THE WRIGHT'S CHASTE WIFE, FOOTNOTES



1 Another beat it with swingles (wooden flails) to separate the fine fibers from the pulp




THE WRIGHT'S CHASTE WIFE, SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY



Manuscript

Lambeth Palace Library MS 306, fols. 178a-187a (1460s).


Edition

Adam of Cobsam. The Wright's Chaste Wife. Ed. Frederick J. Furnivall. EETS o.s. 12. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1865; rpt 1891, 1905, 1965.


Related Studies

DuVal, John. "The Wright's Chaste Wife: A Satiric Fabliau." Publication of the Missouri Philological Association 2 (1977), 8-14.

Goodall, Peter. "An Outline History of the English Fabliau after Chaucer." AUMLA: Journal of the Australasian Universities Language and Literature Association 57 (May 1982), 5-23.

Hanawalt, Barbara A. "Separation Anxieties in Late Medieval London: Gender in The Wright's Chaste Wife." Medieval Perspectives 11 (1996), 23-41.

---. 'Of Good and Ill Repute': Gender and Social Control in Medieval England. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Pp. 88-103.

Llewellyn, R. H. "The Wright's Chaste Wife Disinterred." Southern Folklore Quarterly 16 (1952), 251-54.




THE WRIGHT'S CHASTE WIFE, NOTES



Abbreviations: F: Frederick J. Furnivall, ed., The Wright's Chaste Wife; MS: Lambeth Palace Library MS 306, fols. 178a-187a.

Incipit A fable of a wryght that was maryde to a pore wydows dowtre / the whiche wydow havyng noo good to geve with her / gave as for a precyous Johelle to hym a Rose garlond / the whyche she affermyd wold never fade while she kept her wedlok.

1-9 Conventional exhortation to listen also found in Middle English romances and Breton lays. Such requests remind an audience of the inherent orality of medieval literary genres as well as the patronage of my sovereyns (line 2).

10 wryght. This term is usually taken to mean carpenter such as John in Chaucer's The Miller's Tale or others of more divine ranking including Joseph, elderly husband of the Virgin Mary, and Jesus himself. However, as John DuVal points out, "wright" can also signify a working man in the generic sense. "This is the only name given him in the poem. He is a worker at anything. Although the work he does in this poem is skilled carpentry and masonry, he does not scorn peasantry work either" (p. 9):
Or erthely man hadde he no dowte,
To werke hows, harowe, nor plowgh,
Or other werkes, what so they were
Thous wrought he hem farre and nere.
    (Lines 14-17)
 fear
pickaxes (hoes), harrow; plow
no matter what
them far

Note, however, that in line 586 his wife is referred to as the "carpentarys wyfe."

15 werke hows. I have glossed hows as pickaxes (hoes), to go with harrowing and plowing. But the sense of the phrase might also be "build a house," which suits a wright's skills well, but is less congruent with his other skills.

20 Like Chaucer's carpenter in The Miller's Tale, the wright prefers to wed late in life.

26-27 As tyme comyth of alle thyng, / So seyth the profesye. A proverbial expression, "there is a time for everything," cited also in William Caxton's Ovyde in 1480 and probably comes ultimately from Ecclesiastes 3:1. See Bartlett Jere Whiting, with the collaboration of Helen Wescott Whiting, Proverbs, Sentences, and Proverbial Phrases from English Writings Mainly Before 1500 (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1968), T320.

43 wyfe. There may be a link between the word "wife" (wife or woman) and weaving since "to wifeth" or "to weave" in Old English becomes "to wife"; also spinning was considered a female occupation. The OED defines wife as a woman "formerly in general sense; in later use restricted to a woman of humble rank or 'of low employment,' especially one engaged in the sale of some commodity." Examples given are "ale-wife," "apple-wife," " fishwife," and "oyster-wife."

52 garlond. The garland of roses as a chastity test is rather unusual compared with the extent of the tradition belonging to drinking horns and mantles. See the New Arthurian Encyclopedia, ed. Norris J. Lacy (New York: Garland, 1996), pp. 81-83. Nuptial garlands minus the chastity test, however, were an ancient custom carried on in England in the late Middle Ages. In Chaucer's The Second Nun's Tale, both husband and wife receive garlands to signify their spiritual marriage.

