Author: OwenPitts

The author of the Pardoner’s Tale was Geoffrey Chaucer. According to Wikipedia, “Geoffrey Chaucer was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for The Canterbury Tales. He has been called the “father of English literature”, or, alternatively, the “father of English poetry”. He was the first writer to be buried in what has since come to be called Poets’ Corner, in Westminster Abbey.” He was born in 1340 London, United Kingdom, and died on October 25, 1400, London, United Kingdom. His greatest known work is a book called The Canterbury Tales. The Canterbury Tales contains twenty-four stories, one of which is the Pardoner’s Tale. The Pardoner’s Tale will be the story my essay is based off of today. These stories are all of the genre of poetry and were originally written in Middle English. These stories took from 1387 to 1400 to write, thirteen years.

The Pardoner’s Tale, according to Wikipedia, “is one of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. In the order of the Tales, it comes after The Physician’s Tale and before The Shipman’s Tale; it is prompted by the Host’s desire to hear something positive after the physician’s depressing tale.” This story is one of the twenty-four stories in the Canterbury Tales, a book written by Geoffrey Chaucer.

The story of the Pardoner’s Tale tells of three drunken revelers who try to seek out Death and destroy it after one of their friends died. During their quest to find Death they come across an old man. The old man tells the three men that Death can be found under a particular oak tree in a particular grove. The three men seek out this tree. Once they find the oak tree, they do not find Death under it, but rather gold florins (coins). Two of the friends plot to kill the other as to have more money fore themselves. After they do kill their friend, the other two become drunk on wine that the already dead friend had poisoned earlier, and as such, the remaining two died. Geoffrey Chaucer ends this story with florid rhetoric against the wickedness of blasphemy, gluttony, and gamboling.

This story clearly shows the Bible verse 1 Timothy 6:10, “For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” ‘The love of money is the root of all evil’ statement is clearly shown in the end of this story, by the friends killing each other over money. Obviously, the ‘love of money’ got to them and showed itself by the friends killing each other; I mean their friends for crying out loud! They would not kill each other unless something got to them, in this case, the love of money.

The old man in this story could possibly be Death knowing that as soon as they found the gold they would kill each other over it. Or, the old man could be an ally to Death, doing Death’s bidding by sending them to the tree to die. Either way, the old man was evil, and either an ally to Death, or Death himself.

The Decameron, according to Wikipedia, is “subtitled Prince Galehaut and sometimes nicknamed l’Umana commedia, is a collection of short stories by the 14th-century Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio. The book is structured as a frame story containing 100 tales told by a group of seven young women and three young men; they shelter in a secluded villa just outside Florence in order to escape the Black Death, which was afflicting the city.” This book was written in 1353. Is was a piece of Renaissance literature, and it was very popular at the time.

The plague in the title is the devastating Black Death, which ravaged Europe from 1347 to 1351. One-third of Europe’s population died from the plague. According to Wikipedia, “It is the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, causing the death of 75–200 million people, peaking in Europe from 1347 to 1351.”

Boccaccio’s book the Decameron goes like this: Boccaccio tells a story of seven noble ladies in a church. They are having a conversation. The oldest of them, a woman named Pampinea, declares that they should leave the city and find a place of solitude where they can live apart from the world. The other six agree. They find three men willing to go with them. Together, the ten of them, plus their servants, leave the city and try to find a suitable place to live. Two miles out of town, they find an abandoned castle, in fairly good condition. It is there that they decided to live. In order to entertain themselves, they each tell stories. It is these stories that are in the title.

Which do you think was more gripping to read from the Decameron? The account of the Black Death’s cause for so many deaths and destruction throughout Europe, or the stories that the ten people tell each other in order to keep themselves entertained. personally, I like the stories better. They really are entertaining, they have morals to them, and I like to read stories. One such story is quoted by a person named Pamfilo, one of the original ten. This is the story:

Pamfilo’s story tells of a merchant who hires a wicked person to bring back money that is rightfully the merchants, so the criminal sets out on his mission. While on his mission and was staying with two money lenders when he became deathly ill. One day, while he was sick, the criminal heard his hosts talking about what to do with him. They could not kick him out lest they be criticized, they could not bring in a priest to hear his confession because he probably would not confess, but they could not not bring in a priest because if word gets around that they let an evil person into their house they might still be criticized. So the criminal told them to bring him the most holy man they could find, and they did. The criminal told the holy man that he was also very holy. When the criminal died, the people made him a saint.

