Merchant's Tale context
- Created by: __Jess
- Created on: 10-01-23 18:44
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- The Merchant's Tale context 1392
- Women
- The Church saw women as representative of temptation, because of Eve
- Most marriages were arranged for the woman to gain financial stability, and for men to gain pleasure and an heir
- Women had domestic responsibilities, but also helped their husbands in the fields
- Eve was illustrated as being able to do manual labour after her fall from paradise
- Women are responsible for man's expulsion from paradise
- Religion
- The Church saw women as representative of temptation, because of Eve
- Religion was deeply entrenched into society
- However there was a growing dislike for the ostentatiousness of the church
- The bible's translation to English meant poorer people could read it
- Meant that more people joined anti-clericalism and lollardy
- Lollardy was a religious movement that wanted protestant-like reforms
- Believed marriage was a private affair, and shouldn't need solemnization in church
- Lollardy was a religious movement that wanted protestant-like reforms
- Meant that more people joined anti-clericalism and lollardy
- Great Schism
- Election of three popes
- Apostle Paul instructed women to remain silent
- Religion
- Women could hold positions of power as abbesses of convents (head of nun convent)
- Christine de Pizan was a successful female writer
- At one point she wrote a harsh criticism on Romance of the Rose
- Influences
- Boccaccio
- De Casibus Virorum Illustrium
- Moral stories about the fall of famous men
- Goddess spins a wheel for her victims
- Determinism
- De Casibus Virorum Illustrium
- Le Roman de la Rose
- An allegory of love, expanded into a satire of contemporary society.
- Boccaccio
- Religion
- Religion was deeply entrenched into society
- However there was a growing dislike for the ostentatiousness of the church
- The bible's translation to English meant poorer people could read it
- Meant that more people joined anti-clericalism and lollardy
- Lollardy was a religious movement that wanted protestant-like reforms
- Believed marriage was a private affair, and shouldn't need solemnization in church
- Lollardy was a religious movement that wanted protestant-like reforms
- Meant that more people joined anti-clericalism and lollardy
- Great Schism
- Election of three popes
- Science
- Astrology was accepted by the church.
- Chaucer wrote a book on cosmology (the evolution of the universe).
- He was also seemingly interested in medicine, physics and alchemy.
- Medicine was still crude, but was advancing. This was mirrored in many doctors inflated sense of self-worth
- Arderne argued that doctors should charge more than an average years wages
- Astrology was accepted by the church.
- Wars
- Breton-Norman War
- Battle of Stamford Bridge
- Revolt of the Earls
- Crusades
- Revolt of 1173
- Loon War
- Welsh Uprising of 1211
- First Baron's War
- First and Second War of Scottish Independence
- Law
- The medieval legal system was relatively complex
- The control was considered excessive, and contributed to the Peasant's Revolt, when they tried to curb wage increases
- The legal system was harsh because they believed that would make people behave - somewhat mirrors Januarie's outlook
- By the 1150s, accused criminals had to go through one of three "ordeals."
- Ordeal by fire
- Accused held a hot iron bar, if the wound healed after three days after being bandaged they were innocent
- Ordeal by water
- Accused tied up and thrown into water. If they floated to the surface they were guilty.
- Ordeal by combat
- Accuser would fight the accused. Whoever won was right. Whoever lost was probably dead.
- Ordeal by fire
- In 1215, ordeals were replaced with jury trials
- After 1275, people could be tortured if they refused to go on trial.
- Very few prisons, as they were expensive.
- It was cheaper to execute or mutilate someone.
- Marriage and love
- Couples didn't need to get married in a church
- The family's permission was not required to wed
- Legal marriage age was 12 for girls, and 14 for boys
- Marriage between classes was frowned upon
- Courtly love
- A literary device rather than a real expression of love
- Love presented as a sort of sickness
- Knight should not tell his lover, rather it is nobler to suffer in silence
- Knight falls in love with a woman of equal social standing
- Cult of virginity
- Virginity was the highest value
- Literature
- Fabliaux
- A metrical story
- Sexual humour
- Set in lower/middle class society
- Jokes are made about respectable figures
- Written for an upper-class audience
- Fabliaux
- Class
- Oppression was ordained by God
- Compensation for a murder victim was based on their social class
- Feudal system
- Women considered a lower class
- Merchants
- Merchant's were considered a bit sinister - the darker side of soldiers
- Gaining more power as the hundred years war brought new profits to England
- There was a sort of merchant oligarchy in London when Chaucer was growing up
- After the Plague, poor people started dressing wealthy - so a law dictated what people could wear
- Madness
- A "stone of madness."
- Existed in the skulls of the mad
- Aristotle - "No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness."
- Seneca - "There is no great genius without a tincture of madness."
- Goethe - "Our planet is the mental institution for the universe."
- A "stone of madness."
- Masculinity
- Four definitions of masculinity
- Heroic masculinity: Based on the ideals for pre-Christian warriors and rulers.
- Men were expected to be physically strong, intelligent and able to maintain rule over people
- Christian males: Encouraged a non-competitive, nonviolent attitude.
- Asserted control through conversion or asserting power over their souls
- Courtly lovers: Men suffered psychologically and physically, in order to prove themselves as worthy to women
- Exerted control through wealth and status
- Intellectual male: Valued the mind over the body. Viewed knowledge as a way to gain power.
- Heroic masculinity: Based on the ideals for pre-Christian warriors and rulers.
- Four definitions of masculinity
- Women
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