Abstract
A yet unobserved theme linking the Miller’s and Reeve’s Tales is curiositas, a vice medieval theologians often identified with the second of the triadic sins of 1 John 2:16, the lust of the eyes, and aligned with the other two triadic sins, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life. In the two tales, Chaucer modifies the conception of curiositas by democratizing the usually highbrow, clerkly vice. Particularly through punning, Chaucer shows that all, including the readers of the Tales, are susceptible to the vice by virtue of its likeness to the two other triadic sins.
Though curiosity is generally regarded as a virtue today, during the Middle Ages, curiosity, or as it was known then—curiositas—was universally considered a vice. Theologians such as Augustine, Bernard of Clairvaux, and Thomas Aquinas defined and described curiositas, along with its causes, effects, and remedies. They argued, in short, that the vice was present when the speculative part of the intellect was unregulated, that is, when a subject pursued illicit objects of knowledge (anything from the trivial or useless to the secret and demonic) or pursued licit objects but did so for illicit ends, for instance, for the sake of self-aggrandizement. For such thinkers, curiositas was often synonymous with the second of the triadic sins of 1 John 2:16: the concupiscence of the eyes. Because this sin along with the concupiscence of the flesh and pride of life involved disordered desire, whether of fleshly delights, knowledge, or honor, theologians aligned curiositas with the two other triadic sins and noted that in its middling state it exhibited characteristics of both.
In the 14th century, Chaucer inherited a well-developed and consistent theological framework of the vice. Nonetheless, because it is rarely considered a vice today, critical discussion of curiositas is rather limited, and its absence in most analyses of Chaucer is no exception, especially recently. 1 Of the few critics who discuss the vice’s role in Chaucer’s works, the finest—Thomas Hatton—notes its significance in the Miller’s Tale and has observed that the Miller’s warning “An housbonde shal nat been inquisityf / Of Goddes pryvetee, nor of his wyf” (I.3163–4) is a reference to curiositas (81–9). What is more, Hatton has persuasively argued that “Each of the male characters in the tale displays traits of the curiosus, and each suffers because of this vice” and that, ultimately, the tale shows curiositas to be “the dangerous vice that patristic authorities warn against” (81, 83). 2 Criticism examining curiositas in the Reeve’s Tale is even scarcer than that dealing with the vice in the Miller’s Tale. As is the case with its preceding tale, more prevalent is commentary on the role of and, in particular, the limitations of the intellect. Like so many other matters, though, the Reeve’s Tale responds to the Miller’s in regard to curiositas, though this is a connection that has seemingly been overlooked. 3 More significantly, in both tales, Chaucer portrays curiositas in terms of the two other triadic sins. By doing so, he diverges from other poetic accounts of the vice.
Curiositas and the triadic sins
For Augustine, curiositas and the lust of the eyes were synonymous because the latter “is rooted in a thirst for firsthand information about everything, and since the eyes are paramount among the senses in acquiring information, this inquisitive tendency is called in holy scripture concupiscence of the eyes” (Confessions 10.35.54). 4 Because sight constitutes the highest exterior sense, it acts as something of a bridge between the senses and the intellect, and due to its close relation to the intellect, medieval theologians (as well as their classical philosophical predecessors and still we today) often speak of knowing as seeing. As the lust of the eyes, curiositas therefore bears some relation to the other two triadic sins. 5 The lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes, for instance, share an inordinate desire for objects of the senses. Augustine explains that though curiositas works “through these same senses” as the lust of the flesh, it “is a craving not for gratification of the flesh but for experience through the flesh” (Confessions 35.54). In On Christian Teaching, Augustine compares curiositas with fornication. In Book II he acknowledges that occasionally diviners predict the future correctly, and when they do, “they become ever more inquisitive and entrap themselves more and more in the manifold snares of this most deadly error. This is a kind of spiritual fornication” (23.35). Or as Paul Griffiths observes, “the curious man is always a fornicator: he perverts study and investigation in much the same way that having sex with those to whom you are not married perverts the gift of the sexual appetite” (8). 6
Like Augustine, Aquinas also likens curiositas to the first of the triadic sins by arguing that sensitive knowledge can be the desired object of the vice. He cites Bede who says that “concupiscence of the eyes refers not only to the learning of magic arts, but also to sight-seeing, and to the discovery and dispraise of our neighbor's faults,” which are all objects of the senses (Summa Theologiæ II–II, q. 167, a. 2, s.c.). The curiosus seeks sensitive knowledge that “is not directed to something useful, but turns man away from some useful consideration” (ST II–II, q. 176, a. 2, co.). The desire for sensitive knowledge is sinful when it “is directed to something harmful” (ST II–II, q. 167, a. 2, co.), so, for Aquinas, lustfully looking at a woman constitutes curiositas.
Curiositas also bears a resemblance to the lust of the flesh as it is a sin of excess against temperance. Likening intellectual desire to physical desire, Aquinas states, “Just as in respect of his corporeal nature man naturally desires the pleasures of food and sex, so, in respect of his soul, he naturally desires to know something” (ST II–II, q. 166 a. 2 co.). He goes on to cite Aristotle’s dictum about humans’ natural desire to know. Intellectual desires, like physical desires, need regulation. In particular, they need an instantiation of temperance that Aquinas terms studiositas (ST II–II, q. 166). Nonetheless, he makes a distinction between the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes. In noting different types of gluttony, he states that a true glutton “does not take pleasure in sumptuous and meticulously prepared foods in order to judge flavors, as wine testers do, which is proper to taste as such. For the disorder of such pleasure belongs to curiosity rather than gluttony” (De malo q. 14, a. 3, ad. 4). As for Augustine, curiositas entails failing to gain knowledge necessary for salvation, but, instead, enjoying knowledge for the mere sake of learning. Aquinas, thus, indicates that the apprehension of knowledge should be done for the sake of a greater end, the health of the soul (knowing and loving God), just as eating should be undertaken for the sake of the health of the body.
