Below is a picture of Canterbury Cathedral.

The Canterbury Tales were written by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1386 and 1400.  In Chaucer's day, he could likely see the pilgrim road leading out of London towards the shrine of St. Thomas Becket (depicted below),

an English saint.  Pilgrims were notorious tale tellers, and the sight and sound of the bands riding toward Canterbury may well have suggested to Chaucer the idea of using a fictitious pilgrimage as a framing device for a number of stories.  This journey provides the occasion and the means for gathering a widely diverse group of characters to tell tales, even though it was highly unlikely that this diverse a group would ever travel together.  The travelers are a wide range of social levels, ages, and occupations, who are gathered by chance. 

The Canterbury Tales begins with the group of pilgrims at the Tabard Inn the night before they are to leave.  Their host, Harry Bailly, proposes some entertainment for the journey:  each pilgrim is to tell two tales on the way to Canterbury, and two on the way back.  He will be the judge of the tales, and whoever tells the best stories gets a supper at the expense of all the other pilgrims when they return.  Each pilgrim is characterized in the "General Prologue." 

As the host, Harry sometimes stops arguments and encourages the pilgrims to overlook their differences and get along.  Sometimes Harry sits back and allows the pilgrims to argue their points of view.

As a host, how would you act?

Are you the peacemaker or the troublemaker?