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WILLIAM LANGLAND (c. 1332–c. 1400)
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A See also:complete edition of all three texts was printed for the See also:Early English Text Society as edited by the Rev
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W
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W
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See also:Skeat, with the addition of See also:Richard the Redeless, and containing full notes to all three texts, with a glossary and indexes, in 1867-1885
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The See also:Clarendon See also:Press edition, by the same editor, appeared in 1886
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The A-text contains a See also:prologue and 12 passus or cantos (i.-iv., the vision of the See also:Lady Meed; v.-viii., the vision of Piers the Plowman; ix.-xii., the vision of Do-wel, Do-bet and Do-best), with 2567 lines
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The B-text is much longer, containing 7242 lines, with additional passus following after xi. of A, the earlier passus being altered in various.respects
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The C-text, with 7357 lines, is a revision of B
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The general contents of the poem may be gathered from a brief description of the C-text
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This is divided into twenty-three passus, nominally comprising four parts, called respectively Visio de Petro Plowman, Visio de Do-wel, Visio de Do-bet and Visio de Do-best
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Here Do-bet signifies " do better " in See also:modern English; the explanation of the names being that he who does a See also:kind See also:action does well, he who teaches others to See also:act kindly does better, whilst he who combines both practice and theory, both doing See also:good himself and teaching others to do the same, does best
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But the visions by no means closely correspond to these descriptions; and Skeat divides the whole into a set of eleven visions, which may be thus enumerated: (r) Vision of the See also:
The See also:bare outline of the C-text gives little See also:idea of the real nature of the poem
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The author's See also:object, as Skeat describes it, was to " afford himself opportunities (of which he has amply availed himself) for describing the See also:life and See also:manners of the poorer classes; for inveighing against clerical abuses and the rapacity of the friars; for representing the miseries caused by the great pestilences then prevalent and by the hasty and See also:ill-advised marriages consequent thereupon; and for denouncing lazy workmen and sham beggars, the corruption and See also:bribery then too See also:common in the See also:law courts, and all the numerous forms of falsehood which are at all time the See also:fit subjects for See also:satire and indignant exposure
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In describing, for example, the seven deadly sins, he gives so exact a description of See also:Glutton and See also:Sloth that the reader feels them to be no See also:mere abstractions, but See also:drawn from the life; and it becomes hardly more difficult to realize Glutton than it is to realize See also:Sir See also: LANGLAND) . The traditional view, accepted by such great authorities as Skeat and See also:Jusserand, that a single author—and that author Langland--was responsible for the whole poem, in all its versions, has been so recently disputed that it seems best to See also:state it in Skeat's own words, before giving briefly the alternative view, which propounds a theory of composite authorship, denying any real existence to " William Langland." The See also:account of the single-author theory is repeated from See also:Professor Skeat's See also:article in the 9th edition of this work, slightly revised by him in 1905 for this edition . " The author's name is not quite certain, and the facts concerning his life are few and scanty . As to his See also:Christian name we are sure, from various allusions in the poem itself, and the title Visio Willelmi, &c., in many MSS.; so that we may at once reject the See also:suggestion that his name may have been Robert . In no less than three MSS . [of the C-text; one not later than 1427] occurs the following See also:colophon: ` Explicit visio Willelmi W. de Petro le Plowman.' What is here meant by W. it is difficult to conjecture; but it is just possible that it may represent Wychwood (of which more presently), or Wigornensis, i.e. of See also:Worcester . As to the surname, we find the See also:note that ` Robert or William Langland made pers ploughman,' in a See also:handwriting of the 15th century, on the See also:fly-See also:leaf of a MS. copy [of the B-text] formerly belonging to See also:Lord See also:Ashburnham, and now in the See also:British Museum; and in a See also:Dublin MS . [of the C-text] is the note [in a 15th-century See also:hand] : ` Memorandum, quod Stacy de Rokayle, See also:pater Willielmi de Langlond, qui Stacius fuit generosus et morabatur in Schiptone-under-Whicwode, tenens domini le See also:Spenser in comitatu Oxon., qui predictus Willielmus fecit librum qui vocatur Perys Ploughman.' There is no trace of any Langland See also:family in the midland counties, while the See also:Langley family were wardens of Wychwood See also:forest in See also:Oxfordshire between the years 1278 and 1362; but this See also:consideration can hardly set aside the above statement . According to See also:Bale, our author was See also:born at Cleobury See also:Mortimer, which is quite consistent with the supposition that his See also:father may have removed from that See also:place to See also:Shipton in Oxfordshire, as there seems to have been a real connexion between the families in those places . " The See also:internal evidence concerning the author is See also:fuller and more satisfactory . By piecing together the various hints concerning himself which the poet gives us, we may compile the following account . His name was William (and probably Langland), and he was born about 1332, perhaps at Cleobury Mortimer in See also:Shropshire . 
