1.
Illuminated manuscript
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An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented with such decoration as initials, borders and miniature illustrations. Comparable Far Eastern and Mesoamerican works are described as painted, islamic manuscripts may be referred to as illuminated, illustrated or painted, though using essentially the same techniques as Western works. This article covers the technical, social and economic history of the subject, for an art-historical account, the earliest surviving substantive illuminated manuscripts are from the period 400 to 600, produced in the Kingdom of the Ostrogoths and the Eastern Roman Empire. The significance of these works lies not only in their inherent artistic and historical value, had it not been for the monastic scribes of Late Antiquity, most literature of Greece and Rome would have perished in Europe. As it was, the patterns of textual survivals were shaped by their usefulness to the severely constricted literate group of Christians, the majority of surviving manuscripts are from the Middle Ages, although many survive from the Renaissance, along with a very limited number from Late Antiquity. The majority of manuscripts are of a religious nature. However, especially from the 13th century onward, a number of secular texts were illuminated. Most illuminated manuscripts were created as codices, which had superseded scrolls, a very few illuminated manuscript fragments survive on papyrus, which does not last nearly as long as vellum or parchment. Most medieval manuscripts, illuminated or not, were written on parchment, beginning in the late Middle Ages manuscripts began to be produced on paper. Illuminated manuscripts continued to be produced in the early 16th century, Manuscripts are among the most common items to survive from the Middle Ages, many thousands survive. They are also the best surviving specimens of medieval painting, indeed, for many areas and time periods, they are the only surviving examples of painting. There are a few examples from later periods, the type of book that was most often heavily and richly illuminated, sometimes known as a display book, varied between periods. In the first millennium, these were most likely to be Gospel Books, such as the Lindisfarne Gospels, the Romanesque period saw the creation of many huge illuminated complete Bibles – one in Sweden requires three librarians to lift it. Many Psalters were also illuminated in both this and the Gothic period. Finally, the Book of Hours, very commonly the personal book of a wealthy layperson, was often richly illuminated in the Gothic period. Other books, both liturgical and not, continued to be illuminated at all periods, the Byzantine world also continued to produce manuscripts in its own style, versions of which spread to other Orthodox and Eastern Christian areas. See Medieval art for other regions, periods and types, reusing parchments by scraping the surface and reusing them was a common practice, the traces often left behind of the original text are known as palimpsests. The Gothic period, which saw an increase in the production of these beautiful artifacts, also saw more secular works such as chronicles
2.
Geoffrey Chaucer
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Geoffrey Chaucer, known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages. He was the first poet to be buried in Poets Corner of Westminster Abbey, among his many works are The Book of the Duchess, The House of Fame, The Legend of Good Women and Troilus and Criseyde. He is best known today for The Canterbury Tales, Chaucers work was crucial in legitimizing the literary use of the Middle English vernacular at a time when the dominant literary languages in England were French and Latin. Geoffrey Chaucer was born in London sometime around 1343, though the precise date and his father and grandfather were both London vintners, several previous generations had been merchants in Ipswich. In 1324 John Chaucer, Geoffreys father, was kidnapped by an aunt in the hope of marrying the boy to her daughter in an attempt to keep property in Ipswich. The aunt was imprisoned and the fine levied suggests that the family was financially secure. In the City Hustings Roll 110,5, Ric II, dated June 1380, Geoffrey Chaucer refers to himself as me Galfridum Chaucer, filium Johannis Chaucer, Vinetarii, Londonie. He also worked as a courtier, a diplomat, and a civil servant, as well as working for the king from 1389 to 1391 as Clerk of the Kings Works. In 1359, in the stages of the Hundred Years War, Edward III invaded France and Chaucer travelled with Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence, Elizabeths husband. In 1360, he was captured during the siege of Rheims, Edward paid £16 for his ransom, a considerable sum, and Chaucer was released. After this, Chaucers life is uncertain, but he seems to have travelled in France, Spain, around 1366, Chaucer married Philippa Roet. She was a lady-in-waiting to Edward IIIs queen, Philippa of Hainault, and a sister of Katherine Swynford and it is uncertain how many children Chaucer and Philippa had, but three or four are most commonly cited. His son, Thomas Chaucer, had a career, as chief butler to four kings, envoy to France. Thomass daughter, Alice, married the Duke of Suffolk, thomass great-grandson, John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, was the heir to the throne designated by Richard III before he was deposed. Geoffreys other children probably included Elizabeth Chaucy, a nun at Barking Abbey, Agnes, an attendant at Henry IVs coronation, Chaucers Treatise on the Astrolabe was written for Lewis. According to tradition, Chaucer studied law in the Inner Temple at this time and he became a member of the royal court of Edward III as a valet de chambre, yeoman, or esquire on 20 June 1367, a position which could entail a wide variety of tasks. His wife also received a pension for court employment and he travelled abroad many times, at least some of them in his role as a valet. In 1368, he may have attended the wedding of Lionel of Antwerp to Violante Visconti, daughter of Galeazzo II Visconti, two other literary stars of the era were in attendance, Jean Froissart and Petrarch
3.
The Canterbury Tales
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The Canterbury Tales is a collection of 24 stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387–1400. In 1386, Chaucer became Controller of Customs and Justice of Peace and and it was during these years that Chaucer began working on his most famous text, The Canterbury Tales. The prize for this contest is a meal at the Tabard Inn at Southwark on their return. He uses the tales and descriptions of its characters to paint an ironic and critical portrait of English society at the time, Chaucers use of such a wide range of classes and types of people was without precedent in English. Although the characters are fictional, they offer a variety of insights into customs. Often, such insight leads to a variety of discussions and disagreements among people in the 14th century, structurally, the collection resembles The Decameron, which Chaucer may have read during his first diplomatic mission to Italy in 1372. It is unclear to what extent Chaucer was seminal in this evolution of literary preference, while Chaucer clearly states the addressees of many of his poems, the intended audience of The Canterbury Tales is more difficult to determine. Chaucer was a courtier, leading some to believe that he was mainly a court poet who wrote exclusively for nobility, the Canterbury Tales is generally thought to have been incomplete at the end of Chaucers life. In the General Prologue, some thirty pilgrims are introduced, according to the Prologue, Chaucers intention was to write two stories from the perspective of each pilgrim on the way to and from their ultimate destination, St. Thomas Beckets shrine. Although perhaps incomplete, The Canterbury Tales is revered as one of the most important works in English literature, not only do readers find it entertaining, but it is also open to a wide range of interpretations. The question of whether The Canterbury Tales is finished has not yet been answered, there are 83 known manuscripts of the work from the late medieval and early Renaissance periods, more than any other vernacular literary text with the exception of The Prick of Conscience. This is taken as evidence of the popularity during the century after Chaucers death. Fifty-five of these manuscripts are thought to have been complete at one time, even the earliest surviving manuscripts are not Chaucers originals, the oldest being MS Peniarth 392 D, compiled by a scribe shortly after Chaucers death. The most beautiful of the manuscripts of the tales is the Ellesmere Manuscript, the first version of The Canterbury Tales to be published in print was William Caxtons 1478 edition. Only 10 copies of this edition are known to exist, including one held by the British Library, since this print edition was created from a now-lost manuscript, it is counted as among the 83 manuscripts. In 2004, Professor Linne Mooney claimed that she was able to identify the scrivener who worked for Chaucer as an Adam Pinkhurst. No authorial, arguably complete version of the Tales exists and no consensus has been reached regarding the order in which Chaucer intended the stories to be placed, textual and manuscript clues have been adduced to support the two most popular modern methods of ordering the tales. Some scholarly editions divide the Tales into ten Fragments, however, between Fragments, the connection is less obvious
4.
Huntington Library
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In addition to the library, the institution houses an extensive art collection with a focus in 18th and 19th-century European art and 17th to mid-20th-century American art. The property also includes approximately 120 acres of specialized botanical landscaped gardens, most notably the Japanese Garden, the Desert Garden, as a landowner, businessman and visionary, Henry Edwards Huntington, played a major role in the growth of southern California. Huntington was born in 1850, in Oneonta, New York, in 1892, Huntington relocated to San Francisco with his first wife, Mary Alice Prentice, and their four children. He was one of the founders of the City of San Marino, before his death in 1927, Huntington amassed far and away the greatest group of 18th-century British portraits ever assembled by any one man. In accordance with Huntingtons will, the collection, then worth $50 million, was opened to the public in 1928. On October 17,1985, a fire erupted in a shaft of the Huntington Art Gallery. After a year-long, $1 million refurbishing project, the Huntington Gallery reopened in 1986, with its artworks cleaned of soot and stains. Most of the funds for the cleanup and refurbishing of the Georgian mansion and its artworks came from donations from the Michael J. Connell Foundation, corporations and individuals. Both the Federal art-supporting establishment of the National Endowment for the Arts, the Library building was designed in 1920, by the southern California architect Myron Hunt in the Mediterranean Revival style. Hunts previous commissions for Mr. and Mrs. Huntington included the Huntingtons residence in San Marino in 1909, and the Huntington Hotel in 1914. The library contains a collection of rare books and manuscripts, concentrated in the fields of British and American history, literature, art. Spanning from the 11th century to the present, the librarys holdings contain 7 million items, over 400,000 rare books, and over a million photographs, prints, and other ephemera. Highlights include one of 11 vellum copies of the Gutenberg Bible known to exist,1410, and letters and manuscripts by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Abraham Lincoln. The Librarys Main Exhibition Hall showcases some of the most outstanding rare books and manuscripts in the collection, the Dibner Hall of the History of Science is a permanent exhibition on the history of science with a focus on astronomy, natural history, medicine, and light. Use of the collection for research is restricted to qualified scholars, generally requiring a degree or at least candidacy for the PhD. Through a rigorous program, the institution awards approximately 150 grants to scholars in the fields of history, literature, art. Through the Huntington Library Press, the produces the Huntington Library Quarterly. Scholarly pursuits lead to best-selling books, Pulitzer prizes, acclaimed documentary films, the Huntington also hosts numerous scholarly events, lectures, conferences, and workshops
5.
