Getting Closer to God on Religious Pilgrimages in Gregory Chaucer's Cantebury Tales

Peasants were members of the lowest class, those who work. They were the most common class. They were the millers, blacksmiths, butchers, carpenters, farmers, and other trades people. Peasant women in particular, spent much of their time taking care of children, making clothes, and cooking meals. They also tended gardens, took care of animals by tending chicken, shearing sheep, and milking cows (Cels 16). Within peasants, there were two main groups of people, the serfs and the freemen. Both were employed by the lords. And serfs were people that paid more fees, and had less rights. Freemen on the other hand paid less fees and had more rights than serfs (Noiret). While freemen could leave the manor when at whim, serfs were not allowed to leave

The traditional pilgrim is someone who surrenders the life they once knew to make a journey of devotion to a sacred site. It’s not necessarily the destination, but their growing faith along their journey that they seek. They set off with hands empty, free of expectation, carrying only a willingness to be guided, to bear

If you could go on a long trip with anyone you wanted in the world who would you choose? Would you choose your friends and family, or people you have never met before? When Chaucer picked people to go on a pilgrimage, or trip, he chose people very precisely because he wanted to make a point. Chaucer wanted to show the people in the streets how corrupt the church was and to expose how people really are. There are people in today’s society that are also corrupt and should be exposed to the world as well. Each character has a different story to tell, what kind of story would you like to hear and from who? Three modern day characters that would be interesting to listen to on a pilgrimage would be a

A reflection on religious monuments and their implements in their connection to their faith and use of prayer. This reflection uses Christian, Islamic, and Jewish religions as examples of study in the Medieval era.

In Victor and Edith Turner’s work on “Pilgrimage as a Liminoid Phenomenon,” they discuss French folklorist and ethnographer Arnold van Gennep’s rites of transition which correlates with which one experiences on a pilgrimage. This process comprises of three stages. The first stage is separation to separate oneself from home or the comfort of one’s familiar environment; the second stage is limen or margin which puts one in a state of liminal transition or threshold; the final and third stage is aggregation which will be the central focus of this paper.

Frankish society was entirely rural and was composed of three orders or classes: (1) clergy (those who pray), (2) nobility (those who fight), (3) peasants (those who work). In general, life was harsh and brutal for the early medieval peasant. Even in the wealthiest parts of Europe, the story is one of hardship and poverty. Many peasants died from malnutrition, due to poor diet. Most peasants were illiterate although a few were practicing Christians. The majority could not understand the language of the church, which was Latin. While nobility was better off, and had more food, their diet still not very nutritional. Living in larger houses and castles, these were often just as cold as the peasant's small structure. Additionally, most nobility

Composing of most of the European population in the 1500’s and 1600’s, peasants played an important role in the development of Europe. In his book The Night Battles, Carlo Ginzburg gives a unique perspective on the lives of Friulian peasants through the analysis of inquisitorial records. During the inquisitions, peasants were categorized as witches or benandanti, which literally means well-farer. “The benandanti were a small group of men and women, who because they were born with a caul, were regarded as professional antiwitches. They told inquisitors that, in dreams, they fought ritual battles against witches and wizards to protect their villages and harvests from harm.” (Ginzburg. Back Cover) Although the lives of the

Pilgrimages, a journey to a holy place or shrine undertaken as a spiritual quest to obtain supernatural help or as a form of penance for sins, exposed pilgrims to new art and architecture on their journeys. Many types of art contributed to the medieval pilgrimage experience, including the buildings in which saints’ relics were housed, the ornaments and furnishings of these churches, the

Throughout the Middle Ages travel is represented in many different forms and is seen in many different groups, especially within the world of the Franciscan monks. Constantly on the move, these mendicant friars faced many trials and tribulations throughout their journeys. The monks were forced to be constantly on the move, never able to claim a home of their own and were under constant ridicule from those around them, causing problems and riffs as they went. The poem, “Preste, Ne Monke, Ne Yit Chanoun”, written in 1382, outlined the problems mendicants placed on those around them and warned society of their evils and destructiveness. “Preste, Ne Monke, Ne Yit Chanoun” explains and presents the threats towards the clergy, the monk’s sexual promiscuity and the threats the monks imposed on the economic order to reiterate the problems of travel and why travel was disruptive to

when books were written that told of their link to miracles. Pilgrimages were also of

Pilgrims are journeys to a sacred lands for religious purposes. In some religious pilgrims, religious seekers take time to reach the sacred place for religious reasons such as being reincarnation, and being forgiven. The Canterbury Tales, written by Geoffrey Chaucer, is a book of individual tales called pilgrims. Geoffrey Chaucer’s book is about a group of people who take a pilgrim to Canterbury, which is located in England. The group starts their journey at the Tabard Inn in Southwark, England. In the beginning he starts off by acknowledging who is traveling to the shrine of Saint Thomas a Becket in Canterbury. He gives descriptions of each character. With his words he describes the personality of the characters. Geoffrey Chaucer

A cross section of medieval society: feudal (the knight), ecclesiastical (pardoner, priest, nun), urban (lawyer, doctor, merchant). And Chaucer's interest in middle class characters, such as a cook, carpenter, miller, lawyer, merchant, clerk, physician reflects the rise of the middle class in the fourteenth century (Collin 1).

Religion in the Middle Ages takes on a character all of its own as it is lived out differently in the lives of medieval men and women spanning from ordinary laity to vehement devotees. Though it is difficult to identify what the average faith consists of in the Middle Ages, the life told of a radical devotee in The Book of Margery Kempe provides insight to the highly intense version of medieval paths of approaching Christ. Another medieval religious text, The Cloud of Unknowing, provides a record of approaching the same Christ. I will explore the consistencies and inconsistencies of both ways to approach Christ and religious fulfillment during the Middle Ages combined with the motivations to do so on the basis of both texts.

Pilgrimage is to travel for your faith, not because you have, but you want to. Many people do many things to show pilgrimage in their own way. Every year Jesus’ parents would go to Feast of the Passover for their faith. When I first moved here during Christmas my family and I went to St. Paul's Cathedral just to see what is was like. Last Easter we went to a little church that was kind of far away, but it was a nice mass. During school time youth ministry will hold events like the youth rally to show our faith in many ways. Participating in pilgrimage is a great way to get around and show your faith while doing

At the outset of his long journey to Santiago, the protagonist stays in the French city of Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port and holds a meeting with an old woman named Mme Lourdes who having entered his name in the register of those who walk the Road to Santiago tells him, “Your road and stopping places will depend on decisions made by your guide.”1 Mme Lourdes, like India’s saintly persons, underlines the role of guide as indispensable to his success in the pilgrimage. Placing the palms of her hands on his head, she says, “May you obey the one who is your guide, even though he may issue an order that is homicidal, blasphemous, or senseless. You must swear total obedience to your guide.” (18) Two kilometer outside of Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port the protagonist meets Petrus, his guide under whose guidance he is destined to cover a distance of seven hundred kilometers for reaching his destination. To address the protagonist’s doubts with regard to the competence of the guide, Petrus says, “I am going to teach you some exercises and some rituals that are known as the practices. All of us, at some time in our lives, have made use of at least one of them. Every one of these practices, without exception, can be discovered by anyone who is willing to seek them out, with