About These Images

Most of these graphics are based upon the manuscript illustrations of the Canterbury Tales in the Ellesmere Chaucer.

L. D. Benson writes the following about this manuscript:

The Ellesmere Manuscript (which is in the Huntington Library in San Marino, California) is one of the two earliest surviving manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales, the other is the Hengwrt Manuscript (or Peniarth 392 D, now in the National Library of Wales, in Aberystwyth, Cardiganshire). The two manuscripts are believed to have been written by the same scribe, and there is much disgreement about which has priority. The Hengwrt often has better readings than the Ellesmere, and it may be the earlier. However, it is incomplete and disorganized, and most editions are based to somedegree on the Ellesmere.
The Ellesmere (as opposed to the relatively plain Hengwrt) is one of the most elaborately illuminated of the surviving manuscripts of the Cantervury Tales. In this manuscript, each Tale is illustrated with a portrait of the teller at its beginning. --<http://icg.harvard.edu/~chaucer/canttales/knight/elles-ms.html>

To see more of the graphics, click here: http://icg.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/cantales.html

The travelling wizard with the luggage was a modification of the Ellesmere "Man of Laws."

The graphic of the Matthew is based upon a schematic drawn by shipbuilders creating a modern replica.

The Matthew was the ship that the Italian Giovanni Caboto (or John Cabot) was sailing when he sighted and claimed part of North America for the English in 1497. Some controversy still exists over exactly which part of the New World he found (whether it be Newfoundland, Labrador, or Nova Scotia),

He wasn't the first European to reach this area of North America, though--he was only 400 years later than the Norsemen (popularly known as the Vikings), from Iceland and Greenland. Norse settlers had a small base in L'Anse Aux Meadow, on the Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland, just across the strait from Labrador, that dates to around 1000 AD.

All graphics were created and modified using Corel Draw and Corel Photopaint 8.0.

Created August 2002 by Douglas Jole.