Lollardy
According to Karma Lochrie, Lollardy is a declaration to reform the church and it is against: “church endowments, the priesthood, clerical vows of celibacy, […] idolatry of pilgrimages and devotion to images […] celibacy among nuns, and the wasteful ornamentation of the church.”[1] Regarding this, is Chaucer using the pilgrimage in the first place to mock the whole idea of it? In the first place, most of the characters are satirized whereas some characters are embodiments of critics of the Church. Anyhow, Lollardy challenges the female chastity because it “attempts to reconfigure the sexual hierarchy by replacing chastity as an ideal with marriage.[2] In this case, in relation to the Prioress, Lochrie points out that the Prioress is “saturated with sexuality […] in terms of her qualities as a romance heroine, her feminine daintiness, and her sentimentality”[3]. In other words, her characteristics and mannerism exhibit a woman possessing sexual tendencies rather than secular tendencies of a celibate nun.
Most importantly, Lochrie points out that the most obvious signs of the Prioress’ Lollardy is “her eating manners and her brooch.”[4] Lochrie notes that there is a distinct factor that links mannerism and sexual tendencies, which is her appetite for “food and drink and unnatural sex acts:”[5]
She leet no morsel from hir hippes falle,
Ne wette hir fingres in hir sauce depe.
Wel koude she carye a morsel and wel kepe
That no drope ne fille upon hir brest.[6]
This can be seen as her tendency to not let anything dirty touch her but Chaucer uses her body part, particularly the breast, to subtlety hint at how she wants to be touched.
Likewise, Lollardy attacked the symbol and imagery of the brooch because it was considered affection of materialistic tendencies, idolatry and pride[7]. This is obvious, especially when the Prioress uses her devotion of the Virgin Mary in her tale to justify the saving of the unfortunate child and that it was the Virgin Mary’s love that helps the child transcend to heaven:
‘This welle of mercy, Cristes moder swete,
I loved alwey, as after my konninge;
And what that I my lif sholde forlete,
To me she cam, and bad me for to singe
This antheme verraily in my deyinge,
As ye han herd; and what that I had songe,
Me thought she leide a grein upon my tonge.
‘Wherfore I singe, and singe moot, certein,
In honour of that blisful maiden free’[8]
In other words, the little boy’s devotion towards Virgin Mary saved his soul because as the brooch signified: “love conquers all.”
On the other hand, the insignia can also be seen as a sign to explain how the Prioress looks at the world. Based on her characterization in which she appears more to be a lady than a nun, it is obvious that she devotes herself in courtly manners and courtly love. In this case, does “love conquers all” her outlook on the idea that courtly love will save her from her celibacy?
[1] Lochrie, Heterosynchracies, 47.
[2] Ibid., 50.
[3] Ibid., 60.
[4] Ibid., 60.
[5] Ibid., 61.
[6] Chaucer, “General Prologue,” I.128-131.
[7] Lochrie, Heterosynchracies, 62.
[8] Chaucer, “The Prioress’s Tale,” VII.656-664.
