The Penn Commentary on Piers Plowman, Volume 4: C Passūs 15-19; B Passūs 13-17 9780812295122

Table of contents :
Contents
Note to the Reader
Preface
C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14
C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14
C Passus 17; B Passus 15
C Passus 18; B Passus 16
C Passus 19; B Passus 17
Works Cited
Index
Passages Cited

Citation preview

The Penn Commentary on Piers Plowman Volume 4

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The Penn Commentary on Piers Plowman VOLUME 4 C Passu¯s 15–19; B Passu¯s 13–17 Traugott Lawler

University of Pennsylvania Press Philadelphia

Copyright 䉷 2018 University of Pennsylvania Press All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher. Published by University of Pennsylvania Press Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112 www.upenn.edu/pennpress Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 10 9 8 7 6 5

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A Cataloging-in-Publication record is available from the Library of Congress ISBN 978-0-8122-5026-8

In memory of my Langland teachers, Rev. Thomas J. Grace, S. J., and Morton W. Bloomfield

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Contents

Note to the Reader Preface

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C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

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C Passus 16; B Passu¯s 14–15

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C Passus 17; B Passus 15

198

C Passus 18; B Passus 16

291

C Passus 19; B Passus 17

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Works Cited Index

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469

Passages Cited

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Note to the Reader

The text of Piers quoted here is that of the Athlone edition, under the general editorship of George Kane. The commentary is keyed first of all to the C Version of the poem, then to the B. Latin quotations in the poem are cited by adding the letter “a” to the end of the line number. Pearsall’s revised edition matches the lineation of Athlone exactly. Schmidt’s lineation differs a little, but the quotation of the beginning and ending words of each passage commented upon will make reference to it easy. Skeat’s line numbering differs somewhat more; in the C version, add one to the Athlone passus number to arrive at Skeat’s passus number. References to lines of the A and B versions are specifically labeled with the letters A and B; references to C lines are generally not labeled. When reference is made to lines that fall in parallel passages of the versions, the references to parallel passages are enclosed within parentheses. Hence the notation “see 11.116–33 (B.10.176–221, A.11.128–64)” refers to passages that are closely parallel in the three versions; a notation such as “see 1.146–58 (B.1.148–62; cf. A.1.135–38)” indicates a substantive difference in the version preceded by “cf.” Each passus of the poem in this installment, as in the others, is supplied with an introductory “Headnote” that summarizes the main features of the passus and treats matters relevant to the passus (or group of passu¯s) as a whole. I have been careful to provide divisions of the text as I understand the movement of the poem. These are usually preceded by a general, summary note; then follow notes on particular lines and passages. The discussion repeatedly encompasses larger units first, then moves to smaller ones, in a nested structure. Translations from the Vulgate Bible are taken from the Douay-Rheims text (Challoner revision, itself slightly revised in 1899) in modernized spelling and punctuation (The Vulgate Bible, Douay-Rheims Translation, ed. Swift Edgar and Angela M. Kinney, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 6 vols., 2010–13), with slight adjustments when necessary. Douay references to I and II Kings correspond to I and II Samuel in the Authorized Version, III and IV Kings to AV’s I and II Kings, and Psalms 10–145 correspond to AV’s Psalms 11–146. Quotations from the

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Latin Vulgate generally follow the Sixto-Clementine text, as represented in the Dumbarton Oaks edition just cited. When biblical passages are parallel in the synoptic Gospels—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—I cite a single Gospel’s chapter and verse and add the notation “et synop.” Except where otherwise noted, translations are mine. The following special abbreviations are used: Alford, Gloss.: John Alford, Piers Plowman: A Glossary of Legal Diction, Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1988. Alford, Quot.: John Alford, Piers Plowman: A Guide to the Quotations. Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1992. Anchor: The Anchor Bible. Doubleday, 1956–2006; Yale University Press, 2007—. Individual volumes are cited by the editor’s name, and listed under that name in Works Cited. Brepols LLT-A: Brepols Publishers, Library of Latin Texts, Series A. Online at clt.brepolis.net. CANTUS: CANTUS, a Database for Latin Ecclesiastical Chant. Online at cantusdatabase.org. CCCM: Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis. CCSL: Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina. Concordance: Joseph S. Wittig, Piers Plowman: Concordance. London: Athlone, 2001. CT: Chaucer, Canterbury Tales (cited by Group letter and line number). Chaucer’s poems are cited from The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Larry D. Benson et al. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987. Abbreviated titles follow the list on p. 779 of that edition. DML: Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources. Prepared by R. E. Latham under the direction of a committee appointed by the British Academy. London: Published for the British Academy by Oxford University Press, 1975–2013. Online at clt.brepolis.net. DPR: De proprietatibus rerum. See Bartholomaeus in Works Cited. Kane, Glossary: George Kane. Piers Plowman Glossary. London: Continuum, 2005. L: Langland Lewis & Short: Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short. A Latin Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1879. MED: The Middle English Dictionary. Ed. Hans Kurath et al. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1956–2001. Online at quod.lib.umich.edu. OED: The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed., prepared by J. A. Simpson and E. S. C. Weiner. Oxford: Clarendon and New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. Online at oed.com.

Note to the Reader

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PL: Patrologiae cursus completus . . . series latina. Ed. J.-P. Migne et al. 221 vols. Paris, 1844–64. Online at pld.chadwyck.com. PP: Piers Plowman ST: Summa theologica. See Aquinas in Works Cited. Walther, Initia carminum: Hans Walther, Initia carminum ac versuum medii aevi posterioris latinorum. 2nd rev. ed. Go¨ ttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1969. Walther, Proverbia: Hans Walther, Proverbia sententiaeque latinitatis medii aevi. 5 vols. Go¨ttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1963–67. Whiting: Bartlett Jere Whiting, with the Collaboration of Helen Wescott Whiting. Proverbs, Sentences, and Proverbial Phrases From English Writings Mainly Before 1500. Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1968. YLS: Yearbook of Langland Studies Citations of primary works are indicated by editor and year of publication, and so listed in Works Cited, except that works cited from the PL are identified by author and title and the volume and column of the PL. The major editions of Piers Plowman, with their prefaces and notes, and two translations are abbreviated as follows: Donaldson: William Langland, Will’s Vision of Piers Plowman: An Alliterative Verse Translation by E. Talbot Donaldson. Ed. Elizabeth D. Kirk and Judith H. Anderson. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1990. Economou: William Langland’s Piers Plowman, The C Version: A Verse Translation by George Economou. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996. K-A: George Kane, ed. Piers Plowman: The A Version: Will’s Visions of Piers Plowman and Do-Well. London: Athlone, 1960. Cited is the Revised Edition (London: Athlone, 1988), with only slight revisions. KD-B: George Kane and E. Talbot Donaldson, ed. Piers Plowman: The B Version: Will’s Visions of Piers Plowman, Do-Well, Do-Better and Do-Best. London: Athlone, 1975. Similarly, Revised Edition, 1988. RK-C: George Russell and George Kane, ed. Piers Plowman: The C Version: Will’s Visions of Piers Plowman, Do-Well, Do-Better and Do-Best. London: Athlone, 1997. Pearsall: Derek Pearsall, ed. William Langland: Piers Plowman, A New Annotated Edition of the C-Text. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2008. Occasional reference is made also to the original edition, Edward Arnold, 1978, reissued with corrections by the University of Exeter Press, 1994.

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Schmidt: A. V. C. Schmidt, ed. Piers Plowman: A Parallel-Text Edition of the A, B, C and Z Versions. Volume I, Text. Second ed., Kalamazoo: Western Michigan University, Medieval Institute Publications, 2011. Volume II, Part 1, Introduction and Textual Notes; Volume II, Part 2, Commentary, Bibliography and Indexical Glossary. Kalamazoo: Western Michigan University, Medieval Institute Publications, 2011. Occasional reference is made also to Schmidt’s earlier William Langland: The Vision of Piers Plowman: A Critical Edition of the B-Text (whose text is identical to the B text in the Parallel Text Edition). 2nd ed., Everyman, London: Dent, 1995. Skeat: Walter W. Skeat, ed. The Vision of William concerning Piers the Plowman in Three Parallel Texts. 2 Vols. London: Oxford University Press, 1886; with addition of Bibliography, 1954. Skeat EETS: The Vision of William concerning Piers Plowman, together with Vita de Dowel, Dobet, and Dobest, and Richard the Redeles, by William Langland. Ed. Walter W. Skeat. Part Four: General Preface, Notes, and Indexes. London: Published for the Early English Text Society by N. Tru¨bner & Co. 1885. EETS, original series 81).

Preface

As I have always done when annotating a text, I have assumed that what puzzles me also puzzles others; I have worked out answers to my puzzles, and then tried to write the note I’d have loved to have to guide me in the first place. A feature of my commentary is the frequency with which I have cited Latin analogues. I have found it illuminating to use the online Patrologia Latina to deepen my understanding of what lies behind what Langland is saying; and when I have found something relevant I have passed it on. The result, I hope, will help readers see the ideas of the poem in the context of patristic and contemporary Latin culture. I have usually thought it useful to quote the Latin, but everything is translated, so that no one should feel weighed down by the Latin. A second mark of my commentary is its emphasis on comedy. My section has an unusual number of comic scenes and moments, and I have tried to bring that out without being heavy-handed about it. I have not minded being repetitious, since readers rarely read a commentary straight through. Nor have I minded citing my own essays, most of them from YLS, since nearly all of them sprang out of my work on the commentary, and are a natural extension of it. I am grateful to the Humanities Institute of the University of California for supporting our project at its outset, and to Yale University, especially the Koerner Center for Emeritus Faculty, for financial support on several occasions. I have taught a graduate seminar in the poem a number of times since I started work on the commentary, and I owe a great debt to the students in those courses for helping me understand the poem. Among them, Anne Borelli, Seeta Chaganti, Christopher Cobb, Anna Keller, Nicola Masciandaro, Robert Meyer-Lee, Ray Lurie, Daniel O’Donnell, Mary Peckham, Curtis Perrin, David Rosen, Philip Rusche, George Shuffelton, Jennifer Sisk, Emily Steiner, John Watkins, and Michael Wenthe were particularly helpful. Also, after I retired Ian Cornelius often invited me to his graduate seminars, and I have been helped by his students as well, especially by a group with whom he read the poem in fall of 2014; they read parts of my draft and gave me excellent

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suggestions, Annie Killian and Emily Ulrich in particular. Also Ian himself read a lot of my work and responded most astutely. One more student gave me crucial help: Max Ehrenfreund. As a Yale College sophomore in 2011, Max read Chaucer, Spenser, and Donne in a course with me, and then told me he wanted to study Piers Plowman. I hired him as a research assistant, and after reading the poem with me he undertook to read my entire commentary in its then state; his sharp queries proved most valuable. Besides Ian Cornelius, numerous of my colleagues on the Yale faculty have given me valuable help: Wayne Meeks, Harry Atkinson, and Ivan Marcus on the bible, Gene Outka on St Augustine, Denys Turner on medieval vernacular theology, Walter Cahn on medieval art, Howard Bloch on French language and literature. And I greatly miss the stimulation of my conversations about Langland and Chaucer with Lee Patterson, whose untimely death in 2012 was a blow to many of us. So were the deaths of Dorothee Metlitzki in 2001 and Fred Robinson in 2016, my longtime close friends who similarly stimulated and taught me. All through the eighties and nineties and into this century, it was an endless learning experience for me to enjoy being the colleague in the Yale English Department of these three people, and of Marie Borroff and Roberta Frank as well. And as I dwell on the past I want to call up the long-distant past and my first teachers of Langland: Father Thomas Grace, S. J. at Holy Cross College, and Morton Bloomfield at Harvard. I have dedicated my work to their memory. I thank scholars elsewhere who answered my queries, or discussed Langlandian matters with me at conferences: Tuija Ainonen, Christopher Cannon, Christina Cervone, the late Lawrence Clopper, Andrew Cole, the late Mary Clemente Davlin, Alan Fletcher, Curtis Gruenler, Michael Kuczynski, Jill Mann, Carl Schmidt, James Simpson, M. Teresa Tavormina, Lawrence Warner, Miceal Vaughan, Christina von Nolcken, Nicholas Watson. I thank my fellow commentators: Stephen Barney, who conceived the idea for this commentary and gathered our team, and to whom I sent first each passus as I completed it; his clearheaded guidance is evident to me on every page; Ralph Hanna, with whom this is my third collaboration, and who has been tough on me but fair; and Andrew Galloway, who joined us late but quickly outstripped us, and whose devotion to our project, and careful attention to everything I sent him, have never flagged. Anne Middleton was our intellectual leader when we started the project at Irvine in 1990. She insisted then on the highest standard, and continued to do so until she died in Fall 2016; it pains me that she who gave so much to our cause has not lived to see her own work in print. And John Alford, that fund of Langlandian knowledge, made a huge difference for all of us while he was with us. Finally, Derek

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Pearsall and Robert Swanson, the readers for the Penn Press, vetted my work with extraordinary care and made it far better than it was. My daughter, the writer and editor Kate Lawler, copyedited my final draft with an eagle eye. Finally, Peggy Lawler, my wife of nearly sixty years, has teased me, justifiably, about being slow but never stopped supporting and encouraging me. Whenne alle tresores ben tried, treuthe is 3e beste.

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C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

Headnote Passus 15 (B.13 and 14.1–131a) has two actions: first, a dinner party at Conscience’s, which Clergie seems to cohost and to which both Will and a learned friar are invited. Piers Plowman (C only), and a new character named Patience, show up at the door begging alms, and are welcomed in by Conscience. The fare is soul food, though the friar demands, and gets, puddings and mortreux. Will (of course) envies him, and resents his apparent hypocrisy, and so challenges him after dinner; Conscience deflects the challenge into a contest among the friar, Clergie, and Patience to define Dowel, a scene that Gruenler 2017, building on Galloway 1995, reads as in the tradition of riddlecontests. In Lawler 1995, I have emphasized its comic aspect, as a contest between alazon (the friar) and eiron (Patience), and its relation to the final scene of the poem. It is a bit like the contest in the pardon scene: Patience is like Piers, the doctor like the priest (cf. Kirk 1972:152, Simpson 2007:227–28, Gruenler 2017:160). Patience upstages everybody, offending the friar but winning the admiration of Conscience, who brings the dinner to an end and goes on pilgrimage with Patience; Will tags along. They soon meet Activa Vita (Actyf), Patience’s opposite, a “minstrel” and waferer, and the second action begins. Patience offers Actyf first a piece of the Paternoster to eat, fiat voluntas tua (the motto, as it were, of Passiva Vita), and then plenty of good counsel about patient poverty (proving that agere bene est pati, to do well is to suffer) that continues right on into passus 16. In B the offer and the counsel take up the first part of passus 14, since the final nearly 200 lines of passus 13 are taken up with the description of Actyf’s dirty coat, stained by the seven deadly sins. Both actions of the passus, stripped to their essentials, set the spiritual figure Patience, with his spiritual food, against a figure of utter worldliness with a special focus on food, first the friar, then Actyf—and the still-pretty-worldly Will is there to learn from Patience. Many readers have seen the dinner scene, so different from anything that has come before, as marking a new departure. The scene itself is full of characters who are not Will nor aspects of Will, and they interact with each other,

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C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

which, apart from some slight play between Wit and Study, has not happened before in the Vita. Chambers 1924, treating B, saw the last eight passu¯s as a kind of liberation of L’s theme, after the “review of his own mind” in passu¯s 11 and 12, in which, like Wordsworth moving from the Prelude to the Excursion, he has managed to “solve his old doubts,” enabling him to proceed with “his ‘great philosophical poem, containing views of Man, Nature, and Society,’ with its three divisions” (i.e., the Vitae of the three D’s) (68). Kirk 1978:97 writes similarly: “Patience appears at a crucial, transitional point in the poem’s development, a point where the poem casts a retrospective eye over its own progress in order to reorient its action toward the sweeping portrayal of God’s work in history which is to follow.” Watson 2007:99, focusing on the B text, speaks for many when he says that passus 13 gives us Will’s “return to direct engagement with the social world, after the ‘inner journey’ of B.8–12 is done.” We are relieved to be back in a story; we feel like listeners to a dreary sermon when an anecdote suddenly comes. The inner journey is not quite done, of course, since soon enough Will’s guide will be one more inner faculty, Liberum arbitrium, his own free will (in B Anima, his soul). These figures guide him without making him as anxious as the earlier guides did, however, and Patience, his first new guide, is certainly not an aspect of Will but a virtue he needs to learn, and once he meets Abraham, then Moses, then the Samaritan, he is definitely in a world outside himself. Once the dinner is over, Clergie is out of the picture: the issues are moral now, not intellectual. Dowel is now clearly defined as a patient life of poverty, penance, and love. Patience as a tutor-figure brings a whole new manner to the role, less hectoring, more loving, a manner that will be continued by Liberum arbitrium, then notably by the Samaritan. And the journey Will starts once he leaves the dinner will take him finally to Jerusalem; see the note below to line 183, comparing this whole portion of the poem to the central portion of Luke’s Gospel, in which Jesus is “going to Jerusalem.”

Will wakes and reviews his dream, then falls asleep (1–24, B.13.1–21) 1 (B.13.1) witteles nerhande: some degree of witlessness becomes in the Vita, until the vision of the events of redemption in passus 20, the dreamer’s regular state as he wakes, especially in B: cf. “my wit weex and wanyed til I a fool weere” (B.15.3), “I . . . yede for3 as an ydiot” (B.16.169–70), “nere frentyk” (18.178), “recheles” (20.2; B.18.2). In this instance, however, his nearwitlessness stands in specific contrast to Ymaginatif’s defense of wit and learning, a contrast especially pointed in the B version, in which Ymaginatif’s last

Will wakes and reviews his dream, then falls asleep

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words have praised “wit and wisdom,” and in which Kynde’s purpose in showing Will the vision of middle earth was “3oru9 3e wondres of 3is world wit for to take” (B.11.323). Later in the passus, Patience and the doctor will have a difference of opinion about wit: see the note to 171–73 (B.13.173–76) below. 2 (B.13.2) fay: doomed to die; the dream has reminded Will of his mortality in various ways, some of which are recited in the summary that follows in lines 5–23 (B.13.5–20). But since the summary goes on to emphasize not merely mortality but the difficulty of avoiding damnation, the more pregnant sense “doomed to eternal death” seems present as well. Perhaps realistically, Will’s memory of his dream on waking is chiefly of its terrors; he ignores such reassuring material as his own reply to Scripture (12.58–71, B.11.141–53), Trajan’s account of how he was saved (12.76–88, B.12.280–97), and Ymaginatif’s demonstration that good heathens are saved (14.202–17, B.12.280–97); see Simpson 2007:126. 3 (B.13.3) mendenaunt: an ordinary beggar (as, for instance, at 9.180, 11.48 [B.10.66, A.11.52], 13.79), not a friar. In the C version, Will may be responding (whether rightly or not) to the call to poverty by Recklessness, who has given a detailed picture of “mendenant9” at 13.79–98a; in the B version, there is perhaps a relation to the somewhat less extreme praise of poverty and of humble apparel, involving no actual call to mendicancy, at 11.231–82a. But forth can y walken/In manere of a mendenaunt probably just means, “I went on living my itinerant, mendicant life,” the life he describes at 5.44–52 and touches on in the B version at 8.1; that is, nothing has changed. In any case, the role suits Will for supping with Patience, who is also a beggar. (In the two instances, both in C, where L refers to the friars as “mendenants,” there is an accompanying word to make the specification clear: Prol.60 “mendenant freres” and line 80 below, “frere . . . of 3e fyue mendynant9.”) Does mony √er aftur bring the waking Will into Elde, as in the dream? More likely, it is the conventional expression of the passage of time that the rhetoric of the waking situation often seems to demand, comparable to “Alle a somur seson” (10.2; B.8.2, A.9.2), “wonder longe” (B.15.1), “al my lyf tyme” (20.3; B.18.3). 5–23 (B.13.5–20) Furste how fortune . . . he vanschede (B passed): This summary of the third vision offers hints about both Langland’s structure and his process of revision. Structurally, the summary is remarkable in that it begins with the so-called “inner vision,” omitting the encounters with Thought, Wit, Study, Clergie, and Scripture, and at the other end carries through to the encounter with Ymaginatif, ignoring the waking that takes place at 13.214

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C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

(B.11.406). Evidently Langland could think of the sequence Fortune-throughYmaginatif as a unit; at least he treats it here as a “meteles” (4) all its own, separable from the sequence Thought-through-Scripture and undivided within itself. Thus our notion of an “inner vision” may be mistaken. Or perhaps in summarizing he was focusing on what he had written new for the B version: the encounters omitted from the beginning of the summary were all in the A version. In the only other waking summary of a dream, at 9.301–2 (B.7.152–53) only two events late in the vision, the granting of the pardon and the priest’s impugning of it, are summarized, suggesting a tendency to focus on what is most recent. Perhaps, however, one should think not of Langland but of Will: the selective memory, the editing out of most of the optimistic materials of the vision, may be a function of Will’s near-witlessness and sense of doom. On this reading, the entire opening sequence is of a piece, constitutes a specific reaction to at least some of the events and warnings of the vision, and establishes Will’s need for the comfort (B.13.22) that Conscience and Patience will bring him in the ensuing scene. (For a different opinion, see Burrow 1981:37; he finds the summary merely “amnesic,” and the “ ‘autobiographical episodes’ of Passus XI–XII . . . strangely lacking in consequence.”) As a summary of the sequence Fortune-through-Ymaginatif, the passage is less arbitrary than may at first appear, though not without its difficulties. In the B version its character as a summary is marked rather baldly: eight events are listed, the first introduced by “First how” and the other seven introduced by “And how”; six of the eight are given one line each. Lines 5–10 cover B.11.7– 83, 5–6 echoing Elde’s threat at B.11.28–29; the friar material is given disproportionate weight in the summary. There is also, indeed, some amnesia: as Donaldson 1949:81 points out, “According to B’s account of the quarrel, the Dreamer refused to be buried with the Friars, but according to the line in which he mentions the matter [i.e., B.13.9–10], the Friars refused to let him be buried among them.” Lines 11–13 cover at least B.11.283–319, which treat avarice and ignorance in priests and imply the betrayal of the lewed (but see below on lines 12–13), and can be thought to cover the entire disquisition on love and poverty, B.11.154–319, since that passage is arguably addressed to priests from the beginning (see Lawler 2002:98–107): the word preestes doesn’t appear until line 283, but men of holy chirche in line 160 must mean priests. However, the sequence Lewte-Scripture-Trajan (B.11.84–153) is not summarized. Lines 14–20 summarize B.12.217–97, and deftly take in the vision of middle earth in B.11.320–441.

Will wakes and reviews his dream, then falls asleep

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Lines B.13.12–13 are perhaps troubling, since the criticism of ignorant priests in B.11.283–319 does not say explicitly that their ignorance brings damnation on their parishioners. But see the variants to B.11.302, and p. 193 of the B introduction, where KD report that they have omitted from the text as scribal a pair of archetypal lines: “I haue wonder for why and wherfore 3e bisshop/Make3 swiche preestes 3at lewed men bitrayen.” The lines sound scribal indeed (though Schmidt prints them), and yet they provide an explicit referent for 13.12–13. KD (p. 193) suppose that the scribe who made them wanted to “participate in criticism of the clergy,” but we might better suppose he was bothered by lines 13.12–13, and felt moved to provide a specific basis for them. The passage shows incomplete revision in the C version. Some attention has been paid to varying the list of eight events: in the last two (21, 23) the “And how” formula is varied, and now only the first and last are confined to one line. Lines 5–12 are essentially unchanged from B.13.5–10, even though there is now more material in the passage they cover (C.11.166–12.22) than there was before. As Donaldson points out (1949:68–69), the lines on the friars’ burial practices (11–12) should have been omitted, since the B passage they referred to, 11.64–67, has been omitted (at 12.15). On the other hand, covetousness is now said (13–14) to overcome not just priests but al kyne sectes, a change that seems to recognize better than in the B version the place of covetousness in Fortune’s program for us all, and, in its greater breadth, to be suited to the significant extension by Recklessness of the praise of patient poverty. Lines 15–16, unchanged from the B version, cover C.13.100–128, and make it plain, pace that interfering scribe of B, that L thought the passage clearly implied that a lot of people go to hell because their priests are ignorant. (Meantime the scribal couplet of B.11 has been replaced in C by lines 13.115–16.) C.15.17–23 have the same effect as B.13.14–20, although C.15.20 (referring to C.14.161–63) improves the rather fatuous B.13.18. For C.15.22, see the note below. 5 (B.13.5) fortune me faylede At my moste nede: at 12.13 (B.11.61), though the phrasing here reflects Elde’s threat at 11.188 (B.11.29). 6–8 And . . . lotus (B.13.6 And . . . mete): “And how Old Age threatened me, if I should live long, (that) he would leave me in debt, and all my good looks and all my powers vanish.” The C lines repeat accurately Elde’s threat to Will at 11.187–89 (B.11.28–30) that Fortune would fail him and Concupiscencia carnis forsake him. So myhte happe / That y lyuede longe translates, in C’s way, the

6

C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

more metaphorical B my√te we euere mete—though the B phrase is closer to what Elde originally said in both versions, “yf y mete with the” (11.187, B.11.28). As the conjunction with fayre lotus (which may mean “fair speeches” or “loving glances” rather than “good looks,” but which appears regularly in romantic contexts; cf. MED, s.v. lote, sb. 1) suggests, vertues refers in particular to sexual powers (which do vanish, thanks to Elde, at 22.193–98 [B.20.193–98]). 9–12 (B.13.7–10) And how ∂at freres . . . quyte here dettes: For a definitive, nuanced discussion of bequests from Londoners to the various orders of friars in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, see Jens Ro¨hrkasten’s article of 1996 and his book of 2004. Bequests fluctuated, he shows, and were waning in Langland’s time, but still frequent, especially among the rich. 21–22 And y merueyled . . . how ymaginatyf saide / That iustus . . . non saluabitur bote vix helpe (B.13.19 And si∂en how ymaginatif seide “vix saluabitur iustus”): B is straightforward and noncommittal, but C offers a playful version of Ymaginatif ’s dictum (14.203; B.12.281), turning it into a little grammatical-legal narrative. Since vix (scarcely) is almost a synonym for “non” (not), the poet seems to posit an underlying statement non saluabitur iustus (the just man will not be saved), of which the statement Vix saluabitur iustus is what we would call a “transformation.” Vix (an “auxiliary” word) “helps” the statement mean something new, and so “helps” the just man to be saved. It is a way of saying just what Ymaginatif said: salvation almost doesn’t happen. Salter and Pearsall (1967:13) instance the passage as an example of “embryonic allegory”: the Latin phrase is “dramatized, in simple but striking terms, as a court scene, with ‘vix’ personified, and interceding for ‘justus.’ ” Later, in annotating the passage on p. 131, they assert (adding a notion of Wyclif’s cited by Skeat) that the wordplay depends on the “interpretation of vix as the Five (V) wounds of Jesus (I) Christ (X),” and Pearsall repeats it ad loc. in his edition; “depends” is perhaps strong, but the further meaning is certainly welcome. Fiona Somerset accepts both meanings: “The word ‘vix’ will help to save the just man on the Day of Judgment in the grammatical sense Ymaginatif employs—it restricts rather than reversing ‘saluabitur’—but also in the sense that it is the mercy of Christ symbolized by the word ‘vix’ that will save him” (1998:45). 24 me lust to slepe . . . 18.178 y wakede (B.13.21 at ∂e laste I slepte . . . 14.335 ∂erwi∂ I awakede): The fourth vision. Most commentators have seen in this vision a shift from a cognitive to a moral emphasis: the interlocutors are no

Will wakes and reviews his dream, then falls asleep

7

longer mental faculties but the moral faculty of Conscience and the virtue of Patience. And the mode changes from sharp correction of Will, first to narrative in the dinner scene and the meeting with Actyf, then to benign instruction from Patience, and in C from Liberum arbitrium as well. Simpson (2007:125) argues that the move is from “the rational faculties of his (Will’s) soul” to “those parts and qualities of the soul that direct and condition moral choice. . . . The burden of learning is now, in effect, on Will himself, as the human will, since it is the will that must choose, rather than merely be informed of the truth.” Conscience is certainly part of the soul; see the quotation from Isidore, 16.201a (B.15.39a) and the surrounding discussion in both versions. Medieval philosophers regarded conscience or synderesis as a function of the soul, whether in Plato’s tripartite soul (rational, appetitive, emotive), where it was a function of the rational soul, or in Jerome’s quadripartite soul, where conscience is a separate part; see Potts 1980:6–9 and passim.

Conscience’s dinner (25–184, B.13.22–214) 25–184 (B.13.22–214) Conscience’s dinner. The dinner scene is the most complex narrative scene in the poem so far: it is less intense than the pardon scene, but involves more characters and more interplay among them. In B the dinner takes place at Conscience’s court or palace, and Conscience is clearly the host, inviting, welcoming, seating, ordering service. Clergie is the star guest, the “draw” for Will. In C Conscience is perhaps to be thought of as still the host, although at times Clergie seems to act as cohost; now Reason, who at first seems to be a guest but turns out to act as steward of the hall, is the draw. Conscience and Clergie both invite Will; we are not told where the dinner takes place, although Conscience’s welcoming everybody suggests that the scene is still his court; Reason does the seating and Clergie calls for service. Piers is there, at least for a while. Since Scripture, Clergie’s wife, serves the food in both versions, it may be that cohosting was L’s idea in both. The relative clarity of the literal events in B is put aside in C in favor of a greater allegorical suggestiveness. In any case the issue is the conscientious (and reasonable) use of learning—the same issue that was at the fore in the third vision—with an undercurrent of emphasis on the synonymous trio penancesuffering-patience (also not a new theme but one that will take center stage in the episodes that follow). The showy learning of the friars is satirized. The literal scene, however, seems ultimately to take over: the issue of how best to use learning is never completely resolved, for the behavior of the friar-doctor

8

C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

is so off-putting, and Patience’s pressing of another agenda so urgent, that Conscience departs. In the C version, the alliance of Reason and Conscience as Will’s major guides continues from passus 5; in B Conscience reemerges after being absent since the end of passus 4, where he and Reason agreed to remain always with the king; in both versions Will has also had a recent, unsatisfying encounter with Reason in the vision of middle earth, within vision three. But Reason in actuality plays almost no role here, and leaves the poem for good. Pearsall considers the dinner a “probationary reward for Will, who has shown recent signs of improvement,” these being his blush of shame at 13.213 and his good definition of Dowel a few lines later (220). But it may be better to think of Conscience as an indiscriminately generous host like the host in Christ’s parable of the Great Feast, out on the highways inviting all he meets. Thus he welcomes the doctor, also, and when he comes home and finds Patience (and, in C, Piers) on his doorstep, he welcomes them too. Especially in the C version, L is at pains to stress the breadth of Conscience’s hospitality. The invitation would thus be, like much else, a happy accident for Will rather than a reward. As others have intimated (Middleton 1987:32; Simpson 2007:138; Gruenler 2017:165), the “source” of the scene would seem to be the speech of Dame Study in passus 11 (B.10, A.11), which is largely taken up with a tirade against various abuses of feasts (I cite the fuller version of B.10): the exclusion of the man with “holy writ ay in his mou3e” (32) in favor of lewd entertainers (39– 51); ignorant and presumptuous theological disputes after dinner (52–58, 67, 70–71, 104–18); and refusal to admit to the feast the poor clamoring at the gate (59–66, 79–103, see also B 9.82–83); also, friars are incidentally criticized for preaching insincerely at St Paul’s (74) and for seeking feasts at other men’s houses (95–96). Conscience’s dinner is an attempt to right all these abuses, although the feast-seeking friar, fresh from St Paul’s, with his pompous speechifying, does his best to maintain business as usual. Bourquin regards the scene as a “dramatizing” of Study’s tirade, 1978:406. He also points out (405–6) that the structure of the scene reproduces that of the Meed episode, featuring two sharply opposed sides (there, Conscience and Reason vs. Meed, here Patience vs. the doctor), with a figure in the middle (there the king, here Conscience) who chooses “the good side” (optait pour le bien) at the end. The ultimate source, of course, is the New Testament, particularly the Gospels, where dinner scenes and parables of feasts abound (see Barney 1968:192–208 on how the New Testament material is developed in Old French allegories that personify the banquet foods, etc.). See especially Luke, where

Conscience’s dinner

9

“the Son of man is come eating and drinking” (7:34), and where Jesus urges his dinner host to invite the poor (14:12–14), then tells the parable of the Great Feast (14:16–24). Matt 23:6–7 says of the Pharisees: “They love the first places at feasts, and the first chairs in the synagogues, and salutations in the marketplace and to be called by men Rabbi” (which means “Master,” John 1:38) (see also Luke 20:46–47, where almost the same thing is said of the scribes). And see 2 Tim 3:1–7, in which Paul warns against the heretics of latter days, among whom are “they that creep into houses” (qui penetrant domos, verse 6). For a full account of how William of St Amour drew from Matt 23:6–7 and 2 Tim 3:6 what developed into the major conventions of antifraternal literature, see Szittya 1986: 34–41, 58–61, 71, et passim; cf. also the pair Frere Flaterere and Sire Penetrans-domos in passus 22 (B.20), 313 ff. and the note there. (For a nuanced account of the whole complex history of antifraternalism, going well beyond William of St Amour, see Geltner 2012.) Our friar is (seemingly) greeted by Conscience outdoors (in C), penetrates his house, is called master and takes first place at dinner, and even uses that place as a kind of pulpit. Jill Mann (1979:38) suggests that the scene might be seen as the product of L’s rumination on the text, “Not by bread alone doth man live, but by every word that proceedeth out the mouth of God,” Matt 4:4, Luke 4:4, quoted in the next scene by Patience, 15.244a (B.14.47a) (and half-quoted at 5.86). Alford 1995 is an important attempt to see the entire scene as built on Proverbs 23, which starts, “When thou shalt sit to eat with a prince, consider diligently what is set before thy face,” and commentary on it by Ambrose and Hugh of Saint-Cher. He uncovers some telling parallels, though much of what both commentators advocate is rather standard moral teaching. For all its trappings of allegory, the scene is in the main literal enough. It is a little comedy in which, as Piers and Patience say, the patient win; see Kirk 1972:145–53 and 1978:98–100, and Lawler 1995. Neither the friar nor Will acts as a guest ought. The friar as alazon is overcome, not by Will’s heavy-handed resentment, arrogant enough in its own way and suavely deflected by Conscience, but by the mercurial Piers (in C) and the mild eiron Patience. The issues are literal too. How do we do well? What are the major values we aspire to? Love and patience win out over the friar’s worldly notions. This core of meaning is eked out by two kinds of allegory. The food, served by Scripture, consists of the Gospels and the Fathers, or, in Will’s and Patience’s case at the side table, scriptural calls to do penance. These are not out of line with the scripture-based stress on love and patient poverty that emerges in the debate after dinner. Those who ate willingly what they were served speak and act well in the debate; Will and the doctor, who spurn their food, speak and act badly. The allegory simply says that those who feed the body and not the spirit will

10

C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

come out spiritually undernourished. Secondly, the identity of the hosts implies that dining on such insubstantial fare is reasonable, is what both our conscience and our learning urge on us. Meanwhile, the friar is shown not to make conscientious or reasonable use of his learning, whereas Will, for all his impatience, learns enough to ally himself with Conscience and Patience. At the end of the scene, he starts on the road that will lead him to redemption— the road to Jerusalem: see 15.184 (B.13.215)n. For a different emphasis on the theme of learning, see Schmidt’s note, in his 1995 edition of the B text, to B.13.24, “And for Conscience of Clergie spak I com wel 3e ra3er”: “Will’s eagerness is the fruit of Ymaginatif’s instruction . . . But after meeting the doctor he will have many of his earlier misgivings shockingly confirmed and withdraw from intellectual learning into the company of a spiritual virtue, Patience, to find the kynde knowyng of Dowel he has sought in vain elsewhere.” It is true that Conscience regards Patience as having given a more penetrating answer than Clergie, and that he chooses the way of experience as he and Will go off with Patience, and yet the accord that Conscience and Clergie reach by the end of the scene suggests that Clergie is not being altogether rejected. The scene is an instance of L’s general tendency to satirize the friars’ love of learning: see 11.52–58 (B.10.72–78, A.11.58–60); B.11.219–30; 16.231–41a (B.15.70–88); 22.250 (B.20.250); and 22.230–31n. Clopper, both in his 1990 article (74n34) and his book (1997:238–41), argues that the scene has a “Franciscan character,” and that Patience is modeled on St Francis, though most scholars have accepted the identification of the friar with the Dominican William Jordan; see 91n.

Conscience and Clergie invite Will to dine with Reason (25–31); Conscience invites Will to dine with Clergie (B.13.22–28) B.13.23 court: A large house or castle; cf. Kane, Glossary, and Chaucer’s Summoner’s Tale, D2162, “Doun to the court he gooth, / Wher as ther woned a man of greet honour.” That lord like Conscience is friends with a friar. Conscience is a lordly figure all through the poem; he regularly speaks “curteisliche.” See B.13.207–10n. B.13.24 And for Conscience of Clergie spak I com wel ∂e ra∂er: Will was similarly eager to meet Clergie at B.10.226 (A.11.169), and he seems to remember also how warmly Clergie welcomed him (B.10.230–35; Clergie and Scripture both in A.11.173–77) to his and Scripture’s house. He might not have been

Conscience and Clergie invite Will to dine with Reason

11

so eager if he also remembered how badly he got along with Scripture. More proximately, he has been given a new understanding of Clergie by Ymaginatif in the passus just completed. The line is a bit ironic, however, since Patience will trump clergy in what follows, and become Will’s new patron as the poem makes its decisive swerve from knowing to doing—or rather, to not doing: to suffering, being acted on, to pati not agere; see the Headnote above, and the notes to 32–33, 190–16.157 (B.13.221–14.335), and 137, 156a (B.13.135a, 171a) below. B.13.26 lowe louted and loueliche to scripture: A bit of estates satire; for friars’ attentions to women, see CT, General Prologue, A211, 217, 234, 253–55 and SumT, D1797–1815. For the way they have of showing up at dinnertime (against their rule; see next note), see SumT D1774, 1836 ff., and B.10.95 above. In B the friar seems to be already in the house when Conscience gets home; in C they seem to meet on Conscience’s way home, but perhaps not altogether by chance. 29 a maystre, a man lyk a frere (B.13.25 a maister, what man he was I nyste): usually called this doctour starting at line 65, and identified as definitely a friar in lines 69–87; in line 84 he is doctour and dyuynour . . . and decretistre of Canoen, i.e., very learned, and he may be named as a particular Dominican in 91; see the note there. Maister is a loaded word in antifraternal satire: it means “Pharisee,” thanks to Matt 23:7–10 and John 1:38; see Szittya 1986:35–37 and SumT, D2184–88. Of course plenty of friars, especially Dominicans and Franciscans, were Masters of Theology and Doctors of Theology; see Glorieux 1933–34:1.27–222 (Dominicans); 2.5–248 (Franciscans); Courtenay 1987:56–87; Cobban 1999:164–67; Lawrence 1994, Chapter 7. It is evidently part of L’s purpose to present Will as not at first recognizing this master as the man he heard preach three or four days before, though the development to that recognition in B (from “what man he was I nyste”) is more startling than in C. That he is at the dinner at all is not quite right. The Dominican Constitutions of 1220 declare that “In places where we have a convent, our friars, both priors and others, should not presume to eat outside the cloister except with bishops or in houses of religious, and that rarely” (ed. Thomas, 1.8, p. 319). But the Summoner’s Tale suggests that the rule was little regarded—and Conscience may be a bishop; again see B.13.207–10n. Gruenler 2017:155 compares him to the bishop in the story of St Andrew and the Three Questions from The Golden Legend that he posits as an analogue to the scene. Ralph Hanna has suggested above (8.73–74n) that Faus Semblant in Roman de la Rose 11204–06 (in the Lecoy edition) gives us a model for this

12

C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

doctor. I would add lines 11007–19; see the note to 68–73a below. As a hypocrite relying on a surface of religiosity, he is certainly among the progeny of Faus Semblant, though not so thoroughly like him as Chaucer’s Pardoner. 31 (B.13.28) They: Why not “We?” Surely Will was invited to wash too, as Patience is a few lines later. The friar, it turns out, has a traveling companion, whom Patience mentions at line 101; this pronoun includes him. Friars always went about in pairs: see Luke 10:1 (and note to line 44a below), and supra, 10.8n. Clopper 1990:74n34 asserts that since there are two friars they must be Franciscans, for “the Franciscan rule required that brothers go about in pairs in order to imitate Christ’s apostles; the Dominican provisions for preaching and itinerancy (Distinctio 2.12–13) make no reference to this practice.” And yet Distinctio 2.12 (of Raymond of Pennaforte’s redaction, ed. Creytens 1948, which Clopper used) in fact says of preachers, “eis socii dabuntur a priore” (they will be assigned companions by the prior, p. 63). The Constitutions of 1228, ed. Thomas 1965, have the same sentence of preachers (2.30, p. 363), and, of itinerants, “socius datus praedicatori ipsi ut priori suo in omnibus obediat” (the companion given to a preacher is to obey him in everything as his superior) (2.34, p. 366). In Dominic’s famous dream in St Peter’s, when Peter and Paul order him to preach, he sees his sons “setting out two by two” (Golden Legend, trans. Ryan, 2.47). Jack Upland 310, Friar Daw’s Reply 771, and Woodford, Responsiones pp. 162–63 all write as if going in pairs was the practice of all orders. The issue matters because of the identification of the doctor with the Dominican William Jordan; see 91n. Cf. the phrase socius itineris in Gen 33:12 and 35:3.

Patience and Piers (C only) show up and are welcomed (32–37, B.13.29–32) 32–33 Pacience . . . Ilyke peres the ploghman, as he a palmere were (B.13.29–30 Ac Pacience . . . heremyte): B is plain enough, but C surprises: Piers is here! This is the first reference to him since the second vision, in the course of which he took on the role of “a pilgrym at 3e plouh” (8.111), dressing accordingly (8.56–65). “Palmere” here clearly just means “pilgrim” and is not pejorative (as it probably is at Prol.47 and 7.180). The revision suggests that readers of B are perhaps to intuit from 29 in pilgrymes clo∂es, along with all the praise of patient poverty in passus 11—including lines such as B.11.243–44, “And in 3e apparaille of a pouere man and pilgrymes liknesse/Many tyme god ha3 ben met among nedy peple”—that Patience is “Piers-like” and will speak

Patience and Piers (C only) show up and are welcomed

13

authoritatively. But readers did not intuit that, apparently, so C, in typical fashion, makes everything plain by having Piers actually accompany Patience to the dinner. Ilyke is a crucial word; the adverb “likewise, also,” OE g. elic. e. Skeat printed “Ilik,” the reading of ms. X and many others—i.e., the adjective “like”—and Schmidt has followed him (though he apparently takes it as the adverb, which can appear [unhistorically] without the final e: see both his note and his textual note to his line 34). Consequently readers for years thought the poet was saying here that Patience was dressed as a palmer “like Piers Plowman,” and that when Piers suddenly speaks at line 137, he has simply appeared out of the blue, just as he will disappear when he finishes speaking (148–49). But when RK-C appeared in 1997, with the reading Ilyke (in three manuscripts) and a semicolon at the end of line 32, and the editors’ account (on p. 156) of their reasoning, along with their identification (156n) of 130 √ent as “yonder,” Piers’s role in the scene was put on a sounder footing: he does not appear out of the blue after dinner, but has been at the dinner all along. See Kane, Glossary, s.v. ylike, and the note to 130 below. (I was present at a plenary session of the Langland conference in Cambridge in 1993 when the scene was being discussed, and George Kane stood up and electrified the room by declaring that the word was “ilyke,” likewise: Patience came and likewise Piers Plowman. We all had a feeling of great clarification, and the reading has become standard. [Kane then also referred to it in his plenary address to the conference, subsequently printed in YLS; see Kane 1994:16.]) If as he a palmere were simply meant that Piers begged his meal as if he were a palmer, it would have come after the verb; in view of its position, and of what he says and does at 8.56–65 (B.6.57–64, A.7.52–58), it almost certainly means “dressed like a palmer.” Why he is begging dinner is unclear, though if the C version had not erased the tearing of the pardon and its aftermath in AB, we might associate it with Piers’s determination there to cease sowing and be less busy about his belly-joy (B.7.122–35, A.8.104–17). It does seem suitably humble for both Piers and Patience to beg dinner, even though Liberum arbitrium will later insist, at the end of passus 16 and the beginning of 17, that Charity does not beg, nor did the apostles, the desert fathers, and other saints. This is Patience’s first appearance as a character, although in certain parts of Recklessness’s long speech on patient poverty the virtue has already been half-personified (e.g., 13.2, 21). (Donaldson sees him as a development of Recklessness, and sees Piers as a further development still [1949:174–75].) As a virtue and not an intellectual faculty, he is symptomatic of a shift in emphasis that has been taking place in the poem: from “speculative to practical morality,” in the words of Stella Maguire (1949:100), or “toward a more active engagement

14

C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

of the will” (Alford 1995: 97), or from understanding to doing—except that patience of course means “being acted upon” rather than “acting.” His presence imparts an ironic dimension to the “do” triad, suggesting that another way to parse “do” besides comparing its adverb is to change it to the passive voice. (Morton Bloomfield used feminine pronouns for Patience in his 1962 book, as he did also for Anima and even Conscience, despite the proposed marriage to Meed, apparently on the basis of the gender of the underlying Latin nouns, but L himself uses masculine pronouns and clearly conceived of Patience, like the others, as male.) From this inauspicious entrance as beggar and table companion to Will at the edge of the dinner party, Patience will come to dominate this scene, first as Will’s adviser and then as the giver of the best answer to Conscience’s afterdinner challenge, then go onto the road with Will and Conscience, where he will tutor Will and Actyf until his place is suddenly taken by Liberum arbitrium (Anima) at 16.157 (cf. B.15.12). In the dinner scene he is a playful ironist, and though he later gets preachy he never altogether loses the comic, understated quality his name implies. In Gregory’s oft-quoted definition, “patientia vero est aliena mala aequanimiter perpeti,” patience is to suffer the evil others do to you with equanimity (Homilies on the Gospels, 2.35, PL 76.1261), and he never loses his aplomb. Kirk 1978:98 speaks refreshingly of his sense of humor, and the “spirit of high comedy” that suffuses the dinner scene; see also her witty account in her 1972 book, pp. 145–53, and Lawler 1995. Pearsall too recognizes the comedy in Patience’s long discourse: see 279–16.21 (B.14.104–65)n below. Clopper (1997:241–45) sees him in Franciscan terms as advocating “a kind of reckless abandonment,” merry and unlearned like Francis: “Both Francis and Patience are able to penetrate the Scriptures and to reveal Treuthe through divine inspiration and by their delight in their poverty” (244–45). Simpson 2007:142 offers an excellent analysis of his “specifically New Testament poetics, a poetics of paradox.” Gillespie 1994:105 regards him as a “minstrel of God,” apostolic in his mission like the “lunatyk lollares” of 9.107–40. Latin writers like to speak of suffering for Christ “patienter, immo gaudenter” (patiently, nay joyfully), citing Acts 5:41. He plays a positive role by moving Will toward a deeper understanding of suffering, poverty, and the patient acceptance of both, as other critics such as Shepherd 1983 and Anna Baldwin 1990 have insisted. Kirk 1978:101 stresses his “grounding . . . in Charity,” and in general terms it seems right to say that he, Charity, and the Samaritan are versions of the same set of values, the major values of the poem; see also Bloomfield’s eloquent treatment of patience (the virtue rather than the character) and its central place in the poem, 1962:140– 42. In Lawler 1995:98–99, I argued that Patience is Christ, especially since there

Patience and Piers (C only) show up and are welcomed

15

is a continuous bilingual pun between the Latin participle patiens, the suffering one, i.e., Jesus, and the English word Patience, pronounced nearly the same way; see 15.152n below. As Reason says to Will (13.197, B.11.380), “Ho soffreth more then god?” (see Kirk 1978:101–2). Of course we should all be “pacient as pilgrimes for pilgrimes are we alle” (12.131, B.11.242), so that Patience (like Piers) is also Everyman, or what Everyman should be: what Will should be, and what Patience’s opposite Actyf, the central figure in the second half of the passus, should be. (The pun perhaps extends to the word “passus”: it means “step,” yes, and reminds us of Will’s quest, but it is also the past participle of patior and means “one who has suffered,” reminding us of the object of the quest, Christ.) Curtis Gruenler argues persuasively that the entire dinner scene draws on riddle–literature, and that Patience is the “low-status outsider” so central to that tradition. He offers as analogues Solomon and Marcolf and Jacobus’s legend of “St Andrew and the Three Questions,” in which the saint makes a sudden appearance as a pilgrim at a dinner party, and poses three riddles that unmask a beautiful woman guest at the bishop’s table as the devil: “It is rather as if Langland had blended “St Andrew and the Three Questions” with the dialogue of Solomon and Marcolf” (2017:154). Given L’s close knowledge of Jacobus’s book (which also gives essentially the same story of St Bartholomew), however, we might even consider his accounts as a source rather than an analogue. Patience has not only the patience but the insight of a saint. Watson 2007:99n says, “All critics concur that Will meets Patience because he needs to learn Patience.” 36 hym: Piers. Schmidt in his textual note to line 34 aptly cites B.13.131, where Conscience says, “I knowe Piers,” and B.7.134, C.8.13, where Piers speaks of Conscience’s teaching and counsel. hem all: I.e., them both. Conscience knew Piers well, and welcomed both him and Patience. All perhaps emphasizes how general Conscience’s hospitality is. Multi are called to this mangerye. 41 a syde table (B.13.36 a side borde): not the lowest possible place; see 14.137, 140 (B 12.197, 200).

The guests are seated and dinner is served (38–64, B.13.33–60) 42–46 (B.13.37–41) Clergie (B Conscience) cald aftur mete . . . potages: The nature of the food should not come as a surprise, given who the hosts are— what else would Scripture serve?—but in this deadpan account it always surprises us readers as much as it surprises the doctor. Jill Mann’s essay of 1979

16

C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

is central here; I have already cited her assertion that the scene is the product of L’s rumination on “Not by bread alone.” Also relevant, surely, is Jesus’s saying, “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me” (John 4:34). And remarks from the fathers can be multiplied almost indefinitely. “Scriptura cibus est” (scripture is food), Rabanus PL 110.561; Gregory’s Moralia PL 76.573 on the crib (praesepe) of Job 39:9: “Praesepe hoc loco ipsa Scriptura sacra non inconvenienter accipitur, in qua verbi pabulo animalia sancta satiantur” (The crib in this passage is taken not inappropriately as Holy Scripture itself, in which holy animals are filled with the food of the word). Or see Gregory on Job 1:4, PL 76.540, to the effect that scripture is sometimes food (in darker passages), sometimes drink (in more open passages). That remark is repeated by writer after writer. In any case, that scripture was food was an utter commonplace—L didn’t really have to ruminate about the matter at all. (On allegorical food in Old French poetry, see Barney 1988:126–28 and Owen 1912:103–7.) 44a (B.13.39a) Edentes . . . sunt &c: “Eating and drinking such things as they have,” Luke 10:7. The passage (Luke 10:1–16) is Christ’s instructions to the seventy-two, which the friars tried to follow, but which their detractors used against them: see Szittya 1986:43–47, 209. Here in Luke 10 the disciples are told to stay in one house and eat what they are offered; the next verse repeats, “eat such things as are set before you” (this verse appears in the Franciscan Rule of 1223, Chapter 3, as Clopper points out [1997:239]). But our friar has no appetite for scripture. Patience, on the other hand, loves the food: he eats such things as they have. Will “mourns” at it (64, B.13.60), envying the friar’s substitute menu; he appears not to eat it, but hasn’t the gall or status to ask for something else, as the friar does. 45 of this mete ∂at maystre myhte nat wel chewe (B.13.40 ∂is maister of ∂ise men no maner flessh eet): ßise men (B only), namely Austin, Ambrose, and the evangelists. Gruenler associates the doctor with the hyperlogical thought of Scotus and Ockham, who, so differently from Aquinas, “wrote very little about scripture” (2017:275–76). KD-B rightly edit out the doctor’s “man” who is in almost all B mss, and does appear in Donaldson’s translation (1990); see their explanation on pp. 179–80. Kirk and Anderson, the editors of Donaldson’s translation, point out that a man “would presumably not be at the high table in any case.” Benson 2004:55 argues for the man because friars traveled in pairs, and because of the plural pronouns ∂ei, hem, and hir in lines 42–43. But a companion would not be called “his man,” and the plural pronouns are in C too (47–48), though

The guests are seated and dinner is served

17

there is no question there of the man; L simply wanders here from strict focus on the dinner to make a general hit at friars; see the next note. 47–50a (B.13.42–45a) Of ∂at men myswonne . . . euometis &c: Though Scripture apparently does go back to the kitchen for mortrewes and potages, since later Will actually watches the friar eating mortreux, Conscience’s house would not be stocked with food bought from miswinnings. Thus the sentence beginning at line 47 (B.13.42) is best read as a general statement: the friar’s regular diet was more costly food—at his convent, presumably, which would explain the modulation in the next line to the plurals men and ∂ei—though the Dominican Constitutions of 1228 explicitly declare that “Everywhere in our convents meals should be meatless” (ed. Thomas, 1.8, p. 319; mortreux is a meat dish). He and his fellows would dine comfortably off ∂at men myswonne by buying their food either with the price of absolution purchased by the dishonest rich (12.4–10, B 11.54–58), or with contributions extracted from confessants as restitution for their wrongful gains (12.17). (This passage—12.4–22, B.11.54– 83—has just been summarized in ll. 9–12.) On the whole subject of “miswinning,” see Lawler 2006, and for fuller specific comment on this passage, Appendix E to that essay, pp. 188–89. (I retract, however, my insistence there on construing “many” with mortem [“after the death of many”] rather than with “bitter peynes,” where Ian Cornelius has persuaded me it must be construed, for metrical reasons. As he says, “each hemistich is an independent unit of sense and syntax.”) Yet another way friars miswin is to extort inheritances by promising to sing Masses for the souls of the givers (as they do for Lady Meed, 3.53, and as Coueitise of ei9es assures Will they will do for him, B.11.53–58), and then fail to sing them: their sauce is “ground in the mortar called ‘many bitter punishments after death unless they (the friars) sing and weep for those souls’ (i.e., the souls of those whose money is thus miswon).” As Skeat says, “The whole expression, from post-mortem down to teeres, is the allegorical name of the mortar.” It should be hyphenated. Since the sauce is said in fact to be sour and unsavory—and also since they make themselves at ease—the friars clearly do fail to sing and weep. Lines 47–50 are a free translation of the Latin that follows them: “you who eat the sins of men, unless you will have poured out tears and prayers for them, will vomit up amidst torments what you eat now amidst delights.” Or the Latin translates the English, as Kerby-Fulton 1990:157 asserts [again see Lawler 2006, App E, 188–89]. The source is unidentified; it is probably by L himself. It alludes, as Alford, Quot. points out, to Hosea 4:6–8, a diatribe against bad priests. Eating sins, as Peter the Chanter says (Lawler 2006:166–67), means either saying they are not sins or making the sins

18

C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

food for themselves (i.e., by requiring a donation in exchange for absolution, as described above). Kerby-Fulton 1987:396 associates the phrases with the pseudo-Hildegardian anti-mendicant prophecy that begins, “Insurgent gentes quae comedent peccata populi.” I still think, as I thought in 2006, that the sentence is L’s, but Stephen Barney has shown me a very similar passage in St Bonaventure’s Regula novitiorum (Instructions for Novices) that is surely the source—and an intriguing one, offering some support for the theory that L spent some time as a Franciscan novice, see 78–79n below. Urging the novices to pray constantly, Bonaventure says, “Ait enim Bernardus, ‘Ora, frater, instanter ora, quia ille dicitur habere tunicam mixtam sanguine, qui carnem suam nutrit de pauperum sudore. Cantando nobis,’ inquit, ‘ista bona proveniunt; graves ergo pro eis effundite gemitus, alioquin quod hic in deliciis sumitis in tormentis evometis’ ” (1898:214) (For St Bernard says, “Pray, brother, pray hard, for a man who feeds his flesh on the sweat of the poor is said to have a tunic mixed with blood. These goods come to us for singing [i.e., Masses],” he says, “Otherwise what you take here in pleasure you will vomit up in torments”) (my translation; cf. Monti 1994:155). Bernard, in a sermon on the Ascension, says, “Ora instanter, ora perseveranter” (PL 183.315), but Bonaventure seems to have made up the rest, or to be remembering something else. (For eating off the sweat of the poor, see Aelred, Speculum charitatis, PL 195.559 and Peter of Blois, Letter 102, PL 207.319–21.) For a similar idea, cf. PL 209.114 (Martinus Legionensis, in a sermon directed at monks): “Peccata vestra et eorum quorum eleemosynas comeditis, studiose deflete, poenas inferni formidate” (Cry hard for your sins, and for the sins of those whose alms you eat—fear the punishments of hell). See also Pierce the Ploughman’s Crede, 701–6, quoted by Szittya 1986:220. “Eating sins” is the opposite of “eating the labours of one’s hands” (Psalm 127, quoted at 8.260a (B.6.252a, A.7.234a). Peter of Blois in his Letter 102, which L knew (see B.15.332–43a note below), insists repeatedly that feasting at the expense of the poor brings damnation. In view of this satire, of the fact that this doctor preached at St Paul’s the other day, and of the apparent association with William Jordan (91 [B.13.86]n below), Nicholas Watson’s calling him “that sad parody of the insatiable appetites of Thomas or Bonaventure for heavenly learning” (2007:95), fine though it is, is probably wrong; L is thinking much more locally, and much more venally of actual greed. 54 (B.13.48) o∂er mete: Listed in lines 56–62 (B.13.58–58a). Will and Patience get more than their share of both food (such as it is) and attention from the

The guests are seated and dinner is served

19

hosts, accentuating Will’s rudeness later. The elaborate chain of command, Reason as steward reminding the host Conscience to have the server Scripture bring up the dishes, accentuates the bathos (in Will’s eyes) of the nature of the food. 55–57 (B.13.49–53) He . . . he . . . he: L has not forgotten that Scripture is female. Rather, these are feminine pronouns. He, with a middle-front rounded vowel, from West Midland ho/heo, “she,” is much less common in B mss. than in C mss.; presumably these forms have been allowed to slip through by B scribes because there are no references in the vicinity to Scripture’s sex, no genitive or accusative her or reminder that Scripture is Clergie’s wife; but see B.13.26 above. 55 (B.13.49) Agite penitenciam: Do penance (Job 21:2, Ezek 18:30, Matt 3:2 [transposed], etc.: see Alford, Quot.). Luther quoted the Matthew in the first of his 95 theses, and discussed it in the next two. Simpson (2007:128) sees a pun on French pain, English pain, and the stem of “penance” (poenam), both here and at B.17.126–28a (79). He argues (128) that Will is being invited to “pass from academic treatment of scriptural texts (associated with the universities) to a more inward, reflective consideration of Scripture, drawn from monastic traditions,” and cites Leclercq 1982 on the monastic practice of reading, with metaphors of eating, chewing, etc. Mann 1979:37 also cites Leclercq, and her whole essay is the seminal discussion of the deep relation in the poem between real food and spiritual food. All these text-foods set up Patience’s admonition later in the passus (in B, in the next passus) to Actyf to nourish himself on fiat voluntas tua (249; B.14.50). The scene may not be as medieval as it seems. Cf. Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children (Knopf: Everyman’s Library, 1995), p. 176: “Reverend Mother doled out the curries and meatballs of intransigence, dishes imbued with the personality of their creator; Amine ate the fish salans of stubbornness and the birianis of determination.” 56 (B.13.50) diu perseuerans: long-persevering. In the next line, Scripture specifies the length of diu: in effect, the whole name of the drink, as with the mortar whose name begins post mortem (50–51 above) is “diu-perseverans-aslong-as-lyf-and-lycame-may-duyre” ; it half-quotes, half-translates Matt 10:22: “qui autem perseveraverit usque in finem.” The verse is part of the passage in Matthew that contains Jesus’s instructions to the apostles, corresponding to Luke 10:7, quoted above, line 44a (B.13.39a). “Diu” is a natural enough addition, “diu perseverare” being a quite common phrase, as in Hildegard, “humilitatem attendite, et in ea diu perseverate” (PL 197.293), though it is as often

20

C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

used in a bad sense, of persevering in vice, as in the good sense here. Schmidt, however, by printing the reading “dia” of many manuscripts of both versions—the harder reading, and probably right—draws attention to what is surely a pun on “dya,” potion, a word L uses at 22.174 (B.20.174); (Schmidt 1987:92). Indeed the whole two-word phrase might be thought of as bilingual, either Latin “diu perseverans” or English “the drug perseverance.” 58 “This is a semely seruyce,” saide pacience (B.13.52 “Here is propre seruice,” quod Pacience, “∂er fare∂ no Prince bettre”): A deft C revision. Patience protests too much in B; the matter-of-fact remark in C is funnier. 59–62 Thenne cam contricion . . . non despicies (B.13.53–58a And he brou√te vs . . . non despicies): Since contricion is the motion of the will that must precede acts of penitence, it (he?) is properly said to prepare the dishes. (In B no cook is mentioned.) Contrition will have a central role in the last scene of the poem. A pytaunce (60; B.13.57) is a tiny portion of food; OED, s.v. pittance, n. 2, but originally a gift to a religious house to allow an extra portion of food (the first meaning in OED). Its name is “For this shall everyone that is holy pray to thee in a seasonable time,” Ps 31:6 (te is God; pro hac means “because of thy forgiveness,” referring to the end of verse 5, “and thou hast forgiven the wickedness of my sin”). Thus the pittance is forgiveness, a gift from God: L plays on the two meanings. As forgiveness, it differs little from the “comfort” Conscience offers in the next two lines in both versions (in C, along with bothe clergie and scripture): “A contrite and humbled heart, O God, thou wilt not despise” (Ps 50:19). Though this comfort is spoken, it is food, too: see OED, s.v. comfort, v. 4. In the B version, the pittance of forgiveness follows a mees of oo∂er mete from the same two Psalms (both among the seven penitential psalms: cf. Alford, Quot. B.13.53, and above, 5.46n): Ps 31.1, Beati quorum . . . et quorum tecta sunt peccata, Blessed are they whose (iniquities are forgiven), and whose sins are covered (i.e., need not be confessed, because already forgiven through penitence—it is a dish of derne shrifte, B.13.55; see B.14.94n); Ps 31.2, Beatus vir, Blessed is the man (to whom the Lord hath not imputed sin); cf. Ps 31:5, Dixi [&] confitebor [tibi], I said, “And I will confess to you” (& is L’s addition, as is tibi for Domino); Psalm 50:3, Miserere mei deus, Have mercy on me, O God. In B it is tempting to see a clear progression, between the mess and the pittance, from penitence to forgiveness, though the cancellation of B.13.53–55 in C suggests that L had no such progression in mind: the meal, like the Psalms, intermingles penitence with trust in the Lord’s mercy.

The guests are seated and dinner is served

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61 Consience confortede vs, bothe clergie and scripture: I.e., all three waited on us. 64 (B.13.60) made hym mer∂e with his mete: Cf. Charity at 16.343 (B.15.217), who is “murieste of mouthe at mete 3er he sitteth.” See 32–33n above. 65 (B.13.61) faste: Steadily, continuously, eagerly, hard. 65a (B.13.61a) Ve vobis . . . vinum: “Woe to you that are mighty to drink wine” (Isaiah 5:22). Schmidt quotes verse 21, “Woe to you that are wise in your own eyes and prudent in your own conceits,” as “account[ing] for the one quoted” (1995 edition of B), and “[having] special relevance to the Doctor’s situation, as will appear” (Parallel-Text edition). Note also verse 23, “That justify the wicked for gifts”: that is precisely the charge leveled against friars in line 47 (B.13.42) above. 66 (B.13.62) poddynges: A meat dish, haggis: a sausage consisting of the stomach or one of the entrails of a domestic animal, stuffed with minced meat, etc. and boiled (OED pudding n., 1).

Will resents the doctor’s food (64–93, B.13.60–85) 68–73a Thenne saide y . . . frygore &c (B.13.64–67a Thanne seide I . . . quadragenas &c): Will cloaks his envy (y mournede euere 64, B.13.60) in righteous indignation. See Romaunt of the Rose, 6178–81, where Fals-Semblant boasts that as a “fals religious” (6157) he prefers religious who are proud, who “feyne hem pore, and hemsilf feden/With gode morcels delicious,/And drinken good wyn precious,/And preche us povert and distresse” (Roman de la Rose 11014–17). Again, Love says to him, “Thou semest an hooly heremyte” (6481), and he replies, “ ‘Soth is, but I am an ypocrite.’/‘Thou gost and prechest poverte.’/‘Ye, sir, but richesse hath pouste.’/‘Thou prechest abstinence also.’/ ‘Sir, I wole fillen, so mote I go,/My paunche of good mete and wyn,/As shulde a maister of dyvyn;/For how that I me pover feyne,/Yit alle pore folk I disdeyne’ ” (6482–90, Roman de la Rose 11202–10). What penaunce . . . ioye: what penances all who desired to come to any kind of joy suffered; not in B. (Penaunce is probably plural both here and in line 72, with assimilation of the final -s; cf. 73a and penaunces B.13.66.) In enlarging the subject of the sermon in the C version, L probably imagines the doctor preaching about the desert fathers: see B.15.269–71, “Lo! in legenda

22

C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

sanctorum, 3e lif of holy Seintes,/What penaunce and pouerte and passion 3ei suffrede,/In hunger, in hete, in alle manere angres,” followed soon by reference to St Paul (though to working with his hands rather than to his sufferings; B.15.290–91). Compare further 83 below (B.13.76–77), on friars preaching about Christ’s sufferings for man, to B.15.260–68 (also C.16.327–29). In effect, Anima in B.15 preaches the sermon the doctor preached at St Paul’s. L uses penance throughout in the general sense “suffering”; thus, as line 87 makes explicit, the friar has been preaching Patience, and now fails to recognize his subject when they meet in person. 70 At poules (B.13.65 bifore ∂e deen of Poules): At St Paul’s Cross, the outdoor cross-pulpit in the churchyard of St Paul’s cathedral in London, a venue that suggests the doctor’s stature; see 11.54n. 73a In fame et frygore &c (B.13.67–67a In fame & frigore and flappes of scourges:/Ter cesus sum . . . quadragenas &c: In hunger and cold, etc., cf. 2 Cor 11:27. In C L picks (with a purpose; see 74–75a) two of the perils in which St Paul “glories” (2 Cor 11:30). In B he adds flappes of scourges (blows from whips): “Thrice was I beaten” (2 Cor 11:25), “five times (did I receive) forty stripes (save one)” (2 Cor 11:24). 74–83 (B.13.68–77) Ac . . . tholede: parenthetical polemic, in the present tense (me wondreth 74, me thynketh 78, ouerhuppen B.13.68); the sense continues directly from 73 to 84 (B.13.67 to 78). Pearsall punctuates the lines as “a parenthetic comment by Langland,” but I still hear Will, and I don’t think it “unlikely that [he] would claim to know Latin.” He does know Latin, and he is not bashful about making claims. 74–79 Ac me wondreth . . . yclothed (B.13.68–73a Ac . . . fratribus): They preach at Paul’s about Paul but avoid Paul’s message: in fame . . . frygore above now appears to be, not L’s random choice from among Paul’s perils, but a self-serving substitution by the friar for periculis in falsis fratribus, perils from false brethren, listed by Paul in the previous verse, 2 Cor 11:26. It would in fact have been very risky for a friar preaching in Langland’s time to call attention to Paul’s phrase (see also 80–81 below), for it had been fully exploited by antifraternal writers from William of St Amour on (see Szittya 1986: 33–34, 91, 110–12, 121, 171, 181), and is related to the common satirical association of the friars with Cain, who was the original falsus frater. Will cheats, of course, by changing Paul’s ablative periculis, the last of eight repetitions of the word, to the emphatic declaration periculum est, a move already

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half-made by Uthred of Boldon and Wyclif. Uthred’s Contra querelas fratrum (1367–68; ed. Marcett 1938) opens with the words Periculum in falsis fratribus. Uthred probably intended this incipit to be his title, in the medieval way (Kerby-Fulton regards it as the title, 2006:375), though as part of his text the phrase is probably meant to be construed as a sentence, with the verb est understood. Wyclif explicitly added est: see De perfectione statuum (Polemical Works, II, 471–72, cited in Szittya 1986:171). (The title Contra querelas fratrum is not in the manuscripts; it is probably John Bale’s; see Marcett p. 65.) Uthred goes on to argue that Paul listed false brethren last because, being hidden, it was graver than all the other dangers (Marcett 1938:25–26). (See Knowles 1951 for some corrections to Marcett, including the spelling Uthred for her Uhtred and a closer specification of the date). Ofte 75 is cheating too. In fact St Paul speaks of “false brethren” in just one other place, Gal 2:4—though cf. 1 Cor 5:11, 2 Thess 3:6, both on brothers up to no good, and William of St Amour’s association of friars with other false types—prophets, apostles—who are harped on by Paul, Szittya 1986:31–61. By preaching at Paul’s, the doctor emphasizes the contrast between Paul, the true apostle (often simply called Apostolus by medieval writers), and himself, the false brother or pseudo-apostle. Among the forty-one signs William lists for distinguishing false apostles from true, all gleaned from passages in the New Testament, are that “they love fine food . . . (sign 29); they are selective about what is offered to them (sign 26); they eat frequently at strangers’ tables and so seem flatterers (sign 33, 2 Thess 3:8–9),” Szittya 1986:54. There is still further and more blatant cheating in B.13.71–73a, where we are made to suppose that line 73a (Let every man beware of his brother for, as is said, there is danger in false brothers) is holy lettre. It is not, though it almost is. Alford, Quot. says the source is unknown, but it is surely Jeremiah 9:4, “Unusquisque se a proximo suo custodiat, et in omni fratre suo non habeat fiduciam (Let every man take heed of his neighbour, and let him not trust in any brother of his). The C revision draws back from that blatant cheating, but not very far. Whereas the translation is coyly withheld in B, C withholds the Latin (the doctored Jeremiah) but in effect translates it, specifying the danger as flattery: C.15.76 wysly hem kepe reflects B.13.73a se custodiat. (The reason given in B for not translating, that the translation, such a neat couplet in C, would be all too quotable and injure good friars, may imply that the poem in the A version had been well received, that people were quoting it, “rehearsing it often.”) The way false friars flatter is by offering easy absolution, flattering you that you are in the state of grace, in exchange for a donation, as Friar Flatterer

24

C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

does at the end of the poem, 22.363–70 (B.20.363–70). See 22.235n, 313–15n, and Lawler 2006. 78–79 Ac me thynketh . . . yclothed: Although the Wycliffite translation was probably in circulation by the time of C, Thogh y latyn knowe 78 alludes primarily to the same idea that is in B, that since the bible was unavailable in English its “warning”—the doctored verse from Jeremiah quoted in B—is only known to Latinists, but perhaps secondarily also to the fact that the double meaning of frater is not reproducible in English. The apology (me thynketh loth . . . to lacken) seems utterly perfunctory, of course, since the damage is done. Its exact nature, nevertheless, is teasing. In all likelihood, the referent of 78 secte is to the whole class of friars, and line 79 refers, not to the different habits worn by different orders, but to the differences between the “frere frokke” (16.355) in general and the dress of secular clergy or laymen. (Some have thought, however, that L was a friar; Lawrence Clopper in particular thought it “probable” [1997:325]; see his careful discussions in his Introduction, 1–24 and his Afterword, 325–33; and see 47–50a [B.13.42–45a] note above). Wyclif liked to call the fraternal orders “sects,” though he also uses the word to designate whole classes of religious such as friars, monks, canons (see his De fundatione sectarum, in Polemical Works, I, 13–80 and Szittya 1986:180–82). For L the word “secte” almost always means clothing, that is, the characteristic garb of a profession or class or order; he may have used it interchangeably with “sute.” See 12.133 (B.11.245; 16.357 (B.15.232); 6.38; 16.97, 99 (B.14.257, 259); also 7.129, 136, 140 (B.5.487, 490, 496), “in oure secte,” where it is a metaphor for “flesh.” Even when he uses it to mean the class or order itself, as at 15.13 or 16.295, the idea of clothing is at least implicitly present, since so many groups in medieval society had a characteristic dress. And indeed what is meant here may be something much broader than friars vs. seculars or laymen: it may refer to the variety of professions in general: cf. the diuisiones gratiarum, 21.227–55, esp. 254, “Loke 3at noen lacke o3ere (sc. craft) bute loueth as bretherne”; and see 12.110, 116: Christ’s blood made us brothers. As for not “lacking”: Will has already been told by five teacher figures not to lack: 2.51 (B.2.248) (Holy Church); 8.85 (Piers); 12.40 (B.11.106) (Leaute); 13.206 (B.11.388) (Reason); 14.6 (cf. B.12.97) (Ymaginatif), and will be told so again by two more: 19.103 (Hope) and 21.254 (B.19.254) (Grace). Thus, perfunctory though it seems, the apology (like that at 13.26, “leueth nat . . . 3at y lacke rychesse” or B.15.249, “Ac I ne lakke no lif”) should probably be taken as a sincere attempt, however brief, on Will’s part to be patient (so Pearsall in his first edition, citing 13.205–6). (On the near absence of the verb lakken in

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the A version, and its burgeoning importance in the B version, see Lawler 1996:163–65.) 80 fyue mendynant√: One of three references in the C version to five orders of friars; the others are at 8.191 (“alle 3e fyue ordres”) and 9.344 (“alle fyue ordres”). But Prol.56 retains foure, the number used in A and B (A.Prol.55, B.Prol.58 ⳱ C.Prol.56; A 8.176 ⳱ B 7.198 [where ms. R has fyue] ⳱ C 9.145); thus L has retained the AB reading in the Prologue but changed it in passus 9, and added two more references to the orders, and in this one specified mendicants). He is by no means alone in speaking of five orders. Jack Upland mentions “3e fyue ordris” (83) objected to in Friar Daw’s Reply 84, which insists that there are only four. And wills provide further evidence: see below. Four is, of course, the standard number, going back ultimately to the Council of Lyons of 1274, which (mainly to place a limit on mendicancy) prohibited all orders of friars except the Franciscans, Dominicans, Carmelites, and Augustinians from taking in novices, and so ensured their gradual extinction. However certain orders managed to elude this edict, apparently because they had sufficient endowment to make begging unnecessary. These included the Trinitarians and the Friars of the Holy Cross or Crutched Friars, both of whom maintained houses in England right up to the dissolution by Henry the Eighth in 1534–38. Since neither of these groups were mendicants, however, the phrase here raises doubt whether either can be what L had in mind. On this basis Ralph Hanna, in his note to 8.191 above, has settled on the Pied Friars, an offshoot of the Carmelites who did beg. A small piece of evidence on the matter is provided by Chaucer’s translation of the Romance of the Rose (ll. 7456–60), listing five orders, Dominicans, Franciscans, Augustinians, Carmelites, and Sacks (where the French text [ed. Lecoy, ll.12102–7] lists four: it has the Sacks but not the Augustinians). Andrews 2006:221 asserts that the Friars of the Sack were gone by early in the fourteenth century, but argues (222) that this line in RR helped keep their memory alive. Despite Ralph Hanna’s conclusion, and despite Chaucer’s keeping the Sacks, when I weigh all the evidence it seems to me that the likeliest candidate for the fifth order—unless it is an ironic reference to the hermits on the highway who beg in friar-clothing and are called friars, C.9.189–255—is indeed the Crutched Friars, for whose activity in London in the late fourteenth century there is ample evidence. They had a house in St Olave’s parish near the Tower, on a street adjacent to the street still called Crutched Friars Street (in the City, a block south of Aldgate Street) (Ro¨hrkasten 2004:62). Their strong presence in London is evident in the taxation rolls cited in McHardy, 1977; see her

26

C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

index, s.v. Crutched Friars. For the phrase “five orders,” see especially Ro¨hrkasten 1996:473 and Virginia Davis, “Mendicants” and Clergy, passim. Davis in Clergy 33n says that the Crutched Friars, though “not technically a mendicant order” were “usually treated as such,” and says that in “many London wills” “bequests are left ‘to the five orders of friars’ ”; she cites one such will. See also her “Mendicants,” esp. p. 4. and n23. Even more aptly for our purpose, Ro¨hrkasten, whose study of bequests to friars in wills is definitive, says that “Only about 10 per cent of the testators mentioned the number of five mendicant orders while 18.5 percent indicated that as far as they were concerned there were only four friaries in the city. This does not mean that they ignored the Crutched Friars; on the contrary, many of this group not only included the smallest of the convents in their wills but actually named them together with the others, maintaining the differentiation” (1996:473). In a note he cites a typical such differentiation: “Cuilibet domui fratrum XII denarios ac etiam domui S. Crucis XII denarios” (To each house of friars twelve pence, and twelve pence also to the house of the Holy Cross). This suggests that Langland’s “four” and “five” are both normal. Hayden 1995 lists English ordinations to the order, and shows ample activity, mostly in London, throughout the second half of the fourteenth century. P. L. Heyworth, in his edition of Jack Upland, p. 119, opts for the Crutched Friars. They were still around in 1534: see Roth 1966: 2.445–46. Meanwhile, Robert Swanson, whose knowledge of the fourteenth-century English church is unrivaled, has suggested that the fifth order may be the Trinitarians, who were not friars but were often thought to be friars, and were more numerous and prominent than the Crutched Friars. See Swanson 2007: 63–64, 144–45. 82–83 (B.13.76–77) They preche . . . tholede: The friar preaches penance, as the apostles did when they went out in twos (Mark 6:12), and as Francis did in imitation of them (Celano, First Life, 1.22, 23, Habig 1983:247); and he preaches “Christ crucified,” as St Paul did (1 Cor 1:23), and as Chaucer’s Host says “freres doon in Lente,/To make us for oure olde synnes wepe” (Clerk’s Prologue, E12–13). See Fleming 1977:126 and Owst 1926:147, who quotes Chaucer’s lines. Faus Semblant, of course, preaches penitence too, in the forms of poverty, distress, and abstinence; see the note to 68–73a above. 84 decretistre of Canoen: Canon lawyer, one versed in the decretals. 86 (B.13.79) Hath no pyte on vs pore: i.e., won’t pass the mortreux; see 115 (B.13.107–8). Will complains that the friar preaches penance without practicing

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27

it; but he seems no more willing to suffer himself. He has utterly forgotten Ymaginatif’s counsel “no clergie to despice/Ne sette shorte by here science, whatso 3ei doen hemsulue/. . ./Laste cheste chaufe vs to choppe vch man o3er” (14.64–68, B.12.121–25). B.13.83 Mahoun: I.e., a devil; see 20.293 and OED, s.v. Mahound, n. Will’s basic wish is that the doctor were in hell, and undergoing this Dantesque punishment. The C version is much milder. 91 (B.13.84) iurdan, iuyste: the former is a vessel doctors used for urinalysis, the latter a drinking-pot with handles; see OED. s.v. jordan, n.1 and just, n.2. Since both had a narrow neck and a round belly, the line is pleonastic. Iurdan, however, suggests strongly that we have here a satiric portrait of Friar William Jordan, O. P., Doctor of Theology, a major Dominican spokesman (Gelber 2004:50) who had engaged in controversy with Uthred of Boldon: see Marcett 1938:57–64, Gwynn 1943:2–4, 19–24; Russell 1966:113; Middleton 1987:31–32n; Kerby-Fulton 2006:375. (Clopper 1997:239n accepts the “one-liner directed at Jordan” a little reluctantly “as a local allusion that does not detract from the overall Franciscan character of the scene.” B.13.85 ra∂er: I.e., three or four days ago at St Paul’s, B.13.65–66 (C.15.69–70). B.13.86 Pacience . . . preynte on me to be stille: See also 120 (B.13.113), where Conscience winks on Patience to pray Will to be quiet, and 20.19 (B.18.21), where Faith “printe” (B preynte) on Will when he asks after Piers. Here, the word is an editorial conjecture for “wynkede” in the majority of B mss; clearly the archetype had already substituted the more common verb. Burrow 2000:80–82, 2002:103–5 discusses “prinken” and concludes that the gesture is our modern wink of the eye, but that it carried more weight then. Stephen Barney has suggested to me that it is more a wince than a wink. 92 apose hym what penaunce is and purgatorie on erthe: i.e., ask him if he realizes what a penance it is to be poor, and have one’s purgatory on earth: see 82, 86–87 above, and, on purgatory on earth for the poor, 9.279 (B.7.106, A.8.88) and “The Simonie,” ed. Dean, 1996, l. 509.

Patience calms Will down (93–105, B.13.86–98) 94–105 (B.13.87–98) Thow shalt se . . . penaunce: Patience, true to his name, advises passiveness, not action: “Let him talk first,” doing so in a supercharged version of the extravagant language that will turn out to be his hallmark. He

28

C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

utters a satiric tour de force of prediction of what the doctor will say, namely that in eating and drinking as he did he was actually doing penance. His predictions, however, are not borne out at all in the lines that follow: instead, rather anticlimactically, the doctor just coughs and gapes 108 (coughs and carps B.13.101, and nearly all C mss.), and then Patience asks him about the three Do’s. But of course L could hardly have shown the doctor fulfilling the prediction in any detail; the point rather is for Patience to quiet Will down by saying, “Let him convict himself”—and the doctor apparently does that by coughing and gaping, that is, revealing how ill his overeating has made him, though the unspecified “carping” in B (and the C majority) may consist of the sort of arrogant self-justification Patience has predicted. The details of the passage are hard, since Patience speaks with his usual playful irony (see 32–33n above, and Simpson 2007:142–43); I shall do my best to explicate them one by one. 95 (B.13.88) poffe: pant, breathe hard: his stomach pain makes speaking painful. See OED 1.b, which cites this passage. 96 (B.13.89) And thenne shal his gottes gothelen: as Glutton’s did, 6.398; cf. also 108 Cowhede to 6.412, where Glutton “cowed vp a caudel.” Patience is clearly playing on Will’s mention of penaunce 92 (B.13.85); in C he may be playing further on the idea of purgatorie on erthe: the doctor has purgation problems right now. 97–100 (B.13.90–93) For now he hath dronke . . . fode for a penante: a most difficult passage of satiric hyperbole. Its gist is that the doctor will defend himself ingeniously by arguing either that rich food is penitential because, as 95–96 (B.13.88–89) say, it gives you a stomach ache, makes you suffer, or that what appears to be brawn and so on is in fact merely bread and soup. Bacon and brawn are flesche, i.e., meat, blaunmanger and mortrewes contain meat; mortrewes can also contain fische. Though he will deuyne, that is, argue ingeniously a difficult theological point (cf. B.10.185–88), his manner of argument will in fact be typically Langlandian, “preving” by taking a text or person or anecdote “to witness”—cf., e.g., Recklessness proving that the poor are close to God, 12.98–176a, where the word “witness” is used four times, “preven” twice, “testify” and “accord” once each, and ll. 170–75 are a special rush of authorities testifying and proving. See 20.275–76 for a similar statement about phony friar-argumentation, proving by Seneca that all things should be in common.

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Sui generis though this outburst seems, it is actually like Study’s tirade in B.10 at a number of points. The basic idea, that the doctor will be too addled by food and drink to talk sense, is just what Study has said: he is one of those who “puten for3 presumpcion to preue 3e so3e” and “dryuele at hir deys . . . whanne hir guttes fullen” (B.10.56–58). Drawing on Job, Jeremiah, and the Psalms, Study all through her speech contrasts the prosperous wicked to the just poor, just as Will contrasts this prosperous, arrogant doctor to himself, poor deserving Will. The doctor is “a frere to seke festes” (B.10.95), a “maister” “moving motives in his glory” (cf. B.10.117). Since Will and Patience are offered none of the good food, he “3us parte3 wi3 3e pouere a parcell [i.e., turns them away] whan hym nede3” (B.10.64); he is one of those who “in gaynesse and glotonye forglutten hir good/And breke3 no9t to 3e beggere as 3e book teche3:/Frange esurienti panem tuum &c” (B.10.84–85a). He “prech[e3] at Seint Poules” “that folk is no9t . . . sory for hire synnes” (B.10.74–76). He speaks of “a trinite” if not “3e Trinite” (B.10.54). And so on; we see L here reworking a set of ideas he has already used. The first witness here, here pocalips, is probably not (pace Pearsall and Schmidt) The Apocalypse of Golias, though that text does satirize corrupt clergy and ends in a long scene featuring gluttonous monks, who at one point assert that by the “sore pains” of drinking they come to know heaven’s bliss (ed. Wright, 1841, ll. 379–80), but why it should be “their” Apocalypse is troubling. Alternatively, the phrase may mean “their (the friars’) mumbo-jumbo, their clever apocalyptic way of speaking” or “their own ‘Revelation,’ ” in which they reveal such things as why bacon and so on are penitential foods, or that this or that angel mentioned in the Book of Revelation is Francis. Certainly the long association between the Franciscan Spirituals and Joachism is a sufficient background for accusing friars of having made the Apocalypse their own, even though the Spirituals characteristically used their apocalypticism to argue for a life of poverty, not indulgence. See Leff 1967a:1.51–255 and, for Peter John Olivi, Burr 1993; in his first two chapters, he gives a full review of Franciscan Joachism before Olivi. On the internal Franciscan disputes, see Lambert 1998, Clopper 1997:27–54, and Burr 2011. Another possibility is opened up by this verse from St Paul [1 Cor 14:26]: “Quid ergo est, fratres? Cum convenitis, unusquisque vestrum psalmum habet, doctrinam habet, apocalypsin habet, linguam habet, interpretationem habet. Omnia ad aedificationem fiant.” “How is it then, brethren? When you come together, every one of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a revelation [an apocalypse], hath a tongue, hath an interpretation. Let all things be done unto edification.” Although Paul is not speaking disparagingly, the exhortation at the end of the sentence implies the possibility of a kind of

30

C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

pandemonium if it is not followed—everyone with something to say, but bringing about not edification but ruin. Though I have not found it, it is hard to imagine that this verse, with its “fratres cum convenitis” at the head and its little potential scene of glib chaos, was not used satirically by antifraternal writers, and if so the word “apocalypse” may play a key role. In any case, our friar has his little revelation (or, rather, Patience imagines he does). ße passioun of seynt Aueroy is still more obscure. “Passion” here perhaps does not mean “suffering and martyrdom,” as it regularly does in the martyrologies, but just “suffering,” or “hard life,” the sort of heroic abstinence one associates with saints: once again Anima’s “sermon” in B.15 is relevant: the desert fathers’ “penaunce and pouerte and passion” (B.15.270) consists above all in eating simply. In contradistinction to this, Patience predicts, the friar will offer, in proof of his proposition, the suffering of St Aueroy from too much fine food. But St Aueroy (B Auereys) has been a puzzle. Pearsall in his first edition, following Skeat, suggests St Avoya, “who was fed in her torment with fine bread from heaven—a useful twist to the doctor’s argument that good food and suffering go together,” and also mentions St Aurea, “a Spanish solitary, better known, who is said to have drunk only what she could distil from cinders.” Schmidt says it is either one of these “or an imaginary saint (the B form echoing Avarice) suited to the Doctor, whose own ‘passion’ would presumably result from over-indulgence.” Middleton (1987) has argued powerfully that the reference is simply to the Arab philosopher Averroes, here “sainted” by the friar for his materialism in a brilliant satiric thrust on L’s part against fraternal materialism in general. Again the historic disputes within the Franciscan order seem relevant, since the place of secular learning, in which Averroes’s thought was prominent, was a major issue. Peter John Olivi, the major Franciscan Joachist, in his Postilla on the Apocalypse made the study of Averroes a prominent mark of the carnal church (Leff 1967a:1.125). Pearsall in his revised edition drops his earlier suggestions and accepts Averroes. But this explanation, as Schmidt points out, leaves “passioun” imperfectly explained: in what sense did Averroes suffer? Yet another possibility (very like Schmidt’s imaginary saint) is that the word meant is “Auerous,” avaricious, and that the “Passion of St Avaricious” is invented as a partner-text to the “Apocalypse of Gluttony.” (On how avarice suffers—not as severely as Gluttony—see 6.272–85; avarice is relevant because fine food is expensive; see 44–45.) But Golias is not necessarily “Gluttony,” and there is no reason to suppose that the common word “averous,” even in connection with “saint,” would be mishandled by scribes, who had no trouble with “Erl Auerous” (10.86, B.8.89, A.9.80). On the whole, the best explanation seems to lie in the Franciscan

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disputes; though L elsewhere shows some sympathy with the Spirituals’ position, this line strikes at fraternal intellectual extremism in general by ridiculing both sides. 101–3 (B.13.94–96) And thenne shal he testifie . . . leue me neuere aftur: “And then he will tick off three proofs that he found in a pamphlet about how a friar should live his life, and get his companion to back him.” Clopper 1997:76, referring to this passage, says that “Patience ridicules the mendicant habit of using trinities to gloss away their Rule.” Irritatingly, he provides no evidence for this remark, and I do not know what glosses he has in mind, but it is true that a lot of fraternal writers love to number their thoughts. The Summa theologica is an obvious example, as are the Legenda aurea, Bonaventure’s Minor Life of St Francis, and Olivi’s Rule Commentary. This habit seems to me to be as good an explanation as any for the doctor’s trinite. A forel is “a case or covering in which a book or manuscript is kept, or into which it is sewn” (OED, s.v. forel, n. 1c). “Lyuynge” can mean “way of life,” “rule of life,” or it can mean “livelihood, means of getting a living.” Pearsall, apparently settling on the latter, glosses the line “What (poor) fare he [i.e. his felowe] found in a friar’s box of provisions.” This presumably means that the friar will argue further that his fellow brought his dinner with him, obtained by begging, and is asking for himself a kind of guiltlessness by association. But the line is more likely to mean “what he, the friar-doctor, found in a pamphlet on the fraternal way of life,” i.e., further specious defense of la dolce vita. And then the furste leef is simply the first page of that book or pamphlet. Of course, if the first leaf is lies, so are all the other leaves: it is “lies from the word go.” Cf. 22.248–50, 274–75. Or does the first leaf take up the topic mendacium? 104–5 (B.13.97–98) And thenne is tyme . . . penaunce: Why is thenne the time to quiz the friar about Dowel, etc.? Not, probably, because he will have brought up the subject of trinities (Patience can’t have that much confidence in his prediction), but simply because having spoken first, and probably incoherently, he can now be spoken to: Will’s error was to want to be the first to speak. And Patience also deftly redefines what Will is to ask about, deflecting the issue of “penaunce” to a subordinate and nonconfrontational position in the question (though Will will manage soon enough to deliver his challenge directly). to take and to appose: to begin to challenge, a phrase a little like our saying “go ahead and challenge” instead of just “challenge”; this is a similar filler, and provides the poet with an alliterating stave. The phrase “take and” is used by L only here, and not treated by either OED, MED, or Kane,

32

C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

Glossary; but see MED, s.v. take, meanings 37–39a. Yf dobest be eny penaunce: i.e., Isn’t the best life one of suffering and self-denial?

Will questions the doctor, then challenges the answer (106–18, B.13.99–111) 107 (B.13.100) As rody as a rose: Whiting R200, though not commonly used for the flush of overindulgence, as it is here. 108–9 (B.13.101–2) Cowhede and capede (B carped), and consience . . . trinite: All B mss. read carped(e), as do all but five C mss. Skeat and Schmidt have carpede in both versions. RK-C include capede on p. 80 as part of a very long list of “small lexical and rhetorical differences” between B and C that may be scribal but may also be L’s “minute revision” and so are “accepted as features of the revised version” (78). Ms. X of C very clearly reads capede. If L indeed wrote capede, he forgot that Patience’s prediction obliges him to have the doctor speak. If he merely coughs and gapes, the prediction looks foolish; if he speaks, we can assume, as we do in B, that he drivels in some way more or less like what was predicted. And consience hym herde: Heard him cough? Surely he heard him speak. Note that it is Conscience who opens the dialogue with the doctor, not Patience, who is after all at this point nothing but Will’s tablemate; Conscience is the host, and thus the right person to speak. But we have to assume that he has overheard Will and Patience’s conversation. 109 (B.13.102) tolde hym of a trinite: Apparently with ironic reference to the self-serving trinite (101, B.13.94) Patience has predicted that the friar will cite to justify his indulgence, Conscience brings up a trinity with real moral import. We might think of him as saying, “Will here has a trinity on his mind that he would like to ask you about.” 109 (B.13.102) and toward me [B vs] he lokede: The scene is alive to the decorum of the dream vision: a threatening opponent is wisely softened by the guide before the protagonist confronts him. Cf. Inferno 29, in the tenth bolgia, where Vergil first speaks to Griffolino and Capocchio, propped against each other and scraping their scabs, but when he finds they are Italian, draws close to Dante and says, “Say to them what you want.” Similarly, in the eighth bolgia, Cantos 26 and 27, Vergil has spoken to Ulysses and Diomede, because “being Greeks, they might disdain your speech,” but has let Dante speak to Guido da Montefeltro: “He touched me on the side and said, ‘You talk; he’s

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Italian.’ ” Cf. also Wit silently gesturing to Will to speak to Study, B.10.140–46. Cf. B.13.86 and note, and C.15.119–20 and note. 110 (B.13.103) “What is dowel . . . is dobest eny penaunce?”: Will, perhaps after all a little cowed, truncates his question, in the second part merely parroting what Patience said in line 105 (B.13.98); the doctor will ignore that part. The question is a mere trap, designed to enable Will to retort with the charge that the doctor does not practice what he preaches. Conscience takes it seriously, though, and will rephrase it at 122 (B.13.115) to include Dobet—and get a fuller answer. 111–13 “Dowel? . . . avowe” (B.13.104–5 “Dowel . . . power): If the friar’s answer is put in what may seem to us (and seemed to Robertson and Huppe´, 1951:162, Middleton 1972:180, and many others) a curiously negative way, it may be only because the language is poor in n-words to alliterate with neyhebore. (In B.13.105 the alliteration is also on n: “3yn euencristen” is to be pronounced “3y neuencristen.”) Pearsall aptly cites Piers’s similar formulation at 7.211, “9oure neyhebores nexst in none wyse apayre.” Both places are free translations of Ps 14:3, “Qui . . . non fecit proximo suo malum.” Ps 14 has an honored place in the poem (see 2.42n), and will be cited soon by Clergie. The rhetorical situation, indeed, requires an orthodox answer, so that Will can retort with the charge that the doctor fails to practice what he preaches. Nevertheless, the fuller answer in C, adding not harming oneself (after which the doctor does himself a favor by taking a drink, as if to remind everyone of his selfish conduct at dinner), even though we are enjoined to love our neighbor as ourselves (see B.13.141 and note below), sounds more than a little arrogant. B.13.105 nou√t by ∂i power: not if you can help it. 114–18 “Sertes, sire” . . . in die iudicij” (B.13.106–11 “By ∂is day, sire doctour . . . I am in point to dowel”): Probably the doctor is satisfied with his peremptory reply, as he says at 123 (though that line has no counterpart in B), but it is possible that Will interrupts him here. In any case, Conscience thinks he deserves a chance to speak further. To take C first: √e passeth means “you fail in respect to” (Kane, Glossary), “you evade”; the doctor “walks right past” dowel. Et visitauit & fecit redempcionem &c: Luke 1:68, (with et for quia) from Zachary’s song of joy at the birth of John the Baptist: “(Blessed be the Lord, God of Israel, because) he hath visited and wrought the redemption (of his people).” God has performed the redemption he promised; and he has also restored Zachary’s speech, as

34

C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

Gabriel promised (Luke 1:20). Altogether, he practiced as he preached. However, by making the omitted subject of the Latin verbs appear to be 116 oure lord, that is, Christ, L appears not to be invoking the actual context of the phrase but using it instead as an emblem of the ministry of Christ to set before the friar, a hands-on way of redeeming, visiting, and doing—including visiting the sick and sharing food—not just teaching, and certainly not just eating. And having failed to feed Will, the doctor failed to feed Christ, as he will learn in die iudicij: “As long as you did it not to one of these least ones, neither did you do it to me” (Matt 25:45); see Matthew’s whole account of Judgment Day, 25:31–46. Verse 43, “I was . . . sick . . . and you did not visit me,” perhaps accounts for the reference to sick friars in the infirmary, and the repeated verb “visitastis/non visitastis” echoes visitauit in the citation from Luke. The friar in Chaucer’s Summoner’s Tale visits a sick man, but without compassion. Finally, cf. Everyman (ed. Bevington 1975:962): as Everyman approaches death and judgment, “All fleeth save Good Dedes,” i.e., dowel. Here Dowel is implicitly defined in terms of the “seven corporal works of mercy,” developed from this passage in Matthew (and is also equated with Christ, the “enditer” on the day of judgment and the major worker of mercy). The works of mercy emerge here and there in the poem, most fully in Scripture’s definition of Dobet at A.11.188–95 (where to “seken out 3e seke” is placed, as it is here, in the context of brotherhood). On visiting the sick, see also 9.34–35 (B.7.30), 7.21 (B.5.405); on providing for them, see Reason’s challenge to Will, that he has no useful craft, “Hem 3at bedreden be byleue to fynden” (5.21); and on caring for them, see above all the Good Samaritan, 19.46–93 (B.17.50–126; also,the account of Christ as healer, 18.138–49 (B.16.103– 18), and the false physic offered by Friar Penetrans-domos in passus 22: by the end of the poem, ministry to the sick has become perhaps the major form of love in action. B.13.109–10, without the reference to Judgment Day to evoke Christ’s words in Matt 25, is murkier: the infirmary seems to come out of nowhere—as do the yonge children. Clearly the charite that sholde be is precisely this ministry to the sick. The cheeste in the convent that replaces it recalls the activity of Wrath among nuns, B.5.153–65. As for the children, along with the sick they are presumably the weakest members of the community, those most in need of charity, but instead the joint victims, in Will’s view, of the doctor’s bullying ways. The standard minimum age for entering an order was the age of legal puberty, fourteen, i.e., when one was no longer a yonge child. But it was commonplace to accuse orders of friars of enticing underage boys to join, and there is sufficient evidence that they actually did. See the good discussion in

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Logan 1996:12–16, who says the practice was “not uncommon in England” (12) but not done “routinely” (16) either. On p. 15 he describes a case involving a seven-year-old. See also Ro¨hrkasten 1996:454 (a case in 1392 in which Crutched Friars, on the wane and desperate for recruits, tried to deceive a ten-year-old into making a profession). Richard Fitzralph, in a well-known anecdote in Defensio curatorum (Heyworth 1968:126, Fowler 1980:236 and 1995:168, Walsh 1981: 424–25), speaks of a boy “not yet 13,” and later claims that “You can scarcely find a friar-place that doesn’t have one whole convent, or at least half a convent, of boys under ten” (ed. Brown, 1690:473, 476). See further Jack Upland, ed. Heyworth 1968, ll. 209–11, 330–34, 347–53 and Heyworth’s notes; Woodford, Responsiones, ed. Doyle 1983:141–42, 167–68, 172–74; Szittya 1986:205–6; and Erickson 1975:112–13, 117–18, though Logan’s discussion is the best informed. Woodford insists that boys are not “stolen,” nor are they recruited before the age of 14 (172), but he admits that the order accepts younger oblates from their parents, though they make no profession until they are 15 (173). B.13.111 I wolde permute . . . dowel: i.e., “if what you are doing—keeping all the best food for yourself—is Dowel, let’s trade penances, for I am keen to do well.” Note that though he asks, “Is Dobest any penaunce?,” Will seems in fact to assume that penance is a necessary part of doing well, perhaps because the friar’s sermon of a few days ago harped on that theme.

An after-dinner contest to define the three D’s (119–69, B.13.112–71) 119–69 Thenne consience . . . techest (B.13.112–71a Than Conscience . . . vincunt): Gruenler 2017:154 argues that the scene “follows a variant of the common folktale pattern of threes by asking the same question of three different people, who give increasingly riddling answers.” He goes on to show how it has elements comparable to both “Solomon and Marcolf” and “St Andrew and the Three Questions.” In “Conscience’s Dinner” (Lawler 1995:91–92) I suggest as a major source the scene in Matthew 22 in which a doctor of the law asks Jesus, “Which is the great commandment of the law?,” i.e., What is Dowel? Jesus’s simple answer—the whole law and prophets boil down to two verses in the Pentateuch—undercuts the doctor by “setting all science at a sop.” Jesus wins a comic victory, as Patience does here by giving what is essentially the same answer. The second-person pronouns offer a guide to the interrelationships of the characters. (I cite B because it has more dialogue; C is consistent with it.) Will (105–11) and Conscience (114–15) call the doctor “you,” as he no doubt

36

C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

expects them to. Clergie calls Conscience “you” when he objects to his leaving (183–87), but switches to the familiar “thou” when they see eye-to-eye at the end of the scene (203–4, 211–14). Conscience calls Clergie “thou” all through (119, 188, 201). Patience begins his reply by using “you” to Conscience (“At youre preiere” 136), but then uses the imperative singular in both Latin and English (137–38); he quotes his lemman as using “thou” to him (140–47); then, interestingly, when he stops quoting her and goes on to speak for himself, he keeps on saying “thou,” as she did to him (148–49, 157 [the imperative singular “Vndo”], 162–63, 164–71). Possibly he is just continuing his lemman’s way of speaking (which is biblical: the imperative singular for commandments); possibly he has turned to address Will, who originally posed the question about Dowel; but, especially because the doctor is the first to reply, I think he is simply talking down to everybody because he knows his answer is superior. The brashness of his “thou” is perhaps one thing that provokes the doctor, and also one thing that Conscience means when he says he has been taken by “3e wil of 3e wye” (190). 119–20 (B.13.112–13) continaunce . . . preynte: Countenance, i.e., a silent sign, a look. Both lines probably refer to the same gesture, i.e., a wink or wince. See B.13.86 and C.15.109 (B.13.102) above (and notes). Why does he make a sign to Patience rather than Will? Apparently Conscience has already perceived the charisma in Patience that will cause him to go off with him at the end of the scene, though allegory perhaps operates as well: Will’s conscience tells him to be patient. From this point in B Conscience will act as master of ceremonies, calling on each person in turn to define Dowel: the doctor at 114, Clergie at 119, Patience at 134 (but KD-B seem to punctuate so as to have Clergie rather than Conscience invite Patience to speak to Clergie; see the note there). In C he calls on the doctor (121) and Clergie (127), but (after Piers speaks and leaves) Patience speaks without being asked.

The doctor goes first (119–26, B.13.112–19) 122 (B.13.115) √e deuynours: Lawton in Alford 1988:238 marks a triple pun in “diviner”: doctor of divinity, quack, and over-imbiber (one who speaks de vino). 123–26a “Y haue yseide . . . vocabitur” (B.13.116–18a “Dowel . . . celorum”): Since the speaker is a doctor himself, his definition of Dowel seems selfserving, and reminiscent of the Minorites in passus 10 who said, “Dowel lives

The doctor goes first

37

with us.” The definition of a dobet seems likewise self-serving, since one meaning of That trauayleth to teche o∂ere can be “One who travels to teach others” (OED, s.v. travail, v. 5), i.e., a member of the Order of Preachers. And it is hard to see why to do as one teaches is “best,” instead of a minimal expectation. To be sure, he is quoting Jesus, who said (line 126a, B.13.118a, which rightly appears inside the quotation marks—the doctor himself cites his source), “Whosoever shall do and teach (the commandments), the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 5:19). In context, however, Jesus is not contrasting teaching to doing, but rather contrasting breaking the commandments, and teaching others to break them, to keeping them and teaching others to keep them. Thus the doctor has quoted scripture to his purpose rather than with full justice. He has come up with a neat schema to answer the progression of the adverbs rather than a genuinely useful progression: he is too taken with the neatness of do, teach, do-and-teach. On the other hand, the doctor’s words could be applied to the difference between a theology teacher in a school and a parish priest: the latter is a teacher who is out in the world doing. (L sometimes uses “teacher” to mean “parish priest”; see 15.242 [B.15.89–90]n and Lawler 2006:86.) From this angle there is a modesty in what he says. See Pearsall’s good note; like Skeat he finds the doctor’s remarks correct but inadequate; and see Lawler 1995:90–91. Schmidt: “The text was earlier cited by Scripture at A.11.196a in defining Dobest as ‘a bishop’s peer’; but the Doctor . . . more probably means learned Mendicants like himself than the episcopal order as a whole.” Why has L changed the Vulgate future perfect fecerit (like docuerit) to the present facit? Apparently to give greater emphasis to doing over teaching: in the phrase “he who does and shall have taught,” the teaching is made to seem remote. The effect is a little like what we are told of Chaucer’s Parson (A497): “First he wroghte, and afterward he taughte.”

Clergie is next (127–36, B.13.119–33) 128–36 “Haue me excused . . . founde” (B.13.120–30 “I haue seuene sones . . . Plowman”): The gist of Clergie’s reply is clear enough, and essentially the same in both versions, though C erases various puzzles in B. Perhaps following the lead of Study, he declines to engage in a scholastic disputation outside of school; one feels that he is counteracting the complacent certitude of the other cleric present, the doctor, with modesty. His assertion—echoing 12.92–95 (B.11.171–73)—that Piers has impugned the sciences in favor of love and reduced all texts to two is surely a reference to Jesus’s reply to the doctor of

38

C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

the law who asked, “Which is the great commandment of the law?” Jesus too quoted two texts, love God and love your neighbor, Deuteronomy 6.5 and Leviticus 19.18, and said, “On these two commandments dependeth the whole law and the prophets” (Matt 22:40). See Middleton 1972:179. Jesus set the law at a sop (B.13.125), reducing it to two rules, presumably to the chagrin of the Pharisee who questioned him, whose doctorate is devalued; the phrase applies to our doctor as well, with the added sting of the food-image in at a sop: the rich meal that presumably he thought his status deserved becomes itself a mere sop. As for Domine, quis habitabit (Ps 14), see Middleton 1972:179–80 on the importance of its “infinite” pronoun quis. As she shows, verses 1–5 of this major psalm are all relevant; however, most pointed of all is presumably verse 3, “qui non . . . fecit proximo suo malum” (nor hath done evil to his neighbour), since it is the equivalent of the second great commandment of the law, love thy neighbor (see B.3.234–45, 9.46–50 [B.7.47–52a, A.8.49–54] for other applications of this psalm to love of neighbor; in the latter passage, it is used to satirize lawyers, as if L thought of it in general as an anti-intellectual text). Verse 3 has just been quoted, all too baldly and flippantly, by the doctor; Clergie restores it to its proper context. Though the B version thus refers to love of both God and neighbor, C makes that clearer by citing the whole phrase from Matthew, dilige deum et proximum, rather than B’s brief lemma Dilige deum. The formula crops up in numerous places in the poem, above all as the wording of Moses’s maundement in passus 19 (B.17); see 19.14, 17 (B.17.13, 16)n. A passage that Clergie does not quote, but which may well be in L’s mind since it defines Dowel clearly in terms of loving one’s neighbor, is James 2:8, “Si tamen legem perficitis regalem secundum scripturas, ‘Diliges proximum tuum sicut te ipsum,’ bene facitis” (If then you fulfill the royal law according to the scriptures, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,” you do well.) Since Clergie’s seven sons in B are replaced in C by the phrase in scole, they are clearly the seven liberal arts, as Crowley asserted long ago (see Skeat). The Castel/Ther ∂e lord of lif wonye∂, and where they seruen, is then presumably Theology, the queen of the disciplines, who will leren hem what is dowel: moral theology refines the ethical ideas encountered in the study of the liberal arts. L may have in mind the seven sons of Japheth or Job or Tobias, or Ruth 4:15, where Naomi is assured that Ruth’s son Obed “is much better to thee than if thou hadst seven sons.” He recasts B.10.155, where Scripture is “sib to 3e seuen art9”, and B.9.1–24, the castle of Anima. The father with seven sons is a folktale and romance motif, Stith Thompson, Motif Index 251.6.3 (also 252.3 seven daughters). The whole little allegory suggests what Clergie goes on to say, that learning must submit to the law of love; the seven arts are in the

Clergie is next

39

process of learning that; eventually Clergie hopes to see them agree with him (122: “until I see that they and I agree”). Middleton 1972:172 says, “Without Piers’s ‘text,’ Clergie’s seven sons cannot define Dowel.” However, Middleton also makes clear that it is precisely through grammar, the first of the arts, and the “grounde of al” in the deeper sense that it represents unchanging truths about the nature of our relation to each other and to the world, that Clergie is able to explain the Infinite, i.e., non-finite, imperfect, insubstantial status of Dowel and Dobet. “Dowel, the object of the search, turns out to be itself an ‘infinite,’ a seeker after its own perfection” (188). For a full exposition of B.13.128–30, read Middleton; in a nutshell, they mean “Dowel and Dobet, both infinitives in their grammatical form and so non-finite, imperfect, and meaningless by themselves, are therefore expressions of the ever-seeking nature of our life: we seek perfection and completion in Dobest, which is the perfect love expressed in the two ‘infinite’ injunctions of Jesus. Virtue is endless, but in the end if you have done your best you will be saved.” Note that Clergie, in looking forward to when he will reach agreement with his sons, is himself also a seeker, a model of the interpretation of the moral life that he propounds. However, for all the disclaimers about learning in his reply, he still manages to be obscurely clerical, so that Conscience’s remark at B.13.131, which means, “I don’t really follow you, but I trust Piers,” is apt. As Middleton grants, “The C-revision, by simplifying or removing most of the grammatical argument from these speeches, seems to acknowledge that in the poet’s final judgment their obscurity largely outweighed their explanatory value” (182). But the central notion of imperfection remains in C, stated directly in 135 through yet one more “impugning” remark by Jesus, Nemo bonus (nisi unus Deus), None is good but one, that is God, Mark 10:18. I find that Middleton’s analysis sheds much more light on the passage than Vance Smith’s treatment of the three D’s in terms of “beginning” (2001:202–11), though his account of the value the passage places on passiveness, and its relation to Patience, is very fruitful. He is wrong to say that Middleton “does not argue that the verb in ‘Dowel’ is itself an infinitive” (206); she certainly does, on p. 175. For some analogies to Clergie’s allegory of his seven sons, see Peter the Chanter, ed. Boutry 2012a:522, where charity’s daughters are the seven beatitudes “and the eighth, which returns to the head” (because it repeats the phrase “theirs is the kingdom of heaven”); Garnier de Rochefort (Garnerius Lingonensis), Sermones, PL 205.723, where since Moses “was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians” (Acts 7:22), the seven daughters of the priest of Midian (Exod 2:16) are the seven liberal arts, which were invented in order to serve theology; and Sigebert of Gembloux, Catalogus de viris illustribus, where

40

C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

appears one Thomas, ninth-century author of an “enigmatic little book” in which Wisdom is the mother of seven daughters, the seven liberal arts (ed. Witte, 1974:89–90) (see Prov 9:1, the seven pillars of wisdom). In Alan of Lille’s Anticlaudianus, the seven arts are seven sisters attendant on Wisdom, though not her daughters. 130 ∂e palmare √ent: Yonder pilgrim, the pilgrim over there—with a gesture, presumably, toward Piers. Cf. B.13.124 ∂e Plowman. Õent occurs twice in the Harrowing of Hell scene, spelled yon, yond, 9one, yone; in both places the daughters of God refer to Christ as “yonder light”: 20.148 (B.18.145), 194 (B.18.189). It is omitted here at 15.130 in many C mss, including HM 137 (P), which Skeat used as his base, so that it was never available in print until Pearsall used HM 143 (X)—but he glossed it “noble,” as if it were “gent” (a genuine ME word that does not appear elsewhere in the poem), so that no one took it as implying Piers’s actual presence. However, words in the family “gentle,” derived from Latin gens, are never spelled in ms. X, or generally in any manuscript, with the letter yogh. Kane 1994:16 identified it for the first time as a form of “yon,” associating it with the reading “ylyke’ in line 33. See also RK-C 156n, Concordance, s.v. yond, and Kane’s Glossary, s.v. yon; Pearsall’s new edition has “over there.” It is thus a significant word indeed, reaffirming Piers’s presence at the dinner shortly before he speaks. B.13.133–35a “Thanne . . . vincunt &c”: KD-B punctuate as if Clergie speaks these lines, though there seems to be little reason not to regard 131–35 as a single utterance by Conscience, as all other editors treat it; see Lawler 1995:91n10. Since Conscience has been fairly well established as Master of Ceremonies, it would surely be his place, not Clergie’s, to call on Patience. 133 ∂is: i.e., that only these texts matter; cf. line 132 and Matt 22:40, “on these two commandments dependeth the whole law and the prophets.” David Aers asserts (1975:88) that Piers’s “proving this in deed” occurs when he explains the tree of charity in passus 16, though “in dede” suggests that the reference is rather to the poem’s account of the redemption in passus 18, Jesus jousting in Piers’s arms, the supreme example of love of God and neighbor in action. 134 Pacience ha∂ be in many place: one meaning of “to be patient” is “to experience”: if you are patient, you “have been through a lot,” and therefore have been in many places. In Ymaginatif’s terms, you have “kynde wit,” which “come3 of alle kynnes si9tes” (B.12.128), contriving many things “of cloudes and of costumes” (customs) (C.14.73). This preferring of “experience” to “authority,” to use Chaucer’s terms, also suggests that the lines belong to Conscience: they would be out of character for Clergie. See Lawler 1995:91–92; Vance Smith 2001:205 writes similarly.

Clergie is next

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137 Pacientes vincunt (B.13.135a Pacientes vincunt &c): “The patient conquer,” or, perhaps, “Those who suffer win.” I will comment here on sources; on the meaning and value of the phrase in the poem, see below 137, 156a (B.13.135a, 171a)n. Skeat says that, though the sentiment is a central idea in medieval culture, this exact formulation is not extant other than here. The statement in Anna Baldwin 1990:72 that it is “a quotation from the apocryphal Testament of Job” is quite misleading: this very early work was never translated into Latin, and the Greek phrase Baldwin refers to is “kreisso¯n estin panto¯n he makrothumia,” patience is superior to everything (Kraft 1974:52–53). In a paper he wrote some time ago but never published, Steven Justice argued that the source may be two contiguous sentences, one with patientes and one with vincunt, in William of St Amour’s De periculis: his twenty-second sign is “quod veri apostoli in tribulationibus patientes sunt,” and his twenty-third, “quod veri apostoli in primo adventu male recipiuntur . . . sed postea vincunt.” (See G. Geltner’s edition of 2008:126.) Recently Lawrence Warner has found the phrase in John Bromyard’s Summa praedicantium (2014:65–66). I find that Thomas of Chobham has vincunt patientes (Summa de commendatione virtutum et extirpatione vitiorum, ed. Morenzoni 1997:160, line 1918). To see just how rampant the idea is, if not the phrase, search vinc* or vic* or supera* or triumpha* Ⳮ patien* in the PL online and the Brepols LLT-A; the latter will show a number of examples from Roman writers as well as Christians. The commonest mode has patientia in the ablative, and vincere transitive: By patience we conquer the devil/wrath/strong enemies, etc. The phrase is certainly not in the bible, and yet B.13.135 as crist bere∂ witnesse is surely right: it may just mean Christ’s passion, the great victorious act of patience, an experience beyond clerking; Burdach 1926–32:3.2.226 n1, says that it refers to “sein gesamtes Leben, Wirken, Leiden, Sterben und seinen Sieg (seine Auferstehung)” (his whole life, deeds, suffering, and dying, and his victory [his resurrection]), and means that Christ through his patience—and passion—“Vorbild und Bu¨rgeschaft ist fu¨r Geduld, Leiden und Sieg seiner Getreuen” (is model and security for the patience, suffering, and victory of his faithful ones), citing 1 Peter 2:21 and four Pauline texts, of which the most apt is 2 Tim 2:12, “if we suffer, we shall also reign with him.” Burdach sees little relevance in Matt 10:22 (which Skeat settles on, followed by Simpson 2007:132), “Qui autem perseveraverit usque in finem, hic salvus erit” (He that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved). (In my opinion, if Skeat wanted to cite the Gospels he should have chosen Matt 5:10, “Beati qui persecutionem patiuntur propter iustitiam, quoniam ipsorum est regnum caelorum” [Blessed are

42

C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

they that suffer persecution for justice’s sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven].) In Juvencus’s hexameter version of the Gospels, Evangelicae historiae libri IV, Matt 5:38–39, in the Sermon on the Mount (You have heard, an eye for an eye, but I say, do not resist evil: turn the other cheek), Jesus says that the law says, “similis vindicta sequatur” (Let like vengeance follow), “Sed tranquilla malum melius patientia vincet,” But calm patience will conquer evil better. L would surely have read that in Peter the Chanter’s good chapter on patience (ed. Boutry 2004:687; for the context in Juvencus, see PL 19.129). Peter further cites Jesus’s famous remark, Matt 11:12, “The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away,” then (p. 688) quotes Jerome, “Nonnisi per pacientiam impletur,” (That remark) is not fulfilled except by patience. Jerome in fact has no such statement; but see Letter 22.40, PL 22.424; Peter the Chanter is apparently interpreting what Jerome says there about seizing heaven by violence as only making sense in terms of patience—as if Jesus is saying that the patient take heaven by storm, they win salvation—and L might have been thinking of this as well. Peraldus and others (as Google shows) cite Jerome similarly, but they are probably parroting Peter the Chanter. At C.15.156 the phrase is called, more generally, of holy writ a partye, which offers a wider field of possibilities for a scriptural source: Prov 16:32, “Melior est patiens viro forte, et qui dominatur animo suo expugnatore urbium” (The patient man is better than the valiant; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh cities); James 1:4, “Patience hath a perfect work, that you may be perfect and entire, failing in nothing” (failing in nothing ⳱ conquering); and James 1:12, “Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; for when he hath been proved he shall receive the crown of life” (endurance ⳱ patience, receiving the crown ⳱ conquering). See also 1 Peter 2:20, “If doing well you suffer patiently, this is thanksworthy before God”—as if the pardon read “Qui bona egerunt et patienter passi sunt ibunt in vitam eternam.” Or, if to do bet is to suffer, as both Wit (B.9.207) and Clergie (B.10.257) have said, then the first line of the pardon and patientes vincunt are equivalent statements. See Lawler 2000:144–45. John of Salisbury at Entheticus minor 243–48 cites Prov 16:32, and says that patience “crushes wars with an unwarlike hand.” Prudence in Chaucer’s Melibee, whose whole aim is to persuade her husband that patience and forgiveness will be the most effective vengeance, cites Prov 16:32 and James 1:4 consecutively (B.15.14–15). Donaldson 1949:175 n2 and 180 n2 cites James 5:11, “Beatificamus eos qui sustinuerunt” (We account them blessed who have endured) (which repeats James 1:12 in other terms), and “Burdach’s interesting note,” which I have drawn on above, and which also cites the Sententiae of

Clergie is next

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Publius Syrus, “Feras dolorem; vincitur patientia” (Put up with sorrow; it is conquered by patience) (ed. Friedrich, 1880:85, sent. 6). See also Chaucer, FrkT F773–75, “Pacience . . . venquysseth . . . Thynges that rigour sholde nevere atteyne”; ParsT I661, “seith the wise man, ‘If thow wolt venquysse thyn enemy, lerne to suffre’ ” (translating “Si vis vincere, disce pati,” Walther, Proverbia 16974; see Hazelton 1960:367–68); and Troilus 4.1584, in Criseyde’s letter to Troilus, “Men seyn, ‘The suffrant overcomith,’ parde” (“Qui patitur, vincit,” Walther, Proverbia 24454). Note that Chaucer’s speakers always quote somebody: “thise clerkes,” “the wise man,” “men,” as if none of them want to be caught treating it as an original idea. Likewise Roman de la Rose, ed. Lecoy 3199–3200, “J’ai bien esprove´ que l’en vaint/Par sosfrir felon, et refraint,” I have well proved that one conquers and reins in the wicked one by suffering. For other uses of the phrase by English writers, see Whiting P61, S865, T213, W264; Skeat may be right to say that Langland was thinking of the Distichs of Cato, Sententiae xl and Disticha 1,38 (which Burdach also mentions, and Hazelton treats, 1960:357)—though not when he called it part of holy writ. The brilliance of the phrase is precisely that it goes to the heart of both the Christian ethic of love and self-sacrifice and Cato’s Greco-Roman prudence. L seems to be aware of its protean nature; of its six appearances in the B version (13.135, 171; 14.33, 54; 15.268, 598), he omits or significantly changes in C all but one (B.14.54, C.15.253).

Piers jumps in (C only) (130–51) 137–51 Quod Peres the ploghman . . . y couthe no mo aspye: In B.13.133, Conscience has resolved the discussion of Piers’s impugning of learning by looking to his coming at some unspecified time in the future. In C, where we were told at the start of the passus (33–37) that he is present, he breaks suddenly into the debate here, uttering Pacientes vincunt and then a single long sentence (138–47), asserting belief in the power of love, that in the B version (13.137–47) is reported by Patience as having been “once” taught him by his girlfriend Love—and then he disappears. This is undeniably more dramatic, and keeps the mysterious Piers alive in our minds, but does not seem to me to add any depth of meaning to the dinner scene. It is hardly more than a distraction, and undermines somewhat the speech of Patience, which has more integrity in the B version. 137, 156a (B.13.135a, 171a) Pacientes vincunt: The overall meaning of this motto “the patient win” in the passage as a whole is “Love your enemies.” That is,

44

C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

assuming that we are in conflict with our enemies, and want to conquer them, the way to do it is to love them: that is a “beating” that will make them “bow” (147, B.13.147). See B.11.379, “Suffraunce is a souerayn vertue, and a swift vengeaunce,” and everything else that Reason says there (and in C.13.194–212) to Will about suffrance. (Piers and Patience are hardly the first figures in the poem to urge loving one’s enemies; see Study’s remarks at B.10.194–204, a passage omitted in the C version; but Wit has introduced the idea as Dobet at 10.189. See also B.11.178–215. Actually, the idea, if not the phrase, was first introduced by Holy Church in her long speech to Will on love in passus 1: the Son died but “wolde . . . hem no wo 3at wrouhte hym 3at peyne”; he was “myhtfull and meke and mercy gan graunte/To hem 3at hengen hym hye,” 1.165–70 [A.1.143–48; B.1.169–74].) In addition, however, the literal meaning “the patient win” has a local application that varies each time. At B.13.135a it signifies that Patience, the third and last speaker, is likely to win this contest of wits: as Conscience says, he probably knows things that the two clerks don’t know. In the course of Patience’s speech in B, and the combined Piers-Patience speeches in C, “vincunt” comes to mean “win” in the sense of “gain”: the enemy’s love, 143 (B.13.145), but further, power, land, and possessions: 154, 166–69 (B.13.167, 170– 71). Thus when the motto is repeated at the end of Patience’s speech, B.13.171a, and by Piers in C at 156a, it means “the patient gain” or “the patient win power.” Not, of course, that the point is to be greedy: both speakers speak in riddles, and Patience emphasizes the paradox of patience’s power by carrying out to its logical political conclusion the aggressive denotation of his verb. He attaches it to all the objects it would ordinarily be attached to in the commonplace assumption it silently replaces, namely that agentes vincunt: wars, power, land, money. Finally, given these local applications in the other places, it is likely that when, in the C version, Piers uses the motto to open his speech at 137, it refers not just to the “overall” point, “love your enemies,” but also to the two lines that follow, and makes clear that they constitute a rejoinder to what, for all the courtesy of “For Peres loue 3e palmare 9ent” (130), amounts to a charge by Clergie in lines 130–36 (B.13.124–30) that Piers has undermined his profession. Piers argues back, “The patient win, and I intend to maintain (thus winning out over Clergie) that what I said (when I impugned crafts, namely, dilige deum et proximum) was right.” The implication then is that Piers is patient, whether because he represents Christ, who suffered the passion (and said dilige deum et proximum), or because he and Patience, who apparently arrived together at the dinner, share the same ideas.

Piers jumps in (C only)

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138–47 “Byfore perpetuel pees . . . blynde mote he worthen” (cf. B.13.140–47 “Wi∂ wordes and werkes . . . blynd mote he wor∂e”): What Love says in B.13.140–46 is a complete imperative sentence, a series of injunctions: Love your soul, learn to love your enemy, cast coals on his head, try to win his love, lay on him with love till he laughs at you. In Piers’s mouth in C, the sentence gets changed in such a way as to appear incomplete: I shall prove and avow and never forsake that this series of injunctions—love God and your enemy, help him, cast coals on this head, try to win his love, give to him again and again, comfort him, and lay on him with love till he laughs at you—what? He never ends up saying what he will prove the injunctions will do. The answer, I think, is first to add line 147 to the sentence, as Schmidt does (though I would put a dash rather than a semicolon at the end of 146), and to see that the imperative verbs are actually conditions that will bring about the bowing predicted in 147: I will prove to you that, love your enemy and he will bow, i.e., if you love, then he will bow. It also works in B to add line 147 to the sentence, again as Schmidt does, though again with a dash: Love him, cast coals on his head, and so on—and surely he will bow. For comment on individual phrases, see the notes below. 140 disce, doce, dilige deum and thyn enemy (B.13.137 Disce . . . doce, dilige inimicos, 138 Disce . . . doce . . . dilige): “Learn this and teach it: love (God and) your enemies”; see B.13.142, lere ∂e to louye, and cf. Lawler 1995:92 and 2011:72. “Love your enemies” is the message, as the speech goes on to make clear (cf. Matt 5:44, Luke 6:27, 35: diligite inimicos). Learning and teaching are simply elements of any major injunction: we absorb it and press it on others. For example, Love taught it to Patience (in B), and he is teaching it now. On the idea “learn to love,” see 22 (B.20).208 and 206–11n. The phrases “disce diligere” and “disce amare” occur frequently in Augustine, e.g., “Disce diligere inimicum” (as in B) PL 37.1273 (Enarrationes in Psalmos, Ps 99); “Disce amare Deum” (as in C), PL 38.160 (Sermo 23). See also 1 Thess 4:9, “Ipsi enim vos a Deo didicistis ut diligatis invicem,” Yourselves have learned of God to love one another. The sentence in both versions scans as the first few feet of a hexameter (if in B one does not elide dilige inimicos at the caesura). As I have reported in Lawler 2011:72, the schoolbook collection of hexameter proverbs, Ms. Douce 52 in the Bodleian Library, gives an elegiac couplet that starts “Disce, doce, retine” (Learn, teach, retain), and Walther, Initia carminum, has eight pages of proverbs that start with Disce. Thus we may have here a little example of what I called at the end of my essay “evidence that Langland’s own training in the writing of Latin verse found its way in to Piers Plowman” (2011:68).

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C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

142 (B.13.144) Caste coles . . . speche: I.e., “Make his face red” with shame before your kindness; see Proverbs 25:21–22, which St Paul quotes and explicates at Romans 12:20, the climax of a passage (12:14–21) on returning good for evil. Medieval explicators thought of the coals as either one’s enemy’s hot penance or one’s own hot love: see Whiting C337. Alanus, Distinctiones, PL 210.731: “Carbo, proprie; est charitas, unde Jacobus [Paulus]: ‘Hoc faciens, carbones ignis congeres super caput ejus’ [Rom 12:20], idest patientia tua accendens eum in charitate divina” (Coal, besides its proper meaning, is love, whence James [Paul], “Doing this, thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head,” that is, by your patience setting him on fire with divine love). (In the Latin, I have inserted a semicolon after “proprie” to indicate what the PL text obscures, that Alan’s “proprie” is a brief nod to the literal word before he moves on to figurative meanings; he is not saying that “coal properly means love”; see Tuija Ainonen’s compelling explanation, 2008:21–27.) Alle kynde speche: Speech that is “all kind,” entirely kind, with reference probably to the various sorts of unkind speech criticized in the surrounding verses in Proverbs 25: false witness in 18, unwelcome jollity in 20, backbiting in 23, contentiousness in 24. Say only nice things! The phrase may be a compression of “all kinds of kind speech”: say all the nice things you can think of. 148–51 And whan he hadde yworded thus . . . y couthe no mo aspye: The disappearance of Piers is like Christ’s from the dinner table at Emmaus, Luke 24:31, described at 12.123–33 (B.11.234–45), where Christ like Piers in this scene is dressed as a pilgrim. The comparison deepens the association of Piers with Christ. Cf. Aers 2004:41–42 and Gruenler 2017: 225, 240. Cf. also the disappearing guest—an angel—at St Gregory’s banquet: Golden Legend, trans. Ryan, 1.176–77. See Stith Thompson, Motif Index D2188, Magic disappearance. 150 resoun ran aftur: We forget that Reason is a significant figure at the dinner, since he was last mentioned in line 28. Why he leaves now is anybody’s guess.

Finally, Patience (152–69, B.13.133–71) 152–69 And pacience properliche spak . . . techest (B.13.136–71a “At youre preiere . . . Pacientes vincunt”): As I have said above, what Patience says has much more integrity in the B version, without Piers to say half of it for him. It celebrates love with e´lan in the multiple ways I have explicated above in the portion of his speech later given to Piers (136–48), then turns to riddling mode in 151–57, challenging the doctor to vndo the riddle, and going on to specify, still with e´lan, all the dangers, natural and political, that the charitable needn’t

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fear, that the patient will conquer. It is a brilliant tour de force, well calculated to get a rise out of the doctor. The slightly longer C counterpart of these lines maintains the e´lan, though it drops vndo it: it cuts out the riddles but then adds a new one at 161, sharpens the political boast by speaking of winning all fraunce without bloodshed, and raises the temperature of B’s Caritas nihil timet. See the enlightening discussion in Galloway 1995:95–97. What effect does the speech have on the rest of the poem? Its immediate effect is to put the doctor and his power mode to rout, and to align Conscience firmly with Patience. From now on, the conscientious way is the patient way— the way of the Samaritan, and of Christ himself. At 21.109–14 (B.19.109–14), it is clear that “Love your enemy,” Patience’s message, is Christ’s special message. I argued at the end of my 1995 essay that Conscience’s utter commitment to patience explains his decision to admit Friar Flatterer to Unity in the final scene of the poem. And Will too is committed to patience from now on. 152 properliche: “Appropriately, correctly,” MED; “with due modesty,” Kane, Glossary. But its emphatic position before the verb suggests the more pregnant meaning, “in his own person, himself.” Piers has just praised patience and the patient, and now that Piers is gone, Patience himself speaks. And what he says is anything but modest, as the doctor sees. “I could win all France without shedding a drop of blood!” B.13.136 so no man displese hym: “As long as no one will be offended.” The doctor, it turns out, will be very much offended. B.13.139 a lemman, loue was hir name: See C.20.185. The word lemman calls up the Song of Songs. Cf. its use in two contemporary passages clearly derived from the Song of Songs, Miller’s Tale, A3700, 3705 and Pearl 763. B.13.140 wordes . . . werkes . . . wil: This series of terms goes back to Holy Church’s answer to Will 1.84–85 (B.1.88–89, A.1.86–87); see B.14.14 and note; B.15.198–200, 210; Alford 1988:52, 55; and Burrow 1969. B.13.141 loue leelly ∂i soule: On this important Christian concept (which boils down to “do well”), see the notes to 17.125–49 (sixth paragraph), 17.140a, and 17.143–49; and cf. the doctor 15.112 above. 153–56a That loueth lely . . . vincunt &c (B.13.148–50 Ac for to fare ∂us wi∂ ∂i frend . . . no catel but speche): Though these passages correspond in the two versions, they say quite different things. In B, Patience rounds out his

48

C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

lemman Love’s remarks on loving one’s enemy by adding, rather superfluously, that you don’t have to cast coals on the head of your friend, who unlike an enemy does not want to annex your land but only wants you to talk to him. (Galloway, though, argues [1995:96] attractively that speech between friends is an arena that allows for riddling: thus the riddles that follow.) In C, Patience picks up where Piers left off, and goes in an entirely different direction from B, confirming Piers’s praise of love by asserting that one who loves has no interest in annexing land—but asserting (since patience conquers) that by the peaceful means of patient love he could win all France, if he wanted to. He will continue that boast—see the note below to 157–69 (B.13.158–71a). 155 bruttenynge of buyren: Cutting men to pieces. In this line about war, L wittily imports the diction of alliterative battle poetry, as Chaucer famously does for battle scenes in KnT A2601–16 and The Legend of Good Women 629–53. B.13.151–71 Wi∂ half a laumpe lyne . . . Pacientes vincunt (Cf. C.153–69 That loueth lely . . . techest): The structure of this riddling passage in the B version is quite clear, even if the riddle is not. Herwith and it 156 refer to the bouste, and so to the riddle. Vndo it 157 means “solve it”; ∂erInne means “in it.” It 163, 164 (either the bouste or the riddle or just “love”) and ∂is redels 167 complete the references. The riddle ought to be the equivalent of dilige inimicos, caritas nichil timet, and pacientes vincunt, which are all roughly synonymous: see Lawler 1995:93. If you love your enemies you will not fear them; if you heap coals on their head, that is, if you are patient and loving toward them, you will conquer them. Indeed, in 15.159 the it of B.13.163 is replaced by pacience, which is itself clearly apposed in 15.164a to Caritas. Thus charity ⳱ patience (1 Cor 13:4: “Caritas patiens est”) ⳱ the answer to the riddle. Skeat: “The general solution to the riddle . . . is Charity, exercised with Patience.” Its simplest expression is perhaps “love,” an imperative verb (dilige) that must be completed by an object: when “love” is transitive, that is, when you love another or others or your enemies, you’ve got Dowel in a nutshell. The passage reprises Holy Church’s teaching on love, 1.141–204 (B.1.142–209, A.1.130–83); see also the words of Peace after the Harrowing, 20.456–58 (B.18.413–15). (The specific solution is “cor,” heart, as Galloway 1995 showed; see note below. Ex vi transicionis is a common grammatical phrase: a transitive verb governs its accusative object “by the power of transitivity” [Kaske 1963:38, Middleton 1972:179 n12, 181; Alford 1982: 755; Bland 1988].) Kirk 1978:100 says that Patience (amusingly) gives away the solution in the next passus when he “opens his bundle and we see the contents,” namely “fiat voluntas tua.” That works too:

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to love is to do the will of God. Kirk goes on, (reflecting on the two appearances of fiat voluntas tua in the Gospels—in the Lord’s Prayer and as uttered by Jesus in Gethsemane), “ ‘Thy will be done’ is the phrase that links man’s daily acceptance of God’s will with Christ’s acceptance of the Passion in the Garden of Gethsemane. Clearly, for Langland, as for the Patience poet, any positive definition of patience must see it as imitatio christi.” The C passage is parallel but without the riddle—though it adds a riddle of its own at 161; see below. B.13.151 half a laumpe lyne in latyn: Galloway 1995:91–92 takes this as the equivalent of “The myddel of the Moone” 155, like it meaning “cor”; see the note there. Bradley 1910 reached the same solution in a different way: taking “lamp line” to mean the line a lamp hangs from, he posited a Latin word “cordella,” and cut it roughly in half to yield “corde” as the solution to the riddle. Stephen Barney, in a private communication, cites in support of Bradley’s solution, from Latham’s Dictionary of Medieval Latin, both the word chorda (in the Durham accounts, ca. 1367) and the word chordula (in the rolls of St Swithin’s Priory, 1485) used in connection with lamps, and in all likelihood meaning the hanging-cord rather than the wick. That seems to me a more straightforward explanation than Galloway’s. B.13.152 in a bouste: A conjecture by KD-B, who discuss it on p. 186, convincingly to me (though not to Schmidt, who rejects it in both editions and discusses it in the commentary to his 1995 edition). A bouste (MED, s.v. boist) is a box or vessel: either the heart as the vessel of love, or the riddle as a handy little container. The whole idea of Dowel is contained in the word love; love is a synonym for Dowel. Kaske 1963:47–49 associates it with Magdalen’s “box of salue” (B.13.194), alabastrum unguenti (Luke 7:37), and cites Hugh of SaintCher’s interpretation of that box as cor penitentis, the heart of a penitent. Watson, who is out to discredit Patience, sees him in this speech as “recenter[ing] the scene around himself,” and says that his claim to have Dowel bound fast is “uncomfortably reminiscent of one made by the glosing friars in B.8” (2007:101), but to me he does not seem nearly as smug as they are. All he is saying is “Dowel is really simple: it’s love.” B.13.153–54 ∂e Saterday ∂at sette first ∂e kalender . . . ∂e wodnesday of ∂e nexte wike after: As Galloway says, these references, perhaps to the first Sabbath, when God rested after the six days of Creation, and to Wednesday of Holy Week, the week of “Re-creation,” connected with charity and prudence, respectively (Ben H. Smith, Jr. 1961:681, 1966:53; Kaske 1963:43–44), “have not

50

C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

been . . . satisfactorily explained” (1995:92). Schweitzer 1974:319–27 chooses Holy Saturday and the Wednesday after Easter, and makes some arguments from the liturgy—also unsatisfactory. Anna Baldwin 2001:103–4 applies the passage, including Patience’s recommendations for a loving foreign policy, to relations between England and France in June 1377, and suggests that particular days are dropped in C “because their significance was now forgotten.” B.13.155 The myddel of ∂e Moone: Galloway shows convincingly that this phrase (which has been used by Conscience, prophesying at the end of the Mede episode, at 3.480 [B.3.327]) is a translation of the beginning of a Latin hexameter riddle, “Lune dimidium solis pariterque rotundum/Et pars quarta rote; nil plus deus exigit a te,” Half of a moon and equally the round of a sun,/ And the fourth part of a wheel; nothing more does God demand from you. Half a moon is the letter C; the round of the sun is the letter O; one-fourth of rota is the letter R: the solution is COR: all God wants from us is love. Cf. Luke 8:15: the seed that falls on good ground is those who “in a good and perfect heart hearing the word, keep it and bring forth fruit in patience.” Galloway shows further that to cite the first phrase is to cite the whole riddle, and argues that “half a laumpe lyne” is a rendering of “lune dimidium,” so that line 152 also refers to the whole riddle by its first words (1995:87–88, 90–92). B.13.157 Vndo it: lat ∂is doctour deme if dowel be ∂erInne: Gruenler 2017:159: “Patience’s challenge . . . uses a typical way of closing a riddle to tell the doctor to look into his own heart.” This “goading address to the doctor,” as Galloway calls it (1995:96), is dropped in C. Actually he is addressing Conscience, the master of ceremonies, urging him to let the doctor deem. 156 holy writ: See above, note to B.13.135a. 157–69 For, by hym ∂at me made . . . techest (B.13.158–71a For, by hym ∂at me made . . . vincunt): Patience continues his speech in somewhat the same way in both versions. The first sentence is very clear in B: if you have the bouste, which is love, with you, you will fear no danger from man, devil, or nature, because love fears nothing. C is equally clear, really, though it adds pacience 159 to love (since they have been established as synonyms), and, having dropped B’s earlier riddle, throws in a new one: 161 In ∂e corner of a cartwhel with a crow croune. Galloway 1995:94 shows adroitly that the first half of the line refers to the Latin riddle given above, being the equivalent of pars quarta rote, and so means cor; that the second half also means cor, the caput corvi, head of the word “crow,” and that cor or its anagram cro occurs

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thrice in the line. In short, bear in your bosom, in Galloway’s words, a “heart given to God, the essence of patience in the Christian tradition” (94). The second sentence is much shorter in C, listing fewer authority figures, and is rhetorically a little stronger, but both say essentially the same thing: with this bouste you will conquer everybody. A brash peroration indeed. 164a Caritas expellit omnem timorem (cf. B.13.163a Caritas nichil timet): Charity drives away all fear: 1 John 4:18, “perfecta caritas foras mittit timorem,” perfect charity casteth out fear. Maybe compare 17.5a, Caritas omnia suffert (1 Cor 13:7), perhaps yet one more way of saying “Love your enemies.” For B, see Ambrose, Letter 78 (PL 16.1269), “charitatem habens nihil timet”: Paschasius Radbertus, De fide, spe, et caritate 1990:110: “Caritas nihil timet sed excludit foras timorem.”

The dinner comes to a sudden end (170–84, B.13.172–215) 170–84 This is a dido . . . y folowede (B.13.172–215 It is but a dido . . . pilgrymes as it were): Patience’s stunning answer (Piers’s too, in C) brings the dinner to an abrupt end. In B, Conscience has responded ambivalently to Clergie, deflecting his dissatisfaction into a wish that Piers will come; he has looked to Patience for something better. He gets it, and yet what Patience says polarizes the company: the doctor erupts in contempt, and expects Clergie and Conscience to support his move to throw Patience out. Conscience surprises him by siding with Patience, and is ridiculed by Clergie, who like the doctor treats Patience as if he were an itinerant minstrel; the rift between Clergie and Conscience, quite tentative and unclear at 131, is now hard to deny. Nevertheless, Conscience, gracious host to the last, takes courteous leave of the doctor at 198, then tries to treat his rift with Clergie as a friendly disagreement, 199–201. Clergie rejects this as a parting gesture, soberly foretelling a time when Conscience will need him, which seems to change the mood, so that they part with expressions of mutual respect. What appeals to Conscience in Patience is presumably his combination of simplicity, hopefulness, and experience: he has cut through not only the doctor’s arrogant learning but the helpless quality of Clergie’s more thoughtful and humble learning; he has a charisma (∂e wil of ∂e wye 190) that Conscience seems to find refreshing enough to want to test further (182); or he wants to test his own capacity for patience, which is Clergie’s view (214). In C, as earlier in the serving of the dinner, the characters are less sharply differentiated. Clergie’s speech has had the same gist but was far less academic,

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C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

and Conscience did not reply to it at all; in place of his wish for Piers in B, Piers is actually here and speaks—and says the first half of what Patience said in B (love your enemies) but minus the riddles. Patience then picks up where Piers leaves off, and the doctor’s contemptuous response is the same, although he does not explicitly suggest ejecting Patience. Conscience’s farewell to Clergie has the essential combination of respect and disagreement, but there is no subtle interplay between them as there was in B: indeed, Clergie has no lines at the end at all. It is still clear that Conscience has been moved in the course of the scene to abandon his friend Clergie, at least temporarily, to ally himself with Patience, but that alliance is made to seem a response more to the dramatic intrusion of Piers than to what either Clergie or Patience says. Besides the addition of Piers, the second most notable change from B up to this point has been the dropping of the cryptic parts, Clergie’s academic jargon and Patience’s riddling. And we lose the delicate exchange of words between Conscience and Clergie. Again both what happens and what is said are clearer in C, though with some loss of motivation and subtlety. 170 (B.13.172) dido . . . dysores tale: A dysore is a storyteller or minstrel. The word is not necessarily pejorative, though it is clearly pejorative in L’s two uses of it, here and at 8.52 (B.6.54, A.7.49). Dido in this meaning is otherwise unattested (it seems unrelated to the nineteenth-century dialectical usage that OED defines as a caper or “row”). It is evidently a coinage by L, and defined in the off-verse as a minstrel’s tale, that is, a worthless, blatant fiction, like those that Piers has warned the knight not to listen to at dinner, 8.50–52 (B.6.52–4, A.7.47–9)—perhaps, as is commonly thought, with reference either to the romantic tale of Dido, as told in the Aeneid and the Heroides and often retold, and dismissed by St Augustine in Confessions 1.13 (along with the whole fable of the Aeneid) as inanity, or to Dido’s degeneration into a poetic byword for a mistress, as in a poem by Hilary the Englishman quoted by Boswell 1980:249, “Ut te vidi, mox Cupido/Me percussit; sed diffido;/Nam me tenet mea Dido/Cujus iram reformido” (The moment I saw you,/Cupid struck me, but I hesitate,/For my Dido holds me,/And I fear her wrath). For further discussion of Dido’s reputation in the Middle Ages, see Mann 2002:12–13 and Desmond 1994. Marjorie Woods (2001, 2002) has argued that schoolboys were regularly required to compose laments by Dido, Andromache, or Niobe and enact them; thus the doctor may be implying that Patience is being childish. Woods cites Pico della Mirandola’s famous letter to Ermolao Barbaro, in which he imagines Aquinas, Scotus, Albertus Magnus, or Averroes coming to life again, learning the new eloquence, and, “in terms as free as possible from barbarism, their barbarous style,” saying, “We have lived illustrious, friend

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Ermolao, and to posterity shall live, not in the schools of the grammarians and teaching-places of young minds, but in the company of the philosophers, conclaves of sages, where the questions for debate are not concerning the mother of Andromache or the sons of Niobe and such light trifles, but of things human and divine” (Woods 2002:287–88; cited from Symonds 1877:333–34; the translation is his; for the original, dated Florence, 3 June 1485, see Garin 1952:806). The doctor’s contempt here is quite like Pico’s—or rather, like what Pico supposes Aquinas and the others would feel if they lived when he did. Perhaps, though, dido does not refer to Virgil’s Dido at all, but is a nonsense word like “folderol” or “la-di-da” (or “hey trollilolly” 8.123, A.7.108; B.6.116 “how trolly lolly”; see also “mamele” 5.123 and “bablede” B.5.8, A.5.8), invented on the spot by the doctor out of the first syllables of Patience’s “disce, doce”—with the pattern completed by the echo of “dilige” in “dysores.” (Cf. French dada, hobby-horse, and the art movement Dada, whose name came from that and was meant to signify meaninglessness; also French dodo, babytalk for “sleep”). See 20.145 (B.18.142), “bote a tale of walterot,” and 20.150 (B.18.147) “truyfle,” and Pearsall’s note to 20.145; cf. Chaucer’s “He served hem with nyfles and with fables,” SumT D1760, where “nyfle” clearly has the same meaning as “dido” and is equally mysterious in origin (OED, s.v. nifle, n.); see 20.150n below; see also MED trotevale, from Handlyng Synne. Both MED and OED say that “walterot” is the same word with syllables reversed—and thus apparently not based on “Walter”—and thus it isn’t parallel to Dido as a character. See Noel Coward 1937:287, “slick American ‘vo-do-deo-do’ musical farces,” where the intention is like Langland’s, to refer dismissively to a trivial and inferior literary form. Kane 1989:103–4 lists it as one of those expressions in the poem that “await recovery,” and “require annotation, not translation.” 171–73 Al the wit . . . parties (B.13.173–76 Al ∂e wit . . . peple): The doctor responds not scripturally at all but politically: interestingly, he here represents the very school of hard knocks, the cynicism of experience, that Conscience credited Patience with representing. (There is a valuable exchange of opinion on Patience’s ideas in YLS 15 (2001) between Anna Baldwin and Fiona Somerset, in which, roughly speaking, Baldwin (99–108) adopts Patience’s idealism, and Somerset (109–15) responds with something like the doctor’s realism, though not his bad manners. They live the poem.) By wit B.13.168, Patience presumably meant both the skill to solve the riddle and the wisdom to grasp the value of laying on your enemy with love till he smiles at you (146); what the doctor means by wit here is hardheaded realism. The poem will continue to promote Patience’s view; see 17.123–24n. On the pope and his enemies, see

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C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

17.234n and Stephen Barney’s very full note to 21.428–48; also J. A. W. Bennett 1943:60–63, Gwynn 1943:4, Anna Baldwin 2001:105. As for kynges (B), Bennett says (61) that “the context suggests that the poet was thinking of the English and French kings as adherents of the pope and antipope respectively”— though Barney makes it clear that nothing in the B text requires us to date it after the schism, which began in 1378. B.13.178 That Pacience ∂o most passe, “for pilgrymes konne wel lye”: Passe means “leave the house.” For Patience’s “pilgrymes clo3es,” see line 29 above. The quotation marks indicate that these are the doctor’s words. On pilgrims and lying, see Prol.47–50 (B.Prol.46–49, A.Prol.46–49) and 7.180–81 (B.5.535– 36, A.6.23–24), where the palmer insists that he has never heard of any palmer asking after truth. The meaning “lie” for “Canterbury tale” did not develop until at least the fifteenth century, (Spurgeon 1925:1.81 etc.) or even the sixteenth (OED). 175–83 Ac Concience . . . parfitnesse to fynde (B.13.179–215 Ac Conscience . . . pilgrymes as it were): Conscience’s purpose in going away with Patience is clearer in the much shortened C version. In B he will go til I haue preued moore (182), a vague formulation that perhaps means “gained more actual experience”—either of Patience, or in general—as opposed to book-learning —see B.13.133–35a and note—but that also carries a suggestion of “proving himself” morally. Presumably he will learn both by undergoing experience himself and by hearing of Patience’s experience; it is the latter source of knowledge that Clergie assumes at B.13.185–87 that Conscience has in mind. At B.13.191 he adds a penitential purpose, and apparently a desire to imitate Patient’s patient will; in B.13.201 (C.15.179) he implies that he hopes to become perfectly patient, although the contrast of perfect patience there to half ∂i pak of bokes suggests that “patience” still carries the meaning “experience.” At B.13.214 Clergie interprets Conscience’s purpose as to be tested in order to be made perfect; and Conscience’s own final, rather grand articulation of this purpose is for the two of them, Conscience and Clergie, with Patience as their ally, to bring peace and religious unity to all nations; see below, B.13.203–4n, B.13.207–10n. In the C version, this process of gradual clarification—as if Conscience were figuring out before our eyes why he is going—is replaced by an immediate settled decision: his purpose is to perfect himself in patience, once again through the medium of experience: he must escape the world of books if he is to learn kynde pacience. No mention is made of any grand plan to apply his newfound perfection to saving the world. Of course one should keep in mind

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that L seems to place a high value on an impulsive decision to go on pilgrimage: see Piers and the knight at 8.56 (B.6.57, A.7.52); Conscience at the end of the poem; perhaps the Samaritan’s sudden resumption of his journey to Jerusalem. B.13.183–84 What! . . . redels: With this friendly dig, Clergie indicates that he shares the doctor’s contempt for Patience’s speech, ridiculing its presentation as a redels (cf. B.13.167) and reducing to absurdity Patience’s formulation at B.13.169–71 of the political value of patient love in terms of the generous requital it will earn from kings and queens. A yeres√eue is a New Year’s gift, traditionally exchanged at court; cf. Gawain 67; though it can be a bribe exacted by an office-holder, as at B.3.100; see Alford, Gloss. Clergie still insists on the superiority of books to experience. B.13.188–97 “Nay, by crist!” . . . Ga√ophilacium: Conscience in reply makes it clear that he certainly does not expect material gain from his association with Patience: what he treasures is his trewe wille, which is priceless, in contrast to the will of folk here, that is, the doctor with his ego and Clergie with his diffidence. He instances the woman in Luke 7:37–50 (often identified as Mary Magdalene), anointing the feet of Jesus and the widow who gave her mite (Luke 21:4) as examples of true will, and presumably also of perfect patience, for their fearless love. I have discussed lines B.13.183–97, Clergie’s challenge and Conscience’s answer, fully in Lawler 1995:94–96. As I wrote (96), “Our dinner scene has by now amounted to a rewriting of these biblical dinner scenes [i.e., those featuring Mary and Zacheus], a rewriting in which at last the host acts with full generosity.” For Zacheus, see Luke 19:1–10. He too has a true will, even if Mary Magdalene outshone him: he climbed a tree to see Jesus, “received him with joy” in his house, and gave his half. Mary gave her all, to be sure; but half is a lot. B.13.185–87 I shal brynge yow a bible . . . parfitly knew neuere: This pointed contrast between the old law and Patience is yet another hint that one thing Patience represents is Christ himself; see the note to 32–33 (B.13.9–30) above. 179 (B.13.201) half thy pak of bokes: A little friendly dig in return, whispered softly in the ear, perhaps, as a gesture of friendliness. Conscience is a book unto himself; cf. 17.197 “no boek but Consience” and n. As Gillespie 1994:105 says, since Clergie will await Conscience (in B), “Learning is deferred rather than despised.”

