In the B version, the pittance of forgiveness follows a mees of ooþer mete from the same two Psalms (both among the seven penitential psalms: cf. Alford, Quot. B.13.53, and above, 5.46n): Ps 31.1, Beati quorum … et quorum tecta sunt peccata, Blessed are they whose (iniquities are forgiven), and whose sins are covered (i.e., need not be confessed, because already forgiven through penitence—it is a dish of derne shrifte, B.13.55; see B.14.94n); Ps 31.2, Beatus vir, Blessed is the man (to whom the Lord hath not imputed sin); cf. Ps 31:5, Dixi [&] confitebor [tibi], I said, “And I will confess to you” (& is L’s addition, as is tibi for Domino); Psalm 50:3, Miserere mei deus, Have mercy on me, O God. In B it is tempting to see a clear progression, between the mess and the pittance, from penitence to forgiveness, though the cancellation of B.13.53–55 in C suggests that L had no such progression in mind: the meal, like the Psalms, intermingles penitence with trust in the Lord’s mercy.
61 Consience confortede vs, bothe clergie and scripture: I.e., all three waited on us.
64 (B.13.60) made hym merþe with his mete: Cf. Charity at 16.343 (B.15.217), who is “murieste of mouthe at mete ʒer he sitteth.” See 32–33n above.
65 (B.13.61) faste: Steadily, continuously, eagerly, hard.
65a (B.13.61a) Ve vobis … vinum: “Woe to you that are mighty to drink wine” (Isaiah 5:22). Schmidt quotes verse 21, “Woe to you that are wise in your own eyes and prudent in your own conceits,” as “account[ing] for the one quoted” (1995 edition of B), and “[having] special relevance to the Doctor’s situation, as will appear” (Parallel-Text edition). Note also verse 23, “That justify the wicked for gifts”: that is precisely the charge leveled against friars in line 47 (B.13.42) above.
66 (B.13.62) poddynges: A meat dish, haggis: a sausage consisting of the stomach or one of the entrails of a domestic animal, stuffed with minced meat, etc. and boiled (OED pudding n., 1).
Will resents the doctor’s food (64–93, B.13.60–85)
68–73a Thenne saide y … frygore &c (B.13.64–67a Thanne seide I … quadragenas &c): Will cloaks his envy (y mournede euere 64, B.13.60) in righteous indignation. See Romaunt of the Rose, 6178–81, where Fals-Semblant boasts that as a “fals religious” (6157) he prefers religious who are proud, who “feyne hem pore, and hemsilf feden/With gode morcels delicious,/And drinken good wyn precious,/And preche us povert and distresse” (Roman de la Rose 11014–17). Again, Love says to him, “Thou semest an hooly heremyte” (6481), and he replies, “‘Soth is, but I am an ypocrite.’/‘Thou gost and prechest poverte.’/‘Ye, sir, but richesse hath pouste.’/‘Thou prechest abstinence also.’/‘Sir, I wole fillen, so mote I go,/My paunche of good mete and wyn,/As shulde a maister of dyvyn;/For how that I me pover feyne,/Yit alle pore folk I disdeyne’” (6482–90, Roman de la Rose 11202–10).
What penaunce … ioye: what penances all who desired to come to any kind of joy suffered; not in B. (Penaunce is probably plural both here and in line 72, with assimilation of the final -s; cf. 73a and penaunces B.13.66.) In enlarging the subject of the sermon in the C version, L probably imagines the doctor preaching about the desert fathers: see B.15.269–71, “Lo! in legenda sanctorum, þe lif of holy Seintes,/What penaunce and pouerte and passion þei suffrede,/In hunger, in hete, in alle manere angres,” followed soon by reference to St Paul (though to working with his hands rather than to his sufferings; B.15.290–91). Compare further 83 below (B.13.76–77), on friars preaching about Christ’s sufferings for man, to B.15.260–68 (also C.16.327–29). In effect, Anima in B.15 preaches the sermon the doctor preached at St Paul’s. L uses penance throughout in the general sense “suffering”; thus, as line 87 makes explicit, the friar has been preaching Patience, and now fails to recognize his subject when they meet in person.
