dramatic’ have no authors and no special, separate spaces in which they are produced.

-We must consider it as a part of the material organization of public life

-Two scenes within this: the first can stand for the medieval theatre’s interest in the actor’s body as a primary medium of contemplation/interaction/the creation of community while the second stands for the uses of theatrical pop as icon/index/symbol/figure

            -York Corpus Christi cycle as an example of this

-The mystery plays are the most extensive and elaborate collective theatrical enterprise in English theatre history – four cycles of texts: York, Towneley, Chester and N-Town

-They are a form of theater that explores theology through the logic of performance

-The York plays can be indubitably linked to the Feast of Corpus Christi

-The Townley/Wakefield cycles are closer to the world of Piers Plowman than any of the other cycles. The cycle features some extraordinary pageants unified by their distinctive use of language. They are extraordinarily interested in the power of language to name and to deceive

-The N-Town Plays is a group of plays extraordinarily interested in the genealogy of the Christ child and are as interested in the life of Mary as they are of Jesus. They are unusual because they supplied an extraordinary number of stage directions.

-The texts of the Chester cycle bear the mark of the lateness in the self-consciousness with which they approach the entire tradition of Corpus Christi in a Reformation climate. Also unique in the cucle tradition, the Chester plays feature an Antichrist play

-Four canon morality plays – Mankind, Everyman, Castle of Perseverance and Wisdom… these plays share a common theme of their exploration of what it means to be human as any putative shared “morality” and are deeply interested in the habits of the mind, thought and action that lead to the denaturing of humankind’s soul as the image of God.

-Saints’ plays blurs the genres of hagiography and romance with the plays Digby Mary Magdalen and The Conversion of St. Paul.

Women and Anglo-Norman Hagiography- Source Suggestion!!

Wogan-Browne, Jocelyn. “’Clerc u lai, muine u dame’: Women and Anglo-Normal Hagiography in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries.” Women and Literature in Britain 1150-1500. Ed. Carol M. Meale. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 1996. 61-85. Print.

I used this article when writing my last paper and while I don't find that it's extremely helpful for my longer paper, I do think that a couple of papers might find this to be a helpful source (Catherine maybe??) I think it gave a lot of insight about the culture that women were surrounded with in the Medieval period, since hagiography would have been something that they would have been exposed to. Just thinking through the saints' lives that Doug has read to us over the course of the semester, very few of them have been written about women, and I can only imagine that there would have been even fewer of them present during the Middle Ages, given the fact that women were considered subordinate to men. I also think that it's interesting to look at this article in the context of Canterbury Tales - The Man of Law's Tale and the Second Nun's Tale are both versions of Saints' Lives, which I find interesting because of the fact that both of these tales are saints lives of female saints, which this article says there weren't a lot of. I think it will also be interesting to think about this article going into the N-Town plays, particularly the Mary plays. While I haven't read for tomorrow's reading on the Mary plays yet, I think it will be interesting to see how females are portrayed in the plays versus how this article says that female saints were discussed in saints' lives literature. 

Here are the main points. If this sounds like a source you want to use and can't find it online, let me know and we can work something out.

-Three texts in the Anglo-Norman hagiographic corpus that are written by women, two of which were definitely nuns with it being likely that the third also was.

-Saints lives have implications for a wider range of women than it first appears – women would have heard and sometimes read saints lives in religious communities but would have also heard them as a part of a secular household

-Very few saints lives were written about women since very few women were canonized in the high Middle Ages… and they are not representative of married women with children until the late 13^th century

-The major category of the female saint is the Virgin Martyr, the second is the repentant harlot

-Hagiography has a lot to say to women on the ideas of career virginity/chastity

-Hagiographic model of the chaste spouse can be seen as part of the debate within and between competing lay and ecclesiastical models of marriage as these evolved in both theory and practice in the 12^th and 13^th centuries

-The implications of marriage as a sacrament à Canon law insisted (but didn’t actually always follow through with) on the free and mutual consent of both spouses and the importance of female consent in both marriage and chastity

-The presence of three women writers among the producers of Anglo-Norman saints’ lives shows that women could and did write hagiography in 12^th and 13^th century Britain

The Trials and Joys of Marriage

Salisbury, Eve. “The Trials and Joys of Women, Introduction,” The Trials and Joys of Marriage. Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, 2002. Print.

