William Langland: Piers Plowman Prologue
Abstract
This article examines William Langland and his work Piers Plowman. This study aims to explain Piers Plowman and Prologue, William Langland produced successive versions of Piers Plowman over something like a twenty-five year period in the second half of the fourteenth century. The poem was written during a period of unprecedented literary activity in the English language. This study provides us that the reasons for its popularity. In Piers Plowman the quest for Christian salvation cannot be separate from the issues of the historical moment. To understand the poem, it becomes necessary to understand something about these times. The mid to late fourteenth century was a time of great social and political upheaval, when both church and secular government came under great investigation and pressure to reform. Piers Plowman not only commented on affairs of the moment, it also became caught up in them. Therefore, this research will hopefully contribute to the study of William Langland and Piers Plowman by bringing new perspectives to English Literature.
Keywords: Piers Plowman, William Langland, poem, English literature.
Introduction
The author of Piers Plowman is not exactly known. Only one or two assumptions about the man behind the poem are held to be non-controversial. Only one or two assumptions about the man behind the poem are held to be non-controversial. The poet’s connection with the West Midlands is suggested by the famous opening description of May morning sunshine on the Malvern Hills and confirmed by the dialect of Middle English in which the poem is written. Similarly, the poet’s description of himself as someone who was sent to school to be educated for a career in the Church was born out by the text’s extensive use of Latin quotations and its detailed discussion of theological and religious issues. Only one manuscript copy of the text offers any information about William Langland. The medieval English poem known as Piers Plowman is a moving, disturbing and often amusing commentary on corruption and greed that is still apposite today. From the historical references in the poem, it is thought that the author, William Langland, wrote the earliest version in the mid– the 1360s, and longer, revised versions in the late 1370s and the mid– 1380s. This was a period of political and religious upheaval and burgeoning literary activity when the French of the Norman elite and the Old English of the Anglo- Saxon lower classes had only recently been melded into one language, now termed Middle English.
William Langland
Nobody knows when or where William Langland was born or died, and no one knows for sure when he wrote the poem for which he is famous. There are three well-known sources for the identity of the author. One is a note appended in Latin to an ancient manuscript of the poem held in Trinity College Library, Dublin. This states that the father of “Willielmus de Lang - lond” was Stacy de Rokayle, a gentleman who held land in Oxfordshire from the Despensers. The second is the 1550 printed edition, the preface to which says that the author was “Roberte Langelande, born in Cleybirie about 8 miles from Malverne hills.” The third source is the poem itself, in which the narrator says he is called Will -often punning on the name- places his opening vision on the Malvern H., refers to himself as a poet who is no respecter of persons, names his wife and daughter describes himself as balding and may imply that he once led a dissolute life. He has much to say about trade, learnt presumably from observation, and he has some knowledge of the law. He may also know French, since he complains that students no longer learn any language other than English and Latin. He says that his father and friends paid for his early education and that he has always had a clerical occupation. It is not known when he died, although the period 1385–87 is likely from a reference in a poem by John B. to the death of the author of Piers Plowman, but himself having died in 1387.
The Prologue of Piers Plowman
In a summer season when the sun was mild
I clad myself in clothes as I'd become a sheep;
In the habit of a hermit unholy of works,
Walked wide in this world, watching for wonders.
And on a Ma y morning, on Malvern Hills,
There befell me as by magica marvelous thing:
I was weary of wandering and went to rest
In Malvern Hill a summer, a shepherd walks and looks around, then he feels tired and he wants to sit somewhere. He sleeps and starts to dream. He is in a place that he has never seen before. He sees a village where there are many people, such as women, men, poor, and rich. Some wear garish clothes to look rich, and others pursue pride.
To prayers and penance many put themselves,
All for love of our Lord lived hard lives,
Hoping thereafter to have Heaven's bliss—
Such as hermits and anchorites that hold to their cells,
Don't care to go cavorting about the countryside.
They dedicate to religion themselves, they do not care real life, and think just heaven. But Some of them use the religion to be rich and noble.
But jokers and word jugglers, Judas's children,
Invent fantasies to tell about and make fools of themselves,
And have whatever wits they need to work if they wanted.
What Paul preaches of them I don't dare repeat here:
Qui loquitur turpiloquium” 4 is Lucifer's henchman.
He compares these people to Judas. They trick the people by selling innocent. They make fool of the people, yet they are smart. If they want, they can work well.
