The Study Guide consists of synopses of all twenty-two Passus [sections] of Langland’s C-Text. Questions on each Passus test your knowledge and are intended as an aid to memory.  References throughout are to Derek Pearsall, ed. Piers Plowman by William Langland: An Edition of the C-Text. York Medieval Texts, second series. London: Edward Arnold, 1981. However, new readers of Piers Plowman should consult Pearsall’s New Annotated Edition of the C -Text, published in 2008 by the University of Exeter Press, reprinted by Liverpool University Press in 2014. The new edition incorporates four major innovations, including a complete revision of the text, which is based as before on Huntington Library MS HM 143, and “side-glosses of hard words” (Preface vii). Quotations from and references to Piers Plowman in the present Guide have been checked against this newest edition.

PROLOGUE

Synopsis

The speaker, wandering the world in search of wonders, falls asleep in the Malvern Hills (near Worcester, in England’s West Midlands). He dreams of Truth’s tower in the East, and in the West of a deep valley, the haunt of Death and wicked spirits. Between is a “fair feld ful of folk” (line 19) the world of human activity. The folk are mixed: good ploughmen and stable hermits are contrasted with wasters, the vain, traders, blasphemous minstrels, hypocritical pilgrims, wandering hermits, friars, pardoners and priests. (Recurrent satiric targets of the poem are introduced here.)

Conscience interrupts the list with a condemnation of those who engineer false miracles around idols for profit; he cites the exemplum of Ophni and Phinees, types of false priests (1 Kings 1–4), who were punished for appropriating the people’s offerings. Conscience concludes by praising the basis of the Pope’s and Cardinals’ authority over Holy Church.

The list of folk continues with the introduction of a king and knights, representatives of secular authority, then lawyers.

The climax of the Prologue is the fable of the belling of the cat. The dreamer invites merry men to interpret his dream; he dreamed much more, of nobles, burgesses, tradesmen and labourers. The Prologue ends with a vivid tableau.

Note that the Prologue’s direction is determined by the theme of authority, rather than by the allegory or surface narrative.

Discussion Topics

1. What is the speaker’s attitude to himself?

2. What is the force of the exemplum of Ophni and Phinees in its context?

3. Explain the pun on “Cardinales” in lines 131 and 134. Is Conscience’s attitude to the Pope and Cardinals in any way ambiguous?

4. What ideal of secular authority is expressed in lines 139–157?

5. Do you agree with Pearsall, that the fable of the belling of the cat “is used to demonstrate the futility of any attempt to curb royal authority.”? What attitudes to royal authority are suggested by the fable?

6. List the literary genres which have influenced the Prologue.

7. Comment on the development of the allegory in the Prologue. (Try to define the method of movement from one section to the next.)

PASSUS I: HOLY CHURCH

Synopsis

Holy Church descends from the Tower and begins to explain the dream. She says that moderate living is the proper human response to God’s creation,and supports this with the negative exemplum of the drunken Lot. The dreamer questions Holy Church about the right use of money, the meaning of the deep valley, and her own identity. On learning this, the dreamer asks the fundamental question of the poem: “How y may save my soule”? (80). Holy Church replies, “When alle tresores ben tried, treuthe is the beste” (81), and offers an exposition of pure and applied Truth. Application of her discourse to knighthood leads into an account of God’s ‘knights’, the angels, specifically Lucifer and his fallen company. She goes on to explain the relevance to human beings of the abode of Wrong and Truth’s tower.

Will questions Holy Church about the source of Truth in himself. She replies: natural knowledge (kynde knowynge) teaches love of God; she describes the descent of love from heaven and mutual love among the inhabitants of heaven. A natural love for the Creator springs in the heart; people must follow Christ’s example of love in action; faith without works is dead. Many churchmen are chaste and uncharitable, encumbered with avarice. Holy Church repeats her text: When all treasures are tested, Truth is the best of all (202); she cannot stay behind to teach the dreamer about love; she departs.

Discussion Topics

1. What do Will’s questions reveal about his character?

2. What orientation does Holy Church bring to Will’s vision of the tower, valley, and field full of folk?

3. What information does Holy Church provide about Wrong?

4. What does she reveal about love and truth?

5. Why is she impatient with Will?

6. What social or moral satire does this Passus contain?

PASSUS II: THE MARRIAGE OF LADY MEED

Synopsis

Will delays Holy Church with a question about the false. She points out to him False, Favel (Fraud), and Liar, and Will sees a woman richly dressed, on his left hand. Holy Church explains that this is Meed, and she describes Meed’s family and character, in contrast with her own. Meed is about to be married to False Faithless. After a final warning against Meed, Holy Church departs. Will dreams of Meed’s marriage, her retinue, and the charter (lines 81-111) drawn up between the bride and bridegroom and Meed’s father, Favel, outlining his endowments to them. These take the forms of breaking the commandments and the seven deadly sins. Gluttony, Great Oaths and False are named. Witnesses to Meed and False’s marriage charter are Wrong, Piers the pardoner, Raynald the reeve, Munde the miller and “many others” (line 116). The charter is finally sealed “in the date of the devil”.

Theology intervenes (line 119), by pointing out that Meed, who is of legitimate birth, is already betrothed to Truth. Meed, whose mother is Amends, can signify the just reward for good deeds. Theology condemns False and his companions as destroyers of Holy Church. He insists that Meed should go to London, where it can be determined whether her marriage to False is lawful. The fellowship of Meed sets out in a flurry of bribe-taking and plotting, mounted on hired “hakeneys” – a sheriff, jurymen, reeves, priests, provisors (corrupt papal appointments to priests’ benefices or “livings”), rectors, rich adulterers, “permuting” parsons (who exchanged their livings, usually for a cash adjustment), advocates in the Archbishop’s court, summoners, corrupt sub-deans, and greedy executors of wills. A commissary (bishop’s deputy often open to bribes from offenders against canon law) is harnessed to a cart containing food from fornicators, and Liar is turned into a long cart to transport cheats and false beggars. Guile leads the whole procession.

But Soothness (verity) rides ahead to warn Conscience, who speaks to the king. The king commands the arrest of Meed’s party, the beheading of Guile, and that Meed herself should be brought to him. Warned of this by Dread, the vices disperse: False flees to the friars; Guile to the merchants. Liar is rejected by all, until the pardoners “have pity” on him; then he is welcomed by doctors, spice-sellers, minstrels and messengers. Finally he goes to live among the friars, disguised as one of them. Civil and Canon Law make appeals to Rome, but Conscience accuses them of harming holy church. In the end Meed is arrested.

Discussion Topics

1. List the contrasts and the conflicts between Holy Church and Meed.

2. Line 51 – Where earlier have you encountered Leute? (Explain the earlier contexts, and the significance of Leute at each appearance.)

3. What aspects of the legal profession are satirised in this Passus?

4. Which marriage customs does Langland transform into satiric instruments? (Try to explain his technique.)

5. Explain the function of drama and of visual description in the account of Meed’s companions’ journey to London, arrival, and dispersal.

6. Explain the role of Conscience in this Passus. Where has he appeared earlier in the poem, and what was his significance on the earlier occasion?

7. What depth of meaning is added if the king is understood as the individual will?

PASSUS III: LADY MEED AT WESTMINSTER

Synopsis

The king commands a clerk to take Meed aside and make her comfortable, while he considers who would be most acceptable to her as a bridegroom.

Many come to pay court to Meed: first justices, then clerks, then a friar, who for a gold coin absolves Meed from her sins of unchastity and becomes her beadsman (professional pray-er), commissioned to pervert Conscience among clerks and knights. Meed promises to be the patron of the friars, for as long as they absolve fornicators and adulterers for fees, and paint the names of benefactors on their windows.

• In a moral digression (I), Langland quotes the Gospel: “Let not your right hand know what your left hand does, so that your giving of alms may be in secret” (Matthew 6. 3-4).
• In another digression (II), extended in the C-Text from earlier versions of Langland’s poem, Meed begs the mayor, sheriffs, and sergeants-at-law to maintain justice among retailers, traders, and money-lenders, because when God hears the cries of the poor victims, and sends vengeance in the form of fire or pestilence, the whole community including good men suffers. Therefore mayors should make inquiries before enrolling new freemen of their cities, to check that they have not been usurers or retailers. But Meed advises the mayors to accept such people in exchange for gifts or money.
• In yet another moral digression (III), Langland warns that “fire will devour the tabernacles of those who take bribes” (Book of Job 15. 34).

In a return to the story-line, the king summons Meed, blames her a little for her misdeeds, and threatens imprisonment if she does not amend. He asks Meed if she would be prepared to marry his knight, Conscience. Meed is willing, but Conscience is appalled at the idea, and lists Meed’s corrupting powers: she is the greatest bawd between heaven and hell, and totally promiscuous as well; she bribes jailers, courts, is privy with the Pope, and the source of all kinds of ecclesiastical and legal corruption; she has formed an alliance between covetousness and clerks, so that the kingdom is disaffected from the king.

Meed’s counter-plea is that Conscience himself has often been of her party, and that she could maintain him well as her husband. She has, she says, saved thousands of lives through ransom. She has been a better servant of the king in the French wars than Conscience has been: the king should conquer territory so as to reward his soldiers; he shouldn’t show mercy to his enemies at the dictates of Conscience; if she had been the king’s counsellor, the king would not have accepted money in exchange for peace from the French, and (the implication seems to be) could have gone on to take more plunder. The king’s duty is to pay all his followers well. Indeed, all services in all social strata are to be carried out only for monetary payment.

The king is convinced by this, but Conscience mounts a further argument: Meed is always given by those who live unlawfully, but there is a difference between Meed and “mercede”, or the lawful payment of debt for services. Meed is paid in advance (as a bribe, it is implied), while “mercede” is paid after the service has been carried out. Great lords give land or rank to loyal servants; this is not a mere mercenary exchange, but a relationship based on loyalty – “mercede”, not Meed. The lord may reclaim the gift, in the same way as God later punished Solomon for his disloyalty.

“Mercede” is like direct relationship in grammar, but Meed is like indirect relationship. Direct relationship here stands for proper relationship between payer and payee, but indirect relationship is improper. Langland further extends the grammatical metaphor into theology: man is like an adjective seeking concord with its noun, i.e. God, and the reward of this concord is salvation. Indirect relation in grammar grasps all genders and both numbers to itself, i.e. it does not distinguish between just and unjust reward, between “mercede” and Meed. The son is the rightful heir of his father; there is always some just claim (direct relationship). In the same way the king and commons have mutual just claims upon each other, but now (Conscience continues) this relationship, which should be direct, has been perverted so that it is now indirect. Most people in their social relationships seek only Meed. Direct relationship would be for them to believe in and follow the commands of holy church; in Christ, the adjective man became the substantive, God; through Christ, man can now be in (grammatical) accord with the Trinity.

Conscience then (lines 409-42) gives a Biblical example of the operation of Meed: Saul’s downfall and death from coveting the goods of the Amalekites (I Samuel 31). In the same way, Conscience predicts, justice will be done, reason and right government will establish themselves in England. Loyalty will punish those who take bribes; love and peace will reign; swords will be made into ploughshares; priests will say their offices as they should; the upper classes will no longer exploit the lower; True-tongue will be the only judge. The new order will be preceded by portents of the last days. Jews and Mohammedans will be converted.

Meed interrupts by quoting the text: “He who gives (gifts) wins the victory.” In his counter-argument, Conscience completes the text: “(But) he corrupts the souls of those who receive” (Proverbs 22.9).

