I started writng my Master of Arts dissertation while working in Palliative Care in Australia. I attended the Third International Conference on Grief and Bereavement in Contemporary Society and was struck by the familiarity of many of the 'new' grief and bereavement theories being put forward. I just had trouble pinning the source down.

It was while I was preparing a talk on Chaucer's "Prioress's Tale" that the similarities to Ritual Leave Taking struck me anew. I began to re-read the works of Chaucer, not just the Canterbury Tales, for suggestions and similarities to other grief and bereavement theories put forward at the Conference. I found many, each with its own justification for success or failure. Chaucer's observations of the grief process in mankind were acute and the papers presented at the Conference, together with recent psychologial and sociological research were re-inforcing his observations. Throughout the research for my dissertation I was constantly reminded that, though attitudes to death change throughout the ages, people's reactions to death do not.

For five years I have poured over photographs of tombs and the images contained in their sculpture and iconography, but I have never seen them in the Flesh [so to speak].

Chaucer, writing 600 years ago, has his pilgrims go on journey to the greatest and most famous shrine in England, that of St Thomas a'Beckett, the Holy Martyr of Canterbury. This modern day pilgrim is going to Canterbury as well. However, I am not just going to visit the tomb of St Thomas a'Beckett, destroyed by Henry VIII in a rage at the time of the Reformation. I will visit the tombs of other people: Joan Holland, The Black Prince and Henry Chichele. These tombs show a progression in the iconography of death in the later Middle Ages. Death has become something to be feared in our modern society. In the Middle Ages it was a stepping stone to imortal life. Life was transient but what you did in life could affect your enjoyment of the afterlife. The living could enhance the prospects of the dead and tombs and effigies served as a focus for prayers for the relief of the departed. Many tombs served as chantries. The tombs that I will visit are different in nature from each other. The Black Prince is celebrated for his martial skill, having his military accoutrements displayed [originally] on his tomb. Joan Holland is shown between her two husbands, celebrating political accumen through marriages of significance. Archbishop Chichele owns a transi tomb, one of the few to survive in England. Its message of memento mori remains strong and gives pause for consideration.

I will be looking at all these, but I will also visit the Canterbury Tales Experience to take a look at a modern interpretation of Chaucer's tales. I will travel the pilgrim route through the pilgrim gate [Westgate] and visit other important religious sites such as St Austin's Priory as well. But most of all I will see what else this centre for tourism since the 12th century has to offer a modern pilgrim.