General Prologue: Introduction
Context: The Canterbury Tales is
the most famous and critically acclaimed work of Geoffrey Chaucer, a
late-fourteenth-century English poet. Little is known about Chaucer’s personal
life, and even less about his education, but a number of existing records
document his professional life. Chaucer was born in London in the early 1340s,
the only son in his family. Chaucer’s father, originally a property-owning wine
merchant, became tremendously wealthy when he inherited the property of
relatives who had died in the Black Death of 1349. He was therefore able to
send the young Geoffrey off as a page to the Countess of Ulster, which meant
that Geoffrey was not required to follow in his ancestors’ footsteps and become
a merchant. Eventually, Chaucer began to serve the countess’s husband, Prince
Lionel, son to King Edward III. For most of his life, Chaucer served in the
Hundred Years War between England and France, both as a soldier and, since he
was fluent in French and Italian and conversant in Latin and other tongues, as
a diplomat. His diplomatic travels brought him twice to Italy, where he might
have met Boccaccio, whose writing influenced Chaucer’s work, and Petrarch.
In or around 1378, Chaucer began to develop
his vision of an English poetry that would be linguistically accessible to
all—obedient neither to the court, whose official language was French, nor to
the Church, whose official language was Latin. Instead, Chaucer wrote in the
vernacular, the English that was spoken in and around London in his day.
Undoubtedly, he was influenced by the writings of the Florentines Dante,
Petrarch, and Boccaccio, who wrote in the Italian vernacular. Even in England,
the practice was becoming increasingly common among poets, although many were
still writing in French and Latin.
That the nobles and kings Chaucer served
(Richard II until 1399, then Henry IV) were impressed with Chaucer’s skills as
a negotiator is obvious from the many rewards he received for his service.
Money, provisions, higher appointments, and property eventually allowed him to
retire on a royal pension. In 1374, the king appointed Chaucer Controller of
the Customs of Hides, Skins and Wools in the port of London, which meant that
he was a government official who worked with cloth importers. His experience
overseeing imported cloths might be why he frequently describes in exquisite
detail the garments and fabric that attire his characters. Chaucer held the
position at the customhouse for twelve years, after which he left London for
Kent, the county in which Canterbury is located. He served as a justice of the
peace for Kent, living in debt, and was then appointed Clerk of the Works at
various holdings of the king, including Westminster and the Tower of London.
After he retired in the early 1390s, he seems to have been working primarily on The
Canterbury Tales, which he began around 1387. By the time of his
retirement, Chaucer had already written a substantial amount of narrative
poetry, including the celebrated romance Troilus and Criseyde.
Chaucer’s personal life is less documented
than his professional life. In the late 1360s, he married Philippa Roet, who
served Edward III’s queen. They had at least two sons together. Philippa was
the sister to the mistress of John of Gaunt, the duke of Lancaster. For John of
Gaunt, Chaucer wrote one of his first poems, The Book of the Duchess, which
was a lament for the premature death of John’s young wife, Blanche. Whether or
not Chaucer had an extramarital affair is a matter of some contention among
historians. In a legal document that dates from 1380, a woman named Cecily
Chaumpaigne released Chaucer from the accusation of seizing her (raptus),
though whether the expression denotes that he raped her, committed adultery
with her, or abducted her son is unclear. Chaucer’s wife Philippa apparently
died in 1387.
Chaucer lived through a time of incredible
tension in the English social sphere. The Black Death, which ravaged England
during Chaucer’s childhood and remained widespread afterward, wiped out an
estimated thirty to fifty percent of the population. Consequently, the labor
force gained increased leverage and was able to bargain for better wages, which
led to resentment from the nobles and propertied classes. These classes
received another blow in 1381, when the peasantry, helped by the artisan class,
revolted against them. The merchants were also wielding increasing power over
the legal establishment, as the Hundred Years War created profit for England
and, consequently, appetite for luxury was growing. The merchants capitalized
on the demand for luxury goods, and when Chaucer was growing up, London was
pretty much run by a merchant oligarchy, which attempted to control both the
aristocracy and the lesser artisan classes. Chaucer’s political sentiments are
unclear, for although The Canterbury Tales documents the
various social tensions in the manner of the popular genre of estates satire,
the narrator refrains from making overt political statements, and what he does
say is in no way thought to represent Chaucer’s own sentiments.
Chaucer’s original plan for The
Canterbury Tales was for each character to tell four tales, two on the
way to Canterbury and two on the way back. But, instead of 120 tales, the text
ends after twenty-four tales, and the party is still on its way to Canterbury.
Chaucer either planned to revise the structure to cap the work at twenty-four
tales, or else left it incomplete when he died on October 25, 1400. Other
writers and printers soon recognized The Canterbury Tales as a
masterful and highly original work. Though Chaucer had been influenced by the
great French and Italian writers of his age, works like Boccaccio’s Decameron were
not accessible to most English readers, so the format of The Canterbury
Tales, and the intense realism of its characters, were virtually
unknown to readers in the fourteenth century before Chaucer. William Caxton,
England’s first printer, published The Canterbury Tales in the
1470s, and it continued to enjoy a rich printing history that never truly faded.
By the English Renaissance, poetry critic George Puttenham had identified
Chaucer as the father of the English literary canon. Chaucer’s project to
create a literature and poetic language for all classes of society succeeded,
and today Chaucer still stands as one of the great shapers of literary
narrative and character.
Language in The
Canterbury Tales
The Canterbury Tales is written in Middle English, which bears a close visual
resemblance to the English written and spoken today. In contrast, Old English
(the language of Beowulf, for example) can be read only in modern translation
or by students of Old English. Students often read The Canterbury Tales in
its original language, not only because of the similarity between Chaucer’s
Middle English and our own, but because the beauty and humor of the poetry—all
of its internal and external rhymes, and the sounds it produces—would be lost
in translation.
The best way for a beginner to approach Middle
English is to read it out loud. When the words are pronounced, it is often much
easier to recognize what they mean in modern English. Most Middle English
editions of the poem include a short pronunciation guide, which can help the
reader to understand the language better. For particularly difficult words or
phrases, most editions also include notes in the margin giving the modern
versions of the words, along with a full glossary in the back. Several online
Chaucer glossaries exist, as well as a number of printed lexicons of Middle
English.
