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PIERS THE PLOWMAN AND ITS SEQUENCE

CONTRIBUTED TO
THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

BY

JOHN MATTHEWS MANLY

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

AND REPRINTED, BY PERMISSION, FOR MEMBERS
OF THE EARLY ENGLISH TEXT SOCIETY ONLY

CAMBRIDGE : f\\ ^

AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS ^

EAELY ENGLISH TEXT SOCIETY
OEIGINAL SERIES, EXTRA VOLUME 135 b

KEGAN PAUL & CO., DRYDBN HOUSE, SOHO, LONDON, W.

HENRY FROWDE, AMEN CORNER, E.G.

1908

^i;- t.

FOREWORDS

to the Offprint of Prof. Manly's Chapter on ''Piers the
Plowman and its Sequence " in The Cambridge History
oj English Literature, vol. ii, pp. 1-42, A. d. 1908.

FAOE

1. Statement by Dr. Furnivall ....... iii

2. Prof. Manly's Article on "The Lost Leaf of 'Piers the Plow-

man,'" from ilfoc^erw PMoZo^y, January, 1906 . . . viii

3. Dr. Henry Bradley's Letter on " The Misplaced Leaf of * Piers

the Plowman,'" from The Athenceum, April 21, 1906 . . xiv

lU

Prof. Manly's discovery of the multiple authorship of Piers Plowman
is, to me, the best thing done in my time at Early English. Henry
Bradshaw's lift up to the Man of Law of the Tales forming the rest of
Group B of the Canterbury Tales, Nicholson's proof of the humbug of the
genuineness and reputed authorship of Mandeville's Travels, Henry Bradley's
setting right the run of the Testament of Love, and his demonstration that
Thomas XJsk was the author of it, are the most memorable events in our
section of study since I began work in 1861. But I set Manly's achieve-
ment above them, because of the greater importance of the Plowman's
Vision for the student of Literature and Social England, and because the
Chicago Professor for the first time clears away from the poet of the
A version the tangential strayings and confusions of the author of the
B revision, and the rewritings, changes, differences of opiaion, and spurious
biographical details introduced by the writer of the C version, and leaves us
a poet more worthy of being Chaucer's contemporary and ally than we had
thought possible.

That some folk hesitate to accept all Manly's conclusions is not matter
for wonder, because they haven't yet graspt the most incontestable point
brought forward by him in Modern Philology, Jan. 1906, and confirmd and
commented on by our chief English seer in these matters, Henry Bradley,
in the Athenceum of 21 April, 1906.^

Manly showd that not only was there a gap in the A text, which
included the whole of the confession of Wrath (and perhaps the conclusion
of the confession of Envy), but also that in some way some lines had been
joined to the confession of Sloth which were strangely out of character.^
He proposed to account for both difficulties by supposing that the two
halves of a double leaf had in some way been lost from the original MS.,
one half containing the confession of "Wrath (and, perhaps, the end of
Envy), and the other containing a passage of about 62 lines separating
what is left of the confession of Sloth from the passage concerning the
restitution of ill-gotten gains which is now confused with it. Henry
Bradley, while agreeing as to the loss and confusion, offerd another explana-
tion of the matter, which he, and I also, regard as more satisfactory. This
was, that when dealing with two of the Seven Deadly Sins, Avarice and

^ See these articles below, pp. vii-xvi.

' Bradley holds, and I agree with him, that these Sloth lines apply and belong to
Avarice.

iv Dr. Furnivall's Forewords.

Sloth, the scribe of A copied a page of his original in its wrong order, and
left out of Avarice 24 lines which were part of it, and made them part of
Sloth ; and that when the author of B revised this wrong version of Sloth,
he faild to see the scribe's mistake, and not only treated the erroneously
placed lines in their wrong position, as in their right one, but put-in some
fresh lines to justify their wrongness.i (The C-man set this mistake right.)
Not content with this first blunder, the copier of A made a second, as
stated by Manly on p. 33 of the Cambr. Hist., vol. ii. When Piers made
his Will, and after leaving his soul to God, and his body to the Church, the
author of A wrote

" Mi wyf schal haue that I won • with treuthe, and no more, 89
And dele among my frendes • and my deore children," 90

and added — no doubt at the top or bottom of the page, with a tick to show
where the lines ought to come in, —

" ' Dame Werche-whon tyme is' • hette Pers wyf ; (71) 91

His doubter hette * Do-riht-so- • or-thi-dame-wol-the-bete ' : 92

His sone hette * Soffre-thi-sovereyns- • for-to-han-heor-wille- 93
' And-deeme-hem-not ; for, -y if thou-do-, • thou-schalt-hit-deore-

abugge.' " 94

But A's scribe, careless or idiotic, instead of putting these four lines where
A meant em to go, after the Will's mention of Piers's wife and children,
copied and shovd them into a place 16 lines earlier, where they've nothing
to do with what came before or after them. And both the B and C men,
when revising and enlarging A's miscopied text, were unable to see that the
above four lines were misplaced, and left them standing in the scribe's
blunderd position.

Now this was absolutely impossible if the author of A had been the
B or C reviser of his own work. Had he been so, he would of course have
said what any of us would say in a like case now : " Why, the careless dog
has copied my 24 Avarice lines, completing my treatment of the Sin, as
part of my Sloth, with which they've nothing whatever to do, and has
lifted my 4 lines, added to my Will, into a place where only a fool could
put em ; and of course I'll shift both sets of lines in my revisions, back to
their right place." But this is just what the B-writer didn't do, tho C
did correct the Avarice blunder, in clumsy fashion.

It is thus incontestably certain that the B and C revisers and enlargers
of the A version of the poem, were not the men who wrote that version, but

^ The difference between Bradley and Manly is only as to how the blunder of A's
scrilie — discoverd by Manly — arose, and whether the misplaced lines were meant by A
for Avarice, or not.

I)i\ FurnivaU's Forewords. v

wholly different persons. It was not possible for the A-man, when making
elaborate revisions of his poem, and greatly enlarging it, to be so stupid
or so careless as not only to pass over such blunders as his first scribe had
made, but to attempt to justify the first of them, and thus trebly make
a fool of himself.

If, then, the student will start with this sure fact in his mind, that the
B and C men couldn't possibly have been the A one, he will find no difficulty
in giving their due value to Prof. Manly's arguments, and accepting them.
But he will join me in earnestly urging Prof. Manly to write his full book
on Piers Plowman, and show what we can believe as to its several authors'
lives.

I give hearty thanks to my friend Prof. Manly, to the Syndics of the
Cambridge University Press, and to my friends Dr. A. W. Ward and Mr.
A. E. Waller, the Editors of The Cambridge History of English Literature,
for their leave to have 500 copies of this Offprint from vol. ii of the
History, for the Members of the Early English Text Society.

No copies will be on sale to the public. The History is such an
improvement on its predecessors, and is publisht at such a moderate price,
that every student who can possibly afford it, ought to buy it.

F. J. FURNIVALL.

Southwold, Aug, 27, 1908. Bevised in Nov.

To save our Members the trouble of referring to the volumes of Piers
Plowman, I reprint, from Skeat's text, the Avarice and Sloth lines referd to
above.

This is how the author of A originally wrote the end of his Avarice :

Bot I swere nou sothely • that sunne wol I lete, [Skeat, p. U9.] 142

And neuer wikkedliche weye • ne fals chaffare vsen

Bote weende to Walsyngham • and my wyf alse,

And bidde the rode of Bromholm • bringe me out of dette. 145

*And 3it I-chulle 3elden a3eyn ' 3if I so much haue, (236) 146

Al that I wikkedliche won • seththe I wit hade. ^Zlge/}'^'

"And thauh my lyflode lakke • letten I nulle

That vche mon schal habben his • er ich henne wende ;

lAnd with the residue and the remenaunt • (bi the rode of

Chester!), (240) 150

I schal seche seynt Treuthe • er I seo Eome ! " ^

^— ^ The lines are perhaps spurious. See vii. 93-4, at the end of Piers's Will :—
And with the Residue and the Remenaunt • by the Rode of Chestre,
I wol worschupe therwith " Treuthe in my lyue. — Hy. Bradley.

vi Dr. FurnivaU's Forewords.

Robert the robbour • on Reddite ^ he lokede,
And, for ther nas not wher-with • he wepte ful sore.
But 3it the sunfol scbrewe • seide to him-seluen : 154

" Crist, that vppon Caluarie • on the cros dijedest,
Tho Dismas my brother • bi-sou3te the of grace,
And heddest merci of that mon • for memento sake,
Thi wille worth vppon me • as ich haue wel deseruet (248) 158
To haue helle for euere • jif that hope neore.
So rewe on me, Robert • that no red haue,
Ne neuere weene to wynne • for craft that I knowe.
Bote for thi muchel merci * mitigacion I be-seche ; (252) 162

Dampne me not on domes day • for I dude so ill."

Ak what fel of this feloun • I con not feire schewe.
But wel ich wot he wepte faste • watur with his ei3en,
And knouhlechede his gult * to Crist jit eft-sones, (256) 166

That Penitencia is pike ■ he schulde polissche newe,
And lepe with him ouerlond • al his lyf-tyme,
For he hath leijen by Latro • Lucifers brother. 169

But the lines 146-169, which complete Avarice, were on a separate leaf,
and were mistakingly copied by the scribe of A as part of Sloth, who had
nothing to do with him.

When the B-man took to revising and enlarging A, he faild to see the
mistake which the A scribe had made, though he did feel that some lines
were needed to justify the sudden plumping of Avarice's bit about ' Robert
the robber' into the incongruous Sloth. So he put into his jointly-
blunderd Sloth-Avarice the following lines, and evidently thought he had
made the thing all right : —

^if I bigge and borwe it • but yd it be ytailled, ' 429 b,

I forgete it as jerne • and jif men me it axe *" ' ^"

Sixe sithes or seuene • I forsake it with othes ;
And thus tene I trewe men • ten hundreth tymes. 432

And my seruauntj some tyme • her salarye is bihynde ;
Reuthe is to here the rekenynge • whan we shal rede acomptes ;
So with wikked wille and wraththe * my werkmen I paye. 435

When the C-man took to revising A and B, he saw the mistakes of the
A-scribe and the B-man, and he restord the misplaced Avarice lines of A
to their right sequence. But he evidently didn't realize that A's Reddite,

^ The text, ^Reddite ergo omnibus debita,' Rom. xiii. 7. — Skeat. Render to all their
dues. — Auth. Vers.

Dr. FumivalVs Forewords. vii

on which Robert the Eobber lookt, and which B kept, was the text Reddite
ergo omnibtis debit a, Eomans xiii. 7 ; and he said to himself, " Why, if
Robert lookt on Reddite, Reddite must be a man. So I'U make him a
"Welshman, and instead of B's Sloth words in 1. 463, " And 3ete wil I," I'll
insert a line and a third, and then wind up with two fresh lines after his
1. 466 — which are put in square brackets below ^ —

[Then was ther a "Walishman • was wonderliche sory ; C 307

He highte ' Jyuan] ^eld-ajeyn • if-ich-so-moche haue, B 463
' Al fat ich wickedlich wan • sytthen ich wit hadde :
'And thauh my liflode lacke * leten ich nelle, C 312

'That ech man schal haue hus • er ich hennes wende. B 466

[* For me ys leuere in this lif • as a lorel beggen, C 314

' Than in lysse to lyue • and lese lyf and soule.' "]

And no doubt the C-man thought he too 'had made the thing all right.'
In fact, so ingenious is C's work that my clever friend Dr. Jusserand is
certain that no one but the A-man could have done it. I needn't say that
Prof. Manly, Dr. Hy. Bradley and I don't agree with him, specially as C
left the 4 Will-added lines in their wrong place.

One more point I should mention. Besides the misplaced leaf of A's
Avarice, one or more other leaves, containing the end of Envy and whole of
Wrath, was or were lost, so that they are wanting in all the extant MSS. of A.
One or more leaves, containing the end of Sloth, may also have been lost.

In his revision of the work, the B-man completed Avarice and Sloth,
and wrote a fresh Wrath. But instead of the powerful lines in which we
who believe in A are convinst that he would have embodied his view of the
fierce Wrath, the B-man makes him a friar, the convent's gardener, who
promotes lying, gets folk to confess to friars instead of parsons, and makes
friars and parsons despise one another. Wrath is an Abbess's nephew, and
spreads scandalous lies about the nuns and monks, till they call each other
liars, and fight. Among the monks he tells tales, and is flogd, and fed on
spare diet ; but he teUs every one all the evil that he knows of every monk
in the cloister. As a sketch of Wrath's doings, B's production is as feeble
as it well can be ; and it cannot, with any probability or fairness, be set
down to A. The C-man strengthens it with a short fight between two
women who call one another Whore ; but even then, it is a poor thing,
quite unworthy of A.

British Museum, Oct. 1, 1908, Revised in Nov.

^ Manly and Bradley think the suggestion to make a Welshman came from B's line
463 (Jeld-a^eyn), rather than from any miaunderstaading of Reddite.

yiii Forewords. Prof. Manly's Article in ' Modern Philology^ Jan. 1906.

THE LOST LEAF OF 'PIERS THE PLOWMAN,' BY PROF. MANLY.

Summer before last, in the enforced leisure of a long convalescence, I
reread Piers the Plowman^ or perhaps I had better say, read it for the first
time ; for, although I had more than once read the first seven passus of the
B-Text and various other parts of the poem, I had never before read the
whole of all three texts in such a way as to get any real sense of the relations
of the versions to one another. Fortunately, I did not at that time possess
a copy of Professor Skeat's two-volume edition, and consequently was obliged
to use the edition which he published for the Early English Text Society.
Thus I read each version separately and obtained a definite sense of its style
and characteristics. Before the reading was completed, I found myself
obliged to question very seriously the current view in regard to the relations
of the three versions. The problems became so interesting that I devoted
myself to a serious and careful study of them, with the aid of all the avail-
able apparatus, and have made them the subject of two courses with my
students, who have given me useful suggestions and much help.

Every sort of investigation to which the versions have been subjected
has resulted in confirming my original suspicions, and, indeed, in changing
them from suspicions into certainties. I am now prepared, I think, to prove
that the three versions are not the work of one and the same man, but each
is the work of a separate and distinct author ; that of the A-Text only the
first eight passus are the work of the first author, the principal part of the
vision of Dowel, Dobet, and Dobest having been added by another author ;
and that not only lines 101-112 of Passus XII in MS. Eawl. Poet. 137 are
the work of Johan But, but that he is responsible for a considerable portion
of that passus, probably for at least one-half of it. These conclusions, if
accepted, of course entirely destroy the personality built up for the author,
mainly from details given only in the C-Text, on the theory that all parts of
all three versions are by the same hand ; and, indeed, make it doubtful, as I
shall try to show, whether the autobiographical details were intended, even
by the author of C, to be taken as genuine traits of the author himself
instead of attributes of the dreamer — that is to say, whether the dreamer is
not as much a fictional character as any of the other figures which partici-
pate in the dream. I shall try to support these conclusions by differences
in language, differences in versification, differences in the use and in the
kind of figurative language, and above all by such striking differences in the
mental powers and qualities of the authors as make it highly improbable
that they can be one and the same person ; and I shall point out such mis-
understandings on the part of each of the later authors of passages expanded

Foreloords, Prof. Manly s Article in ' Modern Philology' Jan. 1906. ix

by him as seem to me to change the probabilities derived from the other
kinds of evidence into certainties. It will appear further, I think, that the
merits of the A-Text have been seriously underestimated, and that it is in
reality not merely artistically the best of the three, but is in unity of struc-
ture, vividness of conception, and skill of versification, on a level with the
best work of the fourteenth century, including Chaucer's.

The materials supporting these conclusions are now well in hand, but I
shall not be able to put them into form for publication until the advent of
my vacation, which will occur in the coming spring. I feel confident that I
can then fill out this outline and justify the promises herein made. I make
this announcement now in order that other scholars may investigate the
problems and be ready to pass a critical judgment upon my results when
they appear. I am aware that this will prevent the book from creating any
sensation when it appears, but it is of less consequence that the book should
make a sensation than that the problems should be subjected to a long and
critical investigation by more than one person. Meanwhile, I offer for con-
sideration the investigation of a small problem which easily detaches itself
from the general argument, although, as will be seen, it contributes some-
thing to it.

In the A-Text, the whole of Passus V is devoted to the effects of the
preaching of Conscience upon the " field full of folk." Eepentance comes to
them, and they confess their sins and promise amendment. The chief peni-
tents are the personifications of the Seven Deadly Sins. The last of these
personifications is Sloth. The passage concerning him begins with 1. 222,
and it is this passage, with the lines immediately following, to which I
invite your attention.

U Sleupe for serwe • fel doun I-swowene

Tn vigilate J»e veil • fette water at his ei3en,

And flatte on his face • and faste on him cri3ede, 224

And seide, "war pe for wonhope • ))at Wol fe bi-traye.

IT ' Icham sori for my sunnes ' • sei to J)i-seluen,

And bet pi-self on J)e Breste • and bidde god of grace,

For nis no gult her so gret • his Merci nis wel more."

U )Jenne sat sleufe vp • and sikide sore, 229

And made a-vou bi-fore god * for his foule sleupe ;

" Schal no sonenday f»is seuen 3er • (bote seknesse hit make),

)5at I ne schal do me ar day • to pe deore churche, 232

And here Matins and Masse • as I a Monk were.

H Schal non ale after mete • holde me pennes,

Til ichaue Euensong herd • I beo-hote to ]>e Rode.

X Forewords. Prof, Manly s Article in ' Modern Philology,' Jan. 1906.

And 3it I-chuUe ^elden a^eyn • 3if I so muche haue,

Al pat I wikkedliche won • seJ)J>e I wit hade. 237

U And J)auh my lyflode lakke • letten I nulle

)3at vclie mon schal habben his • er ich henne wende :

And with pe Residue and pe remenaunt ■ bi pe Rode of Chester !)

I schal seche seynt Treupe • er I seo Rome ! "

H Robert pe Robbour • on Reddite he lokede,

And for per nas not Wher-with • he wepte ful sore.

And jit pe sunfol schrewe • seide to him-seluen : 244

" Crist, pat vppon Caluarie • on pe Cros dijedest,

j3o Dismas my broper ' bi-soujte pe of grace,

And heddest Merci of pat mon • for Memento sake,

\)i wille worp vppon me • as Ich haue wel deseruet

To haue helle for euere • yd pat hope neore. 249

So rewe on me, Robert • pat no Red haue,

Ne neuere ween to wynne * for Craft pat I knowe.

Bote for pi muchel Merci • mitigacion I be-seche ;

Dampne me not on domes day • for I dude so ille."

U Ak what fel of pis Feloun * I con not feire schewe.

But wel Ich wot he wepte faste • watur with his ei^en.

And knouhlechede his gult • to Crist jit eft-sones, 256

)3at Penitencia his pike he schulde polissche newe,

And lepe with him ouerlond • al his lyf tyme,

For he hap leijen bi latro ' lucifers brother.

It will be observed at once, that while 11. 222-35 are thoroughly appro-
priate to Sloth, 11. 236-41 are entirely out of harmony with his character,
and could never have been assigned to him by so careful an artist as A, who
in no single instance assigns to any character either words or actions not
clearly and strictly appropriate. Careful consideration of the passage and
comparison of it and 11. 242-59 with 11. 222-35, will convince everyone, I
beheve, that 11. 236-41 really belong to Robert the Robber, and are a part
either of his confession, or of a confession suggested to him by someone else
(cf. 11. 226-28). Robert the Robber, it will be seen, decides to make resti-
tution of his ill-gotten wealth, or is urged to make such a decision, but, on
looking for the goods with which to make repayment, is unable to find any,
and is obliged to cast himself wholly and entirely upon the mercy of God-
Is it not clear, then, that there is really a lacuna between 1, 235 and 1. 236;
and evidently not a gap of one or two lines, such as might occur in conse-
quence of the eye of the scribe catching up the wrong word and skipping a
few lines % The query naturally suggested is : " May not a whole leaf of

Forewcyrds. Prof. Manly' s Article in ' Modern Philology,' Jan. 1906. xi

the MS. have been lost ? " This would make a gap of many lines, sufficient
for the development of the confession of Eobert the Eobber upon some such
scale as those of Envy, 11. 59-106, Covetousness, U, 107-45, Gluttony, 11.
146-221 ; for a transition, if any be necessary, from these personified
abstractions to the concrete figure of the Robber ; and also for a less abrupt
ending of the confession of Sloth. Many of the MSS. measure 8| x 6 inches,
or thereabouts (see Skeat's descriptions in the prefaces to the E. E. T. S. ed.) ;
MS. L has c. 40 lines to a page, E has c. 31, W measures 11^- x 7^ inches,
but is " in a large hand," Y has c. 37, 0 has c. 40, C^ has c. 37, I has c. 31,
F has c. 37, S ranges from 33 to 44, K has c. 34, Douce 104 has 34 or 35,
HI. 2376 has c. 37, Roy. B. xvii has c. 38 ; of the MSS. of the A-Text,
U has c. 33 (or, according to another statement, c. 28), D. has c. 31, Trin.
Dub. 4. 12 has c. 30. Of course there were also MSS. much larger than
these,^ but it seems not improbable that the page of the original may have
contained between 30 and 40, and consequently that the lost leaf may have
contained between 60 and 80 lines.

Bat if the leaf was lost, it must have been missing in the original of all
the extant MSS. of the A-Text, for all of them contain the passage imder
discussion in precisely the same form, except for insignificant variations in
spelling, etc. It is easy enough to understand how the copyists were undis-
turbed by the sense (or nonsense) of the passage, but it is not easy to see
how the torn remnant of this half-sheet could have entirely escaped atten-
tion, if there were any such remnant; and if there was none, the other half
of the sheet also would pretty certainly have disappeared very soon. This
is precisely what I think occurred.

It has long been pointed out as a curious feature of the vision of the
Seven Deadly Sins in this passus that the sin of Wrath is entirely over-
looked and omitted. It is incredible that any mediaeval author writing
specifically on such a topic and dealing with it at such length ^ could have
forgotten or overlooked any of these well known categories ; and it is especially

^ MS. V has a very large page, containing two columns of 80 lines each ; the
Lincoln's Inn MS. , written about 1450, has 52, 53 lines to a page ; MS. T runs from 42
to 46 ; H and HI. 3954 have 40 each.

2 Wrath is also omitted in the feoffment in A II, 60-74, where the intention is clearly
to give to False and Meed all the territories of the Seven Deadly Sins ; but the loss
involved is one of one line only, which may easily have been omitted in the original of all
the extant MSS. In Skeat's text, 1. 64, Lechery is also omitted ; but the readings of
four of the MSS. show that MS. Vhas merely omitted the words " of leccherie " — the only
other MS. recorded in the textual note has the correct reading, but it is inserted in a
later hand, this line as well as the preceding having been inadvertently omitted. It
may be remarked that the author of the B-Text failed to observe the simple and systematic
nature of this feoffment (perhaps because of the omission of Wrath), and consequently,
in expanding it, entirely obliterated the original intention. This is only one of many
instances to be cited in favour of my main thesis.

:xii Forewords. Prof. Manly' s Article in ' Modern Philology' Jan. 1906.

impossible to ascribe such an omission to an author whose work shows the
firmness and mastery of structure exhibited in A. Let us, then, inquire
whether the same accident that caused the confusion in regard to the con-
fession of Sloth may not have caused the total loss of the confession of
Wrath.

Comparison of the order of the Sins in A II, 60 ff. (and the correspond-
ing passages in B and C) with A V, 45-235, B V, 63 flf. ; C VII, 14 ff. will
indicate that the proper place for Wrath in this passage is immediately after
Envy. This is indeed the usual order, and Chaucer, following Peraldus,^
says : " After Envye wol I discryven the sinne of Ire. For soothly, whoso
hath envye upon his neighebor, anon he wole comunly finde him a matere
of wratthe."2 The place for Wrath in Passus V is therefore between 1. 106
and 1. 107. Between this point and 11. 235, 236, where the confusion in
regard to Sloth occurs, there are 129 lines. Now it is clear that, if the two
leaves of a sheet are gone, as we suppose, the gaps will be separated by four
pages, or a multiple of four.^ In the present instance the distance between
the gaps makes about four pages of the size discussed above, and the lost
double leaf was, therefore, the next to the innermost of a section or gather-
ing. We might leave the matter here, but a little further inquiry will
determine the precise number of lines to the page in the MS., and inci-
dentally confirm our reasoning. The number of lines between the gaps is in
Skeat's edition 129, as I have said; but 1. 182 is in H only, and as Skeat
suspects, is spurious, " being partly imitated from 1. 177;" furthermore,
U. 202-7 are found in U only, and the first word of 1. 208 shows that they
are spurious, and that 1. 208 should immediately follow 1. 201. Seven lines
must therefore be deducted from 129 to ascertain the number lying between
the two gaps in the original. This will give us 122 lines, or two less than
four pages of 31 each. As the number of lines to a page is never absolutely
constant (Skeat finds it necessary to attach a circa to every statement of this
kind), this would seem entirely satisfactory ; but if space of one line was
left between Covetousness and Gluttony, and between Gluttony and Sloth,
the whole 124 would be exactly accounted for.*

Confirmation of this argument may perhaps be found in a circumstance
pointed out to me by Mr. T. A. Knott, one of my students. He calls atten-
tion to the abruptness of the close of the confession of Envy, which has, of

^ K. 0. Petersen, The Sources of the Parson's Tale, p. 49.

2 P. r.,§32, V. 533.

3 Of course the two gaps would make only one if the lost double leaf were the middle
one of a section or gathering.

* Clearly there were no headings, as in some MSS. of B and C, for none of the :MSS.
descended from A have them, but there may have been an interval of a line between the
confessions. This supposition is, however, of little moment to the argument.

Forewords. Prof. Manly s Ao^tide in ' Modern Philology' Jan. 1906. xiii

course, been noted by everyone ; he thinks it not only abrupt, but unsatis-
factory, and suggests that the leaf lost at this point contained, not only the
whole of the confession of Wrath, but also a few concluding lines belonging
to Envy.

Still further confirmation, slight though it be, may be found, it occurs to
me, in the fact that, while not only every new section, but every new para-
graph, in some of the MSS. collated by Professor Skeat, is indicated by a
paragraph mark, none stands at the beginning of 1. 236. And whatever may
be thought of my contention that 11. 236-41 do not belong to Sloth, it is at
least certain that they constitute a new paragraph. If they belong to Sloth,
the mark was omitted by error ; if to Eobert the Eobber, no mark stands
there because the paragraph does not begin there but earlier, as the conjunc-
tion "And" indeed indicates.

We have found, then, that the hypothesis of a lost leaf between I. 235
and 1. 236 not only explains all the difficulties of the text at that point —
such as the inappropriateness of 11. 236-41 to Sloth, their true relation to
11. 242-59, the abrupt ending of the confession of Sloth and the absence of a
paragraph mark at 1. 236 — but also accounts for the unaccountable omission
of the confession of Wrath and for the abruptness of the end of the confes-
sion of Envy.

The omission of Wrath and the confusion as to Sloth were noticed by B,
and he treated them rather ingeniously. He introduced into the earlier part
of Sloth's confession a declaration that he had often been so slothful as to
withhold the wages of his servants and to forget to return things he had
borrowed. To supply the omission of Wrath, he himself wrote a Confessio
Irae, totally different in style from the work of A, and, indeed, more appro-
priate for Envy than for Wrath, containing as it does no very distinctive
traits of Wrath. The additions both here and in the confession of Sloth are
confused, vague, and entirely lacking in the finer qualities of imagination,
organization, and diction shown in all A's work. He did not attempt to deal
with the other difficulties we have found.

It is possible, I suppose, to accept my argument up to the beginning of
the preceding paragraph, and still maintain that B was after all the author of
A also and merely rectified in his second version errors that had crept into
his first. To do this, however, one must resolutely shut one's eyes to the
manifest and manifold difierences in mental qualities, in constructive ability,
in vividness of diction, in versification, and in many other matters, that exist
between A I-VIII and B. These will form a part of the volume in which
I hope to define the portions of this great poem to be allotted to each of the
principal writers engaged upon it, to set forth clearly their differences, and
to vindicate for the first author the rank he clearly deserves. The work will

xiv Forewords. Dr. By. Bradley's Letter in ' The Athenceum' Apr. 1906.

not be, I think, entirely one of destructive criticism. The poem, as a whole,

will gain in interest and significance ; and the intellectual life of the second

half of the fourteenth century will seem even more vigorous than it has

seemed.

John Matthews Manly.
The University of Chicago.

Dr. Henry Bradley's Letter in The AtTieTiceum, April 21, 1906, p. 481, on
Prof. Manly's discovery.

THE MISPLACED LEAF OF 'PIERS THE PLOWMAN.'

Clarendon Press, Oxford.

The January number of Modern Philology contains an article by Prof.
J. M. Manly, entitled ' The Lost Leaf of Piers the Plowman,' in which the
author endeavours to account for certain strange incoherences in the fifth
Passus of the A-text of the poem. He has, I think, shown beyond doubt
that they cannot have proceeded from the poet himself, but must have been
due to accidents that happened to an archetypal MS. By this discovery,
which has a very important bearing on the criticisms of the later recensiona
of the poem. Prof. Manly has established a claim to the gratitude of scholars,
although, as I propose to show, the particular hypothesis by which he has
attempted to account for the phenomena is not the correct one.

The Passus describes how, moved by the eloquent preaching of Conscience,
the personifications of the seven deadly sins came forward in succession to
confess their guilt and promise amendment. The story is admirably told on
the whole, but has two surprising faults. In the first place, the confession
of Wrath, which ought to come in between those of Envy and Covetousness,
is, in all the MSS. of the A-text, omitted altogether. In the second place, the
confession of Sloth, who comes last of the seven, is made to end with six
lines, in which he irrelevantly promises restitution of ill-gotten gains, and is
followed by eighteen lines, in which " Eobert the robber " bewails his crimes,
and vows henceforth to lead an honest life. The Passus consists of only
263 lines ; and if we are to suppose that in this short space the poet managed
to perpetrate these two extraordinary blunders, we must ascribe to him a
degree either of thoughtlessness or of stupidity not easily conceivable. The
supposition by which Prof. Manly tries to relieve the poet from this charge
is, that a MS. from which all the existing MSS. descend, had lost two leaves
— one between lines 106 and 107, containiug the confession of Wrath, and
the other between lines 235 and 236, containing the conclusion of the con-
fession of Sloth, and some matter leading up to the confession of Robert the
robber. As the interval between the two supposed lacunae would occupy

Forewords. Dr. Hy. Bradley's Letter in ' The Athenceum' Apr. 1906. xv

four pages containing about 31 lines each (which would be a likely size in a
MS. of the period), Prof. Manly concludes that the two lost leaves formed
the innermost fold but one in a quire or gathering.

This hypothesis is undeniably ingenious ; but unfortunately it does not
fuUy answer its purpose of vindicating the poet from the charge of bad
workmanship. It does, no doubt, enable us to escape the incredible conclu-
sion that he forgot to mention one of the seven deadly sins, and represented
Sloth as promising restitution of fraudulent gains. But it leaves us still
under the necessity of supposing that, after relating in succession the con-
fessions of the personifications of the seven sins, he introduced at the end a
new penitent, whose offences, according to mediaeval classification, belong to
one of the branches of Covetousness. It can, I think, be shown that the
poet was not guilty of this blunder of construction.

Prof. Manly has failed to perceive that the proper place of lines 236-59
is after line 145, at the end of the confession of Covetousness. In this
position they not only fit perfectly, but actually improve the sense. But
how are we to account for their transposition? In my opinion, the source
of all the mischief is to be sought, not in a MS. written on parchment
arranged in quires or gatherings, but in the " copy " (to use the word in the
modern printer's sense) handed by the author to the first transcriber. This
would no doubt be written on loose leaves of paper. It appears that one
(or more) of these leaves (containing the confession of Wrath and the end
of the confession of Envy) got lost, and that another (containing lines
236-59) was misplaced. It is possible that the transposed leaf was put in
the place of a lost leaf, the last but one of the Passus. But I doubt whether
this supposition is really necessary ; the confession of Sloth no doubt ends
rather abruptly, as do some of the other confessions, but I am not sure that
anything is wanting.

Prof. Manly states that his study of ' Piers the Plowman ' has led him
to the conclusion that the three recensions known as A, B, and C are the
work of three different authors. The evidence in support of this revolu-
tionary theory is reserved for a forthcoming book ; but Prof. Manly points
out in his paper that the B revision of A. v. is based on the present defective
text, and that the reviser attempted to remedy its faults in somewhat unin-
telligent fashion. The fact seems to be unquestionable, and certainly affords
prima facie a strong argument against the received theory of unity of
authorship. My correction of Prof. !Manly's hypothesis only adds force to
his argument. Even allowing for the fifteen years' interval which, according
to Prof. Skeat, separates the dates of the A and B texts, it would be surpris-
ing if a poet, in revising his own work, failed to detect an accidental trans-
position that destroyed the symmetry of his plan. It is, by the way, a

xvi Foreiuords. Dr. Ey. Bradley's Letter in ' The Athenceum,' Ajpr. 1906.

noteworthy fact (whatever its precise interpretation may be) that the C
revision restores the passage about "Robert the robber" to what I consider
to be its original place.

Whether Prof. Manly will be successful in establishing his new theories
respecting the history of the text remains to be seen ; but he is certainly
entitled to the credit of having initiated a new stage in the progress of
Langland criticism.

The rejection of the unity of authorship of the three texts of ' Piers
the Plowman ' would of course involve the abandonment of Prof. Skeat's
almost universally accepted attribution of ' Eichard the Eedeless ' to Lang-
land. An interesting fact, hitherto, so far as 1 know, unnoticed, is that
Bale ('Index,' ed. Poole, p. 479) mentions the latter poem, on the authority
of Nicholas Brigham, under the title ' Mum, Soth-segger ! ' (i. e. ' Hush,
truth-teller ! '). There can be no doubt of the identity of the piece referred
to, for Bale gives a Latin translation of the first two lines. The title is cer-
tainly appropriate, and so picturesque that it may well have proceeded from
the author. Unluckily, the poem appears to have been anonymous in the

copy seen by Brigham.

Henry Bradley.

See also Mr. Theophilus Hall's Article in The Modern Language Review
for October 1908, showing how impossible it is that the author of A could
have so spoilt his own good work, and many passages of the B-man, in the
way that the writer of the C-Text has done. Prof. Manly has some dozen
Papers by clever pupils of his who have studied the question from different
points of view — alliteration, metre, vocabulary, figurative language, &c., —
and aU come to the same conclusion, that the revisers of the A-text into B,
and B into C, cannot have been the A-man,

CHAPTER I

PIERS THE PLOWMAN AND ITS SEQUENCE

Few poems of the Middle Ages have had a stranger fate than
those grouped under the general title of The Vision of William
concerning Piers the Ploivman. Obviously very popular in the
latter half of the fourteenth century, the time of their composition,
they remained popular throughout the fifteenth century, were
regarded in the sixteenth by the leaders of the reformation as an
inspiration and a prophecy, and, in modern times, have been
quoted by every historian of the fourteenth century as the most
vivid and trustworthy source for the social and economic history
of the time. Yet their early popularity has resulted in the
confusion of what is really the work of five difierent men, and in
the creation of a mythical author of all these poems and one other ;
and the nature of the interest of the sixteenth century reformers
has caused a misunderstanding of the objects and aims of the
satire contained in the poems separately and collectively. Worst
of all, perhaps, the failure of modern scholars to distinguish the
presence of several hands in the poems has resulted in a general
charge of vagueness and obscurity, which has not even spared
a portion of the work remarkable for its clearness and definiteness
and structural excellence.

Before taking up any of the problems just suggested, we may
recall briefly certain undisputed facts as to the form of the poems.
They are written throughout in alliterative verse of the same
general type as that of Beoimdf and other Old English poems, and,
at first sight, seem to form one long poem, extant in versions
differing somewhat from one another. As Skeat has conclusively
shown in his monumental editions of the texts, there are three
principal versions or texts, which he designates the A-text, the
B-text and the C-text, or the Vernon, the Crowley and the
Whitaker versions respectively. The A-text, or Vernon version,
consists of three visions supposed to come to the author while

E. L. II. en. L 1

2 Piers the Plowman and its Seque?2ce

sleeping beside a stream among the Malvern bills. The first of
these, occupying the prologue and passus i — iv, is the vision of
the field full of folk — a symbol of the world — and Holy Church
and Lady Meed; the second, occupying passus v — viii, is the
vision of Piers the Plowman and the crowd of penitents whom he
leads in search of Saint Truth; the third, occupying passus ix — xii,
is a vision in which the dreamer goes in search of Do-well, Do-better
and Do-best, but is attacked by hunger and fever and dies ere his
quest is accomplished. The B-text and the C-text are successive
modifications and expansions of the A-text.

Let us turn now from fact to theory. The two principal
authorities, Skeat and Jusserand, though differing in details, agree,
in the main, in the account they give of the poems and the author ;
and their account is very generally accepted. It is as follows.
The author was William Langland (or Langley), born about 1331 — 2
at Cleobury Mortimer, 32 miles S.S.E. from Shrewsbury and 137
N.W. from London, and educated in the school of the Benedictine
monastery at Malvern, among the hills S.W. of Worcester.
Whether he was the son of freemen (Skeat's view) or of serfs
(Jusserand's view), he was, at any rate, educated for the church
and probably took minor orders ; but, because of his temperament,
his opinions, his marriage, or his lack of influential friends, he never
rose in the church. At some unknown date, possibly before 1362,
he removed to London and made a scanty living by singing masses,
copying legal documents and other similar casual occupations.
In 1362, he began his famous poems, writing first the vision of
Lady Meed and the vision of Piers the PloAvman. Perhaps im-
mediately, perhaps after an interval of some time, he added to these
the vision of Do-weU, Do-better and Do-best. This first version of
these poems constitutes what is now called the A-text of Piers the
Plowman. But, according to the current view, the author did not
leave matters thus. Encouraged by the success of his work and
impelled by his increasing indignation at the corruptions of the
age, he took up his poem again in 1377 and expanded it to more
than twice its original length. The lines of the earlier version he
left essentially unchanged ; but he inserted, here and there, additions
of greater or less length, suggested now by some word or phrase of
the original text, now by events in the world about him and his
meditations on them; and he rejected the whole of the final
passus, containing an imaginary account of his death, to replace it
by a continuation of the vision of Do-well, Do-better and Do-best
longer than the whole of the original version of the poem. The

I'he Three Texts 3

A-text had contained a prologue and four passus (or cantos) of the
vision of Lady Meed, four passus of the vision of Piers the
Plowman and four passus of the vision of Do-well, Do-better and
Do-best, or twelve passus in aU, with a total of 2567 lines. The
B-text runs parallel to this to the end of passus xi (but with 3206
lines instead of 2467), and then continues for nine more passus,
making a total of 7242 lines. The author's active interest in his
poem did not cease here, however, for he subjected it to another
revision, about 1393 (according to Skeat) or 1398 (according to
Jusseraud). This revision is kno^vn as the C-text. Its relation to
the B-text may be roughly stated as consisting in the insertion of
a few passages, the rearrangement of a considerable number and
the rewriting of a number of others with more or less change of
content or of emphasis, but, on the whole, as involving no such
striking differences from the B-text as exist between that and the
A-text This latest version numbers 7357 lines as against the
7242 of the second version.

Skeat and Jusserand ascribe to the same author another poem
in alliterative verse, commonly known as Richard the Redeless,
concerning the last years of the reign of Richard IL This poem,
which, as we have it, is a fragment, was, Skeat thinks, written
between the capture and the formal deposition of Richard in 1399,
and was, perhaps, left unfinished by the author in consequence of
the fate of the king.

The evidence relied upon to prove that all these poems were
the work of a single author is entirely the internal evidence of the
poems themselves, supposed similarity in ideas, style, diction, etc.,
together with the difficulty of supposing the existence, at, approxi-
mately, the same time, of several unknown writers of such ability
as is displayed in these poems. Undoubtedly, the first impulse of
any student of a group of poems related as these are is to assume
that they are the work of a single author, and that any statements
made in the poems concerning the personality and experiences of
the dreamer are autobiographical revelations. Moreover, in this
particular case, it will be remembered, each of the two later
versions incorporates with its additions the preceding version;
and, as the C-text, on account of the larger mass of material in it,
has received the almost exclusive attention of scholars, the
impression of the style and other literary qualities gained by the
modem student has, necessarily, been a composite of the qualities
of the three texts and not a distinct sense of the qualities of each
and the dilferences between them.

1—2,

4 Piers the Plowman and its Sequence

Such diflferences do exist, and in the greatest number and
variety. There are differences in diction, in metre, in sentence
structure, in methods of organising material, in number and kind
of rhetorical devices, in power of visualising objects and scenes
presented, in topics of interest to the author and in views on
social, theological and various miscellaneous questions. Some of
these have, indeed, been observed and discussed by previous
writers, but they have always been explained as due to such
changes as might occur in any man's mental qualities and views
of life in the course of thirty or thirty-five years, the interval
between the earliest and the latest version. To the present writer
the diflferences seem of such a nature as not to admit of such an
explanation; and this opinion is confirmed by the existence of
certain passages in which the authors of the later versions have
failed to understand their predecessors.

This is, of course, not the place for polemics or for a detailed
examination of all the problems suggested by the poems. Our
principal concern is with the poems themselves as literary monu-
ments and, if it may be, with their author or authors. But, for
this very reason, it seems necessary to present the poems in such
a way as to enable the student to decide for himself between the
two theories of authorship, inasmuch as this decision carries with
it important conclusions concerning the literary values of the
poems, the mental qualities of the authors and the intellectual
activity of the age to which they belong. Fortunately, such a
presentation is precisely that which will best set forth the contents
of the poems and their qualities.

Let us examine first the prologue and passus i-viii of the
A-text. This is not an arbitrary dismemberment of a poem. The
two visions included in these passus are intimately connected with
each other and definitely separated from what follows. At the
beginning of the prologue the dreamer goes to sleep among the
Malvern hills and sees a vision of the world in the guise of a field
full of folk thronging a valley bounded on one side by a cliff", on
which stands the tower of Truth, and, on the other, by a deep
dale, in which, surrounded by a dark moat, lies the dungeon of
Wrong. Within this valley begin the incidents of his first vision,
and, though they range far, there is never any suggestion of
discontinuity ; at the end of the vision the dreamer wakes for only
a moment, and, immediately falling asleep, sees again the same
field of folk and another series of events unfolding themselves in
rapid succession beneath the 0112" with its high-built tower, until,

The Crowd in the Valley 5

finally, he wakes * meatless and moneyless in Malvern hills.' The
third vision, on the other hand, has no connection with Malvern
hills; the dreamer sees nothing of his valley, with the folk and the
tower and the dungeon ; indeed, this is not a vision at all in the
sense of the first two, but, rather, a series of dream- visits and
dream-discussions, the like of which cannot be found in the first
two visions. Skeat himself has recognised the close connection
between the first two visions, and has suggested that the third
may have been written after a considerable interval.

Each of the first two visions in the A-text is, contrary to the
usual opinion, distinguished by remarkable unity of structure,
directness of movement and freedom from digression of any sort.
The author marshals his dream-figures with marvellous swiftness,
but with unerring hand ; he never himself forgets for a moment
the relation of any incident to his whole plan, nor allows his reader
to forget it, or to feel at a loss as to its meaning or its place.

We first see, with the vividness of the dreamer's own vision, the
thronging crowd in the valley beneath the tower of Truth and
hovering on the brink of the dark dale. People of all sorts are
there — the poor and the rich, saints and sinners of every variety,
living as they live in the world. Singly and in groups they pass
before us, each noted by the poet with a word or a phrase that gives
us their very form and pressure. Satire there is, but it is satire
which does not impede the movement of the thronged dream, satire
which flashes and plays about the object, revealing its inner nature
by a word, an epithet, a brief phrase. We see the false beggars
shamming for food and fighting at the ale-house, * great lubbers
and long that loth were to labour'; the friars, 'preaching the
people for profit of their bellies'; the pardoner, surrounded by
the crowd of ignorant believers, whom he deceives ^vith his papal
bull and his fair speech ; and the corrupt priest, taking his share
of the ill-gotten gains, while the bishop, who is not 'worth his two
ears,' refuses to interfere. Then come a hundred lawyers in hoods
of silk, ready to undertake any cause for money, but refusing *to
imloose their lips once for love of our Lord'; 'you could more
easily,' says the poet, 'measure the mist on Malvern hills than get
a mum of their mouths unless money were showed.' After them
appears a confused throng of churchmen of all degi-ees, all
'leaping to London' to seek worldly offices and wealth. Wasters
there are, and idle labourers 'that do their deeds ill and drive
forth the long day with singing Dieu save Dame, Emme!' Along
with the satire there is commendation, now for the ploughmen who

6 Piers the Plowman and its Sequence

work hard and play seldom ; now, of a higher sort, for pious nuns
and hermits; now, for honest merchants; now, even for harmless
minstrels who 'get gold with their glee.' But, neither satire nor
commendation delays even for a moment our rapid survey of this
marvellous motley crowd, or detracts from our feeling that, in this
valley of vision, the world in miniature is visibly moving, living,
working, cheating, praying, singing, crying for sale its 'hot pies,'
its 'good geese and pigs,' its 'white wine and red.'

Tlie author, having thus, in his prologue, set before us the
vision first presented to the eyes of his mind, proceeds to interpret
it. This he does characteristically by a further development of
the di'eam itself.

A lovely lady comes down from the cliflf and says to the
dreamer :

Son, seest thoti this people, how engrossed they are in this confusion?
The most part of the people that pass now on earth, if they have success in
this world, care for nothing else; of other heaven than here they take no
account.

The impression already made upon us by this strange majestic
figure is deepened by the author's vivid comment, 'I was afeard of
her face, fair though she was, and said, "Mercy, my lady ; what is
the meaning of this?'" The tower, she explains, is the dwelling
of Truth, the Father of our faith, who formed us all and com-
manded the earth to serve mankind with all things needful. He
has given food and di'ink and clothing to suffice for all, but to be
used with moderation, for excess is sinful and dangerous to the
soul. The dreamer enquires curiously about money: 'the money
on this earth that men so fast hold, tell me to whom that treasure
belongs.' 'Go to the Gospel,' she replies, 'and consider what
Christ himself said when the people apposed him with a penny.'
He then asks the meaning of the dungeon in the deep dale.

That is the castle of Care; whoso comes therein may ban that he was
born to body or to soul; in it dwells a wight named Wrong, the father of
False, who seduced Adam and Cain and Judas. He is a hinderer of love, and
deceives all who trust in their vain treasures.

Wondering who she is that utters such wisdom, the dreamer is
informed that she is Holy Church. 'Thou oughtest to know me;
I received thee first and taught thee faith, and thou didst promise
to love me loyally while thy life should endure.' He falls upon
his knees, beseeching her favour and begging her to teach him so
to believe on Christ as to do His will : 'Teach me to no treasure
but tell me this, how I may save my soul I '

Holy Church

' When all treasure is tried,' she declares, 'Truth is the best; it is as
precious as God himself. Whoso is true of his tongue and of his deeds, and
does ill to no man, is accounted to the Gospel and likened to our Lord. Truth
is claimed by Christian and non-Christian ; it should be kept by all. Kings
and knights are bound by it, cherubim and seraphim and all the orders of
angels were knighted by Christ and taught to know Truth. Lucifer and his
feUows failed in obedience, and sinned l)y pride, and fell ; but all who keep
Truth may be sure that their souls shall go to heaven to be crowned by
Truth ; for, when all treasure is tried, Truth is the best.' ' But what is it ?
By what quality or power of my nature does it begin, and where ? ' ' Thou
fool, it is a teaching of nature to love thy Lord dearer than thyself, and do
no deadly sin though thou shouldst die. This is Truth, and none can teach
thee better; it is the most precious thing demanded by our Lord. Love
began by the Father and was perfected in the death of his Son. Be merciful
as He was merciful, for, unless you live truly, and love and help the poor, you
have no merit in Mass or in Hours. Faith without works is dead ; chastity
without charity is as foul as an unlighted lamp. Date et dabitur vobis, this
is the lock of love that lets out my grace to comfort all sinful; it is the
readiest way that leads to heaven.'

With this Holy Church declares that she can stay no longer,
and passus i closes.

But the dreamer kneels and beseeches her, crying,

'Mercy, my lady, for the love of her that bore the blissful Babe that
redeemed us on the cross; teach me to know False!' 'Look on thy left
hand and see where he stands— both False and Favel (Duplicity) and all his
whole house.' I looked on the left hand as the lady taught me ; and I saw
a woman wonderfully clothed, arrayed in furs the richest on earth, crowned
with a crown no less costly than the king's, all her five fingers loaded with
rings, with the most precious stones that prince ever wore. ' Who is this
woman,' said I, 'thus richly attired?' 'That is the maiden Meed, who has
often injured me. To-morroAv will the marriage be made of her and False.
Favel brought them together. Guile prepared her for it and Liar has directed
the whole affair. I warn thee that thou mayst know them all, and keep
thyself from them, if thou desirest to dwell with Truth in his bliss. I can
stay no longer ; I commit thee to our Lord.'

All the rich retinue that held with False was bidden to the
bridal. Simony was sent for to seal the charters and feoff Meed
with all the possessions of False and Favel. But there was no
house tliat could hold the throng that came. In a moment, as if
by some magical process, we see a pavilion pitched on a hill, with
ten thousand tents set about it, for all men of all orders to witness
the feoffment of Meed. Then Favel brought her forth, and Simony
and Civil (Civil Law) stood forth and unfolded the charter, which
was drawn up in due legal form and endowed the contracting
parties with all the provinces of the seven deadly sins, 'to have
and to hold, and all their heirs after, with the appurtenance of
Purgatory, even to the torment of Hell ; yielding, for this thing,
at the year's end, their souls to Satan.' This was duly witnessed

/

8 Piers the Plowman and its Sequence

and delivered. But Theology objected to the wedding, because

Meed was no bastard and should be wedded according to the

choice of Truth.

The workman is worthy of his hire. False is no mate for her; she is of
good birth and might kiss the king for cousin. Take her to London and see
if the law will permit this wedding; and beware, for Truth is wise, and
Conscience, who knows you all, is of his counsel.

Civil agreed, but Simony demanded money for his services.
Then Favel brought forth gold, and began to bribe officers and
witnesses; and all promised to go to London and support his
claims before the court at Westminster.

The incident which follows is one of the best examples of the
author's power of visualisation and of rapid narration unbroken
by explanation or moralisation ; for the moralising lines, unfortu-
nately admitted into Skeat's text, which interrupt the narrative
and tend to delay and obscure it do not belong to the original,
but are found in one MS only. [To the rapidity and assurance
with which the picture is developed is, perhaps, due in no small
^ part the readiness with which we accept it and the vitality and
solidity which these personified abstractions maintain throughout
't * the dream. J

f^ 'Then they lacked horses to carry them thither, but Favel

brought forth foals of the best. He set Meed on a sheriff's back,
shod all new, and False on a juror that trotted softly.' In like
manner for each of the abstractions was provided some appro-
priate, concrete evil-doer; and, thus equipped, the fantastic crew
inmaediately set out. But Soothness saw them well, and said
little, but rode hard and came first to court. There he told
Conscience, and Conscience reported to the king, all that had
happened. 'Now, by Christ,' said the king, *if I might catch
False or any of his fellows, I would hang them by the neck.'
Dread, standing at the door, heard his doom, and went wightly to
warn False. At the news, the wedding party fled in all directions.
False fled to the friars. Liar leaped away lightly, lurked through
lanes, buffeted by many and ordered to leave, until pardoners had
pity on him and received him as one of themselves. Then he was in
demand : physicians and merchants and minstrels and messengers
wanted him ; but the friars induced him to come with thenL Of
the whole wedding party, only Meed durst stay, and she trembled
and wept and wrung her hands when she was arrested.

In passus iii the king orders that Meed shall be treated
courteously, and declares that he himself will ask her whom she

Meed 9

wishes to wed, and, if she acts reasonably, he will forgive her. So
a clerk brought her to the chamber. At once people began to
profess fi'iendship for her and promise aid. The justices came, and
said, 'Mourn not, Meed; we will clear thee.' She thanked them
and gave them cups of clean gold and rings with rubies. Clerks
came, and said, 'We are thine o^vn, to work thy will while life
lasts.' She promised to reward them all: *no ignorance shall
hinder the advancement of him whom I love.' A confessor offered
to shrive her for a seam of wheat and to serve her in any eviL
She told him a tale and gave him money to be her bedesman and
her bawd. He assoiled her, and then suggested that, if she would
help them with a stained glass window they were putting in, her
name would be recorded on it and her soul would be sure of
heaven. 'Knew I that,' said the woman, 'there is neither window
nor altar that I would not make or mend, and inscribe my name
thereon.' Here the author declares the sin of such actions, and
exhorts men to cease such inscriptions, and give alms. He also
urges mayors to punish brewers, bakers, butchers and cooks, who,
of all men on earth, do most harm by defrauding the poor. 'Meed,'
he remarks, 'urged them to take bribes and permit such cheating ;
but Solomon says that fire shall consume the houses of those who
take bribes.'

Then the king entered and had Meed brought before him.
He addi'essed her courteously, but said, 'Never hast thou done
worse than now, but do so no more. I have a knight called
Conscience; wilt thou marry him?' 'Yea, lord,' said the lady,
'God forbid else!* Conscience was called and asked if he would
wed her.

Nay, Christ forbid ! She is frail of her flesh, fickle, a causer of wanton-
ness. She killed father Adam and has poisoned popes. She is as common
as the cart-way ; she releases the guilty and hangs the innocent. She is privy
with the pope, and she and Simony seal his bulls. She maintains priests in
concubinage. She leads the law as she pleases, and suppresses the complaints
of the poor.

Meed tried to defend herself by charging that Conscience had
caused greater evils. He had killed a king. He had caused a king
to give up his campaign in Normandy.

Had I been the king's marshal, he should have been lord of all that
land. A king ought to give rewards to all that serve him ; popes both receive
and give rewards; servants receive wages; beggars, alms ; the king pays his
officers ; priests expect mass-pence ; craftsmen and merchants, all take meed.

The king was impressed by this plea, and cried, 'By Christ,
Meed is worthy to have such mastery.' But Conscience kneeled,

lo Piers the Plowman and its Sequence

and explained that there are two kinds of meed ; the one, such as
God gives to men who love him; the other, such as maintains
evil-doers. 'Such as take bribes shall answer for it; priests that
take money for masses have their reward on earth only. Wages is
not meed, nor is there meed in the bargains of merchants.' He
then illustrates the dangers of meed by the story of Saul and the
Amalekites, and ends by declaring that Reason shall reign and
govern realms; Meed shall no more be master, but Love and
Humility and Loyalty shall rule, and Kind- Wit and Conscience
together shall make Law a labourer, such love shall arise.

The king interrupted him and tried to effect a reconciliation
between him and Meed, but Conscience refused, unless advised
thereto by Reason. 'Ride forth and fetch Reason; he shall rule
my realm,' replied the king. Conscience rode away gladly and
returned with Reason, followed by Wit and Wisdom. The king
welcomed Reason, and set him on the throne, between himself and
his son; and, while they were talking together, Peace came, and
put up a bill how Wrong had taken his wife, had stolen his geese,
his pigs, his horse and his wheat, had murdered his men and
beaten him. Wrong was afraid and tried to bribe Wisdom to
plead for him. Wisdom and Wit told him that, without the help
of Meed, he Mas ruined, and they took him to her. Peace showed
the king his bloody head ; and the king and Conscience knew he
had been wronged ; but Wisdom offered bail for Wrong and pay-
ment of the damages, and Meed offered Peace a present of gold ;
whereupon Peace begged the king to have mercy upon Wrong.
The king swore he would not. Some urged Reason to have pity,
but he declared that he would not

till all lords and ladies love truth, and men cease to spoil children, and
clerks and knights are courteons, and priests practise what they preach,
till the custom of pilgrimages and of carrying' money out of the land ceases,
till Meed has no might to moot in this haU. Were I king, no wrong- should
go unpunished or get grace by bribes. Were this rule kept, Law would hare
to become a labourer, and Love should rule all.

When they heard this, all held Reason a master and iNIeed a
wretch. Love laughed Meed to scorn. The king agreed that
Reason spoke truth, but said it would be hard to establish such
government. Reason asserted that it would be easy. Wliereupon
the king begged Reason to stay with him and rule the land as
long as he lived. *I am ready,' said Reason, 'to rest with thee
ever; provided Conscience be our counsellor, I care for nothing
better.' 'Gladly,' said the king; 'God forbid that he fail; and, as
long as I live, let us keep together ! '

The First Vision 1 1

Thus ends passus iv, and, with it, the first vision. The style and
the method of composition are, in the highest degree, worthy of
note. The author, it will be observed, sets forth his vieAvs, not,
after the ordinary fashion of allegorists, by bringing together his
personifications and using them as mere mouthpieces, but by
involving them in a rapidly moving series of interesting situations,
skilfully devised to cause each to act and speak in a thoroughly
characteristic manner. They do not seem to be puppets, moving
and speaking as the showman pulls the strings, but persons,
endowed each with his own life and moved by the impulses of his
own will. Only once or t^vice does the author interrupt his narra-
tion to express his own views or feelings, and never does he allow
them to interfere with the skill or sincerity of expression of the
dramatis personae. His presentation has, indeed, the clear,
undisturbed objectivity of excellent drama, or of life itself.

In the prologue, the satire, as has been observed, is all inci-
dental, casual ; the same is true of passus i ; for these two sections
of the poem are not essentially satirical. The first is a purely
objective vision of the world with its mingled good and evil ; the
second is the explanation of this vision with some comment and
exhortation by Holy Church, the interpreter. The satire proper
begins with passus ii, and, from there to the end of this vision, is
devoted to a single subject — Meed and the confusion and distress
which, because of her, afilict the world. Friars, merchants, the
clergy, justices, lawyers, all classes of men, indeed, are shown to
be corrupted by love of Meed ; but, contrary to current opinion,
there is nowhere even the least hint of any personal animosity
against any class of men as a class, or against any of the
established institutions of church or state. The friars have often
been supposed to be the special object of attack, but, so far as
this vision is concerned, they fare better, on the whole, than do
the lawyers. The only notable order of fourteenth century society
that escapes censure altogether is that of the monks. Of them
there is no direct criticism, though some of the MSS include
monks among those to whom Meed is common (iii, 127 — 8). The
possible bearing of this fact upon the social status of the author
will be discussed later.

As to the style, no summary or paraphrase can reproduce its
picturesqueness and verve. It is always simple, direct, evocative
of a constant series of clear and sharply-defined images of in-
dividuals and groups. Little or no attempt is made at elaborate,
or even ordinarily full, description, and colour-words are singularly

12 Piers the Plowman and its Sequence

few; but it would be difficult to find a piece of writing from which
the reader derives a clearer vision of individuals or groups of
moving figures in their habit as they lived. That the author was
endowed in the highest degree with the faculty of visualisation is
proved, not merely by his ability to stimulate the reader to form
mental images, but even more by the fact that all the movements
of individuals and groups can be followed with ease and certainty.
Composition, in the larger sense of structural excellence, that
quality common in French literature, but all too rare in English,
and supposed to be notably lacking in Piers the Plownian, is one
of the most striking featm^es of this first vision.

What has just been said of the qualities of the first vision is
true in equal degree of the second, Tlie Vision of Piers the Plow-
man, properly so called, which occupies passus v — viiL In outline
it is as follows :

At the close of the preceding vision, the king and his company
went to the church to hear the services. The dreamer saw them
enter, and awaked from his dream disappointed and sorrowful
that he had not slept more soundly and seen more. But, ere he
had gone a furlong, a faintness seized him, and he sat softly down
and said his creed ; then he fell asleep and saw more than he had
seen before. He saw again the field full of folk and Conscience
with a cross preaching among them, urging them to have pity on
themselves and declaring that the pestilences were caused by their
sins, and that the great storm of wind on Saturday at even (15
January 1362) was a punishment for pride. Wasters were warned
to go to work ; chapmen to cease spoiling their children ; Pernel,
to give up her purfle; Thomas and Wat, to look after their frail
and extravagant wives; priests, to practise what they preached;
members of the religious orders, to keep their vows, lest the king
and his council should take possession of their property ; pilgrims,
to cease journeying to St James, and seek St Truth. Then ran
Repentance and moved the hearts of all; William wept; Pernel
Proudlieart prostrated herself; Lecher, Envy, Covetousness,
Glutton, Sloth, Robert the Robber, all repented- The confessions
of the seven deadly sins (an accident has deprived us of the
confession of Wrath and of a portion of Envy's) follow one
another with breathless rapidity, and the climax is reached when,
in the words of the author, *a thousand of men then thronged
together, crying upward to Christ and to His pure Mother to have
grace to seek St Truth — God grant they so mayl'

The IVay to Truth 13

With this passus v closes ; but the movement of the narrative
is uninterrupted. Some spurious lines printed by Skeat do, indeed,
cause a semblance of at least a momentary delay ; but the authentic
text is better constructed.

There were few so wise, however, that they knew the way thither

{i.e. to St Truth), but blustered forth as beasts over valleys and hills,

till it was late and long that they met a person apparelled like a

pilgrim, with relics of the many shrines he had visited. He had

been at Sinai, Bethlehem, Babylon, Armenia, Alexandria and in

many other places, but had never heard of St Truth, nor met

a palmer seeking such a saint.

*By St Peter!' cried a ploughman, and put forth his head, 'I know him
as well as a clerk his book; Conscience and Kind- Wit directed me to him
and taught me to serve him ever. I have been his man these fifteen years,
sowed his seed, kept his beasts, diked and delved and done his bidding in all
things.'

The pilgrims offered him money to show them the way ; but

Piers, the ploughman, cried,

Nay, by the peril of my soul! I would not take a penny for the whole
wealth of St Thomas's shrine; Truth would love me the less. But this is
the way. You must go through Meekness till you come to Conscience-that-
Christ-knows-that-y ou-love-him-dearer-than-the-life-in-y our- hearts - and - your-
neighbour-next. Then cross the brook Be-buxom-of-speech by the ford Honour-
thy-father; pass by Swear-not-iu-vain and the croft Covet-not, with the two
stocks Slay-not and Steal-not; stop not at Bear-no-false-witness, and then
will be seen Say-sooth. Thus shalt thou come to a court, clear as the sun;
the moat is of Mercy, the walls of Wit, to keep Will out, the Cornells of
Christendom, the brattice of Faith, the roof of Brotherly Love. The tower
in which Truth is is set above the sun ; he may do with the day-star what him
dear liketh; Death dare do naught that he forbids. The gate-keeper is
Grace, his man is Amend-thou, whose favour thou must procure. At the
gate also are seven sisters, Abstinence, Humility, Charity, Chastity, Patience,
Peace and Generosity. Any of their kin are welcomed gladly, and, unless one
is kin to some of these seven, he gets no entrance except by grace.

*By Christ,' cried a cut-purse, *I have no kin there!' And so
said some others ; but Piers replied, 'Yes ; there is there a maiden,
Mercy, who has power over them alL She is sib to all sinful, and,
through help of her and her Son, you may get grace there, if you
go early.'

Passus VII opens with the remark that this would be a difficult
way without a guide at every step. 'By Peter 1' replied Piers,
'were my half-acre ploughed, I would go with you myself.' 'That
would be a long delay,' said a lady; 'what shall we women do
meanwhile?' 'Sew and spin and clothe the needy.' 'By Christ!'
exclaimed a knight, ' I never learned to plough ; but teach me,
and I will help you.' But Piers rejected his offer and bade him

14 Piers the Plowman and its Sequence

do only those services that belong to knighthood, and practise the
virtues of a kindly lord. The knight promised to do so, and Piers
prepared for his ploughing. Those who helped were to be fed.
Before setting out on his journey, however, he wished to make
his will, bequeathing his soul to God, his body to the church, his
property to his wife to divide among his friends and his dear
children.

Piers and the pilgrims set to work; some helped him to
plough, others diked up the balks, others plucked weeds. At high
prime (9 a.m.) Piers looked about and saw that some had merely
been singing at the ale and helping him with ' hey, troly-loly ! ' He
threatened them with famine, and the shirkers feigned to be lame
or blind, and begged alms. *I shall soon see if what you say is
true,' said Piers; 'those who will not work shall eat only barley
bread and drink of the brook. Tlie maimed and blind I will feed,
and anchorites once a day, for once is enough.' Then the wasters
arose and would have fought. Piers called on the knight for
protection, but the knight's efforts were vain. He then called
upon Hunger, who seized Waster by the maw and wrung him so
that his eyes watered, and beat the rascals till he nearly burst
their ribs. Piers in pity came between them with a pease-loaf.
Immediately all the sham ailments disappeared; and blind, bed-
ridden, lame asked for work. Piers gave it to them, but, fearing
another outbreak, asked Hunger what should be done in that
event. The reply, which contains the author's view of the labour-
problem, was that able-bodied beggars were to be given nothing
to eat but horse-bread and dog-bread and bones and thus driven
to work, but the imfortunate and the naked and needy were to
be comforted with alms. In reply to a further question whether
it is right to make men work. Hunger cited Genesis, Proverbs,
Matthew and the Psalms. 'But some of my men are always iU,'
said Piers. *It comes of over-eating; they must not eat until
they are hungry, and then only in moderation.' Piers thanked
him, and gave him leave to go whenever he would; but Hunger
replied that he would not go till he had dined. Piers had only
cheese, curds, an oat-cake, a loaf of beans and bran and a few
vegetables, which must last till harvest; so the poor people
brought peascods, beans and cherries to feed Hunger. He wanted
more, and they brought pease and leeks. And in harvest they fed
him plentifully and put him to sleep. Then beggars and labourers
became dainty and demanded fine bread and fresh meats, and
there was grumbling about wages and cursing of the king and

Piers Pardon 15

his council for the labour-laws. The author warns workmen of
their folly, and prophesies the return of famine.

In passus viii we are told that Truth heard of these things
and sent to Piers a message to work and a pardon a 'poena, et a
culpa for him and his heirs. Part in this pardon was granted to
kings, knights and bishops who fulfil their duties. Merchants,
because of their failure to observe holidays, were denied full
participation; but they received a letter from Truth under his
privy seal authorising them to trade boldly, provided they devoted
their profits to good works, the building of hospitals, the repairing
of bridges, the aiding of poor maidens and widows and scholars.
The merchants were glad, and gave Will woollen clothes for his
pains in copying their letter. Men of law had least pardon,
because of their unwillingness to plead without money ; for water
and air and wit are common gifts, and must not be bought and
sold. Labourers, if true and loving and meek, had the same
pardon that was sent to Piers. False beggars had none for their
wicked deeds; but the old and helpless, women with child, the
maimed and the blind, since they have their purgatory here upon
earth, were to have, if meek, as full pardon as the Plowman
himself.

