English Literature For Boys And Girls by H.E. Marshall

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We know very little about Langland. So little do we know that we
are not sure if his name was really William or not. But in his
poem called The Vision of Piers the Ploughman he says, "I have
lived in the land, quoth I, my name is long Will." It is chiefly
from his poem that we learn to know the man. When we have read
it, we seem to see him, tall and thin, with lean earnest face,
out of which shine great eyes, the eyes that see visions. His
head is shaven like a monk's; he wears a shabby long gown which
flaps in the breeze as he strides along.

Langland was born in the country, perhaps in Oxfordshire, perhaps
in Shropshire, and he went to school at Great Malvern. He loved
school, for he says:--

"For if heaven be on earth, and ease to any soul,
It is in cloister or in school. Be many reasons I find
For in the cloister cometh no man, to chide nor to fight,
But all is obedience here and books, to read and to learn."

Perhaps Langland's friends saw that he was clever, and hoped that
he might become one of the great ones in the Church. In those
days (the Middle Ages they were called) there was no sharp line
dividing the priests from the people. The one shaded off into
the other, as it were. There were many who wore long gowns and
shaved their heads, who yet were not priests. They were called
clerks, and for a sum of money, often very small, they helped to
sing masses for the souls of the dead, and performed other
offices in connection with the services of the Church. They were
bound by no vows and were allowed to marry, but of course could
never hope to be powerful. Such was Langland; he married and
always remained a poor "clerk."

But if Langland did not rise high in the Church, he made himself
famous in another way, for he wrote Piers the Ploughman. This is
a great book. There is no other written during the fourteenth
century, in which we see so clearly the life of the people of the
time.

There are several versions of Piers, and it is thought by some
that Langland himself wrote and re-wrote his poem, trying always
to make it better. But others think that some one else wrote the
later versions.

The poem is divided into parts. The first part is The Vision of
Piers the Ploughman, the second is The Vision Concerning Do Well,
Do Bet, Do Best.

In the beginning of Piers the Ploughman Langland tells us how

"In a summer season when soft was the sun,
I wrapped myself in a cloak as if I were a shepherd
In the habit of a hermit unholy of works,
Abroad I wandered in this world wonders to hear.
But on a May morning on Malvern Hills
Me befell a wonder, a strange thing. Methought,
I was weary of wandering, and went me to rest
Under a broad bank by a burn side.
And as I lay, and leaned, and looked on the waters
I slumbered in a sleeping it sounded so merry."

If you will look back you will see that this poetry is very much
more like Layamon's than like the poetry of Havelok the Dane.
Although people had, for many years, been writing rhyming verse,
Langland has, you see, gone back to the old alliterative poetry.
Perhaps it was that, living far away in the country, Langland had
written his poem before he had heard of the new kind of rhyming
verses, for news traveled slowly in those days.

Two hundred years later, when The Vision of Piers the Ploughman
was first printed, the printer in his preface explained
alliterative verse very well. "Langland wrote altogether in
metre," he says, "but not after the manner of our rimers that
write nowadays (for his verses end not alike), but the nature of
his metre is to have three words, at the least, in every verse
which begin with some one letter. As for example the first two
verses of the book run upon 's,' as thus:

'In a somer season whan sette was the sunne
I shope me into shrobbes as I a shepe were.'

The next runneth upon 'h,' as thus:

'In habite as an Hermite unholy of workes.'

This thing being noted, the metre shall be very pleasant to read.
The English is according to the time it was written in, and the
sense somewhat dark, but not so hard but that it may be
understood of such as will not stick to break the shell of the
nut for the kernel's sake."

This printer also says in his preface that the book was first
written in the time of King Edward III, "In whose time it pleased
God to open the eyes of many to see his truth, giving them
boldness of heart to open their mouths and cry out against the
works of darkness. . . . There is no manner of vice that reigneth
in any estate of man which this writer hath not godly, learnedly,
and wittily rebuked."*

*R. Crowley is his preface to Piers Ploughman, printed in 1550.

I hope that you will be among those who will not "stick to break
the shell of the nut for the kernel's sake," and that although
the "sense be somewhat dark" you will some day read the book for
yourselves. Meantime in the next chapter I will tell you a
little more about it.

