This essay examines how Geoffrey Chaucer uses the Friar's Tale and the Summoner's Tale in The Canterbury Tales as sharp satirical commentaries on the financial and moral corruption plaguing the medieval Church. Through close reading of two deeply hypocritical characters — a thieving Friar and an extortionate Summoner — the essay argues that Chaucer exposes systemic abuses including simony, bribery, and the fraudulent sale of masses. The analysis also considers the symbolic significance of the word "rent," the feudal duty of clerics to God, and the Franciscan vineyard parable, situating Chaucer's critique within the broader context of late medieval reform movements.
In The Canterbury Tales, the Friar's Tale and the Summoner's Tale are intended as satires about the corruption of the Church in the Middle Ages. They would have been considered comedic by contemporary audiences, but also as being quite close to the truth. Chaucer was very likely sympathetic with the early-Protestant Lollards and Reformers, and intended these tales as a humorous commentary on "the abuse that infected the medieval church" (Hallissy 138). Although the Friar and the Summoner both work for the Church, neither is even a remotely holy man, and their reasons for being on the pilgrimage are purely material rather than religious. Both characters are equally corrupt and venal, possessing no real spiritual values — only an urge to satisfy their appetite for money (Pearsall 166).
Chaucer does have a serious moral intent in these tales and is condemning "the financial abuses corrupting God's church, eating it away from within" (Hallissy 147). These abuses include the buying and selling of church offices, theft of funds intended for the poor, the sale of masses and indulgences for the souls of the dead, and the general extortion of taxes, rents, and donations from common people. All of these practices were well known in the Late Middle Ages and contributed to outright rebellions against church authorities by early reformers such as John Wycliffe in England and Jan Hus in Bohemia.
Franciscan friars took oaths of poverty, chastity, and obedience, vowing to live as mendicants by begging for donations and doing good works among the poor. Chaucer's Friar was "a preacher licensed to raise funds for his community within a specific geographical area," although in the General Prologue he is revealed to be a thief who keeps part of the money for himself (Hallissy 137). Moreover, he is a hypocrite for condemning the Summoner on the same grounds, since he has also broken his own oath.
In the medieval period, a Summoner worked for the ecclesiastical courts and served orders on persons accused of immoral acts — such as prostitution, sodomy, witchcraft, adultery, and fornication — requiring them to appear before church authorities. Chaucer's Summoner also forges these orders based on names he obtains from pimps and prostitutes, then collects bribes from his victims in return for destroying the papers. Both characters represent the reality that the Church had become a reliable career "for men without land and women without dowries," attracting too many people with material rather than spiritual motives (Hallissy 138).
Both Chaucer and the Friar damn the Summoner to hell in the strongest terms, although the Friar fails to realize that he is equally damned. A Bailiff wearing green is accompanying the pilgrims and makes a pact of friendship with the Summoner, who does not know that his new companion is really a demon. The Summoner enters a town to continue his theft and extortion — including preying upon a woman too old and ill even to appear before the ecclesiastical court — and the demon announces that he has condemned himself to hell.
This greatly pleases the Friar, who is as hypocritical as the Sadducees and Pharisees of the Bible. He even preaches one of his sermons warning that the Devil "may not tempt you beyond your might, for Christ will be your champion and knight" (Chaucer, III, D, 1659–1664). In return, the Summoner insults the Friar, saying that "friars and fiends are but little apart," and that at least 20,000 of them were residing in the Devil's anus in hell (Chaucer, III, D, 1674). Among his other duties, the Friar is supposed to return the money he collects to his brothers and to exhort Christians to charity, good works, and virtuous behavior, but in reality he does none of this. He sells trentals — promises to say thirty masses for the souls of the dead — and then erases their names from his list once he has collected payment. In fact, the Friar has accumulated so much money that he "needs a sturdy servant to help him carry it," yet his greed and avarice remain unlimited (Hallissy 148).
"Friar exploits sick Thomas; receives a fart"
"Symbolic analysis of rent and clerical obligation"
In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer depicts both the Friar and the Summoner in "the blackest spiritual colors possible," while also taking pleasure in the irony that they are both telling the truth about each other (Jeffrey 116).
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