The Order of The
Canterbury Tales
The line numbers cited in this SparkNote are
based on the line numbers given inThe Riverside Chaucer, the
authoritative edition of Chaucer’s works. The line numbering in The
Riverside Chaucer does not run continuously throughout the entire Canterbury
Tales, but it does not restart at the beginning of each tale, either. Instead,
the tales are grouped together into fragments, and each
fragment is numbered as a separate whole.
Nobody knows exactly in what order Chaucer
intended to present the tales, or even if he had a specific order in mind for
all of them. Eighty-two early manuscripts of the tales survive, and many of
them vary considerably in the order in which they present the tales. However,
certain sets of tales do seem to belong together in a particular order. For
instance, the General Prologue is obviously the beginning, then the narrator
explicitly says that the Knight tells the first tale, and that the Miller
interrupts and tells the second tale. The introductions, prologues, and epilogues
to various tales sometimes include the pilgrims’ comments on the tale just
finished, and an indication of who tells the next tale. These sections between
the tales are called links, and they are the best evidence for
grouping the tales together into ten fragments. But The Canterbury
Tales does not include a complete set of links, so the order of the
ten fragments is open to question. The Riverside Chaucer bases
the order of the ten fragments on the order presented in the Ellesmere
manuscript, one of the best surviving manuscripts of the tale. Some scholars
disagree with the groupings and order of tales followed in The
Riverside Chaucer, choosing instead to base the order on a combination
of the links and the geographical landmarks that the pilgrims pass on the way
to Canterbury.
Plot Overview
General Prologue
At the Tabard Inn, a tavern in Southwark, near London, the
narrator joins a company of twenty-nine pilgrims. The pilgrims, like the
narrator, are traveling to the shrine of the martyr Saint Thomas Becket in
Canterbury. The narrator gives a descriptive account of twenty-seven of these
pilgrims, including a Knight, Squire, Yeoman, Prioress, Monk, Friar, Merchant,
Clerk, Man of Law, Franklin, Haberdasher, Carpenter, Weaver, Dyer,
Tapestry-Weaver, Cook, Shipman, Physician, Wife, Parson, Plowman, Miller,
Manciple, Reeve, Summoner, Pardoner, and Host. (He does not describe the Second
Nun or the Nun’s Priest, although both characters appear later in the book.)
The Host, whose name, we find out in the Prologue to the Cook’s Tale, is Harry
Bailey, suggests that the group ride together and entertain one another with
stories. He decides that each pilgrim will tell two stories on the way to
Canterbury and two on the way back. Whomever he judges to be the best storyteller
will receive a meal at Bailey’s tavern, courtesy of the other pilgrims. The
pilgrims draw lots and determine that the Knight will tell the first tale.
The Knight’s Tale
Theseus, duke of Athens, imprisons Arcite and Palamon, two
knights from Thebes (another city in ancient Greece). From their prison, the
knights see and fall in love with Theseus’s sister-in-law, Emelye. Through the
intervention of a friend, Arcite is freed, but he is banished from Athens. He
returns in disguise and becomes a page in Emelye’s chamber. Palamon escapes
from prison, and the two meet and fight over Emelye. Theseus apprehends them
and arranges a tournament between the two knights and their allies, with Emelye
as the prize. Arcite wins, but he is accidentally thrown from his horse and
dies. Palamon then marries Emelye.
The Miller’s Prologue and Tale
The Host asks the Monk to tell the next tale, but the drunken
Miller interrupts and insists that his tale should be the next. He tells the
story of an impoverished student named Nicholas, who persuades his landlord’s
sexy young wife, Alisoun, to spend the night with him. He convinces his
landlord, a carpenter named John, that the second flood is coming, and tricks
him into spending the night in a tub hanging from the ceiling of his barn.
Absolon, a young parish clerk who is also in love with Alisoun, appears outside
the window of the room where Nicholas and Alisoun lie together. When Absolon
begs Alisoun for a kiss, she sticks her rear end out the window in the dark and
lets him kiss it. Absolon runs and gets a red-hot poker, returns to the window,
and asks for another kiss; when Nicholas sticks his bottom out the window and
farts, Absolon brands him on the buttocks. Nicholas’s cries for water make the
carpenter think that the flood has come, so the carpenter cuts the rope
connecting his tub to the ceiling, falls down, and breaks his arm.
The Reeve’s Prologue and Tale
Because he also does carpentry, the Reeve takes offense at the
Miller’s tale of a stupid carpenter, and counters with his own tale of a
dishonest miller. The Reeve tells the story of two students, John and Alayn,
who go to the mill to watch the miller grind their corn, so that he won’t have
a chance to steal any. But the miller unties their horse, and while they chase
it, he steals some of the flour he has just ground for them. By the time the
students catch the horse, it is dark, so they spend the night in the miller’s
house. That night, Alayn seduces the miller’s daughter, and John seduces his
wife. When the miller wakes up and finds out what has happened, he tries to
beat the students. His wife, thinking that her husband is actually one of the
students, hits the miller over the head with a staff. The students take back
their stolen goods and leave.
The Cook’s Prologue and Tale
The Cook particularly enjoys the Reeve’s Tale, and offers to
tell another funny tale. The tale concerns an apprentice named Perkyn who
drinks and dances so much that he is called “Perkyn Reveler.” Finally, Perkyn’s
master decides that he would rather his apprentice leave to revel than stay
home and corrupt the other servants. Perkyn arranges to stay with a friend who
loves drinking and gambling, and who has a wife who is a prostitute. The tale
breaks off, unfinished, after fifty-eight lines.
The Man of Law’s Introduction, Prologue, Tale,
and Epilogue
The Host reminds his fellow pilgrims to waste no time, because
lost time cannot be regained. He asks the Man of Law to tell the next tale. The
Man of Law agrees, apologizing that he cannot tell any suitable tale that
Chaucer has not already told—Chaucer may be unskilled as a poet, says the Man
of Law, but he has told more stories of lovers than Ovid, and he doesn’t print
tales of incest as John Gower does (Gower was a contemporary of Chaucer). In
the Prologue to his tale, the Man of Law laments the miseries of poverty. He
then remarks how fortunate merchants are, and says that his tale is one told to
him by a merchant.
