The essay explores how Criseyde in “widewes habit blak” (I. 170) represents fourteenth-century free and independent English widows who control inherited property but are threatened by false suits or victimized by men’s tricks that take advantage of the unstable status of widows without protection. The false suit by Poliphete (II. 1415-21, 1465-91, 1600-38) plotted by Pandarus is Chaucer’s addition to Il Filostrato by Boccaccio. Drawing upon the records of numerous suits involving widows in Calendar of the Plea and Memoranda Rolls of the City of London, the paper also examines how the false suit by Poliphete reflects the way in which prosperous widows were wrongfully sued for their property and victimized by men’s tricks.