Greed And Hypocrisy In Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales

No,no, that’s never been my policy”(p,152, lines 100-114)! The Pardoner looks down upon peasants and gluttony. To which he is being hypocritical because he is greedy with gaining money. The misuse of trust is greatly displayed on how the Pardoner practically takes the earnings of people who are being tricked into believing they are

“ My hands and tongue go so fast/ that it is a joy to see my busy activity./ All my preaching is about avarice/ and such cursed sins, in order to make them/ give freely of their pennies-namely, to me;/ for my intention is to win money/ not at all to cast out sins” (Chaucer 70-76). This quote displays how corrupt the pardoner is. He is taking money from people and not doing his actual job in helping them redeem themselves of their sins. Also the Pardoner is lying to the community about his preachings and giving them false allegations for their money. The word medieval connotes to the word corruption in this quote by saying how the Pardoner doesn’t really care about anything but himself and will do whatever to get money from the people.

The Pardoner not only violated his vow of poverty, but also completely abandoned his humanity by placing himself above everyone else as shown in the following lines: “I'll have my money, wool, and food, though it/Be from some page whose poverty is dire/Or from the poorest widow in the shire;/Although her kids be starving, I'll be fine,/For I will drink the liquor of the vine/And have a jolly wench in every tow” ("The Pardoner's Tale” 448-453). This excerpt is critical in understanding how Chaucer intended to report the corruption of the church. Even though, it was very common to see many of the clergy “[exploit] their positions” to live in luxury and leisure, nobody dared to expose this truth (Walker). Correspondingly, this corruption has remained as time progressed and is very common today. As an example, taken form public record documents, many current events represent the same level of greed and immorality.

In medieval times, the Church had become predominate in both the culture and domestic affairs of everyday people. The Church was in charge of governing laws, taxing people, and was a big participant in every form of social event from baptism to the funeral. Sadly, with power comes corruption, and the Church was not above this standard. Many churches began to abuse their power and took advantage of the ignorance of the common people. Chaucerâs Pardoner is the embodiment of a stereotypical church official who has become corrupt with power.

The indirect characterization of the Pardoner, in consideration of his objective stance towards his own wrongdoings, reveals him to be a man with conscious partial to his intents and basic motivation. The Pardoner explicitly states his reason for sermonizing as his “exclusive purpose is to win and not at all to castigate their sin” (p. 243). With brutal honesty and in meticulous fashion, the Pardoner embraces his love for profit and monetary gains in spite of his pious occupation. Though the actions and impressions of the Pardoner are both distasteful and lacking in morals, it is the same hypocritical disposition that highlights the depth and good of the character. While not righteous or honorable in any traditional sense, the Pardoner argues that he is appropriate to preach against his personal vice of greed due to his understanding of the sin and that in the process he is able to truly assist others in the relinquishment of their faults.

Pardoner admit over as much story that he knows the correct strategy of extorting cash starting with individuals by preaching against the avarice from claiming cash. His skill lies in singing at the offertory to extract greatest cash starting with the individuals. Greed is those root from claiming shrewdness. “I preach nothing except for gain”(Line 105, Pardoner). Through the whole Pardoner’s tale he displays his love towards money and his greediness.

In The Canterbury Tales, the Pardoner gives his tale of “some moral thing” to the other pilgrims accompanying him on this holy journey to Canterbury (Chaucer, “Introduction” 324). Through this web of lies, deceit, and mockery, we can see his guide to emptying his pockets of pardons and filling them with people’s hard earned money. Although full of moral corruption, his sermons bring in collections enough to fill his gluttonous gut while he travels from church to church. However, his tale fails to bring in so much as a penny as he tells of the sins of three youths. Once the Pardoner finishes pondering about a fitting tale of for his fellow pilgrims and telling them of his bulls and “patent with the bishop’s seal”, he reveals his tricks of the trade to staying successful in the work of the Lord (“Prologue” 336).

The Pardoner, and is role in Christianity is extremely corrupt. He represents the Catholic Church and how they had been governing England, Ireland, and the entire continent of Europe. By the fourteenth century, the church had become overwhelmingly wealthy, and used that wealth to build up their cathedrals. The main focus was no longer solely on the religion, but on outward appearance. The Pardoner represents this role well in The Canterbury Tales.

In the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer gives a critique on the corruption of the clergy men by incorporating greedy and incontinent clerical members on the journey to Canterbury. Chaucer shows the corruption of these men through examples of them breaking their vows to the Church and through their selfish acts. Among the members of Chaucer’s clergy, the Monk and the Friar exhibit characteristics of corruption, while the Pardoner, although not

Pardoners, for example, gave blessings to the people in exchange for donations to the church. Yet, the pardoner in Chaucer's tale pocketed donations and sold fake relics for large profit. " And in a bottle he had he some pig's bones./ But with these relics, when he came upon/ Some simple parson, then this pargon/

This is ironic as the pardoner tries to get the group to give him money after telling them how it was all a scam, “My holy pardon saves you from all this:/ If you will offer nobles, sterlings, rings,/ Soome brooches, spoons or other silver things,”(906-908). While he knows that they know his faulsities he deliberately ignores this in order to try and proceed with his con. Another layer of irony in this is that he promises pureness while he himself is not pure, “If you will give. You’ll be as clean and pure/

The pardoner's tales illustrates the sin of Greed with its characters and in its plot. The pardoner's tale was around the 14th century and chaucer develops a moral of the tale. With this in mind, Chaucer shows how the greed is used in the story, in its characters, and the significance of that sin during its time period. The pardoner’s tale incorporates “Greed is the root of all evil” in its story.

In Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, satire illustrates the collapse of the Catholic Church and the end of the Middle Ages. Ironically praised attributes include the Oxford Cleric's disinterest in his profession, the Pardoner's greed and manipulation, and the Monk's greed and interest in hunting game. These qualities highlight corruption within the Medieval church. Behavior, motivation, and appearance are crucial to Chaucer's satirical style, given that a person's moral stature reflects through their intellectual and physical appearance.

In the story, both the characters on the pilgrimage and the characters within the stories themselves display elements of church corruption. Out of all the characters on the journey, the Pardoner is the most obvious case of a corrupt member of the church. The prologue of the Pardoner illustrates his obsession with material wealth and the hypocrisy of his job. During this drunken state, he rants to the company that “Covetousness is both the root and stuff of all I preach” (p. 243) this oxymoronic phrase illustrates his corruption. Covetousness refers to one of the ten commandments; You shall not covet your neighbors

(Forni, 171-89). Through Chaucer’s nontraditional material in The Canterbury Tales, he brings his characters to life and he brings about the stereotypes of that time period. In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer begins with a general prologue