The Pardoner and His Tale

The Pardoner and His Tale

The Pardoner is a renaissance figure that wanders the lands in hopes of bringing forgiveness to those in need. This Pardoner is a bad pardoner among the other pardoners. The tale that he tells is a moral one that is suppose to bring about the desire from people to ask for forgiveness. Instead the Pardoner uses this tale as a way of contracting money from his fellow pilgrims. The Pardoner is a person that is suppose to practice what he preaches. What that person does affects those that look up to that person. The Pardoner must be able to tell of tales that bring about hope. The way in which that might happen is through example. If the pardoner is unable to produce a tale that convinces the audience of his deeds then he is unsuccessful. Such an act will result in the failure of his job. The Pardoner here takes advantage of the innocence of the people that he preaches to. Such an action is not the action that a pardoner is supposed to be doing. Instead there are certain actions and purposes that the pardoner is preaching. Defying such principals destroys the office of the pardoner.

The Pardoner is a common renaissance figure that wandered the lands with attempts to collect money for church projects and absolve people of their sins.

Churchmen whose job it was to wander from place to place-soliciting contributions abounded in the Middle Ages. At their best, such medieval churchmen collected money for worthwhile projects such as the support of religious orders or the building of great cathedrals like the one at Canterbury to which the pilgrims journey (see photo 1). As identification, solicitors for funds would carry, as the Pardoner does, "bulls" and "patents" (VI, C, 336-...

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...the tale. There is one quote that can best sum up the Pardoner. "The Pardoner's hypocritical behavior is comparable to that of a corrupt evangelist today who, not even believing what he preaches, takes money from the poor to live in wealth (Hallissy, 216)." The Pardoner is a man out only for himself. Preaching a vice that he himself practices does not show example to others. The Pardoner is in a sense one of those bad apples in a bunch. A tale of morals by a man of unknown morals.

WORKS CITED

1. Cooper, Helen. Oxford guides to Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales. London: Oxford UP, 989

2. Cutris, Penelope. "The Pardoner's "Jape"" Geoffrey Chaucer's The Pardoner's Tale. Ed. By Bloom, Harold. New York: Chelsea House, 1988 Pages 23-42

3. Hallissy, Margaret. Companion to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Westport, Conn,:

Greenwood, 1995