Canterbury Tales Medieval Church
Canterbury Tales - Medieval ChurchCanterbury Tales - Medieval Church
In discussing Chaucer's collection of stories called The
Canterbury Tales, an interesting picture or illustration of the
Medieval Christian Church is presented. However, while people demanded
more voice in the affairs of government, the church became corrupt --
this corruption also led to a more crooked society. Nevertheless,
there is no such thing as just church history; This is because the
church can never be studied in isolation, simply because it has always
related to the social, economic and political context of the day. 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 pilgrimmage 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 an ambivalence 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 promptly apostatized when a
Christian king died. There is certainly no evidence for a large-scale
conversion of the common people to Christianity at this time.
Augustine was not the most diplomatic of men, and managed to
antagonize many people of power and influence in Britain, not least
among them the native British churchmen, who had never been
particularly eager to save the souls of the Anglo-Saxons who had
brought such bitter 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 compel them to
conform to modern Roman usage only angered them. When Augustine died
(some time between 604 and 609 AD), then, Christianity had only a
precarious hold on Anglo-Saxon England, a hold which 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.
First, there were the routine church services, held daily and
attended at least once a week, and the special festivals of
Christmas, Easter, baptisms, marriages, etc.. In that respect the
medieval Church was no different to the modern one. Second,
there were the tithes that the Church collected, usually once a year.
Tithes were used to feed the parish priest, maintain the fabric of the
church, and to help the poor. Third, the Church fulfilled the
functions of a 'civil service' and an education system. Schools did
not exist (and were unnecessary to a largely peasant society), but the
Church and the government needed men who could read and write in
English and Latin. The Church trained its own men, and these went to
help in the government: writing letters, keeping accounts and so on.
The words 'cleric' and 'clerk' have the same origin, and every
nobleman would have at least one priest to act as a secretary.
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 intimacy with the divine.
Leading a life pleasing to God was the uppermost concern, and the wide
diversity of medieval piety is simply because people answered the
question, 'How can I best lead a holy life?' in so many different
ways. Beginning with "The Pardoner's Tale", the theme of salvation is
truly paramount. 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. "For myn entente is nat but for to winne,/ And no
thing for correccion of sinne," admits the pardoner in his prologue.
As a matter of fact, the pardoner is only in it for the money,
as evident from this passage:
I wol none of the Apostles countrefete:
I wold have moneye, wolle, cheese, and whete,
Al were it yiven of the pooreste page,
Or of the pooreste widwe in a village --
Al sholde hir children sterve for famine.
Nay, I drinke licour of the vine
And have a joly wenche in every town. In his tale, the Pardoner slips
into his role as the holiest of holies and speaks of the dire
consequences of gluttony, gambling, and lechery. He cites Attila the
Hun with, "Looke Attila, the grete conquerour,/ Deide in his sleep
with shame and dishonour,/ Bleeding at his nose in dronkenesse". The
personification of the deadly sins, along with his story of the three
greedy men that eventually perish at the hands of their sin is a
distinct medieval device. The comic twist that Chaucer adds to the
device, though, is that the Pardoner in himself is as the
personification of sin, as is evident from the passages of his
prologue. At the conclusion of his tale, the Pardoner asks, "Allas,
mankinde, how may it bitide/ That to thy Creatour which that thee
wroughte,/ And with his precious herte blood boughte,/ Thou art so
fals and unkinde, allas?". He then goes on to offer each pilgrim a
place...for a price, of course.
The Pardoner's place in Chaucer's idea of redemption becomes evident
in the epilogue of the tale. After offering the host the first pardon
("For he is most envoluped in sinne" and, supposedly, the equivalent
of Chaucer), the host berates the pardoner, saying, "I wolde I hadde
thy coilons in myn hond,/ In stede of relikes or of saintuarye./ Lat
cutte him of". By this, the idea of the pardoner as the most important
man on the pilgrimage is brought to fruition and Chaucer makes the
main point of this tale: Salvation is not for sale. Another example of
the medieval obsession with redemption.
