About this Website

This website contains a complete and unabridged text of The Canterbury Tales in its original Middle English, alongside a transcript that updates each word into the spelling of the Oxford English Dictionary. This modernised-spelling edition also includes a tooltip glossary for unfamiliar words and phrases, and links to Wikipedia throughout the General Prologue and one or two of the more popular tales. The site is suitable for anyone seeking to explore Chaucer’s 14th Century masterpiece, and is free to read and use.

You are welcome to read the complete work online, if you wish to copy or print it out, please request permission here. 

I’m not an academic, but reckon I can understand Chaucer’s words quite well through my work. There are obviously many ways to read Chaucer, and my advice when starting out — whether in the original or the transcript (or combination of the two) — is that the word endings “-n,” or “-en” (which have to do with plurality and tense) can be largely read over or ignored when attempting to understand the word’s meaning; “weren” can be understood simply as “were;” “longen” as “long,” etc.   

When hovered over, underlined words present a definition or explanation, and words coloured blue throughout the edition link to Wikipedia (in a separate tab). Practically every word of The Canterbury Tales is definable in the Oxford English Dictionary, and most words of the transcript are definable in a standard English dictionary as well (by simply right-clicking). The search option in the navigation bar will display details of each tale that the word or phrase occurs in, but not the location. To find a word or phrase within a tale, use “Cmd F” (MacOS) or “Ctrl F” (Windows).

The website is still being developed, and the transcript worked on and continually being improved. I have followed the spelling of The Oxford English Dictionary, searchable at OED.com (with a subscription), and mostly used the definitions of Wiktionary, which is an excellent alternative. W. W. Skeat’s Middle English Glossary (A-D) (E-K) (L-R) (S-Z), and Index of Proper Names were also extensively used, and are available online at Wikisource.

If you enjoy the transcript, you can buy a copy of The Knight’s Tale and the Miller’s Tale: A Modern-Spelling Edition to read offline here, and should you wish, you can share about the site on Bluesky here.