High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! "The Wife of Bath`s Tale" (Middle English: The Wyves Tale of Bathe) and prologue are among the best-known of Geoffrey Chaucer`s Canterbury Tales. They give insight into the role of women in the Late Middle Ages and are probably of interest to Chaucer himself, for the character is one of his most developed ones, with her prologue twice as long as her tale. He also goes so far as to describe two sets of clothing for her in his General Prologue. She holds her own among the bickering pilgrims, and evidence in the manuscripts suggests that although she was first assigned a different, plainer tale—perhaps the one told by the Shipman—she received her present tale as her significance increased. She calls herself both Alyson and Alys in the prologue, but to confuse matters these are also the names of her `gossib` (a close friend or gossip), whom she mentions several times, as well as many female characters throughout The Canterbury Tales.