Ac … tholede: parenthetical polemic, in the present tense (me wondreth 74, me thynketh 78, ouerhuppen B.13.68); the sense continues directly from 73 to 84 (B.13.67 to 78). Pearsall punctuates the lines as “a parenthetic comment by Langland,” but I still hear Will, and I don’t think it “unlikely that [he] would claim to know Latin.” He does know Latin, and he is not bashful about making claims.
74–79 Ac me wondreth … yclothed (B.13.68–73a Ac … fratribus): They preach at Paul’s about Paul but avoid Paul’s message: in fame … frygore above now appears to be, not L’s random choice from among Paul’s perils, but a self-serving substitution by the friar for periculis in falsis fratribus, perils from false brethren, listed by Paul in the previous verse, 2 Cor 11:26. It would in fact have been very risky for a friar preaching in Langland’s time to call attention to Paul’s phrase (see also 80–81 below), for it had been fully exploited by antifraternal writers from William of St Amour on (see Szittya 1986: 33–34, 91, 110–12, 121, 171, 181), and is related to the common satirical association of the friars with Cain, who was the original falsus frater. Will cheats, of course, by changing Paul’s ablative periculis, the last of eight repetitions of the word, to the emphatic declaration periculum est, a move already half-made by Uthred of Boldon and Wyclif. Uthred’s Contra querelas fratrum (1367–68; ed. Marcett 1938) opens with the words Periculum in falsis fratribus. Uthred probably intended this incipit to be his title, in the medieval way (Kerby-Fulton regards it as the title, 2006:375), though as part of his text the phrase is probably meant to be construed as a sentence, with the verb est understood. Wyclif explicitly added est: see De perfectione statuum (Polemical Works, II, 471–72, cited in Szittya 1986:171). (The title Contra querelas fratrum is not in the manuscripts; it is probably John Bale’s; see Marcett p. 65.) Uthred goes on to argue that Paul listed false brethren last because, being hidden, it was graver than all the other dangers (Marcett 1938:25–26). (See Knowles 1951 for some corrections to Marcett, including the spelling Uthred for her Uhtred and a closer specification of the date).
Ofte 75 is cheating too. In fact St Paul speaks of “false brethren” in just one other place, Gal 2:4—though cf. 1 Cor 5:11, 2 Thess 3:6, both on brothers up to no good, and William of St Amour’s association of friars with other false types—prophets, apostles—who are harped on by Paul, Szittya 1986:31–61. By preaching at Paul’s, the doctor emphasizes the contrast between Paul, the true apostle (often simply called Apostolus by medieval writers), and himself, the false brother or pseudo-apostle. Among the forty-one signs William lists for distinguishing false apostles from true, all gleaned from passages in the New Testament, are that “they love fine food … (sign 29); they are selective about what is offered to them (sign 26); they eat frequently at strangers’ tables and so seem flatterers (sign 33, 2 Thess 3:8–9),” Szittya 1986:54.
There is still further and more blatant cheating in B.13.71–73a, where we are made to suppose that line 73a (Let every man beware of his brother for, as is said, there is danger in false brothers) is holy lettre. It is not, though it almost is. Alford, Quot. says the source is unknown, but it is surely Jeremiah 9:4, “Unusquisque se a proximo suo custodiat, et in omni fratre suo non habeat fiduciam (Let every man take heed of his neighbour, and let him not trust in any brother of his). The C revision draws back from that blatant cheating, but not very far. Whereas the translation is coyly withheld in B, C withholds the Latin (the doctored Jeremiah) but in effect translates it, specifying the danger as flattery: C.15.76 wysly hem kepe reflects B.13.73a se custodiat. (The reason given in B for not translating, that the translation, such a neat couplet in C, would be all too quotable and injure good friars, may imply that the poem in the A version had been well received, that people were quoting it, “rehearsing it often.”)
The way false friars flatter is by offering easy absolution, flattering you that you are in the state of grace, in exchange for a donation, as Friar Flatterer does at the end of the poem, 22.363–70 (B.20.363–70). See 22.235n, 313–15n, and Lawler 2006.
