"Myne by Right": Oath Making and Intent in The Friar's Tale

Daniel T Kline. Philological Quarterly. Iowa City: Summer 1998.Vol. 77, Iss. 3;  pg. 271, 23 pgs

Abstract (Document Summary)

Kline suggests that the vows, oath, and pledges taken in "The Friar's Tale" testify to the richly evocative, "half-spoken" context of late medieval commercial, religious, and legal oath making. Critics have seen "The Friar's Tale" as a theological exemplum, but Kline believes it is a reactionary narrative, harnessing the cultural anxieties surrounding the social milieu of late fourteenth century England.

Full Text (8818   words)

Copyright University of Iowa Summer 1999

1. INTRODUCTION

The swearing of oaths, so prominent in The Friar's Tale, was considered serious business in late medieval England, for oaths carried not only supernatural weight but also contractual significance and legal authority. I agree with H. Marshall Leicester that The Friar's Tale, "an intensely social tale," is "dominated by the unspoken context which surrounds it,"1 but I would suggest that the vows, oath, and pledges permeating the tale testify to the richly evocative, "half-spoken" context of late medieval commercial, religious, and legal oath making. The utterances of The Friar's Tale range across the entire semantic field to include promissory pledges, religious and sacrilegious oaths, gender and generational slurs, personal insults, and legal covenants. More than just adding colorful detail to the narrative, these expressions provide an index to the cultural scripts informing the tale; in turn, these discourses shape the characters' relationships and motivate the tale's resolution.

The conclusion of The Friar's Tale, in which the summoner fails, the widow succeeds, and the demon profits, results from the characters' ability (or inability) to recognize and to negotiate the competing discursive fields of the narrative. The summoner ultimately falls into the demon's power because he fails to recognize that the fluid and contractual nature of an oath he assumes to be fixed and between equals can be superseded by the demon's own obligations to the traditional divine hierarchy. For the most part, critics have seen The Friar's Tale as a theological exemplum,2 but I believe that in its marginalizing of contractual and legal scripts in favor of an all-encompassing theological language, The Friar's Tale is a reactionary narrative, harnessing the cultural anxieties surrounding the changing social milieu of late fourteenth century England and submerging them in traditional theological discourse.3

If "discourse" names a continuity between cultural regimes, institutional expectations, linguistic expressions, physical actions, and the subjects arising within them,4 then I would like further to suggest that oaths of The Friar's Tale are a sign of the subject's "discernment" of these cultural options.5 For example, since the summoner's intent is set so purely upon accumulating wealth, and he and the demon-bailiff have pledged their mutual allegiance, the summoner is unfazed when the demon reveals his identity, but he is equally shocked when the demon takes him to hell. Therefore, if we conceive of The Friar's Tale to be permeated with overlapping and "half spoken" discourses of economics, law, and theology, then oaths indicate the trajectory of the subject's intent along these competing discourses.

Thus, oaths convey "intent," and although the word has been read primarily as a theological construct, I would suggest a more broadly based analysis of the term is necessary. In fact, "intent" shifts connotatively along three axes throughout the tale-first as an economic imperative, then as a legal concept, and finally as a theological precept-and this story of a corrupt summoner carried to hell by the power of his own word progresses through three scenes of oath making. First, the language of contract shapes the opening exchange in which the summoner and demon-bailiff swear a promissory vow of brotherhood with the intent to divide their ill-gotten gains. Second, religious and sacrilegious vows characterize the next scene, for the carter, observed by the summoner and demon, exclaims a series of religious oaths which reveal the carter's normative spirituality and introduces the legal parameters of intent. Finally, the discourse of law frames the last interchange of The Friar's Tale, for the widow, under the threat of extortion, makes a binding pledge upon the summoner in the terms of his initial oath with the demon. At the climax of the narrative, after the widow has pledged both the summoner's body and her pan to hell, the demon bailiff reminds his sworn kinsman, "'Now, brother,' quod the devel, 'be nat wrooth; / Thy body and this panne been myne by right."6 The demon's feudal obligations at that moment override his vow of brotherhood to the summoner, and the demon invokes his right to the summoner based on their original sworn vow as now supported by the widow's sacred oath and legal proof. The summoner, caught in overlapping contractual, religious, and legal obligations, can offer no resistance, and he is taken to hell. In short, the relatively stable theology of divine hierarchy leading to final judgment as embodied in the demon provides an antidote to the often capricious legal system as represented by the summoner.

2. HIERARCHY AND ALLIANCE, TEXTUALITY AND IMPROVISATION

In Social Chaucer, Paul Strohm argues that the late fourteenth century saw the development of new social alignments, where personal loyalty was redirected "from vertical commitment to a single lord in a hierarchical system to a more horizontal dispersal of loyalties among the members of one's own social group."7 According to Strohm, temporary contractual arrangements based on money for service supplemented more traditional feudal relationships of land or rent for loyalty. These contracts allowed for increased flexibility in the network of social alliances and a secular rather than a sacral relationship between parties.

