What are some examples of the blending of humor and irony in "The General Prologue" to The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer.

Irony and humor, and indeed ironic humor, often appear
side-by-side in “The General Prologue” to The Canterbury Tales, by
Geoffrey Chaucer. Examples include the
following:

• The claim that the prioress never let
  a morsel of meat fall from her lips – which on the one hand suggests her obsessive
  attention to good manners while on the other hand suggesting that she is gluttonous
  (128).


• The reference to the prioress’s “conscience”
  (142), followed ironically by her somewhat comic concern for mice caught in traps
  (rather than for poor, sick, or otherwise needy
  people).


• The delicate (but humorous) observation that the
  prioress was not “undergrowe” (i.e., undergrown) – a polite way of stating that she is
  fat (and thus, symbolically, attached to the world and the
  flesh).


• The comic depiction of the monk, who has so many
  bells attached to his horse that when he rides his bridle can he heard
  jingling

. . . in a whistling wind as
clere

And eek [i.e., also] as loude as dooth the chapel
belle . . . (­171-72).

Such phrasing comically demonstrates
how the monk uses bells to try to call attention to himself, even as it ironically
reminds us that the purposes of church bells are to call attention to worship of
God.

• The comic reference to the monk as “a lord
  full fat and in good point” (200), which ironically makes him sound like an animal and
  which also ironically associates him with the sin of gluttony and with attachment to the
  world and the flesh.


• The description of the cook as
  having a “mormal” (388)on his shin – a kind of pussy ulcer often associated with
  venereal disease. Immediately after noting this fact, Chaucer ironically (and with black
  humor) notes that the cook’s specialty was white sauce
  (!).


• The description of the Wife of Bath becoming
  comically (but also ironically) angry at church (453) if anyone happened to get before
  her in the line to present her offering (not exactly the best Christian
  behavior).


• The description of the Wife wearing fine
  scarlet leggings to church, not to mention head-covers weighing ten pounds (455-59), as
  if church were a fashion show or an occasion for displaying
  wealth.


• The reference to the Wife’s expertise in “the
  olde daunce” (i.e., the tricks of the sexual trade, which one of my students once
  memorably described as “the horizontal mamba”; 478).


• The
  comic description of the miller as someone who could break down doors by ramming them
  with his head (552-53), which is funny in itself but which also implies that he is not
  the brightest pilgrim in the group.


• The description of
  the miller's face, which comically makes him resemble an animal but which also, for that
  reason, ironically suggests that his behavior will not live up to the highest human
  ideals (554-58).


• The description of the summoner's love
  of garlic, onions, and leeks, which humorously suggests that in addtion to his other
  problems he stinks, but which also ironically alludes to the Biblical book of Numbers,
  11:5:

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We remember the fish that we ate in Egypt free
[of]  cost: the cucumbers come into our mind, and the melons, and the leeks, and the
onions, and the garlic.

In
other words, Chaucer subtly and ironically compares the summoner to the Hebrews who
complained to Moses, suggesting the continual bondage of both to the flesh and the
world.

Chaucer's humor is almost always ironic in the sense
that it is meant to show how far some of the pilgrims have strayed from Christian
truth.