Discussion Topics

1. Explain the ecclesiastical satire in lines 1-67.

2. Which parts of the Passus would you regard as digressions? Which ideas tend to unify the Passus?

3. Comment on the use of Biblical quotation and exemplum.

4. Can the king and his counsellors be understood as the interior commonwealth–i.e. moral forces within the individual?

5. What does the Passus have to say about internal spiritual states?

6. Explain how the significance of Meed changes and develops over Passus 2 and 3.

7. Is Conscience an unqualified victor in the argument with Meed? Which of Meed’s arguments are, or may be, valid?

8. Explain Conscience’s distinction between Meed and “mercede”. Are you convinced by the distinction?

9. What are the literary (emotional) effects, in its context, of Conscience’s view of the millenium?

10. Langland’s analysis of justice in social relationships is much expanded in this Passus. How convincing is his analysis? How conservative or radical do they appear to readers in the twenty-first century?

PASSUS IV: THE FALL OF LADY MEED

Synopsis

Conscience refuses to be reconciled with Lady Meed, in spite of the king’s command. The king then commands Conscience to summon Reason, so that Reason may govern the kingdom and advise the king about Meed. Reason sets out, accompanied by his servant Cato, by Tom True-tongue and Conscience, and riding his horse Patience. Warren Wring-law and Wilyman approach Reason, but Conscience dismisses them.

The king greets Reason, and seats him as adviser between himself and his son. Peace puts forward a petition against Wrong, who forms an alliance with Wit and Wisdom (morally neutral powers, here at the service of the law) and Meed, to win mercy from the king, but the sight of Peace’s bloody sconce convinces the king, who throws Wrong into prison. Peace, bribed by Meed, appeals to the king on behalf of Wrong, but the king refuses the appeal unless Reason will agree.

Reason refuses mercy, until a list of ideal conditions should be fulfilled: rascals must be punished; clerks, religious, bishops and pilgrims must do honest work or acts of charity; and Meed must be excluded from the law courts. If Reason were king, he says, no wrong would go unpunished and love would govern the land. Meed winks at the lawyers, but Kind Wit, Conscience, Love and Loyalty approve Reason’s speech.

The king says that he will exclude Meed from the law-courts; Conscience points out that that can hardly be done without help from the commons. The king installs Reason as his Chancellor and Conscience as his chief justice. Reason points out that the king himself must swear to administer justice honestly.

At the end of the Passus the dreamer awakes.

Discussion Topics

1. What allegory of the “inner commonwealth” can you find in this Passus?

2. Explain the significance of Reason, Warren Wiseman, Wisdom, Wit, and Kynde Witte.

3. Explain the techniques of satire against the law in this Passus (e.g. through narrative, drama, and visual and verbal allegory).

4. According to this Passus, what are the duties of a king?

PASSUS V: THE AUTHOR’S APOLOGIA AND THE SERMON OF REASON

Synopsis

Now awake, and living his usual life, the dreamer meets Conscience and Reason. Reason asks if the dreamer is able to do any honest work. The dreamer replies that he is too weak and too long (tall) to work. Asked by Reason how he therefore earns his living, the dreamer replies that in his youth he was educated as one of the clergy, and has always earned his living by saying prayers for rich patrons. On Biblical authority, he says, clerks (educated men) are excluded from work that is proper to labourers and others, although these days many people do work that is not appropriate to their birth or profession. The dreamer rejects Reason’s rebuke, on the grounds that prayer most pleases Christ, and that doing God’s will provides for all.

Conscience objects that begging in cities is hardly perfection, a point acknowledged by the dreamer, but he hopes to redeem all his losses in trade by making one great gain, the kingdom of heaven, through God’s grace. Reason and Conscience advise him to begin at once.

The dreamer goes to church to repent, but falls asleep again. In his dream he returns to the fair field, which he now sees as ruled by Reason, dressed as a pope, with Conscience as his cross-bearer. Preaching before the whole kingdom, Reason proves that plague and tempest were a judgment on sin, and urges a long list of sinners to repent – lay people, priests and prelates, monks, nuns, canons and friars. He counsels the king to love the commons as his treasure, and for them to return his regard. The pope must have pity on the church, and command kings’ confessors to give penances of peace and forgiveness. Finally, Reason urges pilgrims to seek Saint Truth, rather than Saint James.

Discussion Topics

1. How does the opening description of the dreamer’s life add to our knowledge of his character?

2. Which parts, if any, of the dreamer’s apologia for doing minimal work do you find convincing?

3. Which parts of Reason’s sermon are directly applicable to what we have just found out about the dreamer?

4. Which of Reason’s points do you judge to be most telling, or most convincingly put?

5. Reason’s positive manner of presenting his sermon differs from earlier satire in the poem. Explain and exemplify this difference.

PASSUS VI: THE CONFESSION OF THE SINS

Synopsis

In response to Reason’s sermon, Repentance announces his theme. The sins make their confessions.

Purnele Proud-heart renounces her elaborate clothing. As Pride, she repents her disobedience, her scorn and vainglory, her pretence to superior knowledge, her pride in wealth and clothing and in outward holiness and alms-giving, and in her lineage.

Envy, his clothes made of cursed men and sharp words, repents his abusive behaviour; his backbiting and gossiping; his gnawing of himself within “like a dress-maker’s shears”, when he failed to take vengeance, to the point of making himself chronically ill and thin.

Wrath, with white eyes and a running nose, biting his lips, confesses murders carried out by stealth and his impatience with penitence and with what God sent him. He has lived with all men at times – among friars and possessioners (priests possessing the income from parishes) in their arguments over the right to hear confessions; as cook to a convent, where he served stews of dissension; among the parish women, arguing over who should go first to the offering (of alms) after mass; but in monasteries he was forced to fast, and was beaten in the chapter house (meeting room for clerics).

Lechery repents his ogling of maids, his kissing and groping of them, even in Lent and on fast days; his absorption in tales about whoring and his love of lecherous songs; his seductions carried out by force or by witchcraft; and, in old age, his substitution of pornography for action.

Covetousness, hollow and hungry-looking, beetle-browed and thick-lipped, his cheeks flapping like a leather purse and hanging loose beneath his chin because of age, and dressed in an ancient, threadbare tabard (coarse outer tunic, usually sleeveless), confesses that he has served his apprenticeship in giving false measure. He has plied this trade among drapers, weavers, brewers, and retailers. Covetousness does not know the meaning of “restitution”, and sees nothing wrong in paring coins, nor in lending money in the hope of winning the security. In this way he has reduced many lords and knights to financial dependence. Repentance points out that Covetousness and his heirs cannot be forgiven unless they make restitution of everything won by such fraud. Covetousness confesses that he has sold shoddy goods by deceptive displays; that he has stolen his neighbours’ cattle and land by treachery; and that he has more often repented loss of goods (actual or possible) than his sins.

Repentance’s preaching against Covetousness is longer than that against the other sins; he warns friars in particular against him. Evan the Welshman promises to restore all his ill-gotten winnings; Robert the Robber, who cannot restore his gains, begs mercy and undertakes a pilgrimage as penance. Repentance approves his attitude, pointing out that all the world’s wicked deeds can be extinguished like a spark fallen into the Thames of God’s mercy.

Glutton, on his way to confession on Friday, is waylaid by Betty the brewer; he drinks and plays a mindless game the whole day; finally he is disgustingly sick and spends Saturday and Sunday in bed. He repents his swearing, his hearing of ribald (dirty) jokes, his eating and drinking on fast-days, and promises to obey his aunt, Abstinence.

Discussion Topics

1. Are the sins abstract personifications? Or are they individual sinners, demonstrating the operation in society of the sin in question? Or are they a mixture of both personifications and individuals? (Consider the confession of each sin in turn, noting transitions between personification and exemplification.)

2. Which sin does Langland single out for particular condemnation? In what different guises does Covetousness appear earlier in the poem? Which of the sins receives less attention?

3. Give examples of verbal or visual virtuosity in the descriptions of the sins.

4. Are you convinced that the sins will keep their promises of amendment? If you are not convinced, is this necessarily a failure on Langland’s part?

PASSUS VII: THE SHRIVING OF THE FOLK; PIERS PLOWMAN’S GUIDE TO TRUTH

Synopsis

After a failed attempt to make his confession, which ends in sleep, Sloth acknowledges that though he knows the rhymes about Robin Hood and Randolph Earl of Chester, he knows none about Jesus Christ or his mother; that he never performs his vows or penances, and hardly ever says his prayers, or keeps vigils or fasts. He spends his days in idle tales, gossip and slander. He has been a parson for over thirty years, but he can’t chant a service, or read in a scholarly manner. He forgets all financial and moral obligations; repays no loans; pays no wages; ignores all kindnesses done him; and lets food go to waste out of indolence.

Sloth is about to fall into despair, but is aroused by Vigilate, and vows to attend mattins and mass every Sunday.

A sermon against Sloth follows. The main point is a contrast made between on the one hand, flatterers and entertainers as the companions of the rich, and on the other preachers and poor men. Poor men, charitably treated, will be better “minstrels” for making a man laugh on his death-bed, than tellers of filthy tales and flatterers, who will lead those who listen to Lucifer’s feast.

Repentance then intercedes on behalf of the penitents. He reminds his listeners of God’s creation of the world from nothing; of Adam’s “happy sin” which led to the incarnation; of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection in human form, which won mercy for repentant sinners; and so Repentance prays Christ for his mercy and for the love of Mary, to pity these rascals in their penitence.

Then Hope blows a horn and the saints sing, and a thousand cry for grace to go to Truth, but no one knows the way. They question a much-travelled pilgrim, but he has never known any pilgrim to ask for Truth before.

A ploughman puts forward his head and claims that he knows Truth as well as a clerk knows his books, because Conscience and Kynde Wyt have taught him the way. He has found Truth, whom he has served for forty years, the most reliable employer of all. The pilgrims offer Piers meed, if he will show them the way. He refuses meed, but describes a journey that can be made to Truth by cultivating the virtues and keeping the commandments. This journey will lead to a “court as bright as the sun”, moated with Mercy, walled with Wit, crenellated with Christendom, buttressed with the Church’s faith, roofed with love and faithful speech, and built on prayers and alms deeds. Grace, the porter, and his servant, Amend-you, will open the gate to those who repent their sins. If you enter, you will find Truth seated in your own heart, and your whole heart will become Charity’s church, nourishing all who are true.

Pride can still drive you out of Truth’s court; but its seven postern gates (i.e. gates inside the outer walls) are guarded by the sisters Abstinence, Humility, Charity, Chastity, Patience and Peace, with special emphasis on Generosity. Without special grace, only relatives of these seven virtues (the opponents of the seven deadly sins) can hope to enter.

Despite Piers’ promise that Mercy (the Virgin) and her son are related to (i.e. share the physical humanity of) all sinners, several pilgrims, including Active, are discouraged and renounce the journey. But Contemplation vows to follow Piers whatever the cost.

Discussion Topics

1. Is Sloth a personification? an individual sinner? a mixture of both?

2. What attitude to secular entertainers and to secular tales is expressed in this Passus? How have minstrels been presented earlier in Piers Plowman?

3. Comment on the presentation of the crucifixion in Repentance’s prayer.

4. What commentary on pilgrimages is suggested by the professional pilgrim’s portrait?

5. Why is Piers’ rejection of meed structurally significant?

6. What ideas about Truth are held in common by Piers and Holy Church?

7. Who is Piers Plowman? What does the Piers-figure in this Passus represent?

8. Comment on the use of Gospel parable in this Passus.

PASSUS VIII: THE PLOUGHING OF THE HALF-ACRE

Synopsis

Piers defers the pilgrimage until he has ploughed and sowed his half-acre. A lady asks what the women should do while they are waiting. Piers lists: sewing wheat-sacks and (ladies) vestments; and spinning and weaving clothes for labourers who win everyone’s food from the earth. A knight wishes that he could take part in labour for food, but Piers points out that he (a ploughman) wins food for the knight and his family as part of a covenant, and that the knight’s work under the same covenant is to defend Piers and Holy Church in battle, and to hunt the animals which destroy food on farms. The knight has a further obligation to act with justice and mercy towards his tenants and serfs: perhaps in heaven those who are lowly now will be invited to go up higher.