70 At poules (B.13.65 bifore þe deen of Poules): At St Paul’s Cross, the outdoor cross-pulpit in the churchyard of St Paul’s cathedral in London, a venue that suggests the doctor’s stature; see 11.54n.
73a In fame et frygore &c (B.13.67–67a In fame & frigore and flappes of scourges:/Ter cesus sum … quadragenas &c: In hunger and cold, etc., cf. 2 Cor 11:27. In C L picks (with a purpose; see 74–75a) two of the perils in which St Paul “glories” (2 Cor 11:30). In B he adds flappes of scourges (blows from whips): “Thrice was I beaten” (2 Cor 11:25), “five times (did I receive) forty stripes (save one)” (2 Cor 11:24).
74–83 (B.13.68–77) Ac … tholede: parenthetical polemic, in the present tense (me wondreth 74, me thynketh 78, ouerhuppen B.13.68); the sense continues directly from 73 to 84 (B.13.67 to 78). Pearsall punctuates the lines as “a parenthetic comment by Langland,” but I still hear Will, and I don’t think it “unlikely that [he] would claim to know Latin.” He does know Latin, and he is not bashful about making claims.
74–79 Ac me wondreth … yclothed (B.13.68–73a Ac … fratribus): They preach at Paul’s about Paul but avoid Paul’s message: in fame … frygore above now appears to be, not L’s random choice from among Paul’s perils, but a self-serving substitution by the friar for periculis in falsis fratribus, perils from false brethren, listed by Paul in the previous verse, 2 Cor 11:26. It would in fact have been very risky for a friar preaching in Langland’s time to call attention to Paul’s phrase (see also 80–81 below), for it had been fully exploited by antifraternal writers from William of St Amour on (see Szittya 1986: 33–34, 91, 110–12, 121, 171, 181), and is related to the common satirical association of the friars with Cain, who was the original falsus frater. Will cheats, of course, by changing Paul’s ablative periculis, the last of eight repetitions of the word, to the emphatic declaration periculum est, a move already half-made by Uthred of Boldon and Wyclif. Uthred’s Contra querelas fratrum (1367–68; ed. Marcett 1938) opens with the words Periculum in falsis fratribus. Uthred probably intended this incipit to be his title, in the medieval way (Kerby-Fulton regards it as the title, 2006:375), though as part of his text the phrase is probably meant to be construed as a sentence, with the verb est understood. Wyclif explicitly added est: see De perfectione statuum (Polemical Works, II, 471–72, cited in Szittya 1986:171). (The title Contra querelas fratrum is not in the manuscripts; it is probably John Bale’s; see Marcett p. 65.) Uthred goes on to argue that Paul listed false brethren last because, being hidden, it was graver than all the other dangers (Marcett 1938:25–26). (See Knowles 1951 for some corrections to Marcett, including the spelling Uthred for her Uhtred and a closer specification of the date).
Ofte 75 is cheating too. In fact St Paul speaks of “false brethren” in just one other place, Gal 2:4—though cf. 1 Cor 5:11, 2 Thess 3:6, both on brothers up to no good, and William of St Amour’s association of friars with other false types—prophets, apostles—who are harped on by Paul, Szittya 1986:31–61. By preaching at Paul’s, the doctor emphasizes the contrast between Paul, the true apostle (often simply called Apostolus by medieval writers), and himself, the false brother or pseudo-apostle. Among the forty-one signs William lists for distinguishing false apostles from true, all gleaned from passages in the New Testament, are that “they love fine food … (sign 29); they are selective about what is offered to them (sign 26); they eat frequently at strangers’ tables and so seem flatterers (sign 33, 2 Thess 3:8–9),” Szittya 1986:54.
There