The Canterbury Tales is a collection of accounts about a journey pilgrims made to and from the Canterbury Cathedral, composed by British writer Geoffrey Chaucer in the late 1300’s. “Chaucer greatly increased the prestige of English as a literary language and extended the range of its poetic vocabulary and meters” (Encarta 1). In the tales, the host offers a contest to the pilgrims which requires them to tell four stories during their trip . Chaucer ingeniously integrates the episodes with one another and also resplendently describes the personality, behavior, and general way of life of a variety of aspects of society in the Medieval Ages. The Canterbury Tales c