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Welcome to the History of English Podcast, a podcast about the history of the English language.

This is Episode 128, the Canterbury Tellers.

In this episode, we're going to continue our look at the Canterbury Tales by Jeffrey Chaucer.

It's one of the most popular and enduring works of middle English literature.

And one of the most fascinating aspects of the poem is the wide variety of characters that are presented.

These various pilgrims gather together with a common purpose, to go on a pilgrimage to Canterbury.

The pilgrims represent a cross-section of English society in the late 1300s,

and Chaucer paints a vivid picture of each one.

In the process, we get an incredible insight into the common people and culture of the Middle Ages.

But Chaucer didn't just provide descriptions of his pilgrims.

He also modified his language to fit the characters.

Very often, he chose words that reflected the social class of the characters.

And in one particular tale, he actually had his characters speak in their own local dialect.

He's considered to be one of the first English writers to do that.

So this time, we'll look at the characters of the Canterbury Tales.

In other words, the Canterbury Tellers.

And along the way, we'll see what Chaucer's language has to tell us about the state of English in the late 1300s.

But before we begin, let me remind you that the website for the podcast is historyofenglishpodcast.com.

And you can sign up to support the podcast and get bonus episodes and transcripts at patreon.com

slash historyofenglish.

Now this time, I want to focus on the characters presented by Jeffrey Chaucer in the Canterbury Tales.

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