Pardoner’s Prologue
The Pardoner is portrayed as a character with a smooth hairless face, blonde hair, and general physical appearance that makes it difficult to determine whether he is a man or a woman by just looking at him. The appearance even makes Chaucer doubt his sexuality and wonder whether he could be transgender. Notably, the Pardoner travels around the country selling what he refers to as the official church pardon, but could be mere pieces of paper bearing the bishop’s signature. He also sells relics such as bones, objects, and parts of clothing that belonged to dead saints. However, one imminent character of the Pardoner is greed for wealth/money because he sells fake items, and later informs pilgrims that he preaches to get money. Ironically, he encourages people to shun sins, yet he is also a sinner since he dupes congregants my making to purchase false relics. The Pardoner employs methods like lying that he has saints’ relics, condemning sins, and labelling greedy people as Christ enemies, and referring to important people in the history of Christians to convince them to purchase his indulgencies.
One method that the Pardoner uses to lure believers into buying what he is selling is claiming that the relics he is selling belonged to holy people such as saints. Since his preaching is convincing, people trust him as an honest man of God. In the society of these people, relics from saints are believed to have the power to perform miracles. Additionally, the community believes that such relics can rid them off their sins (Chaucer & Spearing, 2016). However, they do not realize that the Pardoner takes advantage of their faith to dupe them. For instance, Chaucer discovers that the bones that the Pardoner claims to belong to saints are pigs’ bones. Therefore, the Pardoner takes advantage of the followers’ naivety to extort them.
Additionally, the Pardon employs a method of condemning sins and repeating in all his sermons that greed is the source of all evils as seen in the quote ‘Radix malorum est cupiditas’ which means “the root of all evil is greed” (Chaucer, *Pardoner’s Prologue* paragraph 1*). Chiefly, he bases his teachings on sins and greed to instil a sense of fear and guilt to his audience, thus making them vulnerable for exploitation. For instance, he connects greed with the Biblical narrative of Adam and Eve and how they sinned against God while in the garden of Eden (Chaucer & Spearing, 2016). He explains to the pilgrims that Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit because of greed, and the results were God’s punishment and resentment. The persuasive language wins the pilgrims’ hearts and trust, and they desperately buy what he is selling, hoping for the forgiveness of sins. Therefore, the Pardoner manipulates the word of God to suit his aim of extorting believers.
Furthermore, the Pardoner manipulates people into purchasing his indulgences through a rhetorical method of terming those who engage in gluttony as the enemies of Christ, and claiming that their end is death. The death that he refers to is the end of their relationship with the church as punishment for greed. He further threatens the pilgrims that those who commit gluttony sin will shortly die a real death. He then links the story with that of the Flemish boys and explains how greed led to their death. He uses the allusion to predict the death of the pilgrims who will overindulge in drinks and food. Lastly, he alludes to Samson, who swore never to consume alcohol to show that drunkenness reduces one’s intelligence, which is a symbolic death.
The methods that he uses might have been effective due to the cunning use of key figures in Christianity. For example, he explains to the pilgrims how Jesus had sacrificed himself for the people but was tortured by gluttonous individuals. He uses such rhetoric to evoke empathetic feelings to his audience. Even though most of his audience is illiterate and unable to read the bible, they know the importance of figures like Jesus since the church had gradually become important in the medieval society (Chaucer & Spearing, 2016). Therefore, by blaming gluttonous individuals for the death of their saviour, he is manipulating them into guilt, and self-realization of their sins. Thus, the pilgrims are obliged to purchase the relics he speaks of at the end of his preaching.
The methods were also useful because most of Pardoner’s audience were illiterate people who could not read and understand the bible by themselves nor decipher his lies. For instance, the pardoner says “I stand up like a scholar in pulpit…And when the ignorant people all do sit, I preach, as you have heard me say before.” (Chaucer, *Pardoner’s Prologue* paragraph 5*) By terming the people as ignorant, he implies that they cannot know that he is deceiving them and to read scriptures. Notably, the Pardoner interpreted and manipulated the bible in favour of what he wanted to achieve bur the ignorant individuals would not decipher his motive. Furthermore, the Pardoner had successfully pricked their conscience, arousing in them a sense of guilt, which they desperately wanted to rid. Therefore, they readily accepted any solution he offered for their sins and guilt, including buying the relics that he sold.
The Pardoner’s tale has taught me that Christians consider saints’ relics as holy and able to perform miracles. I have also noted that such essential resources gave the person who possessed them status and outlook of spiritual authority (Chaucer & Spearing, 2016). However, I have noted that they are not easily found, but some scrupulous individuals claim to have them so that they can dupe unsuspecting believers. Furthermore, I have learned that gluttonous religious leaders can use such relics not to spread the gospel of Christ, but to solicit funds from believers as seen in the pardoner’s words “Think you that because I’m good at preaching…And win me gold and silver by my teaching.I’ll live of my free will in poverty? No, no, that’s never been my policy!… For I will preach and beg in sundry lands” (Chaucer, *Pardoner’s Prologue* paragraph 8*)
Some of the examples of abuses in the church include the selling of fake saints’ relics to the congregants as seen in the Pardoner’s words “And stir men to devotion, marvelling…Then show I forth my hollow crystal-stones,..Which are crammed full of rags, aye, and of bones;..Relics are these, as they think,..” (Chaucer, *Pardoner’s Prologue* paragraph 3*) Additionally, believers during Chaucer’s day were abused through being forced to donate funds, which The Pardoner pretended that they would be used in the church, but he misappropriated the money. Therefore, greedy spiritual leaders like the pardoner abuse followers by exploiting them economically and emotionally by giving them false hopes through fake relics.
Conclusion
Overall, the Pardoner is a selfish individual who only seeks to amass more wealth even if it is through treachery. Additionally, one of the methods that he uses makes people buy his indulgences include declaring doom to them since he considers them sinners. Furthermore, the church exploits congregants by manipulating words from the bible to pressurize them to donate their resources. Lastly, I feel that believers should strive to discern their preachers’ intentions so that they can avoid exploitation from the selfish and corrupt religious leaders.
References
Chaucer, G., & Spearing, A. C. (2016). The Pardoner’s prologue and tale (Selected tales from Chaucer). Cambridge University Press.