By the end of the 14th century, the Catholic Church was the major influential power in Europe. As the influence of the clergy increased, the continent's wealth began to decline. In the midst of a century of poverty, plague, and unemployment, criticism of the church arose. People considered the clergy hypocritical because they preached against greed, but at the same time kept all the wealth for themselves. Cathedrals were built as shrines, embellished with gold and rich jewels; in the meantime the European peoples were slowly dying due to the scarcity of essential resources. Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales represents his criticisms, both overt and obscure, of the corrupt Catholic Church during the medieval period. Pilgrims such as the Prioress, the Monk, and the Friar all exemplify varying degrees of hypocrisy in Chaucer's assessment of the church, revealing the abundance of religious corruption in that era. Chaucer portrays his first and lowest degree of hypocrisy in the Prioress. A traditional prioress was a nun of lower rank than an abbess. They were the heads of a house of a certain order of nuns and lived under vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Either they dedicate their lives to the service of others, or they become ascetics and live in prayer in a monastery. Chaucer's prioress serves as a foil to the conventional prioress. Her priorities are far from those of a devout religious woman as she strives to embody courtly manners even though she is not part of the royal court. She “spoke delicately in French…French in the Parisian style she did not know” (l 122,124), took care to maintain impeccable table manners and demonstrated a “courteous grace” (l 137). also described as terribly sensitive and "all feeling and tender heart" (l 148): "She was so cha... in the middle of the paper... inhabitant, but only among the rich and the sellers of provisions. But wherever profit can accrue" (l 242-248) In addition to declaring himself more qualified than a priest to hear confessions, he also boasts of his skills as a beggar, from which he derives income for personal profit. The Friar is described as pleasant, joyful and charming: a satirical facade to help with his almsgiving. Chaucer effectively uses the Prioress, the Monk, and the Friar as mechanisms to represent his utter dismay at the greed of the medieval Catholic Church. Criticism led 14th-century men to question the rapacious power of the clergy, and continues to do so for modern society. Although the reader must come to a conjecture with the details provided, it is clear that Chaucer wanted to share his frustration with the unscrupulous government of his era..