Chaucer portrait in MS Harley 4866 (Hoccleve’s Regement of Princes, c.1412)

Chaucer’s portrait in the Ellesmere MS (c.1410)

Chaucer’s tomb in Westminster Abbey (1556)

British Library, MS Lansdowne 851 (The Canterbury Tales, c. 1425)

Richard II, King of England 1377-99

The opening of The Canterbury Tales in the Ellesmere MS

Chaucer portrait in the Ellesmere MS (c. 1410)

Some Pilgrim portraits from the Ellesmere MS (c.1410)

Some Pilgrim portraits from the Ellesmere MS (c.1410)

Some Pilgrim portraits from the Ellesmere MS (c.1410)

Some Pilgrim portraits from the Ellesmere MS (c.1410)

Pilgrim Groups in the General Prologue(in order of appearance)

KnightSquireYeoman

PrioresseNunPriest (s)Monk Friar

MerchantClerkMan of LawFranklin5 GuildsmenCookShipmanPhysicianWife

ParsonPlowman

MillerMancipleReeveSummonerPardoner

Pilgrim Groups in the General Prologue(arranged by traditional estate)

Knight Squire

PrioresseNunPriest (s)Monk FriarParsonSummonerPardoner

MerchantClerkMan of LawFranklin5 GuildsmenCookShipmanPhysicianWifeMillerMancipleReeve Yeoman

Plowman

The opening lines of Piers Plowman (from a MS at Trinity College, Cambridge)

The dreamer falls asleep in Piers Plowman

The Franklin’s Tale•Franklin—a prosperous country gentleman; locally influential, landowning, but non-noble

•A “Breton lay”—i.e., Chaucer’s version of Marie de France’s genre

•A “rash promise” tale (cp. Decameron, 10,5)

The Franklin’s Tale•Franklin—a prosperous country gentleman; locally influential, landowning, but non-noble

•A “Breton lay”—i.e., Chaucer’s version of Marie de France’s genre

•A “rash promise” tale (cp. Decameron, 10,5)

•Dorigen’s list draws on St. Jerome’s Adversus Jovinianum (392 CE; a frequent source for Chaucer)

The Franklin’s Tale•Franklin—a prosperous country gentleman; locally influential, landowning, but non-noble

•A “Breton lay”—i.e., Chaucer’s version of Marie de France’s genre

•A “rash promise” tale (cp. Decameron, 10,5)

•Dorigen’s list draws on St. Jerome’s Adversus Jovinianum (392 CE; a frequent source for Chaucer)

•End with a demande d’amour or “question of love” (with the usual Chaucerian twist)

The Franklin’s Tale•Franklin—a prosperous country gentleman; locally influential, landowning, but non-noble

•A “Breton lay”—i.e., Chaucer’s version of Marie de France’s genre

•A “rash promise” tale (cp. Decameron, 10,5, Filocolo)

•Dorigen’s list draws on St. Jerome’s Adversus Jovinianum (392 CE; a frequent source for Chaucer)

•End with a demande d’amour or “question of love” (with the usual Chaucerian twist; cp. Filocolo:)

•Part of the “Marriage Debate” in the Canterbury Tales (Kittredge, 1912: the resolution of that debate, and Chaucer’s own solution?)

The Franklin’s Tale•Franklin—a prosperous country gentleman; locally influential, landowning, but non-noble

•A “Breton lay”—i.e., Chaucer’s version of Marie de France’s genre

•A “rash promise” tale (cp. Decameron, 10,5)

•Dorigen’s list draws on St. Jerome’s Adversus Jovinianum (392 CE; a frequent source for Chaucer)

•End with a demande d’amour or “question of love” (with the usual Chaucerian twist)

•Part of the “Marriage Debate” in the Canterbury Tales (Kittredge, 1912: the resolution of that debate, and Chaucer’s own solution?)

“Then to conclude, the knight was more liberall that granted his honour than any of the others: and thinke this one thing, that the honour he gave was not to be againe recovered, the whiche happeneth not in many other thinges, as of battels, prowesse, and others like: for if they are at one time lost, they are recovered at an other, and the same is possible. Therefore this may suffice for answere unto your demaund.”

From Boccaccio’s Filocolo: