Middle English Literature

Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales
Henry E. Huntington Library MS 26 C 9, fol. 1r (Ellesmere)
Language: English (Southeast Midland)
Manuscript date: ca. 1405
The Canterbury Tales survives in 82 manuscripts, 55 of which are complete
or near complete. Chaucer wrote the Tales between 1387 and 1400, but
no manuscript survives from his lifetime (ca. 1343–1400). Only about a
third of the manuscripts is illuminated, and the Ellesmere manuscript of the
Canterbury Tales is the most elaborately decorated. It is the version modern
editors of the Tales use most frequently for the order of the tales, but its
text is inferior compared with the Hengwrt manuscript (for which, see the
Hengwrt image, p. 139). Most probably produced in London, over a third
of Ellesmere’s vellum pages are decorated with pink and blue foliated initials
on a gold ground with demi-vinet borders, such as this opening page. Mar-
ginal glosses in the General Prologue distinguish the pilgrim descriptions.
Twenty-three portraits of the pilgrims appear opposite the first line of each
of their tales in the manuscript, including a Chaucer portrait (see also the
image “Thomas Hoccleve, Regiment of Princes,” p. 141).
Primary documents and further reading
Benson, L. D. (ed.) (1987) The Riverside Chaucer, 3rd edn. Boston, MA: Houghton
Mifflin.
Hanna, R., III (Intro.) (1989) The Ellesmere Manuscript of Chaucer’s Canterbury
Tales: A Working Facsimile. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.
Manly, J. M. and E. Rickert (1940) The Text of the Canterbury Tales Studied on the
Basis of All Known Manuscripts, 8 vols. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Stevens, M. and D. Woodward (eds.) (1995) The Ellesmere Chaucer: Essays in Inter-
pretation. San Marino, CA: Huntington Library.
Woodward, D. and M. Stevens (eds.) (1995) The Canterbury Tales: The New Ellesmere
Chaucer Facsimile (of Huntington Library MS EL 26 C 9). San Marino, CA:
Huntington Library.

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