“Chaucer’s group of pilgrims constitute a picture of his times”. Discuss. Or If you were writing a social history of England in the fourteenth century, what help would you get from the Prologue to The Canterbury Tales? Or “Chaucer gives us a microcosm of England society in the Prologue itself”. Elucidate this statement. Or “Chaucer showed the world as it did exist-the England of his days-a world of reality, a world various and beautiful, but hitherto kept away from literature”. Discuss. Or “A cross-section of English life in the fourteenth century”. Is this an adequate summing up of the Prologue to The Canterbury Tales?

The pilgrims in the Prologue may be classified into three groups which throw a lot of light on the social structure of England in the fourteenth century. The first group represents agricultural feudalism founded

on land ownership and service to the king and the country. The Knight, who is highest in the scale, is a land owner and served in the wars for his king and his country. And he will be followed in this by his son, the Squire. The Knight’s Yeoman is a servant whose only duty is to the Knight. The Franklin also holds land, probably “in fee” from some nobleman, but more probably in his own right. His service is the supervision of his farm, his obligation to the nobleman or the king being doubtless in the form of the yearly harvest. The Miller does not himself own land, but he enjoys the right to mill all the grain on an estate. The Reeve functions as the manager of an estate. Both the Miller and the Reeve are subordinates, but of a superior kind and they make a shrewd and profitable use of their power. The lowest in the hierarchy is the Plowman, who simply tills the land.

The second group represent the growth of a new, urban society which had come into existence in the fourteenth century mainly in London. Neither the Doctor nor the Lawyer owns land, although they are both men of substance. The Doctor, says, Chaucer, made money out of the plague and the Lawyer made money out of many transactions and bargains. They represent the beginning of new class, today called professional men. The Manciple, the Merchant and even the Wife of Bath also represent the urbanization process. They were not directly governed by anyone and in time became the mercantile middle class. It is also significant that the Haberdasher, the Carpenter, the Weaver and the Dyer are presented collectively, as being members of one of the great parish guilds. It was through these guild associations that the new urban artisans achieved the power that they lacked through their not belonging to the land-hierarchy.

The third group represent the church which was in those days one of the most powerful forces in society. Eight of Chaucer’s pilgrims belong to the church and it would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of the Roman Catholic Church to the people in the fourteenth century. People might disregard its teachings, as some of the pilgrims do. People might complain of the malpractices and abuses that prevailed in the church. But from birth till death, people were intimately connected with the church in one way or another. It was a visibly potent force throughout England, from the great cathedrals and the religious houses down to the humble parish churches.

It is sometimes suggested that the medieval world had a happier, simple and less troubled time than our own. In some ways this is true Certainly Chaucer’s pilgrims are free from many of our modern anxieties. Yet the fourteenth century had its own troubles. The plague or black death, to which Chaucer occasionally alludes in the Prologue, entered England in mid-century with dreadful consequences. One of the effects of the plague was to inflate prices and make conditions of life most difficult for those at the bottom of the economic ladder. This in turn led to what is known as the Peasants’ Revolt (1381) in which the enraged mobs of peasants slaughtered many city people.

Chaucer, as a justice of the peace and a member of parliament, could have been bitter about this attack on the social order. It is evidence of his large-heartedness that, only a few years after the rebellion, he drew a portrait of the Plowman representing him as a combination of many peasant virtues. The Hundred Years’ War continued, with the French threatening to invade England. This is one of the reasons for the war-like nature of the Shipman, whose merchant ship was armed as a fighting vessel and it also accounts for the Merchant’s anxiety about trade if the ship route between Middleburg in the Netherlands and Orwell in England were disturbed or blocked.

Chaucer found a diversity of creatures in the world about him, his own world, the world of England. There lay the right raw material for all his special gifts. In all English literature, there is not such another picture of a whole society as in the Prologue and Chaucer contrived it in some thirty characters and 860 lines.

In the Prologue, Chaucer’s sense of actuality mingled with his sense of hierarchy. He presented the characters in the jumble and haphazardry of life, with a mild apology for his neglect of rank, although all the ranks and vocations, the trades and the professions are there. The historian can rebuild but the Prologue the twin ladders of church and state as they then were, with scarcely a rung missing. Not only are both the secular and ecclesiastical sides of life in the fourteenth century fully portrayed, but both sexes are represented. Women are adequately represented by the Prioress and Wife of Bath. Furthermore, Chaucer shoes us what was good and what was evil in the ecclesiastical as well as in the secular world. The Knight, the Squire, the Yeoman and the Plowman are the good characters of the secular world, while the Clerk of Oxenford and the Parson represent the commendable and creditable elements in the religious field. The evils that prevailed in the church have fully been dwelt upon. The Monk is, for instance, averse to study and to manual labour. Hunting is his favourite pastime and fine living him aim. His worldliness and irreligious activities have been exposed without mercy. The Friar sells absolution and is fond of keeping mistresses. The Summoner is most corrupt. He teaches people not to feel afraid of excommunication because they can get release from the archdeacon’s curse by paying money. He is most impious man. The Pardoner is a perfect fraud who makes money by the sale of bogus relics. Even the Prioress, who is free from any serious evils, has her vanities and affectations which are completely out of tune with the kind of life she has embraced. Among the secular characters, the Merchant makes money by illegal transactions in foreign exchange and by usury; the Lawyer has acquired wealth by all sorts of unfair means and he pretends to be busier than he actually is; the Franklin is interested only in exquisite foods and drinks; the Guildsmen and their wives are shallow-minded persons with their eyes on worldly advancement; the Doctor of Medicine has made money during the plague and especially loves gold; the Miller is a cheat and a loose talker; the Manciple can outwit the fifty law students whom he serves; the Reeve is a double-dealer who has accumulated wealth by throwing dust into the eyes of his employer.

