Robyn and Osewold:

Culpability in Two of Chaucer’s Fabliaux

Stephen L. Cain

Jan. 19, 1996

Engl 480-12

Robyn and Osewold

In "The Reeve’s Tale" and "The Miller’s Tale," certain people are chastised or abused as a result of their actions in the story while others come away better. There are large differences between these two proximal tales concerning circumstances punishment being dispensed. From "The Miller’s Tale," John, Absolon, Nicholas and Alisoun provide examples of "justice," while Aleyn and Symkyn from "The Reeve’s Tale" furnish material. A sort of "Fabliau Justice" is meted out for crimes committed in the story, whether they be transgressions against contemporary laws or behavior perfectly normal in the real world but detested in the fabliau world.

"The Miller’s Tale" is a fabliau with a broad spectrum of justice: it ranges from no punishment at all to very serious retribution for a variety of crimes. The most serious transgressions are not given the most serious punishments, while the most serious punishment is meted for the lightest of crimes.

John the Carpenter from Robyn’s tale is a poor old fool. His two crimes are that he married out of his state and that he is very ignorant. First, as Cato says, "Men sholde wedden after hire estaat, / for youthe and elde is often at debaat" (A 3229-3230) [line numbers as per Baugh’s text]. He took a young wife and his jealousy is the stuff of stock characters:

Jalous he was, and heeld hire narwe in cage,

For she was wylde and yong, and he was old,

And deemed hymself lik a cokewold.

(A 3224-3226)

It seems that a marriage characterized by large age differences is definitely material for marital difficulties.

Second, John isn’t very bright. The tale states that "He knew nat Catoun, for his wit was rude," (A 3227). John also believes Nicholas’ concoction about a second, greater flood. While this gullibility isn’t stupidity, it is gross ignorance. The Chester Mystery Cycle has an entire play devoted to the subject and the God character quite explicitly states, "that man ne woman shall never more / be wasted by water as hath before" (Mills 359-360). He had to be paying absolutely no attention to miss the fact that a rainbow is God’s symbol of the covenant with Noah. Yet, miss it he does. John’s ignorance allows Nicholas to play the joke and feed him the line about a new flood much larger than Noah’s.

So, John is punished for marrying a girl too young for him and being too empty-

headed. He is cuckolded, as he feared, and his arm is broken. But, worst of all, he is decried by Nicholas and Alisoun as a mad fool:

For whan he spak, he was anon bore doun

With hende Nicholas and Alisoun.

They tolden every man that he was wood,

He was agast so of Nowelis flood

Thurgh fantasie. . .

The folk gan laughen at his fantasye;

Into the roofe thay kiken and jape.

And turned al his harm unto a jape. . .

With othes grete he was so sworn adoun

That he was holde wood in al the toun;

For every clerk anonright heeld with other.

They seyde, "The man is wood, my leve brother";

And every wight gan laughen at this stryf.

(A 3831-3849)

He is derided and discarded as an idiot by the locals, who either know the story of Noah or are laughing at John’s absurd position, or both. They won’t even listen to his explanations: "For what so that this carpenter answerde, / It was for nought, no man his reson herde" (A 3843-3844). Alisoun and Nicholas create a public spectacle for those that payed more attention to the mystery plays. It looks like very heavy-handed justice for the crime of being stupid. The fabliau theme metes out serious penalties for being foolish: physical damage, being cuckolded and public ridicule. That seems a bit harsh for just being jealous and simple.

However, Nicholas has a different problem. He’s too clever and too greedy, the opposite of John. He gets covetous and conspires to spend a whole night cuckolding the carpenter instead of just when he’s out of town. So, he contrives an overly-complicated plan that flatters his intellect, and ultimately succeeds. However, he gets greedy with respect to the joke Alisoun started, adds more insult to the joke while farting in Absolon’s face. Absolon and his iron become the agent of Nicholas’ punishment, even though Absolon thinks Alisoun abused him a second time and that he is punishing her:

And he was redy with his iren hoot,

And Nicholas amydde the erse he smoot.

Of gooth the skyn an hande-brede aboute,

The hot kultour brende so his toute,

And for the smerte he wende for to dye.

(A 3809-3813)

The hot iron serves to chastise Nicholas for his "thonder-dent." However, it is interesting that Nicholas is disciplined not for adultery, covetousness, lying, or causing the carpenter’s injuries and subsequent discredit, but for farting in the face of another clerkly person with adulterous intent. Perhaps the fabliau works on system of tallies: the severity of the damage is equated to the whole of the character’s crimes from the fabliau, rather than on an incident-by-incident basis. After breaking three commandments and perpetrating various other misdemeanors, Nicholas gets off far more lightly than John, who commits no sin but merely acts according to his intelligence.

Absolon also has designs on Alisoun. His two crimes, however, are attempted adultery and waking the various residents of the carpenter’s house. He doesn’t escape unscathed: There is no bodily harm done to him but he is humiliated. Since Absolon is "somedeel squaymous / of fartyng" (A3337-3338), the two disgraces he is subject to are very appropriate. He is duped into kissing Alisoun’s "naked ers" (A 3734) and Nicholas hits him with a noisomely poetic punitive blow that is more offending than damaging:

This Nicholas anon let fle a fart,

As greet as it had been a thonder-dent,

That with the strook he was almoost yblent;

(A 3806-3808)

Moreover, it is interesting that the greatest abuse that Absolon receives is that which he is most afraid of rather than being inflicted with pain: flatulence. Of course, he is also duped into kissing Alisoun’s backside, but that isn’t really as demeaning as being farted on. The severity of Absolon’s crimes (attempted adultery and depriving people of their sleep) don’t really merit much punishment, and Absolon doesn’t get much. He just gets something he finds personally distasteful.

