From 21 March to 4 October 2026, visitors can explore House of Stories: Tales from the Chatsworth Library, a new exhibition bringing together some of the most significant items from the Chatsworth Library and archive for the first time.
First editions, original manuscripts, letters, scrapbooks, and drawings connect literary and artistic lineages, and take visitors into tales surrounding great works of literature.
In this blog series, we explore some of the works on display.
Extract from The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer (about 1340–1400), around 1425–50
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales helped establish English as a respected language for literature. Before this, French and Latin were the dominant literary languages in England.
The Canterbury Tales features a varied cast of characters in the shape of the pilgrims who tell each tale, and they create a vivid picture of medieval society.
Chaucer never finished the Canterbury Tales, and no copies of the text from his lifetime survive. There is no evidence that he intended to ‘publish’ the text in any formal sense, and at this point, 'printing' had not yet been introduced in Europe.
However, there is evidence that it was known during his lifetime. In the years immediately after his death in the early 15th century, his work was widely copied in handwritten manuscripts. Today, there are 84 surviving manuscripts containing all or part of the Canterbury Tales; this is one of them.
The fragment is part of the ‘Man of Law’s Tale’, which recounts the travels and hardships of a virtuous princess. Its narrative is shaped by an English Christian perspective. It contains lines 850-924 and 1076-1144 of the tale.
This extract is likely to have survived purely because it was reused as binding material for another book. It is such an important text that even an incomplete section like this, dating from the first 50 years after Chaucer’s death, is highly significant.
Some tales were probably complete when he died, while others were not, and there were many different versions in circulation, so there was no single ‘authoritative’ text.
There are many differences in the surviving versions of the text. They contain scribal errors, deliberate scribal or editorial changes, and regional language differences depending on where the scribe was based.
The language and letter forms used in this fragment point to a scribe from the Northeast Midlands. This places its origins not far from Chatsworth, although much of its history is unknown.
We don’t know when or by whom it was acquired, but it may have been collected by the 6th Duke of Devonshire. Historically, it was loosely enclosed in the Chatsworth Chaucer (a complete copy of The Canterbury Tales) purchased by the 6th Duke at the Roxburghe Sale in 1812 and sold in 1974. However, it has no obvious earlier historical connection with that manuscript, and there is no known record of its acquisition.
About the exhibition
House of Stories: Tales from the Chatsworth Library runs from 21 March to 4 October 2026.
Artefacts, artworks, and furniture connected to the exhibition are on display throughout the house at various points on the visitor route.
Access to the exhibition is included with all house and garden tickets; you do not need a separate ticket.
House of Stories is supported by Sotheby’s, Chatsworth’s Arts and Exhibitions Partner.
