Medieval Time Period, Satire and Canterbury Tales

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Medieval Time Period,Satire and Canterbury Tales

• Take Notes!

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Feudal SystemThree Estates aka Social Classes

• The "First Estate" was the Church
• (clergy those who prayed).
• The "Second Estate" was the Nobility/Aristocrats
• Those who fought knights
• Those with money/land.
• It was common for aristocrats to enter the Church
  and thus shift from the second to the first
  estate.
• The "Third Estate" was the Peasantry
• Everyone else, at least under feudalism
• those who produced the food which supported those
  who prayed and those who fought (the members of
  the First and Second Estates).
• Note that these "estates" are defined primarily
  by what one does (as well as by the social class
  one is born into).

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Womens Estates

• Women were classified differently.
• Like men, medieval women were born into the
  second or third estate, and might eventually
  become members of the first (by entering the
  Church, willingly or not).
• Women were also categorized according to three
  feminine estates
• virgin, wife and widow
• It is interesting that a woman's estate was
  determined not by her profession, but by her
  sexual activity
• she is defined in relationship to the men with
  whom she sleeps, used to sleep, or never has
  slept.

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Middle Class

• The rigid division of society into the three
  traditional "estates" begins to break down in the
  later Middle Ages.
• By the late fourteenth century, we see the rise
  of a mercantile class aka middle class
• mercantile merchants in the cities (ex. an
  urban middle-class), as well as a new subdivision
  of the clergy
• intellectuals trained in literature and writing,
  but who were not destined to a professional
  career within the Church.

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Humors

• In medicine, there were believed to be four
  humors that made up the human body.
• If a person were to have a certain personality
  trait, it meant that one of their humors were
  overabundant in their body.

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Blood

• Spring
• Air
• A person was fiery, passionate and/or liked to
  have fun.

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Phlegm

• winter
• water
• A person was calm, dull and/or sluggish.

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Yellow Bile

• summer
• fire meant
• A person had a temper and was full of anger and
  resentment.

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Black bile

• fall
• earth
• A person was melancholy, depressed and/or sad.

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Some Cures

• Bloodletting by use of leaches
• - evacuates harmful humors from the veins
• Purgation - also removes harmful humors
• Black hellebore and Borage (plants) - a favored
  purgative for melancholy,
• Rhubarb (plant) - favored for anger/temper
• Heating - to counteract the coldness of
  melancholy
• Moisture - to counteract the dryness of
  melancholy
• Diet - warm and moist foods are recommended
  (lettuce, watercress),
• Rest - idleness and sleep warm and moisten the
  body
• Peace of mind - mental perturbation breeds ill
  humors
• Music and Drama (go to a play) - counteracts a
  heaviness of spirit.

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Satire

• A satire is a form of humor where the writer or
  speaker tries to make the reader or listener have
  a negative opinion about someone, by laughing at
  them, making them seem ridiculous or foolish etc.
  I
• f someone is being satirical, their aim is not
  just to amuse, but to affect the person that they
  dislike to hurt them, ruin them, etc.

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Satire in Canterbury Tales

• In the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer is highly
  conscious of the social divisions known as the
  "Estates."
• While the genre of the Canterbury Tales as a
  whole is a "frame narrative," the General
  Prologue to the Canterbury Tales is an example of
  "Estates Satire,"
• a genre which satirizes the abuses that occur
  within the three traditional Estates (in
  particular, the Clergy).

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The Canterbury Tales Prologue

• The characters described by Chaucer in the
  General Prologue have gathered at the Inn in
  Southwark prior to departing on a pilgrimage to
  Canterbury.
• When are they going (time of year)?
• Why are they going on the pilgrimage?