San Marino, California
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San Marino is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. The city is located in the San Rafael Hills, the population was 13,147 at the 2010 census. In 2014, Forbes magazine ranked the city as the 48th most expensive area to live in the United States, in 2014, LA Weekly ranked the city as the 3rd most expensive area to live in the Los Angeles County, topping Beverly Hills, Malibu, and more. There are few to no homes priced under US$1,000,000, 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, the state which grew from the monastery is the worlds oldest surviving republic. The crown representing the monarchy on the original was replaced with five representing the five members of the Citys governing body. Beneath the citys 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, the site of San Marino was originally occupied by a village of Tongva Indians located approximately 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 Reids death in 1852, Señora Reid sold her rancho in 1854 to Don Benito Wilson, the first Anglo owner of Rancho San Pascual. In 1903, the Shorb rancho was purchased by Henry E. Huntington, the site of the Shorb/Huntington rancho is occupied today by the Huntington Library, which houses a world-renowned art collection, research and rare-book library, and botanical gardens. 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 Ruth Wilson, the daughter of Don Benito Wilson and their son was the World War II general, George S. Patton, Junior. To a prior generation of Southern Californians, San Marino was known for its old-money wealth, San Marino is the location of the Huntington Library and gardens. El Molino Viejo, completed about 1816 as a grist mill for Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, is in San Marino, the original two-story structure measured 53 feet by 26 feet. It is the oldest commercial building in Southern California, the town is located on the former lands of the historic Rancho Huerta de Cuati. It is a National Historic Landmark, the Michael White Adobe House, is located on the high school campus and houses the San Marino Historical Society archives. The University of Southern California owns a house in San Marino which is used as the residence of the President of the University, the residence and grounds are often used for University Presidential events
6.
John de Vere, 12th Earl of Oxford
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John de Vere, 12th Earl of Oxford, was the son of Richard de Vere, 11th Earl of Oxford, and his second wife, Alice Sergeaux. A Lancastrian loyalist during the part of his life, he was convicted of high treason. Through their second son, Sir Robert Vere, the 11th Earl and his wife, Philippe, were the great-grandparents of John de Vere, the 12th Earl inherited his title as a minor at his fathers death on 15 February 1417. Custody of his person and lands was granted firstly to the Duke of Exeter until his death in 1426, after the death of her grandfather, Sir John Howard of Wiggenhall, Elizabeth inherited lands in Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and Cambridgeshire. Although Oxford claimed the marriage had been contracted on Exeters advice, it had not been authorized by licence from the King, Oxford was knighted at Leicester on 26 May 1426, together with 34 others including his brother, Robert, and the four-year-old King Henry VI. On 4 July 1429 he was granted livery of his lands, in 1431 he was appointed to the Privy Council. During the 1430s and 1440s Oxford was involved in politics in East Anglia, being appointed to various commissions in Essex and serving as a Justice of the Peace in Suffolk. In February 1435 he was licensed to travel to the Holy Land, in July 1436 Oxford mustered his retainers at Sandwich, Kent for an expedition to relieve the Siege of Calais by the Duke of Burgundy. On 23 July 1437 he was summoned to attend the funeral of Queen Joan at Canterbury, in June 1439, with Cardinal Henry Beaufort and other envoys, he was appointed a commissioner to treat of peace with France. On 16 May 1441 he sailed from Portsmouth to France with Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, in June 1450 Oxford was among the noblemen appointed to act against Jack Cades Kentish rebels. In the late 1440s Oxford extended his influence in East Anglia to Norfolk. In May 1455 he and the Duke of Norfolk both arrived a day too late to take part in the Battle of St Albans and it was not until 1459 that Oxford committed himself to Margaret of Anjou against the Duke of York. After the Yorkist victory at the Battle of Northampton in July 1460, in November of that year he was exempted, ‘in consideration of his infirmities’, from appearing in person before the King or in Council or Parliament. If he was feigning illness in order to maintain a low profile in the face of the new Yorkist regime under King Edward IV and he was then castrated and thrown, still living into the fire. Then he was buried in the church of the Austin Friars and his eldest son, Aubrey, had been executed six days earlier, and Oxford was therefore succeeded by his second son, John de Vere, 13th Earl of Oxford. John de Vere, 13th Earl of Oxford, mary Vere, a nun at Barking Abbey. Joan Vere, who married Sir William Norreys, and was the grandmother of Gertrude Tyrell. Elizabeth Vere, who married William Bourchier, Vere, John de, twelfth earl of Oxford, magnate
7.
Thomas Egerton, 1st Viscount Brackley
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Thomas Egerton was born in 1540 in the parish of Dodleston, Cheshire, England. He was the son of Sir Richard Egerton and an unmarried woman named Alice Sparks. He was acknowledged by his fathers family, who paid for his education and he studied Liberal Arts at Brasenose College, Oxford, and received a bachelors degree in 1559. He then studied law at Lincolns Inn and called a barrister by 1572 and 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 Queens Bench, Chancery, after Queen Elizabeth I saw him plead a case against the crown he was made Queens Counsel. In 1579 he was made a Master of the Bench of Lincolns Inn, on 28 June 1581 he was appointed Solicitor General. As Solicitor General, Egerton became a frequent legal advocate for the crown, briefly, he was MP for Cheshire, 1584-7. He was one of the prosecutors at the trial of Mary, Queen of Scots and he was also 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 and 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. During this time his first wife died, and he married Elizabeth Wolley, the widow of Sir John Wolley and he bought Tatton Park, in 1598. It would stay in the family for more than three centuries, also at this time –1597 or 1598 – he hired John Donne as secretary. This arrangement ended in some embarrassment, since Donne secretly married Ann More, Elizabeths niece, Elizabeth died around the beginning of 1600, and then Egerton married Alice Spencer, whose first husband had been Ferdinando Stanley, 5th Earl of Derby. She survived him by two decades, and was an important patron of the arts, usually known as the Dowager Countess of Derby, ashridge House served the Egerton family as a residence until the 19th century. The Egertons later had a chapel with burial vault in Little Gaddesden Church. Around 1596 he married for a time, a widow, Elizabeth Polsted, also previously widowed to Sir John Wolley. As Lord Keeper, Egertons judgements were admired, but Common-law judges often resented him reversing their decisions and he also 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, Sir Thomas was a friend of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, and often interceded to mend relations between Essex and the Queen. After Essex returned from Ireland in disgrace he was placed in the Lord Keepers custody, under house arrest at York House and he was one of the judges at Essexs first trial, and tried to persuade him to apologise and beg mercy from the Queen
8.
Ashridge
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Ashridge is a country estate and stately home in Hertfordshire, England in the United Kingdom, part of the land stretches into Buckinghamshire and it is close to the Bedfordshire border. It is situated in the Chiltern Hills, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, surrounding villages include Aldbury, Pitstone, Ivinghoe, Little Gaddesden, Nettleden, Frithsden and Potten End. The estate comprises 5,000 acres of woodlands, commons and it also offers a good choice of waymarked walks through outstanding country. The estate is owned by the National Trust. It should not be confused with Asheridge, which is a hamlet about five miles southwest, the other side of Berkhamsted. In mediæval times Ashridge was the location of Ashridge Priory, a college of the order of Bonhommes founded in 1283 by Edmund, 2nd Earl of Cornwall. During the Dissolution of the Monasteries the priory was surrendered to Henry VIII who eventually bequeathed the property to his daughter, the priory church was demolished during the reign of Elizabeth I. In 1604 the estate became the property of the Sir Thomas Egerton, egertons son, John Egerton, was created 1st Earl of Bridgewater on 27 May 1617. The estate was redeveloped as the Bridgewater residence, in 1800 by Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater demolished most of the Priory. The 3rd Duke of Bridgewater was buried in the Egerton family vault in Little Gaddesden Church, in 1928 Urban Hanlon Broughton purchased the house as a gift for the Conservative Party intended to commemorate Andrew Bonar Law. In July 1929 Ashridge opened as a College under the governance of the Bonar Law Memorial Trust, in 1954 its Deed of Foundation was changed by Act of Parliament, and Ashridge was ‘re-founded’ as an educational charity. In 1959 it became a Management College, which it remains today, in 1959 Ashridge College was re-launched to provide management training, and was named Ashridge Business School. In 2015, Ashridge Business School operationally merged with Hult International Business School, as part of the merger, Ashridge Business School changed its name to Ashridge Executive Education. The 7th Earl of Bridgewater commissioned the architect James Wyatt to build the neo-Gothic Ashridge House as his home, Wyatt died in 1813 and the project was completed the following year by his nephew Jeffry Wyatt. The present house is regarded as one of the finest examples of early Gothic Revival architecture and is now a Grade I listed building, Ashridge house was built on the site of the 13th-Century priory building which had been demolished in 1800. The mansion is built of ashlar faced with Totternhoe stone with a castellated parapet and it features a variety of casement windows including pointed arch and ogee lights typical of the early Gothic Revival style. Before his untimely death, James Wyatt completed the front entrance. Jeffry Wyatt added private apartment blocks at an angle to the main building, the main entrance features a projecting porte-cochère and octagonal turrets, added by Jeffry Wyatt c.1814
9.
