Sucks books

But in Chaucer we find the
true philosophy of English society, the principle of the guilds, or
fraternities, to which his pilgrims belong--the character and avocation of
the knight, squire, yeoman, franklin, bailiff, sompnour, reeve, etc.,
names, many of them, now obsolete. Who can find these in our compendiums?
they must be dug--and dry work it is--out of profounder histories, or
found, with greater pleasure, in poems like that of Chaucer.

CHARACTERS.--Let us consider, then, a few of his principal characters
which most truly represent the age and nation.
The Tabard inn at Southwark, then a suburb of "London borough without the
walls," was a great rendezvous for pilgrims who were journeying to the
shrine of St. Thomas a Becket, at Canterbury--that Saxon archbishop who
had been murdered by the minions of Henry II. Southwark was on the high
street, the old Roman highway from London to the southeast. A gathering of
pilgrims here is no uncommon occurrence; and thus numbers and variety make
a combination of penitence and pleasure.


Pages:
84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108