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CHAUCER AND THE SEVEN 
 DEADLY SINS 
 
 BY 
 
 FREDERICK TUPPER, Je. 
 
 j, [Eeprinted from the Puhlications of the Modem Language Association 
 of America, xxes, 1.] 
 
 The Modebk Lawouaoe Association of Auebioa 
 igi4 
 

 h.Z>%SzZ7^ 
 
 
CHAUCER AND THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS 
 
 Among men of the Middle Ages no theme, religious or 
 secular, was more widely popular than the motif of the 
 Seven Deadly Sins. From summae and sermons, from 
 " mirrors " and manuals, from hymns, " moralities," and 
 hooks of exempla, from rules of nuns and instructions of 
 parish priests, from catechisms of lay folk and popular 
 penitentials, and finally from such famous allegories as 
 De Guileville's Pelermage every medieval reader gleaned 
 as intimate a knowledge of the Sins as of his Paternoster 
 and his Creed, and hence was able to respond to every 
 reference to these, explicit or implicit. Moreover this 
 theme, which had absorbed the attention of Dante through 
 many cantos of his Purgatorio, so familiar to Chaucer, 
 had, in our poet's own day, won vivid portrayal from 
 Langland in Piers Plowman and had claimed eighteen 
 thousand lines of prolix analysis in the Mir our de I'Omme 
 of the moral Gower. And even now, while Chaucer's 
 own Tales were in the making, Gower's Confessio was 
 reared high upon the foundation of general interest in 
 this motif. 'No wonder that it made an irresistible appeal 
 to Chaucer too ! 
 
 Before any discussion of a partictilar use'of the Sins is 
 possible, it is necessary to say a few words of the place of 
 these conceptions in medieval thought. The Vices, unsys- 
 tematized and unclassified in the writings of the Fathers, 
 and unreduced to a strict sevenfold division in the hom- 
 ilies of early Englishmen, like Aldhelm and ^Ifric, who 
 recognize eight principal Vices, were afterwards adapted 
 to rigid categories, and acquired phases and features 
 
 93 
 
94 FEEDEEIOK TUPPEK 
 
 which soon became stereotyped.^ The very order was fixed 
 by convention: Pride, Envy, Wrath, Sloth, Avarice, 
 Gluttony, Lechery. This is the sequence of Dante's 
 circles of Purgatory, of the elaborate analyses in Gower's 
 Mirour and Confessio, in Wyclif 's Sermons, in Chaucer's 
 Parsons Tale. But evidently this order was not felt to 
 be sacrosanct, as frequent divergences show.^ 
 
 More formal even than the sequence of the Sins are the 
 traits assigned to each. When Shakspere inveighs in Ovid- 
 ian fashion against " that monster Envy " or " pale 
 Envy " or " lean faced Envy in her loathsome cave " or 
 points to "the unyoked humor of your idleness," he 
 is not using stock conventions of the formula; but 
 when Chaucer apostrophises an envious woman as a 
 serpent and her sin as Satan-born (B. 357) or hails 
 Idleness as "the nurse unto vices" (G. 1), he is re- 
 
 ' See Trigga, Introduction to Assembly of the <}ods {E. B. T. Soc, 
 Extra Series, 69 ) , pp. xix f . 
 
 'In the Parable of the Castle of Love in the Cursor Mundi 11. 
 10040 F (cited by Triggs, p. Ixx), the order of the Sins is Pride, 
 Envy, Gluttony, Lechery, Avarice, Wrath, and Sloth (though in the 
 Book of Penance in the same work the normal order is followed) ; in 
 the sequence of Tales in the Handlyng Synne, Pride, Wrath, Envy, 
 Sloth, Avarice, Gluttony, Lechery (though the lines against Tour- 
 naments, 4570 f. respect the normal order); in Piers Plowman, B. 
 v.. Pride, Lechery, Envy, Wrath, Avarice, Gluttony, and Sloth, but in 
 the feofment of Passus ii, 79 f., Pride, Envy, Wrath, Lechery, Avar- 
 ice, Gluttony, Sloth. The order in the Mireour du Monde and the 
 Ayenbite is Pride, Envy, Wrath, Sloth, Avarice, Lechery, Gluttony, 
 and the Sins of the Tongue. Jean de Meung's Testament (n, 87) 
 11. 1692 f. offers two widely divergent orders. Even in ecclesiastical 
 documents appear variations from the norm. In " Peckham's 
 Constitutions " Gluttony is the fourth Sill and Sloth the sixth, 
 while in the "York Convocations" the order is reversed (see Lay 
 'Folk's Catechism, E.B.T. Soc., 118, p. xvii). In all lists, however, 
 Pride is the first of the Sins. Deference to the alphabet in the ex- 
 ample-books, whjch invariably illustrate the Vices, shatters com- 
 pletely any conventional sequence. 
 
CHAUCEE AND THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS 95 
 
 peating traditional commonplaces. Only voluminous 
 reading in the literature of the Sins will enable one 
 to 'distinguish readily all the branches and twigs of the 
 deadly tree. And such a reader is interested to find 
 that the medieval categories of error often run directly 
 counter to our conceptions. From our point of view it is 
 natural to .protest against the inclusion of " the thief on 
 the cross " under Langland's head of Sloth, and yet, as 
 E. W. Chambers points out,^ that dilatory sinner finds a 
 place in every formal description of that vice. It seems 
 reasonable to condemn Chaucer, as Simon and Eilers have 
 done, for his subheads of Wrath in the Parson's Tale, but 
 these very traits of " Idle Words " and " Chiding," are 
 features of the Sin in many a collection. A seeming 
 hodge-podge of evil traits in the famous feofment of Piers 
 Plowmanj Passus ii, resolves itself, when scanned through 
 fourteenth-century glasses, into a lucid and time-honored 
 classification of the Vices.* Hence we must not be sur- 
 prised to find that to Chaucer and his fellows Inobedience 
 of every kind is one of the chief heads of Pride, that 
 TIndevotion in worship is very prominent among the 
 phases of Sloth, that Murmuration or " Grrucching " 
 against one's own wretched lot belongs as truly to Envy 
 as does Detraction of one's neighbors. It is true that the 
 formula of the Sins is not so fixed as to forbid all varia- 
 tions from its categories, but these variations soon become 
 traditional and cause little confusion. For instance. 
 Swearing or " Great Oaths " is usually classed under the 
 head of Wrath, and yet in Langland more than once it is 
 transferred to Gluttony both as a fault of the mouth and ag 
 a feature of tavern-revel. So, too. Chiding as a Sin of 
 
 • Modem Language Review, Jan., 1910. 
 •Chambers, I. <i. 
 
9G BEEDEEIOK TUPPBK 
 
 the Tongue, is sometimes found apart, as in the Ayenhite 
 and Mireoiir du Monde, from its category of Wrath. 
 Poverty finds a place under both Pride and Envy, and 
 occasionally under Avarice; yet here there are obvious 
 distinctions in the point of view. Generally the limits of 
 variation are so definitely fixed that an exemplum of the 
 Sins, even though its title or tag be lacking, can be 
 referred easily to its appropriate head by the discrimin- 
 ating student of the old formula. 
 
 Everyone recalls Chaucer's formal presentation of the 
 Deadly Seven in the Parson's Tale, in due accord with the 
 traditional demands of penitential sermons.*' Even the 
 superficial reader cannot fail to remark his casual refer- 
 ences to each and all the Vices in the course of the Canter- 
 bury stories : — the passing mention of " the sinnes sevene " 
 in The Merchant's Tale (E. 1640), of Envy in the Physi- 
 cian's story (C. 144:), of Pride in the Second Nun's (G. 
 476), of G-luttony (Drunkenness) and Luxury in the Man 
 of Law's (B. YYl f., 925 f.) ; and the incidental discussion 
 of Wrath, Avarice, and Idleness in the Tale of Meliheus 
 (§§ 18, 51-52, 57-58). Moreover I have recently discov- 
 ered that The Canterbury Tales offers us yet another treat- 
 ment of the Sins, not casual but organic; that in several 
 of the stories the poet finds these familiar conceptions of 
 medieval theology so serviceable a framework that he 
 recurs often to the well-known formula as a convenient and 
 
 *' Contemporary interest in Chaucer's treatment of the Sins is il- 
 lustrated by the drawings that accompany the Parson's text in ms. 
 Gg. 4. 27, Univ. Cambr. fols. 416, 432, 433: Envy on his wolf, and 
 his antitype Charity; Gluttony on a bear, offset by Abstinence; and 
 Lechery with goat and sparrow opposed to Chastity. These figures 
 of Vices and Virtues — "being all that were not cut out of the ms. 
 by some scoundrel" (Furnivall) — correspond accurately to the 
 symbolism of the Sins in The Assembly of the 0ods. 
 
CHAUCEB AND THE SEVEIT DEADLY SIKS 
 
 97 
 
 suggestive device of construction. This architectonic use 
 of the motif — hitherto unsuspected — it is now my pur- 
 pose to consider. As there is no better way of convincing 
 others than to trace the steps by which oneself has become 
 convinced, I shall now indicate the stages which led me, 
 during the past summer, to a conclusion that may have 
 large significance for students of The Canterbury Tales. 
 
