Pierce the Ploughman's Crede
Encyclopedia
Textual History
Surviving in two complete forteenth-century manuscripts and two early printed editions, the Crede can be dated on internal evidence to the short period between 1393 and 1400. The two manuscripts both include Piers PlowmanPiers Plowman
Piers Plowman or Visio Willelmi de Petro Plowman is the title of a Middle English allegorical narrative poem by William Langland. It is written in unrhymed alliterative verse divided into sections called "passus"...
, and in the first, the Crede serves as an introduction to a C-text version of Piers Plowman. Additionally, BL MS Harley 78 contains a fragment of the Crede copied ca. 1460-70.
The Crede was first printed in London by Reyner Wolfe, and then reprinted for inclusion with Owen Rogers's 1561 reprint of Robert Crowley
Robert Crowley (printer)
Robert Crowley also Robertus Croleus, Roberto Croleo, Robart Crowleye, Robarte Crole, and Crule , was a stationer, poet, polemicist and Protestant clergyman who was among the Marian exiles at Frankfurt...
's 1550 edition of Piers Plowman. The Crede was not printed again until T. Bensley's edition in 1814, based on that of 1553, and Thomas Wright's of 1832. The 1553 and 1561 editions were altered to include more anticlericalism and to attack an "abbot
Abbot
The word abbot, meaning father, is a title given to the head of a monastery in various traditions, including Christianity. The office may also be given as an honorary title to a clergyman who is not actually the head of a monastery...
" where the original text had "bishop
Bishop
A bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...
". This latter revision is a conservative one, undoubtedly motivated by the security of attacking a defunct institution following the Dissolution of the Monasteries
Dissolution of the Monasteries
The Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their...
rather than an aspect of Catholicism
Catholicism
Catholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole....
which survived in the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
. Nearly all modern critics have agreed that several lines about transubstantiation
Transubstantiation
In Roman Catholic theology, transubstantiation means the change, in the Eucharist, of the substance of wheat bread and grape wine into the substance of the Body and Blood, respectively, of Jesus, while all that is accessible to the senses remains as before.The Eastern Orthodox...
were removed. This excision was covered with a (perhaps interpolated) passage not found in any of the manuscripts.
The poem exists in several modern editions: Thomas Wright and Walter Skeat produced independent versions in the nineteenth century; more recently, James Dean has edited the text for TEAMs, and Helen Barr has produced a generously annotated edition in The Piers Plowman Tradition (London: J.M. Dent, 1993) (ISBN 0-460-87050-5).
Authorship
Some scholars believe it is very likely that the author of the Crede may also be responsible for the anti-fraternal Plowman's Tale, also known as the Complaint of the Ploughman. Both texts were probably composed at about the same time, with The Plowman's Tale being the later and drawing extensively on the Crede. The author/speaker of The Plowman's Tale mentions that he will not deal with friars, since he has already dealt with them "before, / In a makynge of a 'Crede'..." W. W. Skeat believed that The Plowman's Tale and the Crede were definitely by the same person, although they differ in style. Others reject this thesis, suggesting that the author of The Plowman's Tale makes the extra-textual reference to a creed to enhance his own authority.In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Crede was usually attributed to Chaucer. The editor of the 1606 edition of The Plowman's Tale, possibly Anthony Wotton
Anthony Wotton
Anthony Wotton was an English clergyman and controversialist, of Puritan views. He was the first Gresham Professor of Divinity. Christopher Hill describes him as a Modernist and Ramist.-Life:...
, explains his speculations with this gloss: "A Creede: Some thinke hee means the questions of Jack-vpland
Jack Upland
Jack Upland or Jack up Lande is a polemical, probably Lollard, literary work which can be seen as a "sequel" to Piers Plowman, with Antichrist attacking Christians through corrupt confession...
, or perhaps Pierce Ploughmans Creede. For Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer , known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages and was the first poet to have been buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey...
speakes this in the person of the Pellican, not in his owne person." This statement is ambivalent, suggesting that Chaucer could fictionally ("in the person of the Pellican") claim authorship for another text that he may not have actually written (i.e., the Crede), or Chaucer might be referring to one of his own writings (i.e., Jack Upland). Since Jack Upland was definitely (and wrongly) attributed to Chaucer in the sixteenth century, it is likely that the editor is introducing the possibility of a fictive authorship claim to deal with the possibility that The Plowman's Tale refers to the Crede. In this way the editor may have thought that if Jack Upland is signified by the "crede" reference in The Plowman's Tale, then "Chaucer" is speaking; if the Crede is signified, then it is the "Pellican, not [Chaucer's] own person."
