THE PARDONER

A Pardoner was a trafficker in papal pardons or indulgences. In the early Church a penitent as a condition of receiving absolution would have to fast (i.e. abstain from meat), or do other penance, for so many days, according to the gravity of his sin. Later on, a payment of money to an approved charitable purpose was accepted as an equivalent for so many days' penance, and a certificate of such payment was called a pardon or indulgence. The indulgence was a remission of ecclesiastical penance, not a remission of sins, but its true character was easily obscured, and a theory of a 'treasury' of superabounding merits of the Virgin and saints 'promulgated by Pope Clement V. in 1350' introduced new confusion. In order to raise money for building or repairing a church or other good object, men were sent all over Europe offering indulgences to all who contributed a certain sum. Moreover these authorized alms-gatherers were outrivalled by irregular ones, who, having obtained, or forged, a license from a Pope or Bishop, exhibited relics, to the veneration of which, so they pretended, special indulgences had been attached in the case of those offering money for the privilege. Popes, Bishops, and Kings all tried at various times to suppress these irregular Pardoners, but the traffic in both authorized and unauthorized indulgences went on till the Reformation. An indulgence to those contributing to the war against the Turks was the earliest dated printed document (1454). One in 1517, issued by Leo X., to raise funds for the completion of S. Peter's at Rome, provoked Luther's revolt.

"The Ellesmere Manuscript shows the long yellow hair, spread in parted locks upon the Pardoner's shoulders, his surcoat of scarlet trimmed with white, and his scarlet cap with the vernicle in front. His stockings are blue. In his hand he carries the cross of laton, a kind of brass or mixed metal, coloured at the points, yellow, red, and blue. The white lambskin wallet, bearing such precious relics, rests on the horse's back, and is carefully guarded by strings, which the Pardoner has hung round his neck." (Saunders, op. cit.).

670. Of Rouncivale. The following quotation from an article "On Pardons and Indulgences in England," by Mr. Christopher Wordsworth (Guardian, 23rd October, 1901) is too good to be abridged, but Chaucer students are only concerned with the first sentence: "Chaucer's Pardoner was of 'Rouncival'—i.e. the hospital of St. Mary, Rounceval, in Charing, on what was afterwards (1614) the site of Northumberland House, where the prior of Rouncevall (de Roscida Valle) in Navarre, and diocese of Pampelon, had property granted by the Earl of Pembroke. Suppressed as an alien priory by King Henry V., it was restored for a fraternity in I475.  In 1226 Archbishop Gray issued an indulgence for Roncevaux, and in 1391 Bishop Arundell of Ely gave one for Rouncevall Hospital (fo. 177), and in 1393 another for 'Hospitale de Rouncevall, Pampilion diocese,' and for constructing a branch of it at Charingcross (Reg. fo. 181; cf. Dugd. Monast. vi. 677). There was also a Runcival Hall in St. John's parish, Oxford, 'ruinated' before 1424 (Wood's City, I., 180)."

671. That streight was comen fro the court of Rome. This would be the Pardoner's own story, and may or may not have been true. John Heywood, who borrowed freely from Chaucer in the play The Pardoner and the Frere, which he wrote in the reign of Henry VIII., makes his Pardoner say in his opening address:

Notice that Rome is dissyllabic, rhyming with 'to me.'

672. Com hider, love, to me. The opening words or refrain of some popular song. Dr. Skeat writes "It is quoted again in 1. 763 of the poem called The Pearl in the form—'Come hyder to me, my lemman swete'"; but such invitations are too common in lyric verse for it to be safe to assume that the quotations are from the same poem.

673. a stif burdoun: a strong bass accompaniment, the 'burdoun' (O. Fr. bourdon) being the low undersong or accompaniment, which was sung while the leading voice sang a melody. The word is here already confused with 'burden,' with which it has etymologically no connection, the notion apparently being that the bass or undersong was 'heavier' than the air. From the accompaniment going on when the singer of the air pauses, 'burden' got its meaning of refrain or chorus. [Abridged from articles '‘Bourdon” and '‘Burden" in New Eng. Diet.]

677. his lokkes that he hadde: ‘that he hadde' suggests fewness.

682. Hym thoughte. ‘Thoughte' here is not from 'thenchen' (O.E. thencan, 'think'), but from 'thünchen' (O.E. thyncan, ‘seem'): it seemed to him, him seemed. This impersonal use survives in the phrase 'methinks.'

of the newe jet: of the latest fashion. [The New Eng. Dict, cites Robert Mannyng's Chronicle:

and Skelton's Magnificence:

685. A vernycle hadde he sowed upon his cappe. A 'vernicle' is "a diminutive of Veronike (Veronica), a copy in miniature of the picture of Christ, which is supposed to have been miraculously impressed upon a handkerchief preserved in the Church of St. Peter at Rome" (Tyrwhitt). [A full account of S. Veronica, with an illustration from a picture by Memline is given in Mrs. Arthur Bell's The Saints in Christian Art (Vo1. I., pp. 163-168). Mrs. Bell writes: "As the fainting Saviour toiled along the Via Dolorosa on his way to Calvary, a woman, touched with compassion for His sufferings, pushed her way through the Roman guards and offered Him the white veil she was wearing on her head with which to wipe His face. The Master accepted it, and as a recompense left the impress of His face upon the soft material, and it being folded in three it received three distinct reproductions of the Divine features. In course of time it passed into the custody of the Holy See, and was long kept in a beautiful arborium in a chapel dedicated to it at St. Peter's, for which, in the twelfth century, Pope Celestine had fine bronze gates cast. At intervals the ‘Holy Face,' as the impression came to be called, was exhibited to the people." Thus a miniature of the pictured veil came to be one of the customary tokens of having made a pilgrimage to Rome. Cp. Langland's Piers Plowman (B. v. S29-S3I):

