Back to: Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
In this article will discuss The Summoner’s Tale Summary in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.
The summoner tells the tale of a friar who preaches in the land of Yorkshire. He, in his sermons, begs for the donations for the church and visits people individually at their home for the money.
One day, when the friar is patrolling house by house for the money, he meets Thomas. Thomas is sick and his wife tells the friar that their son has died just two weeks ago. The friar mentions he had a revelation of their son’s death his entrance into heaven.
Friars keep on emphasizing the authenticity of friars who are the closest to the God. Friar tells Thomas the reason for his problems is that he has not donated the church appropriately. Thomas gets a bit angry on this saying he has paid a sum of money but nothing has happened.
The Friar begins his sermon on Thomas and tells the stories against the anger of a king who has sentenced the knight to death. The king automatically assumes that the knight has murdered his partner when he doesn’t see him with the knight coming back.
The story goes on and the knight, in the end, has killed all three knights. Another drunk king, when was told by his knight that alcohol causes his lack of coordination he took his sword out and killed the knight’s son to show that he still controlled his reflexes.
At the end of the sermon, the friar asks Thomas for money which makes Thomas annoyed of his hypocrisy. Thomas agrees to give him a gift on which he is sitting if the friar promises to divide that equally among all the other friars.
The Friar agrees and puts his hand down behind Thomas. Thomas farts louder than the horse. Friar gets angry and promises to pay Thomas back for that embarrassment.
Friar informs of the incident to the lord of the village and wonders how is he supposed to divide the fart. Lord’s Squire suggests him that take a cartwheel and sits in the centre of it and ask other friars to put their nose at the end of each spoke.
