LAY LITERACY AND THE MEDIEVAL BIBLE

Among Arne Zettersten's impressive research publications are those on Middle English texts. His brilliant editions of The Anerene Riwle, published over the years in the Early English Text Society, have done so much to further our knowledge of this important religious work. Tracing the sources of the The Anerene Riwle author's quotations is indeed a complex task. Geoffrey Shepherd states that "the Bible provides most of the material of the Rule the medieval Bible, a vast indivisible unity, but perceived only by glimpses. Often it is a gloss which leads him [the author] to the scriptural text, not to an initial memory of Scripture" (1959: xxv-xxvi). 1 Shepherd goes on to show the complexities involved in finding the source of biblical paraphrases in The Anerene Riwle:

sess? Turning the question round: is there anything to be gleaned in Chaucer's works about levels of literacy in the late 14 th century, given that Chaucer intends to make his characters realistic?We have scant evidence of literacy at this time and have to rely on wills, bankruptcy lists, etc. for information on book ownership.However, I cannot see why we should not look at literary characters for clues about how the Bible is conveyed to lay people, the "lewd", and in what ways "auctoritee" trickles down to those with little learning in the fourteenth century. 1   Most university teachers these days complain about the atrociously low level of biblical knowledge of modern students.Even those who profess to know their Bible and claim to have learned it at Sunday School are still shaky on details.How many today are convinced that the Fall of the Angels and Christ's Descent into Hell are narrated in the Bible?However, detailed knowledge of the Bible by the laity is a post-Reformation phenomenon and we today are perhaps nearer the medieval mentality, receiving our biblical knowledge from films and TV as well as in fiction, just as medieval illiterati learned the Bible aurally and visually.We must not, however, underestimate the biblical knowledge of the illiterati, but at the same time we should be aware of the filters through which this knowledge passed and how it was integrated in a vast encyclopaedic understanding of the history of man and his universe.
Margery Kempe (c. 1373Kempe (c. -after 1433)), for example, thanks the priest in Lynn who "read to her many a good book of high contemplation and other books such as the Bible, with doctors thereon, St Bride's book, Hilton's book, Bonaventure, etc. Thus through hearing of holy books and holy sermons she ever increased in contemplation and holy meditation."(Aston 1984: 120)  Aston calls "that vanished English library of 'laymen's books'" (Aston 1984:121).All such information had a clear didactic aim, namely to help the laity lead good lives.
In the Middle Ages, as today, there was a wide range of literate and illiterate population.Illiteracy today and then was often hidden and notions of literacy vague.Michael Clanchy demonstrates how clericus and litteratus, laicus and illitteratus are interchangeable terms in the early Middle Ages (1979:175-201).Non-lettered and lay were synonymous, and by lettered they referred to Latin literacy and not vernacular.At the time of the Black Death (1348-1351), we hear of widowers joining monastic orders who were called 'illiterate' although they could only read English.But by end of the 14 th century litteratus was used to describe not only persons of erudition, but those with a minimal knowledge of Latin.Clanchy states that some tradesmen in London were called litterati and certain Lollards at the end of the century were called laicus litteratus (1979,185).This might appear to be a contradiction in terms but it reflects changing attitudes to literacy and the laity.
There were, of course, many English translations of parts of the Bible by mid-14 th century; there were Gospel harmonies and commentaries, versions of the Pauline and Catholic epistles and many other vernacular works which retold parts of the Bible.More important were the literary works, especially in verse, which paraphrased the Bible, and verse was important to attract the listener and to help the memory.A literal translation of the Bible was unnecessary, many thought, when more attractive renditions were easily at hand.The Stanzaic Life of Christ, for example, written in mid-14* century and based on The Golden Legend (mid-lS* century) and the Polychronicon,(eaxly-14: th century) is specifically designed to relate the Gospels to the unlettered.In the introduction the author states: "A worthy person asked me to show certain things that he saw written in Latin, that he might know in English tongue of Jesus Christ's nativity and his deeds in order, in which he might by good authority fully trust and know."(As quoted by Fowler 1977:147).Other literary works, such as the Cursor Mundi (c.1300), set out the biblical narrative interwoven with legendary material (Fowler 1977: 165, 193).Here are all the stories which John, the Carpenter in The Miller's Tale, would know -of Adam and Eve, Noah and Abraham -in addition to many of the apocryphal stories of the Fall of the Angels, the life and death of Pilate (also in The Golden Legend), the legend of Seth and the postlapsarian tree, the stories of Joseph of Arimathia, the Harrowing of Hell, the handkerchief of St Veronica, and the life and death of Mary.All these stories we find in church wall paintings, carvings, stained glass, and, of course, the English Mystery Plays.The medieval bible of the illiterate was not in a book, let alone a specific book, but an encyclopaedic synthesis of all the stories connected to the lives of the Old Testament patriarchs and of the holy family and gleaned from a wide range of sources.It was also a pan-European "virtual book" with the same themes and stories appearing throughout the continent in vernacular writing, church paintings, carvings, and decorations.All had the common purpose of not simply narrating biblical scenes, but also of influencing the lives of the audience, as the cycle plays did, and of creating an element of social control.
