Authorising English: Power & Textual Practice 1400-1560

Name David Jones

Module Tutor David Griffith

Question “Voices of rebellion or disruption in medieval literature may be

given their say, but they are always gathered back into a scheme
of religious or social order” How far would you agree?

Title The Dissenting Voice In Medieval Literature

MHRA Citation
David Jones Authorising English: Power & Textual Practice 1400 – 1560 Essay
Ideology and the Dissenting Voice in Medieval Literature

October 2002

Ideology & the Dissenting Voice in Medieval

Literature

‘Eythyr thow hast the Holy Gost or ellys thow hast a devyl wythin the’
(The Book of Margery Kempe l.632)

Medieval literature is full of ambiguous voices that can be interpreted as endorsing or

attacking the institutional church, the prevailing social order. This essay will
demonstrate the truth of the question statement by analysing two very different texts,
the morality play Mankind and the devotional autobiography The Book of Margery
Kempe. It will contend, however, that the extent to which we can locate dissenting
voices, and the extent to which they are reigned back in, is hugely varied and
surprisingly difficult to predict in terms of genre. It will demonstrate that, equally
surprisingly, the morality play contains stronger voices of rebellion and disruption,
which are reigned in less extensively, making it a more subversive text than The Book
of Margery Kempe. First, the construction of ideology in these texts will be identified.
Secondly, the way in which voices of rebellion and disruption are ‘given their say’
will be examined. Lastly, the essay will discuss the ways in which dissenting voices
are ‘gathered back into a scheme of religious or social order’.
The investigation of dissenting voices in these texts first requires us to
establish their construction of conventional ideologies, ideologies that enforce the
social norms against which dissent is possible. This dominant voice in both texts is
that of the institutional church and its doctrine. Mankind and The Book of Margery
Kempe are primarily what Benveniste refers to as ‘imperative’ texts1. They aim to
establish and enforce church doctrine in the actions of the reader or audience by using
it, as Margery puts it, ‘for ower exampyl and instruccyon’ (Staely 1996, l.6-7).
Mankind, a Morality Play, is obviously more explicitly didactic than The Book
of Margery Kempe. Its express purpose is to propagate the ‘desirable’ parts of the
dominant social order, so that the audience performs their ‘obsequyouse servyce’ (l.5)
to God. Its basic structure of temptation, fall and redemption is generic, and contains
similar themes to subsequent morality plays such as Everyman; the transitory nature

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Ideology and the Dissenting Voice in Medieval Literature

of worldly life (‘Prykne not yowr felycytes in things transitory’ l.30) and the
importance of the spiritual rather than the worldly (‘Beholde not þe Erth, but lyfte
yowr ey wppe’ l.31). Interestingly, Mercy’s opening ‘premedytacyon’ (l.44) is very
similar to a much later piece of orthodox Christian doctrine, Paradise Lost. Neither
text refers to God or to the Fall directly, but by using deictic constructions:

‘The very Fownder and Begynner of owr fyrst creacyon’ (Mankind l.1)
‘one greater Man/Restore us’ (Paradise Lost l.4-5)

‘for owr dysobedyence He hade non indygnacyon’ (Mankind l.3)

‘Of man’s disobedience, and the fruit/Of that forbidden tree’ (Paradise Lost ll.1-
2)

This is a naturalising linguistic strategy that emphasises orthodoxy. Though we have

