CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE Cornell university Library PR2015.J961894 Piers P.owman;aconlribu«on^otheh.st Cornell University Library The original of tiiis book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013114339 PIERS PLOIVMAN BY THE SAME AUTHOR. ENGLISH WAYFARING LIFE IN THE MIDDLE AGES (XlVth CENTURY). Translated by L. T. Smith. Revised and enlarged by the Author. Fourth Edition. Sixty-one Illustra- tions. Large crown 8vo, cloth, 7s. 6d. "An extremely fascinating hook." — Tijjies. THE ENGLISH NOVEL IN THE TIME OF SHAKESPEARE. Translated by E. Lee. Re- vised and enlarged by the Author. Illustrated by 6 Heliogravures by Dujardin, and 2i full-page and many smaller Illustrations in Facsimile. Second Edition. Demy 8vo, cloth, gilt tops, 2is. " One of the brightest, most scholarly, and most interesting volumes of literary history." — Speaker. A FRENCH AMBASSADOR AT THE COURT OF CHARLES II. . Le Comte de Cominges, from his unpublished correspondence. lo Illustra- tions, 5 being Photogravures. Demy 8vo, cloth gilt, I2S. " The whole book is delightful reading." — Spectator. London : T. FISHER UNWIN. en LJ > < Piers Plowman A Contribution to the History of English Mysticism J. J. JUSSERAND TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY M. E. R. REVISED AND ENLARGED BY THE AUTHOR ILLUSTRATED New York: G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS London: T. FISHER UNWIN MDCCCXCIV CONTENTS. PAGE EXPLANATORY LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ... 7 CHAPTER I. THE WORK JND THE DAY 11 I. Preliminaries. — Dreams and visions, in Italy, in France, and in England — Dante... ... ... ... li II. Summary of Events. — Accession of Edward III. — His French wars — The French wars, royal, not national — Increased power of the Commons — They want to manage home affairs and usually leave foreign to the king — Their hate of foreigners — Their opposition to papal encroachments — Statutes of " Provisors " and " Prsmunire " — Decrease of papal influence in England 14. Plagues, murrains, tempests, earthquakes — Mystic minds distressed by them ... ... ... ... ... 18 Last years of Edward III. — Financial difEculties — The " Good " and " Bad " Parliaments 20 Reign of Richard II. — His difEculties — Wyclif ; the rising of the peasantry ; the lords "Appellant'' — Various phases of good and bad government — The catastrophe — Accession of Henry IV. ... ... ... ... ... 21 III. Analysis of " Piers Plowman." — The Vision — The field full of folk— Trial of Meed— Trial of Wrong — Conversion of the Deadly Sins — Piers Plowman CONTENTS. PAGE teaches the way leading to Truth — Visions of Dowel, Dobet, and Dobest — The siege of Hell — Doleful sights — Coming of Antichrist, Elde, Death ... CHAPTER II. THE THREE rERSIONS OF THE POEM 32 I. Text A. — " Provisors '' — Peace of Bretigny — Plague of 1361-2 — Wind tempest of January 25, 1362 — Probable date of A, 1362-3 ... ... 32 II. Text B. — Fable of the council held by rats and mice, and the crisis of the year 1376-7 — Popularity of the fable — Identification of allusions — Papal wars — ■ French wars — Plague of 1375 — The Golden Age and the jubilee — Probable date of B, 1376-7 ... ... 39 III. Text C. — A deeper note — Tendency of the author to confess his faults and tell the tale of his life — The Commons protest against " avancement par clergie," 1391 — Allusion to the unpopularity of the king, 1398 — Probable date of C, 1398-9 ... 55 CHAPTER III. THE AUTHOR'S NAME, LIFE, AND CHARACTER 59 I. Name and Birth. — The name, according to the Visions — The surname, according to the Visions, to notes of the XVth century, and to tradition — Langland's family — His friends — Was he the son of a freeman ? — What Holy Church did for him — Date of his birth 59 II. His Youth and Character. — He studies at Malvern ; perhaps at the University — He follows Wit rather than Study — -His knowledge — His learning is ex- tensive, but not deep— Sciences— Languages— Dreams of love and wealth ... ... y, III. Shadows.- His friends die— His false situation- Life in London— Religious functions— Chantries— His CONTENTS. 3 PAGE marriage — His cot in Cornhill — He does not bow to the rich and powerful — Doubts and terrors — His conversion — His diseased will — His end ... ... ... ... 86 CHAPTER IV. THE WORLD 102 I. The Parliament and the State. — Mobs — Lang- land knows how to describe them — His mobs are alive and have a temper of their own — Difference with Chaucer — The Parliaments and the Commons of England as described by Langland — Might and grandeur of the Commons — Langland alone able fully to understand the same — State organisation — Langland seems to foresee the end of the Plantagenets — England at one with the C''"-'-<-M^ Commons on nearly_an_gU'esdons — The political economy of his time. . . ... ... ... ... ... ... lOi II. The Classes of Society. — The knight must defend the realm and the church — Active Life — The knight has to fight and must not wear himself out with fasts and penances — He will beware of hangers-on and of Lady Meed — Fair ladies with long fingers — Their duties — Merchants — What they should do with their wealth — Roads, hospitals, orphanages, &c. — Piers Plowman finds food for everybody — Not, however, for idlers, jugglers, japers, &c. — Hunger will rid the world of all such — Men of law — Marriage ... ... ... ... ...115 III. Home Scenes. — With Piers Plowman — The home of a peasant woman, winter time — With the wealthy — The hall ; the chamber ... ... ... ... ...122 CHAPTER V. THE CHURCH 126 I. The Pope and the Religious Hierarchy. — Aim of Langland in religious matters — He wants to reform abuses, but leaves the dogma and established hierarchy 4 CONTENTS. PAGE untouched — In religious, as well as in political matters, he sides with the Commons — " Provisors " — Temporal power — Cardinals — The papal court at Avignon — Bishops — Absentees — State appointments filled by bishops — Recruiting of the clergy — Bishops "in partibus " — Country parsons — The hunting parson ... ... ... 126 II. The Regular Clergy. — The poet comparatively lenient to them — " Wrath " ill-treated by the Monks — Well treated by nuns — Quarrels in a nunnery — The worldly monk ... ... ... ... ... ...137 III. Monsters. — Heavenly wares for sale — Holy and unholy hermits — Pardoners — Buyers and sellers — Friars — What they were meant to be ; what they are — They preach, confess, gather wealth — Lady Meed, and saintly women ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 140 CHAPTER VI. THE ART AND AIM OF LANGLAND 153 I. Art. — Langland's sincerity — He is led by his thoughts — Nothing studied in his most successful artistical effects — Examples of the same — Clouds — Memorable sayings — His gift for observation : men, animals, things — "Caracteres et moeurs de ce siecle" — Proud, Ava- ricious, Gloton — Realism and mysticism combined ... 153 II. Vocabulary and Prosody. — Langland's vocabu- lary similar to Chaucer's — Anglo-Saxon and French words— Close relationship of word and thought — Lang- land's dialect— His versification — Rules of his alliterative verse— Langland's erudition— His knowledge of the ancients, of Scripture, of contemporary writers He quotes from memory ... ... ... jg. III. Aims of Langland.— He writes for men of good- will—His proverbs— Popular wisdom— Langland as an CTJ-aZjr— Comparison with Chaucer— He teaches, before all, the necessity of being sincere— His hate of shams- Joys and pleasures— Sadness of thought— His possible optimism— " Disce, doce, dilige " l^. CONTENTS. S CHAPTER VII. PAGE PLACE OF LANGLAND IN MTSTIC LITERATURE i86 I. Popularity of the Visions. — Number of manu- scripts — The name of the Plowman becomes a pass- word — The Plowman at the time of the Reformation — ■ Piers on the stage — The meaning of the Plowman wrongly interpreted — The Plowman and the uprising of 1 38 1 — The Plowman and the Wyclifites — Allusions to the Plowman — Printed editions — Literary criticism ... 186 II. Langland and Foreign Mystics. — Italian mystics — Dante — Joachim of Flora — St. Francis — French poets — Rutebeuf — The " Roman de la Rose " — " Le Songe du Verger" — The "Pelerinages" of Deguileville — Dame Oiseuse and Lady Meed — German mystics — Beguinages — The " Free Spirit " — Pantheism — Self-caused diseases of the will — Prophets and prophetesses — The "Friend of God" — Saint Hildegarde — St. Elizabeth of Schoenau— Rulman Merswin and the "Friend of God in Oberland" — Comparison between Langland and Merswin ... 192 III. Langland and English Mystics. — The Anglo- Saxon race and its genius — Results of the Norman Conquest — Something of the Anglo-Saxon genius survives — Rolle of Hampole — Herbert of Cherbury — George Fox — Bunyan — Wesley — Whitefield — Cowper — Blake — Two sides of the English genius : Chaucer and Langland 211 APPENDIX. EXTRACTS FROM THE WRITINGS OF LANGLAND I. Beginning of the Visions II. A Parliament of mice and ratons III. Lady Meed at Court — Flight of her companions IV. Meed at Court — Her supporters V. Autobiographical fragments VI. A tavern scene ... 223 224 226 228 229 233 6 CONTENTS. PAGE VII. " Accidia," or the lazy parson ... ... ... ■■• 235 VIII. "Poure folk in cotes" 236 IX. "Lewede eremytes " ... ... ... ... ... 237 X. The doubts of " cunnyng clerkes " and the faith of "pastoures" ... ... ... ... ... 238 XI. Harrowing of Hell, and Easter Bells ... ... ... 239 XII. (From "Richard the Redeless.") — The meeting of Parliament — Faithful and faithless members ... 241 GLOSSARY of Obsolete Words in the Extracts ... ... 243 INDEX 249 EXPLANATORY LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. I. — Malvern. A modern view, leproduced in heliogravure, by Dujardin of Paris Frontispiece 2. — Gower confessing his sins to Genius. From MS. Egerton 1991, fol. 7, in the British Mu- seum, containing the " Coniessio Amantis " : . . and gan biholde The seh'e prest which as sche wolde Was redy ther and sette him doun To here my confessioun. To face p. I I 3. — An English poet dreaming his dream (the author of" Pearl "). From MS. Cotton. Nero A. 10, in the British Museum To face p. 12 4. — Meed " on a Schirreves bak i-schod al newe." From MS. Douce 104, in the Bodleian Library, containing text C of the Visions ... ... ... ... p. 33 5. — " Ratons of Renon " hanging a cat. From the misericord of a stall at Malvern (XVth century) ... ... ... ... ^.43 6. — The poet Gower with a " colere abouten his nekke." From his tomb at St. Saviour's Church, Southwark ... ... To face p. 46 7. — The priory church at Great Malvern, a.d. 1820. From Dugdale's " Monasticon Angli- 8 LIST OF ILL USTRA TIONS. canum," London, 6 vols., fol., ed. Caley, Ellis and Bandinell, vol. iii., 1821, p. 440 To face p. 59 8.— Another view of the church ; actual state "To face p. 73 9. — The refectory (now destroyed) of the priory of Great Malvern, drawn by E. Blore, 1837, " Archaeologia," 1844, p. 116. Built at the beginning of the reign of Edward III. To face p. 79 10. — Interior of the same, ibid. ... To face p. 80 II, — Old St. Paul's (before the lire), engraved by Hollar. From the "History of St. Paul's Cathedral," by W. Dugdale, London, 1658, fol., p. 132. The portico, in the Renaissance style, was an addition by Inigo Jones, who was entrusted with the care of repairing the church during the reigns of James I. and Charles I. To face p. 86 12. — Interior of the same: " Chori ecclesias cathe- dralis S. Pauli prospectus interior," by Hollar. Ibid., p. 169 .... ... To face p. 90 13. — Tomb of John of Gaunt and " Blaunche the Duchesse," in old St. Paul's. Ibid., p. 91. A tablet placed near the tomb, in Tudor times, stated that the princess buried with John of Gaunt was his second wife Constance. But this was, it seems, a mistake, as Con- stance was buried in the " New Work " at Leicester, and as the " Tombe of the said Duke and the Lady Blanch his wife " is mentioned by Henry IV. with reference to LIST OF ILL USTRA TIONS. 9 the chantry in St. Paul's Cathedral he en- dowed for their sake ... 'To face f. 92 14. — A " glorious tabernacle." From the MS. Cotton. Tiberius A. vii., fol. 68, containing the " Pilgrimage of the Life of Man," by Deguileville, translated into English by J. Lydgate : And the passyoun off Crist hym sylve And off his Aposteles twelve And off martyrs that were victorious The pacyence of confessours And off maydenes in ther degre. . . . T!o face p. 94 15. — " Treuthe's pilgryme atte plow." From the MS. R. 3. 14, in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, containing the Visions. " God spede ye plough, and send us Icorne yno " ... ... ... 'To face p. 119 16. — A Hermit, deceived by the Devil, kills his father. From same MS. as No. 14, fol. 56 "To face p. 144 17. — The confession of Lady Meed. From same MS. as No. 4 ... ... ... /'■ 151 18. — Gloton. From the misericord of a stall at Great Malvern (XVth century) ... p. 162 19. — Fac-simile of the beginning of MS. Laud, Misc. 581, in the Bodleian Library, con- taining the B text of the Visions : " The best copy of the B text, carefully and minutely corrected. I believe there is no reason why it may not be the author's autograph copy. I o LIST OF ILL USTRA TIONS. Wherever a slight mistake is left in the text, there is a mark at the side to call attention to it. In any case it is our best authority." (Skeat, Oxford edition of the Visions, 1886, vol. ii. p. Ixviii.) 'To face p. 186 20. — Deguileville, asleep in his bed, dreams of a " Pelerinage de la Vie humaine." From MS. 22937 in the British Museum, made for " Claude de Montaigu, Seigneur de Couche," a knight of the Golden Fleece, who died 1470 To face p. 198 21.- — Deguileville decides to write his dream. Same MS. ... ... ... To face p. 200 22. — Deguileville's pilgrim meets " Gladnesse of the World." From same MS. as Nos. 14 and 16, fol. 78 ... ... To face p. 101 23.- — " With dreams upon my bed thou scarest me and affrightest m.e with visions." " Illus- trations for the Book of Job in 21 plates . . . engraved by W. Blake," London, 1826, plate XL ... ... ... To face p. 212 24. — " And, behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young men, and they are dead." From Blake's "Illustrations," ibid., plate III. To face p. 216 25. — "When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy. . . ." From Blake's "Illustrations," ibid., plate XIV. Compare Langland, C. xxi. 47 1 : Tyl the day dawede • these damseles daunsede. To face p. 218 GOWER CONFESSING HIS SINS TO GENIUS. {From MS. Egerton 1991, in the British M-useu^n], ^iers ^lotoman. CHAPTER I. THE WORK AND THE DAY. " Many tyme this meteles ■ hath maked me to studye." B. vii. 143. I. THE poets of the Middle Ages wander about the meadows. The sun shines, the birds sing, the flowers open and perfiime the air, a stream of clear water glides over the pebbles ; like the birds, the river sings. To this music, the poet sleeps, and his slumber is peopled by dreams. He dreams de omni re scibili, and it takes his whole existence to tell all he has seen ; nay, one life-time does not always suffice ; he dies, having been unable to write more than five thou- sand verses, and another poet must come and sleep in his stead, in order to finish, in eighteen thousand lines, the dream commenced forty years before. This hap- pened to Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, authors of the " Roman de la Rose." Among so many dreams, French, Italian, German^ 1 2 PIERS PL WMAN. English, dreams of youth, and dreams of beauty, dreams where Science teaches sciences, and Love teaches love, only a very few have deserved the grander' and nobler name of " Visions." It was not to dream vain dreams that the Florentine of old, when half-way on life's journey, walked into the shadows of an obscure forest, and followed the path that leads to the abode of the doomed race. " Day was departing, and the waning light closed for the creatures upon earth the period of their toils. And I, alone among them all, prepared to undergo the hardships of the way and the pangs of pity, which my faithful memory will now tell." The flowers have closed, and no bird sings. At the other end of Europe, there blossomed, in the same century, a literature of which Chaucer was the master mind, a sunny and living literature, teeming with the aspirations and the tenderness, ringing with the laugh, of a young and already great nation. Many English poets dreamed on the banks of rivers ; Chaucer himself had a dream " in a litel herber " ; Gower was affected with dreams all his life. On the flowery margin of a stream, at the base of crystal rocks, under the shade of green boughs, the author of that exquisite poem, the " Pearl," i beheld his daughter taken away from him by Death, a pearl lost in the grass, a shed rose-leaf. And while dreamers sang and dreamers prayed, a bizarre and mysterious being, — concerning whom we possess no contemporaneous testimony, whom nobodv saw, though he mingled in crowds all his life, passing ' " Pearl, an English Poem of the XlVth Century," ed. Gollancz. London, 1891, 8vo. ■^- -J " s w s b a Id Ci w W THE A UTHORS NAME, LIFE, AND CHARACTER. 79 something else.' The case was different with the church ; so far back as the XVth century, it was found to threaten ruin, and, owing perhaps to the fall of the great tower, a then rather common accident, the monks had partly to rebuild it in 1450-60 ; most of the tracery now to be seen belongs to this period ; new stained glass was supplied to replace the old broken windows,^ of which, however, a few fragments have been preserved. In our century, Gilbert Scott restored the church again with a strong hand. Parts of the old pile, however, remain ; the large Norman pillars of the nave, against which Langland must often have leant, stand intact to this day ; a warrior in chain mail armour sleeps in the choir ; Prior Walcher of Lorraine was dug up, in the last century, from a neighbouring garden, and his tomb has now been placed under an arch in the church; curiously sculp- tured stalls, twenty-four in number, have been preserved. These stalls were not in existence when Langland lived at Malvern, and were carved only in the following century, but most of the subjects represented fit some passage in his Visions. The fact is most probably un- intentional, but none the less curious as showing the prevalence of the same spirit in poet and sculptor. There we may notice an incident of the perennial war between cats and mice, the question for the " ratons " being, however, not to bell the cat, but to hang him ; 3 ' See Ed. Blore, "Description of tlie Refectory of the Priory of Great Malvern," in Archaologia, 1844. ^ On tlie stained glass at Malvern (Great and Little), see notices by Albert Way and by E. Oldfield in the Archaeological Journal, vol. ii. p. 48, and vol. xxii. p. 302. 3 See above, p. 43. 8o PIERS PLOWMAN. a portrait of Sir Gloton, a representation of untonsured labourers reaping, mowing, working at shoes, of a physiciari tending a patient,^ &c. Malvern has long ceased to be a place for people enamoured of solitude ; it has become one of the most famous of health resorts ; all that was sombre has been whitewashed, church and cottages ; everything there is clean and neat, restored and well kept ; the very houses are the picture of health ; the churchyard even has assumed an " air de circonstance ; " it has an appearance of peaceful contentment, a place where the dead must be glad to be. Everything there looks inviting. If the dark figure of Piers Plowman were to appear again, it would be whitewashed by the careful inhabitants. A different Malvern our poet knew, a secluded place, with a school, and " bokes to rede and to lerne." There he studied ; but, from childhood, imagination pre- dominated in him. It had not yet obtained such a hold as to lead him to the verge of hallucination, but its ascendancy was already visible. The young man's intellectual curiosity and facility are very great ; his : studies cover a vast ground, but do not go deep ; imagination always leads him away, he is incapable of continued application or research. He is, by nature, a vagabond, both physically and mentally ; he roams over the domain of science, as he wandered over his ' The-se subjects have been often misinterpreted ; the man sitting at his meal with, bowl, loaf, knife, &c., has been said to represent the consecration of the sacramental elements ; the bottles which the physician handles, " wateres to loke," as Lang- land says, have been described as money bags. TNTERTOR VIEW OF THE REFECTORY AT GREAT MALVERN. Drawn by E. Bloee, 1837. THE AUTHORS NAME, LIFE, AND CHARACTER. 8i beloved hills, at random, in every direction, listening here to the song of the birds, and gazing there at the motion of the fleecy vapours : Thus yrobed in russet • I roamed aboute Al a somer sesoun . And thus I went wide-where • walkyng myne one . In manere of a mendynaunt. . . . ' Certain sciences, of which he had a tincture, were taught solely at the universities, and he could only have acquired a knowledge of them at Oxford or Cam- bridge ; he may therefore have left the priory school to stay in one of these places. The intercourse between Malvern and the universities was very frequent, and numerous documents of the XlVth century have been preserved, showing that licenses were freely granted to studious clerks, willing to leave Malvern for a time, and to follow the lectures in some more learned town. 2 Langland received more or less complete notions of theology, logic, grammar, prosody, law, natural history, ' B. viii. I and 62, B. xiii. 3. ^ "Richard de Bristol, clerk, 1304, had license for two years' non-residence for the sake of studye, and respite meanwhile from taking orders. In 1325, Thomas de Leys, priest, had 'a year's dis- pensation of leave.' Robert le Hont, in 1326, had three years' dispensation given him for the 'sake of studye,' being an acolyte, and three years more, in 1330. Master John Huband, Aug. I, 1345, had a year's license of 'non-residence,' and John Slourtre, rector of Quatt (z>. Malvern), had a year's license 'for studye,' dated Feb. 7. 1357." James Nott, "Some of the Antiquities of ' Moche Malverne,'" 1885, 8vo, p. 33. 82 PIERS FLO WMAN. astronomy, " an harde thynge,"' &c. We perceive, here and there in his work, that he has retained something of all these sciences. If he comes across disputing friars, he refutes their arguments with school formulas and syllogisms : " Contra, quod I, as a clerke." ^ If a charter is exhibited in his presence, he well knows what qualities will make it receivable, and what flaws cause it to be rejected in a court of justice : A chartre is chalengeable " byfor a chief justice ; If false Latyne be in the lettre ' the lawe it inpugneth, Or peynted parenterlinarie • or parceles over-skipped ; The gome (creature) that gloseth so chartres ■ for a goky (idiot) is holden. So is it a goky, by God ■ that in his gospel failleth. Or in masse or in matynes • maketh any defaute.3 He has learnt the properties of animals, stones, and ' All the sciences that " Dame Study " taught then are enume- rated with care. "Logyke," she says, Logyke I lerned hir • and many other lawes, And alle the musouns in musike • I made hir to knowe . Grammer for gerles (children) • I garte first wryte . . . Ac Theologie hath tened me • ten score tymes . . . Ac astronomye is an harde thynge • and yvel for to knowe, Geometric and geomesye ■ is ginful of speche. (B. X. 171, 175, 180, 207.) ^ Friars pretend that Dowel lives with them : " CoTitra," quod I, " as a clerke ■ and comsed to disputen. And seide hem sothli, species • in die c adit Justus . . . And who-so synneth," I seyde • "doth yvel as me thinketh. And Dowel and Do-yvel ■ mow nought dwelle togideres. Ergo, he nys naught alway • amonge yow freres.'' (B. viii. 20.) 3 B. xi. 296. THE AUTHORS NAME, LIFE, AND CHARACTER. 83 plants, a little from nature, and a little from books ; now he talks as Euphues will do later, and his natural mythology causes us to smile, and now he speaks as one country-bred, who has seen with his own eyes, like Burns, a bird build her nest, and has patiently watched her do it : I hadde wonder at whom " and where the pye lerned To legge (lay) the stykkes " in which she leyeth and bredeth ; There nys wrighte as I wene (think) • shulde worche hir nest to paye.^ Sometimes the animal is a living one, that leaps from bough to bough in the sunlight ; at others, it is a strange beast fit only to dwell among the stone foliage of a cathedral cornice. He knows French and Latin ; he has some tincture of the classics ; he would like to know everything : Alle the sciences under sonne ' and alle the sotyle craftes I wolde I knewe and couth • kyndely in myne herte ! ^ His indignation is roused by so-called clerks, who are nothing but asses, unable to write a verse, to draw a letter, whose grammar is as faulty as their prosody, who know just a little Latin and English, and nothing more, that is, no French at alL; and not even so much Latin as is needed for translating a classic : Gramer, the grounde of al ■ bigyleth now children ; For is none of this newe clerkes • who so nymeth hede, That can versifye faire ■ ne formalich enditen ; Ne nought on amonge a hundreth ■ that an auctour can construe, Ne rede a lettre in any langage ■ but in Latyn or in Englissh.3 ' B. xi. 338. "To paye," i.e., to satisfaction. 2 B. XV. 48. 3 B. XV. 365. 84 PIERS PLOWMAN. He, on the contrary, is desirous of knowing too much; he does not read, he merely turns over the leaves ; he does not study, he jumps at conclusions, and he soon confuses and forgets ; his knowledge lacks consistency, like the Malvern mists; the clouds per- meate each other and become undistinguishable. Thou art, says appropriately Clergye, one of those who want to know but hate to study : The were lef to lerne ■ but loth for to stodie.^ Langland's youth was spent between these two masters; he followed both "Wit" and "Study," but Wit in preference ; a hundred times, he vowed fidelity to Study,^ and praised her in touching terms : For if hevene be on this erthe ■ and ese to any soule, It is in cloistre or in scolc " be many skilles~l~fynde ; For in cloistre cometh no man • to chide ne to fighte, But alle is buxumnesse there and bokes ■ to rede and to lerne. 3 All in vain, the power of fancy could not be resisted ; he was, as he says himself, " frantyk of wittes " ; already he lost himself in reveries, or else he read romances of chivalry, the history of Guy of Warwick ' A. xii. 6. Study is indignant to see how much the poet has learnt without her help, and thanks only to Wit. It is a pity Wit gives encouragement to such " folis" : She was wonderly wroth • that Witte me thus taughte. And al starynge, dame Studye • sternelich seyde, "Wei artow wyse," quoth she to Witte ' " any wysdomes to telle To flatereres or to folis 'that frantyk ben of wittes.'' (B. X. 3.) ^ B. X. 14.2, &c. - 3.B. X. 300. THE AUTHORS NAME, LIFE, AND CHARACTER. 85 and the fair Felice ; ' he followed Ymagynatyf, who is never idle ; " later, he will compose verses instead of reciting the Psalms, as if there were not in the world " bokes ynowe."3 His dreams, at this time, were not all dark ones ; like his compatriot of the same century, RoUe, hermit of Hampole, he had his dreams of youth, and of a brilliant existence, and of love. Rolle used to remember, in his retreat, after his conversion, the time of his youth ; apparitions came to him with smiles ; a beautiful young woman, whom he had known in the world, seemed to stand beside him in his cell, " a full faire yonge womane," says the good hermit, "the whilke I had sene be-fore, and the whilke luffed me noght lytil in gude lufe." 4 Sweet-looking apparitions came to Langland also, with radiant smiles and tempting words, saying : Thou art yonge and lusty, and hast years many before thee to live and to love ; look in this mirror, and see the wonders and joys of love. — I shall follow thee, said another, till thou becomest a lord and hast domains. 5 — And why not.^" He had ' He remembers her misfortunes and beauty : Felyce hir fayrnesse " fel hir al to sklaundre. (B. xii. 47.) ^ "I am Ymagynatyf," quod he ■ "idel was I nevere." (B. xii. i.) 3 B. xii. 17. 4 "English Prose Treatises," ed. Perry, 1866, p. 5. s Concufiscentia-C amis' colled me aboute the nekke, And seyde, " thow art yonge and yepe • and hast yeres ynowe, Fortp lyve longe • and ladyes to lovye. And in this myroure thow myghte se • myrthes ful manye, That leden the wil to lykynge • al thi lyf-lyme.'" The secounde seide the same • " I shal suwe thi wille ; Til thow be a lorde and haue londe. . . ." (B. xi. 16.) 86 FIERS jPLO WMAN. indeed life before him ; he had started from the lowest point, and had rapidly risen ; the hardest part was over ; his heaviest chains had fallen off; his quick wit had obtained patrons for him ; he would rise in the world, he would be loved, and he would be powerful. III. This dream was to remain a dream. Great expecta- tions he might indulge in, so long as the friends, who had been the protectors of his boyhood, lived ; by him- self, or with the sole aid of his father, he could do nothing. Should his friends disappear, before his for- tunes were firmly established, it meant certain ruin, the impossibility of rising in life, and all the miseries attendant on a false situation, an " advancement by clergye," of which the origin was too recent to be forgoken. "^ This is precisely what happened. The friends of the poet died. They disappeared, perhaps during one of those terrible epidemics that swept away whole families and depopulated entire villages. If they perished in the great pestilence of 1349, which raged cruelly in the west/ the poet would then have reached ' " Tunc pestis dolorosa penetravit maritima per Southamp* tonam et venit Bristollam, et moriebantur' quasi tota valimdo villse quasi subita morte prseoccupati, nam pauci erant qui lectum occu- pabant ultra iij dies, vel duos dies, aut dimidium diem. . . . Et moriebantur apud Leycestriam in parva parochia Sancti Leonardi plusquam cccLxxx. In parochia SanctsE Crucis plusquam cccc . . . et sic in singulis parochiis in magna multitudine." Knyghton, an eye-witness ; in Twysden, " Decem Scriptores," col. 2599. I , « , _- K — t a 6 THE AUTHORS NAME, LIFE, AND CHARACTER. 87 the age of eighteen. Being young, strong, and full of- hope, he must have kept his illusions some time longer. But, little by little, the lights faded and the clouds grew darker. Isolation, poverty, and desire, all evil coun- sellors, now influence him. He has no one to help him ; he has only his " clergye," which is extensive if superficial, and we find him in London, trying to live by means of it, of " that labour that ich lerned best." ^ Religious life, in the Middle Ages, did not have those well defined and visible landmarks which we are accus- tomed to. Nowadays, one either is or is not, of the Church; formerly, no such obvious divisions existed. Religious life spread through society, like an immense river without dykes, swollen by innumerable affluents, whose subterranean penetrations impregnated even the soil through which they did not actually flow. From this arose numerous situations difficult to define, bordering at once on the world and the Church, a state of things with which there is no analogy now, except in Rome itself, where the religious life of the Middle Ages still partly continues. In Rome, many clerks receive minor orders and do not go beyond. They perform ecclesiastical functions, such as those of sacristans, or chanters ; they are married, but nevertheless wear a tonsure and a clerical dress. What is now customary only in Rome, used, in the Middle Ages, to be so in Paris, London, and everywhere. '■ Yf ich by laboure sholde lyve ' and lyflode deserven, That labour that ich lerned best • ther-with lyve ich sholde ; In eadem vocations in qua vocati estis manete. (C. vi. 42.) 88 PIERS PLOWMAN. The vocabulary used with reference to these situa- tions had a vagueness in accordance with the undefined character of the situations themselves ; neither had sharply cut limits. A "clerk" meant a man able to read, and this man, or clerk, could claim certain ecclesi- astical privileges ; a chaplain was not necessarily a priest hearing confession and saying mass ; he was sometimes simply the custodian of a chapel, or a keeper of relics. Numerous semi-rehgious, and slightly remunerative functions, were accessible to clerks, who were not, how- ever, obliged to renounce the world on that account. The great thing in the hour of death being to ensure the salvation of the soul, every man of fortune continued, and sometimes began, his good works at that hour. He endeavoured to win Paradise by proxy. He left directions, in his will, that, by means of lawful hire, a few soldiers should be sent to battle with the infidel ; and he also founded what were called *' chantries." " A sum of money was left by him, in order that masses, or the service for the dead, or both, should be chanted, either for a certain number of years, or for ever, for the repose of his soul. The number of these chantries was countless ; every arch in the side aisles of cathedrals contained ' " Cantaria, cantuaria, beneficium ecclesiasticum, missis decan- tandis addictum, et cui desserviunt qui alias capellani dicuntur. Cantaria, cantoris dignitas, ofEcium ecclesiasticum, Gall, chantrerie " (Du Gauge). "A la charge . . . de faire par chascun an, apres nostre deces, a tel jour qu'il aura este, une chantrerie de trois grans messes." — A.D. 1471. Godefroy, "Dictionnaire de I'ancienne langue Fran- ■9aise," word Chantrerie. THE AUTHORS NAME, LIFE, AND CHARACTER. 89 some, where the service for the dead was sung ; some- times separate edifices were built with this view. A priest celebrated divine service when the founder had asked for masses ; and clerks performed the office of choristers, being, for the most part, individuals only received into the first ecclesiastical degrees, and not necessarily in holy orders. It was, for them all, a career, almost a trade ; giving rise to discussions con- cerning salaries, and even to actual strikes.' The two sorts of people attendant upon these foundations are sometimes separately mentioned and named in the deeds of creation : capellani and choristi. Sometimes also, a school or hospital was attached to the chantry, or helped out of the same funds : " Cantaria de Castell Donyngton . . . founded ... to thentent to ffynde one preste, as well to syng dyvyne servyce in a chapel of our Ladye within the paroche churche there, and to praye for the ffounders soule, as for to teche a gramar scole there for the erudycyon of pore scolers within a scole house fiFounded by the seyde Harolde within the seyde towne of Donyngton." Another is established ' The Commons sometimes complain in Parliament that chap- lains and choristers are very remiss in fulfilling their obligations : e.g. year 1347, 21 Ed. III., " Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 184. On another occasion, they complain that the same, as well as all the labourers' whatsoever, refuse to work at the old rate, " depuis la grande pestilence ore tart," year 1362, ibid., p. 271. They draw a distinction betvveen the "chapeleins parochiels,'' who can pretend to six marks and no more, and the chantry chaplains, that is, chaplains "chantantz annales et a cure de almes nient entendantz." They mention also the " chapeleins annals," whom "homme seculer" may have " retenuz a demurer a sa table"; the very object, at a time, of our poet's ambition. 90 PIERS PLOWMAN. " to praye fFor the fFounders solles, and to kepe hospy- taallyte there." ^ The rehgious services performed in the chantries derived the name under which they commonly went, from one of the words of the hturgy sung ; they were called Placebos and Diriges? The word " dirge " has passed into the English language, and is derived from the latter. The service for the dead, properly so called, did not include mass ; it was a " vigil," 3 and could ' Walcott, " Chantries of Leicestershire," in the " Transactions of the Leicestershire Architectural . . . Society." To another foundation are attached " xiii vikers choral!, iii claries, vi querysters." Ibid. = "Et quod dicti nunc capellani et successores sui cantariae praedictae in dicta capella insimul dicant septimanatim singulis annis imperpetuum Placebo et Dirige, cum novem leccionibus et suis antiphonis versiculis et responsoriis, omni feria quinta." XVth century, Roch, "Church of our Fathers," London, 1849, 3 vols. 8vo. vol. i. p. 125. In the same way Langland states that his tools are : . . . Pater-noster and my prymer • placebo and dirige. And my sauter som tyme • and my sevene psalmes. Thus ich synge for hure soules • of such as me helpen. C. vi. 46. "Placebo" begins an antiphone in the service for the ;dead (vespers) : "Placebo Domino in regione vivorum." "Dirige" .is. the first word of an antiphone in the same service (matins) : "Dirige, Dominus meus, in conspectu tuo, viam meam." "Officium Defunctorum," Paris, Lecoffre, pp. 20, 32. 3 " C'etait une vigile, qui comportait, comme toute vigile, des vepres, trois nocturnes et les laudes . . . Les vepres avaient leurs cinq psaumes antiphones, un verset et le Magnificat antiphone, suivi du Kyrie eleison et de I'oraison dominicale. . . . Les trois nocturnes commen9aient sans invitatoire, . . . chaque nocturne comptait trois psaumes antiphone's, trois lemons tirees du livre de Job (neuf le9ons en tout), chacune suivie d'un repons tire aussi INTERIOR VIEW OF OLD ST. PAUL'S. From Dugdale's "67. Paul's.' THE AUTHOR'S NAiME, LIFE, AND CHARACTER. 91 therefore be celebrated by clerks who were not priests . Chantries were especially numerous and richly endowed in St. Paul's Cathedral, London, the famous gothic church, with its innumerable arcades, altars, shrines, and recesses, its Saxon tomb of King Sebba, its shrine of St. Erkenwald, a far-famed church, endowed by princes and merchants with ample revenues, and by bishops with a wealth of pardons, no less useful in those days. The ample structure and its appendages, were surrounded by a defensive wall, and formed a sort of city within the City, a city of prayers and chant,, from which thieves " and other lewd people " were with great difficulty expelled. " Upon information made to King Edward I. that, by the lurking of thieves and other lewd people, in the night-time, within the pre- cinct of this churchyard, divers robberies, homicides, and fornications had been oft times committed therein ;. for the preventing therefore of the like for the future, the said king, by his patent, bearing date at West- minster, X Junii, in the thirteenth year of his reign . . . granted unto the . . . dean and canons, license to include the said churchyard with a wall on every side, with fitting gates and posterns therein, to be opened every morning and closed at night." ' du livre de Job. . . Les nocturnes avaient leurs laudes : cinq psaumes antiphones, un verset, le Benedictus antiphone, le Kyrie eleison et I'oraison dominicale. ... La vigile des morts en vint k ^tre celebree quotidiennement tant dans les monasteres que dans les- chapitres et eglises paroissiales." BatiiFol, " Histoire du Breviaire Remain," Paris, 1893, pp. 189, 190. ' Dugdale, " The History of St. Paul's Cathedral in London," London, 1658, fol., p. 17. 7 92 PIERS PLOWMAN. Some important chantries and many lesser ones had been established within the church, the earhest one dating so far back as the reign of Henry II. i One had been instituted, in the Xlllth century, by Alice, wife of "William Mareschall, son to William earl of Pembroke," for the " health of her soul, and his, the «aid William, his ancestours and successors soul," part of the revenue " to be spent upon a lampe continually burning over her tombe." Another was founded by the executors of John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, " in a certain chapell situate on the north side of the quire of this church, and opposite the tombe of the said Duke and the Lady Blanch his wife," Chaucer's "Duchesse." The, tomb was . destroyed in the great fire of x666, but we have a fine engraving of it by Hollar. The chantry was richly endowed by Henry IV., the son of John and Blanche. The anniversary of the deceased was to be commemorated " with Placebo and Dirige, ix antiphones, ix psalms, ix lessons in the exequies of either of them., as also mass of Requiem ... to be performed at the high altar for ever." The ■ lord mayor was to be present, and to receive three shillings and fourpence for his trouble ; some money was also allowed to the dean, canons, vicars, choristers, bell-ringers, lamp-keepers, &c. Lodgings were, in this case, provided for the chantry priests : " To the Bishop of London, for the rent of the house, wherein the said chantrie priests did reside, xs." Much care and money were spent in adorning the chantry chapels ; some of those in St. Paul's glittered I Dugdale, "The History of St. Paul's Cathedral in London," pp. Zi\. et seq. TOMB OF JOHN OF GAUNT AND " BLAUNCHE THE DUCHESSE ' IN OLD ST. PAULS. From Dugdale's "i"/. PauVs. THE AUTHORS NAME, LIFE, AND CHARACTER. 93 with azure and gold, and were enriched with statues, tabernacles, and scenes from the Scriptures. Roger de Waltham, for example (19 Ed. II.), "founded a certain oratory on the south side of the quire in this cathedrall . . . and adorned it with the images of our blessed Saviour, St. John the Baptist, St. Laurence, and St. Mary Magdalen ; so likewise with the pictures of the celestiall hierarchic, the joys of the blessed Virgin and others ... in which oratory the chantry before men- tioned was placed ; . . . and lastly, in the south wall opposite to the said oratory, erected a glorious Taber- nacle, which contained the image of the said blessed virgin, sitting as it were in child-bed, as also of our Saviour in swadling clothes, lying between the oxe and the ass ; and St. Joseph at her feet. Above which was another image of her, standing with the child in her arms. And on the beanie thwarting from the upper end of the oratory to the before-specified child-bed, placed the crowned image of our Saviour and his mother, sitting in one tabernacle, as also the images of St. Katherine and St. Margaret, virgins and martyrs. Neither was there any part of the said oratory or roof thereof, but he caused it to be beautified with comely pictures and images. ... In which oratory he designed that his sepulchre should be." i All Waltham's savings were thus appropriated, and the good canon thought with satisfaction that, among those splendid sculptures and paintings, in this church which had been the centre of his life, he would quietly sleep for ever. Most of the chantries were of less importance ; they would sometimes fall into disuse and be forgotten, like I Dugdale, ibid., p. 29. 94 FIERS PLOWMAN. a worn-out inscription, defaced by the tread of men, and years. A benefactor would then occasionally appear to revive the foundation. Thus, in the year 1376, Roger Holme, " chancelour of London," did " restore and establish a certain chantrie of one priest for the soul of John de Wengham, some time chief chanter in this cathedral, which chantrie was then utterly come to nothing." A world of church officials, priests, and clerks thus won their livelihood in this busy prayer-mill. Some felt so much attachment for ' tKe'~prace tliat, as~Jbh'n de Wengham, they would not 'leave-it- -even-- after. -their death, and, having chanted for others all their life, they would be in their turn chanted for, " in perpetuum." Others felt differently ; gold and azure had little effect upon them ; to their number belonged the new-comer from Malvern Hills. To psalmody for money, to chant the same words, from day to day and from year to year, transforming into a mere mechanical toil the divine gift and duty of prayer, could not answer the ideal of life conceived by a proud and generous soul filled with vast thoughts. Langland, however, was obliged to curb his mind to this work ; " Placebo" and " Dirige " became his tools : The lomes that ich laboure with • and lyflode deserve.' He strongly condemned the abuse, and yet profited by it, not without pangs, it is true, and without feelings of indignation against himself; but he soon found he had no other means of living, and was unable of escaping from this false situation and subordinate employment. ' C. vi. 45. THE AUTHORS NAME, LIFE, AND CHARACTER. 95 He denounces with anger, but at the same time imitates those parsons and parish priests who go to their bishop and say : Our parishioners have been ruined by the plague ; we can draw nothing from them, and can no longer stay among them. Let us go to London and sing there for hire, " for silver is sweet " : Persones and parisch prestes • playneth to heore bisschops, That heore parisch hath ben pore • seththe the pestilence tyme, And asketh leve and lycence • at Londun to dwelle, To singe ther for simonye " for selver is swete.' His last chance of rising in the world was removed by marriage. The bondman's son might have become a bishop ; such things had been, and Langland himself notes it ; he held it an abuse, but he would, may be, have availed himself of this as of others. Married, however, this door was barred, and great hopes were denied him. At this juncture, the unreal world of visions began to supersede more and more, before his mind's eye, the world of human inte- rests that was closed for him. And thus it was that, having once written down his dreams, he passed, con- trary to his own intention,^ his entire Hfe altering them ; he lived with them and in them. We therefore find him in London, disappointed, galled, and humiliated by the existence he leads, his outward pride being proportionate to his inward abase- ment. He lives in a little house in Cornhill, not far from St. Paul's, the cathedral of the many chantries, and not far from that tower of Aldgate to which about this time another poet, namely Chaucer, directed his I A. Prol. 80. == See A. xii. 103. 96 PIERS PLOWMAN. dreamy steps every evening. Langland dwelt there with his wife Kytte, and Kalote his daughter (otherwise Catherine and Nicolette)/ eking out, may be, the salary earned by chanting, with money gained by drawing up charters and writing letters.^ He has depicted himself at this period of his existence, a great, gaunt figure, dressed in sombre garments with large folds, sad in a grief without end, bewailing the protectors of his childhood and his lost illusions, seeing nothing but clouds on the horizon of this life. He begins no new friendships ; he forms ties with no one ; he follows the crowded streets of the city, elbowing ' Thus ich a-waked, God wot • whanne ich wonede on Corne- hulle, Kytte and ich in a cote. (C. vi. I.) . . . and right with that I -waked, And called Kitte my wyf • and Kalote my doughter. (B. xviii. 425.) ^ This was usual with chaplains and clerks. The custom was, says Du Cange, "ut capellani procerum eorum essent amanuenses, epistolas et diplomata conscriberent" ; and he gives an example from the " Roman de Garin " : Un chappelein appelle, se li dist : Fes une lestres. (Du Cange, verba Capcllanus.) There was, at Westminster, a " chirographer " in chief, under whose direction clerks drew legal documents. According to the statute, "le cerografFer prendra pur I'engrosser de chescun fyn leve en la court le Roi, iiij s. tant soule- ment." The Commons complain, in 1376, that he, and the clerks' under him, take more. " Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 357. As for Langland, it will be noticed that he derides clerks who are unable to draw a letter properly, and that, at several places, he com- placently gives proof of his own knowledge in the matter of legal documents. THE AUTHORS NAME, LIFE, AND CHARACTER. 97 lords, lawyers, and ladies of fashion ; he greets no one. Men wearing furs and silver pendants, rich garments and collars of gold, rub past him, and he knows them not. Gold collars ought to be saluted, but he does not do it ; he does not say to them, " God loke yow,. lordes ! " But then his air is so absent, so strange, that instead of quarrelling with him, people shrug their shoulders, and say : He is " a fole "; he is mad. Mad ! the word recurs again and again under his pen, the idea presents itself incessantly to his mind, under every shape, as though he were possessed by it : fole, frantyk, ydiote ! Madness, to be proud when one is so poor ! Folly, not to respect furs when one depends for a livelihood on those who wear them ! For that has happened to him which he dreaded above all, he has relapsed into a state of dependence ; another servitude has begun for him, more cruel than that of his child- hood, because he elbows the rich and prosperous. The temptresses of his youth had warned him, and said, showing him the delights of earth : These things we will bestow upon thee, thou shalt possess and hold them all ; thou shalt have them — if Fortune be willing, " if Fortune it lyke " ; and Fortune had not been willing. Thou shalt be loved, and " have londe," pro- mised the fairies at his birth. " Havest thow londes to lyve by ? " I now inquires Reason. He has neither lands nor riches; he lives "z« Londone a.nd on Londone bothe," 2 singing psalms for hire, eating his fill only when invited out, seeking for invitations, and showing, at the same time, his scorn of the life he leads, by the disparaging terms which he employs when describing it. ' C. vi. 26. " C. vi. 44. -98 PIERS PLOWMAN. It is the life of a beggar, with this difference, that beggars have a wallet and bottle in which to bestow their provisions : Thus-gate ich begge With^oute bagge other botel • bote my wombe one.' The apparitions had promised love ; and now that years come, he has a wife so good as to wish he were already in heaven. He sees, around him, nothing but ■dismal spectres : Age, Penury, Disease.^ To these material woes are added mental ones. In the darkness of this world shines at least a distant ray, far off beyond the grave. But, at times, even this light wavers ; clouds obscure and apparently extinguish it. Doubts assail the soul of the dreamer. Theology ■ought to elucidate, but, on the contrary, only darkens them : The more I muse there-inne • the mistier it semeth, And the depper I devyne • the derker me it thinketh,3 says poor Langland. How is it possible to reconcile ' C. vi. 51. = Elde (old age), . . . buffeted me aboute the mouthe • and bette out my tethe, And gyved me in goutes " I may noughte go at large. And of the wo that I was in • my wyf had reuthe. And wisshed ful witterly • that I were in hevene. (B. XX. 190.) 3 Such is the account given of theology by Dame Study herself. •" Graunt mercy, madame," answers the poet, " mekeliche," and not without a sneer. B. x. 181 and 218. Langland was fond of making such answers. After an over-long sermon, he observes : "This is a longe lessoun," quod I' "and litel am I the wyser." (B. X. 372.) THE AUTHOR'S NAME, LIFE, AND CHARACTER. 99 the teachings of theology with our idea of justice ? And certain thoughts constantly recur to the poet, and shake the edifice of his faith ; he drives them away, they reappear ; he is bewitched by them, and cannot exorcise these demons. Who had a finer mind than Aristotle, and who was wiser than Solomon ? Still they are held by Holy-Church " bothe ydampned !"i and on Good Friday, what do we see ? a felon is saved who had lived all his life in lies and thefts ; he was saved at once, " with-outen penaunce of purgatorie." Adam, Isaiah, and all the prophets remained " many longe yeres " with Lucifer, and A robbere was yraunceouned ■ rather than thei alle . . . Thanne Marye Magdaleyne • what womman dede worse ? Or who worse than David ■ that Uries deth conspired ? Or Poule the apostle ■ that no pitee hadde, Moche crystene kynde • to kylle to deth ? And now ben thise as sovereynes ■ with seyntes in hevene, Tho that wroughte wikkedlokest • in worlde tho thei were, And tho that wisely wordeden and wryten many bokes Of witte and of wisdome • with dampned soules wonye ! ° No explanation satisfies him. He wishes he had thought less, learnt less, " conned " fewer books, and preserved for himself the quiet, " sad bileve" of "plow- men and pastoures ; ' ' happy men who can Percen with a pater-noster ■ the paleys of hevene. 3 In these moments of anguish, he falls an easy prey to material temptations ; satisfied lusts chase away melan- choly for a time ; he follows "Coveityse of the eyghes" " B. X. 386. ^ B. X. 420. 3 B. X. 457, 461. 100 PIERS PLOWMAN. and neglects Dowel and Dobet : " Have no conscience how thow come to gode ! " ' Then austere thoughts regain their influence ; he turns anew to his faith and to the Church, with ^he passion and the tears of mystics in all ages. He yields to the counsels of Reason : " That ys soth," ich seide ' " and so ich by-knowe, That ich have tynt (lost) tyme • and tyme mysspended." He atones for his past life, and ... as he ■ that ofte haveth chaffared That ay hath lost and lost ■ and atte laste hym happed He bouhte suche a bargayn • he was the bet evere, And sette hus lost at a lef ■ at the laste ende, he hurries to church, God to honouric ; By-for the crois on my knees ■ knocked ich my brest, Sykynge for my synnes • seggynge my pater-nos'ter, Wepynge and wailinge.^ In this confession of the poet, are found some of the * symptoms of those diseases of the will which have been so minutely studied in our time. 3 The bent of his mind, the predominance of Ymagynatyf, his insatiable curiosity, and his vast but frustrated hopes, his false social position, his retired life, his reveries and his con- templations, all tended to the ruin of that frail edifice, human will. We can notice in his case the existence of several among the phenomena which characterise these ^ B. xi. 52. •= C. vi. 92, 94, 105. 3 Th. Ribot, " Les Maladies de la Volonte," eighth edition, Paris, 1893, 8vo. THE A UTHOR'S NAME, LIFE, AND CHAR A CTER. i o i diseases, such as fixed ideas, and, with them, alteration or depression of the will {diboulie, aboulie). "Volition is a definitive state, and ends the struggle. ... In changeable natures this definitive state is always a temporary one ; that is, the willing self is of such unstable nature that the most insignificant ripple on the surface of conscience will alter it and make it different." This explains in Langland the ebb and flow of contrary desires, his being successively drawn to the world and to God, and his sudden conversions. Hence arises also his incapacity to act ; he re- sembles those sick people who " may f^el a desire to act, but are incapable of acting in a proper manner. They would like to work, and are unable to do so." " Thought " always accompanies him : and " in the same proportion as thought covers a larger field, capacity for motion dwindles away." Thus it is we find him incapable of reacting against the conditions of his life ; he submitted to, yet was ashamed of them ; he cursed them, without finding strength and energy to break hated ties. He blames abuses, and yet takes advantage of them, because his will is diseased. He enters into interminable discussions with himself; he severs his person in two, and discusses with his other self; in his visions, he constantly comes to dialogue, but in these dialogues it is always, under various names, •^- Langland's two selves that quarrel. In him is again verified " how painfully uncertain is the singleness of the self. When there is a struggle, which is the true self, the one that acts or the one that resists .? If they come to a standstill, then both remain separate and dis- cernible ; if one of them yields, the other does not 102 PIERS PLOWMAN. represent more satisfactorily the whole person, than a hard-won majority represents the whole State." ^ But, if his will is weak, his judgment is sound ; and no one, as will be seen, has preached with more energy, on many important questions, during the Middle Ages, ■-f the simple laws of common sense. This combination of sense and folly, this madness with " method" in it, is curious and strange ; but not, however, unexampled among mystics and dreamers. What was the end of this troubled soul '^. We do not know. A fragment of a poem on the last years of Richard ^ appears to have been written by him. Some indications lead us to think that in his later years he left London, where he had led his painful life, to return to his Western hills. There we should like to think of him, soothed, resigned, healed, contemplating with a less anxious eye that ' ' feir feld ful of folk " where he had beheld the struggles of humanity, and watching decline in the west that sun he had seen rise, many years before, " in a somere seyson." ' Th. Ribot, "Les Maladies de la Volonte," ibid., pp. 36, 38, 138, 88. = Published by Mr. Skeat with the "Visions " under the title of ■" Richard the Redeless." Mr. Skeat has given very good reasons to show that this fragment must be attributed to Langland (Oxford edition, vol. ii. p. Ixxxiv.). CHAPTER IV. THE WORLD. I. BECAUSE Langland reveres virtue, many com- mentators have made a saint of him ; because he condemns, as an abuse, the admission of peasants' sons to holy orders, they have it that he was born of good family ; and because he speaks in a bitter and passionate way of the wrongs of his time, they have, made him out a radical reformer, aiming at profound changes in the religious and social order of things. He was nothing of all this. The energy of his language, the eloquence and force of his words may have given rise to this delusion. In reality, he is, from the religious and social points of view, one of those rare thinkers who defend moderate ideas with vehemence, and employ all the resources of a fiery spirit in the defence of common sense. The ideas of the greatest number, and average English opinion, find in the Visions an echo or a commentary that they had nowhere else at that time. Chaucer, with his genius and his many qualities, his gaiety and his gracefulness, his faculty of observation and that appre- 104 PIERS PLOWMAN. liensiveness of mind which enables him to sympathise with the most diverse specimens of humanity, has drawn an immortal and incomparable picture of media;val England. In certain respects, however, the description is incomplete, and one must borrow from Langland the finishing touches. We owe to Chaucer's horror of vain abstractions the picturesque individuality of each one of his personages ; all classes of society are represented in his works ; but the types which impersonate them are so clearly charac- terised, their singleness is so mar|ced, that, on seeing them, we think of them alone and of no one else ; individuals occupy all the foreground, and the back- ground of the canvas disappears ; we are so absorbed in the contemplation of this or that man, that we think no more of the class, the ensemble, the nation. The active and actual passions of the multitude, the subterranean lavas which simmer beneath a brittle crust of good order and regular administration, all the latent possibilities of volcanoes which this inward fire represents, are, on the contrary, always present to the mind of our visionary. Rumblings are heard and herald the earthquake. The vehement and passionate England that produced the great revolt of 138 1 and the heresy of Wyclif, that later on will give birth to Cavaliers and Puritans, is contained in essence in Langland's work ; we divine, we foresee her. Chaucer's book is, undoubtedly, not in contradiction to that England, but it screens and allows her to be forgotten. Multitudes, like men, have their individuality. It seems as if Chaucer had, in depicting his characters, expended all his gift of individualising. His horror of THE WORLD. 105 abstractions does not extend to multitudes ; his multi- tudes are abstract ones. Excepting two or three profound observations, such as a man of his genius could not fail to make, he shows us the mass of humanity changeable, uncertain, " unsad, untrue : " i remarks applicable to the crowds of all times and recorded in the works of all authors. From that point of view, Langland is very different from his illustrious contemporary. He excels in the difficult art of conveying the impression of a multitude, not of an indistinct or abstract multitude, motion- less, painted on the back scene of his stage and fit to serve for any play ; his crowds of human beings have a character and temper of their own ; he does not stop long to describe them ; still, we see them ; when they are absent from the stage, we hear them in the distance ; we feel their approach. They are not any crowd, they are an English crowd ; in spite of the wear and tear of time, we still discern their features, as we do those of the statues on old tombs. Their enthusiasm, their anger, their bursts of joy, are in unison with those of to-day ; we can intermingle old and new feelings, and there will be differences of degrees, but no discord. It needs little imagination to trace in the Visions sketches recalling the gravity of a modern crowd listening in the open air to a popular orator, or the merriment of a return from Epsom. In their anger Chaucer's people exchange ^ O stormy people, unsad and ever untrewe, And undiscret, and chaunging as a fane, Delytyng ever in rombel that is newe, For lik the moone ay waxe ye and vvane. . . . ("The Clerkes Tale," vi. 57.) io6 PIERS PLOWMAN. blows on the highway ; Langland's crowds, in their anger, sack the palace of the Savoy and take the Tower of London. Langland thus shows us what we find in none of his contemporaries : crowds, groups, classes, living and individualized ; the merchant class, the religious world, the Commons of England. He is, above all, the only author who gives a sufficient and contemporaneous idea of that grand phenomenon, the power of Parliament. Chaucer, who was himself a member of that assembly, sends his franklin there ; he mentions the fact, and nothing more : Ful ofte tyme he was knight of the schire. The part played by the franklin in that group, amid that concourse of human beings, is not described. On the other hand, an admirable picture represents him keeping open house, and ordering capons, partridges, and " poynant sauce " in abundance. At home, his personality stands out in relief ; Chaucer is delighted with the idea of the man, and so are we : Withoute bake mete was never his hous. Of fleissch and iissch, and that so plentyvous, It snewed in his hous of mete and drynke. . . . Ful many a fat partrich had he in mewe, And many a brem and many a luce in stewe. Woo was his cook, but if his sauce were Poynant and scharp. But yonder, at Westminster, the franklin was doubt- less lost in the crowd ; and crowds had little interest for Chaucer. The chroniclers, on the other hand, give us glimpses THE WORLD. 107 of this marvellous power, but they do not seem amazed by it ; they do not stop to describe it ; in most of them we only discern the strength of the Commons by ob- serving the consequences of their debates. Froissart, it is true, notes the fact that the kings of England have to reckon with their subjects : " The king of England must obey his people and do all they please." ' He observes the power of the " Parliaments that sit at Westminster on Michaelmas " ; but the grandeur of the movement which brought about this pohtical organisa- tion escapes him entirely. To him, it is merely a curiosity, which he mentions as he would have mentioned Stonehenge. In two documents only does that power appear great and impressive as it really was, and those documents are : the Rolls wherein are recorded the acts of Parlia- ment, and the poem of William Langland. No one before him, none of his contemporaries, had seen so clearly how the matter stood. The whole organisation of the English State is summed up in a line of admirable conciseness and energy, in which the poet shows the king surrounded by his people : . . Knyghthod hym ladde, Might of the comunes • made hym to regne.'= The power of the Commons is always present to the mind of Langland. He constantly borrows similes from the machinery of Parliament. He shows us how I "II fault que li rois d'Engleterre obeise a son peuple et face tout ce qu'il voellent." " Chroniques," ed. Luce, vol. i. pp. 337: 3?7- ^ B. Prol. 112. 1 08 PIERS PL O WMAN. petitions were submitted to the king in that assembly ; i he observes the impossibility of doing without the Commons, the necessity of their control to maintain the balance of the State ; the whole organisation is familiar to him, but nevertheless he sees it as grand and imposing as it actually was. The part played by the Commons is clearly defined. By them the king reigns ; they see that the labourers of the fields and the artisans of the towns feed and clothe the sovereign, the knights and the clergy, honestly and at reasonable prices. 2 We know how many statutes on that subject, under Edward III. and Richard II., were due to their somewhat indiscriminate zeal. They make the laws with the assistance of the king, and of Native Good Sense, " Kynde Wytte." When the king is inclined to stretch his prerogative beyond measure, when he gives in his speeches a foretaste of the theory of divine right, when he speaks as did Richard II. a few years after, and the Stuarts three centuries later, when he boasts of being the ruler of all, of being " hed of ' And thanne come Pees in-to parlement ' and put forth a bille, How Wronge (&c.) (B. iv. 47.) ^ B. Prol. 114. The king's council is also mentioned at the same place : And thanne cam kynde wytte ■ and clerkes he made, For to conseille the kyng • and the comune save. The kyng and knyghthode • and clergye both Casten that the comune ■ shulde hem-self fynde (provide for). The comune contreved • of kynde witte craftes, And for profit of alle the poeple • plowmen ordeygned, To tilie and travaile ■ as trewe lyf asketh. The kynge and the comune ■ and kynde witte the thridde Shope law and lewte • eche man to knowe his owne. THE WORLD. 109 lawe," while the Clergy and Commons are but members of the same : " I am kynge with croune • the comune to reule, And holykirke and clergye ' fro cursede men to defende. ... I am hed of lawe ; For ye ben but membres • and I above alle " ' — Langland stops him, and through the mouth of Con- science, adds a menacing clause : " In condicioun," quod Conscience • " that thow konne defende And rule thi rewme in resoun • right wel, and in treuth." ^ The deposition of Richard, accused of having stated, nearly in the same terms, " that he dictated from his lips the laws of his kingdom," 3 and the fall of the Stuarts, are contained, so to say, in these almost prophetic words. If views of this kind abound in Langland, it is because his temperament is that of the nation, which temperament has scarcely altered from the XlVth century to our own times ; it acts in the same fashion, from century to century, in similar circumstances. Langland is a man of sense, he does not expect impossibilities ; he is a passionate adherent of Parlia- ment, but a reasonable one ; he threatens and prophe- sies,- but all his efforts tend to avert catastrophes. He speaks harshly to the king, but no less harshly to his beloved Commons. Let us remember the fable of the rats : the king is indispensable to the balance of the == B. xix. 463. " B. xix. 474. 3 "Dixit expresse . . . quod leges sue erant in pectore suo," &c. "Rotuli Parliamentorum,'' vol. iii. p. 419. 1 1 o PIERS PL O WMAN. State ; if he disappeared, it would mean anarchy, and the end of the EngHsh social edifice ; the poet protests against the encroachments of the Commons and against the idea that Parliament could do without a ruler : Had ye . . . yowre wille • ye couthe noughte reule yowre- selve.^ Even at that remote period the mainsprings of the social powers are adjusted with such precision that, three hundred years later, the ambassadors of Louis XIV. find them exactly the same, and observe that on their maintenance depend all the strength and stability of the State. The Comte de Cominges, who did not know a word of English and cannot be accused of borrowing his remarks from Langland, writes in a despatch : " The arrangement of the laws of this kingdom is such, and has established such a balance of power between the king and his subjects, that they appear to be joined together by indissoluble ties ; so much so that, failing one of the parties, the other would go to ruin." ~ Saving the quite exceptional and rare case of over- weening ambition displayed during the Good Parlia- ment, we may say that, on all questions, Langland is entirely with the Commons, when, at least, they are not the packed Commons of a " prive parliament." 3 We ' B. Prol. 200. ^ " La disposition des lois de ce royaume a mis un tel tempera- ment entre le Roi et ses sujets, qu'il semble qu'ils soient joints par des liens indissolubles, et que la separation de I'une des parties entraine la ruine de I'autre." "A French Ambassador at the Court of Charles II.," London, 1892, 8vo, p. 224. 