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Essays in Medieval Studies 20 (2003) 107-120



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Geoffroi de Charny's Book of Chivalry and Violence in The Man of Law's Tale and The Franklin's Tale

Gerald R. Nachtwey
Loyola University Chicago


For Anne Middleton, Chaucer's vision of chivalry was based on horizontal social relations. In The Knight's Tale, Squire's Tale, and Franklin's Tale, she wrote, horizontal bonds between knights and squires reflected the horizontal bonds that formed chivalric marriage. Middleton argued that marriage within chivalry consisted of "the horizontal bond of mutual accommodation which makes renewal possible in a world where 'on every wrong a man may nat be wreken'." 1 In firmly linking marriage to chivalry in this way, Middleton was seconding G. L. Kittredge's claims—which she otherwise contradicts—about the compatiblity of marriage and courtly love. According to Kittredge, the Franklin "boldly challenges" the supposed tension between these two institutions. The Franklin declares that love can be consistent with marriage, and indeed, "without love (and perfect, gentle love) marriage was sure to be a failure. The difficulty about mastery vanishes when mutual love and forbearance are made the guiding principles in the relations between husband and wife." 2

Certainly, as the Canterbury Tales appertain to love and marriage, it cannot be denied that the general flow of argument leading up to The Franklin's Tale points towards the abolition of pure sovereignty of one spouse over another; in this respect, Kittredge's arguments, almost a century old, still hold true. Yet, when Middleton introduces the factor of "chivalry" into the tales, we must be aware of the strongly "vertical" influence that its traditions could have on the marital relationship. I maintain that aspects of this vertical hierarchy, which was a foundation of chivalric society, appear in both The Man of Law's Tale and The Franklin'sTale.

Before anything can be said about the occurrence of chivalry in the Canterbury Tales, however, we should be certain that we have a clear sense of what we mean by "chivalry" in the fourteenth century. While I do not intend to offer a [End Page 107] comprehensive definition of the word and the values attached to it, an excellent practical understanding of the institution can be derived by studying a document that has only recently begun to receive critical attention: the Livre de Chevalerie or Book of Chivalry by Geoffroi de Charny. Charny was a real knight and an experienced warrior, who lived just a generation before Chaucer and wrote his works on chivalry during Chaucer's lifetime. While I do not mean to suggest that Chaucer ever read any of Charny's work, I hope to use Charny to demonstrate that in the fourteenth century, attitudes towards violence which were expressed through chivalry required the existence of hierarchies.

The Book of Chivalry

Charny had a distinguished military career by the time he finished the Book of Chivalry: he had fought with the English in Flanders and Hainault, and had even gone on an (unsuccessful) crusade under Humbert II, Dauphain of Viennois. He was imprisoned for a time in England, was eventually made a member of Jean II's Order of the Star, and went on to become the keeper of the oriflamme, the banner of the French kings. Finally, in 1356, Charny fully authenticated the ideals he had laid out in his manual when he died defending that banner in the battle of Poitiers. 3 In Richard Kaeuper's introduction to the English translation of The Book of Chivalry, he estimates that Charny wrote the Book sometime between 1344 and 1352, which is to say right around the time that the French suffered a decisive defeat by the English at the battle of Crécy. As such,Charny was interested in identifying specific behaviors that knights could undertake to improve their military skill, or prowess (proesce). The point is an important one, given the crucial historical distinctions between courtois and chevalerie that have been spelled out by...

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