English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History Part 8

In the same category of contempt for the existing ecclesiastical system, Chaucer places the sompnour, or summoner to the Church courts. Of his fire-red face, scattered beard, and the bilious k.n.o.bs on his cheeks, "children were sore afraid." The friar, in his tale, represents him as in league with the devil, who carries him away. He is a drinker of strong wines, a conniver at evil for bribes: for a good sum he would teach "a felon"

... not to have none awe In swiche a case of the archdeacon's curse.

To him the Church system was nothing unless he could make profit of it.

THE PARDONERE.--Nor is his picture of the pardoner, or vender of indulgences, more flattering. He sells--to the great contempt of the poet--a piece of the Virgin's veil, a bit of the sail of St. Peter's boat, holy pigges' bones, and with these relics he made more money in each parish in one day than the parson himself in two months.

Thus taking advantage of his plot to ridicule these characters, and to make them satirize each other--as in the rival stories of the sompnour and friar--he turns with pleasure from these betrayers of religion, to show us that there was a leaven of pure piety and devotion left.

THE POOR PARSON.--With what eager interest does he portray the lovely character of the _poor parson_, the true shepherd of his little flock, in the midst of false friars and luxurious monks!--poor himself, but

Riche was he of holy thought and work,

That Cristes gospel truely wolde preche, His parishers devoutly wolde teche.

Wide was his parish and houses fer asonder, But he left nought for ne rain no thonder, In sickness and in mischief to visite The ferrest in his parish, moche and lite.

Upon his fete, and in his hand a staf, This n.o.ble example to his shepe he yaf, That first he wrought and afterward he taught.

Chaucer's description of the poor parson, which loses much by being curtailed, has proved to be a model for all poets who have drawn the likeness of an earnest pastor from that day to ours, among whom are Herbert, Cowper, Goldsmith, and Wordsworth; but no imitation has equalled this beautiful model. When urged by the host,

Tell us a fable anon, for c.o.c.ke's bones,

he quotes St. Paul to Timothy as rebuking those who tell fables; and, disclaiming all power in poetry, preaches them such a stirring discourse upon penance, contrition, confession, and the seven deadly sins, with their remedies, as must have fallen like a thunderbolt upon this careless, motly crew; and has the additional value of giving us Chaucer's epitome of sound doctrine in that bigoted and ignorant age: and, eminently sound and holy as it is, it rebukes the lewdness of the other stories, and, in point of morality, neutralizes if it does not justify the lewd teachings of the work, or in other words, the immorality of the age. This is the parson's own view: his story is the last which is told, and he tells us, in the prologue to his sermon:

To knitte up all this feste, and make an ende; And Jesu for his grace wit me sende To showen you the way in this viage Of thilke parfit glorious pilgrimage, That hight Jerusalem celestial.

In an addendum to this discourse, which brings the Canterbury Tales to an abrupt close, and which, if genuine, as the best critics think it, was added some time after, Chaucer takes shame to himself for his lewd stories, repudiates all his "translations and enditinges of worldly vanitees," and only finds pleasure in his translations of Boethius, his homilies and legends of the saints; and, with words of penitence, he hopes that he shall be saved "atte the laste day of dome."

JOHN WICLIF.[18]--The subject of this early reformation so clearly set forth in the stories of Chaucer, cannot be fully ill.u.s.trated without a special notice of Chaucer's great contemporary and co-worker, John Wiclif.

What Chaucer hints, or places in the mouths of his characters, with apparently no very serious intent, Wiclif, himself a secular priest, proclaimed boldly and as of prime importance, first from his professor's chair at Oxford, and then from his forced retirement at Lutterworth, where he may well have been the model of Chaucer's poor parson.

Wiclif was born in 1324, four years before Chaucer. The same abuses which called forth the satires of Langland and Chaucer upon monk and friar, and which, if unchecked, promised universal corruption, aroused the martyr-zeal of Wiclif; and similar reproofs are to be found in his work ent.i.tled "Objections to Friars," and in numerous treatises from his pen against many of the doctrines and practices of the Church.

