CUSTANCE, CUSTANCES. Custance is the heroine of The Man of Law's Tale. Chaucer bases his characterization of Custance on Trevet's Constance in Les Chroniques Ecrites pour Marie d'Angleterre, fille d'Edward I, where she is the daughter of the Roman Emperor Constantin.

Custance is the type of heroine called "the accused queen," found in a certain genre of romance modeled on the saint's life. She is an example of perfect womanhood, first as maiden, then as wife, finally as suffering Christian.

The Syrian Sultan falls in love with Custance, and her father the Roman Emperor agrees to the marriage. The Sultan converts to Christianity, to the great dismay of his mother the Sultaness, who aranges to have the Sultan and all those courtiers who have converted with him slain at the wedding feast. Custance is then set adrift, and after three years lands on the coast of Northumbria, where she is rescued by the constable of King Alla's castle. The constable's wife, Dame Hermengyld, converts to Christianity under Custance's guidance, and when she cures a blind man, her husband the constable also joins her faith. A young knight now falls in love with Custance, but she refuses him. Satan enters his heart, and he slays Dame Hermengyld, lays the knife near Custance, and departs. Custance is accused of the murder and brought before King Alla. The knight swears on the Evangelists that Custance has done the deed, and immediately a voice from heaven proclaims her innocence. The knight is slain and King Alla marries Custance. She bears a son while Alla is in Scotland and sends letters by messenger to tell the king the good news. The messenger stops at the court of Donegild, the king's mother, who drugs him and changes his letters. The new letters tell the king that Custance is an elf and that she has borne a fiendly creature. King Alla sends letters commanding that his wife and son be kept safe until his return. Once again the messenger stops at Donegild's court, and once again she drugs him and changes his letters. These new letters command that Custance and her son Maurice be set adrift. When Alla returns home and discovers what his mother has done, he kills her. Custance and Maurice drift for more than five years. They are rescued by the Roman Senator returning from the war of vengeance against the Syrians for Custance's dishonor. King Alla is finally reunited with Custance and Maurice when he comes to Rome to be cleansed of his sin, and they live happily. Chaucer follows Trevet closely, but he may have also known Gowers version, Confessio Amantis II.587-1612. [Alla: Donegild: Hermengyld: Maurice]

Custance, the French variant, appears six times initially, MLT 226, 264, 278, 570, 797, 906; thirty-three times in medial positions, MLT 208, 241, 245, 431, 438, 446, 536, 556, 566, 576, 583, 597, 608, 631, 651, 679, 689, 693, 719, 803, 817, 822, 900, 908, 953, 970, 978, 1033, 1107, 1125, 1129, 1145, 1147; and seventeen times in final rhyming position, MLT 151, 184, 249, 276, 369, 601, 612, 682, 912, 924, 945, 986, 1009, 1030, 1047, 1105, 1141. Custances, the ME genitive case, occurs once initially, MLT 1008, and once medially, MLT 684.