Sin

This essay invites its readers to view the Canterbury Tales through the prism of the Parson’s Tale, utilising his treatise to diagnose the manifold sins of Chaucer’s cast of characters. At times the Canterbury Tales encourages its audience to activate their knowledge of sin, garnered in Chaucer’s contemporaries through repeated exposure to penitential guidance. Tavern sins, and Harry Bailley’s defining sin, exposed by the opportunistic Pardoner are discussed amongst other trespasses. The discussion concludes by considering Chaucer’s Retractions and how he may have attempted to mitigate the penitential burden of being the author of stories that might ‘sownen into synne’.