Noted for his learning and boldness, he was sent by Edward III. one of an emba.s.sy to Bruges, to negotiate with the Pope's envoys concerning benefices held in England by foreigners. There he met John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster. This prince, whose immediate descendants were to play so prominent a part in later history, was the fourth son of Edward III. By the death of the Black Prince, in 1376, and of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, in 1368, he became the oldest remaining child of the king, and the father of the man who usurped the throne of England and reigned as Henry IV. The influence of Lancaster was equal to his station, and he extended his protection to Wiclif. This, combined with the support of Lord Percy, the Marshal of England, saved the reformer from the stake when he was tried before the Bishop, of London on a charge of heresy, in 1377. He was again brought before a synod of the clergy at Lambeth, in 1378, but such was the favor of the populace in his behalf, and such, too, the weakness of the papal party, on account of a schism which had resulted in the election of two popes, that, although his opinions were declared heretical, he was not proceeded against.

After this, although almost sick to death, he rose from what his enemies had hoped would be his death-bed, to "again declare the evil deeds of the friars." In 1381, he lectured openly at Oxford against the doctrine of transubstantiation; and for this, after a presentment by the Church--and a partial recantation, or explaining away--even the liberal king thought proper to command that he should retire from the university. Thus, during his latter years, he lived in retirement at his little parish of Lutterworth, escaping the dangers of the troublous time, and dying--struck with paralysis at his chancel--in 1384, sixteen years before Chaucer.

TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE.--The labors of Wiclif which produced the most important results, were not his violent lectures as a reformer, but the translation of the Bible into English, the very language of the common people, greatly to the wrath of the hierarchy and its political upholders.

This, too, is his chief glory: as a reformer he went too fast and too far; he struck fiercely at the root of authority, imperilling what was good, in his attack upon what was evil. In pulling up the tares he endangered the wheat, and from him, as a progenitor, came the Lollards, a fanatical, violent, and revolutionary sect.

But his English Bible, the parent of the later versions, cannot be too highly valued. For the first time, English readers could search the whole Scriptures, and judge for themselves of doctrine and authority: there they could learn how far the traditions and commandments of men had encrusted and corrupted the pure word of truth. Thus the greatest impulsion was given to a reformation in doctrine; and thus, too, the exclusiveness and arrogance of the clergy received the first of many sledge-hammer blows which were to result in their confusion and discomfiture.

"If," says Froude,[19] "the Black Prince had lived, or if Richard II. had inherited the temper of the Plantagenets, the ecclesiastical system would have been spared the misfortune of a longer reprieve."

THE ASHES OF WICLIF.--The vengeance which Wiclif escaped during his life was wreaked upon his bones. In 1428, the Council of Constance ordered that if his bones could be distinguished from those of other, faithful people, they should "be taken out of the ground and thrown far off from Christian burial." On this errand the Bishop of Lincoln came with his officials to Lutterworth, and, finding them, burned them, and threw the ashes into the little stream called the Swift. Fuller, in his Church History, adds: "Thus this brook has conveyed his ashes into Avon, Avon into Severn, Severn into the narrow seas, they into the main ocean; and thus the ashes of Wiclif are the emblem of his doctrine, which now is dispersed all the world over;" or, in the more carefully selected words of an English laureate of modern days,[20]

... this deed accurst, An emblem yields to friends and enemies, How the bold teacher's doctrine, _sanctified By truth_, shall spread, throughout the world dispersed.

CHAPTER IX.

CHAUCER (CONTINUED.)--PROGRESS OF SOCIETY, AND OF LANGUAGES.

Social Life. Government. Chaucer's English. His Death. Historical Facts. John Gower. Chaucer and Gower. Gower's Language. Other Writers.

SOCIAL LIFE.

A few words must suffice to suggest to the student what may be learned, as to the condition of society in England, from the Canterbury Tales.

