MERCHANTS AND MERCANTILE
CULTURE IN LATER MEDIEVAL ITALIAN
AND ENGLISH LITERATURE
Olivia Mair, B.A. (Hons)
This thesis is presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
of The University of Western Australia
Discipline of English, Communication and Cultural Studies
School of Social and Cultural Studies
2005
Merchants and mercantile culture in later medieval Italian and English literature
The later medieval Western European economy was shaped by a marked
increase in commerce and rapid urbanisation. The commercialisation of later medieval
society is the background to this research, whose focus is the ways in which later
medieval Italian and English literature registers and responds to the expanding
marketplace and the rise of an urban mercantile class. What began as an investigation
of the representation of merchants and business in a selection of this literature has
become an attempt to address broader questions about the later medieval economy in
relation to literary and artistic production. This study is therefore concerned not just
with merchants and their activities in literature, but also the way economic
developments are manifested in narrative. Issues such as the moral position and social
function of the merchant are addressed, alongside bigger economic issues such as value
and exchange in literature, and to some extent, the position of the writer and artist in a
commercialised economy.
The study is primarily literary, but it adopts a cross-disciplinary method,
drawing on economic and social history, literary criticism, art history and sociology. It
begins with an assessment of the broader socio-economic context, focusing on
ecclesiastical and social responses to the growth of commerce, and on the emergence of
mercantile culture in Florence and London. By the fourteenth century, merchants were
a permanent fixture in the social fabric, but doubts persisted about the morality and
legitimacy of their activities. Sermon literature, legislation, chronicles and popular
literature all register an anxiety about commerce and merchants, which was in many
ways derived from Classical and Early Christian considerations of trade and merchants.
The introduction also draws attention to the way the monetisation of the economy and
commercialisation of society penetrated the consciousness of people not directly
engaged in commerce and had significant intellectual and artistic consequences, a
consideration that is of overall importance throughout the chapters.
Such a subject clearly lends itself to a study of a very substantial body of later
medieval Italian and English literature, but in order to be able to explore its themes
adequately, this study focuses on just a few texts: Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron
(1340s), a selection of late medieval chivalric romances, and Geoffrey Chaucer’s
Canterbury Tales (1380s), with passing reference to other texts insofar as they lend
support to the arguments.
The first chapter, “Painting, Writing and Mercantile Culture in Giovanni
Boccaccio’s Decameron”, takes as its starting point Boccaccio’s interest in painting,
and in particular the achievements of Giotto di Bondone.
It considers specific
developments in painting and writing, such as an increased realism and a new
conception of space, in relation to Florentine mercantile culture, proposing a
relationship between these developments and the emergence of a mercantile mentality.
The second chapter, “Mercantile Knights and Chivalrous Traders: Finance and
Medieval Romance”, examines the medieval chivalric romance in relation to commerce
and finance. Although sometimes considered to overlook or exclude the rise of an
urban mercantile class and the growing importance of commerce, medieval romances
contain many references to trade, expenditure and repayment. This chapter discusses
the thirteenth-century Floris and Blauncheflur (c. 1250), and the late fourteenth-century
Sir Amadace, Sir Launfal, Octavian and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in relation to
the commercialised economy and with reference to late medieval thought concerning
value, exchange and the role and function of merchants.
Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (c. 1380s) is the subject of the third and
final chapter, “Narrative and Economics in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales”. Chaucer
treats commerce and merchants with a complexity very close to Boccaccio’s approach
to commerce. Both writers are acutely aware of the corruption to which merchants are
susceptible, and of the many accusations levelled at merchants and their activities, but
they do not necessarily perpetuate them. Rather than discussing exclusively the tales
that deal extensively with merchants and commerce, or that told by the Merchantpilgrim, this discussion of the Canterbury Tales focuses on the Knight’s Tale, the Man
of Law’s Tale and the Shipman’s Tale and the way they relate to broader ideas about the
exchange and the production of narrative in the Canterbury Tales as a whole.
Contents
Acknowledgements
1
Introduction
2
1. Painting, Writing and Mercantile Culture in Boccaccio’s Decameron
38
2. Mercantile Knights and Chivalrous Traders: Finance and Medieval Romance
79
3. Narrative and Economics in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales
130
Afterword
206
Bibliography
211
The Payment of the Commune's employees (detail)
Siena, State Archive
Acknowledgements
The scope of this study, covering Italian and English literature, stemmed from
research I conducted as an undergraduate on versions of the story of Griselda by
Boccaccio, Petrarch and Chaucer. I was determined that any further research I should
carry out would allow me to continue to work on both Italian and English literature. I
am grateful to my supervisor Associate Professor Andrew Lynch, and to Dr Catherine
Kovesi, now of Melbourne University, for helping me find a topic that I have not tired
of.
Andrew Lynch has shown unwavering enthusiasm for the project from its
inception. He has offered insightful advice and challenged me to read the material in
new ways. There were moments when I felt like Constance, “in a ship al steerelees”,
but Andrew’s clear direction helped me chart a course through unknown waters. His
passion for medieval studies is quite infectious, and has played a large part in shaping
my own research interests.
I wish to acknowledge the support of an Italian Government scholarship, which
enabled me to live in Florence while conducting research in 2000. Further funding from
the School of Social and Cultural Studies at UWA enabled me to return in 2003 to use
library collections and view artworks, and travel grants from the Australian and New
Zealand Association of Medieval and Early Modern Studies (ANZAMEMS) have twice
enabled me to take part in conferences and present versions of material drawn from
these chapters.
Staff in the Discipline of English, Communication and Cultural Studies as well
as History and the School of European Languages, have all provided support and
advice. In particular I wish to acknowledge the help of Professor John Scott and
Professor Lorenzo Polizzotto, both of whom read parts of the first chapter, and Dr Anne
Scott and Professor Philippa Maddern.
While in Italy I received advice from Professors Anna Torti (University of
Perugia), Anthony Molho (European University Institute, San Domenico, Fiesole) and
Lucia Battaglia Ricci (University of Pisa), to whom I am very grateful. The advice and
references supplied by Dr Cristiana Fordyce, of Brown University, with whom I was put
in touch by Professor Massimo Riva, director of the Decameron Web project at Brown
University, proved very useful and must not go unacknowledged. In the final stages of
the project I was generously supplied with further references and ideas by Dr James
Davis of Queen’s University, Belfast. I am also grateful to Bruce McClintock for his
attentive reading of the text.
On a personal note, I wish to thank first and foremost my mother Elizabeth. Her
encouragement and confidence in my ability to complete the thesis, when I frequently
lacked it myself, were invaluable. I am also fortunate to have had the support,
generosity and good humour of my father, brothers and sisters.
My wonderful friends, both in Italy and Australia, have accompanied me on this
long journey with kindness, wisdom and laughter. In particular I wish to thank Heidi,
Pier, Megan, Duc, Nicole, Deborah, Ali, Graeme, Darren, and the Salvadori family,
along with all members of the UWA Round Table, the ECCS Theory Group (2002–3),
Limina (2004–5) and the Scholars’ Centre staff for their support and encouragement at
various stages.
This thesis was completed in loving memory of my great aunt Alice Palmer and
my grandparents, Geoff and Jess Lefroy and John and Judy Mair, the last of whom died
while I was completing this thesis, and all of whom, in their own small way, set me on
the road to Italy and instilled in me a love of literature, art and language.
2
Introduction
In the early twenty-first century, in a world in which commercial activity and
finance, money lending and markets are taken for granted as major elements of modern
society, it is difficult to conceive of an age in which trade and business were fairly
novel undertakings, whose moral and social impact came under the intense scrutiny of
Churchmen and scholars. Such was the case in later medieval Western Europe, as
commerce expanded and society was forced to accommodate, both morally and
politically, the growing class of those whose livelihoods depended on trade. It was not
that merchants had ceased to exist following the fall of the Roman Empire and the
decline of its infrastructure, and suddenly reappeared on the social and economic
horizon some time in the eleventh century.
Rather, between the sixth and tenth
centuries, the deficiencies of state organisation and technology, along with manorial
culture, saw the scale of commerce reduced, and ensured that merchants remained at
the margins of society and its political structures.1
During this period, Europe was divided distinctly into East and West, with the
Eastern, Byzantine empire retaining many of the features of Roman greatness, and
Western Europe falling into a period of decline, characterised by a provincial agrarian
economy.2 The once steady flow of commerce between Southern Europe and the
Muslim East across the Mediterranean came to a halt with the “barbarian” invasions at
the outset of the Middle Ages. This decline in European trade was in stark contrast to
the dynamism of Arab economy and industry, which flourished between the close of
the seventh and the beginning of the eleventh centuries.3 Although Western European
merchants conducted small-scale trade on behalf of kings and acted as agents for
abbeys in this early medieval period, they did not enjoy great social status. And while
some may have held a moderate level of education, they did not belong to the cultural
and intellectual elite who took it upon themselves to address the morality and validity
of their role.
1
Jacques Bernard refers to this period as one of economic “stagnation”, marked by a “slackening of
foreign trade”. See Jacques Bernard, “Trade and Finance 900–1500”, in The Fontana Economic History
of Europe: The Middle Ages, ed. Carlo M. Cipolla (London: Collins, 1972), p. 274.
2
Aziz S. Atiya, Crusade, Commerce and Culture (Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1969), p. 186. As an
example of the diminished monetary economy and scarcity of coins in the earlier medieval period in
Western Europe, Atiya describes one Spanish case in 933 in which a debt of 600 solidi was settled in
vases, caparisons, fine cloths and coins. In another French case, as late as 1107, a loan of 20 solidi was
paid back with a horse: see p. 187.
3
Atiya gives a more detailed account of the relationship of Western European, Byzantine and Middle
Eastern commerce in the early medieval period: see pp. 163—9.
3
By the later Middle Ages, wealth and power, previously derived from land
ownership, had become accessible to those who lived in towns and whose livelihood
depended on the buying and selling of raw materials and wares grown or produced by
others. Yet although merchants, by the fourteenth century, were a permanent element
of town society, contemporary observers and commentators were only just beginning to
take this into account, as will be seen. Merchants and a trade-based economy were
there to stay, whether or not the church and the land-owning elite approved, and as
their status increased and their wealth became ever more influential, a corresponding
increase in ecclesiastical debate about trade-derived wealth and references to merchants
in literature can be witnessed.
Such social description and ecclesiastical debate provide a backdrop to this
study, whose principal objective is an investigation of the ways in which late medieval
Italian and English literature registers and responds to the expanding marketplace and
the rise in size and importance of an urban mercantile class. What began as research
into the figure of the merchant in late medieval Italian and English literature has
become an attempt to address broader questions about late medieval commerce in
relation to literary and artistic production. This study is therefore not just about the
representation of merchants and their business in literature, but also about the ways in
which economic development and change are manifested in narrative. In particular, the
thesis focuses on stories contained in Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron (1340s),
Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales (1380s) and several Middle English
romances, including the anonymous late fourteenth-century Sir Gawain and the Green
Knight.
The study is primarily literary, but adopts a cross-disciplinary method,
drawing on economic and social history, literary criticism, art history and sociology to
establish a framework in which to examine a small selection of late medieval texts.
The majority of the texts referred to in this study date from the fourteenth century, but
in order to contextualise my discussion of the place of merchants and trade in the
literature of this period, the economic and social conditions of the preceding centuries
must also be taken into account.
Between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, there was a considerable increase
in Western European commerce as the economy became increasingly cash-based, and
financial instruments evolved to accommodate this. The changes were driven by a
combination of factors: a change in agricultural practices between the seventh and the
tenth centuries; a population increase and corresponding rise in consumer demand, both
for essentials and luxury goods; an increase in the supply and circulation of coins; the
4
collection of rents in money rather than goods and services; the development of a
network connecting local markets with each other and with regional fairs; and the
expansion of trading routes.4 The Norman conquest of several Southern Italian Arab
strongholds in the late eleventh century gradually led to the reopening of the route to
the East. Re-establishment of East and West trade followed closely on the heels of the
First Crusade in 1096.5
Most importantly, perhaps, the emergence and growth of urban centres from the
tenth century determined the course of European history. Cities gradually evolved
from sites of political and ecclesiastical power and the consumers of imported goods, to
centres of urban industry and producers of goods for export to other regions.6 The
percentage of the population making a living from industry and commerce increased
significantly. Although precise figures are hard to come by, Aziz Atiya notes that in
Flanders at least half of the population became involved in textile manufacturing in the
course of the fourteenth century.7
In England, the number of market-dependent
occupations increased significantly, and in the decades either side of 1300, there was a
notable volume of commerce and quantity of money in circulation.8 Debate has raged,
since the nineteenth century, when economic theorists and sociologists began work on
the historical origins of capitalism, about whether this late medieval transformation of
the economy constitutes a “commercial revolution” and marks the appearance of
capitalism.9
4
It is now widely accepted that the thirteenth-century economic
As outlined by Carlo M. Cipolla, “The Origins”, in The Fontana Economic History of Europe: The
Middle Ages, ed. Carlo M. Cipolla (London: Collins, 1972), pp. 11—23; and Peter Spufford, Power and
Profit: The Merchant in Medieval Europe ( London: Thames and Hudson, 2002), pp. 12—21.
5
Atiya, p. 169.
6
David Nicholas, The Later Medieval City 1300–1500 (London and New York: Longman, 1997), pp.1–
2.
7
Atiya, p. 179.
8
Richard H. Britnell, The Commercialisation of English Society 1000–1500, 2nd edn (Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 1996), pp. 228–30.
9
For a comprehensive account of economic and social debate and diverging theories about European
capitalist development see R. J. Holton, The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism (New York: St
Martin’s Press, 1985). The transition debate is complex and ongoing, made more so by the fact that
many of the principal protagonists changed tack several times. Marx and Engels’s ideas were of course
influential, but debate on the economic character of the late Middle Ages was generated especially by the
early twentienth-century essays of Werner Sombart and Max Weber, both of whom relied on an idea of
the Middle Ages as unsophisticated and “traditional” to support their claim for a Post-Reformation
commercial revolution. Sombart sought to contrast the Early Modern period with the Middle Ages, using
what he believed to be the backwardness of the latter to highlight the quickened pace of economic
activity and “capitalistic” spirit of the former. Largely accepting Sombart’s thesis without himself
offering a separate account of precapitalism, Weber sought to identify Protestant ethics and a rational
mental climate with a “capitalistic” spirit that distinguished it from the Middle Ages. See, among other
works, Werner Sombart, The Quintessence of Capitalism: A Study of the History and Psychology of the
Modern Business Man, trans. M. Epstein (New York: H. Fertig, 1967); and Max Weber, The Protestant
Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. Talcott Parsons (London: Unwin University Books, 1930).
Although both associated the medieval economy with backwardness and traditionalism, their work
5
developments in Western Europe marked the start of modern finance and banking.
Whether this period should be described as “proto-capitalism” or not, the effects of
such developments were irreversible and far-reaching.10
Italy’s position at the crossroads of newly established Christian and Muslim
commerce was largely responsible for the early expansion of its city states and their
emergence as the most sophisticated centres of finance and commerce in Western
Europe.
This geographic centrality, coupled with the fact that Italian towns had
maintained stronger ties to Roman patterns of urbanisation during the central Middle
Ages, both stimulated and facilitated a more rapid development of infrastructure and
municipal government organs than elsewhere in Europe.11 Soon the potentates of
Western Europe realised the importance of money to the conducting of commerce and,
emulating the economic policies of the Arab Empire and Byzantine civilisation, began
to mint their own coins. Sicily, under Roger II (1093–1154), was the first European
centre to strike a gold coin since more modest attempts by the Carolingians. The
Sicilian “ducat” was closely followed by the minting in Florence in 1252 of the fiorino
d’oro, and in Venice in 1283 of ducats later known as zecchini (sequins).12
This increased circulation of coin brought about the transition from a barter to a
cash economy.13 Pamela Nightingale notes that whereas it was once considered that
merchants were the main promoters of this change, it is now thought that coin itself
was more important in the development of a monetary economy.14 Gradually, peasants
who once paid their rents and dues to a landlord in the form of labour services, and
ignited among their successors an interest in late medieval economic structures and the rise of the
merchant class. Their work sparked lively debate about the economic character of the Middle Ages, and
has been discussed and contested by Robert Davidsohn, Henri Pirenne, Armando Sapori, Robert S.
Lopez, Federigo Melis, M. M. Postan, Marc Bloch, Raymond De Roover, Jacques Le Goff and Fernand
Braudel, among others.
10
Most notably among economic historians, perhaps, Raymond de Roover dedicated his career to
demonstrating economic continuity from the thirteenth century until the present, examining the way
nearly all modern financial institutions and mechanisms have their origins in the late Middle Ages. See,
among other works, Raymond De Roover, Money, Banking and Credit in Medieval Bruges (Cambridge,
Mass.: The Mediaeval Academy of America, 1948).
11
Atiya, p. 170; and Nicholas, p. 2.
12
Atiya, p. 188.
13
It should not be assumed, however, that coin was not in circulation at all prior to this time; everyone, at
some stage, had a need for at least some coin, but the minting of more coin increasingly enabled
landlords and retailers to expect cash payment. See Nicholas Mayhew, “Modelling Medieval
Monetisation”, in A Commercialising Economy: England 1086 to c.1300, ed. Richard H. Britnell and
Bruce M. S. Campbell (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1995). Mayhew
estimates the volume of coinage in circulation in England in 1086 at c. 37,5000, compared with c.
1,100,100 in the decades following 1300, pp. 62–5.
14
Pamela Nightingale, “Communication through Capital and Trade: Money and the Rise of a Market
Economy in Medieval Europe”, in Word, Image, Number: Communication in the Middle Ages, ed. John
J. Contreni and Santa Casciani (Florence: Sismel, 2002), pp. 367–90; see p. 369.
6
received wages in grain, were expected to hand over rents in coin.15 Another important
factor leading to the Western European economy’s increased monetisation and
commercialisation was the increasing tendency of rulers to demand that taxes be paid
in cash. As all but the very poor were taxed, this meant that small-time growers and
producers could only obtain coin to pay their taxes by selling their wares for cash in
local markets. In towns, where the populations were not self-sufficient, barter was
even less adequate as a form of exchange. As Nightingale points out, the more a
market economy developed and the more complex and urbanised it became, the less
barter could meet its needs.16 The need for coin as a medium of exchange thus drove
the overall shift to a market economy.
Nevertheless, many of the major financial mechanisms that evolved alongside
this monetised economy did so within a commercial framework. The expansion of
trade necessitated the introduction of more sophisticated mechanisms, partly to
accommodate the different currencies in circulation over large areas, and partly because
there was never enough coin to keep up with the increasingly large transactions.
Certificates of debt and letters of obligation began to circulate alongside cash. Bills of
exchange, versions of which were already used among Greeks as well as Jews and
Arabs, were first introduced by Italian merchants in their dealings with one another and
soon spread throughout Western Europe.17 These enabled a party to receive a sum of
money in one currency at a particular place on a particular date and repay it in another
currency, elsewhere and at a later date.18 Furthermore, it was during this period that
new accountancy techniques, insurance systems and financial reporting evolved. All of
these factors helped to internationalise trade.
Developments in urban governance and administration were also significant in
promoting conditions favourable to trade. In the twelfth century, Italian cities were
already developing specialised services and complex administrative structures, and by
the following century they had become focal points of local regions, subjugating the
contado (surrounding countryside).19 In thirteenth-century Florence, two important
factors led to the rise of a new social order and shift in the power balance: the
expansion of international banking and commerce resulted in a class of powerful
15
Pamela Nightingale, “Money and credit in the economy of late medieval England”, in Medieval Money
Matters, ed. Diana Wood (Oxford: Oxbow, 2004), p. 54.
16
Nightingale, “Money and credit”, p. 55.
17
Atiya, p. 191.
18
See Edwin S. Hunt and James M. Murray, A History of Business in Medieval Europe, 1200–1550
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 65.
19
Nicholas, p. 3.
7
merchants and bankers, the popolo grasso, while widespread migration from the
countryside to the city was largely responsible for the creation of a humbler class of
artisans, shopkeepers and professionals, or popolo. Single families or clan groups had
their political ambitions curtailed by the magistracy of the podestà (an administrative
head of the commune). The gradual addition of other magistracies, including the
“Captain Defender of Guilds” suggests that society was being organised into arti
(guilds) and administered according to guild interests.20 By the 1280s it was already
difficult to distinguish between the old magnati and their more recent counterparts
because social mutations had blurred the boundaries between them. Commerce and
industry had effectively brought about a merge of ancient nobility and the mercantile
patriciate. Typical of this group were families such as the Bardi, Frescobaldi and
Cerchi, merchants and bankers of modest social origins who had risen to economic
prominence in the course of a century and were to play a role in the institutions that
shaped Florentine republicanism.21
The scope of late medieval Italian trade and banking is astounding; the largest
merchant banking companies had offices throughout the Italian peninsula, all over
Europe, North Africa, and the Eastern Mediterranean. The Compagnia dei Bardi, one
of the early fourteenth-century leaders of Florentine enterprise, had offices in Avignon,
Barcelona, Bruges, Cyprus, Constantinople, Jerusalem, London, Majorca, Marseilles,
Nice, Paris, Rhodes, Seville and Tunis, as well as eleven Italian branches.22 In some
way Italians were involved in the affairs of nearly all the major cities of Europe, either
as collectors of papal tithes, as merchants or as envoys. In England there were Italian
communities in London and Southampton by the late thirteenth century. As Wendy
Childs notes, the number of Italian merchants in London at any one time is uncertain,
but at least 69 Italians were active and present there between 1365 and 1369, and at
least 164 in the decade between 1380 and 1389.23 There is plenty of evidence to
suggest that they were well integrated into English life, trading, lending money, leasing
houses, acting as brokers, recovering debts, supplying luxuries to the royal household
and even holding royal offices.24 In comparison with Florence and Siena, London
20
See Marvin Becker, Florentine Essays: Selected Writings of Marvin B. Becker, ed. James Banker and
Carol Lansing (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002), pp. 52—5.
21
Becker, pp. 53—4.
22
Armando Sapori, The Italian Merchant in the Middle Ages, trans. Patricia Ann Kennen (New York:
W.W. Norton & Company, 1970), p. 51.
23
Wendy Childs, “Anglo-Italian Contacts in the Fourteenth Century”, in Chaucer and the Italian
Trecento, ed. Piero Boitani (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 65–88; see p. 71.
24
Childs, p. 71.
8
might have been viewed as something of a backwater, largely on account of its inferior
size (in the mid-fourteenth century, its population was roughly half the size of that of
Florence). In contrast to Italy’s twenty-one cities with a population of 10,000 or more,
England by 1300 had just two.25 All the same, commerce in fourteenth-century London
was thriving, and if the late thirteenth century had been a particular period of growth,
the subsequent period saw the emergence and consolidation of urban governance
organs and trading regulations, as well as the increasing formalisation of mercantile
and craft associations.26
Italy and England were of course just two of the many geographical sites linked
by the burgeoning network of trade that stretched from the Eastern Mediterranean and
North Africa to the Baltic, but I have chosen to focus mainly on these two areas, and in
particular on London and Florence, partly on account of their being, to use David
Nicholas’ expression, “mutually dependent trading regions”,27 and partly due to their
literary connections: Geoffrey Chaucer travelled to Italy on several occasions and was
familiar with the work of the three great fourteenth-century Italian writers – Dante
Alighieri (1265–1321), Francesco Petrarca (1304–1374) and Giovanni Boccaccio
(1313–1375).28 The work of these three Tuscan writers casts a long shadow over all
Chaucer’s writing. In the fourteenth century, England and the Florentine city states
were separated by a sea journey that lasted up to eight weeks, or an overland journey of
five or six weeks, yet spiritual, economic and cultural ties bound them closely.
An important step forward in the economic ties binding Mediterranean and
northern Europe, and eventually Florence and London, was the opening up of the sea
route linking the two from 1278. For the southern galleys, Flanders was the first goal,
but by the 1270s and 1280s, they were also calling at London and Sandwich.29 The use
of larger ships enabled the shipment of bulk goods and the traditional luxuries over
great distances, and took trade to a new level after 1310. The end of the thirteenth
century saw the decline of the Champagne fairs, which earlier in the century had been
the major commercial meeting point for northern and southern merchants, and the
25
Daniel R. Lesnick, Preaching in Medieval Florence: The Social World of Franciscan and Dominican
Spirituality (Athens and London: The University of Georgia Press, 1989), p. 277.
26
Caroline Barron, “The Social and Administrative Development of London 1300-1550”, Franco-British
Studies 17 (1994), 53–64; see p. 59.
27
Nicholas, p. 5.
28
Chaucer’s trips to Italy will be considered in greater detail later in this thesis. They are discussed at
length in Derek Pearsall, The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer: A Critical Biography (Oxford and Cambridge
Mass.: Blackwell, 1992); and in David Wallace, Chaucerian Polity: Absolutist Lineages and
Associational Forms in England and Italy (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997).
29
J.L. Bolton, The Medieval English Economy 1150–1500 (London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1980), p. 152.
9
growth of new commercial centres around the ports favoured by the Italian
merchants.30 The growth and consolidation of the cloth industry meant that England
and Italy were bound by complementary trading interests.31 Florence, one of the great
centres of fine cloth-making, was dependent on imported wool because the Tuscan
wool was coarse and unsuitable for superior grades of cloth. England was the most
important source of fine wool.32 By the early fourteenth century, wool exports bound
for Italy were transported directly to Italy by sea, further facilitating the development
of this market.33 Francesco Balducci Pegolotti, a Florentine who worked as director of
the English branch of the great Florentine firm, the Compagnia dei Bardi, from 1318 to
1321, included a lengthy list of English and Scottish wools when he penned his
handbook for merchants, La pratica della mercatura.34 Pegolotti, in his own words,
was writing for “mercatanti di diverse parti del mondo” (merchants from different parts
of the world) and aimed to supply them with useful information about a vast range of
markets and commodities.35 The fact that his detailed list of English and Scottish wool
dominates his entire chapter on England, in a book targeting a community of
international merchants, points to the great importance of wool in both the English
economy and also in the expanding international marketplace.
36
dominated the trade in English wool in this century.
Italians in fact
Later in the fourteenth century
and into the start of the fifteenth century, the correspondence of Francesco di Marco
Datini with his agents in London was similarly concerned with the purchasing, packing
and transporting of wool or cloth to Italy.37 Although most Italian companies traded in
30
Nicholas, p. 16.
As Eileen Power has outlined, one of the most significant features of the late medieval economy was
that the earliest centres of cloth manufacture were not the same as the most important sites of wool
production. See Eileen Power, The Wool Trade in English Medieval History (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1941), p. 8.
32
Power, pp. 12—13.
33
Power, p. 15.
34
See Francesco Balducci Pegolotti, La pratica della mercatura, ed. Allan Evans (Cambridge, Mass.:
The Mediaeval Academy of America, 1936), pp. 258ff. Evans notes in his introduction that Pegolotti,
under the anglicised version of his name “Francis Balduchii”, first appears on the Calendar of Patent
Rolls in England on August 4, 1317.
35
Pegolotti, p. 3.
36
Bernard, “Trade and Finance 900–1500”, p. 288.
37
Datini is commonly referred to as “the merchant of Prato” on account of Iris Origo’s study. See Iris
Origo, The Merchant of Prato (London: Jonathan Cape, 1963). For an excellent appraisal of Datini’s
extensive correspondence with his London agents see Helen Bradley, “The Datini Factors in London,
1380–1410”, in Trade Devotion and Governance: Papers in Later Medieval History, ed. Dorothy J.
Clayton, Richard G. Davies and Peter McNiven (Phoenix Mill: Alan Sutton Publishing, 1994): pp. 55-79.
Bradley notes that the bulk of this correspondence concerns the export of wool to the Florence branch of
the Datini company, p. 58.
31
10
a range of commodities, wool was the mainstay of many.38 A sense of the importance
of the textile industry and its complementary markets that were involved in it is found
in both the Decameron and the Canterbury Tales, and even if the suggestion of the
industry hovers at the edges of romance, sometimes alluded to only in the mention of
the provenance of luxury dress fabrics and drapes, it is never entirely absent.
Today street names in medieval town centres throughout Europe are a reminder
of this transnational commercial expansion and of the merchant communities who
conducted their business and lived in the narrow streets and squares: “Rue des
Lombards”, “Lombard straat”, “Remparts des Lombards” and “Lombard Street” were
all named on account of the late medieval moneychangers and lenders known in the
period as “Lombards”.39 Pegolotti is just one of the many medieval merchants linked
to Lombard Street in London, as Allan Evans has outlined. Again recorded under
“Balduch’”, the anglicised form of his name “Balducci”, Pegolotti was among the
members of the Bardi company given permission to “hold a tenement in the street
called Lumbardestret in the city of London, sometime of Robert Turk, lately deceased,
and Elena his wife, abutting on Lumbardestret on the south and Cornhulle on the north”
in 1318.40
By the late Middle Ages, trade and finance were driving forces in the economy,
and merchants had left their mark in urban geography and in the social fabric of towns,
but it did not necessarily follow that their position within the social order was clear and
that the legitimacy of their activities was widely accepted. Late medieval merchants
were often held in suspicion by others in society, largely because of perceptions of their
activities inherited from earlier periods. Such perceptions are manifested in the space
of popular late medieval literature, but as we shall see, the authors of these works do not
necessarily perpetuate them. The origins of anti-mercantile sentiment reach back into
the earlier medieval period and as far as Antiquity. As Fernand Vercauteren has
outlined, much anti-mercantile sentiment in the late Middle Ages was derived from the
38
Armando Sapori notes the way many of these large Italian firms established inter-related business
activities. The Bardi –apart from being dedicated to vast international lending operations and general
banking, as well as the acquisition of wool, which was worked in their own factories– were also involved
in the purchase of raw foreign cloth, which was then died by their own dyers, and trimmed and stretched
in their workshops. They also dealt in spices and materials used in dying. See Armando Sapori,
Mercatores (Milan: Garzanti, 1941), p. 6.
39
The terms “Lombard” and “Jew” had become synonymous with “usurer” in popular late medieval
parlance and are found throughout much fourteenth-century literature. “Lombard” did not necessarily
refer to northern Italian provenance, but could refer to Italian financiers in general, or even more
generally, to professional moneylenders.
40
See Evans’s introduction to Pegolotti, La pratica della mercatura, p. xix. Evans is referring to
Calendar of Patent Rolls, Edward II, III, 404, p. 246.
11
period between the sixth and tenth centuries, in which trade had dwindled.41 The
culture of self-sufficiency promoted by the manor system, in which it was considered
undesirable to have to depend on a market for supplies, was a contributing factor.42 In
this period, merchants represented a threat to an established social order which assured
that wealth was controlled by the propertied classes: the clergy and the knights.
Merchants were on the outskirts of society, condemned by the church for their pursuit
of material gain and often thought to operate outside the law. It was considered that
they risked travelling through uncharted and often dangerous areas in pursuit of
merchandise and markets, mainly on account of their supposedly insatiable desire for
profit.
These negative ideas of the merchant were enforced by chroniclers and
illuminators: a manuscript from early in the eleventh century shows two merchants
outside a church who decide not to enter because they do not want to take their minds
off business, while another text from the same century, The Miracles of St Foy, tells of a
merchant of Auvergne making a fortune through speculation in wax used to make
candles for pilgrims to the shrine of St Foy of Conques.43 And according to the
eleventh-century chronicler, Alpert of Metz, the merchants he came into contact with in
the lower Rhineland were almost outside the law, renowned as heavy drinkers and
lovers of bawdy tales.44 These, or similar accounts, seem to have informed the creation
of later medieval merchant characters, who, as we shall see, are frequently found in
inns, or associated with dice and dancing.
Generally speaking, scant evidence is
available to supply us with substantial insight into merchants’ activities and the way
they were viewed by their contemporaries between the sixth and the tenth centuries.
There is a complete lack of accounts from merchants themselves and the few sources
available are nearly always ecclesiastical in origin.45
Nevertheless, there are also
positive accounts of merchants from this period; in fact, Vercauteren has noted that for
every negative perception of merchants, there was a positive one – accounts of
merchants acting as agents for abbeys or churches, merchants tied to a sovereign and
trading on his behalf (and there is evidence of sovereigns attempting to protect their
merchants when they travelled abroad), merchants as bearers of news, rescuers and
41
Fernand Vercauteren, “The Circulation of Merchants in Western Europe from the 6th to the 10th
Century: Economic and Cultural Aspects”, in Early Medieval Society, ed. S. L. Thrupp (New York:
Meredith Publishing Company, 1967), pp. 185—95.
42
Cipolla, The Fontana Economic History, p. 11.
43
Vercauteren, p. 192.
44
Vercauteren, p. 192.
45
Vercauteren, p. 186.
12
carers of pilgrims who had encountered misfortune.46 Some merchants are mentioned
for showing a lack of Christian piety, others are commended for it. Although the
reputation of traders was under constant attack, the reality, according to Norbert Ohler,
was that merchants were welcomed by civil and church leaders “as the bringers of
luxury goods, and because they knew foreign languages and countries and could also
give useful information about possible enemies and allies”.47 It is mainly from much
later accounts, such as those of Werner Sombart, that modern views of medieval
businessmen as “timorous, penurious and unlettered” are derived.48
To further complicate modern understandings of medieval merchants, not all
figures termed “merchants” were from the same background, making a social definition
difficult. As Aziz Atiya notes, in the Latin of the earlier medieval period, the term
“mercator” was originally synonymous with “Judaeus”, because the Jews, who were
generally barred from agrarian settlement, tended to be the principal commercial
practitioners in this period.49
Gradually, as Western European trading networks
expanded, and merchants from mixed backgrounds became traders, it was identified
more as “burgensis”.50 Two stages in the development of late medieval commerce and
the evolution of an urban merchant class are also sometimes identified, although it is
impossible to give precise dates to these. The first was dominated by the itinerant
merchant, who travelled with his wares to markets and fairs in other regions, and the
second by the sedentary merchant, who managed his complex business affairs by means
of detailed correspondence with agents operating on his behalf in other ports and
cities.51 It is difficult to identify from which group in society the merchant emerged;
much like the question of the origins of commercial activity, it may well present an
irresolvable historiographical problem.
Despite this difficulty, it has been suggested that the first traders were drawn
from the margins of feudal society –enterprising peasants, wandering peddlers,
46
Vercauteren, pp. 189ff.
Norbert Ohler, The Medieval Traveller, trans. Caroline Hillier (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 1989),
p. 59
48
John Day, The Medieval Market Economy. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987), p. 162. The vast
surviving collections of Italian merchants’ correspondence and the rise of secular schooling should be
enough to cast doubt over Sombart’s view.
49
Atiya, p. 165.
50
Atiya, p. 196.
51
This division into two phases in the development of late medieval commerce is made by Gabriella
Airaldi, John W. Baldwin and John Day, among others. See Gabriella Airaldi, “Introduzione: Per la
storia dell’idea di Europa: economia di mercato e capitalismo”, in Gli orizzonti aperti: profili del
mercante medievale, ed. Gabriella Airaldi (Turin: G. B. Paravia & C., 1997); John W. Baldwin, “The
Merchant and his Activities”, in Masters, Princes and Merchants: The Social Views of Peter the Chanter
& His Circle, vol. 1 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970), pp. 261–9.
47
13
shipmen– and gradually grouped together in mutually beneficial organisations such as
guilds.
The more sedentary, non-travelling merchants came into being as urban
economies expanded and financial mechanisms emerged sufficiently to allow them to
conduct their affairs effectively from a single base.52
The second phase saw the
emergence of medieval super-companies, which formed along the lines of the highly
successful Arab companies of the earlier period,53 with multiple partners and branches
stretching from the Eastern Mediterranean and North Africa, to England and the Baltic.
A general difficulty when attempting to assess the social position, attitudes and values
of late medieval European “merchants” is that the term can be quite vague. Frequently
it is used to refer to both large-scale traders and small-time local operators over several
centuries, perceptions of whom are often formed without taking into account the
periods of economic boom and depression and the different stages in the evolution of
mercantile activities, such as the phase of the earlier merchant “venturers”, who
travelled and took responsibility for their own affairs, and that of the later merchants,
who operated from a base and corresponded with agents.54 And as Sylvia Thrupp, and
more recently, James Davis, have pointed out, the distinction between wholesalers and
retailers must also be taken into account.55 Technically the word “merchant” may be
applied to anyone who buys and sells, but by the late Middle Ages it was used less to
describe retail shopkeepers and peddlers, and more those who represented wholesale
trade.56 Such distinctions obviously had a bearing on the way commercial activities
were perceived and also informed literary representations of trade and its practitioners.
Whereas James Davis’s recent study makes retailers its focus, the present study is
concerned principally with wholesalers. Although at times it takes into account earlier
and broader definitions of and ideas about merchants, the present study, like Thrupp’s,
is more concerned with merchants in the later medieval sense of the word. In particular
it considers the somewhat amorphous social group of urban elites involved in largescale trade, incorporating merchants and members of the landowning class.
52
Day, pp.162—3.
Atiya, pp. 196—7.
54
Further difficulties in the definition of “merchants” are raised by studies such as James Masschaele’s,
which constitutes a rethinking of the urban-rural relationship. Agricultural commodities formed the
centrepiece of urban economic life, he argues, and peasants often participated in the commercial
economy. See Masschaele, Peasants, Merchants and Markets: Inland Trade in Medieval England,
1150–1350 (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1997).
55
See James Davis, “Literary Representations of Petty Traders”, Ch.1 in The representation, regulation
and behaviour of petty traders in late medieval England (unpubl. PhD thesis, University of Cambridge,
2001).
56
Sylvia L. Thrupp, The Merchant Class in Medieval London [1300–1500] (Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, 1948), p. 6.
53
14
One of the most important matters that this thesis seeks to address is the
question of how the late medieval commercial expansion impacted on mentality, and in
turn, the way this is registered in literature and art. There is no doubt that the late
medieval monetisation of the economy and increased commercialisation of society also
had significant intellectual and artistic consequences. Joel Kaye asserts that habits of
thought and perception associated with commercial practices came to be adopted in all
of society: “Among the most characteristic of these new habits were: the focus on
monetary profit and loss in a wide range of decision making; the recognition of the
importance of detailed written records for this calculation; the resulting broad
development of literacy and numeracy; and the translation of qualitative values into
quantitative, often monetary, terms as a way to simplify the process of calculation”.57
Likewise, Janet Coleman observes: “One is tempted to see in the rise in the number of
customs officials and shopkeepers an analogy for a correlative rise in the number of
attempts to structure precisely and geometrically the natural world as one might
structure the monthly balance sheet of debts and credits”.58 It is not by chance that the
same scholars whose work demonstrates great insight into the structure of economic
life, such as Peter John Olivi, John Duns Scotus and Nicole Oresme, also made
significant contributions in the area of natural philosophy.59 The re-establishment of
trading contact with the Islamic world from the eleventh century, and the formation of
trading networks throughout Western Europe, also succeeded in diffusing new
mathematical techniques associated with calculation and measurement, and in giving
rise to conceptual advances in philosophy and science. Such perceptual shifts are also
registered in the space of art and literature. Rather than simply responding to the rise
of an urban trading class and a market economy by including or excluding merchant
characters, writers such as Boccaccio and Chaucer grappled with an increased trend
towards quantification, different forms of exchange, and the position of artists and
writers in a monetised economy. If the “long thirteenth century” was the period of the
most concentrated economic change, then the fourteenth century might be considered
the phase in which cultural production responded to such developments most intensely,
and it is on that area that I mainly concentrate, both on works of art and on their new
conception of art itself as a kind of work, produced for circulation and consumption.
57
Joel Kaye, Economy and Nature in the Fourteenth Century: Money, Market Exchange and the
Emergence of Scientific Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 16.
58
Janet Coleman, “Jean de Ripa O.F.M. and the Oxford Calculators”, Mediaeval Studies, 37 (1975),
131–89; see p. 131.
59
Kaye, Nature and Economy, p. 7.
15
This thesis is primarily a study of literary texts, but before turning to the stories
that are the chief focus of the chapters that follow, it is necessary to examine some of
the more formal economic writings of the late medieval thinkers and scholars, in which
the function of commerce was interrogated. These formed an important part of the
climate in which the literary representation of merchant activity and mentality was
produced and consumed. Many thirteenth- and fourteenth-century fictional accounts of
merchants and trade are best understood as being in dialogue with older perceptions of
commerce, and with late medieval economic theories.
It is widely accepted that
intellectual and religious considerations of trade and financial activity actually reached
fever pitch from the twelfth century, in the very period in which the position of
merchants in the social fabric and municipal administration was being consolidated.60
Thus in the same period of growth of urban centres, increased consumer demand and
massive expansion of trade, the social position of merchants and the morality of their
activity attracted the attention of the great thinkers of the later Middle Ages. In
addition to the few considerations of merchants and trade between the sixth and tenth
centuries, later medieval attitudes to merchants and mercantile activity were derived
from the writings, based on Scripture, of the Church Fathers, whose misgivings about
merchants seem to have been shared by the Graeco-Roman world. An examination of
the writings of both Greek and Roman philosophers and Church Fathers yields a wealth
of references to trade, money and merchants, as John W. Baldwin outlines.61 The
reasoning of Plato and Aristotle, and the saints Basil, Jerome and Augustine, was
invoked by the medieval thinkers who sought to justify the existence and role of the
merchant and the legitimacy and value of his activities.
Although recognising the merchant's role as distributor of goods, Plato
denounced the tendency towards exorbitant profit-making associated with commercial
practices. He doubted the possibility of a moderate course in trade, and considered that
most men would be seduced by the opportunity to amass wealth. The solution, he
believed, was to limit mercantile activity to a minimum.62 In Book One of his Politics,
Aristotle expressed similar views as he sought to analyse society in economic terms.
60
Rodney Hilton notes that even in most English towns “there was already by the twelfth century a
distinct mercantile element, with some political strength, as was manifested in their gilde mercatorie”.
See Hilton, “Status and Class in the Medieval Town”, in The Church in the Medieval Town, ed. Gervase
Rosser and T. R. Slater (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998), pp. 9–19; see p. 12.
61
John W. Baldwin, The Medieval Theories of the Just Price: Romanists, Canonists and Theologians in
the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries (Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, 1959); and
Masters, Princes and Merchants. In the paragraphs that follow, I am also indebted to Joel Kaye’s
sophisticated assessment of scholastic writings on economic questions.
62
Plato, Laws XI, 918, 919.
16
At the basis of his theory was the ethical principle of moderation. Thus he considered
the act of acquisition in terms of direct forms, such as agriculture, and indirect forms,
such as the exchange of goods, presumably involving some kinds of commercial
transactions. Acquisition was determined by normal necessities, and thus a merchant
whose activities were defined by need rather than profit was part of a perfectly
legitimate and natural process.63 A process akin to acquisition which might be termed
“business”, acquisition for the sake of wealth rather than the fulfilment of need, was, on
the other hand, dangerous in the sense that it had no limits, and was thus termed
immoral. In suspecting the ability of merchants to withstand the temptation presented
by profit-making opportunities and to moderate trading activity, Aristotle went as far as
to disqualify them from the privilege of citizenship of the best-governed state.64 Thus
in pagan philosophical writings, the chief justification of the merchant was as an agent
supplying human needs. As we shall see, this justification of merchants as transporters
and distributors of goods was to remain one of the main motivations behind favourable
treatments of merchants in medieval literature. In the space of Classical fiction, the
title “merchant” could just as well be employed as a form of insult. Baldwin notes that
when the father of the beautiful Nausicaa in Homer's Odyssey wanted to insult the halfdrowned Odysseus, he called him a merchant.65 The world of Mediterranean trade is
frequently evoked in Greek and Roman plays. One need only think of Plautus’s
Menaechmi, about the twin sons of a merchant of Syracuse, one of whom is lost aged
seven when his father takes him on a business trip, to know that this is so. At one
point, Menaechmus I launches a tirade of abuse, accusing his fellow citizens of, among
other things, making money from usury.66
It is difficult to gauge the influence of Platonic and Aristotelian opinions of
commercial activity on the pronouncements of the Church Fathers of Christian
Antiquity.
Whatever the case, the most explicit source for the Patristic attitudes
towards wealth, commerce and the merchant was the Christian Scriptures, especially
the New Testament. Although the Scriptures did not address merchants specifically,
they addressed the issue of material goods and the corrupting influence of wealth, and
certain passages attracted the attention of the Church Fathers.67 Among Christ’s words
most repeated by the Church Fathers were those of the Sermon on the Mount, in which
63
Aristotle, Politics I, 1256a –b.
Aristotle, Politics VII, 1328b
65
Baldwin, Masters, Princes and Merchants, p. 262.
66
See Act IV, Scene II. Plautus lived c.250–184 BC.
67
Baldwin, in The Medieval Theories, provides a more comprehensive discussion of this: see pp. 12ff.
64
17
He instructed His followers to make spiritual purposes their priority over the material
goods of human life. If Christians would be faithful in seeking first the Kingdom of
God and His righteousness, God would be faithful in supplying the material needs of
life.68 An excessive accumulation of earthly goods was addressed on many occasions.
One of Christ’s sayings most often referred to by the Church Fathers was “Again I tell
you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to
enter the Kingdom of God.”69 Likewise the Apostle Paul proclaimed that “The love of
money is the root of all evil”.70 Such teachings no doubt prompted the Church Fathers’
protests against possession of great wealth. As Baldwin outlines, in the fourth century
the Greek Father Basil the Great attributed wars, piracies, murders and frauds of his
day to the corrupting influence of wealth.
Similarly the Latin Father Jerome
proclaimed, in the same century, “The rich and the wicked are evil heirs”.71 Jerome
also raised the possibility, however, that it was not impossible for rich men to enter the
Kingdom of Heaven if they were to divest themselves of their heavy sins.72 The
intricacies of wealth and salvation were to be further discussed in the following
centuries, and in the Middle Ages they were to become one of the central issues of
merchant life, both for those who theorised merchants, and the merchants themselves.
Wealth in general was one focus of the Church Fathers’ attentions, but the
means of obtaining it was another. Three principal objections were offered by the
Fathers in their moral evaluation of trade, objections which were to be taken up again
in the Middle Ages. Firstly, it was largely considered that greed or cupiditas was the
basis of mercantile activity. Secondly, as in the opinions of the pagan philosophers,
there was the conviction that essentially immoral means were too often drawn on to
perform trading activities. It was assumed that the merchant must lie, deceive, cheat
and commit varying degrees of fraud in order to sell his wares. Thirdly, and most
specifically, the Fathers addressed the problem of monopoly, vigorously attacking the
trader’s taking advantage of conditions such as famine or periods of distress to raise
prices. Most notably Ambrose of Milan denounced the merchant who “farmed the
68
Matthew 6: 25—34.
Matthew 19: 16—26.
70
I Timothy 6: 10.
71
Baldwin in The Medieval Theories, p.13 cites from Basil, Homilia in divites, 7, PG 31: 298; and
Jerome, Ep. ad Hebidiam, cap. 1, PL 22: 984.
72
Again, Baldwin is citing Jerome, Commentum ad Mattheum, lib. III, cap. 19, PL 26: 137, 138.
69
18
farmer” in order to profit.73 He termed the merchants' buying and selling of wares not
grown or made by themselves “fraud,… robbery and usury”.
This uneasiness of the Church Fathers about riches and their acquisition through
trade was passed on to the thinkers of the Middle Ages in large measure. But although
the Patristic legacy of commentary on wealth and trade was nearly entirely negative,
there were some exceptions, most notable of which were certain passages of Augustine,
whose writing was the best known in the period.74 In his commentary to verse 15 of
Psalm LXX, which took the form of a conversation between himself and a merchant,
the merchant justified his own position. Firstly he pointed out his role as a transporter
of goods, and secondly he distinguished between the trader and his trade, explaining
that if cases of dishonesty arose in the realm of commerce, the individual was to blame,
not commerce itself.75 This was to become possibly the most popular reference point
for moralists and theologians of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries as they sought to
justify the position of the merchant in society.
Two literary forms developed in the thirteenth century were devoted to the
solution of the merchant problem, testifying to the level of theological interest in the
issue.
The first of the two was created in the commentaries to Peter Lombard's
Sentences.
The commentaries of Thomas Aquinas, Peter of Tarentaise and
Bonaventura all contained considerable discussions of the problem, while Albertus
Magnus (Albert the Great) wrote a lengthy treatise, defending the moral position of the
merchant.76 The second of the literary forms is found among the thirteenth-century
Summae theologicae.
Three important theologians, and major writers of the
Franciscan, Cistercian and Dominican orders –Alexander of Hales, Gui de l'Aumone
and Thomas Aquinas– considered the issues extensively, all drawing on Augustine's
distinction between mercantile practices and merchants themselves, and the reasoning
of the Canonists the century before. Most notably, Aquinas expressed the problem in
this way: “Whether, in trading, it is lawful to sell a thing at a higher price than what
was paid for it?”,77 highlighting the increasing importance of profits to the argument.
73
Baldwin, in The Medieval Theories, p. 15, cites from Ambrose, De officiis ministrorum, lib. III, cap. 6,
Patrologiae … series Latina, 221v. ed. Jacques–Paul Migne (Paris: Lutetiae Parisiorum, 1844–1891), 16:
157, 158.
74
Baldwin, The Medieval Theories, p. 15.
75
Baldwin, The Medieval Theories, p. 15. Baldwin cites from Augustine, Enarratio in Psalmum LXX,
17, Patrologiae … series Latina, 36: 886, 887.
76
Baldwin, The Medieval Theories, p.64. For an extended discussion of Albertus Magnus and Aquinas’s
commentaries on the Aristotelian model of economic exchange, see Kaye, Nature and Economy, ch. 3.
77
Aquinas, Summa Theologica, IIa IIae, qu. 77, a. 4. Available from:
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/307704.htm (accessed 30 November 2005).
19
A merchant’s profits were justified by theologians on the basis of several
factors. Profits were considered in the light of how they were made, and once made,
how they were used.
From the very beginning of the twelfth century, with
consideration of the function of merchants in society and their commercial services,
specifically the transportation and distribution of goods, their activities were deemed
essential. Alexander of Hales, referring in detail to Aristotle’s Politics, considered
merchants to be performing duties of natural law in their conducting of exchange
fundamental to society.78 Paraphrasing Aristotle, Aquinas expanded on what these
services involved, naming them as sea transport “navigatio”, land transport “devectio”
and local merchandising “negotiatio”.79 In this way, the theologians set the functions
of the merchant at the very foundation of society and nature. In the twelfth century the
Parisian thinker Hugh of St Victor (1096?-1141) wrote:
Navigatio continet omnem in emendis, vendendis, mutandis, domesticis sive peregrinis
mercibus negotiationem. haec rectissime quasi quaedam sui generis rhetorica est, eo quod huic
professioni eloquentia maxime sit necessaria. unde et hic qui facundiae praeesse dicitur,
Mercurius, quasi mercatorum kirrius, id est, Dominus appellatur. haec secreta mundi penetrat,
litora invisa adit, deserta horrida lustrat, et cum barbaris nationibus et linguis incognitis
commercia humanitatis exercet. huius studium gentes conciliat, bella sedat, pacem firmat, et
privata bona ad communem usum omnium immutat.80
Navigation also involves the knowledge of all the negotiations for the buying, selling and
exchanging of merchandise from own country and foreign countries. For this reason it is
considered a kind of rhetoric: because in order to carry out this activity, eloquence is needed
more than anything else. Therefore whoever possesses this quality is called Mercury, as if he
were god of merchants. It [navigation] penetrates isolated areas, reaches unknown shores,
traverses frightful deserts and promotes civil relations with Barbarian populations who speak
unknown languages. This activity reconciles different peoples, reinforces peace and exchanges
goods necessary for the use of everyone.81
This early discussion of navigation and negotium, or commerce, in terms of specialised
knowledge and rhetoric is particularly striking because of its alignment of certain skills
and qualities associated with the god Mercury, skills and qualities perhaps not expected
in the earlier phase of “itinerant” mercantile activity. Hugh of St Victor was not unique
among medieval thinkers in making such associations. As Joan Ferrante outlines,
78
Alexander of Hales, Summa theologica, Pars II, Inquis. III, Tract. II, Sect. II, Qu. II, Tit. III, c. 1,4 (3):
722, 723, as cited in Baldwin, The Medieval Theories.
79
Aquinas, Sum. theo. IIa IIae, qu. 77, a. 4. Available from:
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/307704.htm (accessed 30 November 2005).
80
Hugh of St Victor, Didascalicon, II, xxiii. Available from: www.thelatinlibrary.com/hugo2.html
(accessed 9 December 2005).
81
See The Didascalicon of Hugh of St Victor: A Medieval Guide to the Arts, trans. and ed. Jerome Taylor
(New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1961), pp. 76–7. Gabriella Airaldi first drew my
attention to this in her “Introduzione: Per la storia dell’idea di Europa: economia di mercato e
capitalismo” in Gli orizzonti aperti: profili del mercante medievale, ed. Gabriella Airaldi (Turin: G. B.
Paravia, 1997), p. 10.
20
several well-known commentaries on Classical literature connect Mercury with
business, as well as with eloquence. Fulgentius, for example, interprets Mercury as
“quasi mercium-curum" or “concern with wares”, noting that every merchant might in
this way be called Mercury: “he has winged feet because the feet of merchants move
everywhere, as if winged; he has a staff with serpents because trade sometimes gives a
kingdom, sometimes a wound; his head is covered with a helmet because business is
always hidden”.82 The gradual association of merchants with specific functions and
specific skills foreshadows their development, in the last centuries of the Middle Ages,
as cultivated people.
Even if merchants’ activities were justifiable, the issue of their desire for profit
in exchange, and the legitimacy of such commercial gain, remained problematical.
Gradually the theorists came to recognise that exchanges were in fact motivated by the
desire for profit rather than a striving for equality, and that such exchanges could
nevertheless be just.83 As Joel Kaye writes, rather than condemning the motive of
profit, theorists such as Olivi “recognised it as a sufficient basis for just agreement,
provided that all parties were in a position to make rational estimations and decisions
concerning their own advantage”.84 The theologians used the factors of labour and
expenses to allow for the selling of merchandise at a higher price than that for which it
was purchased, paying closer attention to the first of these two factors. Christian
writers had stressed the importance of labour from the time of the New Testament.
“The labourer was worthy of his hire”85 and “if any should not work neither should he
eat”86 were well-known in the thirteenth century. Augustine had originally justified the
merchant's profit on the basis of labour, and Aquinas made the fair compensation of
labour one of the positive acts of justice in his Summa theologica.87 Given the common
opinion that all labour should be justly remunerated, it is not difficult to see how the
theologians regarded commercial profits as just wages for the labour of merchants.
Once the sources of merchant profits had been cleared, the uses to which they were put
drew the theorists’ attention. If the merchant performed a valuable service, then profits
gained from this service could be justified as essential for the support of himself and
his family. The theologians added two further reasonable motives for profit-making:
82
Joan Ferrante, The Political Vision of the Divine Comedy (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1984), p. 328.
83
Kaye, Nature and Economy, p. 159.
84
Kaye, Nature and Economy, p. 159.
85
Luke 10: 7.
86
II Thessalonians 3: 10.
87
Aquinas, Sum. theo. Ia IIae, qu. 114, a. 1.
21
the giving of money for charity, and the intention to contribute to public welfare by
supplying the necessities of the community. As will be seen, the spending of profits in
these ways would become a significant concern of the merchants of the following
centuries, and this concern is registered with relative frequency in late medieval literary
and artistic considerations of merchants and their activities.
If the remuneration of labour was one of the affairs of justice, money made from
usurious practices was condemned as unjust. From at least the ninth century, usury was
a sin, initially of uncharitableness or avarice, but later of injustice, and the church was
backed up in its condemnation of usury by the state.88
Usurers were immoral,
according to contemporary thought, because they accepted profits without working, and
were even making money while sleeping. One definition of usury was in fact the
making of profit without labour.89 As Jacques Le Goff notes, the merchant's profit
implied a mortgage on time, which was supposed to belong to God alone. He cites the
following comments of an early thirteenth-century theologian:
The usurer acts in contravention to universal natural law, because he sells time, which is the
common possession of all creatures. Augustine says that every creature is obliged to give itself;
the sun is obliged to give itself in order to shine; in the same way, the earth is obliged to give all
that it can produce, as is the water. But nothing gives of itself in a way more in conformity with
nature than time; like it or not, everything has time. Since, therefore, the usurer sells what
necessarily belongs to all creatures, he injures all creatures in general.90
While, as seen, some merchant activity was justified as fulfilling a natural function, that
of usury was prohibited using exactly the opposite reasoning; usury went against
nature. Thus the usury debate was closely tied to wider discussion on profit-making.
As trade revived in twelfth-century Italy, papal efforts to suppress usury became most
strenuous; and in the following century, when the Italian city-states were already in an
early capitalistic stage, the scholastic analysis of usury began, as part of the process of
reconciling the teaching authority of the Church with the rise of trade and commerce.91
Of all elements of the merchant discussion, the analysis of usury was the most
important from a spiritual perspective. The debate's origins are complex, and its logic
not always clear. Rejecting the notion of making profits from interest also eliminates
the possibility of credit; Pope Alexander III (1159–1181), for example, declared that
88
John T. Noonan Jr, The Scholastic Analysis of Usury (Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1957), p. 14.
89
See Baldwin, The Medieval Theories, p. 67. Baldwin is citing from Giles of Lessines, De usuris, c. 4,
p. 580.
90
Jacques Le Goff, Time, Work & Culture in the Middle Ages, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Chicago and
London: The University of Chicago Press, 1980), pp. 29ff.
91
Noonan, p. 13.
22
credit sales at a price higher than the cash price should be considered usury.92 And
Pope Urban III (1185–87) used Christ’s command from Luke 6:35, “lend freely, hoping
for nothing therefrom”, to introduce the idea of intention into the definition of usury.93
It should be noted that such figures weighed into the debate after a century in which the
frequency of credit transactions had rapidly increased.94 For the merchant, profiting
from time clearly presented a prime opportunity, and it was not just merchants to whom
this opportunity was apparent. The medieval papacy frequently resorted to deficit
financing, while individual bishops and monasteries often had to seek credit from
cameral banking firms. It is thus possible that the church hierarchy had private motives
for wanting to limit charges for loans. On the other hand, the papacy frequently had
large sums deposited in the same cameral banking firms, whose interests were almost
inextricably tied to that of the Church, so in this sense the prohibition ran counter to
ecclesiastical economic interests.95
Pamela Nightingale points to the abundant
evidence that in England, the clergy, from bishops to parish priests, lent money for a
range of investment purposes.96 One of the factors that led to the widespread use of
credit, in spite of the Church’s official position, was the lack of adequate supply of
coin, which depended on the availability of precious metals; in a sense then, credit
complemented, and even compensated for, the deficiency of the money supply.97 And
as Nightingale notes, governments tended to play the Church’s ban on usury to their
advantage, expelling alien creditors on the grounds that they were lending usuriously,
but choosing to turn a blind eye when they themselves were creditors.98
As with much of its economic policy in the period, the Church’s official stance
on usury gradually softened, so that by the fourteenth century, it had redefined and
developed its official teaching to permit lending at interest, provided that the rate
charged was not extortionate.99 This is reflected in the many discussions of examples
of the relationship between the theorising and practising of mercantile activity in the
writings of moralists such as Astesanus (d. 1330), Gregory of Rimini (d. 1358), Peter of
92
Noonan, p. 19.
Kaye, Nature and Economy, p. 82.
94
Kaye, Nature and Economy, p. 82.
95
Noonan, p. 14.
96
Nightingale, “Money and Credit”, p. 53.
97
Nightingale, “Money and Credit”, p. 52.
98
Nightingale, “Money and Credit”, p. 52.
99
Nightingale, “Money and Credit”, p. 52.
93
23
Ancarano, Lorenzo Ridolfi (d. 1443) and others, who approved of lucrum cessans.100
Lucrum cessans, or “profit ceasing”, permitted a lender to gain indemnification for lost
profit.101 In an unregulated system, trying to define an extortionate as opposed to a
reasonable rate was not easy; even while the Scholastics agreed on the fundamental
definition of usura, there was no absolute consensus about which financial and
commercial transactions were licit and which were to be identified as usurious loans.102
Directing their theories towards contemporary economic relations in a clear cut,
conclusive way proved challenging, and increasingly, allowances were made to
accommodate the emergent business practices. The moralists attempted to forestall a
laxist interpretation of their views by limiting the title to loans which were made out of
necessity and charity. They admonished merchants who were eager to lend at interest
in order to collect lucrum cessans rather than accept the risk, and pleaded with fellow
moralists that each case in which a lender was staking a claim to lucrum cessans be
scrutinised.
Medieval bankers worked around the Church’s official ban on usury to find
other ways of lending at a profit, and some economic historians argue that the ban
therefore had the effect of promoting the evolution of more sophisticated financial
transactions.103 The favoured method of profit-making on loans, for example, was by
means of exchange bills. Merchants argued that an exchange transaction was not a
loan, but either a commutation of moneys or a buying and selling of foreign currency,
an argument that was generally accepted by theologians. Banking flourished, and
bankers received profits from variations in exchange rather than interest charges.
Bankers were thus forced to work with correspondents abroad and pay them fees and
commissions which they recovered from borrowers.104 As we shall see, such financial
mechanisms appear in the tales of Boccaccio and Chaucer, suggesting just how
strongly these writers were alert to developments in the economy and their social
impact.
100
See Julius Kirshner in the introduction to Business, Banking and Economic Thought in Late Medieval
and Early Modern Europe; Selected Studies of Raymond de Roover, ed. Julius Kirschner (Chicago and
London: The University of Chicago Press, 1974), pp. 30—1.
101
Kaye, Nature and Economy, p. 84 refers to the definition of lucrum cessans given by influential canon
lawyer Hostiensis (d. 1270), p. 84.
102
Kirshner, pp. 21–2.
103
De Roover is just one of these, although as John Day points out, such a view should be treated “with
caution”, see Day, p. 143.
104
Kirshner, p. 32. And as Kaye outlines, the concept of interesse (excess beyond the sum lent) was
slowly introduced, but negotiated initially as only a payment for damages when a borrower did not repay
the sum lent within the agreed time frame, and not as part of the initial loan contract: see p. 83.
24
The details of these important ecclesiastical and legal debates entered
mainstream society by way of sermons and popular literature.
In both Italy and
England the incidence of references to the activities of money-lending and trade, and to
the widespread greed and dishonesty associated with them, increased in direct
proportion to the activities themselves. Chroniclers, songwriters, preachers and writers
of popular literature all addressed the moral and social position of the merchant.
