The Prioress's Tale
The Prioress's Tale follows The Shipman's Tale in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. Because of fragmentation of the manuscripts, it is impossible to tell where it comes in ordinal sequence, but it is second in group B2, followed by Chaucer's Tale of Sir Topas; the General Prologue names the prioress as Madame Eglantine, describes her impeccable table manners and soft-hearted ways. Her portrait suggests she is in religious life as a means of social advancement, given her aristocratic manners and mispronounced French, she maintains a secular lifestyle, including keeping lap dogs that she privileges over people, a fancy rosary and brooch inscribed with "Amor vincit omnia". Her story is of a child martyr killed by Jews, a common theme in Medieval Christianity, much criticism focuses on the tale's antisemitism; the story begins with an invocation to the Virgin Mary sets the scene in Asia, where a community of Jews live in a Christian city. A seven-year-old school-boy, son of a widow, is brought up to revere Mary.
He teaches himself the first verse of the popular Medieval hymn'Alma Redemptoris Mater'. He begins to sing it every day. Satan,'That hath in Jewes' heart his waspe's nest', incites the Jews to murder the child and throw his body on a dungheap, his mother searches for him and finds his body, which begins miraculously to sing the'Alma Redemptoris'. The Christians call in the provost of the city, who has the Jews drawn by wild horses and hanged; the boy continues to sing throughout his Requiem Mass until the holy abbot of the community asks him why he is able to sing. He replies that although his throat is cut, he has had a vision in which Mary laid a grain on his tongue and he will keep singing until it is removed; the abbot removes the grain and he dies. The story ends with a mention of Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln, another child martyr whose death was blamed on Jews; the story is an example of a class of stories, popular at the time, known as the miracles of the Virgin such as those by Gautier de Coincy.
It blends elements of common story of a pious child killed by the enemies of the faith. Matthew Arnold cited a stanza from the tale as the best of Chaucer's poetry. "My throte is kut unto my nekke boon," Seyde this child, "and as by wey of kynde I sholde have dyed, ye, longe tyme agon. But Jesu Crist, as ye in bookes fynde, Wil that his glorie laste and be in mynde, And for the worship of his Mooder deere Yet may I synge O Alma loude and cleere; the tale is related to various blood libel stories common at the time. One influence for the tale was the infamous 1255 murder of a boy in Lincoln who became known as Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln. Chaucer's attitude toward the tale is less clear; the Prioress' French accent is a sign of social climbing, yet her speech is modelled after the Stratford-at-Bow school, not the more desirable Parisian French. She makes her oaths by "Seint Loy", the patron of, among others, goldsmiths, her overzealousness to her pet dogs and to mice killed in traps is misdirected in a nun, who might otherwise be serving the poor.
She wears a brooch bearing the Virgilian motto'Amor vincit omnia' —a dubious maxim for a nun—which takes the place of a rosary and further illustrates her fascination with courtly love. In addition, the fact that Chaucer chose to set her tale in elaborate rhyme royal, a rhyme scheme used in tales of courtly love, seems at odds with her tale's apparent emphasis on simple piety, thus her portrayal as a character is not wholly positive. In fact, the language and structure of her prologue and tale have led many literary critics to argue that Chaucer is mocking the Prioress; the Jews were banished from England in 1290, one hundred years before the tale was written and so it had to be set in some unnamed Asian city. This means that the Jews are an more distant and unfocused evil quality than is usual in such stories; the Physician's Tale is a similar story about an innocent child persecuted by an implacable enemy but without the antisemitic tone. Her tale, with its emphasis on infantile faith, balances the Shipman's story of a too-sophisticated monk who sleeps with the wife of a friend.
Both tales seem to describe faith without knowledge versus knowledge without faith. In "Chaucer's Prioress and the Sacrifice of Praise", Sherman Hawkins opposes the Pardoner and the Prioress as the representatives of two radically different forms of religious expression; the Pardoner's materialistic orientation, his suspicious relics and accusations of sinfulness align him with Paul's account of the "outward Jew, circumcised only in the flesh," rather than the "inward" Jew of Romans 2.29, spiritually rather than circumcised: "the Pardoner, outwardly'a noble ecclesiaste,' reduces Christianity to a code as rigorous and external as the Old Law itself." In his tale, "the Pardoner presents death as the wages of sin, an effect of justice" while the "Prioress, through the paradox of martyrdom, shows it as mercy, an effect of grace."In "Criticism, Anti-Semitism and the Prioress' Tale", L. O. Fradenburg argues for a radical rereading of the binary oppositions between Christian and Jew, Old Law and New Law and spiritual in the tale in part to critique the "patristic exegesis" of Sherman Hawkins' earlier interpretation.
