"Maculating Mary: The Detractors of the N-Twon Cycle's 'Trial of Joseph and Mary'"

Maculating Mary: The Detractors of the N-Town Cycle’s “Trial of Joseph and Mary”

by Alison M. Hunt

In her article “Maculating Mary: The Detractors of the N-Town Cycle’s “Trial of Joseph and Mary,” Alison M. Hunt examines the role of the detractors in the trial play in light of two other common medieval slander locations: the romance and the Lollard critique of the church.

 

In a romance, she says, a slanderer functions to show how enviable the hero is, to send the hero into exile, and to provide the hero a chance to redeem his reputation. Hunt notes that the ecclesiastical court system relied upon public rumor to bring people to court, but also that it demanded that the accusers be people of good character. The court system then functioned as the ally of the accused, offering the person an opportunity to redeem his or her good name.

 

Hunt also examines the case of Lollard dissent, especially pointing out the threat it posed in the eyes of the church to social unity. In the N-Town trial play, accusation of Mary can stand in for any skepticism of church teachings, for the body of Mary represents the church. At the end, when Mary restores the community of the audience, she represents how the church restores community.

 

I plan to use Hunt’s claims about the importance of public opinion, not only for an individual’s place in society (thus making public opinion a strong coercive force) but as a standard by which to assess the value or danger of a dissenting belief. If a belief stands or falls on the basis of how it will impact social unity, then the standard for correct belief is not just the Bible or even church tradition, but the community’s consent.

Backbiter article

Backbiter and the Rhetoric of Detraction

Hayes, Douglas W. Comparative Drama 34.1 (2000): 53-78.

Hayes sets up his examination of the detractors, and Backbiter in particular, by looking at Backbiter’s role in The Castle of Perseverance, a text pre-dating the N-Town plays. Using language, Backbiter moves back and forth across the strict lines between good and evil, blurring those lines. Hayes compares his place as a representative of “sins of the tongue” to Augustine’s understanding that rhetoric can be a force for evil as much as for good.

 

In the N-Town plays, Hayes says, the detractors use their ambivalent rhetoric for complicated purposes. The very presence of these characters forces the audience into an interpretive position by disrupting the sense of pure historical portrayal and reminding the audience of the dramatic setting. By addressing the audience, the detractors insert the audience into the biblical moment and force it to face the questions the biblical characters faced. Thus, the detractors put the audience in a position of attending to arguments against central tenets of Christian orthodoxy. When the detractors receive God’s wrath in payment, the audience knows which side of the argument is correct, but maintains its interpretive position; now the audience members have made an interpretive choice, and are no longer mere spectators to the biblical story. Still, Backbiter seems to escape unscathed, and may return.

 

In my paper about who determines correct belief, I had already planned to argue something similar about the role of the dramatic setting to make the audience interpret and judge heresy. Hayes’ article, by focusing on the detractors, points out a specific way that the plays do so. I plan to expand on his that the detractors force the audience to decide (with guidance) what is correct belief, arguing that the presence of God’s judgment at the end of the plays motivates the audience to become self-regulating in belief and to regulate the heterodox beliefs of others.

The Animated Canterbury Tales

In the event that you have time over Christmas break that you want to spend experiencing Chaucer, then look no further than this award winning series. Airing in the late 1990's, this stop-motion series captures the tales of Chaucer in visually entertaining episodes of around 30 minutes each, complete with the narration of our friend Chaucer Pilgrim. Although not completely loyal to the text, this miniseries captures the hilarity and bawdiness of the Canterbury Pilgrims and gives it new life through visual representation. I thought that it was highly entertaining, even though it wasn't that helpful for my paper.
There are three episodes available on YouTube. I've attached the first one. Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3zUoNG_P_0&list=PLFM2U6J6u5w2Ye9L5lGx7kknNZYlj0no8

Pilgrim, Audience, God: David Williams on the audience of The Canterbury Tales

This chapter of David Williams’ The Canterbury Tales: A Literary Pilgrimage presents a new way of understanding how Chaucer interacts with his audience. Williams argues that Chaucer creates “a complicated set of analogous audiences…to associate us, as audience, at various times, with one or another of these fictional audiences” (24). That is, Chaucer gives us the tools to “transcend fiction through fiction.” Williams describes this narrative construction as “cosmological,” and even goes on to argue that each pilgrim tells a tale that has a nuclei (perhaps more simply the “moral” of a tale?) that is received by several different audiences: other pilgrims, Chaucer poet, even God. This creates a narrative at an existential level and an opportunity for us as the reader-audience to “recognize ourselves by analogy as the ultimate level of a whole series of flawed authors,” which then begs the question of what our tale is. Williams asserts a “didactic Chaucer” that draws in us as his audience to participate as pilgrims. I’m not sure I’m wholly convinced of his argument, but it was the first of its kind that I have come across and gave me a new lens of trying to understand the function of storytelling in The Canterbury Tales.