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C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

B.13.202 Clergie of Conscience no congie wolde take: This seems petulant, but what he goes on to say makes clear his deep attachment to Conscience— and Conscience’s reply indicates such warmth in return that the petulance evaporates, as line 211 shows. B.13.203–4 ∂ow shalt se ∂e tyme . . . wille me to counseille: A prediction of Conscience’s need when he attempts in B passu¯s 19–20 to carry out (though only for Christians) the program of unity that he announces here at lines 205–10, and in particular of his cry “help, Clergie or I falle” 20.228 (C.22.228); see also 20.375. Note that both Conscience’s program and Clergie’s prediction are omitted in the C version, perhaps because L was aware that though he had presented Conscience’s attempt at unity, he had not worked out a way of involving either Patience or Clergie, not to mention the conversion of heathens and Jews, in that presentation. Or he intended to transfer this material somehow to that final scene, but never managed to revise it. B.13.207–10 Ther nys wo . . . oon bileue: To bring all lands to love and to belief in one law was Wit’s definition of Dobest, 10.190–200 (not in AB). Conscience proposes here, in effect, that he, Clergie, and Patience undertake the effort “to wende as wyde as 3e worlde were/To tulie 3e erthe with tonge and teche men to louye,” the effort it is said there (10.199–200) that bishops should make. Later, Liberum Arbitrium (Anima) will treat the matter extensively as the duty above all of bishops who are assigned to dioceses in Muslim lands but who never leave England; see 17.150–321 (B.15.390–613). Thus there may be a suggestion that our three figures here are (ideal) bishops, particularly since Clergie seems to list administering the sacrament of Confirmation as one of his duties (B.13.213; but see B.13.211–14n below). If so, he would be an English bishop, Conscience and Patience missionary bishops, for Clergie’s humdrum routine at home is treated with equanimity, whereas similar work in England by missionary bishops is treated as escapism at 17.279–80 (B.15.529–30). See Lawler 2002:115–16. As I have mentioned above (15.29n), Gruenler 2017:155 regards Conscience as resembling the bishop in the story of St Andrew and the Three Questions. B.13.209 Sarsens and Surre: Since Syria was in Muslim hands, this phrase must be a doublet. Surre is similarly used as a generic term for Muslim lands throughout passus 17 (B.15); see notes at 17.189 (B.15.494) and 278 (B.15.528). B.13.211–14 “That is soo∂” . . . parfit ∂ee maked”: This essentially comic scene ends with genuine reconciliation, arrived at deftly after Clergie’s petulance at

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line 202. To quote my essay one last time (97): “This is the first time in the whole scene that anyone has said, ‘I see what you mean’ to anyone else. Clergie’s ‘I shal dwelle as I do my devoir to shewe’ seems to acknowledge implicitly that Conscience’s devoir is to go, and his defining his own devoir as confirming children or those who have taken instruction has a winning modesty: the children in whose company he puts himself now are like the widow and the Magdalene, underdogs: Patience has indeed become Clergie’s ‘partyng felawe.’ ” Kane, Glossary defines confermen 213 as “make secure in the faith,” which may be right, though fauntekyns suggests the sacrament of confirmation, which was typically administered to infants as soon after baptism as a bishop was available; see B.15.457 and Brewer 2005:66.

Conscience and Patience—and Will—go on pilgrimage to seek parfitnesse (184, B.13.215) 183 With pacience wol y passe parfitnesse to fynde (B.13.215 Conscience ∂o wi∂ Pacience passed, pilgrymes as it were): In C Will says that he goes, too: with grete wille y folowede 184. In B he is not said in so many words to accompany the others on this pilgrimage, though he is obviously there—one is always present in one’s dreams—to report on it, to look and listen, though not to interact in any way with Actyf. There are several instances of careful peering in B (13.271 I took greet kepe, 318 ∂anne took I hede, 342 I waitede wisloker), that are removed in C, which drops not only Actyf’s coat but all physical description of him. Even in C Will says, “They met with a minstrel,” not “We met with a minstrel” (190, B.13.221). Nor has Conscience much of a part. He fades out of the vision in the C version after asking Actyf one question at 15.196–97 (not in B). In B he lasts longer, till 14.28, after which Patience takes over as Actyf’s interlocutor, and nothing more is heard of Conscience, or of his quest for perfection. In B the pilgrimage ends when Will wakes at the end of passus 14. It will turn out to be less of a quest for perfection on Conscience’s part than one more learning opportunity for Will. In C it keeps going, though as Will’s pilgrimage rather than Patience’s, when Liberum arbitrium silently replaces Patience as Will’s guide at 16.158. And since Will is going to stay on the road, in effect, until he arrives in Jerusalem in passus 20 (B.18), we should perhaps think of him as “going to Jerusalem” from the moment he leaves Conscience’s dinner party. That would make him like many a contemporary pilgrim, but also, more interestingly,

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make passu¯s 15–19 something like the middle chapters of Luke’s Gospel, specifically 9:51 to 18:30, in which Jesus too is “going to Jerusalem”: 9:51, “he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem,” and we might think of Will’s whole long search starting here as inspired by the structure of Luke’s Gospel. This is perhaps too grand a notion, but at least it seems true that L responded in a special way to Luke. Luke is especially tough on the rich, and more willing than the other evangelists to speak of “the poor” rather than “the poor in spirit.” He is also the only source of the story of Dives and Lazarus, and of the parable of the Good Samaritan. 183 parfitnesse (cf.179 [B.13.201] parfitlyche, B.13.214 parfit): I.e., dobest. Conscience shows a knowledge of the Gospels here, since the passage from the Sermon on the Mount about loving one’s enemies that Patience quoted ends with the verse, “Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt 5:48). 186 (B.13.217) Sobrete . . . bileue: The idea of spiritual nourishment is carried over from the dinner scene. Bileue is an apt pun: what most pilgrims have in their pouch is bı´-leve, sustenance, what they live by; Patience has bi-le´ve, what he believes. 188 (B.13.219) vnkyndenesse and coueytise . . . hungry contreys: The opposition of patience to coueytise that marked the land of longing in the inner vision continues; presumably the “contrey of coueytise” is not dissimilar from the land of longing. Hungry contreys is a daring catachresis. They will make the pilgrims hungry for the foods in the poke, and they are hungry themselves. Coueytise is hungry because it is full of needs and desires, always seeking to be filled: hunger is another word for longing. But also it is a country beset by famine, a country where there is a dearth of the sort of good food Patience has in his poke. And covetousness causes famine; see the Hunger scenes earlier. Of course this world itself is a hungry country: it is the opposite of “aeterna patria . . . ubi nemo esurit” (our eternal home, where no one is hungry), Gregory’s frequently quoted formulation in his treatment of “activa vita” in his second homily of the second book on Ezechiel, PL 76.954; see 193–98 (B.13.214–16), note below. Vnkyndenesse, the lack of (natural) generosity toward others, is a land bordering on coveitise, as Gregory’s homily suggests. For activa vita’s opposite, contemplativa vita, “est charitatem quidem Dei proximi tota mente retinere” (is to devote all one’s mind to love of God and neighbor; PL 76.953), that is, to be kind. In the hungry countries, neither life is in evidence; the pilgrims

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have arrived there as soon as they meet the needy Haukyn, ironically named Actyf in C; that is, in the next sentence. L couples unkindness and coveitise again at B.13.355, 389–90; see also 19.185, 258, 328 (where the terms appear together in the course of the Samaritan’s long account of unkindness as the sin against the Holy Spirit, 19.159–329), 21.224, 22.296 (where coveitise and unkindness besiege Conscience). In the B version, it is clear at 354ff., where Patience perceives the stains of avarice on Actyf’s coat, that our pilgrims have indeed come to the hungry countries; but their vitayles—sobriety, simple speech, and firm belief—strengthen (conforte) them (and Patience tries to use them to strengthen Actyf).

Actiua vita (Actyf) joins the pilgrims (190–16.157, B.13.221–14.335) 190–16.157 (B.13.221–14.335) actiua vita. In B, he is called Haukyn by Patience, Conscience, and the narrator, but calls himself Actyf (the word is spelled Actif in B and Actyf in C, except at 7.299; I have used the C spelling except when actually quoting the B text, and I generally call him Actyf, even when discussing a B passage). “Haukyn” alliterates with Actyf and was a common enough English name, as the commonness of its derivatives, the modern surnames Hawkins and Hawkinson, suggests. Haukyn is a hawker of goods, a huckster, as Godden 1990:111 and others have pointed out. His name may be a diminutive of Harry, or of the pejorative nickname Hawk; see Hanks and Hodges 1988, s.v. Hawkin. Just as you can call any plowman Peter or Perkin, or any priest Sir John, you perhaps can call any Active Man Haw or Hawk or Haukyn; there is nothing impertinent in Will’s sudden introduction of the name at B.13.272. Nevertheless, in C the name disappears and he is called Actyf throughout. Godden (110) insists on the disreputability of waferers, instancing, besides one Wycliffite text, the association of a waferer with a cutpurse and apeward at 7.285 (B.5.636, A.6.117), and the appearance of waferers among the “verray develes officeres” in the tavern in PardT C480. Most readers, though, have taken at face value his account of himself as an important cog in the food chain. In C he says he is Piers’s apprentice, and in B, in the course of confessing his covetousness, he speaks of plowing. Though the details of his sins are often hard to take as further actual characterizations of our waferer, his mentioning plowing is interesting because twice before in the poem the adjective “actyf” has been applied to a husbandman. At C.7.299, the man who cannot come with Piers because he has wedded a wife is “oen hihte actif; an hosbande he semede.” And at A.11.182–83, Scripture says of Dowel that it is “a

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C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

wel lele lif . . . among 3e lewide peple;/Actif it is hoten; husbondis it vsen.” Both these places seem relevant to the present episode. The man in C.7.299 has been plucked directly from Haukyn’s account at B.14.3–4 of the way married life smears his coat; both quote Luke’s Vxorem duxi et ideo non possum venire, so that one might argue that Actyf’s first appearance in C is not here but in passus 7. And Scripture’s using his name to define Dowel suggests that, at least on first glance, that is what he is: Dowel, in the flesh. As Godden says, that should be what we surmise from the fact that Conscience and Patience are carping of Dowel when they meet him (189–90, B.13.220–21): he is “the ultimate personification of Dowel” (1990:110). Carruthers calls him “the most complex figure of Dowel Will has yet encountered” (1973:122). The name Dowel comes, of course, from the wording of the pardon, Qui bona egerunt (as if Qui bene egerunt, Those who have done well), and activa comes from the past participle of the same verb. Though not everyone calls him Dowel—he is, after all, quite the sinner—associating him somehow with Dowel, or a superficial form of it, has been the critical consensus from Chambers 1939:151–52 on (well summed up by John Alford in Alford 1988:50–51); Chambers does not actually call him Dowel but “the hard-working Christian man.” Here is the gist of this consensus: as a hard-working sort who can’t keep his coat clean, Actyf stands for the inadequacy of the active life to win salvation; he is finally Dowel only in the sense that he is no better than he should be, i.e., clearly not Dobet; or he is not so much Dowel as Try-to-do-well-but-end-up-doingbadly. Gillespie 1994:107 nicely calls him “an embodiment of . . . the seed that falls among the thorns.” In short, critical tradition itself undermines the penchant for treating him as Dowel at all. In fact he seems to be everything that the man described in Psalm 14, destined to rest on God’s holy hill, is not. He does not walk without blemish, he of the stained coat; he has used deceit in his tongue and taken up a reproach against his neighbor (B.13.319–30, 363– 64); he has put out his money for usury, and taken bribes against the innocent (375–82); the name Actyf implies the opposite of one who “shall not be moved forever.” Piers in the B version pardon scene rejected the active life for one of prayer and penance, and here Patience tries to get Actyf to do the same thing. Alford (51) quotes Godden 1984:149–50: “The two contrasting roles played by Piers in the pardon scene are here manifested in Haukyn and Patience, worker and pilgrim-hermit,” and continues, “In both cases, a preoccupation with hard work gives way to ne solliciti sitis.” And this mainline critical tradition also sees Patience’s appeal as wholly in keeping with Langland’s adherence to originary Franciscan ideals. However, David Aers (2004), in the course of demolishing Patience’s arguments (see above, 15.32–33n), offers a sympathetic view of the value of

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Actyf’s work both for himself and others. This view is taken up at length by Watson 2007, who sets Actyf’s “bottom up heaven” against Patience’s “top down heaven” (91), sympathizes like Aers with the system of production or “social structure” that Actyf is part of, and like Aers points out that “it is in fact only such a structure that can support the zealous indifference to worldly goods Patience himself advocates” (109). He sees Actyf as browbeaten into his final state of wanhope and self-loathing by Patience the “spiritual elitist” with “his slogans, his swagger, his certainty,” and “ever more self-absorbed answers, until [Actyf] ends the passus, and leaves the poem, bewailing everything he has done and been since the moment of his baptism, wishing that he were not who he is” (108). Kirk more positively associates Actyf’s tears with a series of earlier moments of weeping or mourning; she calls it a “cathartic awareness” on his part, and on mankind’s, argues “that a larger reality surrounds and redefines” him and it, and concludes sympathetically that “The B Poet’s final definition of DoWell is not a formula but an image: Haukyn weeping in his dirty coat” (1972:158). For a similarly balanced view, guided by Konrad Burdach’s findings long ago that the doctrines of poverty and ne solliciti sitis were associated with the idealization of labor, see Frank 1957:32–33, 76 (Burdach 1926–32: 294–96, 351– 54). Watson’s sympathy for Actyf is perhaps more a function of his dislike of Patience than of any genuine appeal, aside from victimhood, in Actyf. I wish he had paid some attention to the C text, which substantially rewrites the scene, perhaps because L felt some of the very objections Watson feels, or just found the whole presentation ambivalent. The coat is gone, the confession of sins is gone, the wanhope and tears at the end are gone. Patience’s offer of food from his bag comes right after Actyf’s initial account of himself. The inadequacy of the active life compared to the “patient” life is still the point, of course, but Actyf is not in this version subjected to humiliation the way he is in B. As Anna Baldwin finely says, “Patient poverty is desired by the Activa Vita of the C-text for its own sake, and not primarily as a weapon against his own sin” (1990:83). In B, then, Actyf’s chief mark is his sinfulness, the chief events the confession and repentance he goes through under the guidance of Conscience and Patience. (For his likeness to Will, see below, 193–98n.) But all the matter in the confession was moved in C to the Seven Deadly Sins section in passu¯s 6 and 7; leaving Actyf as ignorant and boastful as he was in B, but not notably marked by sinfulness. This probably accounts for the disappearance of the somewhat derogatory name Haukyn, though calling him Actyf still accentuates his role as Patience’s opposite. He has in the second half of the passus a role like the doctor’s in the first half: as Patience and Conscience shone there

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against the doctor’s arrogance, they will shine here against Actyf’s ignorance, for Will’s edification. Probably the most important thing about him in C is that he provides food: that sets him against all the spiritual dishes that Patience liked so well at the dinner in the first half, and sets him up for Patience’s offer of the food fiat voluntas tua. In both versions Actyf is prompted in part by the agere/pati topos (for which see Crampton 1974) implicit in the role of Patience, in part by the prominence earlier in the passus, and in the several previous passu¯s, of the “Do” triad (not to mention Patience’s and Conscience’s present conversation), in part by the food theme; and perhaps also by Psalm 14, as I have argued earlier in this note. I don’t think Active vs. Contemplative, the rubric Pearsall invokes, is of much importance. In the phrase “Activa Vita,” “vita” probably just translates English “life,” that is, in a frequent Langlandian usage, “estate,” “occupation,” or even just “person.” So we should probably think of him as just “an Active Man,” rather than, allegorically, as “the Active Life.” But Pearsall’s note is in general good, and he stresses the way that in B Actyf is “a compelling portrait of sinful and repentant humanity,” in C mostly just set up to be instructed by Patience. In both versions his major purpose seems to be to serve as a foil for Patience, and as an opportunity for Patience to expound his views. In C he turns out to have a “leader,” Liberum arbitrium, who is not mentioned, and plays no role, until 16.158 when he suddenly replaces Patience and Conscience, but is presumably leading Actyf the whole time. Curtis Perrin makes the excellent point that Actyf takes on Will’s earlier role of “clueless questioner” in a new “comedy of correction” (2006:169). Many critics, including Robertson and Huppe´ 1951:169, Carruthers 1973:121–22, and, most notably, Staley 2002 try to connect Actyf’s dirty coat to Matthew’s parable of the man without a wedding garment, unconvincingly to me. 190 (B.13.221) They mette with a mynstral: Not “We met.” Even in the C version, where Will says he followed Patience and Conscience, L seems bent on not letting him do anything in this episode but look and listen, until Liberum arbitrium, Actyf’s “leader,” arrives at 16.158. This helps make it possible to take Actyf as a stand-in for Will. 191 (B.13.222) apposede hym and preyede: one action, not two: the second phrase specifies the question asked, 191 (B.13.223) What craft ∂at he couthe. It is the standard question one asks of a new acquaintance in estates literature, as perhaps also in actual life: cf. the Host to the Canon’s Yeoman, “Telle what he is” (G616), i.e., what is his job?, and the implication in the General Prologue

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that the narrator has gone around asking everyone at the Tabard, “What are you?” Though apposede can carry the legal weight of “interrogated,” there is no reason to think of Patience’s question as anything but civil (though we should be aware of the sharp contrast between Actyf and Patience, agere et pati, which L exploits throughout the scene). It is the same word used of Reason’s interrogation of Will in 5.10, though there the aggressive nature of the questioning is insisted on: “thus resoun me aratede” 5.11.

Actyf describes his craft to Patience and Conscience (193–231, B.13.224–70) 193–98 (B.13.224–26) Ich am a mynstral . . . a waferer: Actyf is in the food business, as the verb conforte 194, which regularly means “feed” in this passus (15.61, 187; B.13.58, 218), suggests most clearly. In Gregory the Great’s definition of the active life (PL 76.953, referred to above, 188 [B.13.219]n), feeding the hungry comes first: “Activa enim vita est, panem esurienti tribuere .” (For the active life is: to give bread to the hungry). It goes on: teach the ignorant, correct the sinner, and so on, but feeding the hungry is first. I have quoted the full sentence at 16.324–36a (B.15.182–94)n below. To feed the hungry is also the first of the corporal works of mercy: see above, 114–18n and, again, 16.324–36n. Actyf, we may note, inhabits a world where bread is bread, not Agite penitenciam and the like. Mynstral is used in its general sense of “minister,” that is “servant, functionary, someone who ministers (food, etc.) to others”; see MED minstral 2; DML ministrallus 1. In associating activa vita with minstrelsy, Langland has surely in mind Luke’s sentence about Martha, who served Jesus food and who became a standard symbol of the active life: “Martha autem satagebat circa frequens ministerium” (But Martha was busy about much serving, 10:40). (Cf. Gregory, Commentary on the First Book of Kings, PL 79.402, “activa vita, quae frequens circa ministerium satagit”; St Benedict’s Rule, “vitae activae ministerium” PL 66.445; Gerhohus Reicherspergensis, Expositio in Psalmos, PL 194.591, “activa vita, quae proximis in corporalibus ministrat”). Actyf is definitely not an entertainer, as he says emphatically in lines 202–7. His initial statement, “I am a minstrel,” probably means no more, in reply to Patience’s query about his craft, than “Actually, I’m not a craftsman, I provide a service”—though using the noun instead of saying “I minister” gives him the chance to dilate on his superiority to lordes munstrals (15.203), who provide less and get paid more.

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C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

Webb 1854:148–49, glossing a payment-entry to “wafferariis et menestrallis,” falsely associating the Germanic term with Latin vafer (artful, cunning), asserts that waferarii are “cunning artists who practiced tricks by sleight of hand,” but offers no evidence; everywhere else, wafrarius just means “waferer”: see the DML. There would be nothing unusual, however, about combining the functions of waferer and entertainer—waferers made and served their delicious specialty at the end of a feast, and served up entertainment along with the wafers—or about farting as part of the show (205; B.13.231); see Southworth 1989, pp. 47, 64, 80–81. Stock 1988:468, Kirk and Anderson (Donaldson, 1990:139) and Staley 2002:35 suggest a pun on “wayfarer,” i.e., homo viator. The second part of Patience’s question in B.13.223, “to what contree he wolde,” never being answered, is dropped in C. As in the opening scene of Julius Caesar, and as in two places in the Canterbury Tales, the question, “What work do you do?,” brings a coy or riddling response. The Canon’s Yeoman, when the Host asks, “Is he a clerk, or noon? Telle what he is,” fumbles evasively, then blurts out that he could turn the whole road to Canterbury into silver and gold (G617–26); in the Friar’s tale, the Summoner, when the devil asks, “Are you a bailiff?,” replies “Yes” out of shame, and the devil declares wryly that he is another (cf. D1392– 96). (Staley, partly on the basis of this similar question, though mostly on the basis of “foul clothes,” elaborates a whole theory of CYT as “in conversation” with the Actyf episode.) Will has also been evasive in his reply to Reason’s questions about his work in C.5. Similarly here, Actyf is a waferer but says he is a minstrel—his notion being that he “comforts” people, brings them pleasure, with his bread as minstrels do with their entertainment. (This explanation is made much clearer in C, where the bald statement in B, “I am a Mynstrall . . . a wafrer” 224–26 is expanded into eight lines, 193–200, including an exchange with Conscience.) In his response to Conscience Actyf readily explains the riddle: the only kind of minstrelsy I know is to make men merry with wafers: it’s a job that makes people happy. Why he gives this oblique answer is not quite certain, though L in fact capitalizes on this convention in several ways: it aligns Actyf with other vagabond-minstrel figures more clearly than wafering would; it suggests an analogy with Will the maker; it extends the subject of feasts; it prepares for Patience’s alternative substitution: Actyf likens wafering to minstrelsy, Patience likens it to the provision of spiritual food. It also reveals Actyf ’s discontent with his lot, for he moves quickly enough to the complaint that lords’ minstrels are rewarded much more generously than he is though he provides a more essential service. The analogy with Will is perhaps especially potent. B.13.284–90 sound uncannily like him. Actyf appears on the surface to be the very opposite of

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Will: though not an actual laborer, he is definitely in the food business, whereas Reason berates Will precisely for contributing nothing to the harvest. But Actyf seems to wish he were a minstrel, just as Will meddles with makings, or sings for his supper, i.e., sings placebo and so on and is welcome “o3erwhile in a monthe” (5.50) in people’s houses. Thus he functions as something of a stand-in for Will in this scene; what he learns in C, and even what he confesses in B, is surely relevant to Will. Further, the removal of the sin-and-confession material from this scene in C may be due, not merely to its re-placement in the Seven Deadly Sins portion, but also to the presence of Will’s “confession” to Reason and Conscience in C.5. In structure the Actyf episode in the B version recalls that second vision, though the order here is confession-sermoncontrition, not sermon-confession-contrition, and we are shown no satisfaction by Actyf (though we may rightly feel that it will follow). Many critics have discussed the analogy between Actyf and Will. Alford, “Design” in Alford 1988:50 calls him “in many ways the alter ego of the dreamer himself,” and cites others who write similarly: Robertson and Huppe´ 1951:168, Bloomfield 1962:27, Carruthers 1973:122. Actually, Carruthers discusses the subject on pp. 115–17, 121–23; on 122 she says that Haukyn is “the most complete and evident mirror image of Will in the poem,” i.e., like Thought, etc., but better. On p. 115 she details the likenesses. To this list can be added Huppe´ 1947:619, Gillespie 1994:107, 110, and surely others. 194 Peres prentys ∂e plouhman, alle peple to conforte: It is hard to see how this line, which is not in B, adds anything to our sense of Piers; it is probably only a coy way for Actyf to say that he works to provide bread, which strengthens people—though it goes over Conscience’s head, apparently. Piers does the main job of plowing, sowing, harrowing, and supervising the harvest and the storing of the wheat (as at 21 [19].258–334); millers, bakers, and Actyf the waferer—“eny manere mester 3at myhte Peres auayle” 9.7, B.7.7—can all be thought of as his apprentices in the general sense of less skilled fellow toilers. Watson nicely says that Actyf’s work “updates and urbanizes the conservative social model represented by Piers” (2007:109). At 212 Actyf says that he himself sows, probably stretching the truth; see 208–13n below. See also lines 212–13, and B.13.236–38. Skeat and Pearsall take the line to mean that Actyf is, in Skeat’s phrase, “a true servant of Christ,” though both admit that the only basis for that is his providing communion wafers, as I do not think Actyf does; see 198n below. We might see him rather as straining to appear productive, a useful member of the agrarian economy, rather than the market economy to which he actually belongs; see John Baldwin 1970:1.57–59, Page 1989:16–17.

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C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

The line is the first hint that Actyf is a boaster: he will continue to speak in a way that inflates his own importance. 197–99 Munstracye . . . ∂e more: The statement makes better sense in Schmidt and Pearsall, who do not put a comma at the end of 197. “I don’t know much minstrelsy except how to make men happy, and welcome God’s guests, with wafers, as a waferer; because of my work all, both the less and the great, laugh and are happy.” Actyf’s account is calculated to emphasize the superiority of his minstrelsy to the ordinary sort: it appeals to a deeper need and brings a deeper pleasure; it abets God’s work of hospitality; it reaches a wider audience, the less as well as the great, the poor as well as the rich. But the recompense is worse. 198 godes gestes: Everyday people, alluding to Luke’s parable of the Great Supper or Matthew’s of the Son’s Wedding. In both the host stands for God; in the first (Luke 14:16–24), once the original guests bail, the invitation goes out to “the poor and the feeble and the blind and the lame”; in the second (Matt 22:1–14, which L draws on in the excuses made to Piers, 7.292–304 and quotes at 12.47–49 [B.11.112–14] and B.15.464), the king finally tells his servants to go into the highways and invite “as many as you shall find,” and they gather “all that they found, both bad and good.” As Gregory says, commenting on the Luke, “hos itaque elegit Deus quos despicit mundus” (PL 76.169; and so God chose those whom the world despised). The phrases ∂e lasse and ∂e more and the pore and the ryche in the next two lines may echo Matthew’s “both bad and good”; cf. 214 and B.13.239–42. Welcome godes gestes thus means the same thing (in Actyf’s bloated way of talking) as make men merye in the previous line. The phrase has universally been taken, however—e.g., by Skeat, Pearsall, Schmidt—to mean “welcome God’s guests to the Communion table,” since (they all say) waferers provided communion wafers—though OED does not give this meaning of “wafer” until 1559; MED gives it, but none of its many citations support it (unless the present line is thought to do so). In L’s time wafers were worldly delicacies such as Absolon sent Alison “pipyng hoot out of the gleede,” MillT A3379. They were thin sweet crisp pastries, probably with a honeycomb pattern imparted by the wafering irons, modern French gaufres, like our waffles, ultimately the same word, which meant honeycomb. (Cf. DML, s.v. wafrarius: “1313 Willelmo P. wafrario regis et E. consorti suae, menestrallis servientibus de waffr’ suis ad mensas dominorum” [To William P., the king’s waferer, and to E. his wife, servers who serve their wafers at the tables of lords]). And even if waferers did supply churches, how would doing that

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elevate Actyf to the function of welcoming communicants? (“Welcome” may not be a verb at all but an adjective, depending on “make” in the preceding line: “As a waferer, I make men merry, and God’s guests welcome, with wafers”; but in either case the meaning is the same.) A check of “hospites Dei” and similar Latin phrases in the PL online yields sporadic appearances in varying contexts, but nothing at all associated with Communion except this one: Honorius Augustodensis says that at Mass the celebrant and the people together are “hospites unius Domini,” guests of one Lord (Sacramentarium, PL 172.767); this may be a bit of evidence for the traditional interpretation of Actyf’s phrase. Meantime, MED, s,v, gest 1 (b) glosses “goddes gest” as “stranger,” citing this line, perhaps also with reference to Jesus’s two parables. In sum, Actyf’s wafers make people feel good, and there is probably nothing here about Communion at all. 201 (B.13.227) robes . . . forrede gounes, 203 (B.13.229) mantel: On the common aristocratic practice of making gifts of clothing (from which L himself may occasionally have benefited, or for which he may have wished), see B.14.25, 16.358 (B.15.233); also 7.84 and the end of the Summoner’s Tale, D2293; Cutts 1922:297; John Baldwin 1997:636n5, 640; Southworth 1989:58–59, and Crawford 2004. Chaucer’s Clerk’s preference of books over “robes riche, or fithele, or gay sautrie” (A296) may suggest that he might have chosen to become a minstrel instead. 202 (B.13.228) lye: Tell stories; see telle . . . gestes two lines later; Prol. 50 (B.Prol.49, A.Prol.49), B.Prol.51; 7.82 (B.13.422). John Baldwin 1997:639 cites the canonist Rufinus, who “defined ystriones (actors) as ystoriones (storytellers) who by transforming their faces and clothing created images that provided laughter, thus telling a ystoria (story) corporally.” Actually Actyf’s consistent hyperbolic mode makes clear that he does indeed know how to lie. 204–7 (B.13.230–33) tabre . . . syngen with ∂e geterne: Skeat provides a wealth of information about these skills. He primly passes over farting, but Pearsall fills in for him; see both. (Pearsall and Larry Benson have both delivered funny lectures on farting in Middle English literature, but I regret that I was not present for either. For attestation by those who were, see Shanzer 2009 [Pearsall] and Barney 2001:112 [Benson]). Tabre: play drums; trompy: play a horn; genteliche pipe: Kane, Glossary, says “sweetly” pipe, but perhaps “pipe like gentlefolk” such as Chaucer’s Squire, “syngynge . . . or floytynge al the day,” A91; sayle: dance or leap, AF sailler, Latin saltare. L may well have seen all these skills at the great houses he visited, though they could come from books,

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C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

too, since lists of various kinds of performance were frequent in moral writers as far back as Ambrose and Augustine through Peter the Chanter, Thomas of Chobham, and John of Salisbury. Interestingly, the moralists have little use for dancers but go easy on instrumentalists, and especially string players (Page 1989:24–33), so that Actyf might have gained most credit had he learned fiddle, harp, psaltery, or guitar. 208–13 Y haue . . . hate (B.13.234–37 I haue . . . waiten): 210–11: “My only satisfaction is that the parish priest prays for me on Sundays; otherwise, I regret that I bother to sow or plant for anyone but myself.” This is the socalled “bidding prayer,” more properly “the bidding of the bedes,” i.e., the praying of the prayers. It is fully described in Duffy 1992:124–25; The Lay Folks Mass Book gives five examples from York on pp. 61–80; many more are in Coxe 1840. On Sunday only, before the offertory the priest would turn to the people and call, in English, for prayers for a whole series of people—the king, the bishop, benefactors of the parish, and so on, including, regularly, “al land tilland” (The Lay Folks Mass Book, ed. Simmons 1879: 65, 70, 78). The prayer requested was the Paternoster (and sometimes also a Hail Mary); thus B.13.236. Of course the Paternoster itself includes the petition, “give us this day our daily bread,” so that to say that prayer for land-tillers is particularly apt. Thus his point is not finally to complain that his only reward is that he gets prayed for, but to acknowledge that people need him and recognize that they need him. (Sowe or sette 211, like mete [food] and drynke 215, is yet another instance of Actyf’s habit of stretching the truth: here he extends his activity beyond just selling wafers to the whole business of food production.) ∂at ydelnesse hate: Cf. Ymaginatyf’s similar self-introduction, “ydel was y neuere” 14.1 (B.12.1), but in Actyf’s case a pleonasm, already stated in B at line 225 above: if your name is Actyf, you hate idleness. B.13.237 and ∂at hym profit waiten: and those who look for profit from him (i.e., me). 215 (B.13.240) Mihelmasse to Mihelmasse: “Michaelmas (September 29), the feast of St Michael and all Angels, marked the beginning and ending of the husbandman’s year. At that time harvest was over, and the bailiff or reeve of the manor would be making out the accounts for the year. . . . At once after Michaelmas, if not before, the planting of the new field of rye and wheat would begin, the field which had lain fallow during the year past” (Homans 1941:354). Homans was writing of the thirteenth century, but clearly the custom continued.

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215 drynke: I.e., beer and ale, made from grain. B.13.242 folk wi∂ brode crounes: Parish priests with their tonsure (see Lawler 2002:111 n30). 216–31 Y fynde payn for ∂e pope . . . made (B.13.243–259 I fynde payn for ∂e pope . . . payn defaute): The passage is much clearer in B than in C. There, Actyf has been listing his various customers in order to emphasize the universal need for bread. That brings him to the pope (not, as Skeat supposes, because Actyf contributes to the annual papal collection called Peter’s Pence, but merely because he has gotten on to clerics in the previous line, and the pope, too, needs his daily bread), and ends the list, because mention of the pope brings him back to his complaint that the powerful reward him poorly for his service. What it would be nice for the pope to throw his way, instead of a useless pardon, would be a salve that would cure pestilence: then Actyf would be busy indeed (B.13.251), that is, business would be excellent. In the process of developing this happy fantasy, Actyf imagines yet another phony job for himself, this time not minstrel but minister, not pastryman but pastor (prest B.13 250: “eager, active,” but punning on “priest”), a kind of quack cleric like Chaucer’s Pardoner, armed with not only the magic salve but with bulls and the papal seal. This move depends first (as Skeat notes) on a pun on prouendre: I give the pope provender for his palfrey, why can’t he give me provender, that is, a prebend (stipend), a personage (benefice) in return? The pun is extended in the word paast B.13.250, which is at once “paste,” the miraculous salve he will hawk, “pastry,” for he will continue to sell bread as well, and “what a pastor has to give.” The disrespectful attitude toward the papacy that drives the passage appears first in the derisive phrase for the papal seal (which featured the heads of Saints Peter and Paul), a peis of leed and two polles amyddes (B.13.246), continues in the fiction of the pope’s sending off to Actyf, in response to his letter (dictated to his secretary) requesting it, the pot of salve that would transform his business, and ends, as Skeat (citing Whitaker) points out, in what, given the actual wealth of the papacy, can only be an ironic reference to St Peter’s “Silver and gold I have none” (Acts 3:6). The implication of B.13.254a is that the current pope would have to say just the opposite: “Might of miracle (cf. B.13.255) I have none, and I do not give you what I do have, silver and gold.” Finally, however, the anti-papal satire is supererogatory. The basic point of the B passage is to present Actyf as dissatisfied with his lot, a businessman on the make for better profits; for in B.13.256 he acknowledges sadly that,

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C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

however the papacy has fallen in spiritual power since Peter, the real source of the pestilence is general human pride (cf. 11.52–65; 5.114–17), and the only cure for that is famine, which is, of course, bad for the bread business. In the C version, L seems to have realized that the anti-papal satire was a distraction, and has muted it, in the process obscuring somewhat Actyf’s reasons for mentioning either the pope or the pestilence at all. Nevertheless the essential point remains: Actyf longs for more business (222) and still imagines getting it through winning the franchise for the pope’s salve: for though the salve is no longer spoken of explicitly as being sent to him, the only way lines 222–23 can make sense is if they envision Actyf displaying the bull and selling the salve. Still he seems less roguish in C, more merely solicitous, and by 230 virtually in despair for his livelihood over the realization that it is precisely plente of payn that is responsible for the pestilence. The difference of emphasis in the two versions is brought about by what follows each: since in B Actyf will become an emblem of sinful man, his cynicism is featured here. In C, however, the interest is, as Pearsall says, “in preparing Active as an erring pupil for instruction by Patience,” and so he is made to appear merely too solicitous for his livelihood rather than inclined to sharp practice. 217 pestilence (B.13.248 ∂e pestilence); 218 (B.13.249) bocches; 219 luythere eir: All apparently references to the recurrence of bubonic plague in 1368; cf. B.13.268–69. Bocches were its characteristic glandular swellings (“bubos”). 221a Super egros manus inponent & bene habebunt &c (B.13.249a In nomine meo demonia ejicient & super . . . habebunt): Both versions cite Mark 16:17– 18, at the very end of Mark’s Gospel, Jesus’s words when he appears after the Resurrection “to the eleven as they were at table” (16:14): “In nomine meo dæmonia eiicient; [linguis loquentur novis; serpentes tollent, et si mortiferum quid biberint, non eis nocebit;] super ægrotos manus imponent, et bene habebunt” (In my name they shall cast out devils; [they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents, and if they shall drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them;] they shall lay their hands upon the sick, and they shall recover). The phrase myhte of myracle 225 (B.17.255) probably implies all the super-powers Mark lists, not just healing. And the reference to Peter’s power, to pardoun (B.13.252) and mercy (221) and ∂e pott with ∂e salue, i.e., the power both to forgive sins and heal disease, suggests that L is thinking of the last two chapters of John’s Gospel as well, in which (21:23) the eleven are given the power to forgive sins, and (22:15–17) Peter is given special responsibility to feed the flock.

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We are not to suppose that the verses from the Vulgate that creep into Actyf’s monologue starting here—there are three all told in C, seven in B—are uttered by him. Schmidt (226a note) distinguishes subtly between the thought (Actyf’s) and the form (L’s), but I’m not so ready even to give the thought to Actyf: rather we simply have L reverting to his default mode of writing, what I have called elsewhere “a kind of teacherly citation of authority, as if in the margin” (Lawler 1996:171); see further pp. 169–78 of that essay; Mann 1994:34, 41–46; and Lawler 2008:150–51. It was careless of him to use the style for Actyf. 224 (B.13.254) ∂e pott with ∂e salue: A brash phrase for the powers of forgiving and healing, pardoun [that]/Mi√te lechen a man (B.13.252–53), granted the apostles. The phrase is perhaps a translation of alabastrum unguenti, the “alabaster box of ointment” applied to Jesus’s feet in Luke 7:37, called a “box of salue” at B.13.194 (the phrase also occurs in the slightly different anointing story in Matt 26:7 and Mark 14:3). Unlike in passus 22 (B.20).306,336,372, where “salue” is simply the sacrament of Penance, and “to salue” is to administer the sacrament (305, 347), illness here is real illness, not just spiritual. At B.17.122, where the Samaritan says, “I haue salue for alle sike,” it means healing on one level (for the man left half-alive), and forgiveness on another (for all of us, in need of redemption). 224a Argentum . . . tibi do &c; B.13.254a Argentum . . . ambula: Silver and gold I have none, but what I have, I give thee. In the name of the Lord arise and walk (Acts 3:6, Peter to a lame man who asked alms of him; Alford, Quot. points out that the reading domini for Vulgate Iesu Christi Nazareni is attested in ancient manuscripts). Many patristic writers—e.g., Ambrose, Jerome, Rabanus, Bede—also have Domini Iesu, however, so we need not imagine L going back to the Vetus latina. 227 (B.13.257) may no blessynge doen vs bote: I.e., heal our pestilence: see 217–18 (B.13.248–49) above. Cf. 5.115–17 (B.5.13–15, A.5.13–15), in which Reason in his sermon blames pestilence on pride, and 11.52–65a (B.10.72–85a), in which Dame Study rails about pride, pestilence, and the failure to share bread with the hungry. Actyf has taken on a preacher’s voice, which he has no business doing. 228 (B.13.258) Ne mannes prayere (B masse) maky pees amonges cristene peple: B’s mannes masse is a cynical phrase, softened in C. War is a new issue; Actyf has said nothing about it, nor has either of the other pride passages mentioned in the previous note. The doctor has raised the question at the

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C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

dinner, however, speaking at lines 171–73 (B.13.173–76) of a peace between the pope and his enemies; and there were two popes, maybe, at the time of the poem; see 171–73 (B.13.173–76) note above. 229a-31 Habundancia . . . made: The Latin sentence means, “The vilest sin comes from an abundance of bread and wine.” It is probably by L; see B.14.77a and note. It is built, along with lines 230–31 (which translate both L’s Latin and Ezechiel’s in L’s free way), on Ezechiel 16:49, “Behold, this was the iniquity of Sodom thy sister: pride, fullness of bread, and abundance, and the idleness of her and of her daughters; and they did not put forth their hand to the needy and to the poor,” as Alford and Pearsall point out. Maillet 2014:70 adds Luke 17:28–29. A closer parallel to L’s Latin line than anything in Alford, because it mentions both bread and wine, is the Gloss on Isa 5:22, PL 113.1242: “Ex abundantia panis et vini peccatum Sodomorum crevit” (The sin of the men of Sodom came from abundance of bread and wine). See also Peter the Chanter, ed. Boutry 2004:107: he glosses “habundancia panis” as “quarumlibet copia deliciarum” (plenty of whatever delicacies). The line ends Actyf’s monologue eleven lines sooner than in B, moving immediately, and much more effectively, into Patience’s response, which in B has to wait for the whole long sin passage, and for Conscience’s exchange with Actyf (at the beginning of passus 14) as well. B.13.260–61 For . . . morwenyng: I.e., For I have to work hard in the cold early mornings to make enough bread from grain to provide for the people. “For” implies that Actyf realizes that pride is not fordone in his own case: he is still subject to Adam’s curse, earning his bread through the sweat of his brow (Gen 3:19, a favorite verse of those who argued against mendicancy). B.13.264–70 it is no√t . . . Maire: Skeat quotes Stow p. 159 (presumably he used the original edition, 1698; I saw the second edition, “enlarged” by John Strype, 1720: 2, 85), who reports that it was once the practice for several carts of bread from Stratford-atte-Bowe, the penny-loaf weighing two ounces more than a London penny-loaf, to arrive in London daily, but that the practice disappeared about 1568. Stow illustrates the practice by citing ll. 265–69 (from manuscript, perhaps ms. R, as his readings show). Skeat also cites several sources that indicate that a dearth drove the price of wheat very high in 1370. John Chichester, goldsmith, was mayor from October 28, 1369 to October 27, 1370. This is the only reference in PP to a contemporary person, and suggests that B cannot be very far from 1370. 265 whan no cart com to towne: presumably for an extended period, perhaps all of April, not just one morning. 267

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agast a lite: ironic understatement, presumably—surely they were shocked and dismayed. ∂ou√t: i.e., remembered (though in fact these lines are the only record).

Actyf’s sin-stained coat (B.13.271–14.28; not in C, though much of the sin material appears in C.6 and 7; see B.13.274–456n below) B.13.271–14.28 Actyf ’s sin-stained coat: Actyf in B now becomes the representative of sinful humanity, and the stains on his cote of cristendom are described, namely, the seven deadly sins (or six of them: wrath and envy are treated together). The coat, which disappears completely in the C version, is called my cristendom again at B.14.11. It is his coat of baptism (MED s.v. cristendom 2 [b]), vestimentum or vestis or tunica baptismi—a classic image, also called the coat of salvation (vestimento salutis, Theodulf, De ordine baptismi, PL 105.234) or coat of faith (vestimentum fidei, Tertullian, De baptismo, PL 1.1215, and everywhere)—conferred on him by baptism and symbolized by the white baptismal robe. It comes up especially in commentary on Apoc 3:4, “Sed habes pauca nomina in Sardis qui non inquinaverunt vestimenta sua, et ambulabunt mecum in albis, quia digni sunt” (But thou hast a few names in Sardis which have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white, because they are worthy); Apoc 16:15, “Beatus qui vigilat et custodit vestimenta sua, ne nudus ambulet et videant turpitudinem suam” (Blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame); Gal 3:27, “Quicumque enim in Christo baptizati estis Christum induistis” (For as many of you as have been baptized in Christ have put on Christ); and sometimes Eph 4:22–24 and Col 3:9–10, on putting off the old man and putting on the new (see also 1 Cor 15:53, cited by Alford 1974:137). Frank (1957:71n) and Schmidt 1995 cite the “spotted garment which is carnal” of Jude 1.23, but there is in fact little use made of that in the commentary tradition. All commentators say that the vestimenta of Apoc 3:4 are those put on at baptism; the Glossa says they are “vestes immortalitatis et innocentiae, quas acceperunt in baptismo, vel, sua bona opera” (the clothes of immortality and innocence that they received at baptism, or, their good works); both these meanings apply to Actyf. Most commentators acknowledge readily that the coat will need frequent washing, and that that is accomplished by means of the tears of penitence. Peter of Cluny is typical (PL 189.961): “Haec vestis sic mundata, si postmodum inquinetur, non aqua baptismatis, quae non novit nisi semel mundare, sed secundo lacrymarum fonte purganda est, qua et

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C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

Petrus negationis maculas abluit, et Maria Domini pedes rigando, vitiorum flammas exstinxit” (If this clean coat is later dirtied, it has to be washed not in the water of baptism, which can only clean once, but in a second fountain, that of tears, the fountain in which Peter washed out the stains of his denial and Mary put out the flames of her vices by washing the Lord’s feet). As I have mentioned, Staley 2002 argues for the relevance of Matthew’s parable of the wedding feast from which one man is cast out for not wearing a wedding garment (Matt 22:1–14, which L does treat at B.15.462–85 without mentioning the man improperly dressed). She shows that commentators regularly spoke of dirty clothes rather than the wrong clothes, but this tradition seems tangential in comparison to the commentary on Apoc 3:4 and the other passages cited above. So the coat is Actyf’s Christianity, his identity as a Christian, or a little more palpably, his baptized soul. It is clean when he is in the state of grace, his condition at baptism; when he sins he soils it (B.14.276–408, 457–59; B.14.4, 12–15); but contrition, confession, and satisfaction, by restoring him to the state of grace, make it clean again (B.14.5–11, 16–28). Breen 2010:209–16 sees the coat in terms of the Latin word habitus, which means both “condition” and “dress” (as English “habit” still does), but surely L was thinking rather of the traditional Christian metaphor. The details in the long account of the sins that foul the coat, B.13.274–456, which Langland removed completely from this scene in the C version (see next note), have no value as further characterizations of Actyf. As Robertson and Huppe´ say, “The result is a kind of general confession of sins of all types not necessarily consistent with a single personality, as though the poet had described all of the sins applicable to the active life which he found either in a confessional inquiry or in a manual for penitents” (1951:168–69). The many critics who draw on them in their account of Haukyn (Breen, for instance, who makes too much of the phrase “yhabited as an heremyte” 284) go astray, it seems to me.

Actyf commits the seven deadly sins (B.13.274–456) B.13.274–456 Ac it was moled . . . luciferis fi∂ele: In the course of the C revision L apparently concluded that this passage not only confused the presentation of Actyf but was redundant with the earlier treatment of the sins in B passus 5, and decided to integrate it with that passage (with numerous small changes) as follows:

Actyf commits the seven deadly sins B.13.275–83 (Pride) B.13.291–312a (Pride) B.13.324–41 (Envy) B.13.344–51 (Lechery) B.13.354–98a (Greed) B.13.399–406 (Gluttony) B.13.407–56 (Sloth)

became '' '' '' '' '' ''

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C.6.30–37 C.6.41–60a C.6.69–85 C.6.178–94 C.6.260–85a C.6.425–32 (much changed) C.7.69–116

Commentary on these passages, including phrases and lines unique to the B.13 version, appears above, at C passu¯s 6 and 7. Lines 271–74, 313–19, 342, 354–55, 399–400, and 457–59 maintain the framework of attention to the coat (and to Will, who keeps examining it ever more closely), culminating in Conscience’s courteously asking Haukyn why he doesn’t wash; naturally, these lines disappear in the C version. B.13.275–312a Of pride here a plot . . . Nemo potest duobus dominis seruire: (Pride) ⳱ C.6.30–60a. 275 pride . . . vnbuxom speche: Cf. C.6.14 (I, pruyde) and 16 (Haue be vnbuxum. 276: Cf. C.6.22, 25. 277–79: C.6.30–32. 280: C.6.34. 281: ⳱ C.6.35. 282–83: C.6.36–37. B.13.284 Yhabited as an heremyte . . . 290 ∂er he ha∂ no√t to doone: Replaced by C.6.38–40. Both passages expand on non so popholy C.6.37 (B.13.283). In the B lines, Will, interpreting the dirty coat, asserts that Actyf in his popeholiness has dressed up as a religious hermit, attached to no order and so obeying no rule, pretending to the lele lif of a true hermit, but in fact spending his time scolding others (preaching at them as sinners, presumably), then getting a name for holiness and attracting contributions (best for his body), in short butting into matters that are the proper business of those in orders. (Schmidt takes line 289 to mean “How best to get a reputation for sexual prowess,” but you don’t need Inwit and outwit to do that. I see the entire passage as about pope-holiness. How a hermit uses his wits for the good of his body is made clear in C.9.188–251.) This account of the man Actyf as popeholy is changed in C to a focus on pope-holiness itself, which crops up in one order (sekt) or another, and in many a convent. The change was probably prompted by the insertion in C of the passage just mentioned, 9.188–251. B.13.291–94: C.6.41–44. 293 Or strengest on stede, or styuest vnder girdel: Parodies the diction of alliterative romances; see 15.155n above. 295: Not in C, perhaps because the point about pope-holiness has been made fully above. 296–97: ⳱ C.6.46. 298–99: ⳱ C.6.47–48. 300–1 Pouere . . . speche: Not in C. These two lines are probably explained by Boldest of beggeris 302: Actyf

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C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

begs effectively by appearing poor and browbeating passersby into giving. The lines are therefore unnecessary (and a little cryptic), and so are dropped. See also C.6.60 thow y pore seme. 302–4: ⳱ C.6.49–51. 305: Put in new words in C.6.52. 306: ⳱ C.6.53–54. 307–10: C.6.55–58. 311–12: ⳱ C.6.59–60. 312a: C.6.60a. B.13.313–19 “By crist!” quod Conscience . . . ∂an it first semed: This transition to the next deadly sin gives Conscience a chance to introduce the idea of washing the coat, which he will return to at the end of this passus and the beginning of the next. On body half: on the front. Frounces: wrinkles. Ever proud, Actyf seems to boast even of his slovenliness. B.13.320–41 It was bidropped wi∂ wra∂e . . . my chief heele: (Wrath and Envy) ⳱ C.6.324–41, under Envy only. For L’s habit of treating Wrath and Envy as the same sin, see Lawler 1996:178–79 and 6.6–59n above. B.13.320–23: Not in C. B.13.324–30a: C.6.69–75a. B.13.331–32: Not in C. B.13.333–41: C.6.77–85. B.13.342–53 I waitede wisloker . . . tellen: (Lechery) ⳱ C.6.178–85, perhaps 186, 193–94. B.13.343 as by lokynge of his ei√e: Cf. C.6.177 in waytynge of eyes. B.13.344–51: C.6.178–85. B.13.352–53: Not in C, but cf. C.6.186, 193–94. B.13.354–398a Thanne Pacience parceyued . . . cor tuum: (Greed) ⳱ C.6.260– 85a; also perhaps 243, 247. B.13.354–60: Not in C, but line 359 is partially used at C.6.243. Vnkynde desiryng: acquisitiveness beyond what is natural; good: things; met: quantity, what is measured out.; wed: the security for the loan. B.13.361–67: C.6.260–66. B.13.368–69: Not in C. B.13.370–74: C.6.267–71. B.13.375–82: Not in C, except that 375 is partially used at C.6.247. B.13.375–76 And what body . . . som certeyn: And anybody who borrowed from me paid for the time (I gave him to repay) with presents given in secret, or paid me a certain amount (extra); cheped: offered to buy, OED, s.v.cheap, v., 3a. B.13.383–88: C.6.272–77. B.13.389–90 So if I kidde . . . conscience gan hange: Not in C. This murky couplet is best explained by the sentences before and after it. Both of those say that at Mass he cannot pray because he is always mourning his losses or worrying about the money at risk in his current ventures. This sentence may be paraphrased, “Likewise (So) if I was kind to others, it did not give me a good conscience (cf. me conforte 394), because my conscience, instead of telling me ‘This is the right thing to do,’ was instead saying, ‘This is a good investment.’ ” He has a conscience that focuses not on good or God but on goods, vpon a cruwel coueitise: “Moore to good 3an to

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god 3e gome his loue caste” (356). It is where his heart is (398a). L plays on the two meanings of “conscience,” with and without a moral dimension (see the OED entry). He toys also with Latin dicta about what conscience depends on, such as Aquinas’s “Iudicium conscientiae maxime dependet ex divinis mandatis” (ST, 1a 2ae 96.4.2.1), the conscience’s judgment depends mostly on God’s commandments. See also B.5.594, in Piers’s allegory of heaven, “Of almesdedes are 3e hokes 3at 3e gates hangen on.” The previous two lines have spoken of prayers and penance. Neither prayers, penance, nor almsdeeds have any spiritual value for Actyf: what hooks him, what he is hung up on, is profit. B.13.391–98a: C.6.278–85a. B.13.399–406 Yet glotoun . . . wende nau√t to be saued: Glotoun: As in the seven-sins passage earlier, uniquely with gluttony L names the sinner rather than the sin. The phrase grete o∂es alliterates with “gloton” or “glotonye” three other times: A.2.64 (B.2.93, C.2.100), A.5.157 (B.5.306, C.6.361), A.11.37 (B.10.51), and the adjective grete with some other noun five times: B.5.353 (C.6.411), B.5.379, B.13.78 (C.15.85), B.14.235, C.16.76. Cf. the similar linkage of gluttony and swearing at PardT C471–72. The only phrases in this short account of Actyf’s gluttony that appear in C.6 are 399 grete o∂es (C.6.361), 401 ∂ere no nede was (C.6.428), and 403 moore . . . ∂an kynde my√te defie (C.6.430). Line 401 illustrates fals speche 400. 402 ∂erby: i.e., by God’s name. 406 wanhope: despair; this starts the transition to Sloth. Actyf disappears during the treatment of Sloth, to re-emerge suddenly at line 457; however, he will experience something close to despair at the end of passus B.14. B.13.407–56 The whiche is sleu∂e . . . luciferis fi∂ele: (Sloth) ⳱ C.7.69–116. B.13.407–8: Not in C. Slei√tes: arts; strategies, special knacks. B.13.409–13: C.6.69–73. B.13.414: Not in C. hei√ ferye: A synonym for halyday: a church festival falling on a weekday (ferye), later just called a “high day.” Cf. C.4.113. B.13.415: Expanded to C.7.74–75. B.13.416–56: C.7.76–116.

An address to lords, ladies, and churchmen about dinner parties (B.13.421–56) B.13.421–56 Ye lordes . . . luciferis fi∂ele: In the C version, this passage is moved to C.7.81–118, with very little change. See Ralph Hanna’s notes. In their original place, these lines bear an interesting relation to Conscience’s dinner; Conscience has invited the poor, Will and Patience, and not fool sages, liars,

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and flatterers (though the doctor of divinity may be all three), and consequently has heard some quite salutary after-dinner conversation, has in effect heard the minstrel Patience fiddle the story of Good Friday. See Simpson 2007:138; Walling 2007:73–74. Gruenler 2017:162–63 associates the passage with riddling, and considers Patience one of the good minstrels. Compare the story of St Francis going outside before Easter dinner and knocking to be invited to his own table, then criticizing the brothers for not inviting the poor (Golden Legend, trans. Ryan 2.222). It is hard not to sense a desire on L’s part to be invited somewhere to dinner, and to read from his poem after dinner. Lines B.13.436–53 appear only in mss. RF, and so may represent revision; see Hanna 1996:215–29, esp. 222; Donaldson 1949:142–43. Original though the passage clearly is, it has biblical antecedents: particularly Luke 14.12–14 (when you have a dinner, don’t invite your rich friends; invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind; quoted loosely at 12.103a [B.11.191a] and probably alluded to at B.9.92–94a); also Deut 14:29, 26:12, Isa 58:7 (all say, “Invite poor strangers”; the Isaiah is quoted at 9.125 and 11.65 [B.10.85]), and the whole of Ps 100, whose third verse is quoted at 432a; behind the decretal maxim Consentientes quoted at 427a is Rom 1:32. And L’s favorite moralists are relevant as well. See Peter the Chanter, Verbum abbreviatum 1.47 (ed. Boutry 2004:313–20), urging prelates to get the entertainers out of their houses, and citing the Gloss on Tob 4:18: “Cum hystrionibus . . . noli communicare, sicut hii qui nutriunt hystriones et desides, cum esuriant Christi pauperes” (316) (Have nothing to do with actors, like those who feed actors and idlers while Christ’s poor go hungry), and again in 1.63 (textus prior, ed. Boutry 2012a:385–90), on shunning bad society. Peter quotes the same verse (7) of Psalm 100 (Boutry 2012a:386) as L does at B.13.432a; it is also quoted by Peter of Blois, Letter 18 (PL 207:65–69), in which he explains why he refuses to come to dinner in the house of a lax bishop. Finally, in its large outlines, which set lavish entertaining against “philosophical banquets,” John of Salisbury’s Policraticus 8.6–10 provides an analogue.

Back to Actyf’s coat (B.13.457–59, 14.1–28; not in C) B.13.457–59 Thus haukyn . . . brusshe: Actyf abruptly returns after the discourse on dinner guests. His full title haukyn ∂e Actif man, not used since line 272, by its formality signals the close of the passus. Acouped hym ∂erof: accused him about it. Passus B.14: As Alford 1977 argues, the parable of the great supper, Luke 14:15– 24, from which Actyf’s Latin remark in line 3a, Vxorem duxi & ideo non possum

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venire, is taken, provides the theme of the passus: the rich will turn away the invitation to heaven; the invitation will then go to the poor, who will “eat bread in the kingdom of God” (Luke 14:15). The parable accounts for all the emphasis on rich and poor. The poor eat the bread “fiat voluntas tua” here and so will feast there: a new version of the pardon is implied, “Qui paupertatem passi sunt ibunt in vitam eternam.” The rich do their own will, rejecting God’s, and thus sinning and losing heaven: “Qui vero divites erant ibunt in ignem eternum.” Of course the poor often sin too; thus the emphasis on contrition and confession. Sin is overcome by redemption, but the rich are excluded from the parchment of acquittance because they won’t become poor of heart. The whole passus is a good example of semi-Pelagianism. The redemption is essential, but one must also be poor of heart, and treat others with ruth. The passus only makes full sense if Actyf is taken to be a rich man (even if he only owns one coat), as he is clearly a man driven by the profit motive; we have to take his question about wealth well earned and well spent (103; C.15.277–78) as implying his view of himself. Alford argues further that the passus is structured by the Latin quotations, which fall into two groups, “according to the structure of the parable itself”: the first, based on Luke’s verses 18–20, treat the matter of “solicitude” (as displayed in the excuses the invitees offer for not coming to the supper), concording on the words “bread” and “will.” The second treats the consequences for the supper, concording on the words “rich” and “poor.” His argument has not won unqualified assent, but at the very least he has demonstrated clearly that the quotations fall into groups of biblical verses frequently “concorded” by commentators. See also Staley 2002, whose focus on Matthew’s parable of the Wedding Feast (22:1–14), treating Haukyn with his coat as the man without a wedding garment, is to my mind not as apt as Alford’s sticking to Luke; Carruthers 1973:121–23 draws effectively on both parables. B.14.1–35 Actif ’s confession that his coat is dirty; the replies of Conscience and Patience: In lines 1–4, the coat is momentarily a literal coat or hater (1): Actyf says he cannot wash it because it is the only one he has, and so on him all the time, even at night (this may remind us of his earlier complaint that he has no robes from patrons—unless he sleeps naked, and his coat is here “literally his flesh,” as Alford 1974:133 takes it); and it is spattered and soiled by his family and servants in the close encounters that characterize the active life of the household. Those lines have their moral level, of course: as his body is his only body, his soul is his only soul, and wife, children, and servants soil it because they incite him to lust, anger, and unkindness, or more generally

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because they represent the dust and heat of everyday life in which sin is inevitable (and the call to the great supper of heaven refused, as the allusion in line 3a to Luke’s parable of the Great Supper emphasizes). Starting in line 5, however, the discourse presents the moral level directly: the coat is Actyf’s cristendom (11) (as it was originally called at B.13.273, He hadde a cote of cristendom), his baptized soul, washed by penitence, resoiled again and again by sin. What seems the trouble with this unhopeful process is that Actyf’s contrition is shallow, driven by bodily sickness, a soap that probably seeks less wonder depe (6) than he likes to think, or material setbacks (which, he has admitted at B.13.383–98, prompt him to very imperfect penitence) and his motivation inadequate, as his attempt to use the word coueitise neutrally in line 11 suggests: the desire merely to keep his coat clean is indeed a kind of coveitise in the bad sense, self-centered, hardly caritas. (For a better neutral use, see B.5.52, “lat tru3e be youre coueitise.”) Furthermore, the admissions of insincerity at B.13.383–98 raise the question whether this apparent process of contrition, confession, and satisfaction has produced any cleansing at all. Nor does Actyf say that he did the penances, only that the priest gave them (9–10); see B.13.411. Conscience offers a far more searching contrition that will “claw” the coat clean, a better will to amend, and a new level of good works (Dobest) to maintain it. (Patience will celebrate the same process of contrition, confession, and satisfaction, but without the allegory of washing, in B.14.83–97.) Nevertheless it is hard to see what Conscience offers that Actyf has not already tried; one is made to feel that the happy prospect Conscience holds out is a function of his characteristic optimism, and there seems little likelihood of a major transformation in Actyf. Patience then takes the optimism still further, offering him an endless supply of dough for his wafers without benefit of plowing or sowing; Actyf laughs at him. But Patience, who seems very close to being Christ here, is speaking of food for the soul. Actyf has seemed capable of understanding that his coat is his Christendom, but does not seem capable of thinking of food in any but material terms. Nevertheless, the laugh is brief, and starting at line 36 Patience seems finally to rouse Actyf from his selfabsorbed despair by transforming the discourse from cleansing to nourishment. But the opening passage through line 35, for all its accurate sacramental theology, leaves one, not for the first time in the poem, more convinced of the intractability of ordinary human drives than of the possibility of transcending them. The three parts of penance—contrition, confession, and satisfaction—are a commonplace of late medieval writing, and the comparison to washing is equally commonplace, inscribed in the very word “contrition,” rubbing away. A classic place is Psalm 50, one of the penitential psalms that L prayed daily,

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quoted six times in the B text, verses 3–4, “Dele iniquitatem meam. Amplius lava me ab iniquitate mea, et a peccato meo munda me” (Blot out my iniquity. Wash me yet more from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin). Peter the Chanter in Verbum abbreviatum associates the psalm’s phrases with Conscience’s three steps: “ ‘Dele iniquitatem meam,’ per cordis contritionem; ‘Amplius lava me,’ per peccati confessionem . . . . ‘Munda me,’ per operis satisfactionem” (Ed. Boutry 2012a:648) (“Blot out my iniquity,” by contrition of heart; “Wash me yet more,” by confession of sin. . . . “Cleanse me,” by satisfaction of deed). Raymond of Pennaforte says that contrition “mundat animam a reatu,” washes the soul of guilt (1976:809). (Satisfaction, or performance of the penance imposed by the priest in confession, is understood to include absolution or “shriving,” which Actif mentions here in line 9, since the priest utters the words of absolution and gives the penance in the same breath, as it were; see OED, s.v. shrift, n. 2. Or perhaps it is understood rather to be included in confession: L in fact seems to treat “confess” and “be shriven,” and “confession” and “shrift,” as virtually synonymous. Compare, for example C.6.338, “Confessen hem and cryen hym mercy” to C.6.356, “sitte and be shryue and synege no more.” Theologians in fact disagreed over whether contrition or absolution was the essence of the sacrament; see the discussion in Tentler 1977:18–27.) Psalm 14, “Domine, quis habitabit in tabernaculo tuo,” of immense importance to L’s whole conception of Dowel, is also relevant because of the phrase from verse 2, “Qui ingreditur sine macula” (He that walketh without blemish); see above, 190–16.157 (B.13.221–14.335)n. As for the tradition of treating this washing via the further metaphor of washing clothing, see this typical remark by Peter of Celle (PL 202.1093), “Quis ascendet ad Deum, ut facies eius illuminetur? Nimirum qui non inquinavit vestimenta sua, vel qui saltem lavit ea in sanguine Agni, vera confessione et integra cordis contritione?” (Who will ascend to God, that his face may be made to shine? Surely he who has not stained his clothing, or at least he who has washed it in the blood of the Lamb by true confession and pure contrition of heart?), and see B.13.271–14.28n. B.14.3a Vxorem duxi & ideo non possum venire: Luke 14:20, from the parable of the great supper. Quoted by Actyf again when he reappears in the C text to beg to be excused from Piers’s pilgrimage, C.7.299–304a. See 190–16.157 (B.13.221–14.335) note above. B.14.5 in lente and out of lente bo∂e: Though repentance is the subject, lente here, in view of the reference to sickness in the next line, probably means not

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C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

the Church season but late winter and spring, when the days are lengthening and colds and flu abound. Cf. the opening sentence of the Canterbury Tales. B.14.7–8 forto me loo∂ were/To agulte: To the point that I was loath to offend. B.14.11 Al for coueitise of my cristendom in clennesse to kepen it: All out of the desire to keep my (coat of) baptism clean. For the neutral sense “strong desire or craving” of coueitise, see MED, s.v. coveitise, n., 3. and cf. 4.114, 16.224 (B.15.62). B.14.13 si√te: either by lechery (see B.13.343 and Fasciculus morum, ed. Wenzel 1989:648–55) or by avarice (see Couetyse-of-yes, 12.3–12, B.11.46–60); see also the relation of sight to pride, B.13.278. B.14.14 werk . . . word . . . wille: Cf. the Confiteor, said at Mass: “Quia peccavi nimis cogitatione, verbo, et opere” (because I have sinned exceedingly in thought, word, and deed). This is the form of the Roman rite; see PL 217.768; Sarum has locutione for verbo (ed. Dickinson, 1861–83:580). But the division is commonplace in discussions of both sin and virtue; see above, B.13.140n. B.14.16–22 And I shal kenne ∂ee . . . vnkynde werkes: See 16.25–35n below and B.14.1–35n above. B.14.21a Satisfaccio: The usual phrase is operis satisfaccio (as at C.16.31), “satisfaction of deed,” i.e., the performance of good works (the opposite of vnkynde werkes B.14.22; Chaucer’s Parson says that satisfaction is penitence for angering Christ by “wikked synful werkynge” [I111]). Dobest has been defined similarly at B.9.205–6. The suppression of the word “operis” in this Three-Do’s passage is odd, since “do” is a kind of translation of it. B.14.23–28 Shal neuere myx . . . Actiua vita: The KD-B emendations myx (filth) for “myst” 23 and Haukyn wil for “Haukyns wif” offer a deft solution to the main difficulties addressed in Alford 1974.

Patience offers Actyf the food Fiat voluntas tua, and explains its value (C.15.232–71, B.14.29–97) 232–71a “Pees!” quod pacience . . . peticionem tuam (B.14.29–72 “And I shal purueie ∂ee paast,” quod Pacience . . . if cristes wordes ben trewe): In C Patience responds to Actyf’s somewhat confused and self-regarding monologue, in B he seconds Conscience’s promise of the reforms that the three Do’s

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will bring him, by offering him the food fiat voluntas tua. The scriptural basis of this passage is John 4:31–34, the exchange between Jesus and his disciples after the Samaritan woman he has spoken with at the well, promising “a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life” (4:14), has gone to summon her townsmen: “In the mean time the disciples prayed him, saying, ‘Rabbi, eat.’ But he said to them, ‘I have meat to eat which you know not of.’ The disciples therefore said one to another, ‘Hath any man brought him to eat?’ Jesus saith to them, ‘My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, that I may perfect his work.’ ” Patience plays the role of Jesus, Actyf the role of the baffled disciples. The only difference is that instead of saying, “My food is to do the will of God,” Patience says, “Your food is to do the will of God.” See further below, 247–49n. 235 Hit am y . . . fram hunger saue; B.14.29–30 And I shal purueie ∂ee paast . . . best be for ∂e soule: In both versions, Patience speaks with pointed reference to Actyf’s function as a waferer, and appropriates his language (in B, “paast” 13.250, in C, “y fynde . . . y fynde,” 215–16), though the point is a little sharper in B. C: I am the one who gives everyone their food; B: And I shall give you dough and flour that does not need a plow. As Gillespie says (1994:107), Actyf and Patience “are mirror images of each other,” Actyf with his wafers and Patience with his bag of victuals. As patience is the obverse of action, I would add. 237–44a (B.14.38–46a) lo! here lyflode ynow . . . Non in solo pane viuit homo &c: A somewhat sloppy utterance by Patience. The general statement at the start, that all species have something to live on, is undermined immediately by the next line, since wherefore is not synonymous with the other two words in the line in either version. He then proceeds to examples, element by element, but the next line (the next two in B), tells us only where the creatures listed live, not what they live on. That is corrected in C for the cricket, and the last few creatures mentioned in both versions are at last given the proper preposition, just in time to get the point across, and surprise us with what men get to live on. But a witty aspect of the speech lies in the appearance of bele´ue (belief, OE geleafa) at the beginning and end of both versions, punning silently on “by´leue” (sustenance, OE beleofa), the expected word that never comes. 237 (B.14.38) yf oure beleue be trewe: Explained by the Latin cited at the end of the sentence.

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C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

238–39 (B.14.39–40) lente neuere was lyf . . . wherwith to lyuene: Cf. Gen 1:29–30: “And God said, ‘Behold! I have given you every herb bearing seed upon the earth and all trees that have in themselves seed of their own kind to be your meat and to all beasts of the earth and to every fowl of the air and to all that move upon the earth and wherein there is life that they may have to feed upon.’ ” Patience keeps verse 30 but has a new food for Adam. Or see Ps 103:27, “Omnia a te expectant ut des illis escam in tempore” (All [creatures] expect of thee that thou give them food in season), and Ambrose’s comment, “Agnoscis quae sit esca quam Deus hominibus subministrat? Ipse est cibus quem secundum voluntatem Patris unigenitus Filius ejus Dominus noster epulatur, sicut ipse ait, ‘Meus cibus est, ut faciam voluntatem Patris mei qui in caelis est.’ Hic cibus nobis est salutaris” (Enarrationes in XII Psalmos, PL 14.1131) (Do you know what food God provides for men? The food that according to the will of the Father his only-begotten Son our Lord eats himself, as he says, “My meat is to do the will of my Father who is in heaven.” This food is salutary for us.) Ambrose quotes John 4:34 over and over, and once says, sounding like Patience, “Qui autem jucundior cibus quam facere voluntatem Dei?,” What more delightful food than to do the will of God? (De officiis ministrorum, PL 16.70). 240 wonte: mole. Hanna 2010a:6–7, n. 12, has suggested that B.14.41 worme should have been emended to this word. 241 The Cryket by kynde of ∂e fuyr (B.14.42 in ∂e fir ∂e Criket): Skeat says that “Usually this fabulous story is spoken of the salamander,” and gives evidence from the Promptorium parvulorum that salamanders were called crickets in English, but finally settles for the domestic cricket with its well-known fondness for warm places. But the cricket lives in the hearth, not the fire; the salamander’s ability to survive in fire is declared in full by Isidore (Etymologiae 12.4.36), copied by all who followed him (as searching salamandra in the PL online shows), and still enshrined in our culture (as the full entry in the OED shows—Rape of the Lock 1.59–60 is but one example of many); John Trevisa translated Bartholomaeus’s salamandra as “cryket” (1127/28). For all these reasons, it seems evident that L meant the salamander. 241 (B.14.43) corleu: According to Spearman 1993, probably not our curlew (numenius) but the quail (coturnix), regularly also called “curlew” in ME, and to be associated with the quails of Exodus 16.13 and Numbers 11.31–32. Spearman does not cite Peter Comestor, PL 198.1159–60 (on Exodus 16), “Est autem coturnix avis regia, quam . . . nos vulgo curlegium dicimus a currendo” (The

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coturnix is the royal bird that we call the curlew because it runs), and 1226 (on Numbers 11), “Fuerunt hae coturnices, ut tradunt, non modicae quae apud nos sunt; sed illae majores, quae regiae aves dicuntur, quas curleios, a currendo, vocamus” (These coturnices were, they say, not the little ones we have, but the bigger ones, called regal birds, that we call curlews because they run). These remarks suggest that Comestor thought that numenius and coturnix were related, and that the bigger one, the regal one, is indeed our curlew, a far more majestic bird than the quail—though quail run much more often than curlews. L probably never saw a curlew. In any case, Spearman is surely right in regarding the God-sent birds of Exodus and Numbers as what is meant here; it is not too much of a stretch, in fact, to take clennest flessh of briddes as deriving from Comestor’s regia; see OED, s.v. clean, adj., III.9 and its citations, and MED, s.v. clene, adj., 5, and its citations (some the same as in OED). Or it means ritually cleanest: would God have sent anything else? Neither bird is in the lists of birds to be avoided in Lev 11:13–19 and Deut 14:12–18. As for living off the air: the chameleon (proverbially—see Whiting C135—and in at least some Latin sources, e.g., Bartholomaeus Anglicus, trans. Trevisa, 1161.2–8) and the spider (Etymologiae 12.5.2) do that, not the quail or the curlew. But the idea was common enough, especially as a way of praising God’s providence, as L does. Eustathius, misrepresenting or mistranslating St Basil, says that bees and wasps semper ex aere nutriuntur, are always nourished by the air (In Hexaemeron sancti Basilii, PL 53.954). Hildegard of Bingen says that “certain birds of great strength” are strengthened further by the air, “and the air itself sometimes descends into rivers and further strengthens large fish so that they can exist for some time without any food,” Liber divinorum operum 1.4.58 (PL 197.847). Aquinas in Catena aurea (ed. Guarienti, 1953: 2.182) on Luke 12:24 (“Consider the ravens . . . God feedeth them”) cites Theodoretus on Psalm 146.9 (“Who giveth to beasts their food, and to the young ravens that call upon him”): “He (the Psalmist) doesn’t mention any birds except ravens because God nourishes their young by a special providence, for ravens bear young but neglect them, don’t feed them; in a wonderful way food carried on the breeze reaches their mouths, which they open to take it, and that is how they are nourished.” The anonymous continuator of Aquinas’s Commentary on Aristotle’s Meteorologies, however, says, “ Licet autem aliqua animalia dicantur nutriri in alio elemento, ut aves in aere et salamandra in igne, tamen haec omnia nutriuntur ex terra et aqua, vel ex his quae nascuntur in eis, ut manifestum est in avibus” (Though some animals are reputed to be nourished in another element, as birds in air and the salamander in fire, in fact all are nourished by earth and water or by things that are produced in them, as is obvious for birds) (Editio Leonina, t. III (1886), p. CXXIV). He goes on to

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C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

grant that the salamander does exist for a long time “in igne ex sicco terreo adusto et fumoso . . . non autem nutriretur in igne puro” (in fire from dry earthy matter burnt and smoky . . . it would not be nourished in pure fire). 244a (B.14.46a) Quodcumque pecieritis a patre in nomine meo dabitur enim vobis: Whatsoever you shall ask the Father in my name shall be given you. (B ends in nomine meo &c.) The B line is verbatim (or nearly so; see Alford, Quot.) from John 14:13; C’s dabitur enim vobis replaces John’s hoc faciam (That will I do) with a phrase from Matt 7:7 (adding enim). 244a Et alibi: Non in solo pane viuit homo &c (B.14.46a Et alibi, Non in solo pane viuit homo set in omni verbo quod procedit de ore dei): Not by bread alone doth man live, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Matt 4:4, Jesus quoting Deut 8:3. In Deuteronomy, though, as Maillet 2014:78–79 insists, there is ambiguity: God sent both deprivation and manna to show the Israelites that man lives not on bread alone but on the word of God; she argues that the manna is a symbol of God’s word (Paul calls it spiritual food, 1 Cor 10:3, as she also points out, pp. 81–82): the passage in Deuteronomy must be one warrant to L for insisting that fiat voluntas tua is food. But see John 6:31ff, where Jesus contrasts the manna to himself, the true bread from heaven (Maillet 82). Of the two quotations, this second is the more apt: see the next note. 247–49 (B.14.49–50) A pece of ∂e paternoster . . . fiat voluntas tua: For a list of the places where L mentions the Paternoster, see the entry in Alford, Quot. for B.10.468; for an illuminating discussion of the whole use of the Paternoster in the poem, and for the tradition of commentary on this petition, “thy will be done,” see Gillespie 1994. Note that Francis had the brothers who were lay, not clerics, say the Paternoster whereas the clerics said the divine office (which includes the Paternoster) (Testament, ed. Habig 1983:68). Alford 1977:93 argues that the three Latin quotations (in 244a and 249, B.13.46a and 50) go together in the commentary tradition, but he doesn’t say clearly what seems the essential thing: that, being a phrase of the Paternoster, the Lord’s prayer (Matt 6:9–13, Luke 11:2–4)—and also a phrase of Christ’s prayer to the Father in the garden of Gethsemane, Matt 26:42, as Kirk 1972:157, 1978:95 and Anna Baldwin 1990:82 point out—fiat voluntas tua is a verbum quod procedit de ore Dei; it’s also something asked a patre. Thus I think L is being very much himself here, not being conventional. He is also thinking of “give us this day our daily bread” (Actyf’s favorite phrase; see 208–13n above), and wittily implying both that to have just said fiat voluntas tua sincerely is to have had your daily bread

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and, since one of the things God wants is to feed us, fiat voluntas tua and panem nostrum cotidianum da nobis hodie are two ways of asking the same thing. And anyway, Inquirentes dominum non minuentur omni bono, as Wit said (10.202a, B.9.109a) and, in B, the narrator repeated (B.11.282a). It surely isn’t conventional to call the phrase a meal. However, see John 4:34, cited above, which has to be the scriptural basis of the idea that fiat voluntas tua is food; see Mann 1979:30–32, Barney 1988:121, and 5.86–88n above. So perhaps it is conventional, but Patience revitalizes it with his wit. Actually, the idea is not original in the poem with Patience. Will himself has said at 5.87–88 that “the paternoster wittenesseth” that man lives “Nec in pane nec in pabulo,” and that “Fiat voluntas dei fynt vs alle thynges,” which is tantamount to saying that it is food. As Gillespie 1994:96 reminds us, Matthew has not “daily bread” but “supersubstantial bread.” (Both versions have the same word in Greek, the hapax legomenon “epiousios,” probably meaning “sufficient for the day,” but Jerome in his commentary on Matthew says it means “praecipuum” or “egregium,” that is, special or surpassing, and when we ask for it we are asking for him who said, “I am the bread of life” [PL 26.43].) That doesn’t really matter, though, since in the first place many, even most, patristic writers treat “quotidianum” as Matthew’s word as well as Luke’s, and virtually all say anyhow that “panem quotidianum” has to be taken spiritually, as Christ, who said, “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35) and “I am the living bread which came down from heaven” (John 6:51). (Thus there are Eucharistic overtones, particularly since the Eucharist has the nickname viaticum, “food for the road”: Actyf is on the road.) Clearly L regarded the Paternoster as bread for the soul. (Stock 1988 argues that “Langland deliberately inserted the pair of quotations ‘Fiat voluntas tua’ and ‘Non de solo pane vivit homo’ at three critical junctures in his revision of PP “ [474], namely in C passus 5 [“non de solo vivit homo,” man does not live from the soil], 15, and 16, to create a deep thematic interplay—but not convincingly at all, especially since “non de solo [pane] vivit homo” does not in fact occur in passus 16.) We have, of course, as Mann insists (1979:38), seen a similar replacement of real food with spiritual food in the AB Visio, where Piers starts out getting people to work cultivating real food but ends up renouncing “bely-ioye” (B.7.130, A.8.112), claiming with the Psalmist that tears have been his bread day and night (B.7.128, A.8.110a), and quoting, as Patience does here in B.14.33, both Ne soliciti sitis (B.7.131, A.8.113) and Volucres celi deus pascit (in English, B.7.129–30, A.8.111–12). Gillespie, who treats B almost exclusively, shows that in the commentary tradition praying “thy will be done” is an antidote to wrath and envy, which

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C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

he argues are “Haukyn’s ‘head sins,’ ” and since “Commentaries on fiat voluntas tua consistently see Patience as the virtue which counteracts the wrathfulness addressed by the petition,” Patience “in offering it . . . is effectively offering himself” (1994:111). His argument has less force in C, and in both versions it seems to me that choosing God’s will over one’s own has a far broader application than just to wrath and envy. In fact Gillespie goes on to argue (113–14) that larger case, concluding that what Patience offers Haukyn is the chance to wed himself to patient poverty and achieve the joye and pure spiritual hel∂e (B.14.285) it promises. It is possible to translate the phrase as “Let Will be yours,” a further piece of wit. Note that it emphatically does not mean what Recklessness said at 11:304 (B.11:38), “lat god do his wille.” 250 (B.14.51) Haue . . . and eet: Cf. Matt 26:26, “Accipite et comedite, hoc est corpus meum” (Take ye and eat, this is my body), repeated daily in the words of consecration at Mass. 251 (B.14.52) when thow clomsest for colde: Fiat voluntas tua is spiritual clothing as well as food, a real “coat of Cristendom” and much better than the robes Actyf craves from his patrons. The idea of spiritual clothing is Pauline, as Maillet shows, 2014:84–85. But Patience basically means real clothing, his warrant being Matthew’s and Luke’s Ne solliciti sitis passages, which are as much about clothing as about food (Matt 6:25–34, Luke 12:22–31). 252–59a (B.14.53–60a) Shal neuere gyues . . . istum: as an effacer of fear, fiat voluntas tua is the equivalent of patientes vincunt or caritas nichil timet; what Patience says here essentially repeats the kinds of things he and Piers said in the banquet scene: see above, ll. 152–69 (B.13.136–71a)n and B.13.151–71n. 254 (B.14.55) Be so ∂at ∂ou be sobre: Esto sobrius (Be sober) 2 Tim 4:5; see also Tit 2:12 and Maillet 2014:74–77. She argues convincingly that Paul’s sobrietas is the basis of the insistence throughout the poem on “mesure.” 256 Dar ∂e nat care (B.14.57 Darstow neuere care): you need not care; dar is a form of thar, need, from OE 3urfan; see OED, s.v. tharf/thar v. The statement is in effect a translation of Ne sollicitus sis (Be not solicitous; cf. Matt 6:25, Luke 12:22, Phil 4:6; Maillet 2014:68–69). The thought here, extreme though it seems, is very close to Seneca’s at the end of his Letter 110, as quoted by Peter the Chanter in his chapter on poverty, ed. Boutry 2004:120: “Quid sit remedium inopie? Famem fames finit. . . . Liber est autem non in quem parum licet fortune, sed in quem nichil. Ita est si nil horum desideres” (What is the remedy for want? Hunger stops hunger. . . . The free man is not the one over whom fortune has

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little power, but the one over whom she has no power at all. That is how it is if you crave nothing). 258 (B.14.59) hete: drought: cf. ME, s.v. hete n. 1, 1 (d). Later in the line, note that his is stressed. 259 (B.14.60) If thow lyue aftur his lore the shortere lyf ∂e betere: On the surface, the least humane line L ever wrote (and anything but patient). But Patience lives on the edge, and there is indeed some of his lore, i.e., the teachings of Jesus, that is relevant: “He that loveth his life shall lose it, and he that hateth his life in this world, keepeth it unto life eternal” (John 12:25; see also Matt 10:39, 16:25; Mark 8:35; Luke 9:24, 17:33); and St Paul, “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil 1:21–24). See also Origen’s Homily 14 (17) on Jeremiah in Jerome’s Latin translation: “Quapropter, longae vitae amore deposito, et desiderio humanae diei, quaeramus illam diem videre, in qua participes ejus beatitudinis, quae in Christo est, efficiamur” (PL 25.625) (And so, let us put aside our love of a long life, and our desire for a “day of man” [Amos 5.18], and seek to see the day in which we will be made partakers of the blessedness that is in Christ.) For relevant material from the Old Testament, and some literary parallels, see B.14.323–25n. However, Contemptus mundi is one thing; to turn that into a desire to die young is a perversion of Christian thought, and not what Patience stands for. The classic, sensible view is embodied in Augustine’s regular praise of perseverance, e.g., De dono perseverantiae liber, 1: “Asserimus ergo donum Dei esse perseverantiam qua usque in finem perseveratur in Christo” (We hold that perseverance is a gift of God whereby we persevere to the end in Christ,” PL 45.994; see Matt 10:22). The heart of the matter appears in Albert King’s great blues line, “Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.” Still, Patience apparently gets to Actyf: see B.14.323–25 and n. Actually, of course, Patience has just been advocating submission to God’s will in this matter: deye as god liketh . . . at his wille be hit. Thus the full thought here is, “Don’t fear death, but leave the time and the means up to God’s will, (and if your life ends up being short) you’re better off, since you love God better than the world.” He is not encouraging Actyf to shorten his life, or even hope for a short life, only pointing out that a short life has its advantages. See Clopper 1997:232–33. 259a (B.14.60a) Si quis Amat christum mundum non diligit istum: Anyone who loves Christ does not love the world. Identified by Alford as from the anonymous poem Carmen paraeneticum ad Rainaldum, A Poem of Advice to

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C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

Rainald, PL 184.1307 (which has Quisquis instead of Si quis). Rainald is a boy; see Lawler 2011:68. As Schmidt, and Pepin 1999:57, point out, though, that poem is actually the Cartula, a twelfth-century poem on contempt of the world that is one of the works in the school-text Auctores octo, where L undoubtedly read it as a boy. The line occurs near the beginning of the poem; see Pepin’s translation, 1999:58. Alford points out that the basis of the line is 1 John 2:15, Si quis diligit mundum, non est caritas Patris in eo. The poet, being a poet, realized that there was a Leonine hexameter lurking in John’s sentence. The line also occurs in Jean-Baptiste-Franc¸ois Pitra’s collection Spicilegium Solesmense (1854), in connection with his edition of the Clavis of PseudoMelito, the eighth-century key to allegorical meanings of terms from the bible once attributed to Melito of Sardis. Pitra follows each entry from the Clavis with illustrative citations from other works, of which one of his favorites is an alphabetical book of Distinctiones, probably c. 1225, by an anonymous English Cistercian, Distinctionum monasticarum et moralium libri V. Speaking of silver, the author says it can stand for the glory of this world, lovely to see but sordid to the touch, and then cites: “Si quis amat Christum, mundum non diligit istum;/Hujus amor mundi putei parat ima profundi” (Love of this world paves the way to the depths of the bottomless pit) (1.27; Pitra 1854:2.285; for Pitra’s discussion of the book, see 2.xxv–xxviii; he edits selections from it from Ms. Mazarine 3475 at 4.452–87). A smaller number of selections appears in Wilmart 1940, also from Mazarine 3475. There are appreciative accounts of this interesting book, with its many quotations of twelfth-century poetry, in Hunt 1950, Lehmann 1962, and Rigg 1992. Walther, Proverbia 28959 treats the line as a proverb, citing a number of Renaissance proverb collections in which it appears. It is occasionally followed by one or two more lines, which vary; Ms E of the C version of PP has the next line in Cartula, Sed quasi fetorem sperne[n]s illius amorem (But spurning the love of it like a stench); see RK-C p. 183. See also Walther, Proverbia 25525, which has the Quisquis beginning. Walther indicates that mundum often appears as mundus, which makes the line mean “If anyone loves Christ, the world does not love him.” 260a (B.14.61a) Dixit & facta sunt: He spoke and they were made, Ps 32:9, Ps 148:5; cf. Gen 1:24. 262a Aperis tu manum tuam &c (B.14.63a Aperis tu manum tuam & imples omne animal benediccione): Thou openest thy hand and fillest with blessing every living creature, Ps 144:16; the first three words appear as a personification, in another passage on spiritual sustenance, at 16.320. Graces: thanks,

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Latin gratias, and so a prayer offering thanks before or after meals. OED s.v. grace, n. II.11. Alford, Quot. has found the grace that uses Ps 144:16 in Furnivall 1868:382. He lists all the graces quoted in the poem in his entry for C.3.340a, Quot. 39. 263–69 (B.14.64–70) Hit is founde . . . awakede: Three examples to illustrate 256 (B.14.57) dar ∂e nat care for no corn and 260–61 (cf. B.14.61–62) thorw his breth bestes wexe . . . thorw his breth bestes lyueth. The first is the fortyyear sojourn of the Israelites in the desert: they “ate manna forty years,” Ex 16:35, and “When Moses had lifted up his hand, and struck the rock twice with the rod, there came forth water in great abundance, so that the people and their cattle drank,” Num 20:11. The second is the three-year (three-and-a-halfyear James 5:17, still not quite manye wynter) drought brought on by Elijah to punish Ahab, 3 Kings 17–18, during which Elijah was fed first by ravens, then by the widow whose “pot of meal wasted not” and whose “cruse of oil was not diminished” 17:16. The last is the famous legend of the Seven Sleepers, Legenda aurea, 101 (trans. Ryan, 1993:2.15–18); the legend says they slept 372 years, which Jacobus reduces to 195; both are more then syxty wynter (268). 270 (B.14.71) mesure: “A reminiscence and an expansion of the words spoken by Holy Church to the Dreamer in the Visio, ‘Mesure is medicine 3ou√ 3ow muchel √erne’ (B.1.35) [C.1.33],” Maguire 1949:107. Watson 2007:103 says that Patience “divagates extravagantly on the advantages of starvation and an early death,” but he forgets that St Francis put Patience’s ideas into actual practice, and also that this line tempers the extravagant idealism significantly. Like Holy Church, Patience insists that God provides us what we need, and endows us with natural kindness. It is when we replace kindness with greed that defaute arises. See Peter the Chanter’s chapter De mediocritate (ed. Boutry 2004:113–15). 271–71a cristes wordes . . . Dabo tibi secundum peticionem tuam: Cf Matt 7:7, Luke 11:9: “Petite, et dabitur vobis,” Ask, and it shall be given you; also John 14:14 with somewhat different wording. Alford, Quot. cites Ps 36:4, “Delectare in Domino, et dabit tibi petitiones cordis tui” (Delight in the Lord, and he will give thee the requests of thy heart). But cristes wordes suggests that one of the Gospel verses is what is meant. Some psalms are treated as spoken by Jesus (Lawler 2017:184), but not Psalm 36. B.14.73 caristiam: “Dearth.” See DML, s.v. caristia, 2. B.14.77a Ociositas & habundancia panis peccatum turpissimum nutriuit: Idleness and too much bread fed the vilest sin. See the slightly different version

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C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

at C.15.229a, and the note to 229a–32, where the ultimate source, Ezech 16:49, is quoted. L is apparently translating the two previous lines into Latin, though ∂e meschief and ∂e meschaunce is a lot milder than peccatum turpissimum— which is probably precisely the point: that L regarded Latin as a safer vehicle for sharp statement is clear in B.13.70–75. But then the Latin in turn seems to encourage him, and he translates it back into English in lines 78–81, this time translating peccatum turpissimum, first as synne ∂at ∂e deuel liked (the same phrase is used of Lot’s incest with his daughters, B.1.28, A.1.28), and then as vile synnes. (On B.13.70–75, see Lawler 2008:53, and in general on L translating into Latin, p. 52 of the same essay; also Cannon 2008:24.) The phrase turpissimum peccatum (or peccatum turpissimum) does not turn up in the standard databases. It means homosexual acts. Of the many writers who quote Ezechiel on Sodom, only Rupert of Deutz speaks openly: “Notatum et infame est toti mundo peccatum eorum scilicet saturitas panis et otium in quo male nimis semetipsis abusi sunt . . . masculi in masculos turpitudinem operantes” (Their sin [i.e., the men of Sodom] is known to the whole world, and known as infamy: namely, too much bread and leisure in which they abused each other very wickedly . . . men performing vileness on men). B.14.83–97 And ∂oru√ fei∂ come∂ . . . yheeled: Patience repeats the process described already by Conscience in B.14.16–28 above, replacing Conscience’s allegory of cleaning with imagery of healing a diseased growth in the body by carving it out at the root. He mentions conscience in line 83 (the editors might have capitalized the word), and in the metaphor of surgery in line 89 perhaps echoes the scraping image in line 16. Shrift of mou∂ 90, 91 then translates 18a Oris confessio, and satisfaccion 95 Satisfaccio 21a. Nevertheless one is not quite convinced that Patience is to be thought of as consciously alluding to what Conscience said; the feeling rather is of a wholly new treatment of the same issue. Cf. C.16.25–34, where Patience skims briefly over the same material. B.14.82 mesure we vs wel: Recalling the advice of Holy Church, 1.24 (B.1.25, A.1.25), though Patience is surely thinking of a broader mesure than just of food and drink, as the rest of the line suggests. Sheltrom: A phalanx or shieldwall (OE scildtruma), i.e., our defense. The source is an array of more or less military Pauline metaphors: of standing in faith (1 Cor 16:13, 2 Cor 1:24), holding to faith (2 Cor 13:5, 1 Tim 1:19), the breastplate of justice, shield of faith, helmet of salvation, and sword of the Spirit (Eph 6:14–17), the firmness of faith (Col 2:5), the breastplate of faith (1 Thess 5:8), fighting the good fight of the faith (1 Tim 6:12).

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B.14.83–94 And ∂oru√ . . . peccata: Patience waffles between the traditional idea that contrition sufficed (Sola contricio delet peccatum, B.11.81a) and the obligation of oral confession imposed by the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 (which Wyclif opposed). See the clear discussion by Frank, 1957:98–99: he concludes, “The poet believed in all three stages of penance, but he was especially interested in contrition, as Dobest shows.” See also Hort 1938:130–55 and Watkins 1961:2.744–49. The position of B.11.81–81a was absolute, but here Patience adopts the deft, somewhat legalistic compromise that sola contritio only downgrades the sin from mortal to venial. That asserts the value of contrition without dismissing the importance of confession. Putting it in these terms, mortal sin becoming venial sin, seems to be L’s own idea, though he could have found ample support for it in Peter Lombard’s well-known discussion of the issue in the Sentences; for example, in this quotation he ascribes to St Ambrose, “Venialis est culpa quam sequitur confessio delictorum” (The fault is venial when confession of sins follows), PL 192.880. For the Ambrose, see De paradiso, PL 14.310, “Veniabilis culpa quam sequitur professio delictorum.” Lombard himself says that if sinners who cannot confess to a priest are contrite, confess to God, and do penance, “temporalibus poenis mutabunt aeterna supplicia, et lacrymis ex vera cordis contritione fluentibus extinguent aeterni ignis incendia” (they will change eternal punishment into temporal punishment, and if their tears flow from true contrition of heart they will extinguish the flames of eternal fire) PL 192.882. And in Aquinas’s commentary on the Sentences, “Post contritionem de mortali potest remanere veniale” (After contrition for a mortal sin it can remain as a venial sin), In IV Sententiarum, 17.2.2.3, resp. ad argum. 4.1. Lombard himself, though, ascribes such downgrading not to contrition but to confession: “Fit enim veniale per confessionem quod criminale erat in operatione” (What was a mortal sin when it was committed becomes venial through confession), PL 192.883, quoted by Hort, 1938:143. B.14.92 Per confessionem to a preest peccata occiduntur: Sins are killed by confession to a priest. A somewhat common metaphor, as a proximity search of the three terms makes clear. Cf. especially Peter of Cava (twelfth century), whose moralizing Commentary on 1 Kings was formerly ascribed to Gregory the Great. He is commenting on 1 Kings 15.15, where Saul admits to Samuel that he has not slain all the beasts of Amalech, as he was told to; he has kept the best alive for sacrifices, “reliqua vero occidimus” (but the rest we have slain). Peter comments, “Quid est ergo, quod dicit, reliqua occidimus, nisi quia sunt parvissima peccata maioribus, quae sola confessione lavantur?” (What does ‘The rest we have slain” mean except that they are the smallest

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C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

sins, (much smaller than) the greater, which are only washed in confession?) (Ed. Verbraken 1963:561). The sentence manages to mix together L’s two metaphors, washing sin and killing sin. B.14.94 et quorum tecta sunt peccata: Psalm 31:1, “Beati quorum remissae sunt iniquitates et quorum tecta sunt peccata,” Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. The second penitential psalm, quoted at 7.152, B.12.177 (also to support “how contricion wi3oute confession conforte3 3e soule” B.12.175), B.13.54. L is taking tecta, covered, very literally as “not confessed openly but covered, blotted out, by contrition.” The anonymous Breviarium in Psalmos, once attributed to Jerome, says (in a statement copied by various others, including Alcuin and Peter Lombard) that the sins are covered “ut hic velentur per poenitentiam, ne in judicio revelentur,” so that they may be veiled by penitence, lest they be revealed in judgment (PL 26.912). B.14.95 satisfaccion seke∂ out ∂e roote: Possibly the reference is to pride, the root of the tree of sin in the Parson’s Tale (“the general roote of alle harmes” I388). But that would be to take “root” in the sense of “origin”; surely rather it is used here in the sense of something deep and involved and hard to take out—whether the root of an infection (an abcessed tooth, especially) or the root of a tree. Cf., e.g., John Cassian on wrath: “Non solum e nostris actibus haec amputanda est, sed etiam de internis animae radicitus exstirpanda,” It has to be not just cut off from our actions but ripped out by the roots from inside our souls (Institutes 8.19, PL 49.348). A proximity search of radicitus and exstirp* reveals how popular this metaphor was (as it still is). But I find no tradition of associating such uprooting of sin with satisfaction in particular.

Patience replies to questions from Actyf about patient poverty (and in B about charity) (272–306, B.14.98–132) 272 What is properly parfit pacience? (B.14.98 Where wonye∂ Charite?): I will treat B first, where we have a moment of humor. Critics have striven to understand what motivates this question of Actyf’s—Maguire (1969:206) finds analogies to moments in passu¯s 1 and 5; Alford (1977:98) sees L laboring to make the transition from the first group of quotations that “structure” the passus to the second; Gillespie 1994:115 asserts that “Fiat voluntas tua is often linked to charity.” Basically, it’s just funny: Patience has been getting preachy, and Actyf stops him with a question seemingly out of the blue. It isn’t really out of the blue, though, as these several critics have shown, each in their way.

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My own understanding is that it arises straight from the line before it, because satisfaction is Operis satisfaccio (C.16.31), doing good works; see B.14.21a note above. Chaucer’s Parson says that satisfaction “stant moost generally in almesse” (I1029), which is “werkes of charitee” (I1033). Furthermore, a soul freed of sin, as described in lines 94–96, is now “in charity.” Sin being uprooted, the soul is now “rooted and founded in charity” (Eph 3:17). All the same, Actyf can hardly be expected to know these correspondences, and L has bought his humor at the expense of verisimilitude. Another way to look at it is in reference to Sodom, home of vnkyndenesse (B.14.73), where, as Ezechiel says, “they did not put forth their hand to the needy and the poor.” Actyf says in effect, “All right, I know where unkindness lives; now show me where charity lives.” Or Actyf’s own country may be coueytise or vnkyndenesse; see 188–90 (B.13.219–21) above and the note to 188 (B.13.219). A third possibility, very unlikely, is that L forgets that Actyf was not at the banquet, and did not hear Patience’s praise of Charity at 13.163a. The question “Where does Charity live?” of course reminds us of Will’s earlier question, “Where does Dowel dwell?” (10.4 [B.8.4, A.9.4], etc.). It seems a little mannered, since we would ask rather, “Where can Charity be found?,” as Will does at 16.287 (and at B.15.151, “Where sholde men fynde swich a frend?”). But the phrasing reminds us that the idea of home is central to this poem of pilgrimage. Though every pilgrim has left home with a purpose, they all must want to return, and this implicit ache can account for Will’s preference for speaking in terms of home—and Actyf’s too. And in passus 18 Will learns that Charity is at home in him, in cor hominis—as he should have learned from Piers at 7.255–60 (B.5.606–7, A.6.93–94). In C the question is moved to the later scene with Liberum arbitrium: “Charite . . . Where may hit be yfounde?” C.16.286–87, where it comes up naturally. What is said here in lines 273–76, and in B.14.100–1, about charity in answer to Actyf is not inconsistent with the major later material on charity at 15.298–374a (B.15.149–268), but L was wise in both versions to hold back any discussion of charity until Anima/Liberum arbitrium brings it to the fore in instructing Will, a better pupil for it than Actyf. Here in C the question is replaced by another that is still a bit offbeat, but follows well enough, though no form of the word “patience” has occurred since pacientes vincunt 253. Patience has ranged among various modes of patience—accepting God’s will, suffering hardships such as bad weather and imprisonment, penance, sobriety, dying as God wills, not being solicitous about liflode, living moderately—and it is reasonable then to ask what is perfect patience.

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C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

Donaldson 1949:180–81 argues that the question is changed because whereas in B L treated charity and patience together, he separated them in C. That is generally true, but here Donaldson ignores 273–76; see the next note. 273–76 Meeknesse . . . alle perelles to soffre (B.14.100–1 Ther parfit tru∂e . . . god hymselue): These answers are different but have to be treated together, since they share the idea that charity is chief, and they both mingle patience and charity. The implication is perhaps that the two questions—What is perfect patience? (C), Where does charity live? (B)—are not as different as they seem. The key to both is the Sermon on the Mount, Matt 5–7, with some assist from 1 Cor 13 and Rom 12:9–21. C first: meeknesse: “Blessed are the meek” 5:4. mylde speche: “But I say to you not to swear at all . . . . let your speech be ‘Yea, yea,’ ‘No, no,’ ” 5:34–37, see also 5:22–25, 47; 6:3–7; 7:1, and Rom 12:14. And see 18.11 “benigne speche” and the note there. men of o will: “Thy will be done,” 6:10, and “of one mind one towards another” Rom 12:16; cf. 17.128, “Alle kyne cristene cleuynge on o will.” The whiche wil loue lat [And love leads that will] to oure lordes place: “Love your enemies . . . that you may be the children of your Father, who is in heaven” (5:44–45). In B: parfit tru∂e: “Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect” (5:48); see also “charity . . . rejoices with the truth,” 1 Cor 13:6. poore herte: “Blessed are the poor in spirit” 5:3, “Blessed are the clean of heart,” 5:7; pacience of tonge: see mylde speche above, and “Charity is patient,” 1 Cor 13:4. Not that L had his bible open; rather the Sermon on the Mount distills the essence of Christ’s message of patience and love, as Patience here is trying to do also. Of course all the phrases, especially parfit tru∂e, can describe Christ himself (“Est Christus perfecta veritas,” Hildegard, Scivias, Ed. Fu¨hrko¨tter and Carlevaris 1978:470), as, in B’s next line, can Charite ∂e chief, (“caput Christus” Eph 4:15), and chaumbrere for god hymselue, a good metaphor for the Son. In short, the answer to Actyf’s question in B, “Where does Charity live?,” is Christ. As with Charity in passus 16, and as also with the Samaritan in passus 17, and since God is love (“Deus caritas est,” 1 John 4:8, 16), L’s representations of Charity always end up as virtual representations of Christ. See the notes to 16.285–374a (B.15.149–268), 16.286–87 (B.15.148–51), 16.286–97 (B.15.149–64). Even C’s new version of B.14.101, charite, chaumpion chief of all vertues, though it seems not to refer to Christ since he is not a virtue, may summon up in our minds Conscience’s phrase to Will when the crucifixion is over, “Crist with his croes, conquerour of Cristene” (21.14, B 19.14). And cf.

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Prudentius, Hamartigenia 31, where God is called “virtutum sublime caput” the sublime chief of the virtues (PL 59.1014). Clopper 1997:243 sees a progression in 15.273: “meekness (Dowel), mildness of speech (Dobet), and men of one will (Dobest), and it is this latter status that constitutes the highest form of Charity, that is, ‘perfect patience’ that is patience in poverty.” I don’t see it. 276 pore pacient, 277 pouerte and pacience (B.14.102 paciente pouerte): Patience makes explicit here what he has been implying, e.g., at 256 (“care for no corn ne for cloth ne for drynke”), that the full meaning of patience is patience in the face of poverty. See Cato’s dictum, Paupertatis onus pacienter ferre memento, cited at C.8.336a (B.6.315), in C not long after the moving account of “oure neyhebores . . . pore folk in cotes,” whose patience is evident though the word is not used. The two terms are then first joined in English by Scripture at B.10.346, and appear together repeatedly in B.11–14 and C.12–16, very often, as in the long encomium of patient poverty in passus 12 (B.11), offering Christ as the model. Though there is some fluctuation, some willingness to regard poverty as itself enough for salvation (see Lawler 2000: 144), the deep subject is not poverty alone or patience alone, but patient poverty. 277–78 (B.14.102–3) Where . . . resonablelyche to spene: Though B.14.102 quod Haukyn disappears in C, the speaker of this question is still clearly Actyf. Presumably he asks it not out of neutral curiosity but out of self-interest: he regards himself as having earned his wealth rightfully and as spending it reasonably, and so thinks he can be saved without becoming poor and patient. That would at least partly explain his tears at the end of the B passus—he is like the rich young man in Matt 19:22 who “went away sad” after Jesus told him to sell all and give it to the poor. He has moved by the end from the complacency, or at least hopefulness, implicit in this question to a conviction of guilt. Line 278 (B.14.103) seems to translate Ecclus 31.8, “Beatus dives qui inventus est sine macula”: see 16.358–59a (B.15.233–34a)n below. 279–16.157 (B.14.104–322) Õe? quis est ille? . . . what pouerte was to mene: Patience preaches to Actyf and Will on patient poverty, in answer to Actyf’s question whether patient poverty pleases God more than wealth justly and reasonably spent. In general the ideas on poverty are similar to those expressed in passu¯s 12 and 13 (B.11). His sermon has three large parts. The first (279– 16.42, B.14.104–201), the most direct answer to Actyf ’s question, argues, roughly along the lines of Luke’s version of the Sermon on the Mount, that the rich are likely to go to hell when they die because they have had their

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C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

heaven here, the poor to heaven because their life has been hell—though near the end of the part it becomes a prayer to God to save the poor rather than an assertion that he will, and a prayer as well that God will haue ru∂e on ∂ise riche men (B.14.168), or that he will make vs alle meke (C.16.23). In the second part (16.43–113, B.14.202–273) Patience extends this point by arguing that the poor do not commit the deadly sins, moving toward the end to a reassertion of their claim to heaven, and then to special praise for voluntary poverty; in the third (114–57, B.14.274–322) he replies to Actyf’s request for a definition of poverty with a series of oxymoronic Latin phrases. Aers 2004 and Clopper 1990 have called Patience’s ideas Franciscan, but it seems to me that in expression and detail the sermon is sui generis, in its sympathy for the poor it is in tune with the psalms and the Gospels, and in its preference for poverty over wealth it is aligned very well with Seneca and Jerome as cited by Peter the Chanter in his chapter on poverty—except that it reports achingly on how painful it is to be poor in a way that Seneca never gets down to. 279–16.21 Õe? quis est ille? . . . some pore and ryche (B 14.104–65 Ye? quis est ille? . . . defaute): At the base of the passage, beside the Beatitudes and Matthew’s story of the rich young man, is Matthew’s parable of the talents (25:14–30; cf. B.6.238–46, A.7.222–30), with its reckoning; see Maillet’s deep discussion of all the threads in the poem and in the bible that relate to what she calls “gestion des biens confie´es,” management of the goods we are trusted with, 2014:117–30. The first place in the poem where the idea comes up that the poor deserve heaven because they are so miserable here, though not with the financial term “allowance,” is in the C version of the pardon scene, in the long sentence C.9.176–87: as for the poor who take their mischiefs meekly, “For loue of here lowe hertes oure lord hath hem ygraunted/Here penaunce and here purgatorie vppon this puyre erthe/And pardon with the plouhman A pena & a culpa.” The basis is Luke 6:20–21, “Blessed are ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are ye that hunger now, for you shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now, for you shall laugh,” along with verse 24, “But woe to you that are rich, for you have your consolation.” This saying is not in any other Gospel. Dives and Lazarus, Luke 16:19–31, that favorite story of L’s, alluded to here at 299 (B.14.123), is another major source, and especially verse 25, “And Abraham said to him, ‘Son, remember that thou didst receive good things in thy lifetime, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.’ ” See too the long sermon against riches in Luke 12:13–34, and Ps 71:13, “He shall save the souls of the poor.”

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The financial contrast here between the arrerage of the rich and the allouaunce that the poor can expect recalls Recklessness’s similar contrast of reeves and controllers to servants at 11.296–98 (reeves and clerks B 10.476–77). Cf. also Scripture at B.10.344–48 (A.11.229–31; not in C), 12.62–71 (on a churl who makes a charter), 12.194–209 (mourning into mirth, sorrow into solace), 9.270–77 (on shepherds/pastors), and 16.3–21 (B.14.134–67) and n. Cf. Alford, Gloss., s.v. allowaunce, allowen, arrerage, disallowen. The issue in all these places is also entrance into heaven, the financial terms being clearly figurative. In the present passage, their figurative nature is clear in the B version but initially obscured in C because line 284 seems literal on first reading; but the lines that follow show that in fact it is figurative. In all the earlier places L assumes that responsible underlings will cheat their masters and so come up short when rendering accounts; here he seems to assume similarly that the rich will inevitably incur debts. But since the “allowance” or credit toward eternal joy that the poor claim (286) is based simply on their lack of joy here, clearly the arrears the rich will find themselves in as they reckon their accounts before death is also an arrears of joy, not of money: they will owe God joy since they had so much here, and will have to pay it back either in purgatory (if they’re lucky) or hell (where they will keep on paying forever) (305). However, Patience is not quite saying that the rich will not go to heaven merely because they have it so good here (though he comes close at B.14.122–31), but rather that they will inevitably sin and not repent—and so lose heaven—because all wealth exploits the poor. Patience’s ironic opening query implies that all wealth is both ill-gotten and ill-spent, and 16.15–16 finally makes explicit that the douce vie (299; B.14.123) is utterly insensitive to the needs of others. 16.1–2 (B.14.132–33) assert that riches also rob the soul of the love of God—and the soul that turns away from loving God deserves its disallowance. And Patience waffles in both versions: egregiously in B, where the generous picture of double richesse for the dutiful rich, B.14.145– 54, is retracted almost completely in 155–63—and then they get a prayer at 170–73, though a much less heartfelt one than the prayer the poor get right afterwards. The C version drops all of this bobbing and weaving and ends simply, first with the pious hope that it is for the best that some are rich and some poor, and then the gracious single prayer, haue reuthe on thy renkes alle/And amende vs of thy mercy and make vs alle meke (16.22–23). Pearsall 1988 makes it very clear that by this point in the poem—starting, really, with Recklessness—L is no longer thinking of actual poor people the way he was in C.9: “it is now always patient poverty that he writes about—not poverty as a social evil and human indignity, but poverty as a means to the strengthening and purifying of the moral and spiritual life. . . . The pattern of

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C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

spiritualised interpretation is now set, and it is recurrently exemplified. . . . There is no loss of honesty and integrity in the vision, but it is clear that there has been a shift of focus: poverty, from being a great evil, has become a great good; from being a problem to be solved, it has become the solution to the problem.” In Patience’s “great discourse on patient poverty,” “the demonstration is dry, witty, comic, and full of that vitality and specificity that was equally the mark of Langland’s deeply compassionate account of the sufferings of the poor: those sufferings are now the styptic to sin” (1988:182–83). In Lawler 2000:142–46, I relate this matter to the pardon, and argue that the poem moves to the position that to be poor is to do well, and so to be saved. The passage sets Patience against Actyf. Actyf’s name associates him with the pardon, “Qui bona egerunt ibunt in vitam eternam” (Those who did good deeds will enter into eternal life). Patience has offered a new formula: “patientes vincunt” (the patient [those acted upon, those who suffer] conquer, C.15.137, 156a, B.15.135a, 171a, etc.), where “vincunt” (they conquer) means “ibunt in vitam eternam” (they will enter into eternal life). The present passage perhaps implies a punning version of the original formula: “qui bonis eguerunt ibunt in vitam eternam” (Those who lacked worldly goods will enter into eternal life). However expressed, the idea is the equivalent of the beatitudes about the poor and meek, Matt 5:3,4: the poor own the kingdom of heaven, the meek shall inherit the earth. The winners are not those who do but those who suffer; suffering is an alternative way to heaven; this is a generalizing of Matt 5:10, “Beati qui persecutionem patiuntur propter iustitiam, quoniam ipsorum est regnum caelorum.” The idea seems expressed in B.14.108–20: everybody gets joy sometime, and those who suffer now will get it later. This new version of the pardon seems based on God’s sense of fairness, so clear in the beatitudes, and again not on what we do but what we have done to us. Alternatively, one could think of the pardon as implicitly saying “qui bona egerunt aut patienter passi sunt ibunt in vitam eternam.” See Alford, Gloss., s.v. Allow. 279 (B.14.104) “√e? quis est ille?” quod pacience; “quik, laudabimus eum!: Cf. Ecclus 31:8–9, “Beatus dives qui inventus est sine macula et qui post aurum non abiit nec speravit in pecunia et thesauris. Quis est hic? Et laudabimus eum, fecit enim mirabilia in vita sua” (Blessed is the rich man that is found without blemish and that hath not gone after gold nor put his trust in money nor in treasures. Who is he? And we will praise him, for he hath done wonderful things in his life). The phrase rihtful rychesse and resonablelyche to spene in line 278 (richesse ri√tfulliche wonne and resonably despended B.14.103) is

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a free translation of verse 8. The phrase Beatus est diues sine macula, a loose memory of the start of verse 8, appears as line 16.359a. The line in Ecclesiasticus implies that a good rich man is hard to find, but not impossible. Jesus’ words about how hard it is for a rich man to enter heaven (Matt 19:23–24, Mark 10:23–25, Luke 18:24–25) are to the same effect. Patience’s “quik,” however, ironizes the line—“Quick, let’s find him (before he goes bad)”; like the remarks that follow, it stands with Luke 16:13, where this time Jesus is absolute: “You cannot serve God and mammon.” 285–87 (B.14.109–11) by puyr resoun . . . by ∂e lawe . . . of rihtfull iuge: I.e., from the principle (lawe) that God is just, one can reason that everyone eventually deserves a share of joy. But lawe can also mean scripture, for example Psalm 36, which throughout predicts that the rich and powerful will perish, “but the meek shall inherit the land” (verse 11); Psalm 71:4, “He shall save the children of the poor,” 13–14, “He shall save the souls of the poor. He shall redeem their souls from usuries and iniquity, and their name shall be honourable in his sight,” and, again, Luke 6:20–21, “Blessed are ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are ye that hunger now, for you shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now, for you shall laugh.” This biblical view is the direct opposite of Palamon’s in the Knight’s Tale: “But man after his deeth moot wepe and pleyne,/Though in this world he have care and wo,” CT A1320–21. Aers 2004:128 argues that Patience here forgets “a fallen condition that never was restricted to the wealthy” and that such an “entitlement to salvation is not warranted within orthodox Christian traditions.” No doubt— and yet these biblical texts give Patience all the warrant he needs. Furthermore, at 9.185–87 (B.7.104–6) we are told that patient sufferers have their purgatory on earth, and are pardoned: that’s why they have a right to heaven—Patience is not forgetting anything. Geoffrey Shepherd’s assessment seems wiser: Langland’s “interest in and sympathy for the honourable poor shines constantly and repeatedly through the poem. On this theme his verse often acquires a surge and tender rapture, that sharply articulated concentrated utterance once counted the signal of sincerity in a writer” (1983:174–75). 287–97 (B.14.111–21) Ioye . . . neuere was ioye yschape: On the idea that heaven is summer, see Tavormina 1994:58–60: she shows that when Jesus says, in Matt 24:32–33 (I paraphrase), “When the fig takes on leaves, you know that summer is nigh, and when you see these signs, you will know that the end of the world is nigh,” this establishes an equivalence between heaven and summer. And Luke’s version, at 21:30–31, is an even clearer basis, she says, because it says, “you know that the kingdom of God is at hand.” She quotes Ambrose

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C Passus 15; B Passu¯s 13–14

on “the coming of the Lord, in which the fruits of the resurrection will be reaped as if in summertime” (58); Gregory: “The Kingdom of God is well compared to summer” (59), and Hugh of Saint-Cher (59–60), who specifically says that those who have summer here will pass into perpetual winter. Cf. the image of the sunny side of heaven—not necessarily summer, but definitely enticing—at 1.114, and see also 1.124–25 and note. A look at the PL online shows that Gregory’s “Bene autem regnum Dei aestati comparatur” is repeated again and again. To Tavormina’s list can be added the extensive meditation of the Pseudo-Bede on the second line of Psalm 36, “For [the wicked] shall shortly wither away as grass, and as the green herbs shall quickly fall,” PL 93.672. This commentary comes not from Bede’s time but the eleventh or twelfth century; see Gross-Diaz 1996:113–14. See also the Homily for Second Sunday of Advent of Haymo of Halberstadt, PL 118.23. It is based on the passage from Gregory that Tavormina quotes, but fuller. And see Cassiodorus on Psalm 36:2; he says succinctly, “Saeculum enim istud similitudo est hiemis” (This world is like winter) (PL 70.258). 298–300 Angeles . . . dyues . . . beggare of helle (B.14.122–23 Aungeles . . . diues . . . douce vie: For the bad angels, see 1.104–29 (B.1.105–27, A.1.103–16). They are not a good example of the point, since they could have remained in joy forever. Diues (Luke 16:19–31; see 19.233–54 [B.17.267–73] and note) is a better example, and gets Patience back to the subject of rich and poor. C.15.300 is a good example of labored clarity in the C revision; the reader of B is expected to know that Dives is a beggar in hell. 301 for alle here wel dedes: In this line Patience acknowledges that the rich perform works of charity, but earn no credit toward heaven thereby since they are amply rewarded for them here, as for example by having their donations inscribed in church windows: see 3.68–70, and the fuller versions of the same passage in B.3.64–72, where the phrase wel dedes occurs twice, and A.3.60–64, where the source of the idea, Matt 6:5 (“They have received their reward”) is quoted. 302 for ledes ∂at they haue: Possibly “by their attendants and servants,” but probably “because of all the attendants and servants they have.” 306 (B.14.131) Dauid in ∂e sauter: In addition to the two psalms quoted (which support slepeth 303), see Ps 48, quoted at C.11.23; like them it is a major source for the idea that the rich, having so much here, will have nothing later, whereas the just poor will be vindicated.

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306 (B.14.131a) dormierunt & nichil inuenerunt &c: Cf. Ps 75:6, “Dormierunt somnum suum, et nihil invenerunt omnes viri divitiarum manibus suis.” They have slept their sleep, and all the men of riches have found nothing in their hands. Meantime verse 10 says that God “arose in judgment to save all the meek of the earth.” 306a velud sompnium surgencium &c (B.14.131a velud sompnium surgencium domine in Ciuitate tua, et ad nichilum rediges &c): Ps 72:20, As the dream of them that awake, O Lord, so in thy city thou shalt bring [their image] to nothing. The passus break here in C was probably made just to make passu¯s 15 and 16 approximately the same length. But the line Allas ∂at richesse shal reue and robbe mannes soule, somewhat buried as B.14.132, makes for a brilliant opening.

C Passus 16; B Passu¯s 14–15

Headnote (see also the general note to Passus B.14, pp. 78–79 above) Passus 16 is unique in that much of it is manufactured in plain view from Latin sources. I say “plain view” because three of these are quoted at length, and explicated at great length: the definition of poverty, quoted en bloc at line 116, and extending through line 157; the names of Liberum arbitrium, quoted en bloc at line 201, and occupying lines 173–208; and Pseudo-Chrysostom on priests, quoted en bloc at line 272, and occupying lines 243–285. In addition, lines 43–101, on the deadly sins, original though the argument is that the poor don’t commit them, have an ultimate source in a Latin idea, and the account of charity with which the passage ends opens with a fourteen-line riff on 1 Corinthians 13. That is 194 lines out of 374, or 52 percent of the passus. I have entitled them “Four Passages of Rhetorical Amplification.” As might be expected from such a structure, nothing happens in the passus except that Liberum arbitrium appears (and Patience disappears): other than that, it’s all talk. Nevertheless, there is a seismic shift, for with the coming of Liberum arbitrium, Will’s quest has begun its denouement. I have been insisting that Patience is an important character, is no less than Christ—and yet by passus 16 his best moments are behind him. Here his praise of patient poverty comes to border on the outre´: the argument that the poor do not commit the deadly sins is a brilliant tour de force, and so are the little vignettes featured in the paradoxical definitions of poverty—and yet their instructive power for Will seems slight. Liberum arbitrium is closer to Will: he may be called “Active’s leader” but he is clearly Will’s, too, his own free will, and he will lead him to see his own heart, cor hominis, at the start of passus 18. He starts off a little like Patience, riffing on his names, but moves then to sharp criticism of Will’s excessive commitment to knowledge, then to criticism of the clergy of which Will is a part, and finally into his passionate description of Charity. The poem dallies in the first half of this passus, as if gathering strength for its final movement, and by the time it reaches the description of Charity it is in high gear.

Headnote

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The same movement is present in the B version, though Actyf’s repentance at the end of passus 14, and Will’s waking, mute the contrast between Patience and Anima.

Patience continues his reply to Actyf (1–157, B.14.132–322) 1–157 (B.14.132–322) Allas ∂at rychesse . . . what pouerte was to mene): Patience continues to instruct Actyf about poverty. In lines 1–113 (B.14.132– 273), he continues his speech in praise of poverty as the sure way to heaven. (To repeat Pearsall’s dictum, here in the words of his note to line 1, “Poverty, which was the worst of the world’s problems in the Visio, is now, so to speak, the solution to them.”) This portion of the speech has four parts. The first (1–21, B.14.132–67) continues the argument that the poor deserve “allowance” when they die. The second (22–42, B.14.168–201) is a prayer for contrition, very different in the two versions. The third (43–101, B.14.202–61) makes a new case that the poor deserve heaven over the rich by arguing that the seven deadly sins assail the rich and not the poor (an implicit admonition to the rich; cf. 20.350–58n). The fourth (102–13, B.14.262–73) asserts the special claim on heaven of those who freely give up their possessions and embrace poverty. Actyf then interrupts to ask for a definition of poverty (114–15, B.14.274–75), and Patience gives a nine-part answer (116–57, B.14.276–322).

The poor deserve “allowance” when they die (16.3–21, B.14.134–67) 3–21 Hewen ∂at haen here huyre byfore . . . som pore and ryche (B.14.134–67 Hewen ∂at han hir hire afore . . . if ∂ee wel hadde liked): Cf. 3.293–308, where Conscience denounces advance payment in the course of distinguishing proper meed from improper. He does not, however, apply the idea to the salvation of the rich. The application here is subtle. Once again the basic point seems to be that those who have been paid in advance should not be paid again (and thus the rich do not deserve heaven, since they had it on earth). But in fact the discussion here in C does not center on double payment; rather, for drede of dessallouwynge (7, B.14.139) is the key phrase. The objection to the practice is not so much to double payment (which is after all easily avoided by good accounting) but rather to the likelihood that advance payment will mean overpayment: the worker will end the day in debt to his employer, since he is likely to produce less than he was expected to produce.

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C Passus 16; B Passu¯s 14–15

The passage somewhat illogically mingles two different objections to advance payment. The first is double payment: those who have been paid in advance should not be paid again, obviously, and the rich should not have two heuenes 9. But lines 3–7 express the different objection that, even if double payment is avoided, advance payment is in all likelihood overpayment (cf. 3.291–332 and n. and 3.300n). According to this second idea, a rich man not only does not deserve heaven, he doesn’t even deserve the heaven he had here on earth, and is thus not just all square with God but actually in debt to him, that is, he deserves not only the loss of heaven but the punishment of hell. Thus the satire on the rich is intensified: it isn’t just that they have had their reward (Matt 6:5), but that they have had it and didn’t earn it. Theoretically the rich can avoid such debt by living well and following the financial guidelines of Psalm 14 in the manner outlined by Conscience in an earlier part of the same speech in the B version, excised in C: B.3.232–254. At the end of that speech Conscience has turned his attention to those who take improper meed, quoting Matt 6:5, Amen, amen, receperunt mercedem suam; that passage is the germ of the idea here; see also Luke 6:24, “Vae vobis divitibus, quia habetis consolationem vestram” (Woe to you that are rich, for you have your consolation). See also B.3.72, where lords are urged to stop advertising their good deeds, “On auenture ye haue youre hire here and youre heuene als.” And see 15.279–16.21 (B.14.104–65)n, 15.301n, and, for yet another treatment of how the rich can earn credit with Christ, 13.65–78; finally, see the quotation from Hildegard of Bingen cited in the note to B.14.212a, on how the rich try to have heaven and earth at once. In the B version of the passage, L is ambivalent: at B.14.145 he makes a major qualification: it is, after all, possible to get paid twice, both for rich and poor, as a servant who does his duty well is given a cote aboue his couenaunt (151). But then that qualification is itself qualified in B.14.155–56: it’s not often seen with the rich, and this leads into the muche mur∂e passage that at C.16.10 follows right on the initial statement opposing advance payment. The two consecutive Acs in B, at 14.145 and 155, get L back to where he was at 144: the rich are unlikely to go to heaven. It was thus easy to drop the whole twelveline passage in C, yielding a clearer if less nuanced treatment of the issue. The idea that the rich will be punished later relies not only on Matt 6:5 but on various psalms (see 15.306n) and on Luke 16:22, where Dives and Lazarus each die and get the opposite of their lot on earth. Though Luke never says explicitly that Dives is in hell for not sharing his wealth with the poor, Langland has implied that at the beginning of the present discussion of the rich and at 15.299–300 (less clearly at B.14.123), and will assert it unambiguously at 19.234–35, 241–43 (B.17.268–69). The allegory of the peacock and the

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lark in B.12.236–69, which is a kind of beast-fable version of Dives and Lazarus, also says clearly that the rich are punished in hell for not giving to the poor (B.12.247–51). L has first mentioned Dives and Lazarus at 8.277–81; in effect the prayer at 16.17 (B.14.164), “lord, sende hem somur,” was answered for Lazarus, who sits “as he a syre were/In al manere ese” (8.280–81). See B.14.144a and its note below: the sentence of Jerome’s that L quotes follows a sentence in which Jerome contrasts the fates of Dives and Lazarus. Chaucer plays wickedly with the same topos (“Ther may no man han parfite blisses two”) in the Merchant’s Tale, where January fears that the “parfit felicitee” of marriage will cause “that I shal have myn hevene in erthe heere” and so lose the chance to “Come to the blisse ther Crist eterne on lyve ys” (E1634–54). Though Justinus reassures him by promising that his wife may in fact be his purgatory, the paradisal garden January creates maintains the reference, and indeed the whole poem is built on playing the idea of marriage as heaven against the idea of marriage as hell (see also the Wife’s Prologue, D495–96). 7 (B.14.139) for drede of dessallouwynge: Lest he be discredited, i.e., judged after all not to have earned what he was paid in advance, and so to be not only owed nothing but actually in debt (3–4, B.14.134–35). In B the term repeats and spells out the metaphorical disalowed 131. See Alford, Gloss., s.v. allowen, disallowen. At 12.195, Recklessness has uttered the counterpart statement, that the poor are “allowed of oure lord at here laste ende.” 8 (B.14.140) hit semeth nat ∂at √e sholle: “It isn’t fitting that you should” (Economou; similarly Pearsall); not “It doesn’t seem you ought to” (Donaldson). B.14.148 rewful, 152 rewfulliche: Both words refer to compassion rather than repentance; they hark back to 145, “if ye riche haue ru3e and rewarde wel 3e poore,” which itself echoes the major line spoken by Holy Church in the first passus, “Forthy I rede yow riche, haue reuthe on the pore” (B.1.175, A.1.149). L’s semi-Pelagianism comes to the fore here, as in the taper passage, 19.187–213, which also moves on to excoriate the unkind rich: Christ has mercy on those who are themselves merciful; ruth in us prompts an answering ruth in him. From start to finish, the call to the rich to take pity on the poor is on the tip of L’s tongue. B.14.144a De delicijs ad delicias difficile est transire: Alford cites Jerome, Epistle 118 (to Julian), PL 22.965; the full statement (which Alford shortens) is as

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follows: “Difficile, imo impossibile est ut et praesentibus quis et futuris fruatur bonis: ut et hic ventrem, et ibi mentem impleat; ut de deliciis transeat ad delicias; ut in utroque saeculo primus sit; ut et in coelo et in terra appareat gloriosus” (It is hard, indeed impossible, that anyone should enjoy both present and future goods; that he should fill his belly here, and his mind there; that he should pass from delights to delights; that he should be first in both worlds; that he should appear in glory both in heaven and on earth). Alford says that the part L quotes is “quoted frequently,” a statement that searching in the online PL supports, modestly, only if the search is reduced to “ ‘de deliciis’ near ‘ad delicias.’ ” The sentence in its entirety seems to lie behind L’s whole passage. To the references Alford gives, add Peter of Blois, Letter 102 (PL 207.316): “Quem enim legimus a saecularibus deliciis ad deliciis aeternas demigrasse?” (Where do we read that anyone has made the transition from delights in this world to eternal delights?) This wording (“Where do we read?”) seems echoed in 155–56 below, “it is but selde yseien, as by holy seintes bookes,/That god rewarded double reste to any riche wye.” For L’s knowledge of this letter, see B.15.332–43a n. Cf. B.14.212n. B.14.149–51 as an hyne . . . aboue his couenaunt: A companion to the simile at 142–43: there the servant makes a brazen false claim that he wasn’t paid in advance; here the lord offers a bonus freely for a job well done. But the simile seems not quite to fit, since both rewards that Christ gives, forgiveness now and bliss later, seem to come in response to a life of ruth; neither gift of his quite corresponds to the servant’s having his hire er he bigonne. B.14.155–56 as by holy seintes bokes . . . riche wye: Numerous saints whose lives appear in The Golden Legend are said to have been born rich, noble, or even royal, but virtually all give all they have to the poor and live an ascetic life. The pre-eminent examples are St Francis and St Elizabeth of Hungary; I count nearly forty more. The few born rich who do not give up their wealth are either martyred or become prelates of notable sanctity; none use their wealth for their own pleasure. Thus there are in fact no examples at all of double reste. See also 15.277–86 (B.14.102–8). In his entry on All Saints’ Day, Jacobus says we celebrate the saints in order to imitate them, that is, “to follow their example by making little of earthly goods and setting our hearts on the things of heaven” (trans. Ryan 2.273–74). See the previous note. 10–16 (B.14.158–63) Muche murthe is in may . . . reuthe is to here: For a different treatment of rich and poor in terms of summer and winter, see

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Recklessness’s praise of patient poverty, in which the rich are summer seeds that rot easily, the poor are tough winter seeds (12.187–201). 10–11 (B.14.158–59) murthe, solace: i.e., sexual heat; for the terms, cf. Alison and Nicholas “in bisynesse of myrthe and of solas,” Miller’s Tale A3654; for the idea, cf. the smale foules pricked by nature in Chaucer’s opening sentence, and my discussion of them in Lawler 2017:177–78. See MED, s.v. mirthe, 3c; solas 1d. In the application of the simile to men in lines 12 (B.14.157) (murthe) and 17 (solace) the meaning is broader; still the gist of the prayer in line 17 is that beggars might feel some of the zest that animals feel in May. 13 (B.14.160) myssomur: June 24 and the time around it. Wheat bread is at its highest price in the last weeks before harvest at the end of July, the so-called “hungry gap” (cf. Frank, Jr. 1995:229–30); see 8.305, 312, 321 (B.6.283, 289, 299, A.7.267, 273, 283), where the people (though they don’t starve) must eat “bean bread” and “pea bread” (“pese loof” 8.176; B.6.179, A.7.164) “til lamasse tyme” 312 (B.6.289, A.7.273) (August 1). See also B.14.178 below. 14 (B.14.161) weetshoed: as the dreamer will later go, apparently in the time before Lent: 20.1 (B.18.1). Winter hunger has been dramatized in passus 8 when Hunger first appears at the plowing of the winter corn field, 8.171–203 (B.6.174– 98, A.7.159–85; for the medieval farming year, cf. Burrow 1965:256, citing Homans 1941:356); then “3at was bake for bayard was bote for many hungry,/ Drosenes and dregges drynke for many beggares” (8.192–93, B.6.193). 15–16 (B.14.162–63) rebuked/And arated: presumably a year-round fact of life; the meaning is that in winter beggars are wet, thirsty, and hungry in addition to being abused as usual—or worse than usual, if winter makes the rich yet more ill-tempered, and stingier with food.

Patience prays for the poor, then for all; then he lectures (16.17–42, B.14.164–201) 17–35 Now, lord, sende hem somur . . . a chartre made (B.14.164–95 Now, lord, sende hem somer . . . but ∂ei be poore of herte): The prayer that starts here in both versions with the touching lord, sende hem somur—as you already do for beasts, 15.291 (B.14.116)—lasts in C through line 28, where the mood of the verbs shifts from imperative to indicative. The prayer is at first for beggars, but extended at line 22 to thy renkes alle. Conceivably “thy

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renkes” means the poor, God’s favorites, as “goddes men” seems to at 17.67 (the only appearance of that phrase); see also 19.252–53 (B.17.271–72) and note; but more likely the thought here moves from the reflection that diversity of fortune is for the best to extending the prayer for that reason (Riht so 22) to all humankind, as the move from the third-person references to the poor to vs 23 implies: make us all, the prayer says, whether actually poor or not, meek, low, and of herte pore (24). There is a certain reminiscence of Repentance’s great prayer in passus 6 (B.5, A.5). The prayer thus replaces the harsh prediction in 8–9 that the rich will not be saved, and is close to the spirit of B.14.145– 56, excised in C (see note to 3–21 above). In B the prayer expands (at 14.168) at first only to asking God to have mercy on the rich and give them the grace to amend, and then it returns to the poor at 14.174, though at 180 it expands once more, reminding Christ that he comforts “all creatures,” and finally asserting with full explicitness in 182 that Christ’s invitation to turn to him and be saved (181a) was made to riche and to poore. It lasts at least through line 188, as the second-person pronouns show, although Patience’s rhetoric is already moving from prayer-mode to lecture-mode. Thus the revision makes the prayer move in C to a broad sympathy for rich and poor alike much more swiftly and decisively than in B, taking back the greater harshness towards the rich achieved in the revision at C.16.8–9. Both versions end the prayer in a clarification of the pardon (chartre 35, Acquitaunce B.14.190), insisting that in view of the redemption to repent is to do well (as I have argued in Lawler 2000). C does so more explicitly, taking B’s general terms (Confession and knowlichynge and crauynge ∂i mercy/Shulde amenden vs 187–88) and converting them (16.25–34) into the triads both of the three Dos and of contrition, confession, and satisfaction (which in B Patience had brought up to Actyf in the course of his confession, 14.83–97; see note there). The assertion in both versions that the redemption is offered to all echoes Will’s meditation at 12.54–71 (B.11.119–36), a passage that also speaks of contrition and confession, and uses charter imagery (see below). See 6.1–2 (B.5.60–61, A.5.43–44)n. 17 (B.14.164) sende hem somur: For a different use of the idea of heaven as summertime, see 1.112–25. 19–21 For al myhtest ∂ou . . . som pore and ryche (B.14.166–67 For alle my√testow . . . if ∂ee wel hadde liked): The idea (which also occurs at B.11.197–98) that God might have made all equally rich, but it is better that he

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didn’t, is something of a commonplace, and L’s lines here are virtually a translation. See, e.g., PL 39.2330 (a sermon attributed to Augustine): “Potuit enim omnes homines divites facere; sed nobis per pauperum miseriam voluit subvenire ut et pauper per patientiam et dives per eleemosynam possint Dei gratiam promoveri” (God could have made everybody rich, but he wanted to help us by means of the plight of the poor, since the poor man could be advanced in the grace of God through patience, and the rich man through almsgiving). The PL has plenty more examples. Job 34:19 and Prov 29:13 both say that God made both rich and poor. “Alike witty and wise” is apparently Langland’s extension of the basic idea, and a sly one, since it may imply that as the poor lack money, the rich lack brains—an idea voiced more boldly at 16.49–50 (B.14.208–9) below. B.14.168, 174 ∂i prisoners: That the poor belong to God is a favorite idea of L’s, based not only on the Gospels (above all Luke 6:20, “Beati pauperes, quia vestrum est regnum Dei,” and Matt 25:35–45, the account of the Last Judgment in which Jesus identifies himself with the poor; see also James 2:5, “Nonne Deus elegit pauperes in hoc mundo?”); but the Psalms and Isaiah, which proclaim God’s care for the poor again and again; at Ps 74:19, they are called “pauperum tuorum,” and Ps 71:13 says bluntly, “animas pauperum salvas faciet” (he shall save the souls of the poor). Cf. 17.69n, B.15.343an, B.9.94a “pauperum christi,” 17.67 “goddes men.” See also Eccles 4:1–6. Calling the poor God’s prisoners may seem more original, but the conjunction of the poor and prisoners (pauperes et captivi/vincti) as objects of compassion is extremely common in Christian writing, much of it going back to Ps 68:34: “exaudivit pauperem Dominus, et vinctos suos non despexit” (The Lord hath heard the poor, and hath not despised his prisoners), and Luke 4:18–19 (citing, with some variation, Isa 61:1–2), “Spiritus Domini super me; propter quod unxit me evangelizare pauperibus. Misit me . . . praedicare captivis remissionem” (The spirit of the Lord is upon me; wherefore he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He hath sent me . . . to preach deliverance to the captives). Many writers interpret “captivi/vincti” as the poor, prisoners of their poverty. B.14.169 ingrati: OED lists the first appearance of “ingrate” as 1528, but includes this line, as if Langland’s use shows the word halfway to being Englished. Alford cites Luke 6:35, “et eritis filii Altissimi, quia ipse benignus est super ingratos et malos” (and you shall be the sons of the Highest, for he is kind to the unthankful and to the evil).

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B.14.170–73 Ac god, of ∂i goodnesse . . . wante∂ hem no√t here: L prays for the rich here with characteristic pungency: God help them amend, since unlike the poor they don’t have the advantage of suffering and want to goad them to it. B.14.175–79 Conforte ∂o creatures . . . in ∂i riche: Manly 1908:35, 1909–10:129–30 rebuked the C-reviser for omitting these moving lines, but Donaldson 1949 (as Pearsall mentions) pointed out that they are the basis of the (longer and still more moving) new passage at C.9.70–87. Pearsall 1988:183–84 praises the whole passage, 14.174–80, and the winter/summer passage in C.16.10–18 as well, as showing no loss of “that earlier vivid realisation of the sufferings of poor people,” i.e., the C.9 passage. B.14.179 riche: kingdom, i.e., in heaven; see MED, s.v. riche n. 2b. B.14.180a Conuertimini ad me & salui eritis: The verse (Isa 45:22) is completed “omnes fines terrae, quia ego Deus, et non est alius”; “Be converted to me and you shall be saved, all ye ends of the earth, for I am God, and there is no other.” L perhaps savored the echo of Conforte 179 and confortest 180 in Conuertimini. The invitation is taken by all commentators to be spoken by Christ; it is sometimes cited in connection with Christ’s mission to the Gentiles, but more commonly to emphasize, as L does, his openness to sinners. See PL 102.792 (Smaragdus on St Benedict): “omnis peccator qui ad Dominum ex toto corde conversus fuerit, salvus erit, ipso dicente qui peccatoribus ait: Convertimini ad me, et salvi eritis. Ipse iterum dicit, Nolo mortem peccatoris, sed ut convertatur et vivat” (cf. Ezek 33:11) (Every sinner who has turned to the Lord with his whole heart will be saved, on the word of him who said to sinners, “Be converted to me and be saved.” He said again, “I desire not the death of the sinner, but that he be turned and live.”) Or again PL 113.1310 (Gloss to Isa 65:12, “vocavi et non respondistis” [I called and you did not answer]): “Vers. 12.—Vocavi: Per prophetas dicens: Convertimini ad me et salvi eritis (Isa. LXV). Et per memetipsum: Poenitentiam agite (Matth. III [:2]). Et alibi: Venite ad me, omnes qui laboratis et onerati estis (Ibid. XI [.28]).” (I called: when he said through the prophets, “Be converted to me and be saved,” and (I called) in my own words, “Do penance,” and elsewhere, “Come to me, all you that labor and are burdened.”) B.14.181–83 Thus . . . peple: Patience interrupts his prayer to offer comment on the Latin of 180a, suddenly speaking of Iesu crist 181 in the third person; he returns to the prayer at 184 “Thou tau9test.”

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B.14.181 in genere of gentries: by the nature of his noble birth, i.e., nobly, generously (OED s.v. gentrice, ultimately the same word as Chaucer’s “gentilesse”): Christ’s “kind” (genus) is to be kind; he promised to forgive anybody, and again and again (188); “thus” at the start of the line refers to the Latin just before it. L’s multilingual pun, like conforte/conuertimini just above, perhaps symbolizes the breadth of the kindness; it also seems to call up the opening lines of Matthew’s Gospel, Christ’s generatio from Abraham and David, with its 39 repetitions of the verb genuit. On the nobility of Jesus, an idea that L needs above all to set up his account of the passion and harrowing of hell, see C.20.21 (B.18.22) and note (this line should be cross-referenced there); and C.12.109–12 (B.11.199–204). Through Joseph he was of the house and family of David (as Jacobus says in The Golden Legend, once Joseph was espoused to Mary “the genealogical line was established through the husband” [trans. Ryan 1.197]); he was conceived by the Holy Spirit; Mary, in L’s eyes, was herself a “gentil womman” B.11.248; and he was “natus . . . rex Iudeorum,” as the Magi say to Herod, Matt 2:2. B.14.182 riche: Another moment, like B.14.145–55, in which Patience recognizes that Christ is so noble and generous that he will comfort even the rich: “gentries” here echoes “curteisie” 147. Forgiveness is available to the rich if they have ruth (145, 148); theoretically the poore of herte 195 can include the rich of goods. What Patience has a hard time believing is that any actual rich person can have ruth, can be poor of heart, can avoid pompe and pride (194): to him it seems in practice impossible for the rich to be saved: thus his “quis est ille?” to Actyf at the start of this long speech, and thus his alteration of Matthew’s difficile to inpossibile at 212a (removed in C). 22 Riht so haue reuthe on thy renkes alle: Most C mss. have “us” (unmetrically) for “3i renkes,” drawn probably from the repeated “us” in the next line. The phrase “riht so” usually introduces the second half of a comparison, e.g., at 12.194, 225, 233; here it also looks to the previous statement, but has to mean “in view of that” or “for that very reason”: you didn’t make us all rich and smart, so make us all meek. Or possibly, “just as it is for the best that some are poor and some rich, so it would be for the best if you made us all meek.” Holy Church has treated meekness as the mark of Christ himself (1.164, 166, 169; A.1.142, 144, 147; B.1.168, 170, 173), and called on the rich to be similarly meek (1.172; A.1.150, B.1.176). 24 Lowe and lele and louynge: The fourth place in the C version where these three key terms are brought together in one line. The first is in Conscience’s

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millennial vision, 3.444 (B.3.291, A.3.267); the second in the narrator’s account of Christ’s exemplary poverty C.12.130 (B.11.241); the third in Clergie’s statement at the dinner that Piers has impugned “alle kyne craftes/Saue loue and leute and lowenesse of herte” (15.132). Since the last two are both new in C, it is as if L only gradually realized how thoroughly this triplet of terms embodied his concept of the Christian life. P. M. Kean, in her great essay on “Love, Law, and Lewte in Piers Plowman” (1964) quotes B.3.291 and recognizes the importance of “lowenesse” (252; reprint 145); had she treated the C-text, she might well have argued that at least in its later passu¯s lowness replaces law in the triad—except, of course, in the great lyric definition of the Church, 17.125– 49, where law is back in its place. 25–35: And sende vs contricion . . . a chartre made: See also note to B.14.16– 22. The revision of B.14.186–88, And if vs fille . . . as man wolde desire, is a little less Pelagian and adds the crucial issue of satisfaction. The trio of Latin phrases (introduced in this prayer a trifle less aptly than in B.14.16–22, where Conscience uses them to instruct Actyf) is standard in late-medieval writers; besides the references in Alford, Quot., see, e.g., PL 210.289 (Alan of Lille, Liber poenitentialis), PL 178.1756 (Abelard, Epitome theologiae Christianae), PL 205.339 (Peter the Chanter, Verbum abbreviatum)—though Peter adds “gratiae infusio” (infusion of grace), and says the other three are not enough without it. Since satisfaction includes restitution (see 6.257a [B.5.273a], 19.205 [B.17.239], and, especially, 19.299–300 and B.17.319–20), there is an implied suggestion to the rich how to balance their accounts: satisfaction paieth and quyteth 31 (for certain nuances surrounding restitution, see 21.186–87n). If, however, all riches are ill-gotten, as L sometimes implies, then satisfaction will wipe out wealth altogether. 28 dowel and dobet and dobest of alle (cf. B.14.18, 19, 22): With its echo Ho doth wel or bet or beste at 34 below (not paralleled in B), this is the last appearance of the triad, and of the word dobest, in the poem; dowel occurs twice more, at B.15.2 and 21.116 (B.19.116), and dobet once, at 21.129 (B.19.129). Thus the final definition the poem offers of the three Do’s, in both versions, is to repent, confess, and make satisfaction—and so to be poor, as line 32 says. The friar Will meets on the road has actually already associated the Do’s with contrition, confession, and restitution at 10.51–55 (in a C revision). 30 knowlechyng and shrifte: A doublet, translating confessio. L uses the verb shriuen to mean both “confess” and “absolve,” but shrift is always just confession, not absolution.

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32 Thise thre withoute doute tholieth alle pouerte: The three Do’s (28) as defined in 25–28 and 29–31a endure all kinds of poverty fearlessly and patiently. That is, those who repent, confess, and do penance have the proper patient spirit to put up with being poor; furthermore, the life of penitence involves constant mortification of the flesh, and therefore poverty. When Piers chose the way of penitence after he tore the pardon (B.7.119–39), he realized he was choosing poverty as well. He too faced poverty fearlessly: Non timebo mala B.7.121. There is a satiric bite, though, too: turning from sin will make anyone poor, since the only way to get rich is to cheat. Or it is satisfaction that makes them poor: after they make restitution of what is not rightly theirs, nothing will be left. Economou and Pearsall take pouerte as subject of tholieth, thise thre as object; but this not only gives inferior sense (how is confession, or doing well/ bet/best, something to be “borne”?), and does violence to the word order, but requires the plural form “tholieth” (OE 3olia3) to be read as a singular. (In Class 2 weak verbs, L can only have i/y in forms where OE has i; 3 sg. is OE 3ola3, ME tholeth). 33–34 lereth . . . beste aboue alle: Little more than a repetition of line 28 above: those who do these three are living examples of doing as well as one can do. Lereth is plural (as often; e.g., followeth 46, alloueth 145, bereth 203), parallel to tholieth. aboue alle: probably just an alliterating variation of the phrase “of alle” often tagged onto “dobest” at the end of a line, as at line 28 above. 35 And holy churche and charite herof a chartre made (B.14.189–95 Ac if ∂e pouke wolde plede . . . poore of herte): The B passage is a unifying moment in the structure of the poem. It both reprises the pardon passage, like it imagining the redemption as a document, a patente granting forgiveness to those who repent, and gives a foretaste of the harrowing of hell, in which Christ will quash the legalist pleading of ∂e pouke. With 190 (We should take the document of release briskly and show it to the devil), cf. 18.346, (my death shall) “bo3e quykne and quyte 3at queynt was 3oru9 synne”; as quyk means not just “quickly” but “given life.” And the “borwe” (pledge) of 191 is the “raunsoun” of 18.352. Of course any individual Christian must repent in order to qualify for the privileges promised in the document. Its parchemyn must consist of poverty, and also of patience and faith: like the lord who sets out to write a letter in Langland’s simile at B.9.39–41, Christ needs something to write the acquittance on. On the use of documents in Middle English culture and literature, including Piers Plowman, see Steiner 2003; she treats this passage on pp. 106–7.