Piers dresses, as he says, “in the manner of a pilgrim”, in the clothes of all kinds of crafts; but instead of a pilgrim’s bag he puts on a seed basket. All who help in ploughing or weeding will be rewarded with food, except for entertainers, prostitutes, dice-players, bawds, false beggars, idlers, wastrels and tellers of ribald tales.

Piers’ family members “exemplify by their names the virtues of honest work and obedience” (Pearsall) – counsel which Piers repeats to his son and to those in authority.

Piers makes his will, leaving his soul to its maker, his body and bones to the Church, and his honest earnings to his wife. Piers has no debts to pay. With what remains he will worship Truth, and be a pilgrim at the plough.

Many help Piers to plough his half-acre, but some go to drink ale. Pretending to be blind and lame, others take up begging. Piers condemns false beggars, but promises to share his goods with the genuinely crippled, and with honest hermits and friars. Still, Waster refuses to work; Bretoner threatens to seize Piers’ food. The knight remonstrates with Waster, who rejects him. Then Piers brings in Hunger, and Waster, Bretoner, deceivers, hermits, false beggars, priests and friars all set frantically to work to ploughing and at all other useful trades.

Before he dismisses Hunger, Piers asks his advice about beggars: the people have laboured, he points out, only for fear of famine; yet Truth has taught him to love them. Hunger’s advice is that the physically able should be forced to labour for food, but that those in need should be treated with generosity and love. Arguing for faithful labour as a way of life, Hunger cites Genesis, Proverbs, Matthew (the parable of the talents), and Psalms.

Piers then asks Hunger for a medicine for himself and some of his servants, who have over-eaten. Hunger advises moderation in food and drink, supporting his argument by the parable of Dives and Lazarus (Luke 16. 19-31). He advises Piers to feed the needy but to make the unworthy wait. This will put Physic (doctors) out of business.

Hunger nevertheless refuses to depart; the people feed him with plain food until harvest-time, when Glutton puts him to sleep with good ale. Waster will not work; beggars demand fine food; labourers curse the king and his justices.

The Passus ends with prophecies of disasters to come.

Discussion Topics

1. Explain the process in the poem whereby the pilgrimage is transformed into field labour. How do you interpret this transformation?

2. What are the terms of the social contract advocated in this Passus? What solutions does Langland propose for the suffering of the poor? What solutions does he oppose?

3. Piers is given moral authority throughout Passus 8. What might he represent? (Remember to accommodate Piers’ over-eating in your interpretation.)

4. Give a resume of Hunger’s advice. Is the advice wise? What is the basis of Hunger’s authority?

5. Comment on the portrayal of entertainers, doctors, and labourers in this Passus. What value is given to each of these vocations?

PASSUS IX: THE PARDON SENT FROM TRUTH

Synopsis

Truth sent a pardon to Piers, his heirs and followers, on condition that they stay home and labour in the fields. The pardon is for those in the three estates who are true to their callings: kings and knights who rightfully defend holy church and rule the commons; bishops who fearlessly administer justice to rich and poor alike; merchants (mentioned in the margin) – not those who do not keep holy days, and who swear falsely – but those who distribute their profits charitably: Truth will send St. Michael to them on their death beds.  To those lawyers who plead in courts, not for advance payment, but for the poor out of love of our Lord, Truth’s pardon promises “grace of a good ende and greet ioye aftur” (line 50); but selling wit, the gift of grace, is simony (i.e. corrupt profiting from church offices). All who live faithfully and lawfully by the labour of their hands are granted Truth’s pardon in perpetuity.

Those who beg without a good reason are excluded from the pardon, and donors ought not to give except where they are sure the need is genuine. A description follows of the lives of the truly poor, who are contrasted with “beggars with bags” and sturdy vagabonds. Wandering madmen are a special category, and Langland draws a parallel between them and the first apostles. He goes so far, in fact, to see them as present-day apostles, secret disciples, minstrels of heaven, who should be welcomed in houses, especially by the rich. These again contrast with the false beggars who lead comfortable, even gluttonous lives in secret. Anyone who knows a craft by which he could earn his livelihood and idles instead is damned by God’s law. Some even break their children’s bones, to make them into permanent beggars: these have no share in pardon, or in the fruits of prayers and penances. But to the genuinely needy, who patiently and humbly accept what God sends, our Lord has granted purgatory on earth and pardon in company with Piers Plowman.

Hermits who live near highways and beg in churches repudiate the original eremetical ideals of detachment and poverty; these have left poorly paying trades to become well-fed deceivers, “lolling” against the law governing the priesthood. All estates should obey the church’s law concerning their rightful occupations; on Sundays and holy days all estates should cease work and attend services, and fulfill fasts, penances, and pilgrimages. We never see these idlers and hermits at services, but I have often met them at mealtimes, well-dressed and sitting at the head table, even though as secular people they sat at the second table. Bishops (negligent shepherds) are to blame for these and other abuses; their payment will be purgatory or hell – no pardon or princes’ letters will intercede for them.

A priest offers to translate Piers’ pardon; the dreamer reads it over their shoulders. The priest comments that he can find no pardon but: “Do well and receive well, and God will have your soul; do evil and receive evil: he who does evil will have an evil end.”

As the priest and Piers argue over the pardon, the dreamer wakes up and finds himself without food and penniless on Malvern Hills. He has often pondered the meaning of his dream, and especially of Piers, the pardon he had to gladden the people, and the priest’s questioning of it. Though Cato and legal experts question the reliability of dreams, the Bible reports that the dreams of Nebuchadnezzar and Joseph were truly prophetic. So the narrator has concluded from his dream that Dowel surpasses indulgences and masses for the dead, bishops’ letters, pardons or pilgrimages to Rome. Even though the pope has power to pardon without penance, masses for the dead are not so certain, the narrator believes, as Dowel. He urges the rich and powerful in particular to pay heed to this. He ends his visio by counselling all Christians to pray for grace to do such deeds here that Dowel will be our witness on judgment day.

Discussion Topics

1. According to Truth’s pardon, what are the duties of the estates? Do Langland’s views on this matter contain any valuable insights? What do his views reveal about fourteenth-century English society? Are his views in any way relevant to modern western capitalist nations?

2. Comment on the presentation in this Passus of the genuine poor, and of their fate in this world and the next.

3. Is there any thematic or aesthetic justification for the long discourse on different kinds of beggars?

4. Is the priest’s judgment on Truth’s pardon supported by the remainder of the Passus?

5. How does the narrator evaluate his Visio, and what teaching does he draw from it in this Passus?

PASSUS X: THE SEARCH FOR DOWEL; THE DISCOURSE OF THE FRIARS, THOUGHT AND WIT

Synopsis

Robed in russet, the narrator wanders about in summer, in search of Dowel. He meets two friars and asks if they know where Dowel lives. A friar claims, with them; but the narrator disputes this, since even the just man sins seven times a day. The friar responds with an exemplum of a boat: when a just man sins he falls inboard, i.e. he remains in charity, and so avoids mortal sin; the tossing waves represent the world, the boat our frail flesh. A man has free will to repent after committing sin; we have no rest until we have paid for our body’s guilt in our death. The narrator replies that he has no natural insight to understand all this. He parts from the friars with mutual blessings.

He comes to a wild wood and leans against a linden tree in an open field. Listening to the blissful song of birds, he falls asleep, and dreams a marvellous dream.

Thought, who has followed Will for seven years, calls him by name. Will asks where Dowel lives. Thought replies that Dowel, Dobet and Dobest are not far to find; that Dowel follows the man who lives by faithful labour and loves his fellow-Christian; that Dobet does all this and more – that he is humble and generous, has entered the religious life and preaches charity to the people; Dobest bears the bishop’s crozier to draw men to good and to beat down law-breakers, however rich. These three have appointed a king to administer their justice. Will thanks Thought, but says that he wants a more natural knowledge of Dowel, Dobet and Dobest.

The two dispute for three days; before they are aware they encounter Wit. Through Thought as his mediator, Will asks for definitions of the three qualities. Wit replies that Dowel lives less than a day’s journey away, in a castle made by Kind of the four elements, which encloses Anima, Kind’s sweetheart, who is desired by the prince of this world, a proud jouster of France. Kind has lodged Anima with Dowel, duke of the borders; Dobet is her serving lady; Dobest, a bishop’s equal, gives moral guidance to them both. Inwit, Constable of the castle, with his five sons (physical faculties rightfully employed), guards Anima until the coming of Kind.

Will asks who Kind is. Wit replies: the Creator of all; man’s body and soul are made in his image, but sin darkens the shining of the image, just as the sun is sometimes hidden by clouds. Kind lets such sinful rascals, who are often rich, go their own way. In Kind’s castle, Inwit dwells in the head and Anima in the heart. Though Inwit can be corrupted by drink, everyone with health and Inwit has all the treasure he needs to find Truth. Those who lack Inwit should be provided for by their friends and by holy church – then we should all do well. But to do better is to love and help our enemies, and to do best is for bishops, to bring all lands to love and believe in one law. Christ died to fulfill the law, so now love should grow. Priests and prelates should till the earth with their tongues to teach men to love. Saints and martyrs come from married people, whose lives conform with love and law; but illegitimate birth engenders sinners, as can be seen by Cain and his descendants and their fates. The Gospel states that the sins of the fathers do not descend to the sons, but this is contradicted by the law at Westminster, which puts the property of a criminal father at the king’s disposal. The descendants of the legitimate Seth married the evil descendants of Cain – and so the evil-doers were drowned in Noah’s flood. Few people now follow the principle that the good should wed the good. Instead, most marriages are entered into for gain, above all. The only children of such marriages are strife and blows. Wit advises like to wed like, for love rather than land or money. Young secular people should marry to avoid sin; and people should make love only at lawful times. Children engendered unlawfully will become vagabonds and be damned, unless they amend their lives.

Dowel is to live by the law and with love. Dobet is to love and also to give. Dobest is to give and to care for young and old, to heal and to help. The more a man does, the more worthy he is.

Discussion Topics

1. Does the waking sequence at the beginning of the Passus provide new information about Will? Are there signs that he has developed spiritually since Passus I?

2. Why is Will not satisfied with the friar’s teaching? Because the teaching is obscure or faulty? Because Will is obtuse?

3. Is there any allegorical or other significance about the place where Will’s falls asleep?

4. How lively and compelling is Wit’s allegory of the castle of man? Compare and contrast with other similar allegories that you may have read.

5. Do Dowel, Dobet and Dobest have a deeper mystical significance, as Will appears to believe, or are they each, as this Passus seems to suggest, a “container” for many specific rightful actions?

6. Is there any structural or thematic justification for the placement here of the long discussion of illegitimacy and marriage?

PASSUS XI: LEARNING AND SALVATION; THE DISCOURSE OF STUDY, CLERGY AND RECHELESNESSE

Synopsis

Wit’s wife, Dame Study, reproves him for wasting wise teaching on those who covet property, status, and pleasure. Crafty lawyers, she says, who plead in the courts out of covetousness, are revered. The sinful rich will be damned. Truth-tellers are little esteemed at lords’ feasts, where the unlearned foolishly debate theology while the hungry and thirsty beg at their gates. Were it not for poor men’s charity beggars would often go hungry. Clerks, knights, and friars preach vainly and hypocritically. Because there is no true faith or repentance, God does not hear prayers for relief from the plague. The rich show no charity, are proud and gluttonous, and act against Tobias’ injunction to give according to means. Therefore, Study concludes, refrain from explaining scripture to those who love worldly pleasures.

