Chaucer's Pilgrims: An Historical Guide to the Pilgrims in The Canterbury Tales

by Laura Cooner Lambdin, Robert Thomas Lambdin (Editor)

Chaucer's Canterbury Tales is one of the oldest and most widely studied works of English literature. The tales provide a glimpse of medieval life, and the professions of the pilgrims figure prominently in the poetry. To have a clear understanding of Chaucer's work, the reader needs to know about the vocations of the pilgrims. For some 600 years, this information has been difficult to locate. This reference work conveniently synthesizes and discusses information about the occupation of each of Chaucer's pilgrims and provides an historical context.



The volume contains individual entries for each of Chaucer's pilgrims, and the entries share a similar format to foster comparison. Each entry includes three parts. First, the pilgrim's profession is discussed in terms of the daily routine of the medieval occupation. Second, the vocation is examined in terms of its reflection in the tale told by the pilgrim. Third, the vocation and the tale are discussed, when possible, in relation to the descriptions of the characters provided in the General Prologue. Each entry includes a bibliography, and the volume concludes with a list of works for further reading.

Paperback

First published February 28, 1996

Reviews

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

In spite of some of the humor in the “General Prologue” of The Canterbury Tales still coming through to readers more than six centuries on, that retinue of storytelling pilgrims represents a society very different from our own. Professions like reeves and pardoners or ranks in the social hierarchy like franklins no longer exist. That is why this book is helpful: over individual chapters for all thirty-two figures described in the General Prologue, a team of scholars gives the necessary background on how that particular profession or status fit into the English society of the time, and elucidates the subtler humor in Chaucer’s verse. Though the authors are scholars and sometimes they have to work out competing views on contentious matters of their field, the collection is written to be a fairly accessible.

With such a varied group of authors, some chapters are better than others. Moreover, this was published in 1996 and one wonders if further progress has been made in the study of 14th-century England. For example, the chapter on the franklin mentions that there are opposing views on what that social position was exactly, and is ultimately rather inconclusive. Do we understand better today the role of franklins in England and in Chaucer’s famous work?