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The reduction to one line in C (And holy churche and charite herof a chartre made) keeps the document image, though this charter seems to be not the redemption itself but rather, since herof clearly refers to the efficacy of contrition, confession, and satisfaction, the promise of Christ (charite) after his resurrection to the disciples (holy churche) spelling out the redemption’s implications, “Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them” (John 20:23). The legal diction of the B passage also seems responsible for the phrase for soules paieth and alle synnes quyteth 31, echoing Acquitaunce (B.14.190). Alford, Gloss. has entries for aquitaunce, chartre, paien, pateat, patente, quiten, and borwe (s.v. borgh). 36 these thre: again, the three Do’s. B.14.190a Pateat &c: Per passionem domini: L imitates the formulaic language of letters patent (patente 192), as in the “Charters of Christ,” for which see Steiner 2003:193–228. B.14.194 Of . . . decourre∂: Perhaps “runs away from,” “shuns” (so MED), i.e., as we would say, avoids like the plague, won’t go within a mile of. Decourre∂ is a nonce-word, although Fr. decorre “run, flow” and Lat. decurrere “run down from” are well attested. And yet if the verb means that, the preposition ought to be “fro,” not “of.” Kane Glossary ingeniously defines the word as the imperative plural of an equally unattested verb decorren*, meaning “scrape, shave clean,” from Latin decoriare, strip or flay. But since the surrounding verbs are first-person indicatives (“we sholde take/shewen/putten/preuen . . . we diden [mss. we wryten]), and “3e parchmyn” has just been made the subject of “be moste” (must be), a sudden imperative here, with “parchemyn” as object and without specifying the subject, is nearly inconceivable. Compare, elsewhere in B, 1.175, 10.289 (imperatives) and 13.421, 441, 14.140 (indicatives); all these sudden intrusions of second-person address specify the group addressed. Furthermore, the phrases “of pompe,” “of pride,” “of alle peple but 3ei be poore of herte” really ought to be parallel to “of pouerte” and “of pure pacience and parfit bileue” in the previous sentence, and “decourre3” be parallel to “be moste,” and so mean something like “must not be, declines (to be),” perhaps (if the verb derives indeed from French decorre) a legitimate extension of the literal “runs down from (being).” 36–41 And bote these thre . . . yf fals be ∂e fondement (B.14.196–200 Ellis is al on ydel . . . if fals be ∂e foundement): The reprise of the pardon scene continues: Patience’s reflections here mirror those of Will after he woke from

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the pardon dream, on the superiority of doing well to buying pardon, 9.320–52 (B.7.173–206). Cf. especially 38 (B.14.197) to 9.324 (a line not in the B version), and the similar references to friars in 40–41 (B.14.199–200) and 9.344 (B.7.198). On writing in windows in friars’ churches, see also 3.51–76 (B.3.48–75, A.3.47– 64) and the note to 3.52, 66 (B.3.49, 62; A.3.48). The phrases “elles is al an ydel” and “elles is alle oure labour lost” echo St Paul: “labor vester non est inanis in domino” (your labour is not in vain in the Lord), 1 Cor 15:58; “non in vacuum cucurri neque in vacuum laboravi” (I have not run in vain, nor laboured in vain), Phil 2:16; and “ne forte . . . inanis fiat labor noster” (lest perhaps . . . our labor should be made vain), 1 Thess 3:5. 42 (B.14.201) in comune ryche: See Acts 4:32: “And the multitude of believers had but one heart and one soul, neither did any one say that ought of the things which he possessed was his own, but all things were common to them.” Similarly, Acts 2:44–45. In view of the previous line, however, this is surely a hit at the friars; see 22.276n. See Ambrose, De Nabuthe Jezraelita, PL 14.731: “In commune omnibus divitibus atque pauperibus terra fundata est, cur vobis jus proprium soli, divites, arrogatis?” (The earth was created in common for all, rich and poor: why, you rich, do you alone claim it as your own right?).

Four passages of rhetorical amplification (43–273, B.14.202–15.118) 43–273 For seuene synnes . . . non est sanum (B.14.202–15.118): This section of the poem offers four consecutive passages of rhetorical amplification: on the deadly sins (43–99; B.14.202–259), on the ten Latin phrases of Secundus the Philosopher defining poverty (116–57; B.14.276–322), on Liberum arbitrium’s (Anima’s) names (183–201a; B.15.23–39a), and Chrysostom on priests (243–73; B.15.92–118). Each of the last three has a Latin quotation; of these, the first is quoted before it is explicated in English, the other two after. In all four we see L exercising his poetic imagination, creating metaphors and little scenes; in the deadly sins passage in particular, he has set himself the challenge of proving the absurd proposition that the poor don’t commit the sins. See the following note.

Patience claims that the poor do not commit the deadly sins (43–101, B.14.202–61) 43–101 (B.14.202–61) For seuene synnes . . . heueneryche blisse: This passage on the deadly sins is meant to rationalize the idea that poverty is Dowel by arguing that the poor don’t sin; in the B version, it serves as a companion

118

C Passus 16; B Passu¯s 14–15

piece to 13.271–420, on Actyf’s coat, stained and tattered by all seven sins. It starts out by stipulating that its subject is pouerte ∂er pacience is (59, 61; B.14.218, 220) rather than just any poverty, and that stipulation returns at the conclusion (“Forthy alle pore 3at patient is” 100 [B.14.260] ; see note there), but all through the middle the subject seems to be all the poor rather than only the patient poor. It is a tour de force: witty and imaginative, and not at all convincing. It is comic, too, in offering both a series of little contests in which patiens vincit, the underdog wins, and amusing images such as the longarmed Coveitise wrestling an opponent half his size. There is actually a biblical basis: Jesus’s assertion that the poor are blessed (“Beati pauperes” Luke 6:20, quoted at B.14.212a). Hugh of Saint-Cher, commenting on that verse, cites a gloss of unspecified origin, “temperantia congruit paupertati” (temperance suits poverty), and expands on that: “Consistit enim in coercendis illecebris, quia cum se et sua abdicat, pravas delectationes in se refraenat, quae et facit cordis munditiam” (6.165v) (For poverty consists in resisting enticements, since when one abandons oneself and one’s goods, one reins in one’s low impulses and turns them into cleanness of heart). As abdicat indicates, however, Hugh is speaking of voluntary poverty, which is never clearly Langland’s subject. Of course there is a tradition that poverty can foster virtue, but it is standard to insist that it must be accepted patiently, and to grant that of course the poor can be wicked; cf. Pseudo-Augustine Sermo 296 (PL 39.2310); “ Multi enim sunt pauperes iracundi, cupidi, superbi, luxuriosi; quibus nihil prodest quod facultatibus sunt indigentes, cum vitiis et malis moribus sint locupletes” (For many poor people are wrathful, greedy, proud, and lustful; it does such people no good to want opportunity since they are filled with vices and evil habits). Langland argues just the opposite of this. His argument works well enough with pride and avarice, of course, and possibly with gluttony, but the idea that the poor aren’t subject to anger, covetousness, sloth, or lust has little to recommend it. It is one thing to say that the sins rathest men bigileth (45; B.14.204) with riches, quite another to say that they don’t beguile the poor at all. Bloomfield says of the passage, “Frequently, as we have seen, the Sins were used to castigate all classes, but here we have what I believe to be the only example of the use of the Sins to depreciate the rich and elevate the poor” (1952:200). The influence of St Francis is perhaps to be felt throughout; for example, Bonaventure says that when the brothers asked Francis what virtue would make them dearest to Christ, he replied that “Poverty is the special way of salvation. It is the source of humility and the root of all perfection” (Legenda major 7.1, in Habig 1983:680). And yet the argument is after all much older than Francis, as is clear from this passage in Apuleius’s famous praise of poverty in his Apology 1.18–22: poverty “neminem umquam superbia inflavit,

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neminem inpotentia depravavit, neminem tyrannide efferavit, delicias ventris et inguinum neque vult ullas neque potest” (ed. Helm 1963) (has never puffed up anyone with pride, she has never corrupted anyone with an inability to restrain himself, she has never made anyone crazy with power, she has neither desire nor ability for the pleasures of the belly and the groin). See also Peter of Blois, Sermon 9 (PL 207.587), praising poverty extravagantly as the treasure for which one sells all he has. And see Dives and Pauper A.4, “The pore man dar nought ne may nought synnyn ne maynteynyn his synne as the ryche man may, for he may sonere been punshyd and chastisyd 3anne the ryche man” (ed. Barnum 1976:1.1.38). The passage has drawn almost no critical comment, as if it were beneath attention. Aers 2004 faces it squarely, but only to oppose Patience’s “insouciance” (131) both to the movingly realistic account of the daily deprivations of the poor in 9.76–95 (108–10, 120) and to the confessions of the sins in the Visio, since none of the sins there is shown as confined to the rich (129–31); Aers keeps insisting earnestly on its inadequacy. Crassons 2010:51–52 similarly complains of its superficiality and “specious logic.” But the comic inventiveness is fruitful in a variety of ways. It accentuates Patience’s distinctive voice as he teases both Actyf and Will out of their complacency; it satirizes the rich with a special verve; it vivifies the poem and deepens its essentially comic ethos, its trust that patience conquers; the very paradoxicality expresses the mystery of the embrace of poverty by both Jesus and the Psalmist, representing by its very sprightliness, its brash creations, what Mary Clemente Davlin has called “the faithful presence of God within . . . poverty” (1989:114). See also Lawler 1979, 1995. 43 (B.14.202) seuene synnes: L makes up the total of seven in this passage by treating covetousness (79–84; B.14.239–44) and avarice (85–89; B.14.245–49), wanting wealth and hoarding it, as separate sins, and omitting envy, which he often merges with wrath: see Lawler 1996:178–79. On his various lists of the sins, which do not always reach seven, see ibid. That he regarded the number as seven is unquestionable, however; see 3.62 (B.3.58); 16.60 (B.14.219), just below; B.15.74; and 22.215 (B.20.215), the seven great giants with Antichrist. Bloomfield 1952:46, 72 makes clear that Gregory the Great settled the list “once and for all” (72) as pride, wrath, envy, avarice, sloth, gluttony, and lust. 45 (B.14.204) with rychesse tho rybaudes rathest men bigileth: The “ribalds” are the seven sins: L reinforces the personification begun two lines earlier, calling up the earlier personifications of the sins by echoing Repentance’s prayer: “Haue reuthe of alle these rybaudes 3at repenten hem sore” 7.149

120

C Passus 16; B Passu¯s 14–15

(B.5.504). Little else in this passage, however, recalls the much longer scene in the Visio: there the sins were imagined as willing sinners, enjoying their sinful activities; here they are powerful external assailants who readily beguile the rich but must try to subdue the poor by force. Again and again they call up the world of the morality plays, especially The Castle of Perseverance, in which the seven sins have major parts. The idea that they succeed “rathest” (soonest) with riches is a variant of the Pardoner’s theme, “radix malorum est cupiditas” (1 Tim 6:10); the term seems to echo “maxime” in formulations such as these: “Maxime timorem Dei divitiarum fiducia inanis avertit” (Empty faith in riches more than anything else turns away the fear of God), Hilary of Poitiers, Tractatus super psalmos, PL 9.320; “Radix maxime iniquitatum in pecuniae cupiditate est” (The root of evils lies above all in greed for money), ibid. 399. 47–65 And ∂at is plesant to pruyde . . . may nat wone togyderes (B.14.206–24 And ∂at is plesaunt to pride . . . ei∂er hate∂ oo∂er in alle maner werkes): The treatment of pride falls into two parts, one idealized, one realistic. In lines 47–56 (206–15) the poor man is a heroic figure very much like the portrait Patience paints of Charity later in the passus: witty, wise, bold, free, moving swiftly, confident of having earned perpetuel ioye (56; a perpetuel blisse B.14.215), or like the messenger of C.13.33–92, a passage echoed at 54 (see n. below); in these lines the passage turns into a little allegorical vignette of progress on the highway to salvation, the poor man ahead, accompanied like Everyman by his good deeds, the rich man finding it all rough going. See Lawler 1979. The second part (57–65; 216–24) gives a truer picture of the poor man engaged solely in doing the bidding of the rich. 50–51 (B.14.209–10) Of wit and of wisdoem . . . rather yherde in heuene: It is hard not to sense here some special pleading on Langland’s part, an echo of Will’s boast to Conscience and Reason that what he does is “the leuest labour 3at oure lord pleseth” (5.85)—reminding us that buxomness and boasting can indeed coexist with each other. See, however, Ps 33:7, “This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles,” and Luke 6:20, “Blessed are ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.” 52 (B.14.211) ∂e ryche hath moche to rykene: A witty double entendre. The rich man is reckoning profit and loss, and facing a reckoning (see 15.281–83). The poor man, meanwhile, is reckless, not solicitous. Riht softe walketh: slowly and carefully, picking his steps, holding to the road nat fol euene (see next note); the opposite of batauntliche and baldeliche 55. Cf. Eph 5:15,

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“videte . . . quomodo caute ambuletis” (see . . . how you walk circumspectly), an oft-quoted line, here adapted ironically to the rich man’s burden of worry. 53 The hey way to heueneward he halt hit nat fol euene (B.14.212 The hei√e wey to heueneward ofte Richesse lette∂): The C line means that he does not stay on the straight and narrow (cf. Matt 7:14): he veers off the road; euene is an adverb (Concordance, Pearsall). The line was presumably altered in C as an echo of 13.68 (in the new merchant/messenger passage), which perhaps should be punctuated “That holde mote the hey way euene, the ten hestes,” though a pause so late in the line would be rare. B.14.212a Ita inpossibile diuiti &c: (“Thus [it is] impossible for the rich, etc.”) This quotation is unidentified, though surely based in some way on Matt 19:16–26, in which a young man, when told by Jesus that the way to be perfect is to sell all he has and give to the poor, goes away sad. Jesus then says first that a rich man will “hardly” (difficile) enter heaven, and second that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle; but he finally says, when his disciples are surprised at that, “Apud homines hoc inpossibile est; apud Deum autem omnia possibilia sunt” (19.26 With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible). Most commentators conclude that it is therefore possible for the rich to enter heaven—and only three mss. here have “inpossibile,” eleven “possibile,” as if the full statement were “Ita possibile diviti intrare regnum caelorum sed difficile”—which would not be far from what Recklessness has said at 11.201a; see the note there. See also B.14.144a, “De delicijs ad delicias difficile est transire” and n. But L is more likely thinking of a commentator such as Hildegard, who says of those such as the young man (PL 197.265D), “Homines enim isti coelum et terram simul habere volunt, quod impossibile est; quoniam in comprehensione et possessione divitiarum, absque superbia elationis et absque proprietate voluptatis nequaquam stare possunt, sicut etiam impossibile esset quod homo in cacumine verticis alicujus montis staret, et tempestate validi venti quassatus non caderet” (These men want to have heaven and earth simultaneously, which is impossible, because there is no way they can remain in possession of wealth without being proud of their superiority and without indulging themselves in pleasures, just as it would be impossible to stand on the tip of a steep mountain and be shaken by a storm of strong wind and not fall). Or Bruno, PL 165.234B: “Prius difficile, deinde impossibile dixit: impossibile est enim ut divites in divitiis spem habentes intrent in regnum coelorum: de illis enim hoc intelligitur” (First he said “hard,” then he said “impossible,” for it is impossible for the rich who put their hope in riches to enter the kingdom of heaven: they are who Jesus is

122

C Passus 16; B Passu¯s 14–15

talking about). See also B.10.341/A.11.229 (impossible); C.16.8–9/B.14.140–44a (hard). 54a (B.14.213a) Opera enim illorum sequuntur illos: “For their works follow them” Rev 14:13, where the meaning is clearly “good works.” This is one biblical basis of the pardon formulation, “Qui bona egerunt ibunt in vitam eternam.” The pak 54 clearly contains good works, and so seems paradoxically to energize the poor man rather than weigh him down. As Pearsall points out, the good works must include the virtue of bearing poverty patiently; cf. 59, 61 below. L here turns upside down the traditional images of the sarcina carnis, the burden of the flesh (e.g., Augustine PL 38.867 “cum simus in hac vita onerati sarcina corruptibilis carnis” [since in this life we are weighed down by the burden of the corruptible flesh]), and the sarcina peccatorum, the burden of sins (e.g., Ambrose, “Quid enim aliud est peccatum, nisi sarcina quae hujus saeculi onerat viatorem?” [What else is sin but a burden that weighs down the traveler in this world?]; cf. Christian’s burden in Pilgrim’s Progress). Indeed, the poor man seems already to have the glorified body he will have in heaven—in the words of Peter of Blois, “corpus nostrum, hodie moles terrea et onerosa, cui superaddetur agilitas” (our body, now a burdensome pile of earth, on which agility will be superimposed) (Sermo 61, PL 207.686). 55 (B.14.214) Batauntliche as beggares doen: This modifies preseth byfore 54 (B.14.213): he presses forward eagerly—as beggars do, perhaps, when overtaking their targets from behind. Craueth means “claims” here (so Pearsall), as it does at A.7.84 and B.15.165, not just “desires.” The whole statement gives us a wittily paradoxical picture of the poor man claiming heaven impatiently for his patience. B.14.215a Beati pauperes quoniam ipsorum est regnum celorum: “Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” Matt 5:3 (conflated with Luke 6:20, as often; see Alford, Quot.; Matthew has pauperes spiritu, the poor in spirit, where Luke has just pauperes). 58 (B.14.217) ∂e man: the comic motif of the arrogant servant of an arrogant master; it appears in tragedy but is essentially comic, an imposture. Examples include Davus in the eleventh-century comedy De nuntio sagaci; Guccio, the fraudulent servant of the fraud Frate Cipolla in Decameron 6.10; Garcio, the servant of Mundus in The Castle of Perseverance; Goneril’s Oswald in King Lear; Stephano in The Tempest; Volpone’s Mosca. Dickens used the motif over

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and over: Job Trotter and Jingle in Pickwick Papers, Littimer and Steerforth in David Copperfield, “the Mercury in powder,” Sir Leicester Dedlock’s supercilious footman in Bleak House. An ancient example is Melanthios, the goatherd in the Odyssey who serves the suitors and mimics their impudence. Sancho Panza goes in and out of the role; the Citizen’s dog Garryowen in Ulysses is a kind of burlesque version of it. 63 for his breed and his drynke (B.14.222 for his broke loues): As the phrase in B makes clear, C means not that he fetches food and drink for the rich, but rather that he does the bidding of the rich for the sake of what crumbs they might throw him. 66–70 (B.14.225–29) Yf wrathe wrastle . . . moet begge (B asken): If Wrath wrestles with a poor man he, Wrath, loses (i.e., the poor man is not overcome by wrath). When they both complain (67, B.14.226; see next note), we should imagine Wrath complaining angrily, and hoping to throw the poor man to the ground by inducing him to do likewise—but the poor man foils him by complaining feebly, i.e., mildly. The poor man knows that, as line 68 says, if he does give way to anger (i.e., chyde or chattere), his complaint will be unsuccessful. Then lines 69–70 make it clear that the “complaint” is really a request for alms: see MED, s.v. pleinen v 3(b), citing B.17.298; see also 8.156 (B.6.159, A.7.146), where Piers “pleynede him to 3e knyhte/To kepe hym,” and the meaning is clearly “made a petition.” The whole passage celebrates shrewd common sense, and the comic victory of eiron over alazon, rather than virtue. (On lowlyche and louelyche 69 [B.14.228], see 24n above.) 71–78 (B.14.230–38) And yf glotonye greue pouerte . . . so meschief hym folleweth (B and meschief to bote): L is able to maintain that the poor are not gluttonous only by focusing in line 72 (B.14.231) on a single species of gluttony, what Chaucer’s Parson calls “whan a man get hym to delicaat mete or drynke” (I828). See also the Pardoner’s Tale, C517–20, 537–48. L then undermines his case by conceding that Gluttony, in the more common form of drinking too much good plain ale, does indeed get to the poor, but argues ingeniously that they end up suffering such a greuous penaunce (76; B.14.235) in the course of sleeping it off that the sin is in effect canceled—an absurd instance of L’s regular idea that the sufferings of the poor are themselves salvific. The scene is made more purely comic in the C version by the reduction of B’s final two lines, 237–38, to one, omitting the pious thought that the poor man mourns for his sins instead of just the cold.

124

C Passus 16; B Passu¯s 14–15

71 (B.14.230) he gadereth ∂e lasse: He, Gluttony, comes away empty-handed. 75 (B.14.234) when he streyneth hym to strecche the strawe is his shetes: I.e., his blanket is too small. L makes literal use of a proverb (noted by Pearsall) about moderation, “He that stretches further than his whittle (blanket) will reach must stretch his feet in the straw” (Whiting W234). Note that most C mss. read “whitel” for shetes. 78 so meschief hym folleweth: “So much does trouble dog him” (Pearsall). An ironic echo of “opera enim illorum sequuntur illos” 54a. 79–84 (B.14.239–44) And thogh coueytyse . . . bytwene a longe and a short: The comic mood here overtakes the writing completely; there are no more playful lines in the poem than these. Apparently L was so at a loss to maintain on moral grounds that the poor don’t covet that he resorted to this witty picture of a wrestling match between Jack and the giant, or David and Goliath, in which once again the little man wins, or at least avoids losing. The image of Coveitise with his keen will and long arms may come from the drama, which would explain why men know it well (Coveitise is a character in The Castle of Perseverance (early fifteenth century), where he certainly has a keen will, though whether he was made to appear with extra-long arms, we of course do not know); and little scrawny Poverty may come from the drama as well; a character named Poverte has a brief role in Skelton’s Magnificence (early sixteenth century). But Coveitise is also eerily like Long Will himself, with his keen appetite for experience. 79 (B.14.239) cacche: No C ms. has this word; a few omit, the rest have “wolde with 3e pore wrastle.” That phrase is clearly a scribal clarification which RK-C rightly reject, printing the majority B reading. But the B mss. LRF have “wolde cacche,” and the “wolde” in the C mss. may also be authorial. Certainly “would (desires to) catch” is more plausible, since “catch” and “not come together” seem to contradict each other. Possibly, however, “cacche” means “chase” here, as at 14.117 (B.12.177) (MED cacchen 6). 85–89 (B.14.245–49) And thogh Auaryce . . . an yrebounden coffre: As noted above, in this passage L treats avarice (hanging on to money) as a different sin from greed; Pearsall points out that the distinction between desiring and keeping is traditional, and cites Handlyng Synne 5325–42. See Bloomfield 1952:185, 200, 215, 426 n316. See also ParsT I744, “Coveitise is for to coveite swiche thynges as thou hast nat; and Avarice is for to withholde and kepe swiche

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thynges as thou hast, withoute rightful nede.” There is also some evidence for this late in the Latin tradition; e.g., PL 184.1265 (Anonymous, De modo bene vivendi): “Avarus nunquam satiatur pecuniis. Sicut hydropicus quanto plus bibit, tanto plus sitit: ita avarus quanto plus acquirit, tanto plus concupiscit. Avaritia et cupiditas, sorores sunt” (The miser never has enough money. Just as a man with dropsy gets thirstier the more he drinks, so the miser: the more he gets, the more he wants. Avarice and covetousness are sisters). Augustine makes a different distinction, claiming that avarice is amor pecuniae, the love of money, and is a species of covetousness (De Genesi ad litteram, PL 34.436); this may be the source of L’s tendency to connect the word avarice with metallic imagery as he does here. In fact, however, the two words avaritia and cupiditas are synonyms in Latin and treated as such by most Latin writers, as the English words are by L himself at 16.367–69 and also at 14.21, and by Chaucer’s Parson everywhere but in the sentence quoted. Apparently the distinction was available when useful, as here, but not ordinarily insisted on. 85 Angry (B.14.245 angre) vex, i.e., try to overcome: L is ringing the changes on verbs of assailing. Avarice’s assault fails because the poor man’s pockets are both small and an easy prey for thieves. Boest 88 (B.14.248) is “noise,” (MED, s.v. bost 4[b]): it makes less noise to grab or slit a bag than break an ironbound chest, and so a poor man keeps getting robbed, and so has no buildup of money to start feeling avaricious about. 87 (B.14.247) almaries and yrebounden coffres: see similar imagery associated with avarice at 1.192 (B.1.197, A.1.171)—this is clerical avarice—and 10.85–86 (B.8.88–89, A.9.79–80); see also 22.123 (B.20.123) “armed hym in Auarice.” Almarie (later, aumbry, ambry), a safe, locker, cupboard⬍ Lat. armarium, cupboard. 90–93 (B.14.250–53) Lecherye . . . vntyled: Lecherye is the subject of two verbs, loueth 90 (B.14.250) and doth 91 (B.14.251): because a poor man has little silver, Lechery doesn’t love him, doesn’t get him (men 91 [251], probably singular; see MED, s.v. men [pron. indef.]) to eat delicate (and presumably aphrodisiac) food or drink wine. It is common, of course, to associate lechery with food and drink; Langland does so also at 6.173–74 (B.5.73–74, A.5.56–57), though there it is overeating rather than eating delicately; and see PardT C477– 84, WBProl D459–68, ParsT I836, 951; Bloomfield 1952:424, n296. For food in the stews, see the next note. The Latin root luxuria encompasses all aspects of riotous living. Cf. Jerome, Letter 15 (PL 22.561), a text well known to Chaucer: “Luxuria mater libidinis est, ventremque distentum cibo, et vini potionibus

126

C Passus 16; B Passu¯s 14–15

irrigatum, voluptas genitalium sequitur” (Luxury is the mother of lust, and when the stomach is distended with food and oiled with drinking wine, genital pleasure comes next). 93 (B.14.253) vntyled: i.e., roofless (Pearsall, Schmidt 1995). Perhaps, though, the reference is to tiled floors, and we have here a reminder that stuyues were public bath houses, and only secondarily brothels. See Kolve 1981:144–46; his figure 15 (late fifteenth century, from Paris, Ms. Arsenal 5196, f. 372) on p. 171 shows a bath/brothel with a tiled floor—and it also shows (as does his figure 12 on p. 167) the amorous couples indulging in delicate food and drink as they bathe. Thus lines 91–93 go together to form a vignette of life in the stews. (The friar in the Summoner’s Tale complains that “of our pavement/Nys nat a tyle yet withinne oure wones” [D2104–5]). 94–99 (B.14.254–59) And thow sleuthe . . . mankynde: “And if Sloth pursues the poor man, shirking his duty to God (unlike Piers who does serve God to paye 7.193 [A.6.36, B.5.549]), Mischief (suffering, already established as poverty’s companion at 78 [B.14.238] above) steps between them and reminds poverty that God is his greatest help (not Sloth or anyone else), and he, poverty, is God’s servant and—Mischief says—wears his livery. And whether he actually manages to serve God or not, his poverty alone marks him as of the household of Christ, since poverty is the livery Christ wore to redeem mankind.” A key to understanding the pronouns is to realize that Meschief is personified and speaks to poverty. The echoing words serue and seruant frame the argument: as against Sloth’s refusal to serve, poverty is persuaded by suffering that he is indeed God’s servant (though he may not always act on that persuasion, as line 98 [B.14.258] acknowledges). In view of Matt 20:28, where Jesus says, “the Son of man came not to be ministered unto but to minister,” it is tempting to read he his seruant, as he saith as meaning that Jesus is poverty’s servant, but then line 98 (258) would make no sense, and indeed the whole rhetoric and syntax of the passage cannot sustain that interpretation. Poverty’s hope in God’s help is the polar opposite of the despair that is usually associated with sloth (“wanhope” 7.58 [A.5.216, B.5.444]; cf ParsT I693–705). Mischief, in reminding poverty of the redemption, is himself a mene or mediator, as Christ is (18.201 [B.16.192]; 17.158, 258 [B.15.507]) and Mary too (9.348 [A.8.180, B.7.202]). Finally, though the lines must be read as meaning that poverty is the servant, not Jesus, the insistence that Jesus and the poor man wear the same seute depends on Phil 2:5–7: “Christ Jesus . . . being in the form of God . . . debased himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and in fashion found as a man” and Heb

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2:14, “Forasmuch then as the children were partakers of flesh and blood, he [God] also himself in like manner partook of the same.” See C.20.21n, 208– 38n. See also 12.121–22 (B.11.232–33), 12.133 (B.11.245), and Concordance, s.v. secte, sute (synonymous here as often in the poem). “Servus Christi” can apply to any Christian, but is a phrase applied often to bishops and priests, sometimes to refer to themselves in imitation of Paul, Rom 1:1; L associates Sloth with priests at 7.30–34 (B.5.415–21). Archetypal B has “his maister” for KD-B “ay a mene,” a likely scribal simplification that reduces the meaning without essentially altering it. 100 (B.14.260) alle pore ∂at pacient is: a crucial qualification, repeating that of 59, 61 (B.14.218, 220) above. The whole passage on the deadly sins only makes sense if we take it to be about the patient poor, not all the poor. See the note to 15.276, 277 (B.14.102). This sentence creates an envelope around the passage by echoing 55–56 (B.14.214–15); see also 15.285–86 (B.14.109–10).

The special claim on heaven of the voluntarily poor (16.102–13, B.14.262–73) 102–13 Moche hardyore may he aske . . . semblable bothe (B.14.262–73 Muche hardier may he asken . . . so nei√ is pouerte): Voluntary poverty, in particular the forsaking of possession by secular priests, if persone 111 (B.14.271) means “parson,” as Pearsall reasonably suggests (though Concordance, Kane Glossary, and all translators have “person”). Cf. 13.100, “Vch a parfit prest to pouerte sholde drawe.” There are a few earlier hints that L has had the secular clergy at least partly in mind all through Patience’s exhortation to poverty. The first is “us,” the reading of the C mss. at 22 (see note there, and, for the use of “we” and “us” to denote the secular clergy, see B.15.313–14 and Lawler 2002:110) The second is the reference to Avarice’s “Almaries and yren bounden cofres” B.14.247, recalling Holy Church’s rebuke to the clergy, “so harde ha3 auaryce yhapsed hem togederes” (1.192., B.1.197, A.1.171). The third is the phrases “his (God’s) seruant” and “of his seute” 97 (B.14.257). The same ambivalence hovers over the similar discussion of patient poverty in B.11.256–319, which also turns out (at 283) to be about the clergy. See Lawler 2002:99–107. The opening image of a man who leaves lordship and land to live as a beggar for God’s love inevitably recalls St Francis (so Aers 2004:132, citing Bourquin 719–20, part of a longer discussion of Franciscanism in the poem; here Bourquin quotes the Speculum perfectionis, where Francis says that he has

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C Passus 16; B Passu¯s 14–15

chosen holy poverty as his lady [see also The Golden Legend, trans. Ryan, 2.222]; Aers says this is the poem’s “most explicitly Franciscan passage”), as does the imagery of a wedding to poverty that follows in 112 (B.14.272). Francis’s marriage to Lady Poverty is depicted in a fresco (school of Giotto) in the lower church of the Basilica of St Francis in Assisi. His search to find her and be espoused to her, as well as Christ’s marriage to her when he was on earth, is celebrated in the anonymous Sacrum commercium sancti Francisci cum domina Paupertate (which Langland might well have known), the ultimate source of Dante’s famous account of the marriage in Paradiso 11; see Gardner 1913:232– 35. (The Sacrum commercium does not finally show Francis marrying Poverty, though she announces near the end that “I am joined on earth with those [i.e., Francis and his order] who represent for me the image of him to whom I am espoused in heaven” (trans. Placid Hermann in Habig 1983:1549–96; 1594) and the title [though taken from a neutral context in Thomas of Celano, Rosalind Brooke 2006:158] implies a transaction such as an espousal.) Still, to argue from “as a beggare” 104, as Clopper does (1997:81), that the subject of the passage is friars, not seculars, is unwarranted; see Lawler 2002:104–6. Lines 105–11 (B.14.265–71) As . . . So hit fareth are an extended simile, and so punctuated in B but (oddly) not in C—C.17.107–10 should be enclosed in dashes, like B.14.267–70: just as a young woman forsakes her family, and her prospects, to marry for love (a penniless man, presumably), so a person forsakes possession and marries poverty. Tavormina 1995:188–89 remarks on the reversal of gender roles from Gen 2:24, “a man shall leave father and mother, and cleave to his wife” in terms of actual medieval practice, in which women more commonly broke ties with their families than men did; but L is surely also influenced by the tradition, based on the Song of Songs, of the soul’s longing to be the bride of Christ. (For Wit’s opposition to marrying for money see 10.254–57 [cf. B.9.159–60, A.10.182–83]). 107–8 (B.14.267–68) Moche . . . brocage: that maid deserves her husband’s love much more than the maid whose wedding is arranged by matchmaking. 108 (B14.268) brocage: see 2.67–68 (B.2.65–66), where Favel serves as “brokor” or matchmaker between Meed and False. 109 (B.14.269) assente of sondry parties: E.g., besides the bride and groom: the fathers of both; interested siblings; sometimes grandfathers and other relatives who had an interest in the property at issue; trustees of the property; and, of course, lawyers and financial advisers. See, e.g., the complex case of

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Roger Fiennes’s marriage arrangements for his two sisters, Payling 2001:423, and see the chapter “Marriage” in Habakkuk 1994, esp. pp. 146–212. 110 kynde loue of ∂e mariage: the natural love that should obtain between husband and wife (as B.14.270 kynde loue of bo∂e makes clear), which greed trumps. 113 syb to crist hymsulue and semblable bothe (B.14.273 sib to god hymself, so nei√ is pouerte): The personification of Poverty continues: she is close kin to Christ and looks like him. Matt 25:40, in the account of the last judgment: “As long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to me.” On Christ’s poverty, see 22.40–50 (B.20.40–50) and the passages cited from passus 12 (B.11) in 94–99n above. At C.20.8 (B.18.10) Christ is semblable to the Samaritan; see C.20.8–12 (B.18.10–14)n.

Patience defines poverty, after Secundus the Philosopher (114–57, B.14.274–322) 114 angryliche: “Crossly,” “contrarily”: Actyf is irritated either by the length and preachiness of Patience’s answer to his question (asked way back at 15.277 [B.14.102]); or, as a man committed to earning his own living, by all the praise of poverty; or, as Actyf, by the praise of his opposite, patience. Or by all three. Though he has so far been perfectly amenable to Patience, here he is true to the Latin verb that underlies his name and agitates or vexes; see Lewis and Short, s.v. ago, II.C. The line improves on the somewhat empty B.14.274. It sets up a comic moment: Patience disarms Actyf by answering him in Latin, forcing him to admit his need for translation. In B.14.275, Actyf asks the question much more coolly, and there is no comedy in his inability to understand the reply. 116–57 (B.14.276–322) “Paupertas . . . what pouerte was to mene”: From the Life of Secundus the Philosopher, a Greek text of the secomd century A.D. Secundus, who is probably fictional but may not be, vows perpetual silence; when pressed to speak by the emperor Hadrian, he agrees to write answers to questions put to him. Twenty questions ensue, all in the form “What is X?”; to each he offers terse delphic phrases of definition. L quotes his answer to the seventeenth question, “What is poverty?,” probably from the Latin translation, Vita Secundi philosophi, made at St Denis c. 1170 by Willelmus Medicus and widely circulated; it subtly Christianizes the material, as will be noted below.

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A truncated version is found in Vincent of Beauvais’s Speculum maius, though that was not L’s source since several of the phrases he includes are missing from it. Nor was Walter Burley’s De vita et moribus philosophorum, which omits “donum dei,” adds “indetractabilis sciencia,” and has “sanitatis vas” (Knust) or “sanitatis magister” (Stigall) and “sapiencie repertrix” (ed. Knust, 1886, pp. 382–84; ed. Stigall, 1956, p. 259). See the definitive monograph, Perry 1964, which has the Greek text, Willelmus’s translation, and much else; there is also a thorough account in Daly and Suchier 1939, pp. 44–70. All quotations from the Greek text in the notes that follow are transliterated from Perry, p. 88. Of L’s ten phrases, nine are in Willelmus, although “sapientie repertrix” (finder of wisdom) has become sapientie temperatrix (moderator of wisdom). Willelmus’s “intractabilis substantia” (untouchable property) is missing; and the phrase donum dei (gift of God) is new. Schmidt 1969:286 argues that it came from Augustine’s De patientia, but the phrase is common in the bible, and, if L is the one who added it, he may well be thinking of Paul’s famous “gifts” passage (1 Cor 7:7, used in 21.227–55), suggesting archly that a poor person’s “proper gift” is his poverty: see 21.247–48. Incerta fortuna (uncertain fortune) is not treated in the ensuing lines. In the last phrase, absque for Willelmus’s “sine” is probably an error induced at some point by the similar phrase earlier in the list, with the happy result that absque solicitudine (without worry) becomes a kind of refrain, and makes the passage seem to echo “ne solliciti sitis” (be not solicitous) from the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 6:25; quoted at B.7.131 [A.8.113], B.14.33a). L was clearly charmed by the passage, as his inventive translations and his prayer for the author at the end (156–57) show. The comic mood established in the “poor-don’t-commit-the-sevendeadly-sins” passage above continues, though the comedy is muted several times in C, as noted below. Note that poverty is construed throughout as feminine: mater, temperatrix. The noun paupertas is of course feminine in Latin, as is penia in Greek, but the usage may also indicate the influence of the Sacrum commercium; see 102–13n above. Why did L choose to import this extended passage of Latin at this point? He perhaps wanted something of a special character to mark the end of the narrative sequence that began with Conscience’s dinner and is now terminating as Will’s patron changes from Patience to Liberum arbitrium/Anima. Students learning the poem typically find it treatise-like, but its source is itself a piece of imaginative literature, and its paradoxes are in fact far from the language of treatises. They allow L to acknowledge how hard it is to be poor and

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celebrate its spiritual advantages. And they excited him to some of the most inventive writing in his poem. 116 (B.14.276) Paupertas . . . felicitas: These words appear verbatim in the bottom margin of ms. Gonville and Caius 669/646, p. 209 (the last page of Rolle’s Emendatio vitae in English translation), as Emily Ulrich has shown me. Since I have not found the same wording anywhere else, I suppose they were copied from Piers Plowman. Gonville and Caius 669/646 (“Ca”) appears among the manuscripts of the C-text in RK-C p. 2 because p. 210, i.e., the verso of 209, has lines C.16.182–201a. Either RK did not notice the passage in the bottom margin of p. 209, or they did not think of it as copied from our poem. But since it is what L has, word for word (with “etc.” added at the end, as in Ms. Q), since the two passages are only sixty-six lines apart in the poem, since both are longish bits of Latin, and since they may be in the same hand, I think of it too as a piece of Piers Plowman—and evidence that passus 16 resonated with at least one medieval reader. 119 ful hard (B.14.278 wel hard): It wasn’t hard for Chaucer, who translates four of the phrases straightforwardly in WBT, D1195–1200. Presumably a translation such as Chaucer’s “hateful good” for odibile bonum would strike Patience as having little heuristic value—and in fact Chaucer’s “a ful greet bryngere out of bisynesse” for remocio curarum is unhelpful, since “bring out” doesn’t obviously mean “take away,” and “business” doesn’t obviously mean “worries.” And so Patience translates “patiently,” and in terms Actyf will understand, by opening out each paradoxical phrase, and transforming some into little vignettes of personal action. See the notes below, and Lawler 2008:153–54, where I have drawn on this passage to discuss L’s principles of translation. 120–22a (B.14.280–87) Pouerte is the furste poynte . . . odibile bonum: The original Greek, misoumenon agathon, means “a good that is hated.” This is the key definition: all those that follow are meant to show poverty’s good side. In B, Patience jokes wittily that the proud hate poverty, and anything that nettles the proud is good—then goes on more soberly to treat poverty as like contrition, painful to the body but salutary to the spirit. The C version, in keeping with the comic quality of the passage, drops the sober explanation but keeps the witty one (line 122, Al ∂at may potte of pruyde in place ∂er he regneth, means “anything that can pull pride down a peg where he holds sway”— replacing the phrase in B.14.281, al ∂at agaste∂ pride). In both versions, al is in apposition with hit (it).

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122a (B.14.287) Ergo . . . bonum: This and several of the other Latin phrases repeated one by one as Patience translates are misplaced or omitted in all C mss. and many B mss. They are all put in their logical place by the Athlone editors; see their variants for details. B.14.282 Ri√t as contricion is confortable ∂yng: the third reference in passus B.14 to contrition; see lines 16, 83–97 (four times). In each case it is connected to conscience. The first is reflected in C.16.25 (though the connection to conscience is gone); the other two disappear in C. The healing metaphor that is in the treatment at B.14.83–97 reappears here in the words confortable, solace, hel∂e, confort, and cura. It will return with intense irony at the very end of the poem, when the character Contricion accepts Friar Flatterer’s “plastre/Of ‘a pryue payement’ ” (22.363–64; B.20.363–64) and “For confort of his confessour Contricioun he lefte/That is the souereyne salue for alle synnes of kynde” (22.371–72; B.20.371–72). 123–28a (B.14.288–93a) Selde syt pouerte . . . Remocio curarum: The Greek phrase is hedonon empodismos, “a hindrance to pleasures,” matching the phrase in the previous section of the Greek text on wealth, “the minister to pleasures.” Perry points out that Willelmus altered both phrases by substituting “care” for “pleasure,” and so brought them into line with Christian attitudes to poverty. Patience puns on two meanings of cura, “worry” and “administrative office” to insist that uneasy lies the head that wears any number of official hats, daringly ending by both misquoting and misapplying a famous dictum of Jesus, “Judge not, that you may not be judged” (Matt 7:1: nolite iudicare, ut non iudicemini”; cf. Luke 6:37, John 7:24), used soberly above at 12.31 (B.11.90) and B.12.89. The vignettes offer a new perspective on the scenes of justice and judgment in passu¯s 3 and 4. 129–32a (B.14.294–96a) Selde is pore rihte ryche . . . Possessio sine calumpnia: The Greek is asykophanteton ktema, a possession not plagued by (mendacious) informers, not liable to unjust accusation. “Calumpnia” here means a false claim or challenge; cf. OED, s.v. challenge; “calumnia” is the etymon of “challenge.” No one will claim that you came by your poverty dishonestly. Langland naturally thinks of his pet subject, miswinning, setting the poor against the retail traders who prey on them with false measures: see 1.173 (B.1.177, A.1.151; the biblical standard), 3.88, 6.230 (Coueitise’s confession), B.13.358 (Actyf’s confession), or against extortionist bullies such as Wrong, who borrows without paying back, see 4.55–57 (B.4.53–54, A.4.40–41). The poor in contrast repay loans, as Piers does (8.108; B.6.99, A.7.91), or, more

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likely, never get them in the first place (132 [lyhtly ⳱ readily]; B.14.296). The cooper’s seal on a barrel indicated its capacity; see 3.88n. 133–36a (B.14.297–300a) The furthe . . . Donum dei: Not in the original, nor in Willelmus. From here on the phrases are numbered. “Donum Dei” is a common phrase in St Paul, almost always associated with grace or defining grace; these lines are a forecast of the account of the gifts given out by Grace in passus 21 (B.19): as those are “weapons to fight with” (21.218, B.19.218), poverty here (in C, at least) is a defense; and one of the gifts there is “to lyue in longyng to be hennes,/In pouerte and in pacience to preye for alle cristene” (21.247–48, B.19.248–49). As Fortune is an ally of Antichrist in the battle that ensues there, poverty here is wittily called a fortune. Florischeth . . . /With sobrete fro alle synnes: adorns with sobriety, (keeping it) from sin. “Flourish” has the transitive meanings “cause to thrive” and “adorn” frequently in ME. Gifts adorn. The “yet more” is clearer in B: this gift not only adorns, it trains (afaite∂), and is a collateral confort, a reference to lines B.14.282–85 above: side by side with contrition, which strengthens the soul, poverty strengthens the body. In C the phrase collateral confort has shifted meaning a little, since the lines it referred to in B have been dropped. Now, in conjunction with the change of afaite∂ to defendeth, it seems to mean “strength (fighting) by one’s side,” perhaps anticipating the military language of passus 21 (B.19). 137–38a (B.14.301–3a) The fifte is moder . . . Sanitatis mater: In Greek, hygeias meter. The language of healing once again echoes B.14.282–85. Comedy returns here, though, in the form of playful riffs on the literal meaning. The first line is (virtually) literal, then “mother” is transformed, first into “friend” and “leech,” both maternal functions, then (in B only) more daringly into “lemman.” Meanwhile already by the second line “health” has become “spiritual health,” and in the third (in B only) it is specifically clennesse, i.e., chastity: poverty is a chaste sweetheart. Cf. the feminine temperatrix below (144–46a and n.) This comic motif of courtship recalls once again Francis’s wedding with Lady Poverty (see 102–13n above), and perhaps also Patience’s own romance with love, B.13.139. The C version shuts off the comedy by dropping the last line. 139–43a (B.14.304–9) The sixte is a path of pees . . . absque solicitudine semita: In Greek, amerimnos diatribe, a way of life free from care. Since both the metaphor of traveling and the Christian idea of not being solicitous are so deeply embedded in the poem, and since Patience, Active, and Will are at this moment traveling and talking in a relaxed way, this is the most pregnant of

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all the nine phrases, and one is made to feel that. The √e! quickens the verse, as do the vivid specificity of ∂e pase of Aultoun and the image of poverty moving so lightly. The lines evoke two crucial moments in the poem: Piers quoting Ps 22 after tearing the pardon, “Si ambulauero in medio vmbre mortis,/ Non timebo mala quoniam tu mecum es” (B.7.120, A.8.102; echoed by Ymaginatif’s final words to Will, B.12.293a), and the story of the Good Samaritan in passus 19 (B.17): the pass of Alton (see next note) is a version of the road between Jerusalem and Jericho, similarly thief-infested; both of course stand for the road of life, beset with moral danger. Cf. Peter of Blois, Letter 52: “Paupertas enim sola est via secura et expedita ad vitam, caeterae viae malignis latronibus plenae sunt” (PL 207.321) (For poverty is the only safe and unimpeded road to life; the other roads are filled with thieves). The Samaritan there is like poverty here, unbothered by the thieves (19.92–93). The passage, particularly the equating of lightness of load with lightness of heart in line 142 (B.14.307; lede means “carry”), is set against all the places where money is treated as an encumbrance that weighs people down, e.g., at the end of passus 12, leading to 13.1–2, which the current lines virtually quote and which lead soon enough to the exemplum of the merchant and the messenger, 13.33–98a, yet another image of poverty passing lightly through danger. See Lawler 1979 and note to 54a (B.14.213a) above. 139 (B.14.304) ∂e pase of Aultoun: “A wooded stretch of the valley of the Wey near Alton [in Hampshire] (Jane Austen’s home was nearby), reputed a favourite resort of robbers, who would lie in wait there to attack merchants on their way to or from Winchester fair” (Pearsall). At 4.50–54, Peace describes just such attacks by Wrong on the way to St Giles’s Down, the site of Winchester fair. See Clanchy 1978, which relates the case that made Alton famous for robberies. 141 (B.14.306) ∂er as pouerte passeth pes folleweth: Patience wittily reverses the proverb “peace follows plenty” (Whiting P68). B.14.307a Cantabit paupertas . . . viator: “Poverty the traveler will sing in a thief’s face”: Juvenal, Satires 10.22, but with the unmetrical substitution “paupertas” for Juvenal’s adjective “vacuus,” empty-pocketed (modifying “viator”). See Lawler 2011:64 n83, where I speculate that the source is a scribal gloss. Alford, Quot., however, notes the substitution elsewhere. Cf. WBT, D1191–94 (i.e., the lines just before “Poverte is hateful good,’ etc.; see above, 119n.): “Verray poverte, it syngeth proprely;/Juvenal seith of poverte myrily:/’The povre man, whan he goth by the weye,/Bifore the theves he may synge and

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pleye.’ ” See also Consolation of Philosophy, 2 prose 5.34 (ed. Bieler 1957:28), “Si vitae huius callem vacuus viator intrasses, coram latrone cantares” (If you had entered on the path of this life with nothing, you would sing in a thief’s face). B.14.309 Seneca: Perhaps little more than an authority whose name starts with S; possibly scribal. Seneca was, of course, a well-known authority on poverty. Peter the Chanter culled a number of wise sayings on the subject for his chapter on poverty, Verbum adbreviatum, ed. Boutry 2004, 1.13, pp. 110–11, from Seneca’s letters, and Abelard calls him “maximus ille paupertatis et continentiae sectator” (that greatest adherent of poverty and continence), Letter 8, PL 178.297. Though the editors have left the name out at C.16.143a, the variants show that all the mss. have it. 144–46a (B.14.310–12a) The seuethe is a welle of wysdoem . . . Sapiencie temperatrix: In Greek, sophias heuretes, the finder of wisdom, and so “sapientie repertrix” in Willelmus. The Greek noun heuretes is masculine; the feminine suffix in repertrix is the invention of Willelmus, presumably because of the feminine gender of “paupertas” and the earlier “sanitatis mater” (Greek meter, mother, itself presumably based on the feminine gender of penia, poverty). L, however, ignores the feminine suffix in temperatrix, treating poverty here with masculine pronouns (hym, his 145, B.14.311). Chaucer’s “greet amendere (i.e., improver) eek of sapience” (CT D1197) suggests that his source also had “temperatrix,” not “repertrix”; the verb “tempero” means “regulate, moderate, mix in due proportion.” One tempers mortar or steel with water; thus Patience’s metaphor of the welle. “Temper” also can mean “restrain,” i.e., make temperate, and that sense seems to lie behind fewe wordes sheweth as well as tempreth ∂e tonge to treuthward. The playful treatment of the material continues, expressing itself here in the shift from “the poor wisely say little because lords ignore them” in the first two lines to “the poor utter home truths because they don’t expect money”—that is, they don’t flatter the rich (for example, by absolving them in the hope of a donation, the crux of the poem’s final scene). The idea that those who are after money flatter is applied openly to friars at 22.238 (B.20.238); see also 16.239–41a (B.15.86–88). 147–49a (B.14.313–15a) The ey√te is a lel labour . . . Negocium sine dampno: In Greek, aphthonos pragmateia, a business that nobody envies. Willelmus’s phrase means “a business without loss,” not the same thing at all, though equally witty. Labour must mean “laborer” here, as the adjectives that modify it and the pronouns that refer to it show; see MED, s.v. labour, 6; L maintains

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C Passus 16; B Passu¯s 14–15

the mode of personification, introduced in the previous passage in the translation of temperatrix. Again the meanings shift, with the playfulness first this time: the first two lines assert brashly that what the phrase means is that since the poor don’t cheat, their employers suffer no loss (evoking the ideas of Conscience in the first vision and Piers in the second); the third line (a fairly literal interpretation of the Latin), that in their trade (which can only be begging) the poor will not be losers if they “win charity,” a punning phrase that means both “get some donations” and “become kinder-hearted” (as they would, if they did); there is also a certain play on the idea that business people regard good will as an asset. 150–55a (B.14.316–20a) The nythe is swete to ∂e soule . . . Absque solicitudine felicitas: In Greek, amerimnos eutuchia, prosperity free from care. Willelmus has properly translated “amerimnos” the same way twice; cf. the note to 139– 43a above. L here gives free rein to his imagination, though he seems to forget that Patience is the speaker, since he speaks of patience in the third person in both versions and makes him a character in the vignette in C. The B version is inchoate, and subjected to happy revision in C. The key to the vignette is the last line in the C version, in which the Latin phrase is translated literally, a blessed lyf withoute bisinesse, but a qualification is added: bote onelyche for ∂e soule. By separating body and soul, it improves greatly on B’s fatuous assertion that poverty is carefree for both body and soul. The separation thankfully acknowledges at last that poverty is bad for the body, and makes possible the sweet fantasy about the soul in the first three lines. There, i.e., 14.316–18, B has stayed close to the Latin phrase, asserting that what the poor ought to worry about—food, drink, and medical care—is not a problem, since patience is bread and sobriety drink, and a doctor too. This has merit: it’s witty that sobriety is a drink, and that patience is bread we know both from the sour loaf “Agite penitenciam” of the banquet scene (B.13.49) and the pastry “fiat voluntas tua” that Patience has offered Actyf (15.249 [B.14.50]). But the first line about the soul is not really integrated with the next two. C.16.150–52 accomplishes that in a vivid series of personifications: the soul is a kind of fine lady, leading “a blessed life without business,” la dolce vita, waited on by three attendants: the pantry-keeper (paniter) patience; the waiter poverty, offering bread, and the bartender sobriety, offering sweet soothing drinks. That the soul is female is clear from the triple use of here; his 151 is poverty: “patience is poverty’s pantry-keeper and poverty provides the soul with bread.” louh 154: an honorific adjective: both “low-profile” and “low-maintenance,” ideally simple and so worry-free; a louh lyuynge on erthe and a blessed lyf withoute bisinesse are synonymous phrases.

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153 (B.14.319) seynt Austyn: “Relevant remarks can be found in St Augustine, but his name appears here as a general ‘authority’ ” (Pearsall). I agree; the only near thing my searches in works attributed to Augustine have yielded is Pseudo-Augustine, Sermones de Scripturis, Sermon 5 on Rebecca, “quae interpretatur Patientia,” a provider of drink (Gen 24), as Christ is living water and the bread of life (PL 39.1757). But Alan of Lille is much closer to Langland. In his essay on patience in his De arte praedicatoria, PL 210.141, he defines seven kinds of patience according to the seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer. The fourth species, he says, “est contra naturalis paupertatis instantiam cum aliquis constanti animo egestatis sustinet ingruentiam. Haec petitur cum dicitur: Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie (Matth. VI). Quis est iste panis quotidianus, nisi patientia contra paupertatem in hujus vitae dispendio? Haec enim patientia est quae viatici modicum [col. 141C] computat immensum, quae abundanter cibat mentem, quamvis non impleat ventrem. Haec patientia fructuosa facit jejunia; haec in milio invenit similam, in gobione salmonem, in aquis pigmentum; de hac dicitur: Beati qui esuriunt et sitiunt justitiam (Matth. V). Patientia enim quae in materiali jejunio satietatem invenit, justitiam sitit et esurit; et quanto magis cibum materialem fastidit, tanto magis spiritualem appetit.” (The fourth kind of patience is against the pressure of natural poverty, when someone withstands the assaults of need with a constant soul. We pray for this when we say, “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matt 6[:11]; better Luke 11:3, since Matthew has panem superstantialem). What is this daily bread if not patience when one is too poor to meet the daily expenses of living? It is this patience that counts a tiny bit of money as a vast sum, this patience that fills the mind with food though the belly is empty. This patience turns fasting into a bowl of fruit, tastes the finest wheat flour in millet, salmon in pan fish, juice in water. It is meant by the beatitude, “Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice” (Matt 5[:6]). For the patience that finds fasting enough for the body hungers and thirsts for justice; and the more it disdains bodily food, the more eager it is for spiritual food.) In offering here, as Alan does, an ecstatic celebration of poverty as felicity, L has moved far indeed from Holy Church’s assurance to Will that God commanded the earth “to helpe yow echone/ . . . of liflode at nede/In mesurable manere to make yow at ese” (B.1.17–19, A.1.17–19; cf. C.1.17–19). 156–57 (B.14.321–22) Now god . . . what pouerte was to mene: This prayer may have been prompted by the prayer that Willelmus duly translated from the Greek at the end of his translation: “Digitis scribentem, possidentem, religiose legentem, tres pariter custodiat Trinitas ter sancta” (May the thrice-holy

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C Passus 16; B Passu¯s 14–15

Trinity keep all three: the one who wrote the book with his fingers, the owner, and the one who reads it diligently).

Actyf’s repentance (in B only: 14.323–35) B.14.323–35 “Allas,” quod Haukyn . . . wepte and wailede: What exactly has caused Actyf to repent and weep? He has gone in passus B.14 from mockery (34) to interested queries (98, 102, 275) to sudden repentance here. Since what causes his tears in particular is land and lordship (330; cf. 103), the answer would seem to be that he has been moved by Patience’s translation and unraveling of the nine Latin paradoxes, and accepted the idea of patient poverty: lordship is opposed to patience, and land to poverty. Simpson 2007:142–43 nicely points out that by treating Actyf always with courtesy, and refraining from judging and blaming him, Patience manages to “provoke shame in him, and to affect his will.” Simpson says further (145–46, citing Godden 1984:138– 40) that the active life is rejected as too involved in sin, That perhaps is so, though it seems safer only to say that this particular sinful representative of that life has been brought to see the better way of patient poverty. His tears are virtually predicted at the start of the passus: this is Cordis contritio (B.14.17a); his tears will wash his coat. See Matt 5:5, “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted” and Luke 6:21, “Blessed are ye that weep now, for you shall laugh.” See also line 187 above, on the efficacy of “confession and knowlichynge and crauynge [God’s] mercy”: having confessed already, Actyf here acknowledges guilt and craves mercy. The lines that follow 188 insist that to be truly repentant we have to be poor, and so here Actyf apparently rejects land and lordship. Schmidt points out that weeping links him with Will and Robert (B.5.61, 462), and is echoed at 15.192 (Charity), 18.91 (Longinus), and 19.380–1 (all the contrite Christians in the barn). But Langland was probably thinking above all of Piers’s vow to “wepen whan I sholde werche 3ou9 whete breed me faille,” a vow inspired by the psalm verse “Fuerunt michi lacrime mee panes die ac nocte” (B.7.125, 128a). For Actyf the waferer as for Piers, tears have become his bread. Since he is Activa vita, his verb is ago, I do, but one thing we have not seen him do is penance. The only connection of his verb with his opposite, Patience, whose verb is patior, is the food Patience eats at the dinner: Agite penitenciam. Now at last it is Actyf who agit penitenciam. On weeping, see B.13.271–14.28n; also Pseudo-Augustine, Ad fratres in eremo commorantes, Sermo 11, PL 40.1253, “O felix lavacrum poenitentiae lacrymarum!” (O happy bath of the tears of penitence) and Peter Comestor,

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PL 198.1750, (the tears of contrition wash the bed of conscience, whence the Prophet, “Every night I will wash my bed, etc.” [Ps. 6:7]). See also Charity’s laundry-work, 16.330–36a (B.15.186–94a). L quotes the earlier half of Ps 6:7, laboraui in gemitu meo, at 16.333 (B.15.191). B.14.323–25 “Allas . . . synne”: Actyf’s twisted version of Patience’s advice to him at B.14.60 (C.15.259), “if 3ow lyue after his loore, 3e shorter lif 3e bettre.” See the note there. There is some biblical material that is similarly bleak. See Eccl 4:2–3, “And I praised the dead rather than the living. And I judged him happier than them both, that is not yet born”; Job 3:11 “Why died I not from the womb? Why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?”; Eccl 7:1: “The day of death [is better] than the day of one’s birth.” Cf. Alcuin on Ecclesiastes 8:13 (PL 100.701): For a wicked man, “melius est mori quam vivere, quia quanto plures vivit dies, tanto atrociorem sibi praeparat poenam” (it is better to die than to live, because the more days he lives, the more horrible the punishment he is preparing for himself). In the poem Dialogus inter corpus et animam (ed. Wright, 1841), 25–32, the soul complains to the body, “Ego quae tam nobilis fueram creata,/ad similitudinem Domini formata,/et ab omni crimine baptismo mundata,/iterum criminibus sic sum denigrata/per te, caro misera, sumque reprobata./Vere possum dicere, heu! quod fui nata!/utinam ex utero fuissem translata/protinus ad tumulum!” (I, who was created so noble, formed in the likeness of God, and cleansed from every sin by baptism, am so blackened again by sin on account of you, wretched flesh, and am condemned. Truly can I say, “Alas that I was born! Would that I had been brought directly to my grave!”). This poem, also called Visio Philiberti, had a wide circulation; it is discussed by Ackerman 1962:544, 551–55, 558–60, 562–65 and Bossy 1976:145–51. Despair, in Faerie Queene 1.9.43, tempts Red Cross Knight to suicide by arguing, “The lenger life, I wote the greater sin,” and in Pearl 621–22, the maiden, arguing with the dreamer, asks if he ever knew anyone who stayed so holy that he never forfeited the meed of heaven, “And ay 3e ofter 3e alder 3ay were/4ay laften ry9t and wro9ten woghe.” For the related idea that it is better to die than to commit sin, in C only, see 1.143–43a, 6.290–90a, and 17.40a (melius est mori quam male viuere, quoted at all three places), and 7.209–10. See 17.37–43n. B.14.323 cristendom: i.e., christening, baptism, as often in Langland. The word recalls specifically Actyf’s “cote of cristendom” 13.273; see also 14.11. B.14.324 for dowelis sake: i.e., in order to do well, since, as the next two lines make clear, for Actyf to live is to sin. Line 325 may be paraphrased, “It’s so

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C Passus 16; B Passu¯s 14–15

hard a fate that to live is to sin.” See The City of God 1.27, where Augustine argues that if suicide were ever valid (as it is not), the time to do it would be right after baptism, so as to avoid falling into sin. Cf. Pseudo-Augustine, De regula verae fidei, PL 40.776 (frequently cited by later writers): “Firmissime tene, et nullatenus dubites etiam justos atque sanctos homines, exceptis his qui baptizati parvuli sunt, sine peccato hic neminem vivere posse; semperque omni homini esse necessarium, et peccata sua usque in finem vitae praesentis [col. 777A] eleemosynis diluere, et remissionem a Deo humiliter ac veraciter postulare.” (Be assured of this, hold it most firmly: nobody, not even just and holy people (except baptized children), can live here without sinning: everyone always has to both wash away his sins by giving alms to the end of his life and ask God humbly and truly for forgiveness.) Cf. the discussion between Will and the friar of the line “Sepcies in die cadit iustus” 10.21–55 (B.8.21–56, A.9.17– 47), and Reason’s remarks to Will at 13.210–12 (B.11.402–4), quoting “Caton,” “Nemo sine crimine viuit.” B.14.332–34 “I were no√t wor∂i . . . saue for shame one/To couere my careyne”: The only clothing I am worthy to wear is to cover my middle out of modesty: not shoes, not a shirt—and probably not pants, only britches. Penitents, guided by numerous biblical examples, in both exhortation and narrative, of girding oneself with sackcloth (e.g., Isa 32:11, Jer 4:8, 6:26, Ezek 7:18, 27:31, Jon 3:5, 6, 8) and of course by the image of Christ crucified, commonly stripped themselves nearly naked as a sign of humility. Actyf ends up with less than the “oon hool hater” he had in the first line of the passus. His remark that he is not worthy to wear clothes is a reminder that any act of dressing is an act of self-esteem, so that when Will wears sheep’s clothing or russet he does not altogether abase himself, but perhaps rather puts himself somewhere in the middle of a spectrum that extends from Actyf’s britches to Meed’s or Dives’s rich robes.

In B only, Will is awake for eleven lines, then sleeps and a new vision begins (B.14.335, 15.1–11) B.14.335 And wepte and wailede, and ∂erwi∂ I awakede: Neither the weeping, Will’s waking, nor the passus break is kept in C. B.14.335–15.11 ∂erwi∂ I awakede . . . rokked me aslepe: In B the vision ends, and the passus; Will is awake for eleven lines; and a new vision (5) begins, which extends to the end of passus B.17, and includes the inner dream of the

In B only, Will is awake for eleven lines, then sleeps

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tree of charity and of Christ’s life through the betrayal by Judas, B.16.19–166. Passus B.15 also begins Dobet in most B manuscripts, though in many of the same manuscripts the rubrics at the end mark it as the last passus of Dowel; see the headnote to passus 18 below. (In C both the vision and the passus continue, the vision (vision 4) extending to 18.177, the point where in B the dreamer awakes from his inner dream.) The waking passage, B.15.1–11, emphasizes Will’s deep need for the enlightenment that Anima will provide him— unless he is a wise fool like Patience. B.15.1–2 it was wonder longe/Er I koude kyndely knowe: i.e., a long time went by and I still did not know. In ten manuscripts of B, the rubrics mark the beginning of the section “Dobet” here; see Robert Adams 1985a, Clopper 1988, Benson and Blanchfield 1997, Burrow 2008. Adams treats these as scribal; Clopper does not, and Hanna 2010a:14 argues strongly that they are authorial, copied into ms. Laud misc. 581 from L’s fair copy. Burrow 2008 points out that all ten (which include Laud 581) are “split rubrics,” that is, they say “Dowel ends and Dobet begins.” He argues that this can be taken to mean that the turning point, i.e., the start of Dobet, occurs not at the beginning of the passus but somewhere within it; he opts (following Coghill 1933:124 and Chambers 1939:154–55) for Will’s question “What is charity?” at B.15.149; see the note to 15.286–374a (B.15.149–268) below. Most C mss. start Dobet at the beginning of passus 17. B.15.3 my wit weex and wanyed: presumably by pursuing attractive theories of what was dowel only to see them refuted, or dissipate in confusion. B.15.3–10 til I a fool weere . . . folk helden me a fool: see note to 15.1 (B.13.1). Schmidt, in his 1995 edition of B, citing the holy fools of B.20.61–68, who defy corrupt authority, says, “Will’s seeming a ‘fool’ before the world shows how he has changed.” Perhaps, although those holy fools seem far more mature and settled in their commitment to truth; Will here still has a lot to learn. Nothing Patience has told him about poverty implies that he should snub the rich simply because they are rich; he overreacts rashly, as so often before, for example when he “contrarid[e] clergie with crabbed wordes” (C.14.100; B.12.156) at B.10.377–481 (the corresponding passage in C.11.198–302 is spoken by Recklessness), or when he “aresonede” Reason after his vision of nature at C.13.183 (B.11.373 “rebukede”). He should not, of course, be a respecter of persons and reverence the rich for their silver, as friars do (B.15.81; see C.16.240); but the rich like anyone else deserve respect, and a cheerful greeting, on purely human grounds. It is, after all, patient poverty, not just poverty, that Patience

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C Passus 16; B Passu¯s 14–15

has been praising. Will here expresses his loathing for “pompe and . . . pride” (B.14.194) without being “poore of herte” (B.14.195) himself. See B.15.170, 18.10 (B.16.7), 19.330–34 (B.17.350–54), and, for the proper way to greet people, 10.10 (B.8.10, A.9.10) or 18.242 (B.16.226). In B.15.150, Anima will define charity as “Wi3outen fauntelte or folie a fre liberal wille,” perhaps with pointed reference to what seems soulless, infantile, compulsive, and illiberal, not divinely foolish, in the Will of these lines. Jesus’s “salute no man by the way” (Luke 10:4), quoted aptly for the lunatic lollars who ignore the mayor in C.9.123, does not apply to Will, who is not here engaged in discipleship at all. If anything, the lines show how much he needs all the teaching about love he is about to receive in the next three passu¯s from Anima and the Samaritan. His folly is cut short in line 11 by the reappearance of reson, who “ri9tfulliche . . . sholde reule” (1.50; B.1.54, A.1.52). B.15.7 persons: parsons, as lif 6 (i.e., occupation, estate) suggests; see the sharp remarks on clerical clothing later in the passus: lecherie of clo∂yng 103 (C.16.256), bele clo∂es 115 (C.16.270). “Parsons in fur with silver pendants” may be a contemptuous way to speak of bishops, the “lords spiritual.” See Lawler 2002, 99n. B.15.11 reson: The character Reason in a brief reprise, sponsoring, even arranging, this dream, answering Will’s need. See line 28 (C.16.188) below.

Liberum arbitrium/Anima appears and introduces himself to Will (16.158–82, B.15.12–22) 158–66 Thenne hadde Actyf a ledare ∂at hihte liberum arbitrium . . . telle me (B.15.12–15 I sei√ . . . a sotil ∂yng . . . tellen): Liberum arbitrium (Free Will) replaces B’s Anima (Soul) but espouses the same ideas. The change of name is wholly in tune with the figure’s account of his multiple names. In fact in B Anima is never addressed by name by Will or referred to by name by the narrator; we only know the name from the Latin passage at B.15.39a, which begins by using “Anima” as the general name before it gives the list of various names. Masculine pronouns are used for both characters, though Anima was feminine in passus 10 (B.9, A.10) (and though some pedantic critics like to call him “she”). Liberum arbitrium is not among the names listed in B, in either the English lines (23–39) or the Latin quotation (39a); it is added in both places in C. Nevertheless, since what this figure advocates in both versions is the choice to love, what the C text does is not so much change B as repair a triple

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oversight in B: not giving the character a clear name, not listing the operation of free will among the actions and names of the soul, and not choosing that as the most apt name in context. The soul (which was introduced surrounded with love imagery in B.9.1–60) is the seat of free will, and “free,” like Latin liber, means not only “unforced” but “generous, charitable, loving”; see Donaldson 1949:193. Furthermore, at B.16.46–52 liberum arbitrium, who tends the garden in which the tree of charity grows (B.16.16), is associated with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit operates in the soul through free will, impelling the will to love; thus again Liberum arbitrium is in effect the spirit of charity—and Will’s guide is, finally, the Holy Spirit. Of course in B.16 Liberum arbitrium is a separate figure from Anima: he tends the tree of charity as Piers’s lieutenant. As Tavormina points out (1995:112), “the new name provides a smoother transition into the Tree of Charity scene,” since in B he is rather abruptly introduced into that scene. The free will that L has in mind is specifically the will to choose good or evil, as the phrase added to Isidore’s Latin at 201a below, and its translation at 193 (see the notes to 183–98 [B.15.23–36] and 193–94), make clear; the more general operation of the will is called by Isidore animus; see 201a (B.15.39a) and 184 (B.15.24). In B Anima and Will are the only characters in the scene; in C, since there is no vision break, Patience, Conscience, and Actyf are also still present, though their presence is acknowledged only at the beginning of the scene: once Liberum arbitrium begins to speak at 16.167, their presence has no more effect than his own (presumed) presence as Actyf’s leader all through the preceding scenes. In B, even Will’s presence fades: he speaks nine times between lines B.15.14 and 197, then listens in silence as Anima speaks the remaining 416 lines of the passus. In C, L keeps us more aware of Will, and relieves the tedium of that harangue, both by starting a new passus, C.17, after B.15.256 and by allowing Will to interrupt thrice more, at C.17.1, 125, and 150. All the changes from B seem designed to promote continuity, at least at the start of the scene. In B we have both a new passus and a new dream; Actyf is gone, and with him the whole idea of being on pilgrimage with Conscience and Patience; Anima appears in the new dream to take over the tutoring of Will with little or no reference to the immediate past of the poem. In C there is not only no interruption of the dream or the passus, but Liberum arbitrium is committed to Actyf as his leader; he knows Conscience (and Clergie too, though he stayed home from the pilgrimage; Pearsall points out that his knowing them “allegorizes his powers of moral decision-making and his knowledge of the faith”); and Patience, whose permission Will seeks to address the new figure, implies by his answer that he knows very well who Liberum arbitrium is. Furthermore, Liberum arbitrium’s first remark wraps up the discussion of

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poverty and makes clear that he has been listening. All this continuity apparently made it possible later, at the beginning of C.18, to drop B.16.2, Will’s mention of the long-gone Actyf, the one attempt in B to provide continuity. Finally at C.16.165–66, the new transitional material complete, L returns to the material of B (15.14–15). It is hard not to think, especially since Actyf and Patience both have no further role, that once Will starts his questions at line 165, Liberum arbitrium changes over from being Actyf’s leader to being Will’s leader, his free will, leading him to the choice to love. 158 ledare: Cf. Frowinus, Explanatio dominicae orationis, 5.1.511 (Ed. Beck 1998:279): “Nam liberum arbitrium datum est rationali naturae ideo quatinus [nulla] vi cogi valeat ad vitia seu virtutes, sed ad ambo ducatur libera voluntate et ita sit digna praemio vel pena” (For free will is given to a rational nature precisely because it (i.e., rational nature) cannot be forced by any power toward vices or virtues, but is led by free will toward both, and therefore may deserve reward or punishment). L’s use of the term “leader,” like the reference to fighting in line 174, may also be a vestige of the military language applied to various inner entities in the “Castle of Kind” passage, 10.129–73 (B.9.1–60, A.10.1–57). Harwood 1973:682, in a very subtle (maybe too subtle) essay, offering to correct Sanderlin 1941 (who considered Liberum arbitrium “a universal power of the soul, to be identified with all [its] other powers” [450]), and following Stephen Langton and Robert Kilwardby, as well as Liberum arbitrium’s own statement, “[I] at my lykyng chese/To do wel or wykke, a will with a resoun,” insists that he is “the power of choice” rather than free will, but that seems like a distinction without a difference, since the power to choose between good and evil is exactly what most of us call free will, and readers of the poem have been perfectly content to treat him as signifying free will. B.15.13–14 Oon . . . kynde: Anima brings Will back from folly to his wits by reminding him of his nature, origin, and purpose: who he is, where he came from, and where he is headed—though he seems to shock him, too, by knowing so much about him, even his home town and family. Perhaps, though, he simply summarizes what Holy Church taught him in passus 1. Wi∂outen tonge and tee∂: i.e., bodiless, insubstantial, sotil, and so seeming to require sorcerie to see. Cf. Tertullian, De carne Christi, PL 2.762, in a sarcastic rejoinder to those who deny the reality of Christ’s flesh: Christ did not take on flesh in some insubstantial way: “ut carnem gestaret . . . sine dentibus edentem, sine lingua loquentem; ut phantasma auribus fuerit sermo ejus per imaginem vocis” (by wearing flesh . . . that . . . ate without teeth, and spoke without a

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tongue, so that his discourse should be a phantasm conveyed to the ears by the ghost of a voice) (trans. Evans 1956). Later such phrases became a standard way of describing spirits, dreams—or the soul, as in this from Richard of St. Victor: “O dulcis confabulatio Dei in anima, quae sine lingua et labiorum formatur strepitu, quae sine aure precipitur.” (O, the sweet talking of God in the soul, which takes form without a tongue or sound of lips, which is heard without ears), De gradibus charitatis, PL 196.1206–7. L is clearly concerned in the B version to treat the soul differently from Will’s other insubstantial faculties such as his reason or conscience. In C, even though, as we learn, free will is one manifestation of the soul, Liberum arbitrium enters, or rather emerges from silence, with less fanfare and no description, perhaps in order to make us focus on what he says instead of on his grotesque appearance. 159 A knewe Consience ful wel and clergie bothe: Clergie, of course, is not here, having stayed behind when Conscience went off on pilgrimage with Patience at the end of the banquet scene (15.182); the line is a reminder of the friendship between Clergie and Conscience that marked that scene. Allegorically, Liberum arbitrium knows clergy and conscience because he combines mind and will. Aquinas, ST, prima pars 19.10.2: “Liberum arbitrium est facultas rationis et voluntatis qua bonum et malum eligitur” (Free will is the faculty of reason and will by which one chooses good and evil). Cf. Bandinus, Sententiarum II, PL 192.1052: “Est enim facultas voluntatis et rationis, propter voluntatem quae cogi non potest, liberum dictum: propter rationem vero arbitrium, quae arbitratur et dijudicat inter bonum et malum” (It [liberum arbitrium] is a faculty of will and reason, called free on account of the will which cannot be forced, and called judgment on account of the reason, which thinks and adjudicates between good and evil). 160–61 He ∂at hath . . . hennes: Liberum arbitrium begins his instruction with a pithy confirmation of Patience’s praise of poverty, in particular his emphasis on the spiritual poverty of the rich in the face of death, 15.280–307 and 16.1–9: they will be porest of power because they will be most in arrears. His aphorism disposes of that subject for a while. The statement might also represent Actyf’s free will leading him to choose poverty, and so be the C equivalent of his weeping at the end of passus 14 in B; in fact Actyf disappears from the C text here, just as he disappears from B at the end of 14. The wording lond and lordschipe (though common enough) seems to echo Actyf’s use of that phrase at B.14.330.

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C Passus 16; B Passu¯s 14–15

163 And preyde pacience ∂at y apose hym moste: Will has not spoken since the banquet scene, but has “lystnede and lokede” (15.248) as Patience has instructed Actyf; his deference here implies that he has listened well. Thus the poem gains in dramatic quality by continuing the vision (though in fact Patience plays no further role after his reply in the next line). In B, since Will is in a new vision and also has no one of whom to ask permission, his I coniured hym (B.15.14) is less nuanced. 164 he soffrede me: Patience stays true to his name. 164–68 o∂er name . . . party (B.15.14–17 I coniured hym . . . place): The nuances of C continue with a little joke on Will. The “other name” Patience presumably has in mind is the various aliases Liberum arbitrium will list at 183–201, but Will thinks he means “surname,” and so, thinking of common kinds of surname, asks where he is from or who his father is. But Liberum arbitrium takes him seriously, and answers that his surname is a patronymic, “Cristes,” and that he is from all over. Of his kynne a party means “a part of his family.” The soul, being immortal, partakes of the divine nature. In B there is humor, too, of a different sort: Will, amazed that this apparition seems to know everything about him, takes him to be closely associated with Christ (see B.15.210–12: only Christ knows will, and the note there). Thus C.16.166 and B.15.15, though virtually the same line, have each their own meaning arising from what precedes. Both questions lead to the same answer, however, and so L has moved smoothly back into the old text. And the fact that that answer is substantially the same in both versions implies that he thought of free will as a major function of the soul, even though he didn’t list it in B. 167–68 Y am . . . party (cf. B.15.16–17): In editing B, K-D decided that the b-halves of the two lines (B.15.16–17) had been transposed in the archetype of the B manuscripts, and emended accordingly. But since this “archetypal error” remained in the C mss., i.e., was not corrected by L, RK-C have let it stand, though they still regard it as erroneous; see RK-C, p. 93. But I see no error, and take L’s letting it stand in C as confirmation of that. Though the emendation seems plausible in itself, and certainly smooths the couplet, it destroys the continuity between the second line of the couplet and the lines that follow. I understand the difficult 167 to mean “I am Christ’s creature, and I am Christians anywhere.” That is, the speaker is now not so much Actyf’s (or Will’s) soul or free will personified, but soul or free will itself, and so inhering in every Christian. Such universality is implicit in the list of functions that follows, especially in such general lines as 16.178, 182, and 189 (B.15.29).

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B.15.17 of cristene in many a place): “and well known by Christians anywhere”; but see the previous note. 168 (B.15.17) cristes court: Christ’s court is perhaps set (in the B version) in pointed opposition to the locale of lords and ladies and sergeants in 15.5–8 above. In any case, one form that L’s feudal conservatism (see, in Alford 1988: Alford 32–34 and Anna Baldwin [with qualifications] 69–70) takes is a predilection (with many parallels in medieval art) for picturing heaven as a royal court and Christ as a king or feudal lord. Thus the passage serves as a kind of reprise of the opening conception of Truth’s castle (1.12 in all versions), extended at 1.105 (B.1.105, A.1.103) to the dubbing of knights in the court of heaven; but that dubbing precipitates Lucifer’s attempt to set up a rival throne (1.107–21), which may in part account for his appearance just below at line 16.213 (B.15.51). The idea of Christ’s royalty crops up briefly in various places: Prol.154 (B.Prol.133) christi . . . regis; 7.232–82 (B.5.585–629, A.6.72–114: Piers’s vision of the castle of Truth); 10.154–55 (B.9.28–29, A.10.30–31); 11.268 (B.10.432, A.11.291); B.12.77; B.14.101, 147; 20.363 (B.18.320, cf. B.18.317 Rex glorie), 20.413–32 (B.18.371–99); 21.26–153 (B.19.26–153). It is a major idea in both Cleanness and Pearl. 169 (B.15.18) no∂er Peter the porter ne poul with the fauchen: Peter and Paul are commonly depicted together, Peter with a key (Matt 16:19) and Paul with a sword. The sword appeared as Paul’s identifying mark only in the twelfth century, and became widespread in the thirteenth. Luba Eleen has argued convincingly that it represents, not so much the manner of his (legendary) martyrdom as was once commonly thought, but his trenchant message. Heb 4:12: “For the word of God is living and effectual and more piercing than any twoedged sword”; Eph 6:17, in the famous “armor of God” passage, “And take unto you the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit (which is the word of God).” See Dante, Purgatorio 29.139–41; von Dobschutz 1928:43 (Paul as knight) and plates 34–37 (Paul with sword, twelfth to fourteenth centuries); Male 1955:391–2; and especially Eleen 1982:39, 52–3, and figures 40, 41b (Peter with key, Paul with sword), 56 (Paul with sword), 57, 70 (Paul with scroll and sword). “By the thirteenth century,” Eleen says, “the appreciation of Paul as a knight was firmly entrenched” (39). Though these authorities do not say so, the sword seems to allude also to Paul’s former life as a soldier, and to the sword of King Saul, his original namesake (frequent in psalter illustration). In any case, building perhaps on the notion of Paul as knight, L idiosyncratically envisions him as guarding militantly the court of heaven.

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170–72 (B.15.19–21) That wol defende me . . . welcometh me faire: cf. Matt 7:7 (Luke 11:9), “knock, and it shall be opened to you”; Matt 25:6–7 (the wise virgins are ready to meet the bridegroom when he comes at midnight); and, for the known voice seeking entrance at midnight, Song 5:2 and passim. But the imagery of knightly romance continues: like other heroes (e.g., Galahad, Vinaver 1971:579 and Lancelot, ibid., 595), Sir Liberum arbitrium, fighter of falseness (16.173–74), is welcome in the castle at all hours. 173–82 Whareof serue √e . . . liberum Arbitrium: This exchange is added in C to establish the particular role of free will. In the process, the question “What are you called at court?” (B.15.22), the question Patience meant Will to ask earlier, is omitted, though it is answered anyway, starting at 183. 173 Whareof serue √e?: What purpose do you serve? What work do you do? The answer is based on the quotation from Isidore given at 200a (B.15.39a). That quotation is in effect translated twice in the C version: first freely, here at 174–82, answering this explicit question “What purpose do you serve?,” then more literally, at 183–201 (equivalent to B.15.23–39), answering the implied question “What are you called?” (explicit in B). In the free version of 174–77, “To fight to destroy falseness” translates “dum declinat de malo ad bonum”; “to suffer sorrow and teen” translates “dum sentit”; “play or quit, choose to do well or wickedly” translates either “iudicat” or “declinat de malo ad bonum” or “dum negat vel consentit”; “a will with a reason” translates “dum vult” and “Racio” and “Liberum arbitrium”; “may not be without a body” translates “dum vivificat corpus.” Also “mind” (182) translates “mens.” In thus jumbling functions that Isidore has separated so neatly, Liberum arbitrium is clearly answering not only as himself but as the whole soul, and emphasizing its unity—which explains 178 “may not be without a body,” Will’s question at 179 (“Is the body better than you?”), and the fire/wood analogy of 179–81. As Schmidt says (1969:141), “In these lines the skeletal outline of Anima is glimpsed through the flesh and blood of Liberum Arbitrium”—but not, I think, because we have here what he calls “untransmuted survivals from B” (the lines are after all not even in B), but rather because L is free to let the speaker speak as the whole soul at any point. 176 Layk or leue: Play or leave off playing; cf. MED, s.v. leven (v. 1), 1f “as a negative of other verbs,” citing this instance. 178 may nat be withoute a body: In this line and in his whole next speech, Liberum arbitrium answers as the whole soul, not just free will. That the soul needs the body is a commonplace, as can be seen in a proximity search in PL online of anima/sine corpore. Especially common is the argument that the

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church cannot exist without its “corporalia,” “nec anima sine corpore temporaliter vivit” (any more than the soul can live in time without a body). Hildegard writes with a lyricism similar to L’s: “Sed et corpus indumentum animae est, et anima cum carne officia operandi habet. Corpus autem sine anima nihil esset, et anima sine corpore non operaretur, unde unum in homine sunt, et homo sinit, et sic opus Dei, videlicet homo, ad imaginem et similitudinem Dei factus est” (The body is the clothing of the soul, and the soul does its various operations in conjunction with the flesh. The body without the soul would be nothing, and the soul could not do its work without the body, whence they are a unit in man and man accepts it, and thus the work of God, that is, man, was made in the image and likeness of God) (Liber divinorum operum, PL 197.899). Some authors, however, insist that the soul can have an independent life, e.g., after death, as L himself admits in 16.197–98 (B.15.35–36). 179 Thenne is ∂at body bettere . . . Nay . . . no bettere: A comic moment. Will’s question sounds amusingly ignorant, since the idea “anima corpore melior” is a truism, particularly for St Augustine (as a proximity search of the PL online using these three words will show). But the joke is on the amused reader, since Liberum arbitrium not only takes the question seriously but answers it surprisingly: neither is better. 180–81 as wode were afuyre . . . o will: The image of the human body willing as wood aflame, with its implication that the essence of willing is loving, quintessentially Langlandian, is developed eloquently in the taper image of passus 19 (B.17). The more common statement is that the soul, not just the will, is like fire; e.g., Bartholomaeus, quoting “Ypertus,” (cf. Aeneid 6.730): “Igneus est illius vigor et celestis origo” (Its [the soul’s] vigor is fiery and its origin celestial), DPR 3.4. And Hildegard, Explanatio symboli Sancti Athanasii, PL 197:1070: “Anima ignis est, et ignis ejus totum corpus, in quo est, perfundit . . . et inexstinguibilis est. . . . Cum vero anima de corpore se extorserit, corpus deficit: quemadmodum ligna non ardent, cum ardore ignis caruerint” (The soul is fire, and its fire pours through the whole body in which it is and is inextinguishable. . . . But when the soul has twisted itself out of the body, the body dies, in the same way as wood does not burn when it lacks the heat of fire).

Liberum arbitrium/Anima’s names and functions, in English and Latin (183–201a, B.15.23–39a) 183–98 (B.15.23–36) And whiles y quyke ∂e cors . . . spiritus then y hote: A free translation of the passage L quotes (freely) from Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae 11.1.13, at 201a (B.15.39a): “The soul gets various names on account of

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the various things it does. It is soul when it gives life to the body, animus when it wills, mind when it knows, memory when it remembers, reason when it judges, sense when it feels, love when it loves, [free will when it turns away from evil to good,] conscience when it says no or yes, spirit when it breathes (i.e., freely, spiritually; cf. 197 [B.15.35]).” The bracketed phrase, not in Isidore, is added by L in the C version. Pearsall notes that the passage “is frequently quoted, as in the standard encyclopedia of Bartholomaeus (III.v) or in the pseudo-Augustinian De spiritu et anima.” It is also in the Glossa ordinaria on Ex 40.16 (PL 113.294) and in Rabanus, De universo 6.1 (PL 111.141); Barney et al. 2006:26n77 mention its appearance in Brito’s Summa and the Distinctiones Abel of Peter the Chanter; see the PL online for still more places. None have the phrase about Liberum arbitrium, which L almost surely added on his own; see 193–94n. As Christ’s creature, Anima places a Christian coloring on recolit (186, B.15.26), amor (195, B.15.33), and spirat (197–98, B.15.35–36). Schmidt 1969 treats the passage in detail; see esp. pp. 142–43, 151–52. He points out that in B Anima is “the over-all term for ‘soul,’ the spiritual nature of man,” and so “appropriately made the spokesman for all the powers belonging to that nature,” and also, more narrowly, “the life-giving principle,” and so a particular “aspect of the many-powered spiritual nature” as well (137). 186 (B.15.26) when y make mone to god: How this translates dum recolit rightly puzzled Skeat. The memory may be of sin: remembering one’s sins, one prays for forgiveness (and confesses); this is Pearsall’s view, and may well be right. St Augustine’s Confessions, for example, are a moan to God prompted by memory. As he says, “Quid retribuam Domino, quod recolit haec memoria mea et anima mea non metuit inde? Diligam te, Domine, et gratias agam, et confitear nomini tuo, quoniam tanta dimisisti mihi mala et nefaria opera mea” (What return shall I make to the Lord, that my memory recalls these things and my soul has not shrunk from them? I shall love you, Lord, and give you thanks, and confess to your name, because you have forgiven me my sins and my evil doings) 2.7.15, ed. Verheijen 1981:24–25. A simpler solution, however, is memorized prayer: when L recited the penitential psalms, for instance, he was using memory to make moan to God. 191–92 (B.15.31–32) when y chalenge . . . notarie: Starting with the Latin negat uel consentit (says no or yes), L (as he has done with the translations in the definition of poverty above; see 119 [B.14.278]n) creates a vignette of particular action, and this time a metaphor as well, imagining an agent entering into a contract on behalf of his lord: he challenges the terms or approves them, and so either completes the contract or turns it down. The implication is that our

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moral choices are made on God’s behalf; he trusts our consciences, as a lord trusts his agent. 193–94 when I wol do or nat do gode dedes or ille/Thenne am y liberum Arbitrium: this translation does not quite correspond to the Latin below, an addition to Isidore’s text that only says “dum declinat de malo ad bonum, Liberum arbitrium est” (when it leans away from evil toward good, it is free will). Schmidt 1969 associates this view, that free will chooses only good, not evil, with Anselm, and spends pages (139–45) discussing L’s three different definitions of free will (the third being at 176–77, choosing to do “wel or wykke, a will with a resoun” which it is hard to see as different from the present lines except for the addition of “reason”). But surely the English here, and at 176–77, represents L’s view; that the Latin mentions only the choice of doing good is either scribal or a careless abbreviation on L’s part as he made his addition to Isidore’s list, accidentally omitting “aut de bono ad malum,” under the influence partly of the phrasing of Ps 36:27, “Declina a malo, et fac bonum” (Decline from evil, and do good), and partly of the strong emphasis throughout the poem on the idea of doing well. Augustine, of course, insists that the will needs grace to do good: “A bono potest declinare, ut faciat malum, quod fit libero arbitrio; et a malo, ut faciat bonum, quod non fit sine divino adiutorio” ([Man] can by free will turn away from good to do evil, and from evil to do good, but not without God’s help) De civitate Dei 15.21, ed. Dombart and Kalb 1955:2.487. Schmidt points out that L is oddly unconcerned with this crucial issue, but in fact his unconcern is of a piece with the semiPelagianism he consistently displays (see Robert Adams 1983, Lawler 2000, and the notes below to 19.57 [B.17.58], 19.172–278 [B.17.206–98], 19.194 [B.17.228]). Despite that, L probably got the language of his addition (whether immediately or not) from Augustine, who several times applies the phrasing of Ps 36:27 (i.e., the verbs declinare and facere, the adjectival nouns bonum and malum) to liberum arbitrium, as in the sentence just cited. 194 lettred men: Schmidt 1969:142 makes a good case for taking this as Augustine (named below at line 199), since he so regularly insists that free will is the choice between good and evil. If one takes the plural form at face value, however, the reference must be to Isidore as well, also named at 199. 195 (B.15.33) And when y louye lelly oure lord and alle o∂ere: Maybe the central idea of the poem: Dilige deum et proximum, Deut 6:5 and Lev 19:18, Matt 22:37–39, Mark 12:30–31, 10:27. See A.11.42, C.15.134, B.15.584, C.19.14

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(B.17.13); also C.17.140a and (without specification of the object) 22.208, 250 (B.20.208, 250). 199 (B.15.37) Austyn: Cf. Pseudo-Augustine, De spiritu et anima (PL 40.803): “Anima nominatur totus homo interior, qua vivificatur, regitur et continetur lutea illa massa, humectata succis, ne arefacta dissolvatur. Dum ergo vivificat corpus, anima est; dum vult, animus est; dum scit, mens est; dum recolit, memoria est; dum judicat, ratio est; dum spirat vel contemplatur, spiritus est; dum sentit, sensus est” (The whole interior man is called the soul; by it that lump of clay is given life, ruled, and contained, moistened by its juices lest it dry up and dissolve. Therefore it is the soul when it gives life to the body, animus when it wills, mind when it knows, memory when it remembers, reason when it judges, spirit when it breathes or contemplates, sense when it feels). 201a (B.15.39a) Anima . . . spiritus est: This passage from Isidore is translated and discussed at 183–98 (B.15.23–36)n above.

Will wants to know everything (202–11, B.15.40–49) 202–5 (B.15.40–43) Õe beth as a bischop . . . pastor: The humor—making fun of pretentious, and perhaps redundant, ecclesiastical titles simply by listing them—is similar to PardT C342–43: “Bulles of popes and of cardynales,/Of patriarkes and bishopes I shewe.” For a passage that uses all these words for bishop except pastor, see Lawler 2013:66. See also the treatise De officiis ecclesiasticis, ascribed tentatively by Migne to Robertus Paululus, PL 177; in 1.40 (column 401), De episcopis, we read “Episcopus dicitur quasi superintendens . . . hic quoque . . . praesul vocatur. Hic etiam antistes . . . Item dicitur pontifex.” At the end of the brief chapter appears an explanation of the threefold symbolism of the baculus or crozier, citing verses similar to those L quotes at C.17.285; see the note there. 206–11 (B.15.44–49) That is soth . . . herte: Liberum arbitrium, being will (even when named Anima), knows what Will wants better than he himself does. He is psychologically astute, realizing that Will jokes to cover his ignorance, both about bishops and about the functions of the soul. However, Will never does learn the reason for either set of names, since his ingenuous reply that he wants to know everything sends his interlocutor off in a new direction; one is made to feel, indeed, that Will has been set up, lured into expressing his eagerness to know, so that Liberum arbitrium/Anima can lecture him.

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Comically, Will is only trying to please: his “Y wolde y knewe and couthe” echoes “when y wilne and wolde . . . and for 3at y can and knowe” 184–85 (B.15.24–25), as if he is proud to be showing some animus and mens of his own. Unfortunately all he shows is that he hasn’t absorbed Ymaginatif’s nuanced discussion of the place of learning (14.11–130, B.12.55–191), or remembered that Clergie himself declared that Piers Plowman had “set alle sciences at a sop saue loue one” (B.13.125). So the real joke is on him, refreshing though his innocent eagerness is. Milton gives us similar scenes between Adam and Raphael (Paradise Lost 8) and Adam and Michael (11–12). As in Milton, there is a certain comic spirit here, as Fowler 1980:258 saw: “the dreamer has entered the last phase of his education, and his mentors (here, Liberum Arbitrium) are much more relaxed in their treatment of him.” Spearing (1964:94–95), focusing on Will’s “wish to distinguish and dispute” here, remarks astutely that “The Dreamer gains his fullest understanding of Do-well by his vision of the Crucifixion and Harrowing of Hell, where he does not interrupt but simply observes this supreme example of goodness in action.” Though Will’s talk of bishops is a red herring here, the discourse of the passus will eventually come back to bishops, and stay there, at 17.188 (which is B.15.493, though in B the prelate material begins at 415). 208 (B.15.46) myn: I.e., all mine, why I have so many. 210–11 (B.15.48–49) Alle ∂e sciences . . . herte: This is “cupiditas scientiae” (see 224; B.15.62) and so, as Aquinas explains, one of the forms of the root of all evil (In II Sententiarum 42.2.3 responsio). See the nuanced discussions of medieval attitudes to curiosity in Zacher 1976:18–41 and Peters 1985. Though the Latin phrases “subtilis ars” and “subtile artificium” are sometimes pejorative, referring to the devil, they are more often honorific, as at Consolation of Philosophy 1 prose 1 [ed. Bieler 1957:2], “Vestes erant tenuissimis filis subtili artificio indissolubili materia perfectae,” and as sotil craftes surely is here. Chaucer translates, “hir clothes weren makid of right delye thredes and subtil craft, of perdurable matere.” Gruenler 2017 sees line 210 (B.15.48) as part of the extensive “engagement with the book of 1 Corinthians” (287) in the fifth vision (see 286–374a [B.15.149–268]n below): it “transposes and translates” 1 Cor 13:2, mysteria omnia et omnem scientiam (290).

Liberum arbitrium/Anima on false learning and wicked teaching (212–85, B.15.50–148) 212–85 (B.15.50–148) Thenne artow inparfit . . . ∂e loue of charite: Will’s desire to know everything prompts general reflections on the danger of knowledge, 212–30. That brings up the friars, who preach to show off what they

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know (231–41), and that in turn brings up bad parish priests, who are accused of greed for money and clothing rather than excessive learning, and finally of ignorance. Thus the outburst modulates in the course of seventy lines (a hundred in B) from contempt for learning to contempt for ignorance, just like the outburst in B.11.172–317. If, however, we see its subject as Pride (as indicated in the first line), then a coherence emerges: the display of learning and the (inherently ignorant) display of wealth are the two standard manifestations of pride. And Pride is the devil, whose “kynde,” Holy Church has told Will, is “to combre men with coueytise” (1.67). Meanwhile Will’s personal hubris is lost from view. Alford treats Will’s exchanges with Liberum arbitrium/Anima as reenacting “the progressive definition of Dowel in terms of ‘words, works, and will,’ ” that is, the triad introduced by Holy Church at 1.84–85 (B.1.88–89, A.1.86–87), and repeated in Love’s teaching to Patience, B.13.140: first, the rebuke of Will’s desire for knowledge (words), 16.212–38, B.15.50–79; then the insistence on turning knowledge into deeds, 16.239–85, B.15.80–148; then the long “discourse on the sine qua non of Dowel, a charitable will” (16.286– 17.321, B.15.149–613) (1988:52). 212–30 (B.15.50–69) Thenne artow inparfit . . . Quam oportet sapere: This sermonette on the dangers of wanting to know too much seems to derive from two sermons of St Bernard, who is mentioned at 223 (B.15.60): Sermon 4 on the Ascension (PL 183.309–16), the source of line 225a (B.15.63a), “Sciencie appetitus,” and Sermones de diversis 15, “On Seeking Wisdom” (PL 183.577–79), which contains the biblical quotations at 217 (B.15.55), “Sicut qui mel comedit,” and 229–30 (B.15.69), “Non plus sapere.” The quotation actually attributed to Bernard at 223 (B.15.60), though it appears in the possibly Bernardine Tractatus de ordine vitae (PL 184.566), cited by Alford, is an ancient commonplace; see note below ad loc. L probably cited it from memory and not from this treatise, which is not principally about knowledge at all, whereas the two sermons are. The Ascension sermon applauds the human desire to ascend but warns against the examples of Satan and Adam as L does; the shorter “On Seeking Wisdom” finds wisdom in virtuous action, again as L does. 212–13 (B.15.50–51) Thenne artow inparfit . . . heuene: For Lucifer as knight and his fall through pride, see 1.104–29 (B.1.105–27, A.1.103–16); see also 5.186–8, where he destroys the commune in heaven by deciding that he is wittier and worthier than God his master. Cf. Gregory, Moralia in Job, 45.87 (PL 76.620), in a passage (like the phrase pruydes knyhtes) relevant to Langland’s final scene: “Exercitus diaboli dux superbia, cujus soboles, septem principalia vitia. Tentantia quippe vitia, quae invisibili contra nos praelio regnanti

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super se superbiae militant, alia more ducum praeeunt, alia more exercitus subsequuntur” (Pride is the leader of the army of the devil, and his offspring are the seven capital sins. For of tempting vices, which make war on us with invisible battle on behalf of pride who reigns over them, some go ahead in the manner of leaders, some follow in the manner of an army). At B.12.40 Lucifer is listed among various figures encumbered by “catel and kynde wit”—a collocation that reminds us why the present tirade moves outward from knowledge to embrace covetousness; see the previous note. The more common association of Lucifer with an inordinate appetite for knowledge is his saying to Eve, “You shall be as gods, knowing good from evil” (Gen 3:5)—as Liberum arbitrium will say soon enough (224–25; B.15.62–63). 213a (B.15.51a) Ponam pedem meum in Aquilone &c (& similis ero altissimo B): “I shall set my foot in the north, and I shall be like the most high.” Quoted at 1.111a (B.1.119); see the note there and Hill 2000. On Satan and the north, see Cleanness 211, in their note to which Andrew and Waldron list the following further places in English poetry: the OE Genesis 31–4; Cursor Mundi 459; Chaucer’s “Friar’s Tale,” D1413–16; Piers Plowman C.1.112; and Paradise Lost 5.754–60. 214–15 (B.15.52–53) Hit were a√eyns kynde . . . crist one: If it is against kind to want to know everything, it follows that “kind knowing” is limited knowing. For earlier appearances of this leitmotiv, the danger of knowing too much, see B.10.104–39, Study on lay people arguing abstruse theological questions, with glancing contempt for Will’s curiosity, and citing Rom 12:3 “non plus sapere quam oportet,” as here at 229–30 (B.15.69); B.10.211–21, Study again, on certain “deceptive” sciences; 11.198–302, Recklessness (B.10.377–481, Will), ignorantly celebrating ignorance; 13.226–27 (B.11.418–19), Ymaginatif on Adam’s desire to know the wit and wisdom of God; 14.17–22, Ymaginatif on how “catel and kynde wit” encumber many if they don’t spend them well; this is a shortening of a much fuller passage in B, 12.40–58, including the statement, suppressed in C, that “Sapience, sei3 3e bok, swelle3 a mannes soule” (B.12.57). Ymaginatif, of course, goes on to defend learning rightly used, as Liberum arbitrium implicitly does here by quoting Bernard at 222–23 (B.15.60–61). Even the desire of an adjective to be all three genders at once, “alle kyn kynde to knowe” (C.3.363–5), seems to share in the motif. For a good general discussion of the intellectual context, see Peters 1985. 216–30 (B.15.54–69) A√enes suche . . . sapere: 217 (B.15.55) Sicut . . . gloria is Proverbs 25:27: “As it is not good for a man to eat much honey, so he that is

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a searcher of majesty shall be overwhelmed by glory.” L’s rendering of the second half of the proverb seems excessively free, bringing in by force the theme of doing vs. knowing. Apparently, perhaps influenced by the line from St Bernard he will quote at 225a, he takes opprimetur (opprimitur B.15.55, but the future tense is the standard reading) a gloria to mean not “will be overcome by the very glory he is contemplating,” as the line is ordinarily understood (e.g., by Gregory, Moralia 28.4, PL 75.1056, Rabanus, PL 111.765), but something like “will be held back from glory,” i.e., won’t go to heaven. He then has to take scrutator pregnantly as one who only does research, and no good works (a figure never very far from his mind, and one perhaps prompted the more readily here by the indolence implicit in the image of eating too much honey). This forces the proverb into the mold of the Pardon: do well or forfeit heaven. In any case the idea “unless he works well” comes to dominate, even to the point of being repeated, with a dull emphasis, in the C version (220a, 221a; cf. B.15.59a). It is reinforced by two quotations from St Bernard (see notes below, 222–23 and 225a); these too are versions of the pardon: Beatus says that if you read scripture and turn its words into works (do well) you are beatus (go to heaven); Sciencie appetitus says that hungering after knowledge (doing evil, because disobeying God) deprived Adam of glory (sent him from Paradise). The notion of losing glory through glorying in intellect is insisted on by reference to both Lucifer and Adam, the two great glory-losers. In the C version there is a fine contrast between the past gloriam spoliauit, of Adam, and the future opprimetur a gloria, applicable now to Will and any reader. L then retranslates the proverb at 226–28 (B.15.64–66). In the B version, he translates scrutator maiestatis much more accurately this time, though opprimitur a gloria is still taken as meaning “is kept from heaven” (“hise graces it lette3” 66); and the sin is specified as pride. In the C version B’s careful translation of qui scrutator est maiestatis is reduced to “science” so as to make more emphatic the condemnation of the scholar’s pride. Thus the entire passage is built on creative mistranslation of opprimetur (opprimitur) a gloria; the idea of the overwhelming nature of divine glory, which is the essence of the proverb, disappears entirely in favor of L’s moral emphasis on intellectual pride—the word pride opens and closes the passage, C.16.212, 229 (B.15.50, 67). L might have derived this reading from St Bernard (Sermon 15; see note to 229–30 below), who applies the proverb to Pilate taking Christ aside to ask him “What is truth?”: “Multum est ad te,” Bernard says: “non dabitur sanctum cani nec margarita porco. Quaere potius fidei gustum; satietatem intelligentiae interim ne requiras” (That’s more than you can take; what is holy will not be

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given to a dog, nor a pearl to a pig. Try for a taste of faith, not a bellyful of understanding). Pilate then goes back out to the Jews without an answer, having presumptuously trod on ground that was beyond him; he is not so much overcome by glory as excluded from it. One can detect in the C version a move to integrate this section of Liberum arbitrium’s outburst with its closing section (231–85) on the clergy: by dropping the reference to hearing good matter (B.15.58), which suggests lay people, and replacing it with The wittiore ∂at eny wihte is (C.16.220), L puts the focus on the clergy, and turns the issue into the conventional estates criticism of priests that they don’t practice what they preach. But there is an apocalyptic ring here that is L’s own; an essential notion of the passage is “the smarter you are, the deeper you’ll land in hell if you’re bad” (B.15.59 double sca∂e, C.16.221 The bittorere he shal abugge). This idea has been adumbrated by Study at 11.11–25 (though not in its sister-passage B.10.13–29); it is the counterpart of Ymaginatif ’s insistence that Dismas has a low place in heaven 14.131–52 (B.12.192–213). Schmidt 1992:178 sees a possible pun in B.15.67 likynge on “licking,” i.e., honey, and indeed the phrase licames coueitise,” “flesh-bound greed” in the same line seems to fuse the notions of desire for honey and desire for knowledge, and to emphasize with a bold economy that an inordinate passion to know, immaterial though it seems, is a function of our corporeality. The fusion of ideas is continued in B.15.69 (and C.16.229), since sapere means both “to taste” and “to know.” It is disconcerting to remember that the speaker, whether Liberum arbitrium or Anima, is also Mens (185; B.15.25); presumably he here dissociates himself from the body’s harmful effects on the soul’s operations. See also Chaucer’s Tale of Melibee, B2600–6, esp. 2606, quoting Prov 25:16, “If thou hast founden hony, ete of it that suffiseth; for if thou ete of it out of mesure, thou shalt spewe.” Maillet 2014:114 supposes, plausibly enough, that L simply assumes acquaintance with Prov 25:16, and also with Prov 24:13– 14, explicitly comparing wisdom to honey. But warnings against excessive inquiry have ample biblical warrant, and are extremely commonplace, as a computer search of citations of Prov 25:27 will quickly show. B.15.59 double sca∂e: Guided by the C replacement the bittorere he shal abugge (221), I have interpreted this in the previous note as “worse and worse punishment.” But the double evil (duplex malum, a common phrase) may be 1) being overwhelmed by glory, and 2) going to hell. Schmidt points out that it is the correlative notion to that of “double reward” at 14.148; see 16.3–21 (B.14.134–67) n.

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222–23 (B.15.60–61) Beatus . . . in opera: “Blessed is he who reads scripture and turns its words into works.” Tractatus de ordine vitae, PL 184.566, once ascribed to Bernard: “Beatus qui divinas Scripturas legens, verba vertit in opera”; see Alford 1975:396; and cf. Matt 7:24. The phrase is much older than Bernard, though, appearing (in various forms) often in the writings of Jerome (e.g., to Paulinus: “tu, audita sententia Salvatoris: ‘Si vis perfectus esse, vade, et vende omnia quae habes, et da pauperibus, et veni sequere me,’ verba vertis in opera” (you have heard the verse of scripture, “If thou wilt be perfect, go, sell what thou hast, and give to the poor . . . And come; follow me” [Matt 19:21]: turn those words into actions) (Letter 58, PL 22.580). Surely L knew this text as well as the pseudo-Bernard, and so the line recalls 12.161–67a, where the Matthew is translated and quoted, and constitutes one more exhortation to patient poverty. Rabanus Maurus’s brief Homily 48, De studio sapientiae et meditatione divinae legis, PL 110.89, on the relation of study to good works (“ille beatissimus est, qui divinas Scripturas legens, verba vertit in opera” [he is most blessed who reads the scriptures and turns words into works]), though not advocating poverty, is actually much more germane to L’s subject of turning reading into good works than the pseudo-Bernard passage. 224–25 Coueytyse . . . Eue (B.15.62–63 Coueitise . . . Paradis): Cf. Gen 3:5 and 13.225–27 (B.11.417–19) above. 225a (B.15.63a) Sciencie . . . spoliauit: “The desire for knowledge robbed man of the glory of immortality.” St Bernard, Sermo IV in Ascensione Domini, PL 183.311 (Ed. Leclercq et al. 1966:5.141); see Alford 1975:396–7. This is another Bernardine text that reads like a commentary on Piers Plowman (see next note). In it Bernard inveighs against trying to climb the mountain of knowledge as Lucifer did: he quotes Isaiah 14:13, the origin of Augustine’s paraphrase “Ponam pedem meum in Aquilone” 213a (see 1.111a, B.1.119n), and Ps 4:3 “Ut quid diligitis vanitatem” (B.15.81a); thus the sermon, along with his Sermon 15 (see next note), looms over L’s whole passage, 212–230 (B.15.50–69). See also Bonaventure, Collationes in Hexaemeron, 3.7.4, ed. Delorme 1934:214: “Nihil est appetendum nobis scire nisi ut sanctiores fiamus et in sapientia quae ad dominum est proficiamus; alioquin est perditio temporis in doctrina; Psalmus: ‘Super senes intellexi quia mandata tua quaesivi.’ Modificandus est ergo scientiae appetitus ne etiam plus quam oportet sapiamus” (We should not strive to know anything unless in order to be holier and be proficient in the wisdom that is the Lord’s; otherwise time spent in learning is wasted; Psalm (118:100): “I have had understanding above ancients because I have sought thy commandments.” Therefore the appetite for knowledge should be moderated lest we know more than is fitting).

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227 science swelleth a mannes soule: Maillet 2014:114 cites 1 Cor 8:1, “Scientia inflat” (Knowledge puffeth up). 229–30 (B.15.69) Non plus . . . sapere: “Not to be more wise than it behoveth to be wise,” Rom 12:3. Also quoted at B.10.121 (A.11.74). This verse is often quoted in company with Proverbs 25:27 above in discussions of the importance of placing limits on inquiry, e.g., by Bernard, Sermon 15, PL 183.577 (ed. Leclercq et al. 1968:6 part 1.142)—a sermon that reads almost like a commentary on Piers Plowman, or Peter of Blois twice: Letter 140, PL 207.420 and Sermon 35, PL 207.667. But it is hard not to think that L has Bernard in mind all through this passage. See also the citation in the previous note but one, where Bonaventure joins Paul’s phrase to Bernard’s “scientiae appetitus.”

Liberum arbitrium/Anima lectures Will on the clergy (231–17.321, B.15.70–613) 231–17.321 (B.15.70–613) Freres . . . amen: The idea of prideful learning devoid of good works, brought on by the dreamer’s desire to know everything, puts Liberum arbitrium/Anima in mind of the clergy, and once he has shifted his attention from the dreamer to that subject, it stays there through the end of the next passus (in B, this passus). Somewhat like Recklessness in passus 12 (in B.11, the voice of L himself), after Trajan’s interruption, and indeed repeating some of his material, Liberum arbitrium/Anima looks over Will’s head and preaches a general sermon, though Will does get to feed him a few questions, and even make some remarks of his own. As Spearing 1964 remarks, in his wise essay on L and preaching, L “is always ready to turn aside into homiletic discourse” (73). L seems to have recognized the preachiness, and so gave Will more interruptions in C, and introduced a passus break with one of them. But it remains in effect one long sermon. It is the fullest and most systematic criticism of the clergy in the poem; on it see Scase 1989, chapter 4, “Charity: The Ground of Anticlericalism” and Lawler 2003, 2006. Its theme is that charity, not self-serving almsgiving and alms-taking—caritas, not cupiditas—is the way to salvation. It begins with the anti-theme, criticism of the greed of the present clergy, and especially of their willingness to take alms from evildoers, at 231–85 (B.15.70–148); further passages of criticism appear at 17.41–64 (B.15.307–43a), 69–124 (B.15.347–92), B.15.412–42, 187–93a (B.15.486–97a), 199– 251 (B.15.538–69), 277–80a (B.15.527–30a). The positive theme is stated most centrally and fully at 17.125–49 (in B.15, somewhat differently, at 417–20), and more succinctly at 17.44–50 (B.15.309–14), 59–68, B.15.344–46, 122 (B.15.391–

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92). Interspersed among these discursive statements of good and bad are exempla: first the long portrait of Charity himself, 298–374a (B.15.149–268), then the desert saints 17.6–34 (B.15.269–306), Tobit 17.37–40a (not in B), Lawrence 17.65–68 (not in B), Mahomet, the example of a bad priest, 17.159–87 (B.15.397–416), Augustine the missionary to England B.15.443–61 (not in C), the feast in Matthew B.15.460–85 (not in C), Christ the perfect priest 17.262– 69, 298–311 (B.15.509–16, 582–603), and various saints and martyrs, especially Thomas of Canterbury 17.194–98a, 270–83 (B.15.519–37a). The sermon includes, less climactically in C than in B, a prophecy of dissolution of Church possessions (17.208–15a; B.15.546–56a) followed by a call to “lordes” to carry it out, for “Hit were charite to deschargen hem for holy churche sake” (17.231; B.15.566). Though friars and monks are specified at times (231–41a, 17.44–58; B.15.70–88, 311–43a), the bulk of the sermon, as Liberum arbitrium/Anima announces in 242 (B.15.90), is aimed at the secular clergy: parish priests, bishops, and the pope, the hierarchical order who have the main cure of souls in the Church. 231–41a Freres . . . personarum (B.15.70–88 Freres . . . acceptores): The sermon opens with remarks directed to religious only; the turn to seculars comes at techares 242 (B.15.90 curatours of cristen peple). See Lawler 2002:93. The friars’ fancy sermons and fancy houses criticized here are the equivalent of the fancy foods the doctor insisted on at Conscience’s dinner. B.15.70 fele o∂ere maistres; 236 (B.15.77) o∂ere folk: Monks, apparently, since the subject is religious, not seculars (see 87, and the move to seculars at 90), and canons were not preachers. See Wenzel 2005:278–87 (a chapter entitled “Monastic preaching”), esp. 278 (on a new emphasis on monastic preaching, and university training for monks, around 1350) and 283 (on preaching to lay audiences). See also Greatrex 1991, 1998. 232 Mouen motyues: This is the earliest use recorded in OED of “motive” as a noun in the sense “proposition”; L is parodying the language he objects to. Cf., e.g., Ockham on Aristotle’s Physics (1985:692): “Si aliqua potentia motiva movet aliquod mobile in aliquo tempore, eadem potentia poterit movere medietatem mobilis in medietate illius temporis” (If any motive power moves anything moveable at any time, the same power could move the medium of that moveable thing in the medium of that time). Insolibles and falaes: MED, OED, Kane Glossary, and Pearsall all take both words as adjectives (declined in the plural, in the French way, or, as Pearsall suggests, still half-Latin) apparently

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modifying motyues; in this reading mony tymes would be an adverb modifying them, meaning “in multiplicity,” as if “They move propositions that are insoluble and fallacious in all sorts of ways.” But in that case mony tymes simply modifies mouen, and falaes ought to be falaces (the reading of many mss., accepted by MED and OED, though probably a scribal easier reading). In fact both words were also used as nouns in the fourteenth century, and they may be nouns here, in apposition to motyues: “They move propositions, often insolubles and sophistical argument.” In this case falaes would be the same word, and pronounced the same, as “fallas” 11.20 (in a passage that like this one complains of abstruse clerical discourse), a singular noun from French fallace (later replaced in English by “fallacy” from Latin fallacia). Pearsall aptly cites Courtenay 1987:221–23, 298–303, which makes it clear that many of the insolubles discussed by philosophers such as Ockham involved paradoxes about God; these could well have led to the doubt described in line 233. B.15.71 to tellen of ∂e Trinite: On the friars’ and others’ penchant for preaching on the Trinity, see 11.35 (B.10.54, A.11.40), 15.101 (B.13.94), A.11.62. Clergie has told Will that “Alle 3e Clerkes vnder Crist” cannot unravel the mystery of the Trinity: 11.154 (B.10.253). Peter of Blois, Sermon 26 (PL 207.640) on Trinity Sunday (in which he quotes Proverbs 25:27, quoted by L at 16.225a [B.15.63a]), repeats a number of questions about the Trinity such as are raised by the skeptical. When the Council of Vienne (1311–12) censored the Beguines, one of its first complaints was that some of them “as if led by a peculiar insanity, argue and preach on the Holy Trinity and the divine essence” (Schroeder 1937:388). More broadly, complaining about abstruse sermons was virtually a universal hobbyhorse. Smalley 1960: 43–44 records a complaint by the early fourteenth-century French Dominican Pierre de Baume: sermons used to profit the people, he says, now they are “rithmi et curiositatum concordantiae, et immiscentur philosophice subtilitates” (rhymes and concordances of curiosities, and philosophical subtleties are mixed in). Clopper 1997:74–75 cites strictures on ornateness and complexity in sermons by Pecham and Ubertino, themselves Franciscan friars. Smalley 1985:135–36 shows that plain not fancy preaching is an insistent theme for Stephen Langton, Peter the Chanter, and Hugh of St Cher. For a tirade by Dante on philosophers who show off their ingenuity and ignore the Gospel, and preachers who follow them, see Paradiso 29.85–126. In 1357, Archbishop John Thoresby of York asked the monk John Gaytrig to create what became The Lay Folks’ Catechism, emphasizing the Creed and the ten commandments, because “by excessive subtleties of preaching that often assert things that contradict each other, both the lay people and

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others with a little learning have not only slipped to that extent into errors, but have [traded?] the foundation of the faith, of which ignorance is intolerable, for empty and superfluous things, and show particular favor to things they have not understood at all.” See Swanson 1991:98 (translation mine; I regard the word habemus as either a mistranscription or a scribal error for a third-person plural verb meaning “traded” or “exchanged”). The issue is (typically) generalized in the C version from the Trinity to “insolibles and falaes,” though the Trinity is undoubtedly a good example of an insoluble. (Falaes ⳱ fallacy; see previous note.) To L the preacher’s quintessential job is to bring people to repent, as teaching the ten commandments or the misuse of the senses would do, and as Reason does when he preaches before all the realm in the second vision (passus 5; B.5, A.5 [Conscience]); see 15.69–73 (B.13.65–67a), 7.87–88 (B.13.427–28). See also 11.31 (“of purgatorie 3e peynes”), 11.56 (B.10.76) (“sory for here synnes”), though both these phrases come in passages that offer several other focuses for preachers: the bible (11.29–31 [B.10.32–36, A.11.24–28]), firm faith, charity (11.55 [B.10.75, cf. A.11.71]). The preacher’s job is sometimes said to be to tell the story of Christ (“fithele the withoute flaterynge of god friday 3e geste” 7.106; cf. 11.31 [B.10.33–35, A.11.26–28]), but in fact the point of that is to incite repentance, as Repentance does when he reviews the life of Christ in his prayer, in effect a little sermon, 7.122–50 (B.5.480–505). L as poet is out to bring people to repent (see Lawler 2002:116 and Lawton 1983:77–80), and he fiddles Good Friday in the process. Finally, the preacher has to live the ten commandments as well as preach them (264; B.15.110); the convenient thing about preaching insolubles is that it sidesteps the issue of how you yourself live. Of course, when it comes to preaching to Saracens, the Trinity is precisely what Liberum arbitrium says must be taught: 17.254 (B.15.503) and B.15.572. B.15.75 braunches: See 7.69 (B.13.409) and note, and 16.265. In all these places L is thinking of (or drawing on) penitential mænuals such as Chaucer’s Parson’s Tale or Dan Michel’s Ayenbite of Inwit (a translation of the French Somme le Roy of Friar Laurent), manuals written in response to the mandate of the Lateran Council of 1215 to provide better religious instruction for the laity. For the Parson’s imagery of root, branches, and twigs, see CT I388–90. See Pantin 1955:189–219; Bloomfield 1952:70, 182–83 (on the Ayenbite) and passim; Gray 1986. 235 (B.15.76) how that folk in folies here fyue wittes myspenen: What Will in his folly has been doing; cf. B.15.3, 10 above. We should use our five wits to

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worship God, 1.15–16 (B.1.15–16, A.1.15–16), and save our soul 10.145–49 (B.9.19–23, A.10.18–23). 236 (B.15.77) freres . . . spenden: A quintessentially Langlandian moment: his passion for reprimanding friars for their sins is so great that the calm little lesson in the third person on how they should preach suddenly becomes— touched off by 235 myspenen (B.15.76 mysspenden)—itself a passionate sermon, addressing them directly and chastising them for their spending habits, and Liberum arbitrium/Anima arrives at the motif heyh clergie schewynge 237 (B.15.78) anew without seeming to realize that the sentence began on that very subject. The sentence virtually starts over here at line 236 (B.15.77); it would be absurd to say that friars (in the B version doctours, but many of these are clearly themselves friars, cf. 70 Freres and fele o∂ere maistres) should preach about how friars misspend their wits. The full thought is rather the usual Langlandian theme that preachers, and friars in particular, should practice what they preach—or rather, should practice what they should preach—for they too misspend, devoting their attention (and their money) to buildings (cf. Chaucer, Summoner’s Tale, D1718, 2099–2106; Little 1978:206; and B.15.329 below) and clothing (helynge [not, pace Pearsall, roofing, since the rhetoric does not allow a synonym for housing], B.15.78 haterynge) (cf. Chaucer, General Prologue, A259–63), or preaching to show off their learning (cf. 232 [B.15.71] above; 11.52 [A.11.39, B.10.72] and note). 238 (B.15.79) for pompe applies to all three activities, and 239–40 (B.15.80–81) then assert that the aim of the pomp is to impress lords and get their contributions—which would in their turn presumably be also misspent in the same ways, so that the lines envision succinctly an endless cycle of avarice and misspending. The passage would be less confusing if line 235 (B.15.76) ended with a period and the comma were dropped in the next line. In this understanding, Liberum arbitrium/Anima has ended his sentence on what friars should preach about; now he goes back to the extravagant habits of the preachers themselves, picking up on myspenen 235: both friars and other masters (cf. B.15.70) misspend money on housing, etc. In any case there is a sharp turn in the thought. 238 More for pompe and pruyde (B.15.79 Moore for pompe ∂an for pure charite): The word “pride” is added in C here (for friars) and at 258 (for seculars) in order to make explicit the root charge against both groups, though the change here is clumsy since More is robbed of its complementary “than” phrase.

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239–41a (cf. B.15.80–81a) That y lye nat . . . personarum: Though the explicit reference to ill-gotten gains or “miswinnings” (see next note) disappears here in C, it is implicit in 239–40 plese/And reuerence ∂e ryche ∂e rather for here suluer: corrupt friars please and reverence the rich precisely by granting absolution for miswinning, and taking a donation in return, as acceptores 241a wittily implies, and as is finally made explicit (now of priests, not friars) at 260–61. Ne sitis acceptores personarum: “Do not be respecters of persons,” i.e., don’t play favorites, and don’t kowtow to big shots. See James 2:1–9, which forbids giving the rich special treatment and uses the phrase “in personarum acceptione “ in verse 1 and “si . . . personas accipitis “ in verse 9; L’s line surely calls up this passage, but uses the phrasing of Acts 10:34, “non est personarum acceptor Deus” (God is not a respecter of persons). For some other relevant bible places, see Alford, Quot. A√en ∂e consayl of crist: Pearsall aptly cites Luke 14.12–13 (where Christ urges the lawyers and Pharisees to invite the poor and the lame, not the rich; cited and translated at 12.102–4 [B.11.190–92]). B.15.81–88 (cf. C.16.240–41a) And reuerencen . . . acceptores: 81a: “Let them be all confounded that adore graven things (and that glory in their idols [et qui gloriantur in simulacris suis])” (Ps 96:7) and in another place, “Why do you love vanity and seek after lying?” (Ps 4:3). Vanitatem and mendacium correspond to 79 pompe; sculptilia (graven images) may refer to coins (81 siluer), even though strictly they aren’t sculpted, or else L has the whole verse in mind, and is thinking of simulacris. Cf. Gerhohus Reicherspergensis on Ps 96, PL 194.586, “Sculptilia sunt, quae de lapide vel ligno sculpuntur. Simulacra vero, quae de aere vel quolibet metallo funduntur” (Sculptilia are things sculpted from stone or wood, simulacra things cast of brass or some other metal). Note the pardon-echo in confundantur. The passage mixes two different ideas: reverencing the rich at all, even if their money is honestly obtained (81, 86–88), and accepting miswinnings as alms (whose givers may not be particularly rich: the list includes whores) (85). The first of the two biblical verses addresses the first matter, the second the second. L’s focus is basically on the association with the rich; the secondary issue of taking bad money creeps in because it is one of his hobbyhorses. See the several further references to this key idea for Anima/Liberum arbitrium: lines 274–85 just below, and the whole section on the desert fathers and the apostles at the beginning of passus 17, esp. 17.32–50; also see 6.287–307 (B.5.260–78), B.11.283, and, for the whole issue, Lawler 2006. In 8.235 Hunger says that ill-gotten gains should be given to the poor; see Pearsall’s note. (See note below to B.15.84–85.) The problem is chiefly that the friars’ rule requires them to be poor, and only secondarily that they take bad money.

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The passage is reduced in the C version to the three lines 239–41a (see note above), clearing out the intrusion of the secondary idea. B.15.82–83 Goo∂ to ∂e glose of ∂e vers . . . brennyng: The gloss at Ps 4:3 is from Cassiodorus: “Diligitis vanitatem, etc.: Voto amplexamini, quaeritis labore vana idola, et mendacia, quae non Deus; vel terrena, quae non faciunt quod promittunt” (You embrace with your vow, and seek with labor, empty idols and lies, which are not God, or earthly things that do not do what they promise). How does that constitute proof that it is not a lie to say that friars spend for pomp and reverence the rich for their silver? Perhaps because the gloss leaves out the interrogative “Ut quid?” and so turns the psalmist’s question into an assertion of fact. Or perhaps the word “voto” is the key, as if the friars’ vows are vows to the empty idols of pomp and silver. A friar who reads the line and turns to the gloss is told, “You have vowed to embrace idols.” It is just possible that the reference is to the first of the two verses, Ps 96:7. The gloss there cites Augustine, “Erubescant qui adorant lapides, quia mortui” (People who worship stones should be ashamed of themselves, for they are dead). The suggestion would perhaps then be that the friars’ interest in housing constitutes worshipping stones. The brash tone of the lines would suggest that consulting the gloss would produce something more obvious. There is a similar problem at 6.301–4 and B.5.274–78 (two quite different passages, though corresponding to each other; both are in Restitution’s remarks to Coveitise). Both are on the same subject as the present passage, priests who profit from ill-gotten alms; both, like the present lines, direct the reader who thinks the speaker lies to the psalter–gloss, this time to Ps 50:8 (B.5.278 adds Ps 17:26); and in both cases the gloss disappoints (pace Pearsall, whose note to 6.302 reads far too much into what Augustine says). B.15.83 If I lye on yow to my lewed wit: if in my ignorance I misrepresent you. lede∂ me to brennyng: like the bad tree (Matt 7:19) or the worthless cockle (Matt 13:30) in Jesus’s parables. B.15.84–85 ye forsake∂ no mannes almesse . . . chapmen: The first of numerous passages that insist that alms should be taken only from the upright, not from sinners. See 16.260–61 (B.15.106–7), 358–59a (B.15.233–34), 17.9–50 (B.15.276–312), B.15.417–23. The point, never stated, is that the current system encourages people to sin as long as they are rich. They sin, then give to friars or monks or chantry-priests to pray for remission of their punishment. Thus the clergy sponsor corruption. If they only took alms from the good, they

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would both remove an incentive to sin and themselves be much poorer, since people would feel less driven to give, and that would remove their own besetting sin of covetousness and luxury. Once again see Lawler 2006.

A meditation on bad parish priests, inspired by a passage in PseudoChrysostom (242–85, B.15.90–148) 242–85 Lo . . . charite (B.15.90–148 Ac . . . charite): The transition here from friars to parish priests—the distinction is a mark of estates satire—is made in B by the term curatours of cristen peple and in C by the term techares (see below). By adding the adjective wikkede the C version makes clear immediately that the issue is not all priests but bad priests. C also features PseudoChrysostom (quoted at 273) from the start (what holy writ wittnesseth 242, replacing B’s weaker and later as clerkes bere∂ witnesse 90). L has also in C sharpened the distinction between friars and parish priests, especially by removing the charge of accepting ill-gotten gains from friars completely, charging only seculars with it: 16.260–61 combines B.15.85, in which friars are accused of taking alms from usurers and whores, and B.15.107, in which seculars are accused of taking tithes of “vntrewe 3yng,” so that now seculars are accused of tithing usurers and whores (though how they might go about doing so is a pretty question). This one move has the effect of separating the two parts of the critique of the clergy completely. Both groups are accused of pride (though explicitly so only in C, in the changed line 16.238 and the added line 16.258), but whereas the friars’ pride consists in preaching abstruse sermons and reverencing the rich, and is briefly treated, seculars’ pride is vigorously analyzed: it consists in “lecherye of clothyng” (256, B.15.103, 121–27), “harlotrie”(260, B.15.106), tithing miswinnings (260–61, B.15.106–7; 276–77, B.16.129– 30), hypocrisy (262–71, B.15.108–16), and avarice (276–85, B.15.129–48). Thus the promise at B.15.90–91 to tell the truth about curators, though carried out there, is carried out in a more focused way in C. In both versions, however, L moves quickly enough to Pseudo-Chrysostom’s simile (243–47 [B.15.92–95] As . . . riht so translating Sicut . . . sic), indicating that everything he has to say about priests is rooted in the Latin passage. Though he replaces the generalities of the original with a series of richly specific charges, and dwells characteristically on monetary corruption, the central idea in both the B and C versions is the central idea of the Latin: when priests are bad, the laity are the losers (16.274–75 Allas! lewed men, moche lese √e ∂at fynde/Vnkynde curatours to be kepares of √oure soules; B.15.128 Allas, ye lewed men, muche lese ye on preestes!). See also 16.255 (B.15.102), where the flower and fruit are

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the laity. The passage is generally similar to the “lokynge on lewed preestes,” B.11.283–318, though it concentrates less on ignorance and more on corruption. Other passages that offer sharp criticism of priests include 3.188–90 (B.3.150– 52, A.3.139–41), 3.464–67 (B.3.311–14), 7.30–34 (B.5.415–19), 22.218–29 (B.20.218–29). See Pantin 1955:27–29 for a brief but informative description of the parish clergy, and Swanson 2016 for a fuller and still more informative account of what it was really like to be a priest or bishop in the Middle Ages. Peter Damian, whose brief censure of the whole clergy, Contra inscitiam et incuriam clericorum, PL 145.497–504, is an instructive analogue to L’s complaints, speaks with particular contempt of secular priests: “Nullus plane mortalium, ut existimo, majus aliquid in divinis peragit sacramentis, quam ipsi quoque qui saecularis sunt ordinis sacerdotes” (There is simply nobody, I think, who commits worse mortal sins in administering the divine sacraments than priests of the secular order). 242 Lo, what holy writ wittnesseth of wikkede techares (B.15.89–90 Of ∂is matere . . . Ac of curatours of cristen peple): Once again, the transition in both versions is from friars to curatours, i.e., parish priests. B says, “I might speak long about the avarice of friars (but I won’t); I shall, however, speak of the corruption of curates.” In the C version, the transition from friars to curates looks less sharp than in B, but in fact is not, since in L’s vocabulary “teacher” and “curate” are synonymous (Lawler 2002:86). 243 holy churche further secures the transition, and by 245 preesthoed and prelates it is clear enough (L never calls friars priests; see Lawler ibid.) Calling PseudoChrysostom holy writ is consistent with L’s usage elsewhere: see 17.6n. 243–47 (B.15.92–95) As . . . techares: A free translation of the first three sentences (Si . . . peccandum) of the Latin quotation at 272a (B.15.117a). By translating progreditur spryngeth and spredeth (244; B.15.92 sprynge∂), L extends the plant imagery that in the Latin only begins with floret in the second sentence. It is a favorite phrase of his for plant growth; see A.10.125 and C.13.24 (where it is connected with grace, as implicitly here; see 20.400 [B.18.362]n). The replacement of B.15.93 Thoru√ lele libbynge men ∂at goddes lawe techen with the more explicit C.16.245 Thorw parfit preesthoed and prelates of holy churche, which also makes a more exact parallel with the phrase inparfit preesthoed two lines later (already in B), is typical of the C-reviser’s program, though here it requires dropping one of his favorite words, lele. This Tree of the Church, as Tavormina calls it (1994: 63 and then passim), is reprised glancingly at 17.48–50 and B.15.424. Readers regularly recognize it

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as a kind of rehearsal for the richer, more poetically intense account of the Tree of Charity in our hearts in passus 17. See Simpson 2007:153–65, Schmidt 1983:140. 248–255 (B.15.96–102) And se hit . . . grene: A still freer translation of the final sentence (Sicut cum videris . . . sanum) of the Latin quotation. The additional line 16.250 is again more explicit, ironing out a slight illogicality in B by making clear, if that were necessary, that the mischief in the root is revealed only by the barren boughs. 256–64 (B.15.103–10) For wolde √e . . . semeth: This long sentence goes back and re-translates Pseudo-Chrysostom’s Si sacerdocium integrum fuerit tota floret ecclesia (273, B.15.118), with full specification of integrum and now dropping the vegetable metaphor of floret. 256 (B.15.103) ∂e lecherye of clothyng: Lecherye here means “uncontrolled luxury, extravagance” (Kane, Glossary). Cf. luxuria vestimentorum PseudoAugustine, Sermo 58, PL 40.1341. The charge is expanded on at 270 (B.15.115) and B.15.121–24; see also 4.115, 21.415 (B.19.415); Lawler 2002:90, 92–93, 100–1. See below, B.15.121–24n. 258 Parte with ∂e pore and √oure pruyde leue: added in C to clarify the meaning of the previous line, which stands alone in B (15.104). The specific mention of parting with the poor deepens the echo of Holy Church’s tirade against priests in passus 1, since their failure to part with the poor is her major charge against them: see 1.171–200 (B.1.175–205, A.1.149–79). Tierney 1959 offers a full discussion of parish poor relief in England in his fourth and fifth chapters, 67–109; on p. 70 he discusses “the classical division of ecclesiastical revenue . . . into four parts” (or, in England, three), one part in either scheme being for relief of the poor: parte with may allude to that division. The mention of pride provides a valuable counterpart to the change at 16.238; see the note there. 259 (B.15.105) trewe of √oure tonge and of √oure tayl also: true at both ends of your body. At 10.78–80 a third loose appendage is added, “two handes.” There is an echo too of Holy Church’s tirade: see “trewe of 9oure tonge” 1.175 (B.1.179, A.1.153), with reference to sex in the next line. If there is a pun on “taille,” tally-stick, tally (as Pearsall thinks), it is distinctly secondary. Finally, see Ps 14:3, “He that speaketh truth in his heart, who hath not used deceit in

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his tongue.” The Lollard revision of Richard Rolle’s commentary on Ps 14 (ed. Hudson 2012:1.138–49) treats it as aimed at parish priests. 260 hatien harlotrie (B.15.106 hatien to here harlotrie): hate (to listen to) dirty jokes, as Sloth likes to do, who has been “prest and persoun passynge thritty wyntur,” 7.22, 30 (B.5.406, 415). 260–61 tythes/Of vsererus, of hores, of alle euel wynnynges (B.15.107 Ti∂es of vntrewe ∂yng ytilied or chaffared): The C line gives two examples, usury and whoredom, of evil winnings, or “untrue things obtained or chaffered,” that is, things obtained dishonestly; others appear in the confession of Coveitise in passus 6 (B.5, A.5). Ytilied probably simply means “obtained,” as at 15.267 (B.14.68), OED, till v1, 2, or possibly “cultivated” in the transferred sense “angled for, tried to develop, tried to get,” as in the images of tilling charity (Pr. 87) or truth (21.261, 333; B.19.261, 333) or the cardinal virtues (21.316, B.19.316); it is unlikely that the reference is to tithes taken from dishonest farmers. The phrase may have been dropped in C precisely because of its vagueness. 262–64 (B.15.108–10) Loeth were . . . semeth: Ordinary people would be eager to obey your preaching and amend their behavior because of your example—as they are not when you preach amendment but don’t exemplify it, which seems like hypocrisy. Amenden should be taken as an assimilated form of “amendeden,” a past tense parallel to folweden (cf. Ms. Z of C and Ms. W of B). The ironic implication is that priests at present preach the very virtues listed above—generosity, truth, chastity, honesty—that they are failing to exhibit themselves. 263 (B.15.109) more for √oure ensaumples: Mann 1973:63 points out that estates satire insists on the need of priests to give a good example. For example, see Prol.88; 1.194 (B.1.199, A.1.173); 4.118 (B.4.122, A.4.107–8); 5.141–42 (B.5.42– 44, A.5.35–36); 16.243–45 (B.15.92–93). (Of course, nonsatiric writers on pastoral care speak of it also—e.g., Gregory, Pastoral Care, chapter 2 and Jerome, Letter 52, To Nepotian, [ed. Wright 1963:198–201, 208–9]—but less insistently; rather, they simply take it for granted on every page.) 265–71 (B.15.111–16) Ypocrisye . . . wolues: A specifying translation of PseudoChrysostom’s coruptum (273, B.15.118). There is implicit an evocation of a tree that still looks good but is already rotten within. Schmidt 1983:140, writing of the B text and relating Pseudo-Chrysostom’s tree image to the Tree of Charity

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in the next passus, focuses on enblaunched with bele paroles, opposing it to the leaves of the Tree of Charity that are “lele wordes” B.16.6. The equivalent in C, I would add, is the blossoms of “benigne speche” 18.11. Enblaunch, he says wittily, is itself a bele parole. 265 Ypocrisye is a braunche of pruyde: See B.15.75n and Chaucer’s Parson’s Tale, I390–91. 266–68 And is ylikned in latyn . . . blak withynne (B.15.111–13 in latyn is likned . . . foul wi∂Inne): A rare place where L reveals that he is translating Latin material—though the sources are so diverse that it is hardly translation. The lines contain five elements: hypocrisy, dunghill, snow, snakes, and wall. There is a diverse Latin background for associating hypocrisy with dunghills and snakes, and a separate one for associating it with a whitened wall, but not much connection at all between snow and hypocrisy. I have discussed the material at length in Lawler 2013:61–65. A dunghill (Latin sterquilinium) is a refuse pile: it has trash and garbage as well as actual dung. The inevitable association for L is the book of Job, since in the Vulgate Job sits not “in the ashes,” as in modern bibles based directly on Hebrew, but, following the Septuagint, “on the dunghill,” in sterquilinio. His comforter Zophar associates the dunghill with hypocrisy: “gaudium hypocritae ad instar puncti . . . quasi sterquilinium in fine perdetur” (The joy of the hypocrite [is] but for a moment . . . in the end he shall be destroyed like a dunghill) Job 20:5–7. This verse is cited often, e.g., by John of Salisbury, “Ecce quam miser est finis hypocritarum qui (sacro testante eloquio) perdentur ut sterquilinium quo nichil immundius est” (Look how wretched an end hypocrites have; as the bible says, they will be destroyed like a dunghill, than which nothing is more unclean), Policraticus 7.24, PL 199.701. So too is the image of Job on the dunghill crawling with worms, though the bible text does not mention that, e.g., Peter the Chanter: “Recole penitentiam Job qui ‘sedens in sterquilinio testa radebat saniem,’ et vermes scaturiebant de carne propria” (Recall the penitence of Job, who “took a potsherd and scraped the corrupt matter, sitting on a dunghill,” and worms swarmed out of his flesh), Verbum adbreviatum, ed. Boutry 2004:812. To these can be added the folk beliefs that the coluber deposited its eggs on dunghills (Glover 1829:172), and that dunghills in general were breeding grounds for snakes (though not, of course, when snow was on the ground) (see Lawler 2013:62). Finally, see Matt 23:33, where, in the passage in which Jesus accuses the Scribes and Pharisees of hypocrisy again and again, he calls them “You serpents, you brood of

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vipers.” There is thus a diverse Latin background for associating hypocrisy with dunghill and snakes. The image of a hypocrite as a whitelimed wall comes from Acts 23:3, where Paul addresses the high priest Ananias, who should uphold Jewish law but has violated it by striking him, as “paries dealbate” (whited wall). Augustine: “Paries quippe dealbatus hypocrisis est, id est simulatio sacerdotalem praeferens dignitatem, et sub hoc nomine tanquam candido tegmine interiorem quasi luteam turpitudinem occultans” (A whited wall is hypocrisy, that is, pretense that insists on priestly dignity, and under this name (“priest”), as under a white covering, hiding an inner foul turpitude) (De sermone Domini in monte 1.19.58, PL 34.1259). But surely the much more famous image of the Scribes and Pharisees as whited sepulchers (Matt 23:27), outwardly beautiful but within full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanliness, is in both Augustine’s mind and L’s, since though a wall might be weak within, or roughlooking until whitewashed, it is not likely to be “foul within.” Paul’s image does not imply a foul inside, only the superficiality of the whitewash (and perhaps Ananias’s inflexibility). Hypocrite and wall had been connected to the dunghill by Peter the Chanter, speaking of Job 20:5: “Ypocrita sterquilinio comparatur qui est ‘paries dealbatus’ ” (Here a hypocrite, who is a whitewashed wall, is compared to a dunghill) Verbum adbreviatum, ed. Boutry 2004:97. As for snow, though it occurs several times in the bible as an image of purity (e.g., Ps 50:9, quoted at 16.335a), it is not associated with hypocrisy either in the bible or in the patristic tradition. Peter Damian makes the connection, though: a hypocrite “nullis infervet aestibus charitatis; atque ad instar nivis simul est albus et frigidus, quia piis quidem se deservire operibus simulat, sed viscera solidae pietatis ignorat” (does not glow with any heat of charity, but like snow is white and cold, because he pretends that he devotes himself to good works but does not know genuine goodness from the inside), Epistolae 6.32, PL 144.426. Singer’s Thesaurus proverbiorum medii aevi gives four French proverbs comparing pride to snow on a dunghill, and gives Lydgate’s Pride, who says that her mantle is outwardly fair “As snowh (who that loke wel)/ Maketh whyht a ffoul dongel,” Pilgrimage of the Life of Man 14541, but no Latin proverb; yet something like “hypocrisis est quasi sterquilinium tectum nive” must have existed, as the phrase quoted below from Summa virtutum implies. The image of snow on a dunghill is alive today in the myth that Luther called man redeemed a snow-covered dunghill, which is what you get if you Google the phrase. The one text we know of that applies the image of a snow-covered dunghill to hypocrisy is already known to Langland scholars: the thirteenthcentury Summa virtutum de remediis anime (ed. Wenzel 1984), referred to by

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Schmidt 1995 in his note to B.15.11–13; it says that a hypocrite “est sterquilinium niue tectum in quo sal inutile est” (“is the dung heap covered with snow in which salt is useless, Luke 14,” p. 95). Surely, however, no proverb nor learned authority would claim that snow on a dunghill hides snakes, since snakes hibernate in underground cavities, not in dunghills. Thus the idea of a dunghill with snow on the outside and snakes on the inside is actually quite improbable, though surely within the reach of the imagination. Finally, Pearsall notes the resemblance to Chaucer’s Squire’s Tale F512–20, in which the hypocritical tercelet is compared first to a snake hiding under flowers, then to a fair tomb covering a corpse. But the snake hidden in flowers is a much more common image, with clear overtones of the temptation of Eve in Eden—and what really makes L’s image different from Chaucer’s is the double hiding: the snow hides the putrid dunghill, and the dunghill hides snakes, not merely putrid but deadly. And at line 116 the snakes metamorphose into wolves. 270 (B.15.115) bele clothes: White surplices and albs especially, given enblaunched, bysnewed al with snowe, and ywhitlymed, and lyuen as wolues (B.15.116 wolueliche) in the next line: they wear sheep’s clothing (Matt 7:15), one more white surface. Schmidt 1995 points out that Matthew’s line about wolves in sheep’s clothing is followed immediately by the image of good trees and bad trees (7:16–20), which has a bearing on the Pseudo-Chrysostom passage just below. Bele clothes—Frenchified—are the seculars’ counterpart to friars’ insolubles: pretty coverings, both of them. 272–73 (B.15.117–18) Iohannes Crisostomus . . . sanum: The well-known Opus imperfectum in Matthaeum, universally ascribed in the Middle Ages to St John Chrysostom, and much admired, as B.15.120 suggests. The actual author is an Arian of the fifth century. Though a Latin work, it appears with the works of Chrysostom in PG 56.611–946. A new edition is being prepared for the series Corpus Christianorum by J. van Banning; see his preliminary volume, Van Banning 1988. This is Homily 38, PG 56.839, commenting on Matt 21:12–20, verses that feature both corruption in the temple (because of the presence of money-changers, 12–13) and the barren fig tree that Jesus causes to wither away (19–20). “Sicut de templo omne bonum egreditur, sic et de templo omne malum procedit. . . . Si sacerdotium integrum fuerit, tota Ecclesia floret; si autem corruptum fuerit, omnium fides marcida est. . . . Si autem et Sacerdotes fuerint in peccatis, totus populus convertitur ad peccandum. . . . quemadmodum cum videris arborem pallentibus foliis, marcidam intelligis, quia aliquam

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culpam habet circa radicem, ita cum videris populum indisciplinatum et irreligiosum, sine dubio cognosce, quia sacerdotium ejus non est sanum” (Just as every good thing comes from the temple, so too does everything bad. . . . If the priesthood has kept its integrity, the whole church flourishes. . . . But if it has become corrupt, the faith of everyone sickens. . . . If even priests have sinned, the whole people turns to sin. . . . just as when you see a tree with faded leaves you realize the tree itself is diseased, because there is disease at the root, so when you see a people undisciplined and irreligious, know for sure that its priesthood is rotten). L omits a comparison to the health of the human body. Skeat says it is “obvious that William’s quotation was made from memory.” The passage is quoted by Aquinas, with the same omissions, in his compendium of comments on the Gospels, Catena aurea, at Matt 21:10–16. As the notes above make clear, the entire passage on priests, 243–71 (B.15.92–116) is a free translation and paraphrase of this Latin. B.15.119–27 If lewed ledes . . . ydel wille: Not in C. The B mss. are defective here, as the heavy editorial emendation indicates, and the lines may have been dropped in C for that reason. More likely, however, they were perceived as distracting from the point: C gains power by directly following the Latin quotation with the outburst “Allas! lewed men, moche lese 9e.” The first two lines also make little sense (or, as Simpson 2007:160 says, are disingenuous), since the Latin has just been translated and the author named. The lines might also have been thought to undermine the effect of 22.219 (B.20.219), and perhaps to repeat 3.464–67 (B.3.311–14) and 5.45–48, and Sloth’s remarks at 7.30–34 (B.5.415–19). On silver as an emblem of the secular clergy, see Lawler 2002:94 and B.Prol. 81, 86, 92; 11.174; 15.7. B.15.121–24 baselardes . . . botons ouergilte: Priests were enjoined by the fourth Lateran Council of 1215, Canon 16 that “Their garments must be worn clasped at the top and neither too short nor too long. They are not to use red or green garments or curiously sewed together gloves, or beak-shaped shoes or gilded bridles, saddles, pectoral ornaments (for horses), spurs, or anything else indicative of superfluity” (Schroeder 1937:257). Baselardes (knives) would count, surely, particularly a knife with a testicle-shaped handle (ballokknyf) and gilt studs. But as the Catholic Encyclopedia notes (1908–12, s.v.”Costume: Clerical”), various subsequent similar orders suggest that the canon was not widely obeyed. See Mirk, Instructions for Parish Priests (ed. Kristensson 1974), ll. 43, 47, 48 (forbidding baselards), and various English ecclesiastical documents from the thirteenth century in Powicke and Cheney 1964: 2.26, 63, 174, 407, 429, 519 (forbidding extravagant clothing) and 2.272, 349, 407, 431, 519,

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602, 751–52, 805 (forbidding carrying weapons). There are many excellent pictures in Trichet 1986 illustrating what proper priests wore. See 22.219 (B.20.219) and note. 274–85 (B.15.128–48) Allas! lewed men . . . charite: The first line of this passage (in C, two lines) in both versions sums up the spiritual loss to the laity occasioned by the wickedness of parish priests (once again, since for L “priest” always means “parish priest,” C curatours is no more specific than B preestes); it repeats the point of 254–64 (B.15.101–10) and of the second and third sentences of Pseudo-Chrysostom’s Latin. In B, however, the lines that follow seem to say, “Well, miswinners don’t lose out—their money may just as well go to wicked priests, or to summoners and their girlfriends, since it’s tainted anyway, though good people are cheated” (135), and, though they hearken back to 106–7, feel like a digression, even an undermining of line 128. The C revision fynde 274, “pay” is a brilliant recovery. By focusing on the tithes they pay, it makes the laity’s loss financial as well as spiritual—and the qualification in the following lines now has a basis: it says, “Well, my lament doesn’t extend to those who pay their tithes with bad money, which may as well go to bad priests and their ilk”—and the sudden illogical focus of B.15.135 on good people—“goddes folk”—is avoided by dropping the line. C also avoids dwelling on the squalid aftermath of the death of avaricious clerics B.15.138–45—a memorably Dickensian passage in B that perhaps wanders too far from the main point, though is suddenly relevant in its final lines: see 281–85 (B.15.136– 48)n. In both versions, there is nonetheless a telling vision of the circulation of bad money: whores, say, give it to priests as an offering or to summoners who extort it, but the priests and summoners spend it on their own vices, including whoring; or they spend it on baselards and ballock-knives, and will everything to their fellow rascals. This is a second example in the passus of a cycle of evil (see 236 [B.15.77]n above). B.15.125 a Porthors ∂at sholde be his Plow: The particular metaphor of breviary as plow is apparently original with L, but for a brief view of the complex history of the idea of praying as plowing (which also appears at 5.45–46 and B.7.124), so central to this poem with a plowman at its center, see Lawler 2013:67–68. 279 Seketours (B.15.132 Executours): The faithless executor is a commonplace in moral and satirical literature; L specifies their treachery at B.12.260 and 22.290–93. Pearsall cites Handlyng Synne 6229–6508; see also Le Goff 1988:43– 44, 95, and Alford, Gloss.: Executour. For the other officers in the line, cf. 2.190

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(B.2.173, A.2.137), and see ibid.: Somnour, Subdene; for summoners see also Mann 1973:137–44; she regards L’s frequent “scornful” references to summoners, including this one, as a “stimulus” for Chaucer’s portrait in the General Prologue. 281–85 (B.15.136–48) Curatours . . . ∂at ben Auerous . . . charite: Liberum arbitrium/Anima passes to a new aspect of this subject, misers. They seem to break the circle of misspending, but only by hoarding, and as soon as they die it all gets misspent. (See B.10.103: the rich skimp on charity, “al to spare to spille 3at spende shal ano3er.”) The waste of the miser’s unspent money surely stands for the waste of his soul in hell. By now it is clear that misspending of money is a strong motif in lines 236–85 (B.15.77–148), begun by the reference to misspending of five wits, though that remains implicit: avarice is foolish. The final irony in B is that those who have been generous in their lifetime get the very thing that rich sinners give to the friars to obtain: prayers for their souls after death (147–48; cf. 18.15 and n.). Though the C reviser was no doubt right to trim the passage rigorously, in B it is one of those narrative vignettes that L has a way of surprising us with, and a witty one in being a kind of material version of the pardon formula, not hard to apply to L’s own everyday life. It says, in effect, Qui mala egerunt, i.e., those who were stingy with dinners ibunt in ignem eternum, i.e., will be laughed at and scorned as niggards forever; mete√yueres, food-givers, Qui bona egerunt, i.e., those who entertained widely and freely ibunt in vitam eternam, i.e., will be remembered fondly, grieved for—and prayed for, so that their generosity, by prompting a generous attitude in others, may help them to actual eternal life as well. Not far from the surface here is our poet, using his tools, the Paternoster and the psalms, to sing for the souls of those who would welcome him and feed him when he came a few times a month (5.45– 52). 147 bymene∂, bemoan (plural, parallel with maken 146). See Luke’s parable (12:16–21) of the rich food-hoarder who dies suddenly, and God says to him, “Whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?” (20). The next verse is “Be not solicitous.” Note that both B and C arrive, by quite different routes, at the word charite (285; B.15.148) to occasion Will’s question in the next line.

