Redcrosse: Accidental Nobility According to the old wife in Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, gentilesse comes from God alone. Ancestry and birth have no bearing on an individual’s nobility. The first book of Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene focuses on an oafish man called Redcrosse who slowly matures into a chivalrous knight. Though Redcrosse does not fit exactly into the old wife’s mold of a gentleman, he certainly possesses many qualities of …showed first 75 words of 611 total…

…showed last 75 words of 611 total…Redcrosse does not really deserve the credit. He is merely a vessel of God’s Will. Evidence of this is the two separate instances of Redcrosse being healed. This is not merely chance, but Divine Grace. If, as the old wife states, gentilesse is granted by God alone, then Redcrosse surely has been the recipient of something akin to gentilesse. Therefore, even according to the old wife’s strict standards, Redcrosse is a noble gentleman.