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The
Brownstone Journal >>
Issues >> Vol.
X Spring 2001
Sex, Lies, and Money in Chaucer’s Shipman’s
Tale and the Old French Fabliaux
Mary MacCarthy (CAS XX) is a senior
in the College of Arts and Sciences majoring in English and
minoring in French; she will be pursuing a Ph.D. in English
Literature at the University of Texas at Austin beginning next
fall. This paper was written as part of her senior Work for
Distinction. She thanks Professor Robert Levine, her Distinction
adviser, for his help on this paper.
Scholars refer to six of Chaucer’s Canterbury
Tales as “fabliaux”; the Miller’s Tale, Reeve’s Tale, Friar’s
Tale, Summoner’s Tale, Merchant’s Tale, and the Shipman’s Tale.
The definition of a fabliau varies widely. D.S. Brewer defines
a fabliau as
A versified short story designed to make you laugh, subject
matter often indecent, concerned either with sexual or excretory
functions; plot usually in the form of a practical joke carried
out for love or revenge.
Brewer 223
While Brewer focuses on the fabliau’s subject matter and action,
John H. Fisher focuses on the social status of the characters:
the fabliaux concern “middle-and low-class characters and situations”
(Fisher 22) and “One of their principal devices is burlesquing
the values and behavior of the courtly system” (Fisher 22).
The majority of the Old French fabliaux are anonymous.
Although Chaucer’s Shipman’s Tale has no direct analogue among
the Old French fabliaux, Thomas D. Cooke asserts that the tale
“comes closest in both style and content of all of Chaucer’s
fabliaux to the French” (Cooke 172). Cooke notes that among
Chaucer’s six fabliaux only the Shipman’s Tale is set in France,
he comments upon Chaucer’s use of the fabliau convention of
presenting stock figures, saying:
[T]he brief introduction is all we are given of the very typical
merchant and his wife, and that typecasting is underlined by
their being left nameless, a usual omission in the French fabliaux
but not in Chaucer.
Cooke 172
The plot of the Shipman’s Tale appears more times than any
other plot in the Old French fabliaux: Per Nykrog defines the
most typical fabliau plot as consisting of a “love triangle”
in which the denouement “is favorable to the lover” but in which
the “husband is happy” (Nykrog 61).
Charles Muscatine defines the fabliau as presenting “close...
interconnections... between money, cleverness, and pleasure,
especially sexual pleasure” (Muscatine 47). Such interconnections
all appear very distinctly in the Shipman’s Tale. This paper
will discuss the typical fabliau relationship between money,
sexual pleasure, and cleverness as it appears in the Shipman’s
Tale and also in two of the Old French fabliaux–Du Bouchier
d’Aberville and De Boivin de Provins. The discussion will first
examine the fabliau phenomena of approaching money and sex with
the same attitude–an attitude of unadulterated self-interestedness.
Second, the discussion will look at the importance of cleverness–of
the ability to manipulate truth and to tell stories–in the self-interested
attitude of the fabliaux.
I. Sex and Money
In the Shipman’s Tale and in the two Old French fabliaux examined,
the characters are defined neither by uncontrollable lust nor
by extreme avarice; rather, they are defined only by a general
self-interedness that seeks out any kind of profit, either sexual
or monetary or both. The Shipman’s Tale tells the story of a
merchant and his wife who share a close friendship with a monk
named “John” (43), and the plot revolves around a series of
economic and sexual exchanges between the three individuals.
The wife asks John to loan her 100 francs, and John asks her
to have sexual relations with him in exchange for the money;
John later asks the merchant for a loan of 100 francs, which
the merchant gladly gives. When the time comes for John to repay
the merchant, the clever monk insists that he has already repaid
the merchant, because he had given 100 francs to the wife. The
association between sexual concerns and economic concerns takes
place on the literal level–a sexual exchange becomes an economic
exchange–but also on the level of word-play throughout the text.
The relationship between the merchant and his wife consists
of the exchange of material goods for sexual acts: the merchant
provides his wife with all of the necessities and luxuries–from
“array” (247) to “vitaille” (247)–and she returns the exchange
with gifts of her “joly body” (423). From the opening of the
tale, the wife exists only in relation to material concerns.
