Lower-Class Humor in the Middle Ages: The Miller’s Tale

The Characters of Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales’

Mural by Ezra Winter illustrating the characters in the Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. Library of Congress John Adams Building, Washington, D.C.] This mural on the west wall shows (L–R): "The Miller, in the lead, piping the band out of Southwark; the Host of Tabard Inn; the Knight, followed by his son, the young Squire, on a white palfrey; a Yeoman. Public Domain

The Miller’s tale is probably the most entertaining story in the “Canterbury Tales,” a collection of 24 tales featuring 29 characters from all walks of life who are on a pilgrimage to Canterbury, England. As part of a storytelling contest, the pilgrims tell each other stories, and this framework allows Geoffrey Chaucer, the preeminent writer of the Middle Ages, to portray the various social classes and views of his time.

Each tale is a play on a specific literary genre and social class, and the Miller’s tale is no exception. Here, Robin, the Miller, tells a humorous story in the form of a French fabliau, a short, coarse, and comic tale, popular in the 12th and 13th centuries. The tale verges on a parody with its bawdy humor, popular among the lower classes in medieval England.

A Bawdy Tale

The Knight is the first to tell his tale in the “Canterbury Tales,” a virtuous and noble courtly romance. The Monk is about to tell his tale next, but he is interrupted by the drunk and rowdy Miller, who is “in no mood for manners.”

The narrator further apologizes for the Miller's tale as salacious nature and crude language. Illustration of Robin the Miller, from The Miller's Tale, playing a bagpipe. Illustration by an unknown 15th-century artist. Public Domain

The narrator warns the reader that the Miller’s Tale might shock some for its immorality and vulgarity, reflecting the immoral character of the miller, whose profession was viewed as shifty and dishonest. The narrator further apologizes for the tale’s salacious nature and crude language, but says that he must “repeat it here,” as all stories must be told in light of the storytelling contest. He advises readers to choose any other tale, of “morality, good breeding, saintliness,” but if they choose to read the Miller’s tale, the narrator is “free of blame,” and so the Miller begins.

John, an old and rich carpenter from Oxford, rents a room to Nicholas, an astrology student. Nicholas is clever and charming, and John’s wife, Alison, is young and beautiful. Nicholas seduces Alison, and to consummate their love, Nicholas convinces John that a terrible flood is coming, worse than Noah’s. He advises the carpenter to build three boat-like tubs and hang them with ropes so that when the flood comes, they can simply cut the ropes and float away. The carpenter believes him, as Nicholas often accurately predicts the weather. The evening before the supposed flood, all three climb into the individual tubs. When John falls asleep, the young lovers spend the night together in Alison’s bed.

Meanwhile, Absalon, a young clerk infatuated with Alison, goes to the carpenter’s house, believing his love interest is alone. He begs her for a kiss through the window, and she agrees, but plays a joke on him, offering him her naked rear instead.

As Absalon leaves, he overhears Nicholas and Alison laughing at him, and enraged, borrows a hot iron from the blacksmith’s and returns to the carpenter’s house for revenge. However, it is Nicholas that presents his behind this time, and Absalon burns him with the red-hot poker. As the young student cries out for water, he wakes the carpenter up. Believing that the flood is coming, John cuts the ropes of his boat, which comes crashing to the floor. Hearing this uproar, the neighbors rush in and laugh at the carpenter’s lunacy.

Comic Symbolism

Just like the Miller’s character, his tale is ribald. It is salacious, verging on vulgar, but it represents a kind of humor popular during the Middle Ages. Chaucer elevates this type of humor, designing a masterful plot, full of comic symbolism, and playing on fabliau comic tropes.

Chaucer anglicized the fabliau from the French form, using a suitable meter for the English language, the iambic pentameter rhythm (ten syllables stressing every other syllable), which Shakespeare later used. With some elements of mystery plays, Chaucer has fun with this bawdy genre. The story builds to a complex climax, relying on a final trick. However, unlike a fabliau, where the deviser of the scheme usually becomes the tricked one, the carpenter is still the loser at the end of the tale, with the moral that he should have married someone his age.

The Miller’s storyline is one of the funniest plots in the “Canterbury Tales.” The theme of young lovers deceiving a clueless older husband or guardian remains a popular source of entertainment throughout Western literature, one of its famous examples being, “The Barber of Seville” by Pierre Beaumarchais (1775).

The use of language is essential to the story’s tone. The Miller’s rough character foreshadows the crude language in the story. In the General Prologue, the narrator describes the Miller as a teller of vulgarities, with more force than intelligence, especially in his drunken interruption of the monk. When he tells his tale, he often uses words that are more like noises rather than a lovely description. The scene at the window, when Absalon asks Alison for a kiss, becomes comically incongruous with the crude language used.

Other examples of showing comedy through language include Chaucer’s ever-present sarcasm, where he ironically depicts Alison as a “worthy wife,” after she agrees to cheat on her husband, without much protest; then, as he tells his story, the Miller compares her to a weasel as she betrays her marriage vows. Nicholas is ironically referenced as “Nicholas the Gallant,” and is depicted as “close and sly.”

As for Absalon, his name references King David’s disloyal son. The Biblical references are also comically relevant in this tale, with the flood (a result of men’s perversion), the tubs (referencing Noah’s ark), the name of John (Apocalypse of St. John), and the comic fall at the end of the tale, an unexpected yet humorous end to this tale.

Great Literature?

This tale can make some readers laugh, or stir others for its bawdy content, and some may question the tale as a work of art.

By using all types of comic devices, Chaucer elevates the genre of the fabliau, offering readers an insight into the concerns of the lower class in the Middle Ages and the types of humor they enjoyed. Some comic elements may be lost to modern audiences, such as Nicholas being an astrology student (meaning he contemplates ethereal matters yet focuses his energy on cheating), and other incongruous elements that require knowledge of English medieval society. For example, when Nicholas seduces Allison, his words and actions are in direct contrast to each other. He speaks noble words, worthy of a courtly lover, but his actions are bold and vulgar.

Geoffrey Chaucer, author of "The Canterbury Tales," as depicted in the Ellesmere manuscript. Public Domain

Although this incongruity is not present in modern English translations, the Miller’s story reflects much more than bawdiness. The narrator warns readers that they shouldn’t “be serious about a game,” meaning that there is no need to find a serious moral in trivial things. The end of the tale could be seen as either comic with the fall of the tub, or taken to another level to symbolize the fall of humanity. It is, much like most of Chaucer’s tales, up to the reader to choose where the line stands between the serious and the comic.