3 Described in "Richard Redeless." See Appendix, XII. THE WORLD. iii know that, in the XlVth century, they did not represent the lowest class of society, but a class comparatively well off, whose views were not always very liberal. On these matters, as on others, Lang- land, though of an obscure origin, is always of their opinion. He is in favour of the old division of classes, ' and of that regulation of wages by the State, which was so often re-established, confirmed, and strengthened with penalties, by the king at the request of the Commons. In spite of statutes and tariffs the labourers claim high pay ; the rightful rate is low ; nevertheless they demand wages which are "outrageous," says the statute ; - " heighlich," says Langland ; they break out in imprecations against the king and his council, who apply such laws to the detriment of the labouring class. The poet also notes fresh demands in the way of food ; craftsmen are no longer content 1 A " cherle " . . may renne in arrerage ■ and rowme so fro home, And as a reneyed caityf " recchelesly gon aboute ; Ac Resoun shal rekne with hym ■ and casten him in arrerage. B. xi. 124. This passage (not in A) recalls one of the peti- tions of the Good Parliament of 1376, against the "laborers, artificers et altres servantz," who " par grande malice . . fuont et descurront sodeynement hors de lours services, et hors de lours pays propre, de countee en countee." Reason shall reckon with them, says Langland. The interpretation put by the Commons on this counsel of Reason is, that the labourers should be " prys et mys in cepes " (stocks). " Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 340. =• E.g., Statute 23 Ed. III.; 25 Ed. III. st. I; 36 Ed. III. ch. 8 ; 42 Ed. III. ch. 6, &c. These statutes describe a practice in- vented by and due to the "malice des servants " which consists in refusing all work if salaries are not raised ; they describe, in fact, actual strikes. 1 1 2 PIERS PL O WMAN. with bacon and penny-ale ; they must have meat and fish ; they demand daintily prepared viands, they clamour for them " chaude or plus chaud " : Laboreres that have no lande • to lyve on but her handes Deyned nought to dyne a-day • nyght olde wortes (vegetables). May no peny-ale hem paye • ne no pece of bakoun, But it be fresch flesch other lische ' fryed other bake, And that chaude ox plus chaud' for chillyng of her mawe.^ And but-if he be heighlich huyred ■ ellis wil he chyde . . . And thanne curseth he the kynge ' and al his conseille after, Suche lawes to loke ■ laboreres to greve.^ Langland, like the Commons, labours under the delusion that, in matters social and economical, one can accomplish everything by laws and regulations ; he persists in laying down rules. His poem, which would almost seem a commentary on the Rolls of Parliament, resembles still more closely the Book of Statutes, or even the " Liber Albus," wherein are recorded the municipal regulations of London. 3 Like the legislators of the City, he is without mercy for adulterators of all kinds, especially adulterators of edibles, brewers, bakers, butchers, cooks. No pillories are high enough for them ; " they poysoun the peple " ; their wealth is a shame ; if they trafficked honestly they ' To prevent the chilling of their stomach. ^ B. vi. 309. In France, likewise, labourers novsf expected "vins, viandes et autres chcses." ^Ordinance of 1354, -Isambert, vol. iv. p. 700. 3 "Munimenta Gildhallse," Riley (Rolls), .ff.^., "Est ordeine que le pris d'un joeven chapon ne passe trois deniers, d'un auncien quatre deniers," for no other cause but that capons both young and ancient are too expensive. Year 1363, "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. iii. p. 280. THE WORLD. 113 could not build such fine houses, " thei tymbred nought so heighe."! Interdiction to carry gold and silver out of the kingdom (all coin found on travellers embarking at Dover and " that bereth signe of the kynge " should be confiscated) ; 2 hatred of Lombard and Jew bankers ; 3 hatred and scorn of the royal purveyors ; ' Meires and maceres (mace-bearers) • that menes ben bitwene The kynge and the comune • to kepe the lawes, To punyschen on pillories • and pynynge stoles Brewesteres and bakesteres " bocheres and cokes ; For thise aren men on this molde " that moste harme worcheth To the pore peple • that parcel-mele buggen. For they poysoun the peple ■ priveliche and oft, Thei rychen thorw regraterye ■ and rentes hem buggen With that the pore people " shulde put in here wombe ; For toke thei on trewly • thei tymbred nought so heighe, Ne boughte non burgages (tenements) ■ be ye ful certeyne. (B. iii. 76.) = And no man . . . Bere no selver over see • that bereth signe of the kynge, Nouther grotes ne gold i-grave • with the kynges coroune, Uppon forfet of that fe • hose hit fynde at Dovere, Bote hit beo marchaund othur his men • or messager with lettres. (A. iv. no.) 3 " Coveytise " confesses having been one of those "retonsores monetae " against whom many regulations have been framed, a trick he has learnt from Lombards and Jews : I lerned amonge Lumbardes' and Jewes a lessoun To wey pens with a peys • and pare the hevyest. B. V. 242. See also C. v. 194. In the same year when the B text was written, the Commons declared that the Lombards " ne servent de rien fors de mal faire " ; they must be expelled ; many who go under the name of Lombards being spies, " come plusours de ceux qui sont tenuz Lombardz sont Juys et Sarazins et privees 1 14 PIERS FLO WMAN. horror of the confusion arising from that right of " maintenance " thanks to which a sort of " bravi,'' wearing the livery of their master, committed all manner of misdeeds impossible to punish ; hatred of forestallers, of fraudulent merchants : all the hatreds, all 1 the prohibitions which appear, in such numbers, in the collections of mediaeval laws, are found in the Visions, i. Like the Commons, Langland, as we have seen, is in favour of peace with France ; his attention is concen- trated on matters purely English ; distant wars fill him with anxiety. He would willingly have kept to the peace of Bretigny ; 2 he hopes the Crusades may not recommence. Instead of killing the Saracens, Christians should convert them ; and all those bishops of Nazareth espies." They have introduced in the country " un trop horrible vice que ne fait pas a nomer." Good Parliament of 1376. ' Wrongs of "Wronge" (see supra, p. 35) : And thanne come Pees in-to parlement ' and put forthe a bille How Wronge ageines his wille " had his wyf taken . . . He borwed of me bayard • he broughte hym home nevre, Ne no ferthynge ther-fore ■ for naughte I couthe plede. He meyneteneth his men ■ to morther myn hewen, Forcstalleth my feyres ' and fighteth in my chepynge. And breketh up my bernes dore ■ and bereth aweye my whete, And taketh (gives) me but a taile • for ten quarteres of otes . . . I am noughte hardy for hym • uneth to loke. B. iv. 47. All those wrongs are dealt with at the request of the Commons, in innumerable statutes. Concerning " maintenance," see, among others: 1 Ed. IH. st. z, ch. 4; 4 Ed. IH. ch. 11 ; 10 Ed. III. St. 2 ; 20 Ed. III. ch. 4, S, 6 ; 25 Ed. III. ch. 4 ; I Rich. II. ch. 7, &c. Concerning forestallers and similar people : 25 Ed. III. ch. 3 ; 27 Ed. III. st. 2, ch. 1 1 ; 28 Ed. III. ch. 13. Concerning purveyors: 4 Ed. III. ch. 3 ; 5 Ed. III. ch. 2 ; 10 Ed. III. St. 2 ; 25 Ed. III. St. 5; 34 Ed. III. ch. 2 ; 36 Ed. III. ch. 2, &c. ^ C. iv. 242. THE WORLD. 115 or Damascus who live so quietly in Europe, " that hippe aboute in Engelonde,"i had much better go, as apostles of peace, and convert their indocile flocks : For Cryste cleped us alle " come if we wolde, Sarasenes and scismatikes ■ and so he did the Jewes.^' II. In the well-ordered England of our poet's dreams, under the King and Parliament, who are the law-makers, each class will have to perform a special function and not encroach on that of others. The knight must draw his sword to defend the priest and the labourer ; 3 he must kill the hares, foxes, and boars that destroy the crops, and with his falcons he must hunt the wild-fowl. . . . Kepe • holikirke and my-selve [i.e. P. Plowman) Fro wastoures and fro wykked men • that this worldes truyeth (destroy). And go hunte hardiliche • to hares and to foxes, To bores and to brockes • that breketh adown myne hegges, And go affaite the faucones • wilde foules to kille.* T- B. XV. 557. ^ B. xi. 114. 3 The Commons express the same wishes : " Oe ceux seigneurs et autres (possessioned on the coasts) y soient comandez sur grande peyne de faire lour demoere en leurs possessions pres de la mierpar la cause suis dite " (the defence of the kingdom). Good Parlia- ment of 1376. See also the speech of John Philpot against the slackness of the nobles, " Chronicon Anglic ''(" Rolls "), p. 199. Wyclif denounces to the same intent the grant of " worldly lordschipis " to churchmen, who " reulen not the peple ne meyntene the lond as lordis" ; and he writes a tract to show that " ffor thre skillis lordis schulden constreyne clerkis to lyve in mekenesse, wilful povert, and discrete penaunce and gostly traveile." " Select English Works," ed. Arnold, vol. iii. p. 213. 4 B. vi. z8. s/ 1 1 6 PIERS FLO WMAN. He must live in the open air and not be an emaciated dreamer. There are knights who fast and lead a life of privation, who, to mortify themselves, wear no shirt : they do wrong. Let them take to their shirts again, and leave fasting to those whose business it is. I But, says Langland, always in favour of the golden mean, do not let them, under the pretext that austerities are not their concern, go to the other extreme ; 2 let them beware of parasites and syco- phants, " flaterers and lyers," of those professional fools, " fool sages," whom " lordes and ladyes and legates of holy churche " entertain in their dwellings, that those scamps may " do them laughe." They ' ... Treweliche to fyghte, Ys the profession and the pure ordre • that apendeth to knyghtes . . . For thei shoulde nat faste ■ ne for-bere sherte ; Bote feithfulliche defende • and fyghte for truthe. (C. ii. 96, 99.) = Cf. " Richard the Redeless," on the extravagant dress of the period. Some lords devote all their money to adorning themselves ; and when they have spent much on some new dress, they have it all re-cut again on the slightest remark of their Felice or Pernell : so sensitive they are : . . . They kepeth no coyne • that cometh to here hondis. But chaunchyth it iFor cheynes • that in Chepe hangith . . . And, but if the slevis • slide on the erthe, Thei woll be wroth as the wynde • and warie hem that it made . . . And if Felice ffonde ony fFaute • thenne of the makynge, Yt was y-sent sone • to shape of the newe. Still one must be dressed according to one's rank : Yit blame I no burne (being) • to be, as him oughte, In comliche clothinge • as his statt axith. (R. R. iii. 138, 152, 160, 173.) THE WORLD. 117 will always find quantities of strolling players, tellers of vain tales, tumblers who turn somersaults and indulge in indecent gestures, besieging their doors. All these vagabond minstrels are " the fendes pro- curatores ; " ' if wanderers interest you, take pity on the vanquished in life's combat, on the real poor, not on the idle who beg rather than work, but on those who suffer and labour, the wounded, maimed, defeated. Your minstrels make you laugh after dinner \ the poor are " godes mynstrales,"^ they will make you laugh in the hour when life's feast shall draw to its close ; thanks to them you will have then a smile on your lips. And ye, lovely ladies " with youre longe fyngres, you too have duties ; use those slim hands to embroider chasubles for the churches ; wives and widows, weave wool and hemp to clothe the poor, and teach your ' Ye lordes and ladyes • and legates of holy churche, That feden fool sages " flaterers and lyers. And han lykynge to lythen hem • in hope to do yow lawghe . . . In youre deth-deynge • ich drede me sore Lest tho manere men " to nioche sorwe yow brynge. . . . . . . Flaterers and foles • aren the fendes procuratores, Entysen men thorgh here tales ■ to synne and to harlotrie . . . Clerkus and knyghtes • welcometh kynges mynstrales . . . Muche more, me thenketh • riche men auhte Have beggers by-fore hem • whiche beth godes mynstrales . . Ther-for ich rede yow riche • reveles when ye maken For to solace youre soules " suche mynstrales to have . . . Thuse . . . manere mystrales • maken a man to lauhe In hus deth deynge. (C. viii. 82, et seq.) = A word derived from St. Francis, who used to say that his mendicant friars would be God's minstrels, "joculatores Dei.'' 1 1 8 PIERS PL WMAN. •daughters the serious duties of life and the works of mercy, i The merchants, who have acquired great wealth, must use the superfluity of their riches for the common weal ; they must endow " meson-dieux," those refuges for poor wretches ; they must devote themselves to that pious work, so important in the Middle Ages, the restoration of broken bridges and the improvement of "wikkede weyes " ; they must " maydenes helpen" and pay for the support of poor scholars : all of them good works, which were really practised by the best among the rich merchants of Hull, Bristol, and London, whose number and influence were already very considerable in the XlVth century.^ Piers Plowman shall feed every one ; he is the mainspring of the State ; he realises that ideal of disinterestedness, conscience, reason, which fills the ' ... with your longe fyngres, That ye han silke and sendal ■ to sowe whan tyme is, Chesiblcs for chapelleynes • cherches to honoure. Wyves and wydwes • wolle and flex spynneth, Maketh cloth, 1 conseille yow • and kenneth so yowre doughtres ; The nedy and the naked • nymmeth (take) hede how hij liggeth (be). (B. vi. lo.) ^ ... Save the wynnynges, Amenden meson-dieux ther-wich • and myseyse men fynde, And wikkede weyes ' with here good amende, And brygges to-broke • by the heye weyes Amende in som manere wise • and maydenes helpen ; Poure puple bedredene • and prisones in stockes, Fynde hem for Godes love • and fauntekynes to scole ; Releve religion • and renten hem bettere. (C. X. 29.) H . THE WORLD. 119 soul of our poet ; he is the real hero of the work. Bent over the soil, patient as the oxen that he goads, he performs each day his sacred task ; the years pass over his whitening head, and, from the dawn of life to its twilight, he follows ceaselessly the same end- less furrow, pursuing behind his plough his eternal pilgrimage. I wil worschip ther-with • Treuth, bi my lyve And ben his pilgryme atte plowe • for pore mennes sake.' Around him the idle sleep, the careless sing ; they pretend to cheer others by their humming ; they trill : " Hoy ! troly lolly ! " Piers shall feed everyone, except these useless ones ; he shall not feed " Jakke the jogeloure and Jonet . . . and Danyel the dys-playere and Denote the baude, and frere the faytoure, ..." 2 for, all those whose name is entered " in the legende of lif," 3 must take life seriously. There is no place in this world for people who are not earnest ; every class that is content to perform its duties imperfectly and without sincerity, that fulfils them without eagerness, without passion, without pleasure, without striving to attain the best' possible result and do better than the preceding generation, will perish. So much the more surely shall perish the class that ceases to justify its privileges by its ' B. vj. 103. For a full description of Piers, see B. v. 54.^, and the whole O'f passus vi. = B. vi. 71. The same sort of people were very troublesome in France too. Jean-le-Bon expelled from Paris " telles gens oisetix ou joueurs de des ou enchanteurs ^s rues ou truandeurs ou mendians." January 30, 1350, Isambert, iv. p. 576. 3 C. xii. 206. I20 PIERS PLOWMAN. services : this is the great law brought forward in our own day by Taine. Langland lets loose upon the indolent, the careless, the busy-bodies who talk much and work little, a foe more terrible and more real then than now : Hunger.' Piers undertakes the care of all sincere people, and Hunger looks after the rest. Hunger recommends, however, that some allowance of food be granted to everybody, to those " faitours " even who might work if they chose, " bold beggeres and bigge." 2 But the food must be so unpalatable C^houndes bred and hors bred ") that they will prefer work, and have an improvement in their diet : And yf the gromes grucche ■ bid hem go swynke.3 This, says Hunger, is " a wysdome." The same " wysdome " has resulted since in the creation of workhouses. The poet continues, examining problem after problem ; laying down rules, foreshadowing I C. ix. 169. ^ This passage, which is also to be found in B (written in 1376-7), must be compared to the protest of the Commons, in the Good Parliament of 1376, against those "laboreres corores,'' who *' devenont mendinantz beggeres pur mesner ocious vie . . . et bien purroient eser la commune pur vivre sour lour labour et service, si ils voudroient servir." " Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 340. Cf. also "Romaunt of the Rose" (translation attributed to Chaucer) : No man, up peyne to be dede. Mighty of body, to begge his brede, If he may swynke it for to gete Men shulde hym rather mayme or bete Or done of hym apert justice Than sufFren hym in such malice. (1. 6619.) 3 C. ix. 227. THE WORLD. 121 reforms, showing himself harsh or merciful according to the occasion. All this part of the Visions is mainly an eloquent declaration of man's duties. Langland is very hard on lawyers. He seems to have frequented Westminster, which was, so to speak, their capital ; he sees in them incorrigible adepts of Lady Meed, who cannot say or write a word without being paid : Thow myght bet mete the myst • on Malverne hulles, Than gete a mom (word) of hure mouth • til moneye be hem shewid.' He admires the charity of the Jews toward each other, which Christians would do well to imitate. ^ The poet eulogises marriage at great length. There seem to have been people, in the XlVth century, who preferred rich girls to pretty ones, " thauh hue (they) be loveliche to loken on." 3 Langland denounces this inconceivable abuse. The gravity of his principles does not prevent his worship of feminine beauty ; the ill-assorted unions contracted by fortune-hunters pro- duce " no children," but " foule wordes."4 What can I C. xi. 163. ^ Alias 1 that a Cristene creature • shal be unkynde til an other, Sitthen Juwes that we jugge ■ Judas felawes, Ayther of hem helpeth other • of that that hym nedeth. (B. ix. 83.) 3 C. xi. 259. + Many a peire sithen the pestilence • han plight hem togideres ; The fruit that thei brynge forth • aren foule wordes . . . Have thei no children but cheste • and choppynghem bitwene. (B. ix. 164.) 122 PIERS PLOWMAN. be said of those young men who marry, for their money, old women That nevere shal barne here • but if it be in armes ? ' And as for the illegitimate unions that have multiplied in the general confusion resulting from the great plague, it is far worse : the poet expects only evil from bastard children ; most of the wretches with which the world is pestered, were " false folke faithlees," . . . out of wedloke, I trowe, Conceyved ben in yvel time ". as Caym was on Eve.^ III. While thus traversing the different social strata, Langland sometimes halts for an instant, looks about him, and tells us what he sees. He stops in the " Cour des Miracles " where sham cripples " leyde here legges aliri as such loseles conneth," or else disfigured them- selves to simulate blindness : Tho (then) were faitoures aferde • and feyned hem blynde, Somme leyde here legges aliri • as suche loseles conneth, And made here mone to Pieres • and preyde hym of grace : " For we have no lymes to laboure with • lorde, y-graced be ye ! Ac we preye for yow, Pieres • and for yowre plow bothe, That God of his grace • yowre grayne multiplye, And yelde yow of yowre almesse • that ye give us here; For we may noughte swynke ne swete • suche sikeness us eyleth ! " Piers muses and wonders : "If it be soth," quod Pieres, "that ye seyne • I shal it sone asspye ;" 3 and, with the help of Truth, he soon discovers in what ' B. ix. 163. = B. ix. 118. 3 B. vi. 123; see also C. x. 169. THE WORLD. 123 miraculous way they have been transformed, and got their " legges aliri." He seats himself by the hearth of the Plowman, and looks into the stew-pot ; he rises and opens the larder. Such misery ! and at the same time such resignation ! What can Piers offer his guest ? " I have no peny," quod Peres ■ " poletes for to bigge, Ne neyther gees ne grys (pigs) • but two grene cheses, A fewe cruddes and creem • and an haver cake. And two loves of benes and bran • y-bake for my fauntis. Were it " Lammas tyme " (August i) there would be : hervest in my croft ; And thanne may I dighte thi dyner • as me dere liketh. The guest has therefore to be content with " benes and baken apples," and " ripe chiries manye." ^^ Langland, one winter evening, enters the hut of a peasant " charged with children," crushed by the rent owing to the landlord ; he sees the starving young ones, the wife half-dead from fatigue, roused at night by the cries of her last-born, and obliged to leave her pallet in order to rock the cradle : . . . Reuthe is to rede • othere in ryme shewe The wo of these women ■ that wonyeth in cotes, women whom, in spite of all their sufferings and those of their husbands and little ones, nothing could induce to beg ! Pity, cries the poet, have pity on these wretches, [That] beth abasshed for to begge • and wolle nat be aknowe What hem needeth at here neihebores. B. vi. 282. 9 124 PIERS PLOWMAN. No one had before shown so much pity, and such keen human sympathy ; while turning the pages of the old book, it is impossible not to find, to this very day, that, as the poet himself said, " reuthe is to rede." ' Langland rests, too, by the fireside of the rich, in one of those castles where he sometimes dined at the side-table, silent, observing everything, taking note of his own feelings, ashamed to be there, only invited because he sang psalms in his chantry for the departed ' members of the family, playing, in fact, the hated part of parasite. Around him are sudden bursts of joy, there is deep drinking and loud talking ; the minstrels tell the loves of the brave, accompanying themselves with music ; or else they execute in the middle of the hall absurd gambols and indecent contorsions.^ When they have become silent, conversations flow on at the upper table, under the " dais " ; grave problems are lightly treated ; between two tales the mystery of the Holy Trinity is discussed. When they have eaten their fill, they " gnawen God ! " Atte mete in her murthes • whan mynstralles ben sdlle, Thanne telleth thei of trinite • a tale other tweyne, And bringen forth a balled (bald) resoun • and take Beruaid to witnesse. And putten fort a presumpsioun ■ to preve the sothe. Thus they dryvele at her deyse • the deite to knowe. And gnawen God with the gorge • whan her gutte is fulle.3 In some houses, as luxury spreads, the lord and lady refuse to dine in public, in the hall, where the dependents of the family used to eat at the side-tables or even on the ' C. X. 32. See the whole passage in Appendix, VIII. = B. xiii. 228. 3 B. X. 52. THE WORLD. 125 floor,! where the fire burned in the centre of the room, and the smoke found vent, if so disposed, through a hole in the roof.2 Now, the lord and lady retire to " pryve parloure . . . or in a chambre with a chymneye,'' 3 and there they hesitate still less to criticise the holy doctrines : I have yherde hiegh men • etyng atte table, Carpen as thei clerkes were • of Cryste and of his mightes . . . "Whi wolde owre Saveoure suffre • suche a worme in his blisse, That bigyled the womman ■ and the man after ? . . . Whi shulde we that now ben • for the werkes of Adam, Roten and to-rende ? . . .4 They live in comfort and content, and the presence of the poor no longer offends their eyes ; the sight of such unheard-of luxury fills the poet with apprehension. Let us return, thinks he, to Piers Plowman ; those satisfied and critical rich people are the danger of the State ; Piers will be its safeguard. ' Right as sum man geve me mete • and sette me amydde the fiore, Ich have mete more than ynough • ac nought so moche worship As tho that seten atte syde-table • or with the sovereignes of the halle, But sitte as a begger bordelees ■ bi my-self on the grounde. (B. xii. 198.) ^ A good example of this is the hall of Penshurst in Kent. 3 Elyng is the halle • uche daye in the wyke There the lorde ne the lady • lyketh noiighte to sytte. Now hath vche riche a reule ■ to eten bi hym-selve In a pryve parloure " for pore mennes sake, Or in a chambre with a chymneye • and leve the chief halle, That was made for meles ' men to eten inne . . . (B. x. 94.) 4 B. X. lOI. CHAPTER V. THE CHURCH. I. THE life led by Langland on the confines of civil and religious society allowed him to become well acquainted with and pass judgments on both j and he did not fail to do it. The special kind of curiosity that moves him has been already noticed. Although attentive to what is great, beautiful, and brilliant, he feels, at the same time, by a strange and rare combination, a curiosity for small,, obscure, and dark things. Crevices, crannies, and anfractuosities attract him ; parasitic plants, night-birds,, things that creep in the shade or nestle in the hollows of ancient walls, interest him ; he flashes his lantern into crumbling vaults, and likes to dazzle with its sudden light drowsy owls who thought themselves safe and forgotten there. This same instinct which charac- terised the Middle Ages, and caused the sculptor to minutely carve the scarcely visible nooks and corners of wainscots and friezes, key-stones, misericords of stalls, directs Langland's pen. His poem abounds in satirical vignettes ; the deep voice of the organ resounds through THE CHURCH. 127 the nave ; but listen, and you will hear a sound, as of laughter, in the indistinct murmur of the echoes. Langland scoffs, not at divine things, but at the human element that mingles with them. In religious as in civil matters, he attacks abuses, not institutions ; he reveres the dogmas, and even respects most of the observances. Here, again, the harshness of his words has given rise to many erroneous opinions ; some have seen in him a destroyer, like Wyclif ; others have even made of him a Wyclifite. He only agrees, however, with his famous contemporary in censuring excesses and abuses ; but differs from him, inasmuch as he desires to alter neither the dogmas nor the hierarchy of the Church. He cannot be said to have ever praised Wyclif's " Poor Priests." ' In religious as in secular matters, Langland ' And alle parfite preestes ■ to poverte sholde drawe. C xiv. 100. I do not think it possible to see in this "an obvious and interesting allusion to Wyclif's so-called poor priests " (Skeat's Oxford edition, vol. ii. p. 175). The description that follows of the sort of priests, for whom alone the favour of the ordination ought to be reserved by bishops is very different from Wyclif's ideal. The priests, besides, whom Langland here has in view, are secular priests, performing normai duties in their parishes (who ought not to take silver " for masses that [they] syngen "), not at all Wyclif's wan- derers, who went about, preaching from village to village. Langland hates all those who perform religious functions contrary to rule, custom, and good order. The Commons hate them too, and say (year 1382) : "Notorie chose est coment ya plusours [malveis] per- sones deinz ledit roialme [qui,] alantz de countee en countee en certains habitz souz dissimulacion de grant saintee et sanz licence de Seint pi^re le pape ou des ordinairs des lieux . . . prechent . . . diverses predicacions conteignantes heresyes et errours notoires.'' They concern themselves also with temporal matters, " pur discord et dissencion faire entre divers estatz dudit roialme." " Statutes of the Realm," 5 Rich. II., st. 2, ch. 5. 128 FIERS PLOWMAN. sides, not with Wyclif, but, heart and soul, with the Commons of England. Like the Commons, he recognises the religious authority of the Pope, but protests against the Pope's encroachments, and against the interference of the sovereign pontiff in temporal matters. The extension assumed by the papal power in England appears to him excessive ; like the Commons, he is in favour of the statutes of " Provisors " and " Prjemunire," and wishes to have them maintained and renewed. Those persons who get from the Pope presentations to benefices before the death of the incumbents, and in violation of the rights of the English patrons, inspire him with the deepest scorn. We have seen that he represents " Sire Symonye " saddling and bridling " palfreyswyse " One of these creatures without a conscience, evidently con- sidering him the fittest steed Symonye could use ; and the hated one travels in this fashion, through the kingdom, to Westminster. On questions of this kind, Langland often agrees with Wyclif ; it will be usually found that both share on these points the ideas of Parliament. ^ Langland protests, with the Commons, against the existence of a papal army, and against the wars in which the sovereign pontiff has got entangled : For were preest-hod more parfyt • that is, the pope formest, That with moneye menteynethmen" to werren up-on cristine . . . Hus prayers with hus pacience ■ to pees sholde brynge Alle londes to love • and that in a litel tyme ; The pope with alle preestes • pax vobis sholde make.^ ' C. xviii. 233. Same idea again B. xix. 426, 440 (C. xxii. 429, 446). THE CHURCH. 129 He is of opinion that the wealth of the Church is hurtflil to her : Whenne Constantyn of hus cortesye " holykirke dowede With londes and leedes (tenements) ' lordshepes and rentes, An angel men hurde • an hih at Rome crye — " Dos ecchsie this day • hath ydronken venym, And tho that han Petres power • aren poysoned alle." ' According to him, the prelates should be purged of such a poison. He openly calls upon the secular arm to accomplish this : Taketh here londes, ye lordes • and leet hem lyve by dymes, Yf ye kynges coveyten • in Cristene pees to lyven.' And God amende the pope • that pileth holykirke, And cleymeth bifor the kynge • to be keper over Crystene. And counteth nought though Crystene " ben culled and robbed. And fynt (provides) folke to fyghte " and Cristene blod to spille.3 The same idea was expressed by the Commons, when they said : " Item, let it be remembered that there is no man in the world, loving God and the Holy Church, ' C. xviii. 220. ^ C. xviii. 227. Wyclif agrees and promises no less a recom- pense than heaven, to the lords who will perform this office : " Thre thingis schulden meve Lordis to compelle clerkis to this holy lif of Cris and his apostlis. . . . Kingis and lordis schulden witte that thei ben mynystris and vikeris of God to venge synne and ponysche mysdoeris. . . . Certis yif lordis don wel this office, thei schullen sikerly come to the blisse of hevene." "Select Eng- lish Works," vol. iii. pp. 213, 214, 215. The same ideas were current in France also ; the legists had popularised them long before Langland and Wyclif wrote ; they are to be found again in literary works, such as " Le Songe du Vergier," and others {temp. Charles V.). 3 B. xix. 439. 1 30 PIERS FLO WMAN. the king and the kingdom of England, who has not great cause for thought, sadness, and tears, because the court of Rome, which ought to be the fountain, root, and source of holiness, the destroyer of covetousness, ot simony, and of other sins, has so subtly, piece by piece, and more and more, as time goes, by sufferance and by abet of wicked ones . . . drawn to itself the presenta- tions to the bishoprics, dignities, and other benefices of Holy Church in England." The Commons add still more forcibly : " Be it again remembered that God has committed his flock to the care of our Holy Father the Pope, that they might be fed and not shorn ! " ' The cardinals, legates of the Holy See, are also one of the means througli which this excessive power is exercised. All those cardinals, who come to us from the Pope, we have, " we clerkes," to pay for them, to provide for their " pelure " and " palfreyes mete " ; we have to entertain the robbers, " piloures," who follow them. They give the example of disorderly life. 2 ^ "Item fait a penser qu'i] n'y ad null homme de mounde qe eyme Dieu et Seint Esglise, le roi et le roialme d'Engleterre qi n'ad grante mati&re de penser, de tristesse et de lermes, de ce qe la cour de Rome, qi deust estre fontaigne, racyne et source de seinti- tee et destruction de covetise, de symonie et des autres pecches, ad si sotilement, de poi en. po.i ,et de plus en plus, par proces du temps, par soeffrance et par abbet des malveys . . . attret a lui les collations des eveschiez, dignitez, provendrez et des autres benefices de Seint Esglise en Angleterre. . . . Item fait a penser qe Dieux ad commys ses ouwelles a, Nostre Seint Pier le Pape a pastourer et non pas a tounder." Year 1376, " Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. "• PP- 337, 338. ^ I am a curatour of holykyrke • and come nevre in my tyme Man to me, that me couthe telle • of cardinale vertues . . . THE CHURCH. 131 Those holy men ought to remain, all embalmed in their holiness, at Avignon, the right place for them " amonge the Juwes — be you saints among the saints ! " Be verrey God, I wolde That no cardynal come " amonge the comune peple, But in her holynesse • holden hem stille At Avynoun, amonge the Juwes " cum sancto sanctus eris. Or in Rome, as here rule wole • the reliques to kepe/ As will be remembered, Avignon was a city of refuge for Jews, and Langland shares the sentiments of the Commons of the Good Parliament towards what they do not hesitate to term " la peccherouse cite d'Avenon." The bishops, who for their part did not care to have quarrels with the " cite d'Avenon," were accordingly very remiss, as Langland thought, in struggling against the encroachments of the Pope in England ; whereupon I knewe nevre cardynal ■ that he ne cam fro the pope, And we clerkes whan they come ■ for her comunes payeth, For her pelure and her palfreyes mete ■ and piloures that hem folweth, The comune clamat cotidie • eche man to other : " The contre is the curseder " that cardynales come inne ; And there they ligge and lenge moste ' lecherye there regneth." B. xix. 408. The "Collector" of the Pope was the subject of much obloquy ; he lived splendidly in London, being, if any was, an " emperoure bishop," to use Wyclif 's word : " Item le dit collec- tour est receivour des deniers du Pape et tient un grant hostel en Loundres et clerks et officers, come ceo fuit droitement la receite d'un Prince ou d'un Duk." Year 1376, " Rotuli Parliamen- torum," vol. ii. p. 339. ' B. xix. 417. On cardinals and on their power to elect tJie Pope (" To han that power that Peter hadde inpugnen I nelle "), see B. Prol. 109. 