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IntroductionOne of the most famous works of medieval literature is based around a pilgrimage to Canterbury Cathedral. Geoffey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, written between 1387 and 1400, is a long poem concerning a group of thirty pilgrims on their way from Southwark, in south London, to the shrine of St Thomas Becket in Canterbury. To pass the time and entertain each other on their way the pilgrims take it in turns to tell stories, many of a humorous or bawdy nature. Chaucer's poem thus takes the form of a series of these individual tales connected within a framing device of the pilgrimage and interludes descibing the pilgrims' behaviour. Chaucer never finished the Canterbury Tales, and the pilgrims only make it to the outskirts of Canterbury in the poem as it survives. Despite this, the poem was soon regarded asa masterpiece, and later medieval writers made attempts to continue the Tales with descriptions of the pilgrims' behaviour in Canterbury. © Dean & Chapter Canterbury Origin/Date: England || c.1213-20 Chaucer was not the only medieval writer to use a pilgrimage as a frame story to introduce a collection of tales: the Italian Giovanni Sercambi (1347-1426) composed his Novelliere, a series of tales purporting to have been told to a group who escape the plague which raged in Lucca in 1374, by travelling to various towns and cities in Italy. But the most important aspect of real-life pilgrimage that Chaucer takes up for his great poem is the fact that a wide variety of people, of different classes and different places might be found together on a pilgrimage. He has many story-tellers of differing class and character, and diversity, in many different forms, is the keynote of his collection. The way he exploits this fact creates a text in which he not only represents the diversity of contemporary society but also has the opportunity to depict conflict and rivalry between different trades. Famously, too, in imitating the real-life fact that pilgrims amused themselves en route by songs, musical instruments and story-telling, Chaucer offers a variety of genres and levels of seriousness and elegance. Some stories are bawdy fabliaux, some saints' lives or serious treatises. Chaucer introduces his pilgrimage by saying that people want to travel in spring on pilgrimages, especially to the shrine of St Thomas Becket in Canterbury - who has helped them when they were sick (I 18). Although this introduction, the General Prologue, mentions St Thomas, the 'hooly, blissful martyr', it makes few other allusions to the spiritual side of pilgrimage, though the narrator describes himself as setting out 'with ful devout corage' (I 21). Some of his portraits of the pilgrims mention contemporary practices of pilgrimage: the Knight's decision, for example, immediately upon returning from campaigning (against the Muslims, 'for oure feith'), to go immediately on his pilgrimage; the Wife of Bath is described as an experienced pilgrim: she has visited shrines at Rome (the apostles Peter and Paul), Boulogne (Our Lady), Compostela (St James), and Cologne (the Three Kings). Chaucer announces that his plan is for his pilgrims to tell tales both going to Canterbury and coming back to London and the Tabard Inn. But, when he died, he left his work in a set of fragments, which do not join up into a coherent depiction of journey to Canterbury. The Wife of Bath's Prologue describes the opportunities she takes for travel and entertainments, wearing her best clothes and not averse to flirtation:
Vigils are the services before a saint's day and the processions she mentions would be in honour of a saint. This passage illustrates well the element of social entertainment many people clearly found in pilgrimages and other ostensibly religious events. Lambeth Apocalypse © Lambeth Palace Library, MS 209 f37v Origin/Date: Canterbury || 13th century Chaucer seems for the most part to exploit primarily the social side of pilgrimage. But he appears to have written the Parson's Tale, a treatise about sin, virtue and penitence, as a religious text to knit up the actually extremely diverse groups of tales he had already completed. In most manuscripts it appears as the last of the series. It also includes the metaphor of human life itself as a spiritual journey towards the Heavenly city of Jerusalem. There is thus a shift in tone between most of the Tales, as they have been left to us, and the Parson's Tale, which is not only religious itself but includes two passages that make the earthly pilgrimage into a symbol of the soul's journey on:
The Canterbury Tales clearly became popular soon after Chaucer's death. Many manuscripts survive and it was printed in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Chaucer's brilliant notion of using a mixed group of Canterbury pilgrims as the frame-story for a collection of tales has captured the imagination of many writers in centuries up to the present day. Quite early on, writers had the idea of writing continuations, something made easy because Chaucer left his own poem so incomplete. Several survive from the first half of the fifteenth century. Three show interest in taking further the scenario of the Canterbury pilgrimage. The Siege of ThebesJohn Lydgate, a monk of Bury St Edmunds, presents his lengthy poem, The Siege of Thebes, as if it is one of the tales told on the return journey. His prologue depicts Lydgate himself coming on his own pilgrimage to Canterbury, to give thanks to St Thomas after being ill, and happening to stay at the same inn as the pilgrims. The Host invites him to join them, saying that Lydgate looks thin and sickly and needs good food, ale, and entertainment. The next morning Lydgate is invited to tell the first tale of the journey back. The Tale of BerynThe Tale of Beryn is an anonymous tale which its author presents as a continuation of the Canterbury Tales. The tale itself is loosely based on a French romance. The introduction, like Lydgate's, describes