The Crede might also have been attributed to "Robert Langland" (i.e., William Langland
William Langland
William Langland is the conjectured author of the 14th-century English dream-vision Piers Plowman.- Life :The attribution of Piers to Langland rests principally on the evidence of a manuscript held at Trinity College, Dublin...
) because of its inclusion in the 1561 edition of Piers Plowman, although this edition dropped the preface by Robert Crowley
Robert Crowley (printer)
Robert Crowley also Robertus Croleus, Roberto Croleo, Robart Crowleye, Robarte Crole, and Crule , was a stationer, poet, polemicist and Protestant clergyman who was among the Marian exiles at Frankfurt...
that names Langland. One reader of the 1561 Piers Plowman (which appends the Crede) made notes (dated 1577) in his copy that quote John Bale
John Bale
John Bale was an English churchman, historian and controversialist, and Bishop of Ossory. He wrote the oldest known historical verse drama in English , and developed and published a very extensive list of the works of British authors down to his own time, just as the monastic libraries were being...
's attribution of Piers Plowman to Langland ("ex primis J. Wiclevi discipulis unum") in Bale's Index...Scriptorum. Because of differences in language and his belief that Chaucer lived later than Langland, the reader concludes that the Crede alone (and not Piers Plowman) is Chaucer's.
Significant Contents
Like much political or religious poetry of the Alliterative RevivalAlliterative Revival
The Alliterative Revival is a term adopted by academics to refer to the resurgence of poetry using the alliterative verse form - the traditional versification of Old English poetry - in Middle English during the period c. 1350 - c. 1500...
(i.e., Piers Plowman
Piers Plowman
Piers Plowman or Visio Willelmi de Petro Plowman is the title of a Middle English allegorical narrative poem by William Langland. It is written in unrhymed alliterative verse divided into sections called "passus"...
, Mum and the Sothsegger
Mum and the Sothsegger
Mum and the Sothsegger is an anonymous fifteenth century alliterative English poem, written during the "Alliterative Revival." It is ostensibly an example of medieval debate poetry between the principles of the oppressive figure of Mum and the unruly, wild Sothsegger .-Content:Beneath...
), the poem takes the form of a quest for knowledge. It is narrated by a layman who has memorised nearly all of the rudimentary texts demanded by the Fourth Lateran Council. He can read, and is able to recite the Ave Maria
Hail Mary
The Angelic Salutation, Hail Mary, or Ave Maria is a traditional biblical Catholic prayer asking for the intercession of the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus. The Hail Mary is used within the Catholic Church, and it forms the basis of the Rosary...
and Pater Noster
Pater Noster
Pater Noster is probably the best-known prayer in Christianity.Pater Noster or Paternoster may also refer to:* Paternoster, a passenger elevator which consists of a chain of open compartments that move slowly in a loop up and down inside a building* Paternoster, Western Cape, South Africa* Pierres...
proficiently: yet he does not know the Creed
Creed
A creed is a statement of belief—usually a statement of faith that describes the beliefs shared by a religious community—and is often recited as part of a religious service. When the statement of faith is longer and polemical, as well as didactic, it is not called a creed but a Confession of faith...
. He seeks help from the friars, first turning to the Franciscans, then the Dominicans
Dominican Order
The Order of Preachers , after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and approved by Pope Honorius III on 22 December 1216 in France...
, followed by the Austin friars
Augustinians
The term Augustinians, named after Saint Augustine of Hippo , applies to two separate and unrelated types of Catholic religious orders:...
and the Carmelites
Carmelites
The Order of the Brothers of Our Lady of Mount Carmel or Carmelites is a Catholic religious order perhaps founded in the 12th century on Mount Carmel, hence its name. However, historical records about its origin remain uncertain...
. But rather than learning anything of value, all he hears are imprecations. Each order savagely attacks one of its rival groups of mendicants: the Franciscans denounce the Carmelites; the Carmelites denounce the Dominicans; the Dominicans denounce the Augustines; the Augustines complete this carousel of invective by denouncing the Franciscans. The entire poem seems like an uproarious inversion of cantos xi and xii of Dante
DANTE
Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe is a not-for-profit organisation that plans, builds and operates the international networks that interconnect the various national research and education networks in Europe and surrounding regions...