All the portraits are representatives of cla.s.ses. But an inquiry into the social life of the period will be more systematic, if we look first at the nature and condition of chivalry, as it still existed, although on the eve of departure, in England. This is found in the portraits of certain of Chaucer's pilgrims--the knight, the squire, and the yeoman; and in the special prologues to the various tales. The _knight_, as the representative of European chivalry, comes to us in name at least from the German forests with the irrepressible Teutons. _Chivalry_ in its rude form, however, was destined to pa.s.s through a refining and modifying process, and to obtain its name in France. Its Norman characteristic is found in the young _ecuyer_ or squire, of Chaucer, who aspires to equal his father in station and renown; while the English type of the man-at-arms (_l'homme d'armes_) is found in their attendant yeoman, the _tiers etat_ of English chivalry, whose bills and bows served Edward III.

at Cressy and Poictiers, and, a little later, made Henry V. of England king of France in prospect, at Agincourt. Chivalry, in its palmy days, was an inst.i.tution of great merit and power; but its humanizing purpose now accomplished, it was beginning to decline.

What a speaking picture has Chaucer drawn of the knight, brave as a lion, prudent in counsel, but gentle as a woman. His deeds of valor had been achieved, not at Cressy and Calais, but--what both chieftain and poet esteemed far n.o.bler warfare--in battle with the infidel, at Algeciras, in Poland, in Prussia, and Russia. Thrice had he fought with sharp lances in the lists, and thrice had he slain his foe; yet he was

Of his port as meke as is a mayde; He never yet no vilainie ne sayde In all his life unto ne manere wight, He was a very parfit gentil knight.

The entire paradox of chivalry is here presented by the poet. For, though Chaucer's knight, just returned from the wars, is going to show his devotion to G.o.d and the saints by his pilgrimage to the hallowed shrine at Canterbury, when he is called upon for his story, his fancy flies to the old romantic mythology. Mars is his G.o.d of war, and Venus his mother of loves, and, by an anachronism quite common in that day, Palamon and Arcite are mediaeval knights trained in the school of chivalry, and aflame, in knightly style, with the light of love and ladies' eyes. These incongruities marked the age.

Such was the flickering brightness of chivalry in Chaucer's time, even then growing dimmer and more fitful, and soon to "pale its ineffectual fire" in the light of a growing civilization. Its better principles, which were those of truth, virtue, and holiness, were to remain; but its forms, ceremonies, and magnificence were to disappear.

It is significant of social progress, and of the levelling influence of Christianity, that common people should do their pilgrimage with community of interest as well as danger, and in easy, tale-telling conference with those of higher station. The franklin, with white beard and red face, has been lord of the sessions and knight of the shire. The merchant, with forked beard and Flaundrish beaver hat, discourses learnedly of taxes and ship-money, and was doubtless drawn from an existing original, the type of a cla.s.s. Several of the personages belong to the guilds which were so famous in London, and

Were alle yclothed in o livere Of a solempne and grete fraternite.

GOVERNMENT.--Closely connected with this social progress, was the progress in const.i.tutional government, the fruit of the charters of John and Henry III. After the a.s.sa.s.sination of Edward II. by his queen and her paramour, there opened upon England a new historic era, when the bold and energetic Edward III. ascended the throne--an era reflected in the poem of Chaucer.

The king, with Wiclif's aid, checked the encroachments of the Church. He increased the representation of the people in parliament, and--perhaps the greatest reform of all--he divided that body into two houses, the peers and the commons, giving great consequence to the latter in the conduct of the government, and introducing that striking feature of English legislation, that no ministry can withstand an opposition majority in the lower house; and another quite as important, that no tax should be imposed without its consent. The philosophy of these great facts is to be found in the democratic spirit so manifest among the pilgrims; a spirit tempered with loyalty, but ready, where their liberties were encroached upon, to act with legislative vigor, as well as individual boldness.

Not so directly, but still forcibly, does Chaucer present the results of Edward's wars in France, in the status of the knight, squire, and yeoman, and of the English sailor, and in the changes introduced into the language and customs of the English thereby.

CHAUCER'S ENGLISH.--But we are to observe, finally, that Chaucer is the type of progress in the language, giving it himself the momentum which carried it forward with only technical modifications to the days of Spenser and the Virgin Queen. The _House of Fame_ and other minor poems are written in the octosyllabic verse of the Trouveres, but the _Canterbury Tales_ give us the first vigorous English handling of the decasyllabic couplet, or iambic pentameter, which was to become so polished an instrument afterward in the hands of Dryden and Pope. The English of all the poems is simple and vernacular.