Chaucer's Doctrine of Kings and Tyrants

Abstract

GEOFFREY CHAUCER -servant of kings and barons, and for a time of the communitas Anglie in Parliament -must have had many opportunities to observe and reflect upon the differences between good rulers and bad. At home and abroad, especially during visits to France and to the city-states of Italy, he had the occasion to compare several types of government, ranging from republic (Florence) to tyranny (Milan); and more than many of his contemporaries who were primarily political theorists, he was in a position to see political theory in action. Recent studies have tended to remind us that Chaucer, busy man of affairs, was by no means aloof from the events of his day. 1 His works have been scanned afresh, therefore, for references to significant happenings in the world of politics. If to these are added the references to political theory, we obtain still further vindication of our revised conception of the poet as one who included some challenging immediate issues within the material of his art.In the realm of political theory, one particular theme engaged the attention of Chaucer's contemporaries and of his predecessors over a period of about 150 years: the distinctions to be made between a legitimate ruler and a tyrant. Having established certain theoretical tests of discrimination between the two, speculators were then faced with a series of problems, such as the questions: Should a usurping ruler be overthrown by revolutionary action? Is tyrannicide justified? What should be the recourse of sworn subjects when their ruler changes from king to tyrant through illegal, violent and arbitrary acts?For Englishmen concerned in the home politics of Richard's reign, such doctrical problems came to have an urgent practical significance. As resentment against the monarch grew, it was frequently phrased in terms already long current in mediaeval political theory. The final bill of accusations at the time of the deposition in 1399 merely gives concrete relevance to propositions already made familiar by the theoreticians. The deposition and regicide of that year represented a close alliance of theoretical speculation and practical application. It is no won-1 E.g., Roger S. Loomis, 'Was Chaucer a

Conclusion

“…In virtue of the analogy between the state and the household, critics have offered political interpretations of the Clerk's Tale since the mid-twentieth century. 1092 Ever since Aristotle, in his Politics, deployed the analogy that entails that a ruler's authority over a country is similar to a husband's over his wife and children, medieval and early modern political discourses have used it to describe the functioning of the monarchy from a Christian perspective, thus justifying the social hierarchy with biblical arguments. 1093 When applied to the Clerk's Tale, and the Patient Griselda myth in general, this analogy turns Gualtieri, the cruel husband, into an abusive monarch and Griselda, the mistreated wife, into the victim of his despotic rule.…”

“…Her discussion of the Clerk's Tale involvement in such discourses, however, is very brief and only presents Grisildis as embodying an ideal ruler caring for the bonum communitatis. 1109 Phillipa Hardman, on the other hand, not only lists the above-mentioned passages in which Walter is criticised for mistreating his wife but also draws attention to the fact that on three occasions, Chaucer insists on the fact that Walter comes from Lombardy, 1110 a geographical area associated with tyranny because of the despotic rule of the Visconti, both in Chaucer's time and in his writings. However, instead of concluding that these elements are signs that the marquis is a tyrant, she argues that on the grounds that "his motive for ending the experiment is .…”