Why risk it?

Chaucer had traveled the Continent--eyes and ears open. We've read the startling message concealed in the Canterbury Tales. The Host's wife (The Church) is cruel, demanding, quarrelsome, as was the widespread action of the Inquisition. Today's scholars describing the Host's wife, could be characterizing the medieval Church: easily angered, absolutely reckless, awe-inspiring, powerful arms, fearing no one.
     In the early 1300s, Inquisitors asked to apply torture without limitations to heretics, and thus "the Church grew harder and crueller and more unchristian," states H. C. Lea, an historian of the Inquisition.
    
     How would Chaucer view life after all he'd seen? He advises, "Here is not home, here is nothing but wilderness." Christians were often called suddenly to Judgment from disease, politics, or random violence.
     To publicly--or privately--raise objection to the ruling system, you'd be in jeopardy. Those in authority were seen as chosen by God, so to differ with God's chosen ones amounted to high treason.
     Allegory thrives in a rigid authoritarian environment. Fourteenth-century Europe would have been fertile ground for hidden protests.
     The poet's well-being and the survival of his messages, depended upon maintaining his good relationship with the royal court. Disaster struck many near him. Friends were executed with varying degrees of cruelty. Nevertheless, Chaucer and his works, remained unscathed.
     On the Continent, Inquisitors were nowhere yet everywhere, like secret police. When the Inquisition reached England, religious dissenters met increasing severity. Consequently, a few month after the poet's death, the first English heretic to be "found guilty" (William Sawtre) was burned at the stake.

Why would Chaucer persist while knowing the result could be fearful death? The answer--it was a matter of conscience. One who had important information had a moral responsibility to share it. He sinned "who shutteth knowledge in his mouth."
     Pilgrim Chaucer speaks of messages discreet and wise. Allegory could discreetly prove his obedience to God, and ease his conscience, as well.
     When the poet moved to Westminster Abbey in June, 1400, England was once again in political upheaval. Several courtiers who were his friends had been cruelly executed. Thomas Usk, for example, was both hanged and beheaded. It is speculated that his motive for moving to the Abbey could have been for the protection of sanctuary.
     The inspired "paper pilgrimage" led to Thomas á Becket. Who better to supplicate when in need of courage and perseverance? I believe Chaucer sought courage to persevere no matter what the cost, and to face death (if need be) as Thomas á Becket had.
     The poet's closing prayer pleads, "Christ have mercy on me and forgive me my offenses." He concluded with the hope "that I may be one of them, at the day of judgment, that shall be saved." I believe Geoffrey Chaucer saw this world's hazards, however great, as temporary; but the hereafter, unending. As a man of conscience, he took the risk.

The Host's Lament

A comic image could provide a distracting surface characterization--that of an apparently henpecked husband. Many decades of laughter have concentrated on comedy in the Host's commentary and in so doing have perpetuated the impression of a single meaning. Let's look further.

The Host has a wife but she has not been mentioned before, because she is not part of the pilgrim company. She is never seen but merely commented upon in two brief snatches of the Host's conversation. And who would we recognize as the Host's/Christ's wife--the Church. She is the traditional Bride of Christ. The Host's reactions hold a dual intent, as an unhappy husband and as Christ expressing covert distress about his self-righteous wife. As a beleaguered husband, he reports his wife's faults, but breaks off, hesitant to say too much. The concern is the same for Chaucer. He dare not have his dissent regarding the Church become obvious.
     These are the Host's laments:

"When I punish my servants, my wife brings me weapons and cries, 'Slay the dogs everyone. And break them, both back and every bone!' If a neighbor will not bow to my wife in church, or is so fearless as to offend her, she attacks me to my face when she comes home. She feels I'm a milksop, a cowardly fool, who would not stand by her authority.
     "Someday she'll make me slay a neighbor, for she is strong in her arms, by my faith. That's what he will find, who offends her by his deeds or words."

These are chilling comments about a spouse. How could the poet fail to ask himself, "Would Christ use these methods if He walked the earth today?" Chaucer says enough for us to understand, but breaks off--before the intention becomes transparent.
     Evasions are contained in "Let's pass away from this matter" and "It doesn't matter! let it go." To criticize would be perilous, the Host tells us, because "It would be reported back to her." These comments taken seriously--rather than as comic exaggerations--portray a harridan, a tyrant.

H. C. Lea, in his The Inquisition of the Middle Ages, seems to be describing precisely what the Host refers to. Lea tells that torture had long been recognized as an effective tool and in the early 1300s Inquisitors were given permission to apply it without limitations to heretics. Thus, he states, "the Church grew harder and crueller and more unchristian." Paralleling the Host's caution about his wife's strong arms and being reported, Lea declares, "to human apprehension the papal Inquisition was wellnigh ubiquitous, omniscient, and omnipotent." The harsh, letter-of-the-law procedures of the fourteenth-century Church hardly reflect Christ's Gospel message of love and justice.
     The Host's fear, that he would "slay a neighbor," was well-founded. Just months after Chaucer's death the Inquisition sentenced an Englishman to be burned at the stake.

Suddenly, at a point in my research, this terrifying image of the Host's wife clearly became a portrait of the Church. The realization devastated me. As a Catholic, my feeling about my relationship to the Church had always been that of a loving child. She was my mother! The terror of this fourteenth -century portrayal brought anguish to my mind and heart.

Virginia had seen that image before I'd said a word about it. When I reached the final chapter of the book, her face grew serious, almost grim, as she said "You haven't mentioned the Host's wife," and added, "I recall Chaucer's description of her as a hard, cruel person." After a pause she said, "She must be the Church!"

The Host laments that his wife is cruel, demanding, quarrelsome, and unfeeling. If his words are those of an innkeeper, we see a dreadful married relationship. But, if uttered by Christ accusing the Church as cruel, demanding, quarrelsome, unfeeling, these traits are an apt description of the medieval Church's power and widespread action of the Inquisition. We may ask, "Where is the love and justice of Christ's teachings?" But such a question could not be spoken aloud in the fourteenth century without severe consequences. It took a courageous poet under cover of allegory to express such fears and frustrations.
     The facts of this dreadful image of the Church cannot be denied. I shuddered when it leapt out at me. I still shudder.