ikes best, which, according to her, is
to bear rule over her husband and household. The prioress is
conventional and weak, aping courtly manners. The wife of the host of
the Tabard inn is a vixen and shrew, who calls her husband a milksop,
and is so formidable with both her tongue and her hands that he is glad
to make his escape from her whenever he can. The pretty wife of the
carpenter, gentle and slender, with her white apron and open dress, is
anything but intellectual,--a mere sensual beauty. Most of these women
are innocent of toothbrushes, and give and receive thrashings, and sing
songs without a fastidious taste, and beat their servants and nag their
husbands. But they are good cooks, and understand the arts of brewing
and baking and roasting and preserving and pickling, as well as of
spinning and knitting and embroidering. They are supreme in their
households; they keep the keys and lock up the wine. They are gossiping,
and love to receive their female visitors. They do not do much shopping,
for shops were very primitive, with but few things to sell. Their
knowledge is very limited, and confined to domestic matters. They are on
the whole modest, but are the victims of friars and pedlers. They have
more liberty than we should naturally suppose, but have not yet learned
to discriminate between duties and rights. There are few disputed
questions between them and their husbands, but the duty of obedience
seems to have been recognized. But if oppressed, they always are free
with their tongues; they give good advice, and do not spare reproaches
in language which in our times we should not call particularly choice.
They are all fond of dress, and wear gay colors, without much regard to
artistic effect.

In regard to the sports and amusements of the people, we learn much from
Chaucer. In one sense the England of his day was merry; that is, the
people were noisy and rough in their enjoyments. There was frequent
ringing of the bells; there were the horn of the huntsman and the
excitements of the chase; there was boisterous mirth in the village
ale-house; there were frequent holidays, and dances around May-poles
covered with ribbons and flowers and flags; there were wandering
minstrels and jesters and jugglers, and cock-fightings and foot-ball and
games at archery; there were wrestling matches and morris-dancing and
bear-baiting. But the exhilaration of the people was abnormal, like the
merriment of negroes on a Southern p