The Middle Ages were marked by religious upheavals in Europe. Two new major world religions were coming to power: Islam and Christianity. The rapid success of Christianity led the Roman Catholic Church to become the dominant religious force in most of the Western world, and like any powerful institution, it became increasingly corrupt (Swanson 409). As Lillian Bisson writes in Chaucer and the Late Medieval World, “the medieval Church…was a collection of competing factions with often contradictory agendas.” Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayInternal conflict in the Church has led to public distrust of religious authority. Expanding on Bisson's observations, this article will describe the development of religious doubt in medieval Europe and note how it characterizes the literature of this period. Comparing two of the most important texts of the Middle Ages – the anonymous epic The Song of Roland and Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales – I argue that the latter work demonstrates a deep distrust of religious authority which is not present in the first. The different images that the two texts present of the church, I suggest, distinguish The Song of Roland and the Canterbury Tales as, respectively, early and late medieval works. Three developments contributed to the rise of Christian doubt in the Middle Ages: the persecution of heretics, the Black Death, and the Great Schism. As Bisson describes it, the Catholic Church became increasingly powerful as it became inseparable from the government. When the Roman Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity, the Church quickly gained influence and a new doctrinal hierarchy began to develop in place of the old communal character of the Church. Individuals who did not accept Catholic doctrine were either considered subhuman or - if they lived in what came to be called Christianity - persecuted as heretics. Eventually, the laity and especially the middle and lower classes developed a feeling of distrust towards the Church. Clergy who became Church leaders for money and status rather than for their religious beliefs have routinely abused their power. The general public took notice of these abuses and thus began the fall of the once ultimate trust in religious authority. The Black Death, a tragedy that killed countless numbers of people in Christendom, also contributed to public distrust of the Church because people fulfilled the prayers of their clergymen. were useless against the disease. Faith in God's power and benevolence fell to an all-time low as people helplessly watched their loved ones die. Many members of the clergy fled their functions, fearing the work required of them caring for the morbidly ill (50). A third major problem in the Church resulted from what is known as the Great Schism. When two different men claimed the right to the papacy, immense scandal and internal conflict threatened the future of the Church (56). During the same period, Oxford scholar John Wyclif began to publicly criticize the Church. Not only did he challenge fundamental beliefs and practices by denying the possibility of transubstantiation, but he also attempted to diminish the power of priests. He translated the Bible into English for the first time in history, which made himmade much more accessible to ordinary people. (58), and he affirmed that every good Christian was a priest. This claim, along with the newly translated Bible and an increasingly low literacy rate across social classes, led to a diminished need for priests to worship. Suddenly, the ordinary man could become religious without the intervention of the Church. This shift in religious power is recorded in the literature of the period: while early medieval writings emphasize the higher rank of monks and nuns, later works place more emphasis on the religious importance of poor preachers and even the laity. With the Church weakened by both internal conflict and a loss of public credibility, many Christians began to seriously reconsider the Church's values ​​and doctrine. As a result, the literature of the period reflects deep reservations toward the Church, reservations that are not present in earlier texts. The anonymous French national epic, The Song of Roland, written before Wyclif's criticisms and before the Black Death wreaked havoc on Christendom, unambiguously upholds the authority of the Church. Written as a piece of propaganda for the necessity of holy wars, The Song of Roland demonstrates the intolerance of the Church in the Middle Ages. Although The Song of Roland describes events that occurred in 778, it was composed in 1095: the year the first crusade against the Muslims was launched. In reality, however, the battle spoken of in the text was not part of a holy war. In fact, it had nothing to do with Islam. The Basques, not the Muslims, had massacred the rearguard of the Frankish army. The author of The Song of Roland uses great creative freedom to develop the story into a reductive allegory about the triumph of Christianity (good) over Islam (evil). The writer "gives religious significance to profane acts, appropriating the campaign of 778 not only as a holy war but as a war between God and Satan." In the allegorical framework of the text, Roland's story is also the story of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. Roland is a figure of Christ who dies as a martyr; the parallels between the two characters reinforce the dogmatic character of the text. Roland has twelve peers (Roland 1259), much like the twelve disciples of Christ. Ganelon, the downfall of Roland, is represented as Judas. He betrays Roland by telling the Saracens (pagans and therefore enemies of Christianity) how they can ambush and kill the skilled warrior. Interestingly, Ganelon betrays Roland for reasons of pride rather than money. In his conversation with the pagans, Ganelon remarks: "If anyone could bring about the death of Roland, / the Charles would lose the right arm from his body." The author draws a parallel between Roland and Jesus Christ, who in Christian mythology is often described as the "right hand" of God. Roland's death reinforces the allegorical character of the epic. Attempting to alert his followers that his army has been ambushed, Roland honks his horn so loudly that he dies from the effort. Almost immediately, his soul is taken straight to Heaven by the angels. Thus, the language used in the death scene recalls the biblical episode of The Passion: “Roland the Count feels: he no longer has his sight; / gets up, draws on his last strength, / the color in his face is now definitively lost. ".Christian allegory is used to justify not only the Church, but also the particular crusade that the Church was promoting at the time of the epic's composition. To the extent that Roland's death is presented as noble, the scene recalls the Christian value of sacrifice: holy war isjustifiable because his warriors must suffer as Jesus Christ suffered for the common