SOURCE: “Heywood's Indulgent Pardoner,” in English Language Notes, Vol. XXIX, No. 2, December 1991, pp. 21-30.

[In the following essay, Boocker argues that The Pardoner and the Friar is not merely a humorous farce but a pointed attack on the Pope and the Church's practice of granting indulgences.]

In his study on Tudor Drama and Religious Controversy James C. Bryant states that John Heywood wrote his plays for the popular audience: “that is, [he] held up the mirror to reflect both nature and the times in which [he] wrote [them]. [He] did not necessarily prescribe public taste; [he] echoed it”.¹ This leads Bryant to conclude that Heywood's plays should not be read as strong attacks against the Catholic Church or its doctrine. Bryant writes that because the people of the period are still loyal to Rome, the satire in pre-Reformation plays is focused on “church corruption and not the Roman Catholic Church as an institution.” He suggests that Heywood in The Pardoner and the Friar merely “created a farce, not an attack upon the papacy and not even a condemnation of friars and pardoners.”²

But Heywood creates more than mere farce, which depends upon improbable situations; he creates a satire directed at fundamental church practices and at the abuse of papal authority. The situation Heywood portrays in his play had been occurring in England for several hundred years, indicated by his extensive borrowing from Chaucer. And we must assume that Heywood understood the nature of Chaucer's satire, and chose to use the familiar Pardoner of the Canterbury Tales to create the same kind of critique of the popular preacher of indulgences with his bogus relics and of the corrupt system that allowed the pardoner to exist. Neither Chaucer nor Heywood wanted to destroy the church as an institution, but wanted to point out abuses to those having the authority to make the needed reforms.

Still, in order to understand more completely Heywood's attack we need to look beyond Chaucer and the Farce d'un pardonneur (1515-1520?),³ both major sources for The Pardoner and the Friar, to another source: indulgences and papal bulls circulating in England in and around 1519. The play was not published until 1533, the same year as the English church's separation from Rome, even though critics date the play between 1518-1520 based on Heywood's reference to Leo X. A close study of how much the language of the play echoes pardons and bulls will help not only date the composition of the play between 1518-1520, but allow us to understand more fully the nature of Heywood's attack. Interestingly enough, Heywood's intention resembles other sixteenth century criticisms of the indulgence practice, specifically Luther's attack in this period, 1518-21. From the present it is easy to forget that Luther's purpose in writing his Ninety-five Theses “was merely to reform an abused practice” [the practice of indulgences], and that he had no initial intention of disobeying Leo X early on.⁴

To understand fully the concerns expressed by Chaucer, Heywood, Luther, and others, one must understand a little about the sacrament of penance. By the sixteenth century, the rites of contrition, confession, and satisfaction were firmly established into the doctrine it remains today. First, the penitent must be contrite; that is, he must feel sorrow for the sin he has committed. He then must confess his sins to a priest, with a view to receiving absolution. After he has been absolved by the priest, the penitent is required to perform penance enjoined by his confessor as payment for temporal punishment of sin.

Throughout the development of the sacrament, the Church has placed emphasis on different rites. The early Church stressed contrition. In 1215, the Fourth Lateran Council required everyone to confess once a year, emphasizing the importance of auricular confession. Together, contrition and confession are most important because they require the sinner to be internally penitent, whereas satisfaction requires an external act imposed on the sinner to atone for his sins. Because the remission of guilt (culpa) achieved through contrition and confession supersedes in importance the remission of punishment (poena) achieved through satisfaction, one more easily understands how an abusive sale of indulgences, which externalize the penitential act and remit punishment without the necessary internal penitence, would inflame orthodox churchmen.

Indulgences derive from the doctrine of the treasury of the church as explained by Clement VI in 1343. Clement VI dictated that the merits of Christ, of the Blessed Virgin and of the saints, are infinite, and the excess makes up a treasury, “not one that is deposited in a strong room, or concealed in a field, but which is to be usefully distributed to the faithful, through the blessed Peter, keeper of Heaven's gate, and his successors.” Because the treasury cannot be depleted, there should be “no fear of an absorption or a diminution of this treasury, first on account of the infinite merits of Christ, as has been said before, then because the more numerous are the people reclaimed through the use of its contents, the more it is augmented by the addition of their merits.”⁵ Both Wyclif and Luther denied the existence of this treasury, arguing that even the saints themselves sinned.