Throughout the Bible, warnings against seeking knowledge too high for human understanding are manifold. Most famous, perhaps, is Paul’s assertion that scientia inflat (1 Cor. 8:1). 7 It is not surprising, therefore, that theologians perceived curiositas to share characteristics with the third of the triadic sins, in that the curiosi can take pride in their knowledge. As Augustine observes of the Manicheans, there can be no humility in the one who measures the sky without reverence for God (Confessions 5.5.8). Overestimating the extent of one’s wisdom “begets so much pride” that those who do so “look upon themselves as inhabitants of the heaven of which they often discourse” (On the Morals of the Catholic Church 21.38). Similarly, in his analysis of superbia, Chaucer’s Parson observes that pride can result from the “goodes of nature,” which include “good wit, sharpe understondynge, subtil engyn, vertu natureel, [and] good memorie” (X449–52). The curiosi, proud of their knowledge, do not seek knowledge of God for the sake of reverencing him. Instead, knowledge of Him is just one more novelty of the universe that can be known for its own sake. Far from having faith, which does not constitute knowledge for the curiosi, such people actually tempt God to gain new experience, often by prying into secrets to which they are not privy.
Bernard of Clairvaux, like Augustine before him and Aquinas after, designates curiositas as a sin. His lengthiest discussion of curiositas occurs in his On the Steps of Humility and Pride. In it he indicates the close relationship between curiositas and pride, listing the former as the first step towards the latter, and he ultimately concludes, “Curiosity therefore rightly claims first place among the steps of pride, for it is shown to be the beginning of all sin” (10.38). As exemplars of curiositas, Bernard lists Dinah, Eve, and Lucifer, though, not surprisingly, the last is the most culpable. Since he was full of wisdom, there should have been nothing further for him to have sought. Bernard offers him a belated warning: “Stay in thyself, lest thou fall from thyself, if thou wander among the great and marvelous things above thee” (10.31). Nonetheless, Bernard finds Lucifer “scrutinizing too curiously all manner of lofty things above” him (10.31). More than that of the other exemplars, Lucifer’s curiositas is associated with pride. It led him, alone, to seek a seat higher than all the other angels and to attack God. His desire for preeminence is portrayed in terms of intellectual aspiration: “contemplating so arrogantly, investigating so curiously, approaching so irreverently those unknown things beyond what the others see” (10.31). It is by such means that Satan sought to be like God. There can be no greater pride than Lucifer’s, and, accordingly, the curiosus need not exhibit such overweening pride. In the Sermons on the Canticles of Canticles, Bernard says, “There are some who desire to know simply for the sake of knowing, and this is shameful curiosity. And there are some who desire to know in order that they may become known themselves, and this is shameful vanity” (36.3). More than just seeking knowledge of others, the curiosus, though not necessarily desiring godhead, often wants to be the object of others’ knowledge. Bernard indicates this dangerous desire when addressing Dinah about the result of her inquisitiveness of the foreign women: “Though thou seest [the foreign women] idly, thou art not idly seen. Thou lookest curiously, but art looked at more curiously” (On the Steps 10.29).
Regardless of how much direct access Chaucer would have had to the works cited above, accounts of curiositas and related vices were commonplaces in works he surely knew. These works do not, however, so clearly show the kinship between curiositas and the two other triadic sins. For instance, the De miseria condicionis humane (On the Misery of the Human Condition) of Lotario dei Segni (later Pope Innocent III) offers warnings about curiositas. However, in this work, which Chaucer likely translated, concupiscence of the eyes is not identified as curiositas, but as the desire for riches, which “engender covetousness and avarice” (2.1). Nonetheless, warnings are offered regarding the search for knowledge, especially in part 1, section 11, in which the various pursuits to understand the world are determined to be fruitless.
Another work that Chaucer likely translated, Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun’s Roman de la Rose, displays the commonly identified attendant states of curiositas—idleness, busybodyness, garrulity, and gossip—by means of the figures of Oiseuse (Idleness), Douz Regarz (Sweet Looks), and La Vieille (Old Woman). What is more, the Lover’s quest to gain the Rose is in part an intellectual quest in which the Lover’s sight and knowledge play key roles. Before he meets Oiseuse, who grants him access to the garden, the Lover is in anguish because of his desire to see the sights of the garden, especially Deduit (Diversion), and the songs of the birds are like those of the Sirens that lured Ulysses off his course (37–40). 8 Once inside, his desire to see does not lessen and leads him to the Fountain of Narcissus (48, 51). Throughout the poem, the conventional courtly love notion that a lover is struck by the beloved through the eyes is present. The Lover recounts that the God of Love sent an arrow “through my eye and into my heart,” and when announcing his commandments, the God of Love declares, “by looking you will make your heart fry and burn, and as you look you will always quicken the burning fire. The more anyone looks upon what he loves, the more he lights and burns his heart. This fat lights and keeps blazing the fire that makes men love” (54, 63). Elsewhere, questions constitute an ordinary means by which the Lover seeks to attain the Rose. During his discourse with Raison (Reason), even though he ultimately ignores her advice, the Lover is full of questions about love, possessions and ownership, and justice. With Ami (Friend), he asks by what art he can conquer the Castle of Jealousy. The Roman de la Rose, then, does show a kinship between erotic desire and the search for knowledge and sights, though, in the poem of more than 21,000 lines, this relationship is not nearly as prominent as, we shall see, it is in the Miller’s and Reeve’s Tales.