In the tale, the Muslim sultan of Syria converts his entire
sultanate (including himself) to Christianity in order to persuade the emperor
of Rome to give him his daughter, Custance, in marriage. The sultan’s mother
and her attendants remain secretly faithful to Islam. The mother tells her son
she wishes to hold a banquet for him and all the Christians. At the banquet,
she massacres her son and all the Christians except for Custance, whom she sets
adrift in a rudderless ship. After years of floating, Custance runs ashore in
Northumberland, where a constable and his wife, Hermengyld, offer her shelter.
She converts them to Christianity.
One night, Satan makes a young knight sneak into Hermengyld’s
chamber and murder Hermengyld. He places the bloody knife next to Custance, who
sleeps in the same chamber. When the constable returns home, accompanied by
Alla, the king of Northumberland, he finds his slain wife. He tells Alla the
story of how Custance was found, and Alla begins to pity the girl. He decides
to look more deeply into the murder. Just as the knight who murdered Hermengyld
is swearing that Custance is the true murderer, he is struck down and his eyes
burst out of his face, proving his guilt to Alla and the crowd. The knight is
executed, Alla and many others convert to Christianity, and Custance and Alla
marry.
While Alla is away in Scotland, Custance gives birth to a boy
named Mauricius. Alla’s mother, Donegild, intercepts a letter from Custance to
Alla and substitutes a counterfeit one that claims that the child is disfigured
and bewitched. She then intercepts Alla’s reply, which claims that the child
should be kept and loved no matter how malformed. Donegild substitutes a letter
saying that Custance and her son are banished and should be sent away on the
same ship on which Custance arrived. Alla returns home, finds out what has
happened, and kills Donegild.
After many adventures at sea, including an attempted rape,
Custance ends up back in Rome, where she reunites with Alla, who has made a
pilgrimage there to atone for killing his mother. She also reunites with her
father, the emperor. Alla and Custance return to England, but Alla dies after a
year, so Custance returns, once more, to Rome. Mauricius becomes the next Roman
emperor.
Following the Man of Law’s Tale, the Host asks the Parson to
tell the next tale, but the Parson reproaches him for swearing, and they fall
to bickering.
The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale
The Wife of Bath gives a lengthy account of her feelings about
marriage. Quoting from the Bible, the Wife argues against those who believe it
is wrong to marry more than once, and she explains how she dominated and
controlled each of her five husbands. She married her fifth husband, Jankyn,
for love instead of money. After the Wife has rambled on for a while, the Friar
butts in to complain that she is taking too long, and the Summoner retorts that
friars are like flies, always meddling. The Friar promises to tell a tale about
a summoner, and the Summoner promises to tell a tale about a friar. The Host
cries for everyone to quiet down and allow the Wife to commence her tale.
In her tale, a young knight of King Arthur’s court rapes a
maiden; to atone for his crime, Arthur’s queen sends him on a quest to discover
what women want most. An ugly old woman promises the knight that she will tell
him the secret if he promises to do whatever she wants for saving his life. He
agrees, and she tells him women want control of their husbands and their own
lives. They go together to Arthur’s queen, and the old woman’s answer turns out
to be correct. The old woman then tells the knight that he must marry her. When
the knight confesses later that he is repulsed by her appearance, she gives him
a choice: she can either be ugly and faithful, or beautiful and unfaithful. The
knight tells her to make the choice herself, and she rewards him for giving her
control of the marriage by rendering herself both beautiful and faithful.
The Friar’s Prologue and Tale
The Friar speaks approvingly of the Wife of Bath’s Tale, and
offers to lighten things up for the company by telling a funny story about a
lecherous summoner. The Summoner does not object, but he promises to pay the
Friar back in his own tale. The Friar tells of an archdeacon who carries out
the law without mercy, especially to lechers. The archdeacon has a summoner who
has a network of spies working for him, to let him know who has been lecherous.
The summoner extorts money from those he’s sent to summon, charging them more
money than he should for penance. He tries to serve a summons on a yeoman who
is actually a devil in disguise. After comparing notes on their treachery and
extortion, the devil vanishes, but when the summoner tries to prosecute an old
wealthy widow unfairly, the widow cries out that the summoner should be taken
to hell. The devil follows the woman’s instructions and drags the summoner off
to hell.
The Summoner’s Prologue and Tale
The Summoner, furious at the Friar’s Tale, asks the company to
let him tell the next tale. First, he tells the company that there is little
difference between friars and fiends, and that when an angel took a friar down
to hell to show him the torments there, the friar asked why there were no
friars in hell; the angel then pulled up Satan’s tail and 20,000 friars came
out of his ass.
In the Summoner’s Tale, a friar begs for money from a dying man
named Thomas and his wife, who have recently lost their child. The friar
shamelessly exploits the couple’s misfortunes to extract money from them, so
Thomas tells the friar that he is sitting on something that he will bequeath to
the friars. The friar reaches for his bequest, and Thomas lets out an enormous
fart. The friar complains to the lord of the manor, whose squire promises to
divide the fart evenly among all the friars.
The Clerk’s Prologue and Tale
The Host asks the Clerk to cheer up and tell a merry tale, and
the Clerk agrees to tell a tale by the Italian poet Petrarch. Griselde is a
hardworking peasant who marries into the aristocracy. Her husband tests her
fortitude in several ways, including pretending to kill her children and
divorcing her. He punishes her one final time by forcing her to prepare for his
wedding to a new wife. She does all this dutifully, her husband tells her that
she has always been and will always be his wife (the divorce was a fraud), and
they live happily ever after.
The Merchant’s Prologue, Tale, and Epilogue
The Merchant reflects on the great difference between the
patient Griselde of the Clerk’s Tale and the horrible shrew he has been married
to for the past two months. The Host asks him to tell a story of the evils of
marriage, and he complies. Against the advice of his friends, an old knight
named January marries May, a beautiful young woman. She is less than impressed
by his enthusiastic sexual efforts, and conspires to cheat on him with his
squire, Damien. When blind January takes May into his garden to copulate with
her, she tells him she wants to eat a pear, and he helps her up into the pear
tree, where she has sex with Damien. Pluto, the king of the faeries, restores
January’s sight, but May, caught in the act, assures him that he must still be
blind. The Host prays to God to keep him from marrying a wife like the one the
Merchant describes.