The main idea of this story is that sometimes good people have error in judgement and they make someone their advocate who is actually just evil. I just really like these stories.

Giovanni was an important Renaissance humanist, poet, Italian writer, and correspondent of Petrarch. According to Wikipedia, “Some scholars (including Vittore Branca) define him as the greatest European prose writer of his time, a versatile writer who amalgamated different literary trends and genres, making them converge in original works, thanks to a creative activity exercised under the banner of experimentalism.” He was born on June 16, 1313 in the city of Certaldo, Italy, and died on December 21, 1375 in the same city in which he was born. Among his works was a collection of short stories called The Decameron. The Decameron will be the story in the title “Why did Boccaccio have the first story teller invoke God?”

The Decameron, according to Wikipedia, is “subtitled Prince Galehaut and sometimes nicknamed l’Umana commedia, is a collection of short stories by the 14th-century Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio. The book is structured as a frame story containing 100 tales told by a group of seven young women and three young men; they shelter in a secluded villa just outside Florence in order to escape the Black Death, which was afflicting the city.” This book was written in 1353. Is was a piece of Renaissance literature, and it was very popular at the time.

The Black Death was a plague that ravaged Europe from 1347 to 1351. One-third of Europe’s population died from the plague. According to Wikipedia, “It is the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, causing the death of 75–200 million people, peaking in Europe from 1347 to 1351.”

Boccaccio tells a story of seven noble ladies in a church. They are having a conversation. The oldest of them, a woman named Pampinea, declares that they should leave the city and find a place of solitude where they can live apart from the world. The other six agree. They find three men willing to go with them. Together, the ten of them, plus their servants, leave the city and try to find a suitable place to live. Two miles out of town, they find an abandoned castle, in fairly good condition. It is there that they decided to live. In order to entertain themselves, they each tell stories. The first story teller, Pamfilo, is the one whose story I will be talking about.

Pamfilo says that God’s grace visited them because God is a good God and they were faithful to him. However, sometimes good people have error in judgement and they make someone their advocate who is actually just evil. Pamfilo’s story tells of a merchant who hires a wicked person to bring back money that is rightfully the merchants, so the criminal sets out on his mission. While on his mission and was staying with two money lenders when he became deathly ill. One day, while he was sick, the criminal heard his hosts talking about what to do with him. They could not kick him out lest they be criticized, they could not bring in a priest to hear his confession because he probably would not confess, but they could not not bring in a priest because if word gets around that they let an evil person into their house they might still be criticized. So the criminal told them to bring him the most holy man they could find, and they did. The criminal told the holy man that he was also very holy. When the criminal died, the people made him a saint.

The true message of Boccaccio’s stories was a rebellion against Christianity and a thought structure completely against the moral order enforced by God and Christian institutions.

The author of Little Flowers was, well, we are not sure who the author is, but many believe the author to be Father Ugolino da Santa Maria. Very little is known about this man. According to Wikipedia, “Most scholars are now agreed that Ugolino was the author of the Fioretti, or Little Flowers of St. Francis, in their original form. Ugolino was probably one of several collectors of traditions in the Marches. The Fioretti appears to have been written sometime between 1322 and 1328″ It is a florilegium separated into fifty-three small chapters. It was based on the life of St. Francis of Assisi. It was composed (according to google, composed means “having one’s feelings and expression under control; calm”) by the end of the fourteenth century.

According to Wikipedia, “Medieval literature is a broad subject, encompassing essentially all written works available in Europe and beyond during the Middle Ages. The literature of this time was composed of religious writings as well as secular works.” The Medieval Literature we will be talking about today is called The Song of Roland.

The Song of Roland is the oldest surviving major work of French Literature. According to Wikipedia, “The Song of Roland is an 11th-century chanson de geste based on the Frankish military leader Roland at the Battle of Roncevaux Pass in 778, during the reign of Charlemagne.” According to Cornell College, “Olivier: Roland’s best friend, comrade, and the brother of Aude. He is also referred to as Oliver.” This poem has been twisted from the real historical event of the Battle of Roncevaux Pass in 778 into a poem that was romanticized to fit what can be bluntly described as Christian propaganda. The real Battle of Roncevaux Pass was an invasion of Spain by the ruler Charlemagne to help one set of Muslims defeat another set of Muslims. In this battle he attacked a Basque Christian city. In this battle he retreated and his rearguard was ambushed and defeated by the Basques. Europeans liked listening to this poem, despite the fact that there were several changes and was not historically accurate.