The clearest example of curiositas known to Chaucer is found in Dante’s Inferno, where the vice is shown in relation to pride. Ulysses, a figure long considered an exemplar of the curiosus, ventures on a quest for novel experience that takes precedence over his other duties, even admitting, Not tenderness for a son, nor filial duty toward my aged father, nor the love I owed Penelope that would have made her glad, could overcome the fervor that was mine to gain experience of the world and learn about man's vices, and his worth. (26.94--9)
Of course, he also neglects his companions who will all die as the result of his quest. The exceeding of limits, the breaking of human bounds, is manifested in the ship’s crossing of the “straight / where Hercules marked of the limits, / warning all men to go no farther” (107–9). His promise of knowledge echoes that of Satan in the Garden of Eden and calls to mind the conventional thought that the Fall was the result of curiositas: “O brothers,” he addresses his comrades, “do not deny yourselves the chance to know … the world where no one lives” (116–17). Like the serpent promising Eve a higher plane of knowledge, he tells them that they “were not made to live like brutes or beasts, / but to pursue virtue and knowledge” (119–20). Taking pride in his own abilities and instilling similar pride in his crew, Ulysses commits a transgression like that which occurred in Eden and is likewise punished by God, who sent the whirlwind that sank Ulysses’ ship.
These works that were more well-known to Chaucer do not display as clearly the relation of curiositas to the two other triadic sins. Chaucer, however, in the Miller’s and Reeve’s Tales, portrays curiositas concretely in terms of concupiscence of the flesh and pride of life. Though Chaucer’s poetic manifestations of the vice are entirely consistent with the portrayals offered by proceeding theologians, they accomplish something more than these theological accounts of the vice as well as other poetic accounts, including those of poems which are contemporaneous with Chaucer’s. When 14th-century English poets (most notably Langland and Gower) did portray the vice, it is seemingly reserved for the learned (clerkly, monastic) class. 9 By emphasizing the kinship of the lust of the eyes with lust of the flesh and pride of life by means of poetic devices, Chaucer diverges from such accounts, democratizing the vice, indicating that it can be exhibited by anyone.
The Miller’s prologue
The Miller, as has often been noted, brings disorder into the orderly beginning of the tale-telling contest. Usurping the Monk, the drunken Miller ensures that he will be the second to tell a tale, one that will quite the Knight’s. Despite the oft-noted similarities of plot and character in the first three tales, a significant difference between the Knight’s Tale and the two succeeding tales is that the desires of the lecherous and irascible Palamon and Arcite are not portrayed in terms of knowledge, whereas in the Miller’s and Reeve’s Tales the clerks’ desires are. That is, the lust and pride of Nicholas, Absolon, John, and Aleyn are described in terms of curiositas.
The Miller’s intrusive prologue, including the Reeve’s defensive remarks, lays the groundwork for the examination of curiositas found in both his tale and the Reeve’s. After the Miller promises to “tell a legende and a lyf / Bothe of a carpenter and of his wyf” (I.3141–2), the Reeve, who is a carpenter, immediately interjects his disapproval of the Miller’s subject matter, claiming that It is a synne and eek a greet folye To apeyren any man, or hym defame, And eek to bryngen wyves in swich fame. Thou mayst ynogh of othere thynges seyn. (3146–9)
Of course, one can safely assume that the Reeve disapproves of the subject matter because he perceives it as a personal attack, as it portrays a carpenter in a bad light. Indeed, this is how the Miller understands his interjection (cf. 3151ff.). The Reeve’s words, however, can be taken as a criticism of the profanation of the biblical story of Christ’s conception and birth and the seemingly blasphemous portrayal of Mary and Joseph. Implicit in the Reeve’s words is the disapproval of the unnecessary and potentially harmful substitution of bawdy solas (pleasure) for pious sentence (wisdom), that is, of an illicit, distracting object of knowledge for a licit, beneficial one. Indeed, Hatton perceives a censure against the vice in the Reeve’s remarks, suggesting that “the Reeve is … being theologically precise … in his effort to forestall Robin’s tale” and that the “synne” he is referring to is curiositas (82).
Despite the Reeve’s accusation, the Miller boasts that he is by no means overly inquisitive about at least one “thynge” in his life: I have a wyf, pardee, as wel as thow; Yet nolde I, for the oxen in my plogh, Take upon me moore than ynogh, As demen of myself that I were oon [a cuckold]. I wol bileve wel that I am noon. (3158–62)
Willfully remaining ignorant of his wife’s fidelity or lack thereof, the Miller claims that it is enough for him to believe that he has not been cuckolded, an epistemological stance he defends famously in the following remark: An housbonde shal nat been inquisityf Of Goddes pryvetee, nor of his wyf. So he may fynde Goddes foyson there, Of the remenant nedeth nat enquere. (3163–6)
As Hatton has observed, the Miller’s statement is clearly a reference to curiositas. In the context of his disagreement with the Reeve, the Miller’s warning to husbands is most clear. To avoid certain knowledge of a wife’s infidelity, a husband should intentionally remain ignorant and “bileve wel” that he is no cuckold by not investigating his wife. But as far as not being inquisitive of “Goddes pryvetee,” the manifold meanings of “pryvetee” and the syntax of lines 3163–4 complicate matters. There has been a good deal of commentary on the passage and, in particular, the meaning of “pryvetee.” Thomas Hanks, Jr., notes that “‘Pryvetee’ has two chief meanings in Middle English, ‘private affairs’ and ‘private parts,’” and in the context of this passage, it “clearly has both meanings” (7).
