LATE MEDIAEVAL PROSE.
As far as literature is concerned the poetry of the period which we
have been considering is infinitely more important than the prose.
For most prosaic purposes, Englishmen still wrote in Latin: Richard
Rolle, that eccentric hermit, and Wyclif, the premature Reformer, were
even more prolific in Latin than in English. Prose was used in writing
of science, as in Chaucer's treatise concerning the Astrolabe; for
translation out of Latin, as in Chaucer's translation of Boëthius,
and Trevisa's rendering of Higden's chronicles; in sermons, and by
Wyclif and his followers for their tracts against the rich; against the
Friars; against the endowments of the Church (constantly threatened in
Parliament); and against the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist; and
for their translations from the Latin Bible.
Wyclif.
John Wyclif (born about 1329) was a man of great influence in his day;
and the Reformation, when many of his ideas revived, probably found the
embers of the fire which he had tended still glowing. He is said to
have been born at Hipswell, near Richmond in Yorkshire, and certainly
was of the Diocese of York. He was Master of Balliol College, Oxford,
in 1361. In 1372 Wyclif took the degree of Doctor in Theology: he had
already written not a few Latin treatises on philosophical subjects.
As a philosopher he was a believer in predestination (on which much
might be said), but averse to the theory of the disintegration of
matter; indeed his views on this subject controlled his theory of the
Eucharist. His desire to reform the Church by reducing her endowments
endeared him to a political party in the State; and when he was
summoned before Convocation in 1377, he was supported by John of Gaunt,
uncle of Richard II.
The affair ended in a brawl; and in a later examination his ideas
were not pronounced heretical. The London mob as well as some persons
of high rank were on his side, and when one Pope, Urban, proclaimed
a crusade against the other Pope, Clement, Wyclif opposed it in
manuscript pamphlets. He had, about 1378, started a kind of order
of "poor priests" who spread his doctrines, and, in regard to the
unlawfulness of owning private property, went beyond him.
The Bible, not the tradition of the Church, was the centre of Wyclif's
inspiration: it would be a mistake to suppose that the Bible was then
generally ignored, the literature of the time is full of quotations
from Scripture. There was no authorized translation of the Latin Bible,
but many separate books of Scripture were circulating in English. There
is much controversy as to whether or not Wyclif translated, or caused
to be translated, the entire Bible, as a chronicler declares that he
did: certainly he made much of it known in English tracts and sermons.
In 1382 he was suspended from teaching at Oxford; he retired to his
rectory at Lutterworth, continued to write, and died on Old Year's Day,
1384.
It is impossible, here, to enter into theological details, but Wyclif
anticipated many of the great multitude of ideas which flooded Western
Europe at the beginning of the Reformation. If we open his sermons at
random, we find him preaching on Lazarus and Dives, "how richessis
be perilouse, for lightli wole a riche man use hem unto moche lust,"
that is, luxury. Words of Latin origin are nearly as common in his
style as in that of Chaucer or Piers Plowman. In his Englishing of
the Bible, Wyclif uses "And" at the beginning of many sentences, just
as Mandeville does in his amusing and fabulous "Travels". The sermons
have the double merit of being very short, and very plain, with no
rhetorical flowers. The tracts can scarcely be called amiable: the word
"stinking," for example, is not thought by Wyclif too strong to apply
to "proud priests of Rome and Avignon".
All these brave and earnest men, the Wyclifite pamphleteers and "poor
priests," and Piers Plowman, with their socialism and their doubts,
their "New Theology," were rehearsing in mediaeval costume the drama of
to-day; while Chaucer was arraying the heroes of the Fleece of Gold,
of Troy, and of the Achæans, in the armour of the men who fought at
Crécy and Poitiers. What remains as a gain to literature is the art of
Chaucer.
Sweet reasonableness and urbane irony are not to be expected from
men full of righteous indignation, and in great danger of being
burned alive; for by this penalty did the Church and State suppress
the preachers of doctrines which were apt to cause dangerous popular
tumults. The Wyclifite Biblical translations look like a canvas later
embroidered on by the authors of King James's authorized version, that
immortal monument of English prose.
Chaucer's Prose Style.
It was not in the nature of these Reformers to follow the counsel of
Chaucer's good Parson in the "Parson's Tale" (the spelling may here be
modernized, as an example of the poet's prose).
"Certainly chiding may not come but out of a villain's heart, for after
the abundance of the heart speaketh the mouth full often. And ye should
understand that I Look ever when any man shall chastise another, that
he beware of chiding and reproving, for truly, unless he be wary, he
may full lightly kindle the fire of anger and of wrath which he should
quench, and peradventure slayeth him whom he might chastise with
benignity.... Lo, what saith saint Augustine, 'there is nothing so like
the Devil's child as he that often chideth'. Now cometh the sin of them
that sow and make discord among folk; which is a sin that Christ hateth
utterly, and no wonder it is; for he died to make concord. And more sin
do they to Christ, than did they that him crucified; for God loveth
better that friendship be among folk than he did his own body, which he
gave for unity."