the pilgrims at their inn (the 'Chequer of Hope') at Canterbury. The picture this author gives of the pilgrims is largely very secular: the Pardoner sets himself up, he thinks, for a night of love with the barmaid (the author comments that his story isn't a very holy one). The author describes the pilgrims exploring Canterbury as tourists, a valuable, if perhaps over-comic, description of the contemporary pilgrim's experience. The text may have a direct relationship with Canterbury's role (business, one could say) as England's major pilgrimage centre: it has been suggested that it was composed in connection with the Canterbury Jubilee celebrations, held every fifty years to mark St Thomas's death, in 1420. John Bowers suggests the monks may have been anxious to encourage pilgrims and combat Lollard disapproval of pilgrimages. If so, however, one would expect a rather more determinedly religious work to have been written for the occasion. © The Beaney Museum, Canterbury Origin/Date: Kent, England || 12th - 15th century The text provides a valuable picture of everyday people visiting the shrine and some of the practices there. They go to the Cathedral. Even here, a comic eye for secular preoccupations shows these pilgrim's devotions as mixed with less holy concerns. They go to make their offerings of silver brooches and rings; there is a struggle for precedence at the Cathedral door and the Knight, taking charge, directs the ecclesiastical pilgrims to go in first; then a monk sprinkles their heads with holy water and the Friar wants to take this job over himself - because he want to peep at the Prioress's face; the Knight goes forward to St Thomas's shrine, together with his more upper-class companions, 'to do what they were come for and after for to dine' (a very Chaucerian rhyming of shrine and dine, the holy and the profane mingled together, even for these pious and dignified pilgrims); but the Miller and Pardoner and the other 'ignorant sots', wander round the building, pretending to be gentlemen and understand the heraldry, and then making ludicrous mistakes trying to interpret the stained glass windows. The Host orders them to the shrine and there they kneel, say their rosaries, kiss the holy relics, with a monk-guide instructing them as to what these are. Then they go to other holy places and hear the divine service. Everyone buys pilgrims' tokens, so people at home will know which saint's shrine they have visited. The Miller and Pardoner steal some of the pilgrim badges on sale at the Cathedral (the Summoner insists on sharing their loot). Everyone has a cheerful dinner. The Monk, Parson and Friar go out and have a drink with an old Canterbury friend of the Monk, while the Prioress and Wife, feeling too tired to walk much, go and look at the flowers in the garden. That night the Pardoner gets cheated by the barmaid. They all set out next day and the Merchant offers to tell the tale: the Tale of Beryn. The Ploughman's TaleThe story of Jordan Fitz-Eisulf of Yorkshire © Dean & Chapter Canterbury Origin/Date: England c.1213-1220 The Ploughman's Tale is an anonymous poem which purports to be one of the Canterbury tales. It tells how the Ploughman sets out on his Canterbury pilgrimage. In a conversation with the Host he says that he is so poor because, although he works hard, the priests demand that laymen pay for their livelihood too. The Host invites him to preach and tell 'some holy thing'. The tale is a protest against corrupt clerics. It seems close to Lollard ideas. It is presented as a debate between the Griffin, a predator, defending the current state of the Church and the Pelican, an emblem of Christian love, deploring its abuses. Finally the Phoenix (the risen Christ?) slays the Griffin. What these three continuations indicate is that Chaucer's original work could be seen as both a highly secular approach to pilgrimage and as a work where serious religious attitudes also felt at home. The world of Chaucer's pilgrimage has clearly been read as comic and basically secular in tone by both Lydgate, a monk, and the anonymous author of the Tale of Beryn, whom the only manuscript describes as a Canterbury monk. At the same time, the decision of the author of the Plowman's Tale to associate his text with the Canterbury pilgrims may show that readers also viewed Chaucer's poem as one with a strong interest in religious issues and, especially, reformist attitudes associated with the lollards. As evidence for the responses of early readers, these three texts should therefore warn modern readers against assuming that the Canterbury Tales should be taken either as an essentially religious composition or as an essentially frivolous one. All these continuations can be found in The Canterbury Tales: Fifteenth-Century Continuations and Additions, ed. John M. Bowers, TEAMS Middle English Series (Kalamazoo, 2002). What does the pilgrimage represent in The Canterbury Tales?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.
What does Chaucer discuss in the descriptions of the pilgrims?Chaucer describes the pilgrims of The Canterbury Tales as a "sondry folk", meaning a very diverse group. They all come from different walks of life. For example, the Knight is chivalrous, worthy, truthful, honorable, and courteous. His son, the Squire, is lively, lusty, delicate, and handsome.
Why was pilgrimage so important in Chaucer time?The most important aspect of real-life pilgrimage used by Chaucer in the Canterbury Tales is the fact that a wide variety of people, of different classes and different places might be found together on a pilgrimage.
Why is Chaucer's Knight taking the pilgrimage to Canterbury?He has served the Christian God by fighting in the crusades, and now, goes to pay homage to a Christian saint in Canterbury, another show of the Knight's unwavering beliefs and faith.
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What does Chaucers description of a pilgrimage indicate about society in his day?
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