ABSTRACT
The vices of the summoner in The Friar’s Tale require, and receive, comparatively little space. He is a dishonest hireling whose cheats can be neatly and effectively summarized. The friar in The Summoner’s Tale, on the other hand, gets his living not by deeds but by words, and must accordingly be shown practising his calculated rhetoric. Meanwhile, the friar reverts to Thomas’s anger, for he is once more working round to shriving the sick man and then to soliciting a gift. This vivid conception of the scene adds comic substance to the ingenious theory. It also relates all this latter part of the story to the satire on friars which is the main object of The Summoner’s Tale.