's Paradiso: just as Dante has the Dominican Aquinas and the Franciscan Bonaventure
Bonaventure
Saint Bonaventure, O.F.M., , born John of Fidanza , was an Italian medieval scholastic theologian and philosopher. The seventh Minister General of the Order of Friars Minor, he was also a Cardinal Bishop of Albano. He was canonized on 14 April 1482 by Pope Sixtus IV and declared a Doctor of the...
lauding one another's orders, so the Crede-poet makes the mendicants exchange abuse.
But all is not entirely lost. As he returns home, the narrator encounters a poor Plowman, dressed in rags and so emaciated that men myyte reken ich a ryb (432). Although starving, the Plowman freely offers the narrator what food he does have. When the narrator tells him of his experiences with the friars, the Plowman launches into a blistering diatribe on the four orders. Recognising the wisdom of the Plowman's words, the narrator asks him whether he can teach him the Creed. He is glad to do so: the poem ends with the Plowman's recital of the elusive text.
Two features make the Crede particularly worthy of note. Firstly, it is the earliest text to imitate William Langland
William Langland
William Langland is the conjectured author of the 14th-century English dream-vision Piers Plowman.- Life :The attribution of Piers to Langland rests principally on the evidence of a manuscript held at Trinity College, Dublin...
's Piers Plowman
Piers Plowman
Piers Plowman or Visio Willelmi de Petro Plowman is the title of a Middle English allegorical narrative poem by William Langland. It is written in unrhymed alliterative verse divided into sections called "passus"...
, to which it refers explicitly. The selfless Plowman is of course directly drawn from the earlier work. Perhaps written within eight years of the C-text of Piers Plowman, the Crede thus testifies to the appeal of Langland's more subversive, anticlerical sentiments among some of his early readers. Of course, the Crede-poet only uses Piers Plowman as a launch-pad for his own views. The Crede is markedly more confident than Langland in its opposition to the clergy. The fact that it abandons Langland's dream-vision framework is suggestive of this, as if the lay perfection that the Plowman represents has become more achievable in reality. The Crede conflates Piers (here, "Peres") with the author/dreamer of Piers Plowman, thus collapsing that poem's many voices into a single, collective voice of the ideal community. This misprision was a common aspect of Piers Plowman's dissemination. The character of Piers thus escapes from the confines of William Langland
William Langland
William Langland is the conjectured author of the 14th-century English dream-vision Piers Plowman.- Life :The attribution of Piers to Langland rests principally on the evidence of a manuscript held at Trinity College, Dublin...
's vision and takes on a life, an authority, and an authorial career of his own. As in The Plowman's Tale
The Plowman's Tale
There are actually two pseudo-Chaucerian texts called The Plowman's Tale. In the mid-15th century a rhyme royal Plowman's Tale was added to the text of The Canterbury Tales in the Christ Church MS. This tale is actually an orthodox Roman Catholic, possibly anti-Lollard version of a Marian miracle...
and The Prayer and Complaint of the Plowman, true religion is the virtue of the poor. The Piers of the Crede is simply a plowman without the Christological aspect of Piers in Langland's poem.
A second, related point of interest is that the Crede is a Lollard production that acknowledges the influence of Walter Map
Walter Map
Walter Map was a medieval writer of works written in Latin. Only one work is attributed to Map with any certainty: De Nugis Curialium.-Life:...
's Latin, anti-monastic "Goliardic" satires, such as "The Apocalypse of Bishop Golias
Apocalypse of Golias
The Apocalypse of Golias is a satirical Latin poem of the 12th century, probably written in England or France. Like the Biblical Apocalypse, the poem is addressed to the "Seven Churches", but manuscripts differ as to whether they are the "Seven Churches in England" or "Seven Churches in...
