General Prologue

"When April comes with his sweet, fragrant showers, which pierce the dry ground of March,
and bathe every root of every plant in sweet liquid, then people desire to go on pilgrimages."
Thus begins the famous opening to The Canterbury Tales. The narrator (a constructed version
of Chaucer himself) is first discovered staying at the Tabard Inn in Southwark (in London),
when a company of twenty-nine people descend on the inn, preparing to go on a pilgrimage
to Canterbury. After talking to them, he agrees to join them on their pilgrimage.
Yet before the narrator goes any further in the tale, he describes the circumstances and the
social rank of each pilgrim. He describes each one in turn, starting with the highest status
individuals.
The Knight is described first, as befits a 'worthy man' of high status. The Knight has fought
in the Crusades in numerous countries, and always been honored for his worthiness and
courtesy. Everywhere he went, the narrator tells us, he had a 'sovereyn prys' (which could
mean either an 'outstanding reputation', or a price on his head for the fighting he has done).
The Knight is dressed in a 'fustian' tunic, made of coarse cloth, which is stained by the rust
from his coat of chainmail.
The Knight brings with him his son, The Squire, a lover and a lusty bachelor, only twenty
years old. The Squire cuts a rather effeminate figure, his clothes embroidered with red and
white flowers, and he is constantly singing or playing the flute. He is the only pilgrim (other
than, of course, Chaucer himself) who explicitly has literary ambitions: he 'koude songes
make and wel endite' (line 95).
The Yeoman (a freeborn servant) also travels along with the Knight's entourage, and is clad
in coat and hood of green. The Yeoman is excellent at caring for arrows, and travels armed
with a huge amount of weaponry: arrows, a bracer (arm guard), a sword, a buckler, and a
dagger as sharp as a spear. He wears an image of St. Christopher on his breast.
Having now introduced the Knight (the highest ranking pilgrim socially), the narrator now
moves on to the clergy, beginning with The Prioress, called 'Madame Eglantine' (or, in
modern parlance, Mrs. Sweetbriar). She could sweetly sing religious services, speaks fluent
French and has excellent table manners. She is so charitable and piteous, that she would weep
if she saw a mouse caught in a trap, and she has two small dogs with her. She wears a brooch
with the inscription 'Amor vincit omnia' ('Love conquers all'). The Prioress brings with her
her 'chapeleyne' (secretary), the Second Nun.
The Monk is next, an extremely fine and handsome man who loves to hunt, and who follows
modern customs rather than old traditions. This is no bookish monk, studying in a cloister,
but a man who keeps greyhounds to hunt the hare. The Monk is well-fed, fat, and his eyes are
bright, gleaming like a furnace in his head.
The Friar who follows him is also wanton and merry, and he is a 'lymytour' by trade (a friar
licensed to beg in certain districts). He is extremely well beloved of franklins (landowners)
and worthy woman all over the town. He hears confession and gives absolution, and is an
excellent beggar, able to earn himself a farthing wherever he went. His name is Huberd.
The Merchant wears a forked beard, motley clothes and sat high upon his horse. He gives
his opinion very solemnly, and does excellent business as a merchant, never being in any
debt. But, the narrator ominously remarks, 'I noot how men hym calle' (I don't know how
men call him, or think of him).
The Clerk follows the Merchant. A student of Oxford university, he would rather have
twenty books by Aristotle than rich clothes or musical instruments, and thus is dressed in a
threadbare short coat. He only has a little gold, which he tends to spend on books and
learning, and takes huge care and attention of his studies. He never speaks a word more than
is needed, and that is short, quick and full of sentence (the Middle-English word for
'meaningfulness' is a close relation of 'sententiousness').
The Man of Law (referred to here as 'A Sergeant of the Lawe') is a judicious and dignified
man, or, at least, he seems so because of his wise words. He is a judge in the court of assizes,
by letter of appointment from the king, and because of his high standing receives many
grants. He can draw up a legal document, the narrator tells us, and no-one can find a flaw in
his legal writings. Yet, despite all this money and social worth, the Man of Law rides only in
a homely, multi-coloured coat.
A Franklin travels with the Man of Law. He has a beard as white as a daisy, and of the
sanguine humour (dominated by his blood). The Franklin is a big eater, loving a piece of
bread dipped in wine, and is described (though not literally!) as Epicurus' son: the Franklin
lives for culinary delight. His house is always full of meat pie, fish and meat, so much so that
it 'snewed in his hous of mete and drynke'. He changes his meats and drinks according to
what foods are in season.
A Haberdasher and a Carpenter, a Weaver, a Dyer and a Tapycer (weaver of
tapestries) are next described, all of them clothed in the same distinctive guildsman's dress.
Note that none of these pilgrims, in the end, actually tell a tale.
A Cook had been brought along to boil the chicken up with marrow bones and spices, but
this particular Cook knows a draught of ale very well indeed, according to the narrator. The
Cook could roast and simmer and boil and fry, make stews and hashes and bake a pie well,
but it was a great pity that, on his shin, he has an ulcer.
A Shipman from Dartmouth is next - tanned brown from the hot summer sun, riding upon a
carthorse, and wearing a gown of coarse woolen cloth which reaches to his knees. The
Shipman had, many times, drawn a secret draught of wine on board ship, while the merchant
was asleep. The Shipman has weathered many storms, and knows his trade: he knows the
locations of all the harbors from Gotland to Cape Finistere. His shape is called 'the
Maudelayne'.
A Doctor of Medicine is the next pilgrim described, clad in red and blue, and no-one in the
world can match him in speaking about medicine and surgery. He knows the cause of every
illness, what humor engenders them, and how to cure them. He is a perfect practitioner of
medicine, and he has apothecaries ready to send him drugs and mixtures. He is well-read in
the standard medical authorities, from the Greeks right through to Chaucer's contemporary
Gilbertus Anglicus. The Doctor, however, has not studied the Bible.
The Wife of Bath was 'somdel deef' (a little deaf, as her tale will later expand upon) and that
was a shame. The Wife of Bath is so adept at making cloth that she surpasses even the cloth-
making capitals of Chaucer's world, Ypres and Ghent, and she wears coverchiefs (linen
coverings for the head) which must (the narrator assumes) have 'weyeden ten pound'. She had
had five husbands through the church door, and had been at Jerusalem, Rome and Boulogne
on pilgrimage. She is also described as 'Gat-tothed' (traditionally denoting lasciviousness),
and as keeping good company, she knows all the answers about love: 'for she koude of that
art the olde daunce' (she knew the whole dance as far as love is concerned!).
A good religious man, A Parson of a Town, is next described, who, although poor in goods,
is rich in holy thought and work. He's a learned man, who truly preaches Christ's gospel, and
devoutly teaches his parishioners. He travels across his big parish to visit all of his
parishioners, on his feet, carrying a staff in his hand. He is a noble example to his
parishioners ('his sheep', as they are described) because he acts first, and preaches second (or,
in Chaucer's phrase, 'first he wroghte, and afterward he taughte'). The narrator believes that
there is no better priest to be found anywhere.
With the Parson travels a Plowman (who does not tell a tale), who has hauled many cartloads
of dung in his time. He is a good, hard-working man, who lives in peace and charity, and
treats his neighbor as he would be treated. He rides on a mare, and wears a tabard (a
workman's loose garment).
