Article contents
Langland's Elusive Plowman
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 July 2016
Extract
Among the persistent problems of Piers Plowman criticism, that of defining the meaning of the poem's title figure still holds a prominent place. The problem is largely one of finding or forging a unity out of the bewildering multiplicity of Piers's roles in the poem. Skeat, the poem's first modern editor, proposed three discrete meanings for Piers in three parts of the poem: in his first appearance (B 5–7) he is ‘the type of the ideal honest man’; in the second (B 15–18), Christ; in the third (B 19–20), Peter and his worthy successors in the papal office. Later critics, searching for a means of unifying these three, have fallen roughly into three traditions, each with its own approach to the ‘problem of Piers.’
- Type
- Articles
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Fordham University Press
References
1 Langland, William, The Vision of William Concerning Piers the Plowman in Three Parallel Texts, together with Richard the Redeless, ed. Walter Skeat, W. (London 1886) II XXV–XXVI.Google Scholar
2 Howard Troyer, W., ‘Who is Piers Plowman?’ Publications of the Modern Language Association 47 (1932) 371.Google Scholar
3 Ibid. 372.Google Scholar
4 Burdach, Konrad, Der Dichter des Ackermann aus Böhmen und seine Zeit (Vom Mittelalter zur Reformation 3.2; Berlin 1926–32) 265 n.Google Scholar
5 Worth Frank, Robert, Jr., Piers Plowman and the Scheme of Salvation (New Haven 1957) 13–15.Google Scholar
6 Morton Bloomfield, W., Piers Plowman as a Fourteenth-Century Apocalypse (New Brunswick, N.J. [1962]) 105.Google Scholar
7 Talbot Donaldson, E., Piers Plowman: The C-Text and Its Poet (New Haven 1949) 163, 179, 184.Google Scholar
8 Nevill Coghill, K., ‘The Character of Piers Plowman Considered from the B-Text,’ Medium Ævum 2 (1933) 108–35, rptd. in Interpretations of Piers Plowman, ed. Edward Vasta (Notre Dame 1968) 54–86.Google Scholar
9 Henry Wells, W., ‘The Construction of Piers Plowman,’ Publications of the Modern Language Association 44 (1929) 123–40, rptd. in Vasta, Interpretations 1–21.Google Scholar
10 Robertson, D. W. Jr., and Bernard Huppé, F., Piers Plowman and Scriptural Tradition (Princeton 1951; rptd. New York 1969) 6–7.Google Scholar
11 Vasta, Edward, The Spiritual Basis of Piers Plowman (The Hague 1965) 132–39.Google Scholar
12 Clemente Davlin, Mary Sister, ‘Petrus, id est Christus: Piers Plowman as “The Whole Christ,” ‘Chaucer Review 6 (1972) 280–92.Google Scholar
13 Robertson, and Huppé, , Scriptural Tradition 236–40.Google Scholar
14 Patrick Dunning, Thomas, Piers Plowman: An Interpretation of the A Text, 2d ed. rev. and ed. Dolan, T. P. (Oxford 1980) 88, 90.Google Scholar
15 Daniel Murtaugh, M., Piers Plowman and the Image of God (Gainesville, Fla. 1978) 114.Google Scholar
16 Zeeman, Elizabeth (Salter) has suggested the very general meaning for Piers of ‘the operation of the divine upon the human’ — ‘Piers Plowman and the Pilgrimage to Truth,’ Essays and Studies by Members of the English Association N.S. 11 (1958), rptd. in Style and Symbolism in Piers Plowman, ed. Robert Blanch, J. (Knoxville 1969) 125. Murtaugh's theme of the image of God in man represents only part of this divine operation upon the human. For example, Murtaugh describes Piers as the homo of Deus-homo, referring to the grammatical allegory of C (op. cit. 115, 117). But even within the grammatical allegory, that divine operation also expresses itself in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, which is a doctrine quite distinct from that of Christ's restoring the image of God to man. Furthermore, as a doctrine of the Church the Deus-homo of the Incarnation has more to do with the idea of homo assumptus in Deo, which finds its central formulation in the Athanasian Creed, than with the Trinitarian image of God in man outlined by (among others) Augustine in De Trinitate. Murtaugh speaks of these latter two as freely as if they were identical (e.g., op. cit. 119); perhaps both play a role in Piers's conception, but an adequate interpretation of Piers must account for both the particularity of his meanings and the generality of his meaning.Google Scholar
17 Ed. cit. (n. 1 supra) II 221. Unless otherwise noted, quotations of the B-text are from the Athlone edition by Kane and Donaldson (London 1975); quotations of the C-text, from the edition by Derek Pearsall (Berkeley 1979).Google Scholar
18 Troyer, , ‘Who is Piers?,’ 370–71 (answered by Dunning, A-Text 91); and Kaske, R. E., ‘Patristic Exegesis in the Criticism of Medieval Literature: The Defense,’ in Critical Approaches to Medieval Literature: Selected Papers from the English Institute, 1958–1959, ed. Dorothy Bethurum (New York 1960) 40–42.Google Scholar
19 Donaldson, , C-Text 184, Kaske, ‘Defense’ 42–48, and Murtaugh, Image 118–21.Google Scholar
20 Scriptural Tradition 17–19.Google Scholar
21 Ibid. 79–80.Google Scholar
22 Ibid. 81.Google Scholar
23 Ibid. 81–84.Google Scholar
24 For example, ‘grafter’ in B Prol. 23 refers to ‘pride’ in the same line, not to the plowmen three lines above (cf. Robertson, and Huppé, , Scriptural Tradition 17).Google Scholar
25 Stephen Barney, A., ‘The Plowshare of the Tongue: The Progress of a Symbol from the Bible to Piers Plowman; Mediaeval Studies 35 (1973) 278.Google Scholar
26 Skeat, , ed. cit. (v. n. 1 supra) C 8.187.Google Scholar
27 Barney, , ‘Plowshare’ 287.Google Scholar
28 Ibid. 289.Google Scholar
29 Ibid. 288.Google Scholar
30 Ibid. 288, 278.Google Scholar
31 Ibid. 289.Google Scholar
32 Ibid. 282–83.Google Scholar
33 Ibid. 283–84. Such a view is suggested, for example, by Horrell, Joe in ‘Chaucer's Symbolic Plowman,’ Speculum 14 (1939) 82–92.Google Scholar
34 Barney, , ‘Plowshare’ 287.Google Scholar
35 Ibid. 277–78.Google Scholar
36 Ibid. 288.Google Scholar
37 Lewis, C. S., The Allegory of Love (London 1936, rptd. 1973) 44–48; Worth Frank, Robert, Jr., The Art of Reading Medieval Personification-Allegory,’ ELH: A Journal of Literary History 20 (1953) 237–50, rptd. in Vasta, ed., Interpretations (v. n. 8 supra) 336–92. Frank regards Piers, though, not as a personification but as a symbol: Salvation 14–15.Google Scholar
