Written by Geoffrey Chaucer, who served in various
court positions throughout his life
 Follows the format of The Decameron by Boccacio
 Incorporates characters from most social classes,
mixing together
 Excludes the very poor and the serfs
 Written in vernacular: Middle English
 First artistic literary work to do this
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Opens with a description of the effects Spring has
on the world and on people
 The story occurs at the Tabard Inn, just south of
London
 The poet falls in with a group of 29 travelers on
pilgrimage to Canterbury Cathedral, to the shrine of
St. Thomas á Becket
 A list and description of the pilgrims is given
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Knight: highest social standing, Crusader, in armor
Squire: his son, wants to impress ladies, very
fashionable
Yeoman: works for knight, heavily armed
Prioress: Eglantine (wild rose), fashionable convent,
highly refined, knows she’s pretty
Nun: companion to Prioress
Priest: chaplain to Prioress
Monk: finds excuses to leave monastery, loves good
food, wine, and horses, very worldly
Friar: lives by begging, panders to the rich, gives light
penance for money
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Merchant: likes to talk about his prosperity, worried
about profits and pirates
Clerk: religious scholar, totally unworldly, devoted
to God and learning
Sergeant of the Law: high-ranking lawyer, “seemed
busier than he was”
Franklin: wealthy country gentleman, likes to share
good food and wine with others
Shipman: ship’s captain, sometimes pirate,
doesn’t take prisoners in a fight
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Tradesmen (Haberdasher, Carpenter, Webber, Dyer,
Tapiser): members of a prosperous trade guild,
traveling together
Cook: hired by Tradesmen
Doctor: good at his job, makes a good living
Wife: from city of Bath, widowed 5 times
Parson: poor rural clergy, perfect in his morality
Plowman: brother of Parson, also very good
Miller: dishonest in his weights, likes to break down
doors and tell dirty stories
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Manciple: buys provisions for a group of lawyers in
London but cheats them
Reeve: manages a country estate dishonestly, illtempered
Summoner: an official of church courts, calls people
to answer charges, takes bribes
Pardoner: even more corrupt than Summoner
The Poet: recounts the whole affair
The Host: Harry Bailley, suggests the contest
Each traveler will tell two stories on the way to
Canterbury and two stories on the way home
 The host will judge the best story
 The winner will be treated to dinner at the Tabard
by the other travelers upon returning from the
pilgrimage
 They all agree and set out the next morning
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A pardoner is someone who sells religious pardons
or relics
 It’s a church practice based on the idea of penance:
you repent of your sins and then atone for them by
doing acts of charity or by giving to the Church
 This idea became distorted: you could skip the
repentance and the penance by just giving money
 This practice will become a major focus of the
Protestant Reformation
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He manipulates gullible people by taking advantage
of their religious beliefs, superstitions, and sense of
guilt
 He admits to “stir[ring] the people unto devotion”
so that they will give him money
 The relics he sells are fakes but the people believe
them to be real
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Repulsive physical description
He has thin, scraggly hair, but is vain
He has no beard and a high voice, suggesting that
he’s not manly (“a gelding or a mare”)
 Travels with the Summoner who is his singing
partner
 The General Prologue suggests that they might be
lovers
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basically a sermon, aimed at educating his listeners
about the sin of greed
 Exemplum: a story told within a sermon to illustrate
a point
 Pardoners were well-known for using lewd exempla
in their sermons
 At the end of the tale, he goes into a sales pitch for
his relics
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Alison, a widow from the city of Bath
Everything about her is larger than life:
 Her body and her clothes
 Her mouth (figuratively and literally)
 Her number of marriages and her zeal for sex
(five dead husbands, looking for #6)
 Her love of power in relationships
One of three women on the pilgrimage, and the only
one who hasn’t taken religious orders
 The Prologue is about her own story, especially her
marriages
 She firmly believes that male/female relationships
should be controlled by the woman and everybody
would be happy
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She begins by defending the idea of multiple
marriages, saying that holy men in the Bible had more
than one wife and God doesn’t require chastity
 Marriage isn’t for everyone but it is for her
 Her first three husbands were elderly, rich, and easy
for her to manipulate
 She nagged, complained, accused them of
imaginary crimes, used sex as a weapon
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Fourth husband cheated but she got revenge by
cheating on him too
 She married her fifth husband for love
 He controlled her and was abusive
 She always has the next husband lined up before
the death of the previous
 Her tale reinforces her idea of female dominance
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There is no introduction or physical description of
him in the General Prologue
 We just know that he is a chaplain to the Prioress
 He seems to be meek and humble, dressed
modestly and riding an old nag
 Narrator seems to be neutral in his opinion of this
priest
 He is asked to tell a happy story to make the
company merry again
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Animal/beast tale: a fictional oral narrative in which
animals perform the principal plot actions.
 Involve two main characters and one main plot: One
deceives or tricks the other and then there’s a sudden
ending.
 Main conflicting ideas:
Weakness of body combined with cunning vs.
physical strength combined with stupidity
Wild animals vs. domesticated animals
 Not a fable, because there isn’t a clear moral
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