Klas: 5V1

Vak: Engels
Opdracht: MO
Contents:

1. Introduction
2. The history of the Middle-Ages
3. The history of Canterbury Tales and Geoffrey Chaucer
4. Our preparation
5. The 10 lines of the story’s and the discusses of it
6. Questions of the Canterbury Tales
7. Our opinion about this project

1. Introduction:

During the second period of school, we have worked at the project of the Canterbury Tales.
The Canterbury Tales are a collection of stories written by Geoffrey Chaucer at the end of the
14th century. The tales are told as a part of one big story. Each from the tales is a small piece
of the total story. There were a group of pilgrims who
traveled from Southwark to the shrine of Saint
Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. From there
the name Canterbury Tales. The author of the Tales is
Geoffrey Chaucer who has written a lot of works. He
is a well-known writer from the 14th century. A few of
his other works are The Book of Duchness, The house
of Fame, The legend of Good women. The Stories we
have done during this period are: the Millers Tale, the
Wife of Bath’s Tale, the Pardoner’s Tale, the Reeve’s
Tale and the Shipmans Tale. In this paper you can
find the answers of the exercises, and you can find the
extra assignments.
The Canterbury Cathedral
2. The history of the Middle-Ages:

The Middle-Ages: 500 – 1500.

500 – 1066 = Old English period
1066 – 1500 = Middle English period
German tubes from Germany and Denmark invaded England. Original British inhabitants
(Celts) move to Cornwall, Scotland and Wales.
+/- 800 Normans are at war  Donelaw = conquered area
Literary work= Beowulf
1066 – Willem the Conqueror is a duke (hertog) from Normany, he invades England and he
wins battle of Hastings  King
Many French influence. The courtly language is French. Not until the 14th century will it
become English again.
Literature: Courtly love = hoofse liefde
- King Artur and the knights of the round table.
- Canterbury Tales from Geoffrey Chancer.

3. The history of Canterbury Tales and Geoffrey Chaucer:

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The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer
at the end of the 14th century. The tales are told as part of a story-telling contest by a group of
pilgrims as they travel together on a journey from Southwark to the shrine of Saint Thomas
Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. In a long list of works, including "Troilus and Criseyde",
"House of Fame", "Parliament of Fowls", the Canterbury Tales is Chaucer's magnum opus,
and a towering achievement of Western culture. By casting a bumbling, credulous version of
himself as tour guide, Chaucer created literature's first unreliable narrator. Structurally, the
poem bears the influence of The Decameron, which Chaucer is said to have come across
during his first diplomatic mission to Italy in 1372. However, Chaucer peoples his tales with
'sondry folk' rather than Boccaccio's fleeing nobles.

The question of whether "The Canterbury Tales" is finished has not been answered. The
combined elements of Chaucer's quadri-lingual expertise in law, philosophy, and other
subjects, the uncertainty of medieval English historical records, issues of manuscript
transmission, and Chaucer's method of telling his stories through a multi-perspectival prism of
subjectivity make the "Tales" extremely difficult to interpret. There are 83 known manuscripts
of the work from the late medieval and early Renaissance period, more than any other
vernacular literary text with the exception of The Prick of Conscience. This is taken as
evidence of the tales' popularity during the century after Chaucer's death.[1] Fifty-five of
these manuscripts are thought to have been complete at one time, while 28 are so fragmentary
that it is difficult to ascertain whether they were copied individually or as part of a set.[2] The
Tales vary in both minor and major ways from manuscript to manuscript; many of the minor
variations are due to copyists' errors, while others suggest that Chaucer added to and revised
his work as it was being copied and (possibly) distributed. No official, unarguably complete
version of the Tales exists and no consensus has been reached regarding the order in which
Chaucer intended the stories to be placed.[3][4]

Textual and manuscript clues have been adduced to support the two most popular methods of
ordering the tales. The standard scholarly edition divides the Tales into ten "fragments." The
tales that comprise a fragment are closely related and contain internal indications of their
order of presentation, usually with one character speaking to and then stepping aside for
another character. Between fragments, however, the connection is less obvious. Consequently,
there are several possible tales orders, the most popular of which are [3] as follows:

Fragment Tales
Fragment I(A) General Prologue, Knight, Miller, Reeve, Cook
Fragment II(B1) Man of Law
Fragment III(D) Wife, Friar, Summoner
Fragment IV(E) Clerk, Merchant
Fragment V(F) Squire, Franklin
Fragment VI(C) Physician, Pardoner
Fragment VII(B2) Shipman, Prioress, Sir Thopas, Melibee, Monk, Nun's Priest
Fragment VIII(G) Second Nun, Canon's Yeoman
Fragment IX(H) Manciple
Fragment X(I) Parson

