The function of a pardoner in Chaucer’s time was to collect money for charitable purposes and to be the pope’s special agent in dispensing or rewarding contributors with certain pardons as a remission for sins. He could visit churches, receive money in the pope’s name and dispense indulgences. The pardoner’s tale displayed how greed and avarice can only bring treachery and death, the money causes them to behave in ways that lead to their demise.
In the prologue, the pardoner admits that he is a fraud and is motivated by greed and avarice and many sins that he himself displays. He preaches that money is the root of all evil but sells relics to others which is supposed to bring them great fortune; he also states that many of his sermons are ...view middle of the document...
On the search they passed an old man who searched for youth again, he said “death won’t even take him” when he said this the three demanded to be lead to where death resided, the old man told them death was under the oak tree in the groove, when the approached the tree death wasn’t there, but eight bushels of gold.
All three friends automatically began to plot on ways to receive a larger amount if not all the money, the older two sent the youngest back to town for food and wine, while he was away they decided to kill him and slit the money two ways instead; unknowingly the younger one had a plan of his own and it was to kill the older two and keep all the money and be the richest man in town. He decides to buy poison to place in there wine bottle. When he returns they jump him and kill him and have a drink in celebration when this happens they too fall to the ground dead.
After the story the pardoner remembers that he has relics with him and decides he would attempt to trick the pilgrims even after he already told them they weren’t real. Asking the host first, this offended him. His love for money is the root of all evil because he would do almost anything to stay in the lifestyle that he has grown so used to, he also relies on the purchasers love of money, he gives the sermon on avarice because he is filled with it and the sermon fills his pockets with money.
Works Cited
• admin@e2bn.org, E2BN . "The pardoner’s tale." Myths and Legends. 2006. 19 Sep. 2012.
• Klassen, Charles. Nebo literature Pardoners Tale. 21 Sep. 2012.
• Lord, Mark. "Pardoners Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer." Mark Lord.info. 2012. 18 Sep. 2012. .
• The Norton Anthology of English. W. W. Norton,