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...