Religious Elements in Chaucer's Man of Law's Tale

Abstract

Since Nicholas Trivet's Anglo-Norman Chronicle was first identified as the direct source of the Man of Law's Tale Chaucer's creative purpose in the tale and his treatment of his source-his changes, additions and deletions-have been thoroughly canvassed. His improvements in the economy and directness of Trivet's tale of Constance have been pointed out, as well as his additions by way of rhetoric, religion and sentiment, and especially his gift of flesh and blood to Trivet's rather abstract and wooden heroine. Scholars have emphasized the hagiographic spirit of Trivet's tale and its associated literature, along with Chaucer's sympathetic identification with that spirit in his reworking of the tale. The most recent and by far the most thorough treatment of these problems is the excellent study published in 1953 by Edward A. Block, to whose full summaries of earlier scholarship the reader is referred.' The following notes are intended to emphasize certain of Block's conclusions and 'to modify others substantially, with a view to clarifying Chaucer's creative purpose in his treatment of the tale.