Justice and Mercy in Piers Plowman

A Reading of the B Text Visio

Myra Stokes

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9780429589898
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Originally published by 1984 Justice and Mercy in Piers Plowman provides a clear and informative introduction to the complexities of Langland's Piers Plowman. It identifies Langland's major concerns and shows in detail, passus by passus, how these are developed by him in the first part of the poem – the Visio. It offers a close reading of the text and draws parallels where relevant with other medieval writings. There is a final brief chapter on the Vita which outlines the chief ways in which the themes of justice, mercy and law that have been followed through Visio continue to be of major importance in the rest of the poem. By concentrating on the philosophical core of the work, the climate of thought in which Langland wrote and the thematic integrity of the poem as a whole, the author makes a difficult, but unique and fascinating poem more accessible.

CHAPTER I
JUSTICE, MERCY, AND LAW

Piers Plowman and its Context: Contemporary Concepts of Justice and Law

I: Justice

That law, justice, government are issues frequently to the fore in Piers Plowman is a fact that has not gone unnoticed hy critics.¹ These were matters more sacred to the medieval mind than they perhaps are today, and ones which played a more central and crucial rôle in theology. Justice, whose emblem was the scales, was thought to operate on a first principle of equal balance, exactly measured equivalence between desert and reward: equity, in fact. Underlying all law, written, unwritten, and divine, it was claimed, lay the principle of ‘do as you would be done by’, for as you have sown so shall you reap. This was “the golden rule” of justice, available even to pagans, not specific to particular cultures or theologies, but known innately, revealed by “resoun and moral philosophie”, the God-given faculties by which human nature was capable of discerning right from wrong, unaided by written laws or the revelations of the Christian faith. It was therefore described as “the law of nature”, the basis of that justice it is connatural to man to observe.² God being the author of nature, it had, therefore, divine sanction, and even law-givers were obliged to obey it; it is, consequently, announced by an angel in the Prologue to Langland’s poem, as a principle of justice binding on the king himself and prior to the specific laws promulgated by him in his own particular kingdom: ‘Qualia vis metere, talia qrana sere’ (sow such grain as you hope to reap).³

The principle of equivalence thus conceived of as essential to justice (like for like, quid pro quo, ‘tit for tat’ in the modern parlance, ‘tooth for tooth’ in the ancient) entailed a corresponding emphasis on rewards and punishments: for it is by those means that good reaps good, and bad reaps bad, by which do-well has well and do-evil has evil, as Langland puts it (VII.112–3). God being justice itself would ensure that no ill and no good would remain unbalanced in His eternal scales by its answering reward or punishment. There would be, ultimately, no ill-doing without penalty, or good without guerdon: non ay pecado sin pena nin bien sin galardor. could be repeated as a by-word by the Spanish poet Juan Ruiz.⁴ Perhaps in response to the notorious injustices committed by the courts of this world, where Mede held sway, victimizing the innocent and buying exemption for the guilty (she “leteth passe prisoners and paieth for hem ofte… And taketh the trewe bi the top and tieth hym faste”, III. 137–40), medieval piety clung tenaciously to the absoluteness of “the justice of God, whose justice is an everlasting justice, and His law is equity… allotting to each that which belongs to him”.⁵ Apparent miscarriages were temporary; all men would eventually have exactly remeasured unto them the well or ill they had done. It was in this that God’s justice essentially consisted: “His ri3twisnes (is seen) in harde punischynge of synne, His soϸfastnes in trewe rewardynge of gode werkes”; He “quyte3 vchon as hys desserte”, “rewardeth ryht as men deserveth: reddet unicuique iuxta opera sua”“⁶. This immutable and rigorous equity is not infrequently alluded to by Shakespeare in lines such as “Like doth quit like, and measure still for measure” (Measure for Measure, V. i. 414), and “Wrong hath but wrong, and blame the due of blame” (Richard III, V.i.29). And the author of perhaps the greatest poem of the entire Middle Ages, La Divina Commedia, declared that its theme was precisely the equity of divine retribution: “the subject is man, as by good or ill deserts, in the exercise of the freedom of his choice, he becomes liable to rewarding or punishing justice”.⁷

