On Piers Plowman
From Sundries: An Essay Collection on Memory
https://medieval.ox.ac.uk/2023/02/10/piers-plowman-performance-at-st-edmund-hall/
If you came from here ^ Welcume, liues luue!
‘This were a wikkede wey but whoso hadde a gyde
That [myghte] folwen us ech a foot…’
(This were a wicked way · unless we had a guide
That would show us each step…)
I first discovered Piers Plowman at a bus stop. I was characteristically lost with a dead phone and only a charity shop book to keep me company. While no one murmured ‘Thou still unravished bride of quietness’, at me, I was acutely aware of being in the presence of the literary as I thumbed through the wind-swept pages. I was intensely confused, which, at the age of fifteen, I supposed was the hidden intention of all literature. With the charmed hand of A. V. C. Schmidt to guide me, I followed Will fallling asleep. I remember after being “found” an hour later how I, rather breathlessly, recounted the events of the B text to my mother as she, mid-flap, chastised me about reckless spontaneity and the need for charged phones.
At that bus stop, I knew that, by the fortuity of an Oxfam find, I had discovered something wonderful, but I had no idea that seven years later, I would be scavenging liripipes and split-mittens in an attempt to bring this dream-vision to life, as I did at Teddy Hall in 2022.
It wasn’t perfect by any means. In fact, I think single-handedly directing, producing, writing, costuming, prop-making, funding, and starring in this performance was probably the main reason for my first rustication. The cast was absolutely astounding and it was an incredible feat on behalf of us all; indeed a ‘wonderliche’ event that I am heartily proud of. To my knowledge, it is the first ever Middle English performance of Piers Plowman in modern times. The only other play I could find was an adaptation by Frances Blogg, the wife of my absolute favourite author of all time G. K. Chesterton. Go read The Man Who was Thursday if you haven’t already, you will laugh until you spit. Blogg’s play is online: ‘Piers Plowman's Pilgrimage: A Morality Play (from Will Langland's Great Epic of a May Morning on the Malvern Hills’ and it was performed by the children of Oakdene school. Admittedly, it is VERY Catholic. My performance was decidedly not… But the Mystery Play form is remarkably different to that of the Morality play. I think the farting, and butt trumpets, and vomit eating, and general chaos of Piers Plowman plays out best in the loose graces of a Mystery Play. This performance also ingratiated me towards Teddy Hall and its gorgeous ‘fair field’ and tower on toft.
Of course the inimitable Professor Henrike Lähnemann was the sole reason that this performance took place. She is truly incredible and arguably the most interesting person I have ever met. She beckoned us forth to her medieval-graffitied home- which has a sauna by the way and no real chairs besides hammocks, incredible!- with a bugle. Henrike is truly the essence of ‘medieval’ in Oxford, it was an absolute privilege to work with her. She made it all ‘happen’ so to speak. Also Anna Cowan, with her fabulous harping, set the whole Prologue to music. I urge you to watch the beginning of our performance- she really is a delight to the ears and soul. Rachael Seculer-Faber’s piping was incredible and I am sure Jordi Savall would get on very well with her.
Did you know I was born on a May morning? Not on Malvern Hills sadly, but the sun was relatively soft. My mother always recounts coming home from the hospital and seeing all the trees in full blossom, welcoming me into the world. Isn’t life beautiful sometimes?
Anyway, Piers Plowman. My first copy was the Oxford Classics edition with Schmidt’s translation. I still have it… plus about nine other copies of just the Trinity B text translation alone. One can never have enough Piers Plowman. I often take that humble copy with me to Malvern Hills, and it is positively crammed with pressed, may-morning flowers. When my dissertation is finished, I will take it to the hills I love so much and hold it aloft in victory. Finally, this infatuation that has subsumed my life since I was fifteen years old will finally meet its end… or its beginning? Who knows? I sort of want to update Skeat’s EETS edition of the Vernon A text… and also produce an EETS edition for every text in the Vernon. It would be SO much easier for Course II students studying the Material text and I aim to please. I also want to translate the Trinity B text of Piers into Armenian. I feel like Hayastan would love Langland, if they were afforded the opportunity. I wonder if there is a Portuguese translation? I hope I live for a few hundred years so I can accomplish every idle inclination I have ever had!
From the pen of a man who described Piers Plowman as “not worth reading”, Gerard Manley Hopkins, my favourite Jesuit poet, perfectly captured the flesh-good of the text:
And features, in flesh, what deed he each must do –
His sinew-service where do.
He leans to it, Harry bends, look. Back, elbow, and liquid waist
In him, all quail to the wallowing o’ the plough: ‘s cheek crimsons; curls
Wag or crossbridle, in a wind lifted, windlaced –
See his wind – lilylocks – laced;
Churlsgrace, too, child of Amansstrength, how it hangs or hurls
Them – broad in bluff hide his frowning feet lashed! raced
With, along them, cragiron under and cold furls –
With-a-fountain’s shining-shot furls.
Harry Ploughman
G. M. Hopkins
This particular poem encapsulates the essence of Piers Plowman: pure inscape, or as Stephen Medcalf calls it, an “extraordinary combination of roughness and a delicate magic.” It is incredibly difficult to describe what happens in Piers Plowman but “churlsgrace” is certainly the perfect descriptor for the essence of the text. A mere ploughman knows the way to Truth and is gracious enough to guide the reader, in return for help in plowing and sowing a half-acre.
Piers Plowman is ultimately a text that encourages mental labour, in a field, at a bus stop, or even in the gardens of St Edmund Hall…
I invite you to toil with me from the leaves of paperback. Go buy a copy of Piers Plowman or borrow one from me, I have plenty! From a tower on toft, a trumpet shall hail the dream, before the gentle plucking of a harp will guide you to sleep. Come and set forth on a dream-pilgrimage, exploring political satire, social upheaval, and spiritual crisis.
I hope to see you soon in the fair field. God spede þe plouȝ
