argues that Reason’s oration forms a shifting sermo ad statūs, paralleled in Gower’s Vox clamantis and Miroir de l’omme. But when Owst (1926:247–65) discusses sermones ad statūs, as a genre distinct from either those de tempore (explanations of the daily, usually Sunday, gospel or epistle) or de sanctis (for the feast days of saints), he significantly discusses only Latin examples. These are often associated with episcopal visitations and delivered ad cleros (one prominent such status). Although John of Wales’s Communiloquium, for example, appears constructed to provide materials for addressing a wide range of social groups, sermones ad statūs to specific social classes represent a specialized genre, in the main confined to late twelfth- and thirteenth-century France (cf. d’Avray 1976:134–211, and for John’s Communiloquium, the extensive description, Swanson 1989:63–166). These collections were all composed by friars, which may explain the Lollard sectarian sniping of JU 251–52: “Frere, siþ ʓe wolen opinli preche aʓen þe defautis of prelatis, of prestis, lordis, lawiers & marchauntis & comouns.” (cited Owst 1961:220–21, Spencer 1993:66).
Owst’s voluminous demonstration of sermon commentary on different social groups (1961:210–470) thus substantially misleads. It insists on a selective presentation of sermon content, at the expense of recorded sermon form. For as Spencer points out (1993:65–67), the social commentary L here presents as Reason’s full text most usually is found in English sermons as a block of material placed within a text given over to other issues. Such reliance upon estates categories appears prominently in part 1 of Wimbledon’s sermon; for other examples from a single collection de tempore, see (the misnamed) Lollard Sermons, sermons 2/415–576; 8/200–410; 11A/202–300, 383–415; DM/524–618. The opening section of the first, 2/415–69, might be noted as particularly relevant here, since it addresses a series of clerical failures, including many of the topics broached at 146–67, as signs of the last days, the topic with which Reason opens.
Thus, Reason’s sermon belongs within the widely dispersed discourse of estate satire, analysis of class responsibilities; for the outstanding discussion, see Mann 1973 passim (and cf. 22.229–51n). In keeping with this discourse, Reason is generally informed by a social model of the commune as a series of clearly defined statūs, each with delimited duties and each necessarily adhering to these in order for the entire social organism to function. (Cf. the reference to Wimbledon in 43Ln.) Further, this discourse insists upon hierarchical relationships and the obedience to that figure of authority appropriate to each status. Because of such universalism, the address to a variety of statūs, rather than a single one, Reason’s oration depends upon persistent analogies between figures in functionally comparable positions.
After a brief introduction (115–25) filled with portents of disaster brought on by sin, the sermon follows in a lockstep manner, quite atypical of L’s usual development, Reason’s speech at 4.108–30 (cf. Alford 1988b:209, elaborating upon Dunning 1980:85). There Reason has laid out the conditions for a messianic/Utopian society; cf. 4.144–45 and its echo of Conscience at 3.452–63. Here Reason, imagining as a future the inversion of messianic hope, expresses no reuthe as he demands the removal of sinful behavior so as to redeem individuals and society (cf. Burrow 1965:249). Reason thus ticks off here in close order all his earlier critiques, from purnele porfiel (4.111, corresponding to 5.128) through to Rome-running (4.122–30 reduced to 5.197–98). With those categories Reason invokes, contrast Wimbledon’s traditional three estates, specified as priests, knights/lords and judges, laborers and merchants, respectively (lines 100–118); or in the Lollard Sermons, prelates, parsons, regular clergy; lords, gentry; and merchants, artificers, husbandmen (11A/383–415, the final triad of “commons” again at DM/548–49). Yet both Reason and Wimbledon accord with Lewte’s counsel to openly rebuke publicly known faults. Schmidt calls that figure’s advice to Will, “To reden it in retorik to arate dedly synne” (B.11.102, slightly varied at 12.36) “one of the most important lines in PP” (1987:13).