The Friar's Tale exemplifies both modes of social organization. The first is the rather rigid religious hierarchy of bishoparchdeacon-summoner, and the second is that of the more flexible, individualistic mode of relation of the summoner to his spies and victims. However, the tale also typifies this shift in social allegiances, for the Friar's summoner is embroiled in both the horizontal network of mutual alliance and in the vertical relations of feudal hierarchy. On one hand, the summoner's hierarchical relationships appear to be fixed: Through the aegis of the bishop, the archdeacon, "a man of heigh degree" (D.1302), retains authority over the summoner, and the summoner, by virtue of his status as an officer of the archdeacon, exercises a threatening power over those in his jurisdiction.8 On the other hand, the summoner carries his own scurrilous retinue of "approwours" or agents (1343). These horizontally diffused relationships are more flexible and contingent than the ecclesiastical hierarchy, for the summoner's loosely knit group of spies works on an ad hoc basis, gleaning potentially damning information to use against local townspeople. At the same time, the summoner's own scabrous assemblage provides him the opportunity to subvert the ecclesiastical hierarchy to which he is subjected, for "His maister knew nat alwey what he wan" (1345).

While The Friar's Tale depicts the intersecting social coordinates of hierarchy and coalition, it also complicates the distinction between the written and oral texts and their discursive effects. More than just a synonym for "language," "discourse" embodies subjects within culture and denotes the linguistic field within which specific disciplinary discourses operate, for discourse "makes possible disciplines and institutions which, in turn, sustain and distribute those discourses."9 For example, the bishop's ecclesiastical "hook" exercises its disciplinary power through the archdeacon's judicial "book":

For er the bisshop caughte hem with his hook,

They weren in the erchdeknes book.

Than hadde he, thurgh his jurisdiccioun,

Power to down on hem coun.

(D.13 17-20)

The authority of the written word belongs to the clerical "book," and the disciplinary text exercises its power in the ecclesiastical court. Yet, while the religious hierarchy operates through the fixed text, the summoner, the court's agent, need not depend on a written document for his authority, for "Withouten mandement a lewed man / He koude somne" (1346-47) to court or extort for profit. The summoner's arena is not the official courtroom, bound by ritual and burdened by the letter of the law. His courthouse is the fluid social interchange between persons, and his great skill is his ability to improvise outside the bounds of the text according to the dictates of the present circumstance. His favorite trick, which he later mobilizes against the old widow, is to command those involved in illicit sexual liaisons to the court with a "feyned mandement" (1360) and then offer to bury the case for a fee:

Thanne would he seye, 'Freend, I shal for thy sake

Do striken hire out of oure lettres blake;

Thee thar namoore as in this cas travaille.

I am thy freend, ther I the may availle.' (1363-66)

Whether written, oral, or a verbal improvisation upon the written text, the word is indeed powerful in The Friar's Tale, nonnegotiable and ultimately binding, but it is also fluid and malleable according to the immediate needs of the moment, whether for the summoner or for the demon "'In divers art and in diverse figures"' (1486). Playing at the frayed edge of the mantle of power and the lowest rung of the ladder of authority, the summoner uses the clash of economic, theological, and legal imperatives that are a part of his office as an entrepreneurial engine-- whose victim he finally becomes. By damning the summoner to a quite conventional hell, The Friar's Tale ultimately marginalizes the discourses, and therefore the institutions, of commerce and law, thus normalizing the discourse of traditional theology and the unshakeable faith of widow and, ironically, the demon (D. 1535).

3. THE FRIAR IN THE GENERAL PROLOGUE

Like the summoner of his tale, Hubert the Friar operates out of multiple discursive registers, and as the Chaucerian narrator notes in the General Prologue, the Friar's principal tool is his ability to manipulate language for specific discursive effects: No other friar has "So muchel of daliaunce and fair langage" (A.211), and Hubert's skillful begging always yields a profit (25455). With his easy manner, the Friar proceeds with equal facility through hierarchical arrangements and local constituencies, and he ingratiates himself to everyone on the social ladder-from local maids and tavern keepers to "worthy" women and area landowners (212-17). The Friar's linguistic proficiency in the public sphere is matched only by his performance within the private confessional, where he hears confession sweetly, imparts absolution pleasantly, and confers penance easily (221-23) to earn a "good pitaunce" (224).

