Piers Plowman

Trinity College, Cambridge MS B.15.17 (W)

The dreamer asleep in an initial, from Corpus Christi College, Oxford MS 201 (F)

In a somer seson, whan softe was the sonne,I shoop me into shroudes as I a sheep were,In habite as an heremite unholy of werkes,Wente wide in this world wondres to here.Ac on a May morwenynge on Malverne hillesMe bifel a ferly, of Fairye me thoghte.I was wery forwandred and wente me to resteUnder a brood bank by a bourne syde;And as I lay and lenede and loked on the watres,I slombred into a slepyng, it sweyed so murye.Thanne gan I meten a merveillous swevene -- That I was in a wildernesse, wiste I nevere where.A[c] as I biheeld into the eest an heigh to the sonne,I seigh a tour on a toft trieliche ymaked,A deep dale bynethe, a dongeon therinne,With depe diches and derke and dredfulle of sighte.A fair feeld ful of folk fond I ther bitwene -- Of alle manere of men, the meene and the riche,Werchynge and wandrynge as the world asketh.

Piers Plowman B 1.1-19

Piers Plowman: the conventional view of the text

A-Versionc.2500 ll.; 11 passus + prologuelate 1360s (Kane 1368-74)10 MSS (scattered)3 dreams

B-Versionc. 7200 ll. (700 added; 4000 continuation); prologue + 20 passuslate 1370s (Kane 1377-81)14 MSS; Crowley 1550 print; 1 B + A MS. Metropolitan circulation.8 dreams total, incl. 2 dreams-within-a-dream

C-VersionRevision of B; 100 lines longer w/many alterations & omissions;

Prologue + 22 passus (last two unrevised)by 1387 (Kane); 1388 (Middleton)18 MSS; 6 A+C; 3 C + A + B (western circulation)

POETIC STYLES and DIALECTS OF LATE MEDIEVAL ENGLAND (1)

The wery huntere, slepynge in his bed,To wode ayeyn his mynde goth anon; rhymed syllabic verseThe juge dremeth how his plees ben sped; (Chaucer, The Parliament of Fowls 99-105,

The cartere dremeth how his cart is gon; London dialect c. 1380-82)

The riche, of gold; the knyght fyght with his fon; The syke met he drynketh of the tonne;The lovere met he hath his lady wonne.

Ac on a May morwenynge on Maluerne hilles unrhymed alliterative long linesMe bifel a ferly, of Fairye me þo3te. (Piers Plowman B.1.1-10; I was wery forwandred and wente me to reste Northwest Midlands dialect,

Vnder a brood bank by a bourne syde, near Malvern & Worcester, c. 1370)

And as I lay and lenede and loked on þe watresI slombred into a slepyng, it sweyed so murye.

Ac on a May morwenynge on Malverne Hilles

Me bifel a ferly, of Fairye me thoghte.

I was wery forwandred and wente me to reste

Under a brood bank by a bournes syde,

And as I lay and lenede and loked on þe watres

I slombred into a slepyng, it sweyed so murye.

Ac on a May morwenynge on Malverne Hilles

Me bifel a ferly, of Fairye me thoghte.

I was wery forwandred and wente me to reste

Under a brood bank by a bournes syde,

And as I lay and lenede and loked on þe watres

I slombred into a slepyng, it sweyed so murye.

Ac on a May morwenynge on Malverne Hilles

Me bifel a ferly, of Fairye me thoghte.

I was wery forwandred and wente me to reste

Under a brood bank by a bournes syde,

And as I lay and lenede and loked on þe watres

I slombred into a slepyng, it sweyed so murye.

Ac on a May morwenynge on Malverne Hilles

Me bifel a ferly, of Fairye me thoghte.

I was wery forwandred and wente me to reste

Under a brood bank by a bournes syde,

And as I lay and lenede and loked on þe watres

I slombred into a slepyng, it sweyed so murye.

Ac on a May morwenynge on Malverne Hilles

Me bifel a ferly, of Fairye me thoghte.

I was wery forwandred and wente me to reste

Under a brood bank by a bournes syde,

And as I lay and lenede and loked on þe watres

I slombred into a slepyng, it sweyed so murye.

Ac on a May morwenynge on Malverne Hilles

Me bifel a ferly, of Fairye me thoghte.

I was wery forwandred and wente me to reste

Under a brood bank by a bournes syde,

And as I lay and lenede and loked on the watres

I slombred into a slepyng, it sweyed so murye.

Ac on a May morwenynge on Malverne Hilles

Me bifel a ferly, of Fairye me thoghte.

