The General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales

Prologues and introductions to works of literature are often paid very little attention, frequently being skipped so that the reader can get to the good bits as quickly as possible. However, in the case of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales that would be a grave mistake. The General Prologue is a wonderful piece of work in its own right, as well as being the scene-setter for what is to follow.

It opens with some of the most famous lines in all of English Literature:

“Whan that Aprille with his shoures sote

The droghte of March hath perced to the rote,

And bathed every veyne in swich licour

Of which vertu engendred is the flour;…”

(When April with his sweet showers

Has pierced the drought of March to the root,

And bathed every vein in such moisture

Of which virtue is the flower engendered;…)

(which admittedly sounds a lot better in Middle English!)

This is the prologue to the prologue, setting the time and the place of the pilgrimage that is due to make its way from Southwark (on the south bank of the Thames near London) to Canterbury. The first 18 lines explain why “longen folk to goon on pilgrimages”, and the next 24 lines set the scene of this pilgrimage in particular.

After the introductory lines, the other 29 pilgrims are described in turn, in varying amounts of detail, after which the host of the Inn, Harry Bailly, announces that he will ride with the pilgrims and, in order to pass the time, each of them will tell two stories on the way there and two on the way back. The Prologue ends with the Knight being asked to tell the first tale, based on the drawing of lots.

It should be noted that not all the pilgrims get to tell even one tale, although Chaucer himself tells two, and that one of the tales, that of the canon’s yeoman, is told by a latecomer who is not mentioned in the Prologue.

The main reason why the Prologue has been accorded such a high place in English literature is that Chaucer’s pen portraits give us a snapshot of English society at the time, with many of the trades and occupations of 14th century England being represented. However, these are not dry descriptions but well-honed observations that expose the many hypocrisies and idiosyncrasies of the characters. As Chaucer explains, he has spoken to all of them during the previous evening, and we can imagine him making many mental notes during these conversations.

Chaucer was England’s first great humourist, and he had a wonderful knack of getting a character to condemn him or herself out of his/her own mouth. The reader is often invited to put two and two together and get five.

All that is missing from the social spectrum is high nobility and royalty, which is hardly surprising. Apart from that we have minor nobility in the person of the knight, the squire, and even the prioress, professional people such as the man of law and the physician, tradesmen such as the miller and the merchant, people at various levels of the agricultural hierarchy, such as the franklin, yeoman and ploughman, and a large number who make their living, either directly or otherwise, from the Church.

This latter point is particularly interesting, because Chaucer uses the Prologue to point to many of the shortcomings of the Church at the time. The power of the Church can be seen from the sheer number of “religious” pilgrims, which was indeed a fair representation of the state of English society at the time. In all, eleven of the pilgrims fall into this category.

The first religious character we meet is the prioress, the head of a religious house, but she is clearly very interested in cultivating good manners and taking care of her appearance. She should not have had pet dogs, which are fed with the choicest cuts of meat, nor even have been taking part in a pilgrimage. She is well aware of her femininity, although she stops short of actual flirting.

The monk is clearly way out of order, as he has no interest in religion but spends his entire time hunting and feasting. In his view, the religious rules are “old and somewhat strict”, and thus best forgotten. Likewise, the friar is utterly corrupt, hearing confessions for payment, frequenting ale-houses and consorting with women. We can assume that his practice of paying for the marriages of young women must be because he was responsible for their pregnancies!

The summoner and the pardoner are described one after the other. These both make their living on the fringes of the Church, the summoner calling people to appear before the ecclesiastical court, unless they can bribe him well enough to be excused, and the pardoner selling fake religious relics and bogus pardons that have supposedly been signed by the Pope. Chaucer lets them have his satire with both barrels.

Nearly all the characters can be regarded as “types”, but they also have individual personalities, many of which are developed as the tales are told. However, one character strikes us as being less typical than the rest, and this is the “wife of Bath”. There is a sense in which she might have been typical, in that life expectancy was much lower than it is today and it would not have been unknown for a woman to outlive five husbands.

That said, this particular lady is a character in her own right, and is drawn as such rather than representing a trade or occupation, although it could be said that, for her, “wife” counts as a profession. Strangely enough, the Prologue says less about her than about some of the other pilgrims, but we learn that she is no longer young, or slim, or possessing all her own teeth, and is hard of hearing. She is however very aware of her personal appearance, even to being vain about it, and she is assertive to the point of aggression when it comes to her position in the local community. She is well-travelled, having made pilgrimages to Rome and three times to Jerusalem, and must therefore be fairly well-to-do, presumably from having married and been widowed by five rich husbands.

Chaucer clearly has much more to say about this interesting lady, and he drops a hint to this effect in his description of her. That she is Chaucer’s favourite character is evident from the fact that the prologue to her own tale is the same length as the whole of General Prologue, and we discover there that she is the first exponent of “women’s lib” in English Literature.

So the scene is set, the characters assembled, and we can sit back and enjoy what is to follow. We can expect interesting tales from this motley crew of heroes and degenerates, and possibly a few fireworks along the way as these people mingle with each other and discover where their personalities clash. Let the fun begin!

© John Welford

See also:

Sources used by Geoffrey Chaucer for his Canterbury Tales