Part of a long-standing antifraternal tradition, the Friar's portrait in the General Prologue clearly indicates his transgression of the spiritual ideal of poverty.10 Instead, Hubert has a nose for profit, and the discontinuity between his spiritual vocation and his capitalistic nature dominates his social interactions: "And over al, ther as profit sholde arise, / Curteis he was and lowely of servyse" (249-50).11 Furthermore, because Hubert's clerical duties are not so much spiritual obligations as they are services performed for a fee, his commercialized spirituality acquires a contractual tone,12 and because of his success during "love-dayes" (258), the mendicant also proves a masterful mediator of conflict.13 As a kind of "business advisor" who is able to negotiate for profit the multiple social ties afforded him, Hubert is embedded in at least two formal contractual relationships: As a "lymytour" (209) he has exclusive right to beg in a certain jurisdiction, and as a "licenciat" he is authorized to hear confessions (220). Hence, we might regard the Friar's summoner's faith in informal covenants as a manifestation of the Friar's own commitment to contractual alliances. Whether in the town square or tavern, the cloister or confessional, Hubert tactically deploys a variety of discourses for profit and power, and his ability to negotiate between a number of competitive interests increases his personal prestige: Hubert carries himself not like a tattered, devout friar, but more "lyk a maister or a pope" (261).

Yet, the Chaucerian narrator also makes it clear that Hubert's language-the overriding manifestation of his subjectivity-is in some manner suspect. In the Friar's angry exchange with the Summoner at the end of The Wife of Bath's Tale, the Host recognizes that the Friar's "debaat," his corrupt and wrathful language, does not match his "estaat," his supposedly elevated social and religious position (D.1287-88), leading the Host to conclude that the Friar is less than "`hende / and curteys"' (1286-87). Moreover, many of Hubert's utterances are second-hand recitations of other cultural or religious scripts. He sings popular songs (A.266) and "yeddynges" [ballads] (237) as easily as he cites confessional formulae, well-known scripture (254), and "scolematere" or "auctoritees" (D.1272-76). Tellingly, Hubert's clerical rhetoric is marked by an affected lisp, "To make his Englissh sweete upon his tonge" (A.265). By calling into question the authenticity of the very mechanism of the Friar's speech, the Chaucerian narrator equally calls into question the authenticity of the Friar's language and, I would argue, the basis of the Friar's subjectivity: His pleasant but feigned "In principio" (254) raises the spectre of origins, of foundational questions, and of personal purpose, and the Friar's subjectivity, like his false spirituality, evaporates into the frigid physicality of soulless eyes that twinkle "As doon the sterres in the frosty nyght" (268). For Hubert, the language of spirituality marks its absence, the ecclesiastical trappings of his office denote his lack of religious authenticity, and the glint of a coin signifies his avarice rather than his humility. The use and abuse of language in the Friar's portrait is self-revelatory, for like the tale itself, Hubert masks his own preoccupation with wealth and status in the guise of a conventional moral exemplum on the divine sanction against greed.

Since the manipulation of language characterizes the Friar's empty spirituality, we might regard The Friar's Tale itself as the supplementary expression of Hubert's ultimately vacuous and venal subjectivity, for the commercial language of his portrait spills over into his tale. Hubert's "purchas," his gain from begging, is much more profitable "than his rente" (A.256), his supposedly fixed clerical income, and these explicitly monetary concerns reappear in the demon's assertion, "`My purchas is th'effect of al my rente"' (D.1451). Like the demon, whose ability to accrue wealth for his feudal master demarks his effectiveness as a court officer, the Friar's capacity to wield the "sacrament as a sales device" across the entire socio-economic spectrum testifies to his entrepreneurial savvy.14 Unlike Hubert, however, who skims the profits from his begging, the demon collects only what he is due. Having nothing other than the profit motive to ground his subjectivity, the Friar's own portrait in the General Prologue gradually becomes indistinguishable from the summoner of his own tale as one who exploits the immediate and contingent social relations available to him for profit but is eventually beholden to the demands of an ecclesiastical and heavenly hierarchy. Thus, The Friar's Tale ultimately is symptomatic of the Friar's own preoccupation with wealth in the likeness of theology, and when the Friar finally condemns the summoner both for his trust in individual, improvised economic transactions and for his lack of spiritual insight, Hubert equally sentences himself to judgment.

