In place of the Prioress’ image of the miraculous pearl and her general concern with heavenly treasures, the pilgrim Chaucer offers his tale of another “gem,” Sir Topas (or “Topaz”) — a member of the merchant-born Flemish knighthood. The Prioress’ concern with virginity, meekness, and innocence finds its reflection in the symbolic significance of the topaz as an emblem of purity and in the comparison of the knight’s pasty complexion with “payndemayn,” a kind of bread that had once commonly been stamped with the images of the Savior and the Virgin Mary.
The Tale of Sir Topas has long puzzled scholars. At the time Chaucer wrote it, a plethora of tales about handsome knights in search of adventure and fair maidens were already in existence. In the third stanza from the end, Chaucer mentions the tales of several knights in search of glory — Sir Horn, Sir Hypotis, Sir Bevis, Sir Guy, Sir Libeus, and Sir Pleyndamour. Chaucer chose these characters because all were naively simple and long-winded, and the tales themselves were larded with minute descriptions and plotted with improbability.
