Note 408 — Chapter IX · CHRISTENDOM IN THE MIDDLE AGES

In the fourteenth century, indeed, a remarkable new life is seen arising in England in the poetry and prose of Chaucer, from contact with the literature of Italy and France; but while Chaucer reflects the spontaneous medieval hostility to the self-seeking and fraudulent clergy, and writes of deity with quite medieval irreverence,408 he tells little of the Renaissance spirit of critical unbelief, save when he notes the proverbial irreligion of the physicians,409 or smiles significantly over the problem of the potency of clerical cursing and absolution,410 or shrugs his shoulders over the question of a future state.411 In such matters he is noticeably undevout; and though it is impossible to found on such passages a confident assertion that Chaucer had no belief in immortality, it is equally impossible in view of them to claim that he was a warm believer.