The Catholic Church became the most powerful institution in medieval Europe after the fall of Rome. It amassed great wealth and influence through tithes from the people and being mostly tax exempt. Meanwhile, the Islamic world expanded under the rule of a single caliph. In the late 11th century, the Church began authorizing the Crusades to expel Muslims from the Holy Land. Between 1347-1350, the Black Death plague killed around 30% of Europe's population, devastating cities. Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales features stories told by a group of pilgrims as they travel to Canterbury Cathedral.

1. Medieval
Period

2. The Catholic Church in the Middle Ages
After the fall of Rome, no single state or
government united the people who lived on the
European continent. Instead, the Catholic Church
became the most powerful institution of the
medieval period. Kings, queens and other leaders
derived much of their power from their alliances
with and protection of the Church.

3. Ordinary people across Europe had to “tithe” 10
percent of their earnings each year to the Church;
at the same time, the Church was mostly exempt
from taxation. These policies helped it to amass a
great deal of money and power.

4. The Middle Ages: Rise of Islam
Meanwhile, the Islamic world was growing larger
and more powerful. After the prophet
Muhammad’s death in 632 CE, Muslim armies
conquered large parts of the Middle East, uniting
them under the rule of a single caliph. At its height,
the medieval Islamic world was more than three
times bigger than all of Christendom.

5. The Crusades
Toward the end of the 11th century, the Catholic
Church began to authorize military expeditions, or
Crusades, to expel Muslim “infidels” from the Holy
Land. Crusaders, who wore red crosses on their
coats to advertise their status,

6. The Middle Ages: Art & Agriculture
Another way to show devotion to the Church was
to build grand cathedrals and other ecclesiastical
structures such as monasteries. Cathedrals were
the largest buildings in medieval Europe, and they
could be found at the center of towns and cities
across the continent.

7. Between the 10th and 13th centuries, most
European cathedrals were built in the Romanesque
style. Romanesque cathedrals are solid and
substantial: They have rounded masonry arches
and barrel vaults supporting the roof, thick stone
walls and few windows.

8. (Examples of Romanesque architecture include the
Porto Cathedral in Portugal and the Speyer
Cathedral in present-day Germany.)

9. The Black Death
Between 1347 and 1350, a mysterious disease
known as the " Black Death " (the bubonic plague)
killed some 20 million people in Europe—30
percent of the continent’s population. It was
especially deadly in cities, where it was impossible
to prevent the transmission of the disease from one
person to another.

10. The plague started in Europe in
October 1347, when 12 ships from the
Black Sea docked at the Sicilian port of
Messina. Most sailors aboard the ships
were dead, and those who were alive
were covered in black boils that oozed
blood and pus. Symptoms of the Black
Death included fever, chills, vomiting,
diarrhea, terrible aches and pains –
and then death. Victims could go to
bed feeling healthy and be dead by
morning.

12. Medieval
Period Writers

13. Chretien de Troyes (l. c. 1130-c.1190 CE)
A poet of the court of Marie de
Champagne (l. 1145-1198 CE) is the
best known of the romantic poets
and certainly among the most
influential. Chretien's poems about
the damsel in distress and the brave
knight who must rescue her became
quite popular and contributed to the
development of the legend of King
Arthur and his Knights of the Round
Table, which would finally be fully
realized by Malory.

14. John Gower (born 1330—died 1408,
London)
Medieval English poet in the
tradition of courtly love and moral
allegory, whose reputation once
matched that of his contemporary
and friend Geoffrey Chaucer, and
who strongly influenced the writing
of other poets of his day. After the
16th century his popularity waned,
and interest in him did not revive
until the middle of the 20th century.

15. John Gower (born 1330—died 1408,
London)
Gower’s English poems include In
Praise of Peace, in which he pleads
urgently with the king to avoid the
horrors of war, but his greatest
English work is the Confessio
amantis, essentially a collection of
exemplary tales of love, whereby
Venus’ priest, Genius, instructs the
poet, Amans, in the art of both
courtly and Christian love.

16. John Gower (born 1330—died 1408,
London)
The stories are chiefly adapted from
classical and medieval sources and
are told with a tenderness and the
restrained narrative art that
constitute Gower’s main appeal
today.

17. The
Canterbury
Tale

18. Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer, (born c. 1342/43, London?,
England—died October 25, 1400, London), the
outstanding English poet before Shakespeare
and “the first finder of our language.” His The
Canterbury Tales ranks as one of the greatest
poetic works in English.

