The Medieval ages were a time of drastic social and cultural changes in Europe, this change was due to Christianity becoming an extremely dominant religion. Christianity dominated the lives of many and this is why The Canterbury Tales revolved mainly around religion. During the time of The Canterbury Tales, Christians were expected to follow in Christ’s footsteps by being noble, humble, loyal, and selfless among other things. Through the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer showed the new Christian values and how different they were from the Anglo-Saxon time period.
The influence of the Christianity can first be seen in the prologue with the way the characters are introduced, the most virtuous character is introduced first and the least virtuous character is introduced last. The sins each character has committed is what determined how
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He is seen as the least virtuous because he sells fake relics of the Church in order to gain money, he abuses the poor, and he is very hypocritical. The main reason why the Pardoner is seen as unholy is because he bribes people by offering them forgiveness. This is seen as extremely horrible because in those times people, like many Catholics today, relied on confession in order for them to get to heaven. He used people’s faith in order for him to gain wealth and this is seen as extremely sinful. The Pardoner’s Tale is an exemplum that revolves around one of the seven deadly sins, that the Pardoner suffers from, greed. Many stories in the Middle Ages were based off of the seven deadly sins so it is no surprise why the three main characters of The Pardoner’s Tale died due to avarice. The main lesson of the Pardoner’s Tale goes off of one of the many lessons that the bible teaches that money is the root of all evil. By using this lesson the Pardoner shows people believed that sin controlled ones destiny and how important it is to follow God’s