Chaucer Essay Research Paper The Medieval Church

Chaucer Essay, Research Paper

The Medieval Church and Chaucer s Canterbury Tales In discussing Chaucer’s collection of stories called The Canterbury Tales, an interesting illustration of the Medieval Christian Church is presented. I think that the Medieval Church was full of corruption, and Chaucer depicts this corruption through The Pardoners Tale. At the same time as the corruption, there can also be an argument for the opposing side stating that the church is not corrupted. This can be shown with the character of the monk from The Monk s Tale. While people demanded more voice in the affairs of government, the church became more corrupt and this corruption also led to a more crooked society. In history then, there is a two way process where the church has an influence on the rest of society and of course, society influences the church. This is naturally because it is the people from a society who make up the church….and those same people became the personalities that created these tales of a pilgrimage to Canterbury. The Christianization of Anglo-Saxon England was to take place in a relatively short period of time, but this was not because of the success of the Augustinian effort. Indeed, the early years of this mission had a discrepancy which shows in the number of people who hedged their bets by practicing both Christian and Pagan rites at the same time, and in the number of people who directly didn t want to believe at all when a Christian king died. There is certainly no evidence for a large-scale conversion of the common people to Christianity at this time. Christianity did not initially provide a unifying element but was by the later seventh century to provide the basis of a structure of organization, which overreached the frontiers of the individual, highly competitive English kingdoms(Making 15). Augustine was not the most diplomatic of men, and managed to antagonize many people of power and influence in Britain, who had never been particularly enthusiastic to save the souls of the Anglo-Saxons who had brought such harsh times to their people. In their isolation, the British Church had maintained older ways of celebrated the major festivals of Christianity, and Augustine’s effort to force them to conform to modern Roman usage only angered them. When Augustine died (some time between 604 and 609 AD), then, Christianity had only an insecure hold on Anglo-Saxon England, a hold that was limited largely to a few in the aristocracy. Christianity was to become firmly established only as a result of Irish efforts, who from centers in Scotland and Northumbria made the common people Christian, and established on a firm basis the English Church. At all levels of society, belief in a god or gods was not a matter of choice, it was a matter of fact. Atheism was an alien concept (and one dating from the eighteenth century). Living in the Middle Ages, one would come into contact with the Church in a number of ways. The power of the Church is often over-emphasized. Certainly, the later medieval Church was rich and powerful, and that power was often misused – especially in Europe. Bishops and archbishops were appointed without any training or clerical background, church offices changed hands for cash, and so on. The authority of the early medieval Church in England was no different to that of any other landowner. So, the question that haunted medieval man was that of his own salvation. The existence of God was never questioned and the heart-cry of medieval society was a desire to know God and achieve familiarity with the divine. Leading a life pleasing to God was the uppermost concern. Beginning with “The Pardoner’s Tale”, the theme of salvation is truly supreme. Chaucer, being one of the most important medieval authors, uses this prologue and tale to make a statement about buying salvation. The character of the pardoner is one of the most despicable pilgrims, seemingly “along for the ride” to his next “gig” as the seller of relics. As a matter of fact, the pardoner is only in it for the money. However, some did not accept this and questioned the church — It was what they wanted other than a holy life with a Old-Testament God; That style of thinking eventually lead to a more gentle, mother-figure as a goddess — The Cult of the Virgin. The question then becomes, Why would people change from a long-lasting, Old-Testament God to a mother-like goddess. The answer is simply because they thought their new found Goddess would never be as harsh on people as the often criticized male like aspect of God. In both current Catholicism and that of the medieval period, Mary is worshipped with more warmth than maybe even God or Jesus. Church after Church was (and still is) built in her name. Her likeness graced statues and stained glass with as much frequency as Jesus’ bloody head. The worship of Mary is emotional, institutionalized, and approved of by the Christian church. Is she not a goddess. Mary simply took the place of the female aspects of the spirit that were once worshipped as Roman or Anglo-Saxon goddesses. The medieval period, stretching approximately from the late seventh century to the early sixteenth, was bound together under one constant–Roman Catholic Christianity. But beneath this “curtain of Christianity” many legends were being formed and passed down, as old pagan traditions became assimilated into a newly Christian society. The two religious forms were becoming intertwined. They seemed at