to have been written in or soon after 1362; the second, in or soon after 1377; and the third, perhaps in 1393, perhaps in 1398. In the second of these the dreamer is spoken of (Book xii. 3) as forty-five years old, which would give his birth-year as 1332, a date in itself very probable. A theory that he was the son of a bondman, and only became free by taking holy orders, rests on a doubtful interpretation of a line which may more easily refer to the freedom of God's kingdom conferred by baptism. But there is a clear statement, in a section of the poem added in the last revision and apparently purely biographical, that his father needed the help of friends to send him to school. The death of these friends seems to have cut short his career, and he describes himself as living in London, and on London, earning money by singing requiems for hire. 'Reason,' one of the characters in the poem, has been asking him what he does for a living, and he answers: 'Whanne ich yong was,' quath ich, 'meny yer hennes, My fader & my frendes founden me to scole, Tyl ich wiste wyterliche what holy writ menede, And what is best for the body, as the bok telleth, And sykerest for the soule, by so ich wol continue, And yut fond ich nevere in faith sytthen my frendes deyden, Lyf that me lyked bote in these longe clothes Yf ich by labour sholde lyve and lyflode deserven, That labour that ich lerned best, ther-with lyve ich sholde, And ich lyve in Londone and on Londone bothe, Now with hym and now with hure, and thus-gate ich begge (The Vision of William concerning Piers the Plowman; ed. W. W. Skeat, 1886; C text vi. 35-52.) Wyterliche, certainly; sykerest, surest; lyflode, livelihood; lomes, tools; sauter, psalter; bote my wombe one, save my belly alone. Born of a father too poor to educate him without the help of friends, the help of these friends cut off by death probably before his education was finished, Langland seems to have taken minor orders, and to have gained his living as a chanter of psalms for the souls of the dead, without ever rising to the priesthood. In the same section of the poem from which this extract is taken-a section inserted in Langland's old age as if for the purpose of telling his story-we find references to his living on Cornhill, 'Kytte and ich in a cote,' Kit being his wife. Elsewhere there is mention of a daughter, Kalote; and allusions to the wording of legal documents make it probable that he eked out his earnings as a chanter by copying for the lawyers. He must have been poor, and he has given us a picture of himself walking the London streets, eyeing the rich folk discontentedly, and refusing to make way for or salute them, until people looked on him as a fool. It is thought that in his old age he may have returned to Malvern, and if he was the author of the poem on 'Richard the Redeless,' he was certainly at Bristol when Henry IV. entered England to claim the throne. But wherever he went he must have taken the same restless spirit, and in the scantiness of our knowledge it is as living 'in London and on London both' that it is easiest for us to think of him. When he was thirty or thereabouts Langland wrote his Vision concerning Piers Plowman. His was not the temper which could lead him to add yet another to the romances of chivalry, or to make a popular sermon in verse by stringing together stories and anecdotes. Preach he must, but not in this way, and so for the machinery of his poem he chose a Dream or Vision, a device which since the success of the Roman de la Rose had been increasingly popular in France, and was now, as in Pearl and several of the poems of Chaucer, to find favour in England also. Into a dream, with the help of the personifications of allegory, he could put whatever he wished; his form also gave him the right to shift his scenes as he chose, and so in a medley of satire, exhortation, and disquisition he pours out all his thoughts on human life. According to convention the dream was dreamed on a May morning: In a somer sesun, whan softe was the sonne, I was wery of wandringe and wente me to reste I 2 3 1 I put myself into a rough garment as if I were a shepherd. 