Chaucer and the Canterbury Tales
Geoffrey Chaucer wrote the Canterbury Tales between 1387 and
1400. It is the story of a group of about thirty people who travel as
pilgrims to Canterbury (England). The pilgrims, who come from all
layers of society, tell stories to each other to kill time while they travel
to Canterbury.
Chaucer intended that each pilgrim should tell two tales on the way to
Canterbury and two tales on the way back. The pilgrims would vote
on the best tale; the winner would receive a prize, a dinner paid for
by all the others at Tabard’s Inn in London.
This poem gives modern readers a sense of the language of the time.
It also provides a rich picture of medieval social life, combining people
from all classes, from nobles to workers, from priests and nuns to
drunkards and thieves.
This is the first book of poetry written in the English language.
Who was Chaucer?
Geoffrey Chaucer was born in London in the mid-1340s, the son of a
wine maker. As a teenager he became a page in the service of the
Duke of Clarence, and he later served in the household of King
Edward III. From these experiences he gained a deep understanding
of both the lives of everyday Londoners and the royal court.
He fought in one of the campaigns of the Hundred Years War
(between France and England), during which he was taken prisoner
and then ransomed. He married the daughter of a noble who had
family connections to the royal family, so he probably had access to
lots of information about the court.
In the 1370s Chaucer began to travel abroad on diplomatic missions
for the King. He negotiated a trade agreement at Genoa and went on
another mission to Milan; these trips exposed him to the dazzling
Italian poetry of that period.
After about ten years abroad, he settled in London and became
Controller of the Petty Customs. In 1386 he was elected as a Knight,
or MP, for the shire of Kent. It was during this period that he began
working on The Canterbury Tales. He got into debt, lost his job, and
took another post as a Forester. He took a lease on a house in the
garden of Westminster Abbey in 1399, and he died the following year,
his great manuscript still unfinished.
Chaucer’s life allowed him to experience much of what was going on
in England and Europe during the 14th century. This is one of the
factors that gives The Canterbury Tales its historical strength. Of
course the characters and their stories are inventions, but nevertheless
they are based on close observation and participation in the world as
it was then. Chaucer’s England is a believable place.
The Pilgrims and the Tales
The first Tale is told by a Knight. During the Middle Ages, Knights
held a very high status in society; they were the ones who fought in
the constant wars, gained lots of money and directly served their King.
The Knight’s tale is an old and classic story, set in ancient Greece,
about courtly love; two nephews of the King of Thebes are
imprisoned by the Duke of Athens, who both fall in love with the
same woman, Emily. After several adventures, the duke orders them
to fight in a tournament; the winner will marry Emily.
The next tale is not so high-minded. It is told by the drunken Miller.
This is a vulgar and satiric story of a student who persuades his
landlord’s wife to have sex with him. It contains lots of graphic
language and lewd details, making it a very great contrast to the story
told by the Knight.
The third story is told by a Reeve, a minor official hired by a landlord
to manage his estate. This too is a comic tale of tricks, sex and
mistaken identity. At one point, several couples are sleeping together
in different beds, and one of them has a cradle with a baby in it on
the floor at the foot of the bed. In the middle of the night, one of the
women gets up to use the bathroom, and one of the men moves the
cradle to the foot of his own bed. Feeling around in the dark, she gets
into the bed near the cradle and ends up having sex with the wrong
person.
The Man of Law tells a tale of a Christian princess named Constance
who is betrothed to a Syrian Sultan, on condition that he will convert
to Christianity. The Sultan’s mother wants to prevent this, so she
arranges for Constance to be put on a ship and set adrift in the sea.
She lands on the northern coast of England, where she meets a local
king; she has many other adventures. This tale is meant to be morally
uplifting because Constance remains true to her religion.
The Wife of Bath tells a story about marriage; having been married
five times herself, she is something of an authority about it. After
describing her own marriages in some detail, she begins her Tale:
A knight in King Arthur's court rapes a woman in a wheat field. By law, his
crime is punishable by death, but the queen intercedes on his behalf, and
the king turns the knight over to her for judgment. The queen punishes the
knight by sending him out on a quest to find out what women really want
"more than anything else," giving him a year and a day to discover it and
having his word that he will return. If he fails to satisfy the queen with his
answer, he forfeits his life. He searches, but every woman he finds says
something different, from riches to flattery. A year later, on his way back to
the queen after failing to find the truth, he comes upon an old hag whom
he asks for help. She says she'll tell him the answer that will save him if he
promises to grant her request at a time she chooses. He agrees and they go
back to the court where the queen pardons him after he explains that what
women want most is sovereignty over their husbands, and the Queen
accepts this as the correct answer. As her reward, the old woman demands
that the knight marry her. He protests, but to no avail, and the marriage
takes place the next day. That night in their marriage bed, the knight
confesses that he is unhappy because she is ugly and low-born. She tells the
knight that he can choose between her being ugly and faithful or beautiful
and unfaithful. He gives the choice to her; pleased with the mastery of her
husband, she becomes fair and faithful and lives with him happily until the
end of their days.
Other Tales are told by the Friar, Summoner, Clerk, Merchant, Squire,
Franklin, Physician, Pardoner, Shipman, Prioress, Monk, Nun, Priest,
etc. Many of these stories are retellings of common tales that were
being told in England and Europe at that time. They tell us a lot
about the lives and beliefs of people in the Middle Ages.
The Canterbury Tales have come down to us in 83 different hand-
written manuscripts. (The printing press had not yet been invented.)
The Canterbury Tales is also an excellent example of Middle English.
By the time this was written, the royal court was no longer speaking
French. Everyone in England was speaking this new language, which
had taken in so much French vocabulary but also kept many of the
Old English words. We can see from reading this poem how beautiful
and expressive the new language was.