barely entered the text, the audience/reader is required to look outside it to events that
they are expected to know (‘that forbidden tree’); they are referred to the ‘universal’
overarching discourse of orthodox Christianity. The almost immediate recourse to
intertextuality informs the audience that the play will follow the narrative pattern of
the Fall, as this is the only direction that a series of actions incorporating temptation
can take.
Just before Mankind enters, Mercy uses another naturalisation strategy to
enforce the idea that the only ‘right’ path is an orthodox Christian one. He dismisses
his own role as unneeded, as being self-evident: “I nede not to speke of yt” then
immediately returns to logic: “reson wyll tell yt yow” (l.184). He then places
synonyms in different tenses as object and subject in the same clause - ‘take/taken’
and ‘leave/refused’ in ‘Take þat ys to be takyn and leue þat ys to be refusyde’ (l.185).
If a subject is obviously identical to its synonym, then the orthodox path Mercy
describes must be equally obvious. He seems to intimate that his message is beyond
language, unutterable and incommensurable2 (Margery does something similar when
she explains the inadequacy of words to express the message God has sent her: “sche
myth nevyr expressyn it wyth her word lych as sche felt it in hyr sowle” ll.47-48).
These strategies fulfil Althusser's definition of the workings of ideology3, as
they ‘discourage a full understanding of these conditions of existence and the ways in
which people are socially constituted within them’ (in Belsey 2002, 53). Mankind’s
audience is easier to pin down than that of The Book of Margery Kempe, and it is
therefore much easier to identify its workings as a piece of Ideological State

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Ideology and the Dissenting Voice in Medieval Literature

Apparatus. It was clearly intended for a broad audience, as references to the higher
class members as ‘soverens’ (l.29) and elaborate Latinate expressions indicate, but
these contrast with the main audience, who must align themselves with the anxieties
of the eponymous agricultural labourer. As a didactic piece of folk tradition,
performed in the same way as mummings, Mankind serves as a precursor to the
education system, which Althusser regarded as the foremost ISA (Belsey 2002, 54).
The play educates those who do not have a formal education. It inculcates the
audience into the dominant version of appropriate behaviour.
Surprisingly, The Book Of Margery Kempe, despite being the autobiography of a
figure at odds with her society, also situates itself firmly within the doctrines of the
institutional church. Margery constantly asserts the value of her controversial insights
by referring to the support of a minority of clerics who appreciate her true importance
and even validate the writing of the Book:

Summe of these worthy and worshepful clerkys tokyn it in perel of her sowle
and as thei wold answer to God that this creatur was inspired wyth the Holy
Gost and bodyn hyr that sche schuld don hem wryten and makyn a booke of hyr
felyngys and hir revelacyons’ (ll.57-60).

This starkly contrasts other female devotional writers. Julian of Norwich, as an

anchorite, is determined to cut herself off from the rest of society and establish such a
direct line of communication to God that ‘All that was beside the crosse was oglye
and ferfull to me’, so that when she speaks to God she ‘conceived truly and mightly
that it was himselfe that shewed it me without anie mene’ (Pearsall 1999, 298). In this
vein, we can perhaps see Margery’s non-conformity as what Chomsky would regard
as an act of ‘fixing the limits of expression’ – demonstrating the margins of the
existing social order to obscure ideas about the destruction of that order itself. That
Margery has decided to “forsake the world” (l.117) serves to reinforce the nature of
the ‘real’ world from which she is detached, not erase it as Julian does.
The first chapter of Margery’s book is almost a morality play in microcosm,
and one that actually contains less subversive potential than the real morality plays.
Margery is tempted, Vices come to her whom she follows and therefore falls, and
(incorrectly) assuming that is she is about to die and go to hell, she is absolved of her
sins. Here Margery is less subversive than Mankind as she investigates the nature of
redemption rather than the nature of sin. Her great sin, the confession of which is

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Ideology and the Dissenting Voice in Medieval Literature

particularly difficult, is repeatedly mentioned but tantalisingly never revealed beyond

being ‘sche had a thyng in conscyens whech sche had nevyr schewyd beforn that tyme
in alle hyr lyfe’ (ll.135-6). Where in Mankind vice provides the central dramatic
energy, Margery mentions the devil indirectly (l.136). Her demons are not appealing,
like initial impressions of Mankind’s vices, but utterly destructive:

develys opyn her mowthys al inflaumyd wyth brennyng lowys of fyr as thei
schuld a swalwyd hyr in, sumtyme rampyng at hyr, sumtyme thretyng her,
sumtym pullyng hyr and halyng hir bothe nygth and day duryng the forseyd
tyme’
(ll.150-153).

