King John and the Abbot of Canterbury

Anonymous, England (before 1695)

The Abbot of Canterbury is an anonymous poem. The time of the poem is Medieval England, particularly the days of King John. The locale (venue/The scene of any event or action ) of the poem is England and as to type it is southern ballad. The style is entertaining even conversational. Two lessons we get from the poem, one is wisdom is not confined to the wise, even an ordinary person can at times be as wise as the wisest of the land second idea that with wit and wisdom we can defeat the might of a king. To generalise wit (brain power) is more effective than brute (Someone who treats others inhumanely, or is regarded as wildly violent or uncivilised) power.

In the poem, the writer mentions the two central characters and they are King John and the Abbot of Canterbury. The king is infamous for his wrong deeds among his people at the one side and on the other side the Abbot of Canterbury is popular among people due to his popular deeds and behaviours. The Abbot of Canterbury is actually the head of a monastery. He is so rich and popular that he keeps hundred servants everyday, fifty of them wearing gold chain and velvet coats. He is so popular that people come to him from far and wide to see his health, to be his guest and even to receive charity. This wealth and popularity seemed a challenge to King John who was not just a king and hence not popular at all.  Because of increasing rate of popularity of the Abbot among English people, the king becomes jealous to the Abbot. The popularity of Abbot becomes so unbearable to the king that he makes a cruel plot to kill the Abbot. Then the king calls the Abbot in his palace in London and blames to the Abbot that he wants to dethrone or kill the king. The King wanted to cut off the head of the holy man but he could not do so in straight way because as the Abbot was highly popular and in case of his beheading people might stand against the king. So, the king played a trick and thereby knowingly the king asks to solve the three stupid questions. The questions were:

• What is the value of King John? (What was the worth of king in one penny when he was having such a precious crown on his head)
• How fast can the king travel around the world?
• What the king is thinking now?

After asking the questions, the king threatens the Abbot that if he is unable to provide the right answer, his head would be cut off. But the Abbot fails to answer the questions immediately but he asks one fortnight (two weeks/a period of fourteen consecutive days) to find the answers, if not answered the Abbot has to accept his death. He visits to the scholars of Oxford and Cambridge with the hope of solution of the problem. Even the scholars fail to solve the problem. With the mounting pressure of death and despair he returns his home town. On the way, he meets his shepherd and reports all the events in palace.

The shepherd creates hope and begs to the Abbot for permission to answer the questions in a disguise face of the Abbot directly. Finally, the Abbot gives him permission to meet the king in the palace to solve the problem. On the appointed time, the shepherd visits the palace but he is not recognised as shepherd. On the discussion to the king, the shepherd manages to answer all the non sense questions and saves the life of the Abbot. In the answer of the first question, he values the king John less than Jesus Christ (Christ was sold for thirty penny and the king might be given for twenty nine as he was one penny less than the Lord.). In second question, he answers that the king can travel around the world within 24 hour if he can travel with rising sun for 24 hours. For the third answer, the shepherd replies that the king is wrong if he is supposing that the Abbot is making the response. Instead he says that the poor shepherd is in front of him.

Ultimately, the king becomes happy with the shepherd and offers him a place of Abbot in Canterbury. In return the shepherd rejects the proposal of the king saying that he is not well educated man to be appointed as an Abbot and only had some common sense which often worked. The king awarded four gold coins a week to the shepherd and pardoned the Abbot of Canterbury and withdrew all his charges.

INTERPRETATION:

From the moral point of view, the poem is much impressive. Through the poem, the poet proves that the bookish and formal education is not so much effective and useful to solve the practical problems. On the one hand the poem reflects that an absolute king can take any immoral, unethical, illogical, and crook measures against anyone if his position is under threat. Secondly, knowledge is not only the personal property of intellectual scholars, and high ranked religious people. Source of knowledge is everywhere and it comes through practical implication. Even an uneducated people like shepherd can solve riddles that are unsolved by intellectuals. Thus the text has taught a great lesson that makes it clear that much is learnt through the daily life activities than from the universities.

CRITICAL THINKING:

The poem seems to be much humorous and satirical. So far it imparts the idea of human knowledge and wisdom, it is appropriate but in whatever way the King Abbot and the Shepherd are presented, they don't seem believable and convincing.

The poetic story is first of all hard to believe because it creates debatable further questions.  Can we imagine existence of cruel king like John? Why the scholars from Oxford and Cambridge fail to solve the problem and can we trust the uneducated people like shepherd in terms of intellectuality? Can a king ask such nonsense question to a reputed Abbot? Further, the answers of shepherd are also controversial. Since the king fails to recognise the shepherd changed as Abbot. Similarly, the shepherd is presented in such a way that doesn't fit him to be more than that it mocks the formal education. It is too difficult to accept it.   Hence before taking any message from the story, the story has to be analysed on its authenticity.

REFERENCE :

Anonymous. (2013). King John and The Abbot of Canterbury. In M. Nissani, & S. Lohani, Flax Golden Tales : An Interdisciplinary Approach to Learning English (pp. 202-206). Kathmandu, Nepal: Ekta Books.