The Canterbury Tales: Character Mind Map & Summary
The key pilgrims of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, grouped by social class, with the tale each one tells, the famous quarrels between them, the structure of the work and the facts that come up again and again in UGC NET.
The Pilgrim Mind Map
Tap any pilgrim to see their portrait, the tale they tell and a famous line.
The Pilgrimage to Canterbury
One April, 29 pilgrims meet at the Tabard Inn in Southwark, on their way to the shrine of St Thomas Becket at Canterbury. The Host proposes a game: each pilgrim tells two tales on the way there and two on the way back, and the best teller wins a free supper. Chaucer finished only 24 tales.
Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote…First line of the General Prologue
🎲 The Game
Organiser & narratorHarry Bailly, the HostInnkeeper of the Tabard · judge of the contest
Role: Loud, bossy and good-humoured. He invents the storytelling contest, decides who speaks next and keeps order.
Key moment: Stops Chaucer’s own tale as rubbish and nearly comes to blows with the Pardoner.
Tells no taleChaucer the PilgrimThe narrator
Role: A shy, seemingly naive narrator who describes his fellow pilgrims with gentle, ironic admiration. The distance between the pilgrim-narrator and the poet is a common exam point.
Tale: Sir Thopas, a comic romance the Host cuts off as “drasty rymyng”, then the prose Tale of Melibee.
⚔️ Chivalry
Those who fightThe KnightVeteran crusader · highest in rank
Portrait: An idealised figure: brave, humble and devout, back from wars from Prussia to Alexandria, still in his rust-stained tunic.
Tale: The first tale. Palamon and Arcite, two cousins who love the same lady, Emily. A chivalric romance based on Boccaccio’s Teseida.
He was a verray, parfit gentil knyght.
The SquireThe Knight’s son · aged 20
Portrait: A fashionable young lover in an embroidered gown who sings, dances and hardly sleeps.
Tale: An exotic romance about King Cambuskan’s court, with a magic ring and a flying brass horse. Left unfinished.
He was as fressh as is the month of May.
⛪ The Church
Those who prayThe PrioressMadame Eglentyne · head of a nunnery
Portrait: Dainty and ladylike, she speaks French “after the scole of Stratford atte Bowe”, weeps over a trapped mouse and feeds her little dogs roast meat. Her brooch reads “Amor vincit omnia”.
Tale: A little Christian boy is murdered for singing a hymn to Mary. A miracle tale, often discussed for its antisemitism.
The MonkWorldly, hunting monk
Portrait: Loves hunting, greyhounds and fine clothes, ignoring the rules of his order.
Tale: A gloomy string of “tragedies” about great men who fall. The Knight interrupts him.
A manly man, to been an abbot able.
The Nun’s PriestTravels with the Prioress
Portrait: Almost nothing: he gets no portrait in the General Prologue.
Tale: The rooster Chauntecleer, his wife Pertelote and the fox. A beast fable and a brilliant mock-heroic piece.
The ParsonPoor, honest village priest
Portrait: An ideal priest who practises what he preaches and visits the poor in all weathers.
Tale: The last tale: a long prose sermon on penitence and the Seven Deadly Sins.
If gold ruste, what shal iren do?
💰 Corrupt Church Officials
Satire targetsThe FriarHubert · licensed beggar
Portrait: Charming and greedy; he sells easy forgiveness, prefers rich people to lepers, and has arranged marriages for young women he seduced.
Tale: A greedy summoner is carried off to hell by a devil, a direct attack on the Summoner.
The SummonerCalls sinners to church court
Portrait: Fiery-red, pimpled face that frightens children; takes bribes and lets sinners off.
Tale: His revenge on the Friar: a greedy friar is humiliated by a sick man’s rude “gift”.
The PardonerSells pardons & fake relics
Portrait: Long, thin yellow hair; carries “relics” such as pig’s bones. He openly boasts that he preaches against greed out of greed.
Tale: Three rioters go looking for Death, find gold instead, and kill one another. An exemplum on his theme, “Radix malorum est cupiditas” (greed is the root of all evil).
📜 Professionals & Middle Class
The rising classThe Wife of BathAlisoun · cloth-maker, five times married
Portrait: Bold, gap-toothed and a little deaf, in scarlet stockings and a huge hat. Has been to Jerusalem three times.
Prologue & Tale: Her long prologue defends marriage and female experience against “auctoritee”. Her tale: a knight must discover what women most desire. The answer is sovereignty (mastery), given by a “loathly lady”.
Housbondes at chirche dore she hadde fyve.
The ClerkPoor Oxford student
Portrait: Thin, on a thin horse, spends everything on books of Aristotle. An idealised scholar.
Tale: Patient Griselda, a wife cruelly tested by her husband, taken from Petrarch. It answers the Wife of Bath.
And gladly wolde he lerne and gladly teche.
The MerchantForked beard · secretly in debt
Portrait: Talks always of his profits, yet nobody knows he is in debt.
Tale: Old knight January marries young May, who tricks him in a pear tree. A bitter tale about marriage.
The FranklinWealthy landowner · pleasure-lover
Portrait: A “son of Epicurus” whose house overflows with food and drink.
