The Canterbury Tales

The Host—also known as Harry Bailey—is a large, garrulous man who likes a good joke. He’s the supposed originator of the very concept of the Tales, encouraging the pilgrims to compete for the prize of a dinner at his Southwark tavern, the Tabard. He provides saucy commentary (and, on occasion, pretty stern judgment) for just about every story. In some ways, he’s the character closest to Chaucer—an alter ego with a similarly mighty paunch, the guy who orchestrates the action.

Courtly, romantic, and sometimes a bit obtuse, the Knight is a picture of both the idealism and the folly of chivalry. His tale of Palamon, Arcite, and Emily is genuinely moving in its rich imagery, but also more than a little silly in its heroes’ bickering and melodrama. The Knight seems to view the world through an idealized lens, but he never loses his sense of humor about the nature of reality. In his tale, even the gods squabble like children. Perhaps he’s travelled too far and fought too long to fully inhabit the world of romance that so clearly attracts him.

The rough, rude Miller presents himself as a challenger to the Knight, and his story is a bawdy one of adultery, gullibility, and literal butt-kissing. This lewd yarn is the second of the pilgrimage, and it comes as a big surprise after the more elegant humor of the first; through the Miller, the reader learns they’re in with a world as coarse in its dealings as it is fine in its ideals. 

The elderly, spiteful Reeve paints a cynical picture not just of old age but of all society around him. As the Miller responds to the Knight, so the Reeve responds to the Miller, avenging himself for the story of a cuckolded old man with the story of a cuckolded miller. The Reeve’s narrow, dog-eat-dog perspective is the sourer side of the bawdy, physical world of many of the tales.

The Cook is a friendly, amusing man, if a bit of a drunkard. Chaucer spends rather less time with him than with some of the other storytellers, as his tale is unfinished—but his story of a cook’s rascally apprentice suggests that he, like his companions, has gotten up to some mischief in his day.

The Man of Law, who likes to present himself as a wise and learned man, tells a tale of loyal, chaste womanhood (having praised Chaucer for doing the same). A scrupulous fellow, he might not totally approve of all the scurrilous tales he’s been hearing. His story is familiar, drawing on traditional stories about long-suffering queens (and also nudges Chaucer’s friend and rival John Gower in the ribs by providing a competing version of one of his poems).

The worldly, well-traveled Shipman—contrasting the proper and moralistic Man of Law—takes a purely mercenary view of the world. In his story, everything is to do with exchange: Money and sex, often traded for each other, make the world go round. 

Though the Prologue presents the Prioress as a refined and softhearted lady, the martyrdom legend she tells is violent and aggressively antisemitic. Chaucer’s religious figures are often cheerful hypocrites, but the Prioress stands out as a person who may not be fully aware of the taste for the macabre and violent lurking beneath her gentle outward show. While her tale follows popular conventions of stories about the miracles of the Virgin Mary, it also takes a vivid interest in, for instance, exactly how deeply the martyred child’s throat was cut.

The lugubrious, well-fed Monk’s endless stories of fallen mighty ones suggest he’s impressively learned, but a bit of a bore; indeed, the Knight and Host interrupt him to suggest that he shake things up a it. He has one major point—those who rise must also fall, and often bloodily—and finds example for it throughout the Bible, classical mythology, and ancient and modern history. He’s hard to provoke (ignoring the Host’s digs at how well he seems to be eating, considering he lives in a monastery) but also rather sulky.

The Nun’s Priest is a good-natured, witty, and scholarly man (and also a poor one, riding a terrible horse). He responds to the Monk’s grim stories with a ridiculous tale of roosters and hens touching on real questions about predestination even as it comically compares barnyard catastrophes to the fall of Troy. In asking his listeners to sort the wheat of the tale’s moral from the chaff of its silliness, he draws on allegorical tradition, but also suggests that perhaps morals go down easier with a little sweetness.

The Physician is a well-educated man, drawing his tale of spotless virginity from the classics. But he, like the Prioress, seems to like his morality with a heaping side-dish of gore, choosing a story that ends in a virtuous maid’s beheading. The moral he attaches to his story—to give up sin before “your sins forsake you”—doesn’t make a tremendous amount of sense; perhaps he’s trying to justify his own prurience.

The Pardoner isn’t just a swindler, he’s a proud swindler, bragging of his dishonest trade in indulgences (blanket religious pardons signed by the Pope, which absolve you without confession) and dubious holy relics. He tells his tale as an example of how he shakes down his audiences—and then tries to shake down the people who’ve just listened to him describe his shakedowns.