 In a recent article in The Nation (October 16, 1913) 
 I have pointed out that " the interpolation by the Chaucer 
 Society, of the Tales of the Physician and the Pardoner 
 between the stories of the Nun's Priest and the Wife of 
 Bath is opposed not only by the evidence of the manu- 
 scripts, but by the valuable though neglected testimony of 
 the Marriage motif." ^ 
 
 When in accord with the EUesmere or A-type tradition, 
 favored here by Tyrwhitt and Skeat, I placed the Physi- 
 cian's and Pardoner's stories directly after that of the 
 Franklin,* I was struck by a peculiar circumstance. 
 Here together, after the necessary shifting of the B^ stories, 
 were the Physician's version of Gower's theme of Lechery 
 in the Confessio Amantis'' — the foul wrong meditated 
 
 ° The conclusion expressed in my Nation article, that, " as ' Group 
 C ' the narratives of Physician and Pardoner interrupt the progress 
 of the spirited discussion of women's counsels and the wifely rela- 
 tion begun in the MeUheus, etc.,' was reached simultaneously by 
 Professor W. W. Lawrence in the pages of Modem Philology (Octo- 
 ber, 1913). This coincidence constitutes an interesting confirmation 
 of the view just presented. 
 
 " It seems to me a potent additional argument for the order here 
 adopted, that the Physician's story of oppressed virginity courting 
 death rather than disgrace follows so naturally upon the Franklin's, 
 many illustrations of this pathetic theme (F. 1364 f.). 
 
 ' Gower's use of the story of Appius and Virginia ( Confessio 
 Amantis, vn, 5131 f.), for which Chaucer was indebted to the 
 Roman de la Rose, 5613 f., is ample proof of the fitness of the tale 
 as an exemplum of Lechery and its antitype, Chastity. Here is 
 
98 FBEDEEICK TUPPEE 
 
 against Virginia, the gem of chastity, by Appius Claudius 
 and its tragic consequences; the Pardoner's long attack 
 upon Avarice and Gluttony (and its attendant evils) fol- 
 lowed by his tale that admirably illustrates both, the story 
 of three rioters who meet death through their covetous- 
 ness f and the Second Nun's Prologue on Idleness, intro- 
 ducing that antitype of Sloth, Saint Cecilia,^ the " bee " 
 
 that phase of Lechery, discussed by Chaucer in the Parson's Tale, 
 § 76, 11. 867 f., " Another sinne of Lecherie is to bireve a mayden 
 of hir maydenhede; for he that so dooth, certes, he casteth a mayden 
 out of the hyeste degree that is in this present lyf," and already 
 illustrated by the Franklin's eceampla from Jerome {supra). Vir- 
 ginia's close resemblance to the " consecrated virgin " ideal of pa- 
 tristic treatises, which I shall discuss later, emphasizes the signal 
 fitness of the old tale as an exemplum of Lechery. 
 
 ' Nobody can doubt that the Pardoner's Tale is primarily an 
 exemplum of Avarice. In variants so far afield as those of Italy 
 and India, the same moral is pointed. In the Italian version Le 
 Ciento Novelle Antike, No. 83, Christ warns his disciples against 
 the fatal effects of Avarice. The Buddhist analogue, the 48th Jd- 
 taka shows, like the English story, that " the passion of Avarice is 
 the root of destruction " ( Skeat, Chaucer, in, pp. 439-443 ) . So the 
 German variant, Hans Sachs' Fastnachtsspiel, Der Dot im Stock, is 
 an " erschrQcklich pey spiel " of Covetousness. ( Modem Philology, IX, 
 p. 19.). The Gluttony element in the Pardoner's narrative (drunken- 
 ness with its concomitants of tavern revel, dicing and great oaths) 
 though secondary, is not less obvious, as the rascal himself immedi- 
 ately supplies the application at great length ( C. 480 f . ) . The val- 
 ue of this Gluttony background as exemplum material is attested by 
 the striking parallels from the example books cited by Miss Petersen 
 as illustrating the inevitable accessories of the Sin, Gaming and 
 Swearing {The Sources of the Nonne Prestes Tale, pp. 98-100). The 
 Pardoner himself notes in his Prologue ( C. 435 ) , " Than telle I hem 
 ensamples many oon," etc. 
 
 ' It is noteworthy that in the Flores Exemplorum, vn, xlvii, 1, 
 Cecilia exemplifies Fortitude, which, as the Parson tells us (I, 
 727 f.), is the "remedy" against the Sin of Sloth: — " Agayns this 
 horrible sinne of Accidie (Sloth), and the branches of the same, 
 ther is a vertu that is called Fortitude or Strengthe; that is, an 
 affeccioun thurgh which a man despyseth anoyous thinges. This 
 
CHAUCEE AND THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS 99 
 
 of the medieval homilist/** renowned not only for her celi- 
 bacy but for " hir lasting businesse " (G. 98, 116-117) : — 
 
 Ful swift and bisy ever in good werkinge, 
 And round and hool in good perseveringe. 
 
 Here then were fotir of the Seven Deadly Sins, Lechery, 
 Avarice, Gluttony, Sloth. Had this fourfold treatment 
 (I am not insisting now upon the sequence) of the motif 
 any significance? Possibly none, unless it appeared that 
 Chaucer had treated the three other Sins as well. And 
 then I remembered that he had handled Gower's theme of 
 Pride (Inobedience)^^ in the Wife of Bath's Tale, 
 Gower's theme of Wrath (Chiding)^* in the Manciple's, 
 
 Tertu is so mighty and so vigorous, that it dar withstonde mightily 
 and wysely kepen himself fro perils that been -wicked, and wrastle 
 agayn the assautes of the devel. For it enhaunceth and enforceth 
 the soule, right as Accidie abateth it and maketh it feble." 
 
 "In the Sermones Aurei of Jacobus a Voragine (1760, pp. 361- 
 362 ) , to which Professor Lowes draws my attention, Saint Cecilia is 
 likened to a bee on account of her five-fold busyness; her spiritual 
 devotion, humility, contemplation, teaching and exhortation, saga- 
 city. All of these traits are abundantly illustrated in Chaucer's 
 story of the Saint (former material converted to the purposes of 
 the motif) ; and, as we shall see later, the first form of " businesse," 
 spiritual devotion, is in complete accord with the tone and function 
 of the " Invocatio ad Mariam," that antidote to Sloth which follows 
 the Idleness Prologue. This introductory matter has been wisely 
 retained from an earlier time. 
 
 "^Gower's Tale of Florent {Confessio, i, 1407-1861), the close ana- 
 logue of the Wife's story, is directed " against those inobedient to 
 love," and is moreover designed, through the pattern of the obedient 
 knight, to teach the Lover to obey his love, " and folwe hir will be 
 alle weie." It is significant that Chaucer places Inobedience fore- 
 most among the divisions of Pride {Parson's Tale, 390). Gower 
 makes it the second branch of the Sin. "A few touches of minute 
 resemblance," says Macaulay ( Confessio, Vol. i, p. 472 ) , " may sug- 
 gest that one poet was acquainted with the other's rendering of the 
 story." 
 
 "Gower tells very briefly {Confessio, ni, 783-817), the story of 
 
100 FEEDEEICK TTIPPEB 
 
 and Gower's theme of Envy (Detraction) ^^ in the Man of 
 Law's. Here were the other three, — Pride, Wrath, 
 Envy. The entire adequacy of the stories as exempla of 
 ; the Sins was thus established beyond question by Gower's 
 use in four casics, and in the others by their intrinsic fit- 
 ness for that purpose and by the testimony of analogues. 
 But did Chaucer, like Gower and the exemplum writers, 
 intend that these narratives should illustrate the Vices, or 
 did he ignore utterly the very obvious applications ? Then 
 T turned to the Tales themselves, and was confronted by 
 twofold evidence that the poet deemed them exempla of 
 the Sins. 
 
 First, each of the stories was accompanied by a preach- 
 ment against the Sin in question. The long harangue of 
 the Wife's heroine (D. 1109 f.) against the arrogance 
 which so often attends birth and fortune, but which is 
 fatal to true " gentilesse," has frequently invited compari- 
 son with passages in Boethius, Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, 
 and the Roman de la Rose. But no one seems to have 
 remarked that this excellent sermon is but an expansion 
 of the commonplaces that inevitably appear in all medie- 
 val discourses upon Pride. If we set by the side of the 
 Wife's lines,- the Parson's discussion of the " pryde of 
 gentrye " and " general signes of gentilesse " (I. 460- 
 
 Phoebus and Cornis, to illustrate Chiding or Cheste, the second of 
 his divisions of Wrath. We shall see that hia moral is exactly the 
 samff as Chaucer's, who derives his story directly from Ovid. 
 
 ^ Gower's story of Constance, told to exemplify Detraction, an im- 
 portant phase of Envy, has in its phraseology so much in common 
 with Chaucer's version (Skeat, m, 413-17) as to suggest ithat in 
 several places one poet copied the other. If we believe with Liicke 
 {Anglia xrv, p. 183) and Tatlock {Devel. and Ghronol., chap, v, § 6), 
 that Chaucer was the copyist, we must perforce admit his knowledge 
 of the value of the tale as an exemplum of Envy. More of this 
 later. 
 
CHAirCEE AND THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS 
 
 101 
 
 474)/* John Wyclif's eloquent chapters upon the folly of 
 pride of birth and pride of riches and prosperity, ^"^ and 
 Gower's comnientary upon true nobility, and upon the 
 relation of rich and poor,^® we can no longer have the least 
 doubt of Chaucer's purpose. He has introduced a Pride 
 sermon into the fitting environment of a Pride tale. More- 
 over it is noteworthy that Grower classes the contempt of 
 the rich lord and lady for the poor and humble, under the 
 Inobedience phase of Pride,^'' just as Chaucer does here. 
 The medieval reader, unlike the modern critic,^* found 
 nothing irrelevant or unseasonable in the Dame's homily 
 against Pride. 
 
