The Man of Law's Tale," found in Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales is the story

of a virtuous Roman Christian woman named Constance. When married off into a community
of pagans, she undergoes just about every kind of adversity possible at the hands of two evil
mothers-in-law. Her lot in life is pretty much the worst.

While in Rome, a company of Syrian merchants hear of the emperor's daughter, Dame
Constance, who is the epitome of beauty, goodness, and innocence. Upon their return to Syria,
the merchants share their adventures with the young Syrian ruler, the Sultan, who is
particularly captivated by the descriptions of Lady Constance. He decides to have Constance
for a wife, and because a Christian emperor will not form an alliance with a Muslim nation, the
Sultan is baptized — "Rather than that I lose / The Lady Constance, I will be baptized" ("Rather
than I lese / Custance, I wol be cristned") — he instructs his subjects to become Christians as
well.

At the celebration following the wedding ceremony, the evil conspirators of the Sultan's
mother sweep down on the Christians and kill them all, including the young Sultan. Lady
Constance escapes death and is placed on a well-provisioned ship and cast upon the sea. After
"a year and a day" of roaming the sea, the ship lands in the northern isle of Northumberland,
where a constable and his wife find Constance and take her in. Because Northumberland is a
pagan land, Constance keeps her faith a secret. Soon, however, the constable's wife,
Hermengild, becomes a Christian, and, when the constable observes Hermengild and
Constance performing a miracle, he becomes a Christian.

A young knight sees Constance and is filled with lustful desires. Spurned and manipulated by
Satan, the knight slits Hermengild's throat and leaves the murder weapon in Constance's bed.
The constable takes Constance before the king, Alla, who rules with a wise and firm hand. The
king sentences Constance to death but makes the knight swear on holy books that she is guilty.
The moment the knight swears to her guilt, he is stricken dead, and a voice saying that the king
has unjustly judged a disciple of Christ is heard.

Awe-stricken, the pagans convert to Christianity. Soon, King Alla and Constance fall in love and
are married. While the king is away at war, Constance gives birth to a beautiful son. But the
king's mother, Donegild, an evil and vicious woman, intercepts and replaces the message
bearing the happy news with letters of her own, saying that the king's son was born deformed.
In his response, King Alla says he will accept the child, but Donegild intercepts that message as
well and writes a false one saying that the king's will is to the have the child destroyed.
Horrified, Constance sails away with her son. Upon his return, King Alla discovers the falsified
messages and, grief-stricken at the loss of is wife and son, has Donegild executed.

In the meanwhile, the emperor of Rome, Constance's father, hearing of the tragic news of the
death of the Christians, sends an army to Syria to revenge their deaths. As the Romans return
to Rome, they spy the vessel steered by Constance. Not recognizing Constance, they take her
to Rome, but because she has lost her memory and does not recognize her homeland, she lives
in obscurity.
The grief-stricken King Alla makes a pilgrimage to Rome to seek penance. While in the
company of the noble senator, he sees a child who bears a strong resemblance to Constance.
He soon after learns of the circumstances of Constance's arrival and, going to her dwelling
place, repudiates the false messages and convinces her of his love for both her and their son.
After their joyous reunion, Constance, miraculously regaining her memory, kneels before the
emperor and confesses that she is his daughter. Alla and Constance return to Northumberland,
but within a year, Alla is dead. Constance and her son return to Rome, where the child, upon
the death of his grandfather, becomes the emperor.

After the Man of Law had finished, the Host proclaims the tale a first class story and turns to
the Priest for a tale, but the Priest is offended by the Host's swearing. The Host then refers to
the Priest in a slightly satiric tone, calling him a "Johnny" and a "Lollard." The Skipper
interrupts, saying that he has a tale to tell but that his tale won't be about philosophy. The
content of this epilogue sounds as though the next tale will therefore be the Shipman's, but
Chaucer abandoned this idea.

CONCLUSION

The story describes the sufferings of Constance, daughter of a Christian emperor. When she
marries a Syrian sultan who has converted to Christianity, his evil mother conspires to kill all
the Christians in the court, including the sultan. Constance alone survives and is cast adrift.
Landing in Northumberland, she converts her host’s wife (then is falsely accused of killing her
convert), is saved by divine intervention, marries the king, is set adrift by yet another nasty
mother-in-law, and, after further misfortunes, reaches Rome, where she is reunited with her
husband and her father.

THE MONK’S TALE

The Monk's tale is a collection of tragedies, designed to advise men not to
trust in blind prosperity but be aware that Fortune is fickle and ever-
changing.

Lucifer is the first tragedy told, who fell from an angelic heaven down to
Hell. Adam is next, the one man not born of original sin, who was driven
from Paradise.

Sampson's tale is told at greater length, explaining how he fell from grace
when he admitted his secret to his wife, who betrayed it to his enemies
and then took another lover. The story is that Samson slew one thousand
men with an ass's jawbone, then prayed for God to quench his thirst. From
the jawbone's tooth sprung a well. He would have conquered the world if
he had not told Delilah that his strength came from his refusal to cut his
hair. Without this strength his enemies cut out Samson's eyes and
imprisoned him. In the temple where Samson was kept he knocked down
two of the pillars, killing himself and everyone else in the temple.

Hercules' tragedy is next. Hercules' strength was unparalleled, but he was

finally defeated when Deianera sent Hercules a poisoned shirt made by
Nessus.

Nabugodonosor (also spelled Nebuchadnezzar), was the king of Babylon

who had twice defeated Israel. The proud king constructed a large gold
statue that he demanded his subjects pray to or else be cast into a pit of
flames. Yet when Daniel disobeyed the king, Nebuchadnezzar lost all
dignity, acting like a great beast until God relieved him of his insanity.