Because punishment due to original sin is remitted in baptism, indulgences are granted for no other purpose than for the remission of temporal punishment due to actual sin. In the sixteenth century it was believed that indulgences relaxed or even commuted the punishment the penitent would have to undergo both in this world and in purgatory. The Church assured the faithful that they could shorten not only their own suffering but that of their loved ones already in purgatory by way of intercessory prayers, a practice first defined in 1518 by Leo X. Till the time of the Council of Trent in 1562, these indulgences per modum suffragii were most popular, and criticism of them is evident in another of Heywood's plays, the Four P. P. Here a pardoner journeys to purgatory and to hell to buy off the remaining time of a suffering soul.

During the Middle Ages and early Renaissance two types of indulgences were available. The most common until the fifteenth century were partial indulgences of “forty days, one hundred days, a year and forty days, and two years.”⁶ This means that a penitent receiving an indulgence of one year will be punished so much less in purgatory as if he had done one year of penance in this life. Plenary indulgences were granted by popes, usually as a reward for participating in a crusade or to mark a Jubilee. In 1095 Urban II issued the first plenary indulgence to those who might die in the Crusade to the Holy Lands. This plenary indulgence promised both pardon for sin and the fruit of eternal reward, that is, an indulgence a culpa et a poena. Plenary indulgences came under constant attack, and by the sixteenth century they became the exception rather than the rule though the indulgence against which Luther protested was a plenary one authorized by Leo X. Likewise, Heywood's pardoner offers a plenary indulgence.

Indulgences were usually administered by agents of religious societies for building, repairing, or extending the works of a religious organization in projects such as building hospitals and churches. These agents, called variously quaestors, pardoners, proctors, and “indulgence-peddlers,” were authorized to give shares of the treasury of the church in return for money to maintain the church on earth. The doctrine itself has no natural or necessary connection with monetary profit, though certainly the practice was characterized by abuse, especially by those for whom, like Chaucer's pardoner, the love of money was the root of evil. Moreover, as Lunt explains, “Many pardoners abused their powers and sometimes alleged pardoners whose bulls were forged succeeded in collecting sums of money. …”⁷ Called false pardoners, these men lacked the proper authorization, either by papal bulls, or episcopal letters. True pardoners carried proper credentials:

First came copies of the all-important indulgences, sealed by the Chapter to guarantee their validity, and later counter-sealed by the examining Bishop. With his indulgences the questor carried a letter showing his appointment by the Chapter, the purpose of which was to provide a check upon his identity. After the Bishop had verified the authenticity of the questor and his documents, he would likewise furnish the questor with a sealed letter.⁸ This letter was his license to collect within the dioceses. It instructed Archdeacons, their officials, and the lesser clergy to receive him, stated the time at which he might be heard, admonished the local clergy to abstain from making deductions from his collection, and limited the validity of the license to a specific period of time. Lastly, the questor might also be provided with a royal writ of protection.⁹

The abundance of checks put on the questor were no doubt intended to prevent corruption and abuse. Instead, the checks resulted in more corruption because they allowed more people to get a share of the money. Indeed, Henry VIII provided a royal writ for a share of the proceeds and received between one-fourth to one-third of the proceeds of an indulgence issued November 1, 1517 (the day after Luther's protest at Wittenberg) to raise money for St. Peter's.¹⁰ In retrospect, we must see that Henry and others, who for profit, sanctioned and even encouraged the sale of indulgences by pardoners instead of denouncing their sale, must share the blame with the papal court, the origin of the pardons and indulgences. And when there were attempts to discipline pardoners, local officials were, for the most part, powerless to do anything, as Heywood demonstrates at the end of The Pardoner and the Friar.

