The Wisdom of Old Women: Alisoun of Bath as Auctrice

Abstract

It is generally recognized that the basic model for the Wife of Bath is the literary type of the old woman (vetula, vielle) who teaches the young about love. Her ultimate prototype is Dipsas, who in the first book of Ovid’s Amores advises a young and beautiful pupil in the art of exploitation of the ardent male. Dipsas had assured her young student that her love-doctrine had been learned by long experience, and so she should pay careful attention to it. In his part of the Roman de la Rose, Jean de Meun built on this by having La Vielle look back on her past life and many loves, remarking that she had never gone to a school where they taught the theory of love. “I know everything by practice… Experiments, which I have followed my whole life, have made me wise in love” (12774–6).¹ Chaucer’s version of those sentiments is placed at the very beginning of the Wife’s Prologue:

“Experience, though noon auctoritee Were in this world, is right ynogh for me …” (III(D), 1–2)²

However, here she is speaking of the “wo that is in marriage” rather than the pleasures and pains of love as such. (This is part and parcel of Chaucer’s reconstruction of Alisoun as more of a veuve [widow] than a vielle.) But the clear message is that Alison is a sort of magistra amoris, a mock-serious authority on matters of human desire.

Précis: In the Wife of Bath’s Prologue, Chaucer takes Alisoun far beyond her model—La Vieille in the Roman de la Rose. He suggests that in her performance is found true “wisdom and usage,” which confers on her the role of auctrice. The Tale itself goes even further in presenting an old woman as a doctrix, mistress of vetular wisdom.