5 - Costume Rhetoric for Sir Thopas, “knight auntrous”

Summary

“No writer of Middle English stanzaic verse shows such versatile technical mastery as Chaucer does in the Prologue and Tale of Sir Thopas,” states E. G. Stanley, hastening to add that this mastery is demonstrated in Chaucer's “incompetence.” Stanley refers here to the General Prologue fiction of the pilgrimnarrator's “incompetence,” of course, and to the court poet extraordinaire Geoffrey Chaucer's “versatile technical mastery.” Both of these Chaucers produce the Tale of Sir Thopas, managing to incorporate numerous romance motifs and conventions, at the same time satisfying and exasperating audience expectations. Nowhere is this process of reversal so apparent as it is in his costume rhetoric for this tale that provides two complete costumes – one for court and one for combat – thus embellishing the identification and characterization of Sir Thopas, Flemish knight, resident of Poperyng.

We recall Chaucer's presentation of other protagonist knights who people his works and especially his romances as described in the preceding chapters of this book, knights whose meager descriptions contrast with his extended depictions of Thopas. A primary example of sparse costume description is the unnamed pilgrim Knight of the General Prologue who is identified sartorially only by his “gypon” that is “bismotered” by râme, rust, derived from his habergeon. Ironically, this knight narrates a tale in which knightly participants in Theseus's tournament scour and shine their arms and armor in preparation for the spectacle.