had such positive genius for
telling tales in verse that the next five hundred years would fail to
produce his superior in that branch of English literature.

[Illustration: CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL.]

All that Chaucer needed was some framework into which he could fit the
stories that occurred to him, to make them something more than mere
stray tales, which might soon be forgotten. Chaucer's great
contemporary Italian storyteller, Boccaccio, conceived the idea of
representing some of the nobility of Florence as fleeing from the
plague, and telling in their retirement the tales that he used in his
_Decameron_. It is not certain that Chaucer received from the
_Decameron_ his suggestions for the _Canterbury Tales_, although he
was probably in Florence at the same time as Boccaccio.

In 1170 Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, was murdered at the
altar. He was considered both a martyr and a saint, and his body was
placed in a splendid mausoleum at the Cathedral. It was said that
miracles were worked at his tomb, that the sick were cured, and that
the worldly affairs of those who knelt at his shrine prospered. It
became the fashion for men of all classes to go on pilgrimages to his
tomb. As robbers infested the highways, the pilgrims usually waited at
some inn until there was a sufficient band to resist attack. In time
the journey came to be looked on as a holiday, which relieved the
monotony of everyday life. About 1385 Chaucer probably went on such a
pilgrimage. To furnish amusement, as the pilgrims cantered along, some
of them may have told stories. The idea occurred to Chaucer to write a
collection of such tales as the various pilgrims might have been
supposed to tell on their journey. The result was the _Canterbury
Tales_.

Characters in the Tales.--Chaucer's plan is superior to Boccaccio's;
for only the nobility figure as story-tellers in the _Decameron_,
while the Canterbury pilgrims represent all ranks of English life,
from the knight to the sailor.

The _Prologue_ to the _Tales_ places these characters before us almost
as distinctly as they would appear in real life. At the Tabard Inn in
Southwark, just across the Thames from London, we see that merry band
of pilgrims on a pleasant April day. We look first upon a manly figure
who strikes us as being every inch a knight. His cassock shows the
marks of his coat of mail.

"At mortal batailles hadde he been fiftene.
* * * * *