'Savour,' Chaucer's 'Summoner's Tale,' and Matthew 5:13

Author / Editor
Hanks, D. Thomas, Jr.

Title
'Savour,' Chaucer's 'Summoner's Tale,' and Matthew 5:13

Published
English Language Notes 31:3 (1994): 25-29.

Description
The lord in SumT speaks of "the salt of the erthe and the savor," usually taken as a reference to Matthew 5.13. Yet no Bible known to Chaucer uses the word "savor" (Latin "vapor") in this passage. Instead, Chaucer may have drawn the phrase from Gower's "Vox clamantis" 3.1997-98.

Chaucer Subjects
Summoner and His Tale.
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations.