The Man of Law's Tale by Chaucer

NET/SLET/TRB Study Guide
Subject: English, Date: 17th March, 2018

This is the fifth tale in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and is based on John Gower's "Tale of Constance" in "Confessio Amantis."

The host now invites the Man of Law to requite the tales of others with his own.  Now the story telling contest takes a U-turn from the paltry tale of Miller and Reeve to a noble and lofty legend. In the prologue to Man of Law's Tale, the man of Law pretends that he is not as skilled as Chaucer to write in metre, especially as in the Legend of Good Women.  He purposes to tell his tale in prose, but the whole story is only in rhyme royal.

Part One
The story is centred on Dame Constance, the daughter of Roman emperor. As Chaucer describes,
“In her there is high beauty without pride, Youth, without frivolity or folly;
In all her work, virtue is her guide;
She is the mirror of all courtesy.”
Sultan of Syria is so overwhelmed and enthralled to hear the version of Constance from Syrian merchants and grows mad in love for her. He even stoops down to get converted into Christianity with all his men of Islam, just for the sake of his love.  After the grand marriage, she parts with her father and goes with her husband Sultan to Syria. 

Meanwhile, Sultan's mother, lamented by her son’s decision of conversion, boils with anger.  She perceives Constance as a serpent in hell masked in femininity, Satan, the nest of all vice. She calls her council, seeks their support and vows to slay all Christians on the day of feast that she is going to arrange for.

Part Two
After revelling in the feast, all go to rest.  As contrived by Sultan's mother, all converted Christians including Sultan are slain and there is bloodshed everywhere.  But Constance is put in a ship with all provisions and pushed to the sea. She sails lone in weariness and woe three years or more and after a shipwreck reaches Northumberland, a pagan land where no Christian can survive.

Hiding her identity as a Christian she lives under the care of a constable and his wife  Dame Hermengild whom she soon converts into Christianity with a miracle of giving eyesight to a blind man as Jesus did. However a knight sent by Satan woos her in woe and plots to trap her to be accused of a felony – he slits the throat of Hermengild and leaves the knife at Constance's bed.  The King Alla who is so overwhelmed by her innocence and virtues reported by others asks the knight to swear on the holy book and the knight falls lifeless like a stone when he falsely does so. Hearing a divine voice testifying her innocence, King Alla and all in the court are converted into Christianity. The King marries her, mothers her and goes in warfare leaving her to the care of constable. 

Doneguild, King's mother who doesn't like his son's course the least manipulates the letter sent to the king from Constance that the new-born son to the king is deformed and devil-like. The King is so compassionate and accepts the Will of God as it is, in his reply that is also modified by Doneguild to be read that the King orders the constable to send Constance and her son in a ship away from the land not to be seen again.  Constance patiently kneels on the sand and says, “Lord, welcome is Thy command!” and in tears but with no fear, she goes near the victualled ship with her dear child and leaves off not knowing where the path of Destiny leads her.

Part III
The King on his return laments on what had befallen to his better half and with intense enquiry he find the source of all evils, his mother Doneguild whom he slays at once and pays for her evil deeds. Soon he falls in repentance and undertakes a pilgrimage to Rome.  Meanwhile Emperor of Rome learns all injustice done to her daughter Constance and sends his Senator to Syria to take vengeance.  After executing the command of the king, the senator returns from Syria and finds Constance and her boy Maurice on the way in an adrift ship, not recognising them who they are. Constance has also lost her memory now and both are taken home to the senator's care.  The senator meets Alla and dines with him for courtesy. Alla chances to see the resemblance of Constance with the boy and the much distressed couples at last find them in each other with tears of joy.  Maurice is crowned as the emperor of Rome and the couples return to England where Alla dies after one year.  Constance comes back to Rome – a true home coming in her case. With this, the Man of Law finishes his long tale.

Constance is embodiment of Christian Faith and love.  The trials and adversities she face resemble those of Jesus in wilderness tempted by Saturn.  She gives eyesight back, patiently surrenders to  God in miseries, performs miracles and converts many into Christianity. 

This tale also reveals Chaucer's strong faith in Astrology, for he says before the death of sultan,
“In stars many a winter long before
was written the death of Hector, Achilles,
Of Pompey, Caesar  ‘ere they were born;” 

How did Constance alone escape from  Syria when even her husband Sultan was slain?  How did ,being a woman, she manage to survive on the ship alone even after three years?  Chaucer raises these questions in course of the tale and convinces us by telling that God who saved Daniel when all his men were eaten by lions in the cave saved Constance.  It  is Jesus who fed five thousand folk with just five loaves of bread and two fish, also saved Constance. “God sent his plenty in hour of need.”  The wheel of fortune ever rotates and like Constance, Chaucer expects us to keep our unshakeable Faith in God, both in joys and sorrows. Thus the Man of Law's Tale surpasses all in merits.