The Friar And Summoner Essay, Research Paper

The Friar and the Summoner

Throughout The Canterbury Tales author, Geoffrey Chaucer, introduces several unique and diverse characters. Chaucer unites tradesmen, landowners, church official, and many more to create a hierarchy of characters. The author builds a hierarchy based on his judgement of the individuals’ condition and personality. He exalts and admires the true and honest, yet satirizes the greedy and deceitful characters. While creating this hierarchy, Chaucer chooses two individuals to represent the two main institutions that he viewed to be corrupt in the 14th Century. Chaucer delineates his resentment of the Church and Monarchy through the Friar and the Summoner. Chaucer’s physical description of the Friar and the Summoner reveal the corruption and evil in both characters. In the general prologue, Bother Hubert appears adorned with clothes better suited for a pope than the poor scholar he should portray. Chaucer explains: Of double-worsted was the semi-cope Upon his shoulders, and the swelling fold About him, like a bell about its mold When it is casting, rounded out his dress (Chaucer ll 270-273). The Friar, dressed in a finely pressed garment, basks in luxury instead of shunning personal gain. In A Reader’s Guide to Geoffrey Chaucer, author Muriel Browden, speculates, “The Friar appeared unsuitably, but ‘typically’-evidently as Chaucer saw them in the streets of London or journeying about the English countryside” (113). Brother Hubert represents Chaucer’s resentment of the common 14th Century friar. Hubert’s obvious corruption represents Chaucer frustration with the current hypocrisy of the Church. Chaucer’s question of validity is also prevalent in the case of the monarchy’s Summoner. With the least flattering description, the Summoner appears to be the most despicable of all the characters in the General Prologue. Baron’s Booknotes reads, “Chaucer has saved the worst for last. The reader can instantly tell that the Summoner is grossly debauched: he has a ‘fire-red’ pimply face and loves garlic, onions, leeks, and wine ‘red as blood’” (Baron 4). Chaucer gross description of the Summoner is to remind the reader of the fear involved with the approach of any summoner and his blackmail. Summoner’s burnt red face, “has been shown to be a kind of leprosy, which could come from unclean women or strong foods-as high official, he should have been avoiding both” (5). Little is told about what the Summoner is wearing; however, he has set a huge garland on his head, and is using a flat loaf of bread as a shield. Bowden states, “The suggestion he appears as an intensified, corrupt, and

debauched is strong. The garland is large enough for an alestake; advertising a drinking place” (Bowden 116). Chaucer continues his negative portrayal of the Summoner by citing his drinking problem. During Chaucer’s time, in literature, an individual’s physical description was directly related to their character. Thus, Chaucer’s disdain the Friar and the Summoner relays his own negative feelings of the Church and Monarchy. Deceiving innocent people, the Friar and Summorer abuse their rights and privileges granted by their place in society. During the medieval period friars and summoners were in direct competition for the material support (Bowden 64). Summoners often blackmailed their clients in order to pad their wallets while friars had to beg for their living. Chaucer’s friar, Brother Hubert, represents a profession that, “By the 14th century, friars, who were supposed to give up all worldly things and live only by begging for food and handouts, were almost totally corrupt” (Baron 1). Chaucer uses Hubert to depict the stereotypical corrupt friar of this time period. In addition, Bowden comments, “Friars were known for flattering the rich, deceiving the poor, and seducing women” (Bowden 58). Chaucer embodies all three stereotypes in Hubert, making him the paragon of corruption in the Church. Chaucer satirizes Hubert’s attitude and neglect for the poor: Better than lepers, beggars, and that crew, For in so eminent a man as he It was not fitting with the dignity Of his position dealing with scum Of wretched lepers; nothing good can come Of dealings with the slum-and-gutter dweller (Chaucer, ll 246-251). The Friar, expected to sympathetic and humane, ignores the less fortunately and focuses on personal gain. Chaucer continues, “But only with the rich and victual-sellers. But anywhere a profit might accrue Courteous he was and lowly of service too” (Chaucer, ll 252-254). Chaucer depicts to the reader an occupation fueled by greed and selfishness. However, the friar was not the only corrupt career of the time. The summoner of the Middle Ages was a minor official employed by the monarchy to preside at the ecclesiastical court (Bowden 66). The Summoner’s business was to serve warnings to those who where to appear before the court (66). His official pay was a percentage of the fines collected. Thus, motivation for corruption was present and often taken advantage of by the summoner (66). Many in the profession would blackmail innocent people with threats of summons. Baron’s Booknotes reads, “The profession of summoner had reached such depths by Chaucer’s day that Chaucer doesn’t even need go into detail on the abuses” (Baron 1). Chaucer’s Summoner fits description of the common summoner perfectly. Bowden further explains: We can easily understand how greatly all humble folk dread the approach of the summoner and were more than ready to bribe him whether the any summons was genuine of false. Thus blackmail, that most obnoxious of all crimes, became the commonplace stock in trade of the summoner in rural districts (Bowden 67). Chaucer creates the Summoner to voice

his disgust with a legal system that pretends to keep the law but instead abuses it. In The Canterbury Tales the pilgrims are traveling to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas of Becket. In 1170 the archbishop, Becket, was murdered by four of the king’s knights, further triggering a feud between the Church and Monarchy (Holt 72). The feud of the Church and the Monarch’s parallels the feud between the Friar and the Summoner. If the Friar and Summoner represent the Church and Monarchy, respectively, then the feud between the Friar and the Summoner symbols the struggle power in Chaucer’s day between the two main institutions. The Cambridge Chaucer Companion, clarifies the Friar’s and Summoner’s tales: Both the Friar and the Summoner tell comic tales at the expense of the other. Each anecdote is a short story that satirizes the stupidity of the friars and summoners, particularly by showing how pathetically gullible each is (Pearsall 3). Chaucer’s decision to use the two most despicable and stupid characters to signify a power struggle clearly illustrates his resentment the two institutions. Thus, Chaucer implies that he holds little respect and trust in the Church or Monarchy. Chaucer uses the Summoner and Friar as symbols to delineate his negative opinions focused at two corrupt areas of 14th Century society. Chaucer demands reform for the Church and the Monarchy through the appearance and actions of these two characters. In essence, The Friar and Summoner are political ponds aimed to reveal corruption and call for change.