38 Frank, , ‘Personification-Allegory’ 246–47.Google Scholar
39 Concerning the mythographic tradition in Jean de Meun's Roman, see Seznec, Jean, The Survival of the Pagan Gods, tr. Barbara Sessions, F. (New York 1953; rptd. Princeton 1972) 106.Google Scholar
40 Owst, G. R., Literature and Pulpit in Medieval England (2d ed.; Oxford 1961) 88–89.Google Scholar
41 de Lorris, Guillaume and de Meun, Jean, Le Roman de la Rose, ed. Felix Lecoy (CFMA 92, 95, 98; Paris 1973–76) line 10,984.Google Scholar
42 Ibid. 11,028.Google Scholar
43 Ibid. 11,157–64.Google Scholar
44 Ibid. 11,177–78.Google Scholar
45 Ibid. 11,984–12,350.Google Scholar
46 du Bus, Gervais, Le Roman de Fauvel, ed. Arthur Långfors (Paris 1914–19) 2.1579–85.Google Scholar
47 Ibid. 1597–98.Google Scholar
48 Cf. Owst, , Literature and Pulpit 278–79; Flowers Braswell, Mary, ‘Langland's Sins: A True Confession?’ American Notes and Queries 18 (1980) 154–55. We may, of course, accept the suggestions of Owst and Braswell that as a source for the portraits of the Sins Langland used the confessional manuals. Even if Langland takes this matter from non-allegorical sources which treat various estates randomly, his letting the fluidity of treatment characterize his allegories is legitimized by a specific vernacular allegorical tradition. We are concerned with the form of the allegorical figures.Google Scholar
49 Guillaume de Deguilleville (Deguileville, Digulleville), Le Pèlerinage de vie humaine, ed. Stürzinger, J. J. (London 1893). Having equipped the pilgrim with spiritual armor, Grace-Dieu departs from him at the end of book 1 (line 5,030). The pilgrim faces conflict against the Seven Sins without her throughout Book 2 and most of Book 3, until he is assaulted by all the Sins at once, is overcome, and finds himself lamenting his neglect of penance and the sacraments and his loss of the staff of Hope. At this point she reappears, gives him back his staff, and leads him to the second baptism of penance; he endures it too briefly, so she departs again (10,753–11,372). In book 4 she reappears twice, once to guide the pilgrim as a reward for his having repelled Heresy with the staff of Hope (11,576), and once to bring him to the Ship of Religion after Tribulation has both cast him into the Sea of the World and led him out of it (12,349). Piers, of course, bears a much more complex significance than does Grace-Dieu, and the logic of his appearances and disappearances is more obscure. But he more resembles her than, say, Amors of the Roman de la Rose with his infrequent appearances to Amant, in that Piers and Grace-Dieu are explicitly sought as guides by the dreamer-protagonist.Google Scholar
50 de Molliens, Reclus (Renclus de Moiliens), Li Romans de carité, ed. A.-G. van Hamel (Bibliothèque de l'École des Hautes Études 61; Paris 1885). The first suggestion of Piers as the object of search comes in B 13.133, before Will expresses his desire to find Charity in B 15.195; his search for Piers becomes explicit only after the Tree of Charity scene, in B 16.167–71. Melanie Kell Isaacson has made a detailed comparison of Piers and Charity as exiled virtues, in The Unachieved Quest for Social Perfection from the “Roman de Carité” to Piers Plowman’ (diss. Stanford 1976). Her ultimate gloss for Piers as ‘that neighbor of ours who can lead us to God’ (164) fits Piers better in the Visio than in his later identification with Christ and Peter.Google Scholar
51 Salter, Elizabeth, Piers Plowman: An Introduction (Cambridge 1962) 66.Google Scholar
52 Rutebeuf, , La Voie de Paradis, in Œuvres complètes de Rutebeuf, edd. Edmond Faral and Julia Bastin (Paris 1959) I 336–70. For other examples of the genre, see Raoul, [de Houdenc?], Songe d'Enfer and Voie de Paradis (Songe de Paradis), in Trouvères belges (nouvelle série), ed. Auguste Scheler (Louvain 1879) II 200–48; Baudoin de Condé, La Voie de Paradis, in Dits et contes de Baudoin de Condé, ed. Auguste Scheler (Brussels 1866) I 205–43; de Le Mote, Jean, Le Voie d'Enfer et de Paradis, ed. Sister Aquiline, M. Pety (diss. Catholic Univ. of America 1940). Langlois describes an anonymous fourteenth-century Voie de Paradis that translates Robert de Sorbon's Iter Paradisi, in Histoire littéraire de la France 36 (1927) 624–27. One may also compare a poem of a similar type by Bruyant, Jacques, Le Chemin de pauvreté et de richesse (or La Voie de richesse), in Le Menagier de Paris (Paris 1847) II 4–42. See Isaacson, , ‘Unachieved Quest’ 19.Google Scholar
53 Roberta Cornelius, D., ed., Le Songe du castel, Publications of the Modern Language Association 46 (1931) 321–32. See also Cornelius, The Figurative Castle: A Study in the Mediaeval Allegory of the Edifice with Especial Reference to Religious Writings (printed diss. Bryn Mawr 1930) 14–36.Google Scholar
54 de Méri, Huon, Le Torneiment Anticrist, ed. Margaret Bender, O. (Romance Monographs 17; University, Miss. 1976).Google Scholar
55 Dorothy Owen has noted the similarity of Jean de Meun's episode to Langland's, though without drawing interpretive conclusions for Langland's poem, in Piers Plowman: A Comparison with Some Earlier and Contemporary French Allegories (London 1912) 75.Google Scholar
56 Roman de la Rose 7,201–7,764.Google Scholar
57 Voie 43, 69, 150; Roman de la Rose 7,873–74, 7,867. Cf. Piers Plowman B 5.578, ‘Leve hem on þi lift half and loke noӡ3t þerafter.’Google Scholar
58 Voie 35–48.Google Scholar
59 Roman de la Rose 7,876.Google Scholar
60 Ibid. 7,875–82.Google Scholar
61 Ibid. 7,891–923.Google Scholar
62 Ibid. 9,985–10,276, 10,651–900.Google Scholar
63 Ibid. 10,424.Google Scholar
64 Ibid. 3,086–94.Google Scholar
65 Ibid. 3,094.Google Scholar
66 Ibid. 7,990–92, 8,002–6.Google Scholar
67 Ibid. 8,205–14.Google Scholar
68 Ibid. 8,251–76, 8,159–226.Google Scholar
69 Ibid. 8,421.Google Scholar
70 Ibid. 9,463–68, 9,496.Google Scholar
71 Cf. Gower's description of this class in Vox clamantis 5.9.557–654 and in Miroir de l'omme 26,425–84, in his Complete Works, ed Macaulay, G. C. (Oxford 1899–1902; rptd. Pointe, Grosse, Mich. 1968).Google Scholar
72 Roman de la Rose 21,316–404, 21,553–639.Google Scholar
73 Burrow, John, ‘The Action of Langland's Second Vision,’ Essays in Criticism 15 (1965) 257–59; rptd. in Style and Symbolism in Piers Plowman, ed. Robert Blanch, J. (Knoxville 1969) 209–27.Google Scholar