55 roses ryche. According to George Ferguson's Signs & Symbols in Christian Art (New York: Oxford University Press, 1954), the red rose is a symbol of martyrdom while the white rose is a symbol of purity. "St. Ambrose relates how the rose came to have thorns: Before it became one of the flowers of the earth, the rose grew in Paradise without thorns. Only after the fall of man did the rose take on its thorns to remind man of the sins he had committed and his fall from grace; whereas its fragrance and beauty continued to remind him of the splendor of Paradise. It is probably in reference to this legend that the Virgin Mary is called a 'rose without thorns,' because of the tradition that she was exempt from the consequences of original sin. . . . Wreaths of roses worn by angels, saints, or by human souls who have entered into heavenly bliss are indications of heavenly joy" (p. 48).

61 putry. The MED defines putry as prostitution, lechery, adultery. Chaucer's Parson adds "bawdry":
What seye we eek of putours that lyven by the horrible synne of putrie, and constreyne wommen to yelden hem a certeyn rente of hire bodily puterie, ye, somtyme of his owene wyf or his child, as doon thise bawdes? (X[I]886)
Putours are pimps, procurers, fornicators (MED).

68 to layne. F glosses layne as "hide, conceal" (p. 21), the sense being "there's no hiding the fact." The phrase is commonly used as an interjection, comparable to "indeed," "truly." See MED leinen v. (c).

71 And hyld her brydalle dayes thre. Since marriage was a public event, it would not be unusual to celebrate it over a three-day period.

86 plaster of Parys. Sulphate of lime or gypsum which has undergone calcination. The early association of plaster with the city of Paris is described by John Trevisa in his translation of Ranulph Higden's Polychronicon, ed. Churchill Babington, vol. 1, Rolls Series (London, Longman, Green, 1865), p. 271: "Bysides Parys is greet plente of a maner stoon that hatte gypsus and is i-cleped white plaister." Trevisa defines plaster under De cemento:
Cement is lyme, sond, and water ytempred togidre and ymedlid. And such medlyng is most nedeful to ioyne stones togidre and to pergette and to whitelyme walles. In peyntures and colours of walles țe ferste ground and chief to fonge colours is cement, and cleueț to wete walls, and nameliche if it is plastre [or s]perstone. For as Isider seiț, țe beste cement ymade of alle stoones is of țe flynt stoone oțer of plastre țat is icalled gypsum, țe which stoon schyneț as it were glas.
See On the Properties of Things: John Trevisa's Translation of De Propriatatibus Rerum, vol. II (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), p. 839.

106 lord lett sende. The lord is the first of the three - a lord, a steward, and a proctor - to be involved in the test. See F on the numerous analogues to the tale, especially a Gesta Romanorum version, where the three knights are equated with "the pride of life, the lust of the eyes, and the lust of the flesh" (p. vii). See also W. A. Clauston's essay on "additional analogues" to the tale that F prints at the end of his edition (pp. 25-39).

109 Woult thou have thi wyfe. This brilliantly ambiguous line, to which the wright makes no reply, suggests: 1) the lord's desire (largess?) to accommodate the carpenter; 2) the lord's interest in the carpenter's wife, so characteristic of fabliau settings; 3) an implicit challenge to the wright's dominion, especially after the lord learns the meaning of the "garlond" (line 121). Have can mean "be with," "possess," "enjoy"; but it can also mean to cuckold rather than to invite her to be with her husband. The court challenge among men to dominate women by testing their obedience is a common literary trope. Compare the contest between Collatin and Arrons that costs Lucrece her life (in Gower's Confessio Amatis 7.4754-5123) or the more benign obedience tests in Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew. It is perhaps this context that allows the lord's wife to be so understanding of the wright's wife when she finds her husband trapped in the wife's cellar. Likewise, she is non-judgmental of her husband, as if to say, "That's just the way men are."

148 fare. "A plan of action or demeanor"; but it might also be glossed as "gifts," material goods he has hoped to beguile her with, which she tells him to put aside.