Fradenburg challenges Hawkins' "elision of the'literal' or'carnal' level of meaning in favour of the spiritual" by lingering on those
The Friar's Tale
"The Friar's Tale" is a story in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, told by Huberd the Friar. The story centers around his interactions with the Devil, it is followed by The Summoner's Tale. On the way to extort money from a widow, the Summoner encounters a yeoman, dressed in Lincoln green, a costume worn by outlaws and poachers; the two men swear brotherhood to each other and exchange the secrets of their respective trades, the Summoner recounting his various sins in a boastful manner. The yeoman reveals that he is a demon, to which the Summoner expresses minimal surprise—he enquires as to various aspects of hell and the forms that demons take; each makes a vow with the other to share it between them. During their travels, they come upon a carter. Frustrated, he says. Hearing this, the Summoner asks the demon why he isn't holding him to his word and seizing the horses, they proceed to the house of the widow. The Summoner claims he will do better than the demon and fabricates a court summons in order that the widow will have to bribe him to dismiss the case.
He demands she give him a new pan in payment for an old debt, falsely claiming he paid a fine to get her off a charge of adultery. Incensed, the old woman damns the summoner to hell; the tale is a satirical and somewhat bitter attack on the profession of summoner—an official in ecclesiastical courts who summons people to attend—and in particular The Summoner, one of the other people on the pilgrimage. Unlike the Miller and the Reeve who tell tales that irritate the other and do not get on for that reason, the Friar and the Summoner seem to have a longstanding hatred between them because the summoner refused to resurrect his late wife because the friars payment of two goats and an ox was not enough; the Friar is of one of the mendicant orders which traveled about preaching and making their livings by begging. Part of the animosity between the two characters may be due to these orders of friars, formed recently, interfering with the work of the summoners. Once a friar had taken confession and given absolution to someone they could not be charged in an ecclesiastical court with the same sin.
The Friar's tale has no clear original source like many of Chaucer's tales but it is of a type, common and always seems popular: "the corrupt official gets their comeuppance". In the prologue the friar begins by making some pointedly rude remarks about the summoner in general; the host reprimands him, saying he should be mindful of his social standing and that he should get straight on with his tale. The Summoner replies that he should say what he wants to say but that he will pay him back in skin; the tale itself continues in the denigration of summoners with its vivid description of the work of a summoner. This includes bribery, extortion and a network of pimps and wenches acting as informants making this important clerical office seem more like a 14th-century protection racket; the Friar says that luckily friars are not under summoners' jurisdiction but the Summoner snaps back that neither are women in styves, meaning brothels. Indeed the Friar in the Prologue seems to be more wordly than was acceptable: he would rather go out on a hunt than stay in a monestary.
In other words the Friar and the Summoner are competiers in the same "rackets" Chaucer's special manuscript words "The Friar's Tale" – a plain-English retelling for non-scholars
Henry E. Huntington
Henry Edwards Huntington was an American railroad magnate and collector of art and rare books. Huntington settled in Los Angeles, where he owned the Pacific Electric Railway as well as substantial real estate interests. In addition to being a businessman and art collector, Huntington was a major booster for Los Angeles in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In the city of San Marino, many places are named after him, including a school, a road and a library. Born in Oneonta, New York, Henry Huntington was the nephew of Collis P. Huntington, one of The Big Four, instrumental in creating the Central Pacific Railroad, one of the two railroads that built the transcontinental railway in 1869. Henry Huntington held several executive positions alongside his uncle with the Southern Pacific. After Collis Huntington's death, Henry Huntington assumed Collis Huntington's leadership role with Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company in Virginia, married his widow Arabella Huntington, his divorce from his first wife Mary Alice Prentice, birth sister of his Uncle Collis' adopted daughter, in 1910 and marriage to Arabella in 1913 after Mary Alice's death shocked San Francisco society.
