mortrewes can also contain fische. Though he will deuyne, that is, argue ingeniously a difficult theological point (cf. B.10.185–88), his manner of argument will in fact be typically Langlandian, “preving” by taking a text or person or anecdote “to witness”—cf., e.g., Recklessness proving that the poor are close to God, 12.98–176a, where the word “witness” is used four times, “preven” twice, “testify” and “accord” once each, and ll. 170–75 are a special rush of authorities testifying and proving. See 20.275–76 for a similar statement about phony friar-argumentation, proving by Seneca that all things should be in common.
Sui generis though this outburst seems, it is actually like Study’s tirade in B.10 at a number of points. The basic idea, that the doctor will be too addled by food and drink to talk sense, is just what Study has said: he is one of those who “puten forþ presumpcion to preue þe soþe” and “dryuele at hir deys … whanne hir guttes fullen” (B.10.56–58). Drawing on Job, Jeremiah, and the Psalms, Study all through her speech contrasts the prosperous wicked to the just poor, just as Will contrasts this prosperous, arrogant doctor to himself, poor deserving Will. The doctor is “a frere to seke festes” (B.10.95), a “maister” “moving motives in his glory” (cf. B.10.117). Since Will and Patience are offered none of the good food, he “þus parteþ wiþ þe pouere a parcell [i.e., turns them away] whan hym nedeþ” (B.10.64); he is one of those who “in gaynesse and glotonye forglutten hir good/And brekeþ noʒt to þe beggere as þe book techeþ:/Frange esurienti panem tuum &c” (B.10.84–85a). He “prech[e3] at Seint Poules” “that folk is noʒt … sory for hire synnes” (B.10.74–76). He speaks of “a trinite” if not “þe Trinite” (B.10.54). And so on; we see L here reworking a set of ideas he has already used.
The first witness here, here pocalips, is probably not (pace Pearsall and Schmidt) The Apocalypse of Golias, though that text does satirize corrupt clergy and ends in a long scene featuring gluttonous monks, who at one point assert that by the “sore pains” of drinking they come to know heaven’s bliss (ed. Wright, 1841, ll. 379–80), but why it should be “their” Apocalypse is troubling. Alternatively, the phrase may mean “their (the friars’) mumbo-jumbo, their clever apocalyptic way of speaking” or “their own ‘Revelation,’” in which they reveal such things as why bacon and so on are penitential foods, or that this or that angel mentioned in the Book of Revelation is Francis. Certainly the long association between the Franciscan Spirituals and Joachism is a sufficient background for accusing friars of having made the Apocalypse their own, even though the Spirituals characteristically used their apocalypticism to argue for a life of poverty, not indulgence. See Leff 1967a:1.51–255 and, for Peter John Olivi, Burr 1993; in his first two chapters, he gives a full review of Franciscan Joachism before Olivi. On the internal Franciscan disputes, see Lambert 1998, Clopper 1997:27–54, and Burr 2011.
Another possibility is opened up by this verse from St Paul [1 Cor 14:26]: “Quid ergo est, fratres? Cum convenitis, unusquisque vestrum psalmum habet, doctrinam habet, apocalypsin habet, linguam habet, interpretationem habet. Omnia ad aedificationem fiant.” “How is it then, brethren? When you come together, every one of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a revelation [an apocalypse], hath a tongue, hath an interpretation. Let all things be done unto edification.” Although Paul is not speaking disparagingly, the exhortation at the end of the sentence implies the possibility of a kind of pandemonium if it is not followed—everyone with something to say, but bringing about not edification but ruin. Though I have not found it, it is hard to imagine that this verse, with its “fratres cum convenitis” at the head and its little potential scene of glib chaos, was not used satirically by antifraternal writers, and if so the word “apocalypse” may play a key role. In any case, our friar has his little revelation (or, rather, Patience imagines he does).
