signaled at 3.437–38, 4.5) with the practical and experiential force subordinated to the more theoretical figure (cf. 5.89–91n). Reason’s directorial function is implicit in radde 125, which with reule is the action most frequently associated with the figure. Note line 181 below, where Reason speaks for Conscience.
115–22 (B 5.13–20, A 5.13–20) Sinfulness and disaster: The theme of natural disaster as a check upon human sinfulness recurs with some frequency. Wit, within a model that does not allow for any redemptive possibility, discusses Noah’s flood in this spirit at 10.220–33; and in a moment of frustration over apparently intractable labor problems, the dreamer wishes for a similar emergency, in this case famine, at 8.341–52 (see the nn. there). Imaginative lists “poustees of pestilences” among God’s warning tribulations, messages to the sinful, “Amende þee while þou myʓt” (B 12.10–12L). Following Stokes (1984:203), the appearance of Death at 22.80–105 has much the same effect. Bennett refers to Bromyard and Brinton, who argue that plagues are vengeance for human vices. 117 pertliche implies that Reason finds this a reading of the storm of 1362 that requires no proof.
Just as frequently, however, L perceives disaster, and perhaps especially the pestilence, as less a cure for sin than a force that fosters it. See, e.g., the dreamer at lines 70–79 above (speaking in the context of statute law created to control the effects of plague depopulation) or Study at 11.52–77. Meiss (1951:67–70) was perhaps the first to comment upon this bifurcated response to the plague, both severity and license.
115 (B 5.13, A 5.13) this pestelences: For the recurrent episodes of bubonic plague that began in 1348, see Prol.82n.
116 (B 5.14, A 5.14) the southweste wynde on saturday At euene: See Skeat’s lengthy note (derived from Tyrwhitt); this hurricane can be identified through L’s references to saturday and the southweste. The date of the storm (15 January 1361/2; the feast of St. Maur, as the verses cited by Lawler 2011:84, 101 indicate) provides a terminus a quo for the A version, although a shaky one: the event was remembered for years (indeed, even invoked at the time of the October 1987 storm that struck southern England). Bennett cites Anominalle Chronicle, which includes a reference to uprooted trees, both those in orchards and those in woods, very much in the spirit of subsequent lines.
121 (B 5.19, A 5.19) turned vpward here tayl: The trees with roots in the air (an unusual usage, for tail usually means a plant’s leaves or stem) expand upon the topic of a world turned vpsodoun by sin; cf. PC 608–87, where, following Innocent III, sinful mankind is compared with an inverted (and fruitless) tree. In passus 4, Reason spoke as a utopian; now those hopes have been inverted, and at 22/B 20.53–57 such an inversion will mark the Last Days of the world (and the poem); see the note there. Heist argues (1952:189–90) that L here reproduces an unusual Old French variant for the “sixth sign” before Doomsday (cf. Heist 28–29; for the more normal sanguineus ros [bloody dew]; cf. PC 4780–81); see also Kerby-Fulton 1990:16–18.
Bennett identifies Beches and brode okes 120 as the most strongly rooted of all trees. For the proverbial well-rooted oak, see Trevisa DPR 973/35, 1027/33–34; and the grammar-school text L surely knew, Avianus’s fable 16 (the oak and the reed); cf. Chaucer, T&C 2.1180–90.
121–22 (B 5.19–20, A 5.19–20) in … hem: in tokenynge of drede | That is not simply a metrically appropriate equivalent for as a dreadful token | That “as a fearful sign that”; rather, translate, “as a revelation of their fears that.” Bennett and Pearsall identify the antecedent of hem 122 as segges 119 (although they equally note the alternation between direct and indirect address here and elsewhere). But hem actively contrasts with we 119 (AB ye), and the grammar of ar domesday is not as Bennett Pearsall suppose.