Liberum arbitrium/Anima on Charity (286–374a, B.15.149–268) 286–374a Charite . . . cotidianum &c (B.15.149–268 What is charite? . . . verred ensamples manye): With the introduction of Will’s questions about charity, one feels a surge in the poetry. See B.15.1–2n. Charity is a lot like

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Patience, who brings a similar verve to the poem when he appears in passus 15 (B.13) and speaks of love, although of course Charity like the three Do’s does not appear as a character in the poem, but is only described. He exemplifies Patience’s ideal of unsolicitous patient poverty, relying like him on fiat voluntas tua (321; B.15.179; cf. 15.235–51; B.14.29–52), not craving or coveting, suffering all manner of mischief gladly, and the like—Recklessness without his dubious side. But unlike Patience, who is first seen begging at 15.34–35 (B.13.29–30), as Aers 2004:134–35 points out, he does not beg; further, he is endowed with a cheerful active generosity, a fearlessness, and a loving sympathy toward others that Patience does not quite exhibit, and because he is only described and not shown L is able to give him a kind of ubiquity, an ability to show up anywhere, that borders on the magical. Or rather, on the divine: like the Samaritan later, who is similarly active and generous, he is finally a standin for Christ. As Holy Church knows, deus caritas 1.82 (B.1.86, A.1.84; 1 John 4:8, 16). The entire definition of charity rings with echoes of two passages in St Paul describing charity: the famous 1 Cor 13, which is quoted twice, at 291a (B.15.157a) and 296a (B.15.162a), and Rom 12.9–21, in part translated at 302–3 (B.15.169). See the notes below and Lawler 2013:69–71. Gruenler 2017:288–89 gives a chart of all the uses in the poem of 1 Corinthians, and writes at length of the poem’s engagement with chapter 13 on pp. 291–95. The Golden Legend, full of imitators of Christ, echoes through it as well, particularly from 343–59a (B.15.216–34a). Charity has been briefly defined earlier by Patience at 15.273–76 and B.14.100–1, in a less capacious way but not inconsistently with the present passage; see note ad loc. In the immediate context, charity is the antidote to clerical greed, as it is for Holy Church, 1.195–200 (B.1.200–5, A.1.174–79): thus in its large structure, the passus repeats a pattern established in passus 1.

Where is Charity to be found? (286–97, B.15.148–64) 286–87 Charite . . . Where may hit be yfounde? (B.15.148–51 What is charite? . . . Where sholde men fynde swich a frend wi∂ so fre an herte?): Will is like Actyf in 14, “interviewing” Liberum arbitrium/Anima as Actyf interviews Patience by taking up his words and asking about them; cf. B.14.272–4. Will’s question here, especially as filled out in C, means, in effect, “That reminds me: I’ve been meaning to ask about charity”—perhaps ever since Patience brought the word up in the banquet scene (see 15.164a [B.13.163a]), and mentioned it again to Actyf at 15.275 (B.14.101). (Actually, in the B version Actyf has asked

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the very question asked here: “Where wonye3 Charite?” 14.98, and Patience has given him a brief answer, but the subject was then quickly overtaken by the issue of the salvation of the rich. See 15.272 (B.14.98)n. L wisely canceled the lines in C, maintaining both the climactic force of the present passage and a certain differentiation between Patience and Charity.) This time, for all the casualness with which it is introduced, charity remains the major subject through passus 19 (B.17), where the Samaritan stands for charity, and passus 20 (B.18) as well, in which Christ, the ultimate embodiment of charity, performs his great acts of love; see Middleton 1990:46. Simpson 2007:162 points out that this question (What is charity?) is asked (in effect) thrice in B: by Actyf at 14.98 (“Where wonye3 Charite?”), and by Will here and at 16.3 (“I am in a weer what charite is to mene”). In the C version, L avoids this repetition by telescoping the first two questions into Will’s here, and changing the last one to a request to be taught to live in charity (18.2). 286–97 Charite . . . charite (Cf. B.15.149–64 What is charite? . . . as I trowe): In the B version, since lines 153–64 make it clear that Will already knows from St Paul what charity is, his question What is charite? at 149 makes little sense, and C rightly drops it to focus, at 287, on B’s real question at 151: where is it to be found?—and Anima’s brief answer at B.15.149–50 (a childissh ∂yng . . .) is transferred (in still briefer form) to the beginning of Liberum arbitrium’s answer to the present question (where?), at 298, and will be commented on there. In the earlier case of the three Do’s, the initial question “Where do they live,” asked consistently in passus 10 (B.8, A.9), modulates after that passus into “What are they?” without any clear rationale, and without seeming to be a different question. Here the difference is perhaps sharper. Though some of what Liberum arbitrium says may seem to answer the question “What?,” his basic answer in the C version (an improvement: see the note to 337–42a below) is at 342, “thorw werkes thow myhte wyte wher forth he walketh,” and the rest of his answer through the end of the passus—I have seen him here, I have seen him there, he comes here, he comes there—is locative. Charity is wherever people of whatever estate act lovingly; casting the question and answer this way enables L to write in images of various people acting instead of in more generalized description of action. Of course a more direct answer to “Where is charity?” would be, “It’s in the will; it’s in your will, Will; you can choose to love.” Simpson 2007:162–63 points out both that the answer in B, “a fre liberal wille,” amounts to that, and that Amor is one of Liberum arbitrium/ Anima’s names (16.196–97, B.15.33–34). And that is the real answer, but suppressing it in C helps Liberum arbitrium, like the other interlocutors in the poem, make Will work to see it.

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C Passus 16; B Passu¯s 14–15

The search in Piers the Plowman’s Creed is similarly locative, “Where y myhte meten with a man that myghte me wissen/For to conne my Crede Crist for to folwen” (100–1). Starting at 151, the B version of the passage is essentially similar to the C version. 288–90 Ich haue yleued in londone monye longe Õeres (B.15.152 I haue lyued in londe . . . my name is longe wille): The second half of B.15.152 seems arbitrary and inconsequential, especially since Anima already knows who Will is (B.15.13–14; see Kane 1965:67): one expects some phrase that means “a long time,” i.e., just what C provides. But Will may be punning on the several meanings of “long,” saying in effect “I’ve lived so long, and traveled such a long way, that my very name is Long.” Cf. Actyf’s “as wide as I haue passed” B.14.99, also in the course of declaring that he has not found charity. The C version as usual opts for a plainer statement. As the poet’s fullest “signature,” the only one that involves his last name as well as his first, the B line has drawn much interest. Kane 1965:52–70, esp. 65–70, accepts the inconsequentiality as precisely the mark of such signatures, and gives a wide range of other examples, most from French poetry. Middleton 1990:44–47 sees the line as not inconsequential at all, but (ignoring B.15.13–14) as “an occasion for Will to offer his own [name] in return . . . just as his instructor has explained his capacities by glossing his name” (44–45). She treats the long intervening passage (50–148) as Anima’s rebuke to Will for his prideful curiosity, and shows that it offers just the humiliation of Will that characteristically prompts a signature, and treats the “contrite return to a project of self-understanding” that Will’s asking about charity represents as “the penultimate turning point in the poem” (46; see above, 286–87n). (One may note here Michael Bennett 2012, arguing that a legal record from about 1386 mentioning a certain “Willelmus vocatus Longwyll” in fact refers to the poet.) Kane does not regard the revised C line (288) as any longer a signature; without quite calling it a signature, Middleton argues that “it serves just as economically as its B counterpart to point to the new referential center for C’s signatures” (1990:55), that is, to the encounter in London with Reason and Conscience at the beginning of C.5, which insists on his urban habitation and his urban work. B.15.153 And fond I neuere ful charite, bifore ne bihynde: Simpson 1986:10 proposes that “this is surely because he is himself, as the will, the locus of charity; to look for charity ‘bifore’ or ‘bihynde’ is, simply, to miss the obvious by looking in the wrong place,” and that therefore the line is “the greatest

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authority for seeing a pun in the name ‘Wille.’ ” Of course, in the poem thus far Will has been anything but the confident, vigorous figure that Charity is. B.15.154–55 Men be∂ merciable . . . paied: In dismissing almsgiving in line 154 as not ful charite, Will perhaps has in mind the heartless form St Paul refers to in 1 Cor 13:3 (“If I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor . . . and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing”). Aquinas, Summa theologiae, 2a 2ae 32.1, raises the question whether almsgiving is charity and concludes firmly that it is. More likely, however, there should be a second comma after lene 155, making the ∂er clause modify both be∂ merciable and lene. Then the whole couplet is about giving with an eye to being paid in spiritual coin, one way of “asking after yours.” 290–97 Charite . . . charite (B.15.156–64 Ac charite . . . I trowe): Paul’s wittenesse (291; cf. B.15.156) is contained not just in the two quotations at 291a (B.15.156a) and 296a (B.15.162a) but in the whole passage, 1 Cor 13:4–7 and 12–13; note that Ymaginatif has quoted and translated verse 13 at B.12.29–31. See Lawler 2013:69–71. 290 chargeth nauht ne chyt: Neither blames nor chides: a doublet, probably translating Paul’s non irritatur (is not provoked to anger) 5 or omnia suffert (beareth all things) or omnia sustinet (endureth all things) 7. 291a (B.15.157) Non inflatur, non est Ambiciosa is not puffed up, is not ambitious, 1 Cor 13:4, 5. 293 (B.15.159) That he ne askede aftur his alludes to non quaerit quae sua sunt (seeketh not her own) 5 (included in the quoted Latin in B.15.156a). Lines 295–97 in the C version, playing on 1 Cor 13:12, are clear. Lines 295–96a pick up on clerk 292: if I sought in all the religious orders it would be a wonder if I found even a pale shadow of him. Here Will appropriates Paul’s Hic in enigmate, tunc facie ad faciem (Here in a dark manner, but then face to face; 1 Cor 13:12, with Hic for nunc) wittily to his own purpose: Paul speaks of the elusiveness of God, Will of the elusiveness of charity among the religious orders. As for figuratyfly 296, the Latin word figura and its derivatives appear very often as a synonym for or gloss on aenigma: e.g., Augustine, “figurate atque in aenigmatibus proposita” (proposed figuratively and in enigmas), PL 34.197 (De Genesi contra Manichaeos), 373 (De Genesi ad litteram); Tertullian, “pleraque figurate portenduntur per aenigmata et allegorias et parabolas, aliter intelligenda quam scripta sunt” (many things are foretold figuratively by means of enigmas and allegories and parables, to be understood otherwise than they were written), Adversus Marcionem, PL 2.326. The B version of this passage (B.15.161–64) makes no reference to religious orders, but speaks more generally of the elusiveness of charity, turning

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C Passus 16; B Passu¯s 14–15

Paul’s statement into an analogy: just as, though Christ is supposed to be everywhere, I see only reflections of him, the way I see myself in a mirror (Paul’s full phrase is per speculum in aenigmate), so when I look around me I see not charity but people fighting and bargaining. (For a different understanding of what Will says, see Rogers 2002:128, who suggests that line 162 means that “one knows God by knowing oneself.”) These are reflections of charity in that both are face-to-face transactions between two people, but remain mere reflections because the parties are ambiciosi, seeking to win. But neither analogy is altogether far-fetched: see B.15.216, where charity is “goddes champion,” and 15.275, where it is “chaumpion chief of all vertues”; and at 149 (B.14.315) a “lel” businessman regards gaining charity as no loss; see note there. Middleton 1990:46 points out the irony that in passus 20 (B.18) the redemption is dramatized by L precisely as “chaumpions fight” and “chaffare.” The relation to chaffer is also exploited bitingly in the phrase “sith charite hath be Chapman” Prol.62 (B.Prol.64, A.Prol.61). B.15.161 Clerkes kenne me ∂at crist is in alle places: E.g., Augustine, Tractates on the Gospel of John, PL 35.1659: “Dominus Jesus Christus ubique praesens est” (The Lord Jesus Christ is present everywhere); for more, search PL online Christus Ⳮ ubique. Gruenler 2017:2–3 argues that in changing Paul’s nunc to Hic, L “designates the poem itself as an enigma.” He “is describing what his poem does and giving us a word for how it works: ‘Here, in the poem you are reading, one may see Christ truly, but in an enigma.’ ” Murtaugh (2007:352–53) concludes that the logic of the passage “leads to a radical identification of Will and Piers.”

The definition of Charity (298–315, B.15.149–75) 298–98a Charite is a childische thyng . . . Nisi efficiamini sicut paruuli &c (B.15.149–50 What is charite? . . . a childissh ∂yng . . . / Nisi efficiamini sicut paruuli non intrabitis in regnum celorum./ Wi∂outen fauntelte or folie a fre liberal wille): The Latin is Matt 18:3 (omitting conversi fueritis et after Nisi): “Unless you (be converted and) become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” Wi∂outen fauntelte (without childishness) alludes to Paul’s rejection of “the things of a child,” 1 Cor 13:11, the verse just before the verse quoted below at 162a. And the whole paradox, of being childish but not childish, also alludes to Paul’s remark in the next chapter, 1 Cor 14:20, “Brethren, do not become children in sense, but in malice be children, and in sense be perfect.” Childish folly is also condemned at Prov 1:22 and

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22:15, and at 4 Kings 2:23–24, where the boys who mock Elisha are eaten by bears. Charity in short is childlike but not foolish. See Lawler 2013:69–71. Will has been tempted to behave with both fauntelte (see B.11.42) and folie (B.15.10). In the C version, there may just conceivably be a hidden pun here on Liberum arbitrium’s name, involving Latin “liberus,” child. The will (Will) has to be liberal but not foolish, childlike but not childish, as Schmidt’s 1995 glosses imply. Much of the poem is here in a nutshell: Will’s attempt to be not sollicitus and yet also not reckless. B.15.165 Charite . . . ne craue∂: More translation of phrases from 1 Cor 13:4–5. Ne chaffare∂ no√t ⳱ non agit perperam, dealeth not perversely; ne chalange∂, ne craue∂ ⳱ non quaerit quae sua sunt, seeketh not her own. Cf. 15.153, B.13.149–50. But possibly ne chaffare∂ no√t ne chalange∂ means the same as “chepe or refuse” 31 (C.16.191) above. 299–301 (B.15.166–68) As proud of a peny . . . scarlet: Cf. Rom 12:16 “Non alta sapientes, sed humilibus consentientes” (Mind not high things, but condescend to the humble). 301 cammaca, B.15.168 tarse: Both are kinds of fine cloth, but the names are mysterious. Tarse is from Tharsia, but where that was is unclear. 302–4 He is glad . . . louren (B.15.169 He is glad wi∂ alle glade and good til alle wikkede): C turns the B line into three lines, expanding childische 298, and changing the meaning of the second half. The B line translates two phrases from Rom 12: “gaudere cum gaudentibus” 12:15 (rejoice with them that rejoice) and “nulli malum pro malo reddentes” 12:17 (Render to no man evil for evil). C instead translates the whole of Rom 12:15 (which is quoted at A.11.193), adding “flere cum flentibus” (weep with them that weep), then translates it again in the simile about children. B.15.170 lene∂ and loue∂ alle ∂at oure lord made: Cf. Rom 12:20 “si esurierit inimicus tuus, ciba illum, si sitit, potum da” (if thy enemy be hungry, give him to eat; if he thirst, give him drink); 12:13 “necessitatibus sanctorum communicantes” (communicating to the necessities of the saints); 12:17 “providentes bona non tantum coram Deo, sed etiam coram omnibus hominibus” (Providing things good not only in the sight of God, but also in the sight of all men). B.15.171 Corse∂ he no creature ne he kan bere no wra∂e: Cf. Rom 12:14, “Benedicite persequentibus vos. Benedicite, et nolite maledicere” (Bless them

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C Passus 16; B Passu¯s 14–15

that persecute you. Bless, and curse not); 12:19 “date locum irae” (give place to wrath); 1 Cor 13:5 “non irritatur” (is not provoked to anger). 305–9 And when a man swereth . . . facite eis (B.15.173 Al ∂at men seyn, he leet it soo∂ and in solace take∂): Cf. 1 Cor 13:7 “omnia credit” (believeth all things); 1 Cor 13:5 “non cogitat malum” (thinketh no evil). 16.309 is Matt 7:12, “All things therefore whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do you also to them” (quoted above at B.7.60a). 310 (B.15.172) Hath he no lykynge . . . scorne: Cf. 1 Cor 13:6 “non gaudet super iniquitatem, congaudet autem veritati” (rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth with the truth). 311–12 Alle seknesse . . . munstracie of heuene (B.15.174 And alle . . . suffre∂): Cf. 1 Cor 13:7 “omnia suffert . . . omnia sustinet” (beareth all things . . . endureth all things); Rom 12:17 “nulli malum pro malo reddentes” (render to no man evil for evil), Rom 12:19 “non vosmet ipsos defendentes” (revenge not yourselves). 312 munstracie of heuene: ministerium coeleste, the work of God, a common phrase. 313 Of deth ne of derthe drad he neuere: Cf. Caritas expellit omnem timorem 15.164a, Caritas nichil timet B.13.163a, and 1 John 4:18, “Timor non est in caritate, sed perfecta caritas foras mittit timorem” (Fear is not in charity, but perfect charity casteth out fear). 313–15 of derthe . . . borwede: Cf. 1 Cor 13:5 “non quaerit quae sua sunt”: charity “seeketh not her own,” even to the point of not minding when loans are paid back. Cf. 292–94 (B.15.157a–60). B.15.175 Coueite∂ he noon er∂ely good, but heueneriche blisse: Again cf. 1 Cor 13:5 “non est ambitiosa, non quaerit quae sua sunt” (is not ambitious, seeketh not her own), and 1 Cor 13:8–14, all looking to the tunc of seeing God face to face.

What Charity lives on (316–36a, B.15.176–94) 316–36a Ho fynt hym his fode . . . non despicies (B.15.176–94 Ha∂ he anye rentes . . . non despicies): The clear import of this passage is to insist that Charity has no income but lives on prayer and his trust in God. In B that is

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emphasized by the statement that he brings the prisoners he visits not bread but the swetter liflode (184) of love; in C we are told rather that he pays for their food and clothes them (325–26). Aers 2004:134–36 seizes on this change to insist on Liberum arbitrium’s superior understanding of the realities of material life: he, Liberum arbitrium, “recognizes that Charity is involved in a market where food becomes a commodity acquired by monetary exchange”; by “unravel[ing]” Patience’s assumption that poverty is required for holiness, he “delegitimizes Patience’s assertions about the relations between involuntary poverty and the deadly sins” (135). But this is to ignore not only the playfulness of Patience’s argument that the poor do not commit the deadly sins (43–101, B.14.203–61), but the firm clear answer to Will’s question: Of rentes ne of rychesse reccheth he neuere (16.318, B.15.177), followed by four lines (varying slightly in the two versions) that insist that Charity relies on scripture and prayer for food and ally him with the Patience of both the banquet scene (15. 52–64; B.13.46–60) and the subsequent pilgrimage (15.232–71a; B.13.29–72). Despite the mention of paying and clothing, there is no real difference between the two versions in their account of Charity’s “rents”: both insist that God finds him what he needs. Aers’s argument also ignores what Charity preaches to the prisoners: that Christ’s suffering is an example to us all that pouerte and penaunce pacientlyche ytake/Worth moche meryte to ∂at man ∂at hit may soffre (16.328–29). In short, both Patience and Liberum arbitrium in his portrait of Charity advocate the patient acceptance of poverty. Where does Charity get money and clothing for prisoners? Maybe from the market, certainly from God’s providing. Of course it is true that the poem will end by insisting on the need for establishing a reliable “finding” for the friars; here nevertheless the emphasis is on doing God’s will and trusting him to provide one’s daily bread. 316–17 (cf. B.15.178) what frendes hath he . . . at his nede?: L plays on the already proverbial phrase “a friend in need”; see Whiting F634, and cf. Everyman 854 (Good Deeds): “Thou shalte finde me a good frende at nede” (ed. Bevington 1975:962). 317, 318 (B.15.176, 177) rentes: Either income-producing property or the income itself. 320 aperis-tu-manum: Ps 144:16, “Thou openest thy hand (and fillest with blessing every living creature)”—turned here into a name for God. The whole line has been cited by Patience at B.14.63a as part of his discourse on spiritual sustenance, though it is not there used as a name as it is here.

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C Passus 16; B Passu¯s 14–15

321 (B.15.179) Fiat-voluntas-tua: “Thy will be done,” from the Paternoster, the bread that Patience has offered to Actyf, 15.249 (B.14.50); here rather God himself, providing bread. In the former case the further petition, “Give us this day our daily bread,” is understood; here it is alluded to verbally in the phrase festeth hym vch a daye, and it is quoted at the end of the passus, line 374a (in a passage that makes explicit reference back to this one). Charity submits his will to God, and acknowledges that he depends on him for food—and God provides food. See the notes to 15.232–71a (B.14.29–72) and 15.247–49 (B.14.49–50). B.15.180 Spera in deo: “Hope in God,” Ps 41:6, 12. Cf. 13.101–3 (B.11.287–89), which say that the psalm says that poor priests who work truly and trust in God will not lack lyflode. The fourth verse of the same psalm is what Piers says to the priest at B.7.128 (A.8.110): “That loue3 god lelly his liflode is ful esy:/ Fuerunt michi lacrime mee panes die ac nocte (my tears have been my bread day and night).” This would seem to be the key line in L’s mind: penitence is bread. Penitence is bread also in the banquet scene, 15.55–64 (B.13.49–60). Alford, Quot. 77 cites the phrase Spera in Deo from Ps 42:6, but it is Ps 41 that L has in mind in all three places. 322–23 a can clergie . . . purtraye . . . peynten (cf. B.15.181): A zeugma: he knows clergy, i.e., Latin, illustrated by the first words of all three prayers, and he knows how to portray and paint. These three prayers, recited over and over again in Latin, even by those who don’t really know the language, were a standard trio for medieval Catholics, as Swanson 2006:132–34 demonstrates. Will says his Creed then his Paternoster at B.5.7–8, A.5.7–8. The verbs “portray” and “paint” are hard, but they must refer to mental focus, to Charity’s ability to imagine instances of God’s love as he prays; the adverb wel attached to purtraye suggests something challenging of this sort; it is the opposite of the way Coveitise or Actyf prays, “ne paternoster sayde/ That my muynde ne was more on my godes in a doute/Then in the grace of god and in his grete myhte” 6.283–85 (B.13.396–98), or Sloth: “That y telle with my tonge is two myle fro myn herte,” 7.17 (B.5.401). To paint the Paternoster with Aves must mean to do exactly what Coveitise and Actyf do not do: imagine the angel greeting Mary, imagine how full of grace she was, imagine God’s great might in becoming the fruit of her womb. (Peynten hit with Auees could just mean “adorn or decorate it with interspersed Aves,” which is OED’s interpretation (s.v. paint, v. 2.c); but purtraye would still need accounting for.)

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Winston-Allen 1997:15–22, 1993:619–32 describes the practice, when saying the rosary, of interspersing brief meditations on scenes from the life of Jesus, the so-called “Jesus psalter,” and invocations to Mary in the form of metaphorical images, the “Mary psalter”; these are the forerunners of the modern “mysteries of the rosary,” and “picture” the prayers in the sense of providing mental pictures to dwell on as they are recited. All her evidence is from Germany, and most from the fifteenth century, but it may well be that the practice was alive earlier, and in England, as well; see the poem “How our Lady’s Psalter was first found” (“Coment le sauter noustre dame fu primes cuntroue”), preserved in ms. Oxford, Bodleian Digby 86, ff. 130r–132r and printed in Horstmann 1881:220–24. 324–36a (B.15.182–94) And o∂erwhile . . . non despicies: Charity performs the corporal works of mercy at the prison, then the spiritual works of mercy at the “laundry.” The seven corporal works of mercy, based on Matt 25:31–46, include feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and visiting the imprisoned (Matt 25:35–36, 42–44). L singles out visiting prisoners in two other places, as Pearsall notes: 4.122–23 (where Reason asserts that such actions are the right kind of pilgrymage) and 7.21 (where Pearsall in his note speaks of the corporal works of mercy). The spiritual works, whose provenance is less clear, include instructing the ignorant and admonishing the sinner, both of which Charity does here. Aquinas asserts that mercy follows on charity, “misericordia consequitur ex charitate,” ST 2a 2ae 30.3, and also points out that the term eleemosyna (alms) is derived from the Greek word for mercy: “dare eleemosynam proprie est actus misericordiae. Et hoc apparet ex ipso nomine, nam in graeco a misericordia nominatur” (to give alms is properly speaking an act of mercy, as is clear from the very word, for in Greek it comes from the word for mercy) ST 2a 2ae 32.1 responsio. At B.16.5, mercy is the root of the tree of charity. Cf. Gregory, Homily 14 on Ezekiel, PL 76.952: “Activa enim vita est, panem esurienti tribuere, verbum sapientiae nescientem docere, errantem corrigere, ad humilitatis viam superbientem proximum revocare, infirmantis curam gerere, quae singulis quibusque expediant dispensare, et commissis nobis qualiter subsistere valeant providere” (The active life means to give bread to the hungry, to teach words of wisdom to the ignorant, to correct one who strays, to recall one’s proud neighbor to the path of humility, to care for the sick, to give out to everyone what each needs, and to provide for those under our care the means of subsistence). This sentence covers the range of charity’s activity in both places.

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C Passus 16; B Passu¯s 14–15

325 (B.15.183) prisones, 330 fetured folk: Debtors or felons, or accused persons awaiting trial, often on what would nowadays seem high-handed or trivial charges; see chapter 2, “The Later Uses of Imprisonment” in Pugh 1968. paye for here fode: Prisoners commonly had to buy their meals, or have them brought in by their families; many starved to death. See 9.34–35 (B.7.30–31), 9.72, 9.181, Bassett 1944:396, Pugh 1968:318–19, 326; Geltner 2008:73—and, of course, Matt 25:36. The system still prevailed in debtors’ prisons in Dickens’s time, much to his disgust; see, e.g., Pickwick Papers, chapter 41, and the telling portrayal of William Dorritt’s moral degradation in the Marshalsea in Little Dorritt. On charity to prisoners, see Pugh 1968:319–29. B.15.183 hir pardon to haue: i.e., to obtain their release by having their debts or crimes pardoned—ordinarily by ransoming them, as Largenesse does at 7.275. 326–29 conforteth . . . soffre: Bassett 1943:233 points out that the greater part of the prisoners in Newgate, which housed mostly felons rather than debtors, were “awaiting trial and probable death.” Like Jesus, charity “comfortede carefole” 21.128 (B.19.128), gave them strength. See also 1.196–98 (B.1.201–3, A.1.175– 77): comforting the sorrowful is the “lok of loue 3at vnloseth grace” (and another of the spiritual works of mercy). 328 pouerte and penaunce pacientlyche ytake: See Patience’s reply to Actyf’s question, “What is properly parfit pacience?” 15.272. The answer is charity, “3at is pore pacient alle perelles to soffre” 15.276. And see his reply in B to Actyf’s question about where Charity lives: “Ther parfit tru3e and poore herte is, and pacience of tonge,/There is Charite 3e chief” B.14.100–1. Charity is patience and Patience is charity. In Piers’s allegory in passus 7, they are two of the seven sisters who serve truth and help people to heaven: 7.270–77 (B.5.618– 24, A.6.104–9). 330–36a (B.15.186–94a) And when . . . non despicies: For the laundry image, see B.14.5–26, 1–35n, and B.13.271–456n; Owst 1933:36 (cited by Wenzel 1988:157); cf. also the comparison of baptism to fulling, a process that includes cleansing, at B.15.452–58. Charity goes among young people and induces them to undergo the process of contrition, confession, and satisfaction. He does for them what Patience has done for Actyf. Wel ∂e leng∂e of a Mile B.15.187: Twenty minutes, a bit of an anticlimax; the phrase is happily dropped in C’ s recasting. √outhe 331 (B.15.188): The bible often associates youth and sin, e.g., Gen 8:21 “the imagination and thought of man’s heart are prone to evil from

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his youth”; Ps 24:7 “The sins of my youth and my ignorances do not remember”; see also Job 13:26, Jer 22:21, 31:18–19, etc. Of course it also sees the young as teachable; that is the premise of Proverbs, for instance, and see Ps 118 (thrice quoted in the poem):9, “By what doth a young man correct his way? By observing thy words.” Pruyde with alle ∂e purtinaunces (332, B.15.189): i.e., the seven deadly sins. Bouketh 334 (cf. bouken B.15.190) “cleanses”; literally, soaks in lye; see OED, s.v. buck, v. 1. All three Latin phrases (two in B) are from the penitential psalms, as Alford, Quot. points out. Laboraui in gemitu meo 333 (B.15.191), I have labored in my groanings, is Ps 6:7 (it should be hyphenated as the name of the laundry, as in Pearsall); Lauabis me & super niuem dealbabor 335a, Thou shalt wash me, and I shall be made whiter than snow, is Ps 50:9 (see above, B.14.1–35n); Cor contritum & humiliatum deus non despicies 336a (B.15.194a), A contrite and humbled heart, O God, thou wilt not despise, is Ps 50:19; the hosts offer this verse to comfort Patience and Will at the banquet 15.61–62 (B.13.58–58a). syngeth 336 (B.15.194): as Will sings the seven psalms, 5.48–49. If it seems odd that the cleansing tears are Charity’s rather than the penitents’, we should recall that the allegory works in two alternate ways. Charity is both an actual loving person, perhaps a priest, admonishing his brethren and so loving that he weeps with them (like St Ambrose, The Golden Legend, trans. Ryan, 1.232, 235, or like PseudoChrysostom’s good pastor, PG 56.684: “Debet esse semper suspirans et lugens, sive sua sive aliena delicta,” He should be always sighing and bewailing his own sins or others’), and the penitents themselves, moved by love of God to repent. Mann 1991:30, cited approvingly by Gruenler 2017:306, claims that because of “the quality of holiness that surrounds all honest toil in this poem,” we don’t see Charity’s laundry work as “purely metaphorical,” but “derive the impression that washing clothes could really have a penitential dimension.” Of course it can have that, but the whole sentence only makes sense as allegory.

How to know Charity 337–44 (B.15.195–219) 337–42a Were y with hym . . . credite (B.15.195–215 By crist! . . . in fautores suos): B.15.196 is the first of three consecutive references to Piers Plowman, none of them as fraught as mentions of Piers tend to be; the next two, at 199 and 212, make clear that here he simply stands for Christ—so that Anima’s reply at 196 constitutes a play on Will’s oath: Will says, “By Christ! I wish I knew Charity,” and Anima answers, “By Christ is precisely how to know Charity.” (Though see Alford 1988:55–56; he is leery of a simple identification of

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C Passus 16; B Passu¯s 14–15

Piers with Christ, and argues rather that line 196 means that charity is the fruit of the way of life that Piers represents; he cites B.16.4–9 [cf. C.18.9–15] and the phrase “Piers fruyt” [B.16.94, B.18.33 (C.20.32]). In the C version that reply is dropped, and the three references to Piers are reduced to the one at 340 (⳱ B.15.199), for the whole meaning of the passage is changed, remarkably. In B Piers is emphasized because human words and works are both seen to hide the will, which only Christ can know; in C works are accepted as a true measure of charity, and the clergy seem less unable to recognize it than in B. See Donaldson 1949:194–95. B insists at surprising length that the clergy can be fooled by phony hermits and others who trade fawningly on the appearance of holiness to solicit alms. This prepares for the condemnation of begging a little later (B.15.227, 256, 269–317), but here it seems like a trivial and tangential issue next to the stirring positive accounts of charity that surround it—though of course it is precisely the high valuation of charity that engenders indignation at false imitations of it. The new version of the passage in C is much more balanced: it gets across the point that charity can be faked in a single line (341) without losing its positive thrust. The baby has gone out with the bathwater, however, for it seems regrettable that the equation of Piers with Christ in B.15.215, the strongest expression of Piers’s power in the poem, is no longer present in C. Of course, in C the subject has already been treated in the condemnation of false beggars at 9.139–75, 189–255. One can see in this passage in B the germ of that passage. Cf. especially 206–7 to C.9.141–52 and 213 to C.9.140, 159, 189; 213 londleperis heremytes ⳱ “ouer land strikares” C.9.159. Ancres ∂ere a box hange∂ (B.15.214): apparently, not-so-ascetic anchorites who hang a moneybox outside their cell for offerings (compare the boxes of Prol.97–98); they are perhaps the same as the “Ermytes 3at inhabiten by the heye weye” 9.189. See also the note to line B.15.215 below. 338 Thogh . . . hacches: A hatch (also spelled heck) is a low half-door with an open space above, or the bottom half of a divided door (OED s.v. hatch, n.1.a; heck n.1.a); the householder can offer a handout without opening up fully to the beggar, as in Rembrandt’s etching, “Beggars Receiving Alms at the Door of a House.” L’s line has some wit: the dreamer offers as a rhetorical extreme, a virtual impossibility, what in his waking life he actually does, 5.29 (though to be sure he has something to offer in return for his handouts, 5.45–52). The echo of that autobiographical passage seems to work with the mention of the penitential psalms, the several references to the Paternoster, and the theme of differentiation from false or lazy beggars, to offer an implicit challenge to Will to make his life like Charity’s in essentials, not just in externals. And though

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he seems to take the moral, don’t be solicitous, it turns out soon enough, at 352, that in fact he misunderstands. 339 (B.15.197) Where clerkes knowe hym nat: The negative added in C expects a “yes” answer, and it comes at 342 with a twist: even you, Will, can know him. 340a (B.15.200a) Et vidit deus cogitaciones eorum: “And God saw their thoughts.” Cf. Luke 11:17, Ipse (i.e., Jesus) autem ut vidit cogitationes eorum (but he, seeing their thoughts), i.e., those who had tempted him by asking for a sign from heaven. The clause seems cited here (and adjusted) without much reference to its context. Burrow 1993:120n lists a number of places in Matthew and Luke where Jesus is said to know the thoughts of others; Simpson 1986 shows that L probably knew Augustine’s discussion in De trinitate 15.8–10, where he brings Christ’s thought-reading to bear on Paul’s discussion of seeing God as in a mirror, 1 Cor 13:12 (above 296 [B.15.162a]). See also 1 Kings (1 Sam) 16:7, Ps 43:22, and 18.244 and note. The apparent equating of Piers Plowman with God is striking, if less blunt than the phrase Petrus id est christus at B.15.212. B.15.201–15 For ∂er are pure proued herded men . . . fautores suos: The description of these humble-seeming proud beggars is similar at times to the account of pride as it appears on Actyf’s coat, B.13.275–312a; see esp. 284–87, 295, 300–2. There is an interesting parallel in Jordan of Saxony’s account of the lives of Augustinian friars, Liber vitasfratrum 3 (trans. Deighan 1993:68–69), complaining at some length of “Sarabites” who “desire only the name of monks, without any of the effort which the calling implies.” B.15.203 han pepir in ∂e nose: i.e., they turn away in disgust. The phrase is proverbial, though first recorded here; see Whiting P141. B.15.204 lyoun, 206 lambren: See Whiting L38, “A lamb here and a lion there,” i.e., various contrasts involving both animals. Cf. “as a lyoun on to loke” B.13.301 and “as lambes they loke and lyuen as wolues” 16.271. The opposite is the “louely lokynge” (18.10) or “benigne lokynge” (B.16.7) that blossoms from charity. B.15.209 by colour ne by clergie: Neither by their color nor by your learning. Their color is white (cf. Loken as lambren 206), but hypocrite-white: see

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B.15.112–13. It contrasts with the russet, gray, and gold in 220–21 below. Or “colour” may just mean “outward appearance,” OED colour n., 11.a. B.15.210–12 ∂oru√ wil . . . christus: See Luke 16:15, “And he (Jesus) said to them (the Pharisees), ‘You are they who justify yourselves before men. But God knoweth your hearts,’ ” and Matt 6:17–18 (i.e., right after the verse cited at 219a below), “But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thy head and wash thy face, that thou appear not to men to fast, but to thy Father, who is in secret, and thy Father, who seeth in secret, will reward thee.” Cf. the famous formulation of Aquinas, “Solus Deus cogitationes cordium et affectiones voluntatum cognoscere potest” (Only God can know the thoughts of our hearts and the affections of our wills), ST 1a.57.4, citing Jer 17:9–10. See B.7.78, “god woot who ha3 nede.” At B.13.190–93, however, Conscience has discerned Patience’s true will. B.15.212 Petrus id est christus: See Alford, Quot., which cites 1 Cor 10:4, “petra autem erat Christus” (and the rock was Christ), and frequent comment on it by Hugh of St Cher. See also Betz 1960. Schmidt 1995 objects to the notion of this Pauline phrase as a source text, since “the . . . reference is to the Old Testament”; but Alford’s point is surely that L is punning on Paul’s phrase to assert the equation of Piers and Christ. Burrow 1993:119–22 argues that the equation involves St Peter, too, particularly because he saw through Ananias (Acts 5:1–10). Isidore, Etymologiae 7.9.2, on the name Peter, should be brought into play as well, because there Isidore brings together the two texts that lie behind the naming of Piers: the Paul text above and Matt 16:18, “Tu es Petrus, et super hanc petram aedificabo ecclesiam meam” (Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church). Why this powerful and useful line has been excised from C has baffled countless readers. B.15.213 he: I.e., Charity. lolleris: See the headnote to passus 5. B.15.215 and in fautores suos: “And on their patrons,” i.e., the lax bishops who let the system flourish, “the cause of al this caytiftee” 9.256. See also Alford, Gloss., s.v. fautor. The pun faitour/fautor is an instance of what Schmidt calls “translinguistic paronomasia” (1987:89), though he does not discuss it. (Huppe´ 1950 does not discuss bilingual puns, but offers among his many examples puns between English and Latin and English and French, and even between Latin and French.) Here the pun brilliantly encapsulates the major point of the long passage in C.9: that it is bishops who don’t do their job who allow phony beggars to flourish. On “faitour,” see Prol.41–46n and 22.5 (B.20.5)n.

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“Faitour” and its derivatives, “faiterie” and the verb “to faiten,” occur six times in A, twelve in B, and fifteen in C, as if L grew more and more incensed by the phenomenon; he always employs all three forms with strong contempt—a contempt that gives special poignancy to Nede’s calling Will himself “faitour” at 22.5 (B.20.5). And yet surely he was aware that its Latin original factor just means “maker.” Faitours present a made-up identity to the world, violating truth and preying on faith, thus setting themselves against the poem’s deepest values; and yet what they do is so close to what L and Will do when they “make” as perhaps to explain the strength of the contempt. 342a Operibus credite: “Believe the works,” John 10:38, Jesus to the Jews who are about to stone him for speaking blasphemy: if you don’t believe what I say, look at what I do. Again L uses the clause without reference to its context: if you want to know if people are charitable, look at what they do. See above, 221–23 (B.15.59–61), 264 (B.15.110), and James 2:14–26, cited by Holy Church at 1.181–83a (B.1.185–87a, A.1.159–61). B.15.216 goddes champion: Perhaps a translation of athleta Dei (Christi, Domini), a phrase used several times by Augustine, Ambrose, and Jerome, probably with reference to 1 Cor 9:24–25 and 2 Tim 2:5, 4:7, and often used later in saints’ lives. See B.8.45 (A.9.41), B.15.275; also 16.290–97n above. 343 (B.15.217) He is ∂e murieste of mouthe: Charity is like the chirpy Patience at Conscience’s dinner, 15.64 (B.13.60), making “mer3e with his mete”; his extravagantly phrased, riddling after-dinner speech, 15.152–69 (B.13.136–71a) is likewise merry; and Peace is gaily clothed and merry as she anticipates the Harrowing in passus 20.175–92 (B.18.172–87). See Thomas of Celano on St Francis’s joyfulness, Second Life, chapters 88–91 (Habig 1983:465–68). Many of the saints in The Golden Legend are merry-mouthed; we don’t see them at mete, however, but rather uttering brazen cheerful mots in the face of torture or temptation. 344a (B.15.219a) Nolite fieri sicut ypocrite tristes: “(When you fast), be not as the hypocrites, sad,” Matt 6:16.

Charity’s many guises (345–74a, B.15.220–68) 345–69 Ych haue ysey hym . . . ofte (B.15.220–50) For I haue seyen hym . . . charite to folwe: This survey of the variety of occupations in which Charity has been found—a kind of estates list like that in the Prologue, focusing now

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on generosity instead of greed (though inevitably the satiric voice creeps in)—is a pretty good summary of the range of saints treated in The Golden Legend. 345–46 (B.15.220–21) russet, gray, grys, gult harneys: Russet and gray are ordinary inexpensive clothing; cf. “a goune of a gray russet” just above (300; B.15.167). Grys is grey fur. Close to forty of the saints in The Golden Legend are rich, though many sooner or later choose poverty; see B.14.155–56n. St Elizabeth of Hungary is specifically said to have dressed poorly in gray (uestes . . . griseas humiles et abiectas), trans. Ryan 2.309, ed. Maggioni 2007, 2.1306. The gult harneys is almost certainly a reference to St Edward, whose wife Edith, we are told by his hagiographer, made sure to outfit him in splendor: “Sella et phalera eius bestiolis et auiculis auro paratis, ipsa fabrile opus dictante, appendebantur” (His saddle and horse-trappings were hung with little beasts and birds made from gold by smiths under her direction). (Life, ed. and trans. Barlow 1992:24–25). Harneys translates phalera, gult auro paratis. 347 (B.15.222) hit: i.e., apparently, the clothing: russet, gray, or gris. The Golden Legend gives numerous instances of saints who spontaneously part with their clothing for the poor. St Edmund, mentioned in the next line, gave the ring from his finger to a pilgrim who asked for alms (trans. Ryan 1993:1.55, in the life of St John the Evangelist). 348–49 (B.15.223–24) Edmond and Edward . . . chaste all here lyue: St Edmund (c. 840–870) was king of East Anglia, martyred by Vikings. Abbo of Fleury, at the end of his Passio sancti Eadmundi (ed. M. Winterbottom 1972:67–87), stresses Edmund’s virginity (86–87); earlier he has praised his charity (70–71). St Edward the Confessor (1003–66) was king of England from 1042 until his death. On his charity, see Life, ed. Barlow 1992:65, 93–103; on the chasteness of his marriage to Edith: 93, 92 n230, 50 n119. 350–54 (B.15.225–29) Ich haue yseye charite also . . . yshaue: The secular clergy. The first sentence refers to poor parish priests, who sing Mass and intone psalms (cf. 13.126 (B.11.314), and go about their parishes; ryden may seem odd, since Chaucer’s parson goes on foot, but the point is perhaps motion as opposed to the stability that should be the mark of monks (5.146–62; B.10.298–316, A.11.202–18), whom L criticizes for riding (5.157, 159) and running (4.116, B.12.35, A.10.110, A.11.202) or both (B.10.311, A.11.211). The second sentence apparently refers to bishops, who wear a cap or calle, and lace-fringed vestments (see OED, s.v. cremil; Kane, Glossary “of hair: curled,”

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evidently hair protruding from the cap below the tonsured crown, seems untenable since the point of the tonsure was to be as un-ornamented as possible; see Jacobus, trans. Ryan 1993:1.165). That the sentence refers to bishops and not abbots is strongly suggested both by the antithesis to raggede clothes, the whole passage distinguishing two levels of the secular clergy, and by his croune yshaue, since L consistently associates the tonsure with the secular clergy (see Prol.86 [B.Prol.88], 5.56–65, 13.113, B.11.299–302). The assertion that charity walks among bishops rathest (soonest) is probably best explained by the notion of the patrimony of Christ and bishops’ duty to distribute it to the poor: see below, 366–67 (B.15.244–50)n, B.15.244–50n, 17.69n, and Tierney 1959:66–71; they are “charged with holy chirche charite to tylie,” Prol.87. The Golden Legend offers plenty of examples of bishops who care for the poor, among them Thomas Becket, C.17.274–77 (B.15.523–27). Pearsall reads in raggede clothes differently, as “a perhaps significant echo of 11.193” (where the phrase is used of Recklessness). 352 (B.15.227) biddyng . . . neuere: In B this line continues the scorn of faitours (215) expressed at 201–15. Unless it refers only to faitours, it seems to contradict B.11.246–47. In C it has a different valence, seeming to put down Will’s notion (338) that to be with Charity might involve begging. The subject isn’t finished, especially in C; see 372n. 355–57 (B.15. 230–32) And in a frere frokke . . . knowen: These lines complement the line, “Ac sith charite hath be Chapman and chief to shryue lordes” Prol.62 (A.Prol.61, B.Prol.64). In the C version, the following line but one “But holy chirche and hij holde bettre togidres” (B.Prol.66, A.Prol.63) is changed to “But holi chirche and charite choppe adoun suche shryuars”; and this use of “charite” to mean the secular clergy, especially the bishops, is likewise complemented, and clarified, by the present passage, in particular lines 350–54. See also 19.276, “Charite 3at holy churche is,” changing B.17.295, “holy chirche and charite.” See note there. 358–59a Ryche men . . . diues sine macula (B.15.233–34a Riche men . . . diues qui &c): Yet again the notion that one should only take alms from good people: see B.15.84–85n. Recomendeth: commends, praises. Since gifts of clothing by the rich usually took the form of livery (robes), and so advertised openly a social connection, it would make sense to accept them only from the upright; see Crawford 2004. Beatus est diues sine macula: Cf. Ecclus 31:8, “Beatus dives qui inventus est sine macula” (Blessed is the rich man that is found without blemish). Since the next verse (Ecclus 31:9) is “Quis est hic? et laudabimus

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C Passus 16; B Passu¯s 14–15

eum,” 15.279 (B.14.104), it becomes clear that 15.278 (B.14.103), “rihtful rychesse and resonablyche to spene” is a free translation of “diues sine macula.” 360–65 (B.15.235–40) kynges Court . . . suluer: All six lines are about lawe (365; B.15.240). Kynges court: Not the king’s salon but a royal court of justice; Alford, Gloss.: “Kinges court.” In the trial of Meed in passus 4, the king takes Conscience and Reason “to consayl” 4.166; Love bears witness against her (4.156; B.4.161, A.4.137), and will play a major role in the new political economy (4.145, 191; B.4.148, A.4.131). Consaile 360, 361 (B.15.235–36): the judges in the royal courts; Alford, Gloss., “King and his Counseil.” 362 Amongus ∂e comune in Court (B.15.237 In court amonges ∂e commune): among freemen meeting in county court; Alford, Gloss., “Comune.” Note that for ∂e commune all B mss. have “Iaperis,” which KD-B treat as a “deliberate scribal alteration through misconception of the kind of court in question” (94). 364 In constorie bifore ∂e commissarie: In a bishop’s court before the bishop’s officer; Alford, Gloss., “Consistorie, Commissarie.” 360, 361 his: I.e., the king’s. B.15.241–43 And matrimoyne . . . doctours of lawe: Marriage cases were also heard in the bishop’s courts. See Helmholz, 1974:74–111, Alford, Gloss., “Divorce.” ∂at . . . crist ha∂ yknyt faste alludes to Matt 19:6 (Mark 10:9), “What therefore God hath joined together let not man put asunder.” Conscience is clearly the consciences of the contracting parties. The three lines are dropped in C, presumably because the sentence has moved too far from its essential statement, a cometh nat ful ofte 364 (B.15.239). 366–67 bisshopes . . . withoute ∂e gate (B.15.244–50 Amonges erchebisshopes . . . charite to folwe): The passage in B seems to draw on Peter the Chanter (ed. Boutry 2004), 1.41 (p. 269): if Judas deserved hanging for a onetime theft from the purse that contained funds for the poor, “quanto magis furtum et sacrilegium committit prelatus qui scienter patrimonium Crucifixi pauperibus erogandum non dico ad horam dat carni et sanguini, sed officium dispensandi res pauperum nepoti vel fratri, scilicet pravo et indigno dispensatori, in omni vita sua committit, non ut in usus pauperum patrimonium Christi dispenset, sed in ambicione vanitatum et seculi luxus et ut lautius inde vivat et in propribus usibus plura expendat? Sicque fraudamus et spoliamus pauperes, immo Christum, rebus et bonis suis” (How much more does a bishop commit theft and sacrilege who knowingly gives the patrimony of the Crucified One, which belongs to the poor, not on the spur of the moment to

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his family, but through all his life entrusts the duty of spending the fund for the poor to his nephew or his brother, that is, to a wicked and unworthy spender—and not so that he can spend Christ’s patrimony for the needs of the poor, but rather on his own ambition for vanities and worldly pleasure, and so that on it he can live more sumptuously and spend more for his own purposes? Thus we defraud and despoil the poor, who are Christ, of their own goods and money). For cristes patrymonye B.15.246, see further 17.69n, B.15.343an. Augustine, Sermon 355 (PL 39.1572): “Non est enim episcopi servare aurum, et revocare a se mendicantis manum” (It is not a bishop’s part to hold on to his money, and turn away a beggar with his hand out). C reduces the charge to its pith, but with a glance at the Dives and Lazarus story, Luke 16:20–21: Lazarus “lay at his gate . . . desiring to be filled with the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table.” L’s original picture of bishops ignoring the beggars at their gates is at B.9.82–94. In contrast to episcopal coldness there and here, we also have Hunger using Luke’s story to urge Piers to be charitable to “alle 3at greden at thy gate for godes loue aftur fode” (8.283), and Conscience inviting the poor beggar Patience to come in from the “Paleis” to dinner (B.13.29–32, cf. C.15.32–36). B.15.247 auarice ha∂ ∂e keyes now: L regularly imagines Christ’s treasures as locked up, with the clergy holding the keys; see B.10.480, 14.54–55 (B.12.109– 10); 1.192 (B.1.197, A.1.171). B.15.249 Ac I ne lakke no lif, but lord amende vs alle: cf. C.15.78–79. In both cases the lacking stays put, in front of the apology. Here Anima appears to suddenly realize that maybe it’s uncharitable to rip into bishops so for lacking charity. May God make them charitable—and me too! On “lakkyng” in general in the poem, see Lawler 1996:163–64. 368–69 Kynges and Cardynals knowen hym sum tyme . . . ycongeyed is he ofte: Edmund and Edward (348 above) are perhaps still in L’s mind, and maybe Alfred the Great and St Edwin; also Constantine and Queen Elizabeth of Hungary, both treated in The Golden Legend, St Stephen of Hungary, and St Louis of France. As for Cardinals, Jerome, Peter Damian, and Bonaventure seem possible candidates, and perhaps the Englishmen Nicholas Breakspear (who became Pope Adrian IV), Stephen Langton, and Robert Kilwardby, though none of these three are canonized saints. But the emphasis of the couplet falls not so much on saintly kings and cardinals as on the venal counselors who undermine them.

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C Passus 16; B Passu¯s 14–15

370 hoso coueyteth to knowe hym such a kynde hym foloweth (B.15.251 whoso my√te meete wi∂ hym swiche maneres hym eile∂): The B sentence means, “If you want to recognize him these are his traits.” Eile∂ is ironic, however, as Kane, Glossary points out: its literal meaning is “afflict.” The C sentence means, “If you want to recognize him, the key is his trust in God”; see the next note. 371 a litel tyme ypassed: i.e., in lines 319–21; the “frende” who “fynt hym” there is the “kind who follows him” here, i.e., God the open-handed, God the willing: the essential thing to know about him is his trust in God. No other passage would account for “For” at the start of the next line. God is named in 374, and 374a alludes to 321. Recognizing that B.15.252–55 add nothing new to the earlier account of Charity (see next note), L dropped the lines in C for this somewhat coy cross-reference. B.15.252–55 Nei∂er he blame∂ . . . passion: Almost everything here has been said already in both versions, though there are some new lines in C. Not blaming, appraising (critically), banning (cursing), looking stern: 290, 306–10, B.15.169–74, 204; not boasting 291a (B.15.156a); not craving, coveting, crying after more 293–94 (B.15.159–60), 299 (B.15.165–66, B.15.175), 314–15; sustenance 318–21 (B.15.177–80). Not praising does seem new, though the point seems to be not passing judgment, whether of praise or blame, and Charity’s acceptance of others as they are has been amply shown. B.15.254a In pace in idipsum dormiam &c: “In peace, in the self same, I will sleep,” Ps 4:9, also quoted at 20.191–92 (B.18.186–87). As the Gloss (PL 114.759– 60) makes clear, “the self same” is “the light of thy countenance,” verse 7; the psalmist finds rest there, as against the vain who complain “Who sheweth us good things?” (6) even as their corn, wine, and oil are multiplied (8). Charity likewise ne crie∂ after moore. 372–74a (B.15.256) no∂er he beggeth . . . cotidianum &c: Line 372 (B.15.256) simply says, “He neither begs nor borrows.” Beggeth and biddeth are synonyms, and borweth to √elde means “borrows with the intention of repaying,” i.e., “borrows.” Line 374 in C reduces the phrase to its core. The issue finally is not so much not begging in the street as “not being solicitous” in the Gospel sense, not paying any attention to how one will live, which is arrived at in both versions by introducing the desert fathers and the apostles (17.6–34, B.15.269–307), at which point it modulates into the issue of taking alms from “luyther wynnynges.” But in the C version there is first some bickering about

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begging between Will and Liberum arbitrium (17.1–5a) in which both seem right. Panem nostram cotidianum &c: [Give us this day] our daily bread, etc. Luke 11:3, part of the Lord’s Prayer, glanced at in line 321, and an instance of begging from God. Ending the passus here gives the Charity passage a climactic place in C that it does not have in B.

C Passus 17; B Passus 15

Headnote C.17 is the passus of Holy Church and charity. Its conceptual center is lines 125–49, wholly new in the C revision, in which Liberum arbitrium defines Holy Church, in response to Will’s question, as “Charite . . . /Lief in loue and leutee in o byleue and lawe,/A loueknotte of leutee and of lele byleue.” That is, love under law, “lele love.” But since one definition of both Holy Church and charity is the secular clergy (Lawler 2002:94–97), the passus has at its heart also the vision of the bonus pastor, and, finally, the vision as well of what the good pastor should bring about: a (future) world at peace, and one in which Christendom has been extended to embrace Jews and Saracens. The same concerns are present in the B version, but they lack the clear focus provided in C by the new passage. That vision of a perfect future is placed in the context of both past and present, and the focus moves back and forth among all three times. The past is treated nostalgically as a golden and heroic age when good pastors labored successfully: Jesus himself, whose redemptive suffering is the core fact (262–69, B.15.511–18; 298–306, B.15.587–98), Tobias (37–43), heroic missionaries and martyrs and good bishops from the apostles through St Lawrence to Thomas of Canterbury (17–20, B.15.290–93; 65–68; 194–99, B.15.533–37; 270–76, B.15.519–26; 281–82, B.15.531–32); when holy men and women cared nothing for their sustenance (6–31, B.15.269–304), when “the land was true” (103, B.15.366), when “reason and rightful doom” damned the venal Templars (210–13; B.15.547–50). This heroic age corresponds roughly, perhaps, to the time in passus 21 (B.19) when the gifts of grace, poured out on Piers (21.225– 335, B.19.225–335), were fresh, not yet confronted by the onset of Pride and his host; see Cornelius 2015:11: “The missionary work of Grace and Piers . . . is the primitive ideal whose restoration Anima had urged late in B XV.” The present is debased, sterile, and disordered, thanks to the ignorance, greed, and cowardice of the clergy (32–61, B.15.305–43; 69–124, B.15.347–92; 200–7, B.15.538–45; 277–80, B.15.527–30; cf. also B.15.326–46, 412–16, 429–37, 487–90) abetted by the donation of Constantine (220–32, B.15.557–67); and

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marked by war, not peace, above all because of the “misbelief” of Saracens, brought about by the bad pastor Mohammed (150–82, B.15.393–411; 239–42; 255–61, B.15.504–10) and of Jews, who rejected the saving mercy of Jesus (295– 314, B.15.582–604); this misbelief persists because bishops will not risk their lives to go among them (though Jesus gave his life). This age too will have its counterpart, in the siege of Unity in the final passus. The future that Liberum arbitrium imagines and prays for (though, perhaps, hardly expects)—and that Conscience prophesied in passus 3 and sets out at the very end of the poem to seek—is a new golden age of “perpetual peace” (94, 248) and justice, when religious will refuse “lither winnings,” which will cause grace to grow (32–53, cf. B.15.305–12); when people will give to their kin and to the poor, instead of to religious orders already “founded to the full” (54–68, cf. B.15.313–25); when zealous prelates will both tend to their people, “enchanting them to charity” (283–94, B.15.560–81) and preach the Gospel to all the world (183–94, B.15.491–500); when for their greed clerics “shall overturn as Templars did” and lose the lordship of lands forever (this is not just imagined but prophesied, and “the time approaches fast”: 208–232, B.15.546–67); and when such perfection in the priesthood, from the pope on down, will make preaching so energetic and effective as to bring “all lands into love,” and the Saracens and Jews will be converted (233–54, cf. B.15.568–69, 501–3; 315–21; 605–12). [The B version has some additional material on the value of clerical prayer (424–28; see also 325, 346) and on the duties of clerics to live well and teach well (452–85).] The most obvious change in the C version is the three interventions by Will, an assertion and two questions. Of these, the first (1–3), the assertion, repeating the gist of 16.288–94 (cf. B.15.152–60), that everyone at some time asks after his and at other times feels righteous anger, makes the passus break work easily, and the third (150), the question whether Saracens see what charity is, effects a transition back to the matter of B. The second, however, (“What is holy church?” 125), introduces the major change, the introduction of the definition of Holy Church in terms of love and law (126–49). This passage above all makes clear the subject of the passus, imposing order on the somewhat random materials of B.15. It is backed up by a series of rearrangements, omissions, and additions that give the C passus a much clearer organization than its predecessor. B.15.417–28 return to the subject of the sustenance of the clergy, already treated in 305–312; by moving these lines to C.17.48 (and shortening them), L managed to treat the subject only once in C. He then dropped completely the passage that surrounds it, 412–16 and 429–90, a somewhat unfocused general criticism of the secular clergy. The result is that the treatment of how Mohammed led the Saracens into misbelief (17.151–82, B.15.393–

200

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411) is followed directly by the lines calling for their conversion (17.183–93, B.15.491–500); 17.183–86 is a clarifying transition, written anew for C. A series of further rearrangements (17.194–232 are B.15.533–67, 233–49 are new, 250–51 are B.15.568–69, 252–82 are B.15.501–32) is somewhat less significant, but has the general effect of sharpening the contrast between the present and both the idealized past and the visionary future. A good example of the sharper focus achieved in C is the passage right after these, 283–92 (B.15.570–78). The B lines say that bishops should teach their flock and feed the poor, and quotes Isaiah and Hosea on feeding; in C all the material on feeding disappears: the concentration is solely on teaching, on spiritual guidance. This goes with a similar dropping of a passage on feeding the poor in B.15.326–46; it seems evident that once he wrote the passage on the Church, with its emphasis on law, and contrasted it to the lawlessness of the Saracens, L had a focus with which to treat the clergy, and stuck to it. In presenting the heroic past, L drew heavily on The Golden Legend, as he did in the previous passus for his account of charity. It is referred to as “holy writ” in line 6 (and named, legenda sanctorum, in the corresponding B line, 15.269), and again as “holy lore” in line 65; it is named again in line 157 when L is drawing on it for his presentation of Mohammed and the Saracens. All the saints named in the opening passage—desert fathers, apostles, Mary Magdalene—appear in it, as do most of the facts stated about them. The passage on St Lawrence, added in C.17.65–68, is drawn from it, as are the passage on St Thomas Becket and the several general accounts of the missionary work of the apostles—194–99 and 281–82 (in B.15 a single passage, 531–38), 270–73 (B.15.519–22), B.15.438–39. Morton Bloomfield famously said that PP is “like reading a commentary on an unknown text” (1962:32). In my opinion, we know what text: it is the Bible, especially the Gospels and the psalms. But The Golden Legend is a candidate, too, if a significantly slighter one. Clearly L thought of it as presenting vigorous pictures of the life of the Church, of charity in action; and 6.31 (B.5.416), in which Sloth appears as a parish priest who cannot read saints’ lives, suggests that it has a particular relevance for that group. Thus it was natural for him to turn to it to present the model from which the current clergy veers (though he never descends into the shallow pietism that too often marks Jacobus’s writing). B.15.412–23, canceled in the course of the rearrangement in C, present a key idea: that contemporary priests are like Mohammed, the bad priest, rather than like Anthony, Francis, Dominic, Benedict, and Bernard (all treated in The Golden Legend), who were themselves like the apostles. That passage suggests that L regarded The Golden Legend as presenting the latter-day saints as in the apostolic line; the lives of the apostles and evangelists scattered throughout it are,

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as it were, its deepest stratum, and all the other lives are modeled on them, at least implicitly. His heroic vision for bishops, his call to them to act boldly to convert the heathen and to be ready to “die for their dear children” (cf. 17.291) comes explicitly from the portrait of St Thomas Becket, but implicitly from the many portraits of heroic bishops—Nicholas, Ignatius, Hilary, Basil, and so on—scattered through the book. It was a time for golden-age thinking, of course: Chaucer revived Boethius’s nostalgia, Wyclif constantly berated the Donation of Constantine and wrote De statu innocentiae, the Lollards put forth their Twelve Conclusions. Admiration for the apostolic Church was everywhere: Leff 1967b shows that it marks the thought of writers from Marsilius of Padua to Joachim of Fiore to the Franciscan Spirituals to Dante to Ockham. But in placing value on the whole history of sainthood rather than simply longing for the simplicity of the early Church, L differs not just from Wyclif and the Lollards (see the first of the “Twelve Conclusions”), and perhaps also from the reformers of the twelfth century, whose “acute sensitivity to the appearance and to the forms of the primitive church” (Chenu 1968:239) found its climax at the beginning of the next century in St Francis’s Gospel literalism, but from a dominant line of thought in the next two centuries as well. The call to bishops to convert the heathen also recalls Jacobus’s strong interest in conversion. L sends his heart out to Jews and Muslims, but the idea is always to convert them, not that they can be saved by adherence to their own law. The ideas on universal salvation of the good, expressed so powerfully by Ymaginatif at the end of passus 14 (B.12), and again in Jesus’s speech at the Harrowing in passus 20 (B.18)—see Barney’s note to 20.414 (B.18.372) “alle mennes soules”—are in abeyance, giving way, especially in the C version, to the orthodox insistence on conversion: see Narin van Court 1996:47, 50 and Akbari 2014:168–71 (though Akbari goes on to argue that the story of Trajan’s salvation destabilizes this orthodoxy by implying that “God’s omnipotence is not circumscribed” [171]). For a different view, ignoring Jacobus, see Scase 1989:88–96. She shows that polemical writers on all sides in the controversy over clerical dominion regularly invoked all the figures L invokes: the apostles, the desert fathers, and the founders of various orders, and she regards L as drawing on these writings, bypassing their partisanship to call for a return ad pristinum statum (see B.10.325) on the part of all clergy: endowed orders, mendicants, and the seculars. And well he might have—but since he himself cites it so often, and demonstrably draws on it in other places, The Golden Legend was clearly a major source for him as well.

202

C Passus 17; B Passus 15

Many C mss. mark this passus as the first of Dobet; see the headnote to passus 18 below. A major editorial issue comes up late in passus B.15, where lines 504–32 are moved by KD from their position in the manuscripts. I have made an argument for restoring the manuscript order: see B.15.504–32n.

The saints did not beg (1–40a, B.15.269–306) 1–3 There is no such . . . synne: C starts a new passus, and introduces an objection by Will. The rubric in Schmidt’s C-version group x (here 12 mss.) declares this the first passus of Dobet; see B.15.1–2n. B continues passus 15, and Patience’s speech. Will’s objection in the C version is his last in the vision; though he began the vision at the banquet as peevish as ever, he has perhaps, being so long in Patience’s company, at last learned patience. His speech for the remainder of the vision consists of brief modest questions and sensible requests. His objection (everybody begs sometimes, and at other times is righteously angry), since it confronts together the ideas “not borrowing” and “not getting angry,” must originally have been inserted at B.15.268, since B.15.256 treats the first idea, and 257–68 the second. But then 257–68 were shortened and moved back to become C.16.326–29, with the result that Will’s second point, that sometimes one can be angry without sinning, is quite distant from both his original assertion of it, against St Paul, at 16.290 and what it refers to in Liberum arbitrium’s speech—the statements in 16.311–15 that charity cheerfully accepts sickness, unpaid loans, and other “meschiefs,” and in 16.326–29 that Christ’s suffering is an example to us to suffer patiently (rather than get angry). Will’s first point, that everyone borrows or begs, is an immediate reply to Liberum arbitrium’s last statement, 16.372–74a, though far from Will’s original assertion of it at 16.293. It apparently just means that no one is utterly self-sufficient, and appears to be simple common sense; but the second alludes to Ps 4:5, “Be ye angry, and sin not.” Psalm 4 and the several psalms surrounding it, which encourage the vexed to turn patiently to God for justification, are a major expression of the idea that charity suffers all. Ps 4:5 in context means, “Though the injustices you suffer rightly anger you, be patient, turn to God for help”; in verse 9, quoted at B.15.254a, the psalmist accedes to that advice. But Will quotes it out of context. As Pearsall points out ad loc., placing Will’s objection at the start of a new passus enables L to “emphasize [a] significant [stage] in the argument. . . . Here the dreamer’s question [sic] prompts a full and comprehensive discussion by Free Will of the relation of Charity and Holy Church.” See the headnote above.

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4–5a Ho is wroeth . . . suffert: Liberum arbitrium, clearly more interested in Will’s first point, takes up his second briefly before turning to the first in line 6: “Holy writ proves (and the Church seconds) that one who is angry and wants to be avenged transgresses against (MED, s.v. passen, v. 10 [c]) Charity the Chief, since ‘Charity suffers everything.’ ” That is, if you are so angry that you want vengeance, then you certainly do sin; he finesses the issue of righteous anger. The Latin sentence is 1 Cor 13:7; it continues the quotation of this famous passage begun above at 16.291a and 296a—as does the phrase cheef charite (repeated from 16.349), whose basis is 1 Cor 13:13, “the greatest of these is charity.” Cf. Caritas expellit omnem timorem 15.164a (Caritas nichil timet, B.13.163a) and note there. B.15.256–68 Nei∂er he bidde∂ . . . ensamples manye: These lines are replaced in C by Will’s objection, C.17.1–5a. Their essential idea, that like Charity we should follow Christ’s example by suffering patiently and not seeking vengeance, has been transferred in C to 16.326–29, where it is made into Charity’s message to prisoners. It is one of the poem’s foundational ideas, first uttered to Will by Holy Church at 1.163–70 (B.1.167–74, A.1.141–48), shortly before she also speaks of charity, and repeated (with the speaker uncertain in both versions) at 12.109–31 (B.11.201–42); in that passage the speaker moves from Christ to saints (12.132–44, B.11.243–58), just as Liberum arbitrium does here. 257 Misdoo∂ . . . greue∂: This line more or less repeats B.15.171–74. 259 haue: The understood subject is “Christian men.” 262–64 oure fadres wille . . . doon on roode: Cf. Matt 26:53–54, Jesus to the disciple who cut off the ear of the servant of the high priest, “Thinkest thou that I cannot ask my Father, and he will give me presently more than twelve legions of angels? How then shall the scriptures be fulfilled that so it must be done?” 265 Ne han martired Peter ne Poul, ne in prison holden: The subject is presumably the Jews only, not Judas. Peter is imprisoned by Herod, “seeing that it pleased the Jews,” at Acts 12:3–4, Paul by Roman authorities at the insistence of the Jews, Acts 21–24. Their martyrdoms (on the same day in Rome, by Nero not the Jews, Peter crucified upside down, Paul beheaded) are legendary; Jacobus recounts both in his life of Peter (trans. Ryan 1:345–50) and Paul’s again in his life of Paul (ibid. 1:352– 55). 266–68 Ac he suffrede in ensample . . . ensamples manye: On Matt 26:53–54, Rabanus comments, “It behoved also that the Author of grace should teach the faithful patience by his own example, and should rather train them to endure adversity with fortitude, than incite them to self-defence” (Aquinas, Catena aurea [1997] 1:919. 268 Pacientes Vincunt verbi gracia: “Those who suffer conquer by the grace of the Word,” that is, thanks to the grace engendered by Christ’s suffering, our suffering in imitation of him is redemptive—a

204

C Passus 17; B Passus 15

refinement of the pardon, in which to suffer is to do well; see Lawler 2000:121, 125, 142–46. The emendation verred (“cited”; from ms. F) in the following phrase is unnecessary (and an odd idea, Christ citing examples to prove his point). Better to take the majority reading and verray ensamples manye as part of the Latin sentence: “Those who suffer conquer by the grace of God and many true examples,” an acknowledgement that the example of the saints (about to be treated) is also salvific. Cannon’s argument in YLS 22:23–24, reasserted in slightly different terms in his book 2016:157, that dividing the lines after Vincunt, as a number of mss. do and Schmidt prints, follows “schoolroom practices” is not persuasive. Rather, his own argument that Langland treats Latin phrases “syntactically” (24, and see 2016:150, 155–58) “as if they were perfectly comprehensible English” (23) is precisely what makes it possible to see that the English phrase simply completes the Latin sentence—and punning on “verbi gracia” would seem to be good schoolroom practice as well. The phrase Pacientes vincunt has also appeared at 15.137, 156, 253 and B.13.135, 171, B.14.33, 54, and will appear once more at B.15.598. See the note to 15.137, 156a (B.13.135a, 171a) and the separate note to B.13.135a. 6–36 Holy writ witnesseth ∂er were suche eremytes . . . all here lyf tyme (B.15.269–308 Lo! in legenda sanctorum . . . liflode brynge): The desert fathers have appeared in the begging passage in C.9.195–202, where various ways they obtained liflode without begging, not just getting fed by birds, are listed. Though all the saints mentioned here are treated in The Golden Legend (legenda sanctorum B.15.269, Holy writ 6; see next note), the insistence that they did not beg is L’s, not Jacobus’s; it may get an assist from antifraternal satire. The purpose of the passage is to move toward criticism of the system whereby monks and friars are supported by the superfluous wealth of the rich, “luyther wynnynges” gained by exploiting the poor—to move, that is, from the idealized picture of Charity to a satiric picture of the contemporary system of “giving to charity,” for which see Lawler 2006. This is achieved by equating the rich with wild beasts, and plain honest men and women (“trewe man” 33, “rightfulle men” B.15.307) with birds, and insisting on the significance of the fact that the desert fathers were fed by birds, not beasts. In C the context of the passage is Will’s assertion that everybody begs sometime; Liberum arbitrium replies, “No: we have the hermits, who were fed by birds; the apostles, who worked for a living; Mary Magdalene, who lived on dew; and Mary of Egypt, who made three loaves last thirty years.” The whole emphasis is on not begging, although in the end Liberum arbitrium makes the distinction between being fed by birds and being fed by beasts. In B the context is the

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perfect patience of Jesus, who “suffrede in ensample 3at we sholde suffren also” (266). So too the hermits, Anima says: they suffered “alle manere angres”—and yet they took their food not from animals but from birds. And the apostles worked, and Mary ate dew, and the beasts fell at their feet, and would have fed them, but, no, God sent them food by birds, not beasts. The transition in B is strained, and the emphasis on birds over beasts is too marked. In the C version, L moves toward his subject with less strain by emphasizing sustenance, not suffering, from the beginning, and by lessening the insistence on birds as preferable to beasts—although when that distinction finally comes, at line 32, there is still a sense of surprise. The desert fathers were favorites of reformist writers. See Constable 1982:56–65 (on monastic reformers) and Kerby-Fulton 1990:20; the latter goes on (21) to point out that the desert fathers are among the many representatives in the poem of “the extremes of apostolic perfection.” For the large context, see Williams 1962, chapter 2. Of course nothing said or implied here on the order of “Don’t be solicitous; God will provide” undermines the emphasis on working for one’s living in the earlier passu¯s of the poem; indeed, there is as much emphasis here on basket-making, fishing, and so on as there is on being brought food by birds and beasts. 6–12 Holy writ witnesseth ∂er were suche eremytes . . . o∂er fol monye (B.15.268–85 Lo! in legenda sanctorum . . . god fond hem bo∂e): In turning the passage into an answer to Will’s assertion that there is no one who does not beg, C clarifies the emphasis, reducing B’s eighteen lines to seven, dropping the otiose idea “they didn’t take food from predatory quadrupeds,” and, by separating Anthony from Giles, removing B’s implicit suggestion that Giles was one of the desert fathers. Replacing legenda sanctorum with Holy writ also allows a reader to envision a broader array of sources, particularly the Vitae patrum and Jerome’s life of St Paul the Hermit; see notes below. 6 Holy writ: Possibly, as in line 4, the bible, which has its hermits in Elijah (fed by ravens; see below, 11–12n), Elisha, and John the Baptist, as well as those mentioned in Heb 11:37–38 (cf. B.15.275 spekes and spelonkes to Heb 11:38 speluncis et in cavernis terrae); see John Cassian, De coenobiorum institutis, 1.2 (PL 49.60–64); but the phrase probably means the Legenda aurea, in view of B.15.269 in legenda sanctorum and the clause beginning Excepte ∂at Egide 9; there would then be a conscious expansion of the meaning of the phrase between lines 4 and 6. For other examples of the meaning “any Christian writing,” see MED, s.v. Holi Writ n. (b), and A.10.94, “And so witnesse3 goddis worde and holiwrit bo3e,” followed by a quotation from Gratian, and C.16.242,

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C Passus 17; B Passus 15

where the phrase clearly means (Pseudo-) Chrysostom; see further 20.432–36 (B.18.390–93)n. The phrase Holy writ witnesseth replaces ∂us fynde∂ men in bokes B.15.278 (where again the “books” are primarily the Legenda aurea). B.15.275 spekes: From Latin specus, cave, as an English word occurring only here and perhaps coined by L; spelonkes, from Latin spelunca, also meaning cave, occurs in a few other places. Both Latin words occur in the Vitae patrum, spelunca more commonly. 6 ∂er were suche eremytes: To be read with stress on were, an alliterating stave, in answer to Will’s There is no such, line 1. 8 bote of god one: by saying the Lord’s Prayer; see 16.374. This phrase is almost the equivalent of B.15.278 But of foweles ∂at flee∂, since clearly birds are from God, or at least to rely on being fed by them is to be utterly reliant on God’s grace. The “exception” of St Giles’s case, clear in B, is obscured in C by the editorial punctuation: Excepte should start a new sentence, and there should be a comma after mylked 10: Exceptionally, a hind fed Giles; otherwise birds fed them. This “exception” aside, the whole passage relies on the idea, expressed by Bartholomaeus Anglicus, that since they inhabit the most ethereal of the elements, “among o3ir kynde of beestis generalliche foules ben more pure and li3t and noble of substaunce”; they are themselves fed by God, Bartholomaeus says, and the word ales (bird) comes from “alendo ‘fedinge,’ for he is ifedde of hym 3at fedi3 briddes and foules of heuene and 9eue3 mete to al fleisch,” (Bartholomaeus, trans. Trevisa 601/37–602/2, 596/25–27; cf. Matt 6:25–26). Rabanus Maurus, commenting on God’s provision of quails to the Israelites in the desert, Num 11:31–32, says (Enarrationes in librum Numerorum, PL 108.661), “qui volucrum esum percipiunt, ab imis ad superna cor levare admonentur, ut . . . animo semper ad coelestia appetant, secundum illud Apostoli, quod dicit: ‘In carne autem ambulantes, non secundum carnem militantes. Nostra autem conversatio in coelis est’ ” (Those who eat the meat of birds are reminded to raise their hearts from things below to things above, so that they may always turn their minds to heaven, for St Paul says, “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh,” “But our conversation is in heaven” [2 Cor 10:3, Phil 3:20]). Cf. 15.241 (B.14.43)n. 9–10 Excepte ∂at Egide . . . mylked (B.15.279–82 Except ∂at Egidie . . . teche∂): Aegidius (Giles) was not a desert father, but flourished, as Jacobus (trans. Ryan 2.149, ∂e book B.15.282) says, around the year 700, and in France, to which he sailed from his native Athens. The doe came to him “certis horis”

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(ed. Maggioni, 2007, 2.986) which seems to be the basis both of C’s plain o∂erwhile . . . selde (9–10) and B’s day bi day . . . no√t . . . But selden and sondry tymes (281–82). As mentioned above, this clause goes better with what follows than what precedes: line 8 should end in a period, line 10 in a comma. The argument goes: the hermits didn’t beg, but got their food from God (6–8). (And furthermore), other than Giles who was fed by a deer, birds fed them (9–11). 11–12 (cf. B.15.276–78, 283–85) Elles foules fedde hem . . . fol monye: These general statements exaggerate. The only instances Jacobus gives of birds feeding hermits are the raven who fed Paul (see next note) and the birds who fed Blaise (trans. Ryan 1:151); no bird is mentioned in either his life of Antony (Ryan, 1.93–96) or his life of arseny (Arsenius; Ryan, 2:351–53), or any other of his lives of desert fathers (an eagle feeds Vitus and Modestus on the sea, Ryan 1.322); nor does the motif occur in the Vitae patrum outside of Jerome’s life of Paul. And it is not in Athanasius’s Life of Anthony (for which see Caroline White 1998: 3–70; possibly L was remembering that when Anthony enclosed himself in a fort his bread supply was let down through the roof to him [chapter 12, p. 17]). Perhaps L also had in mind Elijah, who did not live in a cell but was fed by ravens: 1 Kings 17:6. See Stith Thompson, Motif-Index, B450 Helpful birds, B530 Animals nourish men; see also Loomis 1948:66–69; in his note 140 on p. 180, Loomis lists five other saints whose feeding by birds comes up in the Acta sanctorum; perhaps L knew of some of these instances. Birds clearly represent the world of spirit; see 8n above and Short 1983:145–47. As for lions and leopards (B.15.277), see note to 29–31 (cf. B.15.298–304) below. Antimendicant writers refer frequently to Paul’s being fed by birds, but apparently to no others; see Scase 1989:94. At 9.198–201, L has given a far less fanciful account of how the desert fathers got their food—though birds are mentioned there too, in line 201. 13–16 (B.15.286–89) Paul primus heremita . . . gabben: L seems to have read Jerome’s Vita sancti Pauli rather than merely Jacobus’s summary of it (trans. Ryan, 1:84–85), in which we read that Anthony had a hard time finding Paul’s cell, but the cell itself is not described. See Jerome’s full description, PL 23.21 (which mentions the branches of a palm tree but not moss); yparrokede hymsulue: enclosed himself; cf. 6.144, “yparroked in pues,” packed into pews. moes: moss. Jerome says that Paul wove a tunic for himself of palm leaves (PL 23.26), which L may have thought of as camouflaging him further. That tunic is mentioned by Jacobus, as is the raven that brought bread daily to Paul, and

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C Passus 17; B Passus 15

brought a double portion the day Anthony visited (an incident that may lie behind B.15.285, with host and visitor reversed). 15–16 Foules hym fedde yf frere Austynes be trewe . . . or elles ∂ey gabben (B.15.288–89 Foweles hym fedde, fele wyntres wi∂ alle . . . or ellis freres lyen): In Jerome’s account, Paul is said to subsist on the fruit of the palm tree (PL 25.21), but then later when Anthony visits him and the raven brings a whole loaf of bread, Paul tells him that he has been receiving half a loaf daily for 60 years (PL 23.25–26); thus the first line in B agrees with at least the latter statement, though the Til in the following line is odd. In C the statement about birds has no such clear basis. The founding business is plainer. Brothers of the Hermits of St Augustine were established by papal fiat in 1256, amalgamating various eremitic groups. In the fourteenth century they began to claim that their origins went back to Paul the first hermit, and L undoubtedly knew the polemics that ensued; see Scase 1989:93–94; Acta Sanctorum 1:607–9; Andrews 2006:71–90, 158–62; and “Pierce the Ploughman’s Crede,” line 308. That claim is made in all five early accounts of the order that Andrews mentions on pp. 160–61 (though one of the five sensibly grants that there were hermits before Paul; Rano 1982:337); none of them say a word about birds, however, and Jordan of Saxony says explicitly that Paul ate the fruits of palm trees (trans. Deighan 1993:247). Evidently L wanted primarily to insist that Paul was fed by birds and secondarily to doubt that he founded the Augustinians, and ran the thoughts together. 17–20 (B.15.290–93) Paul aftur his prechyng paniars he made . . . so they lyuede bothe: In these four lines the issue shifts briefly, from hermits being fed by birds to the less ethereal issue of working for a living instead of begging. In the bird passage, begging has been disparaged by contrasting it to utter reliance on Providence; now it is disparaged by contrasting it to self-reliance, the biblical and monastic ideal of living, as Benedict says in his Rule, “by the labour of their hands, as our Fathers and the Apostles did” (48.2, Delatte 1921:312). The conjunction, relying on God/relying on work, gives us L’s semiPelagianism in rather a special form, as if food were a version of grace. Jacobus treats Andrew’s and Peter’s fishing (trans. Ryan, 1.13), though the Gospels are of course a sufficient source. St Paul’s basket-making, however, is a crux. In the epistles he advocates manual labor (Eph 4:28) and speaks both of his own labor (1 Thes 2:9, 2 Thes 3:8) and that of all the apostles (1 Cor 4:12); but he made tents, not baskets, as Acts 18:3 implies when it says that he was “of the same trade” as Aquila and Priscilla, who were tentmakers (scenofactoriae artis, “of the tent-making art”). (It is commonly supposed that he

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learned tent-making as a boy in Tarsus, where the weaving of tent cloth from Cilician goats’ hair was and is a major industry.) See, however, Augustine in De opere monachorum, who, though he later (p. 515) treats Acts 18:3 as showing us what Paul did, at one point claims for rhetorical purposes not to know that, but can assert only that he “innocently and honestly wrought things which are fitted for the uses of men. . . . The Apostle . . . would not disdain either to take in hand any work of peasants, or to be employed in the labor of craftsmen” [ed. Schaff 1978: 3.511]. Jacobus (trans. Ryan 1.350–51) likewise speaks generally of “manual trade,” but then on 361 says that Paul worked with animal pelts, which is presumably tent-making. Basket-making must have cropped up often, however, in Langland’s reading. A number of the desert fathers (who are on his mind in this section of the poem)—Anthony (Life by Athanasius, Schaff and Wace 1976: PL 73.125), Hilarion (PL 23.31), Arsenius (Vitae patrum 5.4.5, PL 73.865), Macarius (Acta sanctorum 2.291), Paul the Hermit (PL 23.28; Vitae patrum 4.40, PL 73.839; also 3.72, PL 73.773; 7.2, PL 73.1029), and many others—wove together the palmleaves and rushes that surrounded them into baskets (Anthony, Hilarion, Paul), mats (Paul), straps (Arsenius, Macarius), or even a tunic (Paul). And their biographers were conscious that in doing so the desert fathers were following both the example of the apostles and St Paul’s injunction: Arsenius “manibus . . . laborabat gloriatione apostolica condecoratus” worked with his hands, decorating himself with apostolic glory (Acta sanctorum 31.623); Palaemon and Pachomius “texebant . . . cilicea et laborabant manibus suis, juxta beatum Apostolum, non tantum pro sua refectione vel requie, sed ut haberent unde tribuerunt necessitatem patientibus” [see Eph 4:28], wove goat-hair cloaks, and “worked with their hands,” not just for their own rest and refreshment, but “that they may have something to give to those that suffer need” (Acta sanctorum 1.675). Similarly, St Jerome advises the fledgling monk Rusticus to make baskets (fiscellam, canistrum), citing the fact that the apostles worked with their hands even though they might have lived off the Gospel (see 1 Cor 9) (Letter 125, Ad Rusticum monachum, PL 22.1078; this letter has been quoted at B.7.86a, and is apparently referred to below at B.15.317; see note there). Thus to make baskets was to imitate the apostles by working with one’s hands—as Chaucer’s Pardoner knew (C444–47; see Pratt 1962, who cites Jerome’s letter to Rusticus, and Fleming 1979, who cites from Bonaventure’s Apologia pauperum a similar passage by Jerome, from his preface to Job [PL 29.61]; see also Jerome’s life of Hilarion, PL 23.31); and then, by a kind of back-formation, St Paul (not of course one of the original twelve, but Apostle to the Gentiles and called simply “the Apostle”) ends up in L’s line a basket-maker.

210

C Passus 17; B Passus 15

It seems inconceivable that anyone would ever have confused the two Pauls, as Hemingway 1917 posited. Scase 1989:93–94 shows that, in tracing their origin back to Paul the Hermit, Augustinians such as Jordan of Saxony associated Paul the Hermit’s basket-making with the example of manual labor given by Paul the Apostle, but she does not claim that they actually gave one the other’s occupation—the quotation she gives from Jordan on p. 94 does not warrant Pearsall’s assertion that “the baskets were transferred from Paul the hermit to St Paul by Jordan.” Scase treats Langland, not Jordan, as making the transfer, which she calls a “merging of legend and biblical authority” (94) regarding it as an example of how legendary detail of earlier polemics “became reworked in accordance with the anticlerical cause” (93). And she sees the Pardoner’s Prologue as an independent example of the same thing, using the idea of manual labor with a different emphasis from that placed on it in their polemics by monks and friars. Finally, see Peter Comestor’s Scholastic History, PL 198.1703; he says that the phrase ars scenofactoria, “the trade of tent-making,” in Acts 18:3 may come from Greek skenos (i.e., schoinos), rush or rope, and that Aquila, Priscilla, and Paul might have been rope-makers—and since the Greek word means “rush,” this might well have opened the door to turning all three, Aquila, Priscilla, and St Paul, into basket-makers. It is this interpretation of Comestor’s that really does the merging of biblical authority and legend: it in effect turns Acts 18:3 into an assertion that St Paul made baskets. Skeat says, “See Mrs. Jameson’s Sacred and Legendary Art, 3rd ed., p. 757.” This is a detailed description of “the great fresco in the Campo Santo at Pisa . . . by Pietro Laurati, containing, in a variety of groups, the occupations of the hermits” (Jameson 1857: 2.757). It includes Arsenius weaving baskets, another hermit cutting wooden spoons, and another fishing. That fresco is the “Anacoreti nella tebaide,” now ascribed to Buonamico Buffalmacco, the friend of Boccaccio. 19 (B.15.292) Peter fischede for his fode And his fere Androwe: Matt 4:18 (where Andrew is said to be Peter’s brother). On the general subject of the apostles not begging but working with their hands, see Romaunt of the Rose, 6547–78, 6661–84 and the Pardoner’s Prol, C444–47. 20 (B.15.293) sode: boiled, i.e., stewed, cf. B.15.432–33; past tense of “se3en,” modern seethe. Cf. John 21:9–15 (where the cooking method seems actually to be frying). 21 (B.15.294) Marie Maudeleyne: The identification of Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany, and the sinner of Luke 7:37–50 was widely accepted in the Western

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Church from about the sixth century; Jansen 2000:32–35 locates its origin in Gregory the Great’s Homily 2.33 on the Gospels (PL 76.1239), preached on 21 September 591. (As she points out, John 11.1–2 had already identified Luke’s sinner with Mary of Bethany.) Equally widely accepted was the legend of her thirty-year repentance in the desert; it developed apparently by confusion with the story of Mary of Egypt; see next note. See Haskins 1993:111, 120, 221–26 and the plates on 225, 227; Jansen 2000:37–38. Jacobus (ed. Maggioni 2007:1.704–17, trans. Ryan 1:374–83) has the full story. It was standard to say, as Jacobus says, that she was brought up to heaven daily and subsisted on “celestibus epulis” (heavenly feasts) and “corporalibus alimentis nullatenus indigebat” (did not need any bodily food) (ed. Maggioni 2007:1.712); L’s mores (roots) . . . and dewes is his own touch. B.15.295 mynde of: thinking about, translating Jacobus’s contemplatio (ed. Maggioni 2007, ibid.). 23–24 Marie Egipciaca . . . soule: cf. Man of Law’s Tale, B500–1: “Who fedde the Egipcien Marie in the cave,/Or in desert? No wight but Crist, sanz faille.” Jacobus (trans. Ryan 1.228) says that she lived on her three loaves for fortyseven years, whereas in the Greek original attributed to Sophronius (Kouli 1996:86) and the translation of Paul the Deacon (PL 73.684) Mary says that they lasted only the first seventeen years, after which she subsisted on desert plants; L’s thritty may be a round number, or the result of confusion with Mary Magdalene; or he may be following Jacobus but subtracting from his forty-seven the first seventeen years, in which Mary “was troubled by temptations of the flesh,” regarding her soul as loue (low) only after she conquered those temptations. For a lively account of such indeterminacies in the story, see Chase 1986. With the Marys we are off the apostles earning their living and back where we should be, in the desert where food comes miraculously to the unsolicitous. True, earning a living is another way of not begging, and plowing one’s half-acre was the message earlier; but it is hard not to think that L has let his mind run free here, Paul the hermit leading him to Paul the apostle, and so to Peter, Andrew, and Mary Magdalene, who leads him back to the desert and Mary of Egypt, where he can get to his point about the mild feeding the mild. 27 ∂e boek: The Golden Legend; see holy writ 6 and note; or possibly the Vitae patrum. 29–31 (cf. B.15.298–304) Ac durste no beste . . . tayles: Probably L was thinking of Jerome’s account in the Vita sancti Pauli (mentioned briefly by Jacobus)

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C Passus 17; B Passus 15

of the two lions who helped Anthony bury Paul’s body: they “came straight to the corpse of the blessed old man and there stopped, fawned upon it and lay down at its feet”; they dug out a grave with their paws, and then, “as if demanding a reward for their work, pricking up their ears while they lowered their heads, they came to Antony and began to lick his hands and feet” (Schaff and Wace 1976, 6.302). A lion also digs the grave of St Mary of Egypt, The Golden Legend, trans. Ryan, 1.228–29. See Thompson, Motif-Index B250, Religious animals; Loomis 1948:58–63. 31 (B.15.300) faunede with ∂e tayles: The famous story of Francis and the wolf of Gubbio, in The Little Flowers of St Francis (Habig 1983:1348–51) has the motif of the tail. See also Short 1983: 29. 32–94 Ac bestes brouhte hem . . . pees perpetuel euere (B.15.305–55 Ac god sente hem foode . . . ne oure lord as it seme∂): The asceticism of the desert fathers, and in particular their (supposed) reliance on receiving food from birds, is now applied to the current clergy, first religious, then secular, according to L’s pet idea that the current system of offering Masses and prayers for one’s benefactors encourages crime: people exploit others freely, then expect to buy their way to heaven by contributing to orders who will absolve them now and say Masses for them later. Thus the rich feed the rich and greed prevails, not charity, not patient suffrance; reform will begin if recipients of charity will refuse to accept ill-gotten goods. See Lawler 2006. In the B version, the passage continues the exposure of the current clergy’s lack of charity, their failure to share “cristes patrimonye” with the poor, that began at line 244, and in C the passage continues the focus on the Church and charity that is the subject of the passus; it will lead up to the central panel in lines 125–49. In both versions the subject shifts near the end of the passage from religious orders to the secular clergy: in B at 347, “cristene” (see note to B.15.347–92), in C with the reference to “prestes” 61 followed by the exemplum of St Lawrence. Though the C version introduces many changes—adding the stories of Tobias and Lawrence, the important phrase “luyther wynnynges,” and the visionary lines 48–50, and removing some rather subtle friar-satire and the whole passage on the rich helping the rich, B.15.342–43b—the essential character of the passage remains the same. 32–36 Ac bestes . . . lyf tyme (B.15.305–8 Ac god sente . . . liflode brynge): In B.15.306, the word order is almost certainly object-subject-verb, as it clearly is in the next line: mild things should feed meek things, mild animals feed saints.

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Though “meek” and “mild” are virtually synonyms and frequently paired in this poem, “meek” is rarely applied to animals, “mild” often, as in Trevisa’s translation of Bartholomaeus, or as in B.15.280 just above, and C.17.239. Cf. MED, s.v. milde, adj. 5(b). The C version clarifies B’s rather coy treatment both by dropping the inverse word order and by stating the issue bluntly and negatively in lines 35–36: friars and monks should not accept luyther wynnynges. As 35 freres and monkes, 47 religious, and B.15.307 Religiouses show, it is not parish priests but the regular clergy to whom L here first applies the question of how charity gets its lyflode; cf. “in a frere frokke he was founde ones . . . in franceys time” (16.355–56; B.15.230–31) and “sith charite hath be Chapman” (Prol.62; B.Prol.64): charity should be friars, but since friars have taken to begging and become corrupt, charity no longer resides with them. The emphasis on the regular clergy continues through line 60 (in B through 343); the whole passage, with its quotation from Job and commentary, is a kind of counterpart to the long passage quoting Chrysostom on secular priests at 16.242–85 (B.15.90–148). 37–43 As wittnesseth holy writ . . . offrynges: Cf. Tob 2:19–3.6; 2:21 (Videte ne forte furtivus sit, take heed lest perhaps it be stolen) and 3:6 (Expedit enim, mihi mori magis quam vivere, for it is better for me to die than to live) are quoted (inexactly) at 40a; the phrase melius est mori quam x (it is better to die than x) is very common. The same version of Tob 3:6 also occurs at 1.143a and 6.290a (where it is part of Repentance’s major attack on religious who take miswon alms, 6.286–307, expanding B.5.265–69); it does not occur at all in the B version. L implies that religious are blind like Tobias, but less careful. For a strikingly similar application of the passage, likewise quoting Tob 2:21 without the word forte, to monks who take miswon alms (from a simoniac priest), see Peter the Chanter, Verbum abbreviatum 44 (ed. Boutry 2004:293–94) and, more generally to greedy monks, 153 (PL 205.367; not in Boutry’s editions). 43 reuerences and raueners offrynges: Cf. 9.192 “reuerences and ryche menne Almesse.” Reverences are bows and similar gestures of obeisance. Here the rich are criticized for reverencing friars; at C.16.240, friars are criticized for reverencing the rich. It’s a contest: which side can out-reverence the other? Contrast the lunatic lollars, God’s privy disciples, who “thauh a mete with the mayre ameddes 3e strete/A reuerenseth hym ryht nauht, no rather then another” (9.122–23), and Will, awake but a fool at the opening of B.15, “loo3 to reuerencen/Lordes or ladies or any lif ellis.”

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C Passus 17; B Passus 15

If only religious nowadays refused raveners’ offerings . . . (41–50, B.15.307–14) 44–50 Thenne wolde lordes . . . wolde holy kirke amende (B.15.309–14 And ∂anne wolde lordes . . . we sholde lyue): A little golden-age passage; C draws together not only the present B passage but B.15.419–28 as well, and gives a foretaste of lines 125–49 below. Unspoken, of course, is the fact that in the present system the offerings are made in return for absolution. Lines 49–50 seem to mean both that religious, freed from having to cultivate the rich, would minister to the poor, and that rich laymen, finding they cannot buy absolution, would use their money instead in almsgiving. The editorial punctuation is inadequate in B.15.312–14. Line 312 should end with a comma, and lines 313–14, with their sudden first-person pronouns, should be enclosed in quotation marks; for what we have is a sudden shift from the indirect speech of bidden hem bere it ∂ere it yborwed was to direct speech by the friars. L imagines them saying, ever so piously, “Oh, do bring it back to where you got it; God wants us to wait patiently for birds to bring us our food.” For similar shifts, often involving unsavory characters whose suave speech seems irresistibly quotable, see B.2.103; A.2.135 (B.2.171, cf. C.2.186), 2.214 (B.2.200, A.2.161); 21.215, 344 (B.19.215, 344); 22.6, 234, 364 (B.20.6, 234, 364) (the last features a friar); and, after the verb “bidden”: 2.161 (B.2.145, A.2.109); 3.28 (B.3.27, A.3.26); A.7.142 (B.6.155); 9.37 (B.7.34, A.8.36); 10.224 (B.9.135, A.10.171); B.10.8; B.16.66. All three lines were dropped in C, perhaps as too subtle (and as too “poetic” a reprise of the bird imagery, now past). Goddes behestes B.15.313 may possibly refer to Christ’s instruction to the seventy-two to “eat such things as are set before you,” with its implicit passiveness about obtaining food, repeated by St Francis in his Rule of 1223, chapter 3; though there is of course no reference to birds. (This note replaces my reading of these lines in Lawler 2002:110.) 48 grace sholde growe √ut and grene loue wexe: See B.15.424n below. The phrase grene loue is the reading of Hm 143 and several other good manuscripts, accepted also by Pearsall; but the elegant variation growe . . . wexe is not Langland’s style. Cf. the very similar line B.15.424, “Grace sholde growe and be grene,” giving us two predicates for “grace” rather than introducing a second noun. Schmidt accepts the reading of mss. PERVMAN, “grene-leued.” His line, “Grace sholde growe and grene-leued wexe,” which avoids elegant variation since “wexe” is no longer a bald parallel to “growe,” but part of the phrase “grene-leued growe,” not only seems closer to L’s usage but offers a return, in this passage about the clergy, to the Pseudo-Chrysostom metaphor

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of the last passus in which leaves are the dominant image, recalling specifically “Tho bowes 3at bereth nat and beth nat grene yleued” (16.250; cf. B.15.97 “leued”) and “Shal neuere flour ne fruyt wexe ne fayre leue be grene” (16.255, B.15.102). See the full discussion, richly documented from patristic sources, in Tavormina 1994:57–66 and 66–73; she argues convincingly that the basic biblical place is Matt 24:32–33, where, in the midst of his prophecy of the end of the world, Jesus says that we will know it is coming by its signs, just as we know when fig leaves come out that summer is coming. One more source she might have added is Prov 11:28: “Qui confidit in divitiis suis corruet, iusti autem quasi virens folium germinabunt” (He that trusteth in his riches shall fall: but the just shall spring up as a green leaf). Hill 2002a defends the KD-B reading, citing a pertinent quotation from Gregory on green love, but the biblical and patristic background, in combination with the earlier passage, overwhelmingly supports the reading “grene-leued.” 49 And charite ∂at chield is now sholde chaufen of hymsulue: The source of the image is Matt 24:12: in the last days refrigescet caritas multorum, the charity of many shall grow cold. In the magisterial essay cited in the previous note, Tavormina offers numerous parallels in both English and Latin writers, and makes clear that it was normal to connect the chilling of charity with ecclesiastical corruption. And since both this image and the leaf-image in the previous line derive from the prophecy of the end of the world, she shows that they come with strong apocalyptic implications. I would go further and say that this is one of the places where “charity” means the clergy: if the clergy would refuse raveners’ alms, they will warm up and do their job of comforting, i.e., strengthening, Christians. There is more than a glance here in these two lines at the ending of the poem, where the lord Contrition, clearly a ravenour, is persuaded by Friar Flatterer to offer him a piece of his take in exchange for false “confort” (22.371), i.e., absolution, while the grace that will genuinely conforte all Christians is far to seek for Conscience. B.15.316 And a mees ∂ermyd of o maner kynde: “And (made) a plain onecourse meal of that.” Cf. the friar at Conscience’s in 15.45–50a (B.13.40–45a), who eats “potages,” plural, and “mortrewes” as well, which are said to come “of 3at men myswonne.” B.15.317 so youre rule me tolde: Possibly the Rule of St Francis, which cites Luke 10:8, “Eat such things as are set before you” (Habig 1983:34, 60). But L is almost certainly thinking of Jerome’s Letter 125, To Rusticus, in which Jerome says he is laying down rules for a monk (“me in presenti opusculo non de

216

C Passus 17; B Passus 15

clericis disputare sed monachum instituere” (PL 122.1082). Among the dicta is this (already translated and quoted at B.7.86–86a): “Satis dives est qui pane non indiget” (PL 122.1085). The Benedictine Rule, chapter 39 (ed. Fry et al. 1981:239), actually says there should be two cooked dishes to choose from, though it enjoins frugality. 53 (B.15.318) Numquid . . . iniquitas tua: “ ‘Will the wild ass bray,’ says Job, ‘when he hath grass? Or will the ox low when he standeth before a full manger?’ (Job 6:5). The nature of brute animals condemns you, because whereas common fodder is enough for them your wickedness has grown up on fat.” Cf. 13.143–44 (B 11.335–36). The second sentence is from Peter of Blois, Letter 86, PL 207.270, accompanying the verse from Job; on L and Peter of Blois, see Lawler 2013: 56–60. B.15.319 loke whom ∂ei yeue: The fact that this translates Cato’s Cui des videto, an injunction that has been treated dismissively at B.7.73–76 and at best ambiguously at C.9.69–70, may have occasioned the compression of B.15.319–20 into C.17.54, which is more economical and yet blander. In Jacobus’s life of St Augustine, we learn that Augustine turned down legacies, saying that “they belonged to the children and kinfolk of the deceased rather than to him” (trans. Ryan 2.124). 55 (B.15.321) amorteysed: To amortise is “to alienate (property) in mortmain, that is, to convey property into the ‘dead hand’ (because it ceases to be a living inheritance) of a corporation, e.g., a monastery” (Alford, Gloss., s.v. Amortisen). B.15.323 Aiels: grandfathers. 57 (B.15.325) feffe (B feffed): put in legal possession; founded: endowed; see Alford, Gloss., s.v. feffen, founden. B.15.324–25 mean, “You are paying people to pray for you who have already been fully endowed by others to pray for them.” On giving monks what should go to your heirs, see Reason’s sermon 5.163–64 (originally in Clergie’s speech, B.10.317–18; see also B.10.327, not in C).

Better ideas on whom to give to (59–72, B.15.326–46); St Lawrence (C only, 65–72) 59–72 For god bad his blessed . . . now spene (B.15.326–46 Who parfourne∂ . . . deliuere∂): These passages correspond to each other in that both are about charity in the narrow sense of giving, and both make the transition from focus

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on religious orders, and the habit rich people have of giving to religious orders, to focus on the secular clergy, but L took an entirely new tack in C. The B passage is diffuse, shifting between lay people and religious and between promoting giving to the poor and criticizing giving to the rich. The C passage, after dwelling further on the idea of giving to kin, focuses only on promoting giving to the poor. L’s thoughts on giving were perhaps clarified as he composed the long passage on beggars in C.9.61–255, and in St Lawrence he found a far more straightforward image of clerical charity, the subject he wants to get to, than the dubious “poore freres” of B.15.328. 59a Honora patrem & matrem &c: Honor your father and mother, quoted earlier at 7.216a (B.5.567a). Ex 20:12, Deut 5:16, Matt 19:19 et synop., Eph 6:2; cf. also Matt 15:3–9 (Mark 7:9–13), which L probably has in mind; see next note. “Bernes” 58 might seem to require “Honor your children” rather than “Honor your parents,” but L is presumably thinking of the entire phrase “9oure bernes and 9oure bloed,” and including in the second case aged parents dependent on their children for support. Furthermore, in caring for our children we honor our parents, who did the same for us; see 1 Tim 5:4. In Eph 6:2–4, Paul first quotes the commandment, then goes on, “And you, fathers, provoke not your children,” which suggests that from very early times (as well as in medieval sermons; Wenzel 1988:163–64) the commandment was seen as enjoining an honor that goes both ways. Rabanus in discussing the passage says, “Docet Apostolus parentum ac filiorum mutuam conversationem” (Saint Paul teaches a mutual intercourse between parents and children) PL 112.463. 62 Helpe thy kyn, Crist bid, for ∂er comseth charite: The phrase “charity begins at home” (for which OED does not give a citation before 1616) is not biblical; Tierney, however, says that the idea “was deeply rooted in medieval theory and practice” (1959:57). And the idea is biblical: see 1 Tim 5:4, 8. Jesus himself can be dismissive of family ties: see, e.g., Matt 5:43–48, 10:37, 12:46–50, though he quotes “Honor your father and mother” twice (see prev. note), and at Matt 15:3–9 (Mark 7:9–13) attacks the Pharisees for letting people do nothing for their parents and thus “making void the word of God” (Mark 7:12–13). This passage is probably what L has in mind. 63 ho hath moest nede: defined fully at 9.71–97; both that passage and this are new in C. B.15.326a Dispersit, dedit pauperibus: He hath distributed, he hath given to the poor: Ps. 111:9, cited by St Paul at 2 Cor 9:9. Since this verse (along with

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its next clause in both the psalm and St Paul, Iusticia eius manet in eternum [C.17.66a]; see next note) appears in the breviary and liturgy for the feast of St Lawrence, and in The Golden Legend as well (see next note), it provides a kernel for the lines on St Lawrence in the C revision; the revision is astutely analyzed, along with the other introduction of Lawrence into the C version at C.2.132–36, by Tavormina 1987; she points out that chapters 8 and 9 of 2 Cor contain an extended discussion of almsgiving. The psalm verse is called a prophecie (B.15.326) either because David was commonly called a prophet, as for example by L at B.3.234 (A.3.221), B.7.126 (A.8.108), B.11.94, and as by Peter of Blois when he cites this phrase (see below, B.15.332–43a note), or because it was interpreted as being said of Christ, as by Peter the Chanter, PL 205.148, in the same passage that contains the first citation at B.15.343 below (Boutry 2012a:271 reads “in psalmo” for the “de Christo” in the PL text and most manuscripts). 65–72 Lo laurence . . . spene: The turn to St Lawrence is prompted by the idea of giving to ho hath moest nede (63). In The Golden Legend 113 (ed. Maggioni, 2007, 1. 840–59, trans. Ryan 2.63–74), we learn that Lawrence spent the Church’s treasure (goddes goodes 67, cristes tresor 69, ∂at ∂at holy churche . . . claymeth 71) on goddes men, the poor (e.g., Ps 71:2, pauperes tuos), then, when he was required to produce that treasure for the emperor, gathered together the poor, the lame, and the blind and presented them. In his first paragraph, Jacobus cites Ps 111:9, “Dispersit, dedit pauperibus, justitia ejus manet in saeculum seculi” as encapsulating Lawrence’s story. L quotes the second half of this verse at 65a, and his first four lines (65–68) constitute a translation of the whole verse: Lawrence gave God’s men, the hungry, God’s goods and lived in poverty himself (Dispersit, dedit pauperibus); for his reward and his virtue shall last forever (justitia ejus manet in saecula saeculorum). Justitia is wittily translated twice: as just reward (mede) and as virtue (manhede) (66). Holy lore 65 probably means The Golden Legend, though it may mean Ps 111:9. The phrase in eternum is from 2 Cor 9:9, where it replaces “in secula seculi” in the medieval Vulgate (Tavormina 1987:256 n20, 257 n22); it appears in fact in the very next sentence in Jacobus, which cites St Maximus asking, “Quomodo non huius in eternum manebit iustitia?” (How will this man’s justice not remain forever?), and a search of the online databases shows that it is extremely common. As Tavormina observes, the line “Justitia ejus manet in saeculum saeculi” occurs also at Ps 110:3 and Ps 111:3, but (as she observes further) the relevant texts are surely Ps 111:9 and its citation by St Paul in 2 Cor.

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As the first mention of Lawrence in C, “laurence the leuyte” 2.133, makes clear, he was a deacon and so provides a direct contrast to clerkes now 69. Warner 2011:43 argues that C’s introduction of Lawrence, with his scrupulousness about goddes goodes, here, just before talk of lushburgs (73), supports his claim that the contested passage B.15.533–69 belonged originally here also, likewise just before the lushburg passage (B.15.349); see the notes to B.15.343a (at the end), and B.15.504–32.

The B text on giving to the poor (B.15.326–46) B.15.326–46 Who parfourne∂ . . . deliuere∂: These lines constitute a unit replaced in C by 17.65–72, treated in the previous note. The B passage like the C takes its theme from Ps 111:9, quoted at line 327a (see note above) but focuses, not on giving God’s goods to the poor like Lawrence, but on the sacrilege of not giving God’s goods to the poor (343a sacrilegium est res pauperum non pauperibus dare, where the phrase res pauperum is equivalent to the three synonymous phrases in C, goddes goodes 67, cristes tresor 69, and ∂at ∂at holy churche . . . claymeth 71). It answers its opening question, after an ironic affirmative about friars, by insisting at length that rich burgesses who give to rich monasteries are emphatically not dispersing and giving to the poor, then moves at the end to exhorting alle cristene 344 to do just that. B.15.328–31 If any peple parfourne ∂at text . . . ne habbe∂: Gwynn 1943:5 took these lines at face value as momentary praise of the friars, and St Bonaventure argued seriously that the text, “Let your alms sweat in your hand until you find a just man, to whom you may give,” thought to be from Ecclesiasticus, implied that friars deserved alms over others (Quaestiones disputatae de perfectione evangelica, cited in Scase 1989:73). Similarly, the anonymous author (probably a Dominican) of the commentary Hoc contra malos religiosos on Map’s Dissuasio Valerii (ed. Lawler and Hanna 2014:335): “melius est dare elemosinas pauperibus religiosis quam aliis mendicantibus” (it is better to give alms to poor religious than to other beggars). And yet surely the lines are ironic. Friars cleave to the psalm by cadging money from the rich and then spending it on themselves, the poore freres (328)—Langland uses the phrase with exactly the same bland irony as Chaucer in his sly couplet, “Therfore in stede of wepynge and preyeres,/Men moote yeve silver to the povre freres” (A231–32). Their laborers are presumably poor only in the same sense that the friars themselves are, and their buildings are of course not hospitals or shelters but convents and churches (which they build so as to expend their money and

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go on claiming to be poor). The satiric poem “Heu quanta desolatio,” written in the 1380s, devotes three stanzas to mocking the friars’ huge convents (Wright 1859:1, 255; see Rigg 1992:281–82, Scase 2003, and Kerby-Fulton 2006:180–87; Scase (33–34) is less sure than the others that the poem alludes to Piers Plowman). For Richard Fitzralph’s criticism of the friars’ magnificent churches, see Walsh 1981:418; she suggests that Greyfriars (i.e., Franciscan) church in London was probably a particular target; for a description of it, see Kingsford 1915:38–39. But she says that the other orders were “not much worse off,” citing Knowles and Hadcock 1971:212–46. See also Aston 1984; she puts complaints against friars’ grand buildings, called “Caim’s castles,” in the context of the whole large issue of disendowment of the Church. In short, the have-nots of line 331 are the friars themselves, and the lines, like those on monks that follow, are one more reference to the system of taking donations from the rich in exchange for absolution (Lawler 2006). The friars need separate consideration since, not being endowed, they are not covered in line 325. Tavormina comments also on the irony of the passage (1988:257). For further criticism of building, see B.15.421–23 and n. B.15.332–43a Ac clerkes . . . quod nature sufficit: This whole passage draws on Peter of Blois, Letter 102 (PL 207.319) to Hugh, Abbot of Reading: it has all four Latin sentences quoted at 343a, and the simile of bringing trees to the woods and water to the Thames is translated directly from it (though Peter has the sea, not the Thames); and all in answer to the question, “What ever happened to the Prophet’s words, ‘Dispersit, dedit pauperibus?’ ”: “Ubi est ergo, quaeso, verbum illud Prophetae, ‘Dispersit, dedit pauperibus’? Porro nec divitibus dare, nec nos ligna ferre in silvam, nec aquas in mare effundere oportebat. Verbum Beati Hieronymi est, sacrilegium esse res pauperum non pauperibus dare. Et idem: Paria sunt peccatoribus dare, et daemonibus immolare. . . . Audi Hieronymum: Monache, si eges, et accipis, das potius quam accipias; si autem non eges, et accipis, rapis: porro non indiget monachus, si habeat quod naturae sufficit” (Where, I ask, is that phrase of the Prophet: “He distributed and gave to the poor?” We are neither to give to the rich, nor to bring wood to the forest, nor to pour water into the sea. St Jerome said, “It is a sacrilege to give what belongs to the poor to those who aren’t poor.” And he said, “To give to sinners and to sacrifice to demons are the same thing” . . . Listen to Jerome: “Monk, if you are in need and take, you give rather than take; but if you are not in need and take, you steal. A monk is not in need if he has what is enough for nature”). (I have translated Peter; L’s citations have small changes. At the first “Item,” the RF reading “Item idem” is probably right.) The first three quotations are found separately in Peter the Chanter,

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Verbum abbreviatum (until now thought to be L’s source, Alford, Quot. 98; see B.15.343a note below), as are the statement that to give to the rich “est addere ligna silvis et aquas mari” (is to add wood to the woods and water to the sea; cf. Horace, Satires 1.10.34 “In silvam non ligna feras”) in conjunction with quotation of Ps 111:9 (PL 205.148); probably Peter of Blois is Peter the Chanter’s source as well as L’s; again, see B.15.343a note below. See Lawler 2008:151, 2013:55–60; and 5.163–67 (B.10.317–21)n above. B.15.336 ye riche: Here rich lay people, who make donations to religious orders in return for absolution-without-restitution, helping those who help them. B.15.340 ye riche: Here rich religious, who instead of feeding the hungry and clothing the naked invite burgesses to dinner (342–430), and apparently offer them gifts of fine clothing (such as Actyf hopes for but doesn’t get, 15.201 [B.13.227]; see also 16.358–59a [B.15.233–34a]n). B.15.343 ∂e book: Perhaps the bible, with reference to Luke 14:12–13 (cf. 12.103a [B.11.191a]), perhaps Peter of Blois’s Letters (see the note to B.15.332–43a). B.15.343a Quia . . . sufficit: Translated sufficiently above in the note to B.15.332–43a, where the source in Peter of Blois is identified also. Note the echo in the last statement of the end of B.15.318 above, which also comes from Peter of Blois. The first and third statements are attributed by both Peter of Blois and Peter the Chanter to St Jerome; in all likelihood, Peter the Chanter drew both the quotations and the attributions from Peter of Blois; see the parallel instance in Boutry’s edition of Peter the Chanter, 2004:445, where Peter of Blois paraphrases Jerome, then Peter the Chanter cites the words as Jerome’s. The first (Verbum abbreviatum 45, ed. Boutry 2004:299) is from Jerome’s Letter 66.8, “Pars sacrilegii est rem pauperum dare non pauperibus” (It is a species of sacrilege to give what belongs to the poor to those who aren’t poor), PL 22.644. The second (Verbum abbreviatum 45, ed. Boutry 2004:304), attributed by Peter of Blois to Jerome, is not from Jerome, nor is the similar statement, “Paria sunt histrionibus dare et daemonibus immolare (Giving to actors and sacrificing to demons are the same thing),” in Verbum abbreviatum 47, ed. Boutry 2004:317 (quoted by L at 7.118a), which Peter the Chanter does attribute to Jerome; Boutry 2004:317 cites Augustine, Sermon 198 (PL 39.1026), in which shortly after quoting St Paul’s “daemoniis immolare” (1 Cor 10:20), Augustine says that demons take delight in the vanities of actors, and that those who get into arguments over actors “quasi thura ponunt daemoniis de

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cordibus suis” (swing censers, as it were, to demons in their hearts). (Augustine also wrote, “Donare res suas histrionibus vitium est immane, non virtus,” Giving one’s things to actors is is a great sin, not a virtue, In Johannis evangelium tractatus CXXIV, PL 35.1891, often quoted, including by Gratian, PL 187.407.) For further, also finally inconclusive, discussion see Ralph Hanna’s and my note to the commentary Hoc contra malos religiosos (mentioned in B.15.328–31n above), line 509 (Lawler and Hanna 2014:546); and for a large treatment, with very complete bibliography, of the place of the stage in the Christianization of Roman culture, see Lim 2003, “Converting the UnChristianizable.” The third statement (Verbum abbreviatum 45, ed. Boutry 2004:308) is reworded, apparently by Peter of Blois, from Pseudo-Jerome, Breviarium in Psalmos on Ps 145:7, “Qui . . . dat escam esurientibus” (who giveth food to the hungry), PL 26.1250 (cited by Boutry 2004:308), “Esurientibus dat, non eructantibus. Qui ergo non habet monachus, confidenter accipiat. Qui habet et eructans est, non accipiat. . . . Si esurieris, et non habes, magis das beneficium, si accipias quod tribuitur tibi. Si autem habes, et non esuris, non debes cibum esurientium tollere, et accipere saturatus. Accipe quod in ventrem mittas, non quod in sacculum: accipe tunicam quae corpus tegat, non quae arcas impleat” (He gives to the hungry, not to those who are belching. A monk who has not may confidently take. One who has and is belching may not take. . . . If you are hungry and have nothing, you actually do a kindness if you take what is offered you. But if you have, and are not hungry, you should not take the food of the hungry, you should not take when you are full. Take what you can put in your belly, not in your bag; take a tunic to cover your body, not to fill your trunk). See also Peter the Chanter, ed. Boutry 2004:111, citing Augustine, but not found by Boutry: “Non tantum si superflua, sed etiam necessaria pauperibus non erogemus, raptores sumus” (If we don’t give to the poor, not only our extras, but our necessaries, we are robbers), and, 111–12, citing Jerome [from Pseudo-Jerome Ad monachos), “Aliena rapere convincitur qui ultra necessaria sibi retinere probatur” (Whoever proves to keep for himself anything beyond what he needs has been convicted of robbing others). The fourth statement, which is only in Peter of Blois, not in Peter the Chanter, is referred by Alford, Quot. to 1 Tim 6:8, “But having food and wherewith to be covered, with these we are content,” but is clearly part of the rewording of Jerome, and in fact Peter of Blois cites the Paul line in support of it (PL 207.320). L in these quotations (and in those mentioned later in this note) draws together several strands: the idea that the poor belong to God (or to Christ); the idea that whatever money the Church has is the patrimonium Christi, and

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belongs to the poor (and so res pauperum and patrimonium Christi are synonyms); the idea that bishops (and abbots, who have the rank of bishops) give their money to entertainers instead of the poor (who are “God’s minstrels,” 7.99, 9.136, B.13.439); the idea that bishops are therefore like Judas, who was the original misuser of Christ’s money; the idea that to give money to entertainers is to sacrifice to devils, so that bishops are associated with both Satan and Judas, the two most heinous of all betrayers. This complex of ideas seems to have prompted L to write movingly of Christ’s identification with the poor and yet skirt a bitter preoccupation Peter the Chanter has with prelates who funnel the Church’s money to their relatives. The complex is invoked, with appropriate quotation, at two other places in the poem, C.7.81–118a and B.9.77–94 (replaced in C by a passage emphasizing Christ’s poverty and bishops’ duty to imitate it, a logical extension of the ideas); see also 11.14–51 (B.10.17–71, A.11.17–57) and 9.105–38, the passage on “lunatyk lollares” who are poor and “godes boys” and “Godes munstrals.” In the present passage, since he is speaking of religious and burgesses rather than bishops and entertainers, L appropriately quotes Peter of Blois’s “peccatoribus dare” instead of Peter the Chanter’s “dare histrionibus (est demonibus immolare),” quoted at 7.118a and alluded to at 11.26 (B.10.30–31). Warner 2011:40–44 argues that the present lines B.15.533–69, absent in mss. RF and placed after 503a in the other B manuscripts, originated in the Nx line of transmission of C, and that L “originally envisioned the passage’s home” in B here, after line 342a, largely because then line B.15.543, with its reference to the cross on coins, would have made the introduction of the discussion of coins at 349–45 seem less abrupt than Warner (and before him Carruthers 1973:126) thinks it is. Maybe; see the full discussion at B.15.504–32n below. B.15.345 charite wi∂outen chalangynge: giving without making any claim on the recipient (cf. OED s.v. challenge v., 5.e), as opposed to “help[ing] hem 3at helpeth yow” 337. As the next line makes clear, however, religious who were genuinely charitable in this way would release souls from purgatory with their prayers, i.e., would indeed help their benefactors (I take hise 346, given the context, to refer to a religious who loves but makes no claim, perhaps the monachus of 343a). For rich lay people, charity without challenging would mean giving to those who need it, not to those who will pray for your soul in return; but the lines say that their souls would in fact benefit. For religious, charity without challenging is to give to the poor, from whom they can expect no return, and also to pray for the poor rather than exclusively for their benefactors. In short, “charity is the best policy”; it’s the shrewdest investment one

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can make toward discharging one’s spiritual debts. (Latin authors, Augustine in particular, regularly contrast caritas with calumniari [the root of “challenge”], though ordinarily with the meaning “falsely accuse.”) These lines are the climax of the passus in the B version. Anima wants to substitute a system based on charity and goodness for the present system based on self-serving almsgiving. It seems to put L in mind of the secular clergy, whose ideal form he always associates with charity (Lawler 2002:86, 95–98, 107–13); in any case Anima now leaves the subject of monks and friars and turns back to seculars, where he started at 244.

The focus moves to the secular clergy (69–124, B.15.347–92) 69–124 Y dar nat carpe of clerkes . . . holy churche (B.15.347–92 Ac ∂er is a defaute in ∂e folk . . . agulten): That this passage is specifically about seculars is clear enough in C, which made the move from friars and monks to priests and pardoners in line 61, and confirmed it by dwelling on the secular deacon Lawrence, then turned to clerkes now ∂at cristes tresor kepe 69, and speaks now of Prestes (72) who spend money on clothing and women, and who can only be seculars. The transition is subtle, to be sure, but not as muted as in B, where it seems to begin with the first two quotations in 343a, since giving the Church’s goods to the poor is the special duty of bishops; it then seems to be occasioned further in lines 344–46 by the thought of ideal charity; and it is apparently confirmed by the phrase ∂e folk ∂at ∂e fei∂ kepe∂ 347, since keeping the faith is the charge of the secular priesthood (cf., e.g., B.10.411–15). The subject becomes clearer still as the tonsure is mentioned (352) and the focus turns to ignorance, the characteristic sin in PP of the secular clergy, and is made definite at last in 385–86 with the phrase folk of holy kirke and the charge of overhopping, Langland’s favorite charge against parish priests. (See Lawler 2002 for support for these assertions.) The passage begins as a standard piece of satire on ignorant and corrupt priests, but is enlarged suddenly in both versions. B is perhaps too economical, moving without warning in lines 355–57 from sin to war to loss of faith in nature itself. In the C version the development is a little more gradual, and the line of thought less opaque. First lines 86–88 blame werre and wrake and the impossibility of achieving peace on the fact that the lewed have lost faith and turned to wikkede hefdes—and they blame that in turn on the corruption of the clergy. These lines in all likelihood refer to the Peasants’ Revolt, and bring the poem’s charges against the clergy to a new level. But in line 89 comes a newer level yet: nature itself is out of joint: crops fail, the take of fish is

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down. This is briefly laid at 93 to “our” failure to do our duty, but in 95–107 (as in B.15.357–71, only slightly changed in C) the fault appears to lie with the natural world itself, and not with any failure in the various witty peple who try to read it. And yet line 91 insists that the land is true. What is clear finally in both versions is that there is a radical dissociation of the natural from the human world; that that dissociation is the fault of neither nature nor of the various honest practitioners who try and fail to read it, but is rather an existential malaise, an extension of the loss of faith mentioned in line 88, a world, perhaps, without grace—and that the ultimate cause (this is clearer in C.17.88 than in B, where it is emphasized only early in the passage, B.15.347–55) is the corruption and incompetence of the clergy. This is a distinctly different idea from Reason’s assertion in passus 5.115–22 (B.5.14–20, A.5.13–20) that plague and wind are punishment for sin and warning to repent. Its counterpart rather is Ymaginatif’s demonstration in passus 14 (B.12) of the central role of clergie in a redeemed world. Since the ultimate subject is the failure of the clergy, it seems unavoidable to assign a dimension of metaphor to the shipmen, shepherds, astronomers, and tillers: all seem emblematic of the perceptive guiding role the clergy should play but do not. See Bloomfield 1962:106 (on plowmen). The metaphor is especially pressing at line 104 in the C version, where this folk, bothe follwares and shipmen seems almost unavoidably to mean “all of us, both lay people and priests.” At line 108 (B.15.372), with a bold pun on grounde, we are returned to direct focus on the clergy: the fundamental problem is with their education, in which guile and flattery prevail. This is so bad that Ymaginatif’s demonstration of the clergy’s importance, implicit throughout the passage, is almost jettisoned in the closing lines, but held onto finally in line 122, and in B.15.391–92. 69 cristes tresor: Here, clearly, equivalent to goddes goodes 67 and ∂at ∂at holy churche of ∂e olde lawe claymeth 71: the Church’s treasury of money and goods, the patrimony of the poor, bequeathed them by Christ. See Gratian, Decretum 2.16.68, ed. Friedberg 2000:1.784, PL 187.1021, “Quicquid habent clerici pauperum est” (Whatever the clergy has belongs to the poor); Tierney 1959:40–44; MED, s.v. patrimoine (b). The idea is common in Peter the Chanter and Peter of Blois, who calls it “patrimonium Christi et pauperum ejus” (Letter 15, PL 207.53) and “patrimonium Christi et ecclesiae suae” (Letter 112, PL 207.335). See Dante, Paradiso 12.93 (“decimas quae sunt pauperum Dei,” the tithes that belong to God’s poor) and cf. Paradiso 22.82–84 and Monarchia 3.10.17. See also the poem “De diversis ordinibus hominum,” which says about parish priests: “Christi patrimonium detinent rectores . . . Emunt

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C Passus 17; B Passus 15

sibi praedia pauperum de bonis” (Parish priests keep the patrimony of Christ . . . They buy estates for themselves out of the goods of the poor; ed. Wright 1841: 232–33). (On the idea that the poor belong to God, see B.14.168, 174n.) St Francis says in his Rule of 1221 (Habig 1983:39) that “Alms are an inheritance and a right which is due to the poor because our Lord Jesus Christ acquired this inheritance for us.” At B.10.480, Christ’s treasure is souls, with reference to the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, which has money at its base; at 14.54–56 (B.12.109–11) it is grace, the merit accumulated by Christ’s sacrifice available as “mercy for mysdedes.” At B.7.82–83a, the ideas of money and grace coalesce through the medium of the parable of the talents. But the most common application of this phrase and its synonyms in the poem is, as here, to the Church’s money. Those synonyms, besides “goddes goodes,” include “cristes good” B.9.89, along with patrimonium christi and res pauperum christi in the Latin quotations at B.9.94; “cristes patrymonye” B.15.246, the line that spawned the whole present discussion of modern bishops’ failure to fulfil their traditional duty to the poor; “cristes goodes” B.15.104; and res pauperum B.15.343a. See B.15.343a note below. The Norwich vicar Richard Caistor, who died in 1420 and was much venerated after his death, bequeathed what he had to the poor, citing the canon quoted above (Tanner 1984:232). 70 puyre riht: the right to food, clothing, and water, granted by God “in comune” to everyone, 1.20–24 (B.1.20–25, A.1.20–25), 15.238 (B.14.39), and asserted by the Canonists; see Tierney 1959:32–39 and the note to 22.7–11. Cf. B.10.346–49 on the “trewe ri9te” of the poor to enter heaven; its basis is the beatitude “Beati pauperes quoniam ipsorum est regnum celorum,” quoted at B.14.215. But the right here claimed is rather to cristes tresor. See the previous note and Tierney 1959:40–44, esp. 40. 71 ∂at ∂at . . . claymeth: i.e., tithes; see Ex 22:29; Lev 27:30–32. 72 purnele: See 4.110n. A tiny reprise of the satiric material of the early passu¯s: the name appears five times in passu¯s 4–6 (six times in B.4–6), and otherwise only here (where the association with clothing remains). It survives nowadays chiefly as the last name Parnell, and in its nickname Penn. 73–82 Me may now likene . . . coyne (B.15.347–55 Ac ∂er is a defaute . . . seme∂): A loscheborw was a base penny (alloy, not silver) imported from Luxembourg in the reign of Edward III; see OED, s.v. lushburg. Like the genuine penny, it had a cross imprinted on it. On the instability of money and monetary policy in England in the fourteenth century, see Desan 2014, chapter

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4; though she does not mention the lushburg, she shows that “invasions” (152) of foreign coins were a consistent problem (and sometimes a help); see her index, foreign coins (in England). It is interesting that the printe or marke that bad priests cheapen is not holy orders but baptism, follynge 77, Cristendoem, i.e., christening (the usual meaning in L), of (i.e., by) holy kyrke 78 (B.15.352). Crowne B.15.352 (tonsure) is orders, but ∂e kynges mark of heuene, the image of God, is stamped on the soul in baptism. (The complete idea is that man is made in God’s image but original sin effaces the image until it is restored in baptism; as Haymo of Halberstadt (PL 117.705) puts it succinctly, “signaculum similitudinis Dei, quod perdidimus peccante primo parente nostro, illud recipimus in baptismo” [the mark of the likeness of God, which we lost when our first parent sinned, we get back in baptism].) Though both baptism and the idea that man was made in God’s image are major ideas in the poem (on the latter see Murtaugh 1978), they are treated together only here. The comparison of the image of God on the soul to the image on a coin apparently originated with Augustine, Enarrationes in psalmos, on Ps 4:8, PL 36.81, and on Ps 94:2 (in both cases with reference to Matt 22:21, the coin with Caesar’s image), PL 37.1217, and became a commonplace; see Raw 1969:151, 156–57. The comparison of bad priests, and other bad Christians, to bad coins is probably L’s own. The general habit of comparing the quality of human character to the quality of metal is of course widespread, as our words “mettle” and “sterling” attest, though all citations in OED for this metaphorical meaning in both words are later than Langland. On priests as gold or silver (though not coins), see Lam 4:1 and Gregory, Cura pastoralis, PL 77.40; Mal 3:3; Chaucer’s Parson, CT A500. Dean 1997:216–17 offers a brief discussion of the passage. 79 techares: i.e., secular priests; see Lawler 2002: 86n2; also 84–85 below and “looresmen” B.15.391. 84–85 fayre byfore folk prechen and techen/And worcheth nat as √e fyndeth ywryte and wisseth ∂e peple: Preach and teach perfectly well, and then don’t act as you find written (e.g., in the ten commandments) and as you teach the people to act: a remarkable instance of L’s freedom with present indicative plural endings. This is the standard charge in the poem against the secular clergy, that they do not practice what they preach; in B the same idea is expressed at the conclusion of the passage, 15.391. See Lawler 2002:89–92; 4.118 (B.4.122, A.4.107–8), 5.141–42 (B.5.42–43, A.5.35–36), 9.19, 15.87 (B.13.80), 15.126–26a (B.13.118–18a); Matt 7:3–5 (Luke 7:41–42 and cf. B.10.267–76), Matt 23:3, 1 Cor 9:14, Rom 2:17–23. Fletcher 1998:203–5 gives many medieval and especially Wycliffite instances, making clear that the motif is common ground

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between L and the Wycliffites; he does not, however, mention the New Testament places, which are sufficient to explain why both insist on it. B.15.355 no lif loue∂ oo∂er: If the referent is the preceding line, then lif means “estate,” as often in the poem: the lettred do not love the lewed, and vice versa. But the referent is probably rather the call in line 143 to alle cristene to be charitable, and this line means more broadly that no one loves anyone else.

A world made awry by the failures of the clergy (86–116, B.15.356–84) 86–116 For what thorw werre . . . and philosoferes lyuede (B.15.356–84 For ∂oru√ werre . . . and in Phisik bo∂e): This vivid account of a world made awry by the failures of the clergy reads like a brief rehearsal for the deeper, more “apocalyptic” pessimism of the final passus. In both a character called Flatterer makes his appearance. Here the land is not true; there truth itself is turned “vp so down” (22.54, B.20.54)—though there too the issue comes down to the hypocrisy and venality of the clergy. Bloomfield 1962:113–14 associates the present passage with apocalyptic thought: “The harmony of nature is upset, for this is really Antichrist’s time”; he says that both farming (106: “eschatological imagery is highly agricultural”) and weather (113) are typical issues for apocalyptic thinking. Kerby-Fulton 1990:17 cites the passage and comments that “Like so many reformers, Langland sees the state of the clergy as a barometer of apocalyptic pressure,” though she points out that it moves toward hope (122 “we shal do 3e bettre”), and says rightly that “Langland’s use of eschatological notions is thus often rather qualified or compromised by his concern for reformation.” And in fact except for line 122 there is no looking to the future at all here, only the past, in nostalgic longing for a time when weather forecasts held, farmers could predict their yields, and people knew how to versify and construe. (One time when both astronomers and shepherds read the sky accurately was the birth of Christ, celebrated by Ymaginatif in his praise of clergy, 14.84–98 [B.12.139–54].) The passage is perhaps no different from all the other places in the poem where things are worse now (95, 104, 108, 109, 112; B.15.367, 372, 377) than they used to be: marriage, for instance (10.256), or wit and wisdom (11.14, B.10.14, A.11.17), or monasticism (B.10.311, A.11.211), or hospitality (B.10.97–103), though the alienation expressed here is unusually broad and poignant. On L’s idealization of the feudal, agricultural past, see Alford in Alford 1988:33–34. The passage brings two of the major concerns of the poem, plowing and learning, together in a nostalgic look to when things were better for both. It is of a piece with other backward looks

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by Liberum arbitrium at saints such as Edward and Edmund, Francis and Dominic, the desert fathers—see the headnote to this passus. See Dean 1997 passim; though he prints this passage as an epigraph to his chapter on PP (197), he does not discuss it; he does, however, discuss the “Loscheborw” passage just before it; see 73–82 (B.15.347–55) note above. See the discussion of “apocalypticism” in the poem, and references, in the note to 22.219–26. The reference to werre in the first line of the passage in both versions is quickly left behind for the larger vision of a world awry. It is returned to, again rather briefly, at 204 (B.15.542); see note there. 86 wikkede hefdes: I.e., bad priests; cf. B.15.486–87 “persons and preestes/ That heuedes of holy chirche ben.” The phrase replaces B.15.356 wederes vnsesonable, and keeps the blame squarely on the clergy instead of on the more general wickedness that causes rough weather: see 5.116–22 (B.5.14–20, A.5.14–20). 88 Lewed . . . erren: i.e., lettered men err to such a degree that lewed men have no belief. 89 sond: earth; cf. 14.40 where it translates John 8:6 terra. Grounde 91 is synonymous. 93 we: i.e., we the secular clergy (Lawler 2002: 101, 109–10, 115); see vs B.15.378 and contrast we 122, which is more general. 96 lodesterre: The north star; cf. Mandeville, ed. Seymour 1967, chapter XX, p. 132: “The sterre of the see that is vnmevable and that is toward the north, that wee clepen the lodesterre.” B.15.361 shipe: wages, pay. Cf. ParsT I568. 99 seuene sterres: Skeat and Pearsall gloss “the planets,” which are indeed often called the seven stars, or seven wandering stars, but the reference (as also at Chaucer’s Book of the Duchess 824) is surely rather to the Pleiades, a group of seven (actually more) stars in the constellation Taurus, named for seven sisters and called septem stellae. The Pleiades, all visible at once in the night sky for all but forty days of the year, would be far easier for shepherds or sailors to use than a conjunction of the planets such as the one that caused the rain in Chaucer’s Troilus 3.624–28; indeed, to use the planets for weather forecasting they would need to consult tables, or at least someone such as

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Chaucer’s Nicholas who “hadde lerned art” (CT A3191). The Pleiades’ cosmical setting, that is, the time when they set in the west just before dawn, around November 1 in Mediterranean latitudes, is the traditional start of the rainy season of winter and so time to start plowing for winter wheat (and not to set sail until their heliacal rising, that is, when they appear in the east just before dawn, about the middle of May). See Bartholomaeus, DPR 8.38, Trevisa 505, (who calls them “3e seuene sterris”); Isidore, Etymologies 3.71.13; Servius on Georgics 1.137–38; Pliny, Natural History 18.69. Isidore derives their Latin name Vergiliae from ver, spring, and says they are “the first to show the season for sailing,” and Bartholomaeus mentions the association with rain, though it is spring rain for him, being English. Vergil (Georgics 1.137) says that sailors gave them their name, and Servius like Isidore says their rising means the beginning of safe sailing. Hesiod speaks of the Pleiades as seasonal markers very fully at Works and Days 383–87, and again more briefly at lines 572 and 615; Heber Hays 1918:139–40, commenting on Hesiod’s lines 383–87, explains the rising and setting of the Pleiades with exceptional clarity and detail. 104 follwares: A general term to cover sheepherdes 99 and Tilyares 101; both follow masters. Cf. B.15.368 and Kane, Glossary. 105 (B.15.369) cours: The path of a celestial body, Latin cursus. 106–7 (B.15.370–71) Astronomyens . . . fynde: At 21.242–44 (B.19.242–44), the division of graces, astronomers and philosophers are given the grace to see into the future. In passus 14.72–83 (B.12.128–38), Ymaginatif has offered implicit praise of the “Kynde wittede men” who “helden hit an hey science” to know the heavens, even if “here wysdomes was but a folye” compared to the “clergie of crist.” Cf. John of Salisbury, De septem septenis, PL 199.948: “per astronomiam signa, tempora et temporalia (docemur) distinguere, et de temporibus et temporalibus quaedam futura prope posita praesignare” (By means of astronomy we are taught to discern signs, times, and temporary states, and from times and temporary states to divine certain events of the near future). At here wittes ende: the first appearance of this phrase in English (though note that wittes is singular, not plural as now); see OED, s.v. wit, sb. 2.d; Whiting W412. 107 clymat (B.15.371 element): Both words probably just mean “weather”: MED climat 1(c), element 3, citing this passage in each case, see RK-C 81n; C’s “climate” is surely clearer, however, and regularizes the meter a little, though the B line, counting two staves in calculed, is well within L’s practice. The

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meaning is surely that good weather is forecast, then something dire such as a wind storm happens without warning; this is implied in the companion lines 97–98 (B.15.359–60), and is very clear in the lines about shipmen and shepherds (99–100, B.15.361–63). 108–16 Gramer . . . lyuede (B.15.372–84 Grammer . . . in Phisik bo∂e): The world of learning awry. The first and third sentences here focus on ignorance, the second on the domination of guile and flattery. No causal connection is made, but the clear implication is that the corruption is the cause of the ignorance. Kane in his Glossary glosses bigileth 108 (B.15.372) “confuses”; but it demands to be related to gyle 112 (B.15.377) and taken in the much more pregnant meaning “cheats.” By allowing guile to be the real master, the grammar masters are cheating their pupils. There is a general connection between the passage and the final scene of the poem, not only in the appearance of a character named Flatterer, but in the picture of school as a locus of venality, evoked again in the last passus when Envy encourages the friars to go to school to learn to argue speciously to further their selfish aims (22.273–76, 294–96; B.20.273–76, 294–96). “Leue logyk and lerneth for to louye” (22.250, B.20.250) is the strong message to Will there, and the expose´ of higher education here prepares for that. 108–11 Gramer . . . made (B.15.372–76 Grammer . . . englissh): For Gramer, ∂e grounde of al, see “Grammatica est scientia recte loquendi, et origo et fundamentum liberalium litterarum,” Isidore, Etymologies 1.5.1, but deriving from the preface to Cassiodorus, De artibus et disciplinis liberalium litterarum, PL 70.1151. In a ninth-century commentary on Donatus the phrase appears as “origo et fundamentum omnium liberalium artium” (Expositio in Donatum maiorem 1977:4). (In turn the seven liberal arts, and the faculty of arts in the universities, were called “fundamentum, origo, et principium omnium aliarum scientiarum” [Weisheipl 1969:209].) John of Salisbury offers the same idea but a different metaphor: “Grammatica est totius philosophiae cunabulum” (Grammar is the cradle of all knowledge), Metalogicon 1.13 (PL 199.840). L’s phrase simply means that grammar is the basis for all subsequent schooling; it has sometimes been taken by his readers to carry a grander import, but in the context (and in the widely quoted source statement), the issue is simply education. The skills listed in 110–11 (B.15.374–76) are what any medieval clerk who was well instructed in grammar should have had, though there is a certain bathos in B.15.376, since grammar is not totally lost on someone who can read a letter in Latin; see the note below. Orme 1989:251, in his chapter entitled “Langland and Education,” treats the lines as perfectly normal, and points out

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that the one curricular Latin poet Langland mentions (often) is “Cato.” The language that people ought to know but do not is French (but see further the note below to B.15.376); Orme (ibid.) aptly cites John Trevisa’s famous remark, in his translation of Higden’s Polychronicon, that nowadays (1385) schoolboys construe and learn in English, and know no more French than their left heel does (Higden 2:159, cited in Baugh and Cable 1993:147, cited and carefully parsed in Butterfield 2009:325–28 and Cannon 2016:17–24, 125–27). That students in grammar schools were taught to versifye, that is, write Latin verse, is clear from abundant evidence. In Lawler 2011, I have assembled all the evidence I know of (38–51), and discussed a number of schoolbooks, particularly John Rylands Library Ms. Lat. 394, an alphabetical collection of verse proverbs, that give us a glimpse of the teaching system in action (51–62). (There is further evidence now in Orme 2013:152, 408–9, as well as in the many schoolboy hexameters and pentameters he prints without identifying them as such; see also Cannon 2016:77–83.) L certainly implies here that he himself was taught to write Latin verse, and I finally argue (62–68) that some or all of the unidentified Latin verses in the poem (e.g., Prol.153–59 [B.Prol.132–38], 17.285ab) are probably by him. See also 6.216 (B.5.208, A.5.124) and the note there on a possible joke about long and short syllables in quantitative verse. The practice continued for centuries—Pope, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Dickens all make fun of it (Lawler 2011: 59n73)—and is still offered to at least some students in a few modern English schools and universities. B.15.373 ∂ise newe clerkes: Probably just “recent graduates,” now teaching children, though possibly a term of contempt current among old-fashioned intellectuals such as L—or a term proudly used by the new clerks themselves. Moran 1985:31 glosses “schoolboys,” but the reference, with its sarcastic ∂ise, is surely rather to their ignorant teachers, the source of the beguilement. The word For is key: grammar is cheating children because their teachers have themselves been taught badly. See Courtenay 1987:219–40 on the importance of logica moderna in the arts curriculum at Oxford in the fourteenth century; Weisheipl 1969:210 says that “At Oxford in the early 14th century the two main pillars of the arts faculty were logic and mathematical physics.” Cf. also the phrase “new men” as defined in Strohm 1977:32 and Middleton 1980. R. W. Hunt 1980:191 gives evidence that “by the end of the fourteenth century the standard [of attainment by grammar masters in Oxford schools] had miserably declined.” But the complaint that grammar is neglected is liable to appear in any age, our own included. Rigg (1992:68) points out that since John of Salisbury and Gerald of Wales in the twelfth century and John of Garland in the thirteenth all complain about it, “we may rightly wonder if the decline of

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grammar was any more than a topos”—and if we add L’s complaint in the fourteenth century, we may wonder all the more. 110 (B.15.374) formallych endite: Write correct prose; see OED, s.v. indite, v., 3b. Perhaps, compose an official letter or document, using the ars dictaminis as taught in the university; see Camargo 2007. B.15.376 Ne rede a lettre . . . englissh: That is, probably, neither in AngloFrench nor in Parisian French. For the sharp awareness of the difference, see Butterfield 2009 passim and Machan 2009:368–72. The point seems clearly to be to complain about the decline of French in the schools (for which see Trevisa’s remark cited above), but if only three languages were at issue, it would be bathetic to complain that someone can’t read any but two. Perhaps thinking that the line still seemed bathetic—or that it was too extreme—L dropped it in C. Lettre probably means not “epistle” (since the official letters the ars dictaminis trained students to write and interpret would not have been in English, and thus the complaint would have no point), but “a letter of the alphabet,” a hyperbole that gives the line satiric pith (cf. Sloth’s “in Canoun nor in decretals I kan no9t rede a lyne,” B.5.421) and probably alludes to the Tractatus Orthographiae (ed. Pope 1910), a textbook for learning French of the late thirteenth century that “probably served one generation after another throughout the fourteenth century” (Rothwell 2001a:8), and that focuses entirely on the letters of the alphabet, teaching the proper pronunciation of each in turn; if L indeed has this book in mind, “rede” perhaps means “read aloud, pronounce” (OED, read, v., 16), as, e.g., at 2.73 (B.2.71) or 16.350 (B.15.225). Many recent writers (e.g., Butterfield 2009, Machan 2009, Ormrod 2003, and Rothwell 2001 a and b) have shown that the old notion that English “triumphed” over French in the second half of the fourteenth century is simplistic. The school situation, though, is quite uncertain: Butterfield’s discussion (2009:328–35) is inconclusive; Rothwell 2001a describes all the textbooks we have in clear detail, but can say little about the classroom, admitting forthrightly that “In the present state of knowledge it is not possible to set down any hard and fast picture of the details of language instruction in England during the Middle Ages” (9). One should notice that L does not say that French isn’t being taught, or that students don’t speak it, but only that they aren’t learning to read it (whether silently or aloud). Like Trevisa, he certainly implies that it is important to know it. Skeat thought that the line was omitted in C “possibly because French was going out of fashion,” but there is no evidence of that.