Responding to Study, Wit refuses to speak to Will but advises him to beseech Study’s grace. Will says that he will serve Study for his whole life if only she will show him the way to Dowel.

Study directs Will to her cousin Clergy (Learning) and his wife Scripture, who is Study’s sister, by the route of patience, of not resting in riches, and of avoiding sin. (This is the only route to Clergy.) Study gives a list of the many subjects, academic and manual, which she has taught; but she has been baffled by Theology, which is not a discipline but a steadfast faith that teaches love above everything. Love is the teacher of Dowel, Dobet and Dobest.

Will finds Clergy, and asks to know Dowel “kyndeliche,” or naturally (i.e. by experience). Clergy advises keeping the commandments and the faith of the Church. Augustine wrote his books from his own vision of the Trinity, the saints and the prophets, and no scholar could expound his faith; so faith and loyalty and love make men Dowel, Dobet, and Dobest. Then Scripture is contemptuous of Will, blaming him in Latin for knowing many things, but not himself.

Will falls into a dream-within-his-dream, in which Fortune brings him into the land of longing and makes him look into a mirror, which is Middle-earth. Fortune and her attendants, Concupiscencia Carnis  (Fleshly Desire) and Couetyse-of-Yes (Covetousness-of-the-Eyes), persuade Will to dwell on the pleasures and properties to be seen in the mirror. Elde (Old Age) warns Will that Fortune and her followers will fail him in his greatest need.

Rechelesnesse, whose companion is Despair, puts aside this warning, pointing out that Will is very far from old age. He should follow Fortune and reject what Scripture and Clergy have told him. After all, Clergy has seen in the holy Gospel if a man is predestined for hell or heaven before he is born. The Church considers Solomon and Aristotle, the wisest men and the greatest preachers of God’s mercy, to be damned — it would be unwise to follow their teaching with the intention of winning heaven! Rechelesnesse grants that those who work by the doctrine of Clergy and Scripture do well, but he would rather have a smidgen of God’s grace than the whole of natural knowledge and book-learning. People can hope to receive mercy for their merciful actions but many scholars fail to live as they teach. The builders of Noah’s Ark were not saved in the Ark — God grant that Christ’s carpenters, i.e. the Church’s preachers, do not meet the same fate in the deluge of the last judgment! At the Passion a thief who had neither done penance nor suffered was saved ahead of Adam and the prophets. Now the great sinners Mary Magdalene, David and Paul are saints and rulers in heaven. According to Solomon, the fate cannot be known of either the worthy or the wicked. Christ never commanded his followers to be learned – by grace alone they preached successfully to kings. Augustine wrote that the unlearned take heaven by storm, while we wise men are plunged into hell. Plowmen, shepherds, poor commoners and labourers enter paradise easily because of their perfect faith. They are like servants, while the scholars are like reeves, who have more opportunity to fall into arrears of sin. God decides who is good independently of human effort; therefore it’s no folly to follow Fortune.

Childishness induces Will to dismiss the subject; all his actions accord with Concupiscencia Carnis; he sets no value on Dowel, nor on Clergy’s advice.

Discussion Topics

1. Express in your own words the central points of debate in this Passus.

2. Offer an explanation for Will’s falling asleep and dreaming within his dream. (At what point did this “framing” dream commence?)

3. Are Study, Clergy and Rechelesnesse fully drawn allegorical characters, or are they merely a background to the verbal debate which is the chief interest of the Passus? What liveliness do these characterisations contain?

4. Is the debate of any interest? – in itself? as showing preoccupations of Langland’s time? – for us as present-day readers?

PASSUS XII: THE DEBATE ABOUT SALVATION CONTINUED; DISCOURSE OF RECHELESNESSE ON HUMILITY AND PATIENT POVERTY

Synopsis

Elde (Old Age) and Holiness lament that Rechelesnesse’s wit will turn to unhappiness: Will has all his will.

Couetyse-of-Yes comforts Will, whom she addresses as Rechelesnesse (!), with the thought that he need not fear for as long as he has money; friars will absolve his sins and pray for him.

Will grows old, and Fortune and his father-confessor, a friar, desert him. Leaute (Loyalty to Truth) questions Will as to his attitude to the friar. Will wishes that scripture did not forbid him to reprove the friar, but Leaute argues, on the contrary, that he has a duty to reprove public sin, though he should not publish private sin.

Scripture agrees; Will prefaces Scripture’s sermon with a warning that it differs from the faith in our Lord taught by learned men. Many were called to a feast, says Scripture, but only a few were allowed in; the rest were left to wander.

Will wonders anxiously whether he is among the chosen. All, including Will, pagans, heretics and Jews, are called to baptism. Therefore, claims an unnamed speaker, all baptised believers may expect to be saved. A Christian cannot rightfully renounce his Christianity, any more than a bondsman can renounce his bondage. Such a renunciation would have to be atoned for by contrition and confession.

Scripture agrees, but repeats the speaker’s last point, that God’s mercy is always there for the humble.

Trajan, broken out of hell, rudely rejects this. He narrates how he, a righteous heathen, was saved through St Gregory’s intercession but without the rituals or faith of the Church, by love alone.

Rechelesnesse seizes on this, arguing that only love and loyalty are of value — law without loyalty is worthless. Claiming this as the teaching of Christ and St. John, Rechelesnesse paraphrases St. Luke 14. 12: Invite only the poor to your feasts, not the rich, lest you be repaid (on earth); “(Instead) you will be paid at the resurrection of the just.” At Calvary we became Christ’s blood-brothers; we were no longer, as in the Old Testament, sons of men. Therefore we must follow the new law of love and give to the poor. Christ went on earth as a poor man, and so was not recognised on the road to Emmaus. We should follow his example: live poorly, humbly and patiently. Mary, his mother, was poor; Christ commended Mary Magdalene over Martha her sister as having chosen the best part. All wise men have praised patient poverty above riches; like a walnut, poverty has a bitter shell, but a sweet kernel of comfort — remembrance of God and his mercy. The poor man sleeps well — he does not fear being robbed. Those who forsake wealth for love of Christ will be repaid a hundredfold in heaven’s bliss. Christ defined the perfect life as giving all one’s possessions to the poor and following him; and he counselled us all to forsake everything that the world desires and to obey his will. Rechelesnesse could quote further from saints, poets, and philosophers, to prove that patient poverty is the prince of all virtues.

Unless seeds die in the earth, no grain will grow. This teaches us to endure worldly adversity with patience. The seeds that are tough enough to endure winter bring a better crop than those that cannot survive frosts. The tough seeds are the martyrs and confessors of the Church. Prophets who are patient in tribulation are like farmers–following a hard winter they can expect a good harvest. Christ promised to his suffering saints a reward greater than that of the angels.

The rich, on the contrary, are named fools in the Gospel; how can anyone know what will happen to their treasure after their death? Soonest ripe, soonest rotten; the foulest weeds grow in the richest soil, and in the same way wealth nourishes the worst vices. Excess nurtures pride, but poverty destroys it. Wealth engenders fear of being robbed and increases covetousness. To gain wealth people have become murderers or the victims of murder. Murderers may well meet their covetous victims in hell.

Discussion Topics

1. What does this Passus suggest about Langland’s view of his task as a poet?

2. What new ideas about salvation and predestination does the Passus offer?

3. Do you agree with Rechelesnesse’s response to Trajan’s speech? (Say why or why not.)

4. How and why does Rechelesnesse introduce his discourse on patient poverty?

5. Can you see any errors or exaggerations in Rechelesness’s accounts of patient poverty and wealth? (Perhaps compare his depictions with the poem’s earlier descriptions of the truly poor.)

PASSUS XIII: RECHELESNESSE CONCLUDES: THE MIRROR OF MIDDLE-EARTH

Synopsis

Rechelesnesse continues to praise patient poverty, naming Jesus, Abraham, and Job as examples of this state. Both riches and poverty, according to Rechelesnesse, are good, but poverty is better. A rich merchant would be delayed longer than a poor messenger if both had to give a rational account of their goods. If they both crossed a wheat field, the hay-ward would demand a pledge from the merchant rather than from the messenger. If they both travel to Winchester fair, the merchant will fear to be robbed, but the messenger will go singing on his way. This means: the rich man must give an account of his treasure to Christ; he must keep the commandments, give alms and pay tithes. But poor men are not bound by the law in the same way – they need not give alms or pay tithes, and they are allowed to work on holy days. So long as they acknowledge themselves to be Christians, God will recognise them, and accept their good will as equivalent to the deeds of the rich. Patient poverty is the most perfect life of all.

Priests should trust in God for their livelihood, not take money for singing mass. The bishops who ordained priests should arrange for their support, just as kings provide newly dubbed knights with property. Priests of evil life, who cannot conduct services without errors, should no more be tolerated than legal scribes who make mistakes in copying documents.

So Rechelesnesse in a fury concluded his argument against Clergy. Kynde (i.e. Nature) comes to Clergy’s aid, and makes Rechelesnesse look in a mirror of Middle-earth (visible creation between heaven and hell) so that he can learn to love Kynde in every creature.

Now transformed into the first-person narrator, Rechelesnesse sees the variousness of the animal kingdom and the dualisms of human life–poverty and plenty, peace and war, bliss and torment, mercenary rewards and mercy. The beasts follow Reason in eating and drinking and sex, but humans behave recklessly and unreasonably.  Birds build their nests with a skill unknown to man; they breed and skilfully raise their nestlings. The narrator seeks the source of their intelligence. He wonders at the magnificence of the sea and the stars, and the beauty of the flowers and the grass, but finds it the greatest wonder of all that Reason should govern the beasts, but not mankind. So he “reasons with Reason,” and seeks to explain the excesses of mankind, who is closest to Reason in intelligence and action.

Reason replies that the narrator shouldn’t argue about what doesn’t concern him; he should learn long-suffering from God, who could mend everything in a second if he wished. Long-suffering is a principal virtue. No creature creates himself, and human nature is such that offence is inevitable.

The narrator is overcome by shame and awakes (from the inner dream). He says to himself: “Asleep, I had grace to know Dowel, but never when awake!”

A speaker unknown to the narrator asks him: “What is Dowel?” The narrator replies: “Dowel is to see much and patiently to bear all.” The speaker points out that if the narrator had been patient he would have known what Clergy knows, and have understood more through Reason. Just as Adam lost paradise through intellectual questioning, Reason abandoned the narrator because of his pride in his knowledge. Reason, Clergy (Learning) and Kynde Wyt (Intelligence) can speak usefully only to those who abandon pride. The narrator agrees; he sees that this is being said to him because he “reasoned with Reason.” The speaker is about to depart, when the narrator asks him his name.

Discussion Topics

1. Can you see any errors or limitations in Rechelesnesse’s arguments?

2. Comment on the significance of the identification of the narrator with Rechelesnesse.

3. What errors or limitations can you see in the narrator’s interpretation of Middle-earth?

4. Why, in Langland’s view, is the narrator’s question to Reason tainted with intellectual pride?

5. Comment on the reasonableness of Reason’s answer.

6. Are there any signs in this Passus that the narrator is making spiritual progress?

PASSUS XIV: IMAGINATIF

Synopsis

The speaker reveals himself to be Imaginatif, the dreamer’s counsellor for forty years. (Imaginatif is the power of perceiving intellectual truth through objects.) He defines Dowel as avoiding obvious sins and living according to the law of holy church; Dobet is Caritas, or Kynde Love, patience and poverty. The unrighteous expenditure of riches can destroy Dobet and Dobest, but they can be restored by grace, preceded by good deeds.

