In the comments below, post the write ups about your character. (If you worked with a partner, only one of you needs to post, but please put both of your names in it.)
Again, here’s the list and assigned questions from class: Prologue character sign up and questions
Did We Do Anything In English? 
My character is a haberdasher, a dyer, a carpenter, a weaver, and a carpet maker. In the social order, I think that he was in the high class because of numerous occupation abilities. Also, based on the text in “The Canterbury Tales”, he is shown to be very rich, ” He made his household free to al the county. His bread, his ale were the finest of fine and no one had a better stock of wine.” Having all of these pleasures clearly signifies that he is living a a very wealthy lifestyle. His day to day life would have to be working/ creating the best of the best stocks and eating/ enjoying the finer things in life. My character is very talented and loaded, so his day to day life would be nothing short of the extraordinary.
– A Haberdasher, a Dyer, a Carpenter, a Weaver, and a Carpet-maker were all dressed in style like that of the ‘cool’ kids. They were so fresh and clean that their gear could certainly pass for new. Their knives weren’t tricked out with brass, but rather decorated in the shiniest of silver hanging of their belts like a display. Each one seemed of authority fit with grace, a throne in council surely had their name on it. Their wisdom could justify them any plan, making them each an elder man of wisdom. They had the money and the important assets, beside their wives claimed it was their right to be so high up. And if they themselves did not think it so, they ought to have. To be called ‘Madam’ is a daydream thought, so is going to church and being seen by others, having your cloak carried like a queen.
– Basically this prologue is telling us that these artisans are first off female, and secondly that they are dressed very fashionably and fancy for their times. They are higher middle class, with proper poise and articulation. They are clearly very good at their crafts because of all the money they have earned from working so hard. They are very smart and put together.
– The prologue really describes the characters here as well off in terms of appearance and morals. They seem to be the arts of the world, the people that make life worth living , the ones that give it that pop of color. Morally they seem to be very smart and make smart decisions with their money, as well as spend it on themselves as we can tell by their semi flashy appearances.
– I think overall these people have a positive characterization about them. They are higher up in society yes, but they are the people you look up to and want to be. They seem to me like the older kids, that you may be intimidated by, but they are actually really genuine and nice.
-Johnny and Lilly
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1. My character is a summoner, whose job is to make sure that any member of the clergy who was not behaving to the church’s standards, be informed of to the bishop or archdeacon. He would be in the middle-class structure of the medieval period, because he has to report members of the clergy to higher members in that hierarchy, so that the “bosses” can agree on who should be excommunicated from the Church because of mortal sin. Their usual everyday life would consist of probably going on journeys with specific members of the clergy in order to ensure that friars or other types of cleric workers would not behave in sin because their job is to live and preach Christianity which can only happen if these members live their lives the way normal people would.
2. The prologue tells as about how the summoner is just a person who looks ugly and has a general distaste for friars and the Church in general because in the story, the Friar acts like a hypocrite for telling a sick man named Thomas that he is sick for not donating his money to the Church. This characterisation of the summoner is a very negative idea of him, because he is seen as this ugly person who might also be an atheist, since he has a very general hate towards the Friar he is with as well as what the Church is trying to do by telling people that if they donate many things and money to the clergy, than they would be guarantied ascend to heaven, which was a lie. You can also never know if the summoner is telling the truth because he is an angry drunk who finds no pleasure in trying to make sure that members of the clergy obey Catholic law and dislikes anything that the Friar tries to do in order to convince Thomas to give up whatever he has to him.
