Sacred Texts: Legends and Sagas

The Canterbury Tales and Other Works of Chaucer (Middle E...

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"The Friar's Tale" is a verse narrative from Geoffrey Chaucer's *The Canterbury Tales* (late 14th century), written in Middle English within the tradition of medieval exemplum — a morality tale designed to illustrate a religious or ethical lesson. The tale follows a corrupt summoner (a church court official) who exploits his position to extort money from people accused of moral offenses, running a network of informants and prostitutes to identify and shake down victims. While riding out to defraud an old widow, the summoner befriends a stranger who eventually reveals himself to be a devil traveling the earth in human form to collect souls — a revelation the summoner greets with cheerful indifference rather than horror. The two bond over their shared profession of extortion and ride together as "sworn brothers," with the summoner proudly confessing he has no conscience about his crimes. A key scene illustrates the tale's central theological point: a carter cursing his horses to the devil doesn't actually damn them because he doesn't mean it, whereas the widow the summoner next tries to extort genuinely curses him to hell — and the devil, bound by the sincerity of her words, takes him. The tale is a sharp clerical satire aimed at corrupt church officials, arguing that sincere moral curses carry real supernatural weight, and it gains bite from being told by a Friar — the Summoner's professional rival — mid-quarrel with the Summoner on the pilgrimage.

The Canterbury Tales and Other Works of Chaucer (Middle E...

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