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The Church In Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales

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How does the Church function in Geoffrey Chaucer’s work The Canterbury Tales? Are the Church and Christianity displayed under the same light? How are different rankings of clergy presented? What role does the Bible play into this piece? How does the clergy interact with other social classes? In what ways do the grievances of the church shown in this book compare to the cries of the Reformation? Chaucer’s work is fundamentally ahead of its time. According to Britannica, Chaucer began working on The Canterbury Tales in 1387 and finished it the year he died in 1400 (“The Canterbury Tales”). History.com explains that the Reformation did not officially begin until Luther released his “95 Theses” in 1517 (“The Reformation”). Pettegree explains that the English Reformation began shortly after that in …show more content…

It discusses more than just religious classes; there is a lot to be gained from the way the clergy is presented in comparison to the nobility. As a primary example, the Monk’s and the Prioress’s descriptions are more fitting for a Lord and Lady than for a monk and nun. Chaucer describes the Prioress as proper and well mannered. She goes at great lengths to be viewed as fitting for court life (246-247). However, a prioress should be described as meek and humble, rather than for her beauty or the fact that she is revered in court. There is an uncanny overlap between the description of the Prioress and how one would describe a Lady. By doing this, Chaucer is further demonstrating how people were using the Catholic Church as a means of power and status within society. People have more to gain than just spiritual growth and piety from joining the clergy. Chaucer does not present this as an issue with the structure of the Church, but rather as an issue of the social structures within England and individual people taking advantage of the Church for their own personal

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The Pardoners role applies to the Churches secular power. Chaucer’s religious figure is demonstrated as being deceitful and guilty of numerous sins, and is even shown as worshipping the devil and not God. Society at this point in time was very religious and refused to accept any alternative views on the topic, so Chaucer employs techniques of hypocrisy, figurative language and didactics to symbolise the bias of humanity in thirteenth century England. Contrast to ‘A Pardoners Tale’, ‘A Simple Plan’ has little to no connection with religious material, as the church had lost its dominance and no longer possessed the power it did in the Chaucerian Era, as people felt they could decide on their own individual moral codes. Raimi creates a sense of atheism in his transformation of the text, as characters commit acts that would be classed as ‘sinful’ and reject biblical beliefs.

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1053 Words | 5 Pages

Geoffrey Chaucer, considered one of the greatest English poets in the Middle Ages, composed The Canterbury Tales in the late fourteenth century. In the novel twenty-nine men and women representing all aspects of Medieval society embark on a religious pilgrimage to the cathedral at Canterbury in southeast England. On their journey their host engages them in a storytelling contest with a free meal as the prize upon their return. Chaucer wrote the tales in Middle English, the vernacular of the Medieval period, making his work accessible to all classes of people.

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1090 Words | 5 Pages

The “General Prologue”, written and narrated by Geoffrey Chaucer, the prologue describes and narrates all of the pilgrim’s behaviours, emotions/ethical standpoint, physical features and most important their flaws. Many of the pilgrims were described with horrible flaws. Many people reading this in modern time do not understand how these pilgrims behaved. Chaucer wrote the prologue of the “Canterbury Tales” in order to give people an understanding of how the medieval times were before they begin reading the actual tales. Without the prologue it would be very difficult to understand each of the 30 different pilgrim’s behaviors.

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109 Words | 1 Pages

In medieval times, the Church had become predominate in both the culture and domestic affairs of everyday people. The Church was in charge of governing laws, taxing people, and was a big participant in every form of social event from baptism to the funeral. Sadly, with power comes corruption, and the Church was not above this standard. Many churches began to abuse their power and took advantage of the ignorance of the common people. Chaucerâs Pardoner is the embodiment of a stereotypical church official who has become corrupt with power.

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750 Words | 3 Pages

It all started with a small girl named Piper McCloud. One day Mrs. McCloud took Piper to the baseball game. Piper was out in the field and another kid hit a high ball so Piper flew up and caught the ball. She was so happy that she did three backflips in a row. The crowd stood in silence and just stared at Piper in shock.

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1286 Words | 6 Pages

There were two main stories that we read, “The Pardoner’s Tale” and “The Wife of bath’s Tale”. These are two of the multiple stories in The Canterbury Tales. These stories tell stories that make fun of the church. The two stories also have a main focus of explaining morals in a hidden way. Both stories express more than one moral and it gives the reader a sense of what Chaucer is trying to express.

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488 Words | 2 Pages

Satire In the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer used satire in many of his writings including the monk the general prologue and the friar. There are many satirical targets including the church. Out of everyone in his writings, he uses the friar, the pardoner, and the prioress to show his satirical views of the church. He isn't targeting the church but he is targeting church hypocrisy.

