JOHN GOWER: THE MINOR LATIN WORKS: NOTES

ABBREVIATIONS: CA: Gower, Confessio Amantis; CB: Gower, Cinkante Ballades; Cronica: Gower, Cronica Tripertita; CT: Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales; CVP: Gower, Carmen super multiplici viciorum pestilencia; IPP: Gower, In Praise of Peace; Mac: Macaulay edition; MO: Gower, Mirour de l'Omme; TC: Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde; Thynne: William Thynne, printer, The Works of Geffray Chaucer (1532) [prints IPP from Tr]; Traitié: Gower, Traitié pour essampler les amantz marietz; VC: Gower, Vox Clamantis.

All biblical citations are to the Vulgate text, and, unless otherwise noted, all biblical translations are from the Douai-Rheims. For a list of manuscript abbreviations, please see Manuscripts in the Introduction.

13. CULTOR IN ECCLESIA: NOTES

The marginal Latin glosses, identified by a capital L in the left margin next to the text, are transcribed and translated in the notes and can be accessed by clicking on the L at the corresponding line.

Cultor in ecclesia: In the manuscripts, inscribed after Presul but before Dicunt scripture -- hence a composition date of 1402-08 is perhaps as close as can be surmised safely. Seemingly addressing a topical situation, the conclusions -- and the corruptions cited -- are general enough to be applicable at almost any point in Gower's lifetime. (Indeed, they would be comfortable addressed to the church under Richard II, rather than under a restored Archbishop Arundel, whose authority Gower clearly respected.) The form is Leonines with disyllabic rhyme, lines 1-6 in elegiac distichs, 7-12 in hexameters.

The text here is based on C, read against H, G, and E.

1-6 Cultor . . . serat. Compare Matthew 21:33-44, the Parable of the Husbandmen, and 13:3-30, those of the Sower and of the Good Seed and the Tares.

8 Symon. Simon Magus; see De lucis scrutinio, note to line 8.

9 Querat . . . sine crimine puram. Compare John 8:7: "qui sine peccato est vestrum primus in illam lapidem mittat" ("He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone").