Lynn Poole summarizes the history of the period in which Chaucer wrote "The Canterbury Tales." Dr. Richard Green, assistant professor of English at Johns Hopkins University, summarizes Chaucer's life and the basic plot of the work, noting that Chaucer was a civil servant primarily rather than a writer but was a satirical observer of human folly. The thirty pilgrims of "The Canterbury Tales" thus represent all types of human beings. Dr. Green maintains that Chaucer was an early popularizer of romantic love and ideal marriage and that the moral purpose in Chaucer's love stories was that man should love God first and all other things only in so far as they lead him to love of God. While costumed actors interpret, Dr. Green reads passages from the Wife of Bath's account of five marriages, the Clerk's tale of Walter and Grisilde, and the Nun's Priest's story of Chauntecleer and Pertelote to show that a wife's submission to her husband is symbolic of reason over passion and of man's love of God, but a domineering woman turns this upside down and causes reason to be governed by passion.

A dramatization of feudal lords, ladies, minstrels, fools, and acrobats in a banquet hall illustrates points about medieval life in this program. Dr. Sidney Painter, professor of history at The Johns Hopkins University, discusses chivalry, from the French "chevalier", or knight, referring to the ideals of the knightly class. He summarizes the events of the Middle Ages and notes that warfare and women were the guiding influences of that period. The knights, originally barbarous in desires and actions, listened to "chansons de geste", poems of war, but they became more civilized as troubadours changed their tunes. "The Story of Roland", for example, suggests that knights were to protect the church and punish criminals. Courtly poems laid the foundation for "preux", a term denoting prowess and all the virtues of chivalry. Women such as Eleanor of Aquitaine and her daughter Marie further influenced men's behavior by supporting such troubadours as Chretien De Troyes, who wrote "Erec et Enide".