IN PRAISE OF ANIMAL LABORANS, THE LABORING BODIES OF CHAUCER’S GENERAL PROLOGUE

Abstract

In the late medieval England, the long futile wars, famine and death tolls caused by the plagues 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 speakin, in the feudal system of the 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, meditative and ascetic life. Failure in achieving these ideals is depicted and satirized in the General Prologue of the Canterbury Tales, by the pilgrim-Chaucer’s highlighting the significance of both food and foodmakers.