Order of The Canterbury Tales

Last updated April 29, 2019

The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories, mostly in verse, written by Geoffrey Chaucer chiefly from 1387 to 1400. They are held together in a frame story of a pilgrimage on which each member of the group is to tell two tales on the way to Canterbury, and two on the way back. Fewer than a quarter of the projected tales were completed before Chaucer's death.^[1] It is uncertain in what order Chaucer intended the tales to appear; moreover it is very possible that, as a work-in-progress, no final authorial order of tales ever existed.

The Canterbury Tales is a collection of 24 stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. In 1386, Chaucer became Controller of Customs and Justice of Peace and, in 1389, Clerk of the King's work. It was during these years that Chaucer began working on his most famous text, The Canterbury Tales. The tales are presented as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together from London to Canterbury to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. The prize for this contest is a free meal at the Tabard Inn at Southwark on their return.

Geoffrey Chaucer was an English poet and author. Widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages, he is best known for The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer has been styled the "Father of English literature" and was the first writer buried in Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey.

Canterbury is a historic English cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury, a local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour.

Key

The table below enumerates all the pilgrims mentioned in the General Prologue, plus two that materialise later in the tales, and the stories they tell. It also compares the orders in which stories appear in various sources.

Pilgrim — The designation of each pilgrim in the General Prologue, commonly accepted alternate designation within the name of their Tale, and membership in group of pilgrims if any. The pilgrims' names link to their Tales' articles.
GP (General Prologue) — This column lists the order in which each character is mentioned in the General Prologue.

General Prologue the first part of "The Canterbury Tales"

The General Prologue is the first part of Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales.

Scholarly arrangements^[2]

Tyr (Tyrwhitt's Fragments) — Thomas Tyrwhitt, editor of the first modern edition of The Canterbury Tales (1775–78)^[3] accepted the order of the Ellesmere manuscript, and furthermore determined – primarily based on linkages in the Tales' Prologues – which tales were "inseparably linked" to each other; this resulted in his postulating 10 Fragments,^[4] each of which is seen as an authorially integral narrative unit, but with no certain indication of what is to come before or after. This structure has remained influential, and is the arrangement followed in the Riverside Chaucer (3rd ed.). (To sort the table by Tyrwhitt's order, use the Ellesmere column.)
CS (Chaucer Society's Groups) — Using Tyrwhitt's foundation, Henry Bradshaw rearranged some Fragments, largely with the goal of constructing the most plausible itinerary for the pilgrims based on clues of time and location in the text.^[5] The "Bradshaw shift"^[6] results in Groups A-I. This arrangement was embraced by Frederick James Furnivall and the Chaucer Society, as well as Walter William Skeat and others.

Thomas Tyrwhitt was an English classical scholar and critic.

Henry Bradshaw was a British scholar and librarian.

Frederick James Furnivall 19th/20th-century British lexicographer

Frederick James Furnivall (1825–1910), one of the co-creators of the New English Dictionary, was an English philologist. He founded a number of learned societies on early English literature and made pioneering and massive editorial contributions to the subject, of which the most notable was his parallel text edition of The Canterbury Tales. He was one of the founders of and teachers at the London Working Men's College and a lifelong campaigner against what he perceived as injustice.

Manuscripts: Over 80 manuscripts containing all or part of The Canterbury Tales exist. The six tabulated below represent the four main orders (El, Cx, La, Pw) in which tales appear in the manuscripts, plus two significant anomalous arrangements (Hg, Ha).^[7] All manuscript orders (except Hg*) were collated by Furnivall.^[8]

