This book was probably one of the greatest challenges I’ve yet had as a writer. I thought my previous novel, The Darkest Shore (based on a true story about one of the last and most heinous of the Scottish witch hunts), was tough—that was, until I started writing The Good Wife of Bath. The reason for this is complicated and for no small reason because I chose, as my major source material for at least the first half of the book, Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales and, in particular, his Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale. I’ve loved these since I was a teenager and studied them first at school and, later, at university.
As a consequence, I not only had to cover decades of a fictitious woman’s life—as imagined by a medieval man—including a first marriage to a much older man at the age of twelve and all that entails, but I had to recreate a “real” life, an authentic one, for a woman invented over six hundred years ago. I thought that, using Chaucer’s Alyson and her life as described in The Canterbury Tales as a template, I could portray a genuine woman of the Middle Ages who, though strong and desiring mastery, was also subject to the social, economic, sexual, gendered, cultural, and political forces of the day—ones that, in order to give the book veracity, I had to respect as well. What I didn’t count on—apart from Covid-19 and the impact that would have on my family, community, country, and the world—was a few hard personal blows that I will share here.
First, there was my husband collapsing from a mystery illness and needing care, then my younger brother being diagnosed with Stage Four brain cancer and all the sadness and finality that entails. As you can imagine, these make writing both incredibly difficult but also a guilty avenue of escape into a world you can control. But that’s the joy and bind of fiction for writers and readers—it’s a form of escapism and pleasure, but also something that can and should give us pause and move us out of our comfort zones and generate some passionate and healthy discussions.
I know writing this book did that for me and, I suspect, if you’ve made it this far, it did for you too. Thus, I feel I must address the most obvious ways in which this book might have made you uneasy—including the fact that a twelve-year-old girl has sex with a sixty-one-year-old man.
As confronting as this is for a modern reader (and it should be), not only was this lifted from Chaucer’s poem (though the ages of the Wife’s first three husbands aren’t specified, the implication is they are elderly and wizened), but it is true to what happened in that era. Girls were considered eligible for marriage at the age of twelve, boys fourteen. I call them “girls” and “boys” here, but in those times, and for many hundreds of years to come, they were deemed young women and men. Eleanor/Alyson marrying at such a young age is, as it had to be, integral to an understanding of who she is and how she develops in terms of the woman she becomes.
I have to say, as true as I wanted to be to the facts both as a writer of historical fiction and someone who researches the past closely, and to give an accurate portrayal of conditions and relationships, I struggled with this notion so much. For us, in contemporary times, the idea that a girl of twelve has sex is repugnant (even though, sadly, it still happens)—and can be both a terrible trigger and appall people. It is appalling. We should be horrified that this kind of thing happened and it’s a demonstration of how far some societies have advanced that this kind of relationship is now criminal. In the Middle Ages it was relatively “normal.”
I feel I have to reassure you, dear reader, that in no way do I condone or endorse underage sex, child sex abuse, or anything associated with something so heinous. I view what happens in the novel, which is accurate to its time and source material, as something quite separate, and I feel I’d be doing a grave injustice to all those girls who did endure and survive, and those who didn’t, if I pretended this kind of thing didn’t happen. I agonized over the writing of her first two marriages, really, and that’s to understate it. But if I didn’t include it or changed Eleanor’s age to be more palatable for modern readers, then what was the point of writing historical fiction? Of using Chaucer’s poem? I should also point out that The Canterbury Tales is still much admired and taught in schools and universities around the globe. “The Marriage Group” (the tales which specifically deal with marriage) in particular gets a great deal of attention—as it should, with its reflections and observations on marriage, gender, and sexual politics and relationships in a period we’re still learning about. The Wife of Bath’s Tale and Prologue is, arguably, the most popular with historians and literary scholars, all of whom accept Alyson’s youthful marriage as something that occurred in that time—because they accept it, however, doesn’t mean they approve of it. Likewise, for me. I hope you understand my intentions and the spirit and struggles (!) in which Eleanor/Alyson’s story was written.
