Examples Of Greed In The Canterbury Tales

Corruption and Greed in the Canterbury Tales

According to Jeffrey Helterman, “The poet Chaucer, with stories told in different styles by distinct storytellers, plays games with the idea of narration.” (Helterman 10) It is well known that Chaucer uses many different techniques to write his stories, but specifically in the Canterbury Tales he used satire. Satire, as defined by Merriam Webster consists of “humor that shows the weaknesses or bad qualities of a person, government, society, etc.” (Merriam Webster) Throughout the Canterbury Tales Chaucer uses satire to depict the Pilgrim’s lives and reveal corruption in the Church. At the end of the 14th Century the church started to get rich because they governed land that was very profitable. The

church built cathedrals that were ginormous in a land struck by disease, plague, famine, and scarce labor. Citizens started demanding a larger role in society or technically the government, the churches said no to retain their power which led to them becoming more corrupt and this corruption also led to a greedier and more corrupt society. There are three main classes in the Canterbury tales, the commoners, the monks or church officials, and the noble class. Although all three classes are shown as corrupt and greedy in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, the commoners are portrayed as small, belligerent, and pathetic, while the church is shown as both unethical and hypocritical, they are guilty of the same wrong doings which they preach against; the nobles or nobility are shown to be both noble and ignoble qualities, and they are deceitful and treacherous.
This essay will depict the corruptness of the commoners who are the working class and the poor people who are not fortunate, the monks or church officials who are the most corrupt and now the richest or wealthiest, and the nobles who have become treacherous and greedy. In Chaucer’s satirical story, The Canterbury Tales, all three class are portrayed as corrupt and only want money and strength. Corrupt, as defined by the Merriam Webster, states “to cause (someone or something) to become dishonest or immoral” (Merriam Webster) means you are corrupt. All three classes are corrupt, even the commoners. These classes just keep getting greedier and they don’t know when to stop. Greediness is “having or showing a selfish desire to have more of something (such as money or food)” (Merriam Webster). Other people are starving and these wealthy nobles and church officials just keep getting richer while the commoners keep getting poorer and they are being decimated and demolished by disease. Most importantly the wealthy class is being manipulative and despicable, by breaking their own rules. They’re being hypocrites. The church officials are the worst especially because they are building these ginormous cathedrals or churches.
In The Canterbury Tales there are three classes or three estates. The first estate is the commoners; these are the working class. These people are the poorest and least fortunate out of all three classes. Even though Chaucer portrays all three classes as corrupt, the commoners would be considered the least corrupt and the noblest. “To make extra money, the carpenter rented a room to a poor student.” (Hacht 2) The commoners have to do anything to make money, to survive. Even if it means renting their homes out to students or even strangers for that matter. The commoners are struck by disease, famine, lack of labor, and most importantly they are weak and they aren’t standing up to the church. The Church is taking advantage of their misfortunes and these people don’t stand up for themselves. These commoners need to find a backbone and rebel against the church.
The commoners usually live bad lives and people don’t feel like their lives are meaningful. “Those who are poor or female or not English have no warrant to 'speak truth' because their truth is based on experience alone” (Arnell 6). The commoner’s lives are usually bad and they don’t live happy lives. Their word means very little because their lives are so bad which means they are going to be biased, almost all commoners live with little money, have disease, and lack the necessities to live a good life. The commoners are the people who suffer from disease and famine, but it doesn’t matter to the nobles who are supposed to fight for the good of the people. Chaucer uses satire to show the fight between the poor and the rich. The peasants rise up and try to take control because their lives are miserable and it’s not worth living if your life is horrible. The commoners were angry about how much money everyone else had when they were working hard and they barely can afford food. They were unhappy and they thought it was unfair so they rebelled.
The commoners found out what they needed to do to get the necessities and that was to rebel. The church officials are all corrupt and so are the nobles. Those two classes hold all the money, the church officials are building cathedrals while the nobles are enjoying luxurious drinks and food. “A poverty which is, of course, entirely spurious” (Salter 4). The friars and the monks tell the commoners that poverty is fake or false and then they ask for money. The working class is taken advantage of because these hypocritical church officials are just bettering themselves. They are screwing over the good folk and leaving them to be stuck in poverty. The commoners rebelled against them to get money and for the own sakes. They can’t live in poverty anymore.
There are two characters, the pardoner and the Summoner, and both the roles apply to the churches secular power. They are portrayed as corrupt and greedy. The pardoners bought church “indulgences” for forgiveness of sins. They abused their own power for selfish reason and gained personally. Summoners were high church member or officials who took part in bringing sinners to church court for possible excommunication or other punishments. “The corrupt summoners would write false citations and it would make people bribe them because they’re afraid. “The Pardoner and the Summoner, whose roles apply the Church's secular power, are both portrayed as deeply corrupt, greedy, and abusive.” (Sydner 5) These people are portrayed as working with the devil, so they are evil and corrupt. The monk and the prioress were less corrupt then the Summoner and pardoner. They dress luxurious, and they lacked spiritual depth. They all originated from a desire to follow an ascetic lifestyle. The monasteries controlled large chunks of land and they made a ton of money, while the peasants worked for them. “Churchmen of various kinds are represented by the Monk, the Prioress, the Nun's Priest, and the Second Nun. Monastic orders, which originated from a desire to follow an ascetic lifestyle separated from the world, had by Chaucer's time become increasingly entangled in worldly matter” (Brewer 4) These monks are hunting, but are to worship confinement.
There is a large amount of ironic contrast in the summoner’s tale. The friar preaches one thing and does the other which makes him a hypocrite and a liar. He has sermons about not eating or fasting and then he goes and order a large meal to pleasure himself. He tells people to have self-restraint and tolerance but he gets angry and just wants more. “The tale's depiction of the sinfulness of friars, the central motor of the plot, and the principle source of its comedy” (Salter 1). The friar preaches about poverty, but he ask people to give him money and not the other friars. He also is quite found of another man’s wife which is wrong in two cases for him. The monks, friars, and the rest of the churchmen all have hypocritical paradoxes in the summoner’s tale. The overall view of the second class is that their corrupt and greedy. They use scare tactics so the nobles don’t interfere with their crookedness. They excommunicate people even on false charges. They also do things that are forbidden for monks, but they don’t care. Lastly they take advantage of the poor, even though the poor have very little and the Church has a ton of wealth, they still want more. It is their greatest weakness. Being greedy and corrupt are their worst sins.
The medieval churches hired people who were called summoner’s and they brought people to court to face their crime.