2 That is, a hermit who did not stay in his cell. 3 There befell me a wonder, of fairyland, it seemed. [In this and subsequent quotations from the text of the first version (A) the spelling is normalised to that of the better-spelt B text.] So Langland began, with music enough to have charmed a fashionable audience, but there was little else in his 'swevene,' or dream, for which fashionable people can have cared. What he saw was a wilderness with a tower on a hill, and beneath the hill a deep dale with a dungeon. Betwixt hill and dale lay a fair field, full of folk-honest workers and honest devotees, merchants and minstrels, and rogues of every sort, especially the pilgrims, palmers, hermits, friars, pardoners, unworthy priests and worldly bishops, who professed religion merely to live an easy life at the expense of others. As the dreamer gazes a lovely lady appears (Passus i.), who tells him that the tower is the abode of Truth-that Truth who made all things, and gave man clothing, meat, and drink, to use in due measure. The dungeon in the dale is the Castle of Care, wherein dwells the tempter of mankind. She herself is Holy Church, who received him at baptism and taught him his faith. Her message to him is that, 'when all treasure is tried, Truth is the best.' When he asks what Truth is, she answers: 'It is a kynde knowynge that kenneth the in herte, teaches share For though ye be trewe of tonge and trewliche wynne, A womman wonderliche clothed, Purfiled with pelure, the richest upon erthe, Embroidered-fur Y-crounede with a corone-the kyng hath no better; Alle hir fyve fyngres were fretted with rynges, ornamented Of the preciousest perre that prince wered evere; jewellery In red scarlet she rod, i-rybaunt with gold; Ther n'is no qweene qweynter that quik is alyve. daintier (A. Passus ii. 8-14.) This is Meed the maiden, who is to be married to-morrow to False; and when the dreamer looks again he sees a pavilion and ten thousand tents, where the lawyers and flattering friars, who are to be witnesses of the marriage, are assembled. The dowry, 'the earldom of Envy,' 'the kingdom of Covetise,' the 'isle of Usury,' &c., is rehearsed ; but Theology appears and exclaims against the marriage, bidding that Meed should be led to London, where law is handled,' for the King's decision as to whether it shall proceed. Meed is set on a sheriffs back, her friends mount the summoners, provisors, &c., who work their favourite sins, and ride after her to the King's court. Warned by Conscience, the King would hang the whole crew : Thanne Fals for fere fleih to the freeres, And Gyle doth him to go agast for to dye; But marchaundes metten with him and maden him to abide, Bisoughten him in here shoppes to sellen here ware, Pardoners hadden pite, and putten him to house, Wosschen him and wrongen him and wounden him in cloutes, And sente him on Sondayes with seales to churches, (A. Passus ii. 186-198.) Fleih, flew; doth, causes; here, their; thorw, among; to-logged, lugged about; hote to trusse, bidden to pack away; pens, pence; poundmele, by pounds, plentifully. Deserted by her friends, Meed trembles for fear, weeps, and wrings her hands; but (Passus iii.) the King will assay her himself, and with all courtesy she is lodged at Westminster. She rewards her hosts bounteously, and when a friar shrives her of her sins and promises her heaven if she will glaze the gable of his convent and inscribe her name on the window, she assents gladly; whereat the author allows himself a digression against such vainglorious benefactions. The King offers to marry her to his knight, Conscience. Meed assents; Conscience, however, receives the proposal with denunciations. But Reason rede me ther-to erst will I die' is his answer (Passus iv.); so Reason is sent for, and comes riding on 'Suffer-till-I-seemy-time' (a mild instance of Langland's anticipation of Puritan names), attended by Witty and Wisdom. He is given a place between the King and his son (i.e. the Black Prince), and while they are conversing Peace enters with a long complaint against Wrong. The King sentences Wrong to seven years in irons; but Meed buys over Peace with a purse of gold, so that he beseeches the King that Wrong may be forgiven. Reason is appealed to, and will hear of no ruth while Meed hath the mastery, for a king's motto should be that no evil go unpunished and no good unrewarded. His answer is acclaimed, and the King says he will have him as a counsellor for ever. King and knights then go to church (Passus v.), and before the dreamer's eyes the scene changes again to the 'field full of folk,' and Conscience (in later versions Reason) preaches to them on their sins, with the peroration: And ye, that secheth seynt James and seintes at Rome, Now ginneth the Gloton for to go to schrifte, 'What havest thou?' quod he. 