Where Do You Find Yourself in Langland’s Categories of Political Thought?

Last updated on: November 28, 2007 at 9:54 am by Henry Karlson

Where Do You Find Yourself in Langland’s Categories of Political Thought? 2007-11-28T09:54:24-05:00 Henry Karlson

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One rather famous, but possibly understudied, work of English literature is the 14th century text, Piers the Ploughman, written by William Langland. It’s a rather satirical poem, written primarily as a moral allegory, to help teach its reader the way to lead a godly life. Because of its allegorical nature, the kind which would find its way into Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress and much later, into Lewis’ Pilgrim’s Regress, the text can be difficult to read through by those used to the hyper-literalistic, hyper-realistic prose of the twentieth century. We have not been trained to appreciate “in-your-face” allegory with characters who possess names such as Fee, Conscience, Truth, Imagination, Study, Graft, Anger, Envy, Avarice, Gluttony, Sloth, or Work-while-you’ve-got-a-chance. But it is also true that these characters, being used as they are to express basic moral lessons, are also symbolic of the people living in the time of Langland and are his means by which he can criticize the political and cultural situation he found himself in. “Langland’s personified figures are of a different kind and, at their best, give no sense of having been fabricated: Glutton sounds as if he had been seen not once but many times in some Colwall pub, and Coveytise at any Winchester fair,” Nevill Coghill, “God’s Wenches and the Light That Spoke” pgs 199-217 in The Collected Papers of Nevill Coghill: Shakespearian & Medievalist. ed. Douglas Gray (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1988), 203.

What is remarkable about the work is not its teachings, which were quite common for its time, nor its use of allegory, which was also quite common for that time (although Langland clearly is an expert in its use); no, it was his poetic style, and this helped preserve the text and to allow its teachings to be taken seriously by later readers – so seriously that some have later assumed they were unique to Langland and those he influenced like John Ball. “Scholars more interested in social history than in poetry have sometimes made this poem appear much less than it really is as regards its kind, and much less extraordinary as regards the genius of the poet. In fact, its only oddity is its excellence; in Piers Plowman we see an exceptional poet adorning a species of poetry which is hardly exceptional at all,” C.S. Lewis, The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1936; repr. 1992), 158. And yet it is these teachings which interest us here because they do represent an ancient but lost common tradition: it can tell us something we have forgotten in our “political progress” after the so-called Enlightenment.

Langland tells us of a “marvelous dream” he had of a broad plain set between the tower of Truth (God) and the dungeon of Falsehood (the devil). There are many people there, some working hard and justly, some living a life of luxury at the expense of others. In that plain there was a field where he saw a king holding court (Common Sense was the king’s chief counselor). A lean, “crazy” man addressed the king, asking for God’s blessing upon the king while imploring the king to rule with justice. Thereupon an angel came down from heaven and speaking in Latin, said (in translation):

You say, “I am a king; I am a prince” – but in time you may be neither. It is your duty to administer the laws of Christ the King; the better to do this, be mild as you are just. You should clothe naked justice with mercy, and sow those crops which you hope to reap. Strip justice of mercy, and you shall be judged by justice alone; sow mercy, and you shall reap mercy.

–William Langland, Piers the Ploughman. Trans. J.F. Goodridge (London: Penguin Books, 1966), 29n.

This, the second of four different views of what it means to be a king (or, if we put this in a modern content, what it means to be a politician), represents the best, godly way one can govern. Its key is to rule with justice mixed with mercy. Just as we all should remember that we live now, and one day we shall die – so too should our leaders realize that their political careers will one day end, and what they do while they are in power will indicate how they shall one day be treated once that career is over. If they have sown cold justice without mercy, they shall receive such for themselves; if they have let mercy be the center of their government, so too they shall find mercy given to them. This message comes from what was originally taught by Jesus to everyone, but now is shown to be true for government: as we forgive others, so we shall be forgiven; as we treat others, so shall we be treated. Politicians should realize that politics do not annul the demands Christ has given to us, it heightens them: from those who have been given much, much is expected (cf. Luke 12:48). Those who are placed in positions of power are not given the power to suit themselves, but to help those they are placed over – this cannot be stated too many times, because it is forgotten far too often: people are placed in power not for themselves, but for the sake of the people, and that means that they are to work not only for the common good in matters of justice, but to promote the welfare of their people through mercy.