The former meaning often entails divine matters, denoting, according to the MED, a “sacred mystery” or “divine secret.” Michael Watson notes Wycliffe’s use of the word to translate mysterion in Matthew 13:11 and concludes that the term could denote “a religious truth long kept secret, but now revealed through Christ to his Church” (32–3). 10 Pryvetee can also denote arcane knowledge or one’s private thoughts, secrets, or intentions (including God’s), the sort of knowledge sought by curiosi. 11 Bridging the seeming gap between God’s and a wife’s private affairs is the allusion to the Holy Family that Chaucer’s original audience would have likely perceived, insofar as “sermons, drama, and visual arts of the late medieval period” portrayed “Joseph’s difficulties in surmounting his suspicions against his wife Mary—who kept God’s secret until God himself revealed to Joseph in a dream that He had impregnated her” (Kendrick 10). That is, Joseph would have been a candidate to take the Miller’s advice about not being inquisitive about either God’s or his wife’s affairs.
As far as the second primary meaning, Thomas Farrell explains that pryvetee “could be used in reference to the anus, the vagina, the uterus, and the penis (in either its sexual or excretory function), either singly or in various combinations; Chaucer exploits that range of meaning fully” (783). Moreover, this meaning, when considered along with the second half of the line 3164 (“nor of his wyf”), suggests that a proper lack of inquisitiveness about one’s wife extends to this sense of her pryvetee as well, a notion that the Miller would surely approve of considering his happy ignorance of his wife’s infidelity. Hence, Paula Neuss suggests, “the Miller is clearly intending ‘pryvetee’ (not repeated, but required to complete the sense) to refer to a wife’s private parts as well as her private business, or perhaps more precisely a combination of the two” (330). 12
Complicating matters further is the oft-noted fact that the physiological meaning can apply not only to a wyf, but also to God. Joseph Baird argues, “as a result of the ambiguity of pryvetee and contamination from the context, the ‘mysteries’ of God leeringly invite the lewd, anthropomorphic ‘God’s private parts’” (105). 13 Though such a connotation is seemingly absurd and blasphemous when applied to God, according to Kendrick it was a common idea in the iconography of the Middle Ages. She notes that though “God the Father’s private parts were as taboo in the late fourteenth century as today … God the Son’s were at this very time suddenly being depicted and even stressed in visual art” (11). There was gradual denudation of Christ in religious art over the course of the 13th century that offers something of a parallel to the notion that “the veil of the Old Testament is taken away in Christ” (Kendrick 11–12). 14 Medieval artists saw a likeness between God’s Word in the Bible and God’s Word in the Flesh, both of which were manifestations of God’s pryvetee. 15
The Miller’s punning warning, therefore, establishes a connection between curiositas and the two other triadic sins. The indication of the relationship between the first and second triadic sins has been observed by David Boyd, who states that the pun on pryvetee “suggests a powerful relationship between sexuality and the probing attempts to penetrate another’s secret (p)arts,” an action akin to sodomy (245). Whether or not sodomy can be read into the pun, the Miller’s warning certainly draws a connection between the first two triadic sins by indicating that one’s inquisitiveness can be aimed at pryvetee in its various senses. The pun establishes just as strong a connection between the second two triadic sins, as only the intellectually proud would seek knowledge of Goddes pryvetee, insofar as the expression signifies “God’s secrets.” The natures of both relationships are further developed by the curious characters and additional punning of the Miller’s and Reeve’s Tales.
Nicholas
Hatton places Nicholas, along with Absolon and John, into a threefold scheme of the differing ends of curiositas found in Bernard’s Sermons on the Canticle of Canticles, which he characterizes in this way: “There are those who study merely to know ‘ut sciant,’ basic curiositas, those who study to be known ‘ut ipse sciant,’ curiositas compounded by vanitas, and worst of all those who study to sell their knowledge, ‘ut sciantiam suamvendant,’ curiositas stemming from avarice” (83). Hatton argues that Nicholas’s illegitimate pursuit of knowledge is for the sake of avarice and concludes that he is the character with the deepest-set instantiation of the vice (83). Though Nicholas’s use of the dubious means of astrology for the prediction of weather and of “what sholde bifalle / Of every thyng” suggests his greed (3195–8), his curiositas is more closely aligned with a fleshlier form of concupiscence.
The catalogue of Nicholas’s possessions sheds light on his curious character while hinting at his propensity toward the lust of the flesh: His Almageste, and bookes grete and smale, His astrelabie, longyng for his art, His augrym stones layen faire apart, On shelves couched at his beddes heed; His presse ycovered with a faldyng reed; And al above ther lay a gay sautrie. (3208–13)
This description is worth comparing to that of the Clerk’s bedside given in the General Prologue: For hym was levere have at his beddes heed Twenty bookes, clad in blak or reed, Of Aristotle and his philosophie Than robes riche, or fithele, or gay sautrie. (293–6)
Both descriptions begin with books, proceed to clothing, and end with mention of a “gay sautrie.” Whereas all of the Clerk’s books are said to contain Aristotelian philosophy, the only books described in Nicholas’s chamber are those dealing with the dubious and curious art of astrology. The Clerk, devoted to learning and teaching, would rather possess standard works of philosophy than “robes riche” and thus wears a threadbare coat. In contrast, Nicholas has a red falding beside his bed. Finally, whereas the Clerk disdains the “fithele” and “sautrie,” above everything else sets Nicholas’s “gay sautrie” that he often plays, including when he first woos Alisoun (3305–6). Ultimately, both the Clerk and Nicholas use the same means (their “freendes fyndyng”) for different ends, and they both seek knowledge for different ends, the Clerk to teach and Nicholas to fornicate. 16
After his initial description, Nicholas’s first act in the tale also indicates his curiositas, his quest for illicit pryvetee. According to the Miller, because Nicholas is a clerk he is necessarily “ful subtile and ful queynte” (3275). The meanings of queynte align themselves closely to those of pryvetee. Someone who is queynte is cunning and clever. A queynte object of knowledge is something strange, peculiar, or even mysterious. The word is also a pun on the female genitalia. Though the Miller warns that one should not be inquisitive about Goddes pryvetee or his wife’s, the first action we Nicholas committing is “prively” catching Alisoun “by the queynte” (3276). 17 It is queynte, with its various meanings, that is the object of Nicholas’s desire. His desire for Alisoun connects his concupiscence of the flesh with his concupiscence of the eyes: “of deerne love he koude” (3200). That is, his fleshly desires are described in terms of curiositas and vice versa. Contributing to this identification of the first two triadic sins are the means by which he will obtain his goal. Nicholas will use his quaintness (cleverness) to devise a quaint (elaborate) plan in order to obtain Alisoun’s queynte.
