The tale is one of two—together with The Tale of Melibee—told by the fictive Geoffrey Chaucer as he travels with the pilgrims on the journey to Canterbury Cathedral.
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The tale is one of two told by the fictive Chaucer, along with the Tale of Melibee, who figures as one of the pilgrims who are on a journey to the shrine of Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral.
Sir | Sir Walter Scott | Sir Arthur Conan Doyle | Sir Robert Peel | Sir Arthur Harris, 1st Baronet | Sir Raylton Dixon | Sir Harold Hillier Gardens | Sir Fitzroy Maclean, 1st Baronet | Sir Francis Baring, 1st Baronet | Sir William Temple, 1st Baronet | Sir Richard Fanshawe, 1st Baronet | Sir William Johnson, 1st Baronet | Sir Robert Eden, 1st Baronet, of Maryland | Sir Orlando Bridgeman, 1st Baronet, of Great Lever | Sir Nigel | Sir John D'Oyly, 1st Baronet, of Kandy | Sir James Fergusson, 6th Baronet | Sir Henry Rawlinson, 1st Baronet | Sir Henry Rawlinson | Sir Frederick Pollock, 3rd Baronet | Sir Douglas Quintet | Sir Charles Trevelyan, 1st Baronet | To Sir, with Love | Sir William Williams, 1st Baronet, of Kars | Sir William Johnson | Sir Jonathan Trelawny, 3rd Baronet | Sir John Moore | Sir John Gell, 1st Baronet | Sir John D'Oyly | Sir John Anderson |
Derek Brewer calculated that there must have been at least six now-lost manuscripts that provided the source material for the Thornton MS, which evidences a wide "spread of manuscripts now lost." Sir Percyvelle, for instance, was originally composed in the fourteenth century in a north-east Midland dialect, and one version would have traveled north to be copied by Thornton while another traveled south to be referenced by Geoffrey Chaucer in Sir Thopas.
Geoffrey Chaucer makes it the birthplace of his Flemish knight in "The Tale of Sir Thopas" from the Canterbury Tales.