Fallible Authors - Alastair Minnis The Middle Ages Series

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alms in his diocese) to be used in a way which deceives the people, Langland asserts. However, it is not “by the bisshop” that “the boy” preaches in a given church: that is a consequence of the (selfinterested) compliance of the parish priest (78–80). In similar vein, a stringent letter issued in 1356 by John de Grandisson, Bishop of Exeter, accuses church officials of being so “damnably blinded by greed of the money so collected” that they “not only permit, but even most wickedly assist, advise and protect” certain impious quaestores “both of the Hospitals of the Holy Spirit and St John but also of other privileged places” in going about their nefarious business.69

      Not all relationships between parish priests and pardoners were so amicable, however. A bull sent in 1369 by Urban V to William Wittlesey, Archbishop of Canterbury, against quaestores working in England for the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem,70 tells an extraordinary tale of turf wars and bitter faction-fighting, as such individuals promoted their services as preachers and fundraisers in a highly aggressive and, indeed, illegal manner.71 The common declaration that the pardoners under scrutiny must show their letters of authorization moves into an account of how, far from doing this, they have made counter-claims about their legal rights, and indeed have made life difficult for those who, in their view, fail to respect their privileges and hinder their collection of alms. One of their stratagems is to go to the church of a rector or vicar “on some feast day, especially when the people are accustomed to make their offerings” and read aloud a document relating to their fundraising activities or recite the names of the members of their brotherhood or fraternity: they do this for such a long time that “the mass for that day can no longer decorously be celebrated there. And thus they cause such rectors and vicars to be wickedly deprived of the offerings which come to them in masses of this type.”72 Those belligerent spoiling-tactics may serve to make it abundantly clear that although pardoners and parish priests often worked together, their very different professional functions should not be confused (cf. our earlier caveat against lumping together the activities of pardoners and friars), even though that was probably what happened in the minds of many parishioners—and no doubt the pardoners themselves often found it profitable to exploit such confusion.

      What, then, of Chaucer’s statement that the Pardoner “Wel koude . . . rede a lessoun or a storie” (I(A) 709)? The former term, as the Riverside Chaucer suggests, may refer to a reading from the Epistolary, the traditional collection of “Epistles” based on the Pauline Letters of the New Testament, but it had a wide range of possible meanings.73 The latter is even harder to interpret. “Storie” could loosely designate a moral narrative deriving from the Bible or indeed some other respected source (cf. the Pardoner’s use of the term “stories” at VI(C) 436 and 488); in this sense the Pardoner’s Tale itself is a “storie.”74 Therefore, at I(A) 709, could Chaucer be thinking merely of his character’s preaching activities? That is unlikely, given the coupling of “storie” with “lessoun” and indeed with “offertorie” (710), which seems to indicate that Chaucer has in mind features of church services which are distinct from preaching, which is mentioned last in this sequence (711–13).75 It is just possible that both “lessoun” and “storie” refer to the Epistle, the former term designating genre and the latter, content, for the Epistolary comprised materials relating to the history of the early Church. And it may be admitted that great store should not be set by a word so obviously selected for its rhyme with “offertorie,” a precise term quite crucial for Chaucer’s description of the point at which the Pardoner preaches. However, major questions concerning the Pardoner’s official role (or lack of it) are raised here, particularly in view of the suggestion that “storie” may designate the Gospel,76 and so we must pursue our inquiry a little farther.

      One did not have to be an ordained priest to “rede” either the Epistle or the Gospel during the Mass.77 It was the task of the subdeacon to read the Epistle and of the deacon to read the Gospel—and the latter privilege was quite jealously guarded.78 Now, the subdeaconate and deaconate were major orders, along with priesthood, which ruled out marriage.79 And yet—at III(D) 163–68 the Pardoner tells the Wife of Bath that he is seeking a wife. True, these lines have proved notoriously difficult to interpret (cf. pp. 151–52, 154 below), but no matter how jocular they are deemed to be, and whether or not the Pardoner is physically capable of marriage, it would seem strange indeed if he were to jest about entering a state which his official position had totally ruled out. The case for him being in major orders is, therefore, problematic at best—and if it be accepted that he is not, then his pulpit activities are at best inappropriate and at worst quite irregular and illegal, depending on the weighting one gives to the terms “lessoun” and “storie.” If the Pardoner is indeed presuming to read the Gospel during Mass—and I myself find that theory very weak—he is far out of line, since for that one had to be ordained at least to the level of deacon. The case that, in reading the “lessoun,” he is usurping the subdeacon’s privileges seems much stronger.80

      The Pardoner’s social and professional status is, I believe, best understood in the light of a document on which we already have drawn, Bishop John de Grandisson’s 1356 condemnation of both “impious quaestors” and the greedy officials who aid and abet them.81 Those pardoners are “neither friars nor clergy but often laymen or married men (laicos aut conjugatos),”82 yet they ply “their business in the office of preaching on solemn days within the solemnities of masses, an office which is not permitted to lesser deacons” (i.e., if subdeacons—who, as noted above, are in major orders—are barred from the predicandi officium, how much more should it be refused to such unauthorized pardoners?). Furthermore, “they indifferently absolve and free from usury and robbery without due satisfaction, even in cases reserved to the bishop or his superiors, and many times a poena et a culpa, to use their own words.” That is, I believe, Chaucer’s Pardoner to the life: a layman or at best a man in minor orders (with aspirations to becoming a married man, if we are to believe his own statement),83 a figure who has taken upon himself, with no legal warrant, the officium praedicatoris and certain other functions properly reserved for those in major orders, particularly the power to absolve which is reserved to priests alone. To add insult to injury, he dispenses absolution quite cavalierly, making inflated claims for what he is offering and failing to insist on the necessary satisfaction for sin.

      In sum, it would seem that there is nothing in Chaucer’s text to alleviate the charge that the Pardoner has usurped prestigious roles to which he has no right. As far as his preaching is concerned, it is very doubtful indeed if he has been officially “sent” in the manner intimated by Romans 10:15 (“How will they preach, unless they be sent?”). We have seen how Robert of Basevorn—quite typically—drew on this sententia when defining the criterion of authority, one of the “three things” which, he declares, “are necessary for the one exercising an act of preaching.” Chaucer’s Pardoner would unequivocally have failed to meet this criterion, though there is some room for debate concerning the specific quality and quantity of his failure, as I hope the above discussion has intimated. We may now proceed to consider how the Pardoner fares in relation to Robert’s two other criteria, “competent knowledge” and “purity of life.”

      Moving away from the question of whether the Pardoner should be acting the way he does to the question of whether he has the wherewithal to do so, it is apparent that, although by no means a highly educated man, he does possess sufficient knowledge for the job. Raymond Rigaud could not have faulted him on that score at least (cf. p. 38 above). True, the Pardoner himself says all that he preaches has been learned off by heart—“I kan al by rote that I telle”84—and it is all about one (opening) topic—that is, Radix malorum est Cupiditas (VI(C) 332–34). Yet his prologue and tale reveal a working knowledge of parts of the Bible, of exempla, of current theory of preaching and of the then-fashionable “thematic” sermon;85 he knows Avicenna, at least by name. Neither is his technical competence and skill in doubt. In the third part of his Cura pastoralis St. Gregory had advised the preacher to suit his style to his audience, a recommendation echoed and amplified in many late-medieval

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