During the Middle Ages, female monasteries relied on priests to provide for their spiritual care, chiefly to celebrate Mass in their chapels but also to hear the confessions of their nuns and give last rites to their sick and dying. These men were essential to the flourishing of female monasticism during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, yet they rarely appear in scholarly accounts of the period. Medieval sources are hardly more forthcoming. Although medieval churchmen consistently acknowledged the necessity of male spiritual supervision in female monasteries, they also warned against the dangers to men of association with women. Nuns' Priests' Tales investigates gendered spiritual hierarchies from the perspective of nuns' priests—ordained men (often local monks) who served the spiritual needs of monastic women. Celibacy, misogyny, and the presumption of men's withdrawal from women within the religious life have often been seen as markers of male spirituality during the period of church reform. Yet, as Fiona J. Griffiths illustrates, men's support and care for religious women could be central to male spirituality and pious practice. Nuns' priests frequently turned to women for prayer and intercession, viewing women's prayers as superior to their own, since they were the prayers of Christ's "brides." Casting nuns as the brides of Christ and adopting for themselves the role of paranymphus (bridesman, or friend of the bridegroom), these men constructed a triangular spiritual relationship in which service to nuns was part of their dedication to Christ. Focusing on men's spiritual ideas about women and their spiritual service to them, Nuns' Priests' Tales reveals a clerical counter-discourse in which spiritual care for women was depicted as a holy service and an act of devotion and obedience to Christ.

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The Canterbury Tales recounts the stories told by pilgrims to one another as they make their way from London to the shrine of St. Thomas Becket in Canterbury. This volume contains the Nun's Priest's tale which tells the popular moral story of two chickens, Chanticleer and Pertelote.The facing page contains Chaucer's original text as it was written in fourteenth century Middle English. Alongside, there is room in the wider outer margins and line spacing for students to write their own notes on the Nun's Priest's Tale, or perhaps, to define unfamiliar key words. The reverse side contains a new translation into modern English which differs only slightly from those found elsewhere. Here, each line is translated separately, which means no words have been substituted or borrowed from adjacent lines simply to help maintain the original rhyming structure. Accordingly, this translation adheres very closely to Chaucer's own original meaning; although, in doing so, it may occasionally contain rather more descriptive explanation than is usual in translated works. Nevertheless, this 'word for word' approach will greatly assist those who are new to Chaucer's Middle English.Parents will be pleased to see that the Nun's Priest's Tale contains none of the vulgarity found in some other Canterbury Tales, which makes this edition ideal for Middle and High school students.This volume contains the complete and unabridged text of the prologue and tale (with line numbers), a helpful new translation together with a personal study notebook. This means it offers excellent value for money.The translator was educated at St Chad's College Durham, Warwick, Exeter and De Montfort universities in England, and was a Hardwicke and a Sir Thomas More scholar of Lincoln's Inn, London. His publications include works on English law and literature.

Six-hundred-year-old tales with modern relevance. As well as the complete text of the Nun's Priest's Prologue and Tale, the student will find illustrated information on Chaucer's world, including a map of the Canterbury pilgrimage, a running synopsis of the action, an explanation of unfamiliar words, and a wide range of classroom-tested activities to help bring the text to life. Guided by the suggestions for study and the wide range of helpful information, students will readily appreciate Chaucer's wit and sense of irony, his love of controversy and his delight in character portrayal.