He had none with Arabella. Arabella's son Archer, from her prior marriage from which she was widowed, had earlier been adopted by Collis Huntington. In 1898, in friendly competition with his uncle's Southern Pacific, Huntington bought the narrow gauge city-oriented Los Angeles Railway, known as the'Yellow Car' system. In 1901, Huntington formed the sprawling interurban, standard gauge Pacific Electric Railway, known as the'Red Car' system, centered at 6th and Main Streets in Los Angeles. Huntington succeeded in this competition by providing passenger friendly streetcars on 24/7 schedules, which the railroads could not match; this was facilitated by the boom in Southern California land development, where housing was built in places such as Orange County's Huntington Beach, a Huntington-sponsored development, streetcars served passenger needs that the railroads had not considered. Connectivity to Downtown Los Angeles made such suburbs feasible. By 1910, the Huntington trolley systems spanned 1,300 miles of southern California.
At its greatest extent, the system contained over 20 streetcar lines and 1,250 trolleys, most running through the core of Los Angeles and serving such nearby neighborhoods as the Crenshaw district, West Adams, Echo Park, Hancock Park, Exposition Park, Boyle Heights and Lincoln Heights. The system integrated the 1902 acquisition, the Mount Lowe Scenic Railway above Altadena, California in the San Gabriel Mountains. In 1905 Huntington, A. Kingsley Macomber, William R. Staats developed the Oak Knoll subdivision, located to the west of his San Marino estate in the oak-covered hilly terrain near Pasadena. In 1906, along with Frank Miller, owner of the Mission Inn, Charles M. Loring, formed the Huntington Park Association, with the intent to purchase Mount Rubidoux in Riverside, build a road to the summit, develop the hill as a park to benefit the city of Riverside; the road was completed in February 1907. The property was donated to the city of Riverside by the heirs of Frank Miller, today the hill is a 161-acre city park.
Huntington was a Life Member of the Sons of the Revolution in the State of California. Huntington retired from business in 1916. In 1927 Henry E. Huntington died in Philadelphia, he and Arabella are buried, with a large monument, in the Gardens of the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. The Huntington Hotel was named Hotel Wentworth when it opened on February 1, 1907. Financial problems and a disappointing first season forced it to close indefinitely. Henry Huntington purchased the Wentworth in 1911, it reopened in 1914, transformed into a winter resort. The 1920s were prosperous for the hotel, as Midwestern and Eastern entrepreneurs discovered California's warm winter climate; the hotel's reputation for fine service began with long-time general manager and owner Stephen W. Royce. By 1926, the hotel's success prompted Royce to open the property year-round; the "golden years" ended with the stock market crash and the Great Depression of the late 1920s and early 1930s. By the end of the 1930s the hotel was vibrant again.
When World War II began, all reservations were cancelled and the hotel was rented to the Army for $3,000 a month. Following the war, the Huntington's fortunes improved again. In 1954 Stephen Royce sold the hotel to the Sheraton Corporation, serving as general manager until his retirement in 1969; the hotel operated until 1985. The structure was built of un-reinforced concrete in 1906. After a two-and-a-half year major renovation, the hotel reopened in March 1991 as the Ritz Carlton Huntington Hotel and Spa; the hotel completed a $19 million renovation in January 2006. Huntington left a prominent legacy with the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens on his former estate in San Marino near Pasadena. Other legacies in California include the cities of Huntington Beach and Huntington Park, as well as Huntington Lake. In greater Los Angeles are the Huntington Hospital in Pasadena, Henry E. Huntington Middle School in San Marino, the grand boulevard, Huntington Drive, running eastbound from downtown Los Angeles.
Its landscaped central parkway was the right-of-way for the Norther
The Franklin's Tale
"The Franklin's Tale" is one of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. It focuses on issues of providence, truth and gentillesse in human relationships. A franklin was a medieval landowner, this pilgrim's words when interrupting the Squire are seen as displaying his social status of diminutio. Other such devices are employed throughout the tale; the story opens and closes by recounting how two lovers and Dorigen, decide that their marriage should be one of equal status, although they agree that, in public, Arveragus should make decisions so as not to draw suspicion. Arveragus travels to Britain to seek honour and fame, he leaves Dorigen alone in France near the coastal town of Pedmark the prove of Armorik. She misses her husband while he is gone, is concerned that his ship will sink while returning home on the black rocks of Brittany. While Arveragus is absent, Dorigen is courted against her will by another suitor, a squire named Aurelius. To get rid of him and in a lighthearted mood, she makes a rash promise and tells Aurelius that he might have her love providing he can dispose of all the rocks on the coast of Brittany.