Hertfordshire
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Hertfordshire is a county in southern England, bordered by Bedfordshire to the north, Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Essex to the east, Buckinghamshire to the west and Greater London to the south. For government statistical purposes, it is placed in the East of England region, in 2013, the county had a population of 1,140,700 living in an area of 634 square miles. Four towns have between 50,000 and 100,000 residents, Hemel Hempstead, Stevenage, Watford and St Albans. Hertford, once the market town for the medieval agricultural county derives its name from a hart. Elevations are high for the region in the north and west and these reach over 240m in the western projection around Tring which is in the Chilterns. The countys borders are approximately the watersheds of the Colne and Lea, hertfordshires undeveloped land is mainly agricultural and much is protected by green belt. The countys landmarks span many centuries, ranging from the Six Hills in the new town of Stevenage built by local inhabitants during the Roman period, Leavesden filmed much of the UK-based $7.7 Bn box office Harry Potter film series and has the countrys studio tour. Saint Alban, a Romano-British soldier, took the place of a Christian priest and was beheaded on Holywell Hill and his martyrs cross of a yellow saltire on a blue background is reflected in the flag and coat of arms of Hertfordshire. Hertfordshire is well-served with motorways and railways, providing access to London. The largest sector of the economy of the county is in services, Hertfordshire was the area assigned to a fortress constructed at Hertford under the rule of Edward the Elder in 913. Hertford is derived from the Anglo-Saxon heort ford, meaning deer crossing, the name Hertfordshire is first recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 1011. Deer feature in many county emblems, there is evidence of humans living in Hertfordshire from the Mesolithic period. It was first farmed during the Neolithic period and permanent habitation appeared at the beginning of the Bronze Age and this was followed by tribes settling in the area during the Iron Age. 293 the first recorded British martyrdom is believed to have taken place. Saint Alban, a Romano-British soldier, took the place of a Christian priest and was beheaded on Holywell Hill. His martyrs cross of a saltire on a blue background is reflected in the flag. He is the Patron Saint of Hertfordshire, with the departure of the Roman Legions in the early 5th century, the now unprotected territory was invaded and colonised by the Anglo-Saxons. By the 6th century the majority of the county was part of the East Saxon kingdom
10.
Francis Egerton, 1st Earl of Ellesmere
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Francis Egerton, 1st Earl of Ellesmere KG, PC, known as Lord Francis Leveson-Gower until 1833, was a British politician, writer, traveller and patron of the arts. Ellesmere Island, an island in Nunavut, the Canadian Arctic, was named after him. Ellesmere was the son of George Leveson-Gower, 1st Duke of Sutherland and his wife. He was born at 21 Arlington Street, Piccadilly, London, on 1 January 1800, Egerton entered Parliament in 1822 as member for the pocket borough of Bletchingley in Surrey, a seat he held until 1826. He afterwards sat for Sutherland between 1826 and 1831, and for South Lancashire between 1835 and 1846. Appointed a Lord of the Treasury in 1827, he held the post of Chief Secretary for Ireland from 1828 till July 1830, when he became Secretary at War for a short time during the last Tory ministry. In 1833 he assumed, by Royal Licence, the surname of Egerton, having succeeded on the death of his father to the estates which the latter inherited from the Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater. In 1846 he was raised to the peerage as Earl of Ellesmere, of Ellesmere in the County of Salop, with the subsidiary title Viscount Brackley, Ellesmere was a member of the Canterbury Association from 27 March 1848. In 1849, the surveyor of the Canterbury Association, Joseph Thomas. Ellesmeres claims to remembrance are founded chiefly on his services to literature, in 1839 he visited the Mediterranean and the Holy Land. His impressions of travel were recorded in Mediterranean Sketches and in the notes to a poem entitled The Pilgrimage and he published several other works in prose and verse. His literary reputation secured for him the position of rector of the University of Aberdeen in 1841, a singular exception to the artistic and literary character of Ellesmeres writing efforts lay in the field of military theory. Ellesmere, as a protegé of the Duke of Wellington, became interested in the historical writings of the Prussian military theorist General Carl von Clausewitz. He was involved in the discussion that ultimately compelled Wellington to write an essay in response to Clausewitzs study of the Waterloo campaign of 1815, Ellesmere himself anonymously published a translation of Clausewitzs The Campaign of 1812 in Russia, a subject in which Wellington was also deeply interested. Lord Ellesmere was a munificent and yet discriminating patron of artists, to the collection of pictures which he inherited from his great-uncle, the 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, he made numerous additions, and he built a gallery to which the public were allowed free access. Lord Ellesmere served as president of the Royal Geographical Society and as president of the Royal Asiatic Society and he also initiated the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, by donating the Chandos portrait of Shakespeare. On 18 June 1822, he married Harriet Catherine Greville, a great-great-granddaughter of the 5th Baron Brooke, the family lived at Hatchford Park, Cobham, Surrey, where Lady Ellesmere laid out the gardens. Her mother, Lady Charlotte Greville died at Hatchford Park on 28 July 1862, Francis died on 18 February 1857 at his London home, Bridgwater House, St. James Park, and was succeeded by his first son, George
11.
Henry E. Huntington
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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 real estate interests. In addition to being a businessman and art collector, Huntington was a booster for Los Angeles in the late 19th. Huntington held several positions working alongside his uncle with the Southern Pacific. He had four children with Mary Alice, Howard Edward, Clara Leonora, Elizabeth Vincent, and Marian Prentice, arabellas son Archer, from her prior marriage from which she was widowed, had earlier been adopted by Collis. In 1898, in competition with his uncles Southern Pacific, Huntington bought the narrow gauge. In 1901, Huntington formed the sprawling interurban, standard gauge Pacific Electric Railway, known as the Red Car system, centered at 6th, Huntington succeeded in this competition by providing passenger friendly streetcars on 24/7 schedules, which the railroads couldnt match. Connectivity to Downtown Los Angeles made such suburbs feasible, by 1910, the Huntington trolley systems stretched over approximately 1,300 miles of southern California. In 1905 Huntington, A. Kingsley Macomber, and William R. Staats developed the Oak Knoll subdivision, the road was completed in February 1907. The property was donated to the city of Riverside by the heirs of Frank Miller. Huntington was a Life Member of the Sons of the Revolution in the State of California, Huntington retired from active business in 1916. In 1927 Henry E. Huntington died in Philadelphia while undergoing surgery and he and Arabella are buried, with a large monument, in the Gardens of the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. The Huntington Hotel was originally named Hotel Wentworth when it opened its doors on February 1,1907, financial problems and a disappointing first season forced the Hotel Wentworth to close its doors indefinitely. Henry Huntington purchased the Hotel Wentworth in 1911, renaming it the Huntington Hotel and it reopened in 1914, transformed into a beautiful winter resort. The 1920s were a time for the hotel, as Midwestern and Eastern entrepreneurs discovered Californias warm winter climate. The hotels reputation for fine service began with general manager and later owner Stephen W. Royce. By 1926, the hotels 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. However, by the end of the 1930s the hotel was back on solid ground, when World War II began, all reservations were cancelled and the hotel was rented to the Army for $3,000 a month
12.
Sotheby's
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Sothebys /ˈsʌðəbiz/ is a British multinational corporation headquartered in New York City. One of the worlds largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewelry, real estate, the company’s services range from corporate art services to private sales. Sothebys is the fourth oldest auction house in continuous operation. As of December 2011, the company had 1,446 employees worldwide and it is the worlds largest art business with global sales in 2011 totalling $5.8 billion. Sothebys was established on 11 March 1744 in London, the American holding company was initially incorporated in August 1983 in Michigan. In June 2006, Sothebys Holdings, Inc. reincorporated in the State of Delaware and was renamed Sothebys, in July 2016, Chinese insurance giant Taikang Life became Sothebys largest shareholder. Three Swedish auction houses are older and Sothebys great rival in London and then New York. The current business dates back to 1804, when two of the partners of the business left to set up their own book dealership. After Baker’s death in 1778, his estate was divided between Leigh and John Sotheby, George Leigh died unmarried in 1816, but not before endeavouring to secure his succession by recruiting Samuel E Leigh into the business. Under the Sotheby family, the house extended its activities to auctioning prints, medals. John Wilkinson, Sothebys Senior Accountant, became the company’s new CEO, the business did not seek to auction fine arts in general until much later, their first major success in this field being the sale of a Frans Hals painting for nine thousand guineas as late as 1913. In 1917, Sothebys relocated from 13 Wellington Street to 34-35 New Bond Street and they soon came to rival Christies as leaders of the London auction market, which had become the most important for art. In 1955, Sothebys opened an office at Bowling Green, New York City, in 1964, Sothebys purchased Parke-Bernet, then the largest auctioneer of fine art in the United States. In the following year, Sothebys moved to 980 Madison Avenue, Sothebys became a U. K. public company in 1977. The auction house closed its Madison Avenue galleries at East 76th Street, the Los Angeles galleries were sold and auctions of West Coast material moved to New York. In the following year, a group of investors purchased and privatized Sothebys, Sothebys was initially incorporated as Sothebys Holdings, Inc. in Michigan in August 1983. Taubman took Sothebys public in 1988, listing the shares on the New York Stock Exchange. In June 2006, Sothebys Holdings, Inc. reincorporated in the State of Delaware and was renamed Sothebys shortly after, with private transactions constituting an essential and increasingly profitable business segment, through the years Sothebys has bought art galleries and helped dealers finance purchases
13.
