I want to start this blog entry by restating the plot of the overall story in The Canterbury Tales. There is this group, full of some pretty interesting yet heavily morally flawed people, on a religious pilgrimage that is supposed to, in theory, bring them closer to God so that they may become better people in his name. In the party, there is a corrupt, money-loving Friar, a Widow has had five husbands, and a Somnour, who is cartoonishly scary and evil, to name a few. In many respects, the General Prologue is like the lead up to the joke. Before Chaucer can say, “two guys walk into a bar,” he has to specify that this bar is actually a brothel and at least one of these guys is the most corrupt religious figure that can be put into words. We are looking at you, Frere.
All jokes aside, the portrayals of the church, just in the prologue, cast a harsh light onto the Catholic Church at the time. In this time period, it was common for the Church to preach this idea of penance for sins to lessen the time spent in purgatory. This penance was usually in the form of an amount of money given to the Church, possibly right into the pocket of the clergy. Chaucer’s descriptions of the Church officials, and especially the very dry language used in these descriptions, really help to show us today how corrupt the church was in medieval times, and how the Church’s corruption was so widespread and such common knowledge that Chaucer can even joke about it and expect his readers to fully understand the joke as well.
Overall, The General Prologue sets the stage for a revealing satirical novel discussing the lives and society in the medieval time period.