Chaucer's People: everyday lives in Medieval England

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer is one of the most famous books in English literature. Liza Picard has written the book, Chaucer's People: everyday lives in medieval England, to provide additional information about the characters and their lives as portrayed in Chaucer's work. The description of the chararacters are divided into  four sections - Country Life, City Life, Religious Life and the Armed Services.

The first chapter deals, not surprisingly, with the Wife of Bath with sections on her appearance providing additional information on clothes worn by women in the fourteenth century; the wool trade as the Wife of Bath was a weaver; matrimony as the Wife of Bath had been married five times; pilgrimages describing some of the many pilgrimage locations visited by the Wife of Bath plus general information about going on a pilgrimage. The Good Wife of Bath by Karen Brooks is a novel based on the character of the Wife of Bath in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

The chapter on the Ploughman also begins with his appearance then discusses agricultural methods of the period; the Great Pestilence of 1348-9 and its effect on agricultural workers; the Poll Tax to help cover expenses for the war with France; the Rebellion of 1381 or 'Peasant's Revolt'. Appendix A, at the end of the book, provides additional information about the unrest.

Consequently the 23 chapters and the epilogue help the reader gain a greater understanding of the people who went on the pilgrimage in Chaucer's tale but also provides a very readable account of the everyday life of ordinary people in fourteen century England. A must read for anyone interested in this period of English history.

The Canterbury Tales

It is a long time since I read / studied part of Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales in 1965. After recently reading The Good Wife of Bath by Karen Brooks, loosely based on Chaucer's Wife of Bath in The Canterbury Tales, I decided to have another look at the work.

Geoffrey Chaucer (1342-1400) worked in a number of roles relating to the English Court and for many years enjoyed the patronage of John of Gaunt, son of Edward III. On his travels overseas he discovered the popularity of French poetry and started writing English poems. Chaucer never completed his best known work, The Canterbury Tales. This was before the invention of the printing press and hand written sections of the work were circulated amongst those wanting to read it. The order in which Chaucer planned for the parts of the book to finally appear is not known. 

The style of  English in which Chaucer wrote is very different from today. In 1951 Nevill Coghill translated Chaucer's work into modern English which is what people normally read today. The edition I looked at was in the Penguin Classics series. For those wanting to read a version of the original text, it is available on Project Gutenberg.  

In The Canterbury Tales a large group of men and women are making a pilgrimage to Canterbury. To while away the time during the journey each member of the group is provided with the opportunity to tell two stories. Interaction between the group members is often revealed in the general prologue or in the prologue (when provided) before a tale. The tension between some group members - the miller, the reeve and the cook for example -is shown by the tales they choose to tell.

The prologue of The Wife of Bath's Tale was the starting point for Karen Brook's novel. Before telling her story the wife provides information about herself including the fact that she has been married five times, on three occasions to men many years older than her. The prologue and the tale itself deal with attitudes at the time towards women and their place in a society run by men.

This entertaining work has come to be accepted as a commentary on life in fourteenth century England.

The Good Wife of Bath

This is a book that I initially borrowed from the library, read the first few chapters and immediately decided that I must have my own copy. The book was purchased between Lockdown 5 and Lockdown 6 in Melbourne. Those who complain about restrictions as the result of COVID-19 should read this story set in  fourteenth century England where there was the threat of bubonic plague in the community every few years.

The story in the first part of the novel, The Good Wife of Bath: a (mostly) true story, by Australian author Karen Brooks is based on the prologue to The Wife's Tale in Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400). 

Eleanor Cornfed was twelve when she married an elderly farmer who became the first of Eleanor's five husbands. In Mediaeval England life was not easy for a woman of the lower classes. Even when Eleanor's opportunities increased and she was able to show her flair for organisation and business she was thwarted because she was not a man or a widow. Never the less Eleanor was a fighter and strived to make her mark and established firm friendships. 

Between each marriage Eleanor went on a pilgrimage to places such as Canterbury, Rome and Jerusalem. Eleanor's distant cousin was the poet Geoffrey Chaucer who followed Eleanor's advice to write about ordinary people, including women. However she was not impressed when he modelled one of his characters on her experiences.

This is a story about the power of men over women in all forms. It is also about the determination of a woman trying and make her own way in a world where the rules are made by men. 

The Good Wife of Bath is an entertaining reworking of Chaucer's story and the historical context in which the novel is set provides an interesting glimpse into the history of 14th century England. At the end of the book there is a glossary of medieaval terms used, a list of the names of real people mentioned in the novel plus a detailed author's note about the writing of the book.