Additionally, these means connect his curiositas to pride. Before he formulates his plot, Nicholas boastfully reassures Alisoun that they will be able to partake in their affair safely, for “a clerk hadde litherly biset his whyle, / But if he koude a carpenter bigyle” (3299–3300). This remark reveals an almost contradictory picture of Nicholas’s own view of the purpose of his education. It suggests, first, that the purpose and effectiveness of a clerk’s education goes well beyond merely tricking a churl. Nonetheless, this is the principal purpose to which Nicholas applies his learning. Of course, his ultimate end is love-making with Alisoun, though Peter Goodall notes the possible motivation of pride on Nicholas’s part in constructing an unnecessarily quaint and complex plan. By doing so, Nicholas takes on an almost God-like omniscience, manipulating the circumstances of the plot in the most flamboyant way, like a mischievous and more arrogant version of Theseus [of the Knight’s Tale]. The fantastic plot to seduce Alison is almost wholly superfluous—its principal function is to flaunt Nicholas’s intelligence and his claim to be able to control a complex series of events. (13)
18
Likewise, Andrew Johnston notes that Nicholas assumes “the role of God” or, at least, “God’s carnivalesque alter ego” in a burlesque parody of the “love triangle” composed of him, Alisoun/Mary, and John/Joseph (23). Goodall is right to attribute Nicholas’s machinations to that of God-like omniscience, for Nicholas works seeming wonders for John. By not leaving his chamber for an entire day, he instills in John “greet merveyle” (3423). After John has roused Nicholas out of his apparent stupor, the clerk will only “speke in pryvetee / Of certeyn thyng that toucheth me and thee” and will tell the matter to “noon oother man” (3493–5). Shut up in his private chamber, Nicholas makes John swear “that to no wight thou shalt this conseil wreye, / For it is Cristes conseil that I seye” (3503–4). In this passage there is a likely pun on conseil, another multifaceted word fittingly paired with curiositas. That is, Nicholas is claiming not only that he is privy to Christ’s counsel, plan, and/or knowledge, but also that he alone is privy to those things, that Christ divulged such conseil (a concealed matter) to him privately and secretly. Indeed, this conseil, as Watson points out, is equivalent to Goddes pryvetee, as “both refer to divine mystery, that knowledge of future events which it is forbidden to any but initiates to have” (33). From John’s perspective, however, Nicholas truly has God-given knowledge, albeit a dangerous form of it. In fact, when he first discovers Nicholas in his apparent stupor, John diagnoses him with curiositas, lamenting that “Men sholde nat knowe of Goddes pryvetee” (3454) and citing the example as old as Aesop and Plato of the star-gazing astronomer (Thales) falling into the pit. The clerk’s deception displays the pretentions of a curiosus. Hatton explains, “if Nicholas’ claim to have discovered the date for a second flood were really true, it would mean that he has indeed pried into ‘Goddes pryvetee’” (84). Therefore, “Nicholas’s certain prediction of the day and hour of this key sign of the end claims a knowledge denied even Christ! Nicholas’s ultimate purpose, of course, is adultery, suggesting in comic form how the selfish use of clerical learning leads to amor rather than caritas” (Emmerson 99).
As Nicholas preserves his secrecy by astounding John with his secret access to Goddes pryvetee, he is all the while conflating the sacred and the profane (the same “synne” of which the Reeve accused the Miller). He has done this not only with the origin of his secret knowledge (it is divine revelation, the art of astrology, or some combination of the two), but also with the object of that knowledge. The “certeyn thynge that toucheth” Nicholas and John is not, as Hanks points out, Goddes pryvetee, but “a ‘certeyn thynge’ of Alison’s” (8). In these deceptive actions, the manner in which the curiosi blur lines among what legitimate and illegitimate objects of knowledge is manifested. So too are the similarities between curiositas and the two other triadic sins.
In fact, it is pride, coupled with idleness, that leads to Nicholas’s attempted trick on Absolon by “pryvely” putting his arse out the window. As Patrick Gallacher explains, “In seeking to amend the jape, Nicholas wants to ascend to a new level of trickery, a parody of further transcendence” (45). Likewise, V. A. Kolve observes that the clerk “proves himself no ordinary lecher. Between the intention and the act must fall the shadow of an elaborate and delightful invention, a game to earn him Alisoun,” and that “To increase their delight, they erect a barrier to the consummation of their desire—a game as elaborate as The Knight’s Tale tournament by which a husband is found for Emelye. Nicholas must prove by his wit that he is worthy to lie with Alisoun, though simpler procedures lie readily to hand” (188). Kolve concludes the steps the clerk undertakes “are entirely out of proportion to Nicholas’s ultimate intent, unless one understands his object to be as much the witty exploration of an old man’s gullibility as the ‘swyvyng’ of the wife that he will earn thereby” (190). That is, Nicholas’s inordinate means serve his illicit ends, encompassing the first and third triadic sins: his pretended, privileged knowledge of Goddes pryvetee is for the sake of Alison’s.
