The Decameron

“It’s always a good idea, in my opinion, to accept any gift that the Good Lord places in our path.”

The corruption of the clergy is a frequent theme in The Decameron. One of the key ways in which this corruption manifests itself is in members of the clergy using their knowledge of religion to provide spiritual-sounding pretexts to justify their own sinning. When a priest wants to satisfy his carnal desires, for example, he invents an absurd religious justification for his behavior which cannot be questioned by other people. Through this method, the clergy twist religion into a corrupt validation of their own sinful behavior.

“He felt he would rather die than return home poverty-stricken.”

For the noble classes and the wealthy, reputation is invaluable. Landolfo would rather be dead than have people believe that he is broke. Importantly, Landolfo is less concerned about actually being poor than people believing that he is poor. His reputation is invaluable to him, while actual wealth can be replaced. In a decadent, corrupt society, people like Landolfo are more concerned with their reputation than their material conditions.

“She seated herself between the two men, but the pleasure of conversing with her was denied them because she understood little or nothing of their language.”

The inability to communicate with another person is a cage of its own. After being kidnapped and passed between a series of husbands, the lack of a common language isolates and alienates Alatiel even further. Her beauty may make her desirable, but she feels an acute pain of being unable to form human connections with her captors, turning her into even more of a desirable object rather than a real person.

“And even if, by displaying his hand, he had secured the fullest possible revenge, he would not have lessened his shame but greatly increased it, as well as besmirching the fame of his lady.”

The story of Agilulf demonstrates the way in which honor is an important part of life for the characters in The Decameron. When faced with the reality of his wife’s infidelity, Agilulf’s ability to rationally preserve his honor by hiding his wife’s affair from the public is commended over any emotional desire for revenge. His cold, calculating sacrifice allows him to preserve his public image, which is more important than his own personal desires.

“They resemble pigs, in fact, for they are too feeble-minded to earn an honest living like everybody else, and so they install themselves wherever they can fill their stomachs.”

In her preamble to her story, Filomena makes no attempt to hide her contempt for the clergy. Her savage critique of the corrupt institution is a more direct form of the criticism which is found in many of the stories in The Decameron. Her bluntness in polite company suggests that her belief is universal; no one challenges her or seems hesitant to criticize the clergy, suggesting that the corruption of the religious orders is a universally-held belief.

“But being a capable woman, she applied herself with great diligence to the task in hand, and soon had everything restored to order, thus winning the profound respect and devotion of her subjects.”

Gilette demonstrates her worth by running her absent husband’s estate. Her capacity for administrative work is a virtue, standing in opposition to her husband’s mismanagement and abdication of duty. She is shown to be more worthy than him because she is able to immediately enter the administrative post and win the respect of everyone else, while the servants whisper criticisms of Bertrand behind his back. In every respect, she is the better person.

“Nobody suspected for a moment that he had been a thief, pander, swindler and murderer before suddenly blossoming into a great preacher.”

That a petty criminal is able to quickly and believably adopt the public persona of a priest is a comment on the corruption of the clergy. The reason he is able to become a “great preacher” (538) so quickly is because there is no discernable difference between a criminal and a priest, at least according to the characters in the book. Rather than providing a juxtaposition between a moral and immoral identity, the priest is the natural evolution of the criminal, able to cloak his misdeeds in institutional justifications which are as hollow and as false as his disguise.

“Thus it was that those whom Love had failed to join together in life were inseparably linked to each other in death.”

By burying the two lovers together, the families and community which failed them in life is able to redress the tragedy in death. The finality of death brings a clarity to proceedings and—as in many of the other stories—lovers who could not be together due to social issues such as class or wealth are buried next to one another. The social constructs which govern the lives of the characters seem important and immutable but death helps to draw back the veil and show the truth to their surviving family members.

“The spectacle of his wife’s fall threw Roussillon into a panic and made him repent the wickedness of his deed.”

Roussillon’s experience illustrates the way in which spectacle can be shocking enough to break a person out of an emotional moment. The violent spectacle of his wife falling down is enough to shatter his emotional justification for his actions, showing how characters can become so trapped in their own unique worlds that they need something terrible and spectacular to wrestle them back to the horrific reality they have created for themselves.

“Between her tears she bitterly cursed Cimon’s love and censured his temerity, declaring that this alone had brought about the raging tempest, though it could also have arisen because Cimon’s desire to marry her was contrary to the will of the gods.”

The raging tempest is read by the characters in the story as a sign from God. Rather than having to listen to the corrupt clergy or interpret the sermons of corrupt religious leaders, natural events such as a storm are ways in which characters can maintain a direct line to the will of God. Iphigenia is upset because she truly believes in God and, as such, the storm is a sign impossible for her to ignore.

“She stepped promptly aboard, rowed a little way out to sea, and hoisted the sail, after which she threw the oars and rudder overboard and placed herself entirely at the mercy of the wind.”

The sincerity of the characters’s belief in religion precludes the ways in which they die. To the Catholics depicted in the stories, suicide is a serious sin. Any person who commits suicide is not just ending their life, but condemning their soul to hell. As such, the characters invent elaborate ways in which they can place themselves in a situation in which they might die but their deaths will be caused by natural elements, thus they will have something akin to a blessing from God. Gostanza does not commit suicide. Instead, she throws herself despairingly on the mercy of God.

“Ricciardo is a rich young man, and comes of noble stock. We could do a lot worse than have him as our son-in-law.”

Lizio is an example of how an awareness of the intersection between social class and social respectability can be manipulated. He knows that Ricciardo will be socially shamed for having sex before marriage, as will Lizio’s own daughter. However, Lizio can manipulate this situation to his advantage and raise his family’s social status by blackmailing Ricciardo into marrying his daughter. Lizio cynically uses social expectations regarding honor and respectability to better his family’s social class.