4. SCENE ONE: PROMISSORY PLEDGES AND THE LANGUAGE OF CONTRACT

The language of contract and the social cohesion it creates, so important to Friar Hubert, informs the first scene of oath making in The Friar's Tale, and in the same way the Friar both exploits his personal relationships and manipulates his position in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, the association of the demon and summoner is distinguished by both horizontal bonds of mutual allegiance and the vertical strictures of feudal loyalty. When first meeting the Friar's summoner, the demon calls him "brother" (D. 1395) by virtue of their shared occupation and invokes sworn "bretherhede" as the basis of their alliance (1399). In response, the summoner vows personal loyalty to the demon bailiff as "sword@e bretheren" (1405). The verbal nature of their sworn oath appears to be a traditional vow between equals, a horizontal arrangement of loyalty within similar class, occupational, and even familial strata.15

For the most part, critics have seen the pledge between the summoner and demon ironically: The thickheaded summoner pledges faith to a demon whose obvious motive is to acquire his soul.16 Yet it is important to note that their vow of camaraderie includes a pledge of exchange based on their common vocation and their status as compeers. After appealing to the summoner's sense of brotherhood for fellows of the same trade, the demon promises that when the summoner comes to his country, "`Al shal be thyn, right as thou wolt desire"' (D.1395-1402), and upon exchanging "tricks of the trade," their pledge of goods becomes a sworn agreement, "'Taak thou thy part, what that men wol thee yive, / And I shal myn; thus may we bothe lyve"' (1531-32). Their oath of brotherhood thereby takes on the scope of an informal contract as defined, for example, in the thirteenth century Mirror of Justices as "a discourse between persons that something that is not done shall be done," and by Justice Herle who in 1320 defined a promise for which legal remedies pertained-that is, a contract-as "no more nor less than an agreement between parties."17 The language of contract therefore calls forth subjects who intend to carry out the terms of the agreement; should a party be unable to uphold the agreement, the violator then becomes subject to the law. Both canon and civil law agreed generally that sworn promises should be upheld,18 and the vow of fraternal loyalty and concomitant pledge of financial exchange between the demon and summoner carries the force of an informal bond with legal implications. The language of their pledge is explicitly transactional, foreseeing a clearly defined exchange of goods, and even such a casual pledge might be said to formalize and even materialize the intent of the parties.

Therefore, the sworn vow and pledge of brotherhood between summoner and demon is confirmed by their shared intent and their combined actions to acquire wealth. The summoner's initial use of the word ties "intent" to economic increase, specifically in feudal terms, for it is his "`entente / To ryden, for to reysen up a rente / That longeth for my lordes duetee"' (D.1389-91). The demon echoes the same connection of will to material gain: "'My purchas is th'effect of al my rente. / Looke how thou rydest for the same entent"' (1451-52).19 Their common intent solidifies their promissory alliance, but the demon soon thereafter opens the connotation "intent" just slightly. The result of the summoner's work is material wealth, but the goal of the demon's labor (1473) is to seize the "'soule and body eke"' of his prey (1493). The summoner's relentless purpose is to add to his own profit; the demon, who will "'take al that men wol me yive"' (1430), wants not so much material wealth as human beings, both body and soul.

Although their ultimate goal is to collect "duetee" and "rent" first for themselves and then for their respective lords, the pledge of loyalty between summoner and demon appears to the summoner to subsume their commitments to their feudal masters. Paralleling the opening description of the summoner's ecclesiastical chain of command, the demon carefully explains the spiritual hierarchy of which he is a part. As "`Goddes instrumentz"' the fiend is the agent of a supernatural feudal regime who will "'doon his [God's] comandementz"' (D.1483-84). As divine laborers, demons must both obey the strictures of their station and respect the intent of their prey:

'Whan he [a person] withstandeth oure temptacioun,

It is a cause of his savacioun,

Al be it that it was nat oure entente

He sholde be sauf, but that we wolde hym hence [take].'

(1497-1500)

Demons thus improvise within the discursive parameters-the language, intent, and actions-of their human quarry. Demonic intent is expressed through temptation, but temptation can also bring resistance and ultimately salvation; thus, the saved choose salvation and the damned participate in their own judgment. Accordingly, the demon's success is neither fixed nor certain, but is dependent upon the will of the humans he both pursues and finally serves through God's aegis (1501-03).

The uneasy intersection of hierarchical commitment and horizontal allegiance problematizes the initial vow between summoner and demon and opens a rift in their seemingly identical conceptions of intent. Nonetheless, the summoner believes that their oath of brotherhood supersedes the demon-bailiff s hierarchical relationship to his overlord. As "'sworne brethren til they deye"' (1405), the summoner maintains his fidelity even after he learns the demon's true identity (1448-49) and ultimate objective. In a bravado show of loyalty, the summoner vows:

'My tue wol I holde, as in this cas,

For though thou were the devel Sathanas

My trouthe wol I hold to my brother,

As I am sworn, and ech of us til oother,

For to be trewe brother in this cas;

And booth we goon abouten oure purchas.'

