Chaucer’s Friar: “Typet” and “Semycope”

In his General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer clothes Friar Huberd in a combination of garment signs surely chosen with satire in mind ¹ and then amplifies this costume sentence with systrophe, the rhetorical technique of “heaping up descriptions of a thing without defining it.” ² The effect of these collective images is exceptionally strong. In this costume portrayal, Chaucer literally “spells it out” that anyone who could be fooled by such a friar’s beguiling speech and merry manner would first have to deny the visual evidence of his dress, which flouts the fraternal ideal, and also refuse to give this image the name it deserves. Rather than utilize the standard antifraternal metaphor of “wolf in sheep’s clothing,” Chaucer’s satire clarifies and delineates this Friar in a parade of fresh costume details, doubly damning him as a wolf in wolf’s clothing, wearing the clearly recognizable garments of Greed that convey the signs of his vices, “covetyse,” “doublenesse,” and lechery.

Chaucer presents his description of the Friar’s costume and accoutrements in two passages separated by twenty-six lines that recount his musical skill, his knowledge of taverns and their owners, his unctuous and successful prowess in begging, and his sporting on “love-dayes.” ³ The first costume passage describes the Friar’s headgear (A 233–34) while the second (259–63) gives an account of his cloak. Following Chaucer’s two-part division, this analysis of Chaucer’s costume rhetoric, informed by examples from its historical and literary context, will deal first with the Friar’s “typet” that is stuffed with knives and pins, then with his bell-shaped, double worsted “semycope,” and finally with a consideration of their combination in one costume and in the costume rhetoric employed by Chaucer.

In the first costume passage of two lines, Chaucer’s multifaceted image of Friar’s tippet filled with knives and pins constitutes a description that can hold its own among the most scathing antifraternal commentary in medieval literature:

His typet was ay farsed ful of knyves And pynnes, for to yeven faire wyves.

(A 234–35)

Since the fashion term “typet” has more than one meaning, we must first determine which of these was the most likely one behind Chaucer’s choice of diction. A tippet is defined as a “pendant streamer from the hood or from the arm” or “a shoulder cape.” ⁴ If Chaucer meant “pendant streamer,” he has given the Friar a garment that, by ca. 1387, was no longer in style. ⁵ Such a garment would have signified vanitas, superbia, and by extension luxuria had it been worn by a friar, for example, in 1340 when it was fashionable; even worse, by 1387 it would have suggested a comparison with fools and jesters, in whose costumes tippets were standard features. ⁶ However, it is not likely that this out-of-fashion layman’s garment, completely unrelated to the fraternal habit, was the “typet” Chaucer had in mind, even though such pendants might offer a handy storage place for the Friar’s knives and pins. “A shoulder cape,” with a deep hood, ⁷ is the more likely meaning for this “typet” since a hood ⁸ is part of the standard friar’s habit.

Highly significant for our analysis of Chaucer’s costume rhetoric, Chaucer’s employment of Huberd’s tippet as a costume sign is a unique contribution to friars’ costumes in the antifraternal literary tradition, ca. 1387. In earlier antifraternal poems, friars’ habits and friars’ love of fine clothing are often mentioned. The standard costume complaint against friars is that they have enlarged hems on their copes, meaning that they have used too much fabric and are therefore prideful. ⁹ I have found no extant poem that mentions a friar’s hood prior to Chaucer, although following him, in the fifteenth century, there is mention of a “grete hood” and a “tipet”:

But if my cloth be over presciouse, Jakke, blame the werer; ffor myn ordre hath ordeyned al in good mesure. Thou axist me, Jacke, of my grete hood. What that it meneth, my scapelarie and my wide cope, and the knottide girdil. What meenith thi tipet, Jakke, as long as a stremer, that hangith longe bihinde and kepith thee not hoot? . . . . . . . . . . . . . Why is thi gowne, Jakke, widder than thi cote, and thi cloke al above as round as a belle. ¹⁰ [emphasis added]

Jakke answers these questions, “My grete coope that is so wiid, / signifieth charite,” an answer that the author of this antifraternal poem expected no one to believe. ¹¹ Clearly, in this poem, Chaucer’s original and innovative images are echoed in the “grete hood” with its tippet as well as in the bell shape of the cloak.

In addition, in the poem just quoted, the conversation regarding the tippet provides one reason why a tippet might have been considered sinful: It is superfluous, prideful because its length is not used as a scarf for warmth. This description suggests that a tippet with a long point to the hood, a fifteenth-century style (of the sort that may be worn wrapped about either the head or neck), is referred to in this poem.

