The placement of the Physician's Tale

The content of the Physician's Tale — a recycled story of a virgin killed to maintain her sexual honor — makes for interesting discussion, but even more so when we consider it within its textual context. Its placement in our text between the Franklin's Tale and the Pardoner's Tale suggests thematic connections with both tales. 

Although in our text, the Physician's Tale follows the Franklin's Tale, some manuscripts have placed it after the Canon's Yeoman's Tale, a story of alchemy, greed, "trouth" and trickery. The scholar Robert Pratt uses manuscript evidence to argue against this particular ordering in his article "The Order of the Canterbury Tales," available on JSTOR. 

The content of the Physician's Tale further supports the conclusion that our text contains the more appropriate placement, as its plot echoes Dorigen's list of women who commit suicide or die rather than sacrifice their virginity or honor. The allusions to Roman anecdotes in the Franklin's Tale and the Roman setting of the Physician's Tale — disregarding the anachronistic references to Christianity — remind the reader that "female sexual honor ... was of supreme importance in Roman culture, and as the stories of Lucretia and all those other women cited by Dorigen indicate, its loss was literally a fate worse than death" (Cooper 252). However, Chaucer's treatment of these two Tales cast doubt on this belief in the primacy of sexual honor. The seeming excess of Virginius's murder of his daughter echoes the sense of hesitation in the Franklin's Tale about valuing too highly tales of virginal martyrs. Chaucer's apparent disagreement with the degree of "gentilesse" emphasis on virginity and sexual honor echoes the confusion within the medieval Church about sexual honor and morality, and whether suicide or murder, when conducted to avoid loss of honor, is theologically justifiable (Cooper 253). 

Furthermore, both Dorigen and Virginia are assigned passive roles in their fates. While Dorigen takes a more active role in putting herself in a difficult situation by making a flippant promise — as opposed to Virginia, whose natural beauty is her downfall — both women wind up subservient to male authority. Dorigen lays her problems at Averagus's feet and abides by his judgment that she keep her honor/promise, and Virginia accepts her father's decree that she must die rather than surrender her honor/virginity. She tells her father humbly, "Dooth with youre child youre wyl, a Goddes name!" (250). An elemental difference between these two women rests in what their male guardians believe about honor and which they value more, troth or sexual purity. Thus, the Physician's Tale naturally follows and engages in a debate with the Franklin's Tale about honor and sexual purity — the Physician seems to be challenging the Franklin's stance that keeping troth is more valuable. And, both tales cast light on the unenviable position of women as passive and powerless to solve problems created by male lust.

Although the Pardoner's Tale does not address the issue of sexual honor, it is a natural successor to the Physician's Tale. Both tales deal with the dangers inherent in gifts of Fortune and Nature. After the physician completes his tale, the Host grieves for Virginia and says, "I seye al day that men may see / That yiftes of Fortune and of Nature / Been cause of deeth to many a creature" (294-296). Virginia's "beautee was hire deth" (297). The Host further opens the door for the Pardoner to craft a tale of the dangers of gifts of Fortune, by saying, "of bothe yiftes that I speke of now / Men han ful ofte moore for harm than prow" (299-300). As someone who makes a living on sermonizing, the pardoner can hardly pass up this opportunity to use his skill to "quite" the physician and Host on this particular issue and, perhaps, make some money off the other pilgrims, especially when these pilgrims shout down the Host's request for a funny tale. After a prologue in which he ill-advisedly reveals his strategy and greed, undercutting his moral authority, the pardoner recycles an oft-told tale of three foolish men who meet their deaths through a gift of Fortune. Thus, the Pardoner's Tale dovetails nicely with the physician's story of a fatal gift of Nature.  

Pratt, Robert A. "The Order of the Canterbury Tales." PMLA 66:6 (Dec. 1951). 1141-1167. 

Cooper, Helen. Oxford Guides to Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1996.