Chaucer? I Didn't Even Know Her: Today's Virtue Pigs Could Learn Humility From Canterbury Tales

This world is but a thoroughfare of woe, And we are pilgrims passing to and fro;” ― Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales 

It is considered an anomaly. In this highly secular age, where people seem to have abandoned organized religion, an entire segment of godless society has immersed itself in a virtuous crusade to right wrongs, seek harmony and excommunicate non-believers in the pursuit of purity. 

There is little room for compromise in this reconstruction. The public square is jammed with people demanding a return to piety and the elimination of cynical privikege. One half-expects Don Quixote to amble into view at any moment to expunge evil.

But this thirst for meaning is not answered by the unifying appeal of a Mother Church. It’s not for nothing that the Democrats have two dozen people running for the presidential nomination. This is an age of deeply held individual faith where people adhere to a buffet of their own beliefs. In the aftershock of Donald Trump’s legal election, their vision must emerge supreme.

Naturally these supplicants and denouncers hold themselves to be a chosen people at a hinge in history. It is they who will stop the warming of the earth, the rising of the seas and the polluting of the air. (Just ask Barack Obama, the man who swore he’d control the knob on climate control.) It is inconceivable to them that mankind has ever been at a threshold like this before— nor seen anyone as clever as them.

Were today’s devotees a tad more curious they could find similar momentous moments in history. Often in the period following natural and manmade disasters, superstition and rejection of authority have flourished. About 750 years ago, the aftermath of one such populist revolt was recorded in detail, showing that today’s disaster artists are hardly unique in their disillusionment— but are notable for their pessimism.

In the wake of the Black Death in the 14th century, English nobleman Geoffrey Chaucer made a comprehensive study of a population reeling from the loss of a quarter of its population. The resulting work, The Canterbury Tales,  was his rich and lively description of the penitents of his day, the virtue they sought and the Doomsday cults that sprung up around them. 

Disgusted by the Church and the nobles, Chaucer’s pilgrims embarked on a holy crusade to reach Canterbury Cathedral in southwest England. From every walk of life— Knight to Bishop to Miller to Cook— Chaucer described without condescension the lives of his fellow travellers as they sought meaning and holiness in a time of corruption and greed. 

“Purity in body and heart 

May please some--as for me, I make no boast. 

For, as you know, no master of a household 

Has all of his utensils made of gold; 

Some are wood, and yet they are of use.”

Chaucer, who is not bound by class, offers a free meal to the one who can tell the greatest tale as they wander along country roads to the holy shrine of martyr Thomas á Beckett. What follows is a documentary of people disgusted with the power structure and often embracing superstition or skepticism as their moral compass. Yet a people who still believe in life.

Chaucer doesn’t describe pink pussy hats or Handmaid’s Tale garb, but it’s certain that his fellow travellers’ zeal bore witness to their ancestors of almost eight centuries later. Instead of seeking wisdom from the clergy they were koo-koo for redemption via the bones of saints, like Beckett. 

While they eschewed the faith of the clergy they embraced the Al Gores of the day. Carbon credits? The devotees in Chaucer’s group were big fans for buying indulgences— forgiveness sold by the church for expected hard time in the afterlife. These were sold by Pardoners, the shifty commercial  wing of the Church, ie. PACs. Chaucer also mentions Summoners in his midst— those scolds whose mission is to turn in the heretics to authorities for excommunication or even execution. Can you say Rachel Maddow?

Chaucer’s poetry is full of grifters and false prophets exploiting a common folk ravaged by the Black Death and the oncoming Little Ice Age. The idea that the End of Days lay just ahead was never far from the rhetoric of such charlatans. Using imminent peril as their sales pitch they envision of new world order with themselves as the beneficiaries.

He also documents the exaggerated notions of chivalry and courtliness that echo today’s political correctness. Vainglorious knights aspired to noble actions that draw the attention of the chaste and pure. They see themselves as savage on battle against the unclean (alt right?), marching into battle with God on their side. And they will kill to prove their valour.

With the sanctity of the established church in disrepair, many in Chaucer’s day fell to lollardy, a pre-Protestant action group that questioned the authority of the Church. They were the Tea Party of the time. Other disaffected groups hived off into smaller movements, first living ascetic lives far from the mainstream. Then, like Gore, the climate prophet, acquiried great wealth and privilege from preaching damnation

But it is the rote observance of pilgrimage that commands the lives of Chaucer’s companions. The purging of sin through group actions (hello Women’s March, Earth Day) compels them to leave behind their mortal lives and seek redemption in pilgrimage. As they go they tell tales both romantic and ribald, cynical and searching. 

The great distinction is that, for all their victimization, they still believed in life. Today’s pilgrims, who have so much,  wallow in their acquired victimization and preach against the perpetuation of the species. Chaucer might well have enjoyed the irony.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the publisher of his website Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). He’s also a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, he is also a best-selling author whose new book Cap In Hand: How Salary Caps Are Killing Pro Sports And Why The Free Market Could Save Them brucedowbigginbooks.ca is now available.