19. Geoffrey Chaucer
He also contributed importantly in the second
half of the 14th century to the management of
public affairs as courtier, diplomat, and civil
servant. In that career he was trusted and
aided by three successive kings—Edward III,
Richard II, and Henry IV. But it is his
avocation—the writing of poetry—for which he
is remembered.

20. Geoffrey Chaucer
Perhaps the chief characteristics of Chaucer’s works are their
variety in subject matter, genre, tone, and style and in the
complexities presented concerning the human pursuit of a
sensible existence. Yet his writings also consistently reflect an
all-pervasive humour combined with serious and tolerant
consideration of important philosophical questions.

21. Geoffrey Chaucer
From his writings Chaucer emerges as poet of love, both
earthly and divine, whose presentations range from lustful
cuckoldry to spiritual union with God. Thereby, they regularly
lead the reader to speculation about man’s relation both to his
fellows and to his Maker, while simultaneously providing
delightfully entertaining views of the frailties and follies, as
well as the nobility, of mankind.

22. — Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales
“No empty handed man can lure a
bird”

23. The framing device for the collection of stories
is a pilgrimage to the shrine of Thomas Becket
in Canterbury, Kent. The 30 pilgrims who
undertake the journey gather at the Tabard
Inn in Southwark, across the Thames from
London. They agree to engage in a storytelling
contest as they travel, and Harry Bailly, host of
the Tabard, serves as master of ceremonies for
the contest.
The Canterbury Tales

24. Most of the pilgrims are introduced by vivid
brief sketches in the “General Prologue.”
Interspersed between the 24 tales are short
dramatic scenes (called links) presenting lively
exchanges, usually involving the host and one
or more of the pilgrims. Chaucer did not
complete the full plan for his book: the return
journey from Canterbury is not included, and
some of the pilgrims do not tell stories.
The Canterbury Tales

25. The use of a pilgrimage as the framing device
enabled Chaucer to bring together people from
many walks of life: knight, prioress, monk;
merchant, man of law, franklin, scholarly
clerk; miller, reeve, pardoner; wife of Bath and
many others.
The Canterbury Tales

26. The multiplicity of social types, as well as the
device of the storytelling contest itself, allowed
presentation of a highly varied collection of
literary genres: religious legend, courtly
romance, racy fabliau, saint’s life, allegorical
tale, beast fable, medieval sermon, alchemical
account, and, at times, mixtures of these
genres.
The Canterbury Tales

27. The Knight’s Tale
One of the 24 stories in The Canterbury Tales by
Geoffrey Chaucer. This chivalric romance was
based on Giovanni Boccaccio’s Teseida, and
though it was not originally written as part of the
Canterbury collection, Chaucer adapted it to fit
the character of the Knight.

28. The Knight’s Tale
In the tale the cousins Palamon and Arcite both
fall in love with Emelye, sister of Hippolyta,
queen of the Amazons, who is married to their
captor Theseus. A tournament is held in which
the two rivals compete for Emelye’s hand.
Although Arcite wins, he is thrown from his horse
and dies. After a period of mourning, Palamon
and Emelye marry.

29. The Miller’s Tale
This bawdy story of lust and
revenge is told by a drunken,
churlish Miller. Alison, the
young wife of a carpenter,
takes their boarder Nicholas
as her lover. When Nicholas
convinces the carpenter that
Noah’s flood is about to
recur, the unwitting husband
suspends three tubs from the
rafters to serve as lifeboats
and uses one for his bed.

30. The Miller’s Tale
Alison and Nicholas steal off
to her bedroom only to be
interrupted the next morning
by her admirer Absolon, who
stands under the window and
begs her for a kiss. Alison
offers her backside. Enraged
upon discovering the
deception, Absolon returns
and pleads once more;

31. The Miller’s Tale
this time Nicholas assumes
the same pose and is
rewarded with a scorching
branding iron. His cries for
water awaken the carpenter,
who assumes that the flood is
near; he cuts the rope holding
his tub and comes crashing
through the attic.

32. The Reeve’s Tale
The tale is one of the first English
works to use dialect for comic effect.
In outline it is similar to one of the
stories in Giovanni Boccaccio’s
Decameron.

