During the Middle Ages it was custom for many Christians to go on pilgrimages to perform what they believed was God's work. Canterbury was one of many sites that the pilgrim would go to. Geoffrey Chaucer centers his book The Canterbury Tales around the pilgrims on their way to thank St. Thomas of Canterbury for his help in keeping them alive. The pilgrims met at an inn and it is here that the Host proposes that each pilgrim should tell two tales on the pilgrimage to Canterbury and then two on the way back. "Each pilgrim represents a certain part of medieval society." (Mack 1895) The pilgrims sit at the top of their social standings; they are either exceptionally good or very corrupt. The prologue provides the reader with detail descriptions of the pilgrims, and it is here that a medieval audience would compare and contrast the characters with social stereotypes already know at the time. It is in The Canterbury Tales that a reader can best understand the social, religious, and economic and political views of the different social societies during the Middle Ages.

             "Medieval society was traditionally and authoritatively represented as a body organized into three estates: those who worked to sustain the basic life practices of the community, those who were said to defend, and those who prayed." (Aers 233) Chaucer combines all three of these positions into a common place and provides them with the same goal: Canterbury. Class distinctions are apparent and help to demonstrate much of the jealousy and discord that arose between the pilgrims of different classes. "In the Middle Ages, each person was classified according to his or her place on the social scale depending on birth or profession. People believed that this setup was established by god and therefore was never changed. (Barrons) It is through the tales told by the Knight, the Wife of Bath, and the Pardoner that a reader can develop a strong understanding of the more important class distinctions of the time.