Purchasing Pardon: Material and Spiritual Economies on the Canterbury Pilgrimage

Author / Editor
Minnis, Alastair.

Title
Purchasing Pardon: Material and Spiritual Economies on the Canterbury Pilgrimage

Published
Lawrence Besserman, ed. Sacred and Secular in Medieval and Early Modern Cultures: New Essays. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, pp. 63-82.

Description
Minnis explores medieval attempts to "explain the difficult and dangerous relationship" between "material and spiritual economies" underlying pardons or indulgences, commenting on the explanations of Albert the Great, Aquinas, and Bonaventure and examining late medieval English defense (perhaps by canon lawyer Richard Godmersham) of the plenary status of the indulgence for a pilgrimage to Canterbury. In this light, Chaucer's Pardoner is an example of "rapacious greed" who ignores the principles of indulgence.

Contributor
Besserman, Lawrence [L.], ed.

Alternative Title
Sacred and Secular in Medieval and Early Modern Cultures: New Essays.

Chaucer Subjects
Pardoner and His Tale