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112 (B.15.377) degre: i.e., grade, step toward the doctorate; see OED, s.v. degree n., 7. The degrees are Bachelor, Master, Doctor; see line 114 (B.15.380); though there are several steps toward the mastership: determination, license, inception. And the various faculties had different steps: Rashdall 1936:3.153–59 lists them for all the Oxford faculties. In effect the sentence means, “You can get any degree you want by using guile and flattery.” It is this corruption of the step system that accounts for the anomaly described in the next sentence. 112, 113 (B.15.377, 379) gyle, flaterrere: Guile personified resurfaces from the Mede episode; Flatterer has not appeared, but will reappear in the last scene of the poem. Home to such venal figures, school is anything but the heaven on earth that Reason at 5.152–55, and Clergie at B.10.305–10, have declared it to be. Ymaginatif’s praise of clergie in 14 (B.12) seems equally distant. B.15.378 vs alle: Anima speaks as Will’s soul, and makes clear that both he and Will are members of the clergy; see 17.93n. 114–16 Doctours . . . lyuede: The sentence, explicit in B.15.380–84, is pregnantly compressed in C, trailing off as if Liberum arbitrium finds the result too obvious to spell out: “If they don’t fail.” Alternatively, ferly me thynketh (113) can be thought of as still in force—the scribe of ms. F actually wrote it, replacing and philosoferes lyuede. The scribes of RM added a line to the same effect, “And wolde wel examene hem, wonder me thynketh,” printed by Skeat, Schmidt, and Pearsall (numbered by Pearsall 116z). The scribe of X changed Bote to “Bothe.” 114 (B.15.380) decres: Decretals, collections of decisions of ecclesiastical councils, forming part of canon law; see OED, s.v. decree, n. 2. Cf. the friar in 15.84, “doctour and dyuynour . . . and decretistre of Canoen.” He also fails when “apposed.” 115 seuene ars: I.e., the whole arts curriculum, trivium (Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric) and quadrivium (Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy, and Music). See 11.95, 116–24 (B.10.155, 176–84, A.11.107, 128–36). 115 (B.15.382) assoile a quodlibet: discuss publicly a subject of their own choosing (quodlibet ⳱ “what pleases”) and resolve the difficulties inherent in it. There were also quodlibetal examinations, in which the candidate had to answer whatever the questioner chose to ask, but since L is speaking of masters and doctors he must mean the formal, one-person disputations, and apposed

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B.15.383 must mean not “put to them by others” but “proposed by themselves,” Argument√ (B.15.382): not live objections by those present but arguments against their position that they themselves should bring up and rebut. See Courtenay 1987:259n. 116 (B.15.384) philosophie: Advanced learning beyond the seven arts, e.g., metaphysics, theology, or natural science (Phisik B.15.384). But the drift of the passage in both versions seems to be that they would fail if they tried to discourse on any of the subjects they are supposed to have mastered, at any level, so that philosophie, especially in C where it it is not attached to natural science, perhaps rather means knowledge in general, as it does at 22.295 (B.20.295). 116 and philosoferes lyuede: i.e., well, they would fail if Aristotle, Plato, Boethius, Averroes, and so on were still alive to question them; see 114–16n above. B.15.383 swiche: I.e., a Quodlibet. B.15.384 and in Phisik bo∂e: there may be a pun here: “and have no remedy for it, either.” 117–21 Lord lete . . . peple (B.15.385–89 Wherfore . . . peple): Liberum arbitrium (in B, Anima) circles back to his major worry, that the failures of the clergy endanger their flocks, settling briefly on the comforting thought that people’s faith will save them—contradicting all the places where he has said specifically that clerical pride, ignorance, or vice undermine faith: 16.233 (B.15.72), 16.248–55 (B.15.96–102), 272a (B.15.117a) (Omnium fides marcida est [the faith of everyone sickens]), 17.88 (B.15.347–48)—before renewing in both versions his insistence that if priests live well, people will be better—and turning (right away in B, eventually in C) to Mohammed, the great underminer of faith. B’s Wherfore makes clear the relation between bad education and bad performance of office and Mass; that is obscured in C, but we must take the sudden prayer that priests will (somehow) say Mass well as prompted by reflecting on the shortcomings of their education. Lines 385–87 in the B version are one of the clearest moments in the poem where L’s preference for seculars over regulars shows through. He honors them with the title folk of holy kirke (echoing holy chirche 15.92, 94, 136, the translation of Chrysostom’s templo 15.117a, and ∂e folk ∂at ∂e fei∂ kepe∂ 15.347), and assumes that regulars (oo∂ere) in fact overhop but only fears that seculars might. See 2 Cor 2:17, “For we are not as many, adulterating the word

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of God”; as oo∂ere doon appears to allude to Paul’s “as many.” Cf. the fuller, more judgmental discussion of ignorant priests at 13.121–28 (spoken by Rechelesnesse) (B.11.307–17, spoken by Will), where the matter of how their ignorance affects the salvation of the people is not raised. Office B.15.386 is a general word for divine services; it can be used of the Mass (OED, s.v. office b.; see, e.g., The Lay Folks Mass Book B.581), as it apparently is here; houres refers to the daily recitation of the breviary. That the issue is the saying of Mass is clear from the phrases oure bileue suffise∂ B.15.387 and to saue wi∂ lewed peple B.15.389, since how a priest says his office would not involve his parishioners. C makes that explicit, and drops the contrast between seculars and regulars, folk of holy kirke and oo∂ere, to speak only of seculars, parish prestes saying Mass for their flock. Devout attendance at Mass is salvific because the Mass reenacts the redemptive sacrifice of Christ: to see the consecrated host and believe is to affirm one’s desire to share in the salvation wrought by Christ. Franz (1902:5) aptly cites Gregory: Christ in the Mass “pro nobis iterum patitur. Nam quoties ei hostiam suae passionis offerimus, toties nobis ad absolutionem nostrum passionem illius reparamus,” suffers again for us. For every time we offer to him the sacrificial victim of his suffering, we renew his suffering for our salvation (PL 76.1279). Aquinas makes clear that the sacrament is efficacious regardless of the merits of the minister, because Augustine writes, “it is not by the merits of the consecrator that the sacrament is wrought, but by the Creator’s word and the power of the Holy Spirit” (ST 3.82.5; “Augustine” is Paschasius Radbertus, De corpore et sanguine Domini 12, PL 120.1310). Though Wyclif thought otherwise, as Pearsall points out in his note here, Margery Kempe was sure that “what man hath takyn the ordyr of presthode, be he nevyr so vicyows a man in hys levyng, 9yf he sey dewly tho wordys ovyr the bred that owr Lord Ihesu Criste seyde . . . that it is hys very flesch & hys blood & no material bred ne nevyr may be unseyd be it onys seyd” (1940:115, cited by Duffy 1992:110, in his excellent chapter on the Mass). Aquinas goes on, however, like Langland, to stress the value of priestly goodness, quoting Gratian: “the worthier the priest, the more readily is he heard in the needs for which he prays” (3.82.6; Decretum 2.1.1.91, ed. Friedberg 2000:391; PL 187.521). On “overskippers,” see 13.119, 123 (B.11. 305, 310), and the anecdote in Fasciculus morum under Sloth: a nun upset because her priest hurries through his daily Mass hears God speak an English poem to her: “Longe-slepars and over-lepers/For-skippers and over-hippers,/I holde hem lither hyne (bad servants)”; he disowns them and predicts damnation unless they amend (ed. Wenzel 1989:418–19). The poem is extant in many manuscripts; see Reichl 1973:321–25. Wright 1841 gives the story of the devil Tutivillus, who nightly fills

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a sack with syllables and whole verses “stolen” by clerics; it also appears in “Jacob’s Well.” Tutivillus is fully treated in Jennings 1977; on pp. 18–23 she prints various verses about overskipping. Cf. Myroure of Oure Ladye, ed. Blunt 1873:52–53. St Bernard offers a litany of ways to perform services sloppily, including “integra transilientes” (skipping whole words) (Sermon 47 on Canticles, PL 183.1011). Martin Luther said in his later years that when he went to Rome in 1510, the Roman priests would say six or seven Masses, for money, before he finished one (Tischreden 5439b, quoted in Scheel 1929:170)—a corruption, unless Luther exaggerates, several orders of magnitude beyond the mere slovenliness complained of here. And in England the matter of “mumbling” priests was a major topic for reformers: see Mazzio 2009:19–34. 120–21 (B.15.388–89) corpus cristi feste . . . sola fides sufficit: “Faith alone is enough,” from the hymn Pange, lingua gloriosi/Corporis mysterium (Raby 1959:401), part of the office for the feast of Corpus Christi (the Thursday after Trinity Sunday), composed by St Thomas Aquinas; the hymn was sung during the procession of the Blessed Sacrament and read in the breviary (or sung again in church) at vespers. For a full account of Aquinas’s office and the use of its hymns for the procession that became a major part of the celebration of the feast soon after it was established in 1264, see Rubin 1991:185–96, 246. For L the phrase prompts ruminations on Saracens and Jews that take it far beyond Aquinas’s simple reflection that as one observes the sacred host, though one doesn’t actually see the body of Christ, “faith alone is enough to strengthen a sincere heart.” See the following notes. 122 (cf. B.15.391–92) Ac √if prestes . . . bettre: the C line should be enclosed in parentheses or dashes, since it interrupts the continuity of the discussion of belief in lines 119–24. It is an important revision, however, maintaining the emphasis on the value of priests despite this concession that faith alone suffices (their deuer is presumably not just to say Mass devoutly but to set an example by living good lives). In the B version, Anima seems to ignore the way that the concession undermines the focus on priests, apparently because Mohammed has already come into his mind—all right, faith alone suffices, but still it’s bad when priests don’t set a good example, as Mohammed certainly did not. Thus B.15.391–92 do not just close off the lament about the clergy with a conventional wish that priests would practice what they preach, and be better examples to the laity. Rather, they lead right into For: “What a shame, then (i.e., since faith alone can save Saracens), that our priests don’t live the faith they teach us, and thus make us more reluctant to offend God, for Saracens, like

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us, believe in one God, but that bad priest Mohammed misled them completely.” This is the first inkling of the view of the priesthood that will occupy the rest of the passus in both versions: if they are truly the successors to the apostles, they should convert the Saracens and Jews. See B.15.504–32n below. The thought proceeds into the next section, then, in these steps: 1. The clergy are ignorant and lazy, overskipping in the liturgy. 2. It’s all right, though—our faith saves us; and Saracens can be saved too by faith in Christ. 3. Alas, then, that priests don’t give us a model of good living (and so keep us faithful). Look at Mohammed, a bad priest if there ever was one: he lied to people and made them lose their faith. In C this step is delayed momentarily by the ecstatic vision of the Church as a community of love (125–49), though that might also be seen as an attempt by L to say better what he is about to say about Muslims.

Spreading the faith: what is Holy Church? (123–321, B.15.390–613) 123–24 (cf. B.15.390) For sarrasynes . . . churche: Though sarrasyn can refer generally to pagans or infidels, as when Trajan is called a Saracen (12.88, by himself; B.11.157, 165), here, in view of the specific focus on converting Muslims in the remainder of the passage, it almost certainly means Muslims. For the B emendation Grekes, and more on C, see the next note. The C line means, “For even Saracens may be saved, provided that as they die they profess their belief in Holy Church.” (See the similar statement about dying infidels, there apparently contemplating actual baptism, at A.11.232–39 [B.10.349–56].) This statement in C is a major change from B.15.390, which is unconditional, or at least does not spell out the condition (which in C is further confirmed in Liberum arbitrium’s answer to Will’s next question: the Church, the home of leaute, law, and love, is the only source of salvation). But there has been no real change in L’s ideas: C just makes plainer what is already there in B, namely, (1) the idea that neither Saracens nor Jews, though they have a semblance of belief, in fact have the fides that will suffice to save them, the Saracens having been led by Mohammed into “mysbileue” (397) and the Jews having refused to see that Jesus was the Messiah (587–604), and (2) the consequent idea that the Church needs to convert both groups. (For different views, see Narin van Court 1996:52–54, who argues that in the C version L has a whole new sense of the Jews, particularly evident in this passage—cf. 304–11n below; and Russell 1966:109–16, seconded vigorously by Kerby-Fulton 2006:375–83:

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they argue that L was influenced in C by Uthred of Boldon’s famous clara visio at the moment of death to offer a far more hopeful view than in B of the salvation of the heathen). In fact this subject, the salvation through conversion of the Saracens and Jews, introduced here in a characteristically offhand way in both versions, will consume the remainder of the passus. And though Jews do not get specific attention until near the end of the passus, the subject in its fullest dimension includes both groups (but not Eastern Christians; see the next note). Thus in C, even though the introduction of the subject at line 120 mentions Saracens only, it is clear soon enough, in lines 132–35 and 156, that both groups are at issue (though see the note to 156–62). Though L is clear about the difference between them, in essence they are one group, “vncristene” (B.15.396). His interest in them here seems quite different from what it was in passu¯s 13 and 14 (B.11 and 12, A.11). There the issue was the doubts engendered in Will’s mind by the problem of the salvation of righteous heathens; Ymaginatif solved it for him at 14.199–217 (B.12.277–97) by adopting the liberal position that “vix saluabitur iustus” means “saluabitur,” that “Ne wolde neuere trewe god bote trewe treuthe were alloued” (14.212; B.12.290)—a position that Anima and Liberum arbitrium do not seem to share. Of course Ymaginatif’s position doesn’t mean at all that one shouldn’t bother trying to convert heathens. Furthermore, the mode of thought here is social and political, not focused on personal belief; the issues are charity, world peace, and “oon bileue,” the mission that Conscience and Patience left the dinner for in the previous vision (see B.13.206–10): Saracens and Jews are “enemies” who are there to be loved, not fought; the objective is precisely what the doctor in the dinner scene scorned as impossible, “a pees of the pope and his enemyes” (15.172; B.13.174). See also 10.188–200, a new passage in the C version in which Wit defines Dowel as loving one’s enemies and Dobest as to “brynge hit to hepe/That alle landes loueden and in on lawe bileuede,” a goal that bishops should give their lives for. Coleman 1981, citing McFarlane 1972, puts L’s interest in conversion in the context of similar interest among contemporary Lollard knights (125) and of “enthusiasm for the conversion of the infidel” on the part of Wyclif and Firzralph (145). (That interest first entered the poem in the riddle Conscience utters near the end of his prophecy of universal peace in passus 3.480–82 [B.3.327–39], where the conversion of both Jews and Saracens is predicted.) That passage suggests that one of L’s goals for the C version was to give greater prominence to this matter. Further steps included the new passusdivision, so that the matter is no longer buried at the end of a very long passus, the second longest in the B version; the clarification here at 123–24; the long new passage on the Church, 125–49; Will’s question at 150; the extensive

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rewriting of the initial lines about the Saracens, 151–64 (B.15.393–98); the omission of the long B passage about the English clergy, 413–91 (with a certain loss to this subject; see B.15.417–91n), replaced by a straightforward statement of the theme of conversion at 183–85; and the added passage on peace, 233–49. B.15.390 [Grekes]: KD-B explain on p. 194 the emendation here and in B.15.501 of “Iewes” (the reading of all the manuscripts) as made on the criterion of sense: “Iewes is suspect as both repetitious and creating an imbalance of categories with Sar√ ens. Line 605, Grekes, directs our conjecture. This would have been hard for a copyist ignorant of the Eastern church, and the commoner collocation would either prompt substitution or actually lead to unconscious misreading.” But in fact L’s subject is the conversion of Muslims and Jews, and not Eastern Christians, who don’t need converting, and whom the emendation at 501 would turn into non-believers in the Trinity. Line B.15.605 is simply not parallel to these two, since the Trinity is not at issue there (and when it becomes an issue in the following lines, “Grekes” is dropped). B.15.605 is like 12.55 (B.11.120) “Sarrasynes and sismatikes and so a ded 3e iewes,” an all-inclusive line embracing all three non-Western-Christian groups: Muslims, Jews, and Greek Orthodox Christians (sismatikes ⳱ Grekes); the other two lines, B.15.390 and 501 are narrower, on Jews and Muslims only, and the archetypal reading of both (and of C.17.252, the counterpart of B.15.501, which RK-C let stand), “Sar9ens . . . Scribes and Iewes,” is surely what L wrote, the doublet for the Jews being so automatic as not in fact to create an imbalance (see 20.26 [B.18.27]). For early mention of Saracens and Jews, see 3.482. Goldstein 2001:238n, citing the privately communicated support of Hoyt Duggan, and Warner 2003:130n also argue against the emendation.

Liberum arbitrium defines Holy Church (125–49, in C only) 125–49 What is holy churche . . . come to heuene: In C only. This poetically charged definition of Holy Church (which seems to interrupt the discussion of the Saracens, but is actually designed to put that on a firmer basis) in its focus on love, law, and leutee quite rightly recalls the terminology of Holy Church in passus 1 (although it replaces her favorite word “truth” with its synonym leutee). Cf. 1.136 “Than treuthe and trewe loue is no tresor bettre,” 157 (B.1.161) “Ryht so is loue a ledare and 3e lawe shapeth,” 177 (B.1.181, A.1.155) “louye leeliche and lene 3e pore.” There is a greater stress here on leutee than there on truth, however. What may be the central statement of the passage, lele men lyue as lawe techeth and loue ∂erof aryseth (139) may seem to

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contradict 1.157, though it is better to take them as complementary statements of one relation: if love shapes the law, then obeying the law is love in action. See also 12.87–93 (B.11.162–71), where the terms are employed to explain the salvation of Trajan, though there, in support of the aim to disparage learning, law in the sense of a body of formal religious beliefs is set against natural or divine laws, “oure lordes bokes” (C.12.97): love and “lawe rihtful” saved Trajan though he lacked “lele byleue”; the terms are not used there with the same emotional power or intellectual depth as here and in passus 1. The relevance to the Saracens and Jews comes from the insistence on law, which they are outside of: see 151–64 and notes there. The passage moves from emphasizing unity (127–8; cf. the equation of “unity” and “Holy Church” in passu¯s 21–22 [B.19–20]) to emphasizing leutee (130) to emphasizing law, and then finally to saying that loving your own soul is charity—almost as if the question had been “What is charity?” instead of “What is Holy Church?”—which puts the focus finally on individual salvation, the central issue of passus 1 and of the entire poem. Presumably there can be no love-knot of Christians unless they love their own souls and are striving to be saved. The nouns lawe and byleue (i.e., system of belief, set of beliefs), and leutee as well, are here virtually synonymous. Throughout the passage leutee is best taken in its most literal objective sense of “legality” rather than in the subjective sense “loyalty, faithful allegiance.” Line 139 offers a definition: lele men lyue as lawe techeth, that is, to be lel is to live by the law, to live according to objective truth. This objective meaning is very clear at line 130–31, which must mean, “Love a law without legality, i.e., one with no legal standing? God has never credited that, never taught anyone to believe without a basis in truth.” Lines 132–35 go on to say that Jews and Saracens think they believe in the truth, and yet their law strays from the truth. They believe in and honor and love one God—and yet (line 136, repeating 130–31) our lord gives no credit to love that is not based in true law. These lines clearly define the Church as lel, lawful, and implicitly define its members as those who uphold the law by living an upright life. The law, though, is a law of love—Love God, love your neighbor, love your enemy, and in doing so love your own soul (141–43)—and so the Church is defined in terms of love as well. That is the emphasis at the start of the passage, with its love-knot of Christians cleaving on one will, that is, all desiring to love God and to do his will: all say, “Fiat voluntas tua.” It is tempting to take leutee and lele in lines 126 and 127 in the subjective sense, as applying to the loving allegiance of Christians to one another, but the entire passage is more cohesive if in these places too it is taken to mean “legality” or lawfulness:

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the love-knot arises when everyone obeys the law of love, as line 139 says, returning love to center stage. Charity is the love for one another of all those loyal to the law of Christ, the Christian faith. Allouable 130 means “rewardable by eternal life”: see 15.286 (B.14.110); the purpose of the line seems to be simply to insist that belief must be lel in the subjective sense, must imply a loving commitment of the whole self to living a virtuous life, and not merely intellectual assent. Line 131 goes further and implies that belief without leutee defies the very nature of belief; Jews and Saracens are then instanced in the next four lines in support of that. Since their system of belief (lawe) is different, though both have a heartfelt love for one God, and think that lelyche they byleue, there is no genuine leutee (since they don’t believe in the Trinity)—and thus they are not aloue[d] (136), a position not quite consistent with what Ymaginatif has said about the salvation of virtuous pagans at 14.209–12 (B.12.287–90): see above, C.17.123– 24n, and the important qualification at lines 150–55 below. The passage also takes a much stronger stand on the need for law as well as love and leutee than is taken in the Trajan scene, 12.75–99 (B.11.140–76). See also 295–97 (B.15.582–86)n below. Line 136 is the counterpart of line 130. Just as that line declared law without leutee valueless, this declares love without law valueless: the only love that merits salvation, the only truly lel love, is love prompted by, and consistent with, faith in Christ. The instancing of lechery and theft makes clear how lel love differs from other loves. Finally, the purpose of line 139 is probably not to treat love as secondary to, or derived from, law and leutee but rather to suggest that the three terms are commutable, that is, that it is also true that loving men live as leutee teaches, and belief thereof arises, and lawful men live as love teaches, and leutee thereof arises. The three l-words are a kind of trinity, they make one— love is law is leutee—and one Church, which is o byleue (126) and o will (128). The Latin quotation at 140a is a further sign of unity and trinity, in its one verb with three objects, and one preposition with three objects: veritatem (leutee), legem (law), caritatem (love), which could be interchanged without loss to the idea. It is, of course, a variation on the two great commandments (Matt 22:37–40; see 19.14, 17 [B.17.13, 16]n), and close to the formulation by Piers in 15.140–47 (or by Patience in B.13.137–47): both emphasize loving one’s enemy. Patience there quotes “a lemman, loue was hir name” as saying “loue leelly 3i soule al 3i lif tyme,/And so 3ow lere 3e to louye . . . /Thyn enemy” (B.13.141–43). Thus it is not surprising here that the passage turns at the end to insisting on loving one’s own soul, earning salvation for it by living a good life; clearly love of one’s own soul was, in L’s mind, the foundation of all

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further loves. See also 5.103 “leele to thy soule,” and 10.291, where “in loue of soule” means “loving their own souls,” i.e., “in the state of grace.” Spearing 1964:91–92 analyzes the repetitions in this eloquent passage, seeing its interweaving of words as a small-scale version of the interweaving of ideas and images in the so-called “university sermon.” He argues that the passage is itself A loueknotte of leutee and of lele byleue, a “whole which is felt to be richly meaningful, but which could hardly be defined in conceptual terms.” (Nevertheless I have striven here to lay out its concepts.) Kean 1964 treats the three terms as they function in the Visio, unfortunately making no reference at all to this passage. Her discussion of leaute is particularly valuable, although all three ideas have grown variously since the Visio. Original though the passage is, it probably takes its inspiration from Ephesians 4, especially verses 1–6, where Paul exhorts the members of the church at Ephesus to “walk worthy of the vocation in which you are called . . . supporting one another in charity, careful to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. One body and one spirit, as you are called in one hope of your calling: one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all.” See also Ps 132:1, Rom 12:4–16, 1 John 4, and the note to 127 loueknotte below, in particular the quotations from Aquinas and Baldwin, who both associate the love-knot with Paul’s phrase vinculum pacis (bond of peace, Eph 4:3). Yet more sources are suggested in the note to the Latin of line 140a. Kane 1994:15 says, “The words belong to Anima Reason [he means Liberum arbitrium]; the desideratum is Pauline, from Romans 12 and ultimately Psalm 132.” 127 loueknotte: This is the earliest instance given in the OED of love-knot as a metaphor, not a symbolic physical object such as the Monk’s pin (CT A197). The term is roughly equivalent to Latin nexus amoris, bond of love; the exact equivalent nodus amoris is less common. It is frequent in discussions of the Trinity, and of the soul’s union with God, but also, as here, of Christian charity. Aquinas: “Hoc etiam videtur ex auctoritate apostoli, Eph 4:3 ‘soliciti servare unitatem spiritus in vinculo pacis’; et ita amor habet rationem vinculi et nexus” (This [i.e., the idea that since the Holy Spirit is the love of the Father and the Son, he unites them] is apparent by the authority of St Paul, Ephesians 4:3: ‘Careful to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace’; thus love functions as a chain and bond) (Scriptum in 1 Sententiarum, Dist. 10, Quaest. 1, Art. 3, Sed contra 2.1). Cf. B.5.607, “cheyne of charite,” and note. Ruusbroec “Charitas amoris nexus est, transvehens nos in Deum” (Charity is a love-bond, carrying us to God) (De ornatu, ed. Alaerts, 2.77.2173), “Nihil [est] aliud charitas quam nexus quidam amoris inter Deum et animam amantem” (Charity is nothing else but a kind of love-bond between God and the soul that loves

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him) (ibid., 1.1.134). Baldwin of Forde: “In dilectione ergo proximi, sicut per nexum amoris et vinculum pacis, caritas Dei et unitas spiritus retinetur a nobis et conservatur in nobis” (In the love of neighbor, as through a love-bond and a chain of peace, the love of God and the unity of the Spirit is held onto by us and kept in us) (Sermones, ed. Bell, 15.591). Abelard: “Tam ipsi (i.e., Christ) quam proximo propter ipsum indissolubili amoris nexu cohaeremus” (We stick both to him and to our neighbor on account of him by an indissoluble love-bond) (Commentaria in epistulam Pauli ad Romanos, ed. Buytaert, 2.3.63). But closer to home is Thomas Usk’s Testament of Love (ed. Shawver and Leyerle 2002), in whose second book the “knot of love in the heart” is the key image, returned to again and again; see Schaar 1956, Norton-Smith 1961, and Schaar and Norton-Smith 1961 for brief discussion, citing analogues in Alan of Lille and Lydgate. Middleton 1998:101 sees L’s autobiographical passage in C.5 as echoing Usk; this may be another, smaller echo. 128 cleuynge on o will: In imitation, perhaps, of the Trinity, “of o wit and o will,” 18.189. 129 gabbyng: Lying (OED gab v1, sense 3). What L must mean by lying in giving is the system of donation of “miswinnings” in return for absolution, which he has just treated extensively above; see 17.32–94n. For lying in selling and lending, see the confession of Coveytise 6.209–85a (B.5.201–59). Charity has been associated with guilelessness at 16.306–9 (not in B), 362–63 (B.15.237– 38). See also Eph 4:29: “Let no evil speech proceed from your mouth.” 131 God lereth no lyf to leue withouten lele cause: I.e., all systems of belief are based on law and stress leutee. 132–35 Iewes and gentel sarresines . . . o lord almyhty: Again and again L will emphasize that Jews and Saracens (especially the latter, since the monotheism of the former was so familiar) are monotheists; see 151–52 (cf. B.15.393– 96), 252–58 (B.15.501–7), 295 (B.15.582–84), 314–16 (B.15.605–8). Jacobus says of Muslims (ed. Maggioni, 2007, p. 1414): “Cum christianis autem conveniunt quia credunt unum solum Deum omnipotentem omnium creatorem” (They are in agreement with Christians in believing in one only God almighty, creator of all things). So too Alan of Lille in De fide catholica contra haereticos (PL 210.421): “Cum Christianis in hoc consonant, quod unum Deum universorum creatorem affirmant; in hoc tamen cum Judaeis conveniunt, quod in divina unitate trinitatem abnegant” (They are in agreement with Christians in affirming one God the creator of all things, but with Jews in denying a trinity

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within the divine unity). Daniel 1993:60–66 shows that it was standard to acknowledge that Christianity and Islam had belief in one God the creator in common, and almost as standard to go on to instance the Trinity as the obvious point of difference, as L does at 254 (B.15.503). And here too, though it is admittedly obscure, the point wherein the Jews’ and Saracens’ “lawe diuerseth” is probably not that they only love God, and fail to love their enemies (see 139–43, and 21.112–14), but rather that they don’t acknowledge the New Law in which these points are emphasized, or the divinity of Christ who emphasized them. Though L almost certainly knew Richard Fitzralph’s antifraternal polemics (Scase 1989, passim; Szittya 1986:123–51), it is doubtful that he knew Fitzralph’s Summa Domini Armacani in Questionibus Armenorum, a very technical reading of the Latin Quran to prove the truth of scripture. 136 aloueth: Gives credit for (Kane, Glossary); but the full meaning here is “grants salvation for,” as the subsequent lines make clear, contrasting the damnation of thieves and lechers to the salvation of lel lovers. God grants salvation to those who love him, but only under the New Law. This meaning of “allow” has been firmly established in Patience’s discussion of “allouaunce” and “desallouwynge” at the end of passus 15 and the start of 16 (15.286 [B.14.110], 16.7 [B.14.131, 139]), though it is present earlier as well, e.g., at 12.195, 14.212 (B.12.290), B.10.439, 441. 139 loue ∂erof aryseth: The simple reason why love arises from living as law teaches is that in its two great commandments the law teaches us to love. See further, however, the comment on this line in 125–49n above. 139–40 loue . . . /The whiche is ∂e heued of charite: This seems hardly worth saying, since love and charity are synonyms, but L may be thinking of the ubiquitous idea of Christ as the head of the Church, and of a chain of correspondences: if Christ, head of the Church, is God and God is love, and the Church is charity (line 125 above), then love is the head of charity. and hele of mannes soule: Cf. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine 1.23, in his important discussion of loving one’s own soul (see line 143 just below): “For immortality and purity of the body arise from the health of the spirit (de sanitate animi), and the health of the spirit arises from a firm adherence to something more powerful, that is, to immutable God.” In short, loving God is the health of the soul. Hugh of St Victor, PL 175.774: “sinceritas . . . dilectionis, sanitas illius [sc. animae]” (the sincerity of love is the soul’s health). But by hele L clearly also

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means salvation (Latin salus, health), in opposition to the damnation of lechers and thieves (see note to aloueth 136 above); and the simple scriptural source is Jesus’s telling the lawyer in Luke 10:28, “This do (i.e., love God and neighbor), and thou shalt live.” See 19.17–20 (B.17.18–21) and the note to 19.14, 17 (B.17.13, 16). 140a Dilige deum . . . caritatem: Love God because of God, that is, because of truth; and your enemy because of the commandment, that is, because of the law; and your friend because of love, that is, out of charity. L translates the Latin, with his usual freedom, in lines 141–43. The Latin, as implied above, offers equivalents of all three major terms in the passage: love (Amorem, caritatem), law (mandatum, legem), and leaute (veritatem). It is heightened prose, with its six “propters,” its isocolon, its atem/atum/atem rhymes, and its rhythmic feel, and is probably L’s own, though both its thought and its phrases have plenty of analogues in discussions of love. Here is a single example, in a sermon perhaps by Walter of St Victor (ed. Chatillon 1975:272): “In hoc ergo quod scriptura docet nos diligere Deum, docet nos amare bonum nostrum, et sic docet et instruit qualiter nos debemus uere diligere, id est in ueritate, et propter ueritatem in Deo, et propter Deum, id est ad hoc ut habeamus uel quia habemus Deum, id est ad hoc ut simus iusti uel quia sumus iusti, ad hoc ut diligamus Deum ex toto corde uel quia eum sic diligimus” (In teaching us to love God, scripture teaches us to love our own good, and thus teaches us how to love truly, that is, in truth, and because of the truth in God, and because of God, that is, in order to have God or because we have God, in order to be righteous or because we are righteous, in order to love God with our whole heart or because we so love him). The ultimate sources are Matt 22:37–40 (the two great commandments; cf. C.19.14, 177 [B.17.13, 16] and note), Matt 5:44 (the mandate to love your enemy), 1 John 4, and the first book of De doctrina christiana. The only hard phrase is “(Dilige) Amicum propter Amorem.” Probably Amor is God (“God is love,” 1 John 4:8), and the simple meaning is “Love your neighbor for the sake of God.” Jesus’s juxtaposition of the two commandments implies that love of neighbor is rooted in the love of God. Augustine says, “Every man should be loved for the sake of God, and God for his own sake” (1.27). In the once-familiar formulation of the Baltimore Catechism, we are to “love God above all things for his own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God.” The Catholic Encyclopedia (s.v. Love, Theological Virtue) cites the expression “to love the neighbor for the sake of God” and associates it with Matt 25:40, “As long as you did it to one of these my least

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brethren, you did it to me.” See 19.40 “for 3at lordes sake” and the note to 19.38–41. Surprisingly, though, when we arrive at L’s own translation in line 143, it turns out that the “friend” we are enjoined to love is not our neighbor but our own soul. Are we then to take Amicum 140a that way, rather than as “neighbor”? Probably not. Given the standard theology just cited, and given the strong place of love of neighbor at the start of the passage, especially in lines 128–29, it is surely best to take Amicum as neighbor, and this sudden turn as a new development, one more instance of L’s protean thought, turning the passage inward as he translates, though with a clear Augustinian warrant. With this change, and the explanation in lines 144–49, the passage now seems to mean something different: to love God and your enemy is to love your own soul, because that is the way to heaven. See the next note. 143–49 Loue . . . heuene: As mentioned above in the general note to C.17.125– 49, Patience in B.13.139–43 has quoted “a lemman, loue was hir name” as saying “loue leelly 3i soule al 3i lif tyme,/And so 3ow lere 3e to louye . . . / Thyn enemy.” The lines disappeared in the C version of the dinner scene, but their gist resurfaces here; see also 10.291: married couples should be “clene of lyf and in loue of soule.” There is basis in scripture for the idea of loving one’s own soul, and the idea that that is good, e.g., Ps 10:6, “He that loveth iniquity hateth his own soul”; Ecclus 30:24, “Have pity on thy own soul, pleasing God”; and 1 Kings 18: 1 and 3, where David and Jonathan are each said to love the other “as his own soul.” It is implied also in the injunction “Love thy neighbor as thyself” (Matt 22:39). All but the David-Jonathan passage imply that the way to love yourself is to lead a good life, and that is Liberum arbitrium’s idea as well, as lines 139–40 and 144–49 make clear. They are one more “make a good end” passage (a C-version specialty, Prol.29n), a brief vignette, Everyman in miniature, repeating the phrase at ∂e laste from 137–38 to bring the earlier allusions to damnation and salvation into the open, and saying, “At death it will be just you and your soul, Will, the only friend you have left; it will want to spend eternity with you in heaven; be unlike the thieves and lechers: be good to it and make that happen.” In short: follow your conscience, will the good, do well. Thus this passage that began with so catholic a vision, celebrating the Church as a love-knot of Christians, all kinds cleaving on one will, has turned at last—because it is, after all, Liberum arbitrium instructing Will—to the old issue, how Will can save his soul. The turn has started early, with the introduction of the idea of salvation in 130 “allouable,” has gained momentum by addressing the Latin of 140a to Will (in the singular imperative Dilige and the singular pronoun tuum), and is firmly settled by the four uses of “thy” in

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lines 142–43, by the vignette picturing his dying, and finally by the fond vocative “leue chield” 148. Thus the celebration of love culminates in a peroration in which one is made to feel Liberum arbitrium’s love for Will. In Spenser’s Faerie Queene 1.10.29, Red Crosse, having escaped Despair, learns in the House of Holiness “Himselfe to chearish.” Solomon says to Marcolf, “Bene facit anime sue vir misericors” (A merciful person does well to his own soul) (Solomon and Marcolf 103a, ed. Ziolkowski 2008:68) This may only mean that exercising mercy gains one spiritual credit, but more likely means that true mercy includes being kind to oneself. Tierney 1959:53 cites the Decretum citing Augustine on giving first to oneself, glossed as first purifying one’s own heart. But self-love was a vexed issue in the light of injunctions against selfishness such as John 12:25, “He that loveth his life (animam) shall lose it.” The common attitude is encapsulated in Shakespeare’s Sonnet 62, which starts, “Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye,/And all my soul, and all my every part,/And for this sin there is no remedy.” See the lucid treatment by O’Donovan 1980; for the statement of the issue in terms of love of soul, see pp. 46–47. As O’Donovan shows, Aquinas was instrumental in promoting a positive idea of self-love; see pp. 2, 146–48 and Summa theologica 2a2ae.25.7. But as one might guess, L’s equation of self-love with the desire to go to heaven is a simplification. 148 cher ouer: solicitous for. The basic word is French cher, dear; this meaning is rare but not unparalleled; OED posits confusion with chary, from OE cearig, grieving.

Back to the Saracens, and to the B text (150–82, B.15.393–411) 150–82 Where sarresynes . . . as wel lered as lewed (B.15.393–411 For Sar√ens . . . leeuen on hise lawes): In B, the ostensible subject at the start, that Saracens can be saved (see 390) because they too are monotheists, is traded quickly for the presentation of Mohammed as the type of a bad priest, a subject that leads Anima back to criticism of the Christian secular clergy (though eventually to the subject of converting the Saracens and Jews). In C the pregnant issue of salvation is replaced by Will’s more neutral question whether the Saracens see what charity is. (The question is perhaps only neutral on the surface, however; since in passus 19 [B.17] in the figure of the Samaritan charity is equated with Christ, the real question encoded here is, “Do the Saracens recognize Christ, the second person of the Trinity?”) Liberum arbitrium begins a rather hopeful answer, then veers toward criticism of Mohammed, though without losing

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focus on Saracen belief because unlike Anima he does not return to criticizing the clergy: B.15.412–91 are replaced by 168 (see note ad loc.), 181–86. 151–55 Hit may be so . . . lyflode hym sende: This initial answer to Will’s question, before Liberum arbitrium qualifies it at line 156, seems to allow for the salvation of virtuous pagans that Ymaginatif has asserted at 14.202–17 (and as “sola fides sufficit” just above at line 121, though spoken in a different context, implies). L seems to have been deeply torn on this question, wanting to say, as Liberum arbitrium goes on to say here, that Christ is the way, and wanting his church to be a love-knot of the lel, but still wanting not to exclude, and not to short-change God’s love for, and justice toward, all his creatures. 151 such a manere charite: i.e., charity of a certain sort—but not genuine, enemy-loving, own-soul-loving charity, as just described; see line 286 below. 154–55 bysecheth/To ∂at lord . . . lyflode hym sende: I.e., they are just like us, they say in effect, “Give us this day our daily bread.”

Mohammed (159–87, B.15.397–416) 156–62 Ac many manere men . . . leute vnknowe: Probably a single sentence, qualifying the previous two—there should be a colon, not a period, at the end of line 158, and a semi-colon at the end of line 159. Granted that Muslims have a natural love of God; but they don’t love him right, in law and leute, because they rely on Mohammed to intercede for them with God (as Jacobus says; see next note), and live by his teaching. Despite and iewes 156, the whole sentence is about Muslims. 157 as by ∂e legende sanctorum: I.e., “as you can read in the Legenda sanctorum.” L almost certainly knew Jacobus’s account of Mohammed (inserted in his life of St Pelagius, ed. Maggioni 2007, 2.1414–21, trans. Ryan 2.370–73), which features Mohammed’s claim to be the Messiah (cf. lines 158–59), stresses monotheism, and has the dove story. On the other hand, in Jacobus the dove is trained by another, and he does not have the story that Mohammed was a cardinal whose hopes for the papacy were disappointed (lines 165–67; cf. B.15.399). What L has more deeply in common with Jacobus is a view of Mohammed as a fraud in combination with a certain respect for Islam. In any case L certainly knew other versions than Jacobus’s—Higden’s, for instance,

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as Metlitzki 1977:205–6 suggests; she gives his whole account from Polychronicon, in John Trevisa’s translation, on p. 206 (Higden’s Book 5, chapter 14, ed. Lumby 1876:19–23); in Higden too the dove is trained by another—and probably knew one or more that had both the cardinal story and the dove story, e.g., the mid-fourteenth-century French poem Attila, quoted by D’Ancona 1889:250 (1994:69). The early commentators on Dante have both—not that L knew them, but they provide evidence that the stories were widespread in L’s time. The whole subject of Mohammed-legends is vast and complex; see, besides D’Ancona, Daniel 1993, esp. his third chapter, “The Life of Mohammed”; Chew 1937:387–412, Munro 1931, Kritzeck 1964:17–19, Tolan 2002:135–69, and (for the cardinal legend) Doutte´ 1898–99. 158 on a mene: I.e., in a false mediator; see line 258 (B.15.507) below, “in a fals mene.” That phrase in both versions closes the treatment of Mohammed; by adding on a mene at the beginning in C, L has created an “envelope.” 159–87, 239–57 (B.15.397–416, 492–506) Makameth (Mohammed): Metlitzki 1977:201–10 locates this account in the broad context of medieval Western accounts of Mohammed, in both poetry and historical/theological prose. She shows that though sources such as Jacobus and Higden distinguish between popular legend and what Jacobus calls verius, “truer” (Maggioni 2.1414), L chooses to follow the popular legend. 159–64 A man ∂at hihte Makameth . . . preysed: The point of these lines is to present Islam as in all respects opposite to Holy Church as it has just been described in lines 125–49. The major basis for associating it with kynde is its rejection of Christian revelation; but perhaps L was influenced by Jacobus’s account of polygamy and concubinage as features of Islamic practice, by his account of Mohammed’s own licentiousness, and by the “garden of (sensual) delights” that he describes as the Islamic heaven; certainly the phrase when kynde hath his cours 161 seems to refer to sexual license. See also Peter the Chanter, Verbum abbreviatum, ed. Boutry 2004:533–34: “Machometus . . . videns legem evangelii ait quibusdam discolis, ‘Hec est lex Christi. Sed quia nimis est onerosa et gravis, sequimini me et ego vobis obtemperabo’; et sic indulgens plures concubinas, laxando frena in cibo et potu et cura corporis, induxit eos in errorem qui adhuc dicitur machometinorum error” (Mohammed saw the law of the Gospel and said to some of his disciples, “This is the law of Christ. It’s too burdensome, too heavy: follow me and I will moderate it for you.” And so he gave permission for several concubines and loosened the reins on food and drink and the care of the body, leading them into the

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error that to this day is called “the error of the Mohammedans”). The lechers who love against the law in line 137 likewise let kind have its course. See Daniel’s chapter 5, “The Place of Self-indulgence in the Attack on Islam,” 1993:158– 85. Bounte 163 and cortesie 164 are in effect synonyms for leute 162. 163–64 Beaute san√ bounte . . . san√ cortesie: Beauty without goodness . . . without courtesy. Conceivably the phrases come from a French account of Mohammed, but I have not found them. The phrase “beauty without bounty” is proverbial in both French and English, Hassell 1982: B36; Whiting B152. Though most accounts say nothing of Mohammed’s looks, the anonymous Continuatio chronicorum beati Isidori asserts that his effect on people came in part from his beauty: “Erat enim pulcher, facundus, et fortis, et magicis artibus valde imbutus” (He was handsome, eloquent, and strong, and exceedingly adept in magic arts) PL 96.320. The Dominican Jacopo da Acqui (died c. 1337) in his Chronicon (1848:1460) says that Mohammed’s companions Nicholas and Sergius put him forward as God’s prophet because “inter ipsos tres plus habebat de apparentia in facie aliquorum morum gravitate” (of the three of them he had in his face more of an appearance of an upright way of life); Jacopo is discussed by D’Ancona 1889:260–61 (1994:78–79). 165–80 Me fyndeth ∂at Macometh . . . peple (B.15.397–411 Ac oon Makometh . . . lawes): Kritzeck 1964 treats the legends on 17–19; he says (17, n46) that Daniel’s Islam and the West (first ed. 1960) is “now the indispensable work.” On p. 18 he mentions the tale that Mohammed was a cardinal who set up his own religion after failing to be elected pope, and cites Doutte´, 1898–99. In other versions the cardinal is Nicholas, who draws Mohammed into his schemes; there are actually endless permutations, treated wittily by D’Ancona, e.g., 1889:262–63 (1994:79). Kritzeck aptly quotes Chew 1937:398: “The development of the conception of Mahomet is, then, from that of a heretic to that of a fraud.” Surely he is the latter in L, although like Peter the Venerable L seems to treat Islam as a heresy; see Metlitzki 1977:200. 168 lossheborw: with this single word echoing line 73 above L accomplishes in C, directly and at the beginning of the account of Mohammed, the association of him with bad priests that in B is withheld till the end, at 415–16, and then developed at length in 417–91a. See Bourquin 1978:641. lette: prevented. 169 (B.15.398, 400) surie: “Greater Syria,” i.e., the entire Levant, encompassing modern Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and parts of Turkey as well as modern Syria itself; but possibly here, as certainly at 278 (B.15.528), simply a generic

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term for Muslim lands; see 189 (B.15.494)n; also B.13.209n. Jacobus has simply “ad partes ultramarinas,” regions beyond the sea (ed. Maggioni, 2.1161). Thomas of Celano and St Bonaventure also use the term Syria generically in their lives of St Francis; e.g., Bonaventure, “He made his way to Syria where he courageously surmounted all dangers in order to reach the presence of the sultan of Egypt” (English Omnibus, ed. Habig 1983:702). And see Chaucer’s Man of Law’s Tale, where “Surrye” and “Surryen” translate Trevet’s “la grande Sarazine” and “Sarazin” (e.g., B134, 153), and “Surrye” has as a synonym “the Barbre nacioun” (B281). Daniel 1993:31 says that the dove story “originates, as Vincent [of Beauvais] says, in Syria,” but I do not find that Vincent says that; see next note. 171–80 He endaunted a douue . . . to teche ∂e peple (B.15.400–10 ∂oru√ hise sotile wittes . . . brou√te): One of the earliest appearances of this story is in Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum historiale 23:40 (1624/1965:913); Vincent says, “Fertur enim esse libellus in partibus transmarinis de Machometi fallaciis” (There is supposed to be a little book in the countries on the other side of the Mediterranean about Mohammed’s deceptions), where one reads that Mohammed gathered a crowd by promising “prodigia” (wonders); “Tunc eo sermocinante ad populum columba, quae in vicino erat ad hoc ipsum falliciter edocta, super humerum eius advolans stetit, et in eius aure iuxta morem solitum grana inibi reposita comedens, quasi verba legis ei suggere simulavit” (Then, as he was preaching to the people, a dove in the neighborhood that had been deceitfully trained for the purpose perched on his shoulder and, as it had been taught to do, pecked at seeds that had been placed in his ear and seemed to be whispering the words of the law to him). Jacopo da Acqui (1848:1460) has this fuller version: “Accipit autem columbam albam et eam nutrivit, illamque assuefecit quod cibum ipsa acciperet de auribus suis, ubi ipse sibi grana aliqua ponebat. Et predicta columba quando Macometum videbat, volabat super humeros eius et rostrum ponebat in aure Macometi, et populus stultus qui hoc videbat dicebant quod Spiritus Sanctus in columbe specie loquitur sibi ipsi, et de omnibus que debent evenire cum sapientia docet eum” (He took a white dove and fed it, and got it used to taking food from his ears, where he would put some grains for it. And when it saw Mohammed, it would fly onto his shoulders and put its bill in his ear, and the stupid people who saw that would say that the Holy Ghost speaks to him in the likeness of a dove, and teaches him wisely about everything that is to come). The detail of the people kneeling (177, B.15.406) may be L’s embellishment; I have not seen it in any version. Chew 1937:47 points out that the legend was still so

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current in the eighteenth century that Gibbon felt compelled to make fun of it. It shows up in the 1742 Dunciad, 4.364. The dove, representing the Holy Ghost, at the ear of a saint is common in Christian iconography, particularly in pictures of St Jerome and St Gregory; this story might have arisen as a comic version of that image. In Herrad of Hohenbourg’s Hortus deliciarum, the famous illustration of philosophy and the arts has four “poets or magicians” at the bottom, each with a black bird at its ear; they are said in the picture to be “inspired by unclean spirits”; the editor Rosalie Green calls the pictures parodies of Gregory and the dove (Herrad 1979: illustration 2.57, commentary 1.106). Bourquin 1978:438 points out that Mohammed’s dove is set against the birds sent by God to the desert fathers earlier in the passus (C.17.11–34; B.15.276–314); I made the same point, contrasting its (relative) heaviness and passiveness—all it does is sit and eat—to their lithe activity, and counting the dove among the numerous images of heavy immobility associated with evil in the poem, in Lawler 1979:205. And since it is the standard icon of the Holy Ghost, it has a further irony in the obstinate refusal of the Saracens to believe in the Trinity, a matter of such importance to L; the phrase “thorw helpe of the holy goste” 185 seems to point up this irony. The dove can also symbolize the Church, as a proximity search of columba and ecclesia amply shows, particularly because of Cant 6:9, “Una est columba mea.” Ralph Hanna has suggested to me an alternative origin. In the Quran, at 5.110, Allah, sending Jesus on his prophetic mission, says to him, “I strengthened you with the holy spirit so that you could speak to people in childhood and maturity, and I taught you the book and wisdom, the Torah and the Gospel; by my leave you fashioned from clay the shape of a bird and blew upon it, so that by my leave, it became a bird, and healed the blind and the leper by my permission.” Mohammed’s dove may be a deliberate effort to counteract this representation, perceived as base calumny. 176 here: her, i.e., the dove, as at 171. L takes Jacobus’s columba strictly as a female dove. Uniquely among birds, the dove has separate names in Latin for the sexes, columbus and columba. John Trevisa, in translating the story from Higden’s Polychronicon 5.14 (ed. Lumby 1876:6.18–21, also in Metlitzki 1977:206), where the word is also columba, uses masculine pronouns. 183–86 And seth oure saueour . . . cristendoem to take (B.15.412–16 And si∂∂e oure Saueour . . . trou∂e): A small instance of the idea of reciprocal or commutative justice that will, in Stephen Barney’s words in his headnote to passus 20 (B.18), “govern the movement” of that passus (Volume 5.3). It places

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the hope for conversion of the Saracens expressed here in the largest context of divine mercy, the redemption. And by suggesting that there is a providence at work, it offers a remote beginning for the new attitude to Mohammed that will emerge at line 243; see note there. The conclusion that Anima dares not draw in B.15.414 is that the people of England are no less beguiled, no less wallowing in misbelief, than the Saracens; though he all but draws it, since he does come out and say that their teachers are liars; the safe conclusion actually drawn in C, that efforts should be made to convert the Saracens (and the Holy Ghost ought to help), is achieved by canceling the long passage of criticism of the English clergy in B.15.415–91a and leaping straight to the matter of B.15.492. B.15.414 For drede of ∂e dee∂: hyperbolic; for fear of the consequences. B.15.415 a coluere fede: a brilliant metaphor. It depends at once on accepting the fiction that the dove brings messages (their Holy Ghost, their guiding light, is greed) and recognizing the reality that it is just a dove, driven by appetite, and so a symbol of the universal greed that the clergy feed, keep alive, as they pursue their individual greedy desires—for they are the dove, too, complacently gobbling all the corn they can. And in the background are the desert fathers, relying on the meager meals that birds bring them.

English clerks (B.15.417–90a) N.B. The next twenty-four notes treat B.15.417–90a, which have no counterpart in C. Then at B.15.491, the commentary returns to treat C.17.185–86 further. B.15.417–90a Ancres and heremytes . . . in effrata &c: The phrase englisshe clerkes in 415 governs this whole passage, which treats first regulars (and anchorites) in 417–28, then seculars in 429–91. It can seem to be a distraction from the issue of converting the Saracens, and it is probably for that reason that it is omitted in the C version. And yet a careful reading reveals that that subject is still on L’s mind, that this passage is simply part of L’s call to the clergy to convert the Saracens and Jews. Thus the pees that the prayers of monks should bring about among Alle ∂at ben at debaat (427–28) can be seen as the universal peace treated more clearly in the C version (see above, 123–24 [B.15.390]n); the salting of the earth called for in 429–37 is the salting of the whole earth, just as the apostles al ∂e world tornede/Into lele bileue (438–39) (and that the apostles belong to the subject of conversion is clear from 270–73 [B.15.519–22]); the passage about when England was heathen and converted by St Augustine (443–61) is clearly germane; and even the final passage, that most

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idiosyncratic treatment of Matthew’s parable of the feast (462–91), though it is generally read as if the folk being whistled to by the clergy are the English masses, can without strain be applied to the missionary effort, and indeed such an application makes the transition to line 492 far easier. B.15.417–28a Ancres . . . accipietis &c: Warner 2004 (briefly summarized in Warner 2011:64–65) considers this passage an interruption, and suggests (though there is no manuscript evidence; the passage is in all B mss.) that it is a draft of C lines that found its way via a loose sheet into Bx. His argument is weak; there is plenty of thematic continuity. The lines depend on coueitise 415, which Warner never mentions, and continue to draw on the Legenda sanctorum. B.15.417 Ancres and heremytes: Anchorites were enclosed, hermits could move around, but L uses this alliterating phrase several times as a virtual doublet, as he does here. See the note to Prol.27–32 (B.Prol.25–30, A.Prol.25–30). B.15.418 ∂oru√ hire parfit lyuynge: i.e., when they live perfectly. The apostolic ideal to which monks and other religious aspired is that expressed in Acts 2:44–45, “And all they that believed had all things in common. Their possessions and goods they sold and divided them to all, according as everyone had need.” See Burton 1994:43. The apostles as models for present-day clerics will reappear below at B.15.438, 194–98 (B.15.532–37), and at 270–73. B.15.421–23 But doon as Antony dide . . . lele mennes almesse: These lines take up line 417, but re-order its elements: Antony taught Ancres and heremytes, dominyk and Fraunceys taught freres, Beneit and Bernard taught Monkes. The re-ordering of elements in a list when it is repeated—here from ABC (ancres-monkes-freres) to ACB (ancres-freres-monkes)—is not unusual; cf., e.g., Knight’s Tale A1941–48 (where the order the second time is BFADCE) and Nuns’ Priest’s Tale, B 2 2914–17 (CBAD). These are very different lists from L’s, of course, but the principle of shuffling the elements is the same. All five saints appear in The Golden Legend, where their advocacy of poverty and humility is evident, though there is no talk of low houses or lele men’s alms. For Francis on houses, see Bonaventure’s Major Life 7.2 (English Omnibus, ed. Habig 1983:681): “he gave orders that the houses they built should be small, like those of the poor”; for internal Franciscan critique of excessive building, see Clopper 1997:48–49, 51; for actual building in England, see Erickson 1975:119–20 and cf. 114; for later Franciscan legislation, see Mersch

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2009:145–46; for Anthony and Bernard, see Peter the Chanter, Verbum abbreviatum, chapter 77, Contra superfluitatem aedificiorum (ed. Boutry 2012a:484 [Anthony], 486 [Bernard]); for Bernard see also his Apology to Abbot William in Works of St Bernard of Clairvaux, 1970:1.63–66. The Rule of St Benedict does not deal with building. The Dominican Constitutions of 1228 call for mediocres domos et humiles (2.35, ed. Thomas 1965:366; Sundt 1987:396; Mersch 2009:144). Sundt and Mersch both translate “moderate and humble houses”; better, “middle-sized and low houses”—L’s lowe houses perhaps even translates the Dominican phrase). Hinnebusch 1966:1.151, in his nuanced account of Dominican poverty, gives the story that Rudolph of Faenza, while Dominic was away from Bologna, began raising the ceilings of the cells about a foot, until Dominic returned and asked, “Do you want so quickly to give up poverty and to put up great palaces?” See also Acta canonizationis sancti Dominici 137, 150 (parvas domos), 157 (viles domos et parvas). For the Dominican ideal (and its gradual expansion after Dominic’s death), see Meersseman 1946 and Montagnes 1974 as well as Mersch and Sundt. For accusations of extravagant building see Ro¨hrkasten 1996:456; Jack Upland, ed. Heyworth 1968, ll. 168–76 and Heyworth’s good note, p. 124 (also Friar Daw’s Reply, ed. Heyworth 1968, ll. 451–76 and Woodford’s Responsiones, pp. 135–37). For actual building practice in England, see Hinnebusch 1951:121–208, Knowles, 1963b (cited by Heyworth), Burton 1994:131–58, and Mersch. Rigon 2011, though it focuses on Italy, is a good discussion of the economic realities the mendicant orders faced as they grew. Bruzelius 2012 surveys recent work on mendicant architecture; her richly illustrated 2014 book, which has a quicker survey on pp. 9–14, focuses, despite its broad title, only on Franciscans and Dominicans, and only on Italy. As for seeking alms from lele men, Francis’s repeated admonition to beg “from door to door,” and Rudolph’s report, during the canonization process, that Dominic “did not want them to have these or any other possessions but to live solely on alms, and sparingly” (quoted by Hinnebusch 1966:1.150) both imply it. Peter the Chanter in the chapter cited inveighs against buildings “constructa ex lacrymis et rapinis pauperum” (built from the tears of the poor, and from plundering them) and religious orders that permit dormitories and refectories to be built for them “a raptoribus et feneratoribus” (by plunderers and usurers). Helinand of Froidmont’s Sermon 23 (PL 212.668–78) is an extended criticism of elaborate monastic buildings, especially those of the Cistercians, his and Bernard’s order; see Kienzle 1986. See also B.15.329 above (and B.15.328–31n); 16.235–38 (B.15.76–79); and the criticism of rich lay people who “timber high” in London, 3.84 (B.3.85, A.3.74). B.15.424–28a Grace sholde growe and be grene . . . accipietis &c: an eloquent statement of the role of monasticism in the traditional view of society as

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divided into those who fight, those who pray, and those who work (see Prol.22–94n); it expands on the statement in Prol.142 (B.Prol.115) that the clergy’s role is to counsel the king “and 3e commune saue.” All the clergy were comprehended under the second estate, but monks were regarded as, in David Knowles’s words, the “intercessors par excellence for the rest of the world” (1963a:457). They, and cloistered women as well, have had that role virtually from the foundation of monasticism to the present day. This is Justinian (Novellae 133, Preface, ed. Schoell 1912:666): the monastic life is not only good for the monks, “sed etiam aliis omnibus per eius puritatem et supplicationem ad deum praebens inspectam utilitatem,” but also, by reason of its purity and its intercession before God, has evident value for all others. And this is Thomas Merton (1957: 105, 120,105–6, 124): “Far from being exempted from service in the battles of his age, the monk, as a Soldier of Christ, is appointed to fight those battles on a spiritual, hidden front . . . by prayer and self-sacrifice”; “The monastery remains . . . a center of spiritual freedom, from which radiates the power of divine grace”; “Though the monk is withdrawn from the world, he preserves an intimate spiritual contact with” all other Christians: “He feels that he has them all in his heart and that they are in him and with him as he stands before the throne of God”; “Monks must be as trees which exist silently in the dark, and by their vital presence purify the air.” See 226 (B.15.563) below. Note that B.15.424 is turned into C.17.48. In both places L seems to be recalling the speech of Patience in the dinner scene in B.13, with its vision of universal charity (cf. C.17.49) and universal peace (cf. B.15.427–28 and 13.173–76); that vision will be developed further in this passus as a vision of a world converted to Christianity. And both glance also at the ending of the poem, where, people being in diuerse siknesse (425), and the clergy mired in coueitise (415), Conscience will go seeking grace. B.15.424 (cf. C.17.48) Grace sholde growe and be grene ∂oru√ hir goode lyuynge: An example of a phrase that because it alliterates looks original in English, but is actually based on a metaphor widespread among Latin writers; see Lawler 2013:58. E.g., Bernard In nativitate domini, Sermo 1: “Quaerat ergo devotionis aquas, quisquis seminaverit bonorum operum semina: ut irrigatus fonte gratiae, bonae conversationis hortus non arescat, sed in perpetua viriditate proficiat” (Anyone who has sown the seed of good works, let him seek the waters of devotion so that, irrigated by the fountain of grace, the garden of good living may not dry out but flourish in perpetual greenness) (PL 183.118). And Gregory, Homilies 2.25, on Mary’s taking the resurrected Jesus as the gardener (John 20:15), “An non ei spiritaliter hortulanus erat, qui in ejus

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pectore per amoris sui semina virtutum virentia plantabat?” (And was he not a gardener to her spiritually, who planted in her breast through the seeds of his love the green plants of the virtues?) (PL 76.1192)—a widely copied remark. The metaphor of the greenness of grace will be exploited fully in the image of the tree of Charity in the next passus. In the Harrowing scene, 20.400 (B.18.362), Christ declares that his grace will grow; see Barney’s note. See 17.48–50 and notes above. B.15.428a Petite & accipietis: Ask, and you shall receive, John 16:24, cf. Matt 7:7. See 15.271–71a and note.

Salt of the earth (B.15.429–90a) B.15.429–90a Salt saue∂ catel . . . in effrata &c: The focus turns here from religious to seculars, as is evident both from the phraseology, The heuedes of holy chirche 430, Preestes and prechours and a pope aboue 441, and persons and preestes,/That heuedes of holy chirche ben 486–87, and from the traditional application of the phrase “salt of the earth” (Matt 5:13) to those who have direct care of souls; see, e.g., Bruno of Asti, quoted by Robertson and Huppe´ 1951:187, or Pseudo-Chrysostom, PG 56.685, quoted below in B.15.436– 37n. On the other hand, since at its deepest level the passage is part of the call to convert the Saracens (see 123–24 [B.15.390]n), and since the titular bishops of Saracen lands on whom that call will ultimately settle are mostly friars, there is not after all a firm move away from religious. The passage has three parts: 1. (429–42) priests should be God’s salt, to save souls by good example as the apostles did; 2. (443–61) St Augustine of Canterbury—in contrast to our covetous English clerks of today (415)—once salted all England, turning it, by good works and miracles as much as through preaching (449–50) from a rude heathen wilderness to a Christian country; 3. Priests likewise should tame the rude souls of their parishioners (or maybe of infidels), enticing them above all by their own goodness (loue and leaute 468, mercy 469, mercy and tru∂e 471, ensaumples 473 [which in context seems to mean both “good example” and “exempla”], lettred mennes doynges 477) to hunger to love, as the farmer in Matthew’s parable fattened his fowl—but they don’t. Then at 492 L at last applies this tirade against corrupt priests explicitly to the failure to convert the Saracens, returning to the point he might have moved to at 414, and does in fact move to at C.17.185. The excision of the entire passage in C is striking. It is 62 lines: is there maybe a missing leaf? I think not. I think L was moved to compose it originally

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because its bird imagery (462–85) seemed to fit with the other bird imagery in the passus, but when he came to revise he finally realized that despite its charming metaphor it doesn’t really work, and that there was enough better focused criticism of the clergy already in the passus. And the joins in C have a finished look—as do all the other rearrangements, excisions, and additions in C.16 and 17. B.15.429 Salt saue∂ catel: Whiting (S35) can give no other instance of this wifely saying, “Salt preserves property,” in which (since the word catel is not used for food) salt is apparently a metaphor for wise management or careful handling or the like. On the importance of good example from the clergy—the burden of this entire passage: you salt the earth primarily by who you are and what you do, rather than by what you say—see, e.g., 1.171–200 (B.1.175–205, A.1.149–79), 14.11–29 (B.12.49–63), and earlier in this very speech by Liberum arbitrium/Anima, 17.220–85 (B.15.58–148). See Alan of Lille’s discussion of priests as salt of the earth, stressing personal uprightness, in his De arte praedicatoria, PL 210.192. B.15.429a, 431a Vos estis sal terre . . . Et si sal euanuerit in quo salietur?: You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt lose its savour, wherewith shall it (i.e., the salt) be salted? Matt 5:13. B.15.430 The heuedes of holy chirche: Though this phrase might seem to mean bishops, as it clearly does at C.17.230, it is defined at lines 486–87 as “persons (i.e., parsons) and preestes,” and must mean that here also. B.15.436–37 go bifore as a good Banyer . . . and √yue hem good euidence: A military metaphor: go in front like a good standard-bearer, hearten those behind him, and give them good example. The image of a standard-bearer (Lat. signifer), somewhat more traditional for bishops than for priests, is allied to the ancient idea of the cross as a military standard (Lat. signum, an element in the phrase “sign of the cross”), and embodied in the bishop’s cross (and perhaps also, in part, in his crozier, though that is primarily a shepherd’s staff, not a standard); see 5.113 (cf. B.5.12, A.5.11) and note, and B.15.570 below. See Jensen 2000:141, 148–50, citing Minucius Felix, PL 3.332 and Tertullian, PL 1.577, and Constantine’s dream at the Milvian bridge and his subsequent adoption of the cross as a war-standard; Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Vexilla Regis prodeunt; labarum; processional cross; cross and crucifix in liturgy; crozier. Augustine: “Crux illa fidelibus non est opprobrium, sed triumphus. Crux illa vexillum nostrum est contra adversarium nostrum diabolum” (To the faithful

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the cross is not a stigma but a triumph. The cross is our standard against our enemy the devil) (De symbolo ad catechumenos sermo alius, PL 40.664). Euidence 437 ⳱ ensample 434 (see OED, s.v. evidence, sb. 4); but the full sense is, “Give them something they can see plainly, as a standard-bearer does in battle.” L takes euanuerit literally: “if the salt should disappear”; but he is also thinking of Matthew’s next two verses, on being a light visible to all. To emphasize sight is to emphasize the personal goodness of the priest. Pseudo-Chrysostom, commenting on the phrase Vos estis sal terrae, lists a series of virtues based on the beatitudes, then says, “Si ergo omnibus his virtutibus fuerit ornatus, tunc est quasi optimum sal, et totus populus de illo conditur magis videndo eum quam audiendo. Nam prima doctrina est videre bonum, secunda autem audire” (If he is adorned with all these virtues, then he is as it were the best salt, and the whole people is seasoned by him better by seeing him than by hearing him. For the first way to learn is to see a good man, the second to hear him) (Opus imperfectum in Matthaeum, Homily 10, PG 56.685). Clearly Pseudo-Chrysostom also is focusing on the literal meaning of euanuerit. L has earlier quoted Pseudo-Chrysostom at length on bad priests; surely he knew, and was influenced by, this account of the good priest (which had its effect, however distantly, on Chaucer’s portrait of the Parson) as well. B.15.438 Elleuene holy men al ∂e world tornede: L has in mind both the ending of the Gospels of Matthew (28:16–20) and Mark (16:14–18), where Jesus gathers the eleven surviving apostles and instructs them to “go into the whole world and preach the Gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15; see below 191, B.15.491a), and the accounts of the eleven in The Golden Legend, in which all but James the Less, who stays in Jerusalem as bishop, go to distant places to preach and baptize; see 270–73 (B.15.519–22) and note below. The ultimate sources for this material, called the divisio apostolorum, are Eusebius’s Ecclesiastical History 2.25 and 3.1, and various apocryphal Acts; see Rose 2009 and 2013:124n5 and 125n7—but L undoubtedly relied on The Golden Legend. It is here that it suddenly becomes clear that the subject of universal conversion is still before us, especially since most of the places the apostles are said to have gone to were in Muslim hands in L’s time.

The conversion of England, 597 (B.15.443–61) B.15.443–61 Al was hethynesse . . . wi∂outen keperes: The conversion of England that began with Augustine’s arrival in Kent in 597 and his quick conversion of King Aethelbert (whose Frankish queen, Bertha, was already a

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Christian) is treated so briefly in The Golden Legend (in the account of St Gregory) that it cannot have been L’s source. The fullest account is in Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica, 1.23–2.3, which perhaps L knew. The emphasis on miracles and multiple baptisms, however, comes not from Bede but from the late eleventh–century heroicizing life by Goscelin (PL 80.43–94) (Gameson and Gameson 2006:18–20), though L’s source may well have been Ranulf Higden, who draws on Goscelin (Gameson and Gameson 2006:26; Polychronicon 5.10 [Rolls ed. 41.408]). (For possible influence of Higden on Langland all through passus B.15—somewhat speculative, in my view—see Steiner 2005). 444 clerkes: Forty all told (PL 80.54). 445 Austyn ∂e kyng cristnede: PL 80.65. 446 al ∂at marche: Probably all of England, not just Kent; Goscelin reports Augustine traveling extensively, including to York and Dorset, performing miracles of healing. After one such miracle at York, he baptizes ten thousand men and innumerable women and children in the river Ouse (PL 80.79–80). B.15.451–61 Enformed hem . . . wi∂outen keperes: the attractive etymology offered for fullynge 451 is unfortunately mistaken. Full “baptize” is from OE fullwian, to consecrate fully (cf. German weihen, consecrate); full “beat cloth” is from OF fuler⬍Latin *fullare, with the same meaning. Cf. OED ad loca. With fulling vnder foot cf. Prol.223 “walkeres,” i.e., fullers. Fullyng stokkes (453) were wooden mallets worked by machinery; wi∂ taseles cracched (454) means cracked or combed with the prickly flower called “fuller’s teasel”; line 455 means “tucked (i.e., pulled; see OED s.v. tuck v1.3 and tucker, sb.) and stretched (on a tenter or extender; see OED tent v.3 and tenter sb.1) and then made into clothing by a tailor.” The tailor corresponds to the bishop (457). For another metaphor from cloth-making, see 11.15 (B.10.18, A.11.18). On the association of “heathen” and “heath,” L is at least partly right and may be wholly right; see the discussion in OED, s.v. heathen, a. and sb.

Matthew 22:2–14: Whistling to chickens (B.462–90a) B.15.462–90a Ye mynnen . . . in effrata &c: The references to Matthew form an envelope around this passage. A major key to following it is to see that, whereas in the parable in Matt 22:2–14 (“The Son’s Wedding”) the focus is on the guests and the fatlings merely indicate how generous the man who gives the feast is, L fastens his eyes on the fatlings and all but ignores the guests. His treatment is also radically different from traditional comment, for which see Wailes 1987:153–61. Momentarily the guests are ∂e folk ∂at he louede 465, but for the rest of the passage the man’s love is showered on his poultry, and it is

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that loving care while they are alive rather than his generosity in serving them as food to his guests that stands for God’s love for us. What seems to license this is Matthew’s word altilia, fattened fowl (for the specification of fowl, see Lewis and Short, s.v. altilis; Schmidt is wrong to say in his note to 463 that fowls are “not mentioned in the parable,” and Hill’s unconvincing assertion [2005:49] that Gregory defines the fatlings as fowls is unnecessary), which L features by altering Matthew’s actual words (“Ecce prandium meum paravi, tauri mei et altilia occisa sunt, et omnia parata” 22:4) so as to suppress not only the bulls but the killing; in the line L gives us, 464a (which has the shape of a perfect English alliterative line), the fowl are the only subject, and they are “ready,” that is, good and fat, but not yet slaughtered, doubling the focus on feeding already present in the word altilia. This in turn is the warrant for imagining the man (or, later in the passage, his hired hands) whistling to them to come and be fed, as English farmers do—and now L has what he wants: in man, hands, whistling/feed, and the animals fed, an allegory for God, parish priests, preaching, and people. In a brief alternative image in 466–71, Matthew’s tauri surface as calves (perhaps by association with the fatted calf, vitulum saginatum, of Luke 15:23, killed for the Prodigal Son), whose mothers’ longed-for sweet milk is also preaching. But L returns to the fowl image, because calves need no human mediation in their feeding; central to the fowl image is that the fowl respond to the whistling, mennes doynges 477, first, then to the food, as the people come to church to hear the preacher’s ensaumples and see his example, and only then are moved to love. In line 476 the connection finally appears with the previous passage about St Augustine of Canterbury: just as a heath (or a heathen) is a wilderness of “wilde beestes/ Rude and vnresonable, rennynge wi3outen keperes” (460–61), one’s parishioners are rude men ∂at litel reson konne∂ (476) who need the taming influence of both the whistling (ensaumples) and the feed (the doctrine of love). In B.15.481–85, the feast comes back into play: now the people are once again not the chickens but the guests, for whom God has prepared the feast of heaven. That means that the whistlere of 483 is no longer a feeder of fowls but just a preacher. Yet qua whistler he is an enticer, a harbinger of good, and so interprets celestial portents, wederes and . . . wondres, as “warnings” of—God’s wrath? No, of God’s desire to worshipen vs alle (484) at the feast! This is a stunning compression of thought, but one actually prepared for in passus 5, where Reason’s sermon, insisting that the Saturday-evening wind was “pertliche for pride” (B.5.15) and that the upturned trees were a token “That dedly synne er domesday shal fordoon hem alle” (B.5.20), gives way (after doing its work of prompting repentance) to Repentance’s prayer with its portent of mercy, when “The sonne . . . lees si3t for a tyme” (B.5.491)—a portent

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to reappear soon enough in the poem, at B.18.60. (Compare this ideal preacher also to quite un-weatherwise clerks of line 357 above.) After this attractive picture of a priesthood so in tune with God’s will, the passage closes with the bathos of the actual situation. There seems to be no reason to punctuate B.15.486–88 as a question; rather who be∂ 486 is correlative with They 489; “Those who excuse venal priests will be angry with me.” The line from the psalm Memento, Domine, dauid (Ps 131:1) is used just as it is at 11.49 (B.10.69, A.11.55) (see note there), to contrast the greed of the rich (here, rich priests specifically) to the good will and generosity of humble people in effrata, the “mene men” of 11.47 or the rude men of 476 here, trewe men (488) who give their tithes. Mathew and Marc probably means “not only this parable of Matthew’s but the Gospels in general with their sympathy for the poor.” It is unlikely that Marc refers to 491a, since there is such a sharp change of subject. The passage is one of L’s most eloquent pleas for the rights of the people and the high calling of parish priests, and is a tour de force in the way it provides one more twist on the images of birds feeding hermits and Mahomet feeding his dove. (Hill 2005, an essay that usefully clarifies the biblical basis of the image of whistling, is also good in putting the bird imagery in the context of Matt 6:26 [“Behold the birds of the air.”]). In its insistence on the importance of the parish clergy (though not at all in its imagery), it echoes Ymaginatif’s praise of clergy in passus 14 (B.12); see especially 14.48–57 (B.12.103–112). Furthermore, even though its scene is certainly the English parish, where lele men who kepe∂ lawes look to be sustained by loue and leaute, folk love to hear and see ensaumples, and trewe men biswynken their tithes, the easy transition to line 491 indicates that L probably meant the passage to apply as well to preaching to the Saracens and Jews, whistling to those rude men (cf. 471 ri√tfulle men to C.17.259 “rihtfole men 3at in 3e reume wonyeth”) to louen and bileuen—a level at which effrata 490a means its literal self, the town of Bethlehem (see Gen 36:19, Micah 5:2), where the bishop of Bethlehem (see 510 below) should be preaching. But that application is too buried; furthermore, as a reading of the parable in Matthew the passage is distorted and idiosyncratic, and perhaps for these reasons, or because he wanted to keep the subject of preaching to Saracens more clearly to the fore, L dropped it in C (and perhaps in the circulation of B as well, since lines B.15.472–85 appear only in ms. R). B.15.464a Ecce altilia mea & omnia parata sunt: Behold, my fatlings and all things are ready. Cf. Matt 22:4, and the previous note.

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B.15.466 The calf bitokne∂ clennesse: because it has the hoof divided and chews the cud (Lev 11:3, Deut 14:4–6). On the cleansing property of a calf’s blood, see Lev 16:14–16, Heb 9:13. As noted above, the cattle slaughtered in Matthew’s parable of the son’s wedding are bulls, not calves. L’s For in the next line does not introduce a causal clause, but is the equivalent of “and.” B.15.468 So loue and leaute lele men sustene∂: This line, and the little vision that follows of folk hungering for the nourishment of mercy and truth, may be the germ of the extended meditation on love and leaute that L added to the C version (17.125–49). B.15.473 That lo∂ ben . . . ensaumples: cf. Chaucer’s Pardoner’s sardonic reference to the same phenomenon, “Thanne telle I hem ensamples many oon,/Of olde stories longe tyme agoon./For lewed peple loven tales olde” (CT C435–37). B.15.474 court: I.e., the barnyard; see OED, s.v. court n.1 1.a. B.15.480 whistlyng: Schmidt’s emendation [wissynge], “guidance, teaching” (line 479 in both his editions) is almost certainly right. Ms. R is the only witness at this point, and attraction to the word in the line above is an obvious source of error. As chickens hope that whistling means food, men hope that teaching means heaven. The simile is incomplete, even silly, if there is whistling in both halves of it. B.15.490a Ecce audiuimus eam in effrata: Behold: we have heard of it in Ephrathah, Ps 131:6.

Bishops should be converting Saracens and Jews (B and C back together: 183–98a, B.15.491–537a) 185–86 Holy men . . . take (B.15.491–91a What pope . . . predicate &c): From this point to the end of the passus in both versions, the subject is the responsibility that bishops have to convert the Saracens and Jews. The auctoritee that governs the whole discussion is Jesus’s command to the eleven, Ite in vniuersum mundum (Mark 16:15; 191, B.15.491a). See the notes to B.15.438 above and 191 (B.15.491a) below. Conversion has popped up previously, notably at 10.190– 200 in a brief definition of Dobest by Wit, anticipating the present passage by calling on prelates especially to risk their lives to “brynge hit to hepe/That alle

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landes loueden and in on lawe bileuede.” And earlier at 10.93 Thought, also defining Dobest, has said that bishops should use their crozier to drag all men to good, altering AB “hold men in good life.” C.10 has thus broadened the conception of a bishop: now he is called to turn everyone to God. Finally, at B.13.208–10 (in lines cancelled in C), Conscience at the end of the dinner scene has proposed to Clergie that with Patience as their “partynge felawe” they might together turn “alle kynnes londes,/Sarsens and Surre, and so for3 alle 3e Iewes” into “3e trewe fei3” and “oon bileue.” Rebecca Davis 2005 offers a perceptive discussion of how to reconcile the “universalist” belief expressed at various places in the poem that the whole human race is saved with the imperative, based in charity, to convert the heathen. 189 (B.15.494) Of nasareth, of nyneue, of neptalym and damaske: see also 261, and its counterpart B.15.510, where the towns named are “Bethleem” and “Babiloigne.” All but the fortress city of Babylon in Egypt, near Cairo, are biblical places; all six, three in Palestine and three beyond, were under Muslim rule in L’s time and thus, in European eyes, in need of conversion. Only three, however, were recognized sees, with bishops appointed to them: Nazareth, Bethlehem, and Damascus; see Eubel 1913, under the respective cities. Nyneue and neptalym supply needed staves (Naphtali is not a city but a region in Galilee, the land of the tribe of Naphtali; see Matt 4:13–16, where the form with -m occurs twice, and nowhere else); while “Babiloigne” adds alliterative weight to its line. Surie 278 (B.15.528) embraces all these places; see 169 (B.15.398, 400)n above. In the C version, as mentioned above, the theme of missionary work by bishops has been introduced in somewhat more general terms (the need to convert “alle landes,” for bishops to “wende as wyde as 3e worlde were”) by Wit at 10.190–200; see 123–24 (B.15.390)n. The replacement of the crusades by missionary work had begun with St Francis’s voyage to Egypt in 1219, and the papal practice of appointing bishops (largely but not entirely friars) to former sees in partibus infidelium was firmly in place by the end of the thirteenth century: “the Latin church in Syria had effectively come to an end in 1291” (Hamilton 1980:280). Conceivably some such men went off to their sees and did their best to convert the infidel, but they almost certainly did not, since the danger was great and there were no more revenues to support them. By L’s time their real use was to serve as suffragan bishops in the many dioceses where the work was too much for the one bishop the Church permitted; almost all were friars; see Swanson 1989:8–10. Wyclif says that religious, i.e., friars and monks, are made bishops of heathen men and swear to go thither

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and convert them, and then are “meyntened to be suffragans and sellen sacramentis and robben 3e peple and maken hem haue goddis curs for here money” (“How religious men shoulde kepe certayne Articles,” English Works, ed. Matthew 1880:225). See also A. Hamilton Thompson 1947:48–50, and the two commissions, listing duties (1408, 1508) he prints in an appendix, 200–6; David Smith 1982:17–27, with a good discussion of what suffragans did, and a list of Lincoln diocese suffragans recorded between 1135 and 1532; Warner 2003:111–16; and Gwynn 1943:5–8 for an account of five friars and a Cistercian monk, all bishops or archbishops of Eastern places, including Nazareth and Damascus, who were in England in L’s time (and seem to have stayed there). To these can be added a third Englishman, William of Bottlesham, appointed bishop of Bethlehem by Urban VI in 1383. See also the short list of bishops “in partibus infidelium” working as suffragans in England and Wales printed in Fryde 2003:284–87. That L is thinking of friars is evident from 280 (B.15.528) below, where the standard antifraternal charge of intrusion into the confessional crops up. Every bishop of Nazareth between 1330 and 1400 was a friar, as were most of the bishops of Bethlehem, and one of the three bishops of Damascus that Eubel lists. Robson 2003:572–73 lists thirty Franciscan titular bishops active in England between 1246 and 1537. Smith’s list identifies nine Franciscans, four Dominicans, two Carmelites, and five Augustinians. See also Roth 1961–66:1.479–84; in this list of Augustinian bishops appear seven men assigned to sees among the pagans between 1330 and 1402, in Albania, Armenia, and Greece as well as Syria and Palestine; each one is also said to be an auxiliary bishop (“falsely called suffragans,” Roth says) of a diocese in England, where he evidently stayed and worked; see Roth 1961–66:1.90. 191 (B.15.491a) Ite in vniuersum mundum (& predicate &c B): Go ye into the whole world, and preach (the gospel to every creature): Mark 16:15, with Ite . . . et for Euntes, from the Old Latin version; see Alford, Quot. The phrase appears frequently in this form, as a search of PL online shows. Since the first three Latin words (including in) begin with vowels, the phrase affords L a regular AAAxx line. 192 (B.15.496) preche the passioun of iesus: “Nos autem praedicamus Christum crucifixum” (1 Cor 1:23). 193 (B.15.497) as hymsulue saide so to lyue and deye: a rather telling new way to say “practice what you preach.”

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193a (B.15.497a) Bonus Pastor animam suam ponit pro ouibus suis &c: The good shepherd giveth his life for his sheep; cited again at 291a below. John 10:11, with ponit for dat, again from the Old Latin version; see Alford, Quot. Note that here L seems to grant the danger of going off to pagan lands. For bishops as shepherds, see 9.256–80 and 285ab, and its note, below. The insistence in B.15.498 that Christ made this remark with missionary work in mind, and the further insistence in line 499 that he meant the command “Go you also into my vineyard” from the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, Matt 20:4, the same way, are suppressed in C, probably because the phrase “Ite in universum mundum,” which L has moved down into this passage, does the job (and does not require idiosyncratic interpretation). B.15.498 o∂ere: Specified two lines later as the Jews (see the note there). B.15.500 Ite vos in vineam meam &c: Go you (also) into my vineyard, Matt 20:4. B.15.501 [Grekes]: KD-B’s improper emendation of archetypal “Iewes”; see B.15.390n. The line should in fact match C.17.252. Despite subtle theological differences, above all the rejection of the Western addition in the seventh century of the phrase “filioque” (and the Son) to the Creed—asserting that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son—the doctrine of the Trinity has always been as central to Eastern Christianity as to Western. Aquinas’s Contra errores Graecorum (1263)—the title is unfortunate, and not by Aquinas—is almost wholly taken up with the doctrine of the Trinity, and with demonstrating the harmony between the two traditions. An official union of sorts was achieved at the Council of Lyons in 1274 (though it was never accepted by the rank and file of the Byzantine church). Altogether it seems unlikely that L would have thought the Greeks needed to be taught about the Trinity, though he probably did think, like Bonaventure and Albertus Magnus, that they should accept “filioque.” See the good discussion of the Council of Lyons and its issues in Geanakoplos 1989:195–223. B.15.503a Querite & inuenietis &c: Seek, and you shall find, Matt 7:7. B.15.504–32 For alle paynymes . . . honoured: These lines follow lines 533–69 in manuscripts (though RF omit 533–69, so that the RF order is actually not changed); lines 511–28 are in RF only; see KD-B 176–79. Warner 2011:40–48 explains both omissions, of 511–28 from WYM and of 533–69 from RF, as due to contamination from the C tradition; for other discussions see Robert

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Adams 2002, Donaldson 1955, Justice 1997, Sean Taylor 1997, Burrow and Turville-Petre 2012. KD-B claim that their lines 504–32 belong where they put them because 504 continues the subject of 501–3, the ease of converting the Saracens and Jews because they are monotheists. They posit that C.17.156–58 and 232–48, and the postponement of C.17.252–54 from their original place after line 193a (as in B.15.501–3), are attempts to patch up the dislocation. But there is no real dislocation (as Fowler 1980:221–22 also argues), and no need to move the lines to follow 15.343a, as Warner wants to do (2011:42–44); what is overlooked in these changes is that the essential shape of the whole B.15 passage from 390 on is to say over and over, “The Saracens and Jews are half Christian already, why can’t our clergy get out and convert them?” The first time it takes just two sentences, the original statement of the topic, 390–92. The second time is 393–500. The third is 501–3, 533–69 (a single block, again, in the mss., though RF omit 533–69). The fourth is 504–32, 570–78, another single block (though 511–28 are in RF only). The fifth, this time focusing on the Jews but adding the Saracens at the end, is 582–613. The same is true for the C version, which has the pattern just three times: 151–251, 252–92, 295–321, omitting B’s initial statement and merging its third and fourth blocks by the postponement KD-B point out, of B.15.501–3 to C.17.252–54. (Since C places the whole discussion in the context of the definition of the Church in 125–49 and Will’s question about the Saracens at 150, and since it drops B.15.412–91 on the clergy, the end result is a clear difference between the two versions visa`-vis the two halves of the topic: the emphasis tends to fall in B on the failure of the European clergy, in C on the vision of universal peace to be achieved through conversion.) B.15.509–10 And a peril . . . Babiloigne: See 81n above. 194–98a (B.15.533–33a) Hit is reuthe to rede . . . nostri &c: The reading L has in mind is surely the same reading that lies behind the encomium on hermits and apostles in the opening 34 lines of C.17, and the praise of St Lawrence shortly thereafter, at lines 65–68: Acts, Paul’s Epistles, the Vitae patrum, and The Golden Legend. Since in the C version (and in the B mss.: see B.15.504–32n above) this passage comes right after Jesus’s injunction to the apostles to go and preach to the whole world, the apostles must be included: see especially Paul’s account of the hardships endured by the apostles, 1 Cor 4:9–13; cf. also 2 Cor 11:23–27, Rom 8:35, and, on the sufferings of the prophets of old, Heb 11:32–38. And line 19a is Paul, or almost Paul; see the note there. These biblical texts would have been supplemented in L’s reading by Jacobus’s eleven apostle-lives (see note to B.15.438 above), drawing on extensive legendary

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material (though not all emphasize privation); these lives are referred to below at 270–73 (B.15.519–22). Jacobus’s life of St Peter is particularly germane: he wears just a tunic and a cloak, needs nothing else (Ryan 1.341), and says that he glories only in the cross (Ryan 1.345). And the desert fathers, with whom L began the passus (in B, the passage), and whose flowering took place a little before the donation of Constantine (Scase 1989:91–92), seem to be in his mind as well. St Anthony, for example, as he is described by Athanasius, endured all the privations listed here (Caroline White 1998:10–18), spoke often of his devotion to the cross and his reliance on the sign of the cross to chase the devil (e.g., 18, 24, 30, 55), and famously did without books: Athanasius says that Anthony “Orabat frequenter, quippe qui didicerat quod oporteret sine intermissione Dominum orare (1 Thess 5:17). Auditioni etiam Scripturarum ita studium commodabat ut nihil ex ejus animo laberetur; sed universa Domini praecepta custodiens, memoriam pro libro haberet” (He prayed constantly, for he had learned that one must invoke the Lord without ceasing. For he applied such zeal to hearing the scriptures read that nothing slipped out of his mind; rather he held on to all the commandments of the Lord: he had his memory instead of a book) (PL 73.128). Cassiodorus-Epiphanius in the Historia tripartita, translating Sozomen, says, “Litteras vero neque sciebat, neque mirabatur, sed potius mentem bonam tanquam seniorem litterarum, quarum tamen inventorem jure laudabat” (He did not know how to read and did not admire reading, but admired instead a good mind as older than letters, though he duly praised it as their inventor) (PL 69.898). Finally, in the “Verba seniorum,” Vitae patrum, 6.4.16 (PL 73.1018), we learn that when asked how he got along without books, Anthony replied, “Meus codex, philosophe, natura rerum est creatarum” (My book, Mr. Philosopher, is the nature of created things). (This story is from the Greek church history of Socrates; it is translated by Cassiodorus-Epiphanius in the Historia tripartita, 8.1, PL 69.1105; see PL 73.172, n. 11). Athanasius several times emphasizes Anthony’s illiteracy, as does Augustine in his Prologue to De doctrina Christiana; see also 11.287 (B.10.461), where the idiote Augustine refers to include Anthony; this line is then a small reprise of L’s regular urge to put books in their place; cf. Conscience’s preferring patience to half the doctor’s pack of books at 15.179 (B.13.201). (Of course, L only knows of these heroic figures of the past from reading about them [194, B.15.533].) Scase (pp. 91–93) shows that writers on clerical dominion regularly looked to the primitive past, when possessions were few and held in common, and regularly invoked the desert fathers; and she also shows that St Paul’s words and example were applied to the desert fathers, so that to try to distinguish which group L has in mind, apostles or desert fathers, is probably futile.

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195 forsoke here owne wille: They said, “Fiat voluntas tua.” 196 (B.15.535) euele yclothed: Like Charity at 16.351. Though Jacobus rarely mentions clothing, the apostles Simon and Jude are “clothed in rags,” Ryan 2.263. St Martin gives away his tunic and is forced to wear a cheap, ill-fitting one; Ryan 2.297. The wealthy Elizabeth (a latter-day saint, to be sure), when alone with her serving-women, “put on cheap, dingy clothing, covered her head with a shabby kerchief, and said to them, ‘This is how I will go about when I have attained the state of poverty’ ” (Ryan 2.306); later, after her husband’s death, she embraces voluntary poverty, and “her habit was so shabby that her gray cloak had to be lengthened and the holes in the sleeves of her tunic patched with cloth of a different color” (Ryan 2.309). The most extreme example is St Mary of Egypt (mentioned above, line 23), whose clothes fell apart in the desert and who was found naked by Zozimus (Ryan, 2.228). 197 (B.15.536) Baddeliche ybedded: One example occurs in The Golden Legend, trans. Ryan, 1.376–77, where Mary Magdalene, Lazarus, Martha, Mary, Maximin, and other disciples of Christ in Marseilles sleep under a portico in contrast to the governor wrapped in silken sheets. Magdalene appears to him in a dream and chastises him severely for his self-indulgence and lack of compassion. The motif of sleeping on the floor appears regularly (e.g., John the Almsgiver, Ryan 1.116; Paula, 1.123; Martin 2.296; Elizabeth 2.303). Anthony was badly bedded also, though Jacobus in his brief account does not mention it: he slept on a rush mat with a cover of goats’ hair (Caroline White 1998:13), or slept standing or lying on the pavement or the ground (CassiodorusEpiphanius, translating Sozomen, PL 69.898). 197 (B.15.536) no boek but Consience: “Liber conscientiae” (or “libri conscientiarum”) is a common phrase, usually referring to the last judgment, when the account-books of our consciences will lie open; this is the standard explanation of the “libri aperti” of Daniel 7:10 and Rev 20:12 (and the one given by Schmidt 1982 and Wilson 1983; “Pryk of Conscience” 5.1393, “The bokes ben conscience and not ellus,” cited by Wilson, is in a last-judgment passage). Here, however, the reference is clearly to the conscience as the inner book in which we understand the precepts of God, a slightly less common but also widespread image. The book of life, the “other book” of Rev 20:12, is thus interpreted by Gregory, Moralia, PL 76.295: it contains, he says, “mandata coelestia” for us to read. Slightly differently, Pseudo-Bernard De interiori domo (PL 184.520): “Unicuique est liber sua conscientia: et ad hunc librum discutiendum et emendandum omnes alii inventi sunt” (Everyone’s conscience is a

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book; all other books are written in order to examine this one and correct it). And Peter of Blois, Sermon 65 (PL 207.753): “Librum autem conscientiae quis nesciat cognitionem bonorum operum ad gloriam, vel malorum ad confusionem et ignominiam?” (Who does not know that the book of conscience is the recognition of good works that lead to glory and of wicked works that lead to damnation?). Finally, John of Salisbury, Epistle 296 (PL 199.343): “Evolvat unusquisque et relegat propriae conscientiae librum” (Let each person unroll and read the book of his own conscience). 198–98a (B.15.537–37a) Ne no rychesse . . . nostri &c: Cf. Gal 6:14 (God forbid that we [I] should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ); Paul has mihi where L has nobis; see Alford, Quot. It is common to contrast the cross and riches, and common to cite this line of Paul’s in support, though its context is honors rather than riches. Haymo of Halberstadt paraphrases, “Nolo gloriari in divitiis hujus mundi et dignitatibus, sed in cruce Christi” (I do not want to glory in the riches and honors of this world, but in the cross of Christ), PL 117.698. Similarly Aelred of Rievaulx, Sermon 4 (PL 195.375): “Quomodo . . . omnibus mundi divitiis et honoribus superemineat crux Paulus ipse docet qui ait: Mihi autem absit gloriari, nisi in cruce Domini Jesu Christi” (How the cross surpasses all the riches and honors of the world Paul teaches us when he says, “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

An outburst against clerical greed (and a call for disendowment) (199–249, B.15.538–67) 199–249 And tho was plente . . . libbeth (B.15.538–67 And ∂o was plentee . . . falle): A semi-apocalyptic outburst against clerical greed that contrasts present war (caused by that greed) with past and hoped-for peace, and uses the fate of the Templars, partly to predict the ruin of the Church’s holdings, partly to call upon the secular power to bring that ruin about. Implicit throughout is the conviction that it is greed alone that stands in the way of converting the world to belief in Christ. The outburst brings to a climax the poem’s critique of clerical greed, and bears a particular relation to both the Prologue and to earlier predictions of doom for monastic lands. In B those predictions are separate: one, rather brief, by Reason in his sermon to the folk, 5.45–47, and one by Clergie at 10.322. In C Clergie’s prediction is transferred to Reason’s sermon (5.168–79), and the sermon ends with a new vision of peace in Christendom (5.182–96)—and these revisions seem to have been

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made with this passage in passus 17 in mind. In the B version the present passage extends Clergie’s prediction in passus 10 to include the entirety of holdings of the Church, not just monastic lands; and here in C Reason’s prediction in passus 5 is extended likewise, but the vision of peace in Christendom is also extended (at 233–49, added to B), and made into a vision of universal peace, to be brought about by converting the Saracens (see 123–24 [B.15.390]n). As for the Prologue, the passage recalls the alliance established there among knighthood, commons, kind wit, and Conscience (136–41); in that pristine time, kind wit and Clergie (Prol.150) were synonymous; now the synonym for clergy is coveitise. The insistence that it would be charity for the lords to dispossess the church (231, B.15.566) clarifies the statement at Prol.64–65, “But holi chirche and charite choppe adoun suche shryuars,/The moste meschief on molde mounteth vp faste.” Robert Adams 1985b, however, draws careful distinctions between this passage and the earlier prophecies (Clergie in B.10, Reason in C.5) of a future savior-king, insisting that “Where Anima is predicting, and lobbying for, a worthy end, Clergy is prophesying, simply, the End” (209). Much of the difference lies in the speakers and the situations: both Reason and Clergie stand for something larger and more public than Anima and Liberum arbitrium, and Reason especially is in a more pregnant situation, preaching before “al the reume” (C.5.114). True, Clergie in B.10 is like Anima and Liberum arbitrium in addressing only Will, but he has a way of speaking past him where the present interlocutors speak to him. It has been common to associate the call for disendowment with Wyclif’s De civili dominio of 1377, and to use that association to confirm a date for the B version in the late 1370s; Warner points out, however (2011:33–34), that the passage has been used to date the version both earlier (1370–71, by Gwynn 1943,) and later (after 1381, by Hudson 1994; 1385, by Gradon 1982). 199 (B.15.538) tho: I.e., in the early days of the Church, when the riht holy men described in 194–98a were active. If the apostles are meant there, pees is an appropriate term even though they were in constant conflict with the Roman authorities as they tried to spread their faith, since there was peace between one Christian and another. Presumably it was because of the right holy men’s works of charity that there was plente . . . amonges pore: see especially the lines on Lawrence earlier in this passus, 17.65–72—the present passage reprises that, actually, repeating the contrast of clerics then and now. As mentioned above in 17.65–72n, Jacobus reports that when the usurping emperor Decius ordered Lawrence to show him the treasure he had distributed, he brought before him the poor, the lame, and the blind, and said, “See here the eternal treasure, which never diminishes but increases. It is divided

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among these people and is found in all of them, for their hands have carried the treasure off to heaven” (Ryan 2.65–66). Again and again in Jacobus wellborn saints give all they have to the poor; see B.14.155n. Or there was plenty among the poor because God provided, as at the beginning of this passus, lines 8ff. Or L may be thinking of miracles that overcome famine, such as were performed by St Nicholas (Ryan 1.22–23) and St. Benedict (1.191, 192), for example, or such as Patience lists at 15.263–69 (B.14.64–70). Again if the apostles are meant, Acts 11:28–29, a brief account of relief of famine by the disciples at Antioch for their brethren in Judea, implies both peaceful relations and the provision of plenty. 200 (B.15.539) ∂e rede noble: the gold coin with a cros (205; B.15.543) on the back, worth eighty pennies; see 3.47, B.5.241 and notes; nobles of Edward III through Henry IV are pictured on Plate XXVI of George Brooke 1950; earlier nobles, the “short cross” coin of Henry II and the “long cross” coin of Henry III, are pictured in Desan 2014:139. Note that reuthe to rede is correlative with 194. The ruth comes, really, from setting one reading against the other. The idea of the cross as the truest wealth carries over from 198. 202 To amende and to make: A variation on the idiomatic phrase “make and mend” (cf. A.3.51 “make or mende”), expressing the complete skill of a craftsman; see OED, s.v. make, v.1, 1.d. “Worthier to mend and make” just means “more effective, more powerful.” Cf. 19.163 (B.17.197) “bothe meue and amende” (of the hand). 204 (B.15.542) now is werre and wo: in contrast to the peace and plenty “tho” (199 (B.15.538). This is presumably the same war or wars mentioned at line 86 (B.15.356); look there and at the note to 86–116 (B.15.356–84). The reference is broad, probably embracing at once conflicts within the Church: between the rival papacies (in C, anyway; see 234n), between “poor” parish clergy and “rich” friars, between “poor” friars and “rich” monastic houses, etc.; and conflicts beyond, above all the crusades, which were still vestigially alive, as was certainly an inimical attitude toward the Saracens and Turks—and political conflicts between Christian nations, such as England and France. As for the more general wo, see also the note referenced above. 205 (B.15.543) the corone stand in golde: (1) the prize that goes to the winner (of the werre) is gold; (2) the crown they seek is gold, not the crown of salvation; (3) the tonsure is steeped in gold. For a similar punning reference to

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tonsure/coin, see “Twelve Conclusions of the Lollards” in Hudson 1978:25; see her note, 151–52. 206 (B.15.544) riche: i.e., as often in the poem, rich and powerful secular clergy, particularly prelates. 208–32 (B.15.546–67) For couetyse . . . Ar more perel falle: L’s “second disendowment prophecy”: see Kerby-Fulton 1990:33–34. 209–13 (B.15.547–50) Sholle ouerturne as templers dede . . . dampnede: The Knights Templars were a military and religious order founded c. 1118 to protect the Holy Sepulchre and Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land, so called because they were granted quarters next to the site of the ancient temple in Jerusalem. Though they became heavily endowed with lands and were major international bankers, their suppression in 1312 for heresy by Pope Clement V, under pressure from King Philip the Fair of France, was hardly the simple matter of destroying corruption that L makes it. In the line added to the C version, 17.212, L seems to allude darkly to the false charges that the Templars denied Christ and worshipped idols in secret rites, charges that were a major reason for their downfall. For a different view, see Dante’s brief indignant defense of the order at Purgatorio 20.91–93. For an account of what happened in England, see Nicholson 2009; her first chapter gives a brief overview of the whole complex matter, as does Phillips 1910–11, still useful despite its age. The writings that lettred men (210; wise men B.15.548) should recall may include John of Salisbury’s Policraticus, 7.21 (trans. Nederman 1990:168–75) or William of Tyre’s History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea (trans. Babcock and Krey 1943, 2. 227, 252–53, etc.), both written when the Templars were in their prime. As Malcolm Barber (1994:315–16) and Helen Nicholson (2001:240) show, in the centuries after the suppression it became standard to find in avarice, as L does, the root of the Templars’ difficulties. What is undeniable is that they needed immense sums to support their forces in the Holy Land, and so inevitably allowed themselves to become part of the system L everywhere deplores, of accepting donations of land and money in exchange for spiritual benefits; see Barber 1994:223–26, 307 and his chapter on “The Templar Network.” But the simple fact that they were founded to work in the Holy Land and ended up not there (having been driven out of their last stronghold at Acre in 1291), and yet had been very visible landowners all over Europe, made them for L just the right stick to beat bishops with in the present passage. 215 (B.15.552) dos ecclesie: the Church’s endowment; see further 220–32 (B.15.557–67)n. The phrase is used again at 223 (B.15.560). B “for your greed

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they [unspecified] shall pass judgment on the Church’s endowment”; C simplifies: “your greed shall condemn the Church’s endowment.” 215a (B.15.552a) Deposuit potentes de sede &c: He (God) hath put down the mighty from their seat. From Mary’s Magnificat, Luke 1:52. In L’s context, the seat is a bishop’s see. 219–19a (B.15.556–56a) lyuen as leuitici . . . Per primicias & decimas &c: The reference is to Numbers 18, wherein God instructs Aaron on the duties and privileges of the sons of Levi, the priests of Israel. They are to possess no land (20), but are entitled to use of the first-fruits (primicias, 11–19) and tithes (decimas, 21) offered by the people in sacrifice to God, and are to be content with them (24). The phrase “per primitias et decimas” does not actually occur in the chapter; rather, L takes the two key Latin words of the chapter and makes a phrase that will complete his sentence: “And live as Levites, as our Lord teaches you, on first-fruits and tithes.” See “lat hem lyue by dymes” 227 (B.15.564) and note. “Decimas et primitias” occurs at Deut 12:6 and 11, and commonly in patristic writing, where it often appears in the order “primitias et decimas.”

The donation of Constantine (220–32, B.15.557–67) 220–32 (B.15.557–67) Whan Constantyn . . . falle: The legendary donation by Constantine of temporal power to Pope Sylvester I in gratitude for healing and converting him is supposed to have taken place about 310. It was regularly lamented by reformers. The legend that an angel (some said a devil) appeared on high and proclaimed that the gift was poison dates from the thirteenth century, and was widespread; for references in Wyclif and elsewhere, see Gradon 1982:185; Smalley 1960:194–95; Fowler 1980:259; Hudson 1988:335; and Scase 1989:90–91. Gradon also shows that the idea that the secular power ought to dispossess the Church (expressed here with striking force: Taketh here londes, √e lordes, and lat hem lyue by dymes 227, B.15.564), though (like condemning Constantine’s gift) a favorite idea of Wyclif’s, was by no means his alone; she concludes that Anima is “as much . . . an English patriot as a Wycliffite” (188). What is perhaps unique is that whereas Wyclif, the Lollards, and others directed their attacks against all possessioners, the orders as well as the secular clergy, L’s passage, which started out being about “Bothe riche [i.e., rich prelates] and religious” (206, B.15.544), then focused on the Templars, who are treated as if they were a monastic order (“tho religious” 213, B.15.550),

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has ended up focusing wholly on the secular clergy: bisshopes 217 (B.15.554), tho ∂at haen petres power 224 (561), prelates 225 (562), The heuedes of holy churche and tho that ben vnder hem 230, The pope with alle prestes 238 [and 233], ∂e pope,/Prelates and prestis 243–44. True, a few bishops were Cistercians or Benedictines; still the absence of specific reference to monks is striking. The imagery of drinking poison, and of making an antidote to it, should be set in apposition to the related images in the account of the crucifixion and harrowing of hell, 20.52–53 (B.18.52–53), 155–60 (B.18.152–57), and 401–12 (B.18.363–70). The antidote is pretty clearly love, “triacle for synne/And most souerayne salue for soule and for body,” 1.146–47 (B.1.148–49). 226 (B.15.563) preye for ∂e pees: From the present “werre and wo” (204, B.15.542; see note there), as Fowler points out (1980:237). 227 (B.15.564) Taketh here londes, √e lordes, and lat hem lyue by dymes: Dymes are tithes. “Decimis contenti vivant,” Let them live on tithes, was a common refrain, going back to Numbers 18, which lists all the first-fruits that the Levites are to have, and then says (vv. 23–24), “Nihil aliud possidebunt, decimarum oblatione contenti, quas in usus eorum et necessaria separavi,” (They shall not possess any other thing, but be content with the oblation or tithes which I have separated for their uses and necessities). Jerome’s formulation in his Letter 52, To Nepotian, De vita clericorum et monachorum, was well known and frequently cited: “Quasi Levita et Sacerdos vivo de decimis, et altari serviens, altaris oblatione sustentor; habens victum et vestitum, his contentus ero, et nudam crucem nudus sequar” (PL 22.531) (Like a Levite and priest I live on tithes; I serve the altar, and am sustained by the altar’s offering; having food and clothing, I am content, and follow naked the naked cross). It found its way, among other places, into the decretals of Yvo of Chartres; see Gratian’s Decretum 2.12.1, PL 187.884. Naturally, they liked this line in the sixteenth century; Crowley, in his second edition, commented in the margin, “A medicyne for the cleargie.” See Ralph Hanna’s note to 5.168–79 (B.10.322–35). As Skeat notes, Wyclif regularly insisted that priests should live on tithes and offerings, citing Works 1.199, 147, 282 and 3.513. And Skeat (citing Works 3.478, 479) and Pearsall (citing Krochalis and Peters 1975:127) both cite Wyclif’s opinion that temporal lords had the right to take away temporal goods from delinquent churchmen. See also Simpson 2007:159, and for fuller documentation than in any of these, Leff 1967a:2.542–43; Gradon 1980:186, who shows that Wyclif ’s views were anticipated by various others, including Marsilius of Padua; and Hudson 1988:337–46.

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233–49 For were presthode more parfyte . . . libbeth: This new passage in C begins with the first half of B.15.568, then develops on its own; it is then followed at 250 with a return to B.15.568, though with the addition of the phrase “and preyede thus” to reflect the substance of the new lines. See Tavormina 1994:69, who argues that the idea of “perpetual peace among men and with God” is an “eschatological motif.” 234 maynteyneth men to werre vppon cristene: The same complaint is uttered by the lewed vicory at 21.429 (B.19.429): the pope “soudeth hem 3at sleeth suche as he sholde saue,” pays those who kill people he should be saving; see also 5.191 (B.5.50), 15.172–73 (B.13.174), and the discussion in Gradon 1982:190–91 of the place of the issue in medieval thought. The current passage is in C only. See Barney’s very complete note, though it does not mention the wars being waged as Langland wrote by the hired armies of Pope Urban VI against the anti-pope Clement VII. Urban’s mercenaries included the Englishman John Hawkwood. See Partner 1972:367–75, Caferro 2006:232–58. The verb maynteyneth conjures up all those other places where L complains against England’s “maintainers.” See 2.210, 3.287, B.3.167, B.3.247 (A.3.226), B.4.55, 6.248 (B.5.250); Alford Gloss., s.v. maintain; and Fowler 1995:109ff. 235a Mihi vindictam &c: L’s usual formula, from St Paul (Rom 12:19, Heb 10:30), with the accusative form vindictam of the Old Latin version instead of Vulgate vindicta; see Alford, Quot., p. 52; but the reference to Luke (both here and at 21.446 [B.19.446]) is not really erroneous: see Luke 18:7–8, “And will not God revenge his elect (faciet vindictam electorum suorum) that cry to him day and night and have patience in their regard? I say to you: he will quickly revenge them (faciet vindictam illorum).” Indeed, the use of vindictam is probably due as much to Luke’s phrasing as to the Old Latin. 238 pax vobis: Peace be to you, said by Jesus when he appeared to the apostles after the resurrection (Luke 24:36, John 20:19, 21), and at Mass by the celebrant to the congregation (Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum, The peace of the Lord be always with you). 243 In such manere: i.e., by privy reliance on a dove—∂e hy holy gost 247—to bring the people to peace; devoted prayer day and night is the equivalent of the patient process Mohammed went through to train his dove. As Bourquin points out (647), it is remarkable how, in this final reprise of the dove image, Mohammed has become a model of patience, and the Saracens he subdued to

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his will a model of “equitee.” There is perhaps a certain forecast of the admirable guile by which Christ will overcome Satan; see 20.392–92a (B.18.356–60a). And the benign view of both Mohammed and his people in this passage gives us in the C version the poet himself putting into practice the tolerance toward Islam that he preaches. See note to line 183 above. 243–49 In such manere . . . libbeth: Such a prayer for peace would be a specific remedy for the current condition, in which “May no prayere pees make in no place hit semeth” (87 above).

Back to the subject of conversion (250–321, B.15.568–613) 250–51 (B.15.568–69) the peple . . . /That contraryen now cristes lawe: both Jews and Muslims, as the next sentence makes clear; but at 255 alle paynyme the subject narrows once again to Muslims alone, as at 185–93. 250–54 (B.15.568–69, 498–503) Yf prestehode were parfyt . . . teche hem: A brief reminder that the full subject includes the Jews; see 123–24 (B.15.390)n; for [Grekes] B.15.501, see the note ad loc. and the separate note to B.15.390. N.B. B.15.498–503 are annotated above in their proper place. 252–61 For sethe ∂at this sarrasines . . . damaske (B.15.501–10 And si∂ ∂at ∂ise Sar√ens . . . Babiloigne): For monotheism see 132–35n. For Mohammed as mene, see 158, and 157n. Lines 255–58 turn upside down the Muslim belief that Mohammed was a messenger from God to man; they make him a messenger from man to God. 258 (B.15.507) in a fayth leueth ∂at folk and in a fals mene: I.e., they believe in God but not in Christ; see 151–58 above, and the notes to 150–82 (B.15.393– 411), 157, 158. 260–61 And a perel . . . damaske (B.15.509–10 And a peril . . . Babiloigne): See 189 (B.15.494)n. The perel is to the souls of the bishops, who for allowing these righteous to be damned are liable to be damned themselves. 262–78 For when . . . name (B.15.511–28 Whan . . . name): In B, only in mss. RF. See B.15.504–32n. 262–69 (B.15.511–18) For when . . . bileue hit: The opening line, joining heaven and earth, seems to echo 1.148–49 (B.1.153–54) and 14.84–85 (B.12.139–

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40); L’s heart always leaps up at the thought of the incarnation. The passage asserts that the miracles made clear the need for divine mediation, specifically the atonement (penaunce and passioun) of Christ (the true mene; cf. 258, B.15.507 fals mene), and for all people to torne, be converted, to perfect belief, that is, belief in Christ’s divinity and redemptive power, not just in God the creator. On Christ as mediator, see next note and Heb 8:6, 9:15, 12:24. It is possible that penaunce and passioun refer to the pain and suffering the elect endure in this world, which their faith must overcome; see Heb 11 and 12, passim. 267 (B.15.516) metropolitanus: A synonym for pontifex, high priest. Since both are words for bishops (see 16.203–5 [B.15.41–43]), the effect is to treat Christ as an ideal bishop, and, as the passage goes on, an even better model for hopping bishops than Becket himself. The reference is to the Epistle to the Hebrews, whose major theme is that Jesus is the new and perfect high priest, called by God to “make a reconciliation for the sins of the people” (2:17). The word pontifex is applied to Jesus fifteen times in the course of the epistle. The high priest once a year enters the Holy of Holies and offers a slain animal to obtain divine mercy for the people, “but Christ, being come a high priest of the good things to come . . . neither by the blood of goats or of calves but by his own blood [cf. with ∂e bloed of his herte 268, B.15.517], entered once into the holies, having obtained eternal redemption” (9:7–12). For bishinede 268 (B.15.517), see 6:4, 10:32, where the writer speaks of his addressees as “inluminati” by Christ; see also Eph 5:8–14, John 1:4–9, and 14.208a (B.12.286a).

Heroic examples from the saints, especially to hopping bishops (270–94, B.15.519–38, 570–81) 270–73 Mony a seynte . . . turnede (B.15.519–22 Many a seint . . . faith): The apostles once again; see B.15.438n, 194–98a (B.15.533–37a)n. Jacobus in his life of Mary Magdalene says that fourteen years after Christ’s ascension, when the Jews had killed Stephen and expelled the other disciples from Judea, “the disciples went off into the lands of the various nations and there sowed the word of the Lord” (trans. Ryan 1.376). Thomas was martyred in India (Ryan, The Golden Legend, 1.35; he is called “Thomas of ynde” at 21.165 [B.19.165]), Mark the Evangelist (not an apostle) in Alexandria (1.244), Bartholomew in Armenia (2.112); James the Greater, who according to Jacobus had preached the Gospel in Spain and whose body was translated to Compostella shortly after his death (2.5), was actually put to death “with the sword” by Herod Agrippa (Acts 12:2),

280

C Passus 17; B Passus 15

but where is not said—Jacobus says he was beheaded in Jerusalem. The Liber de ortu et obitu patriarcharum (ed. Fraga, 1996:63), once attributed erroneously to Isidore, which also says he preached in Spain, says his death and burial took place in Marmarica, which it places in Achaia instead of North Africa. (For a complete account of the legends surrounding Bartholomew, said by some to have gone to India and by others to Asia Minor, see Rose 2009, chapter 2.) Line 272 is a pointed line, since Alexandria, Armenia, and Spain were all Saracen lands in L’s time, and he may well have thought that India was, too. Note that the palmer the thousand meet in B.5 claims to be coming from Sinai and the sepulcher, and says he’s been in Bethlehem, Babilonia, Armonye, and Alisaundre (C.7.173 adds Damascus), “seeking good saints for his soul’s health.” Line 273 alters B.15.522 so as to maintain the emphasis on conversion. 274–77 (B.15.523–27) In sauacioun . . . myrrour: An abrupt shift from the apostles to the modern era, clarified in C by the phrase of Canterbury; perhaps some reader of B complained to L that it seems at first to be the apostle Thomas, martyred in India. (The name was erased or cancelled in many manuscripts, no doubt at the time of the Reformation, when Henry VIII made Becket’s name anathema; see Skeat’s note, the Athlone variants, and Warner 2003:108–9n3.) Warner 2003 has argued that L was influenced, in his treatment of Becket as a model bishop and even a model for converting the heathen, by several contemporary texts, sermons on Becket by Brinton and Fitzralph and the satirical poem “The Simonie.” His arguments are strong, and certainly demonstrate a tradition of treating Becket as “the exemplary English pastor who attends to his flock” (122). As A. G. Rigg points out (1992:77), however, “the flow of literature” on Becket “was endless,” and I do not see the texts Warner adduces as necessarily, or even probably, consulted by L; in my own view, he probably relied simply on Jacobus. The play on holy kirke . . . holy kirke, for example, seems to come from Jacobus’s similar play on the word: “Passus est sanctus iste pro ecclesia et in ecclesia” (Saint Thomas suffered for the church, in a church) (ed. Maggioni, 1.124; trans. Ryan, 1.61). (I am likewise unconvinced by Steiner 2005:205–10 that he used Higden.) Vnkynde is applied to murderers again at 19.185–86 (B.17.219–20), the start of the Samaritan’s deep meditation on kindness and unkindness. 278 (B.15.528) surie: See 169 (B.15.398, 400)n, 189 (B.15.494)n. Suche ∂at of surie bereth ∂e name ⳱ any bishop with a titular see in the Saracen lands. Fowler’s contention (1979:158) that the line is a covert reference to Archbishop Simon Sudbury has not won favor. It relies on perversely claiming that “the

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reference seems to be a compliment: whoever it is who bears the name of Syria has followed the example of Becket.” 279 (B.15.529) And nat . . . auters: And is otiose: he is an example to all bishops not to hop about England, etc. Roth 1961–66:1.90 lists dedicating churches among the typical duties of these auxiliaries, and gives records of eight such dedications between 1338 and 1380, 2:125, 150–55, 159, 216. The dedication in 1347 of the cemetery of an Austin foundation in Dartmouth, in the diocese of Exeter, by Hugh, an English Austin friar who was archbishop of Damascus and auxiliary bishop of York, described in the documents Roth prints (from the episcopal register of John Grandisson, Bishop of Exeter) at 2:150–55, seems especially germane to L’s complaint, both since Hugh had to “hop about England” to get to Dartmouth (though he went from Cambridge, not York), and since the dedication met with bitter opposition from the abbot of a nearby Premonstratensian foundation, and incurred the displeasure of the bishop of Exeter; the documents record the open skepticism of the opposing party toward Friar Hugh’s claim to be the archbishop of Damascus. Gwynn 1943:7 discusses the incident, and Coulton 1938:133–34 offers a vivid retelling; David Smith 1982:24 gives further references about Hugh, and on p. 20 says he is “comparatively well documented.” See further 189 (B.15.494)n above. Cf. 21.417–23 (B.19.417–23), where the lewd vicar makes a complaint about itinerant cardinals who act in a way very like the hopping bishops here; see Barney’s note there. 280 (B.15.530) And crepe in . . . lawe: On usurpation by friars of the parish priest’s responsibility to hear confessions, that Langlandian hobbyhorse, see Prol.62 (A.Prol.61, B.Prol.64), 6.118–22 (cf. B.5.141–52), 7.27 (B.5.411), 12.10a (B.11.53–58a), 18.280–379 (B.20.280–379) and notes in those places. See also Szittya 1986:62–63, 85–86, 128; Mann 1973:47–50; Scase 1989:37–38 (though Scase mistakenly treats this passage as not antifraternal, not recognizing that the prelates at issue are friars). The dictum at 280a (B.15.530a), Nolite mittere falcem in messem alienam, Do not put your sickle to someone else’s crops, is a maxim of canon law based on Deut 23:25 (cf. Alford, Quot.); ∂e lawe may thus be either the Mosaic law or canon law. As Scase points out, it was employed against the friars by William of St Amour, and so later by various other opponents of the friars. 281–82 (B.15.531–32) Many man . . . honoured: More than forty of the saints who are featured in The Golden Legend were martyred under the Roman emperors of the first three centuries; eleven of these, starting with St. Peter,

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C Passus 17; B Passus 15

were bishop of Rome, i.e., pope. Their fearless performance of their episcopal duties in an alien land puts the bishops of Nazareth and so on, currently hopping about England, to shame. Presumably knowe here is meant as “recognized and allowed to flourish,” starting with Constantine the Great, converted, as Jacobus relates, by Pope Sylvester, who died in 320. “The first day after his baptism, Constantine proclaimed as law that in the city of Rome Christ was to be worshiped as truly God” (Ryan, 1.65). On the honoring of the cross, see Jacobus’s accounts of the feasts of the Finding of the Holy Cross, Ryan, 1.277– 84, and the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, 2.168–73. In the latter the Roman emperor Heraclius, in the year 615, rescues the true cross from the Persian king Chosroes and brings it with great honor to Jerusalem. 283–92 Euery bisshope . . . knoweth (B.15.570–78a Euery bisshop . . . domo mea): The visitation of parishes is an obvious pastoral necessity. Gratian, Decreti secunda pars, Causa 10.1.9–12 (ed. Friedberg 2000:1.614–15) gives early conciliar legislation that requires an annual visit, but he also includes (Causa 10.1.4, p. 614) a letter from Pope Leo IV (847–55) reminding the English bishops of the need to visit parishes when they judge it necessary—Leo clearly does not expect annual visitation. Purvis 1953:46 says that the usual custom was for a bishop to visit his whole diocese within a year or so of assuming office, then to visit, in person or through a delegate, every five to seven years. Though L clearly thinks of bishops’ visits as pastoral, they seem to have been inquisitorial instead, and dreaded by both visitor and visited alike. See Swanson 1989:163–65, Alford, Gloss., s.v. Visiting; Purvis 1953:46–65, with a series of illustrative documents, all from later than Langland. Alford’s citations from contemporary literature suggest that it was an estates-satire convention to accuse bishops of using visitation to extort bribes. For historical overviews, see Gregory N. Smith 2008:11–57 and Slafkosky 1941:4–72. Forrest 2003 urges that much more research into visitations needs to be done, and argues that a transformation took place in the course of the thirteenth century, gradually giving stronger voice to a group of “trustworthy men” in each parish to assess both the effectiveness of their pastors and the uprightness of other parishioners. L’s subject, however, is still bishops of Muslim, not English, dioceses; that is clear in C from follen 285, the whole of line 286 (with its allusion to Will’s question at 150), the injunction to risk death in 287–91, and 292 (see 152, 157–58, 160–62); in B from techen hem on ∂e Trinite to bileue 572; and in both versions from the contrast in the opening of the next sentence (in B the nextbut-one), Ac we cristene 293 (B.15.579). Martyrdom at the hands of the Saracens (C.17.287–92) is what St Francis hoped for when he went to Egypt, and some Franciscan missionaries were

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actually martyred: see Tolan’s chapter, “Franciscan Missionaries Seeking the Martyr’s Palm,” 2002:214–32. In the C version, L closes the passage by returning to the idea with which he began, and which the references to various martyrs—Christ himself, the apostles, Romans, Thomas—have insisted on: bishops should be ready to die, if that is what missionary work brings (193); the Bonus pastor (193a, 291a) line makes an envelope around the passage. 284 (B.15.571) prouynce: Strictly, the set of dioceses over which an archbishop or metropolitan has jurisdiction; see OED, s.v. province sb., 3; but L almost certainly uses it here to mean “diocese,” since there were only two provinces, York and Canterbury, and Euery bisshope 283 implies more than two. 285 follen: “Baptize.” This replaces B.15.572 Tellen hem and techen hem on ∂e Trinite to bileue, unfortunately weakening the focus on the major theological issue of the passus. Fere: frighten; does L pun on “fer” in the verse that follows? Probably not. 285ab In baculi forma . . . legem: Two leonines on the bishop’s crozier: “In the shape of the crozier, bishop, may you find your rule: carry your flock, and pull and goad it into observing the law in everything.” A shepherd uses one end of his crook to goad and the other to pull, and the middle to carry a sick sheep; bishops and abbots too must stimulate, draw, and sustain; see 10.93–95 (A.9.86–89, B.8.96–99). This is a popular idea, well expressed at the end of Rupert of Deutz’s Commentary on the Rule of St Benedict, PL 170.538; in an anonymous Victorine text of the twelfth century, De sacramentis ecclesiasticis, PL 177.401; and in Innocent III’s Mysteriorum evangelicae legis et sacramenti eucharistiae, PL 217.796. All of these bring their discussion of bishops to a climax by citing this verse: “Collige, sustenta, stimula vaga, morbida, lenta” (Collect the wandering, sustain the sick, goad the slow). De sacramentis ascribes it to Hildebert of Lavardin, and Robert of Flamborough, who also quotes it as the middle line of three (Liber poenitentialis, ed. Firth 1971:115), ascribes it to Stephen Langton, but its authorship is unclear; see Walther, Initia carminum 3033. Peter the Chanter quotes it (with “Attrahe” for “Collige”) as the second of four lines, his third matching Flamborough’s first; ed. Boutry 2004:372. It is the fourth of four lines (again with “Attrahe” for “Collige”) in the Ordinary Gloss to Gregory’s Decretals; see below. It appears also in Durandus, Rationale diversorum officiorum 3.15 and Aquinas, In IV Sententiarum, 24.3.3, both cited in the Brepols LLT-A. A similar line, Peter the Chanter’s second (“Attrahe per primum medio rege, punge per imum”), was inscribed

284

C Passus 17; B Passus 15

on the crozier of Otto of Hildesheim in the fifteenth century (Cahier and Martin 4.202). L’s first line appears elsewhere: see Walther, Initia carminum 8828 (who only quotes the first three words); the Ordinary Gloss to the Decretals of Gregory IX, 1.15, quoted in Cahier and Martin 4.157; and the notes of Georgius Galopinus to Peter the Chanter’s Verbum abbreviatum, chapter 56, PL 205.453; Cahier and Martin give the full four lines of the gloss. L’s second line is not found elsewhere; I have suggested in Lawler 2011:65–66 that it may well be his own rewriting of the popular “Collige” line, imitating its three imperatives but giving them a single object so as to allow room to mention law, so crucial both here (280, 283) and throughout passus C.17, and never far from L’s mind when the subject is bishops (cf. esp. B.7.14, A.8.13–14). The verses have already been loosely translated by Thought in his account of Dobest at 10.93–95 (revised from B.8.96–99, A.9.86–89); in that translation, L seems to take Fer to mean “carry the crozier” (10.93, “Dobest bere sholde 3e bisshopes crose”), but gregem is clearly the object of all three verbs: fer gregem means “use the crozier [the middle of it, Peter the Chanter says] to carry weak sheep.” This action makes the crozier an emblem of compassion as well as of firmness. There should be no comma after gregem. B.15.574–78a Ac ysaie . . . domo mea: The Isaiah, quoted at 576a, is 3:7, “(I am no healer, and) in my house there is no bread, nor clothing; make me not ruler (of the people).” Both Jerome (Commentary on Isaiah, PL 24.63, 65, 67) and Peter the Chanter (Verbum abbreviatum, ed. Boutry 2004:401) apply Isaiah 3 to bishops. O√ias (Hosea or Osee) is an error for Malachi; the verse quoted is Mal 3:10, “Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in my house.” It is cited by Thomas of Chobham in justification of bishops living off donations: “Ad hoc autem quod obiectum est de sacerdote stipendiario quod ministrat pro temporalibus, notandum est quod precepit dominus ut sit cibus in domo sua, et quod illi qui recipiunt spiritualia prelatis suis dent eis sua temporalia, quia aliter non possunt vivere” (As for the objection about a priest’s stipend that he is ministering for temporal goods, it should be noted that God has commanded that ‘there may be meat in his house,’ and that those who receive spiritual benefits from prelates might give them of their temporal goods, because otherwise they can’t live) (Summa confessorum, ed. Broomfield 1968:523). If you add to this the fact that one of the bishop’s duties is to feed the poor, then this is said on behalf of the poor. For the idea that bishops have to have some wealth, see 13.101–14 (B.11.287–300) (on what wealth priests need); that passage includes a comparison of priesthood to knighthood, just as 287–91 does; it is as if the very passage

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removed here from C prompted its own replacement. The alliteration of 575 and 576 is weak. These lines are a distraction, an idle spinning out of the idea “nedy folk to fynden” 573. They are deftly reduced to just “Feden” in C.17.285, where the concentration stays on converting. 291a Bonus pastor &c: See the note to 193a (B.15.497a) above. 293–94 Ac we cristene . . . teche (B.15.579–81 Ac we cristene . . . after): An incidental remark, not quite to the point; a little more apt in B, though, as a completion of the contrast “cristene and vncristene” introduced in line 499. The C revision contains an indirect acknowledgement of the linguistic difficulties that a missionary to the Muslims would have to overcome.

The Jews and Jesus (295–321, B.15.582–613) 295–321 (B.15.582–613) Iewes lyuen in ∂e lawe . . . amen: At last the Jews get some treatment in their own right, instead of tagging along after the Saracens, as they have throughout the passus (and as they will again at the end of this passage). There is a complementary relationship between the two: the Saracens were deceived by a false prophet, the Jews turned against the true one. For this reason the poetry seems a little less confident that the Jews can be converted. Another reason why they are treated briefly, however, is that everything in this passage—the Jews’ history of faith and hope, and their failure to turn them into charity (see Will’s question at 150); the public life of Jesus, with its miracles culminating in the raising of Lazarus, to which the Jews respond with accusations of sorcery; the emphasis, by both Piers and the Samaritan, on the Trinity as the linchpin of Christian belief—is about to be treated at much greater length in the next two passu¯s. For typical Christian treatments of the Jews, see Alan of Lille’s work cited above, 132–35n, and the pseudo-Augustinian sermon Contra Iudaeos, paganos, et Arianos sermo de symbolo PL 42.1115–30, esp. 1124, which has the sentence, derived from Daniel 8:24–27, quoted at B.15.600 and again at C.20.112a (B.18.109a) (see Alford, Quot., p. 100). Tavormina 1994:60, 68 relates this treatment of the conversion of the Jews to 17.48–50, since Jesus’s parable of the fig tree, drawn on there (see 48 note), along with the barren fig tree that Jesus cursed for bearing leaves but not fruit (Matt 21:18–22, Mark 11:12–14, 20–24), was regularly equated to the synagogue: “the ultimate conversion of the Jews to Christianity, traditionally seen as an event that would occur shortly before

286

C Passus 17; B Passus 15

Doomsday, was thought to be signified by the dry and leafless tree sending forth new shoots” (60). 295–97 (B.15.582–86) Iewes lyuen . . . beste: According to Deuteronomy 5:22, what God wrote on the two stone tablets (B.15.581–82; cf. B.11.169–70) was the ten commandments; according to the first mention of them, Ex 31:18, the original tablets contained “testimony written with the finger of God,” and according to Ex 34:28, after Moses had broken the tablets in anger at the idolatry of the people and brought God a new pair, he, not God, wrote on the second set “the ten words of the covenant.” L imagines them as containing the entire Mosaic law, as recorded variously in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, but summed up by Jesus, Matt 22:37–39 et synop. (and frequently by L) as “Love God and love your neighbor”; cf. 14.37–38. Parfit B.15.584 means “the whole.” To leten hit for ∂e beste is, of course, the Jews’ mistake, as the following lines indicate; see also 132–36 above and 19.7–10 (B.17.5–8). In connection with 132–36, note that in 295 the statement in B.15.582 that Iewes lyuen in lele lawe has been changed: lele is gone. Though oure lord 295 (B.15.582), in this poem and in Christian speech generally, means “Jesus,” L uses it here in B and occasionally elsewhere to mean “God”; in C, though, it does mean Jesus: Jews live in the law of love that Jesus taught. Maister 296 means “teacher,” as B.15.585 to teche men suggests. See 19.2–18 (B.17.2–17) and note. Narin van Court 1996:55–57, in the course of her argument that whereas in B Christianity is portrayed as fulfilling Judaism, in C it is portrayed as replacing it, argues that here “the poet reduces the passage from B into a singular statement of division between Testaments. Every word that attests to the stability of Jewish Law and the continuum of Judaism into Christianity is deleted in the C revision: ‘lele law,’ ‘In stoon, for it stedefast was and stonde sholde euere,’ and ‘Dilige Deum et proximum is parfit Jewen lawe’ ” (55). The deletions are unquestionable, and yet they do not seem to me to leave C as a “statement of division between Testaments.” “Jewes lyuen in the lawe 3at oure lord tauhte” says exactly the same thing as “Dilige deum et proximum is parfit Jewen lawe,” except that it connects the Testaments, not divides them. In my opinion what L didn’t like about B was using “our lord” for God, and so dropped the whole sentence about writing in stone. Narin van Court’s overall argument is a good one, but it is overstated here. 296 (B.15.585) til messie come: See Deut 18:15–22, beginning “The Lord, thy God, will raise up to thee a prophet of thy nation and of thy brethren like

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unto me,” Moses’s own prediction of the Messiah. Verses 20–22 distinguish false prophets from the true prophet. 298–310 (B.15.587–602) And √ut knewe they crist . . . lakken hit alle: This summary of the public life of Jesus, with its emphasis on miracles of healing and feeding, on the raising of Lazarus as the culminating feat, and on accusations of sorcery from the Jews, is expanded on in the next passus: 18.137–77 (B.16.103–66). 299 (B.15.588) parfit profete: In profete L pointedly uses the term of Deut 18; but see also, e.g., Matt 11:9, 16:14, 21:11, 46. B.15.590–91 how he men festede . . . peple: Matt 14:13–21 et synop. 302–3 Tho he luft . . . walke (B.15.593–95 And whan he lifte . . . Iewes): John 11:1–46; treated again at 18.143–48 (B.16.112–18). 303 Quadriduanus: (dead) for four days, John 11:39. L liked this line. He first wrote it at B.16.114 (but with “quelt” for “coeld”), then substituted it here in the C version for B.15.594–5, then kept it in at C.18.144 (with “rome” for “walke”). B.15.594a Lazare veni foras: Lazarus, come out, John 11:43. 304–11 Iewes sayde . . . releue (B.15.596–603 Ac ∂ei seiden . . . releue): For another treatment of this miracle, similarly emphasizing Jewish outrage, see 18.143–50 (B.16.113–20). L carefully stops short of charging that the Jews knew that Jesus was God when they killed him, a charge that Jeremy Cohen and others have shown “became widespread in Western Europe in the thirteenth century” (Cohen 1983:2; he summarizes earlier work, concluding similarly, by Cecil Roth and Amos Funkenstein; see also Cohen’s 1982 book, where he makes the full argument that the friars largely brought about the change. Tolan 1993:16–19 treats that charge as it appears in Petrus Alfonsi’s Dialogi contra Iudaeos [c. 1110] as significantly intensifying anti-Semitic polemic. Tolan says Peter made it first, but Cohen 1982:11 had found it in Bede.) All the Gospel accounts, especially John, picture the Jewish leaders as blind to Jesus’s merits, and “lacking” his lore, and in league to destroy him (e.g., Matt 12:14, Luke 19:47). They claim he is possessed (Mark 3:22, John 7:20, 8:48–52) which must be what L means by soercerie 309 (B.15.596); see 18.149–50a (B.16.120). But they do not call him a false prophet, and certainly not a iogelour (i.e., ioculator, conjurer) or iapare; these terms, in C only, perhaps show the influence of Alfonsi’s dialogues, in which the Jewish spokesman Moses claims that Jesus was a magician, and the Christian spokesman Peter refutes him (PL 157.573,

288

C Passus 17; B Passus 15

646–47, trans. Resnick 2006:106, 232, Tolan 1993:20). But see Matt 11:19, where Jesus complains that because he eats and drinks they say, “Behold: a man that is a glutton and a wine-drinker, a friend of publicans and sinners” (see also Mark 2:16); this may lie behind the phrase a iapare amonges ∂e comune (308). As for seudopropheta whose lore was lesynges 309–10, (B.15.601–2), L would seem still to have Deuteronomy 18 on his mind: he takes Jesus to be the true prophet of verses 15–19, the Jews take him to be the false prophet of verses 20–22 and still look for the true prophet. In her article of 1996, cited above in the notes to 17.123–24 and 295–97, Elisa Narin van Court cites Daniel Boyarin’s argument that medieval Christians had two contradictory views of the supersession, one that Christianity replaced Judaism and the other that it fulfilled it (Boyarin 1993:27), and argues that L treats it as fulfillment in the B version but as replacement in C. In this passage the change is not so clear, except for the omission in C of the prophecy from Daniel in B.15.599–600; beyond that, Narin van Court can only stress that in the C version L “intensifies” the hostility to Christ ascribed to Saracens and Jews (1996:57–58)—as he certainly does, adding iogelour, iapare, and sofistre of soercerie, and yet the passage is not as effective an example of her point as some others. The Saracens are added to the passage in C. Of course they have been at issue again and again throughout the passus, but the phrase sofistre of soercerie and seudopropheta may well be what invokes them now, for Jacobus says the very thing of Mohammed, that he was “pseudopropheta et magus” (ed. Maggioni 2007:2.1414). This was common enough; see Daniel 1993:88–93. The word pseudopropheta occurs at Matt 24:11, in Jesus’s account of the last days; it was commonly applied in antifraternal polemic to friars (Szittya 1986:55, etc.; see his index). L has said of Mohammed exactly the things he says the Saracens and Jews say of Jesus: see “enchauntede” 176, “Disceue” 184, “priue gyle” 242. In fact the Quran speaks well of Jesus, and some Christian writers knew that and appreciated it; see Daniel 1993:190–200, Burman 2007:96. Presumably L in the C version is merely indulging in an extravagant mode of expressing his distress that the two groups failed to recognize that Jesus was the Messiah. 304 Iewes sayde ∂at hit seye with soercerye he wrouhte (B.15.596 Ac ∂ei seiden and sworen wi∂ sorcerie he wrou√te): Actually John says, “Many therefore of the Jews who were come to Mary and Martha and had seen the things that Jesus did believed in him. But some of them went to the Pharisees, and told them the things that Jesus had done. The chief priests therefore and the Pharisees gathered a council and said: ‘What do we? For this man doth

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many miracles’ ”. . . . “From that day therefore they devised to put him to death” (John 11:45–47, 53). Soercerye is hardly a neutral translation of John’s miracula. See 18.149–50a (B.16.119–20a) and note, and 304–11n just above. 306 (B.15.598) brouhte: sc. he, Jesus, as in B.15.598. We should probably hear a pun in both versions on power and puyr nauht. B.15.599–600 Daniel . . . vestra: The Latin means, “When the holy of holies comes, your unction will cease.” Though there is a basis in Daniel 8:24–27, the sentence is not actually there. It is, however, ascribed to Daniel in more than half of the thirty citations of it that come up in the PL online, starting with the Pseudo-Augustinian homily Contra Iudaeos (PL 42.1124; see 17.295–321 [B.15.582–613]n above), from which, in what would be a singular instance of rote copying, all the others perhaps stem. The line is repeated at 20.112a (B.18.109a), without mention of Daniel; see Henry 1990:52–53. She regards this first use of it as simply “the standard warning that Christ will replace Jewish priesthood and power,” but the second occurrence as more pregnant with typological meaning. See Barney’s note to 20.112. 307 (B.15.601) And √ut: And still today. They seyen sothly: they claim it is true. The shift to present-tense verbs in this sentence is significant: Liberum Arbitrium is now speaking of the Jews of his own time, not of Jesus’s—which enables him to bring the Saracens in as well, and to go on to speak of conversion. 311 (B.15.603) hopen: Believe. 312 Moises o∂er Macometh here maystres deuyneth (B.15.604 Moyses eft or Messie hir maistres deuyne∂): The B line is clear enough, if compressed, understanding elements from the previous line: their scholars foretell (that) Moses (is to come) again, or a Messiah (is to come). The idea that the Jews expect Moses to return instead of the Messiah—or perhaps as the Messiah— may be based on John 5:45, where Jesus speaks to the Jews of “Moyses, in quo vos speratis.” And see once again Deut 18:15, quoted in Acts 3:22 and 7:37 (“The Lord, thy God, will raise up to thee a prophet . . . like unto me”), and 18:18. Meeks 1967 points to both rabbinic (211–214) and Samaritan (246–54) traditions of Moses’s return at the end of days. For the fullest accounts, see Teeple 1957 and Bloch 1955. In C, having brought the Saracens back into play in 307, L alters the B line to include them here as well—and though he finds it necessary to expand

290

C Passus 17; B Passus 15

to three lines to carry it off, there is still compression. It would after all have been clearer simply to say, “The Jews expect Moses, and the Saracens Mohammed, to come and save them.” The idea that Muslims expect to be saved through the mediation of Mohammed is in Jacobus; see above, 158, 157n. B.15.605 [Grekes]: Though the previous lines, and the whole last part of the passus, have treated only Saracens and Jews, not Greeks, and though I have argued above that the editorial reading “Grekes” at B.15.390 is wrong, the overwhelming manuscript support for Grekes here argues that it is indeed authorial. The peroration of Anima’s long speech begins here, and before he makes his plea for Saracens and Jews to accept the Trinity, it makes sense to insist on the broadest possible agreement in faith in ∂e fader god.

Liberum arbitrium’s (Anima’s) peroration 315–21 (B.15.607–13) And sethe . . . amen: see 253–56n. Oure bileue means the Apostles’ Creed. The Latin phrases are from it (Alford, Quot.). The verbs are the verbs of the schoolroom: the teachers will proue yf they myhte/Lere, try and see if they can teach, bit by bit; the children will conne, speke and spele, recorden (memorize; see OED s.v. record, v., 1.), and rendren (recite; see OED, s.v. render, v. 1). See Rebecca Davis 2005:76–77; she argues that the passage “presents conversion as a grammar school exercise in translation.” Conscience predicted in passus 3.471 that the Saracens would sing the Creed (in B.3.328, the Gloria).

C Passus 18; B Passus 16

Headnote The purpose of the passus is plain in the first two lines: Will asks Liberum arbitrium to teach him to live in charity, and Liberum arbitrium, who is also called “lele loue . . . and in latyn Amor” (16.196, B.15.34), complies by showing him that charity is the image of God in his heart, specifically a tree, i.e., something vital and fruitful, set there by the Trinity and growing there. It is true love, and gives rise to a simple process: looking with love on others, speaking benignly to them, and bearing fruit in good works. The Trinity continues to support it against the forces that threaten it: world, flesh, devil. This simple conception is then elaborated into something not so simple, a “gret ferly.” The fruit, it turns out, grows in three stages: a good (“moist”) fruit at the bottom, representing marriage; a better fruit higher up, widowhood, “more worthiore then wedlok”; and the best fruit at the top, representing virginity. These are plainly three modes of expressing the love in the heart, the latter two privileging love of God; they are also the three standard ways of resisting the fell wind of the Flesh. All three are human, though, and eventually get old and die: Elde shakes the tree, causing apples to fall from all three levels, where the devil grabs them and takes them to limbo inferni, turning the tree into an allegory of salvation history, since that act prompts the Trinity to bring about the Incarnation, so that Jesus can joust with the devil and fetch the fruit. Charity is of course still the subject, as Holy Church made clear in passus 1: the Father “Lokede on us with loue and let his sone deye/Mekeliche for oure mysdedes” (1.163–64). Mary’s mild response to Gabriel also exhibits charity: it is benign speech, she speaks “hendely” (131; B.16.98). The account of Jesus’s adolescence and public ministry through Judas’s betrayal, though it begins by stressing his prowess, moves quickly to his ministry of healing, also charity in action: these are “werkes/Of holynesse, of hendenesse, of helpe-hym-3atnedeth” (18.12–13). Lavinia Griffiths says succinctly that “the Tree of Charity is a device which carries us from one stage of the poem to the next, from the discussion of charity in its tropological or moral sense—the concern of the Vita de Dowel—to a showing of charity in the narrative of the life of Christ” (1985:89).

292

C Passus 18; B Passus 16

Though C has numerous simplifications and clarifications, the characteristics and meaning of the tree, and the action surrounding it, are essentially the same as in the B version, with two main differences: in B Liberum arbitrium has the garden where the tree grows as a rental from Piers Plowman, and the dreamer falls into a “louedreem” at the mention of Piers’s name, so that the whole account of the tree, and of the ministry of Christ, occurs in an inner dream, from which Will wakes at 16.167, and wanders off seeking Piers. He also wakes from the inner dream in the C version, even though we are not told when he fell into it. In B the story of Jesus is taken right through the Crucifixion and the Harrowing of Hell; in C it stops—appropriately, given the events to be recounted in passus 20—at the taking of Jesus in the garden on Thursday night, the noise of which is what wakes Will. After that waking the subject is still charity, but here starts a chain of scenes that will culminate in the account of Christ’s passion. Its deep source is undoubtedly St Paul’s remark that charity is the fulfilling of the law (Rom 13:10). It gives us the law, embodied by Abraham (Faith) and Moses (Hope), and then the fulfilling of the law, and the culminating virtue, first in the Samaritan’s act of charity to the wounded man (passus 19, B 17), itself an allegory of the Redemption, and then the redemptive act of Jesus himself, the greatest act of charity of all (passus 20, B.18). And, since the idea of God becoming man is dependent on the idea of the Trinity, Abraham lectures Will on that, though not very clearly. At the end Abraham dwells on his confinement in “3e poukes pondefold” (280; B.16.264), the same matter treated at the end of the account of the tree. As M. Teresa Tavormina nicely says, what Abraham teaches “reinforces several of the major points illustrated by the Tree of Charity: the Trinity’s image within the human race, all or one of the grades of love, the devil’s capture and imprisonment of Adam’s progeny, and the promise of a Savior.” She continues, “Abraham takes the schematic representations of these points in the vision of the Tree and expresses them in a more personal vein” (1995:140–41). To see this is to see the passus as a kind of diptych, two modes of presenting the same complex of ideas—though surely the Abraham part looks less backward than forward, to Moses, the Samaritan, and Jesus; and surely also the tree passage has an imaginative reach that is all its own. Hm 143, along with three other C manuscripts, begins Dobet here (passus primus de dobet) and ends it at the beginning of passus 21 (explicit dobet et incipit dobest). The others begin it at passus 17, but also end it at the beginning of 21; see Robert Adams 1994, Appendix 4. Most B manuscripts start Dobet at passus 15, where Anima appears, a point corresponding to C.16.158; see B.15.1–2n above. Apparently the redividing of the passus required rearrangement of the large units—Dowel, Dobet, Dobest—since all start and end at

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passus-divisions. Adams (64) essentially accepts the reading of Hm 143, asserting that here, at the start of 18, is “the most obvious place” for L, or an editor, to have “repositioned the unit” (Dobet). He regards the placing at the start of 17 in the majority of C mss. as arising “from some early copyist’s attempt to adjust his exemplar in light of the realization that the Dobet material of B actually begins much earlier in C than passus 18.” But Donaldson’s conclusion is perhaps wisest: “I am disposed to believe that neither B nor C had any very clear idea where Do-Well left off and Do-Bet began” (1949: 29n8). Frank, without making fully clear where he thinks it starts, lists the “major elements” of Dobet: “the doctrine of charity, presented in both narrative and expository form; the discussion of examples of charity; the doctrine of the Trinity; and the various narrative scenes: the Tree of Charity or Patience; the coming of Christ; Abraham, Moses, and the Samaritan; and finally the Crucifixion and the Harrowing of Hell. These elements are brought into a meaningful pattern if one understands that the poet is dramatizing the contributions of Christ which further assist man to salvation. They come in this second division, Dobet, because they are the gift of the Second Person of the Trinity and they came second in historical time—that is, during the life of Christ on earth and after the creation of man with his rational soul. . . . The title Dobet is an indication that what is shown in this section better enables man to obey the law of love” (1957:80–81). I would add that in the overall economy of the poem, what passu¯s 18–20 do most basically is dramatize the pardon. Tavormina 1995 avoids using the label “Vita de Dobet” because she is not sure it is L’s, but says eloquently that “this cautionary tactic should not be taken as a denial of the gradual but unmistakable modulations of poetic focus and technique accomplished by the speeches of Anima and Liberum Arbitrium. Those speeches bring the Dreamer from the contemporary scene against which the Banquet and Activa Vita’s confession take place to the much wider stage on which the pageant of salvation history unfolds. The Tree of Charity, with its clear Edenic connotations, marks the completed entry into the new realm of vision, and the theft of its fruit initiates the soteriological action of the next three passu¯s” (111n). The idea that the rubrics are scribal—apparently assumed by Kane, Donaldson, and Russell, since they ignore them, and defended most vigorously by Robert Adams (1985, 1994)—was fought with equal vigor by Lawrence Clopper (1979, 1985, 1988), and more recently by Burrow 2008, but actually definitively laid to rest by M. L. Samuels’s demonstration in 1985 that the Laud ms. must have copied its rubrication guides from L’s fair copy, as Ralph Hanna has declared. See Samuels 1985 and Hanna 2010a:14; also Robert Adams 2000 and Burrow and Turville-Petre 2012. Actually, it seems more modest to say that it

294

C Passus 18; B Passus 16

is clear that the rubrics were in Bx, the latest common ancestor of all B manuscripts, and therefore probably authorial, since Bx has always been taken to be close to Langland—Adams, e.g., considers its exemplar to have been revised by the poet (2002:117), and Donaldson, following Blackman (1918) and Chambers and Grattan (1931), considered it “not the poet’s autograph, but a rather hasty and inaccurate copy of it” (1955: 184). Ian Cornelius (2015) has recently argued with particular cogency that all the rubrics, in both B and C manuscripts, can be shown to go back to Bx. I have a further reason for thinking the rubrics authorial, arising from my conviction that Piers Plowman is grounded in the schoolroom (see Cannon 2008, Lawler 2011, 2013, and, now most fully, Cannon 2016). Its fundamental ethical idea, embedded in the rubrics, of doing well, better, and best may have its origin in Donatus’s illustration in Ars minor of irregular comparative adverbs: “faciunt enim bene, melius, optime” (PL 90.639).

