Canterbury Tales

1. Canterbury Tales General Prologue

2. Geoffrey Chaucer 1340?-1400 • Son of a wealthy merchant. • Served as a page in a noble household. • Educated in the values of aristocratic culture of the time. • Squire in the king’s household. • Took diplomatic journeys to Spain, France and Italy. • Began writing Canterbury Tales in 1386, left incomplete. Written in vernacular Middle English.

3. Canterbury Tales • Frame narrative, like the “Thousand and One Nights”. • How to secure place in heaven • Charity • Building chapels • Go on pilgrimage • Going on pilgrimage – like vacation today. • Veneration of a saint • Complete a vow. • Bring souvenirs. • Take time off from work

4. General Prologue • “General Prologue”: Estate satire. • The three estates • Nobility – fight and protect • Clergy - pray • Commoners – feed • Feminine estates – defined by sexual activity • Virgins • Wives • Widows

5. General Prologue • By later middle ages estate system began to break up. • Rise of urban middle class: • Merchants • Intellectuals • Estates satire: works that satirize the abuses that occurred within the three official estates, in particular the clergy.

6. General Prologue • Group has gathered at an inn preparing to depart on a pilgrimage to Canterbury, shrine of St. Thomas a Becket • Pilgrims represent each of the three estates. • Almost every kind of person found in late medieval England. • High nobility (earls, dukes, princes, etc., not represented. • Individual portraits of the pilgrims.

7. General Prologue • At the urging of the host, each pilgrim must tell two stories on the trip. • Failure of individuals to live up to the standards of the estates they belong to. • Focus on the ills of society and how they can be cured. • Focus in the “General Prologue” on individuals and their psychological makeup. • Physiognomy as reflection of character.

8. General Prologue • Knight: Lower Aristocracy, • Keeps order in group, • Mercenary, participated in crusades. • He can ride all day. • Represents the chivalric ideal. • Squire: Lower Aristocracy, The Knight’s son and apprentice. Curly-haired, youthfully handsome, and loves dancing and courting. Could ride well, Stays out all night, Knows how to act (courtly).

9. General Prologue • Yeoman: Serves the knightly class as a kind of forest policeman. Accompanies the Knight and the Squire. • Dresses in green, Wears an image of St. Christopher. Christopher protects travelers. • Prioress: a nun who is head of her convent. Nunneries were often finishing schools for extra daughters of the rich. • Mispronounces French, Good table manners, More concerned with animals than poor humans, She feeds animals better than humans.

10. General Prologue • Nun: Travels with Prioress. Little description • Monk: Loves hunting, • Compromised vows of poverty and obedience, • Hunting and eating his passions. • He is large, loud.

11. General Prologue • Friar: Roaming priests with no ties to a monastery. Seduces women, then marries them off. Accepts bribes. • Four orders of friars • Dominicans (Black Friars): a preaching order, 1221 •  Franciscans (Grey Friars): a begging order, 1224 • Carmelites (White Friars): a penitential order, 1240 • Augustinian Friars (Austin Friars), 1248 • Orders of Friars supposed to practice absolute poverty; however, within 2 generations of Frances death Friars one of richest brotherhoods . • Tension between Friars and Clergy

12. General Prologue • Merchant: Middle class, Finely dressed, Shrewd businessman, part of a powerful and wealthy class. Rise of the middle class, or merchant class. • What makes a good merchant? Money? • Clerk: Middle Class, poor student of philosophy. his words are wise and full of moral virtue. • Man of the Law: Middle Class,  analogous to our Supreme Court Justices. Knows every statute of England’s law by heart.

13. General Prologue • Franklin (Land Owner): “franklin” means “free man.” Middle Class, generous and neighborly, connoisseur of food and wine, table laid and ready for food all day • Shipman: Middle Class, Tough guy -- knife around neck. He looks like a pirate. Brown-skinned from years of sailing, “If people act up send home another way” (throw overboard). • Doctor: Middle Class, uses astrology to diagnose, Racket with pharmacist – gets a cut, Fancy clothes, Didn’t study Bible, knows the cause of every malady and can cure most of them. Rarely consults the Bible.

14. General Prologue • Wife of Bath: seamstress by occupation, wealthy, goes to church to be seen. • Head dress 10 pounds, • Wearing tight, red, visible stockings, • Many pilgrimages - professional pilgrim, cannot control sexuality, • She rides astride. • Gap between her front teeth, considered attractive in Chaucer’s time

15. General Prologue • Parson: Clergy/Lower Class, • Wants to be preacher, • Gives to poor, • Visits people when sick or in trouble, • Imitated Christ, • Practiced what preached. • Ideal portrait. • He serves as a role model to his flock.

16. General Prologue • Plowman: Lower class (peasant), Also an ideal. He pays his tithes to the Church and leads a good Christian life. • Because of the labor shortage after a severe round of the Black Plague, workers could go and accept better offers. • Miller: Middle Class, Skims off wheat, Has a big mouth and wart on the side of his nose with hairs growing out of it. Talent for knocking doors off their hinges with his head. He plays bagpipes and rides out front on the pilgrimage.

17. General Prologue • Manciple: Middle Class. An officer who buys provisions for a college, monastery, or other institution. Can outwit lawyers. Not as intelligent as students. Skims money off for himself. • Reeve: Middle Class, Serves as the foreman of a manor. Slender and choleric, Once a carpenter. Makes sure no one steals, but he steals from his master.

18. General Prologue • Summoner: Clergy. Delivers citations for individuals to appear in the ecclesiastical court. Outward appearance matches the inward immoral character. Symptoms of leprosy, or syphilis. Lecherous.

19. General Prologue • Pardoner: Clergy. A person licensed to sell papal pardons or indulgences. • Yellow stringy hair, glaring eyes, small voice like a goat. Collected profits for himself. • Carries a bag full of fake relics—veil of the Virgin Mary. • Long, greasy, yellow hair and is beardless - associated with shiftiness. • Gift for singing and preaching whenever he finds himself inside a church.

20. General Prologue • Host: Middle Class. Large, loud, and merry. • Turns the pilgrimage into a competition: each pilgrim will tell two tales on the way to Canterbury and two on the way back. • Everyone else will pay for the winner's dinner, but of course at his establishment. • He mediates among the pilgrims and facilitates the flow of the tales.