I couldn't help by draw a parallel between the events of "The Summoner's Tale" with the issues going on in the Catholic Church at the time. There had been conflict in the early 14th century regarding control of Northern Italy. The Holy Roman Emperor and Pope Boniface VIII were both trying to gain political control of the area. By this time, the Catholic Church had been guilty of things such as simony, and the pope was guilty of trying to gain power and riches for personal gain. Dante was quite familiar with this entire conflict, and it is a major theme of The Divine Comedy. Chaucer was, no doubt, familiar with all of the issues surrounding the corruption of the Church. "The Summoner's Tale" appears to touch on a few of those issues.
First, the friar's behavior could represent the corruption of the Church having filtered down from the leaders of the Church to the lower echelon. The Jubilee of 1300 was a pilgrimage meant for individuals to "buy" time off their stay in Purgatory. Money was pouring in faster than the priests could gather it together. The friar's taking of goods without providing his end of the bargain brought to mind the fact that some of these same issues surrounded the Jubilee.
The issues addressed in the conversation between the friar and the sick man all dealt with the idea that payment was made and services were not rendered, so to speak. So, the old man tricks the friar into thinking the friar will get some kind of payment. Instead, the fart that is to be distributed thirteen ways presents the friar with an unusual problem. Like Jonathan pointed out in class, the friar is unable to see the problem. Could it be the friar's problem is that the corruption has gone so deep that he has literally tricked himself into thinking that he got tricked? Or, is he simply over thinking the situation?
The solution proposed by the squire is, as we discussed, funny and still leaves the friar and his company empty handed. I see this as Chaucer's dig: if the friar gives nothing, then he will get nothing. They then have to divide nothing among the thirteen. Does this mean something more as far as commentary on the current affairs of the Church? Is Chaucer trying to say something larger: the Church is not doing its job as it should (it's too involved in temporal affairs), so the Church needs a taste of its own medicine?
I may be off base here, but I just couldn't get this out of my mind when reading the tale.
This information was very useful for helping me to understand why Chaucer may have written these details. I was trying to come to a conclusion to what the Canterbury Tales means to those during the Medieval Times and what Chaucer was trying to say to them.
ReplyDeleteI am more familiar with the political history of Italy in the late 13th to early 14th century, so this parallel stuck out to me. I try to look for the social commentary in just about everything I read, especially when it comes to writers who lived in such tumultuous times.
ReplyDeleteIt may very well be a comment on the division in popes, and one may even say that because the church was overly focused on worldly things and will inevitably have to make a troublesome and pointless division. While the friar’s are literally left empty handed, I think they do have to take their equal share of shame. I can think of few things more humbling. Maybe Chaucer is saying something about the ridicule due the church for its corruption should be equally divided among the opposing sides. Do you think this holds up under the consideration that Chaucer was English, whose king had a side in this conflict?
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