(1525-30)

The summoner pledges faithfulness again to the demon, ironically demonstrating that promises based upon the pledge of "trouthe" carry both legal and spiritual force.20 Like the summoner, the demon can improvise a variety of interpersonal ties within a shifting social situation, but unlike the summoner, however, who cheats the archdeacon, the demon remains faithful to his feudal master, who "'is hard to me and daungerous"' (1427). The summoner's first mistake, then, is three-fold: to equate his own network of social and economic ties to those of the demon, to liken his own pledge of "trouthe" to the fiend's oath of brotherhood, and to put his faith in the binding nature of their shared vows.

6. SCENE TWO: THE CURSING CARTER, RELIGIOUS OATHS, AND LEGAL INTENT

The summoner and demon bailiffs opening vow establishes their relationship as one structured by an informal verbal contract for the exchange of goods, and their covenant reveals that they share the same acquisitive intent, but within different frames of reference. The summoner privileges contractual over hierarchical discourse and assumes that the demon shares his own disregard for the ecclesiastical power structure. In contrast, the demon will "'take al that men wol me yive. / Algate, by sleyghte or by violence"' (1430-31). In the second scene of The Friar's Tale, the carter's casual use of three inconsistent oaths allows the demon both to educate the summoner on the legal process of juridical oath making and to explain the carter's change of mind in terms of intent. From the summoner's point of view, specifically from his unshakable faith both in the validity of informal verbal contracts and in his own improvisational skill, the carter appears to pledge his cart and team to the devil; however, the demon tests the carter's intent to demonstrate that only a sincerely given promise is binding. Although the carter's religiously accented vows are metaphysically substantial and subjectively revealing, they are nonbinding legally. The encounter with the carter is the summoner's opportunity to rehearse his later conflict with the widow, but the summoner fails to comprehend the demon's object lesson concerning oath making and intent.

Jan Ziolkowski has distinguished two main classes of religious oaths to illustrate "a typology of effects that poets could achieve through invocations and oaths" in medieval literature.21 First, a vow might invoke a saint's association with specific dates, places, or life-moments, or might be important only as a rhyme, pun, or nonce word (Ziolkowski, "Saints," 181). In the early part of the tale, the summoner's casual religious invocations like "'Depardieux"' (D.1395), "'by God and by Seint Jame!"' (1443), and "'benedicite"' (1456) are little more than throw-away terms in Ziolkowski's typology, but they also illustrate the summoner's lack of religious sensibility and the disparity between his ecclesiastical vocation and blasphemous language. In contrast, using nearly the same language as the summoner, the widow's sacred oaths later in the tale, like "'benedicitee"' (1584), "'God save you"' (1585), "'Christ Jhesu, kyng of kynges"' (1590), and "'lady Seinte Marie"' (1604), indicate her honest piety through the consonance of her speech and intent.

Second, according to Ziolkowski, an oath might be symbolically or hagiographically associated with the saint, indexing the physical, intellectual, moral, or vocational attributes of the oathswearer, or such oaths might summon a significant moment in the saint's life paralleling the immediate circumstance of the one making the vow ("Saints," 185-92). The summoner and demon's encounter with the carter and his team falls into this second category. On one hand, the carter's invocation of St. Loy (1564), or St. Eligius, is an appropriate supplication for his situation, divulging his religious awareness, his vocational solidarity with the patron saint of carters, and, like the old widow, the consistency of his subjectivity and speech.22 On the other, the summoner's invocation of St. James (1443), whose letter calls for pure, simple devotion to God and good works to those less fortunate like orphans and widows (James 1:27), both undercuts the summoner's ecclesiastical facade and reveals the true depth of his fallen spirituality.23 Throughout The Friar's Tale, religious oaths reveal the sacral component of each character's subjectivity: The summoner's oaths are ironically incongruent with his intent and person and indicate his spiritual degeneracy; both the carter's and widow's vows are congruent with their actions and testify to their virtuous intent and religious fidelity; and significantly, the demon rarely voices religiously inflected oaths throughout the tale.

Although religious oaths come to the foreground in scene two, the legal dimension of oath making has not disappeared; it has simply receded. Cursing the horse and cart stuck in the mud, the carter initially appears to consign his team, cart, and hay (1544) in a promissory vow to the devil, "'The devel have al, bothe hors and cart and hey!"' (1547). However, the carter vows differently after the horse and cart are freed from the mud. The carter swears again, but this time in the name of Jesus, God, and Saint Loy, "'Now is my cart out of the slow, pardee!"' (1565). Ultimately, the carter's frustrated oath, "'The feend,' quod he, 'you fecche, body and bones"' (1544) mirrors in phrase but not in intent both the summoner's angry cry against the widow, "'the foule feend me fecche / If I th'excuse"' (1610-11) and the old woman's final, desperate plea for "'the devel blak and rough of hewe"' to take both the summoner and her pan away (1622-23). The carter's frustrated vow appears, in the summoner's view, to offer the devil, and hence the demon-bailiff, a substantial material reward, but the carter's subsequent oath fails to verify his earlier pledge, thereby revealing his intent not to give up his wagon.

