The General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales - Geoffrey Chaucer

The General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer is a seminal work in the English literature history.

It is regarded as a vivid gallery of mediaeval England for its depiction of social hierarchy of the country.

General Prologue is one part of Canterbury Tales and forms the outline.

It was composed in 858 lines.

It was written around 1380 to 1392.

In General Prologue, a group of pilgrims are taking a pilgrimage to the shrine of Thomas Becket in Canterbury.

There are 30 pilgrims in the group

The narrator is Geoffrey Chaucer himself.

They resume their pilgrimage from Tabard Inn in Southwark.

As in the prologue, each pilgrimage is supposed to tell two stories: one on the way to the shrine and one on the way back each. 

In the prologue, the narrator gives the picture of each pilgrimage as to his/her appearance and comportment.

These pilgrims to any of the three dominant estates in the then England: Clergy, Nobility, and Commoners.

1. The Pilgrims are as follows:
2. a knight
3. a squire (the knight's son)
4. the knight's yeoman
5. a prioress
6. a nun
7. the nun's priest
8. a monk
9. a friar
10. a merchant
11. a clerk
12. a sergeant of law
13. a franklin
14. a haberdasher
15. a carpenter
16. a weaver
17. a dyer
18. a tapestry weaver
19. a cook
20. a shipman
21. a doctor of physic
22. a wife of Bath
23. a parson
24. a plowman (the parson's brother)
25. a miller
26. a manciple
27. a reeve
28. a summoner
29. a pardoner
30. the Host (a man called Harry Bailey)
31. Chaucer himself (believed to be the narrator himself.

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