Þe passioun of seynt Aueroy is still more obscure. “Passion” here perhaps does not mean “suffering and martyrdom,” as it regularly does in the martyrologies, but just “suffering,” or “hard life,” the sort of heroic abstinence one associates with saints: once again Anima’s “sermon” in B.15 is relevant: the desert fathers’ “penaunce and pouerte and passion” (B.15.270) consists above all in eating simply. In contradistinction to this, Patience predicts, the friar will offer, in proof of his proposition, the suffering of St Aueroy from too much fine food. But St Aueroy (B Auereys) has been a puzzle. Pearsall in his first edition, following Skeat, suggests St Avoya, “who was fed in her torment with fine bread from heaven—a useful twist to the doctor’s argument that good food and suffering go together,” and also mentions St Aurea, “a Spanish solitary, better known, who is said to have drunk only what she could distil from cinders.” Schmidt says it is either one of these “or an imaginary saint (the B form echoing Avarice) suited to the Doctor, whose own ‘passion’ would presumably result from over-indulgence.” Middleton (1987) has argued powerfully that the reference is simply to the Arab philosopher Averroes, here “sainted” by the friar for his materialism in a brilliant satiric thrust on L’s part against fraternal materialism in general. Again the historic disputes within the Franciscan order seem relevant, since the place of secular learning, in which Averroes’s thought was prominent, was a major issue. Peter John Olivi, the major Franciscan Joachist, in his Postilla on the Apocalypse made the study of Averroes a prominent mark of the carnal church (Leff 1967a:1.125). Pearsall in his revised edition drops his earlier suggestions and accepts Averroes. But this explanation, as Schmidt points out, leaves “passioun” imperfectly explained: in what sense did Averroes suffer? Yet another possibility (very like Schmidt’s imaginary saint) is that the word meant is “Auerous,” avaricious, and that the “Passion of St Avaricious” is invented as a partner-text to the “Apocalypse of Gluttony.” (On how avarice suffers—not as severely as Gluttony—see 6.272–85; avarice is relevant because fine food is expensive; see 44–45.) But Golias is not necessarily “Gluttony,” and there is no reason to suppose that the common word “averous,” even in connection with “saint,” would be mishandled by scribes, who had no trouble with “Erl Auerous” (10.86, B.8.89, A.9.80). On the whole, the best explanation seems to lie in the Franciscan disputes; though L elsewhere shows some sympathy with the Spirituals’ position, this line strikes at fraternal intellectual extremism in general by ridiculing both sides.
101–3 (B.13.94–96) And thenne shal he testifie … leue me neuere aftur: “And then he will tick off three proofs that he found in a pamphlet about how a friar should live his life, and get his companion to back him.” Clopper 1997:76, referring to this passage, says that “Patience ridicules the mendicant habit of using trinities to gloss away their Rule.” Irritatingly, he provides no evidence for this remark, and I do not know what glosses he has in mind, but it is true that a lot of fraternal writers love to number their thoughts. The Summa theologica is an obvious example, as are the Legenda aurea, Bonaventure’s Minor Life of St Francis, and Olivi’s Rule Commentary. This habit seems to me to be as good an explanation as any for the doctor’s trinite.
A forel is “a case or covering in which a book or manuscript is kept, or into which it is sewn” (OED, s.v. forel, n. 1c). “Lyuynge” can mean “way of life,” “rule of life,” or it can mean “livelihood, means of getting a living.” Pearsall, apparently settling on the latter, glosses the line “What (poor) fare he [i.e. his felowe] found in a friar’s box of provisions.” This presumably means that the friar will argue further that his fellow brought his dinner with him, obtained by begging, and is asking for himself a kind of guiltlessness by association. But the line is more likely to mean “what he, the friar-doctor, found in a pamphlet on the fraternal way of life,” i.e., further specious defense of la dolce vita. And then the furste leef is simply the first page of that book or pamphlet. Of course, if the first leaf is lies, so are all the other leaves: it is “lies from the word go.” Cf. 22.248–50, 274–75. Or does the first leaf take up the topic mendacium?
104–5 (B.13.97–98) And thenne is tyme … penaunce:
