Examples Of Social Status In The Knight's Tale

Social status in the medieval times was a way to represent someone's dignity. It introduced certain people into society where either you were part of the high class or low class. In Chaucer's lifetime, many people were seen "different" because it was all based upon social status. High ranked people were never seen with lower ranked people because there was a huge wall that separated both social statuses. There were two places, the cheap side and the royal side, that determined the lives of a low ranked person and a high ranked person. The knight in the Knight's Tale is a very good example in which we can view and understand how people are separated by who their ancestors were. In the Knight's Tale, William was a young squire that had the gift of jousting, but couldn't demonstrate his talent because he didn't come

Through Chaucer we can see that he was educated, but yet part of the lower class because he didn't have any clothes on his back. As a decision to become a knight, William through Chaucer, made him come up with a line of unknown ancestors to be able to participate in the tournament. Even though none of this was true, he was taking risks of becoming a knight and even changed his name to Sir Ulrich von Lichtenstein because William wasn't from a royal status. Throughout the places they traveled and the new things they saw , we are able to capture an image of how society was divided and formed through the lower and higher status. The lower status were beggars and lived in rundown places, like his father's house, it was a little house with no furniture or appliances and his little house had a leak in the ceiling. The high status were well dressed and lived in houses that contained many appliances and didn't have leak holes, they knew that they were above the lower