Chaucer - Context

Here's some great Middle Ages Context for our Readings, w/more questions (yay, I'm sure, right guys?!)

Chaucer’s Times:

Social Framework

In the Middle Ages, networks of personal agreements formed the basis of the political, economic and social systems. How these agreements developed and how they were utilised during the early Middle Ages are currently topics of scholarly debate. Nevertheless, by the late Middle Ages, the terminology and concepts that are implied in the designation of a feudal society had been defined by the legal profession and can be applied to the time period of this tutorial.
For noble and peasant alike, the family was the single most important social unit of the Middle Ages and the basis for other relationships. Functioning as a form of social security, the family provided protection and care to the children, the aged and infirm. Family alliances of blood and marriage were utilised to strengthen feudal ties and to increase power bases. In order to prevent the splintering of family property, the law of primogeniture was adopted across most of Europe. Under this law, the eldest son received the full inheritance of the father, leaving younger sons to make their own way…
During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Europe was faced with a series of agricultural, economic and demographic disasters. The arrival of a colder and wetter climate meant that large areas of previously fertile land became unproductive. Crop failures and famines were common by the early fourteenth century and the arrival of the Black Death further decimated the population. At first, the depopulation opened up lands for the survivors but successive sweeps left few to maintain even the best farmlands or to preserve feudal patrimonies…

- How does the role of primogeniture, especially in tandem w/famine and population shortage, reflect on the familial relations in Chaucer’s Man of Law’s Tale?
- How might the famine, plagues, and general social (and therefore governmental) insecurity be related to some themes in our reading?

In the late Middle Ages, the social classes underwent a period of fluidity. Economic conditions favoured the merchant and craft classes, and even the peasantry could demand better circumstances. Feudal obligations between lord and vassal were being replaced by contractual agreements based on payments of money. The economy expanding from an agricultural base to include commercial and manufacturing interests. Also, Europe was no longer in a constant state of warfare and even the Crusades had ceased to be a focus for the energies of the martial nobility. In an attempt to close ranks and protect social status, the noble elite turned their military attributes towards elaborate forms of "mock battle" such as jousts and tournaments, and the martial and moral aspects of feudal society were ritualised into chivalry. This diversion of military prowess developed the romantic ideals of courtly love and knightly honour that have been immortalised in the literature of the time. It is ironic that the fanciful picture of the dignified knight and his lady that will forever be associated with the knights of the Middle Ages was created by the demise of the very systems that shaped it.
- How are concepts of money and wealth approached in our reading?
- How might this reflect or speak to the social environment of the times?
- What personal insight does Chaucer’s tale give us about this situation? (If any – this is just a general question as it is the main point of the course!)

From The End of Europe’s Middle Ages, “Feudal Institutions” from http://www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/endmiddle/FRAMES/feudframe.html

Arising Government and State Frameworks

As the Middle Ages progressed in Europe, feudalism created layers of conflicting laws, customs and traditions. Numerous feudal courts were established under dukes and earls whose interests were often contrary to those of the monarch, threatening royal authority. In an effort to rectify this situation, the monarchs of England, France, Spain, and Portugal took steps to re-establish their authority over the aristocracy and the clergy. They did this by centralising governmental offices and placing officials throughout the kingdom to represent royal interests. As they moved to secure autonomy within their own kingdoms, they also sought to solidify national boundaries. Those monarchies that experienced a move towards greater control by the king through a centralised government are known as the 'New Monarchies'. Despite the similarity of outcome, England, France, Spain, and Portugal each followed slightly different routes and the trend towards centralisation suffered a temporary setback between the early fourteenth and mid-fifteenth century. Wars, internal dissension, riots, famine, and plague disrupted governmental processes and it was not until the end of the fifteenth century that the royal houses of England, France, Spain, and Portugal were able to re-establish control.
- How is this situation portrayed in our reading?
- How does Chaucer approach this seminal time in governmental structuring in his themes?
- How might the idea of “foreign” be a part of this governmental boundary-laying?
From The End of Europe’s Middle Ages, “New Monarchies” from http://www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/endmiddle/FRAMES/monaframe.html