132 PIERS PLOWMAN. he handles them with great severity ; and represents them as clients of Lady Meed : Heo (she) blessede the bisschopes • though that thei ben lewed.' In their turn, these unworthy prelates append their seals to bulls and licences granting low wretches per- mission to preach all over the country and to exhibit false relics, which should never be done were the bishop "worth both his eres." ^ The cleverest and most ambitious among ecclesiastics are careful never to remain with their flock in some distant county, and never think to " shryven here paroschienes, prechen and prey for hem " ; but they go to London, and there live very happy ; 3 they aspire to and obtain public flinctions, or sometimes private ones, not less pleasant and remunerative. Masters and doctors become domesti- cated : Some serven the kyng " and his silver tellen, In cheker and in chancerye ■ chalengen his dettes . . . And some serven az servantz ■ lordes and ladyes, And in stede of stuwardes • sytten and demen.-t While all this is going on, superstition flourishes ; I A. iii. 144. = A. Prol. 75. 3 Bischopes and bachelers • bothe maistres and doctours. That han cure under Criste • and crounyng (tonsure) in tokne And signe thet thei sholden • shryven here paroschienes, Prechen and prey for hem • and the pore fede, Liggen in London • in lenten an elles. (B. Prol. 87.) 4 B. Prol. 92. This is one of the cases in which Langland, the Commons, and Wyclif all agree. Wyclif denounces "our bischopis that pressen to be chaunseller and tresorers and govern- ours of alle w^orldly offices in the rewme." " Select English Works," Arnold, vol. ii. p. 281 ; vol. iii. p. 335. THE CHURCH. 133 the flock, for -whom nobody cares, run to see false miracles, and place all their trust in candles, " much wex " ; in offerings, " ontrewe sacrifice," made on ac- count of sham relics : . . . Ydolatrie ye sofFren • in sondrye places menye. And boxes ben broght forth • i-bounden with yre, To under-take the tol • of ontrewe sacrifice. In menyng of miracles " much wex ther hangeth.' On all these points, Langland agrees with the Com- mons, who complain of the same disorders. The Parliament demands, as does the poet, that the king should only have laymen, " lays gentz," for his ministers, and that " no other persons but laymen be hereafter made chancellor, treasurer, clerk of the privy'' seal, baron of the exchequer, comptroller, or appointed to any of the great offices and governorships of the kingdom." ^ The king, in his answer, promises nothing ; he will " advise " with his council, that is, he means to continue acting as heretofore. The appointment of unworthy bishops, by favour of Lady Meed, and the indifference they feel concerning the salvation of their parishioners, are thus commented upon by the Commons : formerly, "bishoprics, as well as other benefices of Holy Church, used to be, after true elections, in accordance with saintly considerations and pure charity, assigned to people found to be worthy ' C. i. 96. On false miracles, see " English Wayfaring Life," pp. 340 et seq. ^ " Que nulles autres persones soient desoreenavant faitz chan- celler, tresorier, clerk du prive seal, barouns de I'escheqer, countre- rollour et touz autres grantz officers et governours du roialme." Year 1371, 45 Ed. III., "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol ii. p. 304. 134 FIERS PLOWMAN. of clerical promotion, men of clean life and holy behaviour, whose intention it was to stay on their benefices, there to preach, visit and shrive their parishioners, and spend the goods of Holy Church in works of charity." ' This is, word for word, what Langland says. Most of the evils in the kingdom, wars, pestilences, &c., are owing to the fact that Simony now reigns, and Lady Meed triumphs. " And as long as these good customs were observed," the Commons continue, " the kingdom was filled with all kinds of prosperity, such as good people, and loyal clerks and clergy, knights and chivalry, which are things that always go together, peace, and quiet, treasure, wheat, cattle, and other riches. And since the good customs have become perverted into the sin of covetousness and simony, the kingdom has been full of divers adversities, such as wars and pestilences, famine, murrain of cattle, and other grievances." 2 Whereas benefices should be given " graciously, out of pure charity, without price and without payment," they are for sale, and, owing to the example of Rome, ' In former times, " si soloient les evesches [par] verreye election, et les autres benefices de Seint Esglise, par seint con- sideration et pure charite, sanz scrupule de covetyse ou de symonie, estre done as gentz plus dignez de clergie, de nette vie et de seinte conversation qe ponl estre trovez, qe voloient demurer sur lour benefices, precher, visiter et confesser lour parochiens, et despendre les biens de Seinte Esglise ... en overez de charite.." ^ Good Parliament of 1376. " Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 337. Cf. Langland : And tho was plente and pees • amonges pore and riche . . . And now is werre and wo. (B. XV. 500, 504.) THE CHURCH. 135 lay patrons require now to be paid in their turn. The result of these evil practices is precisely that pointed out by the poet. " And thus, by means of simony and barter," the Commons say, " a sorry fellow who knows nothing of what he ought (" though that thei ben lewed," wrote Langland) and is worthless, will be ad- vanced to parishes and prebends of the value of a thousand marcs, when a doctor of decree and a master of divinity will be only too glad to secure some little benefice of the value of twenty marcs." And thus " dwindles Clergye towards nothingness." i What good can one expect, thinks Langland, of these favourites of Lady Meed? In what do they resemble Christ their model, and the saints who Imitated Him.'' Christ suffered and died, And baptised and bishoped • with the blode of his herte.= Since then, many saints have suffered for the faith, in India and Egypt, and Armenia or Spain. St. Thomas of Canterbury died a cruel death for the love of Christ and for the rights also of this kingdom : For Cristes love he deyede, And for the right of al this reume.3 Our prelates nowadays have ceased to thirst for martyrdom ; and bishops of Bethlehem and Babylon ' "Et tout ensy, par voye de symonie et de brocage, un cheitif, qe null bien ne sciet et riens ne vaut serra avances as Esglises et provendres a la value de mill marcz, par la un Doctour de Deere et un meistre de divinite serra lee d'aver un petit benefice de xx marcz." And, thus goes Clergye " en declyn et a nient." Same Parliament of 1376, "Rotuli," vol. ii. p. 338. == B. XV. 545. 3 B. XV. 552. 136 PIERS PLOWMAN. are seen amongst us; they do not go to Syria, but stay in England. The whole ecclesiastical hierarchy, though he is in favour of maintaining it, is severely handled by Lang- land. Chaucer has presented to us the picture of the good parson, devoted to his parishioners, treading the muddy paths in winter to go and visit the humblest cottages. Langland prefers to show us the other side of the canvas, and there he draws several portraits of the hunting parson, lazy, jovial, hard drinking ; a great teller of tales, who knows by heart all the songs of Robin Hood and the gest of Randal, earl of Chester, who has taken unto himself a female companion and enlivened his fireside with a few bastards, i This worthy man enjoys sitting at table with other choice spirits, quaffing ale and laughing at improper stories. He rises so late that he gets to church only in time to hear " Ite missa est " ; he can " neither solfe ne synge " ; he is incapable of interpreting the least I Lady Meed Provendreth persones • and prestes meynteneth, To have lemmanes and lotebies • alle here lif-dayes. And bringen forth barnes • agein forbode lawes. B. iv. 149. To the same intent again, the Commons ask that benefices be withdrawn from " gentz de Seint Esglise, beneficez et curats qe tiegnent lour concubines par certein temps overtement." Year 1372, " Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 314. Compare, in the "Romaunt of the Rose," the description of . . . these that haunt symonye, Or provost fulle of trecherie, Or prelat lyvyng jolily, Or prest that halt his quene hym by. (Line 7021.) Translation, attributed to Chaucer, in Morris's edition of Chaucer's Works, vol. vi. THE CHURCH. i37 passage of Scripture for his parishioners ; but there lives not his like for finding a hare sitting. If he mutters a few prayers, his thoughts are far away : That I telle with my tonge • is two myle fro myne herte.' This is the result of the recruiting of the clergy to which the bishops lend themselves : For made nevere kynge no knyghte • but he hadde catel to spende As bifel for a knighte . . . The bisshop shal be blamed • bifor God, as I leve, That crouneth suche Goddes knightes • that conneth nought sapienter Synge, ne psalmes rede • ne segge a messe of the day.== II. The regular clergy are treated with less severity by - the poet. Wrath penetrates into their midst, but is so badly received that he hastens to depart, seeing that if he tells the least tale he is sentenced to fast upon bread and water, or else he has to appear in the cha;pter- house, there to receive a whipping on his breechless skin, " as I a childe were." Therefore he has decided to go, having no liking for their unpalatable fishes " and fieble ale drynke." 3 i ' B. V. 400 et seq. See complete text in Appendix, VII. 2 B. xi. 285, 303. 3 And if I telle any tales ' thei taken hem togyderes, And do me faste frydayes • to bred and to water. And am chalanged in the chapitel hous • as I a childe were, And baleised on the bare . . . • and no breche bitwene ; For-thi have I no lykyng • with tho leodes to wonye. I ete there unthende fisshe • and fieble ale drynke. (B. V. 172.) 138 PIERS PLOWMAN. Wrath's chastisement was that of oiFending monks ; they were flogged before the central-column found in many of the chapter-houses of England. The same personage had likewise paid a visit to a nunnery, but with better success. There his gossipings take effect. He goes retailing to one and another the most un^ becoming slanders : [I] made hem joutes of jangelynge ' • that dame Johanne was a bastard And dame Claryce a knightes doughter • ac a kokewolde was hire syre, And dame Peronelle a prestes file • priouresse worth she nevere, For she had childe in chirityme ^ • al owre chapitere it wiste. Of wykked wordes, I, Wrath • here wortes 3 i-made, Til " thow lixte '' and " thow lixte " • lopen oute at ones, And eyther hitte other • under the cheke ; '' Hadde thei hadde knyves, bi Cryst • her eyther had kylled other.4 Though comparatively lenient to monks, Langland copies from them some of the traits he employs to draw the image of new-fangled " Religioun " ; in his verses Religioun resembles the hunting and jovial monk in the Canterbury Tales : " Ac now," says he, Ac now is Religioun a ryder' a rowmer bi stretes. . . . A priker on a palfray • fro manere to manere. ' Pottages of scandals. ^ Cherry-time. 3 Vegetables ; I made for them dishes of wicked words. ♦ B. V. 158. Compare the misdeeds of " Fals-Sembiant " e his peers in the " Romaunt of the Rose " : Thus from his ladder we hym take. And thus his freendis foes we make, -But word ne wite shal he noon, Tille alle hise freendis ben his foon. (line 6939.) THE CHURCH. 139 An heep of houndcs . . ■ as he a lorde were, And but if his knave knele • that shal his cuppe brynge, He loureth (frowns) on hym and axeth hym • who taughte him curteisye ? ' And Langland is careful to note that he has in view here " bothe monkes and chanouns." - In a similar fashion Chaucer's monk was : An out-rydere that lovede venerye Greyhoundes he hadde as swifte as fowel in flight ; Of prikyng and of huntyng for the hare Was al his lust.3 But, in his heart, the poet has no hate for monks, and when he has converted his lazy one, " Sleuthe," he makes him resolve to lead a better life, as if he " a monke were " : Shal no Sondaye be this sevene yere ' but sykenessc it lettc (prevent), That I ne shal do (betake) me er day ' to the dere cherche. And heren matines and masse • as I a monke were.'* Langland doubtless remembered, with heartfelt emo- tion, the time he had passed at Malvern, taught by^ monks, in the precincts of the convent founded by old Aldwin ; and the edge of his severity was taken off. We have seen elsewhere the touching picture he traces ' B. X. 306. Compare, in the " Romaunt of thp Rose," the description of those who . . . willen that folk hem lout and grete Whanne that they passen thurgh the strete, And wolen be cleped Maister also, (line 6919.) ^ C. vi. 157. 3 Prologue, 166. •* B v. 4.58. 16 1 40 PIERS PL O WMAN. of the studious and tranquil existence led in the cloister by men of good will.' III. Let us go down a few steps, and we reach the strange, grimacing, unpardonable herd of lyers, knaves, and cheats, who traffic in holy things, absolve for money, sell heaven, deceive the simple, and appear as though they " hadden leve to lye al here lyf after." In the nethermost circle of his hell, where he scourges them with incessant raillery, the poet confines pell-mell all these glutted unbelievers. Like hardy parasitical plants, they have disjoined the tiles and stones of the sacred edifice, so that the wind steals in, and the rain pene- trates ; shameless pardoners they are, friars, pilgrims, hermits, with nothing of the saint about them save the garb, whose example, unless a stop is put to it, will teach the world to despise the clerical dress, those who wear it, and the religion even, that tolerates and supports them. At this depth, and in the dim recesses where he casts the rays of his lantern, Langland spares none ; his ferocious laugh is reverberated by the walls, and the scared night-birds take flight. His mirth is not the mirth of Chaucer, itself less light than the mirth of France ; not the joyous peal of laughter which rang out on the Canterbury road, welcoming the discourses of the exhibitor of relics, and the far from disinterested sermons of the friar to sick Thomas ; it is a woeful and terrible laugh, harbinger of the final catastrophe ' B. X. 300. See supra, p. 84. THE CHURCH. 141 and judgment. What they have heard in the plain of Malvern, the accused ones will hear again in the valley of Jehoshaphat. They have now no choice, but must come out of their holes ; and they come forward into the light of day, hideous and grotesque, saturated with the moist- ure of their dismal vaults ; the sun blinds them, the fresh air makes them giddy. They present a sorry figure. Unlike the pilgrims of Canterbury, they derive no benefit from the feelings of indul- gence that softens our hearts on a gay April morn. They will learn to know the diiFerence between the laugh that pardons and the laugh that kills. Lang- land takes them up, lets them fall, and takes them up again ; he never wearies of this cruel sport ; he presents them to us now separately, and now collec- tively : packs of pilgrims, " eremytes on an hep," pilgrims that run to St. James in Spain, to Rome, to Rocamadour in Guyenne, who have paid visits to every saint. ^ But have they ever sought for St. Truth } 2 No, never ! Will they ever know the real place where they might find St. James .'' Will they suspect that St. James should " be sought ther poure syke lyggen (lie), in prisons and in poore cotes.? . . .''3 They seek St. James in Spain, and St. James is at their gates ; they elbow him each day, and jhey recognise him not. ' B Prol. 46, xij. 37. = And ye that Beke scynte James • and scintes of Rome, Seketh Seynt Treuthe • for he may save yow alle. (B. V. 57.) 3 C. V. 122. 142 PIERS PLOWMAN. The poet passes on to others, then comes back to them, he strikes again in the same place until the lash cuts their skin ; their words, their dress, their stories, all seem to him equally hideous ; he turns them about, that they may be well seen, with their wallet by their side and " an hundredth of ampulles " on their hats, "signes of Synay and shelles of Galice," and " keyes of Rome" and also ''the vernicle bifore " : for "men shulde knowe and se be his signes " where he has been. I Whence have you just come? "Fram Synay" he seyde ' "and fram owre lordes sepulcre ; In Bethleem and in Babiloyne " I have ben in bothe, In Ermonye, in Alisaundre • in many other places. Ye may se bi my signes • that sitten on my hatte, That I have walked ful w^yde • in wete and in drye, And soughte gode seyntes • for my soules helth." Knowestowr oughte a corseint ■ that men calle Treuthe? Coudestow aughte wissen (teach) us the weye " where that wy (being) dwelleth .? "Nay, so me God helpe !" = ' B. V. 527. The same customs are described by Garnier de Pont-Sainte-Maxence in his poem on Thomas Becket (Xllth century). Crosses are worn as signs that the wearer has been at Jerusalem ; a leaden image of the Virgin means that a pilgrimage has been made to Rocamadour ; a leaden shell, to St. James of Spain ; an ampul, to St. Thomas of Canterbury : Mes de Jerusalem en est la croiz portee Et de Rochemadur Marie en plum getee, De saint Jame la scale, qui est en plum muce. Or a Deus saint Thomas cele ampule donee Qui est par tut le mund cherie ct honoree. "La Vie de Saint Thomas le Martyr," ed. Hippeau, Paris, 1859, 8V0, p. 204. 2 g_ y ^J^ THE CHURCH. 143 The poet will likewise speak his mind to those packs of hermits, sturdy fellows who might work if they chose, but do not choose, who swarm about that great resort of pilgrims, Walsingham, and look very holy with their staiF, and live quite merrily with their wench : Heremites on an heep ■ with hoked staves, Wenten to Walsyngham ■ and here wenches after ; Grete lobyes and longe ■ that loth were to swynke.' The fear of work is the principal tenet in their creed ; other dogmas are of little import to them ; they have rid their brains and heart of all such use- less beliefs. They bear little resemblance to the real hermits of old, who were saints, who ate only once a day, and lived " whilom in wodes, with beres and lyones," and were miraculously fed by birds. ^ Langland, with all his doubts, has many simple beliefs, and the " Golden Legend " of the Bishop of Genoa, James of Voragine, inspires him with absolute faith. One particular story in the legend he has now in his mind. Such na'ive tales abound in the good bishop's work : for, " simple as a Christian nursed on the legend of Assisi, James believed in the familiar intercourse of wild beasts with holy men ; in the wolf that conducted Anthony to the cell of St. Paul the hermit ; in the crow that brought that day a double ' B. Prol. 53. = Ac ancres ac heremytes • that eten nought but at nones . . . That woned whilom in v/odes • with beres and lyones . . . And bryddes broughten to some bred • wherby thei lyveden. (B. vi. 147 ; C, X. 196, 200.) 144 FIERS PLOWMAN. ration of fruit and bread to the two anchorets ; in the two lions who, on the evening of that very day, piously presented themselves in order to dig the grave of Paul, and when he was buried, retired again into the woods."' But nowadays, says Langland, our hermits no longer wait for the birds to come ; they themselves, wise and cautious, attend with great care upon their own persons ; they are well fed and clothed ; they look as holy as can be ; they sit " at even by the hote coles," and take a comfortable posture to warm them- selves through and through ; they " unlock their legs abroad" and stretch themselves at their ease. The good man " reste hym and roste hym," and when he has sufficiently roasted one side, now roasts the other " and his ryg (back) turn," legs always unlocked. Which duty being performed and accomplished, he takes a drink " drue and deepe, and drawe hym thanne to bedde." The night is spent in sweet repose ; no matin bells will wake him ; still he will wake, but he will not rise till he feels quite certain that " hym lyketh and lust." When on his feet, he will make plans for the day, and consider Whar he may rathest have a repast • other a rounde of bacon, Sulver other sode mete ' and som tyme bothe, A loof other half a loof " other a lompe of chese ; And carieth it horn to hus cote. *' Le pauvre homme ! " Orgon would say. These men live " by the heye weyes," where pass many people. Woodland solitudes have no allurements for them, neither has mass ; but eating-places have. Wherever ' Gebhart, " I'ltalie Mystique," Paris, 1893, 8vo, p. 278. THE CHURCH. 145 people eat, there you are sure to meet them : "at mydday meel-tyme, ich mete with hem ofte." Now the hermit is dressed " in a cope, as he a clerke were," And for the clothe that kevereth hym ■ cald is he a frere. But what are they, to be so well treated ? What are they, but bondmen unwilling to work? They have commenced by being " workmen, webbes and taillours, and carters knaves ; " what a hardship it was to work thus ! They were lean and lank, and felt tired. They had " long labour and lyte wynnynge." But on a lucky day they discovered that it was possible to have no labour and great "wynnynge," and noticed that good-for-nothing friars " hadde fatte chekus." They aspired to the glory of having similar cheeks ; they did so, with no little amount of success. The change was complete : when the fellow won his " mete with treuthe," He sat atte sydbenche ' and secounde table ; Cam no wyn in hus wombe ■ thorw the weke longe, Nother blankett in hus bed • ne white bred by-fore hym. All is altered now that he has taken the dress of " som ordre " and looks " a prophete." Unknown luxuries are at present familiar to him, he Wassheth and wypeth • and with the furste sitteth. The cause " of al thys caitifte," Cometh of meny bisshopes, That sufFren suche sottes • and othere synnes regne . . . For meny waker (watchful) wolves • ben broke in-to foldes ; 146 PIERS PLOWMAN. Thyne berkeres (barkers) ben al blynde ' that bryngen forth thy lambren, Dispergentur oves ' thi dogge dar nat berke.' The pardoners scoffed at by Boccaccio and Chaucer, figure here on the same level with the false hermits ; they poison the kingdom with their sham relics, with their papal bulls adorned with seals fabricated by themselves, with their impostures and lies ; they drive bargains, and retail heaven to their customers. They seek for villages as yet unexplored by their kind, where numerous unatoned-for sins will bring them large sums. A minute comedy, four lines long, each trait sharpened by the cruel humorous wit of the poet, shows better than long descriptions what these people were. Piers Plowman describes to men of good will the wonderful land of Truth : " Bi seynt Poule," quod a pardonere " "peraventure I be noughte knowe there, ' C. X. 1 88 et seq. See Appendix, IX. The resemblance with the " Romaunt of the Rose '' is here very marked. " Fals- Semblant " loq. : I love noon hermitage more ; Alle desertes and holtes (woods) hore Ajid grete wodes everichon, I let hem to the Baptist John. I quethe hym quyte, and hym relese Of Egipt alle the wildirnesse ; To ferre were all my mansiouns Fro citees and goode tounes. My paleis and myn hous make I, There men may renneynne openly. And sey that I the world forsake. (1. 6987.) THE CHURCH. 147 I will go fecche my box with my brevettes • and a bulle with bisshopes lettres ! " " By Cryst,'' qiiod a comune womman • " thi companye will I folwe, Thow shalt sey I am thi siistre • — I ne wot where they bicome."^ What has become of their intended companions ? Pardoner and " comune " woman turn round : Piers and his troop have vanished. All have not Piers's wisdom. It is exceedingly tempting to buy one's way out of purgatory with money, especially when one has a good deal of it and no longer knows what to do with it, being at the point of death. Rich people rarely fail to act thus. Let them beware ; when the dreadful hour comes, if they exhibit "a poke-ful of pardon" and letters of " fra- ternete " and " indulgences double-folde," little will they gain by that, if Dowel does not help them. Mind this, . . . Ye maistres • mayres and jugges, That han the welthe of this worlde " and for wyse men ben holden. To purchase yow pardoun • and the popis bulles. At the dredful dome ■ whan dede shullen rise, And comen alle bifor Cryst • acountis to, yelde . . . A poke-ful of pardoun there' ne provinciales lettres, Theigh ye be founde in the fraternete • of alle the foure ordres, And have indulgences double-folde" but if Dowel yow help, I sette yowre patentes and yowre pardounz ' at one pies hele ! ^ ' B. V. 648. ^ /.«•., at nought. B. vii. 184. For more particulars concerning pardoners, see " English Wayfaring Life," iii. 2. They were suppressed only in the XVIth century by the twenty-first session of the Council of Trent, July 16, 1562, considering that " de eorum emendatione nulla spes amplius relicta videatur." 148 PIERS FLO WMAN. The friars, being more numerous, more insinuating, and of a higher origin, are even more dangerous. The holiness of their founder serves as a passport. " Charite " once lived among them, but this happened long ago, in the day of St. Francis : And in a freres frokke • he was yfounde ones, Ac it is ferre agoo • in seynt Fraunceys tyme.' Now they are everywhere welcome, and having de- generated from their ancient virtues, they act as a dissolvent wherever they penetrate, they disorganise the hierarchy and divide the flock. They laugh at the bishops, curates, and all the religious body. While the powers of the secular priests are limited to their own parish, those of the friars are universal. The friars go everywhere, confessing, begging, pocketing, growing fat.^ They preach communism to the poor ; they have followed, and now they spread, the teaching of Envy : Envye herd this ' and heet (bade) freres go to scole, And lerne logyk and lawe • and eke contemplacioun, And preche men of Plato " and preve it by Seneca That alle thinges under hevene • oughte to ben in comune. And yit he lyeth, as I leve ' that to the lewed so precheth, For God made to men a lawe 'and Moyses it taughte, Non concupiices rem proximi tui.i '^ B. XV. 225. ^ B. Prol. 58; xi. 64, 76; xiii. 6, &c. Similar complaints in Wyclif: Good people must confess to their parish priest, not to friars ("Select English Works,"vol. ii. p. 374); cloisters and churches are raised by friars "as hit were castels " (vol. iii. p. 380) ; they become confessors of lords and ladies, seek for invitations at their table, and neglect the poor (vol. iii. p. 396, &c.). 3 B. XX. 271. They receive Antichrist (B. xx. 57) ; it must be THE CHURCH. 149 Founded to give an example of disinterestedness and poverty, they become rich and proud ; they greatly differ from those early followers of Christ who, according to the " Romaunt of the Rose " and to the Visions of Langland, "neither bilden tour ne halle ;"i they cause their patrons to bear witness publicly to their merits, " to witnesse," said Jean de Meun, who expressed on this question the same ideas as our visionary, our bounte, So that man weneth, that may us see. That all vertu in us be. And al-wey pore we us feyne ; But how-so that we begge or pleyne. We ben the folk, withoute lesyng, That alle thing have without havyng.= They strive to make life easy for the great ; " pleasaunt was his absolucioun," says Chaucer of his friar ; they make it especially pleasant to people of high rank ; they are " chief to shryve lordes," observes Langland, and here again his description resembles, on several acknowledged, however, that everybody does the same, monks and all ; the monks ring their bells in his honour : Freres folwed that fende • for he gaf hem copes, And religiouse reverenced hym ■ and rongen here belles, And al the covent forth cam " to welcome that tyraunt. (Ibid.) ' "Romaunt," 1. 6573. ^ Ibid., 1. 6960 ; again, 1. 6969 : I dele with no wight, but he Have gold and tresour gret plente, Compare the complaints of Langland, . . . how that freris folwed • folke that was riche. And folke that was pore • at litel prys thei sette. (B. xiii. 7.) 1 5 o I'll: J? S PL WMAN. points, the picture in the " Romaunt of the Rose." " Where fyndest thou," Jean de Meun wrote, a swvynker of labour Have me unto his confessour ? But emperesses and duchesses, Thise queenes and eke countesses, Thise abbessis and eke bygyns, These grete ladyes palasyns (palatial). These joly knightis and baillyves, Thise nonnes and thise burgeis wyves, That riche ben and eke plesyng. And thise maidens welfaryng, Wher-so they clad or naked be, Uncounceiled goth ther noon fro me . . . And make hem trowe, bothe meest and leest Hir paroche prest nyst but a beest.^ A sight it is, and worth seeing, the scene between Langland's friar and the beautiful Lady Meed, that good- natured maid, of handsome appearance, who makes her- self all things to all men, and gives and receives whatever you please. No one pays attention to the virtuous women who bestow all their care and time on the poor. Lady Meed does good, as she does everything else, in an elegant manner, and she is rewarded in the same way. No need for, her to ask that her name be inscribed on the walls of the church ; it will be found there without her asking ; we shall see it graven on the flagstones, sculptured on the pillars, blazoned on the stained glass of the windows; wherever she goes, she finds herself at home ; the first place is ready for her ; she sits all glittering and spreads herself out ; however dense the crowd, there is elbow room for her ; she looks ' "Romaunt," line 6859. THE CHURCH. 151 happy, there is a light around her, a heaven under her feet. Certain sins seem charming to her ; she says so, good-naturedly, with such a pleasant smile that the sins themselves appear good-natured sins. She will not forsake them ; why should she ? she has the choice, and chooses rather to repaint the church. A most proper device ! the chorus of friars say ; it is as well as could be wished. Sure is thy soul " hevene to have." i THE COXFESSION OF LADY MEED. {From a MS. in the Bodleian Library.) The tiles give way, the stones disjoin, God's temple is threatened with ruin, a ruin that Lady Meed will not repair. Woe ! cries Langland, woe to the ungodly, to miscreants, to evildoers! but woe, also, to the foolish, to the superficial, to all those who fail to do good, and who think to purchase for their own benefit the merits of others ; woe to the sellers and to the buyers ! Nothing, NOTHING, can compensate for neglect of duty, no stained glass, no money, no pardons. True women ' B. iii. 35. See Appendix, IV. 1 5 2 PIERS PL O WMAN. of pure lives do not behold their names on the walls of churches ; it is graven in a worthier place, in the hearts of the poor, who will one day raise their hands in supplication to heaven and pour out prayers, which will assuredly be heard. CHAPTER VI. THE ART AND AIM OF LANGLAND. I. ALL Langland's art and all his teaching can be summed up in one word : sincerity. He speaks, as he thinks, impetuously, recking little of the consequences of his words either for himself or for others ; they flow in a burning stream, and could no more be checked than the lava of Vesuvius. At moments the crater seems extinguished, and the rum- blings of the tempest subside to a murmur. But storm and calm are both beyond human control ; Langland's violence and gentleness depend on internal forces over , which he has no power ; a sort of dual personality exists in him ; he is the victim, not the master, of his thought ; and his thought is so completely a separate entity, with wishes opposed to his desires, that it appears to him in the solitude of Malvern ; and the melody of lines heard not long ago, recurs to our memory : Je marchais un jour a pas lents Dans un bois, sur une bruy^re ; 153 154 PIERS PLOWMAN. Au pied d'un arbre vint s'asseoir Un jeune homme vctu de noir Qui me ressemblait comme un frere. . Partout oil, sans cesse altere De la soif d'un monde ignore, J'ai suivi I'ombre de mes songes ; Partout ou, sans avoir vecu, J'ai revu ce que j'avais vu, La face humaine et ses mensonges. . Partout ou j'ai voulu dormir . . Sur ma route est venu s'asseoir Un malheureux vetu de noir Qui me ressemblait comme un frere.' Filled with a similar feeling, the wandering dreamer had met, five hundred years before, in a " wilde wilder- nesse and bi a wode-syde," a " moche man," who looked " lyke to himself" — qui lui ressemblait comme un frere — who knew him, and called him by his real name : And thus I went wide-where • walkynge myne one (alone), By a wilde wildernesse " and bi a wode-syde . . And under a lynde uppon a launde • lened I a stounde. . . . A moche man, as me thoughte • and lyke to my-selve Come and called me • by my kynde name. " What artow,'' quod I tho (then) • " that thow my name knowest ? " "That thow wostwel," quod he • "and no wyghtc bettere.'' "Wote I what thow art? " • "Thought," seyde he thanne, ' I have suwed (followed) the this sevene yere • sey thou' me no rather (sooner) t " ^ " Thought " reigns supreme, and does with Langland what he chooses. Langland is unconscious of what he " Musset, "La Nuit de Dccembre.'' ° B. viii. 62. THE ART AND AIM OF LANGLAND. 