to have returned to the west. He died presumably not long after the opening of the reign of Henry IV.

Like Richard Rolle, William glowed with moral and religious passion; like the hermit of Hampole, he early asked himself the question what was the mission and destiny of man, and by what means the ideal, when recognised, might be reached. But here their paths separate. Both were recluses and wanderers, both in a sense renounced the world and retired into themselves; both had visions and described them; but they felt and did these things in quite different ways. More humane, more manly, and less exalted than Richard, William never rose to such asceticism and ecclesiastical sanctity as did his predecessor, and he probably never aimed to do so. Richard's seclusion and anxious dread of contact with the material world corresponded in William with an almost philosophic indifference or sobriety. The sublunary world that filled Richard with fear and disgust, yielded æsthetic pleasure to William. A trait at once poetic and philosophic made him enjoy the beauty of this world, and boldly conceive the doings of men, not less through the heart than the intellect. The satirical mood thus awakened was chastened and brightened by a touch of humour. William found his religious ideal in the life of Christ and in the lives of the first Christians, while Richard looked for the heavenly Jerusalem on earth. Richard's visions seem like the outcome of a morbid ecstacy; but the dreams of William make us feel that the poet stands on firm ground, while his fancy roams in the remotest spaces.

Not less unlike were their relations to the church and to humanity. Richard's immediate sphere of action was a much wider one, but the object of his study, as of his work, was but the individual as such. William, on the other hand, ever had the aggregate in view, the society living in church and state; and as his horizon was larger, so was his influence deeper and broader.

Before middle life, William, like Dante, had recognised that the world was out of joint. He too looked with longing for the deliverer who should set it right; he too, with all the powers of his soul, wrestled for the knowledge of salvation, for himself as for others; he too lifted up his voice in warning and menace, before the great and mighty of the

earth, before princes and priests; he too held up a mirror to the world, in which it saw both its own image and the ideal to which it had grown faithless.

But unlike the Italian poet, William did not attain a full and clear theory of life, and hence he failed to put together what he had lived and seen, in a symmetrical, distinctly-drawn picture, with the mighty personality of the poet for its centre. The Vision concerning Piers Plowman is a series of paintings whose mutual connection lies more in the intention than in actual execution, and each of them has, besides clearly illumined groups, others that seem enveloped in mist, whose outlines we may feel rather than perceive, and still others whose dim figures first receive colour and life from our fancy.

But the mind of the poet is all-pervading; it takes hold upon the heart of the reader, compels it to enter into the secret purposes of the poetry; and thus is proved, even here, despite the mass of unformed material, the superior power of Teutonic poesy, needing neither the music of language nor the charm of image to find its way to the heart, and whose very essence is directness.

What was the author's culture, the literary atmosphere in which we are to study him?

Langland's reading was by no means slight, but it was rather special than general, and somewhat one-sided.

He seems most familiar with Holy Writ and the great Latin fathers; in Roman profane literature he was acquainted with satirists, as Juvenal, and moralists, as Dionysius Cato. As he understood French, he had doubtless read the Romance of the Rose and The Tournament of Antichrist, by Huon de Mery (about 1228). Allegory dwelt, moreover, in the spirit of the age; medieval theology had taken it from the Bible and the church fathers, and English literature had frequently employed it in religious writings. William doubtless knew such poems as Robert Grosseteste's Castel d'amour, of which perhaps two renderings then existed; the honest, but exceedingly formless, imitation by the monk of Sallay being probably half a century older than Langland's Vision. In the Castel d'amour, a recapitulation of the religious history of mankind, allegory is brought to bear, especially in the central part that treats of redemption; here the castle of love is the bosom of the Holy Virgin. William, however, seems to

VISION CONCERNING PIERS PLOWMAN.

355

have been impressed above all by the passage where the four daughters of the most high king, Mercy, Truth, Righteousness, and Peace,1 debate on the redemption of man.

As regards the English writers preceding him, Langland owed most to the preachers and satirists. Especially did the poem on the Evil Times of Edward II. yield him caustic and vigorous satire on all classes. There were also attempts at prophecy, which were generally popular in the English Middle Ages, and were continually called forth anew by the exigencies of the times. A certain infection of mysticism was in the air; this led, of itself, to the idea of the vision as the poetic frame, and William had not to borrow it from the romance-poets.

The alliterative measure had again just come into use in the Welsh Marches when our poet began his work. William aptly chose it for his forcible, clear-cut writing, which was at once popular and noble, easy and restrained.

He put his hand to the work in the year 1362. The times and the mood of the English population were favourable to his purpose. In the year just passed, the plague had raged in the kingdom, for the second time in the reign of Edward III. Again, on the fifteenth of January, 1362, men were filled with terror by a devastating tempest, that seemed to usher in the judgment day. It was the right moment for the appearance of a prophet and preacher of repentance. Let us consider the poem more closely. It begins as follows:

In a somer sesun, when softe was þe sonne,

I schop me in-to a schroud, A scheep as I were;
In Habite of an Hermite vnholy of werkes,
Wende I wydene in þis world, wondres to here.
Bote in a Mayes Morwnynge on Maluerne hulles
Me be-fel a ferly, A Feyrie me pouhte;

I was weori of wandringe and wente me to reste
Vndur a brod banke bi a Bourne syde,

And as I lay and leonede and lokede on þe watres,
slumberde in A slepyng, hit sownede so murie.
Penne gon I Meeten, A Meruelous sweuene,
Pat I was in A Wildernesse, wuste I neuer where,
And as I beo-heold in-to be Est, an-heiz to be sonne,

I sauh a Tour on A Toft [trizely] I-maket;

1 "Mercy, Sothfastnes, Rightwysnes, Pees." Grosseteste himself owed this alle gory to a homily by St. Bernard.