El (Ellesmere 26 C 9, the Ellesmere manuscript) — A deluxe illuminated manuscript, probably made within 20 years of Chaucer's death.
Hg (Hengwrt 154 (Peniarth 392D), the Hengwrt manuscript) — Probably the oldest surviving manuscript and, since the mid-20th century, considered the most important.^[9]
Hg* Manly & Rickert argue that some time after Hengwrt was copied, leaves from the back of the manuscript were mistakenly moved to the middle, and the manuscript was bound – and remains today – in this mistaken order.^[10] This column shows the presumed original order.^[11]
Cx (Caxton's editio princeps) — The earliest printed edition of The Canterbury Tales (1478), it is typically accorded manuscript status, as it is based on a now-lost manuscript.^[12]
La (Lansdowne 851)
Pw (Petworth House MS 7)
Ha (Harley MS. 7334)

The Ellesmere Chaucer, or Ellesmere Manuscript of the Canterbury Tales, is an early 15th-century illuminated manuscript of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, owned by the Huntington Library, in San Marino, California. It is considered one of the most significant copies of the Tales.

The Hengwrt Chaucer manuscript is an early-15th-century manuscript of the Canterbury Tales, held in the National Library of Wales, in Aberystwyth. It is an important source for Chaucer's text, and was possibly written by someone with access to original authorial holograph, now lost.

John Matthews Manly was an American professor of English literature and philology at the University of Chicago. Manly specialized in the study of the works of William Shakespeare and Geoffrey Chaucer. His eight-volume work, The Text of the Canterbury Tales (1940), written in collaboration with his former student Edith Rickert, has been cited as a definitive study of Chaucer's works.

Table

(+G = Manuscript includes the non-Chaucerian Tale of Gamelyn after the Cook's initial abortive attempt to tell a tale.)

The Tale of Gamelyn is a romance written in c. 1350 in a dialect of Middle English, considered part of the Matter of England. It is presented in a style of rhymed couplets and described by Skeat as "the older and longer kind of ballad" and by Ramsey as a "rough and ready romance."

Pilgrim	GP	Tyr	CS	El	Hg	Hg*	Cx	La	Pw	Ha
Knight	1	I.2	A.2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2
Squire (Knight's son)	2	V.1	F.1	12	13	10	7	7	9	12
Yeoman (Knight's servant)	3
Prioress	4	VII.2	B².2	17	21	18	19	19	7	19
Nun "Second Nun" (with Prioress)	5	VIII.1	G.1	22	16	13	14	14	16	14
Priest "Nun's Priest" (with Prioress)	6	VII.6	B².6	21	10	22	23	23	23	23
Second Priest (with Prioress)	7
Third Priest (with Prioress)	8
Monk	9	VII.5	B².5	20	9	21	22	22	22	22
Friar	10	III.2	D.2	8	7	7	10	9	12	8
Merchant	11	IV.2	E.2	11	14	11	8	12	10	11
Clerk	12	IV.1	E.1	10	17	14	12	11	14	10
Sergeant of Law "Man of Law"	13	II	B¹	6	12	9	6	6	8	6
Franklin	14	V.2	F.2	13	15	12	13	13	15	13
Haberdasher (guildsman)	15
Carpenter (guildsman)	16
Weaver (guildsman)	17
Dyer (guildsman)	18
Tapestry Weaver (guildsman)	19
Cook (with guildsmen)	20	I.5	A.5	5	5	5	5	5 +G	5 +G	5 +G
Shipman	21	VII.1	B².1	16	20	17	18	18	6	18
Doctor of Physic "Physician"	22	VI.1	C.1	14	18	15	16	16	18	16
Wife of Bath	23	III.1	D.1	7	6	6	9	8	11	7
Parson	24	X.1	I.1	25	24	24	25	25	25	25
Plowman (brother of Parson)	25
Reeve	26	I.4	A.4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4
Miller	27	I.3	A.3	3	3	3	3	3	3	3
Summoner	28	III.3	D.3	9	8	8	11	10	13	9
Pardoner (with Summoner)	29	VI.2	C.2	15	19	16	17	17	19	17
Manciple	30	IX	H	24	11	23	24	24	24	24
"Chaucer" (General Prologue)	31	I.1	A.1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
"Chaucer" (Sir Thopas)	31	VII.3	B².3	18	22	19	20	20	20	20
"Chaucer" (The Tale of Melibee)	31	VII.4	B².4	19	23	20	21	21	21	21
"Chaucer" (Chaucer's Retraction)	31	X.2	I.2	26	-	-	26	26	26	26
Our Host	32
Canon's Yeoman	-	VIII.2	G.2	23	-	-	15	15	17	15
Canon	-