Learning, which comes from experience and natural intelligence, is a gift of fortune, unlike grace, which is the gift of God. Learning is more valuable than unaided natural intelligence. God wrote the law witnessed by Moses, and Christ wrote in the sand when he prevented the stoning of the adulteress. These examples prove that learning is to be honoured. The Holy Spirit is the exemplar for learned books; learning is like sight – unlearned intelligence cannot find salvation. Clerks keep the keys to learning, just as the Levites (the Biblical tribe of priests) guarded the Ark of the Covenant; we should listen to their words and not contend with them.

Though natural scientists and moral philosophers discovered much, their learning never brought a soul to bliss. Christ revealed himself first to pure shepherds – types of learned men – and to the magi, not to the rich.

Imaginatif wishes to correct the dreamer’s (Rechelesnesse’s) peevish contradiction of Clergy. He uses the analogy of two men swimming the Thames: the trained swimmer, like the learned man, has the better chance of salvation. The clerk is saved from despair because he is instructed in the value of contrition, while an unlearned man guided by an unlearned priest might delay feeling contrition until he goes to confession. The neck verse (proof of the ability to read) has saved many a thief from Tyburn (hanging). The thief saved on Calvary (cited by Rechelesnesse) has a low place in heaven; just as the true Trajan was rescued from no deep place in hell. No one at all can tell why one thief was saved and the other lost. In the same way no one except Kynde, who contrived these things, can know the source of natural intelligence, or of the colour of flowers. He taught the turtle dove and the peacock to tread, and gave a portion of natural intelligence to Adam and Eve; no one knows why he allowed evil as well as good.

Birds have long served as exempla for men. The peacock is the type of the rich man, honoured for his painted feathers (his wealth), so that his unpleasant cry and loathsome flesh are ignored. The lark, fair-voiced, swift-flying, and sweet-smelling, is the type of the humble and holy man. No scripture can tell whether the pagan philosophers are in heaven or hell; but since their books have guided us who hope to be saved, we should pray to God, who is so good, for their salvation.

The dreamer objects that learned clerks have denied that salvation is possible for the unbaptised.

Imaginatif rebuts this, pointing out that even the just man will scarcely be saved on Judgment Day. However this means that he will be saved. The unbaptised Trajan was saved. There is baptism by blood and fire, as well as baptism by font. That truth which never broke the law, and which would have followed the faith if it had been known, might hope to have the reward of truth from a true God, and a greater courtesy than the covenant demanded. All is as God wills.

With this Imaginatif vanishes.

Discussion Topics

1. According to Imaginatif, how highly should learning be valued? What does he see to be the limitations of learning? Is Imaginatif’s assessment of learning more balanced, in your view, than that of Rechelesnesse? (Passus XI)

2. Imaginatif considers natural intelligence to be the gift of fortune. Where, earlier in the poem, has natural intelligence been seen as the gift of grace? Is there a real contradiction here?

3. Are you satisfied by Imaginatif’s teaching on the salvation of the virtuous pagan? What is the essence of his argument?

4. Explain the connection, if any, between Imaginatif’s comment on the peacock and the lark, and Rechelesnesse’s question to Reason in Passus XIII on the unreasonableness of humans in comparison with animals.

5. In your view, are Imaginatif’s arguments in this Passus to be accepted as authoritative? What might be the basis of Imaginatif’s authority?

PASSUS XV: THE FEAST OF PATIENCE AND THE MEETING WITH ACTIVA VITA

Synopsis

The dreamer wakes, and, wandering as a beggar for many years, reviews his most recent dream, concluding with Imaginatif’s point, that even the just man will scarcely be saved. This hard thinking sends him to sleep again.

Conscience and Clergy take the dreamer to Reason’s dinner, where a Master of Divinity, resembling a friar, is welcomed by Conscience. Patience, looking like Piers Plowman, begs for food; as the worthiest guest, the Master is invited to be seated first; Patience and the dreamer are seated at a side table. The Master could not chew the fathers and evangelists served to Clergy by Scripture, but he ate instead costly stews paid for by masses for the dead. Unless the masses are sung, this food will be vomited up amid torments in hell.

Conscience brings a sour loaf of life-long penitence to Patience and the dreamer; Contrition has cooked a portion for all; Conscience offers comfort. Patience is happy with the food, but the dreamer notices a Doctor (academic, not medical) at the high table, eating and drinking luxuriously. He remembers that fewer than three days earlier this Doctor was preaching penance at St Paul’s Cross, and asks himself why he did not preach instead on the text: “There is danger in false brethren” (2 Corinthians 11:27). The dreamer grows angrier and is about to accost the Doctor, but Patience prevents him. Patience points out that the Doctor’s eating and drinking will meet with a poetic penance in indigestion and in contriving faulty arguments that his rich cuisine is penitential.

The dreamer asks the Doctor about Dowel, Dobet, and Dobest. The Doctor defines Dowel as not harming neighbour or self. The dreamer accuses him therefore of failing to do well, in that he has not shared his food with his poor companions. Conscience, through Patience, quells the dreamer, and questions the Doctor further. The Doctor defines Dobet as teaching others to do well, and Dobest as doing what one teaches.

Conscience then asks Clergy to define Dowel. Clergy replies that he will develop this theme only in schools, for love of Piers Plowman, who called in question all skills except love, loyalty and lowliness.

Piers himself speaks now, on the proverb, “The patient conquer” (cf. Matthew 10:22) and on the text, “Love your enemies” (Matthew 5:44; Luke 6:27). Then Piers departs, with Reason running after him. Patience expands Piers’ teaching, showing how patience defends against all earthly troubles and against disasters brought by devils–“Love casts out all fear” (I John 4:18). The Doctor objects that nothing at all could achieve a satisfactory peace between the pope and his enemies. Conscience tells Clergy that he would prefer to possess patience than half of Clergy’s great pile of books.

Conscience sets out with Patience, followed by the dreamer, in search of perfection. Conversing about Dowel, they meet a minstrel, Activa Vita, who is apprentice to Piers Plowman. Activa Vita explains that he labours to provide food for rich and poor, rascals and lords; that he will not tell lies, and, since he is not skilled in minstrelsy or other forms of entertainment, he does not earn easy payment from lords. He provides bread for the pope as well, even though the pope does not have the Gospel power to work healing miracles. Activa attributes this to the sinfulness of the people, which, since it comes from a surfeit of bread and wine, could be amended by a shortage.

Patience objects that even in a shortage pride would appear, and claims that it is he, Patience, who saves people from hunger. According to faith, life was never given without the means of sustaining it; and all men should live by faith, not by bread alone. Patience takes from his bag a piece of pater noster (the Our Father”), and the dreamer discovers that “thy will be done” should provide for us all. Patience goes on to say that this is to be eaten in every trouble, and even in death. The lives of all creatures are entirely at God’s disposal, as the stories of the Israelites’ spring of water, of Elisha’s closing of the heavens, and of the miraculous awakening of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus show.

Activa asks: “What is perfect patience?” Patience replies: “Humility and charity.”

Activa asks: “Which is more pleasing to God, patient poverty or righteous wealth?” Patience ironically questions whether there are any righteous rich people. The rich (paradoxically) fall into arrears, whereas the poor man can claim a joy from the righteous judge that he has never before experienced. He is like the birds and animals, who, having learned meekness in the scarcity of winter, experience summer as a sovereign joy. Every creature sometimes feels joy; those rich and joyful on earth are likely to experience poverty in purgatory or hell.

Discussion Topics

1. What is revealed about Will’s spiritual state by his behaviour at Reason’s dinner?

2. List the allegorical figures present at the dinner, and explain their roles and significance in this context.

3. Patience and Activa Vita are both associated, though in different ways, with Piers Plowman. Compare and contrast these two figures and their significance.

4. Trace the motif of eating and its developing meanings through this Passus.

5. What, if any, unifying themes can you find in this Passus?

6. What more do we learn about Piers Plowman in this Passus?

7. Is the Master/Doctor simply a further occasion for satirising friars, or is he also a vehicle for an unfolding spiritual theme? If the latter, what might the theme be?

PASSUS XVI: PATIENCE AND LIBERUM ARBITRIUM

Synopsis

Patience continues: Alas for the rich, who are like labourers paid in advance; it is not fitting that they should have two heavens. They are like beasts rejoicing in summer-time; the poor suffer in summer and more in winter – may they at some future time enjoy summer!

Patience prays that both rich and poor should amend their lives. He identifies contrition, confession, and satisfaction (the three parts of the sacrament of penance) with Dowel, Dobet and Dobest. These three, and not rituals, must defend us on Judgement Day.

Seven sins pursue us all, but the rich are the soonest deceived. Because they are deferred to, they are more susceptible to pride than are the poor, who press onwards to heaven. Those who endure poverty patiently are safe from pride and the other sins. Need forces the poor to be humble, and so Wrath comes off the worse when he wrestles with them. Gluttony does not succeed with the poor, since they cannot afford luxurious foods; a poor man who gets drunk wakes in a cold bed, repentant. Covetousness and poverty are an ill-matched pair; and a poor man possesses only a bag, not Avarice’s cupboards and coffers. Lechery has no love for the poor man, who cannot pay for his pleasures. Even though a poor man may tend to be slothful, adversity will force him to recognise that God alone is his help. Christ saved all mankind in poverty’s suit.

If the poor can claim heavenly bliss after death, those who live as beggars voluntarily for God’s love can claim much more. (Patience demonstrates this point with nuptial imagery.)

To Active’s angry demand for a definition of poverty, Patience replies with a list of oxymorons and near oxymorons, which he then expands: a hateful good, freedom from cares, possession without dishonesty, a gift of God, the mother of health, a pathway free from anxiety, a mediator of wisdom, a business without loss, a happiness free from anxiety.

Active’s “leader”, Liberum Arbitrium (i.e. Free Will), who knows both Conscience and Clergy well, then intervenes with a comment on the poverty of the rich man at the moment of his departure from earth. Encouraged by Patience, the dreamer questions Liberum Arbitrium as to his origins. He replies by saying essentially that he is one who is welcomed in Christ’s court and by Christians. The dreamer asks him what his service is. He replies that he is the power of choosing, and that he cannot exist unless he is carried in a body. The dreamer asks, Is the body therefore superior? Liberum replies no, but that he and the body are mutually dependent, working together like fire and wood:

• As the life of the body he, Liberum Arbitrium, is Anima.
• As the power of willing he is Animus.
• As the power of knowing he is Mens (i.e. Mind).
• When God is remembered Liberum Arbitrium is Memoria. 
• As the power of judging and obeying the truth he is Racio (i.e. Reason).
• As the power of feeling he is Sensus.
• In carrying out decisions and in recording good and evil deeds he is Conscience.
• As the faculty of choosing good or evil he is Liberum Arbitrium. 
• As the power of loving God and all things he is Amor.
• When he leaves the dying body he is Spiritus.

The dreamer responds by jokingly comparing Liberum Arbitrium, with his many names, to a bishop. Liberum responds with an appropriate pun on the dreamer’s name, “Now I see your will – to know the causes of all the names of bishops and of my own.” The dreamer confirms this – he wants to know and understand “kyndeliche in myn herte” all disciplines and crafts. Liberum therefore identifies the dreamer as one of Pride’s knights, since it is against “kynde” that anyone except Christ himself should know everything. He supports this teaching with quotations from Solomon and St. Bernard, and with the example of Adam and Eve’s expulsion from Paradise.

The friars cause people to doubt the faith by preaching on insoluble and fallacious problems. Pride is the motive of ostentatious displays in building, learning, and wealth. The teachers in Holy Church are the source of great good or great evil: when boughs bear no green leaves, there is rottenness in the tree’s root. If preachers would amend their lives, the unlearned would willingly follow them, but now, because preachers do not live out their preaching, they appear to be hypocrites. Liberum likens hypocrisy to a dung heap covered with snow and to a white-washed black wall. Many priests, preachers and prelates look like lambs and live like wolves, against the law of charity.

