Who Did They Know?

Knowledge of the Past for Chaucer and the Knight of the Tour Landry

What follows is a list is characters from the past, historical, mythical, literary or scriptural, that two educated medieval gentlemen, Chaucer and the Knight of the Tour Landry, knew about and wrote about. Chaucer’s mentions are drawn only from the Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Cressida. Chaucer was unusually well read, but the Knight of the Tour Landry doesn’t seem to have been exceptionally scholarly.

You shouldn’t conclude that either necessarily read Homer, or even the Bible. Both, and particularly the knight, probably drew much of their cultural literacy from anthologies of edifying anecdotes and moral maxims, sermons, and other secondary sources.

The Old Testament
**Aaron
*Abraham
*Absalom
*Abigail
*Adam
**Ahab
**Ahaziah
**Anna
*Ahasuerus
**Ammon
**Apame
**Athiliah
**Balaam
Belhazzar
**Bath-sheba
**Ben-ammi
*Daniel
*David
**Deborah
*Delilah
**Elkkanah
**Elishah
**Esau
**Esther
**Eve
**Hannah
**Haman
**Hamor
Holfrenes
*Isaac
Isaiah
*Jacob
**Jehosheba
**Jehu
Jeremiah
**Jeroboam
**Jezebel
**Joab
*Job
**Joacim
**Joseph
Judas Macabeus
Judith
Leah
**Lot
*Moses
**Mordecai
**Naboth
Nebuchadnezer
**Noah
**Onan
**Penninah
**Pharaoh
**Rahab
**Rachel
*Rebecca
**Ruth
*Sampson
**Sara
**Sarah
*Solomon
**Sennacherib
**Sheba, Queen of
*Susanna
**Tamar
**Tamar(daughter of David)
**Tobit
**Uriah
**Vashni
**Zacharias
**Zarah
**Zimri

The Greeks
Achilles
Alceste
Alexander (poisoned)
Amphiorax
Antenor
Archemorus
Athamas
Calchas
Capaneus
Cassandra
Circe
Clymenestra
Croesus
Cyrus
Darius
Deiphebus
Deianira
Diomede
Eteocles
Ipomedon
Simois
Theseus
Haemonides
Hector
*Helen
Hercules
Hippolyta
Medea
Meleager
**Menelaus
Menestheus
Midas
Oedipus
Pandar
*Paris
Parthenope
Pasiphae
Philippe
Polites
Polydamas
Polynestor
Polynices
*Priam
Ptolemy
Sarpedon
Synon, the Trojan Horse
Socrates
Troilus
Tullius (Marcus Tullius Cicero)
Tydeus
Xanthippe
Xanthippus

The Romans
Aurelian
Boethius
Brutus
Cassidorus
Cassius
*Cato
**Cato the Younger
Claudius
Dares Phrygius
Dictes Cretensis
Galien
Hasdrubal
Julius Caesar
Juvenal
Lucrece
*Nero
Ovid
Pompey
Portia
Seneca
*Sybil, the
Tarquin
Tullius Hostillius
Turnus
Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra

The New Testament
*Herod, (Three Herods conflated)
**Herodias
*John the Baptist

Britain
Arthur
Lancelot

Other
Pope Urban
*Brunhilda
Piers Alfonse
Hugelino, Count of Pisa
Petro of Spain
Petro of Cyprus
Barnabo of Lombardy

*Chaucer (CT or Troilus and Cressida) and Tour Landry
**Tour Landry only