A Monk's Tale Research Paper

“A Monk’s Tale” was written during the time period of the late 1300s and the early 1400s. When it was written, it said a lot about the cultural values during that time period. The medieval world had begun and so did the spring of literature. The Monk’s tale is a collection of tragedies teaching to be aware of Fortune and how ever-changing it can be. Reading it says a lot about the way people during that time period. The late middle ages was a time of both crisis and recovery. In the 1300s, the Europeans had faced both black death and famine. The mass starvation had caused many deaths, especially for peasants. However, not only were peasants going through a crisis during that time, when the black death occurred, no one was safe. The rich were affected as much as the poor with the black death. Also, it wiped out forty percent of the English population, as well as sixty percent of the Northeastern France

Not only that, but literacy began to spread. Religion, literature, and law were all adding on to the spread of literacy. Then when printing was introduced in Britain in 1476, there was a boom in literacy. Books were owned by many people and not just the rich. Other genres of literature started as well, like poetry, for example. All the events that played out, even the crisis that had occurred, added to the developments that had happened.

“A Monk’s Tale” showed that they believed that during that time period, fortune played a huge role in their lives. No matter how rich or poor you are, or even good and bad, anything can happen, and there can be a serious twist of events. Many events happened during that time period, that people began to question whether or not if there’s a reason why these things happened to them. Like in “A Monk’s Tale”, even the heroes that had done good ended in tragedy. So, it didn’t matter what you did or how you lived, fortune has a way of doing its