The Squire’s Introduction and Tale
The Host calls upon the Squire to say something about his
favorite subject, love, and the Squire willingly complies. King Cambyuskan of
the Mongol Empire is visited on his birthday by a knight bearing gifts from the
king of Arabia and India. He gives Cambyuskan and his daughter Canacee a magic
brass horse, a magic mirror, a magic ring that gives Canacee the ability to
understand the language of birds, and a sword with the power to cure any wound
it creates. She rescues a dying female falcon that narrates how her consort
abandoned her for the love of another. The Squire’s Tale is either unfinished
by Chaucer or is meant to be interrupted by the Franklin, who interjects that
he wishes his own son were as eloquent as the Squire. The Host expresses
annoyance at the Franklin’s interruption, and orders him to begin the next
tale.
The Franklin’s Prologue and Tale
The Franklin says that his tale is a familiar Breton lay, a folk
ballad of ancient Brittany. Dorigen, the heroine, awaits the return of her
husband, Arveragus, who has gone to England to win honor in feats of arms. She
worries that the ship bringing her husband home will wreck itself on the
coastal rocks, and she promises Aurelius, a young man who falls in love with her,
that she will give her body to him if he clears the rocks from the coast.
Aurelius hires a student learned in magic to create the illusion that the rocks
have disappeared. Arveragus returns home and tells his wife that she must keep
her promise to Aurelius. Aurelius is so impressed by Arveragus’s honorable act
that he generously absolves her of the promise, and the magician, in turn,
generously absolves Aurelius of the money he owes.
The Physician’s Tale
Appius the judge lusts after Virginia, the beautiful daughter of
Virginius. Appius persuades a churl named Claudius to declare her his slave,
stolen from him by Virginius. Appius declares that Virginius must hand over his
daughter to Claudius. Virginius tells his daughter that she must die rather
than suffer dishonor, and she virtuously consents to her father’s cutting her
head off. Appius sentences Virginius to death, but the Roman people, aware of
Appius’s hijinks, throw him into prison, where he kills himself.
The Pardoner’s Introduction, Prologue, and
Tale
The Host is dismayed by the tragic injustice of the Physician’s
Tale, and asks the Pardoner to tell something merry. The other pilgrims
contradict the Host, demanding a moral tale, which the Pardoner agrees to tell
after he eats and drinks. The Pardoner tells the company how he cheats people
out of their money by preaching that money is the root of all evil. His tale
describes three riotous youths who go looking for Death, thinking that they can
kill him. An old man tells them that they will find Death under a tree.
Instead, they find eight bushels of gold, which they plot to sneak into town
under cover of darkness. The youngest goes into town to fetch food and drink,
but brings back poison, hoping to have the gold all to himself. His companions
kill him to enrich their own shares, then drink the poison and die under the
tree. His tale complete, the Pardoner offers to sell the pilgrims pardons, and
singles out the Host to come kiss his relics. The Host infuriates the Pardoner
by accusing him of fraud, but the Knight persuades the two to kiss and bury
their differences.
The Shipman’s Tale
The Shipman’s Tale features a monk who tricks a merchant’s wife
into having sex with him by borrowing money from the merchant, then giving it
to the wife so she can repay her own debt to her husband, in exchange for
sexual favors. When the monk sees the merchant next, he tells him that he
returned the merchant’s money to his wife. The wife realizes she has been
duped, but she boldly tells her husband to forgive her debt: she will repay it
in bed. The Host praises the Shipman’s story, and asks the Prioress for a tale.
The Prioress’s Prologue and Tale
The Prioress calls on the Virgin Mary to guide her tale. In an
Asian city, a Christian school is located at the edge of a Jewish ghetto. An
angelic seven-year-old boy, a widow’s son, attends the school. He is a devout
Christian, and loves to sing Alma Redemptoris (Gracious Mother
of the Redeemer). Singing the song on his way through the ghetto, some Jews
hire a murderer to slit his throat and throw him into a latrine. The Jews
refuse to tell the widow where her son is, but he miraculously begins to sing Alma
Redemptoris, so the Christian people recover his body, and the
magistrate orders the murdering Jews to be drawn apart by wild horses and then
hanged.
The Prologue and Tale of Sir Thopas
The Host, after teasing Chaucer the narrator about his
appearance, asks him to tell a tale. Chaucer says that he only knows one tale,
then launches into a parody of bad poetry—the Tale of Sir Thopas. Sir Thopas
rides about looking for an elf-queen to marry until he is confronted by a
giant. The narrator’s doggerel continues in this vein until the Host can bear
no more and interrupts him. Chaucer asks him why he can’t tell his tale, since
it is the best he knows, and the Host explains that his rhyme isn’t worth a
turd. He encourages Chaucer to tell a prose tale.
The Tale of Melibee
Chaucer’s second tale is the long, moral prose story of Melibee.
Melibee’s house is raided by his foes, who beat his wife, Prudence, and
severely wound his daughter, Sophie, in her feet, hands, ears, nose, and mouth.
Prudence advises him not to rashly pursue vengeance on his enemies, and he
follows her advice, putting his foes’ punishment in her hands. She forgives
them for the outrages done to her, in a model of Christian forbearance and
forgiveness.
The Monk’s Prologue and Tale
The Host wishes that his own wife were as patient as Melibee’s,
and calls upon the Monk to tell the next tale. First he teases the Monk,
pointing out that the Monk is clearly no poor cloisterer. The Monk takes it all
in stride and tells a series of tragic falls, in which noble figures are
brought low: Lucifer, Adam, Sampson, Hercules, Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar,
Zenobia, Pedro of Castile, and down through the ages.
The Nun’s Priest’s Prologue, Tale, and
Epilogue
After seventeen noble “falls” narrated by the Monk, the Knight
interrupts, and the Host calls upon the Nun’s Priest to deliver something more
lively. The Nun’s Priest tells of Chanticleer the Rooster, who is carried off
by a flattering fox who tricks him into closing his eyes and displaying his
crowing abilities. Chanticleer turns the tables on the fox by persuading him to
open his mouth and brag to the barnyard about his feat, upon which Chanticleer
falls out of the fox’s mouth and escapes. The Host praises the Nun’s Priest’s
Tale, adding that if the Nun’s Priest were not in holy orders, he would be as
sexually potent as Chanticleer.