Notes

↑ According, that is, to the Host's initial proposal in The General Prologue (Fragment I.790–801). However, at another point only "a tale or two" is stipulated (Fragment V.698); finally in The Parson's Prologue only one tale per pilgrim is required (Fragment X.15–25) (Benson 1987, p 796). This may indicate a reduction in Chaucer's intended scope. At one tale per pilgrim (and assuming the work is complete upon arrival at Canterbury, with no return trip) then the work is roughly 70% complete.
↑ Furnivall 1869, pp xxi.
↑ Benson 1987, p 772.
↑ Furnivall 1868, pp 9–11.
↑ Furnivall 1868, pp 12–44.
↑ Benson 1987, p 5.
↑ Benson 1987, p 1120-21.
↑ Furnivall 1869, pp xxi ff. Confirmed in Manly & Rickert 1940, pp 495–99.
↑ Benson 1987, p 1119.
↑ Manly & Rickert 1940, pp 478–479.
↑ Manley & Rickert 1940, p 497.
↑ Benson 1987, p 1118.

Related Research Articles

Hg is the chemical symbol of Mercury.

The Parson's Tale seems, from the evidence of its prologue, to have been intended as the final tale of Geoffrey Chaucer's poetic cycle The Canterbury Tales. The "tale", which is the longest of all the surviving contributions by Chaucer's pilgrims, is in fact neither a story nor a poem, but a long and unrelieved prose treatise on penance. Critics and readers are generally unclear what rhetorical effect Chaucer may have intended by ending his cycle in this unlikely, extra-generic fashion.

"The Miller's Tale" is the second of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (1380s–1390s), told by the drunken miller Robin to "quite" "The Knight's Tale". The Miller's Prologue is the first "quite" that occurs in the tales.

"The Pardoner's Tale" is one of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. In the order of the Tales, it comes after The Physician's Tale and before The Shipman's Tale; it is prompted by the Host's desire to hear something positive after that depressing tale. The Pardoner initiates his Prologue—briefly accounting his methods of swindling people—and then proceeds to tell a moral tale.

Sir Thopas is one of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, published in 1387. The tale is one of two—together with The Tale of Melibee—told by the fictive Geoffrey Chaucer as he travels with the pilgrims on the journey to Canterbury Cathedral. The tale concerns the adventures of the knight "Sir Thopas" and his quest to win the elf-queen.

Adam Pinkhurst is most well known as a fourteenth-century English scribe whom Linne Mooney identified as the 'personal scribe' of Geoffrey Chaucer, although much recent scholarship has cast doubt on this connection.

"The Monk's Tale" is one of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.

The Pilgrim's Tale is an English anti-monastic poem. It was probably written ca. 1536–38, since it makes references to events in 1534 and 1536 – i.e., the Lincolnshire Rebellion – and borrows from The Plowman's Tale and the 1532 text by William Thynne of Chaucer's Romaunt of the Rose, which is cited by page and line. It remains the most mysterious of the pseudo-Chaucerian texts. In his 1602 edition of the Works of Chaucer, Thomas Speght mentions that he hoped to find this elusive text. A prefatory advertisement to the reader in the 1687 edition of the Works speaks of an exhaustive search for The Pilgrim's Tale, which had proved fruitless

Contact between Geoffrey Chaucer and the Italian humanists Petrarch or Boccaccio has been proposed by scholars for centuries. More recent scholarship tends to discount these earlier speculations because of lack of evidence. As Leonard Koff remarks, the story of their meeting is "a 'tydying' worthy of Chaucer himself".

