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Dean, James M.
2017.
The Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature in Britain.
p.
1.
Article contents
The Problem of Counsel in Mum and the Sothsegger
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2019
Extract
The two verse fragments edited in 1936 under the title Mum and the Sothsegger have already proved useful to the historian of ideas and institutions. In 1939, Helen M. Cam made very good use of them to illustrate the relation of English members of parliament to their constituencies. More recently, Ruth Mohl, who followed the editors in considering them parts of a single poem, placed them in relation to the more formal aspects of medieval political thought. The usefulness of Mum and the Sothsegger has not, however, been exhausted. Indeed it remains, as both Miss Cam and Miss Mohl found it, a curiously neglected text. And one reason is that it has not been studied for what the author undoubtedly intended it to be, namely a substantial (if not closely knit) and only partially satirical commentary on the problem of counsel.
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References
1 Mum and the Sothsegger, ed. M. Day and R. Steele, Early English Text Society, Original Series 199 (London, 1936). The first of the two fragments edited under the above tide was known for some time and edited by Thomas Wright under the the Richard the Redeless in Political Songs, Rolls Series (1859), i, 368 ff.
2 “The Relation of English members of Parliament to their Constituencies in the Fourteenth Century; a Neglected Text”, originally in L'organisation corporative du Moyen Age à la fin de L'Ancien Régime (Louvain, 1939), III, and reprinted in Liberties and Communities in Medieval England (Cambridge, 1944).
3 “Theories of Monarchy in Mum and the Sothsegger”, PMLA, LXV (1944), 26-44. Miss Cam expresses some doubts on this point (p. 245). For discussion of authorship and date and for biographical data see the editorial introduction, unless otherwise specified.
4 The medieval commentator was cut from pretty much the same cloth as the medieval preacher. See Owst, G. R., Literature and Pulpit in Medieval England (Cambridge, 1923), pp. 210–470.Google Scholar
5 Cf. Bühler, Curt F., “ ‘Wirk alle thyng by conseil’”, Speculum, xxiv (1949), 410–412.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
6 On the “Mirror of Princes” tradition, see Kleineke, Wilhelm, Englische Fürstenspiegel vom Policraticus Johanns von Salisbury bis zum Basilikon Doron König Jakobs I (Halle, 1937)Google Scholar; Gilbert, Allan H., Machiavelli's Prince and its Forerunners (Durham, N. C., 1938)Google Scholar, and “Notes on the Influence of the Secretum Secretorum”, Speculum, iii (1928), 84-98; Secrees of old Philosoffres, ed. Robert Steele, E.E.T.S., E.S. 66 (London, 1894), introduction. Useful bibliographical material may be found in Erasmus, , The Education of a Christian Prince, ed. Born, Lester K. (New York, 1936).Google Scholar
7 Joliffe, J. E. A., The Constitutional History of Medieval England (London, 1937), p. 455.Google Scholar This is not the place for a bibliography on the medieval parliament, but the reader may be interested in the reviews of recent scholarship contained in the following articles: Haskins, G. L., “Parliament in the Later Middle Ages”, American Historical Review, LII (1947), 667–683 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Templeman, G., “The History of Parliament to 1400 in the Light of Modern Research”, University of Birmingham Historical Journal, i (1948), 202–231 Google Scholar; Hoyt, Robert S., “Recent Publication in the United States and Canada on the History of Representative Institutions before the French Revolution”, Speculum, xxix (1954), 356–377.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
8 Joliffe, pp. 455-466. This book contains what is still me best treatment of the council in the period under review. See also Chrimes, S. B., An Introduction to the Administrative History of Medieval England (New York, 1952), p. 245.Google Scholar For the text of such petitions, see, for example, Rotuli Parliamentorum, ii, 322, iii, 221, 585.
9 Chrimes, S. B., English Constitutional Ideas in the Fifteenth Century (Cambridge, 1936), p. 39.Google Scholar
10 E. g., Mirour de l'Omme, in The Complete Works of John Gower, ed. G. C. Macaulay (Oxford, 1899-1902)—hereafter cited as Works—i, lines 22225 ff.; Vox Clamantis, Works, iv, Liber VI, vii, lines 529-532; Confessio Amantis, Works, II, Prologue, lines 157-158; Carmen super multiplici viciorum pestilencia, Works, iv, 346.
11 Langland's concern for good counsel is implicit in, for example, the prologue to the B-text of Piers Plowman, ed. W. W. Skeat (Oxford, 1886).
12 E. g., Thomas Hoccleve, The Regement of Princes, ed. F. J. Furnivall, E.E.T.S., E.S. 121-124 (London, 1918-20), stanza 695.
13 Among the anonymous verse-writers to have something important to say on counsel, the most interesting is the author, probably a cleric, of a number of short poems printed in Twenty-six Political and other Poems, ed. J. Kail, E.E.T.S., O.S. 124 (London, 1904). See especially poems IV, XII, XIII. See also The Crowned King, printed in Piers Plowman, Part iii, ed. W. W. Skeat, E.E.T.S., O.S. 54 (London, 1873), pp. 523 ff.
14 The Governance of England, ed. C. Plummer (Oxford, 1885), pp. 116-157. Fortescue's contemporary, George Ashby, also recognized the problem, but treated it in much less specific terms in The Active Policy of a Prince, ed. M. Bateson, E.E.T.S., E.S. 76 (London, 1899), e.g. lines 807-813.
