The Tale of the Gentlewoman, the Gallant Man, and the Friar (III.3)

Boccaccio stages the humorous obsolescence and inadequacy of three wool trade utensils at the very end of Filomena’s retelling of a trick by a young wife, the third tale of the third day of storytelling by thebrigata. The plot is well known: a lusty lady tricks a friar, who becomes the unwilling instrument of an illicit extramarital affair. After the woman has put her confessor in the position to procure just what he believes he is preventing, her triumph over the gullible friar is complete.