General Prologue

The "General Prologue" is the first part of The Canterbury

Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. It introduces the frame story, in
which a group of pilgrims travelling to the shrine of Thomas
Becket in Canterbury agree to take part in a storytelling
competition, and describes the pilgrims themselves. The
Prologue is arguably the most familiar section of The
Canterbury Tales, depicting traffic between places, languages
and cultures, as well as introducing and describing the
pilgrims who will narrate the tales.[1]

The first lines from the General Prologue

Synopsis at the opening folio of the Hengwrt
manuscript
The frame story of the poem, as set out in the 858 lines of
Middle English which make up the General Prologue, is of a
religious pilgrimage. The narrator, Geoffrey Chaucer, is in
The Tabard Inn in Southwark, where he meets a group of
'sundry folk' who are all on the way to Canterbury, the site of
the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket, a martyr reputed to have
the power of healing the sinful.

The setting is April, and the prologue starts by singing the

praises of that month whose rains and warm western wind
restore life and fertility to the earth and its inhabitants.[2] This
abundance of life, the narrator says, prompts people to go on
pilgrimages; in England, the goal of such pilgrimages is the
Illustration of the knight from the General
shrine of Thomas Becket. The narrator falls in with a group of
Prologue. Three lines of text are also
pilgrims, and the largest part of the prologue is taken up by a
shown.
description of them; Chaucer seeks to describe their
'condition', their 'array', and their social 'degree'. The narrator
expresses admiration and praise towards the pilgrims' abilities.[3]

The pilgrims include a knight; his son, a squire; the knight's yeoman; a prioress, accompanied by a nun
and the nun's priest; a monk; a friar; a merchant; a clerk; a sergeant of law; a franklin; a haberdasher; a
carpenter; a weaver; a dyer; a tapestry weaver; a cook; a shipman; a doctor of physic; a wife of Bath; a
parson and his brother, a plowman; a miller; a manciple; a reeve; a summoner; a pardoner; the Host (a
man called Harry Bailey); and Chaucer himself. At the end of this section, the Host proposes that the
group ride together and entertain one another with stories. He lays out his plan: each pilgrim will tell two
stories on the way to Canterbury and two on the way back. Whoever has told the most meaningful and
comforting stories, with "the best sentence and moost solaas" (line 798) will receive a free meal paid for
by the rest of the pilgrims upon their return. The company agrees
and makes the Host its governor, judge, and record keeper. They
set off the next morning and draw straws to determine who will
tell the first tale. The Knight wins and prepares to tell his tale.[4]

Structure
The General Prologue establishes the frame for the Tales as a
whole (or of the intended whole) and introduces the
characters/storytellers. These are introduced in the order of their
rank in accordance with the three medieval social estates (clergy,
nobility, and commoners and peasantry). These characters are also
representative of their estates and models with which the others in
the same estate can be compared and contrasted. The Tabard Inn, Southwark, around
1850
The structure of the General Prologue is also intimately linked
with the narrative style of the tales. As the narrative voice has
been under critical scrutiny for some time, so too has the identity of the narrator himself. Though fierce
debate has taken place on both sides, (mostly contesting that the narrator either is, or is not, Geoffrey
Chaucer), most contemporary scholars believe that the narrator is meant to be Chaucer himself to some
degree. Some scholars, like William W. Lawrence, claim that the narrator is Geoffrey Chaucer in
person.[5] Others, like Marchette Chute for instance, contest that the narrator is instead a literary creation
like the other pilgrims in the tales.[6]

Chaucer makes use of his extensive literary and linguistic knowledge in the General Prologue by
interplaying Latin, French, and English words against each other. French was considered a hierarchal,
courtly, and aristocratic language during the Middle Ages, whereas Latin was the language of learning.
The opening lines of The Canterbury Tales show a diversity of phrasing by including words of French
origin like "droghte," "veyne," and "licour" alongside English terms for nature: "roote," "holt and heeth,"
and "croppes."[7]

Sources
John Matthews Manly attempted to identify pilgrims with real fourteenth-century people. In some
instances, such as the Summoner and the Friar, he attempts localization to a small geographic area. The
Man of Law is identified as Thomas Pynchbek (also Pynchbeck), who was chief baron of the exchequer.
Sir John Bussy, an associate of Pynchbek, is identified as the Franklin. The Pembroke estates near
Baldeswelle supplied the portrait for the unnamed Reeve.[8]

Sebastian Sobecki argues that the General Prologue is a pastiche of the historical Harry Bailey's surviving
1381 poll-tax account of Southwark's inhabitants.[9]

Jill Mann argued that the descriptions of pilgrims representing a spectrum of social roles is best
understood as standing in the tradition of medieval Estate satire.[10] Stephen Rigby observed the General
Prologue as commenting on medieval social inequality, noting that Chaucerians are divided in their
interpretations of Chaucer's outlook: some see Chaucer as defending the social order; others argue that he
meant to criticize it; and others still hold that he intended to leave it open to the reader's interpretation.[11]
On such interpretations, the pilgrims are less likely to correspond to historical individuals and more likely
to be versions of representative 'types': the friar, for example, being a figure out of existing anti-fraternal
literature.[12][13]

