Corruption of religious leaders during the Age of Faith - Canterbury Tales

The calamitous fourteenth century was a time of death and destruction due to famine, plague, peasant revolts, and the Hundred Years War. During this time, people looked to the church for comfort, leadership, and guidance. The church reached the height of its power, but could not provide the leadership needed because the religious leaders had become too concerned with secular affairs. Indulgences and bogus relics were being sold to supposedly raise money for the church, but the corrupt religious leaders pocketed the money. A prominent theme in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, which is a collection of short stories, is appearance versus reality. He satirizes the corruption within the church and its religious leaders: the prioress, the summoner, and the pardoner, all of whom had to take three vows: poverty, chastity, and obedience.
Based on Chaucer’s description of a nun, he obviously believed that nuns of his day were corrupt, and that they broke the vows of poverty, ch...