 The Manciple's Tale, which, as Gower's use of the theme 
 attests, is so well designed to illustrate the Chiding phase 
 of Wrath, is supplemented quite in the exemplum man- 
 
 " Indeed in the prose of- Mackaye and Tatlock's version of the 
 Tales, it is hard to distinguish throughout many lines the Wife's 
 words from those of the Parson's discourse on Pride. They might 
 well be interchanged. 
 
 ■^ Arnold, Select Works of John WycUf, ni, pp. 125-127. Compare 
 with Chaucer's " Christ wol, we clayme of him our gentilesse, etc.', 
 Wyclif's " Have we nobley of cure fader and moder, that ben Jesus 
 Crist and his spouse, holy Chirche, for by this noble kin we schal 
 be gentil in heven " etc. Strangely enough " Gentilesse " is intro- 
 duced under Sloth by Gower, Confessio, iv, 2200 f . 
 
 >= Cf. Mirour de I'Omme, 12073 f., 23380 f. It is a chief phase of 
 Pride to scorn the poor, or as Langland says, B. ii, 79, " to be 
 princes in pryde and poverte to despise" (Cf. B. xiv, 215, " Pryde 
 in richesse regneth rather than in poverte, etc."). The contrast be- 
 tween the Dame's praise of Poverty here and the "grucching" 
 against Poverty in the Envy Prologue (cf. also Melibeus, § 50, B. 
 2748 f.) is paralleled by the juxtaposition of willing and impatient 
 Poverty in DeCJuileville's Pilervnage, (Lydgate), pp. 605 f., 22685- 
 22772. Wyclif, like Chaucer, emphasizes in his Pride chapter (m, 
 p. 126), the dangers qf wealth, from which the poor man is free, and 
 points to the Poverty of Christ and his Apostles. 
 
 "Cf. Mirour, 2220 f. 
 
 " Cf. Macaulay, Confessio Amantis, Vol. i, p. 472. • 
 
102 FEEDEEICK TUPPEB 
 
 ner ("Lordings, by this ensample I you preye "), by a 
 long "morality" against Chiding, (H. 309-362). For 
 this Chaucer is indebted not only to Albertano of Brescia's 
 treatise, De Arte Loquendi et Tacendi, but to his own 
 Parson's sermon, in its section upon Wrath (I, 647 f.)-^^ 
 That Chaucer's purpose in both tale and morality is the 
 same as Gower's is, moreover, established by the close 
 resemblance between his " application " and that of his 
 friend (Confessio, lu, 831-835) : — 
 
 Mi sone, be thou none of the. 
 To jangle and telle tales so, 
 And namely that thou ne chyde, 
 For Cheste can no consell hide, 
 For Wraththe seide nevere wel. 
 
 Significantly enough both Chaucer and Gower deem Chid- 
 ing one of the divisions of Wrath, ^^ whereas in many 
 medieval catalogues of the Sins, this fault is classed apart 
 from the Deadly Seven as a Sin of the Tongue. Chaucer, 
 however, seems to have recognized the claim of Chiding to 
 especial treatment, since he had already illustrated the 
 general theme of Wrath in his Friar-Stimmoner tales: 
 but more of that in due season. 
 
 The Man of Law's story, Gower's theme of Envy (De- 
 traction), is prefaced by a Poverty Prologue, which all 
 scholars have deemed irrelevant. It is really in entire 
 accord with the Envy motif of the tale that it introduces, 
 since it admirably illustrates typical traits of that Vice 
 
 "It is interesting to compare the Manciple's lines (H. 343 f.), 
 " A Jangler is to God abominable; | Reed Salomon so wys and 
 honurable," etc., with the Parson's words on the same theme (I, 
 648), "Now comth Janglinge, that may not been without sinne. 
 And as seith Salamon, ' it is a sinne of apert folye.' " 
 
 * So also does Langland, B. ii, 74 (Chambers, Modem Languagt 
 Beview, Jan. 1910). 
 
CHAUCEK AND THE SEVEKT DEADLY SINS 103 
 
 •upon wiiich the Parson dwells (I. 483, 489) — grudging 
 against Poverty and sorrow at other men's wealth. That 
 Chaucer's source here, Innocent's famous tract, De Mis- 
 eria Conditionis Humanae,"^ which gives so large a space 
 to the Vices, supplied him with Deadly Sins material in 
 the Pardoner's Prologue and Tale, is a circumstance not 
 without value as an indication of his present purpose. In 
 the second stanza of the Man of Law's Prologue, the poet 
 goes far beyond his source in the dramatic expression of an 
 envy, at once vehement and vindictive. The Tale, more- 
 over, contains references (B. 358-374) — Chaucer's, not 
 Trivet's — to traditional characteristics of Envy, its 
 Satanic origin and serpent-like nature. ^^ Can Chaucer's 
 intent be any longer in doubt ? 
 
 Nothing certainly could be more in the true exemplum 
 manner than the Physician's warning to governesses and 
 parents in the Tale of Lechery (C. 72-104). Whenever 
 the dangers of youth are the theme, the medieval moralizer 
 turns him naturally to father and mother; so Jacques de 
 
 " Migne, Patrologia Latina, 217, pp. 701 f. Innocent's tract is 
 cited by Chaucer in the discussion of Poverty in the Tale of Meli- 
 heus, B. 2758. But Dame Prudence's dispraise of Poverty has 
 in it nought of Envy, since it is characterized by a contempt for 
 ill-gotten wealth (B. 2771-2793), "It is a greet shame to a man to 
 have a povere herte and a riche purs,'' and by a preference for 
 Poverty with a good name and conscience, " than to been holden 
 a shrewe and have grete rich esses " (B. 2820). 
 
 "Every medieval account of Envy, records these traits, traceable, 
 of course, to Wisdoni rr, 24, " Through the envy of the devil came 
 death into the roundness of earth." In DeGuileville's PUerinage 
 14768, Envy is a serpent as in Ancren Riwle — and is moreover the 
 daughter of Pride and Satan. The adder nature of Detraction is 
 illustrated both in the P4lerinage, 23116 and in Ewndlyng Synne, 
 4168. Chaucer's Envious Serpent passage is closely paralleled in 
 Occleve's "Letter of Cupid," (1. 358), borrowed from Christine de 
 Fisan. Compare also Mi/reoiir du Monde, pp. 103, 106. 
 
104 FEEDEEICK TUPPEE 
 
 Vitry takes his stand upon Proverbs xxii^ 6, " Train up 
 a child in the way he should go, etc." ^^ Much more to 
 our purpose is the close resemblance between many lines 
 of the Physician's Tale and the well-known patristic tracts 
 on Virginity. The moral traits of Virginia — ^her humil- 
 ity, her modesty of bearing and array, her abstinence from 
 wine, her discretion in speech, her avoidance of society, 
 her dislike of feasts and dances — are precisely those pre- 
 scribed to the " consecrated maiden " in Ambrose's famous 
 treatise, De Virginibtis.^* Ambrose's presentation of 
 the ideal of virginity and of the perils to which the lamb 
 is subjected from wolves (cf. C. T., C. 102) culminates, 
 as in Chaucer, with a solemn warning to mothers and 
 fathers (III, vi).^^ And the ten-line "application" at 
 the close of the Tale (0. 27Y-286), is the traditional end- 
 ing of an " ensample " of Sin : — 
 
 Heer men may seen how sinne hath hia meryte! 
 Beth war, for no man woot whom God wol smyte, etc. 
 
 So the moral is driven home. 
 
 Thus I found undoubted " moralities " on Pride, 
 Wrath, Envy, and Lechery, accompanying four tales that 
 had been used by Grower to illustrate Pride, Wrath, Envy 
 and Lechery. The conclusion was obvious that Chaucer 
 designed them as exempla of the Sins, and that in his treat- 
 
 '' See Crane, Introduction to Exempla of Jacques de Vitry, p. xlvi. 
 Compare also Bromyard, Summa Predicantium, s. v. " Infantia." 
 
 ^This likeness, which extends even to verbal parallels, must be 
 discussed elsewhere. Chaucer here seems far closer to Ambrose 
 than to those other homilists upon Virginity, Jerome and Augustine. 
 
 "^''What say you, holy women? Do you see what you ought to 
 teach and what also to unteach your daughters!" etc., etc. Am- 
 brose's application was popular in medieval ecoemplum-hooka; com- 
 pare Mores Exemplorum, s. v. " Castitas." 
 
CHAUCEE AND THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS 105 
 
 ment he adhered closely to the strict categories of human 
 errors recognized by all his contemporaries. To maintain 
 that the poet had in these tales no intention of illustrating 
 the Vices and that these closely fitting " applications " are 
 puzzling irrelevancies necessitates not only a disregard of 
 all evidence but an insensibility to the trend of medieval 
 thought. 
 
