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Didactic Medieval Essay



Within many works of Medieval English literature, there are strong moral lessons, also known as didactic stories. In the Middle Ages, the church was a large part of government and had control of numerous things; literature was one of them. With the church having control over literature, the morals and stories were mostly based on God and religion. Ubi Sunt Qui ante Nos Fuerunt, Everyman, The General Prologue of The Canterbury Tales, and The Pardoners Tale are all stories with moral teachings.

Ubi Sunt Qui ante Nos Fuerunt is a didactic poem because it sends out the message to value life. The title of the story translated from Latin is: “Where are those who were before us?” The people here want to know what is the purpose of living if we are just going to die nonetheless. Knowing that there is a God, they find it better to worship him rather then wasting life away doing nothing important. Another question they might ask is: “How can the ones before us have so much, and in the blink of an eye, they are gone?” Alas, the moral of the poem is to go about living life for God, because he gave it to you, rather then make a mess of things. This poem really shows the doubt of the human mind, but also the intellect of it.

Everyman is a play written in the 16^th century. It is unknown that it was ever staged, or if it was only a reading material. Although the characters in Everyman are not very descriptive, it has influence in later drama archetypes in the Elizabethan era. In Everyman, God sends death to Everyman, who is not prepared for Death. Everyman does everything he can by begging and bribing death to give him more time or to take someone else. Throughout the play, Everyman discovers that all things in his life had abandon him in death except for his good deeds; beauty, strength, and discretion all denied help for him. God was reminding everyman of what is important in life and most of all, that God does not care what you look like, what you wear, how strong you are or anything physical, as well as that we will all be judged the same in then end.

The General Prologue of The Canterbury Tales is to display the setting of the religious pilgrimage to . The goal was to have each traveler tell two stories on the way there and the way back and whoever told the best story would win a free dinner at the losers’ expense. Unfortunately, the game was never finished. As hidden as it is, there is a moral in the prologue: All may not be as it seems. Upon the outside, many of the discussed characters appear to be good and pleasant, but behind the façade of lies, the truth of the people is sprawled out. The friar is a town drunk and womanizer, the nun does not fallow her rules, and the pardoner steals money from the church. To put into other words “all that glitters is not gold.”



The Pardoners Tale from Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, is very noted for its moral message: Greediness is the root of all evil. In The Pardoners Tale, Death did not wait at the tree to take the men; Instead he knew if he left the gold, the men would kill each other fighting over it. Greed took their lives and will take yours if you are not careful. This is a very appropriate story for a lesson because many people can be greedy and not realize it until it is too late and you have lost friends, family, or even your life.



Considering that Catholic Clerics were the intellectual center of Medieval society, the literature of the time was all based on Church. Unfortunately, they focused a lot on death. All of the stories above are about death or dying at some point. Ubi Sunt Qui ante Nos Fuerunt’s moral lesson is that in death, gold and treasures do not matter. This also coincides with the morality play: Everyman. In Everyman, it goes to explain how death comes to people when they least expect it, and that all except your good deeds will abandon you in the afterlife. Bearing in mind that many of these morals are still accepted in society today, perhaps it was a good thing that the church had so much control at the time, for if it had not, we may not have these pieces of literature or as strong of values…