Absolon
Unlike Nicholas, whose keen intellect allows him to remain aloof from the steps of his plan that John carries out for him, the tale’s other clerk is described in terms of swete and busyness. In fact, the wife-censing Absolon is a typical curious busybody. Nonetheless, the ultimate end of his curious desire is the same—Alisoun’s pryvetee—and is again portrayed in terms of the first and third triadic sins. Absolon’s desire for Alisoun as well as the other parish wives is portrayed in intellectual terms: while “sensynge the wyves of the parisshe … many a lovely look on hem he caste / and namely on this carpenteris wyf” (3341–3). Roy Clark has identified a pun in Absolon’s “sensynge,” which, coupled with the lovely look he casts, “suggests that Absolon concerned himself more with lechery than liturgy” (281). Theologians would agree. Aquinas would find Absolon’s “sensynge” sinful not only because it is distracting, but also because such sensitive knowledge is directed to something harmful. 19
Furthermore, his attempt to kiss Alisoun is portrayed as a dubious intellectual pursuit as Absolon approaches the “shot-wyndowe” of John’s house (3695). Hatton argues, “curiosity compounded by pride and lechery brings Absolon to Alisoun’s shot window on the fatal night” (85). This access point for the object of his desire likely indicates something of the private nature of the object that Absolon seeks. Peter Brown notes that it is the only mention of such a window in Chaucer and speculates that it may designate a window placed at the same level as a latrine for the sake of ventilation, perhaps with a pun on the ME shiten (“Shot Wyndowe” 96). Gila Aloni argues that the window's designation “indicates its metaphorical status as a threshold between the most private, the interior substance of the body, and the outside” (168). Such a reading fits well with William Woods’s contention that Alisoun is a metaphor for the private world of John’s house, as he goes so far as to claim that Alisoun’s “‘nether ye’ aligns perfectly with the shot window, which is, and is not, a public access to forbidden privacy” (“Private and Public” 177). Chaucer portrays Absolon, like Nicholas, as seeking the wife’s pryvetee.
Though after the kiss Absolon may leave off his secretive lecherous pursuit, he immediately takes up a secret, ireful one to repair his wounded pride, in a different attempt to penetrate Alisoun’s pryvetee. The attempt is an indication that, like Nicholas, Absolon possesses a blasphemous perception of a godlike ability to obtain such private knowledge. Beryl Rowland notes that Absolon, as a barber-surgeon, would have been familiar with purgatorial operation of “cauterization in ano,” and just as “the Holy Ghost impregnated the Virgin with inner fire and protected her from concupiscence,” “Absolon now intends to purge Alison by fire, not with his cauter (ME cauterie), to be sure, but … a coulter” (“Blasphemous” 50–1). 20 It could be said, therefore, that Absolon seeks to know Alisoun in something of a blasphemous parody of the manner in which the Holy Spirit knew the Blessed Virgin.
The Reeve’s Tale
The two clerk suitors of the Miller’s Tale not only have the same object of desire, but also are portrayed as curiosi whose curiositas is linked to their lust and pride. Though analyses of the ways in which the Reeve’s Tale quites the Miller’s are plentiful, missing from them is the portrayal of curiositas in the Reeve’s Tale, which is an important link tying together the tales told by the ireful Reeve and the lecherous Miller. Not only do the three main characters in the Reeve’s Tale possess traits of the curiosus, but also the teller himself, whose wounded pride has prompted him to tell the tale. His initial defense of his vocation and his criticism of the Miller’s subject matter (3144–9) can most certainly be attributed to pride of life and resulting ire, but it can additionally be attributed to an intellectual sort of pride. Indeed, to quite the Miller properly, he must do so using the same content and style as his predecessor: “right in [the Miller’s] cherles termes” (3917). He must tell a story with a trick that is as good as or even better than the one played on John the carpenter, which is no small feat.
Even before he begins his tale, the Reeve demonstrates his ability to speak in clerkly terms with the sermonizing he engages in during his prologue. It is long (and perhaps astute) enough to lead the Host ask, “What amounteth al this wit? / What shul we speke al day of hooly writ?” (3901–2). 21 In fact, as Jill Mann has observed, the Reeve is in two other places compared to a cleric (590 and 621), and she has noted that “Langland also classes the reeve among those [including clerks] who over-reach themselves by being too clever” (164). 22 In fact, she speculates that Chaucer may be “hinting at the pretentions of [the Reeve’s] class to ‘clergy’” (284 n. 70). 23 Similar curious attributes and desires are displayed in the Reeve’s main character.
Simkin
Like the Reeve’s, Simkin’s description suggests qualities that one would associate with a curiosus. Obviously, his most evident characteristic is pride, and there is reason to believe that he is just as proud of his intellect as he is of his estate and his daughter’s “hooly blood.” In part, intellectual pride is indicated by his name, which John Fisher suggests is a diminutive of the name “Simon” and may be intended to call to mind Simon Magus (71). This analogue proves to be significant, as the expanded account of Simon Magus in the Apocryphal Acts of Peter was taken to be “a warning against pride” (Herzman 331). Simon Magus was also associated with curiositas. The Acts of Peter portrays a contest of faith between Simon Magus and Peter that has elements reminiscent of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness, part of which (withstanding the temptation to cast himself down from the pinnacle of the temple) Augustine took to be Jesus’ defeat of curiositas (Of True Religion 38.71). Before the contest, Peter proclaims, “God is neither tempted nor weighed in the balance. But he is to be worshipped with the whole heart by those whom he loves and he will hear those who are worthy” (26). During the contest, Simon uses demonic tricks and magic, and he tempts God in a challenge to Peter by claiming that he will not cast himself down from the heights, but fly up to them: Peter, now, as I am about to ascend in the presence of all the onlookers, I say to you, if your God is almighty, (he whom the Jews killed, and they stoned you who were chosen by him), let him show the faith in him is of God; let it be manifested by this event, whether it is worthy of God. For I ascend and will show myself to this people what kind of being I am. (32)
It turns out that Simon indeed flies, but Peter prays that he fall and break his leg so that the people will not believe in his power. This is accomplished, and Simon later kills himself. Like Simon, Simkin takes pride in his tricks and experiences a painful downfall.