Suddenly a priest asked to see Piers' pardon. It contained
but two lines : Et qui bona egerunt, ihunt in vita/m eternam; qui
vero mala, in ignem eternum. 'By St Peter!' said the priest,
*I find here no pardon, but "do well, and have well, and God
shaU have thy soul ; and do evil, and have evil, and to hell shalt
thou go.'" Piers, in distress, tore it asunder, and declared that
he would cease to labour so hard and betake himself to prayers
and penance, for David ate his bread with weeping, and Luke
teUs us that God bade us to take no thought for ourselves, but
to consider how He feeds the birds. The priest then jested at
the learning of Piers, and asked who taught liim. 'Abstinence
and Conscience,' said Piers. While they were disputing, the
dreamer awoke and looked about, and found that it was noontime,
and he himself meatless and moneyless on Malvern hills.

Here the vision ends, but passus viii contains 53 lines more,
in which the writer discusses the trustworthiness of dreams and
the comparative value of Do- well and letters of indulgence.

In this second vision, the satire of passus v is very general,
consisting, as it does, of a series of confessions by the seven deadly
sins, in which each is sketched with inimitable vividness and
brevity. It is significant of the author's religious views, and in

1 6 Piers the Plowman and its Sequence

harmony with such hints of them as he has given us elsewhere
that these confessions are not formal interviews with an authorised
confessor, but, for the most part, sudden outcries of hearts which
Conscience has wrought to contrition and repentance. The
notable exceptions are the cases of Glutton and Sloth. Of these,
the former has often been cited as one of the most remarkable
pieces of genre painting in our early literature. It presents the
veritable interior of an English ale-house in the fourteenth century,
with all its basenesses and its gross hilarity.

Glutton is moved to repent, and starts for the church to confess,
but, on his way thither, the ale-wife cries out to him. He says he
is going to church to hear mass and confess. 'I have good ale,
gossip; wilt thou try it?' He does not wish to drink, but asks
if she has any spices to settle a queasy stomaclL *Yes, full
good : pepper, peony, a pound of garlic and a little fennel-seed,
to help topers on fasting days.' So Glutton goes in, and finds a
crowd of his boon companions, Cis the shoemaker's wife, Wat the
warrener and his wife, Tomkin the tinker and two of his men,
Hick and Hodge and Clarice and Pemel and a dozen others ; and
all welcome him and offer him ale. Then they begin the sport
called the New Fair, a game for promoting drinking. The whole
day passes in laughter and ribaldry and carousing, and, at even-
song. Glutton is so drunk that he walks like a gleeman's dog,
sometimes aside and sometimes aback. As he attempts to go
out, he falls ; and his wife and servant come, and carry him home
and put him to bed. When he wakes, two days later, his first
word is, 'Where is the cup?' But his wife lectures him on his
wickedness, and he begins to repent and profess abstinence.

As for Sloth, his confession, though informal, is not sudden, for
the suflBcient reason that he is too slothful to do anything suddenly.

The satire of passus VI and vii is directed principally, if not
solely, against the labouring classes. In sentiment and opinion
the author is entirely in harmony with parliament, seeing in the
efforts of the labourers to get higher wages for their work only
the unjustifiable demands of wicked, lazy, lawless vagabonds. In
regard to the remedy, however, he differs entirely from parliament.
He sees no help in the Statutes of Labourers or in any power
that the social organisation can apply ; the vain efforts of the
knight when called upon by Piers for protection from the wasters
(vii, 140 ff.) clearly indicate this. The only hope of the re-establish-
ment of good conditions lies in the possibility that the wicked
may be terrified by the prospect of famine, God's punishment for

The Third Vision ij

their wickedness, and may labour and live as does Piers Plowman,
the ideal free labourer of the established order. The author is
in no sense an innovator; he is a reformer only in the sense of
wishing all men to see and feel the duties of the station in life
to which they belong, and to do them as God has commanded

Passus VIII is an explicit presentation of this idea, a re-assertion
of the doctrine announced by Holy Church at the beginning of
passus I and illustrated by all the visionary events that follow —
the doctrine, namely, that, 'When all treasure is tried, Ti-uth is
the best.' The pardon sent to Piers is only another phrasing of
this doctrine; and, though Piers himself is bewildered by the
jibes of the priest and tears the pardon *in pure teen,' though
the dreamer wakes before the advent of any reassuring voice,
and wakes to find himself hungry and poor and alone, we know
authenticaUy that there lies in the heart of the author not even
the slightest question of the validity of his heaven-sent dreams.

The third vision, passus IX — xii of the A-text, differs from the
first two, as has been said above, in very material respects. The
theme is not presented by means of vitalised allegory ; there are
allegorical figures, to be sure, but their allegorical significance
is only superficial, not essential; they engage in no significant
action, but merely indulge in debate and disquisition; and what
they say might be said by any one else quite as appropriately and
efiectively. Moreover, the clearness of phrasing, the orderliness
and consecutiveness of thought, which so notably characterise the
early visions, are entirely lacking, as are also the wonderful visuali-
sation and vivid picturesqueness of diction. These differences are so
striking that they cannot be overlooked by any one whose attention
has once been directed to them. To the present writer they seem
to justify the conclusion that in the third vision we have, not a poem
written by the author of the first two, either immediately after
them or even a few years later, but the work of a continuator,
who tried to imitate the previous writer, but succeeded only
superficially, because he had not the requisite ability as a writer,
and because he failed to understand what were the distinctive
features in the method of his model ; but students of the poems
have heretofore felt — without, I think, setting definitely before
their minds the number and the character of these differences —
that they were not incompatible with the theory of a single author
for all the poems.

It is not intended to argue the question here, and, consequently,

E. L. II. OH. L 2

1 8 Piers the Plowman and its Sequence

the differences will not be discussed further; but it may be of
interest, to those who believe in a single author no less than to
those who do not, to note, in addition, certain minor differences.
The first writer seems not in the least interested in casuistry or
theological doctrine, whereas notable features of the later passus
are scholastic methods and interests, and a definite attitude
towards predestination, which had been made by Bradwardine
the foremost theological doctrine of the time, as we may infer
from Chaucer and the author of Pearl. Indeed, the questions
that interest the author of passus ix — xi are not only entirely
different, but of a different order from those which interest the
author of the first two visions. Further, the use of figurative
language is entirely different; of the twelve similes in passus
IX — ^xi four are rather elaborate, whereas all the twenty found
in the earlier passus are simple, and, for the most part, stock
phrases, like 'clear as the sun,' only four having so much as a
modifying clause. The versification also presents differences in
regard to the number of stresses in the half-line and in regard
to run-on lines and masculine endings. Some of these differences
begin to manifest themselves in the last fifty-three lines of passus
VIII ; and it is possible that the continuator began, not at ix, 1,
but at viii, 131. Of course, no one of the differences pointed out
is, in itself, incompatible with the theory of a single author for
all the passus of the A-text; but, taken together, they imply
important differences in social and intellectual interests and in
mental qualities and habits. They deserve, therefore, to be noted ;
for, if the same person is the author of all three visions, he has
at least midergone profound and far-reaching changes of the most
various kinds, and no mere general supposition of development
or decay of his powers will explain the phenomena.

We proceed, then, without further discussion, to examine the
contents of the later passus. Their professed subject is the search
for Do-weU, Do-better and Do-best, or, rather, for satisfactory
definitions of them. What were the author's own views, it is
very hard to determine; partly, perhaps, because he left the
poem unfinished, but partly, also, because the objections which,
as a disputant, he offers to the statements of others seem, some-
times, only cavils intended to give emphasis and definiteness to
the views under discussion. It will be observed, however, that,
on the whole, his model man is not the plain, honest, charitable
labourer, like Piers, but the dutiful ecclesiastic. Other topics
that are clearly of chief interest to the author are : the personal

Passus IX a7id X ig

responsibility of sane adults, and the vicarious responsibility of
guardians for children and idiots; the duty of contentment and
cheerful subjection to the will of God; the importance of pure
and honourable wedlock; and the corruptions that have arisen,
since the pestilence, in marriage and in the attitude of laymen
towards the mysteries of faith, though Study, voicing, no doubt,
the views of the author, admits that, but for the love in it,
theology is a hard and profitless subject. Tliere are also inci-
dental discussions of the dangers of such branches of learning as
astronomy, geometry, geomancy, etc. ; of the chances of the rich
to enter heaven ; of predestination ; and of the advantages as to
salvation of the ignorant over the learned- A brief synopsis of
these passus will make the method of treatment clearer.

Passus IX opens with the author roaming vainly about in his
grey robes in search of Do-well, not in a dream, but while he is
awake. At last, on a Friday, he meets two Franciscan friars, who
tell him that Do-well dwells always with them. He denies this, in
due scholastic form, on the ground that even the righteous sin seven
times a day. The friars meet this argument by a rather confused
illustration of a boat in which a man attempts to stand in a rough
sea, and, though he stumbles and falls, does not fall out of the
boat. The author declares he cannot follow the illustration, and
says farewelL Wandering widely again, he reaches a wood, and,
stopping to listen to the songs of the birds, falls asleep.

There came a large man, mnch like myself, who called me by name and
said he was Thought. 'Do- well,' said Thought, 'is the meek, honest
labourer; Do-better is he who to honesty adds charity and the preaching of
sufferance ; Do-best is above both and holds a bishop's crosier to punish the
wicked. Do-well and Do-better have crowned a king to protect them all and
prevent them from disobeying Do-best.'

The author is dissatisfied; and Thought refers liim to Wit,
whom they soon meet, and whom Thought questions on behalf of
the dreamer (here called 'our Will.')

In passus x. Wit says that Duke Do-well dwells in a castle with
Lady Anima, attended by Do-better, his daughter, and Do-best.
The constable of the castle is Sir Inwit, whose five sons. See-well,
Say-well, Hear-well, Work-well and Go-well, aid him. Kind, the'
maker of the castle, is God ; the castle is Caro (Flesh). Anima is
Life ; and Inwit is Discretion (not Conscience), as appears from a
long and wandering discussion of his functions. Do-well destroys
vices and saves the souL Do-well is the fear of the Lord, and
Do-better is the fear of punishment If Conscience tells you that

2—2

20 Piers the Plowman and its Sequence

you do well, do not desire to do better. Follow Conscience and
fear not. If you strive to better yourself, you are in danger;
a rolling stone gathers no moss and a jack of all trades is good
at none. Whether you are married man, monk, canon, or even
beggar, be content and murmur not against God. Do-well is
dread, and Do-better is sufferance; and of dread and its deeds
springs Do-best. As the sweet red rose springs from the briar,
and wheat from a weed, so Do-best is the fruit of Do-well and
Do-better, especially among the meek and lowly, to whom God
gives his grace. Keepers of wedlock please God especially; of
them come virgins, martjTS, monks, kings, etc. False folk are
conceived in an ill hour, as was Cain. His descendants were
accursed; and so were those of Seth, who intermarried with
them, though warned against it Because of these marriages,
God ordered Noah to build the ark, and sent the flood to destroy
Cain's seed. Even the beasts perished for the sin of these
marriages. Nowadays, since the pestilence, many unequal mar-
riages are made for money. These couples will never get the
Dunmow flitcL All Christians should marry well and live purely,
observing the tempora clausa. Otherwise, rascals are born, who
oppose Do-well. Therefore, Do- well is dread; and Do-better is
sufferance ; and so comes Do-best and conquers wicked will

In passus xi, Wit's wife. Study, is introduced. She rebukes
him for casting pearls before swine, that is, teaching wisdom to
those who prefer wealth. Wisdom is despised, unless carded with
covetousness as clothiers card wool; lovers of Holy Writ are
disregarded ; minstrelsy and mirth have become lechery and
bawdy tales. At meals, men mock Christ and the Trinity, and
scorn beggars, who would perish but for the poor. Clerks have
God much in the mouth but little in the heart. Every *boy'
cavils against God and the Scriptures. Austin the Old rebukes
sucL Believe and pray, and cavil not. Here now is a foolish
fellow that wants to know Do-well from Do-better. Unless he
live in the former, he shall not learn the latter.

At these words, Wit is confounded, and signals the author to
seek the favour of Study. He, therefore, humbles himself, and
Study is appeased, and promises to direct him to Clergy (Learning)
and his wife. Scripture. The way lies by Sufferance, past Riches
and Lechery, through Moderation of speech and of drink, to
Clergy.

Tell him yon were sent by me, who tanght him and his wife. I also tanght
Plato and Aristotle and all craftsmen. But theology has troubled me much;

Pass us XI and XII 2i

and, save for the love in it, it is nanght. Love is Do-well ; and Do-better and
Do-best are of Love's school. Secular science teaches deceit, but theology
teaches love. Astronomy, geometry, geomancy, alchemy, necromancy and
pyromancy are all evil; if you seek Do-well, avoid them. I founded them to
deceive the people.

The author goes at once to Clergy and his wife and is well
received by them. Clergy says that Do-well is the active life,
Do-better is charity and Do-best is the clergy with benefices and
power to help and possessions to relieve the poor. Runners-about
are evil ; there are many such now, and the religious orders have
become rich. *I had thought kings and knights were best, but
now I see that they are not' Scripture interrupts with the
declaration that kinghood and knighthood and riches help not to
heaven, and only the poor can enter. ^Contra!' says the author;
'Whoever believes and is baptised shall be saved.' Scripture
replies that baptism saves only in extremis and only repentant
heathen, whereas Chiistians must love and be charitable. Help,
therefore, and do not harm, for God says, 'Slay not! for I shall
punish every man for his misdeeds, unless Mercy intervenes.'
The author objects that he is no nearer his quest, for whatever
he may do will not alter his predestined end ; Solomon did well
and wisely and so did Aristotle, and both are in helL

If I follow their words and works and am damned, I were unwise; the
thief was saved before the patriarchs; and Magdalen, David, and Paul did
ill, and yet are saved ; Christ did not commend Clergy, but said, ' I will teach
you what to say'; and Austin the Old said that the ignorant seize heaven
sooner than the learned.

Passus XII opens with the reply of Clergy: *I have tried to
teach you Do-well, but you wish to cavil. If you would do as I
say, I would help you.' Scripture scornfully replies, 'Tell him no
more ! Tlieology and David and Paul forbid it ; and Christ refused
to answer Pilate ; tell him no more ! ' Clergy creeps into a cabin
and draws the door, telling the author to go and do as he pleases,
well or ilL But the author earnestly beseeches Scripture to
direct hinx to Kind- Wit (Natural Intelligence), her cousin and
confessor. She says he is with Life, and calls, as a guide, a young
clerk, Omnia-prohate. 'Go with Will,' she orders, 'to the
borough Quod-honum-est-tenete and show him my cousin's house.'
They set out together.

And here, it seems to me, this author ceased- The remaining
lines I believe to have been written by one John But They
relate that, ere the author reached the court Qiwd-hanwn-est-
tenete, he met with many wonders. First, as he passes through

22 Piers the Plowman and its Sequence

Youth; he meets Hunger, who says that he dwells with Death,
and seeks Life in order to kill him. The author wishes to ac-
company him, but, being too faint to walk, receives broken meats
from Hunger, and eats too much. He next meets Fever, who
dwells with Death and is going to attack Life. He proposes to
accompany Fever ; but Fever rejects his offer and advises him to
do well and pray constantly.

Will knew that this speecli was speedy; so he hastened and wrote what
is written here and other works also of Piers the Plowman and many people
besides. And, when this work was done, ere Will could espy, Death dealt
him a dint and drove him to the earth ; and he is now closed under clay,
Christ have his soul! And so bade John But busily very often, when he
saw these saying's alleged about James and Jerome and Job and others ; and
because he meddles with verse-making, he made this end. Now God save all
Christians and especially king Kichard and all lords that love huu! and
thou, Mary, Mother and Maiden, beseech thy Son to bring us to bliss !

Skeat originally ascribed to John But only the last twelve
lines, beginning, 'And so bade John But' It seems unlikely,
however, that the * end ' which John But says he made refers to
these lines only ; certainly, it is not customary for scribes to use
such a term for the supplications they add to a poem. And
it is hard to conceive the motive of the author for finishing
in this hasty fashion a poem which interested him, and which
obviously had such immediate success. For these or similar
reasons Skeat, later, admitted the possibility that the work of
John But began seven lines earlier, with 'Will knew that this
speech was speedy.' But the same reasoning applies to all the
lines after L 56, and an attentive reading of them will disclose
several particulars at variance with the style or conceptions of
the rest of the poem.

In closing our survey of the poems included in the A-text,
we may note that, in their own day, they were not regarded as
directed against the friars, for MS RawL Poet. 137 contains this
inscription, 'in an old hand': Hoc volwnien conceditur ad usum
fratrwm minorum de ohservantia cantuariae.

Let us turn now to the B-text. There is no reason to doubt the
current view that it was written, in part at least, between June
1376 and June 1377. Tyrwhitt showed that the famous rat-
parliament inserted in the prologue referred to the time between
the death of the Black Prince and that of Edward III, and must
have been written while men were anxious about the situation
which then existed. The increased emphasis given to the pesti-

B-text 23

lences in B, also points, as Skeat suggests, to a time not long
after the pestilence of 1376. To these may be added the allusion
to the drought and famine of April 1370 (xiii, 269—271) as 'not
long passed.' No one, perhaps, believes that the whole of the
B-text was written within the year indicated; but it has been
generally assumed that the additions in the prologue antedate
the rest of the B-text. For this assumption there is no reason
except that the prologue is at the beginning of the poem. Two
considerations suggest, though they by no means prove, that B, in
his additions and insertions, did not always follow the order of
the original poem. In the first place, in x, 115 is a promise of a
discussion which occurs in xii. Any one who studies carefully
B's methods of composition will find it easier to believe that B
had already written xii when he thus referred to it, than that he
purposely postponed a discussion. In the second place, it is hard
to believe that such a writer as B, after becoming so thoroughly
excited over political affairs as he shows himself to be in his
insertion in the prologue, would have written the 4036 lines of
his continuation of Do- well, Do-better and Do-best without again
discussing them.

The author of the B-text, as we have seen, had before him,
when he began his work, the three visions of the A-text. Whether
he regarded them as the work of a single author is not our present
concern. In his reworking of the poems he practically disregarded
passus XII and changed the preceding eleven passus by insertions
and expansions. Minor verbal alterations he also made, but far
fewer than is usually supposed. Many of those credited to him
are to be found among the variant readings of the A-text, and
were merely taken over unchanged from the MS of A used as
the basis.

Of the nine principal insertions made in the first two visions,
six may be regarded as mere elaborations of the A-text, namely,
the changed version of the feoffment, the confessions of Wrath,
Avarice, Glutton and Sloth and the plea of Repentance. The
other three, including the rat-parliament and the jubilee passages,
are among the most important expressions of the political views
of B, and will be discussed below. The insertions in the third
vision, though elaborations of the A-text, are more difficult
to characterise as to theme, on account of a tendency to
rambling and vagueness sometimes almost degenerating into
incoherency. The worst of them is the third (ix, 59 — 121), which
ranges over indiscretion, gluttony, the duty of holy church to

24 Piers the Plowman and its Sequence

fools and orphans ; the duty of charity, enforced by the example
of the Jews ; definitions of Do-well, Do-better and Do-best ; waste
of time and of speech ; God's love of workers and of those faithful
in wedlock. A few lines translated from this passage may serve
to illustrate the author's mental processes, particularly his in-
capacity for organised or consecutive thinking, and his helpless
subjection to the suggestions of the words he happens to use.
They will also explain why students of these poems have found
it impossible to give a really representative synopsis of his work.
Let us begin with L 88, immediately after the citation of the
brotherly love of the Jews:

The commons for their nnkindness, I fear me, shall pay. Bishops shall
be blamed because of beggars. He is worse than Judas that gives a jester
silver, and bids the beggar go, because of his broken clothes. Proditor est
prelatus cum luda, gut patrimonium Christi mimis distribuit. He does
not well that does thus, and dreads not God Almighty, nor loves the saws of
Solomon, who taught wisdom; Initium sapientiae, timor Domini: who
dreads God does well; who dreads hhn for love and not for dread of
vengeance does, therefore, the better; he does best that restrains himself by
day and by night from wasting any speech or any space of time ; Qui offendit
in uno in omnibus est reus. Loss of time— Truth knows the sooth !— is most
hated on earth of those that are in heaven ; and, next, to waste speech, which
is a sprig of grace and God's gleeman and a game of heaven; would never
the faithful Father that His fiddle were untempered or His gleeman a
rascal, a goer to taverns. To all true tidy men that desire to work Our Lord
loves them and grants, loud or still, grace to go with them and procure their
sustenance. Inquirentes autein Dominum non minuentur omni bono. True-
wedded-living folk in this world is Do-well, etc.

As will be seen from this fairly representative passage, the
author does not control or direct liis own thought, but is at the
mercy of any chance association of words and ideas ; as Jusserand
well says, il est la victime et non le maitre de sa pensffe.

In the series of visions forming B's continuation of the poems,
the same qualities are manifest, and the same difficulty awaits the
student who attempts a synopsis or outline of them. It is possible,
indeed, to state briefly the general situation and movement of
each vision, to say, e.g. that this presents the tree of Charity,
and this the Samaritan ; but the point of view is frequently and
suddenly and unexpectedly shifted ; topics alien to the main theme
intrude because of the use of a suggestive word ; speakers begin
to expound views in harmony with their characters and end as
mere mouthpieces of the author ; dramatis personae that belong
to one vision suddenly begin to speak and act in a later one as if
they had been present all the time; others disappear even more
mysteriously than they come.

B^s Continuation of the Poems 25

Even the first of the added visions shows nearly all these
peculiarities. At the beginning of passus xi, continuing the con-
versation of passus X, Scripture scorns the author and he begins
to weep. Forgetting that he is already asleep and dreaming, the
author represents himself as falling asleep and dreaming a new
dream. Fortune ravished him alone into the land of Longing
and showed him many marvels in a mirror called Mydlerd {i.e.
the World). Following Fortune were two fair damsels, Con-
cupiscencia-carnis and Covetyse-of-eyes, who comforted him, and
promised him love and lordship. Age warned liim, but Reckless-
ness and Fauntelte (Childishness) made sport of the warning.
Concupiscence ruled him, to the grief of Age and Holiness, and
Covetyse comforted him forty-five years, telling him that, while
Fortune was his friend, friars would love and absolve him. He
followed her guidance till he forgot youth and ran into age, and
Fortune was his foe. The friars forsook hint The reader expects
to learn that this is because of his poverty, but, apparently, another
idea has displaced this in the author's mind ; for the reason given
by him is that he said he would be buried at his parish church.
For this, the friars held him a fool and loved him the less. He
replied that they would not care where his body was buried
provided they had his silver — a strange reply in view of the
poverty into which he had fallen — and asked why they cared more
to confess and to bury than to baptise, since baptism is needful
for salvation. Lewte (Loyalty) looked upon him, and he loured.
' Why dost thou lour ? ' said Lewte. * If I durst avow this dream
among men?' *Yea,' said he. 'They will cite "Judge not I'"
said the author.

Of what service were Law if no one used it ? It is lawful for lajrmcn to
tell the truth, except parsons and priests and prelates of holy church ; it is
not fitting for them to tell tales, though the tale were true, if it touched sin.
What is known to everybody, why shouldst thou spare to declare ; but be not
the first to blame a fault. Though thou see evil, tell it not first ; be sorry it
were not amended. Thing that is secret, publish it never; neither laud it for
love nor blame it for envy.

'He speaks truth,* said Scripture (who belongs not to thisj
vision but to the preceding), and skipped on high and preached-
'But the subject she discussed, if laymen knew it, they would
love it the less, I believe. This was her theme and her text:
" Many were summoned to a feast, and, when they were come, the
porter plucked in a few and let the rest go away." ' Thereupon
the author begins a long discussion with himself on predestination.

It is obvious that such writmg as this defies analytical

26 Piers the Plowman and its Seque72ce

presentation ; and this is no isolated or rare instance. In certain
passages where the author is following a narrative already
organised for him, as in the rat-parliament of the prologue, or
the account of the life of Christ in passus xvi, the rambling is
less marked ; but, if the narrative is long or elaborate, the author
soon loses sight of the plan, as may be seen in the curious treat-
ment, in passus xix and xx, of the themes derived from The
Castle of Love. In the instance last cited, the hopeless wandering
occurs on so large a scale that it appears even in the synopses
prepared by Skeat and others. Of the instances which disappear
in synopsis, one of the most interesting is that of Activa-Vita, in
passus XIII and xiv. Skeat's synopsis is as follows: 'Soon they
meet with one Activa-Vita, who is a minstrel and seller of wafers.
Patience instructs Activa-Vita, and declares that beggars shall
have joy hereafter.' But the significant features are here omitted.
Activa-Vita is the honest labourer, who provides bread for every-
body, but, because he cannot please lords with lies and lewd jests,
receives little reward. He is the friend and follower of Piers the
Plowman. Yet, since he is Activa-Vita, in contact Mith the world,
he is not spotless. The author therefore begins to teU us of the
spots on Activa- Vita's coat, and, naturally, distributes them in the
categories of the seven deadly sins. As soon as he enters upon
this task he is perfectly helpless ; he cannot control himself or his
conceptions ; and, consequently, he represents poor Activa-Vita as
guilty of every one of the sins in its most wicked and vilest
forms. The author of the C-text removed these passages to the
confessions that followed the preaching of Conscience in the
second vision, possibly, as Skeat thinks, in order to bring together
passages of similar content and treatment, but, possibly, because
such a contradiction in the character of Activa-Vita was too
gross and glaring.

Recognising, then, the limitations with which every synopsis of
the continuation by B must be received, we may say, briefly, that B
adds seven visions, two and a fraction devoted to Do-well, two and
a fraction to Do-better and two to Do-best. In the first (passus
xi) there is no allegorical action ; the dreamer meets various
allegorical characters, such as Fortune, Recklessness, Nature and
Reason, and hears them talk or talks himself either to them or
to his readers. The subjects discussed are, as we have seen, very
various ; but chief among them are predestination, the value of
poverty, incompetent priests and man's failure to follow reason as
animals do. Following this, but not a vision, though it is dis-

B's Contmuation of the Poems 27

tinguished from one only by the fact that the author is awake,
is a long disquisition by Imaginative, containing views concerning
the dangers and the value of learning and wealth very different
from those expressed in A XL The second vision begins with
a dinner, given by Reason, at which are present the di-eamer,
Conscience, Clergy, Patience and a doctor of the church. Again
there is no allegorical action; the dinner is only a device to
bring together the disputants, who discuss theological subtleties.
Following the dinner comes the interview with Activa-Vita de-
scribed above. Conscience and Patience then instruct Activa-Vita
to make amends by contrition and confession, and discuss at great
length the benefits of poverty. The next vision is notable, though
not unique, in containing a vision within a vision. In the first
part (passus xv) Anima (also called Will, Reason, Love, Con-
science, etc., an entirely different character from the Anima of
A ix) discourses for 600 lines, mainly on knowledge, charity and
the corruptions of the age due to the negligence of prelates; in
the second part, when Anima, after describing the tree of Charity,
says that it is under the care of Piers the Plo^vman, the dreamer
swoons, for joy, into a dream, in which he sees Piers and the tree,
and hears a long account of the fruits of the tree which gradually
becomes a narrative of the birth and betrayal of Christ. At the
close of this he wakes, and wanders about, seeking Piers, and
meets with Abraham (or Faith), who expounds the Trinity; they
are joined by Spes (Hope) ; and a Samaritan (identified with Jesus)
cares for a wounded man whom neither Faith nor Hope will help.
After this, the Samaritan expounds the Trinity, passing uninten-
tionally to an exposition of mercy; and the dreamer wakes. In
the next vision (passus xix) he sees Jesus in the armour of Piers
ready to joust with Death ; but, instead of the jousting, we have
an account of the crucifixion, the debate of the Four Daughters of
God and the harrowing of hell. He wakes and writes his dream,
and, immediately, sleeps again and dreams that Piers, painted
all bloody and like to Christ, appears. Is it Jesus or Piers?
Conscience tells him that these are the colours and coat-armour of
Piers, but he that comes so bloody is Christ. A discussion ensues
on the comparative merits of the names Christ and Jesus, followed
by an account of the life of Clirist. Piers is Peter (or the church),
to whom are given four oxen (the evangelists) and four horses
(the four fathers of the church) and four seeds to sow. A house.
Unity, is built to store the grain, and is attacked by Pride and his
host; but this is forgotten in the episodes of the brewer's refusal

2 8 Piers the Plowman a7id its Sequence

to partake of the Sacrament, the vicar's attack on the cardinals
and the justification by the king and lords of their own exactions.
The dreamer wakes and encounters Need, who gives him in-
struction very similar to that of Conscience in the preceding
dream. Falling asleep again, he has a vision of the attack of
Antichrist and Pride and their hosts upon Unity, which insensibly
becomes an attack by Death upon all mankind, varied by certain
actions of Life, Fortune, Sloth, Despair, Avarice and the friar
Flattery. Conscience, hard beset by Pride and Sloth, calls vainly
for help to Contrition, and, seizing his stafij starts out on a search
for Piers the Plowman. ^Vhereupon the dreamer wakes.

Some scholars have regarded the poem as unfinished; others,
as showing by the nature of its ending the pessimism of the
author. It is true that it ends unsatisfactorily, and that one or
more visions might well have been added ; but it may be doubted
whether the author ever could have written an ending that would
have been artistically satisfactory. He had, as we have seen, no
skill in composition, no control of his materials or his thought.
The latter part of the poem is supposed to be devoted in regular
order to Do-well, Do-better and Do-best; but it may be said,
without injustice, that these subjects determine neither the nature
of the main incidents nor the manner in which they are developed,
and that what the author himself would doubtless have cited as
the supreme expression of his view of Do-well, Do-better and
Do-best occurs early in the vision of Do-well — I mean, of course,
the famous Disce, Doce, Dilige, taught to Patience by his leman,
Love. He could never have been sure of reserving to the end
of his poem the subjects with which he intended to end, or of
ceasing to write at the point at which he wished to cease. It
remains curious, nevertheless, and, perhaps, significant, in view of
the continual recurrence in the work of B of invectives against
the corruptions of the age, that the poem does end with the
triumph of Antichrist, and that there is no hint, as in Kirchmayer's
Pammachius, of preparations for his defeat and the coming of an
age of endless peace and good.

The reader who has been impressed with what has been said
about the vagueness and lack of definite organisation and move-
ment in B's work may be inclined to ask. What merits are his
and what claim has he upon our interests? The reply is that
his merits are very great indeed, being no less than those rated
highest by previous students of the poems — Skeat, Jusserand,
ten Brink, Henry Morley and a host of others. The very lack of

The Merits of B's Work 29

control, wliich is his most serious defect as an artist, serves to
emphasise most convincingly his sincerity and emotional power, by
the inevitableness with wliich, at every opportunity, he di-ifts back
to the subjects that lie nearest his heart. Writing, as he did,
without a definite plan and without power of self-direction, he
touched, we may feel sure, not merely all subjects that were
germane to his purpose, as a better artist would have done, but all
that interested him deeply ; and he touched most frequently those
that interested him most. These subjects are, as is well known,
the corruptions in the church, chiefly, perhaps, among the friars,
but also, in no small measure, among the beneficed clergy; the
dangers of riches and the excellence of poverty ; the brotherhood
of man; and the sovereign quality of love. To these should be
added the idealisation of Piers the Plowman, elusive as are the
forms which this idealisation often assumes. On the other hand,
great as is the interest in political theory displayed by the author
in the passages inserted in the prologue, this is not one of the
subjects to which he constantly reverts ; indeed, the only passage
(xix, 462 — 476) on this subject in the later passus touches it so
lightly as to suggest that the author's interest in it at this time
was very slight The frequency with which subjects recur is, of
course, not the only indication of the sincerity and depth of the
author's interest; the vividness and power of expression are
equally significant.

'Let some sudden emotion fill his soul,' says Jusserand, *....and we shall
wonder at the grandeur of his eloquence. Some of his simplest expressions
are real trouvailles ; he penetrates into the innermost recesses of our hearts,
and then goes on his way, and leares us pondering and thoughtful, filled
with awe.'

Such are:

And mysbede (mistreat) nonste thi bonde-men, the better may thow

spede.
Thowgh he be thyn underlynge here, wel may happe in hevene,
That he worth (shall be) worthier sette, and with more blisse,
Than thow, bot thou do bette, and live as thow sulde;
For in charael atte chirche cherles ben yrel to knowe,
Or a kni3te from a knave, — knowe this in thin herte. vi, 46 ff.

For alle are we Crystes creatures, and of his coffres riche,

And brethren as of o (one) blode, as wel beggares as erles. xi, 192 fif.

Pore peple, thi prisoneres, Lord, in the put (pit) of myschief,

Conforte tho creatures that moche care sufiEren,

Thorw derth, thorw drouth, alle her dayes here,

Wo in wynter tymes for wanting of clothes,

wAjad in somer tyme selde (seldom) soupen to the fnlle;

Comforte thi careful, Cryst, in thi ryche (kingdom) 1 xrv, 174 ff.

30 Piers the Plowman and its Sequence

The date usually assigned to the C-text is 1393 — 8. The only
evidence of any value is the passage iv, 203 — 210, in which the
author warns the king of the results of his alienation of the
confidence and affection of his people. This, Skeat takes to be
an allusion to the situation after the quarrel between the king
and the Londoners in 1392; and, consequently, he selects 1393 as
the approximate date of the poem, though he admits that it may
be later. Jusserand argues that this local quarrel, which was soon
composed, does not suit the lines of the poem as well as does the
general dissatisfaction of 1397 — 9; and he, therefore, suggests
1398 — 9 as the date. Jusserand's view seems the more probable;
but, even so early as 1386, parliament sent to inform the king that

si rex . . . nee voluerit per jura regni et statuta ac laudihiles ordinationes
cum saluhri consilio dominorum et procerum regni guhernari et regulari,
sed capitose in suis insanis consiliis propriam voluntatetn suam singularem
pi'oterve exej'cere, extunc licttum est eis..,,regem de regali solio ahrogare.

(Knighton, ii, 219.)

Of the changes and additions made by C we can here say very
little, mainly for the reason that they are numerous, and small,
and not in pursuance of any well-defined plan. There are multi-
tudinous alterations of single words or phrases, sometimes to
secure better alliteration, sometimes to get rid of an archaic word,
sometimes to modify an opinion, but often for no discoverable
reason, and, occasionally, resulting in positive injury to the style
or the thought Certain passages of greater or less length are
entirely or largely rewritten, rarely for any important modification
of view ; never, perhaps, with any betterment of style. At times,
one is tempted to think they were rewritten for the mere sake
of rewriting, but many whole pages are left practically untouched.
Transpositions occur, sometimes resulting in improvement, some-
times in confusion. Excisions or omissions may be noted which
seem to have been made because C did not approve of the
sentiments of the omitted passages ; but there are other omissions
which cannot be accounted for on this ground or on that of any
artistic intention. The additions are all of the nature of elabora-
tions or expansions and insertions. Some of these have attracted
much attention as giving information concerning the life and
character of the dreamer or author; these will be dealt with
below. Others give us more or less valuable hints of the views
and interests of the writer; such are: the passage accusing priests
of image worship and of forging miracles ; an account of the fall
of Lucifer, with speculations as to why he made his seat in the

T^he Author of the C-text 3 1

north; an attack on regraters; the long confused passage^ com-
paring the two kinds of meed to grammatical relations. Still
others modify, in certain respects, the opinions expressed in the
B-text. For example, xv, 30 — 32 indicates a belief in astrology
out of harmony with the earlier condemnation of it ; the attitude
on free-will in xi, 51 — 55 and xvii, 158 — 182 suggests that, unlike B,
and the continuator of A, C rejected the views of Bradwardine on
grace and predestination ; several passages on riches and the rich^
show a certain eagerness to repudiate any such condemnation of
the rich as is found in B; and, finally, not only is the striking
passage in B^, cited above, in regard to the poor, omitted, but,
instead of the indiscriminate almsgiving insisted upon by B, C dis-
tinctly condemns it* and declares^ that charity begins at home —
* Help thi kynne, Crist bit (bids), for ther begynneth charite.'

On the whole, it may be said that the author of the C-text
seems to have been a man of much learning, of true piety and
of genuine interest in the welfare of the nation, but unimagina-
tive, cautious and a very pronounced pedant.

The reader may desire a justification, as brief as possible, of
the conclusion assumed throughout this chapter that the poems
known under the title, Piers the Plowman, are not the work of
a single author. So much of the necessary proof has already been
furnished in the exposition of the difierent interests and methods
and mental qualities displayed in the several parts of the work
that little more will be necessary. The problem seems very
simple: the differences pointed out — and others which cannot
be discussed here — do exist; in the absence of any real reason
to assume that all parts of this cluster of poems are the work
of a single author, is it not more probable that several writers
had a hand in it than that a single wi-iter passed through the
series of great and numerous changes necessary to account for the
phenomena ? To this question an affirmative ansAver will, I think,
be given by any one who wiU take the trouble to examine sepa-
rately the work of A {i.e. A, proL — passus viii), the continuator
of A (A, IX — XII, 55), B and C — that is, to read carefully any
passages of fifty or a hundred lines showing the work of each of
these authors unmixed with lines from any of the others. In such
an examination, besides the larger matters discussed throughout
this chapter, the metre and the sentence structure will repay

^ IV, 335. a xm, 154—247; xiv, 2&— 100 ; xnil, 21; xx, 232-246.

» XIV, 174—180. < X, 71—281. o xvin, 58—71.

32 Piers the Plowman and its Sequence

special attention. The system of scansion used \\-ill make no
difference in the result; but that expounded by Luick will bring
out the differences most clearly. It wiU be found that the writers
differ in their conceptions of the requirements of alliterative verse,
A being nearest to the types established by Luick, both in regard
to stresses and secondary stresses and in regard to alliteration.
This can be most easily tested by Luick's plan of considering
separately the second-half-lines. Another interesting test is that
of the use of the visual imagination. A presents to his own
mind's eye and to that of his reader distinct visual images of
figures, of groups of figures and of great masses of men ; it is he
who, as Jusserand says, 'excels in the difficult art of conveying
the impression of a multitude.' A also, through his remarkable
faculty of visual imagination, always preserves his point of view,
and, when he moves his action beyond the limits of his original
scene, causes his reader to foUow the movement ; best of aU for
the modern reader, he is able, by this faculty, to make his allegory
vital and interesting ; for, though the world long ago lost interest
in personified abstractions, it has never ceased to care for signi-
ficant symbolical action and utterance. On the other hand, B,
though capable of phrases which show, perhaps, equal power of
visualising detail, is incapable of visualising a group or of keeping
his view steady enough to imagine and depict a developing action.
The continuator of A and the reviser C show clearly that their
knowledge of the world, their impressions of things, are derived
in very slight measure, if at all, from visual sensations. These
conclusions are not invalidated, but rather strengthened, by the
fondness of B and C and the continuator of A for similes and
illustrations, such as never appear in A

Moreover, the number of instances should be noted in which
B has misunderstood A or spoiled his picture, or in which C has
done the same for B. Only a few examples can be given here.
In the first place, B has such errors as these: in ii, 21 ff. Lewte
is introduced as the leman of the lady Holy Church and spoken
of as feminine; in li, 25, False, instead of Wrong, is father of
Meed, but is made to marry her later; in ii, 74ff: B does not
understand that the feoffment covers precisely the provinces of
the seven deadly sins, and, by elaborating the passage, spoils the
imity of the intention; in ii, 176, B has forgotten that the bishops
are to accompany Meed to Westminster, and represents them as
borne 'abrode in visytynge,' etc., etc. Worst of all, perhaps,
B did not notice that, by the loss or displacement of a leaf be-

Parallel Passages 33

tween A, V, 235, 236, the confessions of Sloth and Robert the

Robber had been absurdly run together ; or that in A, vii, 71 — 74

the names of the wife and children of Piers, originally written in

the margin opposite 11. 89 — 90 by some scribe, had been absui'dly

introduced into the text, to the interruption and confusion of the

remarks of Piers in regard to his preparations for his journey.

Of C's failures to understand B two instances will suffice. In the

prologue, 11 — 16, B has taken over from A a vivid picture of

the valley of the first vision:

Thanne gan I to meten a merveilouse swevene,
That I was in a •wildernesse, wist I never where;
As I behelde in-to the est an hiegh to the sonne,
I seigh a toure on a toft, trielich ymaked;
A dei)e dale benethe, a dongeon there-inne,
With depe dyches and derke and dredful of sight.

C spoils the picture thus:

And merveylously me mette, as ich may sow telle;

Al the welthe of this worlde and the woo bothe,

Wynkyng, as it were, wyterly ich saw hyt,

Of tryuthe and of tricherye, of tresoun and of gyle,

Al ich saw slepynge, as ich shal 3ow telle.

E steward ich byhulde, after the sonne,

And sawe a toure, as ich trowede, truthe was ther-ynne;

Westwarde ich waitede, in a whyle after,

And sawe a deep dale; deth, as ich lyuede,

Wonede in tho wones, and wyckede spiritos.

The man who wrote the former might, conceivably, in the decay

of his faculties write a passage like the latter ; but he could not,

conceivably, have spoiled the former, if he had ever been able to

write it. Again, in the famous rat-parliament, the rat 'renable

of tonge' says:

I have ysein segges in the cite of London

Beren bises fol briste abouten here nekkes,

And some colers of crafty werk; uncoupled thei wenden

Bothe in wareine and in waste, where hem leve lyketh;

And otherwhile thei aren elles-where, as I here telle.

Were there a belle on here bei3, bi Ihesu, as me thynketh,

Men my3te wite where thei went, and awei renne!

B, Prol. 160-6.

Clearly the 'segges' he has seen wearing collars about their
necks in warren and in waste are dogs. C, curiously enough,
supposed them to be men:

Ich have yseie grete syres in cytees and in tounes
Bere byBes of bryjt gold al aboute hure neckes,
And colers of crafty werke, bothe knystes and squiers.
Were ther a belle on hure byje, by lesus, as me thynketh,
Men myste wite wher thei weuten, and hure wey roume!

E. L. II. CH. I. 3

34 Piers the Plowman and its Sequence

Other misunderstandings of equal significance exist in con-
siderable number; these must suffice for the present I may add
that a careftd study of the MSS will show that between A, B
and C there exist dialectical differences incompatible with the
supposition of a single author. This can be easily tested in the
case of the pronouns and the verb are.

With the recognition that the poems are the work of several
authors, the questions concerning the character and name of the
author assume a new aspect. It is readily seen that the supposed
autobiographical details, given mainly by B and C, are, as Jack
conclusively proved several years ago, not genuine, but mere parts
of the fiction. Were any confirmation of his results needed, it
might be found in the fact that the author gives the names of
his wife and daughter as Kitte and Kalote. Kitte, if alone, might
not arouse suspicion, but, when it is joined with Kalote (usually
spelled * callet '), there can be no doubt that both are used as typical
names of lewd women, and are, therefore, not to be taken literally
as the names of the author's wife and daughter. The picture of the
dreamer, begun by A in prologue, 2, continued by the continuator
in IX, 1 and elaborated by B and C, is only a poetical device,
interesting in itself but not significant of the character or social
position of any of these authors. Long Will, the dreamer, is, ob-
viously, as much a creation of the muse as is Piers the Plowman.

What shall we say of the name, William Langland, so long
connected with the poems ? One MS of the C-text has a note in
a fifteenth century hand (but not early):

Memorandum^ quod Stacy de Rokayle, pater Willielmi de Langlond,
qui 4Stacius fuit generosus et morabatur in Schiptone under fVhicwode,
tenens domini le Spenser in coniitatu Oxon., qui praedictus JVillielmtis
fecit librum qui vacatur Perys Ploughman,

Another fifteenth century note in a MS of the B-text says:
'Robert or William langland made pers ploughman.' And three
MSS of the C-text (one, not later than 1427) give the author's name
as 'Willelmus W.' Skeat is doubtless right in his suggestion that
the name Robert arose from a misreading of C, xi, 1; but he
and Jusserand find in B, XV, 148:

I have lyved in londe, quod I, my name is long wille,

confirmation of the first note quoted above. It is possible, how-
ever, that this is really the source of the name. Curiously enough,
this line is omitted by C, either because he wished to suppress
it or because he did not regard it as significant Furthermore,

yohn But 35

Pearson showed pretty conclusively that, if the author was the son
of Stacy de Rokayle (or Rokesle) of Shipton-under-Wychwood, his
name, if resembling Langland at all, would have been Langley.
If this were the case, Willelmus W. might, obviously, mean William
of Wychwood, as Morley suggested, and be merely an alternative
designation of William Langley — a case similar to that of the
Robertus Langelye, alias Robertus Parterick, capellanus, who died
in 19 Richard II, possessed of a messuage and four shops in the
Flesh-shambles, a tenement in the Old Fish-market and an
interest in a tenement in Staining-lane, and who may, con-
ceivably, have had some sort of connection with the poems.
It is possible, of course, that these early notices contain a
genuine, even if contused, record of one or more of the men
concerned in the composition of these poems. One thing, alone,
is clear, that Will is the name given to the figure of the
dreamer by four, and, possibly, aU five, of the writers ; but it
is not entirely certain that A reaUy meant to give him a name.
Henry Bradley has, in a private letter, called my attention to
certain facts which suggest that WiU may have been a conventional
name in alliterative poetry.

If we cannot be entirely certain of the name of any of these
writers except John But, can we determine the social position of
any of them ? John But was, doubtless, a scribe, or a minstrel like
the author of Wynnere and Wastoure. B, C and the continuator
of A seem, from their knowledge and theological interests, to
have been clerics, and, from their criticisms of monks and friars,
to have been of the secular clergy. C seems inclined to tone
down criticisms of bishops and the higher clergy, and is a better
scholar than either the continuator of A (who translated non
mecaheris by 'slay not' and tabesceham by *I said nothing')
or B (who accepted without comment the former of these errors).
A, as has been shown already, exempts from his satire no order
of society except monks, and may himseK have been one ; but,
as he exhibits no special theological knowledge or interests, he
may have been a layman.

In one of the MSS of the B-text occurs a fragment of a poem
which is usually associated with Piers the Plowman. It has no
title in the MS and was called by its first editor, Thomas Wright,
A Poem on the Deposition of Richard II ; but Skeat, when he
re-edited it in 1873 and 1886, objected to this title as being

3—2

36 Piers the Plowman and its Sequence

inaccurate, and re-named it Richard the Reckless, from the first
words of passus I. Henry Bradley has recently called attention
to the fact that it was known to Nicholas Brigham in the first
part of the sixteenth century as Mum, Sothsegger {i.e. Hush,
Ti'uthteller). There can be no doubt that this was, as Bradley
suggests, the ancient title ; for it is not such a title as would have
been chosen either by Brigham or by Bale, who records it. The
copy seen by Brigham, as it had a title, cannot have been the
fragmentary copy that is now the only one known to us. Wright
regarded the poem as an imitation of Piers the Plowman ; Skeat
imdertook to prove, on the basis of diction, dialect, metre, state-
ments in the text itself, etc., that it was the work of the same
author. But claims of authorship made in these poems are not
conclusive, as will be seen in the discussion of the Ploughman's
Tale ; and the resemblances in external form, in dialect, in versi-
fication, etc., on which Skeat relies, are not greater than might
be expected of an imitator, while there are such numerous and
striking differences in diction, versification, sentence structure and
processes of thought from every part of Piers the Plowman, that
identity of authorship seems out of the question. The poem, as
has been said, is a fragment ; and Skeat thinks that it may have
been left mifinished by the author in consequence of the de-
position of Richard. But the ]\IS in which it is found is not the
original, but a copy ; and the prologue seems to imply that the poem
had been completed when the prologue was written. The author
professes to be a loyal subject and friendly adviser of Richard,
but the tone of the poem itself is strongly partisan to Henry
of Lancaster, and, curiously enough, nearly all the remarks in
regard to Richard imply that his rule was entirely at an end.
This latter fact is, of course, not incompatible with Skeat's view
that the poem was written between the capture and the formal
deposition of Richard, i.e. between 18 August and 20 September
1399. As to the form and contents of the poem, it is not a vision,
but consists of a prologue, reciting the circumstances of its com-
position, and three passus and part of a fourth, setting forth the
errors and wrongs of Richard's rule. Passus i is devoted to
the misdeeds of his favourites. Passus 11 censures the crimes of
his retainers (the Wliite Harts) against the people, and his own
folly in failing to cherish such men as Westmoreland (the Grey-
hound), while Henry of Lancaster (the Eagle) was strengthening
his party. Passus iii relates the unnaturalness of the White
Harts in attacking the Colt, the Horse, the Swan and the Bear,

Wynnere and Wastoure 37

with the return of the Eagle for vengeance, and then digresses
into an attack upon the luxury and unwisdom of Richard's
youthful counsellors. Passus iv continues the attack upon the
extravagance of the court, and bitterly condemns the corrupt
parliament of 1397 for its venality and cowardice.

The influence of Piers the Ploioman was wide-spread and
long-continued. There had been many satires on the abuses of
the time (see "Wright's Political Poems and Political Songs and
Poems), some of them far bitterer than any part of these poems,
but none equal in learning, in literary skill and, above all, none
that presented a figure so captivating to the imagination as the
figure of the Ploughman. From the evidence accessible to us it
would seem that this popularity was due, in large measure, to the
B-text, or, at least, dated from the time of its appearance, though,
according to my view, the B-text itself and the continuation
of A were due to the impressiveness of the first two visions of
the A-text

Before discussing the phenomena certainly due to the influence
of these poems, we must devote a few lines to two interesting but
doubtful cases. In 1897, Gollancz edited for the Roxburghe Club
two important alliterative poems, TM Parlement of the Thre
Ages and WyuTiere and Wastoure, both of which begin in a manner
suggestive of the beginning of Piers the Plowman, and both of
which contain several lines closely resembling lines in the B-text
of that poem. The lines in question seem, from their better re-
lation to the context, to belong originally to Piers the Plovmian
and to have been copied from it by the other poems; if there
were no other evidence, these poems would, doubtless, be placed
among those suggested by it ; but there is other evidence. Wynnere
a/nd Wastoure contains two allusions that seem to fix its date at
c. 1350, and The Parlement seems to be by the same author. The
two allusions are to the twenty-fifth year of Edward III (L 206),
and to William de Shareshull as chief baron of the exchequer
(L 317). The conclusion is, apparently, inevitable that the imita-
tion is on the part of Piers the Plowman. In The Parlement the
author goes into the woods to hunt, kills a deer and hides it.
Then, falling asleep, he sees in a vision three men, Youth, Middle-
Age and Age, clad, respectively, in green, grey and black, who
dispute concerning the advantages and disadvantages of the ages
they represent Age relates the histories of the Nine Worthies,

38 Piers the Plowman and its Sequence

and declares that all is vanity. He hears the bugle of Death sum-
moning him, and the author wakes. In Wynnere and Wastoure
the author, a wandering minstrel, after a prologue bewailing the
degeneracy of the times and the small respect paid to the author
of a romance, tells how

Als I went in the weste wandrynge myn one,
Bi a bonke of a bourne bryghte was the sonne.

I layde myn hede one an hill ane hawthorne besyde.

And I was swythe in a sweven sweped belyve;
Methoghte I was in a werlde, I ne wiste in whate ende.

He saw two armies ready to fight ; and
At the create of a cliffe a caban was rered,

ornamented with the colours and motto of the order of the
Garter, in which was the king, whose permission to fight was
awaited The king forbade them to fight and summoned the
leaders before him. There is a brilliant description of the em-
battled hosts. The two leaders are Wynnere and Wastoure, who
accuse each other before the king of having caused the distress
of the kingdom. The end of the poem is missing. Both poems
are of considerable power and interest in themselves, and are
even more significant as suggesting, what is often forgotten, that
the fourteenth century was a period of great and wide-spread
intellectual activity, and that poetical ability was not rare.

Not in the metre of Piers the Plowman, but none the less
significant of the powerful hold which the figure of the Plowman
obtained upon the English people, are the doggerel letters of the
insurgents of 1381, given by Walsingham and Knighton, and re-
printed by Maurice and Trevelyan. Trevelyan makes a suggestion
which has doubtless occurred independently to many others, that
* Piers Plowman may perhaps be only one characteristic fragment
of a medieval folk-lore of allegory, which expressed for genera-
tions the faith and aspirations of the English peasant, but of
which Langland's great poem alone has survived.' One would like
to believe this ; but the mention of * do well and "better ' in the
same letter with Piers Plowman makes it practically certain
that the writer had in mind the poems known to us and not
merely a traditional allegory; though it may well be that Piers
the Plowman belonged to ancient popular tradition.

Next in order of time was, doubtless, the remarkable poem
called Peres the Ploughmans Crede, which Skeat assigns to 'not

The Crede and the Tale 39

long after the latter part of 1393.' The versification is imitated
from Pier» the Plowman, and the theme, as well as the title, was
clearly suggested by it. It is, however, not a vision, but an account
of the author's search for some one to teach him his creed. He
visits each of the orders of friars. Each abuses the rest and
praises his own order, urging the inquirer to contribute to it
and trouble himself no more about his creed. But he sees
too much of their worldliness and wickedness, and refuses. At
last, he meets a plain, honest ploughman, who delivers a long
and bitter attack upon friars of all orders, and, finally, teaches
the inquirer the much desired creed. The poem is notable, not
only for the vigour of its satire, but also for the author's re-
markable power of description.

With the Crede is often associated the long poem known as
The Ploughman's Tale. This was first printed, in 1542 or 1535,
in Chaucer's works and assigned to the Ploughman. That it was
not written by Chaucer has long been known, but, until recently,
it has been supposed to be by the author of the Crede. The poem,
though containing much alliteration, is not in alliterative verse,
but in rimed stanzas, and is entirely diflerent in style from the
Crede. The differences are such as indicate that it could not
have been written by the author of that poeuL It has recently
been proved by Henry Bradley, that very considerable parts of
the poem, including practically all the imitations of the Crede,
were written in the sixteenth century. These passages were also
independently recognised as interpolations by York Powell and this
was communicated privately to Skeat, who now accepts Bradley's
conclusions. Bradley thinks that the poem may contain some
genuine stanzas of a Lollard poem of the fourteenth century, but
that it underwent two successive expansions in the sixteenth
century, both with the object of adapting it to contemporary
controversy. The relation of even the fourteenth century portion
to Piers the Plowman is very remote.

Three pieces belonging to the Wyclifite controversy, which also
bear a more or less remote relation to Piers the Plowman, are
ascribed by their editor, Thomas Wright, to 1401, and by Skeat,
who re-edited the first of them, to 1402. The first of them, called
Jacke Upland, is a violent attack upon the friars by one of the
Wyclifite party. By John Bale, who rejected as wrong the attri-
bution of it to Chaucer, it is, with equal absurdity, attributed to
Wyclif himsel£ There is some alliteration in the piece, which
made Wright suppose it to have been originally written in

40 Piers the Plowman and its Sequence

alliterative verse. Skeat denies that it was ever intended as
verse, and he seems to be right in this, though his repudiation of
Wright's suggestion that our copy of the piece is corrupt is hardly
borne out by the evidence. The second piece, Tlie, Reply of Friar
Daw Thopias, is a vigorous and rather skilful answer to Jacke
Upland. The author, himself a friar, is not content to remain
on the defensive, but tries to shift the issue by attacking the
Lollards. According to the explicit of the MS the author was
John Walsingham, who is stated by Bale to have been a Carmelite.
This piece is in very rude alliterative verse. The Rejoinder of
JoAike Upland, which is preserved in the same MS with the Reply,
is of the same general character as Jacke Upland, though, perhaps
through the influence of the Reply, it contains a good deal more
alliteration. None of these pieces has any poetical merit, but all
are vigorous and interesting examples of the popular religious
controversy of the day.

Very evidently due to the influence of Piers the Ploumian is
a short alliterative poem of 144 lines, addressed, apparently, to
Henry V in 1415, and called by Skeat, its editor, The Crowned
King. In a vision the author looks down into a deep dale, where
he sees a multitude of people and hears a crowned king ask his
commons for a subsidy for his wars; to the king a clerk kneels,
and, having obtained leave to speak, urges him to cherish his
people and beware of evil counsellors and of avarice. The piece
is sensible and well written, but is entirely lacking in special
poetical quality.

Of entirely uncertain date is an interesting allegorical poem
called Death and Liffe, preserved in the Percy Folio MS. Its
relation to Piers the Plowman is obvious and unmistakable. In
a vision, closely modelled on the vision of the prologue, the poet
witnesses a strife between the lovely lady Dame Life and the foul
freke Dame Death, which was clearly suggested by the 'Vita de
Do-best* of Piers the Plowman. In spite of its large indebted-
ness to the earlier poem, it is a work of no little originality
and power.

In the same priceless MS is preserved another alliterative
poem, which Skeat regards as the work of the author of Death
and Liffe. It is called The Scotish Feilde and is, in the main,
an account of the battle of Flodden. The author, who describes
himself as *a gentleman, by Jesu' who had his 'bidding place'
'at Bagily* (i.e. at Baggily Hall, Cheshire), was an ardent ad-
herent of the Stanleys and wrote for the specific purpose of

The Fourteenth Century 41

celebrating their glorious exploits at Bosworth Field and at
Flodden. The poem seems to have been written shortly after
Flodden, and, perhaps, rewritten or revised later. That the author
of this poem, spirited chronicle though it be, was capable of the
excellences of Death and Liffe, is hard to believe; the re-
semblances between the poems seem entirely superficial and due
to the fact that they had a common model

The influence of Piers the Plowman lasted, as we have seen,
well into the sixteenth century ; indeed, interest in both the poem
and its central figure was greatly quickened by the supposed
relations between it and Wyclifism. The name or the figure of
the Ploughman appears in innumerable poems and prose writings,
and allusions of all sorts are very conmion. Skeat has given a list
of the most important of these in the fourth volume of his edition
of Piers Plowman for the Early English Text Society.

We are accustomed to regard the fourteenth century as, on
the whole, a dark epoch in the history of England — an epoch
when the corruptions and injustices and ignorance of the Middle
Ages were piling themselves ever higher and higher; when the
Black Death, having devoured half the population of city and
hamlet, was still hovering visibly like a gaunt and terrible vulture
over the afirighted country; when noblemen and gentry heard in
indignant bewilderment the sullen murmur of peasants awakening
into consciousness through pain, with now and then a shriller cry
for vengeance and a sort of blind justice; an epoch when in-
tellectual life was dead or dying, not only in the universities, but
throughout the land. Against this dark background we seemed
to see only two bright figures, that of Chaucer, strangely kindled
to radiance by momentary contact with the renascence, and that
of Wyclif, no less strange and solitary, striving to light the torch
of reformation, which, hastily mufiled by those in authority,
smouldered and sparkled fitfully a hundred years before it burst
into blaze. With them, but farther in the background, scarcely
distinguishable, indeed, from the dark figures among which he
moved, was dimly discerned a gaunt dreamer, clothed in the dull
grey russet of a poor shepherd, now watching with lustreless but
seeing eye the follies and corruptions and oppressions of the great
city, now driven into the wilderness by the passionate protests
of his aching heart, but ever shaping into crude, formless but
powerful visions images of the wrongs and oppressions which he
hated and of the growing hope which, from time to time, was
revealed to his eager eyes.

42 Piers the Plowman aitd its Sequence

That the Black Death was a horrible reality the statistics of
its ravages prove only too well; that there was injustice and
misery, ignorance and intellectual and spiritual darkness, is only
too true ; but the more intimately we learn to know the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries, the more clearly do we see, not only
Grosseteste and Ockham and Richard of Armagh, but a host of
forgotten or nameless men who battled for justice, and kindliness,
and intellectual and spiritual light; and our study of the Piers
the Plowman cluster of poems has shown us that that confused
voice and that mighty vision were the voice and vision, not of
one lonely, despised wanderer, but of many men, who, though of
diverse tempers and gifts, cherished the same enthusiasm for
righteousness and hate for evlL

CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A. AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

0)

U\\( f i«vs ilottiman aiffnti[oiicrsg

Original Series, 139 b, c, d, e.
1910.

BERLIN : ASHER & CO., 13, UNTER DEN LINDEN.

NEW YORK : C. SCRIBNER & CO. ; LEYPOLDT & HOLT.

PHILADELPHIA: J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.

cr

8^ it^rs piottimim dfontrorpn

No. 139 6. PIERS PLOWMAN
THE WORK OF ONE OR OF FIVE

DR. J. J. JUSSERAND'S FIRST REPLY TO PROF. MANLY.

From Modern Philology, January 1909, p. 1-59.

No. 139 c. PROFESSOR J. M. MANLY'S
ANSWER TO DR. J. J. JUSSERAND.

From Modern Philology, June 1909 (p. 3-144), p. 1-62.

J±.

No. 139 d. DR. JUSSERAND'S
SECOND REPLY TO PROF. MANLY.

From Modern Philologn, January 1910 (p. 189-326), p. 1-38.

No. 139 e. THE AUTHORSHIP OF PIERS PLOWMAN

By R. W. chambers.

From The Modern Language Revieiv, January 1910, p. 1-32.

PUBLISHED FOR THE EARLY ENGLISH TEXT SOCIETY
BY KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., Ltd.,

DRYDEN HOUSE, 43 GERRARD STREET, SOHO, LONDON, W.

AND BY HENRY FROWDE, OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS,

AMEN CORNER, E.G., AND IN NEW YORK.
1910.

©rigiixnl Smes, No. I:'i9 b, c, d, e.

EICHAED CLAY & SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BUNGAY.

(1^

FOREWORDS

The exceptional importance of Prof. Manly's challenge to the
traditional authorship of Piers Plowman, — growing, as it did, out
of the E. E. Text Soc.'s fine edition of the three Versions of the
Poem by Prof Skeat, — -justified the Extra Issue of No. 135 6 in the
Original Series, the Offprint of Prof Manly's Chapter on " Piers the
Ploivman and its Sequence " from vol. ii of The Cambridge History/
of English Literature — with the Forewords prefixt to it, by Prof.
Manly, Dr. Hy. Bradley and myself. But Dr. J. J. Jusserand, whose
excellent works on Piers Ploioman and on English Literature are
so well known, refused to accept the conclusions of Prof Manly,
Dr. Henry Bradley and me, and made a spirited and brilliant
attack on them in Modern Philology. This, Prof. Manly answerd,
and Dr. Jusserand replied to his Answer.

Meantime Mr. R. W. Chambers and Mr. J. G. H. Grattan had
been collating all the MSS. of the A Text of the Poem, and had
found that a new edition of it was absolutely necessary to settle
what tlie genuine A Text was; and they will shortly issue Part I
of their work, for the E. E. T. S., with the full concurrence of Prof.
Skeat. Mr. Chambers had also convinst himself that Prof Manly's
view was erroneous ; and that the 3 Texts, A, B, and C, of Piers
Plowman were the work of one and the same man, according to
tradition. He pablisht his Article in The Modern Language Peviciu
for January 1910; and he and the Editors of that Journal have
kindly let us have Offprints of it, though the Pitt Press has sadly
pared them down.

The Editor of Modern Philology and Prof. Manly and Dr.

Forewords

Jusserand have also allowd us to have Offprints of their Papers;
and the two latter scholars have generously borne the cost of them

respectively.

Dr. Hy. Bradley's short Answer to Mr. Chambers will, I hope,
be offprinted soon from The Modern Language Bevieio, and sent
to our Members. The Piers Plowman Controversy will, no doubt,
be a long one.

F. J. FURNIVALL.

3, St. George's Sq., N. W.,
11 March, 1910.

Reprinted from

Modern Philology

Vol. VI January^ ^9^9 No. 5

PIERS PLOWMAN

THE WORK OF ONE OR OF FIVE
I

Next to the Canterbury Tales, the poem usually called Piers
Plowman is the greatest literary work produced by England during
the Middle Ages ; and it was considered so from the first, these
two poems being almost equally popular. Fifty-seven manuscripts
have preserved for us Chaucer's tales ; forty-five Piers Plowman.
This latter work is a unique monument, much more singular and
apart from anything else than Chaucer's masterpiece. It is more
thoroughly English ; of foreign influences on it there are but the
faintest traces. Allegorical as it is, it gives us an image of English
life in the fourteenth century of unsurpassed vividness. If we
had only Chaucer we should know much less ; Chaucer is at his
best when describing individuals; his portraits are priceless. The
author of Piers Plowman concerns himself especially with classes
of men, great political movements, the general aspirations of the
people, the improvements necessary in each class for the welfare
of the nation. Contemporary events and the lessons to be deducted
from them, the hopes, anxieties, problems, and sufferings occupying
his compatriots' minds, are never far from his thoughts : plague,
storms, French wars, question of labor and wages, bishops becoming
royal functionaries, power of the Commons and the king, duties
of the nobles, the priests, the workmen. He does not describe

271] 1 [Modern Philoloov, January, 1009

J. P.P. A

2 J. J. JUSSERAND

them simply to add picturesque touches, but to express what he
feels, and show how the nation should be governed and be morally
improved. He is not above his time, but of it ; he is not a citizen
of the world, but a thoroughgoing Englishman, and nothing else.
Alone in Europe, and, what is more remarkable, alone in his
country, he gives us a true impression of the grandeur of the internal
reform that had been going on in England during the century : the
establishment on a firm basis of that institution, unique then, and
destined to be imitated throughout the world, in both hemispheres
five hundred years later, the Westminster Parliament. The equiva-
lent of such a line as the following one on the power of king, nobles,
and Commons :

Knyghthood hym ladde,
Might of the comunes • made hym to regne,^

can be found nowhere in the whole range of mediaeval literature ; it
has but one real equivalent (inaccessible then to the public), the
Eolls of Parliament.

No one came in any way near this writer; less than any, the
great man who, from the window of his chamber in Aldgate tower,
cast such a friendly look on the world, such a true citizen of it that,
although he had taken part in the French wars, one could, but for
the language, read his whole works without guessing on which side
he had fought. Himself a member of Parliament, he who described
so many men of so many sorts, has not left in the whole series
of his works a line, a word, allowing his readers to suspect the
magnitude of the change England was undergoing; even Froissart
chives a better idea of it than he does. His franklin he describes
as having been " ful ofte tyme " a " knight of the schire," and instead
of something on the part he may have played then, we simply get
thereupon the information that

An aulas and a gipser al of silk

Heng at his gerdul, whit as morne mylk.

Neither of these two great authors is entirely lacking in the qualities
of the other ; but reading Chaucer, we know better what England
looked like ; reading Piei^s Plowman, we know better what she felt,
suffered from, and longed for.

^ B, Prol. 112.

272

Piers Plowman 3

Deeply concerned with the grave problems confronting his
countrymen, the author of Piers Ploivman seems to have been one
of those writers, not a unique case in literature, whose life and book
develop together, the one reflecting necessarily the change that
years and circumstances may have worked in the other. The life
and the book of such men as Montaigne, Rabelais, Tasso, Cervantes,
especially the two former, may be quoted as offering parallelisms of
the same order.

