Commentary

In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer depicts the Pardoner as a cunning, amoral man as to correlates these greedy characteristics to the lay community in the Middle Ages.

One of the first lines spoken of the pardoner displays him to have "sang deep seconds to this song, No trumpet ever sounded half this strong," as he had just returned from the Court of Rome (Chaucer). Near the end this behavior is explained as he "knew that when that song was sung... [he] could win silver from the crowd; That's why he sang so merrily and loud," as the last lines to bring his character together (Chaucer). The Pardoner does not take part in mass for his own faith, rather when he leads in song he was able to earn money by it from the congregation. As these are the final words on his personality, one may infer this was a conscious decision made by the author in order to leave a final, bitter impression of this occupation. He convinces those who are of a low class with "his flatteries and prevarication" to buy the relics he is selling in order to earn a higher social class as owning holy objects could provide in the Middle Ages. The Pardoner does not conduct business truthfully or honestly and instead takes advantage of the lower class's own greed for status to make his own living. In this way, Chaucer not only mocks the Church's lack of authority to let those like the Pardoner do as they pleased, but the author more importantly illustrates the lay people of the time to also to have been just as dishonest and conceited rather than with faith as they attempt to portray themselves with.