Chapter XX "PIERS THE PLOUGHMAN" -- continued

WHEN Langland fell asleep upon the Malvern Hills he dreamed a
wondrous dream. He thought that he saw a "fair field full of
folk," where was gathered "all the wealth of the world and the
woe both."

"Working and wondering as the world asketh,
Some put them to the plough and played them full seldom,
In eareing and sowing laboured full hard."

But some are gluttons and others think only of fine clothes.
Some pray and others jest. There are rogues and knaves here,
friars and priests, barons and burgesses, bakers and butchers,
tailors and tanners, masons and miners, and folk of many other
crafts. Indeed, the field is the world. It lies between a tower
and a dungeon. The tower is God, the dungeon is the dwelling of
the Evil One.

Then, as Langland looked on all this, he saw

"A lady lovely in face, in linnen i-clothed,
Come adown from the cliff and spake me fair,
And said, 'Son, sleepest thou? Seest thou this people
All how busy they be about the maze?'"

Langland was "afeard of her face though she was fair." But the
lovely lady, who is Holy Church, speaks gently to the dreamer.
She tells him that the tower is the dwelling of Truth, who is the
lord of all and who gives to each as he hath need. The dungeon
is the castle of Care.

"Therein liveth a wight that Wrong is called,
The Father of Falseness."

Love alone, said the lady, leads to Heaven,

"Therefore I warn ye, the rich, have ruth on the poor.
Though ye be mighty in councils, be meek in your works,
For the same measure ye meet, amiss or otherwise,
Ye shall be weighed therewith when ye wend hence."

"Truth is best in all things," she said at length. "I have told
thee now what Truth is, and may no longer linger." And so she
made ready to go. But the dreamer kneeled on his knees and
prayed her stay yet a while to teach him to know Falsehood also,
as well as Truth.

And the lady answered:--

"'Look on thy left hand and see where he standeth,
Both False and Flattery and all his train.'
I looked on the left hand as the Lady me taught.
Then was I ware of a woman wondrously clothed,
Purfled with fur, the richest on earth.
Crowned with a crown. The King hath no better.
All her five fingers were fretted with rings
Of the most precious stones that a prince ever wore;
In red scarlet she rode, beribboned with gold,
There is no queen alive that is more adorned."

This was Lady Meed or Bribery. "To-morrow," said Holy Church,
"she shall wed with False." And so the lovely Lady departed.

Left alone the dreamer watched the preparations for the wedding.
The Earldom of Envy, the Kingdom of Covetousness, the Isle of
Usury were granted as marriage gifts to the pair. But Theology
was angry. He would not permit the wedding to take place. "Ere
this wedding be wrought, woe betide thee," he cried. "Meed is
wealthy; I know it. God grant us to give her unto whom Truth
wills. But thou hast bound her fast to Falseness. Meed is
gently born. Lead her therefore to London, and there see if the
law allows this wedding."

So, listening to the advice of Theology, all the company rode off
to London, Guile leading the way.

But Soothness pricked on his palfrey and passed them all and came
to the King's court, where he told Conscience all about the
matter, and Conscience told the King.

Then quoth the King, "If I might catch False and Flattery or any
of their masters, I would avenge me on the wretches that work so
ill, and would hang them by the neck and all that them abet."

So he told the Constable to seize False and to cut off Guile's
head, "and let not Liar escape." But Dread was at the door and
heard the doom. He warned the others, so that they all fled away
save Meed the maiden.

"Save Meed the maiden no man durst abide,
And truly to tell she trembled for fear,
And she wept and wrung her hands when she was taken."

But the King called a Clerk and told him to comfort Meed. So
Justice soon hurried to her bower to comfort her kindly, and many
others followed him. Meed thanked them all and "gave them cups
of clean gold and pieces of silver, rings with rubies and riches
enough." And pretending to be sorry for all that she had done
amiss, Meed confessed her sins and was forgiven.

The King then, believing that she was really sorry, wished to
marry her to Conscience. But Conscience would not have her, for
he knew that she was wicked. He tells of all the evil things she
does, by which Langland means to show what wicked things men will
do if tempted by bribery and the hope of gain.

