Background Notes

Chaucer/Canterbury Tales

 

 

Geoffrey Chaucer (1343?-1400)

 

I. Family Notes

        A. Son of a vintner (wine merchant)

        B. Married a lady-in-waiting for the Queen

                1. Phillipa Pan

2. Good marriage for him, she was well-paid for her services

3. Historians are unsure but believe they had four kids

C. Eldest son Thomas married a noble woman (big $$$$)

 

II. Brief Biographical Notes

        A. Variety of jobs

1. page (messenger), soldier, diplomat, royal clerk and author

2. Variety of jobs allowed him insight into a wide variety of people

3. page in royal service was lucky, and well educated

        B. War Prisoner

                1. Captured in France and held prisoner in 1359

                2. King paid 16-pound for his release

a. 16-pound was equivalent to a laborer’s yearly salary

 

        C. Was accused of rape in 1380

1. rape could be abduction or sexual assault at the time

                2. his release suggests that he was not guilty

                3. charge had no bearing on his political career

 

III. The Canterbury Tales

A. Chaucer wrote other works but this is his most widely read work

        B. Written in the later years of his life

        C. Framed narrative (stories are told in a story)

D. Originally was to include 124 tales (no we’re not reading 124 tales)

1. characters are holding a contest to see who has the best story

2. they are on a pilgrimage to a Cathedral in Canterbury to visit a shrine

a. Thomas a Beckett was murdered in the Church and later became   a saint

E. Stories are told by a wide range spectrum of ranks and occupations

F. Often the stories are told in retaliation for another’s story

a. Wife of Bath tells a story that asserts that women should have the power in marriage

b. The Clerk responds with the opposite opinion, etc.