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Unit 2: The Age of Chaucer

Devoured is on every side, Notes
In lacks of hem that been urrware In chepherdes, which her wit beware
Upon the world in other halve.
Another contemporary has to say this about the priests, “Our priests are now become blind, dark
and beclouded. There is neither shaven crown on their head, nor modesty in their words, nor
temperance in their food, nor even chastity in their deeds.” If this was the condition of the ecclesiasts,
we can easily imagine that of the laity. Well does Chaucer say in the Prologue to The Canterbury
Tales: “If gold rust, what shall iron do?” Chaucer himself was indifferent to any reform, but his
character-sketches of the ecclesiastical figures in The Canterbury Tales leave no uncertainty
regarding the corruption which had crept into the ecclesiastical rank and file. The round-bellied
epicurean monk, the merry and devil-may-care friar, and the unscrupulous pardoner are fairly
typical of his age.
This widespread and deep-rooted corruption had already begun to provoke the attention of some
reformists the most prominent of whom was John Wyclif (13207-84) who has been called “the
morning star of the Reformation.” He started what is called the Lollards’s Movement. His aim was
to eradicate the evil and corruption which had become a part and parcel of the Church. He sent his
“poor priests” to all parts of the country for spreading his message of simplicity, purity, and
austerity. His self-appointed task was to take Christianity back to its original purity and spirituality.
He exhorted people not to have anything to do with the corrupt ministers of the Pope and to have
faith only in the Word of God as enshrined in the Bible, To make the teaching of the Bible
accessible to the common masses he with the help of some of his disciples translated the Bible from
Latin into the native tongue. He also wrote a number of tracts embodying his teaching. His
translation of the Bible was, in the words of W. H. Hudson, “the first translation of the scriptures
into any modern vernacular tongue.” That Chaucer was sympathetic to the Lollards’ Movement is
evident from the element of idealization which characterizes his portrait of the “Poor Parson” in
the Prologue to The Canterbury Tales.

Did u know? The movement launched by Wyclif and his followers in the age of Chaucer
was an adumbration of the Reformation which was to come in the sixteenth
century to wean England from the papal influence.

Self Assessment

Fill in the blanks:
1. .................... like most historical ages was an age of transition.
2. The fourteenth century, as J.M. Manly puts it in the Cambridge History of English litera-
ture, was "a dark epoch of the history of ....................".
3. In the age of Chaucer, the church become a hotbed of profligacy, corruption and .................... .
4. The period between 1337 and 1453 is marked by a long succession of skirmishes between
.................... and .................... .
5. In the age of Chaucer most people were victims of poverty, squalor and .................... .

2.6 Literary and Intellectual Tendencies

Latin and French were the dominant languages in fourteenth-century England. However, in the
later half of the century English came to its own, thanks to the sterling work done by Chaucer and
some others like Langland, Gower, and Waclif who wrote in English and wrote well. The English
language itself was in a fluid state of being, and was divided into a number of dialects. The
Universities of Cambridge and Oxford employed Latin as the medium of instruction. Latin was
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