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twg_000012921800 | it may burst forth at some future day. Gower, in the meantime, scans his distichs. Chaucer wrote in English, naturally, his sole reason being that it was the language of the country. Gower, when he uses this idiom,[] offers explanations: And for that fewe men endite In oure Englishe, I thenke make, A boke for Englondes sake.[] He has no | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921801 | idea to what extent this apology, so common a hundred years before, is now out of place after the "Troilus" of Chaucer. His English s a lengthy compilation, written at the request of the young King Richard,[] wherein Gower seeks both to amuse and to instruct, giving as he does, Somwhat of lust, somwhat of lore. In his turn, and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921802 | after Boccaccio, he invents a plot that will allow him to insert a whole series of tales and stories into one single work; compositions of this sort being the fashion. Gower's collection contains a hundred and twelve short stories, two or three of which are very well told; one, the adventure of Florent, being, perhaps, related even better than in | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921803 | Chaucer.[] The rest resembles the Gower of the "Vox Clamantis." What will be the subject of this philosopher's talk? He will tell us of a thing: ... wherupon the world mote stonde, And hath done sithen it began, And shall while there is any man, And that is love.[] In order to treat of this subject, and of many others, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921804 | Boccaccio had conceived the idea of his gathering in the villa near Florence, and Chaucer that of his pilgrimage. Moral Gower remains true to his character, and imagines a confession. The lover seeks a priest of Venus, a worthy and very learned old man, called Genius, who had already figured as confessor in the "Roman de la Rose"[]: "Benedicite," says | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921805 | the priest; "Dominus," answers the lover; and a miniature shows the lover in a pink gown, kneeling in a meadow at the feet of Genius, a tonsured monk in frock and cowl.[] We find ourselves again among vices and virtues, classifications, divisions, and subdivisions. Genius condemns the vices (those of his goddess included, for he is a free speaking priest). | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921806 | He hates, above all things, Lollardry, "this new tapinage," and he commends the virtues; the stories come in by way of example: mind what your eyes do, witness Acton; and your ears, witness the Sirens. He passes on to the seven deadly sins which were apparently studied in the seminary where this priest of Venus learnt theology. After the deadly | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921807 | sins the mists and marvels of the "Secretum Secretorum" fill the scene. At last the lover begs for mercy; he writes Venus a letter: "with the teres of min eye in stede of inke." Venus, who is a goddess, deciphers it, hastens to the spot, and scornfully laughs at this shivering lover, whom age and wrinkles have left a lover. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921808 | Gower then decides to withdraw, and make, as he says, "beau retraite." In a last vision, the poor "olde grisel" gazes upon the series of famous loving couples, who give themselves up to the delight of dancing, in a paradise, where one could scarcely have expected to find them together: Tristan and Iseult, Paris and Helen, Troilus and Cressida, Samson | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921809 | and Dalila, David and Bathsheba, and Solomon the wise who has for himself alone a hundred or so of "Jewes eke and Sarazines." In spite of the immense difference in their merit, the names of Chaucer and Gower were constantly coupled; James of Scotland, Skelton, Dunbar, always mention them together; the "Confessio" was printed by Caxton; under Elizabeth we find | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921810 | Gower on the stage; he figures in "Pericles," and recites the prologue of this play, the plot of which is borrowed from his poem. FOOTNOTES: [] See above, p. . [] Against those practices Langland strongly protests in his "Visions," text C. x. ; xvi. . See following Chapter. [] Rymer, "Foedera," April , . The classic instrument of the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921811 | minstrel was the vielle or viol, a sort of violin, which only true artists knew how to use well (one is reproduced in "English Wayfaring Life," p. ). Therefore many minstrels early replaced this difficult instrument by the common tabor, which sufficed to mark the cadence of their chants. Many other musical instruments were known in the Middle Ages; a | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921812 | list of them has been drawn up by H. Lavoix: "La Musique au temps de St. Louis," in G. Raynaud's "Recueil des motets franais des XIIe et XIIIe Sicles," vol. ii. p. . [] "Anatomy of Abuses," ed. Furnivall, London, -, 8vo, pp. , . [] Chaucer himself expected his poem to be said or _sung_; he says to his | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921813 | book: And red wher-so thou be, or elles songe; That thou be understonde, I God beseche! (. st. .) [] I wille yow telle of a knyghte That bothe was stalworthe and wyghte. (_Isumbras._) Y schalle telle yow of a knyght That was bothe hardy and wyght. (_Eglamour._) And y schalle karppe off a knyght That was both hardy and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921814 | wyght. (_Degrevant._) "The Thornton Romances," ed. Halliwell (Camden Society, , pp. , , ), from a MS. preserved in the cathedral of Lincoln, that contains romances, recipes, prayers, &c., copied in the first half of the fifteenth century, on more ancient texts. See notes on many similar romances in Ward's "Catalogue of MS. Romances," , vol. i. pp. ff. [] | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921815 | See in "English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare," pp. and , facsimiles of woodcuts which served about and to represent, the first, Romulus, Robert the Devil, &c., the second, Guy of Warwick, Graund Amoure, and the "Squyr of Lowe Degre." [] Both published by the Early English Text Society: "Morte Arthure," ed. Brock, ; "William of Palerne," ed. Skeat, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921816 | . Both are in alliterative verse; the first composed about the end, and the second about the middle, of the fourteenth century. [] The unique MS. of this poem is in the British Museum: Cotton, Nero A . It is of small size, and in a good handwriting of the fourteenth century, but the ink is faded. It contains some | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921817 | curious, though not fine, miniatures, representing the Green Knight leaving the Court, his head in his hand; Gawayne and his hostess; the scene at the Green Chapel; the return to King Arthur. The text has been published, _e.g._, by R. Morris: "Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight, an alliterative romance poem," London, Early English Text Society, , 8vo. The date | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921818 | assigned to the poem by Morris (-) seems to be too early; the work belongs more probably to the second half of the century. The immediate original of the tale is not known; it was, however, certainly a French poem. See on this subject Ward, "Catalogue of Romances," , p. , and G. Paris, "Histoire Littraire de la France," vol. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921819 | xxx. [] Much glam and gle glent up ther-inne, Aboute the fyre upon flat (floor) and on fele (many) wyse, At the soper and after, mony athel songez, As coundutes of Kryst-masse and caroles newe.... [] With merthe and mynstralsye, wyth metez at hor wylle, Thay maden as mery as any men moghten With laghyng of ladies, with lotes of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921820 | bordes (play upon words). (l. .) [] l. . [] "Pearl, an English Poem of the Fourteenth Century, edited with modern rendering by Israel Gollancz," London, , 8vo. The poem is written in stanzas (_a b a b a b a b b c b c_); the author employs both rhyme and alliteration. "Pearl" belongs apparently, like "Sir Gawayne," and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921821 | some other poems on religious subjects, contained in the same MS., to the second half of the fourteenth century; there are, however, doubts and discussions concerning the date. Some coarsely-painted miniatures, by no means corresponding to the gracefulness of the poem, represent the chief incidents of "Pearl;" they are by the same hand as those of "Sir Gawayne." See the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921822 | reproduction of one of them in "Piers Plowman, a contribution to the History of English Mysticism," London, , 8vo, p. . [] I entred in that erber grene, In Augoste in a hygh seysoun, Quen corne is corven with crokez kene; On huyle ther perle it trendeled doun; Schadowed this wortes (plants) full schyre and schene, Gilofre, gyngure and gromylyoun, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921823 | And pyonys powdered ay betwene. Yif hit wacz semly on to sene, A fayrie tiayr yet fro hit flot. (St. .) [] As stremande sternes quen strothe men slepe, Staren in welkyn in wynter nyght. (St. .) [] For that thou lestes wacs bot a rose, That flowred and fayled as kynde hit gefe. (St. .) [] The principal collections | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921824 | containing lyrical works and popular ballads of that period are: "Ancient Songs and Ballads from the reign of Henry II. to the Revolution," collected by John Ritson, revised by W. C. Hazlitt, London, , 12mo; "Specimens of Lyric Poetry, composed in England in the reign of Edward I.," ed. Th. Wright, Percy Society, , 8vo; "Reliqui Antiqu, scraps from ancient | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921825 | MSS. illustrating chiefly Early English Literature," ed. T. Wright and J. O. Halliwell, London, -, vols. 8vo; "Political Songs of England, from the reign of John to that of Edward II.," ed. Th. Wright, Camden Society, , 4to; "Songs and Carols now first printed from a MS. of the XVth Century," ed. Th. Wright, Percy Society, , 8vo; "Political Poems | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921826 | and Songs, from Edward III. to Richard III.," ed. Th. Wright, Rolls, -, vols. 8vo; "Political, Religious and Love Poems," ed. Furnivall, London, Early English Text Society, , 8vo; "Bishop Percy's Folio MS." ed. J. W. Hales and F. J. Furnivall, Ballad Society, , 8vo; "The English and Scottish Popular Ballads," ed. F. J. Child, Boston, ff. Useful indications will | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921827 | be found in H. L. D. Ward's "Catalogue of MS. Romances in the British Museum," vol. i., . [] Tiel come tu es je autie fu, Tu seras til come je su. De la mort ne peusay-je mie Tant come j'avoy la vie. En terre avoy grand richesse Dont je y fis grand noblesse, Terre, mesons et grand tresor, Draps, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921828 | chivalx, argent et or, Mes ore su-je povres et cheitifs, Perfond en la terre gys, Ma grand beaut est tout ale ... Et si ore me veissez, Je ne quide pas qe vous deeisez Qe j'eusse onqes hom est. (Stanley, "Historical Memorials of Canterbury.") [] Compiled in France in . Lecoy de la Marche, "la Chaire franaise au moyen ge," | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921829 | 2nd ed., Paris, , 8vo, p. . [] MS. R. iii. , in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge, fol. . In the same MS.: "A roundell made ... by my lorde therlle of Suffolk": Quel desplaysier, quel courous quel destresse, Quel griefs, quelx mauls viennent souvent d'amours, &c. (fol. ). The author is the famous Earl, afterwards Duke of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921830 | Suffolk, who was beaten by Joan of Arc, who married Alice, daughter of Thomas Chaucer, and was beheaded in . For ballads of the same kind, by Gower, see below, p. . The same taste reigned in France; without mentioning Charles d'Orlans, Pierre de Beauveau writes: "Le joyeulx temps pass souloit estre occasion que je faisoie de plaisant diz et | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921831 | gracieuses chanonnetes et balades." "Nouvelles Franoises du XIVe Sicle," ed. Moland and d'Hricault, , p. . [] "Visions concerning Piers Plowman," A. Prol. l. , written about -. See following Chapter. [] "Parson's Tale."--"Complete Works," vol. iv. p. . [] "Munimenta Gildhall Londiniensis."--"Liber albus, Liber custumarum; Liber Horn," Rolls, , ed. Riley. The regulations (in French) relating to the Pui | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921832 | are drawn from the "Liber Custumarum," compiled in ( Ed. II.), pp. ff. "The poetical competitions called _puis_," established in the north of France, "seem to have given rise to German and Dutch imitations, such as the _Master Singers_ and the _Chambers of Rhetoric_." G. Paris, "Littrature franaise au moyen ge," paragraph . To these we can add the English | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921833 | imitation which now occupies us. [] "Songs and Carols now first printed," ed. Th. Wright, Percy Society, , 8vo, p. . [] For hortyng of here hosyn Non inclinare laborant. In the same piece, large collars, wide sleeves, big spurs are satirised. Th. Wright, "Political Poems and Songs from Ed. III. to Ric. III.," Rolls, , vols. 8vo, vol. i. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921834 | p. . [] "Political Poems," _ibid._, vol. i. p. . [] The greater part of those that have come down to us are of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; but Robin was very popular, and his praises were sung as early as the fourteenth century. The lazy parson in Langland's Visions confesses that he is incapable of chanting the services: | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921835 | But I can rymes of Robin Hood and Randolf erle of Chestre. Ed. Skeat, text B. v. . See above, p. . [] Walsingham, "Historia Anglicana," Rolls, vol. ii. p. . See an English miniature representing Adam and Eve, so occupied, reproduced in "English Wayfaring Life," p. . [] Nede they fre be most, Vel nollent pacificari, &c. "Political Poems," | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921836 | vol. i. p. . Satire of the heretical Lollards: "Lollardi sunt zizania," &c. _Ibid._, p. ; of friars become peddlers, p. . [] "Political Poems." _ibid._, vol. i. pp. ff. [] Ballad by Eustache des Champs, "Oeuvres Compltes," ii. p. . [] "The Poems of Laurence Minot," ed. J. Hall, Oxford, , 8vo, eleven short poems on the battles of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921837 | Edward III. Adam Davy may also be classed among the patriotic poets: "Davy's five dreams about Edward II.," ed. Furnivall, Early English Text Society, , 8vo. They are dreams interspersed with prophecies; the style is poor and aims at being apocalyptic. Edward II. shall be emperor of Christendom, &c. Various pious works, a life of St. Alexius, a poem on | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921838 | the signs betokening Doomsday, &c., have been attributed to Davy without sufficient reason. See on this subject, Furnivall, _ibid._, who gives the text of these poems. [] _Ibid._, p. . [] Vices and faults of Edward: "Political Poems," vol. i. p. , , &c. [] "Political Poems," vol. i. p. . [] "The Bruce, or the book of the most | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921839 | excellent and noble Prince Robert de Broyss, King of Scots," A.D. , ed. Skeat, E.E.T.S., -. Barbour, having received safe conducts from Edward III., went to Oxford, and studied there in and in , and went also to France, , . Besides his "Bruce" he wrote a "Brut," and a genealogy of the Stuarts, "The Stewartis Oryginale," beginning with Ninus | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921840 | founder of Nineveh; these two last poems are lost. Barbour was archdeacon of Aberdeen; he died in in Scotland, where a royal pension had been bestowed upon him. [] "The incidents on which the ensuing novel mainly turns are derived from the ancient metrical chronicle of the Bruce by Archdeacon Barbour, and from," &c. "Castle Dangerous," Introduction.--"The authorities used are | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921841 | chiefly those ... of Archdeacon Barbour...." "Lord of the Isles," Advertisement to the first edition. [] . line . [] . line . [] . line . [] Et si jeo n'ai de Franois la faconde, Pardonetz moi qe jeo de ce forsvoie; Jeo suis Englois. "Balades and other Poems by John Gower," London, Roxburghe Club, 4to, _in fine_. [] | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921842 | . st. . [] "Confessio Amantis," ed. Pauli, London, , vols, 8vo. vol. iii. p. . [] Henry, then earl of Derby, had given him a collar in ; the swan was the emblem of Thomas, duke of Gloucester, Henry's uncle, assassinated in ; Henry adopted it from that date. A view of Gower's tomb is in my "Piers Plowman," | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921843 | , p. . [] "Primus liber, gallico sermone editus in decem dividitur partes et tractans de viciis et virtutibus necnon de variis hujus seculi gradibus viam, qua peccator transgressus, ad sui Creatoris agnicionem redire debet, recto tramite docere conatur. Titulusque libelli istius Speculum Meditantis nuncupatus est." This analysis is to be found in several MSS.; also in the edition of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921844 | the "Confessio," printed by Caxton; Pauli gives it too: "Confessio," i. p. xxiii. The "Speculum Meditantis" was sure to resemble much those works of moralisation (hence Chaucer's "moral Gower"), numerous in French medival literature, which were called "bibles." See for example "La Bible Guiot de Provins": Dou sicle puant et orrible M'estuet commencier une bible. "On this stinking and horrid | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921845 | world, I want to begin a bible;" and Guiot reviews all classes of society, all trades and professions, and blames everything and everybody; Gower did the same; everything for them is "puant." Rome is not spared: "Rome nos suce et nos englot," says Guiot. See text of Guiot's "Bible" in Barbazan and Mon, "Fabliaux," , vol. ii. p. . [] | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921846 | "Balades and other Poems," Roxburghe Club, , 4to. [] Jeo ris en plour et en sant languis, Ars en gele et en chalour frmis. Ballad ix. No passage in Petrarch has been oftener imitated. Villon wrote: Je meurs de soif auprs de la fontaine ... Je ris en pleurs et attens sans espoir, &c. [] "Les balades d'amour jesqes enci | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921847 | sont fait especialement pour ceaux q'attendont lours amours par droite mariage. Les balades d'ici jesqes au fin du livere sont universeles tout le monde selonc les properts et les condicions des amants qui sont diversement travailez en la fortune d'amour." [] Camlion c'est une beste fire Qui vit tansoulement de l'air sanz plus; Ensi pour dire en mesme la manire, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921848 | De soule espoir qe j'ai d'amour conuz Sont mes pensers en vie sustenuz. Ballad xvi; what a chameleon is, was thus explained in a Vocabulary of the fifteenth century: "Hic gamelion, animal varii coloris et sola aere vivit--_a buttyrfle_" (Th. Wright, "Vocabularies," , 4to, p, ). [] "Poema quod dicitur Vox Clamantis," ed. Coxe, Roxburghe Club, , 4to. He also | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921849 | wrote in Latin verse "Chronica Tripartita" (wherein he relates, and judges with great severity, the reign of Richard II., from to the accession of Henry IV.), and several other poems on the vices of the time, the whole printed by Th. Wright, in his "Political Poems," vol. i. Rolls. The "Chronica" are also printed with the "Vox Clamantis." [] P. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921850 | . He jeers at the vulgarity of their names: Hudde ferit, quos Judde terit, dum Cobbe minatur ... Hogge suam pompam vibrat, dum se putat omni Majorem Rege nobilitate fore. Balle propheta docet, quem spiritus ante malignus Edocuit ... (p. .) The famous John Ball is here referred to, the apostle of the revolt, who died quartered. See below, p. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921851 | . [] Est sibi crassus equus, restatque scientia macra ... Ad latus et cornu sufflans gerit, unde redundant Mons, nemus, unde lepus visa pericla fugit.... Clamor in ore canum, dum vociferantur in unum, Est sibi campana psallitur unde Deo. Stat sibi missa brevis devotio longaque campis, Quo sibi cantores deputat esse canes. (p. .) [] Conficit ex vitris gemma oculo | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921852 | pretiosas. (p. .) [] Rex es, regina satis est, tibi sufficit una. (p. .) [] "Confessio Amantis." There exists of it no satisfactory edition, and it is to be hoped the Early English Text Society, that has already rendered so many services, will soon render this greatly needed one, Pauli's edition, London, , vols. 8vo, is very faulty; H. Morley's | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921853 | edition (Carisbrooke Library, London, , 8vo) is expurgated. Gower wrote in English some minor poems, in especial "The Praise of Peace" (in the "Political Poems," of Wright, Rolls). The "Confessio" is written in octo-syllabic couplets, with four accents. This poem should be compared with French compilations of the same sort, and especially with the "Castoiement d'un pre son fils," thirteenth | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921854 | century, a series of tales in verse, told by the father to castigate and edify the son, text in Barbazan and Mon, "Fabliaux," Paris, , vols. 8vo, vol. ii. [] "Confessio," Pauli's ed., p. . [] Gower wrote two successive versions of his poem: the first about , the second about . In this last one, having openly taken the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921855 | side of the future Henry IV. (which was very bold of him), he suppressed all allusions to Richard. In the first version, instead of, A boke for Englondes sake, he had written: A boke for King Richardes sake. [] Vol. i. pp. ff. In Chaucer, the story is told by the Wife of Bath. [] Beginning of . [] Already | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921856 | had been seen in the "Roman": Comment Nature la desse A son prtre se confesse ... "Gnius, dit-elle, beau prtre, D'une folie que j'ai faite, A vous m'en vuel faire confesse;" and under pretence of confessing herself, she explains the various systems of the universe at great length. [] In Mrs. Egerton, , fol. , in the British Museum, reproduced | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921857 | in my "Piers Plowman," p. . . _WILLIAM LANGLAND AND HIS VISIONS._ Gower's books were made out of books. Chaucer's friend carries us in imagination to the paradise of Eros, or to a Patmos of his own invention, from whence he foretells the end of the world; but whatever he does or says we are always perfectly aware of where | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921858 | we are: we are in his library. It is quite different with another poet of this period, a mysterious and intangible personage, whose very name is doubtful, whose writings had great influence, and that no one appears to have seen, concerning whom we possess no contemporaneous information. Like Gower, strong ties bind him to the past; but Gower is linked | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921859 | to Angevin England, and William Langland, if such be really his name, to the remote England of the Saxons and Scandinavians. His books are not made out of books; they are made of real life, of things seen, of dreams dreamt, of feelings actually experienced. He is the exact opposite of Gower, he completes Chaucer himself. When the "Canterbury Tales" | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921860 | are read, it seems as though all England were described in them; when the Visions of Langland are opened, it is seen that Chaucer had not said everything. Langland is without comparison the greatest poet after Chaucer in the medival literature of England.