Ecclesiastical Characters

Ecclesiastical Characters in the Prologue

Of the thirty-one pilgrims of the Canterbury Tales, twelve were attached to religion in some way or other, and the manner in which Chaucer depicis them gives us some idea of the slack condition of many Church officials at the time and the poor opinion which the average man of education had of them. The writings of Prof. G.M. Trevelyan and Prof. G.G. Coulton give a cumulative picture of the failings of the Church which the contemporary writings of Wycliffe, Langland, and Chaucer had made clear.

The bishops of the day were mainly shrewd men of business, quite respectable and hard working, all of them English, owing their position to the joint efforts of King and Pope, but their energies were often devoted to public affairs rather than to the interests of their dioceses. This was no new thing, but Wycliffe spoke and wrote fiercely against the Caesarean clergy. The Clerical law Courts were frequently not fair and just, their officials using their power to inflict severe penalties for refusal of tithe. Chaucer's Archdeacon :

For smale tithes and for smal offringe

 He made the peple pitously to singe.

The state of morality, as evidenced, inter alia, by Chaucer's tales, was bad in all classes. Rich and poor alike were immoral, and had to submit to conviction, but the former paid, sometimes regularly, while the latter submitted to penance.

Absentee clergy and the practice of giving the great tithes to an abbot or lay rector, while the vicar had inadequate pay, were of common occurence. Many persons abandoned their ignorant or half-savage peasantry to flock to London or elsewhere as chantry priest.