Summoner. He says the Pardoner has a high voice like
a goat’s, no beard, and long, thin, fl axen-colored hair.
Of his sexuality the narrator muses, “I trowe he were a
geldyng or a mare” (l. 691). These are two quite differ-
ent beasts, of course: A gelding is a castrated male
horse and a mare is a female horse; the gelding would
suggest a eunuch, and the mare a male with female
characteristics. The issue of the Pardoner’s sexuality is
important for two reasons: First, his sexuality is con-
nected to the falseness of his relics; second, the Host
attacks the Pardoner with regard to his sexuality at the
close of the tale. The Pardoner is not what he seems; he
cannot deliver what he promises. Impotent himself, he
offers “relics” that would cheat expectations for salva-
tion from hell’s fi re. He seems to embody all that was
wrong with the late medieval church, including the
marketing of indulgences.
After his exemplary story of the riotours, the Pardoner
ends his sermon demonstration by saying, “And lo,
sires, thus I preche” (l. 915). This closes off his revela-
tion to the Canterbury pilgrims of how he usually
preaches back home at St. Mary Rouncivall, a hospital
at Charing Cross, London, that created a scandal when
it tried to raise money through selling indulgences. The
Pardoner has delivered a gripping sermon on the root
of evil, and he has integrated his subtopics of gluttony,
gambling, and swearing very effectively. But now he
invites the Canterbury pilgrims to purchase the relics
he has earlier exposed as fraudulent, calling upon Harry
Bailly, Host of the pilgrimage, to be the fi rst to offer up
his money and to kiss the sham relics. The Host takes
great offense at this invitation, shouting, among other
things, that he wishes he had the Pardoner’s testicles in
his hands so he could cut them off and enshrine them
“in a hogges toord” (l. 955). The Host’s implication is
that the Pardoner does not possess testicles to cut off;
the Pardoner’s response is fury (“wroth,” l. 957).
The Canterbury fellowship threatens to unravel
because of this verbal altercation. The Knight, socially
the highest-ranking pilgrim, steps in to restore order
and repair the fellowship, getting the Host and the Par-
doner to kiss and make up. So much in “The Pardon-
er’s Tale” speaks to the aims of pilgrimage: the true
Christian path (as opposed to the “croked wey”); fel-
lowship (as opposed to the false “brotherhood” of the
riotours); the spiritual goal of the journey to Canter-
bury (as opposed to the tavern and tavern sins of the
riotours); moral storytelling (as opposed to some of the
more “entertaining” stories told along the way); Chris-
tian charity (as opposed to the angry exchange between
Host and Pardoner). Ironically, the Knight, a good man
but a crusader and warrior, must step in to keep the
peace, thus testifying to the importance of secular fi g-
ures on the road to the cathedral at Canterbury.
Modern scholars, especially queer theorists, have
examined the Pardoner as a potential reclamation of
gay history. For instance, in the Prologue and Tale, the
female is excluded but parodied by men, creating a
homosocial society. In this way, Chaucer seemingly
admits a homosexual possibility. Others believe that
the Pardoner is written out of homophobia, citing the
overt heterosexist remarks, as well as the violence (e.g.,
the Host’s desire to cut off the Pardoner’s testicles) and
corruption (e.g., the Pardoner’s falseness) as evidence.
See also ALLEGORY.FURTHER READING
Cooper, Helen. The Canterbury Tales: Oxford Guides to Chau-
cer. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Faulkner, Dewey R., ed. Twentieth Century Interpretations of
the Pardoner’s Tale: A Collection of Critical Essays. Engle-
wood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1973.
Gray, Douglas, ed. The Oxford Companion to Chaucer.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Hamel, Mary. “The Pardoner’s Prologue and Tale.” In
Sources and Analogues of The Canterbury Tales, Vol. 1,
edited by Robert M. Correale and Mary Hamel, 267–319.
Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2003.
Mann, Jill. Chaucer and Medieval Estates Satire. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1973.
McAlpine, Monica E. “The Pardoner’s Homosexuality and
How It Matters.” PMLA 95, no. 1 (1980): 8–22.
Patterson, Lee. “Chaucerian Confession: Penitential Lit-
erature and the Pardoner.” Medievalia et Humanistica 7
(1976): 153–173.
Pearsall, Derek. The Canterbury Tales. London: Allen/Unwin,
1985.
James DeanPARLIAMENT OF FOWLS, THE GEOFFREY
CHAUCER (ca. 1380) The Parliament of Fowls is one of
GEOFFREY CHAUCER’s major DREAM VISIONs. Traditionally,PARLIAMENT OF FOWLS, THE 307