155 is led to : his visions are for him real ones ; he tells them as they rise before him ; he is scarcely aware that he invents ; he stares at the sight and wonders as much as we do ; he can change nothing ; his personages are beyond his reach. There is therefore nothing pre- pared, artistically arranged, or skilfully contrived, in his poem. The deliberate hand of the man of the craft is nowhere to be seen. He obtains artistic effects, but without seeking for them ; he never selects or co-ordinates. He is suddenly led, and leads us, from one subject to another, without any better transition than an "and thanne " or a "with that." i And " thanne " we are carried a hundred miles away, among entirely different beings, and frequently we hear no more of the first ones. Or sometimes even, the first re-appear, but they are no longer the same ; Piers Plow- man personifies now the honest man of the people, now the Pope, now Christ. Dowel, Dobet and Dobest have two or three different meanings. The art of transitions, as we have seen, is as much dispensed with in his poem as at the opera : a whistle of the scene-shifter, an " and thanne " of the poet — the palace of heaven fades away, and we find ourselves in a smoky tavern inCornhill. Clouds pass over the sky, and sometimes sweep by the earth ; their thickness varies, they take every shape : now they are soft, indolent mists, lingering in mountain hollows, that will rise towards noon, laden with the scent of flowering lindens ; now they are storm-clouds, threatening destruction and rolling with thunder ; night ' " Thanne come there a kyng. . . . With that ran there a route of ratones. . . . And thanne come Pees in-to parlement . . . ," &c. B. Prol. 1 1 2, 145 ; iv. 47. II 1 5 6 PIERS PL O WMAN. comes on, and suddenly the blackness is rent by so glaring a light, that the plain assumes for an instant the hues of mid-day ; then the darkness falls again, deeper than before. The poet moves among realities and abstractions, and sometimes the first dissolve in fogs, while the second condense into human beings, tangible and solid. On the Malvern hills, the mists are so fine, it is impos- sible to say : here they begin and here they end ; it is the same in the Visions. In the world of ethics, as among the realities of actual life, Langland excels in summing up in one sudden memorable flash the whole doctrine contained in the nebulous sermons of his abstract preachers. He then attains to the highest degree of eloquence, without striving after it. In another writer, the thing would have been premeditated, and the result of his skill and cunning ; here the effect is as unexpected for the author as for the reader. He so little pretends to such felicities of speech, that he never leaves us on the grand impressions thus produced ; he utilises them, he is careful to make the best of the occasion ; it seems as if he had conjured the lightning from the clouds unawares, and he thinks it his duty to turn it to use. The flash had unveiled the uppermost summits of the realm of thought, and there will remain in our hands a flickering rushlight that will, at most, help us upstairs. Piers Plowman comes back from Rome, where he too has gone on a pilgrimage. When those - who take such journeys return home, they have a bagful of indulgences and holy relics ; some are destined for their friends, there are enough for everybody ; pleasant THE ART AND AIM OF LANGLAND. 157 gifts and souvenirs, scraps of heaven are brought back from Rome. Piers, have you not brought back indul- gences ? Why take so much trouble if you come home empty-handed ? Piers, show us your pardons ; the mere sight of them will do us good ; share with us these marvellous wares : " Pers,'' quod a prest tho ■ " thi pardon must T reden, For I wol construe uch a clause ■ and knowen hit in Englisch." And Pers at his preyere ' the pardon unfoldeth, And I bi-hynden hem bothe ■ bi-heold al the bulle. In two lines hit lay • and not a lettre more, And was i-written riht thus ■ in witnesse of treuthe : Et qui bona egerunt ibunt in vitam eternam ; ^i vera mala, in ignem eternum. "Peter," quod the preost tho • " I con no pardoun fynde . . ."' " Those who do well shall go into everlasting life." These few words, that are like a flash of light, un- assailable words, drawn from the purest doctrine, sum up all Langland's theories on life, and all the sermons of his preachers. Indulgences are condemned ; more than that, they are condemned by preterition, without being so much as named, and, with them, all that was then the great evil of the soul : the love of " Fals-Sem- blant," of easy redemption, of bargains and transac- tions (pay, and I absolve thee), and the belief in a paradise that can be won by proxy. To these words, whose weight will be felt, if we remember the importance religion then had in life, succeeds a practical discussion between Piers and the priest, that Langland would surely have left unwritten, had his mind been in the slightest degree preoccupied ' A. viii. 90. iS8 FIERS PLOWMAN. by artistic aims. He inserted it in his first text, and repeated it in his second. Late in life it seems to have occurred to him that the poem would be improved by the suppression of those lines; they disappear accordingly in text C ; but they are cut off so clumsily that a visible gap is left behind ; now that they have been suppressed, they are wanted : The preest thus and Perkyn ■ of the pardon jangled.' " Thus ''" is left to stand out there as a sign-post, to remind us that here was, in former times, a practicable road, leading to somewhere : the reverse of what a born artist would have done. Langland follows no rule, no literary guide, no precedent. He has passed his life in dreaming and observing ; he has followed his thoughts with the attention of a psychologist, and he has observed around him all that lives and moves, from crowned kings to birds on the trees and worms on the ground. He tells what he has seen and nothing else ; his sole guide >, is the light that shines over the tower where " Truth " is imprisoned. This light serves him in the material as well as the moral world ; it illumines the road during a mystic journey through the Ten Commandments, one of those numerous Pilgrim-Progresses incessantly re-begun in the poem ; and it also clears the darkness of the London lanes, where, under the pent-roof of their shops, the mer- chants make Gyle, disguised as an apprentice, sell their adulterated wares ; it brightens the hovel in Cornhill where the poet lodges his emaciated body; it throws its ' C. X. 292. THE ART AND AIM OF LANGLAND. 159 rays on the scared faces of sinners for whom the hour of punishment has rung. We have here a whole gallery of portraits, which stand out in an extraordinary manner, people whose every attitude betray the ruling vice, personified abstractions as living as the characters of La Bruyere ; and in truth, this canto of the poem contains nothing but a description of the " Caracteres et Moeurs de ce Siecle," the " siecle " of Edward III. The courtier, vain and boastful, laughs aloud at his slightest sallies, for untaught people must know he is wittier and wiser than another. He is proud of his fine clothes and of his superb oaths ("■ meny bolde othes)," of his person and of his grace on foot, on horseback, and even in bed. He has seen marvels and performed wonders. Ask this man here, or that lady there ; they will tell you what I did, what I endured, what I saw, what I sometime possessed, what I know, " and what kyn ich kam of ! " ^ ' Lauhynge al a-loude • for lewede men sholde Wene that ich were witty • and wyser than a-nothere. . . . Bostynge and braggynge • wyth meny bolde othes . . . And strangest up-on stede • and styvest under gurdell, And lovelokest to loken on • and lykyngest a bedde. . . . Of werkes that ich wel dude • wittnesse ich take, And sygge to suche • that sytten me by-syde, Lo, yf ye leyve me nouht • other that ye wene ich lye, Aske of hym other of hure • and they conne yow telle What ich soffrede and seih • and som tyme hadde, And what ich knew and couthe • and what kyn ich kam of. C. vii. 23, 34, +3, 53- Cf La Bruyere: "N * * * arrive avec grand bruit : il ecarte le monde, se fait faire place ; il gratte, il heurte presque ; il se nomme : on respire et il n'entre qu'avec la foule. . . . Un homme de cour, qui n'a pas uu assez beau nom doit I'ensevelir sous un meilleur . . . dire en 1 60 PIERS PL O WMAN. The envious man, who lives alone, " lyke a Juther dogge," is ■wrinkled as a leek that has lain long in the sun : And as a leke hadde yieyen • longe in the sonne, So loked he with lene chekes. He dwells among the burghers of London, in the City, where the struggle for riches and for the pleasures of life was already keen. ' The old debauchee denies himself nothing : As wel fastyngdaies as Frydaies ■ and heye-feste evenes, As luf (leaf) in lente as oute of lente • alle tymes liche . . . Til we myghte no more ; • thanne hadde we murye tales Of . . . paramours. toute rencontre : ma race, ma branche, mon nom et mes armes. . . . Un Pamphile est plein de lui meme, ne se perd pas de vue, ne sort point de I'idee de sa grandeur, de ses alliances, de sa charge, de sa dignite. ..." (" Les Caracteres et Mceurs de ce Siecle,'' chap. viii. and ix.). ' Envye with hevy herte ■ asked after schrrfte, And carefullich mea culpa • he caused to shewe. He was as pale as a pelet (stone ball) ■ in the palsye he semed, And clothed in a caurimaury (rough clout) • I couthe it noughte discreve ; In kirtel (under-jacket) and kourteby (short cloak), • and a knyf bi his syde. Of a freres frokke • were the foresleves. And as a leke hadde yleye " longe in the sonne. So loked he with lene chekes* lourynge (frowning) foule. . . . " I wolde ben yshryve," quod this schrewe • " and (if) I for shame durst. . . . Awey fro the auter (altar) thanne • turne I myn eyghen. And biholde how Eleyne " hath a newe cote ; I wisshe thanne it were myne • and al the webbe after. . . . And thus I live lovelees " lyke a luther (wicked) dogge." (B. V. 76 et se^.) THE ART AND AIM OF LANGLAND. i6i All his life long, he had a taste for the very risqud fabliaux and tales in vogue at that time, "murye tales," " sotilede songes," "lecherous tales," and had " lykynge to lauhe " at such stories. Now that he is " old and hor," this is his last pleasure, and he con- tinues " lykynge tales of paramours." But he will for- sake the same and nil carnal delights; and forswear wine and " drynke bote with the douke " (the ducks).' The Miser, whose cheeks hang down like a leathern purse ("as a letherene pors loUid hus chekus"), 2 has much to tell concerning the manner in which fortunes are made at the great fairs of Weyhill and Winchester, whose fame was European ; or in the back shops of the City, or on the markets of Bruges. He has learnt usury from Jews and Lombards, and lends money at high interest to all lords and knights who offer good securities. Poor men, sometimes, must needs borrow : "Hastow pite on pore men • that mote nedes borwe ?" "I have as mocha pite of pore men as pedlere hath of cattes, That wolde kille hem, yf he cacche hem myghte • for coveitise of here skynnes."3 But here is Gloton going to shrive himself, and trudging along to church. It is Friday, and he is fasting ; he passes before the door of Be tone (Beatrice) the " brew-wif," who gives him good-day and asks where he is going : " To holy churche," quath he • "for to hure masse ; And sitthen sitte and be yshriven ■ and synwe namore." " Ich have good ale, godsyb • Gloton, wolt thow assaye ? " ' C. vii. 174. " C. vii. 199. 3 B. v. 257. l62 PIERS PLOWMAN. " What havcst thow,'' quath he ■ " eny hote spices ? " " Ich have piper and pionys • and a pound of garlik, A ferthyng-worth of fynkelsede ■ for fastinge-daies." Thenne goth Gloton yn ■ and grete othes after.' There sat on the bench Cecil the laundress, with Wat the gamekeeper and his wife, both drunk ; Tim the tinker and two of his knaves, Hick the hackneyman, Hugh the needier, Clarice of Cocklane (a street of ill- SIRE GLOTON. (From the misericord of a stall at Malvern. ) fame), the clerk of the church. Sir Piers of Priedieu (a priest), and Peronelle of Flanders, a hayward, a hermit, the hangman of Tyburn, Dawe the dykeman, and a dozen idlers, porters, cut-purses, teeth-drawers, rebec- players, rat-catchers, street-sweepers, rope-makers, in addition to Rose the "disshere," Godfrey the garlic- monger, Griffin the Welshman, and " heps " of others : all settled there since early morn, and ready to wel- come Gloton. ' C. vii. 355. See Appendix, VI. THE ART AND AIM OF LAN GLAND. 163 An immense tavern, as we see. Langland has the eyes of " Ymagynatyf " ; his tavern holds all the men and women he has met at the ale-house during his whole life ; just as his plain of Malvern was wide enough to contain all mankind. Under the smoky rafters, along the blackened tables, to the noise of tankards and cups, sit the drinkers, made thirsty by words and by paeony seeds ; they drink and drink again ; shouts of laughter, blows, cries of " let go the coppe !" resound "til evensong rang." Screams, oaths, odours rise, all of them "trop horribles," as the Commons would have said. Escape who can ! but every one cannot. Gloton, set with difficulty on his legs, is unable to stand. A staff is brought him, and he staggers along, taking one step sideways, and one backwards, as a trained dog, " lyke a glemannes bycche." At last he reaches the door of his house ; but his eyes are dim, he stumbles on the threshold and falls to earth ; Clement, the cobbler, catches him up by the waist arid tries to lay him on his knees. . . . Let us hastily leave the group. . . . With all the trouble in the world, his wife and his daughter bear him to bed, and this " excesse " is followed by complete rest ; he sleeps Saturday and Sunday till sunset ; he wakes pale and thirsty, and his first words are : " Who holds the bowl.? "I ' Some of the traits in this picture are to be found again in Gower's much shorter description : Thus ofte he is to bedde brought But where he lith yet wot he nought, Till he arise upon the morwe, And then he saith : O, which a sorwe 1 64 PIERS PLOWMAN. We see that Langland does not always keep com- pany with mere abstractions. Many other personages might be singled out from his gallery of portraits, but these specimens will doubtless suffice to give an idea of the realistic vigour with which he painted and put on the stage the " Caracteres et moeurs " of that far-off century. II. The poet's language is, if one may use the expression, like himself, absolutely sincere. Chaucer, with his great literary experience and good sense, wished that words were used which were in closest relation to things : The word.es must be cosyn to the dede. Thanks to Langland's passionate sincerity, the same close relationship is established between his thoughts and his words. His thoughts are suited to his feelings, and his words to his thoughts. He is sincere in all things ; he seeks neither to deceive nor dazzle ; he never wishes to screen a weak thought by a forcible expression. The many quotations given above have already allowed the reader to perceive this ; and examples might be multiplied without number. While, in the mystic parts of his Visions, Langland uses It is for to be drinkeles, So that half drunke, in such a rees (passion), With drie mouth he sterte him up, And saith : how, Baillez 9a the cuppe ! " Confessio Amantis,'' ed. Pauli, London, 1857, vol. iii. bk. vi. Gower wrote after Langland had composed his texts A and B. THE ART AND AIM OF LANGLAND. 165 a superabundance of fluid and abstract terms, that look like morning mists and float along with his- thoughts, his style becomes suddenly sharp, nervous, sinewy, when he comes back to earth and moves in the world of realities. Let some sudden emotion fill his soul, and he will rise again, not in the mist this time^ but in the rays of the sun ; he will soar aloft, and we shall wonder at the grandeur of his eloquence. Some of his simplest expressions are real trouvailles ; he- penetrates into the innermost recesses of our hearts, and then goes on his way, and leaves us pondering and thoughtful, filled with awe. What two-hours sermon is worth this simple line : Christ became man. And baptised and bishoped (confirmed) • with the blode of his herte.' Some of his apostrophes, not a few of his rough but energetic sketches, recall the more perfect examples of the poetic art of a later date ; more than once uncouth Langland reminds us of noble Milton : Avenge, o God, thy slaughtered saints ! . . . . . . Pore peple, thi prisoners • lorde, in the put of myschief, Conforte tho creatures ' that moche care sufFren Thorw derth, thorw drouth • alle her dayes here, Wo in wynter tymes • for wantyng of clothes, And in somer tyme selde • soupen to the fulle ; Comforte thi careful • Cryste, in thi ryche ! (kingdom) ^ If he wants floating words to follow close upon his mystic thoughts, he uses realistic terms, noisy, ill- favoured expressions, when clouds have dispersed, and ' B XV. 545. ^ B. xiv. 174. Milton, Sonnet xviii. 1 66 PIERS PLOWMAN. he sits at table with Gloton. Whatever be his subject, he will forge a word, or distort a meaning, or cram into an idiom more meaning than grammar, custom, or dictionary allow, rather than leave a gap between word and thought ; both must be fused together and made one. To give us an impression of the splendid tall- roofed hostels which merchants built for themselves in London with their ill-gotten gains, Langland does not stop in the street to make a sketch and description, but merely says in one word : if they had been honest, they would not "timber" so high.' Saracens and Jews ought to be taught ; the root of our faith is in them ; they had "a lippe of owre byleve."^ Many of his short sayings, burning with enthusiasm, take hold of the reader's mind and will not be easily forgotten. Some of his sketches are doubtless scarcely visible now on the paper ; still, when once seen, they live in the memory. The picture in three words representing Piers as being Truth's " pilgryme atte plow " 3 is as grand and simple as a drawing by Millet, and the three words might indeed have served as a motto for both. His vocabulary of words is the normal vocabulary of the period, the same nearly as Chaucer's. The poet of the "Canterbury Tales" has been often reproached with having used his all-powerful influence to obtain rights of citizenship in England for French words. But the accusation does not stand good. Chaucer wrote in the language of his time, such as it was ; he never tried to alter it, or to make it more French ; he was very far from the pedantry of which examples have been seen in several countries at a more recent ' A. iii. 76. = B. XV. 493. 3 B. vi. 104. Supra, p. 119. THE ART AND AIM OF LANGLAND. 167 date ; attempts to latinise the French tongue, at the Renaissance ; or to make EngHsh more Saxon, in our day. Langland's works may serve as a proof of this. He did not write for the court, and was in no way concerned with the fashions and elegances of his time. However, the admixture of French words is not less considerable in his poem than in the works of his illustrious contemporary. The visionary spoke, with- out the slightest affectation, the language used by everybody ; but everybody's language was permeated as was the genius itself of the new-formed race, with French elements. His poem offers a combination of several dialects. i^ Forms are found in his Visions, derived from a variety of regions in England, and this may be taken as point- ing to sojourns made by the poet in other places besides Malvern and London. Northern, western, southern forms meet in the poem, and, in many cases, the discrepancy must needs be attributed to the author himself, not to copyists. One dialect, however, pre- dominates, that is, the Midland dialect ; Chaucer used, the East Midland, which is nearly the same, and was destined to prevail and become the English language. An increase in the use of western words and forms has been noticed in the last or C version of the text : - we must see in this a proof of Langland having probably returned to the Malvern region, during the last years of his life. Langland did not accept any of the metres used by ' On the dialect of Langland, see, besides Skeat : "William Langleys Buch von Peter dem Pfluger," by Richard Kron, Goet- tingen, 1885, 8vo, pp. 85 et seq. 1 68 PIERS FLO WMAN. Chaucer ; he preferred to remain in closer contact with the Germanic past of his kin, and stuck to allite- ration. The main ornament of French verse, namely rhyme, had been vulgarised in England, owing to the Norman conquest ; Chaucer wrote in rhyming lines, though he found their rules difficult. The scarcity of rhymes in the English language was for him a source of trouble, " a grete penaunce," and he envied the facilities afforded by the French tongue : And eke to me hit is a grete penaunce, Syth ryme in Englissh hath such skarsete, To folowe worde by worde the curiosite Of Graunsoun, floure of hem that make in Fraunce.' Chaucer, however, wavered not in his allegiance to the prosody of " Fraunce," which had become, by this time, the prosody of the greatest number in England too. He did not like alliteration, and sneered at it : I can not geste, run, ram, ruf, by letter.^ Alliteration was the main ornament of the verses composed by the Germanic, and Scandinavian, and Anglo-Saxon poets. It consisted in the use of a certain number of accented syllables beginning with the same letter. This metre had survived the Conquest, but in a more or less broken state ; many poets used it clum- sily, mingling the rules of the two prosodies. So did, for example, Layamon, whose " Brut " oiFers, at the beginning of the Xlllth century, a strange mixture of ' Last lines of the " Complaynt of Mars and Venus." ^ " Prologe of the Persone." THE ART AND AIM OF LAN GLAND. 169 rhyme and alliteration. Some authors, however, had a greater respect for the older system, and wrote, according to fixed rules, poems, the fame of which has survived. Among them stand foremost, in the XlVth century, " Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight," i and, above all, the Visions of Langland. Langland wrote in long lines, divided into half-lines by a pause, usually marked by a particular sign in manuscripts (and by a raised full stop in printed editions). Each line contains strong, that is strongly accented, syllables, in fixed or nearly fixed number, and weak, that is unaccented or slightly accented, syllables, in varying number. The rules according to which these elements are combined in Langland's verse have been summed up as follows by Mr. Skeat : " Each half-line contains two or more strong syl- lables, two being the original and normal number. More than two are often found in the first half-line, but less frequently in the second. " The initial-letters which are common to two or more of these strong syllables being called the rhyme- letters, each line should have two rhyme-letters in the first and one in the second half The two former are called sub-letters, the latter chief-letter. " The chief-letter should begin the former of the two strong syllables in the second half-line. If the line contain only two rhyme-letters, it is because one of the sub-letters is dispensed with. " If the chief-letter be a consonant, the sub-letters should be the same consonant, or a consonant express- ing the same sound. If a vowel, it is sufficient that the ' Ed. R. Morris, Early English Text Society, 1864, 8vo. 1 7 o PIERS PL O WMAN. sub-letters be also vowels ; they need not be the same, and in practice are generally different. If the chief- letter be a combination of consonants, such as sp, ch, str, and the like, the sub-letters frequently present the same combination, although the recurrence of the first letter only would be sufficient." ' These rules are not very difficult, and it must be added, besides, that the poet handles them in a way which renders them even more easy. Sometimes he allows himself to begin a weak syllable with a rhyme- letter ; at other places he uses two rhyme-letters in the second half-line, and one only in the first. Take, for example, the first four lines of the poem : In a jomer j-eson ■ whan j-oft was the j-onne I sho^e me in j/roiides " as I a shi^t were, In /labile as an ^eremite ' unhoXj of workes Went zfyde in this zt'orld " z^/ondres to hdre. Two only among those four lines are absolutely regular ; the first has four rhyme-letters instead of three ; the fourth is similarly constructed, and, besides, the first of the rhyme-letters begins a weak syllable. The alliterative prosody, of which Langland's Visions are the most important specimen in England, survived till the XVIth century. The taste for the tinklings and toUings of such verses was deep-rooted in the race ; and recurring sounds were long used, without rules, and merely for the sake of the noise ; they are to be found in most unexpected places. There had been examples of them even in the Latin hexameters of ^ Oxford edition, vol. ii. p. lix. THE ART AND AIM OF LANGLAND. 1 7 1 English poets of the Xllth century ; they abound in Joseph of Exeter : Audit et audet Dux falli : fatisque favet cum fata recuset. Ardet et audet Promissorque ingens, facilis praesagia prseds Ducit amor. Postquam Helenes Paridi patuit praesentia, classem Deserit.^ In this shape, it may be said that alHteration never died out ; it came down to our times, and there is frequent use of it in Byron : Our bay Receives that prow whicli proudly spurns the spray. How gloriously her gallant course she goes ! Her white wings flying — never from her foes. Or fallen too low to fear a further fall. Of flight from foes with whom I could not cope.^ Langland's erudition is such as might be expected from one who described himself as anxious to know, but " loth for to stodie." He has visibly read much, but hastily and without method ; he has read at random, and never taken the trouble to classify and ticket what he remembered. Except when it is a question of the Scriptures, which were for him the subject of constant meditations, he quotes at random ; I "De Bello Trojano,'' bk. iii. 11. 108, 241, 223. = "Corsair." 17,2: . PIERS PLOWMAN. his Scriptural quotations even are not always quite accurate. He thinks he remembers this or that author has said something in support of a favourite theory of his ; he therefore names the author, and refers us, with- out chapter or verse, to Ovid, Aristotle and Plato ; and it would be very bad luck indeed, if one or the other, in some work or other, had not said, in some manner, something to the purpose. Most of his references are mere guesses. At a certain place, to feel perfectly secure of not standing alone and unsupported, he appeals to " Porfirie and Plato, Aristotile, Ovidius, . . . Tullius, Tholomeus," and " elevene hundred " more ; a very long roll of authorities, as we see. If the quotations from the Bible and the works of the Fathers are not always accurate, the superabun- dance of them, and the ease with which they recur under his pen, are proof sufficient of his having been impregnated, as it were, with religious literature. His > mistakes even are, in a sense, an additional proof, as they show that he does not open his books to find out appropriate passages ; he quotes from memory ; his , memory, however, is not absolutely trustworthy ; and Ymagynatyf, as usual, plays him some very bad turns. Besides the ancients and the Bible, Langland shows a knowledge of a good many more recent authors. He is familiar with French ballads and romances, with English and Latin works, with Robin Hood and Guy of Warwick, the Seven Sleepers, the Golden Legend. He represents his London workmen singing French songs : "Dieu vous save. Dame Emme." ^ He knows the " Goliardeys . . . glotoun of wordes " 2 and the satirical ' B. Prol. 223. 2 B Pj-oI j2p_ THE ART AND AIM OF LANGLAND. 173 poems of which they were the heroes. He has read Rutebeuf's " Voie de Paradis," ithe " Pelerinages " of DeguilevUIe, the " Roman de la Rose " ; and more or less conscious reminiscences of those poems are afloat in his memory. III. Langland addresses men of good will, whatever be their rank or avocations ; he writes for the mass of the people rather than for the small group of the exalted ones. Sincere and upright, he wants to be under- stood ; he is never purposely obscure ; his aim is never to please or astonish or dazzle connoisseurs ; he seeks, simply, means to direct rays of light to obscure corners usually left in darkness. Thus he is original and worthy the attention of artists, because he is so intensely honest, not by reason of his clever- ness. ^AJ1_ his Latin quotations are translated into English, for he never loses sight of the untaught part of his audience : "I can nought construe al this,'' quod Haukyn • "ye moste kenne me this on Englisch." To Englisch-men this is to mene. . . . If lewed men wist ■ what this Latyn meneth. . . .' And he turns " this Latyn " into English. All the better, he thinks, if he is read by the learned and the ' B. xiv. 276 ; XV. 55 ; xv. 116, &c. 174 PIERS PLOWMAN. wealthy ; but he means, before all, to be accessible to the poor and lowly, to "lewede men." He therefore shapes his thoughts into the form that will better appeal to this sort of men ; proverbs and proverbial sayings abound in his works ; most numerous, too, are practical counsels for everyday life, given in the half serious, half humorous tone which the wisdom of nations usually affects. A catechism of memorable sayings, and a collection of curious mottoes, might easily be made out of his Visions. Let Common Sense " be wardeyne, yowre welthe to kepe." " Mesure is medcyne." Faith without deeds is " as ded as a dore-tre." Chastity without charity "is as lewed as a laumpe that no lighte Is inne." " The Comune ys the kynges tresour." Trust in God and in his mercy ; wicked deeds Fareth as a fonk (spark) of fuyr ■ that ful a-myde Temese (Thames). I tell you, rich, it cannot possibly be, that you should Have hevene in yowre here-beyng • and hevene her-after. Selden moseth (becomes mossy) the marbelston " that men ofte treden.^ Some of the people Langland produces on his stage are " as wroth as the wynd — as comune as the cart- wey — as hende (courteous) as hounde is in kychyne," &C.2 ' B. i. 35, 55, 184; C. vi. 182, vii. 333 ; B. xiv. 140; A. x. loi. ^ C. iv. 486, 168 ; B. V. 261. Cf. Gower • " Comun plus qe la halte voie." " Ballade " xliii. THE ART AND AIM OF LAN GLAND. 175 Langland is a true Englishman, as truly English as Chaucer ; even more so. One important character- istic is wanting in Chaucer : he is not insular; there is an admixture of French and Italian ideas in his mind ; at bottom, no doubt, he is mainly English, but still, there is something of a cosmopolitan tinge about - him. Continental " makers " acknowledged him as a brother ; " Fraunces Petrark, the laureat poet," told him, it seems, when they met near " Padowe," the tale of patient Grisilde ; Des Champs praised him for having *' plante le rosier" on British ground. Not so with Langland, who is nothing if not insular ; he may even be said to be the typical insular ; and one of the first on record. He is not a brother poet for continental poets ; he will not be praised by Des Champs. Other countries are nothing to him but with reference to his own. His views accord very well with this most important period in the history of England, when the nation, growing conscious of its own individuality, becomes decidedly averse to over-extension, does not Tvant the Pyrenees for its frontier, nor a French town for its capital ; but seeks, on the contrary, whatever its leaders and kings may aspire to, to gather itself up, to concentrate its forces, to become a strong, well- defined, powerful body, and cease to be a large and loose invertebrate thing. Only when this gathering up shall have been successfully accomplished, will the nation lend itself readily to a policy of expan- sion. This second phase was not to be seen by Langland, for it took place only in EHzabeth's reign. The Hundred Years war was a royal, not a national, war; the movement/or expansion did not assume a 1/6 PIERS PLOWMAN. national character before the XVIth century. English kings fought against France ; the English nation peopled the shores of America. Our visionary thoroughly belongs to his day and country ; he is afraid lest England should be drawn into a policy of adventures ; he wants peace with France ; he rejoices, as we have seen, when he hears that Edward has consented To leve that lordschupe • for a luitel selver.' This is, according to Langland, one of the best things Edward did ; he followed in this the advicd of Conscience, When the question is of peace, Lang- land is always ready to cry with the Commons : " Oil ! oil ! " Yes, yes. He wants the nation to spend its energies at home, and not to be disturbed from this noblest of tasks, the improvement of the machinery \y of the State, and the establishment of a more perfect balance of power between King and Parliament. This equilibrium was to be, and Langland longed for it. Constitutional ideas had not, in the whole field of English literature, during the XlVth century, a better representative than Langland ; it may almost be said that they had no other. We have noticed how closely he identified himself with the Commons of England, wanting what they wanted, hating what they hated. There is almost no remonstrance in the Rolls of Parliament that is not to be found also in the Visions. The same reforms are advocated, the same abuses de- nounced. The Commons are, like the poet, intensely insular t, but, insular as they show themselves to be,, they offer a most happy combination of the Norman ' A. iii. 200, Supra, p. 35. THE ART AND AIM OF LANGLAND. 177 and Saxon genius. They have sbmetimes the bound- less audacities of mystic dreamers, whom nothing stops, because they build in the air. But this same impossible dream, doomed, it would seem, to vanish like smoke, this dream is appropriated, transformed, made usefial and practical, by the Norman Mind that is on the watch in the " chambre depeinte " at Westminster ; and the shadow becomes reality. Thus has worked for centuries, to the great profit of the nation, the dual genius inherited from remote ancestors. The Saxon dreams his dream and sings his song ; the Norman listens and says : Why not .'' be it so ! To pass from the absolute monarchy of the early Plantagenets, to a limited monarchy in which the main source of power will be vested in the Commons : what an exorbitant dream, fit only for the wanderer resting his limbs by the shade of the Malvern linden trees ! A few genera- tions come and go^ and fancy becomes truth ; the thing is there, realised, and the poet goes to West- minster, and states in his verses that there it is. It took other nations four hundred years more to reach the same goal. Another important characteristic increased the hold of Langland over his contemporaries and the men who came after ; namely, his unconquerable aversion for all that is mere appearance and show, self-interested im- posture ; for all that is antagonistic to conscience, abnegation, sincerity. Such is the great and funda- mental indignation that is in him ; all the others are derived from this one. For, while his mind was impressed with the idea of the seriousness of life, he happened to live when the mediaeval period was / 178 PIERS PLOWMAN. drawing to its close ; and, as usually happens towards the end of epochs, people no longer took in earnest any of the faiths and feelings which had supplied fore- going generations with their strength and motive power. He saw with his own eyes knights prepare for war as if it were a hunt ; i learned men consider the mysteries of religion as fit subjects to exercise one's mind in after- dinner discussions ; the chief guardians of the flock busy themselves with their " owelles " only to shear, not to feed, them. Meed was everywhere triumphant ; her misdeeds had been vainly denounced ; her reign had come ; under the features of Alice Ferrers she was now the paramour of the king ! 