<i>“Piers Plowman” and the Reinvention of Church Law in the Late Middle Ages</i>. Arvind Thomas. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2019. Pp. ix +267.

Previous articleNext article FreeBook Review“Piers Plowman” and the Reinvention of Church Law in the Late Middle Ages. Arvind Thomas. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2019. Pp. ix +267.Sara M. ButlerSara M. ButlerOhio State University Search for more articles by this author Full TextPDF Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreThe law in literature movement has long appreciated law and literature as “parallel forms of discourse, each with its own conventions and traditions,” although their interaction is understood as being chiefly unidirectional: literature provides an opportunity to critique changes in law or present a view of law in action.1 Thomas’s book, however, proposes a new dimension altogether to this relationship. He sees William Langland using (primarily) the C-text of his Piers Plowman as a vehicle to participate in contemporary debates about canon law and the practice of pastoral care. As Thomas explains in his introduction, Langland’s intervention should not be seen as remarkable. Canon law was never an accumulation of statutes, as we often imagine law to be. Rather, canon law was a constantly evolving system, reliant on the debates and treatises of great canonists and theologians that produced much conflicting work. As a result, it was never a “closed corpus” (12). Nor was it definitive: rather, the judge in an ecclesiastical court ruled in accordance with those works he found most compelling. Drawing in part on the fact that Piers Plowman was typically read alongside treatises of canon law, Thomas asks us to imagine Piers Plowman as part of this process. He provides a cogent and compelling case for the poem’s participation in the glossing and production of canon law.Through the poem, Langland reacts strenuously to changing beliefs concerning the penitential process. The twelfth and thirteenth centuries represent a major shift in emphasis upon the power of contrition. Where once it was believed that absolution was awarded to the penitent only upon completion of his/her assigned penance, canonists like Raymond de Peñafort argued instead that contrition alone was sufficient. This debate lies at the center of the poem; it also provides structure to Thomas’s book. In chapter 1, Thomas focuses on the centrality of genuine contrition to the poem by examining the penitent’s gestures and bearing. Both Mede and Contrition provide examples of failed penitence. Mede’s laughter while kneeling in front of her confessor is a classic example of a false penitent, while Contrition’s confessor passed over the stage of contrition altogether. While both episodes have typically been interpreted as parodies of the confessional process, reading them alongside confessor’s manuals Thomas demonstrates they emphasize instead the necessity to perform contrition correctly. By making both confessors friars, Langland bolsters the authority of parochial clergy in the penitential process. Unlike one’s parish priest, a wandering friar is incapable of interpreting the signs of true penitence because he does not know the personalities of those confessing.Chapter 2 tackles the logic of canon line by exploring the fine line between gift-giving and usury as penitential works. Drawing on the biblical injunction, usury was typically understood to mean charging interest on a loan. Thomas contends that Langland, in conjunction with the canonists, participated in an expansion and redefinition of the practice in which usury encapsulated any lending or selling with the intent to profit. Thus, although the term “usury” rarely appears in the poem, Langland addresses it at length through Mede’s simoniacal intentions and the narrator’s railing against regrating. The poem also works to redefine the appropriate relationship between laborer and master through analogy. Just as the good Christian has faith in God, so, too, should the good laborer have faith in his employer that he will be paid.In chapters 3 and 4, Thomas showcases Langland at his most controversial. Issuing a direct challenge to the contritionists, Langland sets out to prove that true penance requires both restitution (amends to the victim of one’s sinful activity) and satisfaction (fasting, alms, pilgrimage, etc). In order to make this argument, however, Langland must promulgate law from a maxim (when it usually works the other way around). Drawing upon the legal maxim “render what you owe,” Langland holds confessors spiritually accountable when penitents fail to attend to restitution. Similarly, he gives bishops who receive stolen goods as tithes the responsibility to return them to their proper owners. Undermining the growing practice of buying indulgences, Langland clarifies that even the pope cannot dispense with the rule for restitution. Langland tackles satisfaction in much the same way. Working from the maxim that “no evil [should] go unpunished, no good unrewarded,” Langland declares that the confessor who fails to assign sufficient penance will have to work off the remainder himself in purgatory. Driving home the importance of all stages of the penitential process, Langland highlights the corporality of penance: penance should be physically painful.In his final chapter, Thomas reveals just how invested Langland was in the traditional penitential process. While contritionists saw confession as the sign of grace already received, rather than the cause of its remission, Langland challenges this notion. Patience makes it clear that nothing can be known for certain until Judgment Day; thus, it is in the best interests of the penitent to disregard any novel theories regarding penance, and stand by the old-fashioned process by confessing and performing works of penance.Few scholars could have written a book like this. Canon law is difficult enough to decipher when it is translated to English, but most of those texts Thomas was working with are in Latin. In general, Thomas’s linguistic expertise is truly extraordinary: above and beyond an in-depth knowledge of Latin and Middle English, his secondary sources require also French, Italian, and German. Moreover, his bold and ambitious argument is utterly persuasive. As Thomas tells it, William Langland was trying to change the direction of pastoral care at a key juncture in history. Contritionists endangered the souls of good Christians by dismissing the need for confession and good works; simultaneously, they degraded the position of parish priest, who was no longer required to act as a guide through the penitential process. The transition in the nature of penance in the tweflth and thirteenth centuries had been a popular topic among historians of late, yet literary scholars have had little to say on the matter. Thomas’s work acts as a powerful corrective in this respect. It is also a useful reminder to historians to stop pigeonholing fiction as mere entertainment. Medieval poetry was penned by clergymen and bureaucrats. They used fiction as a vehicle to participate in some of the most critical debates of the era.Notes1. Richard Firth Green, “Medieval Literature and the Law,” in Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature, ed. David Wallace (Cambridge University Press, 1999), 407. 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