The dreamer comments that though he has lived in London for many years he has never found charity as Paul defines it. It seems a marvel if he finds even a figurative charity among the religious orders.

Liberum defines charity as a child-like contentment and acceptance. Charity sorrows with those who mourn and has faith in people’s promises. He accepts all kinds of misfortunes as heaven’s minstrelsy. Charity cares nothing for wealth; his faith provides for him. He visits and comforts the poor and prisoners. He launders pride and all sins with penitence.

The dreamer, wishing to commit himself to Charity, asks where he may be found.

Liberum replies that Piers Plowman knows Charity best; that Charity is to be recognised by his actions. He wears the clothes of various kinds of people, but Liberum has never seen him begging. He is most often seen dressed as a monk, and once–in Francis’ time–he appeared in a friar’s gown. Sometimes Charity appears in kings’ courts, provided Covetousness is not present. Charity does not beg or borrow, except from God himself.

Discussion Topics

1. Patience gives here a new definition of Dowel, Dobet and Dobest. How do other speakers earlier in the Vita define these qualities?

2. Compare and contrast Patience’s comments on the seven deadly sins with the descriptions given in Passus VI and VII.

3. Explain in your own words the range of ideas contained in the figure of Liberum Arbitrium.

4. In the persona of Rechelesnesse, Will doubted the value of learning; now he wants to know everything. According to the values implied or stated in the poem, what are the shortcomings of each of Will’s extreme views?

5. What, if anything, do you find useful or insightful in Liberum’s teaching on Charity?

6. Liberum states that Charity and covetousness are never found together. In your view, is Covetousness the principal evil, appearing in many different forms, in Langland’s poem? Name some of the forms! Concepts such as patient poverty, opposing covetousness, are also investigated at length. Name and explain some of the other opposing concepts.

PASSUS XVII: LIBERUM ARBITRIUM ON CHARITY AND THE CHURCH

Synopsis

The dreamer objects that everyone begs or borrows sometimes, and is sometimes angry, without committing sin.

Liberum replies that whoever is angry and desires vengeance sins against charity. The Desert Fathers lived without borrowing or begging, except from God; Paul, Peter and Andrew earned their livings; Mary Magdalen lived on the moors; Mary of Egypt lived on love. Many people have lived for many years for love of our Lord without borrowing or begging. Churchmen should follow the example of Tobit, and accept no gifts from thieves; then charity would grow in the Church. Lords and ladies should not endow friars of monks who already live in plenty; first they should provide for their kin, and then for the genuinely needy, following the example of St. Lawrence. Learned preachers, whose baptism is true, but who do not practise what they preach, are like counterfeit coins bearing a true imprint.

Because of the shortcomings of leaders, plenty and peace have come to an end; sailors, astronomers and farmers can no longer predict the weather and crops with confidence – the signs are disturbed; learning is failing. Guile, and Flattery, his usher, have corrupted all ranks. Priests should say mass faithfully; even Saracens can be saved by faith in Holy Church.

In response to the dreamer’s question, Liberum defines Holy Church as charity, the community of Christians bound by love and faith to the same law. The law is the basis of love, as can be seen in the contrast between lechers, thieves, and law-abiding men. The love of the body for the soul, i.e. the body’s concern for the soul’s salvation, is charity.

Again in response to the dreamer’s question, Liberum explains that Saracens have a natural love for their creator, but a false mediator, and so they depart from faith and from the law. When Mahomet, as a cardinal, saw that he could not become pope, he went to Syria and trained a dove to take corn from his ear. He deceived the people into believing that the dove was a heavenly messenger. Holy men should convert Mohammedans to Christianity, but instead absentee bishops are appointed to Moslem dioceses. Once there were genuine ascetics, but now the red-gold noble is honoured more than the rood, Christ’s cross which overcame death and deadly sin.

The only cross honoured is the one engraved on coins. Therefore other religious orders will be overturned as the Templars were; and bishops are in danger of being deprived of their secular lordships. Constantine’s endowment was poison to the Church. The pope maintains soldiers to make war on Christians; but, purged of possessions, his prayers and patience would quickly bring love and peace to all lands. Just as Mahomet by guile conquered all Syria with a dove, in the same way, if prelates would cease to sin, Christ’s dove, the Holy Spirit, would descend to make an everlasting peace between the prince of heaven and all men.

Since Saracens and Jews hold a part of our belief, they could be converted the more readily. The righteous among them suffer because of their false mediator, and this is a danger for the bishops appointed to unconverted dioceses. On earth Christ did many miracles and baptised with his heart’s blood; and many saints died to propagate the faith in foreign lands. St. Thomas of Canterbury is an example to all bishops, and especially to the bishops of Syria, who hop about in England hearing confessions against the law. The bishop’s duty is to show himself to his people and to be prepared to die for them, to destroy deadly sin.

The Jews follow the law of Moses, but, like the Mohammedans, they took Jesus to be a sorcerer, a false prophet; since Jews and Mohammedans believe the beginning of the creed, prelates and priests should try to teach them the rest of it.

Discussion Topics

1. Summarise Liberum’s views on the use of money to Holy Church.

2. How does Liberum employ the story of Mahomet and the dove to advance his argument?

3. List the ecclesiastical abuses uncovered in this Passus.

4. Which major argument of Rechelesnesse does Liberum refute?

5. What striking puns can you find in this Passus?

PASSUS XVIII: THE TREE OF CHARITY AND THE MEETING WITH FAITH

Synopsis

In response to the dreamer’s request to show him Charity, Liberum leads him to the country of Cor Hominis (the human heart), in the midst of which is planted the tree, Ymago Dei (God’s image). Liberum explains that its name is True-love, planted by the Trinity, and that its fruit is Caritas (love).

The dreamer notices that the tree has three equal props. Liberum explains that with the first prop, Potencia-dei-patris (the power of God the Father), he beats off the wind of the World; with the second, Sapiencia-dei-patris (the wisdom of God the father, i.e. Christ), he guards the fruit of Caritas against the wind of the Flesh; when the Devil leans his ladder of lies against the tree, Liberum defends it with the third prop, Spiritus-sanctus (the Holy Spirit).

The dreamer then notices that the fruit of the Tree of Charity, fairest of all, grows in three degrees. Liberum explains that the fruit is all of the same kind, but that, like apples growing on the same tree, some fruits are riper and sweeter than others. The same variations are found in mankind: monks and nuns, like the crop at the top of the tree, feel the heat of the Holy Spirit; widows and widowers, living in chastity, please our Lord more than Activa life, i.e.  people who follow the flesh.

The dreamer asks why there are three degrees, since there are only two lives – active and contemplative.

Liberum explains that in ascending order, the three degrees are Marriage, Widowhood and Virginity. Virgins are angels’ peers, the chosen servants of the Lord on earth and in heaven.

When the dreamer’s requests a taste of some of the fruit, at Liberum’s order Elde (Old Age) climbs and shakes the tree. The devil gathers the ripe fruit of Widowhood and Marriage as they fall — Adam, Abraham, Isaiah, Samson, Samuel, and John the Baptist — and makes them his treasure in the borderlands of hell.

Moved by anger, God’s Free Will seizes the middle prop, the Son, who flew with Spiritus Sanctus to rob the devil of his apples, acquired by deceit.

Then Gabriel spoke with Mary, that in the fullness of time Jesus came to joust with the fiend for the tree’s fruit. Mary consented; the child was born; instructed by Liberum Arbitrium, he became the best of physicians, healing lepers, the blind and the lame, and raising Lazarus from the dead. At this some believed that he was God’s son, others that he was possessed by the devil. Christ reminded unbelievers of his miracles, and cleansed the temple, promising to overthrow it when he willed and to rebuild it in three days.

The Jews pursued him in secret, and bought him from Judas for money. When Judas and the Jews betrayed him, he said that their deceit would be a model for many – “Woe to those who practice deceit to the world’s end!” (Matthew 18:7).

The dreamer awakes at the noise and searches for Liberum Arbitrium. Instead, on Mid-Lent Sunday, he meets a man named Abraham, “hoary as a hawthorn.” Abraham says that he is “with faith,” and that he is the herald from a time before the law existed, for three persons in one banner, named solus Deus (one God). The dreamer asks if they are separate, with different names. Abraham replies that the names are Father, Son and Holy Ghost. The dreamer says that he does not understand and cannot believe how one lord can live in three.

Abraham, now called Faith, advises him not to think about it too much, but to believe it faithfully all his lifetime. God sent his Son to bring forth children of charity; their mother is Holy Church; Christ, Christendom, and Holy Church symbolise the Trinity. The Trinity declares itself in its creation: Adam, Eve and Abel were all of the same kind, as are man, wife, and legitimate offspring — these are analogies of the Trinity.

The dreamer asks if Abraham has seen God in three persons. Abraham tells how the Trinity came to him, and promised issue to him and his wife in their old age; and how he (Abraham) passed the test by being willing to sacrifice Isaac, and circumcised his household. Now he believes the promise of the Trinity that he will feast in paradise; and that the Lord intends soon to make a new law. Abraham has been the Lord’s herald in hell and expects his coming, since John the Baptist has seen the Saviour.

The dreamer sees Lazarus, patriarchs and prophets in Abraham’s bosom. Abraham grants their value, but points out that the devil has claimed them and himself. No pledge can rescue them from the devil’s pound until Christ comes and pledges life for life.

The dreamer weeps at the realisation that sin long delays God’s mercy, which could amend us all. With that he sees another person running the same way, and questions him about his origin, destination and name.

Discussion Topics

1. List and explain this Passus’s symbols and analogies for the Trinity.

2. Explain the allegory of the Tree of Charity, and comment on its effectiveness. (Pay attention to both narrative and descriptive elements.)

3. Discuss the summary of Christ’s life at the centre of the Passus. How would you characterise the style of this retelling? Which Gospel events are selected for detailed treatment? Are there any significant omissions?

4. Explain Abraham’s part in the development of the poem at this point. What is there in Abraham’s teaching to justify his identification with Faith?

PASSUS XIX: HOPE AND THE GOOD SAMARITAN

Synopsis

The newcomer identifies himself as Hope, who is searching for a knight who gave him letters patent on Mt. Sinai. He responds to the dreamer’s request to let him see the letters. They consist of a piece of hard rock, on which is written, “Love God and neighbour,” with the gloss written in gold: “On these two depend the whole of the law” (Matthew 22: 40). According to Hope many thousands of men and women have been saved by this charm alone, and Faith displays in his lap Joshua, Judith, and Judas Maccabeus.

The dreamer asks: Since, according to Abraham, the Trinity saved so many, what need was there for a new law? Now, (the dreamer continues) Hope speaks of only one God (not the Trinity), and gives the commandment to love liars and loyal men without discrimination. Therefore the dreamer tells Hope to depart.

As they go on their way, they meet a Samaritan coming to joust in Jerusalem. When they find a man who has been bound by thieves and left naked in a wilderness, Abraham and Hope shun him, but the Samaritan tends his wounds, sets him on his own horse, and takes him to an inn six or seven miles from the new market. He leaves two pence with the inn keeper to pay for the wounded man’s lodging, and hurries on his way to Jerusalem.

The dreamer points out to the Samaritan that Faith and Hope were afraid to help the man. The Samaritan replies that no earthly medicine, nor Faith nor Hope had power to heal the man, but only the body and blood of a child born of a maiden.

