The Friar's Tale by Chaucer

This is the eighth story in Canterbury Tales by Chaucer.  It has a prologue as well as the tale by the Friar, one of the pilgrims.

The Prologue to the Friar's Tale
Unlike the Wife of Bath's lengthy prologue, the Friar's prologue is very simple and brief and he first appreciates the Wife of Bath for having told a touching tale about the true authority, though the pilgrims are there just to speak, make fun and play the game. He proposes to tell a tale of the corrupt summoner who is thrashed everyday at street’s end for his vices.  The host interrupts and asks him to have mercy on the summoner but the summoner challenges the Friar to say anything about the summoner that will be repaid by l him with the list of crimes of the Friar later. Now the Friar begins his tale.

The Friar's Tale
The Friar begins his tale introducing the Archdeacon, a man of high degree  In the ecclesiastical court who deals with many cases such as adultery, church robbery, defamation, usury, bawdry and witchcraft.  The summoner works under the archdeacon in all his illegal dealings.  He is a sly, a thief and a man of no conscience.  He is as money minded as Judas and for money he would pretend to lechers more than how a hunting dog would talk to the hurt deer.

Once the summoner is riding to an old widow's house to extort money with false charges.  On his way he finds a yeoman with a bow and arrows. Since both of them have their offices in the ecclesiastical court, they vow to be brothers to their "dying day". While asked upon his name and way of dealings, the yeoman says that he is actually a demon living in Hell and if anyone curses, he will take away the things mentioned.  Though he doesn't have a shape of his own, he can take any shape such as man, ape or angel.  He takes the soul only and not the body but sometimes both.  The summoner perhaps thinks that the yeoman is playing with words for fun and doesn't take the devil’s words seriously.

On their way they happen to see a cartman struggling to release his cart stuck in the mud.  In frustration, he cries, the devil may take his cart, horse, hay and everything.  The summoner points out this situation and asks him to do as he said.  But the devil in the disguise of a yeoman refuses and says that the curse doesn't come seriously from the man's heart.  At one stage, the cartman managed to pull off his cart from the mud and thanked God.  Thus by curse earlier, the cart man had said one thing and really meant another.

Now both the yeoman and the summoner reach the widow’s house.  The latter threatens her to pay twelve pence, or else he would bring her to court the next day and get excommunicated.  But the lady is old, poor and sick and begs for mercy.  The summoner talks of her old debt to him and plans to take of the new frying pan.  Out of grief, the lady cries, the devil may take both the summoner and the frying pan.  The summoner wants to know whether the curse is really from her heart and she confirms it so.  Then the devil takes the summoner and the pan to the hell.  The Friar ends his tale with a warning against temptation:
“Dispose your hearts always to withstand,
The fiend who would grip you in his hand.
He may not tempt you beyond your might,
For Christ will be your champion and night.”

Chaucer's main focus here is to satirize the corruptions of the church during his time.  He ridicules at the workings of religious system in the name of sins and pardons by sending the summoner to the extend of taking away the frying pan. Is it not a sin to sin against the sinners in the name of sin.  This tale also reveals Chaucer's deep insight into Hell and the formation of evil spirits.  “I would ride now into the world’s end following my prey” is what is said by the devil and unfolds the truth that the evil will persist and visit us till the end and our duty is to hold faith in God and resist.