Prior to the Prioress: Chaucer's Clergeon in Its Original Context

Abstract:This paper proposes that Chaucer first wrote his verse narrative of the classic story of The Chorister as the Clergeon, long before he conceived of putting it in the Canterbury Tales as The Prioress's Tale. I suggest that Chaucer's version of the miracle of The Chorister or The Boy Slain by Jews (along with the invocation to Mary and the concluding prayer to "little Hugh" of Lincoln) was composed for Holy Innocents' Day to be delivered in the choir of Lincoln Cathedral by a young boy-bishop sometime in the early or mid-1380s. I examine the pairing of two genres on which Chaucer drew, timeless miracle and historical record, questioning more closely Chaucer's knowledge of the account of the thirteenth-century Hugh. I conclude with questions that these hypotheses suggest for further consideration.