close. Stories were now not all written in rhyme, and poetry was
not all written to be sung. Yet the listening time was not quite
over, for these were still the days of talk and story-telling.
Life went at leisure pace. There was no hurry, there was no
machinery. All sewing was done by hand, so when the ladies of a
great household gathered to their handiwork, it was no unusual
thing for one among them to lighten the long hours with tales
read or told. Houses were badly lighted, and there was little to
do indoors in the long winter evenings, so the men gathered
together and listened while one among them told of love and
battle. Indeed, through all the life of the Middle Ages there
was room for story-telling.

So now, although Chaucer meant his tales to be read, he made
believe that they were told by a company of people on a journey
from London to Canterbury. He thus made a framework for them of
the life he knew, and gave a reason for them all being told in
one book.

But a reason had to be given for the journey, for in those days
people did not travel about from place to place for the mere
pleasure of seeing another town, as we do now. Few people
thought of going for a change of air, nobody perhaps ever thought
about going to the seaside for the summer. In short, people
always had a special object in taking a journey.

One reason for this was that traveling was slow and often
dangerous. The roads were bad, and people nearly all traveled on
horseback and in company, for robbers lurked by the way ready to
attack and kill, for the sake of their money, any who rode alone