volume, see Officium parvum; for ME vernacular examples, see Maskell 1882, 2:1–179 (“placebo” and “dirige” at 110, 123); and The Prymer (“placebo” and “dirige” at 105:52, 56).
To a certain extent, as Galloway notes (1992:96, following Donaldson 1949:221, cf. 208–9), Will’s prayers provide “a neat summary of what was considered paradigmatic by the late fourteenth century for being ‘letterede.’ ” But Will’s self-presentation is calculatedly poised against a specific “professional” status, that of the “lewed Ermyte.” This phrase translates Latin heremita non literatus, a term limited to one narrow discursive context, discussions of the liturgical offices assigned hermits in those few surviving rules for that status. In such contexts (see Clay 1914:201–2), the prayers assigned the lettered hermit—and apparently closed to “lewed” ones—precisely correspond to Will’s lomes (see Hanna 1997:36–38).
As Skeat noted, not just the requiem masses Will is not qualified to say, but prayers also, have power to remit time in Purgatory. Cf. PC 3586–89 and the canonistic text underpinning this view, Decretum 2.13.2.22 (CJC 1:728). The dreamer’s apparent engagement in intercessory prayer should probably be read forward into his meditations at 9.318–52. His deprecation there of acts geared simply to remitting purgatorial time, rather than an effort to Dowell, represents a substantial change of opinion peculiar to this version.
49–50 fouchensaf … | To be welcome: Vouchsafe occurs most frequently in the fourteenth century in romances to describe grants, of property, of a spouse, or of goods. The locution underwrites Will’s subsequent claims to membership in a new aristocracy (cf. line 58). In contrast to the suggestion of a back-door beggar in hacches 29, Will claims he is an honored guest in households.
50 oþerwhile in a monthe: The adverb again echoes Imaginative’s attack on the dreamer’s poetry (cf. B 12.23), canceled in this version. The lines may lie behind the claim at Mum 193–99 that a wise king would let a truth-teller visit once a month.
52 but my wombe one: Will’s claim to an appropriately modest pay may also gain further resonances from the Statutes. For, in a situation of expansive demand and reduced labor force, government officials charged that chantry priests, like field laborers, were demanding higher wages after the Black Death. Edward III’s council appears to have perceived such activities as widespread when it promulgated the original Statute of Laborers. On publication, separate letters containing the ordinance were sent to sheriffs and to bishops, and Edward commanded the latter, inter alia, “that you likewise moderate the Stipendiary Chaplains of your said Diocese, who, as it is said, do now in like manner refuse to serve without an excessive Salary; and compel them to serve for the accustomed Salary, as it behoveth them, under Pain of Suspension and Interdict” (23 Edw. III, in fine; SR 1:308). For episcopal efforts at holding down clerical wages, the three promulgations of the constitution “Effrenata,” see Putnam 1908:188–89, 432–33; Putnam 1916; Harding 1984:185–86; and cf. Scase 1989:144–45.
53–60L And also … constringit[ur]: With a certain (mock?) deference to his interlocutor (cf. “syre resoun,” perhaps also an effort to enlist him as fellow clerk), Will presents the general case that clerics might well fall outside Reason’s legislative ambit. With their crounes (the tonsure), they form a special sort of aristocracy. He readily converts the absence of his frendes’ continuing benefactions into a claim for a spiritual inheritance in the job they had prepared him for (but that he may no longer practice).
Will may be guided by the Statute in terms that recur in lines 61–64: as someone who prays for members of well-to-do households, he might be construed an aristocratic hanger-on, a special type of servant (as a minstrel also is). The 1388 Statute absolves persons with such claims from its prohibitions on unlicensed movement: “The meaning of this Ordinance is not, that any Servants, which ride or go (chivachent ou aillent) in the Business (busoignes) of their Lords or Masters, shall be comprised within the same Ordinance for the Time of the same Business” (12 Rich. II, c. 3; SR 2:56). Tuck (1969:236) suggests that this exclusion was introduced by the magnates during the process of framing the Statute language after receipt of the initial Commons petition, which lacks any such exclusion.
But again, L presents biblical rhetoric and Statute discourse as mutually supportive. And although Will’s most immediate motivation is to excuse himself from knaues werkes, he at first ebulliently emphasizes the peculiarity of clerical aristocracy. While truly a special heritage, it lacks, not just requirements of labor, but requirements of any necessary participation in all those cares and responsibilities associated with aristocratic social status. Thus, þe lawe of leuyticy 55 points toward a double freedom. Given the claim of line 57, that clerics “Sholde nother swynke ne swete,” L (as Alford 1992:44, 99 suggests) here alludes to Num. 18:20–24. This passage excludes the Levites both from land ownership (and other necessary aristocratic efforts at estate management) and from the need to work for sustenance (instead, they are given the Lord’s tithes and first-fruits, portions of which they eat). Cf. Num. 18: 20: “And the Lord said to Aaron: You shall possess nothing in their land, neither shall you have a portion among them: I am thy portion and inheritance (pars et hereditas tua; cf. line 60L) in the midst of the children of Israel.” The death of his frendes is immaterial, Will suggests, for his education and tonsuring long ago in youth earn him an immutable claim to sustenance.
These verses from Numbers, together with various New Testament citations (e.g., Acts 4:34–35), had considerable social currency in the later fourteenth century. They provide standard proof-texts for Lollard attacks on ecclesiastical ownership of real property. For discussion, see Hudson 1988:337–42 and 146–79nn.
Further distinctions between the aristocrats of this world and Will’s crowned eyres of heuene 59 occur in subsequent lines. As regards “ne swerien at enquestes” (57), Alford (1988c:50–51) provides a rich array of citations to indicate that clerics are excused from participation in legal procedures. See most pregnantly his citation of Lyndwood 91–92: “We forbid any clerk to be judge or associate in any trial touching life or member.” Cf. Patience’s presentation of poverty as remocio curarum at 16.123–28L; Mum 705–9, in discussing the “piteousness” priests should display, also cites their freedom from military and judicial service “Al for cause þaire conscience to kepe vn-y-wemmyd.” With regard to Ne fyhte (58), an attack on priests who bear arms—rather than service books—occurs in a passage alluded to above, B 15.120–27 (and see A 11.214, parallel to 159).
On the offensive, the dreamer may well overstep in his claim to retain youthful perquisites no longer descriptive of his current life (see 11n). He is not, as he seems to claim, a mynistre (cf. Conscience at line 91 below), and probably not in quoer, that portion of the church reserved for clerics (cf. AB 5.3–8n), although he might have a place there as a clerk with song-school training. His clerical training in scripture now has become sadly reduced to repeating prayers he should know by rote.
55 leuitici: Properly, of course, “of Leviticus,” where many of the priestly regulations are discussed, but L again uses the term to mean “Levites” at 17.219.
56 of kynde vnderstondynge: Presumably “plain common sense indicates” or “as plain common sense would indicate,” Will’s effort to appeal past his interlocutor to a more basic psychological faculty.
58L Non reddas … : Alford (1992:44) cites Prov. 20:22 (Say not: I will return evil). Alford compares the primary Christian locus, Rom. 12:17 (To no man rendering evil for evil), as well as 1 Thes. 5:15, 1 Pet. 3:9. However, the uncited preceding verse, Prov. 20:21, may be performing implicit argumentative duty here: “The inheritance gotten hastily in the beginning, in the end shall be without a blessing.” In these terms, Will wittily implies that long deferral of his career might render his contribution more efficacious, rather than
