THE STATUS OF MAGIC IN THE CANTERBURY TALES (14TH CENTURY)

Abstract

The book The Canterbury Tales, written by Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1340-1400), an English poet and also an active traveler, tells the story of a group of people on a pilgrimage to the tomb of Saint Thomas Becket. During this pilgrimage, each character tells stories. Produced at the end of the 14th century, the work is an important historical source from which we can draw various questions about the men and women of the Middle Ages, due to the diversity of characters presented and the positions they held (monks, knights, merchants, nuns, among others). In the stories told to pass the time, a variety of knowledge from the medieval period emerges, such as theology, medical science, commerce and - the main one for this work - magic. This article seeks to elucidate, from the representations contained in some stories in Chaucer's work, what position magical practices (such as alchemy and astrology) occupied in the imagination, as well as in the daily lives of the medieval people.