What sets the Canterbury Tales on a different plane from being just a collection of stories is the

frame tale within which they are set. The tales belong to their tellers, to whom we are introduced
in detail before the first tale is told. The General Prologue is in itself a masterpiece of 14th century
English poetry which can be read and enjoyed in its own right. After the opening scene-setting lines
that explain the idea of the pilgrimage to the tomb of St Thomas ABeckett at Canterbury, each
pilgrim is described in turn. We get the impression that Chaucer has had a chat with each of them
over a drink in the Tabard Inn on the night before they set off, and he has captured their characters
from what they have told him.

Nearly all of them have a dark side, or a secret that is revealed thanks to a few pints of ale having
been consumed. Chaucer is something of a Sherlock Holmes, spotting seemingly inconsequential
details that go together to reveal the pilgrims true characters. We, the readers, are invited to read
between the lines and appreciate that the apparent praise being heaped on these people by the
poet has a very different purpose.

For example, the Prioress is a young lady who takes great pride in her appearance. She has smooth
skin, is well-dressed, has excellent table manners, speaks French, and is clearly well used to polite
society. But she is supposed to be in charge of a priory, having taken vows of poverty and chastity
and responsible for the moral and spiritual welfare of her nuns. Clearly she is far more worldly than
she should be, and presumably she is on this pilgrimage to flirt with whoever she may come
across. Chaucer makes mention of how pained she is if she sees a mouse in a trap, and how she
feeds her pet dogs with the choicest morsels. It is up to us to note that nothing is said about how
she might react to a person in need, because clearly she stays as far away from the poor and
needy as she can.

It is notable from the General Prologue just how many of the pilgrims make a living from the
Church and how all of them, except the Parson, are thoroughly disreputable in their own way. The
Pardoner is a conman, selling worthless pieces of paper to gullible people who believe that they will
be saved from Hell by so doing. The Friar is similarly out for what he can get, and the Summoners
job is to haul people before the Church courts unless they can buy him off instead.

As the pilgrimage proceeds, the characters interact with each other, notably the Friar and the
Summoner who clearly loathe each other deeply. There is plenty of interplay in between their tales,
and the tales they tell are aimed at each other, with the Friar telling a tale about a wicked
Summoner and the Summoner returning the compliment.

Other pilgrims also tell tales that are in tune with their characters. The Knights Tale, although it
has a classical background, is based on the medieval concept of courtly love which would have
been familiar to its teller. This is followed by a parody of the courtly love story in the Millers Tale, a
bawdy story in which a lively young woman gets the better of her husband and an unwelcome lover
in a story that is very rude but also very funny. This is entirely in keeping with the character of the
Miller as presented to us in the General Prologue.

There is a theme running through several of the tales that concerns the relative positions that
husbands and wives should have in a marriage. Indeed, a sequence of the tales, beginning with
that of the Wife of Bath, has been designated by critics as the Marriage Group. The feisty and
much-married Wife (who is the only pilgrim not to follow a trade or profession) is an early
exponent of womens lib who believes that the woman should be the dominant partner in a
marriage. She gives a long speech, saying just as much, before she even starts to tell a tale. This
serves to make her the most complex and interesting of Chaucers characters, and the best-drawn
female character in any work of literature before Shakespeare. Her Tale, which is a re-telling of the
loathly lady fable in which a hag offers to be fair or foul, backs up her prologue by showing the
wisdom of leaving the choice to the lady.

The Clerk tells a tale in which a husband has complete domination over an obedient wife, although
the teller does not advocate such behaviour, and the Merchant then tells the story of January and
May, which parallels the earlier Millers Tale with its story of a young wife cuckolding an older
husband, but on this occasion not getting away with it. The Franklins Tale brings the group to an
end by showing that dominance either way in a marriage is not to be recommended, but
forgiveness and tolerance are the keys to married bliss.

Suffice it to say that there is a whole wealth of humour, wisdom, adventure and morality in this
collection, as well as a host of characters, both inside the tales and without, who serve to give the
modern reader a very vivid picture of life in England more than 600 years ago.