'Any hote spices?' (A. Passus v. 146-156.) Schrifte, confession; brewstere, brewer-woman; peper, pepper; piones, peony seed. After this follows a curious description of a game of barter at the tavern, and at last Glotton staggers away so foully drunk That with al the wo of this world his wyf and his wenche Bere him home to his bedde and broughte him therinne, And after al this surfet an accesse he had, That he slepte Saturday and Sonday til sonne wente to reste. Thenne he wakede of his wynk and wypede his eyghen; And gon to grede grimliche and gret deol to make (Ibid. 208-217.) Accesse, attack; wynk, nap; tho, then; gon, began; grede, cry out; deol, dole, lamentation. At last comes Robert the robber: Robert the robbere on Reddite he lokede, (Ibid. 242-253.) Nas, was not; wher-with, i.e. to make reddite or restitution; shrewe, rogue; Tho, when; Dismas, the name given in legend to the Penitent Thief; memento, remember; worth, be done. And the Passus, which in all its three forms is one of the best of the book, ends with a general repentance: A thousent of men tho throngen to-geders, To have grace to seche seint Treuthe-God leve they so He will take no hire, but the way, as he explains it, is intricate, passing the croft called 'Coveytenoght-mennes-catel-ne-her-wyves-Ne-none-of-her servauntes-that-noyen-hem-myghte,' and other likenamed landmarks. The pilgrims are daunted (Passus vii.), and Piers offers, if they will first help him to plough his half-acre, to go with them. Some work well, others sham sickness, others threaten Piers, but with the aid of Hunger he makes them work. But now (Passus viii.), as they are about to set out Treuthe herde telle her-of and to Pers sent, To taken his teeme and tilyen the erthe, (A. Passus viii. 1–8.) 1 Plough their fields. There is some rejoicing, but (Ibid. 90-100)— 'Pers,' quod a prest tho, 'thi pardon most I reden, For I wil construe eche clause and knowen it in Englisch.' And Pers at his preyere the pardon unfoldeth, 'Peter,' quod the prest tho, I con no pardon fynde, and resolves to give up the active life and turn him to prayer and penance and weeping. The wrangling of Piers and the priest awakes the dreamer, with his head still full of Piers and his fate. But thus, as the manuscript says, ends the Vision of William concerning Piers Plowman; and 'the Life of Dowel, Do-bet, and Do-best, according to Wit and Reason,' which follows upon it, is obviously an after-thought. It will be seen from our summary that the poem, in this, its earliest, form, has a certain continuity— the continuity, that is, of a real dream. Characters are introduced, and we know not what becomes of them; but the plot, if it can be called one, moves forward, till Langland is face to face with the great problem of religion. Here he fails. His Pardon, as the priest is made to say, is no pardon. That they who have done good shall receive life everlasting, and they that have done evil be damned, taken by itself leaves mankind hopeless; and when Langland, starting from this position, set himself to write the so-called 'lives' of Do-well, Do-bet, and Do-best, despite the thirty years he gave to them, he effected far less than in the comparatively short poem which formed his first draft. In his first continuation 'Thought' suggests to him that Σ Do-well is a humble labourer, Do-bet one who adds to his meekness and honesty an active charity, Dobest a kind of bishop, the three selecting a king who rules them all by their assent. Then he imagines a castle of Anima, in which Do-well is a knight, Do-bet the soul's 'damoisele,' Do-best again a kind of bishop. But he feels that he is getting into deep waters, and after seeking counsel of 'Study,' 'Theology,' and 'Scripture,' represents himself as meeting once more with 'Hunger,' and with 'Fever,' the messenger of Death, and then hastening to finish his poem: And whan this werk was wrought, ere Willie myghte aspie, Deth delt him a dent and drof him to the erthe, clay But he could not leave his poem alone. About 1377 (probably after some intermediate tinkerings) he rewrote it from the beginning, suppressing the conclusion, altering almost every line, and inserting new passages (notably the famous apologue of the 'Mice who would bell the Cat'), suited to the reign in which he was now writing, or embodying new ideas. In this second form there are ten new books, or passus, concerning Do-well, Do-bet, and Do-best, but except here and there, as in the picture of Haukyn the Active Man, the characters introduced have little to do with contemporary manners: they are abstractions who talk. Amid a wilderness of discussion Langland comes near at one point to a solution which would have given religious and poetical completeness to his poem. Piers Plowman, from the type of the true-hearted worker, becomes almost identical with Christ Himself. Clad in the armour of Piers, Christ 'jousts' in Jerusalem against the Devil and harrows Hell. But the poet still wanted to work out in detail a gospel of action, and his ending is confused and inconclusive. In his old age, about 1393, possibly as late as 1398, he put forth a third version of his poem, following the lines of the second, but with countless alterations, seldom for the better, and many added passages (including five new passus), of which only those which touch on his own life possess much freshness. All