William Langland

“ Price observes, in a note, "good wyne of Gaskyne, and the wyne of Osee [is the reading of MS. Harl. No. 875] .—The same hand already noticed has corrected wyn to weyte (wheat) of Gascoyne;—an obvious improvement." I by no means partake in this opinion: wine of Gascony, and not wheat of Gascony, is perpetually alluded to in the literature of France and England from the twelfth to the sixteenth century. The reading of the text now printed is evidently the original one, which has been corrupted in the others: the wine more particularly known as Gascon, was a red wine. ”

“ If we behold the substance of a man,
How he is made of elements by kind,
Of earth, of water, aire, and fire, than
We would full often call unto our mind,
That all our earthly joys we leave behind.
Massinger (Renegado iii, 2) says:—
——I've heard
Schoolmen affirm, man's body is compos'd
Of the four elements.
In Shakespeare (Twel. N. ii, 3) , Sir Toby Belch inquires, "Does not our life consist of the four elements?" and Brutus is commended for possessing these elements properly blended, in which the perfection of a man's nature was supposed to consist:—
His life was gentle ”

“ The monks in the middle ages endeavoured to explain the existence of different classes of spirits and fairies, which the popular creed represented as harmless, or even beneficent creatures, by supposing that some of the angels who fell with Lucifer were less guilty than others, and were allowed to occupy the different elements on the earth instead of being condemned to "the pit." ”

“ The medieval notion of the manner in which the elements were mixed together in the formation of the human body, here alluded to, appears to partake more of Western legend than of Eastern tradition. In the English verses on Popular Science (given in my "Popular Treatises of Science written during the Middle Ages," p. 138) , we have the following curious account of the four things forming the body, and the influence of each:—
Man hath of urthe al his bodi, of water he haveth wete,
Of eyr he haveth wynd, of fur he haveth hete. ”

“ There is perhaps here an allusion to the famous satire on the Monkish orders entitled Apocalypsis Goliæ, printed among the poems of Walter Mapes.
967. the kynrede of Caym. In the popular belief of the middle ages, hob-goblins and evil spirits (which haunted the wilds and the waters) literally, and bad men figuratively, were represented as being descended from the first murderer, Cain. In Old-English poetry, Caymes kyn is a common epithet for very wicked people. In the Anglo-Saxon romance of Beowulf, the Grendel is said to be of "Cain's kin." ”

“ The passage of Fordun, in which Robin Hood is spoken of, is probably an interpolation.
I am not sure that Ritson is right in taking the Randolf erl of Chester of Piers Ploughman, to be Ranulf de Blundevile: it is quite as probable that he was the Ranulf of Chester of the days of Stephen, whose turbulent deeds may have been the subject of popular ballads. Warton (H. E. P. ii, 373) , quoting the passage of Piers Ploughman with the word erl omitted, conceives it to mean Ralph Higden, and imagines the rymes to be the Chester Mysteries, of which he conjectured that Ralph Higden was the author. ”

“ Horses appear to have been comparatively little used for riding among the Anglo-Saxons until they were introduced by the Norman favourites of Edward the Confessor, in whose reign we read that the Anglo-Saxon soldiers in Herefordshire were defeated by the Welsh owing to their awkwardness on horseback, having been unadvisedly mounted by their Norman commander. ”

“ In Whitaker's text the account of the minstrels is very confused. Here the minstrels get gold by their song without sin, but the japers and janglers are condemned as getting their living by what is afterwards called 'turpiloquium,' when they had ability to get it in an honester way. ”

“ Whitaker has Antonie and Ersenie. St. Antony is well known as the father and patron of monks, and for the persecutions he underwent from the devil. St. Giles, or Egidius, is said to have been a Greek, who came to France about the end of the seventh century, and established himself in a hermitage near the mouth of the Rhone, and afterwards in the neighbourhood of Nismes. Arsenius was a noble Roman who, at the end of the fourth century, retired to Egypt to live the life of an anchoret in the desert. ”

