"The Summoner's Tale" is one of ''

The Canterbury Tales ''The Canterbury Tales'' ( enm, Tales of Caunterbury) is a collection of twenty-four stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. It is widely regarded as Chaucer's '' magnum opus ...

'' by

Geoffrey Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer (; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for '' The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He w ...

. The tale is a fierce counterpunch to the preceding tale by The Friar, who had delivered an attack on summoners. Summoners were officials in

ecclesiastical court An ecclesiastical court, also called court Christian or court spiritual, is any of certain courts having jurisdiction mainly in spiritual or religious matters. In the Middle Ages, these courts had much wider powers in many areas of Europe than be ...

s who delivered a summons to people who had been brought up on various charges; the office was prone to corruption, since summoners were infamous for threatening to bring people up on charges unless they were bought off. The Friar had accused them of corruption and taking bribes and the Summoner seeks to address the Friar through his own story.

Sources

There are in fact several tales which the Summoner tells and all of them directed at

friar A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders founded in the twelfth or thirteenth century; the term distinguishes the mendicants' itinerant apostolic character, exercised broadly under the jurisdiction of a superior general, from the ...

s. The main tale of a grasping friar seems to contain many original elements composed by Chaucer but Jill Mann suggests that it is based on 'The Tale of the Priest's Bowels', a French thirteenth-century

fabliau A ''fabliau'' (; plural ''fabliaux'') is a comic, often anonymous tale written by jongleurs in northeast France between c. 1150 and 1400. They are generally characterized by sexual and scatological obscenity, and by a set of contrary attitudes ...

: 'A pious priest, when on his deathbed, was urged by two holy friars to revoke some of the charitable bequests he has already made, so that he may give something to their order. The priest promises to give them a precious jewel, which turns out to be a gaseous release from his bowels.' The bawdy story the Summoner tells in his

prologue A prologue or prolog (from Greek πρόλογος ''prólogos'', from πρό ''pró'', "before" and λόγος ''lógos'', "word") is an opening to a story that establishes the context and gives background details, often some earlier story that ...

seems to be an inversion of a story in

Caesarius of Heisterbach Caesarius of Heisterbach (ca. 1180 – ca. 1240), sometimes erroneously called, in English, Caesar of Heisterbach, was the prior of a Cistercian monastery, Heisterbach Abbey, which was located in the Siebengebirge, near the small town of Oberdollen ...

's ''Dialogus miraculorum''. In Caesarius's story, a monk ascends to heaven and finds his fellow

Cistercian The Cistercians, () officially the Order of Cistercians ( la, (Sacer) Ordo Cisterciensis, abbreviated as OCist or SOCist), are a Catholic religious order of monks and nuns that branched off from the Benedictines and follow the Rule of Saint B ...

s living under the cloak of the

Virgin Mary Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother of ...

. In the Summoner's version the friar descends into hell and not seeing any other friars believes they are all such goodly men, but the angel who accompanies him says to

Satan Satan,, ; grc, ὁ σατανᾶς or , ; ar, شيطانالخَنَّاس , also known as the Devil, and sometimes also called Lucifer in Christianity, is an entity in the Abrahamic religions that seduces humans into sin or falsehoo ...

: :Hold up thy tayl, thou Sathanas!' quod he; :'Shewe forth thyn ers, and lat the frere se :Where is the nest of freres in this place!' With that the ''freres'' (friars) fly out Satan's ''ers'' (arse), swarm about the room and disappear back up his ''ers''.

Plot summary

A friar went to preach in a marshy region of Yorkshire called Holderness. In his sermons he begged for donations for the church and afterward he begged for charity from the local residents. The Friar interrupts the story, calling the Summoner a liar, but is silenced by the Host. The friar in the story continued to beg house by house until he came to the house of Thomas, a local resident who normally indulged him, and found him ill. The friar spoke of the sermon he had given that day, commenting on the excellent way he had glossed the biblical text (and making the famous comment that "Glosynge is a glorious thyng") – and essentially ordered a meal from Thomas's wife. She told the friar that her child had died recently. The friar claimed that he had a revelation that her child had died and entered heaven. He claimed that his fellow friars had a similar vision, for they are more privy to God's messages than laymen, who live richly on earth, as opposed to spiritual riches. The friar claimed that, among the clergy, only friars remain impoverished and thus are closest to God; and told Thomas that his illness persists because he had given so little to the church. Thomas claimed that he had indeed given "ful many a pound" to various friars, but never fared the better for it. The friar, characteristically, is irritated that Thomas is not giving all of his money solely to him, and points out to him that a "ferthyng" (a farthing) is not worth anything if split into twelve. Continuing to lecture Thomas, the friar began a long sermon against anger ("ire"), telling the tale of an angry king who sentenced a knight to death, because, as he returned without his partner, the king automatically assumed that the knight had murdered him. When a third knight took the condemned knight to his death, they found the knight that he had supposedly murdered. When they returned to the king to have the sentence reversed, the king sentenced all three to death: the first because he had originally declared it so, the second because he was the cause of the first's death, and the third because he did not obey the king. Another ireful king, Cambises, was a drunk. When one of his knights claimed that drunkenness caused people to lose their co-ordination, Cambyses drew his bow and arrow and shot the knight's son to prove that he still had control of his reflexes. The friar then told of Cyrus, the Persian king who had the river Gyndes destroyed because one of his horses had drowned in it. At the close of this sermon, the friar asked Thomas for money to build the brothers'

cloister A cloister (from Latin ''claustrum'', "enclosure") is a covered walk, open gallery, or open arcade running along the walls of buildings and forming a quadrangle or garth. The attachment of a cloister to a cathedral or church, commonly against ...

