The Canterbury Tales

1. The Canterbury Tales

2. The Tales • 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

3. The General Prologue • 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

4. The General Prologue • 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

5. The General Prologue • 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

6. The General Prologue • 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

7. The General Prologue • Manciple: buys provisions for a group of lawyers in London but cheats them • Reeve: manages a country estate dishonestly, ill- tempered • 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

8. The General Prologue • 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

9. The Pardoner • 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

10. The Pardoner • 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

11. The Pardoner • 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

12. The Pardoner’s Tale • 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

13. The Wife of Bath 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

14. The Wife of Bath • 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

15. The Wife of Bath • 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

16. The Wife of Bath • 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

17. The Nun’s Priest • 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

18. The Nun’s Priest’s Tale • 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