The Canterbury Tales Study Guide

Chaucer was born between 1343-5 to a well-to-do family of wine merchants in London. He served as a lower-level court official in a variety of roles throughout his life. Chaucer was captured by the French during the Hundred Years’ War but quickly released on ransom. Shortly afterwards, he married Philippa de Roet, an attendant to the Queen, and became an esquire at the King’s court. As an esquire, he served as a spy and traveled to Italy and France, where he likely encountered much of the continental European poetry that influenced his writing. Chaucer held several official positions, including the clerk in charge of overseeing new construction for the crown as well as one of the king’s foresters. In addition to The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer wrote a number of other important poems and prose texts, including Troilus and Criseyde, a romantic, mythological tragedy; The Book of the Duchess, a courtly elegy; and a scientific treatise on the astrolabe.

The late 14th century was a chaotic time in England. The Catholic Church was undergoing huge shifts and changes. After the horrors of the Black Death, many people were questioning the Church’s authority, and groups such as the Lollards rebelled against the power that priests wielded. Medieval society traditionally consisted of three estates: the church, the nobility, and the peasantry. The church represented people who prayed but did not work for a living; this holy sector of society was supported by the other two and was not supposed to be concerned with material goods. The nobility was strictly bound to many rules of chivalry and courtliness. The rest of the population consisted of the peasant working class. However, in the late 14th century, this structure was breaking down. Peasant revolts such as the Jack Straw rebellion of 1381 raged through the countryside. A new middle class consisting of educated workers such as merchants, lawyers, and clerks was beginning to gain power, particularly in urban areas. Chaucer himself was a member of this new middle class. The Canterbury Tales both depict and satirize the conventions of these turbulent times.

Although Chaucer never refers to it directly, he likely got much of his source material from Boccaccio’s Decameron, a series of linked stories that have a similar structure to The Canterbury Tales: just as the Tales are told by pilgrims on their way to Canterbury, the stories of the Decameron are told by lords and ladies traveling around Florence as they try to avoid the Black Plague. Nearly every great poet writing in English is influenced by Chaucer.