Alisoun’s case is the other extreme relative to her husband’s case. She knowingly conspires and participates in the cuckolding of her husband, as well as tricking Absolon into kissing her "ers." She only makes some pretense at escaping from Nicholas’ lechery and preserving her marriage:

And she sproong as a colt dooth in the trave,

And with hir heed she wryed fast awey,

and seyde, "I wol nat kisse thee, by my fey!

Why, lat be," quod she, "lat be, Nicholas,

Or I will crie, ‘out, harrow’ and ‘allas’!

Do wey your handes, for your curteisye!"

This Nicholas gan mercy for to crye,

And spak so faire, and profred him so faste,

That she hir love hym graunted atte laste,

and swoor hir ooth, by seint Thomas of Kent,

That she wol been at his comandement,

Whan that she may hir eyser wel espie.

(A 3282-3293)

After some petty arguments and courtly speech from Nicholas, Alisoun discards the sacramental marriage vows and gives her love to him. Despite her transgressions, her case is the only one where no justice is served. She escapes without any punishment; she dances to the tunes without paying the piper.

So, "The Miller’s Tale" doesn’t punish Alisoun, mentally traumatizes Absolon, brands Nicholas on the backside and ruins Johns life while breaking his arm. Yet, John committed no crime, Absolon conspired to crimes but did not get to complete them, Alisoun committed adultery and Nicholas plotted the downfall and cuckolding of John. The justice in this fabliau is very haphazard and whimsical, as though it punishes those the audience dislikes as opposed to those who commit the most serious crimes. John is stupid and gullible, which seems a great crime in the world of the fabliau and therefore, he is castigated. Absolon is an effete fop and a lusty churchman. He should receive punishment, and that punishment takes a form to which he is particularly averse. Nicholas gets greedy and is burnt. Had he ignored Absolon and gone back to bed, his "erse" would have remained whole. Alisoun, like so many other adulterous young fabliau women, receives only sexual gratification for her crimes.

The Reeve’s tale isn’t like that. It seems to find strict notions of who overstepped the boundaries and by how much. Consider first the miller himself, Symkyn. While the Cambridge provisioner was "Sik . . . on a maladye" (A 3993), the miller decides to hit his customers hard:

For which this millere stal both mele and corn

An hundred tyme moore than biforn;

For therbiforn he stal but curteisly

But now he was a theef outrageously,

For which the wardeyn chidde and made fare.

But therof sette the millere nat a tare;

He craketh boost and swoor it was nat so.

(A 3995-4001)

This miller’s opportunism goes unchecked; he just doesn’t care what others think.

Symkyn even cheats those who intend not to be cheated. Aleyn and John take the job of getting corn ground to meal and tell their peers that they will not allow the miller to take advantage of them:

Upon the wardeyn bisily they crye

To yeve hem leve, but a litel stounde,

To goon to mille and seen hir corn ygrounde;

And hardily they dorste leye hir nekke

The millere should nat stele hem half a pekke

Of corn by sleighte, ne by force hem reve

(A 4006-4011)

Aleyn and John wish to prove themselves more clever than the miller and show that the gown will not be intimidated by the town. It appears that John and Aleyn are going to prove themselves, as students of Cambridge, quicker and brighter than the miller, who is but a townsman. Another fabliau crime from this miller is his jealousy. He will not tolerate other men to look at his wife, and they won’t look for fear of being slain by one of Symkyn’s various weapons (A 3956-3960).

Aleyn’s transgression is bragging. By plot manipulations and furniture rearrangements, he winds up in bed with Symkyn, and begins to fill him in as though he was John:

He Seyde, "Thou John, thou swynes-heed, awak,

For Cristes saule, and heer a noble game.

For by that lord that called is seint Jame,

As I have thries in this shorte night

Swyved the milleres doghter bolt upright,

Whil thou hast, as a coward, been agast."

(A 4262-4267)

Unfortunately, he boasts thusly to the miller and gets his punishment for bragging; the miller breaks his nose.

However, the miller gets even more. For theft, his wife and daughter are swyved and the grain he stole is reclaimed. On top of all that, his wife crowns him with a staff and the students beat him. The miller’s wrongs are repaid rather harshly. So, in "The Reeve’s Tale," only two people are punished: Aleyn and Symkyn. Aleyn has his nose broken for bragging and Symkyn, for years of thievery and jealousy, is cuckolded and beaten. Although John does some swyving himself, he seems to be within the bounds of legality in this fabliau. By the argument of Aleyn, "That gif a man in a point be agreved, / That in another he sal be releved" (A 4181-4182). So, by the justification of this ancient law, John merely reclaimed what was his.

According to Twentieth Century custom, such a law is by no means legally acceptable. People should not take the law in their own hands. However, in the context of a fabliau, setting Symkyn up to be jealous builds up an expectation of adultery and by making him a thief, builds a similar expectation of someone thieving from him. This foreshadowing of a downfall is similar to the mention of Absolon’s phobia and the utilization of it to bring about punishment. Absolon doesn’t like flatulence, hence he is made an up-close and intimate acquaintance with it. In like fashion, Symkyn makes a big show of preventing his wife from participating in extramarital affairs, so he must be cuckolded.

It seems as though the justice meted out in "The Reeve’s Tale" is much more appropriate to the crimes than that in "The Miller’s Tale." Only those who commit crimes in "The Reeve’s Tale" meet with the harsh justice. Robyn the miller hands down a much harsher story than Osewold, where punishment does not fit the crime. "The Miller’s Tale" seems to be completely random in its allocation of punishment for various sins.

Works Cited

Baugh, Albert C., Ed. Chaucer’s Major Poetry. Englewood Cliffs. Prentice-Hall: 1963.