English Classic?

I just completed the celebrated work of Geoffrey Chaucer – The Canterbury Tales. When I picked it up, I did not go through my usual routine of book buying. I did not bother to check it’s plot or anything in general. It was a Chaucer, and that was good enough for me. I was under the perception that a fourteenth century classic novel would provide me with some classic humour, apart from the knowledge of the prevalent English at the time. Boy, was I far from it!
The novel revolves around the tales told about some of the common characters found in the middle ages, including a reeves, miller and a pardoner. Except for a few, the tales are outrageously raunchy and crudely comic in nature. Don’t believe me? Go through The Miller’s Tale or The Merchant’s Tale.
If something of this sort was written today, it would have been cast aside as a cheap and dirty book, but since it is something from the ages beyond, people take pride in telling that they read Chaucer. I don’t understand the people of today in general, or am I the only one?