HOPKINS: CHARACTER AND OPINIONS Or WILLIAM LANGLAND. 235 



church of the fourteenth century was a huge machine. Not in organ- 

 ization and government only, but in its methods of preaching and 

 interpreting the Scriptures all was formal and mechanical; the 

 preacher spoke according to rule, often anxious only for the com- 

 pletion of his task, and careless whether the seed thus idly sown 

 should spring up or wither away. Careless whether his flock did or 

 did not follow his teaching, the churchman became careless in regard 

 to following it himself. To formalism succeeded hypocrisy, and open 

 neglect even of formal duties; the church preyed upon the people, 

 and became in turn a refuge for those who sought to escape hardship 

 and make a living easily. 



M'liy the i»o- Langland entered the church because he preferred 



em was writ- the contemplative to the active life. His studies 



revealed to him not so much new teachings as the 

 fact that the old ones had not been properly applied and enforced. 

 He dared to speak, but the number of those whom he might address 

 personally was very small; and had Langland been simply the faith- 

 ful priest, we should know as little of him as of a thousand others 

 who have kept the church spiritually alive, when it was most corrupt. 

 But his longing to set forth the truth was not to be satisfied by the 

 performance of daily duty alone; in his otherwise unoccupied hours, 

 his recreation was to write what was in his thoughts, at first, doubt- 

 less, without thinking that this work of his leisure was to possess value 

 or importance, but afterward in the full realization of all that it 

 might accomplish. Thus we may interpret his statement that the 

 work is the solace of his lighter hours, through which he strengthens 

 himself for his more serious duties, though he would willingly forsake 

 it if he knew how better to employ the time (B, XH., 20 ff.) But we 

 may detect a growing feeling that the work is worthy, that it is in har- 

 mony with his own teaching as to the nature of Dobest; and the 

 omission of even an implied excuse from the final revision of the 

 poem may show his conviction that through it he had accomplished 

 his true lifework. 



The three several versions of the poem belong, it 

 authors life. ^^ ^^^^^ established, to the years 1362-63, 1377, and 



about 13-93. It would seem that we should be able 

 to learn the complete story of the author's life from versions so widely 

 separated in time, and so full of detail and incident; but instead, we 

 are scarcely able to tell anything in addition to what has been stated, 

 except that he lived in London for the greater part of the time. 

 Local allusions are remarkably few, considering the length of the 

 poem; a fact due to the allegorical structure of the composition; and 

 of these local allusions, fewer still, except those which pertain to the 