" and "The Confession of Golias." The author of the Crede claims that these works tarnished the monastic orders and brought on the mendicant orders, or else Satan himself founded them. With clear Lollard sympathies, the Crede praises John Wycliffe
John Wycliffe
John Wycliffe was an English Scholastic philosopher, theologian, lay preacher, translator, reformer and university teacher who was known as an early dissident in the Roman Catholic Church during the 14th century. His followers were known as Lollards, a somewhat rebellious movement, which preached...
and as well as Walter Brut
Walter Brut
Walter Brut was a fourteenth century writer from the Welsh borders, whose trial in 1391 is a notable event in the history of Lollardy.Brut described himself as "a sinner, a layman, a farmer and a Christian" in his trial for heresy which took place before the Bishop of Hereford, John Trefnant...
who is mentioned in relation to his heresy trial. (There were several trials for Brut, a Welsh Lollard, from 1391-1393.)
The Credes content wholly conforms to Lollard views of the friars. Most of the charges against the friars are familiar from other works such as Jack Upland
Jack Upland
Jack Upland or Jack up Lande is a polemical, probably Lollard, literary work which can be seen as a "sequel" to Piers Plowman, with Antichrist attacking Christians through corrupt confession...
, the Vae Octuplex or Wyclif's Trialogus, and most are ultimately derived from William of Saint-Amour
William of Saint-Amour
William of Saint-Amour was a minor figure in thirteenth-century scholasticism, chiefly notable for his withering attacks on the friars.-Biography:...
's De Periculis Novissimorum Temporum (1256). As in all Wycliffite satire, the friars are lecherous, covetous, greedy, vengeful, demanding extravagant donations for even the most elementary services. They seek out only the fattest corpses to bury, and live in ostentatious houses that are more like palaces than places of worship. They are the children of Lucifer
Lucifer
Traditionally, Lucifer is a name that in English generally refers to the devil or Satan before being cast from Heaven, although this is not the original meaning of the term. In Latin, from which the English word is derived, Lucifer means "light-bearer"...
rather than Saint Dominic
Saint Dominic
Saint Dominic , also known as Dominic of Osma, often called Dominic de Guzmán and Domingo Félix de Guzmán was the founder of the Friars Preachers, popularly called the Dominicans or Order of Preachers , a Catholic religious order...
or St Francis
Francis of Assisi
Saint Francis of Assisi was an Italian Catholic friar and preacher. He founded the men's Franciscan Order, the women’s Order of St. Clare, and the lay Third Order of Saint Francis. St...
, and follow in the footsteps of Cain, the first treacherous frater. But the fact that the poem's main approach is dramatic rather than didactic or polemic, and its frequent passages of striking physical description, elevate it beyond the vast bulk of antifraternal writing. Elizabeth Salter's charge of empty 'sensationalism' seems highly unjust. The poem's vicious and unremitting attacks are impressively constructed, and even entertaining in their lacerating cynicism. Plus, as Christina von Nolcken and Helen Barr have shown, there is a remarkable subtlety to the poem, as it draws on even the most purely philosophical aspects of Wyclif's system. The opposition between the friars and Piers is finely crafted. While the friars squabble and bicker with one another, the true (i.e., Lollard) Christians form a single unity; at the end of the poem, in the words of Barr, 'the voices of Peres, narrator and poet all merge' into a single 'I':
External links
- Six Ecclesiastical Satires, ed. James M. Dean, TEAMS Middle English Texts (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1991): full edition of Crede online
- Pierce the ploughmans crede (about 1394 AD) to which is appended God spede the plough (about 1500 AD), ed. Walter W. Skeat, Early English Text SocietyEarly English Text SocietyThe Early English Text Society is an organization to reprint early English texts, especially those only available in manuscript. Most of its volumes are in Middle English and Old English...
o.s. 30 (London: Trübner, 1867): another edition of the Crede, largely rendered obsolete by Dean's edition, although the spelling is less modernised. - John Matthews Manly, XXX: Peres the Ploughman's Crede, in The Cambridge History of English and American LiteratureThe Cambridge History of English and American LiteratureThe Cambridge History of English and American Literature was originally published by Cambridge University Press in 1907–1921. The 18 volumes include 303 chapters and more than 11,000 pages edited and written by a worldwide panel of 171 leading scholars and thinkers of the early twentieth century...
, ed. A. W. Ward and others, 18 vols. (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1907–21), II: The End of the Middle Ages (1908) - James M. Dean, Plowman Writings, in Medieval English Political Writings, ed. James M. Dean (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1996): essay on the Ploughman tradition in medieval literature, with links to texts.