The Tree of Charity (1–122, B.16.3–89) 1–122 Leue liberum Arbitrium . . . disseyued (B.16.3–89 Ac √it . . . fro hym): The Tree of Charity (not an actual phrase of Langland’s, but a time-honored one among his modern readers, which I shall continue to use). It comes from B.16.3–4, where Will asks what charity is, and Anima replies that it is a tree— though a few lines later he says it is called Pacience (8). In C, Liberum arbitrium first calls it ymago dei (7), then trewe loue (9), then, implicitly, Caritas (32, 39). We do well to call it the Tree of Charity. In B, Anima, going on in his reply to Will, begins to describe the tree, and mentions that Piers the Plowman tends it. Will swoons and has a lovedream, in which Piers shows him the tree. In C Will asks Liberum arbitrium to teach him to live in charity; Liberum arbitrium then leads him to the tree, and describes it as Will stands before it—no dream, no Piers, no need for Will to imagine the tree. This is a radical improvement in clarity and simplicity, though there is a clear loss in poetic appeal, and though the actual account of the tree and the action around it is similar in the two versions. In both the heart is a garden in which the tree grows; in both the fruit of the tree is charity, that is, works of charity (C.18.12)—though it is also souls, that is, men and women who perform those works. In both Will experiences joy. The account of the props and the three winds they protect the tree from is almost identical in the two versions, although in B the first two props are wielded by Piers, the third by Liberum arbitrium; in C, Liberum arbitrium wields all three, and the description of the identical length and so on of the props, and their betokening

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the Trinity, given at the end in B, comes at the start in C. After it in C comes the account of the fruit, now definitely souls rather than their works, again basically similar to B—in both the married are at the bottom, widows in the middle, virgins at the top—but what takes six lines in B takes 42 in C, with virginity treated at particular length; here the efficiency is all on the side of B. Finally in both, Will wants to taste the fruit, but again the texts vary—Piers casting and shaking in B, Elde climbing the tree in C—though not too much, since the reactions of the three estates—crying, weeping, making a foul noise—are exactly the same in both versions, and in both a lot of fruit falls. And the last lines, in which the devil bears away the fallen fruit, are nearly identical, except that he is chased by Piers in B and by Libera voluntas Dei, redefined in the next line as the Trinity, in C. The basic allegory is plain. The human heart is a fertile place where love grows by free acts of the will, supported by the Trinity and directed toward it. “The charity of God is poured abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, who is given to us” (Rom 5:5). As Elizabeth Salter says (1962:74), in the account of the active defense of the tree “the eternal consequence of all earthly affairs is constantly brought to mind.” But world, flesh, and devil offer alternative choices to the will, so that the heart is a place of struggle, as a tree struggles to survive the various inclement forces of nature. Then, like a tree, the allegory grows. The superaddition of the three lives, or three grades of chastity, is at first surprising but in fact perfectly logical. Since different pieces of fruit from the same tree can vary in quality, the image gave L a chance to treat differences in ways of loving, or, perhaps, different ways to fight off the fell wind of the flesh. The three grades, then, are really just a development of the basic allegory; the fruit is still charity, exercised in different ways by different souls, that is, by the different lives. But then since all growth leads finally to death, and the devil is already on the scene, the tree can finally represent the bondage that Adam’s sin imposed on the human race—a bondage that free will is helpless to prevent—and the poem is now ready for the story of the Redemption. The whole daring image and episode have made a brilliant gateway for this climactic story. Questions remain, however. Most of the passage seems to allegorize the human condition at any time, its good works never sufficient alone for salvation; how then does it suddenly become at the end the human condition before the Redemption? (Salter’s simple answer, a good one, is that “as the allegorical idiom changes and is enriched, it begins to utilize more than one time sequence” [1962:76]. Another may be that the allegory moves from the moral to the typological sense.) In B what does Piers represent, and what is

296

C Passus 18; B Passus 16

his relation to human free will? Also in B, why does the tree need two attendants? (See below, B.16.17n.) How useful is the emphasis on the Trinity? Does a mania for threes (world, flesh, and devil; Father, Son, and Spirit; marriage, widowhood, and virginity) overwhelm the allegory? (Donaldson [1949:187] calls the allegory “too crowded”). Why the excessive attention to virginity in C? The question whether the fruit is works or souls is almost not worth asking, since every work requires an agent, and neither version is consistent on the matter. C calls the fruit works at line 12, naturally enough, since the love one feels should “bear fruit” in loving acts, and yet at line 31 the wind of the world blows on “hem 3at wol treuthe,” (also B.16.27) which has to be “souls,” that is, people, and the devil can hardly be said to fetch away works rather than souls (49). At line 68 “Adam was as tre and we aren as his apples,” and the rest of that sentence and the next are all about “weddede men and wedewes and riht worthy maydones,” not their works, and in fact the fruit is clearly souls from then on. The B version actually never uses the word “works” for the fruit, though the statement that the fruit Charity grows “3oru9 god and goode men” (9) implies it, since good men are the instruments or agents of good works. When Will wants to eat it at line 11 and later, it must be neither agent nor action but the virtue, an inner commitment to love. Then we hear at 27 of “hem 3at willen tru3e.” For a while either meaning seems to work, but “Aungeles peeris” 71 has to mean souls, not their works, and the crying and weeping has to come from sentient beings, not actions, and finally the fruit that falls turns out to be souls for sure: Adam and Abraham and so on. Finally one has to accept that the allegory is dynamic, as nearly all critics emphasize, and a gradual shift of the fruit from signifying the action to signifying the agent is one aspect of that. Tree imagery is central in scripture (the two Eden trees, the parable of the mustard seed, vine and branches, “by their fruits you shall know them,” Christ’s cross). A major scriptural source is the Pardoner’s text, 1 Tim 6:10, “radix enim omnium malorum est cupiditas.” Augustine sets it against Eph 3:17, “in caritate radicati et fundati,” and loves to say that “radix omnium bonorum est caritas” (PL 38.468, 39.2247, 44.369)—an idea repeated again and again by subsequent writers, and surely relevant even though L says that mercy is the root and charity the fruit. Another oft-repeated remark is Gregory’s on Leviticus 19:23, “Ligna pomifera”: “Ligna quippe pomifera sunt opera virtutibus fecunda” (Fruit-bearing trees are works fertile in virtues). Augustine once uses the phrase “arborem caritatem,” the tree charity, PL 35.1993, cited by Goldsmith 1981:59 and Dronke 1981:214. Mercy says at the end of passus 20, “that was tynt thorw tre, tre shal hit wynne” (C.20.143, B.18.140) and both the

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tree of knowledge of good and evil (given the presence of the devil) and the cross (given the presence of Christ) are at least peripherally invoked here. Tree imagery is rampant in the didactic tradition, where it is ordinarily employed, in Chaucer’s Parson’s Tale and many a manuscript illustration (and briefly several times in our poem; see Concordance, s.v. braunche), to clarify the relation of a complex set of parts (branches) to a whole; Hanna 2010b:135 and above, 7.182–204n, has related this tradition to the tree here. The idea of the fruitfulness of charity seems to emanate ultimately from an oft-repeated statement made first by Hilary of Poitiers in the fourth century, PL 10.748, “Ut enim multi arboris rami ex una radice prodeunt, sic multae virtutes ex una charitate generantur” (Just as the many branches of a tree come out of one root, so many virtues are born from one charity). For tree imagery in Christian art and its development by Joachim of Fiore, see Reeves and Hirsch-Reich 1972. See also Pearsall’s note ad loc., and for a learned and sensitive study of imaginative instances, branching out (so to speak) from Langland’s, Dronke 1981. The basic image here, however, the human heart (or soul) as a garden, probably derives, as Ralph Hanna (2010b) has argued, from the Song of Songs, whose hortus conclusus of chapters 4 and 5 is regularly interpreted as either the Church or the individual soul, where holiness is cultivated. And the apple tree to which the beloved is compared in Cant 2:3 is regularly interpreted as Christ. Commentators beyond the Ordinary Gloss (which Hanna confines himself to) speak of the garden as producing fruit of sanctitatis et justitiae (Godfrey of Admont, PL 174.789; Wolbero, PL 195.1095, 1176; Helinandus, PL 212.639), and use cor as a synonym for anima. Wolbero says that the fruit is “imaginem Dei, imaginem sanctitatis et justitiae” (PL 195.1264). Here is a series of apropos remarks by Gregory on Canticles (PL 79.513ff.). On 4:12: The garden is the church; it is “conclusus” because it is surrounded by a wall of charity. Each holy soul is also understood to be an enclosed garden, because it surrounds itself with the good intention of achieving salvation, so that the old enemy cannot break in to raid what is inside (ne ad interiora rapienda hostis antiquus irrumpere possit). 4:13: The saints bear the fruits of the orchard. In 4:16, the north wind is the devil, the warm south wind is the Holy Spirit: let the malign spirit depart from every soul, and the Holy Spirit come to it. When he comes he pours in the fire of charity; the heart is warmed and produces fruit. L’s interest is above all in the idea of bearing fruit, abundant fruit, and perhaps also in the suggestive value of the difference between a tree’s solid, strong, enduring trunk (God’s love) and its beautiful, nourishing, evanescent raison d’eˆtre, the blossoms and fruit (good works, but also human souls). As many critics point out, this tree is just the culmination of L’s regular use of a

298

C Passus 18; B Passus 16

tree to figure a process of growth. See B.5.137–52, where the same extended image, of growth from “imp” to leaves to blossoms to fruit, is used to represent, in the mouth of the sin Wrath, the development of the enmity between parish priests and friars. That passage may have been canceled in C because of the use of the image in this passage. See also 1.148: “Loue is 3e plonte of pees” (B.1.151–52, A.1.137: [love is] “moost lik to heuene,/And ek 3e plante of pees”), and, closer still, “loue is . . . 3e graffe of grace and graythest way to heuene,” 1.199–200. Two other tree passages are less explicitly connected to love: at 16.242–55 (B.15.89–102), good priests sprout leaves of holiness and honesty, bad priests are barren (the image comes from the passage from Chrysostom quoted at 16.272 [B.15.117]); at A.10.121–28, dobest is the flower and fruit of dowel and dobet, as the rose springs from its ragged root and rough briar. Finally, the tree of Knowledge and the tree of the cross, linked with each other at 20.397–98 (B.18.358–59), lurk here as well: see 68n below. Critical treatments of the passage are unusually various. Donaldson 1949:180–96 treats B first, spending most of his time worrying about what Piers means, without concluding anything; he is tempted to agree with Burdach and Owen that the scene is a “single allegory dealing with the pre-Christian era,” but his support for the idea is tepid at best, and he is finally content to be baffled: “Piers remains ambiguous and even redundant. One can only conclude that in his composition B got hold of an idea of such poetic splendor that he became blinded to its remoter ramifications and particularly to its extension into the field of logic” (187). Moving to C, he lists all the many revisions and grants that C is “on the whole, more intelligible.” Liberum arbitrium, though less familiar to us readers than Piers, works, in Bernardine terms, as the image of God in man, man’s free choice cooperating with grace to win salvation. The “truly impressive moment” (190) comes with the sudden transformation, at line 118, of Liberum arbitrium “from man’s free will to God’s free will”; this, despite the various poetic losses from B, “has its own special grandeur” (191). He then reviews B and comes to the conclusion that B and C are “in accord” about “the almost unlimited importance of Liberum Arbitrium,” and that B’s conception of free will, like C’s, “derives ultimately from some doctrine similar to that of St Bernard” (192). Robertson and Huppe´ 1951 (followed by A. Joan Bowers 1975) try to bring in the lignum vitae of Rev 22:2, but surely this is to bark up the wrong tree. Frank’s opinion is that “the poet has not solved the problem of expressing simultaneously two ideas, that man has free will and that he is assisted by the Trinity” (87). He says that “nothing is lost” by the omission of the inner dream in the C version, and emphasizes that what is essentially shown is that “good works will not in themselves win salvation for man” (86). That last point

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is stressed also by Hanna 2010b:134; see further references in his n16. Salter (1962:73–76) is somewhat more sympathetic than Frank to what L is trying to do; treating B only (like almost everyone else), she presents a reading of the inner dream as advancing and deepening the “plain expository allegory” in the early lines to “allegory of dramatic action”; “in spiritual [terms],we are beginning to experience the truths already barely stated” (74). Ben H. Smith, Jr. 1966 is full of lore, some of it illuminating. Aers 1975:79–109, cited often below, is by far the fullest analysis, and has ever since been treated as definitive, though I actually prefer Hanna’s treatment (also cited often since it appeared in 2010), and I also admire both Carruthers’s succinct, positive account, 1973:129–33—“the most complex and satisfactory image in the poem” (133)— and Dronke’s vivid response to the poetic qualities of the passage, aided as it is by the deepest learning (1981). And Goldsmith 1981:58–71, thoughtfully grounded in patristic writing, has much to add. But Tavormina 1995 has taught me the most, as my frequent citations of her in the notes that follow will attest. (Cole 1995 takes a different tack from others, arguing that the enigmas of the passage are better understood by keeping both social history and literary history in mind: “Particular sermon conventions that bear on the Tree of Charity may explain its unique iconography when they are read by the light of the ideological climate in which they and the poem itself emerged” [2].) 1–2 Leue liberum Arbitrium . . . teche me in charite to leue (B.16.2–3 For Haukyns loue . . . what charite is to mene): To take B first, why is Will grateful for Haukyn’s sake? Perhaps because the many examples Anima has given of charity in action offer more hope for mankind than Haukyn’s gloomy lament at the end of B.14, “So hard it is . . . to lyue and to do synne” (325); perhaps because Anima’s sharp criticism of the clergy is regularly put in terms of the needs of the laity; perhaps because lines 15.186–94 offer him some hints about how to keep his own coat clean. Or, most simply, because Anima’s full answer to Will’s question, “What is charite?” (B.15.149) is such an improvement on Patience’s two-line reply to Haukyn’s similar question, “Where wonye3 Charite?” at B.14.98. Though why Will should, after this fair showing, still be in a weer what charite is to mene, is a puzzle, thick though he can be. C’s version, in which Will simply asks to be taught how to live in charity (18.2), in canceling Will’s weer cancels ours. The expression is not so simple, though. There is a certain punning on the word leue, though the third use of it, being surely the verb “live” with its short vowel, spelled with e eleven times in C (Concordance, s.v. lyuen, v.), participates only feebly if at all in the pun. Wittier is the use of all three ideas from the last verse of 1 Cor 13: faith, hope,

300

C Passus 18; B Passus 16

and charity: “I believe, as I hope, that you can teach me to live in charity,” i.e., I hope you can teach me, and I trust you can teach me. 3 louh liberum Arbitrium: He laughs, perhaps at Will’s punning on leue, perhaps at his pathetically overdone politeness, but mostly because he knows that seeing the tree will bring Will joy (16). Ladde me forth with tales: led me on toward it, telling stories on the way (like Chaucer’s pilgrims, though these tales are likely stories of love in action from The Golden Legend). 4–7 we cam into a contre, cor hominis . . . graciousliche hit growede: In C, the journey, Will’s quest to understand charity, has now reached the heart of man, the answer to Patience’s riddle in the dinner scene, and the very place, as Bowers 1975:5 points out, where Holy Church long ago told Will to look for love (1.39, 141, 160–61 [B.1.41, 142, 164–65; A.1.39, 130, 139])—a fertile country, a kind of Eden with a fruit tree growing in the middle of it, the opposite of “vnkyndenesse and coueytise . . . hungry contreys bothe” (15.188, B.13.219). This tree is charity, but is also called Patience in B.16.8, and in C (where it is a young tree, an ympe or sapling) first called ymago-dei (7), then trewe loue (9) (which is, of course, merely a synonym for charity). True love in the heart, as the following lines will say, blossoms into benign speech and bears fruit in good works. The fundamental point is that charity is a strong, growing thing that branches out and produces a variety of valuable effects. The conception is simple and clear in the C version, for three reasons: because Will has actually traveled to the erber and sees the tree in front of him whereas in B (see the following notes) he only sees it in a dream, because the movement from inner feeling to speech and then action is plain, and because Piers is out of the way. In B the basic process of feeling, speech, and action is the same, but L seems more interested in the image than in what it means, and gets tangled up in trying to distinguish root, trunk, leaves, blossom, fruit, and ∂e pure tree (8), losing the climactic emphasis on action. Of course in B Anima is trying to explain (once more) what charity is, and is still mixing up patience and charity (Donaldson 1949:181–82); in C Liberum arbitrium is teaching Will to live in charity, and thus has a need to speak more fetchingly. The primary meaning of ympe is either a shoot or a sapling; shoots can be used for grafting, as at B.5.138. Here it surely means a sapling, but it must mean graft also, since grafting is the ordinary way of propagating fruit trees because it expedites growth, produces more fruit, and maintains varieties. Tavormina (who also reminds us that grafting is the normal mode of propagation) cites 1.200, loue is “3e graffe of grace,” and concludes that this tree “can

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be seen as a long-delayed development of this metaphor” (1995:120). Or one might think of human love as growing from the parent stock of divine love. Pryuatees: OED, s.v. privity, 1a: A divine or heavenly mystery. Here the word is virtually a synonym of holynesse. But our “privacy” is not irrelevant. As Tavormina aptly says, bolstering her insistence that both Anima and Liberum arbitrium hark back to Wit’s allegory of the Castel of Kind in passus 10 (B.9, A.10), “B’s herber of heart amyddes mannes body (B.16.14–15) corresponds quite well to the metaphor of the heart as Anima’s favorite chamber or bower inside Caro. Both images suggest a pleasurable and intimate space, naturally analogous to the linked biblical images of the hortus conclusus and thalamus. The enclosed, interior hortus is suggested even more strongly in C.18.4–5, “Cor hominis . . . /Erber of alle pryuatees and of holynesse” (1995:113). It is hard, indeed, not to hear an echo in erber of “herberwe,” harbor, shelter, abode, and its verb herberwen, as it appears in Piers’s promise at 7.255–58 that “Thow shalt se treuthe sitte in thy sulue herte/ . . . And charge charite a churche to make/In thyne hole herte to herborwe alle trewe.” B.16.4–17 It is a ful trie tree . . . piken it and weden it: In the B version, Anima merely describes the tree; Will does not see it until Piers shows it to him in the inner dream. The initial allegory is rather wooden—Salter and Aers both sniff at it—parsing charity into mercy, ruth, and so on, and ending in the nearly meaningless “Pacience hatte 3e pure tree.” Patience is surely part of charity (“Charity is patient” 1 Cor 13:4), but hardly the whole. If patience and charity were synonyms, much of the previous two passu¯s would be undermined. The introduction of the heart is likewise wordy, requiring the needless synonyms gardyn and herber, and the inconsistent statements about the root, which is mercy in line 5 but of ∂at stokke (i.e., from the body) in line 14. There is no mention of the three props, which become so major a feature. Finally, the important concept of free will is introduced only to be upstaged immediately by Piers Plowman. This is the “cue for a deeper inquiry,” as Aers says (1975:89). B.16.6 The leues ben lele wordes, ∂e lawe of holy chirche: Presumably, the gospel command to love God and neighbor. This line is dropped in C. Hanna offers a subtle analysis of the gradation implicit in B’s triad, leaf-blossom-fruit (2010:130–32). 9 the trinite hit sette: Sette means “planted.” As Tavormina points out (1995:120–21), C associates the tree with the Trinity immediately, and Liberum arbitrium is quick to say at 26 that the three props betoken the Trinity. B is a

302

C Passus 18; B Passus 16

lot slower to make the association. Piers implies it when he associates the three props with Father, Son, and Spirit, but he is oddly coy about it, and does not use the word “Trinity” until he finally asserts at line 63 that the tree means the Trinity. 10 Thorw louely lokynge hit lyueth (cf. B.16.7 the blosmes be∂ . . . benigne lokynge): That is, loving looks feed it; the metaphor is the same as in 14 Cristes oune fode. Charity is alive when people look lovingly, not invidiously, on those around them, speak to them kindly—shooting up blossoms of benign speech (see next note)—and do them kindnesses. There is also perhaps a foretaste of the Beatific Vision, a life of seeing and loving: “Plena et perfecta ibi (i.e., in heaven) regnat charitas; quia Deus est omnia in omnibus (I Cor. XV, 28), quem sine fine vident, et semper videndo in ejus ardent amore” (Full and perfect charity reigns there, because God is all in all; they see Him without end, and always as they see Him they burn with love for Him) (Pseudo-Augustine, Meditationes, PL 40.920). Such loving looks and loving speech, grounded in the love of God, are what Dante experiences everywhere in Purgatorio and Paradiso. Cf. Piers’s vision of the court of heaven at 7.232ff (B.5.585ff, A.6.72 ff), where all the houses, hills, and chambers are covered “With no leed (i.e., roofing) but with loue and with lele speche;/The barres aren of buxumnesse as bretherne of o wombe” (i.e., there are no barriers) (238–39; B.5.590–91, A.6.78), and the hooks the gates hang on are almsdeeds (242; B.5.594). 11 The whiche blosmes buirnes benigne speche hit calleth (B.16.7 The blosmes be∂ buxom speche and benigne lokynge): A. Joan Bowers 1975: 23 aptly cites Prov 15:4, “Lingua placabilis lignum vitae,” a peaceable tongue is a tree of life. She might have added 15:1, “Responsio mollis frangit iram,” a mild answer breaketh wrath. Or Song 4:11, “Thy lips, my spouse, are as a dropping honeycomb; honey and milk are under thy tongue.” See also Col 4:6, Titus 3:3, and esp. 2 Cor 10:1–18, where Paul contrasts his bold letters with his “lowly” way of speaking in person, comparing it to the “meekness and gentleness of Christ” (10.1). A good way to see how central benign speech is in Christian ethical thought is to make a proximity search in the PL online of sermo Ⳮ benign or sermo Ⳮ affabil. (Other commonly used adjectives for speech are mitis, blandus, dulcis, mansuetus, suavis, modestus.) The formula “affabilis erat in sermone” appears again and again in saints’ lives. And it is hardly a new idea in PP: see Concordance, s.v. speche. Meanwhile, “Qui turpiloquium loquitur is luciferes knaue” (Prol. 40, cf. A.Prol.39, B.Prol.39).

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See Peter the Chanter’s chapter De mansuetudine (ed. Boutry 2004:99–101). 12 fruyt: As Hanna points out (2010b:130), the progression blossoms⬎fruit (in B leaves⬎blossoms⬎fruit) “designates a growth . . . in virtue”: works take charity a step further than benign looks and benign speech. “Fruit” is the key term of the episode, occurring eleven times in B and eighteen in C, all but three new, and so emphasized even more insistently in C. It alliterates in nearly every appearance, drawing to it the other key words; fair, false, foul, fiend, flesh, fall, fell, fetch. The phrase “bonorum operum fructus” is everywhere in the PL: a proximity search of the terms “fruct-bonorum-operum” yields 498 matches. Fruit starts out here as works, but gradually comes to mean souls, i.e., people, the doers of works, “Piers’s fruit the Plowman,” which the devil robs and which Christ aims to fetch back in 20.18, 32 (B.18.20, 33). As Hanna also points out (131), the “[most] prominent fulfilment” of this image of souls as fruit will be Christ’s desire to drink “rype most” (new wine) of souls, the “resurreccio mortuorum”(20.412, B.18.370). 14 Cristes oune fode: The Eucharist, the “sacrament of charity” (Aquinas, ST 3.74.4 et passim). John 4:34, “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me” lurks here also, since God’s primary command is love. Various writers in the PL quote that line, then say, “Cibus Christi est salus nostra,” Christ’s food is our salvation, i.e., saving mankind, his great act of charity. “Fiat voluntas tua” is, of course, the food that Patience offers Actyf, 15.249 (B.14.50); the fruit of the tree of charity is not really a different food. At 7.254–60 (much extended from B.5.605–7, A.6.93–94; cited already in 4–7n above), Piers asserts that if you enter heaven, truth will sit in your heart and charge charity to make a church there (i.e., a temple of God, 1 Cor 3:16, 6:19; see Maillet 2014:43) to harbor all who are true “and fynde alle manere folk fode to here soules.” From beginning to end of the poem, love nourishes. 15 solaceth alle soules sorwful in purgatory: Presumably what L has chiefly in mind here is prayers, acts of love, said for one’s soul by loved ones back on earth—though since what may prompt such prayers is remembering how good the dead person was in life—see B.15.146–48—it may also mean that one’s own acts of charity when alive are a source of solace. The souls Dante meets in Purgatorio constantly ask him to pray for them, or solicit prayers for them, when he returns to earth. But in Dante’s poem love solaces the souls in purgatory in other ways as well: they love God and each other fervently, and

304

C Passus 18; B Passus 16

they take joy in remembering acts of love performed by others on earth—and perhaps L imagined something similar. B.16.11 saulee: Satisfaction of appetite; a satisfying meal (OED); cf. Fr. souˆler, to stuff; ultimately from Latin satur, full. B.16.13–15 It growe∂ . . . growe∂: As line 15 explains, the garden is the heart: gardyn and herber are synonyms. Chaucer had a little herber at his house: LGW, F Prol 203. B.16.14 ∂at stokke: i.e., mannes body (as we speak of the trunk). B.16.16 to ferme: On lease at a fixed rent: Latin ad firmam, OED farm, n.2 Cole 1995:14–15 offers a full discussion, stressing the dissonance between this peasant role for Liberum arbitrium in the outer dream and his “knightly” role as lieutenaunt (47) in the inner dream. This is the first appearance of Liberum arbitrium (Free Will) as a character in the B version. See the note to 16.158–66. B.16.17 Vnder Piers ∂e Plowman to piken it and weden it: To pick the land is to break the ground with a pick or other sharp tool, probably to make weeding easier. For an overview of Piers in the poem and critical treatments of him, see 7.182–204n above. Ralph Hanna points out there that, though agricultural work is the penalty for Adam’s sin, Jesus provides an antitype when he appears to Mary Magdalene after the Resurrection as a gardener in John 20:15. Of course she only thinks he is a gardener, but the author of De vita beatae Mariae Magdalenae et Marthae (attributed by Migne to Rabanus Maurus) seized on the idea, saying (PL 112.1474) that Mary no longer doubted but believed in Christ, “nam granum sinapis, quod in cordis ejus horto bonus hortulanus seminaverat Jesus, illico radicatum, crevit in arborem magnam (Matt 13:31; Luke 13:19) firmissimae fidei” (for the grain of mustard seed that the good gardener Jesus had sowed in the garden of her heart took root there and grew into a great tree of the firmest faith). Piers here acts like the good gardener Jesus, now sowing charity in the garden of Will’s heart. Donaldson and others worried about the “division of labor” between Piers and Liberum arbitrium, especially since Piers wields the first two props and Liberum arbitrium the third. Aers 1975 argues that plainly Piers, “the visionary mediator through whom we expect to come to Christ” (95) is the superior, Liberum arbitrium his lieutenaunt (B.16.47). But to my way of thinking, though “visionary mediator” is a pretty good phrase, Aers despite many confident assertions never truly clarifies Piers’s role. It is just not clear

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why the tree needs two attendants, which must be one reason why Piers was eliminated in C. Cole 1995 insists that the “trifunctional” social model of clergy, knights, and peasants is “violated when a knight, Liberum arbitrium as ‘lieutenaunt,’ is set under a plowman, Piers” (15), but such an issue seems far from L’s mind here. Though Piers oversees the garden, it is actually leased to Liberum arbitrium (B.16.16), who wields the third prop against the devil. Thus the C version, in which Liberum arbitrium, Will’s guide since the middle of passus 16, shows him the tree and its props, and speaks of himself as wielding all three, is not after all so different, despite editing out Piers. And in both cases the moral conception is the same: the human will cooperates with divine grace to do good and avoid evil. Newman 2009:30 argues that Piers is removed in C “by a desire for theological coherence. Piers’s role in the B scene is, after all, confusing. He does not ‘represent’ anything allegorically. . . . Far more sensible is C.18, in which Free Will (Liberum Arbitrium) tends the Tree of Charity in the human heart” and “explain[s] the allegory to Will more patiently than Piers ever did in B,” though many readers including Newman herself “have felt that Langland’s revisions blunt the emotional force” precisely because of the “tantalizing mystery” that Piers’s presence brings. With the present speech, Anima disappears from the poem. 18 And sethen . . . hoteth: The line seems fatuous, a kind of filler to replace Will’s excitement about Piers in B. Would Liberum arbitrium have led him to the place and not named it? But notice the shift to the present tense in fouchen saef; the line probably means, “And thanks also that you are taking the trouble to explain to me what it means.” It’s a way of guaranteeing that Liberum arbitrium will keep talking.

Will’s love-dream (B only) B.16.20–166 B.16.20–166: Will’s love-dream. Presumably it is a love-dream because Will loves Piers, and because the tree Piers shows him is a tree of love. As Kirk 1972:190 says, this inner dream provides “the one direct confrontation between Piers and the Dreamer.” At the end of it, Will wakes but is obviously still dreaming since he immediately meets Abraham—a waking problematical in C. See 178 (B.16.167)n. Alford 1988:52–53 relates this second inner dream to the first, and argues that it “suspends the action of the main narrative,” so that, though the crucifixion and the defeat of the devil are recounted in lines 160– 66, Will has not witnessed them “as actual events.” In C, however, the passage

306

C Passus 18; B Passus 16

is continuous with what has gone before, an integral part of the fourth vision, which ends where the inner dream ends in B. B.16.21 al ∂e place: The garden/herber of lines 13–15 above. 19 And he thonkede me tho: i.e., for listening so attentively. The implication is that Liberum arbitrium is about to depart, but is detained by further questions from Will. We will last see him bidding Elde to shake the tree at line 105.

The three “shorers” or “piles” propping the tree (20–52, B.16.20–59) 20–52 (B.16.20–59): The three “shorers” or “piles.” Divine grace, through the persons of the Trinity, and in cooperation with the human will, keeps true love from falling and promotes its growth by warding off world, flesh, and devil and the sins they foster: covetousness, lust, and hatred. L first imagines the Trinity as three “shorers” (C only) or “piles” (B only), that is, props to steady the tree in the wind, all the same size (28–30, B.16.25–26). They are also called “shides” (planks) (C only), posts (B only), and planks (B and C). B’s term “pile,” used seven times, is a misnomer, since piles, then as now, are sharp stakes driven into soft or marshy ground in numbers to provide support for some structure; L rightly abandoned it in C. At 21.363 (B.19.363), it may (pace Barney) be used correctly: Holy Church stood in—i.e., on—holiness “as hit a pile were,” that is, as if holiness were a pile. Since they are all the same size and since their purpose is to protect against windstorms, these are not (pace Jacobs 2013:127) the stakes one sees in summer propping up branches heavy with fruit, but rather braces that support the trunk on the leeward side of the tree: they “shuyven (push) hit up” (20), “undershore” it (47), or “underpitch” it, that is, prop it from below (B.16.23 vnderpight). They are said not only to keep the tree from falling, but to help prevent the wind from biting off the mature fruit, apparently by restricting the swaying that the wind would otherwise cause. It is also clear that the tree is mature, so we should not imagine the vertical staking that surrounds young trees. I picture three two-byfours (though I should probably rather picture unmilled timber), six to eight feet long, propped against the tree at an angle of forty-five degrees, and secured at the top by wedging them under small blocks of the same wood that have been nailed or bound to the tree. The whole length of the prop must be visible for Will to be able to declare that they are all the same length. An eight-foot length set at an angle of forty-five degrees would hit the tree a little less than six feet from the ground, and hit the ground the same

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distance from the tree. Anything shorter would probably be ineffective, anything longer hard to install, and clumsy for Piers to use as a weapon. Since the prevailing wind in England is southwest, and almost all severe storms come from the Atlantic, i.e., from the southwest (like the famous wind of 1362 mentioned at 5.116 [B.5.14, A.5.14]), which puffed to earth pear trees and plum trees, the three props would be set on the opposite side—the middle one on the northeast side, and the outer ones north and east of it. Nowadays apple trees branch out from the trunk very close to the ground, but in the Middle Ages it seems to have been the practice to cut off the low branches, perhaps to keep animals away from the fruit. On every single fruit tree pictured in J. Harvey 1981, the lowest branches look to be at least six feet off the ground. In the C version, it is possible to argue that this literal image remains stable as L pursues his allegory. In that reading, when Liberum arbitrium says in line 34 that he strikes down the wind “the World” with the first plank, what he means is not that he removes the plank and hits the World with it, but that the first plank sustains the tree, keeping it from being blown down by the World and the couetyse it engenders. (But there may be some personification; see 34n below.) That is clearer with the second plank, which Liberum arbitrium says (40) that he “sets,” that is, presumably, wedges firmly in place against the tree, thus “warding” (protecting) it (42) till the fruit is ripe. Similarly the third attack, when the fiend (not a wind) shakes the tree, is withstood because the tree is undershored (47). But Liberum arbitrium’s final action, in line 50, felling the devil with the third shorer, requires us to understand that he takes it and hits him, because he is running away with the fruit. This change is clearly required by L’s decision to drop the idea that the devil is a wind (one of the three in line 29) and treat him in personal terms. B.16.27–52 works in the same way. Piers strikes Coueitise down with the first pile (30) simply by relying on it to sustain the tree, and he “sets the second pile to,” that is, sets it in place against the tree, again as in C. The action with the third pile is ambiguous: Liberum arbitrium lacche∂ it and palle∂ adoun ∂e pouke (50–51), who is “menacing” behind Piers, that is, not running away as in C, and we are free to regard the striking down as once again effected by the pile in place, holding up the tree—“lacchyng” it can simply mean grasping it firmly to make sure it stays in place. But in the final picture the pile is clearly a weapon in Piers’s hands: the devil is carrying fallen apples away (83), and Piers takes a pile and hitte after him (86–87). Thus in both versions the final image is of one prop pulled from the tree and used as a weapon—but even that departure does not destabilize the original image, since a real farmer might very well choose just that expedient to chase away an apple thief.

308

C Passus 18; B Passus 16

Thus the literal image. It is quite different, really, from the vine-props in Septuagesima sermons that Cole 1995 offers as analogous, since those are forked trees that actually bear the vines, raising them above the level of briars, like our grape arbors; these props are ready to brace the tree against winds, but do not in any sense bear it. Its central import is clear: the Trinity supports us in our struggle with temptation, and cooperates with our free will in actively fighting off the devil. Further particulars of the allegory will be touched on in their place. Pearsall’s claim that there is a reminiscence here of Seth’s “three stems,” repeated by Tavormina 1982a:323, is too far-fetched. L is thinking of real props. The Tree of Charity (“arbor amoris, 3e tre of luf”) pictured in MS. BL Additional 37049, f. 25r, represents the Trinity directly by its three parts, the main stem (“god 3e fadyr”), and two branches, “god 3e son” and “god 3e holy gost.” The page is reproduced in Brantley 2007:153 and discussed on p. 154. B.16.25 witen: save, keep. B.16.25a Cum . . . manum suam: “When the just man shall fall he shall not be bruised, for the Lord putteth his hand under him” (Ps 36:24, in the Old Latin version; the Vulgate drops “justus”; see Alford). The sense of the future perfect indicative verb ceciderit, literally “shall have fallen,” is “is about to fall”—when the just man is about to fall, God catches him, so he does not actually fall here (though of course we know from elsewhere that the just man falls seven times a day [10.21, B.8.20a, A.9.17a; cf. Prov 24:16, Luke 17:4]). The props similarly prevent the tree from falling. 32 (B.16.28) Couetyse cometh of ∂at wynde: Covetyse is as it were a sidewind; it takes over the sentence from the World, being (as hit) the subject of the verbs abiteth and forfret, and, as hym 34 (with a change of gender from hit 32), the object of palle. Covetyse with its fair sights, though slightly less personified here, is really the same figure as “coueytise-of-yes,” 11.173, 191, 307, 12.3–11; B.11.14, 22–24, 46–59, just as ∂e flesch 35 (B.16.31) is the same as Concupiscencia carnis 11.172–76, 189, 307–10; B.11.13, 17–21, 30, 40–45, all based on 1 John 2:15–16. In the earlier passage, both are temptations of youth. Here L seems uncertain whether or not to exploit the idea of aging implicit in his metaphor. On the one hand, lust is still associated with youth (35, 42; B.16.31, 35, 39), and lying, backbiting, brawling, etc. seem because of thenne 43 (B.16.40) to be the besetting sins of adulthood. On the other hand, covetousness is not assigned to any one stage in the process of maturation, and at B.16.48–49 flesh is still among the assailants when the blossoms have ripened

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into fruit. Furthermore, at B.16.45 floures must mean “fruit” (with which it is replaced in C.18.49) rather than “blossoms.” And since L is certainly not associating all three temptations with youth, B.16.27 in blowyng tyme abite ∂e floures can hardly mean “[the winds] bite off the blossoms in spring.” Rather it must mean “when the winds blow [they] bite off the fruit,” and the intrusion of the ages of man into the passage seems incidental to its purpose (pace John Adams, JEGP 1962: 33). In fact fruit is only in danger from wind when it is well into its final stage of growth. L has conflated two slightly different traditions: the “three temptations” (lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, and pride of life), the subject of Donald Howard’s The Three Temptations (1966), and the three enemies (world, flesh, and devil), which is the dominant conception. On the relation of the two, see Howard 61–75; he sees “the world” as embracing all three temptations, as well as the stage “suggestion” in the further triad “suggestion, delectation, consent.” 34 (B.16.30) with ∂e furste planke (pil B) y palle hym down: “Palle” means “strike,” literally, “strike with a stake,” since its source is the noun “pale,” stake. If we think of Coveitise as a wind, then we should think of the striking as a metaphor for the preventive force exercised by the prop in enabling the tree to resist the wind. But if we attend to the personification in crepe∂ (B) and forfret, then we should think of potencia dei patris as correspondingly personified, a farmer using the prop as a weapon to drive off a thief, as Liberum arbitrium does the devil at 50 (B.16.51). See the note to line 40 below. 34 (B.16.30) potencia dei patris, 40 (B.16.36) sapiencia dei patris: Trinitarian theology traditionally associates power with the Father, wisdom with the Son, (and goodness with the Spirit), though all three of course have all the attributes (see, e.g., Clopper 1979: 88, 1997:109: these are “appropriated names”: they appropriate to one Person an aspect shared by all three; Clopper 1997:109n cites Aquinas, ST 1.39.7–8; see also ST 2.2ae.14.1). Bonaventure, Breviloquium 3.11.3, in a formulation very like L’s, says that “power is attributed to the Father, wisdom to the Son, and will to the Holy Spirit” (trans. Monti 2005:128); see Bloomfield 1958:249n1. The “Ego sapientia” who speaks the soliloquy that forms the eighth chapter of Proverbs was taken by all exegetes to be Christ. Cf. B.9.38, “my my9t moot helpe for3 wi3 my speche,” where “my3t” is the Father and “speche” (Verbum) is the Son. As Clopper 1979:90 points out, the Father is “mi9te” again in Abraham’s analogy of the Trinity at line 201 (B.16.192) below, and in the Samaritan’s hand analogy at 19.135 (B.17.171). Cf. the “podestate” and “sapienza” of Inferno 3.5–6 and Convivio 2.5.8. L wriggles

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C Passus 18; B Passus 16

free of the conventional terms, however, and emphasizes the identity as well as the individuality of the persons, by writing “dei patris” again in line 40, where we might expect “dei filii.” See further C.18.51n below. At 1 Cor 1:24, Paul calls Christ “Dei virtutem et Dei sapientiam.” David Hurst in translating Gregory’s Sermon 38, where this is quoted, translates virtutem as “power.” See Alford, Quot., ad loca. 37 (B.16.33) nise sihtus: i.e., doting glances. Lust, being false love, apes the process of looking, speech, and works by which true love works; see lines 10–12 above; cf. B.16.7,9. In the phrase wormes of synne (38, B.16.34), L seizes yet another opportunity to exploit his metaphor, ignoring the illogical notion imposed by the syntax that wind nourishes worms (though maybe it does: see note to 15.241 [B.14.43]). The biting in line 39 (B.12.35) seems done by worms and wind together. 39 (cf. B.16.35) al forbit . . . stalke: By replacing B.16.35 blosmes with Caritas and leues with stalke, L reduces the connection of lust with youth and makes the devastation it causes seem much greater—though the new line lacks a stave. He also avoids a confusion: in B, are the blossoms still buxom speech, the leaves still the words of scripture, as they were in lines 6–7? Salter raised the issue, but considered that a “forced, out-of-context reading of the second passage,” which is “the new allegorical context of the dream-within-a-dream,” a “deepened version” of the first passage (1962:75). Aers differs. He takes up her suggestion that if one tries for a consistent reading “the bare leues” has to mean “the bare text of God’s Scripture,” and claims that “Carnality, in medieval thought, causes ‘the death of the soul’; and one of its manifestations is when the text of God’s Scripture is reduced to a barely literal understanding.” He then goes on to argue that since Christ transformed the Old Law in charity, “the old law, the bare letter, now becomes a letter which kills,” and thus the poet is “now invoking the weight of Pauline ideas about the law of the letter, and the living spirit, to suggest the final effects of the wind of Carnality” (1975:91–92). C’s simplification seems designed to forestall just such interpretative ingenuity, as if L were saying, “Look, all I meant to say was that lust has a devastating effect on love.” B.16.38 goddes passion in mynde: Memoria passionis Christi, remembering Christ’s passion, a classic defense against temptation. As John the carpenter says to Nicholas, “Awak, and thenk on Cristes passioun!” (Miller’s Tale, A3478). B.16.36–37 say that the second prop is Jesus, the powerful; line 38 says that we invoke the aid of his power by prayer, penance, and remembering the

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passion. But it is not necessary to say that, really, and C omits it to say more directly that the power of the passion wards off lust. And we are definitely in “the terrestrial sphere of time present,” as Aers says (1975:94), not “the preChristian era,” as Donaldson and Frank thought. Charity grows in our hearts, yours and mine and Will’s, not just those of Adam and the rest of the horde of holy men listed at 112–13 (B.16.80–81) below. 40 sette y ∂e seconde planke (B.16.36 sette I to ∂e secounde pil): Cf. 34n. In this instance, there is no personification of the wind, and so the prop remains a prop: “I set the prop (to),” i.e., set it firmly in place against the tree to help it resist the wind. 42 (B.16.39) hit: I.e., the tree (Caritas). C’s warde, guard, is a little clearer than B’s saue. 43–52 (B.16.40–52) And thenne fondeth the fende . . . thus gete y the maystrye: Of the three wicked winds mentioned at 29 (and at B.16.25, without the number three) the first, the world, has been lightly personified so that the stake that opposes it can be thought of as either a weapon or a prop (34n). The devil in B starts out as a wind, “wagging” the root (41), but, being already a person, quickly becomes a boy throwing objects at the fruit from the ground, then an apple thief going after it most boldly with a ladder. (Presumably what the devil throws at the fruit in B is literally stones and only metaphorically unkind neighbors, but in compressing his thought L has given us the absurd picture of people being thrown through the air, happily omitted in C.) In C, he starts out with the ladder, but the instruments of attack—backbiters, and so on—being used to “wag” and “shake” are apparently just winds, not missiles, so that for a moment he seems more wind than person. But in the next sentence, 48–49, he is back to throwing—stones, presumably—from a sling. (“Lither” means “throw from a sling.”). All the sins the devil sponsors—lying, backbiting, brawling, chiding, unkindness to neighbors, starting quarrels—belong to envy: see 6.63–102 (B.5.75–134, A.5.58–106). Thus the wind passage treats three deadly sins, and all pervert true love: the covetous and the lustful love the wrong object, and envy is the utter opposite of love; as Envy says, “I lyue loueles, lyk a ly3er dogge” (B.5.119, A.5.97). 48 So this lordeynes lithereth ∂erto: “He (the devil) throws these clowns (i.e., the backbiters, brawlers, and chiders of line 46) at it so (i.e., in such abundance).”

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B.16.46–47a Ac liberum arbitrium . . . non repugnat: see B.16.16–17 and notes. (Sometimes the devil fetches away my flowers—i.e., souls—right in front of me), “but sometimes he is prevented by [a soul’s] free will, my lieutenant in it to whom I delegate the job of looking after it well.” It 47 must mean “any one flower,” i.e., any one soul. The point of the Latin that follows is to suggest that free will is the operation of the Holy Ghost in the soul. The second statement is a gloss (unidentified; see Alford, Quot.) of the first, which is an inexact quotation of Matt 12:32. See also Mark 3:29, Luke 12:10. (The phrase “qui peccat [or peccaverit] in Spiritum sanctum” for Matthew’s “qui dixerit contra Spiritum Sanctum” is common, as the online search engines show, as is “numquam” for “non” in Matthew’s continuation, “non remittetur ei, neque in hoc saeculo neque in futuro”). Punctuate thus: Videatis: “qui peccat in spiritum sanctum numquam remittetur, etc.”—hoc est idem: “qui peccat per liberum arbitrium.” Non repugnat. “Look: ‘he who sins against the Holy Spirit, it will never be forgiven him’ is the same as ‘he who sins of his own free will.’ There is no difference.” (Non repugnat means the same thing as Hoc est idem.) Cf. Aquinas, ST 2.2ae.14.4.2, “Peccare in Spiritum Sanctum est peccare ex certa malitia, sive ex electione” (To sin against the Holy Ghost is to sin out of set malice or by choice). Again, Bonaventure, Breviloquium 3.11.3: “So when the will has the power to resist and knows something to be wrong, but solely out of its own corruption chooses to do it nonetheless, it is committing what is known as a sin of sheer malice. Such a sin arises purely from the defection of the free choice of the will, and is directly opposed to the grace of the Holy Spirit” (trans. Monti 2005:128). To use free will sinfully (i.e., to allow the devil to fetch you) is to reject the Holy Ghost—and therefore to use it well is to accept the Holy Ghost, to choose to allow one’s lieutenaunt to loken it wel. Later in the passus in the B version, at line 223, the Holy Ghost is called the free will of the Father and Son. And in the long treatment of the idea of sinning against the Holy Ghost, 19.164–300 (B.17.198–320), the issue again and again is the openness of the will to grace. Aers 1975:98 reviews the several places in the poem where grace is associated with the Holy Ghost, and concludes that “the communication of grace to men living after the Ascension is thus particularly associated for Langland with the third Person of the Trinity, and in this he is consistent.” This is actually the standard teaching of Augustine, Aquinas, and Bonaventure, among others; the scriptural basis is Jesus’s promise, John 14:16–17. But if to use the will well is to accept the Holy Ghost, what is the difference in B between line 46, where the free will “lette3” (hinders) the devil, and lines 50–51 where he takes the third prop and “palle3 adoun” the devil along

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with the flesh and the world? In this version L seems to have given us an exciting narrative vignette, where the devil and the will battle to a draw, each winning som tyme (45–46), before the will lands a decisive, mastering blow with the prop. But the theology is confused. C by dropping the line about “letting” gives us less suspense but more clarity. 51 spiritus sanctus: The third prop, unnamed in B (though clearly associated with the Holy Ghost), is here named, though not quite in a way parallel with the names of the first two; the full parallel would be “caritas (or amor) dei sancti (or dei patris).” Here again L avoids the conventional. In the taper simile in the next passus, the Holy Ghost will finally be associated openly with love (19.192–98). sothfaste bileue: right belief, i.e. here, the body of believers, the “loueknotte of leutee and of lele byleue” (17.127) that is the Church, since traditionally the Spirit is equated with the Church: “ipsa Ecclesia proprie et principaliter ipse est Spiritus” (The Church properly and principally is the Spirit), Tertullian, PL 1.1153; “Extra ecclesiam non habetur Spiritus Sanctus” (The Holy Spirit is not had outside the Church), Augustine, commenting on Jude 19, PL 38.461. In B, why is the third prop wielded by Liberum arbitrium and not Piers? Just to make it clear, probably, that all resistance to sin requires the cooperation of the will with the grace of God. See 19.57 (B.17.58)n. B.16.53–63 Now faire falle yow . . . Trinite it mene∂: This final discussion of the props is canceled in C, probably because it is couched as a dialogue with Piers. The purpose of what Will says is clearly to emphasize the identity of the three persons of the Trinity. The literal level is unconvincing: why should the props so evidently come from the same tree just because they are the same size and color? The tree that Piers refers to in lines 61–63 is not the fruit tree he has just been showing Will, which is called Patience and grows in the heart (B.16.8, 15), but the tree from which the props were cut: he is answering Will’s question in line 56, as “where 3at 3ei growed” 56 and “The ground 3ere it growe3” 62 make clear. He says, “I haue told 3ee what hi9te 3e tree” 63 because he has identified the props one by one as the persons of the Trinity. (Presumably line 61 just means, “Here is the answer to your question.”). B.16.59 grene of greyn: Green in hue (see OED, s.v. grain, c. 11), and therefore “of healthy growth” (Kane, Glossary), or, perhaps, “fresh.” The idea of o probably carries over from the first part of the line: they are all of the same green hue.

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C Passus 18; B Passus 16

B.16.64 egreliche he loked on me: Other glares directed at Will (by Lewte B.11.85; by Ymaginatif B.11.410, C.14.202 [B.12.280]; and perhaps by Scripture 11.160 [B.11.1]) are backed up immediately by speech; only this one conveys its meaning in utter silence. But see Patience’s wink (B.13.86) and Conscience’s “continaunce,” followed by a wink (15.119–20, B.13.112–13). Both mean, “Be still,” which is how Will takes the stare here: Piers will not field any probing questions about the Trinity (in sharp contrast to preaching friars; see B.15.71 and note). David Aers (1975:100) would like it to mean that Piers is hoping to see some sign of enlightenment in Will, that is, that he looks “eagerly” in our sense of the word, but I trust that Will has it right. John Burrow trusts likewise, 2000:80–81.

The fruit on the tree and what it signifies (53–102, B.16.60–72) 53–102 I toted vpon ∂e tree . . . parfit and inparfit (B.16.60–72 That is soo∂ . . . sour wor∂ it neuere): The expansion of the passage in the C version, from seven lines to forty-nine, is made for explicitness; little in it is not implicit in B. L seems above all to have been uneasy with the idea of a tree that bears three different fruits (moiste fruyt B.16.68, kaylewey bastard 69, clearly introduced by grafting, and kynde fruyt 70, the converse of the bastard fruit), and so in the C version devotes lines 53–66 to developing the literal image, making clear that the only ferly is that there seem to be three distinct bands of fruit, the middle band being larger, sweeter, and sooner ripe than the bottom band, and the top band better yet. An attempt is made to explain the ferly naturalistically: we all know that not all apples on the same tree are the same size or taste the same, and in particular we know that on the whole those on the south side are bigger and sweeter. The trouble is that this plausible appeal to experience is made on behalf of a tree in which the fruit at the top, not the fruit all the way up the south side, is better: in the application of the image, the apples at the top, even on the north side, get more sun than those at the bottom, even on the south side: a ferly after all. Still C’s tree is less unreal than B’s, which does indeed appear to bear three sharply different varieties. The metaphor is a convenient vehicle to enable L to assert simultaneously both that we all share the same nature and are equal in the sight of God, and that there are grades of perfection, chaste widowhood being a higher state than marriage, and virginity higher still. For a brief account of this tradition, which arose from commentary on Matt 13:3–8, the parable of the sower, see Bloomfield 1958:230–31. An important probable source for L that Bloomfield does not mention is Jerome, Against Jovinian, 1.40 where, after quoting Rev 14:4, where virgins are said to be primitiae, “the first-fruits,” he goes on, “Si virgines

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primitiae Dei sunt: ergo viduae et in matrimonio [col. 269B] continentes erunt post primitias, id est, in secundo et tertio gradu” (PL 23.269) (If virgins are the first-fruits, then widows and those who are continent in marriage will be after the first-fruits, that is, in the second and third rank), where the combination of fruit and rank suggests a tree with three ranks of fruit. That the tree called True Love should bear these particular fruits is perhaps arbitrary, except that it implies something important about each: that what motivates it is love. (In the C version the tree is, strictly speaking, no longer True Love with its fruit Charity, but rather a genealogical tree of which Adam is the stock and all his descendants, who are either single, married, or widowed, the fruit [67–68; 101]; see the illustration in Bloomfield 1958: Plate I, opposite p. 246.) Presumably L’s mind moved naturally enough from thinking of love and fruitfulness to thinking of marriage: true love bears fruit in marriage, as C.18.79 makes explicit. But then there is the surprising, paradoxical development that chastity is still more fruitful, or bears better fruit, than marriage: if L’s essential point is that love bears fruit, his final most intense focus is on the special fruitfulness of chastity chosen for the love of God. (As for chastity without charity, see 1.175–94.) The best fruit has thus stood firm indeed against the fell wind of lust. Tavormina, who has given us by far the best critical treatment of the three grades, says eloquently, “No longer do we see humankind divided into the economic and socio-political estates found elsewhere in the poem. The three grades of chastity are available to everyone in the social hierarchy, and each in its own way gives physical embodiment to their common inner form—a sturdy, fruitful love whose varieties can provide saulee to the heart-hungry Will once Christ has conquered Hell” (1995:118). 60 sonnere wollen rotye: apparently not a bad thing, but an index of their intense sweetness, and virtually synonymous with “sannore aren rype” 64, since the sweetest apples are the best throughout the passage. There is no need to assert, as Pearsall does, that 64 and 60 contradict each other. (At C.12.223, however, rotting soonest is certainly a bad thing.) 67 sone: Will has been thus addressed only twice before: by Holy Church (B.1.5, A.1.5) and the friar (10.30, B.8.26, A.9.22). It has the sound of wisdom literature, especially the “instruction” chapters of Proverbs (1–9, 22:17–24:22, 31:1–9, made fun of by Chaucer at the end of the Manciple’s Tale), though here L is surely also punning on sonne 64 and 66, as if to underscore the analogy between apples and humans. 68 Adam: Though he is mentioned here purely as father of the human race, and at 112 (B.16.81) purely as a resident of limbo, most readers find these

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references, particularly this one in C, along with all the implications of time and death and the clear imagery of falling, enough to consider that Will’s longing to eat from the tree, though it is altogether good, inevitably brings to mind Adam’s culpable desire to eat from the tree of knowledge. But such a statement as Fowler’s, as he begins to discuss the tree, that “We do not need to be told that the garden is the Garden of Eden and that the tree is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (1961:119) is much too heavy-handed, as Aers demonstrates amply (1975:101–2). For more temperate statements of the idea, see, e.g., Kirk 1972:169–70, Carruthers 1973:133, Bowers 1975:4–17, Murtaugh 1978:28, Griffiths 1985:89, Hanna 2010b:134–35. Tavormina says simply that “the two yearnings for two kinds of fruit are superimposed here much as the Trees of Death and Life are superimposed in the great medieval hymns of the Cross” (1995:117–18). Tavormina also points out that this is the moment in C where the fruit goes from representing acts of charity to representing “all humankind” (123). 72–83 ∂e seynt spirit . . . he saide: For numerous examples of the Holy Ghost as sun, search, in the Brepols LLT-A, “spirit* sanct*” Ⳮ sol Ⳮ calor*. E.g., Hildegard of Bingen: “Sic Spiritus Sanctus corda illorum accendit, ut sol cum sub nube incipit apparere ardentem calorem suum ostendit in sua praeclara luce” (The Holy Spirit kindled their hearts, just as when the sun starts to appear beneath a cloud it shows its burning heat in its brilliant light), Scivias 2.4.8.251–53 (ed. Fu¨hrko¨tter and Carlevaris 1978:167). For the association of the Holy Ghost (72, 75) with virginity, see Bloomfield 1962:74–76; for the specific association with monks, see Bloomfield 1958:251n2 and Conrad of Eberbach, Exordium magnum Cisterciense 4.15.3, 5.3.45, 6.3.59. This double reference to the Holy Ghost is the only point where a connection is made between the earlier triad, in which the three props were the Trinity, and the present triad in which the three bands of fruit are the three states of life. In the B version no connection is made at all. At this point also in C, at 77–80, the categories contemplative and active life are superimposed on the triad. There seems to be comedy here at Will’s expense. Liberum arbitrium has named three lives very clearly in line 71, then has gone on to call the last two contemplative and the first active. That is not hard to understand, but Will is baffled; he wants it one way or the other: why three degrees if there are only two lives? Liberum arbitrium virtually ignores his question, just saying, in effect, “Because there are three lives, as I just told you,” and asserting, in lines 84–99, that each of the three is better than the one below it, dwelling at some length on the last and best. In short, active vs. contemplative is a red herring here.

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80 That lyf . . . calleth: I.e., Lettered men in their language call that life “Activa.” This line extends the comedy: Will is apparently eager to impress Liberum arbitrium by using a Latin word, though he seems to forget the name of the language. 84–85 Here beneth y may nyme, yf y nede hadde,/Matrimonye (B.16.67–68 Heer now byne∂e . . . if I nede hadde,/Matrimoyne I may nyme): Will’s guide in both versions can pick the apples on the low branches simply because they are ripe (moist) and within reach, not because they represent matrimony, though perhaps there is an implication that continence and virginity are “safer” states. But this remark, that if the guide is hungry he can eat the low apples, is presumably what makes Will feel free to ask Piers (in B.16.73) to pull one down for him, or Liberum arbitrium (in C.18.104) to have someone shake the tree. B.16.69 neer ∂e crop: nearer the top. B.16.69 kaylewey, B.16.73 Appul: Is the fruit apples or pears? Both, apparently; the fact that apple is a generic word for fruit as well as a specific fruit complicates the matter. See Tavormina 1995:117 and n15. Apples were a far more common crop in England than pears, but pears are needed for the pun at line 71. Kaylewey (MED, s.v. calewei) is a kind of pear native to Cailloux in Burgundy, and bastard probably some scion of it; see Skeat’s very thorough note to B.16.69. B.16.70 kynde fruyt: As opposed to the bastard variety mentioned in the previous line, as Hugh White 1988:42n6 suggests. 88–89 as in heuene,/For ∂at is euene with angelis and angeles pere (B.16.71 Aungeles peeris): B says bluntly that the fruit maidenhood is “angels’ pears,” though of course with a clear pun on “peers,” as Skeat EETS points out. The C line looks like an egregious instance of C’s penchant for making things obvious: the second phrase still means both “angels’ pear” and “angels’ peer,” but the first phrase is there to make sure that we don’t miss the pun. The basis of the idea that virgins are the peers of angels, as Biggs 1984 points out, is Luke 20:34–36, where Jesus asserts that those worthy of the resurrection “shall neither be married nor take wives, neither can they die any more, for they are equal to the angels and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.” See also Matt 22:30, Mark 12:25; and see Bugge 1975:30–35 for a good discussion of the idea that “the essence of the angelic life was virginity”

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C Passus 18; B Passus 16

(35). Cyprian of Carthage, De habitu virginum 22, citing the passage in Luke, assures virgins, “Cum castae perseveratis et virgines, angelis Dei estis aequales” (When you remain chaste—remain virgins—you are equal to God’s angels) (PL 4.462), a sentence repeated again and again (though usually in the third person) by subsequent authors. A proximity search of “virginitas” and “angelis” makes clear what a commonplace Jesus’s remark became. At 9.20 (B.7.16, A.8.18) good bishops are said to be peers to the apostles (in heaven, clearly), and at 12.196–201, the poor are said to be treated in heaven as martyrs, confessors, and prophets. B.16.71 erst wole be ripe: Rev 14:4 primitiae, first-fruits (Biggs 1984:429). 90–93 Hit was ∂e furste fruyte . . . knowe: Rather an arbitrary, even perverse, interpretation of the creation story in Genesis 1 and 2, which most readers would say emphasizes coupling, not virginity. Man, the fruit of the tree, is not in fact the first of the creations said to be blessed: that distinction belongs to the birds and animals, whom God blesses in verse 22; the man and woman are blessed in verse 28. “Et creavit Deus hominem ad imaginem suam; ad imaginem Dei creavit illum, masculam et feminam creavit eos. Benedixitque illis Deus, et ait: ‘Crescite et multiplicamini, et replete terram’ ” (And God created man to his own image; to the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them, saying, “Increase and multiply, and fill the earth”) (Gen 1:27–28). “Mankind” can here be called “virginity” (the antecedent of “Hit”) and, later, “3e clennest creature” apparently because at the moment of blessing the command to multiply hasn’t come, and the man and woman are in fact as pure as newborn babes, or perhaps because they are separately “a man and a maide,” not yet “one flesh”: potentially sexual beings but not yet actually so. Again see Rev 14:4, where virgins are called “the firstfruits” (primitiae). Line 91 combines the first (“Elohist”) account of the creation, in which the man and woman are created simultaneously, out of no mentioned raw material (Gen 1:27), and the second (“Yahwist”) account, in which the man is created first “ex limo terrae” (of the slime of the earth) and the woman later from the man’s rib (Gen 2:7, 2:21–22). The key to understanding lines 92–93 is to see that the word order in both is object–subject–verb, as in the similarly constructed lines, B.15.306–7; “the furste thynge,” pace Skeat and Pearsall, is not God, nor, pace Biggs, Adam, but earth (Gen 1:1: In principio creavit Deus caelum et terram); RK-C’s emendation “creat[our]” in 93, followed by Schmidt and Pearsall, is wrong: Hm 143 “furste creature” is simply a synonym for “the furste thynge” above. The commas around “of a bat of erthe” in line 91 should also be dropped. Thus 93

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repeats 92 in different words, and the reference of both is to line 91 only: God used a lump of earth to create man to signify that earth should hold man in honor; “knowe” 93 means “acknowledge.” For “earth” read “man’s sexual nature”: the entire passage is shot through with the gnostic thinking of the early fathers, who thought Adam and Eve were virgins till after the fall; see the illuminating discussion in Bugge 1975:12–21. Tavormina 1982a, and again in her book, 1995:122–40, argues that the first thing blessed was marriage, that line 90 means “It was the first fruit I mentioned above, namely marriage, that God blessed,” and that “the furste thynge” 92, and Hm 143’s “furste creature” 93, which she also accepts, mean “marriage.” Thus she argues that 90–93 say that marriage was the first thing that God blessed, and he meant by it that virginity should honor marriage. She acknowledges that the next six lines shift to praising virginity; “The shift seems abrupt,” she writes, “but in fact makes sense if one sees [Liberum arbitrium’s] answer as a judicious, balanced explanation of the two lives as epitomized by marriage and virginity: both are honored by God, one with the sacramental blessing, the other with its special closeness to the Creator” (1995:138). This is an appealing argument, especially if one takes Gen 1:28 “benedixit illis Deus,” as blessing marriage. But in fact it says he blessed them, Adam and Eve, and in their virgin state, and so the first fruit God blessed could indeed be virginity; and the big weakness of Tavormina’s argument—besides that “abrupt shift” in lines 94–99, which I would call a total non sequitur if 90–93 is about marriage, not virginity—is that she ignores the meaning of the word maide, which lays emphasis on Eve’s virginity. Thus I would paraphrase the lines this way: “Virginity was the first fruit that the father of heaven blessed and commanded to come to life from a lump of earth a man and a maid, to signify that the first thing, earth, should honor the fairest thing, virginity, the first creature acknowledge the fairest creature.” 91 bat: lump; OED bat, n.2 7. Cf. “de limo terrae,” Gen 2:7. 94–95 In kynges Court . . . for ∂e lord sulue: As Saul loved the comely (and apparently virginal) young David exceedingly, and made him his armor bearer, 1 Kings 16.21. 96 Maydones and martres ministrede hym here on erthe: Skeat cites the women who “came with Jesus out of Galilee,” Luke 8:2–3 and 23:49, 55. These women, however, are not said specifically to be virgins, and one, Joanna, is the wife of Chusa; one, however, is Mary Magdalene, whom St Ambrose in On Virginity treats at some length as a virgin. More likely Maydones here

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means “unmarried men,” i.e., the apostles (though Peter and Philip were married). (See OED maiden 2b, and B.9.178, “maidenes and maydenes macche yow ysamme.” Cf. also the Wife of Bath, “I woot wel that th’apostel was a mayde” D79, “Crist was a mayde and shapen as a man” D139.) Jerome, Letter 48, To Pammachius: “Apostoli, vel virgines, vel post nuptias continentes” (The apostles were either virgins or married but continent), PL 22.510; Tertullian, On Monogamy, chapter 8: “Petrum solum invenio maritum . . . Caeteros cum maritos non invenio; aut spadones intelligam necesse est, aut continentes” (I find that Peter alone was married . . . Since I do not find that the other [apostles] were married, they must have been eunuchs or continent) (PL 2.939). As for martres, the tradition—e.g., Isidore, De ortu et obitu patrum, PL 83; The Golden Legend; the Old English poem “Fates of the Apostles”—was that, Judas aside, all the apostles but John were martyred. Pearsall aptly compares Cleanness 17–20, which describe the clean household of heaven, where God is served by clean angels. 97 And in heuene is priueoste and next hym: Cf. 14.143, where Dismas’s low place in heaven is defined as sitting neither with John, Simon, nor Jude, “Ne with maydenes ne with martires ne with mylde weddewes,” implying that these groups sit close to God. 99 (B.16.72) swete withoute swellynge; sour worth hit neuere: The purpose of the line in both versions is to distinguish the allegorical fruit from real fruit. On real fruit trees, as lines 60, 64–66 in the C version make clear, the sweetest and ripest fruit also rots first; this sweet fruit never bloats or turns sour. But the reference to “the swellings of desire or pregnancy” (Tavormina 1995:116) is unmistakable. Biggs 1984:429 quotes Nicholas of Lyra on Rev 14:4 primitiae, (first-fruits) (applied to virgins): “Gratiosi, sicut primi fructus sunt magis delectabiles” (Favored, as the earliest fruit is the tastiest) and comments, “Without going through the human process of swelling during pregnancy, virgins become ‘sweet,’ and since, to some degree, they are already saved, they will never be ‘soured’ by death.’ ” Cf. 21.281–88n. 100 priueliche: that is, secretly, mysteriously, as all growth takes place.

Shaking down the fruit (102–16, B.16.73–85) 102–16 (B.16.73–85): The shaking of the fruit down from the tree. In B Piers responds to Will’s request for an apple by throwing some unnamed object at the top of the tree, presumably so that Will can have one of the best apples.

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The top cries, and its cry seems to send Piers into a frenzy of activity: without warning he shakes first the middle then the bottom, eliciting more cries and bringing down heaps of apples of all sizes, which the devil grabs and carries away. No explanation is offered of this surprising climax. It is good dream psychology, surely; but we readers have grown used to Piers’s patient teaching of Will, and are as overwhelmed as if the apples all fell on us. (Hanna argues that the avalanche surprises Piers as well, and that what we see is the will of God—beyond Piers and certainly beyond Will [136].) The C version is only slightly less shocking. Again Will wants one apple, but asks Liberum arbitrium to have someone get it. He selects Elde, but tells him to “shake it sharply” so that (all) the ripe apples will fall. Elde climbs to the top, then—again without warning—back down, shaking all the way, and like Piers felling many apples and eliciting many cries. Again the frenzy is surprising, though here, since falling is death (and the cries the screams or whimpers of the dying), we must suppose that Liberum arbitrium has intended the avalanche from the moment he chooses Elde. Nevertheless we are again overwhelmed, and we think, “Well, so much for Will’s appetite.” Of course, it only takes a moment to remember that the passus began in both versions with Will’s hunger to understand charity better, that his desire to eat an apple from this tree is the same hunger, and a mark, as Hanna has shown (2010:135), of his good will, perceived by Piers—Hanna aptly cites B.15.199–200a—and that his interlocutor in both versions is now about to satisfy it overwhelmingly with the story of the Redemption, the great act of charity—and that story starts with the souls of the just in limbo. We may indeed take the avalanche of apples to signify the very plenitudo that will bring on Gabriel, and its sudden coming and overpowering nature to suggest what Gabriel tells Mary: “the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee” (see 123–25 [B.16.90–92]n below). In short, the allegory now becomes historical: the ideas of ripeness (there earlier, but not insisted on) and age bring time into the allegory, and the great plunge to the ground of the apples precipitates a corresponding plunge of the poem into history. The devil is now operating differently from before, not tempting, but carrying off the souls of the dead to hell. (Robert Adams 1983:378 argues persuasively that Augustine’s idea that the human race is “the devil’s fruit tree,” to be plucked as he wills, is very much present, but plainly opposed by L, who makes it clear that the tree and fruit are good, God’s, not the devil’s.) The three grades seem no longer relevant: it is doubtful that we are to take John the Baptist as a maiden, fallen from the top, Abraham as a widower, fallen from the middle, and the other four as husbands from the bottom. Nor were either Sampson or John old when they died. Rather, all L wants to do is

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list some people who died before the redemption and so are in limbo: the “patriarkes & prophetes and oo3er peple in derknesse” of B.16.251, along with John who brought them news of Christ. Naming John last is a step toward making the present time of the dream Holy Thursday at 160–66. The poem remains primarily historical from this point to the end. Aers at this point, to stress the implications of the introduction of time, aptly cites the psalm that Piers quoted earlier, “Cum ceciderit justus, non collidetur, quia Dominus supponit manum suam” (see B.16.25a and n), saying, “Now we actually see that the charitable just man must fall in a post-lapsarian world” (104). I would add that if ceciderit is now taken, not as future perfect indicative, but as perfect subjunctive, and “cum” taken as adversative rather than temporal, the whole account to follow of the Redemption is represented neatly by this verse: “Although the just man has fallen, he shall not be bruised, for the Lord puts his hand under him.” 104 some lyf: not just “somebody,” as Economou translates, but rather “some estate,” “the representative of some group,” in keeping with the allegorical mode and laying the groundwork for the appearance of Elde. 105 he hihte Elde: This is Liberum arbitrium’s last action in the poem, at least in his role as Will’s free will; cf. libera voluntas dei 118, and see 117–22n. 107 (B.16.75) crye, 108 (B.16.76) wepte, 109 (B.16.77) made a foule noyse: All are shocked natural human reactions to dying. Griffiths 1985:89 compares the cries to Nature’s “signs of woe/That all was lost” in Paradise Lost 9.783–84, but those cries are for sin, these for death. I do not think, as Harwood 1973 does (691–92), that the crying makes clear that the apples that seemed so fair are actually rotten, free will being useless to “unregenerate man” (691). Surely the virgins, widows, and spouses, lovers all, on the tree are contemporary figures, since the historical view has not yet taken over, though it is about to. Furthermore, free will does matter to unregenerate man: the justness of their lives will prove to have mattered when the Harrowing arrives. Aers argues that time enters here, with death, and that Matrimony feels the pain most acutely, it gradde so rufulliche B.16.78, because “it partakes most fully of the temporal” (1975:103). This is to overread, I think. Probably it does not mean matrimony; rather, “it gradde” is an impersonal construction: the shrieking (of all groups) was so rueful. L did away with any ambiguity by removing the line in C; to the reader of C, all three states feel the pain of death equally—as they should. 115 (B.16.84) hoerd: i.e., a supply of apples in storage: see the Miller’s Tale, “hoord of apples leyd in hey or heeth” (A3262). In limbo inferni: According to

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Alford, Quot., “the reference is evidently to the limbus patrum, ‘where Church doctrine claimed the devil was not in charge.’ ” But since “limbus” means “border,” and L certainly conceives of the souls of the just as dwelling just inside the gate of hell, this phrase is hardly surprising. The Golden Legend and The Gospel of Nicodemus use both words, limbus and infernus, and inferi as well, for the same place, and the devil certainly is in charge. L follows these sources for everything connected with the idea of the Harrowing of Hell; here he merely combines, probably not originally, their two terms into one phrase. Indeed, in his Commentary on the Psalms, Peter Lombard uses this exact phrase to designate the border area where Abraham and the other just souls reside: Luke’s rich man raises his eyes from lower hell, where he suffers, to Abraham (Luke 16:23), “qui cum aliis justis erat, quasi in ora et limbo inferni (who was with other just ones, as it were on the margin or border of hell)” (PL 191.803). See also the Commentary on the penitential psalms attributed to Innocent III, PL 217.995: of the two parts of hell, inferior and superior, “superior dicebatur limbus inferni, vel sinus Abrahae” (the upper was called the border of hell, or the bosom of Abraham). But until the Harrowing, the devil was master of the whole place.

Chasing the devil with one of the props (117–22, B.16.86–89) 117–22 Thenne moued hym . . . disseyued (B.16.86–89 And Piers for pure tene . . . reue ∂e fruyt fro hym): B says, in completion of Piers’s frenzy of activity, “And Piers in pure anger grabbed the one prop (a is stressed and means “one”) and hit at him recklessly—the Son [hit at him] by the Father’s and Spirit’s free will, [in order] to rob the devil of the fruit.” Filius is in apposition with 87 He, Piers—“Petrus id est christus” B.15.212. Earlier Christ was the prop, here he wields the prop. C has dropped Piers but says pretty much the same thing, adding love as the Father’s motivation: “Desire stirred in the majesty of God (i.e., God the Father) so that the Free Will of God (i.e., God the Son) grabbed the middle prop and hit at him recklessly (happe how hit myhte ⳱ without caring how badly he hurt him). The next two lines merely vary this, and add the Holy Spirit. Skeat, followed by MED and Pearsall, glosses moed 117 not as “desire” (as I have glossed it above) but as “anger”—reasonably enough, perhaps, especially as it seems to be the counterpart of Piers’s tene in B.16.86; but the echo of Holy Church’s account in passus 1.148–70 (B.1.148–74, A.1.136–48, the “plant of peace” passage) of how divine love moves the Incarnation is unmistakable, and the thought in C is simply more capacious and more spiritual than that in B.

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Thus the C revision, both by initiating the action more clearly in the divine will and by adding the reminder of the Fall in line 122, makes clearer that nothing less than the Incarnation and Redemption, and the Harrowing of Hell, are taking place here (though the last two will take place again in the next passus, so maybe they are only being predicted). That Liberum arbitrium moves suddenly from his modest role as Will’s free will (though particularly knowing and authoritative) to being the free will of God—to being, indeed, the Son of God—is breathtaking, though Pearsall rationalizes the change neatly: “The Free Will of man, keeper of the Tree of Charity, needs in the end the freely willed gift of God’s grace through his Son in order to bring the fruit of charity to a proper harvest.” The matter worried Donaldson (1949:190–92) more than it should have. B is dominated less by theology than by the figure of Piers, acting with characteristic indignation (for “pure tene” see B.6.117, 7.119). “4at a pil” 86 is surely the middle prop, as C makes clear; by line 88 Piers has become the Son. This line, in conjunction with lines B.16.50–52, seems to contain the germ of the major role played by Liberum arbitrium in the C version. And this image of hitting at the fiend is surely the germ of the famous image of Christ the warrior in passus 20 (B.18)—an image kept before our eyes at various points in this passus and the next—and the reason why the whole action of passus 20 (B.18) is the successful “reeving” from the devil of the souls of the just, who are still called “fruyt” at 20.18, 32—“pers fruyt 3e plouhman,” in fact, a phrase more appropriate at B.18.20, 33. (For the verb “reue,” see 20.299 [B.18.277], 308.) Indeed, these six lines (four in B) are a metaphoric summary of the historical account that follows: 18.123–77 (B.16.90– 166) and 20.6–468 (B.18.6–425). Bruno Astensis, commenting on Ps 32:9, “Quoniam ipse dixit, et facta sunt, ipse mandavit, et creata sunt” (For he spoke and they were made; he commanded, and they were created) says, “Si enim dixit, Verbo dixit. Dicere autem, voluisse fuit. Verbum autem Dei, et voluntas Dei ipse Filius est” (PL 164.802) (For if he spoke, he spoke by the Word. But to have spoken is to have willed, and the Son is the Word of God and the will of God). Granted, it is far more common to treat the Spirit rather than the Son as the free will of God, as a proximity search of spiritus/voluntas Dei shows, and as L himself does at B.16.223—but it is clearly the Son here. Of course line 120, and the similar B.16.88, insist that in fact the three persons are acting in unison. Kirk 1972:170 speaks of “the comic portrayal of farmer Piers chasing the devil with his pike like the irate foreman of the half acre at the very moment that he foreshadows Christ leveling his lance against the fiend.” Mills rather solemnly says that “the idea of the devil as a thief stealing apples and being beaten like a naughty boy would be comic if the passage was not the climax of

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a serious theme and did not carry the reader over its incongruities by the speed and skill of its rhetorical structure” (1969:202). Of course it is comic: this is the Commedia of the redemption. You can see L accentuating the comedy, in fact, when he alters B.16.89 go robbe ∂at Rageman and reue ∂e fruyt fro hym to C’s snappier go ransake ∂at ragman and reue hym of his apples (121). There is further devil comedy in the Harrowing of Hell scene; see esp. 20.281– 94, a scene apparently added in C, and its note. 117 in magestate dei: Cf. Remigius of Auxerre, Enarrationes in Psalmos, PL 131.422 (on Psalm 55), “in Deo, idest, in majestate Dei Patris.”

The life story of Jesus, from the Annunciation to the betrayal by Judas (in B, to the crucifixion) (123–77, B.16.90–166) 123–25 (B.16.90–92) And thenne spak . . . chaumbre: Thenne here repeats Thenne 117: now starts the literal historical account treated metaphorically in lines 117–22; the Annunciation starts the divine response to the devil’s theft of souls. Gabriel tells Mary, “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee,” Luke 1:35. In the Cortona Annunciation of Fra Angelico these words are seen coming from Gabriel’s mouth. On the effect of the indefinite “a maide” and “oon Jesus,” and on L’s standard use of this device to introduce new characters, see the good discussion by Burrow 1993:63. Pearsall nicely says that “the Annunciation . . . is the most stupendous moment in Christian history, and Langland, by his sudden and startling shift from allegorical abstraction to historical reality, makes it seem so.” Dronke 1981:213 speaks eloquently of the “poetic fusion” brought about by juxtaposing the sudden serenity of line 90 (in C, line 123) with the violent gesture of hitting at the fiend. 123–39 (B.16.90–96): Gabriel’s words to Mary. Plenitudo temporis tyme, a phrase in which the two Latin words work together as a single English adjective, means what the Latin phrase means in Gal 4:4–5, the time of redemption: “Ubi venit plenitudo temporis, misit Deus Filium suum factum ex muliere, factum sub lege, ut eos qui sub lege erant redimiret” (When the fullness of the time was come, God sent his Son made of a woman, made under the law, that he might redeem them who were under the law). Probably this means that time comes to its fulness at the crucifixion and resurrection, the moment of actual redemption, but many writers, focusing on misit (and, as Schmidt suggests, influenced by Fortunatus’s Pange lingua) applied it to the Incarnation,

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the Nativity. Langland has it both ways. Since Jesus lay in Mary’s womb until the fullness of time was come, it has to mean the nativity (with a witty secondary application to the end of gestation—Luke 2:6, “her days were accomplished, that she should be delivered”). But as the sentence goes on, “plenitudo temporis” is the Redemption, with perhaps again a secondary application to Jesus’s growth to maturity. In the C version, it will be marked by another felling of fruit by Elde, that is, a death, though this time, as opposed to 106, the fruit is felled or full to be rype, before it became ripe, a violent, untimely death. That death can only be Christ’s own death, which, as passus 20 (B.18) repeatedly emphasizes, is the necessary condition of redemption. This meaning of plenitudo temporis is confirmed by its repetition in 136 (“fol tyme”) (B.16.102) and 138 (not in B; see below), where again it means not (as Pearsall, following Kaske 1960:45, asserts) the beginning of Christ’s public life, but the crucifixion. However, the phrase or full to be rype introduces a paradox that deepens the emotional force. The death is both timely and untimely. It is the fullness of time in God’s scheme of salvation; furthermore, Jesus has grown to manhood and dies willingly— and yet L does not let us forget that he died young. Elde is here the old age of the world: he felled the fruit in the sense that time had come to its fullness— but Jesus did not die of old age like the earlier fruit. The meaning of plenitudo temporis tyme, and of the passage as a whole, is the same in B, if less clearly stated: the flowering, ripening, and falling of Piers fruyt (94) means the growth into adulthood and death of Jesus as a human person (except that B does not mention the falling, the death; see 126–29n below)—as any human life can be called Piers’s fruit, since the tree holds the whole progeny of Adam. Thus in both versions the conception of the battle between Christ and Satan has shifted slightly from the previous sentence: it is now clear, particularly in C, that rather than taking the prop and chasing the devil, the Son will bring on the confrontation by growing on the tree himself, falling from it, and being claimed by the devil. This makes it clearer than in passus 20 (B.18) that the joust only really begins in earnest after Jesus’s death. In line C.18.129 (B.16.96), the particular fruit striven over is Jesus’s human nature, which is probably the reason for the phrase “iesus suluen” (B.16.96 “hymselue”), though of course the winner gets all the fruit. These lines are related to lines 130–77 (B.16.97–166) as prediction to fulfillment. This passage contains what the Spirit said through Gabriel to Mary; those that follow narrate what actually happened once Mary said yes. They show the ripening of Jesus and, in B only, the fall and joust (162–66). Note that the scene has shifted, in both versions, from the “erber” to ancient Palestine and the events of the life of Jesus, which Will apparently sees

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in his dream; he is the speaker, and tells what he saw. These conditions remain until the dream dissolves. Waiting until the time is right, one special kind of patience, is a major value in the poem, and til one of its most pregnant conjunctions. E.g., just from C, kings and knights should tie trangressors “Til treuthe hadde termyned here trespas to 3e ende” (1.93); Holy Church, after telling Will to watch Meed and her crew and keep from them, also tells him, “Lacke hem nat but lat hem worthe til leutee be Iustice” (2.51); Reason orders his servants to “sette my sadel vpon soffre-tyl-y-se-my-tyme” (4.20); grace is a grass, Ymaginatyf says, “Ac grace ne groweth nat til gode wil gyue reyne” (14.24); and in the later passu¯s, as waiting for salvation mounts: “Moises to be maister 3erof til messie come” (17.296); Abraham tells Will not to muse much on the Trinity “til thow more knowe/Ac leue hit lelly al thy lyftyme,” (18.198–99), which seems to mean, “Don’t try to understand it until you see it face-to-face in heaven”; “Til he come 3at y carpe of; Crist is his name . . . [Lazarus will be] lollyng in my lappe til suche a lord vs feche” (18.281–85). Then, having come, Jesus “comesede” as conquerors do, “Til he hadde all hem 3at he fore bledde” (21.106–7), and he will thirst “Til 3e ventage valle in 3e vale of Iosophat” (20.411); in the meantime he “soffreth 3at synnefole be til som tyme 3at 3ei repente” (21.441). Finally, Conscience, in the next-to-last line of the poem, prays, “kynde me avenge/And sende me hap and hele til y haue Peres Plouhman.” 125 (B.16.92) a Iustices sone: “Deus iudex,” Ps 7:12, 49:6, 74:8, Acts 10:42, etc. Cf. also Ps 4:1, “Deus iustitiae meae,” and Inferno, 3.4 (the “speaking gate” at the entrance to hell): “Giustitia mosse il mio alto fattore” (Justice moved my high maker). God is both a justice and Justice. Iouken in here chaumbre: lie in her bedroom, that is, her womb. OED s.v. jouk, v.1, 2a; cf. Troilus 5.409. Mary’s womb is the bedroom wherein the coupling of Word and flesh takes place. This is the universal patristic interpretation of Ps 18:6, “Et ipse tamquam sponsus procedens de thalamo suo exultavit ut gigans ad currendam viam” (And he as a bridegroom coming out of his bridechamber hath rejoiced as a giant to run the way). E.g., Augustine, Sermon 195, In Natali Domini XII, PL 38.1018, “In quo thalamo, id est, Virginis utero, natura divina sibi copulavit humanam” (And in that bridal chamber, that is, the womb of the Virgin, the divine nature coupled human nature to itself). A proximity search of thalam Ⳮ uter will offer many more witnesses. If the primary meaning of “jouken,” to perch, is also at issue, L may be thinking of the dove that often appears in paintings of the Annunciation, though it is meant to represent the Spirit “coming upon” Mary (Luke 1:35). Jesus, though, can be symbolized as a bird, too; see Schmidt’s note.

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125, 128 (B.16.92, 95) a Iustices sone, iouste: Simpson 2007:184 (citing Quilligan 1978:103–4) and Waldron 1986:76n remark on the centrality of the pun on juste/justice. The joust will take place in passus 20 (B.18). 126–29 Til . . . iesus suluen (B.16.93–96 Til . . . hymselue): B says, “Till the fullness-of-time time came that Piers’s fruit flowered and became ripe, and then Jesus would have to joust for it, to judge by fighting which one should have it, the fiend or he himself.” Jesus grows to be man, then fights for his own life, which is also mankind. C makes clearer that the real fullness is not Jesus’s maturity but his death, and the fight with the devil comes after he dies: “Till the fulness-of-time time came that Elde felled the fruit again before it became ripe, (and) that Jesus should joust for it, to judge by fighting which one should fetch it, the fiend or he himself.” The clarity is achieved not only by saying, “Elde felde efte 3e fruyt,” but by substituting “fecche” for “fonge” in the last line, a better verb for the harrowing of hell—it is used six times in passus 20, “fongen” not at all, and for indicating that the fruit is now not just Jesus but all mankind. It also implies that Jesus wins, since the fight is really for whether he should fetch the fruit or the fiend keep it: his verb beats Satan’s verb, as it were. 130 (B.16.97) myldeliche: Cf. a meke thyng withalle above (124, B.16.91). The words “mild” and “meek” and their derivative forms have become fraught with significance in the course of the presentation of patience in C.15 (see 273, 290 [B.14.114]) and charity in B.15 (see 174, 258, 280, 306). See 11n above; also 16.22n. Mary’s benign “fiat michi secundum verbum tuum” also echoes “fiat voluntas tua,” the “liflode” offered by Patience (C.15.249, B.14.50) and the sustaining friend of charity (God, in fact, who feeds him daily: C.16.321, B.15.179). 132a Ecce Ancilla domini &c (B.16.99a Ecce ancilla domini; fiat michi secundum verbum tuum): “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word,” Luke 1:38—translated in lines 131–32 (B.16.98–99). 133–36 (B.16.100–3) And in ∂e wombe . . . Ar fol tyme come: L is at pains to assure us that Jesus was in full possession of his martial power, fully capable of overcoming the devil, from the moment of his birth; cf. the “plonte of pees” metaphor 1.148–54 (B.1.152–58), in which the love he embodies is “persaunt as 3e poynt of a nelde/That my9te non Armure hit lette ne none heye walles,” and the nativity scene in passus 14 (B.12), where he is called “hym 3at was almyhty” (14.98 [B.12.154]). For B.16.101 of fightyng kou∂e, and especially for its expansion in C.18.135–36, byg and abydyng, and bold in his barnhoed, see

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Ps 18:6: Christ came from the bridal chamber, the womb “ut gigans per currendam viam,” as a giant to run the way. Gerhoh of Reichersberg, commenting on the verse, calls the infant Christ “iste gigas plenus fortitudine” (this giant full of strength, PL 193.906). Kaske’s arguments (1960: 44) that 135–36 “allegorize” Luke 2:40 (“Puer autem crescebat et confortabatur, plenus sapientia, et gratia Dei erat in illo,” And the child grew and waxed strong, full of wisdom, and the grace of God was in him), and that 136 “alludes to the frequent comment that Christ realized his full powers at the age of twelve, but waited until the plenitudo temporis of thirty to begin His public life,” ignore the clear meaning of “barnhoed” (and “faunt” B.16.101). Perhaps part of L’s point is precisely to oppose this “frequent comment” with his own idea that the powers were present in the infant. His not exercising them is surely to be seen as patience. 133 (B.16.100) in ∂e wombe of ∂at wenche: Though “wench” can just mean a girl, as at 20.116 (B.18.113), L ordinarily uses it pejoratively. It is probably pejorative here, too, since the Latin quaestuaria, “prostitute,” was actually used of Mary to emphasize her humble status, e.g., by Peter the Chanter (ed. Boutry 2004:102), stressing Jesus’s poverty: when he was conceived, he wanted no place of his own “nisi pauperculae virginis et questuarie uterum” (except the womb of a poor little virgin and prostitute). See Jerome, Epistle 14, PL 22.354 (Jesus is “ille operarii et quaestuariae filius,” that son of a carpenter and a common woman, and DML, s.v. quaestuarius. But Mary is a “gentil womman” at B.11.248. 137–77 (B.16.103–66): Jesus learns leechcraft in preparation for the crucifixion. This summary of the public career of Jesus draws on all four gospels indiscriminately, probably from memory. Its emphasis on healing and conflict with the leaders of the Jews is not inaccurate. (For a briefer summary with similar emphasis, see 17.298–310.) The image of “lechecraft” with which it opens has its principal source in the words of Jesus about himself slightly misquoted at B.16.110a from Matt 9:12: when the Pharisees ask his disciples why he eats with publicans and sinners, he overhears and answers: “Non est opus valentibus medico, sed male habentibus” (They that are in health need not a physician, but they that are ill). The idea of Christ as doctor was a commonplace; see St-Jacques 1991:113 for a brief review. Besides the places he mentions, it is also frequent in The Golden Legend: see, e.g., trans. Ryan 1.5, where Jacobus, immediately after discussing the idea of “plenitudo temporis,” says, “the whole world was wounded and ailing, and since the disease was universal it was the moment for a universal medicine to be applied. Augustine: ‘The great physician came when

330

C Passus 18; B Passus 16

throughout the world mankind lay like an invalid.’ ” Jacobus is quoting Sermon 175, PL 38.945: Augustine first cites Paul, “Christus Jesus venit in hunc mundum peccatores salvos facere” (1 Tim 1:15, Christ Jesus came into this world to make sinners well [my translation; Douay: to save sinners]), then expatiates on the medical image: “Tolle morbos, tolle vulnera, et nulla causa est medicinae. Si venit de coelo magnus medicus, magnus per totum orbem terrae jacebat aegrotus. Ipse aegrotus genus humanum est” (Remove the sick, remove wounds, and there is no need of medicine. If the great doctor came from heaven, a great invalid was lying sick throughout the world. That invalid was the human race.) In our poem, the matter comes to the fore in the story of the Good Samaritan in the next passus, where the wounded man is, to use Augustine’s phrase, “mankind lying like an invalid.” Of course, the gospels are so full of healings that the idea of Christ as doctor would occur to anybody even without the line in Matthew (and its counterparts in Luke and Mark; see the note at B.16.110a below). L has already used it: see 6.81 (B.13.337) “lechecraft of oure lord” and 17.300 (B.15.588–89): Christ saved many people from “selcouthe sores.” It is also implicit in Holy Church’s praise of love as “lecche of lyf and lysse of alle payne” at the end of passus 1. St-Jacques gives a full account of medical imagery in the poem, as does Gasse 2004; at the end of his essay, St.-Jacques tellingly connects the medical imagery here and elsewhere to the final scene of the poem. What is original here is the idea (in B only, apparently taking literally his figurative reference to himself as doctor, quoted at B.16.110a) that Jesus underwent a specific course of medical training, and did so in order to prepare for the crucifixion and resurrection: see the next note. What L may possibly have in mind in shifting at line 137 (B.16.103) from military to medical imagery is the romance figure of the knight-healer such as Parzival (pre-eminently) or Lancelot in Malory’s “Healing of Sir Urry”; however, he shows no knowledge of Arthurian romance, and the bible is enough: again, see the note to B.16.110a below. In C the introductory conjunction “Ac” lays emphasis on the contrast, almost as if L felt the need to assure us that his martial hero has a humane side; B’s “And” implies a wholly different concept, in which the two roles are complementary, not opposed; see the next note. In both versions the account moves gradually away from leechcraft to capture the growing emphasis on conflict that also marks the gospels. C breaks off short of the climax, whereas the B version, in which the concepts of leechcraft and conflict are integrated, moves naturally to the final joust. 137–40 Ac liberum Arbitrium . . . fisciscyen (B.16.103–7 And Piers ∂e Plowman . . . if any peril fille): The most notable aspect of the B sentence is that

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the learning of leechcraft is put strictly in terms of preparing for the battle with Satan—plener tyme 103 (plenitudo temporis C.18.138) is still the time of redemption, not the beginning of Jesus’s public life [see 133–36, B.16.100–3n above]). He heals the sick not for their sake but for his own, in order to test his ability, and to achieve perfection through practice, with a view to saving his life in the peril (107) he is to face. The idea seems to be that, if he fought the fiend as a faunt (101), he’d have won, though at major cost to himself; by going through a medical apprenticeship, he gains the knowledge he will need to die (as he must do to win) and yet save his life, i.e., rise again. Thus, as the final lines of the passage (B.16.165–66) emphasize, he beats not just the devil but death as well. In short, the healing of others is practice for the resurrection. The ultimate healing, the one that achieves the requisite “maistrie” (B.16.112, 115), is the raising of Lazarus: by establishing Jesus as “leche of lif” (B.16.118), this act predicts the resurrection. All vestiges of this rather daring idea are erased in C, which simply says that as he awaited the fullness of time, Jesus became a doctor, and was good at it from the start, and will go on to present the raising of Lazarus (143–48) without reference to the achievement of mastery. Why in B it should be Piers the Plowman who parceyued plener tyme, i.e., saw the value of waiting until the fullness of time, and taught Jesus leechcraft, is not clear (“heaven knows,” says Donaldson 1949:184), though the idea is clear enough that because Jesus was man as well as God, and was to die and rise as man, he needed to take the time to develop exceptional medical skill. Probably “Piers taught him” ⳱ “In his human nature he realized.” Or Piers is already identical to Jesus, and “lered him” means either “taught himself” or “learned for himself.” In C the assignment of the teaching role to Liberum arbitrium may similarly just mean that Jesus made a choice, or it may be the Holy Spirit guiding him, as Kaske 1960:44 argues; see note to 123–29 above. Kaske’s further argument (pp. 47–48) that Piers in B stands for John the Baptist is ingenious but unlikely. Aers 1975:105–9 and Godden 1990:128–29 wrestle murkily with the matter, though Aers helpfully brings in 21.97–104 (B.19.97– 104), where Jesus starts to grow “in the manner of a man,” figuring out how to be a conqueror by learning sleights and wiles. Aers insists rightly that L’s conception of Jesus’s human side is always a matter of learning what it is to be a man. Whatever it means that Piers taught, the essential thing is that Jesus learned. As Priscilla Martin wisely points out, in the C revision “as much emphasis is placed upon the theme of plenitudo temporis as on that of leechcraft”: divine power is “harnessed to [the] tempo” of humanity (1979:88), that is, I believe she means, Jesus had to grow into the job.

332

C Passus 18; B Passus 16

141a Claudi . . . mundantur: The lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, Matt 11:5, Luke 7:22. B.16.107 Til he was parfit praktisour: Cf. Chaucer’s Physician: “He was a verray, parfit praktisour” (A422). If an echo, it’s a sly one, since the Physician is hardly Christlike; but the phrase was probably a commonplace. B.16.108–10 And sou√te out ∂e sike . . . to goode turnede: KD-B explain their reconstruction of these lines on p. 183. Schmidt 1983:146–48 offers a thoughtful objection, based on his insistence that blynde and crokede can have a spiritual as well as physical meaning, that I do not finally find convincing. In the reconstruction, sike and synfulle bo∂e 110 summarizes the two foregoing lines deftly, one about the sick and one about the sinful, and to goode turnede applies just as deftly to both healing and conversion. It has an authentic feel. B.16.108 saluede “healed,” not “salved,” since though Jesus makes a salve for the eyes of the blind several times, notably at John 9:1–41, he never does so for maimed limbs. 142 (B.16.109) comen wommen conuertede and clansed hem of synne: not nearly so regular an incident in the Gospels as L implies. The only instances are the woman who anoints Jesus with oil (in the Middle Ages commonly taken to be Mary Magdalene), Luke 7:37–50, and the woman taken in adultery, John 8:3–11—and she is not quite cleansed from sin, only not condemned, and told to sin no more. See also Matt 21:31–32. B.16.110a Non est sanis opus medicus set infirmis: “A doctor is not needed for the healthy but for the sick.” For the idea, spoken by Jesus about himself, see Luke 5:31, Matt 9:12, Mark 2:17; for the wording, which is closer to Matthew than to Mark or Luke, see Alford ad loc. The passage Alford cites from Ambrose (correctly PL 14.881), the only one that has “infirmis” for Matthew’s “male habentibus,” says the line was spoken by “medicus ille coelestis”—and since Ambrose has also just said of Christ, “ille bellator egregius, dux mirabilis, qui timidiores accendit in praelium” (he is an exceptional warrior, a wonderful leader, who inflames the more timid to battle), he treats him as L does as at once military leader and healer. 143–48 (B.16.112–18): The raising of Lazarus. Already treated, and with similar emphasis on the obstinate failure of many Jews to recognize its messianic significance, at 17.301–6 (B.15.593–98). The dwelling on Lazarus here sets up

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Satan’s plangent reference to the recent fetching of Lazarus from hell, 20.275 (B.18.267). On the changes here from B to C, see the note to lines 137–40 above. The source is John 11:1–46. John shows Jesus moved in spirit at verses 33 and 38, and weeping at verse 35, but the actual phrase mestus cepit esse (145) is based on Matt 26:37 (at Gethsemane), “coepit contristari et maestus esse.” Presumably the few who know why Jesus wept include L. A proximity search of Lazar Ⳮ flevit yields many results, and three standard reasons why Jesus wept: because of his human love for Lazarus and his sisters (whereas his divine nature did the raising); to deplore the perfidy of the Jews; or because he was bringing Lazarus out of Abraham’s bosom and back into the pain and misery of human life. One is tempted to regard this last, apparently unconventional thought as what L means by the why, except that it is not uncommon, and finally, being too much like Haukyn’s regret that he didn’t die right after his baptism (B.14.323–24), or Patience’s “the shorter life the better” (15.259, B.14.60), not the way Langland looked at life. My own best thought is that he is holding on to a vestige of the ideas of B, explicated above, and thinking that the sadness comes to Jesus from the reflection that, having achieved the mastery he sought, he is now ready for his death and resurrection, and the fight with the devil they will entail; if that is so, the use of the phrase from the agony in Gethsemane seems purposeful. As for returning Lazarus to misery: Peter of Blois (Later Letters 39, ed. Revell 1993:186) says, “Quedam tamen auctoritas dicit dominum non flevisse Lazarum quasi mortuum sed tamquam ad huius mundi miserias revocatum” (A certain authority says that the lord didn’t weep because Lazarus was dead but because he was called back to the miseries of this life). Revell says, “Quotation untraced.” But a brief search uncovered six authorities, from a letter ascribed to Cyprian of Carthage (third or fourth century), PL 4.434: “flebat quem cogebatur, propter salvandos alios et confundendos incredulos, ad saeculum revocare” (he was weeping for a man he was forced to call back to the world for the sake of the salvation of others and the confounding of unbelievers), through Abelard, PL 178.452, 942, and even Gratian’s Decretum PL 187.951: “non flevit Lazarum mortuum, sed ad vitae hujus ploravit aerumnas resuscitandum” (he did not weep because Lazarus was dead but cried because he was about to be brought back to the tribulations of this life). (The Pseudo-Cyprian letter was also ascribed to Jerome and Augustine—hence Peter of Blois’s vague auctoritas.) 144 Quadriduanus (B.16.114 Quatriduanus): “Of four days,” John 11:39; in C repeated from 17.303—in fact the entire line 144 repeats 17.303 verbatim except for the change from “walke” to rome.

334

C Passus 18; B Passus 16

147–48 Ac tho that sey . . . wonder: In John’s account, before the miracle Jesus prays to his father, saying, “Father, I give thee thanks that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always; but because of the people who stand about have I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me.” And after the miracle, John reports, “Many therefore of the Jews who were come to Mary and Martha and had seen the things that Jesus did believed in him.” (John 11:41–42, 45; on converts, see further 12:9–13, 17–18). 149–50a (B.16.119–20a) And some iewes saide . . . habes: See 17.304n and 17.304–11n: John shows the Jews objecting to the raising of Lazarus and the converts it drew (11:46–53, 12:10–11, 19), and ultimately devising to put Jesus to death. But no such confrontation as L imagines here, with the second-person verb habes and Jesus’s testy reply at 151–55, takes place at this point. L draws rather on various other passages of challenge and response; the accusation Demonium habes (thou hast a devil), for instance, appears at John 7:20, 8:48, 52; see also 10:19–20, Matt 9:34, 12:24. B.16.119 Iewes . . . ∂at Iuggede lawes: the Pharisees, who squabble regularly with Jesus over whether this or that is lawful (e.g., at Matt 12:2–14, 19:3–9, 22:16–22), and who, learning of the miracle right away from their stooges, get together with the chief priests to orchestrate his death (John 11:46–47). B.16.120 wichecraft, ∂e deueles my√te: These terms are not used in the earlier passage, but they simply vary “soercerye,” 17.304 (B.15.596), 17.309, 18.149. The charge of witchcraft will be repeated at the crucifixion, by a “Cachepol” (20.46, B.18.46) and others (B.18.69). Belief “on a wicche” is set against “lechecraft of oure lord” by Actyf at B.13.337. 151–55 (B.16.121–27): Jesus throws his miracles in the face of the Jews. For Satan, see John 8:44. Nowhere in the gospels does Jesus reply to the Pharisees or anyone else by citing his miracles. He does refer back to the feeding of the five thousand (Matt 14:13–21, Mark 6:2–44; Luke 9:10–17; John 6:1–13) when chiding his disciples for their weak understanding at Matt 16:9 (Mark 8:19). Nor does he call the Pharisees churls (B.16.121), though he insults them regularly (and robustly, cf. “manliche” B.16.127) as hypocrites (cf. “Vnkynde” 155), brood of vipers, fools (cf. “vnkunnynge” 155), etc.; see esp. Matt 23, passim. He never extends his insults to their children (B.16.121), although “thy children who are in thee” are included in the prediction of disaster directed at Jerusalem “because thou hast not known the time of thy visitation” at Luke 19:44. It is all toned down a bit in the C version.

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155–62 (B.16.127–35): Jesus drives the money-changers from the temple. Closest to John’s version, 2:14–22, the only one in which the driving out of the money-changers is connected to the prophecy about rebuilding the temple in three days. But John does not have “my house is a house of prayer,” as all three synoptics have (Matt 21:12–13, Mark 11:15–17, Luke 19:45–46), and L follows them also in placing the driving out of the money-changers among the events that led to Jesus’s being arrested; John places it instead at the beginning of the public life. The prophecy also appears in Mark 14:57–58, where it is presented (as “false witness”) at the trial of Jesus by the high priest: “We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this temple made with hands, and within three days I will build another not made with hands.’ ” Since in John Jesus does not say that he himself will destroy the temple, but rather, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up,” L is clearly also drawing on Mark, strikingly preferring the “false witness” version, and then falsifying it further by suppressing “not made with hands.” In both B and C, by connecting “this is a house of prayer” with “I will destroy and rebuild it,” he makes it very hard to read “it” as “the temple of the body” (John 2:21). In C this is softened by the addition of line 162; in B Jesus seems almost to be taunting the Jews to take action against him. 164a Ne forte tumultus fieret in populo: Matt 26:5, Mark 14:2: “(Not on the festival day,) lest perhaps there should be a tumult among the people” (see also Luke 22:2); it goes with priueliche (“dolo” [by subtlety], Matt 26:4, Mark 14:1), not with for pans hym bouhte. Of course they did end up taking him during the feast, “owing to the opportunity which Judas put in their way” (International Critical Commentary, Mark, ed. Gould, 1896 ad loc.; see also Jeremias 1966:71), though L seems to suppose that they carried out their plan; see the next note. Matthew and Mark give the account of Judas’s offer to the Pharisees to betray Jesus a few verses later (26:14–16; 14:10–11). Virtually everything in the ensuing scene here is in all three synoptic gospels (Luke does not have “Aue, raby”), though the quotations suggest that it is Matthew that L has foremost in his mind. John’s account is quite different, with neither kiss nor greeting. 166 (B.16.139) This biful on a fryday, a litel bifore Pasche: A selfcontradictory statement, since Passover (Pasch) started Thursday at sundown; all the synoptics say that the Last Supper was the paschal meal; all also say that the crucifixion took place on the parasceve or “preparation day,” i.e., of the Sabbath—i.e., Friday (Matt 26:17 and 19, 27:62; Mark 14:12 and 16, 15:42; Luke 22:7–8 and 13, 23:54); this would put Judas’s betrayal some time during the

336

C Passus 18; B Passus 16

night Thursday-Friday. And this of course is the received account. John is complicated. As he begins his report of the crucifixion, he says (19:14), “Erat autem Parasceve Paschae,” which seems to mean “it was the day of preparation for Passover (i.e., Thursday),” and seems to be the source of L’s a litel bifore Pasche (see also John 13:1, “before the festival day of the Pasch”). At the end of his account, however, he says, “Then the Jews, because it was the Parasceve, that the bodies might not remain on the cross on the sabbath day (for that was a great sabbath day), besought Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away” (19:31). The usual solution is to treat 19:14 as actually meaning “Friday of Passover week,” reconciling John with the synoptic timetable; see the full discussion in Jeremias 1966:19–26, 79–84. But L, perhaps influenced by “ne forte tumultus fieret,” seems to hang onto the meaning “day of preparation for Passover.” B.16.140–49 The ∂ursday . . . vnkynde wille: Removed in C. Perhaps L wished to get rid of the awkwardness of mentioning Friday, then backing up to the events of Thursday; perhaps also he wished to keep the narrative focus, and so was willing to drop the sudden moralization of B.16.148–49. B.16.142–43 I am sold ∂oru√ som of yow . . . siluer or ellis: In the gospels, Jesus makes no mention of money or selling, saying only “one of you is about to betray me” (Matt 26:21). Nor does he predict that he shal ∂e tyme rewe. L draws instead on the account of Judas’s actual repentance, Matt 27:3–5—or he follows a vernacular account such as the Northern Passion, Harleian version, 245–48 (ed. Foster, 1913: 27–29), “Sum of 9ow has bene to balde [too bold],/ 3at vnto 3e iews has me salde,/Ane of 9ow has me forsaken/And for me er 3e penis [are the pennies] taken.” B.16.145 tu dicis: Thou hast said it, Matt 26:25. B.16.146 wente for∂: from John 13:30, who does not say where he went. The synoptics give Judas’s meeting with the Jews, but place it before the Last Supper (Matt 26:14–15, Mark 14:10–11, Luke 22:3–6), and do not mention the tokne until the garden scene itself: Matt 26:48, Mark 14:44 (Mark’s “had given them a sign” is presumably L’s warrant for placing it at the earlier meeting), not in Luke. The Northern Passion in two of its versions shows Judas with the Jews, and explaining the sign he will use, just before they all enter the garden (ed. Foster 1913: 51–53, ll. 1*–20*, 513 [Harleian ms.], ed. Heuser and Foster, 1930:67–68, ll. 651–71).

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B.16.148–49 And which tokne . . . vnkynde wille: A proverbial thought, though expression varies widely. Cf. not only Hamlet’s “One may smile, and smile, and be a villain” (which shares with L’s line the understated “and . . . and” structure), but Whiting F2, L376 (lips [speaking] vs. heart), H271 (contrasting face and heart), C174 (countenance vs. heart, citing Malory), etc. The issue is flattery, that major evil in our poem: Judas foreshadows Friar Flatterer. Cf. Peter of Blois, Letter 131 (PL 207.387), writing to his abbot nephew: “Vereor autem, ne in errore tuo te foveant sermones adulatoris. Sunt enim qui te palpant dicentes tibi: Euge, euge [cf. Ps 34:20–21]. . . . Isti sunt, qui in hypocrisi te salutant, habentes osculum in labiis, jaculum in corde, et in occulta dilectione venenum” (But I am afraid you might make the mistake of letting a flatterer’s words encourage you. For there are men who pat you and say to you, “Well done! Well done!”. . . . These are the ones who greet you hypocritically; they have a kiss on their lips and a spear in their heart, and poison in their secret love). 168 (B.16.151) Aue raby: “Hail, Rabbi,” Matt 26:49, Mark 14:45. 169 to be knowe ∂erby and cauht (B.16.152 to be caught ∂erby and kulled): a nice example of a C change. C is a more accurate rendering of the biblical account, a clearer spelling out of the purpose of the kiss, and toned down through the omission of “kulled.” B, by compressing “known and caught” into “caught,” and so having space for “killed,” maintains the polemic tone. 170 (B.16.153) to Iudas and to ∂e iewes: Lines 171–74a (B 154–57) are addressed to Judas, 175–76 (B 158–59) to the Jews, as the pronouns show. 171–74 Falsnesse . . . ende (B.16.154–57 Falsnesse . . . ∂iselue): Here the primary reason for the change between B and C is perhaps the desire to include the prophecy of combraunce to Judas (he shal ∂e tyme rewe B.16.142) that disappeared with the suppression in C of B.16.140–49. Once again B offers (in line 155) a sharper, more vibrant image, and a clearer antagonism. C’s kene care can only be what Jesus feels, and is a sadder, less aggressive reproach than in B. The biblical kernel of this reproach is Luke 22:48, “Judas, dost thou betray the Son of man with a kiss?,” and Matt 26:24, Jesus’s generally expressed reproach at supper (quoted in the note at 174a below), in conjunction with the rhetorically similar 18:7 (the source of 174a [B.16.157a]). With his fair speech, glad look, laughing, and kissing, Judas in B looks and acts like Charity: see esp. 16.343–44 (B.15.217–19); thus he is a hypocrite,

338

C Passus 18; B Passus 16

like the priests “with bele paroles and with bele clothes/And as lambes they loke” (16.270–71; B.15.115–16). 174a Ve homini illi per quem scandalum venit (B.16.157a Necesse est vt veniant scandala; ve . . . venit): It must needs be that scandals come; woe to that man by whom the scandal cometh, Matt 18:7. In Matt 26:24, at the Last Supper, Jesus says, “Woe to that man by whom the Son of man shall be betrayed,” Judas asks, “Is it I, Rabbi?”, and Jesus replies, “Thou hast said it” (B.16.144–45). L (or a scribe, wrongly filling out L’s cue “Ve homini illi per quem, etc.”) appears to have confused one “Woe!” for another. 176 (B.16.159) in pays and in pees: To their home district in peace. John 18:8, “sinite hos abire” (let these go their way). Northern Passion: “lattes my men9e passe in pese” (Harleian ms. 544, ed. Foster 1913:55). B.16.160–66 On a ∂ursday . . . day of ny√t made: Not in C, replaced by 177, the bringing of Jesus before the justices. These lines are a pre´cis of passus 20 (B.18). L got ahead of himself, and so dropped the lines in revision. Pearsall and Narin van Court 1996:59 lay the change to Will’s not being ready for “full revelation,” but it may be a simple matter of narrative economy. We might think we see L in the workshop here, figuring out some of the main themes and terms of passus B.18, evident in many key alliterations repeated there: Iuste/Ierusalem 18.19, croos/crist 18.72 (and Caluarie/cros 19.41, 142), dee3/fordide 18.29, 65, 158, 345, day/fordide 18.42. And at the end he wakes with the coming of day, just as he will at B.18.425. B.16.160 ∂esternesse: darkness. B.16.166 day of ny√t made: The meanings proliferate: 1. Turned the ∂esternesse of Thursday night into the dawn of Easter, the clarior phebus celebrated by the four daughters of God (20.451–55, B.18.408–15; 20.467, B.18.424). 2. “Blente” Lucifer with light, so that the “Patriarkes and profetes, populus in tenebris” “forth with 3at liht flowen” (20.366–69, cf. B.18.323–26). 3. Undid the midday darkness that occurred at Jesus’s death (20.60, B.18.60, Matt 27:45 et synop.). 4. Began the Christian era. Peter of Blois, PL 207.569 (speaking of the Nativity): “Venit enim qui illuminat abscondita tenebrarum; abstulit noctem, et fecit diem. Nox, inquit Apostolus, praecessit, [col. 569D] dies autem appropinquavit” (He came who lights up the hidden places of darkness; he took away night and made it day. As St Paul says, “The night is passed, and the day is at hand” [Rom 13:12]). Paul continues, “Abiiciamus ergo opera tenebrarum, et

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induamur arma lucis” (Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and put on the armour of light).

Will wakes, problematically (167–71, B.16.178–80) 178 nere frentyk y wakede, B.16.167–70 I awaked . . . And yede for∂ as an ydiot: In B, Will wakes from the love-dream back into the fifth vision, which lasts through the end of passus 17. In C the waking is problematic, since there has been no inner dream. L either 1) somewhere near the start of this passus neglected to start an inner dream, featuring Liberum arbitrium; or 2) decided to cancel the inner dream, but neglected here to cancel its ending; or 3) decided to end the fourth vision here and start a new one a few lines later with Abraham, but neglected to put Will back to sleep. 2) seems unlikely because there ought to be a waking here to explain the abrupt change from dreaming of the taking of Jesus in the Garden to dreaming of meeting Abraham. But 1) is also unlikely, because of all the changes at the beginning of the passus: Liberum arbitrium’s actually leading Will to the tree utterly obviates the need for him to see it inside another dream. That leaves 3) as the most attractive explanation, unlikely though it seems that the poet would forget to make his dreamer sleep. Abraham’s appearance at 181 ought to be a new vision, since its action is so different—and the fifth vision in C is commonly regarded as starting here; see Frank 1951:312, who says that the scene with the two patriarchs and the Samaritan “clearly is a dream” and “should be counted as a separate vision,” Alford 1988:31, and Pearsall ad loc., who thinks that L “inadvertently preserves the waking,” but concedes that “for convenience, the fifth vision may be said to begin at 181.” For nere frentyk and as an ydiot, see 15.1 (B.13.1)n. Stephen Barney has ingeniously suggested to me that L wrote, “And then me mette” (And then I dreamt), then a couple of lines later wrote “And then mette I” (And then I met), and the lines were run together by scribal eyeskip. B.16.168–71 after Piers ∂e Plowman pried and stared . . . many a place I sou√te: Since Will has just in his dream seen Jesus die and the world go dark, we might expect him when he wakes to look for Jesus. When instead he looks and looks for Piers—waited after faste means “looked intently for (him)”—we can conclude that the near-identity of the two, pretty well established at B.16.94–96 and 103–4, is now taken for granted. It will be still clearer at the start of passus 20 (B.18), where, primed to seek Jesus by the Samaritan,

340

C Passus 18; B Passus 16

Will still asks after Piers (20.19, B.18.21), and is told—in the plainest formulation the poem ever gets to—that Jesus “shal iouste in Pers Armes” (20.21, B.18.22). Well, the second plainest, after “Petrus id est christus” B.15.212. Of course Will has no idea that meeting Abraham will eventually take him all the way to Piers. 179–80 In inwit and in alle wittes . . . y waytede witterly (cf. B.16.168–71): I searched with full awareness in my mind and in all my five wits, i.e., I kept thinking about him and looking, listening, etc. for him: I sought him both inside me and outside me. For inwit’s hegemony over alle wittes, see 10.143– 48, 171, 174–76 (B.9.17–22, 54, 58–60; A.10.16–21, 42, 48–51). In C Will should be looking inside, if Liberum arbitrium is his own free will, whereas in B the search is naturally only outward, for Piers Plowman; in fact, though, since one of the five external wits is walking (10.148; B.9.22, A.10.21), Will is on the road again (as he is explicitly in B.16.170), which gives him the chance to meet Abraham. “Witterly” with verbs of knowing means “clearly”; with verbs of wishing or seeking (as here), it seems to mean something very like our “selfconsciously”; see Prol 11n.

The meeting with Abraham (Faith) (181–287, B.16.172–271) 181 (B.16.172) And thenne mette y with a man (The fifth vision, started in C, continued in B): In this fifth vision in C—in B, this remainder of the fifth vision—Will meets Abraham (Faith), Moses (Hope), and a Samaritan (i.e., the Good Samaritan of Jesus’s parable in Luke 10), not called Love but clearly standing for love, as the Samaritan in the parable does, and apparently metamorphosing into the Christ of the next vision, since he is in haste to joust in Jerusalem. In mercifully and selflessly healing the sick man, the Samaritan performs a kind of advance version of the redemption. The point of the vision is simple enough: Christ’s loving sacrifice brings the ancient hopeful faith of the Jews to completion. L dramatizes both the inadequacies and the basic good will and importance, not only of Abraham and Moses, forerunners (the herald Faith and the spy Hope) to Christ, but of the Gentile Will as well; the comic tone with which he does so is an expression of the comic pattern of salvation history. It is essential to grasp that Abraham and Moses are basically good, are in effect Dowel to Christ’s Dobest: L like St Paul was in no doubt about the goodness of Jewish law and Jews. Because they are incomplete, they boast of more than they can accomplish, and they are no help to the sick man, but these shortcomings hardly invalidate them. The whole incident embroiders

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B.12.30–31, L’s version of 1 Cor 13:13: “Fei3, hope and Charite, and alle ben goode,/And sauen men sondry tymes, ac noon so soone as Charite.” Though Schmidt may be right to say that “the Encounter with Faith takes place on a less profound level of dream-consciousness than the vision of the Tree of Charity,” it seems sufficiently creative to imagine a meeting with Abraham, and there is a complex bringing together in the vision of many biblical passages as well as many strands in the poem. Luke 10, the chief of the biblical passages, has been a major implicit presence since passus 1, when Will, a persona for the law-trained Langland, asked Holy Church the question the lawyer (legisperitus) asks Jesus in Luke 10:25, “Master, what must I do to possess eternal life?” That question lies behind the many others that Will (still the legisperitus full of questions) asks in this scene. Hope’s “maundement” (19.2; B.17.2) is Jesus’s answer to the lawyer: love God and your neighbor (Luke 10:27), followed by the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29–37), in which Jesus illustrates just how broad a definition of neighbor he has in mind (cf. C.9.71 “3at most neden aren oure neyhebores”). In associating the priest and Levite who ignore the injured man with Abraham and Moses, L moves beyond standard exegesis of the parable, which said they stood for the priesthood and ministry of the Old Testament (Wailes 1987:211–12). He also draws on 1 Corinthians 13:1–13 (“If I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing” [verse 2], and so on), and various Pauline treatments of Abraham (see the next note). The simple basis for treating Abraham and Moses as having knowledge of Jesus is in two of his own sayings: “Before Abraham was made, I am” (John 8:58) and “If you did believe Moses, you would perhaps believe me also. For he wrote of me” (John 5:46). More strands of the poem are present in the scene. The life of Jesus that began in the previous dream (in B, in the inner “louedreem”) is implicitly continued: John the Baptist has died, since Abraham has met him in hell— both also appeared in the previous dream, 112–13 (B.16.81–82, the inner dream) above—and the passion is about to begin as soon as the Samaritan gets to Jerusalem; that it is mid-Lent Sunday only reinforces that time scheme, though by the time the Samaritan departs it seems to be almost Palm Sunday, as at the opening of passus 20 (B.18). There is no point asking how Abraham and Moses got out of hell and onto the road to Jerusalem; Will dreamt it, that’s all. The triad Abraham-Moses-Samaritan seems to play the well-better-best progression in a new key; and the central idea of the pardon, that Christ’s loving sacrifice has made it possible for goodness, and love of neighbor in particular, to be rewarded, is regularly at issue, reaching a climax in the Samaritan’s simile of the taper; at issue as well is the patient suffering so harped on since Patience’s appearance.

342

C Passus 18; B Passus 16

181–287 (B.16.174–271): Will meets Abraham (Faith). In this first scene of the vision (C) and first scene of the return to the outer dream (B), B does a better job than C of keeping Abraham’s mission to the fore. When Will meets him on the road in B, he asks him not only where he comes from but where he is going. Abraham, the most affable figure Will meets in the entire poem, answers that he is seeking a segge ∂at I sei√ ones 178, describes him, describes the previous meeting, and reiterates at 249 that he is seeking him because John the Baptist said he saw him recently. In the C version Will fails to ask him where he is going, and Abraham consequently does not mention his quest— unless that is implicit in his saying that he is a herald—until the very end of his speech (267). The result is to lay more emphasis on the nature of the Trinity, less on the figure of Abraham. In B Will asks two questions, at 174 and 180; Abraham then speaks continuously from 181 to 252. In C there is more dialogue—Will breaks in with a further question at 186, 191, 195–96, and 239—and so more drama, since Abraham opens up a little more after each question. Pursuing her argument that in the C version Langland treats Judaism less liberally than in B, Narin van Court (1996) emphasizes these points of difference in C: 1. The lesson on the Trinity is “truncated” (60); 2. The quotation of Luke 1:55 (Quam olim Abrahe promisisti et semini eius) at B.16.242a is dropped at C.18.259 (60); 3. Abraham is no longer called “foot of his [God’s] feith” (B.16.245) and his worship with bread and wine is specifically “worschipe of the trinite” (B.16.244, C.18.262) (61); 4. C.18.264 adds a reference to the “newe lawe” (61); 5. C.18.186 adds the phrase “er any lawe were” modifying “heraud of armes” (61). She concludes, “The C Abraham-Faith is no longer the foundation of Judaism, no longer a patriarchal figure awaiting the fulfillment of the advent of Christ. He invokes the New Law, and his worship with wine and bread is not a prefiguration of eucharistic celebration but is itself the eucharistic ritual ‘in worschipe of the trinite’ ” (63–64). My own sense is that these changes are small; I find C simply clearer in many places, as the following notes indicate. The reference to new law, for example, fixes a mere oversight in B: see 260–66n below. Abraham’s faith is mentioned specifically in Genesis only once, at 15:6, “Abram believed God, and it was reputed to him unto justice,” but shown throughout Genesis 12–25 in his ready obedience to God’s commands, however perverse they seem, and in his steadfast trust that God will keep his many promises. It was made a byword by St Paul in Romans 4 (for which see Richard Hays 1989:54–57) and Galatians 3 and 4, as well as in Hebrews 11, no longer thought Paul’s. Gal 3:8, “Providens autem Scriptura quia ex fide iustificat Gentes Deus, praenuntiavit Abrahae quia ‘Benedicentur in te omnes gentes’ ” (And

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the scripture, foreseeing that God justifieth the Gentiles by faith, told Abraham before, “In thee shall all nations be blessed”) is surely L’s warrant for treating Abraham as having foreknowledge of Christianity. In Hays’s translation of the Greek “proeuangelizato,” the basis of the Vulgate’s “praenuntiavit,” Scripture had “prepreached the gospel” to him. See Hays’s good discussion of the whole passage, Gal 3:1–14 (1989:105–11). Henry 1990:48–51 treats the Abraham scenes as a good example of her attractive general thesis that the “pictorial tradition,” that is, pictures in books and in churches depicting biblical scenes, can frequently be perceived beneath Langland’s images. She argues that the scene Abraham Sees the Three Youths prefigures the Annunciation, “as on the Klosterneuberg ambo” (49), that The Sacrifice of Isaac is “the commonest of all prefigurations of the Crucifixion” (49), that the Circumcision of Isaac prefigures the Circumcision of Christ, that Melchisedech (see 260–66n below) prefigures Christ, and that the reference to Abraham’s bosom implies “the gathering of the saved to God” (51). Thus “passus XVI explicitly spans man’s spiritual history from Genesis to the Harrowing of Hell, still to be described in the poem’s ‘present.’ Pictorial tradition, however, presents us with a subtext outlining the life of Christ with the Annunciation (and possibly the Magi), the Last Supper and the Crucifixion, ending with the Gathering of the Blessed in the harmony of heaven” (51). 181 (B.16.172) a myddelenton sonenday: Mid-Lent Sunday, the fourth Sunday of Lent. As Schmidt and Pearsall point out, the epistle for the day is Gal 4:22–31, “one of the many NT texts in which the life of Abraham is taken as the model of the life of Faith under the old dispensation (e.g., Rom 4, Gal 3, Heb 11)” (Pearsall). The full liturgical implications are discussed by Vaughan 1980:101–6. Aers (2009:100) sees the loss of Liberum arbitrium, free will, in the previous line as “emblematic,” enabling Will to be passively “assimilated” to the Church’s liturgical year, and “led” by the epistle for the day to St Paul’s allegory of Abraham and Jerusalem. The liturgical scheme that starts here is carried through passus 20 (B.18), where the events of Good Friday are narrated and Will wakes on Easter morning, and into passus 21 with Pentecost (21.200–212n) or perhaps Corpus Christi (21.229–51n). The whole shape of the poem is possibly influenced by the large characterization of the liturgical year given by Jacobus in his preface to Legenda sanctorum (trans. Ryan, 1:3): the time of deviation (tempus deviationis) or turning from the right way, Adam to Moses, represented by the Church from Septuagesima to Easter, and in the appearance here of Abraham and Moses; the time of renewal (renovationis) or being called back, Moses to Christ, represented by Advent, and in passu¯s 19–20 (B 17–18); reconciliation

344

C Passus 18; B Passus 16

by Christ, Easter to Pentecost, in passus 21; and pilgrimage, our present life, represented by the long stretch from Pentecost to Advent, and passu¯s 1–17, 22. 182 (B.16.173) As hoer as a hauthorn: I.e., as white as the white blossoms of the hawthorn. The phrase sounds proverbial, but Whiting (H204) lists only this line. Henry 1990:48 points out that since the hawthorn is white only in springtime, “the effect is . . . to suggest the New Law as the Old is described.” 182 (B.16.173) abraham he hihte: Since at 18.112 (B.16.81) Will has seen the aged Abraham among those gathered and borne to limbo by the devil, conceivably he recognizes him immediately now, but it makes better sense to take the sentence as meaning, “He said he was called Abraham.” B.16.174–75 fram whennes he come/And of whennes he were: i.e., where he started the present journey, and of what house he was—the equivalent question asked of Hope at the end of the passus (291; B.16.275) is “what he hihte.” See the next note. Abraham ignores the first question. 184 I am with fayth (B.16.176 I am fei∂): Pearsall assigns the difference between the two versions to a reluctance in C to name names, and cites the changing of Haukyn’s name and the weakening of the identification of Piers with Christ from B.15.212 to C.16.340. But the difference is simply in the order of Abraham’s names. In C, Will, having learned that the man’s name is Abraham (182), takes it as his first name, and now asks him what house he is from, i.e., his surname. He answers that he is “with Faith,” that is, his name is Abraham de Faith (cf. “of Actif is my name” B.13.225). But whether he calls himself “Abraham Faith” or “Abraham de Faith” makes no difference, just as you could say either “Stacy Rokayle” or “Stacy de Rokayle.” In B his name is actually Faith Abraham: “I am Faith, of Abraham’s house.” What the C form does is remind us that you share your surname with all your house, and thus Abraham’s lord is named Faith, too, faithfulness being as much a trait of God in his relation to us as it ought to be in us in our relation to God. Will takes the surname as the lord’s here (186), and as the herald’s in line 198 and thereafter. 185–86 An heraud of Armes . . . What is his connesaunce . . . in his cote Armure? (B.16.177–79 an heraud of armes . . . I knew hym by his blasen): Heralds make proclamations, including announcing imminent arrivals (see 20.14 [B.18.16] and n.). Abraham is a type and so a herald of Christ. He repeats the term at 265 (B.16.247) below; see note there. Heralds also are experts on coats of arms (OED, s.v. herald, 1.c); thus Abraham’s little boast, I knew hym

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by his blasen, B.16.179; Will’s question in C.18.186 introduces the motif more deftly. Connesaunce: crest; OED, s.v. cognizance, n., III.5. B.16.179 bacheler: a young knight, like Chaucer’s Squire GP 80. A major biblical precedent for treating Abraham as a herald is Jesus’s words in John 8:56, “Abraham, your father, rejoiced that he might see my day; he saw it and was glad.” So Ambrose: “Alii enim sicut oculi Christi praeviderunt et annuntiaverunt ejus adventum, de quibus ipse dicit: Abraham diem meum vidit, et gavisus est [col. 682A] (Joan. VIII, 56)” (Others [besides the prophets] foresaw and heralded his coming; of them he himself said, “Abraham saw my day and was glad”) (PL 14.682). Gregory the Great regards Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac as a heralding of the crucifixion; see Henry’s article, cited above, 181–287n. In his Commentary on the Seven Penitential Psalms, he says that some prophecies are made in words, some in dreams, and some in actions (factis): “Factis Abraham futura nuntiavit, quando unicum filium suum ad sacrificia obtulit (Gen. XXII). Quem nimirum, quem in hoc opere designat, nisi eum qui proprio filio suo non pepercit, sed pro nobis omnibus tradidit illum?” (Abraham heralded future events by what he did, when he offered his only son in sacrifice. Whom else does he signify by this action but him who did not spare his own son but handed him over for us all?) (PL 79.641). For modern scholarly opinion on what Jesus meant at John 8:56, see Brown 1966:359–60, 366–68 and Cavalletti 1961, who, taking the temple as a symbol of the Messiah, plausibly connects the statement to a rabbinic tradition that Abraham in a vision saw the temple built, destroyed, and rebuilt. 185 Ar eny lawe were: i.e., before the commandments were given to Moses, whom Will is about to encounter in the next passus, holding the commandments (∂e lawe 19.11) in his hands. Narin van Court 1996:61–64 finds the phrase more portentous than I do. B.16.178 I seke after a segge ∂at I sei√ ones: Explained below at 225ff. The delay makes for a bit of narrative suspense, forfeited in C. In C we don’t learn that Abraham is seeking Christ until line 267.

Abraham explains the Trinity to Will (187–238, B.16.181–224) 187–238 (B.16.181–224): Faith/Abraham explains the Trinity to Will. This is the essence of L’s portrayal of Abraham: the insistence that his celebrated faith was actually a faith in the Trinity. Thus he genuinely heralds not only Christ

346

C Passus 18; B Passus 16

(who appears in passus 20 [B.18]), but the Holy Ghost (who appears in passus 21 [B.19]). Will isn’t buying it, however, partly because Abraham’s understanding is maybe a little inchoate—naturally enough, since since there has been nothing yet (other than his three summer visitors) for him to witness—but mostly because Will is, well, Will. The Samaritan will do a much better job of getting through to him in the next passus. It would be just, I think, to regard two earlier complaints about discussions of the Trinity: by Study, about lay people after dinner, at 11.35 (B.10.54, A.11.40)—too speculative, too frivolous —and by Anima, about friars at B.15.71—too deep—as meant to set up the earnest and thoughtful accounts presented in this current vision. And L’s willingness to try suggests his membership in the secular clergy: he is neither unqualified like those laymen nor too academic like those friars, but a teacher, striving earnestly to teach well (see 1.135, where Holy Church treats Will as a teacher). The best discussions of Abraham and his account of the Trinity are by Tavormina 1995:140–63, Clopper 1997:121–24, and—especially—Galloway 1998; all are cited at relevant points in the notes below. Galloway’s insistence on the way the account “feminizes” the Trinity is of exceptional interest, particularly in the large relation he sees to Will’s presentation of himself and to other major matters in PP. Lawlor 1962:157 remarks aptly of the line “Thus in a somer I hym sei9 as I sat in my porche” (B.16.225), “It is the language of quiet certainty,” since “Abraham’s whole discourse is of what is appointed. . . . Powerful deliverance is at hand. . . . The emphasis marks very well the whole steady shift of the poem from the agency of man, the earlier ratiocinative energy and ardour of the Dreamer, to man as the subject of Providence, awaiting an appointed revelation which is now at hand.” 187–95 Thre persones in o pensel . . . he is in all (B.16.181–90 Thre leodes in oon lyth . . . of hym come∂ alle blisse): The B version (employing the same spatial metaphor of equal size as in the “three props” image of lines 57 and 59 above) emphasizes the identity of the persons first, only mentioning their individuality in the final phrase, which is then expatiated on in the next sentence. In C, L abandons the rather cute image of the Trinity as three men the same height (noon lenger ∂an oo∂er, B.16.181), and achieves a more balanced presentation of the paradox of identity and individuality, notably dropping the insistence on different powers and functions in B’s second sentence. This is a very good example of a loss of pretty language in C that is nevertheless a clear improvement. Line 188 not only says that they all speak as one and have the same spirit, but also that the Word and the Spirit, the second and third persons, have their source in the one godhead. Line 189 seems to offer a

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pointed comparison between the unity of wit and will in the godhead and the division of those faculties in Will, which his enlisting all his wits in the search for Free Will, just above, has reminded us of. In B, the association of the Father with might and the Son with wit is consistent with their prop-names earlier in the passus, potencia dei patris (B.16.30; C.18.34) and sapiencia dei patris (B.16.36, C.18.40); compare also Wardeyn 187 with C.18.42. For the connection in B of the Holy Ghost with light, life, and bliss, see the taper image in passus 19 (B.17). There are briefer, more cryptic presentations of the Trinity by Holy Church,1.148–64 (B.1.148–68, A.1.136–42) and Wit, B.9.26–46; neither mentions the Holy Ghost. Ever since John, who opened his gospel by declaring, “In the beginning was the Word,” Christian theologians have interpreted the creation and various other actions of God in the Old Testament as involving all three Persons; see Christopher Seitz’s thoughtful and enlightening summary, “The Trinity in the Old Testament” (2011). See B.16.208n below: Proverbs 8:30, quoted there, is a major basis of this idea. 187 Thre persones in o pensel (B.16.181 Thre leodes in oon lyth): A pensel is a banner; ordinarily a coat of arms is on a banner, but here we seem to have a banner on a coat of arms. What the three persons look like is hard to imagine; L is brave to give us such a palpable image to try to picture. (The “threeheaded Trinity” is maybe close; Googling that phrase brings up several medieval images, including Pierpont Morgan Library ms. M.769, f. 42r, a picture of Abraham serving food to the three-headed Trinity seated at a table.) For B lyth, see OED, s.v. lith, n.3, “a body of men,” or perhaps a household, from ON li3r, the members of a household. The C image is at once more mysterious, befitting the Trinity; more heraldic; and more theological, “three persons” (tres personae) being the established phrase. There is perhaps a tacit reference to the “Shield of Faith” (scutum fidei, Eph 6:16), also called “Shield of the Trinity,” a heraldic representation, apparently originated by Matthew Paris, of the account of the Trinity in the Athanasian Creed. The shield is carried by the Christ-Knight in a well-known illustration in Ms. Harley 3244 in the British Library, prefaced to a partial copy of Peraldus’s Summa de vitiis. That illustration is reproduced and thoroughly parsed in M. Evans 1982; see his plate 3, and further examples of the shield in plates 4c, 5a, 5b, and 5c. It also appears (truncated, focusing on the shield) in the informative and generously illustrated Wikipedia article, “The Shield of the Trinity.” 188 O speche and o spirit Springeth out of alle: Schmidt takes speche to be “the Word, the Second Person” and treats Springeth out of alle as “hinting at

348

C Passus 18; B Passus 16

the generation of the Son [and] the double procession of the Spirit.” That may be right, though “out of alle” is against it. I consider that the line along with the next two mainly asserts that the three persons think and speak as one— though there certainly is, in addition to the pointed reference to Will mentioned above, some punning going on, since Verbum (speche), Spiritus (spirit), Sapientia (wit), and Voluntas (will) were all names for individual persons of the Trinity. 190 solus deus, 192 (B.16.185) pater, 193 (B.16.186) filius: The phrase solus deus is common in the bible, as Alford points out, but L is thinking rather of trinitarian discussion in the fathers, such as this from Ambrose, De fide: “Pater, quia alius pater non est; filius, quia alius filius non est; solus Deus, quia una divinitas Trinitatis est” (PL 16.594) (The father, because another is not the father; the son, because another is not the son; God only, because there is one divinity in the Trinity); or this from Augustine, “Ipse autem solus Deus, Pater et Filius et Spiritus sanctus, unus Deus” (Enarrationes in Psalmos, PL 36.564) (But he alone is God, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, one God). B.16.186–87 Sothfastnesse: John 14:6, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” Wardeyn of ∂at wit ha∂: Guardian of those who have wit, because he is “sapiencia Dei patris,” 18.40 (B.16.36). B.16.189–90 light . . . blisse: It is common, following Ambrose De spiritu sancto, PL 16.738: “Lux est Pater, lux Filius, lux Spiritus Sanctus,” to insist that all three persons are light, but the Holy Spirit is light in several special ways: because of the tongues of flame of Pentecost, and because the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost include wisdom, understanding, counsel, and knowledge. Cf. Stephen Langton’s hymn (Raby 1959: 375) “Veni, sancte spiritus”: “Veni, sancte spiritus/Et emitte caelitus/Lucis tuae radium” (Come, holy spirit, and emit from heaven the ray of your light). Confortour translates Paraclitus (John 14:16, 15:26); cf. Langton’s hymn, line 7, “Consolator optime” (Best comforter). 194 halt al, a thyng by hymsulue: As Schmidt implies, a here means “one.” Cf. Hugh of Amiens, Dialogi, PL 192.1231: “Spiritus sanctus Patris et Filii unus suo omnia pondere ligat,” (The Holy Spirit of the Father and the Son alone holds all things together by his weight); and in col. 1238: “Audisti quia procedens ab utroque Spiritus sanctus, suo tenet omnia pondere” (You have been told that the Holy Spirit who proceeds from both holds all things by his weight). (The origin of this image of weight is Gen 1:2, “Et spiritus Dei ferebatur super aquas,” coupled with 1 John 2:20, “Vos unctionem habetis a Sancto,”

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giving rise to this frequently repeated assertion [Isidore, Etymologies 7.3.29]: “Spiritus sanctus ideo unctio dicitur, Joanne testante apostolo, quia sicut oleum naturali pondere superfertur omni liquori, ita in principio superferebatur Spiritus sanctus aquis” [The Holy Spirit is called unction, as the apostle John witnesses, because just as oil by its natural weight is borne up on any liquid, so in the beginning the Holy Spirit was borne upon the waters].) 195 he is in all: Wis 1:7, “Spiritus Domini replevit orbem terrarum,” The spirit of the Lord hath filled the whole world. 196–99 This is myrke thyng for me . . . al thy lyftyme: a notable interruption, on several counts. Will’s bafflement, including the surprisingly strong y leue hit nat, will set up his questions to the Samaritan in the next passus; but one senses here an honest admission on the part of the poet that the Trinity is a myrke thing to him, too. And the addition and for many ano∂er seems like a sympathetic nod to his readers. Abraham’s reply is one of the most pregnant til lines in the poem: when will Will more knowe? Presumably in heaven (1 Cor 13:12 “then I shall know”). Meanwhile, he can only leue hit lelly—just the right exhortation from a character named Faith; it will be echoed by the Samaritan at 19.109 after another expression of skepticism by Will, also new in C. Finally, there is comedy: Abraham’s evasive response—don’t think about it too much—suggests that he himself doesn’t understand, just believes. Cf. what Study says about theology, 11.126–31 (B.10.185–91, A.11.137–43), as well as Liberum arbitrium’s (Anima’s) warnings (cited also by Pearsall) about eating too much honey, etc. (16.216–30, B.15.54–69). 200–6 (B.16.191–97) Thre bilongeth . . . moder: An extended simile. Just as when a lord claims allegiance he has three things: power, a means of making his power visible (an agent or seruant, whose own power would incidentally be visible too), and the people who put up with their rule; so too God, who had no beginning but when it seemed good to him (and thus clearly has might), sent his son as his agent when that seemed good, to be his representative here until a body of subjects should emerge, the Church, marked by their love for one another. In B the two “so’s” are correlative, meaning “Just as . . . so” (cf. OE swa¯ . . . swa¯), and the seven lines should be punctuated as a single sentence; see the similarly constructed sentence in B.16.218–24 below (and note), and see OED, s.v. so, B.III.18.b. and Mustanoja 1960:464. Clopper 1997:121–24 discusses the passage interestingly, though it is only by ignoring the two “so’s” that he can claim that the two sentences (B.16.191–93 and 194–97, as

350

C Passus 18; B Passus 16

he punctuates them) are not parallel, and though there is no warrant for treating the Holy Ghost as the seruant, just as there is no warrant for Szittya’s treating the Holy Ghost as the mene (1986:213); seruant and mene both clearly refer to the Son. Schmidt aptly cites Phil 2:6–7: Christ “debased himself, taking the form of a servant.” In C both “so’s” have disappeared; nevertheless the two statements are juxtaposed to each other, and their parallel relationship is indicated by the repetition of the word seruant in line 204. For “suffer” used in just this way—subjects suffering their masters—see 8.89, and cf. 8.82 (B.6.80, A.7.72). Ocupien hym 205 (B.16.196): “busy himself,” though perhaps with the Latin meaning, “be beforehand, get things started.” The members of the Church are the children of charity for a host of reasons, but primarily because the Son is charity, an identification that the next two passu¯s of the poem will make in dramatic terms. Christians are childrene of charite and holy church the moder, the issue of the mystical union of Christ and the Church, celebrated in commentaries on the Song of Songs—we are in a new metaphor now, in which the Son of the previous metaphor is now a father. B.16.197 should have no comma in the middle of the line, as C.18.206 does not. The analogy of lord, agent, and subjects depends on identifying the Holy Ghost with the Church, as at 51 above, where “sothfaste bileue” means “the body of believers.” See B.9.36–49, where L also uses a simile of a lord to explain the Trinity; the pen (the means) there is roughly equivalent to the servant here, and the parchment, the recipient of the lord’s action of writing, roughly equivalent to the subjects here. Both similes emphasize the dependence of “lordshipe” on agents and objects. There is a hint, in fact, of Aristotle’s discussion of the relation master/servant in the Categories: the Trinity is a relation if there ever was one (cf. Nielsen 2011:157). Both similes suggest that when L reflected on the Trinity, he took as a starting point the Father’s might, and saw it as ineffective without the operations of the other persons. Christ as mene is clearly contrasted to Mohammed, the “fals mene” of 17.258 (B.15.507). Since Abraham is presented as a herald of Christ, looking forward to the redemption to rescue him from limbo, how can he speak here as if the redemption, and the establishment of the Church, had already happened? It’s a dream, of course, but further: Abraham has been vouchsafed a vision of the Trinity. He understands the role of the Son and the role of the Spirit, and thus in effect has seen the redemption, seen the apostles, seen the Church—as John 8:56, quoted above in 185–86n, may be taken to imply. 204 (B.16.195) ∂at tyme: The only eligible antecedent is “tho hym goed thouhte” in the previous line.

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207–9 (B.16.198–200) Patriarches . . . bileue: These lines complete the above analogy, more clearly in B than in C. In B, lines 198 and 199 explain the two halves of line 197; the verb were from 198 should be understood before holy chirche in 199. The children, that is, the first beneficiaries of the Son’s activity on earth, were the apostles he gathered about him and the patriarchs and prophets he freed from hell; the Church is defined as Christ, baptism, and the body of Christians. Galloway 1998:135–36 reflects on the strikingly laicizing assertion that those mothering the apostles, patriarchs, and prophets include “not just Christ but also the entire, mixed community of all Christians. . . . Such a deeply social and historical view does not reject the clerical estate.” The fact that each term, children and mother, is divisible into three parts is probably not irrelevant. Then B lines 200–1 sum up the entire passage from 191: all these instances illustrate the simultaneous oneness and threeness of God, and they illustrate as well both the necessity imposed on us, as subjects, as the faithful Church, to believe as the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles did, and the freedom that resides in God the mighty, who has displayed his threeness when hym likede and (it was someone) he louede (B.16.201)—surely Abraham is thinking of his own encounter with the Trinity, which he is about to describe at 225ff (C.18.240ff). Fowler 1980:222 reads the B lines in this same way. In C line 207 is clear, but the parallelism with it of line 208, so clear in B, is destroyed by the introduction of line 209 (from B.16.210) to replace B 200–1: now all the parts of line 208 (including the awkward cristene holy churche, now a single phrase) must be taken as subjects of Bitokeneth 209. The editing may be at fault: either one should add “And” at the beginning of 209 (as in the source line, B.16.210), or put commas (as Pearsall does) or dashes around holy churche. (Fowler 1980:223 suggests that as he revised B into C, L’s eye skipped from the word bileue B.16.200 to bileue B.16.210; that the “slip apparently triggered a thoroughgoing revision of the entire comparison of the Trinity with mankind [C XVIII 212–240],” and that “the original error remains uncorrected,” C.18.211 following 210 “as if it were intended to complete the sentence begun in line 209.” An unnecessarily elaborate theory.) 210–13a O god almyhty . . . gloriam dei &c: These lines are perhaps a revision of B.16.200–1, since they share some language—O god and A thre/in ∂re persones—but whereas in B they summarize the preceding simile, in C they introduce the next one. They say that God made man like himself (before man sinned, anyway), that he is in three where he is (i.e., in heaven), and that his works here on earth bear witness to his threeness—that is, man, being like God, has a threeness too, a bold assertion that the following lines will support,

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or try to. As Pearsall points out, the word A in 212 is the preposition “in.” Cf. Augustine, City of God, 11.26: “We do indeed recognize in ourselves an image of God, that is of the Supreme Trinity”—though Augustine’s understanding of this mystery is a good deal subtler than Abraham’s. 213a Celi enarrant gloriam dei &c: Psalm 18:1: “Caeli enarrant gloriam Dei, et opera manuum eius annuntiat firmamentum” (The heavens shew forth the glory of God, and the firmament declareth the work of his hands). Note that 213 The werkes ∂at hymsulue wrouhte translates “opera manuum eius,” and that whereas the Latin phrase is object of annuntiat, the English phrase is subject of bereth wittnesse: L has changed the werkes from announced to announcer. By it he means man, as 210 shows and 214 repeats. He does not take up the further assertion that this world bears witness to the triune nature of God; presumably it does so via sky (firmament), water, and earth (so too Schmidt, who offers two further triads). St Augustine repeats often the idea that the Trinity created the world; see, e.g., Confessions 13.5, though Abraham seems to be saying something a little different. 214–39 That he is thre persones . . . alle thre and o god? (B.16.202–24 And ∂at it may be so . . . and alle is but o god): The gist of this final illustration is the simple idea that a family of father, mother, and child, being the unit of fulfilled humanity, or parfitliche pure manhede (B.16.220), are three-in-one, like the godhead. Adam, Eve, and Abel are a particularly good example because Eve was drawn from Adam: the one Adam thus is all three, as the Father is. The C passage is exceptionally lucid, and needs no further comment; see the sensitive and appreciative analysis in Tavormina 1995:147–63. L achieved its lucidity, as Schmidt sees, by eradicating from it the overlay of the idea of marriage, widowhood, and virginity that clouds the B passage. In B mankind betokens the Trinity in two ways: in that father-mother-child is its defining unit, and in that it is ynempned (i.e., can be called) wedlock, widowhood, and virginity (B.16.203). The first idea is treated in lines 205 and 218–224, the second in lines 211–17 (though omitting virginity), and both together in the introductory statement, 202–5. The former is the major idea (as C shows), the latter a bit of embroidery on it; to my mind, Tavormina (1995:141–45) gives it a bit more analysis than it can bear. (L didn’t just drop it in C; he worked it into the tree passage at 68–80 above—and there does mention the connection of the Spirit and virginity.) Clopper 1997:117–21 gives a good account of “the family analogy” in the theological tradition: it is rejected as inadequate by Augustine, accepted by Eastern writers and by Bonaventure, rejected once again by Aquinas—a good

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instance, apparently, of L’s debt to Franciscan thought. The analogy, using Adam, Eve, and Abel, can be found also, however, in Anselm of Havelberg, Dialogi, PL 188.1191. Galloway 1998:134–45 celebrates L’s treatment of “human generativity as a reflection of the Trinity,” by which he “directly opposed Augustine’s exclusion of the analogy of literal pregnancy and birth” (134–35). 214–15 That . . . Adam: i.e., that he is three separate persons and yet one God almighty, I prove by mankind if all men are from Adam. 216 Eue of Adam was and out of hym ydrawe (cf. B.16.205 Eue was of hymselue): Galloway 1998:130n points out that the C line seems to translate Bonaventure’s “Eva, quae fuit ab Adam sive de Adam deducta,” Commentaria in primum librum sententiarum, dist. 12, art. 1, quaes. 3 concl. B.16.203–4 Wedlok . . . man: Called wedlock, widowhood, and virginity, it (mankind) was taken out of one man as a sign of the Trinity. B.16.207 ei∂er is o∂eres ioye: The source of this idea is probably Proverbs 8:30, where “Wisdom,” regularly taken to be Christ, says, “Cum eo eram cuncta componens et delectabar per singulos dies, ludens coram eo omni tempore” (I was with him forming all things and was delighted every day, playing before him at all times). Rupert of Deutz, De trinitate et operibus ejus, PL 167.262: “Per singulos dies ludebat ista sapientia, et per singulos ludos videns et delectatus Deus dicebat, Quia bonum est. . . . multum sibi ipsi in ista sapientia artifex Deus complacebat” (this Wisdom was playing every day, and every day God, seeing the play and delighting in it, said that it was good. . . . in this Wisdom God the creator was very much pleased inside himself). But see also Matt 3:16–17, the baptism of Jesus by John, where the Holy Spirit appears as a dove and a voice from heaven says, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Peter of Celle, Sermon 11, PL 202.667, remarks: “Pater complacet sibi in Filio; et Filius in Patre. Mutua sese, et ineffabili dilectione, modo indicibili fovent, et sibi cohaerent” (The Father is pleased in the Son, and the Son in the Father. They cherish each other, and stick to each other, with a mutual and ineffable love in a manner that cannot be put into words). B.16.208 oon singuler name: in heaven God, here man. This somewhat cryptic line—does it mean one name in both places, or one name in each place?—is unpacked by being rewritten as three lines in C.18.233–35. Since in 208 it is clear that Abraham is speaking of both trinities at once, the same is probably true of line 207.

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C Passus 18; B Passus 16

B.16.211–19a Might is in matrimoyne . . . Israel: Matrimony, clearly, represents the Father because of its creative power. The widow resembles or represents the Son, apparently, partly by being bereft: when the Son became man, L audaciously says, citing the psalm Jesus prayed on the cross (Psalm 21:2, Matt 27:46), he was parted from the godhead; but mostly by knowing two states, as lines 215–17 darkly insist: both have to go through one state to arrive at the new state. A widow without wedlock is an impossibility, and so too is a god-man without birth: “having a mother” is simply equivalent to “becoming a creature.” Creatour weex creature to knowe what was bo∂e: In view of the comparison to a widow, to knowe probably expresses result rather than purpose, and thus we don’t quite have the “line of cardinal importance” that Schmidt in his 1995 edition—and Galloway too (1998:143–45)—want to make of it: all the line says is that just as when a woman’s husband dies she passes from the married state to the widowed state, and now knows two states, so the Son when he was made man now knew two states. What Peace says later at 20.208–38 (B.18.203–29) is quite different: that is an assertion of purpose. Augustine, Sermones de scripturis, PL 38.23 admittedly does assert purpose: “Christus homo factus est . . . ut qui Creator semper erat, creatura esset . . . factus est homo, ut fieret quod non erat” (Christ became man . . . so that he who was always Creator might be a creature . . . he became man so that he might be what he was not). Still, here surely the focus is on result, not purpose. Likewise Bernard, cited by Galloway 1998:143. Schmidt sees a grammatical anomaly in B.16.212: he says, “Strictly, the subject of bitokene3 is might, but obviously it is marriage that “symbolizes.” But there is no anomaly: bitokne∂ is parallel to multiplie∂; the subject of both verbs is ∂at 211, whose antecedent is matrimoyne. Dorste . . . dorste 212, 214: As Schmidt says, these verbs “express awareness of the audacity of the analogy.” Mulerie 219 is a noun, legitimate offspring; mulliere 221 (like moilere C.18.234) is an adjective, legitimate. Lines 218–19 say the same thing over again: widowhood requires matrimony, and matrimony likewise requires children— that is, the Son needed the Father and the Father needed the Son: each is incomplete without the other. B.16.214a Deus meus, Deus meus, vt quid dereliquisti me?: My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?, Matt 27:46, Mark 15:34; Jesus on the cross, praying Psalm 21. This is verse 2, “Deus, Deus meus, respice in me: quare me dereliquisti?” Dronke rather beautifully says of the couplet 214–214a, “The comparison of the Son to the widow (or state of widowhood)—itself a daring, original thought—is made luminous by the biblical text that is not so much a

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justification of the likeness as a moving intuition, bringing disparate realms of sorrow together for the first time” (1981:213). 222a (B.16.219a) Maledictus homo qui non reliquit semen in Israel: Cursed be the man who has not left seed in Israel. This verse is not in any known text of the bible, though both Abraham and L can be excused for thinking it is. Its Greek original first appears in Origen’s Sermons on Genesis 11.1, which survives only in Rufinus’s Latin translation, PG 12.221 (with the future perfect “reliquerit,” the usual form in the citations mentioned below; the scribe of ms. F of the C version corrected to this form); Origen says it is “in lege,” in the law. There is a female counterpart, usually in the form “maledicta sterilis quae non reliquerit semen super terram.” Adkin 1983, the definitive treatment, cites five instances of one statement or the other, each with slightly different wording, in the writings of St Jerome, and three more from other Latin fathers, Ambrosiaster, Cassian, and Quodvultdeus. All cite it as if from scripture. Ambrose and Augustine do not cite it. Adkin is at pains to show that the common practice of editors who compare it to Exodus 23:26 or Deuteronomy 14:7 is misguided; the closest actual biblical verse is Isaiah 31:9 in its Old Latin form, which ends with the statement, “Beatus qui habet semen in Sion et domesticos in Hierusalem,” though, as Adkin concludes (125), “Here . . . we have to do with a distinct and independent text of scripture”—but “where [Origen] got it from is not known.” Where L got it from is likewise not known, but in his case there are numerous candidates besides the Hereford liturgy for the Nativity of Mary favored by Alford, Quot., citing Tavormina 1989a, which I doubt was the source. Tavormina herself mentions Jerome (though only one of the five places Adkin cites), Gratian, and Peter Lombard, all writers L cites elsewhere, and to these can be added (from a search of the PL online), two more of L’s favorites, Peter of Blois, (Epistle 55, PL 207.167) and Peter Comestor (PL 198.1780), and numerous others. It appears either in the form “Maledictus homo qui non reliquerit (suscitaverit, excitaverit, fecerit, habuerit) semen in Israel” or the form “Maledicta que non reliquerit (etc.) semen super terram.” Apparently the wording of the series of maledictions in Deut 27:14–26 was applied, anciently, to the various condemnations of barrenness in the law (Deut 7:14, Deut 25:5–10, Exod 23:2; cf. Job 24:18–21, and the story of Onan in Gen 38). Of the many writers who cite it as “the law of Moses” or, like L, A boek of ∂e olde lawe, some perhaps really thought it was there verbatim, and others knew it wasn’t but were willing to repeat it as a handy summary of the three passages just listed.