“ This is an allusion to a popular legend prevalent at this time that the devil wished to hinder Christ's crucifixion, and that he appeared to Pilate's wife in a dream, and caused her to beseech her husband not to condemn the Saviour. ”

“ Love days (Dies amoris) were days fixed for settling differences by umpire, without having recourse to law or to violence. The ecclesiastics seem generally to have had the principal share in the management of these transactions, which throughout the Visions of Piers Ploughman appear to be censured as the means of hindering justice and of enriching the clergy. A little further on, Religion is blamed for being "a ledere of love-dayes." (l. 6219.) In Chaucer, it is said of the friar:—
And over'al, ther eny profyt schulde arise,
Curteys he was, and lowe of servyse. ”

“ In the scholastic learning of the middle ages, grammar was considered as the first of the seven sciences, and the foundation-stone of all the rest. See my Essay on Anglo-Saxon Literature, introductory to vol. i. of the Biographia Britannica Literaria, p. 72. The importance of grammar is thus stated in the Image du Monde of Gautier de Metz (thirteenth century) :—
Li primeraine des vij. ”

“ This meaning of the word (which has been misunderstood) may be gathered from a comparison of the passage in Piers Ploughman with one in the "Turnament of Tottenham," where the writer intended to satirize the poorness of the fare:—
At that fest were thei servyd in a rich aray,
Every fyve and fyve had a cokeney.
Heywood, in his Proverbs, part i, chap. xi, gives a proverb in which the word is evidently used in the same sense, and appears to be intentionally contrasted with a fat hen:—
—Men say,
He that comth every daie shall have a cocknaie,
He that comth now and then, shall have a fat hen ”

“ The Carmelites, or White Friars, pretended to be of great antiquity, and were originally established at Mount Carmel, from whence they were driven by the Saracens about the year 1238. They were brought into England in 1244, and settled first at Alnwick in Northumberland, and at Ailesford in Kent.
About the date (or a little before) of our poem, the Carmelites appear to have been very active in asserting in a boasting manner the superiority of their order over the others. ”

“ Lucifer with legions. The story of Lucifer's rebellion and fall was extremely popular in the middle ages, and particularly among the Anglo-Saxons, who, in the fine poem ascribed to Cædmon, had given it almost as much detail as Milton had done at a later date. This legend is related in prose in an Anglo-Saxon tract in MS. Cotton. ”

“ A cross was the common mark on the reverse of our English money at this period, and for a long time previous to it. The point of satirical wit in this passage of Piers Ploughman appears to be taken from the old Latin rhymes of the beginning of the thirteenth century. See the curious poem De Cruce Denarii, in Walter Mapes, p. 223. Another poem in the same volume (p. 38) speaks thus of the court of Rome:—
Nummis in hac curia non est qui non vacet ”

“ But, sone, gif thou wilt ben seker,
610
Seche thou no ferther,
We freres beth the firste,
And founded upon treuthe;
Paule primus heremita
Put us hymselve
Away into wildernesse,
The world to despisen,
And there we lengeden ful long,
And leveden ful harde ”

“ These four lines stand thus in Whitaker's text, Bote holy churche and charité | choppe a-doun swich shryvers, | the moste myschif of molde | mounteth up faste. Whitaker has translated it quite wrong, "May true charity and church discipline knock down these, the greatest pests on earth, who are rapidly increasing!" The simple meaning of the passage, as given by Whitaker, is, "Unless holy church and charity chop down such shrivers (confessors) , the greatest mischief of the world is increasing fast." ”

“ GLOSSARY.
[The figures in the following Glossary refer to the page of the text. Words preceded by a †, occur only in the Creed. A.S. and A.N. distinguish the two different languages of which our own is composed, Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman.]
A.
a, prefixed to verbs of Anglo-Saxon origin, has sometimes a negative, sometimes an intensative power: before nouns and adjectives it represents on and at, as, a-brood, a-fore (æt-foran) , a-rowe (i. e. on a row) , a-loft (i. e. on high) , &c. ”