This article is one that I found on the TEAMS site when I was researching my first paper. I thought it provided a lot of information on the historical context of how marriage was viewed in the middle ages that brought a lot of understanding to my readings of Chaucer. I can see how a lot of these elements play into the tales, such as the medieval assumptions about marriages coming from classical and biblical sources - In The Knight's Tale, there is a large classical influence, and even in the tale about the woman who is separated from her husband but promises to remain loyal to him (but then tells a man that if he can remove all the rocks from a beach she'll marry him) (I'm completely blanking on the name here and I don't have my copy of CT with me) reminds me a lot of the Odyssey with Penelope and Odysseus and the suitors. I can also see the idea that in marriage women were expected to be completely subordinate to men as a theme running through the tales- the Tale with January and May is an example of this. This article was helpful because it provided me with some insight about how other medieval writers thought about the institution of marriage and showed the different ways marriage was portrayed in medieval writings.

Here's the main points:

-Introduction to a book that looks at the different portrayals of marriage in medieval society

-Medieval assumptions about marriage come from classical and biblical sources

-Sublimation of sexual desire into religious devotion encouraged

-Some Christian writers encouraged companion marriage (no sex)

-When marriage became church endorsed when it became a sacrament, two models of marriage, secular and ecclesiastical emerged. The ecclesiastical view of marriage demanded that consent take place between the two parties and that the nuptial vows be witnessed in a public place (normally the church door), rather than clandestinely.

-Canon law supported the traditional views of the subordinate status of women in relation to me, and placed women under the rod and in the power of their husbands, who had total power over their legal and domestic powers. However, it was expected that the male head of household would use reason in the fulfillment of his family duties.

-The church opposed the easy repudiation of spouses and made marital dissolution extremely difficult

-In medieval England ecclesiastical officials did their best to regulate in marriage practices what was theoretically proposed in romance literature

-The practices of courtly love were actually practiced in the private lives of public individuals and were written about by people like Chaucer

-Is there a “Marriage group” in Chaucer? Chaucer’s work is definitely infused with the idea of the complexities of marital relations

-When cataclysmic changes in the economic, social, and political conditions of society allow aggressive women to challenge authority, as does Chaucer's Wife of Bath, male anxieties about female chastity and cuckoldry, potency and paternity become magnified

-The English fabliau is marked by a tendency to put an end to illicit marriage behavior through the use of trickery

-Treatises and moral works address the more serious views of marriage

The Power and the Weakness of Women in Anglo-Norman Romance

Weiss, Judith. “The Power and the Weakness of Women in Anglo-Norman Romance,” Women and Literature in Britain 1150-1500 ed. Carol M. Meale. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. 7-23.

I originally read this article for my first paper for the class and then forgot about it. But I thought it provided a really interesting way of looking at the role of women in the romance literature of the Medieval period, and I found that it had a lot of ties to The Canterbury Tales as well, given that a majority of the tales that we read had women in them who were portrayed in the ways that the article talks about. Alisoun, in "The Miller's Tale," for example, can be seen as being innovative and resourceful when it comes to her plans to spend the night with Nicholas. Like this article points out, the men who have to rely on female innovativeness and resourcefulness are often less educated than the female, which seems to be the case with Nicholas. This article also talks about how widows were portrayed in a different way than other women, since they had more power in their own choices and were not portrayed as passively as other women are. This certainly can be seen with the Wyf of Bath, who, being five times a wife and four times a widow, seems much more independent than many of the newly married or unmarried women in the tales. Her independence also stands out with the fact that, besides the Prioress and the second nun, she is the only woman on the pilgrimage. This article won't be a lot of help with my second paper, but I thought it might be useful if you are doing a paper that has something to do with the roles of women or the sexuality of women and how either of those are portrayed.

Here are the main points:

-Purpose of the essay is to examine the ambivalent and inconsistent images of women provided by Anglo-Norman romances of the 12^th and early 13^th centuries and to consider how they relate to historical circumstances.

-Noblewomen have the least amount of power, especially when compared to their French and Anglo-Saxon counterparts – while French and Anglo-Saxon women had some rights when it came to ending marriages, Anglo-Norman noblewomen were considered the property of their husbands and had almost no ability to dissolve their marriages. Because of this, and because of woman’s dangerous sexuality, romances often picture women as weak, subdued and imperfect.

-Women are described as being “pawns in the games of others, denied choice and forced into situations into dependence and passivity” (11).

-There is a high premium on the virginity of women.