The satire of Friar Huberd’s hood benefits from the irony of Chaucer’s factual depiction of a religious garment which has been converted to such usage as a peddler might give it—converted and perverted at the same time. The extent of this perversion may be seen in the contrast between Huberd’s garments and the inspiration behind the original Franciscan habit. ¹² St. Francis conceived the plan for his order based on the idea of evangelical poverty in the biblical texts of Luke 10:1–12, as well as Matt. 10:5–15, and Mark 6:7–13. ¹³ According to Bonaventura’s Legenda major, St. Francis attended Mass on an apostle’s feast day and heard an account of Christ’s instructions for living given to the apostles:

. . . they were not to provide gold or silver or copper to fill their purses, . . . they were not to have a wallet for the journey or a second coat, no shoes or staff ¹⁴ . . . There and then he [St. Francis] took off his shoes and laid aside his staff. He conceived a horror of money or wealth of any kind and he wore only one tunic, changing his leather belt for a rope. The whole desire of his heart was to put what he had heard into practice ¹⁵ and conform to the rule of life given to the Apostles in everything. ¹⁶

Early Franciscan friars wore this same humble habit and practiced poverty; as a result, they “contrasted sharply with the sometimes ostentatious worldliness of the parish clergy.” ¹⁷

A detailed account of the Franciscan habit may be seen in Monumenta Franciscana:

They whiche arre professid and haue promysed obedience shalle haue oone cote with a hode (A libertee) and a nother withoute a hoode that wille have yt, and suche as haue nede or as ar constreynyd by necessyte may were shoone. (Equyvalent to a commandment.) And alle the bretherne must be clothid with symple and vyle clothinge. (A libertee.) And they may pece them and amende them with pecis of sak clothe, or with other pecis, with the blissyng of God.

(An exhortation.) ¹⁸

“The very frock to which the Franciscans clung with an almost superstitious reverence was originally just a poor peasant’s natural dress,” declares G. G. Coulton. ¹⁹ While nothing in Huberd’s portrait identifies him with a particular order of friars, this Middle English description of the Franciscan habit portrays the kind of simple, pious habit with hood, a hood which, according to the costume rhetoric in Chaucer’s portrait, Huberd converts to the equivalent of the traveling salesman’s satchel. The regulation disallowing a wallet ²⁰ to friars obviously did not pose an obstacle to Huberd’s transporting of salable items.

Precisely through this perversion of the friar’s hood and in the selective naming of the goods it transports, the knives and pins, Chaucer’s satire makes an innovative and telling point. Chaucer has not called the Friar a “vagabond,” ²¹ or a “peddler,” ²² or a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” ²³ ; instead, he depicts Huberd, by means of the perverted hood, as a vagabond, a peddler. Peddlers are described in much the same terms as those Chaucer employs for Huberd: “jovial,” “light-hearted,” possessed of “good humour and jollity . . . gaiety,” “merry and sharp-tongued,” according to J. J. Jusserand. Jusserand derives this characterization from a description in the first statute known as “an acte for tynkers and pedlers” (5 and 6 Ed. VI) that stated:

For as muche as it is evident that tynkers, pedlers and suche like vagrant persons are more hurtful than necessaries to the Common Wealth of this realm, . . . no person or persons commonly called pedler, tynker or petty chapman shall wander or go from one towne to another or from place to place out of the towne, parishe or village where such person shall dwell, and sell pynnes, poyntes, laces, gloves, knyves, glasses, tapes or any suche kynde of wares whatsoever, or gather connye skynnes or such like things or use or exercise the trade or occupation of a tynker. . . .

[unless they are licensed properly]. ²⁴

Although this statute was enacted some time after Chaucer wrote the Friar’s portrait, we note that pins and knives were still among the desirable wares ²⁵ which itinerant peddlers hawked.

In addition, Chaucer heightens the negative effect of the peddler imagery by limiting the goods sold by Huberd, rather than naming many items of “dyvers marcerye” such as are listed in the “Song Against the Friars” (ca. 1380):

Thai dele with purses, pynnes, and knyves, With gyrdles, gloves, for wenches and wyves; . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Somme frers beren pelure aboute, For grete ladys and wenches stoute, To reverce with thair clothes withoute; . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . For somme vaire, and somme gryse, For somme bugee, and for somme byse, And also many a dyvers spyse,   In bagges about thai bere. ²⁶

In having such a list of expensive merchandise, these friars have grandiose business dealings comparable to those one might expect of Chaucer’s Merchant. In contrast, Chaucer depicts Friar Huberd as merely a peddler of knives and pins, which demeans him doubly. The Friar, in his perverted hood, is only a penny-ante peddler.