Of course, this is easier said than done. People put into power are expected to lead and they are expected to make “tough decisions.” They find excuses not to follow these godly expectations for leadership: how can society be managed if too much mercy is shown to criminals, if the hard dictates of law can be abrogated so easily? A politician must maintain the law: the law is the sole rule for society, and it knows no flexibility beyond what is written down. This is good, because it means everyone is equal under the law. This will defend society, and if some people suffer an injustice from this legalism, it is a minor nuisance, but the consequences of ignoring the rule of law are worse: anarchy and chaos will ensue. If there is any problem with the law, it must be changed by the normative means already established by that same law (of course, one must ask, does that make any sense?).This lack of mercy is justified by a consequentialistic either-or proposition: we either accept this kind of legalism or else we will have anarchy, and we all know that anarchy would be far worse for society. This line of reasoning helps explain the retort given to the angel by one of the court, babbling on as if he were filled with wisdom: “Since a king is entitled to be a king only by the act of ruling, he is a king only in name if he does not maintain the laws” (ibid, 29n).

Of course, this means the law reigns supreme, and the king is only its agent – a puppet without any real power. But this cannot be. True leadership is not seen in one who only follows the law and makes sure its dictates are enforced, but it is seen in one who has the power to make those very laws. As the law is seen as greater than mercy, so the leader must still be seen as greater than the law: they create it. This explains what Langland put forward next, the impression had by the common crowd. It is one which does not understand or follow heavenly things, nor one which is impressed by the pretense of legal counsel and its pronouncements. They, too, must have an opinion, they too must feel self-important, but they do it by placing extreme power upon their leader, but this means, of course, it is absolute power without mercy, absolute power without heavenly guidance. “The king’s decrees are as binding to us as the Law” (ibid., 29n). As the king wills, so shall it be.

So what does this mean for us today? By putting these positions together like this, Langland shows to us how unchristian and erroneous a purely secular understanding of politics will always be. Once the Christian way has been rejected, once the higher dictates of mercy have been pushed away from the state, the only responses left are two different kinds of tyrannical legalism, both which we see are common enough positions in political debates today. The sad fact is that Christians have often fallen for them. Even sadder is that they do not realize what it is they have fallen for, and its unchristian content. Legalism is used by many Catholics to reject Catholic Social Teaching: “Well, that’s all good and true, but that’s not American law.” American law is used to criticize Catholic teaching, and Catholic teaching of course cannot win, for the state and its preservation is more important than religious morality. Many of those who say this want to preserve some sense of religious morality, but they want to see it as being something separate, independent from the state, and as an issue of individual conscience alone. But this is itself a moral position, and its arguments for the authority of law comes from a moral position, and if pushed to defend this from a Christian viewpoint, it is justified by amateurish theological arguments. This view is riddled with contradictions, contradictions which explains why many are not convinced by it and go to the other position set out by Langland, one which might at first seem quite different from it but in reality is not. For like the former, it is a kind of legalism, but the only change is that it drops any pretense of private morality, making it somewhat more consistent when it says that the law defines morality.

What the law allows, is moral, what the law doesn’t allow, is immoral. This is how most people live out their daily lives, even if they don’t state it like this; when push comes to shove, they justify all kinds of sins because “it’s legal.” But this also explains why many think the only way to create a virtuous people is through law: since people believe what is legal is what is moral, the only way you can convince them something is wrong is to make it illegal. One major problem with this is simple to see but very difficult to overcome: people are accustomed to the moral laws they are living under, and anything which radically changes them is seen as a foreign morality trying to eliminate freedom from society. But our love for freedom will not allow this.

Why is it Christians have given in to these non-religious arguments, and follow through with them and debate them out, one with another, in various political fights, without realizing how they have separated and removed their Christianity from their normal, secular lives? Because the kind of separation between church and state which puts the state as the authority for daily life has become the morality and legalism that most people involved in political debates agree with; and once this has been done, anything else ends up as commentary. This is why I find myself entirely outside of the common debate in modern America, because it is foreign to my Christian sentiment. This is also why I will continue to look at my Christian faith and its views of social justice for my political views, and not the other way around.

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