The dreamer repeats to the Samaritan what Faith and Hope have taught him about the Trinity and charity. The Samaritan approves this teaching; the dreamer should hold to the faith, and show his hand to oppose the promptings of Kynde Wit and heresy: the closed fist represents the Father, the fingers the Son, and the palm the Holy Spirit, yet the hand is one. Because a wound in the palm will take power from the whole hand, the sin against the Holy Spirit cannot be forgiven.

The Trinity is also likened to a torch or taper: Father and Son are the wax and wick twined together, and the flame is the Holy Spirit. The light of a torch is love and faith fostered by the Trinity, cleansing Christians of their sin. Hidden in the shaft, the fire will only blaze out when the Holy Spirit is blown upon by love and faith. Then power melts and becomes mercy, like winter icicles instantly melted by the sun. Just as wax blazes on a glowing coal, the Father forgives those who repent and make restitution, or have the intention of doing so. Just as fire cannot blaze without tinder, so mercy cannot reach those who treat their fellow-Christians uncharitably: despite any number of penances and indulgences, sins against charity (vnkyndenesse) quench the Holy Spirit. The rich and powerful should take heed of this. Dives gained his wealth honestly but he is damned for his niggardliness — what excuse then can the rich make who won their wealth through deceptions? Vnkynde Christians destroy life and love, the flame of a man’s body which is destined to worship our Lord; they sin against the Holy Spirit. How could those who destroy mercy hope for mercy?

The dreamer asks if, having committed such a sin, he might be saved if he confessed and asked for mercy.

The Samaritan replies: Yes, repentance could transform righteousness into pity, but someone found guilty before a king’s justice is not granted mercy until the plaintiff agrees. Even so, people who follow their own will throughout their lives usually despair of God’s mercy on their death beds: they cannot make the needed restitution — sorrow of heart.

Three things will drive a man out of his house: a nagging wife (the flesh); a leaking roof (sicknesses and sorrows which should be patiently endured); and a smokey, blinding fire (covetousness and vnkyndenesse which quench God’s mercy). No one is so sick and sorry that he cannot offer love, good will and forgiveness to all kinds of men.

The Samaritan rides away like the wind, and the dreamer awakes.

Discussion Topics

1. Explain the dramatic function and the significance of Hope.

2. Trace the dreamer’s spiritual progress in this Passus.

3. What changes does Langland make to the parable of the good Samaritan? What are the allegorical meanings of this episode? What is its place in the poem’s developing structure at this point?

4. How helpful are the analogies of the hand and the torch as explanations of the doctrine of the Trinity? How poetic is Langland’s presentation of the analogies?

5. What instruction against vnkyndenesse and covetousness is given in this Passus? Try to recall some of poem’s earlier attacks on these vices.

6. How is the sin against the Holy Spirit ultimately defined?

7. How does this Passus advance the poem’s central theme of the soul’s salvation?

PASSUS XX: THE CRUCIFIXION AND THE HARROWING OF HELL

Synopsis

The narrator went forth and lived worthlessly all his lifetime until he grew weary of the world and desired to sleep; he rested until Lent and slept a long time.

He dreamed of one like the Samaritan, and a little like Piers Plowman, greeted with hosannas, barefoot, riding an ass, with the demeanour of a knight riding to his dubbing, and heralded by Faith. Faith explains that this is Jesus, who has come to joust in Jerusalem to fetch the fruit of Piers Plowman claimed by the devil.

The dreamer asks if Piers is here. Faith replies that Jesus is to joust in Piers’ arms, i.e. human nature, since as Christ the supreme God, Jesus is invulnerable. His opponents are the devil and False-judgment-of-death. Life has pledged his life to fetch the fruit of Piers Plowman in three days.

Then Pilate sat in judgment, and false witnesses gave their testimony. The crowd shouted, “Crucify him!” They plaited a garland of thorns and nailed him with three nails on a cross. Christ said, “Consummatum est,” and swooned; then, like a dying prisoner, closed his eyes. The sun darkened, the wall of the temple was cleft asunder, the earth shook, dead men rose from their graves. The dead body commented that Life and Death were battling to destroy each other, and that the victor would be known at sunrise on Sunday.

A court official broke the legs of the two thieves. Longinus, a blind knight, pierced Jesus through the heart; the spurting blood healed his eyes; he yielded himself recreant and wept. Then Faith berated the Jews – to make the blind beat the dead was the deed of a wretch, never of a knight. Despite his great wounds, said Faith, Jesus defeated your champion. When this darkness has passed, Life will have overcome Death. For this deed, Jews will fall into slavery, and live unlawfully by usury for ever.

Afraid of this wonder and of the Jews, the dreamer withdrew in the darkness, to descend into hell.

Mercy, from the west, met Truth, from the east; they questioned each other about the darkness and the noise, the dawning day and the light which lay before hell. Mercy explained that Mary’s child, conceived of the Holy Spirit, suffered and died about midday. The sun’s eclipse was a sign that men would be taken out of darkness, and that Lucifer would be blinded by this light: “What was lost through a tree will be won back through a tree; and those cast down by death shall be lifted up by a death.”

Truth objected — “There is no redemption from hell” (see Job 7:9).

Mercy pointed out in reply that the dead scorpion is the only cure for the scorpion’s sting. Accordingly this death will destroy the work of the devil and Death done against Eve; the deceiver will be deceived.

Truth pointed to the coming of Righteousness from the north, and Mercy to the coming of Peace, clothed in patience, from the south. In reply to Righteousness’ question, Peace reveals that her gay clothing is worn to welcome Adam and Eve and Moses from hell. “Christ has jousted well; by grace he has changed righteousness’ nature into peace and compassion; Love has told Peace that she and her sister Mercy will save mankind.”

Righteousness rejected this scornfully: when, against reason, Adam and Eve ate the fruit, God judged them to dwell in pain perpetually.

Peace replied, that their sorrow will have an end. “If they had not known sorrow, they would not have recognised joy. If the whole world was white, who would recognise colour? If God had not suffered at the hands of another, he would not have known if death were sweet or sour. A rich man would not know suffering if there were no natural death. Adam knew joy, and then sorrow. God took on Adam’s nature, to learn what he has suffered in heaven and earth, and now in hell.”

Book, with two wide eyes, testified then that when this child was born, all wise men agreed that he would save mankind’s soul and destroy sin. “The star at his birth, the water that he walked on, the sun that was eclipsed and the earth that shook at his death, and hell that set free Simeon’s sons to witness his crucifixion – all these bore witness to his divinity. Now Lucifer will believe it too, for Jesus will release from hell those whom he wishes; he will arise to life and comfort his kindred; Jews who will not honour the cross will be lost, body and soul.”

Truth invited them to listen; a spirit commanded the gates of hell to be unlocked.

Satan said to Hell: “This light fetched Lazarus before. Patriarchs and prophets have long prophesied that such a light and lord would lead them from hell.” He ordered all the devils to prepare for a siege and a defence.

Lucifer warned Satan that this lord cannot be overcome by trickery; but that he (Lucifer) held Adam’s descendants rightfully – the lord, witness of truth said this himself. Satan points out that Lucifer won his prey in the garden by deceit, broke into the garden, and enticed Eve with lies. Therefore the devils have no true title: “Just as you deceived God’s image in the disguise of a serpent, so God has deceived us all in the form of a man. For thirty-two years I have tried to prevent his dying, but see now where his soul comes gliding here in glory and great light. I know this is God; let us flee. First, Lucifer we lost our joy in heaven through pride and because we believed your lies, and now, through your lies to Eve, we have lost our lordship on earth and in hell.” (Our Lord will blame liars for the wretchedness they cause. Therefore beware, scholars and men of law, that you do not deceive ignorant men with lies.)

Again the light commanded the gates to unlock, and with that breath hell broke, and all Belial’s bars. Our Lord said to Lucifer, blinded by the light: “I am here to honour the right of both of us to sinful souls. I may claim them as their Creator; though reason and justice demanded that they should die if they ate the apple, I did not judge them to hell for ever. Their deadly sin was caused by your deception. The old law teaches that deceivers will be deceived, and a life for a life. Therefore, soul shall pay for soul, and the Crucifixion balance the Fall; as man I shall make amends for all men’s misdeeds; my death relieves all whom death destroyed. Ransom my liege servants here, through right and reason. You who are doctor of death – drink your own medicine! I am Lord of life; love is my drink, which I’ll drink from the common cups of Christian souls. My thirst will not be satisfied until the last harvest of souls. Then my nature demands that I be merciful to man, for we are brothers of the same blood. My full brothers will never come into hell again, once they are out, and nature will constrain me to be merciful to many of my half-brothers. I can show mercy in justice and truth, and lawfully I will lead from here those whom I love, and who believed in my coming.”

Then God bound Lucifer in chains. Hundreds of angels played the harp and sang, Peace chanted: “After the heaviest showers the sun is brightest. There is no strife or envy that cannot be brought to laughing by Love and Peace.” Mercy and Truth have met together; Righteousness and Peace have kissed (Psalm 84:11).

These damsels danced until daybreak; the dreamer awoke to Easter bells and called his wife and daughter to worship the resurrection and the cross – “the richest of jewels, it bore God’s body for our redemption, and puts the devil to flight.”

Discussion Topics

1. Comment on the portrayal of the entrance to Jerusalem and the Passion, paying attention to allegory (for example, in the identity and associations of the Christ-figure), imagery (for instance, chivalric), and the selection and arrangement of the narrative.

2. What is the central theological concern of the debate among the four daughters of God at the centre of the Passus? How is this concern resolved in the account of the Harrowing of Hell?

3. What part is played by Book in the structure of the Passus?

4. “In due course Langland will show that the Lucifer who fails to answer Christ’s challenge is a craven.” (J.A.W. Bennett, Poetry of the Passion, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1982, p. 105) Is Lucifer/Satan characterised as craven, heroic, comic, sublime, deceitful, wicked or what?

5. Evaluate the poetic effectiveness of the ending of the Passus. Trace the structural “lines” which converge on this point. If the poem had ended at this point, would this have adequately represented Langland’s world-view? (The general world-view can presumably be known from earlier Passus.)

PASSUS XXI: THE FOUNDING OF HOLY CHURCH

Synopsis

The dreamer writes what he dreamed, dresses in his best clothes, and goes to mass. At the offering, he falls asleep again and dreams that Piers Plowman, painted all with blood, and closely resembling Jesus, comes in with a cross. Conscience, kneeling, explains that these are Piers’ arms, colours, and devices, but that this is Christ, conqueror of Christendom.

The dreamer asks why Conscience uses the name, Christ, when Jesus is the name to which all shall bow, and the source of our joy. Conscience explains that conqueror is a higher estate than knight or king — the reward of courage and of courtesy, with power to ennoble followers and to enslave those who reject his law and teaching. Jews, formerly gentlemen and free men, have become churls, except for those who were baptised. Jesus taught the Jews the law of everlasting life; defended them from ills; was crowned their king on Calvary; conquered on the cross and later in hell; saved Adam and Eve and many others; bound Lucifer in iron — who is worthier then to be called Christ, that is, conqueror? His cross is our defence against sin; his suffering is a sign that true joy must be won in this world by sorrow and penance.

Conscience continues: “When Jesus was born in Bethlehem, three kings offered him incense, symbol of reason; gold, symbol of righteousness; and myrrh, symbol of mercy. But despite these gifts, our Lord Jesus was neither king nor conqueror until he began to grow and to practise tricks, as becomes a conqueror: sometimes he suffered, sometimes he hid, sometimes he fought and sometimes he fled, until he had won all those he shed his blood for.

When he changed the water into wine, symbol of law and holiness of life, of love of enemies, God began to do well; so he was called not only Christ but Jesus. He did this of his nature alone, to confirm his mother’s faith.

