"Piers Plowman" and the Reinvention of Church Law in the Late Middle Ages by Arvind Thomas

Reviewed by: "Piers Plowman" and the Reinvention of Church Law in the Late Middle Ages by Arvind Thomas Conrad van Dijk Arvind Thomas. "Piers Plowman" and the Reinvention of Church Law in the Late Middle Ages. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2019. Pp. xiv, 267. $75.00. Arvind Thomas opens his important study of canon law in Piers Plowman with the story of a "cleric and canon" named Walter de Brugge, whose will, dating from 1396, includes not only "a book called Pers Plewman" (5), but also several canonist volumes. Much has been made of Langland's "textual community," and Thomas argues that Langland would also have written for men such as Walter. Langland shows extensive knowledge of the key maxims and ideas found in canon-law explanations of the stages of confession (contrition, confession, absolution, and satisfaction). In addition, Thomas believes that Piers Plowman actively [End Page 419] engages with such issues as defining usury, establishing evidence of contrition, and enforcing restitution. Whereas others have suggested that Langland despaired of achieving institutional change, Thomas suggests that Langland never relinquishes his "vision of clerical reform" (9). In recent years, the study of law and literature has become increasingly theoretical, and for Thomas the intersection between the disciplines is a two-way street. He argues that we should "reconceptualize poetry as productive of, not just derivative from, the discourse of canon law" (10–11). Langland may have felt inspired to share his reformist agenda because during the Middle Ages canon law was not a closed body of rules. Although the Corpus iuris canonici was largely complete by Chaucer's time, the tradition remained alive through the dynamic manner of applying the norms to individual cases. A poet might equally "shape" the law by both finding established rules and founding new ideas. In this way, the law might be imaginatively reinvented, a process that Thomas meticulously documents over the course of five well-researched chapters that immerse us in Langland's legal context. Chapter 1 tackles the performative aspects of contrition. Characters such as Mede and Sleuthe treat repentance "as a theatrical performance" (32), and while Langland's critique is usually read as anticlerical satire, Thomas points out that canon law did place much emphasis on ascertaining outward proof of inner remorse. Canonists constructed a semiotic system to describe the way confession acted as sign of contrition, contrition acted as referent of confession and sign of purgation (forgiveness), and purgation acted as referent of contrition. In addition, contrition might be demonstrated through tears and by avoiding laughter. These signs helped the confessor recognize true shame (verecundia), which, as Langland points out in Passus XX, is to be distinguished from the kind of shame (pudor) that prevents one from going to confession in the first place. By contrast, Mede is presumptuous enough to appropriate clerical authority and invert the language of confession. For instance, in C III.59–63 she defends lechery on the basis that "sclaundre" (which should bring shame) can be ignored, that mercy (think of misericordia) might be granted, and that any harm may be "amended." By reminding us of the correct terminology, "the poem finds fault not with the procedures of canon law but with those entrusted with their implementation" (61). According to Thomas, the C-version (especially Passus III) does most to demonstrate this discrepancy. Passus III of the C-text also expands on the subject of usury, and [End Page 420] although the term is less visible than in B (though see C III.113), the definition becomes more expansive. For Langland, usury includes pre manibus (advance) payments, commercial practices such as forestalling, and a range of sins associated with simony. A review of the legal literature shows that canonists gradually introduced qualifications that would allow making a profit or charging interest in cases where the lender could claim doubt (dubium) about the future market value. Since Conscience condemns pre manibus payments on the basis that the worker does not know if he will live long enough to do the work, it seems that Langland is less flexible than his sources. On the other hand, Langland elaborates a more positive, spiritual model of usury when...

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