The summoner's Jankyn as an artifical fool

Stephen Harper. Notes and Queries. London: Mar 1999.Vol. 46, Iss. 1;  pg. 12, 3 pgs

Abstract (Document Summary)

Harper examines Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Summoner's Tale." Harper believes that Jankyn, the lord's squire, plays the role of a court jester in the poem.

Full Text (867   words)

Copyright Oxford University Press(England) Mar 1999

THE central events of Chaucer's Summoner's Tale are well-known. The pompous and hypocritical friar John asks a peasant, Thomas, for a donation to his order. Thomas promises to give the friar 'swich thyng as is in [his] possessioun' on condition that the friar share it equally among his brethren.' Searching Thomas's buttocks for the donation, the friar receives the predictable 'gift' of a fart. The enraged friar takes his grievance to the lord and lady of the local manor, who are baffled by the problem Thomas has posed - how equally to divide a fart - and regard the peasant as deranged or possessed.

In the final part of the poem, the castigation of Thomas gives way to general ridicule of the friar. The lord's squire, Jankyn, offers, in exchange for a new 'gowne-clooth', to solve Thomas's problem of the equal division of the fart. He suggests that thirteen friars, including friar John, be summoned to the manorial hall and assemble around a cartwheel to participate in an extraordinary experiment:

Thanne shal they knele doun, by oon assent,

And to every spokes ende, in this manere,

Ful sadly leye his nose shal a frere.

Youre oble confessour there God hym save!

Shal holde his nose upright under the nave.

rhanne shal this cherl, with bely stif and toght

As any tabour, hyder been ybroght;

And sette hym on the wheel right of this cart,

Upon the nave, and make hym lete a fart.

And ye shul seen, up peril of my lyf,

By preeve which that is demonstratif,

That equally the soun of it wol wende,

And eke the stynk, unto the spokes ende,

Save that this worthy man, youre confessour,

By cause he is a man of greet honour,

Shul have the firste fruyt, as resoun is.

(2262 2277)

Jankyn's elaborate solution to Thomas's problem is met with unqualified approval by the lord and lady, if not the friar. Indeed, his mockingly precious insistence on the language of scholastic reason - `By preeve which is demonstratif', `By cause', `as resoun is' parodies the friar's verbosity earlier in the tale. Clearly, Jankyn introduces the familiar Chaucerian discourse of antifraternal satire, a fitting business for one whose name `came to symbolize light-hearted and light-headed young people'.2

I would further argue that Jankyn's role here is essentially that of a court fool, whose `major office', as Rose Zimbardo puts it, `was to engage in wit combat or dispute with his lord'.3 It is possible that Chaucer encountered court fools during his travels in Italy. Whatever the case, Jankyn, like the court wits described in Enid Welsford's important study Fool, is licensed to contradict his lord's judgement, to solve riddles, and to flatter or ridicule freely with the promise of material remuneration. Most significantly of all, Jankyn's reward for his solution is a new gown, the garment traditionally provided by the court for its fools. Charles VI of France even kept a fool called Haincelin, which is also the name of a long gown 4

Jankyn's sophisticated friar-baiting aligns him with those 'artificial' fools who were permitted to denounce with impunity the hidden vices of the powerful.5 Moreover, by punning on the words `ars-metrik' and 'resoun' the latter of which suggests the 'resonance' of a fart - Jankyn not only alludes to the scatological behaviour expected of medieval buffoons, but also draws upon the fool's traditional rhetorical resources.

Although fools are not common in Chaucer, the form and content of Jankyn's casuistry, and his motivation for it, clearly mark the squire as an artificial fool. This conclusion is consistent with Lee Patterson's argument that the Summoner's Tale moves from politically charged allegations of peasant insanity to the comfortable conventions of satire.' Jankyn has indeed evaded the political implications of Thomas's problem of equal division. Medieval fools characteristically attacked the abuses of individual figures, but never the social structures or institutions to which they belong. If Heather Arden is right, for example, the popular sorties or `fool plays' of the late Middle Ages are properly seen not as radical subversions of official culture, but rather as non-egalitarian and conservative works.' In the Summoner's Tale, Jankyn's foolishness has a socially stabilizing effect, dissolving into laughter the unpalatable egalitarian imn.ications of Thomas's conundrum.

STEPHEN HARPER

University of Glasgow