Simkin seems to expect that all clerks possess the same curious characteristics, namely, that they will act like Nicholas from the Miller’s Tale. He assumes that their learning is useless or at best fraudulent and misused. In the Reeve’s Tale, then, the non-clerical male character possesses the intellectual capacity that one would expect of an educated clerk. Because of this, he, unlike his non-clerical counterpart in the Miller’s Tale, can engage in a trick himself. The sly Simkin is thus not impressed with the scholars’ plan to trick him. He can smile at their “nycetee” and boast to himself that he will blere hir ye, For al the sleighte in hir philosophye. The moore queynte crekes that they make, The moor wol I stele whan I take. (4049–52)
Though he has not (and perhaps because he has not) received their formal education, Simkin seems intent on showing that he can out-trick them (a motivation not unlike the Reeve’s in telling this tale). He claims, “‘The gretteste clerkes been noght wisest men’ / As whilom to the wolf thus spak the mare. / Of al hir art ne counte I noght a tare” (4054–6). The fable he alludes to suggests that those with intellectual presumption will be punished. Hence, Germaine Dempster observes, Simkin is not one of those common uninteresting thieves who would steal just for the sake of profit—he is an artist, a dilettante, one who knows all the scale from “curteous” [3997] to “outrageous” [3998] theft and enjoys the practice of his art a hundred times more than the possession of a few pounds of meal. (28)
Like Nicholas, Simkin is not just successful in his trickery, but he takes pride in his ability to accomplish such feats.
Some of his disdain for the clerks is merited. After all, he has more knowledge of the working of the mill than the clerks who feign interest in it. By working “ful pryvely,” he sets their horse loose without their knowledge. Therefore, after he has successfully stolen their wheat and caused the clerks to return to his house shamefully to seek lodging, Simkin ridicules their learning under the guise of an apology for his meager resources: Myn hous is streit, but ye han lerned art; Ye konne by argumentes make a place A myle brood of twenty foot of space. Lat se now if this place may suffise, Or make it rowm with speche, as is your gise. (4122–6)
Once again displayed is Simkin’s perception, most likely feigned for the sake of ridicule, of the shadowy ends of clerkly learning. Woods has commented at length on this passage. He argues that in it Simkin displays “resentment of the clerks’ education and their station in life” (“Symkyn’s Place” 17). Woods reads into the lines references to the 14th-century Aristotelian philosopher Albert of Saxony and to contemporaneous theological and philosophical controversies. Therefore, for some of Chaucer’s original audience, “Symkyn’s insulting paradox might have seemed to carry a bit more weight,” and they may “have been more sensitive to the social import of these lines, with their sly anticlerical overtone, tempered with the pride of knowing what the clerks were up to, what was really being debated—even at Cambridge” (17). 24 J. A. W. Bennett, moreover, suggests, “Simkin may by quipping not only at their argumentative skill, but at the clerkly pastime of natural magic” (84). If the clerks do possess such learning, Simkin’s victory is that much greater.
Part of Simkin’s motivation to trick the clerks is surely jealousy. Woods perceives this vice in that Simkin echoes their language and that “nearly all of what we hear in this tale about clerks and the art of clerks is contributed by Symkyn” (“Symkyn’s Place” 33). Peter Brown observes, “The miller’s attitude exemplifies the driving force in his complex character: the desire to be superior, to be better than his betters, which has found expression hitherto in greed and social ambition” (“The Containment” 233). (The Reeve, it should be remembered, is himself trying to outdo the Miller, whose tale was generally well received.) After setting their horse free and stealing their flour, Simkin is satisfied with his intellectual victory and indulges in a small feast (at the clerks’ expense). In some sense, pride of his intellectual achievement over the students, which leads to his drunkenness, causes Simkin’s inattentiveness to the most private matters in his household and leaves him vulnerable to the clerks’ revenge. That is, intellectual pride leaves vulnerable his wife’s and daughter’s pryvetees, the objects of John and Aleyn’s curious desires.
John and Aleyn
The Reeve’s Tale, like the Miller’s, contains two young clerks whose lust of the eyes is manifested by means of lust of the flesh and the pride of life. John and Aleyn, the “younge povre scolers two,” are “lusty for to pleye” (4002, 4004). Apparently idle, for “their myrthe and revelrye” they plan to trick the miller and “upon the wardeyn bisily they crye” for permission to go to the mill (4005–6). Their intention, as R. H. Hanning has noted, is “to protect their college’s wheat (part of its res privata) from his depredations” (115). Both exhibit pride in that they will not be tricked by the Reeve and have their flour stolen: Alan and John’s desire [is] to test their own intellectual superiority as well as that of their university, a desire not present in any of the analogues. They are aware beforehand of the miller’s disdain for book-learning and university training and set out for the specific purpose of outwitting him. (Baylor 17)
Nonetheless, despite the ingenuity of their plan to outwit the miller, they fail in their execution of it, for they become too intent on searching out secrets. There is a sense in which the two clerks seek to know the pryvetee of the mill’s operation. As they admit, the workings of the mill are mysterious to them, so John stations himself at the hopper’s mouth and Aleyn beneath it. A number of critics have noted the grinding of the mill was often described in terms of pryvetee in the physiological sense. Rowland explains, “the Miller by long tradition is associated with conjugal relations, molere mulierem being used to describe the sexual act, the husband being the miller who grinds and the wife the mill” (Blind Beasts 126).
