Poverte ful ofte, whan a man is lowe,
Maketh his God and eek hymself to knowe.
– Geoffrey Chaucer
The Canterbury Tales, The Wife of Bath’s Tale. Are money and possessions a barrier to our being close to God? The hag argues that poverty very often, when a person is low, makes him know his God and also himself. She is after all echoing some of the Christian teachings in the bible, such as when Jesus said: "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."