Chaucer’s
Prioress is a very worldly lady who happens to have found herself in charge of
a convent. This would not have been unusual in Chaucer’s time, as many young
women were sent to nunneries when their families could think of nothing else to
do with them. It was a cheaper option than finding them a husband, or perhaps
they had been raped or got themselves into trouble and needed somewhere to
escape to, either permanently or for a shorter time. Convents, of which there
were thousands large and small, were sanctuaries for both rich and poor. They
were full of women who, for whatever cause, could not be married, and nothing
said that they had to be particularly religious.
As it
happens, this Prioress seems to combine religious sentiment with feelings of
other kinds. She certainly does not mock religion in the way that the Friar and
the Pardoner do, for example. However, she is clearly very concerned to make a
good impression on the social front, cultivating her appearance and good
manners in ways that seem far removed from those of the convent. For example,
she wears jewelry, she arranges her nun’s habit as fashionably as she can, and
she even keeps pet dogs. The inscription on her brooch, “love conquers all”,
can be taken in either its religion or earthly meaning, but the latter seems
more likely. We feel that the sins of the flesh are not far from her mind.
Her Tale is
perfectly suited to her as a woman of religion. It is the story of a “miracle
of Our Lady”, which is what we could expect from a nun, and many versions of
this particular story are known from medieval literature. Some versions of the
story had a humorous element, but in Chaucer’s hands it is pathos that is to
the fore, as suits a teller of delicate sensibility.
The story
concerns a murder of a Christian boy by Jews, which immediately makes a modern
reader think that this must be an evil tale of anti-Semitism. However, it would
be a mistake to impose our post-Holocaust convictions on a 14th
century tale. What must be remembered is that very few people in England at that
time had ever met a Jew. King Edward I had banished the entire Jewish
population from England
in 1290, and it was not until the mid-17th century that they were allowed
to return. All that the common people knew about Jews was what they heard from
the pulpit, namely that they had been responsible for the death of Jesus and
the persecution of the Apostles. Jews were evil people in their eyes, capable
of any act of barbarity against Christians.
The Prioress
begins with a dedication and prayer to Jesus and the Virgin Mary, asking for
their blessing and to give her eloquence as she tells her tale.
The Tale
The tale is set
in Asia, where there is a Jewish quarter in a predominantly Christian city. In
particular there is a street, inhabited by Jews, at one end of which is a
Christian school. One seven-year-old boy is particularly devout, always
kneeling and reciting the “Ave Maria” when he sees a picture of the Virgin
Mary. He overhears some older children singing the “Alma redemptoris Mater”, which is a hymn that
forms part of the service of Compline, and asks another boy to translate it for
him.
The older boy
explains the hymn as best he can, and our hero determines to learn it for
himself, especially when he realises that it is a hymn of praise to the Virgin
Mary. He therefore rehearses it as he walks to and from school, along the
street populated by the Jews.
At this
point, the anti-Jewish prejudice of the time is shown very clearly in a stanza
that speaks of Satan who “hath in Jewes herte his waspes nest”. The idea of
killing the boy is given to the Jews directly by Satan, because the hymn that
the boy is singing is “agayn oure laws reverence”. The link between Jewry and
Satan could hardly have been made more explicit.
The Jews hire
a murderer who cuts the boy’s throat and throws him into a cesspit. His widowed
mother searches high and low for him, including asking all the Jews she can
find for information, but nobody tells her anything. However, she is led by
Jesus to where her son’s body is, and she finds him sitting upright, loudly
singing the “Alma
redemptoris”, despite being dead.
When the
other Christians arrive, attracted by the sound of the singing, they send for
the provost who then arrests the Jews. The boy’s body, still singing, is taken
to the abbey and all the Jews who knew about the murder are condemned to death
by being dragged apart by wild horses and then hanged.
At the boy’s
funeral, just as the coffin lid is about to be fastened, he sings again when
touched by holy water, at which the abbot asks how this is possible. The boy
explains that the Virgin Mary has placed a seed on his tongue that enables him
to sing her praises, and that when the seed is removed, he will join her in
Heaven. The abbot removes the seed, the boy’s soul is released, and his body is
buried in a marble tomb.
In her final
stanza, the Prioress refers to “yonge Hugh of Lyncoln, slayn also with cursed
Jewes … but a litel while ago”. This incident, which actually took place more
than a century before the presumed date of Chaucer’s pilgrimage, and some years
before the 1290 ban, was clearly very much a part of contemporary folklore, and
is a similar story of a Christian boy murdered by Jews, who suffer a terrible
fate as a consequence.
Discussion
As stated in
Part 1, it is important to try to read this tale with the 14th
century in mind, not the 21st. This was a far more credulous age, in
which people did not question what they heard from the pulpit, and stories of
miraculous happenings would be believed in every detail. It was also an age
when the Church was all-powerful and so anything or anyone that opposed it must
be evil and to be condemned.
One aspect of
all this was that “usury”, or money-lending, was prohibited to Christians and
could therefore only be carried on by Jews. The downside of credit is that
debts must be paid back with interest, which is one reason for the unpopularity
of Jews down the centuries. Anti-Semitism has long had economic as well as
religious motivations.
Even with 14th
century eyes, one cannot accept summary and violent justice against a
community, for the crime of a few, as being excusable. However, this was what
happened in the case of Hugh of Lincoln, and in countless other cases across
medieval Europe . The tale of the Prioress is
therefore only remarkable in the details of the actual miraculous happenings
that she recalls. There is, however, no sense of horror at the fate of the
Jews, only at that of the Christian boy.
But we also
have to ask if the moral condemnation we are happy to apply to the attitude
behind this tale cannot also be applied to ourselves. How many of us today are
not guilty of similar sentiments when we hear of an atrocity committed by a
member of a community of whom we know little? Substitute “Muslim” for “Jew” and
there are many instances today of fearful ignorance being substituted for
rationality when it comes to considering the actions of those whose motivations
we do not understand. We must still beware of condemning the innocent many for
the deeds of the guilty few.
© John
Welford
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