Dr. Skeat writes in his note on this line: "The legend was invented to explain the name. First the name of Bernice, taken from the Acts, was assigned to the woman who was cured by Christ of an issue of blood. Next Bernice, otherwise Veronica, was (wrongly) explained as meaning vera icon {i.e. true likeness), which was assigned as the name of a handkerchief on which the features of Christ were miraculously impressed."}

691. fro Berwyk unto Ware. Ware is mentioned here in contrast to Berwick probably as the first town of any importance on the road from London to the north. [Hertfort had previously held this position, by virtue of its Bailiff keeping the keys of the Bridge across the Lee at Ware and so diverting the traffic. But in the reign of Henry III. Ware was freed from this tyranny and "by this means," Chauncy writes (Antiquities of Hertfortshire, Vo1. I. p. 203), "the great Road was turned from Hertfort through this town," which greatly throve in consequence.]
694. For in his male he hadde, etc. Lists of such mock relics are common with medieval satirists. In the excellent account of pardoners in Jusserand's English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages he quotes not only from Chaucer, but from Boccaccio, Heywood, and Rabelais. Among Heywood's relics are the jawbone of All Saints and the brain-pan of St. Michael.

695. lady, the old feminine genitive. Cp. St. Mary Cray, as contrasted with the neighbouring Foot's Cray, which shows that 'Mary' is a genitive.

699. ful of stones, closely studded with (more or less) precious stones.

701. whan that he fond A poure person dwellynge upon lond, etc. M. Jusserand (pp. cit.) translates from a Bull issued by Urban V., in 1369, against the pardoners employed by the Hospital of S. John of Jerusalem in England: "Very often, also, when they mean to hurt a rector, or his curate, they go to his church on some feast-day, especially at such time as the people are accustomed to come and make their offerings. They begin then to make their collections and continue until such an hour as it is not possible to celebrate mass conveniently that day. Thus they manage perversely to deprive these rectors and vicars of the offerings which accrue to them at such masses." Pardoners and friars were alike hated by the parish priests. Heywood makes the parson summon a constable (Neighbour Pratt) to help him turn both his visitors out of church, an attempt in which they are only partly successful.

702. upon lond: we should now say ‘down in the country.'

703. Upon a day, on one day.

706. made the person and the peple his apes: fooled them. [A different turn is given to the phrase in the talk before the Prioress's Tale: "The monk put in the mannes hood an ape," imitated by Spenser, Faery Queen, III. ix. 31: "Thus was the ape by their faire handling put into Malbeccoes cape." See New Eng. Dict.]

708. He was in chirche a noble ecclesiaste. Cp. the account the Pardoner gives of his procedure in the Prologue to his Tale (c 329 sqq.):

¹ Covetousness is the root of evils. The Pardoner's Tale, a version of the old story of Death and the three Rioters, is actually on this theme.

Though neither a priest nor a deacon, the Pardoner was probably a clerk in minor orders, and in church would wear a surplice and sit in the choir.

709. Wei koude he rede a lessoun or a storie. The 'lesson' would be, as now in the English Church, a reading from the Bible, the 'storie' or 'historia' the life of a saint from the Golden Legend or similar collection.

710. he song an offertorie. In the Mass according to the usage of the diocese of Salisbury (Sarum), which gradually spread over the greater part of England, an anthem called an offertory (offertorium) was sung during the collection of the offerings of the people. [There is a sarcastic allusion to this in the Homily against Peril of Idolatry, Part III.: "And while we offer (that we should not be weary or repent us of our cost), the music and minstrelsy goeth merrily all the offertory time."] Such ‘offertory sentences' are still sung in the Communion Service of the Church of England.

711. whan that song was songe, He moste preche. In the use of Sarum, as now in the English Communion Service, the sermon came between the creed and the offertory, but some variation was permitted on this point. Moreover, the Sarum use was adopted in London only in the fifteenth century. Where the sermon came in the old London use we do not know. It is clear that though the offertory was sung before the Pardoner's sermon, the offerings were made after it.

714. the murierly. Ten Brink speaks of -ly being occasionally added to the comparative of the adjective to make that of the adverb, and Professor Liddell speaks of 'a few' such forms being found. But neither scholar quotes any other instance. The unusual form has caused the Petworth group of manuscripts to read 'so merily.'

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These notes are reproduced verbatim from Alfred W. Pollard, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales: The Prologue, London: Macmillan, 1903. The book is in the public domain and available for viewing and download from Google Books. Although the book is old, the notes are enlightening and accurate. Nevertheless, users doing detailed research on aspects of the General Prologue should, if possible, also consult more recent notes in print publications such as The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Larry D. Benson, 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987.