Aurelius manages to secure the services of a magician-scholar of the arcane arts, taking pity on the young man, for the princely sum of a thousand pounds agrees "thurgh his magik" to make all the rocks "aweye" "for a wyke or tweye". When the "rokkes" vanish, Aurelius confronts demands that she fulfil her bargain, she and her husband agonise over her predicament. During this period Dorigen lists numerous examples of legendary women who committed suicide to maintain their honour. Dorigen explains her moral predicament to her husband who calmly says that in good conscience she must go and keep her promise to Aurelius. However, Aurelius himself defers to nobility when he recognises that the couple's love is true, Arveragus noble; the magician-scholar is so moved by Aurelius' story that he cancels the enormous debt that Aurelius owes him. While the Franklin claims in his prologue that his story is in the form of a Breton lai, it is based on a work by the Italian poet and author Boccaccio in which a young knight called Tarolfo falls in love with a lady married to another knight, extracts a promise to satisfy his desire if he can create a flowering Maytime garden in winter, meets a magician Tebano who performs the feat using spells, but releases her from the rash promise when he learns of her husband's noble response.
But in Chaucer's telling, the Franklin adapts the style so that it is recognisable as a Breton lai. The relationship between the knight and his wife is explored, continuing the theme of marriage which runs through many of the pilgrims' tales. Whereas most of the Breton lais involved magic and fairies, the usual fantastical element is here modified by the use of science to make rocks disappear rather than a spell; this is fitting for a writer like Chaucer who wrote a book on the use of the astrolabe, was reported by Holinshed to be "a man so exquisitely learned in al sciences, that hys matche was not founde anye where in those dayes" and was considered one of the "secret masters" of alchemy. While the idea of the magical disappearance of rocks has a variety of potential sources, there is no direct source for the rest of the story; the rocks come from the legends of Merlin performing a similar feat, or might stem from an actual event that happened around the time of Chaucer's birth. In a recent paper, Olson et al. analyzed the Franklin's Tale in terms of medieval astronomy.
He noted that on 19 December 1340 the sun and moon were each at their closest possible distance to earth while the sun and earth were in a linear alignment. This configuration could be predicted using the astronomical tables and the types of calculations cited in the tale; the theme of the story, though, is less obscure—that of the "rash promise", in which an oath is made that the person does not envisage having to fulfill. The earliest examples of the "rash promise" motif are found in the Sanskrit stories of the Vetala as well as Bojardo's Orlando Innamorto and Don Juan Manuel's Tales of Count Lucanor. Gerald Morgan argues that the Franklin's Tale is organised around moral and philosophical ideas about the reality of Providence and hence of man's moral freedom, as well as the need for generosity in all human contracts. Morgan considers that Aquinas' Summa Theologiae and Boethius' De Consolatione Philosophiae were important influences on Chaucer in writing the Franklin's Tale. Hodgson emphasises how in phraseology reminiscent of Boethius's De Consolatione Philosophiae, Dorigen ponders why a wise and benevolent God could create in "thise grisly feendly rokkes blake" means to destroy and to produce no good "but evere anoyen".