What we do know of Alyson from Chaucer’s poem, apart from her five marriages, is mixed and complicated. To some scholars and readers, Alyson, the Wife of Bath, is a proto-feminist, railing against medieval strictures and the patriarchal society that governed women’s behavior and blamed them for all ills. Something akin to the “all men are bastards” line. Yet the Wife doesn’t come across as a very nice person either. Contrary to what was expected of women in her time, she boasts of her sexual conquests and how she achieves mastery in her various marriages (overturning the “natural” order) by withholding sexual favors, demanding them, lying, deceiving, and various other underhand methods. She’s presented as vain, very aware of her rising social position, and enjoying the more material elements of her various pilgrimages as opposed to the spiritual. She also shows great learning by quoting philosophers, religious figures, and the Bible and then turning much of it on its head—pointing out that if men, who think so little of women, are charged with and responsible for recording history, laying down laws and religious guidelines, then of course women won’t be featured in their best light. Men, she argues, will inevitably portray women as “wicked.” However, she says, if women were allowed to tell their stories, imagine how different they might be. How might men fare then? Hence the famous line from Aesop’s fables, “Who painted the lion?” (the title of the prologue in this book). Why, the person who slew it, of course. How different might the portrait be if the lion was given the chance to tell his story? What if women wrote history?
Other scholars understand the Wife as Geoffrey’s raucous mouthpiece, who emphasizes every negative trait about women and then some—reinforcing the need for men to have mastery over their women. There’s a sense in which the Wife’s own eloquence condemns her and all other women she might speak for. Then, there are those who see both sides.
S. H. Rigby’s essay “The Wife of Bath, Christine de Pizan and the Medieval Case for Women” in The Chaucer Review (Vol. 35 No. 2, 2000) sums them up well:
The debate [by scholars] thus comes down to the problem of who is speaking in the Wife of Bath’s Prologue: is it “quite certain” that Alyson is the mouthpiece for Chaucer’s own views, or is there a gap between the Wife’s discourse and Chaucer’s own voice, one which allows us to see the irony at work in her prolonged confession?
Priscilla Martin in her fantastic book Chaucer’s Women argues, “One could construct a feminist or a sexist Chaucer using essentially the same evidence from his writings.”
This is so true.
I liked to think of Chaucer as someone who, despite his flaws, wrote to challenge the status quo, a writer who had his finger on the pulse of the everyday (as well as court and mercantile affairs), but who also used satire and learned discourse to hold a mirror up to men, women, marriage, and relationships overall—and not just in his Canterbury Tales, but in all his works. Certainly in having a woman contest accepted orthodoxy, he throws down a challenge.
Well, it was a challenge I couldn’t resist—even if I have taken it up in a way I don’t imagine Chaucer intended.
Like all writers of historical fiction, it’s in history’s gaps and omissions, in the deep and rich layers, that we uncover little nuggets we can turn into stories. So it is with Alyson, the Wife of Bath.
And, just as Chaucer did when he placed himself in his Canterbury Tales, I’ve inserted him into my story.
In this novel, I’ve made him an integral part of Eleanor/Alyson’s life. I’ve also reversed what he did when he told her tale, by giving her the authoritative voice and allowing her to tell his story (the final letter aside). Even so, all mention of Chaucer throughout the novel—his various social, political, and familial roles, poems, movements, etc. are represented accurately. Unlike the Wife, he was a historical figure (some academics persist with the idea the Wife was based on Edward III’s mistress, Alice Perrers; I’m not convinced—though Chaucer may have drawn on some of the woman’s more colorful attributes, or how they were remembered by males of the period, in creating Alyson). I used a number of biographies of Chaucer to flesh out his character, and also his body of work—always with an eye to the fact that a writer’s body of work is not indicative of who that person is.
