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Question: Help with canterbury tales!?
What role does the miller play in medieval society!?Www@QuestionHome@Com


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:
Millers were people who ran the mills that ground crops into flour!. These were either windmills of water-driven mills!.

The miller in the Tales falls into the category of People Who Work (the other categories are people who fight and people who pray)!. One person from each category is held in high regard, while the others are teased and derided!. The plowman is the good person who works!.

The miller is described as a drunk and a swindler!. Because of his lower station in society, his tale should have came later, but in a drunken stupor, he cuts in after the knight's tale and before the monk's tale!. Again, because of his low society, the others kind of expect this and let him tell his story!. His story also reflects his low society in it's parody of courtly love, which played a large role in the knight's tale!. You would never catch a noble talking about crotch-grabbing or farting in people's faces!

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The miller grinds the corn into flour!. He was a very important figure in medieval life!. Before the invention of the mill, corn had to be ground by hand, and it is generally women who do this job in societies that don't have mills!. Grinding corn is laborious and back-breaking work!. So the mill was really the first great labour-saving device!.

In 'Women in the Age of the Cathedrals' Regine Pernoud writes:

'If nowadays the washing machine constitutes a liberation for women, nevertheless it answers a less immediate, a less daily need than thtat of bread, teh food staple that was even more indispensable then that it is now!. The spectacle of a woman tied to a grindstone was a familar one in antiquity, even in Hebrew antiquity, which had banned slaver, at least for jewish women!. In the Gospel we read "Two women will be grinding at the mill, one will be taken, and one will be left!." (Mt 24:41)!. This image from daily life was intentionally chosen as the most banal and ordinary!. Even today the picture of women pounding millet still defines African womanhood!. But in Western feudal society, that image was replaced by that of neighbors gossiping at the mill entrance, and at the oven door, those two essential elements of country life!.'Www@QuestionHome@Com