Vellum
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Vellum is prepared animal skin or membrane used as a material for writing on. Vellum is prepared for writing or printing on, to produce single pages, scrolls, vellum is generally smooth and durable, although there are great variations depending on preparation and the quality of the skin. The manufacture involves the cleaning, bleaching, stretching on a frame, to create tension, scraping is alternated with wetting and drying. A final finish may be achieved by abrading the surface with pumice, modern paper vellum is a quite different synthetic material, used for a variety of purposes, including plans, technical drawings, and blueprints. In Europe, from Roman times, the vellum was used for the best quality of prepared skin, regardless of the animal from which the hide was obtained, calf, sheep. Although the term derives from the French for calf, animal vellum can include hide from virtually any other mammal. The best quality, uterine vellum, was said to be made from the skins of stillborn or unborn animals, there has long been, however, much blurring of the boundaries between these terms. In 1519, William Horman could write in his Vulgaria, That stouffe that we wrytte upon, modern scholars and custodians increasingly use only the safe if confusing term membrane. In the usage of modern practitioners of the crafts of writing, illuminating, lettering. Vellum is a translucent material produced from the skin, often split, the skin is washed with water and lime, but not together. It is then soaked in lime for several days to soften, once clear, the two sides of the skin are distinct, the side facing inside the animal and the hair side. The inside body side of the skin is usually the lighter, the hair follicles may be visible on the outer side, together with any scarring, made while the animal was alive. The membrane can also show the pattern of the animals vein network called the veining of the sheet, any remaining hair is removed and the skin is dried by attaching it to a frame. The skin is attached at points around the circumference with cords, to prevent tearing, the maker then uses a crescent shaped knife, to clean off any remaining hairs. Once the skin is dry, it is thoroughly cleaned and processed into sheets. The number of extracted from the piece of skin depends on the size of the skin. For example, the average calfskin can provide three and half sheets of writing material. This can be doubled when it is folded into two conjoint leaves, also known as a bifolium, historians have found evidence of manuscripts where the scribe wrote down the medieval instructions now followed by modern membrane makers
14.
Edith Rickert
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Edith Rickert was an influential medieval scholar at the University of Chicago, whose foundational work includes the Chaucer Life-Records and the eight-volume Text of the Canterbury Tales. Rickerts name and achievements are inextricably linked with those of John M. Manly, Rickert, however, was eclipsed by Manlys shadow and is only now beginning to receive her the recognition she deserves. Manly, John M. & Edith Rickert eds, the Text of the Canterbury Tales, studied on the basis of all known manuscripts, with the aid of Mabel Dean, Helen McIntosh and Others. With a chapter on illuminations by Margaret Rickert,8 vols, new York, Doubleday, Page & Company Rickert, Edith, The Greedy Goroo. New York, Doubleday, Doran & Company, Rickert, Edith, Out of the Cypress Swamp. Edited by Clair C. Olson and Martin M. Crow, oxford University Press, London, Columbia Univ. Kane, George, John M. Manly and Edith Rickert, in, Paul G. Ruggiers, ed. Editing Chaucer, ramsey, Roy Vance, The Manly-Rickert Text of the Canterbury Tales. Scala, Elizabeth, Scandalous Assumptions, Edith Rickert and the Chicago Chaucer Project, in, Medieval Feminist Forum, scala, Elizabeth, Miss Rickert of Vassar and Edith Rickert at the University of Chicago, in, Women Medievalists and the Academy, ed. Jane Chance. Madison, WI, University of Wisconsin Press, pp. 127–45, tomasch, Sylvia, Editing as Palinode, The Invention of Love and the Text of the Canterbury Tales, in, Exemplaria 16,2, 457–76. University of Chicago Centennial Catalogues Works by Edith Rickert at Project Gutenberg Works by or about Edith Rickert at Internet Archive
15.
Walter William Skeat
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Walter William Skeat, FBA, was the pre-eminent English philologist of his time, and was instrumental in developing English as a higher education subject in the United Kingdom. Skeat was born in London and educated at Kings College School, Highgate School, in 1860 Skeat was ordained an Anglican deacon, married, and became a curate in December 1860 at East Dereham, where he served during the year 1861 and most of 1862. In 1862–1863 he was a curate at Godalming, in October 1864 he returned to Cambridge as a mathematical lecturer, remaining in this capacity until 1871. In 1878 he was elected Elrington and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Cambridge, Skeat was the founder and only president of the English Dialect Society from 1873 to 1896. The societys purpose was to collect materials for the publication of the English Dialect Dictionary and his son was the anthropologist Walter William Skeat. His grandsons include the noted palaeographer T. C, Skeat and the stained glass painter Francis Skeat. In pure philology, Skeats principal achievement is his Etymological English Dictionary, while preparing the dictionary he wrote hundreds of short articles on word origins for the London-based journal Notes and Queries. He also coined the term ghost word and was an expert in this treacherous. Skeat was also a pioneer of place-name studies, major publications in this field include, A Concise Dictionary of Middle English, in conjunction with A. L. Mayhew A Glossary of Tudor and Stuart Words with A. L. He published an edition of The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer in 1894–97, Skeat edited numerous other works for the Early English Text Society, including the Bruce of John Barbour, Pierce the Ploughmans Crede, and the romances of Havelok the Dane and William of Palerne. For the Scottish Text Society he edited The Kingis Quair, and he published an edition of Chatterton, Skeat also issued an edition of Chaucer in one volume for general readers, and a separate edition of his Treatise on the Astrolabe, with a learned commentary. According to A. J. Wyatt, Skeat was not a great teacher and he left the teaching to those who had learned from him---i. e. Wyatt himself and Israel Gollancz---his teaching was episodic. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Skeat. Works by Walter William Skeat at Project Gutenberg Works by or about Walter William Skeat at Internet Archive A Moeso-Gothic glossary Cornell University Library Historical Monographs Collection, Walter William Skeat at Find a Grave
16.
Hengwrt Chaucer
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The Hengwrt Chaucer manuscript is an early-15th-century manuscript of the Canterbury Tales, held in the National Library of Wales, in Aberystwyth, where it is known as MS Peniarth 392D. The Hengwrt manuscripts very early ownership is unknown, but by the 16th century it can be identified as belonging to Fouke Dutton, Peniarth MS392 D contains 250 folios with a page size of around 29 x 20.5 centimetres. It is written on heavily stained and rather damaged parchment and this has been tentatively identified as the hand of the poet Thomas Hoccleve. There is some illumination in blue, gold and red, used on the border and on initital letters at the opening of individual tales and prologues, the lavishly illustrated Ellesmere manuscript, which for many years, following the examples of the editor Frederick Furnivall and W. W. Since the work of John M.7334, the manuscript is conventionally referred to as Hg in most editions giving variant readings. William Maurice Robert Vaughan Canterbury Tales Project digital facsimile of the whole Hengwrt Chaucer manuscript, edited by Estelle Stubbs Specimen pages
17.
The Knight's Tale
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The Knights Tale is the first tale from Geoffrey Chaucers The Canterbury Tales. The story introduces various typical aspects of such as courtly love. The story is written in iambic pentameter end-rhymed couplets, the epic poem Teseida by Giovanni Boccaccio is the source of the tale, although Chaucer makes many significant diversions from that poem. The Teseida has 9,896 lines in twelve books, while The Knights Tale has only 2,250 lines—though it is one of the longer poems in the Tales. The tale is considered a romance, yet it is markedly different from either the English or French traditions of such tales. For instance, there is the inclusion of philosophical themes—mainly of the contained in the Consolation of Philosophy of Boethius—astrological references. The following tale by the Miller also involves the conflict between two men over a woman. It is an antithesis to the Knights, with none of the nobility or heritage of classical mythology, but is instead rollicking, bawdy, comedic. Two cousins and knights, Palamon and Arcite, are captured and imprisoned by Theseus, duke of Athens and their cell is in the tower of Theseus castle, with a window which overlooks his palace garden. The imprisoned Palamon wakes early one morning in May and catches sight of Princess Emily and he instantly falls in love with her, his moan is heard by Arcite, who then also wakes and sees Emily. He falls in love with her as well and this angers Palamon, who believes that he claimed her first. Arcite argues that he has the right to love Emily as well, the friendship between Palamon and Arcite quickly deteriorates over their competition for Emilys love. Palamon eventually escapes by drugging the jailer, and, while hiding in a grove, overhears Arcite singing about love and they begin to duel with each other over who should get Emily, but are thwarted by the arrival of Theseus. Theseus originally plans to sentence the two to death, but upon the protests of his wife and Emily, he decides to have them compete in a tournament instead. Palamon and Arcite are to gather 100 men apiece and to fight a mass judicial tournament, Theseus lays down rules for the tournament so that if any man becomes seriously injured, he must be dragged out of the battle and is no longer in combat. Because of this, the story seems to claim at the end there were almost no deaths on either side. Although both Palamon and Arcite fight valiantly, Palamon is wounded by a sword thrust from one of Arcites men. Theseus declares the fight to be over, Arcite wins the battle, but following a divine intervention by Saturn, he is mortally wounded by his horse throwing him off and then falling on him before he can claim Emily as his prize
18.