The Piers Plowman visions, made up of a mixture of vague
allegories and intensely vivid realities, deal with three principal
episodes, the main lines of which the author seems to have had in
his mind from the first, the episode of Meed, the episode of Piers
Plowman, and the search for Dowel, Dobet, Dobest. Piers Plowman
reappears in the last episode ; he is the most important and character-
istic personage in the work, hence its title. The author, who, like
Montaigne for his essays, seems to have been constantly rewriting
his poem, gave, as is well known, three principal versions of it, which
can be dated from the historical allusions in them : A, 1362-63 ; B,
1376-77; C, 1398-99.

When a man takes, so to say, for his life's companion and confidant,

a work of his, adding new parts or new thoughts as years pass

on, and as events put their impress on his mind, the way in which

these remakings are carried on is ever the same : circumstances

command them. The author has before him a copy of his first

and shortest text, and he makes here and there, as it occurs to him,

an emendation, alters a word or a passage which he thinks he can

improve, or which no longer corresponds to his way of thinking ; he

corrects mistakes, and occasionally forgets to correct them ; he

develops an idea, adds examples and quotations, and sometimes

new passages, clashing with others written years before which

he forgets to erase ; writes a continuation, a new book, a new part.

The emendations or additions in the already- written text are crammed

into the margin, or written on slips or fly-leaves. That this practice

was in use in the Middle Ages, we might have surmised, as it

is difficult to imagine any other ; but we know in fact that it was

so, as some few samples of manuscripts of this sort have come down

to us ; manuscripts in which " the author has made corrections,

273

4 J. J. JUSSERAND

additions, or suppressions, between the lines, on the margins, and
sometimes on separate sheets or fragments of vellum inserted in the-
quire. It is not always easy to see where those modifications should
come in," ^

Great care has been, indeed, ever necessary to prevent mistakes
in such cases ; they have, in fact, scarcely ever been avoided. Glaring
ones remain in works of this sort, of whatever epoch, and which we
know to have been revised sometimes by the authors themselves,
sometimes by their trustiest friends after their death, and at periods,
too, when more attention was paid to correct texts and logical
development than in the days of the Plantagenets.

A famous example of this way of rewriting a book is that of
Montaigne, whose copy of his own essays, prepared in view of one last
edition, is preserved at Bordeaux, the margins covered with scribbled
additions,- other additions having certainly been inscribed on slips or
fly-leaves (now lost), as they are to be found, not always at their
proper place, in the undoubtedly authentic text published soon after
Montaigne's death by those devoted friends and admirers of his,
Pierre de Brach and Mile de Gournay.

Superabundant proofs may be given that the author of Piers.
Plmvman wrote his revisions in a similar w^ay, handing, however,
to less careful people (professional scribes) material requiring more
care, with some slips, fly-leaves, afterthoughts, and marginal additions
difficult to place at the proper spot. An original with all the
leaves, sheets, and slips in good order, or comparatively so, would
yield comparatively good copies ; then, by some accident, leaves and
slips would get mixed, and scribes would reproduce with perfect
composure this jumble of incoherent patches, thus betraying the
loose and scrappy state of the text before them, and their own
obtuseness.2 Tentative additions, written by the author on the

1 Letter from Mr. Leopold Delisle to the author, Chantilly, August 3, 1908. An
example of a MS with alterations in the primitive text effected by means of slips of
vellum pasted on certain passages, is the MS Royal 14, c, vii, in the British Museum,
containing the Historia Anglorum of Matthew Paris.

2 A facsimile page accompanies P. Bonnefon's contribution to the Histoire de la
litWahcre frangaise of P. de Julleville, Vol. Ill, p. 466.

* A striking example is that offered by two important MSS of A, one at University
College, Oxford, and the Rawlinson Poet. 137, at the Bodleian. Both were copied from
the same original which offered a good text, but the leaves or slips wherewith it was made
had got disarranged and had been put together in wrong order. Both scribes carefully

274

Piers Plowman 5

margin or on scraps, to be later definitively admitted or not into the
text, were inserted haphazard anywhere by some copyists and let
alone by others.^ In his next revision the poet never failed to
remove a number of errors left in the previous text, always, however,
forgetting a few.

As shown by the condition of MSS, the poet let copyists tran-
scribe his work at various moments, when it was in the making
.{it viras indeed ever in the making), and was in a far from complete
and perfect state ; sometimes when part or the whole of an episode
was lacking, or when it ended with a canto or passus merely
sketched and left unfinished.- The scribes who copied the MS
Harl. 875 and the Lincoln's Inn MS had apparently before them
an original of version A, containing only the first eight passus,
that is, the episodes of Meed and Piers. Almost all the other MSS
of A have eleven passus, and contain the story of Meed, Piers, and

re])ioduced the same jumble of incoherent parts. The University College MS ' ' is regular
down to passiis II, 25, which is immediately followed (on the same page) by passus VII,
71-213, and then returns to 1. 132 of passus I, the last four lines of passus I an I some
twenty lines of passus II occurring twice over. It then goes down to passus VII, 70, when
the passage which had already occurred is omitted." In the other MS : " the text is in
precisely the same wrong order," says Skeat in the Preface of A, pp. xxand 143* (Early
Engl. Text Soc). Other examples might be quoted. In the MS Cotton, Vespasian B,
XVI, in the British Museum, containing a text of C, " written before 1400," and therefore
contemporary with the author, passus XVIII was copied from separate sheets or scraps
which had also got mixed, so that after XVIII, 186, comes XVIII, 288, " then comes
XVIII, 187 ; then XVIII, 259-287 ; then XVIII, 188-258, after which comes XVIII,
289, and all the rest of the passus." — Skeat, Preface of C, p. xl.

^ Of this sort are, to all appearances, the additional lines in the MS Hail. 875 of A,
not to be found elsewhere, especially the two passages giving, as in a parenthesis, some
sujjplementary touches, on Fals and on Favel, one of four and the other of three lines
(II, 136, 141). In the MS of C, belonging to the Earl of Ilchester, a passage (X, 75-281,
Skeat, Preface of C, p. xxxiv) is twice repeated with considerable differences, one of the
two versions being, it seems, a first cast of the other. Finding both in the copy before
him, the scribe quietly transcribed the two.

Another remarkable example is the one to which Professor Manly drew attention : The
four or five lines added at the moment when Piers Plowman is about to make his will, and
giving the names of his wife and children (A, VII, 70). They had obviously been written
apart on the margin or on a slip, to be inserted later and be duly connected with the bulk of
the text. The copyists inserted them as they were, at the place opposite which they found
them, and so they form a crude and strange parenthesis. The scribes wrote them, however,
precisely as a sort of jmrenthesis, which was showing more intelligence than in some other
cases ; the sign indicating a new paragraph usually precedes them ; sucli is the case in the
excellent MS Laud 581, fol. 27. The additional MS 35,287, fol. 29/), not only has the same
sign, but a blank precedes these lines, so as to show that they are really something apart.

- MS Rawlinson Poet. 38, in the Bodleian, is, as Mr. Skeat has pointed out (preface of
B, p. xii, E. E. T. S. ), a copy of the B text with some additions and afterthoughts (about one
hundred and sixty lines in all), destined to be incorporated later, with a large quantity of
others, in the C text. It represents, therefore, one more state in which the work was allowed
by the author to be copied. It seems scarcely probable that an independent reviser should
have revised so little and alloAved the work to be copied after such slight changes.

275

6 J. J. JUSSERAND

part of Dowel. Two, however, give us a fragment ; aad a third,
what purports to be the whole of a twelfth passus,^ a mere sketch
anyhow, almost entirely discarded in subsequent revisions. It does
not in any case end the story of Dowel ; much less does it give
what the beginning of the episode had led us to expect concern-
ing Dobet and Dobest. Of these two we were to hear only in
the B and C texts, written later, which were also allowed to
be copied before they were finished ; they were, indeed, never
finished at all. Both contain, besides the Meed and the Plowman
episodes, seven passus on Dowel, four on Dobet, and only two on
Dobest. That the author did not intend to end there is shown, not
only because it does not really end (in allegorical matters, it is true,
one may end almost anywhere), not only on account of the abnormal
brevity of the Dobest part, but also because, in the Bodleian MS
Laud 656 of the C text, one of the best and most trustworthy,
after the conclusion of the second and last de facto passus on
Dobest, occur the words : " Explicit passus secundus de dobest et
incipit passus tercius." These words do not seem to have been
added, as Mr. Skeat suggests, by mistake, but because the copyist
read them in his original. That a continuation was really expected
is shown by the blank pages left for it : the leaf on which this
note appears, as well as the three following ones (somewhat dam-
aged by somebody who wanted bits of vellum and cut off some
strips), remain blank in the MS, and these leaves belong, as I have
recently verified, to the quire on which the Visions are written, not
to the work coming next in the volume.

Works of the Piers Plowman type are rarely finished. The
life of men who take their book for their confidant comes to an end
before their book does. The English dreamer no more finished
his Piers Plowman than Montaigne his Essays, or Rabelais his
Gargantua. But while the author allowed incomplete texts to
go about, there is no doubt that each successive episode was in

1 The MS of version A at University College, Oxford, has 18 lines of this twelfth passus ;
the Ingilby MS has 88 lines and there stops short, the state of the MS showing, according
to Skeat {Parallel Extracts of 45 MSS ; Early Engl. TextSoc, p. 29), that the scribe had
no more to copy. The MS Rawlinson Poet. 137, at the Bodleian, contains what purport*:
to be the whole passus, but as, in this case also, the original MS did not supply a
complete text, a man called John But, of whom more hereafter (p. 12), took upon him-
self to add to it a sensational ending of his invention.

27G

Piers Plowman 7

his mind when he laid down his pen after having finished the
foregoing one, which shows sameness and continuity of purpose.
For the two first, Meed and Piers, though more loosely connected
than the rest, there can be no doubt, as they were written together
in the same mood and style, and made public together; there is
no copy where they appear separate. For the last episode, a
tripartite one, dealing with Dowel, Dobet, and Dobest, the con-
nection with the previous ones is established by the last part of the
last passus (VIII) concerning Piers, where the author represents
himself pondering about Dowel and the necessity of securing his
help: pardons, Pope's bulls, triennials will be no good, "bote
Dowel the helpe;" may we so behave, " er we gon hennes," that
we may claim then, " we duden as he (Dowel) us hijte." ^ That
the Dowel episode would come next, if anything came, is thus
made obvious ; that it would be a tripartite one is shown from the
beginning of this new part : (1) MSS of the A text have there such
a heading as, " Incipit hie Dowel, Dobet, et Dobest," making clear
what was the ultimate purpose of the author, though as a matter
of fact Dowel alone, and only in part, was yet written ; (2) The
text itself of the first passus concerning Dowel also forecasts the
treble account which was to be given only years later, in versions
B and C, but was, even so early as 1362, in the author's mind.
In the very first passus concerning Dowel (ninth of the whole work)
Thought calls the dreamer's attention to those three beings, those
three steps toward perfection :

" Dowel," quod he, " and Dobet • and Dobest ])e })ridde
Beo]) preo faire vertues • and beo]) not far to fynde." ^

That these three versions of the Piers Ploioman poem exist is
certain ; that they were written by someone cannot be considered
a rash surmise. Of that one we know little ; but that little is con-
siderably better than nothing ; better than in the case of more than
one mediaeval work of value, Morte d' Arthur, for example, Gmvayiie
and the Green Knight, or Pearl, in which cases we are reduced to
mere suppositions.

For Piers Plowman, we have what the manuscripts tell us in
their titles, colophons, or marginal notes ; what the author tells us

1 A, VIII, 187. - A, IX, 69.

377

8 J. J. JUSSERAND

himself in his verses ; and what tradition has to say, being represented
by one man at least, whose testimony is of real weight.

Without exception, all those titles, colophons, marginal notes,
and testimonies agree in pointing to the succession of visions,
forming, at first, 8 or 12, and lastly 23 passus, as being one work,
having for its general title Piers Plowman, and written by one
author. ^ISS containing the three episodes of Meed, Piers Plow-
man properly so called, and Dowel, begin thus : " Hie incipit liber
qui vocatur pers plowman ; " ^ and end thus : " Explicit tractatus
de perys plowman." - The continuity of the work is also shown
by the numeration of the passus in several MSS ; the MS Add.
35,287, for example, of text B, where we are told, at the end of
the Piers Plowman episode, that the new passus now beginning
is, at the same time, the first of Dowel and the eighth of the total
work; 2 when we have had not only Dowel, but Debet and Dobest,
occurs then the colophon : " Explicit hie Dialogus petri plowman."
The excellent MS Laud 581, also of text B, at the Bodleian, has the
same way of counting the passus : " Passus octavus de visione et
primus de dowel Passus xvj"*, et primus de dobet." *

The manuscripts thus connect together the several parts of the
poem, showing that one whole work, under the general title of Piers
Plowman, is in question. In the same fashion, all the notes found
on their leaves, the allusion in the work, and tradition, attribute the
poem to one single author.

Some of these notes vary as to the name or the form of the
name or surname ; not one implies more than one author for the
whole. At the end of the Piers Plowman episode properly so
called, three MSS have the note : " Explicit visio Willelmi W. de
petro Plowman. Et hie incipit visio fjusdem de Dowel." ^ Three
MSS assert therefore, in express fashion, that Dowel and the rest
are by the same author. The more probable name and surname

1 MS Rawlinson Poet. 137, in the Bodleian, a text of A, the ouly one with John
But's addition, dating from the beginning of the fifteenth century.

» MS Harl. 3954, ab. 1420 (Skeat), containing 11 passus, and being a mixture of the
A and B versions.

2 P'oh 36. This MS, now in the British Museum, was formerly the MS Ashburnham
CXXIX.

* Fol. 33a and 62a ; same colophon : " Explicit hie dialogus petri plowman."
^ (1) An early MS belonging to the Earl of Ilchester ; (2) the MS Douce 104, in the
Bodleian Library, dated 1427 ; (3) the MS Digby 102, same library, middle of fifteenth

278

Piers Plowman 9

for our author are William Langland (or LoDglond), The name
William occurs in a number of places and cannot be doubted :

" Incipit visio Willelmi .... Explicit visio Willelmi

A lovely lady calde me by name — And seide, ' Wille, slepest
thow?' .... "1

" Wliat art thow 1 " quath ich • " that my name knowest 1 "
" That west thow, Wille," quath he • " and no wight betere." ^

The surname Langland (Longlond) is to be found in full in a
punning line of the B text, the syllables being arranged in a reversed
order :

I liave lyved in londe, quod I • My name is longe Wille.^

If we discarded the punning intention, the line would have
little enough meaning : to " live in land " does not convey any
very clear idea; so little indeed, that when revising his text for the
third time, and choosing not to repeat his confidence, the author
not only suppressed the " longe Wille," but also the " lived in londe,"
which left alone would have, to be sure, betrayed nothing, but would
have been simply meaningless. He wrote :

Ich have lived in London • meny long jeres.*

That the line was of interest as giving the author's name was
not noticed only by the critics of to-day ; it drew attention from
the first. In the margin of the MS Laud 581, opposite the before-

ceutury, all three containing the C text. See Skeat's edition (E.E.T.S.) of C, pp. xxxvii,
xlv, xlvi. The word represented by an initial ("W. ), an abbreviation habitually recalling
the place of birth or origin, has been hy]iothetically, and with no certitude, interpreted
■*s meaning " Wigorniensis " (Skeat), or " of Wychwood " (Pearson).

1 C, II, 5. =" C, XI, 71. 3 B, XV, 148.

* C, XVII, 286. To give one's name, or someone else's, in a more or less enigmatical
tashion was quite customary in Langland's day. Mr. Skeat has been the first to show
that when he spoke of the "wikked Nest" {Monk's Tale), Chaucer meant Oliver de
Mauni, whose name he simply translated. I have quoted the example of Christine de
Pisan in my Piers Plowman. Another example is Gower who wrote :

Primos sume pedes Godefredi desque Johanni,

Principiumque sui Wallia jungat eis
Ter caput amittens det cetera membra.

— Vox ClaiiMiUis, Prol. to Book I.

Langland seems to have considered that some inconvenience might result from his
having said so ra\ich, and he suppressed in text C, as said above, his veiled contidence.

279

10 J. J. JUSSEKAND

quoted verse, occur the words iu fifteenth -century handwriting r
" Nota the name of thauct[our]." ^ The carefully written MS
Additional 35,287, which has been revised by a contemporary
corrector, supplies very important evidence. The rule followed
in it is that Latin words or names of real personages are written
in large letters and underlined in red, and the names of imagi-
nary beings are not distinguished in any way from the rest of the
text. Thus the names of Meed, Holy Church, Robert the Robber,
etc., are written like any other word. But the names of Samson,
Samuel, Seneca, Kings Edmund and Edward are underlined iu
red. The name of " Longe Wille " is underlined in red and written
in larger letters than the rest of the line, thus taking rank in those
of real and not of imaginary beings.

Various notes and more or less detailed statements inscribed
on several MSS are to the same effect. In the MS Ashburnham
CXXX appear, inside the cover, in a handwriting of the fifteenth
century, the words, " Robert or William Langland made pers plough-
man." ~ In the Dublin MS occurs the well-known statement, also
written in the fifteenth century : " Memorandum quod Stacy de
Rokayle, pater Willielmi de Langlond .... qui prsedictus Williel-
mus fecit librum qui vocatur Perys Ploughman." John Bale,
later, who took so much trouble, in the course of his "labor-
youse journeys," to gather all available information concerning old
English writers, inserted in his Catalogue a somewhat detailed notice
which, if it contains some doubtful assertions (he himself states
that several points are indeed doubtful), is certainly the result
of personal investigations. He asserts once more that Piers Plow-
man is the work of one poet, called " Langland." Not content
with printing his statement in his Latin Catalogue, he repeated
it, in an abbreviated form, on the cover of one of the MSS he
handled, namely the before-quoted Ashburnham MS CXXX of
the B text : " Robertus Langlande, natus in comitatu Salopie iu
villa Mortimeris Clybery in the Clayland and within viij miles of
Malvern hills, scripsit piers ploughman." ^

1 Fol. 64a.

' Skeat, B, Preface, p. xxii (E. E. T. S.).
» Skeat, A, Preface, p. xxxv (E. E. T. S.).

280

Piers Plowman II

Unity of the work, condition of the MSS, allusions in the text
or out of it, marginal notes, tradition concerning both work and
author agree well together. From the first, the poem has been
held to consist of a succession of visions forming one single poem,
as the Canterbury Tales, composed of a succession of tales, are
only one work ; and to have been written by one single author,
called "William or Robert (in fact certainly William) Langland. An
attempt has recently been made to upset all that has been accepted
thereon up to now.

II

During the last few years. Professor Manly has devoted his
time and thoughts to Piers Plowman, not without notable effect.
In two essays of great value he has made known the result of his
sti ;lies and the inferences he thinks he can draw from what he has
discovered.

His main and most interesting discovery, one which entitles
him to the gratitude of every lover of mediaeval literature, con-
sists in his having pointed out that a passage in two of the versions
had been misplaced in every MS and consequently in every edition
of the same, making nonsense where it was, while it would make
sense elsewhere. Scribes, correctors, readers, editors, printers,
and critics innumerable had seen the passage for five hundred
years without noticing anything strange about it. Mr. Manly
saw what nobody had seen, and the moment he spoke everybody
agreed with him. Even if, in the end, the theories he thereupon
put forth are not admitted, his merit will ever be that of the inventor ;
that of others, at best, the merit of the improver. There are several
sorts of discoverers ; Professor Manly belongs to the best and rarest,
being one of those whose courtesy equals their learning and dialecti-
cal cleverness.

The discovery and theories of Professor Manly form the subject
of two essays by him, one in Modern Philology, January, 1906, called
" The Lost Leaf of Piers the Plowman," the other being the chapter
on " Piers the Plowman and Its Sequence," in the Camh'idge History
of English Literature, Vol. II, 1908.

Combining what he had discovered with the impressions derived

281

12 J. J. JUSSERAND

from a careful reading of the three texts in succession, he came
to the conclusion that Piers Plowman "is really the work of five
different men," to the critics' imagination being due " the creation
of a mythical author of all these poems." ^

It may be, I think, in the interest of all to get rid at once
of one of these five, and reduce the number to four. Even so
reduced Professor Manly's theory, as will be seen, will prove hard
enough to sustain. To admit John But to the honor of being one
of the authors of the poem is indeed going too far. At the time
when Richard II was "kyng of ])is rewme," a copy of version A
came to the hands of a silly scribbler who, as he says, " meddled
of makyng." Finding the poem unfinished, and unaware of much
more having been composed and made public since (for version
B, at least, was then in existence), he added a senseless ending of
his own, volunteering the information that Death had killed the
author, now "closed under clom," He was so good as to give his
name, so that we know for sure, on his own testimony, tliat " Johan
But " was a fool."

This spurious ending, preserved in only one MS and of which
no trace is to be found in any of the continuations of the poem, no
more entitles John But to the dignity of co-author, than do the
lines added by scribes to make known their thirst, and their joy at
having finished copying Piers Ploivman :

Now of ]>is litel book y liave makyd an ende,

Goddis blessyng mote he have pat drinke wil me sende.^

Let us therefore speak only of the four remaining authors, not
an ^insignificant number, whose contribution to the total work is
thus divided by Mr. Manly : Author I wrote passus I — VIII of A,
containing the Meed and Piers Plowman episodes ; Author II wrote
the fragment on Dowel occurring in various MSS of A ; to Author

^- C'amhridge History, II, p. 1.

2 The passage on Death having killed tlie author seems to rae, as to Professor Manly,
to be the product of But's brain (so to speak). In his Oxford edition Mr. Skeat suppresses
as spurious only the twelve last lines, from "And so bad lohan But," etc., and in his
E. E. T. S. edition he leaves a blank between these lines and the rest. As a matter of fact
there is no blank in the MS, nor anything to distinguish these lines from what went before.

3 MS Douce 323 (A teit).

282

Piers Plowman 13^

III are due the emendations and additions in text B ; to Author IV
the emendations and additions in text C.

Before studying the reasons alleged in support of this thesis, it
may be observed that, to carry conviction, they must be very-
strong, not only because, as pointed out above, the spirit pervad-
ing Piers Plowman is not to be found anywhere else, and if four
poets instead of one were imbued with it (the four being besides
of great merit), it is singular that they all chose to manifest it by
anonymous additions to the work of someone else, the same work
in each case ; not only because all testimonies and notes in the
MSS contradict this theory ; not only because, if the shadowy
character of one author unseen, unmet by any contemporary, is
strange, the same happening for four people concerned with the
same problems would be a wonder; but also because to suppose
four authors adding new parts to a poem and freely remodeling the
old ones, is to suppose also that, as soon as Author I had finished
writing, he would have died to leave room for Author II who, in
his turn, must have written and died ; as must have done Author
III to make room for Author IV. If Author I, II, or III had
survived, they would have protested against the intrusion; or, at
least, one or several among them would have written a continua-
tion of his own (the ever-unfinished poem certainly wanted one),
so that if he had been unable to prevent interpolations or spurious
continuations, he would have given his actual views. But we have
no trace of such a thing. There are many manuscripts, yet they
give us only one text for each continuation. This is the more
remarkable as, if we admit of Professor Manly's own strictures, the
intrusion of each successive author must have been very galling
to the previous ones. Mr. Manly brings forth a number of proofs
demonstrating, as he considers, that the work was actually spoilt
in many places by these subsequent contributors, that Author II
tried to imitate the style of Author I but failed; that Author III
misunderstood, in a number of passages, the meaning of his fore-
runners, making nonsense of them all, and that Author IV did
the same with Author III. No explanation is indeed possible,
except that each of these authors must have written and breathed

his last, with absolute punctuality, as moths lay their eggs, gasp,

28,-}

14 J. J. JUSSERAND

and die.^ A very strange, not to say improbable case. What are
the proofs ?

They are of three different sorts: (1) The shuffled leaf or mis-
placed passage; (2) Authors III and IV did not understand
what their forerunners meant and must, therefore, be different
people ; (3) the differences of moods, feelings, ways of speaking,
literary merit, meter, and dialect are such between the different
parts or successive revisions, as to denote four different authors.

The main effort of Mr. Manly bearing on the demonstration
that the author of version B cannot be the same as the author or
authors of version A, and his discovery concerning the shifted
passage being one of his most striking arguments, we shall consider
this question first.

Ill

Having narrated, in the earliest version of the poem, the story of
Meed, a story with no end to it, as is the case with all his stories,
the author begins to tell his beads, and this, as a matter of course,
he seems to imply, puts him to sleep :

And so I blaberde on my beodes • pat brouhte me a-slepe.^

He has a new vision, as slightly connected as can be with the
foregoing one. Conscience delivers a sermon and Repentance
advises sinners to repent. " William " himself repents first,
dropping " watur with his e^en ; " then " Pernel proud-herte "
does the same. Beginning with Pernel, who represents Pride, we
have then a confession of the Seven Deadly Sins, sometimes per-
sonified by real beings, sometimes remaining sheer abstractions.
Some of the portraits are drawn with admirable care and vividness ;
others are mere sketches, so perfunctory and inadequate as to
seem rather memoranda to be developed later, and put there simply
for the name to appear in the list. "Lechour," for example, whose
misdeeds the author at other places, in the same version, is not
loath to describe in language no less crude than picturesque, gets

^ It may also be observed that if it frequently occurs that an author leaves a work of
his unfinished, the case is rarer with a continuator ; it is usually in view of completing
what is unfinished that a continuator sets to work. It took time and space for Jean de
Meung to finish the Roman de la Rose, but he finished it.

, 2A, V, 8.

284

Piers Plowman 15

only five lines — a simple memorandum to be improved afterward ;
as was indeed indispensable, for not only are details lacking, but
the few that are given are scarcely appropriate. There is no
confession at all; Lechour asks mercy for his "misdeeds," and
promises that, for seven years, on Saturdays, he will have only
one meal and will drink only water. If the privation he mentions
is the only one he means to inflict on himself, it leaves him a margin
for many sins, and especially his favorite one. Others, such as Envy
(44 lines), Coveitise (39), and Gloton (76), are as full of life as the
best passages in Chaucer himself.

Sloth, who comes last, has 14 lines, nearer the Lechour than the
Gloton type j he is sorry for his nondescript "sunnes," and promises
that, for seven years, he will not fail to hear mass and matins on
Sundays, and no " ale after mete " will keep him from church in the
evening, which, if admissible, is not strikingly fitting. This said, a
continuation follows, the inappropriateness of which, after so many
centuries, Mr. Manly was the first to point out.

Immediately after Sloth's solemn promise "to Jje Rode,"
which, in the usual course, should conclude his speech, come twenty-
four utterly irrelevant lines : " And jit," Sloth is supposed to continue
saying :

And jit I-chulle jelden ajeyn • jif 1 so muche have
Al fat I wickkedliche won • se])\)e I wit hade, etc.^

The passage deals with the moral obligation for robbers and
dishonest people to make restitution. A real being — such as
others in the course of these confessions, like "Pernel proud-herte,"
or Gloton — Robert the Robber, is then introduced, weeping for his
sins, wanting to make restitution, and in despair because he has not
the wherewithal. These 24 verses are certainly out of place ; some
mistake of the scribe, to whom was due the original copy which
all the others transcribed, must have caused the mischief, for all
the MSS of A, without exception, offer this same unacceptable
arrangement.

Here comes Mr. Manly's important deduction : this same
unacceptable arrangement 'ivas accepted by the author of version B.

1 A, V, 236.

285

16 J, J. JUSSERAND

He had certainly before him, when he set to work, a copy of A ;
and while he introduced in it innumerable alterations and additions,
he left this passage at the same wrong place. He could never have
failed to notice the mistake if he had really been the author of A ; as
he did not, he was not.

And there is more than that. The very way in which he tried
to get out of difficulty shows that he was not the same man. He
noticed that there was something unsatisfactory about the passage :
what has Sloth to do with restitution ? He also noticed the singular
fact that, for some unexplained reason, in this confession of the
Seven Deadly Sins, only six appear, Wrath being forgotten. What
he did, thereupon, betrayed as much as anything else, according to
Professor Manly, the dualism of authorship :

The omission of Wrath and the confusion as to Sloth were noticed
by B, and he treated them i-ather ingeniously. He introduced into the
earlier part of Sloth's confession a declaration that he had been so sloth-
ful as to withhold the wages of his servants and to forget to return things,
he had borrowed. To supply a confession of Wrath, he himself wrote a
Confessio Irae, totally different in style from the work of A, and, indeed,
more appropriate for Envy than for Wrath, containing as it does no very
distinctive traits of Wrath. ^

These assertions, which we shall take u}) one by one, are supple-
mented by an explanation of what, in the opinion of Professor
Manly, must have taken place. According to him, the author of the
first part of A, the best-gifted and cleverest of all, cannot have
forgotten Wrath and must have devoted to it a leaf which was
accidentally lost ; the same author must have put the passage
concerning Robert the Robber where it actually stands ; but,
between the beginning of this passage and the end of Sloth, must
have occurred, on a leaf also lost, lines serving as a transition from
Sloth to Robert, lines numerous enough " for the development of
the confession of Robert .... and also for the less abrupt ending
of the confession of Sloth " ^ — an ending, it may be said, at once,
not more abrupt than that of several of Sloth's fellow-sins. Very
ingenious calculations, based on the average size of MSS and the
number of lines in them, led Mr. Manly to the conclusion that those

1 Mudern Philology, Vol. Ill, p. 365. ^ jn^ ^ p_ 352.

286

Piers Plowman 17

two passages would correspond, and that the disappearance of one
sheet in a quire of the original MS, that is, of the two half-sheets
on which the two passages must have been written, is the proper
explanation for the two gaps said to exist in the text.

This explanation seems to me absolutely untenable, and I
entirely agree with Mr. Bradley, who has pointed out^ that no
conceivable lost passage with lines making a transition from Sloth
to Robert the Robber could be at all satisfactory. Those two
people cannot possibly be grouped together ; the category to which
Robert belongs is, without possible doubt, Coveitise, who like him is
bound to make restitution, and the proper place for the misplaced
24 lines is after Coveitise : A, V, 145. Mr. Bradley adds that
such a statement rather confirms than weakens Mr. Manly's
theory as to the difference of authors ; not only B did not notice
that the 24 lines were at the wrong place, but he had not the
slightest idea what the right one was.

All these observations can easily be answered.

The author of B, the same I think as the author of A, issued,
after a dozen years or more, a new text of his poem, a text which
he had had more or less constantly beside him, making changes,
corrections, and additions as it occurred to him, the usual way
with authors of works of this sort, capable of extension. The
copy he used was naturally a copy of A, as there was no other text
then in existence, with the 24 lines certainly at the wrong place,
since he left them there. His changes, Avhich transformed a poem
of 2,579 lines into one of 7,241, were very numerous; sometimes
slight ones were made, sometimes new quotations were added,
sometimes new matter was introduced on a considerable scale : the
very way another waiter, Montaigne, also absorbed in his thoughts,
actually worked. Preceded by some lines on the necessity of giving
back ill-gotten goods ("And 3it I-chulle 3elden ajeyn," etc.), the
passage on Robert the Robber, a logical sequence to Coveitise,
forms a separate incident, not at all necessary to make the con-
fession of the Deadly Sins complete ; it has all the appearances of
an afterthought ; such afterthoughts as the author, or anyone in his
place, would write on separate slips left loose or which might get

AthensBum, April 21, 1906.
J.— P.P. 287 B

18 J. J. JUSSERAND

loose, and which Adam Scrivener of sleepy pen would copy any-
where. And as Scrivener, in the present case, did not know what
to do, he put the stray lines at the end of the passus when the rest
of the confessions were finished, so Robert would come just before
the " Jjousent of men " who mourned for their sins, " weopyng and
weylyng."

For what concerns the author himself, maybe, while making so
many changes in so many places, he never paid any attention to
this passage (in which, as a matter of fact, he introduced no
change at all ^) ; maybe also he thought of transferring it to its
proper place and neglected to mark it accordingly, or to see that
the removal was made. The fact that the confession of Coveitise,
as remodeled in version B, contains a passage, not in A, where
restitution is insisted upon, at great length, in most pressing lan-
guage, lends probability to this latter hypothesis. In version A
the sins of this personage were told with some detail, but nothing
except the vaguest allusion was made to necessary amends. In B,
on the contrary, restitution is one of the points about which we
hear most, the added passage being highly picturesque and in the
author's best vein. Did you never make restitution ? says Repent-
ance—

" 3US, ones I was herberwed," quod he • " with an hep of chapmen,

I roos whan thei were arest • and yrifled here males."

" That was no restitucioun," quod Repentance • " but a robberes

thefte . . . . "
"I wende ryflynge were restitucioun," quod he • "for I lerned nevere

rede on boke,
And I can no Frenche in feith • but of the farthest ende of Norfolke."^

The restitution here alluded to is precisely that which a peni-
tent thief should make, the question being of stolen goods. Much
more clearly than the lines added in Sloth (the bearing of which

^ Two lines, 248, 249, of A are omitted in B, a mere scribe's oversight and one, as
Skeat has noticed (not at all in view of the present discussion), particularly difficult to
avoid in copying alliterative verses. (Preface of A, 1867, p. xvi.)

^ B, V, 232 ; and further on, Repentance reverts to the same subject :

"Thow art an unkynde creature • I can the uoujte assoile,
Til thow make restitucioun • and rekne with hem alle,
And sithen that resoun roUe it • in the regystre of hevene,
That thow hast made uche man good * I may the noujte assoile ;
Non dimittitur peccatum • donee restituatur ahlatum." — B, V, 276.
288

Piers Plowman 19

will presently be examined), this addition looks like a preparation
for the appearance, shortly after, of Robert the Robber, who, too,
should make restitution, but has " noujte wher-of."

That nevertheless, owing to the author's omission or the scriv-
ener's " negligence and rape," as Chaucer would say, the Robert and
Restitution passage was left, as before, at the wrong place, has
nothing very prodigious or extraordinary. There is not even any
need to suggest (though it may have been the case) that the poet
happened to be of a conspicuously careless nature. The most
careful people may be at times absent-minded. As I was talking
recently about the Piei^s Plowman problem with a writer, who feels
greatly interested in it (as well as in a few other questions), whose
works have had a wide circulation and have been scrutinized by
critics, not all of them over-friendly, he mentioned that something
of the sort had happened to himself. Opening, thereupon, at
p. 13, the OiUdoor Pastimes of an American Hunter, a^^oxk. made
up of several essays, written at different moments, with additions
and afterthoughts noted on slips, he pointed out that two slips with
the same statement had not only been allowed in by him,
but the contents of the two were repeated in the same page, giving
to the whole a, to say the least, somewhat ludicrous appearance :

The bobcats are very fond of prairie dogs, and haunt the dog towns
as soon as spring comes and the inhabitants emerge from their hiber-
nation. . . .

Bobcats are very fond of lurking round prairie-dog towns as soon as
the prairie dogs come out in spring. . . .

Not only critics, friendly or otherwise, never noticed this
strange occurrence, but the author himself read three proofs of
the work, gave several editions of it, and has only just now had the
mistake removed.

Stray sheets with corrections and afterthoughts on them are cer-
tainly difficult to handle, and require a perseverance in attention
which, without speaking of scribes, famous authors sometimes
lack. To give only one more example, I may quote that of Cer-
vantes who, as everyone knows, represents Sancho Panza
quietly mounting his ass just after Gines de Pasamonte had

stolen it from him. The theft was an afterthought that Cervantes

289

20 J. J. JUSSERAND

forgot to make fit properly with the rest of his work. Having be-
come aware of the mistake, he nevertheless allowed two passages
to subsist in his text, in which Sancho is shown still riding the
stolen animal. He made fun of it all later, in chaps, iii and
iv of the second part of his immortal book ; being no less merry
about his mishap than the President of the United States about
his own.

The same happened to Langland who, even supposing him to
exhibit no conspicuous carelessness, was certainly not endowed
with a strictly geometrical mind, and who, judging from results,
continued to the last using slips, and loose sheets that were apt
to go astray. Another proof, unnoticed till now, may be given
from the C version. In this text the author has added, among
other passages, some ten lines in the speech delivered by Piers
Plowman before he makes his will :

Consaile nat the comune • the Kyng to displease ; ^
and do not, " my dere sone," hamper parliamentary, judicial, or
municipal authorities in the fulfiUing of their duties. These lines
occur in C, after the text of the parenthesis giving us the name of
Piers's wife and children; they make no proper continuation,
neither to this nor to what Piers was saying before, for he was
saying that he would help all, except " Jack ]>e Jogelour " and
" folke of that ordre." What " dere sone " is he now addressing ?
The passage thus inserted is so unsatisfactory that Mr. Skeat's
marginal analysis ceases there,^ as it is difficult indeed to make
anything of it.

But the whole can easily be set right. In an earlier part of
his same speech, Piers had been addressing especially the Knight,
a good knight, full of the best will ; he had recommended him to
behave well, and to avoid dissolute people. To this advice in A
and B, he added in C one line, as a link for his afterthought, viz.,
the line reading :

Contreplede nat conscience " ne holy kirke ryghtes.^
Owing to a slip going wrong or to some such mishap, the ten lines

1 C, IX, 84.

2 C text (E. E. T. S.), p. 143. ^ C, IX, 53.

290

Piers Plowman 21

were not inserted here but elsewhere, making there real nonsense.
Removed here, they fit in perfectly. Piers, continuing to address his
" dere sone," says :

Consaile nat the comune • the Kyng to displese
Ne hem that han lawes to loke

Place these ten lines after the above, and all comes right : " Con-
treplede nat conscience .... consaile nat the comune," etc.
When Piers has finished this review of a knight's duties (quite
incomplete in the earlier versions), the old text is resumed and fits
also perfectly, the Knight saying as before : " Ich assente by
Seynt Gyle." Then comes also very appropriately Piers's declara-
tion as to the disposition he has to make before his journey, and,
as a last preparation, the drawing-up of his testament.

There can be no doubt that this arrangement is the right one
and was intended by the author ; no doubt either that this is one
more case of an afterthought which the original copyist inserted
at the wrong place, the author taking no notice; and as there was
no further revision the mistake was never corrected.

With version B and the misplaced Robert and Restitution pas-
sage, the case was different ; if Langland failed then to have the
error corrected, it was not so when, for the last time, he revised
his whole work. To all appearances the revision was carried on
in the same way as before, with a B text before him, erasures, cor-
rections, and additions being made in the text, on the margins, or
on slips. One of the author's most important corrections is (and
this had been noticed before by critics) the new place in the text
allotted by him to this same Robert and Restitution incident.
That place is certainly the right one, the one Mr. Bradley suggests,
and which the whole bearing of the passus imperiously commands.
It comes after the confession and repentance of Coveitise.

One particular which has not been noticed deserves, however,

special attention. The twenty-four lines consist, as we know, of

six verses on the necessity of making restitution, followed by what

concerns Robert the Robber ; the six lines cannot be properly

attached, such as they are, to any part of the poem, neither where

they stand in A and B, nor where the confession of Coveitise

291

22 J. J. JUSSERAND

ends, which is their real place. Professor Manly supposes, as we
have seen, a big gap supplying room enough for a transition from
Sloth to Robert and Restitution. C, who being, as I think, the
author, knew better, not only transferred the passage to the end
of the confession of Coveitise, but supplied what was lacking to
make it fit. What was lacking was not eighty lines as Mr. Manly
would have us believe, but one.

Now, let anybody who has not the poem at his fingers' ends
try to imagine what single verse can make sense of that nonsense :
we have our twenty-four lines, beginning, in the two texts where
they are misplaced, with :

And 3it I-cliulle jelden a3eyn • 3if I so muche have,^
and continuing with the passage telling us of Robert who "on
Reddite he looked," and unable to repay, weeped full sore. What
is that Beddite he looked upon, and how can the passage be made
to form a complete and satisfactory whole ? No such personage
as Beddite has been mentioned. There is not even any mention
of some scroll with that word on it. I submit that only the author
who knew from the first what he meant, could supply the single
necessary verse. Let anyone who thinks he has a chance, try
his skill.

Here is, in the meantime, what Langland did. The single line
he added makes it clear that his intention had been, not to intro-
duce one real man (Robert), but two real men; the restored
passage reads :

Then was ther a Walishman • was wonderliche sory,

He highte jyvan ^eld-a^eyn -^ if ich so moche have,

Al that ich wickeddelich wan • sytthen ich wit hadde,

And fauh my liflode lacke • leten ich nelle,

)5at ech man shal have bus • er ich hennes wende . . . . ^

Roberd pe ryfeler • on reddite lokede

And for per was nat wher-with • he wepte ful sore.

— C, VII, 309.
1 A, V, 236 ; B,V, 463.

^ The scribe who first placed this same passage — minus the tovn-off or somehow left-off
first line — at the end of the passus in A, considered that he supplied a sufficient connection
by simply changing, " He highte Jyvan Jeld ajeyn," which, taken apart, made such non-
sense as to strike even a scribe, into, " And 3it I-chulle jelden ajeyn."

» Mr. Skeat considers these and the following lines, six in all, as forming the name of
the Welshman, a suggestion he ofifers somewhat dubiously as he abstained in both his

292

Piers Plowman 23

Now we know, and it is not the least significant result of the
introduction of this one line previously dropped by a careless
copyist, now we know what was meant by Robert the Robber
" on JReddite he looked ; " he has at present someone to look upon,
namely his fellow-thief turned penitent : Evan Yield-Again, other-
wise Evan Reddite, both words being a translation one of the
other. Mind, writes Dr. Furnivall, to whom I had submitted
this argument, that Yield-Again is a man and Reddite a mere
word. I mind very well, and draw from it one more argument
that we have to do with a single author. For this is not an iso-
lated case of a Latin word being transformed by Langland into a
personage having its own part to play, and bearing an English
name which is a mere translation of the Latin word. In passus
VIII of A (B, VII, 110), at one of the most solemn moments
in the whole poem, Piers unfolds his bull in which is written :
" Qui bona egerunt ibunt ad vitam aeternam." Qui Bona egerunt
becomes at once Dowel, a separate personage who may help men
or not, according to their merits, and the search for whom becomes
the subject of the following passus. In the same connection may
be quoted another example from a previous passus. In A, II, we
hear that " Favel with feir speche " has brought together Fals and
Meed. Some lines further on, " Feir speche " has become a steed
which Favel rides to go to Westminster, and which is " ful feyntly
a-tyred." ^

But why, one may say, select, of all people, poor Evan as a
typical thief, willing, it is true, to make restitution, but a thief
none the less, and why produce him as a parallel to " Robert the

editions from hyphenating, as he does usually in such cases, the whole succession of words
said to compose the colossal name. The hypothesis is not an impossible one as Welsh
people Avere famous for the length of their names, and Langland was fond of inventing
such appellations. It seems more probable, however — MSS giving of course no indica-
tion— that the name is simply Evan Yield-Again, and that the rest is the speech by
which he, quite appropriately, shows that he is really "wonderliche sory." It frequently
occurs with our poet that the transition from the indirect to the direct speech is very
abrupt, and it is not always easy to be quite sure where the talking begins. Sec, for
example, the passage B, II, 146, where the author tells us of Favel distributing money
to secure false- witnesses ; it ends by a line which we must suppose to be pronounced by
Favel himself. The money is given, we are told, to secure the good will of notaries,

And felfe False-witnes • with floreines ynowe ;

" For he may Mede araaistrye • and maken at my wille."
Cf. C, III, 158, where Skeat hypothetically attributes a longer speech to Favel.
'A, II, 23, 140.

293

24 J. J. JUSSERAND

Robber," also a penitent thief, but a thief ? With Robert the case
is clear ; the association of the two words, as Mr. Skeat, in his in-
valuable treasure of Notes, has well shown, was traditional : " Per
Robert, robber designatur." ^ But what of Evan, " the Walish-
man " ?

The name and the man fit the passage, one as well as the other,
Welshmen were proverbially taunted by their English neighbors
with an inclination to thievery (and they, in true neighborly
fashion, reciprocated the compliment). Their own compatriot
Giraldus Cambrensis, praises, in his Description of Wales, their
quick intelligence, sobriety, hospitality, love of their country, but
he has a chapter "Quod rapto vivunt," in the first phrase of
which he explains that it is not for them a mere question of
plundering their neighbors, but that they act likewise " among
themselves." 2 The Parliamentary petitions show, on the other
hand, that the complaints were ceaseless against Welshmen for
their plunder and robberies ; they " robbent et raunsenont et
preignent bestes, biens et chateux;" the bordering shires are all
spoilt and ruined (" degastez et destruz ") owing to their misdeeds,*
and, what is well worthy of remark, those shires whose names and
complaints constantly recur in the series of petitions are, to take
an example of the year 1376, the year of text B, " Wyrcestre,
Salop, Stafibrd, Hereford Bristut et Glouc'."* The first-named of
these shires which want Welsh thieves to be punished and obliged
to make restitution — for this too is mentioned in the petitions^ —
is Worcester, the very region where, on " Malverne hulles," it
befell Langland " for to slope for weyrynesse of wandryng."
No wonder that the misdeeds of Evan the Welshman, and Robert

1 Wright's Political Songs, p. 49, mentioned in Skeat's Notes, p. 125.

2 " Ad hoc etiam rapinis insistere, raptoque vivere, furto et latrocinio, non solum ad
exteroset hostiles populos, venim etiam inter se proprium habent. " — Descriptio Camhrioe
.... Opera, Brewer, Vol. VI, p. 207.

^ 3Ric. II, \Z1 9-^0, Rolls of Parliament. Such complaints are particularly numerous
during the reign of Richard II.

■^ 50 Ed. Ill, Rolls, Vol. II, 352.

^ In a petition of 2 H. IV, 1400-1, embodying wishes which certainly did not originate
then, we find that, to the great detriment of the "countez ajoignantz a les marchies de
Galys," Welshmen — " lesgentzdu Galys " — continued to steal "chivabc, juraentz, boefs,
vaches, berbitz, porks, et altres lour bienz. " The interested parties ask that these
" meft'esours " be ordered to make restitution, "lour facent deliverer lour distressez biens
et chateux issint prisez et arrestez, saunz ascun dilaye." — Rolls, Vol. Ill, p. 474.

294

Piers Plowman 25

the Robber were linked together in his mind, and that he never
had a good word for Welshmen.^ Even this detail deserves to
be noted, that in showing his two penitent thieves, the common
robber who is willing to make restitution, but has not withal, and
the other who is willing and able to a certain extent, the poet
strictly adhered to realities. The Evanses of the border usually
carried away sheep and cattle which they might have bodily
restored in most cases if they had been truly "sory" for their
misdeeds.

It will be admitted, I hope, that once more poem and real facts
turn out to fit together quite well, and tally better with my plea
than with Professor Manly's. Far from showing a diversity of
authors, the study of the question of the shifted passage strongly
confirms what other indications led us to believe, namely that the
poet who wrote C must have written A also. Both, and conse-
quently B, must be, so far as shown by the facts under considera-
tion, the work of one and the same Langland.

IV

But with reference to the shifted passage, other points have
been mentioned by Professor Manly, it will be remembered, as
denoting a plurality of authorship. According to him the author
of B, not knowing what he was about, tried, " rather ingeniously,"
to justify the presence of the Robert and Restitution passage after
the confession of Sloth, and, in view of this, he introduced in the
latter's speech a declaration that " he had been so slothful as to
withhold the wages of his servants and to forget to return things
he had borrowed."

The author of B, on the contrary, never dreamt, as I take it,
of making any such attempt, and if he took any notice at all of
the passage, it was to prepare its being removed to where it should
appear, though he neglected to see that the change was effected.
His additions in the confession of Sloth show, in any case, no
intention to lead to the subject of Robert the Robber and of resti-
tution.

^ " Griffin the Walsche," in the three texts of the same passus where Yield-Again
appears, is mentioned as one of the roisterous friends of Gloton (A, V, 167).

295

26 J. J. JUSSERAND

As Langland was, at various periods, revising his text, he now
and then filled gaps, replaced perfunctory sketches by more
finished portraits, and added, as in the case of Coveitise for
example, some excellent details to pictures already very good. He
did so as it occurred to him, without showing that thoroughness
and regularity of design that would have been a matter of course
with an independent reviser and continuator, and the raison d'Stre
of his work. Anyone, I consider, assigning to himself the task
of revising such a poem as the first version of Piers Ploivman,
would not have left Lechour with his five insignificant, not to
say irrelevant, lines, which are even reduced to four in B. But
an author caring so little for geometrical regularity as Lang-
land did, could very well leave Lechour alone for the present, to
remodel his portrait later, or not, as suited his fancy. So it is that
only in C do we find a real confession of this sin, in twenty-six
lines.

A striking proof of this ungeometrical disposition of mind- in
our author is supplied by the very question of the Deadly Sins,
a disposition, not to say an infirmity, so peculiar as practically to
corroborate our belief in the unity of authorship. Every critic
has noticed that, in the. series of sins depicted in A, passus V,
Wrath is lacking. It has never been observed that in this vast
poem dealing with the reformation of mankind, in which the
Deadly Sins constantly recur to the author's mind, being specifically
dealt with four times, out of those four lists only one is complete,
as first given in any of the three versions. The order is never the
same, which makes it easier for the writer to forget one or the
other of the sins ; on second thoughts he sometimes corrects his list,
sometimes not. An independent reviser would scarcely have
acted so.

In the "feffement" of Meed (A, II, 63), the Deadly Sins figure
as Pride, Envy, Avarice, Gluttony, Lechery, Sloth — Wrath is lack-
ing. In the corresponding passage of B and C the order is, as
usual, modified : Lechery comes before Gluttony, but the absence
of Wrath has been noticed, and we find now mentioned : " the
erldome of envye and wratthe togideres," ^

^ B, II, 83 ; C, III, 88.

296

Piers Plowman 27

Wrath was certainly absent from Langland's mind when he
wrote this version A, as in his next enumeration there of the
Sins, that is, in passus V, when they all confess and repent,
Wrath is again forgotten. The order is not the same as be-
fore, being as follows : Pride, Lechery, Envy, Avarice, Glut-
tony, Sloth.^ Having noticed the lack of Wrath in the pre-
vious passage, Langland, when he revised his text, added him
here too, in B. This addition is naturally preserved in the C
revision, but the order of the series is once more modified. In B
the order was Pride, Lechery, Envy, Wrath, Avarice, Gluttony,
Sloth ; in C we have Pride, Envy, Wrath, Lechery, Avarice,
Gluttony, Sloth.

Farther on, in the B text, the Seven Deadly Sins appear
again as forming spots on the coat of "Haukyn the Actyf
man." This is the only complete list, and is as follows: Pride,
Wrath, Envy, Lechery, Avarice (alias Coveitise), Gluttony,
Sloth.2

Farther on again, the sins are enumerated as constituting the
main dangers threatening the wealthy, and the list is : Pride,
Wrath, Gluttony, Sloth, Avarice, Lechery, Sloth again, total seven ;
but Sloth is named twice and Envy is lacking.^

In C, the Haukyn passage is fused with the confessions ; but
the list of the dangers is preserved. It is not left just as it was,
for C notices that, in B, Sloth was named twice ; he suppresses
the word, therefore, on the least important of the two occasions,
and so we have: " hus giotonye and grete synne" (C, XVII, 77),
instead of : '* his glotonie and his grete scleuthe " (B, XIV, 234).
But, in spite of his desire, thus made evident, to revise and improve,
the author of C, afflicted with the same infirmity of mind as the
author of A and B, does not observe that Envy is lacking; he
none the less gravely repeats twice that he is dealing with the
" sevene synnes pat per ben " (XVII, 44), that he speaks " of the
sevene synnes " (XVII, 61). As there was no further revision,
this list remained definitively incomplete. Such peculiarities are
indeed so peculiar as to be, in a way, the author's mark — his seal

1 A, V, 45.

2 B, XIII, 276. ^ B, XIV, 21.').

297

28

J. J. JUSSERAND

and signatured It is most unlikely that any reviser would have
failed to " find the concord of this discord."

Concerning the additions to Sloth, in version B, it is easy to
show that, like those introduced, at the same time, by the author in
the confession of several other sins, they have no object but to
bring his description nearer to the generally accepted type. For
what regards Sloth, commonly held to be the source and cause
of so many other faults, the poet examines the whole life of the
slothful man, mainly, in his eyes, the man who neglects his duties.
This was not at all a strange or original notion, but a commonplace
one in those days. The pleasure such a man takes in finding " an
hare in a felde " does not, to be sure, correspond exactly to our idea
of slothfulness, but it corresponds to Langland's, who shows his
sinner neglecting, meanwhile, to make himself proficient in church
Latin. Sloth also neglects to come to mass in time, to fulfil his
vows, to perform his penances, to keep his own house well, to pay
his servants, workmen, and creditors their due, to thank those who
have been kind to him. He wastes quantities of " flesche and
fissche," cheese, ale, etc. His life has ever been one of neglect :

I ran aboute in ^outhe • and 3af me noujte to lerne.

There is no intimation that any of his misdeeds was committed
with the intention of winning money; it was with him mere
negligence ; if the author of B had really introduced any of these
additions in order to make the confession fit with the restitution
passage, he would have expressed himself otherwise, or would have
chosen another alliterating letter and another word than wan in the
line :

1 The following table shows the number and order of the Sins as griven in the earliest version
where they appear.

A, II

A,V

B, XIII

B, XIV

C, XVII

Pride

Pride

Pride

Pride

Pride

Envy

Lechery

Wrath

Wrath

Wrath

Avarice

Envy

Envy

Gluttony

Gluttony

Gluttony

Avarice

Lechery

Sloth

Avarice

Lechery

Gluttony

Avarice

Avarice

Lechery

Sloth

Sloth

Gluttony
Sloth

Lechery
Sloth again

Sloth

Wrath is lacking

Wrath is lacking

Envy is lacking

Envy is lacking

298

Piers Plowman 29

And jete wil I ^elde ajein • if I so moche have,
Al ))at I wikkedly wan.^

In truth, as I said, Langland had no other intent, in remodeling
this passage, than to bring his picture near to the accepted type, and
so he did. We may see in Chaucer what was the importance of that
sin so summarily dispatched, at first, in the Visions, and how it led
people to the neglect of all their duties, the temporal ones as well as
the spiritual :

Necligence is the norice [of all harme] .... This foule sinne Accidie
is eek ful greet enemy to the lyflode of the body ; for it ne hath no pur-
veaunce agayn temporal necessitee ; for it forsleweth and forsluggeth,
and destroyeth alle goodes temporeles by reccheleesnesse .... Of
[lachesse] comth poverte and destruccioun, bothe of spirituel and tem-
poral thinges.2

In similar fashion the confession of Sloth, as it reads in text B of
Piers Plowman, ends by an allusion to the state of beggary to which
he has been reduced by his " foule sleuthe." Not a word in these
additions implies that the author really considered that the Robert
and Restitution passage should come next and that he ought to
insert details leading up to it.

Dwelling on Wrath, forgotten in version A, and added in version
B, Professor Manly thinks he detects a proof of a difference of
authorship in the differences of merit and of style. The Wrath
confession in B is, according to him, " totally different in style
from the work of A, and indeed more appropriate for Envy than for
Wrath, containing as it does no very distinctive traits of Wrath.
The additions .... are confused, vague, and entirely lacking in the
finer qualities of imagination, organization, and diction shown in
all A's work. In A, each confession is sketched with inimitable
vividness and brevity." ^

The answer is : (1) An author is not bound, under pain of being
cleft in twain, always to show the same merits, in every respect, on
every occasion, at all times; (2) the confessions in A are not so good,
and the additions in B are not so bad as Professor Manly makes them
out. As a matter of fact, some of these additions are excellent, and

1 B, V, 463.

2 Parson's Tale—Be Accidia, g§ 53 ir.

Modern Philology, Vol. Ill, p. 365 ; Cambridge History, II, p. 15.

299

30 J. J. JUSSERAND

more than one of the cleverest and most humorous touches in the
whole poem are to be found in them ; ^ others are not so happy.
The same may be said of the confessions as first drafted in A, some
of which are excellent, and others far from good.

Thus it is that, in version A, supposed to be so perfect, Pride,
represented by Pernel Proud-herte, concludes her speech by a
promise to

merci be-seche
Of al that ichave i-had * envye in myn herte.^

As Mr. Manly said of the Wrath portrait in B, this is " indeed more
appropriate for Envy " than for Pride, and this similarity in aptitude
for confusion, if it has any bearing at all on the problem, can but
confirm our belief in a unity of authorship. The same repenting
Pernel undertakes, in version A, to reform : she will wear a hair
smock,

Forte fayten hire flesch • that frele was to synne.

This kind of penance and this allusion to flesh " frail to sin "
would certainly fit another Sin better than Pride, as shown by the
author of A himself who, in passus III, had had the words " heo is
frele of hire flesch " applied to Meed in the same speech where she is
described as being " as comuyn as ]>e cart-wei." ^ In this same A
text, described as so far above the additions in B, repenting Lechour
declares that his penance will consist in eating and drinking less
than before on Saturdays ; which is, if one may be permitted to say
so, to " take it easy." While Professor Manly alleges that the
attributes of Wrath in text B would better suit Envy, it turns out
that in A, inversely, one of the classical attributes of Wrath, the

^ Important additions were introduced in the confession of Coveitise. Repentance
obliges the sinner to examine his conscience (a passage has been quoted above, p. 18),
and tell of his various misdeeds among chapmen, lords, Lombards, etc. Repentance
goes on saying :

" Hastovv pite on pore men • fat mote nedes borwe ? "

' ' I have as moche pite of pore men • as pedlere hath of cattes,

pat wolde kille hem, yf he cacche hem myjte " for coveitise of here skynnes."

— B, V^, 257.

All the passage is as \dvid, sharp, and pregnant as any anywhere in version A,
2 A, V, 52. 3 A, III, 117, 127.

300

Piers Plowman 31

sowing of feuds and quarrels, is bestowed on Envy, who says of his
neighbor :

Bit wane him and his meyne • ichave i-mad wraththe,
Bothe his lyf and his leome • was iost thorw my tonge.^

If this sort of confusion between Wrath and Envy proved any-
thing, it would again prove unity of authorship, as we find it in both
A and B. It proves nothing in reality, except that Langland was of
bis time, and that he was of it as well when he wrote B as when he
wrote A. In all mediaeval accounts of the Deadly Sins, the de-
scriptions constantly overlap each other, one of the most remarkable
cases being precisely that of Wrath and Envy ; the one was held to
be the source of the other : " Envye," says Wyclif, " is modir of
ire." ^ " After Envye," says Chaucer's Parson, " wol I descryven the
sinne of Ire. For soothly, who-so hath envye upon his neighebor,
anon he wole comunly finde him a matere of wratthe, in worde or
in dede, agayns him to whom he hath envye." So begins Chaucer's
chapter on Wrath in the Parsons Tale. Well might Langland
include Wrath and Envy in a single " erledome," when revising his
first text.

In that description of Wrath so unsatisfactory to Professor Manly,
and added to text B, this sin is shown " with two whyte eyen, and
nyvelynge (sniveling) with the nose." He goes about sowing discord,
making friars and members of the secular clergy hate each other,
scattering scandal and jangles in convents (not an insignificant sin
this one, according to our author, who had said before, in version A,
" Japers and jangelers, Judas children"), behaving so that people
meant to live in peace,

Hadde Jjci had knyves, bi Cryst ■ her eyther had killed other.^

All this is considered by Professor Manly so preposterous that the
author of A could never have written anything like it ; if the author
of B did, he must have been a different man. But, as we have just
seen, the author of A was not at all incapable of admitting irrelevant

^ A, V, 80. Cf. Chaucer, who, however, is careful to place his statement under Ire :
"For soothly, almost al the harm that any maa dooth to his neigheboro comth of
wratthe." — Parson's Ta/e, § 34.

2 Chi the Seven Deadly Sins, chap. xii. ' B, V, 165.

301

32 J. J. JUSSERAND

matter into his text, and on the other hand, there was nothing
preposterous in these additions ; they were, on the contrary, common-
place ; such characteristics are paid full attention to by Chaucer's
Parson : " Now comth the sinne of hem that sowen or maken discord
amonges folk, which is a sinne that Crist hateth outrely." Jangling
is another characteristic of Wrath: "Now comth Janghnge ....
[and] comth the sinne of Japeres .... The vileyns wordes and
knakkes of Japeris [conforten] hem that travaillen in the service of
the devel." ^

This same chapter on Ire well shows how vague were the limits
assigned then to each sin. Following accepted manuals, and not
considering there was any reason for him to make changes, Chaucer
speaks, as coming under the scope of Ire, of those who " treten
unreverently the sacrement of the auter," of swearing, of the
various sinful ways of bringing about miscarriages, of " ad-
juracioun, conjuracion," charms and the like, of "Flateringe"
unexpectedly associated with Wrath : " I rekene flaterye in the
vyces of Ire, for ofte tyme, if o man be wrooth with another,
thanne wol he flatere som wight to sustene him in his querele."
Here is a good occasion for anyone who remembers in what style
the rest of the Canter'bury Tales were written to show that England
rejoiced not only in several Langlands but in a large number of
Chancers.

Other arguments yet have been put forth in order to show that
the author of version B could not have been the author of version A ;
very telling ones if they held good. Remodeling version A, the
author of B is said to have misunderstood or spoilt several passages
in it, and he cannot therefore have originally composed that version.
The following examples are given, being doubtless the best available
ones.^

— " In II, 21 ff. Lewte is introduced as the leman of lady Holy
Church and spoken of as feminine." Allusion is here made by

^ Stqicitur de Ira, §§ 45, 47.
"^ Cambridge History, II, p. 32.

302

Piers Plowman 33

Professor Manly to the lines in B where the handsome lady " purfiled
with pelure " tells the dreamer that Meed has

.... ylakked my lemman • fat lewte is hoten
And bilowen hire to lordes • Jjat lawes han to kepe.

The answer is: (1) There cannot be any question here of B
having misunderstood A, as the passage is quite different in both
texts, and there is no mention at all of Lewte in A. (2) " Lem-
man" does not necessarily mean a man and a paramour; to use it
otherwise is not to commit any error ; a leman is a tenderly loved
being of any sex : Spenser's Proteus asks Florimel " to be his
leman and his ladie trew." If Florimel could play the part of a
leman, why not Lewte ? And, as the pelure purfiled lady in the
Visions was Holy Church, we may take it for granted that a differ-
ence of sex had little to do in her choice of a " lemman. " (3) Very
possibly there may be nothing more in the passage than a scribe's
error, " hire " being put in instead of " hym ; " the more probable
as the correction is made in C :

And lackyd hym to lordes • that lawes han to kepe.^

Of B having failed to understand or of having committed any
mistake, there is no trace.

— " In II, 25, False instead of Wrong is father of Meed, but is
made to marry her later." It is a fact that we have in A,
" Wrong was hir syre," and in B, " Fals was hire fader," also that in
B, as in all the other versions, Meed none the less marries Fals.

Without any doubt, when writing B, the author decided to modify
entirely the family connections of Meed, and not without good
cause. In the first version, so highly praised, the incoherency
Avas such as to make a change indispensable. Wrong was very
badly chosen as a father for Meed, and was given, besides, nothing
to do. The marriage was not arranged by him ; the marriage
portion was not supplied by him ; in the journey to Westminster
he was forgotten ; his part was limited to signing first among
many others, the "feffment" charter supplied by other people.
And while he did nothing in this important occurrence when, as

1 C, III, 21.

J.— p.p. 303 c

34 J. J. JUSSERAND

a father, he should have been most busy, he suddenly reappeared
in the next passus (as a murderer and a thief) ; he was then full of
activity. Together with Peace, Wit, Wisdom, etc.. Meed took part
in the scene, but her blood-relationship with Wrong had been
entirely forgotten, and not a word was said implying any connection
between the two : incoherency was there absolute. Wrong, more-
over, was too thoroughly an objectionable father for Meed. From
Wrong, nothing but wrong can come ; and yet, in this same text A,
no less a personage than Theology assures us that Meed is not so
bad after all. She is of gentle blood, " a mayden ful gent ; heo
mihte cusse fe Kyng for cosyn . . . ." How so, if the daughter
of Wrong ? In the same version, on the other hand, Favel does
everything, and acts as the real father; it is he who assumes the
responsibility and the charges of the marriage ; he Avho supplies
money to secure false witnesses at Westminster, who rejoices with
Fals at the prospective success of the lawsuit. It is between him
and Fals — W^rong being forgotten — that Meed rides to London.

The obvious thing to do in case of a revision was to suppress
Wrong in the marriage preliminaries, and give Meed a less oppro-
brious parentage. Favel, not so repulsive as Wrong, was a ready-
found father, the part of whom he had in fact already been playing.
Such are precisely the changes adopted by Langland when re-
writing his poem. That Fals instead of Favel appears in the
half-line quoted above, owing to an obvious mistake as Meed
is to marry Fals immediately after, is of no importance. Such slips
of the pen would be difficult for any copyist, and even for any
author, to avoid, in such a passage as this, with so many lines
alliterating in /, and Favel fair speech, and Fals fickle tongue,
constantly succeeding one another.

This is not a mere surmise, put forth for the sake of argument ;

it is a demonstrable fact. The same confusion between these two

names, the same use of the one instead of the other, do not occur

only in text B, but also in text C, and also in text A itself: one

more kind of mistake which, if it demonstrates anything, can only

show a similitude of authorship. In version A, II, the feoffment

is said, on 1. 58, to be made by Fals, and three lines farther on by

Favel ; Fals is a mistake for Favel. In version C, we are told

304

Piers Plowman 35

in passus III, 1. 25, that "Favel was hure fader," and on 1. 121,
that " Fals were hure fader."

The intention to make it Favel throughout, in B as well as C, is,
however, certain : Fals in these texts continues to be the prospective
husband and therefore cannot be the father; Wrong is no longer
mentioned in either, so that there is only left Favel, correctly men-
tioned as such in C, III, 25. The same intention to give Meed
a different parentage, better justifying Theology's otherwise ludicrous
remarks, is also shown by Langland adding in B a mention that Meed
had " Amendes " for her mother, a virtuous character, and the point
is further insisted on in C : Meed's marriage cannot be valid without
her mother's consent —

Amendes was hure moder • by trewe mennes lokyng ;
Withoute hure moder Amendes • Mede may noght be wedded.^

The author of B has certainly neither " misunderstood " nor spoilt
A in this passage ; just the reverse ; he made sense of what was very
near being nonsense.

— " In II, 74 ff., B does not understand that the feoffment covers
precisely the provinces of the Seven deadly Sins, and by elaborating
the passage spoils the unity of intention."

That B, on the contrary, understood perfectly that the Seven
Deadly Sins were in question is shown by the fact that he took
notice of only six appearing in A at this place, and that he added the
seventh. He gives some supplementary details on each of the sinful
" erledomes " or " lordeships " bestowed on the couple, the " chastlets "
and " countes " these territories include. The unity of intention is in
no way impaired.

— " In II, 176, B has forgotten that the bishops are to accom-
pany Meed to Westminster and represents them as borne ' abrode in
visytynge.' "

The answer is (1) B had no chance to forget any such thing, as he
was, without any doubt, working with a text of A at his elbow.
When he wrote his 1. 17G, he had before him 1. 151 in A. (2)
Contrary to what Professor Manly suggests, there is here no in-
coherency chargeable to B. In A, exactly as in B, Langland indulges

' C, III, 122.