The Church, of course, recognized the existence of abuses long before the Reformation, and made some attempt to correct them.¹¹ Still, disorders continued and resulted in continued attacks not only on the traffic of indulgences, but on the doctrine itself. That Heywood attacks the pardoner when he does indicates clearly that the abuses remained. Heywood's pardoner is a criticism of Church practice and the papal position, not simple abuse by “false pardoners.” As the play opens a dispute erupts between a pardoner and a friar to get the audience of the people. The Pardoner asks for money to repair “the holy chapel of sweet Saint Leonard— / Which late by fire was destroyed and marred.”¹² No doubt Heywood expected his audience to recognize that this pardoner comes from Leo in Rome and is collecting money for St. Peter's, Leo's “chapel.” He carries the authorization proper to a true pardoner:

‘And all such that to me make interruption,
The Pope sends them excommunication
By his bulls here ready to be read,
By bishops and his cardinals confirmed;
And eke if thou disturb me anything,
Thou are also a traitor to the king.
For here hath he granted me under his broad seal,
That no man, if he love his heal,
Should disturb or let in any wise’.

(12)

Like Chaucer's, Heywood's pardoner comes from Rome and sells true pardons, “and thus directly represents the pope, since only a papal legate could sell pardons through the pontiff's plenitude of power. …”¹³ The protection and threat of excommunication sound exaggerated, but they are not. A bull issued by Leo X in 1518 to proctour John Sargy promises “the payne of the sentence of excommunycacion” to church officials who fail to “publysshe or cause to be publyshed” Sargy's letters. The bull warns the people not to “trouble moleste or let the forsayd John.” Attached to the bull is a letter of “proteccion” under the “great seale” of Henry VIII warning that the “subgettes shall nat do them any iniury hurte molestacion trouble or grief.”¹⁴

Heywood's language, which mocks the language of this sort of papal bull, indicates the serious nature of his critique. The playwright satirizes the system that allows the pardoner to sell indulgences and to mislead the people as to their effect. And the papacy is the source of this system; as the Pardoner says:

That Pope Leo the Tenth hath granted with his hand—
And by his bulls confirmed under lead—
To all manner people both quick and dead—
Ten thousand years and as many Lents of pardon—
…
Pope Julius the Sixth hath granted fair and well—
And doth twelve thousand years of pardon to them
          send—
…
Pope Boniface the Ninth also—
Pope Julius, Pope Innocent, with diverse popes mo—
Hath granted to the sustaining of the same [chapel]—
Five thousand years of pardon to every of you by
          name—
And clean remission also of their sin—
As often times as you put in—
Any money into the Pardoner's coffer.

(9-10, underline mine)

Often, not only the indulgence of the present pope was offered, but also the indulgences of the pope's predecessors to the named church or institution. An indulgence issued in London around 1520 offers “pardon of plenary remissio a pena et culpa granted by dyverse popes” in the name of Leo the X (underline mine). And the “pryuyleges and Indulgeces by our holy father the Pope Leo X to the house of Seynt Thomas of Acres in London” offers to all those “truely penytent and cofessyd … plenare and full remyssyon of all theyr synnes ones in they life and poynt of deth.” In addition, Leo X “hath confyrmed and ratyfyed all maner of lyberties / Immunytyes and Indulgences grauted by his predecessours Popes of Rome unto the foresayd hospitall Mayster and bretherne of acon in London. Which pryuy / indulgeces and immunites hereafter dothe folowe.” So the penitent gets not only the indulgence offered by Leo X, but those indulgences offered by “Alexander the fourthe, Benet the xii, Bonyface the ix., Pius the seconde, Paulus the secode.”¹⁵ That Heywood's pardoner mentions a fictitious pope, Julius VI, and several popes without their numbers is usually taken to mean that the pardoner is a fool. It is just as likely that Heywood was protecting himself by having his pardoner naming both real and fictitious popes. The list of Leo's predecessors suggests that any pope by any name, past and future, would authorize the same thing. Moreover, Heywood's pardoner's indulgence includes the dead and, as noted, Leo X first defined the indulgence for the dead, which was obtained by a short intercessory prayer. Heywood's pardoner, Leo's agent, offers the same indulgence for the payment of money. Tetzel, of course, angered Luther by declaring that indulgences for the dead “could be gained by money alone.”¹⁶

That the pardoner might mislead the people and corrupt the sacraments was a concern shared by many people loyal to Rome during the early sixteenth century. What Chaucer and Heywood did was to present satirically the indignation which sincere men in the church were directly expressing. In the letter to Archbishop Albrecht that accompanied a copy of his Ninety-five Theses, dated October 31, 1517, Luther expresses this concern:

Under your most distinguished name, papal indulgences are offered all across the land for the construction of St. Peter's. Now, I do not so much complain about the quacking of the preachers, which I haven't heard; but I will bewail the gross misunderstanding among the people which comes from these preachers and which they spread everywhere among common men. Evidently the poor souls believe that when they have bought indulgence letters they are then assured of their salvation. They are likewise convinced that souls escape from purgatory as soon as they have placed a contribution into the chest. Further, they assume that the grace obtained through these indulgences is so completely effective that there is no sin of such magnitude that it cannot be forgiven—even if (as they say) someone should rape the Mother of God, were this possible. Finally they also believe that man is freed from every penalty and guilt by these indulgences.¹⁷

We might think Luther employs the same kind of exaggeration used by Heywood when he suggests that one can be forgiven for raping the mother of God. He is not. Tetzel promised that his indulgence would save even one who had raped the mother of God herself. But what is important is how Heywood's pardoner promises everything Luther accuses Tetzel of offering. He promises to bring the people “to heaven's gate” (12). In the name of Leo X he promises “To all manner people both quick and dead” (9), which would include those in purgatory, “Ten thousand years and as many Lents of pardon— / … That will with their penny or alms deed” (9). He promises that his “Pardons for every crime may dispense”:

‘Pardon purchaseth grace for all offence—
Yea, though he had slain both father and mother—
And this pardon is chief above all other—
For who to it offereth groat or penny—
Though sins he had done never so many—
And though he had all his kindred slain—
This pardon shall rid them of everlasting pain—
There is no sin so abhominable—
Which to remit this pardon is not able’.

(16)

The pardoner promises release from hell, offering “clean remission,” an indulgence a culpa et a poena, “without confession or contrition” (13). Clearly Heywood's point is that the quaestor is authorized by the pope, carrying papal papers, and preaching papal doctrine, misleading the people both by preaching a demagogic version of papal doctrine and by extending the doctrine beyond papal limits. But such figures are seemingly beyond discipline; as such, they cast doubt on the indulgence office but also on the efficacy of the disciplining authority of the papacy.

Thus, Heywood's satire of the pardoner, like Chaucer's, is not just upon the pardoner but upon the system that allows the pardoner to exist. The decaying state of the institution is highlighted at the end of The Pardoner and the Friar when local officials are unable to do anything to stop the pardoner. Moreover, Heywood continues his attack on the bogus pardoner, and the failure of the papacy to control him, in another play, The Four P.P. Here a pardoner tells the story of his journey to purgatory and to hell to buy off the remaining time of a suffering soul. He arrives in hell on the festival day that “Lucifer fell” and is met at the gates by a porter, who gets the pardoner “safe-conduit” into hell “Under seal”:

                                                                                          Lucifer,
By the power of God, chief devil of hell,
To all the devils that there do dwell
And every of them, we send greeting,
Under strait charge and commanding,
That they aiding and assistant be
To such a Pardoner, and named me,
So that he may at liberty
Pass safe without jeopardy. …

(53)

Having received his proper authorization, the pardoner has an audience with Lucifer himself, a pope-like figure to whom the pardoner “kneeled.” As in The Pardoner and the Friar, criticism of the pardoner is criticism of the papacy. Both pardoners carry sanctions (papal bulls) and praise from the Pope of Rome. The pardoner may abuse his office by promising heaven without contrition or confession, as Sir Robert Romeraker does in David Lindsay's Ane Satire of the thrie Estaitis (1540), but what he does reflects the power the pope is supposed to have. Whereas the pope intercedes between man and God, the pardoner intercedes between man and the pope.

Notes

1. James C. Bryant, Tudor Drama and Religious Controversy (Macon, Ga., 1984) X.

2. Bryant, Tudor Drama and Religious Controversy X. See also “The Pardoner and the Friar as Reformation Polemic,” Renaissance Papers (Durham, 1972) 17-24; R. de la Bère, John Heywood, Entertainer (London, 1937) 69, who writes that “This play of a thousand lines is simply constructed of ribaldry and horseplay and from its crudity may well be the fruit of Heywood's true comedies.”

3. For a discussion of the relation of Heywood's play to the Farce d'un pardonneur, see Ian Maxwell, French Farce & John Heywood (Melbourne, 1946) 70ff; for a discussion of the play's relation to Chaucer see Robert Carl Johnson, John Heywood (New York, 1972) 96-98.

4. R. Devonshire Jones, Erasmus and Luther (Oxford, 1968) 59.

5. Quoted in J. J. Jusserand, English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages, Trans. Lucy Toulmin Smith (London, 1889) 176.

6. William E. Lunt, Papal Revenues in the Middle Ages, 2 vols. (New York, 1934) I: 113.

7. William E. Lunt, Financial Relations of the Papacy With England 1327-1534, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1962) II: 477.

8. Gerald Robert Owst, Preaching in Medieval England (Cambridge, 1926) 102-03, quotes a Bishop's letter from the Registers of Sandale (Winchester):

   That you set forth … in good faith, and permit the same persons (proctors or messengers) to set forth to clergy and people committed to your care, the Indulgence and privileges duly granted to the said hospital, during the solemnization of Masses, on Sundays and Festivals, and at other places and times, where, and as often as a great number of the faithful shall be present; minor Masses, and preachings of friars, with other business and briefs ceasing in the meantime until the said business be plenarily set forth.

   The letter states specific times and places at which this proctor, who offers indulgences to raise money for a hospital, can preach. Note that the activities of the proctor take precedent over those of friars.

9. Alfred L. Kellogg and Louis A. Haselmayer, “Chaucer's Satire of the Pardoner,” PMLA 65 (1951): 262-63.

10. Lunt, Papal Finances II: 610.

11. For example, the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) decreed that no indulgence be granted for more than a year at the dedication of a church, a restriction later enacted by the Council of Ravenna (1317). Boniface IX (1392) in a letter to the Bishop of Ferrara, condemns the practice of those who say they are authorized by the pope to forgive all sorts of sins. Martin V reprimanded the Archbishop of Canterbury (1420) when he attempted to give a plenary indulgence in the form of a Roman Jubilee. Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, Apostolic Legate to Germany, found some preachers offering indulgences releasing guilt of the sin as well as punishment. For more information see the entry on “Indulgences” by W. H. Kent, The Catholic Encyclopedia (1910 edition) VII: 783-789.

    At the Council of Trent the Church tried to strengthen the practice of indulgences by attempting to eliminate evil elements. On July 16, 1562, the twenty-first session of the Council of Trent abolished the office of quaestor. Recognizing that remedies prescribed by earlier councils and popes had failed to check the activities of the quaestor, the council ordered that the name and method of the quaestors be “utterly abolished.” See J. Waterworth, trans., The Canons and Decrees of the Sacred and Oecumenical Council of Trent (London, 1848) 151.

12. John Heywood, The Dramatic Writings of John Heywood, ed. John S. Farmer (New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc., 1966) 9. All subsequent references to the play are from this edition and are cited by page number.

13. Paul A. Olson, The Canterbury Tales and the Good Society (Princeton, 1986) 202.

14. Reprinted in Kenneth Walter Cameron, The Pardoner and His Pardons (Hartford, 1965) 19-21.

15. Reprinted in Cameron 15-18.

16. John Farrow, Pageant of the Popes (New York, 1942) 242.

17. Martin Luther, “To Cardinal Albrecht, Archbishop of Mainz, 31 Oct. 1517,” Letter 16 in Luther's Works: The Letters, Ed. and trans. Gottfried G. Krodel, 55 vols. (Philadelphia, 1963) 48: 46.