D. W. Robertson considers that Arveragus comes across as "not much of a husband"; this sour view of Arveragus is disputed by Bowden who refers to Arveragus' honest belief that "trouthe is the hyest thyng that man may kepe" so that he too may be called "a verray parfit gentil knyght". Gardner considers that the Franklin's Tale comes close to Chaucer's own philo
Thomas Egerton, 1st Viscount Brackley
Thomas Egerton, 1st Viscount Brackley, known as 1st Baron Ellesmere from 1603 to 1616, was an English nobleman and statesman from the Egerton family who served as Lord Keeper and Lord Chancellor for twenty-one years. Thomas Egerton was born in 1540 in the parish of Dodleston, England, he was the illegitimate son of an unmarried woman named Alice Sparks. He was acknowledged by his father's family, he studied Liberal Arts at Brasenose College and received a bachelor's degree in 1559. He studied law at Lincoln's Inn and called a barrister by 1572, he was a Roman Catholic, until a point in 1570 when his lack of conformity with the Church of England became an issue when his Inn passed on a complaint from the Privy Council. He built a respectable legal practice pleading cases in the Courts of Queen's Bench and Exchequer. After Queen Elizabeth I saw him plead a case against the crown. In 1579 he was made a Master of the Bench of Lincoln's Inn. On 28 June 1581 he was appointed Solicitor General, he married Elizabeth Ravenscroft, daughter of Thomas Ravenscroft of Bretton, Flint, in 1576 and by her had issue: Thomas, who married Elizabeth Venables.
As Solicitor General, Egerton became a frequent legal advocate for the crown arguing cases instead of the Attorney General. He was MP for Cheshire, 1584-7, he was one of the prosecutors at the trial of Queen of Scots, in 1586 at Sheffield. He was the prosecutor in the trial of Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel, for high treason, he was made Attorney General on 2 June 1592, he was knighted the next year. He was made Master of the Rolls on 10 April 1594 where he excelled as an equity judge and became a patron of the young Francis Bacon. After the death of the Lord Keeper Puckering he was appointed Lord Keeper of the Great Seal and sworn a Privy Councillor on 6 May 1596, remaining Master of the Rolls and thus the sole judge in the Court of Chancery. During this time his first wife died, he married Elizabeth Wolley, the widow of Sir John Wolley, daughter of Sir William More of Loseley, Surrey, he bought Tatton Park, in 1598. It would stay in the family for more than three centuries. At this time – 1597 or 1598 – he hired John Donne as secretary.
This arrangement ended in some embarrassment, since Donne secretly married Ann More, Elizabeth's niece, in 1601. Elizabeth died around the beginning of 1600, Egerton married Alice Spencer, whose first husband had been Ferdinando Stanley, 5th Earl of Derby, she survived him by two decades, was an important patron of the arts known as the Dowager Countess of Derby. At Ashridge, Thomas Egerton purchased Ashridge House, one of the largest country houses in England, from Queen Elizabeth I, who had inherited it from her father who had appropriated it after the dissolution of the monasteries in 1539. Ashridge House served the Egerton family as a residence until the 19th century; the Egertons had a family chapel with burial vault in Little Gaddesden Church, where many monuments commemorate the Dukes and Earls of Bridgewater and their families. As Lord Keeper, Egerton's judgements were admired, but Common-law judges resented him reversing their decisions, he attempted to expand the jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery to include the imposition of fines to enforce his injunctions.
In the 9th Parliament of the reign of Elizabeth he supported legal reform and the royal power to create monopolies. Sir Thomas was a friend of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, interceded to mend relations between Essex and the Queen. After Essex returned from Ireland in disgrace he was placed in the Lord Keeper's custody, under house arrest at York House, Strand, he was one of the judges at Essex's first trial, tried to persuade him to apologise and beg mercy from the Queen. He pronounced the sentence against Essex. During Essex's rebellion, he was sent to persuade Essex to surrender, but was instead held hostage for several hours until one of Essex's supporters freed him to gain pardon from the Queen; when James VI of Scotland succeeded to the throne of England as James I he kept Egerton in office, made him Lord Chancellor and 1st Baron Ellesmere on 19 July 1603. He was removed from the office of Master of the Rolls on 18 May 1603, but as the office was granted to an absentee Scottish Lord he continued to perform its duties.
Shortly afterwards he presided over the trial of Barons Cobham and Grey de Wilton for high treason for their part in the Main Plot. In the first Parliament of James I Lord Ellesmere attempted to exercise the right of the Lord Chancellor to disqualify members from sitting in the House of Commons, but in the end yielded that right to the House itself, he attempted to persuade Parliament to support the King's plans for a union of England and Scotland, but was unsuccessful. In 1606 he ruled that Scottish subjects born after the succession of James I were naturalised English subjects. Lord Ellesmere supported the Royal Prerogative, but was concerned to define it, ensure it was never confused with the ordinary legal processes. Towards the end of his life, he stood out against the arguments made by Sir Edward Coke, the Lord Chief Justice, aided the King in securing his dismissal, he attempted to resign several times after this, as he became old and infirm, the King accepted his resignation on 5 March 1617, after creation as Viscount Brackley on 7 November 1616.
He was promised the earldom of Bridgewater, but showed little interest, d
The Wife of Bath's Tale
The Wife of Bath's Tale is among the best-known of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. It provides insight into the role of women in the Late Middle Ages and was of interest to Chaucer himself, for the character is one of his most developed ones, with her Prologue twice as long as her Tale, he goes so far as to describe two sets of clothing for her in his General Prologue. She holds her own among the bickering pilgrims, evidence in the manuscripts suggests that although she was first assigned a different, plainer tale—perhaps the one told by the Shipman—she received her present tale as her significance increased, she calls herself both Alyson and Alys in the prologue, but to confuse matters these are the names of her'gossib', whom she mentions several times, as well as many female characters throughout The Canterbury Tales. Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The'Prologue of the Wife of Bath's Tale' during the fourteenth century at a time when the social structure was evolving while Richard II was in reign.
It was evident that changes needed to occur within the traditional hierarchy of King Richard II's ensemble. Women were not identified by their social status, but by their relations with men rather than being identified by their occupations; the tale is regarded as the first of the so-called "marriage group" of tales, which includes the Clerk's, the Merchant's and the Franklin's tales. But some scholars contest this grouping, first proposed by Chaucer scholar Eleanor Prescott Hammond and subsequently elaborated by George Lyman Kittredge, not least because the tales of Melibee and the Nun's Priest discuss this theme. A separation between tales that deal with moral issues and ones that deal with magical issues, as the Wife of Bath's does, is favoured by some scholars; the tale is an example of the "loathly lady" motif, the oldest examples of which are the medieval Irish sovereignty myths such as Niall of the Nine Hostages. In the medieval poem The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle, Arthur's nephew Gawain goes on a nearly identical quest to discover what women want after he errs in a land dispute, although, in contrast, he never stooped to despoliation or plunder, unlike the unnamed knight who raped the woman.
By tradition, any knight or noble found guilty of such a transgression, might be stripped of his name, heraldic title and rights, even executed. George suggests, it is recorded that in 1380 associates of Chaucer stood surety for an amount equal to half his yearly salary for a charge brought by Cecily Champaign for "de rapto", rape or abduction. There was a knight in King Arthur's time. King Arthur issues a decree; when the knight is captured, he is condemned to death, but Queen Guinevere intercedes on his behalf and asks the King to allow her to pass judgment upon him. The Queen tells the knight that he will be spared his life if he can discover for her what it is that women most desire, allots him a year and a day in which to roam wherever he pleases and return with an answer. Everywhere the knight goes he explains his predicament to the women he meets and asks their opinion, but "No two of those he questioned answered the same." The answers range from fame and riches to play, or clothes, or sexual pleasure, or flattery, or freedom.
When at last the time comes for him to return to the Court, he still lacks the answer he so needs. Outside a castle in the woods, he sees twenty-four maidens dancing and singing, but when he approaches they disappear as if by magic, all, left is an old woman; the Knight explains the problem to the old woman, wise and may know the answer, she forces him to promise to grant any favour she might ask of him in return. With no other options left, the Knight agrees. Arriving at the court, he gives the answer that women most desire sovereignty over their husbands, unanimously agreed to be true by the women of the court who, free the Knight; the old woman explains to the court the deal she has struck with the Knight, publicly requests his hand in marriage. Although aghast, he realises he has no other choice and agrees. On their wedding night the old woman is upset, she reminds him that her looks can be an asset—she will be a virtuous wife to him because no other men would desire her. She asks him what he would prefer—an old ugly wife, loyal and humble or a beautiful young woman about whom he would always have doubts concerning her faithfulness.
