379. The final _e_ in _sinne_ must not be elided; it is preserved by the
caesura. Besides, _e_ is only elided before _h_ in the case of certain
words.
387. _assoile_, absolve. In Michelet's Life of Luther, tr. by W. Hazlitt,
chap. ii, there is a very similar passage concerning Tetzel, the Dominican
friar, whose shameless sale of indulgences roused Luther to his famous
denunciations of the practice. Tetzel 'went about from town to town, with
great display, pomp, and expense, hawking the commodity [i. e. the
indulgences] in the churches, in the public streets, in taverns and
ale-houses. He paid over to his employers as little as possible, pocketing
the balance, as was subsequently proved against him. The faith of the
buyers diminishing, it became necessary to exaggerate to the fullest extent
the merit of the specific.... The intrepid Tetzel stretched his rhetoric to
the very uttermost bounds of amplification. Daringly piling one lie upon
another, he set forth, in reckless display, the long list of evils which
this panacea could cure. He did not content himself with enumerating known
sins; he set his foul imagination to work, and invented crimes, infamous
atrocities, strange, unheard of, unthought of; and when he saw his auditors
stand aghast at each horrible suggestion, he would calmly repeat the burden
of his song:--Well, all this is expiated the moment your money chinks in
the pope's chest.' This was in the year 1517.
390. _An hundred mark._ A mark was worth about 13s. 4d., and 100 marks
about £66 13s. 4d. In order to make allowance for the difference in the
value of money in that age, we must at least multiply by ten; or we may say
in round numbers, that the Pardoner made at least £700 a year. We may
contrast this with Chaucer's own pension of 20 marks, granted him in 1367,
and afterwards increased till, in the very last year of his life, he
received in all, according to Sir Harris Nicolas, as much as £61 13s. 4d.
Even then his income did not quite attain to the 100 marks which the
Pardoner gained so easily.
397. _dowve_, a pigeon; lit. a dove. See a similar line in the Milleres
Tale, A. 3258.