The Canterbury Tales is a very popular and well-known series of tales, written by Geoffrey Chaucer. This collection of short stories is great entertainment and some even provide great moral lessons; most of these stories show the contempt Chaucer had for the Church of England which had control over most of England at the time. Chaucer's bias towards the corruption of the Church is best demonstrated in the Prologue of the Pardoner, contradicting the Parson's Tale, and the level of power within the structure of the Church. These are two of the many stories featured in The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer uses the Pardoner as a high-level leader who is corrupt and yet allows him to convert sinners even if he does so for personal gain. Despite being of lower rank in the Church, the Parish Priest is not corrupt and gives the message to the pilgrims to be forgiven. The Church in 1400 was the center of everyone's life and the life of the farmer was the hardest to live. The Church convinced everyone that if they broke the rules their souls would be damned. One of the rules was to dedicate time to the church where farmers would perform hours of free labor in church fields instead of working on their own land to feed their family (“The Medieval Church”). The Church collected tithes of food and money from each person and stored them in a granary where the food rotted or was poisoned by rats (“The Medieval Church”). The tithes of the people were what made the Church so rich (“The Medieval Church”). With wealth, power, and fear of damnation, the Church could be as corrupt as it wanted because there was no one to stop it. Because of this corruption in the Church, a man named Geoffrey Chaucer became......middle of paper......ed. vol. A. New York:WW Norton &, 2012. 243-342. Press. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Creighton, James Joseph, "The Presentation of the Church in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales" (1957). Master's thesis. Document 1377. Web. April 25, 2014Day, Lauren. "The Canterbury Tales: Chaucer's respectful criticism of church officials and their abuse of power." Digital Commons in Salve Regina (2011): 1-26. McKillop Library. Network. April 25, 2014.Ethel, Ghirlanda. "Chaucer's Worst Shrewe: The Pardoner." Modern Language Quarterly 20.3 (1959): 211. Academic research completed. Network. April 26, 2014. Greenblatt, Stephen. "Geoffrey Chaucer." The Middle Ages. Ninth ed. vol. A. New York: W.WNorton &, 2012. 238-43. Press. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Neuman, A. “Chaucer's Pardoner: A Critique of Capitalism.” GradeSaver. GradeSaver LLC, April 8. 2002. Network. April 25. 2014.