The carter's repeated but fractured pledges echo the late medieval practice of "wager of law" or "compurgation," which provided one avenue for resolving promissory, contractual, or other conflicts in both civil and ecclesiastical court.24 When a plaintiff brought a grievance against a defendant, the defendant controverted the plaintiffs charge by swearing an oath denying the allegation. The defendant might also be required to summon oath-helpers or "compurgators" who would likewise swear oaths supporting the defendant, and compurgators might be called as witnesses to swear to what they know under a set formula.25

Quite an elaborate legal procedure developed to facilitate wager of law. An officer of the court, a bailiff, whose responsibility was to ensure the proper and willing delivery of the pledge, prompted the plaintiff or oath-helper. An account from Torksey in 1324 records:

And when the party is charged to make law, he shall say the oath after the bailiff, and the bailiff ought to charge him according to what they have pleaded. And if he does not say after as the bailiff says, he must mend it until he does say after the bailiff. And if he says that he will not say what he is charged to say, then and not till then is he att@inted [convicted] of his law; otherwise he shall not be attainted.26

According to the practice, the compurgator lost the case in one of two ways: Either the oaths were repeated incorrectly or the defendant failed to gather the appropriate number of compurgators.27 Therefore, the form and delivery of the oath had to be correct in order to stand, for replicating the formula was part of the proof. Although the primary burden for proper expression rested with the compurgator, who was given the opportunity to make the oath according to form, removing one's hand from a relic during the pledge or misspeaking the pledge would "burst" the vow and lose the case.28 So, by unthinkingly cursing his team and cart twice (1544-47), the carter seems to offer his wagon and team to the devil, but the carter-under the watchful eyes of the demon-bailiff-ultimately shatters the oath by failing to reiterate it. From a legal perspective, the carter's oath as a promissory pledge or compurgational proof fails as a matter of form. However, the summoner still believes the carter's goods are for the taking, and he clearly carries the legal, contractual assumptions from his earlier covenant with the demon forward into the second scene.

Although the legal parameters of intent form a second connotative axis of meaning in The Friar's Tale, for the most part medieval legal practice did not judge intention per se. During the reign of Edward IV, Chief Justice Brian remarked, "it is common learning that the intent of a man shall not be tried, for the Devil has no knowledge of man's intent," which has led William McGovern to comment that, "It is doubtful that a medieval court would have accepted a plea which put in issue the defendant's state of mind."29 It was a legal commonplace that no "actions, whether at common or civil law, ought therefore be governed by a rule requiring one to judge what could not be judged," for intent was not tried "not because it was ethically irrelevant, but because [it was thought to be] unknowable."30 From the summoner's perspective, the demon appears to know the carter's intent through mystical means. According to the law, however, subjective intent was knowable only when externalized in some way, whether in action, writ, or vow, so the discontinuity between the carter's first two oaths and the third over horse, cart, and hay proves the demon's contention that "`The carl spak oo thing, but he thoghte another"' (1568).

The demon's explanation for the reversal of the carter's oaths is therefore more sensible from a legal standpoint than from preternatural insight. According to juridical thought, "a promise is a statement of intention, and breach of promise a sort of retrospective falsification. If the promiser never intended to perform, failure to perform tells the truth about his intention."31 Civil law solved the dilemma of evaluating intent by judging actions rather than intention, and oath making, whether in wager of law or another form, established a criterion for judging intent. In essence, a simple statement of intent is inadequate for judgment; the intent must be confirmed materially through writ, action, or interrogation by acting upon the vow, summoning a defense, or failing to provide proof, for a properly sworn and repeated oath proved the intent of the defendant. The diabolical yeoman is therefore more lawyer than theologian when he instructs the summoner to inquire after the carter's intent himself (1557) and corrects the summoner's mistaken assumption about the carter's pledge of goods: "'Nay,' quod the devel ... / It is nat his entente, trust me weel"' (1555-56). Although the carter's subjective will is not available for examination, his language is, and his repeated and then ruptured vow proves his intention not to divest himself of his cart and team.

7. SCENE THREE: THE SOMMONER, DEMON, AND OLD MABELEY

Even in legal practice, nonetheless, vows carried an element of the supernatural: Oaths were sworn in the name of God, on the gospels, or in the names of saints to invoke both divine sanction on the proceedings and divine judgment as a defense against perjury.32 In both the legal and ecclesiastical notions of the time, God was thought ultimately to judge the truth of an oath.33 The oaths sworn during legal proceedings were thereby "value-- intrinsic," depending upon proper form and delivery to invoke the oath's efficacy, for "the oath certifies or, more appropriately, sanctifies the truth of the testimony because it is in itself treated as an embodiment of truth."34 The conclusion of The Friar's Tale finally foregrounds the theological connotation of intention, figured as repentance (1629-31), in the legal and economic oath making environment of the tale,35 and the summoner's singleminded venality enables the theological rationalization of an ultimately judicial and economic negotiation between the demon and widow.

