Bannatyne's Chaucer: A Triptych of Influence

Abstract This article explores the way in which Chaucer is invoked and utilized in the 1568 Bannatyne Manuscript. It examines the Bannatyne as a locus for the querelle des femmes, and interrogates the idea that Chaucer becomes a “straw man” for the writers included in the anthology. The idea of a “straw man” requires a context that involves the number of “Chaucerian” texts in the manuscript. Three selections from the manuscript are examined: the “song of troyelus,” read as an example of an implicit antipathy towards women; the erroneously attributed “lettre of cupeid,” considered as an example of profeminine verse, with caveats; and Gavin Douglas's Eneados. An argument is made for a “Chaucer” who is at once a source of multifaceted approaches to women, a useful narrative tool for the compiler, and a key locus for intersecting themes in the Bannatyne Manuscript.