A Miller comes next, in this final group of pilgrims (now at the bottom of the class scale!).
He is big-boned and has big muscles, and always wins the prize in wrestling matches. There's
not a door that he couldn't lift off its hinges, or break it by running at it head-first. He has
black, wide nostrils, carries a sword and a buckler (shield) by his side, and has a mouth like a
great furnace. He's good at stealing corn and taking payment for it three times. But then,
Chaucer implies, there are no honest millers.
A noble Manciple (a business agent, purchaser of religious provisions) is the next pilgrim to
be described, and a savvy financial operator. Though a common man, the Manciple can run
rings round even a 'heep of lerned men'. The Manciple, his description ominously ends, 'sette
hir aller cappe': deceived them all.
The Reeve, a slender, choleric man, long-legged and lean ("ylyk a staf"). He knows exactly
how much grain he has, and is excellent at keeping his granary and his grain bin. There is no
bailiff, herdsman or servant about whom the Reeve does not know something secret or
treacherous; as a result, they are afraid of him 'as of the deeth'.
The Summoner is next, his face fire-red and pimpled, with narrow eyes. He has a skin
disease across his black brows, and his beard (which has hair falling out of it) and he is
extremely lecherous. There is, the narrator tells us, no ointment or cure, or help him to
remove his pimples. He loves drinking wine which is as 'reed as blood', and eating leeks,
onions and garlic. He knows how to trick someone.
Travelling with the Summoner is a noble Pardoner, his friend and his companion (in what
sense Chaucer intends the word 'compeer', meaning companion, nobody knows) and the last
pilgrim-teller to be described. He sings loudly 'Come hither, love to me', and has hair as
yellow as wax, which hangs like flaxen from his head. He carries a wallet full of pardons in
his lap, brimful of pardons come from Rome. The Pardoner is sexually ambiguous - he has a
thin, boyish voice, and the narrator wonders whether he is a 'geldyng or a mare' (a eunuch or
a homosexual).
The narrator writes that he has told us now of the estate (the class), the array (the clothing),
and the number of pilgrims assembled in this company. He then makes an important
statement of intent for what is to come: he who repeats a tale told by another man, the
narrator says, must repeat it as closely as he possibly can to the original teller - and thus, if
the tellers use obscene language, it is not our narrator's fault.
The Host is the last member of the company described, a large man with bright, large eyes -
and an extremely fair man. The Host welcomes everyone to the inn, and announces the
pilgrimage to Canterbury, and decides that, on the way there, the company shall 'talen and
pleye' (to tell stories and amuse themselves). Everyone consents to the Host's plan for the
game, and he then goes on to set it out.
What the Host describes is a tale-telling game, in which each pilgrim shall tell two tales on
the way to Canterbury, and two more on the way home; whoever tells the tale 'of best
sentence and moost solas' shall have supper at the cost of all of the other pilgrims, back at the
Inn, once the pilgrimage returns from Canterbury. The pilgrims agree to the Host's
suggestion, and agree to accord to the Host's judgment as master of the tale-telling game.
Everyone then goes to bed.
The next morning, the Host awakes, raises everyone up, and 'in a flok' the pilgrimage rides
towards 'the Wateryng of Seint Thomas', a brook about two miles from London. The Host
asks the pilgrims to draw lots to see who shall tell the first tale, the Knight being asked to
'draw cut' first and, whether by 'aventure, or sort, or cas', the Knight draws the straw to tell
the first tale. The pilgrims ride forward, and the Knight begins to tell his tale.
Analysis
The General Prologue was probably written early in the composition of the Canterbury Tales,
and offers an interesting comparison point to many of the individual tales itself. Of course, it
does not match up to the tales as we have them in a number of ways: the Nun's Priest and the
Second Nun are not described, and, most significantly, the work as we have it does not reflect
the Host's plan. For starters, the pilgrimage only seems to go as far as Canterbury (for the
Parson's Tale) and only the narrator tells two tales on the way there, with all the other
pilgrims telling only a single tale (and some who are described in the General Prologue not
telling a tale at all).
We must, therefore, view the General Prologue with some hesitation as a comparison point to
the tales themselves: it offers useful or enlightening suggestions, but they are no means a
complete, reliable guide to the tales and what they mean. What the General Prologue offers is
a brief, often very visual description of each pilgrim, focusing on details of their background,
as well as key details of their clothing, their food likes and dislikes, and their physical
features. These descriptions fall within a common medieval tradition of portraits in words
(which can be considered under the technical term ekphrasis), Chaucer's influence in this
case most likely coming from The Romaunt de la Rose.
Immediately, our narrator insists that his pilgrims are to be described by 'degree'. By the fact
that the Knight, the highest-ranking of the pilgrims, is selected as the first teller, we see the
obvious social considerations of the tale. Still, all human life is here: characters of both sexes,
and from walks of life from lordly knight, or godly parson down to oft-divorced wife or
grimy cook.
Each pilgrim portrait within the prologue might be considered as an archetypal description.
Many of the 'types' of characters featured would have been familiar stock characters to a
medieval audience: the hypocritical friar, the rotund, food-loving monk, the rapacious miller
are all familiar types from medieval estates satire (see Jill Mann's excellent book for more
information). Larry D. Benson has pointed out the way in which the characters are paragons
of their respective crafts or types - noting the number of times the words 'wel koude' and
'verray parfit' occur in describing characters.
Yet what is key about the information provided in the General Prologue about these
characters, many of whom do appear to be archetypes, is that it is among the few pieces of
objective information - that is, information spoken by our narrator that we are given
throughout the Tales. The tales themselves (except for large passages of the prologues and
epilogues) are largely told in the words of the tellers: as our narrator himself insists in the
passage. The words stand for themselves: and we interpret them as if they come from the
pilgrims' mouths. What this does - and this is a key thought for interpreting the tales as a
whole - is to apparently strip them of writerly license, blurring the line between Chaucer and
his characters.
Thus all of the information might be seen to operate on various levels. When, for example,
we find out that the Prioress has excellent table manners, never allowing a morsel to fall on
her breast, how are we to read it? Is this Geoffrey Chaucer 'the author of The Canterbury
Tales' making a conscious literary comparison to The Romaunt de la Rose, which features a
similar character description (as it happens, of a courtesan)? Is this 'Chaucer' our narrator, a
character within the Tales providing observation entirely without subtext or writerly
intention? Or are these observations - supposedly innocent within the Prologue - to be noted
down so as to be compared later to the Prioress' Tale?
Chaucer's voice, in re-telling the tales as accurately as he can, entirely disappears into that of
his characters, and thus the Tales operates almost like a drama. Where do Chaucer's writerly
and narratorial voices end, and his characters' voices begin? This self-vanishing quality is key
to the Tales, and perhaps explains why there is one pilgrim who is not described at all so far,
but who is certainly on the pilgrimage - and he is the most fascinating,




