After the fall of the great Roman Empire a new age was born, the age of knights in shining armor and great kings in stone castles. However, it was also a chaotic time, war and plague were a disease for Europe. Countries fought for land, resources, and most importantly, God's attention. The world was young and so was the English language. Few writers wrote in English, the language of the common people, as French and Latin were the language of the powerful elite. Yet one writer dared to speak out against the feudal society he was born into. Geoffrey Chaucer spent much of his life in the service of the crown, both as a soldier and as a clerk. Yet through all these titles, Chaucer would forever be immortalized as Geoffrey Chaucer the writer and satirist. The true goal of any satire is to highlight the flaws of certain aspects of society, while at the same time inspiring reform of that same aspect in one way or another. In Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Chaucer satirizes the corruption of the Catholic Church and those associated with it. Chaucer saw that hypocrisy polluted the purity of the church and expressed his disillusionment through the use of satire. Without fear of misinformation Geoffrey Chaucer, the father of satire, dared to speak openly about the utter corruption of the medieval church. Medieval society was centered on the imperfect Catholic Church, where hypocrisy and corruption poisoned the purity of religion. When an individual spoke out against the church's way of doing things, the church simply retaliated. One such example is that of Joan of Arc, a French peasant turned soldier. The Church was outraged by his choices, carrying out acts reserved for men. Joan wore men's clothes and wore her hair short to avoid being the shitty man in a moment of great desperation. Due to the greatness of his actions, satirically highlighting the corruption in the Catholic church, Chaucer earned a reputation as one of the greatest writers in the English language. Fearless of the Church's retaliation, Chaucer continued to educate his audience, the English-speaking commoners of medieval Europe, of whom the Church had long taken advantage, becoming one of England's greatest and earliest satirists and the father of English satire . Works Cited Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales in Modern Verse. “The Prologue”. Hackett Publishing Company, INC. United States of America, 2005.Chaucer, Geoffrey. “The Canterbury Tales: The Prologue.” Our literary heritage. Ed. Desmond Pacey. 4th ed. Montreal, Que.: McGraw-Hill Ryerson ltd., 1982. Shaw, Bernard. Saint Joan. Penguin Books, London 1952.