Geoffrey Chaucer (c.1343-1400), the “Father of English Literature,” played a key role in dignifying the Middle English vernacular as a worthy literary medium (as Dante had done with Italian) over against Latin and French. Chaucer was drawn into the service of the court from a young age; the John of Gaunt we read about in Shakespeare was his principal patron. During the siege of Rheims in 1359, a chapter of the Hundred Years’ War, Chaucer was captured. It is thought that during this French imprisonment, he was exposed to the poetic tradition of courtly love. After his release, he began his translation of The Romance of the Rose, a poem which had a more decisive influence on him than any other vernacular work.

The Canterbury Tales includes poetry from throughout Chaucer’s life, but was composed as a single work perhaps between 1387 and 1400. The frame-story has a motley group of thirty engaged in a storytelling contest while on a pilgrimage from London to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas à Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. The Canterbury Tales was written during difficult times: the Catholic Church had entered into the Western Schism (1378-1417, which occurred after Saint Catherine had secured the return of the papacy to Rome), in which two, and later three, men claimed the papacy simultaneously. This was catastrophic for the religious sensibility of Europe. In England, these were also the years leading up to the deposition of King Richard II. In the Tales, English society in the midst of such turmoils is variously and magnificently reflected.