Chaucer's Reeve and Miller

Abstract

My recent article, The Secret of Chaucer's Pardoner, was the first of a series of studies advanced in support of the general thesis that Chaucer, in his choice of physical peculiarities that would fittingly correspond to the characters of his Canterbury Pilgrims, made use of, or at least was influenced by, the rules and regulations laid down in the universally popular Physiognomies of his time. More specifically, I attempted to show that the Pardoner is a typical example of what the physiognomists would call a eunuchus ex nativitate. The present article demonstrates that Chaucer's Reeve and Miller, in the exact correspondence of their respective personal appearances and characters, are also “scientifically” correct according to the specifications of physiognomical lore, and that the quarrel between these traditional and professional enemies cannot properly be understood unless scanned from the medieval point of view.