The raucous, lusty Wife of Bath puts up with no male nonsense. Her prologue to her story is longer than her story itself, but both have the same moral: Everyone lives a happier life when husbands are ruled by their wives. In her long and busy life, the Wife of Bath has picked up some scholarship (perhaps from her well-educated fifth husband) as well as some experience; her story draws on Dante and a deep knowledge of the Bible. All in all, she’s a formidable woman. Her tale also demonstrates a bone-deep sense of virtue: She knows the nature of a person’s soul is much more important than their status.

The plump, jolly, suspiciously well-dressed Friar has a nasty side, and provides yet another example of religious hypocrisy. When he takes an instant dislike to the Summoner, it’s not just because the Summoner has a disreputable profession, but because the two are in competition for the money they can squeeze out of their neighbors. His tale, with its fair-minded and philosophical demon, falls somewhere between folklore and theology.

The Summoner is a startling fellow, hideously disfigured by warts and pimples. He also works an unpopular job—calling people to (often spurious) religious trials and skimming off their fines and fees. His feud with the Friar doesn’t reflect well on either of them, and his tale of a corrupt friar who has to figure out how to split a fart between 12 of his brothers, is a low-minded attack rather than an attempt at self-justification.

The quiet, scholarly, impoverished Clerk is a man ahead of his time. He tells the ancient tale of patient Griselda, taking inspiration from Petrarch—but he closes with a warning that this story of an absurdly forgiving wife shouldn’t be literally taken, but read as an allegory of humanity’s relationship with God. He adds that real-world wives have to be tough to put up with all the nastiness through which their husbands put them. His tale—and his interpretation of it—provides a counterpoint to the Man of Law’s preachiness about feminine virtue, and his outspoken sympathy with the Wife of Bath marks him as an empathetic and thoughtful person.

The Merchant, whose lavish clothing paints a false portrait of his prosperity, is a jaded and world-weary fellow. His story, a rebuttal to the Clerk’s, drips scorn and sarcasm: The truth of marriage, he says, is that it’s always the men who suffer. His tale uses a curious blend of romantic imagery (including a visit from some of the Roman gods in a lovely garden) and misogynistic cynicism. But his tale also shows a complex sense of humor, and even a little sympathy in its portrayal of an adulterous young woman married off to a randy old knight.

The dashing Squire seems to have learned chivalry at the knee of the Knight. He’s a young lover, absorbed by thoughts of his lady, and his story—a full-blown romance in the old sense, full of magical boons and talking falcons—reflects his idealism. He seems to be an embodiment of springy youthfulness, and the Franklin’s bustling interruption of his story hints at how brief the spring of life is and how abruptly it ends.

The good-hearted, white-bearded Franklin tells a tale unusual for its evenhandedness: It addresses the pilgrims’ ongoing and fraught debates about marriage by suggesting that neither husband nor wife should rule over the other but instead live in mutual desire to obey and love. His jolly approval of the young Squire (and his choice to tell a tale in which a noble, self-sacrificing squire plays a central role) is one of the rare instances in which a teller admiringly rather than vengefully responds to a previous tale.

Like the Prioress, the Second Nun tells the tale of a holy martyr. But where the Prioress’s story is folkloric and bloodthirsty, the Second Nun’s tale of St. Cecilia is lyrical and philosophical (and even poaches a Marian hymn from Dante—the paragon of medieval philosopher-poets). In her interest in multi-layered reading, the Second Nun provides a glimpse of the scholarly side of medieval Christianity.

The Canon’s Yeoman is wildly indignant at the falsehoods of his master, the canon: His desperation to discover the Philosopher’s Stone has driven them both into penury, and the Yeoman seems relieved to badmouth his master to the assembled pilgrims. His tale of cheating alchemists is both a tirade against greed and falsity as well as a humble plea for humans to leave well enough alone. Some things, the Yeoman concludes, aren’t for humans to know.

The thrifty Manciple tells a short tale with a simple moral: Don’t be the bearer of bad news, as only blame can come from doing so. This straightforward story suggests a straightforward character. As befits his profession—supplying food for a college—the Manciple is a shrewd pragmatist. While his story touches on the themes of infidelity that appear throughout the Tales, it’s notable for being less interested in the behavior of the central couple than in the role of the bystander.