Satirizing the Medieval Church
Geoffrey Chaucer's, The Canterbury Tales, and the film, Becket, satire the Medieval Church, by using characters, such as the Pardoner and the bishops, to exemplify the corruptness of the Church as a whole. Without any morals, the Church uses its power and authority in order to obtain money from even the poorest of the poor. Throughout The Canterbury Tales and Becket, the Church and its members scam money off the common people in every way possible in order to benefit their own lives, not the lives of others.In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer uses the character of the Pardoner to express his position on the wrong doings of the church and its members. In The Prologue of The Canterbury Tales, the Pardoner is described, "There was no pardoner of equal grace" (Page 132). The Pardoner could easily scam others due to his outstanding act of sincerity and genuineness. This was a characteristic that not only the Pardoner, but also the entire Church had, which helped in making money to benefit the standards by which they lived. Also, instead of the focusing on his job as a Pardoner, he tries to rip off travelers and make an enormous income, "His wallet lay before him on his lap, / Brimful of pardons come from Rome, all hot" (Page 131).
Also, in the film, the Church is described as an institution whose members did not pay their taxes or donate to the poor. While the Church should have focused on how to help the poor and needy, its members centered their lives upon fighting to control others. The more each member focused on the conflict with the State, the more religion was abandoned from people's lives. The greatest power a Church official had was the ability to use his charm, to commit scandals and never be second-guessed. The corrupt actions of the Pardoner represent the corruptness of the Church in its entirety. The Pardoner did not sing to preach the word of God during Church. The Pardoner, like most of the other Church members, makes money off the poor by selling sinners fake pardons. Instead, he used his ability to sing to gain money from the crowd of commoners, which could have been donated to charity. The taxes, that were to be paid to support the army, were not paid, in order for the Church members to better their own lifestyle. He is flat out telling the pilgrims how he scams the poor, using his deceitfulness. By being corrupt, the Church abuses its powers and hurts the rest of its society. The Church was more concerned with their own economic situation, rather than the situation of less fortunate. Lastly, in the Prologue, the Nun, a representative of the Church, is described as "straining to counterfeit a courtly kind of grace" (Page 116). For example, in Becket, the Medieval Church is constantly at a struggle, with the State, for power. The Church is very fake and tries to pretend to be what it is not.
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