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36 J. J. JUSSERAND

in an incidental fling at bishops ; no more in one case than in the
other were they to go to Westminster at all. In A, Civil gives advice
how each steed should be " dight ; " deans and subdeans will be used
" as desterers,"

For thai schuUen beren bisschops • and bringen hem to reste ;

which may mean anything one pleases, except the implying of a
tumultuous journey to Westminster or anywhere else. Of West-
minster not a word ; and when, in version A, we reach that place with
Fals and his crew, nothing is said of any bishop being part of the
troop. In B, we have the same speech of Civil, with a few more
details : deans and subdeans will be saddled with silver.

To here bischopes aboute * abrode in visytynge.

As this fling at bishops had, in both texts, nothing to do with the
story, the author, revising his poem for the last time, suppressed it
entirely in text C, a not isolated example of good taste given then by
him.

— " Worst of all, perhaps, B did not notice " the shifted passage on
Robert and Restitution, and the introduction into the text of the
names of the wife and children of Piers, at a place (A, VII, 71-74)
where they interrupt Piers' speech before his journey.

This has been answered before.

VI

Professor Manly, it will be rememberedt holds that the Visions
were written by five different men ; version A being the work of
three, versions B and C of one each. We have discussed his theories
concerning John But and the author of B, this last being the
one about whom he took most pains. Besides the arguments enum-
erated above, he put forth some more concerning this same version ;
but as they apply also to the diflerences of authorship said to
be discernible in the rest of the work, all these can be discussed
together.

These arguments are drawn from differences in literary merit

in opinions, meter, and dialect noticeable in the successive versions

of Piers Plov:man. Those differences are, according to Mr. Manly, so

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Piers Plowman 37

considerable that it is impossible to explain them " as due to such
changes as might occur in any man's mental qualities and views
of life in the course of thirty or thirty-five years, the interval
between the earliest and latest versions." ^ In other words, all
successive versions of any given work, or any separate part
therein, showing such differences as we find in Piers Plowman, are
proved by experience to be due to different authors ; therefore the
two parts of A (we exclude John But and his few lines) and the ver-
sions B and C are, in spite of the indications to the contrary supplied
by MSS, and of all corroborating evidence, the work of four separate
authors.

It is easy to show that this is not, in any way, a telling argument.
Not only have the differences between the various versions of our
poem been, as I think, greatly exaggerated, but, taking them at
Professor Manly's own estimation, they would prove, in themselves,
nothing at all, for a large number of works of every date and from
every country can be quoted offering even deeper differences, and
differences often occurring in a much shorter space of time ; and yet
the whole is indisputably the work of one single author, who had
simply changed his mind, or his manner, or both, or was better
inspired at one time than at another.

The differences in meter and dialect need not detain us much.
They are mentioned " pour m^moire," rather than discussed by
Mr. Manly, and we must wait till the case is put forth with an
attempt at demonstration. We do not think that, when it is, it
will prove at all a difference of authorship. Concerning dialects,
it is very difficult to distinguish, in cases like this, what is attribut-
able to the author and what to the scribe. Mr. Manly tells us
that a careful study of the MSS would show that, " between A, B,
and C, there exist dialectal differences incompatible with the sup-
position of a single author. This can easily be tested in the case
of the pronouns and the verb are " (p. 34). But we find as great
differences between the various copies of the same version ; and
shall we have to believe that each copy was the work of a different
poet ? Take a pronoun, as Mr. Manly suggests ; we shall find,
for example, that in one MS of version C, the pronoun she appears

^ Cambridge History, II, p. 4.

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38 J. J. JUSSERAND

as 30, in another MS of the same version as hue, in another as
sche and scheo} Yet the first two MSS not only give the same
version, but belong to the same subclass and are very closely
connected ; dialectal forms are none the less markedly different.^
The excellent Vernon MS of A has southern forms which do not
appear in other MSS of the same version. The MS 79 at Oriel
College, containing text B, is pure Midland ; the MS of the same text,
Dd. 1. 17, at the University Library, Cambridge, offers northern
forms.

Metrical differences tell even less, not only because, here again,
scribes may have had something to do with them (we have, for
example, a MS of A whose scribe was so fond of alliteration that
he often modified the text to add, against all rule, a fourth allit-
erating word ^), but because, if we admitted that changes of this
sort proved differences of authorship, we would have to admit
that two different Miltons wrote Paradise Lost and Paradise
Begained,^ and that 37 different Shakespeares wrote Shakespeare's
37 plays. " Let us first take the point of metre," says Dr. Furni-
vall in his just-published Life of the great dramatist, "in which
Shakspere was changing almost play by play, during his whole
life." ^ Prof. Manly states that, between the two parts of A, ad-
mitted by all critics to have been written at some years' distance
in time, thei'e are notable differences "in regard to run-on lines
and masculine endings." *^ This would show that the Tempest can-
not be from the same Shakespeare as Loves Labours Lost, since
there is one run-on line for every three in the first, and one for
every eighteen in the second, and there are 1,028 riming lines in

1 MSS Laud, 656, Bodleian; PhiUipps,8,231; University Library,Cambridge,Ff. 5. 35.

^ A striking example of the close connection between these two MSS of the same
version, and also of the persistence of scribes in adhering to then- own private dialectal
forms, is given by Skeat, Preface of C, p. xxix (Early Engl. Text Soc. ) : the scribe of the
Phillipps MS having written once by mistake hue instead of he, the scribe of the Laud
MS "actually followed suit by substituting his favourite term Jo, not noticing that hue
was wrong."

* MS of Lincoln's Inn, version A ; Skeat, Preface of A, p. xxii.

* "The difference in kind between the two poems is signalised in certain differences
in the language and versification." — D. Masson, Milton's Poetical Works, Introduction
to Paradise RegaAned.

^ Furnivall and Munro, Shakcsiyeare' s Life and Work, 1908, p. 66. Cf. pp. 90, 114,
137, 147, and the tables, p. 263.

^ Cambridge History, II, p. 13.

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Piers Plowman 39

Love's Zahmc7'''s Lost, siud only two in the Tempest (sind none in Winter's
Tale).

Concerning differences of literary merit and mental power,
Prof. Manly declares that the first part of A (episode of Meed
and Piers) is the best in the whole work ; and not only the best, for
after all it must happen to any author that one of his poems or
cantos is his best, but so far above all the rest as to imply a dif-
ference of authorship. Those first eight passus are remarkable,
he says, for their " clearness and definiteness and structural excel-
lence ; " they are conspicuous for their " unity of structure ; " the
writer never " forgets for a moment the relation of any incident to

his whole plan Only once or twice does he interrupt his

narrative to express his own views or feelings There is

nowhere even the least hint of any personal animosity against any
class of men as a class." The style is of unparalleled " pictur-
esqueness and verve ; " the art of composition is " one of the most
striking features," of this portion of the poem.^

In the latter part of A, on the contrary, that is the Dowel passus,
and in the additions introduced into versions B and C, those qual-
ities disappear to a large extent ; we have much more " debate
and disquisition " than " vitalised allegory " (why not ?) ; the
author is interested in casuistry, in theological problems, predes-
tination, etc. (again, why not ?) ; the " clearness of phrasing, the
orderliness and consecutiveness of thought .... are entirely
lacking." ^ The author of B has the same defects to an even more
marked degree ; he is incapable of " consecutive thinking ; " his
" point of view is frequently and suddenly and unexpectedly
shifted; topics alien to the main theme intrude because of the use
of a suggestive word ; " ^ he, too, shows interest in predestination
(which in any case brings him near one of the supposed authors
of A) ; he cannot follow his plan properly.

As a matter of fact, there are no such wide differences. Great

as are the merits of the first part of A, written with all the vigor

and vivacity of younger manhood, they are mixed with the very

kind of faults Mr. Manly detects in the second part and in the

successive versions. Incoherencies are numerous and glaring ; the

» Ibi'I., pp. 1, r., 11, 12. 2 Pp. 17^ 13. » p. 24.

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40 - J. J. JUSSERAND

aptitude to start off on a new track because a mere word has evoked
a new thought in the writer's mind is remarkable, and in this we
can find once more his seal and signature, the proof of his author-
ship. None of the stories lead to anything, to anywhere, nor are
in any way concluded.

Let us glance, as we are bidden, at the first part of version A,
beginning with passus I. The dreamer asks a "lovely ladi," who
turns out to be Holy Church, to interpret the dream of the two
castles and the field full of folk, which he has had in the prologue.
The Lady answers in substance : The tower on this toft is the
place of abode of Truth, or God the father ; but do not get drunk.
"Why drunk, and why those details about drunkenness that has
caused Lot's sins, the nature of which is recalled ? The word
drink having come under the pen of the author, he started off on
this subject and made it the principal topic (eight lines) in Holy
Church's answer, though it had nothing to do with the dream she
had been requested to interpret.

The dreamer thanks her very much, and asks now what is this
money that these men are treasuring up and " so fast holden."
The Lady makes a somewhat rambling answer, both question and
answer being equally unexpected and irrelevant. The " feld ful
of folk " in the prologue had been represented as filled with men
who ploughed the land, prayed, glosed on the gospel, overfed
themselves, pleaded before the courts, traded, did, in fact, all sorts
of things, except hold fast " moneye on fis molde."

What the Lady should have explained was not hard to make

clear. The subject of the dream in the prologue was nothing else

than what the author must have seen in reality a number of times,

namely, the world as represented in a mystery play, just as we

may see it pictured in the MS of the Valenciennes Passion : ^ on

one side, God's Tower or Palace ; on the opposite side, the devil's

castle, "fat dungen . . . . J)at dredful is of siht," says Langland ;

between the two, a vast space for the various scenes in man's life

or in the story of his salvation. It is simple, but the Lady loses

Ijer way, and the only people she describes are those that just

happen not to have been there.

^ Eeproduced, e. g. , in my Shakespeare in France, ji. 63.

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Piers Plowman 41

Asked by the dreamer, who has apparently ceased to care about
the people in his dream, how he could be saved, the Lady advises
him to think only of Truth ; clerks " scholde techen " what Truth
is. But this word scholde has caused the author's mind to wander,
and instead of enlightening her hearer on his duties, the Lady
begins to describe what other sorts of people " should " do, and
especially a sort very far removed from the dreamer's condition,
namely kings and knights; the Lady informs us that they "scholde
kepen hem bi Reson." Kings in general remind her of King David
in particular, and David and his knights remind her of Crist, who
is the king of heaven, and of angels who are his knights ; we have
therefore something about angels, some of whom are good and
others are bad, as witness Lucifer about whom we now get various
details.

The poem continues as it began ; the experience might be
prolonged indefinitely. The dreamer insisting to know what is
Truth, the Lady says that it consists in loving God more than oneself,
but the word love having evoked a new train of thoughts, the poet
descants now on the necessity of having " reujje on \ie. pore ;" if you
do not " love ]>e pore " you cannot be saved, even if you have been as
chaste as a child ; but the word chaste starting a new idea, the author
branches off on this topic : to be chaste is not enough ; " moni
chapeleyns ben chast," yet lack charity, and so on.

None of the visions, episodes, or stories in these passus have any
ending, nor are continued by what comes next. After the field full
of folk, interpreted in the way we have seen by Holy Church, after
the dreamer's appeal to know how he can be saved, we have
the story of Meed and of her intended nuptials with Fals. A
question of the dreamer how to know "the Fals," of which Fals
not a word had been said before, is all there is of " structural excel-
lence " in the connecting of the two episodes. Theology objects to
Meed's marriage ; the case is brought before the King who wants to
give her hand to the Knight Conscience. Conscience refuses, makes
a speech, and consents at last to kiss Meed, provided Reason agrees
he should. Reason is brought forth, makes a speech on quite
different topics, and we never hear any more of the kiss or the
marriage. " )3ene Pees com to parlement ; " a new episode begins, the

311

42 J. J. JUSSERANI)

word " pene " being all that connects it with the previous one. And
so on, till the end.

Worthy of the profoundest admiration as Langland is, he deserves
it for ' qualities quite different from that " structural excellence "
which Professor Manly thinks he discovers in version A and in no
other. In this version, in version B, and in version C — the same
combination of qualities and defects denoting the same man — the
poet's mind is frequently rambling and his poem recalls rather the
mists on " Malverne hulles " than the straight lines of the gardens at
Versailles.

Another difference mentioned by Professor Manly is that only
" once or twice " the author of the first part of A interrupts his
narrative to express his own views. Here again the difference
with the other versions is remarkably exaggerated. We find in A,
such passages as those beginning : " Bote god to alle good folk
. . . ." Ill, 55 ;i "Bote Saloman \>e Sage . . . ." Ill, 84 (the
author interferes in these two cases to give the lie to his own
personages) ; " I warne 30U, alle werk-men . . . ." VII, 306 ;
" 3e Legistres and Lawyers . ..." VIII, 62 ; " For-thi I rede

90W renkes (creatures) .... And nomeliche, ^e Meires "

VIII, 168. Here are, in any case, five examples instead of " one
or two." The Langland who wrote A resembled too much, in
reality, the Langland who wrote B and C to be able to resist the
temptation to interfere, interrupt, and make direct appeals to his
compatriots — to you mayors, you lords, you workmen — whom he
wanted so much to convert. All these Langlands, so strangely
similar, cared little for art, as compared with moral improve-
ment.

We have been told also that there is nowhere in A " even the
least hint of any personal animosity against any class of men as a

1 The intervention of the author in this case interrupts the story of Meed who has
just been heard by her confessor, and has been promised absolution if she gives a glass
window to the church. The author expresses his personal indignation at such doings, and
beseeches "you, lordynges," not to act thus ; lords make hiiu think of mayors, and the
word mayor recalls to him the duties of such dignitaries ; in his usual rambling fashion,
the poet passes on accordingly to the duty for mayors to punish "on pillories " untrust-
worthy " Brewesters, Bakers, Bochers and Cookes ; " and when we return at last to Meed,
as the author had just been speaking of mayors, he makes her address " )>emeir," though
none had been mentioned, and there was none there before. Here again there is no cause
for praising A's " structural excellence."

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Piers Plowman 43

class." In this, too, I must confess I do not see great differences
between any of the Visions ; the same deep antipathies appear in
A as elsewhere : scorn for idle people of whatever sort, strong
animosity against lawyers carried to the point of absolute unfair-
ness,^ contempt for pardoners, pilgrims, and all those who think
that, by performing rites, they can be saved, scorn and disgust for
friars, who are constantly mentioned with contumely, and certainly
not as individuals but as a class : the whole lot of them (" all Ipe
foure ordres," the poet is careful to say) are, like the lawyers,
condemned wholesale.^

If the merits of the first part of A have been, as I consider,
exaggerated, so have the demerits of the second part and of the two
revisions. The second part of A has, it is true, more dull places
than the first : no author is constantly equal to his best work. But
even in this portion of the poem, we find passages of admirable
beauty, such as Langland alone produced in these days; the one,
for example, where he tells us of his doubts, and of his anguish at
his inability to reconcile the teachings of the Church with his idea
of justice, Aristotle — " who wrou^te betere ? " — is held to be
damned; and Mary Magdalen — "who mijte do wers?" — as well
as the penitent thief, with his whole life of sin behind him, are
saved. Happy those who do not try to know so much, who do not
feel those torments ; happy the " pore peple, as ploujmen " who can
(and what a grand line !) —

Percen with a pater-noster • the paleis of hevene.^

The value of the most picturesque and humorsome scenes in
the rest of the poem fades in comparison with passages of this sort.

^ The author cannot admit that a lawyer's work deserves a salary as well as any other
kind of work ; he would like them to plead " for love of ur Lord," and not for " pons
and poundes " (A, Prol. 86).

^ I font pere Freres • all ))e Foure Ordres,

Prechinge J^e peple • for profyt of heore wonibes.

—A, Prol. 55.
Friars receive Fals ; they open their house to Lyer and keep " him as a Frere " (II, 206) ;
Meed's confessor who is a model of low rascality is " i-copet as a Frere " (III, 36) ; Envy
wears the " fore slevys " of " a Freris frokke " (V, 64), etc. The fact tliat a copy of
Pipr.i Plowman belonged to a friars' convent has no bearing on the question ; Wyclitite
Bibles were also found in convents.

^ A, end of passus X.

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44 J. J. JUSSERAND

Others, of a different stamp, might be quoted, such as the brief and
striking portrait of Wit, the model man of learning :

He was long and lene ' to loken on ful sympie,
Was no pride on his apparail • ne no povert no])er,
Sad of his semblaunt • and of softe speche.^

What has been said of the differences between the two parts of A
cannot but be emphatically repeated for what concerns those sup-
posed to exist between A and B. Given the time elapsed, as shown
by the political allusions, those differences, if any there be, are far
from striking. A remarkable point deserves attention at the start.
As acknowledged by Professor Manly himself, the author of B makes
excellent, vivid, and picturesque additions to the first two episodes
(stories of Meed and of Piers Plowman), and introduces abstract,
discursive, and scarcely coherent ones in the Dowel part; in other
words B is, from this point of view, an exact counterpart of A, the
picture being simply drawn on a larger scale. It is difficult to avoid
the conclusion that men so similarly impressed and influenced by
similar topics were not improbably the same man.

In reality, defects and qualities bring the three versions very
near one another. Professor Manly tells us that the author of B
is in " helpless subjection to the suggestions of the words he hap-
pens to use ; " so is, as we have seen, the author of A. The author
of B " loses sight of the plan of the work ; " so does A. B, Mr
Manly continues, shows perhaps as much power as A in " visualising
detail ; " but he is " incapable of visualising a group or of keeping his
view steady enough to imagine and depict a developing action." ^
One may be permitted to ask what is the crowd which B ought
to have described, and which he failed to visualise ? Of the per-
fection of his power of observation and the picturesqueness of his
style some examples have been given, many others might be added ;
and the famous rat-parliament, one of the most characteristic and
best " visualised " scenes in the poem, is present in everybody's
memory.

As for his incapacity to understand the development of an action,
B shows certainly, by the suppression of Wrong as father of Meed^

^ Camh ridge History, p. 32.
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Piers Plowman 45

the giving of " Amendes " to her as a mother, and the other
modifications in the passage, that he well understood how an action
should develop. C shows it even better by the suppression of
the lines telling, in previous versions, how Piers tore up his bull of
pardon out of spite, and simply because contradiction had irritated
him. This is one of the grandest, if not the grandest scene in the
poem, the most memorable, even for us to-day, the culminating point
of the work. " Pleyn pardoun " is granted to ploughmen and other
poor people who have led hard lives on this earth without
murmuring ; it is the recompense of their humility ; the Lord gives
it to them " for love of heore lowe hertes." ^ Piers, can we see your
pardon ?

And Pers at his preyere ' the pardon unfoldeth.
And I bi-hynden hem bothe ■ bi-heold al the bulla.
In two lynes hit lay • and not a lettre more,
And was i-writen riht thus • in witnesse of treuthe :

Et qui bona egerunt, ibunt in vitam eternam ;

Qui veto mala^ in ignem eternum.

It is only in revising his text for the last time that the author
felt how greatly improved the whole episode would be if cut short
here, that the action was now fully developed, and that any addition,
and especially the tearing of the bull by Piers whose main treasure
it should have been, simply spoilt it. He therefore suppressed
this incident, twenty-six lines in all, and having briefly shown, by
the priest's remark, that such a teaching was too high for vulgar
ecclesiastics, he tells us he awoke as the sun was setting in the south,
and he found himself

Meteles and moneyles • on Malvern hulles.^

If the vague subject of Dowel, Dobet, Dobest, inspires the
author of B and C with as much rambling as the author of the
second part of A, it inspires him, too, with several of those splendid
touches of eloquence and feeling which also shine in that same second
part — and nowhere else in the literature of the day. There we find,

1 A, VIII, 87 ff. 2 c, X, 295.

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46 J. J. JUSSERAND

for example, added in version B, the incomparable prayer to the
Creator, in passus XIV : "

Ac pore peple, thi prisoneres • lorde, in the put of myschief,
Conforte tho creatures ' that moche care sufiren
Thorw derth, thorw drouth • alle her dayes here,
Wo in wynter tymes • for wantyng of clothes,
And in somer tyme selde • soupen to the fuUe ;
Conforte thi careful • Cryst, in thi ryche,

For how thow confortest alle creatures • clerkes bereth witnesse,
Convertimini ad me, et salvi eritis}

In version B also we find, for the first time, the great passus on
" Crystes passioun and penaunce," ^ with the author awakening at
the end, to the sound of Easter bells, not saddened and anxious, as
formerly while the sun was going down on Malvern hills, but
cheered and joyful on the morning of the Resurrection. It is
difficult to read such passages, so full of fervor, so sincere, and so
eloquent, without thinking of Dante or Milton — unless one chooses
to think of Langland alone.

VII

Studying text C apart from the others, Professor Manly points
out certain traits special to it and marking it, he believes, as the
work of a separate author. Two examples are quoted by him of
" C's failure to understand B " (p. 33) ; other instances, we are told,
might be given, but these are doubtless the most telling ones. The
first example consists in a comparison of 11. 11-16 in the prologue of
B with the similar expanded passage forming 11. 9—18 in C, passus I.
Professor Manly considers the picture entirely spoilt. Be it so ; the
case, as we shall see, would be far from a unique one ; more than
one author spoilt, in his old age, the work of his youth. But it is
not certain that it is so, and many, I think, would not willingly
lose the new line added there to broaden the spectacle offered to the
view of the dreamer who sees before him :

Al the welthe of this worlde • and the woo bothe.

The second example is the change introduced in 11. 160-66 of

the Prologue in B (episode of the Rat Parliament). The "raton

1 B, XIV, 174. 2 B^ XVIII ; C, XXI.

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Piers Plowman 47

of renon " suggests that a bell be hung to the neck of the cat :
there are certain beings in " the cite of London/' who bear bright
collars and go as they please " bothe in wareine and in waste ; " if
there was a bell to their collar, men would know of their comino-
and run away in time. Clearly, according to Mr, Manly, those
beings, those " segges," are dogs, and C made a grievous mistake
in supposing them men ; he cannot therefore be the author of B.

But in reality they loere men. C made no mistake, and, on the
contrary, improved the passage. The allusions were incoherent in B.
What were those beings, living in London, roaming in wan-ens, and
wearing collars, whom if a bell were added to their collars, men would
be able to avoid ?

Men my3te wite where thei went ' and awei renne.

The author of C very justly felt that the passage should be made
clearer ; he had, of course, never intended really to mean dogs (from
which people are not accustomed to run away) but men, those very
" kny3tes and squiers " whom he now names for our clearer under-
standing, and who had taken then to wearing costly gold collars — a
well-known fashion of the period — being themselves the very sort of
" segges " the poorer people might have reason to fear. He therefore
names them and no one else, and is careful to suppress the allusion
in B to their appearing so adorned " in wareine and in waste."
There was no " misunderstanding " on the part of C ; just the
reverse ; and he deserves thanks instead of blame.

Considering this version as a whole, Professor Manly describes
the author as having been, so it seems to him, " a man of much
learning, true piety, and of genuine interest in the welfare of the
nation, but unimaginative, cautious, and a very pronounced
pedant." This amounts to saying, as everybody will agree, that
C is the work of an older man than A and B, Avhich simply con-
firms the point of view I defend. Increasing piety, more care for
politics, more cautiousness, less imagination, a greater show of
learning (in the last edition he gave of his Essays, Montaigne
added about two hundred Latin quotations i) are so many charac-
teristics of age, none of them implying a difference of authorship.

> P. Villey, Lcs sources des Essais de Montaigne, Paris, 1908, Vol. I, p. 402.

317

48 J. J. JUSSERAND

It is an untoward circumstance for Mr. Manly's tlieoiy that his
successive writers seem to have been each one older than his
predecessor, just as if the same man had been living to revise his
own work.

Concerning the textual changes and additions in C, Mr. Manly
declares that " they are numerous and small, and not in pursuance
of any well-defined plan. There are multitudinous alterations of
single words and phrases, sometimes to secure better alliteration,
sometimes to get rid of an archaic word, sometimes to modify an
opinion, but often for no discoverable reason, and occasionally
resulting in positive injury to the style or the thought " (p. 30).
Precisely ; and this is what an author, in the evening of life, would
do for his own work and what no one else would ; a reviser would
have undertaken the work for some cause and with " a well-defined
plan." At times, says Professor Manly, " one is tempted to think
that passages were rewritten for the mere sake of rewriting."
Just so, and who, except the author himself, would take so much
trouble ? An absolutely parallel case is offered by no less a man
than Ronsard, who revised his whole works and gave one last edi-
tion of them in 1584 the year before his death. The changes
introduced by him are of such a nature that they can be described
as follows: "There are multitudinous alterations of single words
and phrases, sometimes to secure better [cadence], sometimes to
get rid of an archaic word, sometimes to modify an opinion, but
often for no discoverable reason, and occasionally resulting in
positive injury to the style or the thought," this latter mishap
being far more frequent with Ronsard than with Langland, and, the
friends of the French poet deploring, in his own day, his unfortunate
changes.^

Mr. Manly considers that the author of C shows not only more
pedantry in increasing the number of quotations, but more learn-
ing : " C is a better scholar than either the continuator of A (who
translated non onecaheris by ' slay not ' and tabesccbam by ' I said
nothing') or B (who accepted without comment the former of
these errors)." One might well answer that there is nothing
extraordinary in a student knowing more in his later years than

^ See, e.g., Pasc^uier, Recherches de la France, Book VI, chap. vii.

318

Piers Plowman 49

in his youth. But, in reality, scholarship is here out of the
question, and the utmost that can be said, in view of the knowledge
displayed everywhere else by the same writer, is that when he
wrote mecaberis and tabescebam, the analogy of sounds evoked in
his mind the thought of madabis and tacebam. Revising his text
he noticed one of these misprints and forgot the other; but he
noticed that one too in his next edition and corrected it : exactly
what could be expected from a poet, who draws, in version A, two
lists of the Seven Sins, both wrong, and corrects them when
writing B, adding, however, in this version another list of the Seven
Sins, equally wrong. It cannot certainly be pretended that our
author was a man of minute accuracy, for, as Mr. Skeat has observed,
"he cites St. Matthew when he means St. Luke, and St.
Gregory when he means St. Jerome," ^ which is worse than to have
left uncorrected, or even to have written, tabescebam instead of
tacebam and Fah instead of Favel. If one of the versions had shown
minute accuracy throughout, that would have told, in a way,
for the theory of multiple authorship ; but we find nothing of the
kind, and the last list of the Seven Sins is left in C definitively
wrong.

VIII

Such is, as I take it, the truth concerning the supposed differences
between the three versions. But let us, as a counter experiment,
admit that it is not so, and let us accept all those differences at
Professor Manly's own estimation. In order that they prove anything,
experience must have shown that whenever similar ones are detected
in the various revisions or the various parts of a work, a multiple
authorship is certain.

To say nothing of Chaucer and of his tales of the Clerk, the
Miller, and the Parson, we would have, if this theory held good,
to admit that the first three acts of Hamlet were written by one
Shakespeare, and the two last by another — an obvious fact : note
the differences of merit, so much genius and so little, the glaring
discrepancies between the two parts, Hamlet slim and elegant,
the " mould of fashion " in the first acts, fat and asthmatic in the

1 Preface of B, p. xiv (E. E. T. S.).

J.— P.P. 319 D

50 J. J. JUSSERAND

last; remember our being told that Hamlet has "foregone all cus-
toms of exercise " since Laertes left, and later that, since Laertes
went, he has been " in continual practice ; " Laertes him self, a
brave and honorable young man in the first acts, a cowardly mur-
derer at the end, and so on. As Professor Manly says concerning
the separate poet to whotn he attributes the second part of A, the
author of the latter part of the play " tried to imitate the previous
writer, but succeeded only superficially, because he ha 1 not th e
requisite ability as a writer, and because he failed to understand
what were the distinctive features in the method of his model." ^ It
even seems, at times, as if the author of the two last acts had never
read the three first : dual authorship should therefore be held as more
than proved.

The whole story of literature will have to be rewritten : strong
doubts will be entertained whether the revised version of the
Essays of 1588 is really by Montaigne, the differences with the
former ones offering some remarkable analogies with those pointed
otit in Piers Plowman} There will be a question as to the first
part of Don Quixote being by the same Cervantes as the last,^ and
Paradise Regained by the same Milton as Paradise Lost. But
this is nothing : here is a grand poem, of great originality, full
of love and adventures, revealing withal the highest aims ; a master-
piece received at once as such and ever since. And we have also
a revision, the work obviously of a feebler hand, of a less gifted
genius, a cautious man, very pedantic. All that was best and most
original in the first text has been suppressed or toned down ; the
subject is modern, yet we now find that the character of the hero

^ Camlridge History, p. 17.

^ In the first edition of the Eisays (to quote an opinion not at all expressed in view
of the present disijussion as it dates from 1897) the thought of Montaigne "est hardie
dans I'expression ; elle a le ton haut et resolu de celui qui s'emancipe. Plus tard, au con-
traire, elle baissera la voix, comme on la baisse pour dire des choses graves dont on sait
laportee." In his same last version, Montaigne " disjoint ses raisonnements, coupe le
fil de ses deductions, en y intercalant des remarques etrangeres ; la pensee primitive se

morcele ainsi et se desagrege Son livre est deveau pour Montaigne une sorte de

tapisserie de Penelope, qu'il ne defait certes pas, car il retranche pen, mais dont il re-
lache les mailles, y travaillant toujours sans I'achever jamais." — Paul Bonnefon, in
Julleville's Eistoire de la LiUeratare Fran^aise, III, 454, 468.

^ " A certain undertone of melancholy has been perceived in his second part. ... At
whiles he moralise[s] with that touch of sadness natural to a man of many years a nd
trials, for whom life is only a retrospect." — Jas. Fitziuaurice- Kelly, Introduction to his
reprint of Shelton's translation oi Don Quixote, London, 1896, Vol. Ill, p. xxiv.

320

Piers Plowman 51

has been so remodeled as to recall Achilles ; other personages are
so modified as to resemble Hector, Nestor, Patrocles. Here are
indeed differences ! Yet we should be wrong in assuming that the
Gerusakmme Liberata and the Genisalemme Conquistata are the work
of several Tassos.

Here is another work, and the analogy is even closer ; it is an
English masterpiece. It appeared in one volume, full of the most
interesting and best " visualised " scenes, every incident so well
presented and so true to life as to be unforgettable, the book
attaining at once an immense popularity, being translated into
every language, and keeping to this day its hold on readers
throughout the world. We are confronted with two continuations.
The earliest is a weak imitation of the first work, the visual power
has diminished ; strange happenings of the usual kind are expected
to make up for the lack of better qualities ; it is impossible to stop
reading the first part when once begun, it is difficult to read the
second to its end. In the next continuation, the differences are
yet deeper, the author makes faint attempts to connect his work,
by allusion, with the first one, but all has become vague and alle-
gorical; theological mists have replaced tangible realities. Afraid
apparently of detection, the author of this part goes so far as to pre-
tend that the first one was " alleojorical," though also " historical " :
a barefaced slander on the original work. The new part is full of
rambling disquisitions on man and his duties, on atheism, and on
Providence, with an imaginary journey to the world of spirits and
a visit to Satan : " Here, I say, I found Satan, keeping his court or
camp, we may call it which we please." The conclusion of the book
is, that " a great superintendency of divine Providence in the minutest
affairs of this world," and the "manifest existence of the invisible
world " have been demonstrated. A difference of authorship is the
more obvious that there was not between the publications of these
three volumes, anonymous all of them, a lapse of years allowing the
author to become, so to say, a different man : it did not take two years
for the three to appear.

Yet, for all that, the three were the work of the same writer,
and the titles he gave to them were : Life and strange surprising

Adventures of Robinson Crusoe — Farther Adventitres of Robinson

321

52 J. J. JUSSERAND

Crusoe — Serious Bejtedions . ... of Bohinson Crusoe^ with his
Vision of the Angelick World. The first part appeared in 1719,
the last in 1720. Shall we have to believe in three different
Defoes ?

IX

I mentioned at the outset that all the indications in the MSS,
whether titles of the different parts, colophons, or notes added by
former-day owners, agreed in showing that we had to do with a
single work, the work of a single author ; none to the contrary being
discernible. One more connecting link between the three versions
remains to be noticed.

At various places in each, and with more abundance as time

passed, the author gave some details about himself, his train of

thoughts, and his manner of life. All these details are simple,

plain, clear, most of them of no interest whatever, if untrue; they

are not meant to show the poet to advantage, but have, on the

contrary, often the tone of a confession : video tneliora frobocfuc,

deteriora scquor. Localities are mentioned with a precision and

definiteness unequaled in the ample dream-literature of that period,

where poets usually go to sleep by the side of an anonymous brook,

in a nameless country. Here two regions, one a very unusual one

in poetry, are named so as to draw special attention, Malvern with

her hills, her mists, and the vast plain at the foot of the slopes ;

London, with its cathedral of many chantries, its great people

wearing bright collars, its poorer ones in their " cots," its principal

thoroughfares and suburbs, Cornhill, Cheapside, Cock Lane, Gar-

lickhithe, Tyburn, South wark, Shoreditch, where lives "dame

Emme," Westminster with the king's palace and the law courts.

The allusions to Welshmen confirm the inference that Malvern is

not a name chosen at random, as the author expresses such ideas

as would occur to a man of the Welsh border. They are natural in

such a one, and would be much less so in a Kentish or Middlesex

man. There is in Chaucer one mention of Wales : it is to describe

it as the refuge of Christians during the period of the old-time

invasions :

To Walls fled the crietianitee.^

' Man of Law, 1. 446.

322

Piers Plowman 53

Gower mentions Wales, but only to say that it Avas the place from
which came the bishop -who baptized King Allee.^

All those personal notes, scattered in versions belonging, as
everybody acknowledges, to dates far apart, accord quite well one
with another. If Mr. Manly's four anonymous authors are respon-
sible for them, they showed remarkable cleverness in fusing into
one their various personalities, to the extent even of growing more
talkative, "cautious," and "pedantic," as years passed, so as to
convey the impression of the same man growing older — the more
meritorious, too, as the taking-up of somebody else's work to
revise it, is rarely a task assumed at the end of one's life, so that
the chances are that the supposed reviser of C was not an old man ;
yet he cleverly assumed Eld's habits and ways of speech.

Not only do the tone of the work and the nature of the additions
denote that B was written by an older man than A, and C by an
older man than B, but the fact is expressly stated in the course of
the private confidences added in each version. At the beginning
of passus XII in B, Ymagynatyf, besides telling us that the author
has followed bim " fyve and fourty wyntre " (which one is free to
take literally or not), specifies that the poet is no longer young,
and that he has reached middle age, though not yet old age.
I have often moved thee to think of thy end, says Ymagynatyf,

And of thi wylde wantounesse • tho tliow jonge were,
To amende it in thi myddel age • lest mi3te the faylled
In thyne olde elde.-

In C, written many years later, the "fyve and fourty wyntre,"
which could no longer be even approximately true, are replaced by
the vague expression " more than fourty wynter," and in the long
and very interesting passage, reading like a sort of memoirs, added
at the beginning of passus VI, the author speaks of himself as
" weak," and of his youth as being long passed :

" Whanne ich jong was," quath ich • " meny 3er liennes. . . ." ^

^ Coiifessio Amaiiiis, II, 1. 904.

'■' B, XII, 6. " ConcupiscentiaCarnis " had told him, it is true : " Tliow art Jonyge and
3i;peandhast Jeresyuowe " (XI, 17). But this occura in a passage where Fortune shows to
the author, in a miiTor called ' ' niydlerd " (eartli or the world), an allegory of man's whole
life; it is therefore preserved in C. It may also be observed that it agrees with the
tliaractcr of " Concupiscentia Carnis " to speak thus to men oi any age.

3C, VI, 35.

323

54 J. J. JUSSERAND

How extraordinary is such minute care, in four different
anonymous authors, who cannot have acted in concert, as each
must have died to allow the other to do his revising unimpeded !
such minute care, in order to give the impression of only one man
revising his own work as he lived on, and grew older ! — much
less extraordinary, and therefore more probable, if the whole was,
as I believe, the work of the same writer.

Not only do the personal intimations scattered in the three ver-
sions fit well together, but they fit such a man as would have com-
posed such a poem, a man of enthusiasm and despondency, of a great
tenderness of heart, in spite of a gaunt exterior and blunt speech,
a man of many whims which he may occasionally have obeyed, '^
only to feel afterward the pangs of remorse, as if lie had committed
real crimes; describing himself then in the worst colors, and, what
is well worthy of notice, giving throughout the impression of one
who would attempt much in the way of learning without reaching
complete proficiency in any branch, of one with an ungeometrical
sort of mind, who could let many errors slip in the midst of his
grand visions, pregnant sayings, vague dreams, and vain dis-
quisitions. Nothing is more characteristic than the description
of himself he attributes to Clergie in the very first version of
the poem :

The were lef to lerne • but loth for to stodie.^

In a line added in B, he makes Holy Church recall his lack of
steady zeal :

To litel latyn thow lernedest * lede, in thi jouthe.*

He describes himself elsewhere as " frantyk of wittes."

On this, Mr. Manly limits himself to stating briefly that all
such details must be imaginary, and he refers us to Prof. Jack
who " has conclusively proved " that all these indications were
fictitious. " Were any confirmation of his results needed, it

^ Coveyty.se-of-eyes * cam ofter iu mynde

Tlian Dowel or Dobet • amonge my dedes alle.

Coveytise-of-eyes ■ conforted me ofte,

And aeyde, " have no conscience * how thow come to godo. "

— B, XI, 4a.

2 A, XII, 6. * B, I, 139 ; not iu A ; preserved in C.

324

Piers Plowman 55

might be found in the fact that the author gives the name of hia
wife and daughter as Kitte and Kalote .... typical names of
lewd women, and therefore not to be taken literally as the names
of the author's wife and daughter " (p. 34).

But if those names had such a meaning that part of the poem
would be unintelligible anyway, whoever the author be. Those
names appear in the splendid passage where the poet is awakened by
the bells on Easter morn :

And kallyd Kytte my wyf • and Kalote my doughter,
' A-rys, and go reverence • godes resurreccioun,
And creep on kneos to the croys • and cusse hit for a juwel,
For goddes blesside body • hit bar for oure bote.' ^

To say that those names are the invention of a reviser is no
explanation. Why should a reviser choose them, if they had such
a meaning, and what can be his intention in showing himself, at
this solemn moment, surrounded with such a disreputable family?
The truth is that the opprobrious meaning thus attributed to
these names at that date is a mere assumption in support of which
no proof is being adduced. Names for which such a bad fate is
in store always begin by being honorable; then comes a period
during which they are used in the two senses ; then arrives the
moment of their definitive doom. The parallel French word
catin, derived like Kitte from Catherine, was for a long time a
perfectly honorable word ; the second period began for it at the
Renaissance ; but then, and for a great many years, it was used both
ways. It appears with the meaning of a strumpet in Marot :

Une catin, sans frapper a la porte,
Des cordeliers jusqu'en la cour entra.^

But the same word is used to designate the Queen of France in
one of the eclogues of Ronsard : Catin stands there for Catherine
de Mddicis.^ The same name again is employed much later by
Madame Deshoulieres as an honorable proper name, and by
Madame de Sevigne as an infamous substantive.

1 C, XXI, 473 ; B, XVIII, 426.

2 Ed. Janet, Vol. Ill, p. 105 ; pointed out by Paul Meyer.

* Eclog. I, first speech of the "Premier Pasteur Voyageur." Elizabeth of Fr»nce»
daughter of Catherine and of Henri II, is there described as " fille de Catin."

,32.')

56 J. J. JUSSERAND

As for Kalote, supposing callet to be really derived from it, it
shotild be noted that the oldest example quoted in Murray's Dic-
tionary of callet being used to designate "a lewd wopaan, trull,
strumpet, drab," is of about 1500.

Except for this, we are referred, as I have said, to Prof. Jack ,
stated to have " conclusively proved " that nothing was genuine in
the personal allusions scattered throughout Piers Ploioman. As
a matter of fact. Prof. Jack did nothing of the kind. He assumes
at the start, in his essay,^ the thoroughly skeptical attitude
which is nowadays all the fashion. James I of Scotland, we were
recently told, did not write the Kingis Quhair ; Sir Philip Sidney
was never in^love with anybody, and his poems are literary exer-
cises ; he himself says they were not, and even names with marked
animosity the husband of the lady ; but that does not matter ; we
are not such fools and we know better. Shakespeare's dark woman
never existed at all; he invented her to have the pleasure of
drawing her edifying portrait. As for Piers Plowman, the author
lets us understand that he made the very sort of studies that one
must have made to write such a poem ; he tells us that certain
ecclesiastical functions allowed him to eke out a scant livelihood ;
that it happened to him to live in Malvern and in London, etc.
Nonsense, all that; how could one believe that he really lived
anywhere ?

Yet, he probably did ; poets are not bound to be always deceit-
ful; their own private experience and real feelings are, after all,
the subject-matter readiest of access to them. Why should they
ever go such a long way to invent, when it would be so easy for
them to copy ? Of course, when they tell us tales of wonder, or
of events markedly to their advantage, we should be on our guard ;
but when they plainly state plain facts, of small interest if untrue,
contradicted by no document and by no historical fact, the chances
are that they speak from experience, the personal element in the
statement being precisely what makes it seem interesting to them.
We are not bound to believe that a real eagle carried to the
House of Fame, beyond the spheres, such a precious and consid-

^ "The Autobiographical Elements in Piers the Plowman," in the Jouriial of
Germanic Philologij, Bloomington (Ind.), Vol, III, 1901, No. 4.

326

Piers Plowman 57

-erable load as was our friend Chaucer. But when the same
Chaucer describes himself as going home after having made his
" rekenynges," and reading books until his sight is " dasewyd," ^
we should be quite wrong in displaying here any of our elegant
skepticism : for it so happens that documentary evidence corroborates
the poet's statements, and authentic records tell us of the sort of
'" rekenynges" the poet had to attend to, and the kind of work which
would impair his sight.

Why believe, says Prof, Jack, that our author was, in any way,
connected with Malvern ? He names those hills, it is true, but
" of these he gives us no description." Why should he ? He may
have had some "personal acquaintance with London," but "cer-
tainly we cannot affirm that he ever lived there or even ever saw
it." ■'

Well ^may one be skeptical about such skepticism. When, in
the course of a work of the imagination, among fancy cities and real
ones, we find the absolutely uncalled-for sentence : " Se transporte
a Chinon, ville fameuse, voire premiere du monde," we should be
wrong to suppose that this name has been put there at random ; for
the city was the birthplace of the author of the work, Rabelais.
When, in the same work, we find that Pantagruel " estoit loge a.
I'Hostel sainct Denis " in Paris, nothing would be more natural, it
seems, than to suppose the name to be a chance one. Closer scrutiny
has recently shown that the Hostel Sainct Denis belonged to the
abbot of St. Denis, and housed Benedictine monks who came to
Paris to study. Rabelais was a member of the order, and must have
frequented this same hostel at some of his stays in Paris, hence his
choice.^

Nothing more elegant, to be sure, than skepticism. Yet it should
not be carried too far, for fear of hard facts giving the lie to its
fancies. What more airy being than Ronsard's Cassandre, with the
conventional praise of her perfections, sonnet after sonnet embodying
ideas, similes, and eulogies which had done duty numberless times

^ Hmso/Fame, II, 145, 150.

2 Pp. 406, 413.

^ H. Clouzot, Mvdera Language Review, July, 1908, \k 404.

327

58 J. J. JUSSERAND

from the days of Laura if not even earlier ? Yet this typical creature
of a poet's brain has just turned out to have been a real woman,
and to have been such as Ronsard described her, with dark eyes
and complexion, living at Blois, and bearing in real life the romantic
and unusual name of Cassandre, for she was Cassandra Salviati, of
Italian parentage.

Prof Jack seems to have himself felt some misgivings, for which
credit should be accorded him. After having started on such lines
that he was nearing apace the conclusion that Piers Plowman had
grown somehow, without having been written by any man who
might have led any sort of life anywhere ; after having taken the
unnecessary trouble to investigate whether the author did actually
sleep and have the dreams he speaks of (an investigation of the
carrying capacities of Chaucer's eagle would be welcome) ; and after
also undertaking to refute the opinion, advanced by no one, that
Langland was " a professional wanderer " and " spent his life in
roaming about," Prof Jack comes to terms. And his terms • are
not so very unacceptable after all. He admits, as " quite probable,
that in this satirical picture of the clergy of that day the poet also
had in mind the struggles by which he himself rose, and was at that
moment rising, above the low moral level of the churchmen about
him ; "• that the statements concerning his being nicknamed Long
Will, living in Cornhill, etc., " may be true ; " that we may find
" between the lines " in the poem " valuable hints for drawing a
rough sketch of his life;" that he himself, Prof Jack, should "not
be understood as denying to it all autobiographical elements; the
opinions, hopes, and fears of the author are surely here." ^ This is
enough to enable us to maintain that Prof Jack has not " conclusively
proved " the autobiographical details in the poem to be " not genuine,
but mere parts of the fiction." He has not, and does not pretend
that he has.

So long as no positive text or fact contradicts the plain state-
ments in the poem, we hold ourselves entitled to take thena for
what they are given, and to consider, at the very least, that the
sum of accessible evidence favors our views rather than others*
skepticism.

^ Pp. 410, 412, 413, 414.

328

Piers Plowman 59

We persist therefore in adhering to our former faith, and in
rejecting the hypothesis of the four or five authors revising one
single work, each taking care to write as if he was an older man
than his predecessor, leaving behind him nothing else in the same
style, and dying, each in succession, to make room for the next. We
hold that the differences in merit, opinions, dialect, etc, do not
justify a belief in a difference of authorship, and that the shifted
passage so cleverly fitted in by C at its proper place, far from
hurting our views, confirms them. We believe, in a word, that,
as we read in one of the MSS, " William Langland made Pers
Ploughman."

Before coming to an end, however, I must repeat that, strongly
as I dissent from Prof Manly's conclusions, my gratitude toward him
for his discovery, and my sympathy for the sincerity and earnestness
of his search, equal those of any other student. It ,is certainly diffi-
cult to enjoy better company than Professor Manly's on the road
leading to the shrine of " St. Treuth."

J. J. JUSSERAND
Washington
November 9, 1908

329

Offprint from

Modern Philology

July 1909

Early English Text Society,
Original Series, Extra Issue, 139 c.

Prof. J. M. Manly's Answer to Dr. Jusserand.

THE AUTHORSHIP OF PIERS PLOWMAN

Second only to the good fortune of having Mr. Jusserand as
an ally in my investigation of the Piers the Plowman poems is
that of having him as an opponent. When he and I first dis-
cussed my views in conversation some three years ago I cherished
the hope that even the brief expository sketch of them in the
Cambridge Hist, of Engl. Lit. might induce him to adopt the
theory as to authorship which a careful study of the poems in
many aspects had caused me to form. He had long ago
recognized many of the difiiculties presented by the poems
and had explained them by a highly ingenious and poetical con-
ception of a very complex and self-contradictory personality for
the author. It seemed to me a result that might be hoped as
well as desired that the additional difficulties disclosed by my
discussion should lead him to recognize, as I had felt obliged to
do, that the right solution of the problems of the poems lay
in their multiple authorship. But this was not to be. My pres-
entation of my views, unpolemical as I tried to make it, has
served only to confirm his previous views, and convince him
more strongly than ever of their validity. But disappointed as I
am of my cherished hope, I have the satisfaction — a real satis-
faction to one who is only desirous that we shall reach the truth
in this inquiry — of knowing that if my views can support the
vigorous and skilful attack made by Mr. Jusserand, no doubt as
to their truth can remain in the mind of anyone.

Mr. Jusserand' s discussion is, as all who are familiar with
his work knew it would be, a masterpiece of persuasive eloquence.
In addition to this, the special issues are met and discussed
in the middle part of his paper with a dexterity that must have
been convincing to every reader who contented himself with
being a passive reader only and gave no active personal investi-
gation to the evidence and arguments adduced. Moreover, the
whole order and arrangement of parts is skilfully devised to

1 [Modern Philoloot, Jaly, 1909

2 John Matthews Manly

break such force as the arguments of the adversary may have
when properly massed and valued.

How then is this formidable attack to be met? It would seem
the part of wisdom to avoid the order and method of discussion
chosen by one's opponent, but I shall, in replying to Mr. Jusser-
and, undertake no detours, execute no flank movements, but, as
nearly as I can, meet his onset at every point and discuss the ques-
tion in the order chosen by him. I shall do this, because I am
confident of the truth and strength of my position and because the
reader will thus most easily assure himself that the attack really
has been met successfully at every point and that the success is
not a success of dialectical dexterity, but of sound reasoning.
Let us then proceed to the discussion of Mr. Jusserand's argu-
ments in the order in which he has developed them.

First, he begins with a celebration of the merits of the Piers
Plowman poems as, "next to the Canterbury Tales, the greatest
literary work produced by England during the Middle Ages,"
accents the unique democracy of Piers the Plowman and con-
trasts its vivid interest in internal reforms with the singular
indifference of Chaucer to such matters and his singular lack of
national feeling. With the praise of the poems I am in most
thorough and hearty accord; indeed, as I have elsewhere said, I
regard them as having even greater merits and greater signifi-
cance than has hitherto been allowed. In addition to the
remarkable poetic eloquence of the author of the B text, which
has always been recognized, I recognize a clearness of vision and
a capacity for artistic and orderly development of ideas on the
part of the author of the first part of the A text, which had, pre-
vious to my first article on the subject, been generally overlooked.
And I maintain that the social and political significance of the
work of several men of notable intellectual power, and of ideas
and aims of the same general tendency (notwithstanding indi-
vidual differences) , is far greater than that of a solitary,
though powerful voice. With the implied criticism of Chaucer —
as it has no bearing upon the subject under discussion — I will

84

The Authorship of Piers Plowman 3

not deal here, but may return to it another day, to point out that
Alain Chartier, in giving his reasons for not admitting political
discussion to his poetry but reserving it for prose, may possibly
furnish a clue to Chaucer's supposed indifference.

Great, however, as is the significance of Piers the Ploivman,
it seems to me not to possess precisely the traits ascribed to it by
Mr. Jusserand. It is undoubtedly "thoroughly English," but to
say that "of foreign influences on it there are but the faintest
traces" seems to me an exaggeration. It is on the contrary full
of evidences of influences from both French and Latin literature,
most of which, to be sure, have been overlooked. And when,
in order to establish unity of authorship for the poems, Mr.
Jusserand represents them as containing absolutely unique demo-
cratic ideas, he seems to me to be going a little too far. "The
equivalent of such a line," says he, "as the following one on the
power of king, nobles and commons:

Knyghthood hym ladde,
Might of the comunes" made hym to regne,

can be found nowhere in the whole range of mediaeval literature ;
it has but one real equivalent (inaccessible then to the public) —
the Rolls of Parliament" (p. 2). That the official records of par-
liamentary discussion and action were not then accessible to the
public is undeniable, but are we asked to believe that Parliament
had some esoteric doctrine, some high ideals of government kept
secret from the people ? Is it not, rather, true that the prevalence
in Parliament of doctrines similar to that of the fine lines Mr, Jus-
serand has quoted is proof — not presumptive, but positive — that
they were commonly and widely held among the people of England?
What legislative body in the history of the world has ever preceded
the advanced thinkers of its time in the formulation of social and
political ideals? Indeed, are not such ideals commonly at least a
generation old before they can possibly be available for practical
politics? We may assume, then, without danger of error, that the
views held by Parliament were commonly held and discussed
among intellifjent Eni2rlishmen at the time when the Piers Ploiv-
man poems were written; and Mr. Jusserand has abundantly
shown, in his brilliant and learned book on the poems, the kinship

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4 John Matthews Manly

of these views to the lines quoted. How could it be otherwise?
Had not the people of England given practical expression to such
views more than once in dealing with their kings, and most notably
in dealing with the ill-fated Edward II ? Such views had, further-
more, found theoretical expression even outside of England.
Unquestionably the most famous political writer of the continent
in the first half of the fourteenth century was Marsiglio of Padua,
and his Defensor Pads was his best-known work — world famous,
indeed. This book is not immediately at hand as I write, so I
will quote from the summary of it given by Loserth, Geschichte
des spateren Mittelalters (p. 274): "Im Volke ruht die Quelle
aller Gewalten, in seinen Handen liegt die Gesetzgebung, und
der Kegent ist nur sein vollziehendes Werkzeug. Er ist dem
Volke verantwortlich und daher audi absetzbar." And such views
were expressed abundantly by the political writers of the time.
The unique merit of England lies in having put such ideas into
practice hundreds of years before other nations did more than
talk about them.

But the lines quoted by Mr. Jusserand demand one word more,
for it may be alleged that their special feature — the point that
distinguishes them from such utterances as those of Marsiglio —
is emphasis of the power of the Commons. If so, one may detect
a difference in attitude between the texts of the poems. I will
not insist upon the fact that no such sentiments appear anywhere
in the A text; but I cannot refrain from pointing out that C was,
for some reason, dissatisfied with these noble lines. In C the
passage runs (C, I, 139 ff.) :

Thanne cam ther a kyng* Knyghthod hym ladde,
The muche myghte of the men' made hym to regne;
And thanne cam Kynde Witte" and clerkus he made.
And Conscience and Kynde Wit* and Knyghthod tegederes
Caste that the Comune* sholde hmre comunes fynde.

The function of the Commons is no longer political but purely
industrial ; they are to provide food for the rest of the community.
Shall it be said that 1. 140 was changed, not because of any dif-
ference of view on the part of the writer, but only in order to
secure better alliteration? Was, then, this pioneer of advanced

86

The Authorship of Piers Plowman 5

thought, as Mr. Jusserand will have him, ready to sacrifice his most
distinctive idea merely in order to avoid accenting comunes on the
second syllable — an accentuation common and legitimate, though
possibly a little antiquated? I think not. In fact to insist over
much upon the democracy of this passage is to read into it very
modern ideas, just as the democracy of Magna Charta was until
recently overstated. Even in the B text the two lines following
those quoted by Mr. Jusserand give the same conception of the
function of the Commons as is given in C, and in almost the same
words; and when, a few lines later the Angel warned the King, he
spoke in Latin in order that the uneducated should not under-
stand:—

And sithen in the eyre an heigh* an angel of hevene
Lowed to speke in Latin — • for lewed men ne coude
Jangle ne jugge* that justifie hem shulde,
But suffren and serven.

The political and social views of these poems were, indeed, com-
mon views of Englishmen of that day ; as Mr. Jusserand himself
says, "he [the author] is not above his time, but of it."

In view of Mr. Jusserand's insistence upon the author's con-
stant devotion to his poem and to social reform as evidence of unity
of authorship, we may note in passing a feature that is certainly
very hard to explain if these poems be, as Mr. Jusserand supposes,
the work of a single author who took it "for his life's companion
and confidant, adding new parts or new thoughts as years pass on
and as events put their impress on his mind" (p. 3). The
Peasants' Revolt of 1381 finds absolutely no record in the poems.
Did this event, certainly the most notable as well as the most
picturesque in the social history of England during the lifetime
of the author, "put no impress" upon the mind of the man whose
principal concern was "the great political movements, the general
aspirations of the people;" who kept a copy of his poem con-
stantly before him for the purpose of adding to it such thoughts
and emotions as the changing events of the time gave him ? The
usual reply to such questions is, I know, that the A and B texts
were written years before the Revolt occurred and the C text
when it had already become ancient history. But obviously this

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6 John Matthews Manly

is an inadequate reply, if Mr. Jusserand's conception of the
author and his mode of work is correct, for it immediately suggests
the query. But why did he write nothing at this most stirring
time ? Why did he who, by the hypothesis, was ever making addi-
tions to his work, additions involving often only the insertion of
single lines here and there, and whose MS was copied in all
stages of incompleteness — why did he have no word of encour-
agement or of criticism for the revolutionists, of blame for the
excesses charged upon them, or of chiding for the king upon his
unfulfilled promises? Was he moved by none of these things, or
was he alone in England ignorant of them?

Mr. Jusserand next wishes to prepare the way for his later
discussion of the lost or misplaced leaf and the author's failure
to notice it and set it right in the B text. To do this he attempts to
establish for his author a character for carelessness and indifference
concerning the condition in which his poem was published which
is, to say the least, remarkable for a man whose life-work it was.
Authors who subject their work to continual revision and amplifi-
cation proceed always in the same way, says Mr. Jusserand.
"The emendations or additions in the already written text are

crammed into the margin or written on slips or fly-leaves

It is not always easy to see where those modifications should come
in." Such MSS have come down to us from the Middle Ages,
and the inability of Montaigne's editors to find the proper places
for the additions which he had scribbled in the margin of a copy of
his 1588 edition or on loose slips and fly-leaves is cited as a notable
example of the dangers of this mode of revision. " Superabundant
proofs may be given that the author of Piers Plowman wrote his
revisions in a similar way, handing, however, to less careful people
(professional scribes) material requiring more care" (pp. 3f.).
All of this (substituting authors for author) might be cheerfully
admitted without at all affecting the point at issue, for we have
abundant proofs that men who were not the original authors of the
works which they revised sometimes made their additions and
revisions in the same way, and it is an old story in textual criticism
that such additions, and even glosses and comments not intended
as a part of the text, often found their way into the text when the

The Authorship of Piers Plowman 1

MS was recopied. It is a far cry from the establishment of such
additions to the assumption of a single author.

Let us, however, examine the arguments a little more closely,
for they deserve it. In the first place, a notable difference between
the case of Montaigne's Essais and that of these poems is that
Montaigne was dead when his friends prepared the edition in
question for the press, whereas, according to Mr. Jusserand's
hypothesis, the author of these poems was alive and constantly
occupied with his text. Who can doubt that if Montaigne had
lived to carry this new edition through the press or even to com-
plete his preparations for it, he would have found or made right
places for all his additions and insertions, as he did when he printed
the edition of 1588 with many insertions and expansions in the
first two books, which had been published in 1580? Digressions
he would of course have permitted, for digressions were his spe-
cialty, but misplacements, we may be sure, would not have occurred.

We may next consider these careless professional scribes to
whom Langland (as we will for brevity's sake occasionally call
him) "handed" his original MS in various stages of revision.
I find it somewhat difficult to understand their relations to Lansr-
land. Did he, the moneyless vagabond who lived in a cot with
Kitte and Kalote and eked out a meager subsistence by writing
legal documents and singing for the souls of such as had helped
him or were willing to give him an occasional meal — did he hire
these careless professional scribes? Or were the scribes paid by
other men, who had read or heard of the poem and wished copies
for themselves? If the latter be assumed, what becomes of the
mystery in which the author enveloped his identity and the fear
which caused him to omit from the C text the famous line supposed
to contain his real name (p. 9, n. 4) ? In any event, would he —
himself a professional scribe, who says (C, XIV, 117ff.) the "gome"
who copies carelessly is a "goky" — allow his own poems to be
copied carelessly, whether the scribes were paid by himself or by
his admirers? And if they were not professionals but amateurs
who wished the copies for themselves — for I wish to give Mr.
Jusserand's hypothesis every opportunity for justification — would
not their admiration and interest have led them to ask the author

89

8 John Matthews Manly

where these loose slips and fly-leaves belonged? Must we then
suppose that the author himself knew nothing of the making of
these copies, that Kitte and Kalote took advantage of his occasional
absences in the Malvern Hills and elsewhere to issue editions of
the poems in the stage of revision they happened to have reached
at the time?

But it is time to examine the instances in which Mr. Jusserand
thinks the author's additions and insertions were mistreated by
careless scribes. Carelessness on the part of scribes we shall
undoubtedly find, as was long ago pointed out by Professor Skeat,
but very little evidence that the author's text was not in the first
instance correctly copied, Mr, Jusserand (p, 4, n, 3) cites two^
MSS of the A text (Univ, Coll, Oxf. and Rawl. Poet, 137) and
one of the C (Cotton. Vesp. B XVI) , The first two have "the same
jumble of incoherent facts." Each is "regular down to 2^ttssus ii,
25,^ which is immediately followed (on the same page) by 2^<^issus
vii, 71-213, and then returns to 1, 182 of jjcissus i, some twenty
lines of j)(('SSUs ii occurring twice over. It then goes down to
passus vii, 70, when the passage which had already occurred is
omitted" (Skeat quoted by Jusserand), But obviously what we
have here is two MSS copied, as Professor Skeat says two lines
above the passage quoted by Mr, Jusserand, "from an older and
imperfect one, or still more probably from tivo [italics by Skeat]
others, some of the leaves of which were out of place." The con-
fusion was not in the author's MS, but in a later copy. That Pro-
fessor Skeat is right is so immediately evident that no confirmation
is needed, though it may be found abundantly in the fact that
these MSS belong to a sub-group, derived from a MS which
is itself derived from another which is derived from still another;
and as this confusion is found only in this sub-group, it is clear
that it occurred merely in the parent MS of this group and not
in the author's original. The same remarks apply with slight
modification to the confusion in Cotton. Vesp. B. XVI, That MS
is a copy of a copy of a copy .... of the earliest MS which can
be reconstructed by the usual methods of genealogical text-criti-

1 The MS at Trinity College, Dublin, has the same confusion.

2 This is not quite accurate, but the inaccuracy does not affect the argument.

90

The Authobship of Piers Plowman 9

cism (which is not necessarily the author's original), and the
confusion in question does not occur in any other of the extant MSS
derived from these successive copies.

"Tentative ad_ciitions written by the author on the margin or
scraps," says Mr, Jusserand " , . . . were inserted haphazard
anywhere by some copyists and left alone by others [pp. 4f.].
Of this sort are, to all appearances, the additional lines in MS
Harl. 875 of A, not to be found elsewhere," etc. This MS does
contain lines found in no other MS and a different version of
some lines of the usual text, but it is clear that neither additions
nor variants come from the author but are later mo'difications by
some unskilful hand. I give a list of them marking those found
in other MSS but in different form with the letter "d;" naturally
I have not included scribal errors or minute variants in this list:
I, 1 1. after 161, 176-77; II, 1 after 8, 1 after 9, 12 as 2 11, 31,
34, 48, 93 d, 96, 118, 136-39, 141-43, 182, 201-2 (as 3 11.) d;

III, 19-20, 66, 91-94, 98, 180 d, 233 d, 234, 265-69 (as 3) d;

IV, 154d; V, 182, 257d; VI, 1-2, 5, 45 d; VII, 5d, 26, 226d,
280 d; VIII, 46, 101, 125-26. Even Professor Skeat, who
admits many of these lines into his text, says that some of them
may be spurious.^ The only one, in fact, for the genuineness of
which serious contention could be made is VIII, 46 and, in my
opinion, it is spurious, like the rest. The Ilchester MS also is
cited by Mr. Jusserand as containing two versions of C, X, 75-281,
one of them being, "it seems, a first cast of the other" (p. 5, n. 1).
This MS is mainly a somewhat imperfect copy of the ordinary
version of the C text, but at the beginning the scribe obviously
had before him fragments of two texts. First we have the A
text, Prol. 1-60, then the C text, X, 75-254, then A Prol. 55-76,
and 80-83, then C, X, 255-81, then A Prol. 84-95, C, I, 91-152
and A Prol. 96-109; after which the usual version of C begins
and runs on, with some gaps and misplacements, to the end.
The two passages from C, X inserted in the A Prologue differ
considerably from the usual version of these lines, which is found
also in this MS at the proper place. Professor Skeat and Mr.

iCf. tho statements of Chambers and Grattan in Mod. Lang. Rev., IV, 376 ff., where
these and others of Mr. Jusserand's remarks concoruinf? tho A MSS are examined. Unfor-
tunately I did not see this valaable article until ray own remarks were in type.

91

10 John Matthews Manly

Jusserand believe that they are a first cast of the usual version.
I see no reason to believe this; they may quite as well be a later
modification of C's text by some other writer — certainly the lines
corresponding to C, I, 107-23, probably derived from the same
source, are a variation, not a first cast. But no matter what they
are, the condition of this text at the beginning shows that the
scribe merely had before him an imperfect copy of the A Pro-
logue and some odd leaves of a C text, viz., one leaf of 59 lines
from C, I and four leaves from C, X.

There is no reason to believe that any of the confusions, addi-
tions or variations thus far dealt with go back to the author's
copy. All the displacements of text are due to accidental dis-
placements of the leaves of later MSS and to careless copying by
later scribes. Numerous other instances occur in other MSS of
these poems, and are very common in MSS of all languages and
times. The only example of misplacement cited by Mr. Jusserand
that really goes back to the original MS from which the others
are derived, is that pointed out by me (A, VII, 71-75, B, VI,
80-84, C, IX, 80-86) , where the names of the wife and children
are inserted at the wrong point (but on the page to which they
belong) — an error corrected by neither B nor C, although C,
inserted two lines (84, 85). It will be remembered that this
failure of both B and C to restore these lines to their proper
place was one of the reasons adduced by me for supposing that
A, B, and C were not one and the same person. This bit of my
ammunition does not fit Mr. Jusserand's gun and I cannot allow
him to use it, even though he has been unable, as we have just
seen, to procure any more. Besides, to drop the trope, it is not
permissible to break the force of my original argument by sepa-
rating this instance of the failure of both B and C to recognize
and correct an error that had crept into the A text from the pre-
cisely similar though more striking instance in the case of the
lost leaf. The two go together and are of mutual benefit and
support, as will be shown below.

Before leaving this question of additions and variations in the
MSS, it may be interesting to note that, even excluding the
Ilchester MS (dealt with above), Rawl. Poet. 38 (supposed to

92

The Authorship of Piers Plowman 11

contain a revised version of the B text), and the three MSS
vt^hich contain part or all of A, XII, nineteen of the remaining
forty MSS contain additions or variations either peculiar to a
single MS or found only in a small sub-group. It is of course
impossible to present this mass of details here, but they are duly
given in the Introductions and footnotes of Professor Skeat's
EETS edition, and Professor Skeat himself, despite his unwilling-
ness to part with any decent line, rightly recognizes that the
additions as well as the variations are almost all spurious — he
would save a few if he could. This is not only of interest in
connection with the phase of Mr. Jusserand's argument which we
have just discussed, but of even greater importance, as we shall
see, for the general question of the possibility of larger additions
and revisions by others than the original authors.

