The Meaning of the Character Knowledge in ‘Everyman’
[In the following essay, Thomas discusses representation of the character Knowledge in Everyman as a Wisdom figure.]
The problem that has troubled scholars for many years is whether in the play Everyman,1 which is, as its title states, a “treatyse” in the manner of a “morall playe,” the important character Knowledge really signifies “knowledge.” The intention of the play is to show to the sinner summoned by death the path to salvation through the sacraments of the Church. The character Knowledge is designated the guide and counselor of Everyman in his journey to salvation. As is usual in the medieval journey allegories, the final counselor is recommended by some intermediary virtue, in this case by Good Deeds, who has been rendered too weak by Everyman's sins to accompany him but who recommends her sister Knowledge as one who will take him where he shall heal his “smarte” and release his good deeds so that they may be of assistance in his final reckoning before God. Everyman is relieved and delighted at the prospect of help, and Knowledge advises him to go to “confessyon that clensyng ryuere.” She gives him the requested “cognycyon” as to where Confession dwells—in the “hous of saluacyon”; there, after confession, he receives penance for his sins. Knowledge counsels him to perform the penance faithfully so that he can make his account clear and his reckoning sure. Everyman flogs his body in punishment for its sins, thus fulfilling his penance and releasing Good Deeds from her paralysis. Knowledge then brings him the “garmente of sorowe” which is true contrition and Everyman puts it on. The next function of Knowledge is to counsel Everyman to “call to mynde / Your fyue wyttes as for your counseylours,” and to go to “presthode” and receive the “holy sacrament and oyntement togyder” or the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist and of extreme unction. She accompanies Everyman as far as the grave but there leaves him, predicting that his soul will be well received in heaven since Good Deeds will make all sure.
The question that comes to the mind of the modern reader is why this important counselor and guide to Everyman should be called Knowledge. Is knowledge what Everyman needs at this stage of his life when he has already received Death's summons? What kind of knowledge could possibly serve him at this late hour? Not finding any answer to these questions, modern critics have denied that this character really represents knowledge. Francis A. Wood, in an article “Elckerlijc-Everyman: The Question of Priority” (Modern Philology, VIII [Oct. 1910], 279-302), assuming that the English play is a translation of the Dutch, writes that Knowledge in Everyman means “acknowledgment, confession,” which is one of the meanings of the Dutch word Kenisse used for the character in Elckerlijc. He concludes (p. 285) that the English translator should have translated the Dutch kenisse by “rue” or “contrition,” since the character Kenisse leads Elckerlijc to confession. He even uses as evidence of the priority of the Dutch play this supposed mistranslation of kenisse by the English author. He writes that the Dutch author knew the doctrine of the Catholic Church—namely, that contrition leads to confession—and named his character Kenisse or Contrition accordingly, whereas the English author was not familiar with this teaching of the church and so translated kenisse as knowledge.
Since John Matthews Manly refers favorably to Wood's arguments about the priority of the Dutch play in an article published in the same issue with the article of Wood's (pp. 269-277), it may be assumed that he did not find fault with Wood's conclusion, that knowledge should have been translated as “rue,” “contrition,” or “acknowledgment.”
A third critic, Henry de Vocht, arguing for the priority of the English play, in a long study on Everyman published in Materials for the Study of Old English Drama, 1947,2 thinks, in opposition to Wood, that the Dutch word kenisse, which he says means knowledge, and never contrition, is a poor translation for the very appropriate English word knowledge, which in the play means “acknowledgement” or “confession” (pp. 60, 63). He quotes from the NED to show that the word knowledge, from the fourteenth to the middle of the sixteenth century, meant “acknowledgment, recognition of the position or claims (of any one), confession (of one's mistake), the very confessio which is considered as ‘dimidiata expiato’” (p. 60). He agrees with Wood that the meaning confession, contrition, or acknowledgment is correct for the character Knowledge as is shown by her function in the play since she prepares Everyman, goes with him to confession, and afterwards helps him fulfill his penance (p. 61). He sees this acknowledgment as one of the four parts of confession, which he enumerates as contrition, confession, penance or satisfaction, and absolution” (p. 61). He continues by saying that “Knowledge [i. e., the character Knowledge] comprises the declaration of the sins to the priest, and also the idea of sorrow, of contrition, or at least, the result of contrition (p. 61). But, reversing the argument and the conclusion of Wood, he thinks that the English play is the original since, he says, the Dutch kenisse can never mean contrition, and the sense of the play calls for the character Knowledge to be contrition or at least acknowledgment of one's sins in a contrite manner.