74 Huntington Rice, Winthrop, The European Ancestry of Villon's Satirical Testaments (Syracuse Univ. Monographs 1; New York 1941). See also Carle Perrow, Eber, ‘The Last Will and Testament as a Form of Literature,’ Transactions of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters 17.1.6 (1913) 682–753.Google Scholar
75 The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, in Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, ed. Charles, R. H. (Oxford 1913) II 282–367; de Meun, Jean, Le Codicil and Le Testament, in Le Roman de la Rose, [ed. Lenglet Dufresnoy] (Amsterdam 1735) III 1–106, 107–70.Google Scholar
76 Rice, , Satirical Testaments 78–82.Google Scholar
77 Caroline Spaulding, Mary, The Middle English Charters of Christ (Bryn Mawr College Monographs 15; Bryn Mawr 1914) liii.Google Scholar
78 Rice, , Satirical Testaments 49.Google Scholar
79 2,459–588; cf. Rice, , Satirical Testaments 86–101.Google Scholar
80 de Deguilleville, Guillaume, Le Pèlerinage Jhesucrist, ed. Stürzinger, J. J. (London 1897) 9,445–510.Google Scholar
81 For an account of Deguilleville's second recension, see B. Katharine Locock's introduction to Lydgate's Pilgrimage of the Life of Man, ed. Furnivall, F. J. (EETS E.S. 77, 83, 92; London 1899, 1901, 1904) xvii-xxxi.Google Scholar
82 Rice, , Satirical Testaments 166–69; Deschamps, Eustache, Œuvres complètes, edd. Marquis de Queux de Saint-Hilaire and Gaston Raynaud (Paris 1878–1903) VIII 29–32.Google Scholar
83 Deschamps, , Œuvres VIII 29.Google Scholar
84 Rice, , Satirical Testaments 147–49; Roques, Mario, ed., Le Roman de Renart, première branche (CFMA 78; Paris 1948) 2,023–74. See also Flinn, John, Le Roman de Renart dans la littérature française et dans les littératures étrangères au Moyen Age (Toronto 1963).Google Scholar
85 Les Enfans de Maintenant, in Emmanuel Louis Nicholas Viollet-le-Duc, ed., Ancien théǎtre françois (Paris 1854) III 5–86.Google Scholar
86 Le Mariage des neuf filles du diable, ed. Paul Meyer, Romania 29 (1900) 54–72.Google Scholar
87 4 Reg. 8.1, Ps. 104.16, Ecclus. 48.2, Ezech. 5.16, 14.13.Google Scholar
88 ‘On the Death of Edward III,’ in Thomas Wright, ed., Political Poems and Songs (Rolls Series 14; London 1859) I 215–18.Google Scholar
89 de Mézières, Philippe, Le Songe du vieil pelerin, ed. Coopland, G. W. (Cambridge 1969).Google Scholar
90 A Good Short Debate Between Winner and Waster, ed. Sir Israel Gollancz (Select Early English Poems 3; London 1920).Google Scholar
91 Ibid. 368–74, 390.Google Scholar
92 Douglas, Gawin, King Hart, in The Shorter Poems of Gavin Douglas, ed. Priscilla Bawcutt, J. (Publ. of the Scottish Text Soc. 4th ser. vol. 3; Edinburgh and London 1967) 139–70.Google Scholar
93 Carruthers, Mary, The Search for St. Truth: A Study of Meaning in Piers Plowman (Evanston 1973) 78. Carruthers has more recently retracted this reading; see her ‘Time, Apocalypse, and the Plot of Piers Plowman,’ in Acts of Interpretation: the Text in its Context, 700–1600: Essays on Medieval and Renaissance Literature in Honor of E. Talbot Donaldson, edd. Mary Carruthers, J. and Kirk, Elizabeth D. (Norman 1982) 180.Google Scholar
94 Katherine Trower, B., Temporal Tensions in the Visio of Piers Plowman; Mediaeval Studies 35 (1973) 390.Google Scholar
95 Robertson, and Huppé, , Scriptural Tradition 93–95.Google Scholar
96 Woolf, Rosemary, The Tearing of the Pardon,’ in Piers Plowman: Critical Approaches, ed. Hussey, S. S. (London 1969) 71.Google Scholar
97 Lawlor, John, ‘“Piers Plowman”: The Pardon Reconsidered,’ Modern Language Review 45 (1950) 449–54.Google Scholar
98 Baker, Denise, ‘From Plowing to Penitence: Piers Plowman and Fourteenth-Century Theology,’ Speculum 55 (1980) 720–22.Google Scholar
99 Dunning, , A-Text (v. n. 14 supra) 114–15.Google Scholar
100 Frank, , Salvation (v. n. 5 supra) 14, 28; The Pardon Scene in Piers Plowman,’ Speculum 26 (1951) 317–31.Google Scholar
101 Chambers, R. W. devotes four pages to the tearing and three sentences to the rest of the passus in Man's Unconquerable Mind (London 1939) 117–22. Coghill's treatment focuses on Truth's sending the pardon at the beginning of the passus as well as on the tearing, but ignores the long piece of estates satire in the middle — ‘The Pardon of Piers Plowman,’ Gollancz Memorial Lecture, Proceedings of the British Academy 30 (1944) 316–22, 356–57, rptd. (abridged) in Blanch, ed., Style and Symbolism (cit. n. 16 supra) 50–54, 85–86.Google Scholar
102 Frank, , ‘Pardon Scene’ passim; Salvation 19–33.Google Scholar
103 Lawlor, , ‘Pardon Reconsidered.’Google Scholar
104 Woolf, , Tearing’ 53–55.Google Scholar
105 Ibid. Google Scholar
106 Susan Mc, H.Leod, The Tearing of the Pardon in Piers Plowman,’ Philological Quarterly 56 (1977) 19. Trower, K. B. also sees the estates-satire as a gloss on the pardon: Temporal Tensions’ 396.Google Scholar
107 Aers, David, ‘Imagination and Ideology in Piers Plowman,’ Literature and History 7 (1978) 10–11.Google Scholar
108 De Venus la deesse d'amor, ed. Wendelin Foerster (Bonn 1880) 300–309, 313–14.Google Scholar
109 de Beaumanoir, Philippe, Salu d'amours, in Œuvres poétiques de Beaumanoir, ed. Hermann Suchier (SATF; Paris 1884–85) II 197–229, lines 523–27.Google Scholar
110 Ibid. 506.Google Scholar
111 Thibaut, , Li Romanz de la poire, ed. Friedrich Stehlich (Halle 1881), 2,348–51.Google Scholar
112 Ibid. 2,463–73, 2,606–7.Google Scholar
113 Ibid. 2,531–32.Google Scholar
114 Ibid. 2,755–58.Google Scholar
115 Spaulding, Charters 23–33.Google Scholar
116 Thibaut, , Roman de la poire 2,752–54.Google Scholar
117 Ibid. 2.767.Google Scholar
118 Frank, , Salvation 28; ‘Pardon Scene’ 323.Google Scholar
119 Roman de la Rose 19,339ff. Dorothy Owen has noted this similar use of the allegorical document in the Roman de la Rose, but again without drawing conclusions for Langland's poem — Comparison (v. n. 55 supra) 112–13.Google Scholar
120 Bozon, Nicholas, La Lettre de l'Empereur Orgueil, in Deux poèmes de Nicholas Bozon, ed. Johan Vising (Göteborgs Högskolas Arsskrift 3; Göteborg 1919) 61–82.Google Scholar
121 Ibid. 135–36.Google Scholar
122 Ibid. 167–78.Google Scholar
123 Robertson, and Huppé, , Scriptural Tradition 93.Google Scholar
