The “Dialect” of Chaucer’s Reeve

In the Canterbury Tales, the prologue to the Reeve’s Tale contains some unusual linguistic forms, which have been interpreted as features of the Reeve’s dialect, associating him with his native Norfolk. Through a comprehensive reappraisal of the grounds for associating these forms with a particular region, this article argues that the evidence identifying the Reeve’s speech with the speech of East Anglia is much more tenuous than has been supposed. The responses of different scribes to these forms, including the Hengwrt-Ellesmere scribe, are analyzed and assessed. Drawing comparisons with the only other occurrence of the Reeve’s unusual ik in late Middle English (in the mouth of the figure of Covetise in Piers Plowman), some alternative readings of the Reeve’s language are posited, while the suggestion that the Reeve’s words constitute a verisimilar representation of an actual dialect is contested.