General Prologue: Introduction

Fragment 1, lines 142
Summary
Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote . . .
(See Important Quotations Explained)
The narrator opens the General Prologue with a description of the return of spring. He
describes the April rains, the burgeoning flowers and leaves, and the chirping birds. Around
this time of year, the narrator says, people begin to feel the desire to go on a pilgrimage.
Many devout English pilgrims set off to visit shrines in distant holy lands, but even more
choose to travel to Canterbury to visit the relics of Saint Thomas Becket in Canterbury
Cathedral, where they thank the martyr for having helped them when they were in need. The
narrator tells us that as he prepared to go on such a pilgrimage, staying at a tavern in
Southwark called the Tabard Inn, a great company of twenty-nine travelers entered. The
travelers were a diverse group who, like the narrator, were on their way to Canterbury. They
happily agreed to let him join them. That night, the group slept at the Tabard, and woke up
early the next morning to set off on their journey. Before continuing the tale, the narrator
declares his intent to list and describe each of the members of the group.
Analysis
The invocation of spring with which the General Prologue begins is lengthy and formal
compared to the language of the rest of the Prologue. The first lines situate the story in a
particular time and place, but the speaker does this in cosmic and cyclical terms, celebrating
the vitality and richness of spring. This approach gives the opening lines a dreamy, timeless,
unfocused quality, and it is therefore surprising when the narrator reveals that hes going to
describe a pilgrimage that he himself took rather than telling a love story. A pilgrimage is a
religious journey undertaken for penance and grace. As pilgrimages went, Canterbury was
not a very difficult destination for an English person to reach. It was, therefore, very popular
in fourteenth-century England, as the narrator mentions. Pilgrims traveled to visit the remains
of Saint Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, who was murdered in 1170 by knights of
King Henry II. Soon after his death, he became the most popular saint in England. The
pilgrimage in The Canterbury Tales should not be thought of as an entirely solemn occasion,
because it also offered the pilgrims an opportunity to abandon work and take a vacation.
In line 20, the narrator abandons his unfocused, all-knowing point of view, identifying
himself as an actual person for the first time by inserting the first personIas he relates
how he met the group of pilgrims while staying at the Tabard Inn. He emphasizes that this
group, which he encountered by accident, was itself formed quite by chance (2526). He then
shifts into the first-person plural, referring to the pilgrims as we beginning in line 29,
asserting his status as a member of the group.
The narrator ends the introductory portion of his prologue by noting that he has tyme and
space to tell his narrative. His comments underscore the fact that he is writing some time
after the events of his story, and that he is describing the characters from memory. He has
spoken and met with these people, but he has waited a certain length of time before sitting
down and describing them. His intention to describe each pilgrim as he or she seemed to him
is also important, for it emphasizes that his descriptions are not only subject to his memory
but are also shaped by his individual perceptions and opinions regarding each of the
characters. He positions himself as a mediator between two groups: the group of pilgrims, of
which he was a member, and us, the audience, whom the narrator explicitly addresses as
you in lines 34 and 38.
On the other hand, the narrators declaration that he will tell us about the condicioun,
degree, and array (dress) of each of the pilgrims suggests that his portraits will be based
on objective facts as well as his own opinions. He spends considerable time characterizing
the group members according to their social positions. The pilgrims represent a diverse cross
section of fourteenth-century English society. Medieval social theory divided society into
three broad classes, called estates: the military, the clergy, and the laity. (The nobility, not
represented in the General Prologue, traditionally derives its title and privileges from military
duties and service, so it is considered part of the military estate.) In the portraits that we will
see in the rest of the General Prologue, the Knight and Squire represent the military estate.
The clergy is represented by the Prioress (and her nun and three priests), the Monk, the Friar,
and the Parson. The other characters, from the wealthy Franklin to the poor Plowman, are the
members of the laity. These lay characters can be further subdivided into landowners (the
Franklin), professionals (the Clerk, the Man of Law, the Guildsmen, the Physician, and the
Shipman), laborers (the Cook and the Plowman), stewards (the Miller, the Manciple, and the
Reeve), and church officers (the Summoner and the Pardoner). As we will see, Chaucers
descriptions of the various characters and their social roles reveal the influence of the
medieval genre of estates satire.
General Prologue
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The first lines from the General Prologue at the opening folio of the Hengwrt manuscript.