Translation
The following are the first 18 lines of the General Prologue. The text was written in a dialect associated
with London and spellings associated with the then-emergent Chancery Standard.
 First 18 lines of the General Prologue

Sense-for-sense translation into

Word-for-word translation Modern English
Original in Middle English:
into Modern English[14] with a new rhyme scheme (by
Nevill Coghill)[15]
Whan that Aprill, with his shoures When [that] April with his showers
When in April the sweet showers fall
soote sweet

The droghte of March hath perced The drought of March has pierced And pierce the drought of March to
to the roote to the root the root, and all
And bathed every veyne in swich And bathed every vein in such The veins are bathed in liquor of
licour, liquor, such power

Of which vertu engendred is the Of whose virtue engendered is As brings about the engendering of
flour; the flower; the flower,

Whan Zephirus eek with his When Zephyrus eke with his When also Zephyrus with his sweet
sweete breeth sweet breath breath
Inspired hath in every holt and Has inspired in every holt and Exhales an air in every grove and
heeth heath, heath

The tendre croppes, and the yonge The tender crops; and the young Upon the tender shoots, and the
sonne sun young sun

Hath in the Ram his halfe cours Has in the Ram his half-course His half course in the sign of the
yronne, run, Ram has run
And smale foweles maken And the small fowl are making
And small fowls make melody,
melodye, melody

That slepen al the nyght with open That sleep all the night with open That sleep away the night with open
eye eye eye,

(So priketh hem Nature in hir (So Nature pricks them in their (So nature pricks them and their
corages); courages); heart engages)
Thanne longen folk to goon on Then folks long to go on
Then folk long to go on pilgrimages,
pilgrimages pilgrimages

And palmeres for to seken And palmers [for] to seek strange And palmers long to seek the
straunge strondes strands stranger strands

To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry To far-off hallows, couth in sundry Of far off saints, hallowed in sundry
londes; lands; lands,
And specially from every shires And, specially, from every shire's
And specially from every shires' end
ende end

Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they Of England, to Canterbury they Of England, down to Canterbury

wende, wend, they wend

The holy blissful martyr [for] to

The hooly blisful martir for to seke The holy blissful martyr, quick
seek
That hem hath holpen, whan that That has helped them when [that] To give his help to them when they
they were seeke. they were sick. were sick.

In modern prose:

When April with its sweet showers has pierced March's drought to the root, bathing every vein in such
liquid by whose virtue the flower is engendered, and when Zephyrus with his sweet breath has also
enlivened the tender plants in every wood and field, and the young sun is halfway through Aries, and
small birds that sleep all night with an open eye make melodies (their hearts so goaded by Nature), then
people long to go on pilgrimages, and palmers seek faraway shores and distant saints known in sundry
lands, and especially they wend their way to Canterbury from every shire of England to seek the holy
blessed martyr, who helped them when they were ill.[16]