I was wery forwandred and wente me to reste

Under a brood bank by a bournes syde,

And as I lay and lenede and loked on the watres

I slombred into a slepyng, it sweyed so murye.

Ac on a May morwenynge on Malverne Hilles

Me bifel a ferly, of Fairye me thoghte.

I was wery forwandred and wente me to reste

Under a brood bank by a bournes syde,

And as I lay and lenede and loked on the watres

I slombred into a slepyng, it sweyed so murye.

Ac on a May morwenynge on Malverne Hilles

Me bifel a ferly, of Fairye me thoghte.

I was wery forwandred and wente me to reste

Under a brood bank by a bournes syde,

And as I lay and lenede and loked on the watres

I slombred into a slepyng, it sweyed so murye.

Ac on a May morwenynge on Malverne Hilles

Me bifel a ferly, of Fairye me thoghte.

I was wery forwandred and wente me to reste

Under a brood bank by a bournes syde,

And as I lay and lenede and loked on the watres

I slombred into a slepyng, it sweyed so murye.

Ac on a May morwenynge on Malverne Hilles [aa/ax]

Me bifel a ferly, of Fairye me thoghte. [aa/ax]

I was wery forwandred and wente me to reste [aa/ax]

Under a brood bank by a bournes syde, [aa/ax]

And as I lay and lenede and loked on the watres [aa/ax]

I slombred into a slepyng, it sweyed so murye. [aa/ax]

Oft him an-haga are gebideþMetodes mildse þeah-þe he mod-cearigGeond lagu-lade lange scoldeHreran mid handum hrim-cealde sæWadan wræc-lastas. Wyrd biþ ful aræd.Swa cwæþ eard-stapa earfoþa gemyndigWraþra wael-sleahta wine-maga hryre.Oft ic scolde ana uhtna gehwelceMine ceare cwiþan nis nu cwicra nanðe ic him mod-sefan minne durreSweotule asecgan. Ic to soþe watðæt biþ on eorle indryhten þeawðæt he his ferhþ-locan fæste bindeHealde his hord-cofan hycge swa he wille. (“The Wanderer,” ll. 1-14)

Oft him an-haga are gebideþMetodes mildse þeah-þe he mod-cearigGeond lagu-lade lange scoldeHreran mid handum hrim-cealde sæWadan wræc-lastas. Wyrd biþ ful aræd.Swa cwæþ eard-stapa earfoþa gemyndigWraþra wael-sleahta wine-maga hryre.Oft ic scolde ana uhtna gehwelceMine ceare cwiþan nis nu cwicra nanðe ic him mod-sefan minne durreSweotule asecgan. Ic to soþe watðæt biþ on eorle indryhten þeawðæt he his ferhþ-locan fæste bindeHealde his hord-cofan hycge swa he wille. (“The Wanderer,” ll. 1-14)

Persons and parisshe preestes pleyned hem to the bisshop

That hire parisshes weren povere sith the pestilence tyme,

To have a licence and leve at London to dwelle,

And syngen ther for symonie, for silver is swete.

Piers Plowman Prol 83-86

And somme chosen chaffare; they cheveden the bettre—

As it semeth to ours sight that swiche men thryveth.

Piers Plowman Prol 31-32

He sette nat his benefice to hyreAnd leet his sheep encombred in the myreAnd ran to Londoun unto Seinte PoulesTo seken hym a chaunterie for soules,Or with a bretherhed to been withholde;But dwelte at hoom, and kepte wel his folde,So that the wolf ne made it nat myscarie;He was a shepherde and noght a

mercenarie.General Prologue 507-14

This worthy man ful wel his wit bisette:Ther wiste no wight that he was in dette,So estatly was he of his governaunce.

General Prologue 279-81

Prologues in Chaucer and Langland

From Walsingham

From Canterbury Cathedral

From St. James, Compostella

From Rome

Pilgrim with a badge-covered hat

From James Simpson, Piers Plowman: An Introduction to the B-Text (London Longman, 1990)

From James Simpson, Piers Plowman: An Introduction to the B-Text (London Longman, 1990)

THREE-AND-A-HALF VIEWS OF THE TEARING OF THE PARDON

1. In the context of the second vision, the tearing fulfills the Mosaic typology of the biblical genre that has arisen as Langland's latest experiment in finding an authoritative mode for his poem.

2. In the context of the poem at large, the tearing arises from the conflict of the priest and Piers over the pastoral authority to wield such a document (7.107-147.).

