From his iconic introduction in the General Prologue to the brazen mountebank who declares himself a charlatan yet still attempts to peddle his quack medicines and false relics at the end of his tale, the Pardoner gives readers of ‘The Canterbury Tales’ a thoroughly detestable and corrupt character to grapple with. The Pardoner depicted by Geoffrey Chaucer (1342-1400) in his frame narrative, ‘The Canterbury Tales,’ reflects contemporary opinion of the church sanctioned profession of salvation salesman and is arguably the most contradictory and contentious of Chaucer’s pilgrims. Eventually plenary indulgences required purchasers neither to repent, nor to amend their lives in order to receive complete absolution from sin, causing pardoners to become scrutinized in life and satirized in popular literature. Pardoners were known to exaggerate the efficacy of their indulgences and claimed the authority to promise deliverance not just from purgatory, but from hell itself. Not surprisingly where salvation was available for purchase, the Christian doctrine of repentance and forgiveness inevitably grew corrupt. John, a north country student If you like this, you’ll like these too.A pardoner was an unordained medieval cleric who raised money for the church by the selling of papal indulgences which offered the purchaser redemption from their sins and reduced periods of purgatorial punishment. Show Off Simkin the miller (portrayed by The Miller) Harry Bailey, Host of The Tabard Inn, SouthwarkĪ yeoman, later revealed as a fiend of HellĪ tavern keeper (portrayed by Harry Bailey)Īlison, the carpenter’s beautiful young wife
#Tavern keeper pardoners tale pilgrim plus#
The six tales included are: The Nun’s Priest’s tale of Chanticleer and The Fox The Wife of Bath’s tale – enchantment, chivalric love, and the nature of faith and honour The Friar’s tale – a grim and chilling story of ill-deeds and grisly supernatural revenge The Pardoner’s tale – how three robbers, each trying to double-cross the others, all end up falling fatally foul of their own treachery The Miller’s tale – about a very old man, his very young wife and her admirers, and a case of mistaken identity involving a bare bottom and a red hot poker and The Reeve’s tale – the uproarious and farcical tale of Show-off Simkin, his buxom daughter, well-preserved wife, and the two lusty students whom he very ungraciously allows to stay in his house one night…Ĭast: Principals 7M 1F, plus an ensemble cast taking a further 30 or so cameo and extra roles. The whole play is framed within the context of the Pilgrims’ journey from Southwark to Canterbury, with linking and narration between each tale provided by Chaucer himself, and of course, prototypical genial host, Harry Bailey.
These stories convey the gritty reality of life in Medieval England, combining into one boisterous and hilarious portrait of ordinary folk preoccupied with petty jealousies, mundane squabbles, and simple pleasures – all conveying really how little the English people have changed during 600 intervening years. Six of the best, bawdiest, and most accessible of Chaucer’s famous tales are included in this dramatic adaptation, originally produced in the open air with an ensemble cast to a great critical reception. There’s nothing quite like The Canterbury Tales to put the present-day observer in touch with the ordinary lives of our medieval forbearers. (Based on the OUP translation from Middle English by David Wright) Six of the best, funniest, and bawdiest of Chaucer’s tales.
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