(62) When Chaucer takes Jean's old woman and turns her into a three-dimensional figure with a trade, we begin to see her as a real person. Her strength of personality enables her to be autonomous in a society and allows her to live as an independent woman. (Diamond 69) However, when we talk about someone like this, we view a fictional character as if she might be real. To Chaucer and the men of his time, intelligence, energy and drive attached to a female became a threat. .
It is not possible to know exactly how Chaucer viewed women. .
There are two specific instances in Chaucer's life that deal with women and not in a positive way. The first, his marriage to Philippa, was thought by George Williams, in A New View of Chaucer, to be a favor to his friend John of Guant. William feels that she was the lover of John and Chaucer never really experienced love in his relationships with women. (46) The other would be the alleged rape of Cecily Chaumpaigne. Christopher Cannon makes a strong argument for the case in his article "Raptus" which reveals, for the first time, a newly discovered life-record of Chaucer concerning this raptus. Prior to this discovery the only document available was the deed of release, which mentioned "de raptu meo" but this phrase had varying connotations- "forced coitus or abduction" (75). This measure of doubt freed Chaucer in many scholars" minds and as Cannon writes, "they have repeatedly tried to protect Chaucer's reputation from any association with so repugnant a crime as rape" (92). However, Cannon came across the second document, the life-record, which included the missing phrase "de raptu meo." Cannon believes that because of Chaucer's dealings with the court, he was able to have this phrase removed from the record. In all other life-records of the time that phrase meant "forced coitus" and not "abduction". I mentioned this rape here, because of Cannon's convincing argument and if true, it gives us some idea of how Chaucer might have conceived woman.