 In the Sins stories that have no analogues in the Con- 
 fessio but are paralleled in the example-books, Chau- 
 cer's design is quite as clearly manifest. The Pardon- 
 er's long tirades against Avarice and Gluttony and 
 those evils which attend it in many medieval collections, 
 Hasardry and Great Oaths, are largely lifted from the 
 Parson's Tale and from Innocent's tract.^® They offer 
 
 "See Koeppel, Herrigs Archiv, lxxxiv, p. 405, Lxxvn, p. 33-54, and 
 the Notes in Skeat's edition. It is true that, in the Parson's Tale, 
 Hasardry is included under Avarice (I, 792) and Great Oaths under 
 Wrath (I, 587); but both the Ayeribite, p. 52 and Piers Plowman, 
 B. V, link Gluttony and games of chance, and Piers Plowman twice 
 associates Gluttony with Swearing : B. II, 92 f . " Glotonye he gaf 
 hem eke and gret othes togydere And alday to drynke at dyverae 
 tavernes " and B. v, 314, " Thanne goth glotoun in and grete othes 
 after" (cf. Chambers, Modern Language Review, Jan. 1910). Com- 
 pare with the Pardoner's discussion of Gluttony and its accessories 
 that of Bromyard in his Summa Predioanti/um s. v. " Ebrietas "' 
 and "Gula": — "Alii potus excessu. Alii turpibus verbis et can- 
 tilenis . . . ct illicitis juramentis . . . et vanis narrationibus. Alii 
 luxuria et incestu, quia ubi ebrietas ibi libido . . . dominatur. Et 
 sicut patet Gen. 19, ubi dixerunt filiae Loth, ' Inebriemus eum vino, 
 etc.' " " Ludi inordinati et prohibit!, sicut taxillorum et hujusmodi, 
 in talibus communiter plus delectantur pleni quam famelici, juxta 
 proverbium quod dicitur, ' Non possum ludere, neque ridere, nisi 
 venter plenus sit.' Exemplum de Samsone, Judi. 16; et de Judaeis, 
 de quibus dicitur, Exod. 32, ' Sedit populus manducare et bibere et 
 aurrexerunt ludere.' " In the margins of mss. E., Hn., Cp., Pt., and 
 HI. (Pardoner' 8 Tale, 0. 483), is the note, "Nolite inebriari vino in 
 quo est luxuria," quoted from the Vulgate version of Ephesians, v, 
 18. This is cited by Innocent in his tract, De Contemptu Mundi, n. 
 
106 PEEDEEICK TUPPEE 
 
 undeniable evidence that this contribution is an exem- 
 plum of the two vices.^'' As we have already noted, 
 the Second Nun's story of the traditionally busy Saint 
 Cecilia is- prefaced by an Idleness Prologue, which is re- 
 tained by the poet as admirably suited to his present pur- 
 pose. And in even more definite fashion, Chaucer link.^ 
 the tale with the theme of Sloth. Among the chief phases 
 of that Sin is the fault, antipathetic to Cecilia's peculiar 
 virtue, — Undevotion, through which, to quote the Par- 
 son (I. 722 f.), "a man is so blent, as seith Saint Ber- 
 nard, and hath swich langour in soule, that he may neither 
 rede ne singe in holy churche, etc." ^* This Undevotion 
 is definitely represented as neglect of Hymns of our Lord 
 or of our Lady,^® and of the Daily Service.^" Now the 
 
 19, and becomes a commonplace of all medieval descriptions of 
 Gluttony. Compare Holkot in his Leotiones, 21, " scillicfet effective 
 exemplum de Loth, Gen. 19"; Le Testament de Jean de Meun, 11. 
 1748 f. ; DeGuileville, 11. 13060 f. ; Hoocleve, Regement of Princes, 
 3802 f. 
 
 "In DeGuileville's PMerinage (Lydgate), 11. 18104 f., Avarice, like 
 the Pardoner, cheats by sham pardon and relics. 
 
 ^ How large a part Undevotion played in medieval illustrations of 
 Sloth is seen by reference to the example-books. The Liier Exem- 
 plorum ad Usum Predicantium, ed. by Little, Aberdeen, 1908, thus 
 introduces the theme (p. 38 ) : " Quoniam autem orationis devotio et 
 officii eeclesiastici devota audicio accidie repugnant et torpori pro- 
 babile sumitur argumentum quod unusquisque quanto se ab ora- 
 tionis devotione et officio ecolesiastico tempore debito subtrahit 
 tanto accidie et torpori cor suum paratum vasculum r«ddit. Et 
 certe qui se divino officio tempore debito subtrahunt impune tran- 
 sire non possunt." And three out of the four Sloth exempXa that 
 follow relate to zeal in prayer. So in the fifteenth century Alphabet 
 of Tales (E. E. T. Soc, 126, 20), the first exemplum under Sloth 
 je that of the monk who would not attend Matins; compare Herbert, 
 Catalogue of Bomwnces, m, p. 431. 
 
 "It is significant that Sloth in 'Piers Plowman is identified with 
 Undevotion through his portrayal (B. v, 403 f.) as a lazy priest and 
 parson who knows hymns " neither of oure Lorde ne of cure Lady," 
 
OHAUCEE AND THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS 107 
 
 " Inyocacio ad Mariam " of tlie Second Nun's Prologue is 
 drawn not only from Dante but from the Hours of the 
 Virgin in the Prymer or Lay Folk's Prayer Booh,^^ and is 
 therefore the most effective sort of protest against Sloth in 
 its phase of Undevotion. Hence there is a fine fitness in 
 retaining this Hymn of our Lady — ^whatever its time of 
 composition and original function — ^immediately after the 
 stanzas of Idleness in introducing the type of busyness, 
 Saint Cecilia, whose first trait, according to the sermon 
 of Jacobus a Voragine, was the sweetness of spiritual de- 
 votion. Moreover, the lines in the " Invocation " that 
 insist upcin the value of works (G. 64-65, 77, 79) are 
 closely akin to the passage on " werkes of goodnesse " in 
 the Parson's discussion of Sloth (I. 690 f.). 
 
 A close examination of the Tales under discussion thus 
 revealed the significant circumstance that each story which 
 appositely illustrated a Sin, was accompanied by a moral- 
 ity against that particular Vice. But Chaucer went even 
 farther than this in his use of the Deadly Seven as a 
 framework in these narratives. With delightfully sug- 
 gestive irony, he opposed practice to precept, rule of life 
 to dogma, by making several of the story-tellers incarnate 
 the very Sins that they explicitly condemn. 
 
 Of this surprising perversity, the Pardoner is the frank- 
 est example. His attitude is tersely summarized in the 
 words of his Prologue (C. 427-8) : — 
 
 who neglects the service " till matynes and masse be done " and who 
 " can neither solfe ne synge ne seyntes lyues rede." 
 
 »Cf. Sandlyng Synrie, 4241 f.; Gower, Mvrour, 5552 f., 5620. 
 
 "Carleton Brown has remarked (Modern Philology, July, 1911) 
 the liturgical elements in the " Invocation,'' but he has overlooked 
 its direct indebtedness to the " Hours " in the Prymer, with the 
 external history of which book he has elsewhere made us so 
 familiar. All this I shall discuss in another place. 
 
108 PEEDEEICK TUPPEE 
 
 Thus can I preche agayn that same vyce 
 Which that I use, and that is avaryce. 
 
 Who SO avaricious as he that rivals the Parson in large 
 citation of Paul's saying, " Eadix malorum est Cupidi- 
 tas " (C. 334, 423, 905) ? He who inveighs for a hun- 
 dred lines against Gluttony and its subordinate vice, 
 Drunkenness (C. 480-590), is himself so gluttonous that 
 he must pause " to drink and eat of a cake " before begin- 
 ning his story and loves on yon side of idolatry " liquor 
 of the vine " and " a draught of corny ale." Hinckley 
 suggests ^^ that the wildest indiscretions of the Pardoner's 
 Confession are due to drink, Certainly the Wife of Bath 
 (D. 170) hints that he has been taking too much ale. He 
 who thunders against that concomitant of Gluttony, Great 
 Oaths, is often blasphemous.^^ And his ribaldry is such 
 that it disgusts "the gentles" (0. 323-324). It is an 
 interesting coincidence that in Piers Plowman (B-text, 
 Prologue, 76 f.) Pardoners blend Gluttony with their 
 Avarice. I need not labor long to show that the Wife of 
 Bath includes in her complex personality many of the 
 elements of Pride upon which the Parson later dwells: a 
 desire to go first to the offering, vainglory or love of fine 
 clothes, arrogance or lack of humility, scolding or scorn- 
 ing. Yet, while all these traits are sufficiently obvious, 
 they are neither so dominant nor conspicuous as that phase 
 of Pride, which she, the " Venerien," the epitome of 
 worldly affection, proclaims, with all the frankness of the 
 Pardoner, to be her chief fault — " Unbuxomness " or " In- 
 
 ^ Notes to Chaucer, pp. 158-159. 
 
 ^ Contrast with his approving comment upon the Second Com- 
 mandment, " Take not my name in ydel or amis," his frequent oaths, 
 D. 164, "by God and by seint John," C. 320, "by seint Ronyon,' 
 C. 457 "by God." 
 
CHATTCEE AND THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS 109 
 
 obedience " in love. She is essentially the Inobedient, and 
 the sum and substance of the marital confessions of her 
 Prologue is a full and free admission of Unbuxomness. 
 Gower's description of this trait in his picture of " La 
 quinte fiUe d'Orguil, laquelle ad a noun Inobedience " 
 fits the "Wife like a glove {Mirour, 2023 f.) : 
 
 C'est un pecchfi, qui fait desplaire 
 La femme qui n'est debonnaire 
 Au mary, qui la volt amer. 
 