His father, who was doubtless a See also:franklin or See also:farmer, and his other See also:friends put him to school, made a clerk ' or See also:scholar of him, and taught him what Holy See also:Writ meant . In 1362, at the See also:age of about See also:thirty, he found himself wandering upon the See also:Malvern hills, and See also:fell asleep beside a stream, and saw in a vision a field full of folk, i.e. this See also:present See also:world, and many other remarkable See also:sights which he duly records . From this supposed circumstance he named his poem The Vision of William, though it is really a See also:succession of visions, since he mentions several occasions on which he awoke, and afterwards again fell asleep; and he even tells us of some adventures which befel him in his waking moments . In some of these visions there is no mention of Piers the Plowman, but in others he describes him as being the coming reformer who was to remedy all abuses, and restore the world to a right See also:condition . It is remarkable that his conception of this reformer changes from time to time, and becomes more exalted as the poem advances . At first he is no more than a ploughman, one of the true and honest labourers who are the See also:salt of the See also:earth; but at last he is identified with the great reformer who has come already, the regenerator of the world in the See also:person of Jesus Christ; in the author's own phrase—`Petrus est Christus.' If this be See also:borne in mind, it will not be possible to make the See also:mistake into which so many have fallen, of speaking of Piers the Plowman as being the author, not the subject, of the poem . The author once alludes to the See also:nickname of See also:Long Will bestowed upon him from his tallness of stature--just as the poet See also:Gascoigne was familiarly called Long See also:George . Though there is mention of the Malvern hills more than once near the beginning of the poem, it is abundantly clear that the poet lived for ` many years in Cornhill (See also:London), with his wife Kitte and his daughter Calote.' He seems to have come to London soon after the date of the first commencement of his work, and to have long continued there . He describes himself as being a tall See also:man, one who was loath to reverence lords or ladies or persons in See also:gay See also:apparel, and not deigning to say ` See also:God See also:save you ' to the sergeants whom he met in the See also:street, insomuch that many See also:people took him to be a See also:fool . He was very poor, wore long See also:robes, and had a shaven See also:crown, having received the clerical See also:tonsure . But he seems only to have taken See also:minor orders, and earned a See also:precarious living by singing the placebo, dirige and seven See also:psalms for the good of men's souls . The fact that he was married may explain why he never See also:rose in the church .
But he had another source of livelihood in his ability to write out legal documents, and he was extremely See also:familiar with the law courts at See also:Westminster
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His leisure time must have been entirely occupied with his poem, which was essentially the work of his lifetime
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He was not satisfied with rewriting it once, but he actually re-wrote it twice; and from the abundance of the MSS. which still exist we can see its development from the earliest See also:draught (A-text), written about 1362, to its latest See also:form (C-text), written about 1393.1
" In 1399, just before the deposition of Richard II., appeared a poem addressed to the See also:
The supposed references to the See also:original author A, introduced by B and C, are then to be taken as part of the fiction
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Who were the five authors
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That question is See also:left unsolved
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John But, according to Professor Manly, was "doubt-less a See also:scribe " or " a See also:minstrel." B, C and the continuator of A " seem to have been clerics, and, from their criticisms
1 According to Jusserand, 1398
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of monks and friars, to have been of the See also:secular clergy," C being "a better scholar than either the continuator of A or B." A, who " exempts from his satire no See also:order of society except monks," may have been himself a See also: P . See also:Marsh, Lectures on English; H . See also:Morley, English Writers; B. ten Brink, Early English Literature; J . J . Jusserand, Observations sur la vision de P . P . (See also:Paris, 1879) ; See also:Les Anglais au moyen age: L'Epopee mystique de William Langland (1893, Eng. trans . Piers Plowman, revised and enlarged by another 1894) ; J . M . Manly in Cambridge Hist. of English Lit., vol. ii. and bibliography . A long and careful See also:summary of the whole poem is given in Morley's English Writers, and is repeated in his Illustrations of English Religion, ch. iii . |
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