"Then mourned Meed and plained her to the King." If men did
great and noble deeds, she said, they deserved praise and thanks
and rewards.
"'Nay,' quoth Conscience to the King, and kneeled to the
ground,
'There be two manner of Meeds, my Lord, by thy life,
That one the good God giveth by His grace, giveth in His
bliss
To them that will work while that they are here.'"

What a laborer received, he said, was not Meed but just Wages.
Bribery, on the other hand, was ever wicked, and he would have
none of her.

In spite of all the talk, however, no one could settle the
question. So at length Conscience set forth to bring Reason to
decide.

When Reason heard that he was wanted, he saddled his horse
Suffer-till-I-see-my-time and came to court with Wit and Wisdom
in his train.

The King received him kindly, and they talked together. But
while they talked Peace came complaining that Wrong had stolen
his goods and ill-treated him in many ways.

Wrong well knew that the complaint was just, but with the help of
Meed he won Wit and Wisdom to his side. But Reason stood out
against him.

"'Counsel me not,' quoth Reason, 'ruth to have
Till lords and ladies all love truth
And their sumptuous garments be put into chests,
Till spoiled children be chastened with rods,
Till clerks and knights be courteous with their tongues,
Till priests themselves practise their preaching
And their deeds be such as may draw us to goodness.'"

The King acknowledged that Reason was right, and begged him to
stay with him always and help him to rule. "I am ready," quoth
Reason, "to rest with thee ever so that Conscience be our
counsellor."

To that the King agreed, and he and his courtiers all went to
church. Here suddenly the dream ends. Langland cries:--

"Then waked I of my sleep. I was woe withal
That I had not slept more soundly and seen much more."

The dreamer arose and continued his wandering. But he had only
gone a few steps when once again he sank upon the grass and fell
asleep and dreamed. Again he saw the field full of folk , and to
them now Conscience was preaching, and at his words many began to
repent them of their evil deeds. Pride, Envy, Sloth and others
confessed their sins and received forgiveness.

Then all these penitent folk set forth in search of Saint Truth,
some riding, some walking. "But there were few there so wise as
to know the way thither, and they went all amiss." No man could
tell them where Saint Truth lived. And now appears at last Piers
Ploughman, who gives his name to the whole poem.

"Quoth a ploughman and put forth his head,
'I know him as well as a clerk know his books.
Clear Conscience and Wit showed me his place
And did engage me since to serve him ever.
Both in sowing and setting, which I labour,
I have been his man this fifteen winters.'"

Piers described to the pilgrims all the long way that they must
go in order to find Truth. He told them that they must go
through Meekness; that they must cross the ford Honor-your-father
and turn aside from the brook Bear-no-false-witness, and so on
and on until they come at last to Saint Truth.

"It were a hard road unless we had a guide that might go with us
afoot until we got there," said the pilgrims. So Piers offered,
if they would wait until he had plowed his field, to go with them
and show them the way.

"That would be a long time to wait," said a lady. "What could we
women do meantime?"

And Piers answered:--

"Some should sew sacks to hold wheat.
And you who have wool weave it fast,
Spin it speedily, spare not your fingers
Unless it be a holy day or holy eve.
Look out your linen and work on it quickly,
The needy and the naked take care how they live,
And cast on them clothes for the cold, for so Truth desires."

Then many of the pilgrims began to help Piers with his work.
Each man did what he could, "and some to please Piers picked up
the weeds."

"But some of them sat and sang at ale
And helped him to plough with 'Hy-trolly-lolly.'"

To these idle ones Piers went in anger. "If ye do not run
quickly to your work," he cried, "you will receive no wage; and
if ye die of hunger, who will care."

Then these idle ones began to pretend that they were blind or
lame and could not work. They made great moan, but Piers took no
heed and called for Hunger. Then Hunger seized the idle ones and
beat and buffeted them until they were glad to work.

At last Truth heard of Piers and of all the good that he was
doing among the pilgrims, and sent him a pardon for all his sins.
In those days people who had done wrong used to pay money to a
priest and think that they were forgiven by God. Against that
belief Langland preaches, and his pardon is something different.
It is only

"Do well and have well, and God shall have thy soul.
And do evil and have evil, hope none other
That after thy death day thou shalt turn to the Evil One."

And over this pardon a priest and Piers began so loudly to
dispute that the dreamer awoke,

"And saw the sun that time towards the south,
And I meatless and moneyless upon the Malvern Hills."

