Cherles Termes

This designation was used in medieval times to refer to “low-class” language, predicated on the assumption that bad language was more prevalent among the lower orders. The Anglo-Saxon form ceorl meant “a peasant or laborer,” and has yielded the modern form churl , meaning “a surly, ill-bred person,” now virtually obsolete, chiefly surviving in churlish , meaning “ungenerous,” applied to a man of any class.

In Anglo-Saxon times the word of a ceorl carried little weight in the eyes of the law. According to the Laws of Ine (688-94) ¶18: “A twelve hundred man’s oath stands for six ceorl’s oaths. If a ceorl is often accused, and if at last he is taken [in the act], his hand or foot is to be stuck off.” The bias in favor of the man of property is blatant: a hundred was an ancient division of a county. The same bias is apparent in the Laws of Hlothhere and Eadric (673-85) ¶16: “If a man of Kent buys property in London, he is to have two or three honest ceorls , or the king’s town-reeve, as witness.”

Medieval cherle implied various behaviors, notably that of bad language. The debate poem The Owl and the Nightingale (ca. 1250) contains the first instance of shit-word , meaning crude language associated with rustics, in that case herdsmen. In Chaucer’s early poem The Parlement of Foulys (ca. 1382), a comic debate, this verbal association is made explicit in some vigorous exchanges between the different orders of birds:

“Now fy, cherl!…
Out of the donghil cam that word ful right!”
(ll. 596-97)

In the scheme of the Canterbury Tales , the correlation between class and language is very clear. Chaucer the Pilgrim-Narrator apologizes in advance for the crudity of the Miller’s and Reve’s tales by saying that the tellers were “cherles” and that they told tales of "harlotry"—that is, “wickedness” or “smut” (l. 3182). Neither is strictly a cherl in class terms, both being fairly prosperous tradesmen, but both qualify, especially the Miller, since he has the manners of an oaf and clearly revels in shocking “the gentils,” or the well-bred among the pilgrims. The Reve says in advance that he will requite the Miller “right in his cherles termes” (l. 3917).