of his trade, the best and the worst of his kind—and the emphasis falls heavily, of course, on “the worst.”
Precisely what form did the Rouncesval indulgences take? In the late fourteenth century there was a significant change of practice, whereby certain indulgences—instead of being issued on the basis of papal (or episcopal) grants directly associated with the church or hospital in question—fell within the purview of authorized confraternities which offered collective indulgences to their members, along with the right to choose their own confessors.7 Chaucer’s Pardoner might therefore be distributing confraternity letters, with the associated papally granted privileges (including indulgences), rather than collecting specifically on the basis of the indulgences hitherto granted to Rouncesval itself (although these were subsumed in the privileges). This seems eminently plausible, although in my view it is impossible to limit the Pardoner’s stock-in-trade to one particular type of pardon, given the all-inclusive nature of this representative figure.8 All of this directly bears on one particular crux in the Pardoner’s Tale, the passage where Chaucer’s character promises to “entre” the names of those who donate alms “in my rolle anon” (VI(C) 911). This could be a tally of the people who have donated alms,9 and hence been issued with individual indulgences by the Pardoner. Alternatively, the Pardoner could be recording their names for fraternity membership, one of the benefits of which was participation in such an organization’s collective indulgence. I think the latter is the more likely explanation.
Parallels may be found in other English writings. The Pardoner described at Piers Plowman, B Prol. 68–75, seems to be peddling fraternity membership; each client is tapped on the head with his “brevet” (bull) as a sign that he or she has been admitted. Even more explicitly, his equivalent in Heywood’s Pardoner and the Frere lists the benefits of membership of the “fraternitie” for which he works (467, cf. 487), which include substantial burial rights—a well-arrayed “herse” surrounded by “torches and tapers” burning brightly, with bells solemnly ringing “and prestes and clerkes devoutly syngynge” (469–75). A parody “roll” is read aloud by the pardoner-figure in the anonymous “ship of fools” poem entitled Cocke Lorrelles Boat (printed by Wynkyn de Worde, perhaps in 1510).10
The pardoner sayd I wyll rede my roll
And ye shal here the names poll by poll
Theref of ye nede not fere.
Here is fyrst Cocke Lorell the knyght
And symkyn emery mayntenauce agayne ryght
With slyngethryfte fleshemonger. . .
A list of stereotypes familiar from estates satire follows. Cocke Lorrell then demands that the pardoner should tell him
What profyte is to take thy pardon.
Shewe vs what mede is to come
To be in this fraternyte.
“This pardon is new founde,” comes the answer, established beside London Bridge in the stews, where men offer “manye a franke” to certain “relygyous women” who are “kynde and lyberall”! The text proceeds to parody the burial rights which fraternities commonly offered. When “ony brother” dies, dogs shall carry him to church, and the corpse shall be covered with a pall made of old blue stockings, recently come from Rome.
Such a broad reductio ad absurdum is, of course, some distance away from the tone and tenor of the Pardoner’s Prologue and Tale, but its humor may encourage a more skeptical approach to the status of Chaucer’s character qua pardoner. Thus far, we have been giving this figure the benefit of the doubt. It may now be admitted that at least some of his credentials are questionable (or, rather, the credentials of at least one of the types of pardoner he is embodying are questionable). There is historical evidence aplenty to indicate that certain “false pardoners” simply pretended to have been licensed by the pope or his officials for their own unscrupulous purposes, in order to extort money for themselves. Hence the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 sought to forbid certain quaestores who, “misrepresenting themselves (se alios mentiendo), preach certain abuses,” from being admitted to advertise their indulgences “unless they exhihit genuine letters either of the Apostolic See or of the diocesan bishop.”11 Given that Chaucer’s Pardoner has his “lige lordes seel” to display, he might be deemed innocent of that accusation.12 Against that, however, is the fact that during the 1380s warrants were issued to arrest persons mendaciously claiming to be collecting alms for the Rouncesval Hospital.13 Chaucer makes no definite pronouncement on this matter, but the dubious elements in the Pardoner’s portrait certainly add up and are utterly consistent: supposed to be working for the hospital particularly associated with abuses of the system of selling pardons; possessing a suspiciously large number of documents (are some, or indeed all, fakes?) and patently unauthentic relics; of strange—apparently feminoid—appearance14 and unscrupulous character; claiming powers which far exceed his authority and terms of reference; exploiting his position (whether real or assumed) for personal profit. All in all, a character who is either guilty, or with good reason suspected, of a wide and quite appalling range of moral shortcomings.
It is utterly clear, I believe, that his activities betray and bring into disrepute his supposed profession as quaestor, fundraiser for charitable causes. Given the bad press which indulgences have received, particularly from scholars with Protestant leanings (whose legacy has lingered long in Chaucer criticism),15 the claim that pardoning had any merit to be devalued in the first place may seem a surprising one to make. But it is high time, I believe, that we recuperated the idealism which marks the foundational theology of indulgences, its affirmation of divine love and expression of religious communality and mutuality. St. Bonaventure is an eloquent witness among many others who saw in indulgences an endorsement of the recommendation of Galatians 5:2 to “bear one another’s burdens.” Taking these “burdens” as spiritual burdens, Bonaventure suggests that, if a heavy penance is imposed on someone, it is quite possible for someone else to “bear it for him in part or in whole.”16 A comparison is offered with what happens in nature. In the case of the animal body, one member may expose itself to mitigate the hurt which threatens another member, as when the arm seeks to shield the head. Assuming “there is a connection and likeness between the mystical body and the natural body, it seems that one member can and should bear the burdens of the other.” A comparison with human conduct is also offered. A creditor does not care who pays what he is owed, whether the debtor himself or someone else; indeed, “he accepts payment for the same from either.” Likewise God, being at once “more indulgent and yet more eager to receive payment than a man of this world,” is content to have one person make satisfaction for another. Finally, Christ “was punished and by His punishment he made satisfaction”—not, of course, for His own sin, but for another’s. Thus, Christ rendered satisfaction for us all. Since “we are all one in Christ and are His members, we ought also to be imitators of Him.” Following His example, then, one individual can and should render satisfaction for another. For all these reasons, Bonaventure concludes, it is quite reasonable for a penalty to be commuted to another person, the debt of punishment thereby being paid. Here, then, is a humane—and quite moving, in my view—rationale for the dispensation of merit from the thesaurus mysticus, that vast repository of spiritual wealth which may be distributed in relation to the needs and capabilities of all its beneficiaries, whether they be rich or poor in material terms. This doctrine implicates a solidarity which is at once natural, human, and divine, an inclusiveness which derives from our shared membership of the savior’s mystical body.
Such lofty sentiments are quite lost on Chaucer’s Pardoner, who feels no bond with his victims:
I wol have moneie, wolle, chese, and whete,
Al were it yeven of the povereste page,
Or
