How Is There Corruption In The Canterbury Tales

The poem The Canterbury Tales, written by Geoffrey Chaucer, is an account of a pilgrimage of diverse people traveling together to Canterbury. The pilgrims go to visit the shrine of St. Thomas Beckett to thank God for allowing them to survive the winter. But before the thirty pilgrims leave, meet Harry Bailey, the owner of the Tabard Inn, who proposes they have a contest where each pilgrim will tell four tales on their journey. The winner of this journey will win a free dinner at the Tabard Inn. In this poem it is clear how Chaucer creates a corrupt image of the Church. Chaucer though doesn’t believe that the entire Church is crooked because he describes the Parson as being a faithful servant of God and the best priest of all. But besides the
Parson, Chaucer describes the Medieval Church as being heavily immoral through the other religious characters and his tales. The Friar in this poem is one of the obvious less-than-perfect images Chaucer uses to show the corruption of the Medieval Church.
A friar in medieval times were pledged to live a life of poverty, but that is not the case for this friar. He received a license from the pope so that he could hear confessions. But, the Friar would require the sinner to give him money or a gift for him to hear there confessions. He was also an impressive beggar, as he could get money from everyone for his own personal wealth. The Friar also had an immoral habit of sleeping with young girls. Chaucer explains, “And pocket-knives, to give to pretty girls,” because he would take the virginity of these girls, and he would then marry them off to pay for their virginity (238). Then these girls would have to cut themselves so that they would bleed on the sheets, so they would appear to be virgins. The Friar was definitely not a good model of the Medieval
Church.
Another example in the poem where immorality of the Church occurs is through the Summoner. First, a summoner is the job of the person who brings or summons people to the court of the Church if they have committed any spiritual crimes so that they can receiver their punishment. But the Summoner described by Chaucer in this poem takes advantage of his job for his own personal benefit. Chaucer explains,
We should beware of excommunication. Thus, as he pleased, the man could bring duress on any young fellow in the diocese. He knew their secrets, they did what he said. (680-683)
The Host is saying that the Summoner will learn people’s secrets so that he can use it against them and eventually make the people give him bribes so he won’t summon them to the court.
Immoral acts from summoners can also be found in “The Friar’s Tale”. The Friar tells this tale to insult the Summoner, to prove how the Summoner his worse than him, which is ironically about an archdeacon who is a summoner. This summoner uses whores as spies to find the secrets of the common folk so that he can later on blackmail these sinners. The Friar then ends his tale by hoping that all Summoners can pay for their sins and eventually become moral
men. A third character from the poem that is an example of exploitation in the Medieval Church is the Pardoner. The Pardoner is not afraid to say that he is a corrupt and evil man, and explains this to all the pilgrims in his prologue of his tale. His motto is, “Radix malorum est cupiditass,” which means that the root of evil is desire, which is the moral in his tale (4). The only reason he uses this motto is that he hopes people will give him money when he gives speeches, even if it comes from a poor widow. He also admits that all of his relics are fake and that he couldn’t care any less. The Host also has a particular hatred towards this character because he has a relationship with the Summoner, which is seen as corrupt in the eyes of the Host, showing that Chaucer had a poor view of homosexuals. The Pardoner would be a great disgrace to the modern Church today. Geoffrey Chaucer clearly uses The Canterbury Tales to point out many of the immoral acts happening in the papacy in the times of Medieval England. Chaucer goes all the way from writing about friars having sexual affairs to the selling of indulgences. Chaucer was able to take notice of this corruptive acts happening in the 14th century when he wrote this poem. But, no action was ever taken to help fix these problems until the beginning of the 16th century when the Reformation began. It can be said that Geoffrey Chaucer was quite advanced for his time as he was able to take notice of the less-than-perfect Church and the unfair treatment of woman.