 It is she, the Inobedient, who tells Gower's story of protest 
 against Inobedience. To the medieval reader — particu- 
 larly to him who knew Gower — the irony of the assignment 
 must have been evident; though to us there seems, of 
 course, little irony in the Wife's implicit plea for the do- 
 mestic subjection of the male. But even we must admit 
 the irony of a long harangue against Pride (and against 
 a phase of the Sin, which is classed by Gower as Inobe- 
 dience) on the lips of her who, as many traits attest, is 
 the proudest character among the pilgrims.^* 
 
 'Sovr. for the Manciple. Amusingly enough, the chief 
 feature of the Prologue of this teller of a tale against Chid- 
 ing is his long revilement of the drunken Cook (H. 25-45). 
 This rebuke is obviously suggested by the Parson's picture, 
 in his paragraph on the chiding phase of Wrath, of the re- 
 viler, who dubs his neighbor, "thou holour," "thou dronke- 
 lewe harlot" (I. 623 f.). This chiding is reproved by the 
 Host, and the Manciple makes his amende. Hence the 
 Manciple is himself guilty of the very fault that he con- 
 demns in both his tale and morality. The same delicious 
 inconsistency is found in the representative of Wrath in 
 its larger and more evil aspect, the Summoner, to whose 
 
 "Pride is the only sin personified by Langland (Piers Plowman, 
 B. V, 63) as a woman — Peronel Proudheart. 
 
110 FEEDEBICK TTTPPEE ' 
 
 ireful contribution we must later give especial considera- 
 tion. 
 
 The Poverty Prologue to the Tale of Constance shows 
 us clearly that the narrator of this story of Envy is him- 
 seK tainted by that Sin. This evidence is ample for our 
 present purpose. But it is noteworthy that from the point 
 of view of Chaucer's day, there was an ironical fitness in 
 the final assignment of an Envy tale to the Man of Law, 
 whose profession in the fourteenth century was tainted by 
 Envy as well as by Avarice.*^ l^o Prologue specifically 
 indicates the Physician's peculiar disqualification for his 
 theme of Lechery ; but the medieval reader must have been 
 tickled by the praise of purity from a profession notorious 
 in the fourteenth century for its willingness to increase the 
 passions of lovers through the use of philters described in 
 the wicked book of our Doctor's master, :"Dan Constan- 
 tyn," ^® and for its eagerness " to gete of love his lusty 
 
 "The Man of Law's contrary qualifications for telling an Envy 
 story are illustrated by many writers: by Gower who uses to des- 
 cribe the Lawyer (Vox, vi, 293) the same image of the Basilisk that 
 hs employs to picture Envy (Mirour, 3748 f.); by Hoccleve, who 
 compares (Regement of Princes, 2815 f.) the Law to the venomous 
 spider, which catches little flies and lets big ones go; by Langland, 
 who makes Envy instruct friars "to lerne logik and lawe " (C. 
 xxm, 273) ; and by Bromyard of Hereford, who properly discusses 
 the Avarice and Envy of lawyers under the heads of " Advocatus " 
 and " Causidicus " in his Summa Predicantium. Many passages in 
 Gower's Vox and Mirour and in Wyclif's Sermons (cited by Fliigel, 
 Anglia, xxrv, pp. 484-496 ) and the sorry part played by " Civile " or 
 Civil Law in Piers Plowman prove that the legal profession was 
 
 then infected by covetousness of wealth and contempt for poverty 
 
 by Avarice intermingled with Envy. The Advocate is the butt of 
 many exempla in such example-books as Jacques de Vitry's and the 
 Liber Exemplorum. 
 
 ^ CI. Merchant's Tale E. 1810. January's use of " letuaries " as 
 aids to love is paralleled in the exemplum of the old man who seeks 
 of a physician that prescription called by the doctors, " electuarium 
 
CHAUCEE AND THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS 
 
 111 
 
 mede " through all the devices of Arabist and astrologer, 
 images, calculations, stars, hours of astronomy.^'' This 
 suggestion of satire in the case of the Doctor is only a 
 plausible conjecture. But the objection that we have no 
 hint in the General Prologue of such a trait of the Phy- 
 sician counts for nought, as we hear nothing there of the 
 Gluttony of the Pardoner and of the Chiding of the Man- 
 ciple, of which so much is made in their special Pro- 
 logues. Many things appear in the headlinks and prefa- 
 tory matter of the several tales that were not contemplated 
 by Chaucer in his main Introduction. The elaboration 
 (in the special prologues of Sins tales) of traits that do 
 not occur in the General Prologue merely serves to empha- 
 size the satirical interest of the moment: for instance, 
 the Manciple is made a chider for the nonce to point better 
 the moral through the irony of the situation. Of the Sec- 
 ond Nun, who was finally chosen to present the Prologues 
 and Tale against Sloth, we unfortunately know nothing; 
 but, as Professor Tatlock suggests to me, " there may well 
 be some sarcasm in putting praise of diligence into the 
 mouth of a nun, as no charge against the regulars is com- 
 moner than that of laziness." '* 
 
 Because Gower's use attests the value of four of Chau- 
 cer's stories as exempla of the Sins, and the aptness 
 of others and the testimony of analogues give them 
 
 diasatyrionis, quod prorocat Ubidinem." {Tomus Primus Oonvir 
 viaUum Sermonum by Jean Gast, Basel, 1561, s. v. "Medici.") 
 
 "Cf. Gonfessio Amomtis, Tl, 1292-1358. 
 
 "Mark DeGuileville's reprobation (Pilermage, 11. 23538 f.) of 
 " the nuns who have liberty to sleep and wake at their pleasure, and 
 who take no heed to keep their observance." Four of the six illus- 
 trations of Sloth in Herolt's Promptuarium Ecoemplorum are lazy 
 monks. In Piers Plowman Sloth is, as we have seen, a lazy priest; 
 and to the attack upon the Castle of Unity Sloth leads more than a 
 thousand prelates (B. XX, 216-217). 
 
112 FEEDEBICK TUPPEE 
 
 like warrant, because in each of the tales that deal 
 with the Sins Chavicer points at length the moral, and 
 because he assigns with a delightful irony each of these 
 narratives to a fitting representative of the Sin under 
 rebuke, I was led inevitably to the opinion that the 
 Wife of Bath illustrates Pride, the Manciple, Wrath (or 
 rather that Sin of the Tongue, Chiding) , the Man of Law, 
 Envy, the Physician, Lechery, the Pardoner, Avarice and 
 Gluttony, and the Second Nun, Sloth. More recently sev- 
 eral potent reasons have convinced me that Wrath in its 
 general aspect is represented by ishe Friar-iSummoner 
 Tales: — (1) A wonderfully exact parallel to the angry 
 quarrel between the Friar and the Summoner is furnished 
 in Langland's illustration of Wrath (B. v, 136 f.) by the 
 strife between friars and possessioners or beneficed 
 clergy.^® (2) The Friar's story of the nemesis of hell- 
 pains brought upon a cursing svunmoner by the heart-felt 
 curses of his intended victim exemplifies most accurate- 
 ly the section on Cursing in the Parson's discussion of 
 Wrath (I. 618 f., § 41) : — " Speke we now of swich curs- 
 inge as comth of irous herte. Malisoun generally may be 
 seyd every manor power or harm. Swich eursinge birev- 
 eth man fro the regno of God, as seith Saint Paul. And 
 ofte tyme swich eursinge wrongfully retorneth agayn to 
 him that curseth " ; etc. Compare Handlyng Synne, 
 3757 f. Moreover, this is the very story used by Herolt in 
 his Promptuarium Exemplorum to illustrate " Maledi- 
 cere." Chaucer introduces the element of poetic justice 
 and thus doubles the story's aptness as an exemplum of 
 Cursing (Wrath), by making the curse fall not upon a 
 grasping lawyer, as in Herolt, nor upon a bailiff, as in 
 
 ^ See Skeat's note to the Piers Plowman passage. Compare the 
 parallels of Flflgel, AngUa, xxm, pp. 225-239, xxiv, p. 460. ■; 
 
OHAUCEE AND THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS 113 
 
 another Latin analogue, ""• but upon the mouth-piece of 
 the archdeacon's curse, the suinmoner. The Friar's Tola 
 is therefore an exemplum of the Cursing phase of 
 Wrath. (3) That the Summoner's Tale is also directed 
 against Wrath is indicated not only by the anger of poor 
 Thomas and the boar-like frenzy of the friar, but by the 
 hundred-line homily against Ire, which is put into this 
 same friar's mouth (D. 2005-2090). This sermon is de- 
 rived partly from the Parsons Tale, I. 634, 564 f. 
 (Wrath), but chiefly from Seneca's De Ira. (4) Like the 
 other narrators of Sins stories, the Summoner " uses " the 
 very Vice that he condemns. He whose tale and " moral- 
 ity " expose the evils of Wrath " quakes for ire like an 
 aspen leaf." (5) The irresistible attraction of the Sins 
 theme, broached immediately before in the Wife's con- 
 tribution, explains adequately the abandonment, for the 
 nonce, of the fascinating marriage-debate. That will be 
 res\imed, after Wrath has twice received through the same 
 threefold device of prologue and tale and interpolated 
 " morality " a treatment even more ample than the exposi- 
 tion of Pride. 
 
 Before completing our list of Sins Tales, a word must 
 be said of the Cook's fragment, which presents an inter- 
 esting problem. The story itseK has certainly some of the 
 earmarks of a tale of Gluttony, for it is told by a glutton 
 (cf. the Manciple's Prologue) and has much in com- 
 mon with the tavern setting of Gluttony and its acces- 
 sories in the Pardoner's Tale.*^ That this fragment, 
 despite its present position at the end of Group A, was 
 designed after the tales of the Sins, and was originally 
 
 V 
 
 " Originals and Analogues, pp. 105-106. 
 
 " Mark in both stories the love of drinking, wenching, dancing, 
 dicing, gay music, and riot. 
 
