Note 16 — THE WIFE OF BATH.
Reading edition
In the character which Chaucer gives of the wife of Bath he says,
And thrice had she been at Jerusalem; She hadde passed many a strange stream; At Rome she hadde been, and at Boulogne, In Galice at Saint Jame, and at Cologne.
The reputed tomb of Saint James was at Compostella, in Galicia, and was a favourite resort of pilgrims. The wife of Bath may be supposed to have joined these expeditions quite as much from a love of roving and novelty as from superstitious motives.