Rome (as it is represented historically) in Chaucer’s Time

The disorganization of the Holy Roman Empire, its ongoing dispute with the papacy over the extent of Church authority in secular government and absentee foreign overlords left Italians largely self-governing within their communes. At the start of the fourteenth century, Italy was a patchwork of independent towns and small principalities whose borders were drawn and redrawn by battles, diplomatic negotiations and marriage alliances. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, many of these petty principalities consolidated into five major political units that precariously balanced power on the Italian peninsula: the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily, the Papal States and the three major city-states of Florence, Venice and Milan. The other minor city-states which co-existed with these larger powers made political stability in Italy even more tenuous as their loyalties shifted from one main force to another.

- Does the disorganization of Europe and stagnation of trade over the continent contribute another layer of foreignness to our reading (esp. in our reading’s use of Rome as a main base of familiarity?)

From The End of Europe’s Middle Ages, “Italy’s City-States” from http://www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/endmiddle/FRAMES/cityframe.html


Syria (as it is represented historically) in Chaucer’s Time

Although the Ottoman Empire is not considered a European kingdom per se, Ottoman expansion had a profound impact on a continent already stunned by the calamities of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and the Ottoman Turks must, therefore, be considered in any study of Europe in the late Middle Ages. The ease with which the Ottoman Empire achieved military victories led Western Europeans to fear that ongoing Ottoman success would collapse the political and social infrastructure of the West and bring about the downfall of Christendom. Such a momentous threat could not be ignored and the Europeans mounted crusades against the Ottomans in 1366, 1396, and 1444, but to no avail. The Ottomans continued to conquer new territories.
One of a number of Turkish tribes that migrated from the central Asian steppe, the Ottomans were initially a nomadic people who followed a primitive shamanistic religion. Contact with various settled peoples led to the introduction of Islam and under Islamic influence, the Turks acquired their greatest fighting tradition, that of the gazi warrior. Well trained and highly skilled, gazi warriors fought to conquer the infidel, acquiring land and riches in the process.

While the gazi warriors fought for Islam, the greatest military asset of the Ottoman Empire was the standing paid army of Christian soldiers, the janissaries. Originally created in 1330 by Orhan (d.1359), the janissaries were Christian captives from conquered territories. Educated in the Islamic faith and trained as soldiers, the janissaries were forced to provide annual tribute in the form of military service. To counter the challenges of the gazi nobility, Murad I (1319-1389) transformed the new military force into the elite personal army of the Sultan. They were rewarded for their loyalty with grants of newly acquired land and janissaries quickly rose to fill the most important administrative offices of the Ottoman Empire.
During the early history of the Ottoman Empire, political factions within Byzantium employed the Ottoman Turks and the janissaries as mercenaries in their own struggles for imperial supremacy. In the 1340's, a usurper's request for Ottoman assistance in a revolt against the emperor provided the excuse for an Ottoman invasion of Thrace on the northern frontier of the Byzantine Empire. The conquest of Thrace gave the Ottomans a foothold in Europe from which future campaigns into the Balkans and Greece were launched and Adrianople became the Ottoman capital in 1366. Over the next century, the Ottomans developed an empire that took in Anatolia and increasingly larger sections of Byzantine territories in Eastern Europe and Asia Minor.
- How does the Ottoman threat, which seemed to be barely held at bay by “Europe” at this time contribute to our understanding of the Sultan of Syria and his mother?
- How might the conclusion of the Syrian thread of the story be related to the current events w/which Chaucer was dealing? (How might the conclusion of their thread also be a promotion of the belief in Western superiority at that time?)
- What feelings/adjectives/rhythms in the language of the work give us the experience of Chaucer’s relationship to the foreign in this reading?
From The End of Europe’s Middle Ages “Ottoman Turks” from http://www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/endmiddle/FRAMES/ottoframe.html