Ellesmere Chaucer

The Ellesmere Chaucer is an elaborately decorated manuscript of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, created between 1400 and 1405. It is the most complete version of the work and a primary source for most subsequent editions. 

The manuscript comprises first-person accounts of a fictional group of 23 pilgrims—including the “verray parfit gentil knyght,” the poor Oxford scholar, the free-thinking Wife of Bath, and the earthy Miller—as they participate in a storytelling contest on their way to Canterbury Cathedral from London. Their varied walks of life are reflected in equally varied literary forms, from sermons and legends of the saints to courtly romances, animal fables, and bawdy stories. 

Each of the 23 pilgrims is represented in miniature paintings, and scholars have argued that the one featured in the “Tale of Melibee” is a portrait of Chaucer.  

The manuscript’s excellent condition is in part due to its sitting undisturbed for about three centuries in the library of Sir Thomas Egerton (later Baron Ellesmere) and his family. The binding dates from 1995, when the manuscript was conserved, digitized, and rebound.