The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale, Geoffrey Chaucer - D. W. Robertson, Jr. (essay date spring 1980)
D. W. Robertson, Jr. (essay date spring 1980)
SOURCE: Robertson, D. W., Jr. “‘And for My Land thus Hastow Mordred Me?’: Land Tenure, the Cloth Industry, and the Wife of Bath.”1 Chaucer Review 14, no. 4 (spring 1980): 403-20.
[In the following essay, Robertson attempts to properly define the Wife of Bath's financial and occupational positions in regards to her landholdings, class standing, education, and marriageability.]
Embedded in the Wife's Prologue are various statements concerning transfers of land and wealth that may be indicative of her legal status. She is sometimes thought of as a freeholder under the common law, or, alternatively, as a borough tenant. I should like to suggest here that she was probably thought of in Chaucer's time as a rural clothier, and that her Prologue may indicate further that she was a bondwoman. Although the social distinction between freeholders and villeins was...
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