This is by no means the full significance of these knives and pins, however. Of far greater import is the idea that, in this limited choice of goods the Friar’s pins and knives which are literally instruments of penetration, Chaucer symbolizes the penetration mentioned in 2 Tim. 3:1–6 in the phrase “[those] who make their way into houses [qui penetrant domos].” This is a point that has not previously been noted by critics. This phrase was commonly interpreted in the antifraternal tradition to characterize those friars who entered homes to corrupt wives sensually and sexually, and who entered the “‘interior’ house” of a person’s conscience (through hearing confessions) without, as the secular clergy viewed the matter, the authority of proper apostolic descent, even though papal authority had been granted. In this tradition, those friars ²⁷ constituted a sign of the approach of the end of the world. ²⁸ These standard antifraternal ideas inform Chaucer’s explanation of the Friar’s knives and pins: “for to yeven faire wyves.”

Chaucer’s unique approach reflects the same ideas presented allegorically by William Langland. P. R. Szittya explains Langland’s allegory:

In the apocalyptic ending of Piers Plowman, as the forces of Antichrist muster, the door of the church is suddenly darkened by a friar with an enigmatic name: Sire Penetrans Domos. Penetrans Domos is not just a name but a text. It is a snatch from an eschatological passage in the New Testament, where St. Paul warns Timothy about the dangers in the last days of the world: ‘But know this, that in the last days dangerous times will come. Men will be lovers of self, covetous, haughty, proud . . ., having a semblance indeed of piety, but disowning its power. Avoid these. For of such are they who make their way into houses [qui penetrant domos].’

(2 Tim. 3:1–6)

Szittya is careful to explain that Langland’s “Sire Penetrans Domos is no ordinary friar,” but rather he is the “symbolic Antichrist who menaces the church at the end of Langland’s poem. . . . [and] a signal that the Last Days are beginning.” ²⁹

In contrast to Langland’s work, Chaucer’s portrait has no such complicated plot, but he has labeled his friar just as surely: in the perverted hood of his religious habit, his literal wearing/carrying of knives and pins for the stated purpose of giving them to attractive wives, the Friar is Sire Penetrans Domos, although he is called Huberd, a French name perhaps significant of the French origin of the antifraternal tradition. ³⁰

Further, taken literally, the image of the Friar’s tippet filled with pins and knives equates him with a second set of negative associations attached to peddlers, who are men of no fixed abode and therefore owe loyalty to no fixed civil law or moral code. The disreputable lack of civil connections for itinerants is paralleled by the lack of apostolic succession, lack of proper place in the church hierarchy, and lack of fixed geographical locus (such as a parish for the priest or diocese for the bishop) for which friars are severely criticized in the large body of antifraternal literature of the late Middle Ages, and named Sire Penetrans Domos.

Chaucer’s subtle technique in his costume rhetoric, almost without the reader’s notice, directs attention away from the issue of type or style of garment worn and focuses it instead on the accumulation of negative associations that might be attached to it. Regardless of the style of Huberd’s tippet, Chaucer emphasizes that what is important is the use he makes of it—to transport gifts for wives and thus to satisfy not only his greed, but also, possibly, his lechery. This emphasis is achieved in Chaucer’s systrophe. He amplifies the image of the tippet in the predicate adjective that describes its function as a “peddler’s bag”: “His typet was ay farsed ful of knyves / And pynnes” (233–34). Then in a prepositional phrase he amplifies again, providing Huberd’s motivation, “for to yeven faire wyves” (134). The knives and pins apparently served as door-openers, like the free samples of modern door-to-door salesman; they serve as a key, equally an object of penetration. To carry this idea further, Chaucer implies through his systrophe and these symbols that penetration occurs on four levels: The Friar enters the house, he invades a Christian conscience, he gains access to his victim’s purse, and possibly he penetrates sexually. ³¹ Chaucer suggests that Huberd’s tactics were successful in satisfying both his greed and his lechery when he depicts this friar as having knowledge of “daliaunce” (211), as having paid for many young women’s marriages (212–13), as being beloved by “worthy wommen of the toun” (215–17), as being able to separate a poor widow from her last “ferthyng” (253–55), as well as in the mention of his white neck (238), a symbol of lechery. ³² These descriptive details surround the lines concerned with the Friar’s headwear. And Chaucer underscores these ideas, as well as the four-fold interpretation of the Friar’s penetration, given above, in the knives / wives rhyme, just as he illustrates them in the actions of the friar in the Summoner’s Tale who dallies with his host’s wife.

