Dynamic Culture In The Canterbury Tales
Throughout the story of The Canterbury Tales, many vices and virtues were displayed. More specifically, The Pardoner’s Tale, The Dynamic Culture of the Middle Ages, and A Distant Mirror, held a very common theme that current times share, Greed. There are many instances in these tale that demonstrate the true greed humans can feel. To begin, the Pardoner opened his tale by describing the actions of three men, who heard of a reaper-like figure terrorizing the town. As they set out to locate it, the stumbled across a large sum of gold coins and decided to share it evenly. They devised a plan to take the gold, but decided to have one-member return home and retrieve bread and wine and then take the gold home at night so wouldn’t
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The lower class wanted what the upper class got with ease. “These tensions permeated the boundaries of class, gender, ethnicity, and religion. The interaction between rural and urban classes led to the establishment of new political organizations and laws designed to balance the needs of competing classes.” The previously shown quote expresses that even slight changes can cause a person to overcome with an extreme sense of greed. Then the other article A Distant Mirror, there are cases of greedy habits expressed heavily. “[In the fourteenth century]money could buy any kind of dispensation: to legitimize children, of which the majority were those of priests and prelates.” Back in these times, it was ok to give money to legitimize children and have it called a “pardon”. The people collecting the money don’t really care about the child, they only do it for their own gain, just like The Pardoner in Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. In conclusion, greed can overcome the best of people and some of them even know why it’s so bad to do so, but they still do it so they can be “happier”. Like I stated before, The Pardoner himself knew he had a personal issue with greed, but he never tried to change anything. He was only preaching for the payment he got from the pardons he received. The townsfolk had to go through a
The lower class wanted what the upper class got with ease. “These tensions permeated the boundaries of class, gender, ethnicity, and religion. The interaction between rural and urban classes led to the establishment of new political organizations and laws designed to balance the needs of competing classes.” The previously shown quote expresses that even slight changes can cause a person to overcome with an extreme sense of greed. Then the other article A Distant Mirror, there are cases of greedy habits expressed heavily. “[In the fourteenth century]money could buy any kind of dispensation: to legitimize children, of which the majority were those of priests and prelates.” Back in these times, it was ok to give money to legitimize children and have it called a “pardon”. The people collecting the money don’t really care about the child, they only do it for their own gain, just like The Pardoner in Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. In conclusion, greed can overcome the best of people and some of them even know why it’s so bad to do so, but they still do it so they can be “happier”. Like I stated before, The Pardoner himself knew he had a personal issue with greed, but he never tried to change anything. He was only preaching for the payment he got from the pardons he received. The townsfolk had to go through a