Chaucer's Idea of the Pardoner

Description: If the Pardoner is taken as a hermaphrodite, it is easier to approach the question of how he can explain his false practices and still expect his listeners to be taken in by them. According to late medieval writers, the hermaphrodite's dual nature represented a duplicity, a doubleness of character. The Pardoner's physical ambivalence is both counterpart and cause of his conduct.