Nottingham University puts Christianity trigger warning on Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales

A row has erupted involving the University of Nottingham as it has put a trigger warning on the iconic Canterbury Tales due to the “expressions of Christian faith” contained throughout the literature.

The Canterbury Tales is one of the most acclaimed works of medieval literature which tell the story of a religious pilgrimage to one of the most important cathedrals in Christianity.

The university has been accused of “demeaning education” for students about the religious nature of Chaucer’s stories with the suggestion that anyone studying the works would not need the references to Christianity pointed out to them.

The Daily Mail reported it obtained the details of the notice that was issued to students studying a module named Chaucer and His Contemporaries through the Freedom of Information laws. The notice specifically alerts them to violence, mental illness, and expressions of Christian faith in the works of Chaucer and other medieval writers including William Langland, John Gower, and Thomas Hoccleve.

Despite this, there is no reference to the anti-semitism or sexually explicit themes expressed throughout various parts of the tales, according to the publication.

The Canterbury Tales, written between 1387 and 1400, is a collection of stories about characters on a pilgrimage from London to the tomb of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral.

They include the promiscuous Wife of Bath, the drunken miller and the thieving reeve, who delight and shock each other with stories containing explicit references to rape, lust and even anti-Semitism.

Frank Furedi, emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Kent, said: “Warning students of Chaucer about Christian expressions of faith is weird. Since all characters in the stories are immersed in a Christian experience there is bound to be a lot of expressions of faith. The problem is not would-be student readers of Chaucer but virtue-signalling, ignorant academics.”

Historian Jeremy Black added: “Presumably, this Nottingham nonsense is a product of the need to validate courses in accordance with tick-box criteria. It is simultaneously sad, funny and a demeaning of education.”

A university spokesman told the Daily Mail, that Nottingham University “champions diversity”, adding: “Even those who are practising Christians will find aspects of the late-medieval worldview… alienating and strange.”

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