-The more independent, less passive position of widows is also seen in medieval romance writing

-While women are portrayed as passive, they are also portrayed as innovated and resourceful

-Men in romances are generally portrayed as less learned than the women when the women are being portrayed as resourceful 

Knights and Merchants: Trade, Politics and the Gentry in Late Medieval England

Nightingale, Pamela. "Knights and Merchants: Trade, Politics and the Gentry in Late Medieval England," Past and Present 169. Nov. 2000. 36-62.

This article was pretty dry to read and had a lot of really in-depth examples that weren't particularly helpful. It did give me a new way of thinking about social class during the medieval period though. Generally, I think of medieval era social classes as being pretty stratified, but this article argues that there was some mixing within the social classes of knight/gentry and merchants for tax and other money purposes. When I think about this in terms of Chaucer, I find this extremely interesting, since this aspect of society doesn't seem to appear in The Canterbury Tales at all, especially when looking at the pilgrims of the knight and the merchant. They seem like two completely different social classes who don't mix at all, which is why I found this article so interesting. Here are some of the main points:

-Trade and gentility in Chaucer don’t mix and there is a long tradition in English society that they don’t mix.

-Historically, the king generally didn’t seem to consider the fact that merchants and landowners had interests in common since it treated them as separate political groups.

-New evidence is coming to light that show that knights at the end of the 13^th century were taking an active part in trade, starting small and then growing over the course of the century although there is a possibility that the knights were only acting as agents of professional urban merchants.

-In the 1330s many knights and gentry began describing themselves as merchants, regardless of the effects that this might have on their social standing. We should be careful about assuming that these knightly merchants were actually involved in trade though… many times it was done for tax purposes or property purposes

-Many knights had other positions in society besides just knight – they often held prominent local offices or represented established families that had traditionally held these offices

Gender, Class and Conscience

Eaton, R. D. "Gender, Class And Conscience In Chaucer." English Studies 84.3 (2003): 205. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 10 Nov. 2015.

I'm not sure what I think about this article... I didn't find a bunch of stuff that I thought would be especially helpful for my paper, despite the fact that it was supposed to focus on class. However, I thought it offered an interesting analysis of the idea of Conscience in Chaucer (using mainly the example of the Second Nun's Tale). The one problem that I had with this article was that it never really gave a definition of conscience - while I understand that the article is discussing what conscience means in terms of Chaucer, it doesn't state whether it is talking about conscience in terms of the little voice in the back of your head or consciousness in terms of class consciousness. I didn't find this paper particularly helpful, but I since it offers a discussion of conscience in terms of virginity, it might be helpful for anyone looking at virginity in their papers. It also offered a more theological approach to looking at Canterbury Tales, so anyone taking a more theological perspective in their papers might also find this helpful. 

-What does “conscience” mean in Chaucer? It’s not as radical as most editors suggest, and the diversity in the nature of conscience from context to context conforms to a pattern whose most important parameters are gender and class.

-Word conscience appears at moments of unusual emotional intensity like in the Second Nun’s Tale which has its roots in the New Testament, where conscience has an active role in maintaining moral purity and was sometimes paired with faith.

-Conscience, as a divine, precious gift can tolerate no compromise (since compromise can damage and thus weaken and corrupt). Virginity is an obvious example here.

-The differences between male and female conscience in Chaucer; when male conscience is referred to, the man in question is usually not doing what his conscience tells him to. Chaucer also maintains a silence when it comes to questions about conscience in aristocratic men specifically.

-Another thread of conscience present in Chaucer’s work is conscience as a nemesis which has deeper historical roots as the conscience as virginity theme of before. Society has a central role in the proper functioning of the conscience here (although the proper function is diversely conceived and vaguely expressed).

-Roles defined by gender and class are generated by normative forces operative in society, something that Chaucer shows by means of conscience. The upper class exerts almost proprietary rights over conscience while everyone else has to regard sensitivity to conscience as an aristocratic privilege. Thus class determines the paths of moral decision making.

-Chaucer represents the conscience as gendered space of the mind, a moral landscape in and out of which men could move without stigmatization but within which women were required to remain inside.

Class Distinctions in Chaucer

Brewer, D. C. "Class Distinction in Chaucer," Speculum 43.2 (April, 1968): Web. 9 November 2015.

