The unanticipated revelation

In my first encounter with the Canterbury Tales, when Chaucer associated the word Host with the best food and wine, my Catholic background brought echoes of poetic references to the Eucharist. Many more clues identify Christ concealed within the Canterbury Host.
      His bookkeeping transactions are identical to terms portraying Judgment, as if each soul clutches a personal balance sheet when approaching Death's door.
     When the Host requires immediate acceptance of his travel plan for the pilgrims, it can be seen as daily life. Man accepts God's will for each day, without knowing what lies ahead.
     A fleeting image of Christ as traditional shepherd comes to our mind's eye, when the  Host gathers the pilgrims "all in a flock."
     Examples of "offensive language," (trivializing the sacred) in the surface storyline become personal covert references to Christ's passion and death. The most meaningful--"Harrow, by nails and by blood"--recalls Christ's harrowing hell. As a consequence of Christ's crucifixion, worthy souls attained their long-awaited release and entrance into heaven.
     To indicate the Host as the "most enveloped in sin,"again points to a traditional image of Christ, who takes all our sins upon Himself. Sinfulness envelops Christ; it envelops the Canterbury Host, as well.
     For the surface story, the Host's declaration, "I know the substance is in me," is arbitrarily accepted as "I have the capacity to understand." Substance, however, makes a direct theological connection "with regard to the being of God, the divine nature or essence." And substance is "used of the incarnate Christ." The substance is also in the Canterbury Host.

Is this complex sequence of identifiers only meant to confirm that Christ leads pilgrims on their life journey? No. There is more. We have not mentioned the Host's wife before. She is not in the pilgrim company. She is never seen but merely commented upon by the Host. He laments that his wife is cruel, demanding, quarrelsome, unfeeling--then breaks off, hesitant to say too much. The elaborate plan disguises Chaucer's concern. He dare not become obvious.
     Who do we recognize as the Host's wife? In other words, who is the traditional Bride of Christ? The Church. Chaucer dare not have his dissent regarding the Church become obvious.
     Here is the comparative test: If his lament is that of an innkeeper, we see a dreadful married relationship. But, with the potential of allegory, read the words again, as if uttered by Christ accusing the Church: She is cruel, demanding, quarrelsome, unfeeling. This aptly describes the medieval Church's power and widespread action of the Inquisition on the Continent during the 1300s.
     The comic image of an apparently henpecked husband provides a distracting surface characterization. Once Christ's identity is established, however, the poet's dissension is recognized in the covert interpretation. When the hidden intention leapt out at me--I shuddered.

Next time, a look at what inspired Chaucer's risk-taking.

The Host's "offensive" language

In the links between the Tales, Chaucer continues to give us clues to prompt us to see Christ concealed within the Host. A prominent objection to his identity as Christ is his offensive language--but wait. The innkeeper speaking profanely of things sacred is not our object; we are pursuing a hidden message, not surface comedy.
     First, let's establish what the Middle Ages understood to be offensive, that is, sinful language. To use God's name or refer to elements of Christ's passion and death as part of everyday conversation, was trivializing the sacred. For example: Christ's Holy Name, Christ's cross, By God's curse. Such phrases were believed to offend God. They were sinful and to be avoided. Today's values, to a great extent, appear to have changed.
   
Now to the Tales. Chaucer, in the General Prologue just before we meet the Host, says that "Christ himself spoke very broadly (freely) in holy writ / And you well know it is no villainy." This guides our view of the Host's words as simple and direct, assuming his expressions to be neither comedy, nor blasphemy.
     His supposedly objectionable language is scattered among the Tales. His ventings, rather than "offensive to God," are direct references to Christ's passion and death. These are personal recollections:

God's worshipful passion
By the cross
By blood and bones

But the most meaningful of the Host's outbursts is "Harrow, by nails and by blood."
     Chaucer and his contemporaries knew that Christ had been born to die. A medieval recounting of Christ's death says, "the godhead went into hell, / And harrowed it." This tells us that Christ's first action, after he died, was to harrow hell.
     Harrowing is the release of souls of the worthy, who had been waiting through time for their Savior. His coming freed them to enter paradise. This consummation of God's plan was described in a poem of the Middle Ages called The Harrowing of Hell.
     It is also commemorated in the ancient tradition of the Apostles' Creed: Christ "Suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, died and was buried: He descended into hell: The third day he rose again from the dead."
     Then the Host's precise recollection--"Harrow, by nails and by blood"--recalls His harrowing of hell, as a consequence of being crucified.

To state the obvious, for those who would insist on the Host's words as blasphemy, we need only realize that God Himself could not use God's name in vain, nor could He blaspheme.
     Next time, we will consider the Host's confrontation by the loathsome, contemptible Pilgrim Pardoner.