Chaucer's work, The Canterbury Tales, was written for the entire population to read, which was a revolutionary idea in Chaucer's time . His portrayal of the nobility and the church could have largely influenced the willingness of the peasants to pay taxes, which would have been complemented by the feelings still lingering from the peasants' revolt a few years earlier. Chaucer also uses the stories told through his characters to comment on the social climate and how England modeled itself on seemingly "great" societies in history. Much of the attitudes of the lower classes are revealed through this novel and it is one of the few works that give us an insight into peasant life in this period.