Chaucer, while a mighty talent with an acute eye for detail and a gift for poetry and prose, was not above misbehaving (as charges of violence, his never-ending debt, and the accusation of raptus—which can mean rape or even kidnapping—attest). He began life as a middle-class London man, before becoming a page in Prince Lionel’s house. Some believe he may have studied at the law courts when young (I borrowed that notion, as I did his missing years, having him work for a lawyer and visiting Lady Clarice and the Bath area often), before becoming an integral member of John of Gaunt’s household. He had kings and princes as patrons (he was even ransomed for sixteen pounds when he was captured by the French in 1360) and was a diplomat, an MP for Kent, a Surveyor of the King’s Works, and, for many years, a Comptroller of the Wool Customs (among other goods). Likewise, a couple of scholars posed the question regarding his children and their paternity. I’ve used this and sought to offer an explanation—albeit in fiction, but not without solid reasoning behind it. So, every reference to Geoffrey, his travels, marriage, children, professional, and personal relationships, work, writing, the charge of raptus, Cecilia Champain (also called Champagne), doubts about the paternity of his children, everything apart from his interactions with Eleanor/Alyson, are based on known facts.
What about Alyson? For those of you interested in reading what Chaucer created, there are many wonderful editions of The Canterbury Tales in the original Middle English, including online. It takes a bit of getting used to, the old English, but eventually, if you read it aloud, it starts to make sense and has a beautiful singsong quality and flow. For those of you preferring a translation, Neville Coghill’s really captures the spirit of the tales quite beautifully. When you read The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale, you’ll get a sense of how it’s woven through this novel.
What we know about Alyson from The Wife of Bath’s Prologue, and The Canterbury Tales overall, is as follows: starting with her physical appearance, she was a solid woman, ruddy-cheeked, with large hips and well-dressed, who wore spurs on her boots and a broad-brimmed hat. She may have had red hair and had a great gap between her teeth and freckles/port-wine birthmark. She was married five times. The first time was at the age of twelve.
The Wife’s first three husbands were really old and she was pretty awful to them (she admits this)—bribing them to attain mastery in the relationship, withholding sex (which she mostly enjoyed) to gain benefits that ranged from jewels to clothes. She was a magnificent weaver (in Chaucer’s poem, she tells us all this—unashamedly, brashly, and magnificently). She also tells us she has a marvelous queynte and is a slave to her sexual passions—Venus being her ruler, though she was not above allowing Mars to rise as well.
Her fourth husband was unfaithful to her and caused her much pain. She met her fifth husband, the much younger Jankin (he is the only husband named in the poem) at her fourth husband’s funeral and married him less than a month later. There was violence in the relationship, particularly because Jankin, a scholar, would quote endlessly about the wickedness of women until she was so fed up, she tore pages from his book, and he struck her so badly she lost her hearing in one ear and he thought her dead. After that, he gave her complete authority and they were happy.
Even so . . . it wasn’t “ever after,” for, as the poem makes clear, when we first meet Chaucer’s Alyson in the General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales, she’s on another pilgrimage and on the lookout for her next husband. One presumes then that Jankin is dead.
The poem also reveals that Alyson has a Godsib named Alison with whom she shares secrets, who lives next door. In Neville Coghill’s translation of the Prologue, the Wife tells us:
My fifth (husband) and last—God keep his soul in health!
The one I took for love and not for wealth,
Had been at Oxford not so long before
But had left school and gone to lodge next door,
Yes, it was to my godmother’s he’d gone.
God bless her soul! Her name was Alison.
She knew my heart and more of what I thought
Than did the parish priest, and so she ought!
She was my confidante, I told her all . . .
And to my niece, because I loved her well,
I’d have told everything there was to tell.
There is also a Dame Alice mentioned—the niece? Regardless, I melded them into one person.