124 Woolf, , Tearing’ 62.Google Scholar
125 Rolle, Ps.-Richard, Symboli Athanasii expositio clarissima, in Pia opuscula (Bibliotheca Maxima Patrum 26; Lyon 1677) 627. Cf. also the earlier Troy es and Bouhier commentaries, appendices G and I in George Druce Wynne Ommaney, A Critical Dissertation on the Athanasian Creed (Oxford 1897) 513, 530.Google Scholar
126 Dunning, , A-Text 109.Google Scholar
127 John Baldwin, W., The Medieval Theories of the Just Price,’ Transactions of the American Philosophical Society N.S. 49.4 (1959) 63–64.Google Scholar
128 Luke 16.9, cf. Piers Plowman B 8.88–90. Major commentaries such as the Glossa ordinaria and Hugh of St. Cher's postilla held that the parable of the unrighteous steward in Luke 16 followed the three parables in Luke 15 because three lessons on repentance are rightly followed by a lesson on almsgiving. Hugh of St. Cher proposes several reasons why this order is appropriate, among them that ‘per poenitentiam culpa, per eleemosynam poena relaxatur, et prius est culpa, quam poena’ — Opera omnia in universum Vetus et Novum Testamentum (Lyon 1669) VI 227va. Cf. Glossa ordinaria in Biblia Sacra cum Glossa interlineari, ordinaria et Nicolai Lyrani Postilla ac moralitatibus, Burgensis additionibus, et Thoringi replicis (Venice 1588) V 166ra. In creating an allegorical pardon a pena et a culpa Langland did not necessarily have the parable of the unrighteous steward in mind (since he does not refer to it explicitly), but he certainly did have in mind almsgiving as a prominent work of satisfaction following penance.Google Scholar
129 Ommanney, , Athanasian Creed 489.Google Scholar
130 Robertson, and Huppé, , Scriptural Tradition 93–94.Google Scholar
131 Frank, , Salvation 29.Google Scholar
132 Chambers, , Man's Mind 119–20.Google Scholar
133 Ibid. 119–25.Google Scholar
134 Augustine, , Enarrationes in Psalmos 1–50 (CCSL 38; Turnhout 1956) 134–35.Google Scholar
135 PL 26.937. This commentary, falsely attributed to Jerome, dates from sometime after A.D. 450: Palémon Glorieux, Pour revaloriser Migne: tables rectificatives (Lille 1952) 19; Friedrich Stegmüller, Repertorium Biblicum Medii Aevi (Madrid 1940–77) III 60, no. 3333.Google Scholar
136 PL 70.168.Google Scholar
137 PL 131.261. Although Glorieux (op.cit. 58) questions the authenticity of this commentary, it is ascribed to Remigius by Stegmüller, (Repertorium V 69–70, no. 7211). Glorieux supports a twelfth-century date.Google Scholar
138 Cassiodorus, , PL 70.167; Peter Lombard, PL 191.241.Google Scholar
139 Anselm of Laon, PL 116.269; for attribution, see Glorieux, , Pour revaloriser Migne 57, Stegmüller, Repertorium II 113, no. 1357.Google Scholar
140 Carthusiensis, Bruno, PL 152.727.Google Scholar
141 Biblia cum Glossa III 116vb.Google Scholar
142 Biblia cum Glossa III 117rb. The similar comment by Ludolph, of Saxony makes even clearer the idea of evangelical perfection here: 'super semitas iustitiae, id est artiora precepta et perfectionis consilia hominem iustificantia’ — In Psalterium expositio (Paris n.d. [1506?]) 32vb.Google Scholar
143 Biblia cum Glossa III 117rb.Google Scholar
144 Ludolph of Saxony, In Psalterium 32vb–33ra.Google Scholar
145 Ps.-Albertus Magnus, Commentarii in Psalmos (London 1651) VII 149–50.Google Scholar
146 Ludolph of Saxony, In Psalterium 32vb.Google Scholar
147 Biblia cum Glossa III 117rb.Google Scholar
148 William of St. Amour, in his famous tract concerning the mendicants at Paris, reports the mendicants’ use of the verse from Matthew. Commenting on 2 Thess. 3.10, ‘If any man will not work, neither let him eat,’ he writes: ‘Dicunt quidam de operibus spiritualibus hoc apostolus praecepisse; alioquin, si de opere corporali hoc dicerit, in quo vel Agricolae, vel Opifices laborant, videretur sentire adversus Dominum, qui dicit in Evangelio NOLITE SOLLICITI ESSE DICENTES, QUID MANDUCABIMUS; sed superflue conantur, et sibi, et caeteris caliginem obducere’ — De periculis novissimorum temporum, in Opera omnia quae reperiri potuerunt (Constance 1632) 49. I am grateful to the late Kaske, R. E. for making available his microfilm of this work.Google Scholar
149 See especially 6.187, and C's expansions of B 7.Google Scholar
150 Hussey, S. S., ‘Langland, Hilton and the Three Lives,’ Review of English Studies N.S. 7 (1956), rptd. in Interpretations, ed. Vasta, 242.Google Scholar
151 Walker, Marshall has, I believe, rightly stated the degree in which Piers rejects the life of a layman — ‘Piers Plowman's Pardon: A Note,’ English Studies in Africa 8 (1965) 70.Google Scholar
152 Maguire, Stella, ‘The Significance of Haukyn, Activa Vita, in Piers Plowman,’ Review of English Studies 25 (1949), rptd. in Style and Symbolism in Piers Plowman, ed. Blanch, Robert J. (Knoxville 1969) 194–208.Google Scholar
153 One such modern reader is Aers, ‘Imagination’ (v. n. 107 supra) 13–14.Google Scholar
154 14.164–65; more widely, 14.102–217, cf. 7.100–106.Google Scholar
155 The C-version identifies the three Do's more simply with the three parts of penance: C 16.25–28.Google Scholar
156 Deguilleville, Pèlerinage de vie humaine (v. n. 49 supra) 12,257–70.Google Scholar
157 Ibid. 12,407–26.Google Scholar
158 Ibid. 12,607–608.Google Scholar
159 Ibid. 12,857–59.Google Scholar
160 Ibid. 13,007–14.Google Scholar
161 Frank, , Salvation 30.Google Scholar
162 Burrow, , ‘Action’ (v.n. 73 supra) 261–62.Google Scholar
163 In consequence of this interpretation, the tearing itself appears as a dramatic action which lacks symbolic import (as its deletion from the C-version might suggest). Piers's ‘pure tene’ perhaps is directed at the formalism of the priest, or perhaps at himself for not earlier renouncing solicitude; or perhaps it is a composite emotion. Of course, a mimetic tearing disrupts the earlier allegorical form of the pardon. But so does Piers's mimetic plowing replace the pilgrimage to Truth when he makes his hopper his scrip. Such a disruption is alien to the method of a religious allegorist intent on enumerating doctrinal commonplaces, but is more natural among the secular allegories, where an allegorical letter may dissolve into a very literal sigh and sob — Thibaut, Roman de la poire 2,755–58.Google Scholar