Gallery of the pilgrims

The Knight The Squire The Prioress The Second Nun

The Nun's Priest The Monk The Friar The Merchant

The Clerk of Oxford The Sergeant of Law The Franklin The Cook

The Shipman The Physician The Wife of Bath The Parson

The Miller The Manciple The Reeve The Summoner

The Pardoner Chaucer The Canon's Yeoman

{not part of the
original prologue but
added at the end of
the Tales}

References
1. Scala, Elizabeth (2017). "The General Prologue: Cultural Crossings, Collaborations, and
Conflicts" (https://web.archive.org/web/20231216185715/https://opencanterburytales.dsl.lsu.
edu/gp1/). The Open Access Companion to the Canterbury Tales. Archived from the original
(https://opencanterburytales.dsl.lsu.edu/gp1/) on 2023-12-16. Retrieved 2024-02-07.
2. Christ, Carol, et al. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Volume 1, W.W. Norton &
Company, 2012. pp. 241-243.
3. "The narrator, in fact, seems to be expressing chiefly admiration and praise at the
superlative skills and accomplishments of this particular group, even such dubious ones as
the Friar's begging techniques or the Manciple's success in cheating the learned lawyers
who employ him". Christ, Carol, et al. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Volume 1,
W.W. Norton & Company, 2012. pp. 243.
4. Koff, Leonard Michael (1988). Chaucer and the Art of Storytelling (https://books.google.com/
books?id=I0w56KWBIw0C&pg=PA78). U of California P. p. 78. ISBN 9780520059993.
Retrieved 9 October 2012.
5. Lawrence, William W. (1950). Chaucer and the Canterbury Tales (https://archive.org/details/
chaucercanterbur0000unse/page/28/mode/2up). New York: Columbia University Press.
p. 28. "On the pilgrimage to Canterbury he not only introduces himself in person—one of the
commonest devices of the medieval storyteller—but gives himself an important part in the
action and makes himself constantly felt, not as a narrator, but as Geoffrey Chaucer in
person."
6. Kimpel, Ben (1953). "The Narrator of the Canterbury Tales". ELH. 20 (2): 77–86.
doi:10.2307/2872071 (https://doi.org/10.2307%2F2872071). JSTOR 2872071 (https://www.j
stor.org/stable/2872071).
 7. Wetherbee, Winthrop (2004). Geoffrey Chaucer: the Canterbury tales (2nd ed.). Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-511-16413-2. OCLC 191935335 (https://search.w
orldcat.org/oclc/191935335).
8. John Matthews Manly (1926). Some New Light on Chaucer (New York (https://www.questia.
com/read/815997/some-new-light-on-chaucer). Henry Holt. pp. 131–57.
9. Sobecki, Sebastian (2017). "A Southwark Tale: Gower, the 1381 Poll Tax, and Chaucer's
The Canterbury Tales" (https://pure.rug.nl/ws/files/44079043/692620.pdf) (PDF). Speculum.
92 (3): 630–660. doi:10.1086/692620 (https://doi.org/10.1086%2F692620).
S2CID 159994357 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:159994357).
10. Mann, Jill (1973). Chaucer and medieval estates satire; the literature of social classes and
the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
ISBN 052120058X.
11. Rigby, Stephen H. (2014-11-13), Minnis, Alastair; Rigby, Stephen H. (eds.), "Reading
Chaucer: Literature, History, and Ideology" (https://academic.oup.com/book/12357/chapter-a
bstract/161913419?redirectedFrom=fulltext), Historians on Chaucer: The 'General Prologue'
to the Canterbury Tales, Oxford University Press, p. 11,
doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199689545.003.0001 (https://doi.org/10.1093%2Facprof%3Aos
o%2F9780199689545.003.0001), ISBN 978-0-19-968954-5, retrieved 2025-02-22
12. Geltner, Guy (2014-11-13), Minnis, Alastair; Rigby, Stephen (eds.), "The Friar" (https://acade
mic.oup.com/book/12357/chapter-abstract/161926682?redirectedFrom=fulltext), Historians
on Chaucer: The 'General Prologue' to the Canterbury Tales, Oxford: Oxford University
Press, pp. 156–69, doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199689545.003.0009 (https://doi.org/10.109
3%2Facprof%3Aoso%2F9780199689545.003.0009), ISBN 978-0-19-968954-5, retrieved
2025-02-22
13. Campbell, William H. (2025-02-18). "Plesaunt was his absolucioun? Friars and Light
Penances in English History and Literature" (https://olh.openlibhums.org/article/id/16931/).
Open Library of Humanities. 11 (1). doi:10.16995/olh.16931 (https://doi.org/10.16995%2Fol
h.16931). ISSN 2056-6700 (https://search.worldcat.org/issn/2056-6700).
14. This Wikipedia translation closely mirrors the translation found here: Canterbury Tales
(selected) (https://archive.org/details/canterburytaless0000chau). Translated by Vincent
Foster Hopper (revised ed.). Barron's Educational Series. 1970. p. 2 (https://archive.org/det
ails/canterburytaless0000chau/page/2). ISBN 9780812000399. "when april, with his."
15. Gleason, Paul (2002). "Don DeLillo, T.S. Eliot, and the Redemption of America's Atomic
Waste Land" (https://books.google.com/books?id=i5BlLrcWUe0C&dq=%22++++When+in+A
pril+the+sweet+showers+fall+++++And+pierce+the+drought+of+March+to+the+root,+and+a
ll%22&pg=PA131). Underwords. Joseph Dewey, Steven G. Kellman and Irving Malin.
Rosemont Publishing & Printing Corp. p. 131. ISBN 9780874137859.
16. Sweet, Henry (2005). First Middle English Primer. Evolution Publishing: Bristol,
Pennsylvania. ISBN 1-889758-70-1.

External links
Chaucer, Geoffrey. " The Canterbury Tales: The General Prologue" (http://anthologydev.lib.vi
rginia.edu/work/Chaucer/chaucer-prologue). The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer,
Clarendon Press, 1900 . Literature in Context: An Open Anthology.
http://anthologydev.lib.virginia.edu/work/Chaucer/chaucer-prologue. Accessed: 2024-01-
05T21:10:28.228Z
"General Prologue", middle-english hypertext with glossary and side-by-side middle english
and modern english (http://www.librarius.com/canttran/gptrfs.htm)
Side by side Translation into Modern Verse - Illustrated (https://web.archive.org/web/201709
08210600/http://www.bremesoftware.com/Chaucer/index.htm) at the Wayback Machine
 (archived September 8, 2017)
Modern Translation of the General Prologue and Other Resources at eChaucer (https://medi
evalit.com/home/echaucer/modern-translations/general-prologue-translation/) Archived (http
s://web.archive.org/web/20191022110247/https://medievalit.com/home/echaucer/modern-tr
anslations/general-prologue-translation/) 2019-10-22 at the Wayback Machine
"Prologue to The Canterbury Tales" – a plain-English retelling for non-scholars. (http://eleusi
nianm.co.uk/redShalfleet/rs1prologue.html)

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