Notes to Chapter 11
1. On medieval "money of account,"
see Pirenne
1937:107-13.
2. In addition to Pirenne, I have consulted
Bridbury
1962; Du Boulay 1970; Lopez 1976; Postan 1973:41-48, 186-213.
3. Specialized studies of these changes abound;
convenient bibliographies are available in Du Boulay 1970:181-83;
Miskimin 1975:171-79.
4. Fame, of course, was bought--see the
comments by
Delany (1972:91-92) on the palace of Fame. But, it must be
remembered, fame would also buy; see Du Boulay 1970:141.
5. See Bowden 1967:215; Carruthers
1979:209-22.
6. See, e.g., Isidore Etymologiae
8.3.1-2:
"Heresy," in Greek, is so called from
"election"--namely, because
anyone at all elects for himself what seems better to him....
therefore, it is called "heresy," the Greek word, from
the meaning "election" in that someone by his own will
elects to himself what he will either for establishing it as a rule
or for assuming it as a position.
Consult, further,
Mazzotta 1979:283-84; Leff 1967:1, 7-8. In support of the argument
that the Wife of Bath is a "heretic" is the Clerk's
allusion to "al hire secte" (ClT E
1171; emphasis added--and see Robinson's note /1957:712/ for the
debate over the word "secte"); see, further, Le Goff
1977:165. I would add that it does seem particularly fitting that
the Clerk should be the one to suggest that she has set up her own
"heretical" sect; after all, it would be his business to
know.
7. See de Lubac 1961:3, 99-113; he also cites
other
labels for heretical {268/269} construction of Scripture,
such as "proprius sensus," "propria pravitas,"
and "sensus perfidus."
8. See on this matter Casey 1976:237; Power
1926:432.
9. Ann S. Haskell (1977:2-3) describes "a
fifteenth-
century miniature in Froissart's Fourth Book of Chronicles . . .
(Harley Ms. 4379, fol. 99)" which illustrates compellingly the
Wife's predicament as a medieval woman:
The women in the scene are
placed on the far side of the knights whom they accompany, making
one of the ladies visible only from the waist up and the other
three from the shoulders upward. All are dressed alike, and their
plastic, expressionless faces, turned toward the knights, are
identical. By contrast, the knights are depicted in the foreground
of the scene, each wearing a highly individualized suit of armor,
carrying a shield painted with his own coat of arms, and mounted on
a horse covered with a cloth of ornate, distinctive
pattern.
10. Medieval "privitee" was not the
same as
modern
privacy; it was much more the deprivation of one's being in public
and of the publicity of one's being. Consider, in the next century,
the fate of Jacques d'Armagnac if he breaks his oath: he forfeits
the privileges of his rank, and the king may move against him (de
Mandrot 1890:258; emphasis added) comme personne pure,
privée, non aiant aucun privilleige,
prerogative ou dignité, sans ce que pour ce faire soit
besoing au Roy faire assembler sa court de parlement'"
("`as against a person merely, a private person, bearing no
privilege, prerogative or dignity, without any intervening need for
the king to summon his court of parliament.
Of
course, the oxymoron in "Goddes privitee" is part of
Chaucer's irony in The Miller's Tale: strictly speaking,
God, unlike wives, has no "privitee"; God is full of
mystery, yes, but He is in no way deprived--indeed, His essence is
the opposite of privation, or plenitude. See, further, Blodgett
1976:477-85.
11. For the medieval view of hoarding,
engrossing or
otherwise monopolizing goods, see O'Brien 1920:124-25. O'Brien's
book, while it contains a wealth of useful information, is highly
tendentious and must be used with caution; a very helpful check on
O'Brien is de Roover 1971.
12. For the literature of misogyny and its
ubiquity in
the Middle Ages, see Utley 1944.
13. See Lentricchia 1980:169-70; Weiskell
1976:140-41.
14. Medieval grammar was aware that the trope
is
literally a "turning": "And it is so called from
`trope' because
such a manner of speaking converts or exchanges words and their
significations /for other meanings/"; John Balbus Catholicon
(1460;
reprint 1971), pt. 4, "de figuris," s.v.; the same
definition will
be found in Alain de Lille Distinctiones (PL
210:981); consult, further, {269/270} Brinkmann
1980:251: Nims 1974:215-30. {270}