When he had grown more he healed the lame and blind, and fed the hungry, that is, did better, and so he received a greater name, Son of David. David was the mightiest champion of his day, and the people thought that Jesus would be the worthiest king of Judah.

The Jews therefore plotted his death at Calvary, and because prophets told them that the body would arise from its burial, they appointed knights to watch over it by night. The knights reported that as angels sang “Christus resurgens,” the body arose as a true man before them all, and Mary Magdalen met him by the way. Peter saw all this and went in search of James and John. Jesus appeared in a closed room to eleven disciples, and guided Thomas to search his wounds. Jesus said: ‘Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed.’ And when this deed was done, Jesus thought to do best: he gave power to Piers to absolve all of their sins, provided they came and acknowledged their responsibility to pay Redde quod debes (“Pay what you owe”) to the pardon of Piers Plowman. Then Jesus at once ascended into heaven, where he dwells, and he will come again at last to reward with great joy those who pay what they owe, and to punish others with eternal sorrow.”

Thus Conscience counselled the dreamer to kneel to the cross. Then it seemed to him that Spiritus Paraclitus descended on Piers and his companions in the form of light and fire. Conscience explains to the fearful dreamer that this is Grace and advises him to sing “Veni Creator Spiritus.”

Grace asks Piers and Conscience to summon the common people: “I shall distribute graces to all creatures as weapons against Antichrist, against false prophets who will be curators of kings, against pride who will be Pope, and against Covetousness and Vnkyndenesse who will be his cardinals.” To some he gives intelligence and skill with words; to some knowledge of crafts and keen sight; to some labouring abilities; to some skill with numbers; to some the power of prophecy, in astronomy and philosophy; to some skill in arms, to win rough justice; and to others detachment and patient prayer. “Since all crafts are my gift,” says Grace, “see that you love each other as brothers. Conscience is your king, and Craft is your steward. Piers Plowman is my proctor and registrar, to receive Redde quod debes.”

Grace gives Piers a team of four oxen — Luke, Mark, Matthew, and John – for ploughing truth; and four horses — Augustine, Ambrose, Gregory and Jerome — to harrow all holy scripture; and he gives Piers seeds of the cardinal virtues to sow in men’s souls — Spiritus prudencie, Spiritus temperancie, Spiritus fortitudinis, and Spiritus iusticie.

Piers sows the seeds and harrows them with the old law and the new, so that love might grow and vices be destroyed. Grace advises Piers to prepare a house for his grain, He supplies the wood of the cross with the crown of thorns as timber, and Christ’s blood as mortar — mercy is its name. Grace roofs the house with scripture and names it Unity, or Holy Church in English. Piers’ sheaves are brought home in the cart Christendom, drawn by the horses Contrition and Confession; Priesthood is hayward; Grace and Piers roam through the whole world to cultivate truth and the land of belief.

Pride gathers together a great host. He sends his sergeant, Surquidous, and spies, Spill-love and Speak-evil-behind, to tell Conscience and the people that they are to lose the seeds sown by Piers, the cardinal virtues. “Unity will be broken; Contrition and Confession will be coloured so falsely that Conscience will not know Christians from heathens; merchants will not be able to distinguish rightful from wicked earnings, nor from usury.”

Conscience assembles all the Christians in Unity; unless Grace is with them they cannot withstand Pride. On the advice of Kind Wit they dig a deep moat to fortify Unity. Except for a few, all repent, refuse sin, and cultivate holiness. Conscience believes that now Pride will be hindered for the whole of Lent. He invites the loyal labourers to dine on the bread of God’s body, made through Piers’ power and granted by Grace, provided they have paid Piers’ pardon of Redde quod debes.

A brewer objects to being ruled in this way by Spiritus iusticie (one of the cardinal virtues): his nature, he says, is to steal his ale by fraud, not to grub about after holiness. Conscience replies: “Unless you live according to Spiritus iusticie, the chief seed sown by Piers, you will never be saved.”

“Then many men are lost,” says a vicar. “In my time as a parson, no one ever told me about cardinal virtues, or valued Conscience. The only cardinals I ever knew came from the Pope, and we clerics had to pay for luxuries for them and the thieves that follow them. I wish that the cardinals would stay away from the common people, and keep to Avignon and Rome; and that you, Conscience, would stay in the king’s court, and that Grace would guide all clerics, and that Piers Plowman would be emperor of a world wholly Christian. The Pope pays soldiers to kill those he should save. Like God, who sends his rain on the just and unjust, Piers labours for wasters and wenches as much as for his own servants. Let worship be given to him who allows the sinful time to repent! May God amend the Pope, who looks only to his own interests, and may Christ transform the cardinals’ cleverness into wisdom! The commons only pay heed to Conscience and the cardinal virtues if this looks like the way to a profit. They confuse Spiritus prudencie with deception in hiding sin.”

A lord laughs: “I always take from my reeve what my auditor or steward advise — they do the audit in Spiritus intellectus, and seize the accounts with Spiritus fortitudinis!”

A king comes and says: “As head of the commons and defender of Holy Church, I take what I need, instructed by Spiritus iusticie. I can receive communion confidently, since I take from the commons only as my nature demands.”

“Only on the condition,” objects Conscience, “that you defend the commons, and rule with reason and truth. ‘All is yours to defend, not to exploit.’”

The vicar’s home was far away; he took his leave, and I awoke and wrote down what I had dreamed.

Discussion Topics

1. Trace the developing significance of Piers Plowman in this Passus.

2. What are the special emphases of Conscience’s retelling of Christ’s life? Is this, the last word on Dowel, Dobet, and Dobest, satisfactory to you?

3. Comment on the representation of the Pope and cardinals on different occasions in this Passus. Is the view of them in any way radical?

4. Can the allegory of Piers’ ploughing here be read as a “spiritualising” of the ploughing of the half-acre in Passus VIII? Is the allegory effective?

5. What signs of hope are there in the Passus? How does Passus XXI moderate the joyful and triumphant ending to Passus XX?

PASSUS XXII: THE COMING OF ANTICHRIST

Synopsis

The narrator goes on his way, awake, and sick with anxiety about obtaining food. Towards noon, Need challenges him: “To save his life, a man is entitled to take food, drink and clothing, without advice from Conscience or the cardinal virtues except Spiritus Temperancie, the chief of the virtues. Spiritus fortitudinis, Spiritus iusticie, and Spiritus prudencie are all liable to error. Next to God, Need determines virtue. Philosophers chose to experience need. God abandoned his spiritual joy to live a needy life among men; and he died the most wretched of deaths. Therefore, do not fear to experience need.”

Thus reproved the dreamer falls asleep, and dreams that Antichrist came in human form and uprooted the whole crop of truth, and planted falsehood and deception, so that they spread everywhere. Friars and religious supported him, except for “fools”, gentle and holy men, who preferred to die than be ruled by Antichrist.

Pride, with Pride of Life, bore Antichrist’s banner and led his hosts. Conscience assembled the “fools” in Unity, holy church, exhorting them to cry to Kind to defend them, for love of Piers Plowman.

Kind responded by sending out his foragers, i.e. diseases and sicknesses, so that many died. Old Age bore Death’s banner ahead, and Kind followed with poxes and pestilences: no rank was immune. Then Conscience begged Kind to cease.

Fortune flattered those still alive with promises of long life and sent Lechery to assemble a great host against Conscience. Covetousness deceived the people with his lies; Simony followed. He persuaded the Pope and prelates to side with Antichrist to keep their temporal possessions. He put Good Faith to flight in the king’s court and corrupted the law.

Conscience lamented, but Life had his clothes fashionably slashed; he denigrated Holiness, Courtesy and Loyalty but held Liar to be a free man. Life rode out with Pride; he cared nothing for Kind and the death to come to all earthly creatures except Conscience.

Life mated with Fortune; their child, Sloth, grew up quickly and married Despair, a brothel-wench, the daughter of the juryman Tom Two-tongue. With his sling, Sloth spread despair a dozen miles around.

Urged by Conscience, Old Age was shriven, dismissed Despair, and went to war with Life. Life paid gold to Physic for treatment — in vain. At last Old Age attacked a physician, who promptly died in three days. Then Life rode to Revel, a rich and cheerful place; Old Age followed, and went over dreamer’s head, so hard that he’ll be bald for ever!

Old Age attacked the dreamer deafening him, beating out his teeth, fettering him with gout; and the limb that his wife loved most was useless – it had been so battered by Old Age and her.

In this sad state, the dreamer cried to Kind to be rescued from care. Kind advised the dreamer to stay in Unity and to learn a craft. “What craft would be best to learn?” asked the dreamer. “Learn to love,” said Kind, “and leave all the rest. — If you love truly, you’ll never feel need as long as you live.”

So the dreamer came into Unity, heavily besieged by Antichrist and by seven giants, by Sloth, by proud priests, and by Covetousness. An Irish priest, and sixty more of that country shot many sheaves of oaths, so that Unity and holiness were almost overcome.

Friars came to Conscience’s aid but he left them because they did not know their craft. Need explained that the friars coveted cure of souls because they had no endowment. People who have to beg their livelihood lie more often than those who labour. At that Conscience invited the friars into Unity: “I will guarantee you food and clothing, provided that you leave logic and learn to love. God created everything in measured numbers: stars, the paid officers of kings and knights, monks and nuns — all except friars! Since you have no fixed number, it would be wicked to pay you wages.” Hearing this, Envy advised friars to learn logic, so that they could preach common ownership of everything.

The law of Moses proves that this is false teaching. Parishioners, embarrassed to confess to their priests, pay money to the friars for absolution and prayers: they will remain in debt to Judgment Day, just like debtors who run off to Westminster and beg their friends for extended terms.

Meanwhile Conscience held out against Covetousness and Vnkyndenesse; he made Peace the gate-keeper against tale-bearers and chatterers, who, with Hypocrisy, mounted a fierce attack. Conscience called in Shrift to tend the wounded and to ensure that Piers’ pardon, Redde quod debes, was paid.

After a debate, in which he asserts Piers’ overriding power to forgive sin, Conscience agrees that Friar Flatterer, who can handle wounds gently, may come and tend the sick.

Armed with the bishop’s letter, Flatterer asks to enter Unity to speak with Contrition. Peace points out that Contrition and many others are likely to die from Hypocrisy’s wounds. On learning that the Friar’s name is Penetrans domos (i.e. getting into houses), Peace tries to send him away — “Eight years ago I knew someone like you. He ‘doctored’ our women until some were pregnant!”

Courteous-speech nevertheless persuades Peace to let the friar enter. Conscience leads the friar to Contrition, who, he says, suffers from the parson’s plasters left on from one Lent to the next.

The friar gives Contrition a plaster of private payment, and promises to pray for him all his life. So Contrition gives up weeping for his sins, and leaves contrition, the best ointment for every sin.

Seeing that, Sloth and Pride renew their assault. Conscience calls to Clergy and Contrition for help, but Peace reveals that they’ve been drowned in the Friar’s medicine.

Conscience then decides to wander through the world as a pilgrim looking for Piers Plowman, who can destroy Pride and give friars a legitimate livelihood. “Now Kind avenge me, and send me luck and health, until I find Piers Plowman.” He cries aloud for grace, and the dreamer awakes.

Discussion Topics

1. Trace the expression of the theme of need through this Passus. In your view, is it the central, unifying theme?

2. Explain the complex significance of Piers Plowman at this point in the poem. What is his function in this Passus?

3. Does Will perfect his spiritual development in this Passus?

4. Comment on and exemplify the liveliness and realism of the siege allegory.

5. What does Friar Flatterer have in common with the friars in the Canterbury Tales?

6. List characters and themes from earlier in the poem that this Passus returns to.

7. How would you describe the tone of the poem’s ending? Despairing? Hopeful? Triumphant? Frustrated?