Reforming Chaucer: Margins and Religion in an Apocryphal Canterbury Tale

[Chaucer] no doubt, saw into religion as much almost as even we do now, and uttereth in his works no less, and seemeth to be a right Wicklevian, or else there was never any … all his works almost, if they be thoroughly advised, will testify (albeit it be done in mirth, and covertly); and especially the latter end of his third book of the Testament of Love, for there purely he toucheth the highest matter, that is, the communion. Wherein, except a man be altogether blind, he may espy him at the full: although in the same book (as in all the others he useth to do), under the godly-minded, and yet not be espied of the crafty adversary. And therefore the bishops, belike, taking his works but for jests and toys, in condemning other books, yet permitted his books to be read.

—John Foxe, Actes and Monumentes, 1570¹

As the epigraph demonstrates, John Foxe identified Chaucer as a "Wicklevian" who helped prepare his contemporaries for what, in Foxe's opinion, was a growing medieval Protestant movement.² Relying on apocryphal works such as The Testament of Love, Jack Upland, and The Plowman's Tale to inform his view of Chaucer, Foxe professes amazement that "the bishops, condemning and abolishing all manner of English books and treatises, which might bring the people to any light of knowledge, did yet authorise the works of Chaucer to remain still and to be copied." Foxe follows this quotation with a passage that transforms The Testament of Love into anecdotal evidence by portraying the spurious tales' perspective on the communion as Chaucer's authentic view. He treats the viewpoints on communion espoused in The Testament of Love as precursors to the emerging Protestant concept of consubstantiation. In his next statement Foxe refers to The Plowman's Tale, a work Puritans would later appropriate to advance their beliefs concerning Rome and the conformist elements of the English Church. Foxe added authority to the historical power of The Plowman's Tale for Protestants and encouraged at least one Puritan editor to utilize the tale in order to advance his religious views when he wrote, "What finger can point out more directly the pope with his prelates to be Antichrist, then doth the poor pelican reasoning against the greedy griffon?"³ In maintaining Foxe's vision of a Protestant Chaucer, the anonymous editor of the 1606 Plowman's Tale attempted to build support for his own distinct Puritan positions, such as opposition to remaining popish remnants of Catholicism not yet fully reformed in the English Church, predestination, and the differences over who was the rightful head of the church.⁴ The editor created his own unique edition of the tale by drawing upon the seemingly permanent imprimatur of Chaucer's name stamped upon The Plowman's Tale as a result of its inclusion in William Thynne's, John Stow's, and Thomas Speght's editions of the medieval poet's works. He then constructed an elaborate and complex set of printed marginal notes to interact with the text centered on the page, and consequently put his own interpretation to work by advancing specific religious and political opinions within the margins of the edition. Using marginalia to question the religious authority of both the Pope and the Church of England, the physical layout of the 1606 Plowman's Tale forces a third, Puritan form of religious doctrine upon the reader.

A summary of the text suggests that The Plowman's Tale was indeed the work of a Lollard or Lollard sympathizer. In the Prologue, the Plowman leaves his fields in the middle of the summer to join the pilgrimage to Canterbury. Harry Bailey, the host of Chaucer's pilgrimage, asks the Plowman to tell "some holy thynge" and he agrees to tell what he calls "a good preachynge" that he heard from a priest. He then relates the story of the conflict between the...