Mr. Jusserand next (p. 5) tries to support his contention
that Langland allowed his MS to be copied in all stages of incom-
pleteness by the fact that certain MSS contain less or more of the
text than others. But the facts are capable of a very different
interpretation. MS Harl. 875 and the Lincoln's Inn MS undoubt-
edly do not go beyond jjassiis viii. I once thought that this fact
might support my contention that the first author's work ceased
with the vision of Piers the Plowman proper; but I fear it will
serve neither my turn nor Mr. Jusserand's. Harl. 875 is shown,
by the possession of certain errors in common with the Vernon
MS, to belong to the same group as that MS and, like it, to be
derived from a MS at least one remove from the source of all
extant MSS of the A text. It is true that the Vernon MS might
conceivably have obtained its continuation from another source,
but this would be a gratuitous assumption. The Lincoln's Inn
MS, at any rate, is too corrupt to be regarded as representing the
author's original in any respect. Besides, to conclude from the
cessation of a MS at a particular point that the author had written
no more when the transcript was made is to conclude too hastily.'
MS D, 4. 12 of Trin. Coll. Dublin (A text) stops with VII, 45.
Are we to conclude that a transcript was made when the author
had reached this point? But among the additions in this MS

1 Seo Chambers eind Grattan, w. «., p. 377.

9.S

12 John Matthews Manly

which extend the Prologue from 109 to 124 lines, says Professor
Skeat (EETS ed., ii, pp. vi f., n.), there are two extra lines after
1. 54 agreeing with Rawl. Poet. 137, two after 1. 83 resembling B,
112, 113, and ten after 1. 95 answering to B, Prol. 92-99, but in
some places bearing a closer resemblance to the C text. In other
words, we have here a striking instance of contamination of texts. ^
Again, Digby 171 (C text) ends with XVI, 65, and Professor
Skeat remarks (Vol. Ill, p. xliv), "no more was ever written, as
the next page was left blank." But the whole B text was then in
existence. Are we, then, to suppose that Langland said to the
scribe, "I have finished my revision of the B text only up to this
point; you had better stop here?" But he might at least have
let him go on with the following line of Latin and 1. 66 of the
text, which were left unchanged. Surely it would be rash in any
of these cases to assume that the present ending of any MS
represents a definite stage in composition or revision.

The MSS containing parts of passus xii I will discuss below in
connection with John But. I must, however, here take exception
to Mr. Jusserand's statement (p. 6) that we hear of Dobet and
Dobest only in the B and C texts and to his further statement
(p. 7) that the heading in A MSS "Incipit hie Dowel, Dobet,
et Dobest," makes it clear that the author already had in mind the
expansion accomplished in the B text. Although the dreamer
professes to be in search only of Dowel, the discussions and defi-
nitions almost invariably include Dobet and Dobest also,^ and fully
justify the heading quoted.

As for the " Explicit passus secundus de dobest et incipit passus
tercius" of MS Laud 656 (C text), whether it be a mistake, as
Professor Skeat thinks, or an indication, as Mr. Jusserand thinks,
that the scribe expected and had reason to expect another passus,
it has, in any event, no bearing upon the question of single or
multiple authorship, as consideration of the possibilities will
quickly convince anyone.

"That these three versions of the Piers Plowman poem exist is
certain," says Mr. Jusserand (p. 7) ; "that they were written by

1 See Chambers and Grattan, u. s., p. 376.

2 Cf . A, IX, 69 £E. , in ff . , X, 14, 85 ff . , 211 if . , XI, 86 ff. , 144, 177 fE., 217 ff .

94

The Authorship of Piers Plowman 13

someone cannot be considered a rash surmise. Of that one [italics
mine] we know little; but that little is considered better than
nothing; better than" the situation in those cases in mediaeval
literature in which "we are reduced to mere surmises." The
proposition that the poems were written by someone is, rightly
understood, not a rash surmise. But what of the logical process
by which we pass to the assumption that someone is some onef
And after all, is it better to hold as knowledge what is only
questionable hypothesis than to recognize that we are in regard to
some questions reduced to mere surmises?

But, says Mr. Jusserand, for the unity of authorship of these
poems and for the name of the author we have abundant evidence.
In the first place, "without exception, all those titles, colophons,
marginal notes, and testimonies agree in pointing to the succes-
sion of visions, forming at first 8 or 12 and lastly 23 passus, as
being one work, having for its general title Piers Ploivman, and
written by one author" (p. 8). He quotes some headings to
prove that scribes regarded the Dowel, Dohet, and Dohest poem as
a part of the Piers Plowman. There was justification for these
headings in the B and C texts, for Piers Plowman appears in these
versions of Doivel, etc. ; and there has never been any doubt that
the authors of B and C treated the poems as in a certain sense
forming a consecutive poem, but here, as often, Mr. Jusserand
insists upon arguing concerning B and C, when the question at
issue concerns the A text. The old habit of regarding A, B, and C
as inseparable even for purposes of study is too strong. As a
matter of fact there is no known MS of the unmixed A text which
has any such indication.' Professor Skeat (EETS ed.. Vol. I,
pp. XXV f.) gives the titles of the Dowel poem in the A MSS,
and remarks, "Hence it appears that there is here no thought of
reckoning in the i^assus of Dowel as being any part of Piers
Plowman, as was afterward done in MSS of the later types," and

1 MS Harl. 3954, which has at the end of pas«us xi the colophon: "Explicit tractus [read
tractatus] do perys plowman," quoted by Mr. Jusserand, is a mixture of the A and 15 texts,
and, says Professor Skeat (EETS ed., Vol. I, p. xxiii), "I do not consider it of much value,

and believe it to be frequently corrupted Those [the concluding] lines are a sad

jumble, and the 'praying for pers the plowmans soule' is particularly out of place, as Piers
not the author of the poem but the subject of it."

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14 John Matthews Manly

he calls particular attention (p. xxv) to MS Douce 323, which has
as the heading for passws x, "Primus passus in secundo libro."

"In the same fashion," says Mr. Jusserand, "all the notes
found on their leaves, the allusions in the work and tradition
attribute the work to a single author. Some of the notes vary as
to the name or the form of the name or surname; not one implies
more than one author for the whole." But does not this uncer-
tainty as to the name suggest some doubt as to the authority with
which these informants are vested? That during the fifteenth
century tradition associated the name Langland (or Longlond)
with the poems cannot be doubted, and is not incapable of recon-
ciliation with the name Willelmi W. recorded in four' MSS
(which since they belong to the same sub-group [see Skeat, III,
p. xxxvii] are only a single testimony). I see no reason to repeat
here what I said about the name in Camh. Hist. Engl. Lit. II,
34, 35, but I will comment on a few new points made by Mr.
Jusserand. And first, as to the underlining of real names in red
in MS B. M. Add. 35287. This is obviously peculiar to the scribe
of this MS, and, unless my memory fails me (for I have misplaced
my note on this point) does not occur in the earlier part of this
MS.^ That the scribe should have regarded the name "long
Will" as a real name is easily intelligible, but has no more signifi-
cance than the well-known remark in a late hand beside the same
line, B, XV, 148 in MS Laud 581 : "Nota, the name of thauctour."
Any reader would easily take the statement of the text at its face
value and rubricate, or annotate, or (as I have previously sug-
gested) derive from the line supposed information as to the name
of the author.

But we are not done with this famous line. "If we discarded
the punning intention," says Mr. Jusserand (p. 9), the line would
have little enough meaning: to 'live in land' does not convey
any very clear idea." Without the context it certainly does not,

1 Mr. Jusserand says " three ; " but he overlooked MS B. M. Add. 35157, which, according
to the catalogue, was unknown to Professor Skeat when he wrote.

2 1 have since found my note. There is no underlining in red in the first five pasaus, and
no distinction as to capitalization is made between real persons and personifications. In
passus XV cristes, 15,16, ysodorus, 37, are neither underlined nor written in large letters;
Anima, 23, Animus, 24, memoria, 26, Racio, 28, Sensus, 29, Amor, 34, are underlined in rod,
and Mens, 25, is written in large letters.

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The Authorship of Piers Plowman 15

and we all owe thanks to Mr. Jusserand for calling attention to
the fact that all of us have been reading the passage very care-
lessly— in fact, have been reading 1. 148 alone. Let us remedy
this at once by a careful consideration of the whole passage.
Anima, in discussion with the dreamer, mentions Charity.

"What is Charite?" quod I tho. "A childissh things," he seide;

'■^Nisi efficiamini sicut parvuU, non intrabis in regrium celorum;
Withouten fauntelte or foly* a fre, liberal wille."

" Where shulde men fynde suche a frende* with so fre an herte?
I have lyved in londe," quod I* ''my name is Longe Wille,
And fonde I nevere ful Charite* bifore ne bihynde."

— B, XV, 145-49.

What then is the relation of 1, 148 to the rest of the passage?
How does the mention of the author's real name emphasize the
declaration that he has never found charity? Surely in no pos-
sible manner, "I have lived in land" is clear enough ; it means "I
have lived in this world,' I have had experience." But the name?
its significance? Surely we have here not a real name but a
popular locution implying long experience and observation. We
have here only the equivalent of B, XIV, 97, 98:

"Where woneth Charite?" quod Haukyn. "I wiste nevere in my lyve
Man that with hym spake; as wyde as I have passed.

In America, even in the refined society of the capital, Mr.
Jusserand must have learned that, when an American replies to
some statement difficult to believe by saying, "I'm from Missouri,
you'll have to show me," it is not safe to infer that the speaker
has ever even set foot in Missouri, For the benefit of others, it
may be necessary to explain that this very common locution merely
indicates that the speaker is not of a credulous nature and thinks
that the matter in point requires proof; the origin of the phrase
need not concern us. I know no other instance of Long Will
with the meaning here suggested, but when in Heywood's
Dialogue of Proverbs Pt. I, chap, xi, 11. 151, 152, the hard-hearted
uncle replies to a petition on behalf of his penniless nephew:

J For "in londe," cf. tho quotations given in Oxf. Eng. Diet., s. v. "Land," I. 3, +d,
especially: "Welawo, to longe y lyue in londo," Sir Forumbrae, 2793.

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16 John Matthews Manly

But for my rewards let him be no longer tarier,
I will send it him by John Longe the carier,^

no one can suppose that the hapless young man will see the
reward soon. In form the proverb is somewhat similar to, "My
name is Twyford; I know nothing of the matter," Bohn's Hand
Book, p. 62.

Mr. Jusserand cites the testimony of John Bale and calls him
a man whose testimony is "of real weight." I will not insist upon
the fact that Bale gives the author's name as Robert, because I
think it highly probable that Bale's testimony is merely derived
from the entry in MS Laud 581. "At the end of the MS," says
Professor Skeat, "are the names of former owners: 'Raffe Cop-
pynges. Mem. that I have lent to Nicholas Brigham the pers
ploughman which I borrowed of M. Le of Addyngton.' At the
top of the first page is loosely scribbled Robart Langelond borne
by malverne hilles." That Bale derived much of his information
from Brigham is well known to all students of Bale's Index; the
notes just given establish a channel between Bale and MS Laud
581, in which the information may, indeed, have taken either
direction. But this is by the way; the point that concerns us is
that, for matters and men before his own day, Bale, though often
useful, is far from trustworthy, as may be seen most easily from
the absurdities in his accounts of Chaucer and Wiclif.^

II

In Section II (p. 12) Mr. Jusserand offers to relieve me of the
burden of carrying John But as one of the authors of the poems.
But I neither need nor desire this relief ; in fact, I find John But
rather a help than a hindrance to the discussion. That he is not
so important as A, A2, B, or C, I readily admit; that he was a
silly scribbler, a fool, if you will, I am not prepared to deny,
although I ought to point out that Mr. Jusserand (p. 12, n. 2)

1 Cf. also Heywood, The Fifth Hundred of Epigrammes, No. 66, and Bohn's Hand Book
of Proverbs, p. 169.

2IntheSMOTmarmwihesays (198ro): "Galfridus Chaucer .... Boetium de consolatione
philosophiae transtulit ad filium suum Ludovicum Chaucerum." He mentions among the
works of Chaucer, Trophaeum Lombardiciini, De principum ruina, Emblemata moralia, De
curia Veneris, Chrysidae testamentum, and Chrysidae quaerimoniam, and adds, ''Ad annum
humanae redemptionis 1450 vixisse perhibetur sub Henrico sexto."

98

The Authorship of Piers Plowman 17

agrees with me that Professor Skeat was unable to distinguish
John But's work from that of the continuator of A (A 2, as I call
him), and that, low as one may rate the quality of But's lines, they
are not properly comparable to the "lines added by scribes to make
known their thirst and their joy at having finished copying Piers
Plowman'''' (p. 12). John But's continuation, slight as it is, is of
importance because it shows that men did not hesitate to con-
tinue or modify a text that came into their hands. And this con-
clusion is abundantly supported by the 19 MSS (cited above,
p. 11) which contain variations and additions. In view of this
evidence, it is obviously rash to assume that even important modi-
fications like those in Ilchester and Rawl. Poet. 38 necessarily
proceed from the author of B, though those in Ilchester and
Rawl. Poet. 38 might be ascribed to B, without in the least
obliging us to conclude that A, A 2, B, and C were one and the
same person. John But, it will be remembered, wrote his con-
clusion of A, after the date of B, for he wrote in the reign of
King Richard. That his work is signed, and the other addi-
tions anonymous, offers no difficulty. He signed out of vanity
(cf. his claim that he is a poet: "for he medleth of makyng"
XII, 105), and he carefully disclaims responsibility for anything
but the conclusion.

But if there were three authors largely concerned in continuing
these poems — John But was not ^a?T/eZ?/concerned — "it is singular
that they all chose to manifest it [their spirit] by anonymous
additions to the work of someone else" (p. 13). Surely not.
The reasons which induced the original author to remain anony-
mous, those which, according to Mr. Jusserand, induced C to
cancel the too precise revelation of B, XV, 148, would induce
continuators to remain anonymous. Besides we may well believe
that these sincere men were interested primarily in the influence
of their satire and, finding themselves in hearty sympathy, despite
minor differences, with the poem as it reached them — as was the
case also with multitudes who wrote not even a single line — they
were glad to avail themselves of the great popularity of preceding
versions for the spread of their own ideas. Such things have hap-
pened, if I mistake not, very often in the history of satire. A

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18 John Matthews Manly

very popular satire, if anonymous, is frequently, one might almost
say usually, followed by a host of others professing to be by the
same writer or making some use of any popular personality that
may have been created by the original satirist. I need not cite
modern instances; does not the author of Hum, Sothsegger [JRich-
ard the Redeless) identify himself with the author of Piers
Plowman? Does not Peres the Ploughmans Crede make use of
the same great name? Does not the Ploughmcui's Tale definitely
claim to be by the author of the Crede?

"If the shadowy character of one author unseen, unmet by
any contemporary, is strange, the same happening for four people
concerned with the same problems would be a wonder" (p. 13).
But surely not so great. They would be more elusive. They
could not be recognized by any of the striking characteristics of
the dreamer, since he is fictitious, whereas, as I have already
said, if we have to do with a single author who describes himself,
his family, and gives his name and dwelling-place, he could
hardly have escaped discovery. But Mr. Jusserand thinks also
that, if there were four principal authors, the intrusion of each
successive one must have been resented and protested against by
one or more of his predecessors; in the absence of protests, my
theory requires, he thinks, that "each of these authors must
have written and breathed his last with absolute punctuality, as
moths lay their eggs, gasp, and die." But what right would the
continuator of A have to protest against B, or B to protest against
C, or C against the author of Mum, Sothsegger? And we hear
of no protest against John But for "medling with makyng" and
killing the author with undue haste, or against the persistent
carelessness of the scribes, which, if Mr. Jusserand's theory be
correct, must have sorely irritated the professional soul of William
Langland. If death must be prayed in aid, we surely need sacri-
fice only one man. A, the author of the first two visions; and the
high mortality of the plague in 1362, 1369, 1375-76, increases
the ordinary probabilities of death for a man already of mature
age in 1362, as A seems to have been. Mr. Bradley's explana-
tion of the Robert the Robber passage seems to me, indeed, to
involve the death of A before he had time to read and revise the

100

The Authorship of Piers Plowman 19

MS prepared from his loose sheets by the copyist; and I believe
Mr. Bradley is entirely ready to admit this explanation of A's
failure to correct the confusion. As will be seen later, I still
regard my explanation of the confusion as more probable than
his, but, like him, I do not regard the supposition of A's early
death as a serious objection to his view. At any rate, there is
no need to kill A 2 and B and C; and parsimony is one of the
prime maxims of scientific hypothesis.

Mr. Jusserand's theory, on the other hand, seems to me to
require, if I may use his figure, that the moth die or at least
enter into a profound state of coma at each period of ovation and
then revive to meditate another egg to be produced under the
same circumstances. How else, unless we adopt the Kitte and
Kalote theory suggested above, p. 8, are we to account for the
fact that repeated experience of the carelessness of scribes never
sufficed to induce Langland to give them oversight or aid in
setting straight blunders that must have been observed by him
in his continuous occupation with his poem?

Ill

This section and the next are devoted to the discussion of the
passage concerning Robert 'the Robber and some details subsidiary
to it.

Before proceeding to the main question, Mr. Jusserand at-
tempts to show that in A the passus devoted to the sermon of
Conscience and its effects upon the multitude is so uneven in
execution as to suggest that parts of it are mere "memoranda to
be developed later and put there simply for the name to appear
in the list." This is intended to prepare the way for the later
suppositions that there was not even a memorandum made to
note the place of Wrath among the Seven Sins and that the
Robber passage was an insertion on a loose leaf that had the mis-
fortune to be misplaced by the scribe and unnoticed by the
author, or at least uncorrected by him, for some thirty -six years,
despite the fact that, according to Mr. Jusserand, the author had
at least five opportunities in the meantime to put it in its right
place (see below, p. 22). Before discussing the criticisms of

101

20 John Matthews Manly

this passus, I wish to point out that even if they held good, even
if we had to conclude that this passus as it stands in A is
sketchy and unfinished, this conclusion would leave the failure of
B to notice and correct the confusion concerning Robert the
Robber as much in need of explanation as before. The question
is not, how did the confusion occur, but, why did not B notice
and correct it? Bearing this definitely and firmly in mind, we
may pause a moment to consider, in a sort of parenthesis, as it
were, the criticisms of the passus.

They concern principally "Lechour" and "Sloth," though
Pride is dealt with quite as briefly. One may undoubtedly feel
regret that we have no such portraits of the representatives of
these sins or of Wrath (omitted entirely) as we have of Envy,
Coveitise, and Glotoun; but, before criticizing the poet for their
absence, we ought to inquire whether he had not an artistic pur-
pose in this difFerence of treatment. Such a purpose is, I think,
not difficult to discover for Pride and Lechour. To put it briefly,
the author wished to communicate to us a sense of the immediate
and powerful effects of the preaching of Conscience. That we
do receive such an impression is undeniable, and observation of
our emotions as we read will show, it seems to me, that the
brevity of the statements in regard to Wille, Pernel, and Lechour,
is no small element in the production of this impression. Having
secured this effect, the poet is at liberty to develop Envy and the
rest with greater breadth and fulness. As for Sloth, if my
theory of the "lost leaf" is correct, it is possible that this loss
has deprived us of a few lines of his confession, as, in my opinion,
it clearly has of the conclusion of Envy.

"There is [in the case of Lechour] no confession at all," and
"the privation he mentions .... leaves him a margin for many
sins, especially his favorite one" (p. 15). But no confession, in
the technical sense, was intended. In the case of Pride and
Lechour, we have only sudden outcries of guilty souls pleading for
mercy and promising amendment. The temperance of Lechour
and the hair shirt of Pernel (p. 30) are not at all in the nature of
penance, they are remedies against the besetting sins. The hair
shirt is a well-known remedy against pride, a reducer to humility

102

The Authorship of Piers Plowman 21

of the rebellious flesh; and in the Parson^s Tale we read (§82):
"Another remedie agayns Lecherie is specially to withdrawen
swiche thinges as yeve occasion to thilke vileinye: as ese, etinge
and drinkinge; for certes, whan the pot boyleth strongly, the
best remedie is to withdrawe the fyr." The only other remedies
mentioned in the Parson'' s Tale are continence itself and eschew-
ing the company of the tempter. Our poet, putting into the
mouth of Lechour a brief outcry of guilt and repentance, allows
him that remedy which, according to mediaeval theory, was the
best "whan the pot boyleth strongly."

This brings us to Mr. Jusserand's discussion of the Robert the
Robber passage. The situation is briefly this: all are agreed that
A, V, 236-59 are a source of confusion as they stand, and that an
error of some sort has occurred. I observed that another error
occurred in the same passus in the omission of Wrath from the
Seven Sins, and finding that a single supposition, that of the loss
of the next to the innermost pair of leaves of a quire, would com-
pletely account for both errors, I proposed this as the simplest
explanation. Mr. Bradley, reviewing my theory, agreed with me
in regard to the existence of the two errors, but thought it more
probable that the faults occurred before the poem was put into
regular form, and suggested that the copyist to whom the author's
loose papers were handed for transcription lost those containing
the confession of Wrath and misplaced that containing the Robert
the Robber passage. Mr. Jusserand holds that the author forgot
to write a confession of Wrath and that the Robert the Robber
passage was a later addition written on a loose slip which the
copyist inserted at the wrong place. His theory no less than Mr,
Bradley's or mine requires him to account for the singular failure
of B to remedy the confusion caused by the Robert the Robber
passage. This, it will be remembered, is the crucial point in this
argument. And I think I may also fairly insist that the notable
failure of both B and C to notice the confusion caused by the
misplacement of the name passage* (A, VII, 71-75 ; B, VI, 80-84;

lit has been gonerally assumed that these four or five linos (for it is difficult to say
whether the passage includes only 71-74 or 71-75), since they appear in all MSS, are the work
of A. That they were written iu the margin of the ancestor of all extant MSS is certain, but
they do not sound to me like A's work and I do not feel sure that they were not written in

103

22 John Matthews Manly

C, IX, 80-86), which Mr. Jusserand disposes of lightly in a foot-
note on p. 5, must also be dealt with seriously as tending, like
these other instances, to show that B and C were not the same
man as A.

Before we proceed, however, to examine Mr. Jusserand's
attempt to explain B's failure to place the Robert the Robber
passage where it belonged, let us note a curious feature in his
theory as to how it came to be misplaced. "It has all the appear-
ance of an afterthought," written on a loose slip, "which Adam
Scrivener of sleepy pen would copy anywhere" (p. 18). Was
Adam then, so sleepy that he could not see that lines 236-41 could
not possibly be attached to Sloth and yet so wide awake that he
rewrote the first line, as being unsuitable to the connection — if
Mr. Jusserand (p. 22, n. 2) is right — changing "He highte
gyvan jeld a^eyn" to "And ^it I-chulle ^elden ajeyn" ?

The misplacement having occurred, Mr. Jusserand continues:
"For what concerns the author himself, maybe, while making so
many changes in so many places he never paid any attention to
this passage (in which as a matter of fact he introduced no change
at all) ; maybe also he thought of transferring it to its proper
place and neglected to mark it accordingly or to see that the
removal was made" (p. 18). A general supposition of carelessness
or neglect is perhaps always plausible, but the special circum-
stances of this case render both of the suppositions just quoted
highly improbable. Let us see.

In the first place, this is a book to the composition and revision
of which, according to hypothesis, the author devoted his life.
Copies of his work were made from time to time; at least fiv^
copies, if Mr. Jusserand is right, before the author corrected this
glaring error. Five I say, and I emphasize it. After the original
MS containing only the first eight passits of A (p. 5), (then the
version represented by the Lincoln's Inn MS with its peculiar
readings?), then that represented by Harl. 875 with its added
lines (p. 5, n. 1), then an eleven passus version (p. 5), then a
version with a part of a twelfth j^f^ssus (p. 6), then the B text,

the MS by some one else after it left the hands of A. The authorship of the lines of course
has no bearing upon the question of the identity of A, A 2, B, and U.

104

The Authorship of Piers Plowman 23

then the revision of B represented by Rawl. Poet. 38 (p. 5, n. 2).
Whatever may be thought of the importance of the variations in
some of these MSS, each new copy, if derived, as Mr. Jusserand
supposes, from the author's copy, at least offered an opportunity
for correcting the error. But, says Mr. Jusserand, the author
made no changes in this passage, the two lines omitted by B were
omitted by a mere scribal oversight. The oversight must, then,
have occurred in a copy made for B's personal use, for it appears
in all the copies or versions derived from B — in the ordinary
version of B, in the revised text of Eawl. Poet. 38, in the prelimi-
nary C text of the Ilchester MS, and in the ordinary C text. And
either the author or the scribe made other changes in the passage
in the B text; thus in A, 241 we read:

I schal seche seynt Treuthe* er I sec Rome,
and in B, 468:

I shal sake treuthe arst* ar I se Rome;
in A, 243, all the MSS have "wher-with," in B, 470, all have
"wher-of;" in A, 250, all the MSS have "red," in B, 475, all
have "reddere;"' in A, 252, all have "knowe," in B, 476, all except
the revised R have "owe." These are minutiae, to be sure, but
nothing justifies us in assuming that the changes were made by
the scribe. And certainly the scribe did not insert the 32 lines
which immediately follow this passage in B (11. 485-516), and
which clearly show that B had been revising in this portion of
the work.

That a man may read over his own work more than once with-
out noticing errors and inconsistencies is, alas! too true, as all of
us can testify, but Mr. Jusserand's parallels to this case seem
hardly in point. Mr. Roosevelt, it seems, read three proofs and
published several editions of his Outdoor Pastimes of an Ameri-
can Hunter before he discovered that on a single page he had
given in two varying forms the information that "bobcats are
very fond of prairie dogs, and haunt the dog towns as soon as
spring comes." Such an oversight is easily intelligible; the sen-

1 Mr. Knott informs me that three of the MSS which were not collated by Skeat have
reddere, by contaminatioa of their source with B. I have neglected to inquire about the
other passages cited here, as the existence of contaminated readings would not affect the
argument.

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24 John Matthews Manly

tences are varied in expression, and neither contains anything
incongruous with the general situation. But the cases are difPer-
ent. In the first place, if Mr. Jusserand is right, Langland was
a man of very different temperament from Mr. Roosevelt. In
the second place, great as may have been the care Mr. Roosevelt
took with this book, it can hardly be maintained that he devoted
his life to it or regarded it as his life-work. Thirdly, I venture
to suggest that, if the carelessness of copyist or printer had
allowed a gnu or a rhinoceros to stroll into the village of the
prairie dogs, Mr. Roosevelt would have recognized and ejected
the intruder in a moment. And this would be a parallel case,
for the Robert the Robber passage is as much out of place in
connection with Sloth. The author could not fail to recognize,
as soon as he read it or any part of it, that it did not belong here.

The citation of the misplaced leaf in Don Quixote I do not
understand, though a reviewer in the London Times also sug-
gested that a consideration of it and especially of Mr. Fitzmaurice-
Kelley's remarks upon it would be beneficial to me. The fact is
that Mr. Fitzmaurice-Kelley is confident that Cervantes did not
write the passage about the stealing of Dapple or put it in the
place it occupies. He says, "We are forced, by the logic of facts
and evidence, to the conclusion that the additions were made by
Robles or by Cuesta" (Introduction to his ed. of Ormsby's trans-
lation, Glasgow, 1901, p. xvi). Mr. Ormsby was of the same
opinion; in his note on the passage (Vol. I, p. 168) he says,
"But Cervantes, there can be very little doubt, had nothing
whatever to do with this passage." The argument is too long to
be resumed here, but the reasons for refusing to credit Cervantes
with the blunder are singularly like those for disconnecting the
original author with the failure to perceive and remove the
blunders in Piers Plowman.

Another example Mr. Jusserand thinks he can give from the
C text. The ten lines added by C after the names of Piers's wife
and children are, he thinks (p. 20), out of place; they really are
addressed by Piers to the Knight and belong just before C, IX,
53. "What 'dere sone' is he now [in 1, 91] addressing?" says
Mr. Jusserand; and his reply is, "the Knight." But without

106

The Authorship of Piers Plowman 25

emphasizing the unlikelihood that the peasant Piers would assume
this tone with the Knight and call him "dere sone," it is clear
that C intended the passage to stand precisely where it now
stands in the C text, and the "dere sone" of 1. 91 is the "sone"
whose name begins in 1. 82. Let us look at the passage:

Hus sone hihte SuflFre* thy sovereynes have here wil
Deme hem nouht for yf thow do' thow shalt dere abigge
Consaile nat the comune' the Kyng to displese

85 Ne hem that han lawes to loke* lacke hem nat ich hote
Let god worthe withal* as holy writ techeth
Maistres as the meyres ben" and grete men senatours
What thei comaunde as by the kyng' contrepleide hit nevere
Al that thei hoten ich hote* heyliche thou suffre hem

90 By here warnyng and [wordyng]* worch thow ther-after

Ac after here doynge do thow nat* my dere sone, qiiath Piers,

I have left this unpunctuated because any punctuation must
involve an editorial interpretation, and I wish the passage to be
its own interpreter. Is not this from beginning to end inseparably
connected with 1. 82? Is this not merely one of the many
examples of the carelessness and thoughtlessness with which
expansions were made in the revisions? The advice is appro-
priate enough for the son, it is highly unsuited for the Knight.
There can be no doubt, I think, that awkward as the passage is,
impossible as it is to tell where name ends and advice begins, it
is in the place C intended it to have. It is a slight confirmation
of this that 1. 86, which C incorporates in the passage Mr.
Jusserand wishes to transfer, follows C 83 immediately in both
the A and B texts.

But after all, Mr. Jusserand thinks that B did notice that
Robert the Robber was in the wrong place, and that he prepared
to transfer it to the proper place but neglected to mark it for
removal (p. 18). Evidence of intention he finds in the passages
on restitution which B inserted in Coveitise. Quoting B, V, 232ff.,
he remarks: "The restitution here alluded to is precisely that
which a penitent thief should make, the question being of stolen
goods." True, and it would be making too fine a point, perhaps,
to hint that this insertion, good as it is, is not in harmony with

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26 John Matthews Manly

A's account of Coveitise, since A represents him as dishonest and
full of cheating tricks but not as a robber or a thief; though we
all know that in some ages of the world merchants accustomed to
cheat systematically and daily would be aghast at the thought of
formal theft or robbery. What really is of significance is: (1)
that B does not make these insertions in such form or at such
places as to aid in attaching the Robber passage to Coveitise;
(2) that they are as fully accounted for without the transfer of
the Robber passage as with it; (8) that, if B intended to trans-
fer the passage, he made no preparations for the transfer in the
passage itself, he neither restored to the MS the line:

Then was ther a Walishman' was wonderliche sory,

which Mr. Jusserand thinks belonged to the original text but was
torn off or otherwise lost from the loose leaf the scribe of A had
(p. 22, n. 2), nor restored to its original form the line:

And git I-chulle jelden ajeyn* 5if I so much have

which the scribe of A had thoughtfully substituted for:

He highte ' gyvan geld-ageyn,' etc.

Furthermore, if Mr. Jusserand accepts Professor Skeat's view that
MS Laud 581 was corrected by the author himself, or perhaps
indeed his own autograph, it is worth observing that neither the
large nor the small crosses noted by Professor Skeat as indicating
places where corrections were to be made (Vol. II, pp. Ixix) stand
beside this passage.

The crowning proof that Langland wrote the Robert the Robber
passage and knew where it belonged, although he neglected
repeated opportunities to put it in its proper place or even to
restore it to its original form, is, according to Mr. Jusserand, the
fact that thirty-six years after it was misplaced, C assigned it to
Coveitise, where it belonged all the time ; moreover, he restored to
it a missing line so marvelously adapted to its purpose as to mark
him as beyond a doubt the original author (p. 22) . Some objec-
tions to the view, held by Mr. Bradley and Mr. Jusserand, that
this passage was originally attached to Coveitise may be found
below (p. 60). These are confirmed by the fact, just mentioned,

108

The Authorship of Piers Plowman 27

that through all the years of his occupation with the poem B gave
no sign that he knew that the first line of this passage was missing
and that the second had been rewritten by a misinformed scribe.
Moreover, the joining of this passage to Coveitise by C is not the
simple and satisfactory thing it may seem to those who have not
examined it carefully. In the first place, the so-called restoration
of reading in the second line has changed a perfectly simple and
grammatical sentence into a monstrum informe, cui lumen ademjj-
tum, neither the flesh of a name nor the fish of a promise, a ghastly
amphibian whose existence cannot be justified by any of the pas-
sages quoted by Mr. Jusserand (p. 23, n. 3). Again, it is well to
remember that there are sometimes two ends to a passage, and to
look at the other end of this. It will then appear at once that C is
not replacing the passage in the position it ought to have occupied
all the time in the A and B texts, but transferring to this place a
passage that belonged elsewhere and patching up a connection at
the joints by using some of the old material of B for the newcomer.
Thus C, VII, 334-37 is a reworking of B, V, 290, 291, applied
now to Robert the Robber instead of to Syr Hervy Coveitise.
See, moreover, how the whole insertion, C, VII, 309-39, breaks
into and destroys B's fine conception of the despair of Coveitise
(B, V, 286-92). Finally, observe that C's placing of the passage
in question under Coveitise does not stand alone and unexampled.
As Professor Skeat long ago pointed out, it is only a part of a
general process by which C transfers to the Seven Sins passages
of similar content from various parts of the B text. Thus, after
B, V, 48 (the sermon), C inserts B, X, 292-329; after B, V, 71
(Pride), he inserts B, XIII, 278-84, 292-313, preceded by a few
lines of his own; B, VII, 72-75 (Lechery) he transfers to a some-
what later position and adds B, XIII, 344-52, with some lines of
his own; of B's account of Envy he omits a part, but after B, V,
119 inserts B, XIII, 325-42; B's Wrath he leaves with little
change; but Coveitise he changes much, inserting after B, V, 267
the following bits: B, XIII, 362-68, 371-75, 384-89, 392-99, and
after B, V, 289 the Robert the Robber passage; B's Glutton is left
practically unchanged, but at the end of Sloth (B, V, 462) he
inserts B, XIII, 410-57. Are all these passages from B, X and B,

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28 John Matthews Manly

XIII passages which careless scribes had misplaced and which it
required the hand of the author to restore to their original places?
No one will maintain such a thesis. And it seems clear that C had
no better reason for his transfer of the Robber passage than for
his transfer of the others.

The much lauded Welshman 5yvan jeld-a^eyn does not, I
admit, impress me greatly. He doesn't seem to me genuine, and
I fancy I can see C concocting him out of the hint afforded by the
alliteration of "jelden a^eyn." And he seems, after all, to have
been a gentle thief; indeed, from his name one might easily infer
that thieving was altogether contrary to his nature. If C names
his people on the same principles as A, we ought to infer that his
residence in the West Countrie, far from giving him an unfavor-
able opinion of the Welsh, had impressed him with their funda-
mental honesty. Chaucer, indeed, always speaks respectfully of
the Welsh (perhaps in remembrance of Kynge Arthour and the
Bret Glascurion, whom Mr. Jusserand has overlooked), but we
have the immemorial jingle to assure us that

Taffy was a Welshman,
Taffy was a thief.

Finally, we may be pretty sure that Dr. Furnivall was right in
demanding for the antecedent of ReddUe not a person named with
an English equivalent of this word, but an exhortation to restitu-
tion containing, probably, some Latin quotation in which this
word Beddite was prominent, or perhaps, as Mr. Knott reminds
me, a character definitely named in Latin, like "Vigilate the veil."

IV

Continuing the discussion of the Robert the Robber passage,
Mr. Jusserand (pp. 25, 28, 29) attacks my statement that B made
insertions in Sloth intended to justify the lines on restitution. He
finds in these insertions "no intimation that any of his misdeeds
was committed with the intention of ivinnimj money; it was with
him mere negligence" (p. 28). That negligence is the principal
element in Sloth is true, but in the following lines inserted by B
I think I find another element, in preparation, as I have said, for

the restitution passage:

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The Authorship of Piers Plowman 29

gif I bigge and borwe it, • but-gif it be ytailled, 429

I for^ete it as jerne; • and 5if men me it axe
Sixe sithes or sevene, ' I forsake it with othes,
And thus tene I trewe men * ten hundreth tymes.

That the forgetfulness is not altogether involuntary is suggested
by "^erne" and certainly a man who has to be asked six times or
seven for a just debt and constantly denies it, is guilty of more
than negligence. But even if one insists upon finding in these
lines and in 1. 435, which tells how Sloth treats his servants when
they demand the wages that are overdue, only culpable negligence
and not dishonest intent, the mere fact that money has been
improperly withheld from its rightful claimants is sufficient reason
for restitution on the part of a repentant sinner. Mr. Jusserand
maintains that if B had introduced any lines in order to lead up
to and justify the restitution passage, he would have changed the
word lean in A, V, 237:

Al that I wikkedly wan • sith I witte hadde.

But surely this is demanding of B an attention to details and
a care for systematic revision justified no better by Mr. Jusse-
rand's conception of him than by mine. Finally it is difficult to
discover why B introduced such additions as I have pointed out
if they were not intended to prepare the way for the restitution
passage. Injury to one's own estate is regularly recognized as
one of the results of sloth, the increase of it is not.

Mr. Jusserand next argues that neither A, B, nor C can make
a correct list of the Seven Sins on the first trial, and that this
proves that they are one and the same person. Four attempts at
lists occur in the poems, in A, II and V, and B, XIII and XIV
( = C, XVII), and only one of them is correct, says he. But let
us not take the facts without inquiring into their meaning. The
third list is complete. Moreover, B had apparently no difficulty
in discovering that the first and second (in A) were incomplete,
and he would therefore probably in his examination of the text,
while it was passing through the four stages represented by B,
Rawl. Poet. 38, Ilchester, and C, have observed and remedied the
omission of Envy in the fourth list (B, XIV == C, XVII), unless
there were some particular reason for not doing so.

Ill

30 John Matthews Manly

That reason is, perhaps, not hard to discover. B begins to
expound the dangers threatening the wealthy, but before he has
finished with the first Sin, Pride, he has mentioned the poor, and
having touched this, his favorite theme, his exposition, forgetting
its original purpose, becomes immediately, that is, with the dis-
cussion of Pride, the first Sin, a praise of the immunity which
poverty enjoys from every sin:

If Wratthe wrastel with ,the pore, * he hath the worse ende (1. 224)
And if Glotouie greve poverte, * he gadereth the lasse (1. 229)
And if Coveitise wolde cacche the pore" thei may nou5t come

togideres (1. 238)
Lecherye loveth hym noujt' for he jeveth but lytel sylver (1. 249)
And though Sleuthe suwe poverte • and serve nougt god to paye.
Mischief is his maister • and maketh hym to thynke
That god is his grettest helpe.' (11. 253-55)

With this changed intention, it is not hard to see why Envy is
omitted.^ Envy can hardly be called a sin against which poverty
is an effective remedy. The same reason that caused B to omit
Envy would prevent C from adding it.

The situation, then, is this: We have two lists from which, for
some reason yet to be determined, the sin of Wrath is omitted ; of
the two remaining lists, one is complete and the incompleteness of
the other is clearly due to a cause which cannot be invoked for the
first two. Is it not too bold to assert, on the basis of such evi-
dence, that we have to do with an author incapable of making a
complete and correct list? Whatever may be the cause of the
incompleteness of the first two lists, permanent inability to make

1 After a simile, follows a discussion of what poverty is.

2 In all the MSS of B except K, the last two lines of Wrath and all of Glotonie are
omitted, but R several times has passages necessary to the context that can only have been
omitted from the other MSS by mistake.

CXVII, although tabulated as a fifth version, is rightly said in the text to be only a
slight variant of B, XIV. The variation is, indeed, of even loss importance than one might
suppose. B does not, as a matter of fact, spoil this list by discussing or listing Sloth twice.
Sloth is formally discussed in 11. 25311., and the word "sloth" is used in connection with
"gluttony" in 1. 234, but this casual use of a word can surely not b? counted as another
treatment of Sloth, in view of ttie fact that all the sins are treated definitely and formally.
There are equally good, if not better, grounds for saying that B regarded Coveitise and
Avarice as different sius and tried to make up the count of seven in that way, for II. 238-43
are formally devoted to Coveitise and 11. 244-48, with equal formality, to Avarice. Sloth,
we may safely maintain, is not listed twice; and C's correction in 1. 77 is not a correction of
the list as a list, but a mere variant, of no more significance than other variant readings in
the same passage, such as C, XVII, 64, 68, 70, 71, 76, 79, etc.

112

The Authorship of Piers Plowman 31

a complete list can hardly be spoken of as "the author's mark, his
seal and signature." And since it is incredible that a mediaeval
author who could count as high as seven should have been unable
to make a complete list of the Seven Sins when he deliberately set
himself to do so, as is certainly the case in both A, II and A, V, we
seem irresistibly led to the conclusion that the absence of Wrath
in both instances is due to accidents that occurred after the original
had left the author's hands.

Concerning the confession of Wrath added by B, Mr. Jusser-
and maintains that I am wrong in regarding it as so unlike the
work of A as to suggest that A and B are not the same person,
and his argument is twofold: "(1) An author is not bound,
under pain of being cleft in twain, always to show the same
merits, in every respect, on every occasion, at all times; (2) the
confessions in it are not so good and the additions in B are not
so bad as Mr. Manly makes them out." To the first proposition,
as a general proposition, I readily and heartily assent, but it
remains none the less true that such differences may exist between
two pieces of writing as strongly to suggest difference of author-
ship. Such differences I presumed to point out in this instance
and I regarded them as important in connection with the
numerous other reasons we have for suspecting that A and B
were not the same. As to the second proposition, it does not
touch the point at issue. I have never, at any time or in any
place, denied the ability of B to write lines as good as any written
by A; on the contrary, B has some passages which — as I think
and have always thought — are entirely out of the range of A's
ability. But the excellences of A and B are different and their
defects are also different. Mr. Jusserand attempts here and else-
where to meet this point, partly by emphasizing certain fine
qualities of B's work, which I recognize as heartily as he, and
partly by trying to show that A is guilty of the same sort of con-
fusion of thought shown by B. Thus, here he tries to answer my
charge that the confession of Wrath in B gives us really a picture
of Envy rather than of Wrath, by saying, (1) that some of
A's portraits are inappropriate to the Sins to which they are
assigned and (2) that Envy and Wrath are so much alike that B

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32 John Matthews Manly

cannot justly be criticized for giving us a portrait of Envy and
labeling it Wrath.

The example of inappropriate traits in portraiture by A
alleged by Mr. Jusserand is furnished by Pride, and two lines
are specified in support of the allegation. In both instances I
disagree with him as to the interpretation of the lines. In order
that there may be no mistake I will quote the whole passage:

Pernel Proud-herte" platte hire to grounde, (45)

And lay long ar heo lokede* and to ur Ladi criede,
And beohijte to him* that us alle maade,
Heo wolde unsouwen hire smok* and setten ther an here
Forte fay ten hire flesch' that frele was to synne: (49)

" Schal never high herte me hente* bote holde me lowe,

And suffre to beo misseid" and so dude I nevere.

And now I con wel meke me" and merci beseche

Of al that ichave ihad' envye in myn herte." (53)

The lines quoted as inappropriate to Pride are 11. 49 and 53.
Mr. Jusserand thinks that 1. 49 implies that Pernel had been
guilty of lechery, and cites a similar phrase from the account of
Mede.' But Pride is one of the sins of the flesh, disciplined, as
I have shown above (p. 20), by the wearing of a "hair;" and
"frail to sin" would not necessarily imply the particular kind of
sin which Mr. Jusserand has in mind; and, finally, "frele" is
apparently the reading of MS V only, "fers" or "f resell" being
probably the original reading in A as well as in B." In 1. 53
Mr. Jusserand finds Pernel confessing the sin of Envy (in the
modern sense), but there is no other hint of this attitude on the
part of Pernel, and the word "envy" may mean only "hatred" or
"ill-will," as may be seen from the quotations given in the
N. E. D., s. V. 1. We have no right to impose upon words mean-
ings unsuited to the context when there are others that suit the

1 la A, III, 117, one group of MSS (V and H) have :

Heo is frele of hire fiesch" flkel of hire tonge ;
the other group (T, U, D) have "feith" instead of "flesch;" that "feith" is the original
reading is perhaps indicated by the fact that H of the other group has "feith" instead of
"tonge."

2 Professor Skeat gives the readings thus "frele] fers T; fresch H U." H, which
belongs to the same group as V, has therefore not the reading of V; "fresch" is, as the
genealogy indicates, the right reading; "fers" is simply a variant spelling of "fresch."

114

The Authorship of Piers- Plowman 33

context perfectly. The supposed fault in the confession of
Lechour I have already dealt with (p. 20).

Mr. Jusserand's second contention, that Envy and Wrath are
so much alike or so closely connected that B cannot be criticized
for confusing them, may now be examined. At the top of p. 31,
he quotes two lines from the A text about the sowing of strife by
Envy, and says this is "one of the classical attributes of Wrath."
That Wrath may be the motive for such action is true, but so may
Envy, and in the line preceding those quoted by Mr. Jusserand
Envy explains his motive thus:

His grace and his good hap ' greveth me ful sore.

—A, V, 79.

Continuing, Mr. Jusserand calls attention to the fact that Chaucer's
chapter on Wrath in the Parson'' s Tale begins: "After Envye wol
I discryven the sinne of Ire. For soothly whoso hath Envye upon
his neighebor, anon he wole comunly finde him a matere of
wrathe, in word or in dede, agayne him to whom he hath envye."
This is, indeed, the beginning, but it does not justify the substi-
tution of Envy for Wrath. Chaucer's next sentence is: "And as
well comth Ire of Pryde as of Envye; for soothly he that is proud
or envious is lightly wrooth." Finally, Mr. Jusserand points out
in Chaucer's chapter on Wrath many particulars which show "how
vague were the limits then assigned to each sin." But in the
Middle Ages the Seven Sins were treated as tempers or tendencies
out of which particular misdeeds grow. And, naturally, the same
deed, the same sin, may originate in any one of several different
tempers or tendencies. The Sins are ruling passions which may
lead to very various manifestations. The point in our present
discussion is this: In A the Sins are personifications of the ruling
passions or tendencies — Pernel is Pride, Lechour is the lecherous
man, Envy is the envious man, Coveitise is the avaricious man,
Glutton is the drunkard, Sloth is the slothful man (and I think I
have met successfully the effort to show confusion in the charac-
terization), whereas B's Wrath is in no sense the wrathful man,
but only a meddlesome busy body, who, animated sometimes
apparently by Envy and sometimes by a general love of slander,
does things which cause jangling and strife, but is himself, so far

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34 John Matthews Manly

as appears, not at all subject to the sin of Wrath. C felt this,
apparently, for he rewrote the beginning to remedy the defect;
of. C, VII, 105-14.

Mr. Jusserand's playful suggestion that the style of the Par-
sow's Tale could be used as an argument that it is not by Chaucer,
is by no means so absurd as it may seem. It is, indeed, perfectly
clear that the style of this tale is determined by another personality
than that of Chaucer. It exhibits none of his characteristic
qualities, precisely because it is, in its determinative elements, not
his work, because he is not the creator of the thought and style
but a mere translator, whose personal qualities have left scarcely
a trace, if any, upon the translation. In other words, we have in
the Parso7i's Tale in reality not the style of Chaucer but that of
other men of entirely different gifts.

In Part V Mr. Jusserand deals with some instances in which
I asserted that B or C had misunderstood his predecessor or
spoiled a passage written by him. He suggests that the examples
I gave were "doubtless the best available ones." They were,
indeed, merely specimens, and the number might easily have
been increased ; they suited my purpose especially, partly because
they could be very briefly phrased — and I was throughout the
article obliged to study brevity as much as possible — and partly
because they seemed to me, as Mr. Jusserand says they seem to
him, "very telling ones if they held good." That they do hold
good, in spite of the attack upon them, I hope to be able to show.

1. I said: "In II, 21 ff., Lewte is introduced as. the leman of
the lady Holy Church and spoken of as feminine." Mr. Jusser-
and's reply is threefold: (a) "There cannot be any question
here of B having misunderstood A, as the passage is quite differ-
ent in both texts and there is no mention at all of Lewte in A;"
(6) "Lemman does not necessarily mean a man;" (c) "Very
possibly there may be nothing more in the passage than a scribe's
error, 'hire' being put for 'him.'" I should reply: (a) Surely
making the leman of lady Holy Church feminine involves a
spoiling of the conception of A, and a misunderstanding or for-

116

The Authorship of Piers Plowman 35

getfulness of it — for misunderstanding may accompany the addi-
tion of lines and characters; (&) I was aware that "leman" may
mean a woman as well as a man, and I have nowhere suggested
that it could not, my point being that here the "leman" of
a lady is spoken of as feminine; (c) there is nothing in the text
to indicate that "hire" is a scribe's error for "hym;" and when
we have so many evidences of B's tampering with the conceptions
of A, we have no right to relieve him in this case by a purely
gratuitous assumption. But, says Mr. Jusserand, C corrected it
to "hym." So he did; C more than once corrects B's errors, as
I originally pointed out. But if it was a scribe's error, it is
notable that it appears in all the texts of B and was therefore
apparently in the original of B (which, according to Mr. Jusser-
and, was the author's own copy, which he kept by him and
allowed to be copied from time to time) ; it is not marked for
correction in MS Laud 581, which Professor Skeat regards as
the author's autograph, containing indications of errors that must
be corrected; Rawl. Poet. 38, which, according to Skeat and
Jusserand, is a revised version of B, is not available for this
line. The evidence is therefore pretty strong that the error was
B's, and it cannot be disposed of by the convenient but unsup-
ported supposition of a scribe's error. To say, as Mr. Jusserand
does, "Of B having failed to understand or of having committed
any error, there is no trace,^^ seems to me unwarranted by the
facts.

2. I said: "In II, 25, False instead of Wrong is father of
Meed, but is made to marry ^ her later." Mr. Jusserand's reply is
here more elaborate but not more successful, I think. He
maintains that Wrong was very badly chosen as a father for
Meed, that B recognized this and improved the situation by
making Favel the father, though, unfortunately, the scribe again
misrepresented B's intention and put "False" instead of "Favel."
This scribe is surely a most troublesome person, though this was
not discovered until after my theory was propounded, Professor
Skeat, indeed, going so far as to comment upon the remarkable

1 Of course I was wrong in saying, and Mr. Jusserand in repeating (p. 33), that False
marries Meed ; they are ready to marry but tlie wedding is prevented.

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36 John Matthews Manly

purity of the B text, and to maintain that in one copy of it we
have the author's autograph. "Wrong was very badly chosen
[by A] as a father for Meed, and was given, besides, nothing to
do," says Mr. Jusserand. "The marriage was not arranged by
him; the marriage portion was not supplied by him; in the
journey to Westminster he was forgotten; his part was limited to
signing, first among many others, the 'feoflPment' charter supplied
by other people." Whether Wrong was appropriately chosen as
a father for Meed, is, I take it, a question of opinion and taste;
I myself feel that Favel ( = Flattery) is hardly as appropriate as
Wrong for the father, or main cause, of Meed. And I do not
understand Mr. Jusserand to argue that A's failure to assign
Wrong as prominent a part in the preparations for the marriage
as Mr. Jusserand thinks he ought to play is reason for believing
that A really intended another character as the father but, like
B, was baflfled of his purpose by a careless or meddlesome scribe.
The truth seems to be that Meed herself was, according to A's
conception, a very desirable bride, so much so that her father
needed to do nothing to secure a husband for her; False desired
her, and Favel, Guile, and Liar (II, 23-25) were the principal
agents in making the match. The "feoffment" was not a settle-
ment made by the bride's father — none such was necessary —
but a settlement made by the other party, False, Favel, etc., "in
consideration of Meed's consent to matrimony" — a common form
of settlement, fully discussed in the law-books. Others besides
Mr. Jusserand (p. 34) have perhaps been troubled by the fact
that in 1. 58 the feoffment is represented as made by False (False-
ness) and in 1, 61 by Favel.' But distress on this point might
have been relieved by calling to mind that in 11. 37-39 both
False and Favel are represented as principals in the matter:

Sir Simonye is of -sent" to asseale the chartres.
That Fals othur Fauvel* by eny fyn heolden,
And feffe Meede therwith* in marriage for evere.

To say, as Mr. Jusserand does (p. 34), that Favel had already
been playing the part of father to Meed seems to involve a mis-
conception of A's whole intention ; Favel is the friend and helper

1 The source of the feoffment is even more complicated in B than in A, cf. B, II, 69, 72, 78-

118

The Authorship of Piers Plowman 37

of False. The father, Wrong, has no occasion to do anything
except affix his signature to the feoffment as first and principal
witness.

That B intended to make Favel the father and was prevented
from doing so only by a scribe's error' is, however, according to
Mr. Jusserand, "not a mere surmise, .... it is a demonstrable
fact. The same confusion between these two names, the same
use of the one instead of the other, do not occur only in text B,

but also in text C, and also in text A itself In version A,

the feoffment is said, in II, 58, to be made by False, and three
lines farther on by Favel; False is a mistake for Favel." I have
just explained this passage and need say no more. "In version
0, we are told," says Mr. Jusserand, "in III, 25, that 'Favel was
hure fader,' and on 1. 121, that 'Fals were hure fader.'" These
statements concerning the C text are accurate as far as they go,
but they require a little supplementary examination. The first
of the passages, C, II, 25, is taken over from B with no change
except the substitution of "Favel" in C for "False" in B. The
second passage, C, II, 121, is, on the other hand, an entirely new
line, added by C; it runs as follows:

Thouh Fals were hure fader and Fykel-tonge hure syre,
Amendes was hure moder.

Mr. Jusserand requires us to believe either that, after changing
"False" to "Favel" in 1. 25, 0 wrote a new line, 121, repeating
the error introduced into B, II, 25 ( = C, III, 25), not by B, but
by a scribe, or that, by some strange fatality, a scribe committed
the same error of substitution in C, III, 121 that another scribe
had committed twenty-three years earlier in B, II, 25. The
attempts to meet my arguments in this and the preceding
instance seem to me to involve too many coincidences and to
overwork the theory of scribal error. The true explanation of
the present instance is, I presume, that in B, II, 25, B carelessly
substituted "False" for "Wrong" as the father of Meed, for-
getting for the moment that False was the proposed husband;
then C, in rewriting B, at first accepted B's conception and

1 No correction of this supposed scribal error was indicated in Laud 581. Rawl. Poet. 38
does not contain the line.

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38 John Matthews Manly

added C, 121, on this basis, but later, observing the inappro-
priateness of making False both father and husband of Meed, he
(or someone else) substituted "Favel" for "False" in 1. 25 but
forgot to do the same in 1. 121.

But, continues Mr. Jusserand, "the same intention to give
Meed a different parentage, better justifying Theology's otherwise
ludicrous remarks is also shown by Langland adding in B a men-
tion that Meed had Amendes for her mother, a virtuous character."
This has, of course, no real bearing upon the argument we have
just completed, and might, if it were true, be admitted without in
the least affecting the conclusion we have reached. But it is not
so certain that this is an addition by B. Let us see. Professor
Skeat's text A, II, 87 reads:

For Meede is a luweler ■ a mayden of goode;

but "luweler" is, as Dr. Bradley has pointed out, a misreading of
the Vernon MS, instead of some form of "mulier" (i. e., a legiti-
mate child), the same as the "moylere" of text B (of the MSS of
the A text T reads molere, U muliere, D mulyer, H medeler, Hj
medlere) ; in the second half-line only MSS V and H have the
reading of Skeat's text, which is obviously due to the writer of the
lost MS from which these two MSS are derived, the other MSS
of the A text, i. e., T U Hg D, read "of frendis engendrit." Now,
it will be remembered that the corresponding line in B (1. 118)

reads :

For Made is moylere * of Amendes engendred.

Is it not clear that this was also the original reading of A, dis-
torted in the MS from which all extant MSS of A are derived, and
preserved in this distorted form by MSS T H.^ U D but emended
for the sake of alliteration (and perhaps, also, of sense) by the
immediate source of V and H? Some one may object that 1 am
praying in aid the same sort of scribal interference that I have
just refused to recognize when proposed by Mr. Jusserand. I do
not think this is the case. I have, of course, never maintained
that scribal errors may not disguise the author's intent, but only
that Mr. Jusserand's suppositions of scribal error are unsupported
by the evidence and involve too many strange coincidences. In

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The Authorship of Piers Plowman 39

the present case, on the other hand, four of the six MSS quoted
by Skeat at this point give a reading which is obviously related in
some way to the reading of the B text; so far as I can see, either
the reading of the B text was also the reading of the A text and
and was derived from it, or four MSS of the A text have at this
point a reading due to contamination from B, The former sup-
position seems to be supported by the whole of A's conception of
the twofold character of Meed, which was taken over, of course,
by B and C. We may, then, safely conclude that "Amendes," the
mother, was not added by B, but stood originally in A.'

3. I asserted that, "in II, 74 ff., B does not understand that
the feoffment covers precisely the provinces of the Seven Deadly
Sins, and by elaborating the passage spoils the unity of intention."
Mr. Jusserand replies that B, not only noted the omission of one
of the Sins, but supplied supplementary details without impairing
the unity of intention. For my view as to the omitted Sin I must
refer to p. 61, below, where it was necessary, for other reasons, to
discuss the matter. That the unity of A's intention to cover p?'e-
cisely the provinces of the Seven Sins was impaired by B is shown
by the fact that B's elaborations are so many and of such a nature
as to obscure the fact that precisely seven provinces are in question
and not an unsystematic general collection of all the sins the author
could think of. I will quote only B's elaborations of the province
of Pride (11. 79-82):

To be prynces in pryde * and poverte to dispise,
To bakbite, and to bosten * and bare fals witnesse,
To scorne and to scolde, • and sclaundre to make,
Unboxome and bolde • to brake the ten hastes.

Is not the unity of intention somewhat impaired by thes
elaborations? Indeed, I will go farther and ask whether any stu-
dent of Piers Plowman ever clearly recognized that this feoffment
is intended to cover ^'■precisely the provinces of the Seven Deadly
Sins" before acquaintance with the simpler form of the A text
enabled him to perceive the plan overlaid by the elaborations of
B and C.

' This paragraph was written on the basis of the readings given by Skoat, as I had not
access to Mr. Knott's collations, and had not seen the excellent discussion of this point by
Chambers and Grattan, Mod. Lang, Rev.. IV, 368, who on the basis of all the MSS reach the
same conclusion as I do.

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40 John Matthews Manly

4. I said: "In II, 176, B has forgotten that the bishops are to
accompany Meed to Westminster and represents them as borne
'abrode in visytynge.'" Mr. Jusserand replies: " (1) B had no
chance io forget [italics his] any such thing, as he was, without
any doubt, working with a text of A at his elbow," But we have
just seen that, even with a text of A at his elbow, B could forget
that the leman of Holy Church must not be feminine and that
False must not be made the father of the woman he was trying to
marry. Continuing his reply he says: "(2) Contrary to what
Professor Manly suggests, there is here no incoherency chargeable
to B. In A, exactly as in B, Langland indulges in an incidental
fling at bishops; no more in one case than in the other were they
to go to Westminster at all. In A ... .

For thai schullen beren bisshops • and briugen hem to reste

.... may mean anything one pleases, except the implying of a
tumultuous journey to Westminster or anywhere else." But I do
not understand that the journey to Westminster was to be tumul-
tuous. False was set "on a sysoures backe that softly trotted"
(1. 135), "Favel on a fayre speche fetisly atyred" (1. 140), pro-
visours were to be appareled "on palfreis wyse" (1. 148)— these
do not sound to me like preparations for a tumultuous journey.
"Of Westminster not a word," says Mr. Jusserand. But why
should Westminster be mentioned in connection with each member
of the party? It had already been distinctly stated as the desti-
nation of them all. As well object that Westminster is not men-
tioned in the lines already cited (11. 135, 140, 148) or in 11. 146,
147, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157. "Bringen hem to reste" may
not state definitely the destination, but it at least is not contra-
dictory of the general plan of a journey to Westminster, as are

B, 176:

To bare bischopes aboute * abrode in visytynge,

and C, III, 177, 178:

And shope that a shereyve • sholde bere Made
Softlicha in saumbury • fram syse to sysa.

In these the journey to Westminster is clearly and unmistakably
forgotten for the moment or displaced by another satirical intention.

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The Authorship of Piers Plowman 41

5, My arguments from the Robert the Robber passage and the
Name passage, Mr. Jusserand says he has already answered.
And I have replied to his answer (see above, pp. 21 ff.).

VI

His sixth section Mr. Jusserand devotes to some of my stylistic
arguments. He says, rightly enough, that most of these I have
only mentioned and not developed, and he naturally neglects, as
requiring too much space (I suppose), my attempt to indicate the
large differences between A and B which occupies pp. 4-17 and
and 22-28 of my chapter in the Cambridge History of English
Literature. He does not think very highly of my general expo-
sition of the differences in style, aim, method, interests, and mental
peculiarities between A and B as a basis for declaring them to be
different men, thinking that I have greatly exaggerated these dif-
ferences and that, even if taken at my own estimation, they do not
justify my conclusion. To reargue this question would be prac-
tically to repeat my exposition of the style, aims, method, interests,
and mental qualities of each; and I am content to leave the deci-
sion to the future, believing, as I confidently do, that it is only
necessary that students of Piers Plowman shall consider carefully
all the manifold differences between the parts of this poem or
group of poems to arrive ultimately at the conclusions to which
the lucky chance of reading them in the right order has con-
ducted me.

The differences in sentence structure and in versification I
must again decline to discuss in detail, partly for lack of space and
partly because I have not yet found a method for presenting some
of my results that satisfies me. I could without great difficulty
give a tabular presentation of statistics that would show striking
differences in both of these features. But I am inclined to believe
that tabular statements of statistics convince few readers, unless
they carry with them some conception capable of more or less
definite visualization. I will, therefore, at present only suggest
that any reader can convince himself of the differences in sentence
structure between A and B by comparing any hundred sentences
in B's continuation of the poem {^passus xi-xx) with any hundred

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42 John Matthews Manly

in A (Prol. and passus i-viii) and noting particularly such matters
as absolute length, number of co-ordinate clauses, number of sub-
ordinate clauses, number of clauses in the second degree of subordi-
nation, etc.

As to versification the most striking difiference between A and B
is that B has a larger number of principal stresses in the half -line
than A, and consequently also a larger number of unstressed syl-
lables. An easy mode of presenting the extent of these differences
is to represent each half -line by two numbers, that in the unit's
place giving the number of stresses and that in the ten's place the
number of syllables. First half-lines should of course be kept
separate from second half-lines. The average for each half of the
line in each text may then easily be obtained.

My statement concerning dialectical differences is so brief that
it is perhaps not strange that Mr. Jusserand has misunderstood it.
Had I foreseen as even a remote possibility that anyone should
suppose that I was thinking of mere scribal variations, I would
either have omitted the suggestion altogether or made it clearer.
The point I had in mind was that it is possible to determine by
well-known philological processes the forms of certain words in
the original copies of the several versions. If we find, for example,
that no instance of "are" occurs in Al and that instances occur
in A 2, which, because they are essential to the alliteration, clearly
proceed from the author and not from a scribe, we are justified in
concluding, even if the texts of A 2 contain also instances of
"ben," that, in all probability, A2 used "are" and Al did not.
If we find that in B "she" is, according to the evidence of all
extant MSS, the form of this pronoun in the source from which
they are all derived, and that in A "heo" is, according to the evi-
dence of all extant MSS, the corresponding form, we are justified
in concluding that, in all probability the authors of the two versions
differed as to the form of this pronoun. There still remains, of
course, a possibility that the common source of the extant MSS of
each version was not the author's original and differed from it in
dialect. But if we can show further that the B text contains
readings (of "he" for "she") based upon "heo" in the earlier text,
we have confirmation of the evidence which points to "heo" as the

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The Authorship of Piers Plowman 43

form used in the earlier text. Such instances occur. In A, III,
30, e.g., all the MSS have:

Hendeliche thenne heo • behihte hem the same,
and B has the same form "heo," in spite of the fact that "she" is
the regular form in B for the feminine pronoun. Three MSS,
indeed, COB, have "she," but they form a small subgroup and
"she" is clearly due to a correction in their immediate source.
"We find as great differences between the various copies of the
same version" as between the different versions, says Mr. Jusse-
rand. Of course. Two scribes may differ as much as two authors ;
and the same differences which in the one case oblige us to con-
clude that the scribes are different men oblige us in the other to
conclude that the authors are different men. Naturally it is not
always easy to discover what forms were actually used by an author,
but when these can be discovered, the conclusions are not hard to
draw. In the case of Piers Plowman many dialectical questions
must remain unsettled until we have a complete record of all read-
ings, even those heretofore regarded as insignificant.^

With Mr. Jusserand's general attitude toward metrical ques-
tions, as expressed on p. 38, I find myself unable to agree. It is
true that there are differences in versification between Paradise
Lost and Paradise Regained and between Love's Lahour''s Lost
and The Tempest, but the verse of both the former is character-
istically Miltonic and that of the latter two characteristically
Shaksperean. Mr. Jusserand would certainly admit that pieces
of verse might be submitted for his judgment, which, on the evi-
dence of versification alone, he could without hesitation pronounce
to be not the work of either Milton or Shakspere. And even if
the differences between A and B be not so great as in this sup-
posed case, they are at least worth noting as a part of the general
argument concerning these two versions. The force of a large

1 That the readings of other MSS than V of the A text must be taken into consideration
in determining any point of A's stylo or languafjo seems too obvious to require sppcial state-
ment, but Messrs. (yhambers and Grattan, loc. cit., p. 358, have strangely inferred that I
regard the Vernon MS as the A text. That 1 have never entertained such an idea, if it does
not appear from what I myself have written, as I think it does, is indicated by the fact,
known to Dr. Furnivall and others, that Mr. T. A. Knott has, at my suggestion, been work-
ing for the past two years upon a critical text of the A version, the materials for which he
collected in England and Ireland in the summer of 1907. As for myself, 1 have always tried
to take into consideration the reatlings and relations of all the accessible MSS, and I ven-
ture to hope that no important statement made by me will be nullified by the critical text,
when it appears.

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44 John Matthews Manly

number of important differences between two works cannot be
broken by showing that each difference has been found in works
undoubtedly by one author.

My praise of A and my emphasis of his possession of certain
qualities lacking in the work of B seem to have misled Mr. Jus-
serand. I have nowhere declared "the first part of A the best in
the whole work;" I have nowhere put it "so far above the rest as
to imply a difference of authorship." I have re-echoed and quoted
with the heartiest approval Mr. Jusserand's just and fine words
about the merits of B, and I quoted several of the very finest
specimens of B's powers (see Camb. Hist. Engl. Lit., II, 28, 29),
among them one so fine that Mr. Jusserand quotes it against me
(p. 46) as if it upset my whole case. My argument is not at all
concerned with the superiority of one version over another, but
with the differences between them, differences which seem to me
not superficial and shifting, but dependent upon innate and
fairly permanent mental qualities and endowments.

In reply to my indications of differences in methods and inter-
ests between A and his continuators Mr. Jusserand exclaims,
"Why not?" and "Again, why not?" I freely admit that no
man is obliged to follow the same method of allegory all his life,
but if we find such obvious attempts at the method of A as we do
find at the beginning of A 2 and of B's continuation [passus xi)
we are justified in believing that A 2 and B tried to use A's alle-
gorical method and could not. But A 2 and B both exhibit an
interest in predestination and are thereby brought "near" to one
another, says Mr. Jusserand, If an interest in predestination
were excessively rare, this might indeed be of some importance,
but I have already pointed out, I think, that in consequence of
Bradwardine's De Causa Dei predestination was one of the chief
topics of interest to serious-minded men in the fourteenth century
{Camb. Hist. Engl. Lit., II, 18). It is of more consequence that
C seems to believe in astrology (C, XV, 30), whereas A 2 and B
apparently reject this and similar sciences (see A, XI, 152 ff. ; B,
X, 209 ff., and note that C omits the passage).

