‘a slender, coleryk man’… ‘They were adrad of hym as of the deeth./ His wonyng was ful faire upoin an heeth.’ The Reeve is the general manager on his estate, responsible for the land and its crops, the stock animals, the working of the farm, and the accounting of its funds. He is crafty and sly, dominated by the humour of bile: an angry, choleric, frightening man! He wears a thin close-cropped beard, short cut hair, and he has long, thin calf-less legs. Despite his power and wealth, he seems pinched and sickly. He knows every detail of the functioning of his farm: he knows the exact contents of the granary and corn bin; no auditor can cheat him; as a matter of fact, no one on the farm dares to cheat him. He knows all the tricks of the trade (and is certain to have run into a fair number of cheating millers in his time.) He knows farming so well that simply from gauging the rain or drought, he can tell to the pound the yield of a particular piece of land. This reeve is taking advantage of a common legal loophole to reap in added gains. The owner of his farm is not yet of legal age and therefore cannot be sued for arrears of bills. The reeve is secretly taking advantage of this situation by racking up as much debt as possible on the farm and siphoning the proceeds to his own use. He gives and lends his lord’s property. His house on the farm is larger than the owner’s! He even has a fall back profession if he ever gets fired! He is a skilled carpenter. He wears his coat like a friar; his hair is cut like a friar, but this reeve clearly has dedicated his life to a different religion than Christianity. Why do you think he takes the ‘hyndereste’ place on the route?
Wel loved he garleek, oynons and
eke lekes,/ And for to drynken strong wyn, reed as blood/…/And whan that he
wel dronken hadde the wyn,/ Than wolde he speke no word but Latyne.” A summoner is a minor,
non-clerical officer of the archdeacon’s ecclesiastical court. There were
many different types of court in the middle ages. The king exercised his
power through a legal system which regulated business and criminal behavior,
but the church itself had a court which prosecuted moral crimes: violations of
the ten commandments. The church could not sentence a person to jail or force
him to pay a fine, but the church could excommunicate a sinner, and that
action would not only condemn the person to damnation, but it would also
force the community to ostracize the sinner. The summoner serves as the beadle
or policeman for this morals court. This position offers him ample
opportunity to practice extortion and exercise his depravity in the
community. He is not only morally
unattractive; he is physically repugnant: ‘ a fyr-reed cherubynnes face… with
scalled browes blake and piled berd’ On his cheek are ‘whelkes white’ and
‘knobbes’ which no ointment can heal. He loves to eat garlic, onions and
leeks, strong wine. The children of the neighborhood run from his fearful
visage. That’s all disgusting enough, but
why then is he described as possessing a ‘cherubynne’s face’? In our imagination a cherub is one of those
flying infants like Cupid who flutter about shooting arrows of love into the
hearts of the unsuspecting on Valentine’s Day. But if you look in the Bible,
the cherubim served a different purpose altogether: In Genesis when Adam and
Eve are driven from paradise, God places cherubim at the gate with flaming
swords to their prevent return and guard the path to the Tree of Life. In
Ezekiel, cherubim are described as mythological creatures with four wings and
four faces which emerge from the north wind to protect the path to Eden. In
Solomon’s Temple Cherubim protect the arc of the covenenant. They accompany
Jesus on the Day of Judgment.If you recall the climactic scene in Raiders of
the Lost Arc, these cherubim possess the power to render you unto dust quite
rapidly. What is Chaucer’s purpose? The
Summoner, as the beadle for the ecclesiastical court, represents the terrible power of God on the
Day of Judgment. It is he who will summon both the quick and the dead on that
day so that justice can be rendered. In perverting this fundamental aspect of
God’s justice, the summoner has brought a terrible sentence upon himself. He
is the living embodiment of the punishment that awaits us all if we do not
heed God’s laws. When he gets drunk, he screams in
Latin like he is mad! He knows a few legal terms from hanging about the
church court, and he will toss the language of decrees about terrifying the
people. To Chaucer’s superstitious contemporaries, words from the actual
decree of excommunication could carry the power of a magical spell, banishing
all in hearing to perdition. With such magic power at his disposal, the
Summoner can circumvent the archdeacon’s writ for a price, but woe be unto
them who are in his purse (ie. debt). The Summoner is just as liable to damn
them with a ‘Significat’: the order to expel an excommunicated sinner. Even
the youngest girls of the diocese are in danger around him because, like the
Firar, he has extorted from them their secret sins and uses this knowledge to
corrupt them all! Hell, he’ll even share one of his concubines with you for a
pitcher of blood red wine! The Summoner truly is damned: he
is a ‘gentil harlot’ willing to trade his concubines about in exchange for
wine. He knows how to ‘pulle a finche’: ie he knows how to hunt down young
prey in his amorous pursuits. Costume: On his head he wears a
huge red hat as big as the sign outside an alehouse. He carries a buckler
made of cake. This guy can control neither his eating nor his drinking. Why is he on this pilgrimage?
The Pardoner ‘His walet, biforn hym in his
lappe,/ Bretful of pardoun comen from Rome al hoot.’ The Summoner’s good buddy is his
traveling companion, the Pardoner. Together they are merrily singing “Come
hither love to me!” as they pass their way to Canterbury. A pardoner was a seller of
indulgences. The church actually sold writs which offered official absolution
of punishment for sins committed by those on earth or now in purgatory. In
return for this writ, the pardoner could impose penance in the form of
prayers, a pilgrimage, or more likely alms given directly to him.
Furthermore, this pardoner carries a pillowcase full of holy relics with him
which possess medicinal qualities: he has part of the veil of the Virgin
herself, a scrap of the sail from St. Peter’s fishing boat, even a glass full
of the bones of Jesus Christ himself (which look remarkably like pig’s
bones)! By Chaucer’s time these practicies, designed to raise funds for
church projects (like hospitals and other charities), had gotten completely
out of hand. The opportunites for graft and corruption in a credulous era
were limitless. Not only did the sick and the poor seek magic remedies for
ailments, but the wealthy figured that a good investment might reduce the
time they spent in Purgatory, the cosmic waiting house where the saved burn
away their sins before entering heaven.(Nice touch! You cannot purchase
salvation, but you can certainly reduce time spent in Purgatory with a
handsome gift to the church.) Church officials had discovered easy ways to
enrich the papacy and themselves. A hundred years after Chaucer, the
rebellion against these practices would split the Church forever during the
Reformation. This Pardoner works for the
Hospital of St Mary of Rouncivale, located in the village of Charing Cross
between London and Westminster. He
‘streight has comen fro the court of Rome’ or so he says in his sales pitch.
He possesses a strong bass voice, like a trumpet, which he uses to hawk his
wares and to deliver impromptu sermons. For ‘jolitee’, he wears his long
yellow hair without a hood, ‘Dischevelee’, a bold fashion choice for this
age! He has bold, staring eyes like a hare, his chin is smooth and beardless,
he speaks in a small goat’s voice, and he wears a copy of the veil of St.
Veronica on his hat. All these details suggest an effeminate appearance
despite his deep bass singing voice. A gelding? Even in the middle ages,
homosexuals were clearly among this party of English citizens enroute to
Canterbury! The narrator says that this
pardoner has no equal from Berwyck to Ware, or literally across the breadth
of England! He can make more money in a day than the parson will earn in a
month. In church he preaches beautifully
(even if he is not an ordained priest). He has a beautiful bass voice (even
if he dresses like a woman). He has a silver tongue! Even so, he might
represent the most damnable behavior among this whole company of sinners: he
trades upon the faith of the people in the mercy of God and his love for
humankind.
|