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 evenually lead to a "more gentle,
mother-figure" as a goddess -- The Cult of the Virgin. The eminent
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 fervor than even God or Jesus. Church after
church was (and still is) erected in her name. Her likeness
graced statues and stained glass with as much frequency as Jesus'
bloody head. The worship of Mary is fervent, 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 this
time to be tolerant of each other, not entirely distinct. A peoples
habits and thought processes are not easily changed, and being that
the Anglo-Saxons of Britain were not Christians until the mid-600's, a
period of transition can be expected . At least, a fascination with
their pagan ancestors existed, at most, the practice of the old ways.
Examples of a fascination with magic, worshipping more than one
god-like figure, and a continuing love for worshipping goddesses,
exist in many texts written in this period. Yet, this does not mean
that every village had a sorceress in their midst, but literature
usually reflects the society within which it emerges. At the time of
The Canterbury Tales, many of a people who were Christians officially,
politically, and in most cases at heart, saw that there were elements
of paganism and sorcery which is tolerated and respected. The society
in which Chaucer writes these stories is Christian as well,
politically and spiritually--could it be that they tolerated and
respected paganism and magic? Perhaps the separation of the two is not
necessary and was not complete at this point in time.
Not only was magic a pagan tradition that persisted throughout the
Middle Ages..another tradition, changing at the time, reflected the
transition from worshipping the unseen forces in the world as many
gods, to one, omnipotent God. Although the people were Christians,
they took the separation of spiritual powers far beyond the creation
the Trinity. The specific powers or emphasis given to each saint
carries on even into today's Catholic tradition. The medieval period
may have had some of this (although many of the saints were not even
born yet...) but in their literature, many immortal and powerful
creatures are found. This form of Paganism existed in Britain of the
Middle ages, full of spiritual beings, full of magic, alive with
heavenly power existing on Earth. It has been the nature of the
Christian men in power through the ages to, for fear, deny their
people the knowledge of the un-Christian richness in their ancestry,
and so the traditions that were not masked as Christian are lost to
students of Christian history and literature. But it seems this period
had not seen such extensive discrimination. The two ways of the world
were not quite so separate then, and matters of the occult were not
yet labeled as evil. This again implies that perhaps the two forms of
religious thought do not have to be completely separate. There are
strong similarities for them to coincide and complement each other,
and for an entire people trying to make the Christian transition,
maybe this complementing was necessary. However, the age of forceful
patriarchy and witch-burning would not come about for several hundred
years.
Each new way of leading a "holy life" was thought to be
progressively more acceptable to God by its proponents than the ones
that had gone before. Such 'new ways' were normally inspired by a
desire to break away from the corruption and worldliness which was
percieved in the older or more established forms of Godly living.
These new ways often became corrupt themselves and over time
breakaways from them were hailed as a newer and more perfect way of
following God. This roller-coaster ride of corruption and reform is
basically the story of popular medieval religion as man battled to
define and discover what it really meant to be a Christian. In an
effort to escape persecution, but to also flee the evil, prevalent in
the world and to seek God free from many ' worldly ' distractions,
monks began to assemble as communities of Christians . These
communities, although they had little organization, were regarded as
possessing the best Christian life by having a solitary, ascetic,
celibate existence where the ' world ' had been totally renounced and
had been entirely replaced with heavenly contemplation. These ' new '
martyrs were usually just called monks: theirs was a life of daily
martyrdom as they constantly died to self and lived totally for God.
The monks paid particular veneration to the physical remains of the
martyrs (relics) and were therefore connected to the martyrs who they
replaced. The rise of ascetic monasticism and relic worship however
was quite controversial -- Both the worship of relics and ascetic
monasticism however became mainstays of this Medieval religion, and
the idea that monks were a new form of martyr persisted over time.
Both monks as well as martyrs were looked upon as holy men.
In relating this solitary world to readers, there is also a monk in
Chaucer's work -- He is someone who combined godliness and
worldliness into a profitable and comfortable living. He was the
outrider or the person in charge of the outlying property....which
lead him to enjoy hunting, fine foods, and owning several horses.
