Pope Clement VI's "luxurious court and gorgeous retinue were those of a secular prince, not a prince of the church- (Kelly 220). Even literature of the period portrays the clergy as being over-wealthy. There are several examples in Chaucer's famed Canterbury Tales. Chaucer first describes a Prioress bedecked with beads, brooches and other trinkets who makes sure her little dogs are fed with "roasted flesh, or milk, or fine white bread' (151). Such refined things were not meant for nuns, let alone their pets. Next described is the Monk. The tale says his favorite pastime is hunting, whereas a monk should!.
spend his days in prayer and labor. His clothes are trimmed "With fine gray fur, the finest in the land, And on his hood /He had a wrought-gold cunningly fashioned pin- (Chaucer 198-200). The dress of the clergy was rarely allotted a soft fabric. To be using beads, gold and furs should have been unheard of. .
Another grievance that eventually became a driving force behind the Reformation, was the sale of indulgences. Priests are authorized to absolve a confessor from the guilt and punishment of sins in hell, but not from earthly penance. If all penances are not performed, the balance would have to be paid in purgatory, a kind of .
temporary hell. The indulgence began to replace prayer, pilgrimage and alms as penance to escape a short piece of their term in purgatory. .
Thomas Gascoigne complained that "sinners say nowadays: I care not how many evils I do in God's sight, for I can easily get plenary remission of all guilt and penalty by an absolution and indulgence granted me by the pope, whose written grant I have bought for four or six pence, or have won as a stake for a game of tennis [with the pardoner]' (Durant 23) .
The political issues of the clergy were seated in their lust for power and money and their variety of privileges. Th sale of church offices had a lot to do with the political corruption.
Family Robert Winch- a set of persons related to each other by blood, marrige, or adoption. Family constitutes a social system who's structure is specified by familial position and whos basic sociatal function is replacement. US Census- a family is a group of two or more persons related by bl...