In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, sermons stand out as having had a
particularly significant role in addressing the moral and social position of merchants
and as having influenced other mercantile writing. It is no coincidence that the period
of commercial expansion and massive urbanisation corresponded to the establishment
of the two great mendicant preaching orders – the Franciscans in 1209 and the
Dominicans in 1215.105 Traditional monasticism was unable to address adequately the
moral and social concerns generated by the increased levels of commercial activity, the
rise of the urban middle classes and the resulting power struggles, but the new orders,
both of which enjoyed particular popularity in the city states of northern Italy, filled
this spiritual gap. As Daniel Lesnick outlines, the new religious orders offered both
ideological guidance and practical support.106 From the early years of these orders,
preaching was increasingly audience-focused, with many religious considering it their
duty to provide the laity with their own means of achieving salvation within the secular
world.107 By the late fourteenth century in Florence, the Dominicans addressed their
sermons to merchants and bankers, while the Franciscans served the needs of the
popolo, comprised of artisans, tradesmen and professionals. For this reason, it is the
sermons of the Dominican preachers Remigio de’ Girolami and Giordano da Pisa that
contain the most pertinent references to financial matters and material conditions, not
least because of the evidence of a strong scholastic influence in their thinking and
approach. It should be noted that the majority of late medieval sermon collections, and
manuals on sermon writing, emanated from Paris, where they were produced in the
same milieu in which scholastic philosophers increasingly employed complex
mathematical and logical languages to facilitate their measurement and analysis of the
world.108 As Daniel Lesnick outlines, the Dominican manuals on sermon-writing, the
105
Lesnick, p. 172.
See Lesnick.
107
Lesnick, p. 101 and Giovanni Cherubini, “I mercanti e il potere”, in Banchieri e mercanti di Siena, ed.
Carlo M. Cipolla (Rome: De Luca Editore, 1987), p. 163.
108
For an account of this milieu see D. L. d’Avray, The Preaching of the Friars: Sermons diffused from
Paris before 1300 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), pp. 1—11; and also Joel Kaye, Economy and
Nature.
106
25
artes praedicandi, advocated the use of scholastic structure, and architectural
organisation of material according to a central plan, using the principle of systematic
divisions and manifestatio.109 This latter was the “clarification of truth through human
reason, and indeed the elucidation of the process of human reasoning itself”, and
reflects a shift in mental habit and a growth in confidence that the human mind was
capable of grasping matters of faith and thus could approach God through its own
power.110 The presentation of arguments in sermons was thus designed to appeal to the
sense of logic and structuration increasingly developing among Florentine merchantbankers.111
The sermons of Remigio de’ Girolami and Giordano da Pisa , both
preaching in Florence in the first years of the fourteenth century, indicate the
interpenetration of spiritual and socio-political sensibilities, and not just in structural
terms. Remigio de’ Girolami, for example, recognises that God has given Florence
seven unique gifts, which are: an abundance of money, a noble coinage, abundance of
population, a civilised way of life, the wool industry, skill in production and a vigorous
building activity in the contado (the countryside surrounding Florence and falling
under its control).112 Thus the Dominican took pride in precisely the features which
pointed to Florence’s strong commitment to mercantile capitalism, industrial growth
and territorial expansion. Such developments in thought patterns and paradigm shifts
are difficult to gauge, but nonetheless perceptible; in my first chapter I propose that the
Decameron is intended to appeal to a readership of exactly this mentality.
As has been noted by several historians, the medieval sermon collections by
friars together amounted to something that could be termed “mass communication”.113
Popular literature in the vernacular is another appropriate site in which to look for signs
of a commercialising economy and its social ramifications, often because it registers
many of the same considerations raised in the sermons. The literary representation of
mercantile activity will be the focus of my chapters, and I do not propose to linger over
it too long here, but a brief discussion of the strong presence of merchants and trade in
Franco Sacchetti’s (1330–1400) Trecentonovelle is enough to reveal the extent to
which issues of social mobility, money-lending and simple fraud were a part of daily
109
Lesnick, p. 98.
Lesnick, p. 98. See also Erwin Panofsky, Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism: An inquiry into the
analogy of the arts, philosophy, and religion in the Middle Ages (New York: New American Library,
1976).
111
Lesnick, p. 100. Lesnick argues that the Dominican method differs from that of the Franciscans in
preaching to the laity, which placed greater emphasis on appeal to imagination and the emotions.
112
Lesnick, p. 108.
113
See d’Avray, p. 3, among others.
110
26
life and the public consciousness at this time. Many of the stories of Il Trecentonovelle
are located within Florence’s marketplaces, churches, parishes, and squares – the
Piazza del Mercato Nuovo, Santa Reparata, San Miniato al Monte, Borgo Ognissanti.
While some stories among Il Trecentonovelle do unfold outside the city, urbanscapes
predominate as the favoured setting. Many of the tales are anecdotal in tone, and
recount small events and conversations either witnessed by Sacchetti or passed on to
him by word of mouth; real figures from earlier generations are the protagonists of
some, while others feature caricatures which, while fictitious, are more than likely
based on Sacchetti’s acquaintances and neighbours and events he has observed or heard
about in the parish or the marketplace. In the exchanges of his characters Sacchetti
reproduces the conversational modes and colloquialisms of ordinary Florentines, giving
a sense that the small-scale frauds, practical jokes, social climbing and issues of
morality he writes about were indeed the chief preoccupations and conversations of his
fellow citizens.
Sacchetti’s tales register exactly the kinds of deceits, social aspirations and
concern over the legitimacy of financial activities that were being addressed by
preachers and chroniclers. Some tales simply relate humorous incidents that serve as a
reminder that no member of society was immune to public embarrassment and ridicule.
The tale of Matteo di Cantino Cavalcanti, a member of the very respectable Cavalcanti
family, who races into a bank and pulls off his breeches when a mouse runs up them,
amid the raucous laughter of the crowd in Piazza del Mercato Nuovo, is one such
example (LXXVI). Yet even when the tone is light-hearted and jocular, many tales
register the ways in which serious moral issues associated with commerce and money
were manifesting themselves at the level of quotidian experience. In the hundredth
tale, a friar preaching on usury in the cathedral of Santa Reparata is interrupted by
Romolo del Bianco, a Florentine octogenarian who has evidently lost patience with the
endless sermons given on this subject. Del Bianco suggests that as the congregation is
made up of debtors rather than creditors, the friar should not waste his words preaching
on the way money-lending would lead to their damnation:
“Io vi voglio far chiaro che voi vi perdete le parole, però che quanti voi ne vedete a questa
predica accattano e non prestano, ché non hanno che, e io sono il primo.”
(Il Trecentonovelle, C, 4)114
“I want to make it clear to you that you are wasting your words, for you can see that those
present at this sermon borrow rather than lend, they haven’t a thing, and I am the first.”
114
This citation and all subsequent citations are drawn from Franco Sacchetti, Il Trecentonovelle, ed.
Antonio Lanza (Florence: Sansoni Editore, 1984).
27
Instead the preacher is advised to offer some words of comfort. Everyone is startled by
del Bianco’s outburst, but all among the congregation agree and the friar takes the
suggestion on board, preaching on poverty from that day onwards, frequently dropping
“beati pauperes” into his sermons and thus comforting the congregation, all because
Romolo had had the courage to preach to the preacher. Sacchetti ends the tale with
words about the need for flexibility on the part of preachers: he observes that a
preacher should adapt his sermons according to the congregation, preaching against
usury when in the company of those who have made their fortune through moneylending, but offering comfort to the poor when appropriate. The tale demonstrates the
way the clergy responded to moral issues and in turn, the way congregations responded
to preaching on such issues. Indeed popular preachers, such as Giordano da Pisa, often
resolved theological issues on an ad hoc basis, and sometimes took enormous liberties
with traditional themes, with the aim of speaking directly to the interests of an
audience, as Daniel Lesnick has outlined.115
Sacchetti is very specific about the
context of this amusing anecdote, suggesting that it was more than likely based on a
real event. The incident, we are told, takes place during the evenings of Lent, in a
church frequented by “tutti poveri lavoranti di lana” (all the poor wool-workers), who
enter the church having emerged from their “botteghe” (workshops), as well as young
serving boys and girls. It is notable on account of the way it concerns itself with the
moneylenders' “victims” , who happen to be wool-workers and servants, both
presumably employed in the factories and palazzi of Florence’s wealthy mercantile
elite.
Elsewhere, Sacchetti’s tales are concerned with the increased social mobility of
the fourteenth century, which he does not seem entirely to favour. In one story, a
“grossolano artefice” (rough artisan) tries to commission the renowned artist Giotto to
paint a “coat of arms” on a shield (LXIII). To put him in his place and thwart his
attempts to ascend the social ladder, Giotto literally paints an assortment of armour and
weapons onto the shield:
…una cerveliera, una gorgiera, un paio di bracciali, un paio di guanti di ferro, un paio di
corazze, un paio di cosciali e gamberuoli, una spada, un coltello e una lancia.
(Il Trecentonovelle LXIII, 6)
…a head-piece, a gorget, a pair of armlets, a pair of iron gauntlets, a pair of cuirasses, a pair of
cuisses and gambadoes, a sword, a dagger, and a lance.
28
At the conclusion of the tale, after the tradesman has returned for the shield, lost his
temper with Giotto and threatened legal action, Sacchetti wryly notes that the man who
failed to measure himself has been measured by others, and that even foundlings aspire
to having a coat of arms. More than registering a straightforward interest in social
aspirations, the story also highlights the extent of Giotto di Bondone’s reputation and
the way in which the commissioning of art could be seen as a means of elevating social
status: the tradesman goes to Giotto –rather than to another artist– having heard of his
fame.116
Furthermore, there is a sense that Giotto, as an artist, enjoys a certain
objectivity from which he is able to make observations about class in much the same
way that Sacchetti himself can. Once considered artisans, painters were themselves
enjoying increased status and recognition by the fourteenth century.
The story immediately following tells of Agnolo di ser Gherardo, a seventyyear-old woolworker, who decides he wants to take part in a joust at Peretola, just
outside Florence.
He borrows a horse from some local dyers at the “Tinta di
Borg’Ognissanti” and sets out for Peretola, where he arms himself in preparation. The
horse takes off, however, and heads back for his stall in Florence after much bucking
and kicking, to the amusement of all present. Agnolo ends up covered in bruises and
has to be escorted home to his wife, who gives him a stern scolding and laments the
day she married him. She reminds him that his income is derived from his activities as
a wool worker and sends him off to bed with the words: “va’, scamata la lana come tu
se’ uso, e lascia l’arte [dell’arme] a quelli che la sanno fare!” (“Off you go! Beat the
wool as you are accustomed to and leave the art of arms to those who know about it!”).
Like the unnamed tradesman who attempted to elevate his position by commissioning a
new coat-of-arms from the greatest Florentine painter of the era, Agnolo has become a
laughing stock on account of his failed attempts to adopt the practices of his social
superiors.
But it is not only through the aspirations of tradesmen that Sacchetti
examines social mobility: in another story (CLIII), which also touches on the issue of
wealth derived from money-lending, Messer Dolcibene goes to visit a newly appointed
knight, a man made rich from usury.
Sacchetti takes the opportunity to criticise
“cavalleria” (knighthood), saying it should be called “cacaleria” (shithood) because of
the amount of unlikely appointments being made.117 As Lucia Battaglia Ricci notes,
115
Lesnick, p. 103.
This story is later reproduced in Giorgio Vasari’s “Life of Giotto” in Lives of the Artists, trans. George
Bull, vol. 1 (London: Penguin, 1965)
117
Cf. Libro delle rime, CCXLIX, 99–120. Sacchetti also expresses his disapproval of the state of the
orders of knighthood in his “frottola” O mondo immondo.
116
29
the figure of the old Florentine usurer made knight forms a kind of hybrid of the
historically opposed values of “cortesia” (courtesy) and “avarizia” (avarice) and is
emblematic of the ideological eclecticism which characterised fourteenth-century
Florence’s mercantile bourgeoisie.118
In England, preachers and poets also raged against upwardly mobile social
aspirations. At one point in Piers Plowman, William Langland, in a line reminiscent of
Sacchetti’s
Messer
Dolcibene
story,
complains
about
shoemakers
buying
knighthoods.119 There was widespread social mobility in fourteenth-century England,
even if, on the whole, London’s preachers and writers were slower to respond to it and
accommodate it than those in Italy. As I noted earlier, the fact that the vast majority of
model sermon collections and preaching aids were diffused from Paris to audiences all
over Europe120 means that it is likely that both Florentine and London preachers drew
on models that were initially similar. As in the sermons and popular literature in
Florence, those in London spoke out against the dangers of social aspirations and the
frauds and deceits associated with money. Friar John Bromyard, for example, warned
merchants against thinking that their wealth could buy them increased social status:
Merchants and moneyed men reckon themselves “ennobled” and on the road to enrichment,
when they are seen to have friendship with the nobility, when they can wear their robes and are
summoned to their banquets, and when they can go a-hunting with them. But the end of all is
these things is that, when they ask for… the money back which (after it has been acquired with
great labour) they bring and lend to them, they will be friends no longer.121
Preachers were concerned by the increase in commercial activity at all levels of society
and warned their congregations about the dangers of greed and the dishonesty inherent
in the marketplace. The targets of their sermons were often small-time traders and
shopkeepers, who were accused of using an extraordinary range of deceitful practices
and false marketing. The use of false weights and measures, the wetting of wool to
make it heavier, the use of fabric dyes to make cloth appear to be of greater quality and
the general practice of “syllyng a badde thyng for a goede”122 are just some of the
accusations levelled at merchants, as can be seen in one of Bishop Brinton’s addresses:
118
Lucia Battaglia Ricci, Boccaccio (Rome: Salerno Editrice, 2000), pp. 15—16.
See Piers Plowman, C text. V. 72.
120
d’Avray, p. 4.
121
Gerald R. Owst, Literature and Pulpit in Medieval England, 2nd edn (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1961),
p. 352, citing from John Bromyard, Summa Predicantium.
122
As quoted by Owst, p. 355.
119
30
False merchants, in these days, infringe the Rule of Justice. In every craft so much trickery is
employed –in measures, in usury, in weight, in the balance, in mendacious mixtures and false
oaths– that each man strives to deceive his neighbour … Therefore let merchants beware!…123
Other than tricks and deception, the financial activities of merchants also came under
attack, with Master Rypon focusing on the methods of those who manipulated prices
and profited from fluctuations in supply and the wide-ranging effects of their actions:
…Some hold back for a time, that they may acquire more later on; as, for example, those,
having a quantity of corn or other goods for sale, who suspect that things will be very dear in
the future, and, in hope of future gain, withhold corn from the market, which nevertheless if
sold would be a timely benefit to the whole country. Without doubt such men harm not one
person only, but the whole country-side…124
In most cases, the preachers drew attention to the victims of fraudulent selling and
price manipulation, giving consideration to the types of consumers likely to be affected
– mainly laymen unfamiliar with the desirable qualities of a particular kind of
merchandise or, more generally, the poor.
In England, the majority of theorists and preachers continued to insist on the
tripartite concept of society (those who prayed, those who fought and those who
laboured) until the end of the Middle Ages.125 All the same, while some English
preachers and commentators were still relying on the feudal model –as late as 1388
Thomas Wimbledon preached a sermon at Paul’s Cross in London describing the three
estates as “priesthood, knythode, and laborers”, and stipulating that social duty requires
that “every man travaile in his degree”126– others were grappling with mercantile
society, its role and position.
Bishop Thomas Brinton recognised a fourth social
category, between the lords on the one hand and the peasants on the other, that of
merchants. In a sermon on the mystical body of the church, Brinton drew on the
popular metaphor of the interconnectedness of the human body to describe society, but
he added another dimension to the old “body politic” metaphor with his inclusion of the
middle groups in society. While he described knights as society’s “right arm”, he
placed merchants and craftsmen as the “left arm”, and citizens and burgesses, very
significantly, at its “heart”, acknowledging the increasing importance of the urban
population in the cogs of the economy. Furthermore, as Paul Strohm points out, by
placing knights at the same bodily level as merchants, the description brings about a
demotion of knights, which, as will be seen in my second chapter, is an important
123
As quoted by Owst, p. 353.
As quoted by Owst, p. 356.
125
Rodney Hilton, “Status and Class”, p. 9.
124
31
consideration when taking into account the role fourteenth-century English romances
play in shaping aristocratic and mercantile ideologies. 127
Sumptuary legislation and taxes are another source of information about
perceptions of social status and the basis for such perceptions. The Poll Tax of 1379
was designed to gather revenue according to a carefully considered estimation of the
estates and occupational groups. It was somewhat revolutionary in the detail it took
into account, addressing greater and lesser ranks of merchants and townspeople.128 It
continued, however, to distinguish between gentle and non-gentle estates, even while
recognising the status that merchants could achieve.
The mayor of London, for
example, was assessed at the same rate as a count, yet merchants and other citizens –
from whom the mayor was drawn–were treated as members of a different social class,
whose wealth based on goods and chattels continued to set them apart from the landowning gentility. Attitudes to change in society are also reflected in the legislation of
the period. Sumptuary legislation governing dress codes was introduced and amended
throughout the latter half of the fourteenth century and the fifteenth century.129 Such
legislation was introduced partly because habits of extravagance were believed to be
responsible for the rising cost of food and partly because fashion, a very tangible
symbol of status, was tending to obscure class distinctions. In England the 1363
Statute on Diet and Apparel, although short-lived, was initiated in response to a petition
of commons which complained that persons of diverse conditions of prosperity were
adopting apparel inappropriate to their social rank.130 In the very action of seeking to
maintain rank, legislators were recognising the extent of social mobility around them.
Piers Plowman registers many of the same concerns of the fourteenth-century
preachers and legislators but in an allegorical, fictional context. One of Langland’s
chief preoccupations throughout the poem is an obsession with wealth and greed at all
levels of society. This is no more keenly felt than in the portrait of “Coveitise”, also
known as Sir Harvey (B-text, V. 188ff), who has been so concerned with material gain
that even his appearance seems to speak of his yearning for profit: the flabby skin of his
weathered cheeks is described in terms of a “letheren purs” (V. 189). When this
avaricious figure comes before Repentance he gives a detailed account of some of the
many tricks he has employed in selling a variety of wares from cloth to ale. He
126
Peggy Knapp, Chaucer and the Social Contest (New York and London: Routledge, 1990), p.11.
Strohm, pp. 3-5
128
Strohm, pp.8-10
129
Silvia L. Thrupp, The Merchant Class of Medieval London 1300-1500, (Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, 1948) p.148.
127
32
explains that the first lesson of his apprenticeship under “Symme-atte-Style” was
learning to weigh “wikkedly” (V. 200). This was followed by business trips to fairs
where, on behalf of his master, he flogged off merchandise that might have remained
unsold for years had it not been for his false marketing skills. When it came to cloth,
he knew how to stretch it using a press so that “ten yerdes or twelve tolled out
thrittene” (V. 210) and his weaver wife applied similar techniques when purchasing
wool from the “spynnesteres” (V. 212), using false weights to obtain more: “The pound
that she paied by peised a quarter moore / Than myn owene auncer wh[an I] weyed
truthe” (V. 213–14).131 These techniques are very similar to those outlined in some
detail by Sacchetti in the story of Soccebonel of Friuli (Il Trecentonovelle XCII), who
tries to defraud a Florentine cloth-seller, but is himself defrauded, and they are
typically associated with retailers, rather than wholesalers. When Sir Harvey repents
and vows never to “wikkedly weye ne wikked chaffare use” (V. 225) his words bear
direct similarities with those parts of Bishop Brinton and Friar Bromyard’s sermons
concerning the common deceits employed by merchants.132
Yet even though he
promises to renounce his dishonest practices, and vows to visit the priory of St Andrew
at Bromholm, near Walsingham, with his wife, he is mainly concerned to pray that he
will be “brought out of debt”:
Ac I swere now (so thee Ik!) that synne wol I lete,
And nevere wikkedly weye ne wikked chaffare use,
But wenden to Walsyngham, and my wif alse,
And bidde the Roode of Bromholm bryng me out of dette.
(V. 224–7)
Sir Harvey is sorry he is in debt, rather than being sorry for being avaricious and here,
as on other occasions, Langland is concerned to demonstrate that merchandising can
bring about a corruption of consciousness whereby individuals are unable to
comprehend how they have erred. Commerce has pervaded Sir Harvey, just as it has
the consciousness of the age.
Merchants and commerce were thus entering literature in spite of the
disapproval of some preachers, and of authors such as Langland.
Even though
Langland is wary of merchants, their very presence in his work marks his recognition
of the inevitability of engagement with them. Chaucer, on the other hand, demonstrates
130
Paul Strohm, Social Chaucer, (Cambridge, Mass. and London: Harvard University Press, 1989), p. 5
Cf. The portrait of “Haukyn the Actif Man” in Passus XIII, 355ff. Haukyn’s coat is stained with the
marks of covetousness and craving and like Sir Harvey, his mind is on the money he could make by
falsifying weights and lying about merchandise.
132
Cf. Owst, p. 353 and the sermons referred to earlier on “Falsitas” and “Mercatio”.
131
33
a different and more open capacity to deal with commerce, making his attitude much
closer to that of Boccaccio. Although acknowledging the many accusations levelled at
merchants and the negative perceptions of their activities, Chaucer’s work tends to
challenge assumptions, and his own merchants are generally far more multi-textured
than Langland’s. The present study is concerned not so much to identify the positive
and negative representations of merchants and trade, which would be a potentially
infinite exercise, as to identify some of the processes and practices by which literature
responds to their contested and evolving position in late medieval society, and the rise
of the cash economy, consumer consciousness and mentality that were associated with
them.
In the first chapter, I aim to identify the particular socio-historical conditions of
fourteenth-century Italy, as distinct from those of elsewhere in Western Europe, as a
framework in which to discuss Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron. In writing his
greatest work, a collection of one hundred stories, Boccaccio (1313–1375) was
influenced by a number of factors: his exposure as a youth to the aristocratic culture of
the Angevin court of Naples; his own commercial training and experience working for
the important Florentine merchant family, the Bardi; and his wide reading in a variety
of literature – Classical, religious, romance and semi-popolare works (those derived
from a more oral, less sophisticated tradition).
This chapter will examine the
Decameron with particular reference to late medieval commercial developments and
related social and cultural developments. The one hundred stories, told by ten young
Florentines who have temporarily abandoned their plague-ridden city in favour of the
idyllic Tuscan countryside, are populated with an unprecedented number of merchants
and their families. A search of a concordance to the Decameron makes clear that
“mercatante” and its variants appear with striking frequency.133 There is an abundance
of references to mercantile activities, trading networks and the places in which they are
established and unfold – warehouses, inns, ports and marketplaces all over Western
Europe and the medieval “Middle East”. Yet the purpose of this chapter is not to
simply identify the many mercantile references –that would require far more than a
single chapter, as Vittore Branca’s renowned and comprehensive studies bear witness
to,134 and in any case has already been accomplished by Branca and others– but to
133
See, for example, the most accessible and up-to-date concordance available through the Decameron
web: http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Italian_Studies/dweb/dec_ov/concordance/index.shtml
(Accessed 15 November 2005).
134
These will be referred to in the first chapter, but the best known is Boccaccio medievale e nuovi studi
sul Decameron, 3rd edn (Florence: Sansoni, 1998).
34
consider what these references have to say about perceptions of the merchant and his
activities, the emergence of distinctive mercantile values, and most importantly of all,
the evolution of a wider-spread “mentality” that is related to, but not entirely dependent
on, the late medieval commercial expansion. Boccaccio, I shall argue, has an interest
in different aspects of society and the way they are united by common experience and
thought processes, and he considers his own artistic process and production in these
terms. It has often been noted that the Decameron bears evidence of Boccaccio’s
interest in the achievements of his contemporaries working in the visual arts,
particularly those of Giotto di Bondone (1267–1337). This chapter will focus on
Boccaccio’s interest in painting and his praise of Giotto’s realisation of an
unprecedented naturalism. It seems reasonable to suspect that Boccaccio’s recognition
of the painter’s artistic innovation is connected to the detailed evocation of real places
in many of the Decameron’s stories, and to his frequent reliance on the description of
interior and exterior spaces for maximum narrative impact. I shall examine ways in
which this increased realism and new conception of space in painting and writing may
be connected to the growth of mercantile culture and to a corresponding change in
mental habit, diffused through all areas of society.
Just as commerce became an unstoppable force, so too commercial language
and an interest in the possibilities of quantification and measurement infiltrated all
areas of society. In the second chapter, I turn my attention to the late medieval
chivalric romance, a genre often believed to have overlooked or excluded the rise of an
urban mercantile class and the growing importance of trade, in favour of promoting the
lifestyle and values of a landed ruling class.
Fuelled by the influential body of
nineteenth-century criticism, which sought to raise chivalric romance above mercantile
concerns, this popular idea of the genre as an idealised portrayal of the nobility and
knightly class that largely ignores the fundamental social and economic changes of the
times still prevails. A close look at the vast body of romances turns up a surprisingly
large number of references to trade, expenditure and repayment, suggesting a greater
capacity to adapt to social change and register contemporary concern than many critics
would have us believe.
Already in Chrétien de Troyes’ twelfth-century French
romances the language of commercial exchange is employed to describe battles and
lovers’ agreements. The commercial content is not limited to metaphor; in a couple of
Chrétien’s romances, merchants have a cameo role. In the thirteenth-century English
romance Floris and Blauncheflur a prince disguises himself as a merchant to win back
his true love. In the fourteenth-century romances Sir Amadace and Sir Launfal, knights
35
experience financial hardship, while in Octavian a child of noble birth is separated
from his family as a baby and raised by a Parisian burgher and his wife. Trade and its
practitioners do not figure in the best known fourteenth-century English romance Sir
Gawain and the Green Knight, but the poet shows an interest in the keeping of
promises and “truth” at a time when concern for these values was growing. This
chapter examines the significance of the presence, or absence, of finance in romance,
and recognises the way the language of debt and credit is applicable to war, to
spirituality, to trade, and of course, to love.
Like the many cultural and social experiences impacting on Boccaccio’s
writing, the interests of the fourteenth-century English writer Geoffrey Chaucer
(c.1343–1400) were greatly varied.
Few were more familiar with the conflicting
perceptions of merchants and merchant culture than Chaucer, whose family background
and varied career as a public servant brought him into daily contact with merchants for
much of his life. Son of a wine merchant, Chaucer grew up in London, in the Vintry,
the ward of the city where the wine merchants had their businesses. Records show that
he was soon sent to the household of Elizabeth, Countess of Ulster, wife of Prince
Lionel, the second surviving son of Edward III, where from 1367 he was a page for
several years. Later in life he held several significant roles in London’s monarchical
administration, most notably as Clerk of Works and Customs Controller.
This
combination of experience at court and personal knowledge of commerce, finance and
urban government results in an ideological eclecticism in the Canterbury Tales similar
to that evident in Boccaccio’s Decameron. In addition to this, Chaucer’s involvement
in monarchical administrative affairs frequently provided the opportunity for travel: in
varying capacities as soldier, public servant, royal envoy and financial negotiator he
travelled extensively on the European continent. Chaucer’s poetry bears witness to his
European contact. As I noted earlier, London was home to a notable Italian community
in the late Middle Ages, and the Italian language and culture would not have been
unfamiliar to Chaucer. During his lifetime, the majority of Italians there were from
Florence and Lucca,135 which would perhaps imply that if anything, Chaucer was likely
to have been better prepared for the language and customs of the Tuscan city states
than elsewhere in the Italian peninsula. In fact, in Chaucerian Polity, David Wallace
argues that Chaucer experienced Italy in the context of an international nexus of
135
See Warren Ginsberg, Chaucer’s Italian Tradition (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press,
2002), p. 2; and Childs, p. 69.
36
warfare, wool and capital, making it somehow “familiar”.136 But for all his familiarity
with Italy and the Italian language, international mercantilism and warfare, it is likely
that Italy always retained a sense of remoteness for him.137 As Warren Ginsberg points
out, “a land without a ruling sovereign, in which independent cities, each differently
governed, fiercely competed with one another (and with the pope) for hegemony,
surely was unfamiliar terrain.”138 Chaucer was the only English poet of his generation
to travel to Italy and his visits there, along with his reading of Italian literature, give his
writing a distinctly cosmopolitan quality. In particular, the ways he engages with
commerce and commercialisation bear traces of the sophisticated mercantile societies
of the Italian city states.
Rather than focusing exclusively on tales that deal extensively with merchants
and commerce or that told by the Merchant-pilgrim, my discussion of the Canterbury
Tales focuses on the Knight’s Tale, the Man of Law’s Tale and the Shipman’s Tale, and
on the way they relate to broader ideas about exchange and the production of narrative
in the Canterbury Tales as a whole. Discussing three tales derived from or influenced
by very different genres –romance, saint’s life, fabliau– provides the opportunity to
examine ways in which Chaucer articulates an interest in late medieval commercial
change and development as it relates to society and culture as a whole, rather than just
the commercial “class”. If my discussion has a particular social focus, it is on the
group encompassing knights and merchants, with its nebulous boundaries and unstable
identity, a group whose income was increasingly derived from the profits of trade and
whose social position could shift in a single generation. My arguments aim to draw
attention to the ubiquity of commercial exchange and credit and the manifestation of
competition in society. Many of my arguments about Chaucer’s writing are intended to
tie in with and back up some of my claims in the preceding chapter about romance;
several of the Canterbury Tales register anxiety about the rise of commerce and its
effect on values, as well as the very fluid boundaries of class identity. And like
Boccaccio in the Decameron, Chaucer shows a keen interest in the position and role of
the writer in relation to this ever-evolving and shifting economy.
Three major studies of Chaucer in relation to Boccaccio have emerged in the
last five years: The Decameron and the Canterbury Tales: New Essays on an Old
Question, edited by Leonard Koff and Brenda Deen Schildgen; Robert Edwards’s
136
Wallace, Chaucerian Polity, pp. 11–13.
Ginsberg, p. 2.
138
Ginsberg, p. 2.
137
37
Chaucer and Boccaccio: Antiquity and Modernity; and Warren Ginsberg’s Chaucer’s
Italian Tradition.139 Prior to these three, David Wallace’s Chaucerian Polity (1997)
reinvigorated research into Chaucer’s experience of Italy; his illuminating study is
testament to the value of studying Chaucer in relation to Italy and Italian culture. Each
of these books has had a role in shaping my own ideas about the Decameron and the
Canterbury Tales, and my interest in examining these works in relation to fourteenthcentury economy and society. It is not my intention to weigh into the debate about the
extent to which individual elements of Boccaccio’s novelle in the Decameron were or
were not sources or analogues; I make reference to particular details in comparative
mode only insofar as they relate to my case on matters pertaining to the broader
arguments about the relationship of these two works to late medieval commercial
climates in Italy, England and indeed Europe. It is my hope that my central chapter on
romance literature, separating the sections on Boccaccio and Chaucer, will serve both
as a clear indication that it was never my intention to embark on a comparative study of
two of the greatest works of the period, and as a space in which to explore ideas about
“exchange” in its broadest sense, in a different and perhaps unexpected context. There
are, of course, many more literary texts that might have been covered by this study, but
which, other than in passing references, I have not been able to examine, largely due to
space.
These include Dante’s Commedia, William Langland’s Piers Plowman,
Giovanni Sercambi’s Il Novelliere and John Gower’s Vox Clamantis, to name a few.
Any research I have conducted on these texts in recent years will be absorbed into
future studies or at least provide stimuli for other avenues of enquiry. In the present
study, the Canterbury Tales is a particular focus because, like Boccaccio’s Decameron,
it registers a profound engagement with important late medieval economic ideas about
value, exchange, profit and credit, and the ways in which these ideas penetrated the
consciousness of the whole of society, not just that section of society directly involved
in commerce.
139
Leonard Michael Koff and Brenda Deen Schildgen (eds), The Decameron and the Canterbury Tales:
New Essays on an Old Question (Cranbury, London and Mississauga: Associated University Presses,
2000); Robert R. Edwards, Chaucer and Boccaccio: Antiquity and Modernity (Houndmills and New
York: Palgrave, 2002); and Ginsberg, Chaucer’s Italian Tradition.
38
Painting, Writing and Mercantile Culture in Boccaccio’s Decameron
…stava così bene al mercatante sempre avere le mani tinte d’inchiostro… sempre
scrivere ogni cosa… sempre avere la penna in mano.
(…it suited the merchant to always have ink-stained hands… to always write down
everything… to always have a pen in his hand.)
Leon Battista Alberti1
Niuna impresa, per minima che sia, può aver cominciamento o fine senza queste tre
cose: cioè senza potere, senza sapere e senza con amore volere.
(No enterprise, however small, can have beginning or end without these three things:
that is, without ability, without knowledge or without passion.)
2
Statement standing at the start of the statute of a fourteenth-century painters’ guild.
Several recent studies have drawn attention to the unusual quantity of references
to art and artists in Giovanni Boccaccio’s writing.3
Six of the Decameron’s one
hundred tales are based on Florentine artists from the generation prior to Boccaccio’s
own, and elsewhere he refers to the great Inferno fresco once found on the façade of the
church of San Gallo, and possibly to that of Nardo di Cione found in Santa Maria
Novella.4
It has recently been argued that Boccaccio’s young company of ten
storytellers in the Decameron could have been inspired by the Triumph of Death
frescoes (composed most likely between 1336 and 1342) found in Pisa’s Camposanto
1
Leon Battista Alberti, Della Famiglia, III, ed. R. Romano and A. Tenenti (Turin: Mondadori, 1969), p.
251.
2
Paolo da Certaldo, in Item 268 of his Libro di buoni costumi, also suggested that in all things, it was
advisable to have “potere, sapere e volere” (“ability, knowledge and determination”) in order to succeed.
See Paolo da Certaldo, “Libro di buoni costumi”, in Mercanti scrittori: Ricordi nella Firenze tra
Medioevo e Rinascimento, ed. Vittore Branca (Milan: Rusconi, 1986), p. 52.
3
Chiara Frugoni, “La coppia infernale di Andrea Orcagna in Santa Croce a Firenze. Proposta per una
possibile fonte della novella di Nastagio degli Onesti”, Studi sul Boccaccio 28 (2000), 99–103; Lucia
Battaglia Ricci, Boccaccio (Rome: Salerno Editrice, 2000); Creighton Gilbert, “La devozione di Giovanni
Boccaccio per gli artisti e l’arte”, in Boccaccio visualizzato: Narrare per parole e per immagini fra
Medioevo e Rinascimento, ed. Vittore Branca (Turin: Einaudi, 1999), vol. I, pp. 145–53; Gilbert, Poets
Seeing Artists’ Work: Instances in the Italian Renaissance (Florence: Olschki, 1991); Vittore Branca,
“Interespressività narrativa-figurativa e rinnovamenti topologici e iconografici”, in Boccaccio
visualizzato, pp. 39–84; Paul F. Watson, “The Cement of Fiction: Giovanni Boccaccio and the Painters of
Florence”, Modern Language Notes 99 (1984), 43–64; Pamela D. Stewart, “Giotto e la rinascita della
pittura: Decameron VI.5”, Yearbook of Italian Studies 5 (1983), 22–34; Marcello Ciccuto, “Un’antica
canzone di Giotto e i pittori di Boccaccio: Nascita dell’identità artistica”, Intersezioni 16.3 (1996), 403–
16; Lucia Battaglia Ricci, Ragionare nel giardino: Boccaccio e i cicli pittorici del Trionfo della Morte
(Rome: Salerno Editrice, 2000).
4
Frugoni, p. 102, argues that the iconography of Andrea Orcagna’s Inferno fresco in Florence’s church of
Santa Croce could have inspired Nastagio degli Onesti’s vision in Decameron V, 8 in addition to the
Inferno scenes of San Gallo and Santa Maria Novella, as argued by Gilbert. (Orcagna is of course also
known as Nardo di Cione.)
39
Monumentale.5
In his Conclusione dell’autore (Epilogue) to the Decameron,
Boccaccio likens his “penna” (quill) to the “pennello” (brush) of an artist,6 and in the
Amorosa Visione he describes the impact made on him by Giotto’s Neapolitan
frescoes.7 As an adolescent and young man carrying out a commercial apprenticeship
in the Bardi company in Naples under the Angevins, from 1327 to 1340–1, Boccaccio
would have met and possibly witnessed at work the older Giotto di Bondone (1267–
1337), who was painting in the Royal Chapel at Castel Nuovo, and elsewhere, from
1329 until about 1333.8 As an older man in Florence, Boccaccio became a close
observer of the many frescoes in the churches in Florence and its outskirts, and knew
some of the artists he refers to. He was also involved in the commissioning of art.9
Boccaccio’s interest in visual culture extends well beyond observation. It seems that
his references to artworks and artists are the result of a particular interest in painting as
an art form and in the role of the artist. Furthermore, it was in the late Middle Ages and
into the Renaissance that the status of artists themselves increased; no longer viewed as
tradesmen, it was considered that they needed greater education and scientific ability to
be professional practitioners.
This chapter considers ways in which Boccaccio’s
interest in painting and his recognition of Giotto’s artistic achievements relate to his
own writing, and speculates on the extent to which this interest is connected to the
values and ideology of the urban, mercantile society around him. Taking into account
specific innovations in early fourteenth-century painting, such as the new conception of
naturalistic narrative spaces and the increasingly ‘plastic’ realisation of figures, it
suggests that Boccaccio sought to carry some of these into his own artistic production.
Although Boccaccio’s interest in the visual culture surrounding him may simply
reflect the extent to which Florence’s chapel walls and altarpieces were being decorated
during his life time, it is more likely that his references to artworks and artists are the
5
Lucia Battaglia Ricci, in Ragionare nel giardino, finds unmistakable similarities between the
iconography of this work, attributed to Buffalmacco, which features a company of ten young people,
three male, seven female, elegantly dressed, and engaging in music and conversation in an idyllic country
setting, and Boccaccio’s brigata. Battaglia Ricci presents a convincing argument for a possible visit of
Boccaccio to Pisa. Once thought to have been a reaction to the plague, the work is now dated to the preplague years and thought to be related to the Dominican preacher, Domenico Cavalca (d. 1342), who was
active in Pisa during that period and was an outspoken opponent of worldly vanity.
6
All Italian citations are drawn from Vittore Branca’s edition of the Decameron (Milan: Mondadori,
1985); and the English translations with page numbers are drawn from Boccaccio, The Decameron, trans.
and ed. G. H. McWilliam (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972).
7
Giovanni Boccaccio, Amorosa Visione, IV, 7–18, in Tutte le opere di Giovanni Boccaccio, 10 vols, gen.
ed. Vittore Branca (Milan: Mondadori, 1964–98), p. 34.
8
Branca, Boccaccio: The Man and His Works, trans. Richard Monges (New York: New York University
Press, 1976), p. 38.
9
See Robert Williams, “Boccaccio’s Altarpiece”, Studi sul Boccaccio 19 (1990), 229–40. Boccaccio
commissioned an altarpiece for the church of SS. Michele e Jacopo at Certaldo (now lost). Two sketches
remain.
40
result of a particular interest in painting as an art form and in the role of the artist.
When, on the Sixth Day of the Decameron, it is Panfilo’s turn to narrate, he spends
nearly as much time prefacing his tale with rapturous praise of Giotto’s mimetic
capacity, his artistic achievements and his modesty, as in recounting his brief and
anecdotal story. The tale of Giotto and Forese da Rabatta, chatting away as they ride
back to Florence from the Mugello district, amounts to little more than an account of a
witty conversation, whose punch-line is a snappy retort from Giotto. Panfilo’s remarks,
as he introduces the two Florentines, are far more memorable:
… l’altro, il cui nome fu Giotto, ebbe uno ingegno di tanta eccellenzia, che niuna cosa dà la
natura, madre di tutte le cose e operatrice col continuo girar de’ cieli, che egli con lo stile e con
la penna o col pennello non dipignesse sì simile a quella, che non simile, anzi più tosto dessa
paresse, in tanto che molte volte nelle cose da lui fatte si truova che il visivo senso degli uomini
vi prese errore, quello credendo esser vero che era dipinto.
(p. 524)
The second, whose name was Giotto, was a man of such outstanding genius that there was
nothing in the whole of creation that he could not depict with his stylus, pen or brush. And so
faithful did he remain to Nature (who is the mother and the motive force of all created things, via
the constant rotation of the heavens), that whatever he depicted had the appearance, not of a
reproduction, but of the thing itself, so that one very often finds, with the works of Giotto, that
people’s eyes are deceived and they mistake the picture for the real thing.
(p. 409)
Panfilo concludes that on account of his naturalism, Giotto’s overriding achievement
has been to bring to light an art that has been buried beneath the errors of others for
centuries, thus setting him apart from the other Florentine artists of the early fourteenth
century.
Giotto, according to Panfilo, should be noted as one of the “luci della
fiorentina gloria” (lights of Florentine glory), and referred to as a “maestro” (master),
even though, on account of his modesty, he has refused the title. The impassioned
speech recognises the significance of Giotto’s artistic achievements when compared to
his contemporaries and immediate predecessors and points to Boccaccio’s admiration
for the artist’s mimetic expertise. In comparing this passage to Dante’s reference to
Giotto in the Purgatorio 12. 64–69, Robert Hollander notes that unlike Dante, who
insists that the art of even the finest sculptor or painter is inadequate when compared
with God’s “mimetic magnificence”, Boccaccio insists on Giotto as a perfect mimic of
nature.10 By linking Giotto’s mimetic ability to the instrument with which he works, “lo
stile, la penna…il pennello”, (the stylus, the pen, the brush) (VI, 5, 5), Boccaccio
defines his mimesis as the result of an artistic process, for these are the tools of the
fresco painter and the scribe, and as a human skill. Furthermore, he alludes, through
10
Robert Hollander, Boccaccio’s Dante and the Shaping Force of Satire (Ann Arbor: The University of
Michigan Press, 1997), p. 48.
41
Panfilo’s speech, to a process involving the relationship between the artist’s eye and his
hand, and the eye of the viewer, who is almost taken in by this masterful “ingegno”
(intellect).
It is thus not surprising that when Boccaccio reaches the conclusion to the
Decameron, he reflects for a moment on the instrument with which he himself works.
Now that he has achieved his objective of providing entertainment for ladies, he will
rest his quill and tired hand: “…dare alla penna e alla man faticata riposo” (p. 909). But
before doing so, he launches into a justification of the elements of his stories that may
be deemed unsuitable for the female audience to which he has dedicated the work. His
defence is that if any of the tales is lacking in decorum, it is because of the nature of the
story itself, and he is certain that any intuitive person with a reasonable eye, after a
close look, will agree:
Primieramente se alcuna cosa in alcuna n’è, la qualità delle novelle l’hanno richesta, le quali se
con ragionevole occhio da intendente persona fian riguardate, assai aperto sarà conosciuto, se io
quelle della lor forma trar non avessi voluto, altramenti raccontar non poterle.
(pp. 909–10)
In the first place, if any of the stories is lacking in restraint, this is because of the nature of the
story itself, which, as any well-informed and dispassionate observer will readily acknowledge, I
could not have related in any other way without distorting it all out of recognition.
(p. 829)
Boccaccio here employs visual terminology “se con ragionevole occhio da intendente
persona fian riguardate” [italics mine] and refers to a process of looking that would
again seem a result of his interest in painting. It is a brief yet striking argument that
recalls Panfilo’s earlier praise of Giotto. The reader becomes a viewer who is led, via
the instrument of the artist’s work, back to the object of his attentions and invited to
compare the two, art and reality. Artist and audience are engaged in a process of
viewing. Boccaccio follows this reference by arguing that his own quill should be
conceded the same authority as that granted to the painter’s brush: “…alla mia penna
non dee essere meno d’auttorità conceduta che sia al pennello del dipintore…” (p. 910),
“…no less authority should be granted to my pen than to the brush of the painter”. It is
the last reference, in the Decameron, to the penna, and soon after, Boccaccio indeed
concludes the vast work and sets his work instrument aside. The placement of this
reference in the concluding words of the author himself is a reminder of Boccaccio’s
identification with the painterly artistic process and in particular with Giotto’s realism.
42
As Hollander points out, Boccaccio, through Panfilo, has already made clear how much
authority should be granted Giotto’s mimetic capacity.11
As Boccaccio’s comments about Giotto’s imitative ability do not really accord
with contemporary perceptions of a realist style, it is necessary to take a brief detour
through the late thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century artistic milieu in an attempt to
contextualise and understand his achievements. What was it about Giotto’s work that
earned him widespread recognition in his own time and has resulted in his almost
undisputed position as the most influential font of a new Florentine manner? Already
in the fourteenth century, Giotto was acclaimed as having achieved unprecedented
naturalism in a number of literary sources. Boccaccio, Dante and Petrarch, as well as
Filippo Villani and the chronicler Riccobaldo Ferrarese, all made reference to Giotto’s
greatness, distinguishing him from his predecessors.12 They were followed in the
fifteenth century by Lorenzo Ghiberti, and in the sixteenth century by the art
“biographer” Giorgio Vasari.13 In his craftsman’s handbook, Il libro dell’arte (c.
1400), Cennino Cennini referred specifically to the verisimilitude of the figures in
Giotto’s painting.14
Although praising paintings for their “life-like” qualities was
something of a standard rhetorical device in Classical writing on art, and was frequently
applied to work that in today’s terms might be regarded as the antithesis of naturalistic,
the fact that Giotto’s work was singled out in particular for such praise indicates that
his innovative use of space and more three-dimensional representation of human form,
as well as his skills in depicting human emotion, did in fact constitute remarkable
achievements.15
11
Hollander, p. 49.
See Dante, Purgatorio XI, 94–6. As Michael Baxandall has outlined, Petrarch praised Giotto’s
frescoes in Naples. See Baxandall, Giotto and the Orators: Humanist Observers of Painters in Italy and
the Discovery of Pictorial Composition, 1350–1450 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971).
13
Lorenzo Ghiberti, I Commentarii, ed. L. Bartoli (Florence: Giunti, 1998); and Giorgio Vasari, Le vite
de’ più eccellenti pittori,scultori e architettori nelle redazioni del 1550 e 1568, ed. R. Bettarini,
commentary P. Barocchi, vol. II (Florence: Sansoni, 1966).
14
See Cennino d’Andrea Cennini, The Craftsman’s Handbook: The Italian “Il libro dell’arte”, trans.
Daniel V. Thompson, Jr, 2nd edn (New York: Dover Publications, 1954).
15
Charles Harrison has supported the idea that Giotto did indeed develop a distinctive mode of conveying
spatial and plastic illusion, based on empirical observation, even while acknowledging the need for
caution as far as the praise heaped on the painter by his contemporaries goes. See Harrison, “The Arena
Chapel: Patronage and Authorship”, in Siena, Florence and Padua: Art, Society and Religion 1280–1400:
Vol. II, Case Studies, ed. Diana Norman (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995), pp.
101–2.
12
43
Figure 1: Giotto di Bondone,
Ognissanti Madonna, c. 1310,
Almost seven centuries after it was completed, Giotto’s Ognissanti Madonna (c.
1310) is the first painting that greets visitors to Florence’s Galleria degli Uffizi. [See
Figure 1]. One of three “Enthroned Madonna” scenes in the room, it hangs on the wall
opposite the entry to the first room, between those of his near-contemporaries Duccio di
Buoninsegna (c. 1285) and Cimabue (c. 1285), which are positioned on the side walls.
Detached from their original spiritual settings as altarpieces in Florentine churches,16
the three are apparently arranged this way to enable a clear assessment of their stylistic
achievements and differences, while simultaneously proposing Giotto, in the superior
and central position, as a kind of cornerstone of the gallery’s vast and important
collection of paintings. Although the Ognissanti Madonna is slightly smaller in size
16
Duccio’s Madonna Enthroned (also known as the Rucellai Madonna) was painted for the church of
Santa Maria Novella, Cimabue’s for Santa Trinita and Giotto’s for the church of Ognissanti. Boccaccio
was a visitor to all three and it is in Santa Maria Novella that his ten young storytellers make their plans
to leave the plague-ridden city.
44
than the other two altarpieces, its monumentality of style means that it somewhat
overwhelms the other two, and not just on account of its positioning. Cimabue’s
Madonna bears the typically ovoid face of a Byzantine icon, and her elongated, stylised
fingers point to the unmistakably “adult” baby, who she holds on her lap. [See Figure
2]. She appears to float weightlessly above the throne, the gold-striated folds of her
robes giving little sense of the body form that lies beneath. In contrast, the throne itself
has an architectural solidity, implying a powerful recession of space. The eight angels
and four prophets who surround the Madonna and Child are arranged around the throne
in a highly decorative but flat pattern. The overall effect, for the modern viewer, is one
of tension created by the partial realisation of three-dimensionality and the more
distinctly Byzantine iconographical tendency to convey spirituality in symbolic rather
than naturalistic terms. Duccio’s Madonna shares with Cimabue’s the Byzantine icon
face, but her gesture towards her son, and the folds of her garments have both been
softened, resulting in an air of spontaneity. [See Figure 3]. Her throne is rendered in
lighter, more graceful terms, with attention drawn to its finely carved details, and the
intricately patterned fabric with which it is lined. Something of the influence of the
French Gothic style, which was beginning to infiltrate Italy, can be detected in the at
times translucent quality of its colour and a degree of detail that is more commonly
associated with miniatures.
Figure 2: Cimabue,
Madonna di Santa Trinita, c. 1280-85
45
Figure 3: Duccio di Buoninsegna,
Rucellai Madonna, c. 1285
For all their distinct innovations, neither Cimabue nor Duccio gives the sense of
monumentality and humanity created by Giotto just two decades later. In stark contrast
to their evocations of the Madonna, the face of Giotto’s Ognissanti Madonna bears
neither the characteristic head tilt nor angular features of the other two; her rounded
head and chiselled features instead recall the sculptures of Giovanni Pisano and Arnolfo
di Cambio, and her cylindrical neck is modelled in light and shade. The fall of her
mantle implies a sturdy physique beneath, and most significantly, she appears to sink
back into the throne, her weight no longer able to defy the forces of gravity. All of this
lends her a human immediacy and physical tangibility, bringing her within closer reach
of viewers and allowing for a degree of emotional recognition. Furthermore, Giotto
encouraged consideration of his figures in a contemporary context by deliberately
seeking to replicate in their clothing the colours and patterns of cloth seen in Florentine
markets.17 As in the Rucellai Madonna, psychological unity among the figures is
implied by the eyes of the angels who all direct their gaze to Christ, who raises his hand
17
On the subject of allusion to the local textile industry in painting see Catherine King, “The Trecento:
new ideas, new evidence”, in Siena, Florence and Padua: Art, Society and Religion 1280–1400: Vol. I,
Interpretative Essays, ed. Diana Norman (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995), p. 229.
46
in benediction, but Giotto has taken a further step in the conception of space, arranging
some of the angels in profile, some in three-quarter view, in front of and behind the
throne. As Charles Harrison notes, it is not so much the increased naturalism that
counts, but what Giotto makes of it, for in this picture he creates a world that seems
within reach, both in physical and in psychological terms.18
The stylistic developments as exemplified in this one room in the Uffizi are
particularly striking when the relatively short period of twenty years dividing them is
taken into account, as well as the fact that artistic practice of the time emphasised the
importance of imitating artistic precedents, rather than nature. This chapter suggests
that Giotto’s interest in pictorial composition, his use of architectural elements to
enhance a narrative, his choice of particular colours to match those found in
contemporary fabric, and his creation of emotional unity among figures, are some of the
achievements with which Boccaccio identified.
Both Giotto and Boccaccio are
appealing to a sophisticated audience of educated merchants and citizens who can
appreciate the increasing level of empirical observation underpinning their works, and
their many contemporary references.
Without wanting to suggest that fourteenth-
century literature and art were evolving under exactly the same circumstances –the fact
that Giotto’s paintings were executed according to specific commissions, while
Boccaccio wrote without direct sponsorship should act as a sufficient deterrent from
attempting to bind painting and writing too closely– I wish, nevertheless, to emphasise
that both were operating in the same milieu, and to consider that certain developments
may derive from a particular social consciousness.
Michael Baxandall and Pierre
Bourdieu, writing on theories of aesthetic sensibility and perception, emphasise the
need to understand the social conditions governing the artistic and visual practices of an
era.19
I would like to apply some of their reasoning regarding fifteenth-century
Florentine art and mercantile culture to both painting and writing of the fourteenth
century, in particular their assertion that the practices of education, religion and
commerce that combined to form the quotidian experiences of both painter and
spectator informed the production and perception of works of art. It is clear that what
Baxandall and Bourdieu refer to as the “Quattrocento eye”, effectively a way of seeing
fashioned by “listening to lectures, speeches or sermons, measuring piles of wheat or
lengths of cloth, or by resolving calculations of compound interest or maritime
18
Harrison, “Giotto and the ‘rise of painting’”, in Siena, Florence and Padua, Vol I, p. 79.
Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1972); and Pierre Bourdieu, The Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field, trans.
Susan Emanuel (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996), pp. 313–21.
19
47
insurance”,20 would have been sharpened by the end of the fifteenth century, but it
undoubtedly had its origins in a less distinct “Trecento eye”. While there is greater
surviving evidence of the patterns of consumption and patronage that established
themselves in fifteenth-century Florence,21 facilitating a clearer understanding of the
relationship between artistic production and mercantile perception in that century, it is
probable that the foundations of such relationships were establishing themselves from
the late thirteenth century. The increased realism achieved by Giotto in his early
fourteenth-century painting and Boccaccio, in the hundred stories of the Decameron,
will be considered in the context of specific economic and social developments from the
end of the thirteenth century, in order to determine the extent to which certain stylistic
features may be considered a result of mercantile practice and belief.
Fourteenth-century Florence was by no means a nascent mercantile society.
During the long years of political turmoil in which the whole of the Italian peninsula
was embroiled throughout the thirteenth century, Florentine merchants continued to
prosper, particularly in the fields of international banking and the wool trade. From
1250, with the inauguration of the Primo Popolo, Florence enjoyed varying degrees of
democratic government. A group of citizens was charged with the general supervision
of the state and its finances. From 1282 the governing body of priors was chosen from
a pool of candidates drawn from a combination of the major guilds, arti maggiori, and
minor guilds, arti minori.22 In 1293, the guild-based nature of the government was
cemented with the drawing up of a constitutional act known as the Ordinances of
Justice. A reaction against Ghibelline-Guelph feuding and aristocratic factions, the
Ordinances of Justice named 147 noble and bourgeois families as “magnates” and
barred them from holding public office.
This had the effect of increasing the
representation of minor guilds in the Priorate and creating a society in which guild
membership was a prerequisite for public office. As Florence moved into the fourteenth
20
Baxandall’s Painting and Experience addresses this throughout; Bourdieu’s The Rules of Art especially
on p. 318.
21
This is made possible by the great number of surviving contracts stipulating the terms of artistic
commissions, and also to the diaries and records of merchant writers such as Giovanni Rucellai, who
expressed the reasons for their interest and investment in art and furnishings.
22
Ferdinand Schevill, History of Florence form the Founding of the City through the Renaissance, 2nd
edn (New York: Frederick Ungar, 1961), p. 208. As Schevill outlines, the constitution recognised
twenty-one guilds, whose members were eligible for election to the priorate. Of that number, seven had
originally been classified as arti maggiori, five as arti medie and nine as arti minori, but in the
Ordinances of Justice the arti maggiori and medie were grouped together as the twelve greater guilds.
Even so, only the seven upper guilds were engaged in the export business and it was their members who
possessed of the greatest wealth.
48
century, it was a society governed largely by merchants, within the guild structure, for
merchants, and in order for members of the previous ruling class to become
enfranchised, they had to first incorporate themselves into the merchant class.
Urban life and a guild-based government contributed to the emergence of
distinctive cultural values. Richard Goldthwaite has traced the connections between
these particular economic and political circumstances and an increased interest in art,
and the way art, from the fourteenth century, became a means with which wealthy
merchants could assert their status and consolidate their membership of the elite.23 As
the fourteenth century progressed, Florence was increasingly a society of educated
merchants with civic pride and a refined aesthetic sensibility, who were making
decisions about not just the government and defence of the city, but also the erection of
new buildings and their decoration.
These merchants were also active consumers of literature.
As a result of
exhaustive research into the ownership of fourteenth-century manuscripts of the
Decameron, Vittore Branca has been able to confirm the enthusiastic reception of
Boccaccio’s work in the mercantile world.
More than two-thirds of the fifty
manuscripts of the Decameron circulating in the fourteenth century belonged to
prominent Florentine mercantile families,24 who appear to have been directly
responsible for its early diffusion, and the work is named in the wills of numerous other
merchant families.
Furthermore, the Decameron itself took part in that complex
interweaving of financial fortunes that characterised the lives of that society.25 As
Branca has noted, within the margins of the manuscripts appear traces of accounts,
loans, rents and even references to the transmission of the manuscripts themselves,
showing that they, too, were the subjects of commercial transactions.26
Just as
Boccaccio defined himself in relation to contemporary painting with its increased
emphasis on compositional unity and artistic imitation, so the manuscripts of the
23
Richard Goldthwaite, Wealth and the Demand for Art in Italy 1300–1600 (Baltimore and London: The
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), pp. 212ff.
24
Vittore Branca, Boccaccio medievale e nuovi studi sul Decameron, 3rd edn (Florence: Sansoni, 1998),
pp. 4–5.
25
An early example of the great level of interest in the Decameron among the Accaiuoli circle is found in
a letter written by Francesco Buondelmonti to Giovanni Accaiuoli (Florence: Laurenziana, Ashburnham
1830, II, 182). In the letter, dated July 1360, Buondelmonti outlines the movement of the “libro de le
novelle di meser Giovanni Bocacci” among various relatives, and seeks to recover it. He urges that it not
be entrusted to certain family members, who would be inclined to steal it. The letter also makes reference
to the commercial process involved in book production, urging Acciaiuoli to commission a high quality
copy of Giovanni Villani’s Cronica at whatever price, “che sia belli e costi quel che vuole”. See VI
Centenario della morte di Boccaccio: Mostra di manoscritti, documenti e edizioni, ed. by the Organising
Committee (Certaldo: n.p., 1975).
26
Branca, Boccaccio medievale, p. 5. Branca cites two good examples of manuscripts containing
financial transactions in the margins, the Laurentian XC sup. 106 and the Barberiniano lat. 4058.
49
Decameron, bearing the stories that were his own artistic products, took their place
again in the world of mercantile exchange. In a recent article, Lina Insana argues a
strong case for Boccaccio’s awareness of the status of his work as artistic commodity:
“If the Decameron represents the beginnings of the commodification of artistic
production, it stands to reason that Boccaccio’s explicit references to his own part in
that production would be couched in terms of labour, work and the contractual
relationships between various parties in the exchange of products or services in kind.”27
In the Decameron’s Proemio and Conclusione, Boccaccio appears to position himself
within a market in which stories have an exchange value. In the Proemio, he speaks of
storytelling as a means of making restitution for the past kindnesses of others, and the
language he employs is, as Insana notes, that of exchange: he will use his talents as a
storyteller “in cambio di ciò che io ricevetti” (in exchange for what I have received)
(Proemio, 7). In the Conclusione to the Decameron, he is at pains to emphasise the
work involved in its production, speaking, at least three times, of his “lunga fatica”
(protracted labour) in writing it. As I noted in the introduction, one of the justifications
given for merchant profits was the labour involved in the circulation of merchandise.
By describing the production and circulation of stories in similar terms, Boccaccio
positions his own work, and cultural production in general, firmly within the context of
a market-oriented society.
Giovanni Boccaccio was born in 1313, either in Florence or Certaldo, the small
Tuscan town of his paternal family. His father, Boccaccio (or Boccaccino) di Chelino,
was a respected Florentine citizen and businessman with links to the powerful Bardi
trading company; his mother’s identity is unknown. Born illegitimate, he was soon
accepted into his father’s family and adopted the name Boccaccio, prior to
Boccaccino’s marriage to Margherita de’ Mardoli, a relative of Dante’s Beatrice. The
young Giovanni began his contact with mercantile practice at an early age from within
his father’s Florentine household. During his early education he was tutored in formal
academic subjects by the master Giovanni di Domenico Mazzuoli da Strada, as well as
in the study of arithmetic and general commerce and banking practice. When his father
27
Lina Insana, “Redefining Dulce et utile: Boccaccio’s Organization of Literature on Economic Terms”,
Heliotropia 2.1 (2004). Available from: http://www.brown.edu/Departments/ItalianStudies/heliotropia/02-01/insana.html (accessed 20 August 2004).
50
was appointed representative of the Compagnia dei Bardi in Naples, the young
Boccaccio’s commercial apprenticeship continued in that city, where he was to live
from 1327 to 1340–41.28
The Neapolitan years were to offer the richest concentration of experience in
Boccaccio’s life. The commercial world brought him into contact with a great variety
of social realities; his daily activities ensured that he mixed with merchants, seamen,
foreigners, working class people and nobles, giving him an insight into the customs and
characteristics of different social groups and familiarity with the cultures of a number of
Mediterranean countries.29
Out of necessity, Boccaccio learned the skills of the
merchant; the close concentration required when examining and documenting
merchandise and the technical writing and correspondence on which merchant
companies relied, which called for meticulous precision. To the young Florentine,
whose inclination to literature was awakening and developing in the same period, the
time invested in learning such skills might well have seemed a waste, but he was to
draw on these experiences of the mercantile world later in life, especially in the more
realistic short stories of the Decameron. In the fourteenth century, visual memory and
mental calculation were as important to a merchant as they were to an artist. Michael
Baxandall has noted the importance of mathematics in the education of young Italian
commercial apprentices. By contrast to their counterparts in Germany, who used a
system of complex measures and rulers to gauge the quantities of their merchandise, the
Italians were taught to gauge using geometry and π.30 Likewise, fourteenth-century
artists were beginning to apply the mathematics of commercial quantity surveying to the
analysis of form and depiction of volume. I propose that in the Decameron, Boccaccio,
who was educated in the manner of commercial apprentices and acutely aware of the
functioning of the marketplace, uses language and images drawn from the commercial
world as what V.A. Kolve calls “memorial centres”,31 to engage with a mercantile
audience. References to processes such as calculation, painting and writing are used by
Boccaccio to bind his audience in a dialogue of textual allusions.
28
For biographical detail I am indebted to Lucia Battaglia Ricci, Boccaccio (Rome: Salerno, 2000), and
Vittore Branca, Giovanni Boccaccio: profilo biografico (Florence: Sansoni, 1977).
29
Battaglia Ricci, Boccaccio, p. 24; and Vittore Branca, “Vita e opere di G. Boccaccio”, in G. Boccaccio,
Decameron, ed. V. Branca (Turin: Einaudi, 1980), p. xlii.
30
Baxandall, Painting and Experience, p. 86.
31
V.A. Kolve, Chaucer and the Imagery of Narrative (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1984), p. 2.
51
Figure 4: Giotto di Bondone,
Bologna Polyptych, c. 1330
In a recent article, Creighton Gilbert discusses Boccaccio’s interest in art and
artists, outlining the many instances in which the writer refers to painters, sculptors and
particular works of art, some of which disappeared in later centuries.32 Of particular
interest is Gilbert’s own addition to the lengthy and ongoing critical debate regarding
the much remarked-on passage in Decameron VI, 5, in which Boccaccio praises the
ability of Giotto to deceive his viewers. Gilbert locates this remark within the wider
context of all Boccaccio’s references to deception and artists in the Decameron.
