An exemplum is a story which is told as a particular instance of the general text of a sermon. The term is also applied to tales used in a formal, though nonreligious exhortation. For example, in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Pardoner’s Tale, the Pardoner while preaching the principle “Greed is the root of all evil” incorporates as exemplum the tale of the three revelers who set out to find Death, but find a heap of gold instead and killed one another in the attempt to gain sole possession of the treasure.