***If you are of a delicate nature and offended by flatulence, bawdy sex, and creative cursing, then this is not the book or review for you. Drunk sai***If you are of a delicate nature and offended by flatulence, bawdy sex, and creative cursing, then this is not the book or review for you. Drunk sailors, hellbound friars, unrepentant whores, adulterous wives, rat bastard husbands, sinners, fallen saints, and curious readers, please proceed, and do so quickly please, before the Archbishop declares this review the devil’s work and consigns this book to the bonfire.
Needless to say, my bags, errhhh really just my books, are packed, and at the first glimmer of torches and glinting pitchforks, I will scuttle away to a new local. Salman Rushdie is on my speed dial.
Ye have been warned.***
Let’s jump right in, shall we?
”Give me life, give me riches, give me power---and give me a ripe slut! Radix malorum est cupiditas---bah! Away with such lies and hypocrisy! Ad libitum suits me much better. Give me corn-ripe beer in the belly and a whore to sard in every town! For I am John Trent--Monk, Pardoner, Inquisitor...and Antichrist! Malevolent from the moment of my spawning, I have yet to meet my match when it comes to unadulterated evil and corruption!”
Ahh yes, The Pardoner, a fine specimen of the church. A man that no woman, girl, or boy would ever want to share a narrow bed with, or a dark alley, or really exchange the time of day with. His friend The Summoner is cut from the same dark, depraved cloth. A man beset by boils that I would describe to you, but then I’d be running the risk of hundreds, if not thousands, of my friends and followers upchucking all over their computers and phones. He, too, is a man from whom one does not want to turn away; for chances are, you will feel that firm push in your back by a pox ridden hand while lecherous fingers seek the sweet pleasures lurking beneath your breeches or skirts.
*Shudder* and *shudder* once again. My teeth chattered on the second one. BITCHING BITS OF BONE!!! How much did chastity belts cost in 14th century England? If you are fine featured or ugly but young or even haggard and old, you either must be fleet of foot or secure your tenders under lock and key.
Oh, and there be friars, as well. How about this pious man of the church?
”He has a magnificent instrument which he plays frequently, letting the tavern wenches touch and stroke its highly-polished wood. There is no limit to his lechery, for cuckold is Friar Pike’s middle name, and he can romp like any whelp this side of London Bridge. Many a wealthy merchant has he also capricornified during those most intimate of confessions with pretty little wives. His absolutions come fast, hot and strong. His pleasant penances are never harsh, but are the very cream of human kindness.”
Don’t you love that word capricornified? You don’t have to know what it means to know what it means. Goodness, as my Chaucer professor at the University of Arizona would say...there is a lot to unpack on nearly every page. Of course, he was reading The Canterbury Tales to us in Middle English, beautifully I might add, but little did I know he was reading us the redacted version, the heavily expunged version that left out the pure essence of the human spirit. Fortunately for us, Dr. Norman Mounter has brought to light the original version. The one that Chaucer wrote unfettered by the heavy, whip ladened hand of the church.
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Now if you put Dr. Norman Mounter in 14th century period robes and boots, wouldn’t he look exactly like Geoffrey Chaucer?
It’s not like Chaucer wanted to write Canterbury Tales in the first place. He got into a bit of a kerfuffle with a friar by the name of Cuthbert. Who among us has not felt the impulse to grab a friar by the ears and bang his head off the table, or splatter his nose across his face, or quite possibly even snap his licentious arm? The church decided that, as penance, Chaucer must write the great book of pilgrimage that will be read far and wide with the hope, I’m sure, of increasing the traffic of gullible pilgrims whom the church can fleece the whole distance to Canterbury with trinkets, indulgences, or pig bones sold as saintly remains. All of this will be wrapped in a healthy dose of fire and brimstone. After all, if not for the threat of hell, churches would be grand homes for crickets.
What we all need to fear more than the afterlife is old age. The knight gives us a preview of what is in store for us.
”My Knight’s armour is corroded now. What little febrile flesh remains is melting into my privy water. My face is lupine and scrofulous. My spine has decayed and my bones crumble and collapse. My lungs have rotted inside me. With spittle thick and bloody, I am coughing up my very soul.”
After reading that grotesque description of your potential final days (don’t think you are immune), you must not waste your youth. You must act while the vine runs hot with passion, intrigue, and curiosity of the world beyond your cubicle/apartment/dreary life. You must seize not only the day, but the hour and the minute, as well. Whether that be the cute intern (don’t seize her, woo her) on level three or that handsome devil (don’t seize him, flirt with him) at the reception desk in the lobby, or booking that trip to London, Paris, or Rome and squeezing it all on a credit card, or going to work in a bookstore because you love books, or becoming a teacher because you want to make a difference, most definitely walk away from that soul killing job and chase your creative dreams.
Oh, and when you go to London, be sure to pack your copy of Bitching Bits of Bones. I can assure you it will give you proper perspective when you visit Thomas Becket’s shrine in Canterbury.
The Clerk will tell you a tale that will have you fanning your rosy cheeks with both hands. His impression of other men’s wives, through personal experience, is that they all have a bawdy side just waiting to be let loose with the proper strumming and a reasonable chance of not being caught.
”I tell no lie when I say that you cannot trust a married woman: she is weak and prone to vice and japery---it’s her natural state! There is a common whore in every wife, so let’s not be too inquisitive---for if you poke and pry too deeply, you may very well smell another man’s mettle!”
Anybody else feeling as ”Stung as a Strumpet”?
I must apologize for the Clerk to all the devoted married women who have read this far into my review. Thank you for hanging in there, and thank you for reserving that special glint in your eye for your husband. The Clerk would be confounded by your dutiful loyalty to your vows.
If anyone smells a horrendous, bitching bits of bone odor while reading this review, you have fallen too far into the world to which I have exposed you. The stench could be from the bowels of any of our pilgrims or possibly a combination of those among them who let loose the thunderous kind and those more inclined to let loose the insidious, deadly, silent ones. The resulting concoction burned my nostrils and watered my eyes numerous times while riding downwind from these flatulent characters. Tis one of the dangers of meeting the unsanitized version of Geoffrey Chaucer’s classic tale.
If I did not mention your favorite pilgrim from the Canterbury Tales, no worries. They are lurking about with Chaucer, gorging themselves on blackbird, plover, curlew, fried fig fitters, comfits, fantailed peacock, honeyed damsons, verjuice plums, and quenching their thirst with hearty, numerous mugs of mead. Is it any wonder that their flatulence rises birds from trees, stampedes cattle, and wilts the flowers along the pilgrimage trail? So be on guard in your travels from all those poxy whores, those lecherous men of the church, those sticky fingered tavern owners, those pretty tapsters, and lusty widows. They will all compromise your virtue as they lighten your purse.
Highly Recommended to the depraved and those seeking an honest view of humanity. As we know, lustful debauchery never lurks far from the hearts of men and women. You will chortle and snicker. You will laugh until you feel pinpricks of tears in your eyes. You will chastise yourself for enjoying the more salacious elements. Most importantly of all, if you must break wind, please let it fly; it will only add to the realism of the experience of reading this book.
“There is no deception on the part of the woman, where a man bewilders himself: if he deludes his own wits, I can certainly acquit the women. Whatever“There is no deception on the part of the woman, where a man bewilders himself: if he deludes his own wits, I can certainly acquit the women. Whatever man allows his mind to dwell upon the imprint his imagination has foolishly taken of women, is fanning the flames within himself -- and, since the woman knows nothing about it, she is not to blame. For if a man incites himself to drown, and will not restrain himself, it is not the water's fault.” ― John Gower, Confessio Amantis
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John “Dour” Gower. The great bard himself, William Shakespeare, used Gower as a character in three plays. Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Henry V, and Henry IV Part II .
