Geoffrey Chaucer expresses his disillusionment with the Catholic Church, during
the Medieval Era, through satire when he wrote, The Canterbury Tales. The Medieval
Era was a time when the Catholic Church governed England and was extremely wealthy.
Expensive Cathedrals and shrines to saints' relics were built at a time when the country
was suffering from famine, scarce labor, disease and the Bubonic Plague, which was the
cause of death to a third of Europe's population and contributed to the rise of the middle
class. It seemed hypocritical to the people when the church preached against the sin of
greed when the church was built and dressed so lavishly. There were rumors of corrupt
Popes, church clerical and priest ignoring their vows of poverty and celibacy. They
ignored the Canon law, which is an ecclesiastical law that governs the Roman Catholic
Church. This triggered Chaucer to satirize the corruption through his use of comedic,
pleasant ridicule of human vices with his characters, the Pardoner, the Monk, the
Prioress, the Summoner and the Friar. He incorporates the seven deadly sins in his
stories, which are pride, envy, sloth, gluttony, avarice, lechery and wrath to explain the
fall of man with his religion.
The Canterbury Tales is recognized as the first book written in English and this
paved the way for other writers such as Shakespeare. With his collection of stories
written in English it gave the non wealthy an opportunity to enjoy his literature, because
before Chaucer only the wealthy had the education to read stories that were written in
other languages, such as French. The Canterbury Tales is written about a group of
pilgrims wh...
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preached what God would desire of man and that there are many ways to heaven as part
of his tale to the other pilgrims. The second part of the tale is about asking for
forgiveness for one?s sins. He went on explaining the seven deadly sins to the other
pilgrims. Chaucer sent an intelligent, virtuous churchman on the journey to Canterbury
as an example to the other pilgrims and an opportunity for them to seek redemption.
Geoffrey Chaucer created ironies between the church clergy's characterizations
and their duties to express the corruption and the decline of the Catholic Church in
England. Most of the English clergy did not live up to the expectations of the
congregation. The Church was so full of hypocrisy that this left the congregation feeling
disillusioned with their church leaders and paved the rise of Protestantism.
Corruption in the church was a huge reason why people left Catholicism, they did not want to be involved in an organization that allowed such awful things
Nathaniel Philbrick tells the story of the Pilgrims, beginning with them breaking away from the Church of England, emigrating to Holland, and eventually to America on the Mayflower. He talks about the relationship they had with the "Strangers" or nonbelievers that accompanied them on their adventure. He tells stories about disease, death, deception, and depression. I had never thought about it, but you know some of those people had to be suffering from depression. He tells of joys but mostly of hardships and as he describes some of the first meetings with the Native Americans. His description of the first Thanksgiving is not the same as the pictures I have seen all of my life.
"The Church was in poor shape as well. The popes resided at Avignon, not at Rome, to the scandal of many.
highlights the importance of the sacraments and the clergy, can be seen as a response on
The destruction and devastation caused by the 'Black Death' of the Middle Ages was a phenomenon left to wonder at in text books of historical Europe. An unstoppable plague swept the continent taking as much as eighty percent of the European population along with it (Forsyth).
Lambdin, Laura C. and Robert T. Lambdin, ed. Chaucer's Pilgrims: An Historical Guide to the Pilgrims in the Canterbury Tales. London: Greenwood Press, 1996.
The Pilgrims found themselves in a harsh new environment. In the middle of winter, they slowly built a settlement at the site of an abandoned Pawtuxet Indian village. Not used to hunting or fishing, they struggled to find food. Many were starving. The future looked bleak.
The Catholic Church has long been a fixture in society. Throughout the ages, it has withstood wars and gone through many changes. It moved through a period of extreme popularity to a time when people regarded the Church with distrust and suspicion. The corrupt people within the church ruined the ideals Catholicism once stood for and the church lost much of its power. In the Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer primarily satirizes the corruptness of the clergy members to show how the Catholic Church was beginning its decline during the Middle Ages.
From the Middle ages, the church faced many problems such as the Babylonian Captivity and the Great Schism that hurt the prestige of the church. Most of the clergy lived in great luxury while most people were poor and they set an immoral example. The clergy had low education and many of them didn’t attend their offices. Martin Luther had witnessed this himself, “In 1510 he visited Rome and was shocked to find corruption on high ecclesiastical places”
Before the 16th century Protestant Reformation, Christianity it Europe was in a questionable and somewhat corrupt state. During the mid 15th century central and western Europe was set up in the form of a hierarchy, which was headed by the pope. At this period in time the pope claimed all spiritual authority over Christians, as well as political authority over all inhabitants of the Papal States. In addition to the claims the pope made, the church also owned close to one-fourth of the land in Europe that lead to a strong centralization of papal authority. Close to all of the Europeans at this time were Christian and would pay taxes directly to the church as a result of this ownership. European Christians were taught in their upbringing that without the guidance and rituals of the priests and the church, there would be no path for them to salvation. Despite the church attempting to teach morality among members, the clergy started to become greedy and full of corruption that fueled their desire for ...
To make matters worse, over the course of just six years, seventy-five million people have died. There were about fifteen million in Southwest Asia. Even more about thirty-five million dead in China. Finally, there were about twenty-five million dead in Western Europe. The Middle Ages became so depopulated that the economy changed. In the economy laborers demanded more pay, meanwhile changing their work status. All over was widespread poverty because of the merchants raising their prices heavily.
The Church was organised into a hierarchical system that sustained the Church’s stability and control over the people and lower clergy, by organising them into different groups. First there were the ordinary believers, the citizens of the kingdom who followed the Christian faith. Then there was the clergy, the members who devoted their lives to the church. Each group of the clergy was assigned specific functions by the clergy nobles to help run the Church competently. Amongst all the clergy associates, the Pope was at the top, he had the equivalent if not more power than the ruling monarch and was in charge of all political affairs and administered the clergy. He was able to dictate political laws and even comment on the Monarch’s decisions. Under the Pope, there were the bishops. The bishops directed church courts and managed cases correlated to the public such as marriage, wills and other public predicaments. Priests held religious services that consisted of sacraments, baptisms and the usual Sabbath services. The monks and nuns received manual labour that required helping clean the monasteries and assist the needy. Educated monks copied manuscripts of medieval and ancient knowledge in the Scriptorium. Finally...
The Prologue to The Canterbury Tales is a masterpiece of satire due to the frequent use of verbal irony and insults towards the characters and their roles in society. A major source of Irony is Chaucer’s representation of the Church. He uses the Prioress, the Monk and the Friar, who are all supposed to be holy virtuous people to represent the Church. In his writing he suggests that they are actually corrupt, break their vows and in no way model the “holiness” of Christianity.
they were given the job, to lead the way to God. This was a big
Geoffrey Chaucer was a on a mission when he wrote The Canterbury Tales. That mission was to create a satire that attacked three major institutions. Raphel displays, “Medieval society was divided into three estates: the Church (those who prayed), the Nobility (those who fought), and the Patriarchy. The General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales is an estates satire.” Chaucer wanted to shed light on the institutions that were taking advantage of the everyday man. Chaucer does this by making up tales about certain people that she light to the undercover world of the institutions. In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer uses satire to attack the Church, the Patriarchy, and the Nobility.