Chaucer's 'Court Baron': Law and 'The Canterbury Tales'

Author / Editor
Braswell, Mary Flowers.

Title
Chaucer's 'Court Baron': Law and 'The Canterbury Tales'

Published
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 16 (1994): 29-44.

Description
Chaucer's office as Justice of the Peace necessitated his close familiarity with the forms and styles of court proceedings available to us in the records of the "Court Baron." Braswell notes in such records the frequency of figures similar to Chaucer's Host, Miller, Reeve, and Cook. Cases in the records are marked by the types of ambiguities and indeterminacies we see in Chaucer's depictions of his characters, and such court records include testimonies called "tales."

Chaucer Subjects
Canterbury Tales--General.
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations.