The Canterbury Tales

On an April evening a crowd of strangers meets at an inn outside London, all bound for the shrine at Canterbury, and the innkeeper turns their journey into a contest: whoever tells the best story wins a free supper. What follows is a noble romance, a bawdy farce, a five-times-married woman’s defense of her life, a con man’s confession and a rooster who argues with his wife about dreams. Between the tales the pilgrims heckle, quarrel and answer one another, and every teller gives something away. The English is six hundred years old, but once the spelling stops looking strange, the jokes still land.

What happens in The Canterbury Tales

One April the narrator is staying at the Tabard inn in Southwark, ready to ride to the shrine of the martyr St. Thomas Becket at Canterbury, when some twenty-nine pilgrims arrive, and he joins them. He describes them one by one, from a Knight, a Prioress, a Monk and a Friar to a Clerk of Oxford, a Wife of Bath, a poor Parson, a Miller, a Reeve, a Summoner and a Pardoner. After supper the Host of the inn proposes a game: each pilgrim will tell two tales on the way to Canterbury and two on the way back, he will ride along as judge, and the teller of the best tale will win a supper paid for by the rest. Next morning they draw lots, and the Knight tells the first tale, a romance about two Theban cousins, Palamon and Arcite, who both love Emelye; Arcite wins her in a tournament but dies, and Palamon marries her. The Host asks the Monk to follow, but the drunken Miller insists on answering the Knight, and the Reeve, who had trained as a carpenter, objects in vain. The Miller’s tale tells how an old Oxford carpenter, John, is fooled by his young wife Alison and his lodger Nicholas with a fake prophecy of a second Flood, while the parish clerk Absolon is humiliated at her window. The Wife of Bath describes her five marriages, attacks the learned men who write against wives, and explains how she won control over her fifth husband, Jankin. Her tale, set in King Arthur’s time, follows a knight who must learn what women most desire; an old woman gives him the answer, sovereignty, in return for his promise to grant her next request, which turns out to be marriage, and becomes young and beautiful when he lets her choose. The Pardoner boasts that he preaches against greed only to get money, then tells of three rioters who set out to kill Death, find gold under a tree, and destroy one another. When he tries to sell pardons to the pilgrims, the Host insults him, and the Knight makes them kiss and ride on. The Nun’s Priest tells of Chauntecleer the rooster, who dreams of a fox, debates dreams with his wife Pertelote, is carried off through flattery and escapes by the same trick. The book ends with Chaucer’s Retraction, in which he asks forgiveness for his worldly writings, including the tales that tend toward sin.

Where and when The Canterbury Tales happens

Chapter by chapter summary + why it matters

1. 1

   The General Prologue

   In April, when people long to go on pilgrimage, the narrator is staying at the Tabard in Southwark when some twenty-nine pilgrims bound for Canterbury arrive, and he joins them. He describes each one, among them the Knight and his son the Squire, the Prioress Madame Eglentyne, the hunting Monk, the Friar Huberd, the Clerk of Oxford, the Wife of Bath, the poor Parson and his brother the Plowman, the Miller, the Reeve, the Summoner and the Pardoner. After supper the Host proposes that each pilgrim tell two tales on the way to Canterbury and two on the way home, with a supper at everyone’s cost for the best, and all agree to make him their judge. Next morning, at the watering place of St. Thomas, they draw lots, and the lot falls to the Knight.

   Why it mattersThe portraits borrow the old form of estates satire but give each pilgrim a face, clothes, habits and a way of talking, and the narrator’s warm praise of rogues leaves the judging to us. The Host’s game supplies the frame and its standard: the tale with the best meaning and the most pleasure.

2. 2

   The Knight’s Tale

   Theseus, duke of Athens, rides home with his Amazon bride Ipolita and her young sister Emelye, and a company of widows in black begs him to act against Creon of Thebes, who will not let their husbands’ bodies be buried or burned. Theseus defeats Creon and imprisons two wounded Theban cousins of royal blood, Palamon and Arcite, for life; from their tower both fall in love with Emelye, and their sworn brotherhood turns to rivalry. After Arcite is freed and banished, returns in disguise, and Palamon escapes, Theseus finds them fighting in a grove and sets a great tournament for Emelye’s hand; before it Palamon prays to Venus, Arcite to Mars and Emelye to Diana. Arcite wins the tournament, but his horse throws him and he dies of his injuries, and years later Theseus, in a long speech on why all things must end, asks Emelye to marry Palamon, and the two live in bliss.