The two clerks are so consumed with such pryvetee (both the expected secret attempt at theft and, in the punning sense, the operation of the mill) that Simkin can set their horse free. Of course, they immediately become consumed with capturing it so that they forget their business at hand. These clerks, consumed first with their wheat and then with their horse, wind up, like the stargazing clerk seeking Goddes pryvetee whom John warns of in the Miller’s Tale, in a ditch at night. As many critics have noted, the loose horse can be read as a symbol of unbridled lust or, more generally, of desire free from the mind’s rule. Indeed, Kolve sees a parallel in the famous tale of Phyllis riding Aristotle, a symbol of love’s power over reason (246–7).There is plenty in the tale to suggest that the students’ lust is unbridled, yet, as in the Miller’s Tale, this lust is portrayed in such a way as to call to mind the second triadic sin as well. Indeed, this episode occurs between the two situations in which the students seek pryvetee: first in the mill and later in the bedroom.
The intellectual pride of the shamed clerks leads to the final movement of the tale. After finally catching the horse, John laments, Allas … the day that I was born! Now are we dryve til hethyng and til scorn. Oure corn is stolen; men wil us fooles call, Bathe the wardeyn and oure felawes alle, And namely the millere, weylaway! (4109–13)
Shame of being tricked by a miller weighs heavily on his mind. John fears the contempt, scorn, and name-calling of everyone who could possibly learn of the event. Aleyn, citing lex taliones, claims he deserves compensation for the theft of his wheat. Just as the miller privately set loose their horse so that he could privately steal their wheat, Aleyn will privately take “som esement” (4179). John, however, must work up a stronger feeling of shame to act. He foresees himself back with his chums and knows that “when this jape is tald another day, / I sal been halde a daf, a cokenay!” (4208–9). Inspired to act by this fear, he moves the cradle to enact a plan as quaint as Nicholas’s. Hanning notes the appropriateness of their revenge: just as Simkin violated the clerks’ res privata, so “the Miller’s wife and daughter—again, part of his literal pryvetee—are swyved by Alan and John, and, to make matters worse, the daughter further violates Simkin’s pryvetee by revealing to Alan the location of the cake made of the stolen grain” (115).
The clerks’ revenge is made more significant by the use of puns. Besides the pun on pryvetee that occurs throughout this and the preceding tale, Ian Lancashire has noted the pun on flower/flour. Identifying the potential meanings of flour as “hymen, virginity or maidenhead” and citing the Wife of Bath’s use of it (III.477), he suggests, “Chaucer puns on the word to indicate that the miller’s punishment, as ‘poetic’ justice requires, will be meted out with strict equity, one ‘flower’ for another ‘flour’” (161). Likewise, he observes sexual innuendo in that “what Alain calls his ‘disport’ is termed by Simkin to be ‘queynte crekes’” (167). Commenting on this latter expression, he argues that it is a multiple pun (as with “flour”), not only on the first term, “queynte,” meaning “cunning” and “female pudendum,” but also on the second, “crekes,” which is rather more complex, meaning (1) the cleft between the buttocks, (2) tricks or stratagems (though apparently the only instance of this meaning is the present one), and (3) muscular spasms (as in the back). That is to say, Simkin himself unwittingly makes the punning identification of the students’ milling interests (the “wagging” hopper spilling their “corn” into the “mill,” and the “meal” or result of the “grinding” falling into the “trough”) with their later sexual exploits that night. (167)
Hence, the students’ eager desire to protect their private property (flour) as well as their feigned desire to learn about the milling process (its pryvetee) are likened to knowledge of sexual exploits. Of course, due to their failure to gain such knowledge, they instead gain by means of “queynt crekes” the private knowledge, in the biblical sense, of Simkin’s wife and daughter (their pryvetee and flour).
The action of this tale, like the Miller’s Tale, emphasizes that pryvetee is the object of knowledge for the curiosus. As it turns out, the students get what they were truly seeking, and not just their hall’s flour. As students, one would expect them to seek licit knowledge or, perhaps, knowledge bordering on what can be known, as the stargazing clerk alluded to in the Miller’s Tale does, the sort of knowledge Nicholas pretends to possess. But, as is the case with their student counterpart in the Miller’s Tale, what they seek is a fleshly pryvetee. Originally seeking knowledge of their private goods in the pryvetee of the mill, the students recover that private property after obtaining pryvetee in Simkin’s house.
Conclusion
In the two tales, Chaucer displays in an orthodox fashion the nature of curiositas as well as its relation to the other triadic sins, yet his portrayal of the latter is more poignant than that which theologians and poets had earlier provided. Through punning he has shown the analogous nature of the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes: both are the seeking and knowing (in the biblical sense) of illicit pryvetee. Likewise, the characters display the pride of life in their curious pursuits. By means of poetry, Chaucer has, so to speak, brought down to earth the intellectual vice. Accordingly, it is not only the four clerks who exhibit the vice, but also the unlearned: Simkin the miller and the tale-telling carpenter Reeve. The tales indicate that one need not be particularly learned (or even a Ulysses or Satan) to succumb to the vice.
Ultimately, the reader’s own propensity toward curiositas is tested by Chaucer in this pair of tales, and, in fact, in all of the Tales. The reader becomes implicated in the same curious activities portrayed in the two tales, an outcome Chaucer warns of at the end of the Miller’s prologue. A reader can choose “amys” and succumb to curiositas. That is, a reader’s desired object of knowledge and motivation in reading a tale can be disordered. The bawdy details with which the ribald tales are brimming (solas) can distract a reader from seeking legitimate knowledge (sentence). Likewise, the dialogic tale-telling contest itself can instill the desire to proudly take sides in the various “debates” of this roadside drama. By extension, Chaucer indicates that poetry is conducive to the lust of the eyes, not merely by its transmission of possibly illegitimate knowledge, but by its appeals to the two other triadic sins. It is not only the monk poring over his manuscripts who is susceptible to curiositas, but anyone who engages in tale-telling—poetry—whether told, heard, or lived—in this pilgrimage of life.