Boccaccio’s tales of Bruno and Buffalmacco (to whom the Triumph of Death fresco in
the Camposanto in Pisa is attributed) in days VIII and IX are entirely dedicated to their
success in deception. Many of the Decameron’s characters are engaged in trickery and
deceit, but only these painters deceive repeatedly. Unlike Giotto’s ability to make “il
visivo senso degli uomini” believe “errore”, the deceptions of Bruno and Buffalmacco
occur not in their art, but in their general activities. In four of the five tales concerned
with their antics, the object of their deception is another painter, Calandrino, while in
the third and longest tale, they deceive the doctor, Maestro Simone. Gilbert suggests
that by making this central story substantially longer, and a little different from the
other four in the Bruno-Buffalmacco cycle, Boccaccio encourages us to see it as having
a formal relationship with the other four stories, two on either side; it becomes the
central panel in an altarpiece33 [See Figure 4]. Gilbert backs up his argument with
convincing detail. He points out that Fiammetta is the narrator of the final (fifth) story
32
Creighton Gilbert, “La devozione di Giovanni Boccaccio per gli artisti e l’arte”, in Boccaccio
visualizzato. Narrare per parole e per immagini fra Medioevo e Rinascimento, ed. Vittore Branca (Turin:
Einaudi, 1999), vol. I, pp. 145–53, translated into Italian from a chapter in Gilbert’s Poets Seeing Artists’
Work: Instances in the Italian Renaissance (Florence: Olschki, 1991).
33
Gilbert, “La devozione di Giovanni Boccaccio”, p. 151.
52
in the sequence IX, 5 and recognises that although the theme has already been amply
covered, she will dare to –“ardire”– recount another episode. She could have pretended
the story was about other characters, not the already familiar Bruno and Buffalmacco,
by simply changing their names, but only if she had been willing to deviate “dalla verità
del fatto” (from the truth of the matter). Gilbert argues that this is part of a subtle
discussion, on the part of Boccaccio, of deception and of the value of realism in art, thus
linking the final tale about artists back to the more explicit comments made about
Giotto’s art.
It is Gilbert’s observations about Boccaccio’s arrangement of the BrunoBuffalmacco sequence as a kind of panel series with the tale concerning the deception
of Maestro Simone as its centre, that are of greatest interest to me. If it were not for the
fact that Boccaccio’s interest in painting is overwhelmingly evident, and the
organisation of the Decameron according to theme and teller so premeditated, the
argument might seem implausible.
If Gilbert’s careful observations about this
apparently pointed arrangement of the Bruno-Buffalmacco sequence are to be taken one
step further, it might reasonably be argued that Boccaccio is encouraging readers to
examine his writing visually; to step back from the individual stories and look for
meaning in the organisation of the entire framework. He is inviting his audience to
make the comparison made by Gilbert, and view these stories as a painting comprising
interconnected panels. Gilbert, himself an art historian, suggests that perhaps it takes
someone working in this discipline to reach such a conclusion. This is perhaps an
accurate assessment of the working of the modern mind, but, as Mary Carruthers points
out in her illuminating study of memory in medieval culture, the medieval mind was
accustomed to seeing a written work in visual form. She discusses Dante’s tendency to
see his work in visual form, written in his memory as pages, with text, rubrics and
paraphs.34 It is thus plausible to imagine that Boccaccio, with his incisive observations
about painting and about Giotto’s artistic contribution, would have delighted in creating
this compositional play. Pictorial composition, or compositio, in its formal sense the
systematic organisation of every element in a picture towards one overall desired effect,
was not invented and defined until the Quattrocento, by Leon Battista Alberti in his De
34
“In quella parte del libro de la mia memoria dinanzi a la quale poco si potrebbe leggere, si trova una
rubrica la quale dice: Incipit vita nova. Sotto la quale rubrica io trovo scritte le parole le quali è mio
intendimento d’assemplare in questo libello; e se non tutte, almeno la loro sentenzia.”, Vita Nuova, I, ed.
Domenico De Robertis (Milan and Naples: Riccardo Ricciardi Editore, 1980), pp. 27–8; and Cacciaguida
telling Dante “...e portera’ne scritto ne la mente / di lui, e nol dirai…”, Paradiso XVII, 91–2, ed. Anna
Maria Chiavacci Leonardi (Milan: Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 1997). See Mary Carruthers, The Book of
Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p.
224.
53
pictura (1435).35 The main subject of the second book of this treatise is pictorial
composition. Alberti’s notion of compositio is, in Michael Baxandall’s words, a “very
precise metaphor for transferring to painting a model of organisation derived from
rhetoric itself”.36
Until this treatise, compositio was a term associated more with
language and the putting together of a sentence within the framework of a hierarchy of
elements. Alberti managed to transfer the words, phrases, clauses and sentences of
Humanist rhetorical compositio to a pictorial theory, referring to planes, surfaces, entire
bodies and their relevance within a narrative as a whole.37 The analogy he makes
between writing and painting unites a process and an experience, and it is clearly an
analogy that Boccaccio himself enjoyed toying with, albeit less formally, several
decades earlier.
Although not published until a century after Giotto’s death, De pictura uses
Giotto as a kind of standard, as Michael Baxandall points out. Giotto’s Navicella is the
only non-Classical composition actually praised by Alberti:38
Laudatur et navis apud Romam ea, in qua noster Etruscus pictor Giottus undecim metu et
stupore percussos ob socium, quem supra undas meantem videbant, expressit, ita pro se
quemque suum turbati animi inditium vultu et toto corpore praeferentem, ut in singulis singuli
affectionum motus appareant.
(De Pictura II, 42)39
They also praise in Rome the boat in which our Tuscan painter Giotto represented the eleven
disciples struck with fear and wonder at the sight of their colleague walking on the water, each
showing such clear signs of his agitation in his face and entire body that their individual
emotions are discernible in every one of them.
(On Painting II, 42)
Alberti’s singling out of Giotto as an example in a treatise on pictorial composition adds
weight to the idea that Boccaccio sought to establish connections between his own
rhetorical structures and Giotto’s composition. It is a useful tool with which to consider
the intent and effect of the Decameron, for it suggests the prevalence of complex
associations between art and literature in the minds of the fourteenth- and fifteenthcentury public. Taking into account the involvement of the guild-based government in
the contracting and execution of public architectural and artistic works, it seems
reasonable to imagine that Boccaccio’s immediate fourteenth-century audience included
readers capable of entering into his web of artistic and commercial references and
35
Baxandall, Giotto and the Orators, pp. 129ff.
Giotto and the Orators, p. 131.
37
Leon Battista Alberti: On Painting and On Sculpture: the Latin Texts of De Pictura and De Statua, ed.
and trans. Cecil Grayson (London: Phaidon, 1972).
38
Baxandall, Giotto and the Orators, p. 130.
39
Alberti, On Painting and On Sculpture, pp. 82–3.
36
54
appreciating such compositional subtleties. As Lucia Battaglia Ricci has emphasised,
the Decameron presupposes in the reader a mental library analogous to Boccaccio’s
own literary memory.
Even in the novelle derived from Florentine anecdotes,
Boccaccio is most likely drawing on and appealing to a collective memory that is now
irremediably lost to the modern reader.40
In his study of the links between mercantile vocabulary and mentality, Christian
Bec highlights the important role of mathematics in the conduct of companies.
Fourteenth-century manuals on mercantile practice dedicated considerable space to the
multiplication and division of fractions which would enable the calculation of the
company’s stocks, the calculation of depreciation so as to be able to compensate for it,
and the setting out of accounts in single and double entry format.41 Their manuals –
each known as il libro della ragione, or libro di conto – emphasise the need for
precision in measurements and values.
It has in fact been proved that, although
rudimentary compared to the accountancy methods permitted by today’s technology,
those of the fourteenth century were nevertheless refined enough to enable a strikingly
high level of precision.42 Developments in geometry and mathematics were not just
able to assist merchants in their commercial activities; they were also instrumental in
revolutionising painters’ approach to compositional unity and the representation of
volume in two-dimensional space. The circulation of new theories of optics in early
fourteenth-century philosophical circles contributed to the emergence of a perspective
interpretation of space in painting, which is a sign, according to Joel Kaye, of a
widespread perceptual shift to quantification, and a new conception of nature in terms
of geometric representation and relativity, all resulting from an increased monetary
consciousness.43
40
Lucia Battaglia Ricci, Boccaccio, p. 179.
Christian Bec, Cultura e società a Firenze nell’èta della Rinascenza (Rome: Salerno, 1981), p. 117.
Bec refers to the commercial manuals of both F. B. Pegolotti and Saminiato de’ Ricci. See A. Evans, La
pratica della mercatura di F. B. Pegolotti (Cambridge, Mass.: The Mediaeval Academy of America,
1936); and A. Borlandi, Il manuale di mercatura di Saminiato de’ Ricci (Genoa: Di Stefano, 1963).
Being a later manual, de’ Ricci’s naturally covers somewhat more sophisticated technique.
42
Armando Sapori, The Italian Merchant in the Middle Ages, trans. Patricia Ann Kennen (New York: W.
W. Norton & Co., 1978), p. xxii. Sapori recalculated the figures in the Peruzzi account books using
modern methods and found the original results compared very favourably with his own. Florence Edler,
in A Dictionary of Mediaeval Terms of Business: Italian Series 1200–1600 (Cambridge, Mass.: The
Mediaeval Academy of America, 1934), found that the Genoese communal stewards’ account book of
1340 was the oldest-known example of double-entry bookkeeping, and is written in Latin. It shows a
fully developed system of double-entry with debits and credits opposite each-other, real accounts for
goods, and a Profit and Loss account. Double-entry was used in the Datini ledgers as early as 1383. As
far as Florence is concerned, “the oldest ledger kept in correct double-entry form of which we know is
one that belonged to Averardo de’ Medici and Co., money-changers or bankers in Florence, for the year
1395”: see p. 348.
43
Joel Kaye, Economy and Nature in the Fourteenth Century: Money, Market Exchange and the
Emergence of Scientific Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 2, 245.
41
55
Boccaccio’s interest in calculation and commercial technique, and their
relationship to narrative, is particularly evident in the tale of Bernabò and Zinevra, the
ninth story of the Decameron’s second day, narrated by Filomena. With its detailed
references to trade fairs, the establishment of commercial contacts, the opening of
warehouses and the transportation of merchandise, this tale recreates the expansive
realm of the great fourteenth-century Italian trading companies, and with it a sense of
the energy and opportunism that led Florentine merchants to establish an ever-widening
network of contacts and new markets. The tale trades on the possibilities of commercial
centres and trade fairs as sites of exchange, not just of commodities, but also of stories
and ideas.
It is Filomena who has, in the role of “queen”, selected the topic for the second
day’s storytelling: “si ragiona di chi, da diverse cose infestato, sia oltre alla sua speranza
riuscito a lieto fine” (II) (the discussion turns upon those who after suffering a series of
misfortunes are brought to a state of unexpected happiness). The geographical scope of
the second day is wide, with stories on this day bearing the greatest concentration of
travellers, the majority of whom are merchants. They journey to the cities of France,
Provence, Burgundy and Flanders (II, 3, 8, and 9) and the British Isles (II, 3 and II, 8),
as well as Spain (II, 7) and Germany (II, 1), tracing the navigation routes of the great
Italian merchant companies.44 The tales in which the journey plays a substantial role in
the narrative invariably have as their backdrop the Mediterranean, a site both dangerous
and marvellous in its potential. In the second day alone, Boccaccio’s narrators offer
accounts of the famous ports of Morea (II, 7), the islands and pirates of the Eastern
Mediterranean (II, 4 and 7) and those of the Western Mediterranean (again II, 7) and
North African locations such as Tunisia and Alexandria (II, 6, 7 and 9), the meeting
places, not just of merchants and merchandise, but also of different religions, cultures
and stories. On this day are clustered some of the best-known of Boccaccio's hundred
stories, including that of Landolfo Rufolo (II, 4), a merchant from Ravello who, brought
to ruin, turns to piracy, but is later captured by the Genoese and shipwrecked near
Greece, only recovering his fortune when he clings to a chest that turns out to be laden
with jewels, and of Andreuccio da Perugia (II, 5) a naïve young horse trader who travels
to Naples with his purse stuffed with florins, but is tricked out of his fortune by women.
The words of the young storytellers of the brigata at the introduction to
Filomena’s own tale (II, 9) call for consideration for the way that they may pertain to
44
The Compagnia dei Bardi, to name just one, had branches in pretty much all of these places, as I
outlined in the Introduction.
56
the theme of deception in her own story. We are reminded at the start of this story, more
than at the start of others,45 that the storytellers are themselves bound to the terms of a
contract. Thus Boccaccio notes that Elissa has “… il suo dover fornito” (done her duty)
by supplying a story, and that Filomena will begin hers. Filomena’s words underscore
the contractual nature of the storytelling46 by recognising that it is her turn to speak
because of the terms of their agreement, which give Dioneo the right to conclude each
day’s storytelling:
“Servar si vogliono i patti a Dioneo, e però, non restandoci altri che egli e io a novellare, io dirò
prima la mia e esso, che di grazia il chiese, l’ultimo fia che dirà.”
(II, 9, 2)
“The contract we made with Dioneo must be honoured, and since only he and I are left to speak,
I shall tell my story first, and Dioneo, who laid special claim to that privilege, will be the last to
address us.”
(p. 207)
That many of the stories in the Decameron are linked through structural or numerical
connections and references, and that little in the work is accidental even when it is made
to appear to be so, make it impossible to consider Filomena’s reminder of contracts at
precisely this point in the narration purely coincidental. Referred in terms of a contract,
narration is again placed on a similar level to a mutually binding commercial
agreement, just as it will be in the Canterbury Tales.47 It signals Boccaccio’s interest in
the making of commercial contracts and their terms. The mention of a storytelling pact
in the frame of the Decameron foreshadows a tale that is located in a decidedly
mercantile context, and in which considerable time is given over to debating the terms
of a wager.
Filomena vows to illustrate the proverb “che lo ’ngannatore rimane a piè dello
’ngannato” (II, 9, 3) “a dupe will outwit his deceiver” (p. 208). The tale she tells is
mapped within a complex network of commercial and narratorial reference points. It
traces the fortunes of Bernabò Lomellin da Genova, a merchant who claims his wife
would never betray him, and Ambruogiuolo, a merchant from Piacenza, who argues that
Bernabò’s wife will give in to his charms. The two are in Paris, in the lively company
of a group of Italian merchants at an inn, and their wager is made in a post-dinner
45
Elsewhere the audience-members of the company praise the storyteller, or comment on it, before the
next narrator begins. The reactions of the brigata are most commonly expressed uniformly or divided
according to the sexes.
46
The analogy between the contractual obligation to tell stories and the mutually binding clauses of
commercial agreements is also of great relevance in The Canterbury Tales, as I consider in Chapter 3.
47
This is similar to Insana’s observations, mentioned earlier on pp. 9–10, about narration becoming the
payment of a debt. See Insana, part III, “Gaining currency”.
57
atmosphere of effervescent storytelling and laughter. Bernabò argues that his wife is a
woman of exceptional beauty, talent and ability. Among her accomplishments she
knows how to “cavalcare un cavallo, tenere uno uccello, leggere e scrivere e fare una
ragione che se un mercante fosse” (II, 9, 10) –she is skilled at “horse-riding, falconry,
reading, writing and book-keeping, at all of which she was superior to the average
merchant”–, a combination of skills that were very uncommon among medieval women.
Most of all Bernabò praises his wife’s remarkably strong will and ability to resist the
temptations that Ambruogiuolo assures him she must face. The debate becomes more
and more heated until each is prepared to back his claims with a hefty bet. At this point
ragioneria (accounting) quickly takes the place of the ragionamento (storytelling) as
the two merchants establish the terms of their “obligagione” (II, 9, 24). It is not a
straightforward wager with one fixed sum at stake: Bernabò will receive a thousand
florins from Ambruogiuolo if his wife is as pure as he claims, but he will have to hand
over five thousand florins if Ambruogiuolo succeeds in proving otherwise. The terms
of the “obligagione” include a time frame – Ambruogiuolo has a limit of three months
in which to make true his claim. As the two finalise the terms there is a sense of the
winding down of the other threads of conversation that are taking place in the inn, and
of all the other merchants in the group focusing their attention on this wager.
Recognising its serious implications, they try to dissuade the two from pursuing it, but
Ambruogiuolo and Bernabò persist, making it a firm arrangement by setting it down on
paper, much as they would the terms of a consignment of merchandise or a loan
repayment:
Bernabò disse che gli piacea molto; e quantunque gli altri mercatanti che quivi erano
s’ingegnassero di sturbar questo fatto, conoscendo che gran male ne potea nascere, pure erano
de’ due mercatanti sì gli animi accesi, che, oltre al voler degli altri, per belle scritte di lor mano
s’obligarono l’uno all’altro.
(II, 9, 23)
Bernabò declared himself to be quite satisfied with these terms, and however much the other
merchants present, knowing that the affair could have serious repercussions, tried to prevent it
from going any further, the passions of the two men were so strongly aroused that, contrary to
the wishes of the others, they drew up a form of contract with their own hands which was
binding on both parties.
(p. 211)
The terms of the agreement set out, Bernabò proceeds to win the wager through
dishonest means and the rest of the story recounts how his deception comes to be
revealed and punished.
In a semantic survey of the works of merchant writers and of Boccaccio’s
Decameron, Simone Volpato draws attention to the Florentine merchant class’s
58
enucleation of a precise mercantile vocabulary and the motives behind this process.48
Included in Volpato’s study is a discussion of the vast semantic range of “ragione” in
merchant writing.49 As he points out, “ragione” assumes multitudinous significations in
the Decameron, referring, at various points, to narration, to speaking, to accountancy, to
reasoning, to the administration of justice and to conscience. The story of Bernabò and
Ambruogiuolo is testament to this wide-ranging semantic potential of “ragione”, from
the moment the company of merchants in the inn begin to “ragionare” (to yarn, to tell
stories). As already noted, Bernabò tells the company that among many other things,
his wife is able to “fare una ragione” (II, 9, 10) (keep accounts). Ambruogiuolo
challenges him on the subject of her fidelity, declaring that he would like to “un poco
con teco sopra questa materia ragionare” (II, 9, 15) (discuss or debate this matter a little
with him). He claims to know “naturali e vere ragioni” (II, 9, 20) (natural and true
reasons) for the inability of women to be faithful and offers to make good his claims by
supplying Bernabò with proof of the case he has “già ragionato” (II, 9, 22) (already
argued). The great frequency with which this term appears in the first half of this
particular story precludes consideration of it as accidental. Of particular note, ragione
is used to refer to storytelling and accountancy within the space of a few paragraphs. It
is unlikely that the shift between narrative “ragionamento” and mercantile
“ragionamento” would have gone unnoticed by early merchant readers of the
Decameron.
The easy semantic transition from narrative to financial reckoning, and the
subtle positioning of storytelling in relation to commercial exchange, is complemented
by the presence of familiar commercial locations in the tale. Like Giotto’s realisation of
Biblical scenes and saints’ lives within contemporary architectural settings, the tale of
Bernabò and Zinevra is configured within a series of commercial architectural
structures – the inn, the merchant’s house and trade fairs.
In Decameron II, 9,
Ambruogiuolo’s deception is uncovered at a trade fair in the Middle East. Zinevra,
Bernabò’s wife and the object of his wager with Ambruogiuolo, travels to Acre in the
guise of Sicurano, the head of a group of soldiers sent by the Sultan of Alexandria to
protect the merchants gathering there from throughout the Mediterranean for a trade
48
Simone Volpato, “Note sul vocabolario dei mercanti-scrittori dal Boccaccio all’Alberti e al Rucellai:
nuove letture interpretative”, Studi sul Boccaccio 26 (1998), 131–63. Volpato’s study responds to some
of the conclusions drawn by Christian Bec in his section on “Mentalità e vocabolario dei mercanti
fiorentini tra la fine del Trecento e il primo Quattrocento”, in which he focused on the signification(s) of
fortuna, ragione and prudenza. See Christian Bec, Cultura e società a Firenze nell’èta della Rinascenza
(Rome: Salerno Editrice, 1981), pp. 105–32.
49
Simone Volpato, “Note sul vocabolario dei mercanti-scrittori dal Boccaccio all’Alberti e al Rucellai:
nuove letture interpretative”, pp. 146ff.
59
fair. The fair, held on territory that falls within the Sultan’s realm, is a meeting point
for European and Middle Eastern, Muslim and Christian merchants and their
merchandise.
This is exactly the kind of atmosphere in which Italian and Arab
merchants exchanged not only goods, but also news and new knowledge.50 By chance
Sicurano comes across some items that he recognises as having once been among his
personal belongings, so he enquires as to their origin and whether they are for sale. His
enquiries lead him to Ambruogiuolo, who merrily recounts his conquest of Bernabò’s
wife, claiming that he had been given the belt and purse by her, after spending the night
with her. Having finally understood the extent of the deception and the reason for
Bernabò’s wanting to have her murdered, Sicurano devises a plan to expose
Ambruogiuolo’s deception. She begins to trade her way to a resolution, armed with
eloquence and several commercial pretexts:
Mostrò adunque Sicurano d’aver molto cara questa novella, e artatamente prese con costui una
stretta dimestichezza, tanto che per gli suoi conforti Ambruogiuolo, finita la fiera, con essolui e
con ogni sua cosa se n’andò in Alessandria, dove Sicurano gli fece fare un fondaco e misegli in
mano de’ suoi denari assai: per che egli, util grande veggendosi, vi dimorava volentieri.
(II, 9, 56)
Sicurano therefore pretended to be very amused by his story and skilfully cultivated his
friendship, so that when the fair was over, Ambruogiuolo packed up all his goods and at
Sicurano’s invitation went with him to Alexandria, where Sicurano had a warehouse built for
him and placed a large sum of money at his disposal. And Ambruogiuolo, seeing that it was
greatly to his profit, was only too ready to stay there.
(p. 217)
Contriving to draw Bernabò to Alexandria with a variety of excuses, Sicurano is
eventually able to reveal Ambruogiuolo’s deception and with it, his own true identity.
Once all has been resolved, Zinevra and Bernabò sail for Genoa in a ship laden with
riches.
The tale of Zinevra, along with that of Adalieta (X, 9) and Griselda (X, 10), was
often illustrated on fourteenth-century wedding chests; it was a popular choice on
account of its rewarding of female fidelity and punishment of deception.51 For the
agents of the Florentine companies, with their many international branches, the story of
50
Developments in algebra and geometry, many of which were of Middle Eastern origin, and the
emergence of new financial instruments, might have been witnessed and recorded at such a fair. For
example, the nearest equivalent in the Muslim world to the European bill of exchange, the suftadja,
evolved two centuries before its Western counterpart. See Peter Spufford, Power and Profit: The
Merchant in Medieval Europe ( London: Thames and Hudson, 2002), p. 38; and also Gunnar Dahl’s
discussion of Abu al-Fadl’s “The Beauties of Commerce”. Al-Fadl was a Damascus merchant and his
work was written somewhere between the ninth and twelfth centuries. It reflects many of same financial
practices recorded in the diaries and papers of Florence’s merchant writers in the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries. See Dahl, Trade, Trust and Networks: Commercial Culture in Late Medieval Italy (Lund:
Nordic Academic Press, 1998), pp. 228ff.
51
As noted in Branca, Boccaccio medievale, p. 414.
60
Zinevra, a merchant’s wife, offered particular reassurance with its indications of wifely
fidelity in the face of a merchant husband’s long absence.52 The chest itself, whether as
a significant piece of bedroom furniture or as a container used to transport goods, plays
an important part in several stories of the Decameron: Landolfo Rufolo (II, 4), as will
be addressed, clings to a chest when shipwrecked, which aids his survival and
serendipitously turns out to contain valuable gemstones; Ruggieri d’Aieroli (V, 10)
finds himself accused of theft, when he is hidden by his lover in a chest, which is then
stolen by two moneylenders; and Ambruogiuolo is of course able to observe Zinevra in
her bedroom, only after hiding in a chest which her maidservant has agreed to have
brought into the house. In this way the chest takes on a variety of significations. With
its external surfaces illustrated with examples of ideal wifely behaviour and its internal
spaces home to valuable goods or unexpected intruders, the chest may be considered an
emblem of the exchange, and at times interdependence, of image, word and commerce
in the Decameron.
Figure 5: Giovanni Toscani,
Wedding Chest, c. 1400
Throughout the Decameron the storytelling unfolds behind a façade of
spontaneity, with members of the brigata at times claiming to have changed their minds
52
A particularly good example of a wedding chest illustrated with the story of Zinevra is that of Giovanni
Toscani (c. 1400), now housed in Scotland. The front and sometimes the sides of wedding chests, which
were used to bear a bride’s clothing and dowry from her family home to that of her new husband, were
richly decorated. This chest is illustrated with three early scenes from the story of Zinevra and Bernabò.
The first shows the merchants in the Parisian inn. In the second Ambruogiuolo devises a way of entering
Zinevra’s bedroom by hiding in a chest that will be taken inside. In the third, he gazes at her sleeping
body on the bed and observes the mole on her breast surrounded by fine gold hairs – a description of
which he later uses to convince Bernabò that he has succeeded in seducing her. See Figure 5.
61
according to the stories they have just heard, or because they wish to explore a subject
in greater detail. Following on from Filomena (narrator of the tale of Bernabò and
Zinevra), and rounding off the storytelling of the second day, Dioneo claims that he had
had in mind another tale until hearing hers, but that hers has prompted him to want to
relate a tale which will illustrate the foolish naivety of men who fail to recognise the
natural inclination of women to sexual infidelity. Boccaccio enjoys playing with this
paradox of spontaneous narration and sense of oral tradition within a written form. The
Decameron is highly structured in nature and its brigata and novelle are of course
Boccaccio’s creation, but even so, Boccaccio never tires of setting up small games of
reality and orality within both the frame and the stories themselves. Using these
pretences of spontaneity and reality, Boccaccio is able to defer responsibility for the
content of the novelle, claiming at certain points, such as the introduction to Day IV,
that he has simply told it as it happened. The audience is aware of the rules and
conventions of this playful artifice, which becomes another way in which Boccaccio
reaches out to involve it and invite it to participate in this scrutiny of the role of reality
in fiction, and of fiction in reality. It is similar to the artist’s deployment of naturalism
in painting, something Boccaccio himself wrote about:
Sforzasi il dipintore che la figura dipinta da sé, la quale non è altro che un poco di colore che
certo artificio posto sopra una tavola, sia tanto simile, in quello atto ch’egli la fa, a quella la
quale la natura ha prodotta e naturalmente in quello atto si dispone, che essa possa gli occhi de’
riguardanti o in parte o in tutto ingannare, facendo di sé credere che ella sia quello che ella non è
…53
The painter exerts himself to make any figure he paints –actually just a little colour applied with
skill to a panel– similar in its action to a figure which is the product of Nature and naturally has
that action: so that it can deceive the eyes of the beholder, either partly or completely, making
itself be taken for what it really is not.
As Michael Baxandall explains, the viewer understands a picture through the
acknowledgement of an important representational convention, that the painter is
placing pigments on a two-dimensional ground to refer to something that is threedimensional.54 Likewise, the Decameron’s audience knows that the spontaneity of
storytelling and apparent naturalism are illusions, for the order of storytelling is a stable
entity, fixed within the Decameron’s existence as a written text, and the result of refined
artistic technique.55
53
See Boccaccio’s commentary to Dante’s Inferno XI, 101–5: Giovanni Boccaccio, Esposizioni sopra la
Comedia di Dante, ed. Giorgio Padoan, vol. 6 in Tutte le opere di Giovanni Boccaccio, p. 554.
54
Baxandall, Painting and Experience, p. 33.
55
Cf. Insana, who also comments on Boccaccio’s references to the status of the Decameron as a book.
See part III, “Gaining currency”.
62
The story of Bernabò and Zinevra began in a Parisian inn, with merchants of
mixed provenance telling stories. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Paris was
both a lively commercial hub and intellectual centre, and had a substantial Italian
merchant community.56
It is thought that in the evocations of this community,
Boccaccio drew on descriptions of the city supplied by his merchant father, who knew it
well.57 Its importance as a commercial centre, and the community of Italian merchants
resident there, are again registered in Neifile’s story on the Fourth Day (IV, 8) of the
Decameron, although the story begins in Florence. It is not by coincidence that Paris
was also the city from which the largest concentration of scholastic writing on monetary
and market consciousness in the period emerged.58 When reading stories set in Paris,
we should perhaps bear in mind it was in this city that many bold philosophical
innovations in measurement and quantification were evolving, transformed by the social
reality of monetisation.59 In Neifile’s story, Girolamo, son of a powerful and wealthy
Florentine merchant, falls in love with Salvestra, the daughter of a tailor. His mother
and guardians view it as an unsuitable match and are afraid it could lead him to lose his
“ricchezza” (wealth). They resolve to send him away to Paris in a bid to distract him
from the object of his affection. At this point parallels may be drawn with the plot of
the widely diffused Old French romance Floire et Blancheflor, which Boccaccio
himself had re-elaborated in the earlier Filocolo (c. 1336–38), and from which another,
Middle English version –Floris and Blauncheflur (c. 1250), to be discussed in the
following chapter– derives. In this story, a young nobleman, in love with a childhood
sweetheart with whom he has been brought up, is sent far from court by his parents in
the hope that he will forget about the girl, who is deemed socially unsuitable. But even
while Boccaccio clearly draws on elements of the romance in Neifile’s tale, he locates it
very much within the milieu of contemporary Florentine mercantile society, alluding to
the large Florentine companies with their Paris branches, and the education of
merchants’ sons.
He also uses recognisably local names and adds considerable
commercial detail.
56
Boccaccio’s father, Boccaccino di Chelino, conducted his business between Florence, the banking
centre of the early fourteenth-century European economy, and Paris, “the greatest commercial emporium
of the West”. See Branca, Boccaccio: The Man and his Works, pp. 4–5. See also Nicholas, The Later
Medieval City, pp. 35ff.
57
Branca suggests this in his notes to the Decameron, note 7, p. 967.
58
Kaye, Economy and Nature, p. 19.
59
Kaye, Economy and Nature, p. 22.
63
Girolamo’s father, a “grandissimo mercatante e ricco” called Leonardo
Sighieri60 dies when Girolamo is a baby, but not before putting “i suoi fatti” (his affairs)
in order. His wife and the boy’s “tutori” (guardians) scrupulously manage his affairs,
but they are unable to stop his feelings for Salvestra growing. Whereas Floire and
Blancheflor’s love develops in the context of the court, Girolamo’s and Salvestra’s
evolves in the neighbourhood. Girolamo’s mother turns to the guardians for help in
resolving the problem, explaining it as, “Questo nostro fanciullo, appena non ha
quattordici anni, è sì innamorato d’una figliuola d’un sarto nostro vicino…” (IV, 8, 8)
(This boy of ours,….. who has only just reached the age of fourteen, is so enamoured of
a local tailor’s daughter…). Girolamo’s mother asks the guardians to send him far
away “ne’ servigi del fondaco…” (IV, 8, 9) (in the service of the firm). The guardians
summon Girolamo to the firm’s office, telling him that he has reached an age at which
he needs to take care of his own business, and that they would therefore like him to go
to Paris, where he will see how his company’s affairs are managed, as well as mixing
with barons, lords and nobles. With the extra insistence of his mother, Girolamo
eventually agrees to the plan and, once in Paris, is kept there for two years through a
series of distractions.
As Vittore Branca has pointed out, this approach to a
misbehaving child is in accordance with contemporary thinking regarding the handling
of children.61 In the Libro di Buoni Costumi, a behavioural manual aimed at merchants,
Paolo da Certaldo recommends that a wayward son be placed with another merchant
and sent abroad, or just sent abroad to a trusted friend. In this way he will leave behind
bad habits and perhaps take on new ones, whereas remaining with his father would not
be enough to change his ways:
Se tu hai figliuolo che non faccia bene a tuo senno ne la tua terra, incontanente il poni con uno
mercatante che ’l mandi in un’altra terra, o tu il manda a uno tuo caro amico. Lascerà l’usanze de
la sua terra e piglierà usanze nuove, e forse s’ammenderà e farà bene; ché altro modo non ci ha,
però che stando teco mai non muterebbe modo.62
If you have a son who is not doing well at your side, place him with a merchant who will send
him elsewhere, or send him to one of your close friends. He will leave behind the habits of
home and take on new habits, and perhaps his behaviour will improve and he’ll do well; there is
nothing else to be done, as staying with you, he would never change. [my translation]
It is likely that Boccaccio intentionally made Girolamo’s plight resemble that of Floire,
but whereas the young romance hero is sent to another court in order to make him forget
60
In his notes to the Decameron, Branca points out that the Sighieri family were well-known Florentine
merchants. See Decameron, note 5, p. 1019.
61
Branca, Mercanti scrittori: ricordi nella Firenze tra Medioevo e Rinascimento, ed. Vittore Branca
(Milan: Rusconi, 1986), p. 34.
62
Paolo da Certaldo, Il libro di buoni costumi, point 15, as reproduced in Mercanti scrittori, p. 34.
64
Blancheflor, Girolamo is sent by the merchants who manage his affairs on what
effectively amounts to a business trip to one of medieval Europe’s business capitals. In
both cases, time abroad does little to dull the passions of the protagonists: Floire
remains desperately in love with Blancheflor and Girolamo with Salvestra.
When Girolamo returns to Florence, Boccaccio continues to give the story a
particularly Florentine, urban flavour. In his absence, Salvestra has married a young
curtain manufacturer and appears not to recognise him. The broken-hearted Girolamo
walks the streets in front of her house, hoping that she will give him a sign of having
recognised him, but even if she notices him, she pretends not to.
Eventually, in
desperation, he hatches a plan to enter her house, and manages to hide in the bedroom,
concealing himself behind some of the curtain fabric stretched out there. He waits until
Salvestra’s husband is sleeping, then speaks to her, declaring his love. Salvestra’s
response is pragmatic and unsentimental: “Deh, per Dio, Girolamo, vattene: egli è
passato quel tempo che alla nostra fanciullezza non si disdisse l’essere innamorati. Io
sono, come tu vedi, maritata; per la qual cosa più non sta bene a me d’attendere a altro
uomo che al mio marito” (IV, 8, 19). (“Oh, merciful heavens, do go away Girolamo.
We are no longer children, and the time has passed for proclaiming our love from the
house-tops. As you can see, I am married, and therefore it is no longer proper for me to
care for any other man but my husband.”) Eventually, however, Salvestra agrees to let
him lie down beside her, just to warm up, and he vows not to touch her. There, beside
her on the bed, he dies of grief. Girolamo’s death jolts Salvestra out of her pragmatic
approach to the past and at the sight of his body in the church, she is overcome with
grief and is prompted to fling herself on it. In death, the two are finally united in a
single tomb. The action of the tale, like many of the Decameron’s hundred tales, thus
unfolds largely within a domestic space and a Florentine streetscape, despite bearing
strong romance elements.
Throughout the tale we find instances of changing
perspective as Salvestra looks down on the street from the safety of her home, and
Girolamo wistfully gazes up.
65
Figure 6: Anonymous, The Virgin and Child
Enthroned with Angels and Donor, c. 818
Figure 7: Giotto,
Christ Before Caiaphas, 1304-13
This configuration of the tale within interior and exterior spaces once again
bears comparison with developments in painting, in particular the new conception of
pictorial space. Herman Wetzel draws attention to the invention of the novella as a
narrative form and the invention of three-dimensional space in the two-dimensional
picture plane at almost the same time.63
The late thirteenth and early fourteenth
centuries saw the replacement of the two-dimensional narratives of the Byzantine
66
tradition, which were constructed on a narratorial “axis” that moved either up and down
or from left to right within a single space, and gave no sense of depth or organic unity
[see Figure 6], with the three dimensional narratives of Giotto (and also the Sienese
artist Lorenzetti), whose figures are located in relation to structures, allowing
“differentiation between inside and outside, private and public, earth and sky”64 In the
Byzantine tradition, as Herman Wenzel notes, the dimensions of the figures do not
designate a position in space, but rather a hierarchy: the more important people and
things are simply bigger than those of lesser importance. Giotto’s buildings, although
certainly not yet the result of an understanding of single point perspective, are, however,
solid and furnished. They have some relationship with the narrated action. One only
has to consider the scene of Christ Before Caiaphas, or The Meeting at the Golden
Gate, both part of the Life of Christ cycle in Padua’s Arena Chapel (1304–13), to know
that this is so [see Figures 7 and 8]. In the former, the claustrophobic atmosphere
created by the closed doors and windows of the room heightens the sense of
circumstances closing in on Christ; while in the latter, the arched gateway over the
figures helps frame the moment of affection and define the figures as related in a single
imaginable context. As Charles Harrison writes, whereas the tendency of the narrative
method until Giotto had been to distinguish individual figures, one from another, and to
make each the isolated bearer of a specific expressive condition, Giotto’s method tends
to encourage the reading of figures as related.65 According to Wetzel, the intellectual
and social mobility of the novella form, which gives the hero autonomous spaces in
which to act and think, is analogous to this new conception of space in painting. He
contrasts the novella with the exemplum, noting that whereas the exemplum is
characterised by static character types without names or individual description, whose
function in the story is largely a mechanical reaction with the purpose of illustrating a
pre-existing religious or moral truth, in the novella, on the other hand, the characters no
longer simply react according to a pre-existing truth, but have the freedom to take
initiative in a variety of social environments.66 In the story of Girolamo and Salvestra,
as in the tales of Frate Alberto (IV, 2), Arriguccio (VII, 8) and Madonna Elena and the
63
Herman H. Wetzel, “Il Decameron: Analogie strutturali fra novella e pittura del tempo”, in Autori e
lettori di Boccaccio: Atti del Convegno internazionale di Certaldo (20–22 settembre 2001), ed.
Michelangelo Picone (Florence: Franco Cesati Editore, 2002), pp. 368–71.
64
Wetzel uses Pietro Cavallini’s Nascita di Maria (c. 1291) and Giotto’s version of the same (1305–6) as
examples of the changing conception of internal and external space within a narrative and in doing so is
following the art historian W. Kemp, Die Räume der Maler. Zur Bilderzählung seit Giotto (Munich:
Beck, 1996), pp. 370–2.
65
Harrison, “The Arena Chapel”, pp. 100–01.
66
Wetzel, pp. 369, 372.
67
scholar (VIII, 7), the sense of private and public, interior and exterior space is essential
to the unfolding of the plot. Entry-ways, as the “marginal spaces” linking the interior
and exterior, become sites of concentrated and defining action, and the location of a
scene, inside or outside, is of vital importance. Girolamo enters Salvestra’s house
secretly, like an intruder, and dies there privately, but his body is transported to the
doorway of his own home, where it is left for public discovery.
In the novelle,
architectural features and perspectives are not simply decorative, but add relief to
significant narrative episodes.
Figure 8: Giotto,
The Meeting at the Golden Gate, 1304-13
Wetzel asks, as I too have done, how the structural elements of the Decameron
can be explained by the mental structures of a specific society.67 The extent to which
this new conception of reality in art derives from mercantile culture calls for some
consideration. Are these changes in narration, in both painting and writing, particularly
the increased focus on the development of naturalistic pictorial spaces, the result of a set
of values and practices associated with the merchant class, or is their emergence and
refinement in this period purely coincidental? Charles Harrison provides something of
an answer, suggesting that advances in pictorial composition and compelling forms of
mimesis may relate to the early fourteenth-century tendency to lay piety.68
This
tendency, he argues, was supported by the Franciscans and by teaching from other
religious orders, who “encouraged the imaginative transcendence of barriers between
67
Wetzel, p. 366.
The Franciscan and Dominican encouragement of lay piety in fourteenth-century Florence was outlined
in my introduction. See p. 24
68
68
religious experience and everyday experience”.69 This would seem to accord with
Daniel Lesnick’s assertions, outlined in my introduction, about a broader societal shift
in mental habit and a growth in confidence that the human mind was capable of
grasping matters of faith through its own power.70
If the presentation of sermon
arguments was increasingly designed to appeal to the sense of logic and structuration
developing among Florentine merchant-bankers, then it follows that the organisation of
narrative in painting and writing was too. Furthermore, if, as Harrison suggests, Giotto
was exposed to the new theories of optics and geometrical application in circulation in
the late thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century scholarly milieu of Padua, then it is
likely that he absorbed some of the same scientific and philosophical theories that also
informed sermon-writing.71
In Neifile’s story (IV, 8), Girolamo is part of a wealthy mercantile family, in
turn part of the class of gente nuova whose profits profoundly shaped the history of latemedieval Florence. His unwavering love for Salvestra resembles that of a romance hero
such as Floire, whose steadfast love for the socially inferior Blancheflor is similarly
never dulled by distance or social consideration, and his behaviour is more like that of a
courtly lover than that of a profit-focused merchant. The tale reflects the tendency of
fourteenth-century Florentine mercantile society to take as its cultural and behavioural
models the books and myths elaborated by a mainly aristocratic class north of the Alps.
As Lucia Battaglia Ricci points out, writers in the generation preceding Boccaccio’s
proposed the use of courtly examples as behavioural models for wider society.72 Most
notably the anonymous author of the Novellino (c. 1280–1300) began his collection of
tales with a comment on the use of “nobili e gentili” (nobles and gentlemen) of the past
as ‘mirrors’ for contemporary society’s “minori” (non-aristocratic classes): “…acciò
che li nobili e gentili sono nel parlare e ne l’opere quasi com’uno specchio appo i
minori” (so that the nobility and gentry are in their speech and actions almost like a
mirror for the lesser people).73 Such ideas had some bearing on the Decameron, but
Boccaccio’s stories tend to suggest the interpenetration and fusion of the values more
traditionally termed “aristocratic” and those associated with urban, mercantile
69
Harrison, “The Arena Chapel”, p. 101.
Daniel R. Lesnick, Preaching in Medieval Florence: The Social World of Franciscan and Dominican
Spirituality (Athens and London: The University of Georgia Press, 1989), p. 98. See also Erwin
Panofsky, Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism: An inquiry into the analogy of the arts, philosophy, and
religion in the Middle Ages (New York: New American Library, 1976).
71
Harrison, p, 103. For the context of late medieval preaching, see Lesnick and also D. L. d’Avray, The
Preaching of the Friars: Sermons diffused from Paris before 1300 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985).
72
Battaglia Ricci considers the appeal of the courtly ideal among the merchant class, pp. 12—18.
73
Il Novellino, I, ed. G. Favati(Genoa: Bozzi, 1970); cf. Lucia Battaglia Ricci, Boccaccio, p. 14.
70
69
pragmatism. Like many tales in the Decameron, that of Girolamo and Salvestra bears
witness to an eclectic vision of the world characterised by a need to establish a
behavioural ideal and value system without ignoring the concrete aspirations and
concerns of an urban, mercantile society.
The tendency to rationalise and quantify associated with this mercantile society
is not without resistance, however. Neifile prefaces her story with a speech about the
nature of love, its lack of logic and its resistance in the face of all forms of control.
Love is completely unsusceptible to “consiglio” (advice) or “operazione in contrario”
(opposition), she declares. But rather than specifying that her subject matter involves
the love of a young couple, she draws attention to the role of Girolamo’s mother in the
unfolding of the tragic love story:
…. me’è venuto nell’animo di narrarvi una novella d’una donna la quale, mentre che ella cercò
d’esser più savia che a lei non s’apparteneva e che non ancor che non sostenea la cosa in che
studiava mostrare il senno suo, credendo dello innamorato cuor trarre amore, il qual forse
v’avevano messo le stelle, pervenne a cacciare a un’ora amore e l’anima del corpo al figliuolo.
(IV, 8, 4)
And so it occurs to me that I should tell you a story about a lady who, in the belief that she could
remove, from an enamoured heart, a love which had possibly been planted there by the stars,
sought to be wiser than she actually was, and by flaunting her cleverness in a matter that was
beyond her competence, succeeded at one and the same time in driving both Love and life from
the body of her son.
(pp. 382–3)
In this way, Neifile places the emphasis on Girolamo’s mother’s attempts to control
love in the story, rather than the relationship of the young lovers. Her words suggest
that what at first appears a peripheral role ought to be regarded as instrumental in light
of her subject of love bound by neither advice nor interference. The kind of advice or
interference, the restrictions Girolamo’s mother attempts to impose on her son’s love,
are of course financially and socially driven; when they fail, it is clear proof of Neifile’s
assertions. The choice of mercantile motivation is not arbitrary. Neifile’s comments
about love were general, rather than profession-specific, yet she relates a story in which
the irrational force of love cannot be brought under control specifically by the reasoning
of a merchant’s wife. Love remains beyond the reaches of the marketplace and outside
the network of commercial exchange.
Among the assets, liabilities, expenses and
income, documented in ledgers within their libri di ragione, the great Florentine
merchant companies, such as that of Leonardo Sighieri, were not able to include love.
Love’s resistance in the face of measurement, regulation and prediction is
briefly touched on in the story of Alatiel (II, 7). In this tale, narrated by Panfilo, the
beautiful daughter of the Sultan of Babylon, shipwrecked on the way to her marriage
70
with the King of Garbo, becomes the object of a series of kidnappings and rapes at the
hands of men from a range of Mediterranean states. In just one of these, Alatiel is taken
by Marato, younger brother of her first captor, the nobleman Pericone da Visalgo, and
placed among a cargo bound for Chiarenza in Romania (Klarenza in the Peloponnese).
Marato is too overcome with passion for Alatiel to notice that the two owners of the
ship, Genoese merchants, are equally desirous of her.74 In a moment of quick and secret
ragionamento (II, 7, 39) (accounting), the two make a pact to share the lady, once they
have conquered her:
E essendosi l’un dell’altro di questo amore avveduto, di ciò ebbero insieme segreto
raggionamento e convennersi di fare l’acquisto di questo amor comune, quasi amore così questo
dovesse patire come la mercatantia o i guadagni fanno.
(II, 7, 39)
On discovering that they were both in love with the same woman, they talked the matter over in
secret and agreed to make the conquest a mutual affair, as though love were capable of being
shared out like merchandise or profits.
(pp. 175–6)
But the accord reached by the two brothers does not work, precisely because unlike
goods and income, they are not dealing with a divisible quantity. The principles of
partnership cannot be applied, but the fact that they expect to be able to reduce human
relationships to a mathematical value reflects the mercantile propensity for accounts and
the need to value everything with figures.75 Their attempts to treat Alatiel as they
would the mercatantia they are transporting lead them to fight among themselves, and
in the end neither is able to enjoy the profits of his attempted dealing. Alatiel passes
into the possession of another noble, the prince of Morea.
In this brief episode,
Boccaccio highlights the dangers inherent in confusing love with merchandise. Just as
the Genoese merchant shippers are unable to make love part of their enterprise, so too
Girolamo’s mother is unable to control her son’s affections in the interests of the
company. In stories told under the themes of “those whose love ended unhappily” (Day
IV) and “those who after suffering a series of misfortunes are brought to a state of
unexpected happiness” (Day II), Boccaccio interrogates the mercantile expectation that
74
In one reading within her three of the tale of Alatiel, Joan Ferrante proposes that it is a political
allegory referring to the rape of the Florentine commune at the hands of a series of governments from the
late thirteenth century and through several decades of the fourteenth. The Genoese were the prime
merchant-shippers to the world and had a particular reputation for treachery. Dante condemned them for
exactly this in Inferno XXXIII, 151–3. Elsewhere in the Decameron they are not presented unfavourably.
See Joan Ferrante, “Politics, Finance and Feminism in Decameron II, 7”, Studi sul Boccaccio, 21 (1993),
151–4.
75
Christian Bec, Cultura e società, p. 121, discusses the books of the Bardi and Peruzzi which record the
details of each agent, including their curriculum, stipulating the initial wage, the successive increases and
fines inflicted because of professional errors.
71
all can be measured and regulated, and highlights the ultimate limitations of this
mentality.
Earlier I pointed out that the world of Mediterranean trade is frequently evoked
in Classical literature, but the Mediterranean of Antiquity is also, of course, the site of
heroic wanderings and encounters with marvel and adventure.
Many of the
Decameron’s sea journeys must likewise be read in the context of a convergence of late
medieval association, involving quest and commerce, as well as warfare, spirituality,
merchandise and ideology. The tale of Landolfo Rufolo (II, 4) begins with a description
of the delightful ports along what is now known as the Amalfi Coast, south of Naples,
but soon takes Landolfo Rufolo, its merchant protagonist, to the less familiar surrounds
of Cyprus. In the process, the story works to merge the ideology of the aristocratic
romance-style quest with market values. Giuseppa Mazzotta writes of Landolfo: “His
intrepid quest over the familiar and yet dangerous sea-lanes of the Mediterranean casts
him as the hero of real, bourgeois adventures in pursuit of wealth and self-mastery.”76
Landolfo’s quest is about profit, and the dangers he encounters are financial. The sea,
with its sudden storms, strong currents and swells, represents the physical dangers
implicit in mercantile travel as well as functioning as a metaphor for the ceaseless and
unforeseeable movement of the marketplace.
When Landolfo stocks his ship with merchandise and travels to Cyprus to sell it,
he is counting on selling it for a high price.
Instead he is met with a market
oversupplied with exactly the same kind of perishable merchandise, sending the value
of his own plummeting. He is thus left with no choice but to flog his own for prices far
below those he was envisaging. His initial desire, when setting out from Ravello, was
to “radoppiare… la sua ricchezza” (double his wealth), but instead he sees it so greatly
reduced as to leave him practically impoverished. The situation Landolfo faces, of a
sudden swing from a case of high demand to one of over-supply with the resulting
impact on prices, illustrates, in explicit terms, the dynamic rather than static nature of
value, a subject which was of enormous interest to the scholastic theories of price
determination. As Joel Kaye writes, the lesson absorbed by the scholastics through the
activities of the marketplace was that although the commodities themselves remained
fixed, their values changed as their external points of reference changed.77 Thus the
76
Giuseppa Mazzotta, The World at Play in Boccaccio’s Decameron (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1986), p. 98.
77
See Kaye, Economy and Nature, p. 50.
72
scholastics’ theory of value was based on utility.78 Landolfo Rufolo discovers that he
cannot control the market forces, despite having “fatti i suoi avvisi” (II, 4, 6) (done his
sums before).
Not to be outdone, Landolfo reinvents himself as a pirate on the Mediterranean,
with a particularly keen eye focused on the exotic merchandise of Turkish ships. Soon,
however, he and his booty are captured by the Genoese, and the evening after his
capture, a gale suddenly arises, producing strong swells and separating the two Genoese
carracks.
That on which Landolfo is travelling runs aground on the coast of
Cephalonia. Its hull is split open, and the merchants and merchandise it had been
carrying float out onto the waves:
... i miseri dolenti che sopra quella erano, essendo già il mare tutto pieno di mercatantie che
notavano e di casse e di tavole, come in così fatti casi suole avvenire, quantunque obscurissima
notte fosse e il mare grossissimo e gonfiato, notando quegli che notar sapevano,
s’incominciarono a appiccare a quelle cose che per ventura lor si paravan davanti.
(II, 4, 17)
As is usually the case when this happens, the sea was rapidly littered with an assortment of
floating planks, chests and merchandise. And although it was pitch dark and there was a heavy
swell, the poor wretches who had survived the wreck, or those of them who could swim, began
to cling to whatever object happened to float across their path.
(p. 138)
This image of merchants swimming or sinking in a sea of floating merchandise
reinforces the sense of international trade and market fluctuations already established in
the account of Landolfo’s arrival in Cyprus. Mazzotta draws attention to the way the
scene functions as an echo of Aeneas’s shipwreck in the first book of the Aeneid,
without Boccaccio making it clear whether we are therefore to read Landolfo as a
mercantile version of the epic hero, or Aeneas as little more than a pirate.79 What is
clear, however, is Boccaccio’s attempt to present an ideological crossover wherein the
boundaries of merchant venture and heroic narrative are blurred. Above all, Landolfo
Rufolo’s Mediterranean sea journeying serves as a reminder of the precariousness of the
market and the risks involved in trade. Apart from functioning as a metaphor for the
unpredictable movements of fortune, the sea can also be read as a more specific
metaphor for the flow of international trade. Both the captured Landolfo and his
Genoese captors are as vulnerable to the force of the elements and sudden changes in
weather conditions as buyer and seller are to an under-supplied or flooded marketplace.
78
Julius Kirshner, introduction to Business, Banking and Economic Thought in Late Medieval and Early
Modern Europe; Selected Studies of Raymond de Roover, ed. Julius Kirshner (Chicago and London: The
University of Chicago Press, 1974), pp. 21–2.
79
Mazzotta, p. 99.
73
There is a further aspect of mercantilism that the tale of Landolfo makes
apparent: the merchant’s lack of scruples in invoking God’s assistance and thanking
God for his delivery and eventual homecoming is emphasised almost as much as his
unrelenting desire for material gain. Several times we are privy to Landolfo’s thoughts.
Clinging to a spar after the shipwreck, he hopes that God may come to his rescue:
…come gli altri, venutagli alle mani una tavola, a quella s’apiccò, se forse Idio, indugiando egli
l’affogare, gli mandasse qualche aiuto allo scampo suo.
(II, 4, 18)
…like the others, he too clung to the first spar that came within his reach, in the hope that by
remaining afloat for a little longer, God might somehow come to his rescue.
(p. 138)
And when he eventually arrives home in Ravello a wealthy man, he gives thanks to God
and then opens his bag to inspect its valuable contents: “Quivi parendogli esser sicuro,
ringraziando Idio che condotto ve lo avea, sciolse il suo sacchetto…” (II, 4, 29) (Secure
at last in Ravello, he gave thanks to God for leading him safely home, untied his little
sack…). Such a belief in the possibility of God’s assistance is expressed as an impulse,
an almost unconscious habit, no less familiar than the equally ingrained desire for
profit.
The two belief systems, apparently in conflict with each other, signal the
intersection of ideologies, for one indicates a confidence in divine providence, while the
other sets store by the individual’s ability to reduce and even conquer the uncertain and
unpredictable movements of fortune. It is not unusual to discover, in merchant diaries,
similar evidence of this duality.
As Herman Wetzel notes, the fourteenth-century
merchant Giovanni Rucellai reacted to the shipwreck of his own ship with a pious and
apparently resigned “Deus dedit, deus abstulit”, knowing well that his ship was
insured.80 The rise of mechanisms such as marine insurance related to a desire to
reduce the role of fortune and favour the possibility of commercial foresight.
There is perhaps no greater confirmation of Boccaccio’s depth of knowledge of
the operations of the great Florentine trading companies than in the tale of the
“mercatante forestiere” (outlander merchant) Niccolò da Cignano, known as Salabaetto
(VIII, 10). Like the tale of Andreuccio, it traces the fortunes of a merchant newly
arrived in a town far from his own, in this case Palermo, ripe for deception at the hands
of an attractive local woman. Salabaetto is a Florentine merchant, and he arrives in
Palermo with a cargo of woollen cloth worth about five hundred florins, left over from a
fair he has just attended in Salerno. A factor for a Florentine company, Salabaetto has
80
Wetzel, p. 367.
74
been sent to Palermo by his bosses: “da’ suoi maestri mandato” (VIII, 10, 9). Told by
Dioneo, who claims he will recount a tale of deception to outdo all the others told on
that day, on the subject of “…beffe, che tutto il giorno o donna a uomo o uomo a donna
o l’uno uomo all’altro si fanno” (…the tricks that people in general, men and women
alike, are forever playing upon one another), the story opens with a description of the
procedures generally followed by merchants from other parts on arrival in a port:
Soleva essere, e forse che ancora oggi è, una usanza in tutte le terre marine che hanno porto così
fatta, che tutti i mercatanti che in quelle con mercatantie capitano, faccendole scaricare, tutte in
un fondaco, il quale in molti luoghi è chiamato dogana, tenuta per lo commune o per lo signor
della terra, le portano; e quivi, dando a coloro che sopra ciò che sono per iscritto tutta la
mercatantia e il pregio di quella, è dato per li detti al mercatante un magazzino nel quale esso la
sua mercatantia ripone e serralo con la chiave; e li detti doganieri poi scrivono in su il libro della
dogana a ragione del mercatante tutta la sua mercatantia, faccendosi poi del loro diritto pagare al
mercatante o per tutta o per parte della mercatantia che egli della dogana traesse. E da questo
libro della dogana assai volte s’informano i sensali e delle qualità e delle quantità delle
mercatantie che vi son, e ancora chi sieno i mercatanti che l’hanno; con li quali poi essi, secondo
le lor cade per mano, ragionan di cambi, di baratti e di vendite e d’altri spacci.
(VIII, 10, 4–6)
In the seaports of all maritime countries, it used to be the practice, and possibly still is, that any
merchant arriving there with merchandise, having discharged his cargo, takes it to a warehouse,
which in many places is called the dogana and is maintained by the commune or by the ruler of
the state. After presenting a written description of the cargo and its value to the officers in
charge, he is given a storeroom where his merchandise is placed under lock and key; the officers
then record all the details in their register under the merchant’s name, and whenever the
merchant removes his goods from bond, either wholly or in part, they make him pay the
appropriate dues. It is by consulting this register that brokers, more often than not, obtain their
information about the amount and value of the goods stored at the dogana, together with the
names of the merchants to whom they belong. And when a suitable opportunity presents itself,
they approach the merchants and arrange to barter, exchange, sell, or otherwise dispose of their
merchandise.
(pp. 666–7)
The concentration of commercial terminology in this passage, and the fact that rather
than being a part of the tale itself, it is a general description of a widespread practice,
one that Boccaccio would have learned about in his early Neapolitan years, makes it
particularly striking. Dioneo’s phrasing when introducing these practices –“it used to
be, and perhaps still is”– signals both the temporal distance between Boccaccio’s
commercial training and the writing of the Decameron, and the fact that this kind of
detail is considered common knowledge among young Florentines. His tone implies
that he believes his companions somehow complicit in the understanding of the
workings of maritime and commercial sites. The passage is a summary account of how
merchandise is documented when stored in a warehouse, the payment of customs dues,
and how local agents, by looking at the warehouse’s written records, inform themselves
of the identity of newly-arrived merchants, the nature of their merchandise and, very
75
significantly, its value, thus enabling them to gauge the type of business that may be
transacted.
More than just a device employed to create a maritime-mercantile atmosphere,
the description of these operations is essential to an understanding of the nature of the
tricks at the heart of the story. Palermo local Madonna Iancofiore is able to glean
information about Salabaetto and his merchandise by consulting the warehouse records,
and sets out to make this wealthy Florentine fall in love with her. In the end, however,
it is Salabaetto who becomes trickster supreme when he returns to Palermo a second
time and falsely registers the value of his merchandise as two thousand gold florins. He
then offers these wares as surety for a substantial loan from Madonna Iancofiore. When
he disappears, the lady forces her way into the dogana and discovers that the supposed
bales of fine woollen cloth in fact contain mainly tow, and the twenty barrels of “oil”
actually hold seawater.
The tale’s symmetry, which sees one trick countered by
another, the merchant-hero’s financial loss followed by profit, is not unlike that of
double-entry account-keeping, that new-fangled method whose techniques were
emerging from the later thirteenth century. It bears witness to a general tendency
towards quantification and the increasing role of documentation and administrative
regulation in mercantile practice, along with the refinement of both reckoning and
writing skills.
At the start of this chapter I noted that Boccaccio draws attention to his own
artistic process by referring to his work instrument, the penna, or quill. Fourteenthcentury Florentine merchants validated their activities with the use of the pen,
inscribing them with meaning by continually writing about them, almost obsessively, as
the vast quantity of surviving merchant diaries suggests. The following century, Leon
Battista Alberti would observe: “…stava così bene al mercatante sempre avere le mani
tinte d’inchiostro… sempre scrivere ogni cosa… sempre avere la penna in mano” (…it
suited the merchant to always have ink-stained hands… to always write down
everything… to always have a quill in his hand).81 The fourteenth- and fifteenthcentury “merchant writers”, Francesco di Marco Datini, Domenico Lenzi and Giovanni
Morelli among them, firmly believed in the value of recording, sometimes in minute
detail, the details of their trading activities, as well as their family life.82 Their writing
was an act of self-fashioning, as Alberti’s observation implies. They liked the image of
81
Alberti, Della Famiglia, III, p. 251.
Branca notes that two men who worked in the circle of the Boccaccio family were among the earliest
merchants to take up the pen. One of these was Paolo of Certaldo. See Branca, Mercanti Scrittori, pp. 1–
99.
82
76
literacy and diligence that the penna helped create, and the writing itself was a means of
self-commemoration, rationalisation and validation.
Yet the positive ideal of hard
work, education and industriousness generated by the association with the penna held
the potential for inversion, as a symbol of self-satisfaction, calculation, and even
dishonesty and social aspiration. For writing was the means with which merchants set
out transactions in their ledger books, and detailed the contents of a shipment. Cash
transactions took place to a lesser extent than in preceding centuries, and business with
Italian merchants and bankers increasingly involved a complex web of credit
arrangements and bills of exchange, all transactions “on paper”, so much so that in the
fifteenth century, a French satirist marvelled at the ability of the Italians to do business
without money. In dealing with them, he said, one never sees or touches any money; all
they need is paper, pen and ink.83
In the Decameron, the dependence of dealing on the ability to write and read is
alluded to several times, perhaps most memorably in the story of Salabaetto (VIII, 10),
when the action of the tale relies on the fact that both Salabaetto and Madonna
Iancofiore are literate. The centrality of the written register of merchandise to the tale
makes it clear that a cargo would be worthless without a seller or buyer whose literacy
was beyond question. Literacy expands the potential for deceit, an aspect that is also
present elsewhere. The potential for fraudulent practices realised with the aid of the
quill was infinite, and Boccaccio is acutely aware of this. On the day before the story of
Salabaetto is told, is the story of Ariguccio (VII, 8), the object of a vicious tirade of
abuse hurled at him by his mother-in-law.
Ariguccio’s mother-in-law’s speech is
perhaps the most vehemently anti-mercantile speech of the Decameron, and the wholly
negative image of mercantile practice it creates hinges on an image of the merchant and
his quill:
“Col malanno possa egli essere oggimai, se tu dei stare al francidume delle parole d’un
mercatantuzzo di feccia d’asino, che venutici di contado e usciti delle troiate vestiti di
romagnuolo, con le calze a campanile e colla penna in culo, come egli hanno tre soldi, vogliono
le figliuole de’ gentili uomini e delle buone donne per moglie, e fanno arme…”
(VII, 8, 46)
“To hell with this small time trader in horse manure, let him take his foul slander elsewhere!
These country yokels, they move into town after serving as cut-throat to some petty rustic tyrant,
and wander about the streets in rags and tatters, their trousers all askew, with a quill sticking out
from their backsides, and no sooner do they get a few pence in their pockets than they want the
daughters of noble gentlemen and fine ladies for their wives. And they devise a coat-of-arms for
themselves…”
(p. 567)
83
Raymond de Roover, “Early Accounting Problems of Foreign Exchange”, Accounting Review 19.10
(1944), 381–47: see p. 381.
77
Here Ariguccio’s penna has become emblematic of the merchant’s activities, in
particular the calculations which lead to his upwardly mobile social aspirations. It
implies both activity and attitude. That his mother-in-law’s accusations are prompted
by the lies of her own daughter somewhat detracts from their potency and legitimacy,
but nevertheless, at the end of the story Ariguccio is left the victim of his wife’s
deceitful sexual calculations, with the implication that he has no choice but to accept the
“deal” on these terms, or risk his life at the hands of her brothers, who threaten to pay
him twice over “ti pagheremo di questa e di quella” (VII, 8, 49).
