The Nun’s Priest

A notable feature of NPT is the use of exempla—written authorities, anecdotes, or even fictional stories that support a particular claim. The method derives ultimately from classical rhetoric, the art of persuasion, but was experienced by Chaucer’s contemporaries through a widespread popular medium, the sermon—which makes sense when you think about it. Why? Because the NP is a priest, whose duties would have included not only the administering of sacraments (he is the Prioress’s confessor), but also teaching and preaching. So the NP, in telling his tale, includes several exempla drawn presumably from the vast store that is part of his preacher’s art—topics that include murder, flattery, vanity, fortune, predestination, and women’s role in the Fall of Man.

The Nun’s Priest’s Tale, then, is interwoven with a series of digressions which seem to have very little to do with the tale itself. Indeed, the story of Chauntecleere and the fox plays an apparently insignificant role in a larger scheme. The simple fable is interrupted constantly by digressions on dreams, medical lore, astronomy, rhetoric, theology and classical mythology. All this, moreover, is punctuated by moralizations on the evils of murder, treachery, flattery, vanity, fortune, predestination, and women’s role in the Fall. Of the poem’s 600+ lines, a mere 270 or so are involved directly with advancing the story of Chauntecleere; the vast remainder of the poem is devoted to its many and lengthy digressions. The Nun’s Priest is thus a learned clergyman who treats his tale as an opportunity to present what to him are important philosophical and moral issues. His characters, Chauntecleere and Pertelote, become the mouthpieces for discussion of these issues.

But is it that simple? Recall the joke, mulier est hominis confusio (344), which means “Woman is the ruin of man,” but which Chauntecleere translates as “Womman is mannes joye and al his blis” (346). Who is the target of this Chaucerian irony? Is Chauntecleere having one over on Pertelote? Or is Chauntecleere the victim of the learned Priest’s knowing irony? Or might it be that the NP himself is unaware of his own blunder in mistranslating the passage?

Where else in the tale is misogyny evident? There is the NP’s reference to Launcelot de Lake (390-94). What are we to make of the Nun’s Priest’s appeal to the good sense of women who revere these stories? What about the passage at (436-46)?

The Priest and the Prioress

One thing we have not discussed is the poem’s opening passage, the brief description of the poor widow farmer to whom NPT never returns. What is the point of identifying and describing the owner of the barnyard wherein the Priest’s tale is set? (Read lines 1-26.)

One possibility is that the humble circumstances of the widow form an immediate and startling contrast with the majestic posturing of the cock in the following passage. Another possibility: the identification of the Nun’s Priest with Chauntecleere’s pompous show of learning invites us to entertain other parallels. That Chauntecleere is one of the widow’s creatures, one of her barnyard tenants, suggests a parallel in the relationship between the Nun’s Priest and the Nun herself (i.e., the Prioress). The latter is described in the General Prologue, lines 118-62 (pp. 264-65). Compare this description of the Nun to that of the “poore widwe” at the beginning of the NPT (ll. 1-26—pp. 344-45):

Widow     Prioress - barnyard animals, daughters - retinue: dogs, nun, priests - diet: bread and milk; no “poinant sauce” or “daintee morsel” - meat, milk, and fine bread to dogs; both sauce and morsel grace her hands and lips - humble demeanour, simple - “simple and coy,” but read lines 124-141 in GP

Why does the NP begin his tale with a fairly detailed description of the Nun/Prioress? What’s his point, and how might it relate to the tale of Chauntecleere he goes on to tell?