Sophie Gee

And that's ultimately what makes them so important.

But there are other things.

The tales matter because they're about all the different parts of society and the medieval world jumbled up and rearranged so that the most important thing about their lives and their personalities becomes the stories that they tell.

not the social classes that they belong to.

And even though the pilgrims are on a religious journey, Chaucer completely refocuses the reader on the parts of people's lives that aren't meant to be part of religion at all.

Sex, greed, romance, rivalry, ambition, desire, and above all, money.

Nice, Burning Man.

Burning Man's a great one, a secular pilgrimage.

I was thinking of Taylor Swift's Eras Tour, the global Taylor Swift mania.

I knew you had a joke coming.

What is it, John T.?

That's completely perfect.

He was a global celebrity.

Totally.

The payroll of English medieval Catholicism, gone.

So it was like an AI revolution.

It's time for the Chaucer voice.

Oh, you've made me nervous, Jonty, especially because I know both on and off the record, you've repeatedly mocked me for my Chaucer voice.

And we're going to say some more about Middle English and actually the sort of history of English in the period.

How could we get through this episode without talking about the history of English?