164 Barney, sees the sowing here as spiritual sowing in the heart — ‘Plowshare’ 287. He is interpreting the C-version, though, which does not include the reference to ‘taillours craft and tynkeris craft.’ At this point an allegoresis of the agricultural imagery is more possible for C than for B; a similar reading of Piers's role here in B would require some exegetical meaning for each of his activities.Google Scholar
165 Tierney, Brian, Medieval Poor Law (Berkeley 1959) 54–62, 109–14, 118–19.Google Scholar
166 Roman de la Rose 20, 638–42.Google Scholar
167 Roman de Fauvel 1.265–82, 1.921–32, 1.349–52, 2.1673–94.Google Scholar
168 Ibid. 2.1844–45.Google Scholar
169 Ibid. 2.1689–92, 3153.Google Scholar
170 Ibid. 1.11–33.Google Scholar
171 Lewis, , Allegory of Love (v. n. 37 supra) 345.Google Scholar
172 For a full bibliographical account of these courtly love allegories, see Hans Robert Jauss, ed., La Litterature didactique, allégorique et satirique, vol. 6 of the Grundriss der romanischen Literaturen des Mittelalters (Heidelberg 1968–70) I 224–44, II 265–80.Google Scholar
173 Donaldson, , C-Text (v. n. 7 supra) 181–83.Google Scholar
174 Ibid. 184.Google Scholar
175 Ibid. 186.Google Scholar
176 Ibid. 187.Google Scholar
177 Aers, David, Piers Plowman and Christian Allegory (London 1975) 79.Google Scholar
178 Ibid. 97–98.Google Scholar
179 Ibid. 94.Google Scholar
180 Ibid. 93–94.Google Scholar
181 Ibid. 95.Google Scholar
182 Lombard, Peter, Sententiae in IV libris distinctae (Spicilegium Bonaventurianum 4–5; Rome 1971–81) II 5, 68.Google Scholar
183 Wyclif, John, Tractatus de benedicta Incarnatione, ed. Edward Harris (London 1886) 3.Google Scholar
184 Ibid. 182–83.Google Scholar
185 Netter, Thomas (Thomas Waldensis), Doctrinale fidei Catholicae (Venice 1757; rptd. Westmead 1967) I 231–32. Wyclif was by no means the first or only theologian to advocate the appropriateness of this latria toward the homo assumptus in Deo. But his rigorous Realism led him to make statements which were viewed as lacking necessary safeguards. Bonaventure, for instance, had argued that the humanity of Christ was to be worshiped inasmuch as it was united to the eternal Word, but not as considered by itself. However, he goes on to note that since that humanity is always conjoined to the Word, it should always be thus considered, and is therefore always to be adored with latria — Commentaria in quatuor libros Sententiarum III d.9 a.1 q.1, Opera omnia (Quaracchi 1882–1902) III 199–200. Most later scholastics follow this distinction between the human nature considered as separate and as united to the eternal Word, though sometimes they introduce other aspects: Pierre de Tarentaise and Durand de Saint-Pourçain speak of the humanity and the flesh of Christ as deserving latria not per se, but per accidens, as accidents in a supposit — Pierre de Tarentais (Petrus de Tarantasia / Pope Innocent V), In IV libros Sententiarum commentaria III d.9 q.1 a.2 (Toulouse 1642–52; rptd. Ridgewood, N.J. 1964) III 67; Durand de Saint-Pourçain (Durandus a Sancto Porciano), Petri Lombardi Sententias commentariorum libri IIII III d.9 q.2 (Venice 1571; rptd. Ridgewood, N.J. 1964) II 229v. Duns Scotus defines the question more conservatively: ‘Utrum Christo debeatur Latria solum secundum naturam divinam.’ His answer is threefold, considered under various aspects. (1) The divine nature is a sufficient reason for latria, so the answer is ‘yes.’ (2) The human nature of Christ is not to be excluded from the object of latria, so the answer from another viewpoint is ‘no.’ (3) The human nature of Christ, as a principle of human redemption, does not provide a reason for latria, but only for hyperdulia, so from a third standpoint the answer is ‘yes’ — Quaestiones in IV libros Sententiarum (Commentaria Oxoniensia) III d.9 q.1 a.3, in Opera omnia (Paris 1891–95; rptd. Farnborough 1969) XIV 389–97. Against the background of this third point, the polemical value of one of Wyclif's syllogisms becomes clearer: ‘the humanity of Christ redeems; therefore, the humanity of Christ is God’ — and thus the humanity of Christ as a principle of redemption deserves latria. In contrast, Gabriel Biel in the fifteenth century takes a position more conservative than that of Bonaventure. Biel summarizes the state of the argument thus: ‘omnium in hoc concordat sententia, quod humanitati Christi in se considerate non ut unite Verbo ypostatice non debetur adoratio latrie proprie dicta sed dulia. Considerata autem ut a Verbo assumpta, sic de eius adoratione tres sunt opiniones. Una tenet quod ut sic considerata est adoranda dulia maiori sive yperdulia…. Secunda opinio tenet quod humanitas Christi considerata ut a Verbo assumpta est, et ei suppositaliter unita latrie est adoranda…. Tertio opinio, quod humanitas Christi ut Verbo unita adoratur latria non proprissime sed large sumpta.’ Biel agrees with the third opinion, denying latria strictly defined to even the human nature of Christ as united to the Word, but granting a lesser sort of latria: ‘Accipiendo latriam communiter humana natura in Christo adoranda est latria, patet quod hec adoratio nihil aliud est quam recognitio eius ut summe et singulariter unite deo, et eius ut sic dilectio’ — Biel, Collectorium in IV libros Sententiarum Guillelmi Occam III d.9 a.1 n.3 sect. C, and III d.9 a.2 concl. 4 sect. H (Tübingen 1501; rptd. Hildesheim 1977). For other scholastics on this question, see the following: Aquinas, Commentum in libris I–IV Sententiarum III d.9 q.1 a.2 quaestiuncula 7, in Opera omnia, edd. Fretté, S. E. and Maré, P. (Paris 1874–89) IX 154–55; Richard of Middleton (Ricardus de Media Villa), Super quatuor libros Sententiarum III d.9 q.1 (Brescia 1591; rptd. Frankfurt a. M. 1963) III 89; Egidio Colonna (Ægidius Romanus), In tertium librum Sententiarum d.9 p.1, q.2 a.1 (Rome 1623; rptd. Frankfurt a. M. 1968), 368.Google Scholar
186 Wyclif, John, Sermones, ed. Johann Loserth (London 1887–90) III 55.Google Scholar
187 Ibid. III 368.Google Scholar
188 Kaske, , ‘Defense’ (v. n. 18 supra) 43–44.Google Scholar
189 Aers, , Allegory 108.Google Scholar
190 Ibid. Google Scholar
191 Murtaugh, , Image (v. n. 15 supra) 120.Google Scholar
