Chaucer: Religious or Not Religious?

Is it possible for you to give your own picture as religious or non-religious simultaneously? If our answer is NO, I would like to bring Geoffrey Chaucer in the picture. A detailed reading of his “wife of bath” would give you the answer, I suppose.

            History says that Chaucer was a religious man and he was very loyal to the church and to the civil leaders. This paper is an attempt to see the reality hidden behind. In order to understand the religious background of Chaucer, we have to have a glance at the social status of women during his time. Women were viewed – legally, morally and spiritually- as extensions of men in their lives, dependent upon a father or a kinsman as protector or legally identified to their husbands.

            Having seen the position of women as a member of the society, let us look at the position of women from the point of view of the church. On the one side women were images of the Virgin Mary the mother, the intercessor and nurturer. The term used by Angel Gabriel to greet Mary in the gospels Ave Gratia Plena (Hail Full of Grace) is used o summarize this position. At the same time the church taught women were descendents of Eve (Eve) and the instruments of temptation and sin. They were carnal, not spiritual, thus women were instruments of man’s damnation.

            Here comes Chaucer with the plan of the “Canterbury Tales”. He is in a difficulty. He is a known religious person, but from the innermost being some thing pushes him for something else. Does he represent the Ave side or Eve side? The Canterbury Tales tells us that Chaucer chooses the Eve and in doing so creates the first round character in English Literature- the Wife of Bath. From the shell of religious spirit comes out the real Chaucer with the plan of acting out of the box, may be placing legs on two different boats. But he was clever enough to please the church and the clergy cop that he was never opposed. He had to keep a limit in his writing, so that at a glance everything becomes religious and fully religious and related to the gospel values.

Another important factor is the character of the Wife of Bath. Cana character like the wife of bath be created by a spirited religious person? We would get a perfect model for the Wife of Bath in the Bible. The gospel of John chapter 4 gives us the picture of a Samaritan woman (see the attachment). The Samaritan woman is seen arguing with Jesus regarding drawing of the water from the well of Jacob. Similarly the Wife of Bath is depicted as some one who argues with the existing system in her own way. The Samaritan woman had five husbands, so also the Wife of Bath. Both these women lost their husbands to death. And the sixth one with whom the Samaritan woman lives is not her husband!!! The Wife of Bath too had many lovers since her younger days. So, both of them were suspected for their way of life specially related with sexuality.

The difference between the Samaritan woman and the Wife of Bath bring about the real spirit of being religious or non-religious. The Bible gives the picture of a transformed woman who accepts Jesus’s words and deeds. She attracts many others to the real faith. So it gives a positive approach altogether, which can be considered as religious, as every religion aims at the transformation of human beings. It shows a promise of conversion from the way she was walking. And the Wife of Bath interestingly does not show any sign of repentance and she remains the same old self. So, speaking from a moral point of view, Chaucer brings out not the best in some one, but the darker sides of human beings, which is purely non-religious, at least in its outlooks.

Making a conclusion will be a very difficult process. From the facts mentioned above, we cannot classify Chaucer as a religious or non-religious. As far as the points mentioned here, I would like to believe that Chaucer had no other way but to act like a religious person, under pressure by circumstances. Chaucer is simply great that he could reflect so many sides of a complex moral picture without forcing a decision upon us. In fact, Chaucer trusts the reader to evaluate the conduct he portrays and make our own judgments. We would end up saying that Chaucer had two faces, one of a pure religious and the other of a hidden but dominant non-religious. (please see the attachment, Gospel of John 4)

- A report by Vipin Baby Vayalil

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. JOHN, CHAPTER 4

4:3 [Jesus] left Judea and started back to Galilee. 4:4 But he had to go through Samaria. 4:5 So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 4:6 Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.  4:7 A Samaritan woman came to draw water, 4: 7b and Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." 4:8 (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 4:9 The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) 4:10 Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." 4:11 The woman said to him, "Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 4:12 Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?" 4:13 Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 4:14 but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life." 4:15 The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water." 4:16 Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come back." 4:17 The woman answered him, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, 'I have no husband'; 4:18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!" 4:19 The woman said to him, "Sir, I see that you are a prophet.  4:20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem." 4:21 Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 4:22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 4:23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. 4:24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." 4:25 The woman said to him, "I know that Messiah is coming" (who is called Christ). "When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us."  4:26 Jesus said to her, "I am he, the one who is speaking to you." 4:27 Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, "What do you want?" or, "Why are you speaking with her?" 4:28 Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, 4:29 "Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?" 4:30 They left the city and were on their way to him. . . .  4:39 Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I have ever done." 4:40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. 4:41 And many more believed because of his word. 4:42 They said to the woman, "It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world."