Alyson also tells us she’s been on many pilgrimages. All the places my Eleanor/Alyson writes letters from in the novel are places Chaucer’s Alyson visited (she also went to Spain, but I didn’t include that except as an aside). The descriptions of those cities are as close as I could get to the period. What happened, how the pilgrims traveled, the places they stopped, modes of transport, etc. are historically accurate. So too are the ampullae, badges, and various relics that were available for purchase on these trips, including those shaped like male and female genitalia. Apparently, there was a huge market in those!
(A quick aside: the “c” word is liberally used throughout the book, as are its variations, “queynte” and “quoniam.” The words were not considered offensive in those times but merely nouns to very pragmatically describe a body part. They were used in daily parlance. No offense is intended in their use in the novel, just historical accuracy.)
While many people did undertake pilgrimages for spiritual reasons, it was also known that they offered adventure, liberty, and the opportunity to meet and get to “know”—in all senses—other people as well. Especially for women. The Wife and my Eleanor/Alyson are quite open about the fact they enjoy the secular side of the journey as much if not more than the spiritual. Medieval tourism was on the ascent at this time and for many commoners as well as the gentles, it was a form of exploration, liberation, and escapism, in addition to gaining knowledge of other people and cultures. The Wife was certainly at the forefront of this.
I should also add here that I’ve been so very fortunate in the last decade or more (pre-Covid) to have traveled to many of the places Eleanor/Alyson went. In Rome, I didn’t visit all the shrines she did, but I did fall in love with the ancient city and threw coins in the Fountain of Trevi both times I was there—I sincerely hope that means I get to go a third time. I also spent a few days in Cologne and visited the magnificent Dom, as the Cathedral is known, and saw the casket that houses the Three Magi. It is as I describe, and apparently was then too.
I also went to Jerusalem. My mother is from Israel (Haifa—which I also visited) and a trip to that country would not be complete without going to the holiest of cities. Jerusalem is an amazing amalgam of faith, spirituality, seething violence, and cultural clashes. I adored it, but the entire time I was there, I felt not only the rich cultural and religious history and tensions, but the underbelly of hostility. This wasn’t helped by the fact that not only is the old city divided into quarters (Christian, Jewish, Muslim), but the entry and exit points to these areas were guarded by armed soldiers who appeared wary and weary (probably of the young boys hurling rocks at them—truly!). But the sense of walking in the steps of history was awe-inspiring and emotional. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was something I will never forget, nor my experience at the Wailing Wall. Oh, and my guide for that trip, Shalom (that was his name!), is honored in the novel as Eleanor’s guide as well. He was wonderful—great sense of humor and incredible knowledge.
So, while I was familiar with some of the areas and places Alyson/Eleanor (and Geoffrey) journey to, I admit St. Martin’s Le Grand was, until I began my research, unfamiliar to me. I’ve since discovered that, like other places, usually associated with religious houses (Whitefriars being another, later, example), it was considered a sort of “neutral zone” within the walls of London, a place of sanctuary where criminals could take refuge. Operated by religious men with a different set of laws, I’ve no doubt many sought to take great advantage of this fact, and not only those escaping justice—both fair and unfair.
Another point to make is regarding the laws governing prostitution—both in London and Southwark. All references in the novel to dress, punishments, fines, etc. are based on fact. While it was generally considered an illegal occupation and much maligned, and the women were sometimes brutally treated, it was mostly tolerated. Still, those who sold sex had to wear yellow hoods to stand out (which is strange when you think what they were doing was illegal). Within London, women who were apprehended were penalized, usually very publicly—even though authorities knew prostitutes were more likely to frequent certain areas. (All the streets I mention existed and their names refer to the trade conducted there—I mean, Gropecunt!) If they weren’t thrown into prison for a time, their heads were shaved, they were placed in the pillory for hours or days and paraded through the streets with a sign around their neck for crowds to mock them and throw things at them.