After saying that “A wyf he hadde of excellent beautee” (3),
Chaucer does no discuss the merchant’s sentiments for the wife,
but rather describes her financial relationship to the merchant,
saying that she “is a thyng that causeth... dispence...” (3-5)
for the merchant. The use of the ambiguous “thyng”, instead
of a word such as “creature” or “person”, hints as the wife’s
role purely as an object: she exists merely as one of the many
“thyngs” that are to be exchanged in the poem. Similarly, the
wife describes her husband as an object, noting his economic
worth; the wife complains to John of her husband’s incompetence
in bed, saying that “he is noght worth at al/... the value of
a flye” (170-171). When describing the merchant’s intimate activities
with his wife, John says “Hath yow laboured sith the nyght began”
(108); in using the word “labour” to describe sexual acts, the
monk creates an equality between sexual activity and economic
activity.
Upon agreeing to sleep with John, the wife employs the vocabulary
of a business contract: she “accorded with daun John” (313)
the terns of the deal, then soon afterwards “this acord parfourned
was in dede” (317). Chaucer creates ambiguity about the true
nature of the exchange being discussed by using the non-specific
pronoun “it”; when John asks the merchant for the loan, the
merchant replies, “Paye it again when it lith in you ese” (291).
The merchant’s use of “it” emphasizes his naivete regarding
the true nature of the loan: while the merchant innocently thinks
that “it” refers to the exchange of money, the monk–who knows
the true nature of the exchange–knows that “it” actually refers
to the wife’s sexual favors. The use of the word “lith” in the
same line as “it” emphasizes that “it” refers to the wife and
not to the 100 francs: the merchant speaks of the money “lying
in” possession of the monk, whereas the monk thinks of the wife
“lying in” bed with him (“it lith” in bed with him). The final
word of the line, “ese” does not resolve but rather adds to
the ambiguity of the line. While the merchant employs the word
in the sense of a remission of a debt, the monk thinks of “ese”
as physical comfort and pleasure; the monk thinks of the sexual
pleasure that he found when lying with the wife.
Chaucer plays with the word “busy” to juxtapose the merchant’s
business activities with the monk’s and the wife’s sexual activities.
Lines 302-303 show the merchant ambitiously pursuing his work
: “Now gooth this merchant faste and bisily / About his nede...”
A few lines later, we see the monk and the wife ambitiously
pursuing each other: “In myrthe al nyght a bisy lyf they lede”
(318). The tale ends with the merchant and his wife discussing
the exchanges that have taken place, and Chaucer puns on the
word “taille” (416). Defending herself against her husband’s
accusations that she negligently handles her money, the wife
reminds him that she has always diligently paid all of her financial
debts to him in the bedroom. She tells him to tally pu what
she owes her, to “score it upon my taille” (416); “taille” refers
to the tally and also to her body–to her “tail.”
The correspondence between sexual and economic concerns that
appear in the Shipman’s Tale also appears in Huistace d’Amiens’s
Du Bouchier d’Aberville. The fabliau tells the story of a butcher
who seeks lodging at the home of a priest but is turned away.
In return the butcher steals a sheep that belongs to the priest
and returns to the priest’s home offering the sheep as payment
for lodging. The butcher then exchanges the skin of the stolen
sheep for the sexual favors first of the servant girl, then
of the wife, then he proceeds to sell the same sheepskin to
the priest. From its opening, the tale speaks in economic terms.
The butcher’s arrival at the priest’s home does not reveal a
concern with rules of hospitality, but rather reveals only economic
concerns: “I don’t want to cost you anything” (“je ne veuil
rien coster” 89) says the butcher. He offers to pay for his
lodging in cash or to buy any product from the priest: “If you
would like to sell me anything of yours, / I will willingly
buy it” (“Se rien nule me volez vendre, / molt volontiers l’acheterai”
86-87). Once he has gained entry into the home, the butcher
“willingly” (“volontiers”) pursues not only economic exchanges
but sexual exchanges as well: after giving the servant girl
the skin of the stolen sheep, he convinces her to do “his will”
(“sa volonte” 228). At the end of the poem, when the butcher
sells the stolen sheepskin to the priest, the poet again plays
on the butcher’s “willingness” by having the butcher say that
he “is willingly very grateful to [the priest]” (“por l’amor
de vous volentiers” 313) for buying the skin. By applying the
butcher’s “willingness” to both sexual exchanges and to material
exchanges, the poet places the two types of exchanges in the
same realm.
