The lives of fourteenth-century peasant women

[wolfinthewood]

The C-text of Langland’s Piers Plowman contains a long passage in which he discusses who among the poor are most deserving of alms. First, he mentions prisoners in dungeons (‘pits’ – cp. Matthew xxv 36 &c); but then, far more unconventionally, he moves into an account of the lives of the poorest peasant women:

The most needy aren oure neighebores · and we nyme good hede,
As prisones in puttes · and poure folke in Cotes,
Charged with children · and chef lordes rente,
That thei with spynnynge may spare · spenen hit in hous-hyre,
Bothe in mylk and in mele · to make with papelotes,
To a-glotye with here gurles · þat greden after fode.
Al-so hem-selue · suffren muche hunger,
And wo in winter-tyme · with wakynge a nyghtes
To ryse to the ruel · to rocke the cradel,
Bothe to karde and to kembe · to clouten and to wasche,
To rubbe and to rely · russhes to pilie,
That reuthe is to rede · othere in ryme shewe
The wo of these women · that wonyeth in Cotes.

William Langland (fl. c. 1360–1387)

from Piers Plowman [C-text Passus X] (ante 1387)

I don’t know anything else quite like this passage in mediaeval English literature. It never fails to move me, not just with pity but with admiration: it is a portrait of deep poverty, but also of truly heroic struggle.

The most needy are our neighbours, if we pay careful attention:
such as prisoners in pits and poor folk in cottages,
burdened with children and landlords’ rent;
whatever they can spare from what they earn by spinning, they spend in house-rent,
in milk and in meal, to make into porridge,
to fill up their children* that cry out for food.
Also they themselves suffer much hunger,
and distress in winter-time, with waking at night
to rise in the space between the bed and the wall to rock the cradle,
to card and comb [wool], to patch [clothes] and wash [them],
to rub [flax] and reel thread, to peel rushes [for rush-lights],
so that it stirs pity to explain or describe in verse
the distress of these women that live in cottages.

*of either sex; ‘gurles’ is gender-neutral


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