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For this we may reasonably assign two causes; he was probably already somewhat weary of his self-imposed task, and he also began to see his way to a still grander collection, on a larger scale. It is important to observe that Chaucer was, throughout life, haunted by great ideas; and especially, by the desire to leave behind him at least some one great work which would attract general attention. Thus it was that he attempted a translation of the huge French poem of Le Roman de La Rose, which he probably never finished, though we do not know how far he proceeded. He planned the poem of Troilus and Criseyde, which terminates rather suddenly, but not until it had extended to the great length of more than eight thousand lines. Next he planned the House of Fame, which was to be largely a work of imagination; but here once more he was dissatisfied, and abandoned it whilst still incomplete. Almost at once he took up the Legend of Good Women, with its Prologue and twenty stories, but again abandoned it for a larger scheme. It is also tolerably clear that the Monkes Tale originally took its rise from a similar desire to write a succession of lives of illustrious men; and that the first conception of this idea preceded that of the Canterbury Tales. We thus see our author constantly striving after the endeavour to produce some great original work; and the Canterbury Tales was, in fact, the result of the latest and greatest of these endeavours.

To assign any exact date for the Man of Lawes Prologue, which mentions April 18, is difficult. Yet we must exclude 1389, when that day was Easter Sunday, a day unsuitable for travelling and telling tales; as well as 1390, when April 17 was Sunday, which would have prevented the pilgrims, at any rate, from making an early start (Prol. 822-5).

The year 1391 is certainly too late; so that only 1386, 1387, and 1388 are left for consideration. But in 1386, Easter-day fell on April 22, and Good Friday on April 20; and we cannot suppose that the pilgrimage could have taken place in Passion-week, when the Parson and others would be much in request for the duties which the season imposed upon them.

In 1387 and 1388, however, Easter fell early, and left the pilgrims free to take a holiday. In 1388, April 18 was a Saturday, so that the pilgrims must have travelled on Sunday, since they certainly stopped one night on the road at Ospringe, and probably also stopped elsewhere; and surely, if Sunday travelling had been

intended, something would have been said about the hearing of mass1. But in 1387, everything comes right; they assembled at the Tabard on Tuesday, April 16, and had four clear days before them. And when we consider how particular our author is as to dates, we shall do well to consider the probability that this result is correct. We should remember, at the same time, that this date is, for other reasons, more likely than any other. The fact that the Legend of Good Women, begun in 1385, terminates so suddenly, points to the inception of a still greater work, probably in 1386; and this leads up to 1387 as the date when the supposed times assigned to the various Tales were being arranged. And I still think that we ought to attach some significance to the fact (pointed out by me in 1868) that the year 1387 suits the scheme of days mentioned in the Knightes Tale. See note to A 1850, in vol. v.

§ 4. Chaucer tells us, in his Prologue, 11. 791-795, that it was his intention to make each of the pilgrims tell four tales, two on the way to Canterbury 2 and two on the return-journey. But so far from fulfilling his proposed plan, he did not even complete so much as a quarter of it, since the number of tales do not even suffice to go once round, much less four times. No pilgrim tells two stories, though the poet represents himself as being interrupted in his Rime of Sir Thopas, and telling the tale of Melibeus in its stead; and we have no story from the Yeoman, the Haberdasher, the Carpenter, the Weaver, the Dyer, the Tapiser, or the Ploughman. The series being thus incomplete, it only remains to investigate to what degree of completeness the author succeeded in attaining.

§ 5. It is easy to see that Chaucer may have had a good deal of material in hand before the idea of writing a connected series of tales occurred to him. The Prologue, answering somewhat to a preface, is one of his very latest works, and in his best manner; and before writing it, he had in some measure arranged a part of

1 King John of France travelled from Canterbury to Dover (16 miles) on Sunday, July 5, 1360; but he heard mass in the cathedral before starting.— Temporary Pref. to the Six-text Edition, p. 131.

Tyrwhitt says 'at least one Tale'; but see Prol. 792. The fact is that Chaucer himself tacitly modified his plan afterwards, and altered the two tales to one; see the Parson's Prologue, I 16-29.

3 Warton wrongly adds, or the Host. But the Host was the umpire, not a tale-teller himself.

his materials. His design was to make a collection of tales which he had previously written, to write more new tales to go with these, and to unite them all into a series by means of connecting links', which should account for the change from one narrator to the next in order. In doing this, he did not work continuously, but inserted the connecting links as they occurred to him, being probably well aware that this was the best way of avoiding an appearance of artificiality. The result is that some links are perfectly supplied, and others not written at all, thus affording a series of fragments or Groups, complete in themselves, but having gaps between them. A full account of these Groups, showing which tales are inseparably linked together, and which are not joined at all, is given in Dr. Furnivall's Temporary Preface to the Six-text Edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, published for the Chaucer Society in 1868. The resulting Groups are nine. Between these are distinct gaps, and it is by no means clear that the order of the Groups relatively to each other was finally determined upon. This relative order is, however, settled to some extent by occasional references to places passed on the road, and to times of the day. We are also perfectly certain that the Knight was to tell the first tale, and the Parson the last of the whole or partial series, thus leaving us only seven Groups to arrange. Another question at once arises, however, which must be settled before we can proceed, viz. whether the pilgrimage was intended to be performed all in one day, or in two, or three, or more. Any one who knows what travelling was in the olden time must be well aware that the notion of performing the whole distance in one day is out of the question, especially as the pilgrims were out more for a holiday than for business, that some of them were but poorly mounted (Prol. 287, 541), and some of them but poor riders (Prol. 390, 469, 622). In fact, such

The term 'link,' and such terms as head-link,' 'end-link,' and the like, are to be found in the Six-text edition published by the Chaucer Society, whence I have copied them.