[] I. His Visions have been preserved for us in a considerable number of manuscripts. They differ greatly | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921861 | among each other; Langland appears to have absorbed himself in his work, continually remodelling and adding to it. No poem has been more truly lived than this one; it was the author's shelter, his real house, his real church; he always came back there to pray, to tell his sorrows--to live in it. Hence strange incoherencies, and at the same | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921862 | time many unexpected lights. The spirit by which Langland is animated is the spirit of the Middle Ages, powerful, desultory, limitless. A classic author makes a plan, establishes noble proportions, conceives a definite work, and completes it; the poet of the Middle Ages, if he makes a plan, rarely keeps to it; he alters it as he goes along, adding | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921863 | a porch, a wing, a chapel to his edifice: a cathedral in medival times was never finished. Some authors, it is true, were already touched by classic influence, and had an idea of measure; such was the case with Chaucer, but not with Langland; anything and everything finds place in his work. By collecting the more characteristic notes scattered in | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921864 | his poem, sketch-books full of striking examples might be formed, illustrative of English life in the fourteenth century, to compare with Chaucer's, of the political and religious history of the nation, and also of the biography of the author. Allusions to events of the day which abound in the poem enable us to date it. Three principal versions exist,[] without | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921865 | counting several intermediate remodellings; the first contains twelve cantos or _passus_, the second twenty, the third twenty-three; their probable dates are -, -, and -.[] The numerous allusions to himself made by the author, principally in the last text of his poem, when, according to the wont of old men, he chose to tell the tale of his past life, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921866 | allow us to form an idea of what his material as well as moral biography must have been. He was probably born in or , at Cleobury Mortimer, as it seems, in the county of Shrewsbury, not far from the border of Wales. He was (I think) of low extraction, and appears to have escaped bondage owing to the help | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921867 | of patrons who were pleased by his ready intelligence. From childhood he was used to peasants and poor folk; he describes their habits as one familiarised with them, and their cottages as one who knows them well. His life oscillated chiefly between two localities, Malvern and London. Even when he resides in the latter place, his thoughts turn to Malvern, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921868 | to its hills and verdure; he imagines himself there; for tender ties, those ties that bind men to mother earth, and which are only formed in childhood, endear the place to him. A convent and a school formerly existed at Malvern, and there in all likelihood Langland first studied. The church where he came to pray still exists, built of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921869 | red sandstone, a structure of different epochs, where the Norman style and perpendicular Gothic unite. Behind the village rise steep hills, covered with gorse, ferns, heather, and moss. Their highest point quite at the end of the chain, towards Wales, is crowned by Roman earthworks. From thence can be descried the vast plain where flows the Severn, crossed by streams | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921870 | bordered by rows of trees taking blue tints in the distance, spotted with lights and shadows, as the clouds pass in the ever-varying sky. Meadows alternate with fields of waving grain; the square tower of Worcester rises to the left, and away to the east those mountains are seen that witnessed the feats of Arthur. This wide expanse was later | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921871 | to give the poet his idea of the world's plain, "a fair feld ful of folke," where he will assemble all humanity, as in a Valley of Jehoshaphat. He enjoys wandering in this "wilde wildernesse," attracted by "the layes the levely foules made." From childhood imagination predominates in him; his intellectual curiosity and facility are very great. He is a | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921872 | vagabond by nature, both mentally and physically; he roams over the domains of science as he did over his beloved hills, at random, plunging into theology, logic, law, astronomy, "an harde thynge"; or losing himself in reveries, reading romances of chivalry, following Ymagynatyf, who never rests: "Idel was I nevere." He studies the properties of animals, stones, and plants, a | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921873 | little from nature and a little from books; now he talks as Euphues will do later, and his natural mythology will cause a smile; and now he speaks as one country-bred, who has seen with his own eyes, like Burns, a bird build her nest, and has patiently watched her do it. Sometimes the animal is a living one, that | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921874 | leaps from bough to bough in the sunlight; at others, it is a strange beast, fit only to dwell among the stone foliage of a cathedral cornice. He knows French and Latin; he has some tincture of the classics; he would like to know everything: Alle the sciences under sonne and alle the sotyle craftes, I wolde I knewe and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921875 | couth kyndely in myne herte![] But, in that as in other things, his will is not on a par with his aspirations: this inadequacy was the cause of numberless disappointments. Thou art, Clergye says most appropriately, one of those who want to know but hate to study: The wer lef to lerne but loth for to stodie.