By this gaude have I wonne, yeer by yeer,
An hundred mark sith I was pardoner.
– Geoffrey Chaucer
The Canterbury Tales, The Pardoner’s Prologue. The Pardoner boasts that he makes a good living from his different con tricks, including selling fake relics, sheep bones with miraculous powers and magic mittens. Chaucer pains a very satirical and cynical portrait of the licensed seller of indulgences – ecclesiastical pardons of sins – who himself repeatedly commits the cardinal sin of greed.