Chaucer and Clothing

In 2000, Laura Hodges produced Chaucer and Costume, a study of the clothing of the secular pilgrims in the ‘General Prologue’ to the Canterbury Tales (rev. ante, cxvi (2001), 706–7). Now this second volume on the clothing and accessories worn by Chaucer's clerical characters completes her survey of the meaning and significance of costume in the poet's descriptions of the pilgrims. While Chaucer and Costume provided a mass of extremely useful information for modern readers, who are likely to be unfamiliar with fourteenth-century terminology for dress, its value was diminished by its rather haphazard structure, which made it difficult to focus on Chaucer's description of any particular pilgrim. By contrast, Chaucer and Clothing adopts a far more user-friendly arrangement of its material with discussion of the Prioress, Monk, Friar, Clerk, Doctor, Pardoner, Summoner and Parson brought together in separate chapters and sections rather than being dispersed across a number of different chapters. Hodges's encyclopaedic knowledge of medieval dress allows her to explain the meaning of Chaucer's vocabulary (for example, the ‘sangwyn and pers’ lined with ‘taffata’ and ‘sendal’ worn by Chaucer's Doctor) and she draws widely on the evidence both of actual costume in the middle ages and of its employment in contemporary literary stereotypes. Yet, as well as explicating Chaucer's denotative sense with the help of a battery of lengthy footnotes, Hodges provides a number of interesting, original and provocative interpretations of the connotations of his descriptions of clothing, showing how the pilgrims' costumes provide insights into their inner characters. Indeed, as Hodges herself emphasises, the moral significance of the clothing worn by these clerical characters was particularly heightened, given the explicit and institutionalised dress codes by which the clergy were bound. Occasionally, the book's own analysis of the significance of the dress worn by particular pilgrims would have been strengthened even further by greater consideration of their moral nature. For instance, developing Chaucer's allusion to the Prioress as a hypocritical Pharisee would actually have buttressed Hodges's own argument that it is not (as some critics have claimed) the Prioress's dress which the poet criticises but rather her failure to live up to the inner moral standard which her outer garments should have signified. At times too, more consideration could have been given to whether Chaucer's descriptions of dress are meant to cue us to assess the pilgrims in terms of the traditional ideals of behaviour expected of particular social groups, or whether we are supposed to judge their attire in terms of the more relaxed norms of practice of Chaucer's own day. Inevitably, in a field as controversial as that of Chaucer criticism, not all of Hodges's interpretations of the tales will convince all of her readers. For instance, following Roney, Hodges sees the Clerk's praise of Griselda's obedient complicity in the (apparent) death of her own children as being an attack by Chaucer on the ‘narrowly Aristotelian Oxford arts curriculum’ (pp. 190–1). Yet, in fact, the ability to read such seemingly horrific narratives as allegories of moral virtue can actually be seen as the orthodoxy of medieval modes of biblical and literary interpretation, as can be seen in contemporary commentaries on Abraham's willingness to kill his own son, Isaac. Such disagreements on particular issues of interpretation should not, however, be allowed to overshadow Hodges's achievement in providing us with an invaluable context for reading Chaucer's text, one which succeeds in making us see afresh the familiar words of the ‘General Prologue’. Unlike theoretically-generated readings of the Canterbury Tales which come and go in accordance with intellectual fashion, this historically-informed analysis of Chaucer's meaning will be consulted for decades to come by social historians and literary critics alike

Art · Clothing · Costume design · Literature · Meaning (existential · Middle Ages · Middle English · Prologue · Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies · Historical Studies of British Isles · History · Medieval Literature and History · Philosophy

• Shoes, Boots, Leggings, and Cloaks

  Open Access•Allison D Fizzard•Journal of British Studies•2007

  Add to list