Thus, having marked the Friar with the sign of Sire Penetrans Domos through his tippet filled with penetrating objects, Chaucer has no need to say more. Friar Huberd is no hypocrite who covers his evil in the proper vestments of holiness; instead, in his wearing of a tippet, and in his employment of this hood for his own sinful purposes, Friar Huberd blatantly perverts the habit which should be a sign of poverty and chastity. This tippet is a sign that only the spiritually blind could fail to see. ³³

Friar Huberd proclaims his falseness again in a clothing sign from the second passage of costume rhetoric in this portrait: his “semycope.” In this garment choice, Chaucer diverges from standard antifraternal costume imagery at the same time that he evokes the memory of it. He employs two initial similes and three descriptive terms, one with its own simile; his systrophe heaps scorn upon Friar Huberd’s cope:

  he was nat lyk a cloysterer With a thredbare cope, as is a povre scoler, But he was lyk a maister or a pope. Of double worstede was his semycope, That rounded as a belle out of the press.

(259–63)

In Chaucer’s first simile, the Friar is compared negatively to the cloisterer and scholar who do wear the dress of poverty as good friars should. The second simile compares Huberd to a master ³⁴ or pope, but although the comparison could be true, and initially sounds favorable, the sense of it is negative. Huberd should exhibit his avowed poverty in his cope; instead he dresses in a style appropriate for someone who, Chaucer implies, has a right to dress very well. The fact that some friars taught in universities and were referred to as masters is treated here as if it were simply another instance of fraternal usurpation of roles such as those of hearing confession and soliciting funds within parishes that already had pastors whose authority descended directly from the apostles. This is a common stance regarding usurpation in the antifraternal tradition.

Added to these negative similes are the three terms alluded to earlier: “double worstede,” “semycope,” and “rounded.” None of these terms is pejorative by definition, but when included in a description of a friar’s costume, each of them connotes censure. Taking them in order, double worsted is a fabric woven in the same manner as other woolens, but woven only of threads made from strands of long wools, carefully sorted, that have been combed (not carded as is the case for short-haired wools) in preparation for being drafted without a twist. Later a twist is put into these yarns. After weaving, the cloths are not fulled as other woolens are. ³⁵ Worsted was not a new fabric ³⁶ in Chaucer’s day; legislative action was taken by parliament, 17 Rich. II, specifying and confirming three traditional kinds of worsted and motley: double worsted, half double worsted, and worsted ray. ³⁷ It was common for those in religious orders, and even for Lollards, to wear worsted. ³⁸

Worsted of fine quality might be woven in any of the statutorily regulated sizes, ³⁹ although it is clear in the need for such laws that cloth sellers often enough sought to sell short measure. A statute, passed 6 Henry VI, lists worsted in dimensions ⁴⁰ as illustrated in Chart 1 in Appendix A. John James states that single worsted was perhaps another name for the roll of worsted; ⁴¹ if so, then single worsted, 18 inches wide, could only have been used for religious habits if the habits had back and front seams as well as side seams, and H. L. Gray states that this fabric was likely of inferior quality and was used for export. ⁴²

Since those in religious orders commonly wore worsted, the question remains: What is the significance of Huberd’s double worsted? The issue is not whether a friar should wear single worsted as opposed to double worsted; rather it is whether he should wear double worsted instead of monks’ cloth or canon cloth, that is, some form of worsted woven specifically with religious vows of poverty in mind. In general, worsted in the mid-fourteenth century was counted among the “medium-priced cloths.” ⁴³ Lacking comparable prices for the various types of worsted, we can nevertheless illustrate the relative position of worsted in the price hierarchy of other fabrics at several different times. Records of cloth purchases, generally measured in ells, ⁴⁴ made for the royal wardrobe in 1323–24, ⁴⁵ list worsted prices that may be compared to other woolens as listed in Chart 2 (Appendix B).

Although we lack identical quantities and measurements in the list displayed in Chart 2, it is still possible to determine that scarlets of any color and cloths dyed in grain are much more costly than worsted. In addition, in a third list, prices ⁴⁶ of worsted, silk, and blanket may be compared, although unfortunately the figures for quantities purchased are often missing (See Chart 3, Appendix C). We note that in Chart 3, sindons (a silk) are clearly more expensive than worsted, just as worsted is higher priced than blanket (a woolen). Again, worsted falls into the middle price range.

Textile records and such comparisons make evident that derogatory comments concerning the Friar’s habit of double worsted do not take into account the facts that religious habits were commonly made of worsted, that the width of double worsted is the same as that for monks’ cloth and narrower than that of canon’s cloth by two quarters (18 inches), and that the length of double worsted is shorter than monks’ cloth by two yards. A friar’s habit (tunic and cloak) made of double worsted would actually use less fabric than was used in a standard monk’s habit, and would be narrower than a canon’s habit. ⁴⁷ In addition, unless some fabric was cut off the bottom, even allowing for differences in height, monk’s habits would be more likely to trail on the ground, ⁴⁸ while the length of the double worsted, with allowance for a hood, would be approximately correct for a tunic and a cloak, with no extra fabric left over.