The Second Nun’s Prologue and Tale
In her Prologue, the Second Nun explains that she will tell a
saint’s life, that of Saint Cecilia, for this saint set an excellent example
through her good works and wise teachings. She focuses particularly on the
story of Saint Cecilia’s martyrdom. Before Cecilia’s new husband, Valerian, can
take her virginity, she sends him on a pilgrimage to Pope Urban, who converts
him to Christianity. An angel visits Valerian, who asks that his brother
Tiburce be granted the grace of Christian conversion as well. All
three—Cecilia, Tiburce, and Valerian—are put to death by the Romans.
The Canon’s Yeoman’s Prologue and Tale
When the Second Nun’s Tale is finished, the company is overtaken
by a black-clad Canon and his Yeoman, who have heard of the pilgrims and their
tales and wish to participate. The Yeoman brags to the company about how he and
the Canon create the illusion that they are alchemists, and the Canon departs
in shame at having his secrets discovered. The Yeoman tells a tale of how a
canon defrauded a priest by creating the illusion of alchemy using sleight of
hand.
The Manciple’s Prologue and Tale
The Host pokes fun at the Cook, riding at the back of the
company, blind drunk. The Cook is unable to honor the Host’s request that he
tell a tale, and the Manciple criticizes him for his drunkenness. The Manciple
relates the legend of a white crow, taken from the Roman poet Ovid’s Metamorphoses and
one of the tales in The Arabian Nights. In it, Phoebus’s
talking white crow informs him that his wife is cheating on him. Phoebus kills
the wife, pulls out the crow’s white feathers, and curses it with blackness.
The Parson’s Prologue and Tale
As the company enters a village in the late afternoon, the Host
calls upon the Parson to give them a fable. Refusing to tell a fictional story
because it would go against the rule set by St. Paul, the Parson delivers a
lengthy treatise on the Seven Deadly Sins, instead.
Chaucer’s Retraction
Chaucer appeals to readers to credit Jesus Christ as the
inspiration for anything in his book that they like, and to attribute what they
don’t like to his own ignorance and lack of ability. He retracts and prays for
forgiveness for all of his works dealing with secular and pagan subjects,
asking only to be remembered for what he has written of saints’ lives and
homilies.
Character List
The Pilgrims
The Narrator - The
narrator makes it quite clear that he is also a character in his book. Although
he is called Chaucer, we should be wary of accepting his words and opinions as
Chaucer’s own. In the General Prologue, the narrator presents himself as a
gregarious and naïve character. Later on, the Host accuses him of being silent
and sullen. Because the narrator writes down his impressions of the pilgrims
from memory, whom he does and does not like, and what he chooses and chooses
not to remember about the characters, tells us as much about the narrator’s own
prejudices as it does about the characters themselves.
The Knight - The first
pilgrim Chaucer describes in the General Prologue, and the teller of the first
tale. The Knight represents the ideal of a medieval Christian man-at-arms. He
has participated in no less than fifteen of the great crusades of his era.
Brave, experienced, and prudent, the narrator greatly admires him.
The Wife of Bath - Bath is an
English town on the Avon River, not the name of this woman’s husband. Though
she is a seamstress by occupation, she seems to be a professional wife. She has
been married five times and had many other affairs in her youth, making her
well practiced in the art of love. She presents herself as someone who loves
marriage and sex, but, from what we see of her, she also takes pleasure in rich
attire, talking, and arguing. She is deaf in one ear and has a gap between her
front teeth, which was considered attractive in Chaucer’s time. She has
traveled on pilgrimages to Jerusalem three times and elsewhere in Europe as
well.
The Pardoner - Pardoners
granted papal indulgences—reprieves from penance in exchange for charitable
donations to the Church. Many pardoners, including this one, collected profits
for themselves. In fact, Chaucer’s Pardoner excels in fraud, carrying a bag
full of fake relics—for example, he claims to have the veil of the Virgin Mary.
The Pardoner has long, greasy, yellow hair and is beardless. These
characteristics were associated with shiftiness and gender ambiguity in
Chaucer’s time. The Pardoner also has a gift for singing and preaching whenever
he finds himself inside a church.
The Miller - Stout and
brawny, the Miller has a wart on his nose and a big mouth, both literally and
figuratively. He threatens the Host’s notion of propriety when he drunkenly
insists on telling the second tale. Indeed, the Miller seems to enjoy overturning
all conventions: he ruins the Host’s carefully planned storytelling order; he
rips doors off hinges; and he tells a tale that is somewhat blasphemous,
ridiculing religious clerks, scholarly clerks, carpenters, and women.
The Prioress - Described
as modest and quiet, this Prioress (a nun who is head of her convent) aspires
to have exquisite taste. Her table manners are dainty, she knows French (though
not the French of the court), she dresses well, and she is charitable and
compassionate.
The Monk - Most monks
of the Middle Ages lived in monasteries according to theRule of Saint
Benedict, which demanded that
they devote their lives to “work and prayer.” This Monk cares little for the
Rule; his devotion is to hunting and eating. He is large, loud, and well clad
in hunting boots and furs.
The Friar - Roaming
priests with no ties to a monastery, friars were a great object of criticism in
Chaucer’s time. Always ready to befriend young women or rich men who might need
his services, the friar actively administers the sacraments in his town,
especially those of marriage and confession. However, Chaucer’s worldly Friar
has taken to accepting bribes.
The Summoner - The
Summoner brings persons accused of violating Church law to ecclesiastical
court. This Summoner is a lecherous man whose face is scarred by leprosy. He
gets drunk frequently, is irritable, and is not particularly qualified for his
position. He spouts the few words of Latin he knows in an attempt to sound
educated.
The Host - The leader
of the group, the Host is large, loud, and merry, although he possesses a quick
temper. He mediates among the pilgrims and facilitates the flow of the tales.
His title of “host” may be a pun, suggesting both an innkeeper and the
Eucharist, or Holy Host.
The Parson - The only
devout churchman in the company, the Parson lives in poverty, but is rich in
holy thoughts and deeds. The pastor of a sizable town, he preaches the Gospel
and makes sure to practice what he preaches. He is everything that the Monk,
the Friar, and the Pardoner are not.
The Squire - The
Knight’s son and apprentice. The Squire is curly-haired, youthfully handsome,
and loves dancing and courting.
