Pardoners

Pardoners were medieval ecclesiastical agents authorized to grant indulgences—remissions of temporal punishment for sins—often by selling pardons to fund church activities and charitable works. In the Catholic Church, indulgences could be granted by papal authority or local bishops, and pardoners traveled to collect funds in exchange for pardon letters or relics. The role combined preaching, collecting, and displaying relics or pardons, and it could be filled by either clergy or laypeople licensed by church authorities. By the 13th and 14th centuries, pardoners operated widely across Europe, sometimes as part of monasteries or cathedrals, sometimes as itinerant vendors. The practice drew criticism for perceived simony and fraud, with abuses highlighted during reform movements. The Fourth Lateran Council (1215) and later regulations sought to standardize indulgences and curb abuses, but popular practice remained.

In literature, the Pardoner is a notable character in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer's depiction presents a charismatic yet hypocritical seller who uses relics and a persuasive sermon to convince fellow pilgrims to buy indulgences, highlighting tensions between genuine piety and greed in late medieval religious culture.

Legacy: The historical figure of the pardoner illustrates how the church mediated forgiveness and wealth, and it foreshadowed debates about indulgences that culminated in the Reformation. The term survives mainly in historical and literary contexts.