Monks renounced all their worldly belongings and by taking vows of
poverty, chastity and obedience, joined a community of monks. Their
lives were spent in communal worship, devotional reading, prayer and
manual labour all under the authority of the abbot of the monastic
house. Particular monks often had particular jobs- the cellarer or the
infirmarer for example, and these like every aspect of monastic
life were laid down in the 'Rule'. Monks were nearly always of noble
extraction (one had to have wealth in order to give it up) but could
also be given to the monastery as children (called oblates) to be
brought up as monks.
Hindsight has blurred our vision of the Medieval monk and the
result is that the modern Christian mindset has condemned him for his
selfish escapism from the world and for his apparent neglect of those
who needed Christ outside of the cloister. The Medieval mindset was
very different. The monastery was an integral part of the local
community -- it probably owned most of the farming land in the area-
and the fortunes of the people in any area were bound up with the
spirituality of its monastic house. The monks were on the front line
of the spiritual battle-it was they who did battle in prayer for their
community, who warded off devils and demons and who prayed tirelessly
for the salvation of the souls of those in their community. Rather
than being the cowards of Christianity unable to take the strain of
living a Christian life in the real world, the monks were like
spiritual stormtroopers interceeding for an area against its
supernatural enemies in mudh the same way as a local lord in his
castle protected an area against its physical enemies. The people gave
gifts to both lord and abbot in return for a service.
The Pardoner also represents the tradition of faith -- in respect
to the church of his time. The Pardoner is representative of the
seamy side of the corrupt church and a broken or twisted (if you will)
faith. The faith of a bureaucracy, which is what the church had
become. The Pardoner was a church official who had the authority to
forgive those who had sinned by selling pardons and indulgences to
them. Although, the Pardoner was a church official, he was clearly in
the "church" business for economic reasons. The Pardoner, a devious
and somewhat dubious individual had one goal: Get the most money for
pardons by almost any means of coercion necessary. A twisted and
ironic mind, has basically defined himself through his work for a
similarly corrupt church. In contrast, the Plowman has nothing but a
seemingly uncomplicated and untwisted faith. The Plowman has the faith
of a poor farmer, uncomplicated by the bureaucracy of the church. The
Pardoner is probably on this journey because he is being required to
go by the church or he sees some sort of economic gain from this
voyage, most likely from selling forgiveness to the other pilgrims.
The Plowman on the other hand is probably on this voyage because of
his sincerity and faith in its purpose. While this was the story of
religion at 'grass-roots' level, at the organisational and
hierarchical level, the church developed along a different line. It
became more organized, more bureaucratic, more legal, more centralized
and basically more powerful on a European scale. This process was
spearheaded by the papacy and reached its pinnacle under Pope Innocent
III in the early 13th Century. He embodied what became known as the
'papal monarchy' - a situation where the popes literally were kings in
their own world. The relative importance of spiritual and secular
power in the world was a constant question in the middle ages with
both secular emperors and kings, and the popes asserting their claims
to rule by divine authority with God's commands for God's people
proceeding out of their mouths. The power of the church is hard to
exaggerate: its economic and political influence was huge, as its
wealth, movements like the crusades, and even the number of churches
that exist from this period truly show its greatness. By the early
10th century, a strange malaise seems to have entered the English
church. There are comments from this time of a decline in learning
among churchmen and an increase in a love for things of this earthly
world. Even more of these lax standards had begun a decline in the
power structure of the church which included a decrease in acceptable
behavior amongst churchmen and a growing use of church institutions by
lay people as a means of evading taxes. Christianity affected all men
in Europe at every level and in every way. Such distances however, led
to much diversity and the shaping of Medieval religion into a land of
contrasts. One can also see how man's feelings of extreme sinfulness
and desire for God are quite evident in these tales. Still, we are
told that history repeats itself because nobody listens to it, but
more realistically history repeats itself because man is essentially
the same from one generation to the next. He has the same aspirations,
fears and flaws; yet the way that these are expressed differs from age
to age. This is why each period of history is different. The fact that
man is the same yet different is what makes the study of the people
who formed the medieval church directly applicable to Christians'
lives and experiences today.