The Pardoner's Tale

What it is

This is one of The Canterbury Tales, written by Geoffrey Chaucer. In it, the Pardoner tells a moral story about three young men who set out to kill Death after a friend dies of a sickness called 'this pestilence'. The illustration shown comes from the Ellesmere manuscript, an early illuminated copy of the Tales showing the Pardoner on horseback.

Why it matters

Chaucer wrote during the fourteenth century, when plague outbreaks kept returning to England. His description of Death as a thief who has slain a thousand shows how ordinary people imagined and talked about the disease. The tale also uses greed and death together to teach a moral lesson, reflecting how writers of the time connected sin with the plague's randomness.

Look closer

• Why might Chaucer have the rioters try to 'kill' Death as if he were a person?
• What does the image of the Pardoner tell us about how pilgrims travelled and were shown in manuscripts?
• What does this tale leave unsaid about the real medical causes of plague?