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The Canterbury Tales It may be difficult to imagine that people who lived in this world over six hundred years ago share very close similarities with modern day people. It is hard to believe that six hundred years from now lawyers and doctors will act the same, or share surprisingly similar characteristics. Time may change an abundance of things in our world, but people are people throughout the ages. Sure, some types of people change completely over the course of time. The characteristics of certain types of people may be warped after time has tampered with them, but there will always be types of people with character traits resilient enough to stand the test of time. These ideas may seem incredible, but they are very plausible. Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales in England towards the end of the fourteenth century. It is a satirical story of a group of pilgrims who are on their way to the shrine of St. Thomas Abbecket in Canterbury. The pilgrims, who are mostly subliminally mocked by Chaucer, consist of almost every member of the social class in England at the time. The class, which Chaucer seems to intentionally spare of his sarcasm, is the royalty of England. Chaucer probably did this to spare his own life. This piece of literature is so amazingly timeless that many of the characters depicted bare striking similar characteristics of their modern day counterparts. A few of these characters are The Sergeant of the Lawe, The Doctour of Phisik, and The Monk. Firstly, The Sergeant of The Lawe can be compared in many ways to a modern day Judge. According to Chaucer, his Sergeant of The Lawe was a wary, and wise man. He practiced law often, and was often appointed by royalty to give his jurisdiction. He was held in very high regards because of his superior knowledge and respected reputation.
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