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Before Reading:
We thought a monk would be someone fierce, someone who enjoys meditating and is respected by the other human beings surrounding him. He is probably middle-high class. Educated enough to get the label ‘monks’ when times were much more strict and confusing as survival of the fittest might’ve been back then. They would hunt for their food and come back to their families, we seem to infer them as being family oriented
After reading:
A monk was seen as a high class human in a society, in which, many weren’t considered much. The prologue explains that a monk “lets go of the things of yesterday and took the modern world’s most spacious.” Monks seem unbothered. The monks sleeves were covered with fine gray, good hair. He also wore a hooded sweater and tightened it to his chin, the tightest it can be. He had a shiny bright, bald head. His face is awfully greasy matching the shine of his head. He was fat, and seemed to be a very intriguing person. His eyeballs never seemed to take a break, having that hot flame in them, a non exiting flame that explains the temperature of his blood and the passion kept in them. And he is also accompanied by a brown horse. Overall, this character is positive, who has a well rounded soul and a different appearance.
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Character: Manciple
A manciple is an officer in charge of buying provisions (food and supplies) for a college, monastery, or other institution, sometimes they would be in charge of food preparation as well. During that time he would have been middle class and educated on finance and occasionally culinary arts. His day would consist of finding out what his specific institution is in need of, request money from that institution to then go and purchase those goods. He would then store those goods, and if his institution required, prepare those goods for consumption.
The prologue gives the image of a confident maniple exiting a temple. It then proceeds to praise his ability to excel at his job, and his market and financial savvy. The prologue, unlike for other characters, does not give an explicit physical representation of the manciple other than that he is a male, which leaves us to use his moral characteristics to synthesize our own image. Morally the prologue describes him as a role model for all caterers which could lead us to believe he is well respected. It displays him as an outwardly humble servant to many (30 specifically) masters and intellectually lacking (it states he was illiterate) but internally financially cunning and mysterious. It praises his excellence at his occupation which leads us to believe he may be smarter than he is given credit for. Overall this is a neutral characterization as his character seems possibly mischievous yet is praised for his exceptional performance.
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I did it with him.
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Arianna and i had Franklin and i didn’t really understand what is was saying at first but once i was rereading it got it. This was talking about him on a eloquence, gentility,and courtesy also he compares the squire to his own son. i think he was upper class and he was a really fancy guy. his life was mostly about siting at a window drinking wine.
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Our character is the doctor. The occupation of the doctor is ride around on his horse and heal the winded and ill. If I were to guess I would most likely say the doctor was very upper class. Even to this day doctors are known to be upperclass. To be a doctor you have to be educated and only the rich back then were able to afford education. He was probably also set up on a high stool because he saved people’s loved ones lives. His day to day life must have been riding on a horse with maybe an assistant and his medical bag, going to wealthy homes to cure the sick. One of his pockets were probably filled with medicinal herbs and the other one gold.
The prologue describes the doctor as a man who the kind would get on his knees for. His job was based on astrology so he read the stars to find people’s fate and people believed everything he said. He was known to always be right with his diagnostics anyways. The doctor seemed to be on the money hungry side, “Gold stimulates the heart” (Chaucer). The book also states that he had a special love for gold so his motivation behind helping people was the money not good moral. He wore taffeta which is a high end fabric so he put his money to use and he flaunted around that he was of higher class. Overall I think it is a positive characterization of the doctor because even though it states he loves his gold it also talk about how he is very wise and a “perfect practicing physician” (Chaucer).
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Our character is a merchant, which is someone who is involved in wholesale trade.Merchants social depended on how well they did their job. We believe that merchants are not very educated. Merchants day to day life are hard days at working trying to trade goods with foreign countries.
The prologue tells us the merchant is well a kept person on the outside. His clothing are nice like they are from upper class but no one knew much about him or even his name.No one is aware of his personal business. I think this is a positive view on our character because people don’t see him as a dirty person or someone who begs for what he needs, which makes people want to trade with him.
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Our character was the skipper, basically a captain/pirate. he sailed the seas and did pretty much traveling work and sailing around the world. As a person the book describes him as very dirty and almost dingy individual. As a character he had a scraggly beard with tanned dark skin and torn clothes, wearing a cloak to cover his face and body and he dawned a hand knife as a necklace. Seems like quite the socially unacceptable badass to the both of us.
