House / Legend / Astrolabe

32. 'May seen the ascendant.' Cf. 'Cum dominator ascendens viderit, res quæ occulta est secundum ascendentis naturam erit; quod si non videt, illud erit secundum naturam loci in quo ipse est dominator'; Cl. Ptolemæi Centiloquium; sect. 90.

33. combust, said of a planet when its light is quenched by being too near the sun. Tyrwhitt, in his Glossary, says that it is used when the planet is not more than 8½ degrees distant from the sun. Cf. Troilus, iii. 717, and the note.

40. Face. See note to Part I. sect. 21. l. 50 (p. 359). The late copies are very incorrect hereabouts.

§ 6. 9. Mr. Brae well calls attention here to the absurd errors in the printed copies. Thynne has 'in the 320 signe,' and Speght 'in the xxiii signe.' The signs of the zodiac are only twelve, and the one opposite to the 1st is the 7th.

§ 8. I see no reason for supposing this proposition to be an interpolation, as Mr. Brae suggests. Though similar to § 11, it is not identical with it. Moreover, it occurs in Messahala.

§ 9. 2. the chapitre beforn, i.e. a previous chapter, viz. in sect. 6. The expression supplies no argument for altering the order of the 'conclusions.'

4. same manere, i.e. a like manner. The 'vulgar night' clearly means that the quantity of the 'crepuscules' must be subtracted from the 'arch of the night.'

§ 13. 5. cours, course; heyest cours, highest point of the path. Late copies have lyne; for which Mr. Brae suggested degre.

§ 14. 6. but 2 degrees. Suppose the sun's midday altitude is 49°, in latitude 52°. Then the co-latitude is 38°, and the sun's declination 11° North. This corresponds nearly (roughly speaking) to the 1st degrees of Taurus and Virgo. Which is right can 'lightly' be known by the time of year, for the sun cannot be in Virgo if the month be April. Compare sect. 15.

§ 17. This conclusion, as pointed out in the footnote, is not correct in theory, but can be made nearly so in practice, by taking the two altitudes very near the meridian. This is directly implied in the words 'passeth any-thing the sowth westward,' i.e. passes ever so little westward of the south line; cf. note below to 38. 10. Consequently, the first observation must also be taken very near the meridian.

25. site, situation. Late copies, sight. This proves that the word site is Chaucerian, and clears up the reading in Ho. Fame, 1114.

§ 18. Instead of reckoning a star's right ascension by referring it to the equator, it was reckoned by observing the degree of the zodiac which southed along with it. This is expressed in the first 'Table of fixed stars' in MS. Camb. Univ. Lib. Ii. 3. 3 (fol. 70, back) by the phrase 'cum gradibus, quibus celum mediant'; the other co-ordinate of position was the star's declination from the equator, as in the modern method. The ancients also used the co-ordinates of longitude and latitude of a star, the longitude being reckoned along the ecliptic, and the latitude along great circles through the poles of the ecliptic; as appears from the second Table in the same MS.

§ 19. 6. equinoxial. This, as explained in the footnote, should be 'ecliptik'; but I can find no MS. authority for the alteration, though the correction is practically made in l. 13.

§ 22. 13. place. Late copies and old editions, planet; absurdly. Latitudes of several places are given in old Latin MSS. They are frequently incorrect.

§ 23. 3. The star A is shewn by the numbers to be the Pole-star, and is obviously the one to be observed in order to find the altitude of the Pole. What the star F is, is of no consequence. The numbers used in other copies are different, and much less satisfactory. That the star A is the Pole-star or some star near the pole in this 'conclusion' is rendered probable also by the wording of the next 'conclusion'; which extends the working of it to the case of any other star, provided it be a star that never sets.