3. In the context of the previous passus--of the real world of which Piers is a part--the tearing results from an insurmountable disjunction between the idealized and traditional social relations described by the Pardon and the intractable class and economic conflicts revealed elsewhere in the poem:

a. 7.61-64 vs. 6.302-318, on landless laborersb. 7.9-12, kings and knights, vs. 6.21-56 (the bargain with Piers) and 6. 159-70 (the knight's

failure to discipline Waster)c. 7.40-60a, lawyers, vs. 3.13-25, justices and Meedd. 7.18-39, merchants, vs. 2.213-217, 3.76-92, 5.198-273, esp. 242ff, on the undermining of the feudal order

3A: Simpson's view, that Piers realizes the harshness of the creed's demands: that one simply can't do well enough to earn one's salvation. This turns into the theme of the poem after Will awakes, though right away we can see a problem: Will is looking for a person, a noun, a personification; the "pardon" contained a verb. Moreover, one could argue that Piers is confronted here by the same harsh terms he dealt out to the wasters in the previous passus.

From James Simpson, Piers Plowman: An Introduction to the B-Text (London Longman, 1990)

From James Simpson, Piers Plowman: An Introduction to the B-Text (London Longman, 1990)

From James Simpson, Piers Plowman: An Introduction to the B-Text (London Longman, 1990)

The conflict we read is not that of "characters" but of discourses.... Piers Plowman is a dialogic poem constructed from the discourses of Langland's day -social, political, theological, and academic. These are monologic discourses: they exist to over-determine their readers, over whom they assume a position of authority and social power. Yet in practice human beings are surrounded bymonologic discourses that clamor for our attention, yet differ and conflict in the demands they make. Such discourses are therefore lived and experienced as being dramatically plural. Will's search is indeed for "a single Truth," but his consciousness is itself plural and split: necessarily so, for it is constituted by the discourses that divide it. If truth cannot be seen as single or stable, the seeker cannot be either.

It would be fair to say that the subject of Piers Plowman responds differently in different discourses, according to the semantic role offered by whichever is the dominant context at a given time: as dreamer when the conditions of the dream-vision prevail, as prospective penitent when the discourse of penance is strong, as a scholar in scholarly contexts, and so on. It is not the treatment of a persona we see primarily here, but the trying on of the different subjectivities that the different discourses confer-and, finally, the refusal of all.

David Lawton, “The Subject of Piers Plowman,” Yearbook of Langland Studies 1 (1987): 1-30 (4, 14)

I believe that it would be a mistake to see Langland’s poem as moving from a failed attempt to reform society, in the Visio, to an acknowledgment, in the Vita, that this is achieved only through reform of the individual. The poem does not seem to work with these terms. To adapt some terminology from Marx, it seems as free from the idealistic illusion (that we can be changed without radical change to our society) as from the materialistic illusion (that society can be changed without radical change in us). The poem’s values are collective throughout: they frustrate our distinction between private ad public, between personality and “al maner of men.”

David Lawton, “The Subject of Piers Plowman,” Yearbook of Langland Studies 1 (1987): 1-30 (20-21)

The Opening of the Roman de la RoseMany men sayn that in sweveningesTher nys but fables and lesynges;But men may some swevenes senWhiche hardely that false ne benBut afterward ben apparaunt.This may I draw to warrauntAn author that hight Macrobes,That halt nat dremes false ne leesBut undoth us the avysiounThat whilom mette kyng Cipioun.And whoso saith or weneth it beA jape, or elles nycete,To wene that dremes after falle,Let whoso lyste a fol me calle.For this trowe I, and say for me,That dremes signifiaunce beOf good and harm to many wightesThat dremen in her slep a-nyghtesFul many thynges covertlyThat fallen after all openly.

Chaucer[?], Romaunt of the Rose, ll. 1-20

Maintes gens dient que en songesN'a se fables non et mençonges;Mes l'en puet tex songes songierQui ne sont mie mençongier,Ains sont aprés apparissant,Si en puis bien traire a garantUn actor qui ont non Marcobes,Qui ne tint pas songes a lobes,Ainçois escrist la visionQui avint au roi Cypion.Quicunques cuide ne qui dieQue soit folece ou musardieDe croire que songes aviegne,Qui ce vodra, por fol me tiegne,Car endroit moi ai je creanceQue songes soit signifianceDes biens as gens et des anuis;Car li plusor songent de nuisMaintes choses couvertementQu’il voient puis apertement.

Guillaume de Lorris, Roman de la Rose

The Seven Liberal Arts were divided into the Trivium ("the three roads") and the Quadrivium ("the four roads").

The Trivium consisted of:Grammar Rhetoric

Logic

The Quadrivium consisted of:ArithmeticGeometry

MusicAstronomy