78–79 Ac me thynketh … yclothed: Although the Wycliffite translation was probably in circulation by the time of C, Thogh y latyn knowe 78 alludes primarily to the same idea that is in B, that since the bible was unavailable in English its “warning”—the doctored verse from Jeremiah quoted in B—is only known to Latinists, but perhaps secondarily also to the fact that the double meaning of frater is not reproducible in English.
The apology (me thynketh loth … to lacken) seems utterly perfunctory, of course, since the damage is done. Its exact nature, nevertheless, is teasing. In all likelihood, the referent of 78 secte is to the whole class of friars, and line 79 refers, not to the different habits worn by different orders, but to the differences between the “frere frokke” (16.355) in general and the dress of secular clergy or laymen. (Some have thought, however, that L was a friar; Lawrence Clopper in particular thought it “probable” [1997:325]; see his careful discussions in his Introduction, 1–24 and his Afterword, 325–33; and see 47–50a [B.13.42–45a] note above). Wyclif liked to call the fraternal orders “sects,” though he also uses the word to designate whole classes of religious such as friars, monks, canons (see his De fundatione sectarum, in Polemical Works, I, 13–80 and Szittya 1986:180–82). For L the word “secte” almost always means clothing, that is, the characteristic garb of a profession or class or order; he may have used it interchangeably with “sute.” See 12.133 (B.11.245; 16.357 (B.15.232); 6.38; 16.97, 99 (B.14.257, 259); also 7.129, 136, 140 (B.5.487, 490, 496), “in oure secte,” where it is a metaphor for “flesh.” Even when he uses it to mean the class or order itself, as at 15.13 or 16.295, the idea of clothing is at least implicitly present, since so many groups in medieval society had a characteristic dress. And indeed what is meant here may be something much broader than friars vs. seculars or laymen: it may refer to the variety of professions in general: cf. the diuisiones gratiarum, 21.227–55, esp. 254, “Loke þat noen lacke oþere (sc. craft) bute loueth as bretherne”; and see 12.110, 116: Christ’s blood made us brothers.
As for not “lacking”: Will has already been told by five teacher figures not to lack: 2.51 (B.2.248) (Holy Church); 8.85 (Piers); 12.40 (B.11.106) (Leaute); 13.206 (B.11.388) (Reason); 14.6 (cf. B.12.97) (Ymaginatif), and will be told so again by two more: 19.103 (Hope) and 21.254 (B.19.254) (Grace). Thus, perfunctory though it seems, the apology (like that at 13.26, “leueth nat … þat y lacke rychesse” or B.15.249, “Ac I ne lakke no lif”) should probably be taken as a sincere attempt, however brief, on Will’s part to be patient (so Pearsall in his first edition, citing 13.205–6). (On the near absence of the verb lakken in the A version, and its burgeoning importance in the B version, see Lawler 1996:163–65.)
80 fyue mendynantʒ: One of three references in the C version to five orders of friars; the others are at 8.191 (“alle þe fyue ordres”) and 9.344 (“alle fyue ordres”). But Prol.56 retains foure, the number used in A and B (A.Prol.55, B.Prol.58 = C.Prol.56; A 8.176 = B 7.198 [where ms. R has fyue] = C 9.145); thus L has retained the AB reading in the Prologue but changed it in passus 9, and added two more references to the orders, and in this one specified mendicants). He is by no means alone in speaking of five orders. Jack Upland mentions “þe fyue ordris” (83) objected to in Friar Daw’s Reply 84, which insists that there are only four. And wills provide further evidence: see below.
Four is, of course, the standard number, going back ultimately to the Council of Lyons of 1274, which (mainly to place a limit on mendicancy) prohibited all orders of friars except the Franciscans, Dominicans, Carmelites, and Augustinians from taking in novices, and so ensured their gradual extinction. However certain orders managed to elude this edict, apparently because they had sufficient endowment to make begging unnecessary. These included the Trinitarians and the Friars of the Holy Cross or Crutched Friars, both of whom maintained houses in England right up to the dissolution
