The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866

The opening passage of the "Vision" has been so frequently reproduced, as a specimen of the poet's style, that it is probably familiar to many readers, but its exquisite naturalness and simplicity tempt us to quote it here.

 
"In a summer season,
When soft was the sun,
I shaped me into shrouds³
As I a shep⁴ were;
In habit as an hermit
Unholy of works
Went wide in this world
Wonders to hear:
And on a May morwening
On Malvern hills
Me befell a ferly,⁵
Of fairy methought.
I was weary for-wandered,
And went me to rest
Under a broad bank
By a bourne's⁶ side;
And as I lay and leaned,
And looked on the waters,
I slumbered into a sleeping
It swayed so merry."
 

The first scene in the visions that visited the sleep of the dreaming monk gives a view of the social classes of that time, beginning with the humblest, whose condition was uppermost in his mind. The picture is not only painted with vigorous touches, but affords a better idea of society in the fourteenth century than can be elsewhere obtained. There is the toiling ploughman, who "plays full seldom," winning by hard labor what wasteful men destroy; the mediæval dandy, whose only employment is to exhibit his attire; the hermit, who seeks by solitude and penitential life to win "heaven's rich bliss"; the merchant, who has wisely chosen his trade,—

 
"As it seemeth in our sight
That such men thriveth."
 

There are minstrels, who earn rich rewards by their singing; jesters and idle gossips; "sturdy beggars," wandering with full bags; pilgrims and palmers, who

 
"Went forth in their way
With many wise tales,
And had leave to lie
All their lives after";
 

counterfeit hermits, who assumed the cloak and hooked staff in order to live in idleness and sensuality; avaricious friars, selling their religion for money; cheating pardoners; covetous priests; ambitious bishops; lawyers who loved gain better than justice; "barons and burgesses, and bondmen also," with

 
"Bakers and brewers,
And butchers many;
Woollen websters,
And weavers of linen;
Tailors and tinkers,
And toilers in markets;
Masons and miners,
And many other crafts.
Of all kind living laborers
Leaped forth some;
As ditchers and delvers,
That do their deeds ill,
And driveth forth the long day
With Dieu save dame Emme.
Cooks and their knaves
Cried, 'Hot pies, hot!
Good geese and grys,⁷
Go dine, go!'"
 

To plead the cause of the poor and weak against their powerful oppressors, and to protest in the name of religion against the pride and corrupt life of its ministers, was the object of the monk of Malvern Abbey; and he did his work well. The blows he dealt were fierce and strong, and told home. Burgher and baron, monk and cardinal, alike felt the fury of his attacks. He was no respecter of persons. A monk himself, he had no scruples in tearing off the priestly robe that covered lust and rapine. Wrong in high places gained no respect from him. His invectives against a haughty and oppressive nobility and a corrupt and arrogant clergy are unsurpassed in power, and it is easy to understand the hold the poem at once acquired on the attention of the lower classes, and its influence in directing and hastening the attempt of the oppressed people to break their galling bonds.

What we have before said in reference to the wretched condition of the peasantry, as shown by contemporary evidence, is confirmed by the writer of the "Vision." The peasant was a born thrall to the owner of the land, and could

 
"no charter make,
Nor his cattle sell,
Without leave of his lord."
 

Misery and he were lifelong companions, and pinching want his daily portion. The wretched poor

 
"much care suffren
Through dearth, through drought,
All their days here:
Woe in winter times
For wanting of clothing
And in summer time seldom
Soupen to the full."
 

A graphic picture of a poor ploughman and his family is given in the "Creed" of Piers Plowman, supposed to have been written by the author of the "Vision," but a few years later.