2 At all such, men and things, Langland thunders anathema. Lack of sincerity, all the shapes and sorts of -' faiix semblants," fill him with inextinguishable ' Wars in France : " Et avoech ce, li rois (Edward III.) avoit bien pour lui trente fauconniers a cheval, cargies de oisiaus et bien soixante couplez de fors chiens et otant de levriers dont il aloit cescun jour en cace ou en riviere ensi qu'il lui plaisoit. Et si y avoit pluiseurs des signeurs et des riches liommes qui avoient leurs cliiens et leurs oiziaus ossi bien comme li rois leurs sires." Froissart, " Chroniques," Luce, bk. i. ch. 83. ^ " Milites parliamentales graviter conquesti sunt de quadam, Alicia Pereres nominata, fcemina procacissima, quje nimis familiaris extiterat Domino regi Edwrardo. Hanc utique accusa- bant de mails plurimis, per earn et fautores ejus factis in regno. Ilia etenim modum mulierum nimis est supergressa ; sui etenim sexus et fragilitatis immemor, nunc juxta Justiciaries regis residendo, nunc in foro ecclesiastico juxta doctores se collocando, pro defensione causarum suadere ac etiam contra jura postulare, minime v.erebatur." Walsingham, "Historia Anglicana,'' a.d. 1376 (Rolls), vol. i. p. 320. A first draft of a similar picture had been drawn beforehand by Langland in his portrait of Lady Meed (A. ii. et }eq.)' THE ART AND AIM OF LANGLAND. 179 hatred. In shams and " faux semblants," he sees the true source of good and evil, the touchstone of right and ;wrbng, the main difference between the worthy and the unworthy. He constantly recurs to the subject by means of his preachings, epigrams, portraits, carica- tures ; he manages to bring forward anew, to magnify and multiply, his precepts and his curses, so as to increase our impression of the danger and number of the adherents to " Fals-Semblant." By such means, he hopes, we shall at last hate those whom he hates. Endlessly therefore, in time and out of time, among the mists, across the streets, under the porches of the church, to the drowsy chant of his orations, to the whistle of his satires, ever and ever again, he conjures up before our eyes the hideous grinning face of " Fals- Semblant " the insincere. Fals-Semblant is never named by name ; he assumes all names and shapes ; ' ^ Compare the description in the " Romaunt of the Rose," where " Fals-Sembiant " appears, of course, under his proper name, and thus describes his own transformations : . . . Protheus that cowde hym chaunge. In every shape homely and straunge, Cowde nevere sich gile ne tresoune As I ; for I come never in toune There as I myghte knowen be, Though men me bothe myght here and see. . . . Now am I knyght, now chasteleyne ; Now prelat, and now chapeleyne . . . Now am I maister, now scolere. Now monke, now chanoun, now baily. . . . Somme tym,e am T hore and olde; Now am I yonge, stoute and bolde ; Now anj J Robert, now Robyn ; Now frere menour, now jacobyn ; i8o PIERS PLOWMAN, he is the king who reigns contrary to conscience, the knight perverted by Lady Meed, the heartless mail of law, the merchant without honesty, the friar, the pardoner, the hermit, who conceal under the garment of saints, hearts that will rank them with the accursed ones. Fals-Semblant is the pope who sells benefices, the histrion, the tumbler, the juggler, the adept of the vagrant race, who goes about telling tales and helping his listeners to forget the seriousness of life. From the unworthy pope, down to the lying juggler, all these men are the same man. Deceit stands before us ; God's vengeance be upon him ! Whenever and where- ever Langland detects Fals-Semblant, he loses control over himself ; anger blinds him ; it seems as if he were confronted by Antichrist. No need to say whether he is then master of his words and able to measure them.. With him, in such cases, no nuances or extenuations are admissible ; you are with or against Fals-Semblant ; there is no middle way ; a compromise is a treason ; and is there anythmg worse than a traitor ^. And thus he is led to sum up his judgment in such lines as this : He is worse than Judas • that giveth a japer silver."^ If we allege that there may be some shade of exaggeration in such a sentence, he will shrug his And with me folwith my loteby (paramour) . . . Somtyme a wommans cloth take I ; Now am I a mayde, now lady . . , Somtyme am I a prioresse. And now a nonne and now abbesse. ... (1. 6322.) ' B. ix. 90. THE ART AND AIM OF LANGLAND. i8i shoulders. The doubt is not possible, he thinks, and his plain statement is self-evident. No compromise ! Travel through life without bending ; go forward in a straight line between the high walls of duty. Perform your own obligations ; do not perform the obligations of others. To do over-zealously your duty, to take upon you the duty of others, would trouble the State ; you approach, in so doing, the borderland of Imposture. The knight wilt fight for his country, and must not lose his time in fasting and in scourging himself. A fasting knight is a bad knight. Many joys are allowed. They are included, as a bed of flowers, between the high walls of duty ; love flowers even grow there, to be plucked, under the blue sky. But take care not to be tempted by that wonderful female Proteus, Lady Meed, the great cor- ruptress. She disappears and reappears, and she too assumes all shapes ; she is everywhere at the same time ; it seems as if the asp of Eden had become the immense reptile that circles the earth. Meed is the more dangerous because she is at times legitimate reward, and at times odious bribery ; and as she always comes with her same bewitching, beautiful face, it is sometimes difficult to know which Meed stands near, beckoning us. Langland therefore uses all the means in his power to put the faithful adherents of the Plowman on their guard. Were Meed ever bribery, the danger would be immensely lessened ; but she is often Compromise ; and with Compromise heads become giddy; the abyss opens wide and near. , Piers Plowman undertakes to do duty as a guide ; a 1 82 PIERS PLOWMAN. salary would be both welcome and legitimate ; but he refuses, fearing Lady Meed.' All the aversions of Langland are fused into this one ; and a grand and splendid thing it is to con- template the outbursts of such a fiery hatred against the most trifling extenuations of truth. He does not spare himself ; his want of abnegation draws from him bitter tears. Kneeling on the stone flags, he cries mercy to his other self that tortures him ; his long fi-ame is shaken by sobs. This hatred is immense ; but stands alone in the heart of the poet ; to all the rest he is comparatively merciful. It is a strange but certain fact that, with all his indignation, he is at bottom an optimist. His mind, no doubt, is traversed by melancholy thoughts, as was the mind of the Saxon ancestor ; the idea of death and the charnel-house weighs upon him : For in charnel atte chirche • cherles ben yvel to knowe, Or a knighte fram a knave there • knowe this in thin herte. ^ Such were the Saxon anxieties, and such was also the peculiar sadness which, pervading the works of Villon, has secured for him a place apart in the literature of old France. He, too, thought of the charnel-house and stared at the skulls thrown together there : Et ycelles qui s'inclinaient Une contre autres en leurs vies, ' " Nay, by the peril of my soule " ■ Peers gan swere, " Ich nolde fonge a ferthing • for seynt Thomas shryne ! Were it told to Treuthe ■ that ich toke mede, He wolde louye me the lasse • a longe tyme after." (C. viii. 200.) ^ B. vi. 50. .- , . THE ART AND AIM OF LANG LAND. 183 Desquelles les unes regnaient Des autres craintes et servies, La les vois toutes assouvies Ensemble, en un tas, pele-mele . . . ^ But, in truth, when the gusts of the tempest have ceased, — and no violent tempest lasts very long, — Langland shows himself an optimist. Death even appears to him sometimes with a sweet face, death, The which unknitteth al kare • and comsynge is of reste.^ He does not believe that humanity is doomed to total and final perdition. He does not despair of future, not even of present times. Men will perhaps be converted, and become better, and act better. They are not so wicked, and their organisation so monstrous, that society must be upset and rebuilt again. Actual arrangements must be improved, not destroyed. He leaves un- touched, ecclesiastical hierarchy, dogma, the division of classes ; but, above all, he shudders at the mere idea that any damage might be sustained by that holy and peerless institution, that palladium of liberty and progress : the Parliament and Commons of England. He goes about, preaching disinterestedness, abnegation, austere virtues ; but there is often, at the same time, kindness in his voice ; comfort is derived from the very sound of his words. A feeling of sympathy for the suffering ones warms the whole work ; he is visibly one with them ; his sternest precepts are softened by the tone in which they are delivered. There is something pathetic, and tragic also, in his having to acknowledge that there is no cure for many evils, and 1 " Le Grand Testament," CL. 2 B. xviii. 2 1 3. / / 1 84 PIERS PLOWMAN. that, for the present, resignation only can soothe the pain. With a throbbing heart he shows the unhappy and the lowly, who will die before having seen the better days that are to come, the only talisman that may help them : a scroll with the words, " Thy will be done ! " : But I loked what lyflode (means of life) it was ■ that Pacience so preysed, And thanne was it a pece of the pater noster • " Fiat voluntas tua." ' Piers the Plowman is the ideal of the poet ; but Langland is not blind to the possible merits of the rich and the powerful. Charity sometimes lives among them, as among the poor : ,,/For I have seyne hym in sylke • and somme tyme in russet. ° He is a strict adherent to dogmas, and to the tradi- tional teaching of the Church ; but the idea of so many Saracens and Jews, doomed wholesale to everlasting pain, is repellent to him ; he can scarcely accept it ; he hopes they will be all converted and " turne in-to the trewe feithe " ; for " Cryste cleped us alle . . . Sarasenes and scismatikes . . . and Jewes." 3 The truth is, that there was a tender heart under the rough and rugged exterior of the impassioned, indignant, suffering poet. Much of what has been pointed out before leads to such a conclusion ; and I B. xiv. 47. ^ B. XV. 214. 3 B. xiii. 209; xi. 114. To be compared to the observations of the Good Parliament concerning the " aliens " having benefices in England : " Si est Seint Esglise -plus destruyt par tielx malveiz Cristiens que par touz les Jewes et Saracyns du monde " (" Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 338). THE ART AND AIM OF LANGLAND. 185 if an additional proof were wanted, it would be found in the motto adopted by him, which shows, better than all the rest, what were his aims in life : Disce, Doce, Dilige. In these words will be found the true interpretation of Dowel, Dobet, and Dobest : Learn, Teach, Love : Thus taughce me ones A lemman that I loved ' Love was hir name.'^ What is then to be learnt above all things in this life ? " Conseille me, Kynde (nature)," quod I ■ " what crafte is best to lerne ? " " Lerne to love," quod Kynde • and leve of alle othre." ^ ^ B, xiii. 138. ' B. XX. 206. CHAPTER VII. langland's fame— his place in mystic litera- ture, , ; I. WHILE their author continued to live obscure and unknown, the Visions, as soon as written, were circulated, and acquired considerable popu- larity throughout England. In spite of the time that has elapsed, and numberless destructions, there still remain forty-five manuscripts of the poem, more or less complete ; ^ and this figure is the more remarkable when we consider that, contrary to works written in Latin or in French, Langland's book was not copied and preserved outside his own country. One of these manuscripts was possibly written or corrected by the author himself. ^ ' See, concerning each of them, the indications supplied by Mr. Skeat, Oxford ed., vol. ii. p. 6i. Cf. Richard Kron, "William Langleys Buch von Peter dem Pfluger, Untersuchungen das Hand- schriftenverlaltniss und dem Dialekt," Goettingen, 1885 8vo, ^ MS. Laud, Misc. 581, in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. "I believe there is no reason why it may not be the author's autograph copy. Wherever a slight mistake is left in the text there is a mark at the side to call attention to it." Skeat, Oxford ed. vol ii. p. Ixviii., containing text B. r'-^l' r-te- a o ^ --'1% SI ';^.||S;,-§ /^"«^ Jundt, ibid., pp. 52, 89, 93. 2o6 PIERS PLOWMAN. representative, in the XlVth century, was the Stras- bourg banker, Rulman IVIerswin. The members of this mystic family have, like the others, a superhuman ideal of life ; they are struck by the calamities of their time, pestilences, storms and hurricanes ; by the destruction of the town of Basel in 1356. The vengeance of God is nigh; the mystics commune with heavenly powers and with their own souls ; they break with the world ; the world retaliates by calling them maniacs, and there is often some truth in this judgment. They indite prophecies in apocalyptic style ; they have visions and ecstasies : for most of them these visions are their real life, and this life in dream appears to them so far superior to any earthly one, that they are irresistibly impelled to write and relate their experiences. They resist from modesty, but this resistance makes them suffer, and they at last give in ; they take their pen, and under the form of poems, visions, and incoherent treatises, write a moral autobiography ; and thus feel relieved. They begin again, and add new visions to the old ones, relate their journeyings through the abstract lands of ethics ; and, in short, think and act very much like our English dreamer. To this mystic family belong, though differing in many respects the one from the other, St. Hildegard, who died in 1178, and "first initiated the great apocalyptic movement in the Middle Ages ; " i St. Elizabeth of Schoenau, in the same century, who kept in Latin a sort of journal of her visions, day by day and hour by hour,. ' " Rulman Merswin et I'Ami de Dieu de I'Oberland," by A. Jundt, Paris, 1890, 8vo, p. 6. Works in Migne's "Patrologie," vol, cxcvii. LdNGLANUS FAME. 207 and described the triple series of three ways leading to God. I Her aim is the same as Langland's, but the three ways have nothing in common with Dowel, Dobet, and Dobest. In the first series, one is blue, one green, and one purple, and they signify contemplative life, active life, and martyrdom. 2 In the XlVth century, the beguine Matilda of Magdeburg, who writes in German, announces the speedy coming of Antichrist ; her fame spreads to foreign lands, and, as a supreme honour, she figures in Dante's trilogy. She is that Matelda who leads the Florentine to the earthly para- dise, pending the time when Beatrice will conduct him to the heavenly mansions. 3 To the same spiritual lineage belong, among many others, Henry Suso, who died in 1366, who had visions and ecstasies, was torn by doubts, and wrote his moral autobiography ; 4 Rulman Merswin, whose " conversion " took place in 1347 ; and the whole group of the "Friends of God." ' " Liber Visionum." F. W. Roth, " Die Visionen und Briefe •der hi. Elisabeth . . . von Schonau," Briinn, 1886, 8vo. = "Ego Elisabeth vidi in visione spiritus mei montem excelsum copioso lumine in summo illustratum, et quasi vias tres a radice ejus ad cacumen usque porrectas. Quarum una que media erat in ■directum mihi opposita, speciem habebat sereni celi, sive lapidis iacentini, que vero a dextris meis erat, viridis apparebat, et que a sinistris purpurea. Stabat autem in vertice mentis contra viam mediam vir quidam insignis, tunica iacentina indutus. . . . Facies ejus splendida erat ut sol . . . habebat autem in ore suo gladium." "Liber viarum Dei," Roth, ibid , p. 88. 3 Identified by M. Preger. + Preger, ibid., vol. ii. bk. ii. At the beginning of the same cen- tury lived Matilda of Hakeborn and Gertrud,whose "Revelations" have been published by the Benedictines of Solesmes : " Revela- tiones Gertrudians ac Mechtildianas," Paris, 1875-7, ^ vols. 8vo. 2o8 PIERS PLOWMAN. " Conversion " is another common trait in the moral biography of nearly all mystics. A voice from on high suddenly orders them to return to God, and they obey, sometimes with backslidings, which, however, are followed by spiritual reactions. This was the case with Langland and with all the English who, from century to century, fell a prey to mysticism : RoUe of Ham- pole, Fox the Quaker, Wesley, &c. Their " witte wex and wanyed," i as Langland said of the ebb and flow of his own thoughts. Merswin, without entering a religious order, renounces the world, suffers horrible temptations, and approaches the verge of madness, exactly like Rolle of Hampole, his English contem- porary. "I feared more than once," says he himself, "to be wandering in my mind ; " ^ he is assailed by doubts ; like St. Hildegard, he wishes not to write, but is at last obliged to. Langland also wrote, because he was unable to refrain from so doing ; he braved the raillery of Ymagynatyf, who assured him that there was no need in this world for one book more : " there ar bokes ynowe." 3 Merswin wrote several works in German prose, some under his own name, others attributed by him to a mysterious " Friend of God in the Oberland," with whom he pretended to keep up a secret corre- spondence. After much trouble, and after medical science had come to the assistance of history, it has been recently proved that the Friend of God never existed at all, being a pure creation of Merswin's diseased brain, an extreme example of " dedoublement de la per- ' B. XV. 3. ° Jundt, " Rulman Merswin,'' ibid., p. 19. 3 B. xii. 17. LANGLANUS FAME. ■ 209 sonnalite " (duplication of the personality). ' Merswin, though he composed himself, and transcribed in a hand- writing and dialect different from his own, the treatises which he gave out as being the work of the Friend of God, believed in his creation, as madmen believe in their dreams. The Friend of God is his Piers Plowman ; only his morbidness far exceeds Langland's.^ Views and propositions closely resembling those of the English visionary abound in Merswin's work, and are the result of a similar state of mind and of like anxieties. Many of them are to be found in his " History of my Conversion," in the " Book of the Three Stages of Spiritual Life," the subject of which is the " beginning, growth and ultimate end of mystic life," bearing some analogy to Dowel, Dobet, and Dobest. The history of " Two Youths of Fifteen " recommends " a golden mean between luxury and austerity." In the " Spiritual Stairway," a wide garden is described ; " this garden is the world " ; laymen and ' The non-existence of the "Friend of God" has been placed beyond doubt by Father Denifle. The sincere belief Merswin had, however, in this invention of his fancy, has been proved in the most ingenious manner by Jundt, ibid., pp. 93 et seq. = Many among these mystics fell, owing to their own practices, and especially by an excessive use of "abnegation," into now well-known diseases of the will. " Abnegation " is recommended by one of them, as follows : — " Haec autem proprise voluntatis abnegnatio sive resignatio . . . hominem sine electionem hujus aut illius in agendo aut omittendo ad Dei honorem juxta superiorum voluntatem, omniumque bonorum hominum quibuscum vivit con- silium, cum vera discretione vivere facit" ("D. Joannis Rusbroechii . . . Opera omnia," Cologne, 1562, fol. ; " De prscipibus quibus- dam virtutibus Libellus," chap. iji.). Ruysbroek lived in the XlVth century. 2 1 o PIERS PL O WMAN. monks meet in this "fair feld ful of folk," as Lang- land would have termed it. The hero of the " Master's Book" is a mystic preacher, so torn by doubt that " his brain becomes diseased " ; he is " exposed to the scorn of his friends." In the " Book of the Nine Rocks " are depicted the woes and vices of the time : " Open thy eyes, and see how the popes live nowadays," bishops, too, with their wars and intrigues, clerks, confessors, they of the easy penance and pleasant absolution, nuns, secular clerks fond of good meals, kings, burghers, merchants, craftsmen, and peasants. Jews and Saracens are judged as leniently as they are by Langland ; both stand a chance of being saved. Such are the ideas propagated throughout the countries where the German language is spoken, by the converted banker Rulman Merswin, from the " Green Island " cloister, outside Strasbourg, where he had retired." The " Book of the Nine Rocks," says his principal commentator, " may justly be called the mystic apocalypse of the XlVth century." It may, or rather might be, had we not the Visions of Piers Plowman. ' Particulars about Merswin, the text of several of his treatises, and facsimiles of his handwriting, when he writes in his own person as well as when he takes pen for the Friend of God, will be found in: Jundt, "Rulman Merswin," 1890 ; "Les Amis de Dieu au XIV^ Si^cle," Paris, 1879, 8vo; Ch. Schmidt, "Precis de I'histoire de I'Eglise d'occident pendant le moyen age," Paris, 1885, 8vo, pp. 302 et seq; W. Preger, " Geschichte der deutschen Mystik im Mittelalter," Leipzig, 1874. The works attributed to the Friend of God of the Oberland have been published by Schmidt under the (mistaken) title,. "Nieolaus von Basel Leben und aus- gewahlte Schriften," Vienna, 1886. LANGLAND'S FAME. 2 1 1 III. In spite of these resemblances, so long as the con- trary has not been established by material proof, we must hold that there was between Langland and Merswin a similitude of aim, and up to a certain point of manner too, but no direct imitation. Common ties existed between them, which arose from the parity of their mystic tastes. Others might be found, were we to revert to the distant origin of races, in the time when the Valkyrias crossed the sky of the Germans and Saxons, and when warriors of both nations met in their common paradise, the Valhalla of Odin. Certain it is that, if resemblances can be traced be- tween Langland and several authors belonging to the Latin races, they are infinitely closer and more numerous with the Spiritualists of Germanic origin. In the latter case, analogies stand unchecked, and unaccompanied with those strong and irreducible diiferences which strike the reader when he considers southern mystics. We find, for instance, no trace in Langland of those classic sympathies with which Dante's writings are impreg- nated. Never, assuredly, would it occur to our visionary that when approaching the threshold of God's paradise, the thing to say is : " Apollo ! now that the hour has come for the last of my tasks, fill me with the breath of thy inspiration. Up to this, the help of the Muses of Parnassus has been sufficient ; thine now I must have. . . . Come into my breast, and may 1 feel conscious of thy presence as Marsyas did, when thou drewest his body from the sheath that covered it ! " ' ■^ "Paradise," canto i.' 2 1 2 PIERS PL O WMAN. And on the other hand, nothing in the French con- temporaries of Langland equals the passion and ceaseless fever by which his thoughts are animated, and sometimes inflamed, and sometimes obscured. Closer resemblances, and no such glaring discre- pancies, are to be found in Germanic or Anglo-Saxon literature, or in the succession of mystics, continued in England, from century to century, up to our time. The christianised Anglo-Saxons retained, during nearly the whole period previous to the Norman Con- quest, the impetuosity and enthusiasm of their pagan ancestors ; they suffered from the same fits of depres- sion and despair ; then followed periods of " aboulie " (absent volition), during which they fell an easy prey to any enemy who chanced to attack them. They celebrate the glory of Christ's apostles with the same fiery spirit with which they formerly sang the deeds of Odin. They excel in depicting sombre and deso- late scenes ; they are haunted by the thought of death, the charnel-house and the tortures of hell. They enjoy the recurrence, at intervals in the midst of their long, sluggish reveries, of short, sharp sayings which, appearing suddenly, illuminate the darkness for a second, like a flash of lightning. Such sayings are found in their poems, in their didactic treatises, in their sermons, and in everything that bears the stamp of their particular genius. From time to time after the Conquest, minds are formed in the island, either apart from or in opposi- tion to the world, which seem to have been cast in the Saxonic mould of former days. They are neither imitators nor pupils of each other ; they stand uncon- o X o D o « IB . H-§ S^ H-| w § W (^ s^ « 1> w ^ g| Q Id £2 LANGLANDS FAME. 213 nected, and look, each in succession, as a spontaneous growth ; but there is between them a strong link, much stronger indeed than imitation or teaching, namely, inherited blood, tendencies, qualities and moods. This is the case, for instance, with Rolle of Hampole who died in 1349, who had studied, but who lived in the world and underwent a sudden conversion. He is therefore considered by some as a madman, and by others as a saint. He has visions and ecstasies ; he writes, like Merswin, the account of his moral troubles ; he offers a well-characterised example of duplication of the consciousness. He is visited in his cell and found " writing with great rapidity " ; he is requested to stop writing, and con- verse for the edification of his visitors ; he talks to them, but without ceasing to write very fast, for two hours, and what he wrote differed entirely from what he said. "The Holy Ghost during the whole time directed his hand and his tongue." ' After Rolle, came deists like Lord Herbert of Cher- bury, religious reformers like Fox, Bunyan and Wesley, poets like Cowper, and painters like Blake. Nearly all of them border on madness. Herbert of Cherbury holds familiar intercourse with God, and having written in 1624 a book in which he denied the inspiration of Scripture, inquires of the Almighty if he had better publish his work. He wants a sign from above, so that he may be sure that, whether or not the Bible is an inspired book, his own is. The event proved that I G. Perry, "English Prose Treatises of Richard Rolle of Hampole," London, Early English Text Society, 1866, 8vo, p. xxii. 214 PIERS PLOWMAN. he had only to ask : " I had no sooner spoken these words, but a loud though yet gentle noise came from the heavens. . . . This, how strange soever it may seem, I protest before the eternal God is true, neither am I any way superstitiously deceived herein, since I did not only clearly hear the noise, but in the serenest sky that ever I saw, being without all cloud, did to my thinking see the place from whence it came." " Concluding from this that, if a divine revelation had been refused to the apostles, he for his part was more highly favoured, he printed his book,^ which created a great stir and became the gospel of the deist tribe. George Fox, in the same century, after witnessing a tavern broil, felt impelled to leave his friends and retire from society. In 1648 he has his famous revelation on the subject of hats. " The Lord . . . forbad me to put off my hat to any high or low, and I was required to Thee and Thou all men and women, without any respect to rich or poor, great or small. And as I travelled up and down, I was not to bid people Good morning or Good evening, neither might I bow or scrape with my leg to any one : and this made the sects and professions to rage." 3 For this reason he is called mad, as Langland was. Like our visionary, he seeks solitude, a prey to his thoughts. ' "Autobiography," ed. S. L. Lee, London, 1886, p. 249. = The famous " De Veritate prout distinguitur a revelatione, a verisimili, a possibili et a falso." Paris, 1624 ; London, 1633. 3 " A journal . . of the life, travels, sufferings, christian ex- periences and labour of love, in the work of the ministry of that ancient, eminent and faithful servant of Jesus-Christ, George Fox." Leeds, 6th ed., 1836, 2 vols. 8vo. LANGLANEfS FAME. 215 " My troubles continued, and I was often under great temptations ; I fasted much, and walked abroad in solitary places many days, and often took my Bible, and sat in hollow trees and lonesome places till night came on ; and frequently in the night, walked mourn- fully about by myself : for I was a man of sorrows in the times of the first workings of the Lord in me." i With all his roughness and his refusals to salute any one, he has, at bottom, a tender heart ; no epithet recurs oftener In his writings ; he applies it to all those whom he likes : " I met with a tender people and a very tender woman ; " 2 when he feels well disposed towards himself, he declares that he is " a tender young man." He gave to the sect he founded the name of " Society of Friends," Quaker being a nickname ; his letters do not begin with "Sir," but with " Friend." 3 Bunyan, in the same time, experienced sirnilar doubts, and passed through the same moral phases. He was " in the middle of a game of cat," and was about to strike his second blow, when he heard a voice which " did suddenly dart from heaven into his soul and said : Wilt thou leave thy sins and go to heaven, or have thy sins and go to hell } " 4 He is converted, but nevertheless is torn by doubts ; and his doubts are those of Langland : " Could I think that so many ' "A journal ... of the life, travels, &c., of George Fox,'' year 1647, 2 Ibid., vol. i. pp. 90, 91. 3 A letter to the king, hovs^ever, begins with : " King Charles, thou earnest not. . . ." Ibid., vol. i. p. 524. 4 " Grace Abounding " (being Bunyan's moral autobiography) in "Entire Works," Stebbing's edition, London, 1859, + ■^o'^- 4to» vol. i. p. 7. 2 1 6 PIERS FLO WMAN. ten thousands, in so many countries and kingdoms, should be without the knowledge of the right way to .heaven (if there were indeed a heaven), and that we •only, who live in a corner of the earth, should be ■ blessed therewith? Every one doth think his own religion rightest, both Jews, Moors, and Pagans ; and how if all our faith, and Christ and Scriptures should be but a think-so too ? " ^ He is regarded with sus- ipiclon ; and called " a witch, a Jesuit, a highwayman and the like." ^ Imprisoned in the bridge tower of Bedford, he writes his famous " Pilgrim's Progress " from the " City of Destruction," and the "Slough of Despond," to the " Golden City." He sees all this in a dream, like Langland : " As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place where was a Den, and I laid me down in that place to sleep ; and as I slept, I dreamed a dream. I dreamed, and behold, I saw a man clothed with rags. . . ." He reaches the celestial city ; he perceives that there is " a way to hell even from the gates of heaven, as well as from the City of Destruction. — So I awoke, and behold, it was a dream." 3 The life of Wesley and Whitefield, animated in the XVIIIth century, by a spirit both mystic and practical, is all interspersed with visions ; or rather, visions and realities are so closely mingled that it is impossible to distinguish them. They, for their own part, never attempted to draw a line between the two. Like the mystics of the Middle Ages, they hold inter- ^ "Grace Abounding," ibid., p. 15. = Ibid., p. 30. 3 The first edition is of uncertain date ; the second appeared in 1678. "and behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness. . . ." From Blake's Illustrations for the Book of Job. LANGLAND'S FAME. 217 course with the Holy Ghost, and teach how others may enjoy a similar favour. " Be therefore, my Lord, much in secret retirement," writes Whitefield, " com- mune with your own heart in your chamber, and be still ; and you will then hear the secret whispers of the Holy Ghost." i Whitefield notes the presence of God in certain particular places ; the Master of things listens to some of his sermons, but not to all : " This day, Jesus has enabled me to preach seven times : once in the church, twice at the girls' hospital, and afterwards twice in a private house. . . . Both in the church and park the Lord was v/ith us. The girls in the hospital were excessively affected." ~ Wesley performs miracles ; he cures a workman who coughed exceedingly. 3 Like the mystics of former times, he is " converted," writes his moral autobiography, and is called insane. " Let not much religion make thee mad," say his friends to him. This spiritual " conversion " is the basis of his entire system ; one cannot without it belong truly to the society of " Methodists " which he founded, and for which he devised a special creed of the most ethereal mysticism.4 ^ Letter to Lord L., October 26, 174.1. " Works," London, 1771, 6 vols. 8vo, vol. i. p. 335. ^ October 27, 1741. ''"Works," vol. i. p. 337. 