these labours, which occupied so many years, added nothing to the poem as a work of art, and the immense additions repel rather than attract modern readers. On the other hand, they enabled Langland to pour into his poem everything he had to say, and amid much that is merely dull there are fine passages and felicities of thought and phrase which increase our respect for him as a poet. Witness such a line as 'To se moche and suffre more, certes,' quod I, 'is Dowel;' (B. xi. 402) or these in a passage on the duty of godfathersFor more bilongeth to the litel barne, er he the lawe knowe, Than nempnyng of a name, and he nevere the wiser ! (B. ix. 77-78) or these on Kynde' or Nature-- He is the pyes patroun and putteth it in hire ere There the thorne is thickkest to buylden and brede. (B. xii. 227-228.) To lose these would be a misfortune; and the same may be said of the numerous passages in which Langland expounds his views on politics, social and ecclesiastical, on the Jews, and on many other topics. Yet it remains true that his attempts to improve his poem were only very slightly successful. He had no literary foresight or power of self-criticism. In his successive alterations he omitted some of his finest lines, spoilt others, and inserted many passages of extraordinary dullness. He seems to have stumbled on his felicities of phrase rather than to have sought for and recognised them. He was intensely in earnest, could think for himself, had quick eyes for what was going on around him, and a great command of language-gifts all useful to a poet, and which can hardly exist in fusion without poetical result. He challenges greater attention than his predecessors because he essayed so much harder a task, and because his temper and personality are so much more interesting; but compared with his great contemporary, Geoffrey Chaucer, he is but a journeyman of genius by the side of a great master. Chaucer.* Chaucer, to whom we must now turn, used to be called the 'Father of English Poetry,' and although such epithets are rightly going out of fashion, if we call him the father of our modern poetry we shall be speaking the literal truth. While the works of his predecessors have only been brought back into notice during the nineteenth century, and still are read by few except professed students, Chaucer's poetry has been read and enjoyed continuously from his own day to this, and the greatest of his successors, from Spenser and Milton to Tennyson and William Morris, have joined in praising it. Moreover, he himself deliberately made a fresh beginning in our literature. He disregarded altogether the old English tradition, and even the work written at an earlier period under French influence. For miracleplays and romances he had a sovereign contempt, and, for any influence which they exerted on him, the writings of his fellow-countrymen, from Cædmon to Langland, might never have existed. His masters in his art were the Frenchmen, Guillaume Lorris, Jean de Meung, Deguilleville, Machault; the Latins, Ovid, Virgil, and Statius; above all, the Italians, Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio. The break between Layamon and the Old English writers before the Conquest is not greater than the break between Chaucer and his predecessors, and the break proceeded in each case from the same cause, the enlargement of the literary horizon and the adoption of new forms and subjects and ideas under foreign influence. We can see that there were special circumstances in Chaucer's life which * Copyright 1901 by J. B. Lippincott Company. helped him to make this new departure. He was, as far as we know, the first notable English poet who was born in London, the first who was a layman, the first who was connected with the Court. The writers of some of the romances may have possessed all these qualifications, but their work was impersonal and never rose to poetic selfconsciousness; nor need we trouble to inquire if Minot also was a layman and a courtier. But to a real poet the three points were all of importance. With the English language still divided into widely different dialects the penalty of provincialism was crushing. To be born in London carried with it the use of the dialect which, in the now rapidly declining vogue of French, was fast assuming the position of standard English, and allowed the writer to appeal to the widest and best educated class of readers. To be a layman, and a layman in the king's service, was no less important. It meant a new standpoint, freedom from cramping influences, and a wider knowledge of life. For three centuries English poets had lived in the shade-a shade at first so gloomy that it crushed them out, and which even when it lightened must have numbed and depressed them. Now at last the gift of poetry