Part III Spirituality and Institutional Organizations

1 Part III Spirituality and Institutional Organizations 1776/16/11 1:49:29 1786/16/11 1:49:29 PMComparing Spiritual and Material Goods: Poverty and Prosperity in Th e Pi l g r i m a g e o f t h e So u l and ev e r y m a nRosemarie McGerrThough critics have for some time now discussed the central role played by economic discourse in the anonymous morality play The Summoning of everyman , they have offered varying analyses of the sources and significance of this imagery. V. A. Kolve argues that Words like reckoning , account-making , lending , and spending com-pose the essential verbal matrix of the play; and the account-book that everyman brings with him is the emblem of their interrelationship. 1 Kolve notes that several earlier Middle English texts, including John Lydgate s Te s t a m e n t, use similar imager y to depict the judgment of the soul at death, but Kolve looks to the parable of the tal-ents in Matthew 25: 14 30 as the major source for everyman s economic discourse.

2 2 Since Kolve s analysis appeared, several scholars have discussed links between Every-man and literary traditions in late medieval England such as estates satire, penitential literature, and other dramatic texts. 3 Only a few scholars have looked at links between 1 V. A. Kolve, everyman and the Parable of the Talents, in The Medieval Drama, ed. Sandro Sticca (Binghamton, NY: SUNY Press, 1972), 69 97, here Kolve, everyman and the Parable of the Talents, See, for example, Thomas J. Jambeck, everyman and the Implications of Bernardine Humanism in the Character Knowledge , Medievalia et Humanistica 8 (1977): 103 23; Ron Tanner, Humor in everyman and the Middle English Morality Play, Philological Quarterly 70 (Spring 1991): 149 61; Denise Ryan, If ye had parfytely chered me : The Nurturing of Good Deeds in everyman , Notes and Queries 42 (1995): 165 68; David Mills, The Theaters of everyman , in From Page to Performance: Essays in Early English Drama, ed.

3 John A. Alford (East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 1995), 127 49; Elizabeth Harper and Britt Mize, Material Economy, Spiritual Economy, and Social Critique in everyman , Comparative Drama 40 (2006): 263 312; Roger A. Ladd, My condicion is mannes soule to kill everyman s Poverty and Prosperity in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, edited by Cynthia Kosso and Anne Scott, ASMAR 19 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), pp. FHG DOI ### 1796/16/11 1:49:29 PM180 rosemarie mcGerrthe play s imagery and medieval allegorical narratives. For example, Ladd discusses parallels between the economic imagery in everyman and the imagery in Piers Plow-man. 4 Kolve cites Guillaume de Deguileville s allegorical dream vision Le P lerinage de l me as paralleling the play s depiction of everyman s journey to his reckoning as a pilgrimage; but Kolve does not discuss the economic discourse of either the French poem or its English translation in relation to everyman .

4 5 Nevertheless, a compari-son of everyman with the Middle English translation of Deguileville s poem, The Pilgrimage of the Soul, offers a profitable opportunity for exploring the depiction of spiritual and material goods in both is not my intent to argue for direct inf luence of The Pilgrimage of the Soul on The Summoning of everyman , though the author of the play could well have known the anonymous dream-vision narrative. The Pilgrimage of the Soul, which was translated from Deguileville s poem in 1413, circulated in manuscript form among courtly, clerical, and merchant audiences throughout the century and was also printed by Caxton in 1483. 6 The morality play seems to date from the last years of the fifteenth century or first years of the sixteenth century: everyman is based on a Dutch play first printed in 1495, but the earliest copies of the English play that survive are four undated printed editions that scholars estimate appeared between about 1510 and 1537.

