375 Or a satisfactory stanza of verse.
Not one per cent can make sense of a sentence
Or the letters of a language not Latin or English.
I’m totally certain that schools of all sorts
Are now guided by greed, by Guile and his friend
380 Called Flattery, his follower and fellow tutor,
While doctors and masters in different disciplines,
Who should understand all sorts of subjects,
Would fail a test, if truth were told,
In philosophical and physical science.
385 And it troubles me that priests have taken like those tutors
To skipping bits of services they ought to say.
Yet even though they flounder, our faith will suffice;
As the Corpus Christi song consolingly says,
Faith alone suffices to save simple folk.32
390 “It’s a shame that scholars don’t live as they lecture,
For folk would then fear to offend against God,
And Saracens and Scribes and Jews might be saved,
For Saracens believe much the same as ourselves,
Loving and lauding the Lord God Almighty,
395 So that we and they both worship the One,
Christians, non–Christians acclaiming one God.
“But Mahomet was a Christian whose creed was in error,
Who deceived and misled the Saracens of Syria.
Mahomet had been hoping to be hailed as Pope,
400 And resorted to Syria when he failed, where subtly
He tamed a dove and trained her to take
Corn from his ear, and whenever he came
To a place where he preached among the people,
The dove would descend and stand on his shoulder
405 In the way that he wanted, having bewitched her.
Then folk would fall before him for he swore
That the dove was a herald from heaven on high
Bringing messages from God to be given to men.
Through this telling trick with his tame white dove
410 Mahomet thus introduced heresy in folk,
And both learned and lowly now live by his laws.
“Since our Savior suffered the Saracens to be duped
By a Christian cleric whose soul is now cursed,
For fear of death I dare not indict
415 The dove of Covetousness kept by clergy
In England which tells no more truth than Mahomet.
Anchorites and hermits, and hooded monks and friars
Are the peers of the apostles when their lives are pure,
But the faithful Father would prefer his priests
420 To take no alms from truthless tyrants,
And to follow the bidding of Benedict and Bernard,
Antony and Dominic and Francis, who first33
Taught them that their lodgings and lives should be lowly,
And their alms-givers good, so that grace could grow
425 And send out shoots and feed the sick,
And save them body and soul through the psalms.
If their prayers and penance were proper and sincere,
They would usher in peace between people in dispute:
Ask, and it shall be given you.34
“Housewives will say that salt preserves:
You are the salt of the earth.35
430 And the heads of the Church—if they were holy—
Would be called the salt of souls by Christ.
But if the salt lose its savor, wherewith shall it be salted?36
When salt is deficient, then fresh meat and fish,
Whether baked or boiled, both lack taste.
So it is with the soul that is set no example
435 By priests, who ought to be pointing out the path
Like guides who go with a flag in front
And are models for the many who are marching behind.
If eleven disciples, as it seems, could persuade
The entire population to turn to the Truth,
440 It cannot be so hard when we have such hordes
Of priests and preachers, and the Pope above them,
Who should be the salt that saves men’s souls.
“The whole of England and Wales was heathen
Till Saint Gregory dispatched his people to preach.
445 Augustine at Canterbury christened the king,37
And through miracles, we find, converted the folk
To Christ and Christendom, honoring the cross.
He baptized them by fulling and taught them the Truth,
Revealing its meaning as much and more
450 Through what he did as through words of wisdom,
Defining that fulling as cleansing through faith.
“Cloth from the loom is uncomfortable and coarse
Till it’s tempered by fulling and trodden under foot,
Washed with water, carded and combed,
455 Teased out with teasels and stretched by tailors.
So a child is a heathen without hope of heaven
Or care for the soul until christened in Christ
And further confirmed in the faith by a bishop.
The meaning of heathen is ‘hailing from a heath,’
460 From a wilderness where the wild beasts wander,
Rude and unreasoning, without bridle or rein.
“You remember the man and the feast in Matthew,
When the guests were fed neither venison nor pheasant
But faithful fowls that followed when he whistled:
My beeves and fatlings are killed, and all things are ready?38
465 And he fed the folk that he loved with veal,
Which illustrates innocence and adherence to the law.
As the cow feeds a calf on the milk of its kind,
So love and good faith will feed the faithful,
And as calves long for milk, so maidens and men
470 Who are mild in manner seek mercy and Truth.
The fowls who follow and are fed by hand
Are like folk reluctant to love unless
They are set an example, the same as those fowls
That flocked to a whistle to find their food.
475 So rude men who lack much learning and reason
Can learn none the less to love and believe
From how priests behave and how they speak,
Hoping for heaven by heeding their call,
Like fowls that flock to a whistle for food.
480 The Almighty is the man who makes that feast,
Who gives men bliss through his goodness and grace.
Through storms and wonders he whistles to warn us
Of what he wishes, and to show his good will
And to tell us he’ll feed us and feast us henceforth.
485 “The folk who absent themselves from the feast,
The heads of the Church who have all they hope for
From laborers’ tithes that they take without toil,
Will resent what I say, but I summon in support
Matthew and Mark and Remember David:
Behold we have heard of it in Ephratah.39
490 What pope or prelate now applies Christ’s injunction:
Go ye into the whole world, and preach the gospel?40
Alas that belief in Mahomet still lingers!
And that numerous prelates whom the Pope has appointed
To Nazareth, Nineveh, Nephthali, Damascus,
Don’t go there and preach the Passion to people
495 Till their last hour comes, as Christ decreed,
If they pine for prestige as pastor and preacher:
The good shepherd giveth his life for his sheep.41
For as Christ then said, Saracens and others,
Baptized, unbaptized, could be saved by their teaching:
Go you also into my vineyard.42
And since these Saracens, Scribes and Jews
500 Have a little of our belief, it looks to me simple
To teach them the Trinity and turn them to the Truth:
Seek, and you shall find.43
“For these pagans all pray and perfectly believe
In God and ask him to grant them his grace,
Though hoping to hear his message through Mahomet.
505 Such folk have faith though the medium is false—
A great pity for the people who live there and are pure,
And a threat to the Pope and the prelates he appoints
To Bethlehem or Babylon as titular bishops.
“When the High King of heaven sent his son to earth,
510 He converted folk by performing wonders,
Showing by example that the way to be saved
Lay in gaining his grace and the mercy granted
Through penance and pain and perfect belief.
He was born of a maid and was made a man,
515 A bishop baptizing and blessing with his blood
Those who sought sincerely to accept the faith.
Many saints have since then suffered and died,
Proclaiming and encouraging the faith in countries
As scattered as India, Alexandria and Spain,
520 Armenia and more, and many have been martyred.
Saint Thomas à Becket was brutally butchered
In a Christian country protecting the cause
Of Christ and the law of all Christian lands.
His heroism honors the Church in the highest,
525 He’s the best and the brightest model for bishops,
Superior to the prelates appointed to Syria,
Who hop about England blessing odd altars,
Unofficially hearing confessions from folk:
If thou go into thy friend’s corn, thou mayest not reap with a sickle.44
Many more were martyred among the Romans
530 Before the cross of Christ was revered.45
“It is wretched to read how the righteous once lived,
Scourging their flesh and forsaking their desires,
Going clothed in rags far from kith and kin,
With barely a bed and no book but their conscience,
535 No wealth but the cross of Christ for comfort:
God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord.46
The poor and the rich then had plenty and peace,
But currently we read that the cross on coins
Is accorded more respect than the cross of Christ,
Which subjugated death and deadly sin,
540 And the reason why there is war and woe
Is the greed for the cross engraved on gold crowns:
Among both clergy and men with money
The cross that is honored is only on coins.
But the churchmen who crave and covet that cross
545 Will soon be destroyed the same as the Templars.47
Have the erudite not heard how the Templars honored
Not Truth but their treasure? I dare not give details,
But the judgment was right and correctly reasoned.
Before long you churchmen will likewise lose
550 Your pomp and place for your pride and greed:
He hath put down the mighty from their seat.48
If common conscience, you bishops, combines
With native wit and knighthood, you soon will need
To surrender your lordship of lands and live
By the law like Levites, as the Lord proclaimed:
From tithes and first-fruits.49
555 “When Constantine kindly accorded to the Church
Lands and lordships and laborers and rents,
An angel was heard on high in Rome
Regretting that the gift was as good as venom
And would poison the popes empowered by Saint Peter.
560 The right thing for prelates who should pray for peace
Is for lords to relieve them of the lands they possess
And to let them live on their tithes alone.
For if property is poison and makes them impure,
It would benefit the Church to unburden their backs
565 And to purge them of the poison and its lasting peril.
If the priesthood were perfect, the people who despise
And infringe Christ’s law would then fully reform.
“Every bishop who bears a cross is obliged
To be visible in person as he visits his flock,
570 And to teach them belief in the Trinity and Truth,
To feed the starving and sustain them with the spirit.
Isaiah and Hosea both speak of this, saying
That a bishop should have and should offer to the hungry
Both spiritual food and physical food:
In my house there is no bread, nor clothing: make me not ruler of the people,50
575 And Hosea says of the sick and feeble:
Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in my house.51
We Christian creatures who believe in the cross,
Heaven forfend that our faith should then falter
If the clergy were to keep us and our children constant!
“The Jews also live by the law of th
e Lord,
580 Who set it in stone to stand for ever:
Love God and your neighbor is a good Jewish notion,
Which Moses was to spread, preceding the Messiah;
They still keep to that code, which they count as the best.
Yet they cannot deny they acknowledged Christ
585 As a perfect prophet who cured many people
Of assorted diseases, and often they saw
His miracles and feats such as feeding two fish
And five loaves to no less than five thousand folk,
Which surely showed that he was the Messiah.
590 He lifted up Lazarus, lying in his grave,
Entombed and stinking, by telling him simply:
Lazarus, come forth.52
He raised and paraded him right before their eyes,
But the Jews cried sorcery, swearing it was so,
And studied to destroy him, but destroyed themselves,
595 For his patience impeded and vanquished their power:
The patient shall conquer.
“Daniel had already predicted their doom:
When the holy of holies comes, ye shall cease to be anointed.53
And still they consider him a pseudo-prophet,
And scorn his teaching, saying it’s deceit,
Still longing for a leader to deliver and release them,
600 A Messiah or maybe Moses once more.
Yet the Pharisees and Scribes, and Saracens besides,
And the Greeks as well, worship one God,
And since the Saracens and Jews can all say
The very first clause of our profession of faith—
I believe in God, the Father Almighty—54
605 The prelates of Christian provinces should pair
That clause with the second: And in Jesus Christ his only Son,
And teach them little by little till they take
To the third line also, And in the Holy Ghost,
And further on to the Forgiveness of sins,
610 And finally the Resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.
Amen.”
1Saint Peter, who keeps the keys of heaven, and Saint Paul, martyred with the sword.
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