[] Even in early | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921876 | youth his mind seems to lack balance; being as yet a boy, he is already a soul in trouble. His dreams at this time were not all dark ones; radiant apparitions came to him. Thou art young and lusty, said one, and hast years many before thee to live and to love; look in this mirror, and see the wonders | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921877 | and joys of love. I shall follow thee, said another, till thou becomest a lord, and hast domains.[] But one by one the lights faded around him; his patrons died, and this was the end of his ambitions; for he was not one of those men able by sheer strength of will to make up for outside help when that | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921878 | fails them. His will was diseased; an endless grief began for him. Being dependent on his "Clergye" for a livelihood, he went to London, and tried to earn his daily bread by means of it, of "that labour" which he had "lerned best."[] Religious life in the Middle Ages had not those well-defined and visible landmarks to which we are | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921879 | accustomed. Nowadays one either is or is not of the Church; formerly, no such obvious divisions existed. Religious life spread through society, like an immense river without dykes, swollen by innumerable affluents, whose subterranean penetrations impregnated even the soil through which they did not actually flow. From this arose numerous situations difficult to define, bordering at once on the world | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921880 | and on the Church, a state of things with which there is no analogy now, except in Rome itself, where the religious life of the Middle Ages still partly continues. Numerous semi-religious and slightly remunerative functions were accessible to clerks, who were not, however, obliged to renounce the world on that account. The great thing in the hour of death | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921881 | being to ensure the salvation of the soul, men of fortune continued, and sometimes began, their good works at that hour. They endeavoured to win Paradise by proxy; they left directions in their will that, by means of lawful hire, soldiers should be sent to battle with the infidel; and they also founded what were called "_chantries_." A sum of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921882 | money was left by them in order that masses, or the service for the dead, or both, should be chanted for the repose of their souls. The number of these chantries was countless; every arch in the aisles of the cathedrals contained some, where the service for the dead was sung; sometimes separate edifices were built with this view. A | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921883 | priest celebrated masses when the founder had asked for them; and clerks performed the office of choristers, having, for the most part, simply received the tonsure, and not being necessarily in holy orders. It was, for them all, a career, almost a trade; giving rise to discussions concerning salaries, and even to actual strikes. These services derived the name under | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921884 | which they commonly went from one of the words of the liturgy sung; they were called _Placebos_ and _Diriges_. The word "dirge" has passed into the English language, and is derived from the latter. To psalmody for money, to chant the same words from day to day and from year to year, transforming into a mere mechanical toil the divine | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921885 | gift and duty of prayer, could not answer the ideal of life conceived by a proud and generous soul filled with vast thoughts. Langland, however, was obliged to curb his mind to this work; _Placebo_ and _Dirige_ became his _tools_: The lomes that ich laboure with and lyflode deserve.