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"The Friar's Tale" () is a story in ''
The Canterbury Tales ''The Canterbury Tales'' () is a collection of 24 stories written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. The book presents the tales, which are mostly written in verse, as part of a fictional storytelling contest held ...
'' 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 ...
, told by Huberd the
Friar A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders in the Catholic Church. There are also friars outside of the Catholic Church, such as within the Anglican Communion. The term, first used in the 12th or 13th century, distinguishes the mendi ...
. The story centers on a corrupt summoner and his interactions with the
Devil A devil is the mythical personification of evil as it is conceived in various cultures and religious traditions. It is seen as the objectification of a hostile and destructive force. Jeffrey Burton Russell states that the different conce ...
. It is preceded by The Wife of Bath's Tale and followed by The Summoner's Tale.


Plot summary

On the way to extort money from a widow, the Summoner encounters a
yeoman Yeoman is a noun originally referring either to one who owns and cultivates land or to the middle ranks of Serfdom, servants in an Peerage of England, English royal or noble household. The term was first documented in Kingdom of England, mid-1 ...
who is dressed in
Lincoln green Lincoln Green is a mainly residential area of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England around Lincoln Green Road, and is adjacent to and southwest of St James's University Hospital. It falls within the Burmantofts and Richmond Hill ward of the City o ...
, a costume worn by outlaws and poachers. The two men swear brotherhood to each other and exchange the secrets of their respective trades, the Summoner recounting his various sins in a boastful manner. The yeoman reveals that he is actually a
demon A demon is a malevolent supernatural entity. Historically, belief in demons, or stories about demons, occurs in folklore, mythology, religion, occultism, and literature; these beliefs are reflected in Media (communication), media including f ...
, to which the Summoner expresses minimal surprise—he enquires as to various aspects of
hell In religion and folklore, hell is a location or state in the afterlife in which souls are subjected to punishment after death. Religions with a linear divine history sometimes depict hells as eternal destinations, such as Christianity and I ...
and the forms that demons take. Each makes a vow with the other to take whatever is offered to them and share it between them. During their travels, they come upon a carter whose horses have become temporarily stuck. Frustrated, he says that the devil may take them. Hearing this, the Summoner asks the demon why he isn't holding him to his word and seizing the horses; he replies that the man does not truly mean what he says—that it is not his "entente" (
intent An intention is a mental state in which a person commits themselves to a course of action. Having the plan to visit the zoo tomorrow is an example of an intention. The action plan is the ''content'' of the intention while the commitment is the '' ...
)—and therefore he cannot take them. They proceed to the house of the widow. The Summoner claims he will do better than the demon and fabricates a
court summons A summons (also known in England and Wales as a claim form or plaint note, and in the Australian state of New South Wales as a court attendance notice (CAN)) is a legal document issued by a court (a ''judicial summons'') or by an administrative ag ...
in order that the widow will have to bribe him to dismiss the case. He also demands she give him a new pan in payment for an old debt, falsely claiming he paid a fine to get her off a charge of
adultery Adultery is extramarital sex that is considered objectionable on social, religious, moral, or legal grounds. Although the sexual activities that constitute adultery vary, as well as the social, religious, and legal consequences, the concept ...
. Incensed, the old woman damns the summoner to hell unless he repents of his false charges; the devil confirms her "entente"; as the Summoner does not have any inclination to repent, the demon takes his body and soul—as well as the frying pan—to hell.


Summoner vs. Friar

The tale is a satirical and somewhat bitter attack on the profession of summoner—an official in
ecclesiastical court In organized Christianity, an ecclesiastical court, also called court Christian or court spiritual, is any of certain non-adversarial courts conducted by church-approved officials having jurisdiction mainly in spiritual or religious matters. Histo ...
s who summons people to attend—and in particular The Summoner, one of the other people on the pilgrimage. Unlike the
Miller A miller is a person who operates a mill, a machine to grind a grain (for example corn or wheat) to make flour. Milling is among the oldest of human occupations. "Miller", "Milne" and other variants are common surnames, as are their equivalents ...
and the Reeve who tell tales that irritate the other and do not get on for that reason, the Friar and the Summoner seem to have a longstanding hatred between them. The Friar is of one of the
mendicant order Mendicant orders are primarily certain Catholic religious orders that have vowed for their male members a lifestyle of poverty, traveling, and living in urban areas for purposes of preaching, evangelization, and ministry, especially to less we ...
s which traveled about preaching and making their livings by begging. Part of the animosity between the two characters may be due to these orders of friars, which had been formed relatively recently, interfering with the work of the summoners. Once a friar had taken
confession A confession is a statement – made by a person or by a group of people – acknowledging some personal fact that the person (or the group) would ostensibly prefer to keep hidden. The term presumes that the speaker is providing information that ...
and given
absolution Absolution is a theological term for the forgiveness imparted by ordained Priest#Christianity, Christian priests and experienced by Penance#Christianity, Christian penitents. It is a universal feature of the historic churches of Christendom, alth ...
to someone they could not be charged in an ecclesiastical court with the same sin. The Friar's tale has no clear original source like many of Chaucer's tales but it is of a type which is common and always seems popular: "the corrupt official gets their comeuppance". The tale itself continues in the denigration of summoners with its vivid description of the work of a summoner. This includes bribery, corruption, extortion and a network of
pimp Procuring, pimping, 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" ...
s and wenches acting as informants making this important clerical office seem more like a 14th-century
protection racket A protection racket is a type of racket and a scheme of organized crime perpetrated by a potentially hazardous organized crime group that generally guarantees protection outside the sanction of the law to another entity or individual from vio ...
. The Friar then says that luckily friars are not under summoners' jurisdiction but the Summoner snaps back that neither are women in , meaning
brothel A brothel, strumpet house, bordello, bawdy house, ranch, house of ill repute, house of ill fame, or whorehouse is a place where people engage in Human sexual activity, sexual activity with prostitutes. For legal or cultural reasons, establis ...
s; which were licensed to operate by
archdeacon An archdeacon is a senior clergy position in the Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church, Syriac Orthodox Church, Anglican Communion, St Thomas Christians, Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodox churches and some other Christian denomina ...
s."Geoffrey Chaucer." ''British Writers Retrospective Supplement II''. Ed. Jay Parini. Charles Scribner's Sons, 2002, p. 33-50. Indeed the Friar in the Prologue seems to be more worldly than was acceptable: he would rather seduce women and hang out in taverns than minister to the poor and the sick or go out on a hunt rather than attend to spiritual duties in a monastery; for that matter he cares little about a poor widow who gives her last penny to him instead of feeding her starving child; Chaucer ironically remarks that the Friar is in the "business" of seeing unmarried women linked to men (see the comment about above). In other words, the Friar and the Summoner are hypocritical competitors in the same "rackets" (extortion and pimping) although the Friar is more "virtuous" as unlike the Summoner he does not engage in blackmailing.


Film adaptations

Pasolini adapted the Friar's story in his 1972 ''Canterbury Tales''. In the film the Devil is portrayed by Franco Citti, part of a recurring theme of Citti playing demonic and immoral characters in ''The Trilogy of Life'' (as Ser Ciappelletto in ''The Decameron'' and is an
ifrit Ifrit, also spelled as efreet, afrit, and afreet ( ), plural ), is a powerful type of demon in Islamic culture. The ''ʿafārīt'' are often associated with the underworld and identified with the spirits of the dead, and have been compared t ...
in ''Arabian Nights'').


References


External links


"The Friar's Tale" – a plain-English retelling for non-scholars.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Friars Tale, The The Canterbury Tales