Wayback Machine
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The Internet Archive launched the Wayback Machine in October 2001. It was set up by Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat, and is maintained with content from Alexa Internet, the service enables users to see archived versions of web pages across time, which the archive calls a three dimensional index. Since 1996, the Wayback Machine has been archiving cached pages of websites onto its large cluster of Linux nodes and it revisits sites every few weeks or months and archives a new version. Sites can also be captured on the fly by visitors who enter the sites URL into a search box, the intent is to capture and archive content that otherwise would be lost whenever a site is changed or closed down. The overall vision of the machines creators is to archive the entire Internet, the name Wayback Machine was chosen as a reference to the WABAC machine, a time-traveling device used by the characters Mr. Peabody and Sherman in The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, an animated cartoon. These crawlers also respect the robots exclusion standard for websites whose owners opt for them not to appear in search results or be cached, to overcome inconsistencies in partially cached websites, Archive-It. Information had been kept on digital tape for five years, with Kahle occasionally allowing researchers, when the archive reached its fifth anniversary, it was unveiled and opened to the public in a ceremony at the University of California, Berkeley. Snapshots usually become more than six months after they are archived or, in some cases, even later. The frequency of snapshots is variable, so not all tracked website updates are recorded, Sometimes there are intervals of several weeks or years between snapshots. After August 2008 sites had to be listed on the Open Directory in order to be included. As of 2009, the Wayback Machine contained approximately three petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of 100 terabytes each month, the growth rate reported in 2003 was 12 terabytes/month, the data is stored on PetaBox rack systems manufactured by Capricorn Technologies. In 2009, the Internet Archive migrated its customized storage architecture to Sun Open Storage, in 2011 a new, improved version of the Wayback Machine, with an updated interface and fresher index of archived content, was made available for public testing. The index driving the classic Wayback Machine only has a bit of material past 2008. In January 2013, the company announced a ground-breaking milestone of 240 billion URLs, in October 2013, the company announced the Save a Page feature which allows any Internet user to archive the contents of a URL. This became a threat of abuse by the service for hosting malicious binaries, as of December 2014, the Wayback Machine contained almost nine petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of about 20 terabytes each week. Between October 2013 and March 2015 the websites global Alexa rank changed from 162 to 208, in a 2009 case, Netbula, LLC v. Chordiant Software Inc. defendant Chordiant filed a motion to compel Netbula to disable the robots. Netbula objected to the motion on the ground that defendants were asking to alter Netbulas website, in an October 2004 case, Telewizja Polska USA, Inc. v. Echostar Satellite, No.02 C3293,65 Fed. 673, a litigant attempted to use the Wayback Machine archives as a source of admissible evidence, Telewizja Polska is the provider of TVP Polonia and EchoStar operates the Dish Network
19.
Long Island University
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Long Island University is a private, coeducational, nonsectarian institution of higher education with locations and programs spanning the New York metropolitan area, overseas, and online. LIU has NCAA Division I and II athletics and hosts the annual George Polk Awards in Journalism. LIU was chartered in 1926 in Brooklyn by the New York State Education Department to provide “effective and moderately priced education” to people from walks of life. ”LIU Brooklyn is located in Downtown Brooklyn, at the corner of Flatbush. LIU Brooklyn is home to the NCAA Division I Blackbirds, the George Polk Awards for excellence in journalism, located in the town of Brookville on Long Islands Gold Coast, the original home, Warburton Hall, had been built by William A. Prime and was renovated by Marjorie and her second husband Edward F. Hutton. Three years later, the campus was renamed C. W. Post, in 2012, the university renamed all campuses. C. W. LIU Post is home to the NCAA Division II LIU Post Pioneers and Tilles Center for the Performing Arts. The school introduced its first online degree plan in 2004 On March 7,2013, LIU named Kimberly R. Cline as its 10th president, becoming the first woman to lead the private, six-campus institution. Dr. Cline outsourced the work of two groups of unionized workers on campus, and oversaw the lockout of 400 faculty on the day before the 2016-17 school year. In the first week of the term, some students at LIU Brooklyn staged a walkout in support of the locked-out teaching staff. With the 236 full-time faculty members and 450 adjuncts locked out, classes were taught by university administrators and temporary staff, the locked ended on September 14 with an agreement to continue the expired contract until May 31,2017 and resume negotiations with a mediator. LIU is administered by a president and board of trustees who elect the president, LIU Riverhead LIU Riverhead is home to the Homeland Security Management Institute, which offers homeland security training. The institute has been designated a Homeland Security Center of Excellence by the United States Congress, programs are also available in education, special education, literacy, communication studies, new media, cyber security, applied behavior analysis, and TESOL. The LIU Brooklyn Blackbirds compete in NCAA Division I intercollegiate athletics, the LIU Post Pioneers compete in NCAA Division II intercollegiate athletics. The LIU Public Radio Network broadcasts on 88.3 FM and 88.1 FM, the LIU television broadcasts on channels 95 and 96 on campus only LIU Brooklyns student newspaper is Seawanhaka, and LIU Posts student newspaper is The Pioneer. List of Long Island University people Official website LIU Brooklyn athletics LIU Post athletics Seawanhaka The Pioneer
20.
General Prologue
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The General Prologue is the first part of Chaucers The Canterbury Tales. The frame story of the poem, as set out in the 858 lines of Middle English which make up the General Prologue, is of a religious pilgrimage. The narrator, Geoffrey Chaucer, is in The Tabard Inn in Southwark, where he meets a group of folk who are all on the way to Canterbury. The setting is April, and the prologue starts by singing the praises of that month whose rains and warm western wind restore life and fertility to the earth and its inhabitants. This abundance of life, the narrator says, prompts people to go on pilgrimages, in England, at the end of the section, the Host proposes the story-telling contest, each pilgrim will tell two stories on the way to Canterbury and two on the way back. Whoever tells the best story, with the best sentence and moost solaas is to be given a free meal, General Prologue The Knights Tale The Millers Tale The Reeves Tale The Cooks Tale The Man of Laws Tale The Tale of Gamelyn intended by Chaucer for The Cooks Tale. These are introduced in the order of their rank in accordance with the three medieval social estates and these characters, while seemingly realistically described, are also representative of their estates and models with which the others in the same estate can be compared and contrasted. The structure of the General Prologue is also linked with the narrative style of the tales. As the narrative voice has been under scrutiny for some time. Though fierce debate has taken place on both sides, it should be noted that most contemporary scholars believe that the narrator is meant to be degree of Chaucer himself. Some scholars, like William W. Lawrence, claim that the narrator is Geoffrey Chaucer in person, while others, like Marchette Chute for instance, contest that the narrator is instead a literary creation like the other pilgrims in the tales. Manly attempted to identify pilgrims with real 14th century people, in some instances such as Summoner and Friar, he attempts localization to a small geographic area. The Man of Law is identified as Thomas Pynchbek who was chief baron of the exchequer, sir John Bussy was an associate of Pynchbek. He is identified as the Franklin, the Pembroke estates near Baldeswelle supplied the portrait for the unnamed Reeve. The following is the first 18 lines of the General Prologue, the text was written in a dialect associated with London and spellings associated with the then-emergent Chancery Standard
21.
The Miller's Tale
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The Millers Tale is the second of Geoffrey Chaucers Canterbury Tales, told by the drunken miller Robin to quite The Knights Tale. The Millers Prologue is the first quite that occurs in the tales, the general prologue to The Canterbury Tales describes the Miller, Robin, as a stout and evil churl fond of wrestling. In the Millers Prologue, the pilgrims have just heard and enjoyed The Knights Tale, a story of courtly love. However, the Miller insists on going next and he claims that his tale is noble, but reminds the other pilgrims that he is quite drunk and cannot be held accountable for what he says. He explains that his story is about a carpenter and his wife, osewold the Reeve, who had originally been a carpenter himself, protests that the tale will insult carpenters and wives, but the Miller carries on anyway. The Millers Tale begins the trend in which succeeding tellers quite the previous one with their story, the Millers Tale is the story of a carpenter, his lovely wife, and two clerks who are eager to sleep with her. The carpenter, John, lives in Oxford with his younger wife, Alisoun. To make extra money, John rents out a room in his house to a scholar named Nicholas. Another scholar in the town, Absolon the parish clerk, also has his eye on Alisoun, the action begins when John makes a day trip to a nearby town. While he is gone, Nicholas convinces Alisoun to have sex with him, shortly afterward, Alisoun goes to church, where Absolon sees her and immediately falls in love. He tries to woo Alisoun by singing love songs under her window during the full moon, Alisoun rebuffs all his efforts, however, because shes already involved with Nicholas. Nicholas, meanwhile, longs to spend a night in Alisouns arms rather than just the few moments they get together during Johns absences. With Alisoun, he hatches a scheme that will enable him to do this and he convinces John that God is about to send a great flood like the one he sent in Noahs time. He says that God told him they could save themselves by hanging three large tubs from the ceiling to sleep in, once the waters rose, they would cut the ropes and float away. John believes him and duly climbs into his tub and he thinks Nicholas and Alisoun are doing the same, but in fact, they are spending the night together in Johns bed. That same night, Absolon comes and begs Alisoun to kiss him, at first she refuses him, but she finally agrees. Instead of presenting her lips to Absolons, though, she sticks her backside out the bedrooms shot-window, angry at being fooled, Absolon gets a red-hot coulter from the smith with which he intends to burn Alisoun. When he returns, though, Nicholas sticks his backside out to get in on the joke, Absolon thrusts the coulter amidst the ers of Nicholas who cries out for Water. to assuage the pain
22.