What, then, is the problem with Friar Huberd’s double worsted? Judging from the size and price comparisons, clearly this fabric cannot be called “opulent” ⁴⁹ in the sense of rich, abundant, luxuriant. At the same time, no type of worsted would meet the criterion of “vyle” or coarse cloth, as specified for friars’ mantles. ⁵⁰ We may infer from Chaucer that Huberd’s garment is neither threadbare, nor, in its relatively moderate price, is it representative of the poverty friars profess. However, Chaucer goes further and implies in lines 261–62 that double worsted is a fabric suitable for a master or a pope to wear. Is this a boast about the good quality of English double worsted? or an ironic comment about the often questionable quality of exported English woolens? Although worsted was known as a “good” and a “sturdy” fabric, the kind of fabric worn by nearly everyone at one time or another, still it was not a “luxury” fabric comparable to scarlet.

A more likely explanation for Chaucer’s remark may be found in the politico-economic history of English worsted. A very brief sample of the history of worsted sales would indicate what Chaucer must have known: that the quality, the integrity, of worsted was questionable. For example, in 1315 merchants protested against Worsted and Aylesham cloths that failed to meet the proper standards, “20 ells being sold as 24, 25 ells as 30,” and so forth, although the standard assizes of 50, 40, 30, and 24 ell lengths had been long established before that date. ⁵¹ Regardless of protests and regulations, cloth fraud continued. In 1390 a law ⁵² was passed that cloths had to be sold open rather than folded because western counties practiced fraud through tacking and folding, so that a cloth looked to be full measure, when it was not. However, the law was apparently insufficient to stop fraudulent practices, for in 1410 the Flemish considered inspection of all English worsted at their port of entry. Further, in general, the export of worsted decreased due to dissatisfaction among foreign consumers. ⁵³

In clothing Friar Huberd in double worsted, a precise cloth term he is the first to use in antifraternal poetic satire, ⁵⁴ Chaucer gave him a garment made of cloth of questionable value, associated with fraudulent production and mercantile practices. In this manner, Chaucer labels the Friar as one who receives full price for short measure, and simultaneously reminds the reader that mercantile activities are not included in a friar’s purview. At the same time that he strikes at mercantile deception, ⁵⁵ he depicts the Friar in the garments of that deception, metaphorically as the wolf in wolf’s clothing. In addition, Chaucer questions the quality of the masters and pope(s), who are worthy to wear this fabric, the same church hierarchy that permits friars like Huberd to practice their chicanery. A similar insult regarding the quality of a fabric and the value of Noe as a husband, head of the family hierarchy, occurs in the Wakefield Master’s Processus Noe cum Filiis, when Uxor exclaims to Noe, “Bot thou were worthi be cled in Stafford blew” (200). In saying this, Uxor labels both husband and the cloth produced in a rival town as inferior. ⁵⁶

Not only was the reputation of double worsted questionable, but the name is also suggestive. Double worsted does not mean worsted double the width of other worsteds, or double value, as is often supposed; instead, the term double worsted simply means that its dimensions are different from half doubles and single worsteds. Double worsted is 10 yds. long, compared to half doubles at 6 yds. and single worsted at 30 yds.; it is 5 qtrs. (45”) wide, compared to half doubles also at 5 qtrs., and singles at 18”. However, coupled with its checkered mercantile history discussed above, might there not be a hint regarding the Friar’s character, included in Chaucer’s choice of a fabric name? In its nomenclature, the term suggests the character trait of doubleness, defined by the MED as “Duplicity, deceitfulness, treachery . . . lack of candor or sincerity; evasiveness, untrustworthiness, faithlessness.” Double worsted, then, is striking terminology in Chaucer’s antifraternal satire.

However, acknowledging this triple thrust—at merchants, at church hierarchy, and at friars—does not sound the depths of this costume sign; Chaucer’s selection of this particular fabric contains yet another implication. As discussed earlier, originally friars’ habits were based on Christ’s instructions to his apostles which include Matt. 10:10, containing the admonition that they should not possess two coats. Since two full-length cloaks could be made from one piece of double worsted, a cope of such cloth suggests, although it in no way proves, the possession of two. ⁵⁷ The logic of the innuendo reads as follows: Given a friar who behaved like a peddler, who sold sacred services such as confession (without being in the proper line of apostolic descent) in order to serve his own greed—would such a friar feel any compunction about possessing two copes, double the specified number? And the answer is—not likely. Chaucer’s portrait of the Friar follows the usual procedure of antifraternal satire: to state the worst case scenario.

