Chaucer's Friar and Saint Hubert: what's in a name?

Chaucer's Friar and Saint Hubert: what's in a name? The Friar's portrait in Chaucer's Prologue to The Canterbury Tales concludes with the line: This worthy lymytour was cleped Huberd. (269)1 It is unlikely that Chaucer would have given the Friar a name if it had been of no significance and, indeed, the name has occasioned some comment in the past. Charles Muscatine links tbe Friar's name to Hubert the kite in the French Renan poems. H e considers the use of the name by Chaucer to be a direct ironic literary aUusion to the earlier Renart poems, noting that both the bird and Chaucer's Friar are clerics and confessors, and that both are somewhat voluptuous.2 Mustanoja picks up Muscatine's lead, noting that 'the Friar's name Hubert' is the name given to a magpie in 77te Man in the Moon and suggesting that Chaucer's use m a y be a 'bird allusion'.3 Earlier tbe theme of the thieving qualities of the M a n in the Moon of legend had been explored in relationtothe 'thieving, hypocritical son of Cain, the Pilgrim-Friar'.4 It is m y contention that Chaucer uses the Friar's portraittoestablish the character of a hunting cleric, that the Friar's name itself is an allusion to the patron saint of hunters, Saint Hubert, and that recognition of this allusion is the keytoa more satisfactory interpretation of this part of the Prologue. The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names5 has an entry under Hubert which shows the name spelt 'Hubard' and 'Hobard' in Yorks PoU Tax of 1379. Charles Muscatine, Muriel Bowden, and others have, rightiy I believe, translated the name 'Huberd' to 'Hubert'.6 The Didionary entry also states that the name 'was not common, and the popularity of the name in the Middle Ages was undoubtedly derived from the cult of St Hubert, Bishop of Liege, the patron saint of Huntsmen.' It is possible that Chaucer's spelling 'Huberd' is in fact yet another variation of 'Hubert', given the existence of two known variations in 1 All quotations and line numbers are taken from The Riverside Chaucer, 3rd edn, gen. ed. Larry D. Benson, London, 1988. 2 'The name of Chaucer's Friar', Modern Language Notes (MLN) 70 (1955), 169-72. 3 Mustanoja, T, 'The Suggestive use of Christian Names in Middle English Poetry', Medieval Uterature and Folklore Studies: Essays in Honor ofFrancis Lee Utley, ed. J. Mandel and B. A. Rosenburg, New Brunswick, NJ, 1970, pp. 51-76. 4 Reiss, Edmund, 'Chaucer's Friar and the Man in the Moon', Journal ofEnglish and German Philology 62 (1963), 481-85. 5 Withycombe, E. G., The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names, London, 1950, p. 130. 6 Muscatine, 'TheName of Chaucer's Friar'; Muriel Bowden, A Commentary on the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, London, 1967, p. 119; McCrum, Cran, and MacNeil, The Story of English., London, 1988, p. 81. 96 G. Thiel spelling of the name towards the end of the fourteenth century. Alternatively, the spelling could be a deliberate attempt to obscure the origin of the name for the sake of subdety. Further evidence, however, lends weight to the former argument. It has been noted that a great change in the use of personal names took place in England following the Norman Conquest. Most of the older English names were no longer used within two or three generations following the Norman invasion, having been replaced by Norman names.7 As the Church became more influential in daily life from the end of the twelfth century, the stock of Norman names was supplemented by saints' names.8 Thus it would seem reasonable to surmise that Chaucer's 'Huberd' is actually 'Hubert'. The circumstances of St Hubert's reformation and his patronage of huntsmen make it quite probable that Chaucer was aware of the saint when he named the Friar. Reputedly the son of Bertrand, Duke of Guienne, the legendary Hubert 'so neglected his religious duties for the chase that one day a stag bearing a crucifix menaced him with eternal perdition unless he reformed'.9 St Hubert died in 727, but according...