On Chaucer, Raptus, and the Physician’s Tale

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article argues both that the Physician’s Tale explicitly addresses the sexually threatening nature of employment for women, and that it offers a suggestive parallel to the situation as it may have unfolded between Geoffrey Chaucer and Cecily Chaumpaigne, who in 1380 released Chaucer from her raptus: de raptu meo. Chaucer’s Physician’s Tale presents a chance to consider the ways Chaucer envisions both the mind of a rapist and rape culture in general, including especially what feminist philosopher Kate Manne calls “himpathy” and victim-blaming. In this tale, a churl presents a case in which he alleges abduction in order to commit abduction—for the purpose of rape. Chaucer’s many alterations to his sources present Virginia, the victim/protagonist, as what Judith M. Bennett has called a “singlewoman,” a fourteenth-century category of woman especially vulnerable to coercive labor laws under the Statute of Laborers. In this article, then, I show how this tale and its lessons about Chaucer’s own understanding of gendered labor, sexual assault, and discursive power challenge recent conclusions about the legal documents relating to Chaucer and Chaumpaigne.