Contextualization Essay

Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales during the fourteenth century in Middle English. As the language is different than modern English the words he used sometimes have different or variable meanings. The story is about a group of pilgrims traveling to Canterbury; their general description and disposition is included in the writing. Each pilgrim agrees to tell a story to the rest of the group. One of the characters is the Wife of Bath, a women who is married to her fifth husband. Her story is similar in setting and style to a medieval romance, as it include knights, King Arthur and a fairy hag. In this story a young knight is out traveling and, “he saugh a mayde walkynge hym biforn, / Of which mayde anon, maurgree hir heed, / By verray firce birafte hire maydenhed” (886-888). The word to focus on in this opening scene is “maydenhed” or maidenhood. Chaucer does not use the word of virgin here, but chooses to use maidenhood, perhaps to add a deeper level of complication to the tale. According to the Middle English Dictionary, “maidenhood” is not just virginity but can also be celibacy chosen for a specific religious reason. When Chaucer chose to describe the victim as a maiden he may have intended the readers to understand that not just any woman was raped here but a religious one who was likely never intended to be married or choose to have intercourse. By understanding better the character of the maid the answers the Knight finds on his quest are better contextualized, and his eventual transformation has a different connotation.

The Knight is caught and tried for his crime. He is sentenced to death by his King. The women of the court take an interest and plead that they may have power to choose his punishment instead of the King. He agrees and allows the women complete authority over the Knights life. The women, led by the Queen, send him on a quest saying, “I grante thee lyf if thou kanst tellen me / What thyng is it that wommen moost desiren” (904-905). These women, especially the queen, all seem to be married and not to be maidens. There are few other mentions of maidens in the kingdom, and in the beginning of the story it is made clear that there is no established church; instead there are elves and magical creatures. So when Chaucer describes the first woman as a maiden he may be drawing special attention to the fact that she is celibate by choice, not just a virgin due to young age. The women who judge her attacker have not made the same choice which foreshadows the difficulty of the task. Already we see women who desire to be celibate (the maid) and women who desire to have authority and power through marriage (the queen). The quest begins by the seeming impossibility of explaining this disparity in desire between just two women.

As the Knight travels he finds an even greater variety of things that women desire, “Somme seyde wommen loven best richesse; / Somme seyde honour, somme seyde jolynesse, Somme riche array. / Somme seyden lust abedde” (925-927). He spends a whole year talking to women and people about women and adds variety to the list of female desires. Some women desire riches, some honor, some humor, and some clothes. The most antithetical to the previously mentioned desire for celibacy is the women who desire lust in bed. The woman he had raped was celibate and by definition of her maidenhood did not have this desire, but on his journey he meets women who do. Chaucer seems to be making a point here about intercourse, the Knight must have realized that if he found one of these later women he may not have had to rape them as the intercourse could have been consensual. Then he would not have the threat of death hanging over him. Chaucer may be contrasting all these different types of women with the original pure and chaste one, again drawing attention to the fact that the maid was not only a virgin but chaste by religious choice.

When the Knight finally has an answer for his quest he speaks in front of the noble wives, maids, and widows. Here the word “mayde” (1026) may again refer to a women of religious celibacy or just to a young virgin. It seems either view of the word works, as the court would have young unmarried women in attendance. However, even though the court ostensibly was not Christian, medieval romances often had anachronisms, so the court may have had more cloistered women similar to the original maid in the story, come to see the man who raped their sister. The Knight tells the court that the thing that women most desire is sovereignty, or the power to make choices in their lives. Looking back at the answers women gave to his question the underlying cause of all their desires can be seen as a desire for power and control. This may be control in their relationships or in their societies. In the case of the Maid it was control over her body, she possibly chose to give it to religion, but that choice was made null and void by the Knight's power over her.

The Knight claims that women most desire control over their lives, and the women of the court agree. The Knight seems to realize his title and authority should not give him control over the women that he meets. When the Knight realizes this he, married to the hag who taught him the answer, agrees to her having control over her life and she magically becomes beautiful so they can live happily ever after. The Maid who was raped is not mentioned again, having served her part in the tale. However considering the interaction between the Knight and the Maid in the context of the desire for power adds interesting insight. The Maid made choice to stay celibate and was doing, presumably, everything in her power to stay true to her choice. The Knight comes by and violates her physically, then leaves to face his punishment. The Maid is left alone to face the reality that through no action of her own, her choice has been made void. In the end she has no power and no control over her life. This typifies, more then if she was just young virgin, the disparity in power in this society and why the women most desire for the dynamic to be more equal. A young virgins rape, though tragic, still could be made right through marriage. She would eventually lose her virginity either way, the rape quickened the process and would have likely changed her potential mate. The King may even have forced the Knight to marry her or find her a husband. However if she had chosen celibacy then the comfort of a husband would only make her situation worse as she only wanted to dedicate her virginity to religion. Nothing the Knight can do would give her power back, she made a choice, and he erased it.

Understanding Chaucer to have chosen to call her a maid because of her religious choice makes the story more relevant to a modern discussion of power dynamics between genders. If she is a young virgin then the rape is tragic and shows the Knights power over her physically and will affect her choices after the fact. However if they maid had chosen celibacy as a lifestyle then the Knight's violation and power over her is much more absolute, as he is then able to completely nullify the choices she has made up till the time of the rape. This makes the act of his violation a better example of the imbalance of power between the genders and possibly social classes of the time. This story thus understood is well able to enter into a discussion of how power has been allocated throughout history and lends itself well to even a current understanding of how people with power can affect and nullify the power of those around them. In a world rife with corruption it should be important to realize that people who have been given power have the opportunity to affect the choices of other people, and by doing so can in a real way nullify the choices and power of people that they come into contact with. Chaucer may have written this retelling of a medieval romance more then six hundred years ago, but by understanding and contextualizing how he chose to describe his characters the story is relevant in the current discussion of power dynamics and gender relationships.

Works Cited:

Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Wife of Baths Tale. The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: The Medieval Period. Ed. Joseph Black et all. Ontario: Peterborough, Broadview Press. 2009. 399- 551. Print.