Much of Chaucer's own learning would have come second hand by this trickle-down effect or, in Chaucer's case, 'cascade' effect -not directly from the patristic or classical source but from collections, florilegia, anthologies, and miscellanies.We have the friars to thank for many of these compendia from which Chaucer and many other vernacular writers gleaned Latin quotations, exempla and miscellaneous general knowledge.
A good example of a very popular collection is John of Wales's Commu- So, fourteenth-century lay authors, like Chaucer, can be shown to have strong biblical and patristic knowledge, albeit much at second hand, but how did they 'cascade' this to the next level, their lay audience who may or may not have been literate in the vernacular?
In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer creates characters who in real life would possess different degrees of biblical knowledge and understanding.The Parson is obviously well-versed in Scripture, beginning his tale with the biblical reference for his text, Jeremiah 6, followed by the Latin Vulgate source, a close translation, and then an explanation.Following exegetical practice he then gives patristic interpretations by Ambrose, Isidore, and Gregory.This is all textbook stuff in his tale "of moralitee and virtuous mateere".
The biblical source is invariably then amplified with allegories and examples and much of this material has a source in Bromyard's encyclopaedic Summa.
The Norfolk Franciscan, John of Grimestone ( 1372), uses the same technique: Man ne hath nouth grace for God 3ef hit nouth But for it is nouth rediliche of man isouth Homo non håbet graciam non quia hane non dat Deus. 3   Grimestone's work was intended to be notes for preachers, but in these he collected a vast range of patristic, biblical, classical, and even contemporary authorities such as Robert Holcot (died 1349).
A direct quotation from the Vulgate gives the English text authority, and Chaucer demonstrates how this method can easily be abused, for example by the hypocritical friar in The Summoner's Tale who misapplies biblical quotations while claiming that "My spirit hath his fostryng in the Bi- Conscience then points out that the quotation is unfinished.Mede, he says, is like the lady who quoted "omnia probate" "test all things", but forgot the continuation, "quod bonum est tenete" "hold that which is good" which she would have found if she had turned the leaf: Ac 30W failled a cunnyng clerke that couthe the lef haue torned.
And that is the taille of the tixte of that that 3e schewed, that, thei3e we wynne worschip and with mede haue victorie, the soule that the sonde taketh bi so moche is bounde (lines 343-349).Dame Alisoun claims, again with apparent modesty, that she will be happy to remain a "wooden vessel" in her Lord's house and not aspire to be golden, whereas the biblical text goes on to compare the gold and the wooden to honourable and dishonourable states and encourages mankind to "purge himself from these, [and] he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanc- There is, however, one controlling voice on the manuscript page.The majority of the earliest manuscripts of the Tales have glosses and the Wife of Bath's Prologue is the most heavily glossed part.The glosses appear in the earliest of the manuscripts, Hengwrt and Ellesmere, and are written in the same hand and as large and prominent a hand as the text itself. 4They are in Latin and visually appear to balance the vernacular text both physically and morally.They may be there to give weight and authority to the text, as most major Latin works of this time were glossed.Indeed an unglossed work was akin to a book today that goes unreviewed and is therefore considered insignificant (see Smalley 1952: 366-367).There may be another reason for the glosses, namely that the glossator was afraid that the reader might not catch the pilgrim's distortion of the biblical text.
There is a chance, as I have argued elsewhere, that the author of many of these glosses was Chaucer himself, but if it were not he, then it was a contemporary 'editor 7 of the text who was keen to point out the original source (see Caie 1975: 76-77).
A further, significant conclusion one can draw from the glosses con- Here then is a woman, albeit a literary creation, who, like Margery Kempe, hears authoritative texts translated into the vernacular and uses them to make her case.The difference is that Margery has a "cunning clerk" who guides her reading, while the wife of Bath has a wily, exclerical, young husband who bends her ear day and night with antimatrimonial and anti-feminist quotations.The method she applies is exactly that which her beloved Jankin "this joly clerk Jankin, that was so hende" must have used: And thanne wolde he vpon his Bible seke That ilke prouerbe of Ecclesiaste, Where he comandeth and forbedeth faste Man shal nat suffre his wyf go roule aboute (lines 650-653) As a scholar, Jankyn could have taken his texts directly from the Vulgate, as he appears to have done in the above example from Ecclesiasticus.
