Geoffrey Chaucer The Wright’s of the Canterbury tales Born in London in around 1343AD,coming from a successful merchant family. Chaucer did something unheard of at his time because of his intelligence and charm he became a page to Elizabeth and through good Fortune and hard work married into a royal family and so his social status grew something that was incredibly difficult to do in this era. But possibly even more astounding is how many people ,even today referred to him as the father of English literature due to the fact that he wrote the World renowned Canterbury tales.
The canterbury tales is an interesting collection of stories that takes characters from all walks of life and puts them together a never seen before concept and even more incredible is that the entire thing is written in English .In his time english was considered the language of the commoner or poor. Anything worth reading would be written in French or Latin (one of the romance languages) his work helped English become established as a valid language.
Chaucer made the conscious choice to write his story in English making them more available to comeners for the first time not just the upper class, this in my opinion is extraordinary .
One of my personal favorite stories amongst the large collection in the Canterbury tales ;is one about a pardoner simply known As the pardoner’s tale. A pardoner is a man who in medieval times would pardon the sins of others.
A medieval occupation in which one would raise money for the church by accepting “donations” for indulgences .A Pardoner is a holy man or at least they’re supposed to be .Geoffrey Chaucer explores we see A particular Pardoner who is full of greed ,hypocrisy and sin ,a religious man who takes advantage of the desperate ,the naïve and the needy ;sadly we still to see in today’s world.
Although the pardoner preachers good Christian morals he himself does not practice what he preaches. He continually proves to be a wicked man. He will drink “licour of the vyne”, and have a “joly wenche” in every town. In fact in the Pardoner’s prologue some of his first lines are “in church when I preach I take great pains to make a forceful speech and ring it out as soundly as a bell” he’s explaining how when he preaches he is deliberately making a show out of it, to get everyone’s attention it is later revealed that he is doing this as a way he can start to use and manipulate believers to get money from them.he goes on to say “Latin I speak a word or two to season as with saffron declination and stir them into revile and their devotion”.
He Says this while explaining to the others how just by speaking a little Latin she can manipulate people listening into believing that he is a true man of God who is well educated and knowledgeable, because they are impressed with his Latin. “With this trick I have gained year on year 100 marks since I made Pardoner I stand like a clerk in my pulpit and after the unlettered people sit I’ve preached thus as you have heard before I tell hundreds false stories more.” Here the Pardoner very plainly and forthrightly tells everyone riding with him that he makes lots of money masquerading as a good holy man and manipulating people with false stories. the disturbing part is that he has no shame in fact he takes pride in his actions.
One of the most ironic things here in the story of the Pardoner’s tale is how often his actions are things that he knows are sins and persisly what he preaches not to do if one wants to enter heaven. He’s only appears to be good and Holy when there is an audience this behavior is forbidden in the Bible (English standard version, Matthew 6:1) “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.” And seeing as he is a “holy man” he should know this “Greed is the root of all evils”, the Pardoner quotes multiple times. To repent from greed is indeed a teaching in the Christian faith(Timothy 6:10) For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.
but is very apparent that greed is one of the most powerful driving forces in himself. It is implied that he believes he can still save souls even though he himself sins so prevalently but this ideology is also very clearly forbidden with in the Bible Matthew (6:24) “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.
A well known modern day holy man of sorts would be Carl Lentz one of the preachers at Hillsong Church. He is a known around the world for being the spiritual guide for Justin Bieber as well as other celebrities and has received much scrutiny for what most would consider hypocritical behavior not unlike the pardoner in the Canterbury tales. The reason carl attract so much attention in the media may be because of the way he dresses. he is often seen wearing Gucci and supreme or other expensive brands, even while he is in church giving a sermon witch is untraditional even for a megachurch like Hillsong. He also received lots of media attention when Justin Bieber and another celebrities have pictures of preavher lenz on Instagram‘s taking shots while at rambunctious parties and overall Not behaving the way most people would imagine any preacher should behave.
Beyond just being in an unOrthodox preacher the lessons he teaches happen to be conflicting with those of the Christian faith, while he himself is supposedly a Pentecostal Christian Oprah interview when he was in a interviewed by Oprah and Oprah ask “do you have to be a Christian to have a relationship with God(the God of the Bible)” or in other words do you have to worship Jesus in order to be right with God, and without hesitation he replies no and then goes on to explain how Jesus is merely one way to get to God.
“No I believe thAt when Jesus said I am the way the truth and the light ,the way I read thAt Jesus said he’s the road marker he’s the map ..weather they expect or reject him Gods still gracious.” The problem with what he saying it is not cared he does not take into consideration the rest of the quote from (John 14:6 )Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Ephesus on No one comes to the father except through me.To most Christians this is pretty clear in stating that Jesus is much more than a road marker in fact he’s the door to enter haven ,that he is the only way This man who claims to teach Christian faith yet deliberately miss quoted a line from the Bible on national television to push his own agenda. The Bible is littered with quotes that teach Jesus (in the Christian faith) is the only way to God
The Canterbury Tales By Geoffrey Chaucer. (2022, May 10). Retrieved from https://paperap.com/the-canterbury-tales-by-geoffrey-chaucer/