The traditional theological view of the moral status of promises emerged from the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, and subsequent confessional and penitential manuals provided some ability to discriminate between actions and intentions. Crucial in these determinations, the confessional role of the priest was established by the thirteenth century, and the priest determined penance according to the individual attributes of the penitent.36 Overall, penitential theology required only that the sincere penitent "must be contrite and intend to stop sinning," and this intention was facilitated by confession and proven by subsequent behavior. Early in the tale, however, the summoner intentionally undercuts these penitential requirements, for in his own words,

'No maner conscience of that have I.

Nere myn extortioun, I myghte nat lyven,

Ne of swiche japes wol I nat be shryven.

Stomak ne conscience ne knowe I noon;

I shrewe thise shrifte-fadres everychoon.'

(D.1438-42)

The summoner verifies his purpose by holding fast to his extortions (or actions) and his japes (or language), and he deliberately dismisses confession and confessors ("shrift-fadres") as a source of spiritual redemption. Unlike the carter and the widow, the summoner alienates himself from theologically efficacious language and the possibility of repentance while investing himself completely in his extortionary goal. Like the shape-shifting demons who "'feyne ... / ... [their forms] in ful sondry wyse"' (1507-08), the Friar's summoner rejects the body ("stomak"), the will ("ne conscience"), and every other physical or essentialized basis for his subjectivity. Unattached to any conventional social, physical, or spiritual coordinates that might ground him as a personal subject or ally him meaningfully with the civil structure or religious community, the summoner, like the narrator of his tale, is pure intent, and purely for profit. As opposed to the demon, who serves his master faithfully, the summoner, who fancies himself an autonomous agent, serves only himself.

Except in one specific sense: The summoner remains true to his pledge with the demon, and even to the very end the summoner chooses-and fully intends-to associate himself only his devilish peer. As a result, the summoner's pursuit of economic gain violates the theological criteria of repentance at the same time it validates the legal notion of oath making. In other words, the summoner's failure to repent of his evil intention proves the impossibility of his redemption, yet his absolute devotion to extorting the widow affirms his unconditional fidelity to his initial contractual pledge with the demon. As a result, the highly adaptable nature of informal contracts, which allows the summoner to take advantage of contingent social relations for economic gain, also provides for his own damnation, exactly in the collaborative terms described by the demon (D.1482 ff).

The final scene of The Friar's Tale fully mobilizes the competing discourses of economics, law, and theology in a constantly shifting constellation of oath making, intent, and subjectivity. Bracketed by the Friar's own putatively theological narration, two specific discursive frames of reference contend within the same social field of the summoner, widow, and demon. From the summoner's point of view, the widow and her belongings (twelve pence and pan) are the objects of extortion based on his promissory pledge with the demon and their shared economic intent. From the widow's point of view, the summoner poses the threat of extortion and excommunication but himself becomes the object of acquisition. The demon, who has maintained a consistent subject position and discursive orientation throughout the tale, mediates both triangles: To the summoner, the demon represents the horizontal oath of loyalty between equals, and to the unsuspecting widow he functions as the loyal operative in a hierarchical relationship to the devil.

In this episode of constantly changing social alignments, the widow is the first to offer vows in support of her claim. When the summoner threatens to excommunicate the widow, whom he callously curses as "a ribibe" (or "fiddle," 1377) and "olde virytrate!" (or "hag," 1582), she invokes Christ "`So wisly helpe me, as I ne may"' (D.1591) and then Mary "`So wisly help me out of care and synne"' (1605) against his charge of adultery. Like the carter, the widow invokes theological figures as evidence of her piety, and although the matter of her oaths is not repeated exactly, the repetition of her vows clarifies the intent of her speech: Jesus and Mary are witnesses to her plight and are her true and "wise" sources of deliverance.

At the point of the widow's invocation of Jesus and St. Mary in consistent, intentional supplication, the narrative assumes a different-and now strictly legal-point of view on the action. In his frustration at the widow's unwavering acclamation of her innocence-and her defiance as a virtuous oath-maker-the summoner places himself in the position of defendant. Apparently believing that their opening oath of brotherhood preempts any overriding obligation the demon has to his master, the summoner proclaims to the widow, "`the foule feend me fecche / If I th'excuse"' (1610-11). By pledging himself to the demon-bailiff in terms of his earlier promise, the summoner's off-hand curse assumes the status of a promissory guarantee. Furthermore, by claiming her "newe panne / For dette" (1614-15) of supposed infidelity to her long-dead husband, the summoner corroborates the demon's stated intent to seize human bodies as booty. In effect, the summoner names his own body as a commodity equivalent to the widow's pan and effectively turns himself into chattel whose gain he has already promised to the fiend.