5 7 My analysis attempts to show that, despite their different genres and sources, The Pilgrimage of the Soul and everyman have much in common in their representation of spiritual and material goods. Though both texts translate earlier works from the Continent, they depart from their sources in Mercantile Salvation, Comparative Drama 41 (2007): 57 78; and Julie Paulson, Death s Arrival and everyman s Separation, Theatre Survey 48 (2007): 121 41. The articles by Harper/Mize, Ladd, and Paulson appeared after my presentation of the original version of this essay at the 2006 ACMRS Ladd, My condicion is mannes soule to kill everyman s Mercantile Salvation, 58 Kolve, everyman and the Parable of the Talents, See Rosemarie P. McGerr, ed.

6 , The Pilgrimage of the Soul: A Critical Edition of the Middle English Dream Vision, Garland Medieval Texts 1 (New York: Garland, 1990), xxi xlv; vol. 2 forthcoming. Quotations from The Pilgrimage of the Soul will come from this edition. Abbrevia-tions and superscript letters have been silently regularized. Translations of passages from this text are See A. C. Cawley, ed., everyman , rev. ed. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1981); W. W. Greg, ed., everyman , Reprinted from the edition by John Skot at Britwell Court, Mate-rialien zur Kunde des lteren Englischen Dramas 4 (1904; repr. Vaduz, Liechtenstein: Kraus Reprint, 1963); everyman , Reprinted from the edition by John Skot in the possession of Mr. A.

7 H. Huth, Materialien zur Kunde des lteren Englischen Dramas 24, ed. W. W. Greg (1909; repr. Vaduz, Liechtenstein: Kraus Reprint, 1963); and everyman , Reprinted from the fragments of two editions by Pynson preserved in the Bodleian Library and the British Museum, Materialien zur Kunde des lteren Englischen Dramas 28, ed. W. W. Greg (1910; repr. Vaduz, Liechtenstein: Kraus Reprint, 1963). 1806/16/11 1:49:30 PMPoverty and Prosperity in The Pilgrimage of the Soul and everyman 181ways that suggest shaping by their English literary, theological, and social contexts. Both texts concern themselves with assessing a person s spiritual state at the end of earthly life: the hero receives a visit from Death and learns that he is not prepared for the judgment he must face on his pilgrimage to the next life.

8 Both texts are also similar in the extent to which economic discourse shapes their depictions of how a person s spiritual state will be assessed. Each text uses several strategies to suggest differences between material and spiritual definitions of poverty and prosperity, while simultaneously illustrating the difficulty that human beings have in distin-guishing between material goods and spiritual goods. In addition, though both texts depict the potential for material prosperity to blind lay Christians to spiritual values, both texts reserve their strongest condemnations for priests who use their spiritual authority for material profit. Comparing the discourses of spiritual and material goods in these two texts will thus give a more precise understanding of their commentaries on poverty and prosperity.

9 In particular, we can see how The Pilgrimage of the Soul and The Summoning of everyman portray the protagonist s education in reading the differences between spiritual and material goods, at the same time that these texts engage the audience in a similar reading examination of the economic imagery of The Pilgrimage of the Soul and everyman will benefit from consideration of some of the debates about poverty and prosperity underway when these texts were composed. The depiction of spiritual and material goods in both works ref lects several of the social and theological ten-sions at play in England during the later Middle Ages, when the sources of material wealth and poverty, as well as the discourses in which people expressed their faith, were undergoing significant change.

10 Yet concerns about the relationship between earthly riches and faith among Christian theologians did not begin in the fifteenth century. In the twelfth century, Christian writers depicted riches as a great dan-ger to the spiritual health of individuals, as well as to the spiritual health of the Christian church as an institution. For example, Bernard of Clairvaux describes the church as unhealthy or insane in its use of its wealth for decorating its buildings, rather than for clothing and feeding the poor:O vanitas vanitatum, sed non vanior quam insanior! Fulget ecclesia parietibus, et in pauperibus eget. Suos lapides induit auro, et suos filios nudos deserit. De sumptibus egenorum servitur oculis divitum.(O vanity of vanities, but no more vain than insane!)