Corruption In The Pardoner's Tale

“After coming into contact with a religious man I always feel I must wash my hands” Friedrich Nietzsche once stated. In the frame tale Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, the Pardoner, is a man among many pilgrims on a religious journey from London to Canterbury, in order to visit the Shrine of Saint Thomas Becket. A Pardoner is a person who offers indulgences, for people who repented of the sin they had committed, Although one might believe that the Pardoner is on the trip for religious reasons, as he sells indulgences, he is actually going on the pilgrimage for personal reasons, and this is for money. The prologue presents the Pardoner as corrupt and greedy qualities which make him one of the most amoral of the pilgrims.
The Pardoner is a greedy individual because he undermines his job in order for the accumulation of wealth. In the church a Pardoner is a clergy member who has the authority from the pope to grant indulgences to people who showed charity, however sometimes this was not the case. In the Pardoner's prologue the Pardoner speaks of his occupation and his the tale he is about to present. He states:

“ I have a text, it always is the same
And always has been, since I learnt the game,
Old as hill and fresher than grass,
Radix malorum est cupiditas….” (lines 5-9)
The Pardoner is saying that the tale he is going to tell the pilgrims is the same text he always tells since he learned about the actuality of selling indulgences, and that is the love of money is the root of all evils.

He uses the church and holy religious objects, like relics, as tools to profit personally. The Pardoner could simply live the actual life as a pardoner but chooses to indulge in the game of material prosperity.
Corrupt is another way to describe the Pardoner. His love for greed overrides the sense of morality a pardoner is supposed to have. In the Pardoner's prologue the he states:
“Out come the pence, and specially for myself,
My exclusive purpose is to

win
And not at all to castigate their sin
Once dead what matter how their souls may fare?
They can go blackberrying for all I care!...” (lines 18-22)
The Pardoner is saying that his only purpose is to win, not to reprimand people of their sins, and once people die there is no care of where they go after. He is devoted to the task of defrauding people of their money, even by making individuals believe they have sinned and that they need to buy pardons. Even though he is guilty of the same sign he preaches against, he is not guilty of lying about it, he wouldn't do anything different admitting that he likes the fine living that comes from his wrongful doings.

Throughout the prologue a lot can be concluded about the Pardoner. The most evil of the pilgrims, the Pardoner is a persuasive preacher, tricking the naive and poor into buying overpriced and fake relics for an afterlife in heaven. Geoffrey Chaucer's reminder that people are not always what they seem, even what can be deemed the most holiest can be the most treacherous