An alternative ordering places Fragment VIII before VI. However, the order indicated above
follows that of some early manuscripts. Fragments I and II almost always follow each other,
as do VI and VII, IX and X in the oldest manuscripts. Fragments IV and V, by contrast are
located in varying locations from manuscript to manuscript. Victorians would frequently
move Fragment VII(B2) to follow Fragment II(B1), but this trend is no longer followed and
has no justification.[3] Even the earliest surviving manuscripts are not Chaucer's originals, the

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oldest being MS Peniarth 392 D (called "Hengwrt"), compiled by a scribe shortly after
Chaucer's death. The scribe uses the order shown above, though he does not seem to have had
a full collection of Chaucer's tales, so part are missing. The most beautiful of the manuscripts
of the tales is the Ellesmere manuscript, and many editors have followed the order of the
Ellesmere over the centuries, even down to the present day.The latest of the manuscripts is
William Caxton's 1478 print edition, the first version of the tales to be published in print.
Since this version was created from a now-lost manuscript, it is counted as among the 83
manuscripts.

Language
The Canterbury Tales were written in Middle English, specifically in a dialect associated with
London and spellings associated with the then emergent chancery standard. Although no
manuscript of the Tales exists in Chaucer's own hand, two were copied around the time of his
death by Adam Pinkhurst, a scribe whom he seems to have worked closely with before,
meaning that we can be fairly sure about how Chaucer himself wrote the Tales.Chaucer's
generation of English-speakers was among the last to pronounce e at the end of words (so for
Chaucer the word <care> was pronounced [kaːrə], not /kɛər/ as in modern English). This
meant that later copyists tended to be inconsistent in their copying of final -e and this for
many years gave scholars the impression that Chaucer himself was inconsistent in using it. It
has now been established, however, that -e was an important part of Chaucer's morphology
(having a role in distinguishing, for example, singular adjectives from plural and subjunctive
verbs from indicative).The pronunciation of Chaucer's writing otherwise differs most
prominently from Modern English in that his language had not undergone the Great Vowel
Shift: pronouncing Chaucer's vowels as they would be pronounced today in European
languages like Italian, Spanish or German generally produces pronunciations more like
Chaucer's own than Modern English pronunciation would. In addition, sounds now written in
English but not pronounced were still pronounced by Chaucer: the word <knight> for
Chaucer was [knixt], not [naɪt]. The pronunciation of Chaucer's poetry can now be
reconstructed fairly confidently through detailed philological research; the following gives an
IPA reconstruction of the opening lines of The Merchant's Prologue; it is likely, moreover,
that when a word ending in a vowel was followed by a word beginning in a vowel, the two
vowels were elided into one syllable.

Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343 – 25 October 1400) was an English

author, poet, philosopher, bureaucrat, courtier and diplomat.
Although he wrote many works, he is best remembered for his
unfinished frame narrative The Canterbury Tales. Sometimes
called the father of English literature, Chaucer is credited by some
scholars as the first author to demonstrate the artistic legitimacy of
the vernacular English language, rather than French or Latin.

Life

Chaucer was born circa 1343 in London, though the exact date and location of his birth are
not known. His father and grandfather were both London vintners and before that, for several
generations, the family members were merchants in Ipswich. His name is derived from the
French chausseur, meaning shoemaker.[1] In 1324 John Chaucer, Geoffrey's father, was
kidnapped by an aunt in the hope of marrying the twelve-year-old boy to her daughter in an
attempt to keep property in Ipswich. The aunt was imprisoned and the £250 fine levied
suggests that the family was financially secure, upper middle-class, if not in the elite.[2] John

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married Agnes Copton, who, in 1349, inherited properties including 24 shops in London from
her uncle, Hamo de Copton, who is described as the "moneyer" at the Tower of London.

There are few details of Chaucer's early life and education but compared with near
contemporary poets, William Langland and the Pearl Poet, his life is well documented, with
nearly five hundred written items testifying to his career. The first time he is mentioned is in
1357, in the household accounts of Elizabeth de Burgh, the Countess of Ulster, when he
became the noblewoman's page through his father's connections. He also worked as a courtier,
a diplomat, and a civil servant, as well as working for the king, collecting and inventorying
scrap metal.

