The Canterbury Tails

In the Canterbury Tails, Chaucer tells the tales of a lot of characters from the medieval era as if he was there himself. Chaucer focuses more on the motives and moral attributes of the characters than the actual journey that they are on. During this time period religion and moral attributes were not only a focus of literature but also of everyday people. Knights and noblemen were watched and judged on how they presented themselves, each of them. Chaucer establishes an idea of Christianity expressed in the knight, the parson, and the plowman; he also shows how people from the same classes of society can fall short of these moral standards.
The Knight’s conduct and moral compass is a flawless example of the chivalry that the societies of the

“Like his brother the Parson, the Plowman is a good man by norms of his lower estat. A peasant farmer, he engages in the earthiest possible task, hauling dung, but even the lowliest, the medieval believer knew, could be first in the kingdom of heaven if, like the he performed his duties with the right spiritual attitude (Lindahl 20).” The Plowman is an honest worker who loves Christ and always tithes on time he demonstrates what a model citizen should be. Most men of the cloth during this time were seen as a mixture of tax collectors and priest because of the title not being a option during this time in history the men of cloth were in many cases corrupt and

The job of the Friar is to travel form town to town begging and never owning property, he is also allowed to hear confections and do the same duties as a priest. Because of this would cause tension between the priest and friar, but the friar did not think that it was needed to waste is time tending the poor and the sick as long as he could work for the rich and mooch off of them. His attitude toward his calling and toward the people he is supposed to be serving gives all other friars a bad name. The shipman is the meanest of all the characters that we are introduced to in the journey. He has no problem throwing someone over board or sending them to the after life to get what he wants. But even though he is a brutal and dark minded character he is very good at his job of sailing and managing the ship he lives on. The shipman is one of the most well traveled characters and is also enjoying the new rising Europe economy that will require the creation of more ships and for more people to sail