Chaucer and Costume: The Secular Pilgrims in the General Prologue by Laura F. Hodges (review)

Abstract

132arthuriana 'We Will Rock You'; and the film's score is probably its best feature depending upon one's musical taste. There are bits in the film worthy ofMonty Python, and there are in jokes and nods to Rostand's Cyrano, Chretien's The Knight ofthe Cart, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and the Pardoner's Tale. The film's Chaucer is a compulsive gambler whose only claim to literary fame is The Book ofthe Duchess, a work unrecognized by his illiterate co-conspirators. The knights' armor makes a mostly failed attempt to look authentic, and Jocelyn's many costumes seem to have been run up by Ye Olde Maison de Sir Givenchy de Paris. The film's approach to the medieval is obviously anti-classicist, and it is mildly anti-sexist as well: Jocelyn is, within limits, fairly free spirited, and there is a feisty woman blacksmith (played by Laura Fraser) who is more or less self-sufficient. The four people I went to the film with all hated it; one asked me if it wasn't the worst 'medieval' film I had ever seen. Actually, it wasn't, and, at the risk of having some people think I may have lost my mind, I rather enjoyed the film as an innocent enough mindless romp—and I really, really liked the score. KEVIN J. HARTY La Salle University laura F. hodges, Chaucer and Costume: The Secular Pilgrims in the General Prologue. Chaucer Studies 26. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2000. Pp. xiv, 285. 8 color plates, 17 black & white illustrations, isbn: 0-85991-577-8. $90. Hodges's detailed examination of secular garb in the General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales, like clothing itself, both reveals and conceals. This informative book is likely to prove indispensible for Chaucerians and other scholars with an interest in medieval characterisation and clothing, but many will also find it frustrating. The layout itself reveals a problem: on many pages the footnotes overwhelm the main text, amply demonstrating the wealth ofresearch that has gone into this book, but distracting the reader from the very points they ostensibly support. And some necessary supporting information remains absent. Hodges clearly knows much about the medieval textile industry, and cites a wealth of sources, but should on occasion have given more information herself. For instance, both in her chapter on the Merchant's 'mottelee' and in her marvelous chapter on the Wife ofBath, she refers to the recorded cost in 1407-8 of ? cloth ofscarlet 30 ? 1.75 yards' (88, 175) in relation to the cost ofother cloths; she neglects to mention anywhere that these dimensions were standard for most finished cloth (although length could vary significantly), and indeed cites the standard length of motley (in 1467) as being only 6-7 yards (86-87, note 38), leaving readers to wonder what is really being compared. Hodges's useful exploration of the meaning of motley, in relation both to actual medieval cloth and to its possible social and literary meanings, could usefully have been taken further. At the outset of the book Hodges cites 'motley for a fool' as one example ofthe typically medieval 'literary shorthand' that Chaucer ostensibly eschews (1); that common association is mentioned again only in a footnote, in relation to a critic she thinks may have 'confused the modern meaning of motley as the wearing REVIEWS133 apparel for court jesters and fools with the medieval fabric' (87, note 39). Critics are left to their confusion as to when and how the meaning might have changed. Similar kinds ofminor problems abound: crucial information is left out, presumed, or buried in footnotes. Some of these might well signal inadequate revision: for instance, Hodges discusses 'the Friar's tippet full of knives (lines 233-4), which, in case robbers should beset this group, might be pressed into service, perhaps, by the only housewife in the company' (127), presuming that the reader will remember that the cited lines describe the knives as being 'for to yeven faire wyves' (line 234); this joking aside would work well in a conference setting, but here requires explanation. She later refers to Ascham's remarks' regarding 'peacock-fletched arrows' (140), but indicates what...