In 1359, in the early stages of the Hundred Years' War, Edward III invaded France and
Chaucer travelled with Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence, Elizabeth's husband, as part
of the English army. In 1360, he was captured during the siege of Rheims, becoming a
prisoner of war. Edward contributed £16 as part of a ransom, and Chaucer was released.

After this, Chaucer's life is uncertain, but he seems to have traveled in France, Spain, and
Flanders, possibly as a messenger and perhaps even going on a pilgrimage to Santiago de
Compostela. Around 1366, Chaucer married Philippa (de) Roet. She was a lady-in-waiting to
Edward III's queen, Philippa of Hainault, and a sister of Katherine Swynford, who later (ca.
1396) became the third wife of Chaucer's friend and patron, John of Gaunt. It is uncertain how
many children Chaucer and Philippa had, but three or four are most commonly cited. His son,
Thomas Chaucer, had an illustrious career, as chief butler to four kings, envoy to France, and
Speaker of the House of Commons. Thomas' daughter, Alice, married the Duke of Suffolk.
Thomas' great-grandson (Geoffrey's great-great-grandson), John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln,
was the heir to the throne designated by Richard III before he was deposed. Geoffrey's other
children probably included Elizabeth Chaucy, a nun at Barking Abbey.[5][6] Agnes, an
attendant at Henry IV's coronation; and another son, Lewis Chaucer.

Chaucer may have studied law in the Inner Temple (an Inn of Court) at about this time,
although definite proof is lacking. He became a member of the royal court of Edward III as a
varlet de chambre, yeoman, or esquire on 20 June 1367, a position which could entail any
number of jobs. His wife also received a pension for court employment. He traveled abroad
many times, at least some of them in his role as a valet. In 1368, he may have attended the
wedding of Lionel of Antwerp to Violante, daughter of Galeazzo II Visconti, in Milan. Two
other literary stars of the era were in attendance: Jean Froissart and Petrarch. Around this
time, Chaucer is believed to have written The Book of the Duchess in honour of Blanche of
Lancaster, the late wife of John of Gaunt, who died in 1369.

Chaucer traveled to Picardy the next year as part of a military expedition, and visited Genoa
and Florence in 1373. It is speculated that, on this Italian trip, he came into contact with
medieval Italian poetry, the forms and stories of which he would use later. One other trip he
took in 1377 seems shrouded in mystery, with records of the time conflicting in details. Later
documents suggest it was a mission, along with Jean Froissart, to arrange a marriage between
the future King Richard II and a French princess, thereby ending the Hundred Years War. If
this was the purpose of their trip, they seem to have been unsuccessful, as no wedding
occurred.

In 1378, Richard II sent Chaucer as an envoy/secret dispatch to the Visconti and to Sir John
Hawkwood, English condottiere (mercenary leader) in Milan. It is on the person of
Hawkwood that Chaucer based the character of the Knight in the Canterbury Tales, whose
description matches that of a fourteenth-century condottiere.

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A 19th century depiction of Chaucer

A possible indication that his career as a writer was appreciated came when Edward III
granted Chaucer "a gallon of wine daily for the rest of his life" for some unspecified task.
This was an unusual grant, but given on a day of celebration, St. George's Day, 1374, when
artistic endeavours were traditionally rewarded, it is assumed to have been another early
poetic work. It is not known which, if any, of Chaucer's extant works prompted the reward,
but the suggestion of poet to a king places him as a precursor to later poets laureate. Chaucer
continued to collect the liquid stipend until Richard II came to power, after which it was
converted to a monetary grant on 18 April, 1378.

Chaucer obtained the very substantial job of Comptroller of the Customs for the port of
London, which he began on 8 June, 1374.[7] He must have been suited for the role as he
continued in it for twelve years, a long time in such a post at that time. His life goes
undocumented for much of the next ten years, but it is believed that he wrote (or began) most
of his famous works during this period. He was mentioned in law papers of 4 May, 1380,
involved in the raptus of Cecilia Chaumpaigne. What raptus means, rape or possibly
kidnapping, is unclear, but the incident seems to have been resolved quickly and did not leave
a stain on Chaucer's reputation. It is not known if Chaucer was in the city of London at the
time of the Peasants' Revolt, but if he was, he would have seen its leaders pass almost directly
under his apartment window at Aldgate.[8]

While still working as comptroller, Chaucer appears to have moved to Kent, being appointed
as one of the commissioners of peace for Kent, at a time when French invasion was a
possibility. He is thought to have started work on The Canterbury Tales in the early 1380s. He
also became a Member of Parliament for Kent in 1386. There is no further reference after this
date to Philippa, Chaucer's wife, and she is presumed to have died in 1387. He survived the
political upheavals caused by the Lords Appellants, despite the fact that Chaucer knew well
some of the men executed over the affair.