192 On Luke 2.52, ‘Et Jesus proficiebat aetate et sapientia et gratia apud Deum et hominis’: ‘Et licet Jesus in se non proficiebat sapientia et cognitione habituali, quia haec in eo augmentata non sunt, ab instanti enim conceptionis plenitudinem huius habuit: proficiebat tamen et in se cognitione sensuali et experimentali, quia sensus ejus convertebatur de novo ad aliquid ad quod antea non convertebatur. Unde secundum Apostolum: Didicit ex his quae passus est obedientiam [Hebrews 5.8]. Non tamen de novo aliquid didicit quod prius nesciret, quia quod didicit, prius noverat scientia divina et inspirata. Unde Bernardus: Ut ab alienam miseriam cor miserum habeas, oportet ut tuam prius cognoscas, ut proximi mentem in tua invenias, et ex te noveris qualiter illi subvenias. Verus quippe Dei filius priusquam se exinanivisset formam servi accipiens [Philippians 2.7], sicut miseriam et subjectionem expertus non erat, sic misericordiam vel obedientiam experimento non noverat. Sciebat quidem per naturam, non autem sciebat per experientiam. At ubi minoratus est [Hebrews 2.9.] usque ad illam formam in quam et pati et subiici posset, in passione expertus est miseriam, et in subjectione obedientiam. Per quern tamen experientiam, non illi scientia, sed nobis fiducia crevit, dum in hoc misero genere cognitionis, is a quo longe erraveramus factus est propinquior nobis. Quando enim illi appropinquare auderemus in sua impassibilitate manenti? nunc autem monemur cum fiducia adire ad thronum gratiae ipsius [Hebrews 4.16], quern nimirum languoros nostros tulisse, et dolores portasse cognoscimus [Isaiah 53.4–5] et in eo, in quo passus est ipse, nobis compati non dubitamus. Haec Bernardus.’ — Ludolph of Saxony, Vita Iesu Christi (Augsburg 1729) 74 col. 1.Google Scholar
193 Kaske, , ‘Defense’ 47.Google Scholar
194 Ibid. 47–48.Google Scholar
195 Aers, , Allegory 109.Google Scholar
196 Murtaugh, , Image 119.Google Scholar
197 Ibid. Google Scholar
198 ‘Et quidem. Hic consequenter ostendit, quod in christus fuit maxima misericordia, quae debet esse in pontifice: quia cum esset deus ab eterno, in qua natura pati non poterat, ex sua pietate et misericordia, qua visitavit nos oriens ex alto, assumpsit naturam humanam passibilem, et ex passionis experientia ad compatiendum nobis quodammodo aptior redderetur. Et hoc est quod dicit Apostolus: Et quidem cum esset filius dei, id est ab eterno existens in natura divina’ — Nicholas of Lyra, Postilla super totam Bibliam, in Biblia cum Glossa VI 142rb. Cf. also Alcuin, , PL 100.1054, Rabanus Maurus, PL 112.743, Hatto of Vercelli, PL 134.755, Bruno Carthusiensis, PL 153.514, Peter Lombard, PL 192.437, and Haymo of Auxerre, PL 117.856.Google Scholar
199 PL 117.856. Cf. Alcuin, , PL 100.1055, Rabanus Maurus, PL 112.744, and Hatto of Vercelli, PL 134.755.Google Scholar
200 PL 192.438.Google Scholar
201 Anderson, Judith, The Growth of a Personal Voice: Piers Plowman and The Faerie Queene (New Haven 1976) interprets Piers here as representing Christ's human will, one particular aspect of His human nature. This view works well for the leechcraft episode, which stresses Christ's voluntary learning through suffering, and it also accords with the replacement of Piers by Liberum Arbitrium in that one passage. However, Anderson encounters an obstacle in Piers's grasping the second stave just before the Incarnation: ‘It could look like a form of the Nestorian heresy … with the likely implication that a human being somehow earned, or initiated, the Hypostatic Union’ (136). Ultimately she interprets the grasping of the second stave as representing Christ's free love of the Father by which, from the instant of His conception, He merited blessing on the believer's behalf (138–39). However, she does not sufficiently explain the fact that this symbolic action precedes rather than follows Langland's account of the Annunciation and the Incarnation. Christ's meritorious actions performed from the instant of His conception should follow the Incarnation. If, however, Piers here represents a divine quality of character rather than a human will, the divine choice to take on human frailty naturally precedes the Incarnation. Furthermore, C's substitution of Liberum-Arbitrium-Dei for this divine quality of character is natural, and preserves a meaning similar to that of B. In contrast, Anderson sees a shift here from Christ's human will (in B) to the divine will (in C) — a more radical change of meaning designed, she proposes, to avoid the suggestion of heresy (139–40).Google Scholar
202 Sanderlin, George, The Character Liberum Arbitrium in the C-text of Piers Plowman,’ Modern Language Notes 56 (1941) 453.Google Scholar
203 Lombard, , Sententiae IV d.14 c.1, ed. cit. II 315–16; cf. Bonaventure, , In Sent. IV d.14 dubia 1, ed. cit. IV 328.Google Scholar
204 Welter, J. Th., La tabula exemplorum secundum ordinem alphabeti: Recueil d'exempla compilé en France à la fin du XIII e siècle (Paris 1926) 60 no. 223. This same admonition was well known to the schools through the Lombard's Sentences themselves: ‘Quid enim interest ad naufragium, an uno grandi fluctu navis operiatur et obruatur, an paulatim subrepens aqua in sentinam per negligentium culpam impleat navem et submergat?’ (IV d. 16 c.5, ed. cit. II 341). For another example, the Dominican Hugh of St. Cher, in a discussion of various types of fear that in varying degrees fall short of the Christian's due confidence, identifies venial sins with ‘guttas aquae’ entering a boat which has not yet been shipwrecked — Opera VII 47vb, at Rom. 8.15.Google Scholar
205 William of Auxerre (Guilermus Altissiodorensis), Summa aurea in IV libros Sententiarum III tr. 6 c.4 (Manuscripta microfilms List 9, no. 38) 158ra.Google Scholar
206 Michael Landgraf, Artur, Dogmengeschichte der Frühscholastik (Regensburg 1952–56) I ii 111–12.Google Scholar
207 For scholastic treatments of this question later than that of William of Auxerre, cf. Bonaventure, , In Sent. III d. 30 a.1 q.1, ed. cit. III 656–58; and Colonna, Egidio, In III Sent. d.30 q.1 a.1, ed. cit. 618–21.Google Scholar