Chaucer's country-priest, not the chiding Wyclifite Sons of Thunder, is
the true Christian. There is more of the spirit of the Master in the
caressing words of Chaucer's address to "little Louis my son... pray
God save the king that is Lord of this lande, and all that him faith
beareth and obeyeth, each in his degree, the more, and the less," than
in torrents of bitter chiding, and a hail of unpublishable vituperation.
The English of Chaucer's treatise of "The Astrolabe," despite its
difficult astronomical matter, is pellucid, and there is a charm of
rhythm in his prose translations of the verses in Boëthius.
Trevisa.
The English prose of John Trevisa, a Cornish priest, educated at
Oxford, and a traveller on the continent (died 1412), was entirely
given to translation from the Latin. He is said, by Caxton, to have
translated the Bible: he certainly made an English version of the
"Polychronicon" of Ranulf Higden, the monk of Chester, which begins
with the Creation, and is rich in geographical and social information.
Trevisa occasionally inserts notes of his own. His versions of Higden,
and of the mythical popular science and prodigious fables contained in
the "De Proprietatibus Rerum" ("Concerning the Properties of Things")
of Bartholomæus the Englishman, were very popular, as their amusing
nature deserved, and the "Polychronicon" was printed by Caxton. Trevisa
himself tells us that in his day English boys in grammar schools were
ceasing to learn French, and there was a public for English books
supposed to be educational.
Mandeville.
The most famous and by far the most interesting of these adapters of
foreign books is the so-called Sir John Mandeville, with his "Voiage
and Travaile". The author of this book was not an Englishman, at least
he did not write in English, and did write in French, at Liège, about
the end of the fourteenth century. It is impossible and unnecessary
to discuss here the fables about Mandeville. The author of the book
declares that he himself is "Sir John to all Europe," is an Englishman
born at St. Albans, that he passed the sea in 1322, that he travelled
in Tartary, Persia, Armenia, Lybia, Chaldæa, the land of the Amazons,
India, and so forth. In fact he resembles Widsith in the ancient
Anglo-Saxon poem--he has been almost everywhere and knows almost
everything. He especially writes for pilgrims to Jerusalem; he first
wrote his book in Latin, then translated it into French, and finally
into English. There are countries that he has not seen; and he says
that he could not play a part in the deeds of arms which he beheld. Now
he suffers from arthritis, "gowtes artetykes," and he amuses himself by
writing his adventures in 1357.
Another version of Sir John's career is given by Jean d'Outremeuse,
a writer of histories, who had the felicity of hearing from an old
man with a beard in 1472, that _he_ was the genuine Mandeville: but
that the author was really Jean d'Outremeuse is not so certain. The
author, whoever he was, stole from a manuscript of the time of the
First Crusade, and from the book of Odoric, a Franciscan missionary,
and the Itinerary of William of Boldensele, (1332-1336) from a History
of the Mongols, from a forged letter of Prester John--from every
source whence he could pick amusing stories. He fabled with a direct
and honourable simplicity which is comparable to that of Defoe, and
to the straightforward and moderate statements of Swift's Captain
Lemuel Gulliver. With the spelling modernized it is thus that the good
knight tells the story of the Pygmies who were known to Homer for their
battles with the cranes.
"The folk be of little stature, but three span long, and they be right
fair and gentle, after their quantity, both the men and the women. And
they marry them when they be half a year of age, and get children. And
they live not but six or seven years at the most. And he that liveth
eight years, men hold him there right passing old.... And they have
often war with the birds of the country that they take and eat. These
little folks labour neither in lands nor in vineyards. But they have
great men among them of our stature that till the land and labour
amongst the vines for them. And of the men of our stature have they a
great scorn and wonder as we would have among us of Giants if they were
amongst us."
Mandeville speaks as calmly about the ants, known to Herodotus, which
guard the hills of gold, and are as large as hounds; and of the
devil's head in the valley perilous, through which the knight and
his company travelled in great fear, "and therefore were we the more
devout a great deal". Thence he reached an isle where men are from
twenty-eight to thirty feet in stature, "and they eat more gladly
men's flesh than any other flesh," being indeed the Læstrygonians who
devoured the men of Odysseus, or the Mermedonians of the Anglo-Saxon
poem of "St. Andreas," who meant to devour St. Matthew. Mandeville
enjoyed and deserved great popularity, being a follower of Lucian's
"True History," and a predecessor of Gulliver.
Pecock. "The Repressor."
A writer of English prose even more interesting, though much less
popular and amusing than Mandeville, is Reginald Pecock (1395-1460),
the deposed Bishop of Chichester, author of "The Repressor of overmuch
blaming of the Clergy". The clergy blamed Pecock, and repressed him.
This remarkable man, born shortly before the date of Chaucer's death,
in North Wales, was a Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford (1417), was
patronized by Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, obtaining the Mastership of
Lord Mayor Whittington's school in London (1431), became Bishop of St.