* In 1749, the coach from Edinburgh to Glasgow, forty-four miles, took two days for the journey. Twenty miles a day was fast. We may allow the pilgrims about fifteen miles a day. See Chambers' Book of Days, ii. 228. Once more, it is absurd to suppose Chaucer capable of proposing to crowd about sixty tales or so into a single day! A day of ten hours would, with interruptions, leave each speaker less than ten minutes apiece. See also Temporary Pref. to the Six-text, p. 119, shewing that Queen Isabella, in 1358, arrived at Canterbury from London in three or four days; stopping at Dartford, Rochester, and Ospringe. From the same, p. 129, we find that King John of

an idea is purely modern, adopted from thoughtlessness almost as a matter of course by many modern readers, but certainly not founded upon truth. Fortunately, too, the matter is put beyond argument by some incidental remarks. In the first Group, or Group A (1. 3906), occurs the line

'Lo Depeford, and it is half-way pryme —

i. e. it is now half-past seven o'clock. After which the Reve is made to tell a story, and the Cook also, bringing the time of day to about nine o'clock at the least. But in Group F, 1. 73, the Squire remarks that 'it is pryme,' it is nine o'clock, which can only mean that hour of another day, not of the same one. Still clearer is the allusion, in the Canon's Yeoman's Prologue (G 588), to the pilgrims having passed the night in a hostelry, as I understand the passage. This once perceived, it is not of much consequence whether we allow the pilgrims two days, or three, or four; but the most convenient arrangement is that proposed by Mr. Furnivall, viz. to suppose four days (or three and a half) to have been occupied; the more so, as this supposition disposes of another extremely awkward allusion to time, viz. the mention of ten o'clock in the morning in Group B, 1. 14, which must refer to yet a third morning, in order not to clash with the two notes of time already alluded to; whilst the passage in the Canon's Yeoman's Prologue absolutely requires a fourth morning, because of the pilgrims having passed the night at a hostelry. The references to places on the road can cause no trouble; on the contrary, these allusions afford much help, for we cannot rest satisfied with the arrangement in Tyrwhitt's edition, which makes the pilgrims come to Sittingbourne before arriving at Rochester.

§ 6. But the data are not yet all disposed of: for we can fix the very days of the month on which the pilgrims travelled. This is discussed in the note to B 5', where the day recognised by the Host is shown to have been the 18th of April, and not the 28th, as in some editions; which agrees with the expression in the Prologue, 1. 82.

France went from London to Eltham, June 30, 1360 (Tuesday); to Dartford (Wednesday); to Rochester (Thursday); to Ospringe (Friday); and to Canterbury (Saturday). Cf. Notes and Queries, 8th S. i. 474, 522.

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By B 5' I mean Group B, 1. 5, as numbered in the Chaucer Society's Six-text edition; the arrangement of which I have adopted throughout. 2 See note to 1. 8 of the Prologue.

Putting all the results together, we get the following convenient scheme for the Groups of tales. It is copied from Dr. Furnivall's Preface, with the mere addition of the dates.

April 16. The guests arrive at the Tabard, late in the evening (Prol. 20, 23).

April 17. GROUP A. General Prologue; Knight's Tale; Miller's Prologue and Tale; Reeve's Prologue and Tale; Cook's Prologue and Tale (the last unfinished). Gap.

Notes of time and place. In the Miller's Prologue, he tells the company to lay the blame on the ale of Southwark if his tale is not to their liking; he had hardly yet recovered from its effects.

In the Reeve's Prologue, A 3906, 3907, are the lines—

'Lo Depeford, and it is half-way pryme;

Lo Grenewich, ther many a shrewe is inne.'

That is, they are in sight of Deptford and Greenwich at about half-past 7 o'clock in the morning.

This Group is incomplete; I shall give my reasons presently for supposing that the Yeoman's Tale was to have formed a part of it. Probably the pilgrims reached Dartford that night, and halted there, at a distance of fifteen miles from London.

April 18. GROUP B. Man-of-Law Head-link, his Prologue, and Tale (1-1162); Shipman's Prologue and Tale (1163-1624); Shipman End-link (1625-1642); Prioress's Tale (1643-1880); Prioress End-link (1881-1901); Sir Thopas (1902-2156); Tale of Melibeus (2157-3078); Monk's Prologue and Tale (3079-3956); Nun's Priest's Prologue and Tale (3957-4636); End-link (4637– 4652). Gap.

Notes of time and place. In the Man-of-Law Head-link, we learn that it was 10 o'clock (1. 14), and that it was the 18th of April (1. 5). In the Monk's Prologue, l. 3116, we find that the pilgrims were soon coming to Rochester. This Group is probably incomplete, rather at the beginning than at the end. Something is wanted to bring the time to 10 o'clock, whilst the travellers would hardly have cared to pass Rochester that night. Suppose them to have halted there, at thirty miles from London.

April 19. GROUP C. Doctor's Tale (1-286); Words of the Host to the Doctor and the Pardoner (287-328); Pardoner's Preamble, Prologue, and Tale (329-968). Gap.

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