What does the Portrait of the Pardoner tell you about the character of the Pardoner, Chaucer's attitude toward him and about 14th Century attitudes to Pardoners in general?

What does the Portrait of the Pardoner tell you about the character of the Pardoner, Chaucer’s attitude toward him and about 14th Century attitudes to Pardoners in general?

In this essay I will set out to discuss the character of the Pardoner, judging from The Portrait of the Pardoner, and will present the various attitudes of both Chaucer himself, and of the 14th Century people in medieval England.
To begin, it is a good idea to look at the background relating to the tale and the teller. Firstly, it is necessary to understand what the Pardoner’s status in the Middle Ages would have been. The Catholic Church had a lot of importance at this time and as a result, had a lot of control over society and owned a lot of land. Because of the importance the Church had, this meant that pardoners had a lot of influence over the general population. Pardoners allowed people to buy forgiveness for their sins so that they could miss out in purgatory. The pardoner’s audience would norma...