In this writing we are going to analyse one of the pilgrims of The Canterbury Tales: the Doctor.

Based on Geoffrey Chaucer’s description we can infer that the Doctor was a healthy person
and that he was in very good physical condition due to his inclination to maintaining a nutritive
diet, as acknowledged in the following passage:

In his own diet he observed some measure

There were no superfluities for pleasure,
Only digestives, nutritives and such.

As he is introduced in the Prologue he is a Doctor and also an astronomer. In the middle Ages,
medicine was more related to astronomy than biology that is why the Doctor made his
diagnosis from the observation of the stars as well as from the horoscope and the position of
the planets. His knowledge was deep and broad in terms of medicine and of what his
profession involved. Bearing in mind Chaucer’s description, we understand that the Doctor
was the most educated being of the pilgrims. This is seen in the following passage:

No one alive could talk as well as he did

On points of medicine and surgery,
For, being grounded in astronomy
He watched his patient closely for the hours
When by his horoscope, he knew the powers
Of favourable planets, then ascendants
Worked on the images for his dependent.

Since medicine was closely related to astronomy, the theories the diagnosis were based on,
stated that human bodies contained blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile. The balance of
these components was related to good health whereas the imbalance of them caused sickness.
They were connected to people’s four humours: melancholic, phlegmatic, choleric and
sanguine; controlled by the four elements of the world- water, fire, earth and air. By observing
his patients, the Doctor was able to identify their seat, humour and condition; what indicated
we was an experienced in this field.

The cause of every malady you’d got

He knew, and whether dry, cold, moist or hot
He knew their seat, humour and condition
He was a perfect practising physician.

The Doctor based his practice on the most famous philosophers and doctors of the Archaic
times (Hippocrates), the Ancient times (Rufus), Classical period (Galen) and middle Ages (John
of Gaddesen).

Regarding his clothing, the Doctor wore elegant clothes as he was a middle-class man. They
were made of taffeta- a valuable type of cloth that only a range of wealthy people could afford.

In blood-red garment, slashed with bluish grey

And lined with taffeta, he rode his way.

Concerning his moral state, we comprehended that the Doctor was a materialistic person since
he was more interested in gold than healing people. He and the apothecaries, who were
friends, had agreed on a deal: the former would prescribe the drugs and the latter would sell
them. Because of this, the Doctor increased his incomes and became a greedy man.
Additionally, he had made a good fortune due to the Black Death.

He gave the man then and there.

All his apothecaries in a tribe
Were ready to the drugs he would prescribe
An each made money from the other’s guile;
They had been friendly from a goodish while.

And kept the gold hi won in pestilences.

Gold stimulates the heart, or so we’re told.
He therefore had a special love of gold.

According to Chaucer, the Doctor was not an often reader of the Bible but we can assume that
as he was about to go on a pilgrimage, he must have had faith in God.

He did not read the Bible very much.

The initial reason for going on the pilgrimage was to pay respects to Saint Thomas a Becket,
the Archbishop of Canterbury. Nevertheless, taking into account the Doctor’s moral, we infer
that he had a banal reason for going. He saw the opportunity of making more money as the
doctor of the pilgrimage.