356

C Passus 18; B Passus 16

The usual context of the quotation is to contrast the old dispensation with the honor now paid to virginity; L is as usual his own man, citing it to argue for the utter normality of marriage and procreation as a means of indicating how normal it is in turn for the Spirit to have sprung from the Father and the Son. B.16.220–24 Thus in ∂re persones . . . alle is but o god: Here L moves away from the comparison of the Trinity to the three grades without bothering to compare the Holy Ghost to virginity, and returns to the comparison to a family. Lines 222–23a are a restatement of the previous two lines: “And it (pure humanity, man and wife and legitimate children) is nothing but an engendering of one generation in the presence of Jesus Christ in heaven; likewise, the Father continually generates the Son, and the Holy Ghost who is the free will of both, ‘The Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son, etc.,’ and all is but one God.” The fre wille of bo∂e is surely the Spirit; see Hugh of Amiens, PL 192.1332, “Voluntas Dei Patris et Filii est Spiritus sanctus” (The will of the Father and the Son is the Holy Spirit); Spiritus 223a is in apposition with wille. This seems so even though at C.18.118 above libera voluntas dei seems to be the Son. (Augustine does not declare that the Spirit is the will of both, but at several places suggests that there is an analogy between the human will and the Holy Spirit; see Schmidt’s note.) The whole sentence is well discussed in Tavormina 1989b, though she does not end up offering a translation. Whatever the exact meaning of gendre of a generacion may be (Schmidt says that phrase “applies better to the Trinity” than to man), the key word in line 222 is a, one; this is clear from the corresponding statement in the application of the simile, and alle is but o god (224). For∂ with usually means “along with,” “at the same moment as”; see OED s.v. forth, A.2.c, and cf. 10.231 (B.9.143, A.10.174). However, Tavormina (1989b:4–5) quotes apt passages from Trevisa and Reginald Pecock, and points out that in speaking of the begetting of the Son and the procession of the Spirit, both use verb phrases that include “forth,” and she clearly sees some similar reference in L’s “forth,” i.e., it translates the Latin prefix pro. That seems right, and so I have taken is . . . for∂ with as meaning “continually generates.” The comparison asserts that both God and man are characterized paradoxically by both generation and oneness. I take bifore Iesu crist in heuene as a reminder that matrimony is a sacrament: the union has been blessed by Christ. Tavormina 1989b:6, followed by Schmidt, suggests that it may just be an asseveration, amounting to “I take Jesus as my witness.” “Who better,” she asks, “to witness the truth of Abraham’s exposition of the personal, relational, and generative nature of both man and God?”

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The meaning is much plainer in the corresponding, much expanded passage in C.18.216–38; see 214–39n above. B.16.223a Spiritus procedens a patre & filio &c: the Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son. A phrase (with de for a) that occurs in both of two homilies on the Creed, De expositione symboli, ascribed to Chrysostom, cited twice, as Sermons 26 and 27, by Abelard, PL 178.1077, 1302 and once by Peter Lombard, PL 192.553, from the first of these sermons. L probably knew it from one of these two. Abelard gives the incipits of the homilies as “Universalis congaudet ecclesia” and “Super fabricam totius ecclesiae”; he cites each a number of times. Morin 1894:398–402 showed that the thirty-one sermons in the collection to which both belong are not translations of Chrysostom but composed in Latin in the fifth and sixth centuries, probably by Johannes Neapolitanus, bishop of Naples. All are printed in the “Chrysostomos Latinus” section of the PL Supplement, ed. Hamman 1958–74, volume 4.1 (1967), pp. 741–834; Sermon 26, numbered 27 by Morin, is in coll. 814–17; Sermon 27 (29) in coll. 821–24. They also appear in a number of early editions of Chrysostom’s works (e.g., Basel 1539, 5.453; Basel 1558, 5. 718; Venice 1549, 5.95; Antwerp 1614, 5.287; the page number in each case is for Sermo 26); critical text, based on two Prague mss. and the Basel 1558 and Antwerp prints, in Caspari 1866. 226 Now go we to godhede: Now let’s go back to the Trinity. This teacherly transition effectively maintains the clarity of C’s presentation of the family analogy, as will the concluding summary at 235–36. 227 in a simile as: simply means “as,” as Tavormina says (1995:157–58), though she goes on to discuss various further suggestive qualities in the word. The Son was in God the Father, and drawn out of him, as Eve was drawn out of Adam, referring back to line 216, as lines 229–30 refer back to 217. 228 ∂e wey: the man, i.e., Adam. 230 spyer: A shoot, a spear (as of grass). Also used metaphorically at B.9.103; used literally at 13.181. 232 Is and ay were . . . ende: An allusion to the Gloria patri. In view of the two surrounding verbs, it is simplest just to take were as indicative singular; comparable C lines include 2.17, “Whos wyf a were and what was here name,” where were and was are grammatically parallel and so both presumably indicative, and 10.194, “The catel that Crist hadde, thre clothes hit were,” where the

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subject hit is clearly singular, though of course the verb might be drawn into the plural by the plural clothes. Or it is subjunctive singular, since, firm though the assertion is, it is after all a statement about the unknowable past and so in an implicit subordinate clause (I know he always was). L uses the subjunctive were where there is the merest hint of the putative, as at 1.10, 1.71, 12.27, 14.38, all places where we would use “was.” Or, as Schmidt thinks, it is a sudden plural: all three persons always were (cf. 18.27 “perpetuel were euere”). But in view of the two other singular verbs, and the singulars of the Gloria patri, that seems the less likely reading. 235 in god and godes sone: A compressed phrase, apparently also understanding the procession of the Holy Spirit from these two. 236 of o man cam alle thre: Since Adam had no parents, he can be thought of as “coming from himself.” 238 Lo! treys encountre treys: “three-ace against three-ace,” a winning throw. If this is French, the form “treys” is singular, equivalent to English “trey,” as in the Pardoner’s Tale, C653 (cf. Fr. trois, Provencal treis, Lat. tres), OED s.v. trey, 1. But since Englishmen playing dice at the end of the fourteenth century are unlikely to have called out their rolls in French, for all the French origin of their terms (and the use of a French verb here), the numbers are probably English, in which case the form “treys” should be the contracted form of “treyas,” “three-ace” (OED s.v. trey 1.c). Furthermore, it seems to have been more common to call out the numbers on both dice rather than the total; and a total of three on two dice would have had little symbolic value in this context (and is always a loser in the game of hazard); thus “three-ace,” which Tavormina (1982b:126, n23) puts forward hesitantly as an “attractive possibility,” seems almost certainly to be what L meant. The caster begins the game by announcing the “main,” usually seven. He then throws the dice, hoping for seven. If he throws another number between four and ten, that is the “chance,” which he then must try to match on a second throw. Thus if the first throw is three-ace (a chance of four), and the second also three-ace—three-ace encountering three-ace—he wins. And it is a tough win, because a chance of four, five, nine, or ten, having only two combinations that add to it, is harder to get than a chance of six or eight, with three combinations. Thus treys encountre treys (“Yay! Three-ace again!”) is a happy exclamation, for a win greatly against the odds—it deserves Lo! in front of it.

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The application to godhead and manhood is plain. Schmidt objects to Tavormina’s interpretation on metrical grounds, but the line is probably just irregular (aaxx).

Abraham encounters the Trinity; God’s promises (239–68a, B.16.225–52a) 239–45 Hastow ysey this . . . in oure olde age (B.16.225–29 Thus in a somer . . . knewe what I ∂ou√te): The Lord’s appearance to Abraham in the vale of Mambre, Genesis 18:1–16. It was common to regard the three men who visited him as the Trinity. See, e.g., Aelfric, Preface to Genesis, Mitchell and Robinson 2012:201, or Pseudo-Augustine, Sermo 5, De tribus viris qui beato Abrahae apparuerunt, PL 39.1747–49: “Tribus ergo occurrit Abraham, et unum adorat. In eo autem quod tres vidit, sicut jam dictum est, Trinitatis mysterium intellexit: quod autem quasi unum adoravit, in tribus personis unum Deum esse cognovit” (1748) (Abraham meets three and adores one. In seeing three, as I have said, he understood the mystery of the Trinity. In adoring one, he understood that in the three persons was one God). But the real Augustine dismissed the idea roundly in City of God 16.29. Interestingly, L has also asserted (through the mouth of Clergie) that the Trinity appeared to Augustine himself, and in De trinitate he “vs saide as he sey” (11.149–53). In the mystery play “The Sacrifice of Isaac” in the Corpus Christi cycle, Abraham’s offering of the ram at the end of the play is made to the Trinity (Brome ms., ed. Bevington 1975: lines 361, 383), and Isaac earlier prays to the Trinity (line 104). This suggests a broad acceptance of the idea that Abraham had knowledge of the Trinity. The vale of Mambre story is treated in Cleanness 601–70; see Morse 1978:161n. The poet never mentions the Trinity, but indicates the idea by mixing singular and plural pronouns and verb forms, e.g., 647 “ ‘I schal efte hereaway, Abram,’ 3ay sayden.” This has warrant in the Vulgate, where Abraham addresses his guests in a mixture of singular and plural pronouns, and the narration also uses both singular and plural verbs. L in the C version relies rather on blunt statement (after Will’s blunt question), 241 god . . . cam gangynge a thre; he does mix pronouns in the next sentence, 242–43 (hym, here, they), but after that sticks to the singular. B’s play with number is subtler: it depends 1) on saying “Thus I saw him one summer” in 225 right after saying “all is but one God” in 224, i.e., I saw him as three in one; 2) on offering the statement “three men I made well at ease” 227 as if in apposition to “right fair him greeted” 226; 3) on the important qualifier, “three men to my sight ; and 4) making “they” the subject of “knew what I thought.”

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In Genesis 18:22 Abraham detains the Lord in conversation while the others go on to Sodom, and in 19:1 they are called “duo angeli.” L conveniently stops short of this point. 241–41a god . . . cam gangynge a thre/Tres vidit & vnum adorauit: As for the Latin line (“He saw three and adored one”), not quite word-for-word in the Pseudo-Augustine passage above, St-Jacques 1969:217 and Ames 1970:65 (followed by Alford, Pearsall, etc.) located it in the Sarum breviary office for Quinquagesima Sunday. Robert of Basevorn (ed. Charland 1936:250) in his treatise on preaching thought of it as an antiphon: “Videat etiam quod thema suum sit de textu Bibliae, non de antiphonario. Unde vitiosum est illud thema quod aliqui assumunt in festo Trinitatis: Tres vidit et unum adoravit, quia non est textus Bibliae,” (A preacher should take care that his theme be from the text of the Bible, not from the antiphonary. Thus the theme that some people take on the feast of the Trinity, “He saw three and adored one,” is a bad one because it is not a Bible text). (It is interesting to learn that the line was used by some as the theme of a sermon on Trinity Sunday, though it does not appear among the pericopes indexed in the last volume of O’Mara and Paul’s Repertorium [2007; see 4.2690].) Ames, however, had asserted that it was a commonplace, and the online PL backs her up, since it turns up 45 instances, including this from Peter of Blois, Contra perfidiam Judaeorum (PL 207.830– 31): “Faciamus hominem ad imaginem et similitudinem nostram. Cum dicitur, faciamus ostenditur in personis pluralitas. . . . De illo ergo dicit, faciamus, ut insinuet Trinitatem. . . . Item in Genesi legitur quod Abraham tres vidit et unum adoravit” (“Let us make man to our image and likeness” [Gen. 1:26]. The word faciamus implies the plurality of persons. . . . He said of man, “Let us make him,” to insinuate the Trinity. . . . We also read in Genesis that Abraham saw three and adored one). He then quotes pieces of the conversation, some using singular verbs and pronouns, some plural, and continues, “In omnibus his et tres ad Abraham loquuntur et unus, et Abraham ad tres loquitur et ad unum. Et in omnibus habes mysterium Trinitatis et unitatis expressum” (In all these three and one speak to Abraham, and Abraham speaks to three and one. And in them all you have expressed the mystery of Trinity and unity). This passage is striking in bringing together two of L’s illustrations of the Trinity (cf. B.9.36–46). 244 What y thouhte and my wyf he vs wel tolde (cf. B.16.229 knewe what I ∂ou√te): God does not read Abraham’s thoughts in the Mambre-visit passage, only Sara’s; but he has read Abraham’s, on the same subject of becoming a

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parent in old age, in the previous chapter, 17:17–19. Cf. 16.340a (B.15.200a) and note. 246–66 (B.16.230–48) Fol trewe tokenes . . . aftur his comyng loken (B waiten): At this point Abraham ceases telling of the Mambre visit and begins to speak more generally of his dealings with God. Line 246 means, “Covenants of truth were made between us whenever I met him” (B.16.231, “There are covenants of truth between us, which I am at liberty to tell of”). “Token” here means both “covenant” (Latin foedus, pactum) and “sign,” the agreement and its external manifestation. A “true” covenant is a commitment by both parties to be true to the other. The rest of the passage then lists several meetings and several promises, in a somewhat haphazard way. For yet another “tookene” of God’s favor to Abraham, see 13.12. 247 How he fondede me furste: I.e., (there is a covenant between us representing) how he tested me first (and found me true). The “How” clause is in apposition with “tokenes” 246. Subsequent incidents do not carry through this construction, but are introduced in independent sentences (as the Isaac incident is in B). The sacrifice of Isaac (Gen 22:1–18) is a covenant in the sense that it represents both Abraham’s complete trust in God and—since in the end God did not require the sacrifice—God’s holding to his promise of issue. “Furste” is used loosely, since God has already executed several covenants with Abraham, including that of issue, whose sign is Isaac himself. B.16.233 He wiste my wille bi hym: God used Isaac to learn Abraham’s will. 250 (B.16.233) allowe: credit; see Alford, Gloss., s.v. allowen, and cf. 14.212 (B.12.290), a very clear statement by Ymaginatif of the covenant, in a passage full of relevance for this one. Schmidt points out that there is an allusion to Gen 15:6, “Abraham believed God, and it was reputed to him unto justice,” cited by St Paul at Romans 4:3. (It is cited again at Gal 3:6 and James 2:23.) 251–6 (B.16.235–40) Y circumsised my sone . . . ende: the second token is circumcision, a clearer example of covenant and sign; see Gen 17:10–27. Commenting on the Samaritan’s reference to “3e bloed of a barn” (19.86, B.17.96) and associating it with Jesus’s circumcision, Schmidt 2006:304 writes, “The Incarnation is to be seen as completing the history of salvation inaugurated by the Covenant with Abraham who, with his son and entire household, sealed it by ‘suffering’ the painful rite of circumcision (understood as a ‘type’ of Christian baptism).” My sone (B.16.235) is Ismael, Gen 17:23, circumcised at the

362

C Passus 18; B Passus 16

same time as Abraham himself and his meynee, not Isaac, born and circumcised a year later (Gen 21:4). Si∂en B.16.235 makes no sense, since all the circumcisions took place before the sacrifice of Isaac; C corrects it to also. 253 (B.16.237) and hope to blisse ∂e tyme: and in the hope of sanctifying their lives. 256 (B.16.240) Lond . . . ende: Gen 12:1–2, 12:7, 13:16, 15:5–21, 17:1–8, 18:17–18, Luke 1:55, Rom 4:13, Gal 3:6–9. Lond and lordschip will be lost, as Abraham (Faith) himself predicts after the crucifixion, 20.108 (B.18.105). Lyf withouten ende refers not to immortality but to Abraham’s innumerable progeny, as described, e.g., in Gen 13:16. 257–59 To me . . . aske (B.16.241–42a To me . . . semini eius): God’s direct promises to Abraham (Gen 12:7, 17:7–9, 18:17–18, 22:16–18; cf. also Mic 7:20) do not explicitly include forgiveness of sin. Mary’s Magnificat, which is the source of the liturgical phrase L quotes at B.16.242a, however, speaks of mercy promised to Abraham and his seed forever: “Recordatus misericordiae suae, sicut locutus est ad patres nostros, Abraham et semini ejus, in saecula,” Luke 1:54–55 (being mindful of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed, for ever). See also the canticle of Zachary later in the same chapter in Luke, esp. vv. 73–74. And see Mic 7:18–20, aptly cited by Pearsall. The full sentence in the prayer quoted at B.16.242a (see Alford, Quot.), best known from the Mass for the dead, is “Libera animas omnium fidelium defunctorum de poenis inferni, et de profundo lacu; libera eas de ore leonis, ne absorbeat eas tartarus, ne cadant in obscurum: sed signifer sanctus Michael repraesentet eas in lucem sanctam quam olim Abrahae promisisti et semini eius” (Free the souls of all the faithful departed from the pains of hell and from the deep pit; free them from the mouth of the lion, that hell may not swallow them up, that they may not fall into darkness: but may the holy standard-bearer Michael bring them back into the holy light that you promised to Abraham and to his seed). Thus the antecedent of “Quam” in B.16.242a is “sanctam lucem,” holy light, i.e., heaven, the “vitam aeternam” of the pardon, i.e., mercy for oure mysdedes. It is very hard to see the value of turning B.16.242–242a into C.18.258–59. 260–66 (B.16.243–48) And sethe a sente me to seyn . . . aftur his comyng loken (B waiten): This final token is L’s invention, made to fit his fiction, though from biblical materials, including Abraham’s building of altars (Gen 12:7–8, 13:18) and Melchisedech’s sacrifice of bread and wine in blessing of

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Abraham at Gen 14:18–19. This was taken to be a sign of the Eucharist, that is, the unbloody sacrifice of the new law. (As Schmidt points out, Melchisedech’s sacrifice is mentioned in the canon of the Mass after Abraham’s as a type of Christ’s.) Since it replaces the offering of slaughtered sheep, the pastoral image of the Church (C.18.264a, Fiet vnum ouile & vnus pastor, from the passage on the Good Shepherd, John 10:16: “there shall be one fold and one shepherd”) is appropriate. The B passage goes on in lines 245–46 to present Abraham as hero, in non-biblical language that seems to recall (in foot and leneden and the idea of defending folk from the fiend) the tree-and-props of the early part of the passus (though there Abraham is one of those gathered up by the fiend). C, once again deflecting attention from Abraham to his figural function, emphasizes instead the new sacrifice; in its stress on unity (bread and wine bothe/At ones not only prefiguring the Eucharist but signifying the Trinity, one fold and one shepherd), it both recalls the picture of the Church as charity by Liberum arbitrium in 17.125–49 and anticipates the picture of the Church as the barn of unity in the final passus. See Gal 3:6–29, where Paul insists again and again that it is Christians, not those under the law, who are the seed of Abraham, and ends with a vision of the unity of the Church: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you be Christ’s, then are you the seed of Abraham, heirs according to the promise” (28–29). (Sacrificing in worschipe of the trinite is strikingly like the lines in “The Sacrifice of Isaac”—see 239–45n above.) In the next scene (19.34; B.17.33), Will will scold Abraham for claiming to bring a new law when none is needed. The point is puzzling in the B version, since Abraham has not used the phrase, nor said that sacrificing with bread and wine bitokneth anything. The change here of B.16.245–46 to C.18.263–64, speaking of betokening and adding the actual phrase a newe lawe, relieves the confusion—and clarifies retroactively that the faith that Abraham is foot of is Christianity. He is “the father of all them that believe,” Rom 4:11. “New law” of course means “a new religion,” “a new system of belief,” and a new mode of sacrifice (B.16.243–44)—not the law of charity, which L is at pains to insist is in the Old Law. 260 (B.16.243) a sente me to seyn: he sent (someone) to me to tell me; cf. A.3.240–41, “God sente hym (i.e., to Saul) to segge be samuels mouth/That “ and A.10.157–58, “he sente to se3, & seide hym be an aungel/To” alongside C.10.249, where the angel drops out, “god sente to seth so sone he was of age/ That.” The next phrase here in C.18, and saide, is probably a scribal gloss on to seyn; as the two lines from A just quoted show, the two phrases are

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C Passus 18; B Passus 16

interchangeable. Or it just means, “He sent (someone) to tell (me) and (he) said.” The messenger here presumably is an angel, unless L is supposing that Melchisedech, who is called “sacerdos altissimi Dei” (the priest of the most high God, Gen 14:18) acts as a messenger from God to Abraham. B.16.245 called me foot of his fei∂: Apparently L’s original metaphor, though see Cyprian of Carthage, De bono patientiae (PL 4.628; repeated by Haymo, PL 118.908), “Abraham Deo credens et radicem ac fundamentum fidei primus instituens, tentatus in filio, non dubitat neque cunctatur, sed praeceptis Dei tota patientia devotionis obsequitur” (Abraham, believing in God and first establishing the root and foundation of faith, tempted over his son, does not hesitate nor delay, but obeys God’s commands with the total patience of devotion). 264a Fiet vnum ouile & vnus pastor: “There shall be one fold and one shepherd” (John 10:16). The whole verse, the end of the “Good Shepherd” passage, is this: “And other sheep I have that are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd.” A major feature of the newe lawe (264) is the inclusion of the Gentiles. 265 (B.16.247) Thus haue y ben his heraud here and in helle: Skeat: “Abraham was God’s herald here on earth, as being ‘the father of all them that believe’; Rom. iv.11; cf. Gal. iii.8. He is also called God’s herald in hell, viz. in one version of the Apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus: see Cowper’s Apoc. Gospels, p. 301.” Skeat stretches the truth here. He is referring to the famous “part B” of the Gospel of Nicodemus, the account of the Harrowing of Hell (Cowper 1870:301; also in Ehrman and Plesˇe 2011: 477). It does not call Abraham a herald, but only says that when the light shone in hell, “our father Abraham was united with the patriarchs and the prophets.” (In EETS Skeat says more accurately only that “his presence in hell is expressly alluded to” in the version edited by Cowper.) Of course L did not need any such authority: he has already made clear that God vouchsafed Abraham an understanding of the Trinity, and he supposes here that Abraham made use of that knowledge (naturally enough) to assure others in hell that redemption would come. Or, as Skeat EETS says, in limbo “it must have been his mission to announce to the rest the promise that in him should all families of the earth be blessed: see Gen.xii.3, Gal iii., 16.” 267–68a (B.16.249–52a) Forthy y seke hym . . . Ecce Agnus dei: John the Baptist, beheaded by Herod, has arrived in limbo and told the inhabitants that

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Christ, whom he had baptized, would soon come to save them (∂at2 268 ⳱ one that); see the Gospel of Nicodemus, as quoted in The Golden Legend 54, on the Resurrection of the Lord (trans. Ryan, 1.223), where John also mentions that on earth he pointed him out with his finger, saying, “Behold the Lamb of God” (268a; B252a; John 1:29, 36); John’s role as messenger to limbo is also emphasized in The Golden Legend 86 (on the Birth of Saint John the Baptist), Ryan 1.334. Abraham, having heard that, has come to earth to seke Christ. B.16.251 patriarkes & prophetes and oo∂er peple in derknesse: Cf. Augustine, Contra Faustum Manichaeum, PL 42.512, “ante Domini nostri adventum Patriarchas omnes Israel et Prophetas tartareis in tenebris jacuisse” (before the coming of our Lord all the patriarchs and prophets of Israel lay in the darkness of hell). L repeats the line at 20.366 (B.18.323), but with the last phrase in Latin, populus in tenebris, making clear its ultimate origin in Isaiah 9:2, “populus qui ambulabat in tenebris,” the people that walked in darkness, a standard prooftext for the Harrowing of Hell (quoted by Repentance at 7.133a [B.5.493a]). See 20.271 (B.18.263)n, 20.366–67n. It is dropped here in C, whether because of that later line or because of line 272 below.

Will sees Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom; Abraham longs for Christ (269–87, B.16.253–71) 269–87 (B.16.253–71) Thenne hadde y wonder . . . amende: virtually unchanged from B to C. For the story of Dives and Lazarus (in which Abraham appears as a spokesman for faith), see Luke 16:19–31; when Lazarus dies he is “carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom” (22). The expression “Abraham’s bosom” does not occur elsewhere in the bible, though in subsequent Christian writing it became common to equate limbo with Abraham’s bosom: the phrase “limbo patrum vel sinus Abrahae” occurs often. Sheingorn 1987 offers a good survey of patristic and medieval treatment of the idea, and of its representation in art. L obviously loved Luke’s story. Hunger brings it up at 8.277–81, and claims both to have killed Lazarus and later seen him taking his ease “as he a syre were” in Abraham’s lap. Patience at 15.299–300 (cf. B.14.123) shows us Dives “buying bitterly” now the douce vie he led on earth. And the Samaritan will draw on it too, briefly in B.17.267–73, at greater length in C.19.233–54. 271 (B.16.255) y lokede in his lappe: I looked in “the fold of [his] robe over [his] breast, which served as a pocket or pouch” (OED lap n.1, 4a, citing this

366

C Passus 18; B Passus 16

line). It is not definition 5a, “the front portion of the body from the waist to the knees of a person seated,” that is, not the same thing as bosome in the previous line, both because Abraham has presumably been standing for the entire conversation, because of the mention of his wyde clothes, and because Will had to look to see what is there. 271 (B.16.255) a la√ar: In Luke his name is Lazarus, and he is apparently a leper, since he is full of sores. The name became a common noun for leper in Medieval Latin, passing into French (ladre) and Italian (lazarro) as well as English, where the earliest appearance cited in OED is 1340. To Will, who doesn’t know Luke’s story, or doesn’t remember it, he appears as just that, a leper, whereas Hunger knew him by name. 272 (B.16.256) With patriarkes and profetes pleynge togyderes: This sweet picture differs sharply from the idea of limbo conveyed by the Gospel of Nicodemus, where it is marked by darkness (see 20.366, B.18.323, Alford, Quot., and Barney’s note), or by L himself in passus 20.147 (B.18.144), where the patriarchs and prophets are described by Truth as lying in pain. Furthermore, these people are still in the deueles power, 282, B.16.266. But nothing moves L more than the thought of what awaits the poor in the afterlife, and here he is true to the Luke passage, in which a “great chaos” (16:26) lies between Dives in torment and Lazarus, who is “now comforted” (16:25). See 15.285–97 (B.14.109–21). 276 (B.16.260) present: Since Abraham is a herald, Will correctly assumes that what he is carrying is a gift. 277–88 (B.16.261–72) Hit is a preciouse present . . . Y wepte for his wordes: Will’s wonder 269, his staring, and his desire, like Parzival’s questions that release the Fisher King, finally prompt Abraham to stop dribbling hints and pour out a full account of what he is about. It is shockingly stripped of the jaunty confidence that has marked him as he expounded on the Trinity and boasted of seeing God. Will and we learn that he is not free, as he seemed to be, but atached in the poukes pondefold, hoping to be delivered by Christ som day, and Lazarus’s lolling, since it will go on til suche a lord vs feche, suddenly seems not such play at all, and the day of deliverance does not feel close, despite what John the Baptist said. The power of the triple “no”—may no wed vs quyte/Ne noen bern ben oure borw ne bryngen vs fro his daunger . . . no maynprise may vs feche—is daunting, and it makes Will cry.

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For the legal language, see Alford, Gloss., s.v. attachen, wed, borgh, mainprise, deliveren; also MED, s.v. daunger, 1.a, 1.c; and see Simpson 2007:172–73. There are perhaps also echoes of at least two passages in St Paul. The first is Hebrews 11, where the writer (not now thought to be Paul) reviews the faith and the longing of a whole list of patriarchs; see esp. 11:13, in the midst of his remarks on Abraham: “All these died according to faith, not having received the promises, but beholding them afar off, and saluting them and confessing that they are pilgrims and strangers on the earth.” The second is the moving account of how “every creature groaneth and is in labour” and “we ourselves groan within ourselves” as we await the second coming, Romans 8:18–39 (the verses quoted are 22 and 23). The discourse has also, of course, returned to ∂e pouke, whose depredations from the tree of charity (110–16, B.16.79–85) climaxed the first part of the passus, and so to renewed emphasis on the need for one that shal delyuere vs. 284 (B.16.268) lyf for lyf: Exodus 21:23; cf. 20.386–87, B.18.343. Jesus will say at B.18.343–44, “by 3at lawe (i.e. Exodus 21:23) I clayme/Adam and al his issue.” Or ligge thus: “Or lie (he) thus,” i.e., “Or he, Lazarus, must lie,” present subjunctive. The sentence ends illogically, as Schmidt points out: as he says, it “does not propose an alternative to deliverance by Christ, but repeats it.” The solution probably is that, in view of what Abraham has been told by John the Baptist, “som day” 282 (B.16.266) means “some day soon,” and the point is to say, “If it doesn’t happen soon, we will just have to wait till it does happen, since being fetched by suche a lord, i.e., by Christ, is our only chance.” 286–87 (B.16.270–71) “Allas!” y saide . . . amende: The earliest promise of redemption is at Gen 3:15, to the serpent, “I will put enmities between thee and the woman and thy seed and her seed. She shall crush thy head.” At the time of Christ’s birth, the Jews had been waiting long for the advent of the Messiah, as the Gospels continually emphasize, even as they insist that it is finally at hand. But they never say, “Why now and not sooner?” Paul does not raise the question either, but is only sure that “when the fulness of the time was come, God sent his Son” (Gal 4:4); see also Rom 5:6, 8–9: Christ died for us “according to the time.” Jacobus, after citing Gal 4:4, quotes Augustine: “There are many who ask why Christ did not come sooner. It was because by the will of him who made all things in time, the fullness of time had not arrived. When that fullness had come, the One came who freed us from time” (Trans. Ryan, 1.5; the Augustine is Tractates on the Gospel of John, 31:5). And our poem has taken up Paul’s acceptance firmly, earlier in this passus: 18.126,

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C Passus 18; B Passus 16

138. The redemption came when it came. Thus, long though the wait was, it is vain (if perfectly human) for Will to sigh and regret it. It is also human, if illogical, for him to say that sin got in the way of God’s mercy. Human sinfulness is a fact, of course, and harped on by Paul in passages such as Romans 5:12 and the whole of Romans 7. But it was precisely sin that occasioned the mercy. Thus we see Will here commendably sympathetic to Abraham’s longing, but finally not yet understanding the issues. See, however, 2 Peter 3:8–9 (on the second coming): “But be not ignorant, my beloved, of this one thing, that one day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord delayeth not his promise, as some imagine, but dealeth patiently for your sake, not willing that any should perish but that all should return to penance.” In these lines sin does delay the coming, since God keeps hoping that people will repent; but the second coming is a different issue, since these sinners are already redeemed.

Moses (Hope) joins Will and Abraham (288–91, B.16.272–75) 289 (B.16.273) Rappliche renne ∂e ri√t way we wente: I.e., he runs to catch up to them from behind, as he can, being younger than Abraham. All are going toward Jerusalem, as we might deduce in 19.7 (B.17.5), and learn for sure in 19.48–52 (B.17.50–54). Was Will on the way to Jerusalem without realizing it and caught up to Abraham? Perhaps. Schmidt points out the parallel to the end of passus 13 (B.11): “a new character . . . who is to dominate the opening of the next passus is introduced at the end of this one.” This is, of course, a common device in narratives with decisive breaks. 290–91 (B.16.274–75) And y fraynede . . . he tolde: Whennes he come is also the first thing Will asked Abraham (183; B.16.174), though Abraham had already introduced himself by name without being asked what he hihte (182; B.16.173). In B he also volunteered whoder he wolde before he could be asked (178); in C he does not do so until line 267.

C Passus 19; B Passus 17

Headnote (see also the note to 18.181 [B.16.172]: the fifth vision) The germ of passus 19 is Luke 10:25–37, in which a lawyer asks Jesus, “What must I do to possess eternal life?” Jesus asks him, “What is written in the law? How readest thou?” He answers as if he’d been present at the Sermon on the Mount, quoting Deut 6:5 and Lev 19:18, “Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God, with thy whole heart and with thy whole soul and with all thy strength and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.” Jesus says, “Thou hast answered right; this do, and thou shalt live.” “But he, willing to justify himself, said to Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbour?’ ” Jesus’s reply is to tell the story of the Good Samaritan, and, when he gets the lawyer to say that of the three, the Samaritan was neighbor to the man who fell among thieves, says, “Go, and do thou in like manner.” (There seems to be little point in harping on Jesus’s saying “Who was neighbor to the man?” instead of “Who recognized that the man was his neighbor?”. “Neighbor” is a reciprocal term: if I am your neighbor, then you are my neighbor; there is no real difference between Jesus’s question and the lawyer’s. Mary Raschko 2012:55 says that “Jesus redefines the ethical crux of the parable, asking not who should receive mercy but rather how a person acts charitably.” I would rather say that Jesus says, “Everybody is your neighbor, as the Samaritan realized; be merciful to all who need mercy, as he was.”) This passage has all the essential materials of our passus: 1. The maundement (2, B.17.2): Dilige deum & proximum tuum (14, B.17.13). 2. The assertion that it is “written in the law” (and so properly represented by Moses) (cf. also Matt 22:35–40, Mark 12:29–31). 3. The questioning lawyer, played by Will. 4. Jesus’s promise, “This do, and thou shalt live,” the source of Moses’s boast that he has saved thousands with this charme (21, B.17.20). 5. Juxtaposing the maundement with the Samaritan story (48–79, B.17.50–82). The Samaritan’s discourse on the Trinity (108–335, B.17.134–355) may also be connected to verses 21–22. Even as Jesus in this passage of Luke insists that his gospel of love is already embedded in the law, he and Luke also imply that the Jews fall short in love of neighbor: Jesus, in the irony that only the Samaritan—from a group

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C Passus 19; B Passus 17

of Jews considered heretical by Palestinian Jews, who “do not communicate with” them (John 4:9)—not the priest and Levite, understands what it is to be a neighbor, and Luke in the manifest reluctance of the lawyer to admit his own shortcomings in this regard. Passus 19 (B.17) dramatizes this implication not only in the failure of Abraham and Moses to help the half-alive victim, but in the generally comic treatment of both figures, a feature emphasized in the notes that follow. The refusal to help the victim is a central moment, prepared for in the whole presentation of both figures. The commonplace of the three ages: before the law, under the law, under grace (ante legem, sub lege, sub gratia), probably going back to Rom 6:14, invoked frequently by St Augustine, and constantly repeated by all who followed him—a kind of Do-well-better-and-best for human history—is an underlying structure. So probably is the ordo prophetarum, the procession of prophets giving evidence for Christianity, as Elisa Narin van Court suggests (1996:59). The Samaritan gets to be like Patience at the dinner in passus 15 (B.13), and even like the Holy Ghost in his own analogies (and many a folktale character), the last and best of three. In “Ungratefulnesse,” George Herbert praises God for his “two rare cabinets full of treasure,/The Trinitie, and Incarnation,” but contrasts the “sweets” and “delights” of the Incarnation to the unknowableness of the Trinity, “Whose sparkling light accesse denies” and which “thou dost not show/ . . . fully to us, till death blow/The dust into our eyes” that will make us see it at last. L faced a similar dilemma: in the next passus he will offer the sweets and delights of the account of the redemption and harrowing; here he faces the essential but unknowable doctrine of the Trinity. Though the Samaritan’s similes probably end up denying access after all, they at least give L the opportunity to make statements about the three persons and, by giving special attention to the Holy Ghost, give new emphasis to the gospel of lovingkindness that the poem preaches so unstintingly. This insistence on kindness, with which the passus ends, makes clear that 1 Cor 13:13 is still the dominant idea: “There remain faith, hope, and charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.” As Aers 2009:88 says, the poem is still answering Will’s query at 16.287, Where may charity be found? The Samaritan, the embodiment of love of neighbor in Jesus’s parable, takes over from Faith and Hope, and loves Will and exhorts him to love. And then, in the next passus, he turns out to be Christ himself. I have insisted in the notes below on reading the story of the Good Samaritan literally, at least at first, and yet there is no question that the Samaritan’s rescue of the wounded man is also the redemption in little, so that the passus is actually a forecast of the events of the next passus.

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And it also looks backward. Aers argues compellingly (2009:83–131) that the Samaritan episode “correct[s] and supersede[s]” earlier passages and “utterances” (101), and along with the three final passu¯s “display[s] at length” “the resources that will resolve and illuminate the enigma” of the pardon and various other early misunderstandings (109). “These resources are Christocentric: the healing that flows from Christ” (109). Likewise Raymond St-Jacques points out (1969:229) that the question of the legisperitus, “What must I do to gain eternal life?,” is Will’s question to Holy Church, and the Samaritan parable gives him “the ultimate answer”: Love your neighbor. St-Jacques makes very clear in the course of his essay that Christ’s answer to the legisperitus, the Samaritan parable, was recognized in Christian tradition as being fulfilled indeed by his Incarnation, Passion, and Death “so that . . . these mysteries were always associated with the parable.” And then in the next passus what is done here for Will is merely repeated for the rest of us. Unlike the sincere Abraham, Hope is a somewhat comic figure, an alazon, a miles gloriosus, boasting of his accomplishments and introducing himself as a spy in a most unspylike way. (As this scene goes on, however, Abraham will take on a comic dimension too.) The comedy emphasizes the combination of eagerness and ignorance that constitutes hope, and sets us up for Hope’s cowardice in the presence of the wounded man (61–64; B.17.62–65). The refusal of Faith and Hope to help the wounded man is the crucial moment in the scene, carefully worked up to virtually from the beginning. One source of the comedy may be the irony that Moses broke faith and so was barred from entering the Promised Land (Num 20:12), though, as Schmidt notes, he did espy it from afar (Deut 34:1–4). Another is the irony of Jewish hope, as L saw it: the Jews rejected Jesus as a “iogelour” and went on hoping (17.307–11; B.15.601–3). But the deepest source, as I have said in the note to 18.181, is the comic pattern of salvation history: it is a story with a happy ending. The comedy is enhanced by presenting Will as a legal quibbler, proud of his legal knowledge. He uses the pedantic term “lettres” for “letter” (see note to 6, 11 below); he asks to see the document because we myhte ∂e lawe knowe (11, B.17.10); and he ends up ridiculing Hope’s law as not worth learning, since he has no intention of loving the liars and shrews who are his neighbors in Cornhill (5.1–5). He is modeled on Luke’s legisperitus; see note to 18.181. In fact he is very like the priest who offers to apply his superior interpretative skills to Piers’s pardon and ends up arguing with him (9.281–93; B.7.107–44, A.8.89– 127), just as the patent is like the pardon, a reduction of a complex matter to a single binary phrase.

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C Passus 19; B Passus 17

There is a final, larger comic movement, however, in which the Samaritan through his understanding, his generosity of spirit, and his focus on the newborn Christ urges Will to forgive Faith and Hope their shortcomings, and elicits a new and more humble attitude from him. In B the drive toward reconciliation is more inclusive, for the Samaritan draws Faith and Hope into the salvific scheme, as “forster” and “hostiler” respectively. The respectful and friendly exchanges between the Samaritan and Will that then occupy the rest of the passus, replacing Will’s bickering with Faith and Hope, are an encouraging sign of the reconciliation that the Samaritan predicts “3at litel baby” (94) will bring. As I have implied above, the pattern echoes that in the dinner scene in passus 15 (B.13), where the hero Patience is preceded by two variously inadequate figures, the doctor-friar (a boaster like Hope) and Clergie; here the heroic Samaritan upstages those fumblers, Faith and Hope. Differences in the versions in this passus are mostly slight, and are commented on as they arise. The only major difference is the omission in C of B.17.105–26, in which the Samaritan predicts the fettering of Satan in three days’ time, and imagines a peaceful future for Faith in the forest and Hope in the hostel. Narin van Court 1996 discusses the change on pp. 67–70, treating it as “a fairly successful attempt on the poet’s part to exclude Abraham-Faith and Moses-Hope from the new dispensation under Christ” (69). To me the matter seems less simple; see the notes to those lines, and to 83–95. and B.17.105–26. After 141 (B.17.176), the only change of any significance at all is the addition in C of 236–50a, extending the treatment of Dives’s niggardliness by insisting that he differs from contemporary rich skinflints in that he got his money honestly. Both changes enable L to give greater attention in C to his contemporary world.

Will’s meeting with Hope (1–47, B.17.1–49) 1–47 (B.17.1–49) Will’s meeting with Hope. Line 2 makes clear that Hope is Moses, though, as Burrow 1993:65 points out, he is never called Moses by the narrator, only “Spes” or “Hope.” (Moses has already been aligned with hope at 17.295–96 [cf. B.15.584–85]: he is “maister” of the law “til messie come”). He answers two of the three questions Will asked at the end of the last passus, ignoring “fro whennes he come” (unless it be synay). As a “spie,” he seems to have been retained by mankind to track the movements of the outsider Christ—for he has been in his presence, and knows him by name, and has been in his territory on Mt. Sinai as a kind of advance man (see Exodus 19.20–

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24). (There is perhaps ironic reference to Numbers 13, where Moses himself sends spies into Canaan to see what sort of land it is, and the plan backfires because they bring back a bad report; see St-Jacques 1977.) The tracking is done with friendly intentions, of course, the hope being to enlist Christ on mankind’s side in their effort to be free of Lucifer’s lordship. Unlike the herald Abraham, then, Hope is not part of Christ’s force; in effect the advance parties of both sides of the prospective alliance between God and man have now met up. Presumably Abraham is on Christ’s side because of his vision of the Trinity, and Moses is on man’s side because he represents the law, the requirement to love God and neighbor. (The whole idea of Hope as a spy may come from a pun in French on “espier,” espy, and “espeir,” hope; see the editorial note by E. G. Stanley in St-Jacques 1977:484n2.) On the comedy in the passage, see the headnote. 1 (B.17.1) I am spes . . . kny√te: Spere, “am searching for,” OE spyrian. Kny√te continues the aristocratic romance imagery begun at 18.185–86 (B.16.177–79), where Abraham is a herald and Jesus has a coat of arms (C) or blazon (B), and is a “bacheler” (B), all helping to set up the account in the next passus of the crucifixion as a joust. 2–18 (B.17.2–17) That toek me a maundement . . . “√e, leef me,” he saide: In Exodus, chapters 19–31 (and elsewhere), God gives Moses numerous commandments on ∂e mont of synay. Although there it is never quite clear just which ones God wrote with his finger on the stone tablets (Ex 31:18, B.11.169; a pece of an hard roche 12, B.17.11; cf. B.15.582–83), we learn from Deut 10:4 that it was the “ten words” or ten commandments, Exodus 20:2–17, Deut 5:6–21. Nevertheless, both here and at B.15.582–86, L clearly imagines the tablets as containing the simple phrase Dilige deum & proximum tuum, i.e., the heart and gist of the law as Jesus saw it, Matt 22:36–40 (verse 40 is quoted at B.17.16), Mark 12:29–31; cf. Luke 10:25–28. Jesus meant, of course, that the whole law, that is, all the various laws inscribed in Exodus through Deuteronomy, is reducible to the two commandments, “Love God” (Deut 6:5) and “Love your neighbor” (Lev 19:18). But by a witty economy, the poem gives us these very words (reduced further to a single maundement, two wordes, “Love God and your neighbor”) on Moses’s tablets. He alludes, of course, to the commonplace that the first three commandments, pertaining to God, were on one tablet and the last seven, pertaining to neighbor, on the other. Augustine, Sermones de scripturis, 9: “Deus enim famulo suo Moysi in monte duas tabulas dedit, in quibus . . . conscripta erant decem praecepta legis . . . tria in una tabula ad Deum pertinentia, septem in altera tabula ad proximum,” On

374

C Passus 19; B Passus 17

the mountain God gave his servant Moses two tablets on which were written the ten commandments of the law, three on one tablet pertaining to God and seven on the other pertaining to neighbor (PL 38.81). 3 (B.17.3) To reule alle reumes . . . resoun: An exaggeration of Exodus 23:22– 33, where God promises to destroy the enemies of Israel. 4 a latyn and an ebrew: the expansion of B.17.3 into C.19.3–5 seems to have been made for the sake of this phrase, which perhaps means, “The letter here reproduced in Latin is the same as the letter is in Hebrew”; see lines 14, 17 and note. But it also seems to echo the statement in John 19:20 that the inscription Pilate put on the cross was written in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. It does not simply indicate L’s awareness that the language of the tablets, and of the Mosaic books, was Hebrew, but emphasizes that the so-called “New Law” of love is really the old law, and is available to Jew and Gentile alike: alle reumes. 5 That that y sey is soeth se hoso liketh: So that whoever likes may see that what I say is true. 6–10 Is hit asseled . . . lygge (B.17.4–9 Is it enseled . . . knowe it al): There is punning here on two kinds of seals. Will (in the C version ignoring line 5 se hoso liketh) asks, “Is the letter sealed [or] can it be seen?” Apparently Hope has the letter in his bag (from which he will pluck it forth at line 12), so that Will can’t see it yet; Will is thinking of a letter folded and sealed where the edges meet, like the letter Truth sends to merchants “vnder his secrete seal” 9.27 (B.7.23, A.8.25). Hope in reply refers to a seal of authentication hanging from the bottom of an open letter, or “letters patent,” as this turns out to be (12). Thus his “Nay,” though it literally answers the first half of Will’s question, actually turns it aside for the deeper issue of ratification. See Matt 5:17, “Do not think that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil,” cited at 20.395a (B.18.349a). Steiner 2003:117–18 points out that this document answers Abraham’s despairing cry at the end of the previous passus that “no maynprise” may fetch us from hell: Moses, she says, “presents the release form.” There is a further pun, of course, on hanging: the seal that should hang from the letter will not be put there until the Croes is in place, and crist ∂eron will hange—for it is the crucifixion that will seal the law of love. Cristendoem (here and elsewhere in the poem) is baptism, the seal that entitles any individual person to the privileges announced by the patent. The pun is extended wittily, as Steiner points out (118, 162–63), in line 16a (B.17.15a) (Matt 22:40), In hijs duobus

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mandatis tota (universa Matt 22:40) lex pendet & prophete (On these two commandments dependeth the whole law and the prophets): “the continued applicability of the Old Law depends (‘pendet’) on both the dictates of the New Law and the security of Christ’s body hanging from the cross like a seal on a patent” (118). The form pependit for pendet, in ms. X and eight others and printed by Pearsall (cf. pendit in three more), may be authorial, and mean something like “has always depended,” giving the glose (16) a historical dimension: though Moses is carrying it, the law is already seen from the perspective of Christ. Steiner 115–17 discusses a similar treatment of salvation as a letter borne by patriarchs in Ancrene Wisse, and Pearsall cites the Wycliffite tract “Of Faith, Hope, and Charity” (ed. Matthew 1880:348 and thought by him to be by Wyclif): “God . . . sent a lettre to man by moyses hijs messangere . . . hijs lettre is hijs mawndementis, & grace in moyses soule is hijs priue seel, better 3en eny kyngis signe.” Seals rarely had crosses. However, before seals became the common way of authenticating documents, the names of signatories were accompanied by crosses: “Some ecclesiastical documents still took this form throughout the twelfth century.” The crosses were “held to have sacred significance, invoking divine authority and protection for the transaction” (F. Harvey and McGuinness 1996:1–2; see their fig. 1 on p. 1). There is thus a kind of visual pun in treating the crucifixion as “sealing” or authenticating the document. The idea that the crucifixion will seal the law of love arises again as the four daughters celebrate the Harrowing. See 20.185–92 (B.18.182–87) and Stephen Barney’s notes there. 6, 11 (B.17.4, 10, 36) lettres: plural with singular meaning (Lat. litterae; OED, s.v. letter II.4.b), and synonymous with “lettre” 4, 24, B.17.9, 120; Will, characteristically, uses the legal (plural) term for the document (from “letters patent”); Abraham and Hope, and the Samaritan later, use the everyday singular. OED (s.v. patent, adj.) defines letters patent as “an open letter or document, usually from a sovereign or person in authority, issued for various purposes; e.g., to put on record some agreement or contract, to authorize or command something to be done, to confer some right, privilege, title, property, or office.” See also Alford, Gloss., s.v. lettre, patente. This patent is strictly a command, but Hope, when he boasts in line 21 (B.17.20) (authorized apparently by Luke 10:25–28; see 19–26n below), treats it as an entitlement to salvation. One is reminded that pardoners seem to have made free use of fraudulent letters patent: Chaucer’s Pardoner speaks of “my patente” (C337), and L expresses his contempt for “youre patentes and youre pardon” (B.7.200; cf.

376

C Passus 19; B Passus 17

A.8.178). Not that Hope’s letter is not legitimate; it is, or will be when sealed; but L seems unable to introduce a document, no matter how simple, without at least toying with the specters of misinterpretation and misuse. Steiner goes on, in pp. 118–20, to make the good argument that Moses, and Peace in the next passus with her letter from Love (20.185–88, B.18.182–85), “are describing the same document as Truth’s Pardon and Hawkyn’s patent, only rehistoricized in its scriptural context and redefined as the product of Christ’s merciful sacrifice”—though she has already granted (113–14) that the pardon implies mercy for repentant sinners, accepting the argument in Lawler 2000 that, because the pardon implicitly counts the repentant among the good, it is already an expression of the redemptive mercy of Christ. 7 (B.17.5) y seke hym: Like Abraham (18.267, B.16.178), Hope is seeking Christ. Since the seal is the cross with Christ’s body hanging on it, he must be on his way to Jerusalem, and we discover that that is so in lines 48–52 (B.17.50–54). 9–10 Were hit . . . lygge (B.17.7–8 And whan . . . lenger): C’s language here is notably less confident than B’s. The first change, from whan it is enseled to were hit . . . aseled is perhaps meant merely to characterize Hope better, as a hoper rather than a predicter; but the second change, from laste shal no lenger to lowe sholde lygge, may register L’s sense that evil still seems to have a certain dominion. B.17.9 And ∂us: ßus refers to what is to come; the purpose of the line, absent in the W family of B mss. (and probably from L’s own, since it is absent also from C) but included from RF by K-D, is to answer the second half of Will’s question. 13 (B.17.12) two wordes on this wyse yglosed: i.e., two commands in Hebrew, translated into Latin in this way. That yglosed means “translated,” not “glossed,” is made clear by the next line: This was the tyxt trewly. But in line 16, The glose is “the gloss.” 14, 17 (B.17.13, 16) Dilige deum & proximum tuum; In hijs duobus mandatis tota lex pendet & prophete: Love God and thy neighbor; on these two commandments dependeth the whole law and the prophets. The first line summarizes Luke 10:27 and Matt 22:37–39; the second is Matt 22:40 verbatim (see also Mark 12:30–31). A major text for the poem: see Holy Church’s assertion that Truth “lered it (i.e., love) Moyses for 3e leueste 3yng” (B.1.151, absent in C: see Narin van Court 1996:50–51); Piers’s description of the way to Truth,

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C.7.208–12 (B.5.563–65, A.6:50–52); Scripture’s insistence on how Christians get to heaven, A.11.240–42 (cf. B.10.361–62, where English replaces A.11.242’s Latin); Clergie’s words in the banquet scene, 15.130–36 (B.13.124–30), which include the Latin phrase dilige deum & proximum C.15.134 (Dilige deum B.13.127); Anima’s assertion that Dilige deum & proximum is “parfit Iewen lawe” which Moses was given to teach “til Messie coome,” and which Jews erroneously “leten . . . 3e beste” (B.15.581–86; see the corresponding remarks by Liberum arbitrium in C.17.295–97, and also his discussion of love and law at C.17.126–43), not realizing that it needed to be sealed by the cross. Finally, see B.11.167–70, where “Loue and lewtee” is what God “wroot . . . wi3 his owene fynger/And took it moises vpon 3e mount alle men to lere.” In the revision of that passage at C.12.97–98, however, all reference to the Mosaic law disappears, and “loue and leute” are now “oure lordes bokes/And cristis oune clergie; he cam fro heuene to teche hit”; again see Narin van Court 1996:51–52. Though we are told clearly that the tablets only say “Dilige deum & proximum,” Will speaks later as if the phrase “as thyself” (sicut teipsum) from Matt 22:39 and Luke 10:27, and the traditional gloss “for the love of God” (C only) were also there. See 40, 41 (B.17.38), 101–2 (B.17.133), and 334 (B.17.354); and 38–41n below. Jesus, and the lawyer in Luke 10, were, of course, singling out Deut 6:5 and Lev 19:18. L seems to have been ambivalent about the place of love in the old law, treating it as if, though undeniably there, it were somehow buried, or incompletely understood; what Christ did to “seal” it was not only perform a supreme act of love by dying on the cross, but also understand the law in a new way by insisting that everything in it hangs from these two texts, and by extending love to include enemies. Thus in the complete “maundement,” the gilt-written gloss is as important as the text. Surely L is also thinking of another passage in Matthew, the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus’s statement that he has come to fulfill the law occurs, and where the injunction to love one’s enemy (Matt 5:43–44) is presented specifically as going beyond the law, or at least former teaching: “You have heard that it hath been said, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate thy enemy. But I say to you: love your enemies.” Verse 43 has caused no end of trouble, leading many Christians to believe that the law says, “hate your enemy,” as it does not—the modern consensus is that Jesus was opposing “oral commentary inferred from the distinction drawn in the post-Exilic period between dealings with Jews on the one hand and dealings with Gentiles on the other” (Anchor Bible, ad loc.)—and even to believe that it does not say, “love your neighbor.” L certainly does not think that, but his ambivalence may have been influenced by verse 43. (A search of

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the PL online shows many commentators who actually cite Lev 19:18 as “Diliges amicum tuum, et odio habebis inimicum tuum” (Love your friend and hate your enemy), e.g., Pseudo-Augustine, Breviarium in Psalmos, PL 26.1199; Gregory, Homiliae in evangelia, PL 76.1283; Haymo, Homiliae, PL 118, 589; etc. The editor of St Jerome’s Matthew in PL 29.547 says in a note that “three manuscripts that we have praised add to Leviticus 19.18 ‘et odio habebis inimicum tuum.’ ” John Cassian, however, says bluntly that “hate your enemy” is “non lex ipsa, sed legis perversa interpretatio Pharisaica, quam explosit et abdicavit Christus” (not the law itself, but a perverse Pharisaic interpretation of the law that Christ refuted and rejected) (PL 49.1210), and Peter of Blois in his treatise Christian Friendship and the Love of God and Neighbor calls it “ista dilectio Pharisaeorum” (this Pharisee-love) (PL 207.911). James Kugel (1997: 457) argues, though, that if “neighbor” “referred only to members of one’s own group, then perhaps it was . . . a duty to hate outsiders,” and “it seems that such an interpretation as this of Lev 19:17–18 underlies Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount.” Since Samaritans and Jews were enemies as well as neighbors, the story of the Good Samaritan equates the two, as the author of 4 e Lyfe of Soule saw (Raschko 2012:56–57). Thus L rightly regards loving one’s enemy as included in loving one’s neighbor; as Chaucer’s Parson says, “understoond eek that in the name of neighebor is comprehended his enemy” (CT I521; see also 4 e Lyfe of Soule). Both in the banquet scene and in Anima’s (Liberum arbitrium’s) speech, the injunctions “love your neighbor” and “love your enemy” tend to get interchanged (as they will in this passus as it goes on). The present scene is an attempt to present in dramatic form the issue of love in Jewish law treated discursively in passus 17 (B.15). The whole scene offers multiple echoes of the pardon scene: in the central role of a document, in the brevity (and twofold nature) of the wording of that document, in Will’s getting a glimpse of it. Furthermore, Clergie and Patience have established in the banquet scene that loving God and your neighbor is doing well, so that in its contents this document is the equivalent of the pardon—except that the pardon, being post-redemption, can contain a promise of salvation, whereas this can only be a mandate: the pardon is future indicative, this imperative—although Jesus’s promise to the lawyer, “This do, and thou shalt live,” turns it into a pardon. That is how Hope sees it: in lines 17–20 (B.17.18–21), implicitly relying on that promise (as if he had somehow heard it), he speaks of his document as an instrument of salvation; but Will will rightly see that as a mere boast (61–62; B.17.62–63), and the Samaritan will confirm that more is needed; see 19–26n below.

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15 gome (B.17.14 yeme): Both nouns mean “heed, care, note,” the C from ON gaumr, the B from OE gieme. It is probably a little instance of the West Midland character of C-text dialects (see Samuels 1988: 206–8). The B ms. R, which is not localizable, also has gome, which Schmidt prints. 19–26 And hoso worcheth . . . y can nat seyn here names (B.17.18–25 Whoso werche∂ . . . no√t seyen here): In the first two lines Hope may seem to contradict what he said in lines 9–10 (B.17.7–8) above, but in fact he does not. The commands to love God and neighbor were present in the Mosaic law (see 14, 17n above), and it was open to anyone to see their centrality: though the statement that all hangs on them was made by Christ, others could well have seen that, as the lawyer in Luke 10:27 in fact did. Strictly, then, Christ’s “seal” is the crucifixion, not his teachings on love. The lines above say that the crucifixion is needed to overcome the devil’s general lordship; these lines say that the souls of just individuals—those who loved God and neighbor—who died before the redemption are not dead souls, not finally the devil’s, even though he has grabbed them when they fell off the tree (18.110–16, B.16.79–85). They enjoy at the moment the somewhat happy state of playing in Abraham’s bosom, even though it be in the “poukes pondefold” (18.280, B.16.264), and they still have hope. Thus Hope’s boast that he has “saved” them is not without its truth. They are saved in the sense of “preserved” for the moment of the Harrowing. Nevertheless they are just as wounded as the man shortly to be met on the road, just as much in need of the “bloed of a barn” to be “ysaued” (salved, healed) truly. Hope’s failure in the presence of the wounded man (61–64, B.17.62–65) reveals the shortcomings of his present boast. Both he and Faith, justly proud of their merits, seem (as part of L’s comic presentation) too Pelagian in this passage, forgetting momentarily their role as seekers, forgetting their acknowledgement of their need for Christ. (Jesus, of course, has his Pelagian moments, and L’s warrant for putting this boast in Hope’s mouth is Jesus’s assurance to the lawyer in Luke 10:25–28. Lawyer: What must I do to gain eternal life? Jesus: What is written in the law? Lawyer: Love God and love your neighbor. Jesus: Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.) 20 (B.17.19) Shal neuere deuel hym dere: Thus the Samaritan, who loves God and neighbor, does not fear the evil lurking on the Jericho-Jerusalem road (below, B.17.105–11). 20 (B.17.19) ne deth in soule greue: cf. 12.99a (B.11.176a) “Qui non diligit manet in morte” (He that loveth not abideth in death), 1 John 3:14. Hope says, in effect, “Qui diligit manet in vita.” But L (if not Moses) is thinking of Luke

380

C Passus 19; B Passus 17

10:28, “This do, and thou shalt live.” And see 17.140, where the law of love is called “hele of mannes soule.” Here too the issue is the health of the soul, a health that depends, of course, on the redemption—which, again, seems not fully clear to Hope. He thinks that saued 21 means “healed” (OED s.v. save v., I.7.a.) and that the charme, which is not a charm at all but a command, is a healing charm; but the Samaritan will assert otherwise. His language, however, anticipates the story of the Samaritan. 25 (B.17.24) Iosue and Ieudith and Iudas Macabeus: Three heroic figures (Joshua and Judas Maccabeus are among the “nine worthies”), Jewish champions prefiguring Jesus, the kny√te Hope seeks (line 1 above), who all lived after the promulgation of the Mosaic law, and so knew it. 26 six thousand mo (B.17.25 sixti ∂ousand biside for∂): Round numbers of L’s, surely, no total being offered by the Gospel of Nicodemus. Both are very popular round numbers in patristic writing, as searching sex millia and sexaginta millia will show. For a window on that popularity, and L’s choice, cf. Honorius of Autun commenting on Cant 3:7, “En: lectulum Salamonis sexaginta fortes ambiunt ex fortissimis Israhel” (Behold: threescore valiant ones of the most valiant of Israel surround the bed of Solomon). He says, rightly, that six is a perfect number, but then goes on to say that 60, 600, 6000, 60,000, and 600,000 are also perfect numbers, that ten represents the Old Testament because of the Decalogue, and six the New Testament because of the six works of mercy in Matthew 25.35–36, and that the sixty valiant ones here in Canticles are “omnes perfecti sub Veteri et Novo Testamento, ut prophetae, et apostoli” (all the perfect ones of the Old and New Testament, such as the prophets and the apostles) (PL 172.404). Probably both numbers here are authorial rather than scribal: I suppose that L wrote sixti ∂ousand in B to emphasize the greatness of Christ’s action, but reduced it to six thousand in C as a little less unsuitable to the image of Abraham’s lap—though, as I have explained above at 18.269–87n, “limbo” and “Abraham’s bosom” are synonyms.

Will’s skeptical response (27–47, B.17.26–49) 27–47 (B.17.26–49) Õoure wordes aren wonderfol . . . wollen litel while hit vse: The comedy deepens as Will delivers a long rant whose gist is to complain to Abraham about the Trinity and to Moses about the need to “love liars.” Pigheaded though Will is, the larger purpose is to acknowledge that these two essential components of Christian belief and practice are genuine stumbling

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blocks. The speech, which will be repeated more briefly to the Samaritan when Will is alone with him, will ultimately bring on the Samaritan’s long exposition of the Trinity and of how deeply “kind,” that is, natural, it is to us to love others. Two considerations make the passage hard. The first is that L is presenting all three characters in a bad light, and yet using one as his spokesman against the others: we have to accept Will’s exposure of the others’ boasting at face value even as we see him exposing his own literalism, ignorance, and arrogance. The second is that Faith and Hope are good and bad at once, or rather good but incomplete (see 1 Cor 13:13), and therefore put Will off when they decide they are self-sufficient, and can save. Later, Will’s doubts about both will be confirmed when neither tries to help the wounded man; but the Samaritan will show him that their ideas on the Trinity, on loving one’s neighbor, and yet also on the need for a new law are valid. Everybody and everything in the scene—faith, hope, Jewish law, Will—is in the grip of the pouke, unredeemed, and needs the “bloed of a barn” to be saved. 27–28 (B.17.26–27) Õoure wordes . . . soule: Õoure is not the polite plural but the literal plural; Will has been thou-ing Moses (11, 18; B.17.10, 17); he now addresses both him and Abraham. Wonderfol: i.e., amazing, baffling. The move in the C version from B’s “Which of you is truest and lelest?” to “Is anything that either of you says true and lel?” is a significant improvement in dramatic quality, for Hope’s boasting deserves to be met with more aggressive skepticism than it gets in B. 29–31 Abraham . . . witenesse (B.17.28–30 Abraham . . . tau√te): see 18.240– 41a (B.16.225). 32–33 (B.17.31–32) And hath ysaued . . . lappe: Ysaued is syntactically parallel to seyh 29 (B.17.28); the clause thus abraham bereth witenesse 31 (∂us Abraham me tau√te B.17.30) is parenthetical. The reference is mostly to lines 23–24 (B.17.22–23) above. Abraham’s finding true Hope’s statement that he has saved many thousand implies that he too thinks of himself as having saved thousands of people, the people in his lap, and ∂at bileued so clearly repeats ∂at leuede vpon ∂at lettre 24 (leeued on ∂at charme B.17.23). And sory for here synnes, however, goes all the way back to 18.257–59; since the promise there of “Mercy for oure mysdedes as many tymes/As we wilnede and wolde with mouthe and herte aske” is made “to me and to myn issue,” there is a reminder that, though he does not know their names, all six thousand souls in his lap

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C Passus 19; B Passus 17

are his children. Finally, see B.16.245–46, where Abraham says his job is to save and defend folk from the fiend. 33 (B.17.32) somme . . . somme: The punning language is derisive; legal Will is appalled at Abraham’s imprecision. The line brings to a climax the skeptical tone of the whole sentence. 34 What nedede hit thanne (B.17.33 What neded it now): The C editors have turned away from the B emendation now, consciously leaving the line lacking a third stave as an instance of “uncompleted revision”; see RK-C 82–84, 91–93, KD-B 112–13, 206, and the next note. Schmidt, supported by Macklin Smith 2009 and Burrow 2013, accepts axay lines as authorial, and has thanne in both B and C. Will is still deriding Abraham: the phrase a newe lawe refers, not to Moses’s “maundement,” which is not a new law at all, but to Abraham’s claim at 18.264 that “I leue 3at ilke lord thenketh a newe lawe to make”: Will throws Abraham’s own phrase in his face. Why did you say before, Faith, that you thought God was making a new law if this old law, Moses’s, is sufficient? (In B the matter is less clear; see 18.260–66 [B.16.243–48]n.) He will turn to Hope at line 36 (B.17.35). 35 Sethe . . . saued (B.17.34 Si∂ . . . blisse): It is the fact that this line is revised from B but left unmetrical that moved RK-C to treat the pair of lines, 34–35, as incompletely revised rather than merely scribally deficient; again see their pp. 82–84. (They scan line 35 aaxa; I would scan it aaxx, since, as Ian Cornelius advises me, “Line-initial ‘sithen’ does not usually bear stress when [as here] the half-line contains other stressable words.”) 36–47 (B.17.35–49) And now cometh this spes . . . wollen litel while hit vse: Will’s objection to Hope is not his apparent unitarianism (which he likes, but which he has rather forced on Hope, and which he has forgotten by line 97 [B.17.128]), but the double nature of his law. He doesn’t like the idea of a twopart law, and above all he doesn’t like the substance of the second part, since it would require him to love the good-for-nothings who are his neighbors (see 5.4–5). That this is his major objection is not made fully clear in the C version until he goes on about it to the Samaritan later, at lines 100–7; in the B version he states that objection more fully here, though admittedly not with complete clarity. There would seem to be three possible referents for the image of the man with two staffs in B.17.39–43: Abraham’s assertion that God is multiple; Hope’s two-part law; and the fact that the two men are telling him different

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things. But since it is Hope’s turn to be attacked, and since Will’s climactic point is his refusal to love lorels, surely the second is what he has in mind. Still the image does seem to apply in a secondary way to the other two multiplicities. Will’s stance here is obstinately simplistic: he would like one opinion and one law, to love one God and no one else. In the C version the image of the man with two staffs is dropped, and Will’s simple creed, with its objection both to the Trinity and to the second commandment of love, is stated straightforwardly in lines 42–45. Schmidt’s assertion (1995, p. 475) that “Will’s problem is simply finding lighter ‘easier’ Faith’s message than the ‘Law’ of Hope” is inadequate. Schmidt ignores the fact that Will objects to both figures; misreads B.17.46, which only asserts that Abraham’s trinitarianism is “lighter” as a way of putting down Hope: “I’d believe in three persons, crazy as that would be, before I’d believe I have to love shrews,” Will says; ignores the criticism of Abraham in B.17.26–32; and treats B.17.33–34 as addressed to Hope instead of to Abraham. 37–38 That of no trinite ne telleth . . . on god almyhty (B.17.36–37 And telle∂ no√t of ∂e Trinite . . . o lord almyghty): This characterization seems unfair to Hope, who has certainly not denied the Trinity, just used the word deum. But Will is not out to be fair; he is annoyed, apparently, that Hope has said something different from Faith. He is in a mood to pick a fight, and any little thing will do. 38–41 To godhede but o god . . . as moche as ouresulue (B.17.37–38 To bileeue . . . alle peple): translates line 14 (B.17.13), adding 41 as ouresulue (B.17.38 as myself) from the bible text “as thyself” (Matt 22:39), but also adding the emphatic o and on, Will’s interpretation of deum as opposed to Abraham’s (though he may just be quoting Mark 12:29 or 32—Mark’s version of the “Which is the great commandment” story, in which the oneness of God is emphasized). The phrase for ∂at lordes sake 40 (not in B) is a traditional gloss on Matt 22:39 (see note to 17.140a, second paragraph, or do a proximity search of proximum and in Deo or propter Deum or secundum Deum); it appears again as “for his loue” 101. Chaucer’s Plowman helps others “for Cristes sake” (A537), and the Parson declares, “Thyn enemy shaltow love for Goddes sake” (I523). 44–47 Ac for to bileue . . . litel while hit vse (B.17.44–49 It is ful hard . . . litel while vsen it): In B, Will clearly says, “It’s hard to believe in the Trinity, but even harder to believe in loving shrews—though I’d rather believe the first than the second, so get lost, Hope.” C is confusing, since it makes clear neither

384

C Passus 19; B Passus 17

that the Trinity (line 44) is not Hope’s idea but Abraham’s, nor that loving shrews (line 45) is the more repugnant of the two ideas, and thus his telling Hope “Go thy gate!” comes a little out of the blue. It might have been better for the editors to put a question mark, or a least a dash (as Schmidt and Pearsall do), at the end of line 45 instead of a comma.

The Samaritan (48–336, B.17.50–356) 48–336 (B.17.50–356): The Samaritan. With the appearance of the Samaritan, a truly electric figure, the pulse of the verse quickens. We have seen Faith and Hope, and (though he is never called that) the Samaritan clearly is Charity, St Paul’s “greatest” of the three virtues, 1 Cor 13:13, fearing nothing (15.164a, B.13.163), suffering everything (17.5a), “sory when he seth men sory” (16.303), giving his pence though he can expect no return (16.314–15), “compenable in companye” (16.344, B.15.219), and so on. Of course Christ himself is Charity (e.g., see B.15.199–219a; Deus caritas [1 John 4:16], 1.82 [B.1.86, A.1.84]; the statement Charitas Christus est [or Christus charitas est] occurs over and over in Ambrose), and the Samaritan is on his way to ioust in Ierusalem (52; B.17.54 to a Iustes in Ierusalem), so that he is Christ, or a manifestation of Christ, as he is in the standard medieval interpretation of Luke’s story (Wailes 1987:210; Robertson and Huppe´ 1951: 206; St-Jacques 1969, Aers 2009, etc.); or search Samaritanus/Christus in PL online); Simpson, reading the B text only, says he “is, and is not Christ—he will only become Christ in the time of the poem, as it were” since at the moment he both acts like Christ and is “moving towards Jerusalem to witness Christ” (2007:174). That is a reasonable interpretation of B.17.54, that he is going to watch a joust; but C makes clear that he is going to joust. Still even in C it seems right to think of him as not yet quite fully Christ. One recalls that this is the section of the poem called the “Vita de Dobet”: the Samaritan is better to Christ’s best. At 20.8 (B.18.10) Christ is “semblable to 3e samaritaen.” (This identification is muted but still present in C; see notes below.) On riding to a tournament in disguise, see Waldron 1986: 67–68, Clifton 1993, Crane 1997, and 20.8–12 (B.18.10–14)n below. The Samaritan is also Piers, as 20.8 (B.18.10) makes clear; as Elizabeth AlKaaoud says, “the poet obviously wishes to indicate that the three characters are participating in a single identity” (1982:40). In any case, whether Christ or not-quite-Christ, the Samaritan saves the wounded man, and is kinder to Will, and instructs him more lucidly and authoritatively, than any other interlocutor in the poem. On the Samaritan’s haste and its basis in biblical commentary, see Hill 2002b: it heightens narrative tension, it is (following exegetical tradition)

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Christ’s haste to save us—he is “running the way” like the giant of Psalm 18:6; “we and Will should run on that way ourselves” (191). As St-Jacques 1969:221 points out, in Luke’s Gospel the story of the Good Samaritan (10:25–37) is placed in the context of the two great commandments, as it is in this passus. See the headnote to this passus. Since Will, like the lawyer, has shown no awareness of who his neighbor is, and no willingness to do other than justify himself, the story of the Good Samaritan is enacted for his benefit. His comic role continues; he can be thought of here as a kind of straight man for the Samaritan, as he is for Patience in passus 15 (B.13). 48–79 (B.17.50–82) And as we wenten . . . the rihte way to Ierusalem: Abraham, Moses, and the Samaritan act out the story of the Good Samaritan. What is an exemplary story in Luke’s Gospel becomes, in Will’s dream, history. It happens exactly as Luke tells it, except that Abraham plays the role of the priest, Moses that of the Levite. And Will has the role of the legisperitus, the listener: the story is told to teach him what it means to be a neighbor, i.e., how to love a shrew. It has the usual comic pattern: the Samaritan is an eiron who by his loving action trumps the alazons Abraham and Moses. Since it is not strictly a parable but an exemplum (as Joseph Fitzmyer insists in his Anchor commentary, 1985:883), it does not need interpreting. Nevertheless the Fathers couldn’t resist treating it as an allegory: the wounded man is Adam, priest and Levite are the Old Law, the Samaritan is Christ. Wailes 1987 counts it as a parable and lays out all the interpretations (209–14). L makes use of the standard identifications a little later, but it seems important to recognize that in this actual telling of the story he does not rely on those interpretations: the wounded man is a wounded man, the Samaritan is a Samaritan, etc. The closest he comes to allegory is substituting Abraham and Hope for the priest and Levite, but even with them it seems crucial to insist that what they primarily are is two self-important characters, whom we have come to know, who in a crucial moment fail to practice what they preach. It is only when the Samaritan starts talking about “lauacrum lex dei” and “3e bloed of a barn” that we are asked to rethink the events allegorically. Here what L does as poet is entirely different from what the commentators did: he tells the story over again as a piece of history in a dream. It is true that the Samaritan will eventually turn out to be Christ, saving fallen mankind, but in the telling he is Christ primarily because he knows how to love unconditionally, and not because of any necessary allegory. The Langland critics have followed suit—St-Jacques, Ben H. Smith, Vaughan, Aers, and many another—allegorizing away, and have struggled mightily to find a hint that anybody treated the priest and Levite as Abraham

386

C Passus 19; B Passus 17

and Moses (though St-Jacques’s demonstration that the Mass for the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, in which the Gospel reading is the Good Samaritan story and the epistle reading Gal 3:16–29, in which Paul speaks of both Abraham and the law, provides a valuable model, is convincing). Finally Hill found somebody (2002b:196–97), the Cistercian Gilbertus de Hoilandia or Gilbert of Hoyland (Hill erroneously writes Hollandia), who says that Abraham, Moses, and Aaron all passed by, all “dry in soul as in deed.” Hill rightly treats this not as a source but “an illuminating analogue.” (Three more authors who say that the Levite represents Moses [a descendant of Levi], and the priest Aaron are Hericus Antissiodorensis, Homilia in dominica XIV post Pentecosten, PL 95.1390; Arnobius Junior, Expositiunculae in Lucam, ed. Daur 1952:298; and John Chrysostom, quoted by Aquinas in the Catena aurea on Luke, ed. Nichols 1997:3.372–73.) A corrective to the allegorizing trend of the critics is offered by Crassons 2010:64–68 and Raschko 2012, who both focus on physical details of the scene and insist on the importance of both the allegorical and literal (or “moral,” Raschko’s term) levels. 49–51 (B.17.51–53) Thenne sey we . . . Ierico: He overtakes them from behind, easily, since he is riding and in a hurry and they are walking; earlier, Hope caught up to Abraham and Will by running. Abraham is oldest and slowest; Hope is in the middle; the Samaritan is youngest and fastest. Since Jesus told the story to exemplify love of neighbor, it is clear even on the literal level that the Samaritan represents charity. Charity thus “outstrips” or “excels” Faith and Hope, as St Paul says. In Luke, the victim, the priest, and the Levite are all going from Jerusalem to Jericho, but the Samaritan’s direction is not specified. Of the few commentators who give him a direction, most have him also going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, as a proximity search of in Jericho and Samaritan shows); Vaughan, Smith, and St-Jacques point this out, and praise L’s originality for sending him the other way. But see Origen, Sermons on Luke 34, as translated by Jerome, PL 26.293: “profectus est iste Samaritanus non de Jerusalem in Jericho, sicut sacerdos et Levita descendens: aut si descendit, idcirco descendit, ut salvaret custodiretque moriturum” (the Samaritan was not going from Jerusalem to Jericho, going down like the priest and the Levite—or if he went down, he went down precisely in order to save and protect the dying man). Not a very firm precedent, but a precedent. (Of course, what Origen is thinking of is what became the exegetical commonplace that the Samaritan’s journey is the journey of Christ from heaven to earth in a hurry to save man, explicated fully in Hill 2002b.) In any case, L felt free to choose the direction that suited him. Cf. Luke 9:51, of Jesus, “And it came to pass, when the days that he should be received up were accomplishing, that he

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steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem” and two verses later, “his face was of one going to Jerusalem” (the beginning of Luke’s central section, Jesus’s journey to Jerusalem, what is nowadays called the “travel narrative”). The mule (which later seems to become a horse) is a similar specification of Luke’s “iumentum,” beast of burden, and L continues to add details to Luke’s spare narrative as he goes. Cf. Sothnesse, who “priked forth on pacience [on his palfray BA] and passed hem alle”—Meed and her meynee—on the way to the court at Westminster (2.204; B.2.190, A.2.151). There too the best is also the fastest. 52 To ioust (B.17.54 To a Iustes): A tiny but significant revision, since in B he might be going just to watch, not take part. See 48–336 (B.17.50–356)n above. 52 (B.17.54) Iaced: Like ioust and Ierusalem, this word is pronounced with initial j; it is listed in Wittig and in Kane’s Glossary under j, not i. OED and MED both treat it as a spelling of “chaced,” apparently for alliteration; many B mss. have “chaced.” Kane cites Anglo-French jacer, to ride. The Anglo-Norman Dictionary gives just one citation, gives the meaning as “drive,” and says that it is probably a spelling of “chacer,” thus essentially agreeing with OED and MED. It is normally transitive. Here it probably means “drove, spurred,” with the mule/horse as understood object. 53 Bothe abraham and spes and he mette at ones (B.17.55 Bo∂e ∂e heraud and hope and he mette atones): Only generally true, since they will see the wounded man, and react, each in turn; the Samaritan may or may not see Faith and Hope run away; see the note to 81 (B.17.90) below. We may note that Will suddenly becomes only a spectator, not an actor, as the legisperitus in Luke is not in the story but hears it. He is given no chance to react to the wounded man, and he will not reappear until he engages the Samaritan in conversation after the incident is over. The C line has defective alliteration. RK-C 73 list the passage 19.52–55 as among those that indicate corruption in the reviser’s B copy. But it is hard not to think that L wrote hope, it was glossed spes, and then the gloss supplanted the text. 54–55 In a wide wildernesse . . . they brouhte (B.17.56 Where a man was wounded and wi∂ ∂eues taken): Adding (or rather, bringing forward from B.17.101) wildernesse (rather than the binding) would seem to be the purpose of this change, which transforms B’s crisp line into a rather slack couplet,

388

C Passus 19; B Passus 17

awkwardly enjambed—though C care 55, along with the further addition carefole 65, heightens the irony of Abraham’s failure, since he has boasted that he has “conforted many a carfol” 18.266 (B.16.248). Understand “whom” after “man” in line 55. 57 (B.17.58) semyuief: A neologism; see Luke 10:30, “semivivo relicto,” leaving him half dead. Aers 2009:88–101, though he treats the word, oddly, as the man’s name, rightly insists that this “haunting presence,” “utterly dependent,” is a central image in the poem of the will’s need for grace. But he also uses the image, rather too polemically, in these pages and again on 113 and 130, to sneer at those who find Langland’s theology “semi-Pelagian”; such critics—I am included, 206n—tend to “forget or sideline this figure,” that is, to ignore the role of grace in salvation. Aers may be right to consider the semi-Pelagian idea that “facientibus quod in se est Deus non denegat gratiam” (To those who do what lies within them, God does not deny his grace) fatuous, but most of us who find the label “semi-Pelagian” attractive are thinking more generally of the dual emphasis in the poem on both grace and free will. Aers unfairly treats semi-Pelagianism as if it were Pelagianism: the point of calling the poem “semi-Pelagian” is precisely to acknowledge that Langland falls between extremes: he expects us to do well, but he has a keen sense also of how much we need God’s grace. One sees the same semi-Pelagianism, really, in the gospels and Paul’s epistles, which insist on our need for God and tell the story of the redemption, but in all of Jesus’s and Paul’s moral teachings—not to mention James 2—assume that it is up to us to choose to do what is right. The parable of the talents is the pre-eminent example from the gospels. Likewise the great majority of Christians, now and in the past, acknowledge their need for grace but think from moment to moment that if they hope to be saved they had better be good. When Aers goes on to point out that “Augustine himself continually calls on his congregation to practice good works” (94), and insists on “double agency” (ours and God’s), which Aers defines with great eloquence on pp. 95–99, he in effect makes clear that both he himself and Augustine are semi-Pelagian in this everyday sense. For a persuasive attempt to get beyond this matter by focusing on “the theology of participation,” see Gruenler 2017, especially the introduction and chapters 1 and 6. 58 (B.17.59) as naked as an nedle: Not explicitly in Luke’s account, though “despoliaverunt eum,” who . . . stripped him (verse 30) can imply it. The simile is proverbial: Whiting N64. Hill 2002b:193–94 finds the detail of nakedness in Ambrose and Jerome, who both take it to mean, in the allegory, “deprived of grace.” But L is not allegorizing yet, and the phrase is best taken

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for now simply as a vivid particularizing of the extent of the robbers’ plundering. 59–64 Fayth hadde furst siht of hym . . . durste go no nerre (B.17.60–65 Fei∂ hadde first si√te of hym . . . faucon): Though both Faith and Hope here belie their boasts about saving people, Hope perhaps comes off worse since his law includes love of neighbor; like many a friar and bad parish priest, he doesn’t practice what he preaches. Indeed, he is quite like the friar-doctor in Passus 15 (B.13), who also says to love God and neighbor but then doesn’t love Patience. The strong comedy of B.17.65, with its duck and falcon, is muted in C.19.64, though the equally comic nyne londes leng∂e of B.17.61 is retained at C.19.60. Fitzmyer (in the Anchor Luke) and others, including Schmidt, point out that in Jesus’s story, the priest and Levite stay away, not perhaps because they have no compassion, but because they suppose that the man is dead, and they would be defiled if they touched him. But, as Fitzmyer points out and Schmidt implies, the Samaritan too would have been subject to a similar taboo. He sees the overriding importance of the law of love where the priest and Levite do not. Maybe, though, they stay away just so as not to get involved—as you or I might. 60 neyhele (B.17.61 neghen): The word, along with nerre 64 (which replaces the duck and falcon image), accentuates Faith’s refusal to be a neighbor (Latin proximus). A lond is a strip of plowed field between water-furrows, of a certain locally defined length or breadth; OED s.v. land, n.1 7. 61 cam huppynge (B.17.62 cam hippynge): He came skipping, like the irresponsible bishops who hop about England, 17.279 (B.15.529), or those who hop over parts of texts (17.118 [B.15.386; B.13.68]). L consistently uses the verb pejoratively; here it expresses the empty buoyancy of Hope’s hopefulness—until he sees the wounded man. 66, 78, 335 (B.17.67, 74, 81, 355) lyard; 72 bayard: Both words alliterate. They are color-words of French origin, the first meaning “gray,” the second “bay,” applied in both French and English almost exclusively to horses, which became names for horses of the respective colors; for actual instances, see Redmonds 2004:139–41. “Bayard” is the name of the magical horse given by Charlemagne to Renaud de Montaubon, as Sancho Panza knows (Don Quixote 2.40). Bayard is always apparently a horse in L’s various other uses of it (see Concordance) and in CYT G1413 and Troilus 1.218, and certainly a horse in Reeve’s Tale A4115. Since mules are usually brown or bay-brown, lyard (which L uses only in this

390

C Passus 19; B Passus 17

passus) seems not to be a good name for a mule, and bayard (despite the color) is surely a horse’s name, so that it is hard not to conclude that the mule has become a horse, of no particular color. In B.17.110 it is certainly a horse, given lines 105–8 and the term Capul, from Latin caballus (the whole passage is canceled in C). Another certain thing is that neither a horse nor a mule is an ass, so that trying to press the association of the Samaritan with Christ because Christ rides an ass into Jerusalem at 20.9 (B.18.11), as in the gospels, as Coghill 1933:349 and AlKaaoud do, has no validity. AlKaaoud actually claims that the “image of the humble donkey, caro or flesh, is the means by which the poet unmistakably secures the identification” (1982:41). 66 (B.17.67) hym: I.e., Lyard. 67 (B.17.68) wey: man. As Will has to see, the Samaritan does not try to determine whether the wounded man is “lorel or lele,” but sees he needs help and offers it. Crassons 2010:65 and Raschko 2012:63 rightly stress what the former calls his “nonscrupulous empathy.” 69 (B.17.70) recouerer: Remedy, help. 71 (B.17.72) With wyn and with oyle: Since wine purges and oil soothes, commentators regularly saw these medications as standing for the mixture of severity and gentleness that priests should exercise in their pastoral work; see., e.g., Gregory, Pastoral Care, 2.6 (PL 77.37); see Wailes 1987: 212, 213. The Samaritan is thus not just a lover but a model confessor, unlike those at the end of the poem who give, as it were, all wine or all oil. 72 on bayard hym sette (B.17.73 in his barm hym leide): C is closer to Luke’s “inponens illum in iumentum suum,” but it is the same action, really, since in C where he sets him must be right in front of himself, with his arms around him as he holds the reins, i.e., in his lap. Hill 2002b:194–96 makes more of the change of wording than seems warranted. Ladde hym forth (ladde hym so for∂ B) in the next line means “conveyed him away” or “escorted him away”; see OED, s.v. lead, v. 1b and Kane, Glossary, meaning 3; B’s so means “in that way,” i.e., in his lap. 73 lauacrum lex dei (B.17.74 lex Christi): Cf. the “lauendrie” 16.333 (B.15.187) in which Charity washes the clothing of pride worn by youth. A lavacrum, however, is usually a bathtub or basin, in which people, not clothing, are washed. See Eph 5:26: Christ delivered himself up for the Church, “that he

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might sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of water in the word of life” (mundans lavacro aquae in verbo vitae). This is the moment at which the story starts to be turned into an allegory. It is the “lavacrum regenerationis et renovationis Spiritus Sancti” by which, St Paul says, God saved us through Jesus Christ from our former wickedness (Titus 3.3–7). Thus the lauacrum lex dei is the redemptive act of Christ, which in the literal level of the poem hasn’t happened yet, and which can be called the law of God because it put the seal on the law, as in the opening lines of the passus. Both Pauline passages were interpreted as referring to baptism and the baptismal font, and on the moral level the lauacrum lex dei is baptism, the font of regeneration; see OED, s.v. lavacre; also laver, n.2, 2. The process of curing the wounded man will be described graphically by the Samaritan in lines 83–95 (B.17.93–100). Since the grange six or seven miles away from the market town (and thus serene) is clearly a place of regeneration and renovation, the addition of the term lauacrum in C does not so much change B as bring to the surface what was implicitly there (as ba∂ed and baptised B.17.97 suggest). But the change from Christi to dei seems arbitrary, and blunts the point a little bit. (In support of B’s lex Christi, Schmidt cites Gal 6:2, “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so you shall fulfill the law of Christ [legem Christi].” An apt citation: the grange takes on the burden of the man’s injuries.) 73 (B.17.74) grange: The word can mean a granary, a rural farm, often one associated with a monastery (as in ShipT B266), or a small village, a group of such farms. It must mean a village here, since it has an inn (hostrie, B.17.76; cf. the hostiler C.19.76). See MED, s.v. graunge (d). 74 (B.17.75) bisyde: Outside of, away from (OED, s.v. beside, 4). B.17.77 Haue, kepe ∂is man: Put this man up and take care of him. 76 (B.17.79) two pans: “Duos denarios,” Luke 10:35. 80–81 Bothe fayth . . . the samaritaen (B.17.83–90 Fei∂ . . . I ∂anked hym ∂o): In B the gentle comedy continues: Faith and Hope, perhaps guessing that the Samaritan may be the man they seek, try to catch him and speak to him, but apparently fail, whereas Will (being surely younger than Faith and probably younger than Hope, and no doubt longer-legged than both) does catch up to him—amazingly enough, since he hasn’t a horse, just runs—and is thick with him in no time at all: his man, but really (in the Samaritan’s affable view) his friend. C simply says, “Faith and Hope followed close behind (faste aftur)

392

C Passus 19; B Passus 17

but I became the Samaritan’s companion.” This not only finesses the question of how Will catches up, but seems like a better conception of how Faith and Hope might act: they silently fall in behind, as if ashamed of their smallheartedness and fear. (In both versions sewede is apparently contrasted to “folowede aftur,” and seems to mean both “pursued [and caught up with]” and “followed as a companion” [OED, s.v. sue v., 3a, 4a].) Faith and Hope play no further role in the vision (other than being talked about by Will and the Samaritan, and, in B, assigned posts in the redeemed forest; see B.17.115–24n), but presumably keep tagging along behind, since Faith is at Will’s side in Jerusalem at the beginning of the next vision (20.16; B.18.18). B.17.88 graunted hym to ben: I.e., told him I would love to be. Graunt mercy . . . /Ac . . . at nede: “Thanks, but I prefer to be your friend.” The Samaritan continues to exemplify neighborliness: he will be Will’s neighbor, not his boss. It is here that it dawns on us that Will has not had a part in the scene with the wounded man. 81 saide (B.17.90 tolde): These verbs may seem to suggest that the Samaritan did not see how Faith and Hope behaved. That would be consistent with the Gospel account, in which the three come upon the wounded man one by one. But here in the poem the Samaritan has overtaken the others from behind, and they met “at ones” (53, B.17.55) in the wilderness before seeing the man. Though they then come up to him in order, it is hard not to picture the Samaritan as so close behind them as to see what they do. Thus these verbs have to mean “mentioned, brought up” and not “told him.” 83–95 Haue hem excused . . . lechen at ∂e laste vs alle (B.17.93–126 Haue hem excused . . . folwen his felawes techynge): Up till now, except for lauacrum lex dei/lex Christi, it has been possible to read the story of the wounded man literally, but now allegory is unavoidable, since wounds that can only be healed sacramentally must be spiritual wounds. One realizes, then, that the wounded man is mankind, or the human will, his nakedness the loss of grace (see above, 58n), the thieves devils, the wounds sin, the Samaritan Christ or an agent of Christ. And Faith and Hope are not men but virtues, insufficient without love to combat sin and the devil. Or as men they stand for the Jews in need of a Messiah. The economical C version straightforwardly corroborates what the image of the seal of the cross at the beginning of the passus implies: Faith and Hope

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cannot “save” by themselves; the redemptive bloodshed of the cross is necessary, and for Will and his contemporaries it must be applied through the health-giving sacraments, Baptism, Penance, and Holy Eucharist; further, one needs to leue lelly in Christ, and practice the virtue of patience, to resist temptation. Lines 83–95 contain three significant additions to B.17.93–104, all apparently aimed at clarifying the larger course of the poem: he beth nat ysaued 86, where L, as so often, breaks a crisp B line (17.96) into two, here to introduce the term “saved” that is so crucial to the presentation of Faith and Hope; line 91, replacing B.17.98, in recognition of the emphasis placed on patience in passu¯s 15–17 (B.13–15) (penaunce B.17.98 is now gone, but presumably pacience includes it); and lines 94–95, which recall the definition of the Church in terms of “lele byleue” in 17.125–49, that passage of great importance added in C. But the largest change is the omission of B.17.105–26, in which the Samaritan identifies the injured man’s assailant as the devil, ever on the lookout for an easy mark, and his own mount as caro, flesh, taken from mankind, all but revealing himself as the hero Christ, predicting victory in the forthcoming joust, a happy old age for Faith and Hope tending woods and grange, and his own second coming, and announcing finally that the birth of Christ has already taken place. This gives a satisfying resolution to the stories of Faith and Hope, and makes very clear the identification of the Samaritan with Christ; but L was perhaps troubled by the confusion involved in having Christ refer to the “barn” in the third person, and not ready to make as much of the allegory as B.7.115–24 would require (or simply realizing how confusing it is; see note ad loc. below), and so dropped the entire passage. 84 no medicyne vnder molde (B.15.94 [vnder mone]): The phrase “no medicine,” with its appositives in the next line, No∂er faith ne fyn hope, suggests that the Samaritan speaks, not of the two men who ran away, but of the virtues they stand for; fyn hope (see next note) in particular would be used a little oddly of Moses. At B.17.103, however, he treats them as persons once again. As for vnder molde, cf. Ecclus 38:4, “Altissimus creavit de terra medicinam” (The Most High hath created medicines out of the earth). KD-B defend their emendation vnder mone, “sublunary,” on pp. 111–12, but it is unnecessary—and a lectio facilior, surely. 85 (B.17.95) fyn: utter, complete, perfect, the most common meaning of OF fin. See OED, s.v. fine, adj. I.3, MED , s.v. fin, adj., 6. Cf. “fyn loue,” the nearly universal ms. reading of 19.179 below.

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C Passus 19; B Passus 17

86–95 Withoute ∂e bloed of a barn . . . lechen at ∂e laste vs alle (B.17.96–100 Wi∂outen ∂e blood of a barn . . . and his blood ydronke): The statement is simple enough: the real medicine for sinful mankind is, first, the sacrificial death of Christ, then the sacraments of Baptism, Penance, and Eucharist, and finally love for Christ. But the insistent treatment of Christ as a baby gives the passage an electric, metaphorical character. It is extremely daring in view of the fact that the earliest Christians were accused of killing babies and drinking their blood (e.g., Tertullian, Apologeticus 2 and 7 [PL 1.272, 306–7], Minucius Felix, Octavius 9 [PL 3.262]; see McGowan 1994). By telescoping Christ’s birth and his sacrificial death, it emphasizes that the whole meaning of the Nativity is the Crucifixion, that Christ was born in order to die. It exploits the paradox of innocence that is power. It takes literally the image in 18.135 (cf. B.16.101–2) of Jesus “bold in his barnhoed,” picturing him now as immediately ripe, his birth and his plenitudo temporis simultaneous. See above, 18.133–36 (B.16.100– 3)n. It is prophecy, and as such draws on two familiar prophecies of a miraculous birth, Virgil’s Fourth Eclogue and Isaiah 11. And bloed of a barn can after all be taken literally as referring to the circumcision, as Schmidt 2006:304 takes it. Jesus’s circumcision was regularly treated as a foreshadowing of the crucifixion, as for example by Peter of Blois, Sermon 7, On the Day of the Circumcision: “Multipliciter sanguinem suum fudit et in infantia et in senectute pro nobis. . . . Et sicut pro nobis voluit circumcidi, sic pro nobis decrevit flagellari, crucifigi, et mori” (PL 207.584; He shed his blood for us more than once, both in infancy and in age. . . . And just as he wanted to be circumcised for us, so for us he resolved to be scourged and crucified and die). Abraham has just treated circumcision as a sacrifice of blood: he and his household “bledden bloed for 3at lordes loue” 18.253 (B.16.237). 88 with the bloed . . . ybaptised: Understand “he” from 86 and “mote nedes” from 87: “and he must be embalmed and baptized with the blood of that child.” In B, Wi∂outen 96 means “except” and And 97 means “if,” as RK-C 85 say in a discussion of C 86–88, which they regard as evidence of incomplete revision. Stande and steppe (89): see 56 (B.17.57) above. Til he haue eten al ∂e barn and his bloed dronken . . . his lycame shal lechen: John 6:54: “Except you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you.” A certain culmination of all the insistence throughout the poem on the need for spiritual food: it is the Eucharist, for instance, that will satisfy Will’s hunger for the fruit in 18.102–3 (B.16.73–74); see Tavormina 1995:117–18. And √ut be plasterud with pacience when fondynges priketh hym (91): And (confess and be absolved and) undergo healing through suffering (i.e., penance) when temptations prick him (and he succumbs). For the plaster metaphor, see 22 (B.20).310–14, 359–63; plaster was not, as now, the

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bandage, but an emollient applied to the bandage, or directly to the sore; see the definition and citations in both MED and OED. The assumption is that everyone sins; Sepcies in die cadit iustus, 10.21 (B.8.20, A.9.16); see also 15.135, Nemo bonus (B.10.447); 13.212 Nemo sine crimine viuit (B.11.404). The pardon is implicit: those who do ill but repent will enter eternal life; see Lawler 2000. And √ut bote they leue lelly . . . alle (94–95) picks up the Samaritan’s sentence from before his parenthetical remark in 92–93, adding a third condition for being strong. The whole sentence says, “he will never be strong till he has 1) received the eucharist, 2) been absolved and done penance, and 3) believed truly that by sacrificing his body Christ has saved us all.” Oddly, B says, “He will stand and step if he is baptized and absolved, but he won’t be really strong until he receives the Eucharist”; then C says, “He will stand and step when he is baptized, but he won’t be really strong until he has received the Eucharist and is absolved when he sins.” The difference is slight: in C either L was attending to the NT order, in which the Eucharist is established at the Last Supper, but the power to forgive is only given to the disciples after the resurrection (John 20:22–23); or, more likely, he wanted to separate baptism, which happens once, from the other two sacraments, which are received again and again. In B he is perhaps thinking primarily of the wounded man, in C of contemporary Christians. 92 this . . . here (Cf. B.17.101–2 ∂at . . . ∂ere): In both versions, the spot where the man was attacked has been left behind: the Samaritan has brought him to the inn at the grange (72–77; B.17.74–80), then traveled some distance on the way to Jerusalem before Will caught him (78–82; B.17.81–88). Clearly they have left the wilderness behind them, so B’s demonstratives seem more accurate— and yet C’s are emotionally right: it feels like they are still there. The calm clarity of the Samaritan’s answers will, however, remove that feeling, and in fact after this point in C we are given no further sense of place. (B has one more, and an inconsistent one: at 115, they are still “here . . . in 3is Fryth.”) 93 Saue mysulue soethly and such as y louede (B.17.103–4 Saue fei∂ and myselue and Spes his felawe,/And ∂iself now and swiche as suwen oure werkes): In B the Samaritan lists our three wayfarers as prelude to his very full account of how Faith and Hope escaped being robbed by the devil. In C, since the entire business of the devil is canceled, the listing goes too, and L leaves it to dawn on his reader, and his protagonist, that the three have avoided being robbed because the Samaritan loved them. Suche as y louede is thus a brilliant improvement on the nearly opaque swiche as suwen oure werkes—though I

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think Raschko 2012:64 is right to associate B’s phrase with Jesus’s final injunction to the lawyer, “Go, and do thou in like manner” (Luke 10:37). What precisely is the force of now B.17.104? It is unlikely to mean, “Apparently I saved you, too, since you are with me now.” It must rather refer to Will in his contemporary life, and be a blatant, not to say clumsy, extension of the allegory of salvation: “and I, Christ, keep you and all faithful Christians safe from the devil’s rifling now, in the contemporary world.” There is extension into the contemporary world in C as well, a somewhat defter one, in the reference to the sacraments (90–91) and the continuing responsibility for vs alle to believe lelly in the efficacy of the Eucharist (94–95). B.17.105–26 For an Outlawe . . . techynge: B spins out a little romance plot, of a forest under the spell of a lawless figure, at once powerful and cowardly, a kind of bully, or even a troll, lurking under a bank; his defeat by the knight Christ releases the spell, restoring tranquility to the forest and making it a place where love can flourish, and foresters and innkeepers do their jobs freely. Here the literal reading of the Samaritan story is overtaken completely by the standard patristic allegory, in which the traveler is mankind, the thieves the devil, the Samaritan Christ, God made flesh, and the Samaritan’s promised return is the resurrection. There is a little inconsistency between the phrase rood he ∂ere or yede 102 and the harlot’s hiding from the Samaritan simply because he is mounted. Presumably, though, there are horses and horses, riders and riders, and the Samaritan on Caro is daunting indeed (though surely not the “knight” that Schmidt calls him, anticipating the imagery of the next passus). The passage seems to combine “rymes of robyn hode” (7.11, B.5.395) with various biblical remarks about the devil: 1 Pet 5:8, “Your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion goeth about seeking whom he may devour”; 2 Cor 2:11, “That we be not overreached by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his devices”; John 10:10, “The thief cometh not but for to steal and to kill and to destroy. I am come that they may have life and may have it more abundantly”; Eph 6:11, “Put you on the armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil”; Job 2:2, Satan tells God, “I have gone round about the earth and walked through it”; 2 Tim 2:26, “the snares of the devil.” Scattergood 2010 discusses L’s several outlaw-on-the-road passages— 4.50–54, 13.52–64, B.14.304–9, B.19.246–47, besides this one, which he treats briefly on pp. 196–97; perhaps add 7.261–64 (B.5.609–12, A.6.95–98)—in relation to actual ballads and romances, and finds L’s “static, moral, socially responsible paradigm” less subtle than the “paradigms of change and movement” in the stories (210–11).

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B.17.108 For he halt hym hardier on horse ∂an he ∂at is on foote: This must mean that the devil considers a man on a horse hardier than a man on foot. Strictly, the second he should be “hym,” but the nominative is used by anticipation of the relative clause, as is still commonly true in spoken English. B.17.110 caro: defined at A.10.39 (B.9.51) as “man with his soule”; for caro (flesh) as a synecdoche for “man” see Hill 2001:214–16. Wailes 1987:212 cites Augustine as the first commentator who identifies the Samaritan’s mount as “Christ’s flesh ‘in which he deigned to come to us.’ ” See also St-Jacques 1969:222. B.17.113 That he wor∂ fettred . . . wi∂ Cheynes: this prediction is fulfilled at 20.446 (B.18.403). Even as he makes this knowing prediction, the Samaritan continues to keep a little camouflage on his identity as Christ by resorting to the passive voice, saying “he will be fettered” rather than “I will fetter.” But the Latin ero gives him away two lines later. B.17.114a O mors ero mors tua &c: Cf. Hosea 13:14, “Ero mors tua, o mors,” frequently cited, and used liturgically, in the form given here and at 20.34a (B.18.35a). See Barney’s note to that line, St-Jacques 1969:223, and Alford, Quot. B.17.115–24 And ∂anne shal Fei∂ . . . crie∂ ∂erafter: An astonishing passage, probably influenced by Isaiah 35:1–10, that L was finally wise to drop. Doomsayer though he may be, he also likes to imagine millennial peace. The secure calm described here that will fall on ∂is Fryth after its nemesis is fettered, a sweet and happy time, has counterparts in the reign ironically imagined by Reason to the King near the end of passus 4, or the briefer ones imagined by Liberum arbitrium (17.233–51) and Anima (B.15.417–28) if the clergy reforms itself; perhaps also in Liberum arbitrium’s ecstatic vision of the Church as a love-knot of Christians at 17.125–29. The only danger for travelers will be either their own ignorance of the country, which Faith will relieve, or faintness of heart, which Hope will heal with love and the teachings of the Church until the Samaritan returns with a salve that will complete the job. And it is a mark of the Samaritan’s capacious heart that he treats Faith and Hope with far more compassion, and understanding of their failure, than the priest and Levite are treated in the original parable, as Kirk 1994:26 points out. Problems abound, however. Why will faith be enough for some to reach the New Jerusalem, while others will require hope, the law of love, and the belief of the Church—and still not be fully healed until the salve comes? Has not everything in the poem implied that everyone needs faith, hope, love, and

398

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the Church—and forgiveness as well? And what is holy churche bileue but faith in Christ? Don’t the lines seem to say that when Faith fails them, Hope will heal them with faith? And if the devil is fettered and the place is so safe, what makes for the feebleness and faintness, and why are sick people crying after salve? The sweet peace seems to have been a mirage. What is clear despite these confusions is that we have here a compressed version of the history of the Church, showing the way in the wilderness of this world to the ignorant and the weak and those in need of hospitality and healing—that is, everybody—to the New Jerusalem, and awaiting the second coming. By its final line the passage has morphed into a tiny version of the last scene of the poem: the grange is another Barn of Unity, full of sinners needing salve. Indeed, the entire last two passu¯s can be thought of as expanding on these lines. If we readers are heartened here to think that the bringer of salve is the Samaritan, not a flattering friar, we may also be reminded, in the final image of crying, of Conscience crying after grace in the last line. Probably, though, it is precisely the existence of those passu¯s, rather than the unclarity (which was surely reparable), that prompted L when writing the C version to cancel this rich and suggestive passage, with its charming representation of the Church via the romance motif of a healing hermitage in the woods (see, e.g., Malory, Works, ed. Vinaver, 12.3, 18.22; Parzival’s transformative two-week stay with the hermit Trevrizent in Wolfram’s Parzival; Spenser’s House of Holiness). Though there is some gain (see 83–95n above), one unfortunate byproduct of the revision is that whereas in B, Faith and Hope have a role in the happy ending, in C they simply disappear from the narrative (though Faith will come back), their role in the redemptive process unresolved. Perhaps the scene is best read as a happy version of the final scene: sin is acknowledged, in the faintness and sickness, the craving and the crying, but Christ will come again (B.17.123), will appear after the resurrection to the fearful, downhearted disciples—I agree with Schmidt that this is the coming meant—and give them the salve: “Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them” (John 20:22–23). It all seems a little fatuous, though, and it is a relief not to have it in the final version. B.17.118 ∂er an helyng ∂e man lith: i.e., in the “hostrie,” B.17.76, where the wounded man was brought by the Samaritan to be healed—now about to be equated with the Church, an equation that Wailes 1987 shows is regularly made in the commentary tradition, and that St-Jacques 1969:228 shows is made in the liturgy and in sermons, citing this apt remark from a sermon manual: “Stabulum est Ecclesia praesens, ubi sperando reficiuntur viatores” (The inn

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is the Church of the present, where travelers are refreshed by hoping). See 73n above. B.17.120 for∂: I.e., to the grange Lex Christi. as his lettre telle∂: I.e., Hope’s “maundement,” Dilige Deum et proximum tuum, 14 (B.17.13); he has called it “my lettre” at B.17.9. B.17.122 Til I haue salue for alle sike: What exactly is the salue? In the final passus, in Actyf’s “pott with 3e salue” (15.224, B.13.254) (perhaps; see note there), and in plastred wi∂ penaunce at B.17.98 above, it is forgiveness of sin, and so perhaps here it is the sacrament of Penance; but more largely it is redemption itself, ∂e bloed of a barn (86, B.17.96), and from the point of view of human beings in need of salvation, it is baptism, penance, and Eucharist together—not to mention faith—as 88–95 say (and B.17.97–100 say a little more clearly, though they don’t mention faith). B.17.125 ∂e barn was born in Bethleem: Omitting this line in C keeps everything in the realm of possibility, of anticipation, only. That has been accentuated by changing B.17.96, “Wi3outen 3e blood of a barn born of a mayde” to 19.86–87, “Withoute 3e bloed of a barn he beth nat ysaued,/The whiche barn mote nedes be born of a mayde.” B.17.126 his felawes: I.e., Hope’s. Here everybody comes under Hope’s care, not just the faint and feeble—one last confusion. But the line is a final emphatic assertion in the B version that not just faith and hope but the teachings of Abraham and Moses are at the center of Christian belief and practice. “The Charity he (i.e., Christ) embodies fulfils what Faith believes and Hope expects” (Schmidt 2006:305). Since all reference to the Church is gone in C, that idea is not really present there, even though the Samaritan is about to tell Will to believe what Faith and Hope told him.

Will asks the Samaritan about Faith and Hope’s teachings (96–107, B.17.127–33) 96 shal nat we bileue: i.e., are we really to believe? Cf. B.17.127. 97 (B.17.128) As faith and his felawe spes enfourmede me bothe: That is, as each separately informed me. Lines 98–99 (B.17.129–30) give Abraham’s information, and identify it as his in 99a (130a); and lines 100–7 (B.17.131–33)

400

C Passus 19; B Passus 17

give (and embroider in C) Hope’s information, again identifying it (in 100, B.17.131). The disparaging tone that Will applied to these beliefs in his speech to Faith and Hope (27–47, B.17.26–49) has disappeared in the magnetic presence of the Samaritan. Will seems now more than half ready to believe, and so listens docilely when the Samaritan’s answer, put more succinctly in B than in C, turns out to be “Yes, both.” 98 (cf. B.17.129) a parceles departable fram o∂ere: Divisible into parts. As Schmidt points out, line 98 “virtually repeats 30, but in the form of B 27 (whereas B 127 revises the b-verse of 27), accentuating the effect of his speech as a ‘lesson learnt.’ ” 100–7 And hope afturward . . . euel wolden (B.17.131–33 And Hope afterward . . . oure lord abouen alle): Once again, as at 39–41 (B.17.37–38), Will refers presciently to the gospel texts rather than to the “two wordes” on Hope’s piece of hard rock. In B it is just Matthew 22:37–39, but in the C extension it is the Sermon on the Mount, esp. Matt 7:1–5 (for 103–5) and 6:38–39, 44 (for 105–7). See above, notes to 14, 17 (B.17.13, 16); 36–47 (B.17.35–49); 39–41 (B.17.37–38). 101 for his loue, 102 as mysulue (B.17.133 lik myselue): See above, 38–41n. 103–7 No∂er lacke ne alose . . . wolden: Will elaborates on “Love your neighbor” with various precepts from the Sermon on the Mount. Lines 103–5, No∂er lacke ne alose . . . persones are based on Matt 7:1–5 (“judge not”); lines 105–7 on 5:39–44 “Turn . . . the other [cheek] . . . Love your enemies”). Cf. also Luke’s “Sermon on the Plain,” 6:37, 27–35. B.17.131–33 is more disciplined, hewing more closely to “Dilige deum et proximum.”

The Samaritan’s reply: the Trinity and love (108–335; B.17.134–355) 108–335 A saide soeth . . . Y may no lengore lette (B.17.134–355 After Abraham . . . I may no lenger lette): A surprising thing happens here: the relatively fast-paced narrative that has been going on ever since the start of passus 18 (B.16), in particular the lively narrative of Will’s meetings with Faith and Hope and the Samaritan, now suddenly grinds to a halt and is replaced by a sermon—and of all things by what L hates most (11.34–39 [B.10.54–58, A.11.40– 44]; B.15.71–73), a sermon on the Trinity. But it’s a good sermon, and the best account of the Trinity in the poem.

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The structure of the Samaritan’s answer seems very clear in the B version: a sentence (134–39) in which he says “Believe as Abraham taught you and love as Hope taught you”; then the hand simile (140–205), which elaborates on the first part, to illustrate the Trinity; then finally the candle simile (206–354), which illustrates how the Trinity implies the need to love one’s neighbor because the Holy Ghost is love. The division, however, is not absolute, since the sin against the Holy Ghost, which is later identified as unkindness, is already an issue in the hand simile, and in fact everything said there about the palm, that is, the Holy Ghost, is about the power of love. In short, the Samaritan is answering both parts of Will’s question from the start; both similes treat the Trinity and love together. It may be for that reason that the neat division into two parts of the first sentence in B is obscured in C’s two sentences (108–10). The division is still there, actually, but reduced to the single phrase louye and bileue 110: believe as Abraham taught you and love as Hope taught you—a better introduction, finally, to the integrated exposition of Trinity-aslove that is the real mark of the Samaritan’s answer. God is three, and himself an instance of love of others; he is driven by the Holy Ghost, the force of love. God is fist, fingers, and palm, and the palm is the spirit of love, the spirit that makes for kindness; God is wax, wick, and flame, and the flame is the spirit of love, the spirit that makes for kindness. In short, believe in and love the Trinity, and love shrews and lorels: if you do one, you will do the other. Biggs: “The metaphor . . . is to show Will that love is essential to the working of the Trinity just as love is essential in human affairs” (1991:25); see also Raabe 1990:48. The triadic form (introduction, hand simile, candle simile; or, ignoring the very brief introduction; hand simile, candle simile, discussion of unkindness) may suggest the “modern” or “university-style” sermon, especially since the two sets of three terms (fist, palm, fingers; wax, wick, flame) function like the three-word theme advocated by Robert of Basevorn (ed. Charland 1936:249). See Sarah Wood’s YLS article (2007:35) or chapter 3 of her book (2012:74); she quotes Basevorn aptly, but unfortunately repeats Leopold Krul’s mistranslation “not more than three statements” of Basevorn’s “non . . . plures dictiones quam tres,” not more than three words. Krul’s translation is in Murphy 1971; see my review Lawler 1973:391. The passage has no known precedent. Clopper 1979:90 suggested that the hand simile “may have derived ultimately” from Isaiah 40:12: “Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and weighed the heavens with his palm? Who hath poised with three fingers the bulk of the earth and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance?” Galloway 1998:138 says, “perhaps it elaborates a preexisting conflation of scriptural texts,” citing

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C Passus 19; B Passus 17

a sermon of Jacobus of Voragine that links the hand of Daniel 5:5 to the Isaiah passage. Both are right, I think, although surely the broadest source is all the places in the bible that speak of the hand or fingers or arm of God, usually as the instruments of creation, and usually tied in patristic discussion of them to the Trinity. Particularly important are the Psalms: Psalm 8:4, “I will behold thy heavens, the works of thy fingers”; Psalm 94:5, “His hands formed the dry land”; Psalm 101:26, “The heavens are the works of thy hands”; “Psalm 118:73, “Thy hands have made me and formed me”; Isaiah 53:1, John 12:38, “To whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?” For a discussion in Trinitarian terms of most of these passages, see Augustine, Enarrationes in psalmos, PL 37.1551 (on Ps. 118:73); he insists not only that God doesn’t actually have hands but that all three persons work together in creation. Discussions of God’s finger usually associate it with the Holy Spirit because of Luke 11:20, where Jesus speaks of casting out devils by the finger of God, and the companion verse, Matt 12:28, where he speaks of casting them out by the Spirit of God, but also regularly insist that all three persons are together responsible for creation—though I do not find the Son called a finger (pace Bartholomaeus, whom Pearsall cites), except where he and the Spirit are both said to be fingers. Jerome offers a key formulation: “Si igitur manus et brachium Dei, Filius est; et digitus ejus Spiritus sanctus, Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus sancti una substantia est: non te scandalizet membrorum inaequalitas, cum aedificet unitas corporis” (PL 26.80: If the Son is the hand and arm of God, and the Holy Spirit is his finger, there is one substance of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Don’t let the uneven size of the members mislead you; rather, be edified by the unity of the body). This formulation is often repeated—by Bede, Rabanus, and many others, as a search of the PL online will reveal. By far the nearest thing to Langland is Ambrose, De spiritu sancto, especially Book 3, chapters 3 and 5 (to which my attention was brought long ago by Michael Kuczynski in an unpublished paper). After discussing the Son as the hand of God and the Holy Spirit as the finger of God, Ambrose asks this question: “What, then, could have been said to signify more expressly the unity of the Godhead, or of Its working . . . than that we should understand that the fulness of the eternal Godhead would seem to be divided far more than this body of ours, if any one were to sever the unity of Substance, and multiply Its powers, whereas the eternity of the same Godhead is one?” (3.3, trans. De Romestin, De Romestin, and Duckworth 1896:137; cf. PL 16.779). That is—and this is Jerome’s point too, in his last sentence—what better metaphor for the godhead than figuring it as a hand and fingers? The metaphor

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makes clear how inseparable the persons are from each other, how they cannot be divided, how nothing can sever the unity of substance. L has the same aim, just takes the metaphor farther and analyzes its parts differently. Hugh of Amiens, in his Tractatus de memoria, is also close, though not quite as close as Ambrose. Despite the incarnation, “Nec tamen Trinitas quae Deus est ut multa, ut convulsa cogitatur, sed simplex, sed immota fideliter adoratur, palmo concludens omnia, tribus digitis portans universa. Attende quia in palmo deitatis unitas, in tribus digitis pensatur Trinitas. Palmo et digitis constat manus una. In Trinitate quae Deus est, Filius Dei Patris Christus; tertia persona, non tertius Deus, ante saecula permanens, non est Deus recens, sed perfectus, sed omnipotens, temporum tenet perfluida, locorum praetendit spatia, continet universa (PL 192.1305)” (The Trinity that is God is not thought of as many, as torn apart, but is faithfully adored as simple, as unmoved, holding all things in its palm, carrying the universe in its three fingers [i.e., the three fingers of Isaiah 40:12, quoted above]. Notice: the palm stands for the oneness of deity, the three fingers for its trinity. Palm and fingers make up one hand. In the Trinity that is God, the Son of God the Father is Christ; the third person—not a third God—existing before the ages, is not a recent God, but perfect, almighty, holds the flow of times, stretches out in space to all places, holds the universe together). Note that all three verbs in the final statement—tenet, praetendit, continet—maintain the hand metaphor. See also the passage from Hilary of Poitiers quoted by Biggs 1991:26–27; and see the treatise on the Holy Spirit of Didymus of Alexandria, translated from the Greek by Jerome as De spiritu sancto and printed by Migne; in his chapter 20, PL 23.120–21, is the source of both Ambrose’s and Jerome’s statements (as Michael Kuczynski led me to see). The Son is the hand and arm of God, Didymus says, and the Spirit the finger, and, “Si ergo conjunctus est digitus manui, et manus ei cujus manus est: et digitus sine dubio ad ejus substantiam refertur, cujus digitus est” (If the finger is joined to the hand, and the hand to him whose hand it is, then the finger too is certainly a reference to the substance of him whose finger it is). The torch/taper (candle) image seems to be more completely original with L, although it too has a history, whose starting point is Luke 2:32, in the canticle uttered by Simeon at the time of Mary’s purification in the temple, forty days after Christ’s birth. Simeon calls Christ “Lumen ad revelationem Gentium,” a light to the revelation of the Gentiles. This metaphor eventually prompted a procession of candles on the feast of the Purification, February 2, a procession that inspired the name “Candlemas.” Writers who described the liturgy then allegorized the wax, wick, and flame of the candles as standing for

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the triune nature of Christ, e.g., Honorius of Autun, Gemma animae, PL 172.649: “Per ceram quippe candelae Christi humanitas, per lychnus ejus mortalitas, per lumen exprimitur ipsa Divinitas” (The wax symbolizes Christ’s humanity, the wick his mortality, the flame his divinity). See also Honorius’s Sigillum Mariae, PL 172.518; Anselm of Canterbury, Homily 6, on the Purification of Mary, PL 158.625; Adam of Persigine, PL 211.732; Peter Comestor, Sermon 9, On the Purification of the Virgin, PL 198.1748; Jacobus, Legenda aurea, chapter 37, On the Purification of the Virgin (trans. Ryan, 1.149), mentioned by Pearsall; Trinity College Homilies 47, cited in OED, s.v. wick 1a. L surely knew this idea, and he should also have known Hilary of Poitiers, De trinitate 6.12: combating the heretic Hieracas, who compared the Father and Son to two lights from one lamp—as if, Hilary says, the substance they share were “like the wick, of one material throughout and burning at both ends, which is distinct from the flames, yet provides them and connects them together.” But what he did with it all is wholly new. (Clopper 1979:89 discusses a different, more general line of trinitarian light analogies, “some of the oldest trinitarian analogies in Christianity.” He also mentions, as Skeat and Pearsall do, Bartholomaeus’s praise [DPR 19.52, trans. Trevisa 1324] of the “wonderful and most covenable unite” of wax, wick, and flame in a torch [not allegorized], and on p. 91 suggests that L may have developed his analogy out of the symbolism of the Paschal candle, “Bartholomaeus’s analysis of the three properties of candles, the old light analogies, and the association of the Holy Spirit with the fire at Pentecost.”) Galloway 1998:139 says that the simile “loosely resembles an analogy attributed to Augustine in the same Trinity Sunday sermon by Jacob of Voragine” (see earlier in this note), but since the simile is to the sun the resemblance seems very loose indeed, and Galloway does not press it. Perhaps no reader has ever regarded the two images as truly clarifying the Trinity. As Elizabeth Kirk 1994:25n has justly said, “The sections on the Trinity in [B] 16 and 17 show the essential impossibility of finding concrete images that successfully present the notion of a thing being simultaneously and fully one thing and also at the same time something else (even the geometrical image at the end of Dante’s Paradiso works within this limitation).” But they seem quite helpful for Will. Galloway, in line with his general thesis, urges that their physicality, and their connection with manual labor, “militate against any non-social concept of life and consciousness” (1998:139). 109 as Abraham ∂e olde of o god the tauhte: Namely, that God is a trinity— “alle thre bote o god” 99.

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The Trinity is like a hand (111–71, B.17.138–205) 111–71 (B.17.138–205) And yf kinde wit [B Conscience] carpe . . . wolde his grace quenche: The structure of the hand simile is the same in both versions. It has four sections. First the separate correspondences are established: Father ⳱ fist, Holy Ghost ⳱ palm, Son ⳱ fingers; the palm is asserted to be the “pith” of the hand; and it becomes clear that the two major functions of the hand are (in the words of B.17.148) “to folde and to serue” (113–25; B.17.141–51). Next comes the assertion that the parts of the hand act in unison, so that all three are one, as a hand is one (126–30; B.17.152–68); the shortening of this section in C makes its purpose clearer. In the third section, each part of the hand is asserted to be the “ful hand,” and each person of the Trinity “ful god”; its last three lines repeat the assertion of the second section, that all three are one God as all three parts make one hand (131–52; B.17.169–86). The final section asserts that an injured palm disables one’s hand more than injured fingers, which explains why to sin against the Holy Ghost is so grievous: it hurts God where he grips, and thus quenches grace (153–71; B.17.187–205). Appealing though the simile is, and impressive in its detailed working out, in the lovely way it evokes the power, workmanship, receptiveness, and sure touch of God, and in the way the supple writing (itself an operation of the hand), as it opens out and closes in, seems to guarantee the truth of the analogy by providing a constant further referent—despite all these beauties, there are two serious flaws: though the fist is the full hand, it is very hard to see how either the palm or the fingers are the full hand; and the Holy Ghost, perhaps because of the need to emphasize love, comes off as first among equals. Biggs argues reasonably that L “changes the identification of the Holy Spirit from the finger to the palm in order to place the Holy Spirit at the center of the Samaritan’s discussion” (1991:23). Indeed this is finally not much of a flaw, since L’s lively sense of the powerful presence of this most neglected of the three persons is so strikingly original. Clopper 1997:110–12 offers a thoughtful and sympathetic paraphrase/analysis of the entire simile, followed on pp. 112–24 by a study of its roots in St Bonaventure’s “exemplarist” theology. It is the best exposition I know of the passage, and is leaned on often in the notes that follow. In his Preface (p. vii), Clopper admits, winningly, that he was traduced into becoming a Langlandian by studying the hand simile: “I thought I would take on a circumscribed problem—the source of Langland’s trinitarian analogy of the hand—as a way of entering the poem safely.”

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111 (B.17.138) kynde wit: common sense; eny kyne thouhtes: literally, any kind of thoughts, i.e., any thoughts of that kind, any such thoughts. B’s Conscience must here be, not the righteous and committed figure of the Meed episode or the banquet scene or the final scene of the poem, but hardly different from kind wit: a nagging inner voice that resists this strange concept, loving every single other, for natural reasons. The need to eliminate it in C is obvious. 112 (B.17.139) thien hoend thow hem shewe: Will is to use his own hand to demonstrate the Trinity, whether to himself or to others. The line also implies that throughout the passage the Samaritan is demonstrating each point on his own hand—and serves too as an invitation to the reader to do likewise (as surely no reader can fail to do). Galloway 1998:139 interprets the phrase much differently, as “pugilistic” and “mock-menacing,” citing the waster who “proffers his glove” to Piers at B.6.153, but the next sentence in both versions (For god . . . Ferde furste as a fuste” C, “For god is after an hand” B) makes very clear that the only purpose of the phrase is to introduce the analogy of the Trinity to a hand. The Samaritan, a peacemaker if there ever was one, means only to teach Will how to teach, not how to be menacing. There is a witty debunking of the whole idea of using one’s hand and fingers to illustrate the Trinity in Juan Ruiz’s Book of Good Love, 1970:44–63. In it one party to a debate conducted in signing thinks that the two are discussing the Trinity, the other that they are threatening violence to each other. It may suggest that using one’s hand to illustrate the Trinity was a common practice of preachers, and that such a practice is a better “source” for the passage than anything in the fathers. B.17.140 For god is after an hand: A useful overview of the simile, unhappily dropped in C, perhaps because of the awkward phrase “is after” for “is like.” 113–17 For god ∂at al bygan . . . sholde (B.17.141–43 The fader was first . . . sholde): B fader may seem preferable to C god; and yet “as 3e fuste is a ful hand . . . So is 3e fader a fol god” (131–32; B.17.169–70), and it is surely misleading in B to seem, even momentarily, to attribute the creation to the Father alone. The reference to creation is also murky in B, since it isn’t obvious that that is what the unloosing of one finger from the fist signifies. C’s god ∂at al bygan in bigynnynge of the worlde is both better theology and a clearer signal that the unfolding is creation, though it would have been nice to associate the fist with the Father right away rather than waiting till line 126.

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114 and √ut is: I.e., and is still like a fist (Skeat) 114a Mundum pugillo continens: Holding the world in his fist. The third line of the fourth stanza of the Marian hymn Quem terra, pontus, aethera, in several places in the office; Raby 1959:79, CANTUS 008375; see Alford, Quot. The ascription to Venantius Fortunatus, common in the Middle Ages, is based on no evidence. See New Catholic Encyclopedia, Quem terra pontus sidera. The whole stanza, a mere invocation of Mary without a predicate, reads “Beata Mater munere,/Cujus supernus artifex,/Mundum pugillo continens,/Ventris sub arca clausus est” (Mother generously blessed, in the ark of whose belly was enclosed the supreme artificer who held the world in his fist). Biggs 1991:24, and Clopper and Skeat before him, are surely right to say that Isaiah 40:12 is the source of the image. See also Hilary of Poitiers, De trinitate, PL 10.28: “Universitas coeli palma Dei tenetur, et universitas terrae pugillo concluditur” (The whole of heaven is held in God’s palm, and the whole of earth enclosed in his fist). 115 a fynger (B.17.141 o fynger): One finger, conceivably the thumb, folded across the next two fingers and holding the fist in place, as it were. But the next two lines (which seem to refer to the creation, and lines 136 and B.17.160 as well), all suggest that “finger” means one of the other four (the usual meaning of the word), not the thumb. Most likely the finger meant is the index finger, which is unfolded alone from the fist to perform the work of creation, the rest of the fist remaining in place (see 130n below). The Father creates, then, through the agency of the Son, since the fingers are the Son. One thinks, of course, of Michelangelo’s “Creation of Adam,” painted a century later than our poem. The image of God creating with his right index finger, or, very often, with index and middle fingers, was well established much earlier than Michelangelo, however; see the many plates in Zahlten 1979. Langland might well have had such a depiction in mind. At 140a below appears an inexact quotation of the line “(Tu) digitus paternae dexterae” from the hymn “Veni Creator Spiritus,” itself based on Matthew’s phrase digitus Dei (12:28). See the note above to 108–335 (B.17.134–355). 117 (B.17.143) to what place hit sholde: i.e., to the abyss, then to light, then to the waters, and so on as the steps of the creation proceed. 120 (B.17.146) And bitokeneth: Parallel, not to “knoweth” just before it, but to “is” and “profereth forth” 118. The lack of punctuation after “knoweth” in C must be a misprint.

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122 (B.17.148) fre: cf. 18.118, where the Son is called libera voluntas dei; the corresponding line, B.16.88, makes it clear that the phrase means that the actions of the Son are an expression of the free will of the Father and the Spirit; here too the fingers are “free” in that they have a wider scope of action than palm or fist, and yet the palm is the source of their movement. 124–25 (B.17.150–51) Touchede and tastede . . . mankynde lauhte: Touchede and tastede is a doublet, as at 20.86 (B.18.84): both words mean “touched,” and corroborate that the Son is the finger. In B, since the Latin that follows emphasizes the conception, the whole couplet should probably be taken as referring to Jesus in the womb, touching Mary with his whole self. In C, since the Latin that follows emphasizes the birth, the whole couplet should probably be taken as referring to Jesus as an infant in Mary’s arms, touching her with his little fingers, i.e., being very human. Cf. the evocation of the conception and birth of Jesus in 18.123–36 (B.16.90–102)—and Holy Church’s metaphoric version, 1.148–54 (B.1.148–58, A.1.137), as well. 125a Natus est ex maria virgine (B.17.151a Qui conceptus est de spiritu sancto &c): Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost (B), born of the Virgin Mary (C); consecutive phrases in the Apostles’ Creed: B’s &c means the phrase in C, and presumably in C the phrase given is supposed to remind one of the phrase before it, since the Holy Ghost’s role in the conception has just been mentioned at line 150. 126–28 The fader is thenne . . . ∂e paume (cf. B.17.152–53 The fader is ∂anne . . . feele): This C sentence, with its singulars fynger and the fynger, is essentially a repetition of lines 116–17 (B.17.142–43), emphasizing again the united action of all three persons, though here in maintenance of the world rather than creation. To huyde and to holde is a doublet: “to enclose,” with continens 114a apparently in L’s mind as well as traham 127a. 127a (B.17.152a) Omnia traham ad me ipsum [&c B]: I will draw all things to myself: John 12:32. B’s &c is otiose—surely scribal—since the phrase ends the verse. 130 fol: Apparently the palm is full because all fingers but the index finger are folded into it; this line is perhaps the clearest indication that what we would call the “default” form of the hand image is of a fist with the index finger extended—the image so common in the margins of manuscripts. The “Hand of God” (dextera Domini) appears commonly in the blessing position, with

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two fingers extended, the thumb and fourth and fifth fingers filling the palm: Schiller 1972, vol. 1, plates 82, 235; vol.2, plates 88, 143, 151, 406, 657; occasionally with just the index finger extended: 1.356, 357. See also Didron 1851, 1.201–6 and plate 54. B.17.154–56 Thus . . . bo∂e: “Thus all three persons of the Trinity are but one, as if they were a hand, which appears as both three and one because the palm both puts forward fingers and makes a fist.” These lines begin a passage of fourteen lines, 155–68, omitted in C, presumably because they labor a point already sufficiently clear, that the three persons, like the three “sights” of the hand, are one. 158 preue∂: probably “turns out to be” “is one with”; though perhaps “makes trial of” in the sense of “initiates the action of.” 166 fader: we would expect “God” (and the scribes tried “lord”), but see 113 (B.17.141) and note; just as there L wrote “god” in C for B’s “father,” here he writes “fader” for “god,” by something like what is called in mathematics the commutative property: if you can write god for father, then you can write father for god. B.17.162–64 Halt al ∂e wide world . . . al ∂at is ∂erInne: See the quotations above from Hugh of Amiens (108–335n) and Hilary of Poitiers (114an). Kuczynski, and Schmidt in his note to 114a, point also to Prov 30:4, “Who hath held the wind in his hands? Who hath bound up the waters together as in a garment? Who hath raised up all the borders of the earth?” 133 As my fuste is furste ar y my fyngours shewe: B has neither this image nor the idea it illustrates, that the Father is “the furste of hem alle” (132). Since of course one can show one’s fingers without first making a fist, L must be thinking of babies, who are born with their hands clenched and keep them clenched naturally until well into the first year of life. The idea that the Father is first perhaps involves a pun on the word “former” (formeour 134) as Clopper 1997: 111, 117 maintains. Cf. 10.152–55 (B.9.26–29, A.10.27–30); line 134 repeats B.9.27 (A.10.28) practically verbatim. The reading “3e first of alle 3ynges” in B.9.27 is editorial, however, drawn from the A reading; the scribal “correction” “of al 3at euere was maked” in the B tradition, like the change to C.10.153 “of al 3at forth groweth,” suggests that the idea that the Father existed in time before the other two persons was repugnant. But of course L doesn’t quite mean that, as 139 makes clear. What L has in mind here is the theology of procession: the Son proceeds from the Father, the Spirit from both—and in that sense the Father is first. See, e.g., Ambrose, De spiritu sancto, PL 16.732: the Spirit “procedit ex Filio, sicut ipse Filius cum dicit: De Patre processi et veni in mundum” (cf. John

410

C Passus 19; B Passus 17

16:28) (proceeds from the Son, just as the Son [proceeds], as he says, “I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world”). Similarly, Jerome, Letter 17, PL 30.179, Augustine, On the Gospel of John, PL 35.1887, etc. Clopper nicely says (1997:111) that the generation of the Son is represented by the extension (“showing”) of the finger. Also in L’s mind, though, as Clopper goes on to intimate, and Schmidt asserts plainly, is the order of the manifestation of the persons in history. The Father is made manifest in the Old Testament, the Son in the Gospels, the Spirit in Acts, on Pentecost. 134a (B.17.170a) Tu fabricator omnium (&c B): “Thou the maker of everything,” a line from the hymn “Jesu redemptor saeculi,” Analecta hymnica 30.81 (where it occurs at Vespers in the Office of the Dead), and 51.45, where it appears in Compline. The Sarum Breviary 2.234, cited by all commentators since Skeat, has the first line as “Jesu salvator seculi,” but Blume and Dreves in Analecta hymnica treat “salvator” as a gloss on “redemptor.” The database CANTUS, in which it is 噛830177, shows widespread use for a variety of feasts. 136–38 (Cf. B.17.172) The fyngeres is a fol hand . . . awey: The rationale of the B line is laid out in C, but the assertion that the fingers are a full hand still seems arbitrary. Schmidt’s assertion that lines 136–40a “compare the Son with the thumb,” depends on his (silent) choice of the majority reading her thombe 136 instead of X or thombe, which RK-C rightly keep, making the lines compare the Son, much more reasonably and consistently, with all the fingers including the thumb. (Also, if her were right, they 138 would have to be “hit.”) B.17.174 ∂e Science of ∂e fader: Cf. 18.40 (B.16.36), “sapiencia dei patris.” Augustine, PL 36.354 (on Psalm 36), “Neque enim aliquid scit Pater quod Filius nescit: cum ipsa scientia Patris illa sit, quae sapientia ejus est: est autem sapientia ejus Filius ejus, Verbum ejus” (And the Father does not know anything that the Son does not know, since the Father’s knowledge is his wisdom, and his wisdom is his Son, his Word). Clopper takes a subtler view, explaining the references to the crafts in the preceding two lines: “Rather than denoting the Son as sapientia, Langland calls him “Science,” a specialized sense of Wisdom which connotes knowledge that is applied; hence, the Son is described as the fingers which are used to “portreye or peynten,” for “Keruynge and compasynge is craft of 3e fyngres” (1997:91). See 1 Cor 12:8 and Stephen Barney’s note to 21.229–51; also 21.241 (B.19.241), where carving and compassing appear again, and 21.240–44n.

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140a Dextere dei tu digitus: “You are the finger of God’s right hand,” adapted from the hymn Veni, creator spiritus, perhaps by Rabanus Maurus, sung at Pentecost; Raby 1959:116, CANTUS 008407. The whole stanza reads, “Tu septiformis munere,/Digitus paternae dexterae/Tu rite promissum Patris/Sermone ditans guttura” (Thou sevenfold in gift, finger of the Father’s right hand, thou duly the promise of the Father, endowing throats with speech). Since God’s right hand is the Son, a standard identification, the line means “You, the Spirit, are the instrument by which the Son acts.” But since L uses the phrase to illustrate how the Son is the finger, we have to take it here to mean “You, the Son, are the instrument by which the Father acts.” Actually closer to L’s phrase (though again of the Spirit) is Honorius of Autun, Speculum ecclesiae, PL 172.963, “Hic etiam digitus dexterae Dei appellatur, quia sicuti manus per digitos operatur” (He [the Spirit] is also called finger of the right hand of God, because he acts as the hand does through the fingers). 141 (B.17.176) The paume is puyrliche the hand: From here to the end of the passus, the two versions are virtually identical except for the addition of lines 236–50a in the C version. 142 (B.17.177) writhen: clenched; cf. 6.66 (B.5.84, A.5.67), Envy clenching his fist at Wrath, though the emphasis here is hardly on the power to strike, as Schmidt seems to say, but on the power to enclose. Werkmanschupe: Cf. B.9.46. 143 (B.17.178) putte out ∂e ioyntes: i.e., extend the finger-joints. 144 (B.17.179) for hym hit bilongeth: i.e., because it was the palm that made the fist in the first place. 145–46 And receue . . . toucheth (B.17.180–81 And receyue . . . wille): i.e., the fingers may touch something but the palm is needed to actually grasp it. 147 Bote be he greued . . . lat falle: An unnecessary, even unfortunate, addition in C, apparently meant to anticipate 153–63 below, which make perfect sense without it, as the corresponding lines do in B. What is described is a kind of middle ground between receiving and refusing: the palm may sometimes start to grasp what the fingers close around, but then lets it go because it hurts. Here grype: i.e., what they grip. Lat is 3 sg present, “lets.”

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C Passus 19; B Passus 17

The sin against the Holy Ghost (1) (153–71, B.17.187–205) 153–71 (B.17.187–205) Ac ho is herte . . . wolde his grace quenche: The Samaritan’s exposition of his simile now moves to a surprising climax; from emphasizing the equality of the persons, and of the hand’s functions, it moves to grant the palm, and the Holy Spirit, the pre-eminent place. The description of the hurt hand itself, lines 153–63 (B.17.187–97), is crystal clear and needs no comment except that one may wonder along with Schmidt how a person with five broken fingers can do very much with the palm; see the next note. This simile 164 (B.17.198 ∂is skile) means the entire hand simile, not just the comparison of the Holy Spirit to a palm. The sin against the Holy Spirit, the “unforgiveable sin,” is a darker matter, though the Samaritan himself will explicate it pretty well in the course of developing his candle simile. See 165–67 (B.17.199–201)n below. 160 (B.17.194) toshullen: According to MED, “broken.” The word occurs only here, though it has cognates in other Germanic languages; see MED, s.v. toshellen, v. To Schmidt’s common-sense complaint, that someone with all five fingers broken could hardly “help himself in many kinds of ways,” I would add that oke 163 (B.17.197) is bathetic: would five broken fingers merely ache? Pearsall’s “injured” seems a better gloss to toshullen. The whole passage ymaymed . . . hand 158–61 is absent from all C manuscripts, apparently by eyeskip. I find the reading “swollen” for “toshullen,” in various forms in four B mss. plus Crowley (including R and F), scribal though it so obviously seems, much more intelligible. 165–67 (B.17.199–201) hoso synegeth . . . spiritum sanctum: The first line translates the Latin statement (in ⳱ against, as in the Latin), an inexact quotation of Matt 12:32, which is quoted in fuller form at B.16.47a. See the note there. Elleswhere: i.e., in purgatory. For a history of interpretation of Jesus’s remark, see New Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Holy Spirit. The most common application is to despair, since it constitutes a denial of God’s mercy, as Chaucer’s Parson rather eloquently explains, I692–705. But the Parson is no more eloquent than L himself in the candle simile below, which evolves into a treatise on the sin against the Holy Ghost. This summarizing statement from the New Catholic Encyclopedia is quite like L’s view: “Finally, several Fathers, and after them, many scholastic theologians, apply the expression to all sins directly opposed to that quality which is, by appropriation, the characteristic quality of the Third Divine Person. Charity and goodness are especially attributed to the Holy Ghost, as power is to the Father and wisdom to the Son. Just,

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then, as they termed sins against the Father those that resulted from frailty, and sins against the Son those that sprang from ignorance, so the sins against the Holy Ghost are those that are committed from downright malice, either by despising or rejecting the inspirations and impulses which, having been stirred in man’s soul by the Holy Ghost, would turn him away or deliver him from evil.” The passus offers a far deeper probing of sin than the confession of the seven deadly sins in passu¯s 6 and 7 (B.5, A.5) or Actyf’s confession (B.13). 171 (B.17.205) God ∂at he gripeth with: i.e., what God grips with; see 153–57 (B.17.187–91) above. As Pearsall points out, the word quenche implies that grace is a flame, and so briefly anticipates the candle simile.

The Trinity is like a candle (172–334, B.17.206–354) 172–334 (B.17.206–334) For to a torche . . . amende: In the remainder of the passus, the Samaritan takes up Will’s second question—Am I obliged to love my neighbor as myself?—though he doesn’t use its specific terminology until line 334 (“louye hem yliche hymsulue”). His discussion falls into three parts: the first, the torch/taper (candle) simile, lines 172–278 (B.17.206–98), is not really a companion piece to the hand simile, though it seems at first to be that; rather, it focuses nearly from the start not on the Trinity but on love of neighbor and the part it plays in salvation; it culminates in the assertion that the ultimate rejection of love is murder, the annihilation of another’s capacity to love. The second part, begun by Will’s question at line 279 (B.17.298) and extending to line 300 (B.17.320), takes up the issue whether a murderer, having sinned against the Spirit, can be saved. The final section applies a familiar passage from antifeminist literature, based on Proverbs, on the three things that drive a man out of his house, to further the argument that unkindness is the one sin that extinguishes God’s mercy. Since the passage says overall that those who love and are repentant, i.e., do well, are saved and those who hate, i.e., do ill, are not, it is one more reprise of the pardon—indeed, it is perhaps the strongest, most extended statement in the poem on love, and the clearest definition of the pardon. 172–278 For to a torche . . . Charite destruyeth (B.17.206–98 For to a torche . . . ∂at he pleyne∂): That the central issue in the torch/taper (i.e., candle; see next note) simile is no longer the Trinity but human love and hatred is evident from the small attention paid to the Father and Son. It is clear enough from

414

C Passus 19; B Passus 17

the parallelism of 175 and 178, as well as from 201–8 (B.17.235–42) and 209–13 (B.17.243–47), that the wax stands for the Father and the wick for the Son; but the two are not differentiated from each other. Both wax and wick are treated as susceptible of being kindled into flame, and both Father and Son are treated as ready to impose their power on sinners until moved to mercy by repentance. Meanwhile, the tendency to exalt the Holy Ghost above the other two persons is carried further here, and yet the final emphasis, as the previous note implies, is not on the Holy Ghost but on us sinners and whether or not we love. For though the Holy Ghost is said both to withhold mercy (184–85, B.17.218–19) and to move the other persons to mercy (196; B.17.230), he does so strictly in response to our unkindness or kindness. The passage is typically semi-Pelagian, is indeed one of Robert Adams’s major exhibits in his seminal essay on Langland’s semi-Pelagianism (1983: 394–95): the Trinity is first said to “foster forth” love in us, but after that one statement the human will becomes the dominant agent. Grace will not operate unless our will cooperates: it will be grace without mercy (184; B.17.218) or unmelted might (cf. 196, B.17.230). A consistent distinction is made in the literal image between flaume (fuyr flaumynge, lye, blase, lihte) on the one hand and fuyr (glowyng gledes, warm glede) on the other, as well as in their corresponding verbs: flame blaseth, flaumeth, gloweth and blaseth, wol brennen and blasen, whereas fire brenneth, withouten leye or lihte lith, gloweth but as a glede, brenneth ac blaseth nat. In short, flame blazes, fire smolders—and fire won’t blaze into flame without fuel, i.e., a flammable substance; the fuel is love or mercy or kindness or humility. The fuyr or glowing coal is the Holy Ghost in us, rendered unmerciful by our unkindness to others, as at 181–86 (B.17.215–20); the flame is the Holy Ghost coaxing mercy out of the other two persons, or love out of us. But the glowing coal eventually (at line 232 [B.17.266]) becomes an unkind person, and flame from the start has been human love—the loue and bileue fostered by the Trinity amongus folke (179, B.17.213), lyf and loue, the leye of mannes body (261 [B.17.280])—and at line 262 (B.17.281) there finally arises into explicitness a comparison that has been urging itself almost from the start: of euery manere goed man, not God, to a candle. And yet what the passage does most deeply is equate the Holy Ghost with love in us (cf. Rom 5:5), reminding us that by creating man in his image God “gaf hym a goost of 3e godhede of heuene” (B.9.47), so that of course man is a candle. Finally, then, the flame is our power to love, is God in us; the murderer, having quenched it in himself, quenches it in his victim as well. Since the Holy Ghost is that flame, that is to sin against the Holy Ghost; but L’s emphasis is on the human will freely acting. It is of course wholly appropriate for the Samaritan

The Trinity is like a candle

415

to be the spokesman for love of neighbor, since Jesus told the story to answer the question, “Who is my neighbor?” A major assumption made in the passage, coexisting with, and perhaps overshadowing, the assumption that we are divine, is that we are all sinners (see esp. 180 [B.17.214]), all in need of forgiveness, and so all are obliged to be merciable toward others, or at the very least meek (i.e., warm, meltable) enough to ask God’s forgiveness. This idea is powerfully put forth in the several images of darkness and cold: our lot on earth is to be swinkers in the night—unless by exercising our power to love we find light, warmth, and rest. The passage recalls several of the ideas of Holy Church’s speech to Will in passus 1: our natural urge to love, in imitation of the Father’s love of us, and his mercy toward us; the overriding value of love. At 220–32a (B.17.254– 66a) there is a very close reprise of 1.171–98 (B.1.175–203, A.1.149–77), making clear to the rich that pious practices are worthless without love. Both passages weave together several parts of Luke 6: verse 22 (woe to you who are rich); verses 35–38 (give to the poor; your own reward depends on it); verse 46 (why do you call me Lord, Lord and not do what I say?). Another relevant passage is the pardon, with its scene of sinners that reufulliche repenten and restitucion make (205, B.17.239). “Qui bona egerunt” there equals folke of mylde hertes here (204, B.17.238); a passage such as this makes clear why the pardon is a pardon: God’s mercy is a necessary element. The flame image, lighting up darkness, will modulate into the light imagery that suffuses the Harrowing of Hell in the next passus, where Christ is “lord of lyf and of liht” 20.59 (B.18.59), “this lord of liht” 20.306. For a discussion of sources, see above, 108–335 (B.17.134–355)n. 172 (B.17.206) taper: i.e., a candle, as at 189 (B.17.223), not a taper in our sense of a long wick coated with wax and used to light candles. Wicks were of twisted fibers of hemp or flax, and so thicker than modern candle wicks. Apparently a very large candle could be called a torch; both had major liturgical uses: see Duffy 1992: 96–97, 361–62, and plate 43.

The sin against the Holy Ghost (2): kindness and unkindness (181–334, B.17.215–354) 182 (B.17.216) √ut brenneth: I.e., smolders. 184–86 (B.17.218–20) god and grace withouten mercy . . . shupte: This apparently means that the Holy Ghost retains his divinity (of course), and is still a

416

C Passus 19; B Passus 17

potential source of grace, even for murderers, but will not forgive the sin (until, as we subsequently learn, the murderer takes the first step). See ensuing notes. These lines are the first hint that murder will be treated as the worst form of sin against the Holy Ghost, a subject taken up fully at line 258 (B.17.276). As Schmidt notes, the C emendation 186 lycame and for B.17.220 loue or makes clearer that murder is the issue.

Mercy for the kind (187–213, B.17.221–47) 194 Til ∂at loue and bileue leliche to hym blowe (B.17.228 Til ∂at lele loue ligge on hym and blowe): the first of many semi-Pelagian statements in the passage, insisting that divine mercy depends on a prior act of the human will. The strongest is at 200 (B.17.234). Dante has the same idea: “Tanto si da` quanto trova d’ardore,/Si che, quantunque carita` si stende,/Cresce sovr’ essa l’etterno Valore” (It [the ineffable Good, that is, God] gives itself according to the measure of the love it finds, so that however great is the charity that reaches out, by so much the eternal Worth grows upon it) Purgatorio 15.70–72, trans. Durling 2003. Dante’s source is probably Pseudo-Dionysius, in whom the idea is common that different souls have different capacities to share in God’s love. See Stiglmayr 1898:303: “there is only one concept that is emphasized (by Dionysius) above all: the measure of light imparted is determined by the condition of the subject” (Es ist immer nur ein Concept, der vor allem zur Geltung gebracht wird: je nach der Beschaffenheit des Subjectes richtet sich das Mass der Lichtmittheilung). “The perfect Goodness penetrating all things reacheth not only to the wholly good beings around It, but extendeth even unto the lowest things, being entirely present unto some, and in a lower measure to others, and unto others in lowest measure, according as each one is capable of participating therein” (The Divine Names 4.20, trans. Rolt 1920, p. 114). It is in fact a very normal way of thinking: schoolboys learned it in the Liber Floreti: “Non sis ingratus Domino si vis fore gratus” (Be not ungrateful to God if you wish to be graced), quoted and translated in Galloway 1994:370. It is also the teaching of the Gospels, as Holy Church told Will: “Date et dabitur vobis . . . 3at is the lok of loue and vnloseth grace” Luke 6:38 (1.196–97, cf. B.1.201–2). She also said, “Eadem mensura qua mensi fueritis Remetietur vobis,” Luke 6:38 (1.174a, B.1.178). And Recklessness backed her up: “Mercy of mercy nedes moet aryse/As holy writ witnesseth, goddes word in 3e Gospel:/Eadem mensura &c” (11.231–32a; cf. B.11.228). Likewise 1 John 4:12, “If we love one another, God abideth in us, and his charity is perfected in us.” And James 4:8, “Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you.”

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Granted, all this is the very opposite of St Paul’s ideas, who says (Rom 9:15–16), “For he saith to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy; and I will shew mercy to whom I will shew mercy.’ So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.” I.e., in the clearer words of the New Living Translation, “So it is God who decides to show mercy. We can neither choose it nor work for it.” Augustine thought similarly, of course, but for the departure of many late-medieval theologians from Augustine’s stern predestinarianism, see Robert Adams 1983 and Oberman 1967, on whom Adams draws. All the authority L needed for his semiPelagianism, however, is in the Gospels; see above, 57 (B.17.58)n. B ligge is not “lie” but—pace OED, which does not list it, and pace Kane, who lists it under ligge, “lie” and gives the figurative meaning “attack, apply force”—the verb cognate with the noun “leye,” flame, as in the Wife of Bath’s Tale, D1142, “Yet wole the fyr as faire lye and brenne.” See MED, s.v. leien, v. (2), “to blaze, burn,” listing the Chaucer place but not this place. 195–200 (B.17.229–34) And thenne flaumeth he . . . to merciable and to non o∂ere: A daring thought, and a daring metaphor of ice and sun, portraying the myhte of Father and Son, Potentia and Sapientia, as cold power until melted by the Holy Ghost. L might have been better off sticking to the original image, since wax seems far more malleable, readier to melt, than ice. But as Schmidt (ad loc.) points out, “Since ice is water in another state, God’s ‘true’ nature as merciful love rather than severe justice may be communicated through this image without offence to sense and reason.” (Schmidt writes penetratingly of this passage in his 2006 essay on “ ‘Elementary’ Images,” pp. 315–17.) The matter will be replayed in the next passus by the Four Daughters of God, when Truth and Righteousness will square off against Peace and Mercy until the massive demonstration of divine love in the Harrowing causes the sterner pair to melt, as it were, into kissing at the end of the passus. L never forgets that Misericordia eius super omnia opera eius. Indeed he will quote it again at line 298 (B.17.318). 201–19a (B.17.235–53a) And as wex . . . nescio vos (&c B): These lines constitute a single unit, three consecutive statements with the structure “As . . . so,” though the last is varied in form. Each treats a different case in which one or more of the standard three elements, wax, wick, and fire, is missing. The passage still depends on the identification of the Father with wax, the Son with the wick, and the Holy Ghost with fire. As wax and fire alone, without a wick, will make a flame, so the Father will forgive us if we repent, i.e., fan the Spirit in us into flame. And as wick and fire alone, without wax, will make a flame,

418

C Passus 19; B Passus 17

so will the Son forgive us if we repent. But as fire (i.e., a spark) by itself, without a substance to catch in (here, suddenly, tinder and sticks, rather than wax and wick, since the issue now is not the Father and Son but a failure in us), will not make a flame, so the Holy Ghost withholds mercy from us when we are unkind. This last case is then dwelt on through the remainder of the passage, i.e., through line 278 (B.17.298). Note that in the first two cases the (smoldering) fire stands for human love (mildness, the action of the Holy Ghost in us), in the third it stands for the Holy Ghost alone, the (unkind) human will being represented by the (absent) tinder. It is tempting in the last case also to take the flint as standing for hardness of heart, although strictly it is the absent tinder that does so: the flint in fact does its part in producing sparks. 203 (B.17.237) hem ∂at mowen nat se, sittynge in derkenesse: An image of sinful, needy mankind; see the general note above, 172–278. Pearsall aptly cites Matt 4:16, “Populus qui sedebat in tenebris,” The people that sat in darkness (saw great light). 204–8, 211–13 (B.17.238–42, 245–47) So wol ∂e fader . . . remenaunt, So wol Crist . . . to haue: the key idea of Repentance’s prayer, slightly more explicit in the C version, 7.141–50 (cf. B.5.501–5); compare especially the idea of Christ forgetting our sins to 7.147a non recordabor amplius (not in B). 207 (B.17.241) And yf hit suffice nat for aseth (B asset√) ∂at in suche a will deyeth: And if it (the restitution one has made according to his ability to pay) in fact has not paid the debt in full, and one dies still intending to pay what he can. See Alford, Gloss., s.v. Asseth. L uses the term, from French assez, in its original legal sense, of sufficient money in a decedent’s estate to discharge all debts incumbent on the estate, cf. OED s.v. assets, 1. For other passages in which L presents judgment after death in terms of financial accounting (an idea whose basis is the parable of the talents, recounted at 8.247–57) see 15.284, 12.195, 14.212 (B.12.290), B.10.439–41. Schmidt points out that the line recalls the case of Trajan, cited by Ymaginatif near the end of passus 14 (B.12).