On 12 July, 1389, Chaucer was appointed the clerk of the king's works, a sort of foreman
organizing most of the king's building projects.[9] No major works were begun during his
tenure, but he did conduct repairs on Westminster Palace, St. George's Chapel, Windsor,
continue building the wharf at the Tower of London, and build the stands for a tournament
held in 1390. It may have been a difficult job, but it paid well: two shillings a day, more than
three times his salary as a comptroller. In September 1390, records say that he was robbed,
and possibly injured, while conducting the business, and it was shortly after, on 17 June,
1391, that he stopped working in this capacity. Almost immediately, on 22 June, he began as
deputy forester in the royal forest of North Petherton, Somerset. This was no sinecure, with
maintenance an important part of the job, although there were many opportunities to derive
profit. He was granted an annual pension of twenty pounds by Richard II in 1394.[10] It is
believed that Chaucer stopped work on the Canterbury Tales sometime towards the end of
this decade.

Not long after the overthrow of his patron, Richard II, in 1399, Chaucer's name fades from the
historical record. The last few records of his life show his pension renewed by the new king,
and his taking of a lease on a residence within the close of Westminster Abbey on December
24, 1399.[11] Although Henry IV renewed the grants assigned to Chaucer by Richard,
Chaucer's own The Complaint of Chaucer to his Purse hints that the grants might not have
been paid. The last mention of Chaucer is on 5 June, 1400, when some monies owed to him
were paid.

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He is believed to have died of unknown causes on 25 October, 1400, but there is no firm
evidence for this date, as it comes from the engraving on his tomb, erected more than one
hundred years after his death. There is some speculation—most recently in Terry Jones' book
Who Murdered Chaucer? : A Medieval Mystery—that he was murdered by enemies of
Richard II or even on the orders of his successor Henry IV, but the case is entirely
circumstantial. Chaucer was buried in Westminster Abbey in London, as was his right owing
to his status as a tenant of the Abbey's close. In 1556, his remains were transferred to a more
ornate tomb, making Chaucer the first writer interred in the area now known as Poets' Corner.

Works
Chaucer's first major work, The Book of the Duchess, was an elegy for Blanche of Lancaster
(who died in 1369). It is possible that this work was commissioned by her husband John of
Gaunt, as he granted Chaucer a £10 annuity on 13 June 1374. This would seem to place the
writing of The Book of the Duchess between the years 1369 and 1374. Two other early works
by Chaucer were Anelida and Arcite and The House of Fame. Chaucer wrote many of his
major works in a prolific period when he held the job of customs comptroller for London
(1374 to 1386). His Parlement of Foules, The Legend of Good Women and Troilus and
Criseyde all date from this time. Also it is believed that he started work on The Canterbury
Tales in the early 1380s. Chaucer is best known as the writer of The Canterbury Tales, which
is a collection of stories told by fictional pilgrims on the road to the cathedral at Canterbury;
these tales would help to shape English literature.

The Canterbury Tales contrasts with other literature of the period in the naturalism of its
narrative, the variety of stories the pilgrims tell and the varied characters who are engaged in
the pilgrimage. Many of the stories narrated by the pilgrims seem to fit their individual
characters and social standing, although some of the stories seem ill-fitting to their narrators,
perhaps as a result of the incomplete state of the work. Chaucer drew on real life for his cast
of pilgrims: the innkeeper shares the name of a contemporary keeper of an inn in Southwark,
and real-life identities for the Wife of Bath, the Merchant, the Man of Law and the Student
have been suggested. The many jobs that Chaucer held in medieval society—page, soldier,
messenger, valet, bureaucrat, foreman and administrator—probably exposed him to many of
the types of people he depicted in the Tales. He was able to shape their speech and satirize
their manners in what was to become popular literature among people of the same types.

Chaucer's works are sometimes grouped into first a French period, then an Italian period and
finally an English period, with Chaucer being influenced by those countries' literatures in
turn. Certainly Troilus and Criseyde is a middle period work with its reliance on the forms of
Italian poetry, little known in England at the time, but to which Chaucer was probably
exposed during his frequent trips abroad on court business. In addition, its use of a classical
subject and its elaborate, courtly language sets it apart as one of his most complete and well-
formed works. In Troilus and Criseyde Chaucer draws heavily on his source, Boccaccio, and
on the late Latin philosopher Boethius. However, it is The Canterbury Tales, wherein he
focuses on English subjects, with bawdy jokes and respected figures often being undercut
with humour, that has cemented his reputation.

