Social Class in the Cantebury Tales

In the book Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, the concept and attitude towards love is presented in opposite ways between the Knights tale, and the miller's tale. In the knight's tale, love is presented as courtly love, but in the miller's tale, love is considered more about sex than true love. Due to the different views towards love, Chaucer believes that in medieval England, the upper class was more organized and reserved, while the lower class was slightly wilder and more confident compared to the upper class.

In the knight's tale, love is presented as courtly love. This term refers to a phenomenon of the late Middle Ages when women were accorded an almost religious status, and the act of seeking a woman's favor took on the flavor of a religious quest.
When the story seems to be centered on the women, they in fact don't do anything at all.
The love shared is not mutual. The point of courtly love stories was to express how that that women in these tales are a metaphor for a man's relationship with the divine.

For example, Arcite and Palamon, the two knights fall in love with Emelye from afar. Courtly love also may be idealized and spiritual. They seem to perceive Emelye's mere existence as an act of aggression upon themselves; as Arcite says, "You kill me with your eyes, my Emily." He expresses how much love he has for her, that she could kill them just by looking at him. Emelye though, in fact, has not seduced either of the brothers, and she doesn't even realize that the brothers are in love with her. The "Knight's Tale" reflects the courtly love tradition's idea of what the male's relationship to the female should be. The basis of courtly love showed women as objected that are to be loved, and as love is just a game, that in time, has to be won. One of the motifs that courtly love is encompassed in is the idea that love is a torment or a disease, and that when a man is in love he cannot sleep or eat. In the knight's case, both Palamon and Arcite are "prisoners and must endure it." Both Palamon and Arcite are locked in the prison of love and can't get out. They lack the confidence the lower class has. The upper class is shown to be nicer and more polite to women, and only admire them from afar.
In the miller's tale, Chaucer shows some very different attitudes towards love compared to the cour love in the knight's tale. In the tale, Absolon loves Allison, but unlike courtly love, he is scored by Allison and receives a disgusting kiss. Absalon, thinking that it is Alison, "puts up his mouth" but instead of being greeted by a mouth, he is greeted by her "naked arse". This line shows how inappropriate the lower class was thought to be. Also, in the miller's tale, instead of talking about how beautiful Allison is, the ladies are won through hands on action. When Nicholas first tried to approach Alison, he "made a grab and caught her by the quim." The two brothers in the knight's tale would never have the confidence or the audacity to physically attack Emelye. This shows that in the medieval ages, the lower classes were thought to be ruder and also to be more outgoing and blunt. The love in miller's tale is entirely based on sex, unlike the knight's tale which is based on entirely on courtly language. One example would be when Nicholas "stroked her loins a bit," he didn't try to win her over with words, but with a physical action. Most fabliaux expose stupidity and corruption. In the miller's tale, John is showed to be very stupid and ignorant of his wife cheating on him, and allows Nicholas to "trick the carpenter."
The view on love in the miller's tale is more of a lustful kind. Allison, John's wife was "so sweet, so lecherous." The big contrast to the knight's tale is how Emelye asked the gods to keep her a virgin. Her strong will in wanting to stay a virgin is the complete opposite of Allison in the miller's tale. Allison seems to want to be more promiscuous and doesn't like being faithful to her husband. In medieval England, the lower class as considered to be more promiscuous and far more outgoing than the upper class. For example, in the society, the knight would be considered fairly educated, while the miller would be near the bottom of the social status ladder. In the knight's tale, Chaucer uses better vocabulary and also length of the sentences is longer. Unlike the long speeches in the knight's tale, the miller's tale used bodily noises, like Absalon's knocking at the window, Alison's cry of "Tehee!" as she closes the window, and Nicholass call for help when he screamed "Water!". In the miller's tale, Chaucer uses simpler words and shows how uneducated he believes the lower class use to be.
In conclusion, Chaucer bases the each person's story off what he believed their social class was. The knight's tale was considered more honorable while the miller's tale was very crude and included sins. These different kinds of love stories show how that in medieval England, the social classes were fairly separate. The courtly love and the fabliaux are two very different kinds of love stories that entertained people back then. They not only showed the personalities of the knight and the miller, it also represented what each social class was like back in medieval England, how truly different how lecherous the low class was compared to the shy behavior of the upper class.