THE LAWYER’S
TALE
TYPE OF TALE:
RELIGIOUS
By: Bria Hicks and Rachel Franklin
PROLOGUE
• You are in poverty, but it is your fault that you will not ask for
help
• You blame God and your neighbors. If you’re poor, people
will hate you and you will become jealous of your neighbor
because he has more than you.
• Poverty makes a person steal, beg or borrow for money, and
it makes a person blame Christ.
• If you are poor, your brother hates you, and all your friends
leave you.
• If you work, you can get rich. If you travel, you can acquire
knowledge from other kingdoms
• The lawyer would be sad and lonely if it had not been for the
merchant who shared his tale with him.
SUMMARY OF THE STORY
• In Syria, wealthy merchants trade precious goods that are
popular and new and decide to travel to Rome.
• During their stay, they hear of a woman named Constance,
the daughter of the emperor, who possesses great beauty,
humbleness, courtesy, and holiness.
• The merchants leave Rome and return to Syria with
Constance on their mind, then tell the Sultan about her.
• He immediately falls in love with her and converts to
Christianity so he can marry her.
• The Emperor of Rome sends Constance along with ladies,
lords, knights of renown, and other folks to Syria so she can
marry the Sultan
• Constance is full of sorrow because she is being sent to a
foreign country, away from loved ones, to someone who she
doesn’t even know
• The Sultan’s mother is very mad that her son converted to
Christianity
• She goes to the Sultan and says she welcomes Constance
with open arms, when in reality, she is plotting to kill her son
for abandoning Islam.
• Then she asks to hold a feast with all the Christians as guests.
Constance and the people who traveled with her arrive in
Syria.
• The Sultan’s mom meets Constance with a good cheer, then
they ride to the next city where she meets the Sultan.
• The Sultaness then orders the feast and all the Christians
come. The Sultaness and her private council stab everyone
in the room except for Constance.
• The Sultaness boards Constance on a ship so that she can
sail back home to Rome but crashes on the shores in
Northumberland
• The castle’s constable came there to see the wreckage and
search for survivors when he sees Constance.
• The constable and his wife have so much sympathy that they
burst into tears
• They are pagans, but after hearing Constance’s prayers to
Jesus Christ, the constable’s wife, Hermengild, converts to
Christianity
• In this land no Christian dares to move about because all
the pagans forced the Christians to flee.
• While walking on the beach, Constance, Hermengild, and
her husband come upon a blind Christian, who identifies
Hermengild without his eyes and asks to cure him.
• Although Hermengild fears that her husband would
reproach her for the conversion to Christianity, this miracle
converts him to Christianity too.
• The constable was not the lord of the castle. Instead, it was
Alla, the king of Northumberland.
• Satan beguiles one on the knights to fall in love with
Constance, but she rejects him.
• He decides to plot revenge on her. He breaks into her
bedroom where Constance and Dame Hermengild are
sleeping and slits Hermengilds throat.
• He frames Constance for murdering her by placing the knife next to her side.
• Soon after, the constable comes home with Alla and finds that his wife has
been murdered but no one in the castle believes that Constance committed
the crime.
• Even though she is innocent, Constance was being led to her death.
• She then gets down on both knees and prays to God that if she dies, that some
how she will be saved.
• King Alla commands, deciding that, if the knight swore on the book that
Constance was responsible for the murder, he would think carefully about his
decision.
• Some one hands him the book and the knight swears on it that Constance is
guilty.
•
At that moment, a hand strikes him down on the neck-bone, and he falls hard
to the floor.
• The knight is then sentenced to be killed.
• Witnessing this miracle, the king and his people decide to convert to
Christianity and he takes Constance as his wife
• Donegild, Alla’s mother, is devastated to hear about her son’s marriage.
• They decide to get married anyway and she discovers she is pregnant while
Alla goes to Scotland to fight foeman.
• She names her son Maurice and the constable then writes a letter to King Alla
to inform him of the good news
• He sends for a messenger to deliver the letter to King Alla on his behalf
• However, the messenger first stops to see the king’s mother to tell her about her
new grandchild
• The messenger informs her that he is sending letters to King Alla and asks her if she would
like to send a letter too, but she declines and decides to get the messenger drunk
• She insists that the messenger spends the night and while he is sleeping, she replaces the
letters with forged ones
• Her letters claimed that Constance’s baby was foul and a monster. When Alla wrote back,
he vows to love the child regardless
• The messenger again stops by to see Donegild and gets drunk
• While he was sleeping, she replaces King Alla’s letter with an order to banish Constance
and her child from the land on the same boat from which they came.
• On the fourth day, Constance went to the vessel with a pale face and sails away with all
her necessities and Maurice crying in her arms
• When Alla returns home, he learns what has happened and decides to murder his mother
for her cruelty, and for being a traitor.
• Mean while Constance is out on the sea for five years until she finally reaches land
• On this heathen island a thief fell in love with Constance and came on the ship to tell her that he
has to have her love whether she likes it or not and Constance and her child cried out piteously.
• The Virgin Mary helped Constance out, while Constance was struggling well and mightily the
thief falls overboard and drowns. She then goes back to sea.
• After hearing about Constance’s travels and about the Christians getting slaughtered in Syria,
the Roman Emperor, sent a senator who was armed with royal order, and other lords to seek
revenge. They burn towns and slay people, then return home.
• While coming back to Rome, the senator finds Constance on a boat and brings her
back to Rome and lets her and her child stay with him and his wife.
• King Alla then goes to Rome to be filled with repentance and to receive forgiveness
from Christ
• The rumor of how King Alla came to Rome spread quickly and the senator came to
him to give him appreciation. Constance’s son came along with the senator to a
feast that was held at King Alla’s inn.
• When King Alla sees Maurice he asks the senator whose child he is, and the senator
told him that he has a mother but no father, then tells him the story of how he was
found.
• Seeing that the child looks just like Constance, King Alla quickly leaves the table and
thinks he’s hallucinating, but after, the senator sends for Constance.
• When Alla sees his wife he starts crying. Constance stands very still because she
remembers his unkindness.
• After Alla explains that banishing them was none of his doing, they kiss a hundred
times.
• Constance then asks Alla to invite her father over for dinner, he graciously accepts.
When Constance sees her dad she lays down at his feet and explains who she is
and the three of them are overcome with joy.
• Later Maurice becomes the Emperor by the Pope.
• Constance and King Alla go to England to live a joyful life together, but King Alla
died a year after they have be reunited.
• Constance then returns to Rome to find her father and praise God.
LITERARY DEVICES
• Metaphor-“Her heart a chamber of true holiness/ Her hand a ministration of largness”
It describes Constance as being very religious and hold a lot of strength in her beliefs
• Simile-“For in the stars is written, clear as glass”
His fate is pre-determined
• Foreshadowing- “A fountain of full of water will not do to wash away the red when I
am through.”
This quote states that a lot of people will be killed by the Sultaness during the feast with
Constance and her Christian friends
• Allusion- “Well, who kept Jonah in the fish’s maw/ Till spouted up at Nineveh?”
This quote is referring to the story of Jonah and how he got swallowed by a whale,
which saved his life instead of drowning at sea. This whale was created by God to save
Jonah and God also kept Constance from drowning at sea.
• Personification/Foreshadowing/Symbolism - “ By cruel Mars the marriage would be
slain…O feeble moon who moves unhappily.. Your new position leaves you now
forsaken”
The moon is personified with emotion and given feeling. The moon symbolizes
Constance and her feeling of grieve and unhappiness toward this loveless marriage.
This also foreshadows that her marriage is to be doomed and forsaken.
• Allusion- “Virago, second Semiramis found…”
Assyrian queen, founder of Babylon, noted for her beauty and strength,
and vicious behavior. The Man of Law compares the Sultan's mother to
her.
• Metaphor-Serpent disguised in femininity
Satan, often depicted as a serpent with a woman's face in medieval
literature and art is being compared to the Sultaness
• Simile- “Not Julius Caesar’s triumph, I would say/ Of which the author
Lucan makes such boast…/As the assembly of this blissful host.”
The party of the Sultaness is being compared to Julius Caesar’s triumph in
saying that the party was better
• Simile- “But this scorpion like some wicked ghost…/Was then contriving
mortally to sting
This quote compares the Sultaness to a scorpion and ghost waiting to
strike to achieve her goal of killing
• Allusion-The white Lamb who was speared; you have expelled/ Demons
from and women…”
The white lamb refers to a story in the Bible about if you believe in God, he
will protect you. She references to Jesus Christ when she is praying to God
to live during her journey out at sea.
EPILOGUE
• The Host stands in his stirrups on the horse and tells the men
that the Lawyer’s story is a worthy tale.
• He encourages the Parish Priest to tell his tale next
• The Priest then admonishes the Host for swearing
blasphemously, only to be mocked in turn by the Host as a
“Lollard” (a heretic).
• The Host, announces that the “Lollard” will do some
preaching, is interrupted by the Skipper, who objects to the
idea of the Parson glossing the gospel and teaching.
• He promises a tale which will “clynk” like a merry bell, and
wake up everybody. But, the Skipper continues, and says
that there will be no philosophy or legal matters in his tale
REFLECTION
This tale was very confusing in the beginning but when we kept
reading we came to understand it better. It is important
because it shows how a woman can overcome obstacles by
just believing and staying true to God. It also shows that
miracles can happen if you try hard enough. We feel that
Constance is a strong and powerful woman and that she
changed the lives of others by converting them to Christianity.
The theme of this tale is that God will protect those who are
notably virtuous and will punish people who try to abuse the
good.
This story reflects a virtuous tale about a female heroine. It was
brought to our intention that Constance is romanticized as an
ideal Christian women to be protected by knights which is one
reason for the rise of chivalry during the medieval period in
Rome. This story also is used to describe the cultural shift from
paganism to Christianity during that time period. As people
converted to Christianity, they rejected Islam.