Question

Read Chaucer’s Pardoner’s Prologue and Boccaccio's account of the Plague in Florence.

What methods does the Pardoner use to convince people to buy his indulgences?

Why might these methods have been effective?

From the Pardoner’s tale, what do you learn about saints’ relics?

Although the tale is satiric, it is filled with examples of abuses in the church of Chaucer’s day. What examples are described?

In Boccaccio's account, how did civil order break down during the Plague?

How does the narrator try to explain why the Plague happened?

What are some of the things people thought might save them from the plague?

Answer 1

• The Pardoner uses several literary techniques, such as rhetoric and allusions, to persuade and convince the people that buying penance is a necessity for them to be forgiven for their sins. He also uses these devices to instill a sense of guilt in the pilgrims, allowing them to come to the conclusion that they too, although possibly unaware of it, are also sinners who must repent.
• The first example of this comes at the start of the extract when the Pardoner draws parallels between gluttony and the Biblical story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. In using this rhetoric of complaint, the Pardoner is showing the punishment and resentment towards people who have participated in such sin.
• Adam and Eve are described as having committed “original”,sin through their disobedience and eating of the forbidden fruit. Alongside the theme of over-indulgence, to be obedient to one’s master was a large part of Medieval society which would have been frowned upon if disobeyed. The actual eating that Adam and Eve did of the fruit also ties in with the extract’s theme of gluttony. The Pardoner’s use of this allusion allows several connections to form between the pilgrims and the speech he gives to them.
• The Pardoner uses persuasive language to further emphasise the allusions he uses as a method of selling and creating a necessity for himself and his pardons. Adam and Eve are depicted as having created sin, but also for enabling the guilt and suffering associated with it.
• Due to the religious nature of his role, the connection to Jesus is important when looking at this extract. He uses the most important figure in the Church and the sacrifices made by him as a form of rhetoric to create an empathetic feeling in the pilgrims to which he preaches to. Much of his audience would have been uneducated, and therefore would not have read the Bible but would know the importance of these figures such as Jesus, due to the rise of importance of the Church in Medieval society.
• Therefore, by placing blame for their saviour’s death upon those who acted in gluttony, the Pardoner is exploiting his audience into self-realisation and guilt about their sins. These first lines of the extract highlight and entice the reasons for buying the relics the Pardoner speaks of at the end of his sermon. He contrasts the sacrificial death of Jesus to the “cause first of pure confusion!” in the Garden of Eden, which brings up the key argument of his Tale as a whole; greed and indulgence leads to death.
• Following this, the Pardoner continues his technique of rhetoric through a religious medium by stating that those who partake or indulge in gluttony are “enemys of Cristes croys, Of whiche the ende is deeth”
• The “deeth”, that follows sin in these lines, intimates the termination of a relationship with God and the Church, as gluttony is portrayed as being the reason Christ sacrificed himself. With this idea, the Pardoner Similarly, the Pardoner talks about those who commit sin and in a karmic sense they will soon die an actual death.
• This creates a connection to the story the Pardoner tells of the three Flemish boys, and how their greed led to their deaths. In the same sense, the Pardoner is predicting one’s death due to over-indulgence of food or drink. The affiliation made between the story he tells and these lines shows his assumption that as a sin, greed will eventually cause one to die due to poisoning, perhaps from food or an over-consumption of alcohol.
• Finally, death is related to the mind and the effects drunkenness has on intelligence.The Pardoner plays upon another Biblical source in this rant, referencing the disciple Samson who took a vow never to drink; “As though thou seydest ay “Sampsoun, Sampsoun!””. Here he makes a pun by deliberately spelling Samson wrong, he imitates the effects alcohol has on the mind, making it a mockery just as he has done through this misspelling of a name.
• The Pardoner’s life is based on deceiving people into parting with their money, which meant that he is also guilty of greed. Whilst preaching to these pilgrims about how deadly and serious these sins are, he, in fact, is committing all of them himself. The deception he acts upon to persuade people to buy his relics leads to his abuse of power and thus makes him guilty of over-indulgence.
• Due to time limit,remaining questions can be asked as another question,they will be answered,thankyou for your cooperation