This article will be super helpful when it comes to writing my paper about how Chaucer portrays class in the Canterbury Tales... but it also shed a lot of light for me on different ways that class systems during medieval times can be viewed. I'd never thought of looking at class as a system of co-existence or as a functional system. I sometimes find myself thinking about it as a way of oppressing certain types of people, especially when it is used in certain literary settings. While this isn't necessarily happening in Canterbury Tales, I couldn't help thinking about class in that way for it as well, so this article was very helpful in making me think about class in literature in a different way. Here are the main points of the article:

-This article argues that the social structures in Chaucer's world are more complex than we often assume.
-1st seen in Canterbury Tales in General Prologue when he describes the pilgrims in terms of what degree of society they are a member of... He does this in other works as well
- Uses the example of The Knight's Tale and the Physician's Tale to make this point
-Makes the point that Chaucer doesn't think badly of people improving their social class over time
- Doesn't seem to take "degree" of class to seriously, and almost seems to satirize it
-Makes the point that Chaucer Pilgrim and Chaucer poet's actual audiences differ and that this should play a part in how we view Chaucer's opinions on class
-Argues that society can maintain several co-existing systems of class-distinctions that overlap but not coincide in the demands and aspects of human society that they offer
-Discusses the difference between being and not being a member of the noble class - the distinction is both legal and social, but Chaucer looks at it in a moral way
-There is also another way of looking at class that is theoretical --> the functional system which consists of the Knights, who defend society/maintain law and order; the Clergy, who defend men's souls and feed their minds; and the Ploughmen who provide food to maintain the bodies of men. This system of class division is not concerned with the status or wealth of individuals

Biography of Geoffrey Chaucer... Since we just wrapped up the Canterbury Tales

Scanlon, Larry. "Geoffrey Chaucer," The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Literature, 1100-1500. Ed. Larry Scanlon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. 165-178.

I found this article on Chaucer's life while paging through a book trying to find something that might be helpful for my longer paper. I didn't think it would be super helpful, but it actually provided me some insights into Chaucer's life that explained his writings a little bit in addition to finding some things that might be helpful for my longer paper (and for other people's!) - I'm not sure if you would be able to find this article online or not, but if you want to look at the article, let me know and we can work something out.
Here's some things in the article that I found interesting or that I thought might be helpful for papers:

-Scanlon argues that Chaucer is the most monumental of English poets, even more so than Shakespeare... Having read both Chaucer and Shakespeare, I'm not sure that I necessarily agree with this, but it would be a really interesting discussion to have and it's one that I wish we could have in class!
-Scanlon raises the fact that there is a debate among scholars about whether Chaucer is an English poet or European poet? Since he drew from Latin/Italian traditions, and from French models, some scholars argue that Chaucer should be considered more of a European poet, rather than just an English poet.
-This article provides a summary of Chaucer's other works, and highlights key points of each, especially noting which works were DREAM VISIONS (was there a dream vision final paper? This might be helpful if so).
-There's a small analysis of the Retraction in Canterbury Tales which I found interesting to read given our discussion of it in class and wished that the article would have spent more time with it.
-There was a small analysis of the different classes Chaucer presents on the pilgrimages (helpful for me!) and why he might include these different classes.
-The article also gives a list of other texts that we might find interesting and/or helpful within the essay itself and explains the important trends that these other works point out and kind of categorizes them.

Flowering Rods

"Loke whose yerde doth floure and sprynge, / And he shal wedde that mayden hende" ("The Banns" 142-3).

These two lines from "Banns," which we read for Thursday of last week provoked my thinking because the flowering rod might initially appear to be out of place. However, it is not just a random, fantastic addition to the story. Biblically, the rod of Moses' brother, Aaron, flowers. But there is no textual precedent for the flowering of Joseph's rod. What is going on here, then? Why does the author of "Banns" have Joseph's rod flower? It seems clear that it is a reflection of the Old Testament story concerning Aaron. Flowering rods just aren't the first rhetorical device that come to mind when one wants to make a story more interesting.

I haven't had the time to do extra research regarding this topic because it has absolutely nothing to do with my paper, but I wonder if the flowering rod might have something to do with at least one the following:

• Aaron's rod was a sign that God had selected him as the head of the priestly line among the Hebrew people. Perhaps the flowering of Joseph's rod is a creative way that the author is signifying to the audience that Jesus is the fulfillment of the priests' purpose. He will be the one to make the final and perfect sacrifice. However, I imagine this meaning would have gone over the heads of the general populace.
• Perhaps the flowering rod is simply a sign of fertility (as I know some scholars have suggested). Here, too, though, I wonder if there might not be a rich biblical meaning. Obviously, Joseph is not being fertile in a sexual sense when it comes to Jesus; however, through Jesus, humans are to become "sons/daughters of the living God" (Rom. 9.26). Thus, again, the rod may signify Jesus' role as the one who fulfills divine promises. It is through Jesus that Abraham's seed truly become like the stars (Gal. 3.29), and perhaps the fertility of a flowering rod symbolizes this, connecting Jesus to Joseph and, thereby, to Abraham, too.