As I noted earlier, numerical inversions and structural games are commonly
employed by Boccaccio in his arrangement of the novelle.84
Thematic links are
sometimes established, or alluded to, by numerical connection in the placement of the
stories. It is thus unlikely to be a case of mere coincidence that the seventh story told
on the eighth day, the numeric inversion of that of Ariguccio (VII, 8), bears another
consideration of the quill’s potential. This time it is in the form of a speech made by a
young scholar, Rinieri, to Elena, the woman who used his devotion to her to make a
fool of him. Having succeeded in repaying her with a trick of equally unpleasant
dimensions, he explains to her what can be achieved with the penna:
“E dove tutti mancati mi fossero, non mi fuggiva la penna, con la quale tanto e sì fatte cose di te
scritte avrei e in sì fatta maniera, che avendole tu risapute, ché l’avresti, avresti il dì mille volte
disiderato di mai non esser nata. Le forze della penna son troppo maggiori che coloro non
estimano che quelle con conoscimento provate non hanno.”
(VIII, 7, 99–100).
“And even supposing that all my little schemes has failed, I should still have had my pen, with
which I should have lampooned you so mercilessly, and with so much eloquence, that when my
writings came to your notice (as they certainly would), you would have wished, a thousand times
a day, you had never been born. The power of the pen is far greater than those people suppose
who have not proved it by experience. ”
(p. 636)
The pen is once again in the hand of not just a technical writer, but an eloquent and
imaginative writer, assisting him to victory in an exchange of tricks and an instrument
of considerable power. Vittore Branca has called the Decameron the great “epopea
mercantile” or mercantile epic, written for a new social class who are knights, not of the
sword, but of the florin.85 But perhaps with the prevalence of increasingly technical
accountancy and exchange mechanisms, based less on coinage and more on paper and
84
Earlier I drew attention to Creighton Gilbert’s observation that the sequence of stories about artists told
on days VIII and IX might have been deliberately arranged to resemble a panel series, such as an
altarpiece with a central image.
85
Branca, Boccaccio medievale, pp. 134–65.
78
ink, this should not be taken too literally. In the Decameron, the many considerations
made of the penna, under different circumstances and to different ends, ultimately have
the effect of simultaneously uniting and distinguishing between different areas of social
experience. All literate members of the society can use or abuse the ability to write, and
as Robert Hollander points out, Boccaccio even alludes to what may occur among the
illiterate, when a figure such as the preacher Frate Cipolla uses his own version of a
quill, quite simply a feather, to try to draw an income from simple lay-folk by claiming
it is a feather from the wings of the Angel Gabriel (VI, 10).86
It would be overly simplistic and perhaps far too neat to conclude that latemedieval merchants, writers and painters were somehow all doing the same thing.
Rather I have sought to emphasise the extent to which they were engaging with one
another, and to consider how certain elements of artistic production and perception
relate to particular social conditions and mental structures of the times. The emergence
of the mercantile habitus discussed by Bourdieu is not instantaneous, but develops over
a long period, gradually bringing about an interpenetration of cultural, economic and
social practice.87 Many of its features do not yet sit comfortably, which explains
Boccaccio’s tendency in the Decameron to critique merchants, while also validating
them in the very process of writing about their activities and attitudes so extensively.
The verisimilitude of many of the tales about merchants has to do with engaging a
mercantile audience in the transactions they outline, but it is also about imparting value
to a mercantile existence.
And Boccaccio is unafraid of appropriating mercantile
economics to his own cultural and intellectual agenda.
As Lina Insana writes,
Boccaccio both critiques a mercantile society, and also recuperates the market system in
the services of his own creative production.88 Like the merchandise in the tale of
Salabaetto, which would have no value without the ability of the merchant to describe it
in writing, so too Boccaccio shapes the stories of the Decameron as products waiting to
be circulated in the marketplace.
86
Hollander drew my attention to the piuma-penna crossover in the story of Frate Cipolla: see
Boccaccio’s Dante, pp. 49–50. Here “pen” must be understood as “quill”.
87
Bourdieu, The Rules of Art, p. 318.
88
See Insana, parts I and IV.
79
Mercantile Knights and Chivalrous Traders: Finance and Medieval Romance
Despite the interest shown by much recent scholarship in the extent to which the
social realities of the late Middle Ages are registered in chivalric romance, the popular
idea prevails of the genre as an idealised portrayal of an upper class within a feudal
structure, largely ignoring the fundamental social and economic changes of the times.1
When romance narratives are examined in the context of historical developments, such
an idea can, on the surface, seem easily justified. Few courtly romances are populated
with a cast of anything other than aristocratic characters. The interests and activities of
the landed, ruling class –tournaments, hunting, courts and castles, courtesy, and
aventure– do indeed dominate these narratives, giving rise to the assumption that in
choosing to exclude trade and its practitioners, their authors are hostile to society’s
latest economic developments. Yet excavate below the surface, as has been done by
critics such as Ad Putter, Susan Crane, Jill Mann, Eugene Vance and Judith Kellogg,
and the social world and function of romance becomes much less homogeneous and
more complex than has been often supposed.2 A close look at the vast body of English
romances turns up a surprisingly large number of references to trade, expenditure and
repayment, suggesting a greater capacity in romance to adapt to social change and
register contemporary concerns than many critics would have us believe. This chapter
considers the significance of the presence of merchants or finance in just a small
selection of romances in order to indicate more specifically how the genre responded to
social and economic change. With reference to Chrétien de Troyes’s twelfth-century
romances, and with a discussion of the thirteenth-century English romance Floris and
Blauncheflur and the fourteenth-century English romances Sir Amadace, Sir Launfal,
Octavian and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, it proposes that the genre modelled
1
Stephen Knight provides an account of critics who have found little evidence of social reality in the
corpus of medieval English romance and have tended to view it as escapist; see Knight, “The Social
Function of the Middle English Romance”, in Medieval Literature: Criticism, History, Ideology, ed.
David Aers (Brighton: Harvester, 1986), pp. 99–122. Most notably, perhaps, Arnold Kettle argues that
romance was “non-realistic aristocratic literature” (p. 29) whose purpose was to transport the audience to
an idealised world that was better than their own, in which aristocratic values were expressed and
perpetuated; see Arnold Kettle, Introduction to the English Novel (London: Hutchinson, 1951).
2
Among those arguing for a strong social background to romances and an adaptive function are Ad
Putter, An Introduction to the Gawain-Poet (Edinburgh Gate: Addison Wesley Longman, 1996) and Sir
Gawain and the Green Knight and French Arthurian Romance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995);
Jill Mann, “Price and Value in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”, in Medieval English Poetry, ed.
Stephanie Trigg (London and New York: Longman, 1993); Judith L. Kellogg, “Economic and Social
Tensions Reflected in the Romance of Chrétien de Troyes”, Romance Philology 39 (1985), 1–21; Eugene
Vance, “Chrétien’s Yvain and the Ideologies of Change and Exchange”, Yale French Studies 70 (1986),
42–62.
80
itself as a site where the knightly class could come into contact and engage with a profit
economy.
To assume that the known and unknown authors of the many surviving late
medieval English romances wished to grasp hold of the values of a threatened elite and
promote them, in a bid to exclude emergent elements in society, is to assume that the
interests of this elite were far removed from those of the group comprising the threat,
and thus that a clear motive for such exclusion existed. According to one of the articles
associated with the code of European knighthood, there were just three honourable
ways of acquiring wealth: by service at court, by a good marriage, or through war.
Wealth acquired through trade excluded a man from nobility.3 Such a code implies that
trade and gentility were mutually exclusive. Yet it is worth noting that the three
honourable means of acquiring wealth do not cover income derived from the land, in
spite of the fact that knights were among Europe’s great landowners. While in England
no official recognition was given, until mid-way through the fourteenth century, to the
fact that knights might have interests in common with members of the new urban class,
plenty of evidence makes clear that they were involved in the wool trade from the late
thirteenth century. In her study of trade and gentility in late medieval England, Pamela
Nightingale brings new evidence from the certificates of debt produced under the
Statute Merchant of 1283 to show that many knights were taking an active part in trade.
She has found that between 1284 and 1311 there are eighty-seven certificates showing
that knights were debtors for wool.4 Such evidence provides strong indication that
respect for chivalric codes and fear of being excluded from nobility were not enough to
prevent knights and landowners from engaging in trade and dealing with urban
merchants. The desire for economic security was, it seems, stronger.
As owners of large demesne flocks of sheep, the English upper class had reason
enough to show an interest in the wool trade, which, as noted in my Introduction, was
the country’s largest industry. In 1297 English barons estimated that England’s wool
amounted to half the value of the entire land, and in 1341 merchants told the king that
wool was his “rich treasure”. Twelve years later, the Ordinance of the Staple called it
“the sovereign merchandise and jewel of this realm of England”.5 The trade that gave
England economic strength, and was used to back its military campaigns, could hardly
have been ignored by the knights who had a vested interest in their country’s political
3
Maurice Keen, Chivalry (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1984), pp. 148, 154.
Pamela Nightingale, “Knights and Merchants: Trade, Politics and the Gentry in Late Medieval
England”, Past and Present 169 (2000), 36–62; see p. 38.
4
81
and financial status, and they understandably welcomed the chance to exploit their
demesne lands. Nightingale notes that as the export market for wool boomed in the
early fourteenth century, the scale of knights’ investments grew, and increasingly, they
classified themselves as merchants in certificates of Statute Merchant, even though this
was no reflection of their status or background.6 Perhaps the most noteworthy of
Nightingale’s examples of such “mercantile knights” is the Berkeleys, the dominant
local landowners of Bristol, lords of Redcliffe, a suburb of Bristol, with extensive
influence over Somerset, Gloucestershire, Dorset and Wiltshire. The third Thomas de
Berkeley is said to have had twelve knights and twenty-four esquires in his retinue.7 As
Nightingale remarks, if members of a family of such influence and social standing had
begun to describe themselves in Statute Merchant recognisances as merchants, other
local knights and gentry would hardly have considered it a social disgrace.
So what indication does this give about Middle English romance? If, as we have
seen, chivalric pretensions were no barrier to an English gentleman’s engaging in trade
in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the period that loosely corresponds to that of
the genre’s greatest flourishing in England,8 it seems unlikely that they could have
provided a valid motive for romance authors to exclude or disparage the middle class
and mercantile interests. Indeed, the consensus among those critics who see some
social reality reflected in courtly romance is that the enduring success of the genre, from
the twelfth to the early sixteenth century, lay in what Judith Kellogg refers to as its
“adaptive function”.9 Carol Meale considers that the appeal of the fifteenth-century
romance Ipomedon seemed to derive from its “amenability to adaptation as the nature of
society changed”, while Ad Putter sees in both Chrétien’s romances and Sir Gawain
and the Green Knight “no wistful escapism… but a rigorous redefinition of knighthood
which enabled [the authors] to adjust the fictional knight, and hence the knights who
would have listened to their romances, to the changing times”.10 All of this suggests
that adaptability in fiction parallels society’s capacity for change. In this chapter I
propose to explore further the concept of this so-called “adaptive function” of romance,
5
Eileen Power, The Wool Trade in English Medieval History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1941), p.
18.
6
Nightingale, “Knights and Merchants”, pp. 39, 43. Nightingale points out that it was to the advantage of
knights and gentlemen to identify themselves as merchants so as not to risk exclusion from trading
opportunities arising from towns and mercantile syndicates.
7
Nightingale, “Knights and Merchants”, p. 45.
8
Derek Pearsall (ed.), Studies in Medieval English Romances: Some New Approaches (Cambridge: D.S.
Brewer, 1988), p. 11. Pearsall specifies this period as dating from 1280 to 1380.
9
Kellogg, p. 3.
10
Carol Meale, “The Middle English Romance of Ipomedon: a Late Medieval ‘Mirror’ for Princes and
Merchants”, Reading Medieval Studies 10 (1984), 136–191; see p. 157; Putter, Sir Gawain, p. 243.
82
with particular reference to mercantile audience, language and values implied by, or in,
a selection of Middle English romances.
The presence of financial language in romance is an ideal point from which to
launch my discussion. It is generally accepted that romance literature refers to a society
of marked social difference. But the discourse of “repayment” common to romance has
the interesting effect of blurring the boundaries of the different areas of social
experience, for the language of debt and credit is applicable to war, to spirituality and to
trade. It is a language of contest and reciprocity and its prevalence in most literature of
the period may perhaps be linked to the sense of competition that pervaded late
medieval society, and the high degree of social mobility, which made it increasingly
difficult to identify distinct social barriers between the knight and the merchant.
The language of exchange, trade and value is present in romances from as early
as the twelfth century, notably those of Chrétien de Troyes. Chrétien’s love scenes and
battle scenes are the two principal sites of exchange transactions and commercial
language. In Cligés, Chrétien employs a striking combination of the conventional
language of combat, with its sword blows and bruising assaults, and the language of
loans and repayment, to describe a fairly evenly-matched duel between the young hero
Cligés and the duke:
Molt sont andui li vasal large
De cos doner a grant planté,
S’a chascuns boene volanté
De tost randre ce qu’il acroit,
Ne cil ne cist ne s’an recroit,
Que tot sanz conte et sanz mesure
Ne rande chetel et ousure
Li uns a l’autre sanz respit.
Mes au duc vient a grant despit,
Et molt en est iriez et chauz,
Quant il as primerains assauz
N’avoit Cligés conquis et mort.
Un grant cop mervelleus et fort
Li done, tel que a ses piez
Est d’un genoil agenoilliez.
(4032–48)
Both these valiant men are generous with the many blows they strike, each showing himself very
willing to repay promptly what he borrows; and neither of them is reluctant or slow to hand over
to the other capital and interest without counting or reckoning it up. But the duke is extremely
annoyed and burns with anger at not having overcome and slain Cligés in the first assaults. He
deals him such an amazingly hard and mighty blow that he is brought to one knee at his feet.
(p. 147) 11
11
All citations from the original are drawn from Les Romans de Chrétien de Troyes, vols 1–5, ed. Mario
Roques et al., Les Classiques Français du Moyen Age (Paris: Champion, 1975); and the English
translations are from Chrétien de Troyes, Arthurian Romances, ed. and trans. D.D.R. Owen (London:
J.M. Dent, 1993); line numbers refer to the original, page numbers to the translation.
83
The effect of the passage, in which commercial language is encased in a vicious
exchange of blows, is to bring the two spheres of society they represent onto the same
social plane. The knights might just as well be debating the terms of a financial
agreement as exchanging blows.
The easy interchangeability of discourse in this
passage suggests that negotiating the terms of a mutual financial agreement could have
something in common with combat, and that financial heavyweights might resemble
combative knights. The subtle implication of shared mercantile and knightly experience
is daring and sophisticated.
In other romances, in particular in Yvain (The Knight with the Lion), a pledge of
love is described in terms of a commercial contract, and lovers “count up” and “reckon
the days” from one meeting to the next, setting the next appointment on a saint’s day
that, perhaps not by coincidence, is the same feast day around which a fair has grown.
Lunette’s chiding of Yvain in front of the court, when Yvain has just realised that he
has “broken his pledge” to Laudine, because the “time-limit had passed” (ll. 2696—
703; p. 317), is shaped by such language:
Mes sire Yvains la dame a morte
qu’ele cuidoit qu’il li gardast
son cuer, et si li raportast,
einçois que fust passez li anz.
Yvain, molt fus or oblianz
quant il ne t’an pot sovenir
que tu devoies revenir
a ma dame jusqu’a un an;
jusqu’a la feste saint Jehan
te dona ele de respite;
et tu l’eüs an tel despit
c’onques puis ne t’an remanbra.
Ma dame en sa chanbre poinz a
trestoz les jorz et toz les tans,
car qui ainme, il est en espans,
mes tote nuit conte et asome,
n’onques ne puet panre boen some,
les jorz qui vienent et qui vont.
Ensi li leal amant font
contre le tans et la seison.
(2744–63)
“Yvain, though, has dealt my lady a mortal blow, for she believed he would keep her heart for
her and, before the year was out, return it to her. Yvain, you were indeed highly forgetful to fail
to remember that you were to return to my lady within a year. She permitted you to be away
until the festival of Saint John, and you held her in such scorn that after that you never thought
of her again. In her room my lady has marked out every single day and all the seasons; for a
person in love is ill at ease and never able to sleep soundly, but all night long counts up and
reckons the days as they come and go. Do you know how lovers behave? They keep account of
the time and season.”
(p. 318)
84
Of course no credit transaction or financial loan has taken place, but the breaking of the
pledge of love Yvain had made to Laudine appears to have the kind of psychological
ramifications for Yvain that the default of payment of a debt might have had for a
financially troubled merchant, highlighting his indebtedness. Yvain’s crisis, as Kellogg
points out, is not brought on by financial debt, but by overspending; he has spent more
time away from Laudine than he had agreed to.12 Such scenes involving exchange
comfortably allow for the employment of financial metaphor to describe non-financial
transactions, whether they be part of a battle scene or a love scene.
Indeed the
terminology of loan repayment, the kind of riposte in which one knight tells the other,
as Gawain tells Yvain, “if I’ve paid you out anything of mine, you’ve returned the loan
in full, capital and interest” (ll. 6252–4; p. 365), occurs with a frequency and an ease
that implies Chrétien was just as familiar with commerce as he was with combat.
In Chrétien’s romances the references to trade and finance are not limited to
commercial metaphor. By far the most explicit, literal references to merchants in
Chrétien’s romances appear in Perceval.
In one case, merchants are presented
heroically when they arrive at a besieged castle, whose inhabitants are facing starvation,
with a cargo ship laden with provisions. They bring bread, wine, salted bacon and
plenty of livestock. The merchants and their merchandise are warmly welcomed. It is a
scenario similar to that referred to early the following century by Thomas of Chobham,
who wrote more on economic subjects than any of his contemporaries.13 Along with
other thirteenth-century theologians, Chobham considered the function of the merchant
in society. In the Summa de arte praedicandi, Chobham insists on the essential utility
of merchants to society, validating their role as legitimate transporters and distributors
of items of human need. He argues that if commerce were banned it would result in
great shortages because merchants carry goods from regions of abundance to regions of
scarcity, and he goes as far as justifying the making of some profit on the basis of
“improvement” of the goods.14 The debate on the moral position of the merchant was
not to reach its peak until a century after Chrétien was writing, but it is possible that he
was aware of the Church Fathers’ misgivings about merchants and the legitimacy of
their profits, already enjoying a kind of revival in the twelfth century.15 His account of
12
Kellogg, p. 16.
See Odd Langholm, The Merchant in the Confessional: Trade and Price in the Pre-Reformation
Penitential Handbooks (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2003), p. 4.
14
Langholm, p. 29. Langholm is drawing on Thomas of Chobham, Summa de arte praedicandi, VI, 4 10,
301–2.
15
For a discussion of the way ecclesiastics of the period drew on the traditional classical and
ecclesiastical suspicions of the merchant, perpetuating some of them and defending the merchant against
others, see John W. Baldwin, The Medieval Theories of the Just Price: Romanists, Canonists and
13
85
the merchants’ timely arrival in Perceval appears, like Chobham’s Summa, to validate
the making of profit in exchange for the merchants’ transportation services, with the
men from the castle offering to pay them generously:
Et cil dïent: “Beneoiz soit
Dex, qui au vant dona la force
qui ça vos amena a orce,
et vos soiez li bien venu !
Traiez fors, que tot est vandu
si chier com vos le voldrez vandre,
et si venez vostre argent prandre,
que ne vos porrez desconbrer
de recevoir ne de nonbrer
plates d’or et plates d’argent
que vos donrons por le fromant;
et por le vin et por la char
vos donromes chargié un char,
ou plus, se fere le besoigne.”
or ont bien fete lor besoigne
cil qui achatent et qui vandent…
(2540–-55)
The others say: “God be praised for giving the wind the strength to send you drifting here! And
welcome to you! Unload your goods, and they will soon be sold at whatever price you dare ask!
And come quickly to collect your money, for you’ll not get out of receiving and counting the
bars of gold and silver that we’ll give you for the wheat; and for the wine and meat you’ll have a
cartload of wealth, and more if need be!” Now the buyers and sellers have done their business
well.
(p. 408)
This description of courtly society engaging with trade and its practitioners gives no
suggestion that such an occurrence was anything but normal and comes nowhere near to
treating merchants with hostility.
In another scene in Perceval, ladies watching a tournament organised by Meliant
become distracted by Gawain, alone under an oak tree. They begin to speculate on
what he might be doing and why he doesn’t take part in the tournament, and one lady
suggests he is a horse dealer, while another is convinced he is a moneychanger:
“Dex, fet l’une des dameiseles,
cil chevaliers desoz ce charme,
que atant il que il ne s’arme?”
Une autre pucele mainsnee
li dist qu’il a la pes juree,
et une autre redit aprés:
“Marcheanz est, nel dites mes!
— Einz est changierres, fet la quarte.
Il n’a talant que il departe
as povres chevaliers ancui
cest avoir que il mainne o lui.
Ne cuidiez pas que ge vos mante,
Theologians in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries (Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society,
1959); and “The Merchant and his Activities”, in Masters, Princes and Merchants: The Social Views of
Peter the Chanter & His Circle, vol. 1 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970), pp. 261–9.
86
c’est monoie et vesselemante
an ces vessiax et an ces males.
— Voir, moujt avez les lengues males,
fet la petite, s’avez tort.
Cuidiez vos que marcheanz port
si grosse lance com il porte?
Certes mout m’an avez hui morte
qui tel diablie avez dite.
Foi que ge doi Saint Esperite,
il sanble mialz tornoieor
que marcheant ne changeor.
Il est chevaliers, bien le sanble.”
(ll. 5024–47)
“God!” said one of the damsels. “That knight under the hornbeam: why is he waiting to get
armed?” Another, more rash, suggested: “He’s sworn to keep the peace.” Another followed that
with: “He’s a merchant. Don’t tell me he’s interested in tournaments: he’s taking all those
horses to sell!” — “No,” said a fourth: “he’s a money-changer and has no desire to share those
goods he’s bringing with him among the poor young knights today. Don’t think I’m lying to
you: that’s money and tableware in those bags and chests.” — “Really, what very wicked
tongues you have!” says the young girl. “And you’re wrong. Do you think a merchant carries
such a massive lance as he’s carrying? You’ve truly hurt me terribly today by saying such
devilish things. By the faith I owe the Holy Spirit, he looks far more like a jouster than a
merchant or money-changer. He’s a knight, and shows it.”
(p. 441)
The debate continues with the other ladies unanimously telling the young girl that the
mystery man is pretending to be a knight in order to avoid having to pay the tolls and
duties he would owe as a merchant. Although the conversation marks a rare instance in
Chrétien’s romances of merchants and commerce being referred to in negative tones, it
is also a scene in which the two figures become notionally interchangeable. The
argument seems to arise partly from the difficulty of distinguishing between the
appearance of merchants and knights, and because both journey with horses, whether to
tournaments or markets.
This overlap of commercial and knightly pursuits was taking place to an
increasing extent in twelfth-century Champagne, the region in which Chrétien wrote
and received patronage from Countess Marie de Champagne. At the time Champagne
was a semi-autonomous region of north-central France, which happened to lie across
the most important overland routes connecting the Flanders-England axis in the north,
with the Italian-Mediterranean trading network of the south. Twelfth-century Troyes,
likely to have been Chrétien’s native town, was home to one of the region’s several
urban markets, along with Provins, Lagny and Bar-sur-Aube. Gradually these became
the venues for fairs, which evolved out of religious festivals, and which expanded with
the aid of the counts of Champagne, who granted special privileges and safe conducts to
foreign merchants, to become the favoured meeting place for southern and northern
87
merchants and merchandise.16
In a process that points to far from homogeneous
interests, Champagne’s elite, Chrétien’s patrons, were thus sponsoring trade and the
growth of markets in much the same way that they were sponsoring courtly culture and
the literature traditionally linked to it. This simultaneous support for interests hitherto
considered mutually exclusive –commerce and a courtly ideal– is likely to have been
registered in the literature. Once the economic and cultural climate in which Chrétien
was working is taken into account, the presence of commercial terminology and
exchange in his romances seems bound to an inevitable process of cultural crosspollination. This phenomenon alone should be enough to challenge perceptions of the
romance as having little basis in political reality.
If Champagne was one of the great centres of the medieval trading world from
the end of the twelfth and into the thirteenth centuries, England was lagging behind. It
took until the later thirteenth and early fourteenth century for commercial culture to take
hold to the same extent.17 The period of the chivalric romance’s flourishing in England
corresponds to the expansion of trade, the growth of urban populations and increased
mobility in society, prompting me to consider that its popularity may not have been
purely coincidental. But did the genre arise to alleviate the threats associated with the
increased monetisation and commercialisation of the economy, by reassuring the landed
nobility and knightly class that they could retain their wealth and status in spite of these
developments?
Or did it emerge in response to the need to reconfigure knightly
ideology in a competitive market economy?
The thirteenth-century English romance Floris and Blauncheflur (c. 1250) is a
love story that unfolds within a network of commercial language and activity, with the
majority of characters cast as merchants or at least behaving like them. The poem is an
English version of an Old French text Floire et Blancheflor, and the basis of the story is
widely diffused in many European cultures.18 So strong is the sense of transactions,
travel and trade in the English poem that the theme of unwavering, eternal love at times
seems to fade into the background. The tale begins by establishing the strength of the
relationship between the childhood sweethearts, the princely Floris and his friend
Blauncheflur. Floris is seven and it is time for him to begin his schooling, but he can be
16
E.S. Hunt and James M. Murray, A History of Business in Medieval Europe, 1200–1550 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 28ff.
17
Richard Britnell notes that in England the decades immediately before and immediately following 1300
were outstanding for the volume of commerce; see Britnell, The Commercialisation of English Society
1000–1500, 2nd edn (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996), p. 228.
18
The story has several Middle Eastern analogues. Versions of it are found in European literature from
Scandinavia to the Mediterranean. As mentioned in Chapter One, Boccaccio also used the Old French
version of the tale as a basis for his Filocolo.
88
persuaded to attend lessons only when it is agreed that Blauncheflur can take part too.
As Floris grows, his parents begin to fear that his attachment to the girl is too strong and
that because of it, he will never be able to be persuaded to marry “after þe lawe” (40).19
In a recent study, Carol Heffernan argues that incestuous love between the boy and girl
accounts for the out-of-proportion nature of the feelings expressed about this
relationship, a motif that is present in some of the tale’s analogues.20 As the start of the
tale has not survived, it is difficult to be absolutely certain about why Blauncheflur is
deemed an unsuitable partner by Floris’s parents, and incest is one reason that could
possibly account for it. But if the tale is considered in isolation from its analogues, and
in relation to the immediate Old French source, there is more evidence to suggest that,
much like the resistance to the union between Girolamo and Salvestra in the
Decameron,21 the king and queen’s disapproval has to do with Blauncheflur’s inferior
socio-economic background, as daughter of the queen’s lady-in-waiting.
For the
purposes of the present study, the problem of an obstacle to Floris’s suitable marriage
will thus be considered essentially socio-economic in nature.
Removing Floris’s attentions from Blauncheflur becomes the focus of his
parents’ attention. To solve the problem, the king hot-headedly proposes having the girl
killed, but his wife instead proposes that Floris be sent to the land of “Mountargis”
where her sister is married to the leader of that country, Duke Orgas. Floris is told that
Blauncheflur will be forced to stay behind because of her mother’s illness, but in his
absence the queen convinces the king to sell her to Babylonian merchants down in the
port, and at least profit from her, rather than killing her:
“For goddes love, sir, mercy.
At þe next hauen þat here is,
Þer ben chapmen ryche y-wys,
Marchaundes of babyloyne ful ryche,
Þat wol hur bye blethelyche.
Than may ye for þat louely foode
Haue muche Catell and goode.
And soo she may fro vs be brouyt,
Soo þat we slee hur nouyt.”
(144-53)
19
All references to Floris and Blauncheflur are taken from the version based on the edition by Franciscus
Catharina de Vries (Groningen: Druk. V.R.B., 1966), posted by Kathleen Coyne Kelly at
http://www.dac.neu.edu/english/kakelly/floris/floris1-240.html; (accessed 10 December 2005).
20
Carol Heffernan, The Orient in Chaucer and Medieval Romance (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2003), p.
101.
21
See Chapter One, p. 63.
89
This plan sets the course for the rest of the narrative, flavouring it with pungent
mercantile imagery. It is not a case of commercial metaphor being employed, as in
Yvain, but of literal commerce being described. The travelling “marchaundes” who
dock in the nearby harbour will be in the market for “foode”, which they will “bye”
with “catell” and “goode”. In its widest, most commercial medieval sense, “foode” can
be used to mean both “child” and “material goods” (MED), making it apparent that
Blauncheflur is effectively considered by the king and queen to be a human commodity
that they are free to sell or trade as they please.22 But the king is not about to bundle up
his “foode”, march her down to the port and set up the sale himself; rather he calls in a
kind of dealer, in the form of a “burgeise” (155) familiar with business, in fact a kind of
paragon of business ability who knows how to “selle and bygge” (157) well and has
good manners and the right linguistic ability: “moony langages” he “had in his mouth”
(158). As far as I am aware, this marks the first validation of middlemen and merchants
in English romance: they are assigned a genuine function as the brokers of exchange,
possessing recognisable skills that are not shared by everyone in the population. The
“burgeise” is called upon on account of his experience, knowledge and skill, locating
him within the tradition of the late medieval justification of merchants on account of
them having specific functions and abilities.
The effect of this sudden commercial twist is to create an image of the trading
Mediterranean world that is not that far from the likely thirteenth-century reality. In the
first place the idea of the “hauen”, alive with the arrival of foreign merchant ships
burgeoning with exotic cargoes, and the merchants themselves, all trading in a variety
of languages and currencies, suggests the kind of atmosphere that could have been
expected in any number of large late medieval port cities in Italy or Spain, where
Eastern and Western, Muslim and Christian merchants converged to exchange their
wares. The following extracts of letters from an agent of the great fourteenth-century
Pratese merchant Francesco di Marco Datini describes the port of Genoa, attesting to
the cosmopolitan and commercial nature of Mediterranean ports:
A ship has arrived in port from Alexandria and another from Beirut with important cargoes of
spices. But even so the Genoese are asking higher prices than ever for fear of war with Venice.
(3 June 1377) … We are expecting a ship from Rhodes with spices originating in Beirut. The
Genoese are operating out of Rhodes for the present because they are forbidden to trade with the
lands of the Sultan. But it is thought that there will soon be a settlement. (16 October 1384) …
The news arrived today that a Catalan corsair, or perhaps Castilian, has captured, among others,
22
Blauncheflur as slave is the main focus of Kathleen Coyne Kelly’s feminist reading of the romance; see
“The Bartering of Blauncheflur in the Middle English Floris and Blauncheflur”, Studies in Philology 91
(1994), 101–10. While Kelly’s is an extremely valid perspective, my own argument is more concerned
with the author’s treatment of traders than of the commodities they trade in.
90
two Genoese vessels and three Catalan vessels with Genoese goods. The losses are said to
amount to 150,000 florins. (4 February 1400).23
That Floris and Blauncheflur should contain references to exactly this kind of crosscultural trading environment encourages consideration of the romance and its
protagonists in commercial terms.
When Floris returns to his father’s court, he hears that Blauncheflur has died.
Grieving at her tombstone, he takes a knife and prepares to join her in death, prompting
his parents into another course of action. The queen runs to the king, who, given the
drastic circumstances, agrees that Floris should be allowed to marry his sweetheart, if
only to ensure his own safety. They inform Floris of the sale of Blauncheflur to
Babylonian merchants, and he vows to set out to find her. There would be nothing
surprising in this avowal if it were not for the fact that Floris tells his parents to help
him prepare for the journey with seven fine horses, laden with gold and silver, not so as
to reflect his regal status, but to form part of a convincing disguise as a merchant. He
and his party will travel as a group of merchants, led by his father’s chamberlain: “…He
can vs wyssh and reede, / As marchaundes we shull vs lede” (353–4). As Blauncheflur
has been sold, Floris decides on a course of action to win her back that involves putting
himself at the level of her “buyers”. Love, and the idea of rescuing a lady, form the
incentive for the young prince to leave the court and set out on an “adventure”, and
within romance narrative, this is perfectly credible. But the preparation scene, in which
much silver, gold, money and rich clothing is stuffed into the saddle bags, is far from
the more conventional arming scene of a romance, which persisted into the fourteenth
century.
In the traditional arming scene, the knight prepares for departure and
adventure by polishing the finest arms and dressing in a manner befitting both his status
and the martial adventure that await him. Armour, as Derek Brewer writes, represents a
knight’s readiness to meet all contingencies and is a statement about his bravery and
function.24 In Floris and Blauncheflur the replacement of arms with money and armour
with a merchant’s clothing changes the whole tone and topography of the romance; in
his trader’s attire, Floris will journey through a landscape of towns and inns, and if he is
to be heroic, it will be on the basis of mercantile ability. Other elements within the
preparation scene are more conventional, such as the presentation to Floris of a magical
ring that will shield him from harm, and the descriptions of the finery of the silks in the
23
As quoted in John Day, The Medieval Market Economy (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987), p. 167, from
Archivio di Stato, Archivio Datini, busta 183, F. III no. 5, 38, 67.
24
Derek Brewer, “Armour II:The Arming Topos as Literature”, in A Companion to the Gawain-Poet, ed.
Derek Brewer and Jonathan Gibson (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1997), pp. 175–9.
91
saddle and harnesses, but these are overshadowed by Floris’s request for “… monay, /
For to spenden by þe way” (345–6), at once a matter-of-fact recognition of the necessity
of money in general, and a reflection on the nature of the adventure. It is largely a
trading mission and the king’s comment that Floris will have to “wynne” (361)
Blauncheflur takes on an unmistakably commercial significance, in complement to a
military one.
The sense of Floris’s adventure as a trading mission continues once he is on the
road, for, as Kathleen Coyne Kelly points out, he encounters no hostile knights, giants
or dragons on his quest,25 but other merchants, innkeepers and their wives, and
townspeople. His own mercantile disguise is apparently utterly convincing. Stopping
along the way in a couple of inns, Floris listens for news of Blauncheflur, and at the
second inn, when meditating miserably on the girl’s fate, he is asked if he is thinking
about the innkeeper-merchant’s “catelle”:
Þan spake þe Burgays
Þat was hende and Curtays:
"Ow, child, me þynkeþ welle
Þat muche þou þynkest on my catelle."
"Nay, sir, on Catel þenke y nouyt,"
(On Blauncheflour was al his þouyt,)
(457—62)
Their conversation confirms the ‘authenticity’ of Floris’s appearance as a merchant and
creates an authentic tavern atmosphere, where a range of travellers, from pilgrims to
merchants, meets to exchange “tydynges”. Floris is travelling in a largely commercial
terrain, peopled with those whose livelihood depends on buying and selling. When he
tells the innkeeper of his woes, that his thoughts are only on Blauncheflur, his
“marchaundyse” (533–4), the innkeeper gives him further tidings of Blauncheflur: she
has been bought by the Emir, who plans to marry her on account of her beauty.
It is this same figure, described variously as an innkeeper, a merchant and a
burgess, who helps Floris in his quest, instructing him to travel on to a bridge, where he
will find Darys, the next point in this network of information. Interestingly, there is no
sense that this Babylonian innkeeper-merchant-burgess, presumably of a different
language and religion to Floris, is resistant in the face of potential competition in the
form of the young Spanish “merchant”. Rather the two seem to co-exist within a kind
of international community of those who trade, both in goods and information. This
25
Kelly, p. 107.
92
sense of interchangeable roles is enforced further by the rhyming of “burgeise” with
“curtayse” (or “burgays” with “curtays”) twice in the poem, at lines 155–6 and lines
457–8, and has the effect of bringing merchants into the realm of courtesy.26
In
accordance with this positive image afforded the merchant, his information proves
reliable: Darys instructs Floris on a way to enter the bewildering structure of walls,
moats, turrets and towers that make up the Emir’s castle, inside which Blauncheflur is
being held. He finally enters the castle and is reunited with Blauncheflur.
It is difficult to reconcile the number of merchants and the quantity of trading in
Floris and Blauncheflur with the notion of romance as the territory of knights and
knightly activity. Apart from the middle class characters, the romance is entirely at ease
with the concept of a trading knight and with recognising commercial value and the
buying power of money. It seems unlikely that such ease can be the product of a
society in which anxiety about the rise of merchants and trade, and the threat they
presented to traditional social bonds and the role and status of the knight, was rife.
Pamela Nightingale observes that in the late thirteenth century, knights were most
active in the wool trade where professional English merchants were least established,
and where urban influence was the weakest.27 This may account for the absence of any
anti-mercantile sentiment in Floris and Blauncheflur. It seems likely that, for as long as
the urban-based traders presented no competition for established knightly niche
markets, there would have been no reason for the land-owning upperclass to feel
threatened by merchants. Merchants and knights could co-exist harmoniously in the
commercial world, engaging in trade and lending and borrowing. The poet chooses to
embrace trade as a means of resolving knightly problems, and as an alternative to
combat; in doing so he appears unaware of, or completely oblivious to, any social
tensions created by trade.
In Floris and Blauncheflur, market values inform the king and queen’s decision
to sell Blauncheflur and prompt Floris’s decision to disguise himself as a merchant and
trade his way to finding her again. Value in its most economic sense drives the plot, but
there is a distinct lack of separation of knightly from mercantile approaches to finance
and trade. Consideration of merchant activity in terms of social and ethical value is
much more evident in the fourteenth-century romances I wish to discuss. The mid to
late fourteenth-century romance Sir Amadace follows the fortunes of a spendthrift
knight. Like Floris and Blauncheflur, it thus ventures well beyond the bounds of the
26
Putter, Sir Gawain, p. 236, cites a different edition of the poem in which the “curtais” / “burgais”
rhyme occurs four times.
93
kind of romance whose finance is purely metaphorical. It begins with a situation which
is in part the antithesis of what romance is traditionally perceived to offer –that is, “a
world characterised by nobility of spirit, economic ease, benevolent monarchy and
emotional fulfilment”28– to present a portrait of a knight who, with the help of his
steward, learns the gravity of his financial status. At first glance this scene presents a
world in which economic necessity is the main factor and in which emotional, let alone
material or political, fulfilment seems implausible. Out of necessity, Amadace decides
to mortgage all his lands and leave the country for seven years until he is able to repay
his debts. But before he goes, he decides on one final fling; he will “gif full ryche
giftus/ Bothe to squiers and to knyghtis;/ To pore men dele a dole” (40-42)29 in a show
of charity designed to ensure that no-one other than the steward learns of his “grete
mischefe” (29). Finally, Amadace sets out “als fast as evyr he myghte” (63), with his
last remaining forty pounds. This sum does not last long. The knight’s journey brings
him to a stinking chapel, where, on entering, he finds a weeping woman bemoaning the
fact that the corpse of her merchant husband has been left to rot because of an unsettled
thirty pound debt to another merchant. When Amadace asks the woman the manner in
which her husband “spendutte … his gud” (147) and thus finished in debt, her response
parallels Amadace’s own situation.
Like Amadace, the merchant gave gifts to
“gentilmen and officers, [and] grete lordus” (148–49), fed “pore men” every day (153)
and generally “wold not spare” (160). Amadace recognises that, on account of his freespending, the merchant “myghte full wele be of [his] kynne” (209), and he resolves to
spend his last forty pounds on repaying the merchant’s debt, and ensuring a fine burial.
This accomplished, he departs again, this time into a forest, where he wanders
disconsolately.
Just at the point when Amadace is praying most desperately, and at his most
despondent, a White Knight appears out of nowhere, on a white horse, offering him a
chance to amend his unfortunate state by fighting in a tournament, provided he is
willing to share half his winnings. The conveniently-placed wreck of a richly laden
ship enables Amadace to dress himself finely in preparation for the tournament. He
wins the tournament, and in this way he attracts the attention of the king, subsequently
winning his daughter’s hand in marriage.
Happily married, with an infant son,
Amadace is reminded of the terms of his covenant with the White Knight when the
27
28
Nightingale, “Knights and Merchants”, p. 38.
For this succinct description I am grateful to Kellogg, “Economic and Social Tensions”, pp. 2—3.
94
latter reappears to claim his share of the winnings. But the White Knight is not
interested in the lands, jewels, towns or castles that have become Amadace’s; rather, he
demands of Amadace “Half [his] child, and halfe [his] wyve” (731). At the point when
Amadace is ready to divide his wife and son, the White Knight stops him and reveals he
is actually the merchant whose burial Amadace had enabled. The White Knight leaves
all Amadace’s winnings intact, wife and child included, and the tale ends with Amadace
becoming king on the death of his father-in-law.
The romance seems fairly conventional when its structure is set out in simple
terms. Like most knights of romance, Amadace sets out from his own familiar territory
on a kind of quest. A chance meeting soon provides him with the opportunity to display
his generosity and noble character, which then leads to another chance meeting with a
mysterious knight, and the making of a agreement.
Amadace wins a series of
tournaments and a rich bride. Later, he is reminded of his agreement, and compelled to
keep it, even though it involves acting against his impulses. Finally, the tale ends
happily, with Amadace’s fortunes reversed and his good character rewarded. Yet the
overwhelmingly economic motivation of the plot sets it apart from other romance
narratives. The adversity Amadace faces takes the form of massive debts, making his
quest about getting out of debt, while the covenant he agrees to with the White Knight,
who offers to help him in this quest, is about the division of “winnings”. Furthermore,
the tale’s cast of characters includes not only one merchant, but two.
Sir Amadace combines two romance motifs, that of the Spendthrift Knight, and
that of the Grateful Dead, wherein a dead person offers to help the hero on condition of
sharing the rewards. The poet makes his most significant change in his use of the latter,
as, unlike any other romance that combines the two motifs, he casts a merchant, rather
than a knight, in the role of the unburied corpse.
This original and significant
development creates a situation in which Amadace, a knight, must interact with a
merchant, or rather act on behalf of a dead merchant. To legitimate this, the poet
creates a scene in which the knight identifies with the merchant’s plight to such an
extent that he is compelled to act. When Amadace hears the merchant’s widow explain
that her husband gave generous gifts to the “gentilmen,… officers, … grete lordus, that
was his perus” (148–49), held “riche festus” (151), and fed “pore men” (152) every day,
he recognises a pattern of behaviour that he is more than familiar with. So familiar is it,
in fact, that Amadace is quite moved by it and declares: “Yondur mon that lise yondur
29
All citations are taken from the TEAMS edition of the poem, edited by Edward E. Foster, in Amis and
Amiloun, Robert of Cisyle, and Sir Amadace (Kalamazoo, Michigan: Western Michigan University for
95
chapell withinne,/ He myghte full wele be of my kynne,/ For ryghte so have I wroghte”
(208–10), thus uniting the two in a kind of brotherhood, or community of big spenders
and gift-givers. What makes the poem so striking at this point is its easy willingness to
group knights and merchants together, and acknowledge that they might share a
common value system, or at least have a common interest and experience.30 Amadace
and the dead merchant are taken beyond traditional groupings or categories (“knight”
and “merchant”), and united together in another community of mercantile knights and
chivalrous traders.
But what might the Amadace-poet have hoped to achieve in
introducing this unusual development? Is the merchant presence best accounted for by
Derek Pearsall’s claim that the social context of Middle English romance is
overwhelmingly popular and non-courtly, because its intended audience is primarily a
lower or lower-middle class of “social aspirants who wish to be entertained with what
they consider to be the same fare, but in English, as their social betters”?31 If this is the
case, we might expect mercantile, middle class culture to be favoured in Sir Amadace.
Although it is nearly impossible to determine the specific provenance of the poem, it
appears that the immediate audience, or even patrons, may have in fact been members
of the gentry.32 My discussion aims to explore the romance in terms of the kind of
social function the merchants may have in the narrative. Their presence within the
social fabric is clearly registered, but the issue of whether mercantile culture is
ultimately favoured or critiqued by the tale is less easily determined. The merchant
presence is perhaps a sign that, far from seeking to transport a threatened knightly class
into a safe world of fairy, safely removed from the profit economy, the genre instead
modelled itself as a site where that class could come into contact and engage with a
profit economy, making the boundaries of romance fluid.
One of the most perplexing problems of trying to understand Sir Amadace is that
its celebration and rewarding of extreme spending, the central theme, seems to conflict
somewhat with its didactic tone. Understandably, this conflict has become the site of
the majority of critical interest in the poem. There is every indication that the postdeath state of the free-spending merchant as the White Knight is one of beatitude, and
Amadace, in life, eventually finds rich reward. Even while the hero’s spending is made
TEAMS, 1997).
Ad Putter, “Gifts and Commodities in Sir Amadace”, Review of English Studies 51 (2000), 371–94; see
p. 376. Putter states that as far as he is aware, “Amadace is the only chivalric romance to suggest that a
merchant and a knight might be kindred spirits”.
31
Pearsall, “The Development of Middle English Romance”, p. 12.
32
Putter, “Gifts and Commodities”, p. 371, acknowledges that nothing can be said with certainty about
the primary audience of the romance, but suggests the two extant manuscripts link it to the class of
middling landowners in the north-west Midlands.
30
96
to seem excessive, and Amadace starts out appearing a fool, ultimately his great
knightly courage manifests itself in his financial risk-taking. The poet’s apparently
comfortable acceptance of free spending as a meritorious activity suggests that he was
more familiar with medieval attitudes to gift-giving and spending than are modern
readers. The importance of lavishness and free-spending as medieval courtly virtues
cannot be underestimated. In Cligés a father advises his son to give gifts liberally and
to be lavish in his spending:
“Biax filz, fet il, de ce me croi
Que largesce est dame et reïne
Qui totes vertuz anlumine.
…
Par soi fet prodome largesce,
Ce que ne puet feire hautesce,
Ne corteisie, ne savoir,
Ne gentillesce, ne avoir,
Ne force, ne chevalerie,
Ne proesce, ne seignorie,
Ne biautez, ne nule autre chose;
…
Einsi la ou largesce avient,
Desor totes vertuz se tient,
Et les bontez que ele trueve
An prodome qui bien se prueve
Fet a .vc. dobles monter.”
(ll. 188–90; 197–203; 207–11)
“Dear son,” he says, “generosity, believe me, is the mistress and queen that gives lustre to every
virtue… Liberality on its own makes a worthy man; and that can’t be achieved by high birth,
courtliness, wisdom, nobility, wealth, strength, chivalry, boldness, authority, beauty or anything
else… so where liberality appears it surpasses all other virtues and increases five hundred times
the qualities it finds in a worthy upright man.”
(p. 95)
The emphasis placed on largesse as the most important virtue is easy enough to
swallow in an emperor’s court in Cligés, in which capital appears limitless, but when
the importance of free spending is emphasised in close proximity to bankruptcy, as is
the case in Sir Amadace, it becomes somewhat more complex.
In his illuminating apology for Sir Amadace, Ad Putter succeeds in defending
the poem and explaining some of its ambiguities and tensions, with a convincing
examination of the narrative in terms of the sociological and economic implications of
gift-giving. The poem, he argues, sets one kind of economy against another, one of
“gift exchange” versus one of “commodity exchange”.33 Amadace and the first
merchant represent “gift exchange”, while the stingy merchant-creditor represents
“commodity exchange”. Putter’s reading accounts for the poem’s religious overtones in
33
Putter, “Gifts and Commodities”, p. 378.
97
this way, arguing that Amadace and the first merchant are rewarded for their spending
because their generosity reflects that of God, the “gift transactor par excellence”;
within the romance, Christ is described as having “wanne” the world through the
precious sacrifice of his “blode” (410–11).34 The poem’s narrative logic, then, is that
Amadace is compensated for having defied “the logic of commodities and common
sense” because the gift he makes enables him to establish a lasting bond with the
recipient.35
It is hard not to be persuaded by Putter’s thoughtful and compelling
analysis. Nevertheless, the tension remains. Putter himself poses the possibility that it
may be accounted for by historical conditions, and a couple of the points he raises
fleetingly support this notion.
Putter cannily observes that the merchant and the knight possess the same threehundred pounds a year income in rent, a subtle detail that does more than just deepen
the connection between the two. It also registers something of the processes of social
differentiation evident in many late fourteenth-century urban administrative documents.
For taxation and legislative purposes, greater merchants of a certain income were
effectively in the same bracket as the gentry, even while, as I noted in the Introduction,
sumptuary legislation attempted to ensure that differentiation between social groups was
possible. Moreover, as Hilton outlines, regulations often attempted to provide a scale of
status equivalences between town and country, so that urban merchants who owned city
land and gentry landowners in the country might be considered on the same level.36 All
of this is pertinent to Sir Amadace, whose apparently mixed messages appear directly
related to the fact that knightly and mercantile incomes and ideologies were becoming
harder to distinguish between. The fact that Amadace and the merchant have the same
income from rent reflects the fact that merchants were increasingly property owners.
That the two should also have in common a particular approach to spending suggests
the appropriation of courtly values, such as largesse, by the mercantile elite. The
romance is thus informed by the gradual hybridisation of the knightly and mercantile
ideals to form what may be called the knightly trader, or the mercantile knight.
In Sir Amadace, ideas about spending generate both plot and characterisation.
Notably, the merchant who becomes the Grateful Dead is described with none of the
satirical Estates qualities often assigned to merchants –greed, a tendency to dishonesty,
pretension and an unswerving focus on profit– and is described instead as displaying
largesse and having little regard for profit whatsoever. His creditor, on the other hand,
34
35
Putter, “Gifts and Commodities”, p. 380.
Putter, “Gifts and Commodities”, p. 380.
98
embodies some of the qualities more typically assigned to merchants and is of course
excluded from this brotherhood of liberal spenders. Amadace never experiences with
him the sense of recognition and kinship that he feels with the first. This second
“marchand” scorns the very activity which unites Amadace and the dead merchant.
When Amadace broaches the subject of the dead merchant’s burial, the reaction of his
creditor is swift and unwavering:
… “God gif him a sore grace,
And all such waisters as he wasse,
For he sittus me nowe sare;
For he lise there with my thritti powunde
Of redy monay and of rowunde,
Of hitte gete I nevyr more.”
(247–52)
No reasoning on the part of Amadace, who urges the merchant-creditor to remember
that it is up to “Gode” to forgive, will dissuade him from hoping, rather viciously, “That
howundus schall… thayre bonus tognaue” (263–4). This absolute refusal of leniency
and resolute determination to get his money back, along with his apparent desire for
revenge, set him in a bad light and align him with the long tradition of the greedy,
stingy, profit-oriented merchant.
The poet exploits to its maximum potential the
folkloric motif of a creditor who has the power to forbid burial because of debt, to
ensure the merchant-creditor can be seen as nothing but antipathetic. Without this
detail, the straightforward desire for repayment might seem perfectly justifiable. It
seems, then, that the poet is seeking to set up two opposing models of mercantile
behaviour with, on the one hand, the merchant (and the insolvent knight) whose
largesse is boundless, and, on the other, the merchant who is excessively concerned
with material balance sheets.
The other point raised by Putter that is deserving of further attention, is that of
the poet’s use of the term “waister”.37 Given the fourteenth-century usage of the term,
its appearance in Sir Amadace, where it is used by one merchant to describe another,
does not seem random. The notion of wasters, and its opposite, winners, appealed not
just to the author of the roughly contemporary Wynnere and Wastoure, but also to
Langland and, it seems, the Amadace-poet. Having the miserly merchant call the other
a “waister” indicates that the Amadace-poet was also experimenting with these two
polarised habits of free-spending lavishness and saving, and seeking to assign them
moral values. In this case Amadace and the White Knight represent the lavishness, and
36
See Hilton, “Status and Class”, p. 13.
99
the merchant-creditor the saver.
Like the Wynnere-poet, the Amadace-poet seems
undecided as to whether the conflict between “waster” and “winner” should be aligned
with that between prodigality versus avarice, or expenditure versus providence.38 The
narrative seems to allow for both possibilities, in particular in the timely appearance of
the shipwreck, which, while acceptable in terms of romance magic, oddly shows
Amadace and the White Knight as at the one time relying on providence and yet also
seeking to display prodigality. The treatment of Amadace’s steward is also significant.
Stephen Knight has pointed out that the stewards of romance, as masters of a knight’s
material needs, are often treated with hostility,39 but this is not the case in Sir Amadace.
This knight’s “stuard” calculates along with his master, offering level-headed advice
about financial management where Amadace persists in spending. In no way is the
steward later punished for his moderate advice. On the contrary, when Amadace is
ultimately freed from his covenant with the White Knight, and on the verge of being
crowned king, he sends for his steward and others, ensuring they are richly paid, and
they stay “ther with him for to leng” (850). So moderate calculation has its place
alongside reckless spending, making the poet’s assignation of moral value appear
somewhat esoteric. Unlike Wynnere and Wastoure, Sir Amadace is a romance, not a
debate poem, and the complex arguments dramatised in the former do not have a place
in the latter, but the reference and the implication are certainly there. What is clear is
that “winners”, even while unnamed, are condemned by implication, in the very clear
favouring and rewarding of the “wasters”.
Like Sir Amadace, the late fourteenth-century Sir Launfal by Thomas Chestre
follows the tale of a spendthrift knight who finds himself in an impoverished state and
must face the social consequences. And like Amadace, Launfal’s fortunes are reversed
largely through an otherworldly encounter. It is the chance meeting with the fairy
princess Dame Triamour that brings him wealth and restores his social status, and
ultimately it is she who saves his life. Neither Launfal nor Amadace engages in trade or
any form of enterprise to recover his status, even though excessive spending has
37
Putter, “Gifts and Commodities”, p. 379.
I am indebted to Stephanie Trigg’s exposition of the shifting significations of “winning” and “wasting”
in the poem Wynnere and Wastoure. Trigg gives three complex readings of the poem, which do not
apply to Sir Amadace. I have borrowed some of the terminology she uses in her Aristotelian reading,
exploring the conceptual influence of the Nicomachean Ethics on the poem, which positions “avarice”
and “prodigality” as two extreme vices, with “generosity” the golden mean between them. See Trigg,
“The Rhetoric of Excess in Winner and Waster”, in Medieval English Poetry, ed. S. Trigg (Burnt Mill:
Longman, 1993), pp. 186–202.
39
Stephen Knight, “The Social Function of the Middle English Romances”, in Medieval Literature:
Criticism, Ideology and History, ed. David Aers (Brighton: Harvester Press, 1986), p. 107. Knight draws
38
100
resulted in their poverty. Even though Launfal’s martial ability is put to the test,
culminating in the tournament against Sir Valentine in Lombardy, it is only the
regaining of his financial solvency on account of the fairy financing that equips him
with the means necessary for the pursuit of chivalric adventure. Even though both Sir
Amadace and Sir Launfal stand out from the large body of English romance literature
on account of the unusual linking of knighthood with debt, that their financial problems
should be solved through otherworldly encounters suggests that the authors of these
romances stop short of recognising and supporting the pursuit of business by knights.
The narratives suggest a dissociation of knighthood from the process of money-making
or business. In this way the two embody a strange and confused rhetoric, at once
acknowledging the material aspect of knighthood and the threat of social insecurity this
presented, while at the same time seeking to imply that this same status can be restored
only through non-commercial means.
Sir Launfal owes its high supernatural content to its origins as a folkloric Breton
lai, a fact acknowledged by the poet in the first stanza, who introduces his tale as being
the subject “of a ley” (4).40 Marie de France’s Lanval (c. 1160s), the only Arthurian
tale in a group of ten lais purportedly adapted from stories sung by the Bretons, is one
of the sources of Sir Launfal. A tale most likely belonging to the highest AngloNorman aristocracy, Lanval has a particular focus on love.41 Chestre’s most obvious
and immediate source for his version was Sir Landevale, an earlier English version of
Marie’s lai, conflated with a version of the anonymous French lay Graelent.42 In
addition, some of the developments Chestre made in the tale are commonly assumed to
derive from one or more lost sources. A non-knightly background is often assigned to
Chestre in an attempt to account for the tale’s preoccupation with wealth and
possessions, and its distinct lack of elegant narrative style. It is thought that he wrote
for a non-aristocratic audience.43 What is of particular interest in this chapter is the
romance’s references to an urban community and to finance, and the effect they create.
Whereas Marie’s Lanval traces the adventures of a knight of King Arthur’s who
is initially bereft of wealth and love, Sir Launfal begins with a hero who is initially
particular attention to the case of Libeaus Desconus, which follows the fortunes of Gyngelayne, and
features a steward called Sir Lombard, a name with clear financial connotations.
40
All citations are taken from Sir Launfal, ed. A. J. Bliss (London: Thomas Nelson, 1960).
41
A. C. Spearing, The Medieval Poet as Voyeur: Looking and Listening in Medieval Love-Narratives
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 97.
42
Anne Laskaya and Eve Salisbury (eds), The Middle English Breton Lays (Kalamazoo: Western
Michigan University for TEAMS, 1995); and W. R. J. Barron, English Medieval Romance (Burnt Mill:
Longman, 1987), pp. 22–3 and 190—4.
43
Spearing, The Medieval Poet, p. 97.
101
wealthy but faces debt and financial ruin soon after. The tale is an unusual romance
because its narrative is neither set in motion by nor resolved according to common
romance patterns. The knight does not set out on a quest, or on an adventure, but leaves
Arthur’s court in displeasure, after being excluded from the queen’s gift-giving. At the
conclusion of the romance, he is not integrated back into the court, but departs into the
world of fairy. Throughout, he is an unlikely hero, lacking in self-sufficiency and skill,
and unable to reverse his fortunes single-handedly. Until Launfal’s departure from
Arthur’s court, he is the king’s steward, an office conferred on him, the narrator tells us,
on account of “hys largesse & hys bounté” (31). This special appointment marks an
elevation of status added by Chestre, and is most likely part of a scheme to validate his
role and inject it with greater importance than is present in the source material.44
Chestre’s “appointment” of his hero to the role of steward can in no way be construed
as hostile or derogatory.45 Rather it seems bound to his desire to emphasise the quality
of “largesse”, a quality usually associated with money and spending. It is a clear
indication of the importance placed on gift-giving and generosity and highlights the way
these two traits are a condition of nobility. None of the other knights of the Round
Table is “so large” (35) as Launfal.
Neither spending nor reckless generosity, however, leads to Launfal’s departure
from the court. Rather, it is his firm disapproval of Arthur’s new bride Guinevere, and
their resulting mutual dislike of each-other: Launfal and some of the other knights are
aware of her reputation as having “lemmannys vnþer her lord” (47), so many lovers, in
fact, that there is “noon end” (48). Nevertheless, Launfal’s dislike of Guinevere comes
to a head in a gift-giving ceremony and it is this that sparks his immediate departure.
The wedding of the royal couple is marked with much feasting and fine company,
culminating in gift-giving. Once the meal has drawn to its magnificent close, and the
table clothes are “drawen alle” (62), Guinevere distributes gifts to all the company as a
mark of her “curtasye” (69). All, that is, except Launfal, who is quite offended by the
exclusion. Inventing the excuse of his father’s death, he departs from court straight
after the ceremony.
Launfal’s destination, the town of Caerleon, is the antithesis of the world at the
court. Noble reputation and birth status count for little, as we learn when the mayor of
44
Spearing believes the Launfal story is one of wish-fulfilment, in which the hero ultimately “gains
without effort what every young man wishes, wealth and love”. Spearing argues that the poet introduced
the battle scenes to make his character seem more heroic. The appointment to steward, a particular role at
court, is similarly intended to elevate his status; see Spearing, The Medieval Poet, p. 98 and pp. 106–7.
45
This contradicts Stephen Knight’s earlier mentioned theory that stewards, as masters of a knight’s
material needs, are often treated with hostility; see Knight, “The Social Function”, p. 107.
102
the town, a former servant to Launfal, shows utter disrespect for him, now that the
knight no longer appears a wealthy figure of influence, having left the court. When the
mayor sees Launfal coming, “wyth two knyȝtes, & oþer mayné” (93), he welcomes him
enthusiastically, asking after the king. But once Launfal lets it be known that he has
departed from the king, the mayor’s warmth vanishes. Thus when Launfal asks him for
accommodation, the mayor pauses, in a psychologically real moment of mental
calculation, before stating that seven knights from “Lytyll Bretayne” (114) have already
taken lodging there. In a flash of bitter realisation Launfal understands that the mayor
sets no store by their former master-servant relationship now that the knight no longer
represents a chance of self-advancement for the mayor. In the town, the knight can no
longer rely on traditional relationships and feudal obligation. It is only when Launfal
rides off in disgust that the mayor relents, offering humble accommodation in a room
beside his orchard. Launfal and the king’s two nephews accept it. Later, when Lady
Triamour supplies Launfal with unlimited riches and he returns to the town with his
“good” (389) in evidence, the opportunistic mayor is suddenly friendly, and wanting to
dine with the knight. But Launfal’s cutting rebuke shames him into silence:
“Syr Meyr, God forȝelde þe!
Whyles y was yn my pouerté
Þou bede me neuer dyne:
Now y haue more gold & fe
(Þat myne frendes han sent me)
Þan þou and alle dyne.”
(409–14)
The world of Caerleon is one in which a servant can rise to the role of mayor of the
town in a single generation, and one in which money can buy respect.
A noble
reputation counts for little if it is not complemented by cash. The mayor of the town, its
civic head, shows disregard for the old social order and its values and structures.
In Caerleon, Launfal had spent his money so wildly that he found himself in debt
within a year after leaving Arthur and the court. As in Sir Amadace, the knight’s
spending is not condemned as foolish by the narrator, implying that Launfal has spent in
the way that his position and reputation required him to. If there is a faint note of
authorial reproach, it can be discerned only in the choice of the word “sauagelych”
130), with its overtones of excess, but this descriptive is just as likely to function as
approval, implying that he spends as wildly as he is expected to. As Launfal faces
poverty, the king’s nephews, Sir Hugh and Sir John, take their leave of him, agreeing to
103
return to Arthur’s court without mentioning the knight’s impoverishment. Their words
give some indication of the importance placed on the outward vestiges of knighthood:
Þey seyd, ‘Syr, our robes beþ torent,
And your tresour ys all yspent,
And we goþ ewyll ydyȝt.’
(139–41)
Now that the young knights can no longer meet the vestimentary requirements of their
position, they must return to the financially safe folds of the court. Their tattered
clothing operates as a pertinent metaphor for Launfal’s general decline in material wellbeing and the potentially tattered state of his reputation. On their arrival at court, Hugh
and John in fact come up with an elaborate justification of their poor dress, loyally
preserving Launfal’s reputation, at least at court. In the image-conscious Caerleon,
meanwhile, it is already too late. When Hugh and John decide to put an end to their
material misery by returning to court, Launfal remains behind. He wallows in misery,
much like Amadace when he wanders disconsolately in the woods, and, on account of
his “pouerté” (187), is excluded from the town’s celebrations for the Feast of the
Trinity. And in a town where reputation is a product of calculation, his is in shreds;
literally he amounts to nothing: “Lyte men of hym tolde” (189).
