Thomas Becket and the Pardoner's Problem: Eunuchry and Healing on the Road to Canterbury

Author / Editor
Price, Merrall Llewelyn.

Title
Thomas Becket and the Pardoner's Problem: Eunuchry and Healing on the Road to Canterbury

Published
Valerie B. Johnson and Kara L. McShane, eds. Negotiating Boundaries in Medieval Literature and Culture: Essays on Marginality, Difference, and Reading Practices in Honor of Thomas Hahn (Boston: De Gruyter; Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute, 2022), pp. 99-118.

Description
Explores how the Pardoner resonates with Thomas Becket's miraculous healing of a castrated man, Eilward, depicted in stained glass in Canterbury Cathedral. Considers issues of wholeness, healing, sanctity, and their antitheses reflected in details of the Pardoner's characterization and identity, his relics, and Harry Bailly's threat at the end of PardT.

Alternative Title
Negotiating Boundaries in Medieval Literature and Culture

Chaucer Subjects
Pardoner and His Tale
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations