During the Middle Ages it was custom for many Christians to go on pilgrimages to perform what they believed was God's work. Canterbury was one of many sites that the pilgrim would go to. Geoffrey Chaucer centers his book The Canterbury Tales around the pilgrims on their way to thank St. Thomas of Canterbury for his help in keeping them alive. The pilgrims met at an inn and it is here that the Host proposes that each pilgrim should tell two tales on the pilgrimage to Canterbury and then two on the way back. "Each pilgrim represents a certain part of medieval society." (Mack 1895) The pilgrims sit at the top of their social standing