The Pardoner as a Hypocrite

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The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer is a collection of tales about various lifestyles in England from the fourteenth century. Chaucer describes the different absolute aspects of societys social classes through the 4 tales that he wrote, along with the additional six added after his death. One of the most controversial tales in this novella is from the Pardoner, a person of high status from the Church who collects indulgences in return for penance. Even though the Pardoner is looked upon as an absolute religious figure, Chaucer shows his dislike for his practice through the tale. The tale develops the new ideas of pragmatic values. The Pardoners tale exhibits the irony and especially the hypocrisy of the Pardoner as a person. Geoffrey Chaucer reveals the hypocritical ways of the Pardoner through the Pardoners self description, his sample sermon, and the Pardoners tale itself.

The Pardoners prologue begins with the Pardoner explaining what he does for the Church. He openly admits that he steals from people by tricking them into buying false relics. He claims that he will take money from anyone and tells the pilgrims his strategy for getting people to purchase his fake relics. The Pardoner shows his "license first […] sealed by the bishop" (-10) and speaks "in Latin […] so as/ To spice [his] sermons" (16-17) as a way of making people believe that he is of great status within the Church. He goes on to tell the pilgrims about the "ignorant souls" (65) who believe his lies. The Pardoner admits that he lies to the people asking for penance, but cares not because of his greed. Furthermore, his slogan for all his sermons is "Radix malorum est cupiditas" (8) or "Avarice is the root of all evil." The Pardoners hypocrisy lies within his own words. Chaucer deliberately has the Pardoner knowingly tell the pilgrims about his unjust duties.

After describing his wrongful actions, the Pardoner begins his tale. Before his story, though, he gives a sample sermon to all the pilgrims. The sermon consists of all the wrong in gluttony, drinking, gambling, and swearing. The Pardoner preaches about these sins, yet he commits them himself. In fact, the Pardoner is drunk while telling his tale. Before his tale he says, "But at this tavern here/ […] Ill just go in and have some bread and ale" (4-5). Then, the Pardoner hypocritically claims, "Witness the Bible, if licentiousness/ Does not reside in wine and drunkenness!" (1-). The Pardoner consciously goes against all of his values by saying that reckless people indulge in the drink.

In addition to hypocritically preaching, the Pardoner adds the sermon to his tale almost as a subliminal message to the pilgrims. The Pardoner has his way with words and knows that he can convince almost anyone that they are in need of indulgences. He makes the sermon seem like an introduction to his tale, but he is merely preparing to make a deal.

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The tale that the Pardoner tells to the pilgrims concentrates on his slogan, "Radix malorum est cupiditas" (8). The story begins with three gamblers who seek Death because He killed their friend. Along the way, they meet an old man, perhaps Death, who says that Death is around the corner by a tree. When the men get to the tree, they see florins of gold. They decide to wait until night to carry away the gold, so one man goes to town for bread and wine while the other two sit with the gold. The one man greedily plotted against the other two, while the other two plotted against the traveling man. In the end, the two men killed one man and then drank to their own death. The moral of the story is that greed kills all and is also the moral that the Pardoner preaches.

However, his comments after his tale tie into his sermon before the tale. The Pardoner tells a tale condemning greed, and yet he then insults the Host and pilgrims by asking them to buy his relics. The Pardoner declares, "But in my tale, sirs, I forgot one thing./ The relics and the pardons that I bring/Here in my pouch, no man in the whole land/ Has finer, given me by the popes own hand" (45-8). The Pardoner, himself, is the meaning of greed. Only an extremely bold and selfish man would reveal his trickery and then ask the pilgrims to accept and even become victims of his wrongdoings by purchasing the pardons.

The Pardoner is a very hypocritical character in The Canterbury Tales. He preaches against greed and a variety of other issues, but he does not take his own advice. Perhaps Chaucer wanted to portray the Pardoner as one who does not think these types of sins apply to him. Clearly Chaucer looks down upon the Church and the indulgences that apparently repent sins. The secret behind the controversial papal indulgences was revealed, especially as pragmatic values took over the old absolute ways of the fourteenth century. The absolute, hypocritical Pardoner soon became an enemy rather than a savoir in England.

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