The Prologue and Tale of Beryn are spurious 15th century additions to Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. They are both written in Middle English.

Harley MS. 7334, sometimes known as the Harley Manuscript, is a mediaeval manuscript of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales held in the Harleian Collection of the British Library.

Edith Rickert (1871–1938) was an influential medieval scholar at the University of Chicago, whose foundational work includes the Chaucer Life-Records and the eight-volume Text of the Canterbury Tales (1940).

Johannes August Hermann (John) Koch was one of the most prolific modern scholars of medieval English literature, especially the works of Geoffrey Chaucer.

Norman Francis Blake was a British academic and scholar specialising in Middle English and Early Modern English language and literature on which he published abundantly during his career.

References

Benson, Larry D., ed. (1987), The Riverside Chaucer (3rd ed.), Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, ISBN 0-395-29031-7
Furnivall, Frederick J. (1868), A Temporary Preface to the Six-text Edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, London: N. Trubner & Co. for The Chaucer Society
Furnivall, Frederick J., ed. (1869), A Six-text Print of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in Parallel Columns, London: N. Trubner & Co. for The Chaucer Society
Manly, John M.; Rickert, Edith (1940), The Text of The Canterbury Tales: Studied on the Basis of All Known Manuscripts, II: Classification of the Manuscripts, Chicago: University of Chicago Press

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[1] According, that is, to the Host's initial proposal in The General Prologue (Fragment I.790–801). However, at another point only "a tale or two" is stipulated (Fragment V.698); finally in The Parson's Prologue only one tale per pilgrim is required (Fragment X.15–25) (Benson 1987, p 796). This may indicate a reduction in Chaucer's intended scope. At one tale per pilgrim (and assuming the work is complete upon arrival at Canterbury, with no return trip) then the work is roughly 70% complete.

[2] Furnivall 1869, pp xxi.

[3] Benson 1987, p 772.

[4] Furnivall 1868, pp 9–11.

[5] Furnivall 1868, pp 12–44.

[6] Benson 1987, p 5.

[7] Benson 1987, p 1120-21.

[8] Furnivall 1869, pp xxi ff. Confirmed in Manly & Rickert 1940, pp 495–99.

[9] Benson 1987, p 1119.

[10] Manly & Rickert 1940, pp 478–479.

[11] Manley & Rickert 1940, p 497.

[12] Benson 1987, p 1118.

v t e Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales
Order of The Canterbury Tales	General Prologue The Knight's Tale The Miller's Tale The Reeve's Tale The Cook's Tale The Man of Law's Tale The Wife of Bath's Tale The Friar's Tale The Summoner's Tale The Clerk's Tale The Merchant's Tale The Squire's Tale The Franklin's Tale The Physician's Tale The Pardoner's Tale The Shipman's Tale The Prioress's Tale Sir Thopas The Tale of Melibee The Monk's Tale The Nun's Priest's Tale The Second Nun's Tale The Canon's Yeoman's Tale The Manciple's Tale The Parson's Tale
Addenda	The Plowman's Tale The Tale of Gamelyn Siege of Thebes Prologue and Tale of Beryn
Films	The Canterbury Tales (1972)
Stage	The Two Noble Kinsmen (1634 play) The Canterbury Pilgrims (1917 opera) Canterbury Tales (1964 musical)
Television	Trinity Tales (1975) The Canterbury Tales (2003)
Literature	The Canterbury Puzzles A Commentary on the General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales
Single tale derivations	The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle Chanticleer and the Fox The Book of the Dun Cow Palamon and Arcite God Spede the Plough "The Pilgrim's Tale"
Related	Chaucer's Retraction Ellesmere Chaucer Hengwrt Chaucer Descriptive Catalogue "Have a nice day" Words first used in

Order of The Canterbury Tales

Contents

Key

Table

Notes

Related Research Articles

References