April 12, 2019. Conscience had some empathy for the friars’ need in the middle of this Step as well, promising to shelter them in the Church if they agreed to do their work properly and live moderately.“I landed in London, where I lived in a hovel/In Cornhill with Kit, clothed like a tramp,/Though disliked, believe me, by ignorant “hermits”/And beggars for the rhymes that I wrote with good reason.One hot day of harvest when I had my health/And limbs fit for labor but lazed instead,/Doing nothing but drink and dream and doze/And traipse about thinking, /Reason grew testy:“Can’t you serve or sing in a service at church,/Or heap up hay and heave it on to carts,/Or mow it and move it and make it into sheaves?/Or rise up early and direct the reaping,/Or be out in the open at night with a horn/To watch my cattle; can’t you keep the corn/In my croft from thieves, or make clothes or cobble,/Or hedge and harrow, keep sheep or herd/My pigs and geese—be employed to some purpose/To help out folk who are old and infirm?”“God help me,” I said, “I’m sorry to say/I’m too weak to work with a sickle or scythe,/And I’m truly too tall to stoop and toil/For hours on end by hand at some task.”/Then you’ve land to live off, or family funds,”/Reason responded, “for you seem a spendthrift/Who wastefully whiles his time away?/Or perhaps you hang around butteries begging/Or fetch up at churches on Fridays and feast- days,/Living by lying, which little will help/When justice awards men their just reward:/Thou wilt render to every man according to his works/.Or are you injured or lame in one limb,/Or maimed by some mischance, which might excuse you?”“When years ago I was young,” I began,/“My father and friends financed my schooling/Till I understood the holy Scriptures/And knew what the books say is best for the body/And safest for the soul—provided it’s observed./But in faith I’ve not found since the death of my friends/A career I care for that’s not in a cope./So if I must labor to earn a living/,I should live by the labor that I actually learnt:Let every man abide in the same calling in which he was/Called.“Hence I live in London, and I let London keep me;/The tools that I toil with and take everywhere/Are my Pater noster, Placebo, Dirige and primer,/And sometimes my Psalter and my seven psalms/That I sing for the souls of the people who support me,/Afford me a welcome and feed me freely/When I make monthly visits or maybe more,/Now his house, now hers: that’s how I go begging,/With no bottle or bag but my belly alone./And Reason, I reckon it’s wrong to force/A man in holy orders to heave and to haul,/For Leviticus says that the law of our Lord/Is that truly intelligent tonsured clergy/Should be spared sweating and serving on juries,/Fighting at the forefront and molesting folk:/See that none render evil for evil.For the clerics of Christ in church and in choir,/Like all those ordained, are the heirs of heaven:/The Lord is the portion of my inheritance, and Clemency/doth not constrain.It’s becoming for clergy to praise and serve Christ/And for lay folk to labor, to cart and to carry./But ordination should only be for offspring/Of franklins and free men and folk truly wed,/So that bondsmen and bastards and beggars’ brats/Should sweat while the sons of nobles should serve/Either God or the good as suits their degree,/By singing the Mass or sitting as stewards,/Recording and advising on the fit use of funds./But bonded laborers’ boys are now bishops,/And bastards’ bairns are ordained archdeacons,/And knighthoods are sold to soap-sellers’ sons,/While lords’ sons labor and must pawn their lands/To fight our foes and defend the realm,/Protecting and caring for the commons and the King./And monks and nuns, who should maintain the needy,/Have acquired land from knights and ennobled their kin,/While the patrons of parishes, even popes, despise/True blood and install sons of Simony instead;/Holy living and charity have long since been lost/And will not be found till the world is reformed./So I beg you, forbear to upbraid me, Reason,/For my conscience knows the course that Christ would have metake.”But Conscience said, “By Christ, I can’t accept that,/For begging in cities is no seemly existence/Unless it’s approved by some prelate or prior.”“That is so,” I said, “and now I do see/That I’ve wasted time in trivial tasks.”/And I went at once to worship in church,/Beating my breast and bending my knees,/Sighing for my sins and saying the Our Father.This section of the poem at the end of Step XIV is often referred to in scholarship as the There followed a confessor, coped as a friar./He whispered these words to winsome Miss Money/As if confessing her, and fondly confiding:/“Though you’ve lain, it’s clear, with commoners and clerics,/And been friendly with Falsehood for fifty-odd years,/I’ll absolve you myself for a sackload of wheat/And pray for you daily and do all the damage/I can to the conscience of clerics and knights.”So Miss Money knelt to admit she was immodest,/And confessed her shameless and frequent faults,/Telling him a tale and tipping him a coin/To act as her private emissary and priest./He summarily absolved her and swiftly added,/“We are putting in a window that’s proving pricey:/If you’ll glaze the gable and engrave your name,/Your soul will be certain to soar up to heaven.”“If that’s guaranteed, I’ll be glad,” she agreed,/“To be friends for ever, unfailing and faithful,/As long as you leave men some lecherous license,/And don’t blame ladies who long for some lust./It’s the frailty of the flesh, as you’ll find in your books,/And it’s hardly unnatural, it’s how we’re all here;/If a scandal’s avoided, it’s soon all resolved,/And the soonest forgiven of the Seven Deadly Sins./So have mercy” said Money, “on men with the itch,/And I’ll rebuild and roof your run-down church,/Whitewash the walls and glaze the windows,/And pay for painting the patron’s portrait,/Till nobody knows I’m not one of your nuns.”This passage is an example of satire. The references to the crop, roots, and sowing seeds continue the agricultural motifs from the previous step.“I’ll become a pilgrim/And walk the whole width of this wide, wide world/To seek Piers the Plowman, who will put down Pride.”The poem identifies the central crisis in the Church: corruption.
Goblin is a familiar-spirit from Anglo-Saxon folklore.Piers Plowman study guide contains a biography of William Langland, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.Piers Plowman essays are academic essays for citation.