Adam Wyrick
ENG 421 - Kiernan
28 February 2002
The two manuscripts that will be compared to Riverside Chaucer in this paper are the Christ Church and Corpus Christi manuscripts. In this comparison the information gathered has been limited to research found from resources available at the University of Kentucky and electronic sources. Out of the possibly 83 different versions of the Canterbury Tales, only 55 are considered complete including both Christ Church and Corpus Christi (Riverside 1118).
Corpus Christi, estimated to have been written in 1410-1420 (Manly and Rickert vol 2, 46), is one of the texts reconstructed in the Six Text Print of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (Furnivall). Although it is unclear why the Corpus Christi manuscript was chosen to be reconstructed it is known that Manly and Rickert, whose analysis of the manuscripts is highly regarded and often quoted in various textual analyses, used the Corpus Christi manuscript as representative of the c group of manuscripts (Manly and Rickert vol 2, 48). The Corpus Christi manuscript is one of a group of manuscripts known as shop manuscripts, which were sold by London scribes during the 1440-1490s (Benson 1118). The c group is one of the lesser groups, according to Manly and Rickert, the a group being the most accurate to Chaucer's intentions or versions. Many feel the later versions have little value because of "spot consultation" and "normal sixteenth century editorial thinking (1118)." Some of this supposed editorial change lies in things like the order of tales and addition of tales. The order of the tales goes from Fragment I to the Tale of Gamelyn to Fragment II to Squire's Tale to Fragment III to Fragment IV to the Franklin's Tale to Fragment VIII to Fragment VI to Fragment VII to Fragment IX to Fragment X (Manly and Rickert vol 2, 494-495). This closely follows the order Manly and Rickert consider true, which has the fragments occurring in numeric order.
The addition of Gamelyn is considered to have been an editorial addition to complete the unfinished Cook's Tale at the end of Fragment I. There are also arguments that this was written by Chaucer for another character and simply added to complete the Cook's Tale (Knight and Olhgren). Then the move of the Squire's Tale from Fragment V to after the Tale of Gamelyn most likely occurred in order to make the reference to Canacee toward the end of the Fragment II easier to recall by the audience. In this development many feel that group c was first developed in this order and then groups b and d became derivatives of this order (Benson 1118). The next variation from the Riverside edition is when Fragment VIII is moved between the Franklin's Tale and Fragment VI. One reason for this might be that the Second Nun and Canon's Yeoman were considered to be of higher rank than the Physician and Pardoner, and without interruption in the text by the lower classes, this move makes sense in regards to social understanding. Otherwise the Corpus Christi manuscript follows the a group of Manly and Rickert very closely. It does seem odd however that a manuscript that was selected to represent a group would have so many pages missing. Perhaps the others in the group have larger sections missing, but the Corpus Christi manuscript is missing several pages throughout the various tales (Manly and Rickert, vol 3, 232,327,374,417).
Christ Church is considered an aberrant group in the Manly and Rickert ordering of the text. It is estimated to have been written around 1460-1470 (Manly and Rickert, vol 2, 46). This later date pushes the manuscript further from the eyes of critics as being of value because of the fore mentioned augmentations by scribes through the years. The Christ Church manuscript has an order quite different from the other manuscript and has additions unique to Christ Church. Due to this matchless nature, many critics seem to leave it out or leave it as an exception of manuscript orders since it does not easily fit into their understanding of what the original text should have been. The order of the text goes Fragment I to the Tale of Gamelyn to Fragment III to the Clerk's Tale to Fragment VI to Fragment VII to the Franklin's Tale to Fragment II to the Merchant's Tale to Fragment V with the Plowman's Tale in between the Squire's Tale and the Franklin's Tale to Fragment VIII to Fragment X (Manly and Rickert vol 2, 494-495). This may seem like an usual order, but unlike many of the other text it is linked together through several lines with exception to the parts that follow the more traditional order. This is apparently done for some sort of reason although it is not very apparent. It does not follow hierarchical standards, but textual ones, which were either intended by Chaucer himself and it somehow was missed by scribes for several decades or by the scribe himself, but his reasoning for doing so is not clear. Possibly for greater diversity among the class order, but all such guesses are questionable speculation. The text also includes the Siege of Thebes which is a tale written by John Lydgate, but is not considered part of the Canterbury Tales. This is interesting because it shows that there are other text included in manuscripts besides those being analyzed and Christ Church is one of the few manuscripts that mention such additions.
Christ Church includes the Ploughman's Tale, which is not found in any other manuscript. For many years the Ploughman's Tale was considered to have been one of Chaucer's stories that was repressed by the clergy because of the antichurch sentiments found within the tale (Lounsbury, 467-469). Another reason people suspect that the Ploughman's Tale was left out was due to the political nature of peasants during the fourteenth century (Bower). The peasants were accused of opportunism by preachers because the peasants asked for higher wages after many laborers died from the plague. This caused for governmental action to be taken to ensure low wages. Many feel however that this story is not Chaucer, but some other writer because it does not follow his style of characterization or humor. It also breaks from the Prologue which has the Plowman on horseback and in the tale he is on foot. The contention that Chaucer did not write this tale began in the late 1700s and still is debated today (Lounsbury, 472). If it was a repressed tale one wonders as to the likelihood that Chaucer's notes on such a tale still circulating among scribes some 60 or 70 years following his death.
From the research done given the time and resource constraints, there is no evidence that anyone has attempted to find the value inherent in each manuscript and instead all the critics are analyzing the text in a literary sense or are trying to find the truest or true Chaucerian Canterbury Tales. In this sense they have overlooked the Christ Church manuscript and have dismissed the Corpus Christi manuscript as part of an evolution away from the original text. This disregards the value that these manuscripts had for those that thought it was the only Canterbury Tales and the value that is intrinsic. If there are additions and corrections as suspected by many scholars, finding the reasoning behind these changes may lead to greater insight of the time and criticism that must have happened when the original text was written and could conceivable help lead to a purer form of the Tales.
Benson, Larry D. The Riverside Chaucer. Houghton Mifflin Company: Boston, 1987. 468-473.
Bower, Jim M. The Canterbury Tales: Fifteenth-Century Continuations and Additions. 1992. http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/bowers.htm
Funivall, Fredrick James. The Six-Text Print of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Johnson Reprint Corp: London, 1967.
Knight, Stephen and Ohlgren, Thomas H. Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales. The Tale of Gamelyn. Kalamazoo, Michigan: Western Michigan University, 1997. http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/gamint.htm
Lounsbury, Thomas R. Studies in Chaucer. Vol 1. Harper and Brothers: New York, 1891.
Manly, John Matthews and Rickert, Edith. The Canterbury Tales. Vol 1-6. University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 1940.
Generally very well written - needs some revision, however
Inconsistent spelling of Plowman / Ploughman
Knight and Ohlgren do not think Gamelyn was written by Chaucer
Lounsbury (1891) can't be used to show what is debated "today"!
Proofread for misspellings and typographical errors