Greed_and_Corruption_in_The_Canterbury_Tales

Greed and Corruption in The Canterbury Tales Greed and Corruption in The Canterbury Tales Many of the religious characters in The Canterbury Tales represent character traits that are different from what is traditionally expected of them. This is because the Catholic Church, which ruled all of England, Ireland and most of Europe in the Fourteenth Century, was extremely wealthy. Extravagant cathedrals were built in every big city while the people suffered from poverty, disease and famine. The contrast between the wealth of the church and misery of the people was overwhelming. As a result, the characters in Chaucer’s tales were portrayed as deceitful and greedy. Two examples of this are the Summoner from the “The Friar’s Tale” and Death from the “The Pardoner’s Tale.” The Summoner is a church official who brings people accused of violating church law to special courts set up by the church. This particular Summoner from “The Friar’s Tale” is a deceitful, greedy person who uses his position as a church official to pressure innocent people into giving him “bribes” or money. He actually has a network of secret spies who report to him so that he can issue false summons and extort money from tale, church, death, people, summoner, evil, tales, pardoner, money, greedy, characters, traits, point, person, official, greed, friar’s, corrupt, words, show, seek, religious, personified, particular, out, opposite, officials, make, instead, fourteenth, examples, each, during, different, deceitful, corruption, chaucer’s, chaucer, century, catholic, canterbury, wrote, while, wealthy, wealth, violating, vices, upright, two, tries