Rather than an adjectival modifier of synne, the phrase is adverbial and modifies fordon. At Doomsday, the accumulated might of human sin will expunge Nature so as to produce a new heaven and new earth (cf. Apoc. 21:1 and PC 6343–98), but within history, continuing human sin can cause Nature to suffer before its due time. Cf. 10.228–33, where Wit accepts Nature’s destruction as an unfortunate byproduct of human sin; and Gloucester, at Shakespeare, King Lear 1.2.90: “nature is scourged with the sequent effects.”
126 (B 5.24, A 5.24) wastoures: As Stokes (1984:157) sees, Reason’s actual argument ad statūs opens by circling back to the very beginning of Will’s first vision, Prol.24 (cf. 93–101n). The lines, especially the greater particularity of the C revision, follow from 5.28 (q.v.).
128–39L (B 5.26–39L, A 5.26–33) Disciplining the family: Purnell introduces a series of four examples and a general admonition. These insist upon the husbandly power and responsibility to coerce domestic obedience. Purnell’s pride in her apparel indicates how a wife, left to her own devices, will behave. In the next pair of injunctions, Reason recalls to the complaisant husbands Tom and Watt their duties in controlling such wifely excess; in the final example and the admonition, he addresses fathers’ responsibilities for their children. For such a general parental responsibility, one form of patriarchal/magisterial ordering of society, see PC 5544–59, 5578–87. Purnell will reappear as a personification of Pride at 6.3. In her preceding appearance at 4.111, as here, her name almost becomes absorbed into her purfyle, the costly fur edging on her garment (cf. 2.9); Bennett associates her fascination with her clothes with Meed’s finery—all money-generating show, as opposed to the “savings” that Reason here enjoins, recalling 1.50–53. Cf. also Ch’s description of the Monk’s sleeves, CT I.193–94, and Mann’s comments (1973:221 n27). Unusually, Chaucer’s Parson addresses pride in clothing with far greater verve than does L; see CT X.412–31. The topic was of more than modest social interest. An abortive and soon abandoned effort at sumptuary legislation paid particular attention to furred borders of garments as a way of enforcing class distinctions. See 37 Edward III (1363, repealed 1364), cc. 8–15, SR 1:380–82; and the discussion, Strohm 1989:5–7 (5–14 passim).
Similar satire on fashion appears in the discussion of Wat’s wife. Women’s headdresses provide a definitive example of their concern for frivolous externals, and satiric accounts are epidemic in vernacular antifeminism, thus in analyses of this gender-based status. See Mann 1973:121 and Owst’s sermon examples 1961:390–404. The most notorious ME examples are the Wife of Bath (CT I.453–55; see Mann 1973:267 n91) and the Prioress’s wimple (and what it does not cover) (CT I.151, 154–56; Mann 1973:129–30). Robbins, in his notes (323–24) to HP no. 53, itself an example of the commonplace, cites a variety of vernacular parallels, to which one can add Brown XIII, no. 74/31–35 (a Harley lyric).
Tom Stowe introduces a series of injunctions to fathers/husbands to discipline their families. Most commentators have cited (with not a little relish) evidence that medieval husbands were expected to whip their wives into subservience. This assumption of female wantonness, and of the consequent need for male correction, has been present in the poem, together with the discourse of antifeminist satire that underlies it, since Meed’s appearance. The argument over Meed’s proper husband (cf. 2.17, where L introduces the premise that she must “belong to” someone) is, after all, simply the question, “Under what stable (because masculine) control should she belong?” Cf. 3.121–24 and Mann’s perception (1973:121) that women are often characterized in estates literature by their marital status. And charges against Meed routinely allege that she is only a wanton female; cf. 3.57, 162–71, 188–90L, 4.158–61.
But for a more normative view, see Hanawalt’s discussion of this topic (1986:206–8, 213–14), which insists that the medieval marriage necessarily had as ideal a domestic partnership. However, within this model, wives were to be obedient and husbands responsible for their correction, should they err badly. Following on his perception of a sin-filled world,
