Expression

Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343-1400) was an English poet, courtier, and civil servant who lived through the very crises of this week — the plague, the wars, the Western Schism. He is often called the 'father of English literature' because he wrote great poetry in English at a time when serious writing in England was usually in Latin or French. His masterpiece, the Canterbury Tales, imagines a band of about thirty pilgrims traveling together from London to the shrine of St. Thomas Becket at Canterbury. To pass the time they hold a storytelling contest, and each pilgrim tells a tale that reveals his or her character. The genius of the work is its portrait gallery: a noble Knight, a corrupt Pardoner who sells fake relics, a worldly Prioress, a sturdy Plowman, a bawdy Miller, the much-married Wife of Bath. Chaucer shows medieval society whole — its piety and its corruption, its humor and its faith — with a sharp but affectionate eye. Like the pilgrimage that frames it, the work assumes a Christian world even as it pokes fun at the failings of churchmen. Reading even a few lines of Chaucer's Middle English ('Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote...') lets you hear the English language at the moment it was becoming the tongue we speak today.

While plague and war ravaged the world, music was undergoing its own quiet revolution. In early-1300s France a new style emerged that musicians proudly called the Ars Nova — the 'New Art.' It used a more flexible system of rhythm (including, for the first time, dividing beats into twos as well as threes) and more independent, interweaving voice parts, making music richer and more intricate than the older Ars Antiqua. Its towering figure was Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300-1377), a priest, poet, and the greatest composer of his century. Machaut wrote both sacred music and elegant secular love songs, but his most famous achievement is the Messe de Nostre Dame ('Mass of Our Lady'). It is widely regarded as the first complete setting of the Ordinary of the Mass — the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei, and Ite missa est — composed as a single, unified work by one known composer. Before this, the parts of the Mass were usually set separately or left as chant. Machaut's Mass is austere and powerful, its four voices moving in long, arching lines that can sound strange and otherworldly to modern ears tuned to later harmony. Listening to it, you hear the medieval Church at prayer and the foundations being laid for the great polyphonic Masses of the Renaissance.

This week's writing assignment moves beyond summary to judgment — the heart of analytical-persuasive writing. Your task (see the week's writing assignment) is to choose ONE of Joan of Arc's major decisions and argue whether it was wise, courageous, reckless, holy, or some combination, defending your view with at least three specific reasons.

Today is a planning and drafting session. First, pick your decision (leaving home; seeking the dauphin; leading troops in battle; or refusing to deny her voices at the trial). Second, write a working thesis — a single sentence that states your judgment. A weak thesis just summarizes ('Joan led troops at Orléans'); a strong thesis makes a claim you must defend ('Joan's decision to lead troops at Orléans was courageous but also a calculated risk that only her faith could justify'). Third, list three reasons that support your thesis, each tied to something specific you learned this week. Fourth, think of one objection — what would someone who disagrees say? — and jot a one-line response. Remember to use at least one semicolon and one colon somewhere in the finished essay (this week's grammar). Begin drafting your introduction and first body paragraph now; you may finish the essay as carry-over work.

Close the week by returning to Joan of Arc. At her trial, when learned men pressed her with trick questions, she gave answers so wise that her judges were amazed. Asked whether she knew she was in God's grace — a trap, since claiming certainty was presumption and denying it was despair — she answered: 'If I am not, may God put me there; and if I am, may God so keep me.' That single line shows the humility beneath her courage. This week you studied a civilization in crisis: plague, war, a divided Church. Joan stands inside that darkness as a small bright flame of conviction. Her moral courage is the week's virtue made visible.