[] Like many others whose will is diseased, he condemned the abuse | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921886 | and profited by it. The fairies at his birth had promised riches, and he was poor; they had whispered of love, and an unsatisfactory marriage had closed the door on love, and debarred him from preferment to the highest ecclesiastical ranks. Langland lives miserably with his wife Catherine and his daughter Nicolette, in a house in Cornhill, not far from | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921887 | St. Paul's, the cathedral of many chantries,[] and not far from that tower of Aldgate, to which about this time that other poet, Chaucer, directed his steps, he, too, solitary and lost in dreams. Langland has depicted himself at this period of his existence a great, gaunt figure, dressed in sombre garments with large folds, sad in a grief without | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921888 | end, bewailing the protectors of his childhood and his lost illusions, seeing nothing but clouds on the horizon of his life. He begins no new friendships; he forms ties with no one; he follows the crowded streets of the city, elbowing lords, lawyers, and ladies of fashion; he greets no one. Men wearing furs and silver pendants, rich garments and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921889 | collars of gold, brush past him, and he knows them not. Gold collars ought to be saluted, but he does not do it; he does not say to them: "God loke yow Lordes!" But then his air is so absent, so strange, that instead of quarrelling with him people shrug their shoulders, and say: He is "a fole"; he is | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921890 | mad.[] Mad! the word recurs again and again under his pen, the idea presents itself incessantly to his mind, under every shape, as though he were possessed by it: "fole," "frantyk," "ydiote!" He sees around him nothing but dismal spectres: Age, Penury, Disease. To these material woes are added mental ones. In the darkness of this world shines at least | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921891 | a distant ray, far off beyond the grave. But, at times, even this light wavers; clouds obscure and apparently extinguish it. Doubts assail the soul of the dreamer; theology ought to elucidate, but, on the contrary, only darkens them: The more I muse there-inne the mistier it seemeth, And the depper I devyne the darker me it thinketh.[] How is | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921892 | it possible to reconcile the teachings of theology with our idea of justice? And certain thoughts constantly recur to the poet, and shake the edifice of his faith; he drives them away, they reappear; he is bewitched by them and cannot exorcise these demons. Who had a more elevated mind than Aristotle, and who was wiser than Solomon? Still they | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921893 | are held by Holy-Church "bothe ydampned!" and on Good Friday, what do we see? A felon is saved who had lived all his life in lies and thefts; he was saved at once "with-outen penaunce of purgatorie." Adam, Isaiah, and all the prophets remained "many longe yeres" with Lucifer, and-- A robbere was yraunceouned rather than thei alle![] He wishes | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921894 | he had thought less, learnt less, "conned" fewer books, and preserved for himself the quiet, "sad bileve" of "plowmen and pastoures"; happy men who can Percen with a _pater noster_ the paleys of hevene![] In the midst of these trials and sorrows, Langland had one refuge: his book. His poem made up for those things which life had denied him. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921895 | Why make verses, why write, said Ymagynatyf to him; are there not "bokes ynowe?"[] But without his book, Langland could not have lived, like those fathers whose existence is bound up in that of their child, and who die if he dies. When he had finished it, and though his intention was never to touch it again, for in it | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921896 | he announced his own death, he still began it over again, once, twice; he worked at it all his life. What was the end of that life? No one knows. Some indications tend to show that in his later years he left London, where he had led his troubled life to return to the Western country.[] There we should like | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921897 | to think of him, soothed, healed, resigned, and watching that sun decline in the west which he had seen rise, many years before, "in a somere seyson." II. In this summer season, in the freshness of the morning, to the musical sound of waters, "it sowned so murrie," the poet, lingering on the summit of Malvern hills, falls asleep, and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921898 | the first of his visions begins. He contemplates Al the welthe of this worlde and the woo bothe; and, in an immense plain, a "feld ful of folke," he notices the bustle and movements of mankind, Of alle maner of men the mene and the riche. Mankind is represented by typical specimens of all sorts: knights, monks, parsons, workmen singing | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012921899 | French songs, cooks crying: Hot pies! "Hote pyes, hote!" pardoners, pilgrims, preachers, beggars, janglers who will not work, japers and "mynstralles" that sell "glee." They are, or nearly so, the same beings Chaucer assembled at the "Tabard" inn, on the eve of his pilgrimage to Canterbury. This crowd has likewise a pilgrimage to make, not, however, on the sunny high-road | 60 | gutenberg |
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