Illustration of the knight from the General Prologue. Three lines of text are also shown.
The General Prologueis the first part of Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales.
Contents
1 Synopsis
2 Structure
3 References
4 External links
Synopsis
The frame story of the poem, as set out in the 858 lines of Middle English which make up the
general prologue, is of a religious pilgrimage. The narrator, "Geoffrey Chaucer", is in The
Tabard in Southwark, where he meets a group of "sundry folk" who are all on the way to
Canterbury, the site of the shrine of Saint Thomas Beckett.
The setting is April, and the prologue starts by singing the praises of that month whose rains
and warm western wind restore life and fertility to the earth and its inhabitants. This
abundance of life, the narrator says, prompts people to go on pilgrimages; in England, the
goal of such pilgrimages is the shrine of Thomas Beckett. The narrator falls in with a group
of pilgrims, and the largest part of the prologue is taken up by a description of them; Chaucer
seeks to describe their 'condition', their 'array', and their social 'degree':
To telle yow al the condicioun,
Of ech of hem, so as it semed me,
And whiche they weren, and of what degree,
And eek in what array that they were inne,
And at a knyght than wol I first bigynne.
The pilgrims include a knight, his son a squire, the knight's yeoman, a prioress accompanied
by a second nun and the nun's priest, a monk, a friar, a merchant, a clerk, a sergeant of law, a
franklin, a haberdasher, a carpenter, a weaver, a dyer, a tapestry weaver, a cook, a shipman, a
doctor of physic, a wife of Bath, a parson, his brother a plowman, a miller, a manciple, a
reeve, a summoner, a pardoner, the host (a man called Harry Bailly), and a portrait of
Chaucer himself. At the end of the section, the Host proposes the story-telling contest: each
pilgrim will tell two stories on the way to Canterbury and two on the way back. Whoever tells
the best story, with "the best sentence and moost solaas" (line 798) is to be given a free
meal.
[1]

Structure
The General Prologue establishes the frame for the Tales as a whole (or of the intended
whole) and introduces the characters/story tellers. These are introduced in the order of their
rank in accordance with the three medieval social estates (nobility, clergy, and commoners
and peasantry). These characters, while seemingly realistically described, are also
representative of their estates and models with which the others in the same estate can be
compared and contrasted.
The structure of the General Prologue is also intimately linked with the narrative style of the
tales. As the narrative voice has been under critical scrutiny for some time, so too has the
identity of the narrator himself. Though fierce debate has taken place on both sides, (mostly
contesting that the narrator either is, or is not, Geoffrey Chaucer) it should be noted that most
contemporary scholars believe that the narrator is meant to be some degree of Chaucer
himself. Some scholars, like William W. Lawrence, claim that the narrator is Geoffrey
Chaucer in person. While others, like Marchette Chute for instance, contest that the narrator
is instead a literary creation like the other pilgrims in the tales.
[2]

References
The Canterbury Tales
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For other uses, see The Canterbury Tales (disambiguation).


A woodcut from William Caxton's second edition of The Canterbury Tales printed in 1483
The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories written in Middle English by Geoffrey
Chaucer at the end of the 14th century. The tales (mostly written in verse, although some are
in prose) are presented as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel
together on a journey from Southwark to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury
Cathedral. The prize for this contest is a free meal at the Tabard Inn at Southwark on their
return.
After a long list of works written earlier in his career, including Troilus and Criseyde, House
of Fame, and "Parliament of Fowls", The Canterbury Tales was Chaucer's magnum opus. He
uses the tales and the descriptions of its characters to paint an ironic and critical portrait of
English society at the time, and particularly of the Church. Structurally, the collection
resembles The Decameron, which Chaucer may have read during his first diplomatic mission
to Italy in 1372.
It is sometimes argued that the greatest contribution that this work made to English literature
was in popularising the literary use of the vernacular, English, rather than French or Latin.
English had, however, been used as a literary language for centuries before Chaucer's life,
and several of Chaucer's contemporariesJohn Gower, William Langland, and the Pearl
Poetalso wrote major literary works in English. It is unclear to what extent Chaucer was
responsible for starting a trend rather than simply being part of it.
While Chaucer clearly states the addressees of many of his poems, the intended audience of
The Canterbury Tales is more difficult to determine. Chaucer was a courtier, leading some to
believe that he was mainly a court poet who wrote exclusively for nobility.
Contents
1 Text
o 1.1 Order
2 Language
3 Sources
4 Genre and structure
5 Style
6 Historical context and themes
o 6.1 Religion
o 6.2 Social class and convention
o 6.3 Relativism versus realism
7 Influence on literature
8 Reception
o 8.1 15th century
9 Literary additions and supplements
10 Literary adaptations
11 Adaptations and homages
12 Notes
13 References
14 Further reading
15 External links
Text
The question of whether The Canterbury Tales is finished has not yet been answered. There
are 83 known manuscripts of the work from the late medieval and early Renaissance period,
more than any other vernacular literary text with the exception of The Prick of Conscience.
This is taken as evidence of the tales' popularity during the century after Chaucer's death.
[1]

Fifty-five of these manuscripts are thought to have been complete at one time, while 28 are so
fragmentary that it is difficult to ascertain whether they were copied individually or as part of
a set.
[2]
The Tales vary in both minor and major ways from manuscript to manuscript; many
of the minor variations are due to copyists' errors, while others suggest that Chaucer added to
and revised his work as it was being copied and (possibly) distributed.
Even the earliest surviving manuscripts are not Chaucer's originals, the oldest being MS
Peniarth 392 D (called "Hengwrt"), compiled by a scribe shortly after Chaucer's death. The
most beautiful of the manuscripts of the tales is the Ellesmere Manuscript, and many editors
have followed the order of the Ellesmere over the centuries, even down to the present
day.
[3][4]
The first version of The Canterbury Tales to be published in print was William
Caxton's 1478 edition. Since this print edition was created from a now-lost manuscript, it is
counted as among the 83 manuscripts.
[1]

Order
Main article: Order of The Canterbury Tales
No authorial, arguably complete version of the Tales exists and no consensus has been
reached regarding the order in which Chaucer intended the stories to be placed.
[5][6]

Textual and manuscript clues have been adduced to support the two most popular modern
methods of ordering the tales. Some scholarly editions divide the Tales into ten "Fragments".
The tales that comprise a Fragment are closely related and contain internal indications of their
order of presentation, usually with one character speaking to and then stepping aside for
another character. However, between Fragments, the connection is less obvious.
Consequently, there are several possible orders; the one most frequently seen in modern
editions follows the numbering of the Fragments (ultimately based on the Ellesmere order).
[5]

Victorians frequently used the nine "Groups", which was the order used by Walter William
Skeat whose edition Chaucer: Complete Works was used by Oxford University Press for
most of the twentieth century, but this order is now seldom followed.
[5]

Fragment Group Tales
Fragment I A
General Prologue,
Knight, Miller, Reeve,
Cook
Fragment II B
1
Man of Law
Fragment
III
D
Wife of Bath, Friar,
Summoner
Fragment
IV
E Clerk, Merchant
Fragment V F Squire, Franklin
Fragment
VI
C Physician, Pardoner
Fragment
VII
B
2