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During the Middle Ages, at the time where Geoffrey Chaucer was alive, the Church was the highest in power in Europe. They were above the entire caste system, and they owned more land than anyone did at the time. Chaucer, as the son of a wine merchant and someone living in a Church-dominated society, had probably witnessed the dealings and actions of the Church and its associates of the time. As a satirist, Chaucer incorporated his skill of observation into his narration of The Canterbury Tales, and used it with satire to play the humor to his advantage, from poking light fun at some of the pilgrims to employing mocking sarcasm towards some of the others. This, of course, on a religious pilgrimage in the Middle Ages, includes the mocking of

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2469 Words | 10 Pages

The reader should now know Geoffrey Chaucer disapproves of the Church and deems it to almost only be full of hypocrites because of people such as the Friar and the Pardoner being a part of it and doing what sinful deeds they do against God and the followers who they are supposed to be protecting and taking care of. If it was not for the Parson existing, or even clergy members, then the generalization of him believing the entire Catholic Church was a hypocrisy would be entirely true, but that is not the case. Still, maybe Chaucer made such an implication because he had a bad past with the Church, but then again in the story he was traveling to a religious shrine, so he must not have such a bad past when it comes to Catholicism. There must have been a root to his disdain towards the Church as in, he was conned by a pardoner or a friar or even grew up seeing only hypocrisy from the Catholic Church, which could have molded his opinion of it. Instead of making, The Canterbury Tales, a full on attack against the Church, he decided to make it a comical, satirical piece, which was a very intelligent move by him.

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721 Words | 3 Pages

Calling the Church body “his apes” exemplifies the opinion Chaucer holds about the Church, as he believes they are like monkeys, blindly following others, unaware of their own stupidity. In terms of blindly following, the double entendre of the word “apes” comes into play, as it is defined as “imitating another person”. The members of the Church blindly imitate what they see in the Church, leading to a society of corrupted followers. Chaucer continues to present the hypocrisy prevalent in the Church through the character of the Pardoner, as he preaches, “For my intent is only pence to win,” (“Pardoner’s Prologue” 117). Through these lines, the audience receives their first image of the Pardoner’s satirical hypocrisy as, in his sermons, he preaches against greed while, at the same time, uses the guilt of his audience to feed his own.

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207 Words | 1 Pages

The second type of criticism of the church Chaucer incorporates is poverty. In the tales the Parson and the Plowman are both portrayed as remarkable and offering men throughout their journeys. An old saying is to always give before you take; in this case both the Parson and Plowman execute this saying to the finest. The example, the Canterbury Tales gives us explains the poverty, goodness, and Chaucer’s views on the Parson himself. He writes, “But kindness to lead people towards heaven, His duty was a good example given” (The Parson in The Canterbury Tales: Geoffrey Chaucer).

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786 Words | 4 Pages

The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories that are verbally created as the Host requests that each pilgrim tell a story on the journey to Canterbury. Although this ultimately leads to conflict amongst the pilgrims, the entire spectrum of human personalities is presented by showing each character's qualities, flaws, and hypocrisy. In order to show multiple layers of perspectives, including that of the pilgrims, Chaucer as the narrator, and Chaucer as the writer, The Canterbury Tales is written as a frame narrative. The use of a frame narrative allows Chaucer to convey his own values in humanity by observing and reflecting on the strengths and weaknesses of human nature.

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570 Words | 3 Pages

Canterbury Tales Research Essay Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer is a poem in which thirty people who are on a pilgrimage to Canterbury each tell a tale to make the time go by faster. The group of thirty people include people from all walks of life such as a cook, sergeant at law, friar, etc. who in turn create a society. Each person defies their expectation and does not necessarily act like they are supposed to. The tales of the knight, the monk, and the sergeant at law correlate and relate to certain positions in present day society.

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924 Words | 4 Pages

Geoffrey Chaucer’s satirical collection of stories called The Canterbury Tales, develops an insight of his criticism for the Catholic Church members during the medieval period. During the time period, the Catholic Church could be considered as the head of the society. The church held power over education, politics, economy, as well as the everyday lives of the citizens. Fear of excommunication kept the people from arguing with the ideas of the church. Some members of the church used this power to influence others to follow the rules of Catholicism; however there was a growing number of church members who were corrupt.

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1147 Words | 5 Pages

In “The Canterbury Tales” Chaucer illustrates the corruption of the church through the religious characters in both the tales and the prologue and their obsession with money. Illustrating the fact that medieval England, the church had a big impact on the lives of people due to them being able to “read” the bible. In many cases, this was uses to manipulate people into giving their money to church. Throughout the tales, people are shown to stand up to the church and beat them at their own game and this provides the ideal response to church corruption.

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