When propositioning the girl for sexual favors, the butcher
does not employ subtle word-play, but rather, he unabashedly
spouts economic terms: “if you make me your lover” (“si fai
ton ami de moi” 205), he says, “then you will make a big profit”
(“bien I porras avoir grant preu” 207). In addition to the word
“profit” (“preu”), the use of the “if-then” formula also reveals
the market-driven mindset: the butcher places all interactions
in the economic formula of profits and losses: he constantly
calculates the final result of any type of exchange. He continues
to employ business terms by speaking of the “contract” (“couvent”
210) upon which he and the girl will agree. The butcher’s proposition
of the priest’s lady involves the exchange of both the sheepskin
and of cash for her sexual favors: he offers his “woolly fleece”
(“piau lanue” 281) and also “ a heap of [his] money” (“grant
plente de [son] argent” 282). The act of paying for material
objects with sexual favors objectifies and quantifies the human
beings involved in the exchange.
Similar to Le Bouchier d’Abeville, the anonymous fabliau De
Boivin de Provins also involves a man tricking a woman into
having sexual relations with him. Boivin stands outside a brothel,
pretending to be counting out an enormous sum of money and to
be in search of a long-lost niece. Determined to procure this
money fro herself, the prostitute Mabel claims to be his niece,
inviting him into the brothel and offering him the girl Ysane
to satisfy his sexual pleasures. Looking forward to the money
that she and Ysane will steal from Boivin, Mabel claims to be
unconcerned about profit: she tells him that “Just for keeping
[Ysane] a virgin, / I would get a great deal of money” (255-256)
(“Por seul son pucelage avoir,/ eusse je molt grant avoir”).
When inquiring to Boivin about supposed long-lost relatives,
Mabel says that the relatives must be very “wise” (“preu” 191)
by now: Mabel’s choice of the word “preu”–which in addition
to meaning “wise” also means “profit”–reveals her profit-obsessed
mentality.
The poet puns on the word “purse” (“borse”) throughout De Boivin
de Provins. The tale opens with Boivin buying “a large purse”
(“Une borse grant” 17) which he attaches to his body. Boivin’s
discussion of the purse is replete with sexual allusions:
Or ne lerai por nule paine
que ma borse qu’est toute plaine
ne soit vuidie de mon giron.
81-83
(Not for any trouble
will I let my purse which is bery full
be emptied in my lap.)
Although Boivin doesn’t describe the purse itself in physical
terms, he surrounds the purse with physical terms. He employs
a word that describes physical pain or suffering–“paine”–then
connects that word to the purse by rhyming it with “plaine”.
The description of the full purse being emptied in the lap alludes
to the later sexual interaction, when Boivin will empty another
type of “purse” into the lap area. Before laying down with Ysane,
Boivin cuts the purse off its straps and hides it. The poet
describes Boivin’s sexual interaction with Ysane as a required
task, as “a job”: “First he had to take off/ his loin-covering
to do the job” (“Adonc covint que il ostat / la coiffe au cul
pour faire l’uevre” 271-272). While Boivin begins to penetrate
Ysane (“de la point du bit la point” 277), she is busy “searching
for the purse” (“la borse a cerchier” 279). The image of Boivin
and Ysane engaged in the sexual act reveals an intimate mingling
of economic interchanges and sexual interchanges: despite both
characters’ engagement in a mutual act, one seeks economic profit
while the other seeks sexual profit.
II. Lies: The Profit-Seeking Storyteller
In the Shipman’s Tale and in the two fabliaux examined, the
character who profits the most from the sexual and monetary
exchanges possesses a particular skill. This skill has no inherent
relationship to the particular economic or sexual interests
being pursued: the character possesses the ability to tell stories,
to manipulate the truth in order to render the situation profitable
to himself or herself. The monk in the Shipman’s Tale, the butcher
in Du Bouchier d’Aberville, and De Boivin de Provins manipulate
reality in order to obtain a sexual or financial profit, or
both. R. Howard Bloch describes the fabliaux as consisting of
a narrative competition between various protagonists. The one
who invents the best tale triumphs over the others, as competing
lies concerning sums of money, family, name, virginity, and
fake gestures of generosity and of indignation, the costumes,
props, and make-up come to constitute whatever can be affirmed
with certainty about the fabliaux–that is, their function as
performances.