The Clerk - The Clerk
is a poor student of philosophy. Having spent his money on books and learning
rather than on fine clothes, he is threadbare and wan. He speaks little, but
when he does, his words are wise and full of moral virtue.
The Man of Law - A
successful lawyer commissioned by the king. He upholds justice in matters large
and small and knows every statute of England’s law by heart.
The Manciple - A manciple
was in charge of getting provisions for a college or court. Despite his lack of
education, this Manciple is smarter than the thirty lawyers he feeds.
The Merchant - The
Merchant trades in furs and other cloths, mostly from Flanders. He is part of a
powerful and wealthy class in Chaucer’s society.
The Shipman -
Brown-skinned from years of sailing, the Shipman has seen every bay and river
in England, and exotic ports in Spain and Carthage as well. He is a bit of a
rascal, known for stealing wine while the ship’s captain sleeps.
The Physician - The
Physician is one of the best in his profession, for he knows the cause of every
malady and can cure most of them. Though the Physician keeps himself in perfect
physical health, the narrator calls into question the Physician’s spiritual
health: he rarely consults the Bible and has an unhealthy love of financial
gain.
The Franklin - The word
“franklin” means “free man.” In Chaucer’s society, a franklin was neither a
vassal serving a lord nor a member of the nobility. This particular franklin is
a connoisseur of food and wine, so much so that his table remains laid and
ready for food all day.
The Reeve - A reeve
was similar to a steward of a manor, and this reeve performs his job
shrewdly—his lord never loses so much as a ram to the other employees, and the
vassals under his command are kept in line. However, he steals from his master.
The Plowman - The
Plowman is the Parson’s brother and is equally good-hearted. A member of the
peasant class, he pays his tithes to the Church and leads a good Christian
life.
The Guildsmen - Listed
together, the five Guildsmen appear as a unit. English guilds were a combination
of labor unions and social fraternities: craftsmen of similar occupations
joined together to increase their bargaining power and live communally. All
five Guildsmen are clad in the livery of their brotherhood.
The Cook - The Cook
works for the Guildsmen. Chaucer gives little detail about him, although he
mentions a crusty sore on the Cook’s leg.
The Yeoman - The
servant who accompanies the Knight and the Squire. The narrator mentions that
his dress and weapons suggest he may be a forester.
The Second Nun - The Second
Nun is not described in the General Prologue, but she tells a saint’s life for
her tale.
The Nun’s Priest - Like the
Second Nun, the Nun’s Priest is not described in the General Prologue. His
story of Chanticleer, however, is well crafted and suggests that he is a witty,
self-effacing preacher.
Characters from the Five Tales Analyzed in This SparkNote
The Knight’s Tale
Theseus - A great
conqueror and the duke of Athens in the Knight’s Tale. The most powerful ruler
in the story, he is often called upon to make the final judgment, but he
listens to others’ pleas for help.
Palamon - Palamon is
one of the two imprisoned Theban soldier heroes in the Knight’s Tale. Brave,
strong, and sworn to everlasting friendship with his cousin Arcite, Palamon
falls in love with the fair maiden Emelye, which brings him into conflict with
Arcite. Though he loses the tournament against Arcite, he gets Emelye in the
end.
Arcite - The sworn
brother to Palamon, Arcite, imprisoned with Palamon in the tower in the
Knight’s Tale, falls equally head over heels in love with Emelye. He gets
released from the tower early and wins Emelye’s hand in a tournament, but then
dies when a divinely fated earthquake causes his horse to throw him.
Emelye - Emelye is
the sister to Hippolyta, Theseus’s domesticated Amazon queen in the Knight’s
Tale. Fair-haired and glowing, we first see Emelye as Palamon does, through a
window. Although she is the object of both Palamon’s and Arcite’s desire, she
would rather spend her life unmarried and childless. Nevertheless, when Arcite
wins the tournament, she readily pledges herself to him.
Egeus - Theseus’s
father. Egeus gives Theseus the advice that helps him convince Palamon and
Emelye to end their mourning of Arcite and get married.
The Miller’s Tale
Nicholas - In the
Miller’s Tale, Nicholas is a poor astronomy student who boards with an elderly
carpenter, John, and the carpenter’s too-young wife, Alisoun. Nicholas dupes
John and sleeps with Alisoun right under John’s nose, but Absolon, the foppish
parish clerk, gets Nicholas in the end.
Alisoun - Alisoun is
the sexy young woman married to the carpenter in the Miller’s Tale. She is
bright and sweet like a small bird, and dresses in a tantalizing style—her
clothes are embroidered inside and outside, and she laces her boots high. She
willingly goes to bed with Nicholas, but she has only harsh words and
obscenities for Absolon.
Absolon - The local
parish clerk in the Miller’s Tale, Absolon is a little bit foolish and more
than a little bit vain. He wears red stockings underneath his floor-length
church gown, and his leather shoes are decorated like the fanciful
stained-glass windows in a cathedral. He curls his hair, uses breath
fresheners, and fancies Alisoun.
John - The
dim-witted carpenter to whom Alisoun is married and with whom Nicholas boards.
John is jealous and possessive of his wife. He constantly berates Nicholas for
looking into God’s “pryvetee,” but when Nicholas offers John the chance to
share his knowledge, John quickly accepts. He gullibly believes Nicholas’s
pronouncement that a second flood is coming, which allows Nicholas to sleep
with John’s wife.
The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale
The First Three Husbands - The Wife
of Bath says that her first three husbands were “good” because they were rich
and old. She could order them around, use sex to get what she wanted, and trick
them into believing lies.
The Fourth Husband - The Wife
of Bath says comparatively little about her fourth husband. She loved him, but
he was a reveler who had a mistress. She had fun singing and dancing with him,
but tried her best to make him jealous. She fell in love with her fifth
husband, Jankyn, while she was still married to her fourth.
Jankyn - The Wife
of Bath’s fifth husband, Jankyn, was a twenty-year-old former student, with
whom the Wife was madly in love. His stories of wicked wives frustrated her so
much that one night she ripped a page out of his book, only to receive a deafening
smack on her ear in return.
The Knight - Arthur’s
young knight rapes a maiden, and, to avoid the punishment of death, he is sent
by the queen on a quest to learn about submission to women. Once he does so,
and shows that he has learned his lesson by letting his old ugly wife make a
decision, she rewards him by becoming beautiful and submissive.