That is a little of the story of the first part of Piers
Ploughman. It is an allegory, and in writing it Langland wished
to hold up to scorn all the wickedness that he saw around him,
and sharply to point out many causes of misery. There is
laughter in his poem, but it is the terrible and harsh laughter
of contempt. His most bitter words, perhaps, are for the idle
rich, but the idle poor do not escape. Those who beg without
shame, who cheat and steal, who are greedy and drunken have a
share of his wrath. Yet Langland is not all harshness. His
great word is Duty, but he speaks of Love too. "Learn to love,
quoth King, and leave off all other." The poem is rambling and
disconnected. Characters come on the scene and vanish again
without cause. Stories begin and do not end. It is all wild and
improbable like a dream, yet it is full of interest.

But perhaps the chief interest and value of Piers Ploughman is
that it is history. It tells us much of what the people thought
and of how they lived in those days. It shows us the first
mutterings of the storm that was to rend the world. This was the
storm of the Reformation which was to divide the world into
Protestant and Catholic. But Langland himself was not a
Protestant. Although he speaks bitter words against the evil
deeds of priest and monk, he does not attack the Church. To him
she is still Holy Church, a radiant and lovely lady.

BOOKS TO READ

The Vision of Piers Ploughman, by W. Langland

Chapter XXI HOW THE BIBLE CAME TO THE PEOPLE

IN all the land there is perhaps no book so common as the Bible.
In homes where there are no other books we find at least a Bible,
and the Bible stories are almost the first that we learn to know.

But in the fourteenth century there were no English Bibles. The
priests and clergy and a few great people perhaps had Latin
Bibles. And although Caedmon's songs had long been forgotten, at
different times some parts of the Bible had been translated into
English, so that the common people sometimes heard a Bible story.
But an English Bible as a whole did not exist; and if to-day it
is the commonest and cheapest book in all the land, it is to John
Wyclif in the first place that we owe it.

John Wyclif was born, it is thought, about 1324 in a little
Yorkshire village. Not much is known of his early days except
that he went to school and to Oxford University. In time he
became one of the most learned men of his day, and was made Head,
or Master, of Balliol College.

This is the first time in this book that we have heard of a
university. The monasteries had, until now, been the centers of
learning. But now the two great universities of Oxford and
Cambridge were taking their place. Men no longer went to the
monasteries to learn, but to the universities; and this was one
reason, perhaps, why the land had become filled with so many idle
monks. Their profession of teaching had been taken from them,
and they had found nothing else with which to fill their time.

But at first the universities were very like monasteries. The
clerks, as the students were called, often took some kind of
vow,--they wore a gown and shaved their heads in some fashion or
other. The colleges, too, were built very much after the style
of monasteries, as may be seen in some of the old college
buildings of Oxford or Cambridge to this day. The life in every
way was like the life in a monastery. It was only by slow
degrees that the life and the teaching grew away from the old
model.

While Wyclif grew to be a man, England had fallen on troublous
times. Edward III, worn out by his French wars, had become old
and feeble, and the power was in the hands of his son, John of
Gaunt. The French wars and the Black Death had slain many of the
people, and those who remained were miserably poor. Yet poor
though they were, much money was gathered from them every year
and sent to the Pope, who at that time still ruled the Church in
England as elsewhere.

But now the people of England became very unwilling to pay so
much money to the Pope, especially as at this time he was a
Frenchman ruling, not from Rome, but from Avignon. It was folly,
Englishmen said, to pay money into the hands of a Frenchman, the
enemy of their country, who would use it against their country.
And while many people were feeling like this, the Pope claimed
still more. He now claimed a tribute which King John had
promised long before, but which had not for more than thirty
years been paid.

John of Gaunt made up his mind to resist this claim, and John
Wyclif, who had already begun to preach against the power of the
Pope, helped him. They were strange companions, and while John
of Gaunt fought only for more power, Wyclif fought for freedom
both in religion and in life. God alone was lord of all the
world, he said, and to God alone each man must answer for his
soul, and to no man beside. The money belonging to the Church of
England belonged to God and to the people of England, and ought
to be used for the good of the people, and not be sent abroad to
the Pope. In those days it needed a bold man to use such words,
and Wyclif was soon called upon to answer for his boldness before
the Archbishop of Canterbury and all his bishops.