Shipman, Prioress, Sir
Thopas, Melibee, Monk,
Nun's Priest
Fragment
VIII
G
Second Nun, Canon's
Yeoman
Fragment
IX
H Manciple
Fragment X I Parson
An alternative ordering (seen in an early manuscript containing the Canterbury Tales, the
early-fifteenth century Harley MS. 7334) places Fragment VIII before VI. Fragments I and II
almost always follow each other, as do VI and VII, IX and X in the oldest manuscripts.
Fragments IV and V, by contrast are located in varying locations from manuscript to
manuscript.
Language
Although no manuscript exists in Chaucer's own hand, two were copied around the time of
his death by Adam Pinkhurst, a scribe with whom he seems to have worked closely before,
giving a high degree of confidence that Chaucer himself wrote the Tales.
[7]
Chaucer's
generation of English-speakers was among the last to pronounce e at the end of words (so for
Chaucer the word "care" was pronounced [kar], not /kr/ as in modern English). This
meant that later copyists tended to be inconsistent in their copying of final -e and this for
many years gave scholars the impression that Chaucer himself was inconsistent in using it.
[8]

It has now been established, however, that -e was an important part of Chaucer's morphology
(having a role in distinguishing, for example, singular adjectives from plural and subjunctive
verbs from indicative).
[9]
The pronunciation of Chaucer's writing otherwise differs most
prominently from Modern English in that his language had not undergone the Great Vowel
Shift: pronouncing Chaucer's vowels as they would be pronounced today in European
languages like Italian, Spanish or German generally produces pronunciations more like
Chaucer's own than Modern English pronunciation would. In addition, sounds now written in
English but not pronounced were still pronounced by Chaucer: the word <knight> for
Chaucer was [knit], not [nat]. The pronunciation of Chaucer's poetry can now be
reconstructed fairly confidently through detailed philological research; the following gives an
IPA reconstruction of the opening lines of The Merchant's Prologue; it is likely, moreover,
that when a word ending in a vowel was followed by a word beginning in a vowel, the two
vowels were elided into one syllable, as seen here (with care and...):
'Wepyng and waylyng,
care and oother sorwe
I knowe ynogh, on
even and a-morwe,'
Quod the Marchant,
'and so doon oother mo
That wedded been.'
[10]

wep and wail
karand or srw

i knu nox n
vn and amrw
kwd martant
and s don or
m
at wddd ben
[11]

'Weeping and wailing,
care and other sorrow
I know enough, in the
evening and in the
morning,'
said the Merchant, 'and
so does many another
who has been married.'
Sources


A Tale from the Decameron by John William Waterhouse.
No other work prior to Chaucer's is known to have set a collection of tales within the
framework of pilgrims on a pilgrimage. It is obvious, however, that Chaucer borrowed
portions, sometimes very large portions, of his stories from earlier stories, and that his work
was influenced by the general state of the literary world in which he lived. Storytelling was
the main entertainment in England at the time, and storytelling contests had been around for
hundreds of years. In 14th-century England the English Pui was a group with an appointed
leader who would judge the songs of the group. The winner received a crown and, as with the
winner of the Canterbury Tales, a free dinner. It was common for pilgrims on a pilgrimage to
have a chosen "master of ceremonies" to guide them and organise the journey.
[12]
Harold
Bloom suggests that the structure is mostly original, but inspired by the "pilgrim" figures of
Dante and Virgil in The Divine Comedy.
[13]

The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio contains more parallels to the Canterbury Tales than
any other work. Like the Tales, it features a number of narrators who tell stories along a
journey they have undertaken (to flee from the Black Plague). It ends with an apology by
Boccaccio, much like Chaucer's Retraction to the Tales. A quarter of the tales in Canterbury
Tales parallel a tale in the Decameron, although most of them have closer parallels in other
stories. Some scholars thus find it unlikely that Chaucer had a copy of the work on hand,
surmising instead that he must have merely read the Decameron at some point.
[14]
Each of the
tales has its own set of sources which have been suggested by scholars, but a few sources are
used frequently over several tales. These include poetry by Ovid, the Bible in one of the
many vulgate versions it was available in at the time (the exact one is difficult to determine),
and the works of Petrarch and Dante. Chaucer was the first author to utilise the work of these
last two, both Italians. Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy appears in several tales, as do the
works of John Gower, a known friend to Chaucer. A full list is impossible to outline in little
space, but Chaucer also, lastly, seems to have borrowed from numerous religious
encyclopaedias and liturgical writings, such as John Bromyard's Summa praedicantium, a
preacher's handbook, and Jerome's Adversus Jovinianum.
[15]
Many scholars say there is a
good possibility Chaucer met Petrarch or Boccaccio.
[16][17][18][19][20]

Genre and structure


Canterbury Cathedral from the north west circa 18901900 (retouched from a black & white
photograph)
Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories built around a frame narrative or frame tale, a
common and already long established genre of its period. Chaucer's Tales differs from most
other story "collections" in this genre chiefly in its intense variation. Most story collections
focused on a theme, usually a religious one. Even in the Decameron, storytellers are
encouraged to stick to the theme decided on for the day. The idea of a pilgrimage to get such
a diverse collection of people together for literary purposes was also unprecedented, though
"the association of pilgrims and storytelling was a familiar one".
[21]
Introducing a competition
among the tales encourages the reader to compare the tales in all their variety, and allows
Chaucer to showcase the breadth of his skill in different genres and literary forms.
[22]

While the structure of the Tales is largely linear, with one story following another, it is also
much more than that. In the General Prologue, Chaucer describes, not the tales to be told, but
the people who will tell them, making it clear that structure will depend on the characters
rather than a general theme or moral. This idea is reinforced when the Miller interrupts to tell
his tale after the Knight has finished his. Having the Knight go first, gives one the idea that
all will tell their stories by class, with the Knight going first, followed by the Monk, but the
Miller's interruption makes it clear that this structure will be abandoned in favour of a free
and open exchange of stories among all classes present. General themes and points of view
arise as tales are told which are responded to by other characters in their own tales,
sometimes after a long lapse in which the theme has not been addressed.
[23]

Lastly, Chaucer does not pay much attention to the progress of the trip, to the time passing as
the pilgrims travel, or specific locations along the way to Canterbury. His writing of the story
seems focused primarily on the stories being told, and not on the pilgrimage itself.
[24]

