THE SIMONIE: FOOTNOTES


1 Why war and vengeance and manslaughter has come into the land

2 Why animals are so starved, why wheat has become so expensive

3 You who will wait, listen and you will hear / The reason

4 The palace is off-limits to him, he dare not enter in

5 And though the pope bid him come in, yet shall he stand outside

6 He dare not show himself there for fear of being slain

7 If Simony should meet with him, he will challenge him

8 Even if he is such a clerk, if he comes without silver

9 Unless he sweats before he goes, all his journey is lost

10 Either he shall sing Si dedero [If I give], or he shall gain nothing at all

11 No matter how much of a scoundrel he is, his needs shall be taken care of

12 For Avarice and Simony have the world as their own

13 And because every clerk revealed the foul deeds of the other

14 Since Saint Thomas B Becket was slain and bereft of his crown

15 These other [churchmen] are too torpid, and feebly know how to operate

16 Some work for the king, and gather treasure in heaps

17 And the offices of generosity of Holy Church they allow to lie asleep

18 There are all too many of these, if it be God's will

19 Every [archdeacon] strives to work most cursedly

20 For as soon as a parson is dead and placed in the earth

21 Everybody nowadays may see that this is how it is

22 He ponders how he may most schemingly work

23 No poor person shall get along well there, not in the evening nor in the morning

24 A mirror and a kerchief to bind his crook with

25 But the bishop will be blamed that allowed things to happen this way

26 For although the bishop knows about it, who could attest to it

27 Who doesn't know a farthing's worth of wisdom, [and] with difficulty sings a mass

28 For I think it is just that a priest who is ignorant fares thus

29 He speaks good English, but he doesn't know what he said

30 Furnishes himself with a fun-loving wench of the latest fashion

31 Religion is in ill repute and fares worse and worse

32 His people are not welcome, whether they arrive early or late

33 The gate-keeper is commanded to detain them outside the gate

34 Unless he has [a] hood and furred cap, he is not esteemed

35 But indeed smugness in prosperity has blinded them all

36 And now the greatest part has gone to comfort and gluttony

37 Woe be to that one friar who cares to come there

38 You all know what I mean-- you who know anything good

39 He shall be helped very well to lead a wicked life

40 And bring a chest crammed full with roots and rinds / Worth nothing

41 It shall be an expensive leek, when all's said and done

42 He causes the wife to boil a capon and a slice of beef

43 As the order [of knighthood] requires as well as a friar

44 And now no knight will stay to speak churlish things

45 And thus knighthood is debased and has become wholly crippled

46 And thus knights are collected from non-noble blood

47 Those who should be like gentlemen are nothing like them

48 They walk off the beaten track, nor do they desist for slander

49 The fittest should remain at home for ten or twelve shillings

50 He would have little need to rob from such poor people

51 Among justices, sheriffs, escheators, and the chancellor, / and among lesser men

52 They buy lands and possessions, none may withstand them

53 And may truth be sent into this land, for treachery has endured too long

54 Every [bailiff and beadle] seeks how he may most oppress poor men

55 The poor men generally are summoned to the court of assizes

56 And speak a word or two on your behalf, and do little good for you

57 And when he turns his back on you, he makes a face at you

58 Everything they may acquire in this way they think they have won / With their reason

59 And once there were merchants who honorably bought and sold; / And now is that custom abrogated, and has not been observed for a long time

60 There was in England a game that lasted two years

61 That they would never cease until all the world should be accursed

62 In this way God can make scarcity where formerly there was plenty

63 And then their complexion paled, which before laughed so loudly

64 Who would not for kinship spare one relative or another

65 Pride urged them so vigorously that they never would have peace / Until they had created in this land such a rage

66 But while these great lords thus were thrown on a heap

67 We all know we are to blame for the lamentable situation that we are in

68 Then they themselves think they must fare the better, for they themselves need more

69 It is a pity to speak of it, whoever rightly dares to judge

70 And half of what they take from wretched poor men is stolen

71 He sweats many a drop of sweat, and no matter how hard he toils

72 One may for twelve pence at a court session do forty shilling's worth of wrong

73 These husbandmen curse and widows weep and cry to God for vengeance / Very soon

74 For all the problems must be attributed to lords who allow things to proceed in this way. / They should support the poor people, but they do nothing on their behalf

75 Of those who so scorn God and His followers, I can say no more

76 Yet those who come think that fraud yields the best results over time

77 But may the bones be burned of such fomenters of strife

78 So that we may know our sins with sorrow and oral confession / And always to serve God better, for of that I have now / Told you


THE SIMONIE: NOTES

1 Whii werre. In the Bodley MS (B) the equivalent of these opening lines occurs at lines 19-24. B opens with: "Lordyngis leve and dere, lisneþ to me a stounde / Of a new þefte that nwlich was yfounde," and continues for sixteen lines with text not found elsewhere.

