Langland, Piers Plowman (C-text)

thinking about version of the Church that emerges from Piers Plowman

in secondary literature, Wycliffism has status -- stand-in for modern liberalism; brings modern

scholars closer to what they wished medieval people believed

observing dis/continuities with Langland's own theology

interested in listening to versions of Wycliff that get spread outside of Oxford

some critics think about Langland as uneducated, as a "clever grammar school boy" -- but he

engages with 14th century theology very seriously

question of the Reformation -- how does Langland fit into Eamon's version of the Middle Ages?

what does this say about Duffy's construction of the late medieval Church?

Prologue

"I've become a problem to myself" -- famous lines from the Confessions

models of the Middle Ages as static and hierarchical; this prologue doesn't know them

"Conscience in the Middle Ages" -- is Piers Plowman's "Conscience" Thomistic?

Andrew Galloway, commentary on Piers Plowman

allegorical figures -- high stylistic of Kynde Wit clashes with final lines, full of ordinary life

"fragmentation of the forms of inquiry"; Will is given maps for finding his way -- give the

possibility of a unified inquiry; how do we go on if the ground we're put on doesn't match the

maps we're given?

when reason can't control us, we have anarchy; we *need* the cat -- all the forces of reform

swallowed up in image of human beings who have become mice and rats

put him to pride -- put him to the plow -- concretized images

friars: mobile figures; answerable to papacy, not bishops