 
"As I went by the way
Weeping for sorrow,
I saw a simple man me by,
Upon the plow hanging.
His coat was of a clout
That cary⁸ was called;
His hood was full of holes,
And his hair out;
With his knopped⁹ shoon
Clouted full thick;
His toes totedun¹⁰ out
As he the land treaded;
His hosen overhung his hockshins
On every side,
All beslomered in fen¹¹
As he the plow followed.
Two mittens as meter
Made all of clouts,
The fingers were for-werd¹²
And full of fen hanged.
This wight wallowed in the fen
Almost to the ankle.
Four rotheren¹³ him before
That feeble were worthy,
Men might reckon each rib
So rentful¹⁴ they were.
His wife walked him with,
With a long goad,
In a cutted coat,
Cutted full high,
Wrapped in a winnow sheet
To weren her from weathers,
Barefoot on the bare ice
That the blood followed.
And at the land's end layeth
A little crumb-bowl,¹⁵
And thereon lay a little child
Lapped in clouts,
And twins of two years old
Upon another side.
And all they sungen one song,
That sorrow was to hear;
They crieden all one cry,
A careful note.
The simple man sighed sore,
And said, 'Children, be still!'"
 

The tenant of land, or small farmer, was in a better condition, and when not cozened of his stores by the monks, or robbed of them by the ruffians in office or out of office, managed to live with some kind of rude comfort. What the ordinary condition of his larder and the extent of his farming stock were, may be learned from a passage in the "Vision."

 
"'I have no penny,' quoth Piers,
'Pullets to buy.
Nor neither geese nor grys;
But two green cheeses,
A few curds and cream,
And an haver cake,¹⁶
And two loaves of beans and bran,
Baked for my fauntes¹⁷;
And yet I say, by my soul!
I have no salt bacon.
Nor no cokeney,¹⁸ by Christ!
Collops for to maken.
 
 
"But I have perciles and porettes,¹⁹
And many cole plants,²⁰
And eke a cow and calf.
And a cart-mare
To draw afield my dung,
The while the drought lasteth;
And by this livelihood we must live
Till Lammas time.
And by that I hope to have
Harvest in my croft,
And then may I dight thy dinner
As me dear liketh.'"
 

We have already described the tenure by which the tenant held his lands, and the protection the knightly landowner was bound to give his tenant. Thus Piers Plowman, when his honest labors are broken in upon by ruffians,

 
"Plained him to the knight
To help him, as covenant was,
From cursed shrews,
Aud from these wasters, wolves-kind,
That maketh the world dear."
 

At times this was but a wolf's protection, or a stronger power broke through all guards. The "king's purveyor," or some other licensed despoiler, came in, and the victim was left to make fruitless complaints of his injuries. The women were subjected to gross outrages, and the property stolen or destroyed.

 
"Both my geese and my grys
His gadelings²¹ fetcheth,
I dare not, for fear of them,
Fight nor chide.
He borrowed of me Bayard
And brought him home never,
Nor no farthing therefore
For aught that I could plead.
He maintaineth his men
To murder my hewen,²²
Forestalleth my fairs,
And fighteth in my chepying.²³
And breaketh up my barn door,
And beareth away my wheat,
And taketh me but a tally
For ten quarters of oats;
And yet he beateth me thereto."
 

Then, as now, there were complaints that the privations of the poor were increased by the covetousness of the hucksters, and "regraters" (retailers), who came between the producer and the consumer, and grew rich on the profits made from both.

 
"Brewers and bakers,
Butchers and cooks,"
 

were charged with robbing

 
"the poor people
That parcel-meal²⁴ buy;
For they empoison the people
Privily and oft.
They grow rich through regratery,
And rents they buy
With what the poor people
Should put in their wamb.²⁵
For, took they but truly,
They timbered²⁶ not so high,
Nor bought no burgages,²⁷
Be ye fell certain."
 

Stringent laws were made against huckstering and regrating, and officers were appointed to punish offenders in this respect, "with pillories and pining-stools." But officers, then as now, were not proof against temptation, and were often disposed

 
"Of all such sellers
Silver for to take;
Or presents without pence,
As pieces of silver,
Rings, or other riches,
The regraters to maintain."
 

Nor had the rogues of the fourteenth century much to learn in the way of turning a dishonest penny. The merchant commended his bad wares for good, and knew how to adulterate and how to give short measure. The spinners of wool were paid by a heavy pound, and the article resold by a light pound. Laws were made against such frauds, but laws were little regarded when they conflicted with self-interest. The crime of clipping and "sweating" coin was frequently practised. Pawn-brokers, money-lenders, and sellers of exchange thrived and flourished.

The rich find but little consideration at the hands of the plain-spoken dreamer. Their extravagance is commented on; their growing pride, which prompted them to abandon the great hall and take their meals in a private room, and their uncharitableness to the poor. They practise the saying, that "to him that hath shall be given."

 
"Right so, ye rich,
Ye robeth them that be rich,
And helpeth them that helpen you,
And giveth where no need is.
Ye robeth and feedeth
Them that have as ye have
Them ye make at ease."
 

But when, hungered, athirst, and shivering with cold, the poor man comes to the rich man's gate, there is none to help, but he is

 
"hunted as a hound,
And bidden go thence."
 

Thus

 
"the rich is reverenced
By reason of his richness,
And the poor is put behind."
 

Truly, says the Monk of Malvern,

 
"God is much in the gorge
Of these great masters;
But among mean men
His mercy and his works."
 

But it is on the vices and corruptions of the clergy that the monk pours the vials of his wrath. He cloaks nothing, and spares neither rank nor condition. The avarice of the clergy, their want of religion, and the prostitution of their sacred office for the sake of gain, are sternly denounced in frequently-recurring passages. The facility with which debaucheries and crimes of all kinds could be compounded for with the priests by presents of gold and silver, the neglect of their flocks whilst seeking gain in the service of the rich and powerful, their ignorance, pride, extravagance, and licentiousness, are painted in strong colors. The immense throng of friars and monks, who "waxen out of number," meet with small mercy from their fellow-monk. Falsehood and fraud are described as dwelling ever with them. Their unholy life and unseemly quarrels are held up for reprobation. Nor do the nuns escape the imputation of unchastity. The quackery of pardoners, with their pardons and indulgences from pope and bishop, is treated with contempt and scorn. Bishops are criticised for their undivided attention to worldly matters; and even the Pope himself does not escape censure.

 
"What pope or prelate now
Performeth what Christ hight²⁸?"
 

The cardinals come in for a share of the censure, and here occurs a passage, curiously suggestive of the celebrated line,—

 
"Never yet did cardinal bring good to England."
"The commons clamat cotidie
Each man to the other,
The country is the curseder
That cardinals come in;
And where they lie and lenge²⁹ most,
Lechery there reigneth."
 

Years afterwards, Wycliffe dealt mighty blows at the corrupt and debased clergy, and Chaucer pierced them with his sharp satire, but neither surpassed their predecessor in the vigor and spirit of his onslaughts. One passage, which we quote, had evidently been acted on by Chaucer's "poor parson," and can be studied even at this late day.

 
"Friars and many other masters,
That to lewed³⁰ men preachen,
Ye moven matters unmeasurable
To tellen of the Trinity,
That oft times the lewed people
Of their belief doubt.
Better it were to many doctors
To leave such teaching,
And tell men of the ten commandments,
And touching the seven sins,
And of the branches that bourgeoneth of them,
And bringeth men to hell,
And how that folk in follies
Misspenden their five wits,
As well friars as other folks,
Foolishly spending,
In housing, in hatering,³¹
And in to high clergy showing
More for pomp than for pure charity.
The people wot the sooth
That I lie not, lo!
For lords ye pleasen,
And reverence the rich
The rather for their silver."
 

It would be hardly proper to leave this portion of the subject without alluding to the remarkable passage which has been held by many as a prophecy of the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII., nearly two centuries later. After denouncing the corruptions of the clergy, he says:—

 
"But there shall come a king
And confess you religiouses,
And beat you as the Bible telleth
For breaking of your rule;
And amend monials,
Monks and canons,
And put them to their penance.
 
 
*   *   *   *
 
 
And then shall the Abbot of Abingdon,
And all his issue forever,
Have a knock of a king,
And incurable the wound."
 