9 Treuthe. Truth/Troth is personified in this stanza and the next. He/him in lines 10-11 and 15-18 refer to this personification. For the various meanings of this term in legal contexts, see Alford, Glossary, s.v. Treuthe.

18 shaken his berd. "challenge him"; or, perhaps, "cuckold him." See Whiting, Proverbs, § B118, and line 534 below.

24 Si dedero. Singing "Si dedero" (a venality satire trope) means, in effect, to pay the piper, to bribe; the sense is, "If I give, I receive; if I don't give, I receive nothing." See note to Addresses to the Commons line 21 (in Jakke Trewman's testimony). This trope also appears in the works of Rutebeuf. See Yunck, The Lineage of Lady Meed, p. 198.

38 Seint Thomas. Thomas à Becket, archbishop of Canterbury appointed by king Henry II, was assassinated in Canterbury cathedral in 1170. Henry II did public penance for his murder. Thomas was at first a popular saint, but by the later Middle Ages all classes came to venerate his memory and the site where he was struck down. Hence Canterbury became a major pilgrimage center and tourist attraction after Jerusalem, Rome, and St. James of Compostela.

45-47 Summe . . . Ful stille. The poet complains that clerks (once educated for holy orders) enter the civil bureaucracy for economic advantage, depriving the Church of their talents.

74 wid haukes and wid houndes. Hawking and hunting with hounds were symbols of the worldly, secular life. See line 2 of "Were beþ þey biforen vs weren" from The Sayings of St. Bernard (Index § 3310): "Houndes ladden and hauekes beren" (EL XIII, ed. Carleton Brown, p. 85); and Walter, of Chaucer's Clerk's Tale, who spends his time hawking and hunting (immersed in his "lust present") while neglecting his realm's welfare (IV.78-81). The author of The Simonie links parsons with avarice for benefices (lines 55-90) and priests with illicit sexual activity (lines 109-20).

88 rat on the rouwe-bible. Wordplay: he "reads on the ribible" (= rebeck, an early type of violin), with a pun on "Bible" ("and on other bok / No mo").

104-08 As bi a jay . . . no betir than a jay. With this might be compared Chaucer's description of the Summoner in the General Prologue of The Canterbury Tales:
A fewe termes hadde he, two or thre,
That he had lerned out of some decree--
No wonder is, he herde it al the day;
And eek ye knowen wel how that a jay
Kan clepen "Watte" as wel as kan the pope. (I.639-43)
See also UR 1-9 (about a chough rather than a jay), and Whiting, Proverbs, §§ J18, J19.

115 croune . . . crok. "Crown of acolite for the crumpled crook" (?). The sense of the line seems to be that the "wantoune prestes" mock prelates, with perhaps an allusion to Christ's crown of thorns.

117 kembeth the croket. The croket is a rolled hair fashion introduced into the court of Henry III, which flourished into the late fourteenth century. See PlT line 306 and note.

118 newe jet. A phrase Chaucer uses for the Pardoner's dress: "Hym thoughte he rood al of the newe jet" (I.682). See MED s.v. get n.1 (a) and (b) and Above all thing thow arte a kyng 10 and note.

119 Sanz doute. A French phrase appropriate for courtly literature but highly ironic in this context.

120 clateren cumpelin. To "clatter [=make noise] compline" is a euphemism for their bedroom activity "whan the candel is oute." Compline is the last monastic hour of the day. In Malory, Lancelot clatters so loudly in his sleep after making love to Elayne, that Guenevere hears him in the next room and knows what has happened. The Gawain-poet uses the verb clatered to describe the noise of the ax being ground on the gryndelston (line 2201; cf. 731). MED cites this phrase as an example of compline sense 3: "Used humorously with reference to chatting and snoring." The other cited example is Chaucer's Reeve's Tale (I.4171).

