1. The Parson’s Tale is believed to be a translation, more or less
free, from some treatise on penitence that was in favour about
Chaucer’s time. Tyrwhitt says: “I cannot recommend it as a very
entertaining or edifying performance at this day; but the reader
will please to remember, in excuse both of Chaucer and of his
editor, that, considering The Canterbury Tales as a great picture
of life and manners, the piece would not have been complete if
it had not included the religion of the time.” The Editor of the
present volume has followed the same plan adopted with regard
to Chaucer’s Tale of Melibœus, and mainly for the same
reasons. (See note 1 to that Tale). An outline of the Parson’s
ponderous sermon — for such it is — has been drawn; while
those passages have been given in full which more directly
illustrate the social and the religious life of the time — such as
the picture of hell, the vehement and rather coarse, but, in an
antiquarian sense, most curious and valuable attack on the
fashionable garb of the day, the catalogue of venial sins, the
description of gluttony and its remedy, &c. The brief third or
concluding part, which contains the application of the whole,
and the “Retractation” or “Prayer” that closes the Tale and the
entire “magnum opus” of Chaucer, have been given in full.