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Definitions
Raptus could mean something akin to the modern notion of rape—forced or non-consensual sex—but also had a broader application. It could also involve the abduction of a women or the forcible marriage of a woman, with or without sex.

Accusation against Chaucer
In 1380, Chaucer himself was accused of raping—and possibly abducting—Cecily Chapman, a baker's daughter. He summoned powerful witnesses to speak for him, including Sir William Beauchamp, Sir William Neville and Sir John Clanvowe. For her part, Chapman's called two city merchants, a cutler and an armourer. Breuer has suggested that, while plenty of research has been carried out into medieval laws against rape, this is often with the intention of "clearing Chaucer’s reputation from the stain inscribed by the documents releasing him from the rape of Cecily Champain [sic]". Breuer notes, however, that even with no forced sex involved, the implication is that taking a woman against her will from those who protected her was seen as effectively taking her virginity.

In medieval law, says Christopher Cannon, the link between abduction and rape were sufficiently conflated that "modern rubrics will never distinguish them"

Rape in The Canterbury Tales
Multiple Tales depict instances of rape, including The Wife of Bath's Tale and The Merchant's Tale; even where not a major plot element, it is mentioned in other stories, such as The Man of Law's Tale and "Chaucer displays a disturbing propensity to inscribe rape in his narratives, yet often directs the readers away from reading rape to reading not-rape"

In The Reeve's Tale
Two rape scenes

The first is the rape of the Miller's daughter

This begins with Aleyne telling John that he intends to obtain "esement" (easement) at the Miller's expense. Sexual encounter between Aleyne and Malyne which is portrayed as beginning violently but ending as a seduction.

The Reeve uses his opportunity to tell a tale to get revenge on the Miller, who has previously told a tale of a carpenter's cuckolding. Aleyne is one of two clerks who, at the beginning of The Reeve's Prologue. are swapping tricks with the Miller and who are initially bested by him. Chaucer suggests that Aleyne's motive for raping the woman was his own revenge on the Miller. On the illegality of the rape, Breuer notes that the one course of action supposedly available to the woman—raising the Hue and cry—is, according to Chaucer, the narrator, no longer available; it is "to late for to crye". This, she says, supports the contention that the Miller's daughter had been raped rather than seduced; even though Chaucer almost immediately claims that the two were "aton" (at one, in unison), which, says Breuer, "consent is not possible in this situation".

The second rape, that of the Miller's wife by the clerk John is described even more vividly than the first. Breuer poits out how, whereas the rape of the daughter highlights the lost opportunity of the hue and cry, that of her mother emphasises the physical brutality of the deed. Clerk John "leyth on [her] sore" behaving "as he were mad". She also suggests that Chaucer enables his audience to steralise the violence they have heard by using the language of games and sports: Clerk Aleyne "play[ed]" with the daughter, while his companion had a "mery...fit" with her mother.

Historiography
Historians have not always appeared particularly critical of Chaucer for his presentation of rapes in the tales. For example, Kathryn Gravdal has described an earlier historian, John Gardner, of "introduc[ing] his discussion with a smirk"; she quotes him as saying that "it seems possible, if not downright likely, that into his busy schedule of1379 or ’80 Chaucer managed to fit at least one pretty wench”, which Gravdal suggests illustrates the euphemisms historians would prefer to use.