is Wrong, father of falsehood. Humans owe Truth loy-
alty and Wrong nothing. He is faithless, and those who
trust in him are betrayed. Truth is obviously God, and
Wrong is the devil.
The choice seems easy, but it is rendered diffi cult by
cupidity. God has given humans all the requisites of life
“in mesurable manere” (B-text, l. 19), but most want
more. Underlying this is the exhortation in Matthew
6:19–21 not to accumulate treasures on the earth but to
store them in heaven. The dreamer realizes that his
guide is Lady Holy Church and duly falls to his knees
and asks her how he may save his soul. She replies that
when treasure is tested, “Treuthe is the beste” (B-text, 1.
85). This is the central point of the poem, with the rest
of it constituting an exploration of its implications. The
fact that the dreamer’s spiritual question is answered
with a political axiom shows that both spheres are
linked. Lady Holy Church expands on this relationship.
She cites the examples of David and his knights and
Christ and his nine orders of angels as examples of
Truth. The Holy Trinity is the model of perfect harmony
and the source of truth, while Lucifer is the source of its
lack. In Piers Plowman, each answer leads to another
question or series of questions. Thus, the dreamer duly
asks, how does one know about Truth? Lady Holy
Church explains that the natural understanding present
in human hearts leads to loving the Lord above all else.
Truth is expressed most fully through love, which is a
state of will combined with matching outward behavior.
Genuine truth is manifested in charitable actions, an
outpouring of love, and such charity leads to grace.
Lady Holy Church’s speech is structured like a
medieval sermon, using devices to be found in the aids
for preaching. For instance, she takes her starting point
from quotations and develops her matter from them.
Her speech shapes how the rest of the poem examines
the meaning of truth and the problems surrounding it.
Truth is the supreme principle for social behavior as
heaven itself is based upon it. In this section, Lang-
land’s theology is infl uenced by concepts in Saint
Augustine’s City of God. The world is doomed, and
although both love and loyalty exist in this corrupt
earthly society, they do so without expectation. Social
virtues reap their rewards, as do all other virtues, in
heaven.
Lady Holy Church is not only a PERSONIFICATION and a
fi gure of authority who helps the dreamer interpret what
he sees; she is also part of a tradition that stems back to
the Bible. All the elements of ALLEGORY and dream visions
found in Piers Plowman are ultimately derived from bib-
lical tradition, where prophets have dreams and visions
that frequently feature an angel or other fi gure of author-
ity who explains what has been seen.
Debate still rages over how to interpret the satirical
and allegorical elements in Passus 1. Recent scholarship
has contextualized it within the medieval preaching and
pastorship tradition. Another avenue of exploration is
the tension between politics and religion.
See also PASSUS, PIERS PLOWMAN (OVERVIEW).
FURTHER READING
Kaske, R. E. “Holy Church’s Speech and the Structure of
Piers Plowman.” In Middle English Studies in Honor of Rossell
Hope Robbins, edited by Beryl Bowland, 320–327. Lon-
don: Allen and Unwin, 1974.
Bonnie S. MillarPiers Plowman: Passus 2 WILLIAM LANGLAND (ca.
1362–1386) Passus 2–4 elaborate on the initial part
of Lady Holy Church’s speech. The fi rst part of her
theme—“when alle treasure arn tried” (B-text, l. 85)—
is turned into a drama. Treasure is personifi ed as Meed
the Maid. Meed is about to wed Fals (False), who
appears to be her father, an alliance to which Theology
objects on the grounds that God has granted her to
Truth. They decide that the matter should be tried at
the king’s court. Meed rides on a sheriff, while Fals
settles for the back of a juror.
Meed arrives dressed in ostentatious attire, red scar-
let dripping with gold jewels and fur, dazzling the
dreamer. She is contrasted to Lady Holy Church. Meed
is not simply wealth; she is also reward, implying a
relationship: the acquiring of wages for work—bribery
or spiritual treasure for penitence and virtuousness.
Meed is not covetousness, but rather the object of it. In
the B-text, Fals is her father, while in the A-text it is
Wrong and in the C-text it is Favel. WILLIAM LANGLAND
tries different fathers for her as he wishes to predicate
two kinds of falseness by birth or parentage (not con-
scious) and by marriage (conscious). The fi rst set of324 PIERS PLOWMAN: PASSUS 2