Estate Satire
Monika Pareek
Professor Abraham
English A
10th February 2014
Chaucer And Estate Satire
The meanings of the word “estate” defined by the Middle English Dictionary is ‘a class of persons, especially a social rank or a political class or group; also a member of particular class or rank’. The idea of the "estates" is important to the social structure of the Middle Ages. (Mann, Jill. Chaucer And Medieval Estate Satire. Introduction. London: Syndics of Cambridge University Press, 1973. 1-7.Print.)
Feudal society was traditionally divided into three "estates". The "First Estate" was the Church (clergy = those who prayed). The "Second Estate" was the Nobility (those who fought = knights). It was common for aristocrats to enter the Church and thus shift from the second to the first estate. The "Third Estate" was the Peasantry (everyone else, at least under feudalism: those who produced the food which supported those who prayed and those who fought the members of the First and Second Estates). The categories defined by these traditional "estates" were gender specific; they were defined by what a man does for a living as much as by the social class into which he was born. Women were classified differently. Like men, medieval women were born into the second or third estate, and might eventually become members of the first. But women were also categorized according to three specifically "feminine estates": virgin, wife and widow. It is interesting to note that a woman 's estate was determined not by her profession but by her sexual activity: she is defined in relationship to the men with whom she sleeps, used to sleep, or never has slept. The rigid division of society into the three traditional "Estates" begins to break down in the later Middle Ages. During the rise of Chaucer (mid-fourteenth century), one sees the rise of a mercantile class (mercantile = merchants) in the cities, i.e. an urban middle-class, as well as a new subdivision of the clergy: intellectuals
Professor Abraham
English A
10th February 2014
Chaucer And Estate Satire
The meanings of the word “estate” defined by the Middle English Dictionary is ‘a class of persons, especially a social rank or a political class or group; also a member of particular class or rank’. The idea of the "estates" is important to the social structure of the Middle Ages. (Mann, Jill. Chaucer And Medieval Estate Satire. Introduction. London: Syndics of Cambridge University Press, 1973. 1-7.Print.)
Feudal society was traditionally divided into three "estates". The "First Estate" was the Church (clergy = those who prayed). The "Second Estate" was the Nobility (those who fought = knights). It was common for aristocrats to enter the Church and thus shift from the second to the first estate. The "Third Estate" was the Peasantry (everyone else, at least under feudalism: those who produced the food which supported those who prayed and those who fought the members of the First and Second Estates). The categories defined by these traditional "estates" were gender specific; they were defined by what a man does for a living as much as by the social class into which he was born. Women were classified differently. Like men, medieval women were born into the second or third estate, and might eventually become members of the first. But women were also categorized according to three specifically "feminine estates": virgin, wife and widow. It is interesting to note that a woman 's estate was determined not by her profession but by her sexual activity: she is defined in relationship to the men with whom she sleeps, used to sleep, or never has slept. The rigid division of society into the three traditional "Estates" begins to break down in the later Middle Ages. During the rise of Chaucer (mid-fourteenth century), one sees the rise of a mercantile class (mercantile = merchants) in the cities, i.e. an urban middle-class, as well as a new subdivision of the clergy: intellectuals
Cited: Chaucer, Geoffrey. Riverside Chaucer. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. Print. Mann, Jill. Chaucer And Medieval Estate Satire. London: Syndics of Cambridge University Press, 1973. Print. Fein, Susanna and David Raybin. Chaucer Contemporary Approaches. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University, 2010. Print