Allegory: Piers Plowman

Confession

What is confession?

• Confession is the activity of telling God or a priest what you have done wrong so God will forgive you.

In which religions is it a common practice?

• Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Buddhism (AA-meetings, step 5)

How does confession work?

1. sign the cross

2. greet the priest with the words: "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. My last last confession was..."

3. confession of sins to the priest who stands in the name of Christ

4. the priest will tell you your sins are forgiven, that god shows mercy and will remind you to show repentance

Analysis Continued

• The order of the sins talking to Repentance: pride, envy, wrath, lechery/lust, covetousness, gluttony, and then sloth.
• The order in which the sins are introduced suggests William Langland’s personal ranking of the sins from least harmful/sinister to most.
• Ironically, sins like Pride and Wrath don't garner as much reprehension as the sins Gluttony and Sloth, which are usually perceived as more harmless in comparison. Moreover, the characterization of the sins progressively became grimmer and unsightly.
• “Mea culpa” → Latin for “my fault”; seen a couple times when the sins interact with Repentance while confessing.
• The author italicizes sentences that follow the sin’s interactions with Repentance, likely as a means of periodically breaking from the narrative and drilling in concrete biblical messages.
• All of the sins candidly explain their nature and sins, while only some of the sins earlier on, like Pride, express remorse and hope of redemption. On the other hand, sins like Sloth show practically no remorse, which confirms the idea that Langland sees the later sins as worse.

Analysis Continued

Repentance

• Repentance: the central “good character” or morally upright character addresses the seven deadly sins throughout the story.

• Repentance meets with them as they reveal their nature and sinful acts. Repentance then gives commentary on their vileness and persuades them to repent, seek forgiveness, and follow Christianity doctrine properly.

• Interestingly, Repentance shows particular sins more grace than others. He suggests that some sins have more favorable odds for being forgiven than others, which supports the idea that Langland has his own personal ranking of the sins' vileness.

Pride

Pride is introduced as a sins, which seems to regret, actual remorse can be seen in contrast to most other sins

What Pride wants or wanted others to think:

• Propertied
• Rich and reasonable
• Righteous of lifestyle
• There is no one like pride, no one so pope-holy
• Be taken as holy and honoured
• Prides works are the best
• Most clever at his craft, clerical and otherwise
• Strongest on horseback
• Handsomest to look at
• Best in bed

“What I gave for God’s love I told my gossips, so they’d think me real holy and full of compassion” ll. 47-48

-> Does this cancel out, what Pride said earlier - does he only want to look or be seen as remorseful?

Envy

He describes not being in control as a sickness:

• he gets so depressed, he gets a cramp or pain in the heart
• gets an argue in anger and a fever that lasts for a year

In order to get better he reached out for a witch instead of God “For neither God nor his word nor his grace ever helped me But through a charm I lucked out and got back my health” (ll. 84 – 85)

Can’t eat, because “Envy and ill will are hard to digest” (l. 87)

Envy’s sins:

• he made foes of friends through fickle and false tongue
• blamed men behind their backs and wished them bad luck
• cursed his fellow Christian against Christ’s advice
• Backbiting
• Blaming men’s wares (among merchants)
• If someone else made a sale he lied, loured, and knocked his neighbours, as well as their works and their words

In the end Envy seems to feel remorse as well; he says that he is always sorry, and deeply regrets what he did

In the End he even talks to God directly and asks for amendment

Wrath

Wrath’s sins:

• Gladly strikes with stone and staff
• Sneaks up on his enemy
• Has done harm with hand and with tongue
• Tells harmful news about men, behind their backs or to their faces
• Made nuns and monks fight each other over lies
• Whenever he drinks wine, he tells the whole convent all evil he knows about the others

Anger against God himself:

• Complained against God, when anything grieved him, and grouched about God’s gift
• Charged God as the cause of all manner of troubles he had or saw

Humanisation:

• Has an aunt who is a nun, or rather an abbess
• Wrath worked as soup chef in her kitchen
• “And then I, Wrath, awaken and look for revenge. And then I scream and scratch with my sharp nails, bite and beat and bring out such manners that all ladies who love honour loathe me.” (ll. 139 – 142)
• Contrast: “And I, Wrath, was ready, and filled both with anger, until they called each other “whore” and laid on with claws till both their heads were bare and their cheeks bloodied” (ll. 148 – 150)