The Old Woman - The old
woman supplies the young knight with the answer to his question, in exchange
for his promise to do whatever she wants. When she tells him he must marry her,
the knight begrudgingly agrees, and when he allows her to choose whether she
would like to be beautiful and unfaithful or ugly and faithful, she rewards him
by becoming both beautiful and faithful.
Arthur’s Queen - Arthur’s
queen, presumably Guinevere, is interesting because she wields most of the
power. When Arthur’s knight rapes a maiden, he turns the knight over to his
queen allows her to decide what to do with him.
The Pardoner’s Tale
The Three Rioters - These are
the three protagonists of the Pardoner’s Tale. All three indulge in and
represent the vices against which the Pardoner has railed in his Prologue:
Gluttony, Drunkeness, Gambling, and Swearing. These traits define the three and
eventually lead to their downfall. The Rioters at first appear like personified
vices, but it is their belief that a personified concept—in this case, Death—is
a real person that becomes the root cause of their undoing.
The Old Man - In the
Pardoner’s Tale, the three Rioters encounter a very old man whose body is
completely covered except for his face. Before the old man tells the Rioters
where they can find “Death,” one of the Rioters rashly demands why the old man
is still alive. The old man answers that he is doomed to walk the earth for
eternity. He has been interpreted as Death itself, or as Cain, punished for
fratricide by walking the earth forever; or as the Wandering Jew, a man who
refused to let Christ rest at his house when Christ proceeded to his
crucifixion, and who was therefore doomed to roam the world, through the ages,
never finding rest.
The Nun’s Priest’s Tale
Chanticleer - The heroic
rooster of the Nun’s Priest’s Tale, Chanticleer has seven hen-wives and is the
most handsome cock in the barnyard. One day, he has a prophetic dream of a fox
that will carry him away. Chanticleer is also a bit vain about his clear and
accurate crowing voice, and he unwittingly allows a fox to flatter him out of
his liberty.
Pertelote -
Chanticleer’s favorite wife in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale. She is his equal in
looks, manners, and talent. When Chanticleer dreams of the fox, he awakens her
in the middle of the night, begging for an interpretation, but Pertelote will
have none of it, calling him foolish. When the fox takes him away, she mourns
him in classical Greek fashion, burning herself and wailing.
The Fox - The orange
fox, interpreted by some as an allegorical figure for the devil, catches
Chanticleer the rooster through flattery. Eventually, Chanticleer outwits the
fox by encouraging him to boast of his deceit to his pursuers. When the fox
opens his mouth, Chanticleer escapes.
Themes, Motifs &
Symbols
Themes
Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in
a literary work.
The Pervasiveness of Courtly Love
The phrase “courtly love” refers to a set of ideas about love
that was enormously influential on the literature and culture of the Middle
Ages. Beginning with the Troubadour poets of southern France in the eleventh
century, poets throughout Europe promoted the notions that true love only
exists outside of marriage; that true love may be idealized and spiritual, and
may exist without ever being physically consummated; and that a man becomes the
servant of the lady he loves. Together with these basic premises, courtly love
encompassed a number of minor motifs. One of these is the idea that love is a
torment or a disease, and that when a man is in love he cannot sleep or eat,
and therefore he undergoes physical changes, sometimes to the point of becoming
unrecognizable. Although very few people’s lives resembled the courtly love
ideal in any way, these themes and motifs were extremely popular and widespread
in medieval and Renaissance literature and culture. They were particularly
popular in the literature and culture that were part of royal and noble courts.
Courtly love motifs first appear in The Canterbury Tales with the description of the Squire in
the General Prologue. The Squire’s role in society is exactly that of his
father the Knight, except for his lower status, but the Squire is very
different from his father in that he incorporates the ideals of courtly love
into his interpretation of his own role. Indeed, the Squire is practically a
parody of the traditional courtly lover. The description of the Squire
establishes a pattern that runs throughout the General Prologue, and The Canterbury Tales:
characters whose roles are defined by their religious or economic functions
integrate the cultural ideals of courtly love into their dress, their behavior,
and the tales they tell, in order to give a slightly different twist to their
roles. Another such character is the Prioress, a nun who sports a “Love
Conquers All” brooch.
The Importance of Company
Many of Chaucer’s characters end their stories by wishing the
rest of the “compaignye,” or company, well. The Knight ends with “God save al
this faire compaignye” (3108), and the Reeve with “God, that sitteth heighe in
magestee, / Save al this compaignye, grete and smale!” (4322–4323). Company
literally signifies the entire group of people, but Chaucer’s deliberate choice
of this word over other words for describing masses of people, like the Middle
English words for party, mixture, or group, points us to another major theme
that runs throughout The
Canterbury Tales. Company derives from two Latin words, com, or “with,” and pane,or “bread.” Quite
literally, a company is a group of people with whom one eats, or breaks bread.
The word for good friend, or “companion,” also comes from these words. But, in
a more abstract sense, company had an economic connotation. It was the term
designated to connote a group of people engaged in a particular business, as it
is used today.
The functioning and well-being of medieval communities, not to
mention their overall happiness, depended upon groups of socially bonded
workers in towns and guilds, known informally as companies. If workers in a
guild or on a feudal manor were not getting along well, they would not produce
good work, and the economy would suffer. They would be unable to bargain, as a
modern union does, for better working conditions and life benefits. Eating
together was a way for guild members to cement friendships, creating a support
structure for their working community. Guilds had their own special dining
halls, where social groups got together to bond, be merry, and form supportive
alliances. When the peasants revolted against their feudal lords in 1381, they
were able to organize themselves well precisely because they had formed these
strong social ties through their companies.
Company was a leveling concept—an idea created by the working
classes that gave them more power and took away some of the nobility’s power
and tyranny. The company of pilgrims on the way to Canterbury is not a typical
example of a tightly networked company, although the five Guildsmen do
represent this kind of fraternal union. The pilgrims come from different parts
of society—the court, the Church, villages, the feudal manor system. To prevent
discord, the pilgrims create an informal company, united by their jobs as
storytellers, and by the food and drink the host provides. As far as class
distinctions are concerned, they do form a company in the sense that none of
them belongs to the nobility, and most have working professions, whether that
work be sewing and marriage (the Wife of Bath), entertaining visitors with
gourmet food (the Franklin), or tilling the earth (the Plowman).
