The Canterbury Tales Essay, Research Paper

Three Honrable Pilgrims

Geoffrey Chaucer was the greatest English poet of his time. Besides William

Shakespeare no other writer has surpassed Chaucer’s achievements. One of his best

unfinished writing, “The Canterbury Tales” rankes as one of the world’s best work of

literature. In “The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales” Chaucer presents a cross-section of

Medieval Society through his discriptions of people representing the court, the church and

the common people. In Medieval Society, just like in modern day society, there were people

of different moralities. The knight the Parson and the Plowmen are examples of good

people who possessed honorable characteristics.

The Knight in this pilgrimage is a representative from the Court class which was at

the top of Medeval Society. He was wealthly but he didn’t want to impress anybody. He

truly had all the charactoristics of an ideal knight. As a Christian, he loved thruth and as

gentlemen, he believed in chivalry and honor. With so many dishonest people going to

Canterbury,or must have been very irritating to deal with them. But “He never yet a

barrish thing had said. In all his life to any , come what might ; He was a true, a perfect

gentle-knight.” He was true to his king and was generous, and courteous. He didn’t wear

flashy clothes. All he wore was a coarse cloth shirt of cotton and linen. His shirt was

stained with dark smudges where his amar had left it’s marks . The Knight’s motivation to

go on this pilgramage is to give thanks to God, because he had survived all of the wars and

battles he had fought in.

Another honerable pilgrim on this trip was the Parson who is representative of

church society. Un like the other religious people on the pilgrimage who claimed lots of

earthly posessions, the Parson was a very poor priest. However he was a noble example to

the people of his church. He was an honest priest who didn’t cheat people out of their

money. Although he was poor in money and possessions, he was vary rich in the Christian

spirit. He would practice what he preached and would rather give then recive and “who

truly knew christ’s gospel and would preach it, Devoutly to parishioners,and teach it”.

When parishioners gave him money he would not accept it. As a follower of Christ he was

willing to help his fellow man. The reason he is gtoing on this trip was to pay respect to the

valiant and holy martyr St. Thomas a Becket. Just as Jesus Christ was willing to give up

his life for what he believed. The leart that the Parson could do was to bear any suffering in

carrying out of his priestly duties. He would visit the houses far away in his own parish

when it would rain or thunder or even in sickness or in grief. He himself would keep the

church clean and he would not ask or pay some one else to clean the church for him. The

Parson lived a simple life, for God, the church,and th people.

Another honerable person on the journey to Becket’s Tomb was a Plowman. The

Plowman or farmer was in the class of the common people. He was not rich nor was poor.

The farmer made his living off his own farm and from the sweat of his brow. He was an

honest hard-working farmer who loved God best and would do anything to help his

neighbors. He was a good samaritan. He loved God with all his heart, mind and body. He

would never accept money when helping others. He was truthful to his neighbors and when

he owed them some money he would always pay them back in full. Also he would gladly

help the church by tithing in full just at Christ had commanded.

Geoffy Chaucer, in his time and even ours, was an extraordinary poet who wrote

“The Canterbury Tales”. This poem is ont of the best works that he made. In this story he

discribes the Medieval Society through his point of view of pwople representing the court,

the church and the commers. One can get a good idea of that society by the type of

characters that Chucer chose to hp on this polhrimage. Not all pilgrims on this journwy

were good moral charactor. However, among the rotten apples ther were some good ones.

The knight the Pason, and the Plowman are good examples. Itis a relief to know that there

will always be good pwople around in any time in history.