Question

In The Canterbury Tales, pilgrims relate the stories on their way to the shrine of Thomas Becket in Canterbury. However, the stories often have an irreverent tone. Examine to what extent “The Pardoner’s Tale” or “The Nun's Priest’s Tale” seems to mock aspects of religion in general or Christian beliefs and church practices of the time in particular.
-- Can anyone help who has read this? :)

Answer 1

In "The Pardoner's Tale", Chaucer openly ridicules religious practices of the time.

First off, the Pardoner is a fraudster who doesn't even hide it. He openly talks about all of his methods of tricking people into paying him money. Just like the Catholic Church itself (at the time), he capitalizes on people's deepest and most irrational fear of eternal dam.nation, pardoning their sins in exchange for large sums of money. He doesn't even care if his customers are single mothers, widows, or other poor people. He carries around false relics which he sells to people. Most importantly, he doesn't hide it - and that is another important aspect of church practices which Chaucer criticizes through his work.

The greatest irony is that the Pardoner tells a story with a moral that greed is the root of all evil (as he repeats multiple times). His story is about three reckless hedonists who seek Death, only to find gold over which they will fight each other and die. Chaucer uses this story within a story to satirize the church's hypocrisy.