Members of the First Form presented their ‘Pilgrim Profiles’ inspired by Chaucer’s General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, including dramatic readings in the original Middle English. After performing their extract (such as the portrait of the Miller, complete with sound effects as you can see in the video!) they summarised their findings and used the text to predict what the character’s motive might be for visiting Canterbury.
Whilst they felt Chaucer’s Knight would genuinely have wanted to give thanks for winning in battle and pray for the enemies he had killed, the Wife of Bath might have been ticking off another tourist destination on her long list of pilgrimages/holidays, whilst the Miller would probably have been attracted by all the other sights and sounds of Canterbury.
Finally, they invented a modern version of a pilgrim: the Knight became a professional footballer, the Squire a butler, the Wife of Bath a fashion designer, and the Miller a streamer.
It was great to see the pupils’ engagement with mediaeval literature, and they were pleased to be reminded that St Albans was a destination for pilgrimages hundreds of years before Canterbury!
