The Parson's Tale
This was a popular genre in the Middle Ages; Chaucer's is a translation and reworking that ultimately derives from the Latin manuals of two Dominican friars, Raymund of Pennaforte and William Perault.
Modern readers and critics have found it pedantic and boring, especially in comparison to the rest of the Canterbury Tales.
[2] By the time Chaucer was writing the Parson's Prologue, instead of following the plan of the General Prologue, which would have ended in a secular feast at the Tabard Inn in Southwark, he had chosen to end the work with the pilgrims still en route to Canterbury: instead of being judged by Harry Bailly on their storytelling, they will be judged by God on their souls.
[2] Citing Saint John Chrysotom, the parson divides penitence into three parts: contrition of the heart, confession of the mouth, and satisfaction (making amends).
[3]: 1387 This kind of treatise was popular in the later Middle Ages, since it was decided at the Fourth Council of the Lateran (1215) that every Christian should make confession at least once a year.
By Chaucer's day, they circulated in vernacular languages, for personal, non-clerical use, as a kind of "self-help manual".
[2]) He also incorporated elements from the Summa virtutum de remediis anime, a work on the remedial virtues.
[2][6]: 331–332 While this view is no longer common, even scholars who believe the work to be Chaucer's find that it does not refer back to the rest of the Tales as one might expect, even though they include many examples of the sins that the Parson decries.
[2] The scribes who copied the tale often added marginal glosses and other textual ordinatio to help readers navigate the dense paragraphs of text.
[8] The Host suggests that the Parson might be a Lollard, a follower of a reformist religious movement that is now seen as "proto-Protestant" and which has been linked to many social conflicts in 14th- and 15th-century England.
Following the Host's example, scholars have examined the "Parson's Tale" for hints of Lollardy, and suggested that Chaucer himself may have held Lollard sympathies.
[2][6] The contrast between the previous more lively tales and the Parson's treatise has disappointed many readers; E. Talbot Donaldson, for example, wrote that "in literary terms it is ill-tempered, bad-mannered, pedantic, and joyless, and when it is used as a gloss to the other tales it distempers them, fills them with ill-humour, coats them with dust, and deprives them of joy.
"[13]: 8–10 Other scholars have pointed out that, rather than conflicting with the plan set out in the General Prologue, the "Parson's Tale" completes it:[2] "after the sin comes its remedy.