121-22 thise abbotes . . . contrefeten knihtes. In the General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales Chaucer depicts the monk -- "A manly man, to been an abbot able" (I.167) -- as "An outridere, that lovede venerie [hunting]" (line 166).

123 religious. MS religiouns.

126 a-mis. Supplied in a different hand; so Wr and Br.

142-44 The porter . . . His men. On this motif of the hostile doorkeeper, see Beati qui esuriunt line 78 and note.

147 He hath forsake. Ironic, with a change of pronoun from "monekes" (line 145) and "Hii" (line 146) to "He" (line 147).

153 Where shal . . . leres? Compare Preste, Ne Monke, Ne Yit Chanoun: "I have lyved now fourty yers, / And fatter men about the neres / Yit sawe I never than are these frers" (lines 17-19). Compare also the Dominican friar in his refectory (mess hall): PPC lines 219-26.

183 Hit nis . . . louweth. "It is not only for the calf that the cow lows." That is, the cow moos for other reasons. On this phrase as proverbial, see Whiting, Proverbs, § C9.

193 officials. An official was "an officer subordinate to an archbishop or bishop, especially a bishop's chancellor, who presided over consistory court; a canon-law judge" (Alford, Glossary, s.v. Official).

195 Mak a present . . . dwelle. The dean was "a church official invested with juris-diction over a subdivision of an archdeaconry." Alford (Glossary, s.v. Dene) cites William Holdsworth's A History of English Law: "It was the duty of Rural Deans to report on the manners of the clergy and laity: this rendered them necessary attendants at the episcopal visitation . . . and gave them at one time a small jurisdiction." Of such local officials, Scott L. Waugh states: "The village represented the basic level of governance. For most people, the manorial court was the primary jurisdiction and the lord's officials the paramount authority. Chaucer's reeve, for example, was feared more than the plague by those beneath him. Church officials were equally dreaded, though less conspicuous. Responsible for supervising churches, priests, and parishioners, archdeacons and rural deans were hated for their hypocritical, corrupt meddling in villagers' lives, as Chaucer's Friar's Tale reveals. One or more constables were elected by the village and were responsible for keeping order. They watched suspicious persons, organized the pursuit of wrongdoers whenever the hue and cry was raised, arrested criminals, and seized felons' chattels." England in the Reign of Edward III (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 154. The author of the Apocalipsis Goliae characterizes the dean as the "archdeacon's dog": "Decanus canis est archidiaconi" (Die Apokalypse des Golias, ed. Karl Strecker [Rome: Regenberg, 1928], stanza 49).

211 And yit ther is. In B this stanza is preceded by a stanza not found in the other MSS which reads (in Ross's transcription):
And as I seide first, hit is a gret mischaunce,
Þat þat synne reygnet so þorow þat synfol soffraunce.
Þe bischop feyneþ on his side and takeð a prive mede,
And sely denys and officialis dare not seie fore drede
To swiche.
Þus is Englond schent fore synne, sykerliche.
The three folios prior to the stanza are missing in B.

211-40 B follows these five stanzas on "false fisiciens" with a sixth stanza, not in A, which reads (Ross's transcription):
   
   
   
   
   
   
 He maket hym merie þe ferst, as mery as he can,
And loke þat he fare wel his hors and his man.
A-morwe he taket þe uryne and schaket aen þe sonne.
"Dame," he seis, "drede þe not. Þe maister is wonne,"
And li[ket].
But þus he fereð a-wey þe silver and þe wif be skikket.
   
   
   
here
is delighted
plundered
C includes a version of the stanza.

221 And. So Wr and Br. MS ad.

228 Hit . . . i-wrouht. "It shall be expensive enough whan all is said and done." The phrase dere on a lek is reminiscent of a proverbial expression found in Chaucer: deere ynough a leek (CT VIII.795). The leek was thought to be worthless. See the note on this proverb in The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Benson, p. 949.

254 also wel as a frere. Knights should wear dress appropriate for their vocations, as do friars (or as friars should do).

264 is. So Wr and Br; lacking in MS but needed for the sense.

277 Godes soule . . . sworn. A reference to swearing on God and God's body. See the Pardoner's disquisition on swearing and oaths in the Pardoner's Tale VI.629-59.

