"Kept his patient a full great deal
In houres by his magic natural."
A wife of Bath, who had had five husbands and was ready for a sixth; a buxom dame, dressed in scarlet hosen and hat as broad as a buckler, who smirked and smiled upon the squire, much as the widow Wadman did, in an after age, upon Uncle Toby.
A poore parson, "rich of holy thought and work," a learned man and clerk "that Christe's Gospel woulde preach living at home in his parish instead of running up to London," unto St. Paul's, to seek for a chantry for souls.
"For Christe's love and his Apostles twelve,
He taught, but first he followed it himselve."
With whom was his brother, a ploughman, "that had of dung laid many of fother: a true swinker, who would thresh and dike and delve for Christ's sake, for every poore wight, withouten hire, if it lay in his might."
A miller, "a stout carle for the nones, full big of brawn and eke of bones, with beard red as any sow or fox, a wart on the cop of his nose, whence sprouted a crop of heres, red as the bristles of a sowe's ears; a jangler and goliardeis (reveller), who could well stealen corn and tollen thrice," and moreover "a baggepipe well could he blow and soun, and there withal he brought us out of town."
A Manciple, or purchaser of victuals for Inns of Court.
A Reeve, or land steward, a slender, choleric man, closely shaven and shorn, with calfless legs, who "ever rode hinderest of the rout."