Yet another way friars miswin is to extort inheritances by promising to sing Masses for the souls of the givers (as they do for Lady Meed, 3.53, and as Coueitise of eiʒes assures Will they will do for him, B.11.53–58), and then fail to sing them: their sauce is “ground in the mortar called ‘many bitter punishments after death unless they (the friars) sing and weep for those souls’ (i.e., the souls of those whose money is thus miswon).” As Skeat says, “The whole expression, from post-mortem down to teeres, is the allegorical name of the mortar.” It should be hyphenated. Since the sauce is said in fact to be sour and unsavory—and also since they make themselves at ease—the friars clearly do fail to sing and weep. Lines 47–50 are a free translation of the Latin that follows them: “you who eat the sins of men, unless you will have poured out tears and prayers for them, will vomit up amidst torments what you eat now amidst delights.” Or the Latin translates the English, as Kerby-Fulton 1990:157 asserts [again see Lawler 2006, App E, 188–89]. The source is unidentified; it is probably by L himself. It alludes, as Alford, Quot. points out, to Hosea 4:6–8, a diatribe against bad priests. Eating sins, as Peter the Chanter says (Lawler 2006:166–67), means either saying they are not sins or making the sins food for themselves (i.e., by requiring a donation in exchange for absolution, as described above). Kerby-Fulton 1987:396 associates the phrases with the pseudo-Hildegardian anti-mendicant prophecy that begins, “Insurgent gentes quae comedent peccata populi.”
I still think, as I thought in 2006, that the sentence is L’s, but Stephen Barney has shown me a very similar passage in St Bonaventure’s Regula novitiorum (Instructions for Novices) that is surely the source—and an intriguing one, offering some support for the theory that L spent some time as a Franciscan novice, see 78–79n below. Urging the novices to pray constantly, Bonaventure says, “Ait enim Bernardus, ‘Ora, frater, instanter ora, quia ille dicitur habere tunicam mixtam sanguine, qui carnem suam nutrit de pauperum sudore. Cantando nobis,’ inquit, ‘ista bona proveniunt; graves ergo pro eis effundite gemitus, alioquin quod hic in deliciis sumitis in tormentis evometis’” (1898:214) (For St Bernard says, “Pray, brother, pray hard, for a man who feeds his flesh on the sweat of the poor is said to have a tunic mixed with blood. These goods come to us for singing [i.e., Masses],” he says, “Otherwise what you take here in pleasure you will vomit up in torments”) (my translation; cf. Monti 1994:155). Bernard, in a sermon on the Ascension, says, “Ora instanter, ora perseveranter” (PL 183.315), but Bonaventure seems to have made up the rest, or to be remembering something else. (For eating off the sweat of the poor, see Aelred, Speculum charitatis, PL 195.559 and Peter of Blois, Letter 102, PL 207.319–21.)
For a similar idea, cf. PL 209.114 (Martinus Legionensis, in a sermon directed at monks): “Peccata vestra et eorum quorum eleemosynas comeditis, studiose deflete, poenas inferni formidate” (Cry hard for your sins, and for the sins of those whose alms you eat—fear the punishments of hell). See also Pierce the Ploughman’s Crede, 701–6, quoted by Szittya 1986:220. “Eating sins” is the opposite of “eating the labours of one’s hands” (Psalm 127, quoted at 8.260a (B.6.252a, A.7.234a). Peter of Blois in his Letter 102, which L knew (see B.15.332–43a note below), insists repeatedly that feasting at the expense of the poor brings damnation.
In view of this satire, of the fact that this doctor preached at St Paul’s the other day, and of the apparent association with William Jordan (91 [B.13.86]n below), Nicholas Watson’s calling him “that sad parody of the insatiable appetites of Thomas or Bonaventure for heavenly learning” (2007:95), fine though it is, is probably wrong; L is thinking much more locally, and much more venally of actual greed.
54 (B.13.48) oþer mete: Listed in lines 56–62 (B.13.58–58a). Will and Patience get more than their share of both food (such as it is) and attention from the hosts, accentuating Will’s rudeness later. The elaborate chain of command, Reason as steward reminding the host Conscience to have the server Scripture bring up the dishes, accentuates the bathos (in Will’s eyes) of the nature of the food.
55–57 (B.13.49–53) He … he … he: L has not forgotten that Scripture is female. Rather, these are feminine pronouns. He, with a middle-front rounded vowel, from West Midland ho/heo, “she,” is much less common in B mss. than in C mss.; presumably these forms have been allowed to slip through by B scribes because there are no references in the vicinity to Scripture’s sex, no genitive or accusative her or reminder that Scripture is Clergie’s wife; but see B.13.26 above.
55 (B.13.49) Agite penitenciam: Do penance (Job 21:2, Ezek 18:30, Matt 3:2 [transposed], etc.: see Alford, Quot.). Luther quoted the Matthew in the first of his 95 theses, and discussed it in the next two. Simpson (2007:128) sees a pun on French pain, English pain, and the stem of “penance” (poenam), both here and at B.17.126–28a (79). He argues (128) that Will is being invited to “pass from academic treatment of scriptural texts (associated with the universities) to a more inward, reflective consideration of Scripture, drawn from monastic traditions,” and cites Leclercq 1982 on the monastic practice of reading, with metaphors of eating, chewing, etc. Mann 1979:37 also cites Leclercq, and her whole essay is the seminal discussion of the deep relation in the poem between real food and spiritual food. All these text-foods set up Patience’s admonition later in the passus (in B, in the next passus) to Actyf to nourish himself on fiat voluntas tua (249; B.14.50).
The scene may not be as medieval as it seems. Cf. Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children (Knopf: Everyman’s Library, 1995), p. 176: “Reverend Mother doled out the curries and meatballs of intransigence, dishes imbued with the personality of their creator; Amine ate the fish salans of stubbornness and the birianis of determination.”
56 (B.13.50) diu perseuerans: long-persevering. In the next line, Scripture specifies the length of diu: in effect, the whole name of the drink, as with the mortar whose name begins post mortem (50–51 above) is “diu-perseverans-as-long-as-lyf-and-lycame-may-duyre”; it half-quotes, half-translates Matt 10:22: “qui autem perseveraverit usque in finem.” The verse is part of the passage in Matthew that contains Jesus’s instructions to the apostles, corresponding to Luke 10:7, quoted above, line 44a (B.13.39a). “Diu” is a natural enough addition, “diu perseverare” being a quite common phrase, as in Hildegard, “humilitatem attendite, et in ea diu perseverate” (PL 197.293), though it is as often used in a bad sense, of persevering in vice, as in the good sense here. Schmidt, however, by printing the reading “dia” of many manuscripts of both versions—the harder reading, and probably right—draws attention to what is surely a pun on “dya,” potion, a word L uses at 22.174 (B.20.174); (Schmidt 1987:92). Indeed the whole two-word phrase might be thought of as bilingual, either Latin “diu perseverans” or English “the drug perseverance.”
58 “This is a semely seruyce,” saide pacience (B.13.52 “Here is propre seruice,” quod Pacience, “þer fareþ no Prince bettre”): A deft C revision. Patience protests too much in B; the matter-of-fact remark in C is funnier.
59–62 Thenne cam contricion … non despicies (B.13.53–58a And he brouʒte vs … non despicies): Since contricion is the motion of the will that must precede acts of penitence, it (he?) is properly said to prepare the dishes. (In B no cook is mentioned.) Contrition will have a central role in the last scene of the poem. A pytaunce (60; B.13.57)