The Parson's Tale

Parson and Ploughman in a Danse Macabre

The Parson's Tale seems, from the evidence of its prologue, to have been intended as the final tale of Geoffrey Chaucer's poetic cycle The Canterbury Tales. The "tale", which is the longest of all the surviving contributions by Chaucer's pilgrims, is in fact neither a story nor a poem, but a long and unrelieved prose treatise on penance. Critics and readers are generally unclear what rhetorical effect Chaucer may have intended by ending his cycle in this unlikely, extra-generic fashion.

Framing narrative

It is clear from the Parson's Prologue that - at least by the time Chaucer was writing the Prologue - it was to be the final tale: the host, Harry Bailly, tells the Parson "Thou sholdest knytte up wel a greet mateere", and the Parson agrees to "knytte up al this feeste, and make an ende".

Thematically, it is linked to the Manciple's Tale, which directly precedes it in all major manuscripts. The Manciple's Tale warns against careless speech; when the host asks the Parson to tell a fable, the Parson refuses, condemning the telling of fables and referring to the Epistle to Timothy. The last two tales thus "represent a closing down of the work". The General Prologue had initially set out a plan for four stories to be told by each pilgrim, a contest ending in a feast at the Tabard Inn once the travellers had returned from Canterbury. By the time Chaucer was writing the Parson's Prologue, he had instead chosen to end the work with the pilgrims still en route to Canterbury: instead of being judged by Harry Bailly on their storytelling, they will be judged by God on their souls.

The Tale

Unlike every other tale of Canterbury, the Parson's Tale is not a tale at all, but rather a treatise on penitence and the Seven Deadly Sins. Citing Saint John Chrysotom, the parson divides penitence into three parts: contrition of the heart, confession of the mouth, and satisfaction (making amends). In the first part, he explains at length how a person comes to universal and total contrition. In the second, he explains the kinds of sins, and how one makes a true confession. In the third and final part, he explains how to make satisfaction for one's sins, and reminds his listeners that "the fruyt of penaunce [...] is the endelees blisse of hevene" (§ 111).

Chaucer himself claims to be swayed by the plea for penitence, since he follows the Parson's Tale with a Retraction (the conceit which appears to have been the intended close to the entire cycle) in which he personally asks forgiveness for any offences he may have caused and (perhaps) for ever having deigned to write works of worldly vanitee at all (line 1085).

This kind of treatise was popular in the later Middle Ages, since it was decided at the Fourth Council of the Lateran (1215) that every Christian should make confession at least once a year. Initially, manuals, written in Latin, were primarily intended as reference works for confessors. By Chaucer's day, they circulated in vernacular languages, for personal, non-clerical use. Chaucer appears to have complied the tale himself mostly from three different thirteenth-century works, translating their contents into English. He used the Summa de poenitentia of the Dominican Raymund of Pennaforte for the sections on contrition, confession, and satisfaction, inserting the material on the sins in the middle from a source that ultimately traces to the Summa vitiorum of Dominican William Perault. (Chaucer may have come to this text in a shortened form that was circulating in England at the time.) He also incorporated elements from the Summa virtutum de remediis anime, a work on the remedial virtues. Chaucer adapted and condensed these works, interspersing them with elements from proverbs and other literature.

It is possible that the tale was originally written outside of the context of the Canterbury Tales, and only added to them at a later date. Popular among early Chaucer scholars was the hypothesis that not only that this was the case, but that Chaucer had never intended it to be part of the Tales at all. Instead, so this theory goes, Chaucer left the Parson's Prologue without a tale to follow it, and what we know of as the Parson's Tale was added to this gap.

Manuscript context

The Parson's Tale is included in most manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales, but owing to its position as the final tale, damage to the manuscripts has often left it incomplete.

The scribes who copied the tale often added marginal glosses and other ordinatio to help readers navigate the dense paragraphs of text.

Character of the Parson

The Parson is considered by some to be the only good member of the clergy in The Canterbury Tales, while others have detected ambiguities and possible hints of Lollardy in the portrait. Chaucer, in the General Prologue calls him a povre Persoun of a Toun. His depiction of a man who practices what he preaches seems to be positive:

He was a shepherde and noght a mercenarie.
And thogh he hooly were and vertuous,
He was to synful men nat despitous,
Ne of his speche daungerous ne digne,
But in his techyng discreet and benynge.
(Lines 514–518)

if also rather forbidding; for instance, Chaucer's parson is no respecter of persons in demanding ultimate adherence to moral principles:

But it were any person obstinat,
What so he were, of heigh or lough estat,
Hym wolde he snybben sharply for the nonys.
(Lines 521–523)

None of the explicit criticism of clergy that marks many of the other tales and character sketches is obvious here. The Parson is throughout depicted as a sensible and intelligent person. Chaucer is not uncritical of other clergy; in the paragraph headed "Lat us now touche the vice of flateryng", he describes flatterers – those who continuously sing placebo – as "develes chapelleyns".

External links

• "The Parson's Prologue and Tale", middle-english hypertext with glossary and side-by-side middle english and modern english
• "Parson's Tale" retold in Modern English prose
• Works related to The Parson's Prologue and Tale (Chaucer) at Wikisource