Book Reviews 129 

Pagans, Tartars, Moslems, and Jews in 

Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" 

Brenda Deen Schildgen 
Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001. 183 pages. 

Brenda Deen Schildgen's analysis of the Canterbury Tales explores the 

contemporary worldviews of medieval Europeans. Chaucer, an English 
court poet, wrote probably his greatest work- the Canterbury Tales - at the 

end of the fourteenth century. It is a collection of 24 tales told by pilgrims 
as they make their way to Canterbury cathedral. Chaucer frames the tales 

with a prologue and dialogue between the tales. 
Schildgen's book examines the eight tales set outside Christian Europe. 

Much of the book discusses the medieval view of paganism and the con­
tinuing influence of pagan philosophy on medieval intellectual thought. 

She analyses the "Man of Law's Tale," whose story takes place in both 
pagan and Muslim lands. (It is worth pointing out here that, although by the 

fourteenth century the Mongols increasingly were becoming Muslims, the 
Tartars in the "Squire's Tale" are associated with paganism.) In addition to 

discussing the tales involving pagans and Muslims, Schildgen analyzes the 
anti-Semitic "Prioress' Tale." 

Drawing on Habermas's theory of practical discourse (in which discus­
sants engage in a discourse where each is aware of and open to the other's 

perspectives and interpretations), Schildgen argues that the Canterbu,y 
Tales is an excellent example of what Habermas has in mind. Traditional 
analysis states that Chaucer does not favor one pilgrim over the others, and 
Schildgen takes this a step further by arguing that the Canterbury Tales 

incorporates "a range of intellectual and ethical attitudes that thrived in 
Chaucer's pan-European contemporary cultural and social world." She 







132 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 19:3 

Schildgen's study is a useful addition to Canterbury Tales scholarship. 
She explores the varying views presented by these eight stories and makes 

her points through both extensive research and a detailed reading of the text. 
She includes extensive notes and a bibliography. Pagans, Tartarj� Moslemj� 
and.Jews in Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" provides valuable insight into 

the medieval English, and by extension European, view of Islam. 

Gretcheo Iman Meyer-Hoffman 
Department of English. California State University 

Hayward, California