§ 25. 19. When Chaucer says that the latitude of Oxford is 'certain minutes less,' he probably means no more than that the latitude of Oxford was 51 degrees and 50 minutes, as in the text. For I suspect the original reading of the passage made the sun's altitude 38 degrees only, and the latitude 52 degrees; indeed, the passage stands so in MSS. C and P, both good authorities. But he added the statement that the latitude of Oxford was less than 52 degrees. It is probable that, on second thoughts, he put in the number of minutes, and forgot to strike out the clause 'I sey nat this,' &c., which was no longer necessary. Minutes were seldom reckoned otherwise than by tens; 'a few minutes less than 50' (say 47) is a refinement to which the ancients seldom attained. Hence the amount of 10 minutes is vaguely spoken of in l. 31 as 'odde Minutes.' Minutes were clearly not much considered. In the present case, we are assisted by Chaucer's express statement in sect. 22. l. 6. The true latitude of Oxford is between 51° 45′ and 51° 46′.

§ 26. 8-11. It is singular that this sentence, obviously wanted, should appear only in one MS., and has, accordingly, been omitted in all previous editions. There can be no doubt about the genuineness of it, as it so exactly gives the right sense, and happily supplies the words 'right orisonte' in l. 11; thus enabling the author to say, as in l. 21 he does say—'this forseid righte orisonte.'

16. this figure. Here occurs, in some of the MSS., a diagram representing a circle, i.e, a disc of the astrolabe, with straight lines drawn across it from left to right.

17. assensiouns in the righte cercle. This exactly answers to our modern 'right ascension.' We hence obtain the true origin of the phrase. 'Right ascension' was, originally, the ascension of stars at places situate on the equator, and was most conveniently measured along the equatorial circle, by observation of the times of transit of the various stars across the meridian. In other latitudes, the ascension of every degree of the zodiac could be easily tabulated by observing what degree of the equator came to the meridian with the said degree of the zodiac; see l. 20. It hence appears that, whilst persisting in using 'longitudes' and reckoning along the zodiac, the ancients were obliged, in practice, to refer the degrees of longitude to the equator. The modern method of recognizing this necessity, and registering right ascensions as of more importance than longitudes, is a great improvement. The ancients were restrained from it by their unnecessary reverence for the zodiac. Cf. Ptolemy's Almagest, lib. i. c. xiii.

§ 29. Chaucer omits to say that the experiment should be made when the sun is very nearly on the meridian. Otherwise, the confusion of the azimuth with the hour-angle might cause a considerable error.

§ 30. 3. That the phrase 'wey of the sonne' really means the sun's apparent diurnal course in this conclusion, may be further seen by consulting the Latin of Messahala. Cf. the Critical Note on p. 236.

§ 31. In my footnote, I have used the expression 'it does not mean, as it should, the zenith point.' I mean—'as, according to our modern ideas, it should';—for the derivation of zenith shews that the meaning used in this proposition is the older meaning of the two. See note above to i. 19. 7 (p. 357).

6. 24 parties. These 24 parts were suggested by the 24 hours of the day. The '32 parts' used by 'shipmen' are due to the continual halving of angles. Thus, the four cardinal points have points half-way between them, making eight points; between which, we can insert eight more, making sixteen; and between these, sixteen more, making thirty-two. Hence the 32 points of the compass.

§ 33. 5. We should probably insert or south after the word north. Such an insertion is authorised by MSS. B. and C.

§ 34. 3. That 'upon the mones syde' means nearly in the same azimuth as the moon, is apparent from l. 11 below, where Chaucer says that some treatises make no exception even if the star is not quite in the same azimuth. This was certainly a rough mode of observation.

18. episicle, epicycle. To account for the planetary motions, epicycles were invented. The moon, for instance, was supposed to revolve round a moving centre, which centre itself moved round the earth in a perfect circle. This came a little nearer to the true motion in some instances, but was hopelessly wrong, and nothing could be made of it, even when a second epicycle, revolving about a centre which moved in the first epicycle, was superadded. All that Chaucer says here is, that, whilst the centre of the moon's epicycle had a direct motion, the moon's motion in the epicycle itself was a reverse one, unlike that of the other planetary bodies. The subject is hardly worth further discussion, so I merely refer the reader to the Almagest, lib. iv. c. 5; and lib. ix. c. 5.

§ 36. The 'equations of houses' means the dividing of the sphere into equal portions, and the right numbering of those portions or houses. The most important house was the first, or ascendent, just rising; the next in importance was the tenth, which was just coming on the meridian; then come the seventh or descendent, just about to set, and the fourth, just coming to the line of midnight. The next in importance were the succedents, or houses immediately following these, viz. the second, the eleventh, the eighth, and the fifth. The least important were the third, twelfth, ninth, and sixth. See Fig. 14.

§ 37. 18. thise 3 howsez. That is, the nadirs of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th houses give the houses that 'follow,' i.e. the 8th, 9th, and 10th. The word 'follow' here seems to refer, not to position, but to the order in which the houses may most conveniently be found. Chaucer omits to add that the beginnings of the 5th and 6th houses can be found in a similar way, because it is sufficiently evident. It is all from Messahala.

§ 38. 1. for warping, the brodere the bettre. This may mean, either (1) to prevent warping, the thicker the better; or (2) to prevent the errors arising from warping (for fear of warping), the larger the better. I believe the latter to be the true interpretation; for it is better thus to guard against possible errors than to make the plate very thick and, at the same time, small. Besides which, the usual meaning of brodere is wider, larger, more ample. Indeed, we find the very expression 'non sit tamen nimis parvus' in the 4th section of the Practica Chilindri of John Hoveden, published by the Chaucer Society; which see.

8. fro the centre, i.e. sticking up above the centre, the length of the wire being equal to a fourth of the diameter, or half the radius, of the circle. This proportion would do for many days in the year; but in the summer time, the pin would bear to be rather longer. Still, we need not alter the text. Cf. the Critical Note on p. 237.

§ 39. Though MS. A is rather corrupt here, there is little doubt about the corrections to be made. See the Critical Notes, p. 237.

19. That is, the latitude, or breadth, of a climate, or belt, is measured along a line which goes from North to South as far as the earth extends; so that the latitude of the first climate, for example, is measured from the beginning of it to the end of the same, in a due northerly direction. Other authors, he explains, reckoned the latitude of a climate always from the equinoxial line, instead of from the parallel of latitude which terminated the climate immediately to the south of it. Thus the latitude of the fourth climate might mean, either the breadth of that belt itself, or the whole breadth from the equator to the Northern limit of that climate. The MS. E. 2 in St. John's College, Cambridge, contains (besides Chaucer's 'Astrolabe') a Latin treatise entitled 'De septem climatibus expositio.' We find mention of the 'climates' also in MS. Camb. Ii. 3. 3, fol. 33 b, where a diagram appears representing a hemisphere, divided by parallels of latitude into 9 climates or belts, which, beginning from the equator, are as follows. 1. Inhabitabile propter Calorem. 2. Primum clima dia Meroes. 3. Secundum clima dya cienes. 4. Tertium clima di' alexandrios. 5. Quartum clima dia rodos. 6. Quintum clima dia romes. 7. Sextum clima dia boristenes. 8. Septimum clima dia rifeos. 9. Inhabitabile. This agrees with the list in the footnote on p. 221.

There is a passage in Mandeville which well illustrates Chaucer; I quote the part of it which more immediately relates to the Climates. 'For the Superficialtee of the Erthe is departed in 7 parties, for the 7 Planetes; and the parties ben clept Clymates. And oure parties be not of the 7 Clymates: for they ben descendynge toward the West. And also these yles of Ynde, which beth evene aȝenst us, beth noght reckned in the Climates: for thei ben aȝenst us, that ben in the lowe Contree. And the 7 Clymates strecchen hem, envyrounynge the World,' &c. Mandeville's Voiage, ed. Halliwell, p. 186. See also Ptolemy's Almagest, lib. ii.

