Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- 1 Introduction: Bodies, Fluidity, and Change
- PART 1 TRANSFORMATIVE AND MANIPULATIVE TEARS
- 2 Where Did Margery Kempe Cry?
- 3 Elusive Tears: Lamentation and Impassivity in Fifteenth-century Passion Iconography
- 4 Catherine’s Tears: Diplomatic Corporeality, Affective Performance, and Gender at the Sixteenth-century French Court
- PART 2 IDENTITIES IN BLOOD
- 5 Piers Plowman and the Blood of Brotherhood
- 6 Performative Asceticism and Exemplary Effluvia: Blood, Tears, and Rapture in Fourteenth-century German Dominican Literature
- 7 “Bloody Business:” Passions and Regulation of Sanguinity in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth and King Lear
- PART 3 BODIES AND BLOOD IN LIFE, DEATH, AND RESURRECTION
- 8 Saintly Blood: Absence, Presence, and the Alter Christus
- 9 The Treatment of the Body in Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp
- 10 Augustine on the Flesh of the Resurrection Body in the De fide et symbolo: Origen, Manichaeism, and Augustine’s Developing Thought Regarding Human Physical Perfection
- Select Bibliography
- Index
5 - Piers Plowman and the Blood of Brotherhood
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- 1 Introduction: Bodies, Fluidity, and Change
- PART 1 TRANSFORMATIVE AND MANIPULATIVE TEARS
- 2 Where Did Margery Kempe Cry?
- 3 Elusive Tears: Lamentation and Impassivity in Fifteenth-century Passion Iconography
- 4 Catherine’s Tears: Diplomatic Corporeality, Affective Performance, and Gender at the Sixteenth-century French Court
- PART 2 IDENTITIES IN BLOOD
- 5 Piers Plowman and the Blood of Brotherhood
- 6 Performative Asceticism and Exemplary Effluvia: Blood, Tears, and Rapture in Fourteenth-century German Dominican Literature
- 7 “Bloody Business:” Passions and Regulation of Sanguinity in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth and King Lear
- PART 3 BODIES AND BLOOD IN LIFE, DEATH, AND RESURRECTION
- 8 Saintly Blood: Absence, Presence, and the Alter Christus
- 9 The Treatment of the Body in Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp
- 10 Augustine on the Flesh of the Resurrection Body in the De fide et symbolo: Origen, Manichaeism, and Augustine’s Developing Thought Regarding Human Physical Perfection
- Select Bibliography
- Index
Summary
“Is that Iesus the ioustare,” quod Y, “that Iewes dede to dethe?
Or is hit Peres the Plouhman! Who paynted hym so rede?”
Quod Conscience, and knelede tho. “This aren [his] armes–
His colours and his cote armure; ac he that cometh so blody
Is Crist with his croes, conquerour of Cristene.”
(“Is that Jesus the jouster” I said, “whom the Jews put to death?
Or is it Piers the Plowman? Who painted him so red?”
Then Conscience said, kneeling down, “These are his arms,
His colors and his coat of arms; but the one who comes so bloody
Is Christ with his cross, conqueror of Christians.”) (C.21.10– 14)
This excerpt from William Langland's great poem, Piers Plowman, graphically illuminates the title of this chapter. The blood of brotherhood as portrayed in the poem springs from the human blood embodied in the divine person, Jesus Christ, who, at his Incarnation, took on the flesh and blood of human nature while maintaining his godhead. “Peres the Plouhman”— Piers the Plowman— has many manifestations within the poem, but overall, he appears as the human representative of Christ who, in the above quotation, is said to be wearing Piers's “cote armure,” a metaphor for Christ's human form. The scene derives from the biblical narrative of the Passion, and shows Jesus on his way to crucifixion on Calvary. In Christian teaching, the Passion and death of Jesus seal and validate his humanity which he shares with his blood brothers— the rest of humanity. I will argue that, in Langland's scheme, the concept of “blody bretherne”— blood brotherhood between one human being and another— derives its strength and significance from being associated with the blood of Christ. For Wille, the poem's visionary protagonist, a long and tortuous life's journey spent trying to discover “How Y may saue my soule” (How I may save my soul) (C.1.80), leads to the practical understanding that salvation comes, not by human efforts, but by participating fully in the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist, both of which are intimately connected with the shedding of Christ's blood.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Fluid Bodies and Bodily Fluids in Premodern EuropeBodies, Blood, and Tears in Literature, Theology, and Art, pp. 75 - 92Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2019