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What Role Does Religion Play In The General Prologue

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Geoffrey Chaucer in the “General Prologue” describes a lot of characters in which he tells a tale and describes. Among them are many religious persons like the Friar, Prioress, Monk, Clerk, Parson, Summoner, and Pardoner. He frames their lives in this prologue, since this was a difficult situation in England for various reasons. Some of this reasons were the Bubonic Plague, which was going on in this time period. Another is the church was the one in control of everything either political or religious. This time period was the time of faith, there was no free religion like there is supposedly today. So, Chaucer wasn’t content with this institution for various motives.

Chaucer starts describing the Friar with his defects like he didn’t spent time with the poor, gave pins to the beauty, that his priority was money and so on. This demonstrated how he criticizes or was skeptic about his position and faith as a religious man at the Church. After that we characters like the Summoner and Pardoner that one …show more content…

Was that he conformed or was protected by the crown since an early age and this took him to know so well how these “religious” man did. Seeing as he had this position with the royal majesty he was in a perfect spot to see and understand social changes in the Church. The General Prologue is a perfect example of his true understanding of this institution rather than other tale of his. This political background helps to understand Chaucer’s view of why he criticized the strongest institution of his time period. Geoffrey Chaucer was a government official who happened to write literature, therefore he knew how to legally get away with criticizing the Church and not being imprisoned or accused of something wrong. This shows his mental capacity and brightness to get away with things which were wrong at this time, but he made them seen

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So there is really no one else to hurt you and he will do no more than take your virtue.” (53-56) Which means that those with high class or friars would rape women that were alone. In both stories, Chaucer shows how corrupt the political leaders were in his

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Chaucer wrote the book: The Canterbury Tales, in which a group of men going on a journey all tell a tale. Within each tale is a moral lesson as well as each tale consists of a corrupt action committed within the church and is conveyed by those kind of characters within the story. One of the tales that Chaucer tells in his book is called: The pardoner 's tale. Within this tale the pardoner (who is telling the tale) is a preacher who often gives sermons but admits that he does is solely for money and not to condemn people of their sins. (Greed)

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The Friar breaks the vows of poverty, chastity, obedience, and stability; therefore, he is the most corrupt pilgrim in The Canterbury Tales. The Friar is apart of the Clergy, or the religious or Church class. To be apart of the Church, you must take the vows of poverty, chastity, obedience, and stability. Chaucer is making fun of the clergy and saying that most of the members do not honor their vows.

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The Friar is similar to a religious monk in the sense that they have both taken a vow of poverty, chastity and obedience. The Friar who is mentioned in the General Prologue of Chauser’s The Canterbury Tales however does not abide by these vows since it is said, that he had slept with woman. After he would take a woman’s virginity he would find a man that would marry her so that he no longer had to deal with the problems he had created for himself and the women in question. The Friar also lied about his powers as Friar he told those around him that he had a higher power of confession then the priests themselves “For he hadde power of confessioun, As seyde himself moore that a curat” (218-219) which is untrue since only a priest can perform the

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Ultimately The Monk 's Tale brought about a rise of issues and voices in the late 14th century and fueled the revolution of Medieval times. Chaucer aimed at wooing the reader that the temporal ruler

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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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Chaucer uses the “Prologue” knight to provide social commentary on the good in humanity. The Prologue knight “loved chivalry / Truth, honour, freedom and all courtesy / Full worthy was he in his sovereign’s war /  Of mortal battles he had fought fifteen”

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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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This is because the Pardoner himself is a very greedy person. He chooses to steal from the church, make money off of things that are not worth anything, and chooses to cheat society. He was supposed to be the one who was pardoning people from their sins that they committed, but instead he was worried about himself and what he had. b.) In making this tale, Chaucer had a point that he wanted to make overall.

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The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer, reveals that religion does not make moral individuals. Chaucer goes on about telling how several of the characters on the pilgrimage had questionable lifestyles yet the characters were taking part in a religious journey. Religion can only influence a moral character but does not make its followers untouchable to the imperfections found on earth. In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer’s character, The Pardoner, is a church official who altered the peoples mind by cheating the people into believing any nonsense.

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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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