The Cook's Tale
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Geoffrey Chaucer presumably never finished The Cooks Tale and it breaks off after 58 lines, although some scholars argue that Chaucer deliberately left the tale unfinished. The story starts telling of an apprentice named Perkyn who is fond of drinking and dancing, Perkyn is released by his master and moves in with a friend who also loves to drink, and whose wife is a prostitute. The tale continues the general trend of the preceding tales—the Knights, the Millers. In 25 of The Canterbury Tales MSS the Cooks unfinished tale is followed by the anonymous Tale of Gamelyn, Skeat argued instead that Chaucer intended the tale for the Yeoman, who would presumably be more interested in a tale of country life. The Host later calls upon the Cook for another tale, but he is too drunk and, after he falls from his horse and is helped back up, the Manciple tells a tale. The Cook starts by cog on the Reeves tale and then, after a reference to Solomon, the host then invites the cook to tell his tale. Chaucer’s special manuscript words Read The Cooks Tale with interlinear translation Modern Translation of The Cooks Tale, the Tale of Gamelyn, From the Harleian Ms. No.7334 The Cooks Tale – a plain-English retelling for non-scholars
23.
The Man of Law's Tale
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The Man of Laws Tale is the fifth of the Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, written around 1387. John Gowers Tale of Constance in Confessio Amantis tells the same story, Nicholas Trivets Les chronicles was a source for both authors. Constance is the daughter of the emperor in Rome, syrian merchants report her great beauty to the Sultan. A marriage contract is negotiated by her father which requires the Sultan, the Sultans mother, enraged that her son would turn his back on Islam, kills her son and the wedding party and has Constance set adrift on the sea. Her adventures and trials continue after she is shipwrecked on the Northumberland coast, the validity of her Christian faith is proved by two miracles. A blind man is healed by her companion Hermengyld, a wicked knight who wishes to seduce Constance murders Hermengyld and attempts to frame Constance using the bloody dagger. He perjures himself and is struck dead. Northumberland is a pagan country where the King, Alla converted to Christianity after learning of the two miracles. Allas evil mother intercepts and falsifies letters between the Alla and his constable, which results in Constances being banished, Constance is forced to go to sea again but runs aground in Spain. A would-be rapist boards her ship but mysteriously falls overboard and she is found by a Senator of Rome. He is returning from a mission to Barberie where he revenged the slaughter of Christians by the Sultans mother, the Senator takes Constance back to Italy to serve as a household servant. King Alla, still heartbroken over the loss of Constance, goes to Rome on a pilgrimage, Alla dies a year later, and the baby boy becomes the King. The Man of Law is a judicious and dignified man, or, at least and he is a judge in the court of assizes, by letter of appointment from the king, and has many goods and robes. He can draw up a document, the narrator tells us. The Man of Law rides in informal, silk-adorned clothes, GP The tale is based on a story within the Chronicles of Nicholas Trivet but the major theme in the tale, of an exiled princess uncorrupted by her suffering, was common in the literature of the time. Her tale is told in John Gowers Confessio Amantis. The oldest known variant of this type is Vitae duorum Offarum. More distantly related forms of the persecuted heroine include Le Bone Florence of Rome, an incident where Constance is framed for murder by a bloody dagger appears to be a direct borrowing from Crescentia
24.
The Wife of Bath's Tale
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The Wife of Baths Tale is among the best-known of Geoffrey Chaucers Canterbury Tales. He also goes so far as to two sets of clothing for her in his General Prologue. The tale is often regarded as the first of the marriage group of tales, which includes the Clerks, the Merchants. A separation between tales that deal with issues and ones that deal with magical issues, as the Wife of Baths 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. By tradition, any knight or noble found guilty of such a transgression, might be stripped of his name, heraldic title and rights, some have theorised that the Wifes tale may have been written to ease Chaucers guilty conscience. There was a Knight in King Arthurs time who raped a young maiden. King Arthur issues a decree that the Knight must be brought to justice, 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. Everywhere the knight goes he explains his predicament to the women he meets and asks their opinion, 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, outside a castle in the woods, he sees twenty-four maidens dancing and singing, but when he approaches they disappear as if by magic, and all that is left is an old hag. The Knight explains the problem to the hag, who is wise and may know the answer, with no other options left, the Knight agrees. Arriving at the court, he gives the answer that women most desire sovereignty over their husbands, the old hag then explains to the court the deal she has struck with the Knight, and publicly requests his hand in marriage. Although aghast, he realizes he has no choice and eventually agrees. On their wedding night the hag is upset that he is repulsed by her in bed and 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 hag who is loyal, true, the Knight responds by saying that the choice is hers, an answer which pleases her greatly. Now that she has won power over him, she asks him to kiss her, the Knight turns to look at the hag again, but now finds a young and lovely woman. They live happily into old age together, the Wife of Baths Prologue both draws from and critiques the long medieval tradition of antifeminist texts. The simple fact that Alisoun is a widow who remarries more than once suggests a relationship with antifeminist traditions, further evidence of this can be found through Alisouns observation, “For hadde God commanded maydenhede, / Thanne hadde he dampned weddyng with the dede”
25.
The Friar's Tale
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The Friars Tale is a story in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, told by Huberd the Friar. The story centers around a corrupt summoner and his interactions with a demon and it is preceded by The Wife of Baths Tale and followed by The Summoners Tale. On the way to extort money from a widow, the Summoner encounters a yeoman who is apparently down on his luck, 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 actually a demon, to which the Summoner expresses minimal surprise—he enquires as to aspects of hell. During their travels, they come upon a carter whose horses have become temporarily stuck, frustrated, he says that the devil may take them. 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 also demands she give him her new pan in payment for an old debt, 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. 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, which had been formed relatively 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 a court with the same sin. The Friars tale has no original source like many of Chaucers tales but it is of a type which is common and always seems popular. Even in the prologue the friar begins by making some rude remarks about the summoner in general. The host reprimands him, saying he should be mindful of his social standing, the Summoner merely 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 description of the work of a summoner. This includes bribery, corruption, extortion and a network of pimps, chaucer’s special manuscript words The Friars Tale – a plain-English retelling for non-scholars
26.
The Clerk's Tale
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The Clerks Tale is the first tale of Group E in Geoffrey Chaucers The Canterbury Tales. It is preceded by The Summoners Tale and followed by The Merchants Tale, the Clerk of Oxenford is a student of what would nowadays be considered philosophy or theology. He tells the tale of Griselda, a woman whose husband tests her loyalty in a series of cruel torments that recall the Biblical book of Job. The Clerks tale is about a marquis of Saluzzo in Piedmont in Italy named Walter and he assents and decides he will marry a peasant, named Griselda. Griselda is a girl, used to a life of pain and labour. After Griselda has borne him a daughter, Walter decides to test her loyalty and he sends an officer to take the baby, pretending it will be killed, but actually conveying it in secret to Bologna. Griselda, because of her promise, makes no protest at this, when she bears a son several years later, Walter again has him taken from her under identical circumstances. Finally, Walter determines one last test and he has a Papal bull of annulment forged which enables him to leave Griselda, and informs her that he intends to remarry. As part of his deception, he employs Griselda to prepare the wedding for his new bride, meanwhile, he has brought the children from Bologna, and he presents his daughter as his intended wife. Eventually he informs Griselda of the deceit, who is overcome by joy at seeing her children alive, one of the characters created by Chaucer is the Oxford clerk, who is a student of philosophy. He is depicted as thin and impoverished, hard-working and wholly dedicated to his studies, the narrator claims that as a student in Italy he met Francis Petrarch at Padua from whom he heard the tale. The story of patient Griselda first appeared as the last chapter of Boccacios Decameron, in 1374, it was translated into Latin by Petrarch, who quotes the heroine, Griselda, as an exemplum of that most feminine of virtues, constancy. As far as Chaucer is concerned, critics think he used both Petrachs and de Mézièress texts, while managing to recapture Bocaccios opaque irony, anne Middleton is one of many scholars to discuss the relationship between Petrarchs original and Chaucers reworking of the tale. Given the context of the Clerks tale, what lesson, if any, certainly Griselda appears as the antithesis to the Wife of Bath. The intrusive narrator comments on the foolishness of the husbands test, Nedelees, God woot and he hadde assayed hire ynogh bifore, And foond hire evere good, In the course of the narrative he seems to treat Griseldas story as an exemplum. He compares her to Job, and reminds his audience of the reputation of clerks for misogyny to emphasise the fact that Griseldas virtue is such as to disarm the most prejudiced. In conclusion he remarks that he did not tell the story to encourage wives to imitate Griselda, however the Clerks Tale is followed by an envoy, the tone of which is quite different. The irony is more in keeping with the clerks ethos but contradicts his former conclusion
27.
