Class Distinctions in Chaucer

Brewer, D. C. "Class Distinction in Chaucer," Speculum 43.2 (April, 1968): Web. 9 November 2015.

This article will be super helpful when it comes to writing my paper about how Chaucer portrays class in the Canterbury Tales... but it also shed a lot of light for me on different ways that class systems during medieval times can be viewed. I'd never thought of looking at class as a system of co-existence or as a functional system. I sometimes find myself thinking about it as a way of oppressing certain types of people, especially when it is used in certain literary settings. While this isn't necessarily happening in Canterbury Tales, I couldn't help thinking about class in that way for it as well, so this article was very helpful in making me think about class in literature in a different way. Here are the main points of the article:

-This article argues that the social structures in Chaucer's world are more complex than we often assume.
-1st seen in Canterbury Tales in General Prologue when he describes the pilgrims in terms of what degree of society they are a member of... He does this in other works as well
- Uses the example of The Knight's Tale and the Physician's Tale to make this point
-Makes the point that Chaucer doesn't think badly of people improving their social class over time
- Doesn't seem to take "degree" of class to seriously, and almost seems to satirize it
-Makes the point that Chaucer Pilgrim and Chaucer poet's actual audiences differ and that this should play a part in how we view Chaucer's opinions on class
-Argues that society can maintain several co-existing systems of class-distinctions that overlap but not coincide in the demands and aspects of human society that they offer
-Discusses the difference between being and not being a member of the noble class - the distinction is both legal and social, but Chaucer looks at it in a moral way
-There is also another way of looking at class that is theoretical --> the functional system which consists of the Knights, who defend society/maintain law and order; the Clergy, who defend men's souls and feed their minds; and the Ploughmen who provide food to maintain the bodies of men. This system of class division is not concerned with the status or wealth of individuals