254 KANSAS UNIVERSITY QUARTERLY. 



described; then his apocryphal visit to hell, whence he brings the 

 souls of many. At last (C, XXlIt) the author sees Piers Plowman 

 "peynted al blody," resembling in all things our Lord, and asks the 

 question point blank, Is this Piers Plowman, or is it Christ? Con- 

 science answers, It is Christ with his cross, conqueror of Christen- 

 dom. 



Not yet, however, is it necessary to make the identification abso- 

 lute; we still have Christ in the armor of Piers, and Piers is still the 

 servant whose armor Christ wears. Piers is now more formally 

 endowed with the functions of the clergy; he receives from Christ 

 the power to forgive sin, and the gift of the Holy Spirit. He is 

 commissioned by Grace, the Holy Spirit, as procurator, reeve, and 

 registrar, to receive debts due. As a purveyor and plowman upon 

 earth, with a team consisting of the four gospels, and another of the 

 four fathers, Austin, Ambrose, Gregory, and Jerome, he receives, for 

 sowing, the seed of the four cardinal virtues, and is ordered to build 

 a barn to contain the harvest. The barn finished. Piers goes forth 

 through the world with Grace, to cultivate Truth. While he does 

 this, his friends and neighbors are attacked by the host of Anti- 

 Christ; and the laborers flee into the barn, Holy Church, where 

 under Conscience they attempt to defend themselves. At last the 

 enemy through treachery obtain entrance to the barn, and secure 

 such an advantage that Conscience girds himself to go forth and bring 

 Piers Plowman to the rescue. Here the poem ends, and it is this 

 last reference that seems again to make Piers Plowman one with 

 Christ. 



To the (juestion, therefore, Who or what is Piers Plowman? no 

 consistent answer can be given, if we attempt to reconcile all the 

 various interpretations, or if we attempt to reconcile all three texts 

 with each other. In one case. Professor Skeat, for instance, inter- 

 prets Piers to mean the pope, bishops, the whole church, Christ, and 

 the clergy, in almost as many consecutive lines of C, XXII. Again, 

 we have to reconcile the author's own statement that Piers is Christ, 

 with his ecjually plain teaching that Piers is a servant of Christ. 



The interpretation of the character of Piers that seems to reconcile 

 more discrepancies than any other is this: Let Piers Plowman 

 denote man endowed with the spirit of Christ, or human nature in its 

 highest form (Skeat, Notes, p. 250), until the end of the poem is 

 reached, and Conscience sets out in search of him. Then and there 

 he may be assumed to take the character of Christ, but in this place 

 it may be regarded as a natural climax, and a fitting conclusion to the 

 whole. If this interpretation be kept in view, it does not matter 

 whether Piers be understood in special instances to mean pope (B,. 