The Corruption of the Church
By the late fourteenth century, the Catholic Church, which
governed England, Ireland, and the entire continent of Europe, had become
extremely wealthy. The cathedrals that grew up around shrines to saints’ relics
were incredibly expensive to build, and the amount of gold that went into
decorating them and equipping them with candlesticks and reliquaries (boxes to
hold relics that were more jewel-encrusted than kings’ crowns) surpassed the
riches in the nobles’ coffers. In a century of disease, plague, famine, and
scarce labor, the sight of a church ornamented with unused gold seemed unfair
to some people, and the Church’s preaching against greed suddenly seemed
hypocritical, considering its great displays of material wealth. Distaste for
the excesses of the Church triggered stories and anecdotes about greedy,
irreligious churchmen who accepted bribes, bribed others, and indulged
themselves sensually and gastronomically, while ignoring the poor famished
peasants begging at their doors.
The religious figures Chaucer represents in The Canterbury Tales all deviate in one way or another from
what was traditionally expected of them. Generally, their conduct corresponds
to common medieval stereotypes, but it is difficult to make any overall
statement about Chaucer’s position because his narrator is so clearly biased
toward some characters—the Monk, for example—and so clearly biased against
others, such as the Pardoner. Additionally, the characters are not simply
satirical versions of their roles; they are individuals and cannot simply be
taken as typical of their professions.
The Monk, Prioress, and Friar were all members of the clerical
estate. The Monk and the Prioress live in a monastery and a convent,
respectively. Both are characterized as figures who seem to prefer the
aristocratic to the devotional life. The Prioress’s bejeweled rosary seems more
like a love token than something expressing her devotion to Christ, and her
dainty mannerisms echo the advice given by Guillaume de Loris in the French
romance Roman de la Rose, about how women could make
themselves attractive to men. The Monk enjoys hunting, a pastime of the
nobility, while he disdains study and confinement. The Friar was a member of an
order of mendicants, who made their living by traveling around and begging, and
accepting money to hear confession. Friars were often seen as threatening and
had the reputation of being lecherous, as the Wife of Bath describes in the
opening of her tale. The Summoner and the Friar are at each other’s throats so
frequently in The Canterbury
Tales because they were in
fierce competition in Chaucer’s time—summoners, too, extorted money from
people.
Overall, the narrator seems to harbor much more hostility for
the ecclesiastical officials (the Summoner and the Pardoner) than he does for
the clerics. For example, the Monk and the Pardoner possess several traits in
common, but the narrator presents them in very different ways. The narrator
remembers the shiny baldness of the Monk’s head, which suggests that the Monk
may have ridden without a hood, but the narrator uses the fact that the
Pardoner rides without a hood as proof of his shallow character. The Monk and
the Pardoner both give their own opinions of themselves to the narrator—the
narrator affirms the Monk’s words by repeating them, and his own response, but
the narrator mocks the Pardoner for his opinion of himself.
Motifs
Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary devices
that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.
Romance
The romance, a tale about knights and ladies incorporating
courtly love themes, was a popular literary genre in fourteenth-century
literature. The genre included tales of knights rescuing maidens, embarking on
quests, and forming bonds with other knights and rulers (kings and queens). In
particular, the romances about King Arthur, his queen, Guinevere, and his
society of “knights of the round table” were very popular in England. In The Canterbury Tales, the Knight’s Tale incorporates
romantic elements in an ancient classical setting, which is a somewhat unusual
time and place to set a romance. The Wife of Bath’s Tale is framed by Arthurian
romance, with an unnamed knight of the round table as its unlikely hero, but
the tale itself becomes a proto-feminist’s moral instruction for domestic
behavior. The Miller’s Tale ridicules the traditional elements of romance by
transforming the love between a young wooer and a willing maiden into a
boisterous and violent romp.
Fabliaux
Fabliaux were comical and often grotesque stories in which the
characters most often succeed by means of their sharp wits. Such stories were
popular in France and Italy in the fourteenth century. Frequently, the plot
turns or climaxes around the most grotesque feature in the story, usually a
bodily noise or function. The Miller’s Tale is a prime experiment with this
motif: Nicholas cleverly tricks the carpenter into spending the night in his
barn so that Nicholas can sleep with the carpenter’s wife; the finale occurs
when Nicholas farts in Absolon’s face, only to be burned with a hot poker on
his rear end. In the Summoner’s Tale, a wealthy man bequeaths a corrupt friar
an enormous fart, which the friar divides twelve ways among his brethren. This
demonstrates another invention around this motif—that of wittily expanding a
grotesque image in an unconventional way. In the case of the Summoner’s Tale,
the image is of flatulence, but the tale excels in discussing the division of
the fart in a highly intellectual (and quite hilarious) manner.
Symbols
Springtime
The Canterbury Tales opens in April, at the height of spring.
The birds are chirping, the flowers blossoming, and people long in their hearts
to go on pilgrimages, which combine travel, vacation, and spiritual renewal.
The springtime symbolizes rebirth and fresh beginnings, and is thus appropriate
for the beginning of Chaucer’s text. Springtime also evokes erotic love, as
evidenced by the moment when Palamon first sees Emelye gathering fresh flowers
to make garlands in honor of May. The Squire, too, participates in this
symbolism. His devotion to courtly love is compared to the freshness of the
month of May.
Clothing
In the General Prologue, the description of garments, in
addition to the narrator’s own shaky recollections, helps to define each
character. In a sense, the clothes symbolize what lies beneath the surface of
each personality. The Physician’s love of wealth reveals itself most clearly to
us in the rich silk and fur of his gown. The Squire’s youthful vanity is
symbolized by the excessive floral brocade on his tunic. The Merchant’s forked
beard could symbolize his duplicity, at which Chaucer only hints.
Physiognomy
Physiognomy was a science that judged a person’s temperament and
character based on his or her anatomy. Physiognomy plays a significant role in
Chaucer’s descriptions of the pilgrims in the General Prologue. The most
exaggerated facial features are those of the peasants. The Miller represents
the stereotypical peasant physiognomy most clearly: round and ruddy, with a
wart on his nose, the Miller appears rough and therefore suited to rough,
simple work. The Pardoner’s glaring eyes and limp hair illustrate his
fraudulence.
