The Prioress's Tale, by Geoffrey Chaucer

Chaucer’s Prioress is a very worldly lady who happens to have found herself in charge of a convent. This would not have been unusual in Chaucer’s time, as many young women were sent to nunneries when their families could think of nothing else to do with them. It was a cheaper option than finding them a husband, or perhaps they had been raped or got themselves into trouble and needed somewhere to escape to, either permanently or for a shorter time. Convents, of which there were thousands large and small, were sanctuaries for both rich and poor. They were full of women who, for whatever cause, could not be married, and nothing said that they had to be particularly religious.

As it happens, this Prioress seems to combine religious sentiment with feelings of other kinds. She certainly does not mock religion in the way that the Friar and the Pardoner do, for example. However, she is clearly very concerned to make a good impression on the social front, cultivating her appearance and good manners in ways that seem far removed from those of the convent. For example, she wears jewelry, she arranges her nun’s habit as fashionably as she can, and she even keeps pet dogs. The inscription on her brooch, “love conquers all”, can be taken in either its religion or earthly meaning, but the latter seems more likely. We feel that the sins of the flesh are not far from her mind.

Her Tale is perfectly suited to her as a woman of religion. It is the story of a “miracle of Our Lady”, which is what we could expect from a nun, and many versions of this particular story are known from medieval literature. Some versions of the story had a humorous element, but in Chaucer’s hands it is pathos that is to the fore, as suits a teller of delicate sensibility.

The story concerns a murder of a Christian boy by Jews, which immediately makes a modern reader think that this must be an evil tale of anti-Semitism. However, it would be a mistake to impose our post-Holocaust convictions on a 14^th century tale. What must be remembered is that very few people in England at that time had ever met a Jew. King Edward I had banished the entire Jewish population from England in 1290, and it was not until the mid-17^th century that they were allowed to return. All that the common people knew about Jews was what they heard from the pulpit, namely that they had been responsible for the death of Jesus and the persecution of the Apostles. Jews were evil people in their eyes, capable of any act of barbarity against Christians.

The Prioress begins with a dedication and prayer to Jesus and the Virgin Mary, asking for their blessing and to give her eloquence as she tells her tale.

The Tale

The tale is set in Asia, where there is a Jewish quarter in a predominantly Christian city. In particular there is a street, inhabited by Jews, at one end of which is a Christian school. One seven-year-old boy is particularly devout, always kneeling and reciting the “Ave Maria” when he sees a picture of the Virgin Mary. He overhears some older children singing the “Alma redemptoris Mater”, which is a hymn that forms part of the service of Compline, and asks another boy to translate it for him.

The older boy explains the hymn as best he can, and our hero determines to learn it for himself, especially when he realises that it is a hymn of praise to the Virgin Mary. He therefore rehearses it as he walks to and from school, along the street populated by the Jews.

At this point, the anti-Jewish prejudice of the time is shown very clearly in a stanza that speaks of Satan who “hath in Jewes herte his waspes nest”. The idea of killing the boy is given to the Jews directly by Satan, because the hymn that the boy is singing is “agayn oure laws reverence”. The link between Jewry and Satan could hardly have been made more explicit.

The Jews hire a murderer who cuts the boy’s throat and throws him into a cesspit. His widowed mother searches high and low for him, including asking all the Jews she can find for information, but nobody tells her anything. However, she is led by Jesus to where her son’s body is, and she finds him sitting upright, loudly singing the “Alma redemptoris”, despite being dead.

When the other Christians arrive, attracted by the sound of the singing, they send for the provost who then arrests the Jews. The boy’s body, still singing, is taken to the abbey and all the Jews who knew about the murder are condemned to death by being dragged apart by wild horses and then hanged.

At the boy’s funeral, just as the coffin lid is about to be fastened, he sings again when touched by holy water, at which the abbot asks how this is possible. The boy explains that the Virgin Mary has placed a seed on his tongue that enables him to sing her praises, and that when the seed is removed, he will join her in Heaven. The abbot removes the seed, the boy’s soul is released, and his body is buried in a marble tomb.

In her final stanza, the Prioress refers to “yonge Hugh of Lyncoln, slayn also with cursed Jewes … but a litel while ago”. This incident, which actually took place more than a century before the presumed date of Chaucer’s pilgrimage, and some years before the 1290 ban, was clearly very much a part of contemporary folklore, and is a similar story of a Christian boy murdered by Jews, who suffer a terrible fate as a consequence.

Discussion

As stated in Part 1, it is important to try to read this tale with the 14^th century in mind, not the 21^st. This was a far more credulous age, in which people did not question what they heard from the pulpit, and stories of miraculous happenings would be believed in every detail. It was also an age when the Church was all-powerful and so anything or anyone that opposed it must be evil and to be condemned.

One aspect of all this was that “usury”, or money-lending, was prohibited to Christians and could therefore only be carried on by Jews. The downside of credit is that debts must be paid back with interest, which is one reason for the unpopularity of Jews down the centuries. Anti-Semitism has long had economic as well as religious motivations.

Even with 14^th century eyes, one cannot accept summary and violent justice against a community, for the crime of a few, as being excusable. However, this was what happened in the case of Hugh of Lincoln, and in countless other cases across medieval Europe. The tale of the Prioress is therefore only remarkable in the details of the actual miraculous happenings that she recalls. There is, however, no sense of horror at the fate of the Jews, only at that of the Christian boy.

But we also have to ask if the moral condemnation we are happy to apply to the attitude behind this tale cannot also be applied to ourselves. How many of us today are not guilty of similar sentiments when we hear of an atrocity committed by a member of a community of whom we know little? Substitute “Muslim” for “Jew” and there are many instances today of fearful ignorance being substituted for rationality when it comes to considering the actions of those whose motivations we do not understand. We must still beware of condemning the innocent many for the deeds of the guilty few.

© John Welford