The Catholic Church was an enormously powerful force in the medieval period, and extremely wealthy. However, it 's clear that the material provided in The Canterbury tales indicate that the church is more than just dominant, It’s corrupt. Many of the pilgrims Chaucer writes about indicate the corrupt and backward state the institutional church was in. For example, Chaucer’s The Friar, who tells a tale of a Summoner who tries to prosecute an elderly woman unfairly in order to take her money. The Friar displays characteristics, not of someone you would expect who is religious. Friars would take an oath to live poorly and would …show more content…
She tells an extremely gruesome tale in which Jewish men attempt to kill a young Christian but get caught. They wind up being ripped apart by horses and hung till death. The brutality of this story wouldn’t be expected to come from a prioress, nor does the story have any real religious moral to it other than to fear Christianity and to warn against joining other religions. In addition, she is said to wear a sacred cross as a neckless but it is described more as an ostentatious trinket worn to show superiority. This highlights the impurity and backward ways of the