But the Wife gives a highly informative description of Jankin's most important source: He had a book that gladly, nyght and day, Er that he mighte gete his wyf to shipe?
She also mentions the paintings and sculpture and an Easter sepulchre, which sent her into raptures.Visually and orally she would be totally immersed in the Bible and aware of the typological links between Old and New Testament, as the biblical scenes were invariably Nordic Journal of English Studies juxtaposed in art and literature.Whether she could distinguish between canonical and apocryphal episodes is unimportant, as all was wrapped up in what might be called the medieval biblical experience or what Margaret Scripture naturally adds weight to the argument, but, as Janet Coleman suggests, "the biblical, Latin quotations in Piers Plowman comprise a central principle of construction, from which the Middle English 'divisions' fan out ... [Langland] frequently began with a Latin quote and, using the aids of the medieval preacher, derived much of the substance of his poem.
ble", and by the Pardoner who sprinkles or seasons his sermon with Latin, purely for effect: And in Latyn I speke a wordes fewe, To saffron with my predicacioun, And for to stire hem to devocioun (The Pardoner's Prologue, lines 344-346).Similarly the Somonour delights in quoting phrases in Latin and indeed when drunk "wold he speke no word but Latyn."Such misapplication of the Bible is openly criticised elsewhere in the fourteenth century.For example, Lady Mede in Passus 3 in Piers Plowman is angered by Conscience's argument against the abuse of riches and defends gift-giving with a biblical quotation: Also wroth as the wynde wex Mede in a while, "I can no Latyn",quod she, "clerkis wote the sothe.Se what Salamon seith in Sapience bokes, That hij that 3Íveth 3iftes the victorie wynneth & moche worschip had ther-with as holiwryt telleth, Honorem adquiret qui dat munera, etc."(Passus 3,

or
Conscience figure.It is the audience's onus to make of her biblical quotations what they will.Could this show that Chaucer has a more mature and trusting attitude to his readers, or does it reflect his greater interest in the way the Wife argues than the orthodoxy of her comments?I nyl envye no virginitee.Lat hem be breed of pured whete-seed, And lat us wy ves hoten barly-breed; And yet with barly-breed, mark telle kan, Oure Lord Jhesu refresshed many a man.In swich estaat as God hath cleped us I wol persevere; I am nat precius.(Wife of Bath's Prologue, lines 142-148) The Wife of Bath confuses the evangelists Mark and John in the passage about wheat and barley bread and totally distorts the traditional interpretation of this passage about the hierarchy of spiritual states, namely that wheat represents chastity and barley incontinence.She confuses the literal and the anagogical meanings; barley represents an inferior spiritual state in which we should not be content, but, with mock modesty, Dame Alisoun claims that she is happy as she is.She uses the same argument when partially quoting from 2 Timothy 2: 20-21: For wel ye knowe, a lord in his houshold, He hath nat every vessel al of golde; Somme been of tree, and doon hir lord servyse (Wife of Bath's Prologue, lines 99-101).
tified and meet for the master's use." (Timothy 2: 21) From the beginning of the Prologue Dame Alisoun has indulged in selective quotations, invariably choosing passages about marriage which refer to the husband's responsibilities, while remaining silent on the mutual and reciprocal duties of the Wife: But wel I moot expres, with-oute lye, God bad us for to wexe and multiplye; That gentil text can I wel understonde.Eek wel I woot he seyde, myn housbonde sholde lete fader and moder, and take me.(27-31) T have the power durynge al my lyf Upon his propre body, and nought he Right thus the Apostel tolde it unto me, And bad oure housbondes for to love us weel.Al this sentence me liketh every deel'.Up stirte the Pardoner, and that anon; 'Now dame', quod he, 'by God and by Seint John! Ye been a noble prechour in this cas' (Wife of Bath's Prologue, lines 160-165) Unlike in Piers Plowman, there is no Conscience figure here who pops up in alarm.She receives only praise for her rhetorical technique from the Pardoner who is also an expert in twisting his sources to prove his point.There is furthermore a hint of ridicule when, for example, he touches on the Wife's incorrect reference to St Mark by his oath "by Seint John!"She seems a perfect example of the dangers of applying the Bible without expert theological help.But why does Chaucer allow her to go unchecked and does he not fear what has been called "the new reading public" of the fourteenth century, namely those who cannot read the Vulgate Worlds of Words -A tribute to Ante Zettersten 137 and have not been guided in their interpretations?Chaucer's motives are ambiguous.He obviously does not want the Wife to appear as the vindictive La Vieille in Jean de Meun's 13 th " century Le Roman de la Rose, but as an attractive and well-armed adversary of the male, clerical interpretation of the Bible and church fathers.I believe that the answer lies in the fact that he is more interested in her rhetorical techniques, namely her deliberate textual harassment, than in her unorthodoxy.
