Graduate Work

The Canterbury Tales
By Scott Hays

THE PARDONER
A Case for the ‘Effeminate Heterosexual’
Scott Hays

In the General Prologue of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, the Pardoner quickly comes across as someone of ambiguous gender and sexual orientation. And although a great deal of critical attention apparently has been devoted to the argument that either he’s a homosexual or eunuch (castrated male), I believe Chaucer intended the Pardoner as an effeminate heterosexual who uses his appearance and guile to deceive a trusting public.

Consider first the Pardoner’s social status among the 29 pilgrims traveling to the shrine of the martyr Saint Thomas Becket in Canterbury. Here is a member of the clergy who offers penance to sinners in exchange for donations to the church; here is a churchman who, in theory, should deserve a certain amount of respect within the various estates and social statuses. This particular Pardoner, however, collects the donations for himself, and acknowledges it freely and openly with his fellow travelers.

But whether by accident or design, Chaucer’s placement of the Pardoner as the last profile in the General Prologue certainly raises questions about the author’s intentions for this particular character. Especially when reading the several references in the Pardoner’s profile (lines 669-714) which suggest the questionable nature of his sexuality, starting with the opening couplet:

With hym [The Sumonour] ther rood a gentil Pardoner
Of Rouncivale, his freend, and his compeer
That streight was comen fro the cout of Rome.
Ful loude he soong “Com hider, love, to me!”
This Somonour bar to hym a stif bourdoun;
Was nevere trompe of half so greet a soun.
The noble and gracious Pardoner rides toward the back of the traveling party with the Sumonour, who previously was described as a lecherous man with a black, scabby face that scares away children. These two men ride together as “compeer” or companions, and at times they sing together, loudly and merrily (line 714: “murierly”).

The words “stif bourdoun” have been taken by some scholars to mean staff or phallus, and thus may be the first reference to a “homosexual” relationship between the Sumonour and the Pardonor. But a more intuitive reading, and less obscure interpretation, might suggest the words refer to one voice signing bass, in musical terms, and that the Sumonour and Pardoner are simply traveling together as working partners.

Another reference to the Pardoner’s ambiguous sexual nature comes when Chaucer mentions both the pilgrim’s hair and his lack of facial whiskers.

This Pardoner Hadde heer as yellow as wex,
But smothe it heeng as dooth a strike of flex;
By ounces henge his lokkes that he hadde,
And therwith he his shuldres overspradde;
Bretful of pardoun comen from Rome al hoot.
A voys he hadde as small as hat a goot.
No berd hadde he, ne nevere sholde have;
As smothe it was as it were late shave.

Chaucer describes the Pardoner as having small, yellow strands of hair that spread over his shoulders, and a face smoother than “ever a chin was left by a barber.” These clearly are not the most manly characteristics. In fact, the explanatory notes in the back of The Riverside Chaucer indicate that these characteristics were associated with gender ambiguity in Chaucer’s time. One scholar, in particular, even quotes the archbishop of Canterbury in 1342 as having complained of clerics who make themselves conspicuous by “hair spreading almost to the shoulders in feminine fashion.”

Note, however, that the archbishop’s complaint wasn’t that Pardoners with long, flowing hair were homosexuals or eunuchs, only that long hair was considered in “feminine fashion.” (Similar observations were made of the “Hippies” in this country during the last 1960s and early 1970s, but no one believed them to be homosexuals or eunuchs.)

It’s also been argued by some scholars that the line, A voys he hadde as small as hat a goot (he had a high voice like a goat) might imply that the Pardoner was a eunuch, that if a man’s testicles are cut away he loses both his hair and his voice. But this interpretation weakens when considering that (1) a “goat” was considered a lecherous beast back in Chaucer’s time (which would seem to fit the Pardoner’s profile); and (2) a eunuch would have been ineligible for holy orders (Deut. 23:1).

It’s the next line, however, where most of the critical attention has been devoted to the argument of the Pardoner as either a homosexual or eunuch. Writes Chaucer, the pilgrim: I trowe he [The Pardoner] were a geldyng or a mare.

Perhaps it’s no accident that here is the first time Chaucer the pilgrim offers his opinion (in the first person) of the Pardoner as either a geldyng (which might imply a eunuch) or a mare (which might imply a homosexual). Some scholars have even gone so far as to define the Pardoner as a grotesque “feminoid” or “hermaphrodite.”

A Chaucer Glossary suggests several interpretations for the word “trowe,” including “believe” or “suppose,” both weaker assertions than a purported statements of fact. And Chaucer the narrator clearly avoids specifying the Pardoner’s condition too precisely, leaving open for interpretation the idea that he’s either a homosexual or eunuch.

Clearly, the Pardoner comes across as someone who excels at soliciting money from sinners. What’s most compelling about this character, though, is that Chaucer the narrator considers him a good preacher, storyteller, and singer, even though he cheats people out of their money: Ne was ther swich another Pardoner.

Chaucer’s Pardoner, in fact, excels in fraud. He carries bags full of fake relics (pigs bones, which he passes off as saints’ relics, and the “veil” of the Virgin Mary), and tries to cash-in on religion any way he can. Yet in a strange sort of way, we admire his ability to be completely upfront about his intentions, and still manage to swindle people for their money. Chaucer the narrator all but admits the Pardoner is a complete fake. Perhaps it’s his ambiguous gender that makes the Pardoner a non-threatening churchman to his “trusting” public, and much more efficient swindler.

WORKS CITED
Benson, Larry D. The Riverside Chaucer. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.

Coghill, Nevill. Geoffrey Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales. New York: Penguin Books
USA, 1977.

David, Norman and Douglas Gray, Patricia Ingham and Anne Wallace-Hadrill. A Chaucer Glossary. New York: The Oxford University Press, 1979.

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