These demons ask Margery to reject identical virtues to those condemned by the vices
in Mankind and Everyman: ‘goode werkys and alle good vertues’ (ll.155-6).
The similar ideals established in the texts are further enforced by the way in
which both use ‘homiletic’ language (Forest-Hill 2000, 87), that is, sermon-style
preaching with direct reference to Biblical texts. Mercy’s sermons have been seen by
various critics as overly-formal and dull in contrast to those of the Vices, but this may
be an anachronistic stance. His homiletic verse, with its restrained use of an ababbcbc
form, may have been regarded by a contemporary audience as a clear signifier of
authority. Mankind certainly finds Mercy’s rhetoric beautiful: ‘O, yowr louely wordys
to my soull are swetere þen hony’ (l.225). He allows this verse to construct himself
when he is virtuous: “my soull ys well scyatt / Wyth þe mellyfluose doctryne of þis
worschyppful man (l.312). The Book of Margery Kempe is also strongly homiletic.
Staley points out that only God uses direct speech, with Margery acting as a conduit
between God and the scribe (1994, 35)4. The over-arching moral in both texts is a
homiletic one, the idea that dissenters must ‘undyrstondyn the hy and unspecabyl
mercy of ower sovereyn Savyowr Cryst Jhesu’ (ll.2-3).
Enforcing Biblical doctrine serves a social purpose in Mankind, discouraging
ideas of class mobility. Although on a surface level the play is about the universal
leveller of death, which will affect the complete social spectrum of the audience: “O
ye soverens þat sytt and ye brothern þat stonde ryght uppe” (l.29), the narrative
pattern actually endorses a rigidly divided social order5. Mankind’s attempt to
abandon his predestined agricultural lifestyle, symbolically throwing away his spade,
comes at the pinnacle of his fall. John Watkins has gone as far as to suggest that the

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Morality Plays enforce conventional social distinctions in order to quell emerging

revolutionary thought: “the more demographic and economic conditions allowed
subordinate groups to raise their wages, improve their terms of tenantry, and heighten
their overall standard of living, the more they could think of themselves as existing
apart from a predetermined social structure” (2000, 767-8). The Book of Margery
Kempe does not share this enforcing of class distinctions. Aside from the anchorites, if
any medieval writer embodied Watkins’ feeling of ‘existing apart from a
predetermined social structure’ Margery Kempe must certainly be it. She regards her
spirituality as placing herself above and beyond the class system, and thus perfectly
able to talk down to her social superiors (more on which later).
Having established the conventional voices in Mankind and the Book of
Margery Kempe, we are now in a position to identify how the ‘voices of rebellion or
disruption’ described in the question-statement are ‘given their say’. A parallel
between Mankind and Paradise Lost has already been established, and the central
hermeneutic question at the centre of the latter, a question that has been the source of
much scholarly debate, is also at the centre of the debate over dissenting voices in
Mankind. Why is vice made so appealing?
It would seem that the play is deliberately subversive, attacking high culture by
making vice more appealing than Mercy. When Mischief appears he takes the abstract
metaphors that Mercy has been preaching, about corn and chaff, and drags them down
to the level of specific action, presenting an attractive suggestion for activity rather
than rhetoric: ‘leue yowr calcacyon / Leue yowr chaffe, leue yowr corn, leue yowr
dalyacyon.’ (ll.45-46). The Vice’s dancing is a visual spectacle, at odds with Mercy’s
words. Newguise and Nowaday’s whipping Nought is a far-cry from Everyman’s
solemn self-flagellation. Mischief’s subversion of Mercy’s proverb ‘the corn xall be
sauyde, þe chaffe xall be brente’ (l.43) proverb is extremely subversive:

And he prouyth nay, as yt schewth be þis werse:

Corn seruit bredibus, chaffe horsibus, straw fyrybusque.
Thys ys as moche to say, to yowr leude wndyrstondynge,
As þe corn xall serue to drede at þe nexte bakynge.
Chaff horsybus et reliqua
(ll.56-60)

