standard minimum age for entering an order was the age of legal puberty, fourteen, i.e., when one was no longer a yonge child. But it was commonplace to accuse orders of friars of enticing underage boys to join, and there is sufficient evidence that they actually did. See the good discussion in Logan 1996:12–16, who says the practice was “not uncommon in England” (12) but not done “routinely” (16) either. On p. 15 he describes a case involving a seven-year-old. See also Röhrkasten 1996:454 (a case in 1392 in which Crutched Friars, on the wane and desperate for recruits, tried to deceive a ten-year-old into making a profession). Richard Fitzralph, in a well-known anecdote in Defensio curatorum (Heyworth 1968:126, Fowler 1980:236 and 1995:168, Walsh 1981: 424–25), speaks of a boy “not yet 13,” and later claims that “You can scarcely find a friar-place that doesn’t have one whole convent, or at least half a convent, of boys under ten” (ed. Brown, 1690:473, 476). See further Jack Upland, ed. Heyworth 1968, ll. 209–11, 330–34, 347–53 and Heyworth’s notes; Woodford, Responsiones, ed. Doyle 1983:141–42, 167–68, 172–74; Szittya 1986:205–6; and Erickson 1975:112–13, 117–18, though Logan’s discussion is the best informed. Woodford insists that boys are not “stolen,” nor are they recruited before the age of 14 (172), but he admits that the order accepts younger oblates from their parents, though they make no profession until they are 15 (173).
B.13.111 I wolde permute … dowel: i.e., “if what you are doing—keeping all the best food for yourself—is Dowel, let’s trade penances, for I am keen to do well.” Note that though he asks, “Is Dobest any penaunce?,” Will seems in fact to assume that penance is a necessary part of doing well, perhaps because the friar’s sermon of a few days ago harped on that theme.
An after-dinner contest to define the three D’s (119–69, B.13.112–71)
119–69 Thenne consience … techest (B.13.112–71a Than Conscience … vincunt): Gruenler 2017:154 argues that the scene “follows a variant of the common folktale pattern of threes by asking the same question of three different people, who give increasingly riddling answers.” He goes on to show how it has elements comparable to both “Solomon and Marcolf” and “St Andrew and the Three Questions.” In “Conscience’s Dinner” (Lawler 1995:91–92) I suggest as a major source the scene in Matthew 22 in which a doctor of the law asks Jesus, “Which is the great commandment of the law?,” i.e., What is Dowel? Jesus’s simple answer—the whole law and prophets boil down to two verses in the Pentateuch—undercuts the doctor by “setting all science at a sop.” Jesus wins a comic victory, as Patience does here by giving what is essentially the same answer.
The second-person pronouns offer a guide to the interrelationships of the characters. (I cite B because it has more dialogue; C is consistent with it.) Will (105–11) and Conscience (114–15) call the doctor “you,” as he no doubt expects them to. Clergie calls Conscience “you” when he objects to his leaving (183–87), but switches to the familiar “thou” when they see eye-to-eye at the end of the scene (203–4, 211–14). Conscience calls Clergie “thou” all through (119, 188, 201). Patience begins his reply by using “you” to Conscience (“At youre preiere” 136), but then uses the imperative singular in both Latin and English (137–38); he quotes his lemman as using “thou” to him (140–47); then, interestingly, when he stops quoting her and goes on to speak for himself, he keeps on saying “thou,” as she did to him (148–49, 157 [the imperative singular “Vndo”], 162–63, 164–71). Possibly he is just continuing his lemman’s way of speaking (which is biblical: the imperative singular for commandments); possibly he has turned to address Will, who originally posed the question about Dowel; but, especially because the doctor is the first to reply, I think he is simply talking down to everybody because he knows his answer is superior. The brashness of his “thou” is perhaps one thing that provokes the doctor, and also one thing that Conscience means when he says he has been taken by “þe wil of þe wye” (190).
119–20 (B.13.112–13) continaunce … preynte: Countenance, i.e., a silent sign, a look. Both lines probably refer to the same gesture, i.e., a wink or wince. See B.13.86 and C.15.109 (B.13.102) above (and notes). Why does he make a sign to Patience rather than Will? Apparently Conscience has already perceived the charisma in Patience that will cause him to go off with him at the end of the scene, though allegory perhaps operates as well: Will’s conscience tells him to be patient. From this point in B Conscience will act as master of ceremonies, calling on each person in turn to define Dowel: the doctor at 114, Clergie at 119, Patience at 134 (but KD-B seem to punctuate so as to have Clergie rather than Conscience invite Patience to speak to Clergie; see the note there). In C he calls on the doctor (121) and Clergie (127), but (after Piers speaks and leaves) Patience speaks without being asked.
The doctor goes first (119–26, B.13.112–19)
122 (B.13.115) ʒe deuynours: Lawton in Alford 1988:238 marks a triple pun in “diviner”: doctor of divinity, quack, and over-imbiber (one who speaks de vino).
123–26a “Y haue yseide … vocabitur” (B.13.116–18a “Dowel … celorum”): Since the speaker is a doctor himself, his definition of Dowel seems self-serving, and reminiscent of the Minorites in passus 10 who said, “Dowel lives with us.” The definition of a dobet seems likewise self-serving, since one meaning of That trauayleth to teche oþere can be “One who travels to teach others” (OED, s.v. travail, v. 5), i.e., a member of the Order of Preachers. And it is hard to see why to do as one teaches is “best,” instead of a minimal expectation. To be sure, he is quoting Jesus, who said (line 126a, B.13.118a, which rightly appears inside the quotation marks—the doctor himself cites his source), “Whosoever shall do and teach (the commandments), the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 5:19). In context, however, Jesus is not contrasting teaching to doing, but rather contrasting breaking the commandments, and teaching others to break them, to keeping them and teaching others to keep them. Thus the doctor has quoted scripture to his purpose rather than with full justice. He has come up with a neat schema to answer the progression of the adverbs rather than a genuinely useful progression: he is too taken with the neatness of do, teach, do-and-teach.
On the other hand, the doctor’s words could be applied to the difference between a theology teacher in a school and a parish priest: the latter is a teacher who is out in the world doing. (L sometimes uses “teacher” to mean “parish priest”; see 15.242 [B.15.89–90]n and Lawler 2006:86.) From this angle there is a modesty in what he says. See Pearsall’s good note; like Skeat he finds the doctor’s remarks correct but inadequate; and see Lawler 1995:90–91. Schmidt: “The text was earlier cited by Scripture at A.11.196a in defining Dobest as ‘a bishop’s peer’; but the Doctor … more probably means learned Mendicants like himself than the episcopal order as a whole.”
Why has L changed the Vulgate future perfect fecerit (like docuerit) to the present facit? Apparently to give greater emphasis to doing over teaching: in the phrase “he who does and shall have taught,” the teaching is made to seem remote. The effect is a little like what we are told of Chaucer’s Parson (A497): “First he wroghte, and afterward he taughte.”
Clergie is next (127–36, B.13.119–33)
128–36 “Haue me excused … founde” (B.13.120–30 “I haue seuene sones … Plowman”): The gist of Clergie’s reply is clear enough, and essentially the same in both versions, though C erases various puzzles in B. Perhaps following the lead of Study, he declines to engage in a scholastic disputation outside of school; one feels that he is counteracting the complacent certitude of the other cleric present, the doctor, with modesty. His assertion—echoing 12.92–95 (B.11.171–73)—that Piers has impugned the sciences in favor of love and reduced all texts to two is surely a reference to Jesus’s reply to the doctor of the law who asked, “Which is the great commandment of the law?”