The Franklin's Tale
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The Franklins Tale is one of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. It focuses on issues of providence, truth, generosity and gentillesse in human relationships, a franklin was a medieval landowner, and this pilgrims words when interrupting the Squire are often seen as displaying his social status of diminutio. Other such devices are employed throughout the tale, the idea of women having equality with men was unusual at the time, and would have been socially unacceptable, this is why they choose to conceal it. Arveragus then travels to Britain to seek honour and fame and he leaves Dorigen alone in France near the coastal town of Pedmark the province of Armorik. She misses her husband terribly while he is gone, and is concerned that his ship will crash 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. Finally, to get rid of him and in a mood, she makes a rash promise. When the rokkes vanish, Aurelius confronts Dorigen and demands that she fulfil her bargain and she and her husband agonise over her predicament, for by this time Arveragus has returned safely. During this period Dorigen lists numerous examples of women who killed themselves to maintain their honour. Dorigen explains her predicament to her husband who calmly says that in good conscience she must go. However, Aurelius himself defers to nobility when he recognises that the love is true. The magician-scholar is so moved by Aurelius story that he cancels the debt that Aurelius owes him. But in Chaucers 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 many of the pilgrims tales. Whereas most of the Breton lais involved magic and fairies, the usual fantastical element is modified by the use of science to make rocks disappear rather than a spell. While the idea of the disappearance of rocks has a variety of potential sources. The rocks possibly come from the legends of Merlin performing a similar feat, in a recent paper, Olson et al. analyzed the Franklins Tale in terms of medieval astronomy. 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
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The Physician's Tale
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The Physicians Tale is one of the Canterbury Tales written by Geoffrey Chaucer in the 14th century. This is a drama about the relationship between a daughter and her father and it is one of the earliest extant poems in English about such subjects. Most of the versions of the story focused on the cruel and arbitrary officials. Virginius, a nobleman of Rome, has a beautiful, fourteen-year-old daughter and she is spotted one day by a judge, Appius who decides he must have her and forms a plan. His accomplice, a churl by the name of Claudius, claims in court that Virginia is his run-away slave, Virginius goes home and tells his daughter he must kill her to protect her honour. She resigns herself to her fate and swoons, and he cuts her head off and he takes her head to the court and when Appius demands his execution for murder, the populace instead rises up and deposes the corrupt official. Appius kills himself in jail, but Virginius spares Claudius life, the long, and rather distracting, digression on governesses possibly alludes to a historical event and may serve to date it. In 1386 Elizabeth, the daughter of John of Gaunt, eloped to France with John Hastings, the governess of Elizabeth was Katherine Swynford who was also Gaunts mistress and later wife. Chaucers very careful, mollifying words on the job and the virtues of governesses seem to be a very canny political move. The story is considered one of the tales, along with the Parsons tale. However, the fate of Virginius renders questionable the moral assertion at the storys end, the Host enjoys the tale and feels for the daughter but asks the Pardoner for a more merry tale. The Pardoner obliges and his tale has a similar but contrasting moral message, shakespeares Titus Andronicus pays homage to this tale. After Lavinia is raped and mutilated, her father Titus kills her and he then compares himself to Virginius
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The Pardoner's Tale
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The Pardoners Tale is one of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. In the order of the Tales, it comes after The Physicians Tale and before The Shipmans Tale, the Pardoner initiates his Prologue—briefly accounting his methods of conning people—and then proceeds to tell a moral tale. The tale itself is an extended exemplum, setting out to kill Death, three young men encounter an Old Man who says that they will find him under a nearby tree. When they arrive they discover a hoard of treasure and decide to stay with it overnight to carry it away the following morning, the tale and prologue are primarily concerned with what the Pardoner says is his theme, Radix malorum est cupiditas. In the order of The Canterbury Tales, the Pardoners Prologue, the Physicians Tale is a harrowing tale about a judge who plots with a churl to abduct a beautiful young woman, rather than allow her to be raped, her father beheads her. The Host then asks the Pardoner to telle us som mrythe or japes right anon, however, the pilgrims—aware of pardoners notoriety for telling lewd tales and in anticipation of hearing something objectionable—voice their desire for no ribaldry, but instead want a moral tale. The prologue takes the form of a confession in the same manner as The Wife of Baths Prologue. However, rather than an apology for his vices, the Pardoner boasts of his duping of his victims, for whom he has nothing and he says that his theme—biblical text for a sermon—is Radix malorum est cupiditas. The Pardoner says to the pilgrims that by these tricks he has acquired a considerable sum of money. He goes on to relate how he stands like a clergy at the pulpit, against anyone that offends either him or other pardoners, he will stynge hym with my tonge smerte. The Pardoner explains that he offers many anecdotes to the lewed people. Yet, he concludes to the pilgrims, though he may be a ful vicious man, he can tell a moral tale, the tale is set in Flanders at an indeterminate time, and opens with three young men drinking, gambling and blaspheming in a tavern. The Pardoner condemns each of these tavern sins in turn—gluttony, drinking, gambling, the rioters hear a bell signalling a burial, their friend has been killed by a privee theef known as Death, who has also killed a thousand others. The men set out to them and kill Death. An old man they brusquely query tells them that he has asked Death to take him but has failed and he then says they can find death at the foot of an oak tree. When the men arrive at the tree, they find a large amount of gold coins and they decide to sleep at the oak tree over night, so they can take the coins in the morning. The three men draw straws to see who among them should fetch wine and food while the two wait under the tree. The youngest of the three men draws the shortest straw and departs, while he is away, the two plot to overpower and stab him upon his return
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The Shipman's Tale
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The Shipmans Tale is one of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. It is in the form of a fabliau and tells the story of a merchant, his avaricious wife and her lover. Although similar stories can be found in Boccaccios Decameron, a frequent source for Chaucers tales, the story is a retelling of a folk tale. The tale tells of a merchant whose wife enjoys revelry and socialising, a young monk, who is very close friends with the merchant, comes to stay with them. After confessing that she not love her husband, the wife asks the monk for one hundred franks to pay her debts. When the merchant asks his wife about the money she says it is spent, instead of giving her husband the money back she says she will repay the debt in bed. Apart from a criticism of the clergy, a theme of Chaucers. Also the similar tales often end with both the wife and husband being conned but the addition of the wife, in turn, conning her husband seems to be Chaucers own embellishment. As the wife is tallying her debt in bed the story ends on a pun that we should all, God willing. In the line he moot us clothe, and he moot us array, the changes give some insight into Chaucers development of the tales and the connections between them. In the BBC1 adaptation of The Shipmans Tale, the setting is an Indian family in modern England, the monks role is played by the merchants business partner who has come from India to set up a shop in England. The wife, beset by problems, sleeps with this man. The business partner breaks up with the wife, and she, feeling jilted, the merchant subsequently sends the other man back to India with a warning, and at the end he reaches across the bed to touch his wifes hand, a hint of possible reconciliation
31.
