Occupation: Cloth-making (wool trade); very skilful
Traits: Pride (puts herself first at Offertory; dress); amorous (gap-toothed)
Emotions: Anger; humour
Appearance: Bold, fair and red complexion; large hips;
fine dress; large hat, veil; spurs; new shoes; on easy-going horse
Talents: Skilled in ways of love; wool trade
Class: Middle, merchant
History: Had five husbands; goes on pilgimages;
Other: Partly deaf
Narrator: Knows of her behaviour at churchComment: independent woman, earns own living, set on making an impression (looking for a 6th husband?) with fine dress, visibly wealthy; manipulates others through her sexual knowledge.
Highlights of students' descriptions:
Knight: virtuous, reserved, very experienced; has travelled and fought all over; rust-stained clothes
Squire: ambitious young bachelor, anxious to prove his worth through his actions. Finely dressed, of noble birth [son of Knight]. Is capable of loving and fighting (poet, songwriter; has already travelled on military expeditions). Well rounded gentleman.
Yeoman: appearance described, deduces occupation from this -- a forester; but little more. Takes pride in his work; looks after Knight's kit.
Nun-prioress: represents basic tenets of church. Higher class than regular nun. Has higher manner and dress, objects of worth. Dainty, cares for her dogs, romantic nature, speaks Stepford French (not Parisian).
Friar: Successful: begs, listens to confessions, uses his charisma and lax penance to coax donations out of confessors; "lowers" himself to associate with the people the Friars were supposed to help but no longer see fit to.
Monk: loves to hunt, lazy, likes to eat; fat [neglects all the standard duties of the monk]
Merchant: apparently well-off, with businesss in good order and under control; dignified; good at making deals; international type of dress; secretly in debt
Some general points:
Descriptions of pilgrims: in medieval tradition of "Estates satire," description of different classes and sins to which they were liable - included church people, aristocrats, merchants. Chaucer focuses more on the middle ranks - his Knight is the highest. "Estates satire" mainly focussed on moral, religious issues; Chaucer's account is less interested in this than in the profession of his pilgrims, their language, social, behavioural aspects.
Importance of economic base of his pilgrims, other than manorial base of Knight and his attendants. But no overt criticism of his various pilgrims: almost seems to endorse their points of view in his descriptions (hence seen as naïve). I.e., no single moral viewpoint available.
No obvious ordering of characters in Prologue: represents no particular model of social order. The older model of society: the Three Estates, knights, priests, labourers. But by Chaucer's time this quite out of date (couldn't accommodate merchant class). Echoed in Knight, Parson, Plowman.
Knight portrait: carefully balanced between spiritual and secular values; he represents traditional feudal authority, a version of social order. Sets standard of comparison for later portraits, such as Monk's worldliness.
Narrator: aside at l. 183, "I seyde his opinion was good"; cf. narrator's naïve comment later, ll 745-8. Is he really naïve? Seems omniscient at other times. Leaves ambivalence for reader to judge.
Document created March 13th 2007