The Miller's Tale

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The Miller’s Tale
Chaucer made a variety of characters that starred in his The Canterbury Tales. Many of those characters proved to be immoral. The miller is just one of the numerous characters this specific adjective applies to. A miller is someone who grinds grain to make bread. He isn’t very high on the social ladder and wasn’t well liked. The miller tells a story about a student who makes a fool of a carpenter and commits adultery with the carpenter’s wife. One of the themes of the story is that if you try to control someone and lock them away then they will rebel and go against you.

Bread was an important staple during the Middle Ages. To make bread you would first need to go see a miller. A miller is someone who works in and operates a mill. The mills were usually located on feudal estates. The miller would then rent the mill from the estate lord for a year or so. A portion of the grain that the miller earned in that time would go towards paying the rent. “Millers also made their own bread, so they were paid either one twelfth or one sixteenth of the grain that they ground, depending on the quality of the grain” (Allyson Terry). Normal work days consisted of grinding grain, which the townspeople would bring them, into flour. Before they could grind the grain, they had to get all of their equipment ready. Most of it was high maintenance and had to be cleaned out constantly. Grain would get stuck in all the nooks and crannies and cleaning proved very tedious. Millers were considered peasants and located in the class just above servants in the secular world. They were usually disliked due to the fact many of them chose to steal grain from their customers.

In the story an old carpenter, John, marries a y...

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...off other people just like the miller bums off the extra grain he steals. It makes me dislike the miller because he isn’t working for the grain he is stealing. Yes he works, but he isn’t doing anything to earn the extra grain he is taking.

The miller played an important part in everyday medieval life. Although he helped make bread possible, the miller was a cheater and a thief. He was drunk and didn’t take any ownership of his words or actions. He was selfish and took things that weren’t his just because he felt he deserved them. The miller is many things but moral isn’t one of them.

Works Cited
Terry, Allyson, and Kacey Marton. "Millers." Rights and Responsibilities in Medieval Guilds. N.p., 11 Apr. 2003. Web. 28 Oct. 2013.
"The Miller’s Tale." The Canterbury Tales. Ed. Ronald L. Ecker and Eugene J. Crook. Hodge & Braddock, Oct. 1994. Web. 25 Oct. 2013.

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