Reformation Talk in the Prioress's Tale

Apologies, I seem to be spamming a bit today.

Anyway, on Tuesday, while we were discussing the Prioress's Tale, it was mentioned by Professor Wenthe that one of the possible motivations of the Prioress in telling her tale was to emphasize the importance of intent in prayer, rather then absolute perfect repetition. The boy didn't actually know what he was saying, he only knew it was for the Virgin Mary, and his Latin was most likely a little skewed. Something that didn't bother anyone in story, or the Prioress, but would have undoubtedly irked the more strict Catholic Priests.

I thought at the time, of the Prioress and her stance, "that's a bit Protestant-y." Which, okay, isn't a word, but legitemately the stance of the Prioress is a bit more liberal in thinking then the church at the time generally allowed. In particular, the idea of stict adherence to Church ceremony being ultimately less importance than spiritual intent is very similar to what one reformer within the Church, John Wyclif, was preaching about during Chaucer's time.

However, a majority of the readings I found while researching this topic seem to go out of their way to warn us away from being too free in applying any one religious label to Chaucer. We know for a fact hat he died a member of the church, and while reform was spoken of in his time, and certain associations he had would seem to link him to people like John Wyclif, there is no definitive proof that Chaucer was a Protestant-in-the-making.

Would I like to think he was? Of course. I also like to think, however, that he went out of the way to give us, through the pilgrims themselves and their stories, a wide array of individuals, many of them members of the church. There are alternately Monks who are evil and Monks who are pious, and arguing of religion and its potentially corruptible figures in the tales and outside of them.

Lawrence Besserman does a much better job then I possibly could dissecting the many possible readings into The Prioress's tale. If you're interested at all, I suggest you take a look at his article, Ideology, Antisemitism and Chaucer's "Prioress's Tale.

I can't begin to definitively state if the reformation language in the Prioress's Tale was purposeful, but I choose to believe so. If not necessarily because Chaucer himself adhered to such ideology, because he was aware of such talk and referenced it in an effort to display a truly varied collection of people and positions in life.

Thoughts?