An art installation by Grassroot Garden, commissioned by Tabard Gardens North Tenants & Residents Association, inspired by Geoffrey Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales’. Funded by a Cleaner Greener Safer grant from Borough, Bankside & Walworth Community Council. In the 1380s, half a mile from present day Shere House (located at the intersection of Trinity Street and Great Dover St), the fictional characte
rs from Geoffrey Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales’ set off on their pilgrimage towards Canterbury Cathedral. Anglo-Saxon society and culture is satirised and brought to life through the narrator’s description of the pilgrims and the tales they told on their journey. This installation imagines the twenty-nine pilgrims passing through this site, each depicted by a carved pole tilted towards Canterbury. Each pilgrim represents a section of the social hierarchy of medieval Britain, from the aristocratic nobility though to the criminal class. The carved poles are arranged in ascending height to mirror the social strata portrayed in Chaucer’s verse. The space the carvings occupy was planted with native British plants shrubs and hedging in order to create a wildlife friendly micro-habitat. Species planted include field maple, hawthorn, blackthorn, dog rose, hazel, common buckthorn, alder buckthorn, sea buckthorn, dogwood, wayfaring tree, and guelder rose. Links to hundreds of articles and essays on Chaucer and his characters:
http://www.luminarium.org/medlit/chaucessays.htm
Context and overview of the Canterbury Tales:
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/canterbury/context.html
Social hierarchy in the Canterbury Tales:
http://www.angieanderson.net/images/The_Canterbury_Tales_-_Chaucer_s_Adherence_....pdf
Wife of Bath and historical context for women:
http://jcc.icc.org.ro/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/JCC-vol-1-no-2-2011-pages-128-140.pdf
Growth of vernacular literature:
http://www.oxforddnb.com/public/themes/94/94766.html
Chaucer the narrator:
http://engl381-mueller.wikispaces.umb.edu/file/view/barbara.nolan.boethius.pdf
http://web.archive.org/web/20000229181339/http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/Hall/1170/chaucerhtml/pilgrim.html