 8 
 
114 FEEDEEICK TUPPEE 
 
 intended to follow the story of the Manciple, is evi- 
 denced by that chiding worthy's Prologue (H. 28-29), 
 where the Cook's story is spoken of as yet untold.*^ Now 
 a story composed immediately after the Sins narratives 
 could hardly escape this dominant motif j and Gluttony 
 would naturally suggest itself not only becavise it is char- 
 acteristic of the drunken Cook, but because it alone among 
 the Vices had not received the separate treatment of an en- 
 tire tale. But on the other hand, the Cook's Tale has 
 nothing of the framework of a Sins story. In his Pro- 
 logue there is no suggestion of Gluttony, nor does the frag- 
 ment contain any " morality " against the Vice. The un- 
 finished sketch, therefore, stands apart from the stories 
 of the Sins. 
 
 We are now prepared to consider the crowning argu- 
 ment for Chaucer's deliberate use of the Sins motif in the 
 Tales under discussion — the close connection between 
 these and Chaucer's own detailed discussion of the Sins in 
 his tract on the Deadly Seven which forms so large a part 
 of the Parson's sermon.*^ That this tract was of early com- 
 position and was freely used by Chaucer in several of his 
 
 " It seems more natural to suppose that this shred of a tale was 
 moved back to the congenial neighborhood of the Miller's and 
 Reeve's Tales than to follow Skeat (ill, 399) in thinking that the 
 line in the Manciple's Prologue marks Chaucer's intention to sup- 
 press this fragment and to give the Cook another tale. 
 
 " That this tract on the Sins is ultimately traceable to a different 
 source from the rest of the sermon on Penitence has been clearly- 
 established by Miss Petersen (The Sources of the Parson's Tale, 
 1901) ; yet the Parson's combination of the themes is in strict accord 
 with the medieval division of Penance into Contrition, Confession 
 (of the Capital Sins), and Satisfaction, and is justified by the large 
 space given to the Deadly Sins in numerous summae and peniten- 
 tials. But in the linking of the Sins with the rest, a certain awk- 
 wardness suggests original separation. 
 
CHAUCEE AND THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS 115 
 
 stories Koeppel long since put beyond question.** But the 
 true significance of this undeniable indebtedness of the tales 
 to the tract has been hitherto overlooked. When into story- 
 after story our poet introduces freely borrowings (both of 
 thought and word) from his treatise upon the Seven 
 Deadly Sins, the conclusion is irresistible that such a bor- 
 rowed treatment of each Sin is neither unconscious nor 
 casual, but deliberately designed. This conclusion be- 
 comes firm conviction, when there are other strong grounds 
 for associating the tale with the Sin upon which the pil- 
 grim narrator is made to moralize almost in the words of 
 the Parson's sermon. The burden of proof certainly rests 
 upon him who dares claim that Chaucer has no intentioiT' 
 of illustrating_Pride,_ when he tags the Wife's Pride 
 ea^emplum with the edifying commonplaces (on Gentil- 
 esse) with which, in much the same language, the Parson 
 has preached against the first of the Vices ; nor that he has 
 any design of exemplifying Wrath, when he draws upon 
 the Parson's discourse on Anger both for the exact motif 
 of the Friar's tale of retribution and for the angry Sum- 
 moner's morality against Ire. What else can the large 
 plunderings of the Pardoner from the Parson's reflections 
 on Avarice and Gluttony and its auxiliary vices betoken 
 save that the rascal is formally illustrating those Deadly 
 Sins? After a comparison of the Parson's section on 
 Sloth with the Prologue of the Second ISTun's Tale, who can 
 miss the present purport of the Idleness stanzas*^ or ignore 
 
 **Herrig'8 ArcMv, 87, pp. 33-54; cf. Miss Petersen, I. c. 
 
 " Between these stanzas and the Parson's sermon, there is a slight 
 verbal connection. In both appear the conventional epithets of 
 Sloth, "Norice into vyces (harm)" and "gate of delices (alle 
 harmes) "; and they share other ideas (Skeat, v, 402), which indi- 
 cate a common purpose. But there is here no proof of direct bor- 
 rowing. 
 
116 FEEDEEICK TUPPEE 
 
 the formal intent of the zest of devotion and zeal of good 
 works in the " Invocation " — all this as a prelude to the 
 story of a typically busy saint ? With what aim does the 
 chiding Manciple conclude his tale of. Chiding by a cop- 
 ious use of the Parson's words against that fault, save to 
 make the ensample's mission clear ? Arid why should we 
 hesitate to regard the Poverty Prologue to the Man of 
 Law's Envy exemplum as a studied presentation of the 
 Envious mood, when the Parson himself assures us that 
 the motif of these stanzas, ' grucching agayns poverty ' 
 and " sorwe of other mannes wele " are among the chief 
 traits of this Vice ? Only one of the Sins tales — that of the 
 Physician (Gower's exemplvm, of Lechery) — confesses in 
 its moralities no indebtedness or close resemblance to the 
 Parson's discussion of the corresponding Vice;*^ but this 
 omission seems the less striking, when we remark the gen- 
 erous use of the section on Lechery in the so-called Mar- 
 riage Group, particularly in the Merchant's Tale. The 
 Parson's portrayal of the Vices thus enters into the frame- 
 work of the Sins Tales and makes obvious the " applica- 
 tion " of ,each. 
 
 The Parson's elaborate treatment of the Deadly Seven, 
 wrought into a penitential sermon, now stands at the close 
 of the Tales " to knitte up al this feeste and make an 
 ende." Is it a thought too bold that this last of the Tales 
 is not a thing apart, but closely connected with all those 
 
 "That the Physician probably knows the Parson's Tale is sug- 
 gested, however, by his casual citation of Augustine's definition of 
 Envy, presented in practically the same words in the Sermon. The 
 association of wine and Venus {Physician's Tale, 58-59), is a com- 
 monplace, as old as Ephesians, v, 18, (supra) and is used not only by 
 the Parson but by the Wife and the Pardoner. Of course the leit- 
 motif of the Doctor's story receives from the Parson due stress (I 
 867-872). 
 
CHAUCEE AND THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS 117 
 
 stories tliat have plundered it so freely? The Parson's 
 tract — in some earlier form, perhaps — was certainly be- 
 fore Chaucer when he wrote many of his Sins narratives. 
 Of that relation we have just had ample evidence. Why 
 is it then unreasonable to suppose that Chaucer had in 
 mind the other Tales, when he finally conducted the Par- 
 son through his homily against the Vices they illustrate ? 
 To me the conclusion seems unavoidable that this division 
 of the Parson's sermon is but the culmination of the fre- 
 quently recurring motif of the Seven Deadly Sins. 
 
 All the evidence seems to show that the Sins motif be- 
 longs to the latter part of our collection. There is no rec- 
 ognition in the General Prologue of certain of the Vice 
 characteristics upon which so much stress is laid in the 
 special prologues. The Gluttony of the Pardoner, though 
 a traditional trait of that tribe, and though afterwards 
 made so conspicuous by Chaucer, and the Chiding of the 
 Manciple, to which he later gives so much space, were ap- 
 parently as far from Chaucer's mind when he first intro- 
 duces those figures to us as the Merchant's unhappy expe- 
 rience in marriage or the Franklin's ill-luck as a father 
 or the Cook's drunkenness. !N"or do I believe that, at the 
 first presentation of Friar and Summoner, Chaucer had 
 any thought of illustrating the Sin of Wrath, as Langland 
 had done, by a quarrel between these worthies. At any 
 rate, we have in the General Prologue no suggestion of 
 these things, though the Pride of the Wife, the Anger of 
 the Summoner, and the Avarice of the Pardoner, which 
 later play so perverse a part, accord well with the earlier 
 sketches of these characters. The device of the Sins appar. 
 ently came to the poet late. If the order of the Tales in 
 the pilgrimage corresponded closely to the order of com- 
 position, we could speak with large assurance of the time 
 
lis FEEDEEICK TUPPEE 
 
 of this motif, for all the stories of the Sins, with one ex- 
 ception — and that only a seeming one — ^belong in the lat- 
 ter half of the Canterhnry series. 
 
 It has already been recognized by scholars that the 
 Poverty (or let us say, Envy) Prologue was written at the 
 same time as the Tale of Constance, on account of the 
 use in both of Innocent's famous tract, De Miseria Con- 
 ditionis Humanae — not interpolated, but inextricably 
 woven into the stuff of the stanzas. It now appears highly 
 probable that Prologue and Tale were written at the same 
 time as certain others of the Deadly Sins stories, not only 
 because Chaucer adheres to the ironical design so success- 
 fully pursued in them by making an envious man (the 
 anonymous speaker of the Prologue, later identified with 
 the Man of Law merely, through the context) furnish in 
 his narrative large evidence against Envy, but because the 
 other Canterbury pilgrim that employs freely Innocent's 
 tract is the teller of a Sins story (and a story generally re- 
 garded as late),*'' the covetous and gluttonous Pardoner. 
 That this time of composition was later than that of the 
 Introduction to the Man of Law (B. 1-98) is obvious, since 
 the Prologue and Tale of Envy were carried back from 
 the companionship of the Sins stories in the latter part of 
 the collection — perhaps because among the few pilgrims 
 still silent no fitting narrator was available, — and thrust 
 in here awkwardly as an appropriate substitute for the 
 prose tale once assigned the Lawyer. As the Introduction, 
 
 *' This second argiiment for the late date of the Poverty prologue 
 is somewhat weakened by the citation of Innocent's comment upon 
 Poverty, in the Tale of Melibeus, B. 2758, but such a second-hand 
 allusion has small significance. Very striking, however, is the simi- 
 lar use of Innocent's Drunkenness passage (ii, chap. 18) in The 
 Man's of Law's Tale (B. 771-7) and in that of the Pardoner (C. 551- 
 660) ; cf. Skeat, m, 408, 444, 445. 
 
