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Geoffrey
Chaucer (c.13401400)
The Canterbury Tales14761477
Grenville Collection EPB G.11585
By permission of The British Library
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Chaucers
The Canterbury Tales
14761477
Geoffrey
Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales towards
the end of the fourteenth century in English,
rather than the more usual Latin or French. Although
his work is now most often read in modernised
versions, his original English can still be understood
by a reader prepared to consider the sounds of
the words rather than their spelling.
The
Canterbury Tales takes the form of 22 stories
told by a group of pilgrims travelling from London
to Canterbury to visit the tomb of Thomas à Becket,
the archbishop who was murdered in his Cathedral
in 1170 at the behest of Henry II. The story of
the pilgrimage itself sets the framework for the
individual tales. Among the storytellers are a
Prioress, a Miller, a Clerk, a Wife of Bath, a
Friar, a Knight and his Squire, and a Pardoner—the
church commissioner who sold indulgences, or remissions
of punishment still owing for sin after Church
absolution had been granted. Pilgrims came from
all levels of medieval society and the members
of the group in The Canterbury Tales reflect
this variety, and varying levels of piety.
The
English merchant William Caxton (c.1422–c.1491)
first came into contact with the printing of books
in Cologne, Germany, around 1471. He began publishing
around 1473–1474 in Bruges, in present-day Belgium.
There he published his own English translation
of a French courtly romance, The Recuyell of
the Historyes of Troye, the first book to
have been printed in the English language.
Around
1476 Caxton established his press at Westminster,
and The Canterbury Tales, possibly
the most famous of his works, was among the first
books he produced. He concentrated on producing
books in English, for which there would be no
international competition.
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