“ Walter Brut (or Bright) was a native of Herefordshire, and was prosecuted by the Bishop of Hereford for heresy in 1393. A long account of his defence will be found in Foxe's Acts and Monuments.
1401. Hildegare. I suppose this refers to St. Hildegardis, a nun who flourished in the middle of the twelfth century, and who was celebrated among the Roman Catholics as a prophetess. Her prophecies are not uncommon in manuscripts, and they have been printed. Those which relate to the future corruptions in the monkish orders are given in Foxe's Acts and Monuments, book vi, and in other works. ”

“ Quum culpent alios, nemo sine crimine vivit.
It may be observed here, that Whitaker, in his note on this passage, has very much misunderstood Tyrwhitt (in Chaucer, Cant. T. 3227) , in making him the authority for calling the author of the Disticha de Moribus an obscure French writer. Tyrwhitt says that the mode in which Chaucer spells his name (Caton) seems to show that the French translation was more read than the Latin original. The same observation would apply to the present poem: but I am very doubtful how far it is correct. ”

“ As society advanced in refinement, people sought to live less and less in public, and the heads of the household gradually deserted the hall, except on special occasions, and lived more in the parlour and in the "chambre with a chymenee." ”

“ Chaucer, in his translation of Boethius, uses it to represent the Latin perditissimus. Compare the description of the lorel in the Ploughman's Tale (Speght's Chaucer) fol. 91:—
For thou canst no cattell gete,
But livest in lond as a lorell,
With glosing gettest thou thy mete. ”

“ It was the prevailing belief during the middle ages, that the tree on which Judas hanged himself was an elder. Maundevile tells us that this tree was still in existence, when he visited Jerusalem. "Also streghte from Natatorie Siloe is an ymage of ston and of olde auncyen werk, that Absalon leet make; and because thereof, men clepen it the hond of Absalon. And faste by is yit the tree of eldre that Judas henge himself upon for despeyr that he hadde, whan he solde and betrayed oure Lord." ”

“ Ho so haveth of urthe most, he is slou as an asse;
Of vad colour, of hard hide, boustes forme, and ded strong,
Of moche thoght, of lute speche, of stille grounynge, and wraththe long,
A slough wrecche and ferblet, fast and loth to geve his god,
Sone old, and noght wilful, stable and stedefast of mode.
And so on with the other elements. This doctrine of the composition of man from the four elements became a very popular one in the sixteenth century, when the poets frequently allude to it, as may be seen in the examples given by Nares (v. Elements) . ”

“ The seven deadly sins were—pride, anger, envy, sloth, covetousness, gluttony, and lechery. "Now ben they cleped chiefetaines, for as moche as they be chiefe, and of hem springen alle other sinnes. The rote of thise sinnes than is pride, the general rote of alle harmes. For of this rote springen certain braunches: as, ire, envie, accidie or slouthe, avarice or coveitise, (to commun understonding) glotonie, and lecherie: and eche of thise chief sinnes hath his braunches and his twigges." Chaucer, Persones Tale, p. 40. ”

“ I by no means agree with Price's interpretation of this phrase, or in his preference of the reading to falle if he stonde. (Note on Warton ii, 67.) The motion of the boat causes the firm man alternately to fall and stand; be he ever so stable, he stumbles now and then, but his strength is shown in his being able to recover himself. Such are the moral slips which even the just man cannot avoid. But if the man in the boat be too weak to arise again and place himself at the helm, his boat and himself will be lost for want of strength and guidance. ”

“ Chaucer, C. T. l. 1701, speaking of Arcite and Palamon, says they—"foughten breme, as it were bolles two," fought as fiercely as two bulls. In the Romance of Sir Amadas (Weber, p. 250) a person is described as coming "lyke a breme bare," like a fierce boar. It appears to be most commonly applied to animals. ”