Style
The variety of Chaucer's tales shows the breadth of his skill and his familiarity with countless
rhetorical forms and linguistic styles. Medieval schools of rhetoric at the time encouraged
such diversity, dividing literature (as Virgil suggests) into high, middle, and low styles as
measured by the density of rhetorical forms and vocabulary. Another popular method of
division came from St. Augustine, who focused more on audience response and less on
subject matter (a Virgilian concern). Augustine divided literature into "majestic persuades",
"temperate pleases", and "subdued teaches". Writers were encouraged to write in a way that
kept in mind the speaker, subject, audience, purpose, manner, and occasion. Chaucer moves
freely between all of these styles, showing favouritism to none. He not only considers the
readers of his work as an audience, but the other pilgrims within the story as well, creating a
multi-layered rhetorical puzzle of ambiguities. Chaucer's work thus far surpasses the ability
of any single medieval theory to uncover.
[25]

With this Chaucer avoids targeting any specific audience or social class of readers, focusing
instead on the characters of the story and writing their tales with a skill proportional to their
social status and learning. However, even the lowest characters, such as the Miller, show
surprising rhetorical ability, although their subject matter is more lowbrow. Vocabulary also
plays an important part, as those of the higher classes refer to a woman as a "lady", while the
lower classes use the word "wenche", with no exceptions. At times the same word will mean
entirely different things between classes. The word "pitee", for example, is a noble concept to
the upper classes, while in the Merchant's Tale it refers to sexual intercourse. Again,
however, tales such as the Nun's Priest's Tale show surprising skill with words among the
lower classes of the group, while the Knight's Tale is at times extremely simple.
[26]

Chaucer uses the same meter throughout almost all of his tales, with the exception of Sir
Thopas and his prose tales. It is a decasyllable line, probably borrowed from French and
Italian forms, with riding rhyme and, occasionally, a caesura in the middle of a line. His
meter would later develop into the heroic meter of the 15th and 16th centuries and is an
ancestor of iambic pentameter. He avoids allowing couplets to become too prominent in the
poem, and four of the tales (the Man of Law's, Clerk's, Prioress', and Second Nun's) use
rhyme royal.
[27]

Historical context and themes


The Peasants' Revolt of 1381 is mentioned in the Tales.
The Canterbury Tales was written during a turbulent time in English history. The Catholic
Church was in the midst of the Western Schism and, though it was still the only Christian
authority in Europe, was the subject of heavy controversy. Lollardy, an early English
religious movement led by John Wycliffe, is mentioned in the Tales, as is a specific incident
involving pardoners (who gathered money in exchange for absolution from sin) who
nefariously claimed to be collecting for St. Mary Rouncesval hospital in England. The
Canterbury Tales is among the first English literary works to mention paper, a relatively new
invention which allowed dissemination of the written word never before seen in England.
Political clashes, such as the 1381 Peasants' Revolt and clashes ending in the deposing of
King Richard II, further reveal the complex turmoil surrounding Chaucer in the time of the
Tales' writing. Many of his close friends were executed and he himself was forced to move to
Kent to get away from events in London.
[28]

In 2004, Professor Linne Mooney was able to identify the scrivener who worked for Chaucer
as an Adam Pinkhurst. Mooney, then a professor at the University of Maine and a visiting
fellow at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, was able to match Pinkhurst's signature, on an
oath he signed, to his lettering on a copy of The Canterbury Tales that was transcribed from
Chaucer's working copy.
[29]
While some readers look to interpret the characters of "The
Canterbury Tales" as historical figures, other readers choose to interpret its significance in
less literal terms. After analysis of his diction and historical context, his work appears to
develop a critique against society during his lifetime. Within a number of his descriptions, his
comments can appear complimentary in nature, but through clever language, the statements
are ultimately critical of the pilgrim's actions. It is unclear whether Chaucer would intend for
the reader to link his characters with actual persons. Instead, it appears that Chaucer creates
fictional characters to be general representations of people in such fields of work. With an
understanding of medieval society, one can detect subtle satire at work.
[citation needed]

Religion
The Tales reflect diverse views of the Church in Chaucer's England. After the Black Death,
many Europeans began to question the authority of the established Church. Some turned to
lollardy, while others chose less extreme paths, starting new monastic orders or smaller
movements exposing church corruption in the behaviour of the clergy, false church relics or
abuse of indulgences.
[30]
Several characters in the Tales are religious figures, and the very
setting of the pilgrimage to Canterbury is religious (although the prologue comments
ironically on its merely seasonal attractions), making religion a significant theme of the
work.
[31]

Two characters, the Pardoner and the Summoner, whose roles apply the church's secular
power, are both portrayed as deeply corrupt, greedy, and abusive. A pardoner in Chaucer's
day was a person from whom one bought Church "indulgences" for forgiveness of sins, but
pardoners were often thought guilty of abusing their office for their own gain. Chaucer's
Pardoner openly admits the corruption of his practice while hawking his wares.
[32]
The
Summoner is a Church officer who brought sinners to the church court for possible
excommunication and other penalties. Corrupt summoners would write false citations and
frighten people into bribing them to protect their interests. Chaucer's Summoner is portrayed
as guilty of the very kinds of sins he is threatening to bring others to court for, and is hinted
as having a corrupt relationship with the Pardoner.
[33]
In The Friar's Tale, one of the
characters is a summoner who is shown to be working on the side of the devil, not God.
[34]



The murder of Thomas Becket
Churchmen of various kinds are represented by the Monk, the Prioress, the Nun's Priest, and
the Second Nun. Monastic orders, which originated from a desire to follow an ascetic
lifestyle separated from the world, had by Chaucer's time become increasingly entangled in
worldly matters. Monasteries frequently controlled huge tracts of land on which they made
significant sums of money, while peasants worked in their employ.
[35]
The Second Nun is an
example of what a Nun was expected to be: her tale is about a woman whose chaste example
brings people into the church. The Monk and the Prioress, on the other hand, while not as
corrupt as the Summoner or Pardoner, fall far short of the ideal for their orders. Both are
expensively dressed, show signs of lives of luxury and flirtatiousness and show a lack of
spiritual depth.
[36]
The Prioress's Tale is an account of Jews murdering a deeply pious and
innocent Christian boy, a blood libel against Jews which became a part of English literary
tradition.
[37]
The story did not originate in the works of Chaucer and was well known in the
14th century.
[38]