   Why it mattersA long chivalric romance set in ancient Athens, it asks whether a world ruled by Fortune and quarrelling gods has any order. Theseus’s answer is to make a virtue of necessity and turn two sorrows into one lasting joy.

3. 3

   The Miller’s Prologue and Tale

   The Host asks the Monk to follow the Knight, but the drunken Miller insists on telling a tale of a carpenter and his wife; the Reeve protests, and the narrator tells readers who dislike coarse stories to turn the page and choose another. In Oxford, Nicholas, a student of astrology who lodges with the old, jealous carpenter John, plans to spend a night with John’s eighteen-year-old wife Alison, while the parish clerk Absolon courts her with songs and gifts. Nicholas convinces John that a flood greater than Noah’s is coming and has him hang three kneading tubs from the roof, and when John falls asleep in his, the lovers go to bed. Before dawn Alison tricks Absolon into kissing her bare backside at the dark window; he returns with a red-hot plough blade, Nicholas tries the same joke and is branded, and his cry for water makes John cut his rope and crash to the floor with a broken arm, while the whole town laughs at him as a madman.

   Why it mattersThe Miller quites, or repays, the Knight’s noble tale with a comic one built on the same shape, two young men wanting one woman. Each man is caught by his own weakness: John by his credulity, Absolon by his vanity and Nicholas by his love of a joke.

4. 4

   The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale

   The Wife says experience, not books, gives her the right to speak of marriage: wed first at twelve, she has had five husbands, and she argues from the Bible that marrying again is no sin. She tells how she ruled her three rich old husbands by accusing them first and outwitted her unfaithful fourth, then married Jankin, a clerk of twenty when she was forty, who read to her from his book of wicked wives until she tore out pages and struck him, and he hit her so hard she lay as if dead; they made peace when he gave her full control of house, land, tongue and hand and burned the book. After the Friar and the Summoner squabble, she tells of a knight of King Arthur’s court who rapes a young woman and is condemned, until the queen spares him if he can learn within a year and a day what women most desire. An old woman gives him the answer, sovereignty, makes him marry her, and after a speech on true nobility lets him choose an ugly, faithful wife or a fair one he cannot be sure of; when he leaves the choice to her, she becomes both beautiful and true.

   Why it mattersThe Wife turns the churchmen’s own authorities against them and asks who painted the lion, meaning who wrote the books that blame women. Readers still argue whether her tale’s ending, in which the wife gains mastery and then obeys her husband in everything, celebrates women’s sovereignty or takes it back.

5. 5

   The Pardoner’s Prologue and Tale

   The Pardoner explains his trade: he always preaches on the text that greed is the root of evils, shows papal documents and fake relics, and boasts that he preaches only for money, even from the poorest widow. His tale, set in Flanders, opens with a sermon against gluttony, drunkenness, gambling and swearing, then follows three young rioters who hear that a thief called Death has killed their old companion and swear to kill Death. A strange old man who cannot die sends them to an oak tree, where they find nearly eight bushels of gold florins; two of them stab the youngest when he returns from town, then drink the wine he has poisoned and die. The Pardoner then offers his relics and pardons to the pilgrims, starting with the Host, who answers with a crude insult, and the Knight makes the two kiss and ride on.

   Why it mattersThe tale works exactly as the Pardoner says his sermons work, frightening listeners about greed so that they pay him. Readers disagree whether his final sales pitch is a joke, a blunder or a sign that his own story has shaken him.

