The Squire (Canterbury Tales)

The Squire is a fictional character in the framing narrative of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. He is squire to (and son of) the Knight and is the narrator of The Squire's Tale or Cambuscan.

The Squire is one of the secular pilgrims, of the military group (The Squire, The Knight and the The Yeoman). The Knight and the Squire are the pilgrims with the highest social status. However his tale, interrupted as it is, is paired with that of the Franklin. The Squire (along with The Shipman and The Summoner) is a candidate for the interrupter of The Host in the epilogue of the Man of Law's Tale.

The Squire is the second pilgrim described in the General Prologue. His tale is told eleventh, after the Merchant and before the Franklin - the first of group F, and considered by modern scholars one of the marriage tales.

The Squire is described in the General Prologue lines 79- 100:

With hym ther was his sone, a yong SQUIER,
A lovyere and a lusty bacheler;
With lokkes crulle, as they were leyd in presse.
Of twenty yeer of age he was, I gesse.
Of his stature he was of evene lengthe,
And wonderly delyvere, and of greet strengthe.
And he hadde been somtyme in chyvachie
In Flaundres, in Artoys, and Pycardie,
And born hym weel, as of so litel space,
In hope to stonden in his lady grace.
Embrouded was he, as it were a meede,
Al ful of fresshe floures, whyte and reede;
Syngynge he was, or floytynge, al the day,
He was as fressh as is the monthe of May.
Short was his gowne, with sleves longe and wyde.
Wel koude he sitte on hors, and faire ryde.
He koude songes make, and wel endite,
Juste, and eek daunce, and weel purtreye and write.
So hoote he lovede, that by nyghtertale
He slepte namoore than dooth a nyghtyngale.
Curteis he was, lowely, and servysable,
And carf biforn his fader at the table.

The squire is the nominally the knight's servant. He travels everywhere with the knight and does what is asked of him. Nonetheless he is also the Knight's son and represents, with the knight, the noble class, and the warrior class. Chaucer was familiar with both, having fought in the Hundred Years War, and been active as a courtier and diplomat, and indeed having served as a squire.

...
Wikipedia