The Friar: The devil holds the key

In the previous Chaucer entry we closed with the fact that a ram, because of his cloven hooves, symbolizes the devil. Chaucer clearly says the Friar is "wanton and merry," "beloved and familiar" with franklins (country gentlemen) and women of the town. Pursuing this less than an exemplary cleric as the devil provides solutions to the poet's crafty lines.
     When the lines are NOT clear, allegorically speaking, that makes them important. (Read--Fletcher's Allegory: A Symbolic Mode.) Several Chaucer lines try the ingenuity of editors. For example, "rage he could, as if he were a whelp." Notes advise the reader to see a "puppy" in the "whelp," but where is the sense in a puppy raging? Fourteenth-century rage can mean carnal desire as well as madness, wrath, fierceness, violence. "Puppy" does not fit. Checking further, a whelp can also be "the offspring of a noxious creature." The OED includes quotations like "fiend's whelp" and "whelps of the devils."
     Another outstanding instance of confusion is:
          His tippet was stuffed (farsed) full of knives 
          And pins, for to give fair wives.
 A tippet is this long, narrow, ornamental strip of fabric that hangs freely.
 

 The Friar supposedly stuffed (farsed) his with knives and pins. One editor suggests there must be a pocket in his tippet! Medieval "pins" were not the flimsy items of today, but sturdy implements such as spikes, tools for stabbing, and prods that a devil might use in hell--or in a stage production of hell. These heavy, sharp instruments deserve a sturdy pouch. Again, there is something wrong with this picture.
     The most troublesome word is "farsed," followed closely by "tippet" and "pittance." "Farsed," in French, means "stuffed," but it is also the source of the word farce. Farce is a direct connection to devils in medieval plays. On stage, demons were always a comic element, "continually being dragged in, even where [they are] not strictly required . . . purely for . . . merriment." Devils are portrayed as fear-filled; they do a lot of sprawling, groveling, and breaking wind. When the battle--the defense of hell--is in full swing, a demon runs into the fray with the medieval equivalent of sparklers in his hands, ears and arse. The ultimate for our imagination is a grand finale: a crew of demons dragging sinners to the pit of hell amid great noise, prodding and confusion.
     Our next challenging word is "tippet." (M.E. typet) It actually has two parts. If we remove the "et" (the French diminutive ending) we have the English word "type"--a snare, a trap. Now we do NOT have to picture that narrow strip of cloth "stuffed full of knives and pins." The line provides a devilish trap--such as hell--full of instruments that prod and puncture.
     "Pittance" is our third word. Chaucer's playing a game with the word. The rules are like the ones that hold for remembrance, hindrance, deliverance. The -ance functions as "caused someone to be" remembered, hindered, or delivered. In similar fashion, then, pittance is "caused someone to be" pitted, where the pit is hell. "Hell pit" was a common term.
     Covertly, the scene becomes a snare for this farcical performance where knives and pins represent assorted, pointed instruments aimed at "worthy" women as they are herded into a pit. The pit entrance was called "hell mouth" and was a prominent feature of medieval staging.

Dramatists reveled in portraying Doomsday where "devils rolled, shoved, pricked and tossed the damned into Hell Mouth unceremoniously." The wicked were a source of "rude laughter and humiliating action." Elegant women being herded by the devil was the "pittance" he'd hoped for. And the raging whelp becomes a demon giving his comic all.

If the devil told a story about hell, it would be appropriate. Of course, that's where we began with the story of Helle--not a place, but a girl. The clincher of the Friar / Aries identity as the devil--if we still need one--is his Tale.
     Aries is the Ram that let Helle slip into the water. The Friar, then could tell a story about Helle--and he does. The twist is that h-e-l-l-e is the Middle English spelling of the devil's territory. The Friar entertains us with a story about "helle" and how the devil, who announces himself "a feend; my dwellyng is in helle," transacts his business to trap souls.
     Ovid, the Latin poet, may have directly inspired Chaucer's duplicity. For our poet, who read both Latin and Middle English, a double image would be evident when Ovid refers to Aries as "the ram of Helle": one image is the animal that carried a girl named Helle; the other is an animal symbolic of the devil from "helle." Not a word need be changed; the images superimpose.

Trickery and comedy

Chaucer's approach to the sign of Cancer is unique. He appears to be just having fun--teasing by adding more information than necessary and including distracting details that make the challenge of discernment greater. Even introducing the Guildsmen ahead of the Cook, in the General Prologue, is a trick. It's like re-naming Aesop's fable (The Belly and It's Members) "The Members and Their Belly."
     A serious distraction is talk of the Guildsmen's wives. Each has a cloak, which Chaucer depicts as "royally borne." Garments trailing behind is not the picture of a crab. It's a diverting dead end. My initial confusion was relieved by a picture of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Carved around a portal are the twelve signs of the zodiac illustrating the universe created by God. Here Cancer is not the image of a crab but of a lobster, definitely a figure with a part trailing behind. Strangely enough, crabs and lobsters were interchangeable in the medieval mind because "cancer" can express either word in Latin.
     Now let's examine the Guildsmen/Lobsters. During the pilgrimage, the five Guildsmen never utter a word. They are never spoken to or about. These characters serve only to add complexity to identifying the sign. The physical description of the "men" is undistinguished, generic. Each detail is said to apply to all. That's quite unlikely if we're viewing five men. Their skills, on the other hand, are individualized as the tradition of the fable requires. The variety distracts by needing interpretation of each corresponding second level "skill." Most readers, I'm sure, just skim over the carefully chosen specifics of:

A haberdasher and a carpenter,
A weaver, a dyer, and a tapestry maker,--

The medieval Haberdasher stocked various small articles: spurs, beads, etc. The function of this initial character indicates someone in charge of many parts. The second of the craftsmen is a Carpenter, conveying the ability to create new shells to house themselves as they grow. A "Webbe" is third and is defined as a weaver for the surface reading, but webbe also means a net which can be used to snare lobsters for the table. A Dyer follows, as an allusion to changing color as the lobster does when immersed in boiling water. Lastly, we have the "Tapycer," that is a tapestry maker. Here is a play on tapister, someone with the ability to pierce (tap a keg).
     The narrator turns his attention, now, to the excellence of lobster as food. They would be found at the head table in the guildhall--as part of the menu, of course.
     The poet's words seem odd at the surface, but made to order as terms of crab capabilities. For example, the Cook good-naturedly "claws" a fellow pilgrim on the back. And, when his innocent parsley (percely) is "cursed" by many pilgrims, it's because the Middle English spelling "percely" allows a play on pierce (percen).
     The Cook's cameo appearance in the Manciple's Prologue, is a triumph of poetic imagination. The Host becomes playful with the Cook/Crab who is in such poor condition that he "stinks." The comedy begins when the Cook is unhorsed. His fellow pilgrims, with "much care and woe,"  have the awkward job of righting the "unwieldy" Crab/Cook. The action provides the Host a hearty laugh. Scattered through the scene are references to "pinched," "bring to lure," and "in a snare" which encourage crab images in the reader's mind.
     In the wind-up next time, get ready to see the Cook's Tale in an entirely new light!