Lawrence Besserman posits still another anticlerical thrust incorporated in Chaucer’s choice of double worsted, a thrust underscored by the “pope” / “semycope” rhyme:

The fact that there were two popes makes lines 261–62 (ignoring the editorial full stop between them) an extension of the antipapal joke: for an instant we take double worstede with pope, and get good, comic anti-papal sense—something roughly equal to “two Popes are worse than one.” ⁵⁸

Besserman does not elaborate; however such an interpretation draws on the idea of the Friar’s doubleness, his double worsted, double the usual number of Popes, in addition to the shape and length of the Friar’s cope, for its bell-broadness is not matched by its length, this cope being both too wide and too short. Taking into consideration that the Pope is the descendent of that rock, Peter, on which the Roman Catholic Church was founded by Christ, the insult imbedded in these two lines questions the stability of the entire hierarchical structure, metaphorically the fabrique, ⁵⁹ of the contemporary church. From top to bottom, from Pope to mendicant friars, things are not as they should be. By extension, the entire construction or fabric of the church is wrong. Or, to be more specific and more interpretative, in the Pope’s having given papal permission for friars to preach, hear confessions, and solicit funds, the Mantle of Church Authority, like Huberd’s “semycope,” has been stretched too broadly and, as a result, has come up short.

In “semycope”—perhaps Chaucer even coins this term ⁶⁰ —Chaucer makes another innovation in antifraternal costume rhetoric. This garment name is the second of the three previously mentioned terms that take on pejorative connotations. The definition of a full-size “cope” provided by the MED is straightforward: “A cloak or mantle . . . An ecclesiastical outer garment . . . esp., the cowl or hood of a friar, monk, nun”; also the MED provides the phrase, “to get a cowl, i.e. become a friar.” Friar Huberd’s cope should be a cloak with hood attached, a full-length cloak which stands as the very sign for the eyes of the world of his being a friar. ⁶¹ The specifications of a friar’s habit provide that hoods not extend below “the shoulder boone,” that habit length not be longer than needed to cover the friar wearing it full-length, that its width not exceed sixteen “spannys” unless the warden deems there is a need for a greater width, that sleeve-length should not exceed the “vtter joynt of the finger,” and that the cope or “mantellis” be made of “vyle and course clothe, nat curiusly made or pynched aboute the necke, nat towching the graund by a hole spanne.” ⁶²

Clearly a “semycope” does not meet the length requirement for a proper friar’s habit. ⁶³ Additionally, a “semycope” would fall short on the Friar’s body as it falls short of propriety. ⁶⁴ Precise instructions for the friars’ garments of poverty were clearly not sufficient to produce properly clothed friars, ⁶⁵ and in the late fourteenth century this issue produced a conflict that may have been known to Chaucer. John Ashwardly, a Wyclif follower and Vicar of St. Mary’s (university church at Oxford) ca. 1380, spoke out against giving alms to any friar wearing a cope that would be classed as “fine.” Carmelite spokesman Richard Maidstone, John of Gaunt’s confessor and well-known theologian, disputed the charges. ⁶⁶ Whether or not Chaucer’s inspiration derived from this debate, ⁶⁷ antifraternal literature had a long history of comments on incorrect dress worn by those who used religion for their own purposes.

“Semycope,” Chaucer’s term, summons up another possible negative association. In its opposition to a proper friar’s cloak which symbolizes a life of poverty and piety as the proper preparation for an eternal life with Christ, Huberd’s “semycope” is a phononym for seemy-coat, a coat of many seams. Indeed, this garment in its “semy-” state is the opposite of Christ’s seamless coat—his garment of perfection. ⁶⁸

Friar Huberd is not a “whited sepulchre”; instead, he dresses in “typet” and “semycope” that literally and clearly convey his blackness of character. Surely Chaucer meant his readers to understand the point—that only the spiritually blind could be taken in by a rogue whose costume advertises his roguery so flagrantly. And possibly Chaucer also satirizes the seemingly unsolvable dilemma of the church and its idea of hierarchy, as it pertained to friars. As Szittya mentions, church authority was “a spiritually hereditary system, in which the mantle of authority could only be passed on by delegation through the properly appointed chain.” ⁶⁹ In giving Friar Huberd a “semycope,” Chaucer may be stating the obvious through his costume rhetoric: Friars have the Pope’s permission, but no apostolic succession; therefore, they may be seen as having only half a Mantle of Authority. In this sense, the “semycope” is a visual joke for the mind’s eye.

