The%20Canterbury%20Tales

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The Canterbury Tales
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The Middle Ages

• Named by scholars for the time in between the
  Ancient period and the Renaissance
• Also called the Medieval period
• Also called the Dark Ages time w/lack of
  education monks carried on literacy
• Bubonic plague (Black Death) 1/3 of Europe
  wiped out carried by rats/fleas 1347-1350

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The Black Death
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Life in the Middle Ages
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Life in the Middle Ages
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Life in the Middle Ages
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Life in the Middle Ages
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Life in the Middle Ages
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Life in the Middle Ages
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Medieval Society

• Feudalism was the organizing social system.
• The Three Estates
• King, the Nobility, and Knights
• Clergy and Church Employees
• Merchants and Peasants

• Most literature of the Ancient World focused on
  the 1st Estate exclusively

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Medieval Religion

• Heaven
• Purgatory
• Hell
• Mortal vs. Venial Sins
• Indulgences
• Dante Aligheri

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Medieval Religion

• The Garden of Earthly Delights (1504) by
  Hieronymous Bosch

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Corruption in the Church

• Papal indulgences on the rise (some fake, some
  real)
• Fake relics abound
• Clergy not living up to their vows
• Martin Luther and his 99 theses
• Protestant Reformation

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Indulgences
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Indulgences
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The Four Humours

• Belief that the body fluids dictated behavior
• Blood Sanguine
• passionate, lustful
• Phleghm Phleghmatic
• sickly, cowardly
• Yellow Bile Choleric
• violent, angry
• Black Bile Melancholic
• depressed, emo

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Geoffrey Chaucer (1343?-1400)

• 2nd greatest poet in the English language (next
  to Shakespeare)
• Held many odd jobs over the years
• Strong interest in the middle class
• Also wrote Troilus and Criseyde
• Only had finished 24 when he died

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Murder in the Cathedral

• Archbishop Thomas a Becket
• King Henry II
• Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?
• Killed in 1170

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The Canterbury Tales
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The General Prologue

• Setting April at the Tabard Inn
• Goal Pilgrimage to Canterbury
• Plot Contest to see who can tell the best story
• Characters 29 pilgrims, plus Host and Chaucer
  31 in all
• 2 tales each way 4 x 31 124 tales

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The Pilgrimage
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(No Transcript)
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Wife of Bath
Reeve
Chaucer
The Host
Miller
Knight
Friar
Monk
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Summoner
Pardoner
Shipman
Parson
Squire
Prioress
Physician
Nuns Priest
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Franklin
2nd Nun
Man of Law
Cook
Yeoman
Oxford Clerk
Manciple
Merchant