Chaucer also translated such important works as Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy and The
Romance of the Rose by Guillaume de Lorris (extended by Jean de Meun). However, while
many scholars maintain that Chaucer did indeed translate part of the text of The Romance of
the Rose as Roman de la Rose, others claim that this has been effectively disproved. Many of
his other works were very loose translations of, or simply based on, works from continental
Europe. It is in this role that Chaucer receives some of his earliest critical praise. Eustache

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Deschamps wrote a ballade on the great translator and called himself a "nettle in Chaucer's
garden of poetry". In 1385 Thomas Usk made glowing mention of Chaucer, and John Gower,
Chaucer's main poetic rival of the time, also lauded him. This reference was later edited out of
Gower's Confessio Amantis and it has been suggested by some that this was because of ill
feeling between them, but it is likely due simply to stylistic concerns.

One other significant work of Chaucer's is his Treatise on the Astrolabe, possibly for his own
son, that describes the form and use of that instrument in detail. Although much of the text
may have come from other sources, the treatise indicates that Chaucer was versed in science
in addition to his literary talents. Another scientific work discovered in 1952, Equatorie of the
Planetis, has similar language and handwriting compared to some considered to be Chaucer's
and it continues many of the ideas from the Astrolabe. Furthermore, it contains an example of
early European encryption.[12] The attribution of this work to Chaucer is still uncertain.
Source: www.wikipedia.nl

4. Our preparation:

We have searched background information about the writer himself and about the Canterbuy
Tales. Also we have make appointments of the distributions about the tasks, which we would
make at home. And the last thing of our preparation was; where we would discuss of during
the test.

5. The 10 lines of a story and the discusses of it::

I’ve chosen ten lines from the story; “The Reeve’s Tale”. In this tale, the Reeve gets the
Miller back, because the miller told a tale about a carpenter. In that tale, he made a fool out of
the carpenter. And because the Reeve used to be a carpenter, he tells this story, to make a fool
of the miller.
In this tale, the miller is a thief. He steals meal and corn from the people that come to him, to
grind it. But two young students didn’t planned to be robbed, so they watch the grinding
process closely. But the miller made a diversion, so the students weren’t paying any attention
to their meal. The miller took a big cut of it, all for himself.
The students sleep over by the miller. In this night, they pay the miller back. One student,
Alan, sleeps with the miller’s daughter, while the other, john, goes with his wife.
These are the ten lines from the story (actually, I took twelve lines):

And thus, the bumptious miller was well beaten

And done out of the supper they had eaten,
And done out of the money that was due
For grinding Alan’s corn, who beat him too.
His wife was plumbed, so was his daughter. Look!
That comes of being a miller and a crook!
I heard this proverb when I was a kid,
‘Do evil and be done by as you did’
Tricksters will get a tricking, so say I;
And God that sits in majesty on high
Bring all this company, grant and small, to Glory!
This I’ve paid out the Miller with my story!

These lines are the last lines from the story. Here, the Reeve who is telling this story, is giving
a conclusion about what all just happened in his tale. He tells that because of the miller is a

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bad person, he will overcome bad things. The miller stole meal and corn from all those people
who came there to grind.
Alan and John punish the miller for that, by doing his daughter and wife. And on their run,
they took the cake that was made of the stolen meal. This way, the miller lost everything.
Thus, his crime didn’t pay back at al.
And that’s the meaning of this story. That, if you commit a crime (do evil), it will eventually
come back to you. And people will judge you as a criminal.

I’ve chosen ten lines from the Pardoner’s tale. The story itself is about three rioters. When
they heard that there is a certain man, called Death, who kills everyone he sees, they wanted
to punish him, and they swore to each other that they wouldn’t rest until they found him, and
killed him. But on the way, to find Death, they ran into an old man. They asked him: where
can we find Death? The men told them the way and he said that he found him earlier that day,
but he left him there. So the tree rioters went to the place that the old man pointed out.