. Thomas, annoyed by the friar's hypocrisy, told the friar that he had a gift for him that he was sitting on, but that he would only receive it if he promised to split it up equally between each of the friars. The friar readily agreed, and put his hand down behind Thomas' back, groping round – and Thomas let out a fart louder than a horse could make. The friar became immediately angry, and promised to repay Thomas for his fart, but, before he could, the servants of the house chased the friar out. The enraged friar found the lord of the village and told him of the embarrassment he suffered, angrily wondering how he was supposed to divide a fart into twelve. The lord's squire spoke up with a suggestion, in return for a "gowne-clooth" from his master: take a cartwheel, and tell each of twelve friars to lay his nose at the end of a spoke. Then the friar of the tale could sit in the centre of the wheel and fart, and each of the spokes would carry the smell along to the rim – and therefore, divide it up between each of the friars.

Analysis

The Summoner uses the tale to satirise friars in general, with their long sermonising and their tendency to live well despite vows of poverty. It reflects on the theme of

cleric Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the ter ...

al corruption, a common one within ''The Canterbury Tales'' and within the wider 14th-century world as seen by the

Lollard Lollardy, also known as Lollardism or the Lollard movement, was a proto-Protestant Christian religious movement that existed from the mid-14th century until the 16th-century English Reformation. It was initially led by John Wycliffe, a Catho ...

movement. The attitude of the lord implies that he is as unimpressed as any layman with the friars. Neither the Summoner's nor The Friar's Tale leave either of them looking particularly good. After the Friar's tale the Summoner does not use his own tale to defend summoners but rather he replies with his own attack. The short stories warning about ire within his main story are possibly a comment on the unheeded anger between both of them. He is described as being lecherous with his red face disfigured with boils and—like the Miller and the Cook—quite drunk. His shield is described as a

barley Barley (''Hordeum vulgare''), a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains, particularly in Eurasia as early as 10,000 years ago. Globally 70% of barley p ...

cake. Among his other attributes is

extortion Extortion is the practice of obtaining benefit through coercion. In most jurisdictions it is likely to constitute a criminal offence; the bulk of this article deals with such cases. Robbery is the simplest and most common form of extortion, ...

-dealing out false summons to court and either tricking foolish persons to bribe him with tavern feasts-or being beaten up by a potential victim; also theft-taking more than his share of court fines; and being a

pimp Procuring or pandering is the facilitation or provision of a prostitute or other sex worker in the arrangement of a sex act with a customer. A procurer, colloquially called a pimp (if male) or a madam (if female, though the term pimp has still ...

and then blackmailing victims. He also wears a garland of oak leaves; since such a garland proclaimed the wearer was a "King of Outlaws" (i.e.

William Wallace Sir William Wallace ( gd, Uilleam Uallas, ; Norman French: ; 23 August 1305) was a Scottish knight who became one of the main leaders during the First War of Scottish Independence. Along with Andrew Moray, Wallace defeated an English army ...

), Chaucer's readers would have recognised the Summoner as a corrupt clerical servant (as satirised in The Friar's Tale).

Film adaptations

Pasolini Pier Paolo Pasolini (; 5 March 1922 – 2 November 1975) was an Italian poet, filmmaker, writer and intellectual who also distinguished himself as a journalist, novelist, translator, playwright, visual artist and actor. He is considered one of ...

adapted the tale in his film ''

'' with

John Francis Lane John Francis Lane (1 December 1928 – 15 January 2018) was an English journalist, critic and actor. He was known for being a small-part actor in many Italian films, and as a contributor to ''The Guardian'' writing obituaries for Italian cultural ...

as the corrupt friar, Hugh McKenzie-Bailey as the dying Thomas,

Anita Sanders Anita Sanders (born 1942) is a retired Swedish actress and photomodel who was active in the Italian films of the 1960s and 1970s. Career Sanders began her film career with a minor role in '' La fuga'' in 1964, followed by a topless appearance in ...

as Thomas' wife (her scenes were later removed and are now lost) and Settimo Castagna as the Angel. Pasolini also adapts the scene from the Summoner's prologue where the Devil defecates corrupt friars from his anus.

References

External links

Read "The Summoner's Tale" with interlinear translationModern Translation of the ''Summoner's Tale'' and Other Resources at eChaucer
{{The Canterbury Tales Summoner's Tale