There was a time back in the mid 1300s when there were no book in English. French was still the language spoken by the English upper class 300 years after England had been conquered by the French Normans in 1066. Geoffrey Chaucer decided to write a English book recording some of the voices and characteristics of the ordinarily people of his day. So on a journey to Canterbury one day he asked his fellow travellers to each tell him two stories. And this was how Canterbury Tales came into being. Probably closer in content to a teen sex movie like Animal House then to Shakespeare. Canterbury Tales give a glimpse into the lives of ordinary people six hundred and fifty years ago.