By commodifying himself, the summoner actualizes his and the demon's shared intent to gain wealth and divide it, so during the shift in point of view brought by the widow's vows, the summoner's vow to extort from the old woman is transformed into a negotiation over property between the demon and widow. With a promissory pledge of her own, "`Unto the devel blak and rough of hewe, / Yeve I thy body and my panne also"' (D.1622-23), the widow repeats and verifies the summoner's oath, recapitulates the equation of her pan to his corpse, delimits the chronology of the action, and designates the beneficiary of her pledge: "'The devel,' quod she, 'so fecche hym er he deye / And panne and al"' (1628-29). By confirming through repetition both the intent and content of the summoner's pledge, the widow serves, in effect, as the summoner's oath-helper in a dispute over property.31

Once the widow pledges her pan and the summoner's body to the devil in confirmation of the summoner's own curse, the demon then immediately assumes his formal position as bailiff. Now both the representative of the diabolical hierarchy and officer of the court, the demon asks the widow again to authenticate her oath: "'Now, Mabely, myne owene mooder deere, / Is this youre wyl in ernest that ye seye?"' (1626-27). As a faithful oath-maker, she repeats her pledge to consign the summoner and her pan to the devil (1628-29), and her proclamation of "ernest" seals her legal intention.39 In perfect juridical form, the summoner verifies his position in the process that consigns him to hell, and he affirms that he does not intend to veer from his goal: "`Nay, old stot, that is nat myn entente,' / Quod this somonour, 'for to repente me / For any thyng that I have had of thee"' (1630-32). In his single-minded devotion both to the acquisition of material goods and to his pledge of faith to the demon, the summoner ignores the opportunity to "repente" of his "entente" and burst his pledge, and he is sent to hell because he validates his own promissory vow to the demon. The widow's porch becomes a courtroom, and in a pivotal moment of legal maneuvering and proof of intention through oath making, the demon-bailiff claims of the summoner, "Thy body and this panne been myne by right" (1635). The summoner has indeed been faithful to his initial pledge of "trouthe" to the demon (1525), and the intent of the earlier agreement between summoner and demon has been carried out, though to the summoner's detriment the exact terms of the contract have been completed in a way he did not anticipate.

CONCLUSION: THE FRIAR'S SUMMONER AND THE LETTER OF THE LAW

Mary Carruthers has written that the summoner is too firmly wedded to the letter, the literal surface of things, rather than the spirit, and he is finally damned because he does not recognize the demon's intent.40 However, Carruthers's comment tells only part of the story. As an opportunistic entrepreneur who sees his spiritual duties as a for-profit venture, the summoner has every reason to believe in literal surface of things, for he accepts the efficacy of informal contractual vows and trusts completely his own ability to circumvent the ecclesiastical hierarchy who authorizes his activities. The summoner is condemned because he remains fixated on only one possible discursive arrangement, the informal contract between the two bailiffs, and ignores the hierarchical obligation the demon has to his lord as mediated through the widow-a hierarchical regime which, as an officer of the ecclesiastical court, the summoner also is a part.

While it has been argued that The Friar's Tale is a theological exemplum that has the summoner damn himself to hell because of his "unregenerate will,"41 in my view Hubert's tale embodies a cultural anxiety concerning the nature of changing social and economic relations as mediated by new forms of legal alliance that were superceding traditional feudal relationships. During Chaucer's time, new legal forms were developed to enforce informal contracts, for traditional legal remedies were recognized to be "ineffective for the money-credit economy beginning to replace feudalism."42 During the late fourteenth century, a period which saw far-reaching social and economic change, legal innovations meant to deal with the new forms of economic alliance were not as clear cut as traditional legal actions," and these contractual arrangements introduced an element of contingency into formerly stable social relations. Much in the same way The Friar's Tale subsumes the legal machinations of the plot in a conventional, overarching theological narrative, the summoner is banished to hell because he believes the older feudal relationships of hierarchical loyalty to be supplanted by newer, more flexible contractual relationships that allow parties to take advantage of changing and unforeseen circumstances for their own advantage. At the same time, the traditional hierarchy displaces the informal promissory alliance between equals, this theologitally conservative vision co-opts both legal and economic discourse for its own didactic purposes. Although The Friar's Tale can be read as an sermon on the dangers of false cursing or ecclesiastical corruption by Chaucer's commercially opportunistic cleric, the Friar's summoner's final resting place is as much a result of legal, contractual negotiation as it is theological disputation.

University of Alaska, Anchorage