280 contrefaiture, counterfeit quality. The false knight goes from a seemingly harmless imitation to outright sin such that he angers God and pays the devil most of all (line 282).

283-88 B follows this stanza with a unique stanza after which the arrangement of stanzas differs radically from A and P. The stanza reads in Ross's transcription and emendation:
   
   
   
   
   
   
 Sily man to conterfeyte, fondist in his wise,
But litel fondyng is maket toward Godis service,
Where half þe bisnesse do to God þat is do to þe [fend],
To goderele al þe worle but Crist, my lef frend
                                             [and kynde],
Þe most deel of þe worle is blent, fore overal hit is [blynde].
 devotion
devotion
   
profit; world; beloved
   
   
285 turmentours. A reference to the dress of Christ's tormentors in mystery plays, which were staged by clerks.

292 mot-hall. "The annals of Edward's reign are filled with complaints against the King's officers . . . . In 1321, a charge was leveled against Hugh Despenser the Younger, who put his own officers into the King's household, where he was chamberlain (Annales paulini, in Stubbs . . . , pp. 292-97). This might be the basis for the reference in A and P to the moot-hall in the chamber" (Ross, p. 183, note 81). For various uses of the moot hall in PP and other works, see Alford, Glossary, s.v. Mothalle.

294 i-whited. "Silvered," i.e., bribed, crossed with silver.

295 If the king. In this section on petty justices, the poet regards the king as a victim along with the poor. The king's army suffers through bribery in the conscription process; and he loses tax monies. This was a common complaint in fourteenth-century literature. See, e.g., Against the King's Taxes, a macaronic poem (Anglo-Norman French and Latin) from MS Harley 2253, lines 16-20, in Anglo-Norman Political Songs, ed. Isabel S. T. Aspin, Anglo-Norman Texts 11 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1953), p. 109. See also note to lines 313-24 below.

303 for-pinched, to-toilled, and to-twiht. Wr glosses these colorful terms as "pinched to pieces," "laboured away," and "twitted away" respectively. The idea, as in Taxe Has Tenet Us Alle, is that "The kyng therof hade smalle" (line 3).

309 girles. Although the word need not denote females, but only youth, here the signification seems to mean "young females."

313-24 Topos of the "king's ignorance." See Truthe, Reste, and Pes note to lines 45-46.

321 Thurfte him . . . ner. "Should he dare not seek wealth so far away, he might find it nearer to hand." This seems to be a criticism of Edward II's foreign policy.

325 come he . . . pore: no matter how poor he was before assuming high office.

328 ben inserted above the line with a karat. Wr and Br print in brackets.

330 Theih pleien . . . wele. "They use the king's silver for their own pleasures, and produce wood, or tallies, instead of contributing to the prosperity of the people" (Wr).

337-38 baillifs and bedeles . . . greve. See also Beati qui esuriunt line 111 and note; Song of the Husbandman lines 37-56 and note to line 13; and Gode Spede the Plough line 37. For an account of an early fourteenth-century bailiff charged with bedeviling tenants, see the case of the poor tenants of Bocking manor, who drew up a petition of grievance against John le Doo, bailiff who, by not agreeing to customary fines (amercements), "of his own conceit, increased their burdens twofold or even threefold and by such means has vexed the tenants and brought them to destruction, against all reason and the Great Charter that Holy Church ought to uphold." As quoted in Dobson, The Peasants' Revolt of 1381, p. 79.

345 He wole . . . hod. "He will take forty pence to put on his hood," i.e., to begin his official duties.

355-60 And sumtime . . . i-smite. Ross mentions "numerous contemporary complaints against tradesmen's offences," including "the King's ordinances which were directed against certain tradesmen, notably brewers, whose prices were too high" (p. 186, note 111).

362 That he . . . haft. That he is somewhat loose in the handle, i.e., unstable, unreliable. See MED s.v. haft (b). Whiting identifies the phrase as proverbial (Proverbs, § H10). C reads: "That he nis a party lose in the haft" (line 140); B "Þat he is more þan halfendel los in þe haft" (line 211).

363-65 For falsnesse . . . Ne in herte. These traditional sentiments about the failure of truth in the modern era are reminiscent of Chaucer's short poems "Truth," "Gentilesse," and especially "Lak of Stedfastnesse."

