What happens in Chapter 6 of The Canterbury Tales?
The Man of Law's Tale tells the story of Constance, the daughter of a Roman emperor, known for her remarkable virtue and beauty. She is sent to Syria to marry the Sultan after he converts to Christianity for her. However, the Sultan's mother is furious about her son's conversion from Islam and plans a massacre at the wedding, resulting in the deaths of the Sultan and his court. Constance is the sole survivor and finds herself adrift on a boat without a rudder. She washes up in Northumbria, where she is taken in by a constable and his wife, Hermengyld. After Constance miraculously heals a blind man, she converts the entire household to Christianity. A spurned suitor kills Hermengyld and frames Constance for the murder, but divine intervention reveals the true culprit to King Alla, who subsequently marries Constance. Alla's manipulative mother, Donegild, intercepts royal letters and orchestrates Constance's second banishment at sea, this time with her infant son, Mauricius. Years later, Constance reunites with Alla in Rome, and Mauricius eventually rises to become Emperor of Rome. The tale concludes with a brief, touching reunion between Constance and her elderly father before Alla passes away and Constance returns to Rome for good.
Analysis
Chaucer gives this tale to the Man of Law with a sharp irony: a skilled rhetorician, who values eloquence, tells a story where the main character is mostly defined by her silence and passive endurance. This choice is intentional—Constance hardly speaks, and when she does, her words are prayers or laments rather than persuasive arguments, flipping the tale-teller's own specialty upside down.
The image of the rudderless boat governs the tale. It appears twice, highlighting Constance's situation: she is always in motion but lacks control, supported by Providence rather than her own choices. Chaucer deepens this through apostrophe—direct appeals to the stars, the Sultan's mother, and the reader—that interrupt the narrative, demanding an emotional response that the plot itself avoids.
Two wicked mothers mirror one another in structure, placing Constance between two outbursts of maternal cruelty. This symmetry is deliberate; it turns what could be seen as a series of adventures into a reflective exploration of how female power can destructively target female virtue.
The tone of the tale shifts significantly from the brisk, business-like Prologue of the Man of Law. Once the story starts, the verse transitions into a near-liturgical rhythm, drawing from the tradition of saintly lives. Constance serves less as a fully developed character and more as a symbol—her suffering is archetypal, resonating with the Virgin and figures like patient Job. However, Chaucer's occasional narrative interruptions ("Have ye nat seyn somtyme a pale face?") add a touch of genuine emotion that complicates the hagiographic framework, enriching the tale's emotional depth and strangeness beyond what its genre might imply.
Key quotes from Chapter 6
“Have ye nat seyn somtyme a pale face / Among a prees, of hym that hath be lad / Toward his deeth, wher as hym gat no grace?”
The narrator interrupts the narrative to address the reader directly as Constance is led before King Alla, accused of murder she did not commit.
“In hym triste I, and in his mooder deere, / That is to me my seyl and eek my steere.”
Constance, set adrift for the second time, declares her faith in Christ and the Virgin as her only navigation—the sole moment she articulates her own theology of survival.
“Housbondes been alle goode, and han ben yoore; / That knowen wyves; I dar seye yow na moore.”
The Man of Law's wry aside before describing Donegild's treachery, a flash of sardonic irony that briefly punctures the tale's devotional solemnity.