3 "Now, let candid men judge, does humility require me to ■deny a notorious fact ?" ("A Plain Account of the People called Methodists," 1748 ; "Works of Wesley," Beecham's edition, nth ■ed., London, 1856, 14 vols. l2mo, vol. viii.) Bunyan had only had a temptation to work miracles, but he did not perform them {"Grace Abounding," p. 87). * A creed made up of four tenets, the main of which was that true religion "is nothing short of or different from the mind that 2 1 8 PIERS PL O WMAN. Tender, gentle, sickly Cowper, whose heart ever was the heart of a child, has, in spite of diiFerences arising from his fragile temperament, many points in common with our visionary. This exquisite being. Dupe of to-morrow even from a child,' bruised and suffering, is so perplexed by the problem of life, as to almost lose his reason. Alternations of faith and doubt shake him so as to bring him to the verge of the grave. For him, the question of an here- after is the sole serious one, and the only problem deserving attention. The matchless badinages we owe to his pen are merely a respite granted to thought weary of labour. The same anguish tortures Cowper's contemporary, the painter and poet Blake, who appears to have un- wittingly assigned to himself the task of reproducing in his water-colours and drawings the grand, mysterious figures evoked by our visionary ; we might even say, the figure of Langland himself. Were we to search for an embodiment of the idea we form of " Longe Will," we should look for it in the drawings of Blake. The poems of Blake appear the simplest in the world ; they treat of the most ordinary subjects ; but suddenly a deeper note, an allusion to hidden sufferings and wounds, reveals to us that we are not in the presence of a shepherd who pipes, but of a prophet who knows. The effect is grand and strange. Placed on the limit of two centuries, and on the boundary line of two was in Christ ; the image of God stamped upon the heart ; inward righteousness attended with the peace of God, and joy in the H0I7 Ghost." " A Plain Account," ibid. ' "On the Receipt of my Mother's picture." ' WHEN THE MORNING STARS SANG TOGETHER AND ALL THE SONS OF GOD SHOUTED FOR JOV." fffirt Blake's illustrations /or the Book of Joii LANG LAND'S FAME. 219 periods, Blake is the first in date (but the least in genius) of that group of mysterious and symbol-loving poets, amongst whom are to be ranked Shelley, Rossetti and Browning, poets who shiver at the mere idea of the surrounding triviality, universal ease and fluency, stale- ness of the higher sentiments taught by rule in schools, and take refuge, out of scorn and vexation, in a thick- veiled darkness, where they know that ease-loving multitudes will not follow them. They mingle with the crowd, like "Longe Will," saluting no one; and the crowd long remains in ignorance of who they are, or, at most, wonders with an incredulous shake of the head, whether, by any possibility or chance, such men as they belong to the chosen people. Langland, though he is, like Chaucer, a true English- man, that is, a blending of the Celto-Latin and Germanic races, had more in him of the latter. The English have sprung from the union of these two races, and in most of them, a fusion of the two elements has taken place ; the result being the average English character. But, among those distinguished by a genius rising above the common level, we soon perceive, as a rule, whom they take after. All children of a family have in their veins blood of both parents ; but some resemble the father and others the mother. Langland, in spite of the practical nature of his judgments, belongs most to the race which had the deepest and especially the earliest knowledge of tender, passionate and mystical aspira- tions, and which lent itself most willingly to the lulls and pangs of hope and despair, the race of the Anglo-Saxons. Chaucer represents more the lucid, IS 220 PIERS PLOWMAN. energetic, decided, practical race of the latinised Celts, with their love of logic, and fondness for straight lines. They both in their works symbolise, by their light and shadows, and an alternate play of sun and clouds, all that splendid English literature which was dawning before their eyes. The day which we have seen bore a resemblance to that morning dawn. APPENDIX. APPENDIX. EXTRACTS FROM THE WRITINGS OF WILLIAM LANGLAND. SOME readers will perhaps find it convenient to be supplied with specimens of the poetry of Langland, of greater length than the quotations given above. The following extracts have been chosen from among the passages discussed in the fore- going pageSj and will enable the reader to form, independently of these discussions, an idea of the various moods of our poet, and of the different styles he affects. The text of Mr. Skeat's Oxford edition has been followed. I. BEGINNING OF THE VISIONS. In a somere seyson • whan softe was the sonne, Y shop me in-to [shroudes] • as y a shepherde were, In abit as an ermite • unholy of werkes, Ich wente forth in the worlde " wonders to hure. And sawe meny cellis " and selcouthe thynges. Ac on a may morwenyng ■ on Malverne hulles Me byfel for to slepe • for weyrynesse of wandryng ; And in a launde as ich lay " lenede ich and slepte. And merveylously me mette ■ as ich may yow telle ; Al the welthe of this worlde • and the woo bothe, Wynkyng as it were • wyterly ich saw hyt, Of tryuthe and tricherye • of tresoun and of gyle, Al ich saw slepynge " as ich shal yow telle. Esteward ich byhulde • after the sonne, And sawe a toure, as ich trowede • Truthe was ther-ynne ; 2 24 PIERS PLOWMAN. Westwarde ich waitede ■ in a whyle after, And sawe a deep dale ■ Deth as ich lyvede, Wonede in tho wones ■ and wyckede spiritus. A fair feld ful of folke • fonde ich ther bytwyne, Alle manere of men " the mene and the ryche, Worchynge and wandrynge • as the worlde asketh. Somme putte hem to plow • and pleiden ful seylde, In settyng and in sowyng • swonken ful harde, And wonne that thuse wasters ■ with glotenye destroyeth. Somme putte hem to pruyde • and parailede hem ther-after, In contenaunce and in clothynge • in meny kynne gyse ; In praiers and in penaunces • putten hem manye, Al for the love of Oure Lorde ■ lyveden ful harde, In hope to have a gode ende ■ and hevene-ryche blysse ; As ancres and eremites • that holden hem in hure cellys, Coveytynge noght in contrees • to carien a-boute For no lykerouse lyflode ■ hure lykame to plese. And somme chosen chefFare • they chevede the betere, As hit semeth to oure syght ■ that soche men thryveth. And somme murthes to make • as mynstrals conneth, That wollen neyther swynke ne swete • bote swery grete othes, And fynde up foule fantesyes • and foles hem maken, And haven witte at wylle • to worche yf they wolde. That Paul prechith of hem ■ proven ich myghte, ^i turfiloquium loquitur • ys Lucyfers knave. Byddcrs and beggers • faste aboute yoden, Tyl hure bagge and hure bely • were bretful ycrammyd, Faytynge for hure fode • and fouhten atten ale. C. i. I. II. A PARLIAMENT OF MICE AND RATONS. With that ran there a route • of ratones at ones, And smale mys myd hem • mo then a thousande, And comen to a conseille • for here comune profit ; For a cat of a courte • cam whan hym lyked. And overlepe hem lyghtlich • and lauhte hem at his wille, A PARLIAMENT OF MICE. 225 And pleyde with hem perilouslych • and possed hem aboute. " For doute of dyverse dredes • we dar noughte wel loke ; And yif we grucche of his gamen • he wil grave us alle, Cracche us, or clowe us • and in his cloches holde, That us lotheth the lyf • or he let us passe. Myghte we with any witte • his wille withstonde, We myghte be lordes aloft • and lyven at owre ese." A raton of renon • most renable of tonge, Seide for a sovereygne ■ help to hym-selve ; — " I have ysein segges," quod he • " in the cite of London Beren bighes ful brighte • abouten here nekkes, And some colers of crafty werk ; • uncoupled they wenden Both in wareine and in waste • where hem leve lyketh ; And otherwhile thei aren elles-where ■ as I here telle. Were there a belle on here beigh • bi Jhesu as me thynketh, Men myghte wite where thei went ' and awei renne ! And right so," quod that ratoun • " reson me sheweth, To bugge a belle of brasse • or of brighte sylver, And knitten on a colere " for oure comune profit, And hangen it up-on the cattes hals • thanne here we mowen Where he ritt or rest • or renneth to playe. And yif him list for to laike • thenne loke we mowen, And peren in his presence • ther while hym plaie liketh, And yif him wrattheth, be ywar • and his weye shonye." Alle this route of ratones • to this reson thei assented. Ac tho the belle was ybought • and on the beighe hanged, There ne was ratoun in alle the route " for alle the rewme of Fraunce, That dorst have ybounden the belle • aboute the cattis nekke, Ne hangen it aboute the catnes hals ' al Engelonde to wynne ; And helden hem unhardy • and here conseille feble, Andleten here labour lost • and alle here longe studye. A mous that moche good ' couthe, as me thoughte, Stroke forth sternly ■ and stode biforn hem alle, And to the route of ratones ' reherced these wordes : "Though we culled the catte • yut sholde ther come another. To cracchyus and al ov/re kynde ' though we crope under benches. For-thi I conseille alle the comune • to lat the catte worthe. And be we never so bolde • the belle hym to shewe ; 2 2 6 PIERS PL O WMAN. For I herde my sire seyn • is sevene yere ypassed, There the catte is a kitoun • the courte is ful elyng ; That witnisseth holiwrite ■ who-so wil it rede, Vc terre ubi puer rex est, etc. For may no renke there rest have ■ for ratones bi nyghte ; ^ The while he caccheth conynges • he coveiteth nought owre caroyne, But fet hym al with venesoun • defame we hym nevere. For better is a litel losse " than a longe sorwe, The mase amonge us alle . though we mysse a schrewe. For many mannus malt " we mys wolde destruye, And also ye route of ratones ' rende mennes clothes, Nere that cat of that courte ■ that can yow overlepe : For had ye rattes yowre wille • ye couthe nought reule yowre-selve. I sey for me,'' quod the mous " " I se so mykel after, Shal never the cat ne the kitoun " bi my conseille be greved, Ne carpyng of this coler ■ that costed me nevre. And though it had coste me catel • biknowen it I nolde, But suffre as hym-self wolde ■ to do as kym liketh, Coupled and uncoupled ■ to cacche what thei mowe. For-thi uche a wise wighte I warne ■ wite wel his owne." What this meteles bemeneth • ye men that be merye, Devine ye, for I ne dar • bi dere God in hevene ! B. Prol. 145. in. LADY MEED AT COURT.— FLIGHT OF HER COMPANIONS. The King orders that Meed be brought before him and that her companions be sent to prison : " Go atache tho tyrauns ■ for eny tresour, ich hote, Let feterye fast Falsnesse ' for eny kynnes giftes. And gurd of Gyles hefd • and lete hym go no wyddere, And brynge Mede to me • maugre hem alle. ' This line is apparently misplaced ; it ought to come, it seems, lower, possibly after the verse : " And also ye route of ratones," &c. LADY MEED AT COURT. 227 And if ye lacche Lyere " let hym nat a-skapie Er he be put on the pullery • for eny preier, ich hote ! " Drede stod at the dore • and al that duene herde, What the kynges wil was ■ and wyghtlyche he wente, And bad Falsnesse to flee • and hus feren alle. Falsnesse for fere tho • flegh to the freres, And Gyle dud hym to gon " agast for to deye ; Ac marchauns metten with hym • and made hym abyde, And shutten hym in here shoppes • to shewen here ware, And parailed hym lyke here prentys • the puple to serven. Lyghtliche Lyere ' lep a-way thennes, Lorkynge thorw lanes • to-logged of menye. He was nawher welcome ■ for hus meny tales, Over-al houted out • and yhote trusse, Til pardoners hadden pitte • and pullede hym to house. Thei woshe hym and wypede hym ■ and wonde hym in cloutes, And sente hym on sonnedayes • with seeks to churches. And gaf pardon for pans • pound-meel a-boute. Thanne lourede leches • and letters thei senten. That Lyer shold wony with hem • waters to loke. Spicers to hym speke • to aspie here ware, For he can on here crafte • and knoweth meny gommes. Ac mynstrales and messagers ■ mette with Lyere ones. And with-helde hym half a yere • and elleve dayes. Ac Freres thorw fayre speche • fetten hym thennes ; For knowynge of comers " thei copyde hym as a frere ; Ac he hath leve to lepen out ■ as ofte as hym lyketh, And ys welcome whanne he cometh • and woneth with hem ofte. Symonye and Cyvyle • senten to Rome, And putte hem thorw a-peles • in the popes grace. Ac Conscience to the kyng ■ a-cusede hem bothe. And seide, "syre kyng, by Cryst • bothe clerkus amende, Thi kyngdom thorw here covetyse • wol out of kynde wende, And holy churche thorw hem • worth harmed for evere." Alle fledden for fere • and flowen in-to hemes ; Save Mede the mayde " no mo dorste a-byde. Ac treweliche to telle • hue tremblede for fere, And both wrang and wepte • whanne hue was a-tached. C. iii. 211. 2 2 8 PIERS PL O WMAN. IV. MEED AT COURT.— HER SUPPORTERS. Meed has been brought to Westminster. While waiting for the King, who is at his council, would-be friends surround Meed : And there was myrthe and mynstralcye ' Mede to plese. They that wonyeth in Westmynstre • worschiped hir alle ; Gentelliche with joye • the justices somme Busked hem to the boure ■ there the bird dwelled. To conforte hire kyndely • by clergise leve. And seiden : " Mourne nought, Mede ■ ne make thow no sorwe^ For we wil wisse the kynge " and thi wey shape. To be wedded at thi wille " and where the Icve liketh. For al Conscience caste ' or craft as I trowe ! " Mildeliche Mede thanne • mercyed hem alle Of theire gret goodnesse • and gaf hem uchone Coupes of clene golde " and coppis of silver, . Rynges with rubies " and ricchesses manye. The leste man of here meyne • a motoun of golde. Thanne lauhte thei leve' this lordes, at Mede. With that comen clerkis ' to conforte hir the same. And beden hir be blithe • " for we beth thine owne. For to worche thi wille ■ the while thow myghte laste.'' Hendeliche heo thanne " bihight hem the same, To "love you lelli • and lordes to make. And in the consistorie atte courte ' do calle yowre names ; Shal no lewdnesse lette " the leode that I lovye. That he ne worth first avanced • for I am biknowen Ther konnyng clerkes • shul clokke bihynde." Thanne come there a confessoure " coped as a frere. To Mede the mayde ■ he inellud his wordes, And seide ful softly in shrifte as it were, " Theigh lewed men and Icred men " had leyne by the bothe. And falsenesse haved yfolwed the • al this fyfty wyntre, I shal assoille the my-selve " for a seme of whete. And also be thi bedeman • and bere wel thi mesage, Amonges knightes and clerkis • conscience to tome." THE SUPPORTERS OF MEED. 229 Thatine Mede for here mysdedes • to that man kneled, And shrove hire of hire shrewednesse ■ shamelees, I trowe, Tolde hym a tale • and toke hym a noble, Forto ben hire bedeman • and hire brokour als. Thanne he assoilled hire sone • and sithen he seyde, " We han a wyndowe a wirchyng • wil sitten us ful heigh . Woldestow glase that gable • and grave there-inne thi name, Siker sholde thi soule be • hevene to have." " Wist I that," quod that womman ■ " I wolde nought spare For to be yowre frende, frere • and faille yow ncvre Whil ye love lordes • that lechery haunteth, And lakketh nought ladis • that loveth wel the same. It is frelte of flesh • ye fynde it in bokes, And a course of kynde ■ wher-of we komen alle ; Who may scape the sklaundre • the skathe is sone amended ; It is synne of the sevene ■ sonnest relessed. Have mercy," quod Mede ■ " of men that it haunte. And I shal kevre yowre kirke ■ yowre cloystre do maken, Wowes do whiten • and wyndowes glasen. Do peynten and purtraye • and paye for the makynge. That evry segge shal seyn • I am sustre of yowre hous." Ac God to alle good folke " suche gravynge defendeth, To writen in wyndowes • of here wel dedes, On aventure pruyde be peynted there ■ and pompe of the worldc ; For Crist knoweth thi conscience " and thi kynde wille, And thi coste and thi coveitise • and who the catcl oughte. For-thi I lere yow, lordes • leveth such werkes. To written in wyndowes • of yowre wel dedes. Or to greden after Goddis men • whan ye delen doles ; An aventure ye han yowre hire here • and youre hevene als ; Nesciat sinistra quid faciat dextra. B. iii. 1 1. V. AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL FRAGMENTS. Thus ich a-waked, God wot ' whanne ich woned on Cornehullc, Kytte and ich in a cote • clothed as a lollere, 230 PIERS PLOWMAiW And lytel y-lete by • leyvo me for sothe, Among lollares of London ■ and lewede heremytes ; For ich made of tho men ■ as reson me tauhte. For as ich cam by Conscience • with Reson ich mette In an hote hervesf whenne ich hadde myn hele, And lymes to labore with • and lovede wel fare, And no dede to do " bote drynke and to slepe. In hele and in unite • on me aposede, Romynge in remembraunce • thus Reson me aratede. " Canstow serven," he seide ' " other syngen in a churche, Other coke for my cokers • other to the cart picche, Mowe other mowen ■ other make bond to sheves, Repe other be a repereyve • and a-ryse erliche, Other have an home and be haywarde • and liggen oute a nyghtes, And kepe my corn in my croft ■ fro pykers and theeves ? Other shappe shon other clothes • other shep other kyn kepe, Heggen other harwen • other swyn other gees dryve, Hem that bedreden be • by-Iyve to fynde ? " " Certes," ich seyde • " and so me God helpe, Ich am to walk to worche • with sykel other with sythe. And to long, leyf me " lowe for to stoupe. To worchen as a workeman • eny whyle to dure," " Thenne havest thow londes to lyve by," • quath Reson, " other lynage riche That fynden the thy fode ? ■ for an ydel man thow semest, A spendour that spende mot • other a spille-tyme. Other beggest thy bylyve • a-boute at menne hacches. Other faitest up-on frydays • other feste-dayes in churches. The whiche is lollarene lyf • that lytel ys preysed, Ther ryghtfulnesse rewardeth ■ ryght as men deserveth, Reddit unicuique juxta opera sua. Other thow art broke, so may be • in body other in membre. Other ymaymed throw som mys-hap ■ wher-by thow myght be excused? " *'Whanne ich yong was,'' quath ich • " meny yer hennes. My fader and my frendes • founden me to scole, Tyl ich wiste wyterliche • what holy wryt menede. And what is best for the body • as the bok telleth, And sykerest for the soule • by so ich wolle continue. AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL FRAGMENTS. 231 And yut fond ich nevere in faith • sytthen my frendes deyden, Lyf that me lyked ■ bote in thes longe clothes. Yf ich by laboure sholde lyve • and lyflode deserveii, That labour that ich lerned best ■ ther-with lyve ich sholde ; In eadem vocatione in qua vocati estis, manete. And ich lyve in Londone • and on Londone bothe, The lomes that ich laboure with • and lyflode deserve, Ys pater-noster and my prymer • placebo and dirige. And my sauter som tyme ■ and my sevene psalmes. Thus ich synge for hure soules ■ of suche as me helpen, And tho that fynden me my fode ■ vouchen saf, ich trowe, To be welcome whanne ich come • other-whyle in a monthc Now with hym and now with hure • and thus-gate ich begge With-oute bagge other botel • bote my wombe one. And al-so more-over • me thynketh, syre Reson, Men sholde constreyne no clerke • to knauene werkes ; For by the lawe of Levitici ■ that Oure Lorde ordeynede, Clerkes that aren crouned ■ of kynde understondyng Sholde nother swynke ne swete • ne swere at enquestes ; Ne fyghte in no vauntwarde • ne hus so greve, Non reddai malum pro malo . For it ben aires of hevene ■ alle that ben crounede, And in queer and in kirkes ' Cristes ov/ene mynestres, Do minus pars her edit atis mee ; et alibi: Clementia non constringit. Hit by-cometh for clerkus " Crist for to serven, And knaves uncrouned' to cart and to worche. For shold no clerk be crouned " bote yf he ycome were Of franklens and free men " and of folke yweddede. Bondmen and bastardes ' and beggers children, Thuse by-longeth to labour ' and lordes kyn to serven Bothe God and good men • as here degree asketh ; Some to synge masses • other sitten and wryte, Rede and receyve ■ that reson ouhte spende ; Ac sith bondemenne barnes • han be mad bisshopes, And barnes bastardes " han ben archidekenes, And sopers and here sones ■ for selver han be knyghtes, And lordene sones here laborers ■ and leid here rentes to wedde,. For the ryght of this reame " ryden a-yens owre enemys, In conforte of the comune " and the kynges worshep, 2 3 2 PIERS PL WMAN. And monkes and moniales " that mendinauns sholden fyndc, Han mad here kyn knyghtes • and knyghtfees purchased, Popes and patrones • poure gentil blood refuseth, And taken Symondes sone ■ seyntwarie to kepe, Lyf-holynesse and love • han ben longe hennes, And wole, til hit be wered out ■ or otherwise ychaunged. For-thy rebuke me ryght nouht ' Reson, ich yow praye ; For in my conscience ich knowe • what Crist wolde that ich wrouhte, Preyers of a parfyt man • and penaunce discrct Ys the leveste labour ■ that cure lord pleseth, " Non de solo" ich seide • " for sothe vivit homo. Nee in fane et pabulo • the pater-noster witnesseth ; Fiat voluntas tua' fynt ous alle thynges." Quath Conscience, " by Crist ■ ich can nat see this lyeth; Ac it semeth nouht parfytnesse • in cytees for to begge. Bote he be obediencer ■ to pryour other to mynstrc." " That ys soth," ich seide • "and so ich by-knowc, That ich have tynt tyme ■ and tyme mysspended ; And yut, ich hope; as he • that ofte haveth chaffared, That ay hath lost and lost • and atte laste hym happed He bouhte suche a bargayn • he was the bet evere, And sette hus lost at a lef " at the laste ende. Such a wynnynge hym warth • thorw^ wordes of hus grace ; Simile est regnum celorum thesauro abscondito in agro, etc. Mulier que invenit dragmam unam, etc. ; So hope ich to have ■ of hym that is al-myghty A gobet of hus grace • and bygynne a tyme, That alle tymes of my tyme " to profit shal turne." '■'■ Ich rede the," quath Reson tho " " rape the to by-gynne The lyf that ys lowable • and leel to the soule." " Ye and continue," quath Conscience • and to the kirke ich wente. And to the kirke gan ich go • God to honourie, By-for the crois on my knees • knocked ich my brest, Sykynge for my synnes • seggynge my pater-noster, Wepynge and wailinge. C. vi. I. A TAVERN SCENE. 233 2 And so my witte wex and wanyed • til I a fole were And somme lakked my lyf • allowed it fewe, And leten me for a lorel • and loth to reverencen Lordes or ladyes ■ or any lyf elles, As persones in pellure with pendauntes of sylver ; To serjauntz ne to suche " seyde noughte ones, " God loke yow, lordes ! " • ne louted faire ; That folke helden me a fole • and in that folye I raved, Til Resoun hadde reuthe on me • and rokked me aslepe. B. XV. 5. VI. A TAVERN SCENE. Now by-gynneth Gloton " for to go to shryfte. And kayres hym to-kirke-ward • hus coupe to shewe. Fastyng on a fryday ■ forth gan he wende By Betone hous the brewestere • that bad hym good morwe, And whederwarde he wolde • the brew-wif hym asked. "To holy churche," quath he • "for to hure masse ; And sitthen sitte and be yshriven • and synwe namore." " Ich have good ale, godsyb • Gloton, wolt thow assaye ? " "What havest thow," quath he ■ " eny hote spices ">. " " Ich have piper and pionys ■ and a pound of garlik, A ferthyng-worth of fynkelsede • for fastinge-daies." Thenne goth Gloton yn ' and grete othes after. Sesse the sywestere • sat on the benche. Watte the warynere ■ and hus wif dronke, Thomme the tynkere • and tweye of hus knaves, Hicke the hakeneyman " and Houwe the neldere, Claryce of Cockeslane " the clerk of the churche, Syre Peeres of Prydie • and Purnel of Flaundres, An haywarde and an heremyte " the hangeman of Tyborne, Dauwe the dykere • with a dosen harlotes Of portours and of pykeporses " and pylede toth-drawers, A rybibour and a ratoner • a rakere and hus knave, A ropere and a redyngkynge • and Rose the disshere, Godefray the garlek-mongere • and GrifFyn the Walish ; And of up-holders an hep ■ erly by the morwe 234 PIERS PLOWMAN. Geven Gloton with glad chere • good ale to hansele. Clemment the coblere • cast of hus cloke, And to the newe fayre • nempned hit to selle. Hicke the hakeneyman • hitte hus hod after, And bad Bette the bouchere • to be on hus syde. Ther were chapmen y-chose • the chafFare to preise ; That he that hadde the hod • sholde nat habbe the cloke ; The betere thyng by arbytours • sholde bote the werse. Two rysen rapliche " and rounede to-geders, And preysed the penyworthes • apart by hem-selve, And ther were othes an hepe • for other sholde have the werse. Thei couthe nouht by here conscience • a-corde for treuthe, Tyl Robyn the ropere • aryse thei bysouhte, And nempned hym a nompeyr ■ that no debate were. Hicke the hakeneyman • hadde the cloke, In covenant that Clement ■ sholde the coppe fylle, And have the hakeneymannes hod • and hold hym y-served ; And who repentyde rathest ■ shold aryse after. And grete syre Gloton • with a galon of ale. Ther was lauhyng and lakeryng ■ and " let go the coppe ! " Bargeynes and bevereges • by-gunne to aryse, And setyn so til evesong rang ■ and songe umbwhyle, Til Gloton hadde yglobbed • a galon and a gylle. . . . He myghte nother stappe ne stonde • tyl he a staf hadde. Thanne gan he go ■ lyke a glemannes bycche, Som tyme asyde • and som tyme a-rere, As ho so laith lynes • for to lacche foules. And when he drow to the dore ; thanne dymmed hus eyen ; He thrumbled at the threshefold • and threw to the erthe. Tho Clement the coblere • cauhte hym by the mydel. For to lyfte hym on loft • he leyde hym on hus knees ; Ac Gloton was a gret cherl • and gronyd in the liftynge. With al the wo of the worlde • hus wif and hus wenche Here hym to hus bedde • and brouhte hym ther-ynne • And after al this excesse " he hadde an accidie He slep Saterday and Sonday • tyl sonne yede to reste. Thenne awakyde he wel wan ■ and wolde have ydronke • The ferst word that he spak • was "ho halt the bolle ?" C. vii. 350. "■AGCIDIAr 235 VII. "ACCIDIA," OR THE LAZY PARSON. Thanae come Sleuthe al bislabered • with two slymy eighen : " I most sitte," seyde the segge ■ "or elks shulde I nappe ; I may noughte stonde ne stoupe • ne with-oute a stole knele. Were I broughte abedde . . . Sholde no ryngynge do me ryse • ar I were rype to dyne." He bygan henedkite with a bolke ■ and his brest knocked, And roxed and rored' and rutte atte laste. " What ! awake, renke ! " quod Repentance • " and rape the 10 shrifte " " If I shulde deye bi this day ■ me liste noughte to loke ; I can noughte perfitly my pater-mster ■ as the prest hit syngeth. But I can rymes of Robyn Hood ■ and Randolf erle of Chestre, Ac neither of Owre Lorde ne of Owre Lady • the leste that evere was made. I have made vowes fourty • and for-yete hem on the morne ; I parfourmed nevre penaunce • as the prest me highte, Ne ryghte sori for my synnes " yet was I nevere. And yif I bidde any bedes ■ but if it be in wrath. That I telle with my tonge " is two myle fro myne herte. I am occupied eche day • haliday and other, With ydel tales atte ale • and otherwhile in cherches ; Goddes peyne and his passioun • ful selde thynke I there-on. I visited nevere fieble men • ne fettered folke in puttes ; I have levcre here an harlotrie ' or a somer-game of souteres, Or lesynges to laughe at • and belye my neighbore. Than al that evere Marke made • Mathew, John, and Lucas. And vigilies and fastyng-dayes " alle thise late I passe, And ligge abedde in lenten ■ an my lemman in myn armes, Tyl matynes and masse be do • and thanne go to the freres ; Come I to ite missa est • I holde me yserved. I nam noughte shryven some tyme • but if sekenesse it make. Nought tweies in two yere • and thanne up gesse I shryve me. I have be prest and parsoun " passynge thretti wynter, Yete can I neither solfe ne synge • ne seyntes lyves rede. But I can fynde in a felde • or in a fourlonge an hare, Better than in beatus vir • or in beati omna 16 236 PIERS PLOWMAN. Construe oon clause wel " and kenne it to my parochienes. I can holde lovedayes • and here a reves rekenynge, Ac in canoun ne in decretales • I can nought rede a lyne. B. V. 392. VIII. "POURE FOLKE IN COTES." The most needy aren oure neighebores • and we nyme good hede, As prisones in puttes • and poure folke in cotes, Charged with children • and chef lordes rente. That thei with spynnynge may spare ■ spenen hit in hous-hyre, Bothe in mylk and in mele ■ to make with papelotes, To a-glotye with here gurles • that greden after fode. Al-so hem-selve ' suffren muche hunger, And wo in winter-tyme • with wakynge a nyghtes To ryse to the ruel • to rocke the cradel, Bothe to karde and to kembe • to clouten and to wasche, To rubbe and to rely russhes to pilie, That reuthe is to rede • othere in ryme shewe The wo of these women • that wonyeth in cotes ; And of meny other men • that muche wo suffren, Bothe a-fyngrede and a-furst • to turne the fayre outwarde. And beth abasshed for to begge • and wolle nat be aknowe What hem needeth at here neihebores • at non and at even. That ich wot witerly • as the worlde techeth. What other by-hoveth • that hath meny children, And hath no catel bote hus crafte • to clothy hem and to fede, And fele to fonge ther-to • and fewe pans taketh. There is payn and peny-ale' as for a pytaunce y^take, Colde flessh and cold fyssh • for veneson ybake ; Frydayes and fastyng-dayes • a farthyng-worth of muscles Were a feste for suche folke • other so fele cockes. These were almes, to helpe • that han suche charges, And to comfortie such cotyers • and crokede men and blynde. Ac beggers with bagges • the whiche brewhouses ben here churches. Bote thei be blynde other broke • other elles be syke, Thauh he falle for defaute ■ that faiteth for hus lyf-Iode, Reccheth nevere, ye ryche • thauh suche lorelles sterven. C. X. 71. ''LEWEDE EREMYTESr 237 IX. "LEWEDE EREMYTES." . . . And lewede eremytes, That loken full louheliche • to lacchen mennes almesse. In hope to sitten at even " by the hote coles, Unlouke hus legges abrod • other lygge at hus ese, Reste hym, and roste hym • and his ryg turne, Drynke drue and deepe • and drawe hym thanne to bedde ; And when hym lyketh and lust • hus leve ys to aryse ; When he ys rysen, rometh out • and ryght wel aspieth Whar he may rathest have a repast ■ other a rounde of bacon, Sulver other sode mete . and som tyme bothe, A loof other half a loof • other a lompe of chese ; And carieth it hom to hus cote ■ and cast him to lyve In ydelnesse and in ese • aud by others travayle. And what frek of thys folde • fisketh thus a-boute, With a bagge at hus bak " a begeneldes wyse, And can som manere craft • in cas he wolde hit use, Thorgh whiche crafte he couthe " come to bred and to ale, And over-more to an hater ■ to helye with hus bones, And lyveth lyk a lollere • Godes lawe hym dampneth. Ac these eremytes that edefyen thus ■ by the hye weyes. Whilom were workmen • webbes and taillours. And carters knaves • and clerkus with-oute grace, Helden ful hungry hous " and hadde much defaute. Long labour and lyte wynnynge • and atte laste aspiden. That faitours in frere clothynge ' hadde fatte chekus. For-thi lefte thei here laboure "' these lewede knaves. And clothed hem in copes • clerkus as hit were, Other on of som ordre ■ othere elles a prophete. Wher see we hem on sonedays • the servyse to huyre, As, matyns by the morwe ? • tyl masse by-gynne, Other sonedays at evesonge ■ seo we wel fewe ! Othere labory for here liflode • as the lawe wolde ? 238 • . PIMRS FLO WMAN. Ac at mydday meel-tyme • ich m£te with hem ofte, Comynge in a cope • as he a clerke were ; A bacheler other a beaupere • best hym by-semeth ; And for the cloth that kevereth hym • cald is he a frere, Wassheth and wypeth • and with the fur«te sitteth, Ac while he wrought in thys worlde • and wan hus mete with treuthe, He sat atte sydbenche " and secounde table ; Cam no wyn in hus wombe ■ thorw the weke longe, Nother blankett in hus bed ■ ne white bred by-fore hym; The cause of al thys caitifte " cometh of meny bisshopes. That suffren suche sottes • and othere synnes regne ; Certes, ho so thurste hit segge ' Symon quasi dormit ; Vigilare were fairour • for thow hast gret charge. For meny waker wolves " ben broke in-to foldes ; Thyne berkeres ben al blynde • that bryngeth forth thy lambren, Dispergentur oves • thi dogge dar nat berke. C. X. 140, 203, 242. X. THE DOUBTS OF " CUNNYNGE CLERKES " AND THE FAITH OF "PASTOURES." On Gode Fridaye I fynde " a feloun was ysaved. That had lyved al his lyf • with lesynges and with thefte ; And for he biknewe on the crosse • and to Cryste schrof hym. He was sonnere saved • than seynt Johan the baptiste, And or Adam or Ysaye • or eny of the prophetes, That hadde yleine with Lucyfer • many longe yeres. A robbere was yraunceouned • rather than thei alle, With-outen any penaunce of purgatorie • to perpetuel blisse. Thanne Marye Magdaleyne • what womman dede worse ? Or who worse than David" that Uries deth conspired? Or Poule the apostle • that no pitee hadde, Moche crystene kynde • to kylle to deth ? And now ben thise as sovereynes • wyth seyntes in hevene, Tho that wroughte wikkedlokest • in worlde tho thei were. And tho that wisely wordeden ■ and wryten many bokes Of witte and of wisdome ■ with dampned soules wonye. . . . EASTER BELLS. '■ii,^) The doughtiest doctour- and devynoure of the Trinitce, Was Augustyn the olde • and heighest of the foure, Sayde thus in a- sarmoun • I seigh it writen ones, Ecce ipsi idioti rapiunt celum, ubi nos sapientes in inferno mergimur : And is to menc to Englisshe men • more ne lasse, ■" Aren none rather yravysshed ■ fro the righte byleve Than ar this cunnynge clerkes • that conne many bokes ; Ne none sonner saved • ne sadder of bileve, Than plowmen and pastoures • and pore comune laboreres." Souteres and shepherdes • suche lewede jottes Percen with a pater-noUer • the paleys of hevene, And passen purgatorie penaunceles • at her hennes-partynge, In-to the blisse of paradys ■ for her pure byleve, That inparfitly here • knewe and eke lyved. Yee men knowe clerkes • that han cursed the tymc. That evere thei couthe or knewe more • than Credo in Deum Patrem. B. X. 414, 452. XI. HARROWING OF HELL.— EASTER BELLS. A voys loude in that light ' to Lucifer seide, " Prince of this palys • prest undo the gates, For here cometh with coroune ■ the kynge of alle glorie." Thenne syhede Satan • and seide to helle, " Suche a light a-geyns our leve • Lazar hit fette ; Colde care and combraunce • is come to ous alle. Yf this kyng come yn • mankynde wol he fecche. And leden hit ther Lazar is • and lightliche me bynde. Patriarkes and Prophetes • han parlen her-of longe. That suche a lorde and a lyght • shal leden hem alle hennes. Ac rys up RagamofFyn • and reche me alle the barres That Belial thy bel-syre • beot with thy damme, And ich shal lette this lorde • and hus light stoppe ; Ar we thorw bryghtnesse be blent • barre we the gates. Cheke we and cheyne we ■ and eche chyne stoppe. That no light leope yn • at lover ne at loupe. And thow, Astrot, hot out • and have oute oure knaves. 