Preaching and Narrative in Piers Plowman (Oxford Studies in Medieval Literature and Culture)

William Langland's Piers Plowman was written and read during a "golden age" of English preaching. The poem describes a world where sermons took many different forms and were delivered in many different contexts, from public events in the life of the realm to pastoral instruction in the parish. It dramatises preaching as part of its allegorical action, showing how sermons shaped their listeners' understanding of the world; it also includes polemical critique of corrupt, self-interested preaching, and offers radical prescriptions for its reform. This book argues that Langland's central insight into the way that sermons moved and engaged their audiences had to do with their characteristic use of narrative. Preachers in the poem address listeners who are absorbed in the concerns of their present moment, and encourage them to new forms of social and spiritual endeavour by locating that moment in a larger, interpreted plot: the story of an individual life, or an emergent community, or of salvation history as a whole. The book employs a critical vocabulary derived from Paul Ricoeur to describe the process by which these narratives are composed, and to show how they mediate and reconfigure their listeners' experiences. Cover 1 Preaching and Narrative in Piers Plowman 4 Copyright 5 Dedication 8 Acknowledgements 10 Contents 12 List of Figures 14 List of Abbreviations 16 Introduction: Preaching and Narrative in Piers Plowman 18 Literature and Pulpit 25 Holy Church and the Story of Salvation 34 Time and Narrative 40 1. Preaching on the Coronation: The Prologue and the Sermon of Conscience 51 ‘To counseillen þe Kyng and þe Commune saue’ 54 Conflicted Voices 64 Henry Harclay and the Crown of England 70 Conscience and the ‘lawe of lif ’ 78 2. Preaching on the Half-Acre: Fear, Hope, and Narrative in the Second Vision 91 Storm Damage 93 Signs of the Times 102 Piers Plowman and the Hope of ‘Hire’ 109 Piers the Pardoner 121 3. Preachers and Minstrels: Study’s Complaint and the Feast of Conscience 128 Curious Preaching 130 Tales of Tobit 141 Richard Alkerton’s Curry Comb 149 ‘Murye Tales’ at the Feast of Conscience 154 4. Preaching on the Lifetime: Sermons and the ‘Self-Constant’ Subject in Piers Plowman 167 Life Lessons 170 Fortune’s Mirror, Scripture’s Sermon 179 Ymaginatif and the ‘Self-constant’ Subject 190 Last Things 196 5. Histories of the Self, the World, and the Sermon: Anima and the Tree of Charity 206 Whider I sholde and wherof I cam’: Anima and the Narrated Self 208 The Tree of Charity and the Shape of History 217 ‘Ite in vniuersum mundum et predicate’: Christian Evangelism and the Preaching of Mohammed 225 Coda: Atonement and Emplotment at the Harrowing of Hell 239 Works Cited 250 Manuscripts 250 Primary Sources 250 Secondary Sources 256 Index 272