that vast repository of spiritual wealth which may be distributed in relation to the needs and capabilities of all its beneficiaries, whether they be rich or poor in material terms. This doctrine implicates a solidarity which is at once natural, human, and divine, an inclusiveness which derives from our shared membership of the savior’s mystical body.
Such lofty sentiments are quite lost on Chaucer’s Pardoner, who feels no bond with his victims:
I wol have moneie, wolle, chese, and whete,
Al were it yeven of the povereste page,
Or of the povereste wydwe in a village,
Al sholde hir children sterve for famyne. (VI(C) 448–51)
Bonaventure had seen indulgences as a leveling device which brought their recipients together in terms of the value of the spiritual benefits received, despite any differences in material wealth: the conferral of a pardon was not a purchase, but rather an exercise of the Church’s liberality. He had applied the metaphor of how a rich man, going to a tavern, receives the same wine as does a poor old woman, in making the point that the pardon is worth the same to both; in discussing the same issues Aquinas had noted that the worth of a pardon was not related to a person’s ability to pay for it (cf. pp. 84–85 above). In the Pardoner’s view, however, that vetula paupercula is a professional challenge—a sort of acid test of his powers of persuasion. The more straitened her circumstances, the higher the stakes and the greater his pleasure in success. Here is no compassion, no recognition of human mutuality or Christian solidarity.17
So rapacious is the Pardoner’s greed that it has become a driving force which is no respector of persons: indeed, the amount of money he gains seems less important than the pleasure he takes in exacting it. He is rather reminiscent of the greedy merchant castigated in the Roman de la Rose immediately before the critique of the immoral preacher with which this chapter opened: here is a man whose passion for acquiring the property of others is like trying to drink the Seine dry—he “will never be able to do it, because there will always be some left.” The more he has the more he wants, and the more he longs for what he lacks; thus an “agonizing conflict tears at his vitals and tortures him” (Rose, 5049–59). Something of that obsessiveness has gone into Chaucer’s character.
The Pardoner cares nothing for the model of apostolic poverty (“I wol noon of the apostles countrefete”; 447), in blatant opposition to those many theologians who affirmed that, whereas other classes of men “are obliged to worry about the necessities of life,” preachers must not be anxious about what they eat, drink, or wear, since their Father will look after their needs for such things (cf. Matthew 6:31–32).18 Expounding and elaborating on this passage, Humbert of Romans advises preachers to “Consider the birds of the air: they do not sow or reap or gather into barns” and “Consider the lilies of the field, see how they grow! They do not work or spin. But I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory was clothed like one of them” (Matthew 6:26–29). Men should not have any doubt that God will do the same for them, given that they “are worth more in his sight” than such creatures are. St. Gregory the Great is quoted as saying that “the preacher ought to have such confidence in God that, although he himself makes no provision at all for his own support in his present life, he knows for sure that he is not without such support. In this way his mind will not be occupied with temporal affairs, and he will be free to devote himself to making provision for the eternal good of others.”19 Furthermore, Humbert continues, Christ Himself gave evident proof of this when he sent out his disciples to preach “without any bag or wallet and without shoes”—and they lacked nothing (cf. Luke 22:35). Humbert is writing as a Dominican friar, of course, but such sentiments were deemed appropriate to the secular priesthood as well. Hence Thomas of Chobham can remark that the goods of clerics are the goods of paupers, since clerics should distribute their goods to the poor, apart from what they need to reserve for themselves, avoiding superfluity.20
Clearly, Chaucer’s Pardoner is obsessed with making provision “for his own support in his present life” and deeply disinterested in the eternal good of others. “Those who are sent to collect alms must be moderate and discreet,” declares the sixty-second canon of the Fourth Lateran Council. But this character is neither. The Lateran Fathers had added that quaestores should not “take lodging in taverns or other disreputable hostels,” nor run up large bills.21 The Spanish canonist Raymond of Peñafort O.P. (1185–1275) complained of how pardoners go from church to church with their letters of remission, preaching abuses and spending their time carousing and drinking.22 Now, whether Chaucer’s character intends to overindulge (or actually is overindulging as he tells his tale) in the hostelry referred to in VI(C) 321,23 his tale-telling certainly raises the specter of the tavern as the devil’s church (cf. 469–70),24 of which the Pardoner himself is a keen member. And some of the money he spends on his personal entertainment comes, it is evident, from sources which could ill afford to lose it. Almsgiving was supposed to provide sustenance for the poor, but the Pardoner has moved far from the traditional justification for almsgiving—indeed he has inverted it, by making himself the material beneficiary of his trade in indulgences.
More specifically, he has perverted the traditional justification of preaching pro questu, as may be illustrated with reference to Thomas of Chobham’s treatment of the question, does a preacher sin mortally in preaching for alms?25 It would seem so, Chobham postulates, because preaching is spiritual work, and it is not licit to use spiritual work to acquire temporal reward; Scripture frequently condemns those preachers who “seek the things that are their own: not the things that are Jesus Christ’s” (Philippians 2:21). On the other hand, St. Paul declares that by all means Christ may be preached, and he rejoiced and will rejoice in this (Philippians 1:18).26 Furthermore, the Lord affirms that the laborer is worthy of his hire (Luke 10:7). Besides, if it was forbidden to preach to acquire gifts, a lot of churches would be in trouble—for in time of necessity they have sent out their preachers to obtain alms from the faithful. Chobham seeks to resolve this problem by arguing that the obtaining of temporal reward is not the final cause as such but rather the consequence of the actual final cause, which is devotion. Devotion is the preacher’s true motivation in preaching; from this quite impeccable final cause follows the collection of alms and the advantage of the church. The preacher must preach to excite the devotion of the faithful, Chobham explains, but because devotion cannot be proved better than by making offerings and donating gifts, a good man’s preaching pro questu may be justified because he is preaching on account of devotion, from which temporal reward follows. Therefore, when one speaks of preaching “for” (pro) alms, that “for” does not indicate the final cause itself, but rather the consequence of the final cause—because the devotion of the faithful is the final cause of the preaching, from which follow almsgiving and the advancement of the Church. If someone preaches in order to collect alms for the renewal of the Church or the construction of bridges or the maintenance of the poor, the principal intention (principalis intentio) must be that the hearts of the faithful are stirred to devotion, while the secondary intention may be that the faithful are seen offering and giving alms on account of this preaching, because such behavior affords clear evidence that the hearts of the faithful have been excited appropriately.
That noble principalis intentio is flagrantly violated in the Pardoner’s Prologue and Tale.27 But the Pardoner’s deviancy qua pardoner goes far beyond the mere confusion of final causes in preaching pro questu, however reprehensible that in itself may be. For he far exceeds the statutary obligations and authorized duties of a licensed dispenser of indulgences in two crucial—and quite damning—ways, in claiming extensive powers of absolution and the full officium praedicatoris, as I now hope to show, beginning with Chaucer’s deployment of theological discourses relating to absolution in the presentation of this “noble ecclesiaste.”
The Pardoner’s arrogation of the power of absolving people from sin, “by the auctoritee / Which that by bulle ygraunted was to me” (V1(C) 387–88), is quite shocking. Naturally, he fails to clarify either his own subordinate position or the limited role which, according to the official theology, indulgences were to play within the economy of salvation. In the first instance, quaestores