The crimes vary and they can range from adultery to stealing, but all these crime can cause you to get excommunicated. Like the monk the summoner is corrupt and greedy. “The Friar tells a tale about a summoner who is dragged off to Hell by a devil he has foolishly befriended” (Salter 2). This is ironic and hypocritical at the same time because the friar is stating that the summoner is corrupt, which he is, but he’s also corrupt. The friar is throwing the summoner under the bus. The friar will eventually be dragged off to hell also. All of the church officials preach one thing and do the other. They lie and scare the Noble class so they won’t get involved with their treachery of the commoners. All of this adds up to the main point and it’s that the monk and summoner or any church official is corrupt and greedy. They are just trying to better themselves and are being hypocritical at the same

time.
The third and final class, the nobles, represented chiefly by the Knight and his Squire, was in Chaucer's time steeped in a culture of chivalry and courtliness.

Nobles were expected to be powerful warriors who could be ruthless on the battlefield yet mannerly in the King's Court and Christian in their actions. According to Merriam Webster Noble is being “of, relating to, or belonging to the highest social class” (Merriam Webster). These nobles are supposed to fight to protect the people. These people are suffering while the church is getting wealthier. The nobles are also getting richer. Chaucer realized that even the nobles could be bought and that they are betraying the commoners, which makes them untrustworthy and corrupt. Most importantly there was also pilgrimage which was a strong belief in medieval society. The most important journey was to Jerusalem. During a lot of these journeys the pilgrims would go to cathedrals or churches. They were preserved relics of saints. They believed that these relics had powers. “The work is organized as a collection of stories told by a group of pilgrims on their way to the shrine of Thomas à Beckett in Canterbury” (Trudeau 2) Pilgrims started going to these cathedrals for their pilgrimage because Saint Thomas Becket had been murdered in the Canterbury

cathedral.
The noble class was very wealthy, much wealthier then the commoners. The only problem with that is they are no longer the richest. The churches are now the wealthiest. The churches preach one thing and do the other. They get money from taking advantage of the hard working class. The nobles sit around and eat their luxurious food and drinks while the church takes advantage. Their job is to fight for them and they aren’t doing that. ” he is drunk and picks an argument” (Hacht 2). All the nobles do now is get drunk and argue with each other. They need to be arguing with the officials about giving the poor some money. These nobles need to stand up and do what’s right for the better of the people and not just themselves, they are being selfish and they know what they have to do, but they’re refusing because they are afraid of being summoned by the summoner and then being excommunicated. The nobles haven’t been doing there job. They are the third estate and need to make sure the second estate doesn’t take advantage of the first class. They are the protectors of the realm. Protector as defined by Merriam Webster consists of “the executive head of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland “(Merriam Webster). As the executive head of the classes they should be standing up for the first class since the commoners have no voice. The nobles are enjoying their crooked money while the commoners work hard and get afford the necessities. They also are disease stricken. ” The church's power as a political and economic force was as significant as its role in the moral and spiritual life of its followers” (Moss 2). The nobles let the church gain more power because they gained more money from the poor. They didn’t do anything. The nobles just sat back while the commoners followed the church because they were afraid of the consequences, they didn’t want risk their lives even if it meant doing the right thing. The Nobles were very wealthy, not as wealthy as the church but they had a significant amount of money and could have made a change. Instead they sat around with their crooked money while the poor people worked hard and they got taken advantage of.
Corruption and greediness of the church is outlined by all three class, the commoners or the poor people, the second class or the church officials, and the third the nobles. The commoners are the poorest class and are struck by disease, famine, and are very poor. The church officials are hypocritical and preach one thing and then do the other. The nobles have become scared and untrustworthy. They are afraid if they do anything the church will excommunicate them and this make them ignoble. The commoners have been abused and mistreated by the church officials, who preach about not doing sins, but they sin by taking advantage of the commoners and they falsely excommunicate people and are hypocrites. The nobles are supposed to stand up for the commoners but since the pardoners and summoner falsely accuse people the nobles are afraid to stand up for the poor. They are ignoble and shouldn’t be in the position they are. All three classes equate to something bigger then each of their selfish desires and that is about the pilgrimage which is talked about in a couple of Chaucer’s story. This leads to his writing which he uses satire to depict the main idea of the story which is corruptness and greediness of the three classes.