Sources
Many of the tales Chaucer retells were available in myriad forms oral and written during Chaucer's time, and even in different languages. Chaucer drew widely from classical sources, contemporary and older French verse, contemporary Italian authors, and probably the oral tradition of England in his time. This makes it difficult to definitively give a source for much of Chaucer's material or to discern what Chaucer actually read and what he simply heard about. However, there are recurring sources that Chaucer clearly leaned on heavily.
Christian themes abound in a majority of the Tales, including the major ones we study here. Chaucer's characters quote often from Biblical...
