camp, where she gives in to Diomede’s wooing and
thus breaks her promise to wait until she can be
reunited with Troilus.
The tale has long been considered the last in the
“marriage group” of The Canterbury Tales, and the
Franklin’s tale of a marriage of mutual respect has been
read as an answer both to the Wife of Bath’s insistence
on the sovereignty of women and to the Clerk’s brutal
Walter, who subjects his Custance to unremitting tor-
ture for the sake of demonstrating his mastery over
her. The “love triangle” of “The Merchant’s Tale,” in
which a woman agrees to sleep with her husband’s
friend for money, has an analogue in the love triangle
of “The Franklin’s Tale,” though Dorigen’s reluctance
to break her marriage vow is in direct contrast to the
Merchant’s wife’s willing infi delity. The generosity of
the magician in giving up his fee is also in contrast to
the mercenary greed of the husband, wife, and lover of
“The Merchant’s Tale.” But if she is idealized as a wife,
Dorigen is also passive, submitting to the demands of
Aurelius (instead of challenging his interpretation of
her fl ippant promise) and of her husband to submit to
Aurelius’s lust.
Chaucer provides another alternative in “The Tale of
Melibee,” in which a wife is a patient and wise coun-
selor to a sometimes rash husband. Chaucer ascribes
“The Tale of Melibee” to the character of “Chaucer,”
the one tale teller with a link to the real world outside
the Canterbury pilgrimage. If any of the tales can be
read as a touchstone or moral center for The Canter-
bury Tales as a whole, “Melibee” is a good candidate.
The narrative and thematic links between “Melibee”
and “Franklin,” then, provide additional weight to an
argument that sees in “The Franklin’s Tale” an answer
to the other tales about marriage, a suggestion that
marital equality is a desirable goal rather than a threat
to social structures.
Recent scholarship has turned toward readings of
tales in their context within The Canterbury Tales.
This can be diffi cult since there are different versions
of the Tales’ sequence in the early manuscripts. How-
ever, scholars have long identifi ed “fragments” con-
sisting of groups of tales that occur in sequence in all
or almost all of the manuscripts. “The Franklin’s Tale”
and “The Squire’s Tale” form one such fragment, and
recent criticism has read these as a single narrative
unit with thematic links, such as concepts of wealth
and gift giving, between the two tales and their
respective tellers. Moreover, scholars have recently
given renewed attention to the relationships between
tales and their tellers.
FURTHER READING
Cooper, Helen. The Canterbury Tales. Oxford Guides to
Chaucer. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989.
Mann, Jill. Geoffrey Chaucer: Feminist Readings. New York
and London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991.
Harwood, Britton J. “Chaucer and the Gift (If There Is
Any).” Studies in Philology 103, no. 1 (2006): 26–47.
Heide EstesFRENCH HISTORY, THE ANNE EDGECUMBE
DOWRICHE (1589) Published in the year following
the defeat of the SPANISH ARMADA, ANNE EDGECUMBE
DOWRICHE’s narrative poem relates three incidents in
which French Protestants (Huguenots) were martyred
and divine justice exacted on their persecutors, a timely
reminder to the English about the dangers of Catholi-
cism. In part one, titled “The taking of St. James his
street,” Dowriche describes an incident from 1557 that
occurred in Paris. A private home, where a small Prot-
estant worship service is taking place, is suddenly sur-
rounded by angry Catholics. The Protestants who do
not escape are quickly arrested and burned at the stake
if they choose not to recant their beliefs. In part two,
Dowriche relates the arrest and execution of Annas
Burgeus (Anne du Bourg) in 1559. As a member of the
French Parliament, Burgeus urged the king to reject
Catholicism. King Henry II has him immediately
arrested and executed. Dowriche concludes her work
by narrating the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of
August 1572, describing the assassinations of Admiral
Cologny and several other prominent Protestant lead-
ers, as well as the massacre in Paris itself.
In each section of the narrative, Dowriche stresses
the honor, nobility, and piety of the Protestant victims;
the treachery and savagery of the Catholic perpetrators;
and the sudden, violent deaths of the persecuted. When
contextualized through Dowriche’s numerous biblical
citations, persecuted Protestants become the mirror196 FRENCH HISTORY, THE