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The Canterbury Tales: The Plowman & The Miller
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The Canterbury Tales: The Plowman & The Miller
A Man of Sin the Miller was
The Miller
A Child of God the Plowman was
The Plowman was a very honest and humble worker. He lived in peace and perfect charity. He loved God above all things, helped the poor, and "He never took a penny and always paid his tithes in full."
The Miller was a boastful man. He was very dishonest in that he would press his thumb on the scale when he would weigh his customers grain to charge them three times pay and that was considered his "golden thumb".
"He would win the ram at any wrestling show." He carried a sword and buckler at his side and "always told tavern stories about how tough he was."
"He knew very well how to steal corn and charge three times over, indeed, he had a thumb of gold [mark of a miller from testing grain, but also a reference to their traditional dishonesty]."
"Since there was literally no competition for the worker's goods, millers had no real reason to provide even adequate service to their customers; the peasants were at their mercy."
On the other hand, the Miller is not one of Chaucer's favorable characters.
Works Cited
Lambdin, Laura C., and Robert T. Lambdin. "Chapter 23 With Hym Ther Was a Plowman Was His Brother." Chaucer's Pilgrims: An Historical Guide to the Pilgrims in The Canterbury Tales. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1996. 263-71. Print.
Parini, Jay. "The Canterbury Tales." British Writers Classics. Vol. 1. New York, NY: Thomson/Gale, 2003. 46. Print.
The Plowman
"The Plowman was both valuable and most certainly vital to the economic well-being of society, especially amidst the crises of the fourteenth century." - It was traditional for a Plowman to be an honest and humbled worker.
The Plowman has a blade to plow the fields, carries a cart, digs manure and thrashes corn- almost like a current farmer.
The Plowman is one of the only characters in the Canterbury Tales that Chaucer approves of and speaks highly of. He is also the Parson's brother.
Imaging the Plowman
Imaging the Miller
The Plowman was a very conservative man. He wore a dirty tabard smock (a loose fitting jacket) and rode a mare (a horse).
The Miller was a big man. He was 224 pounds, big in brawn and bone. He was broad, knotty and short shouldered. He has a red beard and a hairy wart on his nose that is of wide black nostrils. His mouth is like a furnace door, he wore a blue hood and a white coat because he believed he was part of the upper class, although it was illegal for a lower class-man to wear a blue hood.