The Knight responds by saying that the choice is an answer which pleases her greatly. Now that she has won power over him, she asks him to kiss her, promising both fidelity; the Knight now finds a young and lovely woman. They live into old age together; this Prologue is by far the longest in The Canterbury Tales and is twice as long as the actual story, showing the importance of the prologue to the significance of the overall tale. In the beginning the
San Marino, California
San Marino is a residential city in Los Angeles County, United States. It was incorporated on April 25, 1913. With a median home price of $2,431,900, San Marino is one of the most expensive and exclusive communities in the United States; the city takes its name from the ancient Republic of San Marino, founded by Saint Marinus who fled his home in Dalmatia at the time of the Diocletianic Persecution of Christians. Marinus took refuge at Monte Titano on the Italian peninsula, where he built a chapel and founded a monastic community in 301 A. D; the state which grew from the monastery is the world's oldest surviving republic. The seal of the City of San Marino, California is modeled on that of the republic, depicting the Three Towers of San Marino each capped with a bronze plume, surrounded by a heart-shaped scroll with two roundels and a lozenge at the top; the crown representing the monarchy on the original was replaced with five stars representing the five members of the City's governing body.
Beneath the city's seal are crossed palm fronds and orange branches. The city celebrated its centennial in 2013, including publication by the San Marino Historical Society of a 268-page book, San Marino, A Centennial History, by Elizabeth Pomeroy. In September 2014, this book and author Elizabeth Pomeroy received a prestigious Award of Merit for Leadership in History from the American Association for State and Local History; the site of San Marino was occupied by a village of Tongva Indians located where the Huntington School is today. The area was part of the lands of the San Gabriel Mission. Principal portions of San Marino were included in an 1838 Mexican land grant of 128 acres to Victoria Bartolmea Reid, a Gabrieleña Indian.. She called the property Rancho Huerta de Cuati. After Hugo Reid's death in 1852, Señora Reid sold her rancho in 1854 to Don Benito Wilson, the first Anglo owner of Rancho San Pascual. In 1873, Don Benito conveyed to his son-in-law, James DeBarth Shorb, 500 acres, including Rancho Huerta de Cuati, which Shorb named "San Marino" after his grandfather's plantation in Maryland, which, in turn, was named after the Republic of San Marino located on the Italian Peninsula in Europe.
In 1903, the Shorb rancho was purchased by Henry E. Huntington, who built a large mansion on the property; the site of the Shorb/Huntington rancho is occupied today by the Huntington Library, which houses a world-renowned art collection and rare-book library, botanical gardens. In 1913 the three primary ranchos of Wilson and Huntington, together with the subdivided areas from those and smaller ranchos, such as the Stoneman and Rose ranchos, were incorporated as the city of San Marino; the first mayor of the city of San Marino was George Smith Patton. The son of a slain Confederate States of America colonel in the U. S. Civil War, Patton graduated from the Virginia Military Institute in 1877, just before moving west, he married the daughter of Don Benito Wilson. Their son was George S. Patton, Junior. To a prior generation of Southern Californians, San Marino was known for its old-money wealth and as a bastion of the region's WASP gentry. By mid-century, other European ethnic groups had become the majority.
The city is located in the San Rafael Hills, is divided into seven zones, based on minimum lot size. The smallest lot size is about 4,500 square feet, with many averaging over 30,000 square feet; because of this and other factors, most of the homes in San Marino, built between 1920 and 1950, do not resemble the houses in surrounding Southern California neighborhoods. San Marino has fostered a sense of historic preservation among its homeowners. With minor exceptions, the city's strict design review and zoning laws have thus far prevented the development of large homes found elsewhere in Los Angeles. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 3.8 square miles all land. San Marino is restrictive of commercial operations in the city, it is one of the few cities that requires commercial vehicles to have permits to work within the city. The rationale is that commercial vehicle operators and service providers, such as gardeners, pool service providers and maintenance workers, are more to cause social disruption within the city, so must be preauthorized for crime control and prosecutorial purposes.
This regulation and others, including the bans on apartment buildings and overnight parking, are some of the more obvious examples. The 2010 United States Census reported that San Marino had a population of 13,147; the population density was 3,483.4 people per square mile. The racial makeup of San Marino was 5,434 White, 55 African American, 5 Native American, 7,039 Asian, 2 Pacific Islander, 198 from other races, 414 from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 855 persons; the census reported that 13,066 people lived in households, 81 lived in non-institutionalized group quarters, 0 were institutionalized. There were 4,330 households, out