Making Trouble: Postmodern Theory With/In Chaucer Studies

In this essay, Faye Walker analyzes the boundaries between medieval studies and poststructuralism, two areas that her experience has deemed largely incompatible in pedagogy. The primary difficult lies in attempting to take “apart the nineteenth-century construction of "medieval studies" and trying to imagine both a pre-nineteenth century model and a postmodern "shape" (for lack of a more descriptive word of a loosely structured body of material) for medieval studies.” She calls out the false dichotomy of poststructuralism and medieval studies, and through an exhaustive amount of academic research posits that both forms of literary study can be helpful in understanding the other. I was a bit surprised with this article, mainly because I didn’t realize that there was such a distinction between these two areas of study. Although the article didn’t end up being helpful for my paper, it was an interesting read and gave me something to think about. Also, Jill Mann (the editor of our version of the Canterbury Tales) is briefly quoted as one of the many scholars Walker refers to in this article.
http://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?sid=4faf2dc9-62b3-467d-a695-913f1e2974b8%40sessionmgr114&vid=0&hid=118&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=f5h&AN=9610233851

Devotional Iconography in the N-Town Marian Plays by Theresa Coletti

This article (from Doug’s collection) by Theresa Coletti looks at the content and staging of the N-Town Marian plays in light of the religious iconography of the Middle Ages in order to better understand the cultural function of these plays. Coletti explores the staging of the N-Town plays as it interacts with medieval iconographic art and argues that iconographic presentation in the N-Town plays is justified by “forms of late medieval spirituality” (267), which I found to be a really interesting tracking of the relationship between the N-Town plays and the society from which these plays were born. Her overall argument is that medieval drama is inseparable from the devotional background that produced them, and the interaction of the two introduces a crossing of artistic sensibilities and iconographic representations that has transformed from painting and liturgy to dramatic interpretation.

Paul Zumthor on Pilgrimage Narratives

            I found this essay by Paul Zumthor absolutely fascinating. Zumthor looks at the unifying characteristics of a diverse array of medieval narrative, and how these narratives interact with their audiences rhetorically. He dissects the societal value of pilgrimage and explores why pilgrimage was so popular, not as a spiritual expression or amode of tourism but as a form of narrative in the middle ages. He notes a medieval “fascination…of a special order, the understanding of which is an experience of otherness, for better or for worse” (812), and creates a link between the medieval audiences curiosity for the “other” and the reality of a physical and distancing spatial order. This fascination is drives the production of what Zumthor believes is a “double account, narrative and descriptive” (812) of every pilgrimage tale, and often one quality subverts the other depending on the tone of a text. For example, the Canterbury Tales is a rich collection of narratives from various speakers, but the description of the actual pilgrimage is rather sparse. The narrative side of the tale takes precedence over the descriptive side. Zumthor’s article has a lot of really interesting ways of understanding travel narratives (he even has a little something to say on science-fiction as a travel narrative!), and I would highly recommend reading it—even if, dare I say, just for fun.

Zumthor, Paul, and Catherine Peebles. “The Medieval Travel Narrative”. New Literary History 25.4 (1994): 809–824. Web.

Bastard Feudalism: Badges and Maintenance part II

This article, "The 1468 Statute of Livery," (from Doug's collection) focuses on exactly that, the series of statutes invoked in order to regulate maintenance during this time. The interesting comparison between this article and others I have read is the statement "What was most obviously banned was extraordinary retaining by those under the rank of the peerage, retaining of those of lower rank than gentlemen and the casual giving of livery to those who were not menial servants or retained for life." The rule is clearly stated, livery could only be given to those who were of either equal status or servants. Yet, much of the conflict spurred on in the late 14th and 15th centuries seems to have been brought on by conflicts in leadership, and the law put into place was meant to deal with the "chivalrous" classes, the classes who were supposed to aid the weak. With the instigation of laws such as these, it quickly becomes apparent that the strong were not helping the weak, but rather seeking to further their own aims, especially during a time when the leadership of the nation was in question. Again, ask me if you would like the article.

Badges and Maintenance

In one of the articles dealing with the historical background of the time when the N-Town cycle was being produced, I came across an interesting amount of laws and regulations put into place in order to restrict dukes, earls, barons, etc. from spreading their livery about. I wasn't so much interested in the article however until I came across the line stating that the livery was "limited to knights and esquires retained for life by indenture and domestic servants resident in the household." This puts a whole new shift on the knight and squire's tales, specifically when the realization is made that they are simply owned by the ruling class as well, not unlike the peasants who serve the high class (with other benefits to the knight of course). The article even gets more interesting when it brings up the point that even the king was meant to uphold this law, which gained more weight as the War of Roses continued on during this time period. The article continues on to describe that most of the badges and other livery were passed on during times of intense tumult, not surprising given the number of times the royal class was ousted. The article is called "The Commons and the Abolition of Badges," by Nigel Saul. Ask me if you want to get ahold of it.

