GEOFFREY CHAUCER IN-BETWEEEN: A MEDIEVAL HYBRID LIVING IN A MEDIEVAL "THIRD SPACE"

Marked by feudalism and three estates -- the clergy, warriors and commoners, the medieval world consisted of a hierarchical community that can be most apparently observed in the regulation of the food and clothing for the different estates. Yet, this so-called strict hierarchy shaped by three estates was shuttered by the decline of feudalism due to the consequences of the Black Death, and Peasants' Revolt of 1381 in the late Middle Ages. Thereby, this article, analysing the related parts of the Canterbury Tales and Chaucer's related short poems, aims to discuss medieval hybrids, including Chaucer, who experienced hybridity as they were caught in between the fixed identities of their times and lived in a kind of "third space", as suggested by Homi K. Bhabha, in the borders of the three estates of the late fourteenth century.