The Pardoner's Tale from "The Canterbury Tales"

It is stated in the prologue that the pardoner is a man that is to forgive the people for their sins in the absence of a pope, but he is a crafty business man. He drinks and has a good time and charges others nifty wages for their wrongdoings. It was only inevitable that such a business man would use such stories to scare people out of their pockets. Anything to make a good buck. However, I don't think that the pilgrims would have fallen for his story if he did not tell them of his practices. I believe that they would have been able to read right through him and beat him. They would have taken everything the man owned and left him for dead on the side of the road. That is what happened in those times to people who scammed other people for a living.