208 Pierre de Tarentaise gives a good summary of opinions on the question ‘An liberum arbitrium per se possit peccatum vitare.’ Having specified that he is speaking of free will not in the state of innocence (e.g., Adam) or of grace, but in statu culpae, he writes, ‘de mortali vero differentes sunt opiniones. Nam quidam dicunt quod potest peccatum mortale vitare in particulari, sed non in universali, quia non potest vitare quin cadet in aliquod mortale…. Ideo dicunt alii quod potest vitare omne, sed non diu…. Ideo dicunt alii quod potest vitare peccatum committendum sed non commissum: non enim potest facere quin habeat peccatum, sed potest vitare quod non faciat peccatum’ — In Sent. II d.28 q.2 a.1, ed. cit. II 244. Pierre ultimately favors the first opinion. Cf. Aquinas, Thomas, In Sent. II d.28 q.1 a.2, ed. cit. VIII 376–78; Richard of Middleton, In Sent. II d.28 a.2 q.2, ed. cit. II 359; Colonna, Egidio, In secundum librum Sentenitarum d.28 q.2 a.2 (Venice 1581; rptd. Frankfurt a. M. 1968) 2.373–74; de Saint-Pourçain, Durand, In Sent. II d.28 q.3, ed. cit. I 179va; Duns Scotus, John, Commentaria Oxoniensia ad IV libros Magistri Sententiarum II d.28, ed. Marianus Fernandez Garcia (Quaracchi 1912–14) II 728–33. Egidio takes a more strictly Augustinian view; the Nominalist Durand distinguishes between sins violating natural precepts and those violating supernatural ones.Google Scholar
209 Bonaventure, , In Sent. II d.28 a.1 q.2, ed. cit. II 677.Google Scholar
210 Ibid. 678.Google Scholar
211 Cf. de Tarentaise, Pierre, In Sent. II d.28 q.2 a.2, ed. cit. II 244–45, and Richard of Middleton, In Sent. II d.28 a.2 q.3, ed. cit. II 360. Egidio Colona again dissents, ruling out the possibility even of resisting the devil apart from grace: In II Sent, d.28 dub. 1 lateralis, ed. cit. II ii 375–76.Google Scholar
212 Lombard, , Sententiae II d.43 c.1, ed. cit. I 574.Google Scholar
213 Ibid. Google Scholar
214 Alexander of Hales, Summa Theologica II ii inq. 3 tr. 5 sect. 2 q.3 c.3 a.1 (Quaracchi 1924–48) III 668.Google Scholar
215 Aquinas, , In Sent. II d.43 q.1 a.4, ed. cit. VIII 577–78.Google Scholar
216 Scotus, Duns, Comment. Oxon. II d.43 q.2, ed. Garcia II 906.Google Scholar
217 Bonaventure, , In Sent. II d.43 a.2 q.2, ed. cit. II 989.Google Scholar
218 The relative view of irremissibility accords with Langland's treatment of the question at B 17.299–320, where remission fails ‘Noght of the nounpower of god, þat he ne is myghtful / To amende al þat amys is, and his mercy gretter / Than alle oure wikkede werkes,’ but because of despair and wanhope — in short, not from lack of grace but from lack of the disposition to penance and restitution.Google Scholar
219 Ludolph, , Vita Iesu 307b.Google Scholar
220 E.g., Hugh of St. Cher, Opera VI 46vb at Matt. 12.31.Google Scholar
221 Wenzel, Siegfried, The Three Enemies of Man,’ Mediaeval Studies 29 (1967) 47–66.Google Scholar
222 Britton Harwood, J., ‘Liberum-Arbitrium in the C-Text of Piers Plowman,’ Philological Quarterly 52 (1973) 689–90.Google Scholar
223 Robertson, and Huppé, , Scriptural Tradition 194.Google Scholar
224 Lottin, Odon, Psychologie et morale aux XII e et XIII e siècles (Gembloux 1948–60) V 245–48, no. 312.Google Scholar
225 Ibid. V 250, no. 314.Google Scholar
226 Wyclif, John, Tractatus de civili dominio 3.25, edd. Reginald Lane Poole and Johann Loserth (London 1885–1904) IV 589.Google Scholar
227 Ibid. Google Scholar
228 Biblia cum Glossa V 42va.Google Scholar
229 Hugh of St. Cher, Opera VII 356vb at 1 John 5.16.Google Scholar
230 Heiko Oberman, A., The Harvest of Medieval Theology: Gabriel Biel and Late Medieval Nominalism (Cambridge, Mass. 1963) 131–45.Google Scholar
231 OED s.v. penance 2.Google Scholar
232 Bonaventure, , In Sent. II d.28 a.2 q.1, ed. cit. II 682.Google Scholar
233 Oberman, , Harvest 463.Google Scholar
234 Even the fifteenth-century Nominalist theologian Gabriel Biel, one of those most inclined to grant large powers to the will, who could write, ‘Liberum arbitrium ex suis naturalibus sine dono gratie potest quodlibet peccatum mortale noveum cavere’ (Epitome et collectorium ex Occamo circa quatuor Sententiarum libros [Tübingen 1501; rptd. Frankfurt a. M. 1965] II d.28 concl. 2, sect. K), nevertheless speaks with more gravity of the threat posed by each of the three temptations: ‘Secundo considerando quod licet voluntas humana sit libera ut cogi non possit, ut supra distinctione XXV, potest tamen modis variis ad varia volenda aut nolenda inclinari, trahi et persuaderi…. Quis enim fraudes et fallacias spiritualium nequitiarum diaboli, scilicet mille artificis, eius quoque temptationes occultissimas deprehendere; quis se de pugna sensualitatis continua sustinere et a carnis inclinatione semper avertere; quis totuplices mundi laqueos evadere potest?’ (ibid. II d.28 dub. 2, sect. N).Google Scholar
235 Robertson, and Huppé, , Scriptural Tradition 191–95; Ben Smith, H., Jr., Traditional Imagery of Charity in Piers Plowman (The Hague 1966).Google Scholar
236 Ibid. 59.Google Scholar
237 PL 176.646; Smith, , Charity 67. The relevance of the lignum vitae tradition to Langland's Tree is somewhat limited by the fact that in the former the tree is most often likened to Christ as the source of life rather than to the individual Christian. Even the tree of Ps. 1, which describes the man who delights in God's law, is identified by medieval commentators predominantly with the lignum vitae and with Christ, though sometimes with one ‘Christo similis’: PL 9.231, 14.921, 26.1355, 70.9, 93.477, 116.191, 131.145, 142.49, 152.637, 164.695, 165.1141, 172.269, 191.55, 193.619. The lignum crucis tradition founded on Ephesians 3.16–19, though strongly emphasizing charity, seems likewise to have limited relevance, for the cross bears little explicit resemblance to the living, blossoming, fruit-bearing tree, which in turn does not treat the notions of breadth, length, and height central to the allegorical explication of the cross.Google Scholar
238 Holkot, Robert, In librum Sapientiae Regis Salomonis praelectiones CCXIII ([Basel] 1586) 168.Google Scholar
239 Lottin, , Psychologie V 247.Google Scholar
240 Holkot, , In Sap. 168–70.Google Scholar
241 Watson, Arthur, The Early Iconography of the Tree of Jesse (London 1934).Google Scholar
242 The Desert of Religion, ed. Walter Hübner, Archiv fur das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen 126 (1911) 58–74, lines 619–32. Morton Bloomfield, W. notes an iconographic tree of chastity that has a threefold division of fruit and therefore more resembles Langland's Tree: ‘Piers Plowman and the Three Grades of Chastity,’ Anglia 76 (1958) 245–53.Google Scholar