came to an Englishman who was in the centre of English life, who had an audience ready to listen, quick to appreciate whatever he wrote. There is melancholy in Chaucer's early work, the melancholy from which hardly any true poet seems able to escape; but it is no deeper than the clouds in April, and the sense of the warmth and beauty of life pervades all he wrote. His 'May mornings' are, no doubt, conventional, but the love of the spring was in his blood, and he himself represents the spring-tide of our modern poetry. An interesting theory has lately been propounded that the name Chaucer, which is found in many different spellings, stands for 'Chauffecire,' or Chaff-wax, a chaff-wax being the officer who had to prepare the large wax seals then in use for official documents. The older explanation makes it equivalent to 'chaussier,' or shoemaker, and this is perhaps still the more probable. Whatever its origin, the name was not very uncommon in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, being found more especially in London and in the eastern counties. Chaucer's grandfather and father were connected with both these parts, living in London and holding some small estate at Ipswich. The grandfather, Robert Chaucer, was a collector of customs on wine; the father, John Chaucer, a vintner, who had a house in Thames Street, went abroad on the king's service in 1338, and ten years later acted as deputy to the king's butler in the port of Southampton. Geoffrey Chaucer was probably born in 1340, or a little earlier, but we first hear of him in April 1357, when, as fragments of her houshold accounts show, a pair of red and black breeches, a short cloak, and shoes were provided for him as one of the servants of the Lady Elizabeth, wife of Lionel, Duke of Clarence. An entry of another payment to him shows that Chaucer passed the winter of 1357-58 at her seat at Hatfield in Yorkshire, where his future patron, John of Gaunt, was a visitor. In 1359 he bore arms for the first time, taking part in the unlucky campaign of that year in France, till he was made prisoner at 'Retters,' probably Réthel, not far from Rheims. In March 1360 the king contributed £16 towards the amount required for his ransom, and either about this time or a little earlier Chaucer must have passed into his service, for we next hear of him in 1367, as Edward III.'s 'dilectus valettus' ('well-beloved yeoman'), to whom, in consideration of his past and future services, an annuity of twenty marks was granted for life. this time Chaucer was married, for in 1366 (when she received a pension of ten marks) the name Philippa Chaucer appears among those of the ladies of the queen's bedchamber. In 1372 John of Gaunt granted her a pension of £10, and in 1374 this same pension was regranted to Geoffrey and Philippa Chaucer for good services rendered by them to the said Duke, his consort, and his mother the Queen.' It is practically certain that this Philippa Chaucer was a daughter of Sir Payne Roet of Hainault, and sister of the Katherine Swynford who ultimately became John of Gaunt's third wife.1 By Not long, probably, after 1367 Chaucer was promoted to be one of the king's esquires; in 1369 he saw another campaign in France, and between 1370 and 1379 was abroad no fewer than seven times in the king's service. Two of these missions (those of 1370 and 1376) were secret, and we know nothing of them except that in the second Chaucer was in the suite of Sir John Burley. In 1377 he went to Flanders with Sir Thomas Percy, and in this and the following year was twice in France in connection with negotiations for a peace and Richard II.'s marriage. The two missions still to be mentioned were the most important of all, for both took him to Italy. In December 1372 Chaucer was sent to Genoa to arrange with its citizens as to the choice of an English port where they should have privileges as traders; and in May or June 1378 he followed Sir Edward Berkeley to Lombardy, there to treat (touching the King's expedition of war') with Bernabo Visconti, Lord of Milan, and with the famous free-lance Sir John Hawkwood. The earlier of these two Italian journeys probably only lasted a few months, but during it Chaucer was fortunate enough to meet at Padua the famous Petrarch, and to learn from him the story of Griselda which 1 We hear of two sons born of this marriage (1) Thomas Chaucer, who occupied the house in which his father died till his own death, was King's Butler, several times Speaker of the House of Commons, and in other ways an important person; and (2) a much younger Lewis, for whom Chaucer translated a treatise on the Astrolabe. Elizabeth Chaucer, for whose noviciate at the Abbey of Barking John of Gaunt paid a large sum in 1381, was probably the poet's daughter. |