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Notes
1. Chapman elsewhere relates the Pardoner, Parson, and Summoner to the homiletic
tradition; see "Chaucer on Preachers and Preaching" (178-85).
2. Like Toole and Kellogg, Kenneth Oberembt remarks on the Wife of Bath's "inversion"
of misogynist sentiment; see "Chaucer's Anti-Misogynist Wife of Bath" (300).
3. Whether or not Chaucer possessed firsthand knowledge of Book IV of Augustine's
De doctrina Christiana remains unknown; certainly Chaucer derives his rhetorical
knowledge from various common sources and the homiletic craft of his time. See Baldwin (51-73
and 228-57); Manly (95-113); Murphy (43-88 and 269-355); Owst (309-54); and Payne (270-87).
4. Like Augustine, John Capgrave acknowledges the homiletic gift from the Holy Spirit.
In The Life of St. Norbert Capgrave, an Augustinian monk, describes Norbert's divine
homiletic inspiration: He seyde a sermoun, ful sad and ful deuoute. / Vnware to alle man
þat he schuld preche, / The holy goost, whech he bare aboute, / Stered him to þis
holy, þis deuoute speche. (218-21)
5. MiLT 3120, 3128, 3135, 3138, and 3145. If Chaucer wanted his audience to think that
the Pardoner is drunk, why does he neglect to make an explicit statement?
6. Among those things which eternally endure,page
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as the Apostle Paul suggests, are faith, hope, and love, and love is the greatest
virtue: "Nunc autem manent, fides, specs, caritas: tria haec, maior autem horum est caritas" (1
Cor. 13:13).
7. While Chaucer explicitly refuses to depreciate the Pardoner's sermon, John Wycliffe
outright challenges those preachers, like the Pardoner, who "jape" instead of teaching Jesus'
message. Wycliffe charges that many preachers mouth pleasing nonsense rather than teaching
God's holy word:
Freres in here prechinge fordon prechinge of Crist, and prechen lesyngus and japes plesynge
to þe peple. O! siþen Seynt Petur techus, þat if a man speke ou3t he shulde
schape him for to speke as he spake Goddis wordis, how much more schulde þeise
prechours hold þis rewle, and put away japes and lesynges in þer prechynges, and
speke wordes of Goddis lawe. (Selected English Works 3, 180)
Wycliffe also seems to echo Augustine; see De doctrina Christiana (4.30.63).
8. "Radix enim omnium malorum est cupiditas: quam quidam appetentes erraverunt a
fide,
et inseruerunt se doloribus multis" (1 Tim. 6:10).
9. Whereas the Pardoner consistently inverts Augustinian thought, Chaucer's Parson is
the
ideal Christian instructor. He is a preacher of "hooly thoght and werk": "He was also a lerned
man, a clerk, / That Cristes gospel trewely wolde he preche; /
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His parisshens devoutely wolde he teche" (GP 480-82). Unlike the Pardoner, the
Parson preaches the Gospel and labors to teach his congregation. Furthermore, in contrast to the
Pardoner, the Parson provides a virtuous model for his flock: "This noble ensample to his sheep
he yaf.... / Wel oghte a prest ensample for to yive, / By his clennesse, how that his sheep sholde
lyve" (GP 496-506).
10. In Piers Plowman Langland also describes the Pardoner, his methods, and
vices; but Langland attacks the pardoner's deceit, avarice, and voluptuousness: "There prechede a
pardoner as he a prest were / And brouth forth a bulle with bischopis selys, / Sayde
þat hymself myhte assoylen hem alle / Of falsnesses of fastynges, of vowes ybrokene. /
Lewed men leued hym wel and lykede his wordes / And comen and knelede to kyssen his bulles; /
A bounchede hem with his rageman rynges and broches. / Thus 3e guye 3oure gold glotons to
helpe / And leneth hit lorelles þat lecherye haunten" (Prol. 66-74). While Chaucer subtly
depict the Pardoner's degeneration through his inversion of Augustinian rhetoric, Langland raises
his poetic voice in anger against the pardoner's corruption.