good of the people. The Song of Roland is used to promote the idea of ​​holy war as a necessary sacrifice that elevates the warrior to the status of Jesus Christ. Written between 1386 and 1400, Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales is a late medieval text and, as such, marked by the serious conflict surrounding the Catholic Church during this period. Lee Patterson, in his introduction to Chaucer in the Norton Anthology of Western Literature, underestimates the importance of religious doubt in Chaucer's writings. “Curiously,” he writes, “[most] of these events [in and around the church] find only the slightest mention in Chaucer's poetry.” However, as other critics have noted, Chaucer's texts often deal extensively with religion from a subtextual angle. level. Bisson notes that Chaucer had mutual friends with John Wyclif and thus extensive links with critics of the Church (58).Similarly, Helen Phillips argues that much of Chaucer's writing can be characterized as "anticlerical fabliaux" , a common literary technique of the late Middle Ages that satirized, and thus undermined, the authority of the Church (104). Phillips also notes the subversive gesture of Chaucer's choice to write in vernacular English, as opposed to Latin, the official language of Roman Catholicism and, as such, a marker of the elitism that characterized the medieval Church. Well aware of the growing literacy among the lower classes, Chaucer's use of vernacular English made his works – unlike the Bible – accessible to everyone across a broad social class. His particular sympathy for people belonging to the lower strata of the social hierarchy is written throughout his writing. As Phillips argues, Chaucer's depiction of the peasants "is empathetic, uncondescending, and respectful." He contrasts “their good moral judgment, their sense of fair play and their disgust of thugs with arrogant clerical predators.” Aligning himself with critics of the Church, whose skepticism was frequently directed against its most powerful members, Chaucer presented the higher members of the ecclesiastical hierarchy as hateful and corrupt, and his few examples of good religious figures are of the most low status. permeated many aspects of Chaucer's writings, even those that deal only indirectly with the Church. In The Canterbury Tales, his most famous work, Chaucer uses characterization and imagery to subtly criticize the corruption and tyranny of Church authority. For example, the Miller, a character seemingly unrelated to the Church, is one of Chaucer's most powerful vehicles for expressing religious doubt. As the Miller prepares to tell his story, he says, "I'm going to tell a golden legend and a life." ” which, as Nicholas Watson notes, is a common phrase used to describe the stories told about the lives of saints at the time. Chaucer “strives [Christianity] of its pretensions,” describing Miller's vile tale of adultery with the language of a sacred text (52). Miller thus presents his story as a satire of the seriousness with which people of the time approached religion and the authority it had over them. The content of Miller's tale also has a subtext of religious doubt. The Miller tells the story of Alison, a young woman married to a carpenter named John. Alison has an affair with Nicholas, an Oxford student, and is also the object of the clerk Absolon's unrequited affection. The sexuality and crudeness of the tale make it a secular story that is intrinsically at odds with Christian doctrine, whichlegislate against the sins of the flesh. However, Miller's tale has many religious references. Introducing Nicholas to the reader, the Miller sings “Angelus to the Virgin,” an ancient prayer which, when used to describe adultery, becomes sacrilegious (1720). Similarly, after Nicholas and Alison decide to deceive John so that they can become lovers, Chaucer writes: Now, in her Christian duty, on a saint's day, this good wife went to the parish church, and on the way , her forehead cast a shineAs bright as midday, for she had washed it so that it would shine when she finished her work. Chaucer uses juxtaposition here for sacrilegious effect. The images of cleanliness and purity "bright", "shining", "glittering"), as well as the fact that Alison goes to church "in her Christian duty", establish the hypocrite persona. Alison is incriminated by her zeal for the Church, and vice versa. If this is a woman who fulfills her “Christian duty,” Chaucer suggests, then Christianity leaves much to be desired. The deception that Alison and Nicholas create to keep her husband from discovering their adultery also openly attacks Christianity. The lovers use the story of Noah and the Great Flood from the Bible to coerce John into believing that another flood is coming. The exchange of biblical scriptures for sexual gain suggests that Chaucer felt the church was often used as a means to an end (usually sexual or monetary) rather than as a path to spiritual fulfillment. Similarly, in a later episode, Absolon attempts to woo Alison from outside her bedroom window using imagery and language from the Bible. “Song of Songs”. What is interesting about the "Song of Songs" is that although it is a love song in the Bible, it is interpreted by the clergy as a representation of pure love between God and humans. Here, however, Absolon uses it to attempt to woo a married woman, an act that defeats the official purpose of the text. The many perversions of biblical scripture combine in Miller's Tale to form a sort of comic interpretation of the hypocrisy of the authority and actions of the medieval Christian Church. Although many religious figures are portrayed in a negative light in The Canterbury Tales, the most deplorable is the Pardoner. A pardoner's job was to sell papal indulgences, pre-written slips of paper that granted forgiveness to a sinner in exchange for an act of retaliation and a donation of money to the Church. The Pardoner became an important figure within the Church in the 13th century, when the full doctrine of purgatory was established. This doctrine defined purgatory as a place of short-term punishment for sinners who were not completely absolved at death, but who had not committed criminal acts. sins serious enough to be banished to hell for eternity. Indulgences could be purchased either for a living person or for a deceased loved one, to reduce the time spent in purgatory. Naturally, these indulgences became a major source of corruption in the Church. Some pardoners falsified documents in order to make more money for themselves, and lay people felt free to indulge in sin because they could simply buy forgiveness. Even within this corrupt profession, Chaucer's Pardoner is particularly contemptible. In the first paragraph of his Prologue, he announces that his sermon is always based on the phrase "Radix malorum est cupiditas" or "Avarice is the root of all evil." He then immediately begins to describe how he uses religion for his own, 2002. 75-90.