Pilgrimage was a very prominent feature of medieval society. The ultimate pilgrimage
destination was Jerusalem,
[39]
but within England Canterbury was a popular destination.
Pilgrims would journey to cathedrals that preserved relics of saints, believing that such relics
held miraculous powers. Saint Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, had been
murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by knights of Henry II during a disagreement between
Church and Crown. Miracle stories connected to his remains sprang up soon after his death,
and the cathedral became a popular pilgrimage destination.
[40]
The pilgrimage in the work ties
all of the stories together, and may be considered a representation of Christians' striving for
heaven, despite weaknesses, disagreement, and diversity of opinion.
[41]

Social class and convention


Bors' Dilemma he chooses to save a maiden rather than his brother Lionel
The upper class or nobility, represented chiefly by the Knight and his Squire, was in
Chaucer's time steeped in a culture of chivalry and courtliness. Nobles were expected to be
powerful warriors who could be ruthless on the battlefield, yet mannerly in the King's Court
and Christian in their actions.
[42]
Knights were expected to form a strong social bond with the
men who fought alongside them, but an even stronger bond with a woman whom they
idealised to strengthen their fighting ability.
[43]
Though the aim of chivalry was to noble
action, often its conflicting values degenerated into violence. Church leaders often tried to
place restrictions on jousts and tournaments, which at times ended in the death of the loser.
The Knight's Tale shows how the brotherly love of two fellow knights turns into a deadly
feud at the sight of a woman whom both idealise, with both knights willing to fight the other
to the death to win her. Chivalry was in Chaucer's day on the decline, and it is possible that
The Knight's Tale was intended to show its flaws, although this is disputed.
[44]
Chaucer
himself had fought in the Hundred Years' War under Edward III, who heavily emphasised
chivalry during his reign.
[45]
Two tales, Sir Topas and The Tale of Melibee are told by
Chaucer himself, who is travelling with the pilgrims in his own story. Both tales seem to
focus on the ill-effects of chivalrythe first making fun of chivalric rules and the second
warning against violence.
[46]

The Tales constantly reflect the conflict between classes. For example, the division of the
three estates; the characters are all divided into three distinct classes, the classes being "those
who pray" (the clergy), "those who fight" (the nobility), and "those who work" (the
commoners and peasantry).
[47]
Most of the tales are interlinked by common themes, and some
"quit" (reply to or retaliate against) other tales. Convention is followed when the Knight
begins the game with a tale, as he represents the highest social class in the group. But when
he is followed by the Miller, who represents a lower class, it sets the stage for the Tales to
reflect both a respect for and a disregard for upper class rules. Helen Cooper, as well as
Mikhail Bakhtin and Derek Brewer, call this opposition "the ordered and the grotesque, Lent
and Carnival, officially approved culture and its riotous, and high-spirited underside."
[48]

Several works of the time contained the same opposition.
[48]

Relativism versus realism
Chaucer's characters each express differentsometimes vastly differentviews of reality,
creating an atmosphere of relativism. As Helen Cooper says, "Different genres give different
readings of the world: the fabliau scarcely notices the operations of God, the saint's life
focuses on those at the expense of physical reality, tracts and sermons insist on prudential or
orthodox morality, romances privilege human emotion." The sheer number of varying
persons and stories renders the Tales as a set unable to arrive at any definite truth or
reality.
[49]

Influence on literature
It is sometimes argued that the greatest contribution that this work made to English literature
was in popularising the literary use of the vernacular, English, rather than French or Latin.
English had, however, been used as a literary language for centuries before Chaucer's life,
and several of Chaucer's contemporariesJohn Gower, William Langland, and the Pearl
Poetalso wrote major literary works in English. It is unclear to what extent Chaucer was
responsible for starting a trend rather than simply being part of it.
[citation needed]
It is interesting
to note that, although Chaucer had a powerful influence in poetic and artistic terms, which
can be seen in the great number of forgeries and mistaken attributions (such as The Flower
and the Leaf which was translated by John Dryden), modern English spelling and
orthography owes much more to the innovations made by the Court of Chancery in the
decades during and after his lifetime.
[citation needed]

Reception


Chaucer as a Pilgrim from the Ellesmere manuscript.


Opening prologue of The Wife of Bath's Tale from the Ellesmere Manuscript.
While Chaucer clearly states the addressees of many of his poems (the Book of the Duchess
is believed to have been written for John of Gaunt on the occasion of his wife's death in
1368), the intended audience of The Canterbury Tales is more difficult to determine. Chaucer
was a courtier, leading some to believe that he was mainly a court poet who wrote
exclusively for the nobility. He is referred to as a noble translator and poet by Eustache
Deschamps and by his contemporary John Gower. It has been suggested that the poem was
intended to be read aloud, which is probable as this was a common activity at the time.
However, it also seems to have been intended for private reading as well, since Chaucer
frequently refers to himself as the writer, rather than the speaker, of the work. Determining
the intended audience directly from the text is even more difficult, since the audience is part
of the story. This makes it difficult to tell when Chaucer is writing to the fictional pilgrim
audience or the actual reader.
[50]

Chaucer's works may have been distributed in some form during his lifetime in part or in
whole. Scholars speculate that manuscripts were circulated among his friends, but likely
remained unknown to most people until after his death. However, the speed with which
copyists strove to write complete versions of his tale in manuscript form shows that Chaucer
was a famous and respected poet in his own day. The Hengwrt and Ellesmere manuscripts are
examples of the care taken to distribute the work. More manuscript copies of the poem exist
than for any other poem of its day except The Prick of Conscience, causing some scholars to
give it the medieval equivalent of "best-seller" status. Even the most elegant of the illustrated
manuscripts, however, is not nearly as decorated and fancified as the work of authors of more
respectable works such as John Lydgate's religious and historical literature.
[51]

15th century
John Lydgate and Thomas Occleve were among the first critics of Chaucer's Tales, praising
the poet as the greatest English poet of all time and the first to show what the language was
truly capable of poetically. This sentiment was universally agreed upon by later critics into
the mid-15th century. Glosses included in Canterbury Tales manuscripts of the time praised
him highly for his skill with "sentence" and rhetoric, the two pillars by which medieval critics
judged poetry. The most respected of the tales was at this time the Knight's, as it was full of
both.
[52]