The language used to describe Launfal’s rapid accumulation of debts –“So
sauagelych hys good he besette / Þat he ward yn greet dette” (130–1)– is reminiscent,
through its “besette”-“dette” couplet, of Chaucer’s portrait of the Merchant in the
General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales, of whom it is said: “This worthy man ful
wel his wit bisette: / Ther wiste no wight that he was in dette” (I, 279-80).46 But
whereas the Merchant is often accused of using his wit to disguise his debts to ensure
that his reputation and credit potential remain intact, it is clear that Launfal is incapable
of employing wit to get out of his debt, and the debt is more than evident to all in
Caerleon. The knight, as Chestre presents him, can only be seen to spend money and
not to actively make it. While it is important for him to settle his debts, Launfal is only
able to do so after his meeting with Lady Triamour, rather than by his own
perseverance. Chaucer’s merchant, on the other hand, can easily be imagined repaying
creditors with capital borrowed from another source, much like the merchant of SeintDenys’s complex web of dealings in the Shipman’s Tale, as we shall see. In Sir
46
References to Chaucer are to The Riverside Chaucer, 3rd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988).
It should be noted that in Sir Thopas Chaucer is considered to be imitating –and poking fun at– the tail
rhyme stanzas and metrical peculiarities of Sir Launfal and other popular romances. See J. A. Burrows’s
notes to Sir Thopas in The Riverside Chaucer, p. 917.
104
Launfal, the knight’s dependence on fortune and his distance from business signal
Chestre’s traditionalist stance, even while he readily recognises the increasing
importance of financial value to society. The free-spending habits and resulting debts
traced in the romances of Sir Amadace and Sir Launfal suggest that merchants were not
the only ones in debt, but that perhaps they were the only ones able to provide a
practical solution for a return to financial solvency.
It has already been noted that “largesse” is Launfal’s most highly praised quality
throughout the narrative, yet at times there is an inconsistency to his noble behaviour,
suggesting that in some ways, the poet may have missed the point. Alongside liberal
spending, the chivalric ideal emphasised restraint, even on the field, and the
renunciation of revenge.47 Although Launfal is abundantly charitable once he has
received his fairy financing, feeding the poor, endowing religious orders and freeing
prisoners, his generosity of spirit is at times lost under displays of exaggerated
viciousness, both physical and verbal. This is illustrated by his behaviour in Lombardy,
where he has been challenged to joust against the giant knight Valentine. Having slain
Valentine, he shows no generosity of spirit towards his opponents, felling them all
unfeelingly, then jauntily returning home, “wyth solas & wyth plawe” (612). Such
descriptions tend to fall outside what might be classified as ideal knightly behaviour,
with its emphasis on charity and modesty, restraint and discipline.48 Likewise, his
unmeasured and somewhat spiteful retorts to both the mayor and Guinevere are a great
distance from the subtlety and courtly manners shown by Gawain as he politely rebuffs
his would-be seductress in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. According to Caxton’s
translation of a French version of Ramon Lull’s Libre del Orde de Cauayleria in The
Book of the Ordre of Chyvalry, “foule wordes ben ageynst thordre of chyvalrye”.49
Launfal’s words at times suggest a desire to “repay” his opponents or those he believes
he owes, either metaphorically or literally. They lack the humility and refinement that
was expected of the true knight, and accordingly cast doubt on the poet’s understanding
of largesse and of knightly behaviour in general. A. C. Spearing goes as far as to
suggest that there are times when Launfal’s spending seems more calculating and
47
C. Stephen Jaeger, The Origins of Courtliness: Civilising Trends and the Formation of Courtly Ideals 939–
1210 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985), p. 211.
48
Keen, Chivalry, pp. 10, 153. Keen examines the way the medieval ideal of chivalry drew on the work
of Classical chivalric writers and their thoughts on the martial life of Antiquity.
49
The Book of the Ordre of Chyvalry, ed. Alfred T. P. Byles (London: Early English Text Society, 1971),
p. 113.
105
ostentatious than it ought to, and that it too suggests a non-aristocratic conception of the
nature of largesse.50
What significance might Chestre and the Amadace-poet’s highlighting of
“largesse” above other chivalric qualities have? Largesse is the aspect of the courtly
ethic most closely associated with wealth, and therefore with money. In all literature
associated with chivalry, from theories to romance narratives, runs a common thread of
ambiguity about nobility and wealth, as Maurice Keen has noted; on the one hand the
importance of holding poor knights in honour and esteem is emphasised, supporting the
idea of innate nobility, while elsewhere the descriptions of lavishness and finery, of
feasting and dress, and the expectation that these reflected well on the order, imply that
wealth was a prerequisite for knighthood.51 Poor knights were a real phenomenon in
fourteenth-century England and Edward III started a charity for them.52 Launfal, when
impoverished, never loses the esteem of the poet, yet he is scorned by the inhabitants of
the town on account of his condition. When the procession of “well yharneysyth men”
(377) rides through the town to present Launfal with the riches and arms promised by
Lady Triamour, it is stopped by a boy in the marketplace, who wants to know the
destination of “all þys good” (389). When he is told it is for Launfal, he says with a mix
of scorn and disbelief: “Nys he but a wrecche! / What þar any man of hym recche?”
(394–5). Launfal is scorned for his poverty, and, lacking wealth, he has lost his status.
His own concern with maintaining a sound reputation of financial security at court in
his absence, demonstrated when he asks Arthur’s knights not to reveal his poverty,
indicate that no amount of nobility of spirit is enough in the court. The value of innate
nobility has been greatly reduced. Ultimately it is fair also to question the reasons for
Launfal’s return to court. Chestre would have us believe that he is welcomed back on
account of his martial ability, demonstrated in the tournaments, but the fact that Launfal
is summoned to court to fill once again the role of steward, a position he could not
possibly have held while impoverished, indicates otherwise. Guinevere’s interest in the
newly-returned knight is aroused, disproportionately, by his “largesse”:
For hys largesse he was louede þe bet,
Sertayn, of alle þo.
Þe quene lay out & beheld hem alle:
‘I se,” sche seyde, ‘daunce large Launfalle;
50
Spearing, p. 110.
Keen, Chivalry, p. 154.
52
See Sylvia L. Thrupp, The Merchant Class in Medieval London [1300–1500] (Chicago: The University
of Chicago Press, 1948), p. 239.
51
106
To hym þan wyll y go..
(644–8)
Launfal may be handsome, but consideration of his good looks is secondary to that of
his generosity; the chivalric quality bearing the most overwhelming associations with
money is that for which he is most praised.
Much has been made of Chestre’s embellishment of the tournament scenes. It is
generally agreed that these changes constitute an entirely original addition to the poet’s
source material, even though the purpose and effect of their inclusion is widely
debated.53 Often dismissed as hackneyed or overly conventional in style, they are
usually accounted for as being part of the poet’s scheme to make Launfal appear more
heroic.54 And perhaps it is not entirely coincident that Launfal fights a “lombard”,
given his chronic indebtedness. As James Weldon emphasises, the hero engages in
tournaments that are intended to test his knightly ability.55 Within the scope of the tale,
Launfal succeeds in this aim, increasing his reputation, even while it is clear to us that
his success hinges entirely on the powers of the fairy princess. Dame Triamour’s
magical purse equips him with the arms and horse necessary to joust, and the magical
servant Gyfre ensures that he can win any battle, even though their very presence of
course highlights Launfal’s lack of self-sufficiency and personal merit. Chestre has
chosen to develop the tournament scenes, but remains oblivious to the way that the
magical elements of the lay prevent Launfal becoming a true martial hero. Yet it is
clear that these tournament scenes are part of the poet’s craving to give his knight a
martial identity, as Weldon points out, 56 and although they lack credibility, they point
to the poet’s steadfast unwillingness to consider any other resolution to his problems.
Evidently Chestre wishes to use the competitive arena of the tournament to resolve
Launfal’s crisis of reputation, rather than considering any other potentially competitive
arena, such as the town, as a possible site of resolution.
Just how unlikely and
unrealistic a solution it is is shown in the simple fact that the reversal of Launfal’s
fortunes depends entirely on magic, although the poet sees nothing unacceptable about
this. As in many popular romance narratives, the hero’s interests are paramount.
53
Most recently, James Weldon argues for the centrality of the tournaments to the romance. His
argument outlines the varying critical reactions to them. James Weldon, “Jousting for Identity:
Tournaments in Thomas Chestre’s Sir Launfal”, Parergon n.s. 17.2 (2000), 107–23.
54
Spearing, p. 107. Spearing argues that the biggest changes wrought on the poem by Chestre are to do
with his own identification with Launfal, and determination to give him greater status than is present in
Sir Launfal’s sources and analogues.
55
Spearing, p. 112.
56
Weldon, pp. 118–19.
107
Real knights lacked the benefits of magical servants and purses containing
limitless quantities of gold. Pamela Nightingale’s study shows that from the twelfth
century they were having to consider urban-based investments, such as the
establishment of new towns and fairs and markets, as possible options for resolving
their debts and retaining their status.57
Chestre, though, appears influenced by a
militaristic culture that perpetuated the idea of knights being interested only in the booty
of the battlefield rather than an income derived from their own land, let alone trade. Sir
Launfal reflects the way knights were inexorably bound up in the real economic
structures, in particular the ever-widening network of financial exchange, illustrated in
Launfal’s debts and Gyfre’s repayment of them.
Yet the romance includes no
recognition of knightly business, nor hint that knights could resolve their difficulties
with the kind of dealings that were engaged in by “mercantile knights” such as the later
fourteenth-century knight Sir Guy Brian, who was a member of the exclusive
fellowship of the Order of the Garter and had a varied career in military campaigns,
royal service and the world of trade.58 Even knights who were veterans of numerous
military campaigns were actively involved in trade, and the court was a long way from
the simplicity and self-contained isolation implied in this romance, and many others.
Launfal pays no attention to the pursuit of profit, other than (possibly) that gained from
the spoils of the battlefield, and there is no indication that his interests in any way
correspond to either those of the mercantile class, who are not represented in the
romance’s cast of characters, or indeed those of the tale’s urban-dwelling characters.
As Launfal faces his final challenge, supernatural forces once again help him to
victory. But it is the moment when he loses everything, prior to victory, that reveals
more from a social perspective. When Launfal turns down Guinevere’s approach, he
rashly breaks his promise to Lady Triamour, not only boasting of her existence, but also
of her beauty. The consequences are predictably dire. Guinevere runs to Arthur,
accusing Launfal not only of having adulterously propositioned her, but also of boasting
of an imaginary woman’s superior beauty, while Launfal loses the support of his fairy
princess. In the moment of his awful realisation that he has lost his love, Launfal also
notices his empty purse and the blackening of his armour:
He softe hys leef, but sche was lore,
As sche hadde warnede hym before—
Þo was Launfal vnfawe!
He lokede yn hys alner,
57
58
Nightingale, “Knights and Merchants”, pp. 37–8.
Nightingale, “Knights and Merchants”, pp. 52–9.
108
Þat fond hym spendyng, all plener,
Whan þat he hadde nede,
And þer nas noon, forsoþ to say,
And Gyfre was yryde away
Vp Blaunchard hys stede.
All þat he hadde before ywonne,
Hyt malt as snow aȝens þe sunne
(In romaunce as we rede);
Hys armur, þat was whyt as flour,
Hyt becom of blak colour…
(730-43)
The association of the three is very significant: loss of the proof of his manhood in the
form of a woman; loss of capital; and loss of martial ability, highlighted by the
blackened armour. It is a moment realised with greater dramatic tension than is found
elsewhere in the poem. Perhaps I am unwisely reading too much into it, but it seems
that the poet wants to emphasise this moment, as, after all, knights in the latter half of
the fourteenth century faced reduced wealth from traditional sources, a diminishing
martial role on account of military changes –the increasing use of infantry and artillery–
,59 and the threat therefore to self-perpetuation and status. It is estimated that by the
1430s there were no more than two hundred knights in the whole country.60
From the outset, the poet signals an interest in knightly spending. As Launfal
takes his leave from Arthur, the king insists he “Tak… greet spendyng” (81) and offers
two of his own nephews as company. In doing so he recognises that the assets and
means of knights were in no way infinite, and that a court retainer was essential to the
financial well-being of the knight. It is a significant acknowledgement in the usually
splendid and financially carefree world of the romance and perhaps reflects the
absorption of one of knightly society’s anxieties into the narrative; no longer are
knightly futures certain and knightly finances assured. In Sir Launfal we witness a
court and a town in peace-time, and the violence of the tournaments is not in the name
of political defence, but of self-defence and the retention of status. When assessing
Chrétien’s references to commerce in his twelfth-century romances, Judith Kellogg
argued that in romance there is frequently an enormous difference between intent and
effect.61 The same can be applied to Sir Launfal. Chestre’s understanding of chivalry
may be distorted, possibly because his own social position was outside the ranks of
knighthood, but he is alive to the social change around him and renders it with some
59
Peter Coss, The Knight in Medieval England 1000–1400 (Stroud: Alan Sutton Publishing, 1993), p.
170.
60
Coss, p. 134; and Nightingale, “Knights and Merchants”, p. 60.
61
Kellogg, p. 3.
109
success, even though he was very likely trying to suppress it. There is ample evidence
to suggest that Chestre wanted to make Launfal more heroic and sought to create as
complete a portrait as possible of what he considered an ideal knight should be. This is
evidenced in the account of the knight’s philanthropic activities upon regaining wealth;
he feeds the poor and endows members of religious orders in between feasting and
celebrating (421–32). But at the same time, Chestre’s evocation of material values
shows an acute, even cynical, awareness of the importance of appearance and money to
status. Only money can allow Launfal to fulfil a martial function, prove himself as a
knight, and meet the level of generosity that earns him respect. To an extent, it can be
useful to consider Sir Launfal as a reference to the breakdown of feudal society and a
manifestation of nostalgia for a society that no longer exists. There can be no doubt
Chestre wanted to promote knighthood and the values it stood for, or at least the values
he believed it stood for.
Any references to payment and financial debt are best
explained as part of an unconscious injection of contemporary reality into the romance,
rather than an intentional grounding in material detail.
The quantity of material detail in Sir Launfal has a strange effect. On the one
hand the poem, like Sir Amadace, marks a distancing of knightly wealth from the
making of money through non-courtly means, while on the other, it registers the
importance of money and the growth of material concern. The references to social
reality and finance ultimately do little to shorten the distance between court and town,
serving instead to highlight the distance and mutual incomprehension dividing the more
mercantile town dwellers and the world of the knights.
Yet the poet’s
acknowledgement of the necessity of money to the fulfilment of the expectations and
aims of knighthood gives it a quality that other romances lack, and fits in with
Kellogg’s comments about the “adaptive function” of some romances.
Despite
Launfal’s vindication, the ending of the romance is unusual, for rather than remaining at
court, and being welcomed back a hero into his previous place, he must retreat into the
realm of “Fayrye” with Dame Triamour. This is somehow an unsatisfactory resolution
in terms of Arthurian prestige, as his abandonment of the court points to Arthur’s failure
to recognise and reward him sufficiently, and as such may be construed as a warning to
rulers.
The issue of bloodlines and innate nobility versus material wealth, which is
touched on in Sir Launfal, is nowhere more pronounced than in Octavian, another
fourteenth-century romance with non-noble characters. A “family” romance, it traces
the separation of the Roman Emperor Octavian’s family, following the fortunes of his
110
two sons, separated in infancy, and culminating in the eventual reunion of the entire
family. While one son, Octavian “junior”, is recognised as noble and taken into a
king’s household in Jerusalem, the other is adopted by a Parisian burgher, Clement, and
his wife, and named “Florent”. It is in the unfolding of Florent’s story that the theme of
innate nobility is examined in greater detail. Brought up in a bourgeois household, and
destined by his adoptive father for an apprenticeship with a “bouchere” (648),62 Florent
nevertheless shows an instinctive interest in falcons, fine horses, and knightly
adventure. Like the merchant-creditor of Sir Amadace, Clement at first regards these
interests as impractical and wasteful, even dishonest. But eventually he is forced to
confront his adopted son’s true nature and noble lineage. More than just drawing
attention to the fact that Clement is of a lower social class than the one Florent was born
into, the poet seems concerned with emphasising his different approach to money.
Opportunities for emphasising the contrast between Clement’s mercenary values and
Florent’s innate noble values are maximised in the narrative, and often take place in the
context of scenes involving financial dealings or expenditure.
Clement’s general
concern with price and expense is apparent from the moment in which he bargains with
two outlaws in order to purchase the infant they have kidnapped, and then names him
Florent, in what seems a reference to the currency “florence” (579) with which he has
been bought.63 It remains a constant against which Florent’s manners and values are
contrasted.
For a family romance whose primary focus seems initially to be the separation
and process of reunion of the emperor Octavian’s family, much of the narrative is
devoted to that of Clement. Unlike the case of his brother, who is brought up in an
adoptive noble household, in Florent’s case the poet, who injects the domestic scenes in
Clement’s household with detail, humour and pathos, constructs a kind of social
experiment by placing a noble child in a bourgeois family as a means of proving the
prevalence of bloodlines over money. He emphasises Clement and his wife’s nurturing
of Florent, and the fact that the child is brought up just as their natural son, contrasting
it with the instances of the child’s instinctively noble behaviour.
From the start,
Clement’s wife assures her husband:
“…Full faire sall I hym fede
62
All citations are taken from the TEAMS on-line version of the poem, edited by Harriet Hudson, and
originally published in Four Middle English Romances, (Kalamazoo: Michigan: Western Michigan
University for TEAMS, 1997), available at: http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/octavfrm.htm
(Accessed 10 December 2005)
63
Hudson, p. 13, suggests the link between “florins” and Florent’s name, and the association seems
overwhelmingly obvious due to the similarity of the two.
111
And yeme hym with oure awen child,
To that he come of helde,
And clothe tham in one wede.”
(624–7)
Such details serve to deepen the portrait of Florent’s upbringing; they will make the
emergence of his noble manners in spite of the extent of the nurture seem all the more
extraordinary. The important roles assigned the “burgesse and his wyfe”, who love
Florent “als thaire lyfe” (640–1), and the domestic scenes in their home, add an
unconventional and homely touch to the romance, lending it what Derek Pearsall has
called a “pungent authenticity”.64 While also giving emotional depth to the story, the
sheer quantity of space given over to the portrait of this bourgeois family, and the detail
with which it is rendered, make the poet’s desire to highlight the triumph of bloodlines
and ensure it is convincing all the more evident.
The poet leaves no doubts about the results of his social experiment, drawing
attention to the mutual incomprehension of Clement and his adoptive son, and the clash
of their very different values. No amount of nurture within a Parisian bourgeois home
can succeed in subduing Florent’s innate noble nature and martial ability. His adoptive
mother, before his adoptive father, is prepared to accept this. At first it is only the fact
that he is exceptionally “faire” to the point that “All the rewme wyde and longe / Worde
of the childe spronge”. (637–8) When Florent goes “over the brygge” (652) to what
should have been his first day as a butcher’s apprentice, he instead swaps Clement’s
oxen for a falcon, blissfully unaware that his father will not be quite as delighted as he
is. Clement is furious and accuses Florent of being a “thefe” (677), punishing him with
a beating. As Florent hurries back to tend his falcon, and straighten its feathers, he
thinks it a “wondur” (688), unable to comprehend why his father would want to beat
him for bringing home such a fine creature. Likewise Clement is made to appear
wholly baffled by his son’s affinity for “noble” animals. A similar event follows, when
Clement, having relented and allowed Florent to stay at home with him, then sends him
on an errand to take his brother a purse containing forty pounds. As Florent goes
“thorow the cyté of Parys” (718) he sets eyes on a “feyre stede”, white as milk, bearing
a bridle with silk reins, instantly decides he must have it and swiftly offers its owner the
money intended for his brother. He returns home “with grete pryde” (740) and places
his fine new purchase not in a stable, but in “the halle” in Clement’s house (743).
Predictably, Clement reacts exactly as he did over the falcon.
64
Pearsall, “The Development of Middle English Romance”, pp. 11–35; see p. 30.
In both episodes,
112
Clement’s wife intervenes, urging her husband to have mercy on their adopted child and
recognise the import of his different blood:
“Syr, mercy,” sche seyde, “ for Crystys ore,
Owre feyre chylde bete ye noght.
Ye may see, and ye undurstode,
That he had never kynde of thy blode
That he these werkys hath wroght.”
(755–9)
The wife’s recognition that a certain behaviour and value system might be different
because of “blode”, that it might be innate, saves Florent from further punishment, but it
is not until later in the narrative that Clement himself, in a flash of realisation, actually
forgives his adoptive son and recognises the value in his different, noble behaviour.
It is as “Childe Florent” strikes at Arageous that Clement expresses his fatherly
love for him and admits that the noble pursuits and the desire for knightly adventure
might not be so foolish after all, and possibly even praiseworthy:
“Now thynke me righte in my mode
That thou hase wele bysett oure gude,
Swylke lawes for to lere.”
(1013-15)
Here Clement is made to endorse the old justification of the privileges of knighthood,
typically found in Lull (and Caxton), as reward for the protection of the non-armigerous
classes,65 suggesting that the whole scene has in fact been contrived to indicate the
necessity of knighthood. When Florent hears his father’s encouragement he summons
the new energy required to deal the final, fatal blows to the giant: “When he the speche
of Clement herde, / His herte bygan to bolde” (1029–30). But what kind of “gude” is
Clement referring to as he spurs Florent on? That of the population of Paris, about to be
saved from the threat of Muslim invasion, or the material value that he himself is likely
to derive from his heroic son’s impressive victory? The spontaneity of Clement’s
encouragement as he leaps on the city wall and hollers at his son points to the former,
but elsewhere Clement is the object of ridicule for his calculating mentality and focus
on “florence bothe brode and bryghte” (580). This reference to shining coins, which is
repeated several times in the narrative, is part of the stylised estates satire treatment of
Clement, in which his main focus is bargaining and expenditure. His other aspect
comes from the substantially padded-out naturalistic portrait of him as a wellintentioned father.
65
See, for example, Caxton, The Book of the Ordre of Chyvalry, p. 14.
113
I have already noted that the poet seems particularly interested in Clement’s and
Florent’s opposing attitudes to money, and I would now like to turn to this interest.
When Florent purchases his fine steed he offers its owner, a merchant, ten pounds more
than the asking price of thirty pounds, and in doing so engages in exactly the kind of
spending without calculation that Amadace advocates and is ultimately rewarded for. It
is a purchase that highlights Florent’s distance from his father’s penny-pinching
mentality, and contrasts with the scene in which Clement purchases Florent for twenty
pounds, after heckling over the asking price of forty, telling the outlaw-vendors they
know little about merchandising: “I trowe ye kan ful littill gude” (584).
It is
understandable, therefore, that Clement reacts to the purchase of the horse in just the
way he did to the exchange of his oxen for the hawk, viewing it as a badly negotiated
transaction. When he calls Florent a “thefe” it suggests that he construes Florent’s
actions in purely financial terms, as acts of reckless spending. Clement is able to
comprehend neither Florent’s desire for these creatures, nor his largesse.
Clement’s distance from noble largesse is again highlighted at the celebratory
feast of Florent’s knighting, to which he is invited “for the childes sake” (1184). There
his behaviour, both in terms of lack of social graces and concern with expenditure, set
him apart from his son and the noble company, and make him the object of ridicule. As
Florent is led up before the Emperoure and the “kyng of Fraunce”, heralded by
minstrels, Clement turns to the minstrels and gives “some a stroke and some two”
(1206), showing utter disrespect for these symbols of courtly sophistication. Then,
thinking he will personally have to fund the celebration, and evidently panicking at the
thought of the expense of such decadence, he bundles up the mantles of the nobles and
takes them home as a kind of surety. When they ask for them back he replies: “‘By
Goddes daye, / For youre mete moste ye paye / Or ye gete tham no more.’” (1217–19).
This is cause for laughter among the nobles, and Clement calms down when he is
reassured by the king, who explains that he will “‘paye for alle’” (1225). In a final act
of mercantile calculation, which indicates his distance from even comprehending noble
largesse, Clement then reaches into his purse and casts “thritty florence” onto the table,
saying “Hafe here for my son and me, / I may paye for no more” (1248–50). At this
point the poet makes an interesting observation about Clement:
Clement was curtaise and wyse,
He wend alle had bene marchandyse,
The pryde that he sawe thore.
(1250–2)
114
Unlike the consumers of the noble household, Clement is a “seller”, and through him
we view the finery of its furnishings, and the expensive food, as items that were once
for sale. The passage stands out because it is one of the few occasions on which we are
given the opportunity to view such a household through bourgeois eyes. The use of the
descriptor “curtaise” is particularly striking as it follows a similar description of Florent,
in the preceding stanza:
The childe was sett with gret honowre
Bytwixe the kyng and the Emperoure,
Sothe withowtten lese.
The Emperoure gan the childe byholde;
He was so curtayse and so bolde…
(1235-9)
While to the modern reader Clement’s reaching into his pocket to offer his share might
well seem to match the modern meaning of “courteous” as “polite, respectful and
considerate”, it is Florent’s behaviour which matches the Middle English usage of the
word as “having manners fit for a royal court”. While “curtayse” for Florent is intended
sincerely, “curtaise” for Clement is ironic. But apart from highlighting the difference in
their manners, it seems the poet wishes to emphasise, with the use of “courteous”, that
both are behaving as well as they can, even if according to entirely different values.
The scenes at the feast, like the earlier scenes in which Clement dusts off his
armour, which hasn’t seen the “sonne” for “seven yere” (920), and forcefully draws the
rusty sword from its scabbard, knocking himself out in the process, so that Florent may
prepare to fight the giant, are all part of Octavian’s element of social farce. The
audience is invited to laugh mercilessly at Clement, much as the knights and nobles do
at the feast, but Clement’s role in the narrative is not merely to provide comic relief.
The story of Octavian was widely diffused in different versions, but the interest in
conflicting class values derives from the Old French source. It is likely that the figure
of Clement, in the original romance, would have had added significance for readers in
the commercial regions of France. John Simons has suggested the Clement of the
fourteenth-century English versions would have been read, by later fourteenth-century
audiences, in the context of the Peasant’s Revolt and social unrest.66 Yet Clement is not
motivated by social aspirations or pretensions. His is a world in which birth status is
accepted and in which his natural son will be a “chawndelere”, and his adoptive son a
“bouchere”, stable and unambitious occupations for the sons of a burgess. It is easy to
115
imagine that the Paris bridge on which Florent exchanges Clement’s oxen for the
squire’s falcon would have been the site of much commercial exchange; more than a
means of crossing the river, it would have been a lively meeting point for those of
different classes, lined by shops and tradesmen’s stalls.67 Clement appears a content
and unassuming inhabitant of the urban world. His complete lack of understanding of
and interest in the trappings of knighthood and nobility do not give any sense that he is
aspiring to upward mobility, an aspiration for which townspeople and merchants are
ridiculed elsewhere. In no way is this “burgesse of Pareche” (574) described in terms of
Sacchetti’s tale about the artisan who tries to commission Giotto to paint him a coat-ofarms on his shield, or the pretensions of the guildsmen of the General Prologue to The
Canterbury Tales, whose elaborate finery points to their social aspirations. Ultimately,
Clement is rendered sympathetically and tenderly, in spite of his lack of noble manners.
Clement introduces concern for payment, expense and calculation into a world
in which fine furniture, clothing and food appear in great abundance, but usually
without mention of how they were purchased. Nowhere has the poet chosen to impose
on the narrative a sense that the noble largesse is threatened by the classes whose more
limited means dictated the necessity for calculation. Unlike that of the high-born
Launfal, in Octavian the nobles’ affluence appears boundless and their political status
and power is threatened not by the under-classes but by “hethynnes” (788), which might
be construed as confirmation of the poet’s nostalgia for an imagined past in which the
only threat faced by a harmoniously ordered society was external.
There is no
indication of nobles having to become “mercantile” in order to maintain their lifestyle
and profit from their estates, nor any hint that they feel threatened by the presence of a
townsman. Not once does the poem give a sense of the real entanglement of knightly
and mercantile interests, of the interests of town and country, and the social competition
that was unfolding in England from the end of the thirteenth century. On the contrary,
at every turn the vast social divide between townsman and knight or noble is
underscored, and the possibility of social advancement on the part of Clement is denied.
Society seems only momentarily fluid when Clement is assigned the important noble
feat of getting hold of the Sultan’s magic horse, but this does not lead to him being
personally rewarded. Commerce in the narrative is neither excluded nor vilified, but
66
Harriet Hudson, ed., “Octavian: Introduction”, Octavian, p. 4; and John Simons, “Northern Octavian
and the Question of Class”, in Romance in Medieval England, ed. Maldwyn Mills, Jennifer Fellows and
Carol M. Meale (Cambridge: Brewer, 1991), pp. 105–12; see p. 108.
67
Many medieval bridges were major sites of commercial exchange and, like harbours, they seem to have
operated in literature, and even more so in iconography, as symbols of that exchange and meeting points
for different cultures.
116
made separate, in the same way that the presence of a “burgess” recognises
townspeople, traders and tradesmen as comprising a significant part of the social fabric,
but at the same time makes overwhelmingly clear their social distance from the knightly
class. In Octavian, there is no sense of a community of gentlemen and merchants with
shared interests and common values.
Figure 1: Illustration for a love lyric by Dietmar von Ast, 14th century,
showing a nobleman giving his mistress a pole laden with girdles and purses.
Value is a complex and at times contradictory matter in medieval romance, with
different romances embodying, and at times consciously addressing, its various senses
at different levels. The sale and purchase of a beautiful girl drives the narrative of
Floris and Blauncheflur; the knowledge of market realities prompts the king and queen
to desire to profit from her, and like all commercial transactions, theirs establishes a
117
chain reaction. Value in its most economic sense generates the plot. Sir Amadace and
Sir Launfal embody an awareness of market realities and knightly finance; but more
than this, they are concerned with the configuration of the ethical values associated with
money and spending, particularly as they pertain to knights and merchants.
In
Octavian, knightly and mercantile values are distinct and irreconcilable. Sir Gawain
and the Green Knight, which is perhaps the most famous and widely read Middle
English romance, is shaped by a general concern for ethical values, and it is to this
romance that I shall now turn. Not one literal commercial transaction takes place in the
poem, and the world through which the hero Gawain journeys is strikingly empty of
trade, monetary payment and middle and lower class figures. Nevertheless the poem
registers a distinct interest in exchange and value, indicating that the poet was aware of
the possibility of romance functioning as a site in which social issues could be
addressed and value systems adjusted and developed accordingly.
The poem, which begins with the sudden appearance of the otherworldly Green
Knight on New Year’s Day at King Arthur’s court, and ends with its hero Gawain’s
resolution of his adventure and return to the same court, appears to conform to the most
traditional of romance conventions. Gawain’s adventure, which requires him to deal a
blow to the Green Knight, and then seek him out the following New Year’s Day to
receive a similar blow, involves a typical chivalric dilemma. Either Gawain must meet
the terms of the agreement and accept the “pay-back” from the Green Knight, which
will mean almost certain death, or risk breaking the covenant and being considered a
coward or false. For a true knight, of course, there is no real choice in the matter and
Gawain accepts the adventure. Once he sets out into unfamiliar territory he is faced
with a series of further challenges, always of a nature as intriguing as that presented by
the Green Knight, and always with the common concern of testing his chivalrous
conduct.
When the Green Knight arrives at Arthur’s court in the midst of the festive
season, he claims he has been drawn there on account of the outstanding chivalric
reputation of the Round Table. This reputation encompasses physical strength and
prowess, involving horsemanship and arms, as well as general courtesy:
“…Bot for þe los of þe, lede, is lyft vp so hyȝe,
And þy burȝ and þy burnes best ar holden,
Stifest vnder stel-gere on stedes to ryde,
Þy wyȝtest and þe worþyest of þe worldes kynde,
Preue for to play wyth in oþer pure laykeȝ,
And here is kydde cortaysye, as I haf herd carp—
118
And þat hatȝ wayned me hider, iwyis, at þis tyme.
(258-64)
But the Green Knight has left behind his “schelde” and “scharp spere” (269) because he
has come “in pes” (266), and what he proposes to these “worþyest” of knights is a
“gomen” (273). With the Green Knight’s proposal of the beheading game, which is
intended to challenge the chivalric values of Arthur’s court, the poet immediately places
the focus on value. As John Barnie observes, many of the noblest virtues promoted by
the chivalric code –prowess, loyalty, courtesy and “mesure” (moderation)– potentially
contain the very vices they are designed to overcome.68 Some of the virtues, prowess
and moderation for example, might themselves be considered conflicting. Prowess is
often indistinguishable from foolhardiness, in keeping with Aristotle’s view of courage
as the mean between cowardice and rashness, but more like rashness. This is apparent
in Florent’s insistence on taking on the heathen giant Arageous in Octavian and in
Arthur’s reaction to the Green Knight’s challenge in Sir Gawain. In Sir Gawain the
boyish Arthur, who “watȝ so joly of his joyfnes, and sumquat childgered” (86) is the
first to hotheadedly respond to the Green Knight’s challenge. Shame at having the
greatness of the Round Table questioned prompts him to move towards the mysterious
stranger, requesting the axe:
Þe blod schot for scham into his schyre face
and lere;
He wex as wroth as wynde,
So did alle þat þer were.
Þe kyng as kene bi kynde
Þen stod þat stif mon nere,
Ande sayde, ‘Haþel, by heuen þyn askyng is nys,
And as þou foly hatȝ frayst, fynde þe behoues.”
(317–24)
He proceeds to seize the axe from the enormous green knight and swing it around,
somewhat madly, as if intending to strike. Arthur’s courage in leaping up is here
overshadowed by his lack of measure, and the Green Knight’s stroking of his “berde”
(334) suggests he regards the young king’s actions with a degree of an irony. The
Green Knight is questioning the somewhat reckless courage needed to launch into an
attack without understanding the enemy. By initially exemplifying the complex and
68
John Barnie, War in Medieval Society: Social Values and the Hundred Years War 1337–99 (London:
Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1974), p. 95.
119
potentially contradictory nature of chivalric value, the Gawain-poet sets the course for
what will become a wider interrogation of chivalric and, more generally, ethical value.
Critical thinking places Sir Gawain and the Green Knight within the milieu of
cosmopolitan London and the court of Richard II, even though the Gawain-poet wrote
in a dialect which is north-west Midlands in origin.69 The qualities of elegance and
refined manners promoted in Richard II’s court were seized on by his detractors as
being responsible for the demise of traditional knighthood, as this extract from Thomas
of Walsingham’s Historia Anglicana shows:
These were more knights of Venus than knights of Bellona, more valiant in the bedchamber than
on the field, armed with words rather than weapons, prompt in speaking but slow in performing
acts of war. These fellows, who are in close association with the King, care nothing for what a
knight ought to know. 70
This new kind of knight, whose refined social behaviour, as opposed to militaristic
prowess, has become the focus of his own endeavours, and on which Gawain seems to
be modelled, was seen by some as a threat not only to knighthood as an institution, but
to the political stability of the country. As Ad Putter outlines, the conservative clerics
who continued to insist on the tripartite model of society were chief among those who
viewed the pursuit of courtly manners instead of martial ability as a threat to the
harmonious workings of society.71 By placing the emphasis on manners, eloquence and
tact in his romance, and arming his hero with a legalistic and contractual vocabulary,
the Gawain-poet indicates a willingness to adapt romance to the real demilitarisation of
knighthood unfolding in the late fourteenth century, and to the increasing tendency of
knights to become involved in urban administration, diplomacy and commerce.72
In all of the challenges he faces, Gawain’s martial ability is required largely only
when fighting against creatures, mythical or otherwise; combat ability is taken for
granted and certainly never called into question. Rather it is the knight’s courtesy, and
adherence to a social, as opposed to a militaristic, code of conduct that are continually
examined. The nature of the challenge is such that it is clear martial ability is unlikely
to make a difference, and the poet continually reminds us that the task at hand is for
Gawain to prove his reputation by keeping to the terms of his agreement and pursuing
the adventure:
69
See M.J. Bennett, “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the Literary Achievement of the North-West
Midlands: the Historical Background”, Journal of Medieval History 5 (1979), 63–88.
70
Cited in Patricia J. Eberle, “The Politics of Courtly Style at the Court of Richard II”, in The Spirit of the
Court, ed. G. S. Burgess and Robert A. Taylor (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 1985), pp. 168–78; see
p. 176.
71
Putter, Sir Gawain, p. 226.
120
Now þenk wel, Sir Gawan,
For woþe þat þou ne wonde
Þis auenture for to frayn
Þat þou hatȝ tan on honde.
(487–90)
By making the principal character’s courtesy and moral integrity the focus of his
narrative, the Gawain-poet indicates an interest in the re-definition of chivalry and the
nature of value.
The poet’s emphasis on social transactions, and his continual
subordination of action to reflection,73 suggest that his romance might also have been
perceived as somewhat radical by the kind of late fourteenth- and early fifteenth-century
readers for whom Thomas Chestre felt the need to give an elaborate account of
Launfal’s martial prowess. In many respects, the Gawain poet’s concern with the
subtleties of agreements, promises and contracts aligns his romance much more closely
with the concerns about social relations evident in Decameron and the Canterbury
Tales.
If a romance such as Sir Launfal ultimately pays homage to a more traditional
formulation of heroism, in which the hero must prove his physical strength, Sir Gawain
and the Green Knight registers the process by which martial deeds make way for an
emphasis on inner strength.74 From the moment when Gawain accepts the adventure, it
is his own inner conflict rather than armed conflict which is at the heart of the narrative.
As he nears the second New Year’s Day and the time of his appointment with the Green
Knight, Gawain comes across the Castle of Hautdesert and the court of Bertilak, where
he is welcomed as a guest for several days. It is here that he faces the most complex of
his inner challenges, making this passage in the poem the most concentrated site of
reflection on value and chivalric conduct. The concern for keeping the initial agreement
with the Green Knight never far from his mind, Gawain enters into what he believes to
be a separate and unrelated covenant, with far less at stake than in the beheading game.
Once Gawain promises Bertilak that he will partake in the “exchange of winnings”, the
poet weaves into this complex exchange a vocabulary of legal and commercial
contracts, and a number of references to value that resonate with philosophical and
market implications.
Before examining some of the detail of the exchange that unfolds within the
walls of Hautdesert, I would like to draw attention to the way the poet renders this
72
Putter, Sir Gawain, p. 228.
Putter, Sir Gawain, p. 3.
74
For a detailed discussion of this transformation of the heroic ideal see Putter, Sir Gawain, p. 157.
73
121
exchange, and the language it is expressed in, all the more striking and strange by
taking pains to set up a world in which statutory and commercial discourse seem to
have no place. The plot unfolds within two courts, and within the seemingly untamed
space of the forest and the countryside that separates them. It has often been noted that
the landscape Gawain rides through gives the impression of being geographically real;
along the way specific indications of his location and the direction he is travelling in are
given. More striking though, is the way this landscape is devoid of people and towns.
As he travels towards the north of Wales, through woods and in hilly regions, he is
companionless: “Hade he no fere bot his fole bi frytheȝ and douneȝ” (695). There is a
sense of savagery in this landscape, with its densely forested areas and rocky
promontories, gushing streams and deep valleys. Aside from the few people he meets,
who have incidentally never heard of a strange green knight, the only creatures he
comes across are in the form of monsters and wild animals:
Sumwhyle wyth wormeȝ he werreȝ, and with wolues als,
Sumwhyle wyth wodwos þat woned in þe knarreȝ,
Boþe wyth bulleȝ and bereȝ, and boreȝ oþerquyle,
And etayneȝ þat hym anelede of þe heȝe felle
(720-3)
Gawain never has to deal with other knights, let alone merchants. Not once does he see
villages, nor agricultural labourers working in the fields. There are no inns at which to
rest and eat, nor any sign of the transportation of merchandise that would point to
commercial activity. In this, the poem differs greatly from Chrétien’s romances, in
which the knights’ journeys are peopled with workers and townspeople, the wild
landscapes interspersed with farmland and towns, and the cost and value of clothing and
armour never far from the descriptions of the court’s finery. Although the recognition
of production and the source of fine food and textiles does not play an enormous role, it
is slipped into many knights’ typical journey as a natural detail of the landscape.75 In
Chrétien’s romances there are also many accounts of townspeople, and numerous
references to tradesmen, such as the blacksmiths and stablehands essential for the
upkeep of horses. In the Castle of Hautdesert, the Gawain-poet creates “a castel þe
comlokest þat euer knyȝt aȝte” (767), whose boundary walls are two miles long, whose
interior decoration bears the fruits of the finest foreign textile work, and whose lavish
feasting is created from a variety of the best ingredients, all miraculously arrived in this
122
extremely remote castle that would seem cut off from the realities of cultivation and
industry. In fact perhaps the only allusion to industry and commerce comes in a
reference to the provenance of luxury textile. Once Gawain is inside the castle, he is led
into a chamber whose finery is almost dazzling. His eye lingers over it admiringly,
observing “cortynes of clene sylk wyth cler gold hemmeȝ” (854) and “Tapiteȝ tyȝt to þe
woȝe, of tuly and tars” (858), a reference, surely, to the trade in luxury textiles
emanating from the Eastern Mediterranean. All these superlative descriptions of luxury
and finery give the impression of a court with unlimited wealth.
It was of course completely unnecessary for the Gawain-poet to recognise the
origins of the castle’s exquisite interior decoration and fine cuisine, or to people his
poetic terrain with labouring side characters, non-knightly travellers and passing town
life, but when considered in the light of other romances, their absence is all the more
marked. Chronicles of real feasts and festivities that occurred in the fourteenth century
could hardly ignore the expense of mounting such grand occasions. In accounts of two
of Richard II’s festive season sojourns of 1397–8 and 1398–9 at Lichfield in the
Midlands –situated in a landscape that is evocative of the countryside where Gawain
rides, where the festivities were “magnificent by any standards”– chroniclers
documented the quantities of food consumed and the daily tournaments, and financial
records set out expenditure on lavish gifts and silverware.76 The author of a romance
can of course choose to exclude such banal detail in his descriptions of scenes of similar
magnificence in Arthur’s court. The world of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a
world seemingly devoid of any consideration of financial need and of work. Indeed, on
the surface it might be considered a perfect example of the supposed tendency of
romance to exclude social reality. Yet the values the poet is interested in –honesty and
the keeping of agreements– are of course applicable to more than just a knightly class.
By emptying the romance terrain of any suggestion of urban culture, actual markets and
commercial exchange, the Gawain-poet ensures that his introduction of statutory and
commercial language, increasingly associated with these very worlds, is all the more
marked.
Contractual language is present in the Green Knight’s agreement with Gawain at
Arthur’s court, and it reappears at Hautdesert. Like Yvain’s agreement with Laudine in
Chrétien’s romance, Gawain’s covenants with the Green Knight and then Bertilak in Sir
75
See for example Eric et Enide, ll. 3118ff. (p. 42), when the lovers witness Count Galoain’s squire and
two pages bringing refreshments to the peasants mowing hay on his land.
123
Gawain and the Green Knight are about the testing of personal integrity and adherence
to a promise within a time limit,77 and, as in Laudine and Yvain’s negotiations, Sir
Gawain’s covenants with both the Green Knight and Bertilak are couched in
commercial metaphor, encompassing the jargon of legal and financial contracts:
“cheuisaunce”, “chaffer”, “chepeȝ”, “charg” and “porchaȝ” (1939–41).
What are
essentially transactions of moral integrity are described using financial terminology; Sir
Gawain must keep his agreement to receive from the Green Knight a year later the exact
“wages” (396) that he himself “deles” (397) before King Arthur’s company. The
Gawain-poet’s choice of terminology with distinct financial overtones is measured and
deliberate. It is dangerous to assume that the inclusion of commercial vocabulary in Sir
Gawain and the Green Knight signifies that the poem is an example of a romance
infiltrated by commercial exchange and mercantile interests because, as we have seen,
actual commercial exchange is non-existent. Rather, as Jill Mann has proposed, the
frequent appearance of commercial terminology testifies to the poet’s interest in value,
in its widest sense.78 Moreover, it suggests a responsiveness to later fourteenth-century
economic developments and social mobility.
Without mentioning markets or money, the Gawain-poet introduces into the
romance a discussion of intrinsic and extrinsic value,79 an issue that was of great
interest to scholastic thinkers. As Joel Kaye outlines, the late medieval period was
characterised by “a strong discomfort with and resistance to relativity as a solution to
problems of value”.80 By the fourteenth century, such discomfort, voiced in much
writing on economic subjects, had partly eased, but nevertheless, medieval thinkers still
grappled with the notion of dynamic value and the shift from the previously established
conceptual scheme of “an ontologically ordered universe of graded values, where every
object and subject had its fixed place in the order of being”.81 The workings of dynamic
value seem to partly inform Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, particularly towards the
culmination of the “exchange of winnings” process, when Bertilak’s wife insists that
Gawain must accept her offer of the green girdle. At first the lady offers Gawain a ring,
76
Michael J. Bennett, “The Historical Background”, in A Companion to the Gawain-Poet, ed. Derek
Brewer and Jonathan Gibson (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1997), p. 87.
77
The significance of the time frame and the parallels with Chrétien’s Yvain are remarked on by several
critics, in particular Putter, Sir Gawain, pp. 221ff. and pp. 239ff.; and Stephanie Trigg, “The Romance of
Exchange: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”, Viator 22 (1991), 251–66; see especially p. 262.
78
Jill Mann, “Price and Value in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”, Medieval English Poetry, ed.
Stephanie Trigg (Burnt Mill: Longman, 1993), pp. 119—137.
79
Trigg remarks on the way this exchange is based around intrinsic and extrinsic value; see “The
Romance of Exchange”, p. 261.
80
Kaye, Economy and Nature, p. 49.
81
Kaye, Economy and Nature, p. 50.
124
but he flatly refuses to accept it. The lady then offers him her green girdle, arguing at
first that if Gawain had been reluctant to accept the ring because he thought it “to
ryche” (1827) then he should accept the girdle because it is of less value: “I schal gif
yow my girdel, þat gaynes yow lasse” (1829). The way the lady expresses this, telling
Gawain that it will be worth less “to him”, marks her recognition of the subjectivity,
and therefore relativity of value. After his initial refusal, she presses it on him again,
this time attempting a different line of argument; does he refuse the girdle because it has
little intrinsic value?: “‘Now forsake ȝe þis silke,’ sayde þe burde þenne, / ‘For hit is
symple in hitself?’” (1846–7). The girdle is worth far more than it appears on face
value, she continues, as anyone who understands its special powers would understand.
Here the lady’s language might just as well be that of an artisan, attempting to persuade
a potential buyer to make a purchase: “Bot who-so knew þe costes þat knit ar þerinne, /
He wolde hit prayse at more prys, parauenture” (1849–50). Ironically, of course, the
special life-saving powers of the girdle have particular value to one who is about to
keep his appointment at the Green Chapel. In a far more subtle mode than Landolfo
Rufolo’s dramatic experiences of market forces and price fluctuations in the
Decameron, which unfold in relation to a literal commodities trade, Gawain realises that
value and meaning can change according to context and demand.82 So within this
courtly framework, which still draws on many romance conventions, the Gawain-poet
manages to engage with a wider conceptual concern of late medieval intellectual life,
and present the dynamism and contingency increasingly underpinning both social and
economic relations.
The implications of Gawain’s valuing of the girdle, as a result of his valuing of
his own life, finally become apparent at the Green Chapel. As Stephanie Trigg writes,
in succumbing to temptation, and accepting the green girdle from Bertilak’s wife,
Gawain thinks he will be able to keep this transaction apart from his agreement with
Bertilak, just as he views the exchange of winnings as distinct from the beheading
game.83 Until he reaches the Green Chapel, he is not alive to the interconnectedness of
the various contracts he has entered into, nor to the fact that they all are involved in the
single purpose of testing his commitments to promises and to “trowthe”.
In his
agreement with Bertilak, Gawain promises to “chaunge with [Bertilak] cheuisaunce”
(1678), and when he arrives at the Green Chapel, he proclaims that he has come to
82
For my discussion of value and the market in Landolfo Rufolo (Decameron II, 4), see Chapter One, p.
71.
83
Trigg, “The Romance of Exchange”, p. 261.
125
“quyte” (2244) the Green Knight, in keeping with the original New Year’s Day
“couenaunteȝ” (2242). Soon the Green Knight makes clear that the original covenant
and the agreement governing the exchange of winnings are in fact intertwined, and that,
under the terms of the second agreement, Gawain has erred slightly in not admitting to
his receipt of the green girdle. This explication marks the culmination of a series of
references to the difficulties of commensuration in exchange. In a series of very
apposite questions, Trigg describes perfectly the impossibility of equity in the poem’s
exchanges: “Is the exchange of blows fair when one party is able to replace his head
after it has been severed from his body? Is a fox worth three kisses? Does a kiss mean
the same thing when it is given from woman to man as man to man? How would
Gawain have passed on anything more than a kiss from Lady Bertilak to her
husband?”.84 The difficulties of assessing equivalence in exchange, and of achieving
symmetry, are apparent throughout Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, but come to a
particular head in the final fitt. It is here that the Green Knight tells Gawain, in a
message that has meaning for many groups in society, that “trwe mon trwe restore”
(2354). As we shall see in the next chapter, the language in the final meeting between
Gawain and the Green Knight has significant parallels with the language of Chaucer’s
Shipman’s Tale, one of the more overtly mercantile of Chaucer’s tales.
Like the
merchant of St-Denis, who must reflect on his “nedes” (CT VII, 76), Gawain urges the
Green Knight to get on with “his nedeȝ” (2216), and as in the plot of the Shipman’s
Tale, there is an emphasis in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight on “quiting” and
payment (see ll. 2244, 2324, 2341), particularly in the final fitt. Although vastly
different, both texts again tie in with wider societal concerns about value, price,
commensurability, and the difficulties of negotiation. The presence of such important
questions in two very different late fourteenth-century texts suggests just how topical
were exchange and value, in a variety of manifestations.
In the poet’s conclusion, and in the variety of responses to Gawain’s behaviour –
ranging from his own to that of the knights at the court– it is hard to discern exactly
how the hero’s actions and the outcome of the adventure are to be judged. Even if the
poet’s concern for the non-militaristic values of chivalry and knighthood might more
logically be associated with Richard II’s reign, certain parallels with Edward III’s reign
cannot be ignored. The motto with which the poem ends in manuscript, “Hony soyt qui
mal pence” is the same as that adopted by Edward III as the inscription on the blue
84
Trigg, “The Romance of Exchange”, p.255.
126
garters to be worn by the knights of the Order of the Garter. Whether the motto is the
work of the poet himself or the addition of a scribe is not of vital importance; either way
it is clear that an association can be drawn between the blue garter of the chivalric order
and the green girdle of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. If the poet himself did not
intend to imply a connection, it is clear that a reader of his own times could easily do so.
Initially both the blue garter and the green girdle are objects associated with shame
which later become symbols of the highest form of chivalry. When Gawain returns to
Arthur’s court, having vowed to Bertilak that he will wear the green girdle for the rest
of his life as a “syngne of [his] surfet” (2433), the knights laugh at his seriousness and
together with King Arthur, they agree that a similar girdle be worn ever after by every
member of the Round Table as a sign of honour. In the eyes of the knights, Gawain has
behaved with impeccable honour, and the girdle is to become a mark of the
“broþerhede” (2516) that unites them. The poet gives no indication that Gawain’s sense
of inadequacy is assuaged by the institution of the green girdle, making interpretation of
his behaviour difficult. Should he be judged weak and cowardly in accordance with the
shame he feels –“He tened quen he schulde telle, / He groned for gref and grame; / Þe
blod in his face con melle, / When he hit schulde schewe, for schame.” (2501–4)– or as
excessively earnest and modest, in keeping with the lighthearted, loud laughter of his
fellow knights? Bertilak, too, has hardly condemned Gawain’s integrity, laughing at
him and excusing him for concealing the green girdle because he loved his own life.
Bertilak goes as far as to declare Gawain the“fautlest freke þat euer on fote ȝede”
(2363). The poem’s ambiguity arises from Gawain’s behaviour, which has been made
the central focus of the poem. The final adoption-of-the-green-girdle scene, with its
mixed emotions of shame and honour, ends in much the same way as the romance
began, by pointing to the complexity of chivalry and its often contradictory nature,
much like the initial scene in which Arthur hotheadedly responds to the Green Knight’s
challenge. The broader implications about value, exchange and contracts, which are so
much a part of the final scene, have relevance for many social classes and situations.
Edward III, more than other English leaders of his century, was interested in the
tales of Arthur’s court and chivalry. On one occasion he travelled to France on a
diplomatic mission, disguised as a merchant. His destination was a secret meeting with
King Philip of France at Pont-Sainte-Maxence and its object the threshing out of
territorial agreements and the consideration of a marriage alliance that would ensure
127
long-term peace.85 It is natural to assume the king saw his travelling disguise as bound
to romance adventure tradition, and it is likely that audiences of Floris and
Blauncheflur regarded as particularly plausible Floris’s disguise as a merchant. Edward
III also harboured ambitions to construct a round table, which never came to fruition,
but his interest in chivalry led to the establishment of the Order of the Garter.86 During
his reign he was behind the organisation of numerous tournaments and enjoyed
comparison with King Arthur, such as that made by one chronicler of the period, who
declared that such jousts had not been seen “since the time of King Arthur”.87 Edward
III’s interest in romance was about more than entertainment and amusement. His
appropriation of romance was prompted by his realisation of its propaganda value. It
was not fear of the advance of commerce and the rise of the merchant class that led him
to promote and cultivate the values of chivalry, but a fear of the loss of support for the
monarchy from the knightly class. Edward III sought to use chivalry to harness knights
more closely to the dynasty.88 At the same time his court, and those of his successors,
had an increased reliance on administration and finance.89 Far from providing purely
escapist entertainment, a romance like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, with its
interest in worldly social transactions and insistence on personal integrity,90 could offer
a wider circle of readers –comprising merchants, knights and urban administrators– a
socially relevant meaning.
Ad Putter suggests that romance is characterised by a “tantalising silence to the
question ‘why?’”,91 and this is certainly the case when it comes to considering what
these late medieval romances may reflect about social and ethical values.
It is
impossible, for example, to define a specific set of historical conditions that may
account for the ease with which the merchant is absorbed into the activity and ethos of a
thirteenth-century romance but more clearly differentiated (against) in a fourteenthcentury romance. Knights were already actively involved in trade in the thirteenth
century and dealing with financial issues also faced by merchants. Furthermore, the
difference between the more successful urbanites and the land-owning country-dwellers
was already difficult to pinpoint, if not on a geographical basis. But it seems reasonable
85
May McKisack, The Fourteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1959), p. 112.
McKisack, p. 251; and Barnie, p. 66.
87
A detailed account of such tournaments is given by Juliet Vale, Edward III and Chivalry: Chivalric
Society and its Contexts 1270–1350 (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 1982); see especially pp. 66ff.
See also Barnie, pp. 83–4. Barnie is citing Eulogium Historiarum II, p. 227.
88
Nigel Saul, Richard II (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997), p. 350.
89
Vale, pp. 63, 75.
90
Putter, Sir Gawain, p. 195.
91
Putter, An Introduction to the Gawain-Poet (London and New York: Longman, 1996), p. 41.
86
128
to speculate that as society became increasingly competitive, and as after the Black
Death the lower classes became increasingly upwardly mobile, the upper classes felt the
need to hang on to the remnants of their status by asserting that wealth counted for little
and that an excessive interest in it was even vulgar, and by promoting the importance of
bloodlines and innate nobility. This happened in the fourteenth century, sumptuary
legislation being an excellent example of an attempt to delineate class boundaries more
clearly.
Much like the introduction of sumptuary legislation, the disparaging of
merchants and merchant values, and a move to exclude them from knightly society in
the space of romance, could only have been the product of a society in social transition,
whose boundaries were increasingly fluid and in which anxiety about the rise of
merchants was pervasive among the upper classes. 92
Nightingale proposes that antagonism towards merchants, if any, may have been
brought on by the urban mercantile class’s extension of its control over rural commerce
from the late thirteenth century, while lesser landowners struggled to compete in the
wool trade.93 The thirteenth-century Floris and Blauncheflur poet is able to allow his
characters to trade confidently; Floris is never seen embarrassed by how he may be
viewed when dressed as a merchant and those he meets trade information with him as
an equal, displaying none of the characteristics that we find in Clement, the Parisian
burgher in Octavian.
Clement is set apart from nobility precisely because of his
preoccupation with petty account-keeping. And the mayor of Caerleon in Sir Launfal,
who has regard only for money; and the miserly merchant-creditor of Sir Amadace,
unwilling to allow a fellow merchant a decent burial, are treated with hostility. The
difference in treatment of merchants in a thirteenth-century romance may of course be
purely coincidental, but it may also be the result of increased class consciousness in the
fourteenth century. This is not to say that Octavian, Sir Launfal and Sir Amadace seek
to exclude the mercantile ethic, but rather that they seek to come to terms with it and to
reconcile chivalric values with financial necessity. They ackowledge that knights can
face the same financial difficulties faced by merchants, even while seeking to
emphasise that knightly attitudes and approach to finance were different from those of
the purely profit-oriented middle classes. English romance partly began as a project to
accommodate ideas of knighthood to changing socio-economic circumstances. In Sir
Gawain and the Green Knight, with those social changes fully operative, we see that a
92
93
McKisack, p. 346.
Nightingale, “Knights and Merchants”, p. 60.
129
knightly quest can become the site for an exploration of the workings of exchange and
value, and offered as a model to much broader sections of society.
130
Narrative Economics in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales
In the first chapter of this thesis, the intersections of late medieval Florentine
mercantile ideology with developments in art and literature were the major focus. My
discussion of Boccaccio and Giotto speculated on the ways in which stylistic
developments and narrative content in their work are connected with the ideology and
values of mercantile society. Many of the arguments raised about the Decameron,
particularly those concerning the contractual underpinning of the storytelling, and the
shaping of stories as commodities, are just as relevant to the Canterbury Tales, if not
more so. For unlike the static frame of the Decameron, in which ten young Florentine
patricians escape their plague-ridden city in favour of the idyllic Tuscan countryside,
where they tell stories, the narrators of the Canterbury Tales are a much less socially
homogeneous bunch, and their exchange of stories begins as a competition and unfolds
during the course of a journey. Like the Decameron, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales
registers a profound awareness of the long anti-mercantile literary tradition, and it also
acknowledges the tendency towards social aspiration and the susceptibility to
corruption associated with real merchants. And just as Boccaccio is himself ready to
critique mercantile activities and values, while at the same time showing a willingness
to consider his own creative output in terms of the market, Chaucer’s engagement with
commerce is sophisticated and complex. In the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer establishes
the idea of tales having their own economy of debt, credit and payment, and threads
this theme through both the frame of the pilgrims’ journey and the individual tales.
From the outset, when the pilgrims meet in the Tabard, Chaucer demonstrates an
interest in the way the process of story-telling might correspond to the mechanisms of
the market.
When Chaucer describes the pilgrims in the General Prologue, he engages with
widely held traditional and fourteenth-century conceptions about their occupations, but
he does not necessarily perpetuate them. Subsequent exchanges among pilgrims, and
the tales they tell and comment on, distance the Canterbury Tales from the more twodimensional estates satire literature, and render any attempts to categorise the pilgrims
difficult.1 This is no more applicable than in the case of Chaucer’s merchants. In
general, the merchants of the Canterbury Tales fulfil wider functions than the
straightforward pursuit of profit for which members of their class were often satirised,
131
and their activities are treated with an openness not found in other English texts of the
period. Their presence is just as much a vehicle for Chaucer to introduce ideas about
value, profit and exchange, both economic and ethical, as it is to envisage new roles
and functions for them. My discussion of the General Prologue, the Knight’s Tale, the
Man of Law’s Tale and the Shipman’s Tale illustrates different ways in which
commercial consciousness shaped society, for each of these engages with notions of
competition, value and exchange in their widest sense.
In the Knight’s Tale, Chaucer presents a stylised romance, with his prime
source Boccaccio’s Il Teseida delle nozze d’Emelia (The Story of Theseus concerning
the Nuptials of Emily) (c. 1339–41). At the centre of the tale is an unexpected –and
largely original– account of a programme of artistic spending engaged in by the
Athenian ruler Theseus when preparing for a tournament that will decide the fates of
the knights Palamoun and Arcite and the woman they are both in love with, Emelye.
This description, I shall argue, is part of an attempt by Chaucer to consider storytelling,
in both painting and writing, as work that merits payment and has an important function
in society. It becomes apparent that Chaucer’s Knight, considered by some critics to be
a paragon of chivalry, is not blind to the marketplace. Like the mercantile knights of
the previous chapter, Chaucer’s Knight is not entirely above discussing the cost of
goods and services and how to pay for them. The purpose of discussing the Knight’s
Tale is therefore twofold; to draw attention, once again, to the way economic concerns
seep into knightly discourse; and also to consider, as I did in Chapter One, the
implications of a market economy for cultural production. The role of merchants in
relation to narrative production and circulation becomes an important aspect of the Man
of Law’s Tale.
My discussion of both the Man of Law’s Tale and the Shipman’s Tale examines
the way Chaucer’s tales may be considered in relation to late medieval economic ideas
and innovations. Like Boccaccio’s stories, Chaucer’s are mapped within the context of
the geographically known world, which was also the world of trade. The Man of Law’s
Tale has in fact been referred to as the “most geographic” of the Canterbury Tales,2 a
feature that must be borne in mind when considering the role merchants play in this
version of the story of Constance, a tale that was widely diffused in European literature.
In his retelling, Chaucer assigns merchants an essential role as not only the transporters
1
For a comprehensive account of the estates satire tradition in the General Prologue, see Jill Mann,
Chaucer and Medieval Estates Satire: The Literature of Social Classes and the General Prologue to the
Canterbury Tales (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973).
132
of top quality commodities, but also as the transmitters of news and narrative. My aim
in discussing the Man of Law’s Tale is to address the significant role Chaucer gives
merchants and the way he considers the production and circulation of narrative in
relation to trade.
The Shipman’s Tale, described by Lee Patterson as the “most Boccaccian of the
Canterbury Tales”,3 has in recent times been the subject of voluminous critical debate,
attesting, I believe, to a complexity belied by its fabliau surface. Chaucer introduces
into this lively tale of commercial deceit, illicit sex, betrayal and trading, some very
serious ideas about the ethical nature of exchange and credit relations, and the
difficulties of establishing equitable economic values. The tale’s commercial detail,
which has succeeded in attracting the attention of historians of accounting, is
deliberately shaped to be recognisable to the kind of urban mercantile audience that
both Boccaccio and Chaucer envisage, but it is also embraced by Chaucer as an
opportunity to examine the penetration of the concepts of “market”, “profit” and
“credit” into the consciousness of people not necessarily directly engaged in commerce.
Chaucer’s London was not home to the same confident mercantile culture as
medieval Florence, but it was nevertheless a city in which commerce was thriving and
in which merchants could hope to achieve both greater social status and political
representation than before. Although a relative backwater in comparison with northern
Italian cities and Paris, medieval London, with a population of about 50,000 at the time
of Geoffrey Chaucer’s birth (c. 1343), some five years prior to the plague of 1348–9,
was by far the largest English city. In the early decades of the fourteenth century, the
population was swelled by continued migration from country to city as commerce
flourished and industry expanded. London took over from Boston in 1306 as the
principal wool-exporting port, an important factor in its growth.4 Wool, as I noted in
my Introduction and in the previous chapter, was the mainstay of the English economy,
driving commerce and influencing politics; in Edward III’s reign it was known as “the
sovereign treasure of the realm”.5 It remained England’s chief industry, but by the
middle of the fourteenth century, a cloth manufacturing industry had also been
established, exporting finished cloth and offering further opportunities for work and
2
Kathy Lavezzo, “Beyond Rome: Mapping Gender and Justice in The Man of Law’s Tale”, Studies in
the Age of Chaucer 24 (2002), 149–80.
