Staging disorder: charivari in the N-Town Cycle

Comparative Drama, Summer, 2001 by Richard I. Moll

   Za, pat old shrewe Joseph, my trowth I plyght,
   Was so anameryd upon pat mayd
   Pat of hyre bewte whan he had syght,
   He sesyd nat tyll [he] had here asayd! (14.82-85)

The first Detractor then offers an alternate explanation:

   A, nay, nay, wel wers she hath hym payd:
   Sum fresch zonge galaunt she lovyth wel more
   Pat his leggys to here hath leyd!
   And pat doth greve pe old man sore. (14.86-89)

Although the accusation of adultery is associated with fabliau, the second Detractor's suspicion about Joseph's own chastity is more closely related to contemporary attitudes toward the institution of chaste marriage. Chaste marriage may not have been a popular topic for bawdy literature, but, like adultery, it was an issue which fifteenth-century society claimed some interest in policing.

The N-Town cycle's portrayal of Mary and Joseph's chaste marriage conforms to medieval perceptions of this peculiar custom. (11) Originally used during the conversion period, primarily for priests who were already married, by the fifteenth century the institution of chaste marriage had lost much of its practical value. Dyan Elliott argues that while chaste marriage was idealized on a theoretical level, as in the marriage of Mary and Joseph, "couples who attempted to preserve chastity in marriage were regarded with considerable anxiety." (12) The problem with chaste marriage was basically one of temptation. The decision to abstain from sex within marriage was often only accompanied by a simple vow, which "eluded close monitoring or enforcement by the church, even though it was considered binding before God" (13) Thus, even a simple vow, if broken, could lead to mortal sin. Although Chaucer's Parson approved of chaste marriage as "a greet merite" to the wife, (14) the concerns that Valerian expresses in The Second Nun's Tale were not uncommon. There, when Cecilie requests marital chastity, Valerian is suspicious of her motives. When she tells him of her guardian angel, he replies:

   `Lat me that aungel se and hym biholde;
   And if that a verray angel bee,
   Thanne wol I doon as thou hast prayed me;
   And if thou love another man, for sothe
   Right with this swerd thanne wol I sle yow bothe' (15)

Concerns over the celibacy of those involved in chaste marriages are not limited to the fictive husbands of chaste wives. Margery Kempe, a near contemporary of the N-Town cycle, describes her own chaste marriage and public reaction to it. As Margery tells us, she and her husband were forced to live apart after their vows of chastity became known:

   They dwellyd not to-gedyr, ne pei lay not to-gedyr, for as is wretyn
   beforn, pei bothyn wyth on assent & wyth fre wil of her eipyr haddyn mad
   avow to leuyn chast. & perfor to enchewyn alle perellys pei dwellyd &
   soiowyrd in diuers placys wher no suspicyon xulde ben had of her
   incontinens, for first pei dwellyd togedir aftyr pat pei had mad her vow, &
   pan pe pepil slawndryd hem & seyd pei vsyd her lust & her likyng as pei
   dedyn be-lorn her vow makyng. (16)