Middle English Marian Lyrics

On numerous occasions during the semester, we have spoken about the medievals' veneration of the Virgin Mary. Considering, too, that we have  referred to and read from two or three Marian lyrics, I think it might be helpful to post a link to Karen Saupe's collection, Middle English Marian Lyrics. The book has been published under TEAMS' Middle English Texts Series (just as Doug's The N-Town Plays was), and is, therefore, not only available in the Whitworth library but also online.

What I find most fascinating about these pieces is that reading through the lyrics with other literary works in mind (i.e., CT, Ancrene Wisse, The N-Town Plays, etc.) quickly reveals how deeply the cult of the Virgin Mary penetrated culture as a whole. Many Marian lyrics appear short when compared with the other original works composed during the period, presumably because the briefer lyrics would be more easily memorized, and there is such a vast store of preserved Marian lyrics that their popularity cannot be reasonably disputed. Whether or not you will be writing anything specifically about the medieval cult, research into these lyrics will certainly reveal much about medieval spirituality and may also help you understand what effects such Marian rhetoric had on the culture as a whole.

Manuscript as a Sacred Object

We talked a little bit about the importance of the manuscript a little bit in Thursday's class. Because the N Town plays are such mysterious plays it can be hard to know much if anything about the true origins of the manuscript or who created or compiled them. This article, written in 2014, talks about Robert Hegge and his claims that the manuscript primarily belonged to him. This article looks into the history and validity of this claim and also looks at how truly sacred these manuscripts were throughout this era.

Here is the citation and hyperlink for this article.

McMurray Gibson, Gail. "Manuscript as Sacred Object: Robert Hegge's N-Town Plays." Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 44.3. (2014): 503-529. Web.

http://ftp1.whitworth.edu:3361/ehost/detail/detail?sid=8c6ce0f2-2074-4268-9f20-19b70ab34594%40sessionmgr114&vid=0&hid=101&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=a9h&AN=98649499

Virgin Gaze

With some interesting connections to Dante and medieval art, Sarah Stanbury strikes again with an article on Mary's role in passion scenes. I think that this article could in some way relate to what Cannon talks about in the place chapter, specifically about the window and male and female gaze through the glass. There is also a feminist reading of some lyrics.

Stanbury, Sarah. "The Virgin's Gaze: Spectacle and Transgression in Middle English Lyrics of the Passion." PMLA 106.5 (1991): 1083-1093. JSTOR. 

Jewish Roles in N-Town

We raised the question of anti-Semitism in class the other day but did not get to finish our discussion. This source explores the function of Jews in the N-Town Plays, especially in relation to Mary.

Price, Merrall Llewellyn. "Re-membering the Jews: Theatrical Violence in the Marian N-Town Plays." Comparative Drama 41:4 (2007): 439-463. EBSCOhost. 

Madonna, Whore...Mary in the N-Town Plays

I don't know if any of you have seen this yet, but this crazy source talks about how promiscuous the N-Town Mary is...
Apparently she undergoes various tests of virginity while on stage, and is called a variety of ME insults. After outlining all the ways that Mary is slandered on stage, Solberg goes on to discuss the age old question of a virgin mother and the hermeneutical challenge that Mary presents to viewers. There's an interesting part about how Mary could have gotten pregnant, by medieval terms, which goes along well with Dana's crazy source on how medieval "scientists" understood conception. This essay does so much - it also talks about the story of Mary as a fabliaux or romance. It's a source to be considered for N-Town and for BVM papers. It was published just last year!

Solberg, Emma Maggie. "Madonna, Whore: Mary's Sexuality in the N-Town Plays."Comparative Drama 48.3 (2014): 191-220. EBSCOhost.

Chaucer in Context

Chaucer and the Late Medieval World is a really interesting narrative. The second chapter explores the idea of Chaucer-poet, the fifth chapter is entitled "The Road to Canterbury" and talks about saints, pilgrimage and religion at that historical moment, there is also a section on class and commerce...the list goes on (and includes a gender and sexuality section). A very comprehensive source. 

Bisson, Lillian M. Chaucer and the Late Medieval World. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998. Print.