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Sowing Difficulty: The Parson’s Tale, Vernacular Commentary, and the Nature of Chaucerian Dissent

The Parson’s Tale might seem to be the least vernacular of the Canterbury Tales. It is an academic treatise, a translation and compilation of three Latin penitential tracts originally intended for use by clerics, displayed in all its glory with internal references to various academic authorities, including Saint Jerome, Saint Bernard, Saint Augustine, and of course the Bible. Moreover, it exhibits a dearth, and hence an apparent mistrust, of narrative plotting and poetic imagery, and a hierarchically organized, encyclopedic attention to detail. Yet it is delivered not in the academic language of its origin, but in English, the language of the illiterati, a language with little or no academic tradition. Romances, saints’ lives, beast-fables—almost all the stories the pilgrims tell recall long and well-recognized traditions in English. The Parson’s Tale has precious little such precedent to rely upon.1