In order to show that A is as incoherent as B, Mr. Jusserand
gives an outline of A, passus i, and the outline is certainly inco-

126

The Authorship of Piers Plowman 45

herent to the last degree. But any man's work will appear
incoherent in an outline that omits the links of his thought.
"The Lady answers, in substance: The tower on this toft is the
place of abode of Truth, or God the father; but do not get drunk,"
runs the outline. Shall we supply the missing links? Instead
of making a new outline ad hoc, I will quote from the one I gave
in the Camb. Hist. Engl. Lit. (II, 6): "The tower, she explains,
is the dwelling of Truth, the Father of our faith, who formed us
all and commanded the earth to serve mankind with all things
needful. He has given food and drink and clothing to suffice for
all, but to be used with moderation, for excess is sinful and dan-
gerous to the soul." Is this incoherent? Does it not furnish a
sufficient reply — if one is unwilling to consult the original — to
the questions which Mr. Jusserand asks, upon the heels of the
sentence just quoted from him: "Why drunk, and why all those
details about drunkenness that caused Lot's sins . . . . ?" The
dreamer's question about money and Holy Church's reply Mr,
Jusserand calls "equally unexpected and irrelevant." Surely it
is not difficult to see why the dreamer, having learned that God's
gifts to his human creatures are food, drink, and clothing, should
inquire about money. The question was not irrelevant, nor, to
one familiar with mediaeval discussion, ought it to be unexpected.^
The rest of the outline is of the same character. There is no
incoherency or confusion in the author's thought. I invite the
reader to compare the outline given by Mr. Jusserand and that
given by me in the Camb. Hist. Engl. Lit. (II, 7) with the
original and decide for himself whether the strictures are justitied.
Mr. Jusserand may have missed the connection by accepting the
reading of the Vernon MS in A, I, 92:

Kynges and knihtes • sholde kepen hem bi reson.
But all the other MSS (H, T, H2, U, D) read "it" for "hem,"
and the antecedent of "it" is "truth." If this connection is once
lost, the text seems indeed hopelessly incoherent. As MS H
belongs to the same group as MS V, it is clear that "hem" is an
unauthorized variant, like many in this MS.

' Mr. Jusserand thinks that the vision of the field full of folk was " nothing else than
.... the world as represented in a mystery play, just as wo may see it pictured in the MS
of the Valenciennes Passion." Where in England could the author have seen such a stage?

127

46 John Matthews Manly

At the end of my discussion of the first vision, that is, at the
end of jjassus iv, I remarked: "Only once or twice does the
author interrupt his narrative to express his own views or feel-
ings." This, says Mr. Jusserand, is "remarkably exaggerated,"
and he triumphantly cites III, 55, III, 84, VII, 306, VIII, 62.
and VIII, 168, saying: "Here are, in any case, five examples
instead of 'one or two.' " I submit that, in the vision to which
my statement applied, there are only two. And I further submit
— though I have just shown that my statement was not "remark-
ably exaggerated" — that neither VIII, 168 ff., which comes
among the reflections and admonitions after the awaking on Mal-
vern Hills, nor VII, 306 ff., which comes at a distinct pause in
the action, marked by a formal division of the poem, nor VIII,
62, 63, a brief exclamatory demand for confirmation of an asser-
tion, interrupts the narrative ; and, finally, that none of these is at
all comparable to the constant interruptions and excursions of B.

Mr. Jusserand quotes me as saying "that there is nowhere in
A ' even the least hint of any personal animosity against any class
of men as a, class;' " and replies that in this he sees no great dif-
ferences between any of the Visions, and that, as a matter of fact,
the friars, like the lawyers, are condemned wholesale. It seems
to me that Mr. Jusserand has not quite understood me. In the
first place, I did not assert or even suggest that there was any
difference between the authors (or Visions) in this respect. In
the second place, the paragraph from which the quoted words are
taken [Camb. Hist. Engl. Lit., II, 11) implied a distinction
between satire touching whole classes or groups of men and per-
sonal animosity against a class as a class. I thought this distinc-
tion was clearly implied, but perhaps it was not. I shall be obliged
to the reader if he will refer to the paragraph and read the whole
of it; here I will quote only two sentences: "The satire proper
begins with passus ii, and, from there to the end of this vision
[i. e., to the end of passiis ivj, is devoted to a single subject —
Meed and the confusion and distress which, because of her, afflict
the world. Friars, merchants, the clergy, justices, lawyers, all
classes of men, indeed, are shown to be corrupted by love of Meed;
but, contrary to current opinion, there is nowhere even the least

128

The Authorship of Piers Plowman 47

hint of any personal animosity against any class of men as a class,
or against any of the established institutions of church or state."

In two paragraphs on p. 44 Mr. Jusserand strives to establish
identity of authorship by various incidental remarks. He thinks
that, in making additions to A 1, B writes like A 1, and in expanding
A '2, writes like A 2. But I do not admit either proposition. The
additions to A 1 are more like A 1 than are those to A 2, as would
inevitably occur with any writer capable of being influenced by
the nature of the work which he was expanding or elaborating,
but this, I think, is as far as Mr. Jusserand's claim can be admitted.
B makes picturesque additions to A 1, but, with perhaps a single
exception, they bear little resemblance to the work of A 1 ; and
he is discursive in his development of the theme of A 2, but lacks
the dry pedantry of that writer, and possesses a command of pic-
turesqueness and passion of which A 2 is incapable.

"One may be permitted," says Mr. Jusserand, "to ask what is
the crowd which B ought to have described, and which he failed
to visualize?" Surely the reply is not far to seek. Either
the champions of Antichrist in passus xx or the forgotten host
assembled by Pride in passus xix.

Aside from some matters to which I have already replied, the
rest of Section VI is occupied with attempts to show that A 2 and
B are capable of occasional passages of beauty or power. I have
never questioned this. Here I will only call attention to the curi-
ous fact that the specific passages cited by Mr. Jusserand, fine as
they are, were apparently not appreciated by C. For example,

Percen with a pater noster ' the paleis of hevene (A, XI, 362)

though only a translation of Brevis oratio penetrat coelum, is
happily phrased and worthy of admiration and preservation.
What does C do with it? He rewrites it thus:

Persen with a pater Piaster ' paradys other hevene, —

which somehow lacks quality, distinction. Again, the fine poetic
cry cited by me in illustration of B's power of vivid expression,
and repeated by Mr. Jusserand, can indeed hardly be cited too
often or praised too highly:

129

48 John Matthews Manly

Ac pore peple, thi prisoneres, • Lorde, in the put of myschief,

Conforte tho creatures ' that moche care suffren

Thorw derth, thorw drouth * alle her dayes here,

Wo in wynter tymes • for wanting of clothes,

And in somer tyme selde ' soupen to the fulle;

Comforte thi careful, • Cryst, in thi ryche! — B, XIV, 174 flf.

Would you not expect the man who had written those lines to

preserve them— improved, of course, if they can be improved —

in any revision or any number of revisions that he might make of

his poem ? Would you not really ? But what does C do ? He

replaces them by some lines beginning with

Ac for the beste, as ich hope • aren somme potu^e and some riche

(C, XVII, 21 ff.)

and continuing with a prayer that God amend us all and make us

meek and send us cordis contritio, oris confessio, and operis

satisfacfio. The whole passage from 1. 20 to 1. 37 is entirely out

of harmony with the corresponding passage in B, and significant

of the difiPerent attitudes of the two writers toward the poor. And

this is only one of many similar instances.

Mr. Jusserand thinks that C greatly improved the episode of
the pardon by suppressing "the lines telling, in previous versions,
how Piers tore up his bull of pardon out of spite and simply
because contradiction had irritated him." If this were, indeed,
the motive of Piers's action, the suppression of it would doubtless
be an improvement. But I do not so interpret the passage; "for
puire teone" does not here mean "for spite and because contra-
diction had irritated him," but "out of grief and disappointment."
He had what he supposed to be a pardon, but the priest who
offered to construe it and explain it in English, read it and declared
it to be no pardon at all. What more natural than that, in the
first impulse of distress and disappointment, he should tear the
supposedly lying document? It is only later ("siththe," 1. 101)
that he recovers and comforts himself with, Si amhulavero in
medio umhre mortis, non timebo mala, qiioniam hi mecum es.

But even if the suppression had to be made, what shall we think
of a writer who suppresses the whole discussion between Piers
and the priest and continues with the line,

The preest thus and Perkin • of the pardon jangled,
which is nonsense after the suppression of the jangling?

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The Authorship of Piers Plowman 49

I should also like to know the meaning of B, VII, 168 (C,
X, 318),

And how the prest preved ' no pardon to Dowel.

The priest certainly had not proved or asserted that no pardon
was equal to Dowel, The line looks very much as if it were due
to a mistake as to the meaning of A, VIII, 156. LI. 155, 156
read:

And hou the preost impugnede hit ' al by pure resoun,
And divinede that Dowel • indulgence passede.

B and C apparently thought "preost" was the subject of "divi-
nede," whereas the subject is, of course, "I," implied in "me" of
1. 152.

VII

Section VII, briefer than the others, is devoted to an attack

upon some of my evidence that C is a difiPerent person from B.

Mr. Jusserand is not much impressed by my arguments. He is

not certain that C spoiled the picture of the field full of folk

(Prol. 11-16) and regards the broadening of the spectacle by the

line,

Al the welthe of this worlde • and the woo bothe,

as something we could hardly afford to lose. My own feeling is
that this line does not add one whit to the sweep of the poet's
vision and that the writer who regarded it as necessary or even
desirable to add such a line was fundamentally not a poet but a
topographer.

Again — to my great surprise, I confess — Mr. Jusserand con-
tends that C did not misunderstand the passage in the Rat Parlia-
ment about the creatures that wear collars about their necks and
"run in warren and in waste." These were not, in the surface
meaning, dogs, he asserts, but men, knights and squires. That
in the ultimate intention they were men is no doubt true, just as
the rats and mice were men and the cat and kitten a king and a
prince. But this is a beast fable. What have men to do in it,
among the rats and mice and cat and kitten? And, above all,
why the warren and the waste ? Do men run uncoupled in rabbit
warrens and waste fields? No: in the allegory of B these were

131

50 John Matthews Manly

dogs, and it needed the prosaic, literal spirit of C to turn them
into "great sires, both knights and squires." I may remark
parenthetically that I have found no other version of the fable
which throws any light upon the question by mentioning these
creatures, but the text of the B version is unmistakable.

If the differences of C from his predecessors could be
accounted for by the supposition of advancing age, I should
never have felt it necessary to suggest that he and B were not
the same person. I have not striven to see how much the
authorship of these poems could be divided. On the contrary, it
would have been much simpler and easier if B and C could have
been admitted to be one and the same person, and it was long
before I was willing to divide the work of the A text and ascribe
it to different authors. Mr. Jusserand seems to argue that,
because C has some qualities sometimes possessed by old men
(but also often by young men), he must be old, and that there
are no differences between him and B that cannot be explained
by this supposition. Where he gets his notion that A seems
younger than B, I do not know.

"At times," I remarked, "one is tempted to think that pas-
sages were rewritten for the mere sake of rewriting." "Just so,"
replies Mr. Jusserand, "and who, except the author himself,
would take so much trouble?" Is it to the author, then, that we
owe the variants of the Lincoln's Inn MS of A, or MSS Camb.
Univ. Ff. 5, 35 and Harl. 2376 of C? Or why should the author
be more ready than another to make alterations which are not
improvements but mere futile variations? Of the parallel sup-
posed to be afforded by Ronsard I can say nothing, for I have
not examined the revisions he made in his text, but I shall dis-
cuss below some of Mr. Jusserand's other parallels. It will be
remembered, of course, that I based no argument as to difference
of authorship upon the general character of the textual changes
made by C.

Mr. Jusserand's explanation of the error of A 2 in regard to
non mecaberis and tabesceham is ingenious, but hardly con-
vincing. That A 2 should think of niactabis and tacebam when
he had to translate the other words hardly relieves him of the

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The Authorship of Piers Plowman 51

charge of inaccurate scholarship. What is the usual cause of
mistranslation but this? As to B, he did not "notice one of
these misprints [italics Mr. Jusserand's] and forget the other,"
as Mr. Jusserand thinks: he simply omitted the whole passage
containing tabesceham. "If one of the versions had shown
minute accuracy throughout, that would have told, in a way, for
the theory of multiple authorship," says Mr. Jusserand. This I
think we find in A 1.

VIII

The whole of the eighth section is devoted to a plea that even
if "the differences between the three versions" be taken at my
own estimate, they can prove nothing, for similar differences exist
between works known to be by the same author. Chaucer's tales
of the Clerk, the Miller, and the Parson are cited. But surely
Mr. Jusserand does not contend that such difficulties exist in
supposing that the tales of the Clerk and the Miller are by the
same writer as I have shown to exist in the case of Piers Plow-
man. As for the Parson's Tale, the thought, the composition,
the style, is, as I have said, not Chaucer's ; other men wrote it, he
merely turned it into English, without giving it any of his indi-
viduality. Hamlet, again, presents no such similarities as are
suggested; "fat and asthmatic" is hardly a fair rendering of
"fat and scant of breath" when applied to a fencer, and, at the very
time when these words were uttered, the fair Ophelia, if she had
been alive, would doubtless still have thought Hamlet "slim and
elegant," if we may use Mr. Jusserand's terms. The supposed
contradictions in Hamlet are all of the same nature as Shakspere's
treatment of time-indications, a matter of momentary impression
for dramatic purposes, as I have explained in my introduction to
Macbeth. There are troublesome features in Hamlet, perhaps
traces of an earlier hand, but nothing to indicate that the play
should be divided as Mr. Jusserand suggests.

The cases of Montaigne, Cervantes, and Milton are, in my
opinion, not at all parallel to ours. Milton and certain aspects of
the Cervantes and Montaigne arguments I have already dis-
cussed. As for the rest, it may safely be asserted that if the

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52 John Matthews Manly

1588 edition of the Essais or the second part of Doii Quixote
had appeared anonymously, the style would in each case have led
us to ascribe them to their true authors. The changes in Tasso's
Gerusalemme Conquistata I have examined with some care. I
find, somewhat to my surprise, that, although by no means so
interesting as the Liherata, because of the exclusion of many
episodes and the systematic assimilation of the heroes to antique
models, the revision is not "the work obviously of a feebler
hand," but, on the contrary, usually richer and more powerful in
style, more concise and more packed with meaning. The current
opinion I believe to be due solely to the disappointment critics
have felt at the loss of the episodes which Tasso rejected as out
of harmony with his new purpose and to their disapproval of his
classicizing tendency.

Rohinson Crusoe I have not read since about 1891, I think,
but my recollection is that the superior interest of the first part
is due, not to the style, but to the unique and moving situation
which forms the subject of the book. It, like the later parts, is
full of moralizations and religious reflections. The later parts
fail to hold the reader mainly because their theme fails to grip
either the reader or the author himself.

Mr. Jusserand warns us that if my methods are adopted, the
whole history of literature will have to be rewritten. This warn-
ing is not unfamiliar; we have heard its like from the housetops
on almost every occasion when a new truth in literary history, in
science, or in social, political, or economic science, has been
announced. And it has almost always had a measure of truth in
it. Not all things, but some, have often had to be re-examined
and re-explained or restated. But, even though I recognize all
this and find comfort in it, I might still be alarmed at the wide
possibilities suggested by Mr. Jusserand if I were indeed the first
to thrust out my tiny boat upon this " South Sea of discovery."
But as I understand the matter, I occupy no such position of
danger and honor. I am merely a humble follower in paths of
science long known and well charted. The history of literature
has been rewritten very largely, and rewritten to no small degree
by precisely the same methods that I have employed. And

134

The Authorship of Pjers Plowman 53

unless human energy flags and men become content to accept the
records of the past at their face value and in their superficial
meaning, many another ancient error will take its place in the
long list of those which could not bear the light of historical and
critical research.

Shall I make a list of the achievements of my predecessors?
It is not necessary. Quae regio in terris nostri non plena lahoris?
Every reader can make for himself a list that will abundantly sup-
port my courage. And, curiously enough, more than one list will
contain, among the names of those to whom such achievements are
due, the name of Mr. Jusserand himself.

IX

To the arguments for unity of authorship recalled at the begin-
ning of Section IX I have already replied, and shown them to be
unsound. The new "connecting link" is also too weak to sustain
even its own weight.

The versions are bound together, Mr. Jusserand asserts, by
hints about the author, his thoughts, and his manner of life.
That the figure of the dreamer, once conceived, should be con-
tinued along essentially the same lines by anyone sufficiently in
sympathy to wish to add to the poem, need occasion no surprise,
even if the early figure were more definite and the continuations
more consistent than they are. As for the localities, upon which
so much stress is laid, the Malvern Hills are, no doubt, a locality
with which Al had special associations of some sort, but they have
apparently no special significance for the other writers. More-
over, definiteness of localization, not unknown in other satirical
poems, is not so marked a feature of all these visions as Mr. Jus-
serand implies. A's visions occur on Malvern Hills, A2's beside
some unnamed wood. In C, VI, 1, the dreamer who had gone to
sleep on the Malvern Hills apparently awakes in Cornhill, though
it is of course possible to contend that this line is not a note of
place but of time. B (and C) falls asleep while already asleep,
B, XI, 1 ; awakes at some indefinite place, XI, 390, but meets and
talks with Ymaginatyf, XI, 400 — XII, 293; awakes again (in an
unnamed place), XIII, 1; sleeps again, XIII, 21, and wakes, XIV,

135

54 John Matthews Manly

332; is rocked to sleep by Resoun, XV, 11, and, while talking
with Anima, swoons and lies in a long dream, XVI, 19 — an
absurdity omitted by C; awakes, ibid., 167 — not in C — and on
Midlent Sunday meets Abraham or Faith, XVI, 172 ff., Spes,
XVII, 1, and the Samaritan, or Christ, ibid., 48 (cf, 107) ; awakes
again, ibid., 350; leans to a "lenten" and sleeps, XVIII, 5, and
awakes, apparently in his cot in Cornhill, on Easter morning,
ibid., 424; in spite of the interest of the day, he falls asleep
during Mass, XIX, 4; awakes and writes what he has dreamed,
ibid., 478; meets Need and converses with him, XX, 1; falls
asleep, ibid., 50; and, finally, awakes again, ibid., 384. I have
given in this risumi all the definite localizations of the dreams
both as to time and as to place. If definiteness is the character-
istic of A's work, it clearly is not of B's. C alters the framework
BO little that no conclusion can be drawn. The dozen or so places
and things in and about London that are mentioned indicate, of
course, some familiarity with London, but considering the impor-
tance of London and the number of its inhabitants, do not oblige us
to assume unity of authorship, if there is any evidence against it.

The personal notes common to all the visions upon which Mr.
Jusserand insists are in reality singularly few.

On the question of the increasing age of the successive authors
(or the single author), which Mr. Jusserand again raises, I have
already spoken. There is nothing to indicate that A 1 or A 2 is
younger than B, or that B is younger than C. He cites the well-
known passage, B, XII, 3 ff., to prove that the poet "has reached
middle age, though not yet old age." In B, XX, 182 ff., however,
we learn that B has been overrun by old age (Eld) and has lost
hair, teeth, hearing, and vigor, and that, because of age. Death
draws near him. Of course it is easy to contend that many years
elapsed between the composition of B, XII, and B, XX; but the
truth probably is that we cannot construct the chronology of any
of these poets from the hints given in the poems. "The minute
care" as to chronology which Mr. Jusserand finds so extraordinary
in these poems does not exist in reality. Professor Jack showed
long ago how vaguely numbers are used [Journ. Germ. Phil., Ill,
393-403). A good example is that cited by Mr. Jusserand as an

136

The Authorship of Piers Plowman 55

instance of minute care, C changes the "fyve and fourty wyntre"
of B, XII, 3, to "more than fourty wyntre." If approximate
accuracy were desired, would not "fyve and syxty wyntre" have
been better?

Turning from these insignificant details, we find that Mr.
Jusserand objects to my view that Kitte and Kalote are not to be
taken literally as the names of the author's wife and daughter.
He says that Kitte was not always a name of unpleasant import —
which is perfectly true, of course — and he declares that the oppro-
brious meaning attributed to the names at that date is a mere
assumption for which no proof is adduced. Now, my point is that
both names have unpleasant suggestions. Had Kitte been used
alone, I should have thought nothing of its import, but Kitte and
Kalote together here are as unmistakable as Kyt calot in John
Heywood's Dialogue of Provei'hs (I, xi, 181) } Mr. Jusserand
asks me to note that "the oldest example quoted in Murray's
Dictionary of 'callet' being used to designate a 'lewd woman,
trull, strumpet, drab,' is of about 1500." It is more important to
note that this is the earliest meaning; and that the milder mean-
ing is more easily derived from this than this from that. The
Heywood and More passages will relieve us of the need of arguing
the question whether "Kalote" and "callet" are the same word.
So far as the opprobrious meaning of Kitte in the fourteenth
century is concerned, I did not think it necessary to produce the evi-
dence formally; in Piers Plowman, C, VIII, 300 fif., Actif says:

Ich have y wedded a wyf • wel wantowen of maners;
Were ich sevenyght fro hure syghte * synnen hue wolde;

Ich may nat come for a Kytte, • so hue cleueth on me.

I do not feel at all bound to explain why these names were
chosen or why they were used in the passage where the dreamer
(the author, Mr. Jusserand calls him) is awakened by the bells on
Easter morn. It may be that he used the names loosely ( = those
poor dirty sinful creatures) for the sake of securing the sort of
contrast of which he seems so fond and which he developed so

' Cf. also, "Frere Luther and Gate calate his nunne lye luskyng together in lechery,"
More, Confut. Tindale, Wks. 423/2, in Oxf. Diet. «. v. "callet."

137

56 John Matthews Manly

remarkably in the figure of the dreamer, as Mr. Jusserand showed
long ago in his brilliant and charming book on these poems. But
there are many vagaries of B and C that I cannot explain. Even
in connection with this Resurrection morn there is another that
puzzles me. Why should the dreamer who has awakened so
impressively at the sound of the Easter bells and bidden Kitte
and Kalote creep to the cross — why should he, when he has dight
him dearly and gone to church to hear the mass and be houseled
after, fall asleep at the ofiPertory, as he does in B, XIX, 5? "The
answere of this," in the words of Chaucer, "I lete to dyvynes."

I referred to Professor Jack's article (cited above) as having
proved conclusively that the supposed autobiographical details,
given mainly by B and C, are mere parts of the fiction. Upon
the basis of this Mr. Jusserand wishes to hold me responsible for
every phrase of Professor Jack's article — some of which seem to
me a little less definite than the admirable argument justifies —
and also to make the curious inference that, because Professor
Jack and I think that the dreamer and his career are a part of the
fiction, and cannot be safely used to reconstruct the author's life,
we are therefore committed to the position that the creators of
this dreamer carefully excluded from their work every item of
personal experience. Surely we are not so committed. Most
fictions are in some way — not always ascertainable — based upon
the writer's experience and observation. But even if one were
told, in the case of a given fiction that 25 per cent, of it was true,
it would be difficult, in the absence of other evidence, to separate
the truth from the fiction ; and in the present instance we have no
means of determining what events are given literally, what are
the results of observation and hearsay, and what are experience
transformed beyond recognition. That Rabelais knew some of
the places of which he wrote and among which he made his char-
acters move is true enough, but does Mr. Jusserand maintain that
every place Rabelais mentioned belonged to his own experience and
that his biography could be written by transcribing the move-
ments of Pantagruel or Gargantua or Panurge?

Mr. Jusserand is mistaken, I think, in believing that Pro-
fessor Jack himself felt any misgivings in regard to his results.

138

The Authorship of Piers Plowman 57

What Mr. Jusserand takes as such are to be interpreted in the
sense of the paragraph which precedes this. Professor Jack's
expressions are too definite and explicit to admit of any doubt on
this point when read in their entirety.

We do indeed know many of the hopes and fears, the interests
and the ideals of the authors of these poems. This is not their
biography, but it is far more important. The significance and
importance of the poems lies not in the question whether the
name William Langland can be definitely associated with them
or not, nor in the question whether one or more of the authors
was born or educated among the Malvern Hills and lived in
Cornhill in later years, but in the fact that these hopes and ideals
were cherished in the fourteenth century by men who gave them
such expression as commanded the attention of many men of that
time and still has power to kindle our imaginations and stir our
hearts after the lapse of five centuries. For my own part, I find
it especially significant, as I have before said, that more than one
man was moved by these ideals and wrought upon these powerful
poems.

X

This were a wikked way but who-so hadde a gyde,
was the cry of the bewildered pilgrims, as they set out to seek
Truth. Many readers of this discussion may feel that the way is
even "wikkeder" with two guides, like Mr. Jusserand and myself,
each pulling them in different directions and confidently recom-
mending his route, not only as safer and better but as the only
one that leads to the shining Tower. I can only hope that all who
have followed me are not only content at the end of the long and
tedious journey, but recognize that upon Mr. Jusserand's way
many of the bridges which are fairest in outward seeming are
really unsafe structures with a crumbling keystone, that pitfalls
lie concealed beneath some of the most attractive stretches of his
road, and, finally, that it leads them into a "no-thoroughfare"
from which the confiding traveler must turn back and seek pain-
fully the plain highway which he abandoned, under the influence
of Mr. Jusserand's eloquence, for the soft but dangerous by-paths.

John Matthews Manly
139

58 John Matthews Manly

A TERMINAL NOTE ON THE LOST LEAF
I had hoped to be able to keep the discussion of authorship —
the fundamental question — from being complicated by the entirely
subordinate question as to whether Mr. Bradley or I (or, I may
add, Mr. Jusserand) had offered the most probable explanation of
the way in which the confusion (and loss) occurred. And because
it is in reality a matter which does not affect the fundamental
question, I have never replied to Mr. Bradley's letter in the
Athenaeum. As, however, Mr. Jusserand dismisses my view with
a word and finds some support for his own in one feature of Mr.
Bradley's, I will present here briefly my reasons for still pre-
ferring my view to Mr. Bradley's.

And first, I will state the objections against my view as I
understand them. Mr. Bradley, in his letter said only that "it
leaves us still under the necessity of supposing that, after relating
in succession the confessions of the seven sins, he [the poet]
introduced at the end a new penitent, whose offenses, according
to mediaeval classification, belong to one of the branches of
Covetousness ;" but he would doubtless assent to the view held by
Mr. Jusserand and by him credited also to Mr. Bradley (it is,
indeed, implicit in Mr. Bradley's objection) that "no conceivable
lost passage with lines making a transition from Sloth to Robert
the Robber could be at all satisfactory." Dr. Furnivall has, in
our talks on the subject, given as a reason for preferring Mr.
Bradley's view to mine, that the loss of an inner double leaf, as
supposed by me, could hardly occur.

To the second and first objections I would reply that I think we
could safely trust the original author to write in sixty-two lines (the
number missing according to my hypothesis) a thoroughly satisfac-
tory transition from the personifications of the Sins to Robert the
Robber and the "thousentof men" that "throngen togedere," weep-
ing and wailing and crying upward to Christ, with which the jxissus
ends; and one might expect him to introduce at the close of this
scene concrete single figures before returning to the crowd, just as at
the beginning of the scene, he had introduced between the mention
of the "field ful of folk" and the Sins such figures as Thomas
(1. 28), Felice (29), Watte and his wife (30), merchants (32),

140

The Authorship of Piers Plowman 59

priests and prelates (34), monks and friars (37) Wille, or Wil-
liam, as two MSS have it,' (44) and Pernel Proudheart (45), who
from being purely concrete in 1. 26 has become half abstract and
transitional. Mr. Jusserand says rightly in another place (p. 21)
that "the six lines [preceding the name of Robert the Robber]
cannot be properly attached, such as they are, to any part of the
poem, neither where they stand in A and B nor where the con-
fession of Coveitise ends," which he and Mr. Bradley think is their
real place. And he thinks that no one but the author could
"imagine what single [additional] verse can make sense of that
nonsense." I do not agree with him that C succeeded in doing
this, but after finding, as he thinks he has found, that an author
can make in a single line a connection inconceivable by anyone
but himself, how can he maintain that with sixty-two lines in which
to accomplish his task, an author of genius could not make a
transition the precise nature of which we cannot now conceive?
Sixty-two lines is much. Give a writer like A sixty-two lines and
you make him a king of infinite space: the wide vision of the Pro-
logue is accomplished in less than twice this amount. With
regard to Dr. Furnivall's objection I will say that, although it is
perhaps not very easy for a sewn MS to lose any of its inner
leaves, yet such losses do occur, and not infrequently. I will cite
only three instances. MS Dd. 3. 13 of the Camb. Univ. Lib. besides
lacking some leaves at the beginning and the end has two gaps, says
Professor Skeat (Vol. Ill, p. xliii), viz., XIV, 227— XV, 40 and
XVI, 288 — XVII, 41. I calculated that these gaps were caused
by a single loss, that of the outside pair of a quire of eight. In
reply to my inquiry upon this point, Dr. Jenkinson writes: "The
two leaves missing are, as you surmise, the outside pair of a quire
of eight; viz., hi and hS." But this may not be accepted as a
good parallel, as the leaves are an outer pair, although the quire
is an inner quire and as such would be well protected under ordi-

1 But for the later developments of the A 2, B, and C texts, no one, probably, would take
this "Willi;" or that in A, VIII, 43 for the author. These are no doubt the basis for the
later dovolopmiMits, but 1 would point out: (1) that the author does not elsRwhere in A speak
of himself in the third person; (2) that, although Will copies the pardon in A, VIII, 43, 44,
the author peeps over the shoulders of Piers and the priest fifty lines further on (I. 93) in
order to see what it contains ; (3) that in V, 44 Will apparently belongs to the same category
of definitely named but otherwise unknown figures as Thomas and Folico and W^atto.

141

60 John Matthews Manly

nary circumstances. In the Castle of Perseverance the loss of
the next to the outside pair of leaves of the second quire (i. e,, Bg)
has caused two gaps, pointed out and discussed by Mr. Pollard
( The Macro Plays, pp. xxxi f . ) . This is an inner pair of leaves
and their loss would have been no more difficult if they had stood
next to the Innermost instead of next to the outermost pair.

Furthermore, as Mr. Knott points out to me, the immediate
source of three Piers Plowman MSS (Rawl. Poet. 137, Univ.
Coll. Oxf., and Trin. Coll. Dubl.) was a MS in which A, VII,
71-216 (less four lines) was misplaced. These 142 lines obvi-
ously occupied a single sheet, that is, either the two pages of a
single leaf or the four pages of a double leaf which was the
innermost of a quire. The latter seems the more likely, not only
because MSS of about 36 lines to the page are commoner than
those of 71, but also because, if the MS from which RUT, are
derived be conceived as having about 36 lines to a page, the
transferred passage will actually occupy the innermost double
leaf of the third quire, supposing the quires to be made up of 4
double leaves or 16 pages. Apparently, therefore, the innermost
leaf of a Piers Plowman MS was, in this instance, lost from its
place.

The objections to my view seem, therefore, not serious. I
prefer it to Mr. Bradley's, because, in the first place, it is simpler
to account for both gaps, as I have done, by a single loss than to
suppose, as Mr. Bradley does, that some loose sheets containing
Wrath (and the end of Envy) were lost and the one containing
Robert the Robber misplaced. Mr. Bradley's view makes it
necessary to suppose that the author was prevented by some cause
(perhaps death before the completion of the MS) from revising
the copy made by the scribe. A scribe putting an author's work
into book form from loose sheets would be more likely to be on
his guard against getting a sheet in the wrong place than one who
was copying a supposedly well-arranged book would be against
a possible gap in his original; and no scribe thus on his guard
would ever have thought of joining this Robert the Robber passage
to Sloth. If he did not know where it belonged, he would prob-
ably put it under Coveitise, as C and Mr. Bradley and Mr. Jusserand

142

The Authorship of Piers Plowman 61

have done, in spite of the fact that, as it stands, it cannot be
joined to Coveitise, and that no other Sin has two representatives.
The very fact that the first impulse of every one is to refer this
passage to Coveitise, combined with the facts that it was not put
there by the scribe and cannot in its present form be put there by
anyone, should teach us that this first impulse is wrong and that
our theory must account not only for the existence of the passage
but also for its present place in the MS.

Having explained, and I hope justified, my unwillingness to
assent to Mr. Jusserand's assumption that Mr. Bradley has shown
my theory of the manner in which the two faults in A, V occurred
to be untenable, I wish to repeat that this is merely an incidental
question, not fundamental to this discussion. Professor C. F. Brown
in a letter to the New York Natlo7i (Vol. LXXXVIII, pp. 298 f.;
March 25, 1909) repeats independently a suggestion made by
Mr. T. D. Hall in the Modern Language Review (Vol. IV, p. 1,
Oct., 1908) that the whole difficulty in the Kobert the Robber
passage can be remedied by placing 11. 236-41 between 1. 253 and
1. 254. I do not see how it is possible for 236, 237 to follow
237, 238.' If Robert had not " wher-with," of what avail would be
his conditional promise of restitution ? In regard to the absence of
Wrath from the territories of the Charter, II, 60-74, 1 may note that
the MS from which all extant texts of A are derived already con-
tained some errors. Like Professor Brown, I was at first disturbed
by the recognition that the accidental absence of Wrath here and
in 2^<^(ssus V would be a curious coincidence, but I reflected that it
would be very difficult to suggest a reason why the author should
wish to omit Wrath ; to be sure New Guise proclaims in Mankind,
699, the joyful news, "There arn but sex dedly synnys" (cf. also
Bannatyne MS, p. 483), but he made a different omission, and we
can guess his reasons. And if the author had no reason, but made
the omissions accidentally, we still have the coincidence. But as
Mr. Bradley says, it is incredible that a serious writer in the
Middle Ages should omit any of the sins by forgetfulness.

May I here correct a misapprehension into which Professor
Brown and some others have fallen, viz., that it was the theory of

1 1 see that Mr. Bradley has already made thie point in his letter to the Nation, April 29,
discussing Professor Brown's theory.

143

62 John Matthews Manly

the "lost leaf" that led me "to re-examine the relation of the
revised texts to the original form of the poem." On the contrary,
as I stated in the iirst paragraph of my paper on the "Lost Leaf,"
it was in the summer of 1904 that I began to re-examine the
relations of the texts and to feel that the stylistic differences were
such as to make it hard to believe that they were the work of one
man. In 1905 I undertook to study the relations of the texts
with a class of graduate students and in the course of that study
the theory of the "lost leaf" suggested itself as the most probable
explanation of the confusion at A, V, 235, 236. My first thought
was that a leaf had been skipped in copying at this point. Then
I remembered the omission of Wrath from the Confessions, which,
accompanied as it was by the similar omission of it from the
Charter, had puzzled us sorely. The possibility of a single loss
of a pair of leaves suggested itself as accounting for the two large
faults ; I made some calculations to see if the missing leaves would
be parts of the same leaf, and found that they might. Several
explanations of the difficulties had previousl}^ been canvassed both
privately and in the classroom. I make this explanation not be-
cause I regard it as important that the actual order of my mental
processes should be known, but because it seems to me that the
striking character of the argument in regard to the "lost leaf"
and other failures of B and C to understand their predecessors
has fixed our attention too much on these external matters and
too little on the very important questions of style, sentence struc-
ture, versification, visualization, use of imagery, interests, social
and theological views, etc. I am perhaps as much to blame for
this as anyone else, for I have merely indicated the nature of these
differences without giving evidence. I may say in partial excul-
pation, that my pupils and I have made many studies and collected
much material on most of these points, and hope some day to pub-
lish our results.

Had I seen Mr. Knott's excellent defense of my view in the
Nation, May 13, 1909, before writing this paper, I would not have
written this terminal note. But as it contains a few points not pre-
sented by him, I will let it stand as written, with the addition of the
three sentences noted above as coming from him.

144 J. M. M.

REPRINTED FROM

Modern Philology

Vol. VII yanuary, igio No. 3

PIEBS PLOWMAN, THE WORK OF ONE OR OF FIVE

A REPLY

I ought perhaps to apologize for offering today a refutation of
Professor Manly's refutation of my refutation of his refutation of
the usually accepted ideas concerning Piers Plowman. In the new
article published by him in Modern Philology, July, 1909, he
announces further statements for the time when he shall have
"found a method for presenting some of his results that satisfies
him;" and he also complains that in my own article of January,
1909, the "arrangement of parts is skilfully devised to break such
force as the arguments of the adversary may have when properly
massed and valued."^ To avoid censure, it would apparently be
better to wait till he had himself massed all his arguments.

But, without forestalling what may pertain to the future, it is, I
hope, not amiss to answer now what has been propounded up to
now, and to state the reasons why, after having studied Professor
Manly's new essay, I persist in my former belief. I shall content
myself, for the time being, with making one general statement,
and offering a series of remarks which I noted down as I read the
attempted refutation.

I

My general statement is to the effect that, in the maze of all
those denyings and contestings, and those recurring assertions that

iPp. 41 and 2.
289] 1 [Modern Philology, January, 1910

2 J. J. JUSSERAND

the disputant has not understood or not quite understood his oppo-
nent, that his "new 'connecting link' is too weak to sustain even
its own weight," that he has missed the point, etc., the reader may
well miss the point too and forget what question is at stake and
what Professor Manly has undertaken to prove.

As I recalled at the beginning of my first article, from the
fourteenth century to the twentieth, Piers Plowman — a very
characteristic poem, none truly like it — has been considered the
work of one man; such testimonies as we possess are unanimous;
there is not one to the contrary. Professor Manly does his best to
diminish their value: not improbably, however, he would be glad
if he had a tenth of it on his side, but it is a fact that he has none.

Such being the case, he comes forth with a theory of his own,
which he must make good, and according to which Piers Plowman is
not the work of any Langland at all, but was written by four different
men; he even says five, but I persist in not counting John But and
his few lines. These four men, having the same interest in the same
problems, the same modesty, the same taste for anonymity, being all
of them ''men of notable intellectual power, and of ideas and aims
of the same general tendency (notwithstanding individual differ-
ences)," being all of them "sincere men, interested primarily in the
influence of their satire and finding themselves in hearty sympathy,
despite minor differences, with the poem as it reached them " (pp. 2,
17), took up, we are told, the work in turn, remodeled it, each accord-
ing to his own will, spoiling, in spite of their " notable intellectual
power," many passages, and failing to understand others — the spoil-
ings and failures being moreover of such grievous nature that a
difference of authorship is thereby evidenced. Hence, of course,
the necessity of admitting the remarkable phenomenon that each
of those sincere men, of notable intellectual power, with a fondness
for political and religious allegory, was careful to die, mothlike,
as I said, just as he had "laid" his poem. Else, how would the
sincere and clever predecessor have allowed his work to go about
the world garbled, as we hear, mangled, and tagged with continua-
tions not his own? — especially when a continuation had been
contemplated from the first, and had even, as I have shown ^ been

1 p. 7 of my article in Modern Philology, January, 1909.

290

Piers Plowman — A Reply 3

foreshadowed in the part allotted by Professor Manly to the earliest
of his supposed four poets.

If the garblings and failures to understand are so deep, great, and
grievous as to denote a difference of authors, the surviving authors,
one or two of them at least, would have given his own continuation,
but none did. Professor Manly cannot say both that those faults
and differences are so great as to demonstrate a difference of author-
ship, and that they are not so great as to have tempted any of his
authors 1, 2, and 3 to protest and to set right the misdeeds of his
authors 2, 3, and 4.

When Jean de Meun wrote his conclusion for the Roman de la
Rose, Guillaume de Lorris was dead; when Sir W. Alexander wrote
his for Sidnej^'s Arcadia, Sidney was dead, and there could not be
any protests. When Marti, on the contrary, gave his continuation
of Guzman de Alfarache, Mateo Aleman was not dead, and he hastened
to write and publish his own continuation. When the so-called
Avellaneda issued, nine years after the first part of Don Quixote, a
second one of his own making, Cervantes dropped the trifling works
with which he had been busy, wrote with all speed his own continua-
tion, expressed the bitterest indignation at the audacity of the
intruder, and took care to kill Don Quixote outright in that second
part, so as to be safe in the future.

All the chances are that, in order to have existed at all. Professor
Manly's modest, sincere, and clever men must have died, with due
punctuality, each after he had written, so as to make room for a
successor and garbler: no small wonder.^

Given this self-assumed task, and the fact that there is not a
trace of external evidence to support the theory of a quadruple
authorship, the only sort of proof Mr. Manly can adduce is that result-
ing precisely from those mistakes, failures to notice or understand,
spoilings of passages, differences in thoughts, meter, language and
literary value. And he must, first, carefully separate what may be
due to scribes and what to his several authors. I have pointed out
how much, in the matter of dialect for example, may be due to
scribes; the important article of Mr. R. W, Chambers and Mr. J. H. G.

1 I again say nothing of John But about whom Professor Manly writes, "We hear of
no protest" (p. 18). No one protested against him because no one heard of him. He
could well in any case be let alone.

291

4 J. J. JUSSERAND

Grattan in the Modern Language Review of April, 1909, much better
shows, not only that version B approximates more closely than was
usually believed version A, but that, on the other hand, we are much
further removed from the author's original text than was commonly
supposed, several layers of MSS intervening between that text and
those we possess: so that it is no easy matter to guess, in difficult
passages, in questions of meter, dialect, etc., what is his and what may
be due to what they rightly call an "editing scribe."

Professor Manly has to show, besides, that whenever, in the
history of literature, such differences and mistakes as he thinks he
detects, such spoilings or discardings of fine passages, have been
found in the various versions or editions of a work, then, surely and
invariably, a difference of author is the cause. If it can be pointed
out that discrepancies as great exist between revisions or continua-
tions of poems certainly due to the same author, his system falls
through, for the discrepancies pointed out by him will be then no
proof at all, and he has not two orders of proofs, he has only that
one. This I consider the main point at stake, the keystone of the
whole discussion.

It is not a little strange that, in his essays on the authorship of
Piers Plowman, Mr. Manly entirely neglected this side of the ques-
tion. He collected in the various versions of the poem as many
mistakes and differences as he could, and without comparing them
with any similar cases, drew outright from them his own conclusions,
which are, as we know, of a very large order. I called attention, in
my sections III and VIII, to some such parallel cases, showing how
considerable differences in style, ideas, ways of thinking, meter, merit,
etc., how grievous mistakes and lapsuses may be discovered in revi-
sions or continuations certainly not due to a second, third, or fourth
author, but to the original one.

I cannot help thinking that it is an inadequate answer for Professor
Manly to say that, as for Ronsard, "he has not examined the revi-
sions he made in his text" (p. 50), and that, as for Robinson Crusoe,
he can speak only from a somewhat distant recollection, not having
read it "since about 1891."

I had, to the same effect, quoted Tasso's two Gerusalemme, and
these Mr. Manly has "examined with some care," but he has found

292

Piers Plowman — A Reply 5

that, except for " the exclusion of many episodes and the systematic
assimilation of the heroes to antique models," the second Gerusalemme
is, if anything, better than the first, " usually richer and more power-
ful in style, more concise and more packed with meaning" (p. 52),

I shall not express any opinion of my own on the question of
literary merit; my ways of thinking might differ somewhat widely
from those of Professor Manly, for I see that the line added in version
C of Piers Plowman and praised by me, in which Langland pictures
himself as beholding, at the opening of his poem,

Al the welthe of this worlde* and the woo bothe,

must have been, according to Mr. Manly, the work ''fundamentally,"
not of a poet but of a "topographer" (p. 49). I certainly fail to
detect the topographer. In the Tasso question, the best is, maybe, to
abide by the judgment of critics who had no chance of being biased
and auto-suggested by the present discussion, as they wrote before
it: their verdict is not doubtful. Perhaps, however, it might be
enough to recall that Mr. Manly himself recognizes, at least, that
remarkable differences exist between the two Gerusalemme, and that
there is in the second "a systematic assimilation of the heroes to
antique models." When we remember the importance he attaches
to a (quite imaginary, as I think) difference of merit in B's description
of Wrath as compared to the other sins in A, there is nothing rash
in surmising that he would have drawn a not insignificant argument
in favor of a multiple authorship had he been so lucky as to find that
the portraits of " Pernel proud herte " and Glotoun in version A, had
been replaced by portraits of Juno and Bacchus in version B.

I may also add that, in this all-important question of comparisons,'
I quoted just a few examples, but it would be easy to quote more:
this is a ground which has as much to be cleared before we arrive at a
conclusion, as the question of the " tabular presentation of statistics "
which we are promised (p. 41), concerning sentence structure, versi-
fication, etc. — which presentation will have to be accompanied by
a careful discrimination between what may be due to an "editing
scribe" and to the author; and also and necessarily by a minute
comparison with the remodelings by other writers of their own

1 Cf. below, remark 16.

293

6 J. J. JUSSERAND

works, or by their publishing various works of their own at various
periods and under different circumstances.

Such men as Rabelais, for example, will have to be remembered.
His first editions are full of local and dialectal peculiarities of which
no trace remains in his later revisions: " Rabelais," writes Mr. Baur,
"issues in 1535 his Gargantua, the first edition of which seems to
appeal to a public especially Lyonnese, being full of Lyonnese
words and local allusions that he erased when his books reached
universal fame."'

From the point of view of changes in political or philosophical
ideals, such men will have to be discussed, too, as the one concerning
whose Odes Sainte Beuve wrote: *'At each page, a violent hatred
against the Revolution, a frantic adoration of monarchical souvenirs,
a frenzied faith more anxious for the martyr's palm than the poet's
laurel." Victor Hugo must surely have been several men, since it is
that staunch supporter of democracy whom Sainte Beuve could
thus describe once in an article in the Globe.

Concerning the more or less suitable changes a poet may intro-
duce in his work — plot, style, aim, etc. — when he writes three
versions of it, account will have to be taken of authors whom we
can speak of with certainty, because they are modern, and that we
know exactly what occurred in their case, and whether they were
one each or several.

A conspicuous example of a treble version has been recently
studied by Mr. Christian Mar^chal, who certainly never heard of
the present controversy, and who writes of those three versions in
words strangely similar to those used by Professor Manly with regard
to Piers Plowman, except that he notices greater and more striking
differences in the case of Lamartine and the various texts of his
Jocelyn.

Three versions of this poem,^ the two first left unfinished, have
come down to us in manuscript. As first conceived, and as appears
from the text of version I, the poem was to be short, with well-
defined aims, no wanderings, imagination being held in check, a sense
of measure governing the whole, Lamartine calls it at that time

1 A. Baur, Maurice ScHe, 1906, p. 60.

2 Josselin incdit de Lamartine, d'aprca les manuscrits originattx (the name of the hero
is written thus in all the MSS), Paris, 1909, Introd. chap, ii, "Les trois Poemes."

294

Piers Plowman — A Reply 7

a poemetto, and says: "cela aura quatre chants/' of which we have
two, but we possess the plan of the two others. His firm intention
to continue it in the same style, and the pleasure he took in that
style, are shown by a letter to his best friend, Count de Virieu,
in which he writes: "This is my masterpiece; nothing of this sort
will have been read before."^ A strong argument this, in favour of
a multiple authorship in case changes were to occur; and they did.

In version II, grave alterations are noticeable; the poet, writes
Mr. Marechal, " is carried away by an inspiration, generous no doubt,
but perhaps too rich, and of which, in any case, he is no longer the
master." The third canto now contains what was to be the con-
clusion of the second. He adds "fine episodic digressions for which
there was no room in the first plan." In this state, "the poem
differs as much from the first version as from the last. It differs
from the first by the abundance of descriptions .... by the lack
of equilibrium," etc. It differs even more from the third, where
the very groundwork of the poem, its religious and philosophical aim,
are deeply altered. While the hero of the second version "reached
religious resignation through his trials," in the third he becomes
"the man of nature .... indomitably standing against religious
and social order/ to which he opposes his rights and whose victim
he thinks he is." The goal we thus reach is the antipodes of that
for which we had started: the poet had begun with the intention of
offering us a kind of soul's tonic, and he leaves us "languid and
weakened."

Literary differences are no less glaring between the three versions.
In the first text, the "sense of measure and proportion" is remark-
able; indeed, far more so than in Langland's version A. "The
action," says Mr. Marechal, "proceeds and develops with a regularity
which is reassuring and shows the poet ever the master of his inspira-
tion. On the contrary, after the first part of the second epoch,"
a word Lamartine chose, on second thoughts, instead of canto, as
Langland chose passus, "description assumes disquieting propor-
tions, and, from the fourth epoch especially, one feels that facility
takes command and that discipline is silenced." Far from checking
himself, the author's way of writing and composing becomes, as he

1 Dec. 11, 1831, ibid., p. xxviii.

295

8 J. J. JUSSERAND

proceeds, more and more loose. "This defect is especially percepti-
ble in the truly extraordinary manner in which the ninth epoch is
formed around a fragment originally written for the sixth, and under
conditions such that Lamartine, while he wrote the several parts
thereof, not only ignored the places those fragments would occupy
with regard to each other, but even, as evidenced by the state of the
manuscript, did not know whether they would end by forming a
ninth epoch at all when put together." Version III is, to sum up,
remarkable for "le relachement de la forme.'"

1 cannot but recommend a study of these newly published docu-
ments to anyone who may be tempted to find proofs of a multiple
authorship in Langland's changes of mood, style, merit, or thoughts.
He will find that the changes are greater in Lamartine; and, as
they occurred in the space of four years,^ while it took Langland
nine times longer to change much less, he will reach the conclusion
that, if one of the two was several men instead of only one, it must
have been Lamartine, not Langland.

II

The remarks which I now beg to offer are the following ones :
1. — On the unique characteristics of Langland, I cannot but
maintain word for word what I said, namely that " alone in Europe,
and what is more remarkable, alone in his country, he gives us a true
impression of the grandeur of the internal reform that had been going
on in England during the century: the establishment on a firm basis
of that institution unique then .... the Westminister Parliament."
I pointed out, in a previous work, that most of the aspirations of Lang-
land can be paralleled by petitions of the Commons, and that no other
poem offers anything of the kind, Chaucer having not even an allu-
sion to the phenomenon, though having been himself a member of
Parliament, and describing his Knight as having been one too.

This fact remains a fact. It will change nothing to show, as Mr.
Manly says he will another day, that Alain Chartier gave (in the
following century) " reasons for not admitting political discussion to
his poetry but reserving it for prose" (p. 3). The example of

iPp. xxviii, xxxiii, xliv, xlvi.

2 First version begun, November, 1831, third version finished, November, 1835.

296

Piers Plowman — A Reply 9

Langland, and especially of Gower, who did admit political discussion
in their poetry, was surely the one to have influenced Chaucer if he
was to be influenced at all, but he was not. No "discussion," more-
over, would have been needed for Chaucer to show that he had been
impressed in some way by the colossal change that had occurred in
his country, and in his country alone, in his days, before his very
eyes: a word would have been enough, such a word as we find in
Froissart, but he has it not. I stated this because it is so, and
because it shows, with the rest, how Langland stands apart. The
"implied criticism" of Chaucer which Mr. Manly thinks he detects
in my words is quite out of the question.

2. — I persist in thinking that Langland was, as nearly as can be,
uninfluenced and unbiased by foreign ideas, principles, and senti-
ments. By which I do not mean that no reminiscences of "French
and Latin literature" (p. 3) can be found in his work: I pointed out
myself a number of such reminiscences in my Piers Plowman, 1894.

3. — To ask (p. 3) whether I require the reader to "believe that
Parliament had some esoteric doctrine, some high ideals of govern-
ment kept secret from the people," is to lend me a hypothetical
absurdity which I certainly never propounded. My plea has not
only nothing to do with it but is the very reverse of it: the parlia-
mentary changes were great and notorious; yet they found no echo
in literature except in Piers Plowman, which by this stands alone.

How Marsiglio of Padua, the bold theorician of the first part of the
fourteenth century, can be quoted (p. 4) to gainsay my statement, I
fail to see. The question reflected in Piers Plowman is not one of
theory, but one of actual and real practice, not of the first half of
the fourteenth century (when that practice had not yet fully devel-
oped) but of the second; not of nations in general, but of England
in particular. I say: Langland alone gives us a true impression
of that English internal reform and of its grandeur — I am answered :
do not forget Marsiglio of Padua who had abroad noteworthy theories
before any such reform had been realized anywhere.

An argument is drawn (p. 4) from the fact that the fine line
"might of the communes" etc. is spoiled in C. So it is, at least in
such texts as have come down to us, but what of it? Langland,
while writing in his old age the last revision of his work, sometimes

297

10 J. J. JUSSERAND

improved and sometimes spoiled it, just as was the case with Ronsard,
Tasso, and others.

Professor Manly is afraid that I read into the passage ''might of
the communes" "very modern ideas" (p. 5), which would certainly
be a grievous fault. But, without pleading that I have made for
many years some study of the period and might perhaps be entitled
to venture an opinion, I beg to point out that what Langland describes
in these words, and what I say that he describes, is what actually
took place in his days; and we have Professor Manly's own assur-
ance that the doctrines thus condensed " were commonly and widely
held among the people of England" (p. 3). I did not read anything
either modern or otherwise into those lines, and scarcely did more than
quote them.

Wonder is expressed thereupon (p. 5) at Langland having said noth-
ing of the Peasants' revolt " in the poems " attributed to him : by which
poems must doubtless be understood his last revision, written, as
I think I showed, about 1398, that is seventeen years after the revolt,
while the two other versions were written years before it. Professor
Manly considers somehow that such a neglect points to a multiple
authorship ; this omission would be extraordinary if the three versions
are by one author and quite natural if by four or five. It seems
difficult to agree, especially when we remember that, according to
the same critic, those four men had "ideas and aims of the same
general tendency." If yet the question were maintained and we
were asked to say why Langland did not mention the revolt, the
answer would be: for the same cause that Shakespeare neglected
to speak of " Magna Gharta " in his account of a reign of which it was
the most important event. Professor Manly merrily asks if Lang-
land was "alone in England ignorant of [these things];" let him
put the same question to Shakespeare.

4. — I had spoken of Langland as having his work "for his life's
companion and confidant." Professor Manly answers (p. 6) that
then his "carelessness and indifference concerning the condition in
which his poem was published .... is, to say the least, remark-
able."— But it has nothing out of the common. Care for the work
and care for the copies (and in our days for the proofs) of the work do
not necessarily go together. Examples are not hard to find of people

298

Piers Plowman — A Reply 11

who put their soul in their writings and who neglected to see that
the copies going about were correct; the names of Shakespeare and
Sidney will, I suppose, occur to everybody. Mr. Manly insists on the
fact that I spoke of the Visions as being Langland's "continuous
occupa^tion," the subject of his ''constant occupation," he being
" constantly occupied with his text " (pp. 5, 7, 19) . I never said that
he was constantly occupied with the copies of his text — and besides
I did not use at all, to any such intent, the words " constant,"
" constantly," " continuous. " ^

5. — Concerning scribes and what I had said of their possible
mistakes, Professor Manly has recourse throughout his article to
much irony and banter in order to persuade his readers that I attrib-
uted more than their due to "those careless professional scribes"
to the "persistent carelessness of the scribes .... [which] must
have sorely irritated the professional soul of W. Langland" to
that scribe who "is surely a most troublesome person."^ This sort
of leit-motiv recurs from place to place.

I have only to point out that, in their independent work, and after
the most minute inspection of the Piers Plowman MSS that was ever
made, Messrs. Chambers and Grattan lay to the door of " the careless
scribe," much more than I ever did. "What Dr. Moore has," they
say, "remarked of the early MSS of the Divine Comedy, is equally
true of the MSS of Piers Plowman: their writers are not exact
copyists, but editors, although working without an editor's sense of
responsibility."^ They show, moreover, that the best texts we
possess have sometimes undergone twice in succession the revision
of an editing scribe, so that we are necessarily, at times, rather far
from the original composition. The two best MSS of A are the
Vernon and the Harleian ones, of which our authors say that, not
only they were edited by their scribes, but that "their common
ancestor was also an edited MS." The same critics detect "sophis-
tication " in certain texts of the Visions, and they do not refer it to
the author or to several authors with a mangling disposition, but
only to scribes.*

1 The only place where I find, in my article, the word "constantly" used with refer-
ence to this is at p. 17, where it comes in only to be qualified in the remark that Langland
had " more or less constantly" beside him a text of his poem.

2 Pp. 7, 18, 35. 3 Modern Language Review, April, 1909, p. 368. ^Ibid., p. 378.

299

12 J. J. JUSSERAND

Professor Manly finds it "somewhat difficult to understand the
relations [of these careless professional scribes] to Langland" (p. 7).
He is very lucky if he finds it only somewhat difficult. Such relations,
about which he has many jokes, are one of the hardest problems of
mediaeval literature. The best authority in such matters pro-
nounces it "insoluble." We can only make suppositions, but we can
make more probable ones than those Professor Manly playfully recom-
mends to our acceptance ; either that in which he gives to the author's
wife and daughter a part to play, or that according to which "the
admiration and interest of [amateur copyists] would have led them to
ask the author where these loose slips and fly-leaves belonged " (p. 7) . —
They would in fact never have asked, because they would never have
noticed. In such an irregular work, discrepancies are not very
striking: and they struck no one, in fact, neither scribe, printer,
nor literary critic, for five centuries, until Professor Manly himself
pointed out two or three (and I one more).

Some of the reasoning in the same paragraph is difficult to follow,
more difficult to accept. "Were the scribes," Professor Manly asks,
p. 7, " paid by other men who had read or heard of the poem and
wished copies for themselves? If [this] be assumed, what becomes of
the mystery in which the author enveloped his identity?" — As if it
were an extraordinary phenomenon, an unheard-of thing, that an
anonymous poem, or one whose author is but doubtfully known, may
have become famous and the copies sought for.

In the same paragraph again we are referred to C, XIV, 117 ff.,
with the intent of showing that Langland evinces there his aversion
for the scribe who copies carelessly, and that he would therefore have
keenly resented the misdeeds of any such when his own work was at
stake — just as if he had been another Chaucer. But in that passage,
Langland simply enumerates what defects make a "chartre chal-
angable" before the courts;' it is a very special case, as far removed
as can be from the copying of poetical MSS, and it is very bold to
deduce from it conclusions as to the poet's personal views about

lA charter is chalangable • by-fore a chief Justice,
Yf fals Latyn be in that lettere' the lawe hit enpugneth,
Other peynted par-en trelignarie' parcels over-skipped;
The gome that so gloseth chartres • a goky is yholden.
So is he a goky by god • that in tiie godspel failleth.

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Piers Plowman — A Keply 13

scribes in general, and about the trouble he must have taken to
personally correct the copies made of his own work.

Such an attitude as Langland's has nothing wonderful. Cervantes
knew of the criticisms made as to the strange way in which the steal-
ing of Sancho's ass is narrated in the first part of Don Quixote; he
wrote a kind of defense nine years later, but does not seem to have
troubled himself in the interval to verify how the text stood that had
been so criticised, and it is very difficult to make his reply fit (as
shown below, remark 16) either those criticisms, or the passages doubt-
fully his, or even those certainly written by himself. Yet he was not
indifferent to his work; far from it, as his indignation against the
author of a sham continuation sufficiently shows.

Referring, p. 8, to MSS Univ. Coll. Oxford, and Rawlinson Poet.
137 which contain a "jumble of incoherent facts" (read patches; Mr.
Manly 's own scribe must have betrayed him) , Professor Manly objects,
that " the confusion was not in the author's MS, but in a later copy."
I quite agree and ever did, and do not see how my words can be
taken to mean that I believed the scribes to have had, in this case,
Langland's autograph in their hands. My words were to the effect
that the two MSS in question were copied "from the same original
which offered a good text, " though the leaves had been disarranged,
and this certainly does not point to the author's autograph. I had
quoted this example in a note,^ simply to recall to what extent scribes
could carry carelessness and indifference to sense: there were, as the
event shows, scribes negligent enough to issue such copies without
noticing their absurdity; any text given men of their stamp with
leaves or slips in a wrong order would be copied by them unflinchingly
wrong. Such accidental misplacings as might happen in Langland's
own MS (and it so turns out that, judging by the result, they were
neither numerous nor glaring and easy to detect) would pass unnoticed
by scribes like these, and by many of their betters.

6. — There is, in Professor Manly's article, a good deal of discussion
(pp. 9 ff.) concerning what I said of Langland's allowing copyists
to transcribe his work at various moments when it was in the making.
I am quite willing to wait till Messrs. Chambers and Grattan have
finished their inspection of the MSS. But whatever may be thought

•Note 3, p. 4 of my article. Cf. Chambers and Grattan, ut supra, p. 376.

301

14 J. J. JUSSEBAND

or discovered with respect to each of the separate examples I quoted,
the author did, at all events, to a notable extent, what I said, as his
poem was indeed ever in the making, and as, when text A was allowed
to be copied, the poem was not finished; when B was made public
it was not finished either, and when C appeared the work was left
definitively incomplete.

I continue firmly convinced that, from the first, the author had
in his mind, as the subject of his work, the three episodes that are
in it (the last being left unfinished), namely the episodes of Meed, of
Piers, and of Dowel-Dobet-Dobest; and that, contrary to what Pro-
fessor Manly alleges (p. 12), the A text was not, in the poet's thought,
a complete whole. Various mentions in A of Dobet and Dobest are
quoted by Professor Manly to sustain his theory, but we find nothing
there save a preparation for what was to follow at a later period, and
it is only of Dowel that we really hear in that version. The rubrics in
MSS seem to me to give a correct idea of what was planned by the
author as early as version A. At the end of passus viii, where we had
first become acquainted with Dowel, we read : " Incipit Vita de Do-wel,
Do-bet et Do-best," and it cannot be pretended that A gives us
thereupon anything more than the "Vita de Do-wel." In other
words, three so-called lives were contemplated, but people, when A
was copied and made public, got only one. There was, for the author,
a continuation to write, and he wrote it later.

7. — I had said that the Visions exist: "That they were written by
someone cannot be considered a rash surmise. Of that one we know
little, but that little is considerably better than nothing, better than
in the case of more than one mediaeval work of value. "^ Mr. Manly
asks thereupon: "What of the logical process by which we pass to
the assumption that someone is some oneV^ (p. 13). There is in
my sentence no such trickery as Mr. Manly thinks he has discovered :
the meaning is, I believe, clear and justifiable enough; and that
meaning is, as made evident by the text, that those Visions did
not write themselves; and that we know something — not much but
yet something — of one, and only one, who is one indeed and not five,
judging by all the notes, allusions and references that we possess
about him, and which I thereupon enumerate — of one who actually
did write the Visions.

» p. 7 of my article. 302

Piers Plowman — A Reply 15

8. — Continuing, Professor Manly writes:

But, says Mr. Jusserand, for the imity of authorship of these poems
and for the name of the author, we have abundant evidence. In the
first place, "without exception, all those titles" .... (etc.). But here,
as often, Mr. Jusserand insists upon arguing concerning B and C, when the
question at issue concerns the A text. The old habit of regarding A, B,
and C as inseparable, even for the purposes of study, is too strong (p. 13).

Rash assertions, lack of method, persistency in following a wrong
course: many faults are thus laid at my door. What is there in
aU these accusations? — Exactly nothing. First, I did not use at all
the word " abundant," but I maintain that what we have is much
better than nothing, especially as, in my judgment, no evidence of any
weight has been, up to now, produced against it. As for the misdeed
of arguing about one version when the question at issue concerned
another, the inaccuracy of such a statement is easily demonstrable. In
that part of my essay, I had been explaining that the complete poem,
with the three episodes of Meed, Piers, and Dowel-Dobet-Dobest had
been in the author's mind from the first, from the time indeed when
he wrote version A, even from the time when he wrote what Professor
Manly considers as the first part of A, that is the first eight passus.
These three episodes had, from the earliest moment and ever after,
formed, I believe, one whole. To show this I first examined, quite
apart, p. 7 of my essay, what an inspection of the text of version A
had to tell us on this side of the problem; secondly I passed on, p. 8,
to a different consideration, viz., to an examination of what bearing
the titles, colophons, and marginal notes in whatsoever MSS of the
poem, might have on this question and on the question of authorship.
The two examinations, the two demonstrations, are quite apart.
Professor Manly ignores the first, and coming to the second (about
which he says, "In the first place"), declares that I "insist" upon
mixing irrelevant questions, " as often," led astray by "the old habit,"
etc. This way of reasoning is not, I consider, to be commended.
9. — Professor Manly contests (p. 15) that the line:

I have lyved in londe, quod I' my name is longe Wille,

— B, XV, 148.

gives us, as a note in MS Laud 581 asserts, "the name of thauctour "
(if there was any note of this sort alluding to several authors,

303

16 J. J. JUSSERAND

it would not perhaps be treated so lightly, but there is none).
He alleges that it might be analogous to the American saying: "I'm
from Missouri, you'll have to show me." It is troublesome for him
that the same author, as I persist in considering him, who says here,
"My name is longe Wille," says elsewhere that he was really and
actually "long" of stature: "to long .... lowe for to stoupe"
(C, VI, 24), which connects him again with the words "longe Wille,"
used as a surname or nickname to designate him. Mr. Manly has,
in any case, to confess that he knows of no "other" example where
the words Long Will are taken with the ironical sense he suggests:
it is a great pity, because just a second example would have helped
us so much to believe in the first.

10. — The value of John Bale's notice concerning Langland is, of
course, reduced to a minimum by Professor Manly (p. 16). I know
very well that Bale is not infallible; he brings, however, in favour of
the system I adhere to, the weight, such as it is, of a learning
and love of English letters which were not of the lowest order;
and I suppose again, as in the case of the notes in MSS, that if he had
made even a vague allusion to the possibility of a multiple author-
ship. Professor Manly would not have disdained making good use of
his statement.

11. — Coming to John But, Professor Manly writes: "John But's
continuation, slight as it is, is of importance, because it shows that
men did not hesitate to continue or modify a text that came into
their hands" (p. 17). One might write just as well: John But's
continuation, slight as it is, is of importance because it shows that
" men " who wrote a continuation did not hesitate to give their name.
Mr. Manly says that But signed "out of vanity;" his four other
authors had no vanity and did not sign: they were indeed, in this too,
the perfect image of one another.

12. — Concerning the Seven Deadly Sins, I consider that what I
said in my section III still holds good. In his desire to show in A
certain merits not to be found elsewhere, so that he might conclude
the authors of the rest must have been different. Professor Manly
had written of the description of the Deadly Sins in A: "Each is
sketched with inimitable vividness and brevity." ' Without insisting

^Cambridge History of English Literature, II, p. 15.

304

Piers Plowman — A Reply 17

on the question of the brevity of " each " (one of the sins has 76 lines,
another 5), I had pointed out that such a statement was quite
unfounded, the "inimitably vivid" portrait of Lechery in A being
as follows :

Lechour seide ' alias ! ' * and to ux ladi criede
To maken him han merei * for his misdede,
Bitwene god almihti" and his pore soule,
With-that he schulde the Seterday • seven ger after
Drinken bote with the doke • and dynen but ones.