A distinctive and charming feature of the English landscape is the hedgerow that divides the fields and marks the course of the roadways. Nowhere but in England does the landscape present such a charming picture of "meadows trim with daisies pied," "russet lawns and fallows gray," spread out like a map, divided with irregular lines of green. Nowhere else is the traveller's path guarded on either hand with a rampart of delicate primroses, sweet-breathed violets, golden buttercups fit for fairy revels, honeysuckles in whose bells the bee rings a delighted peal, and luscious-fruited blackberry-bushes. Nowhere else is such a rampart crowned with the sweet-scented hawthorn, robed in snowy blossoms, or beaded over with scarlet berries, and with the hazel, with its gracefully pendent catkins, or nuts dear to the school-boy. It scarcely seems possible to imagine an English landscape without its flower-scented hedge-rows, and yet, when the armed knights of Edward the Third's reign rode abroad from their castles, few lofty hedges barred their progress across the country; no hazel-crowned rampart stopped the way of the Malvern monk as he took his way to the "bourne's side"; and when the ploughman "whistled o'er the furrowed land," the line of division at which he turned his back on his neighbor's acres was generally but a narrow trench instead of a ditch and hedge. Thus the covetous man confesses,

 
"If I yede³² to the plow,
I pinched so narrow
That a foot land or a furrow
Fetchen I would
Of my next neighbor,
And nymen³³ of his earth.
And if I reap, overreach."
 

As might have been expected, the monkish dreamer, unusually liberal as he was in his views, had but a slighting opinion of women. Rarely does he refer to them except to rate them for their extravagance in dress and love of finery. The humbler class of women, he shrewdly insinuates, were fond of drink, and the husbands of such were advised to cudgel them home to their domestic duties. He credited the long-standing slander about woman's inability to keep a secret:—

 
"For that that women wotteth
May not well be concealed."
 

His opinion of the proper sphere of women in that time, and some knowledge of their ordinary feminine occupations, can be acquired from the answer made to the question of a lady as to what her sex should do:—

 
"Some should sew the sack, quoth Piers,
For shedding of the wheat;
And ye, lovely ladies,
With your long fingers,
That ye have silk and sendal
To sew, when time is,
Chasubles for chaplains,
Churches to honor.
Wives and widows
Wool and flax spinneth;
Make cloth, I counsel you,
And kenneth³⁴ so your daughters;
The needy and the naked,
Nymeth³⁵ heed how they lieth,
And casteth them clothes,
For so commanded Truth."
 

Marriage is an honorable estate, and should be entered into with proper motives, and in a decent and regular manner. It is desirable that most men should marry, for

 
"The wife was made the way
For to help work;
And thus was wedlock wrought
With a mean person,
First by the father's will
And the friends counsel;
And sithens³⁶ by assent of themselves,
As they two might accord."
 

This is the essentially worldly way of making marriage arrangements yet practised in some aristocratic circles, but the more democratic and natural way is to reverse the process, and commence with the agreement between the two persons most concerned. Such unequal matches as age and wealth on one side, and youth and desire of wealth on the other, bring about, are sternly reprobated.

 
"It is an uncomely couple,
By Christ! as me thinketh,
To give a young wench
To an old feeble,
Or wedden any widow
For wealth of her goods,
That never shall bairn bear
But if it be in her arms."
 

Such marriages lead to jealousy, bickerings, and open rupture, disgraceful to husband and wife, and annoying to others. Therefore Piers counsels

 
"all Christians,
Covet not to be wedded
For covetise of chattels.
Not of kindred rich;
But maidens and maidens
Make you together;
Widows and widowers
Worketh the same;
For no lands, but for love,
Look you be wedded";—
 

adding the sound bit of spiritual and worldly advice,

 
"And then get ye the grace of God;
And goods enough, to live with."
 

The touch of shrewd humor in the last line finds its counterpart in many other passages. Thus, when the dreamer sits down to rest by the wayside, his iteration of the prescribed prayers makes him drowsy:—

 
"So I babbled on my beads;
They brought me asleep."
 