CHAUCEE AND THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS 119 
 
 thus demonstrably earlier than the Tale, refers to Gower's 
 incestuous stories, we are led to the conclusion that the 
 resemblance between Chaucer's and Gower's versions of 
 the Tale of Constance must be explained by the indebted- 
 ness of the greater poet to the less. 
 
 Something more must be said immediately of the re- 
 lation between the very similar tales of the two contem- 
 poraries. That in such synchronous collections as the 
 Confessio Amantis and the Canterbury Tales there should 
 be some coincidence in the use of material is not sur- 
 prising and that four stories of the one appear in the other 
 also (in three cases in quite different versions) would of 
 itself indicate no direct connection. But the circumstance 
 that the four stories are made, in the two works, to serve 
 the same purpose of illustrating four well-defined divisions 
 of the Deadly Sins — Pride, Lechery, Wrath (Chiding), 
 and Envy"*'' — would dispose conclusively of the theory 
 of coincidence, even though there were no close verbal 
 parallels between Gower's Tale of Constance, and Chau- 
 cer's Man of Law's story. Is it to be believed, for instance, 
 that Chaucer and Gower were independent in their com- 
 mon use of a Woman's Wiles story, like that of the 
 Manciple, to illustrate Chiding and in their siniilar moral 
 tags to the tale ? One poet is then indebted to the other. 
 Ifow even if Gower were demonstrably the debtor in the 
 use of these themes, his evidence to the fitness of Chaucer''s 
 exempla as illustrations of the Sins would be neither more 
 nor less potent than if we accept the contrary view of the 
 relationship. But there is the evidence that Chaucer and 
 not Gower borrowed in the Tale of Constance. (Here 
 I am quite at one with Liicke and Tatlock). And more- 
 
 " As we have seen, prologues and moralities attest the likeness of 
 Chaucer's design in these four stories to that of Gower. 
 
120 FEEDEEICK TUPPEE 
 
 over it seems much more likely that Chaucer was indebted 
 for the suggestion of fitting themes for the Sins — ^the rela- 
 tion in three cases is hardly, more than that — ^to Gower's 
 methodical and admirably ordered classification of the 
 Vices than Gower to Chaucer's intermittent and irregular 
 use of _ the formula;. Hy own opinion is that Gower's 
 Confessio Amantis not only suggested to his contemporary 
 the themes of the four exempla, but also revealed to him 
 the possibilities of a combination between Sin theme and 
 \ Love theme within a collection of stories (for where else 
 save in Gower is such a combination to be found?).*® It 
 was possibly under the influence of his " moral " friend 
 that Chaucer realized the feasibility of employing for the 
 lessons of many stories his own adaptation of a Deadly 
 Sins homily, now an important divisic^n of the Parson's 
 Tale. As Miss Hammond has pointed out,^" " Chaucer's 
 treatment of material used by Gower (taken in connection 
 with the Headlink's allusion to stories told by Gower) 
 does not warrant us in arguing a date later than the 
 ' publication ' of the Oonfessio. For we cannot assert 
 that either poet was unaware of the plans and perhaps 
 the details of the other's work ; the relations between them, 
 for aught we know, permitted an interchange of opinions 
 and of manuscripts." 
 
 However that may, be — and the matter of the exact 
 relation between the two poets, though interesting, does 
 not vitally affect my main contention — ^it is instructive 
 for us to compare the methods of Gower and Chaucer in 
 their respective uses of the Sins motif, or rather the 
 
 "The conversion of the seven nymphs of Boccaccio's Ameto into 
 Seven Cardinal Virtues at the close of that pastoral, has no effect 
 upon their stories of love, to which Professor Tatlock has recently 
 drawn the attention of students of Chaucer {Anglia, xxxvn, pp. 
 80 f.). 
 
 "Chaucer, p. 262. 
 
CHAUCEE AND THE SEVEW DEADIT SINS 121 
 
 metliod. of the one witli the other's lack of consistent de- 
 sign. To Gower the familiar formula is the scaffolding 
 upon which, with all regard to system and traditional 
 categories, he constructs every stage of his elaborate edi- 
 fice. To Chaucer the motif is merely a device which 
 appealed at intervals through its popular effectiveness, its 
 potent suggestions of irony, and its value as a framework 
 in separate instances. In this article I have avoided 
 speaking of the Sins tales as a " Group," because this 
 would seem to indicate an ordered sequence, a coherence 
 between these stories, which is entirely lacking. It is 
 evident that Chaucer makes small account of the con- 
 ventional order of the Sins — Pride, Envy, ^rath. Sloth, 
 Avarice, Gluttony, Luxury — which is so accurately ob- 
 served in the Parson's Tale. If, as I believe, the Wife 
 of Bath's is the first of his Sins stories, his order (which 
 is, of course, more or less doubtful) seems to be this — 
 Pride, Wralih, Luxury, Avarice and Gluttony, Sloth, 
 Chiding (Wrath or a Sin of the Tongue), with Envy 
 moved back towards the beginning of the collection in 
 total disregard of all categories.^^ And while in Chaucer's 
 treatment of the Sins motif, there is certainly this mJich 
 of consistency, that prologues and moralities effectively 
 supplement the purpose of the exemplum — still these are 
 introduced with the freedom of him who is the master, 
 not the slave of his plan. In the stories of the Wife of 
 Bath and the Summoner, the Pride and Wrath moralities 
 are put into the mouths of the chief persons of the tales, 
 while in the contributions of the Pardoner and the Manci- 
 
 " As we have seen, divergence from the normal order of Sins 
 is not uncommon in medieval collections. Pride is always first, 
 however, and Avarice and Gluttony are almost always in succession. 
 In Handlyng Syrme and in Dunbar's Dwnoe of the Sifts, Wrath fol- 
 lows Pride in the list of Vices, as here in Chaucer. 
 
122 PEEDEEICK TUPPEE 
 
 pie, which resemble each other in structure, and of the 
 Physician and the narrators of the tales of Sloth and Envy, 
 the pointers of the moral are the story-tellers themselves. 
 All the prologues are alike in their ironical connection 
 with the stories; but the Wife's Inobedience is conveyed 
 through her own direct confession, like the Avarice and 
 Gluttony of the Pardoner; while the Wrath of the Sum- 
 moner, the Chiding of the Manciple, and the Envy of the 
 " Constance " narrator are unconsciously revealed by act 
 or word. 
 
 After the Sins motif has once entered the Canterbury 
 collection in the Wife's Tale, Chaucer seems to develop it 
 in one of three ways. Pirst, he blends it skilfully with 
 the Love motif in his four Gower stories (as does Gower 
 himself in these very tales) and in the Tale of the Second 
 ITun. The tale of Florent is directed against not Ino- 
 bedience merely but Inobedience in love ; and in the story, 
 as told by the Wife, the motif of marriage is welded with 
 that of Pride. The Tale of Lechery, Appius and Virginia, 
 proclaims by its likeness to the Franklin's exempla of dis- 
 tressed virginity, its close relation with the prevailing 
 Love theme. The Manciple's Tale is not only an exemplum 
 of Chiding, (" Kepe wel thy tongue and thenk upon the 
 crowe ") but, as I have pointed out elsewhere, is a return 
 to the cuckold motif of the earlier stories, though the 
 woman's sin is now a theme for censure (H. 211 f.) 
 rather than for ribald mirth, and the relation of man and 
 wife is gravely discussed and vividly illustrated. It 
 is significant that this story of the Crow which Gower 
 employs to exemplify a phase of Wrath is really one of 
 a Woman's Wiles cycle of stories.®^ The Man of Law's 
 Tale, though primarily of Envy (as the little Prologue 
 
 " CIouBton, Originals a/nd Analogues, p. 439. 
 
OHATTCEE AND THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS 123 
 
 shows), exalts the loyalty and strength of the stately 
 wife and mother. As Gower says in the application to 
 his version (Confessio, n, 1599 f.) :^ 
 
 And thus the wel meninge of love 
 Was ate laste set above; 
 And so, as. thou hast herd tofore, 
 The false tunges weren lore. 
 Which upon love wolden lie. 
 
 Saint Cecilia is not only the type of husy-ness hut the 
 married celibate representing the ascetic ideal as opposed 
 to the delights of the flesh, and is hence antipodal to the 
 Wife of Bath. Thus the Sins motif and the Love motif 
 are artfully combined. 
 
 ...Secondly, Chaucer makes the Sins motif the dominant 
 element in the contributions of Friar, Summoner, and 
 Pardoner, neglecting for these illustrations of the Vices 
 his Love theme, as Gower neglects it in many exempla 
 of the Confessio.^^ The eager discussion of marriage is" 
 well under way, and the Wife's views call loudly for refu- 
 tation; yet so strong is the claim of the Sins formula 
 that Chaucer temporarily abandons the insistent woman- 
 question, in order to illustrate Wrath by the Friar-Sum- 
 moner quarrel and Tales. From this point of view the 
 D group forms a Sins cycle of Pride and Wrath. It is 
 noteworthy, however, that the mention of the wife of 
 Thomas in the Summoner's Tale compels a momentary 
 return (D. 1980-2005) to the all-absorbing theme of the 
 relation between the sexes. The temporary dominance of 
 
 "Such stories as the Trump of Death {Confessio i, 2010-2253), 
 Nabugodonosor (I, 2785-3043), the Travelers and the Angel (ii, 
 291-364), Demetrius and Persius (ii, 1631-1861), Pope Boniface 
 (n, 2803-3084), etc., despite their place in an amorous cycle, are 
 as remote from the leitmotif of Love and as full of the theme of 
 the Sins as the contributions of Friar, Summoner, and Pardoner. 
 