3
Lee Patterson, Chaucer and the Subject of History (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1991),
p. 361.
4
Derek Pearsall, The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer: A Critical Biography (Oxford and Cambridge, Mass.:
Blackwell, 1992), p. 18. See also Eileen Power, The Wool Trade in English Medieval History (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1941).
5
May McKisack, The Fourteenth Century, 1307–1399 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1959), p. 156.
133
investment. English banking and finance also grew when Edward III was forced to turn
to native financiers following the collapse of the Peruzzi and Bardi companies (in 1343
and 1346 respectively) on which he had previously relied. London became a centre of
national credit and its citizens were often ready to advance modest sums to help the
king with his on-going shortage of ready cash.6 London society was increasingly
mobile and competitive, with tensions between different groups of merchants and
crafts, employers and employees, and the regulating bodies that governed markets,
particularly evident in records from the 1370s and 1380s, a period in which society’s
middle groups all fought to retain their foothold in the economy.7 It was in this kind of
environment that Chaucer spent much of his childhood and adult working life.
Merchandise of all kinds and of mixed provenance landed at quays along the
Thames, a short distance from where Chaucer grew up. The sounds of industry and
shipping, and the smells of spices, wine and other merchandise filled the London
Thames-side air.
Chaucer’s early years were marked by an exposure to London
commerce not unlike that of Boccaccio’s Tuscan childhood, for both were merchants’
sons, with fathers who were sufficiently successful and well-connected to be able to
pass on the benefits of their associations. Chaucer was the son of John Chaucer, a
vintner, and Agnes Chaucer,8 and he most likely grew up in Thames Street in the
Vintry ward, a low-lying district alongside the Thames. The Chaucer home was not far
from the Three Cranes Quay, where the wine imported by John Chaucer and his fellow
vintners first arrived and was unloaded.9 Some of the most prominent members of the
London business community were vintners, among them Richard Lyons, one of the
most powerful merchants of the era.10 The Vintry was also the favoured residence of
many alien merchants, including Italian wine merchants, and it adjoined other wards
whose inhabitants were engaged in different forms of commerce, such as the pepperers.
At all times the more permanent population was swelled by a floating alien population
of traders and workers, including French, Italian, Flemish and German merchants.11 It
6
See McKisack, pp. 223–5; and also Caroline Barron, “The Social and Administrative Development of
London 1300–1550”, Franco-British Studies 17 (1994), 53–64; see p. 57.
7
Barron, “The Social and Administrative Development of London”, p. 57.
8
It is almost certain that Agnes Chaucer was the mother of Geoffrey Chaucer. See Crow, Martin M. and
Clair C. Olson (eds), Chaucer Life-Records (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966), p. 8.
9
Crow and Olson, p. 11.
10
Both John and Geoffrey Chaucer had direct contact with Lyons, and were associated with the same
parish church, St James Garlickhithe, where Lyons was later buried. Lyons was officially known as a
“vintner”, but his business interests were wide-ranging. See Pearsall, The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer, p.
16.
11
Sylvia L. Thrupp, The Merchant Class of Medieval London [1300–1500] (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1948), p. 2.
134
was most likely in the streets of his own childhood that Chaucer began to learn Italian,
the language that was to have a great impact on his literary output and public career.12
During Chaucer’s formative years he experienced both commercial and courtly
milieux, and in this sense it is likely that his social experience was not unlike that of
Boccaccio’s early experience of Florentine trading companies and the Neapolitan court.
Some time around 1356, as a young teenager, Chaucer began work as a page in the
household of Elizabeth, Countess of Ulster, wife of Prince Lionel, the second surviving
son of Edward III, and thus took part in the day-to-day activities of a royal household.13
Although details of his own tasks within the household are not available, they were in
all likelihood the menial tasks typically assigned to pages. Like the education received
by other pages in royal households, Chaucer’s would have consisted of tuition in
courtly pursuits, both physical and cultural.
It has often been noted that the
commercialisation of society, and the emergence of the formal apparatus for regulating
enterprise, resulted in the development of contractual forms of economic relations and
even legislation, which in turn relied on an increasingly high level of literacy.14
Chaucer’s education and early involvement with administrative affairs undoubtedly
provided him with an insight into correspondence, record-keeping and contractual
relations, as well as the associated legalistic and commercial vocabulary. At this early
stage, Chaucer’s abilities evidently made a strong impression on influential members of
the noble household or visitors to it, because the next stage of his career comprised
secretarial work and junior diplomacy, a career for which a good patron or patrons were
essential.15
Chaucer’s career as a junior royal servant soon brought opportunities for travel
outside of England. His early service was in the company of Lionel, Earl of Ulster, as a
valettus, or yeoman. In this capacity, he took part in Edward III’s 1359–60 campaign
to reassert his claim to the throne of France, acting as a messenger for Lionel, carrying
letters from France to England.16 Few records survive the period from 1360 until 1367,
when Chaucer again appears as a valettus, this time in the service of Edward III.17
Chaucer went abroad again in 1366, 1368, 1369 and 1370, and possibly even visited
12
Pearsall, The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer, p. 18.
Chaucer is first recorded in the countess’s household expense accounts in this year, but could possibly
have been there earlier. See Pearsall, The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer, pp. 34–40.
14
Richard H. Britnell, The Commercialisation of English Society 1000–1500, 2nd edn (Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 1996), p. 231.
15
Pearsall, The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer, p. 40.
16
Pearsall, The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer, pp. 41–2.
17
In 1955 records discovered in the royal archives of Navarre at Pamplona showed that Chaucer was on
a pilgrimage in 1366 to the shrine of St James of Compostella. See Crow and Olson, p. 29.
13
135
Italy for the first time in 1368, to take part in the wedding celebrations of his former
patron Lionel, by now Duke of Clarence, and Violante, daughter of Giangaleazzo
Visconti, lord of Pavia.18 His first confirmed visit to Italy, however, was not until late
1372 or early 1373, when he was sent as part of a trading mission to Genoa to discuss
the appointment of a commercial port in England for the use of Genoese merchants.
This mission no doubt arose from a commercial treaty established between England
and Genoa in September 1372, which was the result of two or three years of
negotiations.19
Following his visit to Genoa, Chaucer travelled on to Florence.
Although the reasons for this initial visit are not clear, it is likely that they would have
related to Edward III’s financial relations with the Bardi and other major Florentine
companies.20 In 1378 he again visited Lombardy, largely for the purposes of English
foreign policy negotiations. According to Derek Pearsall, it was during this time that
he most likely had his first opportunity to familiarise himself with Giovanni
Boccaccio’s work in Bernabò Visconti’s libraries.21
Chaucer had witnessed the great buildings of London and several other cities,
but Florence could not have failed to impress him when he arrived in 1373. Although
the city’s economy had not fully recovered from the series of financial collapses of its
major banking houses, the Peruzzi, Acciaiuoli and Bardi,22 and from the waves of
plague that had reduced its large population so dramatically in the preceding decades,
its impressive building and artistic programmes had not halted. In the 1370s, work
continued on the construction and decoration of the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore
and the church of Santa Croce, and the interiors of other church spaces were newly
frescoed with the life cycles of Old Testament figures and the saints. Much of this
painting was commissioned by Florence’s wealthiest merchant families in the earlier
part of the century for the decoration of their private chapels; in other cases, religious
orders commissioned fresco cycles directly, but they were assisted in this practice by
the donations of their parishioners. Any visitor new to the city could not have failed to
be awe-struck by the extent and sophistication of the city’s building programmes and
decorative schemes. During his first visit to Florence, Chaucer would more than likely
have attended mass with his hosts, the Bardi family, patrons of the chapel bearing their
18
Pearsall, The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer, pp. 53–4.
Crow and Olson, p. 39.
20
Crow and Olson, p. 39.
21
For details of the political purpose of Chaucer’s mission, and references to the Visconti library, see
Pearsall, The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer, pp. 106–9.
22
The first of these occurred in 1343, and another was to take place in 1376, following Chaucer’s first
visit to Florence. See George Holmes, “Florentine Merchants in England, 1346–1436”, The Economic
History Review, New Series, 13.2 (1960), 193–208.
19
136
name in Santa Croce.23 The Bardi family had commissioned Giotto to complete a
fresco cycle depicting scenes from the Life of Saint Francis of Assisi, which was
executed between about 1315 and 1320.24 The chapel next to theirs, that of the Peruzzi,
another important Florentine merchant-banking family, contained scenes from the life
of St John the Evangelist. In such places, Chaucer witnessed what David Wallace has
referred to as “a slow and deliberate migration of merchant wealth into artistic and
spiritual capital”.25 John Larner asserts that there is a general absence in Chaucer’s
writing of any evidence to suggest that he was impressed by or interested in the
architecture, sculpture and painting he witnessed during his travels in the Italian
peninsula: “Whether these arts evoked any powerful response in Chaucer, whether his
silence before the heritage and current production of Italian artists indicates
indifference, incomprehension, or simple deference to conventions of what was
communicable in literature, it is not easy to say”.26 But the fact that Chaucer did not
name particular artists or architects, or refer to any sites from his travels in artistic
terms, does not mean he did not absorb some of the rich visual culture and the
emerging patterns of patronage he encountered. Given Chaucer’s wide-ranging and
sophisticated interest in areas such as philosophy, Classical literature, astrology and
mathematics, and his subtle allusions to them, it seems somewhat absurd to imagine
that he would not have observed and followed developments in art with interest.
Besides, there are many references to the visual arts in his texts: a brief perusal of the
House of Fame or the Book of the Duchess is enough to confirm that this is so.27
In Florence, Chaucer witnessed the process by which mercantile wealth was
invested in cultural production and, particularly in the case of architecture and the
visual arts, used as a means of promoting the status of the individual and also of the
city as a whole. In London, some theologians and writers were increasingly in favour
of the channelling of commercial profits into spiritual and public investment, but the
trend towards mercantile artistic patronage had not yet caught on to the same extent as
23
See Michael Hagiioannu, “Giotto’s Bardi Chapel Frescoes and Chaucer’s House of Fame: Influence,
Evidence and Interpretations”, The Chaucer Review 36 (2001), 28–47; see p. 29.
24
Charles Harrison, “Giotto and the ‘rise of painting’”, in Siena, Florence and Padua: Art, Society and
Religion 1280-1400: Vol. 1 Interpretative Essays, ed. Diana Norman (New Haven and London: Yale
University Press, 1995), pp. 92–5. Harrison gives the dates as an approximation due to the lack of
contemporary documentation to confirm the commission.
25
David Wallace, Chaucerian Polity: Absolutist Lineages and Associational Forms in England and Italy
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), p. 191.
26
John Larner, “Chaucer’s Italy”, in Chaucer and the Italian Trecento, ed. Piero Boitani (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1983), p. 15.
27
In the Book of the Duchess, for example, Chaucer describes an ideal courtier’s lodging whose walls are
painted with scenes from the Romance of the Rose. See Book of the Ducchess, 321–34. See also the
description of the temple of Venus in the House of Fame, 120ff.
137
it had in the Italian city states. Langland’s interest in the visual arts was notably
ambivalent, as Elizabeth Salter outlines. He was suspicious about the motivation
underpinning patronage of the arts, considering it little more than a dubious transaction
between sinners, like the scheming Lady Mede, and friars.28 When Lady Mede offers
to pay for the glazing of windows and have the walls of a church painted –with, among
other things, an image of herself as the patron– Langland makes it clear that God
forbids such acts of self-commemoration and considers them sins of pride:
“…And I shal covere youre kirk, youre cloistre do maken,
Wowes do whiten and wyndowes glazen,
Do peynten and portraye [who paied] for the makynge,
That every segge shall see I am suster of youre house.”
Ac God to alle good folk swich gravynge defendeth—
To writen in wyndowes of hir wel dedes—
An aventure pride be peynted there, and pomp of the worlde.
(Piers Plowman, B. III, 60–66)
On the other hand, Langland legitimates the pursuit of profit from trade if those profits
are to then be invested in sound social causes:
Ac under his secret seel Truthe sente hem a lettre,
[And bad hem] buggen boldely what hem best liked
And sithenes selle it ayein and save the wynnynges,
And amende mesondieux therwith and myseisé folk helpe;
And wikkede weyes, wightly hem amende,
And do boote to brugges that tobroke were;
Marien maydenes or maken hem nonnes;
Povere peple and prisons, fynden hem hir foode,
And sette scolers to scole or to som othere craftes;
Releve religion and renten hem bettre.
(Piers Plowman, B. VII, 23–32)
This programme of social spending, including the repairing of public structures, the
provision of dowries for poor young women to enable them to marry, and the
sponsorship of scholars and young craftsmen, was similar to the more established
Italian trend towards the channelling of a percentage of business profits into public and
charitable works under the communal governments of the Tuscan city states. But the
difference between the mercantile culture of fourteenth-century London and that of
Florence was, perhaps, one of confidence and security.
Although suspicion of
mercantile ambition and incentive abounded in Florence, as Sacchetti’s anecdotal tales
make clear, the successful members of the gente nuova had a sense of self-worth and a
firm belief in their hardworking spirit. If anything, there was greater suspicion of the
28
Elizabeth Salter, English and International: studies in the literature, art and patronage of medieval
England, ed. Derek Pearsall and Nicolette Zeeman (Cambridge and New York, Cambridge University
Press, 1988), p. 256.
138
patriciate. As David Wallace notes, a charge levelled at one of the Medici was that he
had “never engaged in mercantile activity nor […] trade. He [had] never earned an
honest penny”.29
In Florence, Chaucer came face to face with a city in which the social status and
position of merchants was more secure than in London, even if mercantile ideology
was characterised, in both places, by an eclecticism derived from the fusion and
conflation of traditional ideological models. As Richard Goldthwaite notes, feudalism
as a legal and political system had never caught on in much of the Italian peninsula to
the same extent as it had elsewhere in Europe, owing to the earlier emergence of towns
as the centres of political and economic power.30 All the same, the associated chivalric
ideal –connected with the German emperor, the nominal ruler of much of Italy, and the
series of royal houses that ruled the south– did serve as a behavioural model for
aristocrats, even when they merged into town life and trade, and were not easily
distinguishable from the mercantile class in economic and social terms.31 In this way,
the late medieval Italian city states, particularly Florence, witnessed the development of
a new behavioural model for the men of newer and urban origins into whom the older
noble class was gradually assimilated.
As Goldthwaite outlines, aristocratic
consumption and taste, bound elsewhere to the country and land, was, in the case of the
Italian city states, reconfigured in an urban context. The country estate and pursuits
such as hunting, once associated so firmly with the aristocracy, were replaced by urban
palazzi, private chapels in prominent churches, and civic occasions.32 But although the
appeal of chivalric literature remained strong among fourteenth-century Italian citydwellers,33 a sure indicator of the on-going popularity of this ideal, the reality was that
social assimilation with the mercantile class inevitably led to a shift in behaviour and
attitude. The merging of landed aristocratic and urban mercantile ideologies inevitably
led to the curtailing of the peculiarities of aristocratic behaviour, as indicated by the
dismantling of private towers of the great families and the proliferation of anti-magnate
29
Wallace, Chaucerian Polity, p. 23.
Richard Goldthwaite, Wealth and the Demand for Art in Italy 1300–1600 (Baltimore and London: The
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), p. 159. See also Giuliano Pinto, “‘Honour’ and ‘Profit’: Landed
Property and Trade in Medieval Siena”, in City and Countryside in Late Medieval and Renaissance Italy:
Essays Presented to Philip Jones, ed. Trevor Dean and Chris Wickham (London and Ronceverte:
Hambledon Press, 1990), pp. 81—91.
31
See Goldthwaite; and also Lucia Battaglia Ricci, Boccaccio (Rome: Salerno Editrice, 2000), pp. 1—19.
32
See Goldthwaite, pp. 160–1. Goldthwaite goes as far as to suggest that “public spectacles of a chivalric
nature –war games, triumphant entries, ritualistic ceremonies– were all the more popular in Italy because
towns provided the urban aristocracy with a permanent captive audience ever ready to be amused –if not
politically distracted– by such displays.”
30
139
and sumptuary legislation.34 With the subjugation of the countryside by the commune,
the nobility’s independent basis of power was slowly eroded. Furthermore, within the
cities, the magnate families, as I noted in Chapter One, were barred from a role in
political life and social imitation of the behaviour of this class was discouraged.35
The entrepreneurial nobleman and the knightly trader were also features of
fourteenth-century England, as my previous chapter made clear.36 Poll tax records
show that from the mid-century, the classification of estates became increasingly
complicated, with the boundaries between the lower ranks of the landed elite and nongentle upper mercantile group largely unclear.37 Such documentary evidence makes
clear that land ownership remained an important consideration when it came to
determining rank in English society. This factor alone sets the English social situation
apart from that of the fourteenth-century Italian city states. The gradations of rank in
Italian society may not actually have been any less nebulous than in England, but the
fact that the Italian towns had subjugated the contado and ensured jurisdiction over the
countryside meant that ties to land mattered less. The difficulties in English social
classification among the middle and upper ranks, partly on account of a residual tension
between urban and rural identity, perhaps explains the less secure sense of mercantile
identity in English society in comparison with that in the Italian city states.38 And an
additional and significant difference between Italian and English merchants was that
Italian merchant companies tended to be structured around the family, relying on
business to be passed from one generation to the next, and partnerships to be formed on
33
This is attested by records of manuscript ownership and in iconography. A good example is the interior
of Palazzo Davanzati, home to the Florentine mercantile Davizzi family, whose walls were decorated
with scenes from chivalric literature.
34
Unlike the sumptuary legislation of Northern Europe, that of the Italian city states was frequently antiaristocratic in character. See Goldthwaite, p. 162; and also Diane Owen Hughes, “Sumptuary Laws and
Social Relations in Renaissance Italy”, in Disputes and Settlements. Law and Human Relations in the
West, ed. J. Bossy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 69–100; and Catherine Kovesi
Killerby, Sumptuary Law in Italy 1200–1500 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). On English
sumptuary legislation see Frances E. Baldwin, Sumptuary Legislation and Personal Regulation in
England (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1926).
35
Goldthwaite, p. 162. Other factors that led to mercantile urban ideology becoming the dominant
ideology in city states like Florence included the demilitarisation of knighthood with the increasingly
common use of professional soldiers. Knighthood was still bestowed as a form of civic honour, but did
not necessarily have much to do with military service. This gradual demilitarisation of knighthood also
took place in England, but significantly later (most notably under Richard II).
36
For details, see my discussion, in the previous chapter, of Pamela Nightingale’s research, based on her
article “Knights and merchants”, pp. 80–1; and also Paul Strohm, Social Chaucer. (Cambridge, Mass. and
London: Harvard University Press, 1989), p. xi.
37
Strohm discusses the complex classification of different types of “esquire” and urban elites in some
detail; see pp. 8–10.
38
By the later medieval period, there was no identifiable gentry class in Tuscany.
140
the basis of kinship relations established through marriage.39 In England, as Sylvia
Thrupp points out, sons did not generally follow their fathers into business.40
One of the most common reasons for which English merchants were satirised
was their assumed aspirations to gentle status,41 but in his General Prologue to the
Canterbury Tales, Chaucer departs from the tendency to purely poke fun at merchants.
In a relatively brief portrait, he manages to refer to the various activities and
preoccupations associated with merchants, including sea transport, currency exchange,
the pursuit of profit and financial transactions, as well as alluding to other
representations of merchants. There is every reason to believe that his Merchantpilgrim is to be taken seriously, for there is little trace of the overt satire found among
some Latin, French, Italian and English renderings of merchants as travelling salesmen
who run into trouble on account of their greed and naiveté, or who dress beyond their
station in order to emulate their social superiors.42 On the contrary, he is presented as
one who “ful wel his wit bisette” (I, 279) and whose “governaunce” was “estatly” (I,
281). If his energies are turned towards his “wynnyng” (I, 275) and the selling of
“sheeldes” in exchange (I, 278), there is no hint that he pursues them ingenuously or
foolishly. As Jill Mann points out, the phraseology of some of these descriptions binds
them to the estates satire on fraudulent business practices,43 but even so, Chaucer is at
pains to recontextualise them within a portrait that bears the markings of sincerity. The
solemnity with which the Merchant rides and the care with which he is dressed point to
the importance he places on outward appearance:
A marchant was ther with a forked berd,
In mottelee, and hye on horse he sat;
Upon his heed a Flaundryssh bever hat,
His bootes clasped faire and fetisly.
(I, 270–3)
But it cannot be assumed that he dresses this way because he aspires to knightly status.
In such descriptions, Chaucer skirts around the edges of satire without actually making
it clear whether the merchant is excessively preoccupied with fashion, and vain, or
simply wearing products associated with his own work, such as “mottelee”, a kind of
39
This is made clear in the wealth of merchant correspondence. See in particular Branca (ed.), Mercanti
scrittori ; and also Christian Bec, Les marchands écrivains: affaires et humanisme à Florence 1375–1434
(Paris: Mouton, 1967), especially p. 279.
40
Thrupp, Merchant Class, pp. 204–5.
41
It appears to be the case that in Boccaccio and Sacchetti’s tales it is mainly artisans and retailers, rather
than wholesale merchants, who are satirised on account of their social aspirations. See for example
stories LXIII and LXIV in Sacchetti’s Trecentonovelle, both mentioned in the Introduction.
42
For an excellent appraisal of estates satire literature with respect to the merchant, see Jill Mann’s
section, “The Merchant”, in Chaucer and Medieval Estates Satire, pp. 99–103.
141
cloth, and a Flemish fur hat. The Merchant’s concern with the signifiers of material
success thus might also be read as indicators of the kind of merchant he represents: he
dresses well to give a favourable impression to new acquaintances because the opening
up of markets depends on the establishment of good connections.
As I noted in the introduction, one of the justifications of the merchant most
commonly referred to in late medieval times was that by Augustine, who in
commenting on verse 15 of Psalm LXX, defended the merchant’s moral status by
distinguishing him from his trade, arguing that if some trading activity involved
unscrupulous practices, this was due to the dishonesty of an individual operator; it was
thus an exaggeration to deem all merchants immoral.44 Chaucer knew Augustine’s
writings well,45 and if he has doubts about the integrity of certain commercial practices,
he withholds his opinion, emphasising instead that he cannot be sure of this individual
trader’s ethical status. There is nothing in the portrait of Chaucer’s Merchant to suggest
that he is an unscrupulous trader, but nor is there any indication that the Merchant
follows a programme of public spending akin to that prescribed by Langland as an
acceptable end for merchant profits. In this way, the portrait is neither conservative nor
revolutionary. When Chaucer rounds off the portrait of the Merchant, which began
with an air of confidence and security, it is in different terms. He acknowledges at once
the superficiality of appearances and the existence of something more than a façade:
“For sothe he was a worthy man with alle, / But, sooth to seyn, I noot how men hym
calle.” (I, 283–4). Chaucer himself may see a worthy man, but he is not prepared to
speak on behalf of society. The comment is hesitant, inconclusive and ultimately
ambiguous. Unlike other pilgrims whose characters Chaucer seems more certain of, in
the case of the Merchant his position is more distant, as if he is unable to penetrate the
surface.
The Merchant’s demeanour suggests that he takes his work seriously and has
recognised the importance of his own exertions in a world in which the individual was
increasingly able to transcend previous hierarchies and boundaries, such as hereditary
social position.46 This seriousness is also apparent in the merchant of St-Denis in the
Shipman’s Tale.
43
In the General Prologue, the Merchant-pilgrim’s solemnity and
Jill Mann, Chaucer and Medieval Estates Satire, p.100.
As outlined in John W. Baldwin, The Medieval Theories of the Just Price: Romanists, Canonists and
Theologians in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries (Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society,
1959), p. 15. Baldwin is referring to Augustine, Enarratio in Psalmum LXX, 17, Patrologiae … series
Greca, 36: 886, 887.
45
Chaucer mentions Augustine in the portrait of the Monk, and the tales of the Monk, the Parson and
Melibee.
46
Paul Strohm, Social Chaucer, p. 43.
44
142
concern with profit could be read as a mark both of his industriousness and of his
ambition, for many merchants showed themselves ready to embrace any opportunity for
social advancement. Merchant money, in the form of loan and investment, was being
used to wage wars and top up the royal coffers. In his study of two London merchants
who were practically Chaucer’s contemporaries, Stephen O’Connor attempts to assess
the extent to which merchants did aspire to transcending their social origins by closely
examining the careers and lives of two late fourteenth-century London merchants.47 As
O’Connor notes, leading merchants, both English and alien, made themselves virtually
indispensable to the king, and part of the reward for their reliability was the award of
office under the Crown. Adam Fraunceys is an example of one such merchant. Either
on his own or with others, he lent the king in excess of £11,000.48 In 1369, on account
of his experience, he was asked to make recommendations to the council for the
protection of merchant shipping against French attack.
49
commissions and was entrusted with special missions.
He served on several
The portrait of Chaucer’s
merchant bears evidence of a certain concern for the safeguarding of sea channels, for
Chaucer informs us that he “wolde the see were kept for any thyng” (I, 276), but no
more detail is provided, and whether the Merchant lent money to the Crown, or was
called on to make recommendations about safety for merchant fleets, cannot be known.
Chaucer had personal knowledge of and links with sea trading, as his father's family
came originally from Ipswich, near to the port of Orwell. In addition to this, his role as
customs controller in London (1374–86) would have given him full awareness of the
challenges of importing and exporting.50 The dangers of sea travel and its risks, both
financial and safety-related, were two of the reasons cited in the justification of the role
of the merchant, as I shall discuss in greater detail with regard to the merchants in the
Man of Law’s Tale. They were used to claim merchant profits as simple payment for
meeting one of society's needs.51 Again, there is every sense that the Merchant is a
serious trader, concerned with filling his role purposefully.
Perhaps the lines that have attracted more critical attention than any others in the
portrait of the Merchant, are those concerning “debt”: “This worthy man ful wel his wit
47
Stephen O’Connor, “Adam Fraunceys and John Pyel: Perceptions of Status Among Merchants in
Fourteenth-Century London”, in Trade, Devotion and Governance: Papers in Later Medieval History, ed.
Dorothy J. Clayton, Richard G. Davies and Peter McNiven (Phoenix Mill: Alan Sutton Publishing, 1994),
pp. 17–35.
48
O’Connor, p. 21.
49
O'Connor, p. 21.
50
Chaucer's Ipswich connections are referred to in Pearsall, The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer, p.12.
51
Augustine, Enarratio in Psalmum LXX, 17, Patrologiae … series Latina, 36: 886, 887 is one of the best
known justifications given by the Church Fathers of the merchant's role as a transporter of goods. This
had a great impact on the views of Aquinas and also Chobham in the later Middle Ages.
143
bisette: / There wiste no wight that he was in dette” (I, 279–80). For some critics, the
mention of debt has been enough to connote shady mercantile practices, but the fact that
so many different groups in late medieval English society relied on loans and gave
credit, suggests that there is little reason to jump to such conclusions.52 The ubiquity of
credit is something that will be explored in greater detail later in this chapter; for now
my purpose is to draw attention to the way this couplet distils so many inherited
perceptions and aspects of mercantile culture. Chaucer’s intriguing use of the adjective
“worthy” to describe the Merchant in a passage that refers to “dette”, “bargaynes” and
“chevyssaunce” also calls for some consideration, for “worthy”, as Rodney Hilton
notes, appears commonly in urban administrative documents from the thirteenth century
as a designator of moral status: “Almost universally in medieval English towns, the
ruling groups of merchants were referred to as probi homines or prud’hommes, that is,
‘worthy men’.”53 In the General Prologue, the suggestion that the Merchant is a
respectable figure of worth and standing jars somewhat with the implication that his
focus is on loans, bargains and financial dealings, precisely because an exaggerated
concern for making money was the chief characteristic for which merchants were
criticised in the estates satire tradition.54 Read within this estates satire tradition, the use
of “worthy” is likely to appear ironic.
In the portrait of the Friar, immediately
preceding that of the Merchant, Chaucer employs “worthy” three times, twice to
describe the Friar himself; “For unto swich a worthy man as he / Accorded nat, as by his
facultee, / To have with sike lazars aqueyntaunce” (I, 243–5), and “This worthy
lymytour was cleped Huberd” (I, 269), and once to fill out the portrait of the
townswomen he confesses (for a small fee), the gullible victims of his flattery (I, 217).
In all three cases the context is undeniably satirical; playful though the tone may be,
Chaucer pauses over the many unscrupulous activities of the Friar, making it clear that
such behaviour is morally questionable. Notably the Friar draws on “fair langage” (I,
211) and makes “his Englissh sweete upon his tonge” (I, 265), “ther as profit sholde
arise” (I, 249), the kind of polished sales-pitch language so often associated with
retailers and marketplaces. There is none of this in the portrait of the Merchant, but the
positioning of Merchant and Friar in succession draws attention to the overlap of
spiritual and material profit and debt, and the kind of common language used to define
religious and commercial practices. By the time the Merchant is again described as
52
See Pamela Nightingale, “Money and credit in the economy of late medieval England”, in Medieval
Money Matters, ed. Diana Wood (Oxford: Oxbow, 2004), especially pp. 52–3.
53
R. H. Hilton, “Status and Class in the Medieval Town”, in The Church in the Medieval Town, ed.
Gervase Rosser and T. R. Slater (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998), p. 13.
144
“worthy”, in the final words of the portrait (I, 283), Chaucer has emptied the word of
sarcasm, and leaves a glimpse of a man behaving in a suitable fashion, if somewhat cutoff from his fellow pilgrims.
In contrast with the portrait of the Friar, there is no mention of those at the other
end of the Merchant’s dealings, or of the kind of persuasive sweet-talk with which the
Friar is credited. There is a sense of the Merchant being alone, of being slightly
removed from the fictional society of the General Prologue, perhaps appropriate to the
insecurity and uncertainty of the moral and social position of fourteenth-century English
merchants. If merchants were accused of social-climbing aspirations, there is plenty of
evidence to suggest that to a degree they succeeded in elevating their status. I have
already noted how the 1363 sumptuary laws, introduced to regulate expenditure on
clothing and food, were divided according to categories that took into account both
income and land ownership.55 A closer examination of these categories illuminates just
how complex social and status differentiation had become. Stephen O’Connor explains
that for the purposes of this law, knights and esquires were subdivided according to
income, and even more significantly, wealthy townspeople who possessed no land were
taken into account under the same legislation. To compensate for their lack of land, the
income requirements of these townspeople were raised considerably. In London and
outside, merchants, citizens and burgesses with goods and chattels worth ₤500 qualified
to wear the same clothes as esquires and gentlemen worth ₤100. To wear the same
clothes as gentlemen and esquires worth ₤200 a year, the townspeople were required to
demonstrate ownership of goods to the value of ₤1000.56
Income and land were
therefore crucial in determining personal status. This recognition of merchants and
townspeople as forming a new social group, and of their growing financial strength, has
a dual effect, suggesting that status could be acquired through wealth and material
possessions, yet at the same time, no matter how wealthy, merchants and townspeople
would continue to be distinguished from landed gentry. Social boundaries were thus
fluid only to a certain degree.
Even if merchants achieved parity with the upper division of esquire and
gentleman on paper, the extent to which they achieved recognition of increased status
from their peers is harder to gauge. The issue of birth is less easy to define than levels
of income; no poll tax records or legislation can tell us whether a merchant’s
54
Jill Mann, Chaucer and Medieval Estates Satire, pp. 99–103.
See my second chapter, p. 97.
56
O’Connor, “Adam Fraunceys and John Pyel”, p. 18. O’Connor's reference is taken from Rotuli
Parliamentorum, ed. J. Strachey and others, 6 vols (London: 1767–77).
55
145
contemporaries regarded him as “nouveau riche” or as socially inferior. It was not only
in estates literature that the merchant’s supposed greed and social ambition was
addressed, or his lack of gentle birth highlighted. Jean Froissart described the Norfolk
insurgents at the time of the Peasants’ Revolt as pressing Sir Robert Salle to lead them
with these words:
“Robert, you are a knight and you have a great reputation round here as a brave and worthy man.
Of course you are one, but we know very well that you are not a gentleman, but the son of a
common mason, of the same sort as us. Come with us and you shall be our master and we will
make you so great a lord that the fourth part of England will be under your rule.”57
Sir Robert Salle has achieved financial success, political prestige and a knighthood in
recognition of this, but his contemporaries are determined not to allow his lowly birth to
be forgotten. There remains a sense of his distinction from the gentility and the status
conferred by noble birth. For a figure in this position, the identity challenge must have
been bewildering: with whom did his own loyalties lie and who could be relied on to
support him? There is a sense of Sir Robert's unique and somewhat isolated position in
the portrait of the Merchant of the General Prologue; he is neither genuinely gentle, nor
in reality lowly; his relationships with others are unclear and insecure. Several sermons
and lyrics from the period express similar sentiments,58 and draw attention to the
somewhat turbulent position of the merchant within the complex patterns of what Paul
Strohm has referred to as increasingly “horizontal” social relations,59 and the erosion of
traditional relationships and the values on which they depended.
Merchants and
moneylenders themselves were aware of their potential as objects of exploitation, as the
anonymous author of this late medieval lyric demonstrates:
I had my
I lent my
I asked my
I lost my
⎫
⎬
⎪
⎭
good
⎧
⎨
⎪
⎩
and my
to my
of my
and my
⎫
⎬
⎪
⎭
frend.
I made of my frend my fo:
I will be war I do no more so.60
57
As cited in O'Connor, p. 19, and drawn from Froissart, Chronicles, ed. Geoffrey Brereton
(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968), p. 223.
58
See, for example, Bromyard’s Summa Predicantium, as discussed in Owst, Literature and Pulpit, p.
352, and discussed in my Introduction, p. 29.
59
“Horizontal relations” is a term employed by Paul Strohm when distinguishing the new fourteenth
society from that of preceding centuries based on a feudal model, in which relations were “vertical”. Paul
Strohm, Social Chaucer, p. 10.
60
Lyric number 123 in Middle English Lyrics, ed. Maxwell S. Luria and Richard L. Hoffman (New York:
W. W. Norton & Company, 1974), p. 119.
146
The down side of the new cash-based economy, with its promise of profit and social
advancement, was the risk of debt and the challenge to traditional relationships. A good
merchant needed to “be war” of this.
In the first chapter of this thesis I drew attention to the way the contract is an
important organising principle in the Decameron. Lina Insana argues that this is
consonant with the mercantile class that Boccaccio depicts in many of the work’s one
hundred stories and is part of the author’s broader agenda to identify literature as the
result of work and to situate its production within the context of the marketplace.61 The
idea that the telling of stories is not only a pleasurable pastime, but also involves
“work”, is also present in The Canterbury Tales.62 Although pleasure and utility are
not established as the twin goals for the storytelling to the same extent as in the
Decameron, allusions to both are present when the Host puts his proposal to the
company of pilgrims.63 He knows, he says, that they intend to tell tales en route to
Canterbury, but he wishes to add some structure to their activity:
And therfore wol I maken yow disport,
As I seyde erst, and doon yow som confort.
And if yow liketh alle by oon assent
For to stonden at my juggement,
And for to werken as I shal yow seye,
Tomorwe, whan ye riden by the weye…
(I, 775–80)
He is offering them amusement and pleasure –“disport”–, but it will mean that they
have to “werken” according to the rules that he is about to articulate. He seeks the
company’s assent and they form an agreement that each pilgrim will tell four stories,
two on the way to Canterbury, two on the way back (I, 791–5). There is to be an
element of competition: whoever tells the stories “of best sentence and moost solaas”
(I, 798) will be shouted a meal by the company on return to the Tabard Inn. Such
elements of the General Prologue, I will argue, while not necessarily overtly financial,
61
Lina Insana, “Redefining Dulce et utile: Boccaccio’s Organization of Literature on Economic Terms”,
Heliotropia 2.1 (2004). Available from: http://www.brown.edu/Departments/ItalianStudies/heliotropia/02-01/insana.html (accessed 20 August 2004), Part I. See also Giuseppa Mazzotta,
The World at Play in Boccaccio’s Decameron (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), pp. 245,
247.
62
See N. S. Thompson, Chaucer, Boccaccio and the Debate of Love: A Comparative Study of The
Decameron and the Canterbury Tales (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 110–15. Thompson
discusses “sentence” and “solaas” in the Canterbury Tales in the chapter “The Literary Debate”.
63
As Insana notes, the Horatian ideal calls for a balance between the two impulses of pleasure and
utility. See Horace, Ars Poetica, 333–4: “Aut prodesse volunt aut delectare poetae, / Aut simil et
iucunda et idonea dicere vitae”. Insana proposes that in the course of the Decameron, Boccaccio “enacts
a program of shifting the semantics of utilitas from classical morality to material self-benefit”. See also
Patricia J. Eberle, “Commercial language and the commercial outlook in the General Prologue”, The
Chaucer Review 18.2 (1983), 161–74; see p. 169.
147
contribute to the positioning of The Canterbury Tales within a market economy in
which competing ideologies and social groups jostle to maintain their position and in
which stories themselves become identified as the products of work.
Light-headed and satisfied though the pilgrims may be after the excellent “wyn”
(I, 750) and “vitaille” (I, 749) of the Tabard, they are not too drunk to be able to listen
to the Host’s ideas about the governance of the storytelling system he has introduced,
and agree to his conditions. At the conclusion to the Host’s list of rules, the pilgrims
swear “othes” (I, 810) to abide by them. The Host’s claim that the storytelling will
come at no cost is countered by the other references to cost and price which abound in
this passage. In the first place the Host makes his proposal only after the pilgrims have
paid their bills:
And after soper pleyen he bigan,
And spak of myrthe amonges othere thynges,
Whan that we hadde maad oure rekenynges…
(I, 758-760)
His offer of providing amusement for the pilgrims, he says, “shal coste noght” (I, 768),
yet he has already provided a product which the group has paid for. In offering a prize
for the best storyteller, he is keen to point out that the “soper” prize will be “at oure
aller cost” (I, 799). The Host effectively offers himself to the company as their guide
free of charge, but couches his offer in terms that imply that there normally is a charge;
when he presents his offer of accompanying the pilgrims to Canterbury, it is done with
an air of self-sacrifice – “I wol myselven goodly with yow ryde, / Right at myn owene
cost, and be youre gyde” (I, 803–5). By making reference to the provision of his
services free of charge, the Host emphasises that they do in fact have a commercial
value; his are services worth paying for. When the Host flatters the group of pilgrims
that they are the liveliest to have passed through his tavern in the last year, it is having
just added up their bill and perhaps calculated that ensuring their return to his tavern
might well be in his best interests.
The Host apparently wants the company to
understand that he is doing something for this particular group of travellers because
they are special, and his offer is unique. While this has led some critics to view the
Host’s offer as an indicator of a society in which sincerity of sentiment is increasingly
undermined by commercial incentive, it need not necessarily be viewed with mistrust.64
It may well be that an element of calculation informs the Host’s offer, but if we can
64
David Aers, for example, asserts that the emphasis on “worth” in the General Prologue “withholds any
sense of that benevolent and organic interaction of estates so central in traditional social ideology”; see
Aers, Chaucer (Brighton: Harvester Press, 1986), p. 20.
148
assume that he is dependent on an income from his tavern, would this not be
reasonable? In any case, the fact that he is a tavern-owner who is prepared to leave the
site of his livelihood for the duration of the pilgrimage, in order to provide
entertainment to a group of travellers whose company appeals to him, must not be
overlooked. If anything, his offer to absent himself from the tavern might be assumed
to result in financial loss, rather than profit. What is clear is that the Host’s words mark
the entire scene as an elaborate kind of transaction and locate it firmly within a cash
economy.
Apart from a vocabulary of “rekenynges”, the other kind of vocabulary drawn
on with marked frequency by both the Host and the narrator in the General Prologue is
a legal one. The pilgrims, the Host declares, will stand at his “juggement” (I, 778), and
anyone who should hinder or oppose such judgement will have to cover the company’s
expenses along the way: “And whoso wole my juggement withseye / Shal paye al that
we spenden by the weye” (I, 805–6). The company accedes to being guided by the
Host’s “juggement” (I, 818) and takes the agreement a step further by asking him to
agree to be their “governour” (I, 813), as well as “juge” and “reportour” (I, 814) of their
stories. Furthermore he is asked to “sette a soper at a certeyn pris” (I, 815), introducing
the subject of value into the discussion. The following morning, before inviting the
pilgrims to draw straws in order to decide who will begin the storytelling, the Host
reminds them of their agreement, once again emphasising that whoever should dare to
rebel against his authority will quite literally pay the price:
As evere mote I drynke wyn or ale,
Whoso be rebel to my juggement
Shal paye for al that by the wey is spent.
(I, 832–4)
In this way, the governance of the group is tied firmly to its financial control. That this
financial discussion and consideration of the “game rules” should take place in the
context of a meal shared by a group of travellers is perhaps significant, given that in
Arthurian romance, games are generally proposed and their rules stipulated at a feast at
which all the court is gathered. The “beheading game” proposed before Arthur and his
knights at the start of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is one such example. In the
General Prologue, the image of companionship generated by the account of the
socially diverse group of pilgrims getting to know each other over a substantial meal
inside the inn supplants the image of knights gathered for a feast in a castle, reimagining fellowship in a new context.
149
The infusion of the General Prologue with references to cost and payment has
the effect of establishing a commercial framework in which the pilgrimage will unfold,
for at least the travelling aspect of the pilgrimage, which must inevitably make up the
largest part in terms of time. The first storyteller is the Knight, who, in accordance
with his station in life, relates a formally-structured romance, the main concerns of
which are love and arms. Mid-way through the romance, when it has been agreed that
the knights Arcite and Palamoun will have to fight each other in the lists of Theseus,
duke of Athens, with the victor to win the hand of the duke’s lovely sister-in-law
Emelye, the narrator makes an unexpected deviation. At the start of the third section he
declares:
I trowe men wolde deme it necligence
If I foryete to tellen the dispence
Of Theseus, that gooth so bisily
To maken up the lystes roially,
That swich a noble theatre as it was
I dar wel seyen in this world ther nas.
(I, 1881–6)
The Knight’s apparent belief that his audience of fellow pilgrims will consider it
negligent if he does not describe Theseus’s expenditure when preparing his lists comes
as a surprise, given that until now, very little has hinted at financial considerations.
Earlier, having won Thebes and captured Palamoun and Arcite, Theseus punished them
with an indefinite prison sentence rather than demanding a ransom, despite knowing
that their royal station would have permitted him to set a hefty price for their release (I,
1022–4). In case Theseus’s unwillingness to enter into financial negotiation has not
been made clear enough, it is subsequently echoed three times: the Knight concludes
his account of Theseus’s sentencing of Palamoun and Arcite by stating emphatically
that no amount of money can buy their freedom: “ther may no gold hem quite” (I,
1032); later Arcite reminds Palamoun that ransom money will not buy their freedom (I,
1176); and finally, when describing the way Theseus’s dear friend Perotheus is
eventually able to secure Arcite’s release, the Knight emphasises that it is achieved
“withouten any raunsoun” (I, 1205). If ransom has no role to play, then what is the
Knight’s purpose in continually mentioning it? It is somewhat akin to the Host’s
claiming that he will offer his services free of charge: on both occasions the possible
financial value is alluded to, yet no money is ever exchanged. By having the Knightnarrator repeat the references to ransom in his tale, Chaucer seems to want to highlight
the existence of commercial values and the possibility of a certain type of exchange –
150
money for prisoners–, and thus inject an element of economic realism into this romance
narrative.
Chaucer had personal experience of this type of exchange; after being captured
in France in the campaign of 1359–60, his release, along with the release of others, was
secured when Edward III made a ransom payment. According to records, sixteen
pounds were paid for Chaucer.65
Terry Jones, in Chaucer’s Knight, argues that
Theseus’s decision not to accept ransom contravenes the unwritten rules of chivalry
concerning generosity to one’s opponents, and is in keeping with a general lack of
largesse evident in his behaviour.66 But there are plenty of other instances in which
Theseus’s behaviour seems abundantly generous. At the start of the romance, when he
returns to Athens and meets the weeping widows who have been prevented by Creon
from claiming the bodies of their dead husbands, he takes pity on them and vows to
avenge them (I, 952–64). Later, he of course decides to commute the death sentence he
had imposed on Arcite and Palamoun into a tournament when begged to have pity on
them by Ypolita and Emelye (I, 1742ff.). These and other instances of Theseus’s “pite”
apparently contradict Jones’s argument that the Knight-narrator misunderstands the
nature of chivalry and that Theseus’s behaviour is tyrannical and unyielding. I do not
wish to engage in the lengthy critical debate about the kind of leader Theseus is, or
whether or not Chaucer’s Knight was in fact a mercenary; rather, I simply wish to note
that the account of Theseus preparing the lists for the tournament shapes him as an
employer, and as a leader who is willing to operate within a market economy, and that
the Knight’s interest in expenditure does not necessarily exclude him from
consideration as a true member of his order.
A small detail prior to the Knight’s “financial detour” into Theseus’s
commissioning and payment of works enhances the sense of economic realism it
creates: when Arcite is freed from Theseus’s prison, he is forced into exile, but because
of his love for Emelye, he disguises himself as poor “Philostrate” and in his disguise, is
eventually able to return to Athens as a servant at Theseus’s court. Soon his skills are
recognised by Theseus, who makes him a squire and gives him gold “to mayntene his
degree” (I, 1441). In addition to this income, he has a secret income brought to him
year after year by his loyal Theban countrymen, but he manages to spend it discreetly,
so as not to arouse any suspicion:
65
See the extract of the account of the Keeper of the King’s Wardrobe, reprinted in Crow and Olson, pp.
23–8.
66
Terry Jones, Chaucer’s Knight: The Portrait of a Medieval Mercenary, rev. edn (London: Methuen,
1994), pp. 163, 197.
151
And eek men broghte hym out of his contree,
From yeer to yeer, ful pryvely his rente;
But honestly and slyly he it spente,
That no man wondred how that he it hadde.
(I, 1442–5)
This is a detail completely absent from the Teseida; Arcite’s artful positioning of
himself at court and the private income he manages to draw and disguise locates him in
a world in which social advancement is possible and sound financial knowledge
necessary. He is described as “sly” and “honest”, but is not shown as deceitful for
taking the gold when he has his own.
“Rente” in this case most likely refers
specifically to rent from lands, rather than general income, as it does elsewhere in The
Canterbury Tales, but even if it thus signifies property-derived income, showing that
Arcite secretly remains a wealthy landowner, despite appearing at the Duke’s court to
be a self-made man, it serves to give him a financial dimension,67 not unlike that of the
“mercantile knights” of the previous chapter. Oddly enough, the secrecy surrounding
Arcite’s income makes him appear like the merchant of the General Prologue, whose
financial status is hidden from his fellow pilgrims. Arcite appears to know how to
manage money discreetly, but for opposite reasons; whereas the merchant is possibly
seeking to conceal his debts in order to preserve his credit status, Arcite does not want
to draw attention to himself by conspicuous spending.
In contrast to the portrait of Arcite, the portrait of the Knight in the General
Prologue is entirely without a financial dimension. Lee Patterson notes that there is a
general quality of “obsolescence” about him.68 He may be assumed to have required
and earned money, and even to own land, but none of this is mentioned. If anything, he
is presented as an old-fashioned knight of the kind more common to earlier generations,
whose active military careers bore no trace of the financial concerns of the kind faced
by the impoverished fictional knights Sir Amadace and Sir Launfal, whose woeful
financial circumstances were a focus of the previous chapter. That there should be
nothing in the General Prologue of the Knight to foreshadow his detour into expenses
in his tale renders it all the more striking. He has, however, demonstrated a willingness
to partake in the Host’s game in his “apology” (I, 875–92), , which precedes the second
beginning to his tale. He goes as far as to mention, rather teasingly, the supper prize
67
In the General Prologue portrait of the Friar, “rente” describes a general income (I, 256), while in the
portrait of the Manciple (I, 579) and in the Friar’s Tale (III, 1390), it denotes an income specifically
from property.
68
Patterson notes that the portrait of the Knight is of “a man who seems wholly unconnected to the public
life of late fourteenth-century England”. See Chaucer and the Subject of History, p. 179.
152
that will be awarded to the best storyteller, in a tone that implies his recognition of the
competitive spirit of the storytelling and his confidence in his own “large feeld” (I, 886)
of narrative matter:
Lat every felawe telle his tale aboute,
And lat se now who shal the soper wynne;
And ther I lefte, I wol ayeyn bigynne.
(I, 890-92)
His deviation into the subject of “dispence” precisely half-way through his tale
contributes to the sense of internal dialogue among the pilgrims, as it seems to
constitute a response to the Host’s comments on cost and spending; apparently this
pilgrim understands the Host’s comments in a commercial context. The description of
Theseus’s preparations for the great tournament that will decide the fates of Palamoun,
Arcite and Emelye is wide-ranging, and over all of these minutely-described works
hovers the suggestion of their cost. Although descriptions of the greatness and finery
of interior decoration and furnishings and the organisation of courtly space abound in
late medieval romances, as I noted in the previous chapter, the processes involved in
their manufacture and purchase are generally not mentioned. As I pointed out in the
previous chapter, when Sir Gawain enters Castle Hautdesert, the decoration is almost
overwhelming, but the closest the narrator comes to shedding any economic light on
such magnificence is in the allusions to the provenance of some of the tapestries and
cloth.69 Although the financial cost of the finery is mentioned in order to convey its
great value, we never hear of Bertilak instigating renovations, importing materials,
witnessing the works taking place or learning about the artisans whose labour has
contributed to such decoration. Gawain sees the castle as a timeless finished product
whose great value is implied, but never defined. It is an example of what Helen Fulton
has described as the tendency of romance to participate in the urban economy only “at
the level of consumer accessories”.70 The world of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is
apparently devoid of financial need and work for money. Although the poem contains
many lengthy descriptions of work, such as when the servants assist in the organisation
of the hunt and preparations for the feast, it is work conducted as service, rather than
for wages. Moreover, even though the poet draws on the terminology of trade, as I
discussed in the last chapter, these words never refer to the actual exchange of money.
After the first day’s hunting, for example, each servant is allowed to choose a portion
69
See Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, ll. 852–9.
See Helen Fulton, “Mercantile Ideology in Chaucer’s Shipman’s Tale”, The Chaucer Review, 36.4
(2002), 311–28, p. 311.
70
153
of the deer once Bertilak has chosen the best parts, “Vche freke for his fee, as falleȝ for
to haue” (1358), and back at the castle, Bertilak summons Gawain, who comes forward,
“his feeȝ þer for to fonge” (1622). Bertilak tells Gawain he’ll soon be rich if he
continues “such chaffer” (1647) and repeats his vow to “chaunge … cheuisaunce”
(1678) with Gawain. The type of exchange they refer to involves a currency consisting
of kisses and quarry. In the Knight’s Tale, on the other hand, the Knight outlines the
entire construction process of the lists and the temples, the materials used, Theseus’s
commissioning of particular works by the best tradesmen and artists, and the value of it
all. This indicates that the kind of work the Knight is referring to results from wagepaying, contractual relations and patronage, rather than bonds of service and mutual
obligation.
The greatness of Duke Theseus’s Athenian theatre is demonstrated in the
quality of the materials and the skill level of the artists engaged to carry out the work.
Theseus, for example, builds a temple to Venus at one gate of the theatre, and at the
opposite gate, a temple to Mars, which “coste largely of gold a fother” (I, 1908). There
is no other space like it “in erthe” (I, 1896) precisely because Theseus takes the trouble
to employ the best artisans and artists to carry out the work:
For in the lond there was no crafty man
That geometrie or ars-metrike kan,
Ne portreyour, ne kervere of ymages,
That Theseus ne yaf him mete and wages.
(I, 1897–1900)
Even such details as the types of pigments used by the painter are referred to. It is
noted that the painter of the scenes in the temple dedicated to Diana executes them in a
life-like manner, spending a lot of money on buying fine pigments: “Wel koude he
peynten lifly that it wroghte; / With many a floryn he the hewes boghte” (I, 2087–8).
Many currencies were in circulation in Europe at that time, as Chaucer was well aware,
so his choice of the florin, unnecessary in the rhyming scheme, as the currency used to
purchase pigments, appears deliberate, and may well be intended as an allusion to
Florentine artistic practice and the evolution of the art market there. In fourteenth- and
fifteenth-century paintings, the quantity of particular pigments often constituted a very
visible reference to the money that had been spent on them. Gold leaf and ultramarine
blue made from imported, ground lapis lazuli, were the most expensive pigments, and
the quantities in which they were to be used were commonly specified in contracts
154
drawn up between patron and artist.71 Michael Baxandall refers to an early fifteenthcentury contract for the artist Gherardo Starnina to paint a Life of the Virgin fresco in a
church in Empoli, a town not far from Florence, which stipulated specific grades of
ultramarine blue: that used for Mary’s robes was to be the quality of two florins an
ounce, while the ultramarine blue for the rest of the image was only required to be of
the lesser quality at one florin an ounce.72 If the focus of art historians is often on early
fifteenth-century contracts, it is simply because many more contracts survive from this
later period; contracts of this kind were also drawn up in the earlier period, but few
have survived.73 Among the earliest surviving are two documents dating from the first
decade of the fourteenth century, concerning the Sienese painter Duccio di
Buoninsegna’s acceptance of a commission to paint a panel for the high altar of the
church of S. Maria of Siena. The documents point to well-established and legally
binding procedures for the commissioning and execution of early fourteenth-century
art, and specify conditions regarding the labour and the cost of the materials.74 As
Baxandall has outlined, to the medieval eye hues were not equal; the stipulation in
contracts of particular quantities of colour was a means for patrons to ensure not only
that certain parts of a painting’s narrative were afforded their necessary importance, but
also that their own status was reflected.75 Theseus’s interest in pigment seems to
parallel the interest of late medieval patrons in artists’ use of colour: if he wants the
works he is commissioning to reflect his own economic greatness, then there is no
easier way for him to do so than by flaunting large quantities of the most expensive
“hewes”.
A further connection with Italian artistic practice is perhaps responsible for
Chaucer’s use of “lifly” to describe the execution of the wall paintings in the temple
71
This is discussed in some detail in Baxandall, Painting and Experience.
Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1972), p. 11.
73
Baxandall in fact notes that contracts from later in the fifteenth century place less importance on
pigments, and more importance on the artistic skills of particular artists. Starnina’s 1408 contract, with
its great emphasis on pigment, is thus a product of its time. The later fifteenth-century shift in focus
towards skill and away from materials is difficult to account for precisely, but is probably largely due to
a change in taste. It seems to have functioned much like fashions in dress: gradually clients who may
have been afraid of appearing vulgar, sought to set themselves apart from others who were paying for
large quantities of gold and ultramarine, by making commissions that stipulated execution rather than
material detail. In short, they cultivated an interest in artistic skill so as not to appear vulgar. See
Baxandall, pp. 14ff. Leon Battista Alberti, in On painting, disapproved of artists who used too much
gold, and instead advocated the representation of golden objects through a skilful application of yellow
and white pigments.
74
Diana Norman, “‘A noble panel’: Duccio’s Maestà”, in Siena, Florence and Padua: Art, Society and
Religion 1280–1400: Vol. II, Case Studies, ed. Diana Norman (New Haven and London: Yale University
Press, 1995), p. 59.
75
Baxandall, Painting and Experience, p. 82.
72
155
dedicated to Diana, for this is precisely the quality for which the greatest Florentine
painter of the early fourteenth century, Giotto, with whose work Chaucer was familiar,
was noted. During Chaucer’s visit to Milan he was hosted in Azzone Visconti’s
palazzo, whose great hall contained Giotto’s representation of Vanagloria and Nine
Worthies, as John Larner has outlined, and in Florence he might well have attended
mass at Santa Croce in the company of the Bardi, as I noted earlier.76 As outlined in
Chapter One, Giotto was acclaimed as having achieved unprecedented naturalism by
Dante, Petrarch and Bocccaccio, as well as by several Italian chroniclers, and by
Cennini, Ghiberti and Vasari.
Given that praising paintings for their “life-like”
qualities was a standard rhetorical device in Classical writing on art, and that the Italian
writers with whose work Chaucer was familiar also wrote of painting in terms of its
naturalism, it is unlikely that Chaucer’s choice of the adjective “lifly” was random.
Instead it most likely derives from a combination of his knowledge of Classical writing
on art, and his personal experience of an art form that was increasingly based on the
imaginative observation and visualisation of individuals, rather than the imitation of
artistic precedents. We cannot know how Chaucer responded to the wall paintings and
other art works he saw on his travels, but if he had been seeking a model of patronage
at its most magnificent on which to base his account of Theseus’s works, he would
have struggled to find a better example than that of the established patronage “system”
he had encountered during his visits to Milan and Florence. The Bardi, with whom
Chaucer most probably conducted business on behalf of Edward III when his first visit
to Italy was extended to take in Florence, were important patrons in the early decades
of the fourteenth century.77
Whether tied to the Italian artistic practice Chaucer
encountered on his journeys to the Italian peninsula in early 1373 and 1378 or not, the
description of Theseus commissioning and overseeing the work for the tournaments
provides an insight into a ruler shaping himself as a connoisseur of architectural and
artistic work and as a conspicuous buyer of artistic skill.
It is not that fourteenth-century England was without building programmes and
decoration, but unlike the Italian city states, the biggest commissioners of architectural
and artistic programmes were the kings. Few medieval buildings in London have
survived intact to be able to give a sense of the extent to which they were decorated,
76
See Larner, “Chaucer’s Italy”, p. 17; and Michael Hagiioannu, “Giotto’s Bardi Chapel Frescoes”.
Hagiioannu argues that Chaucer’s account of wall paintings in The House of Fame may have been
inspired by frescoes in the chapel in Florence’s church of Santa Croce.
77
It is not known why Chaucer’s journey was extended to take in Florence. As is noted in Chaucer:
Life-Records, the most likely motive would have related to “the important financial relations of Edward
156
but records show that Edward III spent vast amounts on building programmes and
decoration, and there is every indication that the standards of artistic luxury were high.
Part of St Stephen’s Chapel (c.1350) in Westminster survives, as do the accounts
showing payment for workmen, and it is clear that practically every surface in this
structure was enriched with gilt gesso, painting or glass inlay.78 This is only one
example, however, and as I noted earlier, the sheer quantity of decorated interiors in
Florence could not have failed to impress the English visitor. It is reasonable to believe
that exposure to mercantile patronage in Florence would have prompted Chaucer to
imagine the potential for greater mercantile patronage of the arts in England.
Chaucer’s period as clerk of the King’s Works gave him further insight into the
workings of patronage. On being appointed to the position from 1389 to 1391, he was
responsible for the maintenance of royal residences and other royal property, including
gardens, hunting lodges and the Tower of London. In this period he supervised major
renovations, dealing directly with skilled craftsmen, ordering large quantities of
materials and overseeing the payment of the tradesmen.79
Most notably, one of
Chaucer’s projects involved preparing “lists” for the large tournaments held at
Smithfield in 1390 by Richard II.
It has been suggested that the description of
Theseus’s commissioning of the works and construction of the lists for the tournament
in the Knight’s Tale may be derived from Chaucer’s own experiences at Smithfield, a
likely hypothesis given the allusions to wages, materials and the hiring of renowned
craftsmen.80 Of note, however, is the absence of a clerk of works or intermediary
overseer in the Knight’s Tale, for Theseus takes on the role of supervisor himself.
Critics such as David Wallace and Terry Jones have argued that Theseus’s close
supervision of the works he has commissioned constitutes another example of his
tyrannical nature, noting that he is determined to control all activities undertaken by his
subjects, including directing them in the content of paintings.81 Wallace, most notably,
calls the conditions in which the artists work “claustrophobic”, not just on account of
Theseus’s close supervision and choice of subject matter for the paintings, but also on
account of the cramped physical spaces of the temples in which these artists must
III with the Bardi and other Florentine houses. As recently as August 1372 Edward had negotiated with
the Bardi for a large loan”: see p. 39.
78
Joan Evans, English Art 1307–1461 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1949), p. 46.
79
See Crow and Olson, pp. 449ff.
80
See, for example, Lawrence M. Clopper, “The Engaged Spectator: Langland and Chaucer on Civic
Spectacle and the Theatrum”, Studies in the Age of Chaucer 22 (2000), 115–40; and Sheila Lindenbaum,
“The Smithfield Tournament of 1390”, Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 20 (1990), 1–20.
81
Terry Jones likens Theseus to Italian tyrants, in particular to Giovanni dell’Agnello, Doge of Pisa, who
was described by the chronicler Matteo Villani as sitting at a palace window in golden robes for all to
see, p. 211. See Wallace, Chaucerian Polity, p. 117.
157
paint.82 To back up his claims about the supervision being overbearing, Wallace quotes
the description of the magnificently attired duke sitting at a palace window in order to
watch the tournament: “Duc Theseus was at a wyndow set, / Arrayed right as he were a
god in trone” (I. 2528–9), but this is a Genesis-like description of Theseus surveying
the spectacle of the tournament once the works have been completed, rather than of him
positioning himself to literally “oversee” the artisans at work.83 In fact the passage in
the Knight’s Tale outlining Theseus’s commissioning and supervision of the works
might more plausibly be read as a reflection of real patterns of patronage. There was
nothing unusual about late medieval patrons making specifications as far as content
was concerned. Similarly, the small space of the temples is akin to that of the privately
funded and richly decorated chapels, such as those of the Bardi, Peruzzi and Baroncelli
families in Santa Croce. Artists frequently had to work on precarious scaffolding and
decorate ceilings from strange angles, as the many surviving examples of chapel wall
paintings clearly show. Besides, when Theseus ensures that his workers are paid their
“mete and wages” (I, 1900) it marks his recognition of economic forces and willingness
to operate within a contractual system rather than one in which artisans might have
been bound to do their artistic duty by obligation.
At the conclusion of his description of the three temples –dedicated to Venus,
Mars and Diana– the Knight declares that Theseus is satisfied with the works he has
commissioned and overseen:
Now been thise lystes maad, and Theseus,
That at his grete cost arrayed thus
The temples and the theatre every deel,
Whan it was doon, hym lyked wonder weel.
(I, 2089–92)
No more is said of Theseus’s supervision of the works or financial investment, and the
narration returns to Palamoun and Arcite and their preparations for the great Athenian
tournament.
Theseus’s extravagance does not seem to have any effect on the
tournament’s outcome, yet the descriptions of his preparations and their cost form an
economic centre at the heart of the Knight’s Tale. Construction, interior decoration and
artwork are executed by sought-after master craftsmen whose “wages” are paid and
whose work uses material that has cost cart-loads of gold and “many a floryn”. The
82
David Wallace writes: “Artistic production under such a form of direct all-seeing patronage is made to
feel as claustrophobic as the space it is allotted to work in: the temples allow small room for artistic freeplay, since they are conceived of as encapsulating forms of foreknowledge handed down by a ruler as
‘god in trone’”, Chaucerian Polity, p. 118.
83
See Wallace, p. 117.