As regards the longitudes of towns, it may be observed that in MS. F. 25 in St. John's College, Cambridge, the longitudes of Rome, Cordova, London, Paris, and Malta, are said to be 34° 24′, 9° 30′, 19°, 20°, and 38° respectively. These do not well agree together, but they suggest a reckoning from a meridian situated some 20° W. from that of Greenwich. Chaucer says nothing as to what meridian was used for reckoning longitudes from; and Messahala says, vaguely enough, that longitudes were reckoned 'a meridiano circulo ultime regionis habitabilis in occidente,' i.e. from the most westward habitable place, which possibly once meant Madeira.

§ 40. It is possible that this conclusion was really intended to belong to the Fourth Part of the treatise, and was written by way of instalment. See the Prologue, ll. 67-72. It is curious that in all the best MSS. (P. excepted) the last sentence should be incomplete.

13. This sentence is very awkward. It seems to mean—'and then set I the point of F upward in the same sign, because that the latitude was north, upon the latitude of Venus; that is to say, (I set it upward) keeping it in the 6th degree of Capricorn.' Upward means inward, i.e. towards the centre or towards the north; the opposite being expressed by southward, or outward, or toward the border, as in l. 48 below. Upon the latitude of Venus means that the point F of the compass was set above the second degree of latitude, so that the space between the legs of the compass became equal to 2 degrees, as said in l. 16. Lastly, the words that is to seyn, in the 6 degree, &c., are an explanation of the vaguer expression in the same signe. The repetition of the words that is to seyn, &c. (ll. 12 and 14), is intended to draw attention to the necessity of keeping both legs of the compass in the same degree of longitude (A on the zodiac, and F to the north of it).

57. Possibly Chaucer left the sentence incomplete. The words 'thou shalt do well enough' may easily have been added by another hand to bring the sentence to an apparent, though not wholly satisfactory, conclusion. The colophon is written (in a later hand) in MS. A. at the bottom of the page, a part of which, after the words 'howre after howre,' is left blank.

41-43. I have mended the text as well as I could by inserting words, and adopting different readings. Nearly all the emendations rest on authority; see the Critical Notes. The text is not a good one, but I do not see why these sections may not have been written by Chaucer. For a definition of the terms 'Umbra Extensa' and 'Umbra Versa' see sections 5 and 6 of the Practica Chilindri of John Hoveden, published by the Chaucer Society. The umbra extensa or recta is the shadow cast on a plain by any perfectly upright object; but the restriction is commonly introduced, that the altitude of the sun shall exceed 45º. The umbra versa is the shadow cast perpendicularly downwards along a wall by a style which projects from the wall at right angles to it; the restriction is commonly introduced, that the sun's altitude shall be less than 45°. The umbra versa is the one which appeared on the 'chylindre'; hence John de Hoveden explains how to calculate the altitude of an object by it.

44. This article and the next may possibly be Chaucer's. It is well known that he speaks of 'collect' and 'expans yeres' and 'rotes' in the Frankeleines Tale; Cant. Ta., F 1275, 6, the note upon which in the glossary to Urry's Chaucer may be found also in Tyrwhitt's Glossary, s.v. Expans; but it is worth while to repeat it here. 'In this and the following verses, the Poet describes the Alphonsine Astronomical Tables by the several parts of them, wherein some technical terms occur, which were used by the old astronomers, and continued by the compilers of those tables. Collect years are certain sums of years, with the motions of the heavenly bodies corresponding to them, as of 20, 40, 60, &c., disposed into tables; and Expans years are the single years, with the motions of the heavenly bodies answering to them, beginning at 1, and continued on to the smallest Collect sum, as 20. A Root, or Radix, is any certain time taken at pleasure, from which, as an era, the celestial motions are to be computed. By 'proporcionels convenientes' [C. T., F 1278] are meant the Tables of Proportional parts.' To which Moxon adds, from Chamber's Encyclopædia, with reference to C. T., F 1277, that 'Argument in astronomy is an arc whereby we seek another unknown arc proportional to [or rather, dependent upon] the first.'

