¹ Quotations from and references to Piers Plowman are from the following editions: Piers Plowman: The A Version, ed. G. Kane (London 1960); Piers Plowman: The B Version, edd. G. Kane and E. Talbot Donaldson (London 1975); Piers Plowman by William Langland: An Edition of the C Text, ed. D. Pearsall (London 1978.)Google Scholar

² An error made most recently by Benson, C. D., who interprets Simony and Civil as allegorisations of ‘those who corrupt both the secular and ecclesiastical law’ (‘The Function of Lady Meed in Piers Plowman,’ English Studies 61 [1980] 195).Google Scholar

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⁷⁵ The continual charges of the prominence of civil lawyers in the ecclesiastical hierarchy were not simply the paranoid ravings of disappointed theologians. A civilian could well be destined for a brilliant career on the episcopal bench. An examination of the academic background of English bishops in the mid- and late-fourteenth century reveals a substantial number with civil law backgrounds. Of the five Archbishops of Canterbury who held the see between 1348 and 1374, three held civil law qualifications. Offord, John (1348–49) was a doctor of civil law; Islip, Simon (1349–66) and Whittlesey, William (1368–74) were doctors of both laws. Most of the other bishops had some background at least in civil law. Lenn, William (Chichester, 1362–68) was LL.D.; Charlton, Lewis (Hereford, 1361–69), D.C.L.; Harewell, John (Bath, 1366–86), B.C.L.; Courtenay, William (Hereford, 1369–75; London, 1375–81), D.C.L., doctor decretorum; Dispenser, Henry (Norwich, 1370–1406), B.C.L.; Thoresby, John (Worcester, 1350–52; York, 1352–73), B.C.L.; Brian, Reginald (Worcester, 1352–61), B.C.L.; Barnet, John (Worcester, 1362–63; Ely, 1366–73), B.C.L.; Zouche, William (York, 1340–52), B.C.L.; Neville, Alexander (York, 1374–88), scholar of civil law; Gynwell, John (Lincoln, 1347–52) studied civil law at Oxford; Northburgh, Michael (London, 1354–61), LL.D.; Trilleck, Thomas (Rochester, 1365–72), licentiate in canon and civil law; Erghum, Ralph (Salisbury, 1375–88), LL.D.; Houghton, Adam (St. David's, 1362–99), LL.D.; Stretton, Robert (Coventry and Lichfield, 1358–85), LL.D. (‘it is said’); Orleton, Adam († 1345), ‘utriusque iuris peritus,’ D.C.L.: the civil law element, then, was much in evidence among the bishops during Langland's lifetime, which tends to reflect the fact that many were civil servants first and the descendants of the apostles second. (Information derived from DNB and Emden, A.B., A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford to A.D. 1500 [Oxford 1957–59], and A Biographical Register of the University of Cambridge to 1500 [Oxford 1963].)Google Scholar

⁷⁶ Ed. J. H. Todd (Camden Society; London 1842) 73.Google Scholar

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⁷⁹ Holmes, G., The Good Parliament (Oxford 1975) 167.Google Scholar

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