Introduction

At the beginning of passus 1, the dreamer promises to interpret the landscape he beheld in the Prologue: “What this mountaigne bymeneth and the merke dale /And the feld ful of folk, I shal yow faire shewe” [What this mountain signifies, and the dark valley, /And the field full of folk, I will show you well] (1–2). Unsurprisingly, the tower on the mountain represents Truth (God), the dungeon in the dale the Devil, and the field the World. For the poem’s inquisitive dreamer, the allegorical landscape is also a place of departure for the pursuit of moral and spiritual knowledge, and passus 1 introduces us to the first of many interlocutors who will aid him in that pursuit: Holy Church. The dreamer’s dialogue with Holy Church, which I argue is indebted to Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy, transforms Piers Plowman into a philosophical work about the relationship between knowledge, virtue, and salvation.

The subject of the dialogue between the dreamer and Holy Church is value: what is valuable in this life, and what constitutes the highest good? In this dialogue, the dreamer tries to figure out what is most valuable to the soul, what lacks real value, and, how value can be talked about in the first place. Passus 1, which initially takes the form of a dialogue, develops into a sermon on moderation and charity, two of the virtues most praised by the poet. And yet this passus, with its abiding interest in value, also provides an occasion for the poet to flex the philosophical muscle of English poetry. The subject of value – or, what material goods have to do with spiritual goods – turns Holy Church’s sermon into a philosophical dialogue, anticipating the poet’s turn to political philosophy and counsel in B.2–4. Passus 1 asks, what is the true relationship between virtuous behavior and worldly things?