Of contemporary crafts, trades and professions, being so variously represented, we gain much valuable detail. Chaucer’s choice of pilgrims takes us into medieval towns as well as country places. Only the royal court and the higher nobility are not represented as they would not have joined a common pilgrimage. The glimpses we have of the Tabard Inn reveal what would even today be quite a large hotel, capable of accommodating a large number of visitors, providing for them ample food and drink, and finding stabling for their horses. The master of such a place was indeed fit to have been “a marshal in a dining-hall”. Sometimes the picturesque similes which Chaucer uses to elaborate a point reveal glimpses of fourteenth-century life. They also show how much closer town and country were at that time. Moreover, details of country pursuits like forestry or farming show that Chaucer himself was as much at home in the country as among the trades and professions of the town. An incidental reference to the “table dormant” which always stood ready in the Franklin’s house, emphasizes that gentleman’s love of food and hospitality by stressing that his table was permanently fixed in his hall.

method of portrait-painters in the later Middle Ages. Chaucer first presents his pilgrims against the background of rank and profession, with remark about their position in these. Then he proceeds to give the details making each figure unforgettably distinct from all other of his class.
The Prologue tells us a lot about the food, the hobbies and the mode of dress of the times. There is a reference to roast swan which was one of the delicacies of the table. The monk is especially fond of this item of food. The Franklin keeps fatted partridges in baskets and he rears fish in his ponds. He also keeps sharp and pungent sauces ready for service. The Cook is fond of London ale. He can boil the chickens with the marrow-bones; he can roast and broil and fry, and make a stew, and bake a pie. He is an expert in preparing “blackmanger”. The Summoner loves garlic and onions, and drinks strong wine red as blood.
As has been made amply clear, the characters are chosen from all ranks of English society. They are delineated to the Prologue by a combination of typical traits and vivid, individual details, recalling the Through the Prologue we become acquainted with the clothes worn by persons of different ranks, positions. Shakespeare, a couple of centuries later said, “Apparel oft proclaimeth the man”. Chaucer’s pilgrims wear the distinctive clothes of the class of society to which they belong or the vocation which they pursue. The Knight wears his coat of mail, having lately returned from a campaign. The Squire wears a short gown, with long and wide sleeves. The Yeoman wears an armguard and carries a sword and a buckler on one side and a dagger on the other, with a silver medal of St. Christopher on his breast. The Prioress’s wimple is neatly pleated and she carries a rosary. The Monk’s sleeves are trimmed with the finest gray fur, and he has a pin of wrought gold to fasten his hood. The Friar wears a half-cape of double-worsted. The Merchant is dressed in motley and has a

Flemish beaver hat on his head. The Lawyer wears a motley coat belted with a girdle of silk with small stripes. The Franklin has a dagger and a silk pouch hanging at his girdle. The five Guildsmen wear new clothes and carry knives mounted, not with brass, but with silver. They also have their girdles and their pouches. A reference is made to the mantles of their wives. The Shipman has a dagger hanging on a cord which he wears round his neck. The Physician is clad in blood-red and blue-gray, lined with taffeta and fine silk. The Wife of Bath has on her head kerchiefs weighing ten pounds; her stockings are of scarlet red; and her shoes are all soft and new. The Miller wears a white coat and a blue hood, and he carries a sword and a buckler by his side. The Reeve has his hair clipped short in front like that of a priest. He wears a long upper-coat of Persian blue and bears at his side a rusty blade. He is grilled up like a friar.

The brief description of the clothes of the pilgrims are quite illuminating and provide sufficient information regarding the dressing habits of the people of those times. Finally, it may be pointed out that Chaucer gives us a clear idea of the commercialism and the mercenary mentality of the fourteenth century. Barring a few of the characters the pilgrims love money and gold. This love of pelf is common to most of the pilgrims. Their lives are governed by their desire to accumulate wealth. Strange to say, even the ecclesiastical characters are not free from this materialistic greed, not even the Friar and the Monk who were supposed to live a life of poverty.

A medieval pilgrimage brought people of all ranks together in a combination of piety and holiday-making. The moving frame employed by Chaucer enables him to show us a cross section, almost complete, of English life in the fourteenth century. All classes have representatives here except the highest and the lowest and Chaucer takes pleasure in delineating them all. The realistic quality of the Prologue is, indeed, most striking. Chaucer here improves upon the literary tradition of his time. He does not confine himself to the poetry of dreams and visions or allegorical poetry, or fanciful stuff. He becomes a painter of life as he sees it. And the life he sees is doubtless full of variety and full of a beauty of its own. But the Prologue is more than a cross-section of English life in the fourteenth century. These characters belong, no doubt, to that period, but they are also of all time. Their trails are universal. Their lineaments, as Blake said, are of universal human life, beyond which Nature never steps.

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The Age of Chaucer -Introduction