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Chapter Four: The Reeve’s Tale and Regional/Marginal Identity
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is a collection of tales by “strange” and “sundry” folk from every corner of England, such as the Wife of Bath, the Clerk of Oxford, the Shipman of Dartmouth, and the Reeve of Norfolk. Crucially, regionalism is at the thematic heart of The Canterbury Tales.
Therefore, the pilgrimage is not merely a visit to “straunge strondes” abroad, but also fundamentally a chance encounter with “internal” differences in England, a great opportunity to make new acquaintances.
A visit to “distant places” means that, for some, the pilgrimage to Canterbury is a journey from far-off provenances and remote counties in England. The adjective “far” is frequently attached to people and events that relate to the North of England in The Canterbury Tales. Constance in The Man of Law’s Tale drifts to the shore “Fer in Northhumberlond” (I 508) and the yeoman in The Friar’s Tale dwells “fer in the north contree” (III 1413).86 The most impressive of all is in The Reeve’s Tale in which Cambridge students come from “fer in the North” (I 4015). This sense of distance is physically referenced and its alterity mentally and culturally constructed. In the Middle Ages, the North of England is a geographic, cultural alterity, occupying a peculiar presence for the rest of the region. Originating from a passage of the prophet Isaiah as well as St Augustine’s paraphrase, there are well -known biblical discourses that associate the North with the home of Lucifer, a diabol ical realm forsaken by God’s grace (Kellogg 414). In reality, it was an important borderland responsible for the military protection of English territory from the foreign incursion of the Scots, while at the same time it evoked fear as a landscape. In the early Anglo-Saxon period, there were seven principal kingdoms, Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Essex, Kent, Sussex and Wessex. In the seventh and eighth centuries Northumbria, among others, flourished as a locus of cultural and intellectual learning, att ested by the fact that most Old English extant writings have a Northumbrian origin. However, the polarity of the North/South divide was accentuated by Viking raids that reoccurred from the eighth century. It is
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well known that, during the turmoil of the Da nish invasion, King Alfred lamented in his preface to The Cura Pastoralis that “So completely was learning fallen away in England that there were very few on this side of Humber who could understand their divine service in English or translate even a lette r from Latin into English; and I think that there were not many beyond the Humber.”87 The river Humber often stands as a borderland that demarcates the North and the South, as in the case of Havelok the Dane, in which Grim, Havelok’s foster father, initiall y lands by the shores of Humber. By the twelfth century, Geoffrey of Monmouth takes over the territorial concept of the North beyond the Humber, a region subject to invasion and friction of different peoples. The region provides a refuge for the Saxons in danger, where they fortify towns against the Britons. The proximity to Scotland helps to strengthen the defence, while the area was chaotic and threatening for the Britons. Geoffrey notes, “It was an inhospitable place, devoid of Britons, but readily acces sible to foreigners. Its very position had made it suitable for Picts, Scots, Danes, Norsemen and the others who landed to lay the island waste” (162). The disorder and conflict among different races compounded the image of the North/South divide, and this progressed over time to build a negative image —an image also projected onto the people in general. John Trevisa precisely notes, “men of þe north be more vnstable, more cruel, and more vnesey,” as opposed to, “men of þe souþ beeþ esier and more mylde” (II. 167).88
The hybrid nature of the northern territory also affected the language. This evocation is best observed in John Trevisa’s treatise in his translation of Ranulf Higden’s early fourteenth-century Latin work Polychronicon. By the fourteenth century, the historical change of the language was well known by the vernacular chronicler who makes some interesting observations on language in Britain:
As it is i-knowe how meny manere peple beeþ in þis ilond, þere beeþ also so
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many dyuers longages and tonges; . . . Englische men, þey [þei] hadde from the bygynnynge þre manere speche, norþerne, sowþerne, and middel speche in þe myddel of þe lond, as þey come of þre manere peple of Germania, noþeles by comyxtioun and mellynge firste wiþ Danes and afterwar d wiþ Normans, in meny þe contray longage is apayred, and som vseþ straunge wlafferynge, chiterynge, harrynge, and garrynge grisbayting. ( II. 157-59)
Here, internal diversity of language in Britain is caused by “comyxtioun and mellynge”
with other nations. Although Englishmen had three manners of regional speech from the beginning: northern, southern, and middle, (derived from the three manners of people of Germania), an intermingling with Danes and Normans further “apayred” (worsen, corrupt) the language. People thus speak a “straunge wlafferynge, chiterynge, harrynge, and garrynge grisbayting”; that is, a strange stammering, stuttering jargon with a harsh roaring or snarling sound in speech and a gnashing of teeth accompanied by a grinding or chattering, with sounds characteristic of harsh and uncouth speech.89 Trevisa goes on to describe the nature of the northern language as follows:
Al þe longage of þe Norþhumbres, and specialliche at ȝork, is so scharp, slitting, and frotynge and vnschape, þat we souþerne men may þat longage vnneþe vnderstonde. I trowe þat þat is bycause þat þey beeþ nyh to straunge men and naciouns þat spekeþ strongliche, and also bycause þat þe kynges of Engelond woneþ alwey fer from þat cuntrey; for þey beeþ more i -torned to þe souþ contray, and ȝif þey gooþ to þe norþ contray þey gooþ wiþ greet [help]
and strengþe. Þe cause why þey beeþ more in þe souþ contrey þan in þe norþ, [is] for hit may be better corne londe, more peple, more noble citees, and more profitable hauenes. (II. 163)
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The core of this linguistic note is extracted from Higden’s “stridet inconditum ,” which dates back to William of Malmesbury’s description in his twelfth -century Gesta Pontificum Anglorum (c. 1125). Tim William Machan suggests that Higden and Trevisa only retain their faithfulness to their source as “rhetorical setpieces” (96). Nonetheless, it would be hard to deny Trevisa’s skilful expansion of original phrases, which show a drastic increase of adjectival referents in northern speech.90 In particular, the difficulty of speech is marked by its idiosyncratic “sound” as “scharp, slitting, and frotynge, and vnschape”; that is, harsh-sounding, shrill, piercing, frothing, and strident speech —not clearly articulated, rude, and formless .91 This causes modifications that strengthen the grating sound on the “southerner’s” ear (“we souþerne men”). Trevisa underscores this
“strange” quality, attributing it to the proximity of “straunge men and naciouns þ at spekeþ strongliche,” as well as to geographical distance, royal absence, and agricultural, commercial, and economic differences. Trevisa’s emphatic observation on northern language reflects a southern perspective, and therefore a slightly prejudiced eva luation of the northern tongue. The regional identification “we souþerne men” could underlies the Parson’s comment in The Canterbury Tales: “. . . trusteth wel, I am a Southren man;
/ I kan nat geeste ‘rum, ram, ruf,’ by lettre” (X 42-43). It is highly likely that Chaucer, the Londoner, had this naïve preconception and sensitivity in mind before writing about the North in his narrative, an image manufactured over time.