Bloch 98
He who puts on the best “performance” will obtain the most
profit, whether sexual or financial or both. The profit-seeking
character’s manipulation of the fabliau stories creates an ambiguity
as to the truth of th story being told, and often leads to the
creation of several simultaneous stories.
Throughout the Shipman’s Tale, two stories take place at once:
the story as understood by the monk John and the wife, and the
story as understood by the merchant; the only character who
knows the entire truth is the monk. Chaucer’s juxtaposition
of the image of the merchant counting his earnings (“And up
into his countour-hous gooth he/ To rekene with Hymself, wel
may be” 78-79) with the image of the monk and the wife in the
garden (“This goode wyf cam walkynge pryvely/ Into the gardyn
there [John] walketh softe,/ And hym saleweth as she hath doone
ofte” 92-94) emphasizes the simultaneity of the two stories.
A deft rhetorician, daun John tailors his speech to the audience.
Early in the Shipman’s Tale, the monk insists upon the closeness
of his relationship to the merchant: “The monk hym claymeth
as for cosynage” (39). When in the company of the wife, John
vehemently denies the relationship (“He is na moore cosyn unto
me/ Than is this leef that hangeth on the tree” 149-150), instead
insisting that he claims to be the merchant’s cousin only in
order to gain access to her: “I clepe hym so.../ To have the
moore cause of aqueyntaunce/ Of yow...” (151-153), he tells
the wife. Of course, when John later approaches the merchant
to ask for the loan, he endearingly calls the merchant “myn
owene cosyn deere” (279).
The use of the word “devyse” or “devise” throughout the Shipman’s
Tale reveals that the monk plays the role of storyteller. The
word is first used in line 62, when the narrator speaks of “This
noble monk of which I yow devyse.” Here, the action of “devysing”–the
action of describing and recounting the events in the story–belongs
to the narrator. Later in the Shipman’s Tale, however, the act
of devysing belongs to the monk. The wife says to daun John
that she will perform any service that he desires: “That I may
doon, right as you list devise” (192). Here “devise” means “to
command”–the wife will do anything that the monk commands. But
the use of the word also reveals that the monk is engaged in
“devising,” in spinning his own tales. The monk employs the
word ironically when speaking to the merchant. The monk repeats
to the merchant the declaration that the wife previously had
made to him: he tells the merchant that he will do anything
“as ye wol devyse” (269). The irony lies in the fact that the
monk pretends that the merchant will be doing the “devysing”:it
is the monk who is fabricating the stories to trick the merchant.
John’s emphatic insistence upon the truth of everything that
he says does not reinforce faith in his statements, but rather
raises suspicion concerning their truth. Within a space of one
conversation with the wife, John makes four oaths. He swears
on his breviary (“For on my porthors I make an ooth” 131), he
swears “by God and Seint Martin” (148), and he says “I swere
you on my profession” (155). Having run out of people or things
to swear by, the monk swears by his honor: “I you swere and
plighte yow my trouthe” (198). The merchant’s declaration to
the monk to “Paye it again when it lith in youre ese” (291)
tells two stories: it speaks of the monk repaying the 100 francs
to the priest, and it also speaks of the monk lying in bed with
the wife. In addition to referring to the money lying in the
monk’s possession and to the act of lying in bed, the word “lith”
also refers to the third type of “lying”–the “lying,” the deception
and trickery, committed by daun John throughout the tale. The
tale ends with the merchant and the wife attempting to resolve
the two stories, but the merchant remains deceived to the very
end; the creator of the stories, daun John, has already disappeared
from the tale, having ridden off “out of this toun” 9361), profit
in hand.
The butcher in Le Bouchier d’Abeville manipulates the truth
as skillfully as John. The poet describes the butcher as highly
capable of deception, saying that the butcher “trickled [the
priest] and deceived him skillfully” (“bien l’a engingnie et
decut” 114). The butcher’s seductions of the servant girl and
of the priest’s lady succeed as a result of the butcher’s clever
way with words. When the servant girl rejects his advances,
he eloquently “[reassures] her so much” (“li a cele creante”228)
that she quickly succumbs. Employing John’s methods of persuasion,
the butcher swears by God, insisting that he will never dishonor
the girls’s name: “As I hope God will have my soul...” (“Se
ja Diex ait part en m’ame...” 224) he declares. He employs the
same techniques with the priest’s lady, swearing “by God’s grace”
(“por Dieu merci” 273) that he will not leave until she gives
in to his desires. The butcher then swears by his own word that
he will not disclose her actions to anyone: “You can take my
word” (“Ma foi tenez” 286), he insists. The butcher simultaneously
creates three stories by exchanging the same sheepskin with
three different characters: the servant girl, the priest’s lady,
and the priest each think that the skin belongs to him or her.