However, in Southwark the laws were far more flexible. Here, on the south bank of the Thames, “bathhouses,” mostly erected in the liberty of the Bishop of Winchester and run by the Flemish, flourished. They became known as “The Stews” and the women who plied their trade as “Winchester Geese.” While the laws were laxer this side of the river, there were still rules by which the women had to abide. I can strongly recommend Martha Carlin’s amazing and erudite book Medieval Southwark for details surrounding not just prostitution, but all trades and the way in which life there differed from that in London.
Before my Alyson became a bawd, however, she was known (as in the poem) for her talent with wool and weaving. All references to sheep, their husbandry, wool, the trade, the dependence on alien merchants, the Staple, and the way deals were done in those days are accurate. Likewise, the reluctance, if not downright refusal, of the guild to admit women, even experienced and talented ones. This was a rule that was by no means exclusive to the trades of weaving and fulling. One has only to read The Brewer’s Tale/The Lady Brewer of London to know this as well—the book where Alyson, the bawd, first features.
All references to the plague, including the dates of outbreaks, are accurate. Known as the Botch or “the Great Sickness,” the terms “Black Death” and even “plague” were applied much later. That I wrote many of those scenes while the world was in lockdown with Covid-19 added to the frisson. Likewise, weather patterns, crop failures, and famine, politics, wars, major figures such as mayors, nobility, rich merchants, etc. are all taken from history.
So too was the Peasant’s Revolt, led by Wat Tyler, and what happened as a consequence of the “commons” marching on London Bridge and meeting with their young sovereign. The working classes were betrayed by their king and his nobles, quelled with false assurances. Their ability to rally and have a united voice must have worried the gentry. This peasant unity only came about because of the changes wrought by the Black Death of 1348–1350. History has recorded how so many deaths, of low- and high-born, changed the social landscape, bequeathing those who had no power a little, which they grasped and, slowly, turned to their advantage. Post the plague (and every subsequent outbreak, which was about every twenty years), there were more upheavals and changes to once rigid social structures. This gradually saw the end of the villeins and “boon-work” and better wages and overall conditions for poor freemen and others. The poem “Piers Plowman” by William Langland, mentioned in the novel, describes conditions. Likewise, the incident on London Bridge when the young Queen was welcomed to London really happened; a number of people were crushed, fell off the bridge, and lost their lives in their eagerness to see the King’s new bride.
I should also add that those of you who’ve read The Brewer’s Tale/The Lady Brewer of London might recognize some characters who make an appearance in the latter half of the book—and not just Alyson. There’s also Oriel, Leda, Yolande, Master Stephen atte Place, Marcian Vetazes, and young Harry. Harry Frowyk is based on a real person. According to records, Master Harry (Henry) Frowyk becomes Lord Mayor of London not once, but twice—from 1435–1436 and again in 1444–1445. So, from inauspicious beginnings, Harry finds success under Alyson’s guidance (and Anneke’s—but that’s another story). Harry Bailly was also a real person as well as the innkeep of the Tabard in Southwark and a friend of Chaucer’s.
I always enjoy placing women back into history, demonstrating, albeit through researched fiction, that while they may not be recorded or remembered in the same way as their male counterparts, they were there. Herstory happened too. The omission of women from history doesn’t mean they didn’t live it, nor that they didn’t influence it. But just as we forget that to our detriment, so too it’s a mistake to think women fighting for their rights is exclusive to contemporary times. Many women have, over time, fought to be recognized as more than simply walking wombs, the “weaker vessel,” good only for sating men’s desires, “feeble-minded,” penis-less poor copies of men, responsible for the Fall, men’s inability to control their urges, and so much more. What’s true about the past is that women didn’t have the freedoms, education or ability to fight for their rights the way we continue to today. One has only to look at the evidence, whether it’s Cleopatra, Boadicea, Joan of Arc, Mary Magdalene, Elizabeth the First, Margery Kemp, Chaucer’s Alyson, to catch glimpses of those who knew they deserved better—if not authority, then at least respect and, one day, equality. These women—some powerful, but many not—would have striven in their own way, that is, used their wiles and more to achieve a degree of autonomy and a voice—one so loud and powerful, we still hear it today.
