GOODELIEF. Godelieve was the name of a Flemish saint. The hagiographers of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries emphasized her wifely obedience and submissiveness. In Chaucer's day the name was popular in Kent. The wife of Henricus Bailiff, a possible model for the Host, was named Christian, and Chaucer's intention in naming Harry Bailly's wife Goodelief is purely ironic, since she is the very opposite of her namesake.

Bailly wishes that his wife could have heard the Clerk's tale of Griselda, ClT 1212-1218, implying that Goodelief is not patient. At the end of The Merchant's Tale, Harry reveals that his wife is "as trewe as steel" but that she has a sharp tongue, MerchT 2419-2440. After Chaucer's Tale of Melibee, Bailly describes his wife as a hard mistress to his apprentices and gives more details about her. One day, he says, she will drive him to murder, MkT 1889-1923. [Bailly]