Asaph (1444), and passed his life in attempts to convert the Lollards
by persuasion, not by the stake. "The clergy shall be condemned at the
last day," he writes, "if by clear wit they draw not men into consent
of true faith otherwise than by fire, sword and hangment; although I
will not deny these second means to be lawful, provided the former be
first used." In the opinion of the Lollards, nothing in ecclesiastical
matters was defensible that was not positively inculcated in the Bible
as interpreted by the average Christian man, however unlettered. Pecock
defended Episcopacy, and even defended non-preaching Bishops, on the
score that they had to discharge more important duties. Even the much
abused friars he stood up for, arguing that, whatever their offences,
they and the world would be worse rather than better if there were no
religious orders. His arguments in support of the begging Franciscans
who, in counting up money, touched it with a stick, not with the hand,
are certainly even more sophistical than ingenious.
He wrote many pamphlets still in manuscript; the "Repressor" is of
1455, and is a most remarkable book in all ways. Pecock became vastly
unpopular, because he was too clever, and, in his dislike of religious
persecution, as well as in the nature of his arguments, was in advance,
not only of his own age, but of the age of the Reformation. He was
thought to give far too high authority to reason, and to the natural
faculties of man in the way of developing unrevealed morality and
unrevealed religion. "No virtue or governance or truth into which the
judgment of man's reason may sufficiently ascend or come to, to find,
learn, and know it without revelation from God, is grounded on Holy
Scripture."
This conclusion arrives at the end of a sentence of thirty lines, a
fair example of Pecock's logical and legal style, by him first used in
English. It is not possible, here, to discuss Pecock's ideas, which are
concerned with questions that still divide the Church and the world,
Anglicans, Catholics, Nonconformists, and Agnostics. The "Repressor"
has been described as "the earliest piece of good philosophical
disquisition of which our English prose literature can boast"; it may
still be read with interest, especially by students of the Reformation.
Pecock was opposed to the unjust and brutal war of conquest and of
disaster waged by England in France.
In 1450 he became Bishop of Chichester, and shared the unpopularity
of the Duke of Suffolk, who was blamed for the disasters in France.
His "Book of Faith" (1456) practically abandoned the infallibility of
the Church in 1457; he was as unpopular with the clergy as with the
mob; twenty-four doctors reported unfavourably on his works: he was a
defender of "drowsy reason" and of "unrevealed morality": he was found
guilty of heresies which were no heresies, and, with no choice except
that of being burned alive, he signed a confession and abjuration of
sins which he had not committed: he was consigned to close confinement
in the Abbey of Thorney, was deprived of his bishopric--and of writing
materials--and died obscurely.
The source of his misfortunes was this: he was not only clever but he
knew it, and wrote that whatsoever man did not agree with an argument
of his "is duller than any man ought to be". As few agreed, most were
dull, and they did not like to be told it.
Capgrave.
John Capgrave (1393-1464), a Norfolk priest, and Augustinian canon,
author of many scriptural commentaries and of a work on "Illustrious
Henrys," wrote in English a "Chronicle of England," beginning with the
Creation and ending in 1417. Capgrave reminds us that Adam "was made on
a Friday, in the field of Damascus"; the date was unlucky. He is nearly
as brief as the Anglo-Saxon "Chronicle," his account of Agincourt is no
longer than the "Chronicle's" description of Hastings. Here is a sample
of his style. "In the same yere III beggeres stole III childyr at
Lenne, and of on thei put oute his eyne, the othir they broke his bak,
and the thirde thei cut off his handis and his feet, that men schuld
of pite give hem good. Long aftir the fadir of on of hem, wheech was a
marchaund, cam to London, and the child knew him and cried loude 'This
is my fadir.' The fadir took his child fro the beggeris and mad hem to
be arrested. The childirn told alle the processe, and the beggeris were
hangen, ful well worthy." Such is Capgrave's work, described by himself
as "a short remembrance of old stories."
Lord Berners.
Later by two generations, John Bourchier, Lord Berners, was born
about the time of Capgrave's death, and while Malory was writing his
"Morte d'Arthur" (born 1467, died 1533). As Captain of Calais, the
last spot of land held by England in France, Lord Berners had leisure
enough, which he spent in translating Froissart, and the French romance
of "Huon of Bordeaux" and Oberon the fairy king, "Arthur of Little
Britain," and Guevara's Spanish "Dial for Princes," with the "Carcel
de Amor" and the "Libro Aureo," books which more or less anticipate
the antitheses of "Euphuism". In his translation of Froissart, Berners
follows the style of the original, his language is much akin to
that of Malory: in his prefaces he is more rhetorical and "aureate,"
and has a habit, like Sir Robert Hazlewood in "Guy Mannering," of
treble-shotting his verbs. "Histories show, open, manifest, and declare
to the reader by example of old antiquity, what we should inquire,
desire, and follow, and also what we should eschew, avoid, and utterly
fly." This mannerism is tedious, but the translation itself is in
admirably simple and expressive English.