Geoffrey Chaucer didn't ignore the plight of employees in the rag trade - nor was he blind to the gender question. But in the medieval period women were the worst exploiters of their staff and it was female employees who suffered the worst abuse. We know this from the character of the Wife of Bath - one of the most vividly drawn of all the pilgrims in the Canterbury tales. Susan Hitch at Oxford University has been talking to Emma Jane Kirby, 600 years after Chaucer's death, about why The Wife of Bath has become a favourite character from his work. The Reader was Colin Hickman reading from the Wife of Bath, from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales
