JANUARIE is the old knight of Lombardy who commits the folly of marrying a young wife, May, in The Merchant's Tale. He says that he does not want a thirty-year-old wife, who would know too much of "Wade's Boat," MerchT 1421-1426. Januarie is a type of the senex amans, or "old lover." He marries May, who is not quite twenty, and she is unfaithful to him with Damian in the pear tree. [Damyan: Justinus: May: Placebo: Pluto: Proserpina]

Januarie never appears initially; the name appears thirty-four times in medial positions, MerchT 1393, 1478, 1566, 1579, 1586, 1724, 1750, 1788, 1801, 1821, 1859, 1886, 1895, 1920, 1946, 1956, 2008, 2013, 2023, 2042, 2054, 2056, 2065, 2069, 2102, 2107, 2118, 2134, 2156, 2186, 2214, 2218, 2355, 2412; and five times in final rhyming position, MerchT 1695, 1805, 1906, 2320, 2417.