—A, V, 54.

While now gainsaying his first statement and admitting that
one ''may feel regret that we have no such portraits of [Lechour
and Sloth] as we have of Envy, Coveitise and Glotoun" (p. 20),
Professor Manly maintains that this passage, in which Lechour
contents himself with promising, in fact, not to be Glotoun, is not
so unsatisfactory after all: ''The only other remedies mentioned in
the Parson's Tale are continence itself and eschewing the company
of the tempter." It cannot but strike Professor Manly himself that,
in forgetting this, the author of A, described by him as having such
a "capacity for artistic and orderly development" (p. 2) has for-
gotten the main point, for, if I dare risk an opinion, continence is a
better "remedy" for lechery than to drink water on Saturdays.
As for the query (p. 20) whether the difference of treatment of the
sins, some getting such a masterful portrait as Coveitise or Glotoun,
and others receiving such a one as Lechour, is not due to " an artistic
purpose " on the part of the author of A, I shall take the liberty of
answering nothing.

13. — On the question of the names of the wife and children of
Piers, I also adhere to what I formerly said. Mr. Manly objects
(p. 22, and cf. p. 10) to my having lightly mentioned those lines in a
footnote. I did so because that note was devoted to other examples
of the same sort. But I solemnly promise that, if I ever reprint
my article, I shall put what I have to say thereon in the text. I
shall even show, by at least one more example, how manipulations of
an author's manuscript may pass unnoticed by him, without his
being two authors. I shall show and confess how this may happen
even in our own modern days, even to one who has no less a task

305

18 J. J. JUSSERAND

before him than to carry on polemics with Mr, Manly. When the
MS of my previous article on the Piers Plowman problem was returned
to me with proofs, I found that my text had been submitted to a
reader or corrector who had taken with it not a few liberties. As
his corrections had been made in red ink in my autograph manu-
script, it should have been very easy to re-correct what I did not
approve of. But what gave me a shudder and made me think of
old Langiand, who did not have the same reasons as I to be attentive,
is that in one place, the reader had, for reasons known only to himself,
carried part of a sentence of mine into a quotation from Piers Plow-
man. That bit of plain prose had accordingly been printed as verse:
it did not alliterate ; the red mark of the corrector was very visible
in the MS; yet I read my set of proofs twice without noticing the
absurdity. On a last reading, I perceived and corrected it. I have
preserved the MS, and the sheet is an interesting proof of what not
only a " careless scribe " of the middle ages, but an attentive reader of
modern times may do, and the interested author twice overlook.

14. — In the discussion concerning the misplaced Robert the Rob-
ber passage, I had mentioned that, in order to make it fit somehow
the (wrong) place where he put it, the early copyist of A, to whom we
owe the mistake, changed the words, " He highte ^yuan," which
were apparently in the original, into, " Andjit I-chulle." Professor
Manly does not think the scribe can have done any such thing:
"Was Adam [Scrivener] then," he asks, "so sleepy that he could not
see that lines 236-41 could not possibly be attached to Sloth, and
yet so wide awake that he rewrote the first line?" My answer is
that, for changing those three words (not the whole line), the scribe
needed not be so very wide awake; while he would have been
prodigiously so if he had noticed a misplacing of the whole passage,
which escaped the notice of critics for centuries. It may also be
recalled that, as Middleton observed, "Fools are not at all hours
foolish — no more than wise men wise."

If to move the Robert the Robber passage to its proper place
would have been a wonder in a scribe, it would have been, of course,
more than natural in the author, when he had once noticed the mis-
take. Langiand noticed it when he wrote his version C and cor-
rected it. Professor Manly docs not want him to have done so, and

306

Piers Plowman — A Reply 19

he alleges (p. 22) that it is, in any case, veiy extraordinary that he
did not do it before, as he had " five " occasions to correct the error —
"five I say, and I emphasize it." — Mr. Manly pictures to himself
a Langland who must have been (an idea all his own) full of care
for the copies of his text; he believes apparently that each time the
poet allowed one to be made, he must have carefully re-read his
original, and doubtless compared the copy with it, in order to correct
any mistake that might have crept into either. In this way would
he have lost those five occasions emphasized as before said. But
this is, on the part of Mr. Manly, a mere supposition, and the probabili-
ties are quite the other way. The writer who left, in each of his
three versions, at least one incorrect list of the Seven Deadly Sins,
was not likely to take so much trouble. That he was not the man
to read and revise the copies made of his text, is shown besides, not
only by the state of the B version, with Robert the Robber left at
the wrong place, but by that of the A version too. Mr. Manly recog-
nizes in the author of that version (and he wants to differentiate him
thereby from his supposed two or three successors, more addicted to
vagaries), a man of "unerring hand," who "never himself forgets for
a moment the relations of any incident to his whole plan," etc.^ This
should be the man, if any, to read and revise the copies made of his
work. Yet he did not, as in each and all of the numerous MSS we
have of A, the Robert the Robber passage is uniformly where it
should not be.

If, on the other hand, as noted before, the author had remodeled
the Robert the Robber passage when writing version B, as he
remodeled innumerable others, and yet, in spite of his having
worked at it, had left it at the wrong place, this would have been a
strong presumption in favor of the multiple authorship theory. But
it so happens that he did nothing of the sort, and the few verbal
differences pointed out by Mr. Manty, these "minutiae" as he calls
them himself (p. 23), are of the insignificant kind which can be safely
referred to the scribe.

15. — I had quoted some examples to show that what had happened
to Langland had also happened to others who were unquestionably
one man each and not five, and who, besides, were no dreamers and

^Cambridge History, II, p. 5.

307

20 J. J. JUSSERAND

writers of allegories. Professor Manly makes light of the Roosevelt
example. The former President, owing to his use of slips and to his
having had two on the same subject, printed twice the same thing
on the same page, read several proofs and gave several editions of
his work before noticing at last the mistake, unobserved till then by
all critics. Professor Manly finds this sort of thing quite intelligible
on Mr. Roosevelt's part (p. 23) and quite unbelievable on the part of
Langland; a judgment, the reverse of what one would have expected.
He points out that, in the case of the American Hunter, there was
nothing but a repetition of the same statement — on the same page it
may be recalled, so that it should have caught the eye — but yet only
a repetition. If Mr. Roosevelt or his printer had allowed, in the
second of his parallel statements, "a rhinoceros to stroll into the
village of the prairie dogs," he would have noticed the error. Accord-
ing to Mr. Manly, the mistake, uncorrected by Langland in version B
of his text (but noticed and corrected in C) , is of the rhinoceros kind.

But most obviously it is not, since it remained, as we know, unob-
served by printers, critics, and historians for 500 years. If it had
been of the rhinoceros type, somebody or other would have noticed
it. This increases Mr. Manly's merit in having discovered the
mistake, but does not diminish, far from it, the force, value, and
appropriateness of the example I quoted.

16. — Another was mentioned by me, Cervantes being the subject
thereof. Professor Manly does not accept the interpretation I
had given (not on my own authority, but on that of many) of Cer-
vantes' afterthought concerning the theft of Sancho's ass, of how
a leaf or slip of his text apparently went astray, and how he failed,
though he also had many "occasions" to do so, to set matters straight,
and give a plausible text. Mr. Manly prefers the interpretation of
the problem given by Mr. Fitzmaurice-Kelly. He is most welcome;
I have myself no reason not to prefer it too.

This high authority's account of Cervantes' temper and pecul-
iarities as an author, peculiarities bringing about consequences
strangely similar to what we notice in Langland's case, shows that I
ought to have insisted rather more than less on this example —

The construction is, of necessity, loose, the proportions unsymmetri-
cal, the incident a farrago of hazard and whim. Written by fits and

308

Piers Plowman — A Reply 21

starts, in snatches stolen from less congenial work, it has too often an
effect of patchiness; over-elaboration and insufficiency of outline are
flaunted side by side. The supplementary stories, not all triumphs in

themselves, are worked in at random, with no special relevancy

Chronology, method, accuracy were no hobgoblins of

— thus does Mr. Fitzmaurice-Kelly write, not of Langland, but of Cer-
vantes.^ Of the latter he says also, with respect to certain inconsis-
tencies in his text, that, "no doubt, his memory was sometimes at
fault," which may well have been the case with Langland, too. Cer-
vantes' intention had first been "to write a short comic story, but
the subject mastered him and forced him to enlarge the scope of his
original design" — a not unfrequent happening, as shown by Lamartine
and his Jocelyn and, as we think, Langland and his Piers Plowman.
"It is curious to reflect," Mr. Fitzmaurice-Kelly continues, "that

Sancho Panza is himself an afterthought So late as the ninth

chapter we read of a Sancho with ' long shanks' — a squire inconceiv-
able ! " If Sancho was an afterthought, and one 'imperfectly worked
into the text, well may the case have been the same with Robert
the Robber too. Though one author and not several, Cervantes
offers, here and there, remarkable differences in merit and style:

"At his best .... he is a perfect, unsurpassable master "

When his attention flags, he sinks at moments into an almost slovenly
obscurity."^

Dealing with the incident of the stealing by Gines de Pasamonte
of the ass which Sancho is nevertheless found riding immediately
after/ Mr. Fitzmaurice-Kelly's interpretation is as follows:

It is plain that Cervantes' MS must have contained an account of
Gines de Pasamonte's rascality. How this account came to be omitted

from the first edition can only be conjectured The conception was

an afterthought and may well have been written down on a loose sheet
of paper which was accidentally lost.*

For such things will happen.

1 The Historie of Don Quixote .... translated by T. Shelton, with Introduction by
Fitzmaurice-Kelly, London, 1896, Vol. I, p. xxviii.

2 Complete Works of Cervantes — Don Quixote — ed. by Fitzmaurice-Kelly, translated by
J. Ormsby, Glasgow, 1901, Vol. I, pp. xvi, xxxiii.

3 In the first edition there is no account of the stealing of the ass, but we suddenly
find Sancho making mournful allusions to his loss of it, as if we knew how it had happened.
In the second and following editions figures the passage under discussion, telling of the theft

*Ibid., p. XV.

309

22 J. J. JUSSEEAND

Mr. Fitzmaurice-Kelly thinks that, owing to some mishap of
this sort, the first edition appeared, as it did, with two unintelHgible
allusions to the theft as having taken place, whereas no account
of the actual deed had been given. This discrepancy being noticed
by the publisher, he caused the gap to be filled by someone who was
not Cervantes, and the filling was inserted by mistake at the wrong
place, so that Sancho still rides, for some time, the stolen ass (other
commentators are of a different opinion and even consider that the
addition, which they attribute to the author himself, is of " extraor-
dinary value").

Contemporary critics made fun of the mistake and derided the
author. Cervantes was aware of it; he was also proud of his work
and of its success (five editions in less than seven months) ; he
had circulated in it MS before it was printed, and we know that he
keenly resented the intrusion of a continuator. Yet he let things go,
and he cared no more for the copies of his work than Langiand did
for those of his own; he never gave the right text, he never asked
his printer to put at least the interpolation (supposing it to be one)
at the right place; and the curious discrepancies in his text were
allowed to stay.

Stranger still, when, nine years after the first, he gave his second
part, he showed in chapters 3, 4, and 27, that he was aware
something was wrong in the first part, and that it had been made
fun of by certain people. He offered, by the mouth of Sancho in
chapter 4, a half serious, half jocose answer — a very curious answer
which shows that, even then, well aware he had been criticised,
proud as he was of his work and of its success, ready, as he proved
further on, to resent an intruder's tamperings, he had not taken the
trouble to ascertain how the passage of his own text which he had to
discuss, really stood. His apologetic remarks do not exactly fit
any of the versions of the same. The objection he gives himself to
answer is that he had forgotten " to say who the thief was who stole
Sancho's Dapple, for it is not stated there, but only to be inferred
from what is set down, that he was stolen; and a little farther we
see Sancho mounted on the same ass without its having turned up."^

This cannot apply to the second edition nor to the following ones,

iPart ii, chap. 3.

310

Piers Plowman — A Reply 23

since the passage, said to be interpolated, had been added into them
with full explanations as to the stealing of the ass by Gines de Pasa-
monte mentioned by name. It does not apply any better to the first
edition where we gather only, by two passing allusions of Sancho's,
that his ass must have been stolen; where there is no account, either
of the stealing or the recovery of the animal; and where it is not
" a little farther," but much later in the story, that Sancho is actually
seen with his ass again. The words " a little farther " fit, on the con-
trary, very well all the other editions where, ten lines after the
account of the theft, we find Sancho "seated sideways, woman
fashion, on his ass."^

Carelessness, inattention, forgetfulness when his great work was
in question; over-elaboration and insufficiency of outline appearing
side by side; afterthoughts insufficiently worked into the text; parts
that are masterful and others of "an almost slovenly obscurity;"
indifference as to the copies or editions of his own text, a misplaced
leaf remaining definitively misplaced in spite of all the occasions to
correct the error (a publisher who took the trouble of having the gap
filled by a third party would have welcomed, at anj^ time, the
author's own rectification) — all this and more we find in the case
of Cervantes who, in spite of it all, was one single author and not
several.

17.— Professor Manly objects (p. 24) to my suggestion that the
lines C, IX, 84-91 are one more example of a misplaced passage. I
expressed the opinion that this added speech of Piers must have
in reality, made part of his address to the Knight. Professor Manly
thinks that it should stay where it is, and must be directed to Piers's
own son. But Piers's son is not supposed to be present at all, only
his name being given in the sort of parenthesis inserted into the
Plowman's speech. As for the "unlikehhood that," as Mr. Manly
says, "the peasant Piers would assume this tone with the Knight
and call him ' dere sone' " (p. 25), it is scarcely necessary to recall that
Piers, far from appearing there as a " peasant " pure and simple, had
been given by the poet the part of leader, and had undertaken to
show to all classes of society the way to truth, the Knight havino-
personally acknowledged the old man's leadership.

iPart i, chap. 23.

311

24 J. J. JUSSERAND

18. — '^ Furthermore/' Professor Manly continues, "if Mr. Jusse-
rand accepts Professor Skeat's view that MS Laud 581 was corrected
by the author himself, or perhaps indeed his own autograph, it is
worth observing .... " (p. 26). No conclusion whatever should
be drawn from such a surmise, restated more than once; I certainly
never said a word in vay article implying that I adhered to a hypoth-
esis which, I believe, Professor Skeat does not himself adhere to any
more.

19. — What I said on the Robert the Robber passage,' on its being
rightly put, in C, at the place where it belonged from the first, on the
"much lauded Welshman" (why "much lauded," and what does
that mean?), I strictly maintain; let the reader weigh the evidence.
I certainly fail to see that C, as Professor Manly contends, far from
improving the text, changed, at the beginning of the passage, a simple
and grammatical sentence into a monster " neither the flesh of a name
nor the fish of a promise, a ghastly amphibian," etc., (p. 27). C, we
are asked to believe, removed the Robber passage from a place
where it made nonsense, only to put it at another where it does not
fit, just what could be expected from one who was not the original
author and knew no better. C, moreover, introduced in the first
description of the sins (B, V; C, vii) a number of passages borrowed
from other parts of text B, "And it seems clear that C had no
better reason for his transfer of the Robber passage than for his
transfer of the others" (p. 28). In other words, he had no good
reason for either, he acted arbitrarily (not to say nonsensically) :
what else could be expected, since he was not the original author? —
But he was, and acted quite sensibly, having excellent reasons in
both cases for doing what he did, namely, putting the Robber passage
at a place which is, I maintain, the only one for which it can have
been written, and for suppressing, by the other changes, one of the
descriptions of the Deadly Sins (the one in B, XIII, spots on the
coat of Haukyn), two of them being fused into one. Langland felt,
when writing C, and this is a not unique proof of good taste given
by him when making this revision, that those descriptions were
too numerous and that one could disappear with advantage.

20. — Speaking of the "much lauded Welshman," ^yvan Jeld-ajeyn,

1 Section III of my previous article, pp. 14 fl.

312

Piers Plowman — A Reply 25

otherwise Reddite, Professor Manly contests the identification which
I proposed of the two, though the text itself makes it plain. I had
pointed out that this peculiar device (an abstract Latin word figur-
ing also in the poem as a live being) was not used by Langland in this
place only, and that what we find here in C, we had found before in
A, even in what Professor Manly considers as the first part of A,
the work of the earliest of his four authors.^ On this he offers no
remark.

21. — Professor Manly having, like many before him, noticed the
absence of Wrath in the description of the Seven Deadly Sins in A, V,
drew from this conclusions of considerable magnitude. It seemed to
him that to forget one of the sins was an impossibility; the author
of the first part of A especially, that precise mind who has, he thinks,
"definiteness " for his characteristic and is described as so different
from B, who is incapable of "consecutive thinking," cannot possibly
have made such an omission. He must have written a description
of Wrath, but it must have been lost, and the lost half-leaf must
h-.;ve been the counterpart of another half-leaf where the poet
must have written a long passage (long indeed it must have been)
to properly connect the confession of Sloth with that of a thief.

Langland himself suppHes the answer, for he did not omit Wrath
in one list of the Seven Sins in A, but in two; so that, whatever
may be the case with others, such omissions were certainly possible
to him, and this is enough to seriously shake our belief in the lost
half -leaf; for the poet really could forget a sin.

More than that, as I pointed out, what took place in the B and G
revisions is, so far as it goes, evidence of a single and not a multiple
authorship. This omission of one of the sins, by an author giving
a description of them, "incredible" says Professor Manly (p. 31),
nearly impossible as it is, is yet made in his turn by the author of
B just as by the author of A, and by that of C just as by that of B;
which reveals a strange similarity in the foibles of Professor Manly's
"several men of notable intellectual power." This neither he, nor
anyone, I believe, had ever observed. Yet it is a fact that B, while he
notices the absence of Wrath and adds him in the two places where he
was missing in A, when he has to draw up one more list himself, draws

iP. 23 of my article.

313

26 J- J. JUSSERAND

it wrong, forgetting Envy. C leaves this same list incomplete, with
Envy still lacking. The more "incredible" such doings, the more
symptomatic of a unique authorship.

Let the reader value as he may think fit the explanation now
offered by Professor Manly. His explanation is that such omissions,
so extraordinary in A as to justify, he considers, the belief in a
hypothetical lost leaf, are very natural when B is in question. Better
still, they were purposely made, they were made for " some particular
reason," for a reason " not hard to discover " (p. 30), and that reason
is one of art and logic: an unexpected reason, to say the least, when
we remember Mr. Manly's denunciation of B's "incapacity for
organized and consecutive thinking," and his "tendency to rambling
and vagueness," especially "in the third vision,"nhe one presently
under consideration. Anyhow, Professor Manly's reason " not hard
to discover " is to the effect that the author there enumerates the
Deadly Sins, just to show that Poverty is not liable to them, and
that Envy is appropriately omitted because Poverty cannot be con-
sidered as immune from it. But, if the reason imagined by Professor
Manly were accepted (to the great credit of B's capacity for " organ-
ized and consecutive thinking"). Wrath should have been omitted
as well as Envy, for Poverty is as liable to the one as to the other.
For what cause, besides, just before they draw up their incomplete
list, B as well as C is careful to point out that they are presently
dealing with the 'sevene synnes that there ben" (B, XIV, 201), and
to repeat once more that the "sevene synnes" are their theme (B,
XIV, 218), Mr. Manly no less carefully abstains from explaining.

My own explanation, if I may venture one, is that Langland could
omit sins in his lists, and that the three versions are by him.

22. — On the respective merits of the portrait of Wrath added by
B (so unsatisfactory, according to Professor Manly, as to denote a
different author) and of the portraits of the sins in A, I cannot but
repeat what I said, and what I said was to the effect that, when
Professor Manly stated that, in A, each sin was sketched "with
inimitable vividness," he misstated the case. Let anyone who doubts
read again, for example, the sketch of Lechour quoted above (remark
12). Wrath is certainly not more unsatisfactory in B than some

1 Cambridge History, pp. 23, 24.

314

Piers Plowman — A Reply 27

others in A, and it is difficult to understand how Professor Manly-
can allege that, in A, " Lechour is the lecherous man," while, in B,
Wrath (represented " with two whyte eyen, and nyvelynge with the
nose, and his nekke hangynge") is "in no sense the wrathful man"
(p. 33). Both descriptions should be read together, without for-
getting that I have shown that those attributes of Wrath in B, which
Professor Manly had chosen to consider so very irrelevant, are, on
the contrary, the usual, commonplace, classical ones, given to that
sin by the mediaeval manuals of greatest authority. Professor
Manly pretends that I "tried to answer his charge" by saying
"that Envy and Wrath are so much alike that B cannot justly
be criticized for giving us a portrait of Envy and labeling it Wrath "
(p. 32), Yet, in spite of what Mr. Manly writes there, and repeats,
p. 33, I never committed myself in such grave matters; I never
presumed to say that Envy and Wrath are either alike or different;
I only did what I supposed w^as right: I quoted contemporary
texts giving what was then the accepted opinion, of more importance
on those questions than mine or that of Professor Manly. I quoted
some lines from the Parson's Tale, and might have quoted many
more to the same effect, those, for example, where the Parson declares
that there are three sources for "Ira," namely Pride, Envy, "and
thanne stant the sinne of contumelie or stryf and cheeste," on which
precisely B insists. Chaucer's Ira "stryveth eek alday agayn
trouthe " — "lesynges I ymped," says Langland's Wrath in B (V, 138).

23. — Professor Manly's remark that, if there is a great difference
of style between the Parson's tale and the Miller's (the author
being nevertheless only one man), the cause must be that Chaucer
was influenced by' his original (p. 34) , does not destroy my argument.
It shows that, under certain influences, an author may use very
different styles, and yet continue to be one and not several; those
influences may come, not only from a difference of original, but a
difference of time, disposition, and subject.

24. — The question of the supposed mistakes or failures to under-
stand their supposed predecessors, attributed by Professor Manly
to his several authors, is by him studied again. I persevere in my
views, and referring the reader to the article in which I have devel-
oped them, I shall only offer the following observations:

315

28 J. J. JUSSEEAND

In B, Professor Manly had said, ''Lewte is introduced as the
leman of the Lady Holy Church and spoken of as feminine." My
answer, I deem, holds good: Leman meaning a "tenderly loved
being of either sex," I do not see why Mrs. Lewte would not be for
Lad}^ Holy Church, just as well as Mr. Lewte would have been, a
leman, or tenderly loved being. I maintain also that the only proof
of B having made of Lewte a feminine personage is that, at one
place, we read "hire" instead of "him," and that this is in truth
no proof at all. Professor Manly cannot reconcile himself to the
thought that a scribe may have been guilty of such a blunder — con-
sisting in the change of one letter (and corrected in C) . Since the
change creates, according to him, nonsense, he considers that it
must necessarily come from the author! To "relieve" the author
of the responsibility arbitrarily laid thus on his shoulders, Mr. Manly
wants "something in the text to indicate that 'hire' is a scribe's
error" (p. 35). I make bold to say that this is asking too much.

25. — Professor Manly had said also, in order so show that we had
to do with several authors, that in B, "Fals instead of Wrong is
father of Meed, but is made to marry [i. e. to prepare to marry] her
later." I continue to think that, here too, B is not guilty, and that
the passage was improved, not spoiled, by him. If Wrong was to be
at all the father, he should have been made to play a more important
part than he does in A, where, so long as the marriage is in question, he
does nothing, but awakens from his torpor later in a completely dif-
ferent episode (IV, 47 ff.) in which he entirely ceases to be alluded
to as the father of Meed, though Meed is present and plays also a
part in the incident: all this, in that A text, the work, we are told, of
a man of "unerring hand," who "never himself forgets for an
instant the relation of any incident to his whole plan."' No less
than B and C, A was fallible.

It may be observed, on the other hand, that, according to Pro-
fessor Manly, Meed was such " a desirable bride " that her father did
not need to do anything in order to secure a husband for her: hence,
we are told, his inactivity; the same authority finds, however,
quite natural that a portion be nevertheless provided for her, not by
her father, but by a friend. It seems to me that B followed the

1 Cambridge History, p. 5.

316

Piers Plowman — A Reply 29

dictates of common sense in suppressing useless Wrong in this episode
and in giving Favel for both a father and portion-provider to Meed.

As for Fals having been written at one place for Favel in B, I
pointed out that similar slips of the pen occur at different places in
the three texts. Mr. Manly ironically insists, as usual, on that
" most troublesome person " the scribe, on that " careless or meddle-
some scribe," so as to give the impression that I attribute too much
to copyists. But such is not the case, and besides I do not do it
to the extent he is pleased to say. In this case, in particular, I did
not attribute the blunders in question specifically and exclusively to
the scribe, and Mr. Manly might have remembered that what I wrote
was: "Such slips of the pen would have been difficult for any copyist
and even for any author to avoid, in such a passage as this, with so
many lines alliterating in /, and Favel fair speech, and Fals fickle
tongue constantly succeeding one another" (p. 34 of my article).
The same might very well happen also to more than one of us, and I
could quote as many examples as might be deemed necessary.

26. — I shall not continue further the discussion of the supposed
misdeeds of B, but shall only state that I persist in pleading not guilty
for him all along the line, being unable to understand how, for
example, Professor Manly can seriously ask "whether any student
of Piers Plowman ever clearly recognized that [the] feoffment (in
B, II, 74 ff) is intended to cover 'precisely the provinces of the Seven
Deadly Sins,' before acquaintance with the simpler form of the A
text enabled him to perceive the plan overlaid by the elaborations
of B and C " (p. 39) . The so-called " elaborations " which " overlay "
the original plan, fill, all told, ten lines more in B than in A; and B
can even claim that he has a right to more room than was used before,
as the " simpler form of the A text " was really too simple, one of the
sins having been forgotten in that version.

27. — On questions of dialect and versification. Professor Manly
asks us to wait; let us. It cannot be unfair, however to note, in
the meanwhile, that Miss Mary Deakin's study of the Alliteration
in Piers Plowman has led her to the conclusion that, to all appear-
ances, "the alliteration gives no support to Professor Manly's
theory." '

1 Modern Language Review, July, 1909, p. 483.

317

30 J. J. JUSSERAND

28. — On the difference in merit between A, B, and C, denoting
four different authorships, Professor Manly protests (p. 44) that
he never said that the "first part of A was the best in the whole
work." If I mistook his meaning, I am sorry. I may, however, recall
that, after having written the words just mentioned, I quoted the
very expressions used by him, at different places, in praise of the
first part of A, and which had given me, and may have given others,
the impression he objects to.' The fact has, however, no impor-
tance, as the discussion bore only on those specific qualities recog-
nized by Professor Manly in A and which he fails to find in the
supposed authors of B and C, concluding that they must be different
people. I think I have shown that those differences were not at all
what Professor Manly wanted us to believe, and, in particular, that
what he told us of A's " unity of structure and art of composition, "
of the author never forgetting "for a moment the relation of any
incident to his whole plan, " of his superiority in this respect to B,
who is incapable of "consecutive thinking" and with whom "topics
alien to the main theme intrude because of the use of a suggestive
word," is entirely unacceptable. I have given, I consider, glaring
examples of A's aptitude for vagaries; my judgment on this pro-
pensity of his being, if anything, too indulgent. Let anyone read
the original passage which I summed up in my first example, and say
whether the explanation, by Lady Holy Church, of the field full of
folk is at all satisfactory and answers, in any way, our ideas of sound
texture. I showed, I believe, that what the lady had to explain was
not hard to make clear, and would have been made so but for A's
disposition to wander. Professor Manly takes exception to my having
quoted the MS of the Valenciennes Passion (p. 45). I quoted it
because it is the best known and oftenest reproduced. I shall not go
into a discussion of the similar arrangement of the mansions of a
mediaeval stage in England and in France, and shall simply recall that
the scene to be described was plain and familiar enough : if we have
no English MS showing such a mystery-play in action, pictures of
the same scenes, with God's tower and the devil's "dungun," were to
be seen in a number of churches (Shakespeare could see one in his
youth at Stratford, a certainly English town) and were familiar to
the many.

iP. 39 of my article. 318

Piers Plowman — A Reply 31

Professor Manly asserts, it is true, that my account of the passage
is inadequate and unsatisfactory. I do not think that his is perfect,
either. But take the original, and you cannot fail to find that A does
exactly what B is accused by Professor Manly of doing — and accused
in view of proving that the author must have been a different man:
a " suggestive word " makes him treat of a " topic alien to the main
theme." The main theme was the two castles and the field full of
folk, and the topic on which A insists most is drunkenness.

I had quoted, pp. 41 and 42, n. 1, several other examples of inco-
herence, instead of ''structural excellence", in A; Professor Manly
mentions only this one and says nothing of the others, so it is perhaps
needless to add that I might have quoted, and that anyone may find,
as many more as may be wanted. We had been told of differences
between A and B, and we find similitudes.

29. — Wanting to show, from another point of view, more differ-
ences between A, B, and C, Professor Manly had said, after he had
discussed the first vision: " Only once or twice does the author inter-
rupt his narrative to express his own views and feelings." I had
thought, wrongly as it turns out, that the first part of A was meant,
and I had pointed out five examples of such interruptions instead of
" one or two." But Professor Manly's remark, of very moderate scope
indeed, applied, I see (p. 46), only to the first half of the first half of
A. It remains, however, that this device was resorted to in very
appreciable fashion by the author of A — of the first part of A — and
that the increase in the number of such cases in B and C is more
apparent than real, since the bulk of the poem was considerably
increased, too, in these versions: 7241 lines in B, against 2579 in A.

30. — Professor Manly cannot conceive that an author having
written a fine line, or a fine passage, or a fine poem in his youth, may
spoil it or leave it out in his later years. If such spoilings or discardings
are discovered, then, he thinks, two different men must have been
at work. He quotes two such examples from version C: one is the
fine line in A and B, " Percen with a pater noster" (which he deems to
be only a translation of Brevis oratio penetrat caelum: it is luckily
much more) ; the line is certainly spoilt in C, and spoilt to such an
extent as to be meaningless, so that we may well doubt we have the
real text, whether it be by Langland or by somebody else. The

319

32 J. J. JUSSERAND

other is the splendid appeal to God: "Ac pore peple thi prisoneres/'
which C omits altogether; Mr. Manly exclaims thereupon: "Would
you not expect the man who had written those lines to preserve
them? .... Would you not really?" (p. 48).

The fact is that men are not the simple, logical and once-for-all
individuals Mr. Manly fancies them to be, and the expectation he so
fervidly expresses is doomed to be defeated, not by Langland alone,
but by a number of poets and prosators of all times and countries,
one man each of them, not four. Would you not expect the poet
who had written the beautiful sonnet:

Je veux lire en trois jours I'lliade d'Homere,
to preserve it? Yet Ronsard left it out of his works and never
reproduced it in any edition of his writings, after 1560.

Would you not expect the man who had become famous by his
strambotti, and had rendered poems of that kind fashionable, to
preserve his? Yet Chariteo, whose reputation rested on such
writings, having printed them in 1506, suppressed them in his works
after 1509.

Would you not expect the man who had written the splendid
sentences on music, on the stairway of the Vatican, on the Tiber and
the Roman campagna, just published by the Revue d'Histoire
Litteraire de la France, to preserve them? Shakespeare did not,
every day, write better. Yet Chateaubriand left them among
discarded fragments of the Memoires d'Outre Tomhe, and they
remained unprinted till now.*

Mr. Christian Marechal has pointed out, in his before-quoted work,
a number of passages in which Lamartine replaced admirable lines to
be found in the early versions of his Jocelyn by more commonplace
ones, or discarded them altogether,^ Yet again all those men were

1 Revue d'Histoire Litteraire de la France, two Farticles by A. Feiigere, April and
September, 1909, pp. 584, 585, 589. Here are two of those sentences: "Je vais saluer
L§on XII aprSs avoir traverse la magniflque place de Saint-Pierre; je monte avec une
gmotion toujoiu"s nouvelle le grand escalier desert du Vatican, foule par tant de pas
eflfac6s et d'oil descendirent tant de fois les destinees du monde." — " Je me perdais dans
ces sentiments indecis que fait naitre la musique, art qui tient le milieu entre la nature
materielle et la nature intellectuelle, qui peut depouiller I'amour de son enveloppe terrestre
DU donner un corps a I'ange du ciel. Selon les dispositions de celui qui les 6coute, ces m61o-
dies sont des pensees ou des caresses."

2 Josaelin inedit, 1909, pp. Ivii, Lxiii, xcvi, xcvii, xcviii fl. Some of those fine lines,
Mr. Marechal writes, "Lamartine les a sacriflgs sans regret, mais nous ne saurions accepter
d'un coeur aussi leger un pareil sacrifice," p. xcvii.

320

Piers Plowman — A Reply 33

essentially artists (while Langland was not), that is, men who, if any,
would have preserved the artistic products of their pen. Time and
again they did not: much more could Langland act likewise, without
Professor Manly being justified in cutting him into pieces.

Add thereto, that when we come to think of the hypothesis Pro-
fessor Manly wants us to accept, of a new author freely remodeling
another's work, of a new author who is a "sincere man," who is a
man of "notable intellectual power" (and no less can be said of the
poet who wrote the touching melancholy addition at the beginning
of passus vi in C, the picturesque and realistic portraits of the lollers
and sham hermits, etc.), we are free to think that those spoilings
or discardings are scarcely less surprising on the part of such a
supposed reviser than on the part of the author, and we might say,
in our turn: Would you not expect such a reviser, finding those lines,
to preserve them? .... Would you not really?

31. — I continue unable to agree with Professor Manly on the
question of the pardon granted to Piers, the only sort of pardon to fit
such a being, one with the grandest and noblest import, not one
certainly to be torn to pieces by that high-souled leader. The tearing
to pieces is suppressed in C, to the immense advantage of the scene
and dismay of Professor Manly, whose system does not apparently
allow him to permit the author of G to act so well. He'considers, there-
fore (p. 48), that it is quite natural for Piers, in B, and also in A, to
destroy, out of spite, or, as Mr. Manly prefers to say, "out of grief
and disappointment," the scroll giving him and his followers their
rule of life — out of grief and disappointment, because he is shown
by a priest of the vulgar-minded sort, by a "lewede lorel,"' that his
bill contains the noblest precept, and is not one of those pardons
which despicable pardoners "gaf for pans." Piers to be "disap-
pointed " at that !

In A and B the passage is absolutely unintelligible and inconsis-
tent, to the point of being a serious blemish in those versions.
C immensely improved it, and in more ways than one: in the A
version the pardon was twice said to have been procured from
the pope, which did not fit with what followed; B suppressed one
of the irrelevant allusions to the pope, and C suppressed both.^

» A. VIII. 123. 2 A. VIII, 8, 21; B. VII, 8, 19; C, X, 8, 23.

321

34 J. J. JUSSEEAND

To further diminish C's merit, Professor Manly accuses the poet of
having badly joined together what he left after he had suppressed
the inacceptable tearing of the scroll and suppressed also the rambling
speech delivered thereupon by Piers in A (for rambling speeches,
sad to say, are to be found in A, too). Well may the fault be con-
tested,' but it is of small consequence. Supposing the case to be as
we are told, Langland's more or less clever joining together of the
two rims of the gap left by his removal of the obnoxious passage is
of very little import: of such sins he was certainly capable. The
removal of the lines is, on the contrary, of great import, as it
leaves to Piers his true character, and makes of the whole scene
one of the grandest in the poem.

32. — Professor Manly would ''also like to know the meaning of
B, VII, 168 (C, X, 318) .... B and C apparently thought 'preost'
was the subject of 'divinede,' whereas the subject is, of course, 'I,'
implied in ' me ' of 1. 152 " (p. 49) .

The truth is that the passage is not clear, logical or grammatical
in either of the three texts, and we all wish it were the only one of
that sort in Langland. The author of C, whether Langland, as I
believe, or a reviser, as Mr. Manly thinks, cannot certainly have
meant that, according to the priest, "Dowel indulgences passede,"
since this was bound to be Piers's and not the priest's opinion; and
the poet was as fully aware of it when writing C as when composing
A and B, since, a few lines before, he had recalled, in this last version,
the opposition of views between the two men, and how "the preest
inpugned" the "pardon Peers hadde" (C, X, 300), and since, more-
over, C is the only text where the episode is given its full value.

Though I know how unwilling Professor Manly is to admit that
the original copyist may have been so inordinately clumsy as to mis-
take two or three letters, I am tempted to suggest that very possibly,
while the copies we have of C read: " And how the preest prevede," the

1 All the reasoning is founded on the line,

The preest thus and Perkyn' of the pardon jangled (C, X, 292),
"which is nonsense," says Mr. Manly, "after the suppression of the jangling" (p. 48).
But the opposition between the views of the priest and those Piers must have entertained,
may have been thought by the author to be suflQciently indicated by the priest's remark
"Ich can no pardon fynde," and to justify the allusion to the jangling. Very possibly,
however, the original text did not read thus, but tho (then), which gave the line a clear
and unimpeachable meaning.

322

Piers Plowman — A Reply 35

original read: "And how that peers prevede" (C, X, 318). If this
is considered too bold, I would answer that it is not more so than to
suppose, as Professor Manly does, that in A (whose logic must be
saved at all costs, though it cannot be saved after the tearing of the
"pardon" by Piers), "I" is "of course" implied by "me" of 1. 152.
The whole passage in A is as follows — and, as Langland would have
said, let anyone who can "construe this on Englisch":

Al this maketh me* on metels to thenken

Mony tyme at midniht • whon men schulde slepe,

On Fers the plouh-mon • and whuch a pardoun he hedde,

And hou the preost inpugnede hit • al bi piu'e resouu,

And divinede that Dowel" indulgence passede.

—A, VIII, 152.

33. — ^To Professor Manly's "great surprise" (p. 49), I refused to
find any failure of C to understand B, when the former modified the
passage about the belling of the cat.

At the risk of still increasing Professor Manly's surprise, I emphat-
ically persist in my way of thinking, and deem that C deserves praise,
not blame. I persist in considering that in B, the passage was unsat-
isfactory: in which passage the well-spoken rat describes certain
"segges" or beings — by which he means dogs, I fully agree in this
with Mr. Manly, everybody does, and the point is not under dis-
cussion— who are to be seen in "the cite of London," who bear
about their necks bright collars of crafty work, and who go
"uncoupled" in "wareine and in waste." If they bore a bell on
their collars.

Men my^te wite where thei went" and avvei renne.

— B, Prol., 166.

This is certainly a clumsy speech. The "segges" being dogs in
B, and obviously sporting dogs, whom their masters uncouple to
use them in warrens, how can we imagine that, if they had a bell on
their necks, men would know where they go, and " away run ! " In
this part of his speech, B's rat seems to me, I confess, a very silly rat.

C's changes arc quite sensible and to his credit. Far from show-
ing a " failure to understand " the earlier version and helping us to
believe in a quadruple authorship, they lead the other way. The
author deliberately drops all the allusions to dogs, as they fitted

323

36 J. J. JUSSERAND

imperfectly his purpose; he suppresses the mention of the uncoup-
ling, the warren, etc., and replaces the whole by a very clear and
pointed allusion to actual men and to actual customs prevailing
then in England. "But this is a beast fable," Professor Manly
exclaims; "what have men to do in it, among the rats and mice?
.... And above all, why the warrens and the waste? Do men
run uncoupled in rabbit warrens and waste fields?" But C does
not say that they do, and is grievously misrepresented here by
Professor Manly. As evidenced, on the other hand, by numberless
examples, from the days of iEsop to those of Langland, in a " beast
fable,"men are not necessarily ignored; a rat is not bound to allude
only to animals, and may just as well, like the swallow in ^Esop's
fine fable of the Swallow and Birds, allude to men, especially if
the meaning is to be made clearer thereby. And such is the case
here, C's rearrangement being as follows:

Ich have yseie grete syres* in citees and in tounes

Bare byjes of bryjt gold" al aboute hure neckes,

And colers of crafty werke" bothe knygtes and squiers.

Were ther a belle on hure by5e" by Jesus, as me thynketh,

Men myjte wite wher thei wenten ' and hure way roume.

Rygt so (etc.) — C, Prol., 177.

34. — Passing to the personal notes to be found in the Visions and
which, I consider, point to a unity of authorship. Professor Manly,
in order to minimize their importance, declares that they are, " in
reality, singularly few" (p. 54). They are, in reality, singularly
numerous: we must remember the period when Piers Plowman was
written, and I should like to know what are the poems in comparison
with which the personal notes in the Visions can be described as
being, in reality, singularly few.

As to localities. Professor Manly says that " the Malvern hills are
no doubt a locality with which Al had special associations of some
sort, but they have apparently no special significance for the other
writers" (p. 53). It should be observed, in this respect, that C
not only preserved all those allusions supposed to be for him without
special significance, but increased their number by one. After the
added passage at the beginning of passus vi, where the author con-
siders his past life, thinks of his childhood, of his father, of his friends

324

Piers Plowman — A Reply 37

of former days, the name of Malvern recurs to his mind and he tells us
that he now resumes the dreams he had dreamed on those same hills :
Thenne matte me moche more • than ich by-fore tolde
Of the mater that ich mette fyrst" on Malverne hulles.

— C, VI, 109.

The counterpart of the first of these lines but not of the second is
to be found in versions A and B.

35. — As to the author's sayings about himself, his youth, his
disappointments, his way of living, Professor Manly persists in
fancying that all this must be fancy: but that is, on his part, mere
guessing. I have recalled how certain recent discoveries show that
some prudence should be used in forming hypotheses of this sort,
and that poets were, in such cases, guided by their memory and not
by their imagination oftener than latter-day critics would have us
to believe. To the examples I have given, more than one might be
added, selected from various times and countries, for men will
resemble men, poets will resemble poets. ^

36. — Professor Manly insists that, given their names, Kitte and
Kalote must have been dissolute women (p. 55) in spite of my having
pointed out that this interpretation of the words would be as unten-
able in the case of a reviser as in that of the original author, since
the passage, very beautiful in itself, would thus become absurd if not
repugnant. He answers nothing to what I have said and shown,
that before such names become definitively opprobrious, there is
a long period when they are used both ways.^ Mr. Manly, who comes
forth with a theory of his own, rejecting the usual ideas on the subject
and replacing them by an interpretation which causes the passage
to be, in spite of what he alleges, meaningless, has done nothing
to show that, for those names, such a period was past, and that
the meaning cannot but have been shameful.

37. — -I never desired to hold Professor Manly " responsible for every
phrase of Professor Jack's article" (p. 56). I simply quoted Mr.
Manly himself, according to whom Mr. Jack had "conclusively proved "

1 This example, for instance. Studying Lamartine's famous novel of Raphael, Mr
Leon Seche writes tlius: "Chose rcmarquable et que les incrcdules d'hier sont bien forces
de reconnaitre aujourd'hui, Lamartine n'a rien invente dans ce roman ou pas grand chose.
C'est tout au plus si, par endroits, il a interverti I'ortlre chronologique des faits et les
quelques inexactitudes qu'on y rel6ve sont plutot attribuables h I'infldelite de sa mg-
moire." — Revue Uehdomadaire, Oct. 3, 1908, p. 31.

2 "Peronnelle" is another e.xample of a feminine name remaining, for a long time,
an honorable one, and then coming, by degrees, to be used disparagingly.

325

38 J. J. JUSSERAND

that the " supposed autobiographical details " in the poem were merely
part of the fiction. I showed that the latter had '' conclusively-
proved " nothing of the kind, and given what he had to concede in
the end, he could not himself pretend that he had. I continue to
believe that, so long as no positive text or fact contradicts the plain
statements in the poem (and no such has been adduced), we are
entitled to take them for what they are given.

Ill

At certain places in his article. Professor Manly pays me some
compliments which I should be most happy to merit, and some others
which, I hope, I do not deserve. He attributes to me an "elo-
quence" and "dexterity" which, since he, for his part, repudiates
all such, I hope I am not afflicted with: the success he looks forward
to, he tells us, for his own argumentation is "not a success of dialec-
tical dexterity, but of sound reasoning " (pp. 1,2).

I hope some sound reasoning may be found in my article, too.

At the end of his reply. Professor Manly begs his reader not to
forget that, on my road, "many of the bridges which are fairest in
outward seeming are really unsafe structures with a crumbling key-
stone; that pitfalls lie concealed beneath some of the most attractive
stretches . . . ." etc., and that, if he allows himself to be carried
away by my eloquence, he will have "to turn back and seek pain-
fully the plain highway," regretting to have abandoned it "for the
soft but dangerous by-paths " to which I had lured him.

I had no idea that I had thus played the part of a land siren,
attracting unwary travelers to dangerous regions. I thought, in fact,
that I had done nothing, from the first, but defend old, plain, com-
monly accepted ideas, and follow the trodden way and most people's
road, having chosen the most inglorious and unfashionable task. I
did so, not out of abnegation, but simply because those ideas, in my
judgment, were the sounder, and had been attacked without just
motives. And I beg, in my turn, the reader to be assured that it was
not in " soft but dangerous by-paths" that I found cause for the belief
in which I persist, that "William Langland made Pers Ploughman."

J. J. JuSSERAND
Saint Haon-lb-ChAtel
August, 1909

326

[Reprinted from the Modern Language Revieiv.
Vol. V. No. 1. January 1910.]

[All Rights reserved.]

THE AUTHOESHIP OF 'PIERS PLOWMAN.'

The controversy as to the authorship of the different versions of
Fiers Plowman was opened by Prof. Manly in a short but most
important article {Modern Philology, Jan. 1906). Prof. Manly stated
his conviction 'that the three versions were not the work of one and
the same man, but each the work of a separate and distinct author.'
Whilst reserving the full proof of these and of his other theses, he
drew attention to certain incoherencies in the A-text. These, he argued,
were due, not to carelessness on the part of the author, but to the loss
of two leaves from the original MS., now lost, from which all extant MSS.
of the A-text are derived. It followed that the B-reviser, who accepted
this incoherent arrangement, and even added some lines with the object
of making it more intelligible, could hardly be identical with the poet
of the original A -version.

Three months later, Dr Henry Bradley in a letter to the Athenceum^
accepted the view that these incoherencies of the A-text were due, not
to the poet himself, but to a transcriber. He suggested however that
the source of the derangement was to be sought ' not in a MS. written
on parchment arranged in quires or gatherings, but in the " copy " (to
use the word in the modern printer's sense) handed by the author to
the first transcriber. This would no doubt be written on loose leaves
of paper.' This modification allowed of a conjectural arrangement of
the original text different from that of Prof Manly, but of course left
untouched his argument drawn from ' B's acceptation of the present
defective text.'

Some two years later, in the Cambridge History of English Literature,
Prof. Manly stated more at length, though still all too briefly, his views
as to the independent authorship of the A- B- and C-texts. This article
was subsequently issued as a separate pamphlet to members of the Early

J April 21, 190G.
M. L. R. v. 1

2 The Authorship of ' Piers -Plowman'

English Text Society. The case against unity of authorship has thus
been widely circulated in England : and there has been a tendency to
accept views put forward with so much conviction and with the support
of such high authorities. Prof. Manly 's arguments have since been
examined by M. Jusserand in Modern Philology, and Prof Manly has
replied to these criticisms. It is to be wished that M. Jusserand's
defence of William Langland could be reprinted and circulated in
England, since, for one English student who has access to the American
periodical in which it is to be found, twenty read, in the Cambridge
History, the case against the traditional view.

M. Jusserand however labours under the difficulty that he accepts
the theory of the lost or misplaced leaf, whilst denying the consequence
drawn from it by Prof Manly. He is thus in a disadvantageous position.
For, if we once accept the view that passages have been misplaced or
lost, Prof. Manly 's deductions seem to follow naturally. It is not
merely that B accepted what, in that case, we must admit to be a
defective text of A. This he might conceivably have done had he been
A. But B also attempted to remedy the defect. Hence the parallel
instances which have been quoted, of authors who, in revising their
work, have failed to notice blemishes, are hardly to the point. B did
notice an incoherency, and he remedied it, but in a way which
shows that no suspicion that a leaf had been lost or shifted ever
crossed his mind.

The defects found in the present A-text, and accepted by the
B-reviser, are three.

(1) The confession of Robert the Robber comes at the end of the
seven deadly sins, following Sloth, although, according to the mediasval
classification. Robbery is a branch of Govetousness. (Dr Bradley.)

(2) The concluding lines of the confession of Sloth are, it is
claimed, more appropriate to Govetousness, and should really be placed
under that sin. (Dr Bradley's modification of Prof. Manly 's view.)

(3) Gertain lines mentioning Piers' wife and children seem in-
coherent, and have, it is claimed, been misplaced. (Prof. Manly.)

That there is something crude in these passages as they stand in
both the A- and the B-text may be admitted. But that this incoherency
is so gross that it must be due, not to A himself, but to a scrivener, is
a statement which needs some examination.

R. \V. CHAMBERS

I, Robert the Robber.

In any systematic treatise on the Sins, the proper place for an act
of theft is indisputably under Covetousness, from which it springs.
But does it therefore follow that the placing of Robert the Robber
under Sloth, as found in all MSS. of the A-text, is so impossible that it
cannot have been the intention of the original writer ?

Robert's name shows that he represents a class, the ' Robert's Men,'
professional vagabonds and thieves. This was pointed out by Skeat in
his notes ^, but its importance, as bearing upon the shifted leaf con-
troversy has, so far as I know, been overlooked.

Besides this passage in the Confession of Sloth, there are three
important references in the A-text to these ' Robert's Men ' or
' Wastours ' — for that the two names are synonymous is clear from
a Statute of Edward III, in which they are mentioned together^.

In A Pro, 43 it is said of 'bidders and beggars^'

In glotonye, god wot, go ])ei to bedde,

And risen vp wij? ribaudi-ie, as'* Eobertis knaues;

Slep and sleujje sewi]) hem euere.

Here, then, at the outset of the poem, we have Ribaldry, Gluttony
and Sloth (not Covetousness) mentioned as the besetting sins of
'Robert's Men.'

In A VII, 140 — 172 we have a full length portrait of Wastour :

panne gan W&stour^ arise and wolde haue yfoujte,

To Peris ])e Plou3man he profride his gloue....

Wilt ])ou, nilt >ou, we wile haue oure wil of Jji" &our,

1 Clarendon Press Edit. 1886, ii, 7.

2 Item come en lestatut fait a Wyncestre, en temps meisme le Eoi lael, soit contenuz,
que si nul estraunge passe p«r pais de nuyt, de qi lioHtme eit suspecion, soit meintenant
arestu & live7-e au viscoute, & demoerge en gard tant qil soit duemeut delivfres; et diverses
roberies, homicides, & felonies, ont este faitz einz ees heures pa?- gentz qi sont apjDellez
Eoberdesmen, Wastours & Draghlacche; si est accorde et establi que si homme eit sus-
pecion de mal de nuls tielx, soit il de jour, soit il de nuyt, que meintenant soient arestuz
par les conestables des villes; et sils soient. arestuz en frauuchises, soient iiveresas baillifs
des fraunchises (Statutes of the Realm, 1810, i, '2(}S, 5" Edwardi III, Cap. XIV).

^ The quotations are given from T, the MS. in Trinity College, Cambridge (R. 3. 14),
which on the whole seems to be the best A-text extant. The most obvious blunders of
this MS. are corrected from a collation of the twelve other A-MSS. Such corrections are
marked, and further details given in the footnotes. Variants in other cases are not
recorded, nor is the usage of the MS, followed with regard to capitals and small letters.
The MSS. collated are R (Rawlinson 137), U (Univ. Coll., Oxford), E (Trin. Coll., Dub.),
I (Ingilby), H., (Harl. 0041), D (Douce 323), Dg (Digby llo), W (Westiniuster), L (Lincoln's
Inn), As (Ashmole 1168), V (Vernon), H (Harl. 875).

For many collations of and references to MSS., used throughout tliis article, I am
indebted to Mr J. H. G. Grattan.

* tho, jjese, etc. H..;LVH.

' jje wastour T; J>e was tores R; awastowrl; H^ is wanting here. The other MSS. omit
the article.

6 ],i, }>y RUEIAsVHDgWL; J^is TH.U.

1—2

4 The Authorship of ' Piers Plowman '

And l;i flessh fecche awey wlianne vs like>,

And make vs merye \er wi|) maugre \>\ chekis.

panne Peris \>e Plou3man pleynede hym to ]>e kni}!,

To kepen hym as couenawnt was fro curside shrewis,

Fro wasto?(rs ])at waite wynneres to shende.

Curteisliche )je kni3t J)anne, as his kynde wolde,

Warnide^ Wasto?fr and wisside hym betere:

' Or ]>o\\ shalt abigge be ])e la we be ])e ordre ]pat I here.'

' I was not wonid to werche,' qua]^ Wastowr, ' now wile I not begynne.'

And let lijt of })e lawe, aiid lesse of ))e kni3t,

And countide Peris at a pese and his plou3 boJ)e,

And manacide hym and his men, whanne Jjey^ next metten.

Now when Wastour proposed to raid Piers Plowman's barn he was
giving way, a theologian would have said, to the sin of coveting other
men's goods. Yet, taking the picture as a whole, Wastour would not
be inappropriately placed under Sloth, and indeed it is as an example
of idleness that the poet introduces him.

In VII, QQ Eobyn or Robert ' the ribaudour ' is mentioned with
other typical scamps.

To our author^ then, a Robert's man or a Wastour would seem to
convey the notion of vagabondage, leading to ribaldry, gluttony and
theft.

Would the confession of a Robert — for it must be noted that in
this passage Robert is used almost as a common-noun^ — who has not
even been an industrious robber, seeing he has amassed nothing, be an
unfit sequel to the Confession of Sloth ?

And, turning to Robert's own confession, does it bear marks of
having been written to illustrate Robert as having given way to the
sin of Covetousness, or of Sloth ?

It would have been easy to make a confession for Robbery which
would show how Robbery springs from Covetousness. ' The author of
the B-text ' has done so when he makes his Avarice confess to having
risen by night and robbed his companions' baggage. But Robert's
confession shows nothing of this. It is not quite the case, as Dr Bradley
says, that he 'bewails his crimes, and vows from henceforth to lead an
honest life^.' He says nothing about his crimes, beyond an admission
that he has done ill : nor does he promise to lead an honest life. On

1 Jje inserted after warnide in TDgW; Hq loantivg here.

2 Jjey] he T, all other MSS. ]>ey, \>&i ct'-c; H2 xoanting here.

3 I have intentionally omitted B's reference to Robert Reuue-aboute (B. vi 150) who is
mentioned aw a typical idler, much as Robert the Ribaudour is in the earlier passage in A.

■* We should read ' So rewe on this Robert' not ' So rewe on me, Robert' which is a
corruption of the VH family of MSS. (found also in Dg.).
5 Athnurum, April 21, 1906.

R. W. CHAMBERS 5

the contrary, he points out the difficulties which will beset him should
he attempt to do so, and pleads guilty to thriftlessness and ignorance
of any craft. He has nothing with which to make restitution ; he

on reddite lokide,
Ac for ])ere was nou3t where-witk he wepte swipe sore.

He is at his wits' end, for he knows no trade which will enable him
to earn an honest living :

So re we on ))is Robert, ]>at red nou ne haul}),

Ne neuere weui]> to wynne wi}) craft pat he knowij).

(A, V, 251-2.)

Dr Bradley explains this ' as he knows no trade he cannot hope ever
to earn the means of restoring what he has stolen^' But Robert's
plight is even worse than this. He has no rede, and never weens, by
any trade that he knows, to win, i.e., to work for his living-. And this
is a confession more likely to have been written for a ' Robert ' if he
were intended to come under Sloth, than if he were intended to come
under Avarice.

We may imagine our Robert as an idle apprentice, who from idleness
has fallen into Wanhope ; he has become an avowed outcast from
society, a felon, as A calls him. Robert consoles himself by calling to
memory the case of the penitent thief Now Skeat pointed out long
ago that the right place for the penitent thief is under Sloth, under
the sub-heading Wanhope, which always belongs to Accidie.

We have, then, in the received A-text :

(1) 1.222. Introduction of Sleuthe.

(2) 1. 225. ' War the for Wanhope.'

(3) 11. 242 — 259 the case of Robert the Robber, a felon, who, though
he has no reed, and never hopes to earn an honest livelihood, yet

(4) 11. 246 — 248 comforts himself by the example of the Penitent
Thief.

Exactly so, in Chaucer's Parson's Tale :

(1) Under the main heading Accidie, we have

(2) Wanhope.

(3) ' This horrible sinne is so perilous, that he that is despeired
ther nis no felonye ne no sinne that he douteth for to do ; as shewed
wel by ludas.'

(4) Yet the example of the Penitent Thief is given, to show that
men should never despair.

1 The Nation (New York), Aijril 2'J, 1909, p. 437.

2 For ivin see note on j). (3.

6 The Authorship of 'Piers Plowman^

If the Parson's Tale places the thief and traitor Judas under
Sloth- Wanhope rather than under Covetousness, there is surely no
reason Avhy Robert the Robber should not go under that head also.
And the fact that elsewhere the poet associates Robert's men with
Sloth, not with Covetousness, and that he makes Robert confess to
being unemployable, rather than grasping, is strong indication that
he intended him to go where all the MSS. put him.

True, Robert's lapses into highway robbery, or house-breaking,
must have called for great, if intermittent, exertions. But this does
not deprive him of his claim to a place under Sloth or Accidie, w^hich
is a neglect of God's grace and of honest industry. Sinful exertion
rather qualifies than disqualifies. Wyclif^ emphasises this: if a man
is not doing good, he will be doing evil, ' for sumwhat mot a man do.'
So in the Ancren Riiule- it is made clear that Sloth does not exclude
evil works, but that, on the contrary, the idle are the more prompt to
do the Devil's bidding.

There would seem then to be no ground for disturbing the order
of the MSS., in so far as Robert the Robber is concerned.

II. Sloth's Wicked Winnings.

A more serious difficulty remains, if we are to defend the order of
the MSS. of A. Sloth, in his vow, after promising for the future to be
regular in his religious exercises, continues :

And 3et wile I 3elde a^eu, 3if I so muchel haue,

Al \)&i I wykkidly wan .si])en I wjt hadde.

And^ t)ei3 my liflode lakke, leten I nille

])at iche* man shal haue his er I hennis wende ;

And wi)) ]>e residue a7id })e remenaitnt, be \>e roode of Chestre,

I wile seke Treu))e ei' I se^ Rome.

'Wicked winnings' seem inappropriate to Sloth. But does 'win'
in the language of Piers Ploiuman necessarily convey any idea of great
gain ? It may mean simply working for one's daily bread ^, indeed, to
labour is the primary meaning of ' wdn ' (cf O.E. tuinnan to work, toil).

1 Ed. Arnold in, 142. 2 Ed. Morton, 212, 213.

3 And om. TH2DAS. * iche a man T.

s seke THo: W corrupt: other MSS. se, see.

6 E.g., A I, 153

For j>au3 ■^e be trewe of joi/re tunge and treweliche wynne,

And ek as chast as a child ])at in chirche wepifj. [TRH2D have For V'l be (bcj>).]

B VI, 322 Ac I warne 30\v, werkemen, wynnetb while je mowe.

In C I 222 hand labourers are called ' wynners with hauden As taylours and
tanners.' Prof. Skeat, to whom I am indebted for a most interesting letter on the
subject says ' surely, to win is to earn simply : and winner is worker. If not, there's no
point in the title of the poem Winner and Waster.'

R. W. CHAMBERS 7

Now Accidie being the neglect of honest industry, it follows that the
slothful, above every man, wins wickedly. He and the covetous man
are the only ' wicked winners ' among the followers of the seven sins ;
but the slothful the most of the two. For the covetous man^ may earn
an honest living ; his wicked winnings are the excess of his gains over
Avhat is justly his due. But a man, in so far as he is idle, cannot
' truly win ' at all. He must live either by begging, or by receiving
wages for services never rendered, like the ' dikers and delvers that do
their deeds ill,' or by negligently withholding what is due to others.
In each case he ' wins wickedly.'

The opening of Sloth's confession, with its promise of regular atten-
dance at religious services, is strictly according to precedent: for the
remedy against Sloth begins nearly always with a regular attendance
at shrift and mass. But something further is, almost invariably,
enjoined in all treatises: variously called dedbote-, satisfaction-, hesinesse,
magnanimity, magnificence. Could there be a better form of satisfaction
or hesinesse than for Sloth to make amends to all whom he has wronged
through his slackness ? This, at least, is how B understood the passage,
and he has made the sense clearer by inserting lines above (B V,
429 — 435) showing how Sloth had failed to pay for that which he had
borrowed.

Now it is argued that this is so far-fetched and muddle-headed an
explanation that it is incredible that B, who certainly understood the
passage so, can be identical with A, whose treatment shows ' firmness
and mastery of structure.' I submit that it is by no means an impos-
sible interpretation.

Perhaps technically it is wrong to place the withholding of wages
and of things borrowed under Sloth rather than Avarice. But the
distinction is one which it is difficult to draw, and where it is ex-
ceedingly easy to go wrong. In the Ancren Riivle^, whilst the with-
holding of wages is equated with robbery and placed under Avarice,
carelessness with regard to pledges is put under Sloth. Surely the
intention must count. Deliberate appropriation of others' goods would
proceed from Covetousness : unintentional misappropriation from Sloth.

1 Unless he spend his time in practising usury, in which case he is as much a burden to
the commonweal as the slothful man. For usury is 'unkind,' unnatural and unproduc-
tive. Cf Fiers Plowman B v, 276, Dante, Inf. xi, 94—111.

- These, of course, need mean no more than penance or perhaps even penitence.

■* fe het ne warne"5 oSer of his vut-l ocStr of his lure nis hit slouh jemeleste o5er
attri onde? MisiteoKeget, etholden cwide, o^'er fundles, o&r lone, nis hit 3iscunge
oJSer J>eofte? Etholden oSres hure ouer his rihte terme nis hit strong reflac? pet is
under siscunge. 05er jif me jemetS wurse ei Hug ileaned o'6'er hiteih to witene |>eu he
wene het hit ouh, nis hit tricherie otJer semeleaste of slouhcie? Ed. Morton, 1853, p. 208.

8 The Authorship of ' Piers Plowman'

But, after all, the author of the A-text must be judged by his own
usage, not by that of the Ancren Riwle. Can we find any passage in
which A associates any definite act with ' wicked winning ' or its
antithesis ' true winning ' ?

Piers Plowman in making his will (A Vli, 89 — 94) says:

My wyf shal haue of \>at I wan wijj treulie and namore,

And dele among my freudis and my dere children.

For ])ei3 I dei3e to day my dettis ben quyt,

I bar hom {'at I borewide er 1 to bedde 3ede.

And wi}) ])e residue a7id ]>& remenazmt, be ^e rode of Chestre,

I wile worsshipe ]>ere wij) Treujje in my lyue.

Here is a passage which, from the way in which it re-echoes the
same phrases, seems to have been written with deliberate reference to
the ' Sloth ' passage under consideration, and in it our author associates
prompt repayment with ' true winning.' Yet it is asserted to be
incredible that by ' wicked winning ' he can have meant slackness in
repayment of debt.

It may be objected that, though this would be an adequate explana-
tion if we were dealing with the text of the B-reviser, who often misses
out a stage in his argument, and is guilty of incoherency and want
of discrimination, such incoherency would have been quite impossible
with ' so careful an artist as A, who in no single instance assigns to any
character either words or actions not clearly and strictly appropriate.'

But, on the showing of his treatment of the other Deadly Sins, was
A the ' careful artist ' which the advocates of multiple authorship make
him ? Here is the complete confession of one of the Sins :

...seide alias, and on^ oure lady criede
To make mercy for his mysdede betwyn god and hym ;
Wi]) \>at he shulde^ ])e satirday seue 3er \>er aftir
Drinke but wi]) J)e doke and dyne but ones.

Ask any person, unfamiliar with the text, what sin this represents,
and he will assuredly say ' Gluttony.' But our ' careful artist, who in
no single instance assigns to any character either words or actions not
clearly and strictly appropriate,' meant it to represent Lust. It is easy
to gloss the text by explaining that the eating of two or more dinners
per diem, which Lecchour abjures, tends towards Lust (though I should
rather have thought it tended towards indigestion) whilst abstinence
leads to continence. But I understand the claim for A to be that he
is so coherent that he needs no gloss, and therefore cannot be B, who

1 on RUEDDgWLI, to TH.jV, H cornqH.
- shulde misplaced in TH2 .

R. W. CHAMBERS 9

often does. Once admit A capable of incoherency, and there is no
longer any necessity to assume that the incoherency of his Sloth must
of necessity be due to a shifted or missing leaf

And A's other 'Sins' are almost equally incoherent, A's Pride
shows signs of Envy, and perhaps of other sins. A's Envy shows as
many traits of Wrath as of Envy. No one reading A's Gluttony could
tell whether it was the confession of Gluttony or of Accidie. It begins
with neglect of shrift and ends with sleeping all Sunday. And note
that, whilst it is Gluttony who is kept away from Church by lingering
over his ale, it is Sloth who vows never to do so again. Here also
it may be urged that the Glutton and the Slothful man are hardly
distinguishable, and that therefore it does not much matter if what
strictly belongs to the one is mentioned under the heading of the other :
but equally, I think, w-ere the robber and the sturdy beggar indis-
tinguishable on the ill-policed roads of the fourteenth century. If A
is capable of confusing the one pair, he might well have confused the
other.

But indeed the incoherencies of A have been so ably pointed out by
M. Jusserand that it is waste of time to urge the matter further. It
need only be added here that the scribes themselves were puzzled by
A's want of clearness. One scribe, most excusably, glosses Envy as
Wrath : another, feeling the inadequacy of the confession of Lust, adds
the following lines, so as to make the sin agree with the name :

And chastite to seke as a chyld clene,
The lust of his likam to leten for euere,
And fie fro felyschipe there foly may arise,
For that makith many man mysdo ful ofte.

These lines cannot possibly be genuine : they are found only in one
inferior MS., of one class : but their addition serves to show that there
were readers in the fifteenth century who felt the inadequacy of A's
description of the Sins.

Can it then be regarded as proved that (1) A's Sloth is anything
worse than incoherent or that (2) A was incapable of incoherency ?

III. Piers' Wife and Children.

The last instance where the B reviser is stated to have passed over
a palpable dislocation of A's text is in the speech of Piers in Passus vii.

And who so helpi)) me to eren or any t'i"g swynke

Shal haue, be oure lord, ]>e more here in heruist,

And make hym mery \vi|) Jie corn, who so it begrucchij).

10 The Authorship of 'Piers Plowman'

And alle kyne crafty men ]>at conne lyue in treu])e

I shal fynde hem foode >a^ fei))fulliche libbej) ;

Saue lakke J^e Iugelo!«', and lonete of J'e stewis,

And Eobyn ]>& ribaudowr for hise rusty woordis.

TreuVe tolde me ones and bad me telle it for]?

Deleanhir de libro I shulde^ not dele \\'\]> hein ;

For holy chirche is holden of hem no ti])es to asken

Et cum iustis non scrihantitr.

J)ei be 2 askapid good auntir, now god hem amende.