240 PIERS PLOWMAN. Coltyng and al hus kynne • our catel to save. Brynston boilaunt • brennyng out-casteth hit Al hot on here heuedes " that entren ny the walles. Setteth bowes of brake " and brasene gonnes, And sheteth out shot ynowh " hus shultrom to blende. Sette Mahon at the mangonel ' and mulle-stones throweth, With crokes and with kalketrappes • a-cloye we hem echone ! " " Lusteneth," quath Lucifer • " for ich this lord knowe, Bothe this lord and this lyght ■ is longe gon ich knew hym. May no deth this lord dere • ne no deoveles queyntise "... " What lord art thu ? " quath Lucifer ; ' a voys aloud seyde, " The lord of myght and of mayn • that made alle thynges. Duke of this dymme place • a-non undo the gates, That Crist mowe comen in ■ the kynges sone of hevene." And with that breth helle brake • with alle Beliales barres ; For eny wye other warde " wyde openede the gates. Patriarkes and prophetes • populus in tenebris, Songen with Seint Johan • " Ecce agnus Dei!" Lucifer loke ne myghte • so lyghte him a-blente ; And tho that Oure Lord lovede ■ with that lyght forth flowen . . , Treuthe tromped? tho, and song • " Te Deum laudamm " ; And then lutede Love ■ in a lowd note, " Ecce quam bonum et quant jocundum est habitare fratres in unum ! " Tyl the day dawede • these damseles daunsede, That men rang to the resurreccioun • and with that ich awakede. And kallyd Kytte my wyf ■ and Kalote my doughter, " A-rys, and go reverence • Godes resurreccioun. And creop on kneos to the croys • and cusse hit for a juwel. And ryghtfullokest a relyk ■ non riccher on erthe. For Godes blesside body • hit bar for oure bote, And hit a-fereth the feonde • for such is the myghte. May no grysliche gost • glyde ther hit shadeweth ! " C. xxi. 273, 363, 469. MEETING OF PARLIAMENT. 241 XII. {From " Richard the Redeless:') MEETING OF PARLIAMENT.— FAITHFUL AND FAITHLESS MEMBERS. The treasury being empty, owing to the extravagance of Richard, Parliament meets in accordance with the royal summons, but it is a packed Parliament, and the~poet thus describes it, in " Richard the Redeless " : Whanne the reot and the revell • the rent thus passid, And no thing y-lafte" but the bare baggis. Then ffelle it afForse • to ffille hem ageyne. And ffeyned sum fFolie • that ffilid hem never. And cast it be colis • vsfith her conceill at evene, To have prevy parlement • for profit of hem-self, And lete wrrite writtis • all in wex closid, Ffor peeris and prelatis • that thei apere shuld. And sente side sondis • to schrevys>aboute. To chese sw^iche chevalleris • as the charge wold, To schewe ffor the schire • in company with the grete. And whanne it drowre to the day • of the dede-doynge. That sovereynes were semblid • and the schire-knyghtis. Than, as her fforme is, ffrist • they begynne to declare The cause of her comynge • and than the kyngis will. Comliche a clerk than • comsid the wordis, And pronouncid the poyntis • aparte to hem alle. And meved ffor money " more than ffor out eliis. In glosinge of grette ■ lest greyves arise. And whanne the tale was tolde ' anon to the ende, A-morwe thei must, affore mete • mete to-gedir. The knyghtis of the comunete • and carpe of the maters. With citiseyns of shiris • y-sent ffor the same. To reherse the articlis ■ and graunt all her askynge. But yit ffor the manere • to make men blynde, Somme argued ageyn rith • then a good while. And said, " we beth servantis • and sallero ffongen. And y-sent ffro the shiris • to shewe what hem greveth. 242 PIERS FLO WMAN. And to parle ffbr her prophete • and passe no fferthere. And to graunte of her gold ■ to the grett wattis By no manere wronge way • but if werre were ; And if we ben fFalls ■ to tho us here ffyndeth, Evyll be we worthy • to welden oure hire." Than satte summe " as siphre doth in awgrym, That noteth a place " and no-thing availith; And some had ysoupid • with Symond overe even, And schewed ffor the schire • and here schew lost ; And somme were tituleris • and to the kyng wente, And fformed him of ffoos • that good ffrendis weren, That bablid ffor the best ■ and no blame served Of kynge ne conceyll ' ne of the comunes nother, Ho so toke good kepe " to the culorum. And somme slombrid and slepte • and said but a lite ; And somme mafflid with the mouth ■ and nyst what they mente ; And somme had hire ■ and helde ther-with evere, And wolde no fforther affoot ■ ffor ffer of hei" maistris ; And some were so spleyne • and sad of her wittis, That er they come to the clos • acombrid they were, That thei the conclucioun than • constrewe ne couthe, No burne of the benche • of borowe nother ellis, So blynde and so ballid ■ and bare was the reson . . . And some dradde dukis • and Do-well ffor-soke. "Richard the Redeless," iv. 20, 93. GLOSSARY. Ac, but. Accidie, from " accidia," laziness, torpor. A-cloye, drive a nail into (Fr. "enclouer"), embarrass, cause great trouble. Acombrid, clogged. Afyngred, famished. Afyrst, athirst. A-glotye, to feed. Air, heir. Ancres, anchorets. Avd, if. Afose, to ask questions, to argue. Arate, to reprove. A-scapie, to escape. Awgrym, arithmetic. Ballid, bald. Be, by. Beaupere, reverend father. Bedemati, beadman (who says prayers). Bedes, be^ds, prayers. Bedreden, bedridden. Begenelde, beggar. Belsyre, grandfather. Beat, from " beeten," to beat, to knock. Berkeres, barkers (dogs). Bighes, collars. Bihight, from " bi-heten," to pro- mise. Biknowen, to acknowledge, to confess. Bislabered, soiled. Blent, from " blenden," to blind. Bolke, belch. Borovje, borough. Bote, to make things equal. Bote, recompense, safeguard. Brake, winch (of a bow), " bows of brake." Bretful, brimful. Buggen, to buy. Burne, man. Busken, to go with haste. Bydden, to beg. Bydders, beggars. By-hoveth, is the fate of. 244 PIERS PLOWMAN. By-lyve, food, what to live on. Canstow, canst thou. Carien, to wander. Caroyne, carcass. Casten, to arrange, to prepare. Catel, property, wealth. Chaffare, cheffare, merchandise ; to bargain. Chapmen, merchants. Cheveden, from " cheven," to prosper. Chyne, chink. Clokken, to hobble, to walk with difficulty. Clos, conclusion. Clouten, to mend clothes. Clowe, to claw. Colis, deceits. Comsid, commenced. Conne, to know, to understand. Coupe, sin (" culpa "). Couthe, from " conne,'' to know. Cracchen, scratch. Cullen, to kill. Culorum, end, conclusion (from " saecula s^culorum "). Damme, dame, mother. Demen, to judge, to decide. Duene, din. Elynge, lonely, wretched. Faille, to fail, to want. Fait en, to beg. Faitour, beggar. Faytynge, begging. Fele, many. Fere, companion. Fet, from " feden," to feed. Feterye, to fetter. Fetten, to fetch. Fformed, informed. Fisketh, wanders. Fonge, to take, to grasp. For, for fear of. Frek, being, fellow. Fynden, to find, to provide. Fynkelsede, fennel seed. Glosinge, giving wrong interpre- tations. Gobet, morsel. Godsyb, gossip. Gommes, gums. Greden, to cry out. Greyves, grievances. Gruccben, to grumble. Gurden, to knock down. Gurles, children (of either sex). Hacches, hatches, buttery doors. Hals, neck. Harlotes, rascals (men). Hater, clothes. Hefd, head. Heggen, to plant or keep up hedges. Hele, health. Helye, to cover. Hendeliche, courteously. Heo, she, they. Here, their ; of them ; to hear. Heme, nook. Highte, from " haten," to call, to command, to promise. Hit, it ; they. GLOSSARY. 245 Hitten, to knock down. Ho, who. Hot, from " haten," to call. Hoten, to prescribe. Hulks, hills. Hure, to hear ; hire ; their, her. Hus, house ; his ; their. Ich, I. Jottes, peasants. Kalketrappes, calthrops. Kayres^ from " kairen," to go to. Kennen, to teach, to explain. Kevre, to cover. Konnynge, knowing. Kynde, nature. Kynde underUondynge, common sense. Kynde wit, common sense. Kynne, kin ; kind. Lacchen, to catch. Laike, to play. Laith, lays, from " leyn," to lay. Lakeryng, groaning. Lakken, to blame. Lauhen, to laugh. Lauhte, from " lacchen," to catch. Leel, loyal, honest. Lef, leaf, a valueless object. Leode, man, tenement. Leope, from " lepen," to leap. Lesynges, lies. Lete, to let, to allow. Leve, leave. Levied, ignorant. Leyn, to lay. Leyve, to believe. Lollere, an idle vagabond. Lomes, tools. Lord, a worthless vagabond. Louheliche, lowly. Z.oj'^'^ajj, days when quarrels were settled. Many abuses arose therefrom (see Skeat, Oxford ed., vol. ii. p. 47). Loveliche, lovely. Lover, louvre, from " I'ouvert " (Skeat). Loupe, loop-hole. Loute, to make obeisance, to bow. Lowren, to show displeasure. Lutede, from lute, to play on the lute. Lyeth, from " liggen " (to lie), has reference to. Lyflode, livelihood. Lyggen, to lie. Lykame, body. Lykerous, luxurious. Mafflid, mumbled. Mannus, men. Mase, confusion, anarchy. Mellud, from melen, to speak. Mene, mean, poor ; to mean. Meteles, dream. Metten, to dream. Meyne, train, retinue. Morwenyng, morning. Motoun, a certain coin. Mowe, may. Muscles, mussels. Nelde, needle. Nelder, needle-seller. •24(5 PIERS FLOWMAN. Nempnen, to name, to itiention. Nere, near ; ne were. Non, noon. Nymen, to take, to receive. Obediencer, a religious ofEcer; see "Obedientiarius" inDu Cange. Overlefen, to overtake. Ouhte, from "owen," to possess. Pans, pence. Papektes, porridge. Parailed, apparelled. Payn, bread. Penyzvorthes, pennyworths, goods for sale. Peren, to appear. Pilie, to peel, " russhes to pilie," to peel rushes in order to make rushlight. Passed, from " posschen," to chase about. Pound-meel, by pounds. Preise, to appraise. Prisones, prisoners. Prophetes, prophets, profits. Prymer, a book containing the " Horse " or Hours of the Virgin Mary. (A prymer in English, of the early XVth century, belongs to the British Museum; Addit. MS. 17010.) Puttes, pits, prison. ^eyntise, cunning. Rape, make haste. Raplich, hastily. Reden, to advise. Rely, to reel, i.e., to wind on a reel. Renke, man. Rent, revenue.. Roxed, stretched himself. Ruel, from the French "ruelle," narrov(f space between the bed and the wall. Rutte, from " rowten," to gnore. Ryg, back. Sad, grave, serious. Sauter, psalter. Schrezve,^ tyrant, scoundrel. Seggen, to say. Segges, people, men. Selcouthe, extraordinary. Seme, load. Settyng, from " setten," placing, planting. Seylde, seldom. Seyntioarie, sanctuary. Shewen, to declare, to show. Shonye, to shun. Shop, from "shapen," to put, to set. Shroudes, ample floating garments. Shultrom, battalion. Side, large. Siker, secure. Siphre, cipher. Sithen, then. , Sith then, since. Sitten, to remain ; to cost. Skath, evil, wrong. Sondis, messages. Soper, soap-seller (?), sweeper (?) Souter, cobbler. Sovereynes, lords. Spenen, to spend. GLOSSAR Y. 247 Staff e, to walk. Swonken, szvynken, to work. Sykynge, sighing. Synzve, to sin. Syth then, since. Sywestere, sempstress. Take (besides the usual meaning), to give, to receive. Tio, they, those, those who, then, when. Thrumbled, stumbled. Thurste^ durst. Tituleris, tattlers. To-logged, pulled about. Trusse, to get away. Tryuth, truth. Tynt, from " tyne," to lose. Umbzahyle, at intervals. Uncoufled, free in his movements. Unite, sanity. Unlouken, to unlock. Uf-io/ders, dealers in left-off clothes. Waitede, from " waiten," to ob- serve, to watch. Waker, watching. Wanye, to decrease. Wareine, warren. Warth, from "weorthan," to be- come. Warynere, warrener. Wattis, wights. Wedde, to pledge, to marry. Welden, to receive. Wered, from " were," to wear. Werre, war. Wexe, to grow. Whederward, whitherward. Wikkedlokest, as wicked as possible. Wirchyng, being made. Wissen, to teach. Witerly, for certain. Woldestow, wouldest thou. Wone, dwelling. Won en, to dwell. Warden, to speak. Worthen, to be, to become ; " lat the catte worthe," let the cat alone. Wowe, wall. Wratthe, to be angry. Wye, wight. Wyghtlyche, speedily. Wynkyng, half asleep. r, I. Ycrammyd, crammed. Y-lete, esteemed. Toden, yeden, went. T-served, well served. Tsottpid, supped. Tut, yet. INDEX. A .B.C. texts of Langland's Visions, 22 ; their dates, chap, ii., 32 et seq. "A.B.C." of Chaucer, an imita- tion of Deguileville, 199 Abnegation, doctrine of, 209 "Aboulie," 10 1 Abstractions, views of Chaucer and Langland concerning, 104 et seq. Accidia, 235 Adam, 99, 125, 204 Adamites, 205 Adulterators of food, 1 1 2 Age, 98 Aim of Langland, chap, vi., 153 et seq. Aldgate, 95 Aldwin, a Malvern hermit, 76, 139 Alexandria, 142 Alliteration, in Langland, 168 et seq.; Chaucer's opinion of, 162 ; rules followed by Langland, 169 Alternate personality, 176 America, 176 " Ancren Riwle," 203 Angels, shot with guns, 30 Anglo-Saxons, their genius, 212, 219 Antichrist, 37, 148, 180, 198, 207 Arezzo, 49 Aristotle, 172, 193 Armenia, 135, 142 Arnold, T., 115 Art of Langland, chap, vi., 153 et seq. Artisans, their excessive demands, III et seq. ; singing French songs, 172 "Assembly of Foules," 75 Assisi, 143 Astronomy, 82 Astrot, 239 Avarice, 200 B. Babylon, 135, 142 " Bad Parliament," 21 Bad, Sir, the Cat, 40, 41 Bakers, 112, 113 2SO INDEX. Ball, John, his allusion to Piers Plowman, and Dowel, 189, 190 Bale, John, his note on Lahgland, 60, 62, 190 Bankers, 113 Bardi, zo Basel, earthquake at, 19 Basel, Nicolaus von, 210 Bastards, not to be promoted to ecclesiastical dignities, 70 Batiffol, on the office for the dead, 91 Bavaria, 203 Beggars, 23, 98, 117, 12c Beghards, 205 Beguinages, 203 Belial, 239 Benefices,-! 33 et seq. Bethleem, 135, 142 Betone, the "brew wif," 161 et seq. Beverley, 19 "Bibles," 198 Bishop, who should be made a, 70 Bishops, clients of Lady Meed, 132; their duties, 132 et seq., 137; ought to stop the mis- deeds of hermits, 145 Black Prince, 15 ; his death, 20, M Blake, 10, 213, 218 et seq. Blaunche the Duchesse, 92 Blore, Ed., 79 Boccaccio, 146 Bonaccursi, 20 Bozon, Nicol, 40 Bretigny, peace of, 15, 35, 36, 114 Bristol, 86, 118 Bristol, Richard de, 81 Brittany, 50 Bromyard, John of, 40 Browning, Robert, 219 Bruges, 161 " Brut " of Layamon, 1 68 Bunyan, 24, 193, 197, 199, 213 ; his moral autobiography, 215, 217 Burnel, family of, 73 Burns, the poet, 83 Bury, Richard of, 67 Butchers, liz, 113 Byron, 172 c. Caesar, 193 Calais taken, 15 Cambridge, 60, 80 Canons, 139 Canterbury, 140, 141 " Caracteres et Moeurs de ce SiScle," 159 Cardinals, 130, 131 ; elect the. pope, 131 Catherine, pupil of Eckhart, 205 Cavaliers, 104 Cecil, the laundress, 162 Celtic race, 219 Cesana, 49 Chantries, 88 et ieq. Chaplain, %?, et seq. Charity, 174 ; dressed in silk, 184, 200 Charles I. of England, 215 Charles 11. of England, no Charles V. of France, 129 Charnel-house, 182 INDEX. 251- Charters, when " chalengeable," 82 Chartres, tempest there, 36, 37 Chaucer, 12, 13, 22, 23, 35, 41, 63, 6i|. ; in his bed, 74 et seq., 92, 95 ; compared with Lang- land, 103 et seq. ; his good parson, 136; his mirth, 140 ; his pardoner, 146; his views on style, 164 ; his vocabulary, 166; dialect, 167; versifica- tion, 168 ; to what extent an Englishman, 175 ; not insular, 175, 188, 191, 196 ; his know- ledge of Deguileville, 199; final comparison with Lang- land, 219 Cheapside, 74, 116 Cherbury, Herbert of, 213, et seq. Cheriton, Odo de, 39 Cheshire, 57 Chester, Randal, Earl of, 136 Chichester, Mayor of London, 48, 60 Children, natural, 122 ; of the poor, 123 Chimneys, 125 Chirographer, 96 Church, the, chap. V., 126 et seq Clarice, 138 ; of Cock Lane, 162 Cledat, L., 198 Clement the cobbler, 163 Clement VL, 65 Clement VII., 18 Cleobury Mortimer, 60, 62, 63 Clergy, recruiting of, 57, 137; in the time of the plague, 65, 109 ; "en declyn," 135 ; regu- lar, \11 et seq. Clergye (clerkship), 30; " avan- cement par clergie," 56, d'j., 71 et seq. ; talks to Langland, 84 Clerks, hanged by justices con- trary to law, 67 ; not to work with their hands, 69 ; ignorant, 83 ; what is a, 88 ; their doubts, 238 Colchester, 189 Collector of the pope, 131 Cologne, 203 Cominges, Comte de, no Commandments, the Ten, 29 Common Sense, 174 Commons, on the French war, 16; hostile to the pope, 17 ; assist Richard II., 21 ; complain of Provisors, 33 ; their petitions, 34; in favour of peace, 35, 114; of the "Good Parlia- ment," 45 et seq. ; of the "Bad," 46; grant a poll tax,. 54 ; protest against advance- ment by clerkship, 56, 64, 71 ;. their might, 107 ; part played by the, 108 et seq. ; on the question of wages, ill; eco- nomic delusions of, 112; on beggars, 120 ; on wandering preachers, 127 ; on Rome, 130; on Avignon, 171 ; on worldly offices filled by priests, 132 et seq.; are the king's treasure, 174 ; feeling of Langland to- wards the, 176 Communism, friars in favour of, 148 '•' Complaynt of Mars and Venus," 168 17 ^52 INDEX. Compromise, Langland averse to, i8i "Concupiscentia Carnis," 85 " Confessio Amantis," 7 Conscience, refuses to Iciss Meed, 27 ; averse to war withi France, 36, 52, 56, 176 ; checlcs the king, 109 Constantine, 129 Conversion, a usual occurrence in tlie life of mystics, 208 et seq. Cooks, 23, 112, 113 Cornhill, 74 ; Langland's house in. 95> 15s. 158 " Corsair,'' 171 Courtier, portrait of a, 159 Covey tise, 113; " of tlie eyghes," 99 Cowper, the poet, 213, 218 Crecy, 15 Cripples, sham, 122 Crisis of 1376-7, 44. et seq. Crowds, in Langland's Visions, 105 Crowley, Robert, 192 Crusades, Langland's opinion of, 114 D. Damascus, Bishop of, 115 Daniel the "dys playere," 119 Dante, 193, 196, 197, 207 ; dif- ferences with Langland, 211 David, 99 Dawe "the dykeman," 162 Death, 202 "De Bello Trojano," 171 " Dedoublement de la personna- lite," loi, 209 I Deguileville, 8,9, 173 ; compared with Langland, 198 et seq. Deniflc, Father, 209 Denote "the baude," 119 Derby, Henry of (Henry IV.), 21 Des Champs, Eustache, 41, 175 Despencer, Henry le. Bishop of Norwich, 18 Dialect of Langland, 167 "Diboulie," loi " Dirige " sung by Langland, 90, 9+ Disease, 98 ■ Doctors of divinity, 132, 135 i Do-Evil, 82 Dog in kitchen, 174 Dogmas, Langland's respect for, 127 Dogs " that dare not bark,'' 146 Donyngton, Castell, 89 Doubts, Langland's, 98 et seq. Douglas, Gawain, 191 Dover, 113 Dowel, Dobet, Dobest, 30, 82, 100, 147, 155, 185, 189, 190, 193, 207 Drayton, 192 Dreame, in "Pearl," 7, 12 ; of Jean de Meun and G. de Lorris, 1 1 ; of Chaucer, 12 ; of Gower, 12 ; of Langland, 85, 198; of Deguileville, 199 Dresses, extravagant, 116 Drought of 1370, 48 Dublin, MS. of, containing the Visions of Langland, 62 et seq., 72 "Duchesse,"- Book of the, 75 INDEX. 253 Dugdale, W., 91 et seq. Duties, their limits, 181 Earthquakes, 19 Easter, 31, 23Q Eckhart, 205 Editions of the Visions, printed, 192 Edward I. of England, 91 „ II. „ 15, 26 „ III. ,, summary of his reign, 14, 15, 18; his taste for pleasure, 20 ; his French campaigns, 36, 118; his last years, 47, 50 et seq., 54 ; his jubilee, 52, 55 ; con- fers knighthood for money, 71, 108 ; gives up his rights to the French throne, 176 Elizabeth, Queen, 175, 191 England, Cardinal of, 52; me- dieval, 104 ; prelates staying in, 136 Envy, 148; described, 160 Essex, commons of, 189 Euphues, 83 Evan the Welshman, 28 Eve, 122, 204 Exeter, Joseph of, 171 "Faitours," 120, 122 Fals, 24, 194 Fals-Semblant, 138, 146, 157, 179 Fathers, the, quoted byLangland, 172 Felice, 85, n6 Flanders, 18 " Fleta," 65 Flora, Joachim de, 195 Fools, 70, 84, 116 Fortune, 97 Forestallers, 34, 35 Fox, George, 208, 2 1 3 , 2 1 4 f/ seq. France, war with, 16; peace with, 16; mirth of, 140 ; pro- sody of, 168; "lordschup" over, 176 Franklin, 63, 69; Chaucer's, io5 Free man, Langlandmade one, by Holy-Church, 66 et seq. "Free Spirit," sect of the, 203 et seq. Friars, 26 ; with fat cheeks, 145 ; described, 148 et seq. ; their studies, i4'8~; in favour of communism, 148 ; shrive lords, 149 Friend of God in the Oberland, the, 208 et seq. "Friends," Society of, 215 " Friends of God," sect of the, lOj et seq. French, Langland knows, 83 ; songs sung by London work- men, 172 Froissart, 22, 36, 37, 48, 107, 178 Fuller, Thomas, 190 "Garin," Roman de, 96 Garnier de Pont Sainte Maxence, 142 254 INDEX. Gascoigne, 191 Gaunt, John of, Dake of Lan- caster, 20 ; his attitude in 1376-7, 46, 54; his tomb, 92 " Gawayne and the Green Knight," Sir, 162 Gebhart, 144, 194, 195 Germany, mysticism in, 202 et seq. ; pantheism in, 204 et seq. Gertrud, her revelations, 207 Gladness-of-the-World, 9, 202 Gloton, 9, 80 ; described, 161 et seq.; Gower's Gloton, 163 ; RutebeuPs Gloton, 197; ex- tracts concerning, 233 et seq. Gluttony, 200 Godfrey the garlik monger, 162 Gold and silver not to be ex- ported, 1 1 3 Golden Age, 54, 55 "Golden City," 216 "Golden Legend," 143 et seq., 172 Golias, 172 Gollancz, 12 " Good Parliament," see Parlia- ment Good Sense, 108 Gower, confessing to Genius, 7 ; his statue, 7 ; his dreams, 12, 64, 74; his "Gloton,'' 163, i74> I9i> '^97 "Grace abounding," 215 Grace-of-God, 200 Green Island cloister, 210 Greyhounds, 139 Griffin the Welshman, 162 Grisilde, 175 Guns, used in hell, 30 Guyenne, 50 Gyle, welcomed by merchants, 25, 158 H. Hakeborn, Matilda of, 207 Hall, the Satirist, 192 Hamlet, 23 Hampole, Rolle of, 85, 208, 213 Harrowing of Hell, 239 Hasard, a tavern-keeper in Rute- beuf, 198 Haukyn, the " actyf man," 51, 173 Hawkwood, Sir John, 49 Henry IL of England, 92 „ III. „ 70 „ IV. „ 21 Herefordshire Beacon, 77 Hermits, 141 ; in woods, 143 j wicked, 144 et seq., 237 Hick the hackneyman, 162 Hierarchy, ecclesiastical, Lang- land's respect for, 127 Hollar, 92 Holme, Roger, 94 Holy-Church, 24 ; helps to escape servitude, 64 et seq., 66, 72 ; holds Aristotle "ydampned," 99 ; guides Langland, 194 Hood, Robin, 136, 172 Horace, 191 " House of Fame," 74 Hugh the needier, 162 Hull, 118 Huband, J., 81 Hundred Years War, 175 Hunger, 29, 120 Hurricane, 19 INDEX. 255 India, 135 Indulgences, \\(> et seq., 157 Inkstand, danger to be seen with one, in 1381, 190 Insular, Langland is one, Chaucer, not, 175 Invitations from wealthy people, 70, 124 Ireland, 50 Isaiah, 99 Isabella, wife of Edward III., 15 J- Jack juggler, 119 Jacques Bonhomme, 197 Japers, 180 Jean-le-Bon, 15, 36 ; his ransom, 45. 119 Jehoshaphat, 78, 141 Jerusalem, 30 Jews, 17, 52, 113; their charity, 121 ; at Avignon, 131 ; their usury, 161, 166, 184, 205, 210, 216 Job, Book of, 10 John Lackland, 18 Jubilee of Edward III., 53 Judas, 121, 180 Jundt, 203, 204, 205, 206, 209, 210 K. Kalote, Langland's daughter, 96 King, the, his duty and functions, 107 ; in what measure a law- maker, 108 et seq. ; vicar of God according to. Wyclif, 129 Knighton, 86 Knights, their duties and func- tions, 107 et seq., 115 et seq. ; not meant to fast, 116; how made by the king, 137 Kron, Richard, 167, 186 Kynde (Nature), 185 Kynde Witte, 108 Kytte, Langland's wife, 96 L. La Bruyere, 159 Ladies, their duties, 29 ; not bowed to by Langland, 97, 117; have ecclesiastics for their servants, 132 La Fontaine, 41, 42 Lancaster, see Gaunt Langland, W., see Table of C)on- tents Langley, 62 Latin, Langland learns, 83 ; always translated by Langland, 173 Lawyers, Langland's opinion of, 121 Layamon, 168 Lazarus, 239 Lechery, depicted, 160 ; taste for risqu^ fabliaux, 161 Lee, S. L., 214 Leeches, 25 Legates, 116 "Legende of Good Women," 75 Legh, Thomas de, prior of Mal- vern, 77 Leicester, 86 Letters of fraternity, 147 256 IJVDEX. "Lewede men,'' Langland writes for, not for connoisseurs, 174 Leys, Thomas de, 81 " Liber Albus," 1 12 Limbo, 193 Lisbon, 19 Logic, 82 ; taught by Envy, 148 Lollcrs, 70 Lombards, 17, 113, 161 London, its lanes, 25, 158; citizens, will not have a sleepy king, 48 ; singing for souls in, 70, 95 ; wealthy inhabitants of, to become knights, 71 ; Lang- land's life in, 87 ; Tower of, 106 ; workmen of, sing French songs, 172 " Longc Wille,'' nickname of Langland, 61, 219 Longlond, another form of Lang- land, 59 Lords, not bowed to by Langland, 97; discuss the Trinity, 124; shriven by friars, 149 ; should reform the abuses of church- men, 129; have ecclesiastics for their stewards, 132 Lords Appellant, 21 Lorraine, Walcher of, prior of Malvern, 79 Lorris, Guillaume de, compared with Langland, 196 Louis XIV., 1 10 Love, 31, 181, 185 Lucca, 49 Lucifer, 30, 99, 239, 240 Lucilius, 191 Lydgate, 8, 191, 199 Lyer, 25 M. Magdalen, Mary, 99 Magdeburg, Matilda of, 207 Mahon, a devil, 240 Maidstone, Richard of, 58 Maintenance, 34, 35, 114 Malmesbury, William of, j6, 77 Malvern, 8, 23, 28, 43, 60, 62, 73; fondness of Langland for, 74 et seq. ; origins of the religious establishment at, 75 et seq. ; description of, 77 et seq. ; the church at, 78 et seq., 79> '2'' 139' i+i. 153' 156, 163, 167, 171, 195 Manuscripts of" Piers Plowman," 186 et seq., 191 Mare, Peter de la, speaker, 45, 46 Mare, Thomas de la, abbot of St, Albans, 46 Mareschall, William, 92 Marriage, Langland's opinions concerning, 121 et seq. Marsyas, 2 1 1 Mauny, Oliver de, 61 Measure, 174 Meaux, near Beverley, 19 Meed, Lady, on " a Schirreves bak," 7, 33 ; her confession, 9; her portrait, 24 ; and marriage, 25, 26, 220; at the king's tribunal, 26; her supporters, 22, 26; Conscience hates, 26, 32 ; on good terms with the pope, 34, 54, 56, 132, 133, 135 ; confesses to a friar, 150; name of, engraved on window, 150; triumphs, 178; a female INDEX. 257 Proteus, 1 80 et seq. ; Piers Plowman's opinion of, 182 Merchants, 25 ; their duties, 118, 158; "timber" too high, 166 Meres, F., 191 Meri, Huon de, 198 Merswin, Rulman, 206, 207 et seq. ; his works, 209 ; resembles Langland, 209 et seq., 213 " Merry Knack," a play, 188 " Mesons-Dieux,'' 118 Messengers, 25 Methodists, 217 Meun, Jean de, 149, 150; com- pared with Langland, 196 Meyer, Paul, 41 Mice, fable of, ^g et seq., 109,224 Millet, the painter, 166 Milton, 30, 165, 192 Minstrels, 23, 25, 117, 124 " Miracles," Cour des, 122 Miracles, false, 133 Miracles, by Wesley, 21 j ; Bunyan on, 217 Miser, described, 161 ; refuses to lend to the poor, 161 Monks, 137 et seq.; their food, 137 ; whipped, 137 ; Lang- land lenient to, 140 Montaigu, Claude de, 9 Moors, 216 Morris, R., 169 Mortimer, 1 5 Murimuth, Continuator of, 19, 35. 38, 52. S3 Murrains, 19 Muses, 211 Musset, Alfred de, 154 Mysticism in Germany, 202 N. Nash, historian of Worcestershire, 77 Nature, 31, 185, 200 Nazareth, Bishop of, i 14 Norman Conquest, 168, 212; genius, 177 Nott, James, 77, 81 "Nuit de Ddcembre," 154 Nunnery, Wrath in a, 138 O. Oberland, Friend of God in the, 20S et seq. Observation, Langland's gift of, 158 ^^ seq. Ochsenstein, J., of, 205 Odin, 211, 212 Oiseuse, Lady, 200 et seq. Oldfield, E., 79 Optimism of Langland, 183 Orgon, Moliere's, 143 Ovid, 172 Oxford, 21, 60, 81 P. Padua, 175 Pagans, 2l6 Painswick, J. de, 77 "Paladis Tamia," 191 Pantheism in Germany, 204 Paradise won by proxy, 88 Paradise, Dante's, 193, 211 ; of the " Free Spirit " sect, 204 Pardoners, 13, 23, 25, 147 Pardons, Piers Plowman's, 157 Paris, town of, 63 ; Matthew of, 63 Paris, Paulin, 61, 199 Parish Priests, 148 2S8 INDEX. Parliament, increasing authority of, i;; Rolls of, 28 ; petitions in, 34 ; the "Good," 45 et seq., 54, no, III, 114, 115, 131 ; the "Bad," 46, 53, 54; grants in view of French war, 50 ; "pryve Parliament'' of 1398, 57, no, 241 ; Visions seem a commentary on Rolls of, 71 ; Chaucer sits in, 106; Froissart's opinion of, 107 ; Lan gland's opinion of, 107 et seq. ; " Pees '' in, 108 ; feeling of Langland towards, 109 et seq., 183 ; meeting of, 241 Parson, good, of Chaucer, 1 36; bad, of Langland, 136 et seq., 235 Parsons go to London, 132; derided by friars, 148 " Passus," or cantos, 23 " Pastoures,'' their faith, 99, 238 Patrons of benefices, 135 Peace, in Parliament, 28 ; with France, 35, 114, 176 "Pearl," 12 Pearson, on the name and family of Langland, 61 et seq., 73 Peasants, their rising in 1381,21, 104, 190; their poverty, 122; wives and children of, 123, 236 ; food of, 123, 236 Pedlars, known to kill cats, l6l Pedro the Cruel, King of Spain, 61 " Pelerinage de la Vie humaine,'' "de I'Ame," " de Jesus Christ," 198 «■/ seq. Pembroke, William earl of, 92 Penitence, 200 Penshurst, in Kent, 125 Penury, 98 Percy, Bishop, 192 Pernell, 116, 138, 162 Ferrers, Alice, 20, 45, 46, 178 Peruzzi, 20 Petrarca, 175 " Philobiblon," 67 Philpot, John, his speech, 1 1 5 Piers of Priedieu, a priest, 162 Piers Plowman, his wife and daughter, 27 ; a variable em- blem, 29, 155; his ploughing, 29 ; will feed every one, 118 ; except useless people, iig et seq. ; Truth's pilgrim, 1 19, 166 ; Langland visits, 123 ; safeguard of State, 125 ; his opinion of Meed, 182; his fate and influence in the XVth century, and since, 187 et seq. ; on the stage, 188 ; misinter- preted at the time of the Reformation, 1 90 Pilgrims, 23, 141. "Pilgrim's Progress," 158, 216 Pillory, 112, 113 Pisa, 49 Pisan {i.e., Pisa), Christine of, 61 " Placebo," 90 ; sung by Lang- land, 94 Plagues, 18, 38, 51; supple- mentary ordinations on account of, 65, 86; effect on marriages, 121, 122 Plato, 148, 172, 193 Players, 1 17 Ploughing the field of life, 29 INDEX. 259 Ploughman, Chaucer's, 187; tale, prayer, complaint, creed, ex- hortation of the, \%1 et seq. Poictiers, battle of, 15 Poll tax of 1377, 54. Poor, the, God's minstrels, 117 ; resignation taught to, 184 " Poure folke in cotes," 236 Poor priests, Wyclif's, 127 Pope, the, his excessive power checked by the Commons, 17 ; decrease of his prestige, 18; stays at Avignon, 18 ; the schism, 18 ; bulls of. for the time of the plague, 51, 65; Langland's feelings towards, 128 ; temporal power, army, intrusion of, 128 ; Dante on, 193 Porphiry, 172 "Praemunire," 17, 32, 33, 128 Prayer, 94, 202 Preger, W., 203, 204, 210 Priest, explains Piers Plowman's pardon, 157 Priests fill worldly offices, 132 Prioresse, 180 Prisoners, 141 Proteus, 179, 181 Proverbs in Langland, 174 Provins, Guyot de, 198 " Provisors," 17, 26, 32, 33, 128 Psalms, singing of, 85 Ptolemy, 172 Purgatory, 99, 147 Puritans, 104 Purveyors, 34, 35, 113 Puttenham, 191 Pyrenees, 175 O. (Juakers, 208, 215 Quatt, a/ias Malvern, 81 Quotations, Langland's, 172. R. RagamofFyn, a devil, 239 Rat-catchers, 162 Ratons, " of renon," 7 ; fable of, 109, 224 et seq. ; representa- tion of, at Malvern, 43 Reason, 27 ; his horses, 27 ; addresses the nation, 28 ; sits between the king and his son, 39, 50, 52 ; reign of, 54; " arates " Langland, 68, 97, 100 ; on servants, 1 1 1 Relics, sham, 132, 133 Religion, a " ryder," 138 et seq. Repentance, 28 ; town of, in Rutebcuf, 198 Rhine, 203 ; heretics drowned in, 204 Ribot, Th., on diseases of the will, 100 et seq. Richard II., summary of his reign, 20; childless, 39; "the Rede- less," 43, 102, 116, 241, 47 ; loses his popularity, 56 et seq. ; quarrel of, with the Londoners, 57, 58, 108, 109 Rich people, their fate, 174 Ridley, Bishop, 191 Rising of peasants (see Peasants) Rocamadour, 141, 142 Rogers, Owen, 192 Rokayle, Stacy of, supposed father of Langland, 62 et seq. 26o INDEX. Romagna, 49 "Roman de la Rose," 120, 136, 138, 139. 146, H9' i5o> 173. 179 et seq., 193, 196, 199 Rome, 17 ; appeals to, 34; re- ligious life in, 87, 129, 130, 131, 141 ; Piers Plowman comes from, 157 Rossetti, G. D., 219 Rutebeuf, 173 ; compared with Langland, 197 et seq. Ruysbroek, 209 S. St. Anthony, the hermit, 143 ] St. David's, Bishop of, his speech ! in Parliament, 49, 51 St. Elizabeth of Schonau, 206 St. Erkenwald, 91 St. Francis, 117, 148, 195 St. Hildegard, 206, 208 St. James of Spain, 141, 142 St. Paul, 99 St. Paul's Cathedral, London, 8, ()\ et seq. St. Thomas of Canterbury, 24, 142, 135 St. Werstan, 75 St. Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester, 76 Salisbury, Countess of, 20 „ Thomas Montacute, Earl of, 199 Saracens, are spies, 113; should be converted, 114, 166, 184, 205, 210 Satan, 30 Savoy, palace of the, 106 Saxon genius, 177 ; recognisable in Langland, \%z et seq. Schepe, J., 189 Schism of 1378, 18 Schismatics, 184 Schmidt, Ch., 210 Scotland, 45 Scott, Gilbert, 79 Scriptures, Langland's knowledge of the, ijl et seq. Sebba, King, 91 Seneca, 148 Serfs escape servitude, 65 et seq. Seven Deadly Sins, 28, 193, 197 Seven Sleepers, 172 Shelley, 219 Shipton under Wichwood, 62 Shrewsbury, Parliament at, 57 Sienna, 49 Simony, 32, 128, 134, 136, 142 Skeat, Rev. W W., 18, 22, 49, 5i> 52, 54. 55. 57. 58, 61, 102, 127, 169, 186, 187, 191, 192 Skelton, 191 "Sleuthe," 139 "Slough of Despond," 216 Slourtre, J., 81 Sluys, Battle of, 1 5 Smith, L. Toulmin, 41 Socrates, 193 Solomon, 99 " Songe du Vergier," 129 Southampton, 86 Southwark, 24 Spain, 50, 135 Spenser, family of, 62 Stacy of Rokayle, supposed father of Langland, 62 et seq. INDEX. 261 "Steel Glas," 191 Strasbourg, 203, 206, 210 Strikes, 1 1 1 Stuarts, 108, 109 Stubbs, Bishop, 57 Study, Dame, 30, 82, 84, 98 Style, Langland's, 156 et seq., 164 et seq. ; his " trouvailles," 165 Suso, Henry, 207 Switzerland, 203 Syria, 136 T. Tabard Inn, 23 Tailors, 145 Taine, 120 Tarrant-Kaines, 203 Tavern scene, 233 Tempests, 37, 38, 39 Ten Commandments, 158 Thames, 174 Theology, 82, 98 et seq. Thompson, E. Maunde, 46, 189 Thom% W., 177 Thought, loi ; appears to Lang- land, 1^3 ei seq. Tonsure, 66 et seq. " Tournoiement de I'Antechrist," 198 Trajan, 193 ; why saved, 194 Transitions, none in Langland's Visions, 1 5 5 Trent, Council of, 147 Trewman, Johan, 189. Truth, 122, 141 ; land of, 146; towfer of, 158, 182, 193, 196 Tullius, 172 Tumblers, 117 Twysden, 86 Tyburn, hangman of, 162 Tyrwhitt, 38, 192 U. Urban III., 18 Urie, 99 Utopia, island of, 30 V. Valhalla, 211 Valkyrias, 211 Versification of Langland, 168 Vesuvius, 153 Villeins escape bondage, ill Villon, 182 Virgil, 14, 194 Visconti, Barnabo, 49 Visions of Dante, 12; of Lang- land, 13, 14, 22 ; analysed, 23 ; beginning of, 223 Vocabulary of Langland, 166 Voragina, James of, 143 "Voyage de Paradis," 173, 197 et seq. W. Walcott, 90 Wages, regulated by State, 1 1 1 Wales, 77 Walsingham, town of, 143 Walsingham, Thomas, 19, 38, 53, 178, 190 Waltham, Roger de, 93 War, against France, royal, not national, 15, 176 ; opinion of Langland on, 35 ; between two Christian kings, 48 ; papal, 48 et seq. ; subsidies in view of. 262 INDEX. with France, 40 ; Hundred Years, 175, 178 Warton, 192 Warwick, Guy of, 84, 172 Way, Albert, 79 Webbc, William, 191 Wengham, J. de, 94 Wesley, zld et seq. Westminster, 91, 96, 106, 121, 128, 171 Weyhill, fair at, 161 Whipping, in chapter-house, 137 Whitaker, editor of Langland, 192 Whitefield, 2\(> et seq. "William," the name of Lang- land, 59 ^? seq. Will, diseases of the, 100 et seq. Winchester fair, 161 Wit, 30, 84 Woman, " comune," 147; true, 151 Worcester, 62, 76, 77. Wordsworth, 74, 78 Workhouses, 120 World, the, Langland on, chap. IV., 103 et seq. Wrath, 137, 200 Wright, Th., 192 "Wronge," 24, 28, 34, 108, 114 Wulfstan, 76 Wyclif, 21, 60, 104, 115, 127, 1 28, 1 29, 1 3 1, 148 ; his doctrine in Bohemia, 205- Y. Ydolatrie, 133 Ymagynatyf, 85, 100, 163, 208 York, 189 Youth, 202 • "•'^'■. hQ£^' V'itJW " i ^■I'lr. WF^