Chaucer's work, The Canterbury Tales, was written so that the general population could read it, which was an idea revolutionary in Chaucer's time. His depiction of the nobility and the Church could have largely influenced the peasants' willingness to pay taxes, which would have been supplemented by the sentiments that still persisted after the peasant revolt a few years earlier. Chaucer also uses the stories told through his characters to comment on the social climate and how England modeled itself after the so-called "great" societies of history. Much of the attitudes of the lower class are revealed through this novel and it is one of the only works that gives us an insight into peasant life during this era.