The fabliau ends with the three deceived characters attempting
to make sense among the three stories: as in the Shipman’s Tale,
the storyteller himself, the only character aware of the truth,
has already left the scene–he left town “before the sun had
risen” (“ainz que fust levez li solaus” 457).
Du Boivin de Provins consists of a competition between two clever
storytellers, each hoping to manipulate the truth in order to
gain the most profit. The fabliau opens with Boivin dressing
himself to play the role of the main character in the story
he is creating. Boivin dresses as a peasant, even growing a
beard in order to authenticate the rustic costume: he “left
his beard alone/ for over a month.../ To seem more like a peasant”
(“un mois/ sa barbe qu’ele ne fu rese/ por ce que miex samblast
vilain” 14-17). Boivin’s peasant disguise deceives even the
narrator of the fabliau, who soon begins to refer to Boivin
as “the peasant” (“li vilains” 99).
Boivin must make an ambitious effort in order to deceive Mabel,
a woman who “knew more about trickery and guile/ than any woman
that ever was” (“qui plus savoit barat et guile/ que fame nule
qui i fust” 22-23). Boivin creates the story about looking for
his long-lost niece; not realizing the fictional nature of Boivin’s
story, Mabel creates her own fiction, pretending to be that
niece. Despite Mabel’s attempt to create her own story, she
is already unknowingly playing a role in Boivin’s tale, and
Boivin emerges as the master storyteller–accordingly possessing
the profit in the end. Afer leaving Mabel behind, Boivin goes
to the magistrate and tells him the story, for which the magistrate
pays Boivin: this act of re-telling the story emphasizes Boivin’s
role as a creator of stories, as a teller of tales. Bloch points
out the importance of Boivin’s final retelling of the story,
saying that “The only moment of truth if De Boivin de Provins
is found in the retelling of the sum total to the police.” (Bloch
98) Bloch’s statement misleadingly implies that Boivin retells
the story for the sake of telling the truth: it implies that
Boivin desires that the fabliau close with “a moment of truth.”
On the contrary, Boivin retells the story because he knows that
he will gain a profit from it: Boivin is not a prophetic but
rather a “profit-ic” storyteller.
The deception of profit-seeking and profit-making fabliaux characters
as masters of deception should perhaps not come as a surprise,
since self-interested individuals will often employ any means
to arrive at a desired end. But the depiction of the successful
characters as tricky tellers of tales stands out in contrast
to the representation of typical “bourgeois” characters found
in the texts. The fabliaux discussed here all present a typical
bourgeois character, whose moral goodness, responsibility, and
sensible nature should make him a profitable businessperson.
In his article on the Shipman’s Tale. Gardiner Stillwell asserts
that “the tale is remarkable for the merchant’s full exposition
of bourgeois philosophy” (Stillwell 3). Stillwell goes on to
discuss the “seriousness and soberness” that stand out as the
merchant’s “dominant qualities throughout the tale” (Stillwell
3). In having the “serious and sober” character outwitted by
the self-interested storyteller, the fabliaux mock the bourgeois
attitude–saying that cleverness, and not sensible business practices
or a solid work ethic, results in profit. In the Shipman’s Tale,
the merchant is considered “wys” (2), and he has a reputation
for generosity or “largesse” (22). Stillwell comments upon the
repeated use of the adjective “sad” to describe the merchant’s
sober, serious attitude towards all aspects of life (Stillwell
2). Chaucer presents a portrait of the merchant busily at work,
carefully calculating his business affairs: at daybreak the
merchant goes into his “counter-hous.../ To rekene with hymself”
(77-78), and he does not come out until “passed pryme” (88).
When describing his business affairs to his wife, the merchant
refers not to himself but to all merchants, revealing that his
bourgeois attitude is common to his profession: “... litel kanstow
devyne/ The curious bisynesses that we have./ For of us chapmen...”
