The Parson's Tale - The Tale

The Tale

The subject of the parson's "tale" (or rather, treatise) is penitence. It may thus be taken as containing inferential criticism of the behavior and character of humanity detectable in all the other pilgrims, knight included. 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 offenses he may have caused and (perhaps) for ever having deigned to write works of worldly vanitee at all (line 1085).

The parson divides penitence into three parts; contrition of the heart, confession of the mouth, and satisfaction. The second part about confession is illustrated by referring to the Seven Deadly Sins and offering remedies against them. The Seven Deadly Sins are pride, envy, wrath, sloth, greed, gluttony, and lust; they are "healed" by the virtues of humility, contentment, patience, fortitude, mercy, moderation, and chastity.

Chaucer's text seems for the most part to be a combination, in English translation, of the texts of two Latin works on penitence popular at the time; the Summa casuum poenitentiae of Raymond of Peñafort, and the Summa vitiorum of William Perault. This is mingled with fragments from other texts. It is not known whether Chaucer was the first to combine these particular sources, or whether he translated an existing combined edition, possibly from French. If the latter is case, any direct source has been lost.