The Allusions to the Saints in the Canterbury Tales, Their Appropriateness

This dissertation consists of a series of commentaries on Chaucer\u27s allusions to saints in the Canterbury Tales. The allusions have been studied in connection with the narrator of the tale, the lines, the characters, and the general spirit of the tale to ascertain possible reasons for making reference to the saint in a particular allusion. The life, legends, and cults of the individual saints have been investigated to discover appropriatenesses, which might account for Chaucer\u27s choice of a saint for a particular allusion. All references to saints as originators of ideas expressed in the Tales have been excluded from the paper. Nor have the allusions to Mary, the Mother of God, been considered. So much has been written on the cult of Mary that it does not seem necessary to include these allusions. Saints whose lives constitute the subject matter of the tale have also been omitted. St. Cecilia and St. Urban in the Second Nun\u27s Tale are examples of such omissions. Hugh of Lincoln, the subject of The Prioress\u27 Tale , has been but briefly identified. In all there are commentaries on thirty-two saints