33. The Reeve’s Tale
The old Reeve (bailiff), a woodworker,
tells this bawdy tale in response to
“The Miller’s Tale” of a cuckolded
carpenter. The story tells how two
student clerks, speaking broad
Northern dialect, avenge themselves
on a dishonest miller.

34. The Cook’s Tale
An incomplete story in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey
Chaucer, published in 1387–1400. This 58-line fragment of a tale
of “harlotrie,” as the poet described it, tells of a womanizing,
gambling apprentice cook who is dismissed from his job. He
moves in with a fellow reveler and his wife, a shopkeeper by day
and prostitute by night. Scholars are uncertain how Chaucer
intended the story to end, and some manuscript versions of The
Canterbury Tales omit this fragment altogether.

35. The Man of Law’s Tale
The story describes the sufferings of
Constance, daughter of a Christian
emperor. When she marries a Syrian
sultan who has converted to
Christianity, his evil mother conspires
to kill all the Christians in the court,
including the sultan. Constance alone
survives and is cast adrift.

36. The Man of Law’s Tale
Landing in Northumberland, she
converts her host’s wife (then is falsely
accused of killing her convert), is saved
by divine intervention, marries the
king, is set adrift by yet another nasty
mother-in-law, and, after further
misfortunes, reaches Rome, where she
is reunited with her husband and her
father.

37. The Wife of Bath’s Tale
Before the Wife of Bath tells her tale, she
offers in a long prologue a condemnation of
celibacy and a lusty account of her five
marriages. It is for this prologue that her
tale is perhaps best known.

38. The Wife of Bath’s Tale
The tale concerns a knight accused of rape,
whose life shall be spared if in one year he
discovers what women most desire. He
eventually turns to an ugly old witch who
promises him the answer that will save his
life if he will do the first thing she asks of
him.

39. The Wife of Bath’s Tale
The answer—that it is “maistrie,” or
sovereignty over men, that women
desire—is accepted in court, and the witch
then demands that the knight marry her. In
bed she asks him if he would wish her ugly
yet faithful or beautiful and faithless. He
insists the choice must be hers. This
concession of her mastery restores her
youth and beauty, and they lived happily
ever after.

40. The Friar relates the comeuppance of a
corrupt summoner—an ecclesiastical court
officer—in a story based on a medieval
French fabliau. The summoner befriends a
bailiff, who is the devil in disguise, and the
two agree to share the proceeds of their
extortions.
The Friar’s Tale

41. In one of several humorous scenes, the
summoner hears a frustrated man mutter,
“The devil take all, cart, horse, and hay in
one!” and urges the devil to take up the
offer, but the devil declines, explaining to
his overeager friend that it was not meant
as a literal request.
The Friar’s Tale

42. When the summoner tries to extract a
bribe from a poor widow, and she too asks
for the devil to carry him away, the devil
asks her if she really means it. When she
agrees, he whisks the summoner off to hell.
The Friar’s Tale

43. Told in retaliation for the Friar’s unflattering portrait
of a summoner, this earthy tale describes a
hypocritical friar’s attempt to wheedle a gift from an
ailing benefactor. The angry man offers the friar a
gift on the condition that he divide it equally among
his fellows.
The Summoner’s Tale

44. The friar agrees and is instructed to reach under his
patron’s buttocks, whereupon he is rewarded with a
fart. The friar is aghast—and perplexed as to how
best to divide the gift among his 12 colleagues. A
squire wins a coat from him by suggesting that the
friars assemble around a wheel, with the benefactor
at the hub, so that all could share equally in the
flatulent offering.
The Summoner’s Tale

45. The Clerk’s Tale
A marquis marries beautiful low-born
Griselde (Griselda) after she agrees to obey
his every whim; he then subjects her to a
series of cruelties to test her love. He
abducts their children, telling Griselde they
must die. Years later, he asks her to leave,
and later calls her back to decorate his
chambers, supposedly for his new wife.

46. The Clerk’s Tale
Griselde amiably agrees, as she has patiently
endured all her previous indignities. At last
the marquis relents, proclaiming his love for
Griselde; instead of a new wife, the young
woman who arrives is Griselde’s grown
daughter, and both she and her brother are
restored to their mother as a reward for her
constancy.

47. The Merchant’s Tale
The story draws on a folktale of
familiar theme, that of an old man
whose young wife is unfaithful. Old
Januarie is deceived by his young wife,
May, and her lover, Damyan, after
Januarie suddenly goes blind. The
lovers sneak up to the branches of a
pear tree above Januarie’s head and
begin to make love.

