The Medieval Discourse of Labor and (Noble) Idleness in The Canterbury Tales

The discourse of labor (and idleness) is theorized in ancient classical times by Hesiod who regarded labor as an affliction, and the aristocratic Plato-Aristotelian circle of thought who ignored its value since they attributed it to the slaves, celebrating instead the man’s ‘Noble Idleness’. The theory of labor developed in the medieval period by the ambivalent Church fathers who related it to the Fall of man, and the consequent strife as penance. In the late medieval, however, the attitude to labor changed dramatically, as it is manifested in the thoughts of late medieval Church fathers such as Thomas Aquinas, who valued labor as a virtue, forestalling the more secularized Renaissance, which is anticipated in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.

Background of the Study:

With the advent of Christianity and the decline of the ancient slavery system and the rise of feudalist system in Europe, attitudes to labor and wealth were modified. Christianity broke radically with the previous view of labour, yet labor was still seen as a punishment for the Fall of Man. However, in the late fourteenth century England the estate of the clergy encountered a paradoxical attitude towards labor. On the one hand, according to the Biblical instructions, labor is necessary and virtuous, and idleness or sloth a deadly sin, and on the other hand, this praiseworthy labor is allotted to the peasant estate, leaving the role of the clergy still uncertain. The clergy are mostly consumers rather than producers.

In the late medieval England, the development of the middle class and the rise of mercantilism on the one hand, and the long futile wars, famine and death tolls caused by the plagues on the other hand secularized Europe and highlighted the value of laboring bodies. Attitudes to labor changed, especially labor for food production. The attitude of the clergy, however, was paradoxical towards labor. According to the Christian doctrine and ethics, work was a virtue, but practically in the feudal system of medieval period manual work was allotted to the peasants. To cope with this ideological flaw, the clergy triumphed in their (non-productive) clerical labor and services in their meditative and ascetic lives. Failure in achieving these ideals is satirized by the pilgrim-Chaucer’s highlighting the significance of food and food-makers. Accordingly, labor and the images of labor are praised in the “General Prologue” as useful in contrast with the idleness or uneconomic labors of the clergy. The praise is often applied for those pilgrims that are involved in the productive labor, or more specifically, in the food production, namely, the Plowman, the Miller, and the Cook. In connection with the food production, the motifs of eating, consumption, and gluttony are also related, with the medieval mores.