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A Knight's Chance
Ryan Renfro
As Chaucer’s characters begin their long pilgrimage toward Canterbury, their host, Harry Bailey, proposes that they should all draw straws to determine who will begin the tale-telling contest. At first, this may seem an odd proposal that they should determine the beginner by chance and not by their position in some sort of hierarchy, especially within an age as obsessed with social order as the Middle Ages. However, the notions of risk and game play a large role in The Canterbury Tales, both in the General Prologue and in the contest nature of the work as a whole. Not only does Chaucer subject his knight to the risks involved in the straw-drawing game in the Prologue in order that his honor and position at the head of the social hierarchy may be proven through the trail of chance, but Chaucer also uses the Knight’s victory to place his tale at the beginning of the contest. This placement, when combined with socially descending order of the Prologue, lends emphasis to the disorder of the tales themselves, a vehicle which allows characters to convey their desires in equity.
Although he is the highest-ranking member of the pilgrimage, it
is an essential that the Knight continually prove his worth and
rank within medieval society because his ability to perform under
pressure is needed for protection and stability in that society.
His most basic function being communal protection in warfare, the
knight’s abilities must be frequently tried in order to
maintain his position within a class that possessed a relatively
high amount of social mobility. Chaucer continually
reiterates how “worthy” (GP 44, 47, 64, 68) the Knight
is, “worthynesse” (GP 50) being a quality which must be
continually confirmed through trial. As Caesar said, one
must risk all in order to win all: Thus, if the Knight is
to have honor, he must be willing to risk losing it. There
is no honor in being chosen to go first because it will naturally
go to the person of highest birth and not the most worthy; thus,
the Knight must instead win the honor of doing so.
An age commonly referred to as the Age of Faith, the Middle Ages
produced religious ideas that may explain why Chaucer would
include such a contest at the end of his General Prologue. The
most authoritative of these are the writings of St. Austusine,
who discusses human nature with concern to the fall. According
to Augustine, mankind has lost its special relationship with God
and thus turns to other sources in an attempt to fill in the
vacuum created by the desertion of the soul by God. “Hole-hearted”
humans, i.e. humans lacking a certain divine presence from the
fall, are willing to risk even their lives, as is the case with
Palomon and Arcite, in an attempt to fill in this void. Condemned
by Augustine as cupidity, this pursuit is in the wrong direction
from the narrow path mankind should follow. Mankind’s
obsession with risk is the reason behind their love of games, a
love which Chaucer exploits in his straw-drawing contest.
Chaucer’s pilgrims turn to worldly matters instead of
spiritual ones, and it seems appropriate, considering the overall
worldly and more-than-often fleshly subjects of the tales, to
believe that he seeks to point out the utterly non-religious mood
of these pilgrims. Are they on this pilgrimage as a journey
toward God in the spirit of Abraham, or are they merely seeking
pleasure?
Despite its ties to religious philosophy, the primary issue in
the straw-drawing passage is the sociopolitical, hierarchical
structure of society. Harry Bailey offers the knight the
first draw, calling him “my mayster and my lord” (GP
837). With these words, the Host, who by this point has
taken the leadership role in the pilgrimage, recognizes the
Knight as the highest-ranking member on the social ladder. Not
at all bitter toward or jealous of the Knight, the Host’s
speech in the lines following is worded as if Chaucer was
familiar with Locke’s idea of a social contract, i.e. that
people enter into a social contract with each other when forming
communities. He refers to the drawing as his
“accord” (GP 838), a sort of harmonious correspondence
or agreement.[1] This
agreement, i.e. the drawing or the game, is like a model of
medieval society. In this model, members of all estates
have banded together in order to pursue pleasure in the case of
the smaller, or for survival in the case of the entire society
which it represents. In both instances the best will
naturally rise to the top or come before the others.
It comes as no
surprise when the Knight draws the shortest straw. Chaucer
may even have written humorously “Were it by aventure, or
sort, or cas, / The sothe is this, the cut fil to the
knyght” (GP 844-5), as if it were by pure accident[2] that the knight becomes
the victor, or as if anyone else stood a chance.[3] Everyone in
Chaucer’s day knew the knight would win the contest because
of his birth, and the way Chaucer plays with the idea that this
could have happened by chance could be interpreted as humorous.
The contest goes to the Knight by fate[4], or rather predestination in Augustinian
terms. Fate is what ultimately determines the Knight’s
position: As worthy as he may be, he is nothing without divine
favor. He is destined to win, just as he is destined to
hold his position in society, because he is chosen by God to do
so and because he is better than the other pilgrims.
As may be expected,
the Knight performs perfectly in this game, just as he would in
society, by observing the rules of Mutual Charity. The
Narrator describes him as “wys…and obedient / to kepe
his foreward by his free assent” (GP 851-2). He keeps
his part in this contract[5] by doing what is bidden
him by fate in and of his own free will.[6] He therefore accepts the lot reasonably
given to him[7] in this combination[8] or covenant and proceeds
to tell his tale: “And telle he moste his tale, as was
resoun, / By foreward and by composicioun” (GP 847-8).
In other words he must tell his tale because he is bound to by
the agreement made before the straws were drawn. The other
pilgrims have agreed to the terms of this game as well and are
“ful blithe and glad” (GP 846) when the best man is
chosen.
