Social Life in the Days of Piers Plowman,. By D.
Chadwick. (Cambridge University Press. 10s. 6d. net.)—Miss Chadwick has made an interesting book by selecting and arranging from the three versions of Piers Plowman the details of political and social life in the reigns of Edward III. and Richard II. She devotes successive chapters to the Church, the Government,
country life, town life, wealth and poverty, the layman's religion, and women. As Langland wrote with a moral satirical purpose, his descriptions of his time must not be taken as literally accurate. They are doubtless true enough in the main, but the satirist may find much to condemn in every age. The minor details, however, are often illnminating. There is, for instance, the reference to the friar, acting as confessor, who advises his penitent, the rich Lady Mole, to give a stained-glass window to the church of the Order.
"We have a wyndow a worchyng. wol stonden ous ful bye Wolde ye glase the gable, and grave ther youre name, In masse and in matyns. for Mede we shulleth synge Solenliche and sothlich. as for a sustre of oure ordre."
We aro left wondering how far direct influence of this sort counted in the building and adornment of our great mediaeval churches ; it has been exercised without scruple in Ireland during the past century.
Previous page
