Chaucer's Prioress and the Blessed Virgin

Author / Editor
Frank, Hardy Long.

Title
Chaucer's Prioress and the Blessed Virgin

Published
Chaucer Review 13 (1979): 346-62.

Description
Chaucer and his fellow pilgrims saw Madame Eglentyne as the Virgin's handmaiden, reflecting in her foibles and virtues the Queen of Heaven, whose "amor vincit omnia" (love conquers all). Support for the existence of the Marian echoes includes the use of "simple and coy" in a fourteenth-century "serventois" to the Virgin, the fact that eglantine is a common symbol for the Virgin, and the likelihood that St. Eloy would have been especially pleasing to the Virgin.

Chaucer Subjects
Prioress and Her Tale.