Preview: Section 4

The company broadens to include prosperous guild members, skilled workers, travelers, a physician, and two exemplary figures of Christian service. Chaucer’s catalogue moves quickly, sometimes granting a trade only a few sharp lines and sometimes building a fuller moral portrait.

Clothes, tools, bodily details, professional knowledge, and money reveal both competence and vulnerability. Several pilgrims are excellent at what they do, yet technical skill does not automatically amount to virtue; by contrast, humble work and consistent action can carry unusual moral weight.