(224-26). His use of statistics–he says of merchants that “Scarsly
amonges twelve tweye shull thryve” (228)–reveals his logical
nature. Despite the merchant’s serious dedication to his profession,
the merchant is out-profited by the monk, whose work ethic is
grounded in his industrious weaving of webs of lies. Chaucer
mocks the bourgeois attitude by so carefully delineating the
merchant’s serious attitude, but then having the merchant outwitted
by the playful and conniving monk.
In Du Boivin de Provins, a single character embodies both a
bourgeois attitude and clever story-telling abilities: Boivin
possesses the bourgeois traits of seriousness and soberness,
but when necessary in order to turn a profit, will take on the
role of a deft deceiver. Stillwell comments upon the butcher
in Du Bouchier d’Abeville, saying that “In common to Chaucer’s
merchant he has wisdom, devotion to his calling, vocational
skill, business shrewdness, prudence.” The opening of the poem
describes the butcher as a “wise, courteous, and valiant” (“sages,
cortois, et vaillanz” 11) man disappointed with himself for
not having optimally manages his time, for having “used his
journey poorly” (“Povrement sa voie emploia” 23). Similar to
the Shipman’s Tale’s merchant, the butcher “wasn’t miserly or
greedy” (“n’estoit avers ne covoitex” 14-15). The butcher first
offers to engage in an honest business transaction with the
priest; when the priest rudely turns him away, the butcher begins
his trickery. By rejecting his bourgeois characteristics, the
butcher comments upon their inadequacy–saying that deception
reaps a much larger profit than bourgeois business tactics will.
Ironically, even after delving into the role of the deceiver,
the butcher cannot entirely escape his bourgeois mentality.
Worn out from having seduced both the girl and the priest’s
lady, the butcher does not stay in bed to rest himself any longer
than usual. Rather, the butcher responsibly climbs out of bed
on time the next morning: he “Got dressed and put on his shoes
without waiting around,/ Because it was certainly the hour to
do so” (“se vest et chauce sans demeure,/ quar bien en fu et
tans et eure” 237-38). Although no longer playing the role of
the virtuous bourgeois, the merchant still feels obligated to
adhere to the responsible bourgeois habits.
In De Boivin de Provins, Boivin adopts bourgeois characteristics,
but only in order to poke fun at them. The description of the
disguised Boivin echoes descriptions of the serious and wise
merchant of the Shipman’s Tale and of the virtuous butcher.
Like the merchant, the disguised Boivin carefully counts out
his money; his drawn-out calculations of sums which he does
not in fact possess reads like a parody of the merchant sitting
in his “counting-hous”, spending the entire day calculating
sums. Determined to play the role of the wise bourgeois, the
disguised Boivin counts out the money because “That’s what all
wise men do” (“Ainsi le font tuit li sage homme” 34). After
finishing his calculations, he demonstrates bourgeois sensibility
and practicality: “From now on it’s best/ For me to hold on
to them. That will be sensible” (“Des ore mes est il bien droiz/
que je les gart: ce sera sens” 102-103). Although fluent in
bourgeois business methods, Boivin himself does not adopt them,
preferring instead to turn a profit via trickery.
Charles Muscatine defines “the fabliau ethos” as one of “hedonistic
materialism” (Muscatine 72). If the ethos was purely materialistic,
then one would expect to see characters such as the merchant
of the Shipman’s Tale and the hard-working money-changer succeed:
the hedonistic element, however, has no patience for the bourgeois
individual’s time-consuming tabulation of sums and serious dedication
to the acquisition of wealth; the hedonist seeks immediate pleasure,
pleasure either from money or from sex or from revenge–and the
most effective method of obtaining pleasure is trickery. In
the fabliaux, the serious and dedicated bourgeois businessman
plays the role of an old man unable to keep up with the fast
pace of the clever new generation: the bourgeois sits in the
“counting-hous” while the clever storyteller runs off with all
of the profits. The appearance of clever storytellers in the
fabliaux not only mocks the sober bourgeois attitudes, but mocks
the role of story-teller themselves: for in presenting the storyteller
as a profit-driven trickster, the poet also presents himself
as a profit-driven trickster. The appearance of the clever storyteller
calls us to reflect on the role of the poet: if the storytellers
within the fabliaux tell stories only in order to gain profits,
then perhaps we are able to presume that the authors of the
fabliaux are themselves no different. TBJ
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