It is well known that Chaucer was an adherent of John of Gaunt; that he and his great protector—­perhaps with no very pious intents—­favored the doctrines of Wiclif; that in the politico-religious disturbances in 1382, incident to the minority of Richard II., he was obliged to flee the country.  But if we wish to find the most striking religious history of the age, we must seek it in the portraitures of religious characters and events in his Canterbury Tales.  In order to a proper intelligence of these, let us look for a moment at the ecclesiastical condition of England at that time.  Connected with much in doctrine and ritual worthy to be retained, and, indeed, still retained in the articles and liturgy of the Anglican Church, there was much, the growth of ignorance and neglect, to be reformed.  The Church of England had never had a real affinity with Rome.  The gorgeous and sensual ceremonies which, in the indolent airs of the Mediterranean, were imposing and attractive, palled upon the taste of the more phlegmatic Englishmen.  Institutions organized at Rome did not flourish in that higher latitude, and abuses were currently discussed even before any plan was considered for reforming them.

THE CLERGY.—­The great monastic orders of St. Benedict, scattered throughout Europe, were, in the early and turbulent days, a most important aid and protection to Christianity.  But by degrees, and as they were no longer needed, they had become corrupt, because they had become idle.  The Cluniacs and Cistercians, branches of the Benedictines, are represented in Chaucer’s poem by the monk and prioress, as types of bodies which needed reform.

The Grandmontines, a smaller branch, were widely known for their foppery:  the young monks painted their cheeks, and washed and covered their beards at night.  The cloisters became luxurious, and sheltered, and, what is worse, sanctioned lewdness and debauchery.

There was a great difference indeed between the regular clergy, or those belonging to orders and monasteries, and the secular clergy or parish priests, who were far better; and there was a jealous feud between them.  There was a lamentable ignorance of the Scripture among the clergy, and gross darkness over the people.  The paraphrases of Caedmon, the translations of Bede and Alfred, the rare manuscripts of the Latin Bible, were all that cast a faint ray upon this gloom.  The people could not read Latin, even if they had books; and the Saxon versions were almost in a foreign language.  Thus, distrusting their religious teachers, thoughtful men began to long for an English version of that Holy Book which contains all the words of eternal life.  And thus, while the people were becoming more clamorous for instruction, and while Wiclif was meditating the great boon of a translated Bible, which, like a noonday sun, should irradiate the dark places and disclose the loathsome groups and filthy manifestations of cell and cloister, Chaucer was administering the wholesome medicine of satire and contempt.  He displays the typical monk given up to every luxury, the costly black dress with fine fur edgings, the love-knot which fastens his hood, and his preference for pricking and hunting the hare, over poring into a stupid book in a cloister.