Repentance tells Wrath to not repeat counsels, as well as not to drink or otherwise his will and wit turn into wrath. He finishes with esto sobrius (be sober)

Lechery

• Lechery is introduced as a character who appears to have understood his sins and therefore confesses them to God
• Claims to have warned maidens the encounters with him were sinful to prove his “good” behavior but later admits to having used tricks to seduce women “ sent out cunning songs and old go-betweens to win over women to my way with tricks, sometimes by magic and sometimes by power.”
• Even after he lost his ability to perform he still took pleasure in the form of dirty stories
• Promises to only drink when he eats duck and only eat once on Saturdays > incongruent with his actual sin, suggesting that he has no actual intentions of reeling in his lust.
• No immediate response from Repentance

Covetousness

• Longest passage in passus 6
• Not only is covetousness confessing his sins, but also two of his followers (Welshman and Robert the Riffler) but they actually seem remorseful
• Also known as Sir Harvey!
• “He was beetle-browed and blubber-lipped, with two bleary eyes, and his cheeks hung on his face like a leather purse, quivering with age well below his chin; like a bondsman’s bristle bacon his beard was shaved, with both hood and hat atop his head” p. 54
• “Learned to lie leaf by leaf” < lied about the weight on the scale so customers had to pay more for bread
• Then went on to change the length of cloths “till ten or twelve yards totaled out as thirteen.” > his wife, a weaver who made woolen cloth and convinced/ paid the spinners to thin the material
• Also sold ale brewed from barley, penny ale and pudding ale < but best ale was sold from his bedroom measured in cups < also his wifes idea (Rose the Retailer, part of the scheme for 11 years)
• In youth participated in usury > claims to have learned such skills from the Jews and Lombards
• Repentance states the sin of theft is sine restitucione
• Often mourned for lost goods but not bodily guilty > never felt the need to seek out mercy or repent
• Welshman, followed by Robert the Rifler, both guilty of usury are terribly remorseful and Repentance gives them hope that if their words hold truth they will head towards heaven

Gluttony

• Gluttony is introduced as a character who appears to have good intentions, for he decides to head right to confession at the beginning of his section.
• "Fasting on Friday he made forth his way"..."to Holy Church, to hear mass, and then sit and be shriven and sin no more." pg 58
• However, he is easily persuaded by the brew-wife to partake in excessive drinking. (Yet another example of women in allegorical literature leading men astray)
• Like some of the other sins, Langland uses espcecially repugnant and grotesque language to characterize Gluttony, which creates a visually repulsive image for the reader.
• "His guts began to rumble like two greedy sows; He pissed half a gallon in the time of a pater noster, He blew his round bugle at his backbone's bottom, so that all who heard that horn had to hold their noses and wished it had been well plugged with a wisp of briars." Pg. 59

Sloth

• The author characterizes Sloth with especially crude and grisly language, arguably more so than the others.
• "Then Sloth came all beslobbered with two slimy eyes" (pg 61).
• Due to his unfavorable characterization of Sloth and him being last in the order of interactions, we interpret Sloth as the worst sin in William Langland's eyes.
• It is immediately recognizable that Sloth's attitude toward confession is flippant. As he lazily recounts his sins, he shows practically no remorse.
• Repentence questions Sloth about his intentions and doesn't clarify whether or not he will be forgiven.
• The desperation for forgiveness that some of the sins possess comes across as very “human”, which is why Sloth stands out as the least humanized personification of the seven deadly sins.

Truth

• He first appeared in our passus 7 line 156 > men on the quest to seek Truth, but no one knows the way there
• Not a lot is know about Truth < ambiguity?
• Conscience and Common Sense gave Piers Plowman the directions to his place and made him promise to serve him forever, he has been doing so for the last forty winters!
• “He is as lowly as a lamb and loyal of tongue”
• Piers shares the information that “you must go through Meekness, all men and women, till you come into Conscience, known of God himself” > no longer inclined to “do any deadly sins”
• The gatekeeper named Amend-you decides who goes to heaven
• Truth will be sitting in your own heart > is he god? > still has to fear wrath though
• Truth has seven sisters that serve him: Abstinence, Humility, Charity, Chastity, Patience, Peace and Largesse