158
Knight’s concern that his fellow pilgrims would expect to hear such financial detail in
his tale suggests that he has taken notice of the Host’s references to price and payment.
His attention to the cost of artistic and luxury items is followed by many other pilgrims.
Most notably, the Wife of Bath, when talking about the death of her fourth husband in
the Prologue, claims it would have been nothing but a “wast” to bury him “preciously”
(III, 500).
The commissioning of a headstone constitutes small-scale patronage,
making it clear that it is not just the nobility making choices about work that is made to
order by artists and artisans. In the Knight’s Tale the inclusion of narrative wall
painting as work that deserves payment may well tie in with the Host’s positioning of
his proposal for storytelling en route to Canterbury within an economic framework. In
this way Chaucer subtly binds together painting and writing as two forms of narrative
which result from labours and which are worthy of remuneration, thus giving them a
commercial value. If, in the Decameron, Boccaccio shapes himself as producer of
literary commodities,84 there is evidence to suggest that Chaucer in The Canterbury
Tales has just such a project in mind.
Although Boccaccio’s references in the
Decameron to the weariness resulting from his own literary exertions are more explicit
than Chaucer’s in The Canterbury Tales –in the latter, the allusions to the labours
involved in artistic production occur within the frame and the stories themselves, rather
than in an authorial introduction and epilogue as they do in the Decameron– they are
undeniably present. That Chaucer should want to draw attention to the organisation
behind such spectacles, the work involved in their creation and their cost, rather than
just the events or the structures in isolation, suggests his keenness to emphasise the
work and processes involved in production, whether of buildings, of visual art or of
poetry.
It is in this context that the Host’s call to the pilgrims to “werken” can be
interpreted: as a reference to artistic production within a competitive market system.
At the conclusion of the Knight’s Tale, the inebriated Miller, with no regard for
“curteisie” (I, 3123), and ignoring the Host’s invitation to the Monk to speak next,
loudly claims he will tell a “noble tale” with which he will “quite” the Knight’s Tale.
The Host himself has just employed the term “quite” in his words to the Monk, drawing
the pilgrims’ attention to the competitive nature of their pastime. With its connotation
of “pay-back”, it is a term that enhances the sense of a narrative marketplace. The
Miller is called to order by the Host, who tells him: “…Som bettre man shal telle us
first another. / Abyd, and lat us werken thriftily” (I, 3130–1). The pilgrims are thus
84
Insana, p. 8.
159
reminded of their agreement to tell stories, of the Host’s role in governing that process,
and of the fact that the storytelling constitutes “work”. Later, when the pilgrims, riding
Canterbury-ward on the eighteenth day of April, are brought to a halt by the Host, it is
to remind them of their commitment to occupy their time with storytelling. Looking at
the sky, the Host realises it is ten in the morning, and wheeling on his horse “sodeynly”
(II, 15), he makes a lengthy reflection on the passing of time:
“…Lordynges, the tyme wasteth nyght and day,
And steleth from us, what pryvely slepynge,
And what thurgh necligence in oure wakynge,
As dooth the streem that turneth nevere agayn,
Descendynge fro the montaigne into playn.
Wel kan Senec and many a philosophre
Biwaillen tyme moore than gold in cofre;
For ‘Los of catel may recovered be,
But los of tyme shendeth us,’ quod he.
It wol nat come agayn, withouten drede,
Namoore than wole Malkynes maydenhede,
Whan she hath lost it in hir wantownesse.
Lat us nat mowlen thus in ydelnesse.”
(II, 20–32)
When he ends by urging the company on in their agreed pastime with the words, “Lat
us nat mowlen thus in ydelnesse” (II, 32), the Host implies that story-telling is the
opposite of “ydelnesse”.
Chaucer thus positions the production of stories as a
worthwhile, useful activity.
The discourse of time in the Introduction to the Man of Law’s Tale has several
purposes. With its references to “gold in cofre” and “catel”, it foreshadows a tale in
which mercantile activity, with its transmission not only of commodities, but also of
“tidynges” (129), has an essential role to play, and by implying that tale-telling is a
kind of antithesis to the wasting of time, Chaucer establishes a temporal economy in
which the production of stories has a certain urgency and value. The passage is thus
part of a wider project to consider the practice of storytelling and narrative itself in
terms of value, work and commodities.
Although drawing on a variety of
commonplaces about time, many of Classical origin, the Host’s words can perhaps be
accounted for in light of the late medieval debate about money, time and work, which
of course also drew on Classical sources and the Church Fathers. As outlined above,
when late medieval canonists and theologians debated the legitimacy of different kinds
of commercial gain, they proposed that profit derived from the remuneration of labour
and transport was perfectly acceptable.85 In these terms, profit derived from usury was
85
Baldwin, The Medieval Theories, p. 66.
160
not, because one definition of usury was the gaining of profit without labour.86 Thomas
of Chobham, writing between the end of the twelfth and beginning of the thirteenth
century, was one of several theologians who asserted that usurers were effectively
making money while sleeping:
Preterea, fenerator vult consequi lucrum sine omni labore etiam dormiendo, quod est contra
preceptum domini qui ait: in labore et sudore vultus tui vesceris pane tuo. 87
(Moreover, the usurer wishes to gain profit without any work, even while sleeping, which is
against the command of the Lord, who says: “In work and the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat
thy bread.)
This bears comparison with the Host’s notion of time “stealing away” while people
sleep, and the idea that the loss of time causes ruin. In both cases there is a sense of
time continuing regardless of human activity or inactivity, and of the need to measure
activity against time.
In speculating on the emergence of “merchant time” in this period, –a more
“rational” sense of time corresponding to the rise of a market economy– Jacques Le
Goff cites several theological discussions about merchants and profit, which show that
the usurer was commonly accused of selling time.88 Le Goff ties his observations about
the increasing rationalism infusing all areas of late medieval society to the invention of
the mechanical clock and the rise of commerce, and pits it against “church time”, a time
ordered according to the religious offices and the bells that announced them – a time
that, in Le Goff’s words, was measured with instruments both “imprecise” and
“crude”.89 The argument for the existence of “merchant time” is an attractive one, but
subsequent research conducted by Gerhard Dohrn-van Rossum into the history of the
mechanical clock and its influence on European society from the late Middle Ages has
shown that insofar as this is understood to refer to time measured by clocks, and
opposed to “church time”, it did not really exist.90 Dohrn-van Rossum agrees that
merchant diaries and commercial records do suggest a preoccupation with time, but not
exclusively as it relates to business; many merchants were just as concerned with
recording elements of their family lives in relation to time. He also finds that religious
86
Baldwin, The Medieval Theories, p. 67.
Thomas of Chobham, Summa confessorum, ed. F. Broomfield (Louvain: Editions Nauwelaerts, 1968),
(Questio XIa. De usura.), (cap. I. De usura in genere.), p. 505. Cf. Genesis 3: 19.
88
Jacques Le Goff, Time, Work and Culture in the Middle Ages, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Chicago and
London: The University of Chicago Press, 1980), p. 29.
89
Le Goff, p. 36.
90
See Gerhard Dohrn-van Rossum, History of the Hour: Clocks and Modern Temporal Orders, trans.
Thomas Dunlap (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1996). In his sections “‘Merchant’s
87
161
orders were just as concerned with the organisation of their activities around time. Yet
he does not entirely dismiss the idea of “merchant time”: when the term is invoked to
refer to a new, widely diffused “consciousness of the temporal aspects of the movement
of goods and capital”, then its use is justifiable.91
According to Paul Strohm,
“merchant time” embodies an impulse toward worldly goals and is consistent “with the
idea of co-operative or fraternal alignments among those wishing to attain temporary
goals; with the temporary and unsworn contract as a way of defining and limiting the
extent of personal indebtedness”.92 In the Canterbury Tales Chaucer establishes a link
between time and productive labour, alluding to both commercial and artistic
production within specific time frames and in a co-operative context.
By the fourteenth century, the church had come to accept some forms of
economic activity that it had earlier condemned, and even fostered economic
development, but this did not mean that considerations of commerce in relation to time
took on less importance. On the contrary, the organisation of all activity according to
time, not just that of a commercial nature, became increasingly important.
Late
medieval innovations in time measurement are recorded in the iconography of the age:
Dohrn-van Rossum refers to Lorenzetti’s fresco in Siena, the Allegory of Good and Bad
Government (1337), noting that in her right hand, the allegorical figure of Temperantia
holds a sandglass, an invention of the late fourteenth century.93 Seeing that the fresco
was painted earlier in the century, and restored in 1355, we cannot be sure that
Lorenzetti himself actually painted the sandglass or whether it was added later, but its
presence marks a significant change in the representation of Temperantia; older
personifications carry a pitcher. As an instrument of time measurement, the sandglass
is thus tied to one of the figures associated with good government.94
The first
mechanical clocks were invented early in the fourteenth century and were installed in
public spaces throughout that century. Italian cities appear to have been the first to
institute this practice, closely followed by other European cities. In London the first
public clock was built during the same period as the Palace of Westminster, under
Edward III.95 What may be a striking clock appears in Chaucer’s The Book of the
Time’?” and “‘Resistance from the Church’?” Dohrn-van Rossum responds to Le Goff’s discussion of
“merchant time”, pp. 226–32.
91
He is, however, careful to stress that more research is needed in order to be able to declare,
definitively, that the temporal aspects of commercial activity and commercial rationality came to
consciousness in this period: see Dohrn-van Rossum, p. 230.
92
Strohm, Social Chaucer, p. 124.
93
Dohrn-van Rossum, pp. 117–18.
94
Dohrn-van Rossum, p. 5.
95
Dohrn-van Rossum, p. 135.
162
Duchess.96
In the Introduction to the Man of Law’s Tale there is no evidence
whatsoever to indicate that the Host is referring to the institution of “clock” time, as his
calculations of time are derived from his observations of light and shadow in the
natural world, but the fact that he calls the company away from “necligence” and
“ydelnesse”, with such strong words about the passing of time, points to a society
increasingly accustomed to thinking of work and production in relation to time, and
furthermore, to having its existence governed by time. Although the Host’s sober
reflection on time in the Introduction to the Man of Law’s Tale seems at odds with the
portrait of the large, virile, and jovial innkeeper of the General Prologue, it is entirely
appropriate, as suggested by the increasing late medieval connection of time with
governance and order, to a man in the position of “gyde” (I, 804) and “governour” (I,
813).
It is in the position of “governour” that the Host reminds the pilgrims about
regarding time as a productive opportunity, precisely because this view of time is not
shared by all the pilgrims. This can be seen in the Reeve’s Prologue when the elderly
Reeve responds to the Miller’s tale of the cuckolded carpenter with a pessimistic
speech about ageing and the passing of time. His words are concerned mainly with
diminishing physical force and his self-description is expressed in terms of bodily
decay, both external and internal.
He draws on the image of vegetable matter
mouldering and rotting:
But ik am oold; me list not pley for age;
Gras tyme is doon; my fodder is now forage;
This white top writeth myne olde yeris;
Myn herte is also mowled as myne heris,
But if I fare as dooth an open-ers —
That ilke fruyt is ever lenger the wers,
Til it be roten in mullok or in stree.
We olde men, I drede, so fare we:
Til we be roten, kan we nat be rype;
We hoppen alwey whil the world wol pype.
(I, 3867–76)
The Reeve’s description of his “mowled” heart is of course later echoed by the Host,
when, as we have seen, he urges the pilgrims not to “mowlen” in idleness. His use of
“mowled” thus associates him with the “necligence” the Host is so opposed to. Later,
in a similar image of passivity, the Reeve likens the passage of life to wine flowing
from a cask until it runs empty. The spirit of inevitability and even futility marking his
speech is exactly the kind of attitude the Host seeks to encourage the company to avert.
96
“Ryght thus me mette, as I yow telle, / That in the castell ther was a belle, / As hyt hadde smyten
163
He emphasises the value of purposeful action, rather than passive resignation, and
orders the Reeve to get on with his story: “Sey forth thy tale, and tarie nat the tyme!” (I,
3905) and “It were al tyme thy tale to bigynne” (I, 3908). Such time constraints
emphasise that the tale-telling is not just a simple pastime or game that can be allowed
to amble along at its own pace.
It is little surprise that the Host’s thoughts about the passing of time and the
wanton and idle wasting of time in the Introduction to the Man of Law’s Tale lead him
to settle on the Man of Law as the next storyteller. It is not that the Host was
previously entirely adverse to hearing the tales of “revel, and disport” (I, 4420) just
recounted by the Miller, the Reeve and the Cook, but that he now sees fit to balance
their narrative matter with something more profound, which will accord more closely
with the idea of storytelling as a useful pastime, rather than as merely a game. The
Man of Law’s profession suggests a certain level of education and refinement and in
the Host’s invitation there is an unarticulated expectation that this intellectual
professional will respond to his thoughts on time. In the General Prologue the Man of
Law is described as “ful riche of excellence” (I, 311) and “war and wys” (309); it is
hard to find fault with his legal work. His linguistic ability is particularly remarked on:
“his wordes weren so wise” (I, 313), he “koude endite and make a thyng” (I, 325), and
no one could find a flaw in his “writyng” (I, 326). It is this communication skill and
learned background that are suggested in the Host’s choice of the Man of Law to draw
the pilgrims away from “ydelnesse”. When the Host invites the Man of Law to speak,
he employs a witty vocabulary of legal terminology that is both appropriate to the Man
of Law’s profession and also recalls the passage in the General Prologue in which the
Host sets out the conditions for the storytelling in terms of “juggement” and “voirdit”
(I, 787). The allusions to governance implicit in the references to time, and the legal
language, combine to impart a tone of seriousness to the proceedings.
The Host’s final command to the Man of Law is that he acquit himself of his
“biheeste” and do his “devoir” (II, 38–9), placing strong emphasis on the contractual
nature of the storytelling. This bears striking similarities with the discussion among the
ten young Florentine narrators in the introduction to Filomena’s tale (II, 9) on the
second day of the Decameron, in which we are likewise reminded that the storytellers
are bound to the terms of a contract. When the Host urges the Man of Law to do his
“duty”, it is remarkably similar to Boccaccio’s observation that Elissa, the narrator
immediately prior to Filomena, has “… il suo dover fornito” (done her duty) by
houres twelve.” (The Book of the Duchess, ll. 1321–3).
164
supplying a story.97 Although Filomena’s reference to “i patti” (pacts) is to do with the
order of the storytelling –she recognises that she must speak next because the brigata
initially agreed to allow Dioneo the privilege of concluding each day’s storytelling98–
while the Host’s reference to duty and agreement is tied purely to the commitment to
supply stories, both suggest the importance of the keeping of the terms of contracts. In
both the Decameron and the Canterbury Tales, the “duty” applies to narrative, but the
fact that these references to contractual obligation are followed by stories bearing
significant references to merchants also accommodates a reading of them as allusions
to commercial contracts, and a recognition that stories themselves are merchandise
which the narrators have promised to deliver.
In the case of the Canterbury Tales, the Man of Law’s reply to the Host
reinforces the possibility of a commercial reading when he declares:
“.. Biheste is dette, and I wole holde fayn
Al my biheste, I kan no bettre sayn.
For swich lawe as a man yeveth another wight,
He sholde hymselven usen it, by right,
Thus wole oure text….”
(II, 41–5)
These words signal that, more than just being called on to fulfil a narrative duty, the
Man of Law considers himself bound to repay a debt. As I noted in the last chapter, the
language of indebtedness is used by several romance writers when describing the blows
“owed” and exchanged by knights in various tournaments.
This discourse of
repayment is as applicable to martial conflict and tournaments as it is to love,
spirituality and, of course, commercial exchange.
In the Decameron and the
Canterbury Tales, the discourse of repayment is also applied to narrative. In the latter,
many pilgrims compete in the storytelling game with the freely admitted objective of
trying to “quite” the others. This competitiveness is particularly prevalent among the
pilgrims who speak first: the Miller wants to “quite” the Knight (I, 3127); the Reeve
then says that he can “quite the Miller” (I, 3864), repeats this claim a second time
before the tale (I, 3916) and afterwards boasts that he has “quyt the Millere” (I, 4324);
the Cook says he will “quit” the Host (I, 4362) when the Host casts aspersions on his
professionalism. In the Introduction to the Man of Law’s Tale, the convergence of
contract, “dette” and a lawyer may derive from personal experience: many critics have
97
For a more detailed discussion of this conversation in the Decameron, see my first chapter, pp. 55—6
Filomena’s words are: “Servar si vogliono i patti a Dioneo, e però, non restandoci altri che egli e io a
novellare, io dirò prima la mia e esso, che di grazia il chiese, l’ultimo fia che dirà” (Decameron, II, 9, 2).
98
165
pointed out the appropriateness of such words to a Sergeant of the Law, who would
have had the exclusive right to plead cases of debt in the Court of Common Pleas.99
Besides, debt was something with which Chaucer was personally familiar: records
show that between 1388 and 1399 writs were issued against him to recover debts.100
The references to debt, however, work most of all to establish a narrative economy.
We have already seen that in the General Prologue, the storytelling is given a financial
dimension when a prize is offered, for the winner of the contest will receive a free
supper, paid for by the rest of the company, so when the Man of Law stalls at
repayment of his narrative debt, it is no surprise that he makes an apology in terms of
value: “I kan right now no thrifty tale seyn” (II, 46) is a claim that echoes the Host’s
injunction to the pilgrims to “werken thriftily” (I, 3131). Given the build-up of the
Man of Law’s communication and writing skills in the General Prologue, his reticence
comes as something of a surprise. But it is not simply a case of having no tale to tell;
rather, he has no “thrifty” tale to tell.
Although “thrifty” could simply be
“worthwhile”, “serviceable” or “suitable”,101 in this particular context it seems
perfectly legitimate to read it as “profitable”, for he then claims that Chaucer has
already told all the stories to be told: “And if he have noght seyd hem, leve brother, / In
o book, he hath seyd hem in another” (II, 51–2). Not only does this claim point to the
Man of Law’s acknowledgement of Chaucer’s reputation as a writer, but it also has the
effect of suggesting that there is a scarcity of useful, or profitable, stories. There is a
sense that, like commodities in a marketplace, some stories have greater value than
others, and the Man of Law is up against Chaucer’s monopolistic control of this
“thrifty” narrative matter. Chaucer’s choice of “thrifty” thus functions to enhance the
idea of a competitive market for the best stories.
The Man of Law prefaces his tale with a vehement statement about the misery
of human poverty, concluding with lengthy praise of wealth, the motivation for which
is somewhat mystifying and has generated much critical speculation. Apart from the
disjunction created by the Man of Law’s promise that he will speak in prose, and the
tale’s being in verse, the prologue presents several interpretative problems. Chief
among these is that the three stanzas on poverty are based on Pope Innocent III’s late
twelfth-century De Miseria Conditionis Humane, but unlike Innocent, who denounces
(“The contract we made with Dioneo must be honoured, and since only he and I are left to speak, I shall
tell my story first, and Dioneo, who laid special claim to that privilege, will be the last to address us.”)
99
See Patricia J. Eberle’s notes to the Man of Law’s Tale in The Riverside Chaucer, p. 855.
100
Crow and Olson, p. 384
166
wealth just as strongly as poverty, Chaucer has the Man of Law celebrate it. The kind
of wealth the Man of Law focuses on is specifically that of “riche marchauntz” (II,
122), who “seken lond and see for … wynnynges” (II, 127).102
He calls them
“noble,…prudent folk” (II, 123), and later “wise folk” (II, 128). Peter Beidler’s theory,
that the speech is part of an attempt by Chaucer to praise the wealth of merchants and
by doing so, channel some of it into the patronage of literary production, is one of the
more persuasive recent hypotheses advanced.103 In this interpretation, the stanzas
making up the “prologe” are actually part of an unrevised and uncancelled poem
written earlier than the assignment of the Custance story to the Man of Law, and once
read by Chaucer himself to a group of merchants with the specific purpose of asking for
a fee.104 The poverty in the prologue thus refers to Chaucer’s own, which makes sense
if we bear in mind his personal debts, especially because at least two of his creditors
were merchants.105 A nameless merchant subsequently “rescues” the Man of Law from
his state of narrational poverty – a state which parallels the economic impoverishment
he has just discussed, as Robert Hanning points out:106
I were right now of tales desolaat,
Nere that a marchant, goon is many a yeere,
Me taughte a tale, which that ye shal heere.
(II, 131–3)
If Beidler is right, and the speech on poverty, which precedes the tale proper, is a
variation of the short Complaint of Chaucer to his Purse and a text actually addressed
to merchants in pursuit of a fee, then it appears to back up my theory that Chaucer
endeavours to consider cultural production, particularly the production of stories, in
terms of paid work and commercial value. By emphasising the value of narrative and
the role of merchants in the introduction and prologue to the Man of Law’s Tale,
101
The Riverside Chaucer glossary gives “suitable” as the meaning of this particular appearance of
“thrifty”. The Middle English Dictionary also gives: thriftī (adj.) (a.) prosperous; rich; of respectable
social and economic position; also, worthy of respect, hororable.
102
Eberle notes that Chaucer’s praise of merchants is a wholly original addition to the Prologue. See her
notes to the Man of Law’s Tale in The Riverside Chaucer, p. 854.
103
Peter G. Beidler, “Chaucer’s request for money in the Man of Law’s prologue”, Chaucer Yearbook: A
Journal of Late Medieval Studies 2 (1995), 1—15.
104
Beidler provides evidence to suggest that merchant guilds paid for entertainment, including poetry
reading, at their feasts and other gatherings, p. 10.
105
Crow and Olson, pp. 384–402.
106
Robert W. Hanning, “Custance and Ciappelletto in the Middle of It All: Problems of Mediation in the
Man of Law’s Tale and Decameron 1.1”, in The Decameron and the Canterbury Tales: New Essays on
an Old Question, ed. Leonard Michael Koff and Brenda Deen Schildgen (Madison: Associated
University Presses, 2000), p. 187. Hanning discusses the story of Custance in comparison with
Decameron I,1, the story of Ciappelletto, a notary.
167
Chaucer foreshadows the significant role he assigns merchants in the supply and
circulation of narrative in the tale proper.
In fourteenth-century London, merchants enjoyed unprecedented wealth and
status, but this did not necessarily result in the channelling of the profits of trade into
artistic patronage or the commissioning and collection of books. The patterns of
consumption that developed among Italian merchants at this time do not appear to have
taken hold among their English counterparts to the same extent until a later period.
Sylvia Thrupp notes that although English merchants read English well and most had
some training in Latin, there is not a great deal of evidence to suggest that these skills
were widely put to use for purposes other than their business transactions and the
following of the liturgy.107
Only 20 per cent of the surviving fifteenth-century
merchant wills mention books, but in half these cases, they are all liturgical and
devotional.108 Thrupp cites one piece of evidence pointing to the ownership of books
with a non-sacred use: among the stocks of two grocers who became bankrupt in the
1390s were four “libros de romaunc”.109 The Canterbury Tales was evidently among
the reading material of the gentry in the generation immediately following Chaucer’s,
as evidenced by several early fifteenth-century wills that list the collection among
personal possessions.110 Even if his English contemporaries showed little interest in
collecting books, and the book trade was dominated by foreigners, Chaucer had a
personal interest in and knowledge of book production and circulation. By casting a
merchant in the role of transporter and supplier of stories in the Man of Law’s Tale,
Chaucer is proposing an active position for merchants in the production and
consumption of texts.
When a merchant effectively solves the scarcity of thrifty narrative matter
facing the Man of Law, it marks the culmination of a curious sequence of themes. The
Introduction begins with the Host, as guide and governor of the company of pilgrims,
drawing the company’s attention to the passing of time, a speech that fits well with the
increasing tendency, in the fourteenth century, to associate governance with time
management. The Host then calls on the Man of Law to be the next speaker, and
reminds him of the commitment made by all the pilgrims to tell stories. This becomes
an exchange between the Host and the Man of Law about contracts, the language of
which is suggestive of legal, commercial and narratorial agreements, particularly when
107
Thrupp, The Merchant Class, pp. 161–2.
Thrupp, The Merchant Class, p. 161. It should be noted, however, that only those books that were
sufficiently valued were bequeathed.
109
Thrupp, The Merchant Class, p. 162.
108
168
the Man of Law likens his promise to a “dette”. The Man of Law launches into a
discussion of wealth and poverty, praising merchants in the process. Significantly, it is
a man of commerce who resolves the Man of Law’s lack of a profitable story. This
sequence of time, governance, contracts and merchants results in the creation of a
textual environment that reflects something of the late fourteenth-century social
environment and its values and preoccupations. Given the wide diffusion of the story
of Constance in European literature, there is a certain irony in Chaucer’s having the
Man of Law claim that the story he is about to embark on comes from a merchant. At
least two written versions of the story were available to Chaucer –those of Gower and
Trevet– and he may have drawn on others.
As I noted in the introduction, and in the previous chapter, the transportation of
commodities from areas of abundance to areas of scarcity was considered to be one of
the social functions of merchants, and was used to justify their profits. For Thomas of
Chobham in the early thirteenth century, as we have seen, and also Henry of Ghent in
the late thirteenth century, the labour involved in the transportation of goods constituted
an improvement made to them, and more significantly, added value to them. It could
therefore be legitimately recompensed.111 It is hardly surprising to find that fiction
bears examples of merchants who are treated favourably because they perform
precisely this function of transport and supply, but it is somewhat unexpected to see
them engaged in the circulation and supply of stories. Like the merchants in Chrétien
de Troyes’s Perceval who arrive at a besieged castle with a ship full of supplies, just in
time to prevent the inhabitants starving, the merchant who provides the Man of Law
with his tale when he is desperate for narrative matter is presented as benign.112
Without the merchant’s tale, the Man of Law would be “desolaat” (II, 131) and unable
to fulfil the terms of his agreement. The merchant of the Man of Law’s prologue also
bears comparison with Sir Amadace’s White Knight/Grateful Dead merchant who helps
the impoverished knight return to financial solvency: like Sir Amadace, the Man of
Law is similarly made “solvent” by a merchant and subsequently able to meet his
“dette”. That a merchant should be presented in a favourable light for having supplied
a story suggests that Chaucer is thinking of tales as commodities and considering their
circulation and exchange in economic terms.
110
Thrupp, The Merchant Class, p. 248.
See Joel Kaye, Economy and Nature in the Fourteenth Century: Money, Market Exchange and the
Emergence of Scientific Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 103.
112
See Perceval, ll. 2542–57, also mentioned in Chapter One.
111
169
Among the praises heaped on merchants in the “prologe” is the Man of Law’s
emphatic assertion that they are “… fadres of tidynges / And tales, bothe of pees and of
debaat” (II, 129–30). This role as “fadres of tidynges” is carried over into the Man of
Law’s Tale, when merchants effectively set the main action of the tale in motion by
bearing important news over the sea between Rome and Syria. The story begins when
Syrian merchants hear of a beautiful and good Christian girl in Rome –none other than
the Emperor’s daughter– and carry tidings of her back across the seas to their Muslim
leader, the Sultan, who resolves to marry her. Following these initial eight stanzas, the
tale proceeds along a lengthy and serpentine path of religious conversion and spiritual
journey, but the fact that men of commerce enable it to begin is significant. As I noted
earlier, Chaucer had at least two sources for the tale, the principal being Nicholas
Trevet’s Anglo-Norman chronicle of world history (c. 1334), and another, Gower’s
version of the story in the Confessio amantis.113
The detailed description of the
merchants and their trading comprises one of Chaucer’s most significant and original
expansions of Trevet’s version, and with the Prologue, combines to underscore the
importance of merchants to his version of the tale. In the Man of Law’s Tale, the
Syrian Sultan would never have thought of marrying the daughter of a Christian
emperor had the Syrian merchants not returned with “tidynges” of the beautiful
Custance. In other versions, the tale begins in Rome, where Constance’s reputation is
widespread, and sparks the conversion of the merchants, who are then sent for by the
Sultan on their return to Syria.114 Chaucer’s version of the Constance story thus differs
from his sources in the greater responsibility as news bearers with which the Syrian
merchants are invested. Only in the Man of Law’s Tale are the merchants given the
entire responsibility for transporting this important news back to Syria among their
cargo.
In the very first stanza of the tale, the Man of Law supplies us with some
important facts about the merchants which are designed to build up their reputation and
render believable their ability to inspire a Sultan to convert from Islam to Christianity
with the simple tiding of a beautiful foreign woman:
113
Eberle’s notes to the Man of Law's Tale in The Riverside Chaucer give an excellent overview of the
tale’s relation to its sources and the critical work on the sources and analogues, p. 857. The merchants
themselves are present in Trevet’s version, yet Chaucer significantly chooses not to have them converted
on arrival in Rome; rather, they carry back the news of Custance to their Sultan, who is the first to
consider conversion. Peter Nicholson argues instead that Gower was Chaucer’s principal source. See
Peter Nicholson, “The Man of Law’s Tale: What Chaucer Really Owed to Gower”, The Chaucer Review
26 (1991), 153–74.
114
As Eberle outlines, and as is made clear by the source material found in Sources and Analogues of
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, ed. W. F. Bryan and Germaine Dempster (New York: Humanities Press,
1958).
170
In Surrye whilom dwelte a compaignye
Of chapmen riche, and therto sadde and trewe,
That wyde-where senten hir spicerye,
Clothes of gold, and satyns riche of hewe.
Hir chaffare was so thrifty and so newe
That every wight hath deyntee to chaffare
With hem, and eek to sellen hem hire ware.
(II. 134-140)
The merchants are part of a company, implying professionalism and organisation; they
deal in a range of top quality merchandise, pointing to their success; and everyone
wants to trade with them, both buying from them and selling to them, making them part
of a network of transactions. Most notably, the descriptor “thrifty” appears again: we
learn immediately that the merchandise born by the merchants is “so thrifty and so
newe” (I, 138). An echo of the Host’s call to the pilgrims to “werken thriftily” and the
Man of Law’s claim that he is competing with Chaucer to find a “thrifty” tale, this is an
unmistakable signal that Chaucer intends to create an overlap of commercial
commodity and narrative matter. By implication, “thrifty” and “newe” extend to the
merchants’ “tidynges / And tales”, making it clear that the news and stories they bear
are useful, up-to-date and profitable. This first stanza therefore functions as both
endorsement of the merchants and of the value of the narrative matter. It is worth
referring, once again, to Henry of Ghent’s assessment of the merchant’s role, and his
recognition that the personal and professional qualities of the merchant added value to
the goods he sold: as Joel Kaye writes, “the merchant’s expertise in knowing when and
where his goods were in short supply, his care in transacting his affairs, and even his
professional reputation were all qualities that he could licitly translate into increased
prices.”115 This perhaps explains why Chaucer takes the time and space to build up the
reputation of the Syrian “compaignye”, for their strong reputation adds value to the
narrative matter they are poised to circulate.
The “wyde” circulation of the merchants’ wares evokes the Mediterranean
commercial world and the cargoes sent along the trading routes that in the late Middle
Ages stretched as far as northern Europe. Although the subsequent introduction of the
Emperor of Rome –who in Trevet’s version of the tale is based on a real historical
figure, the sixth-century ruler Tiberius II– is suggestive of late Antiquity, the allusion to
trade between the Latin West and the Islamic Eastern Mediterranean locates the story
115
Kaye, Economy and Nature, p. 103.
171
firmly in the later Middle Ages.116 In the earlier medieval period, trade in the Eastern
Mediterranean was far more extensive and sophisticated than in Western Europe, as
Aziz Atiya outlines.117 Arab ascendancy continued until the arrival of the Normans in
Italy during the second half of the eleventh century, which led to the re-opening of the
route to the East by the First Crusaders. Western European merchants soon followed
and established markets throughout the conquered ports of the Levant.118 From the
twelfth century, as European trade prospered, merchants began to establish
partnerships, in order to diversify and offset the risks associated with sea travel.119 This
is perhaps the kind of arrangement Chaucer has in mind when he describes the Syrian
company with their mix of commodities and range of far-flung markets; in order to be
competitive –and to protect against shipwreck, piracy, embargoes and the instability of
prices– it was safest to trade in a variety of wares, targeting different markets.
To Chaucer’s medieval English audience, the mention of “Surrye” probably
functioned as a signifier for the wider Islamic Middle Eastern world – both as the
destination of many crusades and also as the origin of exotic and luxurious
commodities. Syrians, in particular, were renowned for their maritime skill and since
Antiquity, trade had been their chief vocation.120 Chaucer’s Syrian merchants deal in
the type of merchandise commonly associated with medieval Middle Eastern trade, but
because of the way the English came into contact with such merchandise –exotic spices
and cloth typically arrived in England in the Italian galleys– it is reasonable to assume
that for the English, such commodities would likely have been associated with the
Italians, especially the Venetians and Genoese whose mercantile fleets specialised in
Eastern goods.121 All the same, given the clarity with which Chaucer speaks of “thise
Surryen marchantz” (II, 153), it seems futile to assert, as Carol F. Heffernan does in a
recent study, that they may in fact be Italian rather than Syrian.122 Rather, Chaucer
seems to experiment with the idea of an international community of merchants. The
merchants of the Canterbury Tales are of mixed provenance, but their activities and
concerns, as well as the way Chaucer describes their appearance and bearing, mean that
116
In her recent study, Carol F. Heffernan draws attention to the different time-frames suggested at
various points in the tale. When Chaucer refers to the “payens” who have conquered Britain (II, 540–5),
for example, he seems to be locating the narrative in the very early Middle Ages, in contrast to the idea of
the merchants trading between Rome and Syria. See Carol F. Heffernan, The Orient in Chaucer and
Medieval Romance (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2003), p. 34.
117
Aziz S. Atiya, Crusade, Commerce, and Culture (Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1969), p. 162.
118
Atiya, p. 170. See also Heffernan, p. 20.
119
See Baldwin, Masters, Princes and Merchants: The Social Views of Peter the Chanter & His Circle,
vol. 1 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970), p. 288.
120
Atiya, p. 165.
121
Atiya, p. 171.
172
the fact of their race and religion is minimised. In the Man of Law’s Tale the Syrian
merchants are not involved in the mass conversion undertaken by the Sultan in order to
marry Custance, as if to imply that their commercial and news-gathering activities
continue on, irrespective of religious or racial developments. It was not uncommon for
merchants to imagine themselves in the context of an international trading network.
When the Florentine merchant Francesco Balducci Pegolotti penned his commercial
handbook in the first half of the fourteenth century, it is clear that he envisaged as his
target audience a kind of international community of merchants of different nations and
varied interests.
He states his intention to cover “cose bisognevoli di sapere a
mercatanti di diverse parti del mondo, e di sapere che usano le mercatantie e cambi”
(“things needful to be known to merchants of diverse parts of the world, and for those
to know who deal in merchandise and exchanges”).123
It can be assumed that Chaucer’s knowledge both of the breadth of the
operations of Italian merchant companies in London, with their far-reaching
international trading, and of the establishment of the English merchant staple at Calais
informed his description of his merchant company, mainly because there is no evidence
of him having had personal contact with Muslim merchants.124 As I noted in the
introduction, many Italian trading companies, whose trading routes were the most
extensive in the fourteenth century, had branches all over Europe and the Middle East.
The Florentine Bardi, for whom, as we have seen, Pegolotti and Boccaccio both
worked for periods, and members of whom Chaucer met, had warehouses and offices
throughout western and Mediterranean Europe, as well as in Constantinople, Jerusalem,
and Tunis.125 Chaucer also knew about the establishment and consolidation of the
Fellowship of the Staple, a consortium of English wool merchants, over the course of
the fourteenth century, and he perhaps also had this institution in mind when referring
to the “compaignye/ Of chapmen riche” (II, 135). In any case, the Fellowship of the
Staple acted not only as a wool consortium, but also as a kind of medieval news
agency. Once established at Calais in the latter part of the century, the Staple was able
to harvest news from the international merchants its members encountered at the
Continental fairs in northern France and Flanders. It proved something of a meeting
122
Heffernan suggests that they are “Venetian Christians living in Syria”, p. 42.
See Francesco Balducci Pegolotti, La pratica della mercatura, ed. Allan Evans (Cambridge, Mass.:
The Mediaeval Academy of America, 1936), p. 3.
124
Neither Crow and Olson, nor Pearsall mentions Chaucer having had contact with Muslim merchants.
125
Armando Sapori, The Italian Merchant in the Middle Ages, trans. Patricia Ann Kennen (New York:
W.W. Norton & Company, 1970), p. 51
123
173
point for northern and southern European merchants, and from there, news was often
relayed back to London.126
In general, the circulation of news was facilitated by advances in sea transport
and a collective approach to communications. The formation of partnerships, with
branches all linked to each other and a home office by correspondence, was perhaps the
most significant commercial development of the late medieval period, and demanded
greater efficiency in communication.
In 1357 a weekly courier service between
Florence and Avignon, via Genoa, was established by seventeen Florentine companies,
as David Nicholas outlines.127 The Scarsella dei mercanti fiorentini (Purse of the
Florentine Merchants), as this courier service was called, enabled the rapid transport of
messages on behalf of these companies, as well as other companies whose messages
were not given priority. The possibility of a reliable courier service enabled more
accurate business predictions and calculations and helped foster the growth of
commercial interdependence among regions.128 If merchants could provide a court
with useful and interesting tidings, they could turn it to their personal economic and
social advantage, as was the case with members of the successful Alberti family, who
were exiled from Florence for various periods from the end of the fourteenth century
and into the fifteenth, and spread around the Mediterranean and European worlds.129 In
one of his imaginary dialogues among members of his family, Leon Battista Alberti
declared the merchants of his family to have remained for many years “the most honest
and honoured merchants”.130 They appear to have ensured good ties with several rulers
partly by capitalising on the wide geographic spread of other family members as a
source of international “news”. In the same dialogue, one of the exiles, Piero degli
Alberti, describes how he established a relationship with Duke Filippo Maria Visconti
of Milan. He did this by supplying him with the news of the world as it was relayed
from the branches of his family's businesses, from “questi nostri Alberti d’Inghilterra,
di Fiandra, di Spagna, di Francia, di Catalogna, di Rodi, di Soria, di Barberia, e di que’
tutti luoghi ove oggidì ancora reggono e adirizzano mercatantia…” (“our Alberti of
126
Both Alison Hanham (ed.), The Cely Letters 1472–1488 (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the
Early English Text Society, 1975); and Eileen Power, The Wool Trade in English Medieval History
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1941),provide many examples of the communications role of the wool
Staple at Calais in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
127
David Nicholas, The Later Medieval City 1300–1500 (London and New York: Longman, 1997), p.
25.
128
Nicholas, p. 25.
129
See Holmes, “Florentine Merchants in England, 1346–1436”, The Economic History Review 193–208.
Holmes discusses the Alberti exile and fortunes in some length.
130
Holmes, p. 194.
174
England, Flanders, Spain, France, Catalonia, Rhodes, Syria, Barbary and all those
places where they still today maintain and direct trade…”).131
Merchants, of course, were not the only group of medieval travellers relied on
to bear tidings of other lands and “of pees and of debaat”; pilgrims and mercenaries
were also asked for news. In the romance Bevis of Hampton, the hero, disguised as a
pilgrim, is asked, “Palmer þou comest fro ferre: / Whar is pes and whar is were?”
(2257–8).132 In The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, the writer discusses Egypt, Syria
and general Islamic practices and customs. In a section dedicated to Saracen law,
Mandeville explains the Sultan’s impressive knowledge of Christendom. When the
Sultan is asked by Mandeville how he has come by so full a knowledge, he summons
four great lords who know excellent French and are familiar with Western European
customs. Mandeville concludes: “Finally I understood that the Sultan sends some of
his lords to different kingdoms and lands in the guise of merchants – some with
precious stones, some with cloths of gold, some with other jewels – and that these visit
all realms in order to size up the manners of us Christian men and spot our
weaknesses.”133 Although these news scouts are actually aristocratic types disguised as
merchants, the fact that they have to behave as traders, journeying out with supplies of
fabrics and spices, in order to bring back news of other cultures, seems to suggest that
merchants are considered the most reliable source of information, and that a keen sense
of the market may equate to a finely tuned ear for news.
The evocation of the Mediterranean trade between the Latin West and Islamic
East in the Man of Law’s Tale is similar to that in several tales of the Decameron. The
tale is sometimes discussed in comparison with its Decameronian analogue, the story of
Gostanza (V, 2), and on account of the Islamic connection and the semantic potential of
some of its vocabulary, also bears comparison with the tale of Bernabò and Zinevra (II,
9). This is the same tale that, like the Man of Law’s Tale, is prefaced with a reminder
of the contractual nature of storytelling and was discussed in some length in the first
chapter of this thesis. The second part of the tale is set in the twice-yearly Acre fair, a
site of economic exchange and cultural intersection which falls within the territory of
the Sultan of Alexandria, and to which the Sultan sends military protection. Trade in
131
Leon Battista Alberti, Opera Volgari, Libro Quarto, vol. 1, ed. Cecil Grayson (Bari: Laterza, 1960), p.
274. The translation is George Holmes’s, in “Florentine Merchants”, p. 194.
132
Bevis of Hampton, ed. Ronald B. Herzman, Graham Drake, and Eve Salisbury. Originally published in
Four Romances of England. Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, 1999. Available at:
http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/bevisfrm.htm (Accessed 10 December 2005)
133
Sir John Mandeville, The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, trans. and ed. C.W.R.D. Moseley
(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1983), p. 108.
175
Egypt and Syria was tightly controlled by authorities appointed by the Sultan and
policed by defence forces, as Aziz Atiya describes: “markets were subject to inspection
by an intendant (muhtasib) whose extensive duties embraced the supervision of weights
and measures, the prohibition and punishment of fraudulent dealings, execution of
contracts, and payment of debts. He had the right of summary justice in economic
dissensions or breaches of the law…”.134 It is this kind of role that Zinevra, disguised
as Sicurano, finds herself in, placing her in the ideal vantage point from which to
observe the comings and goings of merchants from Sicily, Pisa, Genoa, Venice and
other parts of Italy, the country of her birth. Among them is Ambruogiuolo, the
merchant from Piacenza who has tricked her husband and whose actions have led to her
current situation. Skilfully, and still in disguise, she establishes a friendship with him,
and has him recount his story in front of the Sultan. This story is not an analogue for
the Man of Law’s Tale, but it offers an example of the way merchants, both foreign and
local, are able to achieve an audience with rulers, and the way rulers have a taste for the
stories brought to them by merchants. More broadly, it also provides insight into the
ways in which rulers respond to and interact with commerce, and is symbolic of the
continual movement of narrative and ideas between the late medieval Islamic East and
Christian West.
Of all the ideas and information transported to Western Europe from the Islamic
world via merchant ships, those which possibly had the greatest long-term cultural
impact were mathematical. Although the Arab scholars translated the writings of the
Greek masters on science and mathematics, and drew on the work of Hindu
scholarship, they also made considerable advances themselves in geometry and
trigonometry. In the ninth century, c. 825, al-Khuwarizmi published a monumental
work on algebra, called the Kitāb Hisāb al-Jabr wal-Muqābalah, or “Book of
Calculations of Restoration and Reduction”.
His treatise on arithmetic, based on
decimal notation and a new system of numerals, was translated into Latin by Gerard of
Cremona as early as the twelfth century and had an enormous impact on Europe.135
Such new mathematical knowledge was not unrelated to the emergence of financial
mechanisms: Peter Spufford notes the early presence of a kind of bill of exchange, or
suftadja, in the Levant and North Africa at least a couple of centuries before a similar
banking instrument appeared in Western Europe.
134
Although there is no concrete
Atiya, p. 195.
Atiya, p. 222. For a more detailed discussion of the impact of Hindu-Arabic numerals on medieval
commerce, see Frank J. Swetz, “Figura Mercantesco: Merchants and the Evolution of a Number Concept
135
176
evidence available to prove its direct influence on European developments, Italian
merchants must have been aware of the use of such financial instruments by the
Muslim merchants with whom they traded.136 More concrete evidence is available
regarding the use of Arabic numerals: by the late Middle Ages, reckoning was made
with Arabic numerals in Mediterranean Europe, whereas northern European countries
continued to reckon with counters until the seventeenth century in the absence of this
development.137 The transmission of new technology was undertaken, consciously or
unconsciously, by merchants.
As I noted in my first chapter, the tale of Bernabò and Zinevra embodies a
striking intersection of commercial “ragionamento” and narrative “ragionamento”. The
recurrence of the word “ragionamento” is in fact very similar to the presence of words
like “rekene” and “creaunce”, which have similarly wide-ranging semantic potential, in
the Canterbury Tales – especially in those tales relating to commerce.
Just as
Ambruogiuolo and Bernabò calculate the implications of the wager, so too the
merchants of the Man of Law’s Tale must employ their reckoning ability when sizing
up the rumours about the Emperor’s beautiful daughter Custance:
“Oure Emperour of Rome – God hym see! –
A doghter hath that, syn the world bigan,
To rekene as wel hir goodnesse as beaute,
Nas nevere swich another as is shee.”
(II, 156-59)
David Wallace observes that the use of “rekene” to describe the way the Roman public
formulates its opinion of Custance is unusual, and is one of the unique changes Chaucer
wrought on his source material.138 In the Canterbury Tales “rekenynge” is more
commonly a kind of weighing or adding up of material value or spiritual value. It also
appears in the Shipman’s Tale, as will be discussed later in this chapter, and its ability
to refer to a variety of calculations, reason and narrative make it comparable with the
Italian “ragione”.139 When used to describe the way Custance is heard of and viewed, it
reinforces the sense of her as merchandise, for like the “spicerye”, “gold” and “satyns
riche of hewe”, she appears to be of the finest quality. First we are told how desirable
in the Latter Middle Ages”, in Word, Image, Number: Communication in the Middle Ages, ed. John J.
Contreni and Santa Casciani (Florence: Sismel, 2002), pp. 391–413.
136
Peter Spufford, Power and Profit: The Merchant in Medieval Europe (London: Thames and Hudson,
2002), p. 38.
137
Spufford, Power and Profit, p. 34.
138
Wallace, Chaucerian Polity, p. 185.
139
The Middle English Dictionary gives the following definitions: rekening(e ger. Also reckning,
reconing, rakening & (errors) rekenig, reknig. 1(a) the act or an instance of calculation, computation,
accounting or bookkeeping; (b) a narration, an account; also an enumeration, a geneaological list.
177
the merchants’ own “chaffare” is, a sure sign of their ability to gauge quality, and then
we see them tune in to Roman assessments of Custance’s excellent disposition and fine
appearance: “‘In hire is heigh beautee, withoute pride, / Yowthe, withoute grenehede or
folye; /…. / Hire herte is verray chambre of hoolynesse….’” (II, 162–7). Once the
merchants learn of her amazing attributes, she becomes a desirable commodity, and
they resolve to see her for themselves.140 Having seen her, they load an account of her
into their ships, along with the cargo of “chaffare”, and ship it “hoom to Surrye” (II,
173). The Sultan, with whom the merchants stand “in grace” (II, 176), is instantly sold
on the “greet noblesse” (II, 185) of dame Custance and wastes no time in planning to
“love hire while his lyf may dure” (II, 189). It is perfectly understandable that the
Sultan is soon convinced that he cannot live without her, because the credentials of the
merchants have already been established, and there is no reason to doubt the
perspicacity of their eye for quality. And, as if this beautiful young Christian woman
were an exotic and highly desirable commodity, the Sultan is prepared to pay any price
in order to have her, even one as great as religious conversion. It is impossible to
determine exactly what conditioned Chaucer’s original use of “rekene” in the Man of
Law’s Tale, but it is plausible to see in it the desire to allude to the new, more precise
mercantile calculation enabled by the introduction into Western Europe, via Italian
trade with the Islamic Middle East, of mathematical formulae and practices such as the
use of π and Arabic numerals.141 By tying his merchants to a particular “reckoning”
ability, Chaucer further enhances their professional reputation.
All of this makes it abundantly clear that the association of merchants with
tidings is very natural; in the Man of Law’s Tale it is the nature of the news, and the
kind of audience it is presented to which set their role apart, leading me to a final
observation. The royal audience that the Syrian merchants find in their Sultan aligns
them with the fictive knights of courtly romance who returned from afar with tales “of
sondry regnes” and “wondres” (II, 181–2). The marvel of a beautiful woman, bundled
up in the merchants’ cargo among the other commodities they return to Syria with, is
much like the marvellous stories of love and war brought back by the knights who
gather at the court of King Arthur. Eugene Vance observes what amounts to the
reverse of this in Chrétien de Troyes’s twelfth-century Yvain; at Arthur’s court in
Pentecost knights gather to swap stories of love and war, creating a climate of exchange
140
The process by which Custance becomes a commodity has also been remarked on by Robert Hanning,
“Custance and Ciappelletto in the Middle of It All”, p. 199; and David Weisberg, “Telling Stories about
Constance: Framing and Narrative Strategy in the Canterbury Tales”, The Chaucer Review 27 (1992), 4564: p. 56, among others.
178
similar to that evolving in the real twelfth-century economy, in which a network of
merchants in Western Europe exchanged commodities.142 Such an observation is a
further reminder of the way tidings and commodities overlap; viewed in this light,
knightly and mercantile activities share common ground. David Wallace suggests that
merchants in fact endeavoured to appropriate “aventure” by claiming similarities
between their professional activity and the activities and values of the knightly class.143
This may be the case, but there is ample evidence to suggest that the reverse also took
place, as I noted in the previous chapter. Although merchants were commonly satirised
for their social aspirations and for wanting to dress and behave as knights, the penchant
of kings and lords for adopting mercantile disguises and hearing the tidings brought by
merchants suggests that in fact trade and its practitioners came to hold a glamorous
allure for the aristocracy, on account of the distant and exotic destinations to which
they journeyed, and the new luxury items among their cargoes. In the fifteenth century,
an aspect of the merchant’s occupation that captured public imagination was the fact
that a man’s name and the “trademark” that he stamped upon the bales of merchandise
he sold could become known in distant lands, as Sylvia Thrupp points out.144 It is
likely that social emulation thus worked two ways.
Chaucer’s insistence on the important role of the merchants as storytellers in the
Man of Law’s Tale effectively parallels that other broader tendency of his to consider
the production of narrative in economic terms. If the casting of merchants in such a
significant role, which surely serves to endorse the other more pecuniary motives for
their sea journeying, contributes to the formulation of a new mercantile ideology, then
the consideration of narrators as merchants recognises the need of writers to jostle for
both narrative matter and markets within the highly competitive late medieval
economy. By investing merchants with the responsibility of announcing a tiding so
powerful it is able to bring about the conversion to Christianity of a Muslim leader, and
set in motion the spiritual journey of a beautiful Christian woman, Chaucer makes a
clear commitment to mercantile ability and status. And by continually proposing that
tidings be viewed as commodities, Chaucer draws attention to the way the production
and dissemination of tales can have a serious, and even socially beneficial purpose.
141
Arabic numerals are referred to in the Book of the Duchess, ll. 434–42.
Eugene Vance, “Chrétien’s Yvain and the Ideologies of Change and Exchange”, Yale French Studies
70 (1986), 42–62, p. 47.
143
Wallace, Chaucerian Polity, p. 205.
144
Thrupp, The Merchant Class, p. 40. Thrupp cites the case of one of the fifteenth-century non-cycle
mystery plays in which the hero, a merchant named Sir Arystory, is made to introduce himself as “A
142
179
Estimates of far more than just financial benefit and value are going on in Custance’s
case, and the merchants, “sadde and trewe” (II, 135), are the opposite of the “unsad and
evere untrewe” (IV, 995) subjects of the Marquis of Saluzzo, later referred to in the
Clerk’s Tale.
In one of the most illuminating and wide-ranging studies of the Man of Law’s
Tale, V. A. Kolve asserts that the tale’s “central and most memorable image” is that of
a rudderless ship alone on the sea. Kolve tackles the tale on literal, allegorical, moral
and anagogic levels, and discusses it in the context of references to and representations
of ships and the sea in other writing and visual arts of the period.145 He notes that
Custance’s ship can be read at once as the “nave” of the church with Christ as
helmsman, and as an image of the individual soul journeying through a sea of
temptations. He also draws attention to the possible reading of the sea as an image of a
sinful world, full of perils, tempests and the risk of drowning, an idea derived from Old
Testament sources.146
As Kolve points out, the sea’s waves, rising and falling
restlessly, are often associated with the ceaseless movements of Fortune’s wheel.147
Although Custance’s rudderless ship is indeed the dominant image in the Man of Law’s
Tale, it is not the only vessel on the sea, as David Wallace rightly observes; merchant
ships steered by the interests of the “chapmen riche” (II, 135) journey through the same
water.148 One idea of the sea that Kolve does not develop is in fact the idea of the sea
as commercial metaphor. As I noted in my discussion of the story of Landolfo Rufolo
(Decameron, II, 4), the sea’s movements can be likened to the fluctuations of the
marketplace; ships are as vulnerable to the force of the elements and sudden changes in
weather conditions as buyer and seller are to an under-supplied or flooded
marketplace.149 The Church Fathers and medieval theologians invoked this sense of
ships on the sea when discussing merchant travel; Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, for
example, likened merchants’ ships to the wind, always churning the sea in pursuit of
commercial gain.150 If we follow Chaucer’s cues in the Man of Law’s Tale we can
view Custance, news of whom is loaded into the Syrian merchants’ ship, firstly as a
commodity, and secondly as a piece of narrative matter. Her ship thus becomes a ship
merchante myghty of a royall araye; / Ful wyde in þis worlde spryngeth my fame… / In all maner of
landis, without ony naye, / My merchandyse runneth, þe sothe for to tell…”.
145
V. A. Kolve, Chaucer and the Imagery of Narrative: The First Five Canterbury Tales (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1984).
146
Kolve, p. 335.
147
Kolve, p. 326.
148
Wallace, Chaucerian Polity, p. 184.
149
See Chapter One, p. 35.
150
Baldwin, Masters, Princes and Merchants, p. 262.
180
of narrative, floating between East and West, Islam and Christendom.
The sea
becomes the site of spiritual journey, trade, and cultural exchange.
In the introduction I drew attention to the likening of merchants’ navigation to
rhetoric.151
The twelfth-century Parisian theologian Hugh of St Victor (d. 1141)
proposed that because navigation calls for a comprehensive knowledge of merchandise
and distant markets, stemming from constant travel, it is therefore a kind of rhetoric.
The logic underpinning this was that the carrying out of business required, above all
other abilities, eloquence.152 This concept of navigation as rhetoric is also embedded in
Dante’s Inferno, written a century and a half later than Hugh’s treatise. As Joan
Ferrante outlines, Dante is both poet and merchant in the Comedy, using the persuasive
powers of his language to guide his audience as he navigates through hell, purgatory
and paradise: “As poet, he serves as a messenger, and intermediary between God and
man, besieged by his countryman in the other world to take their messages home, like a
merchant in foreign parts, and charged by heaven with an important message for his
countrymen on earth. As merchant, he travels through the universe on the ‘ship of his
wit’ to acquire the most valuable goods available to man and bring them back to sell to
his countrymen for their own good. He serves an important function for society, but he
is also making a profit for the reputation he clearly expects to gain from the poem.”153
Effectively Ferrante is proposing a reading in which poetic production is conceived of
in terms of a journey and specifically in terms of a merchant’s journey, not dissimilar to
Chaucer’s considerations of narrative.
The Man of Law’s Tale is not the only occasion on which Chaucer considers
narrative in terms of ships and the sea. In the proem of Book II of Troilus and
Criseyde, he takes time out from the story to explain that if his words are a bit lame, he
must not be held responsible, for he is simply following his “auctour”. He invokes the
help of Cleo, Muse of history, to “ryme wel” his book (II, 10) because he is translating
it from Latin to his own “tonge” (II, 14). At the start of this passage, he describes
himself struggling to navigate in a sea of narrative matter:
Owt of thise blake wawes for to saylle,
O wynd, o wynd, the weder gynneth clere;
For in this see the boot hath swych travaylle,
Of my connynge, that unneth I it steere.
151
See Introduction, p. 20.
Gabriella Airaldi drew my attention to this, as I noted in the Introduction. See Gabriella Airaldi,
“Introduzione: Per la storia dell’idea di Europa: economia di mercato e capitalismo”, in Gli orizzonti
aperti: profili del mercante medievale, ed. Gabriella Airaldi (Turin: G. B. Paravia & C., 1997), p. 10.
153
Joan Ferrante, The Political Vision of the Divine Comedy (Princeton and Guildford: Princeton
University Press, 1984), pp. 327–8.
152
181
This see clepe I the tempestous matere
Of disespeir that Troilus was inne;
But now of hope the kalendes bygynne.
(Troilus and Criseyde, II, 1–7)
The source for these lines is found in Dante’s Purgatorio I, but as Ernst Robert Curtius
outlines, the idea of likening the composition of a work to a nautical voyage was first
favoured by the Roman poets.154 The lines give the impression that Troilus the man
and Troilus the poem are both in a “tempestous matere / Of disespeir”, suggesting the
poet’s journey to be akin to that of the hero he writes about. Like the Knight’s Tale,
Troilus and Criseyde derives from one of Boccaccio’s poems, in this case, the
Filostrato (late 1330s), but in the proem to Book II of Troilus and Criseyde, Chaucer
draws more on Dante than on Boccaccio.
Chaucer is at pains to emphasise his
“travaylle”, and the line functions as an echo of line 21 in the first book of Troilus and
Criseyde, when the narrator declares, “…myn be this travaille” (I, 21), once again
underscoring the labours involved in the translation, production and transmission of
literature.
Boccaccio too had established an analogy between sea travel and poetic
journeys. In Books Fourteen and Fifteen of the Genealogia Deorum Gentilium, which
comprise a defence of the role of the poet and poetry, he justifies and defends ancient
Classical literature and, in doing so, reveals his own convictions about the nature of
poetry.155 In the preface to these two books, Boccaccio cites his own replies in an
imaginary conversation with a patron. Agreeing to begin a large literary project at the
patron’s prompting, Boccaccio refers to the task in terms of a sea journey:
Iussu igitur tuo, montanis Certaldi cocleis et sterili solo derelictis, tenui licet cymba in
vertiginosum mare crebrisque implicitum scopulis novus descendam nauta, incertus nunquid
opere precium facturus sim…
(Genealogia Deorum Gentilium, I, Proemio I, 40, p. 58)
At your behest, then, I leave behind the mountain snails and barren soil of Certaldo, and raw
seaman that I am, embark in my frail little craft on a stormy sea all involved with reefs, little
knowing whether my voyage will be worth the trouble.
(Genealogia Deorum Gentilium, p. 10)
Later, in a prayer, Boccaccio calls on God to assist him in his ambitious literary project:
154
Ernst Robert Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, trans. Willard R. Trask
(London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1953), pp. 128–9. Curtius notes that according to Virgil, “the epic
poet voyages over the open sea in a great ship, the lyric poet on a river in a small boat”.
155
See Giovanni Boccaccio, Genealogia Deorum Gentilium, Libro Primo, Proemio I, 40, ed. Vittorio
Zaccaria in Tutte le opere di Giovanni Boccaccio, 10 vols, ed. Vittore Branca (Milan: Mondadori, 1998)
and Boccaccio on Poetry; Being the Preface and the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Books of Boccaccio’s
Genealogia deorum gentilium in an English Version with Introductory Essay and Commentary, trans.
Charles G. Osgood (New York: The Liberal Arts Press, 1956). Citations are to these editions.
182
Et ideo, cum solum cogitans iam sub pondere titubem nimio, eum piisimum patrem, verum
Deum rerumque omnium opificem et cuncta potentem, cui mortales vivimus omnes, supplex
precor ut grandi superboque ceptui meo favens assit. Sit michi splendens et immobile sydus et
navicule dissuetum mare sulcantis gubernaculum regat, et, ut oportunitas exiget, ventis vela
concedat ut eo devehar quo suo nomini sit decus, laus et honor et gloria sempiterna;
detrectantibus autem delusio, ignominia, dedecus et eterna damnatio!
(Genealogia Deorum Gentilium, I, Proemio I, 51, p. 62)
…I humbly pray that He favour and aid this vast, ambitious work of mine. May He shine upon
my way, a fixed and radiant star, and rule the helm of my little boat as she plows an untried sea.
May He at right seasons spread her sails to the wind, that I may follow a course redounding to
the splendour, laud, honour, and eternal glory of His name; but to all detractors confusion,
ignominy, disgrace and eternal damnation!
(Genealogia Deorum Gentilium, p. 13)
This invocation of God’s assistance as a navigator marks a conflation of the Biblical
idea, outlined by Kolve, of Christ as helmsman of the ship of the church, with the
Classical idea of poetic composition as a laborious and dangerous sea journey. These
ideas also underpin the Man of Law’s Tale. In Chaucer’s version of the tale of
Constance the analogy between navigation and narration is implicit rather than explicit,
but its significance, I believe, is tied to the emphasis Chaucer places on merchants.
Elsewhere, by implication and association, Chaucer proposes that the perils of sea
travel are comparable with the risks of writing.
By involving merchants in the
circulation of narrative matter in the Man of Law’s Tale, and suggesting that tales are
like commodities, Chaucer furthers his attempt to consider the production of narrative
in terms of the fourteenth-century economy.
If the dominant image of the Man of Law’s Tale is that of a woman in a ship
alone on the sea, then that of the Shipman’s Tale is a merchant alone in his countour,
poring over his books in order to assess his profits and losses. Merchants and their
activities play a marginal if significant role in the Man of Law’s Tale, but in the
Shipman’s Tale, commerce takes centre stage, and the action revolves around a
merchant, his wife and a monk, and the various transactions they engage in. As in the
Man of Law’s Tale, Chaucer embraces the Shipman’s Tale as a space in which to
interrogate the role and function of commerce and merchants. In doing so, he turns his
attention to the ubiquity of credit and its impact on social relations, the relationship of
commerce and spirituality, and the activities and preoccupations of traders. On account
of its broad ideological scope and minute financial detail, the tale is far more complex
than its fabliau-esque love triangle and trickery would at first imply. In the discussion
that follows I shall examine the position of commerce and merchants in light of the
tale’s collision of discourses, its culture of exchange and its rhetorical strategies. In
183
particular, I shall argue that in detailing recognisable trading patterns and practices,
Chaucer sought to involve an urban, commercially-oriented audience who could
participate in the processes he describes, and that he also attempted to provide new
contexts in which commercial activity might be read. As in the Man of Law’s Tale,
significant parallels between mercantile and narrative forms of “reckoning” can be
identified in the Shipman’s Tale.
That Chaucer had intimate personal knowledge of and experience in commerce
and accountancy cannot be doubted. Book II of The House of Fame offers a rare
glimpse of Chaucer as poet and accountant, confirming that the transition from
accountancy to poetry, from commercial reckoning to narrative reckoning was
something he was personally familiar with. Making himself out to be a busy man and a
faithful servant of love, despite his lack of success in love, he recounts a dream in which
he is carried skyward in the talons of an eagle. Too afraid to look down, Chaucer is
sure he is going to die. The Eagle senses his fear and his bafflement as to why he has
been selected for such a journey to visit the gods of love, and offers an explanation. He
observes that Chaucer is extremely hard-working, returning home to sit in front of
books after spending the day at work:
For when thy labour doon al ys,
And hast mad alle thy rekenynges,
In stede of reste and newe thynges
Thou goost hom to thy hous anoon,
And, also domb as any stoon,
Thou sittest at another book
Tyl fully daswed ys thy look;
And lyvest thus as an heremyte,
Although thyn abstynence ys lyte.
