Many critics have discussed the analogy between Actyf and Will. Alford, “Design” in Alford 1988:50 calls him “in many ways the alter ego of the dreamer himself,” and cites others who write similarly: Robertson and Huppé 1951:168, Bloomfield 1962:27, Carruthers 1973:122. Actually, Carruthers discusses the subject on pp. 115–17, 121–23; on 122 she says that Haukyn is “the most complete and evident mirror image of Will in the poem,” i.e., like Thought, etc., but better. On p. 115 she details the likenesses. To this list can be added Huppé 1947:619, Gillespie 1994:107, 110, and surely others.
194 Peres prentys þe plouhman, alle peple to conforte: It is hard to see how this line, which is not in B, adds anything to our sense of Piers; it is probably only a coy way for Actyf to say that he works to provide bread, which strengthens people—though it goes over Conscience’s head, apparently. Piers does the main job of plowing, sowing, harrowing, and supervising the harvest and the storing of the wheat (as at 21 [19].258–334); millers, bakers, and Actyf the waferer—“eny manere mester þat myhte Peres auayle” 9.7, B.7.7—can all be thought of as his apprentices in the general sense of less skilled fellow toilers. Watson nicely says that Actyf’s work “updates and urbanizes the conservative social model represented by Piers” (2007:109). At 212 Actyf says that he himself sows, probably stretching the truth; see 208–13n below. See also lines 212–13, and B.13.236–38.
Skeat and Pearsall take the line to mean that Actyf is, in Skeat’s phrase, “a true servant of Christ,” though both admit that the only basis for that is his providing communion wafers, as I do not think Actyf does; see 198n below. We might see him rather as straining to appear productive, a useful member of the agrarian economy, rather than the market economy to which he actually belongs; see John Baldwin 1970:1.57–59, Page 1989:16–17.
The line is the first hint that Actyf is a boaster: he will continue to speak in a way that inflates his own importance.
197–99 Munstracye … þe more: The statement makes better sense in Schmidt and Pearsall, who do not put a comma at the end of 197. “I don’t know much minstrelsy except how to make men happy, and welcome God’s guests, with wafers, as a waferer; because of my work all, both the less and the great, laugh and are happy.” Actyf’s account is calculated to emphasize the superiority of his minstrelsy to the ordinary sort: it appeals to a deeper need and brings a deeper pleasure; it abets God’s work of hospitality; it reaches a wider audience, the less as well as the great, the poor as well as the rich. But the recompense is worse.
198 godes gestes: Everyday people, alluding to Luke’s parable of the Great Supper or Matthew’s of the Son’s Wedding. In both the host stands for God; in the first (Luke 14:16–24), once the original guests bail, the invitation goes out to “the poor and the feeble and the blind and the lame”; in the second (Matt 22:1–14, which L draws on in the excuses made to Piers, 7.292–304 and quotes at 12.47–49 [B.11.112–14] and B.15.464), the king finally tells his servants to go into the highways and invite “as many as you shall find,” and they gather “all that they found, both bad and good.” As Gregory says, commenting on the Luke, “hos itaque elegit Deus quos despicit mundus” (PL 76.169; and so God chose those whom the world despised). The phrases þe lasse and þe more and the pore and the ryche in the next two lines may echo Matthew’s “both bad and good”; cf. 214 and B.13.239–42. Welcome godes gestes thus means the same thing (in Actyf’s bloated way of talking) as make men merye in the previous line.
The phrase has universally been taken, however—e.g., by Skeat, Pearsall, Schmidt—to mean “welcome God’s guests to the Communion table,” since (they all say) waferers provided communion wafers—though OED does not give this meaning of “wafer” until 1559; MED gives it, but none of its many citations support it (unless the present line is thought to do so). In L’s time wafers were worldly delicacies such as Absolon sent Alison “pipyng hoot out of the gleede,” MillT A3379. They were thin sweet crisp pastries, probably with a honeycomb pattern imparted by the wafering irons, modern French gaufres, like our waffles, ultimately the same word, which meant honeycomb. (Cf. DML, s.v. wafrarius: “1313 Willelmo P. wafrario regis et E. consorti suae, menestrallis servientibus de waffr’ suis ad mensas dominorum” [To William P., the king’s waferer, and to E. his wife, servers who serve their wafers at the tables of lords]). And even if waferers did supply churches, how would doing that elevate Actyf to the function of welcoming communicants? (“Welcome” may not be a verb at all but an adjective, depending on “make” in the preceding line: “As a waferer, I make men merry, and God’s guests welcome, with wafers”; but in either case the meaning is the same.)
A check of “hospites Dei” and similar Latin phrases in the PL online yields sporadic appearances in varying contexts, but nothing at all associated with Communion except this one: Honorius Augustodensis says that at Mass the celebrant and the people together are “hospites unius Domini,” guests of one Lord (Sacramentarium, PL 172.767); this may be a bit of evidence for the traditional interpretation of Actyf’s phrase. Meantime, MED, s,v, gest 1 (b) glosses “goddes gest” as “stranger,” citing this line, perhaps also with reference to Jesus’s two parables. In sum, Actyf’s wafers make people feel good, and there is probably nothing here about Communion at all.
201 (B.13.227) robes … forrede gounes, 203 (B.13.229) mantel: On the common aristocratic practice of making gifts of clothing (from which L himself may occasionally have benefited, or for which he may have wished), see B.14.25, 16.358 (B.15.233); also 7.84 and the end of the Summoner’s Tale, D2293; Cutts 1922:297; John Baldwin 1997:636n5, 640; Southworth 1989:58–59, and Crawford 2004. Chaucer’s Clerk’s preference of books over “robes riche, or fithele, or gay sautrie” (A296) may suggest that he might have chosen to become a minstrel instead.
202 (B.13.228) lye: Tell stories; see telle … gestes two lines later; Prol. 50 (B.Prol.49, A.Prol.49), B.Prol.51; 7.82 (B.13.422). John Baldwin 1997:639 cites the canonist Rufinus, who “defined ystriones (actors) as ystoriones (storytellers) who by transforming their faces and clothing created images that provided laughter, thus telling a ystoria (story) corporally.” Actually Actyf’s consistent hyperbolic mode makes clear that he does indeed know how to lie.
204–7 (B.13.230–33) tabre … syngen with þe geterne: Skeat provides a wealth of information about these skills. He primly passes over farting, but Pearsall fills in for him; see both. (Pearsall and Larry Benson have both delivered funny lectures on farting in Middle English literature, but I regret that I was not present for either. For attestation by those who were, see Shanzer 2009 [Pearsall] and Barney 2001:112 [Benson]). Tabre: play drums; trompy: play a horn; genteliche pipe: Kane, Glossary, says “sweetly” pipe, but perhaps “pipe like gentlefolk” such as Chaucer’s Squire, “syngynge … or floytynge al the day,” A91; sayle: dance or leap, AF sailler, Latin saltare. L may well have seen all these skills at the great houses he visited, though they could come from books, too, since lists of various kinds of performance were frequent in moral writers as far back as Ambrose and Augustine through Peter the Chanter, Thomas of Chobham, and John of Salisbury. Interestingly, the moralists have little use for dancers but go easy on instrumentalists, and especially string players (Page 1989:24–33), so that Actyf might have gained most credit had he learned fiddle, harp, psaltery, or guitar.
208–13 Y haue … hate (B.13.234–37 I haue … waiten): 210–11: “My only satisfaction is that the parish priest prays for me on Sundays; otherwise, I regret that I bother to sow or plant for anyone but myself.” This is the so-called