To run, and reached the tree, and there they found,

I pile of golden florins on the ground,
New-coined, eight bushels of them as they thought.
No longer was it Death those fellows sought,
For they were all so thrilled to see the sight,
The florins were so beautiful and bright,
That down they sat beside the precious pile,
The wickedest spoke first after a while.
Brothers, he said, you listen to what I say.
I’m pretty sharp although I joke away.
It’s clear that Fortune had bestowed this treasure
To let us live in jollity and pleasure.

In those ten lines they found the gold, under a tree, and they forget at ones that they wanted
to find and kill Death. All they can think about is the gold, and they truly believed that it was
destiny, that the treasure belongs to them, so they could live with joy and fun.
In the end of the story, they are all death, because they all wanted to have the treasure for
themselves. They were death because of their greed.

I’ve chosen those ten line because I think that they show how greedy people are, and how
they forget everything, just for treasure. The three rioters have sworn that they would kill
Death, but when they see the treasure, they forget Death very soon, and after that they are just
thinking how they would get the treasure home, and more important, how they could kill each
other to have it all for themselves. Another thing what is very interesting about those ten lines
is, I think, that they find immediately a way to demand the treasure, they just say that Fortune
had bestowed the treasure. It’s very egoistic and I think it shows how greedy, and in a certain
way also smart, people can be when they can get rich. (I think it was indeed destiny that they
would find the treasure, but I’ll explain that later).

A few lines before they found the treasure, the old men said that Death laid under a tree, just
waiting there, he wouldn’t be hard to found. When they got to the tree, they thought they
found, instead of Death, a treasure. It is in a way very ironic, but also sad. They didn’t realize
that Death wasn’t a person, but the death, and indeed, they also died. The old men knew it and
he knew that such a big treasure would led to greed and that they would do everything, even
kill each other, to have the money for themselves. I actually don’t think that, when they did

9
knew that Death was the death, it would have stopped them. They were so excited from the
sight, and they were so greedy, that they wouldn’t believe it would become their own death.

I think that it was indeed destiny that they would find the treasure, not because it belonged to
them, or because they could live in jollity and pleasure, but because they wanted to kill Death.
Nobody can win from the death of course, we are all going to die at the end. They wanted to
win from the death, but they would never be able to. That’s why they found the treasure, to
lose from Death, without knowing it.

I’ve chosen 10 lines of the Pardoner’s Tale because I think that story is very interesting. The
story is about 3 men, who are searching of a certain person called death. At one of the
moments they find “Death”. But they discovered that “Death”wasn’t a person but a lot of
gold. The gold gave all the 3 persons a feeling of Greed, en they all want to have it for
themselves. At the beginning of the story about the 3 men, they were brothers who fight for
each other. I’ve chosen 12 lines short after the moment that they have found the Gold. In this
lines you can read the plan of two of the persons to eliminate the other person. I have chosen
12 lines, because that’s much better for the explanation of the story. So they have to share to
gold only with twice. What these persons didn’t know that was that the other person had a
plan also, to kill them.

Nevertheless, If I could shape thing thus

So that we shared it out – the two of us –
Wouldn’t you take it as a friendly turn?
‘But how?’ the ohter said with some concern,
‘Because he knowns the gold’s with me and you;
What can we tell him? What are we to do?’
‘Is it a bargain’, said the first, ‘or no?
For I can tell you in a word or so
What’s to be done to bring the thing about.’
‘Trust me,’ the other said, ‘you needn’t doubt
My word. I won’t betray you, I’ll be true.’
‘Well,’ said his friend, ‘you see that we are two,
And two are twice powerful as one.

So in this lines you can read, that de one person is persuading the other. Finally they have
killed the person. But the eliminated person killed them too. He has went to the city and
bought some wine and poison. He put the poison in to the winebottle, and carried the
winebottle back to the others. At the moment he arrived, he has been killed by the others. But
in the happines of the others they druk the poisoned wine. So they were dead too.

I think this story shows us exactly that a lot of people are very greed, they will only get the
best for themselves. Nobody kept his promises which they had made at the beginnig of their
voyage. They would be brothers, en they wanted to met en kill Death. But finally they met
them and so it’s become their own Death. It was very interesting to read about the plans of the
two rioters. It’s a lesson that in kind of situation like this, that you couldn’t trust anybody.
Even if you have sworn that you will be brothers for life. That’s the really ironic thing about
this story. Nothing was, what it should be. Death look likes gold, and fraternity changed in
greed en enmity.

In this story rhyme is really important. About every scentenses had a form of rhyme in it. For

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example; Because he knowns the gold’s with me and you; What can we tell him? What are we
to do? You see this back in the whole story of the Pardoner’s Tale. The language which was
used in this story was very easy to understand. You did know directly what they talking about.
Only a few words were a bit strange, but I used a dictionary. The really tuff words were
underlined so it was easy to search them.
The moral of this story was good represented by the ten lines I have chosen. The gold, in
normal life the money take care of the greed which person’s have. They want it all for
themselves and they ,litteraly and figurative, go over dead bodies.

6. Questions of the Canterbury Tales:

The Shipman’s Tale:

1.Why did the monk Sir John claim that he and the merchant were
cousins, when they were not?
In the beginning of the story they had a conversation, the merchant and the
monk Sir John, and while they were talking they discovered that they were
born in the same town. It was a small town so they must be related and
that’s the reason for that they called each other cousins. So they weren’t
really cousins.

2.‘And thus I leave them at their meat and drink’ – What kind of
involvement on Chaucer’s side is shown here?
He let’s them life, to do their things. He doesn’t bother them

3.What kind of ‘little jest’ does the monk make and why does he blush?
The wife of the merchant was looking pale, and he made the joke that she has to take some
rest after the nights that she had sex with her husband. Because of this comment the monk
blushed; you don’t say something like that, certainly not in the Middle Ages

4.Why then does the young wife burst out crying?

After the monk had made the joke she began to cry. She started crying after the joke because
she feels terrified because she didn’t loves her husband anymore. She could kill herself she
said.

5.Explain why the monk hurries to deny that he and the merchant are cousins?
Firstly the monk loved the wife and secondly he wanted to make clear what he wasn’t a
relative of her husband.

6.What does the wife want to borrow a hundred francs for?

To buy some special things for herself. Her husband is very greedy and he doesn’t want to
give her money for clothes etc. With the hundred frances she can buy new clothes

7.Explain the trick that Sir John is playing. Is it on the merchant, on his wife or on both?
Explain
Both, because he lent the money of the merchant, he said that he would use the money for
cattle to renew a farm and to the wife he said that he would lent the money to her but he
doesn’t said that he got the money from her husband.

8.Why exactly is the merchant ‘a little cross’ with his wife?

Because the wife is fed up with her husband and she shared the bed with the monk sometimes.
Her husband often went abroad for the business so she is often alone at home.

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9.‘I’ll never pay except in bed’ Explain why this is a crucial line in the tale.
The wife says that she’ll pay the money back by having sex with the merchant. This is
important to the story because at first they didn’t have a lot of sex and now they have

10.What does the ‘friendship’ in this tale consist of?

You can’t speak about a friendship because it’s all go about money and your position in the
society. The monk and the merchant, two well-known and respected position in society.

The Pardoner’s Tale:

1.What is said about Death in the beginning of the Tale?

In the beginning of the Pardoner’s Tale the people talk about Death. Death is a privy killer,
who kills us all.

2.What do the three friends in their drunken stupor set out to do?
They decide to look for Death, and kill him.

3.Comment on the appearance of the Old Man; why does he say they will find ‘Death’
under the Oak tree?
They will find the death because all of the tree are acquisitive. The Death isn’t really a person.
So in their own acquisitive the will kill each other, and so find “Death”.

4.What are the tree planning to do with the

gold?
At first, they will spent it to bread en wine and see
the way it goes. In the evening they will carry the
gold away.

5.What is the theme of the Pardoner’s Tale?

The theme of this tale is greed. Because all of the
3 persons will keep the gold for him selves. All of
the 3 will do everything for the gold. But
unfortunately nobody gets it.

6.Comment on the way the Pardoner finishes and evaluates his tale.
The tale finished with de death of the three persons. After that Pardoner evaluates the Tale

7.What criticism does Chaucer express through his Pardoner? Which Parts of society an
Establishment does he aim it at?
The criticism of Chaucer is about that the people are greed en miserly. Because he sells places
in heaven for a lot of money, although you didn’t get anything for your money back. But he
fooled the people, so the people bought is stuff.

8.How does the Pardoner approach the Host and what is his reaction?
After his death, the Pardoner reaches the Host. The pardoner was so angry that he couldn’t
say a word. At the and of the story The Pardoner en the Host kissed each other and so can he
continue his way. They can laugh with each other

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The Wife of Bath’s Tale:

1.What choice does the old hag offer to the knight, her husband?
The Knight was to choose between an old and ugly, but faithful wife or a beautiful but
unfaithful wife.
2.How does the knight react to this?
He makes his wife to choose.

