Beginning with an exposition on the associational forms of compagnye (or felaweshipe), Wallace argues that the General Prologue provides the first instance of Chaucer's authorial signature, the "sixth of six" topos--"Ther was also a REVE, and a MILLERE, / A
SOMNOUR, and a PARDONER also, / A MAUNCIPLE, and myself--ther were namo" (1.542-44)--and that this signature is articulated with both artistic confidence and personal anxiety about the complex division of labor in English society.