366 And tharfore . . . smerte. C "For sothe thei nyl sese ar God make hem to smert"; B "Þerfore is no wonþer þow al þe worle smerte."

373-78 So that . . . muchele miht. Although complaints against the weather were widespread in Latin and vernacular verse, this verse paragraph may allude to "the terrible storms and shortages of 1315-16" (see Ross's quotations from contemporary chroniclers on pp. 186-87, note 119).

382 sustenaunce. So A and B; C frute.

384 i-liche wicke. B "unwrast and wikke."

385-90 Lacking in C and B.

385-86 Men . . . betre. The idea in these lines (and in the verse paragraph) is that people have become too proud in times of plenty. Langland develops this idea in Piers Plowman passus 5 and 6 (B text). It is also a prominent feature of Wynnere and Wastoure. C omits this stanza.

391-96 C concludes with this stanza, whose final four lines read: "Whan bestes beth i-storve and corne waxeth dere, / And honger and pestilence in ech lond, as e mow ofte here / Overal; -- / But if we amende us, it will wel wers befal. Explicit" (lines 465-68).

392 a derthe. Perhaps a reference to the great famine of 1315. For the importance of famines in literature and history, see R. W. Frank, "The 'Hungry Gap,' Crop Failure, and Famine: The Fourteenth-Century Agricultural Crisis and Piers Plowman," in Yearbook of Langland Studies 4 (1990), 87-104.

409 Tho. Although there is no large letter in A, in B the scribe left a space for a large letter in the equivalent stanza. Ross comments: "MS leaves a space here for a large capital which was never added. The scribe evidently felt that this stanza marked a divisional point in the poem, as indeed it does. The Auchinleck MS offers corresponding lines once again, beginning with this stanza" (p. 189).

415 astint. So Wr and Br; MS astin. B a stynt (line 283).

469 assisours. An assizer was "one of those who constituted the assize or inquest, whence the modern jury originated; a sworn recognitor (OED)" (Alford, Glossary, s.v. Sisour). Alford cites PP B.20.161: "Hir sire was a Sysour þat neuere swoor truþe, / Oon Tomme two-tonge, atteynt at each a queste [inquest]"; and Jacob's Well: "False cysourys gon vp-on qwestys, & puttyn a man fro his ryt thrugh a false verdyte, & wytnessen aens trewthe."

hundred. An administrative division of a county containing one hundred homesteads and having its own court.

476 A ceases with this line. Lines 465-end are supplied from B and checked against Ross's transcription.

483 breth (= bread). The scribe of B regularly spells final -d as þ (-th). See also wretchethe, wretched, line 486; a-paith, apaid, line 500; methe, meed, line 507; lewthe, lewd (=ignorant), line 525; wikketh, wicked, line 531; blisseth bloth, blessed blood, line 541.

494 mercyment. Says Skeat in his note to Piers Plowman B 1.159: "Blount, in his Law Dict., says -- 'There is a difference between amerciaments and fines: these [i.e. the latter], as they are taken for punishments, are punishments certain, which grow expressly from some statute; but amerciaments are arbitrarily imposed by affeerors."' Alford defines Merciment as "A penalty imposed 'at the mercy' of the court (as distinct from a statutory fine), an amercement." See Glossary, s.v. Merciment.

495 at a. B: ata.

schillingwerd. B: schilligwerd. Ross emends to schilli[n]werd.

496 han. Ross mistranscribes as him. Have and hað are the more common forms of the verb to have in B, but see lines 508 and 525 where han is the recurrent form in B. See also lines 13, 30, 241, 394, 428, 445, 446, 496.

497 at mele. B: at m. Ross's emendation to suit the rhyme. The phrase is ambiguous and could mean "on such occasions," or "for their supper," with a pun reaching back to what "bakers" and "brewers" provide.

514 The words of this are blotted after with.

517-40 These lines appear as the antepenultimate and the penultimate stanzas of B. Ross in his edition transposes these stanzas to his lines 325-60. I retain the lines according to their position in B because they seem to develop the thought of the previous stanzas.

534 See note to line 18.

536 for hunger . . . strecchen. The meaning seems to be that they achieve death because of hunger (after first lying down in the street like beggars). See MED s.v. strecchen 5 (c).