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Corruption Of Church In The Canterbury Tales Essay

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When discussing the Church certain images and connotations inevitably arise. The institution for the Church and all persons affiliated with it are supposed to strictly adhere to certain codes of conduct, and including but not limited to the seven heavenly virtues as outlined in the epic poem Psychomachia written by the Roman governor Aurelius Prudentius. In Chaucers Canterbury Tales, however, only one of the six characters directly linked to the church is truly virtuous. During the period in which Chaucer lived and wrote a great deal of importance was placed on the so-called estates different niveaus of society. As the Church was the highest level of the estates and its members supposed to be models of behaviour for those of lower status, it is highly ironic that the examples of clergy shown in The Canterbury Tales are some of the most corrupt characters. To become a member of the ecclesiast group like a Priest or a Nun, the candidate must take vows of obedience, chastity and poverty vows which many of the characters break continually.

Firstly, it was believed that to truly demonstrate devotion to God, a Christian must surrender their worldly goods and become poor in reality. Of course, humans are fallible creatures and so there were some members of the Church who chose to ignore the vow of Poverty. Clearly, the characters of the Friar, the Monk and the Prioresse are part of that faction. By the way these three characters are described in the General Prologue it is easy to tell that they are preoccupied with outward appearances and material things. Usually, Monks are depicted as wearing plain habits with hoods and a simple rosary; this Monk conversely wears clothing with fine fur and decorated with a golden pin instead. This, coupled with the fact that the Monk rides a horse adorned with bells clearly indicates that he does not observe the vow of poverty as he should. Similarly, the Friar is said to dress like a maister or a pope (261) instead of in the manner that would be expected of a poor friar. The Friar is, essentially, a con man; he will find a way to gather money from even the poorest of civilization - "For though a widow mightn't have a shoe, / So pleasant was his In principio/ He got his farthing from her just the same" (253-255) which is obviously not what one would expect from a member of the cloth who should understand poverty. Although Chaucers description of the Prioresse focuses mostly on her appearance instead of her actions, thereby leaving the reader to make their own opinion of her based on their thoughts of what a nun should be versus how the Prioresse is, it is clear by the way she feeds her dogs expensive breads, that although she may sympathize with the poor, she does not understand truly what it means to go without.

The second vow, the vow of chastity, is also continuously broken by many of the ecclesiasts described in Chaucers work.

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