Chaucer's Summoner tells the tale of a corrupt friar who, while trying to obtain a donation from his bedridden and irate patron Thomas, demonstrates his hypocrisy by giving Thomas's wife a very specific dinner order and immediately following it up with a long sermon on the importance of fasting. Like most medieval preachers, Friar John appeals to biblical exempla:
“Lo, Moyses fourty dayes and fourty nyght
Fasted, er that the heighe God of myght
Spak with hym in the mountayne of Synay.
With empty wombe, fastynge many a day,
Receyved he the lawe that was writen
With Goddes fynger; and Elye, wel ye witen,
In mount Oreb, er he hadde any speche
With hye God, that is oure lyves leche,
He fasted longe and was in contemplaunce.
… Our Lord Jhesu, as hooly writ devyseth,
Yaf us ensample of fastynge and preyeres.”