Geoffrey Chaucer in a moment of romantic lust wrote a series of poems for a young lady. Poets use their best gifts, words, when seducing pretty, nubile women. This book of poems came up missing and though in themselves they are not dangerous, he was writing couplets about the deaths of English kings, when another couplet about a living king is added the book goes from being an amusing fancy of seduction to treason.
<“At Prince of Plums shall prelate oppose A faun of three feathers with flaunting of fur, Long castle will collar and cast out the core, His reign to fall rain, mors regis to roar. By bank of a bishop shall butchers abide, To nest, by God’s name, with knives in hand, Then springen in service at spiritus sung. In palace of prelate with pearls all appointed, By kingmaker’s cunning a king to unking, A magnate whose majesty mingles with mort. By Half-ten of Hawks might slender be shown. On day of Saint Dunstan shall Death have his doom.”
The Prince of Plums of course is Richard II, the young King, untested, vulnerable. The year is 1385.
Chaucer, soon becomes aware of the danger his wooing has placed him in. He has some of the most recognizable handwriting of the realm. He goes to his friend John Gower and asks him to retrieve the book, which has now surfaced in England, but he leaves out a few details regarding the potential inflammatory nature of the material in the book.
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Geoffrey Chaucer was still working for the crown at this point as a customs inspector and had just started writing the work that would immortalize him The Canterbury Tales.
Gower is more conservative than Chaucer and though they are good friends he can’t help shaking his head over the continued problems his friends poetic libido lands him in.
”You’re remarkably careless with your poetry, Chaucer. And always have been.”
In the 15th century John Gower and Geoffrey Chaucer were considered the fathers of English poetry on an equal platform. As the centuries passed Gower’s poetry was looked on as dull and didactic and his reputation suffered leaving Chaucer’s bawdier work reigning supreme over their period. Gower would not be amused.
The book falls into the hands of a maudlyn, and is passed from hand to hand among them because none of them can read. They sense it is worth something. You might be asking yourself what does a maudlyn do?
”Eleanor Rykener grunted, spat, wiped her lips. The friar covered his shriveled knob. Wouldn’t meet her eyes, of course. Franciscans, they never liked to look. He dropped his groats on the straw.’“why thank you, Brother Michael,’ She said, her voice a sullen nip. The friar stared coldly at some spot on her neck, then shrugged on his cowl, edged around the old mare, and left the stall.”
Bruce Holsinger mixes in pieces of language that has been long left behind. Swyving is what maudlyn’s do. Skincoin is the pay they receive. They work for the most part in Southwark which resides on the other side of the Thames. One of the whorehouses is called the Bishop’s Prick which is aptly named since the Bishop owns the property. The English language was growing by leaps and bounds in this period and Holsinger took full advantage of some of the juicer words available which adds some much appreciated spice to a convoluted plot.
Gower starts his investigation with Katherine of Swynford who is the mistress of John of Gaunt Duke of Lancaster. Just a quick note on John of Gaunt. He was worth an estimated $110 billion dollars making him the richest man of this era and the 16th richest man to ever live. He was a very ambitious man and had designs on the throne of England(just not this time). There is very little that Katherine couldn’t find out in the process of servicing his desires. She didn’t have to be the richest man in the kingdom. She just had to control the richest man in the kingdom.
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Katherine of Swynford, the power was in the palm of her hand nearly every night.
The problem of course is she is a notorious gossip. One must exchange if one is to keep receiving. News spreads quickly and soon more people are searching for this book.
John Gower has to wade his way through assassins, French agents, butchers, prostitutes, figures at court, and ends up risking more than he could ever imagine when Chaucer first approached him about finding a little book. KIngs of this era were quick to swing the axe. Even just knowing about such an incendiary book could land a person on the chopping block smelling the stank sweat of the executioner as he prepares to lop off their head.
And how pray tell does Sir John Hawkwood fit into this dastardly plot?
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Sir John Hawkwood was an English mercenary who worked for the Pope and for many other factions in Italy. He amassed a fortune in wealth and information.
Bruce Holsinger is a medieval scholar at the University of Virginia and has written an entertaining book of the 14th century using the colorful, historical people of the period....more
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