Chaucer by no means begins his discussion of rank with the
drawing of the straw. Before he introduces the characters
he writes,
Me thynketh it acordaunt to resoun
To telle yow al the condicioun
Of ech of hem, so as it semed me,
And whiche they weren, and of what degree,
And eek in what array that they were inne;
And at a knyght than wol I first bigynne (GP 37-42).
In these lines Chaucer states that he thinks it is reasonable, or a suitable procedure, that he should tell the “condicioun” (GP 38) or condition, meaning the position in regards to the grades of society concerning wealth, circumstance, manners, and morals,[9] of each of the pilgrims beginning with the Knight. More specifically Chaucer declares that he will begin with “a knyght” (GP 42), thus implying that it is with the rank of knighthood and not the individual with which he wishes to begin. By beginning with the Knight in his description of the characters and later Bailey’s offering of the straws followed by the Knight’s victory, Chaucer creates the expectation that the whole collection of tales will proceed in this socially descending fashion.
Why, however, is this initial ordering in descent down the social ladder significant? The answer comes just after the Knight finishes his tale when the Host calls on the Monk for a tale to match the Knight’s: “Now telleth ye, sir monk, if that ye konne / Somwhat to quite with the knyghtes tale” (MilP 3118-9). Bailey and the other pilgrims assume that the Monk, as a member of the higher classes, is the best choice to compete with the Knight. However, the Miller interrupts at this point, declaring, “I kan a noble tale for the nones, / With which I wol now quite the knyghtes tale” (MilP 3126-7). Drunk as he may be, the Miller is confident that he can tell a tale just as noble as the Knight’s. The Host is not all too thrilled with this obstruction of the normal flow of things and replies, “Som bettre man shal telle us first another, / Abyd, and lat us werken thriftily” (MilP 3130-1). Moreover, the Host seems insulted that the Miller has forgotten his place and wishes to speak before his betters. After this point the tales are told in an unseemly manner in that they are out of order as concerning the class of the narrators.[10] With this structure in mind, Chaucer orders the General Prologue and the straw-drawing contest to emphasize the disorder of the tales following the Knight’s.
Since Chaucer takes the trouble to structure the General Prologue in a manner as to alert the reader to the disorder of the tales, one may deduct that he has sufficient cause to structure it in such a manner. Chaucer’s reasoning behind his ordering is likely that it is a tool to convey not only the nature of this group and of a pilgrimage, but an idea or portrait of human desire as well. Although the straw-drawing game goes in accordance with the structure of society, it soon becomes apparent that the members of this company have stepped out of their positions in society and joined a new group in which their identities are no longer what they were in the real world. The Miller may speak when a better man, the Monk, should be speaking, just as the Squire is very rudely interrupted in the middle of his tale by the Franklin.[11] Thus, each character is able to speak as they like with a great amount of freedom and equality, an ability which springs from the voluntary nature of the group. The Narrator becomes a member of the group just by speaking with them: “So hadde I spoken with hem everichon / That I was of hir felaweshipe anon” (GP 31-2). The only example besides Harry Bailey’s of someone gaining membership in the fellowship, the Narrator’s entrance displays how nonexclusive this group is. Due to their freedom, characters are able to speak how and when they like, a tool that allows Chaucer to reveal their desires.
In the contexts of a communal discourse, Chaucer permits his characters to voice their desires through their tales. The Knight is very idealistic when it comes to matters of chivalry and courtesy and tells a tale that is concerned with winning an idealized Emily and not with the real flesh-and-blood woman. What he desires is more than a temporal woman but and idea or concept of a woman. The Miller’s Tale, in contrast, is more concerned with bodily matters, and he is undoubtedly arguing with the Knight about exactly what is desirable from the opposite sex. The Miller wants his ideas and desires to compete with the Knight’s in this game. As the other most physically powerful male in the company and “a stout carl for the nones” (GP 545), the Miller undoubtedly holds some animosity towards the Knight and takes control whenever he can, whether it be in telling his tale when he sees fit or leading the group out of town with his bagpipes.[12] At any rate, the Miller does not want to be overshadowed by the Knight, and just as the Knight he conveys his wants and desires through both his tale and its placement in the Canterbury Tales. With their desires, particularly concerning matters of love, neatly packaged into little stories, each of these pilgrims risks losing to the other in that his tale, and thus desires, may be judged not as good as or less important than the other’s. Despite the possibility of loosing, each needs to express his desires if they are to be heard and consequently judged by his peers, a necessary judgement if his desires are ever to be considered worthy.
The issues of the game, risk, desire, and order strike straight to the heart of the Canterbury Tales. Because Chaucer’s company is comprised of a hodgepodge of individuals of different social standings, he is able to convey how these different groups interact with one another. Chaucer allows them to voice their desires in competition with one another, as opposed to other works of the period such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight which tend to stay within the confines of one particular class or estate. In the end Chaucer’s interaction between individuals, and indeed all classes and sexes in the Canterbury Tales, is an interaction among equals, a rare instance in the Middle Ages.
[1] “accord” OED.
[2] “aventure” OED.
[3] “case” OED.
[4] “sort” OED.
[5] “foreward” OED.
[6]“assent” OED.
[7] “resoun” OED.
[8]“composicioun” OED.
[9] “condition” and “degree” OED.
[10] “thriftily” OED. The text gives the definition “profitably,” which according to the OED was not in use during Chaucer’s day.
[11] Squire’s Tale 673-708.
[12] “A baggepipe wel koude he blowe and sowne, / And therwithal he broughte us out of towne.” (GP 565-6)