reasons that will shortly become apparent, as the activities of the agricultural village (cf. Middleton 1997:229–34, 248); thus, this listing has a muted echo in Piers’s first speech, 7.186–92. These activities or offices he identifies in a language that reflects, to a large extent, legal terminology, that embedded in the Statute of Laborers. Thus, 14–15 Mowen … Repe echo the first promulgation of the Statute, “if any Reaper, Mower, or other Workman or Servant … depart” (23 Edw. III, c. 2; SR 1:307). For similar synecdoche, by which one prominent craft may stand for all, see 61–69n below, Prol.143–46, 7.182–204n.
Later versions of the legislation provide richer vocabulary, which L also appropriates. In this case, statute language is very likely derived from the recommended sequence of manorial officers in the treatise on estate management, the Seneschaucy, ed. Oschinsky, 261–95: “Carters, Ploughmen, Drivers of the Plough, Shepherdes, Swineherds, Deies” and “Oxherd, Cowherd” (25 Edw. III, c. 1; 12 Rich. II, c. 4, which sets specific wages; SR 1:311, 2:57). Since the Statutes also freeze wages for artisans and victuallers, they include references to those who shap shon or cloth 18 as well (e.g., 23 Edw. III, c. 5; 25 Edw. III, c. 2.4; SR 1:308 and 312).
In seeking to hold the dreamer to “eny other kynes craft þat to þe comune nedeth,” Reason places the interrogation specifically in the context of the 1388 Statute of Laborers. In this legislation, Parliament mandates harvest-time impressment of the able-bodied (cf. constrayne 54 and constringitur 60L), even if they are not agricultural laborers by trade. In Parliament’s view, the common need at this season is primarily for field workers, and this need overrides other professional considerations. “Artificers and People of Mystery as Servants and Apprentices, which be of no great Avoyr, and of which Craft or Mystery a Man hath no great Need in harvest Time (aust “August”?), shall be compelled to serve in Harvest, to cut, gather, and bring in the Corn” (12 Rich. II, c. 3; SR 2:56). In this context, line 18 by using the verb shap, probably indicates a trained craftsman, who can produce without aid or supervision, as distinct from an apprentice. Baldwin (1981:59, 101n9) was the first to indicate that Reason’s interrogation partly accords with the 1388 statute.
12 Can thow seruen … or syngen: Although the line is certainly an embarrassment for Will, it provides a necessary first interrogation under the Statutes for a person who looks like him. Since the Statute covers only agricultural “Servants and Labourers,” priests attached to specific clerical occupations are generally exempt from its provisions (although see 52n). The distinction, however, is one that the embattled dreamer will turn back on Reason in lines 54–67. For the precise force inherent in Can thow (Do you know how to?), see 35–44n. For a different perspective, emphasizing a broader concept of Christian service, see Knowles 2010 and cf. 7.185n.
14 mywen: Apparently not recorded elsewhere, the verb must be distinguished from Mowen at the head of the line. It most likely represents a causative formation with sense “to put hay into cocks,” derived from an unrecorded OE *mīewan (< mēow, pt. of māwan). Cf. Donaldson 1990:244/13 “stack what’s mown” and the cokeres of the preceding line.
15 rypereue: Homans (1941:291) remarks: “At Halton, Bucks., also, there were ‘keepers of the harvest statutes.’ Such custodes autumpni seem to have been called in English reap-reeves (ripereves).” Among their duties, they restrained fellow villagers from illegal gleaning.
16–17 and be hayward: The Seneschaucy, ch. 4 (ed. Oschinsky 281), says in part: “During the hay harvest [the hayward] ought to supervise the mowers, gatherers, and carriers and in August he ought to assemble the reapers, boon workers, and hired labourers. He ought to see that the grain is well and cleanly reaped and gathered. Late and early he should keep watch that nothing is stolen, eaten by the beasts, or spoilt.”
Cf. Homans’s analysis (1941:291): “Harvest was the time when people were afraid of having that stolen from them which they valued most—their crops…. The corn was ripe for cutting or was left standing in sheaves which could easily be spirited away, and there were a large number of harvest laborers about, who had no ties to the neighborhood and were often with justice suspected of being evil-doers. On some manors it was the duty of the hayward to watch all the crops of the village during harvest but on others the duty fell on the men who were especially elected by the people.” See further Justice 1994:178–84 and Baldwin 1990:78 (including the citations in n22).
Homans (294) also identifies the horn as the hayward’s badge of office. The horn was perhaps more appropriate to the official’s usual duties as “hedge-warden” (the etymological sense of the title); the hayward looked after the hedges, set up to protect the corn from animals loosed in communal grazing areas (cf. the nursery rhyme “Little Boy Blue”). He repaired breaches, impounded any animals he caught straying in the crops, and arranged the prosecution of their owners. Like the office of rypereue, being a hayward cuts into one’s sleep, a prospect particularly unattractive to the dreamer. See further Menner 1949 (and 13.43–51); and Friedman 1995, esp. 116, 137–41. At PLM 3983–87, Orgoill appears as a hayward to prevent the dreamer from breaking through the thorn hedge of Penitence to his proper path (although given her status as Pride, her horn segues from being the hayward’s implement to an aristocrat’s hunting horn at 4180–95).
18 or shep and kyne kepe; 19 or swyn or gees dryue: These jobs may form a skeptically insulting anticlimax to Reason’s list of occupations. Hanawalt (1986:43, 51) notes the use of boys (but over six years old) for such functions: “He could not do the heavy work in the fields and the member of the family who herded was exempt from harvest work for the lord” (51). The Seneschaucy imagines cowherds, swineherds, and shepherds as responsible adults but probably is describing the person responsible for decisions about husbandry and such productive work as shearing, not the person with mundane daily guard duty.
20 eny other kynes craft: Just as prevalent in the poem as Will’s desire for a kynde knowyng that would help him save his soul (cf. 1.79–80, 137–38) is the alternate question implicitly posed here. Even at the poem’s end, in his extreme old age, he is still seeking a proper craft, one that would provide catel to meet necessities; cf. 22.207–11.
21: This line appears diversely in the two genetic families of C manuscripts. The x copies, in essence, follow the implications of Statute language. The p reading, which RK emend into the text (explained pp. 153–54), makes Will responsible for the support of licit mendicants.
Hem þat bedreden be byleue to fynden (the p version). Translate: “(Do you know any kind of craft) with which you may provide food for those who are bed-ridden?” Along with 33–34, which broach a topic with an ample later history in the poem (see 8.128n), this version of the line introduces those who are not required to labor for sustenance but who have claims to that produce won through the labor of others. The Statutes are uninterested in such a dole, although, from their inception, they only apply to those “able in body” (see 7–8n). At 7.107, the bedreden comprise one of the three classes of “God’s minstrels”: they are obviously infirm, if not crippled, not those who sleep in hopes of having visions (cf. line 9).
That þou betere therby þat byleue the fynden (the x version). Translate: “(Do you know any kind of craft) to benefit those people who provide you with food?” This form of the line, Pearsall1’s adjustment of X, preferable to the form RK print, inscribes an important false step in Reason’s argument. In spite of following on the extensive list of necessary agricultural labors that the dreamer will shortly admit he is unprepared to perform, it leaves one possibility open to him. This claim of returning a spiritual benefit to his benefactors is derived from Imaginative’s command of B 12.17: “bidde for hem þat ʓyueþ þee breed” (see 1–108n and for another echo of the B precursor to this passage, 84n; cf. Godden 1990:7, 89). The dreamer will exploit this opening, claiming spiritual (whether