Tables of mean motions of the Sun are given in Ptolemy's Almagest, lib. iii. c. 2; of the Moon, lib. iv. c. 3; of the Planets, lib. viii. c. 3; also in MS. Ii. 3. 3, fol. 88b, &c.

41a-42b. The fact that these articles are mere repetitions of sections 41-43 is almost conclusive against their genuineness. I do not suppose that sect 46 (at p. 229) is Chaucer's either, but it is added for the sake of completeness.

SOURCES OF THE CANTERBURY TALES.

§ 1. The series of Tales. § 2. The Prologues to Piers the Plowman and to the Canterbury Tales compared. § 3. Date of the Tales; from 1386 onwards. § 4. Number of the Tales. § 5. Old and new material. § 6. Days of the month for the various Groups. § 7. Arrangement of the Groups. § 8. Group A nearly finished. § 9. The Tale of Gamelyn. § 10. The Plowman's Tale. § 11. Early and late Tales. § 12. The test of rhythm. § 13. Origin of the heroic couplet. § 14. Modification of Chaucer's original scheme. § 15. The Tale of Beryn. § 16. Lydgate's Storie of Thebes. § 17. Group A. The Prologue. § 18. The Knightes Tale: Palamon and Arcite. § 19. Boccaccio's Teseide. § 20. Tyrwhitt's analysis of the Teseide. § 21. Resemblances to Troilus. § 22. Later versions of the Knightes Tale. § 23. The Miller's Prologue. § 24. The Milleres Tale. § 25. The Reeve's Prologue. § 26. The Reves Tale. § 27. The Cook's Prologue. § 28. The Cokes Tale. §§ 29-34. The Tale of Gamelyn. § 35. Group B. The Words of the Host to the Company. § 36. The Man of Law's Prologue. § 37. The Man of Lawes Tale. § 38. The same Tale, as told by Gower. § 39. The Shipman's Prologue. § 40. The Shipmannes Tale. § 41. The Prioress's Prologue. § 42. The Prioresses Tale. § 43. Prologue to Sir Thopas. § 44. Sir Thopas. § 45. Prologue to Melibeus. § 46. The Tale of Melibeus. § 47. The Monk's Prologue. § 48. The Monkes Tale. § 49. The Prologue of the Nonne Preestes Tale. § 50. The Nonne Preestes Tale. § 51. Epilogue to the Nonne Preestes Tale. § 52. Group C. The Spurious Prologues to the Phisiciens Tale. § 53. The Phisiciens Tale. § 54. Words of the Host to the Phisicien and the Pardoner. § 55. Prologue of the Pardoneres Tale. § 56. The Pardoneres Tale. § 57. Group D. The Wife of Bath's Prologue. § 58. The Wyf of Bathes Tale. § 59. The Friar's Prologue. § 60. The Freres Tale. § 61. The Somnour's Prologue. § 62. The Somnours Tale. § 63. Group E. The Clerk's Prologue. § 64. The Clerkes Tale. § 65. The Merchant's Prologue. § 66. The Marchantes Tale. § 67. Group F. The Squire's Prologue. § 68. The Squieres Tale. § 69. Words of the Frankeleyn. § 70. The Franklin's Prologue. § 71. The Frankeleyns Tale. § 72. Group G. The Seconde Nonnes Tale. § 73. The Canon's Yeoman's Prologue and Tale. § 74. Group H. The Manciple's Prologue. § 75. The Manciples Tale. § 76. Group I. The Parson's Prologue. § 77. The Persones Tale.