124 FEEDEEICK TUPPEE 
 
 the Sins motif explains adequately the poet's departure 
 from the ruling motif of the collection — the many-hued 
 theme of Love — ^not only in these stories, but in the 
 Tale of the Pardoner. It is true that this rascal's attitude 
 to women is revealed in his Prologue (C. 453, cf. D. 163) 
 and through contraries in his tale (C. 480 f.), but in his 
 exposition of the two Sins of Avarice and Gluttony, both 
 by precept and practice, there is little opportunity for 
 any intrusion of other elements. 
 
 Thirdly, Chaucer abandons the Sins motif in the mar-^ 
 riage stories provoked by the Wife. In the so-called 
 Groups E and F — the Tales of Clerk, Merchant, Squire, 
 and Pranklin — it finds no place. But (if we follow the 
 modified EUesmere order) the device is again revived in 
 the Tale of the Physician and carried through the col- 
 lection, barring the Canon Yeoman's episode. The for- 
 mula could be dropped and resumed at will. It was to 
 the poet not a crotch but a staff. 
 
 To the view that the Parson's treatment of the Sins 
 is a culmination of this frequently recurring motif, a 
 friendly^^critie-offeis-the- seemingly valid objection that 
 the Canterbury Tales is only a fragment representing but 
 one fourth of Chaucer's original design and that the addi- 
 tion of a hundred other stories would not only have mini- 
 mised his use of the Sins formula, but would have shat- 
 tered any seeming connection between the stories of the 
 Vices and the concluding sermon of the Parson. This 
 ij objection overlooks entirely Chaucer's later modification 
 of the Host's scheme in the General Prologue. The 
 Parson's Prologue makes it very clear that the author not 
 only gave over all intention of accompanying the pil- 
 grims on their return to London, but decided to restrict 
 the number of stories on the outward journey to one a 
 
CHAtrCEE AND THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS 125 
 
 man.''* The tales left untold are therefore not a hun- 
 dred, but some seven — to be exact, those of the five Bur- 
 gesses, the Yeoman, and the Plowman, only these and 
 " name," for in the part assigned to the l^Tun's Priest in 
 Group B, his two shadowy companions of the General 
 Prologue are completely forgotten. What would have 
 been the themes of these seven tales and what place they 
 would have found in the collection, are interesting specu- 
 lations. We can reasonably conjecture, with the stately 
 wives in mind (A. 374-378), that the Citizens would have 
 made interesting contributions to the marriage question. 
 ^((^ Chaucer," says Alfred Pollard,^* " no doubt intended to 
 retell the Tale of Gamelyn as a woodland tale exactly 
 suited to the sturdy Yeoman." And the Christ-like Plow- 
 man could not have been made the representative of a Vice. 
 Indeed Chaucer's treatment of the Sins motif is already 
 complete.^® That Chaucer probably carried back the 
 Cook's Tale from the end of the collection to the company 
 of the Reeve and Miller stories shows that other supplemen- 
 tary tales might well have been inserted without marring 
 the connection, such as it is, between the later Tales and 
 the Parson's sermon.^'' Thus the objection, based upon 
 the fragmentary condition of the Canterbury Tales, to 
 
 =* Cf. Parson's Prologue, i, 16, 25, " Now lakketh us no tales mo 
 than oon " and " For every man save thou hath told his tale." 
 
 ^ Chaucer Primer, p. 1 12. 
 
 "All the Sins are presented by precept and example. Chaucer's 
 phase of Wrath (Chiding) in the last tale of the collection might 
 seem to some superfluous after the elaborate exemplification of 
 Wrath in the Friar-Summoner quarrel and tales. But as we have 
 seen, the Sins of the Tongue well deserve specific exposition. Com- 
 pare their place in Le Mireour du Monde and the Ayenbite. 
 
 "Pollard guesses {Primer, p. 112) that the Yeoman and the five 
 Burgesses were the narrators during the afternoon of the First 
 Day, as no tales are provided for that time. 
 
126 FBEDEEICK TUPPEE 
 
 the presence and prominence of the Sins motif completely 
 collapses under scrutiny. 
 
 A,Iioiher_ objection made with emphasis by certain 
 friends, doubtless lovers of " art for art's sake," is this, — 
 that Chaucer was "not intrigued by the homiletic side," 
 that he was occupied with solidly concrete figures and 
 not with finely spun webs of allegory, that his purpose 
 was artistic and that, therefore, he never started out to 
 preach. This protest, even if we omit its question-beg- 
 ging epithets, seems to me founded entirely upon a priori 
 conceptions and to bear about the same relation to facts 
 as the assured comment of the gazing countryman upon 
 the hippopotamus, " Thar ain't no sich critter ! It is 
 impossible." He who denies that Chaucer does preach 
 and with a definite purpose must either close his eyes to 
 the many obvious " moralities " in the several tales, or 
 else eyeing them askance must proclaim, as has been often 
 done, their utter aimlessuess and irrelevancy. That the 
 " moralities " are there, he who runs may read. That 
 they are " moralities " of the Sins, no one can doubt who 
 takes the trouble to compare them with Chaucer's own 
 formal description of the Vices {Parson's Tale) or with 
 the traditional traits of these evil passions in medieval 
 theology. That these teachings are direct applications 
 of the tales that they accompany is attested not only by 
 Gower's use of several of these stories to illustrate the 
 very Sins under rebuke, but by the close logical coherence 
 between the motif of the story and the appended lesson. 
 And yet " thar ain't no sich critter ! " " Gower's Tales," 
 I quote from a recent student of " The Exemplum in Eng- 
 land," ^* " embrace a wide range of classic and medieval 
 themes, which were treated by such men as Boccaccio and 
 
 ™Hosher, Columbia University Press, 1911, pp. 125-126. 
 
CHAUCEE AND THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS 127 
 
 Chaucer with little if any thought of the exemplum." 
 Yet Chaucer supplements one of these Gower stories, that 
 of Chiding, with the exemplum formula (H. 309 f.) : — 
 
 Lordings, by this ensample I you preye 
 Beth war and taketh kepe what I seye. 
 
 And then follows an " application," very close to Gower's. 
 At the end of another Gower story, that of Lechery, Chau- 
 cer says plainly (C. 277 f.) : — 
 
 Heer men may seen how sinne hath his meryte! 
 Beth war, for no man woot whom God wol smyte. 
 
 Evidently Chaucer was quite in the dark about himself! 
 Being of the fourteenth century he utterly failed to recog- 
 nize that, as an artist, he was absolutely debarred from 
 pointing the moral — that is in his tales of the Sins — and 
 obviously he did not share the modern tenet that, while 
 illustrations of masculine or feminine submissiveness in 
 the married state are entirely worthy of a poet's art, 
 pointed revelations of the cardinal emotions must be 
 deemed degrading to his genius. Fallacious indeed is the 
 reasoning that declares Chaucer an artist on the ground 
 that he did not do these very things which he may be 
 proved to have done most frequently. But a truce to false 
 premises ! The poet of the Canterbury Tales is no less 
 the true " maker " in his examples of the "Vices than the 
 poet of the Faery Queen in his allegories of the Virtues. 
 In both poems the shaping power of the imagination is 
 so vividly present that the joy of creation transcends even 
 avowed purposes of moral instruction.'® Chaucer's supe- 
 
 " Professor Crane's description of the Liber de Apibus of Thomas 
 Cantipratensis (Exempla of Jacques de Vitry, p. xciii) is applicable 
 to Chaucer's tales of the Sins : " The moralisation does not at all 
 affect the story, but serves simply as a framework in which to 
 enclose it." 
 
. 128 FEEDEEICK TUPPEE 
 
 riority to Gower in the Sins stories lies not in Ms avoid- 
 ance of " moralities," for he uses them with the greatest 
 freedom, hut in the artistic dexterity of his escape from 
 the fetWs of his formula, and in the humanizing of his 
 teaching through the ironical association of the Sins with 
 flesh and blood figures, and through the universal appeal 
 of his sometimes satirical and always dramatic presentation 
 of elemental passions. Eohert Greene builded far better 
 than he knew when he represented in his Vision ®*' Chau- 
 cer and Gower, " the accepted representatives of the 
 pleasant and sententious styles in story telling," as com- 
 peting with one another in tales upon a given subject (the 
 cure of jealousy). 
 
 The medieval mind was wont to revolve about the time- 
 honored formula of the Vices ; and Chaucer completed the 
 circle in some seven or eight of his stories. In four of 
 these he used themes that had served the same purpose 
 in Gower's most famous work. In tiiree others he availed 
 himself of exempla that had pointed like morals else- 
 where. He tagged his Sins tales with prologues that all 
 readers of his time would con aright ; and bound these to 
 their narratives with pungent satire. He added, too, fit- 
 ting " applications " derived in part from a sermon 
 on the Deadly Seven and set this same sermon at the 
 culmination of the Canterbury series. And despite all the 
 author's care we sand-blind moderns grope helplessly about 
 in the high noon of his " ensamples " ; because we have 
 hitherto been content to regard as unrelated units these 
 parts of a noble whole and have darkened with the shadows 
 of much up-to-date counsel these characteristic products of 
 a past leagues away from us in both its morality and its 
 humor. 
 
 Feedeeick Tuppee. 
 
 "Cited by Macaulay, Introduction to Confessio Amantis, p. ix. 
 
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