114–18 “Sertes, sire” … in die iudicij” (B.13.106–11 “By þis day, sire doctour … I am in point to dowel”): Probably the doctor is satisfied with his peremptory reply, as he says at 123 (though that line has no counterpart in B), but it is possible that Will interrupts him here. In any case, Conscience thinks he deserves a chance to speak further.
To take C first: ʒe passeth means “you fail in respect to” (Kane, Glossary), “you evade”; the doctor “walks right past” dowel. Et visitauit & fecit redempcionem &c: Luke 1:68, (with et for quia) from Zachary’s song of joy at the birth of John the Baptist: “(Blessed be the Lord, God of Israel, because) he hath visited and wrought the redemption (of his people).” God has performed the redemption he promised; and he has also restored Zachary’s speech, as Gabriel promised (Luke 1:20). Altogether, he practiced as he preached. However, by making the omitted subject of the Latin verbs appear to be 116 oure lord, that is, Christ, L appears not to be invoking the actual context of the phrase but using it instead as an emblem of the ministry of Christ to set before the friar, a hands-on way of redeeming, visiting, and doing—including visiting the sick and sharing food—not just teaching, and certainly not just eating. And having failed to feed Will, the doctor failed to feed Christ, as he will learn in die iudicij: “As long as you did it not to one of these least ones, neither did you do it to me” (Matt 25:45); see Matthew’s whole account of Judgment Day, 25:31–46. Verse 43, “I was … sick … and you did not visit me,” perhaps accounts for the reference to sick friars in the infirmary, and the repeated verb “visitastis/non visitastis” echoes visitauit in the citation from Luke. The friar in Chaucer’s Summoner’s Tale visits a sick man, but without compassion. Finally, cf. Everyman (ed. Bevington 1975:962): as Everyman approaches death and judgment, “All fleeth save Good Dedes,” i.e., dowel.
Here Dowel is implicitly defined in terms of the “seven corporal works of mercy,” developed from this passage in Matthew (and is also equated with Christ, the “enditer” on the day of judgment and the major worker of mercy). The works of mercy emerge here and there in the poem, most fully in Scripture’s definition of Dobet at A.11.188–95 (where to “seken out þe seke” is placed, as it is here, in the context of brotherhood). On visiting the sick, see also 9.34–35 (B.7.30), 7.21 (B.5.405); on providing for them, see Reason’s challenge to Will, that he has no useful craft, “Hem þat bedreden be byleue to fynden” (5.21); and on caring for them, see above all the Good Samaritan, 19.46–93 (B.17.50–126; also, the account of Christ as healer, 18.138–49 (B.16.103–18), and the false physic offered by Friar Penetrans-domos in passus 22: by the end of the poem, ministry to the sick has become perhaps the major form of love in action.
B.13.109–10, without the reference to Judgment Day to evoke Christ’s words in Matt 25, is murkier: the infirmary seems to come out of nowhere—as do the yonge children. Clearly the charite that sholde be is precisely this ministry to the sick. The cheeste in the convent that replaces it recalls the activity of Wrath among nuns, B.5.153–65. As for the children, along with the sick they are presumably the weakest members of the community, those most in need of charity, but instead the joint victims, in Will’s view, of the doctor’s bullying ways.
The 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