“As he grew older, being prompted by his innate good breeding rather than by the accident of his menial status, he acquired so much poise and so agreeable a manner that Messer Amerigo granted him his freedom.”

To the characters in The Decameron, “good breeding” (672) and social class are innate characteristics which cannot be changed. A nobleman can become poor, for example, but he will remain a nobleman. At the same time, a poor person can become wealthy but their social class will not change. Social class can even endure cases of mistaken identity, so that children born to noble families will eventually show their good breeding as a matter of course. To the characters in the stories, social class is permanent and unchangeable.

“So help me God, women of her kind should be shown no mercy; they ought to be done away with; they ought to be burnt alive and reduced to ashes.”

The dual irony of Pietro’s comment is that his wife is hiding her own lover in the house, while he is also indulging in sexual behavior which is considered a sin. Pietro’s homosexuality, as his wife’s points out, is considered as much (if not more) of a sin than her infidelity, so his complaints about other people’s sins are shot through with hypocrisy. The competing ironies of Pietro’s situation reveal his innate foolishness, suggesting that his entire life is a pretense which he does not truly understand.

“Without a doubt the Baronci were the most ancient and noble family, not only in Florence, but in the whole wide world.”

Boccaccio uses his stories to praise his friends and settle petty grievances with his contemporary Florentines. By putting these criticisms and insults into the mouths of his characters, he insulates himself from criticism. In this respect, his work is very much a product of its time as it avenges complaints and insults which are now nearly 600 years out of date.

“Moreover, when this law was made, no woman gave her consent to it, nor was any woman even so much as consulted. It can therefore justly be described as a very bad law.”

Occasionally, the women in The Decameron are able to critique the patriarchal nature of their society. While the stories feature the abuse and marginalization of women as a matter of course, there are elements of the novel which reveal the hypocrisy of the male-dominated society. These brief flashes of criticism shine through as potent and clear demonstrations of logic in an absurd and corrupt society.

“He explained that he would like, if possible, to enter the service of some gentleman of standing.”

In The Decameron, characters are able to adopt social class as a disguise, providing they belong to an already-privileged class. Lodovico can pose as a servant because he possesses a fundamental nobility which will never diminish. In the highly-stratified society depicted in the novel, social class is a core and unchangeable part of a person and the opportunity to transition between classes is never anything more than a trick or a temporary measure.

“She covertly arranged for her to be nursed back to health and waited upon, and rewarded her so handsomely from Arriguccio’s own coffers that the girl was more than contented.”

Monna Sismonda asks her maidservant to take a beating on her behalf, illustrating how the poor are pawns in the meaningless travails of the rich. Sismonda has an affair and does not want to be discovered, so she purchases discretion from a poorer person and uses the maid’s suffering to further her own selfish duplicitousness. To the maid, the money is potentially life-changing and paid for with blood and suffering. To Sismonda, the money barely registers.

“So the Provost led her to a secluded corner of the church, and plied her with his usual stream of endearments, whereupon the lady fetched a deep sigh.”

The clergy is depicted as corrupt and irreligious throughout The Decameron. In this latest example of their corruption, the priest plies a married woman with “his usual stream of endearments” (869) while still in the church. He is attempting to commit a serious sin (breaking one of the Ten Commandments) and forsaking his vows, while standing in a house of God. That this is “usual” (869) behavior for the priest illustrates how the moral corruption of the clergy is commonplace and almost unremarkable.

“The time has come for me to punish the wicked hussy for the wrong she did me in exchange for all the love I bore her.”

For all the hints at proto-feminist ideas in The Decameron, many of the stories delight in their spiteful punishment of women. The male characters—particularly Rinieri—take obscene pleasure in punishing women for choosing someone else. Rinieri tortures Elena and, while she is suffering, rants at length about her arrogance and her temerity. The brutal treatment of Elena (and the extent to which the book and the storytellers justify Rinieri’s behavior) demonstrate how any feminist aspirations are still grounded in a deeply misogynistic society.

“Noble ladies, as you will doubtless be aware, the more one returns to any given subject, the greater the pleasure it brings, provided the person by whom it is broached selects the appropriate time and place.”

In the penultimate day of storytelling, Fiammetta makes an ironic comment on the nature of their endeavor. Many of the stories share similar ideas and themes, particularly the corruption of the clergy. The “greater the pleasure” (987) they derive from repeating similar ideas suggests that they are pleased to be able to criticize the corruption they observe in the clergy, venting their annoyance to one another.

“Whereas she was formerly a beautiful woman, she was thenceforth deformed and utterly loath-some to look upon.”

Margarita is punished for the crime of not listening to her husband. Her punishment is meted out in accordance with her apparent sin: Because she is vain, her beauty is taken from her. The short story takes on the style of a moral tale, a story which warns the audience against certain behavior by showing them the potentially ironic consequences of their undesirable behavior. Disfigurement is the punishment for Margarita’s failure to listen to her husband, though her real crime (as illustrated by the nature of the punishment) is her vanity.

“I therefore want you to go to him, and endeavor in every way possible to have yourself released from this promise without loss of honor.”

Gilberto tells his wife that she must have sex with Ansaldo, as she promised, because to do otherwise would be dishonorable. When faced with the choice between his wife having an affair and a perceived slight against the family’s honor, Gilberto believes so strongly in his ethics that he reluctantly encourages his wife to stick to her word. The gravity of his decision shows the sincerity with which he and his contemporaries treated the idea of honor.