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He points out that there is room, if not a necessity, for chaff (it feeds horses). What
Mercy defines as the undesirable and evil elements of the world are in fact necessary
parts of its working. This makes Mercy’s reply seem hopelessly pompous, describing
his own teaching as ‘delectable’ (l.65). The word derives from the Latin for ‘delight’,
but what is delightful about Mercy’s sermon on punishment and death? Mischief’s
story, mischievously enough, is far more delightful. The Vices have a maxim which
demonstrates that they are far more suited to the performance medium of the play than
Mercy’s sermons are: “Lett ws be mery wyll we be here!” (l.77). There is strong
economic evidence that the appeal of the play lies in its vice. Collection boxes come
out immediately prior to the much-hyped entrance of Titivillus, the greatest demon.
Wearing an elaborate costume he is clearly a major draw.
The Vices are, of course, precursors of the figures prevalent during Carnivals,
especially Titivillus whose rhetoric “Ego sum dominantium dominus” (l.475) marks
him out as a Lord of Misrule. In their call for chaos, the end of physical labour, sexual
deviancy and the abuse their social superiors, the Vices fulfil the Carnivalesque
concept of turning the existing social order on its head. However, the subversive
potential of these ideas may be limited. Historian Peter Burke emphasises that
medieval peasantry were not interested in changing the fabric of their society, and
treated the carnival ideas as pure fantasy (1994, 182). After a performance, as after a
Carnival, normal social balance would be restored.
Vice is necessary, it would seem, because orthodox Christian doctrine
demands a split self. Mankind’s opening lines reveal that this split is his greatest
struggle:

My name ys Mankynde. I haue my composycyon

Of a body and of a soull, of condycyon contrarye.
Betwyx hem tweyn ys a grett dyvisyon
(ll.194-196)

Several classic Freudian symbols are readily apparent. Mercy often symbolises the
super ego: he is austere, moralistic, embodies the values and doctrines of the dominant
social order and is overwhelmingly patriarchal, Mankind’s ‘seemly father’. Mankind
internalises Mercy’s words to use as a moral code, Mercy says that Mankind ‘sett my
wordys in herte’ (l.259). The Vices symbolise the voice of the unconscious, the id.
They are chaotic, animalistic (‘þei be wers þen bestys’ l.165) and obsessed with sex.

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Most notably, they speak to Mankind in dreams, when Titivillus fulfils Satan’s role by
whispering in his ear. The Vices stress their necessity by enforcing the idea that good
and evil are inextricably linked: ‘Gode brynge yow, master, blyssyde Mary / to þe
number of þe demonycall frayry!’ (ll.152-153), they are as much a part of Mankind as
virtue.
The Vices are especially subversive when they mock Latin, the language of
institutional authority. They identify it with aloofness and spurious power. Newguise
mockingly responding to Mercy’s proverbs: “Ey, ey! yowr body ys full of Englysch
Laten” (l.124). It is aligned with the pointless abstractions of scholarly thought: “Now
opyn yowr sachell wyth Laten wordys / Ande sey me þis in clerycall manere!” Latin
is relocated in a base context, putting a “Pravo te” (l.126) into the mouth of a helpless
butcher when Newguise steals a leg of mutton (implying the language has little
practical application). Latin is no longer the tool of spiritual dignity but just another
vehicle for insults in the Vice’s scattalogical discourse: “Osculare fundamentum!”
(l.142)6.
Nonsense is a powerful weapon for the Vices. It throws into question the real
meaning and power of Mercy’s elevated rhetoric. For many of the audience, Mercy’s
declarations such as ‘Dominus custodit te ab omni malo / In nominee Patris, et Filii,
et Spiritus Sancti’ (ll.909-1) would make little more sense than Mischief’s nonsense-
rhyme: ‘Mysse-masche, dryff-draff, / Sume was corn and sume was chaffe, / My
dame seyde my name was Raffe; / Onschett yowr lokke and take an halpenye’. (ll.49-
52). By demonstrating that Latin can be used as doggerel, the Vices succeed in
debasing Mercy’s invocation of the language in the assumption that it will naturally
elevate his argument. Margery also condemns Latin, though it is a far smaller theme
in her book. When she is under arrest for Lollardy, she defies her captors attempt to
belittle her by speaking in Latin: “Spekyth Englysch, yf yow lyketh, for I undyrstonde
not what ye sey." (ll.2650-2651) Nought leaves Mercy with a prayer, “I prey Gode
gyf yow now goode nyght!” (l.161). This is the ultimate example of Vice
appropriating orthodox language in order to subvert it, making Christianity a byword
for insincerity7. Their ‘ydyll language’ (l.143) is capable of debasing Mercy’s ‘few
and well sett’ words (l.102). This attack on clerical hierarchies certainly has overtone
of Lollardy, but in reality orthodox Lollards would probably have regarded the
recreation of God and heavenly beings onstage as a form of idolatry.