The Prioress's Tale
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The Prioresss Tale follows The Shipmans Tale in Geoffrey Chaucers The Canterbury Tales. Because of fragmentation of the manuscripts, it is impossible to tell where it comes in ordinal sequence, the General Prologue names the prioress as Madame Eglantine, and describes her impeccable table manners and soft-hearted ways. Her portrait suggests she is likely in religious life as a means of advancement, given her aristocratic manners. She maintains a secular lifestyle, including keeping lap dogs that she privileges over other people and her story is of a child martyr killed by Jews, a common theme in Medieval Christianity, and much later criticism focuses on the tales antisemitism. The story begins with an invocation to the Virgin Mary, then sets the scene in Asia, 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, though he does not understand the words and he begins to sing it every day as he walks to school through the Jews street. Satan, That hath in Jewes heart his waspes nest, incites the Jews to murder the child and his mother searches for him and eventually 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, 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, the abbot removes the grain and he dies. The story ends with a mention of Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln, 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 also blends elements of story of a pious child killed by the enemies of the faith. Matthew Arnold cited a stanza from the tale as the best of Chaucers poetry and 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, the tale is related to various blood libel stories common at the time. One likely influence for the tale was the infamous 1255 murder of a boy in Lincoln who became known as Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln, Chaucers 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 and 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 perhaps misdirected in a nun and she wears a brooch bearing the Virgilian motto Amor vincit omnia —a dubious maxim for a nun—which perhaps takes the place of a rosary and further illustrates her fascination with courtly love. 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 this means that the Jews are an even more distant and unfocused evil quality than is usual in such stories
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Sir Thopas
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Sir Thopas is one of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, published in 1387. The tale is one of two—together with The Tale of Melibee—told by the fictive Geoffrey Chaucer as he travels with the pilgrims on the journey to Canterbury Cathedral, the tale concerns the adventures of the knight Sir Thopas and his quest to win the elf-queen. The tale is one of two told by the fictive Chaucer, along with the Tale of Melibee, who figures as one of the pilgrims who are on a journey to the shrine of Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral. The pilgrims are involved in a story-telling contest on the behest of the Host, Harry Bailly, Sir Thopas comes after the Prioresss Tale, a poem which is exemplary of the miracle of the Virgin genre and which tells the story of a child martyr killed by Jews. Seemingly wishing to counter the sombre mood that this tale instills in the pilgrims, the Host hails Chaucer and suggests that he, Telle us a tale of myrth, and that anon. Chaucer admits to having no tales to other than a rym lerned longe agoon. Chaucers portrait of himself is unflattering and humble and he presents himself as a reticent, maladroit figure who can barely summon a tale to mind. In comparison to the travelers in the group, Chaucer the character is reluctant to speak. The poem begins with an introduction to Sir Thopas, detailing his birthplace of Flanders, describing his physical appearance and he desires the elf-queen but is waylaid by the giant Sir Olifaunt. He runs back to his men for a feast of sweets. The tale is interrupted by the Host, though, for its tail rhyme format and is never finished. The tale is a parody of romances, with their knights and fairies and absurdities, and Chaucer the author not only the grandiose, Gallic romances. The tale is a hodgepodge of many of the stories of the time which even apes their simple rhymes. Elements of deliberate anticlimax abound in as much of the poem as Chaucer is allowed to present, the knights name is in fact topaz, one of the more common gemstones, in Chaucers day, topaz included any yellowish quartz. The knight hails from Flanders, which earlier had been a haunt of errant knights. In the only scene of derring-do that Chaucer tells in the two and a half chapters he gets in, Sir Topas flees the battle, pelted by stones, the poem thus contains many suggestions that it was intended in a mock-heroic sense. Thopas is the first of what is called the surprise group of tales, as each is quite different from the preceding. The host, Harry Bailey, does not seem to appreciate this new style of tale and he interrupts Chaucer, the character Chaucer then tells the laborious and dull debate of the Tale of Melibeus
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The Nun's Priest's Tale
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The Nuns Priests Tale is one of The Canterbury Tales by the Middle English poet Geoffrey Chaucer. Composed in the 1390s, the 626-line narrative poem is a beast fable, the story of Chanticleer and the Fox became further popularised in Britain through this means. The prologue clearly links the story with the previous Monks Tale, the host upholds the knights complaint and orders the monk to change his story. The monk refuses, saying he has no lust to pleye, the Nuns Priests Tale offers a lively and skilfully told story from a previously almost invisible character. The fable concerns a world of talking animals who reflect both human perception and fallacy and its protagonist is Chauntecleer, a proud cock who dreams of his approaching doom in the form of a fox. Frightened, he awakens Pertelote, the favourite among his seven wives. She assures him that he suffers from indigestion and chides him for paying heed to a simple dream. Chauntecleer recounts stories of prophets who foresaw their deaths, dreams that came true, Chauntecleer is comforted and proceeds to greet a new day. Unfortunately for Chauntecleer, his own dream was also correct, a col-fox, ful of sly iniquitee, who had previously tricked Chauntecleers father and mother to their downfall, lies in wait for him in a bed of wortes. When the cock does so, he is snatched from the yard in the foxs jaws. As the fox flees through the forest, with the entire barnyard giving chase, the predators own pride is now his undoing, as the fox opens his mouth to taunt his pursuers, Chauntecleer escapes from his jaws and flies into the nearest tree. The fox tries in vain to convince the wary rooster of his repentance, it now prefers the safety of the tree and it concludes by admonishing the audience to be careful of reckless decisions and of truste on flaterye. Robert Henryson used Chaucers tale as a source for his Taill of Schir Chanticleir and the Foxe, later, the poet John Dryden adapted the tale into more comprehensible modern language under the title of The Cock and the Fox. In 2007, the playwright Dougie Blaxland wrote a verse play Chauntecleer and Pertelotte. Barbara Cooneys adaptation for children with her own illustrations, Chanticleer, another illustrated edition of the tale won the 1992 Kerlan Award. This was Chanticleer and the Fox – A Chaucerian Tale, written by Fulton Roberts with Marc Davis drawings for a Disney cartoon that was never completed, among musical settings have been Gordon Jacobs The Nuns Priests Tale and the similarly titled choral setting by Ross Lee Finney. Another American adaptation was Seymour Barabs comic opera Chanticleer, in the UK Michael Hurd set the tale as Rooster Rag, a pop cantata for children. The Nuns Priests Tale section was excluded from the original 1969 Broadway production, though reinstated in the 1970 US tour
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The Second Nun's Tale
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The Second Nuns Tale, originally written in late Middle English, is part of Geoffrey Chaucers The Canterbury Tales, which was a collection of 24 stories telling of various people. Told by a nun concerned only with matters, The Second Nuns Tale tells the story of Saint Cecilia. The hagiography was a popular format during the life of Chaucer. Like many of the tales told by the pilgrims, The Second Nuns Tale incorporates elements from Dante, the Invocation to Mary is a nine paragraph portion of the prologue telling of the origin of the name of Cecilia. The Invocation has been argued to draw from other sources in terms of its composure. A virgin maiden, Cecilia, is to be wedded to a man Valerian, Cecilia asks Valerian to swear not to betray her if she tells her secret, that she has an angel that watches over her, with Christianity being a crime at the time. From there Valerian is skeptical and Cecilia asks him to embark on a journey to see Saint Urban, Valerian then found Urban who purged him of sin and when Valerian returned he saw Cecilia with an angel. This angel gave Valerian a single wish, of which Valerian answered to give his brother, Tiburce, Tiberuce appeared and then accepted the word of Christ. Valerian Then took Tiburce to Urban, who had condemned to die by the state. Almachuius, the prefect, later seizes the martyrs and orders them to abandon their faith or be sentenced to the death, However, the executioners were converted to Christianity. Both Tiburce and Valerian still come forward for the execution are a show of faith, Almachius orders her dead by a boiling bath, however, due to her faith Cecilia sits safely in the bath. Almachius then orders the executioner to strike thee strikes on her but her head does not fall off, eventually 3 days later, after preaching even in her partially decapitated state, she ascended to heaven and Saint Urban buried her other saints. The Second Nun’s Tale explains the story of a noble lady named Cecilia. A young maiden named Cecilia, from her cradle onward, was devoted to her faith in Christ. However, if he protects Cecilia “in clean love”, the angel would also love him, when Valerian asked to see the angel, Cecilia told him that he must “go forth to the Appian Way, ” and get baptized by Saint Urban. After his baptism, during which he saw God who appeared as an old man in white garments, Valerian returned home. The angel gifted him and Cecilia with two crowns of lilies and roses, and asked that they guard the crowns with “a pure body and unspotted thought. ”The lilies and roses from the crown were fetched by the angel from Paradise. Valerian then asked his brother, Tiburce, to come and accept God and know the truth, the angel then agreed and called his brother to come
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The Parson's Tale
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The Parsons Tale seems, from the evidence of its prologue, to have been intended as the final tale of Geoffrey Chaucers poetic cycle The Canterbury Tales. The tale, which is the longest of all the contributions by Chaucers pilgrims, is in fact neither a story nor a poem. Critics and readers are generally unclear what rhetorical effect Chaucer may have intended by ending his cycle in this unlikely, extra-generic fashion. It is also of interest that the host seems to be in doubt as to the identity of the Parson, since he asks him to introduce himself, Sire preest, quod he. Be what thou be, ne breke thou nat oure pley, For every man, save thou, some idea of Chaucers intended structure for the Canterbury Tales may be gleaned from this final prologue. The host speaks of al myn ordinaunce almoost fulfild and says that the company lakketh. no tales mo than oon, the subject of the parsons tale is penitence. It may thus be taken as containing inferential criticism of the behaviour and character of humanity detectable in all the other pilgrims, the parson divides penitence into three parts, contrition of the heart, confession of the mouth, and satisfaction. The second part about confession is illustrated by referring to the Seven Deadly Sins and offering remedies against them. The Seven Deadly Sins are pride, envy, wrath, sloth, greed, gluttony, and lust, they are healed by the virtues of humility, contentment, patience, fortitude, mercy, moderation and this is mingled with fragments from other texts. It is not known whether Chaucer was the first to combine these particular sources, or whether he translated an existing combined edition, if the latter is the case, any direct source has been lost. The Parson is considered by some to be the good member of the clergy in The Canterbury Tales, while others have detected ambiguities. Chaucer, in the General Prologue calls him a povre Persoun of a Toun and his depiction of a man who practices what he preaches seems to be positive, He was a shepherde and noght a mercenarie. And thogh he hooly were and vertuous, He was to synful men nat despitous, Ne of his speche daungerous ne digne, But in his techyng discreet, none of the explicit criticism of clergy that marks many of the other tales and character sketches is obvious here. The Parson is throughout depicted as a sensible and intelligent person, Chaucer elsewhere is not uncritical of the clergy, for example, he describes flatterers – those who continuously sing placebo – as develes chapelleyns. Chaucer’s special manuscript words Parsons Tale retold in Modern English prose
