A New Piece in Chaucerian Lore!!

Fabliaux and the Bible:
How Biblical Allusions Shape the Miller’s Tale

Since the canonization of the New Testament in the 4th century under the supervision of Roman ruler Constantine, the Bible became a collection of books with strong prominence in society. Many pieces of literature have incorporated biblical allusions and undertones since its canonization. Geoffrey Chaucer used biblical allusions in the Miller’s Tale to supplement the story’s fabliaux quality. These allusions can often be indiscernible to modern readers, with diminished biblical comprehension in a growing secular society.

The Miller’s Tale follows the noble and chivalric Knight’s Tale. Where the Knight is an honorable figure, the intoxicated Miller parodies the Knight’s character and tale with a drunken story of adultery and flatulence. In the tale, one of the characters, Absolon, is a feminine looking parish clerk: “Crul was his heer, and as the gold it shoon…His rode was reed, and his eyen greye as goos” (MilT 3314-3317). Absalom was also the name of King David’s favorite son, who was a physically striking individual: “In all of Israel there was not a man who could so be praised for his beauty as Absalom, who was without blemish from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head” (2 Samuel 14:25).

The similarities of the two characters, according to Paul E. Beichner, “…suggests the biblical character and the traditions of vanity and effeminacy that came to be symbolized with that name” (qtd. in Cook 178). The usage of biblical allusions was common in Chaucer’s time. Lawrence Besserman, author of Chaucer’s Biblical Poetics, writes, “References to the Bible…were commonplace in medieval poetry. Accounting for the abundance of partial quotation and oblique biblical allusion in Chaucer’s works is therefore not especially problematic” (136).

By inferring a biblical character, Chaucer insinuates a moral aspect to the tale. In The Old French and Chaucerian Fabliaux: A Study of Their Comic Climax, Thomas D. Cooke writes, “Readers of the tale have long noticed various religious allusions that give the story a ‘moral edge,’ but more recently scholars have been finding enough religious allusions to force that moral edge into the center of the story” (178). The “moral edge” presents an interesting dichotomy to the common fabliaux characteristic of sex, specifically, the audacious affair between John’s wife, Alisoun, and her lover Nicholas. The biblical allusion strengthens the overall disregard of morality in the fabliaux, allowing the moral issues to lurk just behind the characters (Cooke 185). Another biblical allusion provides a comedic finale to the tale.

An amusing ending is a primary characteristic of the fabliaux. The climax consists of two elements: it comes as a surprise, and yet it has been carefully prepared for in such a way that when it comes, it is seen as artistically fitting and appropriate (Cooke 13). Chaucer references a famous biblical story to accentuate the comedic ending of the Miller’s Tale.

The great flood by God intended to wipe away the inequity of the Earth. He spared Noah and his family, commanding that Noah construct an Ark. “The Lord wiped out every living thing on earth: man and cattle, the creeping things and the birds of the air; all were wiped out from the earth. Only Noah and those with him in the ark were left” (Genesis 7:23). This is one of the most memorable stories of the Bible.

To coax John away from Alisoun, Nicholas, a scholar and astrologer, instructs him that God will bring about a second Great Flood.

“‘Now John,’ quod Nicholas, ‘I wol nat lye; / I have yfounde in myn astrologye, / As I have looked in the moone bright, / That now a Monday next, at quarter nyght, / Shal falle a reyn…so hidous is the shour, / Thus shal mankynde drenche, and lese hir lyfe.’”(MilT 3513-3521).

John accepts the young scholar’s deliberately misleading prediction and even agrees to build his own ark that, at Nicholas’ command, John will drop from his roof. This plan eventually backfires later in the story (thus supplying the comedic ending) when Absolon rams a hot poker in the ass of Nicholas. In searing pain, Nicholas cries for water. John assumes Nicholas is referring to the flood. John releases his ark, tumbling to the ground in idiocy, later ridiculed by the public. As was John, modern readers may be inclined to the plausibility that God would undertake a second flood.

However, careful reading of the Genesis story shows that such a scenario would not occur, should one take the biblical story literally. After the flood dissipates, God says, “I shall establish my covenant with you, that never again shall bodily creatures be destroyed by the waters of a flood, there shall not be another flood to devastate the earth” (Genesis 9:11; emphasis added). The rainbow that follows rain showers represents this Covenant. Modern readers, unaware of the full story of the Covenant, would not see the humor of John’s biblical ignorance if they were ignorant of the biblical narrative themselves.

In addition to supplying a very humorous end to the tale, John’s general aloofness in the story causes tension with one of the traveling pilgrims. The Reeve takes offense to such an unflattering depiction of a carpenter; fitting as the Reeve once served the profession. In the following tale, the Reeve tells a story depicting an unsavory Miller as an act of revenge.

Chaucer uses biblical allusions that become apart of the fabliaux structure in the Miller’s Tale. The inclusion of a biblical name introduces a play on morality and a major biblical narrative accentuates the comic climax of the tale. By recognizing these allusions to biblical stories, one better understands and appreciates the Miller’s Tale.

Works Cited

Besserman, Lawrence. Chaucer’s Biblical Poetics. Oklahoma UP, 1998.

Cooke, Thomas D. The Old French and Chaucerian Fabliaux: A Study of Their Comic Climax. Missouri UP. London, 1978.

The New American Bible. P.J. Kenedy & Sons. New York, 1970.