Meaning & Analysis
Describes a friar delivering a sermon denouncing theft while secretly concealing (and having stolen) food—like a goose or pudding—within his own sleeve.
Insights
Hypocrisy Unmasked
Exposes the duplicity of those who condemn vices in others while privately indulging in the same wrongdoing, warning against the superficial piety of authority figures.
Moral Blindness
Suggests a common human failing: being oblivious to or excusing one's own faults while harshly judging others, illustrating the dangers of self-deception and double standards.
Historical Symbolism
The figure of the friar, especially in early modern England, was frequently used as a symbol of clerical corruption and hypocrisy. Tales and jests about mendicant friars stealing while preaching virtue were widespread, reflecting deep societal suspicion toward the clergy.
Literary and Folkloric Tradition
This story belongs to a rich tradition of folk tales and jest-books (such as 'The Hundred Merry Tales') that lampoon moral pretenders and expose the gap between their preaching and their practice—often through comic or farcical revelation.
Psychological Dimensions
The proverb taps into psychological tendencies to project one's own flaws outward or to rationalize personal exceptions, highlighting the universal struggle to align belief and behavior.
Rhetorical Devices
Irony
The central device is biting irony: the preacher denounces theft even as he himself is revealed to be a thief, undermining the authority of his words.
Vivid Imagery
The comic image of food (a goose or pudding) literally falling from the friar's sleeve during his sermon renders the hypocrisy memorable and visually striking.
Anecdotal Structure
Presented as a short, illustrative narrative or fable, enhancing its persuasive and entertaining power.
Transcription
Quotations
In his sermon there he [the friar] rebuked . . . them that met to breke theyr faste . . . and said it was called the deuyls blacke brekefast. And with that worde spekynge . . . there fell a podyng out of his sleue which he hym selfe had stolen.
(when he had a pudding).
A certain Fryer would preach, that one ought not to steal, who had a goose lap'd in's hood.
(when he had a pudding).
(against Theft, when he had).
Cross References
- See DÜR., II, no. 99.
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
Used under CC BY-NC 3.0.