Man of Law

“A SERGEANT OF THE LAWE, war and wis,
That often hadde been at the Parvis,
Ther was also, ful riche of excellence”
Discreet he was, and of greet reverence—
He semed swich, his wordes weren so wise.” ¹

¹_{Chaucer.”General Prologue.” I. 309-313.}

Note: Proceed to an interactive visual guide by clicking here.

Introduction

As one of the more critically understudied tales in the Canterbury Tales, the “Man of Law’s Tale” contains many aspects worth reading into. Whether it’s the linguistic intricacies, historical and economic background, or legal and racial analyses, the “Man of Law’s Tale” takes on different significance depending on the emphatic “lens” we use to read it.

♦ Table of Contents ♦

Linguistic Lens
- The Man of Law and his Faire Speche
- Linguistic Hierarchy
- A Moral Tale? (&Other Questions&Tidbits)
Historical Lens
- Who is the Man of Law?
- Legal Corruption & Defense
- Mythical Genealogy & Monarchy
Legal Lens
- Laws surrounding rape
- Religious elements
- Embedded narratives
Racial Lens
- Understanding Race from a Modern Perspective
- An Intersectional Approach to Race: Religion and Gender
  - Christian Universalism
  - Donegild versus the Sultanness
- Visual Guide to Intersectional Approach
Economic Lens
- Business and Belief
- The Economy of Words

Bibliography

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Buell, Denise Kimber. “Early Christian universalism and modern racism.” The Origins of Racism in the West, Ed. Miriam Eliav-Feldon, Benjamin Isaac and Joseph Ziegler, 109-131. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Burnley, David. A Guide to Chaucer’s Language. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1983.

Chaucer, Geoffrey. “Man of Law’s Prologue, Tale, and Epilogue.” The Canterbury Tales, edited by Jill Mann, 164-210. London: Penguin, 2005.

Dugas, Don-John. “The Legitimization of Royal Power in Chaucer’s “Man of Law’s Tale”.” Modern Philology 95, no. 1 (1997): 27-43.

Goldenberg, David. “Racism, color symbolism, and color prejudice.” The Origins of Racism in the West, Ed. Miriam Eliav-Feldon, Benjamin Isaac and Joseph Ziegler, 88-108. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Gravdal, Kathryn. Ravishing Maidens: Writing Rape in Medieval French Literature and Law. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991. 1-20.

Heffernan, Carol F. “Mercantilism and Faith in the Medieval Eastern Mediterranean: Chaucer’s Man of Law’s Tale, Boccaccio’s Decameron 5, 2, and Gower’s Tale of Constance.” In The Orient in Chaucer and Medieval Romance. Cambridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2003.

Heng, Geraldine. “Inventions/Reinventions, Race Studies, Modernity, and the Middle Ages.” The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. 15-54.

Johnson, Eleanor. “English Law and the Man of Law’s ‘Prose’ Tale.” The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 114, no. 4 (2015): 504-25.

Kiesling, Scott Fabius. ‘Power and the Language of Men.” In Language and Masculinity. Edited by Sally Johnson and Ulrike Hanna Meihof, 65-85. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 1997.

Lynch, Kathryn. “Storytelling, Exchange, and Constancy: East and West in Chaucer’s ‘Man of Law’s Tale.’” The Chaucer Review, 1999. 409-423.

Musson, Anthony. “The Sergeant of Law.” In Historians on Chaucer: The ‘General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales. Edited by Stephen H. Rigby, with the assistance of Alastair J. Minnis, 206–27. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.

O’Connell, Brendan. “‘Struglyng wel and myghtily’: Resisting Rape in the Man of Law’s Tale.” Medium Aevum84.1 (2015): 16—39

Schildgen, Brenda Deen. Pagans, Tartars, Moslems, and Jews in Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales.” Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001.