The Triumphal Entry
Will Langland, a contemporary of Geoffrey Chaucer, dreams he is looking for his old friend Piers the Ploughman in Jerusalem just when Christ rides in on a donkey.
?1377
King Edward III 1327-1377 to King Richard II 1377-1399
Will Langland, a contemporary of Geoffrey Chaucer, dreams he is looking for his old friend Piers the Ploughman in Jerusalem just when Christ rides in on a donkey.
?1377
King Edward III 1327-1377 to King Richard II 1377-1399
This post is number 1 in the series The Book of Piers Ploughman
William Langland’s ‘Book of Piers the Ploughman’ is a late fourteenth-century dream sequence that tumbles together Christian reflection with social commentary much as John Bunyan’s ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ would later do. In Passus 18, Will has fallen asleep during Lent, and his dream takes him confusedly to Palm Sunday, a week before Easter.
LONG time I slept;
Rested there and snored hard till Palm-branch Day.*
Long I dreamt, of children and of ‘Glory, Laud [and Honour]’*
Of how old folks sang ‘Hosanna’* with the organ,
And of Christ’s passion and atonement* that rescued the people.
One like to the Samaritan,* and somewhat like to Piers the Ploughman,*
Barefoot and bootless came riding upon an ass, urging it on
Without spur or spear; sprightly he seemed,
Like the kind of knight that comes to be dubbed,
To get him golden spurs on cut-away shoes.*
Faith was sitting in a high window, and cried ‘Hail thou son of David!’
As does a herald-at-arms, when a bold man comes to the joust.
Old Jews of Jerusalem sang for joy,
‘Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord!’
So I asked Faith what all this stir meant,
And who should joust in Jerusalem. ‘Jesus,’ said he,
‘And he fetches what the Fiend lays claim to — the Fruit of Piers
the Ploughman!’*
* That is, Palm Sunday, the Sunday one week before Easter Day and the beginning of Holy Week.
* ‘Gloria, Laus [et Honor]’ (glory, praise and honour) is a Palm Sunday hymn in the Latin rite. It was composed by Theodulf of Orléans in 820, and is still widely sung today in the translation of John Mason Neale:
All glory, laud, and honour
To Thee, Redeemer, King!
To Whom the lips of children
Made sweet Hosannas ring!
* When Christ entered Jerusalem upon an ass, in fulfilment of Zechariah 9:9, the people cried Hosanna or ‘save, saviour!’. See Mark 11:1-11. ‘Hosanna’ and ‘Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord’ are said not only on Palm Sunday each year but also at every communion service.
* Given by Langland in Latin, ‘poenitentia’. The term occurs in Leviticus 5:6, where the AV uses ‘atonement’.
* The Samaritan is the ‘Good Samaritan’ of Jesus’s parable in Luke 10:25-37. See our summary at The Parable of the Prodigal Son.
* Piers the Ploughman stands for ‘the type of a truly honest man’ (William Skeat). ‘One like to Piers the Ploughman’ is therefore Langland’s equivalent of the Biblical phrase ‘one like unto a son of man.’ See Daniel 7:13-14, Luke 22:66-71 and Acts 7:55-56. The Letter to the Hebrews stresses that Christ was “like unto his brethren” Hebrews 2:17, “tempted like as we are, yet without sin” Hebrews 4:15.
* Shoes that have a stylish cut made in them. Langland portrays Jesus as a young and fearless squire coming to be knighted, and to be given the fine clothes of his new station.
* The Fruit of Piers the Ploughman is mankind. In this part of the poem, Piers becomes a figure very much like Adam.
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
On which Christian feast did Langland begin to dream?
On Palm Sunday, a week before Easter.