We both thought that as a person he probably wasn’t very accepted in society, being a captain or thinking of himself as a captain, he isn’t a very high class member. Nate had a connection, to him saying that he was similar to that of a 21st century gangster, we as a society see them as outcasts and disgusting creatures but we still fear them because of what they can do. Dangerous people that can do dangerous things, but we don’t fully know what they’re capable of. The skipper in general was a very short and quickly summed up character, not really a whole lot to say on him.Yet these were the main points that we could really fit in and our main thoughts on the “Skipper”.
-elias and nate
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Before Reading: We chose the Plowman, before being able to read about this character
we assume that he was positioned in the lower class. When the word plowman comes to mind
we immediately think of a person who works in the fields or do some type of labor for an upper class
person(s).
After Reading: The plowman is brothers with the Parson, the plowman is known to be a hard working, honest, good, and true worker. He tackled on tough jobs from digging ditches and removing manure during the medieval times. But most importantly he wants to help the poor, he’s about giving back. The Plowman doesn’t complain instead he works hard for his fellow Christians and Christ which is his source of motivation. – Izzy and Jerry
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Before reading the Prologue about The Nuns and the priest, we had predictions on how these characters are going to be throughout the Geoffrey Chaucer Tales. My group mates and I thought that the nuns and the priest are people who dedicate their lives to god and have positive personalities about everyone. This is because when we thought about nuns and priest is highly religious people who are with god all the way and they dedicate their life to what god desires. We envision them always being nice to people, having good personalities, and living their life in helping others. Where they stand in the social order for us educated, as well as not poor, but not rich either,living comfortably. We say this because we see them as educated people that care about people and have a high education on Christianity which was everything back when these tales were written. We think that they are regular people, but with higher standards. Their day to day life is like any other, but with living a bit better than the poor. For example they have food in front of them everyday, praying, helping others and dedicating their life to god.
After Reading the prologue, what it told us about the nuns and the priest was that they dedicate their life to god, and they care for people. How they care for the poor and other peoples lifestyle. Hoping that the poor’s lifestyle can get better and how there was always a good way to things and reason to things/situations. In this prologue how we thought they demonstrated the nuns and the priest is that they are important because they help people find the good side of things and that god always supports you. Also their appearance is very neat and orderly. This is because in the prologue it states “that no a trace of grease was to be seen.” This demonstrates how they are neat, orderly and have manners as well as other points in the prologue. They also have a little bit of money because it states “she wore a coral trinket on her arm.” This demonstrates that they have money, but not that much since a trinket is a piece of jewelry with a little value. This is a positive character, helping everybody for the better good. They dedicate their life towards god and for the people, always seeing the good side in everything.
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Before reading:
The person that we had was the miller, and the occupation of the miller would be someone who operated the mill for grinding the grain. Based off of this we would expect that this person was in the lower class with no education. The miller almost sounds like a farmer which is why we infer this. Their day would probably go as follows, wake up, eat, work, eat, work, then sleep.
After reading:
“Broad, knotty and short-shouldered, he would boast – He could heave any door off hinge and post,” Our character has a built figure, weapon by his side, and likes to play bagpipes. He is also described as a loud and proud guy but nonetheless a great guy.
The characterization of the character is overall positive due to him being a strong and nice fellow.
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Before reading the prologue: The person i had was the Serjeant at the law, and what comes to mind when i picture a Serjeant at the law is a Lawyer. Being a lawyer at the time had to mean there was a high level of education that this person has. Based off being a lawyer i would think that this person is in the higher class, because he is a important person and helping others with their troubles. I assume this person is friendly and a great and helpful person to others, and I would imagine he makes a sustainable amount of money so he isn’t on the poor side of the scale.
After reading the prologue: After Reading the prologue of the Serjeant at the law it represented the Serjeant at the law as a very wise person and he was known for his greatness in the area. The Serjeant at the law made a great amount of money, held a high position and was a very busy person. The Serjeant at the law was a clean and sharp character, he well presented with the best silks. The Serjeant at the law lifestyle was perfect, always had the best foods on the tables. He was able to receive anything he desired.
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