In the tale, the Prioress sets up an opposition between Jews, whose concern is solely with the power of this world — especially money — and between the Christians, whose concerns are otherworldly. She insists from the start on the physical vulnerability of the Christian position. For example, the Christian school is small (“litel”), and the children are repeatedly called small or little (smale or litel); even the book the scholar in the tale reads is also “litel.” His mother is a widow and, by implication, poor and defenseless. But the seeming power of the Jews, who can accumulate money and kill little children, is overwhelmed by the Virgin’s miracle of restoring the boy’s singing voice and also by treasures of the spirit symbolically represented by the pearl on the dead child’s tongue.