Pilgrims and palmers made pacts with each other
To seek Saint James and saints at Rome.
They went on their way with many wise stories,
And had leave to lie all their lives after.
I saw some that said they'd sought after saints:
In every tale they told their tongues were tuned to lie
More than to tell the truth—such talk was theirs.
A heap of hermits with hooked staffs.
The author criticizes the religious man in this part of the poem. They voyage to find St. James in Rome. During the voyage, they tell religious stories to believe people themselves. The author highlighted that. Everyone believes in their stories and nobody objects. They have the possibilities to tell the truth, but they keep on lying. These people are similar to each other.
Went off to Walsingham, with their wenches behind them.
Great long lubbers that don't like to work
Dressed up in cleric's dress to look different from other men
And behaved as the)' were hermits, to have an easy life.
I found friars there —all four of the orders —
Preaching to the people for their own paunches' welfare,
They set off the Walsingham with loose women, to make the pilgrimage, and are sluggish and do not know what to do. They wear cloaks to be different from other men and expect respect from people. These people act like Monks to live prosperously. The priests tell the Bible to people, yet their intention is not for people to understand the Bible, their intention is not for people to understand the Bible, they consider their luxurious life.
A pardoner preached there as if he had priest's rights,
Brought out a bull with bishop's seals,
And said he himself could absolve them all
Of failure to fast, of vows they'd broken.
Unlearned men believed him and liked his words,
Came crowding up on knees to kiss his bulls.
He banged them with his brevet and bleared their eyes,
And raked in with his parchment-roll rings and brooches
One of them preaches about religion as though a priest, and he says that I can save your life both in this world and afterlife, I can save your sins such as not fasting and breaking vows. Ignorant people believe and like his saying. They try to kiss his seal. He dazzles and deceives everyone, and this is how he steals people's gold.
If the bishop were blessed and worth both his ears,
His seal should not be sent out to deceive the people,
—It's nothing to the bishop that the blackguard preaches,
And the parish priest and the pardoner split the money
That the poor people of the parish would have but for them.
Parsons and parish priests complained to the bishop
That their parishes were poor since the pestilence-time,
If he were a real religious man, he would not have used the seal to deceive people. The priest and monks divided the money among themselves.
Conclusion
Piers Plowman not only commented on affairs of the moment, but it also became caught up in them. Readers of the poem were apparently just as keen to appropriate the poem for purposes of religious dissent. Recent research on the manuscript copies of Piers has shown that owners and scribes were by no means always happy to admit their connection with the text. Piers Plowman was also responsible for establishing its own literary tradition and some of the later poems which have very definite stylistic and thematic affinities with Piers Plowman confirm the idea that the poem was appropriated by religious dissenters.
References
Abrams, M.H., Greenblatt, Stephen, David, Alfred and Lewalski, Barbara K. (1987). The Norton Anthology of English Literature. The Major Athuors (6 ed.). London: Norton & Company Ltd.
Michael Bennett, “William Called Long Will,” in Fiona Somerset and Lawrence Warner, eds., The Yearbook of Langland Studies vol. 26 (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2012), 1–25.
A.V.C. Schmidt, Earthly Honest Things: Collected Essays on Piers Plowman (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2012), 63–67.
Anne Middleton, “The Passion of Saint Averoys: ‘Deuynyng’ and Divinity in the Banquet Scene,” in John A. Alford and M. Teresa Taormina, eds., Yearbook of the International Piers Plowman Society vol. 1 (East Lansing, MI: Colleagues Press, 1987), 31–40.
Lawrence Warner, The Myth of Piers Plowman. Constructing a Medieval Literary Archive (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014)
Ronald Bryer, Not the Least: The Story of Little Malvern (Hanley Swan, Worcs: SelfPublishing Association, 1993), 24, citing an earlier work by W.J.C. Berington, owner of the neighboring Little Malvern Court.
Myra Stokes, Justice and Mercy in Piers Plowman: A Reading of the B Text Visio (London: Croom Helm, 1984); Rosemary Woolf, “The Tearing of the Pardon,” in S.S. Hussey, ed., Piers Plowman: Critical Approaches (London: Methuen, 1969), 50–75.
Priscilla Martin, Piers Plowman: The Field and the Tower (London: Macmillan, 1979); A.V.C. Schmidt, Earthly Honest Things: Collected Essays on Piers Plowman (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2012).
