Chest panel

This carved panel, made of elmwood, is part of the front of a chest - the recess for a lock can be seen top left. It is carved with scenes from the story told by Geoffrey Chaucer in his Canterbury Tales as 'The Pardoner's Tale'. Three friends find a hoard of treasure, and fall out over the division of it. The panel shows one buying wine for the others, in which he puts poison; the other two attack him and stab him to death; then they sit down and drink the poisoned wine. The moral of the story is 'radix malorum est cupiditas' - 'greed is the root of evil'.

The Pardoner’s Tale was included in a book of sermons by the friar John Bromyard before 1350. In Chaucer’s version it is told by the ‘pardoner’, a rogue who is selling indulgences or pardons, documents issued by the Church that offer relief from penance and from time the soul will spend in purgatory after death. He also carries fake relics of the saints. His tale of greed and murder is intended to encourage his listeners to buy indulgences – which are probably worthless fakes like his relics.