These verses from Numbers, together with various New Testament citations (e.g., Acts 4:34–35), had considerable social currency in the later fourteenth century. They provide standard proof-texts for Lollard attacks on ecclesiastical ownership of real property. For discussion, see Hudson 1988:337–42 and 146–79nn.
Further distinctions between the aristocrats of this world and Will’s crowned eyres of heuene 59 occur in subsequent lines. As regards “ne swerien at enquestes” (57), Alford (1988c:50–51) provides a rich array of citations to indicate that clerics are excused from participation in legal procedures. See most pregnantly his citation of Lyndwood 91–92: “We forbid any clerk to be judge or associate in any trial touching life or member.” Cf. Patience’s presentation of poverty as remocio curarum at 16.123–28L; Mum 705–9, in discussing the “piteousness” priests should display, also cites their freedom from military and judicial service “Al for cause þaire conscience to kepe vn-y-wemmyd.” With regard to Ne fyhte (58), an attack on priests who bear arms—rather than service books—occurs in a passage alluded to above, B 15.120–27 (and see A 11.214, parallel to 159).
On the offensive, the dreamer may well overstep in his claim to retain youthful perquisites no longer descriptive of his current life (see 11n). He is not, as he seems to claim, a mynistre (cf. Conscience at line 91 below), and probably not in quoer, that portion of the church reserved for clerics (cf. AB 5.3–8n), although he might have a place there as a clerk with song-school training. His clerical training in scripture now has become sadly reduced to repeating prayers he should know by rote.
55 leuitici: Properly, of course, “of Leviticus,” where many of the priestly regulations are discussed, but L again uses the term to mean “Levites” at 17.219.
56 of kynde vnderstondynge: Presumably “plain common sense indicates” or “as plain common sense would indicate,” Will’s effort to appeal past his interlocutor to a more basic psychological faculty.
58L Non reddas … : Alford (1992:44) cites Prov. 20:22 (Say not: I will return evil). Alford compares the primary Christian locus, Rom. 12:17 (To no man rendering evil for evil), as well as 1 Thes. 5:15, 1 Pet. 3:9. However, the uncited preceding verse, Prov. 20:21, may be performing implicit argumentative duty here: “The inheritance gotten hastily in the beginning, in the end shall be without a blessing.” In these terms, Will wittily implies that long deferral of his career might render his contribution more efficacious, rather than the less that Reason expects.
60L Dominus … constringit[ur]: The first citation is Ps. 15:5: “The Lord is the portion of my inheritance,” a direct claim to heavenly heirship (and line 59 effectively translates it as if it were being spoken by a priest). This verse traditionally provided “benefit of clergy” and defined that status as essentially Latin literacy; see further Imaginative’s discussion at 14.128–30. The verse achieved this status from its quotation during the ceremony of tonsuring new clerks (Alford 1992:80, s.v. B 12.189); cf. PLM 453–54, where Moses (representing episcopacy) tonsures aspiring clerics “seyinge hem þat God shulde be here part and here heritage.” In de Deguilleville’s account, Reason then describes the haircuts as comic, fools’ garb, but, paradoxically, in their bare pates, hiding true wisdom (457–502); cf. B 15.1–11, 9.105–39, 22.74–79, etc.
clemencia non constringit, given the preceding tag “And elsewhere (it is written),” presumably also cites a text, but one I have failed to identify; one should probably read constringitur. Pearsall aptly associates the statement “Clemency is not constrained” with Portia’s “The quality of mercy is not strained” (Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice 4.1.179). However, the valences of Portia’s claim and that here are not quite similar. One should compare two standard definitions of the virtue Clemency (a “part” of the cardinal virtue Temperance) widely cited in the Middle Ages, Cicero, De inventione 2.54.164; and Seneca, De clementia 2.3, the latter of which reads: “Clementia est … lenitas superioris adversus inferiorem in constituendis poenis” (Clemency is a superior’s lenience in inflicting punishment on an inferior). Clemency “is not constrained,” because it voluntarily avoids what is constrained, the proper penalty assigned to a criminous action. Equally, by its nature, it is the virtue of a noble man, a superior or eyre, who displays meekness, not a desire to impose punishment. See further Seneca’s discussion, De clementia 1.7.1–5. The remark is obviously double-edged: Will directs Reason’s attention to his potential lack of clemency, while claiming his own pure intentions.
61–69 Hit bycometh … to serue: If the preceding lines suggest the heedless nature of clerical aristocracy, these emphatically distinguish clerkes and knaues, the illiterate lower classes, committed to agrarian labor. The dreamer invokes canonical regulation to indicate, in yet another way, restrictions that prevent those born to manual labor from advancing to an improper degre, to a state where they might perform intellectual work. For such regulation, as it forms part of the 1388 Statute of Laborers, see 35–44n; Skeat (1886:2, xxxiv–xxxv) connects these lines with a parliamentary petition of 1391. Lines 67–68 reiterate, as two fundamental requirements for priesthood, that the candidate must be legitimate and that he must not be a slave or a beggar. The first such concern, as Middleton notes (1997:258–59), also piqued John Ball, who claimed no bastard “aptum regno Dei” (Walsingham 1:544).
The two criteria Will invokes are of different degrees of plausibility. On the one hand, Gratian is clear that slaves, unless freed by their lord from servitude, are debarred from ordination (Decretum 1.54; CJC 1:206–14). But the discussion of whether a priest’s child, and by extension any product of an unsanctified union, may be ordained (Decretum 1.56; CJC 1:219–23) offers a range of views. These include a series of attacks on the proposition that parental sin descends to the offspring, and the authors generally would allow ordination on a showing of the candidate’s virtuous merits (succinctly Jerome in c. 8). These discussions may come as some surprise to proponents of genetic predestinarianism elsewhere in the poem, notably Holychurch at 2.24–42 and Wit at 10.203–35. (The latter, in the form of B 9.121–57, as Justice 1994:105–11 points out, is a plausible source for John Ball’s views; note the subsequent 236–55, unique to C.)
For those excluded from intellectual work on these bases, carting (65) is an appropriate task. Although Reason does not mention this job in lines 13–21 above, 12 Rich. II, c. 5 (SR 2:57) uses the phrases “to labour at the Plough and Cart” as a general synecdoche for agricultural work. Carting evokes the hazards of such labor and was the equivalent of modern long-haul trucking. For the dangers of transport (which include falling asleep on the job, perhaps relevant to the dreamer’s objections), see Hanawalt 1986:126–27, 131–32; and cf. Ch, CT I.2022–23, more distantly PF 102, CT III.1537–70.
In contrast, Will outlines appropriately clerical jobs in lines 61–64. The list shows some self-serving shuffling in the dreamer’s claims. Although his highest pretension, to be an eyre of heuene, apparently involves serving Christ through prayer, Will opens the possibility of other clerical labors. Thus, clerks serve not simply God but good men (62) too, qualifying the universal condemnation of Prol.90–94. Further, clerks do not just pray but “sitten and wryten, | Redon and resceyuen”—perform exactly those acts associable with a reeve and his accounts (cf. Middleton