After we spoke about the estate satire, I went to library and took out Jill Mann's Chaucer and Medieval Estates Satire. Mann’s book covers many aspects of the medieval estates theory, but what I find the most interesting are her comments on the “estates ideals”. She offers four examples: the parson, the ploughman, the knight, the clerk. The parson and the ploughman represent the clergy and the peasantry, respectively. The clerk, however, is “an ideal representative of the life of study” (Mann 74). The knight represents not only the ideal of his estate, but the ideal of chivalry itself. Mann discusses the Knight in depth with regard to the ideals Chaucer imposes upon him. Mann focuses on the analysis of the parson, the ploughman, and the clerk as "estate ideals".
Mann views the parson as a cleansing and purifying character, especially when compared to the other members of the first estate (the monk and the friar).The verses he "narrates" are slow, steady, relaxing. By accounting for the parson's virtues, Chaucer not only suggests an ideal of the parsonage but also alludes to the sins of a "normal" member of this estate. By focusing exaggeratingly on the good aspects of this character, he also mentions the negative and therefore represents the aspects of the estate wholly.
Mann notes that a priest's duty to "set an example" is given great prominence in estates satire. Chaucer highlights this in the Parson's tale when the Parson describes himself as a shepard with duty to his flock. The first estate is represented through multiple characters in The Canterbury Tales, but the parson represents the idealized version of the pious and virtuous clergy. Mann goes on tostate that parson and the ploughman, even without their blood relation, are a pairing used to force the reader to connect the classes with each other and form concrete opinions about each class.
The ploughman represents the peasantry, or the third estate. His characteristics are just as idealistic and therefore, shall we say, unlikely as the parson's. The ploughman is tirelessly industrious, as well as dutifully religious. This extreme highlights the true opposite characteristics in the true peasant. Or, at least, according to Chaucer or and his wit. The peace the ploughman prizes may represent the opposite: the common quarreling in a peasant's life. His piety, "the peasant's supposed hatred of the church and the clergy" (70).
The clerk does not directly represent one of the estates we discussed in class, but Mann claims Chaucer uses him as the representative of an ideal in the same way I've addressed above. The stress in the portrait and tale of the clerk is on books and learning, as well as dedication to teaching. The actual subject of his studies, however, is never mentioned. Chaucer seems to be idealizing men of learning by assuming their dedication and virtue without evidence of their knowledge. Again, we can assume he thinks the values of the estates are important ones, as well as their antitheses.
Mann's argument is thorough in her aims to explain a few of Chaucer's pilgrims as estate ideals. I wished she'd selected a female character to analyze, because the added dimension of the fourteenth-century ideals of femininity would have been interesting. I plan to look at Chaucer's inclusion of antifeminist themes for my papers and will post the results of my preliminary research in order to, hopefully, enrich the discussion of the ideals of the members of the classes and the pilgrimage.
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Glad to see that Mann's classic book is getting some further attention! With respect to the lack of a female figure among the ideal representatives of the estates, that can be laid at the feet of estates theory itself, which had no grouping for women per se and which overlooked them within the three estates inasmuch as their power and authority were limited as compared to that of men. In estates satires (as opposed to estates theory per se), women were often treated separately as well, so the system Chaucer was working with would have been inclined to give women short shrift.
ReplyDeleteBut of course, we have seen how Chaucer doesn't settle for just taking a theory on board and reproducing it without question, and one of the other things your post does is to raise a useful question: given that Chaucer does include ideal representatives of each of the three estates (plus the clerk as a second representative of the First Estate, one who is not in major religious orders and therefore quasi "secular"), to what extent may he be said to buy into the ideology of the three estates? Is there a tension between his clear-eyed portraiture of a real-world hodgepodge of types, ill accommodated by the theory, and a conservative or idealistic yearning for the well-ordered mutuality that the theory implies?
I think he’s being entirely satirical. I think he mocks the idea of three distinct estates, and this goes back to the introduction of my original post: he spanned the contours of society within each of his occupations. Perhaps when he was a courtier he was firmly planted, for a time, in the second estate but in his positions of public service he was undoubtedly exposed to members of each estate. He was likely often in the company of women, businessmen, military men, and noblemen. I think he came to the conclusion that the “ideals” of each estate: that those in the clergy are rigidly pious, kind, virtuous and angelic and that knights are each chivalry incarnated and peasants are dumbly obedient to both higher men and a higher God are almost laughably inaccurate.
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