§ 1. The idea of joining together a series of Tales by means of fitting them into a common frame-work is a very old one, and doubtless originated in the East. There is an English collection of this character known as 'The Seven Sages,' of which various versions have come down to us. The earliest of these, as published in the second volume of Weber's Metrical Romances, has been dated about 1320; and is, at any rate, older than any of Chaucer's poems. Another collection, of a similar character, and likewise of Eastern origin, is a Latin work by Petrus Alphonsus, a converted Spanish Jew, entitled De Clericali Disciplina. See Dunlop's History of Fiction, chap. vii. From one of these Chaucer may have taken the general idea of arranging his tales in a connected series; and we must not forget that his Legend of Good Women, which was the immediate forerunner of his greater work, is likewise, practically, a collection of Tales, though sadly lacking in variety, as he discovered for himself in the course of writing it. It is highly improbable that he was indebted for the idea to Boccaccio's Decamerone, as has been sometimes hastily suggested; since we might, in that case, have expected that he would also have drawn from that collection the plot of some one of his tales; which is not found to be the case. The Clerk's Tale occurs, indeed, in the Decamerone; but we know it to have been borrowed from Petrarch's Latin version of it. The Franklin's Tale has some resemblance to another tale in the same collection, but was evidently not taken from it directly, and the same is true in other cases; so that we are quite justified in supposing that Chaucer was wholly unacquainted, at first hand, with Boccaccio's work.

§ 2. It was suggested by Professor Seeley that we may profitably compare the form of Chaucer's Prologue with that of the somewhat similar Prologue to William's Vision concerning Piers the Plowman, a work which was very popular in England just at the same time. William introduces us to a Vision, in which he first of all beholds a Field full of Folk, and describes, in succession, the various sets of folk of which the company consisted; such as ploughmen, anchorites, hermits, chapmen, minstrels, beggars, pilgrims, palmers, friars, a pardoner, parish-priests, bishops, lawyers, and stewards. Chaucer seized upon the happy idea of limiting each class to a single individual, and the still happier idea of combining them into a company with a common object which allowed them to associate together on nearly equal terms. And having thus chosen his representative of each class, he employed his wonderful dramatic power in producing an exact description of each; so that, to quote the words of Dryden, 'he has taken into the compass of his Canterbury Tales the various manners and humours (as we now call them) of the whole English nation, in his age.'

§ 3. As to the date when this idea of forming a continuous series of tales was first entertained, we can hardly be wrong in dating it from 1386 or 1387 onwards. As it was left in an incomplete state, it was most likely in hand up to the time of his death, though he probably neglected it towards the last. The year 1385 is, almost certainly, the date of his Prologue to the Legend of Good Women, and of his first attempt to write in heroic couplets^[77]. He was then full of the idea of writing a series of stories concerning 'Good Women,' and himself tells us that he intended to write stories of nineteen Women, to be followed by the Legend of Alcestis; but we find him suddenly desisting from his task without completing his ninth Legend, that of Hypermnestra. For this we may reasonably assign two causes; he was probably already somewhat weary of his self-imposed task, and he also began to see his way to a still grander collection, on a larger scale. It is important to observe that Chaucer was, throughout life, haunted by great ideas; and especially, by the desire to leave behind him at least some one great work which would attract general attention. Thus it was that he attempted a translation of the huge French poem of Le Roman de La Rose, which he probably never finished, though we do not know how far he proceeded. He planned the poem of Troilus and Criseyde, which terminates rather suddenly, but not until it had extended to the great length of more than eight thousand lines. Next he planned the House of Fame, which was to be largely a work of imagination; but here once more he was dissatisfied, and abandoned it whilst still incomplete. Almost at once he took up the Legend of Good Women, with its Prologue and twenty stories, but again abandoned it for a larger scheme. It is also tolerably clear that the Monkes Tale originally took its rise from a similar desire to write a succession of lives of illustrious men; and that the first conception of this idea preceded that of the Canterbury Tales. We thus see our author constantly striving after the endeavour to produce some great original work; and the Canterbury 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.