Tricks of Time in the Miller’s Tale

Chaucer’s use of time-reckoning as the device for the trick the clerk plays on the carpenter in the Miller’s Tale reveals an increasing commodification of time in late medieval England. It also indicates a new understanding of how that commodity could then be translated into social power, specifically in regards to rank and status. In “Merchant’s Time and Church’s Time in the Middle Ages,” Jacques Le Goff explains that “Among the principal criticisms leveled against the merchants was the charge that their profit implied a mortgage on time, which was supposed to belong to God alone.”¹ Sylvia Thrupp’s study of London merchants in the fourteenth and fifteenth century reveals, however, that this economically productive use of time was not exclusive to the merchant class.² Likewise, Paul Strohm observes that “merchant’s time was not the sole possession of merchants, or even the slightly more inclusive group comprised by ‘the bourgeoisie,’ and that church’s time did not belong to the church alone.”³ Craig E. Bertolet, while agreeing with Le Goff’s designation of “merchant’s time” in general, asserts that the definition should be expanded to include nobility, clergy, and most peasants.⁴ The need to expand the definition of merchant’s time to include, oddly enough, the Church suggests that perhaps merchant’s time and Church’s time are not categories so definitive as previously held. Indeed, closer examination of the historical evidence and the literature of late medieval England reveals a more cohesive and less conflicted relationship between these two notions of time than we find presented in Le Goff’s work.⁵ What remains important about Le Goff’s work, however, is his observation of the relationship between the productive use of time and social position in the late Middle Ages.

In the Miller’s Tale time-reckoning functions both as a signifier of social relations and the tool by which those relationships are established, reinforced, and contested. The ability to make productive use of time provides the means by which the clerk hatches his plan and carries it to fruition. Yet the role time-reckoning plays in the duping of the carpenter remains largely unexplored in the scholarship surrounding the Miller’s Tale.⁶ When John and Nicholas are first introduced in the tale, they are described, first and foremost, in terms of their economic status. According to the Miller, John is “A riche gnof, that gestes heeld to bord, / And of his craft he was a carpenter” (I 3188–89). In other words, he is rich but lowborn, and it is clear, as the tale unfolds, that he is uneducated and simple-minded. John is wealthy enough to afford a servant for himself and a maid for his wife. In terms of property, he has enough space in his home to let out a room. Within the tale, John is identified more often by his trade as a carpenter than by his name. John’s dual income as landlord and carpenter was not uncommon in late medieval England.⁷ A statute of 1363 required craftsmen to limit their enterprise to a single craft, but in practice the legislation appears to have gone largely unenforced by urban authorities.⁸ The tale does not disclose whether John’s wealth is a result of his skill as a carpenter or his position as a landlord, and perhaps it is a combination of the two. What is clear from the outset of the tale is the monetized relationship that exists between John and Nicholas. As his tenant, Nicholas owes John rent. The nature of this relationship exposes a breakdown of the estates as Nicholas, a clerk, is beholden to John, a mere carpenter. Yet John’s status as a landlord is what enables Nicholas to unfold his plan. When John notices his tenant has not left his room, he is in a position to investigate—or in this instance send his servant to investigate—what Nicholas is doing in his room. John’s surveillance of Nicholas’s room enables Nicholas to put his plan into motion...