Dame Werche whanne tyme is Piers wyf hatte,

His dou3ter hatti> Do ri3t so^ or ]>\ dawnne shal jje bete,

His soue hatti]) SuflFre Jji souereynes to hauen here wille

And deme hem nou3t for 3if ]iou dost \)0u shalt it dere abiggen.

Let god wor])e wi]) al for so his woord techi]>.

For now* I am old and hor and haue of myn owene

To penfflitnce and to pilgrimage wile I passe with o]>ere.

For j)i I wile er I wende do wryte^ my bequest.

Accordingly the Testament follows, with mention (vil, 89, 90) of
Piers' wife and children.

Professor Manly regards the five lines beginning ' Dame Werche
whanne tyme is ' as having been placed by an error in their present
position : and the view that the text has been deranged has been ac-
cepted by Dr Furnivall and M. Jusserand. Professor Manly argues ' The
names of the wife and children of Piers, originally written in the margin
opposite 11. 89 — 90 by some scribe, have been absurdly introduced into
the text, to the interruption and confusion of the remarks of Piers in
regard to his preparations for his journey.'

But these names do not interrupt Piers' remarks about preparations
for his journey. Piers' last allusion to his journey was in 1. 59, twelve
lines before the mention of his wife and children. The lines immediately
preceding the names are an admonition to work. And this admonition
is then emphasised and summarised in the names of Piers' family ' Dame-
Work- when-time-is ' and ' Do -right -so -or -thy -dame -shall -thee -beat.'
There is nothing wrong with the text here ; for this introduction of
remarks about persons and things, which seem quite irrelevant, until
we scrutinize their names, is a favourite trick of our author's. We may
regard it as an ungainly trick ; but that is not the point, for we can
easily parallel it in the A-text. In Passus IV Reason has been
admonishing the King that no wrong should go unpunished :

For nidhim malum the mon mctte** with Inpunitum

And bad nullum bonwn be' irremuneratum. (iv, 126-7.)

^ ne shulde T. H2AS wanting for all this passage, Fi fur part.

2 arn T, other MSS. be, ben, be}>.

3 so omitted TDE, found in all other MSS.
* now omitted TD, foiuid in all other MSS.
5 wyte T : W corrupt : other MSS. write.

^ the mon mette] he may mete TH2D. "^ bomim be] mahim T.

R. W. CHAMBERS 11

What have Nullum Malum, his meeting with Inpunitum and his
remarks to Nullum Bonum to do with Reason's sermon? Nothing:
but putting together the names of these characters we have a sentence
which has every bearing upon Reason's foregoing words. Similarly,
Piers wife has nothing to do with his preceding remarks: but the name
of Piers wife has everything.

IV. The Rearraxged Text compared with the Text

GIVEN IN THE MSS.

Hitherto I have tried to show that, in the passages where the
text is supposed to have been proved to be deranged, the order given
in the MSS. is not impossible : and that therefore the evidence for the
shifted leaf is not of that overwhelmingly strong character which is
necessary, if it is to carry the weight of the argument which has been
built upon it.

It should be enough if the MS. order has been shown to be possible :
it is unreasonable to call upon an author, under pain of being divided
into five, to prove that his arrangement of his matter cannot be
improved. Yet I think that it can further be shown that the MS,
order actually offers fewer objections than do the proposed rearrange-
ments.

First with regard to the lines as to Piers' wife and children.
Piers' family, in virtue of their names, are linked to the admonitions
preceding : and the mention of wife and family brings us naturally to
the Testament. These lines then conclude the admonition and introduce
the will, linking the one to the other, albeit clumsily. Remove them,
and we have a crude transition. And where are we to place them ?
Professor Manly would dismiss them as an expansion of a marginal gloss
— a device which has served the turn of innumerable critics. But the
names cannot have been the marginal glosses of a scribe, for tJiey
alliterate. It is certain that whoever invented the names of wife Work,
daughter Do, and son Suffer meant them to take their place in an
alliterative text. Therefore the lines, if removed at all, must be
placed elsewhere. But to insert them after 11. 89, 90, in the will, is to
cause an interruption. A man does not name himself in the third
person in his will.

It is not denied that the passage, as it stands, is clumsy, though not
more so than many other passages in A. The point is that the removal

12 The Authorship of 'Piers Plowmcm'

of the five lines does not make the passage less clumsy; whilst their
insertion into the will is not so much clumsy as impossible.

And in a somewhat similar way, but on a much larger scale, the
rearrangement of A's text proposed by Dr Bradley, whilst smoothing
away an incoherency of the kind to which A is peculiarly prone,
interferes with and disturbs the actual succession of his thought, as
it develops itself in the vision of the Seven Deadly Sins, of the
Pilgrimage to St Truth, and of Piers the Guide.

The poet's object in these visions is not to give a theologically
accurate picture of the Seven Sins, carefully discriminating and
differentiating. So long as we look for this we shall naturally fail
fully to appreciate him, just as those who look in the Utopia for its
author's picture of a perfect state fail to appreciate Sir Thomas More.
More did not wish to draw a complete political chart of a perfect
republic, nor did the A-poet wish to draw a complete theological chart
of the seven deadly sins. The object of both is the same: in the
language of Erasmus concerning More ' to show the dangers which
threatened the Commonwealth of England ^' The evils from which the
Commonwealth was suffering in the opinion of our j)oet were especially
the rapacity of its upper classes and the laziness of its lower classes. So
much we can gather from the prologue, where most of the people
censured could be placed in the one class or the other. ' Do the duty
of your calling, whatever it may be, and flee from covetousness ' is again
the gist of Passus i. Passus ii — IV are then devoted more particularly
to the corruption of the official classes. In Passus v — vii we return
to idleness, more particularly that of the poor. Here appears Piers
Plowman, who has had no part to play in the earlier vision. For Piers,
as is shown by his very name, and that of his wife, is the antithesis of
idleness. Piers is here by no means an ideal saint. He jangles with
the ribald priest, ' in pure tene,' he even rends the precious charter
sent by Truth Himself Piers knows the way to Truth, not because he
is impeccable, but because he has worked honestly-.

Clene consience and wyt kende me to his place,
And dede me to sure hym to .serue bym for euere ;

^ Letter to Ulrich von Hutten, ccccxlvii.

2 This is well brought out iu Gascoigue's Steel Glass, where all the faults of the
ploughman are described in full :

I see you Peerce, my glasse was lately scowrde.

But for they feed with frutes of their gret paines

Both king and knight and priests in cloyster pent.

Therefore I say that sooner some of them

Shall scale the walles which leade us up to heaven, etc.

R. \V. CHAMBERS 13

Bojje to sowen and to setten^ while I swynke mijte.

I haue ben his folewere al j^is fourty wyiiter,

Bojje sowen his seed and sewide hise bestis,

And kepide his corn and cariede it to house,

Dyken and dehien and do what he hi3te,

Wipinne and wi))Oute waytide his p/-otit. (A vi, 30.)

For the way to Truth, on which Piers can guide the pilgrims, is the
way of honest labour. Piers' guidance of the pilgrims actually consists
in setting them all to work, and with Hunger's help in reducing even
Waster to submission (Passus vii). Then Truth gives his pardon to
all who have laboured in their vocation (Passus viii).

Hence it is not so strange that the A poet should have given no
description of Lust; it is quite possible that he never even pretended to
give a description of Wrath. This would indeed be ' a degree either of
thoughtlessness or of stupidity not easily conceivable^ ' if our poet's end
had been to describe the Seven Sins. But it is only his means towards
an end; the end is a statement of the economic and social problems
of his day. On these Lust or Wrath'' have little bearing. Avarice is
more to the point, for it affords a picture of the regrater: Gluttony
gives an opening to describe workmen ' doing their deeds ill ' and
driving forth the long day in the tavern. Finally comes Sloth, and it
is appropriate that Sloth should be the sinner who vows to seek Truth ;
for the seeking of Truth, we have seen, is the way of work. Robert,
too, will polish his pike and go on his pilgrimage, and a thousand of
men throng together and cry for grace to seek Truth. The palmer, a
representative of the class of ' lubbers loth to work,' cannot tell the way
to Truth.

Then after these four idlers, of different types, Gluttony, Sloth,
Robert and the Palmer, Piers is introduced. He has laboured, and so
he knows the way without needing any man to guide him. In doing
his ordinary work ' setting and sowing ' these forty winters, he has all
the time been serving Truth.

Piers is the antithesis of the loafers who precede him : and when he
says :

To penawnce and to pilgz-^mage wile I passe with o\)ere.
For ))i I wile, er I wende, do wryte my bequest,

1 (to) sowen and (to) setten, from V: aUo in EIDgWDLAsH. TH^ have sowe his
seed : RU uowe and si|je.

2 Bradley in the Athnucum, April 21, 1906.

■* B, of course, adds a Confession of Wrath. In accordance with the practice of both
A and B, this is no mere account of an individual wrathful man. It is a protest against
the hatred shown by members of the religious orders towards one another : and more
particularly against that great scandal of the fourteenth century, the feud of the friar with
other orders of the clergy.

14 The Authorship of 'Piers Plowman'

we might expect that his Testament would be a contrast to the con-
fessions of those who have slacked, whilst he has worked. And in fact
we do find an exact parallelism between the confession of Sloth, and
the Testament of Piers. Sloth has failed in his service to God, and
vows amendment : Piers has paid his church dues and can claim his
reward. Sloth has ' won wickedly ' : Piers has ' won truly.' Sloth will
make good ' though his livelihood lacks ' ' ere he wends hence ' : but as
for Piers ' though he die to-night ' his debts are quit, he paid ' ere he
went to bed.'

And wi)) ])e residue and ))e reniena^iut, be ^e roode of Chestre,
I wile seke Treu})e er I se Rome ^ !

says Sloth : and Piers echoes the words

And wil> ])e residue and j)e remena?nit, be ]>e, rode of Chestre,
I wile worsshipe >ere wi}) Treu))e in my lyue.

Dr Bradley's rearrangement, on the other hand, separates the vow
to seek Truth by nearly one hundred lines from the thronging crowds
who cry for grace to seek him : it adds to the Confession of Avarice
lines which, as has been urged by Professor Brown and Mr Knott ^, are
not only unnecessary there, but actually inconsistent.

Finally, it must be remembered that evidence which might be
sufficient to show a probability of interpolations, or of lost or shifted
leaves, in a one MS. text, is insufficient in the case of a text preserved
in thirteen MSS., which seem to have remarkably few common errors,
and the archetjrpe of which, if not actually the author's holograph, was
probably not far removed therefrom. When Prof Manly suggests that
11. 71-4 of Passus vii are a scribe's gloss, which has been absurdly
introduced into the text in a wrong position, it must be remembered
that such a corruption postulates time and a succession of copyists.
This difficulty is avoided by Dr Bradley's theory as to the origin of the
' Sloth ' confusion ; that the mistake was made by the shifting of a
page of the author's rough notes before they were transcribed by the
scrivener into a formal book. But are we justified in assuming that the
poem, when it received its author's final inspection, was still in the form
of notes on odd sheets of paper or parchment ? The Commedia made
Dante lean for many years ^: Troilus did not produce this effect on

1 Dr Bradley has suggested that these Hnes may be spurious. But there seems nothing
to support this supposition. Spurious hnes do not appear to be veiy common in the
A-text : they seem to be confined ahnost invariably to one MS. or class of MSS., and
the reason for their insertion is generally obvious.

2 The Nation (New York), March 25, 1909 ; May 13, 1909.
^ Par. XXV, 3.

R. W. CHAMBERS 15

Chaucer, yet he spent many a day in correcting his scrivener's errors :
Caxton, till age made him less industrious and more prone to mechanical
devices, seems to have regarded it as naturally his business himself to
transcribe his own works \ Yet Dante, Chaucer, and Caxton were all
busy men of affairs. Are we juetified in taking for granted that an
obscure and probably poor writer, like the A-poet, employed the
luxurious methods of modern journalism, left the publication of his
poem entirely to the scrivener, and never then or in later years read it
through again ? For, had he done so, then ex hypothesi he would have
noticed the mistake and had it put right. Though some erroneous
transcripts might have got about, the corrected copies would also have
been multiplied, and it is hardly likely that our very large collection of
A-text MSS. would have failed to include some descendants of the
corrected copies.

Of course it is possible that our author sent his work in loose sheets
to the scrivener, and never looked at it again : it is stated that
Dr Johnson sent Rasselas to the printer sheet by sheet, as it was
finished, and never re-read it. But in Rasselas Dr Johnson, writing
for money under extreme pressure, put into a certain form thoughts
which he would probably have preferred to express through another
medium. In Piers Plotuman we have a book which can only have been
written because its author loved to write it ; a book which we should
guess had ' made its author lean,' stamped to an extraordinary degree
with his character and mode of thought. That that mode of thought
was not perfectly orderly and coherent I have tried briefly to show. Is
an explanation quite satisfactory, which, in order to excuse our poet of
neglect of strict order and coherency in one passage, necessarily accuses
him of neglect of his whole poem ? Of the two possibilities is not this
last neglect the more improbable ?

It must be remembered that the question is not whether, on the
whole, the text would make better sense if rearranged. Where MS.
evidence is equally divided we can, of course, only choose the most
plausible arrangement. But here there is no particle of MS. evidence
in favour of a rearrangement of the received text. The proposed
rearrangements are pure conjecture. Unless the advantage to be gained
by the rearrangement is very great indeed a cautious editor would not,
under these circumstances, accept it; still less found a theory upon it.

Only (1) if the MS. reading absolutely refuses to make sense, and

'■ The Recuycll of the Ilistonjes of Troye, sub Jin.

16 The Authorship of 'Piers Plowman'

(2) if the proposed rearrangement of the text is so convincing that it
has only to be stated to be at once recognized as right, do we get that
certainty which is necessary, before we can build argument as to
authorship upon conjectural emendation.

I have tried to prove that the first of these conditions is not the
case : that the second is not the case is proved by the fact that those
who are most convinced that some confusion has taken place are quite
unable to agree wherein the error exactly consists. Three rearrange-
ments are suggested : that of Prof Manly, followed by Mr Knott ; that
of Dr Bradley, followed by Dr Furnivall and M. Jusserand; and that
arrived at independently by Prof Brown and Mr Hall. And each critic
finds serious difficulties in the rearrangements suggested by the others.

Even Prof. Manly's supporters must, I think, allow that the element
of certainty, which is necessary before we can use the 'shifted leaf
theory as a basis on which to build other theories, is wanting. We
must therefore turn to the other arguments brought forward by
Prof. Manly.

V. B'S MISUNDERSTANDINGS OF A.

Many instances are alleged by Prof Manly, in the Cambridge
History, in which B has misunderstood A, and C has misunderstood B.
These cases have been examined by M. Jusserand in Sections v and vii
of his reply. Jusserand here does not accept Manly's data whilst
denying his conclusions, but denies data, conclusions and all. For the
most part, therefore, it is enough to refer the reader to M. Jusserand's
very sufficient comments. In view of Prof Manly's reply, one or two
supplementary points not raised by M. Jusserand may perhaps be added.

(1) ' B has misunderstood A, or spoiled his picture,' Prof Manly
asserts, in B ii, 21, where 'Lewte is introduced as the leman of the
lady Holy Church and spoken of as feminine.' M. Jusserand has
shown that there is no incompatibility between Lewte being feminine
and also being called a lemman. But this hardly needed proof Prof
Manly's point, as he explains in his reply \ is 'that here the leman of
a lady is spoken of [by B] as feminine ' and that this involves ' a spoiling
of the conception of A, and a misunderstanding or forgetfulness of it.'

In A Holy Church is certainly represented as a lady: but that B
even momentarily forgot or misunderstood this there is nothing to show.

1 Modern Philologij, vii, IIG (1909).

R. W. CHAMBERS 17

For elsewhere B uses leman in a context which shows that he does not
wish to emphasize any difference of sex. In xiv 298-9 he interprets
' paupertas sanitatis mater ' as

moder of helthe, a frende in alle fondynges,
And for J)e land euere a leche, a lemman of al clennesse.

And that in the ' Holy Church ' passage leman is used in a similar
broad and general sense, simply as ' beloved,' is proved by the context.
B cannot have intended to make Lewte the ' betrothed ' or ' sweetheart '
of Holy Church, for onbj ten lines loiuer he has allotted tJiat j^cirt to
Mercy and the merciful. God, says the lady Holy Church,

hath 30ue me mercy • to marye with my-self ;
And what man be merciful • and lelly me lone,
Schal be my lorde and I his leef • in ))e hei3e heuene.

It seems hardly possible for Prof Manly to contend that B, who
added these lines, meant Holy Church to be masculine. If he did, then
the self-contradiction in B is as great as the contradiction between
A and B : and whatever force the argument has to prove that A is not
B is equally valid to prove that B is not B.

(2) In B the rat describes ' segges in the City of London' Avho
wear collars : these segges C explains as gret syy^es. Therefore C
cannot. Prof Manly urges, have been B, who by segges meant dogs.
But if so, what is the point of the mention of the City of London ?
One need not go up to London to see a dog wearing a collar ^ Surely
the reference is to the official dress of great city magistrates, — mayors
and masters, knights and squires : and the humour lies in the rat's
taking these officials for Avhat they are, dangerous beasts, who prey
upon the commonwealth. Only by this interpretation can we get any
sense out of in the City of London, or any humour out of the whole
passage.

It is unfortunate that in the Cambridge History space did not allow
of Prof Manly developing his argument fully : for in many cases it is
not clear wherein the supposed misunderstanding of A by B or B by C
lies. And in no case has Prof Manly attempted more than dogmatic
assertion. What the assertion is worth can only be estimated by
comparing minutely the texts of A and B. There is not space to
so examine all the alleged misunderstandings. The following instance
selected for examination is certainly not unfair to Prof Manly ; it is
a point on which he has throughout laid special stress.

^ Representatious of dogs wearing collars are exceedingly common on sepulchral
monuments of the late lith century all over England.

M. L. R. v. .2

18 The Authorship of ' Piers Floivman'

' In II, 74 tf. B does not understand that the feoffment covers
precisely the provinces of the seven deadly sins ; and, by elaborating the
passage, spoils the unity of the intention \'

Here is the passage in A :

To be present in pride for youere or for'^ riche,

Wi)) l^e Erldom of enuye for euere to laste,

Wi]) alle ]>e lordsshipe of leccherie in^ leng{)e and in brede,

Wi)) l^e kingdom of coueitise I croune hem to gidere,

And al pe lie of vsurie and auarice pe faste*;

Glotonye and grete of)es 1 gyue hem to gidere,

Wi]) alle \>e delitets of lust l^e deuil for to serue ;

In al pe aeignoune of sloujje I sese^ hem togidere.

This is clearly meant to cover the seven sins, though it does not do
so, as Manly asserts, 'precisely': for Wrath is missing. Avarice and
Gluttony are expanded by coupling with them their respective allied
sins, Usury and Great Oaths.

Prof Manly supposes the omission of Wrath to be due to the error
of an early copyist. But it is begging the question to first emend a
text into precision, against the evidence of all the MSS., and then to
base an argument upon the precision of the text so emended. And
even the addition of Wrath does not make A's enumeration of the sins
* precise.' Prof Manly has not noticed that his ' careful artist ' has
counted Lust twice over. This is concealed by a textual corruption
in the Vernon MS., but a collation of all the MSS. shows it to be
indisputably the case.

Turning to B, we find that he has elaborated the passage by the
addition of many other allied vices : so far however from having failed
to see that the charter covers the provinces of the seven sins (1) he has
added Wrath, and (2) in adding details of cognate sins has been careful
to put each under the appropriate head of the Deadly Sin from which
it springs. B, in fact, shows more care to classify his sins properly
here than A does when he is avowedly dealing with the Seven Sins in
Passus V.

Let us take the text exactly as it stands in B :

To be prj-nces in prjde • and pouerte to dispise.

Under Pride we rightly have, as one of its branches. Despite, which
is mentioned as a branch of pride both in the Parsons Tale, and (under

1 Cambridge History, ii, 32 : see also Modern PJnlology iii (Jau. 1906) : vii, 121 (July
1909).

2 o\,er THa or for EUEIDgWDLVH.
^ leccherie in V omits.

* faste TKUDg false DVH. Corrupt or wanting EIH2WL.

5 sese, ceese, dr. KUEIH2DgWLVH. set TD. As wanting throughout.

R. W. CHAMBERS 19

the name of onwor\>nesse) in the Ayenhite of Itnuit. The three branches

of this Despite, according to the Ayenhite, are (1) disesteeming others,

(2) dishonouring others, (3) disobeying others.

To bakbite and to bosten • and bere fals witnesse,
To scorne and to scolde • and sclaundere to make.

Backbiting, bearing false ivitness, and making slander are only forms
of disesteeming others. To scorn and to scold is to dishonour and insult
others (' ]>e vifte out-kestinge of \>e ilke stocke is scorn ' says the
Ayenbite, under Arrogance the third bough of Pride). Boasting clearly
comes under Pride: 'Avauntour...he that bosteth of the harm or of the
bountee that he hath doon ' comes second on the Parson's list of those
guilty of Pride ; yelpingge (boasting) is the fourth twig of the third
bough of Pride in the Ayenbite.

Vnboxome and bolde • to breke pe ten hestes.

Inohedience is placed first among the branches of Pride in the
Parsons Tale : to think ' hou uelezi|?e ]>o\x best y-by onbopani ' comes
in the Ayenbite under the second section of Pride.

To break the ten hests. ' He that disobeyeth for despyt to the
comandements of God' is placed first in the Parsons Tale on the
list of the Proud. And rightly, for Pride is ' the general rote of alle
harmes ; for of ]?is rote springen certein braunches, as Ire, Envye,
Accidie or Slewthe, Avarice or Coveitise, Glotonye, Lecherye.'

Every one of the sins added by B under Pride is then strictly

appropriate to that sin.

And >e Erldome of enuye • and Wratthe togideres,
With ])& chastelet of chest • and chateryug-oute-of-resou7i.

Chiding and chattering rightly come under Wrathe : ' Vor huanne

wre]7e arist betuene tuay men : |^er is uerst chidinge ' {Ayenbite, p. 30).

Both are specifically mentioned under Wrath in the Parson's Tale :

' Chydinge and reproche ' (§ 42), ' ydel wordes, langlinge, laperie ' (§ 47).

If it is objected that we have already had these sins under Pride, that

is to be ascribed, not to the much abused B-poet, but to MedisEval

Theology : the same repetition comes in the Parsons Tale, where

Jangling is enumerated under both heads^ (§§ 24, 47).

The counte of coueitise • and alle ))e costes aboute

That is vsure and auarice • alle I hem graunte

In bargaines and in brokages • with al pc borglie of theft.

1 Professor Manly has himself pointed out that 'the Haven Sins were treated as
tempers or tendencies out of which particular misdeeds arovf. And, naturally, the same
deed, the same sin, may originate in any one of several difierent tempers or tendencies.'
Undoubtedly. Yet the whole case for the 'missing leaf in Passus v and for the 'mis-
understanding' here rests upon unwillingness to recognize this.

20 TJie Authorship of ^ Piers Ploivman^

The two first subdivisions of ' auarice ' or ' couaytyse ' in the Ayenhite
are Usury and Theft^. The eighth is Chaffer^, which is only another
way of expressing Bargains and Brocages.

And al Ije lordeship of lecherye • in lenthe and in brede

As in werkes and in wordes • and waitynges with eies,

And in wedes and in wisshynges • and with ydel thou3tes

Ther as wille wolde • and werkmanship failleth.

Glotonye he gaf hem eke • and grete othes togydere,

And alday to drynke • at dyuerse tauernes,

And there to iangle and to iape • and iugge here euene cristene,

And in fastyng-dayes to frete • ar ful tyme were.

And |)anne to sitten and soupen —

The coupling of Great Oaths with Gluttony may seem strange ; but

A had done it in liis enumeration. B can then hardly be charged here

with spoiling A's picture. Yet, indeed, evil speaking of all kinds goes

with gluttony as being a sin of the mouth {Ayenhite, p. 50). To jangle

and jape and judge one's fellow Christians comes in then quite rightly

here.

— til slepe hem assaille
And breden as burgh-swyn • and bedden he«i esily.
Tyl sleuth and slepe • slyken his sides
And jjanne wanhope to awake hym so....

It will hardly be denied that both Sleep and Wanhope come under
Sloth. Both are mentioned under this head in the Ayenhite (pp. 31, 34)
and the Parson's Tale (§ 56).

B then, in elaborating the passage, has arranged the faults under
the heading of the respective deadly sin ; and he has completed A's
imperfect enumeration by adding Wrath. How can it be stated that
' B does not understand that the feoffment covers precisely the provinces
of the seven deadly sins,' and that we have instead 'an unsystematic
general collection of all the sins the author could think of ? The sins
overlap, but not more so than in Chaucer's or Dan Michel's, or, what is
more to the point, in B's own account of the Seven Sins. When Prof.
Manly supposes ■' that in adding, among other sins, Unhuxomhood,
Boasting, Scorning, and Bearing of False Witness, B cannot have
understood that he was dealing with Pride, he must surely have
overlooked the fact that these very sins are mentioned by B in
Passus XIII 276 — 313 as subdivisions of Prided

1 pe uerste is gauelinge. \>e oj^er J^yeffje (p. 3i).

2 pe e3ten(le bo3 of auai'ice is chapfare (p. 44).
^ Modern Pliilology, vii, 121.

* As to Dan Michel's classification see note at end.

R. W. CHAMBERS 21

VI. Differences of Dialect between A, B and C.

Prof. Manly concludes his case, ' a careful study of the MSS. will
show that between A, B and C there exist dialectal differences incom-
patible with the supposition of a single author. This can be easily
tested in the case of the pronouns and the verb are^.'

But this is as if one should go into an asylum for the blind, and tell
one's hearers that they can easily see a thing for themselves.

For, of the 47 MSS. only four are in print : the Vernon MS. of the
A-text, the Laud and Trinity MSS. of the B-text, the Phillipps MS. of
the C-text. The twelve unprinted MSS. of the A-text differ widely in
point of dialect from the printed text, and from one another — we have a
Southern text, a Northern text, and many varieties of Midland, besides
texts which it is difficult to classify. The B and C texts also vary in
the different MSS. The four printed texts were selected for publication
on grounds quite other than those of dialect : indeed, in one case, that
of the Vernon A-text, it has always been recognized that the dialect is
the scribe's, not the author's : ' the dialect in Avhich the poem was first
written has been modified by a Southern scribe, whence the numerous
Southern forms^.'

How then is the reader to test Prof. Manly's statement ?

Fortunately Prof. Skeat has printed a passage of eleven lines from
all the MSS., and as it happens, at any rate in the A and B MSS., these
lines are most extraordinarily rich in those forms which Prof. Manly
has suggested as tests ^

1 Camh. Hist., vol. ii, p. 34.
" Skeat in CI. Press edit., vol. ii, p. Ixvi.

^ In the C text the earlier portion of the passage was so changed as to be useless for
the test proposed. A comparison shows :

'found in thirteen A-MSS., er in one

1. 1. ben {he\>, he, &c.)
1. 5. are {cirv, aren, &c.)
1. 7. thei (they, &c.)

sixteen B-MSS., are in one
C wanting

ten A-MSS., be)i in four
all seventeen B-MSS.
C wanting
all fourteen A-MSS.
all thirteen B-MSS.
C wanting
( ,, ,, twelve A-MSS., \>iiim in one

1.8. Item (hijm, &c.) -I ,, ,, fifteen B-MSS. , f/it'm in one

[ „ „ all C-MSS.

tliirtecn A-MSS., \>air in one

1. 9. here (hire, heore, &c.) -I ,, ,, sixteen B-MSS., theyre in one

all C-MSS.

ten A-MSS., he in four
1. 10. thei (they, thay, Ac.) -j ,, „ all seventeen B-MSS.

thirteen C-MSS., hy in one.

22 The Authorship of 'Piers Plowman^

It would appear, if lue dare generalize from these eleven lines (which,
of course, it would be rash to do), that the A-poet used are and he
indiscriminately, and preferred they in the nominative ^ hem and here in
the oblique cases. In this he seems to have been followed by B and C.
Nor is it only when they have A before them that B and C adhere to
this rule. If we can take the Laud and Phillipps MSS. as fair texts of
B and C respectively, we find that in the new matter which they add^
both follow the same practice. So that, to judge by the only passage
in which, at present, the ordinary student can test it, Prof. Manly 's
dialect formula breaks down utterly. As to the results of a more
detailed examination, Mr Grattan, who during our collation of the
different A-MSS. has devoted particular attention to points bearing on
the question of dialect, informs me that he has, so far, found nothing to
substantiate Prof. Manly 's statement in the smallest degree.

So complicated, and often so contradictory, are the dialectal forms
in the different A-MSS. that months, or years, of study would be
necessary before any man could master them fully. An attempt to
classify them could hardly fill less than three or four hundred pages,
and the compiler of those pages would be lucky indeed if his results
satisfied either himself or others. For first he must fix the dialect of
the different MSS. which lie behind our extant copies. From these
hypothetical texts he must construct the dialect of the MS. from
which they all derive. Yet this archetype may be far removed, as
Prof. Manly realizes, from the original author's autograph. By the same
hjrpothetical processes the student must then formulate the dialect of
his original B-text. He must then decide whether the difference
between his theoretical A-dialect and his theoretical B-dialect is too
great to allow of their being both the speech of one and the same man,
allowing for an interval of fifteen years. Given two specified texts, it
would often be impossible to decide this. It will be hard indeed to
prove inconsistency when we have to work upon two theoretical texts,
each thrice removed from any sure basis of evidence.

1. 7. Four B-MSS. are here defective and have no pronoun,

1. 8. The Lincoln's Inn MS., Ashburnham cxxx and Bodley 851 are corrupt or
wanting here.

I have followed Skeat's enumeration of A B and C-MSS.

Many of the MSS. are compounded from two texts, and in strict accuracy should not
be counted in comparative statistics of the different texts.

^ Probably not to the exclusion of hy; hy may be the right reading in 1. 10 of the
extract, for the four MSS. supporting it {he) are all excellent ones. Hy seems to be
necessitated by the alliteration in C xii, 216, and is found elsewhere in C.

^ Both are and forms of he occur everywhere in B and C. The alliteration seems to
show that in B xii, 195 (and perhaps also in B xiv, 222) ben was the original form.

R. W. CHAMBERS 23

This most difficult task Prof. Manly has undertaken. He has
announced his conclusion, but so far he has quoted in support of this
conclusion the evidence of one line only (A in, 30).

In his answer to M. Jusserand, who dwells, most justly, on the
contradictory nature of the evidence of the MSS., Prof Manly defends
his statement thus :

' If we find that in B she is, according to the evidence of all extant
MSS., the form of this pronoun in the source from which they are all
derived, and that in A heo is, according to the evidence of all extant
MSS., the corresponding form, we are justified in concluding that, in all
probability, the authors of the two versions differed as to the form of
this pronoun \'

But there might be considerable difference between the two versions
without that difference being ' incompatible with the supposition of a
single author.'

For the theory which Prof Manly is setting himself to disprove is
that of a William [LanglandJ connected with Shipton in Oxfordshire
and Malvern in Worcestershire, both places bordering on, if not actually
within, the area of Southern influence, who shortly before or shortly
after writing his A version came up to London ; and subsequently
rewrote it after a lapse of fifteen and again of thirty years. Ex hypothesi
we should expect certain dialectal differences between A, B, and C
We should expect the sprinkling of Southern or Western peculiarities
to be most prominent in A, whilst we should expect B and C to
approximate more nearly to the language of Chaucer.

Nothing would be proved if it were shown that A and B alike use
both are and he, but in different proportions : or that whilst both A and
B use they, here, hem, A has also a sprinkling of hie forms, which become
much rarer or even disappear in B and C : or that A can be proved to
have used heo here and there, whilst B used it rarely or not at all.

But, in point of fact, does the evidence of all the extant MSS. prove
that A used heo and B s//e ? Prof Manly does not assert that it does,
but merely what would follow if it did.

Let us take the first instance where the form occurs in the A-text.

I was a ferd of hire face, Jjei} heo fair were,

And seide, ^Ie/-cy, ma dame, what is |)is to mene ?

pe tour of ))e toft, qi/a|> heo, treupe is j)e/*e inue.

In this passage heo is the reading of four A-MSS.-, she, sho, che, of eighth

1 Mod. Phil. VII, 124. - TLVH.

* RUEIH-jDgWD : W corrupt in one line : As xvantint).

24 The Authorship of 'Piers Plowman'

Nor is this an unfair example. In many of the A-MSS. she is used
almost or quite exclusively. This does not of course prove that heo was
not the original form in A : but it was hardly such ' according to the
evidence of all the extant MSS.'

The readings of one line only are quoted by Prof. Manly in support
of his thesis regarding the dialect of the MSS. ; and then in order to
show how B, whilst usually altering A's heo to she, has been occasionally
compelled to keep it, in order to preserve the alliteration.

' In A III, 30,' says Prof. Manly, ' all the MSS. have

Hendeliche thenne heo • bebihte hem the same.'

But they have not: heo is here the reading of five A-MSS. only^: sche,
sho is the reading of eight-.

The corresponding line of the B-text, Prof. Manly says, 'has the
same form heo, in spite of the fact that slie is the regular form in B for
the feminine pronoun. Three MSS., indeed, COB, have she, but they
form a small sub-group, and she is clearly due to a correction in their
immediate source.'

Now, whether or not COB are rightly described as ' a small sub-
group,' they certainly do not stand alone in reading she here. For
this is also the reading of the two other Cambridge University MSS.
LI. 4. 14 and Gg. 4. 31 ; of the Corpus Coll. Oxford MS. ; of Cotton
Calig. A XI, and of the Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 10574. The Crowley text,
founded upon a lost MS., also reads she ; but perhaps this should not be
counted. We have eight MSS., therefore, which favour the reading she
against four^ which have the reading heo.

The reason of these errors is clear. The Vernon text of A, printed
by Skeat, reads heo : and as no variants are quoted in the critical notes
Prof. Manly has, not unnaturally, assumed that all the MSS. agree in
this reading. Similarly in the B-text, only COB are quoted by
Skeat as differing from the Laud reading. But it must be remembered
(1) that since, and largely in consequence of, Skeat's editions, many
important new MSS. have been discovei'ed ; (2) that owing to the wide

1 TH.LVH. 2 EUEIDgWDAs.

^ Laud 581, Kawl. Poet. 38, Ton. Coll. Camb. B. 15. 17, Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 35287
(formerly Ashburnham 129). All statements as to the B-MSS. are subject to the limitation
that the former Ashburnham 130, and Phillipps 8252 (both uncollated), have not yet been
seen by either Mr Grattan or myself: otherwise the readings quoted are from our own
examination of the MSS. Ashburnham 130 was not, as is generally supposed, acquired
by the British Museum, and information as to its present position would be -welcomed.
The Yates Thompson MS. (now at Newnham) is defective here.

R. W. CHAMBERS 2o

variations between the different A-MSS. it was not possible to note, in
the collations, any but the more important variants : synonyms such as
ac and but^, and sche and heo, were not always noted ; (3) only those
MSS. which seemed most important from the point of view of fixing
the text were collated : and the MS. which offers the best readings is
by no means necessarily the best from the point of view of dialect.

It follows that work upon the dialect of Piers Plowman should be
based upon a new and minute examination of the MSS. To Prof Manly
belongs the credit of having realized the necessity for a more elaborate
collation of the A-MSS., and of having caused such an examination to
be made. Had Mr Grattan and I known of this we should not have
begun our work. We are glad to take this opportunity' of acknowledging
that to Mr Knott, who undertook the collation of the A-MSS. at the
instance of Prof Manly, belongs the credit of having been the first to
examine minutely all these MSS.: a task which, thanks to Prof. Skeat's
labours, is now a comparatively easy and straightforward one.

But Prof Manly does not claim that his views as to dialect were
based upon Mr Knott's collations, which have not yet been published.
His assertion that his conclusions ' can be easily tested ' seems to
exclude the supposition of their being based upon any private or
exclusive information. And, though we all know how fatally easy it is
to make mistakes in collation, surely Prof. Manly is not the man to go
wrong eight times out of thirteen, on the question whether heo or she
is the reading of a specified line, if he had before him collations of
the MSS.

But if Prof Manly's view is based only upon published documents,
then it is based almost exclusively upon Vernon ; for, as has been
shown above, the collations appended by Skeat to Vernon are not
minute enough for dialectal investigation. And Vernon is admittedly
an unsafe guide in matters of dialect.

No doubt Prof Manly will ultimately defend his view of the dialect
after an examination of all the MSS. Yet this will be but Jedburgh
Justice, if, as seems to be the case, he had arrived at his conclusions
before examining the evidence.

1 See Introduction to Skeat's edition of the A-text, p. xxix.

26 Hie Authorship of ' Piers Plowman'

VII. Problems of the Texts.

Prof. Manly also draws attention to metrical and alliterative
differences between A, B and C\ But here again we are very much
at the mercy of the MSS. Rosenthal long ago formed elaborate lists
of all exceptional verses in A, showing how they were altered and
corrected in B and C^. But in a large number of these instances the
peculiarity is not that of A, but simply that of the Vernon MS.: the
line is to be found in the great majority of A-MSS. in the same form
in which it is given in B. Any statistics of metre or alliteration are
without value, until we have before us full collations of all the MSS.

The same answer applies to Prof Manly 's statement that B took
over 'variant readings of the A-text' unchanged from the MS. of A
used as a basis. If this can be proved, it will certainly be a very strong
argument. But the more the MSS. are examined the more probable
does it seem that these variants from the received text of A, adopted
by B, are, in fact, the true readings. That this is so in the majority
of cases seems hardly to admit of dispute.

Of course it is conceivable that, when all the evidence has been
sifted, a number of instances in which B has adopted an inferior reading
will be left over, sufficient to support, if not to prove. Prof Manly's
theory. Yet the utmost caution is necessary here, lest we should make
the writers of the B and C versions responsible for what, after all, are but
the errors of their scribes. For no B-MS., not even the famous and
excellent Laud 581, can be regarded as representing the original B-text
with anything like complete accuracy. Even when supported by the
great majority of the other MSS., Laud 581 is sometimes wrong. For
example, in the scene of the Harrowing of Hell, Christ claims that He,
the King of Kings, may save the wicked from death, since, if an earthly
king comes

There ]>e feloun thole sholde deth or otherwyse,

Lawe wolde, he 3eue hym lyf, if he loked on hym. (B xviii, 380-1.)

deth or othertuyse, the reading of Laud and the received text, can
hardly be right ; for the point is that even the extreme penalty may be
remitted by a king. The right reading is obviously that of the C-text
de]> d\>er luwise (justice, execution). This is the reading of only three

1 Camhr. Hist, of Eng. Lit., vol. ii, p. 32. - Anglia, i 414 (1878).

R. W. CHAMBERS 27

B.-MSS., whilst Laud's corrupt reading has the support of ten\ It
does not follow, then, that Laud's reading is necessarily right, even when
supported by the great bulk of the MS. evidence.

Numerous and good as the B-MSS. are, their close agreement may
be due to their being accurate transcripts of one, not always quite
accurate, archetype. To arrive at the original B we must supplement
the evidence of the extant MSS. by the evidence derived from C. For C,
whether or not he was identical with B, must have had before him an
exceedingly early MS. of B.

Two instances will serve to show how necessary caution is, in arguing
as to B's textual corruption of A, or C's textual corruption of B. In
A Pro. 41 some A-MSS. speak of beggars with bags hretfid or hredful
ycratnmed, another of beggars whose bags with bred fidl he cromed.
The old rule, that the harder reading is to be preferred, would lead us
to suppose hretfid (hredful) right ; for this would easily be corrupted
into of hread full, whilst the reverse process is hardly credible. A, then,
almost certainly wrote bretful (hredful). The B-MSS. are unanimously
in favour of of bread full ^. It might be argued that 'the B-reviser'
had before him a MS. of A with this reading, and took it over into his
revised text. But when we come to the C-text we find the original
reading hretful reappearing there. The advocates of separate author-
ship will have to admit that there was a B-MS. (viz. that used by C as
a basis) which had the reading hretfid ; for the same line of argument
which led us in the first place to decide that hretfid in A could not be
corrupted from of hread full again applies here. Of bread full is not,
then, a genuine B-reading at all, but a very early B corruption, inherited
by all extant B-MSS., but not belonging to the original B. Hence no
argument can be drawn from it.

So with regard to C. Perhaps the best known textual variant in C
is that in the second line of the Prologue

Y sho}) me in-to shrobbis

where B has, of course, shroudes.

It might be argued that shrohbes is merely a scribal blunder for
shrowdes or shrowde, for the confusion of 6 and w is frequent and easy.

1 With the limitation, as before, that Ashbnrnham 130 and Phillipps 8252 have not been
examined. dee\> or ooher luwise in the reading of Trin. Coll. Camb. B. 15. 17, followed bxj
Camb. Univ. LI. 4. 14 and Gk- 4. 31. Tlw readinn detb or otherwyse is followed by
Rawl. Poet. 38, Yates Thompson, Corpus Oxf. 201, Cainb. Univ. Dd. 1. 17, Bodl. 814, Brit.
Mus. Add. 10574, Cotton Cal. A. xi. detli ohor elles Brit. Mas. Add. 35287 (formerly
Ashburnham 120), Crowley, ouWr oher wise Oriel 79.

- Corpus Oxf. 201, Rawl. Poet. 38 ivantimj: Bodley 814, Cotton Cal. A. xi, Brit. Mus.
Add. 10574 are here C-MSS.: Ash. 130, Phillii)p8, H252, not seen: the other nine of bred ful.

28 The Authorship of 'Piers Plowman'

If so, C, who adopted such a blunder in the second line of his revision,
could hardly be the original poet. But is shrobbis a genuine C-reading
at all ? It is the reading of all the MSS. collated by Skeat and of
others. But an examination of the uncollated C-MSS. shows five
giving the reading a shroiwle or shroiudes. Shrohhis is then presumably
a corruption of an early MS. of C, from which a large number of the
best C-MSS. derive : but not of the actual C-reviser\

VIII. Style and Views.

There remains the argument as to differences of method and
interests. But what man's methods and interests are absolutely the
same (and it is absolute agreement that is demanded) at 30, at 45, and
at 60 ? If the discrepancies pointed out by Prof Manly under this
head are sufficient to prove anything, then no English author from
before Chaucer to after William Morris can escape being divided into
four or five.

And are the methods and interests of A and B different ? To return
for a moment to the question of A's coherency and B's incoherency.
Prof Manly summarizes a passage in B showing his incapacity for con-
secutive thinking. M. Jusserand replies by summarizing a passage in
A, which, he claims, is equally incoherent. 'Any man's work,' retorts
Prof Manly, ' will appear incoherent in an outline which omits the links
of his thought.' Precisely. But can Prof Manly be certain that he has
not overlooked the links of B's thought ?

As to B being ' incapable of visualizing a group or keeping his view
steady enough to imagine or depict a developing action-' — this is one of
the points on Avhich it is difficult to argue. Many will feel that B has
shown this power, quite as strongly as A, in a number of passages, from
the Rat-Parliament onwards.

1 shrobbis etc, Phillipps 8231, Laud 656, Harl. 2376, Douce 104, Cott: Vesp. B. xvi, Bib.
Eeg. 18 B. XVII, Camb. Univ. Ff. 5. 35, Corpus Coll. Camb. 293, Trin. Coll. Dub. D. 4. 1.,
Camb. Univ. Add. 4325.

shrowdes, Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 35157; Add. MS. 34779 (formerly Phillipps 9056).

a schrowde, Bodl. 814 ; Brit. Mus. Add. 10574 ; Cotton Calig. A. xi.

icantinq Digby 102, Digby 171, Camb. Univ. Dd. 3. 13. Ilchester /s ilh'pible and here an
A-text. Bodley 851 reads schrodus, hut is corrupt a)id here practically a B-text.

Phillipps 8231 has not been seen, but as it has been completely printed by Skeat this
matters less than in the case of the minor MSS. The other readings are quoted from
examination of the MSS. by Mr Grattan or myself. We hope, next year, to print some
notes on the relationship of B and C MSS., especially in passages bearing upon problems
of the A-text.

^ Cambridge History, vol. ii, jd. 32. v

R. W. CHAMBERS 29

Against the fact that a careful study of the ' mental powers and
qualities ' of A and B has convinced Prof Manly that these writers
cannot be identical, we can only note that precisely the same study
has convinced many other students of the exact contrary, and is still
convincing them. Most readers have noticed some tendency towards
a weakening in C : and on this Mr T. Hall has based his most
interesting argument^ as to difference of authorship. But twenty
years ago Skeat anticipated this argument ^ pointing out how the
pedantry of C is already manifest, though less fully developed, in B.

IX. Long Will.

It is not argued that A, B, and C are the same man, but only that
the arguments so far brought forward are insufficient to prove that they
are not. And we have a right to demand strong proof, for there is
strong evidence, both internal and external, for William, if not William
Langland, having been the author of all three versions.

The external evidence has been marshalled by M. Jusserand ; it is
weighty, though its exact value is difficult to gauge. But the internal
evidence is probably more conclusive.

' Long Will,' says Prof Manly, is ' obviously as much a creation of
the Muse as Piers the Plowman.' But it has not been noted that the
A-poet (foreseeing, it may be, the rise of the Higher Criticism, as ' B '
foresaw the fall of the Abbot of Abingdon) has expressly stated that
Will was his very name.

A muchel man, me |)0ii3te, lik to my selue,

Com and callide me be my kyude name.

What art ]>ou, qtta]) I J)0, pat my name knowist 1 (A ix, 61-3.)

The tall stranger is ' Thought.' Thought answers, in part, the

poet's questions as to Dowel, Dobet, and Dubest: but the full answer

can only be given by Wit, to whom Thought accordingly introduces

the poet :

panne pou3t in pat tyme .seide [jis wordis :

Where pat Dowel and Dobet and Dobest be]) in londe,

Here is Wil wolde wyte, 5if Wit cou])e hym teche. (A ix, 116-8.)

If Will is only a ' conventional name ' what does the poet mean by
emphasising it in this way ? Surely he meant something, as Dante

1 Mod. Lang. Rev. Oct. 190B.

2 Clarendon Press edit. 1880, vol. ii, p. xvi.

30 The Authorship of 'Piers Plowman'

meant something when he called attention to his own name, uttered by
Beatrice in the Earthly Paradise :

Quando mi volsi al svion del nome mio,
Che di necessita qui si registra.

' That Will is the name given to the figure of the dreamer by four
and possibly all five of the writers ' is no more ' obvious ' than that
Dante is the name given to the figure of the dreamer by the second of
the three anonymous Florentines who respectively wrote the Inferno,
the P argatorio and the Paradiso. More than a dogmatic assertion
would be necessary to prove either statement. For, before the invention
of the title-page, the surest way in which an author could mark his
work was by introducing his name into the body of it. And if he not
only does this, but expressly insists that it is his very name, then we
have evidence which it will need much to overthrow. The great
majority of the English poets who lived prior to the introduction of
printing, and whose names are known to us, recorded those names in
the text of their poems. Cynewulf, Layamon, Orm, Robert ' of Gloucester,'
Minot, Gower, Chaucer, Hoccleve, Lydgate, Ashby all did so. Where,
as often, the name is put into the mouth of an imaginary character, we
know quite well that the name itself is not imaginary.

Was Dan John as much a creation of the muse as the Host who
demanded a tale from him^ ? Or Hoccleve as the beggar with whom he
conversed-? Or Geoffrey as the eagle which carried him to the House
of Fame ?

It should also be noted that in one place the name Will is used in
a manner incompatible with such a distinction as Prof. Manly seeks to
draw, between the visionary dreamer and the writer who created him :

panne were marchauntis uierye, many wepe for ioye,

And 3af Wille for his writyng wollene clopis,

For^ he coupide ]ms here clause pei couj^e* hym gret mede. (Aviii, 42.)

These lines cannot refer to Will in the vision, who weeps at the
bidding of Repentance, or to the figure who stands behind Piers and
peeps over his shoulder at the charter. Will, in the vision, neither
writes nor copies any charter. The lines have no meaning unless they
mark the name of the turiter of the vision.

We have, then, references to Will as the writer and the seer of the
vision, in each of the two sections of the A-text, which Prof. Manly

1 The Story of Thebes by John Lidgate in Speght's Chaucer lo9S, fol. 370 b.

^ De Regimine Principuin, stanza 267.

3 And for TH2. * 3eue TH..,D. EAs wanting.

R. W. CHAMBERS 31

would attribute to different authors. And in one of these passages the
author incidentally refers to himself as tall, a muchel man.

Turning now to the B-text, we have the famous passage in which
the seer of the vision says

My name is Longe Wille. (B xv, 148.)

Prof. Manly suggests that here Long Will is not an indication of the
author's name : Long Will is ' a popular locution implying long ex-
perience and observation,' just as 'when an American replies to some
statement difficult of belief by saying " I'm from Missouri, you'll have
to show me " it is not safe to infer that the speaker has ever set foot
in Missouri.... This very common locution merely indicates that the
speaker is not of a credulous nature, and thinks that the matter in
point requires proof.' Now, though not from Missouri, I do think that
the matter in point requires proof And proof. Prof Manly quite
frankly admits, he has none. 'I know no other instance of Long Will
with the meaning here suggested.'

In the absence of evidence to the contrary is it rash to assume that
both A and B meant what they said ?

TfzYZ-references in C Prof. Manly does not dispute : and it may be
noted that we have again the reference to the height of the visionary :

Ich am... to long, leyf me, lowe for to stoupe. (C vi, 24.)

It is surely strange that B and C, whose additions, according to the
separators are ' tangential ' and off the point, should have developed
in quite different parts of the poem the hint afforded by A. Or did
A, B and C happen all to be tall men, and all fond of referring to their
height ?

' My name is Long Will,' says one author. We are told it is not.
' My name is Will-,' says another. We are told it is Francis. In each
case we are entitled to ask for the evidence.

Whichever way that evidence be ultimately interpreted, it will not
alter the fact that to Prof. Manly all students of Piers Plotuman are
under a debt second only to that which they owe to Prof Skeat, and
to M. Jusserand. It cannot be denied that he has deserved laudari a
laudato, to be praised by Dr Bradley as having ' initiated a new stage
in the progress of Langland criticism.' But Prof. Manly would be the
last to claim, on this account, that his views should be accepted without
careful scrutiny. This scrutiny he has from the first invited. What
the ultimate verdict will be it is impossible, as yet, to say. Years
1 Mod. Phil. VII, 1. 97, 190'J. * Shakespeare, Sonnets cxxxvi.

32 The Authorship of 'Piers Ploivman'

hence, when all the evidence has been sifted, it may be that Prof.
Manly 's view will be amply supported, and that it will be shown to be
possible, or probable, if not certain, that the B and C revisers were not
identical with the original author. But, at present, this view is but a
theory, and rests for its support upon the following assumptions :

That the metre of B differs from that of A — a statement which, in
the present condition of our texts, it is exceedingly difficult to verify:
that the dialect of B differs from that of A — a statement in support of
which the readings of a single line have, so far, been adduced, which
readings an examination of the MSS. shows to be, in about half the
instances, the exact reverse of what is stated : that A could not have
associated Robert the Robber with Sloth in V, 242, although he has
connected Robert's men with Sloth in Pro. 44-5 ; that he could not
in V, 237 have associated ' wicked winning ' with slackness in returning
things borrowed, although in vii, 91-2 he has associated prompt
return with ' true winning ' ; that he could not have allowed Sloth
and Covetousness to overlap, although he has allowed every one of
his other deadly sins to do so ; that he could not have introduced
an unnecessary character for the sake of the name in vii, 71, although
he has indisputably done so in iv, 126-7; that B, who made Wrath
envious cannot be the same as A, who makes Envy wrathful ; that
B did not understand that the feoffment covered the provinces of the
Seven Sins, although he has, in point of fact, made this clearer than
it was in A; that B could not in ii, 21 have used lemman in the sense
in which he certainly used it in xiv, 299 ; that when B says segges in
London he means dogs anywhere.

R. W. Chambers.

London.

Note. The Ayenhite has been quoted as an authority on the Sins
(pp. 19, 20) because it is convenient for reference. It is, of course,
only a literal and most inaccurate version of the Somme le Rog of
Friar Laurent. (See Varnhagen in Englische Studien, i, 379 — 423 ;
II, 52 — 59.) The Somme has been in part printed by Evers (Erlangen,
1888), but Evers' text begins at a point subsequent to that under
consideration. I have satisfied myself, however, from a comparison of
the French MS. (Cotton, Cleopatra A. 5) that in the passages cited
Dan Michel represents his original fairly : he is indeed more than
usually accurate.

THE AUTHORSHIP OF PIERS THE PLOWMAN

CONTRIBUTED TO
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AND REPRINTED, BY PERMISSION, FOR MEMBERS
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1910

■yC?l

THE AUTHORSHIP OF 'PIERS

THE plowman;

DISCUSSIONS.

The Authorship of 'Piers the Plowman.'

All students of Piers the Plowman, however diverse may be their
opinions on the questions treated in Mr Chambers's article in the January
number of the Revieiv, must, I think, be of one mind in cordially wel-
coming into their field an investigator of such admirable knowledge,
sagacity, and fairness. I had resolved to write no more on the subject
for the present, feeling that little substantial progress can be made
until the text has been settled by scientific criticism ; but as I am one
of those whose conclusions have been so powerfully assailed by Mr
Chambers, it seems to be incumbent on me to say how far I am prepared
to acknowledge the force of his objections, and how far and for what
reasons I remain at present of the same opinion as before.

In the first place, I must frankly admit that I was mistaken in
asserting that the offences of Robert the Robber have no affinity with
the sin of Sloth. It is now clear to me, thanks to Mr Chambers's
excellent demonstration, that a mediaeval writer might, without any
inapprojjriateness, have introduced the lament of the Robber as a
sequel to the confession of Sloth. Although, as Mr Chambers acknow-
ledges, Robert's offences in themselves come under the head of Covetous-
ness, they are the result of habits of idleness, and it is his neglect to learn
an honest trade that renders it impossible for him to make compensation
to those whom he has injured. He does not actually fall into 'wanhope,'
which is the recognised last and fatal stage in the progress of the
slothful, but he is saved from it only by the recollection of the penitent
thief, the standard example for the encouragement of those who are on
the verge of despair. At the same time, it is worth remembering that
in the B-text it is Covetousness, not Sloth, who 'wex into wanhope,'
and would have hanged himself if he had not been ' reconforted ' by
Repentance. It is plain that Robert is meant to represent another and
more desperate variety of the same deadly sin which the preceding
penitent has confessed ; but his character and utterances do not supply
any clear grounds for deciding whether that sin was Covetousness or
Sloth.

We may, however, find an answer to this question in the preceding
lines (A v, 236 — 241). I fully grant that some kind of promise of
restitution might fitly enough conclude the confession of Sloth. But

Discussions 203

the promise that appears in these lines is not so worded as to favour
the view that it was written for that purpose. Mr Chambers rightly
insists that the proper meaning of ' win ' is to gain by one's labour — to
'earn,' as Prof Skeat renders it. For this very reason, the words 'al
that I wikkedliehe won' would more suitably relate to the results of the
mercantile dishonesty to which Covetousness has pleaded guilty, than
to those of such transgressions as in the B-text are laid to the charge
of Sloth. The added words 'seththe I wit hade' point to a life spent
in the deliberate pursuit of gain. It seems to me that 'wicked winning'
is properly characteristic of Covetousness in the special form in which it
manifests itself in the fraudulent tradesman, the usurer, or one who
uses unjustly the opportunities for gain aiforded by some regular calling.
Although the 'Robert's man' is guilty of Covetousness as well as of Sloth,
he belongs not to the tribe of Wynnere, but to that of Wastour.

I think, therefore, that while the lamentation of Robert, taken
by itself, might, with equal appropriateness be placed as a pendant to
the description of Covetousness or to that of Sloth, the entire passage
A V, 236 — 259 would be improved in fitness if it were transferred to
the former position. This was, as is well known, the opinion of C, who
is at any rate a good witness with regard to the ideas of the fourteenth
century, even if he be not, as some able scholars still believe, the original
author himself But the question is not whether C and certain modern
people are right in thinking that a transposition would improve the
poem, but whether it is likely that the present arrangement of the text
is original. Are the reasons for the negative answer sufficiently weighty
to justify us in setting aside the presumption that is rightly held to
exist in favour of a traditional text against a mere conjecture? I think
they are.

On the assumption that 11. 236 — 259 were intended to follow 1. 235,
we are met by a remarkable series of coincidences, which have to be
regarded as purely accidental. First, these lines admittedly come in
very awkwardly in their supposed original context ; and we are to
believe that it is by mere chance that when joined to line 145 the
passage yields a continuous and satisfactory sense. Secondly, while we
might feel only a mild surprise on observing that the poet had omitted
to bring the confession of Covetousness to its needful conclusion in a
promise of restitution, it is very odd that the deficiency should happen
to be just the one which the transposition supplies. Thirdly, the
promise made by Sloth happens to be expressed in language which,
as I have shown, is unbefitting the character ; and it so happens that
if Covetousness and not Sloth were the speaker, this language would
become perfectly accurate. I am unable to believe that these co-
incidences are accidental.

But I must not forget that one of the facts assumed in the preceding
paragraph has been disputed. It has been said, and by scholars whose
opinion I respect, that my proposed transposition does not result in a
satisfactory sequence ; that, in fact, the lines which I would transfer to
the confession of Covetousness are inconsistent with those which they

204 Discussions

are made to follow. Unfortunately I have failed to discover what my
critics mean. Even assuming that the lines 241 — 2 are genuine, I can
perceive no inconsistency. There is some awkwardness, no doubt, in
making the penitent swear by the rood of Chester when he has just
mentioned the rood of Bromholm. But this does not strike me as a
serious difficulty, and it was assuredly not in order to evade it that
I suggested that the two lines might be spurious. I think there are
very good grounds for suspecting them. Let us consider the facts.
The lines in question are as follows :

And with the residue and the remenaunt • bi the rode of Chester !
I schal seche seynt Treuthe • er I sec [or seche] Eome.

In A vii, 93 — 4 Piers the Plowman says :

And with the residue and the remenaunt • bi the rode of Chestre !
I wol worschupe therwith • Treuthe in my lyue.

Now surely this repetition is more than a little surprising. Mr
Chambers suggests that it may have been designed to call attention
to the contrast of character between the speakers in the two passages.
This is more ingenious than satisfactory. My point is that while the
words are perfectly appropriate where they occur in Passus Vil — for the
thrifty Piers knows that there is a 'residue' at his disposal when his
debts are paid — they are quite unsuitable to the penitent (whether his
name be Sloth or Covetousness) who in line 236 has just expressed un-
certainty whether he will have enough even to compensate those whom
he has wronged. If Mr Chambers's conjecture as to the motive of the
repetition were intrinsically likely, one might suppose that the poet
had inserted the two lines in their earlier unfitting place by an after-
thought. But, as is well known, it is a common trick of mediaeval
scribes to interpolate matter taken from a different part of the poem
which they are copying.

It might perhaps be contended that the poet may originally have
written the lines 236 — 259 at the end of the confession of Covetousness,
and afterwards, seeing that some parts of the passage would serve to
supplement his scanty description of Sloth, have hastily removed them
to their present place, without troubling himself to remedy the in-
conveniences resulting from the transposition. To those who are
convinced that the three recensions of the poem come from one hand,
this supposition might prove attractive; it would be exactly in accordance
with their view of the author's methods of composition. It will be
time to discuss the merits of this solution when some one has seriously
advocated it. The hypothesis of a scribal accident is at any rate
simpler.

Although I still consider that the evidence for a dislocation of the
text is conclusive, I must admit that Mr Chambers has done something
to diminish the value of this result as an argument against the unity
of authorship of the three forms of the poem. M. Jusserand found it
possible to accept the hypothesis of transposition, and yet to maintain

Discussions 205

that A, B, and C were the same person. This position will be more
easily tenable now that it has been shown that the present arrange-
ment of the text is one that the author might have been content to
tolerate if he found it in the copy that lay before him when he came to
revise his work. After fifteen years, a writer may well fail to remember
so distinctly all the details of his plan as at once to detect any plausible
alteration of it. The theory of unity of authorship does not necessarily
imply, as some of its advocates suppose, that the elaboration of his
early poem was the main preoccupation of William's life during thirty
years. It may even be regarded as an argument on the conservative
side that the second revision does attempt to remedy some of the faults
caused by the dislocation, and that the final revision returns to the
original order,

I now come to speak of the omission of the confession of Wrath.
Mr Chambers maintains that if we consider the true design of the
author, we shall see that this omission may well have been deliberate.
He thinks that the comparative fulness or slightness of the treatment
of the several sins is proportioned to the relative importance which the
poet assigned to them as causes of the evils of his time. This explanation
might serve to account for the little space given to Pride and Lechery
as compared with Covetousness\ But the very meagre handling of
Sloth, in contrast with the exuberance of imaginative detail in the
description of Gluttony, does not seem equally favourable to Mr
Chambers's view, I suspect that the poet troubled himself very little
about the proportions of his work, but expatiated freely on those
subjects that happened to stimulate his imagination, and dealt more or
less perfunctorily with the rest. A careful re-examination of the
Passus, in the light of Mr Chambers's remarks, has convinced me that
whatever his design may have been, it was intended to be accomplished
by showing all the seven sins in order brought to contrition by the
preaching of Conscience. Accordingly, when I find that in the existing
text Envy shows no penitence, while Wrath does not appear at all, and
that both these defects are accounted for by the supposition either of a
'lost leaf,' or of the 'over-hipping' of a leaf by a scribe, I feel constrained
to conclude that one of these suppositions is right. As I do not accept
Prof Manly's theory of a lost counterfoil after line 285, I see no reason
for preferring either of them to the other.

We have now to consider in what way this result should influence
our judgment on the question of the authorship of the B-revision. If
the reviser had failed to perceive that the confession of Envy was in-
complete, and that that of Wrath was missing, it would be hard indeed
to resist the conclusion that he could not be the original author. That
he has attempted to supply both gaps is, so far, a point in favour of his
identity with the writer of A. On the other hand, although (as the
passage about Gluttony shows) the A-poet was not incapable of being
led astray from strict artistic propriety when lie saw a chance of

1 Perhaps this is too much to concede. The destructive storm, in tlie poet's opinion,
' Was aperteliche for pruide • and for no poynt elles,'

206 Discussions

exercising his gift of humorous description, there is nothing in his
work that would lead one to expect from him the curious irrelevance
of B's confession of Wrath. I do not forget that a man's mental
character may undergo a good deal of change in the course of fifteen
years; but I find great difficulty in conceiving that this passage can
have been written by the original author. A point not to be overlooked
is that the omissions and alterations of the C-text considerably lessen
the inappropriateness of the confession.

I have now dealt, to the best of my ability, with all those parts of
Mr Chambers's paper which are directed against my own published views.
It is not necessary or desirable that I should comment on those of his
arguments to which a reply may be expected from Prof Manly, though
on several points I find myself not precisely agreeing with either side.
On the general question of the authorship of Piei'S the Ploiuman I have
throughout endeavoured to guard myself against making up my mind
too definitely. In spite of certain difficulties, I think that the balance
of probability is in favour of a plurality of authors ; but this is only a
provisional conclusion, and I prefer to abstain from controversy until
textual criticism has provided a secure basis for argument.

I should like, however, to call attention to one piece of external
evidence, the import of which does not seem to have been correctly
apprehended ; the testimony, namely, of John But. It is perfectly
possible that this testimony is worthless : John But may have been
merely guessing in the dark. But it is also possible that he knew
what he was talking about ; and so long as there is no proof of the
contrary, it seems worth while to ascertain precisely what his testimony
amounts to. Now, in the first place, I think the natural inference from
his statement is that his lines were appended to a MS. containing only
the poem of 'Do-wel': that is to say A ix — xii. He indicates that this
poem was the last of the three works written by 'Will,' the others being
'Piers the Plowman' and 'The Field of Folk' (mechel puple). When
he had finished 'that which is here written,' Will died. If John But
was correctly informed, the poems contained in the A-text, though they
are obviously intended to form a continuous whole, must have been
published in three instalments, comprising respectively Passus i — v,
vi — viii, and ix — xii. As to the date at which John But wrote there
is no certain evidence, except that it was before the deposition of
Richard II. The prayer for those who love the king does not prove
that the quarrel between the king and his nobles had already begun ;
but, on the other hand, the prayer might have been uttered by a writer
of the Piers Plowman school (even if his opinions were identical with
those of the author of Mum, Sothsegger) at any time before 1399. But
if I am right in supposing that John But wrote when Will's three
works still circulated separately, it will be more likely that he is to be
placed near the beginning of the reign. It seems clear that he either
did not know of the existence of the B and C texts, or regarded them
as spurious.

Now, as I have said, the testimony of John But may quite possibly

Discussions 207

be worthless ; but it is the earliest piece of external evidence that we
possess, and it will be well not to reject it without consideration. Of
course, if internal evidence clearly demonstrates that A ix — xii cannot
have been written by the author of A i — viii, there is an end of the
matter ; and I think it would be hardly reasonable to accept John But's
authority in disproof of Will's authorship of B and C, while rejecting it
where it confirms the traditional view. Prof. Manly 's arguments for
separate authorship of A ix — xii are not yet before the world; they
may turn out to be irresistible. But from the mere inferiority of the
later poem to its predecessor one can infer nothing. It has happened
again and again that a writer has poured out his soul in a work of
imagination, worthily embodying the fruit of years of meditation ; and
afterwards, when the original inspiration was exhausted, has endeavoured
ineffectually to follow up his first great success. In A i — viii we have
a great though not faultless work of art, with a clear design developed
consistently from the germ that was in the writer's mind when he
began. We feel that it reaches its predestined conclusion, and that any
continuation would be a disfigurement. So, probably, William himself
may have felt ; and yet it would not be very strange if, after a while,
the effect produced by his vision, and the consciousness of obscure
thoughts within his own mind, prompted him to take up his pen again,
to tell the story of a quest for the meaning of Do-wel, Do-bet, and Do-
best, without the long preparation that had gone to the making of his
one great work. The author of the poem of Do-wel has obviously no
foreseen design ; he gropes uncertainly after a solution which never
comes in sight ; but I do not see in this any reason why he may not be
the same man who worked out with such admirable sureness the noble
conception of the Vision.

I wish, before concluding this paper, to put in print for the first
time a suggestion which has long been present to my mind, and which
has been variously received by the scholars to whom I have communi-
cated it privately. This suggestion is that the choice of the name Piers
(the popular form of Peter) may have been prompted by the ejaculation
'Peter!' with which the Plowman first enters on the scene. It would
of course be impossible to prove that this conjecture is correct, but it
seems to mc highly probable. If it could be established, it would
involve the important consequence that William was indeed the creator
of the ideal figure which for centuries influenced so powerfully the
thought and life of England, and that he did not, as has often been
supposed, merely introduce into literature a name and a conception
that were already current among the people when he began to write.

Henry Bradley.
Oxford.

PR Early English Text

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