157 Forty marke. The symbolic value of "forty" is hinted at here. Symbolic of a period of protection or trial, it recalls the Israelites' ordeal in the wilderness for forty years, bondage to the Philistines, Moses' sojourn on Mt. Sinai, the duration of the rain at the time of the Flood, and Christ's trial in the desert. The drop into the pit, a rather symbolic fall in itself, measures forty feet.

158 gold so rede. MS: gold rede. I have added so for meter and because of the commonness of the phrase. Red gold is more valuable than yellow gold.

208 seynt charyté. Since there is no saint of this name, what is probably being invoked is charity as a theological virtue. Together with faith and hope it forms a triumvirate of virtues to which all Christians were expected to aspire. Spenser makes an allegorical figure of Charity in The Faerie Queene.

245 thrafe. A bundle of wheat, straw, or, in this case, flax, containing twelve or twenty-four sheaves.

324 fers. F adds a final -e.

338 Fulle clere, and nothing thycke. The lord is proud of how he has done the jobs assigned to him. The thread is clear of particles of hemp and of a consistent thickness, ready for spinning.

373 The stuard satt alle in a stody. The steward is amazed that his social superior should not demonstrate courtesy, a means by which social class was imagined to be defined in part, and share his hard-won meal.

469-77 The proctor is more surprised by the chores in which his fellow inmates are engaged than by the fact that he has just been duped into a humiliating position.

503 rocke. A distaff "held in the hand from which thread was spun by twirling a ball below" (F, p. 21).

508 hynde. F glosses as "natty." The word is apparently a form of hende, which has a wide variety of meanings (see MED) from courtly terms such as "noble, gentle, courteous, refined" to more practical senses, such as "valuable, helpful, clever, crafty, well-made, and handy (i.e., available, near at hand)." The latter usages seem more plausible here.

515 The proctor is assigned the spinning, a job done exclusively by women. The beating of the flax or hemp was occasionally done by men.

527 swyngelyd. The first of three parts of the preparation of flax for spinning. To swingle is to beat the flax in order to remove the coarse particles still clinging to the fibers. The fibers are then heckled (combed) or scutched and "knocked" (bundled) in preparation for spinning fine linen. The poet places the knocking before the swingling. Perhaps he imagines that the flax is first bundled (knocked) and then beaten (swingled), though that would go against the flailing process which is normally done on a threshing floor.

528 swyngylle tre. Made of wood, these implements resemble swords and are used for beating and scraping raw flax or hemp.

560 snowte. According to the MED when referring to a human nose, the term is often used derisively. See Chaucer's The Shipman's Tale: "What! Yvel thedam on his monkes snowte" (VII[B2]1595). In The Wright's Chaste Wife it is used to describe a facial expression.

593 The wife is not guilty of prostitution because she had no intention of entering into the arrangement. She is not complicit in their intent to commit adultery.

596 I have thynges to do att home. The lady is industrious, too; like the chaste wife, she objects to having her work interrupted by her wayward husband.

620 Thys seyd Adam of Cobsam. The name is commonly taken to be that of the author.

623-24 The lord and lady's stopping in the woods to listen to the birds suggests a return to natural harmony after the lord's aberrant and humiliating behavior.

631 ff. Chastity in the sense of fidelity apparently pays. The lady gives all the money to the wright's chaste wife. The definition of chastity in the Middle Ages was ambiguous: it could mean purity from unlawful sexual intercourse, abstinence from all sexual intercourse or ceremonial purity. Here it is used in the sense of unlawful sexual intercourse, though it is not clear whether the marriage between the wright and his wife has been consummated. Conceivably theirs is a "chaste" or "spiritual" marriage which was used by late medieval authorities, according to Dyan Elliott "to designate a union in which the individuals were true to their marriage vows"; they agreed to abstain from sexual relations. See Dyan Elliott, Spiritual Marriage: Sexual Abstinence in Medieval Wedlock, p. 4. Chaucer's Cecilia and her husband in The Second Nun's Tale agree to such living arrangements in fiction; Margery Kempe and her husband also negotiate the issue.