Like a Virgin: Mary and her Doubters in the N-Town Cycle

This article by Cindy L Carlson is found in Constructions of Widowhood and Virginity in the Middle Ages. It talks about "the connections between Mary's virginal body and the social body of which she is an anomalous part, with special reference to the N-town cycle." It highlights the social problems that arise concerning the visibility of Mary's pregnancy in contrast to the invisibility of her virginity. Carlson makes the argument that Mary's virginity and the community are connected inherently, that Mary's virginity both threatens the cohesion of the society she lives in while also providing a model for the society to recover its purity and wholeness.

It talks a lot about Mary's doubters, particularly Joseph himself, and also the political system and trials that they get caught up in. From there, she discusses how the pageants that concern Mary are as political as they are spiritual.

Why Lollards are Bad: A Lyric

For those looking at the relationship between the Lollards and the Church, here is a lyric that comments directly on how the Lollards are the root of evil and how they should never be appointed to positions of power. The lyric, called "Lo, He That Can Be Cristes Clerc," lists the concerns held about the Lollard beliefs, mainly that the King and his knights should not be exposed to such ideas, as it "is unkyndly for a knight / that shuld a kynges castel keep, / To babel the Bibel day and night, / In restyng tyme when he shuld slepe." The lyric goes on to highlight the differences between the Lollards and the Church, and explains the differences in terms of rulers and knighthood, and could be directly compared to some of our discussion on the N-Town plays.

http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/dean-medieval-english-political-writings-lo-he-that-can-be-christes-clerc

The Necessity of Display within the Upper Medieval Classes

Most of our conversation of The Knight's Tale, and for most of the Canterbury Tales, began with looking at the character's through which the tales were conveyed, as each narrator had specific traits that led to reasoning as to why each story was told. However, most of our discussion of the knight was focused around the fact that the knight was more of a mercenary, or a warrior who adopted the guise of the knight in order to make money or side with the current ruling class. The first chapter of this book, Knights at Court: Courtliness, Chivalry, and Courtesy from Ottonian Germany to The Italian Renaissance, embellishes on this idea, and revealing, much to my surprise, that this practice was actually fairly common since knighthood became associated with nobility. The process of becoming a knight, because of its intensity with regards to both physicality and monetary cost, was often forgone, meaning that many trained individuals instead opted for the position of "esquire," where oftentimes, as Scaglione writes:

Indeed, the young nobleman's economic predicament was not without stress: whereas he was barred from working for a living, he nevertheless needed to keep up with the standards of the rich princes who replaced the petty local lords. Prodigal display was a distinguishing trait of the chivalric class all along, but financial irresponsibility took its toll and many an indebted knight had to sell his land to the hated parvenu villains or give it back to the prince, perhaps in return for a place at court. (19)

From this point forward, The Knight's Tale, despite being a mythical story, becomes less far-fetched. Most of Theseus' power arises from these "prodigal displays," and the very creation of the stadium for the gods takes on the concept of financial irresponsibility. When attached to the knight and the squire, both their stories can be seen as attempts to live up the standards of the ruling classes, but each story falls just short of what would actually be considered "noble."

The book can be found here:
http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft4j49p00c;brand=ucpress

Tales of Pathos

There is an essay in the Cambridge Companion to Chaucer (available at our library) that I have found really useful. It is written by Robert Worth Frank Jr, titled "The Canterbury Tales III: pathos". It focuses on the tales of the Man of Law, the Second Nun, the Clerk, the Physician, the Prioress, and the Monk. He lumps these tales together under the heading of "tales of pathos," meaning any tale that aims to create in the reader a strong emotional response.

While Frank does discuss the fourteenth-century reader's feelings towards these tales, he focuses also on how the modern reader interacts with them differently. He states that these tales "make greater demands on a modern reader's historical sense and imaginative sympathies," and also that they are crucial to understanding the minds and emotions of people in the fourteenth century/Chaucer's readers.

He also looks at literature and works present during the fourteenth century that followed the same patterns as these tales of pathos: Meditations on the Life of Christ, the Golden Legend, and also the various tales that Chaucer adapted to write some of the tales listed above.

If anyone is writing their paper on any of these tales or discussing the evolving reactions to the Canterbury Tales, this article could be really helpful.

"Pathos may seem alien because it works with extremes. It willingly tramples over probability if need be to portray these extremes -- of goodness, of evil, of suffering, of faith, of innocence. From this pushing to extremes arises its abstract character."