No mercy for the unkind (214–334, B.17.248–354) 214 (B.17.248) hewe fuyr: Produce a spark; the usual phrase is “strike fire.” at a flynt: with flint, by striking its sharp edge against a piece of steel called a “fire steel.”

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215 (B.17.249) tasch (B tow), broches: The obvious meaning of the line is “Unless you have tinder to catch the spark.” Thus tow is clear (cf. WBP D89), as is Pearsall’s “trasch” from ms. U (OED, s.v. trash, n.1 1.a.[a]), though probably a lectio facilior. Skeat and Schmidt both silently accept tasch (Skeat tache). Both MED and OED give “tasch” as a nonce-word, known only here, for tinder. More commonly, however, a tasch (OED s.v. tache, n.2) is “a clasp, a buckle, a hook and eye, or the like,” and it would seem that one should look here for our word. Kane does that, offering the desperate guess “a clasp or hook to hold tinder?” But OED, as meaning 1.c, offers several examples of figurative use of the word as “a means of attachment, a link,” and L may simply be thinking of tinder as the link between spark and flame. And broches, “clasps,” would be exactly the same metaphor. MED cites this line under the basic meaning of broche, “a pointed weapon or implement”; “a spit”; finally, “various other implements, such as a spindle, a candlestick, a splint, a thatching peg.” Pearsall, apparently on the basis of “various other implements,” glosses “matches.” Perhaps the MED editors were thinking of “fire by friction,” described in The Boy Scout Handbook: rotating a sharp-pointed spindle (the broche) on a “fireboard” just above the tinder until the heat generates a spark that lights the tinder. But the issue is making fire from flint, not from matches or by friction. Kane’s solution, equally desperate, is to posit a specialized kind of brooch: he offers the meaning “devices for holding fuses.” 216 (B.17.250) Al thy labor is loste and al thy longe trauaile: Cf. Prol.198 (B.Prol.181); Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale, G781; Parson’s Tale, I248; and see Whiting T442. 217 (B.17.251) faile hit his kynde: If the tinder is not there to carry out its natural function (as in human unkindness). 219 (B.17.253) vnkynde creatures: People who deny their own nature by not loving others. The statement apparently repeats 184–85 (B.17.218–19), but actually broadens it beyond murderers, since it is not followed by a restrictive relative clause as it is there. “Kind,” “unkind,” and “unkindness” will be the key terms for the rest of the passus. Like Holy Church in passus 1, Hunger in passus 8, and Wit in passus 10, the Samaritan is bent on making Will see what it means to be human, see that our nature is to love. Holy Church has insisted to him that he has a “kynde knowynge that kenet in thyn herte/For to louye thy lord leuest of alle” (1.141–42; B.1.142–43, A.1.130–31), and that “in kynde knowynge in herte ther comseth a myhte” (1.161; B.1.165, A.1.139), namely the

420

C Passus 19; B Passus 17

power to love others in imitation of God, to “hau[e] reuthe on 3e pore,” to “louye leeliche and lene 3e pore” (1.171, 177; B.1.175, 181; A.1.149, 155). Hunger urges Piers to use what he has to comfort those in need, “for so comaundeth treuthe;/Loue hem and lene hem and so lawe of kynde wolde:/Alter alterius onera portate” (8.229–30a; B.6.220–21a, A.7.207). Wit calls God “Kynde that alle kyne thynges wrouhte,/The which is loue” (10.169–70, and reminds Will that “Man is hym most lyk of membres and of face/And semblable in soule to God” (10.157–58; cf. B.9.31, A.10.32), and that in consequence “by loue and by leute, 3erby lyueth anima” (10.172). These passages make it clear that, as Andrew Galloway writes, “the semantic range of ‘kynde’ as Langland uses it includes at once ‘compassionate,’ ‘natural,’ ‘that which pertains to one’s kin,’ ‘that which pertains to God’ . . . and ‘grateful’ ” (1994: 379). The Samaritan is concerned with the same issues, and takes the same material, as Holy Church, Hunger, and Wit, but sounds a new note, less philosophical, homelier with its images of workers huddled together seeking warmth and light, and focusing with far more energy on how unkindness blocks the Holy Ghost rather than on how kindness draws him in. As a consequence of this, the terms “kind,” “unkind,” and “kindness” do not seem as pregnant with double meaning here as elsewhere, and in practice we understand the passage perfectly by understanding them to mean just what they still mean. 219a (B.17.253a) Amen dico vobis, nescio vos (&c B): “Amen I say to you: I know you not,” Matt 25:12, the bridegroom’s words to the foolish virgins who let their lamps go out. This parable, with its lamps and flame (already alluded to in a similar context of lack of charity at 1.185 [B.1.189, A.1.163]; see note there), is variously relevant to our passage. For one thing, it illustrates the easy semi-Pelagianism of the Gospels: the bridegroom invites the prudent virgins to the wedding feast and turns away the foolish. Furthermore, the oil is taken by many commentators as the oil of charity; the wise virgins love, and are loved in turn by the bridegroom; the foolish virgins are those who do not love, and are turned away. E.g., in a sermon ascribed to Augustine PL 39.2254: “Qui autem non vult habere talem charitatem, qualem et Christus praecepit, et Apostolus docuit, ex omni parte Jerusalem portas clausas inveniet. Et quia oleum charitatis habere noluit, clausis januis sponsi, cum illis fatuis virginibus illam metuendam audiet vocem: Amen dico vobis, nescio vos unde sitis (Matth. XXV, 12) (Whoever will not have such charity as Christ and St Paul taught will find the doors of Jerusalem closed on all sides. And because he did not want to have the oil of charity, when the doors of the bridegroom are closed he will hear with the foolish virgins the dread voice, “Amen I say to you, I do not know where you are from”).

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220–26 (B.17.254–60) Be vnkynde . . . vnkyndenesse: See the parallel passages, 1.175–200 (B.1.179–205, A.1.153–79), 16.36–41 (B.14.196–200). The former passage calls good works empty without charity, the latter (in the C version) calls them idle without contrition, confession, and satisfaction. (B speaks of being “poore of herte” 14.195 and of almsgiving springing from “a trewe welle” 14.198, but in the context of “Confession and knowlichynge and crauynge [God’s] mercy” 14.187). In the present passage L combines the two ideas: he has emphasized repentance and restitution (satisfaction) above at 204–8, 211 (B.17.238–42, 245); here he emphasizes charity. Clearly he regards repentance and charity as two sides of the same coin, in part because acts of charity are a mode of restitution for sin, but more deeply because both are signs of the mildness he so treasures, the recognition of one’s need for others and for God. All three passages are accompanied by a special appeal to the rich, for whom mildness comes hard. 220 (B.17.254) bidde: Pray, say “domine, domine”: see 232a (B.17.266a). 221 (B.17.255) Dele and do penaunce: i.e., do the self-serving phony “penance” of making a donation to the friars; cf. 16.39–41 (B.14.198–200) and Lawler 2007. Or, if Dele is taken by itself, it means give alms, but in some way “vnkyndely,” as 220 and 223 (B.17. 254, 257) insist: too little, perhaps, or with evident contempt for the recipient, or to gain a reputation for generosity, like Actyf at B.13.298–99. See 1 Cor 13:3 (part of the passage cited at 227a (B.17.261a), “If I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor . . . and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.” I prefer the first interpretation, however, since it relieves the passage of an inconsistency. The lines about Dives insist so sharply on his not giving to the poor at all, as does the final application of his story to contemporary rich men, that it would be odd for the passage to start off conceding that the rich do in fact give alms to the poor. 222 (B.17.256) pardoun of pampilon: Indulgences issued by the bishop of Pamplona and available in England through the hospital of St. Mary’s Rounceval, Charing Cross (for whom Chaucer’s Pardoner acts as an agent). Roncevalles, where the parent foundation was, is in the diocese of Pamplona. See further Bloomfield 1956, and on indulgences, Prol.66–80 and note. 223 (B.17.257) ingratus: Not “ungrateful” but “unkind,” the primary meaning of the word (as at B.14.169). The alliteration requires stress on the prefix. Galloway 1994:372 n23 lists nine places in the Wyclif bible where ingratus is translated “unkind.” He discusses this passage, emphasizing that L “presents

422

C Passus 19; B Passus 17

immediate social exchanges as more important for defining a sacred community than any institutional religious forms or practices” (381); he “sacralizes an ethos of secular social cohesion” (382). 227a (B.17.261a) Si linguis hominum loquar &c: “If I speak with the tongues of men [and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal],” 1 Cor 13:1. This and the next two verses are presumably the source of L’s rhetorical pattern both in this passage and the two parallel passages cited above, 220–26 (B.17.254–60)n; see also 221 (B.17.255)n. 228–29 (B.17.262–63) wyse, That . . . resoun knoweth: I.e., those of you rich who know what is good for you. 232 (B.17.266) Õe brenneth ac √e blaseth nat: You only smolder, not flame; see 182 (B.17.216) and 172–278n above. blynde: dark, unlit; see OED s.v. blind, a. III.6.b. 232a (B.17.266a) Non omnis . . . celorum &c: “Not everyone that saith [to me], Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; [but he that doth the will of my Father, who is in heaven, he shall enter into the kingdom of heaven],” Matt 7:21. An appropriate verse to apply to the rich, who know how to scratch each others’ backs, and so say “Lord, Lord” as often as it is said to them; L omits Matthew’s mihi with a purpose. Furthermore, saying “Lord, Lord” is set against doing the will of the Father; the rich do what they want. Finally, L seems to have regarded the whole chapter, Matthew 7, which ends the Sermon on the Mount, as addressed especially to the rich and powerful. See, e.g., 16.128 (B.14.291) [Matt 7:1]; 1.174 (B.1.178), 11.232, B.11.228 [Matt 7:2]; B.7.60 [Matt 7:12]. And on the place in the poem of monitory counsel to the rich, see the last paragraph of Stephen Barney’s note to 20.350–58 below.

Luke’s parable of Dives and Lazarus once more (233–54, B.17.267–73) 233–54 (B.17.267–73) Minne √e nat . . . dayes withouten ende: Lines 236–50, dwelling on the fact that Dives’s wealth was acquired honestly, are added in C. The story of Dives (i.e., “a rich man”) and Lazarus is in Luke 16:19–31; Luke does not say how Dives earned his money, nor that he was damned to hell for unkindness, only that he “was buried” there, but L (like most readers of the Gospels) is sure that it was “for his delicat lyf” (8.277) and for not helping the poor; see also 8.277–78, 15.299–300 (B.14.123), and B.12.236–69, where the

Luke’s parable of Dives and Lazarus once more

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contrast of the peacock and the lark seems to imply that of Dives and Lazarus. L obviously loved Lazarus and hated Dives, finding in them the perfect paradigm for his hopeful sense that the poor will get their summer yet, the rich their winter (see 15.279–16.21 [B.14.104–65]n). Here in the long C addition, however, he turns Dives into a kind of secular hero (though he is still in hell) because at least he came by his wealth honestly; the modern rich, having gained their wealth by fraud, have a greater reason to be kind, but are such bad Christians that they don’t even follow Christ’s advice to use their money to make friends (Luke 16:9, quoted at 250a, ten verses before the story of Dives and Lazarus; see the note below to 244–50a). Did Dives sin against the Holy Ghost? Yes: he was damned for his unkindness. He did not commit murder, the worst sin against the Holy Ghost (267, B.17.286), the ultimate unkindness; but when he let Lazarus go hungry he “quenched, as it were, the grace of the Holy Ghost” (255–56, B.17.274–75). 234–35 (B.17.268–69) dampned for his vnkyndenesse . . . to men ∂at hit nedede; 241 for he was a nygard and a nythynge to the nedfol pore: See Luke 16:20–21: Lazarus lay at Dives’s gate, desiring crumbs, and “no one did give him.” L’s stronger language may rely also on the story of Jesus and the rich young man (Matt 19.16–22, Mark 10:17–27, Luke 18:18–23) as it is reported from the apocryphal Gospel of the Nazareans by Origen (in Rufinus’s Latin translation). There Jesus challenges the young man’s insistence that he has kept the law, since the law says “love your neighbor” and nothing at all goes out from your house full of good things to the poor, though “many of thy brethren, sons of Abraham, are clad in filth, dying of hunger” (multi fratres tui filii Abrahae amicti sunt stercore, morientes prae fame) (Jeremias 1964:44–45). 237 as men rat: As we read. See Luke 16:25, where Abraham says to Dives, “Fili, recordare quia recepisti bona in vita tua” (Son, remember that thou didst receive good things in thy lifetime). Rather a slender basis for L’s argument that Dives got his money honestly. Yet Handlyng Synne 6730 makes the same point, as Pearsall points out: “And he (Dives) ne robbed, ne he ne stalle.” 240a Epulabatur . . . bisso &c: He feasted sumptuously and was clothed in fine linen. An inexact memory of Luke 16:19, “induebatur purpura et bysso et epulabatur cotidie splendide,” he was clothed in purple and fine linen and feasted sumptuously every day. 244–50a Sethe he withoute wyles . . . mammona iniquitatis: Translate 244–50: “Since he won without wiles and could have restrained himself from

424

C Passus 19; B Passus 17

living in a lordly manner and dressing sumptuously, and is in hell despite all that, how will rich people nowadays excuse themselves who are unkind, and yet got their money with wiles and sharp practice, and yet will not restrain themselves from going about, and sitting at table, grandly, since holy writ teaches that fraudulent earnings should be spent on making friends?” (For the extremely rare verb “atymien,” to restrain oneself, not treated either by MED or OED, see Kane 2000:52.) The fundamental idea here is the story of the unjust steward, who got his money dishonestly and then spent it lavishly to put people in his debt: he “made friends with the mammon of iniquity.” The modern rich likewise got their money dishonestly, but they are unkind: they spend it on themselves, not others: they don’t use their money to make friends. Dives earned his money honestly, and is therefore basically good, and thus might have been less selfish—but he wasn’t, he went ahead and spent on himself instead of the poor, and so was damned. If such a basically good man was damned for his selfishness, how can the modern rich, who are basically evil and have therefore an extra reason to be kind—to use their mammon to make friends—have any excuse for their selfishness? A very sly point, though not an ironic one. It capitalizes on Jesus’s sly advice, Facite vobis amicos de mamona iniquitatis, ut, cum defeceritis, recipiant vos in aeterna tabernacula (Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of iniquity, that when you shall fail, they may receive you into everlasting dwellings) (Luke 16:9, a few verses before the story of Dives and Lazarus). It takes that verse to mean that the one chance miswinners have for salvation is to be kind to the poor so that, apparently, those poor, having died before them, will intercede for them with God when they die, and thus receive them into heaven (or, as Peter Comestor says, “quia largimur his, recipiemur ab angelis” (because we are generous to the poor, we will be received by the angels; PL 198.1590). L has fused the two contiguous Lucan parables originally—if murkily: as Pearsall says, “the argument of this passage is a little contorted,” and as Kane says, “the moral argument here is awkwardly shaped” (2000:52). Putting the two parables together makes it clearer. Hunger has made the same point in a less contorted way at 8.234 (B.6.228, A.7.212), citing Luke 16:9 and urging simply that those who have “wonne auht wikkedliche, wiseliche dispene hit” by being kind to the needy. 249 semeliche: Ordinarily an honorific, whether adjective or adverb, as at 3.112 and 15.58 (adjectives), but here (the adverb) clearly pejorative; MED cites this line under meaning 3 of the adverb, “with dignity or honor”—which seems like something good, but in this context, where humility and simplicity are

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called for, it is not. I have translated it “grandly” at the beginning of the previous note. 252–53 (B.17.271–72) gyueth √oure goed to . . . god . . . to hise: I.e., give to the needy, who are God’s. See Matt 25:34–46 (at the last judgment, Jesus will say, “I was hungry, and you gave me to eat. . . . When? . . . As long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to me.”); Luke 6:20, “Blessed are ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of God”; Prov 19:17, “He that hath mercy on the poor lendeth to the Lord, and he will repay him.” Also Luke 10:16, “he that despiseth you despiseth me,” said by Jesus to his disciples but applied by L to beggars at 7.99–100a; Ps 33:7, 139:13; Prov 14.31. See B.15.343a note above; 9.118, 126–27, 136; 12.101 (cf. B.11.186), 107 (cf. B.11.195), 122 (B.11.233), 132 (B.11.243); B.14.168, 174 and note; 16.95–101 (B.14.255–61); 17.67.

Murder as the worst sin against the Holy Ghost (255–78, B.17.274–98) 257 (B.17.276) ∂at kynde doth vnkynde fordoth: What God makes the unkind destroy. Fordoth is plural, a southern form (from OE -a3) frequent in the poem (sleth 259, B.17.278 and distruyeth 260, B.17.279 are further examples). It is appealing but not necessary to suppose a noun “unkynde,” “de-creation” or “un-nature,” as Schmidt 2006:310–12 does—but undoes in the glossary to his edition, where he takes it as I do: “adjective as noun: wicked people.” The Samaritan has shifted his attention from stinginess to murder rather blandly; but see the next note but one. 258 (B.17.277) Vnkynde cristene men: Like those who killed Becket, 17.275 (B.15.524). For coueytise and enuye: The radix of murder is cupiditas, abetted by invidia. Both are perversions of love. 259 (B.17.278) with mouthe or with handes: The obvious way to murder someone with your mouth is to hire or require someone else to do it. That would suggest that the cursed thieves and harlots L has in mind here are not lowlife types but the very same rich men he’s been focusing on: the worst of the “luyther whitus” they indulge in for gain is murder. But see the discussion of the fifth commandment in Dives and Pauper, ed. Barnum 1.2, pp. 1–2. The writer moves quickly to all the ways we can murder with our tongues; not just by “hynderyng & procurynge his deth”; we are also not to slay by “fauour9euyng, ne be fals-witnesse-berynge, ne lesyngis-makynge, ne be diffamynge, ne bacbytynge, for bakbyteris & wyckyd spekerys ben manquelleris.” He cites

426

C Passus 19; B Passus 17

Eccles 28:22, “mychil folc han fallyn be 3e swerd but nout so manye as han ben slayn be 3e tunge”; Prov 18:21, “lyf & de3 ben in 3e hondis of 3e tunge”; and Ps 56:5, “Lingua eorum gladius acutus” (Their tongue [is] a sharp sword). And he says that the Jews who procured Christ’s death by false witness were guiltier than Pilate or the soldiers who actually crucified him, then goes on to speak of how backbiting slays the soul. Treatments of this kind may be Schmidt’s warrant for treating the murder as a “metaphorical slaying,” “slander, which ruins a man’s livelihood through destroying his reputation.” But surely everything that follows makes crystal clear that L’s subject is real murder. One example of murder by mouth (for enuye not mebles) is Henry II saying, “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?” See the note to 276 below. 260 (B.17.279) that the holy goest hath to kepe: “Know you not that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, who is in you?” 1 Cor 6:19. 261 (B.17.280) leye: An abrupt return to the candle analogy. 262–65 For euery . . . loketh to haue worschipe of (B.17.281–84 For euery . . . louye∂): If God is like a candle, and we are made in God’s image, then we are like candles, particularly when we love. See Luke 11:33–36, aptly cited by AlKaaoud 1982:41. And since our being made in God’s image glorifies God, and is “the lihte 3at oure lord loketh to haue worschipe of” (C265, changed from B), our being like candles “reverences” the Trinity. Both the Samaritan’s similes elevate us: God is a hand, and we have hands; God is a candle, and we are candles. 267–68 (B.17.286–87) Ac this is the worste wyse ∂at eny wiht myhte/Synegen a√en ∂e seynte spirit: A significant line, making clear that murder is not the only sin against the Holy Ghost, just the worst sin. There are other ways, such as Dives’s, of closing the heart; lesser, but still damnable. 274a (B.17.293a) Vindica sanguinem iustorum: “Avenge the blood of the just.” Apparently a pastiche of various biblical places: Lam 4:13, “effuderunt in medio eius sanguinem iustorum” (They have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her [Jerusalem]; Ps 78:10 (alternate version), “vindica sanguinem servorum tuorum” (avenge the blood of your servants); Deut 32:43, sanguinem servorum suorum ulciscetur” (he will revenge the blood of his servants); and, the central one, Rev 6:9–10, “Vidi subtus altare animas interfectorum propter

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verbum Dei . . . et clamabant voce magna, dicentes, ‘Usquequo, Domine . . . non vindicas sanguinem nostrum?’ ” (I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God . . . and they cried with a loud voice, saying: “How long, O Lord . . . dost thou not . . . revenge our blood”). Here those who cry out are “the souls of them that were slain for the word of God” (6:9); these are among the 144,000 who stand, in white robes, “before the throne of God” in Rev 7:15: see 272 (B.17.291) above, “Innocence is next god.” As Alford, Quot. shows, Rev 6:10 occurs repeatedly in the liturgy for Holy Innocents’ Day. See also Gen 4:10 (God to Cain), “The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth to me from the earth.” Various patristic writers bring various vengeance passages together, e.g., Bede, Hexaemeron, PL 91.66 where, commenting on Gen 4:10, he says that it is not only the blood of Abel but that of all those killed for the Lord that has a great voice; he says that John in Rev 10 makes clear that the souls of martyrs have that cry too; and he says that it is “ipse fervor charitatis per quem pati pro Domino meruere” (The very heat of charity through which they merited to suffer for the Lord) that cries to the Lord from the earth. 275 (B.17.294) verray charite: i.e., the victims’ power of love, as Bede insists. See 261, 278 (B.17.280, 297). The Samaritan dwells on the paradox that even love demands vengeance; see the next note. 276 Charite ∂at holy churche is (B.17.295 holy chirche and charite): Charity has been equated with the Church variously through the poem, especially in the C version, most notably and directly at 17.125; see also 7.257, 17.286. The change from B “holy chirche and charite” to C “Charite 3at holy churche is” suggests that the phrase “holy church and charity” (Prol.64, 2.143) is a doublet, a yoking of two synonyms, a kind of hendiadys, not a genuinely plural phrase. See further Lawler 2002, 2003, and Andrew Galloway’s note to Prol.64. That the Samaritan is still dwelling on a paradox is clear by reference to C.17.4–5, in which Liberum arbitrium defines the Church and charity precisely in terms of their rejection of vengeance, or to 16.290, “Charite 3at chargeth nauht ne chyt thow me greue hym.” This is a special case that lies outside the teaching of recent passu¯s on charity and patience; the Samaritan is hardly making a brief for vengeance, but merely using biblical vengeance passages as an effective rhetorical strategy for asserting the sacredness of life. Chargeth this so sore: censures this (i.e., murder) so severely. In looking for discussions of vengeance, I found a letter from Archbishop William of Sens to Pope Alexander III (PL 200.1430) begging for vengeance for the death of Thomas Becket. He calls Henry II a “second Herod”; the

428

C Passus 19; B Passus 17

universal Church, he says, “clamat in auribus Domini exercituum: Vindica, domine, sanguinem servi tui et martyris Cantuariensis episcopi qui occisus est,” and it seems possible to me that once again the thought of that unjust death is stirring L’s passion here. 278 (B.17.297) lyf: I.e. man, person. B.17.298 ∂er: At the last judgment (∂e laste ende 296). See above 253a (C.17.219a), “Nescio vos,” the bridegroom to the foolish virgins, a parable of the last judgment; also see Luke 13:25–27.

Will puts a case; the Samaritan replies (279–300, B.17.299–320) 279–300 (B.17.299–320) Y pose . . . may nat paye: Will asks, “Suppose I have sinned so—committed murder—and on my deathbed repent, confess, and ask for mercy: can I be saved?” The gist of the Samaritan’s answer is “Yes—if you repent well enough, but that is not as easy as you think.” The repentance has to be good enough to turn God’s justice into mercy (283–84; B.17.303–4), that is, it must be equivalent to restitution, that being out of the question for a murderer (299–300; B.17.319–20). And that requires a hope for God’s mercy that will be beyond the reach of most murderers (293–95; B.17.313–15). It is like a civil case in which the king cannot pardon the accused until the injured party agrees that sufficient satisfaction has been made, and usually his price is so high that it cannot be met. The analogy is confusing because between a murderer and God there seems to be no third party, no one outside himself accusing him and insisting on huge compensation. His own despair (293; B.17.313) plays that role, however: its demands are so great on him that he cannot come up with sufficient satisfaction. 281 (B.17.301) Confesse me . . . made: The line in C lacks the third stave, vocalic alliteration on and, his, and al being most unlikely. It is not hard to imagine the scribe of archetypal B altering an original crist to god, as the B editors suppose, since the idea of Christ as creator, so easy for L, would probably have been repugnant to him. See RK-C 93 for their rationale for letting the scribal reading stand in the C version. 283–84 (B.17.303–4) so thow . . . turne: As long as you repent so (thoroughly) that (God’s) strict justice can be turned to mercy. See 195, 204–6 (B.17.230, 238–40)—though there the sin at issue is not murder.

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285–87 (B.17.305–7) Ac hit is bote selde yseyen . . . dampneth: See Stephen Barney’s note to 20.1–5. 286–90a (B.17.306–10a) Eny creature . . . peccatum &c: See Alford, Gloss., s.v. Justice, Raunsounen, Resoun, Dampnen, Partie, Pursuen, Appel, Accorden, Equite. Be yraunsomed for his repentaunce: i.e., be pardoned because he has repented and paid ransom or compensation. Ther ∂at partye pursueth the apeel is so huge: the plaintiff’s accusation is so serious (and, therefore, the reparation demanded so huge); cf. OED, s.v. appeal. v. 1.c: “To accuse of a heinous crime whereby the accuser has received personal injury or wrong, for which he demands reparation.” Pearsall explains ∂at partye as “resoun, acting as plaintiff,” which would give an antecedent for ∂at; but L is not being allegorical here at all: better to take the entire locution Ther ∂at partye pursueth as equivalent to “the prosecuting party, the plaintiff.” Til bothe men acorde/ That ey∂er haue equitee: i.e., till a settlement is reached, the plaintiff having agreed that he has been justly compensated. The Latin phrase in 290a (B.17.310a; quoted also by Repentance to Coveytise at 6.257a, B.5.273a) is not holy writ, but a maxim of canon law, completed in ms. Y of the B version with the phrase “nisi restituatur ablatum”: “The sin is not forgiven unless what has been taken away be restored.” See Alford, Quot. at B.5.273a, and search “nisi restituatur ablatum” in PL online. 291–92 (B.17.311–12) folewen here owene will . . . euele lyuen and leten nat: The Samaritan expatiates a little here, going beyond the issue of murder— Will’s, “Y pose y hadde syneged so,” i.e., murdered somebody. 293 (B.17.313) Drede of disparacion: “Dread of desperation,” i.e., either fear that there is no hope or fear born of despair; probably the latter. 294 (B.17.314) mercy . . . falle: It never occurs to them that God might forgive them. 298a (B.17.318a) Misericordia eius super omnia opera eius: “His mercy is over all his works”; cf. Ps. 144:9; quoted also by Repentance to Coveytise at B.5.281 and by Scripture to Will at 12.74 (B.11.139). See 195–200n above. 300 (B.17.320) As (B His) sorwe . . . paye: I.e., it is restitution that will make his righteousness turn to ruth, and heartfelt sorrow can stand in for restitution when restitution cannot be made. Cf. 207–8 (B.17.241–42). As Schmidt says, this important concession by the Samaritan “tempers the warning to those

430

C Passus 19; B Passus 17

who euele lyuen and leten nat with an echo of the promise to the truly repentant” (at 207–8, B.17.241–42). Rihtwisnesse is “Those who do evil will go to eternal fire”; reuthe is “Those who do evil but repent will go to eternal life.” Ruth is pardon; this couplet is a succinct statement of the silent middle of the pardon formula.

The Samaritan’s final example: A wicked wife, rain, and smoke (301–34, B.17.321–54) 301–34 (B.17.321–54) Thre thynges . . . amende: Here the Samaritan offers a wholly new illustration of his theme of love of neighbor. Holy writ is the ultimate source, especially Prov 27:15, “Roofs dropping through in a cold day and a contentious woman are alike,” quoted in ParsT I631, but known in the antifeminist literature in the more virulent form of the Septuagint, in which it is cited by St Jerome in Adversus Jovinianum 28, “Stillicidia ejiciunt hominem in die hiemali de domo sua; similiter et mulier maledica de domo propria” (Continuous drippings drive a man out of his house on a winter day; so will a wrangling woman drive him from his own house), see Hanna and Lawler 1997:188–89, 254. Cf. also Prov 19:13, “a wrangling wife is like a roof continually dropping through,” and 21:9, “It is better to sit in a corner of the housetop than with a brawling woman and in a common house”). However, the fully developed proverb, adding smoke (cf. Prov 10:26) and listing the woman last, as at WBP, D278–80, and attaching them to the biblical formula “Tria sunt” (Prov 30:15, 18, 21, 29), as at Melibee B1086 and here, is a product of medieval wisdom literature, with its penchant for honing the antifeminist bent of ancient texts such as Proverbs to a finer edge. (At least some writers thought it was holy writ: if you search the PL online for “fumus near stillicidium” you will get lots of hits; one author, Alan of Lille in his Liber in distinctionibus dictionum theologicalium, ascribes it to Solomon, the supposed author of the wisdom books [PL 210.800; see also 956], as does Peter the Chanter in Distinctiones Abel, which Stephen Barney is currently editing [and which may be Alan’s source]. Alan of Lille’s sentence begins, “Unde Solomon: Tria sunt quae ejiciunt hominem de domo”; lines 301–2 seem actually to translate it, though B.17.321–22 are slightly freer.) See Archer Taylor 1931: 40, 50, 58, 160–64 and Whiting T187; Cannon 2008:11–12 suggests Matthew of Vendome’s Tobias, lines 631–33, used in schools, as both Chaucer’s and L’s direct source, though Taylor 1924, an exhaustive collection of instances, makes clear just how widespread the idea is. Taylor also gives several examples of moral interpretation such as L’s, seeming to agree with Skeat (EETS 4.393) that Peter the Chanter (PL

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205.331; cf. Boutry 2012a:632) may be L’s source, though L in fact differs significantly from Peter on smoke. L, with characteristic earnestness and originality, effaces the satiric bite by placing the woman first and concentrating on smoke, which is, after all, if the statement be taken at face value, the worst of the three irritants. On the literal level, it is implied but not stated that with the first two irritants, wife and rain, a man might after all not leave the house, or leave it and return soon, which would correspond in the application to “light” forgiveness. The house, of course, stands for heaven. By ending with the comparison of smoke to unkindness, L achieves a fine imaginative connection with the candle simile. The passage is remarkable in that it acknowledges that kynde 315 (B.17.335) and puyr resoun 323 (B.17.343) “contrary” the call to perfection, and treats lust and anger not as deadly sins but as simply ills that flesh is heir to; Paul may have said that Virtus in infirmitate perficitur 321a (B.17.341a), that is, that illness is an opportunity to “do bet and best,” but nature wars against that call. Perhaps the reason why L keeps returning to love as the major virtue is that it is kindness, that is, our nature. We are likelier to get nearer to perfection if we take the way of loving-kindness, because it is natural to us. The passage moves from a surprising qualification of the insistence on perfection that characterizes the first half of the poem—compare, for example, the benign attitude here toward sins of the flesh (repented and intended to be amended, to be sure) to the satiric presentation of Meed’s easy conscience in 3.56–62 (B.3.51–58)—to an eloquent reinforcement of its ultimate message of love, ending by echoing in line 334 (B.17.354) its major enabling text, “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” 302 Out of his oune house (Cf. B.17.322–23 his owene hous . . . wikkede wif): Chaucer uses the same phrase; both poets are surely translating de domo sua and de domo propria in Jerome’s version of Prov 27:15 (see above, note to 301–4). But whereas Chaucer translates Jerome’s maledica precisely as “chiding,” L’s wikkede is a little generalized. “Wikked wyf” was apparently an irresistible phrase in such contexts, as Jankyn himself of course knew. 307 Ac (B.17.325 And): Ac is so necessary to the sense that B’s And is surely scribal in origin. 311 (B.17.331) ∂at Crist √eue hym sorwe: As Skeat points out, this same curse is uttered by Envy at B.5.108. “Sorrow” is common in curses, often as a euphemism for “damnation” or “the devil”; see OED, s.v. sorrow, n. 5. Hym is clearly a domestic servant.

432

C Passus 19; B Passus 17

312 (B.17.332) blowen hit til hit brente: blow the wood dry to make it fit for burning (OED, s.v. blow, v.1 , II. 16). A more obvious meaning would be “blow on the fire, which is smoldering because of slow combustion, to make it blaze,” but the only antecedent for hit is wode. 313–34 (B.17.333–54) Thise thre . . . amende: The Samaritan drives home his message of kindness. This is surely the most compassionate version of the pardon formula in the whole poem, and its most eloquent expression of Langland’s deep conviction both that we need each other and that we have God’s mercy. Those who commit the warm sins, of lust and of giving way to anger in the face of pain, because they love others have pardon (and go to heaven) if they ask for it. Only those who are cold, who in their greed give way to unkindness, which quenches God’s mercy precisely because ordinarily it first quenches any possibility of repentance, are driven out of the house of the Lord for good. 317–18 (B.17.337–38) “∂at is . . . thenketh”: The editorial quotation marks, acceptable but hardly necessary in the previous line, are inappropriate here. (Pearsall has them in neither place, Schmidt in both.) This is not an excuse that lechers make to themselves (who would excuse himself and then immediately plan to make amends?), but in fact what the Samaritan believes about the ease with which lust is forgiven, bringing the section to its natural conclusion. Cf. the parallel lines at the end of the section on anger, 325–26 (B.17.345– 46), and the sharp difference insisted on between lust and anger on the one hand, for which mercy is available, and unkindness, which quenches mercy. See, however, 3.57–62 (B.3.52–58)n; Andrew Galloway and I disagree on this point. 321a (B.17.341a) Virtus in infirmitate perficitur: “Power is made perfect in infirmity,” 2 Cor 12:9. 328 (B.17.348) coueytise and vnkyndenesse: the “hungry contreys” of 15.188 (B.13.219). See also 21.224 (B.19.224) and 22.296 (B.20.296). Covetousness is the cause of the murder at 258–59 (B.17.277–78). Covetousness and unkindness are also the sins of Wrong in passus 4. 330 (B.17.350) sike ne sory: with reference to line 320 (B.17.340) above. Raschko 2012:72 nicely points out that in this sentence, emphasizing how easy it is to be kind, the Samaritan counters Will’s earlier complaint that loving

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one’s neighbor is too hard, and “describes merciful action as humanity’s intrinsic and realizable vocation.” 333 (B.17.353) Alle . . . for√euenesse: As Schmidt points out, this line is repeated nearly verbatim at 21.185 (B.19.185). There, though, it has to do with the priestly power of absolution; here we have the far more moving assertion that an ordinary person, though suffering, has the power to forgive others. The Our Father, of course, treats forgiving others as an essential prerequisite to seeking forgiveness for oneself. And not only forgive them, but louye hem yliche hymsulue (334, B.17.354), a final reminder to Will of the importance of Hope’s “maundement”; see 41 (B.17.38), 101 (B.17.133) and notes at 14, 17 (B.17.13, 16) and 38–41 (B.17.37–38) 336 (B.17.356) y awakede: The end of the fifth vision in B, and either the fourth or fifth in C, depending on how one interprets the waking at 18.178. See the note there.

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Index

Literary works by known authors are listed under the authors’ names, anonymous works under their titles. I do not list characters and figures from other works except the pilgrims in the Canterbury Tales and a few New Testament figures, not including Jesus. Of characters in PP, except Piers Plowman himself, I have not listed any who appear in my five passu¯s, since these are either ubiquitous (Will, for instance) or treated in my commentary where they appear in the poem, and I have listed only a few from earlier passu¯s: Holy Church, Hunger, Recklessness, Repentance, Scripture, Study, and Ymaginatif; no others play much of a role in my part. All modern scholars are included (except editors or translators of primary texts or collections of essays), using the initial only of the first name; all other writers are listed by their full name. References to the commentaries by Pearsall and Schmidt, and the two handbooks by John Alford (Alford, Gloss. and Alford, Quot.), are not listed, since there are so many, but references to other works by those scholars are included, as are references to Skeat’s editions. As for topics, in general I have not indexed topics mostly confined to one portion of my section of the poem, since they can be found so readily by reference to the poem or the Concordance. I have focused rather on issues and ideas that come up throughout my section. The bulkier entries serve as a certain guide to the main themes and characteristics of my section, as I see them: backward reference to what Holy Church teaches Will in passus 1, and to the pardon scene and pardon-formula; prolepsis of the final scene; repentance, the agere/pati topos, kindness and unkindness, comedy, “Harlots’ Holiness,” the do-triad, use of the Legenda aurea, etc. Places in which I have tried to relate the ideas in my passu¯s to L’s largest concerns are gathered under “values of PP.” absolution, bought. See “Harlots’ Holiness” Ackerman, R. W., 139 Acta canonizationis sancti Dominici, 256 Acta sanctorum, 207–9 active vs. contemplative, 58, 62, 316 Adams, J. F., 309 Adams, R., 141, 151, 272, 292, 293, 321, 414, 417 Adkin, N., 355

Aelred of Rievaulx, Sermones de oneribus, 271; Speculum charitatis, 18 Aers, D., 40, 46, 60, 61, 98, 101, 119, 127–28, 176, 183, 299, 301, 304, 310–12, 314, 316, 322, 331, 343, 370–71, 384, 385, 388 agere et pati, 11, 14, 15, 27, 41–46, 47, 60–63, 83, 100, 138 Ainonen, T., 46

470

Index

Akbari, S. C., 201 Alan of Lille, 244; Anticlaudianus, 40; De arte praedicatoria, 137, 259; De fide catholica contra haereticos, 244, 285; Distinctiones, 430; Liber poenitentialis, 114 alazon, conventional role in comedy, 1, 9, 123, 371, 385 Alcuin, 94; Commentaria super Ecclesiasten, 139 Alford, J. A., 9, 14, 47, 48, 60, 65, 73, 78–79, 82, 86, 94, 147, 154, 158, 187, 228, 305, 339 AlKaaoud, E., 384, 390, 426 allegory, 9–10, 15–16, 17, 36, 71, 73–74, 80–81, 99, 106–7, 120, 136, 143, 145, 187, 290–91, 295– 99, 301, 306–10, 314–21, 323–27, 330, 338–41, 384–86, 392–96, 403–4 “Allowance,” i.e., salvation (and disallowance), 97–102, 105, 239, 242, 245, 247–48, 418 Ambrose, St, 9, 16, 68, 71, 101–2, 122, 187, 191, 332, 384, 388; De benedictionibus patriarcharum, 345; De fide, 348; De Nabuthe Jezraelita, 117; De paradiso, 93; De spiritu sancto, 348, 402–3, 409; Enarrationes in XII Psalmos, 84; Epistulae, 51; On Virginity, 319 Ames, R. M., 360 Analecta hymnica medii aevi, ed. Blume and Dreves, 410 Anchor Bible, 377, 385, 389 Anderson, J. H., 16, 64 Andrews, F., 25, 208 Anthony of Egypt, St, 200, 205, 207–9, 212, 256, 269–70 antifeminist literature, 430–31 Apocalypse of Golias, 29, 30 apocalypticism, 29, 157, 215, 228–29, 271 apostles (of Jesus), 12, 13, 19, 23, 26, 71, 164, 200–201, 204, 208–11, 254–55, 258, 260, 268– 70, 272, 279, 280, 283, 318, 320, 350–51 Apuleius, Apology, 118–19 Aquinas, Thomas, St, 18, 85, 236–37, 243, 312, 352; Catena aurea in quatuor evangelia, 173, 203, 386; Contra errores Graecorum, 267; Summa theologiae, 31, 145, 179, 185, 190, 236, 248, 303, 309, 312; Super libros sententiarum magistri Petri Lombardi, 153, 243, 283 Aristotle, 235; Categories, 350; Meteorologies, 85; Physics, 160 Arnobius Junior, Expositiunculae, 386 arts, liberal, 38–40 Aston, M., 220 Athanasius, St, Vita beati Antonii abbati, 207, 209, 269 Auctores octo, 90

Augustine, St, 68, 122, 137, 149, 151, 158, 165, 191, 216, 222, 224, 269, 296, 298, 312, 313, 321, 333, 352–53, 355, 356, 388, 397, 404, 417; On Christian Doctrine, 245, 246, 248, 269; Confessions, 52, 150, 352; Contra Faustum Manichaeum, 365; De civitate Dei, 151, 352, 359; De dono perseverantiae, 89; De Genesi ad litteram, 125; De Genesi contra Manichaeos, 179; De opere monachorum, 209; De patientia, 130; De sermone Domini in monte, 171; De symbolo ad catechumenos sermo alius, 259–60; De trinitate, 189, 359; Enarrationes in Psalmos, 45, 227, 348, 402, 410; Sermones, 45. 195, 221, 327, 329–30, 354, 373–74; Tractates on the Gospel of John, 180, 222, 367, 410 Augustinians, 25 Averroes, 30 Ayenbite of Inwit, 162 Baldwin, A. P., 14, 41, 50, 53, 54, 61, 81, 147 Baldwin, J. W., 65, 67 Baldwin of Forde, Sermones, 243–44 Bale, John, 23 Bandinus, Sententiarum II: De mundi creatione et hominis lapsu, 145 Barber, M., 274 Barney, S. A., 8, 16, 18, 27, 49, 67, 87, 150, 306, 339, 430 Bartholomaeus Anglicus, De proprietatibus rerum, 84, 85, 149, 150, 206, 213, 230, 402, 404. See also Trevisa Bassett, M., 186 Baugh, A. C., 232 Becket, Thomas, St, 160, 193, 198, 200, 201, 427 Bede, St, 287, 402; Hexaemeron, 426–27; Historica ecclesiastica, 261 Benedictine Rule, 63, 216 Bennett, J. A. W., 54 Bennett, M., 178 Benson, C. D., 16, 141 Benson, L., 67 Bernard of Clairvaux, St, 155, 156, 200, 298, 354; Apology to Abbot William, 256; Sermones, 18, 154, 158, 159, 237, 255, 256, 257 Betz, J., 190 Bevington, D., 34, 183, 359 Bible: Gen 1:1, 318; 1:2, 348; 1:24, 90; 1:26, 360; 1:27– 28, 318; 1:28, 319; 1:29–30, 84; 2:7, 91, 318; 2:21–22, 318; 2:24, 128; 3:5, 155, 158; 3:15, 367; 3:19, 72; 4:10, 427; 8:21, 186; 12:1–2, 7, 362; 12:7–8, 362; 13:16, 362; 13:18, 362; 14:18, 364;

Index 14:18–19, 363; 18:17–18, 362; 21:4, 362; 22:1–18, 361; 22:16–18, 362; 24, 137; 33:12, 12; 35:3, 12; 36:19, 263; 38, 355 Ex 16:35, 91; 20:12, 217; 22:29, 226; 31:18, 286, 373; 34:28, 286; 40:16, 150 Lev 11:3, 264; 11:13–19, 85; 16:14–16, 264; 19:17– 18, 378; 19:18, 151, 369, 373, 377, 378; 27:30– 32, 226 Num 11:31–32, 206; 20:11, 91; 20:12, 371 Deut 5:6–21, 373; 5:16, 217; 5:22, 286; 6:5, 38, 151, 369, 373, 377; 7:14, 355; 8:3, 86; 12:6 and 11, 275; 10:4, 373; 14:4–6, 264; 14:7, 355; 14:12–18, 85; 14:29, 16:12, 78; 18:15–22, 286–89; 23:15, 281; 25:5–10, 355; 27:14–26, 355; 32:43, 426; 34:1–4, 371 Ruth 4:15, 38 1 Kings (1 Sam) 16:7, 189 3 Kings (1 Kings) 17–18, 91 4 Kings (2 Kings) 2:23–24, 181 Tob 2:19–3:6, 213 Job 170, 213; 1:4, 16; 2:2, 396; 3:11, 139; 6:5, 216; 13:26, 187; 20:5, 171; 20:5–7, 170; 21:2, 19; 24:18–21, 355; 34:19, 111; 39:9, 16 Psalms in general, 20, 91, 98, 111, 175, 200, 402 Ps 4:1, 327; 4:3, 158, 164, 165; 4:5, 202; 4:8, 227; 4:9, 196; 6:7, 139, 187; 10:6, 247; 14, 33, 38, 60, 62, 81, 106, 169; 14:3, 33, 168; 17:26, 165; 18:6, 327; 22:4, 134; 24:7,187; 31:1, 2, 5, and 6, 20; 32:9, 90, 324; 33:7, 120, 425; 34:20–21, 337; 36:4, 91; 36:24, 308; 36:27, 151, 161; 41:6 and 12, 184; 42:6, 184; 43:22, 189; 48, 102; 50:8, 165; 50:9, 171, 187; 50:19, 20, 187; 56:5, 426; 68:34, 111; 71:2, 218; 71:12, 327; 71:13, 98, 111; 72:20, 103; 74:19, 111; 75:6, 103; 78:10, 426; 94:2, 227; 96:7, 164; 96:7, 164, 165; 99, 45; 100, 78; 103:27, 84; 110:3, 218; 111:3, 218; 111:9, 217, 218, 219, 221; 118:9, 187; 118:73, 402; 131:1, 263; 131:6, 264; 132:1, 243; 144:9, 429; 144:16, 90, 91, 183; 145:7, 222; 148:5, 90 Prov 1:22, 180; 9:1, 40; 10:26, 430; 11:28, 216; 14:31, 425; 15:4, 302; 16:32, 42; 18:21, 426; 19:13, 430; 19:17, 425; 23, 9; 24:13–14, 157; 24:16, 308; 25:16, 157; 25:27, 157; 27:15, 430, 431; 29:13, 111; 30:4, 409; 30:15, 18, 21, and 29, 430 Eccles 4:1–6, 111; 8:13, 139, 28:22, 426 Cant 47, 128, 237, 297, 350; 2:3, 287; 3:7, 380; 6:9, 253 Ecclus 219; 30:24, 247; 31:8, 97, 193; 31:8–9, 100–1; 31:9, 193; 38:4, 393

471

Isa 111, 200; 3:7, 284; 5:22, 21, 72; 9:2, 365; 11, 394; 14:13, 158; 31:9, 355; 32:11, 140; 35:1–10, 397; 40:12, 401–3, 407; 45:22, 112; 53:1, 402; 58:7, 78; 61:1–2, 111; 65:12, 112 Jeremiah 29, 89; 9:4, 23, 24 Ezek 185; 7:18, 140; 18:30, 19; 33:11, 112 Daniel 288; 5:5, 402; 7:10, 270; 8:24–27, 285, 289 Hosea 200, 284; 4:6–8, 17; 13:14, 397 Amos 5:18, 89 Jon 3:5, 6, and 8, 140 Micah 5:2, 263 Mal 3:3, 227; 3:10, 284 Gospels (in general), 8, 9, 16, 42, 49, 58, 98, 111, 200, 208, 263, 287, 329, 330, 332, 334, 335, 336, 367, 388, 390, 410, 416, 417, 420 Matt 189, 377; 1:1–16, 113; 2:2, 113; 3:2, 19; 3:16– 17, 353; 4:4, 9, 86; 4:13–16, 265; 4:16, 418; 4:18, 210; 5–7, 96; 5:3, 122; 5:3–4, 100; 5:5, 138; 5:6, 137; 5:10, 41, 100; 5:13, 258, 259; 5:14–15, 260; 5:17, 374; 5:19, 37; 5:38–39, 42; 5:43–48, 217; 5:44, 45, 246; 5:48, 58; 6:5, 102, 106; 6:9–13, 86; 6:11, 87, 137; 6:16, 191; 6:17– 18, 190; 6:25, 130; 6:25–26, 206; 6:25–34, 88; 6:26, 263; 7, 422; 7:1, 132, 422; 7:1–5, 400; 7:2, 422; 7:3–5, 227; 7:7, 86, 91, 148, 258, 267; 7;12, 182, 422; 7:14, 121; 7:15–20, 172; 7:19, 165; 7:21, 422; 7:24, 158; 9:12, 329, 330; 9:34, 334; 10:22, 19, 41, 89; 10:37, 217; 10:39, 89; 11:5, 332; 11:9, 287; 11:12, 42; 11:19, 288; 12:14, 287; 12:2–14, 334; 12:24, 334; 12:28, 402, 407; 12:32, 312, 412; 12:46–50, 217; 13:3–8, 314; 13:30, 165; 13:31, 304; 14:13–21 et synop, 287, 334; 15:3–9, 217; 16:9, 334; 16:14, 287; 16:18, 190; 16:19, 147; 16:25, 89; 18:3, 180; 18:7, 338; 19:3–9, 334; 19:6, 194; 19:16–22, 423; 19:16– 26, 121; 19:19 et synop, 217; 19:21, 158; 19:22, 97; 19:23, 113; 19:23–24, 101; 20:4, 267; 20:28, 126; 21:11 and 46, 287; 21:12–13, 335; 21:12–20, 172; 21:18–22, 285; 21:31–32, 332; 22:37–39, 286; 22:1–14, 66, 74, 79, 160, 255, 261, 263; 22:4, 262, 263, 264; 22:10–16, 173; 22:11, 62; 22:21, 227; 22:30, 317; 22:34–40, 35; 22:35–40, 369; 22:36–40, 373; 22:37–39, 38, 151, 376, 400; 22:37–40, 242, 246; 22:39, 247, 377, 383; 22:40, 38, 40, 374–75, 376; 23, 334; 23:3, 227; 23:6–7, 9; 23:7–10, 11; 23:27, 171; 23:33, 170; 24:11, 288; 24:12, 215; 24:32– 33, 101, 215; 25:6–7, 148; 25:12, 420; 25:14– 30, 98; 25:31–46, 185; 25:34–46, 425; 25:35–36, 380; 25:35–45, 111; 25:36, 186;

472

Index

Bible (continued ) 25:40, 129, 246; 25:45, 34; 25:31-46, 34; 26:4, 335; 26:5, 335; 26:7, 71; 26:14–15, 336; 26:14– 16, 335; 26:17 and 19, 335; 26:21, 336; 26:24, 337, 338; 26:25, 336; 26:26, 88; 26:37, 333; 26:42, 86; 26:48, 336; 26:49, 337; 26:53–54, 203; 27:3–5, 336; 27:45 et synop, 338; 27:46, 354; 28:16–20, 260 Mark 279; 2:16, 288; 2:17, 332; 3:22, 287; 3:29, 312; 6:2–44, 334; 6:12, 26; 7:9–13, 217; 8:19, 334; 8:35, 89; 10:9, 194; 10:17–27, 423; 10:18, 39; 10:23–35, 101; 10:27, 151; 11:12–14 and 20–24, 285; 11:15–17, 335; 12:25, 317; 12:29 and 32, 383; 12:29–31, 369, 373; 12:30–31, 151, 376; 14:2, 10–11, 12, 16; 14:3, 71; 14:10–11 and 44, 336; 14:45, 337; 14:57–58, 335; 15:34, 354; 15:42, 335; 16:14, 70; 16:14–18, 260; 16:15, 264, 266; 16:17–18, 70 Luke 2, 58, 97, 189, 336; 1:20, 34; 1:35, 325, 327; 1:38, 328; 1:52, 275; 1:54–55, 362; 1:68, 33; 1:73–74, 362; 2:6, 326; 2:32, 403; 2:40, 329; 4:4, 9; 4:18–19, 111; 5:31, 332; 6:20, 111, 118, 120, 122, 425; 6:20–21, 98, 101; 6:21, 138; 6:22, 35–38, and 46, 415; 6:24, 106; 6:27 and 35, 45; 6:27–35, 400; 6:35, 111; 6:37, 132, 400; 6:38, 416; 7:22, 332; 7:34, 8–9; 7:37, 49, 71; 7:37–50, 55, 210–11, 332; 7:41–42, 227; 8:2–3, 319; 8:15, 50; 9:10–17, 334; 9:24, 89; 9:51, 386; 9:51–18:30, 58; 10:1, 12; 10:1–16, 16; 10:4, 142; 10:7, 16, 19; 10:8, 215; 10:16, 425; 10:25– 28, 373, 375, 379; 10:25-37, 340, 341, 369–71, 377, 384–91; 10:27, 376, 377, 379; 10:28, 246, 380; 10:29–37, 342; 10:30, 388; 10:37, 396; 10:40, 63; 11:2–4, 86; 11:3, 87, 137, 197; 11:9, 91, 148; 11:17, 189; 11:20, 402; 11:33–36, 426; 12:10, 312; 12:13–34, 98; 12:16–21, 175; 12:22– 31, 88; 12:24, 85; 13:19, 304; 13:25–27, 428; 14:12–13, 164, 221; 14:12–14 and 16–24, 9; 14:12–14 and 15–24, 78; 14:15 and 18–20, 79; 14:16–24, 66; 14:20, 60, 81; 14:35, 172; 15:23, 262; 16:9, 423, 424; 16:13, 101; 16:15, 190; 16:19–31, 98, 102, 365–66, 422–25; 16:20–21, 195; 16:22, 106; 16:23, 323; 17:4, 308; 17:28– 29, 72; 17:33, 89; 18:7–8, 277; 18:18–23, 423; 18:24–25, 101; 19:1–10, 55; 19:44, 334; 19:45– 46, 335; 19:47, 287; 20:34–36, 317–18; 20:46– 57, 9; 21:4, 55; 21:30–31, 101; 22:2, 7–8, and 13, 335; 22:3–6, 336; 22:48, 337; 23:49 and 55, 319; 23:54, 335; 24:31, 46; 24:36, 277 John 287, 335, 336, 347; 1:1, 347; 1:29 and 36, 365; 1:38, 9, 11; 1:4–9, 279; 2:14–22, 335;

2:20, 348; 2:21, 335; 4:9, 370; 4:31–34, 83, 84; 4:34, 16, 87, 303; 5:45, 289; 5:46, 341; 6:1–13, 334; 6:31ff, 86; 6:35 and 51, 87; 6:54, 394; 7:20, 287, 334; 7:24, 132; 8:3–11, 332; 8:6, 229; 8:44, 334; 8:48 and 52, 334; 8:48–52, 287; 8:56, 345, 350; 8:58, 341; 9:1–41, 332; 10:10, 396; 10:11, 267; 10:16, 363, 364; 10:38, 191; 11:1–2, 211; 11:1–46, 287, 333; 11:39, 287, 333; 11:41–42 and 45, 334; 11:45–47 and 53, 288–89; 11:46–53, 334; 11:46–57, 334; 12:9–13 and 17–18, 334; 12:10–11 and 19, 334; 12:25, 89, 248; 12:32, 408; 12:38, 402; 13:1, 336; 13:30, 336; 14:6, 348; 14:13, 86; 14:14, 91; 14:15, 348; 14:16–17, 312; 15:26, 348; 16:24, 258; 16:28, 409–10; 18:8, 338; 19:14 and 31, 336; 19:20, 374; 20:15, 257, 304; 20:19, 277; 20:22–23, 3, 95, 398; 20:23, 116; 21:9–15; 21:23, 70; 22:15–17, 70 Acts 268, 410; 2:44–45, 117, 255; 3:6, 69, 71; 3:22, 289; 4:32, 117; 5:1–10, 190; 5:41, 14; 7:22, 39; 7:37, 289; 10:34, 164; 10:42, 327; 11:28– 29, 273; 12:2, 279; 12:3–4, 203; 18:3, 208–10; 21–24, 203; 23:3, 171 Rom 1:1, 127; 1:32, 78; 2:17–23, 227; 4, 333; 4:11, 363; 4:13, 362; 5:5, 295, 414; 5:6, 367; 6:14, 370; 8:35, 268; 9:15–16, 417; 12:3, 155, 159; 12:4–16, 243; 12:9–21, 96, 176; 12:13–19, 181–82; 12:19, 277; 12:20, 46; 13:10, 292; 13:12, 338 1 Cor, 153; 1:23, 26, 266; 1:24, 310; 3:16, 303; 4:9–13, 268; 4:12, 208; 5:11, 23; 6:19, 303, 426; 7:7, 130; 8:1, 159; 9, 209; 9:14, 227; 9:24–25, 191; 10:3, 86; 10:20, 221, 296; 12:8, 410; 13, 104, 176; 13:1–13, 179–82 passim; 13:1–13, 341; 13:1, 422; 13:2, 153; 13:3, 421; 13:4, 48, 301; 13:4 and 6, 96; 13:7, 51, 203; 13:12, 190, 349; 13:13, 203, 299, 341, 370, 381, 384; 14:20, 180; 14:26, 29; 15:53, 73; 15:58, 117; 16:13, 92 2 Cor 1:24, 92; 2:11, 396; 2:17, 235; 8–9, 218; 9:9, 217, 218; 10:1–18, 302; 10:3, 206; 11:23– 27, 268; 11:24–27 and 30, 22; 12:9, 432; 13:5, 92 Gal 2:4, 23; 3–4, 343; 3:1–14, 343; 3:6, 361; 3:6–9, 362; 3:6–29, 363; 3:8, 342; 3:16–29, 386; 3:27, 73; 4:4, 367; 4:4–5, 325; 4:22–31, 343; 6:2, 391; 6:24, 271 Eph 3:17, 95; 4, 243; 4:3, 243; 4:15, 96; 4:22–24; 4:28, 208–9; 4:29, 244; 5:8–15, 279; 5:15, 120; 5:26, 390; 6:2, 217; 6:2–4, 217; 6:11, 396; 6:14–17, 92; 6:16, 347; 6:17, 147

Index Phil 1:21–24, 89; 2:5–7, 128; 2:6–7, 350; 2:16, 117; 3:20, 206; 4:6, 88 Col 2:5, 92; 3:9–10, 73; 4:6, 302 2 Thess 3:6, 23; 3:8–9, 23 1 Tim 1:15, 330; 1:19, 92; 5:4 and 8, 217; 6:8, 222; 6:10, 120, 296; 6:12, 92; 12:24, 279 2 Tim 2:5, 191; 2:12, 41; 2:26, 396; 3:1–7, 9; 4:5, 88; 4:7, 19 Titus 3:3, 302; 3:3–7, 391 Heb 2:14, 127; 4:12, 147; 8:6, 279; 9:13, 264; 9:35, 279; 10:30, 277; 11, 342, 343, 367; 11–12, 279; 11:13, 367; 11:32–38, 268; 11:37–38, 205 James 1:4, 42; 1:12, 42; 2, 388; 2:1–9, 164; 2:5, 111; 2:8, 38; 2:14–26, 191; 2:23, 361; 4:8, 416; 5:11, 42; 5:17, 91 1 Pet 2:20, 42; 2:21, 41; 5:8, 396 2 Pet 3:8–9, 368 1 John 2:15, 90; 2:15–16, 308; 3:14, 379; 4, 243, 246; 4:8, 246; 4:8 and 16, 96, 176; 4:12, 416; 4:16, 384; 4:18, 51, 182 Jude 1:23, 73; 19, 313 Rev 6:9–10, 426; 6:10, 427; 7:15, 427; 10, 427; 14:4, 314, 318, 320; 14:13, 122; 20:12, 270; 22:2, 298 Bible, translation of, into English, 24 bidding prayer, 68 Biggs, F. M., 317, 318, 320, 401, 403, 405, 407 bishops, 56, 152–53, 190, 192–93, 200–201, 239, 259–60, 263, 264–71, 278–85, 389 Blackman, E., 294 Blanchfield, L. S., 141 Bland, C. R., 48 Bloch, R., 289 Bloomfield, M. W., 14, 65, 118, 119, 124, 125, 162, 200, 225, 228, 309, 314, 315, 316, 421 Boccaccio, Decameron, 122 Boethius, De consolatione philosophiae, 135, 153 Bonaventure, St, 195, 252, 267, 352, 405; Apologia pauperum, 209; Breviloquium, 309, 312; Collationes in Hexaemeron, 158, 159; Commentaria in primum librum sententiarum, 353; Legenda major S. Francisci, 118, 255; Legenda minor S. Francisci, 31; Quaestiones disputatae de perfectione evangelica, 219; Regula novitiorum, 18 Bossy, M.-A., 139 Boswell, J., 52 Bourquin, G., 127, 251, 253, 277 Bowers, A. J., 298, 300, 302, 316 Boyarin, D., 288 Bradley, H., 49 Brantley, J., 308

473

Breen, K., 74 Brewer, H., 57 Brooke, G. C., 273 Brooke, R., 128 Brown, R. E., 345 Bruzelius, C., 256 Bugge, J., 317, 319 Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress, 121 Burdach, K., 41, 42, 43, 61, 298 Burley, Walter, De vita et moribus philosophorum, 130 Burman, T. E., 288 Burr, D., 29 Burrow, J. A., 4, 27, 47, 109, 141, 189, 190, 268, 293, 314, 325, 372, 382 Burton, J., 255, 256 Butterfield, A., 232, 233 C version, greater clarity (sometimes greater obviousness) of, 13, 37, 39, 51–52, 54, 64, 102, 106, 167–68, 175, 178, 224, 294, 310, 311, 313, 314, 317, 337, 346, 352, 353, 357, 383, 393 Cable, T., 232 Caferro, W., 277 Camargo, M., 233 Cambridge, 1993 PP conference in, 13 Cannon, C., 92, 204, 232, 294 Carmelites, 25 Carmen paraeneticum ad Rainaldum, 89 Carruthers, M., 60, 62, 65, 79, 223, 299, 316 Cartula, 90 Caspari, C. P., 357 Cassian, John, St, 355; Collationes, 378; Institutes, 94, 205 Cassiodorus, De artibus et disciplinis liberalium litterarum, 231; Historia ecclesiastica, 269, 270; In psalterium expositio, 102, 165 Castle of Perseverance, 120, s122, 124 Catholic Encyclopedia, 173, 246, 259, 407, 412 Cavalletti, S., 345 Celano, Thomas of, 128, 191, 252 Cervantes, Don Quixote, 123, 389 Chambers, R. W., 2, 60, 141, 294 Chase, C., 211 Chaucer, Geoffrey, 40, 43, 113, 125, 201, 431; Boece, 153; Book of the Duchess, 229; Canterbury Tales, 300: General Prologue: 62–63, 82, 109; Clerk, 67; Friar, 11, 163, 219; Monk, 243; Pardoner, 69, 421; Parson, 37, 192, 227, 260; Physician, 332; Plowman, 383; Squire, 67, 345; Summoner, 175. Canon’s Yeoman’s

474

Index

Chaucer, Geoffrey (continued ) Tale, 62, 64, 216, 389, 419; Clerk’s, 26; Franklin’s, 43; Friar’s, 64, 155; Knight’s, 48; Man of Law’s, 252; Manciple’s, 318; Melibee, 42, 157, 430; Merchant’s, 107; Miller’s, 47, 66, 230, 310, 322; Pardoner’s, 12, 59, 77, 125, 152, 209, 210, 264, 296, 358, 375; Parson’s, 43, 82, 94, 95, 123, 124, 125, 162, 170, 216, 229, 297, 378, 383, 412, 419, 430; Reeve’s, 389; Shipman’s, 391; Squire’s, 172; Summoner’s, 10, 11, 34, 53, 67, 126, 163; Wife’s Prologue, 107, 125, 419, 430, 431; Wife’s Tale, 131, 134, 135, 417; Legend of Good Women, 48, 304; Romaunt of the Rose, 25; Troilus, 43, 229, 327, 389 Chenu, M.-D., 201 Chew, S. C., 250, 251, 252 Chichester, John, 72 Chobham, Thomas of, 68; Summa confessorum, 284; Summa de commendatione virtutum et extirpatione vitiorum, 41 Chrysostom, John, St, 386. See also PseudoChrysostom Clanchy, M. T., 134 Cleanness, 147, 155, 320, 359 Clifton, N., 384 Clopper, L. M., 10, 12, 14, 16, 24, 27, 29, 31, 89, 97, 98, 128, 141, 161, 255, 293, 309, 346, 349, 352, 401, 404, 405, 407, 409, 410 clothing, 24, 73–74, 80–81, 88, 140, 142, 168, 173– 74, 192, 193, 270 Cobban, A. B., 11 Coghill, N., 141, 390 Cohen, J., 287 Cole, A., 299, 304, 305, 308 Coleman, J., 239 comedy, 1, 9, 14, 20, 28, 35, 56–57, 62, 94, 100, 118–27, 129–37, 146, 149, 152–53, 253, 316–17, 324–25, 340, 349, 370–72, 380, 385, 389, 391 Conrad of Eberbach, Exordium magnum Cisterciense, 316 Constable, G., 205 Constantine, 195, 198, 201, 269, 275, 282 Constitutiones antique ordinis fratrum Praedicatorum. See Dominican Constitutions Continuatio chronicorum beati Isidori, 251 Continuatio Thomae de Aquino “Expositionis in Aristotelis libros Meteorologicorum,” 85 conversion to Christianity, 56, 200–201, 239– 40, 254, 260–61, 264–65, 268, 278–81, 285, 289–90, 332 Cornelius, I., 17, 198, 294, 382 Coulton, G. G., 281

Courtenay, W. J., 11, 161, 232, 235 Coward, N., 53 Coxe, H. O., 68 Crampton, G. R., 62 Crane, S., 384 Crassons, K., 119, 386, 390 Crawford, J., 67, 193 Crowley, R., 38, 276, 412 Crutched Friars, 25–26 Cursor mundi, 155 Cutts, E. L., 67 Daly, L. W., 130 D’Ancona, A., 250, 251 Daniel, N., 245, 250, 251, 252 Dante, 27, 201, 250, 325; Convivio, 309; Inferno, 32–33, 309, 327; Monarchia, 225; Paradiso, 128, 161, 225, 302, 404; Purgatorio, 147, 274, 302, 303, 416 date of PP, 54, 272 Daur, K.-D., 386 Davis, R. A., 265, 290 Davis, V., 26 De modo bene vivendi, 125 De nuncio sagaci, 122 Dean, J. M., 27, 227, 229 Delatte, P., 208 DeRomestin, H. and G., 402 Desan, C., 226, 273 Desmond, M., 52 Dialogus inter corpus et animam (Visio Philiberti), 139 Dickens, Charles, 174, 232; Bleak House, David Copperfield, 122–23; Little Dorritt, 186; Pickwick Papers, 122–23, 186 Didron, N. A., 409 Didymus of Alexandria, De spiritu sancto, transl. Jerome, 403 dinner scene, pattern echoed in Samaritan scene, 371 Dionysius the Areopagite. See PseudoDionysius Distichs of Cato, 43, 97, 140, 216, 232 Dombart, B., 151 Dominican Constitutions, 11, 17, 256 Dominicans, 11, 12, 25, 27, 161, 219, 251, 256, 266 Donaldson, E. T., 4, 5, 13, 16, 42, 64, 78, 96, 107, 112, 143, 188, 268, 293, 294, 296, 298, 300, 304, 311, 324, 331 Donatus, Aelius, 231; De octo partibus orationis (“Ars minor”), 294 Doutte´, E., 250, 251

Index Dowel, the “do” triad, 13, 34–37, 38–40, 49, 56, 58, 59–61, 81, 82, 95, 97, 100, 110, 114–17, 141, 154, 176, 177, 239, 293–94, 298, 340–41, 370, 384 Dronke, P., 297, 299, 325, 354 Duckworth, H. T. F., 402 Duffy, E., 68, 236, 415 Duggan, H. N., 240 Durandus, Rationale diversorum officiorum, 283 Economou, G., 107, 115, 322 eiron, conventional role in comedy, 1, 9, 123, 385 Eleen, L., 147 Elizabeth of Hungary, St, 108, 192, 195, 270 Emmaus, 46 enigma. See riddles “envelope” structure, 127, 250, 261, 283 Epiphanius Scholasticus, 269, 270 Erickson, C., 35, 255 estates satire, 11, 62, 157, 166, 169, 191–92, 282, 315 Eubel, K., 265, 266 Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 260 Eustathius, In Hexaemeron sancti Basilii Latina metaphrasis, 86 Evans, M., 347 Everyman, 15, 34, 120, 183, 247 Expositio in Donatum maiorem, 231 Faus Semblant (Roman de la Rose), 11–12, 21, 26 final scene of the poem, 1, 47, 56, 132, 135, 154, 183, 215, 228, 231, 330, 398, 406 Fitzralph, Richard, Defensio curatorum, 35, 220, 245, 280; Summa Domini Armacani in Questionibus Armenorum, 245 Fleming, J. V., 26, 209 Fletcher, A. J., 227 folktale motifs, 35, 38, 46 Forrest, I., 282 Fowler, D. C., 35, 153, 268, 275, 277, 280, 316, 351 Francis of Assisi, St, 10, 14, 26, 29, 78, 86, 91, 108, 118, 127–28, 133, 191, 200, 201, 212, 252, 255, 265 Franciscan Rule, 16, 214, 215, 226 Franciscans, Franciscanism, Franciscan thought 10, 11, 12, 18, 25, 27, 29, 30–31, 60, 98, 127–28, 201, 255, 283, 353 Frank, R. W., Jr., 61, 73, 93, 109, 293, 299, 311, 339 Franz, A., 236

475

friars, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 17, 22–24, 28, 29–31, 34–35, 117, 128, 142, 153–54, 160–67, 189, 208, 213, 219–20, 266, 281, 288; number of orders of, 25–26 Friars of the Holy Cross. See Crutched Friars Frowinus, Explanatio dominicae orationis, 144 Funkenstein, A. 287 Galloway, A., 1, 47, 48, 49–51, 346, 351, 353–54, 401, 404, 406, 416, 420, 421, 427, 432 Gameson, R. and F., 261 Gardner, E. G., 128 Garnier de Rochefort (Garnerius Lingonensis), Sermones, 39 Gasse, R., 330 Geanakoplos, D. J., 267 Gelber, H. G., 27 Geltner, G., 9, 41, 186 Gerhoh of Reichersberg, Commentarius aureus in Psalmos et cantica ferialia, 329; Expositio in Psalmos, 63, 164 Gillespie, V., 14, 55, 60, 65, 83, 86, 87–88, 94 Glorieux, P., 11 Glossa ordinaria (“The Gloss”), 150, 165, 196, 297 Glover, S., 170 Godden, M., 59, 60, 138, 331 “going to Jerusalem,” 2, 10, 57–58, 368, 384, 386–87 Golden Legend. See Jacobus Goldsmith, M. E., 296, 299 Goldstein, R. J., 240 Goscelin, Vita sancti Augustini, 261 Gospel of Nicodemus, 323, 364, 365, 366, 380 Gospels. See Bible Gradon, P., 272, 275, 276, 277 grammar, grammar-school, 39, 52–53, 231–34, 290, 416 Gratian, Decretum, 225, 236, 248, 276, 333 Grattan, J. H. G., 294 Gray, N., 162 Greatrex, J., 160 Green, R. 253 Gregory I, the great, St, 63, 102, 119, 215, 236, 253, 261, 262, 283; Commentary on the First Book of Kings, 63; Commentary on the Seven Penitential Psalms, 345; Homiliae in evangelia, 14, 66, 211, 257, 310, 378; Homiliae in Ezechielem, 58, 185; Moralia, 16, 154, 156, 270, 296; Pastoral Care, 169, 227, 390; Super Cantica Canticorum expositio, 297 Gregory IX, Decretals, 283, 284

476

Index

Griffiths, L., 291, 316, 322 Gross-Diaz, T., 102 Gruenler, C. A., 1, 8, 11, 15, 16, 35. 46, 50, 56, 78, 153, 176, 180, 187, 388 Guarienti, A., 85 Gwynn, A., 27, 54, 219, 266, 272, 281 Habakkuk, J., 129 Habig, M. A., 26, 86, 118, 128, 191, 212, 215, 226, 252, 255 Hamilton, B., 265 Handlyng Synne, 53, 124, 174, 423 Hanks, P. and Hodges, F., 59 Hanna, R., 11, 25, 78, 84, 141, 219, 222, 252, 293, 297, 299, 301, 303, 304, 316, 321, 430 “Harlots’ Holiness,” i.e., bought absolution, 17, 23–24, 135, 164–66, 204, 212, 214–15, 220, 244, 274, 421 Harvey, F. D. A., 375 Harvey, J., 307 Harwood, B. J., 144, 322 Haskins, S., 211 Hassell, J. W., Jr., 251 Hayden, M., 26 Haymo of Halberstadt, Expositio in S. Pauli epistolas, 227, 271; Homiliae, 102 Hays, H. M., 230 Hays, R. B., 342, 343 Hazelton, R., 43 Helinand of Froidmont, Sermones, 256, 297 Helmholz, R. H., 194 Hemingway, S. B., 210 Henry, A., 289, 343, 344, 345 Henry II, King of England, 273, 426, 427 Henry IV, King of England, 273 Henry VIII, King of England, 25, 280 Herbert, George, “Ungratefulness,” 370 Hericus Antissiodorensis, Homilia in dominica XIV post Pentecosten, 386 Hermann, P., 128 Herrad of Hohenbourg, Hortus deliciarum, 253 Hesiod, Works and Days, 230 Heuser, W., 336 Higden, Ranulph, Polychronicon, 232, 249, 250, 253, 261, 280 Hilary of Poitiers, St, 201, 403; Epistula seu Libellus, 297; On the Trinity, 404, 407, 409; Tractatus super psalmos, 120, 403 Hildegard of Bingen, St, 19, 106, 121; Explanatio symboli Sancti Athanasii, 149; Liber divinorum operum, 85, 149; Scivias, 96, 316

Hill, T. D., 155, 215, 262, 263, 384, 386, 388, 390, 397 Hinnebusch, W. A., 256 Hirsch-Reich, B., 297 Holy Church, personification, 44, 48, 92, 127, 137, 144, 168, 176, 323, 371, 415, 416, 419 Homans, G. C., 68, 109 Homer, Odyssey, 123 homosexuality, 92 Honorius Augustodunensis, Expositio in Cantica Canticorum, 380; Gemma animae, 404; Sacramentarium, 67; Sigillum Mariae, 404; Speculum ecclesiae, 411 Hort, G., 93 Howard, D. R., 309 Hudson, A., 169, 272, 274, 275, 276 Hugh of Amiens, 356; Dialogi, 348; Tractatus de memoria, 403, 409 Hugh of Saint-Cher, Biblia cum postillis, 9, 49, 102, 118 Hunger, personification, 58, 109, 164, 195, 365– 66, 419–20, 424 Hunt, R. W., 90, 232 Huppe´, B. F., 33, 62, 65, 74, 190, 258, 298, 384 Hurst, D. 310 “inner dream” (B.16.20–166; for C, see 18.178n), 140–41, 292, 298–99, 301, 304 Innocent III, Mysteriorum evangelicae legis et sacramenti eucharistiae libri sex, 283, 323 Isidore of Seville, St, 280; De ortu et obitu patrum, 320; Etymologies, 7, 84, 143, 148–52, 190, 230, 231, 349 Jack Upland, 12, 25, 26, 35, 256 Jacobs, N., 306 Jacobus de Voragine (Jacopo da Varazze), 402; Legenda aurea (The Golden Legend), 11, 12, 15, 21–22, 31, 46, 78, 91, 108, 113, 128, 176, 187, 191–93, 195, 200–201, 203, 204–9, 211, 212, 216, 218, 244, 249, 250, 252, 253, 255, 260, 261, 268, 269, 270, 272, 272–73, 279, 280, 281, 282, 288, 290, 300, 320, 323, 329–30, 343, 365, 367, 404 Jacopo da Acqui, Chronicon imaginis mundi, 251, 252 Jameson, A. B., 210 Jansen, K. L., 211 Jennings, M., 237 Jensen, R. M., 259 Jeremias, J., 335, 336, 423 Jerome, St, 7, 42, 71, 89, 98, 107, 191, 195, 220, 222, 253, 333, 355, 378, 386, 388, 403, 431;

Index Against Jovinian, 314, 430; Commentarium in evangelium S. Matthaei, 87, 402; Commentarium super Isaiam, 284; Letters, 107, 125, 158, 169, 209, 215, 221, 276, 320, 329, 410; Vita sancti Hilarionis, 209; Vita sancti Pauli eremitae, 205, 207, 208, 211 “Jesus psalter,” 183 Joachim of Fiore, Joachism, 29, 30, 201, 297 John of Salisbury, 68, 232; De septem septenis, 230; Entheticus minor, 42; Epistolae, 271; Metalogicon, 231; Policraticus, 78, 170, 274 John the Baptist, St, 33, 205, 321, 331, 341, 342, 364–67 Jonson, Ben, Volpone, 122 Jordan of Saxony, Liber Vitasfratrum, 189, 208, 210 Jordan, William, O. P., 10, 12, 18, 27 Joyce, James, Ulysses, 123 Justice, S., 41, 268 Justinian, Corpus juris civilis 3: Novellae, 257 Juvencus, Evangelicae historiae libri IV, 42 Kalb, A., 151 Kane, G., 13, 40, 53, 178, 243, 293, 424; Glossary, 10, 13, 31–32, 33, 40, 47, 57, 67, 116, 127, 160, 168, 192, 196, 230, 231, 245, 313, 387, 390, 417, 419 Kaske, R. E., 48, 49, 326, 329, 331 Kean, P. M., 114, 243 Kempe, Margery, The Book of Margery Kempe, 236 Kerby-Fulton, K., 17, 18, 23, 27, 205, 220, 228, 238, 274 Kienzle, B. M., 256 Kilwardby, Robert, 144, 195 Kindness and unkindness, 58–59, 79, 91, 95, 113, 280, 302, 311, 370, 401, 413–15, 419–20, 422–23, 431–32 Kingsford, C. L., 220 Kirk, E. D., 1, 2, 9, 14, 15, 16, 48, 49, 61, 64, 86, 305, 316, 324, 397, 404 Knowles, D., 23, 220, 256, 257 Kolve, V. A., 126 Kritzeck, J., 250, 251 Kuczynski, M. P., 402, 403, 409 Kugel, J., 378 “lakkyng” (criticizing), by Will, 24, 195 Lambert, M. D., 29 Langton, Stephen 144, 195 Lateran Council of 1215, 93, 162, 173 Latham, R. E., 49

477

Lawler, T., 1, 4, 9, 14, 17, 24, 25, 35, 37, 40, 42, 45, 48, 55, 56, 69, 71, 76, 90, 91, 92, 97, 100, 109, 110, 119, 120, 127, 128, 131, 134, 142, 151, 152, 159, 160, 162, 164, 166, 167, 168, 170, 173, 174, 176, 179, 181, 195, 198, 204, 212, 214, 216, 219, 220, 221, 222, 224, 227, 229, 232, 253, 257, 284, 294, 376, 395, 401, 421, 427, 430 Lawlor, J., 346 Lawrence, C. H., 11 Lawrence, St, 160, 198, 200, 212, 216–19, 224, 268, 272 Lawton, D., 36, 162 Lay Folks’ Catechism, 161 Lay Folks’ Mass Book, 68 Leclercq, J., 19, 158, 159 Leff, G., 29, 30, 201, 276 Le Goff, J., 174 Lehmann, P., 90 Liber de ortu et obitu patriarcharum, 280 Liber Floreti, 416 Lim, R., 222 Little, L, K., 163 Logan, F. D., 35 Lollards, 169, 201, 239, 274, 275 Loomis, C. G., 207, 212 Lord’s Prayer. See Paternoster lunatic lollars, 14, 142, 213, 223 Luther, Martin, 19, 171; Tischreden, 237 Machan, T. W., 233 Magdalene, Mary, St, 49, 55, 57, 200, 204, 205, 210–11, 257, 270, 279, 304, 319, 332 Maggioni, G. P., 192, 207, 211, 218, 244, 249, 250, 252, 280, 288 Maguire, S., 13, 91, 94 Maillet, H., 72, 86, 88, 98, 157, 159, 303 Male, E., 147 Malory, Thomas, Le Morte Darthur, 330, 337, 398 Mandeville, John, Mandeville’s Travels, 229 Manly, J. M., 112 Mann, J., 9, 15, 19, 52, 71, 87, 169, 175, 187, 281 Marcett, M. E., 23, 27 Marsilius of Padua, 201, 276 Martin, A., 284 Martin, P., 331 Martinus Legionensis, Sermones de diversis, 18 Mary, mother of Jesus, 113, 126, 184–85, 275, 291, 321, 325–29, 362, 403–4, 407–8 Mary of Egypt, St, 204, 211, 212, 270 “Mary psalter,” 183 Matthew, F. D., 266, 375

478

Index

Mazzio, C., 237 McFarlane, K. B., 239 McGowan, A., 394 McGuinness, A., 375 McHardy, A. K., 25 Meeks, W. A., 289 Meersseman, G., 256 mendicants, mendicancy, 3, 25, 72 mercy, corporal works of, 34, 63, 185; spiritual works of, 185 Mersch, M., 255–56 Merton, T., 257 Metlitzki, D., 250, 251, 253 Michelangelo, “Creation of Adam,” 407 Middleton, A., 8, 27, 30, 33, 38, 39, 48, 177, 178, 180, 232, 244 Mills, D., 324 Milton, John, Paradise Lost, 153, 155, 322 Minucius Felix, Octavius, 259, 394 Mirk, John, Instructions for Parish Priests, 173 miswinning, 17, 132, 164, 166, 213, 244, 424. See also “Harlots’ Holiness” Mitchell, B., 359 monasticism, monks, 160, 189, 192, 213, 215–16, 220–23, 255–57, 272, 275 Montagnes, B., 256 Moran, J. A. H., 232 Morin, G., 357 Morse, C., 359 Munro, D. C., 250 Murphy, J. J., 401 Murtaugh, D. M., 180, 227, 316 Mustanoja, T. F., 349 Myroure of Oure Ladye, 237 Narin van Court, E., 201, 238, 286, 288, 338, 342, 345, 370, 372, 376, 377 Newman, B., 305 Nicholson, H. J., 274 Nielsen, L. O., 350 Northern Passion, 336, 338 Norton-Smith, J., 244 Oberman, H., 417 Ockham, William of, 16, 161, 201; Expositio in libros Physicorum Aristotelis, 161 O’Donovan, O., 248 Old English, 13, 83, 88, 92, 115, 248, 261, 379, 425; Aelfric’s Preface to Genesis, 359; Fates of the Apostles, 320; Genesis, 155 Olivi, Peter John, 29, 30; Commentary on the Franciscan Rule, 31

O’Mara, V., 360 Origen, 355, 423; Homilies, transl. St Jerome, 89, 386 Orme, N., 231, 232 Ormrod, W. M., 233 Our Father. See Paternoster Ovid, Heroides, 52 Owen, D. L., 16 Owst, G. R., 26, 186 Page, C., 65, 68 Pantin, W. A., 162, 167 pardon formula, 42, 60, 100, 122, 156, 175, 203–4, 371, 376, 378, 395, 413, 415, 430, 432 pardon scene, 4, 7, 60, 98, 115, 134, 184, 371, 378 Partner, P., 277 Parzival. See Wolfram von Eschenbach Paschasius Radbertus, De corpore et sanguine Domini, 236; De fide, spe, et caritate, 51 Paternoster, 1, 49, 68, 86–88, 137, 175, 184, 188, 197, 206, 241, 249, 433 patient poverty, 1, 5, 9, 12, 13, 61, 88, 97, 99, 100, 104, 109, 118–19, 127, 138, 141, 159, 176, 186 patrimony of Christ, 193–95, 212, 218–23, 225–26 Paul, S., 360 Paul, St, apostle, 12, 22–23, 26, 69, 179–82, 203, 208–10, 243, 268, 340; military metaphors in, 92, 147, 347; for his epistles, see Bible Payling, S. J., 129 Pearl, 47, 139, 147 Pearsall, D., 6, 67, 99, 112 Pepin, R. E., 90 Perrin, C., 62 Perry, B. E., 130, 132 perseverance, 20, 89 Peter Abelard, 333; Commentaria in epistulam Pauli ad Romanos, 244; Epistolae, 135; Epitome theologiae Christianae, 114; Sermones, 357 Peter of Blois, Contra perfidiam Judaeorum, 360; De amicitia christiana et de charitate Dei et proximi, 378; Epistolae, 18, 78, 108, 134, 159, 216, 218, 220–23, 225, 337; 355; Later Letters 333; Sermones, 119, 122, 159, 161, 271, 338, 394 Peter of Cava, Expositio in librum primum Regum, 93–94 Peter of Celle, Sermones, 81, 353 Peter the Chanter, 17, 68, 161; Distinctiones Abel, 150, 430; Verbum abbreviatum, 39, 42, 72, 78, 81, 88, 91, 98, 114, 135, 170, 171, 194, 213,

Index 218, 220–23, 225, 250, 256, 283, 284, 303, 329, 430–31 Peter Comestor, Historia scholastica, 84, 85, 138–39, 210, 355, 404, 424 Peter Damian, St, 195; Contra inscitiam et incuriam clericorum, 167; Epistolae, 171 Peter, St, apostle, 12, 69–71, 147, 190, 203, 269, 281; for his epistles, see Bible Peters, E., 153, 155, 275 Petrus Alfonsi, Dialogi contra Iudaeos, 287 Phillips, W., 274 Pico della Mirandola, 52–53 Pierce the Ploughman’s Crede, 18, 208 Piers Plowman, 12, 40, 43–46, 51, 60, 65, 126, 132, 134, 138, 187–89, 242, 304–5, 307, 313–14, 317, 320, 323–25, 339–40 plague, bubonic, recurrence in 1368, 70 Pliny, Natural History, 230 Pope, Alexander, 232; The Rape of the Lock, 84 Pope, M. K., 233 Pratt, R. A., 209 priests (secular clergy), 5, 69, 127, 142, 157, 160, 165–75, 187, 192–93, 198–99, 213, 215, 217, 224–29, 235–38, 258–64, 338, 390 Promptorium parvulorum, 84 pronouns, second person: formal “you” and familiar “thou”, 35–36, 247–48, 381 Prudentius, Hamartigenia, 97 psalms, seven penitential, 20, 80, 94, 150, 187, 188, 323, 345 Pseudo-Augustine, Breviarium in Psalmos, 378; Contra Iudaeos, paganos, et Arianos sermo de symbolo, 285; De regula verae fidei, 140; De spiritu et anima, 152; Meditationes, 296, 302; Sermones, 111, 118, 137, 168, 359–60, 420; Sermones ad fratres in eremo commorantes, 138 Pseudo-Bernard, De interiori domo, 270; Tractatus de ordine vitae, 1, 154, 158 Pseudo-Chrysostom, De expositione symboli, 357; Opus imperfectum in Matthaeum, 104, 117, 166, 167, 169, 172, 174, 187, 206, 213, 214– 15, 235, 258, 260, 298 Pseudo-Dionysius, The Divine Names, 416 Pseudo-Jerome, Ad monachos, 222; Breviarium in Psalmos, 94, 222 Pseudo-Melito, Clavis, 90 Publius Syrus, Sententiae, 42–43 Pugh, R. B., 186 puns. See wordplay Purvis, J. S., 282 Quilligan, M., 328 Quran, The, 245, 253, 288

479

Raabe, P., 401 Rabanus Maurus, St, 16, 71, 156, 203, 304, 402, 411; De universo, 150; Enarrationes in epistolas beati Pauli, 217; Enarrationes in librum Numerorum, 206; Homilia 48: De studio sapientiae et meditatione divinae legis, 158 Raby, F. J. E., 237, 345, 348, 407, 411 Rano, B., 208 Raschko, M., 369, 378, 386, 390, 396, 432 Rashdall, H., 234 Raw, B., 227 Raymond of Pennaforte, St, Summa de paenitentia, 12, 81 Recklessness, personification, 13, 99, 107, 109, 121, 155, 176, 192, 236, 416 Redmonds, G., 389 Reeves, M., 297 Reichl, K., 236 repentance, 61–62, 81, 99, 105, 114–15, 119, 138, 162, 187, 211, 225, 262, 327, 336, 368, 376, 395, 413–21, 428–32 Repentance, personification, 110, 119, 162, 213, 262, 365, 418, 429 Resnick, I. M., 288 Revell, E., 333 Richard of St Victor, De gradibus charitatis, 145 riddles and riddling, enigma, 15, 35, 44, 48–51, 180, 300 Rigg, A. G., 90, 220, 232, 280 Rigon, A., 256 Robert of Basevorn, Forma praedicandi, 491 Robert of Flamborough, Liber poenitentialis, 283 Robertson, D. W., 33. 62, 65, 74, 258, 298, 384 Robertus Paululus (supposed author), De officiis ecclesiasticis, 152 Robinson, F. C., 359 Robson, M., 266 Rogers, W. E., 180 Ro¨hrkasten, J., 6, 25, 26, 35, 256 Rolle, Richard, 131, 169 romances, romance motifs, 48, 75, 148, 330, 366, 373, 389, 396, 398 Rose, E., 260, 280 Roth, C., 287 Roth, F. X., 266, 281 Rothwell, W., 233 Rubin, M., 237 rubrics (Vita de Dowel, Dobet, Dobest), 141, 202, 292–94 Rufinus, canonist, 67

480

Index

Ruiz, Juan, Libro de buen amor, 406 Rupert of Deutz, 92; Commentary on the Rule of St. Benedict, 283; De trinitate et operibus ejus, 353 Rushdie, Salman, Midnight’s Children, 19 Russell, G. H., 27, 238 Ruusbroec, Jan van, De ornatu spiritualium nuptiarum, 243–44 Ryan, W. G., translator of Legenda aurea, 12, 46, 78, 91, 108, 113, 128, 187, 192, 193, 203, 206–9, 211, 212, 216, 218, 249, 269, 270, 273, 279, 280, 282, 329, 343, 365, 367, 404 Sack, Friars of the, 25 sacraments, 396; Baptism, 71–72, 73–74, 227, 391, 393–95; Confirmation, 56–57, 93–94; Eucharist, 66–67, 87, 303, 393–96; Matrimony, 356; Penance (confession), 61, 65, 74, 79–81, 110, 393–95 Sacrum commercium sancti Francisci cum domina Paupertate, 128, 130, 133 “Saint Andrew and the Three Questions,” 11, 15, 35, 56 St-Jacques, R., 329, 330, 360, 371, 373, 384, 385, 386, 397, 398 Salter, E., 6, 295, 299, 301, 310 Samuels, M. L., 293, 379 Sanderlin, G., 144 Sarum rite, 82, 360, 410 Scase, W.. 159, 201, 207, 208, 210, 219, 220, 245, 269, 275, 281 Scattergood, J., 396 Schaar, C., 244 Schiller, G., 409 schism, papal, 54, 72 Schmidt, A. V. C., 20, 130, 148, 150, 151, 157, 168, 169, 190, 270, 332, 361, 394, 399, 417, 425 Schroeder, H. J., 161, 173 Schweitzer, E. C., 50 Scripture, personification, 3–4, 10–11, 19 Secundus the philosopher, 117, 129–37 Seitz, C., 347 semi-Pelagianism, 79, 107, 114, 151, 208, 379, 388, 414 Seneca, 28, 88, 98, 135 Servius, Servii grammatici qui feruntur in Vergilii carmina commentarii, 230 Seymour, M. C., 229 Shakespeare, Hamlet, 337; Julius Caesar, 64; King Lear, 122; Sonnet 62, 248; The Tempest, 122

Shanzer, D., 67 Shawver. G. W., 211 Sheingorn, P., 365 Shepherd, G., 14, 101 Short, W. J., 207, 212 Sigebert of Gembloux, Catalogus de viris illustribus, 39 Simonie, The, 27 Simpson, J., 1, 3, 7, 8, 14, 19, 28, 41, 78, 138, 168, 173, 177, 178, 187, 276, 328, 367, 384 Singer, S., 171 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, 55 Skeat, W., 6, 13, 17, 30, 32, 37, 38, 40, 41, 43, 48, 65, 66, 67, 69, 72, 84, 150, 173, 210, 229, 233, 234, 270, 317, 318, 319, 276, 323, 364, 404, 407, 410, 419, 430, 431 Skelton, John, Magnificence, 124 Slafkosky, A., 282 Smalley, B., 161, 275 Smith, B. H., Jr., 49, 299, 385 Smith, D. M., 266, 281 Smith, G. N., 282 Smith, M., 382 Smith, V., 39, 40 Solomon and Marcolf, 15, 35, 248 Somerset, F., 6, 53 Somme le Roi, 162 Sophronius, Vita sanctae Mariae Aegyptiacae, trans. Paul the Deacon, 211 Southworth, J., 64, 67 Spearing, A. C., 153, 159, 243 Spearman, A., 84–85 Spenser, Edmund, The Faerie Queene, 139, 248, 398 Spicilegium Solesmense, 90 Spurgeon, C. F. E., 54 Staley, L., 62, 64, 74, 79 Steiner, E., 115, 116, 261, 280, 374–76 Stephen of Hungary, St, 195 Stiglmayr, J., 416 Stock, L. K., 64, 87 Stow, J., 72 Strohm, P., 232 Strype, J., 72 Study, personification, 3, 8, 29, 44, 155, 157, 346, 349 Suchier, W., 130 Summa virtutum de remediis anime, 171 Sundt, R. A., 256 Swanson, R.N., 26, 162, 167, 184, 265, 282 Symonds, J. A., 53

Index Szittya, P. R., 9, 11, 16, 18, 22, 23, 24, 35, 245, 281, 288, 350 Tanner, N. P., 226 Tavormina, M. T., 101, 102, 128, 143, 167, 215, 218, 220, 277, 285, 292, 293, 299–301, 308, 315– 17, 319, 320, 346, 352, 355–59, 394 Taylor, A., 430 Taylor, S., 268 Teeple, H. M., 289 Tentler, T., 81 Tertullian, 259, 313; Adversus Marcionem, 179; Apologeticus, 394; De baptismo, 73; De carne Christi, 144; On Monogamy, 320 Testament of Job, 41 textual suggestions (mostly punctuation), 40, 45, 66, 128, 131, 146, 163, 179, 204, 207, 214–15, 237, 249, 263, 267, 284, 318, 349–51, 384, 432 Theodulf of Orleans, De ordine baptismi, 73 Thomas, A. H., 11, 12, 17, 256 Thomas of Canterbury, St. See Becket Thomas of Celano, 26, 128, 191, 252 Thomas, ninth-century author. See Witte Thomas, St, apostle, 279, 280, 283 Thompson, A. H., 266 Thompson, S., 38, 46, 207, 212 Tierney, B., 168, 193, 217, 225, 226, 248 tithes, 166, 169, 174, 225, 226, 263, 275–76, 284 Tolan, J., 250, 283, 287, 288 Trajan, 3, 4, 159, 201, 238, 241, 242, 418 Trevisa, John, translator, 356; of Bartholomaeus, 84, 85, 206, 213, 230, 404; of Higden, 232, 233, 250, 253 Trichet, L., 174 Trinitarians, 25–26 Turville-Petre, T., 268, 293 Tutivillus, 236–37 “two great commandments,” 38, 40, 151, 242, 245–46, 286, 301, 341, 369, 373–80, 399–400, 431, 433 Ulrich, Emily, 131 unsolicitousness, 60, 61, 68, 70, 79, 88, 120, 130, 133, 136, 175–76, 181, 189, 196, 206, 211 Usk, Thomas, The Testament of Love, 211 Uthred of Boldon, clara visio, 239; Contra querelas fratrum, 23, 27 values of PP, 14, 34, 43, 47, 53, 104, 113–14, 151, 181, 191, 203, 327, 413, 431, 432 Van Banning, J., 172 Vaughan, M. F., 343, 385, 386

481

Verheijen, L. 150 Vincent of Beauvais, 252; Speculum maius, 130 Virgil, Aeneid, 53; Fourth Eclogue, 394 virginity, 291, 295–96, 314–20, 353–53, 356 Visions (dreams), Will’s eight (divisions of the poem) 3–4, 6–10, 12, 58, 65, 136, 140–41, 143, 146, 153, 162, 202, 239, 306, 339–42, 346, 369, 392, 433 Vita Secundi philosophi. See Secundus Vitae patrum, 205–7, 209, 211, 268, 269 von Dobschutz, E., 147 Wailes, S. L., 261, 341, 384, 385, 390, 397, 398 Waldron, R., 328, 384 Walling, A., 78 Walsh, K., 35, 220 Walter of St Victor (supposed author), Sermones inediti triginta sex, 246 Walther, H., Initia carminum 45, 283, 284; Proverbia 43, 90 Warner, L., 41, 219, 223, 240, 255, 266–68, 272, 280 Watkins, O. D., 93 Watson, N., 2, 15, 18 Weisheipl, J. A., 231, 232 Wenzel, S., 82, 160, 171, 186, 217 West Midland dialect, 19, 379 White, C., 207, 269, 270 White, H., 317 Whiting, B. J., 32, 43, 46, 85, 124, 134, 183, 189, 230, 251, 259, 337, 344, 388, 419, 430 Willelmus Medicus, 129–37 William of St Amour, De periculis novissimorum temporum, 9, 22, 23, 41, 281 William of Tyre, A History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea, 274 Williams, G. H., 105 Wilmart, A., 90 Wilson, E., 270 Winston-Allen, A. (Anne Winston), 185 Witte, R., 40 Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival, 330, 366, 398 Wood, S., 401 Woodford, William, Responsiones contra Wiclevum et Lollardos, 12, 35, 256 Woods, M. C., 52, 53 wordplay, 6, 14–15, 19, 20, 36, 58, 64, 69, 83, 132, 136, 168, 178, 190–91, 225, 299–300, 315, 317, 328, 348, 374–75, 382, 409 Wordsworth, William, 2, 232 Wright, T., 29, 139, 220, 226, 236

482

Index

Wyclif, John, 6, 93, 201, 236, 239, 275 English Works, ed Matthew, 265–66, 276, 375; Polemical Works in Latin, ed. Buddensieg, 23, 24, 272 Wyclif Bible, 24, 223 Wycliffite, Wycliffites, 24, 59, 227–228, 275, 375

Ymaginatif, personification, 2–4, 6, 10–11, 24, 27, 40, 68, 134, 153, 155, 157, 179, 201, 225, 228, 230, 234, 239, 242, 249, 263, 314, 361, 418 Zacher, C. K., 153 Zahlten, J., 407

Passages Cited

C text Prol.22–94, 257 Prol.27–32, 255 Prol.29n, 247 Prol.41–46n, 190 Prol.47, 12 Prol.47–50, 54 Prol.50, 67 Prol.56, 25 Prol.60, 3 Prol.62, 180, 193, 213, 281 Prol.64, 427 Prol.64–65, 272 Prol.66–80n, 421 Prol.86, 193 Prol.87, 193 Prol.88, 169 Prol.97–98, 188 Prol.142, 257 Prol.150, 272 Prol.153–59, 232 Prol.154, 147 Prol.198, 419 Prol.223, 261 1.10, 358 1.12, 147 1.15–16, 163 1.17–19, 137 1.20–24, 226 1.24, 92 1.33, 91 1.39, 300 1.50, 142 1.67, 154 1.71, 358 1.82, 176, 384 1.84–85, 47, 154 1.93, 327 1.104–29, 102, 154 1.105, 147 1.107–21, 147

1.111a, 155, 158 1.112–25, 110 1.114, 102 1.124–25, 102 1.135, 346 1.136, 240 1.141, 300 1.141–42, 419 1.141–204, 48 1.143–43a, 139 1.143a, 213 1.146–47, 278 1.148, 298 1.148–49, 278 1.148–54, 328, 408 1.148–64, 347 1.148–70, 323 1.157, 241 1.160–61, 300 1.161, 419 1.163–64, 291 1.163–70, 203 1.164, 113 1.165–70, 44 1.166, 113 1.169, 113 1.171, 420 1.171–98, 415 1.171–200, 168, 259 1.172, 113 1.173, 132 1.174, 422 1.174a, 416 1.175, 168 1.175–94, 315 1.175–200, 421 1.181–83a, 191 1.185, 420 1.192, 125, 127, 195 1.194, 169 1.195–200, 176 1.196–97, 416 1.196–98, 186

1.199–200, 298 1.200, 300 2.17, 357 2.30, 12 2.34, 12 2.42n, 33 2.51, 24, 327 2.67–68, 128 2.73, 233 2.100, 77 2.132–36, 218 2.143, 427 2.161, 214 2.186, 214 2.190, 174 2.204, 387 2.214, 214 3.28, 214 3.47, 273 3.51–76, 117 3.52, 117 3.53, 17 3.56–62, 431 3.57–62, 432 3.62, 119 3.66, 117 3.68–70, 102 3.84, 256 3.88, 132 3.88n, 133 3.112, 424 3.188–90, 167 3.287, 277 3.291–332, 106 3.293–308, 105 3.300n, 106 3.340a, 91 3.363–65, 155 3.444, 114 3.464–67, 167, 173 3.471, 290

484

Passages Cited

3.480, 50 3.480–82, 239 3.482, 240 4.20, 327 4.50–54, 134, 396 4.55–57, 132 4.110n, 226 4.113, 77 4.114, 82 4.115, 168 4.116, 192 4.118, 169, 227 4.122–23, 185 4.145, 194 4.156, 194 4.166, 194 5.1–5, 371 5.4–5, 382 5.10, 63 5.11, 63 5.21, 34 5.29, 188 5.44–52, 3 5.45–46, 174 5.45–48, 173 5.45–52, 175, 188 5.46n, 20 5.48–49, 187 5.50, 65 5.85, 120 5.86, 9 5.86–88n, 87 5.87–88, 87 5.103, 243 5.108, 431 5.113, 259 5.114, 272 5.114–17, 70 5.115–17, 71 5.115–22, 225 5.116, 307 5.116–22, 229 5.123, 53 5.141–42, 169, 227 5.146–62, 192 5.152–55, 234 5.157, 192 5.159, 192 5.163–64, 216 5.163–67, 221

5.168–79, 271 5.168–79n, 276 5.182–96, 271 5.186–88, 154 5.191, 277 6.1–2, 110 6.6–59n, 76 6.14, 75 6.16, 75 6.22, 75 6.25, 75 6.30–32, 75 6.30–37, 75 6.30–60a, 75 6.31, 200 6.34, 75 6.35, 75 6.36–37, 75 6.37, 75 6.38, 24 6.38–40, 75 6.41–44, 75 6.41–60a, 75 6.46, 75 6.47–48, 75 6.49–51, 76 6.52, 76 6.53–54, 76 6.55–58, 76 6.59–60, 76 6.60, 76 6.60a, 76 6.63–102, 311 6.66, 411 6.69–73, 77 6.69–75a, 76 6.69–85, 75 6.77–85, 76 6.81, 330 6.118–22, 281 6.144, 207 6.173–74, 125 6.177, 76 6.178–85, 76 6.186, 76 6.193–94, 76 6.209–85a, 244 6.216, 232 6.230, 132 6.243, 76 6.247, 76

6.248, 277 6.250–85a, 76 6.257a, 114, 429 6.260–66, 76 6.267–71, 76 6.272–77, 76 6.272–85, 30 6.278–85a, 77 6.283–85, 184 6.286–307, 213 6.287–307, 164 6.290–90a, 139 6.290a, 213 6.301–4, 165 6.302, 165 6.324–41, 76 6.338, 81 6.356, 81 6.361, 77 6.398, 28 6.411, 77 6.412, 28 6.425–32, 75 6.428, 77 6.430, 77 7.11, 396 7.17, 184 7.21, 34, 185 7.22, 169 7.27, 281 7.30, 169 7.30–34, 127, 167, 173 7.69. 162 7.69–116, 75. 77 7.74–75, 77 7.76–116, 77 7.81–118, 77 7.81–118a, 223 7.82, 67 7.84, 67 7.87–88, 162 7.93n, 234 7.99, 223 7.99–100a, 425 7.106, 162 7.118a, 221, 223 7.119, 324 7.122–50, 162 7.129, 24 7.133a, 365 7.136, 24

Passages Cited 7.140, 24 7.141–50, 418 7.147a, 418 7.149, 119 7.152, 94 7.173, 280 7.180, 12 7.180–81, 54 7.182–204n, 297 7.193, 126 7.208–12, 377 7.209–10, 139 7.211, 33 7.216a, 217 7.232ff, 302 7.232–82, 147 7.254–60, 303 7.255–58, 301 7.255–60, 95 7.257, 427 7.261–64, 396 7.270–77, 186 7.275, 186 7.285, 59 7.292–304, 66 7.299, 59, 60 7.299–304a, 81 8.13, 15 8.50–52, 52 8.52, 52 8.56, 55 8.56–65, 13 8.82, 350 8.85, 24 8.89, 350 8.108, 132 8.111, 12 8.123, 53 8.156, 123 8.171–203, 109 8.176, 109 8.191, 25 8.229–30a, 420 8.234, 424 8.235, 164 8.247–57, 418 8.260a, 18 8.277, 422 8.277–78, 422 8.277–81, 107, 365 8.283, 195

8.305, 109 8.312, 109 8.321, 109 8.336a, 97 9.7, 65 9.19, 227 9.20, 318 9.27, 374 9.34–35, 34, 186 9.37, 214 9.46–50, 38 9.61–255, 217 9.69–70, 216 9.70–87, 112 9.71, 341 9.71–97, 217 9.72, 186 9.76–95, 119 9.105–38, 223 9.107–40, 14 9.118, 425 9.122–23, 213 9.123, 142 9.125, 78 9.126–27, 425 9.136, 223, 425 9.139–75, 188 9.140, 188 9.141–52, 188 9.145, 25 9.159, 188 9.176–87, 98 9.180, 3 9.181, 186 9.185–87, 101 9.188–251, 75 9.189, 188 9.189–255, 25, 188 9.192, 213 9.195–202, 204 9.198–201, 207 9.256, 190 9.256–80, 267 9.270–77, 99 9.279, 27 9.281–93, 371 9.285ab, 267 9.301–2, 4 9.320–52, 117 9.324, 117

9.344, 25, 117 9.348, 126 10.2, 3 10.4, 95 10.10, 142 10.21, 308, 395 10.21–55, 140 10.30, 315 10.51–55, 114 10.78–80, 168 10.80, 12 10.85–86, 125 10.86, 30 10.93, 265, 284 10.93–95, 283, 284 10.143–48, 340 10.145–49, 163 10.148, 340 10.152–55, 409 10.153, 409 10.154–55, 147 10.157–58, 420 10.169–70, 420 10.171, 340 10.172, 420 10.174–76, 340 10.188–200, 239 10.189, 44 10.190–200, 56, 264, 265 10.194, 357 10.199–200, 56 10.202a, 87 10.224, 214 10.231, 356 10.249, 363 10.254–57, 128 10.256, 228 10.291, 243, 247 11.11–25, 157 11.14, 228 11.14–51, 223 11.15, 261 11.20, 161 11.23, 102 11.26, 223 11.29–31, 162 11.31, 162 11.34–39, 400 11.35, 161, 346 11.47, 263

485

486

Passages Cited

11.48, 3 11.49, 263 11.52n, 163 11.52–58, 10 11.52–65, 70 11.54n, 22 11.55, 162 11.56, 162 11.64–67, 5 11.65, 78 11.95, 234 11.126–31, 349 11.134, 161 11.149–53, 359 11.160, 314 11.166–12.22, 5 11.172–76, 308 11.173, 308 11.174, 173 11.187, 6 11.187–89, 5 11.188, 5 11.189, 308 11.191, 308 11.193, 193 11.198–302, 141, 155 11.201a, 121 11.231–32a, 416 11.231–82a, 3 11.232, 422 11.268, 147 11.287, 269 11.296–98, 99 11.307, 308 11.307–10, 308 11.406, 4 12.3–11, 308 12.3–12, 82 12.4–10, 17 12.4–22, 17 12.7–11n, 226 12.10a, 281 12.13, 5 12.15, 5 12.17, 17 12.31, 132 12.40, 24 12.47–49, 66 12.54–71, 110 12.55, 240 12.58–71, 3

12.62–71, 99 12.74, 429 12.75–99, 242 12.76–88, 3 12.77, 147 241 12.87–93, 12.88, 238 12.92–95, 37 12.97, 241 12.97–98, 377 12.98–176a, 28 12.99a, 379 12.101, 425 12.103a, 78, 221 12.109–12, 113 12.109–31, 203 12.121–22, 127 12.123–33, 46 12.130, 114 12.131, 15 12.132–44, 203 12.133, 24, 127 12.161–67a, 158 12.187–201, 109 12.194, 113 12.194–209, 99 12.195, 107, 245, 418 12.196–201, 318 12.225, 113 12.233, 113 13.1–2, 134 13.2, 13 13.12, 361 13.21, 13 13.24, 167 13.26, 24 13.33–92, 120 13.33–98a, 134 13.52–64, 396 13.65–78, 106 13.68, 121 13.79, 3 13.79–98a, 3 13.100, 127 13.100–128, 5 13.101–3, 184 13.101–14, 284 13.113, 193 13.115–16, 5 13.119, 236 13.121–28, 236

13.123, 236 13.126, 192 13.143–44, 216 13.173–76, 257 13.181, 367 13.183, 141 13.194–212, 44 13.197, 15 13.205–6, 24 13.206, 24 13.210–12, 140 13.212, 395 13.213, 8 13.220, 8 158 13.225–27, 13.226–27, 155 13.250, 83 13.271–420, 118 13.319–30, 60 13.363–64, 60 13.421, 116 13.441, 116 14.1, 68 14.6, 24 14.11, 139 14.11–29, 259 14.11–130, 153 14.17–22, 155 14.21, 125 14.24, 327 14.28, 57 14.37–38, 286 14.38, 358 14.48–57, 263 14.49, 229 14.54–55, 195 14.54–56, 226 14.64–68, 27 14.72–83, 230 14.73, 40 14.84–85, 278 14.84–98, 228 14.98, 328 14.100, 141 14.117, 124 14.131–52, 157 14.137, 15 14.140, 15 14.143, 320 14.148, 157 14.161–63, 5

Passages Cited 14.187, 421 14.195, 421 14.198, 421 14.199–217, 239 14.202, 314 14.202–17, 3, 249 14.203, 6 14.208a, 279 14.209–12, 242 14.212, 239, 245, 361, 418 15.1, 141, 339 15.13, 24 15.17–23, 5 15.20, 5 15.22, 5 15.26, 348 15.29n, 56 15.32–33n, 60 15.32–36, 195 15.34–35, 176 15.45–50a, 215 15.55–64, 184 15.58, 424 15.61, 63 15.61–62, 187 15.64, 191 15.69–70, 27 15.69–73, 162 15.76, 23 15.78–79, 195 15.84, 234 15.85, 77 15.87, 227 15.101, 161 15.109, 36 15.112, 47 15.117a, 235 15.119–20, 314 15.119–20n, 33 15.126–26a, 227 15.130–36, 377 15.132, 114 15.134, 151, 377 15.135, 395 15.137, 100, 204 15.140–47, 242 15.152n, 15 15.152–69, 191 15.153, 181 15.155n, 75 15.156, 41, 204

15.156a, 100, 204 15.159, 48 15.164a, 48, 175, 182, 203, 384 15.172, 239 15.172–73, 277 15.179, 269 15.182–94n, 63 15.184, 10 15.186–94, 299 15.188, 300, 432 15.192, 138 15.196–97, 57 15.201, 221 15.203, 63 15.224, 399 15.229a, 92 15.232–71a, 183, 184 15.235–51, 176 15.238, 226 15.241n , 206, 310 15.242, 37 15.244a, 9 15.247–49n, 184 15.248, 146 15.249, 136, 184, 303, 328 15.253, 43, 204 15.259, 139, 333 15.263–69, 273 15.267, 169 15.272, 186 15.272n, 177 15.273, 97 15.273–76, 176 15.275, 176, 180 15.276, 186 15.276–77n, 127 15.277, 129 15.277–78, 79 15.277–86, 108 15.278, 194 15.279, 194 15.279–16.21n, 106, 423 15.280–307, 145 15.281–83, 120 15.284, 418 15.285–86, 127 15.285–97, 366 15.286, 242, 245 15.286–374an, 141 15.291, 109 15.298–374a, 95 15.299–300, 106, 385, 422

15.300, 102 15.301n, 106 15.306n, 106 16.1–9, 145 16.3, 177 16.3–21, 99, 157 16.7, 245 16.8–9, 110, 122 16.10–18, 112 16.22–23, 99 16.22n, 328 16.23, 98 16.25, 132 16.25–34, 92, 110 16.25–35n, 82 16.31, 82, 95 16.36–41, 421 16.39–41, 421 16.43–113, 98 16.49–50, 111 16.60, 119 16.76, 77 16.95–101, 425 16.97, 24 16.99, 24 16.128, 422 16.138–83, 154 16.143a, 125 16.157, 14 16.158, 57, 62, 292 16.158–66n, 304 16.167, 292 16.178, 146 16.182, 146 16.182–201a, 131 16.188, 142 16.189, 146 16.191, 181 16.196, 291 16.196–97, 177 16.197–98, 149 16.201a, 7 16.203–5, 279 16.211–37, 154 16.212, 156 16.213, 147 16.216–30, 349 16.224, 82 16.229, 156 16.231–41a, 10 16.233, 235

487

488

Passages Cited

16.235–38, 256 16.238n, 168 16.239–41a, 135 16.240, 141, 213 16.242, 205 16.242–55, 298 16.242–85, 213 16.243–45, 169 16.248–55, 235 16.250, 215 16.255, 215 16.256, 142 16.260–61, 165 16.265, 162 16.270, 142 16.270–71, 338 16.271, 189 16.272, 298 16.284–17.322, 154 16.285–374an, 96 16.286–87, 95 16.286–87n, 96 16.286–97n, 96 16.287, 95, 370 16.288–94, 199 16.290, 202, 427 16.290–97n, 191 16.291a, 203 16.293, 202 16.295, 24 16.303, 384 16.306–9, 244 16.311–15, 202 16.314–15, 384 16.320, 90 16.321, 328 16.324–36a, 63 16.326–29, 202, 203 16.327–29, 22 16.330–36a, 139 16.333, 139, 390 16.335a, 171 16.340, 344 16.340a, 361 16.343, 21 16.343–44, 337 16.344, 384 16.349, 203 16.350, 233 16.351, 270 16.355, 24 16.355–56, 213

16.357, 24 16.358,,67 16.358–59, 97 16.358–59a, 221 16.359a, 101 16.367–69, 125 16.372–74a, 202 16.374, 206 17.1, 143 17.1–5a, 197, 203 17.4–5, 427 17.5a, 51, 384 17.6–14, 160 17.6–34, 196 17.6n, 167 17.9–50, 165 17.11–34, 253 17.32–50, 164 17.32–94, 244 17.37–40a, 160 17.37–43n, 139 17.40a, 139 17.41–64, 159 17.44–50, 159 17.44–58, 160 17.48, 199, 257 17.48–50, 167, 258, 285 17.49, 257 17.54, 216 17.65–68, 160, 200 17.65–72, 219, 272 17.65–72n, 272 17.67, 110,111, 425 17.69n, 111, 193, 195 17.88, 235 17.107–10, 128 17.118, 389 17.122, 71 17.123–24n, 53, 242, 247, 288 17.125, 143, 427 17.125–29, 397 17.125–49, 47, 114, 159, 264, 363, 393 17.126–43, 377 17.127, 313 17.128, 96 17.140, 380 17.140a, 47, 152, 383 17.150, 143 17.150–321, 56 17.151–82, 199

17.156–58, 268 17.158, 126 17.159–87, 160 17.183–86, 200 17.183–93, 200 17.185, 258 17.188, 153 17.189, 56 17.194–98a, 160 17.194–232, 200 17.197, 55 17.208–25a, 160 17.219a, 428 17.220–85, 259 17.230, 259 17.231, 160 17.233–51, 397 17.234n, 54 17.239, 213 17.252, 240, 267 17.252–54, 268 17.254, 162 17.258, 126, 350 17.259, 263 17.262–69, 160 17.270–83, 160 17.274–77, 193 17.275, 425 17.279, 389 17.279–80, 56 17.285, 152 17.285ab, 232 17.286, 427 17.291, 201 17.293–321, 289 17.295–96, 372 17.295–97, 377 17.295–97n, 288 17.296, 327 17.298–310, 329 17.298–311, 160 17.300, 330 17.301–6, 332 17.303, 333 17.304, 334 17.304–11n, 334 17.304n, 334 17.307–11, 371 17.309, 334 18.2, 177, 299 18.4–5, 301

Passages Cited 18.9–15, 188 18.10, 142, 189 18.11, 96, 170 18.12, 294 18.12–13, 291 18.15n, 175 18.19, 338 18.27, 358 18.29, 338 18.34, 347 18.40, 347, 348, 410 18.42, 338 18.49, 309 18.51n, 310 18.65, 338 18.91, 138 18.102–3, 394 18.104, 317 18.110–16, 379 18.112, 344 18.118, 356, 408 18.123–36, 408 18.123–77, 324 18.126, 367 18.133–36, 394 18.135, 394 18.137–77, 287 18.138, 367 18.138–49, 34 18.143–50, 287 18.144, 287 18.149–50an, 289 18.158, 338 18.177, 141 18.178, 2, 433 18.181n, 369 18.185–86, 373 18.189, 244 18.198–99, 327 18.201, 126 18.206, 350 18.216–48, 357 18.233–35, 353 18.234, 354 18.240ff, 351 18.240–41a, 381 18.242, 142 18.244, 189 18.253, 394 18.257–59, 381 18.259, 342 18.260–66, 382

18.262, 342 18.264, 342, 382 18.266, 388 18.267, 376 18.269–87n, 380 18.280, 379 18.280–379, 281 18.281–85, 327 18.345, 338 18.346, 115 18.352, 115 19.2, 341 19.2–18, 286 19.7, 368 19.7–10, 286 19.11, 345 19.14, 151, 246 19.14n, 38, 242, 246 19.17–20, 246 19.17n, 38, 242, 246 19.34, 363 19.40, 247 19.41, 338 19.46–93, 34 19.48–52, 368 19.52–55, 387 19.57, 151, 313 19.76, 391 19.86, 361 19.86–87, 399 19.92–93, 134 19.103, 24 19.109, 349 19.135, 309, 19.142, 338 19.159–329, 59 19.163, 273 19.164–300, 312 19.172–278, 151 19.177, 246 19.179, 393 19.185, 59 19.185–86, 280 19.187–213, 107 19.192–98, 313 19.194, 151 19.205, 114 19.233–54, 102, 365 19.234–35, 106 19.252–53, 110 19.258, 59

19.276, 193 19.299–300, 114 19.328, 59 19.330–34, 142 19.380–81, 138 20.1, 109 20.1–5, 429 20.2, 2 20.3, 3 20.6–468, 324 20.8, 129, 384 20.8–12, 129, 384 20.9, 390 20.14, 344 20.16, 392 20.18, 303, 324 20.19, 27, 340 20.21, 113, 340 20.21n, 127 20.26, 240 20.32, 188, 303, 324 20.46, 334 20.52–53, 276 20.59, 415 20.60, 338 20.86, 408 20.108, 362 20.112a, 285, 289 20.116, 329 20.143, 296 20.147, 366 20.148, 40 20.150, 53 20.150n, 53 20.175–92, 191 20.185, 47 20.185–88, 370 20.185–92, 375 20.191–92, 196 20.208–38, 354 20.228, 56 20.271, 365 20.275, 333 20.275–76, 28 20.281–94, 325 20.293, 27 20.299, 324 20.306, 415 20.342, 397 20.350–58n, 105, 422 20.363, 147

489

490

Passages Cited

20.366, 365, 366 20.366–67n, 365 20.366–69, 338 20.375, 56 20.386–87, 367 20.392–92a, 278 20.395a, 374 20.397–98, 298 20.400, 167, 258 20.411, 327 20.412, 303 20.413–32, 147 20.414, 201 20.432–36, 206 20.446, 397 20.451–55, 338 20.456–58, 48 20.467, 338 21.14, 96 21.26–153, 147 21.97–104, 331 21.106–7, 327 21.109–14, 47 21.112–14, 245 21.116, 114 21.128, 186 21.129, 114 21.165, 279 21.185, 433 21.186–87n, 114 21.200–212n, 343 21.215, 214 21.218, 133 21.224, 59, 432 21.225–35, 198 21.227–55, 24, 130 21.229–51n, 343, 410 21.240–44n, 410 21.241, 410 21.242–44, 230 21.247–48, 130 21.254, 24 21.261, 169 21.281–88n, 320 21.316, 169 21.344, 214 21.363, 306 21.415, 168 21.417–23, 281 21.428–48, 54 21.429, 277

21.441, 327 21.446, 277 22.4, 262 22.5n, 190, 191 22.6, 214 22.7–11n, 226 22.40–50, 129 22.54, 228 22.123, 125 22.174, 20 22.193–98, 6 22.208, 152 22.215, 119 22.218–29, 167 22.219, 173, 174 22.219–26n, 229 22.228, 56 22.230–31n, 10 22.234, 214 22.235n, 24 22.238, 135 22.248–50, 31 22.250, 10, 152, 231 22.273–76, 231 22.274–75, 31 22.276n, 117 22.290–93, 174 22.294–96, 231 22.295, 235 22.296, 59, 432 22.363–64, 132 22.363–70, 24 22.364, 214 22.371, 215 22.371–72, 132

B text Prol. 25–30, 255 Prol. 39, 302 Prol. 46–49, 54 Prol. 49, 67 Prol. 58, 25 Prol. 64, 180, 193, 213, 281 Prol. 66, 193 Prol. 81, 173 Prol. 86, 173 Prol. 88, 193 Prol. 92, 173 Prol. 115, 257

Prol. 132–38, 232 Prol. 133, 147 Prol. 181, 419 1.5, 315 1.15–16, 163 1.17–19, 132 1.20–25, 226 1.25, 92 1.28, 92 1.35, 91 1.41, 300 1.54, 142 1.86, 176, 384 1.88–89, 47, 154 1.105, 147 1.105–27, 102, 154 1.119, 155 1.119n, 158 1.142, 300 1.142–43, 419 1.142–209, 48 1.148–49, 276 1.148–58, 408 1.148–68, 347 1.148–74, 323 1.151, 376 1.151–52, 298 1.152–58, 328 1.153–54, 278 1.161, 240 1.164–65, 300 1.165, 419 1.167–74, 203 1.168, 113 1.169–74, 44 1.170, 113 1.173, 113 1.175, 107, 420 1.175–203, 415 1.175–205, 168, 259 1.176, 113 1.177, 132 1.178, 416, 422 1.179–205, 421 1.181, 240, 420 1.185–87a, 191 1.189, 420 1.197, 125, 127, 195 1.199, 169 1.200–5, 176

Passages Cited 1.201–3, 186 1.202–2, 416 2.65–66, 128 2.71, 233 2.93, 77 2.103, 214 2.145, 214 2.171, 214 2.173, 175 2.200, 214 2.248, 24 3.27, 214 3.48–75, 117 3.49, 117 3.52–58n, 432 3.58, 119 3.64–72, 102 3.72, 106 3.85, 256 3.100, 55 3.150–52, 167 3.167, 277 3.232–254, 106 3.234, 218 3.234–45, 38 3.247, 277 3.291, 114 3.311–14, 167, 173 3.327, 50 3.327–39, 239 3.328, 290 4.53–54, 132 4.55, 277 4.122, 169, 227 4.148, 194 4.161, 194 5.8, 53 5.12, 259 5.13–15, 71 5.14, 307 5.14–20, 225, 229 5.15, 262 5.20, 262 5.42–43, 227 5.42–44, 169 5.50, 277 5.52, 80 5.57–58, 184

5.60–61n, 110 5.61, 138 5.73–74, 125 5.75–134, 311 5.84, 411 5.108, 431 5.119, 311 5.137–52, 298 5.138, 300 5.141–52, 281 5.153–65, 34 5.201–59, 244 5.208, 232 5.241, 273 5.250, 277 5.260–78, 164 5.265–69, 213 5.273a, 114, 429 5.274–78, 165 5.278, 165 5.281, 429 5.306, 77 5.353, 77 5.379, 77 5.395, 396 5.401, 184 5.405, 34 5.406, 169 5.411, 281 5.415–19, 167, 173 5.415–21, 127 5.416, 200 5.421, 233 5.444, 126 5.462, 138 165 5.480–505, 162 5.487, 24 5.490, 24 5.491, 262 5.493a, 365 5.496, 24 5.501–5, 418 5.504, 120 5.535–36, 54 5.549, 126 5.563–65, 377 5.567a, 217 5.585 ff, 302 5.585–629, 147 5.590–91, 302 5.594, 77, 302 5.605–7, 303

5.606–7, 95 5.607, 243 5.609–12, 396 5.618–24, 186 5.636, 59 6.52–54, 52 6.54, 52 6.57, 55 6.57–64, 13 6.80, 350 6.99, 132 6.116, 53 6.117, 324 6.153, 406 6.155, 214 6.159, 123 6.174–98, 109 6.179, 109 6.220–21a, 420 6.228, 424 6.238–46, 98 6.252a, 18 6.283, 109 6.289, 109 6.315, 97 7.7, 65 7.14, 284 7.16, 318 7.23, 374 7.30, 34 7.30–31, 186 7.34, 214 7.47–52a, 38 7.60, 422 7.60a, 182 7.73–76, 216 7.78, 190 7.82–83a, 226 7.86–86a, 216 7.86a, 209 7.104–6, 101 7.106, 27 7.107–44, 371 7.115–24, 393 7.119–39, 115 7.120, 134 7.121, 115 7.122–35, 13 7.124, 174 7.125, 138

491

492

Passages Cited

7.126, 218 7.128, 87, 184 7.129–30, 87 7.130, 87 7.131, 87, 130 7.134, 15 7.152–53, 4 7.173–206, 117 7.198, 117 7.200, 375 7.202, 126 8.2, 3 8.4, 95 8.10, 142 8.20, 395 8.20a, 308 8.21–56, 140 8.26, 315 8.30, 142 8.45, 191 8.88–89, 125 8.89, 30 8.96–99, 283, 284 9.1–24, 38 9.1–60, 143, 144 9.17–22, 340 9.19–23, 163 9.22, 340 9.26–29, 409 9.26–46, 347 9.27, 409 9.28–29, 147 9.31, 420 9.36–46, 360 9.36–49, 350 9.38, 309 9.39–41, 115 9.46, 411 9.47, 414 9.51, 397 9.54, 340 9.58–60, 340 9.72–94, 223 9.82–94, 195 9.89, 226 9.92–94a, 78 9.94, 226 9.94a, 111 9.103, 357 9.109a, 87

9.135, 214 9.143, 356 9.159–60, 128 9.178, 320 9.205–6, 82 9.207, 42 10.8, 214 10.13–29, 157 10.14, 228 10.17–71, 223 10.18, 261 10.30–31, 223 10.32–36, 162 10.33–35, 162 10.51, 77 10.54, 29, 161, 346 10.54–58, 400 10.56–58, 29 10.64, 29 10.66, 3 10.69, 263 10.72n, 163 10.72–78, 10 10.72–85a, 71 10.74–76, 29 10.75, 162 10.76, 162 10.84–85a, 29 10.85, 78 10.95, 11, 29 10.97–103, 228 10.103, 175 10.104–39, 155 10.117, 29 10.121, 159 10.155, 38, 234 10.176–84, 234 10.185–88, 28 10.185–91, 349 10.194–204, 44 10.211–21, 155 10.226, 10 10.230–35, 10 10.253, 161 10.257, 42 10.267–76, 227 10.298–316, 192 10.305–10, 234 10.311, 192, 228 10.317–18, 216 10.317–21, 221

10.322–35, 276 10.325, 201 10.327, 216 10.341, 122 10.344–48, 99 10.346, 97 10.346–49, 226 10.349–56, 238 10.361–62, 377 10.377–481, 141, 155 10.411–15, 224 10.432, 147 10.439, 245 10.439–41, 418 10.441, 245 10.447, 395 10.461, 269 10.468, 86 10.480, 195, 226 11.1, 314 11.7–83, 4 11.13, 308 11.14, 308 11.17–21, 308 11.22–24, 308 11.28, 6 11.28–29, 4 11.28–30, 5 11.29, 5 11.30, 308 11.40–45, 308 11.42, 181 11.46–59, 308 11.46–60, 82 11.53–58, 17 11.53–58a, 281 11.54–83, 17 11.61, 5 11.81–81a, 93 11.81a, 93 11.85, 314 11.85–153, 4 11.90, 132 11.94, 218 11.106, 24 11.112–14, 66 11.119–36, 110 11.120, 240 11.139, 429 11.140–76, 242 11.141–53, 3

Passages Cited 11.154–319, 4 11.157, 238 11.162–71, 241 11.165, 238 11.167–70, 377 11.169–70, 286 11.171–73, 37 11.172–317, 154 11.176a, 379 11.178–215, 44 11.186, 425 11.190–92, 164 11.191a, 78, 221 11.195, 425 11.197–98, 110 11.199–204, 113 11.201–42, 203 11.219–30, 10 11.228, 416, 422 11.232–33, 127 11.233, 425 11.234–45, 46 11.241, 114 11.242, 15 11.243, 425 11.243–44, 12 11.243–58, 203 11.245, 24, 127 11.246–47, 193 11.248, 113, 329 11.256–319, 127 11.282a, 87 11.283, 164 11.283–318, 167 11.283–319, 4, 5 11.287–89, 184 11.287–300, 284 11.299–302, 193 11.302, 5 11.305, 236 11.307–17, 236 11.310, 236 11.314, 192 11.320–441, 4 11.323, 3 11.369, 373 11.373, 141 11.379, 44 11.380, 15 11.388, 24 11.402–4, 140 11.404, 395

11.406, 4 11.410, 314 11.417–19, 158 11.418–19, 155 12.1, 68 12.29–31, 179 12.30–31, 341 12.35, 192, 310 12.40, 155 12.49–63, 259 12.55–191, 153 12.57, 155 12.58–71, 3 12.77, 147 12.89, 132 12.97, 24 12.103–12, 263 12.109–10, 195 12.109–11, 226 12.121–25, 27 12.128, 40 12.128–38, 230 12.139–40, 277–78 12.139–54, 228 12.154, 328 12.156, 141 12.175, 94 12.177, 94, 124 12.192–213, 157 12.217–97, 4 12.236–69, 107 12.247–51, 107 12.260, 174 12.277–97, 239 12.280, 314 12.280–97, 3 12.281, 6 12.286a, 279 12.287–90, 242 12.290, 239, 245, 361 12.293a, 134 13.1n, 141, 339 13.9–30, 55 13.26, 19 13.42, 21 13.29–30, 176 13.29–32, 195 13.29–72, 183 13.40–45a, 215 13.42–45an, 24

13.46–60, 183 13.46a, 86 13.49, 136 13.49–60, 184 13.50, 86 13.53–55, 20 13.54, 94 13.58, 63 13.58–58a, 187 13.60, 16, 191 13.65–67a, 162 13.68, 389 13.70–75, 92 13.76–77, 22 13.78, 77 13.80, 227 13.86, 314 13.86n, 18, 33, 36 13.88–89, 28 13.94, 32, 161 13.102, 36 13.107–8, 26 13.112–13, 314 13.113, 27 13.115, 33 13.118–118a, 227 13.124, 40 13.124–30, 377 13.125, 153 13.127, 377 13.131, 15 13.133–35an, 54 13.135, 204 13.135an, 11, 50, 82, 204 13.136–71an, 88, 191 13.137–47, 242 13.139, 133 13.139–43, 247 13.140, 154 13.140n, 82 13.141–43, 242 13.141n, 33 13.149–50, 181 13.151–71n, 88 13.163, 384 13.163a, 176, 182, 203 13.171, 204 13.171an, 11, 204 13.173–76, 3, 72 13.173–76n, 72 13.174, 239, 277 13.190–93, 190

493

494

Passages Cited

13.194, 49, 71 13.203–4n, 54 13.206–10, 239 13.207–10n, 10, 11, 54 13.208–10, 265 13.209n, 262 13.211–41n, 56 13.215n, 10 13.218, 63 13.219, 300, 432 13.219–21, 95 13.221–14.335n, 11, 81 13.225, 344 13.227, 221 13.236–38, 65 13.239–42, 66 13.254, 399 13.268–69, 70 13.271–456n, 186 13.271–14.28n, 81, 138 13.273, 80 13.275–312a, 189 13.278, 82 13.284–90, 64 13.298–99, 421 13.301, 189 13.337, 330, 334 13.343, 82 13.355, 69 13.358, 132 13.383–98, 80 13.389–90, 69 13.396–98, 184 13.409, 162 13.411, 80 13.422, 67 13.427–28, 162 13.439, 223 14.1–35n, 82, 186, 187 14.3–4, 60 14.4, 74 14.5–11, 74 14.5–26, 186 14.11, 73 14.14n, 47 14.16–22n, 114 14.16–28, 92 14.17a, 138 14.21an, 95 14.25, 67 14.29–52, 176

14.29–72, 184 14.33, 87, 204 14.33a, 130 14.39, 226 14.41, 84 14.43n, 206, 310 14.47a, 9 14.49–50, 184 14.50, 19, 136, 184, 303, 328 14.54, 43, 204 14.60, 139, 333 14.63a, 183 14.64–70, 273 14.68, 169 14.73, 95 14.77an, 72 14.83–97, 80, 132 14.94n, 20 14.98, 299 14.98n, 176 14.99, 178 14.100–1, 186 14.100–1n, 95, 176 14.101, 147, 176 14.102, 129 14.102–8, 108 14.102n, 127 14.103, 194 14.104, 194 14.104–65n, 14, 10, 423 14.109–10, 127 14.109–21, 366 14.110, 242 14.114, 328 14.116, 109 14.123, 10, 66, 365, 422 14.134–67n, 157 14.144a, 121 14.145–55, 113 14.145–56, 110 14.147, 147 14.155n, 273 14.155–56n, 192 14.168, 226 14.168n, 425 14.169, 421 14.174, 226 14.174n, 425 14.185, 88 14.186–88, 114 14.190, 110 14.194, 142

14.195, 142 14.196–200, 421 14.198–200, 421 14.203–61, 183 14.208–9, 111 14.212an, 106 14.213a, 134 14.215, 127, 226 14.218, 127 14.219, 119 14.220, 127 14.235, 77 14.247, 127 14.255–61, 425 14.257, 24 14.259, 24 14.272–74, 176 14.276–408, 74 14.278n, 150 14.282–85, 133 14.291, 422 14.304–9, 396 14.315, 180 14.323–24, 333 14.323–25n, 89 14.323–35, 77 14.330, 145 15.1, 3 15.1–2n, 175, 202, 292 15.1–11, 141 15.2, 114 15.3, 2, 162 15.10, 181 15.11–13, 172 15.12, 14 15.13–14, 178 15.14, 146 15.14–15, 42 15.14–197, 143 15.22, 148 15.23–36, 143 15.23–36n, 152 15.23–39, 148 15.24, 143 15.24–25, 153 15.25, 157 15.29, 146 15.33–34, 177 15.34, 291 15.35–36, 149 15.39a, 7, 142, 143, 148

Passages Cited 15.41–43, 279 15.51, 147 15.54–69, 349 15.58–148, 259 15.59–61, 191 15.62, 82, 153 15.69, 155 15.70–88, 10 15.71, 163, 346 15.71n, 314 15.71–73, 400 15.72, 235 15.74, 119 15.76–79, 256 15.77n, 174 15.77–148, 175 15.81, 141 15.81a, 158 15.84–85n, 193 15.86–88, 135 15.89–90, 37 15.89–102, 298 15.90–148, 213 15.92–93, 169 15.92–116, 173 15.92–118, 117 15.96–102, 235 15.97, 215 15.102, 215 15.103–10, 174 15.104, 226 15.106–7, 165 15.110, 162, 191 15.112–13, 190 15.115, 168 15.115–16, 338 15.117a, 167, 235, 298 15.118, 168 15.121–24n, 168 15.135a, 100 15.146–48, 303 15.148–51, 96 15.149, 299 15.149–64, 96 15.149–268, 95 15.149–268n, 141, 153 15.149–613, 154 15.150, 142 15.151, 95 15.156a, 196 15.157a-60, 182 15.159–60, 196

15.162a, 189 15.165, 122 15.165–66, 196 15.167, 182 15.169–74, 196 15.170, 142 15.171–74, 203 15.171a, 100 15.175, 196 15.177–80, 196 15.179, 328 15.182–94n, 63 15.186–94a, 139 15.187, 390 15.191, 139 15.198–200, 47 15.199–200a, 321 15.199–219a, 384 15.200a, 361 15.204, 196 15.210, 47 15.210–12, 146 15.212, 189, 323, 340, 344 15.216, 180 15.217, 21 15.217–19, 337 15.219, 384 15.225, 233 15.227, 188 15.230–31, 213 15.232, 24 15.233, 67 15.233–34, 165 15.233–34a, 97, 117, 221 15.237–38, 244 15.244–50, 193 15.246, 226 15.249, 24 15.254a, 202 15.256, 143, 188 15.260–68. 22 15.269–71, 21 15.269–317, 188 15.270, 30 15.275, 191 15.276–312, 165 15.276–314, 253 15.280, 213 15.290–91. 22 15.298–304, 207 15.306–7,b 318 15.313–414, 127

495

15.317, 209 15.318, 221 15.328–31n, 222, 256 15.329, 163, 256 15.332–43an, 18, 108, 218, 221 15.342–43a, 212 15.343, 218 15.343an, 111, 195, 219, 221, 226, 425 15.347–48, 235 15.347–55n, 229 15.347–92n, 212 15.349, 219 15.356, 229 15.356–84, 273 15.359–60, 231 15.361–63, 231 15.368, 230 15.378, 229 15.380–84, 234 15.386, 389 15.390–613, 56 15.390n, 258, 265, 267, 272, 278, 290 15.391, 227 15.393–96, 24 15.393–411n, 278 15.398n, 265, 280 15.399, 249 15.406, 252 15.412–91, 249, 268 15.414, 254 15.415–91a, 254 15.417–23, 165 15.417–28, 397 15.417–91n, 240 15.419–28, 214 15.421–23n, 220 15.424, 167 15.424n, 214 15.432–33, 210 15.436–37n, 258 15.438, 255 15.438n, 264, 268, 279 15.452–58, 186 15.457, 57 15.462–85, 74 15.464, 66 15.486–87, 229 15.491a, 260, 264 15.493, 153 15.494, 56

496

Passages Cited

15.494n, 252, 280, 281 15.497a, 285 15.498–503n, 278 15.501, 240, 278 15.501–3, 268 15.501–7, 244 15.503, 162, 245 15.504–32n, 219, 223, 238, 268, 278 15.507, 126, 250, 350 15.510, 265 15.519–22, 254, 260,269 15.523–27, 193 15.524, 425 15.528, 56, 251, 265, 266 15.529, 389 15.529–30, 56 15.532–37, 255 15.533, 269 15.533–37a, 279 15.533–69, 219 15.542, 229, 276 15.543, 223 15.544, 275 15.550, 275 15.554, 276 15.563, 257 15.564n, 275 15.566, 272 15.568, 277 15.570, 259 15.581–86, 377 15.582–83, 373 15.582–84, 244 15.582–86, 373 15.582–86n, 242 15.582–613n, 289 15.584, 151, 223 15.584–85, 372 15.588–89, 330 15.593–98, 332 15.596, 334 15.598, 204 15.601–3, 371 15.605, 240 15.605–8, 244 16.2, 144 16.4–9, 188 16.5, 185 16.6, 170 16.7, 142, 189, 310

16.8, 300, 313 16.9, 310 16.14–15, 300 16.15, 313 16.16, 143 16.16–17, 312 16.19–166, 141 16.25, 311 16.25an, 322 16.26–52, 143 16.30, 347 16.36, 347, 410 16.46–52, 143 16.47, 304 16.47a, 412 16.50–52, 324 16.51, 309 16.66, 214 16.73–74, 394 16.79–85, 367, 379 16.80–81, 311 16.81, 315, 344 16.81–82, 341 16.88, 408 16.90–92n, 321 16.90–102, 408 16.90–166, 324 16.91, 328 16.94, 188 16.94–96, 339 16.97–166, 326 16.98, 291 16.100–3, 394 16.101–2, 394 16.102, 326 16.103–18, 34 16.103–66, 287 16.112–18, 287 16.113–20, 287 16.114, 287 16.119–20a, 289 16.120, 287 16.129–30, 166 16.142, 337 16.144–45, 338 16.157a, 337 16.167n, 306 16.169–70, 2 16.172n, 369 16.173, 368 16.174, 368 16.177–79, 373

16.178, 376 16.192, 126, 309 16.200–1, 351 16.203, 352 16.208n, 347 16.210, 351 16.223, 324 16.225, 381 16.226, 142 16.237, 394 16.243–48n, 382 16.245–46, 382 16.247, 344 16.248, 388 16.251, 322 16.264, 292, 379 16.266, 366 16.275, 344 17.2, 341, 369 17.2–17, 286 17.5, 368 17.5–8, 286 17.7–8, 379 17.9, 399 17.10, 371, 381 17.13, 162, 369, 383, 399 17.13n, 38, 242, 246, 400, 433 17.15a, 374 17.16n, 38, 242, 246, 400, 433 17.17, 381 17.18–21. 246, 377 17.20, 369, 375 17.22–23, 381 17.26–32, 383 17.26–49, 400 17.33, 363 17.35–49n, 400 17.37–38n, 400, 433 17.38, 377, 433 17.50–54, 368, 376 17.50–82, 369 17.50–126, 34 17.50–356n, 387 17.55, 392 17.57, 394 17.58, 151 17.58n, 313, 417 17.62–63, 378 17.62–65, 371, 379 17.74–80, 395 17.76, 398

Passages Cited 17.81–88, 395 17.90n, 387 17.93–100, 391 17.96, 361, 399 17.97, 391 17.97–100, 399 17.98, 399 17.103, 393 17.105–11, 379 17.105–26, 372 17.110, 390 17.115–24n, 392 17.120, 375 17.122, 71 17.126–28a, 19 17.127, 399 17.128, 382 17.131–33, 400 17.133, 377, 433 17.134–355n, 369, 407, 415 17.141, 409 17.142–43, 408 17.160, 407 17.169–70, 406 17.171, 309 17.176, 372 17.187–91, 413 17.197, 273 17.198–320, 312 17.206–98, 151 17.216, 422 17.218–19, 419 17.219–20, 280 17.223, 415 17.228, 151 17.230, 428 17.234, 416 17.238–40, 428 17.238–42, 421 17.239, 114 17.241–42, 429 17.245, 421 17.254, 421 17.254–60n, 422 17.255, 70 17.255n, 422 17.257, 421 17.261a, 421 17.266a, 421 17.267–73, 102, 365 17.268–69, 106 17.271–72, 110

17.274–75, 423 17.276, 416 17.277–78, 432 17.280, 427 17.286, 423 17.295, 193 17.297, 427 17.298, 123, 418 17.318, 417 17.319–20, 114 17.340, 432 17.345–46, 432 17.350–54, 142 17.354, 377 18.1, 109 18.2, 2 18.3, 3 18.6–425, 324 18.10, 129, 384 18.10–14n, 129, 384 18.11, 390 18.16n, 344 18.18, 392 18.20, 303, 324 18.21, 27, 340 18.22, 113, 340 18.27, 240 18.33, 188, 303, 324 18.35a, 397 18.46, 334 18.52–53, 276 18.59, 415 18.60, 263, 338 18.69, 34 18.84, 408 18.105, 362 18.109a, 285, 289 18.113, 329 18.140, 296 18.142, 53 18.144, 366 18.145, 40 18.147, 53 18.152–57, 276 18.172–87, 191 18.182–85, 376 18.182–87, 375 18.186–87, 196 18.189, 40 18.203–29, 354 18.263n, 365

18.267, 333 18.277, 324 18.317, 147 18.320, 147 18.323, 365, 366 18.323–26, 338 18.343–44, 367 18.349a, 374 18.356–60a, 278 18.358–59, 298 18.362, 258 18.362n, 167 18.363–70, 276 18.370, 303 18.371–99, 147 18.372, 201 18.390–93, 205 18.403, 397 18.408–15, 338 18.413–15, 48 18.424, 338 18.425, 336 19.26–153, 147 19.97–104, 331 19.109–14, 47 19.116, 114 19.128, 186 19.129, 114 19.165, 279 19.185, 433 19.215, 214 19.218, 133 19.224, 432 19.225–335, 198 19.241, 410 19.242–44, 230 19.246–47, 396 19.248–49, 133 19.254, 24 19.261, 169 19.316, 169 19.333, 169 19.344, 214 19.363, 306 19.415, 168 19.417–23, 281 19.429, 277 19.446, 277 20.5n, 190, 191 20.6, 214

497

498

Passages Cited

20.40–50, 129 20.54, 228 20.61–68, 141 20.123, 125 20.174, 20 20.193–98, 6 20.208, 152 20.215, 119 20.218–29, 167 20.219, 173, 174 20.238, 135 20.250, 10, 152, 231 20.273–76, 231 20.280–379, 281 20.294–96, 231 20.295, 23 20.296, 432 20.363–64, 132 20.363–70, 24 20.371–72, 132

A text Prol. 25–30, 255 Prol. 39, 302 Prol. 46–49, 54 Prol. 49, 67 Prol. 55, 25 Prol. 61, 180, 193, 281 Prol. 63, 193 1.5, 315 1.15–16, 163 1.17–19, 137 1.20–25, 226 1.25, 92 1.28, 92 1.39, 300 1.41, 300 1.52, 142 1.84, 176, 384 1.86–87, 47, 154 1.103, 147 1.103–16, 102, 154 1.130–31, 419 1.130–83, 48 1.136–42, 347 1.136–48, 323 1.137, 298, 408 1.139, 419 1.141–48, 203

1.142–47, 113 1.143–48, 44 1.149, 107, 420 1.149–77, 415 1.149–79, 168, 259 1.150, 113 1.151, 132 1.153, 168 1.153–79, 421 1.155, 240, 420 1.159–61, 191 1.160–61, 300 1.163, 420 1.171, 125, 127, 195 1.173, 169 1.174–79, 176 1.175–77, 186 2.64, 77 2.109, 214 2.135, 214 2.137, 175 2.151, 387 2.161, 214 3.26, 214 3.47–64, 117 3.48, 117 3.51, 273 3.60–64, 102 3.74, 256 3.139–41, 167 3.221, 218 3.226, 277 3.240–41, 363 3.267, 114 4.40–41, 132 4.107–8, 169, 227 4.131, 194 4.137, 194 5.7–8, 184 5.8, 53 5.11, 259 5.13–15, 71 5.13–20, 225 5.14, 307 5.14–20, 229 5.35–36, 169, 227 5.43–44n, 110 5.56–57, 125

5.58–106, 311 5.67, 411 5.97, 311 5.124, 232 5.157, 77 5.216, 126 6.23–24, 54 6.36, 128 6.72ff, 302 6.72–114, 147 6.78, 302 6.93–94, 95, 303 6.95–98, 396 6.104–9, 186 6.117, 59 7.47–49, 52 7.49, 52 7.52, 55 7.52–58, 13 7.72, 350 7.84, 122 7.91, 132 7.108, 53 7.142, 214 7.146, 123 7.159–85, 109 7.164, 109 7.207, 420 7.212, 424 7.222–30, 98 7.234a, 18 7.267, 109 7.273, 109 7.283, 109 8.13–14, 284 8.18, 318 8.25, 374 8.36, 214 8.49–54, 38 8.88, 27 8.89–127, 371 8.102, 134 8.104–17, 13 8.108, 218 8.110, 184 8.110a, 87 8.111–12, 87 8.113, 87, 130 8.122, 87

Passages Cited 8.178, 376 8.180, 126 9.2, 3 9.4, 95 9.10, 142 9.17–47, 140 9.17a, 308 9.22, 315 9.26, 395 9.41, 191 9.79–80, 125 9.80, 30 9.86–89, 283, 284 10.1–57, 144 10.16–21, 340 10.18–23, 163 10.21, 340 10.27–30, 409 10.28, 409 10.30–31, 147

10.32, 420 10.39, 397 10.94, 205 10.110, 192 10.121–28, 298 10.125, 167 10.157–58, 363 10.171, 214 10.174, 356 10.182–83, 128 11.17, 228 11.17–57, 223 11.18, 261 11.24–28, 162 11.26–28, 162 11.37, 77 11.39, 163 11.40, 161, 346 11.40–44, 400 11.42, 151

11.52, 3 11.55, 263 11.58–60, 10 11.62, 161 11.71, 162 11.74, 159 11.107, 234 11.137–43, 349 11.169, 10 11.173–77, 10 11.182–83, 59 11.188–95, 34 11.193, 181 11.196a, 37 11.202, 192 11.202–18, 192 11.211, 192 11.229, 122, 228 11.229–31, 99 11.232–39, 238 11.240–42, 377 11.291, 147

499