Literary additions and supplements
The incompleteness of the Tales led several medieval authors to write additions and
supplements to the tales to make them more complete. Some of the oldest existing
manuscripts of the tales include new or modified tales, showing that even early on, such
additions were being created. These emendations included various expansions of the Cook's
Tale, which Chaucer never finished, The Plowman's Tale, The Tale of Gamelyn, the Siege of
Thebes, and the Tale of Beryn.
[53]

The Tale of Beryn, written by an anonymous author in the 15th century, is preceded by a
lengthy prologue in which the pilgrims arrive at Canterbury and their activities there are
described. While the rest of the pilgrims disperse throughout the town, the Pardoner seeks the
affections of Kate the barmaid, but faces problems dealing with the man in her life and the
innkeeper Harry Bailey. As the pilgrims turn back home, the Merchant restarts the
storytelling with Tale of Beryn. In this tale, a young man named Beryn travels from Rome to
Egypt to seek his fortune only to be cheated by other businessmen there. He is then aided by
a local man in getting his revenge. The tale comes from the French tale Brinus and exists in
a single early manuscript of the tales, although it was printed along with the tales in a 1721
edition by John Urry.
[54]

John Lydgate wrote The Siege of Thebes in about 1420. Like the Tale of Beryn, it is preceded
by a prologue in which the pilgrims arrive in Canterbury. Lydgate places himself among the
pilgrims as one of them and describes how he was a part of Chaucer's trip and heard the
stories. He characterises himself as a monk and tells a long story about the history of Thebes
before the events of the Knight's Tale. John Lydgate's tale was popular early on and exists in
old manuscripts both on its own and as part of the tales. It was first printed as early as 1561
by John Stow and several editions for centuries after followed suit.
[55]

There are actually two versions of The Plowman's Tale, both of which are influenced by the
story Piers Plowman, a work written during Chaucer's lifetime. Chaucer describes a
Plowman in the General Prologue of his tales, but never gives him his own tale. One tale,
written by Thomas Occleve, describes the miracle of the Virgin and the Sleeveless Garment.
Another tale features a pelican and a griffin debating church corruption, with the pelican
taking a position of protest akin to John Wycliffe's ideas.
[56]

The Tale of Gamelyn was included in an early manuscript version of the tales, Harley 7334,
which is notorious for being one of the lower-quality early manuscripts in terms of editor
error and alteration. It is now widely rejected by scholars as an authentic Chaucerian tale,
although some scholars think he may have intended to rewrite the story as a tale for the
Yeoman. Dates for its authorship vary from 13401370.
[57]

Literary adaptations

This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this
section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be
challenged and removed. (November 2009)
Many literary works (both fiction and non-fiction alike) have used a similar frame narrative
to The Canterbury Tales as an homage. Science fiction writer Dan Simmons wrote his Hugo
Award winning novel Hyperion based on an extra-planetary group of pilgrims. Evolutionary
biologist Richard Dawkins used The Canterbury Tales as a structure for his 2004 non-fiction
book about evolution titled The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution. His
animal pilgrims are on their way to find the common ancestor, each telling a tale about
evolution.
Henry Dudeney's book The Canterbury Puzzles contains a part reputedly lost from what
modern readers know as Chaucer's tales.
Historical mystery novelist P.C. Doherty wrote a series of novels based on The Canterbury
Tales, making use of the story frame and of Chaucer's characters.
Canadian author Angie Abdou translates The Canterbury Tales to a cross section of people,
all snow sports enthusiasts but from different social backgrounds, converging on a remote
backcountry ski cabin in British Columbia in the 2011 novel The Canterbury Trail.
Adaptations and homages
The Two Noble Kinsmen, by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher, a retelling of "The
Knight's Tale", was first performed in 1613 or 1614 and published in 1634. In 1961, Erik
Chisholm completed his opera, The Canterbury Tales. The opera is in three acts: The Wyf of
Baths Tale, The Pardoners Tale and The Nuns Priests Tale. Nevill Coghill's modern
English version formed the basis of a musical version first staged in 1964.
A Canterbury Tale, a 1944 film jointly written and directed by Michael Powell and Emeric
Pressburger, is loosely based on the narrative frame of Chaucer's tales. The movie opens with
a group of medieval pilgrims journeying through the Kentish countryside as a narrator speaks
the opening lines of the General Prologue. The scene then makes a now-famous transition to
the time of World War II. From that point on, the film follows a group of strangers, each with
his or her own story and in need of some kind of redemption, are making their way to
Canterbury together. The film's main story takes place in an imaginary town in Kent and ends
with the main characters arriving at Canterbury Cathedral, bells pealing and Chaucer's words
again resounding. A Canterbury Tale is recognised as one of the Powell-Pressburger team's
most poetic and artful films. It was produced as wartime propaganda, using Chaucer's poetry,
referring to the famous pilgrimage, and offering photography of Kent to remind the public of
what made Britain worth fighting for. In one scene a local historian lectures an audience of
British soldiers about the pilgrims of Chaucer's time and the vibrant history of England.
[58]

Pier Paolo Pasolini's 1972 film The Canterbury Tales features several of the tales, some of
which keep close to the original tale and some of which are embellished. The Cook's Tale, for
instance, which is incomplete in the original version, is expanded into a full story, and the
Friar's Tale extends the scene in which the Summoner is dragged down to hell. The film
includes these two tales as well as the Miller's Tale, the Summoner's Tale, the Wife of Bath's
Tale, and the Merchant's Tale.
[59]

English rock musician Sting paid tribute to Chaucer and the book with his 1993 concept
album Ten Summoner's Tales, which he described as ten songs (plus an epilogue number)
with no theme or subject tying them together. Sting's real name is Gordon Sumner, hence the
reference to the "Summoner" character in the record's title. In essence, the collection of songs
was composed as "a musical Canterbury Tales".
Several more recent films, while they are not based on the tales, do have references to them.
For example, in the 1995 film Se7en, the Parson's Tale is an important clue to the methods of
a serial killer who chooses his victims based on the seven deadly sins.
[60]
The 2001 film A
Knight's Tale took its name from "The Knight's Tale". Although it bears little resemblance to
the tale, it does feature what Martha Driver and Sid Ray call an "MTV-generation" Chaucer
who is a gambling addict with a way with words. Scattered references to the Tales include
Chaucer's declaration that he will use his verse to vilify a summoner and a pardoner who
have cheated him.
[61]

Television adaptations include Alan Plater's 1975 re-telling of the stories in a series of plays
for BBC2: Trinity Tales. In 2004, BBC again featured modern re-tellings of selected tales.
[62]