St. Erkenwald and the Merciless Parliament

St. Erkenwald and the Merciless Parliament Frank Grady University ofMissouri-St. Louis CRJTICS HAVE TYPICALLY cegare folke was felonse and fals and frowarde to reule, I hent harmes fol ofte to hold horn to ri3t. Bot for wothe ne wele ne wrathe ne drede Ne for maistrie ne for mede ne for no monnes aghe, I remewit neuer fro pe ri3t by reson myn awen For to dresse a wrange dome, no day of my lyue. Declynet neuer my consciens for couetise on erthe, In no gynful iugement no iapes to make Were a renke neuer so riche for reuerens sake. Ne for no monnes manas ne meschefe ne routhe Non gete me fro pe heghe gate to glent out of ry3t, Als ferforthe as my faithe confourmyd my hert. J:>aghe had been my fader bone, I bede hym no wranges, Ne fals favour to my fader, paghe felle hym be hongyt. (lines 231-44)8 The righteous judge is distinguished not only by his resistance to brib­ ery and avarice but also by his indifference to aristocratic pressure, to the manas and maistrie of those who would try to influence or overawe the conscience of the justice, and of justice itself. Here the aurhor of St. Erkenwald distinguishes himself from most of his contemporaries, who customarily point only to the venality and covetise of lawyers and judges in their satiric accounts of the subject.9 In the ambiguous discretion of Chaucer's Man of Law, who often served as a justice of the assize; in 8 All quotations from the poem are drawn from Clifford Peterson's edition ofSt. Erken­ wald (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1977), here pp. 78-79. Further citations will be made by line number in the text. 9 The treatment of lawyers and justices in the estates satire tradition is discussed by Jill Mann, Chaucer and Medieval Estates Satire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), pp. 86-91, and by John A. Yunck, The Lineage ofLady Meed: The Development of Mediaeval Venality Satire (Notre Dame: University ofNotre Dame Press, 1963), pp. 143S9 . Mann remarks that "the tradition for lawyers is full bur remarkably unified" (p. 86). Compare, e.g., Langland and Gower on the avarice ofsergeants: "Thow my3test bettre 182 ST ERKENWALD AND THE MERCILESS PARLIAMENT Gower's Vox Clamantis and Mirour de l'Omme, where "gold defies right and advances wrong";10 in Piers Plowman, where Lady Meed winks and the lawyers come running to her side-everywhere what is decried is the corrosive influence ofmoney on justice, the law, and the lawyers and judges responsible for its adminstration and application. The malignant effects are described in the conventional terms by Thomas Wimbledon in his famous 1388 sermon: 3if a gret man plete wip a pore to haue owt pat he holdep, euerich officer schal be redy, al pat he may, and hi3e pat pe riche man my3t haue suche an ende as he desirep. But 3if a pore man plede wip a riche man, pan per schal be so many delayes pat, pou3 pe pore mannes ri3t be open to al pe comite, for pure faute of spendyng he shal be glad to cese.11 But while one can't deny that money and maistrie are related influ­ ences, they are not exactly the same thing.12 In fact, if we turn from meete myst on Maluerne hilles I Than gete a mom of hire mouj:, ti! moneie be shewed" (Piers Plowman, ed. George Kane and E. Talbot Donaldson [London: Athlone, 1975}, B.Prol.215-16); "Sergeants-at-law are deaf and dumb until they have received the gold which is pressed into their hands" ["Sergantz du Joy sont sourd et mu/ Avant que l'orr eiont res�u I Que !'en leur baille prest au main"} (Mirour de l'0mme 24,421-23, in The Complete Works ofJohn Gower, ed. G. C. Macaulay [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1899}, 1:270; Mirour de l'Omme, trans. William Burton Wilson, rev. Nancy Wilson Van Bank [East Lansing, Mich.: Colleagues Press, 1992}, p. 320.) 10 'Torr deffie/ Le droit et met le tort avant"(Mirour 6227-28; Wilson trans., p. 87). 11 Ione Kemp Knight...