cerns how Chaucer and thereby his characters have come by the text.Was it from the Vulgate or some intermediate source?Most of the biblical quotations do not cite the Vulgate directly, but are paraphrases from Jerome's Adversus Jovinianum.This is the text from which Jean de Meun found material for his character La Vieille and therefore a principle source of Chaucer's Wife.So what the Wife is citing is Jerome's version of the text in Ad-Bible Picture Book.Lamech was used by Jerome to show the evils of bigamy, but the Wife cannot turn them to her advantage, as she does the examples of Abraham and Solomon and other Old Testament men who had married more than once.When Dame Alisoun is able to twist a biblical text, she shows her delight: "Al this sentence me liketh every deel" (line 162) and "That gentil text kan I wel understonde" (line 29).

For
his desport he wolde rede alway He cleped it Valerie and Theophraste, At whiche book he lough alwey ful faste.And eek ther was somtyme a clerk at Rome, A cardinal, that highte Seint Jerome, That made a book agayn Jovinian; antifeminist and antimatrimonial sentiments and exempla from his sources to her advantage.At the same time Chaucer is able to convey how such a lay person would acquire detailed knowledge of Latin sources, thereby demonstrating the 'trickle-down' effect which must have been prevalent amongst the laity in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.If one were to speculate, one might imagine that the Wife's maid would pick up some of these quotations and use them herself at yet another remove from the original text.Apparently being less interested in teaching the Bible than the authors of Cursor Mundi and Piers Plowman, Chaucer thus uses a broad spectrum of applications of the Bible in investigating how specific characters and social classes might interpret the Bible and use it in their attempt to tell the best Tale.Some are like an ass listening to a harp, hearing and not understanding, and some are totally deaf to the Word.At one extreme is the Parson quoting the Bible carefully and explaining it well, and at the other one a character like the Miller who is verging on the pagan: I crouche thee from elves and fro wightes!Ther-with the night spel seyde he anon-rightes On foure halves of the hous aboute, And on the thresshfold of the dore withoute: 'Jhesu Crist and seynt Benedight, Blesse this hous from every wikked wight, For nightes verye, the white paternoster!Where wentestow Seynt Petres soster?' (The Miller's Tale, lines 3478-3486) At best he knows the popular renditions of the biblical narratives: 'Hastou nat herd', quod Nicholas, 'also The sorwe of Noe with his fellowshipe, This is not to downplay Chaucer's learning.Chaucer of course translated from Latin, as can be seen in his Boece, and in the revised Prologue toThe Legend of Good Women he claims to have translated Innocent Ill's De contemptu mundi.It appears that in his translations, Chaucer did not always go back to the original text but relied heavily on Jean de Meun's translations for his prose sections, although it appears that he also sometimes went to the original Latin to check the French translation.Furthermore, he relied on Nicholas Trivet's Latin commentary on Boethius to ex- Nordic Journal of English Studies niloquium of the late 13 th century, used by priest and laity alike, and in which there were many biblical and classical quotations, all carefully listed with lemmata for quick reference.Chaucer never mentions this work although it seems to have been used in his Wife of Bath's Prologue, Summoner's Tale, Nun's Priest's Tale, and elsewhere.Many of the exempla which the Pardoner uses in his model sermon are taken from this work, as Robert A.Pratt has shown (1966: 619-42).Derek Pearsall writes of "the magpie-like nature of [Chaucer's] raids on scholarly texts" which were probably "the product, more than we know, not of his indefatigable reading but of his conversations with more learned friends."Itemizing the sources of each tale does in fact give a misleading impression, since it misses that great body of writing in Latin anthologies, miscellanies, compendia and encyclopaedias, which is what gives the 'many storied' quality to Chaucer's writing in The Canterbury Tales ... Echoes of sermons and sermon literature are everywhere, and of course the Bible and liturgy are plundered for some of Chaucer's most dazzling literary effects.(1992: 242-243) One wonders how frequently the clergy went to the Vulgate even for biblical texts and exempla."Creative preachers must have been at a premium", states Janet Coleman; "these handbooks may, in part, be the origin of frequent satirical complaints against a clergy illiterate in the Bible" (1984: 170).As might be expected, these handbooks were severely criticised by the Wyclifites who considered them stultifying for the spiritual growth of the laity.The Dominicans were the first to collect exempla in handbooks for preachers.They were the work of important scholars such as the highly influential John Bromyard's Summa Praedicantium (c.1356) and Robert Holcot's Liber de moralitatibus with moralized exempla, a major source of Chaucer's Nun's Priest's Tale.plain allusions.Indeed the four works by Boethius, Jean de Meun, Nicholas Trivet, and Chaucer appear in different combinations in a few fifteenth-century manuscripts with one vernacular version as marginal or interlinear gloss on the other. 2