The Canterbury Tales: the Man of Law's Tale Resources

Luminarium's guide to "The Man of Law's Tale" collects links to various resources for study of the tale, including online editions, bibliographies, and university web pages devoted to it. In a word: jackpot.

This page, a link from Harvard University's website devoted to the Canterbury Tales in its entirety, provides a brief summary of the tale as well as information about and links to Chaucer's likely sources. The folks from Harvard can always be relied on in a pinch.

Professor Jane Zatta's webpage on the Man of Law discusses the significance and history of the rudderless boat motif in medieval literature as well as exploring some of Chaucer's likely sources for the tale. Get that tweed ready.

Put your thinking cap on. Professor Arnie Sanders provides basic information about the "Tale" as well as an in-depth "interpretive issues" section that helps students explores specific aspects of the tale in more detail.

Check out part of a BBC series that adapts several of the Canterbury Tales into modern settings. This adaptation has Custance as a Nigerian refugee who lands off the coast of Britain in a small boat. A British couple takes her in, but when she rejects the advances of a man at her church, trouble ensues.

One of Chaucer's contemporaries, John Gower also tells the story of Constance in his sprawling Confessio Amantis. Both men used the same source, a story from Nicholas Trivet's Chronicle.

"Emaré" is a romance that shares many similarities to the "Tale of Constance"; it's one of the original "exiled queens" romances. This version likely pre-dates Chaucer's version by about a century, although it was not written down in a manuscript until after Chaucer wrote the Canterbury Tales.

Don't mind if we do. Here's the full version of the modern BBC adaptation of the text.

They've got all the tales, and some bonus extras.

Just try reading this text.

Interesting choice of headdress.