3.Explain the wife’s reaction.

The wife reacts positive, because this was what she wanted.
To have total domination on her man.

4.What are the moral implications of this tale, i.e.

comment on the aspects of good and bad.
If you are good to your wife, she will be good to you. The
knight learned from the old wife on the green, now his wife,
that women want to control their man. The knight applied
this to his wife, so that his wife becomes beautiful and
faithful.

5.The Wife of Bath, or at least her tale, have been called feminist in nature. Point our the
feminist and/or non-feminist elements in the story, seen from our late-20th-century view-
point. Comment in terms of rale-pattern.
The feminist content is that women are equal, or even better than man. And that they want to
control the man, instead of husbands controlling their wife. The non-feminist part is that man
don’t know what women really want. So they buy them expensive stuff, like nice clothes or
jewellery, to please their wife. But that’s not really what women want, they want to be equal.

6.Read the last eight lines of this tale again; what conclusion does the Wife Of Bath add to
her story?
That man needs to please their wife. And if they don’t, their life is useless so they need to die.

7.What is the moral of this story?

That husbands need to be loyal and good for their wife. To please them everywhere they can.
And that women and man are equal, not that one of the two is better.

The Reeve’s Tale:

1.From the description that Chaucer gives us, what do we know about the miller do we
know about the miller and his wife?
The miller is a big, ugly man. He has enough weapons on him so no one tried to do anything
against him. They were all scared by is looks. His wife is noble born, which means her family
has a high social position. She is a good liking lady, which no one dare to talk to, except
saying madam to her. Because they’re all scared by the miller.

2.The millar keeps stressing the fact that the students are such learned men. Why is that?
Show from the text.
Because the students want to watch the meal grind, in that way the can overlook their meal so
the miller can’t steal anything. The student pretends to be curious about the question; How to
grind meal. But actually it’s an excuse to watch over the miller.

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3.Why does the miller untie the students’ horse?
The miller untied the horse so that the students had to run after it. Otherwise the horse was
gone, and a horse wasn’t a cheap thing in that day’s. It was all a distraction from the miller, so
that he can steal the meal from the students.

4.Explain how the reeve takes revenge on the miller by telling this tale.
He let the miller look bad. The reeve is telling about how bad a miller was. It was a thief,
according to the reeve. And not the brightest one. And above that all, the miller is getting paid
back, by stealing the cakes back and making love to his wife and daughter, by the two
students.

5.When the students decide to have a got at the miller’s wife and daughter, what two
reasons do they have?
The students were talking about they were stolen by the miller. If the miller does that, they
need to be paid back by other services. So one student got to the daughter and makes love to
her, to pay the dept of the miller. To get after the wife wasn’t the main idea of the other
student. He just stole the little baby, and lay it down near his bed. What he didn’t planned is
that the wife thought that by this action, her bed was John’s (the other student) bed. This way,
she lay down near John, and than John gets after her.

6.Explain how Alan ended up in the miller’s bed.

Because of the crib and the wife lay near/in John’s bed, he thought that John was the miller
and the miller was John. So Alan thinks he gets back in bed with John, but it wasn’t John, it
was the miller.

7.‘Thus I’ve paid out the miller with my story!’ Explain

The reeve is telling this story. He was making fun of by the miller in the travel group, so the
reeve want’s to pay him back. (Actually, the miller makes fun of a carpenter, but the reeve
used to be a carpenter.) By telling this story about the miller he paid him back.

8.Who is/are the rascal around here? Explain

Well, there are more rascals. At first the miller is the biggest one. He is an ordinary thief that
steals meal and corn from farmers. But when he steals from the two students, he didn’t knew
that they would pay him back. And the way they paid him back, is a nasty way. But making
love to the daughter and wife, they become rascals too. But only to pay the miller back.

7. Our opinion about this project:

After making this project, we came to an opinion about this all. We think it was a nice project.
We never did something like this before, so it was all new to us. At first, we didn’t know what
to think about it. Al those stories. But after all, it wasn’t that bad.
The tales are written in a very strange way. That’s sometimes hard to read. There are also a lot
of strange words, so you sometimes didn’t know what they mean. But we finished them
successful, and the tales were fun to read.
The short movies were also fun to watch. They’re very strange, because it was al made out of
clay. But that made it funny to watch. The movies made the stories somewhat better to
understand, thus they were good to watch.
With all this in our mind, we look back to the project. It was nice to read some Old – English
tales. And the tales always bring a message with them, so you even learn from them.

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