The Franciscan friars, his especial aversion, get a sly thrust when he says of Charity that

 
"in a friar's frock
He was founden once;
But it is far ago,
In Saint Francis's time:
In that sect since
Too seldom hath he been found."
 

When Covetousness has confessed his numerous misdeeds, and is asked if he ever repented and made restitution, he replies,

 
"Yes, once I was harbored
With a heap of chapmen.³⁷
I rose when they were at rest
And rifled their males³⁸";—
 

and on being told that this was no restitution, but another robbery, he replies, with assumed innocence of manner,

 
"I wened³⁹ rifling were restitution, quoth he,
For I learned never to read on book;
And I ken no French, in faith,
But of the farthest end of Norfolk."
 

Even the Pope is not exempt from a touch of satire:—

 
"He prayed the Pope
Have pity on holy Church,
And ere he gave any grace,
Govern first himself."
 

The prejudice against doctors and lawyers was as strong five hundred years ago as now, judging from Piers Plowman, who says, that

 
"Murderers are many leeches,
Lord them amend!
They do men die through their drinks
Ere destiny it would."
 

Of lawyers he says they pleaded

 
"for pennies
And pounds, the law;
And not for the love of our Lord
Unclose their lips once.
Thou mightest better meet mist
On Malvern hills
Than get a mum of their mouth
Till money be showed."
 

No class of people suffered more in the Middle Ages than the Jews. They were abhorred by the poor, despised by the wealthy, and cruelly oppressed by the powerful. But through all their sufferings and trials they were true to each other; and the monk holds up their fraternal charity as an example to shame Christians into similar virtues. He says:—

 
"A Jew would not see a Jew
Go jangling⁴⁰ for default.
For all the mebles⁴¹ on this mould⁴²
And he amend it might.
Alas! that a Christian creature
Shall be unkind to another;
Since Jews, that we judge
Judas's fellows,
Either of them helpeth other
Of that that him needeth.
Why not will we Christians
Of Christ's good be as kind
As Jews, that be our lores-men⁴³?
Shame to us all!"
 

With one more curious passage, giving a glimpse of the belief of that age concerning the future state, we will close our extracts from "Piers Plowman." Discussing the condition of the thief upon the cross who was promised a seat in heaven, the dreamer says:—

 
"Right as some man gave me meat,
And amid the floor set me,
And had meat more than enough,
But not so much worship
As those that sitten at the side-table,
Or with the sovereigns of the hall;
But set as a beggar boardless,
By myself on the ground.
So it fareth by that felon
That on Good Friday was saved,
He sits neither with Saint John,
Simon, nor Jude,
Nor with maidens nor with martyrs,
Confessors nor widows;
But by himself as a sullen,⁴⁴
And served on earth.
For he that is once a thief
Is evermore in danger,
And, as law him liketh,
To live or to die.
And for to serven a saint
And such a thief together,
It were neither reason nor right
To reward them both alike."
 

"Piers Plowman" is supposed to have been written in 1362. It became instantly popular, and manuscript copies were rapidly distributed over England. Imitations preserving the peculiar form, and aiming at the same objects as the "Vision," though without the genius exhibited in that work, appeared in quick succession. The hatred of the oppressed people for their oppressors was intensified by the inflammatory harangues of John Ball, the deposed priest. The preaching of Wycliffe probed still deeper the festering corruption of the dominant Church. At last, in 1381, a popular rising, under Wat Tyler, attempted to right the wrongs of generations at the sword's point. The result of that attempt is well known,—its temporary success, sudden overthrow, and the terrible revenge taken by the ruling power in the enactment of laws that made the burden of the people still more intolerable.

But the seed of political and religious freedom had been sown. It had been watered with the blood of martyrs; and, although the tender shoots had been trodden down with an iron heel as soon as they appeared, they gathered additional strength and vigor from the repression, and soon sprang up with a vitality that defied all efforts to crush them.