BL Additional MS 31042 ( Wynnere and Wastoure , ll. 353-431)

1. BL Additional MS 31042 (Wynnere and Wastoure, ll. 353-431)

2. Dante, Inferno 7: the Avaricious and the Prodigal Here saw I people more than elsewhere many, and from one side and the other with great howls rolling weights by force of chest. They struck against each other, and then just there each turned, rolling backward, crying, "Why keepest thou?" and "Why flingest thou away?" Thus they turned through the dark circle on either hand to the opposite point, still crying out their opprobrious verse; then each, when he had come through his half circle, wheeled round to the other joust. And I, who had my heart well-nigh pierced through, said, "My Master, now declare to me what folk is this, and if all these tonsured ones on our left were clerks." And he to me, "All of these were so asquint in mind in the first life that they made no spending there with measure. Clearly enough their voices bay it out, when they come to the two points of the circle where the contrary sin divides them. These were clerks who have no hairy covering on their head, and Popes and Cardinals, in whom avarice practices its excess."

3. Piers Plowman, Prologue 1-24, 31-37 Somme putten hem to the plough, pleiden ful selde, In settynge and sowynge swonken ful harde, And wonnen that thise wastours with glotonye destruyeth And somme putten hem to pride, apparailed hem therafter, In contenaunce of clothynge comen disgised . . .And somme chosen chaffare; they cheveden the bettre -- As it semeth to oure sight that swiche men thryveth; And somme murthes to make as mynstralles konne, And geten gold with hire glee -- [gilt]lees, I leeve-Ac japeres and jangeleres, Judas children, Feynen hem fantasies, and fooles hem maketh -- And han wit at wille to werken if they wolde. In a somer seson, whan softe was the sonne, I shoop me into shroudes as I a sheep were, In habite as an heremite unholy of werkes, Wente wide in this world wondres to here. Ac on a May morwenynge on Malverne hilles Me bifel a ferly, of Fairye me thoghte. I was wery forwandred and wente me to reste Under a brood bank by a bourne syde; And as I lay and lenede and loked on the watres, I slombred into a slepyng, it sweyed so murye. Thanne gan I meten a merveillous swevene -- That I was in a wildernesse, wiste I nevere where. Ac as I biheeld into the eest an heigh to the sonne, I seigh a tour on a toft trieliche ymaked, A deep dale bynethe, a dongeon therinne, With depe diches and derke and dredfulle of sighte. A fair feeld ful of folk fond I ther bitwene -- Of alle manere of men, the meene and the riche, Werchynge and wandrynge as the world asketh.

4. The longing that Wynnere and Wastoure expresses for the kind of truth which is supposed to emerge from a judicial duel, with a clarity conferred by violence and ratified by the king, cannot hide the fact that the debate which makes up the body of the poem is utterly inconclusive. But it is not only the poem’s lack of closure the undermines its chivalric frame. *** *** *** *** …some critics have suggested that Wynnere and Wastoure is a part of a genre of unresolved debates, arguing that the poem’s irresolution is crucial to its meaning. This generic argument is helpful, in that it identifies a genuine aspect of the poem’s literary tradition and focuses attention on the deliberate way the poet has refused to conclude the debate. But the debate itself occupies only a little more than half of the poem; any full accounting of Wynner and Wastoure’s end must attend to its beginning… This generic explanation for the poem’s conclusion fails to account for the contrast between the philosophical issues with which it begins and the practical solution with which it ends. Maura Nolan, “With tresone withinn”: Wynnere and Wastoure, Chivalric Self-Representation, and the Law,” JMEMS 26:1 (Winter 1996): 1-28 (17, 18).

5. But in the repressive mid-century legislation [referred to in the poem], the symptoms of anxiety about these changes [in the labor market] are clearly legible. At the very least, this is a powerful indication of the sensitivity of Middle English culture to any perceived disparities between established ideologies and material realities. Trigg, “The Rhetoric of Excess in Winner and Waster,” p. 192.

6. Ranulph Higden, Polychronicon(1330s-1360s) --Approx. 120 MSS survive --Seven books: I. world geography II. Biblical history, creation through Nebuchadnezzar III. Life of Christ IV-VII. English history, Saxons through Edward III (including papal and crusade history, saints’ legends, history of Islam, life of Charlemagne,