Two Great Books, One Shared Idea
Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (c. 1387–1400) and Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron (c. 1348–1353) share a remarkable structural similarity: both are frame narratives in which a diverse group of characters tell one another stories. Yet Chaucer never explicitly names Boccaccio as a source. The relationship between these two masterpieces is one of the most intriguing puzzles in medieval literary scholarship.
Did Chaucer Read the Decameron?
The scholarly consensus is that Chaucer traveled to Italy on diplomatic missions in 1372–73 and again in 1378. Florence — Boccaccio's city — was a likely stop. Boccaccio died in 1375, so Chaucer may have visited while the older writer was still alive, though there is no record of a meeting.
Chaucer demonstrably read other works by Boccaccio: his Troilus and Criseyde is largely based on Boccaccio's Il Filostrato, and The Knight's Tale derives from Boccaccio's Teseida. Strikingly, he never names Boccaccio as his source in any of these cases. This deliberate silence has puzzled scholars for generations.
Parallel Tales: Direct Comparisons
Several Canterbury Tales have close parallels in the Decameron, suggesting Chaucer either read the collection or drew from the same common sources:
| Canterbury Tale | Decameron Parallel | Shared Plot |
|---|---|---|
| The Clerk's Tale | Day 10, Novella 10 (Griselda) | Wife tested by cruel husband |
| The Franklin's Tale | Day 10, Novella 5 | A lady's rash promise and its fulfillment |
| The Shipman's Tale | Day 8, Novella 1 | A merchant deceived by wife and friend |
| The Reeve's Tale | Day 9, Novella 6 | Two students trick a dishonest miller |
Differences in Vision
While the parallels are striking, the two collections are profoundly different in spirit. The Decameron's storytellers are socially homogeneous — all young, educated, aristocratic — and retreat from society to a controlled, beautiful environment. The Canterbury Tales throws together an entire cross-section of English society: a knight and a miller, a prioress and a pardoner, a wife of Bath and a clerk.
Chaucer's frame is also less idealized. The pilgrims bicker, interrupt each other, and tell stories that reveal their own prejudices and flaws. Boccaccio's narrators are generally courteous and self-controlled. Chaucer's chaos feels more realistic — and perhaps more democratic.
The Italian Influence on English Literature
Whether or not Chaucer read the Decameron directly, his Italian journeys introduced him to a literary culture that was more secular, more humanistic, and more interested in individual psychology than the French and Latin traditions he had previously worked in. This encounter transformed English literature.
Boccaccio and his contemporaries — including Petrarch, whose sonnets Chaucer translated — were developing what we now recognize as early humanist values: a belief in the dignity and complexity of individual human experience, a willingness to laugh at powerful institutions, and a sense that ordinary life was worthy of serious literary treatment.
A Literary Legacy
The frame-narrative tradition that runs from Boccaccio through Chaucer continues to influence storytelling to this day. The idea that stories about storytelling — about why we tell tales and what they do for us — is itself a rich literary subject can be traced directly to the Decameron. When you pick up the Canterbury Tales, you are reading a work shaped, in part, by Florence in the age of plague.