Chaucer's Canterbury Tales

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fortuitous, and yet all the ranks and vocations, the trades and the professions were there.(Rowland 248) Many believe that the church created these social structures to maintain control, so it is no wonder the clergy occupied the first class. The church maintained this control by being deeply imbedded in the structures of society and government. There were two types of clergy in the fourteenth century; the secular clergy and the regular clergy. The secular clergy's responsibility was to attend to the spiritual needs of the non-clerical people of the other class(Singman 10). The regular clergy consisted of monks and friars that led dictated lives. Every clergyman had been raised either as an aristocrat or as a commoner. This distinction often played a role in their clerical life. Aristocratic clergymen tended to gravitate toward the upper levels of the clergy and to the more coveted positions. Commoners tended to have a harder time rising in the clerical establishment. Simple parish ...

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14). There is evidence in the way he talks that he believed it pointless to follow his monastic duties. Instead of attending his daily church duties, the monk was often hunting or riding across the countryside. Friars, like monks, lived under the authority of the rule of their order, in particular, they weren't allowed to own private property(Singman 12). The Nun's description gives insight to the fact that Chaucer may have had a crush on her. The description makes it seem that she is a gentlewoman, who possibly entered a convent because she had no marriage dowry(Werthemer 12). Chaucer portrays her as a lovely lady in a romance rather than a nun. The Nuns belonged to the first estate, ...

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