In addition, there may be one more “semycope” joke in the contrast between Friar Huberd and that notable friar St. Francis in their motivations for possessing only half a cloak. St. Francis, wearing secular clothing, demonstrates true charity in dividing his red cloak with a beggar, as depicted in an illumination in Psalterium et officia. ⁷⁰ It is safe to assume that Huberd had not given the lower half of his cope to a beggar. Further, no one could mistakenly view Huberd as the legitimate successor to another friar-saint: St. Dominic, who sold his clothes to feed the poor. In contrast, in writing “For thogh a wydwe hadde noght a sho, / . . . Yet wolde he have a ferthyng, er he wente” (253, 255), Chaucer indicates that Huberd was far more apt to invert saintly practice and to sell the poor in order to buy himself more clothes.

We may agree with Mann that “fine clothing,” in antifraternal satires has been “traditionally associated with friars” ⁷¹ ; however, Chaucer in his costume rhetoric has done more than take a “documentary interest in the Friar’s appearance.” In his diction, in his choice of “semycope,” Chaucer depicts a friar who does not go through the motions of looking like a proper friar; ⁷² instead, he portrays Friar Huberd as a villain-friar, openly flaunting his character in a cloak made of cloth too good to suit his vows of poverty, and fashioned in an unsuitable length and width.

As if this were not enough villification by costume rhetoric, Chaucer’s term, “rounded,” implies the extra width that was a standard sartorial complaint against clergy in general; indeed, this term by itself might be construed as a costume cliché for pride, greed, and, ultimately, luxuria. Further, in this portrait, “rounded” is modified by yet another of Chaucer’s similes: “as a belle out of the presse.” An understanding of the contrast between the originality of this simile expressing wideness and the tradition in antifraternal commentary and poetry dealing with excess in clothing heightens our appreciation of Chaucer’s systrophe. Szittya explains the traditional clothing complaints:

[The] traditional charge that crystallized around verses from Matthew 23—excesses of clothing—fused the friars’ flowing habits with (a misunderstanding of) the Pharisees’ phylacteries. These are mentioned in Matt. 23:5: “Omnia vero opera sua faciunt ut videantur ab hominibus; dilatant enim phylacteria sua et magnificant fimbrias.” [All their works they do so that they might be seen by men; for they widen their phylacteries and enlarge their tassels.] ⁷³ William of St. Amour had understood rightly the purpose of phylacteries and fimbriae in Old Testament times. But poets, lacking the helpful explanations of the Glossa ordinaria, made of the rare word phylacteria what they could. In the translation of the Romaunt of the Rose [including ll. 6889–922] . . . phylacteries are misunderstood as borders or hems, in the passage that renders Matt. 23:5: “Her bordurs larger maken they, / And make her hemmes wide alwey”

(6911–12). ⁷⁴

This kind of error in translation, Szittya posits, may have evoked Friar Huberd’s rounded, bell-shaped cloak, and for another example, ⁷⁵ he cites Pierce the Ploughman’s Crede:

Loke nowe, leue man . be nou ise [friars] i-lyke Fully to e Farisens . in fele of ise poyntes? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . And in worchipe of e werlde . her wynnynge ei holden; . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ei schapen her chapolories . & strecche hem brode, And launce heie her hemmes . wi babelyng in stretes.

(546–51)

Chaucer transforms the traditional broad hems and wide borders in antifraternal literature into an image of beauty: a short cloak “That rounded as a belle out of the presse.” ⁷⁶ The combination of cope and bell images may have been inspired by Dante’s image of Frate Gaudenti wearing a leaden cope that is gilded on the outside:

Là giù trovammo una gente dipinta   che giva intorno assai con lenti passi,   piangendo e nel sembiante stanca e vinta. Elli avean cappe con cappucci bassi   dinanzi a li occhi, fatte de la taglia   che in Clugnì per li monaci fassi. Di fuor dorate son, sì ch’elli abbaglia;   ma dentro tutte piombo, e gravi tanto,   che Federigo le mettea di paglia. Oh in etterno faticoso manto!

(23.58–67)

[There below we found a painted people who were going round with very slow steps, weeping and in their looks tired and overcome. They wore cloaks with cowls down over their eyes, of the cut that is made for the monks of Cluny, so gilded outside that they dazzle, but within, all of lead, and so heavy that those Frederick imposed were of straw. O toilsome mantle for eternity!]

Dante explains this image further:

. . . “Le cappe rance   son di piombo sì grosse, che li pesi   fan così cigolar le lor bilance. Frati Godenti fummo, e bolognesi.”

