[Sca-cooks] Re: Sca-cooks Digest, Vol 21, Issue 94

[Robin Carroll-Mann]

-----Original Message-----
From: Devra at aol.com

Wan that April with his showers sweet
The drought of March hath pierced to the root
And bathed every vein in swich liquor
Of which virtue engendered is the fleur...
Than longen folk to go on pilgrimages...

Geoffrey Chaucer, the prologue

     It seems as though the nicer weather was an impetus to travel, and with 
Easter as a movable feast, the two must have coincided occasionally.
     Apologies for a very rough copy
            Devra
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Some of the lines that you omitted are more specific:

Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne  
Hath in the Ram his half cours yronne...

Halfway through Aries is about April 5.  I found a website that gives the dates of Easter Sunday in the 14th century:
http://www.medievalgenealogy.org.uk/cal/key14.htm
(The Canterbury tales were written 1387-1392)

Now, halfway through through Aries is about when the pilgrimage season started, and that might well be in Lent.  But perhaps these pilgrims headed out a little later in the season.  Chaucer says he went to the Tabard, "in that seson on a day".   I don't know if there's any detail later on that might narrow down the date.



Lady Brighid ni Chiarain
Barony of Settmour Swamp, East Kingdom