Notes

THE SQUIRE

An interesting account of the training and duties of squires will be found in Saunders' Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (Dent, 1889). After serving from his seventh to his fourteenth year as a page in some noble family a youth received his sword and girdle from the priest's hands at the altar. He might then have assigned to him various duties in the household, or be made personal attendant on his lady, until he was strong enough to follow his lord to the wars. As 'squire of the body' to a knight, he would have to hold his stirrup for him when he mounted, to carry his helmet for him, to lead his war-horse when he preferred to ride on a palfrey, to arm him for battle, and to attend him in the fight. In his lord's house a squire would not only act as carver, but help to entertain his guests, and wait personally on those of high rank. For the military experience which Chaucer's Squire may have had, see note to 1. 86.

80. a lusty bachelor. ' Bachelor' in Chaucer's time meant not merely an unmarried man, but distinctively a probationer for the honour of knighthood, or young knight. So Cambuscan in the Squire's Tale is said to have been "Yong, fressh and strong, in armes desirous As any bacheler of al his hous." In like manner a Bachelor at the university was a probationer for the full degree of Master.

83. of evene lengthe. 'Even' here is explained in New. Eng. Dict, as ' a just mean between extremes, of proper magnitude or degree.'

86. In Flaundres, in Artoys and Pycardie. There was probably always in Chaucer's time some fighting to be had on the borderland of France and Flanders, where the Free Companies were troublesome even in times of peace. But it looks as if Chaucer's Squire had followed in his father's footsteps and taken part in what was proclaimed as a ' Crusade,' the iniquitous expedition captained in 1382 by Henry Le Despencer, the fighting Bishop of Norwich, who, with the sanction of Tope Urban, led an English army into the districts here named, to plunder anyone who they could pretend was an adherent of the anti-Pope Clement, the French candidate. The expedition was at first successful, and much booty was sent home to England. Eventually it failed miserably.

88. in his lady grace. For ' lady' as a genitive see Introduction, p. lvi., also note to 1. 695.

89. Embrouded was he, etc. In the picture of the Squire in the Ellesmere manuscript, he wears a short coat (1. 93), whose long sleeves are blown behind him by the wind. The coat itself is green lined with red, and embroidered with small white patches. He wears white breeches, with tufts of ermine on the thighs, and his pointed shoes droop far below the stirrups. His curly hair is crowned by a high blue cap embroidered in the front. To prove his excellence as a rider (1. 94) his horse is rearing most alarmingly.

100. And carf biforn his fader. ‘Froissart particularly mentions that the young Count de Foix, like Chaucer's Squire, carved before his father' (Saunders, op. cit.). So Barbour (Bruce ii. 91 sq.) writes of  ‘James off Douglas that ay quhar All wayis before the byshop schar,' for which cause the Bishop 'gert him were his knyvys.

THE YEOMAN

Chaucer describes his Yeoman as carrying not only a bow, sword and buckler, which he would do on military service, but also a hunting horn, and guesses that he was a Forester. He had, therefore, plainly not been abroad with the Knight, and we may imagine, in trying to picture how Chaucer thought of things as happening, that the Squire and Yeoman had ridden from some country place to meet the Knight and attend him on the pilgrimage which he was making before returning home. His handsome dagger and silver brooch show that the Yeoman was a man of substance, and while serving the Knight as a forester he would probably hold a farm as well. Modern commentators are agreed that the Tale of Gamelyn (the same story of the greenwood as that which Shakespeare used in his As You Like It) found in some manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales, was intended by Chaucer, when re-written, to be assigned to the Yeoman. As it is, he tells no story, so there is no picture of him in the Ellesmere manuscript.

101. A Yeman hadde he. ‘He' refers back to the Knight.

104. pecok arwes: cp. Lydgate's Hors Goose and Sheep, I. 21 sqq. :

But some writers on archery considered peacocks' feathers as good only for show, and much inferior to those of the goose.

107. His arwes drouped noght with fetheres lowe: ‘low' feathers seem to be those in which the pinnules lie so close to the rib that when fastened to the arrow they do not jut out enough to support it in the air, so that the arrow ' droops' in its flight and falls short.

110. usage, practice.

111. a gay bracer: a 'bracer' (O. Fr. brasseure, ultimately from Lat. brachium) was a guard used by archers to save the arm from being struck by the string when the arrow was loosed.

114. Harneised wel, i.e. the metal on the leather sheath was handsome and well polished.

115. A Christophere : a silver brooch in the form of a figure of St. Christopher, who, ' as the patron of field sports, and as presiding also over the state of the weather, was of course pre-eminently the forester's guardian saint' (Saunders). But images of St. Christopher were supposed to bring good luck to anybody.

116. the bawdryk was of grene: a baldric (deriv. uncertain) is defined in New English Dictionary as ‘a belt or girdle usually of leather and richly ornamented, worn pendent from one shoulder across the breast and under the opposite arm, and used to support the wearer's sword, bugle, etc.' At an earlier date than this knights had worn their baldrics horizontally across the hips. As the yeoman's baldric was green and had only to support a horn, it may very well have been made of cord.

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These notes are reproduced verbatim from Alfred W. Pollard, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales: The Prologue, London: Macmillan, 1903. The book is in the public domain and available for viewing and download from Google Books. Although the book is old, the notes are enlightening and accurate. Nevertheless, users doing detailed research on aspects of the General Prologue should, if possible, also consult more recent notes in print publications such as The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Larry D. Benson, 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987.