In order to write Eleanor/Alyson’s story, I relied on a great many books, historical records, poems, articles by historians and scholars, past and current, contemporary sources wherever possible, and so much wonderful creative work too. Following are just some of those to whom I owe a debt of gratitude, and whose scholarship and insights I am in awe of.
First and foremost, I used The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (both in Middle English and the fabulous translation by Neville Coghill); The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale edited by Valerie Allen and David Kirkham; The Wife of Bath’s Tale edited by Steven Croft; The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale: Notes by J. A. Tasioulas.
In order to get a sense of women in the era, I read a range of books including Chaucer’s Women: Nuns, wives and Amazons by Priscilla Martin; Medieval Women: A social history of women in England 450–1500 by Henrietta Leyser; The Ties that Bound by Barbara Hanawalt; Common Women: Prostitution and Sexuality in Medieval England by Ruth Mazo Karras; London: A Travel Guide Through Time by Dr. Matthew Green; London Life in the Fourteenth Century by Charles Pendrill; John Stow’s A Survey of London in two volumes.
Biographies of Chaucer included: The Poet’s Tale: Chaucer and the Year That Made The Canterbury Tales by Paul Strohm; the magnificent Chaucer: A European Life by Marion Turner; and Chaucer by Peter Ackroyd.
To immerse myself in medieval London and England, I read: London in the Age of Chaucer by A. R. Myers; Chaucer’s People by Liza Picard; The Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England by Ian Mortimer; Daily Life in Chaucer’s England by Jeffrey L. Forgeng and William McLean; The Middle Ages Unlocked: A Guide to Life in Medieval England 1050–1300 by Gillian Polack and Katrin Kania; Medieval Domesticity: Home, Housing and Household in Medieval England edited by Maryanne Kowaleski and P. J. P. Goldberg; Life in the Middle Ages by Martyn Whitlock; England in the Age of Chaucer by William Woods; Everyday Life in Medieval Times by Marjorie Rowling; Everyday Life in the Middle Ages by Sherrilyn Kenyon; Medieval Southwark by Martha Carlin; Forensic Medicine and Death Investigation in Medieval England by Sara M. Butler.
In order to portray what happened on medieval pilgrimages, I read the following: Pilgrimages: The Great Adventure of the Middle Ages by John Ure; Pilgrimage in Medieval England by Diana Webb; The Pilgrim’s Journey: A History of Pilgrimage in the Western World by James Harpur.
Likewise, I watched countless documentaries, dramas, and read so many wonderful works of fiction set in this era—please see my website karenrbrooks.com for reviews.
Naturally, anything perceptive and clever is entirely due to these authors and creators’ diligence and talent, and any mistakes, I humbly apologize for—they’re my own. Either that, or I made them deliberately and cry “fiction.” ☺
* * *
While the Wife of Bath’s voice is granted to her by a man, it’s no reason not to listen to what she has to say. It’s also what makes her so interesting. As the scholars still argue—was she simply a ventriloquist’s dummy? Or was Chaucer giving the women of his time a platform, offering something more than what folk of the Middle Ages expected from the female sex? Was he being ironic? Was it satire? And if so, who was he satirizing? Men? Women? Marriage? All of the above? Even the scholars the Wife quotes in the poem begin to look a little foolish when she applies her logic to their arguments. That would have been a bitter pill for many at the time to swallow, but it also caused a great deal of amusement, anger, and everything in between.
These questions have long fascinated me and I began thinking of what life might have been like for someone like the Wife of Bath—taking into account the major moments of the poem, but also placing her within lived history, respecting the strictures imposed by her age, sex, the liberties, or otherwise marriage may have granted her, and recreating an amazing, complicated life. I wondered, if she could tell her own story, what might she tell us? How might she tell it? And above all, what is her story?
I hope I’ve done her justice.