Characters in the Tales.—­Chaucer’s plan is superior to Boccaccio’s; for only the nobility figure as story-tellers in the Decameron, while the Canterbury pilgrims represent all ranks of English life, from the knight to the sailor.

The Prologue to the Tales places these characters before us almost as distinctly as they would appear in real life.  At the Tabard Inn in Southwark, just across the Thames from London, we see that merry band of pilgrims on a pleasant April day.  We look first upon a manly figure who strikes us as being every inch a knight.  His cassock shows the marks of his coat of mail.

  “At mortal batailles hadde he been fiftene.
       * * * * *
  And of his port as meke as is a mayde. 
  He never yet no vileinye ne sayde
  In al his lyf, un-to no maner wight. 
  He was a verray parfit gentil knight.”

His son, the Squire, next catches our attention.  We notice his curly locks, his garments embroidered with gay flowers, and the graceful way in which he rides his horse.  By his side is his servant, the Yeoman, “clad in cote and hood of grene,” with a sheaf of arrows at his belt.  We may even note his cropped head and his horn suspended from green belt.  We next catch sight of a Nun’s gracefully pleated wimple, shapely nose, small mouth, “eyes greye as glas,” well-made cloak, coral beads, and brooch of gold.  She is attended by a second Nun and three Priests.  The Monk is a striking figure:—­

  “His heed was balled, that shoon as any glas,
  And eek his face, as he hadde been anoint. 
  He was a lord ful fat and in good point.”

[Illustration:  PILGRIMS LEAVING THE TABARD INN. From Urry’s Chaucer.]

There follow the Friar with twinkling eyes, “the beste beggere in his hous,” the Merchant with his forked beard, the Clerk (scholar) of Oxford in his threadbare garments, the Sergeant-at-Law, the Franklyn (country gentleman), Haberdasher, Carpenter, Weaver, Dyer, Tapycer (tapestry maker), Cook, Shipman, Physician, Wife of Bath, Parish Priest, Plowman, Miller, Manciple (purchaser of provisions), Reeve (bailiff of a farm), Summoner (official of an ecclesiastical court), and Pardoner.  These characters, exclusive of Baily (the host of Tabard Inn) and Chaucer himself, are alluded to in the Prologue to the Tales as—­

  “Wel nyne and twenty in a companye,
  Of sondry folk, by aventure y-falle
  In felawshipe, and pilgrims were they alle,
  That toward Caunterbury wolden ryde.”

[Illustration:  FACSIMILE OF LINES DESCRIBING THE FRANKLYN[33]. From the Cambridge University MS.]

[Illustration:  THE FRANKLYN[34].]

[Illustration:  THE FRIAR.]

The completeness of the picture of fourteenth century English life in the Canterbury Tales makes them absolutely necessary reading for the historian as well as for the student of literature.