Tale: A Breton lay: Dorigen, her husband Arveragus and the squire Aurelius. It ends by asking “Which was the mooste fre?”
It snewed in his hous of mete and drynke.
The Man of LawSergeant of the Law · busy lawyer
Portrait: Clever and successful, but more show than substance.
Tale: The patient suffering of the Christian princess Constance, set adrift at sea again and again.
And yet he semed bisier than he was.
🛠️ Working Class
Those who workThe MillerRobin · drunk, brawny, rude
Portrait: Can break doors with his head; has a hairy wart on his nose; leads the pilgrims out of town playing the bagpipes. Steals corn.
Tale: Drunk, he insists on following the Knight. A fabliau: the student Nicholas tricks the carpenter John with a fake second Flood to sleep with his wife Alisoun.
The ReeveOswald · estate manager, once a carpenter
Portrait: Thin, bad-tempered and clever at cheating his lord.
Tale: Offended by the Miller’s story about a carpenter, he replies with a fabliau in which two Cambridge students get revenge on a cheating miller.
The PlowmanThe Parson’s brother · ideal labourer
Portrait: Hard-working, honest and charitable; he loves God and his neighbour. Like his brother the Parson, an idealised portrait.
Tells no taleThe Rest of the CompanyMinor pilgrims, in one line each
Yeoman: the Knight’s servant, a forester dressed in green.
Second Nun: tells the life of St Cecilia.
Physician: loves gold; tells the story of Virginia.
Shipman: skilled sailor and pirate; tells a fabliau.
Cook: Roger of Ware, with an ulcer on his shin; his tale is unfinished.
Manciple: cheats the lawyers he buys for; tells how the crow became black.
Canon’s Yeoman: joins the pilgrims on the road and exposes alchemy.
Five Guildsmen (Haberdasher, Carpenter, Weaver, Dyer, Tapestry-maker): tell no tales.
Memory Hook: The 3 Ideal Pilgrims
Medieval society was split into three “estates”. Chaucer gives each one a perfect figure, and everyone else is measured against them.
Quarrels & Interruptions: Who Answers Whom
The tales talk to each other. These links come up in exams all the time.
The Structure in 5 Stops
How the work is put together, from the opening lines to the Retraction.
Stop 1The General Prologue
- Spring opening (“Whan that Aprill…”): the season makes people long to go on pilgrimage.
- Chaucer describes each pilgrim, roughly in order of social rank, starting with the Knight.
- The Host sets up the storytelling contest; the pilgrims draw lots and the Knight goes first.
Stop 2The Opening Tales
- The Knight’s noble romance is followed by the Miller’s and the Reeve’s fabliaux.
- The Cook’s tale breaks off unfinished.
- This first sequence shows Chaucer’s method: high and low styles side by side.
Stop 3The Marriage Group
- A debate about power in marriage: the Wife of Bath, the Clerk, the Merchant and the Franklin.
- The term “Marriage Group” was coined by the critic G. L. Kittredge (1912).
- The Franklin’s tale is often read as the balanced answer: love built on mutual respect.
Stop 4Tales of Every Kind
- The Pardoner’s exemplum, the Prioress’s miracle tale, the Nun’s Priest’s beast fable, the Second Nun’s saint’s life and more.
- Each tale tends to suit, or ironically expose, its teller.
Stop 5The Ending
- The Parson’s prose sermon on penitence closes the tales; the pilgrims never reach Canterbury in the text.
- Chaucer’s Retraction follows, in which he asks forgiveness for his worldly works.
Must-Know Exam Facts
The details that keep coming up in UGC NET, SET and PGT papers.
Date, Language & Numbers
Begun c. 1387, still unfinished at Chaucer’s death in 1400. Written in Middle English (London dialect). 29 pilgrims (“wel nyne and twenty”) plus Chaucer and the Host. The General Prologue has 858 lines; only 24 tales were written, out of a planned 120 or so.
Metre
Mostly heroic couplets (rhyming pairs of iambic pentameter), which Chaucer introduced into English. Some tales use rhyme royal (Man of Law, Clerk, Prioress, Second Nun). Two are in prose: Melibee and the Parson’s Tale.
Manuscripts & Printing
The Ellesmere and Hengwrt manuscripts are the most important. The tales survive in 10 fragments. First printed by William Caxton around 1476.
Genres Inside the Tales
- Chivalric romance: Knight
- Fabliau: Miller, Reeve, Shipman
- Beast fable: Nun’s Priest
- Breton lay: Franklin
- Exemplum / sermon: Pardoner, Parson
- Saint’s life: Second Nun
Sources
The frame idea resembles Boccaccio’s Decameron. The Knight’s Tale comes from Boccaccio’s Teseida, and the Clerk’s Tale from Petrarch’s Latin version of Griselda.
Critics Say
Dryden (Preface to Fables, 1700): “Here is God’s plenty”, and he called Chaucer the “Father of English Poetry”. Spenser: “well of English undefiled”. Matthew Arnold: Chaucer lacks “high seriousness”. Kittredge: the “Marriage Group”.
100+ Key Works of English Literature
All the character mind maps in one printed book.