The next tragedy is about Balthasar, the son of Nebuchadnezzar, who also
worshipped false idols. He had a feast for a thousand lords in which they
drank wine out of sacred vessels, but during his feast he saw an armless
hand writing on a wall. Daniel warned Balthasar of his father's fate. Daniel
warned him that his kingdom would be divided by Medes and the
Persians. Balthasar, according to the Monk, exemplifies the way that
Fortune makes friends with people before making enemies with them.

Cenobia (or Zenobia), who was beautiful and victorious in war, is the next
tragic hero of the tale. The queen of Palmyra refused the duties of women
and refused to marry, until she was forced to wed Odenathus. She
permitted him to have sex with her only so that she could get pregnant,
but no more. Yet the proud woman, once Odenathus was dead, was
defeated by the Romans and paraded through Rome bound in chains.
King Pedro of Spain, subject of the next story, was cast from his kingdom
by his brother. When attempting to regain his throne, Pedro was
murdered by this brother.

Peter, King of Cyprus, is the next subject; he brought ruin on his kingdom
and was thus murdered.

Other tragedies include Bernabo Visconti, who wrongly imprisoned his

nephew. Ugolino of Pisa, a count, was imprisoned in a tower in Pisa with
his three young children after Ruggieri, the bishop of Pisa, had led a
rebellion against him. His youngest son died of starvation, and out of his
misery Ugolini gnawed on his own arms. The two children that remained
thought that Ugolini was chewing himself out of hunger, and offered
themselves as meals for him. They all eventually starved. Nero did nothing
but satisfy his own lusts and even cut open his own mother to see the
womb from which he came. He had Seneca murdered for stating that an
emperor should be virtuous. When it appeared that Nero would be
assassinated for his cruelty, he killed himself. Holofernes ordered his
subjects to renounce every law and worship Nebuchadnezzar. For this sin
Judith cut off Holofernes' head as he was sleeping.

The Monk next tells of Antiochus Epiphanes, who was punished by God for
attacks on the Jews. God made Antiochus infested with loathsome
maggots. The Monk then admits that most have heard of Alexander the
Great, poisoned by his very own offspring. He follows with the tale of
Julius Caesar, who had Pompey murdered but was himself assassinated by
Brutus. The final story is of Croesus, King of Lydia, the proud and wealthy
king who was hanged.

All of these tales are simply re-tellings of the popularly known stories: all
focus on the same theme of people of high degree falling into misery or
death. Finally the Monk's Tale is interrupted.
The Shipman's Tale
A rich merchant, who lived at St. Denis, foolishly took a beautiful woman
for his wife. She drained his income by demanding clothes and other fine
array to make her appear even more beautiful. There was also a fair, bold
young monk, perhaps only thirty years old, who was always at the
merchant’s house. Indeed, he was as welcome there as it is possible for
any friend to be. The monk was generous with his money, and always
brought gifts for his lord and for the servants, according to their degree.

One day, as he was going to make a journey to Bruges, the merchant

invited John to visit him and his wife before he departed. The monk and
the merchant had a merry time together, eating and drinking for two days.
On the third day, on which the merchant was ready to depart for Bruges,
he awoke early and went to his counting-house to balance his books. John
was also awake early and went into the garden to pray. The wife went into
the garden, worried that something was bothering the monk. He in turn
worries about her; he thinks that she did not sleep well, for the merchant
kept her up all night having sex – and she admits, in turn, that in fact she
has no lust for her husband. John realizes that there is more to this, and
promises to keep everything she tells him secret.

The wife complains that her husband is the “worste man that ever was
sith that the world bigan” (the worst man ever to have existed since the
world began”). She also tells him that she owes a debt of one hundred
franks, which, if she does not pay (and her husband finds out about it) will
disgrace her. The wife begs the monk to lend her the money.

The noble monk tells the wife that he pities her, and promises to “deliver”
the wife “out of this care”, and bring her one hundred franks. With that,
he caught her by the thighs, embraced her hard, and kissed her many
times. The two then parted, and the wife went to her husband in his
counting-house, begging him to leave his accounts. The merchant refused,
explaining to her that it was essential that he managed his business
carefully, as many merchants went bankrupt.

The three dined together that evenings, and after dinner, the monk took
the merchant to one side, and asked him to lend him one hundred franks
– and the merchant humbly and generously agreed, telling him to pay it
again when he could afford to. He fetched the sum and took it to the
monk, and no-one in the world but the two of them knew of the loan.
That evening, the monk returned to the abbey, and, the next morning, the
merchant travelled to Bruges to conduct his business.

The next Sunday, the monk returned to St. Denis, with head and beard all
clean and freshly shaved, and – to get to the point – the wife agreed with
the monk that, in exchange for the hundred franks, the monk could have
sex with the wife all night, a promise which the two of them eagerly
fulfilled. The next morning, the monk rode home to his abbey, or
wherever pleased him.

The merchant returned home, and, delighted to see his wife, told her
about his business transactions - and, when he came into town, he went
straight to see his friend, the monk. The monk was delighted to see him,
and, after talking about his business trip, the monk told the merchant that
he had left his thousand franks with his wife. The merchant went home
happy, and his wife met him at the gates – and the two of them had a
happy night in bed, until the wife waylaid him, teasing him wantonly.
Finally, the merchant told her he was a little angry with her because she
had not told him she had received his money from the monk.

However, the wife was not frightened or taken aback by this, but said
quickly and boldly that she had indeed received gold from the monk. The
wife then argued that she should be allowed to keep the gold, to pay for
good hospitality and to do with as she pleased; and, in return for him
giving her his money, she would give him her body: “I wol nat paye yow
but abedde”. And the merchant saw that there was no other option but to
agree.