Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History Booky 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 mass[78]. 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, ll. 791-795, that it was his intention to make each of the pilgrims tell four tales, two on the way to Canterbury[79] 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[80]. 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 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[81], 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)[82]. In fact, such 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 (l. 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, l. 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, l. 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 |