ABSTRACT
The story is yet another example o f the ‘international medieval popular comic tale’, and it exists in many variants, both written and found orally in recent times virtually all over the world.
The theme is known to folklorists as ‘the lover’s gift regained’. In Chaucer’s version the wife of a rich merchant of Saint Denis near Paris is kept somewhat short both o f money and sexual satisfaction. The merchant is friendly with a smart young monk of 30, who frequents his house. Like the M onk in The General Prologue he is an ‘outrider’, a kind of steward or estate-manager. (Chaucer shows no knowledge of, or interest in, life inside monastic cloisters.) The wife tells the monk that she has incurred a debt of the vast sum of a hundred francs. He promises to help her, and fondles her. The merchant must go to Brugge (or Bruges) but before he goes the monk borrows a hundred francs (a very large sum). In the mer chant’s absence the monk seduces the wife at the price of the hun dred francs, which he gives her. The merchant on his return calls first upon the monk, for he wants the money. The monk remarks that he has paid it back to the wife. The merchant on his return greets his wife fondly and they go to bed and make love vigorously. But then the merchant gently reproaches his wife for not telling him
about the returned debt. She dismisses the charge lightly and says she had not realised it was repayment, but a gift, and she happens to have spent it on clothing, but she will repay him in bed. The merchant has anyway made a great profit, so he has to rest content.