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Ideology and the Dissenting Voice in Medieval Literature

Margery Kempe’s social activity is also subversive to an extent that led to

Lollardy accusations. She is constantly condemned for her devotional behaviour:
“Sche was so usyd to be slawndred and repreved, to be cheden and rebuked of the
world for grace and vertu wyth whech sche was indued thorw the strength of the Holy
Gost that it was to her in a maner of solas and comfort whan sche sufferyd any dysese
for the lofe of God and for the grace that God wrowht in hyr” (ll.33-37). The dramatic
power of her story derives from an archetypal pattern of minority emancipation: “ther
was so mech obloquie and slawndyr of this creatur that ther wold fewe men beleve his
creatur” (ll.124-125). Margery is subversive because she feels that she is above and
beyond the contemporary social order, “Not dredyng the schamys and the spytys of
the wretchyd world” (l.248). Like Mankind the world is merely a transitory stop on
the journey to heaven. Julian of Norwich advises her: “Settyth al yowr trust in God
and feryth not the langage of the world” (ll.983-4) and when the Bishop of Lincoln
turns down Margery’s request to wear white clothes God tells her that he “dredyth
mor the schamys of the world than the parfyt lofe of God” (ll.804-5).
Most importantly Margery treats her social superiors as equals or inferiors,
from various ecclesiasts and the Mayor of Leceister even to Lord Arundel. Here the
church is not an institution interested in the spiritual, but a worldly corruption entirely
at odds with Margery’s spiritual individualism. Using the direct voice of God, she
authorises herself to attack authority figures: “Drede the nowt, dowtyr, for thow schalt
have the vyctory of al thin enmys. I schal geve the grace inow to answer every clerke
in the love of God” (ll.384-5). She defines herself as superior to a monk “whech bar
gret office” (l.854). Her powerful preaching sways this monk’s negative opinion, and
he comes to confide in her. God tells Margery that his sins are “in letchery, in dyspeyr,
and in kepyng of wordly good”. God’s words are then repeated verbatim by Margery.
The repetition of this list stresses the ecclesiasts corruption. It also echoes, and
therefore absolves, Margery’s own attempted adultery and materialism when she was
first married. The scribe elevates the importance of another figure so as to emphasise
Margery’s importance when he comes for her advice: “So an eld monk, whech had
ben tresowrer wyth the Qwen whyl he was in seculer clothyng, a riche man, and gretly
dred of mech pepyl, toke hir be the hand, seying unto hir, "What kanst thow seyn of
God?"” (ll.625-7)

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Ideology and the Dissenting Voice in Medieval Literature

