Part 1 of Essay
In his Canterbury Tales, Chaucer fully explicates the cultural standard known as curteisye through satire. In the fourteenth century curteisye embodied sophistication and an education in French international culture. The legends of chilvalric knights, conversing in the language of courtly love, matured during this later ....

Part 2 of Essay
.... coude she carye a morsel, and wel keepe / That no drope ne fille upon hir brest. / In curteisye was set ful muchel hir lest."(General Prologue, 130-2) Here, in the description of the Prioress, Chaucer mocks her etiquette by so specifically describing it, and in doing so he also mocks her conception of sophistication. For Chaucer, sophistication represented more than table manners and "Frenssh… of Stratford at the Bowe."(General Prologue, 124,5) Curteisye required an intimate, first hand knowledge and e ....