Message: the poet’s aim is to show that some members of the church are

actually making a lot of money from poor and simple people who can be
easily swindled. They are hypocritical people because they preach that it is
important to give and not to be greedy, instead they want to be paid for
their false relics and for the written indulgences.
2. Commentary: The Pardoner is one of the characters of The Canterbury
Tales. He is going with the other pilgrims to Canterbury to the shrine of
St.Thomas Becket. He is riding and he will tell his tale like the others. He
is a member of the clergy and his job is to sell indulgences and relics from
the saints.
He is a strange looking man with long yellow hair, and with no beard. The
narrator says that “ he was a gelding or a mare” so he describes him as
having an ambiguous sexual identity. His job is to swindle the poor people
who need some assurance from the church. He was the best pardoner from
Berwick to Ware. He makes more money than the parson and his behavior
is hypocritical.
He belongs to the upper church, in fact in the text the narrator says that he
has also been to Rome. He takes pride in preaching people with his sweet
words to give their offers and not to be greedy, but then he takes all their
money giving them fake relics.

Chaucer is describing the corruption of the church in his days. His

description is very real and accurate. He is an observer of mankind, a
storyteller, as well as a satirist, but his satire is not bitter, but quite
amusing.

3. Questions:

1. The Pardoner is supposed to be coming from Rome with his indulgences

still hot.

2. He is carrying some false relics: the veil from the Virgin Mary, a rag
from the sail of St. Peter’s boat and pig’s bones in a jar.

3. All the relics are fake.

4. He was a great clergyman and at the offertory he sang very sweetly. By
his good words he convinced the people to give him their money.

5. His job is to sell indulgences, that are documents, from the Vatican, that
could make dead people get out of Purgatory and go to Heaven. This was
obviously a fake and swindle (truffa) to make the church rich.

4. In this passage Chaucer’s satire is very strong against the church

because he describes the pardoner as one of the meanest persons you could
meet. He has an ambiguous character, he doesn’t even look like a man. He
is described with many beastlike qualities: his hair like a rat’s tail, his
voice lake a goat and his eyes like the ones of a hare. So his opinion on the
church is completely negative because it is a corrupted institution that only
wants the money of the faithful.

5. The Canterbury Tales is a narrative poem that makes us understand how

people were in the Middle Ages. Chaucer’s narrator is a guide to what
happened at that time. Sometimes he describes the people as if they are
there in the tavern with him. He makes a list of the most prominent
characters of his age and describes their virtues and their vices without any
pity. The language he uses is the language of his time, he is ironic and
sometimes moralistic. He attacks the power and hypocrisy of many of
them. Sometimes, the narrator seems to know everything about the
characters and in that case he is omniscient. He tells us more about the
character’s life and so he makes us understand life at that age. The
framework of the poem is the pilgrimage. Every pilgrim should tell two
tales, by these tales we see the world from the point of view of that person.
In this way Chaucer can describe all the heterogeneous society of medieval
England. The pilgrims are from the middle part of society, they are people
from the church and also tradesmen, while nobles and peasants are
excluded. The vivid descriptions of the characters made with irony shows
us the real way in which they were dressed and the way they spoke. So
Chaucer is the first one to write how medieval English people spoke and
thought.