6. 6

   The Nun’s Priest’s Tale

   A poor widow keeps a yard with a splendid rooster, Chauntecleer, and seven hens, of whom the fairest is Pertelote. Chauntecleer dreams of a reddish beast like a dog, and Pertelote scolds him as a coward, blames his humors and prescribes laxatives, while he answers with story after story in which dreams came true. After all his examples, he declares that he defies dreams and flies down into the yard, where a fox flatters him into closing his eyes to sing and carries him off, and the widow, her two daughters, the dogs and the whole farm give chase. Chauntecleer persuades the fox to shout a taunt at the pursuers, flies into a tree the moment it opens its mouth, and refuses to be flattered twice.

   Why it mattersA mock epic, it dresses a farmyard fable in learned debate, tragic laments and questions about free will. Its lesson, beware of flattery, comes with an invitation to take the fruit and leave the chaff.

7. 7

   Chaucer’s Retraction

   In a short prose farewell, the maker of the book asks readers to thank Christ for anything in it that pleases them and to blame his lack of skill for anything that does not. He asks for their prayers and revokes his works of worldly vanity, naming Troilus, the House of Fame, the Legend of Good Women, the Book of the Duchess, the Parliament of Birds, a Book of the Lion and those Canterbury tales that tend toward sin. He gives thanks for his translation of Boethius and his religious writings and prays for the grace of true penitence.

   Why it mattersIn the manuscripts it follows the Parson’s Tale, a prose treatise on penitence not included here, so the journey ends with the soul rather than with a supper at the Tabard. Whether Chaucer meant it as sincere repentance or as a customary closing is still debated.

Characters and how they connect

Character Relationships who connects to whom, and the themes that bind them

Themes in The Canterbury Tales what the novel is really about

Symbols & motifs

Important quotes

The ending of The Canterbury Tales, explained

The Canterbury Tales has no ending of the kind the General Prologue promises. The Host planned four tales from every pilgrim and a supper for the winner back at the Tabard, but in the text the pilgrims never reach Canterbury, never turn for home, and no winner is named. About two dozen tales survive, some unfinished, in groups whose order differs from one manuscript to another. The book closes instead with the Parson’s Tale, a long prose treatise on penitence not included here, and then a short prose passage headed Here taketh the makere of this book his leve, usually called the Retraction. In it Chaucer speaks in his own voice. He asks readers to thank Christ for anything they liked and to blame his lack of skill for anything they did not. He then revokes his works of worldly vanity by name, among them Troilus, the House of Fame, the Legend of Good Women and the tales of Canterbury that tend toward sin. He gives thanks only for his translation of Boethius and his saints’ lives, homilies and devotional writing, and he asks for prayers for his soul. Readers disagree about how to take this. Some read it as sincere repentance by a writer near the end of his life who wanted his religious work to outweigh the bawdy. Others note that medieval authors often closed with conventional apologies, and that Chaucer keeps a teasing edge: he never says which tales tend toward sin, so each reader has to decide, just as the narrator told squeamish readers of the Miller’s Tale to turn the page. A third reading ties the Retraction to the frame itself. The pilgrims set out for a shrine, and the book ends on the soul’s journey toward judgment, so the game finally gives way to earnest. The Nun’s Priest’s advice, to take the fruit and leave the chaff, may be the best guide to the whole book.

Common misreadings

Test yourself

Flashcards flip, self-grade, and the deck remembers what you know

A group of about thirty people are riding to Canterbury, a holy city in England, and they meet at an inn. The innkeeper says they should tell stories on the way, and the best storyteller will win a free dinner. A knight tells a long story about two cousins who love the same woman. A drunk miller tells a rude, funny story about a trick played on an old carpenter. A woman who has had five husbands talks about marriage and tells a story about a knight who must find out what women want most. A dishonest church official tells a story about three men who kill each other over gold. A priest tells a story about a proud rooster who is almost eaten by a fox because he believes its flattery.

Compare & connect the story universe

Adaptations. The Canterbury Tales (2003, BBC television series).

Discussion & essay prompts for class, or your next paper

Key questions students ask

• What is the frame story of The Canterbury Tales
• How many tales was each pilgrim supposed to tell in The Canterbury Tales
• What do women most desire in the Wife of Bath’s Tale
• What is the moral of the Pardoner’s Tale
• Why does the Pardoner admit he is a fraud
• What is Chaucer’s Retraction at the end of The Canterbury Tales