15 Mum, R, III, lines 260-262.
16 Ibid., R, I, lines 52, 65-71.
17 Ibid., R, II, lines 28-80. See MacFarlane, K. B., “Bastard Feudalism”, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, xx (1945), 161–180 Google Scholar, for excellent background material on the subject of maintenance.
18 E. g., Mirour de l'Omme, lines 23317-23328.
19 Mum, R, III, lines 310-311; R, III, lines 317-342; M, lines 1565-1583.
20 Ibid., R, IV, passim.
21 Ibid., R, IV, lines 13-16.
22 Ibid., R, IV, lines 22-38.
23 Ibid., M, lines 232-276.
24 Ibid., M, line 1224. Cf. lines 1247-1248.
25 Piers Plowman, B, Prol., lines 114-115:
And thanne cam kynde wytte • and clerkes he made,
For to conseille the kyng • and the comune to saue.
Cf. lines 118-120. Cf. also the quite different interpretation made by Huppé, B. F., “The Authorship of the A and B Texts of Piers Plowman ”, Speculum, xxii (1947), 578–620.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
26 Mum, M, lines 29-41.
27 Ibid., M, lines 206-231.
28 Ibid., M, lines 125-128, 232-276.
29 Ibid., M, line 377; cf. line 313.
30 Ibid., M, line 375; cf., line 311.
31 Ibid., M, lines 854-1351.
32 Ibid., R, III, line 267. On the political theory in the poem see the article by Ruth Mohl. It should be remembered, however, that the author of Mum did not speak the formal language of medieval thought. He appears to have been very familiar with the legal machinery, but more from a practical than from a theoretical point of view.
33 Mum, M, lines 1036-1037.
34 Ibid., R, I, lines 9-19.
35 Piers Plowman, B, Prol., line 113. See Mum, introd., p. xvi; cf. R, I, lines 76-79.
36 Ibid., R, I, lines 80-81.
37 Ibid., M, lines 133-138.
38 Ibid., M, lines 1119-1121.
39 Ibid., R, IV, lines 44-52, 80-90.
40 Richardson, H. G., “The Commons and Medieval Politics”, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 4th Series, xxviii (1946), 21–45 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially p. 32; Rot. Pari., iii, 336, 420.
41 Richardson, p. 44.
42 Mum, R, Prol., lines 47-49.
43 Ibid., II, lines 72-74.
44 Ibid., R, II, lines 69-71; M, lines 1270-1272.
45 Ibid., M, lines 745-750.
46 Ibid., M, lines 1457-1462.
47 Ibid., M, lines 1388 ff.
48 Ibid., lines 1408-1412.
49 Ibid., M, lines 135, 1489-1497.
50 Ibid., M, lines 759-762, 1233 ff. An anonymous writer, author of poem IV in Twenty-six Political and other Poems, voices the same feeling that preachers and poets have a duty to advise the ruling class (see especially lines 81-84). See also The Crowned King, in which a “clerk” speaks to the king for the people.
51 Mum, R, Prol., lines 30-31.
52 Ibid., M, lines 1280-1282.
53 Ibid., M, lines 1342-1346.
54 Ibid., M, lines 1343 to end.
55 Ibid., R, Prol., lines 57-63.
56 Ibid., R, Prol., line 49.
57 Ibid., R, III, lines 113 and 119.
58 A. B. Ferguson, “Renaissance Realism in the ‘Commonwealth’ Literature of Early Tudor England”, JHI, xvi (1955).
59 Utopia, Book I.
60 “Treatise concerning the Staple”, Tudor Economic Documents, ed. R. H. Tawney and Eileen Power (London, 1946), iii, 90-114.
61 Discourse of the Commonweal of this Realm of England, ed. E. Lamond (Cambridge, 1893), pp. 104-105.
62 Mum, M, lines 1626-1682.
63 Fortescue, Governance, chs. viii and xiv.
64 See above, n. 47. A contemporary writer expressed this position with classic simplicity in the following lines:
Whanne alle a kyngdom gadrid ysse
In goddis lawe, by on assent,
For to amende that was mysse,
Therefore is ordayned a parlement.
Twenty-six Poems, poem XIII, lines 1-4.
65 Utopia, Book I. For an excellent analysis of More's views on this problem see Hexter, J. H., More's Utopia, the Biography of an Idea (Princeton, 1952).Google Scholar Cf. Starkey, Thomas, A Dialogue between Cardinal Pole and Thomas Lupset, ed. Cowper, J. M., E.E.T.S., E.S. 12 (London, 1872), pp. 2–24.Google Scholar A useful edition in modern English has been made by K. M. Burton (London, 1948).
66 Discourse, p. 11.
67 Men like Cheke, Becon, and Crowley spoke for an administration alarmed by popular uprising in arguing that, although every man ought to work for the good of the country, only those possessing the requisite wisdom and training should be heard on matters of policy: SirCheke, John, The hurt of sedition (London, 1549)Google Scholar, sig. F iii; Becon, Thomas, The Policy of War, ed. Ayre, J., Parker Society (Cambridge, 1843), p. 235 Google Scholar; Crowley, Robert, The Way to Wealth, ed. Cowper, J. M., E.E.T.S., E.S. 15 (London, 1872), p. 131.Google Scholar
68 Tawney and Power, iii, 312-345. Another of several similar examples may be found in the pamphlet Pyers Plowmans ‘Exhortation … (London, 1550?).
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