Now, do these literary documents give guidance in their era as to how a typical Christian should live? Well, both of these documents demonstrate how people should act, and the two works contradict (according to google, contradict means to “deny the truth of (a statement) by asserting the opposite”) each other in the actions of their characters.

From what we see in The Song of Roland, one might to be inspired to act with courage and resilience, just as Roland did, however, he also showed a bit of pride and showed no mercy nor humility. So this might not be a good idea for Christians.

Little Flowers on the other hand, shows an exceeding amount of love, kindness, mercy, and obedience, but this document did not seem to be pointed at the common man, but rather at friars.

So, in conclusion, the answer to the overall question is yes and no. There are some characteristics that show how a Christian should live, but some of them like the pride and “showing no mercy” stuff is bad for you.

The main theme of Little Flowers is the fact that all friars had to undergo poverty to become holy, however, they would have to spend some time in purgatory to pay for their already forgiven sins. Someone in the story, Pacifico, had a vision of brother Umile rising up into heaven without going through purgatory. One day, while people were moving Umile’s bones, Pacifico washed them in wine and kissed them. The people moving the bones thought he was just being weird, until he told them of his vision. They immediately understood. However, if you went through purgatory before you went to heaven, what hope was there for a regular person to go to heaven without going through an indefinite time in purgatory? My guess is no, not at all.

The author of Little Flowers was, well, we are not sure who the author is, but many believe the author to be Father Ugolino da Santa Maria. Very little is known about this man. According to Wikipedia, “Most scholars are now agreed that Ugolino was the author of the Fioretti, or Little Flowers of St. Francis, in their original form. Ugolino was probably one of several collectors of traditions in the Marches. The Fioretti appears to have been written sometime between 1322 and 1328″ It is a florilegium separated into fifty-three small chapters. It was based on the life of St. Francis of Assisi. It was composed (according to google, composed means “having one’s feelings and expression under control; calm”) by the end of the fourteenth century.

The author of these stories made it extremely clear that if we want to be holy, the right thing to do would would be to live in total poverty (according to google, poverty means “the state of being extremely poor”). He thought that living in poverty practiced great humility. He also believed that not living in poverty mad a person grow attached to this world, therefore, the people not living in poverty would grow attached to this world instead of growing attached to God, therefore, those people are not going to receive the gift of eternal life. St. Francis of Assisi took this very seriously.

He also makes it extremely clear that he who sins will be tortured in Hell according to their sins. St. Francis of Assisi thought that to avoid these punishments you need to inflict harsh punishments on yourself. Whenever he sinned, he inflicted harsh punishments on himself. For example, he wore very little clothing or very uncomfortable clothing, and he spent a long time out in the freezing snow, and he did so much more self-punishments or whatever there called. And he did all of these things ON PURPOSE! He just took the whole self-punishment thing way too far. However, he seemed to forget one single concept about God. Do you know what it is? If you guessed that God is a loving and forgiving God, then you are absolutely correct! St. Francis of Assisi forgot that he did not need to inflict self-punishments on himself because God sent his his Son, Jesus, to pay for your sins. All you have to do, is to believe that Jesus is your Savior and the only way to Heaven and follow him. St. Francis of Assisi just forgot that one characteristic of God. If he knew this, then he wouldn’t have inflicted self-punishments on himself. Many people of his time thought he was a very powerful and influential person and they thought that he was right to do what he did with all of the poverty and self-punishment stuff. Because of this, many people started to do what St. Francis of Assisi did. The people did the poverty and self punishment stuff because St. Francis of Assisi did and the people thought that St. Francis of Assisi was right to do it which means that the people thought that they were right to do it.

Through all of this, St. Francis of Assisi did these things because he believed in Heaven and he really wanted to go there. If I were listening to the story of the Little Flowers in 1300, then I would have thought that what St. Francis of Assisi did and said was true.