Chaucer's Canterbury Tales follows a group of 29 pilgrims traveling from London to Canterbury to visit the shrine of St. Thomas Becket. To pass the time during their 55 mile journey, they agree to engage in a storytelling contest where each pilgrim will tell two stories on the way to Canterbury and two on the return, with the best storyteller receiving a prize. However, Chaucer only wrote 24 tales from the journey to Canterbury, giving insight into some of the pilgrims and their stories but not completing the full frame tale. The pilgrims represent different social classes and occupations of late medieval English society.

1. ChauCer’s
Canterbury Tales
Kathleen Hickey
English 12
November 29,
2012

2. Consider
You are going on a 55 mile journey . . .
• by horse
• with a group of people you don’t know
• with a group of people from different
classes and professions
What would you do to
pass the time?

3. This is the premise of
ChauCer’s the
Canterbury Tales
• 29 pilgrims traveling from Southwark (2
miles outside of London) to Canterbury
(55 miles away) engage in a storytelling
contest. The teller of the best story wins
a meal at Bailey’s tavern.

4. What is a pilgrimage?
• A pilgrimage is a journey to a shrine
important to a person’s beliefs or faith.
• In The Canterbury Tales, the pilgrims are
traveling to St. Thomas Becket’s Shrine in
the Canterbury Cathedral.

5. How many tales are
there?
• Each pilgrim (and there are 29) is to tell
4 tales, 2 on the way to Canterbury and
two on the way home. Do the math. How
many tales would have Chaucer written?
• Chaucer only wrote 24 tales, all of which
occur on the way to Canterbury. What
can we surmise?
Also, figure out how long it would have taken the
• Some tales are prose others are verse.
pilgrims to reach Canterbury, 55 miles away, if
they covered 10 miles a day?

6. Who are the pilgrims?
• Chaucer’s pilgrims represent all classes,
all professions in medieval England.
Clerk Narrator Summoner Wife of Bath
Miller Knight Friar
Manciple Squire Prioress
Yeoman Two nuns
Shipman Summoner
Physician Parson
Merchant Monk
Pardoner Nun’s Priest
Franklin 2 Nuns
Reeve
Cook
Lawyer “Man
of Law” What do the columns tell

7. Who was Chaucer?
• 1343 – 25 October 1400
(the same time the story
occurs)
• Author, bureaucrat,
alchemist, courtier
diplomat (why is this
important?)
• Considered Father of
English Poetry
• Buried in Poet’s Corner of
West Minster Abbey

8. Were the tales a book?
• Some tales are
prose, some are
verse. They exist as
manuscripts.
• The best known
manuscript,
The Ellesmere
Chaucer
or Ellesmere
Manuscript, is
from the early 15th
century.
• You can see it at
the Huntington

9. Is that manuscript in
English?
• Yes, Middle
English.
• Remember
Bewoulf was in
Old English.

10. What did Middle English
sound like?
• Listen to youtube vide:
http://youtu.be/nN5YhPmwvf4.

11. How are tales organized?
• Prologue
• Narrator introduces himself and explains the
journey and the contest.
• In the Prologue, the narrator tells us that the
Knight will tell his story first, but the Miller then
interrupts the Knight.
• We don’t really know what order Chaucer
intended because the manuscripts are all
different.

12. What genre are the tales?
• Fabliaux
• Bestiary
• Sermons
• Courtly love

13. Which pilgrims?
• Character development is Chaucer’s
strength.
• He uses physical descriptions, the tales,
and reactions to tales to develop each
pilgrim.
• We will study the Miller’s tale together.

14. the Miller’s tale
• How does Chaucer describe the Miller?
• What does his drunken interruption tell you
about him?
• Why does he tell a tale about a carpenter?
• What genre is his tale? Fabliaux.

15. Your Assignment
• Create a Fakebook, Travel Blog, or
picmonkey collage to show us who your
assigned pilgrim is, what his tale is about,
what his character is. See examples on my
blog.
• Whichever method you choose, focus on
character development, the tale, and any
writing techniques Chaucer uses to make this
pilgrim and his tale come alive.
• Your group will present the pilgrim and his
tale to the class via the blog, Fakebook, or

16. Rubrics
• Will pass out to you in class.