And as with the King of kings, so (ideally) with the temporal rulers whose principle responsibility it was to uphold His justice on earth. The king was regarded as a “likeness on earth of the divine majesty”, since he held an office “instituted by God for the punishment of evil-doers and the reward of good men”. Justice was the chief attribute of the King of heaven, and the earthly king who represents Him is therefore most truly a king “when he metes out reward to virtue and punishment to vice with a just and equal balance”.⁸ Princes are “ϸe mynystris of god to do ry3twisnesse and bere doun wronges and synne”.⁹ The secular political power was ordained by God for the maintenance of justice or righteousness. The king, as the regent of God’s majesty (vicaris summi regis), should do all in his power to imitate the equity of divine justice in giving like for like - ill for ill, and well for well. He undertook to do so in his coronation oath, in which he pledged himself to the reward of the righteous, and the punishment of the evil (vindictam malefactovum).¹⁰ When he so ruled, he ruled indeed ‘like God’, creating a likeness on earth of the divine imperium and the exact equity on which it was founded. The basis of both the ius divinum and the ius regale was the. just payment of all works, good or i11, so that all deeds found the return due them in equity:

Most sacred vertue she (ie Justice) of all the rest,
Resembling God in his imperiall might;
Whose soveraine powre is herein most exprest,
That both to good and bad he dealeth right,
And all his workes with Iustice hath bedight.
That powre he also doth to Princes lend,
And makes them like himselfe in glorious sight,
To sit in his own seate, his cause to end,

And rule his people right, as he doth recommend.¹¹

This notion of justice as due and exact repayment was of central importance in the Middle Ages. It influenced not only their theological, political and social, but also their economic thinking. Medieval economic theory was based on the concept of ‘the just price’. All goods and services had an exactly ascertainable value for which they could properly be exchanged. A livelihood from labour or trade was morally blameless so long as it observed the principles of “mesurable hire”, and remained “a permutacion apertly, a penyworth for another” (III. 256–8). To take more or less was to create inequilibrium in the scales of justice. It is according to this principle that Conscience distinguishes between a livelihood honestly earned, in which repayment is strictly “mesurable” with the goods or services rendered, and the immoral receipt of “mede mesureless” (III. 246). A just life in socioeconomic terms observes the principle of ‘the just price’. It was this principle that made usury a capital offence throughout the Middle Ages: the interest on the loan had no counterbalance, and was therefore unjust, an offence against the measure and equilibrium of justice.¹²

And as the maintenance of justice by the kings of earth and heaven consisted in giving to the good what they had owing to them, and to the bad what they had coming to them, so the observance of justice consisted also in giving to all their due. That virtue which we today call honesty or integrity was known in medieval Latin as iustitia, and in the vernacular as “rightwisnes”, “(good) faith” or “truth”.¹³ It consisted precisely in giving to all their due, doing by them what one owed (debet) it to them to do. The notion of ‘debt’ was fundamental to the medieval definition of iustitia or ‘truth’. And here again one can see the influence of the paramount importance of equilibrium in the scales of justice: a just or true man was one who balanced his books, left no payments outstanding. Cicero had defined the iustus as one who apportions to each man his own; and Ambrose had repeated his dictum, describing justice as giving to each his due. And this - reddere debitum unicuique - became the standard and universally accepted definition, repeated by Aquinas and other prominent theologians.¹⁴ The jurist Fortescue repeats it as Iustitia unicuique tribuit quod suum est.¹⁵ It was a truism, and could be repeated as such by, for instance, Robert of Basevorn, in his Forma Praedicandi - where the just man who renders to each his due, pays his debts to God, to his neighbour, and to himself, is offered as an example of a common theme susceptible of division and amplification according to the ‘art of preaching’ the treatise aims to expound.¹⁶ How central to the concept of justice were the notions of ‘debt’ and ‘owing’ can be seen from the occurrence of the words in, for instance, John of Salisbury’s account of the Emperor Trajan and the widow, the classic exemplum of zeal for justice; to Trajan’s promise that, should he not return from his expedition, his successor will right her wrongs, the widow replies: “It is thou who owest this thing… it is fraud for one not to render that which he owes… thy debt will not be discharged by the justice which another does; well for thy successor if he discharge his own debts!”¹⁷

One’s ‘duty’ lies in payment of one’s ‘debts’, literal and moral, to others. The Latin debet means both ‘owes’ and ‘ought’, which are etymologically related words. The connection between them was more apparent in Middle than in Modern English, since the two words had not then yet separated into two distinct forms with two different meanings. They were more interchangeable, as can be seen from the definition of justice given in the Lay Folks’ Catechism -

That is to yheld to al men that we augh tham, For to do til ilk man that us augh to do

(418–9)

- or by Hilton (“to 3elden to ilk a ϸinge ϸat it owiϸ to have”, where “owiϸ” means both ‘is owing’ and ‘ought’).¹⁸

Perhaps the clearest idea of what this virtue involved is to be found in the exposition of it given by Aquinas in his Summa Theologica. It is “an abiding will to give every man his due”; he is defrauded of that due if he is assaulted, robbed, cuckolded, or slandered - for what is due him must also be considered with respect to persons, things, or dignities related to him. There are negative and positive aspects to justice: it forbids any injury which may rob a man of his due, and demands payment of the respect and consideration due him as a fellow human-being. Under justice fall restitution, religion, devotions, prayer, divine worship, sacrifice, offerings, performance of vows and oaths, natural affection, obedience, gratitude, vengeance, truthfulness, friendliness or affability, liberality, and equity. Offences against it include respecting of persons, homicide, mutilation, theft, contumely, detraction, mischief-making, cursing, fraudulent dealing in buying and selling, usury, idolatry, superstition, sacrilege, perjury, simony, ingratitude, lying, hypocrisy, boasting, flattery, quarrelsomeness, covetousness. As will be apparent, ‘due’ is interpreted as applying to God as well as man, and devotion and religion are therefore ‘due’ from one; and the word is interpreted in a moral as well as a legal and financial sense, and filial piety, gratitude, truthfulness, liberality, and affability are all ‘due’ in justice. The behaviour described would probably be referred to today as consideration, respect, integrity; the Middle Ages regarded it as paying one’s debts to God, one’s parents, and one’s fellow-men, giving them what was ‘owed’ them, and so justice. All the above virtues relate to justice, because, Aquinus explains, they prevent inequilibrium in human affairs. Justice ensures that others ‘weigh equally’ with oneself, and that in all respects there is rendered them their due “according to equality”.¹⁹ It included even almsgiving, which we might well view as going beyond what strict justice requires, and so a function of generosity. But in the medieval view God had ordained an overall equilibrium between the totality of means available for sustaining life and the totality of human needs The rich were merely trustees of wealth, charged with the duty of distributing it equitably according to needs. To give to others from one’s own superfluity was not, therefore, to go beyond justice, but to perform it - it was a debt owed in justice to others who had needs still unsatisfied; the principle is alluded to in Lear’s admonition to “pomp” to “shake the super-flux to (the poor), And show the heavens more just” (King Lear, III.iv. 35–6). Acquisition or retention beyond one’s own needs was a kind of robbery, unjustly depriving others of what was due theirs.²⁰

There was, o...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Chapter One: Justice, Mercy and Law
• Chapter Two: Regnum, Sacerdotium, Justice and Mercy
• Chapter Three: Mede and Mercy
• Chapter Four: Reason, Repentance, and Mercy
• Chapter Five: Labour and Pardon
• Epilogue: The Vita
• Bibliography
• Index