(23.100–103)

[“The orange cloaks are of lead so thick that the weight thus causes their scales creak. We were Jovial Friars, and Bolognese.”] ⁷⁷

In addition, in likening the Friar’s cloak to a newly-made ⁷⁸ bell, Chaucer evokes the image of a “cope belle,” a bell that the MED defines as “a bell rung as a signal for choir members to put on their robes.” He furthers this choral imagery in mentioning Huberd’s “harpyng, whan that he hadde songe” (266). The irony is strong here, for Chaucer never mentions Friar Huberd chanting in choir; on the contrary, the foregoing portrait description leads the reader to interpret “harpyng” in the sense of the verb “harpen” meaning persistent repetition (MED), in terms of the begging described in lines 252–56 that follow. Consequently, the image of his eyes likened to twinkling stars on a frosty night suggest the cold glitter of greed when his “harpyng” succeeds. In Friar Huberd’s bell-cope, Chaucer reverses the readers’ expectations in his picture of a lovely and gracefully rounded short cloak that in fact is the symbol of disobedience, a cloak that rounds like a bell that, visually, resonates of the old song. ⁷⁹ Chaucer’s costume rhetoric emphasizes the idea that this is the song sung by Friar Huberd, and the song he harps. His portrait adds new meaning to the designation of friars as joculators Dei. ⁸⁰

In conclusion, while more than one literary critic acknowledges Friar Huberd’s appealing manner and/or appearance, ⁸¹ others concentrate on his moral portrait. Peter S. Taitt notes that “Huberd becomes, in the reader’s mind, an increasingly corrupt figure,” ⁸² while David Lyle Jeffrey comments that the Friar’s deliberate greediness “paints him in the blackest spiritual colors possible.” ⁸³ Chaucer’s costume rhetoric makes a major and unique contribution to this blackening of Huberd’s character, and it does so through an innovative inversion of standard costume imagery and through the addition of new costume terms to the literary canon.

Chaucer structures the Friar’s portrait in such a way as to introduce Huberd in lines 208–32 as a friar well-liked and appreciated by all who enjoyed his company, his confessional manner, and the benefits, financial and otherwise, derived from them. Then Chaucer literally caps this false pleasantness with the tippet filled with knives and pins, the sign of Sire Penetrans Domos. As if the hood-turned-peddler’s-bag is insufficient to mark the Friar, he then lists Huberd’s actions (233–58) in accordance with the directive given by False Seeming in the Roman de la Rose, who states, “Lor fais vous estuet regarder / Se vous volés bien d’auz garder” (11789–90) [you must look at their deeds if you really want to protect yourself from them]. And in his choice of perverted and non-standard costume for the Friar, Chaucer heeds False Seeming’s warning regarding those dressed in proper religious habits, “Ja ne les connoistrés as robes, / Les faus traitres plains de loves” (11787–88) [You will never recognize them by their garments, these false traitors full of trickery”]. ⁸⁴ Faus Semblant may be “a literary ancestor of the Friar” ⁸⁵ in his sinfulness and in literary chronology, but Faus Semblant wears the garments of holiness, the better to hide his hypocrisy; this cloak of hypocrisy was also worn by antichrist and the pseudoapostoli, in the literature of antifraternal tradition. In contrast, Friar Huberd’s costume owes almost nothing to this image. Chaucer follows a description of Huberd’s actions with the description of the double worsted and bell-shaped “semycope.” In effect, he provides a garment sign that should alert anyone to the Friar’s character, even those who had overlooked the peddler’s-bag tippet. Cumulatively, the Friar, his merry, sociable manner, and his actions are marked and illuminated by means of costume rhetoric and Chaucer’s systrophe.

In dressing Friar Huberd in “semycope” and “typet,” Chaucer bestows upon this pilgrim garments in the specified number, the “oone cote with a hode” stipulated in the Rule of St. Francis. At the same time the numbers of this Rule are maintained, the spirit of it is violated many times in the perversion of the tippet for mercenary and lecherous purposes, and in the size, bell-shape, and quality of the too-brief cloak of double worsted. Huberd’s clothing bears little resemblance to the “symple and vyle clothinge,” patched with “pecis of sak clothe,” St. Francis prescribed for friars. Further, we may detect one last inverted joke in the fact that Chaucer dresses his Friar in double worsted. He never says that Huberd is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, although in lines 210–13 he implies that Huberd indulges in “stealing lambs,” but in his inversion of the holy habit image, he costumes this outwardly charming, inwardly wolfish Friar Huberd in a woolen fabric—literally sheep’s clothing.

Either of the two garments in this portrait would have been sufficient to mark this friar as evil, yet Chaucer sees fit to cover—or almost cover—Huberd in two worldly garment signs of his “covetyse,” doublenesse,” and lechery, and through vigorous systrophy to compound our sense of the Friar’s iniquity. Through costume rhetoric Chaucer demands that we look, and see that here is a friar who can be easily recognized by his garments; here is Friar Huberd, a wolf literally in sheep’s clothing fashioned and employed as wolf’s clothing.