A Deop Dale bi-neope, A dungun þer-Inne,
With deop dich and derk and dredful of siht.
A Feir feld ful of folk, fond I per bi-twene,
Of alle maner of men, be mene and be riche,
Worchinge and wondringe, as be world askep.
Summe putten hem to be plous and pleiden hem ful seldene,
In Eringe and in Sowynge swonken ful harde,

Pat monie of peos wasturs In Glotonye distruen.

And summe putten hem to pruide apparaylden hem þer-after,
In Cuntinaunce of clopinge queinteliche de-Gyset;

To preyere and to penaunce putten heom monye,

For loue of vr lord liueden ful harde,

In Hope for to haue Heuene-riche blisse.1

Thus the most diverse classes and callings pass in review before the poet: merchants, minstrels, jesters, beggars who live in luxury; pilgrims who go to Santiago or Rome, who "went forth in their way, with many wise tales, and had leave to lie, all their life after;" mendicant friars of all four orders," "preaching to the people for profit of their bellies, glozing the gospel as they like;" a pardoner, who produces a bull provided with episcopal seals, and gathers rings and brooches from the ignorant who kneeling kiss it; parsons, who beg permission of their bishops to leave their parishes, impoverished by the plague, and to live in London in order to "sing there for simony, for silver is sweet; " sergeants-atlaw, whose mouths are only opened by ready money; bishops and deacons, who enter into the service of the state and the court; barons and burgesses; tradesmen of all guilds.

That"fair field full of folk" clearly represents this world. The meaning of the tower on the hill and of the deep dale is interpreted for us and the poet by a beautiful woman clothed in linen, who comes down to him from the hill. She erself is the "Holy Church," the tower is the dwelling-place of "Truth," (that is, of God himself); the dungeon in the dale is the castle of Care, whose lord is Wrong, the father of Falsehood. In answer to his questions, William is instructed as to the nature of Truth, the best of treasures. Her voice speaks audibly in the bosom of every man, and tells him that Love is the readiest way to heaven.

William begs farther: "For Mary's love of heaven, that bore that blissful child, that bought us on the rood, teach me

1 Piers Plowman, ed. Skeat, Text A, v. 1-27.
Dominicans, Franciscans, Carmelites, Augustins.

by some craft to know Falsehood." "Look up to thy left," is the answer, "and see where they stand, both False (False. hood) and Fauvel,1 and their many companions." The poet follows her directions, and he discovers in the group a richly and strikingly decked woman. "What is this woman so strangely attired ? " "That is the maid Meed (reward, bribery) who hath harmed me full oft, hath mocked my teaching; . . . . in the pope's palace she is as at home as myself, which should not be so, for Wrong is her father.

I ought to be better than she, I came of a better. . . . Now Meed will be married to False. Fauvel, through his fair speech, hath brought them together, and all is Guile's leading that thus she is wedded. To-morrow will be made the maiden's bridal; and there thou mayest know, if thou wilt, who they all are that belong to that lordship. Know them there if thou canst. Beware of them all, if thou willest to dwell with Truth in his bliss. I may no longer tarry. Now I leave thee to God; become a good man in spite of Covetousness." Holy Church leaves the poet to watch the preparations for the wedding, and the further developments. A great crowd has gathered to witness the solemnities; ten thousand tents are erected to accommodate them. Sir Simony and Civil, who represents office-holding, read the deed of the lovers' dowry; the document is then sealed and signed. Theology, however, opposes the marriage, and contests its legality. It is agreed to go to Westminster and have the matter decided by the king's court. Now horses are lacking; but help is soon provided for this emergency. Meed rides upon the back of a sheriff, False on that of an assizer, Fauvel on Fair Speech, and all are similarly mounted. The whole company is led by Guile. Before they reach the court, however, Soothness arrives there and tells the tale to Conscience, who imparts it to the king. The king, in this place Edward III., swears vengeance on False and Fauvel, and all their companions. Dread stands at the door, and

! In Fauvel, meaning "flattery" in Langland, we have a special application of an originally more comprehensive allegorical idea. The name Fauvel, in Early French and Middle English, is frequently given to animals of favel colour, especially to horses. In the Roman de Fauvel, however, it is the name of a beast, symbolising the reigning vices in church and society. The couleur fauve of the beast is still alluded to, though the name is, falsely, explained as a compound of fauls and vel. As Fauvel's children, are mentioned Flaterie, Avarice, Vilenie, Varieté, Envie and Lascheté. The initial letters of these words, being combined, give the word FAVVEL. See Jahrbuch für remanische und englische Literatur, VII, 321.