243 Simmons Greenhill, Eleanor, The Child in the Tree: A Study of the Cosmological Tree in Christian Tradition,’ Traditio 10 (1954) 346; cf. Watson, Arthur, The Speculum Virginum with Special Reference to the Tree of Jesse,’ Speculum 3 (1928) 451.Google Scholar
244 For a similar purpose in a different type of tree-allegory, see Fleischer, Wolfgang, Untersuchungen zur Palmbaumallegorie im Mittelalter (Münchner Germanistische Beiträge 20; Munich 1976). Cf. also the fifteenth-century Tree and xii Frutes of the Holy Goost, ed. Vaissier, J. J. (Groningen 1960). Among vernacular tree-allegories, besides that of Deguilleville noted by Smith, , there is the thirteenth-century work by de l'Omme, Robert, ‘Le Miroir de vie et de mort,’ ed. Långfors, Arthur, Romania 47 (1921) 511–31.Google Scholar
245 Donaldson, , C-Text (v. n. 7 supra) 184.Google Scholar
246 Ibid. 186.Google Scholar
247 Kirk, Elizabeth, The Dream Thought of Piers Plowman (Yale Studies in English 178; New Haven 1972) 169.Google Scholar
248 Ibid. 170, 1 Cor. 15.21–22.Google Scholar
249 Ibid. 169.Google Scholar
250 Donaldson, , C-Text 187.Google Scholar
251 For similar views of Will's action here, cf. Joseph Wittig, S., ‘The Dramatic and Rhetorical Development of Long Will's Pilgrimage,’ Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 76 (1975) 69, and Carruthers, , Search (v. n. 93 supra) 132.Google Scholar
252 Anselm, , Cur Deus Homo 2.8, in Opera omnia, ed. Schmitt, F. S. (Edinburgh 1938–61) II 102–103.Google Scholar
253 Lombard, , Sententiae III d.12 c.1.Google Scholar
254 Anselm, , Opera III 86–88.Google Scholar
255 Skeat, , ed. cit. (v. n. 1 supra) II xxvi.Google Scholar
256 Burdach, , Ackermann (v. n. 4 supra) III ii 314.Google Scholar
257 Worth Frank, Robert Jr., The Conclusion of Piers Plowman,’ Journal of English and Germanic Philology 49 (1950) 313.Google Scholar
258 Coghil, , ‘Character’ (v. n. 8 supra) 69–71.Google Scholar
259 Robertson, and Huppé, , Scriptural Tradition 7.Google Scholar
260 Ibid. Google Scholar
261 Barney, , ‘Plowshare’ (v. n. 25 supra) 282.Google Scholar
262 David Fowler, C., Piers the Plowman: Literary Relations of the A and B Texts (Seattle 1961) 154.Google Scholar
263 Yves.-J. Congar, M., ‘Aspects ecclésiologiques de la querelle entre mendiants et séculiers dans la seconde moitié du XIIIe siècle et le debut du XIVe siècle,’ Archives d'histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen ǎge 36 (1961) 63.Google Scholar
264 Ibid. 91.Google Scholar
265 In Sent. IV d.18 p.2 a.1 q.3, cited Congar 96.Google Scholar
266 Breviloquium p.6 c.12, cited Congar 96.Google Scholar
267 Congar, , Aspects 98; Thomas Marrone, John, ‘The Ecclesiology of the Parisian Secular Masters 1250–1320’ (diss. Cornell 1972) 202.Google Scholar
268 For introductory literature on this conflict, see William McCready, D., ‘Papalists and Anti-Papalists: Aspects of the Church/State Controversy in the Later Middle Ages,’ Viator 6 (1975) 241–73; Leff, Gordon, ‘The Apostolic Ideal in Later Medieval Ecclesiology,’ Journal of Theological Studies N.S. 18 (1967) 58–82; and Gerhart Ladner, B., ‘The Concepts of “ecclesia” and “christianitas” and their Relation to the Idea of Papal “plenitudo potestatis” from Gregory VII to Boniface VIII,’ in Sacerdotio e regno da Gregorio VII a Bonifacio VIII (Miscellanea Historiae Pontificiae 18; Roma 1954).Google Scholar
269 Marrone, , ‘Ecclesiology’ 99.Google Scholar
270 Wyclif, John, Select English Works, ed. Thomas Arnold (Oxford 1869–71) I 104, cited by Barney, , ‘Plowshare’ 282 n. Wyclif uses the same analogy to complain about bishops’ serving in governmental offices: the emperor, he says, has made bishops ‘haywardis of þe world’ (III 436).Google Scholar
271 Fowler, , Literary Relations 155–56; Malory, Thomas Sir, Works, ed. Eugène Vinaver (Oxford 1967) 892.Google Scholar
272 de Baisieux, Jacques, Le Fief d'Amour, in Trouvères beiges du XII e au XIV e siècle, ed. Auguste Scheler (Brussels 1876) 183–204, lines 62–69.Google Scholar
273 Ibid. 141–45.Google Scholar
274 Ibid. 160–258.Google Scholar
275 Ibid. 266–67.Google Scholar
276 Ibid. 269–79.Google Scholar
277 Ibid. 316–27.Google Scholar
278 Ibid. 330–34.Google Scholar
279 Ibid. 343–59.Google Scholar
280 Ibid. 360–420.Google Scholar
281 Ibid. 425–61.Google Scholar
282 Ibid. 462–97.Google Scholar
283 Ibid. 498–666.Google Scholar
284 Roman de la Rose 1,882–2,252.Google Scholar
285 Pauphilet, Albert, ed., La Queste del Saint Graal (CFMA 33; Paris 1923, rptd. 1949) 74–77.Google Scholar
286 de Baisieux, Jacques, Fief 141–45.Google Scholar
287 Urwin, Kenneth, ed., Le Chevaler Dé (Le Chevalier de Dieu), Revue des Langues Romanes 68 (1937) 136–61.Google Scholar
288 Ibid. 943–46.Google Scholar
289 Robertson, and Huppé, suggest that these ‘divisiones graciarum’ of 1 Cor. 12.4 fall under the two headings of sapientia and scientia — Scriptural Tradition 221. While this is true of Langland's text at 19.228–51, it is less true of the commentators. The exegetes generally propose that the gift of sapientia deals with heavenly or contemplative things and the gift of scientia with earthly, human affairs. Scientia, for example, includes ‘agros excolere, domum aedificare, familiam ordinare’ — Ps.-Haymo of Halberstadt (Haymo of Auxerre?), PL 117.577 (for attribution, see Stegmüller, , Repertorium III 15, no. 3102, and Glorieux, , Pour revaloriser Migne 57). In Langland's text the gift of sapientia seems to embrace ‘prechours and preestes and Prentices of lawe’ as well as those who ‘lyve in longynge to ben hennes’ (19.231, 248). The other have gifts of scientia. But those gifts are only two of the nine enumerated in 1 Cor. 12 and interpreted by the commentators (e.g., PL 134.125, 150.196–97, 153.189, 181.942–44, 191.1651–53). By omitting gifts of miracles, healings, tongues, interpretation of tongues, and so forth, Langland gives the Biblical text a markedly occupational significance.Google Scholar
290 Wyclif, John, Tractatus de Officio Regis, edd. Pollard, Alfred W. and Sayle, Charles (London 1887) 13; cf. 137.Google Scholar
- 2
- Cited by