48. The Merchant’s Tale
An enraged Pluto instantly restores the
old man’s sight, but Proserpina allows
May to outwit him by explaining that
she was fighting with Damyan in the
tree because she had been told that
doing so would cause Januarie’s sight
to be restored.

49. The Squire’s Tale
The Squire relates an incomplete tale of the
Tartar king Cambyuskan (Cambuscan), who
receives four magical gifts: a brass horse that can
fly anywhere safely but at astonishing speed, a
sword that can penetrate armour and heal
wounds, a mirror that tells of future dangers, and
a ring that enables its wearer to understand the
speech of birds and to know the medicinal
properties of every plant.

50. The Franklin’s Tale
The tale told by the Franklin
centres upon the narrative
motif of the “rash promise.”
While her husband,
Arveragus, is away, Dorigen
is assiduously courted by a
squire, Aurelius.

51. The Franklin’s Tale
She spurns him but promises
to return his love if he can
accomplish the task of
removing every rock from the
coast of Brittany so that her
husband may have a safe
return from sea.

52. The Franklin’s Tale
With a magician’s help,
Aurelius creates the illusion
that the rocks have
disappeared. Dorigen’s
husband insists that she
fulfill her promise. But
Aurelius, moved by her love
for her husband, releases her
from her obligation with a
noble farewell.

53. The Second Nun’s Tale
This religious tale exemplifies Chaucer’s
mercurial shifts in tone and poetic style.
Taken from the 13th-century compilation
of lives of the saints, the Legenda aurea
(Golden Legend) of Jacobus de Voragine,
“The Second Nun’s Tale” relates the story
of St. Cecilia, who on her wedding night
tells her husband, Valerian, that an angel
has instructed her to remain celibate.

54. The Second Nun’s Tale
Valerian converts to Christianity and has
a vision of the angel; awestruck, he
persuades his brother to convert. The
three perform miracles and convert
others until they are tried and executed
by Roman authorities.

55. The Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale
A humorous description of a roguish canon and alchemist, as told
by his assistant, the tale pokes fun at both alchemy and the
clergy. After describing failed alchemical processes in detail, the
canon’s yeoman tells his tale of a canon who swindled a priest by
selling him powders to transmute mercury into silver, then
escaped before his scheme was discovered.

56. The Physician’s Tale
The tale is a version of a story related
both by the Roman historian Livy and
in the 13th-century Roman de la Rose.
It concerns the lust of the evil judge
Appius for the beautiful, chaste
Virginia. Plotting a strategy by which he
can possess her, the judge instructs his
servant to swear in court that Virginia
is a slave whom her father abducted.

57. The Physician’s Tale
Her father, seeing through the plot, kills
her to save her honour and delivers her
head to Appius. Although Appius gives
an order for the father’s execution, the
townspeople rise against the judge and
throw him in prison, where he kills
himself.

58. The Pardoner’s Tale
The cynical Pardoner explains in a witty
prologue that he sells
indulgences—ecclesiastical pardons of
sins—and admits that he preaches against
avarice although he practices it himself. His
tale relates how three drunken revelers set
out to destroy Death after one of their
friends had died.

59. The Pardoner’s Tale
An old man tells them that Death can be
found under a particular oak tree in a grove,
but when they arrive at the tree, they
discover only a pile of gold florins. Two of
the men plot to kill the third so as to have
more of the treasure for themselves.

60. The Pardoner’s Tale
However, after they kill their friend, they
drink some wine that he had poisoned
earlier, and they too die. The Pardoner
concludes his tale by speaking in florid
rhetoric against the vices of gluttony,
gambling, and blasphemy—adding at the
end that he will be more than happy to
secure divine forgiveness for his listeners,
for a price.

61. The Shipman’s Tale
In the tale told by Chaucer’s Shipman, the
wife of a rich merchant convinces a young
monk that her husband refuses to pay for
her clothes and asks him to lend her 100
francs. Smitten, he agrees. The monk then
asks the husband to lend him 100 francs to
buy cattle, and the monk gives the sum to
the wife, who thanks him by taking him to
bed.

62. The Shipman’s Tale
When the merchant later returns from a
journey, the monk says that he has repaid
the debt by returning the money to the wife.
The wife admits that this is so but says that
she thought it was a gift and that she used it
to outfit herself as becomes the wife of a
successful merchant.

63. The Shipman’s Tale
She then offers to repay her husband with
her “jolly body.” Chaucer indulges in a
bawdy pun about repayment by “taille”
(meaning either tally or tail).

64. The tale is based on an anti-Semitic legend
of unknown origin that was popular among
medieval Christians. The Prioress describes
how a widow’s devout young son is
abducted by Jews, who are supposedly
prompted by Satan to murder the child to
stop him from singing the hymn “O Alma
redemptoris” to the Virgin Mary.
The Prioress’ Tale

65. One of the Jews slits the boy’s throat and
casts his body into an open sewer.
Miraculously, the boy is still able to sing
and does so until his mother and a group of
Christians find him. A provost condemns
the guilty Jews to be executed, and before
he dies the boy explains how the Virgin
enabled him to continue singing after his
throat was slit.
The Prioress’ Tale

66. Chaucer himself narrates this tale, a witty parody of
the worst poetic romances. In insipid language,
obvious rhyme, and plodding rhythm, the poet tells
of Sir Thopas’s search for the Elf Queen and of his
encounter with the giant Sir Olifaunt. Before Chaucer
can finish the story, however, the host of the Tabard
Inn interrupts, begging him to stop the wretched
doggerel.
The Tale of Sir Thopas

67. The Tale of Melibeus
Reproved by the host of the inn for his
tedious narrative of “The Tale of Sir
Thopas,” Chaucer in his own persona
offers this prose allegory, a close
translation of a French adaptation of a
13th-century Italian story.

68. The Tale of Melibeus
Long (over a thousand lines)
and—despite the host’s earlier
entreaties for something lively—dull, it
is essentially a moral debate between
Prudence and her husband Melibeus,
with occasional comments by his
friends, on the subject of vengeance.
Prudence urges her husband to forgive
the enemies who have assaulted and
wounded their daughter.

69. The Tale of Melibeus
Her advice is couched largely in
proverbs, and both sides quote
liberally from such various moral
authorities as the biblical figure Job,
St. Paul, St. Augustine, Ovid, Seneca,
and Cicero. Melibeus eventually agrees
to make peace with his enemies, but
only after he has rebuked them.

70. The Monk’s Tale
The brawny Monk relates a series of 17 tragedies
based on the fall from glory of various biblical,
classical, and contemporary figures, including
Lucifer and Adam; Nero and Julius Caesar;
Zenobia, a 3rd-century queen of Palmyra; and
several 14th-century kings. After 775 lines of
lugubrious recital, the Knight and the Host
interrupt, bored by the list of disasters.

71. The Nun’s Priest’s Tale
The protagonist of this
mock-heroic story is
Chanticleer, a rooster with
seven wives, foremost among
them the hen Pertelote.
Pertelote dismisses
Chanticleer’s dream of being
attacked and tells him to go
about his business.

72. The Nun’s Priest’s Tale
A fox soon approaches and
flatters him, recalling the
exquisite song of
Chanticleer’s father. The vain
rooster is thus tricked into
closing his eyes and crowing,
only to be seized by the fox
and carried off.

73. The Nun’s Priest’s Tale
As Chanticleer’s owners and
the animals of the barnyard
run after them, Chanticleer
suggests that his captor yell
to tell them to turn back.
When the fox opens his
mouth, the rooster escapes.
The tale ends with a warning
against flattery.

74. The Manciple’s Tale
The Manciple, or steward, tells a story
about the origin of the crow, based on the
myth of Apollo and Coronis as told in
Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Phebus
(Phoebus) kept a snow-white crow that
could mimic any human voice.

75. The Manciple’s Tale
The bird witnesses Phebus’s wife with her
lover and informs his keeper. Phebus kills
his wife in a jealous rage. Later, feeling
remorseful, he blames the crow for his
madness, plucks out its feathers, turns
the bird black, and commends it to the
devil.

76. The Parson’s Tale
The tale is a lengthy prose sermon on the seven deadly sins.
Chaucer may have intended this tale, with its plethora of pious
quotations, as a fitting close to the stories of the religious
pilgrims. After reviewing the sins of Pride, Envy, Anger, Sloth,
Avarice, Gluttony, and Lechery and their remedies, the Parson
urges confession and satisfaction (that is, atonement through
such acts as almsgiving, penance, and fasting).

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