haucer began
writing Canterbury Tales between 1385 and 1389, during one of
the
darkest periods of his life. His wife and several close friends and
patrons
were dead, he was suffering financial troubles, King Richard's court
was
in turmoil, and Chaucer was living in Kent, missing his former home in
London. At first the writing was simply an escape from outward and
inward
pressures, but then he found amusement in it. In Canterbury Tales
he could think about and laugh at the society that seemed to be falling
in pieces around him. By the time his life did get better, the book was
a reality. The audience for Canterbury Tales was therefore not
intended
to be the members of the courts and upper classes that his past poems
were
for, but instead he had a new audience in mind, a national one that
would
understand the social framework of his pilgrims and would notice that
it
did not include royals and upper nobility, nor serfs, nor (except for
the
Ploughman, who is an idealized character) common agricultural workers.
The pilgrims of the highest rank are the Knight (a member of the lesser
nobility, or gentry), his son the Squire, and the Monk and the
Prioress,
who hold monastic offices and came from upper-class families. Those of
the lowest rank are the Manciple, the Cook, the Reeve, the Miller, and
the Ploughman. The pilgrims that best reflect Chaucer's actual audience
were those that have been called "the new men," those who came from
emerging
sectors of society, who had literary skills and interests and whose
tales
drew upon the the new European literary cultures. It was for this new
and
quickly growing population of gentry, freemen, merchants, and people
from
the new "middle" classes that Canterbury Tales were written
for,
and are about.
The Prioress and the Squire When Chaucer introduces the
pilgrims, he arranges them so that we
can better see their social relationships. The Knight rides with his
son
and a retainer, the Prioress with another nun and three priests, the
London
Guildsmen with their wives and hired cook, and the crooked Pardoner
with
his cohort the Summoner. The Sergeant of Law and the Franklin, both
purchasers
of land, ride together. Others are mentioned as if they rode together:
the Miller and the Merchant, and the Shipman, the Physician, and the
Wife
of Bath. Chaucer also arranges the groups of pilgrims in a similar
manner.
First came the Knight and his small retinue, the Prioress and hers, and
the Monk and the Friar; then followed the Merchant, the other members
of
the merchants class, and those pilgrims of "middle" rank; and in last
came
the commoners, the "churls," those freemen of the lowest rank, the same
category in which Chaucer wryly includes himself.
The Knight As the leader of this
group's social structure, the Knight was the
highest of rank and was probably the wealthiest of the pilgrims. He
would've
earned in battle about 2 shillings a day, the same price as a pair of
good
leather boots, or 1 pound in ten days. There is little doubt that he
was
also a landowner, for he tells us, "I have, God woot, a large feeld
to ere," and he would've received at least 4 pounds per annum rent
for every twenty acres that he owned.
Compare this to the poorest
of the pilgrims, the Ploughman, who probably
only earned about 2 or 3 pounds per year, 1 pound of which was spent on
bread for his family. As wages, he would have earned sixpence for an
acre
of land that he had ploughed three times, a penny an acre for hoeing,
and
fivepence an acre for reaping.
The rest of the pilgrims had
incomes that fell somewhere between
the two, and they were all probably fairly well off. The regular
clergy,
which was the Prioress and her company, the Monk, and the Friar, all
would
have received a generous stipend from the church; the Wife of Bath
owned
a clothmaking establishment; the Merchant, Shipman, and Guildsmen all
owned
businesses; the Franklin was a country land-owner; and the Man of Law
was
a high-ranking legal officer.
INTRO | PART ONE | PART TWO | PART THREE | PART FOUR | BIBLIOGRAPHY |
Pilgrims Passing To and Fro © James L. Matterer
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