In contrast to Margery’s individualism, these important figures are surrounded

by sinful others who detract them from their task. The Bishop of Lincoln stands in
God’s way when “This cawse he feyned thorw cownsel of hys clerkys, for thei lovyd
not this creatur” (ll.812-813). When she meets Archbishop Arundel, the most
significant figure of her day, especially in relation to the suppression of dissenting
voices, he is also surrounded by sinful advisors: “wer many of the Erchebysshoppys
clerkys and other rekles men bothe swyers and yemen whech sworyn many gret othis
and spokyn many rekles wordys” (ll.819-21). As is the Bishop in Bristol. Arundel is
willing to listen to her terms, and authorises her position outside the economic system:
“he grawnt it her ful benyngly all hir desyr wythowtyn any sylver er gold, ne he wold
latyn hys clerkys takyn anythyng for wrytyn ne for seelyng of the lettyr” (ll.831-33).
This serves as a simultaneously authoritarian and anti-authoritan strategy. Margery
legitimises her non-conformity by couching it inside the approval of the strongest
conformist figure in the country: “he fond no defawt therin but aprevyd hir maner of
levyng . . . Ful benyngly and mekely he suffred hir to sey hir entent” (ll.838-845).
Margery’s disruptive voice preaches that an ordinary person can be closer to
God’s world than even the highest figures of the institutional church. She offers the
possibility of closer connection to Jesus through mysticism rather than church
doctrine, being married to him (embodied by her ring) and by his interventions as a
father figure. Her white clothes are a dual symbol of her holiness and her non-
conformity. That an ordinary person, rather than an ecclesiast, could hold God’s true
word is enormously subversive and hugely reminiscent of the Lollardy of which she is
accused. She is courting real danger, demonstrated by the various threats that she
endures: “Thow schalt be brent, fals lollare” (ll.649-50). She is defended to the reader
by being framed inside the words of the scribe, who defends her: “alle other that went
wyth hir forsokyn hir, and ful falsly thei accusyd hir thorw temptacyon of the devyl of
thyngys that sche was nevyr gylty in” (ll.741-2). Margery entirely disrupts the status
quo, to the extent than when she enters York (Chapter 54) the authorities are prepared
to do anything simply to persuade her to leave.
Having established the dissenting voices in the two texts, it is clear
nonetheless that they are indeed ‘always gathered back into a scheme of religious or
social order’. Returning to the Paradise Lost comparison, if Vice is made surprisingly
over-appealing then it can be seen to fulfil the same function as in Milton’s play – a

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David Jones Authorising English: Power & Textual Practice 1400 – 1560 Essay
Ideology and the Dissenting Voice in Medieval Literature

warning of how easy it is to be tempted into sin. As Forest-Hill puts it: “‘Entertaining
displays of transgressive language by evil and corrupted characters . . . may set up
tensions for the audience as their awareness of vice conflicts with with their
enjoyment of the verbal transgression” (2000, 87). The audience are drawn into
physically sinning themselves, by joining in with a song that ironically corrupts the
word holy: ‘Holyoke, holyoke, holyoke!’ (l.343). The Vices comment on the
audience’s complicity: ‘Her ys a schrewde sorte’ (l.80).
This theory does not deny the subversive potential of the play, merely that it is
limited by the use of an orthodox Christian frame as closure. The audience gradually
realises that the Vices are detestable as their behaviour becomes less comic and
increasingly destructive, from the realisation that their games could break Nought’s
neck onwards. Their violent imagery crescendos as the play progresses: ‘þe Deull put
out both yowr eyn!’ (l.156). This culminates in a (false) piece of unification ideology,
which claims that the laziness that Mankind has developed will inevitably lead to
murder: ‘robbe, stell, and kyll’ (l.708). Ashley sums up this position: ‘Mercy’s words
frame the drama; the audience is not allowed to think what it will about the play
because Mercy, mediating between audience and drama at two crucial points, sets up
the governing interpretation of the action’ (1975, 130).
Margery is not reigned in by the implications of closure as her story is not a
chronological narrative, she recounts events “not in ordyr as it fellyn but as the creatur
cowd han mend of hem whan it wer wretyn” (ll.116-117). However Margery’s voice
cannot be truly rebellious as it is constructed through preceding discourses –
individual expression is tempered through an inter-textual frame. There has been
extensive critical coverage of Margery’s position in the tradition of female devotional
writing, and the way in which she aligns herself with the anchorites and Preaching
Friars. Generic constrictions make her more of an exemplum than a character. She
situates herself firmly as a female mystic, a conventionally unconventional figure
whose main purpose is to speak orthodox Christian doctrine: “rygth as I spak to Seynt
Bryde ryte so I speke to the, dowtyr, and I telle the trewly it is trewe every word that
is wretyn in Brides boke, and be the it schal be knowyn for very trewth.” (ll.1089-91).
Less well covered is the way in which Margery’s dissenting voice is reigned
into archetypes of sinning women. In the first Chapter, as a consequence of her sin
Margery ties herself into a ready-established tradition of female self-harm:

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Ideology and the Dissenting Voice in Medieval Literature

sche bot hir owen hand so vyolently that it was seen al hir lyfe aftyr. And also
sche roof hir skyn on hir body agen hir hert wyth hir nayles spetowsly, for sche
had noon other instrumentys
(ll.161-163)

This has strong echoes of the behaviour of Queen Herodis in Sir Orfeo, after she has
succumbed to the temptation offered in a similar evil vision to Margery’s:

She froted her honden and hir feet

And crached her visage – it bled wete.
Hir riche robe hie all to-rett
…Thy body, that was so white y-core,
With thine nails is all to-tore!
(ll.55-57, 81-82 in Sands 1984, 188-189)

Both use their fingernails, symbols of femininity, to harm themselves because it is

their only “instrument”. Their struggle for individuality is thus reigned in
by their powerlessness, enforcing the over-arching nature of patriarchy.
Margery does supercede her literary predecessor in finding another instrument
however – her writing herself. Yet this is perhaps the most reigned-in element of all.
Her individualism is tempered by the surrender of her self-determination to God’s
will. As mentioned earlier, Margery is frst and foremost a conduit between God’s
word and what the scribe writes down. Her role is to “thynk swych thowtys as I wyl
putt in thi mend” (ll.389-90). She constantly speaks in passive constructions, the
done-to element of God’s will. She is only active in pursuing siful behaviour such as
her compulsion towards adultery: “sche saw how sche had consentyd in hir wyl for to
don synne” (l.349). Her attempts at self-enterprise, milling and brewing, fail because
they are against God’s will.
In conclusion, the question statement holds true for the two texts that I have
investigated. Dissenting voices do get their say, but are vigorously reigned by the
hefty ideological structures upon which they are built. It is perhaps best not to identify
determinate moral messages in either of these texts, but accept that discourses of
rebellion and orthodoxy are perpetually in dialogue. Mankind is actually the more
subversive text, as its Vices present the appealing possibility of a socially-reversed
and chaotic alternative sphere. Whether this pattern of dissent and repression is found

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David Jones Authorising English: Power & Textual Practice 1400 – 1560 Essay
Ideology and the Dissenting Voice in Medieval Literature

across the spectrum of ‘medieval literature’ described in the question statement

would, of course, require a far deeper investigation than there is space for here.

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David Jones Authorising English: Power & Textual Practice 1400 – 1560 Essay
Ideology and the Dissenting Voice in Medieval Literature

14
David Jones Authorising English: Power & Textual Practice 1400 – 1560 Essay
Ideology and the Dissenting Voice in Medieval Literature

Sources Cited
Anon (2002) Everyman etext
http://www.umm.maine.edu/faculty/necastro/drama

Anon (2002) Mankind etext

http://www.umm.maine.edu/faculty/necastro/drama

Abrams, M.H. & Greenblatt, S ed. 1999 The Norton Anthology Of English Literature
Vol 1 (7th edition) USA: Norton

Ashley, K.M. 1975 ‘Titivillus & The Battle Of Words In Mankind’ in Annuele
Mediavale 16

Belsey, Catherine 2002 Critical Practice (2nd ed) Routledge: Cornwall

Burke, Peter 1994 Popular Culture In England c.1500-1850 Aldershot: Scholar Press,
1994

Forest-Hill 2000 Transgressive Language in Medieval English Drama: Sins of

Challenge and Change Ashgate: Aldershot

Lester, G.A. ed 1981 Three Late Medieval Morality Plays: Mankind, Everyman,
Mundus et Infans USA: Ernest Benn

Pearsall, Derek 1999 Chaucer to Spencer: An Anthology Oxford and Massachusetts:

Blackwell

Sands, Donald B. ed. 1996 Middle English Verse Romances Exeter: Exeter Univ.
Press

Staley, Lynne 1994 Margery Kempe’s Dissenting Fictions Philadelphia

Staley, Lynne (1996) The Book of Margery Kempe

TEAMS Texts
http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/kempe1.htm

Watkins ‘The Allegorical Theatre: Moralities, Interludes, And Protestant Drama’ in

Wallace, David ed. 1999 The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature
Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press

Windeatt, B.A. ed 1994 The Book Of Margery Kempe England: Penguin

15
1
Notes
Belsey 2002, 83-84: ‘the imperative text, giving orders to its readers . . . aligns the reader ‘as in
identification with one set of discourses and practices and in opposition to others . . . maintaining that
identification and opposition and . . . not resolving it but rather holding it in a position of closure’.
2

This idea of the spiritual being above and beyond language is also present in Everyman, where ‘wordes
fayre’ (l.469) are debased in relation to God, since words can be undone and promises broken.
3

Obviously, this is a fairly crude evocation of Althusser, not least because it applies his capitalist model
to a feudalist society. However, as there is no space for detailed redefinitions and his basic ideas of
ideology and Ideological State Apparatus fit Mankind rather well, it seems most appropriate to simply
apply his model as it is.
4

The Book of Margery Kempe specifically utilises Biblical sources, using Margery’s visions to actually
insert her into Biblical events – assisting the births of the Virgin Mary, John the Baptist and Christ and
adoring the Magi. As well as enforcing the unavoidable importance of these events, this strategy also
works in a similar fashion to Lydgate inserting himself into Chaucer’s position in The Siege of Thebes,
as it elevates Margery’s status to the realm of these mythical characters.
5

Mankind’s description of Mercy as a ‘seemly father’ (l.209) who he can go to for solace has been
interpreted by Coogan as demonstrating that Mercy is dressed as a cleric (see Ashley 1975, 131).
Mercy’s overbearing preaching style and Latinate diction certainly indicate an institutional authority
figure, as does his assertion: ‘I haue be þe very mene for yowr restytucyon’ (l.17). If this is the case
then we can establish a vital piece of assimilation ideology, tying the spiritual moral of the play to
institutional church authority. No matter how strong the Vices’ attack on church corruption, if it is tied
to the eponym’s redemption then the ideology of the play serves to elevate the church above Mankind,
enforcing social divisions. This idea is extended in the image of Mercy as man’s ‘defendawnte’ (l.24) in
the metaphor of purgatory as a court. Spiritual authority is once again tied to conventional institutions.
6
Whether the entire audience could understand this Latin insult is a huge point of contention. If so,
then Mankind’s implied audience would clearly have been socially superior to the eponymous
exemplum, so limiting its subversive potential. However, an audience may have known some select
scattalogical Latin phrases, and since the point of the exercise is simply to mock the sound of Latin so
it actually matters little whether the audience understood or not.
7
The dissenting voice in both texts indicates that the institutional church has an unspiritual economic
self-interest. Nought lampoons the selling of indulgences in the image of ‘Pope Pokett’. The indulgence
he offers is a circle of sin, since Nowadays’ sin can only be absolved by the sinful pleasure of inserting
his nose in his wife, demonstrating the falseness of spirituality in a society that revolves around money
and sex. Margery is a contrasting exemplum of anti-materialist spirituality. After her first visions, her
maid servants are warned not to deliver her keys as ‘sche wold but geve awey swech good as ther was’
(ll.180-181). The position of money and spirituality in The Book is rather ambiguous, however, as
initially corrupt clergy give Margery money after she has helped to absolve them. This is subversive, at
least, because the figures to whom indulgences are normally paid find themselves giving what are
effectively indulgences to Margery. Authority figures come to her, such as the vicar of Chapter 23, not
the other way around.