That toward Canterbury wouldeh ride.
The stables and the chambers weren wide
And well we weren eased atte best" (well accommodated).
He then gives a series of photographs of the pilgrims, representatives of various classes of the people of England at a most eventful period of our history—a period when Wycliffe was laying the foundations of the Protestant Church; when Wat Tyler and his fellow serfs were rising in assertion of their liberties; when Chaucer and Gower were fashioning the English language into shape, as contradistinguished from the Norman-French of the Court; when the feeble Richard occupied the throne, to be shortly driven hence by his cousin Bolingbroke, which eventually led to the Wars of the Roses, and resulted in the extinction of a vast number of the Norman families, rendering it easier for the Saxon element of the kingdom afterwards to gain the ascendancy.
Amongst the company are a knight, a worthy man, who had done deeds of prowess in all parts of the world, yet was meek as a maid, who was dressed in a "fustian gipon, alle besmattered" with marks of travel; along with him was his son, "a younge squire, a lover and lusty bachelor," with "lockes curl'd, as they were laid in press;" also his attendant, a yeoman "clad in green," and under his belt "a sheaf of peacock arrows bright and keen."
There was also a prioress
"That of her smiling was full simple and coy;
Whose greatest oath n'as of Saint Eloy,"
who sung the service "entuned in her nose full sweetly, and French she spoke full fair and fetisly, after the school of Stratford-atte-Bow."
"A monk there was, an outsider, that loved venery;