SOURCE: "The Uncourteous Knights of The Canterbury Tales," in English Studies, Vol. 72, No. 3, 1991, pp. 209-18.

Taylor is the author of Chaucer's Chain of Love. In the following essay, he examines Chaucer's portrayal of flawed knighthood by analyzing the "Franklin's Tale," the "Physician's Tale," the "Wife of Bath's Tale," and the "Merchant's Tale."

Although the pilgrim-knight whom hazard honours as the first teller of tales is portrayed by Chaucer in great detail as a warrior who serves both secular and religious causes, the Knight's own tale tells of knights in the service of ideals of courtesy. Indeed, the eight tales which feature knights concern love rather than war, and this emphasis reflects the predominant literary tastes of Chaucer's day, if not the general recognition of the declining value of the knight on horseback in military operations. [From the time of the First Crusade, when Norman and Frankish knights struck...