The handling of the sermon across the three versions typifies L’s poetic development throughout the second vision. A, as customary elsewhere, is the briefest rendition, generally an outline of those topics L broaches in all three texts. B subjects this standing text to two types of expansion—a modest addition of materials within the sermon as presented in A (e.g., B 5.32–40, although some A manuscripts include, perhaps by legitimate archetypal descent, partial equivalents unprinted by Kane) and an equally outline-like smattering of new topics near the end (B 5.48–55). In contrast, C doubles the length of the sermon, in part by extensive development of B (as in the case of king and pope, 180–96). But just as the first half of this passus “front-loads” parts of the B “inquisicio de Dowell” (there Imaginative’s rebuke from B 12), so L imports into the sermon—and many subsequent passages of the second vision—materials originally treated later in the poem. Here the primary example is the prophetic attack on regular clergy (146–79, from B 10.297–335; cf. A 11.204–16). This represents but one example of a persistent form of revision in C’s third vision. There L removes a good deal of the carping on bad priests that had characterized earlier versions, most particularly A, with its several efforts at aligning “the three Do’s” with clerical status.
112–13 (B 5.11–12, A 5.11–12) resoun/Consience: Burrow (1965:250) describes the scene as “a great ecclesiastical occasion,” and, as Pearsall sees, the cross precedes a bishop in formal ecclesiastical processions, such as archiepiscopal visitations. As Pearsall also mentions (114n), Reason’s preaching is reminiscent of sermons in the open air, e.g., at St. Paul’s Cross. (Bennett in fact confuses the cross, carried in both B and C versions, with an open-air stationary cross; for an example of such a canopied preaching station, see the photo of the surviving Dominican example in Hereford, Hinnebusch 1951:plate 23, following 192.)
Each version formulates the relationship between the two allegorical figures differently. In A, Conscience gives the sermon, and Reason is not mentioned; Kirk comments (1972:46) that the poem shifts from the external to the internal, “enacting what happens when conscience brings self-awareness to creatures.” In B, Reason, “more priestly” and thus “more appropriate” according to Bennett, preaches, and Conscience does not appear. And in C, Reason still preaches but is accompanied by Conscience; Whitworth argues (1972:5–6) that they appear here as universalized figures, not the private faculties he sees as having addressed the dreamer in the preceding waking episode.
The C version complicates matters further, through its inclusion of a detail not present in earlier versions. At 4.184–86, the two personifications have been associated with specific governmental offices, Reason as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Conscience as King’s Justice. Reason might appropriately be conceived as an episcopal figure also performing as royal official; Treasurers of the Exchequer were frequently bishops also; see Tout 1920–33, 6:19–24. The association of Conscience with justice and his role here as liturgical acolyte is considerably more amorphous. But certainly, these judicial appointments resonate with C’s major expansion, the materials at 180–96, which imply a conjunction between royal and ecclesiastical legal discourses (cf. 140–45n). Stokes (1984:42–44, 60, 159 etc.) argues that lawyer and priest are comparable legalistic figures (and constructively draws attention to the imbrication of the penitential system in legal metaphor).
But Reason ryht as a pope 112 is detached from a secular legal system that idealizes a strict lewte (without perversely merciful incursions from Meed). He is here associated with an office differently founded (through apostolic succession) and the vehicle of divine mercy and grace (recall Prol. 128–38 and contrast that passage with the following lines). De Deguilleville’s Reason, who first appears at the opening of the dreamer’s pilgrimage, is routinely presented as preaching or giving sermons, rather than just speaking (e.g., PLM 447, 510). She goes to a “chayre” to give a formal sermon, instruction to clerics on the responsibilities of clerical judgment, that is, penitential chastisement (PLM 589–690). She argues, in part, that clerics resemble the Cherub with burning sword who guards the New Jerusalem (cf. Gen. 3:24), the role L will assign Grace and Amend-you
