Prioress’ and Friar’s Tales

Prioress’ and Friar’s Tales

The Prioress’ Tale takes place in a town where the Jews and Christians live very separately. When the Christians open a school, the seven year old son of a widow attends. He is a young boy, but is very devoted to his faith. One day, an older boy teaches him to sing “Alma redemptoris”, a prayer to the Virgin Mary. When the Jews hear the young boy singing his prayers on the way home from school one day, they hired a man to kidnap the boy and slit his throat. Then, they throw the boy in a cesspit. Meanwhile, the boy’s mother is looking for her son who never returned home. When no one will tell the widow where her son is, she hears in the distance her son singing the “Alma redemptoris” and runs to the pit where she finds him. The Jews are captured and tied up and sent to be executed. When the child was being prepared for burial, he began speaking and singing by the power of the Virgin Mary. Finally, the priest was able to lay him to rest and he was buried.

This tale shows obvious signs of anti-semitism and extreme stereotyping. By Christians, the story would be considered on of the many miracles of Virgin Mary. By telling this heartbreakingly violent and powerful tale, one can assume that the Prioress is once again trying to prove her faith. She believes that if she openly prays before her tale and tells a story of the strength of the Christian faith, the other pilgrims will truly believe that she is a follower of God.

The Friar’s Tale tells the story of an archdeacon who is dead-set on punishing every wrongdoer in the land. The archdeacon, an honest man, employs a horribly dishonest man, a summoner. As the summoner travels the land finding bad men, he consorts with prostitutes and steals money. One day, while on horseback, the summoner meets a yeoman riding along the same path. They begin talking, and the summoner asks the yeoman where he lives after he admits to his wealth, hoping to steal his fortune. While talking, the two reveal to each other that they are both men of villainy and illegal behavior. After speaking for a little while longer, the yeoman admits to the summoner that he is actually a demon, or the devil, from hell. When the two come across a man with a wagon stuck in the mud, the yeoman helps the man recover his cart to the surprise of the summoner. When the summoner finally reaches his destination, his victim curses him to hell. Hearing this, the yeoman tells the summoner he’s being sent to hell, where summoners truly belong.

Chaucer loves nothing more than pointing out the hypocrisies of clergymen. The reader is shown a double-whammy, with the friar, a supposedly holy man, speaking bad words about another man of the church. This is coupled with the story itself, a tale about the terrible deeds of summoners everywhere. The moral of the story seems to be that the devil takes words literally, no matter what the intention

...