HOPKINS: CHARACTER AND OPINIONS OF WILLIAM LANGLAND. 237 



could not well be other than a countryman. The penitents are from 

 both city and country. 



The chief distinction between the A-text and the C-text in respect 

 to scene is, that in the latter London dominates. Further, in the 

 C-text, the author awakes in London after going to sleep on Malvern 

 Hills (C,VL, i), goes to sleep again in a London church (C, VL, io8), 

 and wakes again in time to see the sun set in the south from Malvern 

 Hills (C, X., 294). This inconsistency, due to the interpolation of 

 new matter, would seem to furnish some evidence touching the place 

 of composition of each version; but the value of the evidence is 

 destroyed by the fact that the B-text, which was evidently written after 

 the London residence had begun, is here in acccord with the A-text, 

 instead of the C-text, as it should be if the change noted were due to 

 a change of residence. 



Though the A-text has more to do with the country than with the 

 city, the argument that it might have been written before Langland 

 had become thoroughly familiar with London has to offset it the fact 

 that the allusions to places in London are more specific than those 

 to places in the country, and more numerous as well. Malvern Hills 

 may be definitely located; and the field full of folk may be near them; 

 so too may be the half acre of Piers Plowman; but supposition is not 

 certainty. On the other hand, Westminster is a definite locality, and 

 so are the various places whose representatives meet Glutton at the 

 tavern, though the tavern itself is not named. 



Though we may not therefore fix definitely the time when Langland 



came to London, it seems evident that in 1362 he was acquainted 



with both city and country; that he loved the country rather than the 



city, an allegiance still cherished fifteen years after; and that he had 



not long forsaken the Malvern Hills for the London streets. 



« „*-^ „«• If Langland spent much of the earlier part of his life 



Occupation of ° ^^ i 



earlier years. in the country, as seems reasonable, it becomes of 

 interest to ask how it was spent. He shows entire 

 familiarity with the plowman's life, his duties, and even his food at the 

 several seasons of the year. No others of his descriptive passages are 

 so minute and so evidently accurate as those relating to rustic life and 

 labor. There is, I believe, more than a possibility that the boy Will, 

 before his assumption of clerical dignity, had formed a practical 

 acquaintance with the duties of the farm and the harvest field, and 

 had found them not at all to his taste. The question addressed to 

 him by Reason (C, VL, 12), '"Canstow serven,' he seide, 'orsyngen 

 in a churche?'" might indicate that, at the time Langland had in mind, 

 he had not yet become in any sense a priest; though before the end 

 of the passage is reached, he is speaking of his long clothes, and 



