The Franklin's Tale, by Geoffrey Chaucer

A franklin, in Chaucer’s time, was a freehold landowner whose status would have been that of minor gentry. Chaucer’s pilgrim is described as having been a member of Parliament, a magistrate, a sheriff and a district auditor, and would thus have been a very important person in his local community. He is by no means a poor man, as is evident from the description given in the General Prologue, which concentrates on the man’s food consumption.

Indeed, this is someone who eats as well, or better, than many people would have done had they been from the higher echelons of society. We are not told if he has a large family (we learn later that he has “a son”), or if he entertains his neighbours to dinner on frequent occasions, but his cellars and larders are stocked as if this must be the case. Surely one person cannot eat all those pies, partridges and bream!

Although the only physical description we have is that his beard was as white as a daisy, suggesting that he is no longer young, we can imagine that he was probably extremely fat. At a time when a bad harvest meant that people could starve to death, the morality of a man who consumes so much food must be called into question.

His tale is told immediately after that of the Squire, who would have come from the social stratum just above that of the Franklin. The Squire’s Tale is incomplete, so the words of the Franklin at the end cannot be seen as an interruption but as congratulations at the end of a tale well told. He clearly admires the Squire, and wishes that his own son had turned out to be as refined. This theme is continued in the short prologue to his own Tale, as he laments his “rude speech” and lack of education.

Despite these apologies, he proposes to tell a tale that is a “Breton lay”, which is a genre not found elsewhere in Chaucer’s writings. This is a short romance or adventure story such as the “ancient gentle Britons” were believed to have composed in their Celtic language. This may be based on a myth, because no such stories have come down to us in either Welsh or Breton, but there are several in French and English that make reference to geographical features or incidents that relate to the “Celtic fringe”.

Whatever the source of the tale Chaucer assigns to the Franklin, all the characteristics of the Breton lay are present, including romance, magic and chivalry. The setting is Brittany, the north-west corner of modern-day France that has much in common with the Celtic regions of Britain, hence the name.

The Tale

The Tale starts with an echo of the “marriage debate” that pervaded the tales of the Wife of Bath, the Clerk and the Merchant, as to who should have “mastery” in marriage. Here we have a knight, named Arviragus, who offers marriage to a lady, Dorigen, with the promise that he will not dominate her but allow her a certain degree of freedom, a state of which the Franklin clearly approves.

After a year or so, Arviragus has to go to fight in Britain, and is away for two years. This causes Dorigen great distress and she relies on her friends to keep her sane. Her fears are made worse when she looks down from the cliffs at the black rocks that threaten passing ships, especially the one that she hopes will bring Arviragus back home. The friends therefore decide that she would be happier away from the coast and take her to a secluded garden where there is a feast and dancing.

At the dance is a young squire, named Aurelius, who has long admired Dorigen from afar, in the approved “courtly love” tradition. He eventually gets his chance to talk to Dorigen and declare his love, which she rejects.

However, she then, “in play”, tells him that she will return his love if he can get rid of all those horrible black rocks that she has been so concerned about. She then carries on conversing with her friends until nightfall, at which time the wretched Aurelius prays to Phoebus Apollo, the sun god, to appeal to his sister, the moon goddess, to bring about a high tide of such height and duration that the sea covers all the rocks for two years.

Arviragus comes home, much to the delight of Dorigen, who has forgotten all about the “promise” made to Aurelius. However, the latter has not forgotten, and tells his brother about his despair and the prayer he made to Apollo. The brother recalls that he once saw a book of magic that covered just such an eventuality. This was at Orleans, and he offers to accompany Aurelius there to see if they can find it again. Needless to say, Aurelius jumps at the chance.

As they get close to Orleans, they meet a man who knows immediately why they have come there and takes them to his house, where he demonstrates his magical powers. A deal is struck and, for a fee of a thousand pounds, the magician agrees to remove all the rocks from the coast of Brittany.

The three of them travel to Brittany and the magician works out all the necessary astrological calculations so that the rocks seem to disappear for a week or two. Aurelius then goes to Dorigen (Arviragus is away for a short time) and asks her to abide by her promise, as he has fulfilled its conditions.

Dorigen is distraught, and considers committing suicide as a way out of this dilemma, bringing to mind a whole host of examples from classical history and mythology of women who had sought death rather than dishonour. She weeps and wails for two full days and nights until Arviragus returns, to whom she tells the full story.

Arviragus’s reaction is that Dorigen must keep her promise, because nothing is more important than being true to one’s word. At this point, we can imagine jaws dropping among the pilgrims listening to the Franklin, because he tells his audience not to jump to hasty conclusions. Things may yet turn out for the best, he says.

When Aurelius meets Dorigen, he is suddenly struck by the high-mindedness shown by both Dorigen and Arviragus and realises that he cannot hold her to her promise and thus destroy her marriage. Dorigen returns to her husband, they are completely reconciled and live happily ever after.

However, Aurelius in now in the situation of having failed in his original intention but is still deep in debt to the magician. He therefore goes to the magician and tells him that he felt bound to release Dorigen from her promise, having taken pity on her plight. Hearing this, the magician releases Aurelius from his bond.

The Franklin ends by posing a question to his hearers, namely which of the three “forgivers” in this tale, Arviragus, Aurelius and the magician, was the most “free” or forgiving? As this tale marks the end of one of the manuscript fragments of the Canterbury Tales, we do not know if there was any discussion on this point among the pilgrims, or what Chaucer’s own view might have been on this point. There may well have been a missing page here, because the next tale, that of the Physician, begins with no prologue or other linking material. 

Discussion

So what can we make of this “Breton lay”, and how would we answer the Franklin’s final question today? For one thing, we would surely be uncomfortable with the whole concept of a throwaway remark, similar to “when Hell freezes over”, becoming the focus of so much pain and anguish. We would also, surely, not be happy with the debate over “who is the good guy here”, given that huge damage has been done to the mental health of an innocent woman, and that “forgiving and forgetting” hardly undoes the harm that has been caused.

And what do we make of Arviragus’s siding with Aurelius, who is after all one of his own squires, on the grounds that keeping one’s word is more important than a woman’s sexual purity, and that of his beloved wife at that?

But perhaps that is to look at the Tale with 21^st century eyes rather than those of the 14^th century. For the Franklin’s hearers, in a world where a wife was the virtual property of her husband, and honour meant something very different to what it means in the Western world today, this topic would have had different connotations. For one thing, they would have been well aware of the conventions of courtly love, by which a man could love from afar and never expect the love to be returned. It is the breaking of that convention by Aurelius that sets the course for potential tragedy, and perhaps it is on that basis that his actions are unforgiveable.

Either way, it is a good story, well told despite the Franklin’s “rude speech”, and one that raises interesting questions. The fat man on a horse has earned his next meal.

© John Welford