(HF, 652–60)
Chaucer is a loyal servant of love, struggling to produce “bookys, songes, dytees” (HF,
622) “in reverence / Of Love” (624–5), even though he has never had a “part” in it. He
is thus being rewarded for his service with “…som disport and game, / In som
recompensacion / Of labour and devocion” (664–6). That the identity of the dreamer is
Chaucer himself is later confirmed when the Eagle addresses him as “Geffrey” (729).
The Eagle’s references to Chaucer’s “labour” and “rekenynges” are apparently allusions
to Chaucer’s work as customs controller: at the time of writing The House of Fame,
Chaucer was controller of the wool custom and subsidy, a position he was appointed to
184
in June 1374, and possibly also controller of the petty custom.156 Records show that the
administrative responsibilities of the customs controller included the keeping of
accounts in his own hand; it can therefore be surmised that Chaucer knew how to
“rekene” very well.157 If we are to believe the account of “Geffrey” in The House of
Fame, Chaucer would end each day by filling in his account ledgers and then return
home to sit “at another book”, without noticing what his “neyghebores” were up to, and
generally behaving much like a “heremyte”. Chaucer could not have failed to notice his
private transition from commerce to cultural activity; the results of his day job seep
through to and register in the writing he shaped at night. What results from this is that
different areas of experience are bound together: work at different types of books;
calculations both theoretical and practical; the solitude of the “heremyte” alongside that
of the bookkeeper and the poet.158
Likewise much of Chaucer’s poetry bears the markings of an increasing trend
towards quantification; Paul Acker notes that even in his earliest major poem, the Book
of the Duchess, he slips in a reference to the most sophisticated reckoning method
known in fourteenth-century England.159 When the poem’s narrator attempts to convey
the vast number of plants and animals he encounters in the green wood of his dream, he
claims that even the most sophisticated accountant would struggle to enumerate the
“wondres” he has witnessed. The reference is specific, with the narrator naming a
mathematician “Argus” (al-Khuwarizmi) and by implication the technique of algoristic
reckoning he pioneered, as I mentioned earlier.160 There is nothing particularly unusual
about the hyperbole surrounding the innumerability, for, like the topos of
inexpressibility outlined by Curtius, countlessness is a relatively common rhetorical
device;161
Chaucer, however, makes it original by seizing on the opportunity to
introduce a fairly substantial reference to developments in arithmetic; not without irony,
countlessness is expressed in terms of the very developments that made reckoning with
156
See Chaucer Life-Records, p. 148ff. The editors note that due to variations in the surviving
documentation, some doubt persists over whether Chaucer was appointed petty customs controller at that
time or at a later date, p. 160.
157
R.H. Parker, “Accounting in Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales”, ed. Michael Meehan, Accounting,
Auditing & Accountability Journal 2.1 (1999), 92–112. Chaucer’s personal accountancy skills and the
way they informed the writing of his most famous work are the focus of this article. Parker notes that
Chaucer’s experiences as Clerk of Works “did not extend to mercantile accounting, although his work
obviously brought him into contact with many merchants”. Olson and Crow, in Chaucer Life-Records,
draw attention to the fact that a customs controller was expected to keep his controlment rolls with his
own hand and write accounts himself: see pp. 151, 173.
158
There was of course a famous English hermit-author, Richard Rolle.
159
Paul Acker, “The Emergence of an Arithmetical Mentality in Middle English Literature”, The Chaucer
Review, 28.3 (1994), 293–302see p. 293.
160
Acker notes that by “Argus”, Chaucer means the ninth-century Arab scholar, al-Khuwarizmi, p. 294.
161
Curtius, European Literature, pp. 159ff.
185
greater precision possible. The image of “Argus” at work in his “noble countour” (BD,
435–42), which extends over several lines and bears comparison with the
aforementioned image in the House of Fame of Chaucer labouring over his
“rekenynges” as customs controller, is decidedly mercantile in tone, thus connecting the
innovations made by a mathematician to their practical application in a “countour”:
That thogh Argus, the noble countour,
Sete to rekene in hys countour,
And rekene with his figures ten —
For by tho figures mowe al ken,
Yf they be crafty, rekene and noumbre,
And telle of every thing the noumbre —
Yet shoulde he fayle to rekene even
The wondres me mette in my sweven.
(BD, 435–42)
The point is underscored by the homophonic rhyme that connects the mathematician
(countour) and the mercantile counting house (countour).
In the Shipman’s Tale we find a similar figure in a countour, this time in a
decidedly mercantile context. The image of a merchant poring over his books behind
closed doors was surely recognisable to an urban, merchant-class audience and thus
designed to draw readers with commercial knowledge into the process of calculating
and gauging with which the merchant is occupied. When the merchant of St-Denis
takes to his “countour” in the Shipman’s Tale, he closes the door on the world outside
and loses himself in his book-keeping. The portrait of the merchant at his work bench
is similar to that of the iconography of merchants and bankers:
His bookes and his bagges many oon
He leith biforn hym on his countyng-bord.
Ful riche was his tresor and his hord,
For which ful faste his countour-dore he shette;
And eek he nolde that no man sholde hym lette
Of his acountes, for the meene tyme.
(VII, 82-7)
The description of the accoutrements –the bags of money, the counting board, and the
account books– all opened safely behind closed doors, is very visual. James Davis has
pointed out that the vices of Avarice and Covetousness were frequently personified as
merchants or usurers, and Avarice, in particular, might also be depicted as a figure at a
counting table covered with coins.162 It is unlikely that Chaucer could have been
oblivious to the potential for his merchant of St Denis to be read as a portrait of Avarice
162
James Davis, “Literary Representations of Petty Traders”, Ch.1 in The representation, regulation and
behaviour of petty traders in late medieval England (unpubl. PhD thesis, University of Cambridge, 2001).
186
when in his countour, although there is little in the broader context of the tale to suggest
that Chaucer intended him to be viewed this way; rather, it appears to be another case of
Chaucer acknowledging popular perceptions and representations of merchants and
trade, without actually giving them his full endorsement. I argue that Chaucer, in the
merchant of St-Denis, and indeed the Shipman’s Tale, goes beyond the bounds of pure
satire to present an image of merchants and trade that is far more complex and subtle.
As I have already pointed out, the description of the merchant in his countour was one
that was also readily recognisable to practitioners of trade, and might as well be
considered a means of reaching out to that particular audience as an attempt to critique
it.
The action of the tale revolves around a series of transactions concerning three
figures: a successful merchant, his young and attractive wife, and their friend John, a
30-year-old monk from a nearby abbey who spends considerable time in their company.
These transactions must be replayed briefly in order to render much clearer the
subsequent references to them on which much of my argument is based. Early on, the
Shipman informs us that the monk and merchant have a kind of sworn “bretherhede”.
Very soon however, the wife and the monk, walking in the garden early one morning,
make the first deal in a series of exchanges involving cash, money and sex: after a
lengthy preamble, the wife asks daun John if he will lend her 100 francs, which she
needs by the following Sunday in order to pay for some items with which “to arraye”
herself. In exchange, she offers him whatever “plesance and service” he chooses. John
readily agrees, assuring the wife that once her husband has gone to Flanders, he will
bring her the 100 francs. In an apparent parody of a feudal oath, the agreement is sealed
when John grabs the wife by the flanks, embraces her “harde” and kisses her several
times, foreshadowing the sexual encounter that is to follow. The next loan concerns the
monk and the merchant: before the merchant leaves on his business trip, daun John asks
the merchant for a loan of 100 francs to buy livestock for property owned by the abbey.
The merchant agrees, telling the monk, “sikerly this is a smal requeste” (VII, 283). He
hands over the money asking only that the monk pay him back when possible, and
without imposing more specific terms of repayment. The merchant then travels to
Flanders, where he buys merchandise on credit. In his absence, John arrives at the
merchant’s home in St-Denis, where he lends the wife the 100 francs she had asked for
and enjoys a night of “myrthe” (VII, 318) with her in exchange. When the merchant
returns from St-Denis, he explains to his wife that because the merchandise was so
expensive, he will have to borrow money from “certeine freendes” (VII, 333) in order to
187
meet the terms of a pledge to pay 20,000 sheelds. En route to borrow the money, the
merchant pays daun John a visit, “nat for to axe or borwe of hym moneye, / But for to
wite and seen of his welfare, / And for to tellen hym of his chaffare” (VII, 338–40), but
when he mentions the need to borrow money, the monk takes it as a request for
repayment and quickly points out that he has already returned the 100 francs he had
borrowed earlier to the merchant’s wife. The merchant proceeds to borrow the money
he requires in Paris and then is able to close the deal by redeeming his bond. He returns
home happily and enjoys a passionate night with his wife, after which he hesitantly
raises the matter of daun John’s loan, reproaching his wife for not having informed him
of the monk’s repayment of the 100 francs. Indignantly, his wife claims that she had
assumed daun John was giving her the money to spend as a token of his affection for
the merchant. She admits she has spent it on her “array” (VII, 418) in order to honour
her husband, using throughout her speech the kinds of financial terms he is well
accustomed to: assuring him that she is a reliable debtor, she tells him he can “score”
the debt upon her “taille” (VII, 416), and then, before there is barely a chance to
consider the mark being made in her account book, she tells him she will pay him in the
currency she feels at ease with: sexual favours “abedde” (VII, 424).
This cycle of lending and repayment is significant not only because it happens to
generate the plot, but also because it lends itself to interpretation within moral,
economic and linguistic frameworks. That the merchant is specifically from St-Denis,
and travels to Bruges and Paris, places him, like the merchants of the General Prologue,
the Man of Law’s Tale and many in the Decameron, in an international context, the
sense of which is heightened by the mention of different currencies. If the Shipman’s
Tale is located within this international nexus of trade, and the merchant of St-Denis’s
activities are considered in light of other instances of mercantile practice and conduct
both within the Canterbury Tales and beyond, then his “viage” may be viewed
differently. It is inevitable that the tale’s trading detail justifies readings of it as a
critique of commercial values, but this is to take the tale at its most superficial. By
emphasising the idea of the merchant’s journey, Chaucer also alludes to the travel and
transport activities of merchants and their role in the circulation of “matter”, whether
material goods or news. As I demonstrated earlier, the merchant’s travel held a certain
allure for members of the gentry and aristocracy, partly on account of the association
with exotic or luxury goods and partly on account of the idea of travel per se, with its
perceived opportunities for adventure and cultural encounter. Is it excessive, therefore,
to propose that Chaucer sought to consider the merchant’s viage as a kind of rhetorical
188
device, embedding commercial practice in the narrative and viewing a merchant’s
journey as both new kind of travel and new kind of narrative? The movement of the
narrative of the Shipman’s Tale, beginning in the merchant of St-Denis’s familiar
surrounds, then tracing his journey away, his journey back, and his eventual
homecoming, all the while faced with financial and sexual threats, might be considered
to partly replicate the knight-errantry and the quest motif of romance and epic genres,
while recontextualising them.163 As we have seen, in romances such as Yvain and Sir
Gawain and the Green Knight exchange is of major importance, but the presence of
commercial exchange is marginal or oblique, hinted at through metaphor; in the
Shipman’s Tale commerce becomes a dominant force and the exchanges are quite
literally commercial. Nevertheless, the moral associations of exchange that are found
elsewhere are not abandoned by Chaucer in this story.
Throughout the tale, Chaucer presents literal transactions while using double
entendre and allusion to multiply their possible meanings, consistently falling short of
providing a single dominant reading of mercantilism. This purposeful indeterminacy
ensures that the transactions are far less simple, and the tale far more complex, than
would at first appear to be the case. Most criticism of the Shipman’s Tale inevitably
zooms in on the detail of the transactions.
All criticism draws attention to the
circulation of currency in the tale, and few critics ignore the intersection of sex and
commerce, both fairly inevitable entry points given the lively alignment of “francs” and
“flanks”, and the punning on “taille” –both financial tally and genitalia–, on which the
tale’s success hinges. The matter of the merchant’s moral integrity or lack thereof has
also attracted considerable attention, with critics tending to be polarised on whether the
merchant himself is exonerated by the tale, or implicated in the corrupt dealings in
which his wife and the monk engage, and in disagreement over whether the general
treatment of commerce is sympathetic or not. On account of its commercial detail, the
tale has been discussed extensively in terms of the fourteenth-century economy and late
medieval commercial developments.164
163
Even accountancy scholars have recently
David Wallace observes that merchants effectively came to appropriate the term aventure by
suggesting the resemblance between their particular form of professional activity and the time-honoured
values of the knightly class: see Chaucerian Polity, p. 205.
164
See Lee Patterson, Chaucer and the Subject of History; John M. Ganim, “Double entry in Chaucer’s
Shipman’s Tale: Chaucer and Bookkeeping Before Pacioli”, The Chaucer Review 30.3 (1996), 294–305;
and Patricia J. Eberle, “Commercial language and the commercial outlook in the General Prologue”, The
Chaucer Review 18.2 (1983), 161–74.
189
weighed into the debate, analysing the financial detail of each transaction in terms of
late medieval innovations in account-keeping.165
It is generally agreed that the emphasis on the technical aspects of trading and
the depth of commercial language are the tale’s most striking features.166 The language
of borrowing and lending money, exchanging currency, recording profits and losses,
negotiating the terms of repayment and, above all, calculating abounds: “dispence”,
“costage”, “lene”, “chaffare”, “dette”, “rekene”, “acountes”, “chapmanhede”,
“creaunce”, “marchandise”, “dettours”, “taille” and “chevyssaunce” are just some of the
financial terms imparting a distinctly commercial flavour to the tale. The profusion of
commercial and accounting terminology throughout the Canterbury Tales has generated
many critical readings of the tales in terms of the evolution of late medieval banking
and accountancy techniques, particularly as regards the Shipman’s Tale. Most notably,
John Ganim has speculated on whether Chaucer might have been influenced by the
emergence of the double entry accountancy technique, pioneered in Italy. 167 Doubleentry bookkeeping is the practice by which debits from one party are credited to
another, and vice versa, so that all profits and losses are simultaneously in view, as
opposed to single-entry bookkeeping, in which only the loss and profit applying to a
single party are recorded, as Ganim outlines.168
While unanimously agreeing that Chaucer had a remarkably strong personal
grasp of accounting, the recent work of accountancy scholars on the tale highlights the
dangers of attempting to make too many assumptions about medieval accounting. The
number of transactions in the tale is so great, and the precision with which they are
articulated so marked, that it is certainly tempting to suppose that innovations in
business and accounting may have informed the tale’s structure and content, but the
history of accounting suggests that the double-entry method is unlikely to have
influenced the tale. Responding partly to Ganim, the accounting scholar R. H. Parker
argues that it is unlikely Chaucer had a knowledge of the double entry technique, but he
165
Dale Buckmaster and Elizabeth Buckmaster, “Studies of accounting and commerce in Chaucer’s
Shipman’s Tale: A review article”, Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal 12.1 (1999), 113–128;
and R. H Parker, “Accounting in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales”, Accounting, Auditing & Accountability
Journal 12.1 (1999), 92–112.
166
See V. J. Scattergood, “The Originality of the Shipman’s Tale” , The Chaucer Review 11 (1977), 210–
31; Wight Martindale Jr., “Chaucer's Merchants: A Trade-Based Speculation on Their Activities” , The
Chaucer Review 26 (1992), 309–16; Strohm, Social Chaucer, p. 100; Ganim, “Double Entry”, among
others.
167
Ganim, “Double Entry”
168
Luca Pacioli’s manual on the double-entry bookkeeping technique, De Computis et Scripturis, was not
published until 1494 in Venice, although it is widely accepted that the system made formal and
standardised in Pacioli’s tract had a long gestation period in the decades, if not centuries, preceding. See
John Ganim, “Double Entry”, p. 295.
190
does acknowledge that “the events of the Shipman’s Tale are told in such a fashion that
they can be read as a series of transactions expressible in terms of debits and credits”.169
Parker suggests that Chaucer knew “charge and discharge accounting”, a predecessor of
double-entry bookkeeping, arguing convincingly that the spirit of “quiting”, which, as I
noted earlier, shapes much of the storytelling throughout the Canterbury Tales, derives
from the formula that ended an account of charge and discharge: “et quietus est” (and
he is quit).170 What is certain is that the language of accounting prepares us for another
story of competition and exchange.
Three significant and recent studies of the Shipman’s Tale –by John Finlayson,
Helen Fulton and Karla Taylor– are all concerned with the status of mercantile
exchange in the tale and continue to open up further interpretative possibilities, while
drawing attention to the tale’s linguistic richness and narrative complexity.171 John
Finlayson argues for closer ties to Boccaccio’s Decameron than have until now been
recognised. He agrees that while the Shipman’s Tale is artistically very different from
and far more complex than the first two tales of Day VIII of the Decameron, which are
recognised by many as likely sources, the broader meanings of Chaucer’s story and its
relation to a bigger narrative framework mean it has much in common with Boccaccio’s
treatment of mercantilism. In particular, Finlayson argues that the Shipman’s Tale
presents “a world in which neither God nor conventional Christian morality has an overt
place – that is remarkably like the world created by Boccaccio in the sixth, seventh and
eighth Days of the Decameron.”172 While it is not my intention to run over the detail of
the Decameron VIII, 1 and 2 in relation to the Shipman’s Tale, ground ably covered by
Finlayson, nor weigh into the debate about whether Boccaccio’s stories were or were
not sources for the tale, the way the structure of all of these tales, with their dependence
on verbal and monetary exchange, mirrors the law of the market is something I shall
address.
In the late fourteenth century, the merchant’s role in society and its governance
was much debated, and Helen Fulton’s argument examines the tale’s mercantile
ideology in exactly this light. She asserts that it is possible “to locate the tale within an
ideology of pre-capitalist urban government, an ideology which privileges the
169
Parker, p. 100.
Parker, p. 94.
171
See John Finlayson, “Chaucer’s Shipman’s Tale, Boccaccio, and the ‘Civilizing’ of Fabliau”, The
Chaucer Review 36.1 (2002), 336–51; Helen Fulton, “Mercantile Ideology in Chaucer’s Shipman’s Tale”,
The Chaucer Review, 36.4 (2002), 311—28; and Karla Taylor, “Social Aesthetics and the Emergence of
the Civic Discourse from the Shipman’s Tale to the Melibee”, The Chaucer Review, 39.3 (2005), 298—
322.
172
Finlayson, p. 340.
170
191
community of burgesses over individual materialism”173 and argues that, “rather than
admiring the merchant’s entrepreneurship without qualification, or condemning the
entire merchant class for its commercialism (as pointless as criticising the knighthood
for its chivalry) the tale is asking, ‘would you trust this man to govern this city?’”.174
Although Fulton’s arguments for a consideration of the tale’s mercantilism in terms of
urban government are wide-ranging and persuasive, there is little (if anything), in either
the tale proper or in the reception of the tale within the framework of the pilgrimage, to
suggest that Chaucer wished to comment on merchants in relation to the wider matter of
English urban governance. The tale is, after all, set for the most part in northern France,
and if anything, it is a sense of household and domestic space, as opposed to urban and
public space, that provides background for the exchanges of the characters. Fulton’s
argument is, however, valuable for her recognition that Chaucer neither admires the
merchant class unreservedly, nor condemns it outrightly.
In an illuminating study of the Shipman’s Tale in relation to the Melibee, Karla
Taylor focuses on the tale’s social and semantic dynamics, drawing attention to the way
its dense puns would be read by different elements of a medieval audience according to
their various socio-cultural backgrounds and linguistic competency. The full potential
of the puns, Taylor suggests, can only be accessed by a trilingual audience, with
competence in English, French and Latin: “Like the specialised professional jargons of
the General Prologue –doctorspeak, lawyer-speak, merchantspeak– the punning
discourse of the Shipman’s Tale becomes a mechanism for exclusion, exploitation,
trickery, complicity, and all the legion forces that thwart genuine commonality”.175
Taylor’s article is important, not only on account of its elucidation of the complexity of
meaning created by the tale’s many puns and their social meanings, but also because it
draws attention to the way the success of Chaucer’s stories, like Boccaccio’s, so often
hinges on the use of linguistic elements as memory cues that are able to bind in
particular communities of readers, in much the same way that late medieval artists use
visual processes recognisable to audiences drawn from middle society.
All three of these recent studies make a considerable contribution to an
understanding of the tale’s mercantilism, Finlayson’s due to its rereading of the tale in
terms of the Decameron as a mercantile epic, Fulton’s on account of the detail of the
tale’s transactions and its relationship to the bill of exchange, Taylor’s on account of its
semantic detail, which lends support to Lee Patterson’s idea of the tale as embodying
173
174
Fulton, p. 313.
Fulton, p. 317.
192
“interchangeable values”.176 Nevertheless, there remains scope for a re-reading of the
tale’s mercantilism in terms of the relationships of the three main figures and the nature
of their exchanges. The problems of commensuration in exchange were, as we have
seen, of continual interest to medieval thinkers, and seem to be precisely the kind of
problems that Chaucer is engaging with in the Shipman’s Tale. The ideal of equality in
exchange remained a constant theme in late medieval philosophical thought, but trying
to define exactly what constituted equality did not prove easy.177 When Chaucer makes
the circulation of currency, lending and repayment the organising principles of his
narrative, he seems to be highlighting exactly the kind of difficulties also addressed by
the Gawain-poet concerning equity in exchange: are sexual favours an appropriate
repayment of a 100 franc loan; is it possible for the merchant of St-Denis to be repaid
by the monk; and should the merchant in fact be compensated for having lent money to
the monk that he might have invested elsewhere for a profit, thus entitling him to
indemnity, or lucrum cessans? In the Shipman’s Tale, these problems of equity in
exchange and repayment have both economic and spiritual implications, both of which
ultimately expose not a true quietus (repayment), but a base fraud, violating the
merchant’s bonds with his friend and his wife.
With such a concentration of detail about money-lending and exchange, the
Shipman’s Tale raises the issue of whether at the end of the tale, after the complex
movement of currency, repayment has actually taken place. In the tale, Chaucer seems
to posit almost exactly the same question as that asked by the influential scholastic
writer Peter John Olivi (1248–98) when contributing to the long-debated question,
within canon law, of whether the lender who could have invested his money in
commerce at a probable profit should be indemnified for the loss of that profit.178 Joel
Kaye sets out Olivi’s contribution: “Olivi asked the question: if someone intends to
invest money in trade for a profit, and instead, out of charity, lends the money to a
friend in need, can he expect back from his friend not only the sum lent, but in addition
the profit he lost by not investing in trade? Olivi’s answer was an unqualified yes: the
borrower was responsible for indemnifying the lender for his loss of ‘probable profit’,
and for restoring a ‘probable equivalence’ to the loan contract.”179 Each time a loan is
negotiated in the tale, there is an emphasis on the terms of repayment and on the
175
Taylor, “Social Aesthetics”, p. 309.
See Taylor, “Social Aesthetics”, pp. 303—4; and Patterson, Chaucer and the Subject of History, p.
361.
177
Kaye, Economy and Nature, p. 80.
178
Olivi’s reasoning is outlined in Kaye, Economy and Nature, p. 119.
179
Kaye, Economy and Nature, p. 119.
176
193
reaching of an oral agreement. The terms of the agreement made by daun John and the
wife are met, with cash handed over in exchange for sex:
This faire wyf acorded with daun John
That for thise hundred frankes he sholde al nyght
Have hire in his armes bolt upright;
And this acord parfourned was in dede.
(VII, 314-17)
Twice the word “acord” appears, emphasising the terms of the agreement already
alluded to over 100 lines earlier, and making clear that such terms are met and enacted
“in dede”. In contrast, the terms of the agreement made by the merchant and daun John
–repayment of the sum of 100 francs at an unspecified time in the future– are clearly not
met, because the 100 francs are never repaid to the merchant. Daun John is effectively
“repaid” twice when he receives both the night of “myrthe” with the wife’s “flankes”
and the sum of 100 francs from the merchant, which he never returns. The merchant,
meanwhile, is left 100 francs worse off and is also betrayed by his wife and a friend.
The emphasis on the contracting of such agreements is similar to verbal agreements in
other texts, such as in the pact made between Gawain and Bertilak in Sir Gawain. Like
Gawain in Bertilak’s castle, daun John in the merchant of St-Denis’s household is a
trusted guest. The merchant and monk address each other in familiar terms, they have
sworn life-long “bretherhede”, and when the merchant is about to depart on a trading
mission, daun John gives every impression of genuine concern for the merchant’s health
and safety while he travels. This makes his deceit and abuse of the merchant’s trust all
the more unpleasant. The moral climate of the household, and more broadly the tale, is
corrupted by this abuse of hospitality.
Such intersections of lending and repayment in the plot of the Shipman’s Tale
also open the way for a reading in terms of the doctrine of restitution. This doctrine, as
set out by Aquinas, stipulates that when an injury has been done to another, exact
reparation as far as possible must be made for it.180 When applied to the ending of the
Shipman’s Tale, it is clear that the merchant of St-Denis has not been adequately
compensated for the injury that has been done to him. When, shaping herself as a good
debtor, the merchant’s wife says “…score it upon my taille, / And I shal paye as soone
as ever I may” (VII, 416–17), her language is of course drawn from the Pauline notion
of a wife’s sexual “debt” to her husband, but her offer to pay him in a different currency
from the coinage in which she has, via the monk, effectively taken from him, highlights
180
The Catholic Encyclopedia: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12788a.htm (accessed 17 September
2005).
194
the unequal nature of the exchange and suggests that exact reparation has not occurred.
Robert Adams proposes that the tale’s central irony comes at this point, when husband
and wife, believing themselves to have settled a financial-sexual debt, blissfully ignore
the spiritual debt that they have accumulated. The tale has set us up to see this irony, he
believes, with its word plays on “dette”.181 And, as has been pointed out at least once,
Chaucer’s reference to the “third day” of the monk’s visit forms a deliberate association
with a cock’s crowing and betrayal,182 just as the scene in which the merchant, alone in
the “countour”, assessing his commercial balance sheet, is an inversion of a solitary
meditation on spiritual debts and credits.
In the Summa theologica, one of the
objections addressed by Aquinas is the question of how restitution can be made in this
case of adultery: the question of how reparation can be made to the person injured when
what has been taken away cannot be given back is a thorny one, for there is no common
measure between injury and compensation in goods.183 This is surely a matter that
applies to the adultery of the Shipman’s Tale and its concern with money repayment.
Medieval theologians were divided over whether the adulterer ought to offer a monetary
compensation. Both the wife and the monk fail to adequately recognise and return that
which has been taken, leaving the merchant deeply injured. That the merchant fails
himself to recognise that he has not been adequately recompensed is not important; the
tale is purposefully arranged so that the audience is fully aware of the monk’s
duplicitous dealings and the unequal nature of the exchanges.
Helen Fulton offers a reading of the tale’s currency changes and unequal
repayments in terms of the bill of exchange, a financial instrument introduced into
medieval Europe via Italian merchants, which facilitated the movement of large
amounts of money from one place to another without the use of cash.184 According to
Fulton, the transactions conducted by the merchant’s wife and the monk constitute a
form of currency exchange analogous to the model of the bill of exchange:185 “…the
wife borrows a hundred francs from her husband to pay the debt she owes for her
clothes, with the loan being negotiated through a third party, the monk, who arranges
the conversion of the currency from francs to sexual favours. The wife then repays the
loan to her husband in the converted currency, and the monk, who has acted as a banker
181
Robert Adams, “The Concept of Debt in the Shipman’s Tale”, Studies in the Age of Chaucer 6 (1984),
85—102.
182
Most recently, this was pointed out by Finlayson, “Chaucer’s Shipman’s Tale”, p. 342.
183
St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa theologica, 2000 (online). Available from:
http://www.newadvent.org/cumma/ (Accessed 20 November 2005)
184
See Peter Spufford, Money and its use in medieval Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1988), pp. 245—5.
185
Fulton, p. 318.
195
and loan-broker between husband and wife, is paid commission on the deal in the form
of some of the sexual favours which belong to the husband.”186 Fulton suggests that for
a late fourteenth-century audience, references to the bill of exchange would have been
particularly topical and even controversial, because the bill of exchange had only been
introduced into England at that time.187 There is no denying that the tale’s sense of
finance is both sophisticated and topical, but a reference to the bill of exchange is not
enough to place the merchant’s behaviour on a par with that of his wife and the monk.
The meaning of these transactions is likely to be more ambiguous than Fulton proposes,
for as Peter Spufford points out, the bill of exchange, although “developed by
merchants for merchants”, was soon used by non-merchants as well, most notably the
popes.188 According to Spufford, it was used by papal collectors in England from the
early fourteenth century on, as a means of transmitting money they had collected to the
apostolic camera at Avignon, and by a socially diverse range of travellers.189
If
anything, the reference to currency exchange is a reflection of the way different cities
were more easily connected within a financial and commercial network in the later
medieval period.
If the merchant is to be understood within an English context, as Fulton
proposes, it seems important to consider the function of credit and the cycles of the
export and import trade in late medieval England.
In a recent article Pamela
Nightingale addresses exactly this matter, considering firstly the widespread use of
credit in medieval English society, and then moving on to a consideration of “the
relative use of cash, barter and credit in the urban and mercantile economy of late
fourteenth-century London” with regard to a rare merchant’s account book, that of
London iron merchant, Gilbert Maghfeld.190 Critical perceptions of the Shipman’s Tale
as reflecting an entirely mercantile ideology are perhaps mistaken, for although
moneylending is undeniably at the heart of the tale, Nightingale’s research shows that
English creditors came from every class of society, both clerical and lay.191 In medieval
villages, wealthier peasants frequently lent to their neighbours, and among the clergy,
everyone from bishops to humble chaplains lent money for a variety of concerns as
186
Fulton, p. 318.
Fulton, p. 320.
188
Spufford, Money and its use, p. 255.
189
Spufford, Money and its use, p. 255.
190
Nightingale, “Money and credit”, p. 56. The first part of Nightingale’s study is based on records from
judicial courts. Chaucer, incidentally, borrowed from Maghfeld in 1392: see Pearsall, The Life of
Geoffrey Chaucer, p. 105
191
Nightingale, “Money and credit”, p. 52.
187
196
investments.192 The use of credit in the medieval world was almost as ubiquitous as it is
today, the difference being that the modern economy, with its common interest rates
and institution-based controls, is a long way from the late medieval economy, which
was far less managed.193 To view the Shipman’s Tale as reflecting a commodification
of human relations, the direct result of the expansion of commerce, is to overlook the
longstanding existence of relationships based on credit. If creditors were drawn from
every class, then Chaucer’s casting of a monk as a creditor merely parallels the status
quo.
There can be no doubt that the consciousness of the need to maintain reputation
in order to ensure a good credit rating informs the tale, but while we see this
experienced by the merchant of St-Denis to a greater extent than either his wife or the
monk, it is something that applies to all parties in a commercial relationship, whether
creditor or debtor. Thus what Paul Strohm refers to as “horizontal ties”, with their
“emphasis on the voluntary and contractual nature of […] association”, are precisely the
kind of relations which the characters of the Shipman's Tale are so caught up in and
aware of.194
As Nightingale notes, money-lending involved a private negotiation
between creditor and debtor.195 Among horizontal relations are the networking relations
that need to be developed for successful business dealings, the finely tuned commercial
associations that are needed for the acquisition or sale of “chaffare” (VII, 328) at a good
price, and the negotiations for a “chevyssaunce” (VII, 329), or loan. In the fourteenth
century, St-Denis, situated north of Paris, was known for its abbey and its fair, and was
an important centre for the cloth trade.196 The merchant travels between “Brugges” and
“Parys”, where he “byeth and creaunceth” (VI, 303) successfully, all the while aware of
the great need to maintain reputation and business credit:
“But o thyng is, ye knowe it wel ynogh
Of chapmen, that hir moneie is hir plogh.
We may creaunce whil we have a name,
But goldlees for to be, it is no game…”
(VII, 287–90)
His words to the monk make it clear that both credit and ready coin are necessary if
business is to continue; as Nightingale points out, coinage was often in short supply and
contributed to the widespread use of credit. By likening money to a plough, the
192
Nightingale, “Money and Credit”, p. 52.
Nightingale, “Money and Credit”, p. 51.
194
Strohm, Social Chaucer, p. 14 and elsewhere.
195
Nightingale, “Money and Credit”, p. 52.
196
J. A. Burrow and V. J. Scattergood’s notes to the Shipman’s Tale in The Riverside Chaucer, p. 911.
193
197
merchant is suggesting it as a legitimate tool of trade. Moreover, his words make clear
that if the 100 francs had not been lent to daun John, they would have been intended for
profitable investment in trade. If we refer again to Olivi, we see the importance of
intention in the matter of whether a lender was entitled to indemnity. Olivi argued that
the right to expect indemnity only applied if the sum lent would otherwise have been
destined for investment, for it was “only in this case [that] the probable profit the money
would have earned be considered as existing… within the loaded money itself.”197 The
merchant has foregone the profits that he could have earned with his “plogh” –his
capital– in favour of lending to a friend, making all the more apparent the monk’s
fraudulent transactions, and the right of the merchant to be repaid, if not indemnified.
From the start of the Shipman’s Tale, Chaucer takes particular care to build up
the friendship between the monk and the merchant, and interrogate the values on which
it is based. The two have sworn “bretherhede” for as long as “lyf may dure” (VII, 42).
It is a relationship with which the Merchant feels at ease, in which there is no need for
“strange fare” (VII, 263), the elaborate courtesies required of successful networking…
or so daun John assures him. Daun John is an outrider, a category of monk whose role
requires that he go beyond the bounds of the monastery to carry out the order’s
business. By the twelfth century, the Church had become collectively the greatest
landowner in Europe.198 It was natural then, that primary production in monastic lands
was often vast, and the need for outriders, who could negotiate sales of these products,
was ever increasing. As Eileen Power has noted, great landowners usually disposed of
crops by contracting directly with an export merchant.199 Business concerns inevitably
put monks into contact with merchants, so it seems reasonable to consider the kind of
friendship shared by the merchant of St-Denis with daun John in terms of a business
relationship of the new horizontal kind, particularly when the transactions they engage
in are taken into account. Initially the relationship between the monk and the merchant
appears to contain all the ingredients for genuine friendship, with their sworn
allegiance, and their common birthplace. Yet their “bretherhede” and “cosynage”, as
the tale progresses, gradually take on a new meaning as daun John admits that the
enthusiasm with which he calls the merchant “cosyn” has an ulterior motive:
“Nay,” quod this monk, “by God and Seint Martyn,
He is na moore cosyn unto me
Than is this leef that hangeth on the tree!
I clepe hym so, by Seint Denys of Fraunce,
197
Kaye, Economy and Nature, p. 119.
J.L. Bolton, The Medieval English Economy 1150–1500 (London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1980), p. 331.
199
Power, The Wool Trade, pp. 42ff.
198
198
To have the moore cause of aqueyntaunce
Of yow….”
(VII, 148–53)
The friendship is revealed as merely a guise with which daun John can acquaint himself
with the merchant's “chaffare”, in the form of his wife. The apparently sacred vows of
friendship, with their heartfelt assurance of “eterne alliaunce” (VII, 40), turn out to be
little more than verbal currency, particularly when considered in light of the swearing to
God and saints which accompany them. They are the kind of oaths that can easily be
discarded in favour of a profit. Comparing this scene in the Shipman’s Tale to other
incidents of oath-making in The Canterbury Tales, including those in the tales of the
Pardoner, Summoner and Friar, Paul Strohm suggests that scenes involving such falseswearing are so frequent that Chaucer’s audience soon learns to regard a character with
a tendency to oath-making with suspicion.200 Oath swearing had, until the last decades
of the thirteenth century, been an important characteristic of the sacralised feudal
relation of the lord to those who followed him.201 It is clear that the oath-swearing of
the Shipman’s Tale, so easily reneged on, is part of a world of different relations.
Whereas once an oath such as that sworn by the monk to the merchant's wife, “yow,
which I have loved specially / Aboven alle wommen, sikerly. / This swere I yow on my
professioun” (VII, 153–5), would have been a sincerely made vow in a courtly romance,
it has found a new home in a society whose perceptions and aspirations are greatly
changed. Chaucer was well aware of the changes in human relations; in his “ballade”,
Lak of Stedfastnesse, he laments the passing of a world “so stedfast and stable / That
mannes word was obligacioun” (1–2).
Chaucer is just one in a number of late medieval writers to address the
problematical nature of human relations, the difficulty of defining real friendship and
the fact that friendship does not seem to be what it was. The friendship of the merchant
of St-Denis and daun John is exactly the kind of dubious relationship sighed over by the
anonymous author of this late medieval lyric:
Who hath that conning by wisdam or prudence
To know whether his frende be feint or stable?
Ther is no creature, I trow, that hath that science
To know his frende — the world is so mutable,
And frenship is double and vary diseivable;
The mouthe seithe ane, the hert thinketh another;
Alas to say, it is full lementable,
200
201
Strohm, Social Chaucer, p. 97.
Strohm, Social Chaucer, p. 13ff.
199
Unneth a man now may truste his owne brother.202
Notably the poet pinpoints the mouth as the instrument of deceit; the heart may bear
false sentiment, but it is the mouth that swears otherwise. Chaucer was aware of the
susceptibility of language, like money, to corruption. Dante’s Divine Comedy offers
many examples of the evil abuses of language and money, and the connection between
them, as Joan Ferrante points out: in Purgatorio hell is referred to as an enormous
mouth “l’ampia gola d’inferno” (Purg. XXI, 31–2) as well as the city of wealth, Dis; the
feet of the simoniacs, who sold the sacraments for gold and silver, are seen as tongues
projecting from the “mouths” of baptismal fonts; the ditch of thieves is a “fierce throat”,
and the principal thief defies God with his words.203 There is plenty of evidence in the
writings of Chaucer’s English near-contemporary Langland to suggest that falseswearing, in particular, was the kind of behaviour expected of merchants. In Passus II
of Piers Plowman “Favel” (Deceit) is one of Meed's companions on her way to marry
Fals, and he acts as a “brocour” (B II, 66). Deceitful practices were one of the reasons
for which merchants and retailers were regarded with suspicion.
The figure
Covetousness in Piers Plowman has learned his profit-making skills in the fairs of Wye
and Winchester, and in the company of cloth merchants, acquiring the ability to stretch
fabric to make it appear longer, and deceive customers by placing wool on a scale with
a weight that is less than it appears: he knows how to “wikkedly weye” and “wikke
chaffare use” (B V, 225). It is remarkable, then, that it should be the merchant of the
Shipman’s Tale who is actually pure of “herte” (VII, 39) in his swearing, and whose
words reflect his genuine “greet plesaunce” (VII, 39) in the alliance.
Cuckolded the merchant of the Shipman’s Tale may be, but the final portrait of
him is not of a man in a state of desperation or of a figure to be laughed at, but rather a
measured, calm individual who gives his wife the benefit of the doubt and counsels her
on modest spending. In a time of crisis he is able to make a quick calculation and
assessment of the situation.
Analysing the merchant activity as described in the
Canterbury Tales in terms of economic historian de Roover's studies of financial
transactions, Wight Martindale concludes they are the best of their kind.204 In Bruges,
after all, the merchant has time neither to play dice, nor to dance, rather he “byeth” and
“creaunceth”. He is associated with none of the gambling or racier pastimes frequently
202
Lyric number 125 in Middle English Lyrics, ed. Maxwell S. Luria and Richard L. Hoffman (New
York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1974), p. 119.
203
Ferrante, The Political Vision, p. 327.
204
Wight Martindale, “Chaucer’s Merchants: A Trade-based Speculation on their Activities”, The
Chaucer Review 26 (1992), 309-316
200
associated with merchants and townsfolk: rather, he uses his time wisely, takes his work
seriously.205 The lack of an explicit moral supplied by the narrator, or any judgement
among the Canterbury pilgrims, certainly contributes to a favourable portrait.
When the Host comments on the tale, he recognises that both the merchant and his wife
have been made fools of: “The monk putte in the mannes hood an ape, / And in his
wyves eek…” (VII, 440-1), but it is the monk he condemns, wishing him “a thousand
last quade yeer” (VII, 437). Much of the tale's satire, directed at the monk, is in fact
anti-monastic, rather than anti-mercantile, but this has not been enough to deter
criticism of the merchant’s perceived own lack of spirituality. David Aers asserts that
the merchant of St Denis is an example of a merchant whose life is uninhibited by any
sense of the traditional religious guilt associated with his career, and that the tale helps
establish Chaucer's feelings on the matter of “what becomes of traditional Catholic
Christianity” in a commercial society.206 It is true that the monk’s behaviour is hard to
reconcile with traditional notions of how a monk should behave, but what can be
understood about the merchant’s Christianity? As I acknowledged earlier, spiritual
imagery is undeniably present in the passage when the merchant counts out his money
bags as though he is adding up spiritual treasures. Chaucer's masterful use of this
imagery to describe very secular practices in this scene in particular, and in the tale in
general, marks a skilful inversion of the more common Christian tendency to describe
religious practices in economic terms.207 Yet the merchant of St-Denis’s life is not
necessarily wholly devoid of a spiritual dimension, and I propose to modify Aers’s
view.
To illustrate this point, it is worth considering the Shipman’s Tale in terms of the
organisation of time. Like much of the Canterbury Tales, the Shipman’s Tale contains
specific references to time. Natural time marks the passing of the days; new actions
generally unfold on “the morwe”.
When day arrives, the merchant “rideth / to
Flaundres-ward” (VII, 299–300), while as another day dawns, daun John leaves his
night of adulterous lust behind to return home to his “abbeye” (VII, 319–24). In this
manner the story traces the course of several days, and in this there is nothing
exceptional or strange. The religious offices have a role to play too, and all three
205
See the reference to the apprentice in the Cook’s Tale, who “daunced wel” (I, 4380) and liked “to
pleyen at the dys” (I, 4386). The merchants addressed in the Prologue to the Man of Law’s Tale are
similarly referred to in dice-throwing, dancing terms: see lines 124–6. As I noted in the Introduction,
such an association appears to have been inherited from earlier medieval references to merchants.
206
David Aers, Chaucer, (Brighton: Harvester Press, 1986), p. 21.
207
The use of economic images has deep roots in the Christian tradition, for example in the parable of the
talents (Luke 19:23) and numerous images in the Gospels over examples of this. Chaucer's passage
suggests the two “sets” of imagery, religious and economic, are interchangeable.
201
characters are aware of them. On the third day of the monk’s first visit to St-Denis, the
merchant attends to his business affairs in the morning, while the monk flirts with his
wife. The conclusion of the activities of all three come to an end around the hour of
“pryme”.
All three characters are aware that prime is the second of the daytime
canonical hours of prayer, and that a mass must take place as the office appointed for
this hour. It therefore punctuates their other activities, for the merchant comes down
from the “countour” and the monk and the wife conclude their garden tryst. The three
join together to “heere a messe” (VII, 223) quickly before the meal can proceed. The
church and mercantile activities are thus shown to co-exist harmoniously.
As I noted earlier, one of the principal criticisms levelled at merchants was that
their profit implied a mortgage on time, which was supposed to belong to God alone.208
Yet for the merchant, time presented a prime profit opportunity, for those with money
counted on being able to profit from the expectation of reimbursement by someone who
had none immediately available, and the merchant of the Shipman’s Tale knows this.
Merchant activity had at its heart assumptions about time. Storage, transport, seasonal
fluctuations in the wool price, for example, all depended on natural time.
Fairs
coincided with and were named for religious festivals –in the Cely Letters we read of
the Michaelmas, Easter and Whitsun fairs on the continent209– so the church calendar
played a significant part in all commercial organisation.
The time in which the
Christian merchant lived professionally, and the time in which he lived religiously, were
not entirely distinct from each other. We see the coexistence of mercantile organisation
and devotional practice in other parts of the tale. The merchant-pilgrim of the General
Prologue puts his “bargaynes” and his “chevyssaunce” to the side as he embarks on a
pilgrimage to Canterbury, a quest for spiritual profit. This parallel pursuit of economic
profit and spiritual profit was common among merchants. The greatest merchants of the
fourteenth century participated in pilgrimages and directed large portions of their profits
towards pious acts. In the mid-fourteenth century the successful English merchants
John Pyel and Adam Fraunceys both gave notice of their intention to go on a pilgrimage
to Rome in the jubilee year 1350. In late November 1356 Fraunceys, with two others,
founded a chantry in the chapel of St Mary, Guildhall, which was to be maintained by a
college of five priests and endowed by lands and rents in a number of city parishes. He
later built a chapel to the Holy Ghost adjoining the church of the convent of St Helen’s,
208
Jacques Le Goff, Time Work & Culture in the Middle Ages, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Chicago and
London: The University of Chicago Press, 1980), pp. 29ff.
209
Alison Hanham (ed.), The Cely Letters 1472–1488 (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the Early
English Text Society, 1975).
202
Bishopgate, and successfully petitioned for an indulgence on behalf of those who made
visits there on the principal feast days.210
To view the Shipman’s Tale as a world in which commercial ritual and practice
have taken the place of religious practice seems a little extreme, for the two could, and
often did, exist side by side. From the merchant’s profits, God's portion was withheld
and went towards good works.211 Le Goff sees nothing questionable or hypocritical
about the underlying psychology: “In different ways, the ends pursued in the distinct
spheres of profit and salvation were equally legitimate for [the merchant]. It was this
very distinctness which made it possible to pray to God for success in business.”212
Indeed God is invoked in the Shipman’s Tale prior to journeys, and thanked at the
conclusion of the merchant’s successful mission, as the merchant tells daun John “how
he hadde well yboght and graciously, / Thanked be God, al hool his marchandise” (VII,
344–5). Perhaps this was habit, perhaps not. The Italian chronicler Giovanni Villani,
like many Italian merchants in their personal memoirs and account books, started with
the prayer: “In the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ and His Holy Mother, the Virgin
Mary, and all the Holy Court of Paradise, through their grace and mercy may we be
granted the blessings of health and wealth, on sea and on land, and may our wealth and
our children be multiplied. Amen”.213 In the fifteenth century, members of the Cely
family were prone to invoking God at the start of sea journeys and during bouts of
illness, and thanking Him for successful trading operations.214
Throughout the Decameron there are many instances of merchants invoking
God’s assistance and expressing their gratitude to him, but it is important to recognise
that while some merchants who do this –and Landolfo Rufolo is an excellent case in
point– are purposefully shaped by the narrator to be viewed with cynicism, this is not
the case as far as the merchant of St-Denis is concerned. Whereas all of Landolfo
Rufolo’s behaviour is monumentally profit-oriented, the merchant of St-Denis is not so
one-minded. We do not witness him actively engaging in charitable acts, but he has
another dimension outside his business affairs, and this is largely shown in what he
believes to be a genuine friendship with the monk. Their relationship is different from
the merchant’s other commercial relationships, for even though the two become
involved in a loan, this loan is not governed by the same terms of repayment and it
210
O’Connor, pp.27–8.
Le Goff, Time Work & Culture, p. 37. Le Goff expresses it exactly like this, as a calculable
percentage.
212
Le Goff, Time Work & Culture, p. 38.
213
Armando Sapori, The Italian Merchant in the Middle Ages, trans. Patricia Ann Kennen (New York:
W.W. Norton & Company, 1970), p. 22.
211
203
exists outside the same time restrictions normally applicable to business loans. The
merchant urges daun John: “Paye it agayn whan it lith in youre ese” (VII, 291). The
money is lent on the basis of friendship, and the loan is not motivated by the promise of
profit. Even if not borrowed in the same spirit, the good intention with which it is lent
is clear. When the merchant arrives in Paris to borrow money from other people, he
goes to daun John first, “nat for to axe or borwe of hym moneye, / But for to wite and
seen of his welfare” (VII, 338-9), and he goes out of “greet chiertee and “greet
affeccioun” (VII, 336). The over-riding sense here is that to the merchant, the monk
represents a social and spiritual dimension in his life, a dimension in which he can exist
outside the constraints of business. Later, when scolding his wife for not having
informed him of the monk’s repayment of the debt, the merchant’s greatest concern
appears not to be the thought of cuckolding, but the idea that daun John should have
thought he was asking for his money back: “I thoughte nat to axen hym no thyng” (VII,
394), he tells his wife.
In the Shipman’s Tale it is sufficient to note the references to merchants hiding
from creditors, and the wife’s claim of her husband’s avariciousness, to know that
Chaucer was familiar with the usual criticisms levelled at late medieval merchants. Yet
even as he alludes to these views in the Shipman’s Tale, there is scant evidence to
suggest he embraced them. Although the merchant of St Denis himself acknowledges
that other merchants evade their creditors, there is no sign that he does so, and there is
no evidence to substantiate his wife’s claim that he is miserly. Rather, the tale marks a
sophisticated attempt to examine the effects of commercial development within the
domestic space, and to consider any other values that may be able to co-exist within that
space.
While the merchant of the tale, with his market knowledge and acute
understanding of credit and debt, is the product of an increasingly mercantile society, he
also displays moral integrity in his human dealings, and as far as is clear, in his business
dealings.215 The deceitful habits and lack of integrity often associated with merchants
are instead assigned to other characters, and the merchant is a victim of fraud, rather
then himself fraudulent. Commerce is not established as his only category of value.
Instead, the tale dramatises the process by which commerce emerges as a powerful and
important discourse, and the consequent re-organisation of values and spirituality to
accommodate this.
214
These invocations appear frequently in the letters; see Hanham (ed.), The Cely Letters.
This has been acknowledged by many critics, among them V. J. Scattergood, “The Originality of the
Shipman’s Tale”, p. 212; and Patterson, Chaucer and the Subject of History, p. 356.
215
204
In the tale’s final couplet, the Shipman informs the pilgrims that his tale has just
ended and calls for an endless supply of “taillynge”:
Thus endeth my tale, and God us sende
Taillynge ynough unto oure lyves ende.
(VII, 433)
With these words he steps down from his role as narrator and back into the role of
pilgrim, simultaneously drawing the tale back into the wider storytelling environment of
the frame. Although “tale” and “taille” have different roots –“tale” is from the Old
Norse and relates to the word “tell”, while “taille” is from the Old French “to count” or
“reckon”216 – there is undeniably a certain resemblance, and by placing them within a
couplet, Chaucer again brings reckoning and narrating together. The pun on “taille”,
thus takes in not only the financial tally and the genitalia, but (more loosely) the
“tale”.217 As John Finlayson points out, the Shipman’s Tale relates to other tales of
illicit sex and deception, such as Boccaccio’s two stories, told on the eighth day of the
Decameron (VII, 1 and VII, 2), which are widely regarded as analogues for Chaucer’s
tale.
218
Describing the Decameron, Giuseppe Mazzotta argues that the common
element underpinning the structure of the beffa –a genre which, with its comic pranks
and trickery, is much like the fabliau– is a paradigm of exchange that “mimes both the
law of the market, […] and the narrative structure of the text. Stories are recalled and
exchanged by the brigata, and this circuit of exchange simultaneously depends on and
constitutes the bond of community between narrators and listeners.”219 This lends
further support to the notion that the Shipman’s Tale, whose plot and narrative structure
bear clear parallels with several tales in the Decameron, not only interrogates the
functioning of the market place, but also alludes to the production of narrative within a
competitive environment, considering it in relation to labour, payment and time.
Embedded in the structure of the tale itself, and the wider framework of the pilgrims
bound for Canterbury, is this same quid pro quo motif found in the Decameron. The
narrator’s final plea at the end of the tale, that God send “taillynge ynough unto oure
216
MED, tale, n. [OE talu; OE tal & ON]. 1 (a) That which one tells, the oral or written relation of an
event of a series of events purporting to be true, a personal narrative, an account. MED, taille, n. [OF;
also AL, ML]. 3 (a) A scored wooden stick used for financial recording, tally stick; (b) a tally stick as a
receipt for sums collected on behalf of the Crown; (d) a tally stick in general use as an instrument of
credit.
217
On the three-way punning of “taillynge”, Lee Patterson writes: “The fact that ‘taillynge’ refers to tale
telling as well as sexual ‘tailing’ and financial tallying is demonstrated by the scribal substitution of
‘talyng’ for the durior lectio ‘taillynge’. See the rather misleading note to line 434 in Robinson’s 2nd
edition”. See Patterson, Chaucer and the Subject of History, n. 86, p. 361.
218
As John Finlayson points out in “Chaucer’s Shipman’s Tale”, p. 339.
219
Mazzotta, p. 190.
205
lyves ende”, thus manages to encompass the desire both for enduring financial credit,
and for a ready supply of stories. If sex is bound into the cycle of debt and repayment
that structures the plot of the Shipman’s Tale, then artistic practice is similarly –albeit
more obliquely– commodified and considered within the marketplace. At the end of the
tale the Shipman’s desire for financial solvency is also a desire for narrative “solvency”:
when he calls for “taillynge ynough”, his comment functions partly as a response to the
Host’s reminder to the pilgrims of their storytelling “debt”, and ties in with the Man of
Law’s earlier concern about having to contend with a lack of profitable narrative matter.
By drawing attention to the overlap of commercial reckoning and narrative reckoning in
the Shipman’s Tale, Chaucer stitches this particular narrative into the broader fabric of
narrative exchange that makes up the Canterbury Tales.
206
Afterword
That the Shipman’s Tale should be the final focus of my attention is appropriate
to the scope of the thesis, for in this relatively short tale are distilled so many ideas
about mercantile culture in its broadest sense, and about exchange, value and credit.
Like Chaucer’s portrait of the merchant in the General Prologue to the Canterbury
Tales, the Shipman’s Tale engages with the later medieval period’s inheritance of the
anti-mercantile satiric tradition and negative perceptions of the merchant in
ecclesiastical literature, but its version of mercantile culture is also informed by more
complex economic ideas of the kind found in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century
scholastic writing, and by the general commercialisation and monetisation of later
medieval society. Above all, it draws attention to the difference between merchants and
a “mercantile” culture, and suggests the widespread social diffusion of credit and the
desire for profit. The tale makes clear that money-lending and currency exchange are
not confined to merchants, and embedded in its linguistic and narrative structure is
evidence of the depth of penetration of a commercial consciousness.
When I began research into merchants and mercantile culture in later medieval
literature I was unaware of the quantity and complexity of medieval economic theory,
not to mention the complicated body of historiographical material surrounding the
origins of a market economy and the emergence of an urban merchant class in the later
medieval period. My early reading was shaped very much by literary studies in the vein
of Jill Mann’s Chaucer and Medieval Estates Satire,1 which gave me an impression of
merchants as a definable group in society, and suggested that money-lending, the desire
for financial profit, and the aspiration to social advancement were somehow confined to
a “commercial” class. It was not until I came into contact with research conducted by
historians such as James Masschaele and Pamela Nightingale that I realised that the late
medieval socio-economic picture was far harder to define than the estates theory
expounded from the pulpit and the proliferation of estates satire seemed to imply.2
Their studies make clear that a variety of social classes, both clerical and lay, shared
1
Mann, Chaucer and Medieval Estates Satire.
Masschaele, Peasants, Merchants and Markets and Nightingale, “Knight and Merchants”; “Money and
Credit”; and “Communication through Capital and Trade: Money and the Rise of a Market Economy in
Medieval Europe”, in Word, Image, Number: Communication in the Middle Ages, ed. John J. Contreni
and Santa Casciani (Florence: Sismel, 2002). Masschaele concludes that “peasants, merchants, and
markets are […] mutually necessary elements of commercialisation” – see p. 232; while Nightingale
notes the involvement in moneylending of everyone from humble chaplains to the nobility. The clergy in
Norfolk “advanced capital for the nascent cloth industry” and the Earl of Arundel invested widely and
was one of Edward III’s chief creditors: see “Money and Credit”, p. 52.
2
207
common economic interests, and that in the process of commercialisation, town and
country were interdependent.
These, and other studies, led me to suspect that
“mercantile” culture existed largely in the space of imaginative literature, rather than in
the “real” social fabric, and that a consciousness shaped by commercialisation and
monetisation had seeped through to all of society.
This suspicion was only confirmed by reading the work of John Baldwin, Erwin
Panofsky, Michael Baxandall, D. L. d’Avray, Odd Langholm and especially Joel Kaye,
whose studies made it abundantly clear that a tendency towards calculation,
quantification, and geometric representation had also impacted on legal and economic
writing, preaching, penitential manuals, visual culture, architecture and natural
philosophy.3
Joel Kaye’s study is particularly concerned to demonstrate that the
consciousness of the market and its implications for value had impacted on people not
directly engaged in commerce, from the schoolmen of the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries, to peasants and labourers, as well the officials of the institutions, both
ecclesiastical and lay, who were involved in the receipt and payment of monies.4 The
work of these scholars prompted me to extend my own enquiry to consider not just the
merchant in late medieval literature, but also broader questions about the later medieval
economy in relation to literary and artistic production. It is for these reasons that my
study has sought to bring to bear economic theory, social history, literary criticism and
art history on a variety of later medieval literary texts. In particular, I have continually
been prompted to investigate the interface of economic questions and the arts.
In spite of its recognition of the wide diffusion of a commercial consciousness,
this study has nevertheless had a specific social orientation, focusing mainly on the
group clustered around that nebulous imaginary border between knights and gentry on
the one hand, and merchants on the other. This group, with its mixed professional
associations, is particularly well represented in the Decameron, the Canterbury Tales
and the romances that were the focus of my central chapter. Thus whereas a study such
as Masschaele’s is concerned mainly with the conjunction of peasants and merchants
within the market economy, mine focuses on the conjunction of merchants and knights
as registered in imaginative literature.
An ideological eclecticism encompassing
courtly, civic and commercial discourse is particularly evident in many of the texts I
have examined. And if this thesis has centred principally on ideas of the merchant as
3
Baldwin, Merchants, Princes and Masters and The Medieval Theories; Panofsky, Gothic Architecture
and Scholasticism; d’Avray, The Preaching of the Friars; Baxandall, Painting and Experience;
Langholm, The Merchant in the Confessional; and Kaye, Economy and Nature.
4
Joel Kaye, Economy and Nature, pp. 24-25, 240.
208
wholesaler and long-distance trader, then this is because the terms “mercatante” and
“marchant” are the terms used in literature to describe persons engaged in this kind of
trade.
The first chapter began with Boccaccio and Giotto, viewing their writing and
painting in the context of dialogue with urban, mercantile society.
As Richard
Goldthwaite notes, in the later Middle Ages, Italy had a larger concentration of urban
population than anywhere else in Europe: “one eighth of the population of the entire
peninsula lived in cities, three times the proportion of France and four times that in
Germany and England”.5 In response to rapid urban growth, the Italian city states had
developed the administrative and regulatory apparatus necessary for the control and
governance of business and markets at an earlier stage. This factor, together with the
early specialisation of industry in Italian towns, contributed to the sophistication of
economic and civic life in the Italian city states.
The dynamic and opportunistic
environment of these cities, and Florence in particular, is registered in many of the
Decameron’s tales, while the hybridisation of courtly and mercantile ideologies is
suggested in the ten young patrician narrators, whose refined and leisurely behaviour is
modelled on noble ideals, but whose narration is marked by a profound awareness of
trading practice and contractually bound agreements. Furthermore, Boccaccio’s interest
in Giotto’s achievements in the development of a more naturalistic style and the
organisation of narrative space are carried over into his own writing. Both Giotto’s
painting and Boccaccio’s writing configure narrative within interior and exterior urban
spaces and bear witness to an overall perceptual shift arising from a greater sense of
logic and structuration that might be associated with Bourdieu’s identification of a
mercantile habitus.6
This idea of a mercantile habitus encompasses a new way of thinking, seeing
and acting, but even if it can be identified earlier in a city like Florence, it is not
exclusive to the Tuscan city state nor confined to the merchant class.7 It is easier to
assess the mentality of Florentine merchants than that of English merchants in the
period largely because of the vast amounts of surviving merchant letter collections,
diaries, handbooks and papers. Merchant writing, as Christian Bec and Vittore Branca
so ably demonstrate,8 attests to a high level of literacy and numeracy, and to what D. L.
d’Avray describes as “a mental habit –amounting to an obsession– of numbering parts
5
Goldthwaite, Wealth and the Demand for Art, p. 100.
Bourdieu, The Rules of Art, pp. 313–21.
7
Bourdieu, The Rules of Art, pp. 313–21.
8
Bec, Les marchands écrivains; and Branca (ed.), Mercanti Scrittori.
6
209
and making them symmetrical”.9
In England the earliest surviving collection of
merchant letters is that of the Cely family in the late fifteenth century, and from the
fourteenth century, the only extant merchant account books are those of Gilbert
Maghfeld.10 But if a commercial consciousness is indeed as widely diffused as other
evidence suggests, then it seems reasonable to interpret all of Western European
merchants and mercantile culture with reference to the voluminous merchant documents
from late medieval Florence.
Partly for this reason, I have continually viewed
merchants, particularly Boccaccio’s and Chaucer’s, within an international framework,
and made reference to the Florentine merchant ricordanze discussed by Branca,
Pegolotti’s commercial manual, and Italian trading companies with regard to both the
Decameron and the Canterbury Tales. Urban culture in later medieval London may not
have been as sophisticated and confident as that of the Italian city states, but London
was nevertheless a part of the same network of trade that stretched from the Eastern
Mediterranean and North Africa to the Baltic.
The participation of romance in the urban economy is sometimes limited to the
consumption of fine garments, furnishings and other luxury items, but this does not
mean that all romance narratives are devoid of considerations of value, exchange and
credit. The figures of Sir Amadace and Sir Launfal, knights in debt who regain their
financial solvency with the assistance of magic, are manifestations of the insecurity and
anxiety resulting from an increasingly mobile society and a competitive market
economy. In the figure of Clement, Octavian provides a another romance perspective;
through his eyes we examine consumption from the point of view of a seller, rather than
a buyer, as he observes the commercial value of the “products” at the celebration of
Florent’s knighthood. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight does not contain a single
instance of actual commercial exchange, yet the poet uses a vocabulary of legal and
commercial contracts, and much of the narrative resonates with market and
philosophical implications.
The contractual language that seals the terms of the
“beheading game” and the “exchange of winnings” is the same kind of language used
by Boccaccio’s Filomena and Chaucer’s Man of Law to acknowledge their narratorial
debts, and by Ambruogiuolo and Bernabò when they make their wager over Zinevra.
If, in Sir Amadace and Sir Launfal, the knight’s quest is about getting out of
debt, the merchant’s quest, in many stories in the Decameron and the Canterbury Tales,
involves the transportation of news and narrative, currency exchange, and buying and
9
D. L. d’Avray, The Preaching of the Friars, pp. 38–9.
210
selling. Embedded in the very structure of many of Boccaccio and Chaucer’s tales
about merchants is the idea of journey and quest, reconfigured in a new context. Even
if merchants are present only at the start of the Man of Law’s Tale, to gauge Custance’s
quality and transport news of her to their “Sowdan”, their actions set in motion a chain
of events involving long sea journeys and the passage of ships between the Eastern
Mediterranean, Southern Europe and England, so that the movement of the narrative
comes to resemble the flow of merchandise on the newly established sea routes linking
Italy and England.
10
See Hanham, The Cely Letters; and Nightingale, “Money and Credit”. The latter includes a
comprehensive analysis of Maghfeld’s transactions.
211
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