Table of Contents
The Summoner: Physical and Moral Disease
Chaucer saves his most brutal, unmitigated satire for the lowest administrators of the Church's legal and financial systems. We first meet the Summoner. His job was to serve legal summons to people accused of spiritual crimes (like adultery or heresy) to appear before the Church courts.
Chaucer uses intense physiognomy (matching physical appearance to inner morals) to describe him. He has a fiery-red, disease-ridden face covered in huge pimples and boils that no medicine can cure. His face is so terrifying that children run away from him. He loves eating stinking garlic and onions and drinking strong red wine until he is completely drunk.
When intoxicated, he tries to sound educated by shouting a few memorized Latin phrases, specifically "Questio quid juris" (What is the point of the law?). In reality, he is utterly corrupt. He will excuse a man's sins for nothing more than a quart of wine, famously claiming that the "Purse is the archdeacon’s hell"—meaning the only real punishment in the Church is having to pay a bribe. He uses his position to learn the secrets of young women, ruthlessly exploiting and blackmailing them.
The Pardoner: Fraud and High-Pitched Hypocrisy
Riding side-by-side with the Summoner is his friend and peer in corruption, the Pardoner. While the Summoner brought you to court, the Pardoner sold you the official papal document (the pardon/indulgence) that forgave your sins for a price.
Chaucer describes the Pardoner with strange, unsettling physical details. He has hair "as yellow as wax," hanging down smoothly like flax in thin rat-tails. He has a high-pitched, glaring voice, and Chaucer strongly implies that he is sexually ambiguous or a eunuch ("I judge he was a gelding, or a mare").
The Pardoner is an absolute fraud. He travels with a trunk full of fake holy relics (like pig bones he claims are from saints) to trick poor peasants out of their money. He is a magnificent preacher, but every single sermon he preaches is designed solely to make people feel guilty so they will give him silver. His eventual tale in the collection famously exposes his own hypocrisy and avarice(Asked in Exam).
The Manciple: Outsmarting the Educated
Briefly shifting back to secular figures, Chaucer introduces the Manciple. A manciple was a purchasing agent or caterer. This specific Manciple serves a temple of over thirty brilliant, highly educated lawyers. His job is to go to the market and buy their food and provisions.
The brilliant irony of the Manciple is that he is entirely uneducated, yet he effortlessly embezzles money from thirty of the smartest legal minds in the country by arriving at the market early, getting the best deals, and cooking the books. Chaucer admires his street-smarts, noting: “Yet this Manciple outsmarted them all.”
Match the List Checkpoint
The Summoner
The diseased, terrifying church official who uses his legal power to blackmail and extort the lower classes.
Questio quid juris
The fake Latin phrase ("What is the point of the law?") shouted by the drunken Summoner to appear smart.
The Pardoner
The yellow-haired, high-pitched hypocrite who sells fake religious relics and indulgences for pure profit.
The Manciple
The uneducated purchasing agent who effortlessly embezzles money from thirty brilliant lawyers.
Active Recall: Check Your Mastery
- Q: The Summoner claims that the "Purse is the archdeacon’s hell." What does this cynical statement mean?
A: It means that the only actual punishment the Church enforces is financial (paying a bribe), not spiritual. - Q: What specific color and texture does Chaucer use to describe the Pardoner's hair?
A: "As yellow as wax," hanging down smoothly like flax. - Q: The Pardoner preaches incredibly moving sermons, but what is his sole motivation for delivering them?
A: Greed (avarice); he preaches entirely to trick people into giving him money. - Q: How does the uneducated Manciple manage to outsmart the highly educated lawyers he serves?
A: He buys provisions early when prices are low and falsifies the accounting books.
Frequently Asked Questions
What exactly was an "Indulgence" sold by the Pardoner?
In the medieval Catholic Church, an indulgence was an official document signed by the Pope that supposedly reduced the amount of time a soul had to spend in Purgatory being cleansed of its sins. Originally given for doing good deeds, by Chaucer's time, corrupt Pardoners were simply selling them for cash on the streets, turning salvation into a commodity.
Why did the Summoner look so terrifying?
Chaucer uses the Summoner's diseased, boil-covered, fiery-red face to symbolize his inner spiritual decay. He is literally rotting from the outside in. His love of stinking foods like garlic and onions further reinforces his repulsive, anti-social nature. He is the physical embodiment of the Church's corrupt legal system.
Why is it significant that the Pardoner might be a "gelding or a mare"?
By strongly implying that the Pardoner is a eunuch (gelding) or sexually ambiguous (a mare), Chaucer is attacking his masculinity and unnaturalness. In medieval thought, this physical "lack" mirrored a spiritual "lack." The Pardoner is an empty vessel—he has a loud, beautiful voice for preaching, but zero actual faith or morality inside.
Why does Chaucer admire the Manciple if he is a thief?
Chaucer doesn't admire the Manciple's morals, but he admires his sheer cleverness. The lawyers the Manciple serves are supposed to be the brightest, most educated men in England, yet they are completely blind to a simple, uneducated caterer stealing from them right under their noses. It is a satirical jab at the uselessness of "book learning" when matched against street-smart cunning.