The council was held in St. Paul's Cathedral in London. Wyclif
was fearless, and he obeyed the Archbishop's command. But as he
walked up the long aisle to the chapel where the bishops were
gathered, John of Gaunt marched by his side, and Lord Percy, Earl
Marshal of England, cleared a way for him through the throng of
people that filled the church. The press was great, and Earl
Percy drove a way through the crowd with so much haughtiness and
violence that the Bishop of London cried out at him in wrath.

"Had I known what masteries you would use in my church," he said,
"I had kept you from coming there."

"At which words the Duke, disdaining not a little, answered the
Bishop and said that he would keep such mastery there though he
said 'Nay.'"* Thus, after much struggling, Wyclif and his
companions arrived at the chapel. There Wyclif stood humbly
enough before his Bishop. But Earl Percy bade him be seated, for
as he had much to answer he had need of a soft seat.

*Foxe, Acts and Monuments.

Thereat the Bishop of London was angry again, and cried out
saying that it was not the custom for those who had come to
answer for their misdeeds to sit.

"Upon these words a fire began to heat and kindle between them;
insomuch that they began to rate and revile one the other, that
the whole multitude therewith disquieted began to be set on a
hurry."*

*Foxe, Acts and Monuments.

The Duke, too, joined in, threatening at last to drag the Bishop
out of the church by the hair of his head. But the Londoners,
when they heard that, were very wrathful, for they hated the
Duke. They cried out they would not suffer their Bishop to be
ill-used, and the uproar became so great that the council broke
up without there being any trial at all.

But soon after this no fewer than five Bulls, or letters from the
Pope, were sent against Wyclif. In one the University of Oxford
was ordered to imprison him; in others Wyclif was ordered to
appear before the Pope; in still another the English bishops were
ordered to arrest him and try him themselves. But little was
done, for the English would not imprison an English subject at
the bidding of a French Pope, lest they should seem to give him
royal power in England.

At length, however, Wyclif was once more brought before a court
of bishops in London. By this time Edward III had died, and
Richard, the young son of the Black Prince, had come to the
throne. His mother, the Princess of Wales, was Wyclif's friend,
and she now sent a message to the bishops bidding them let him
alone. This time, too, the people of London were on his side;
they had learned to understand that he was their friend. So they
burst into the council-room eager to defend the man whose only
crime was that of trying to protect England from being robbed.
And thus the second trial came to an end as the first had done.

Wyclif now began to preach more boldly than before. He preached
many things that were very different from the teaching of the
Church of Rome, and as he was one of the most learned men of his
time, people crowded to Oxford to hear him. John of Gaunt, now
no longer his friend, ordered him to be silent. But Wyclif still
spoke. The University was ordered to crush the heretic. But the
University stood by him until the King added his orders to those
of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Then Wyclif was expelled from
the University, but still not silenced, for he went into the
country and there wrote and taught.

Soon his followers grew in numbers. They were called Poor
Priests, and clad in long brown robes they wandered on foot
through the towns and villages teaching and preaching. Wyclif
trusted that they would do all the good that the old friars had
done, and that they would be kept from falling into the evil ways
of the later friars. But Churchmen were angry, and called his
followers Lollards or idle babblers.

Wyclif, however, cared no longer for the great, he trusted no
more in them. It was to the people now that he appealed. He
wrote many books, and at first he wrote in Latin. But by degrees
he saw that if he wanted to reach the hearts of the people, he
must preach and teach in English. And so he began to write
English books. But above all the things that he wrote we
remember him chiefly for his translation of the Bible. He
himself translated the New Testament, and others helped him with
the Old Testament, and so for the first time the people of
England had the whole Bible in their own tongue. They had it,
too, in fine scholarly language, and this was a great service to
our literature. For naturally the Bible was a book which every
one wished to know, and the people of England, through it, became
accustomed to use fine stately language.

To his life's end Wyclif went on teaching and writing, although
many attempts were made to silence him. At last in 1384 the Pope
summoned him to Rome. Wyclif did not obey, for he answered
another call. One day, as he heard mass in his own church, he
fell forward speechless. He never spoke again, but died three
days later.