Ten years later, Lawrence V. Ryan in his article, “Doctrine and Dramatic Structure in Everyman” (Speculum, XXXII [Oct. 1957], 722-735), briefly reviews the scholarship in the Elckerlijc-Everyman controversy and concludes that regardless of which is the original, the Dutch or the English play, the important fact emerges that every critic agrees that the character Knowledge is intended to represent “acknowledgment of sin” (p. 728). Like the other critics he says that Knowledge, as shown by the dialogue of the play, means “‘contrition’ or, better, ‘acknowledgment of one's sin’” (p. 728).
In reviewing these scholarly opinions on the meaning of the character Knowledge in Everyman, the thought arises: How simplifying it would be if the word knowledge could mean knowledge—if the character Knowledge could indeed represent knowledge in the play and still be true to the doctrinal system of this Catholic “treatyse … in the maner of a morall playe.” The Dutch word kenisse evidently has as its primary meaning, knowledge; the English knowledge has as its primary meaning, knowledge; and the Latin word for this character, Cognitio, in the translation of the play called Homulus, has as its primary meaning, knowledge. How convenient if these three could be allowed to mean knowledge.
Henry de Vocht's statement that the word knowledge meant acknowledgment or confession “from the fourteenth to the middle of the sixteenth century” is only a part of the truth. He quotes examples from the NED to prove his point. But the literature of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and early sixteenth centuries shows that the word knowledge was also used extensively to mean knowledge in the sense of “acquaintance with truths.” In fact, the NED quotes several examples of this meaning which are ignored by de Vocht: from the Cursor Mundi, dating the citations around 1300 and 1350; from Barbour's Bruce, 1375; and from Caxton's Fables of Alfonce, 1484. The word knowledge used in the sense of “acquaintance with truths” also may be found in the following works: Chaucer's Parson's Tale; The Court of Sapience, ca. 1465; Caxton's Royal Book, 1484, a translation of Friar Lorens' Somme le Roi; Caxton's Doctrinal of Sapience, 1489; Ratis Raving; Mundus et Infans, printed 1522; John Bale's play The Preaching of John the Baptist, 1538; and in the title of Sir Thomas Elyot's dialogue Of the Knowledge Which Maketh a Wise Man, 1533. Thus, as far as literary usage is concerned, it would be quite possible, and even probable, for the word knowledge to mean “acquaintance with truths” in Everyman, which probably dates around the end of the fifteenth century.
But what kind of knowledge? The answer to this question may be found in the many medieval allegorical treatises on the search of man for the path to salvation. This search is represented sometimes as a journey to Jerusalem as in Chaucer's Parson's Tale and in Lydgate's The Pilgrimage of the Life of Man, and sometimes as advice on how to learn to die as in Hoccleve's dialogue How to Learn to Die and the Orologium Sapientiae. In Everyman the search for salvation is both a journey, though not to Jerusalem, and a lesson in the ars moriendi. Invariably in the search for salvation, there is a Sapience or Wisdom figure, a Dame Sapience, a Sapientiae, a Reason, or a Parson who points out the proper way and gives the necessary counsel. The Sapience figure in Hoccleve's dialogue, in the fifth section of the Orologium Sapientiae, and in the morality play Wisdom represents Christ, who is the wisdom of God. In The Pilgrimage of the Life of Man Grace Dieu is the Wisdom figure who introduces the pilgrim to other subordinate Wisdom figures such as Dame Penance and Dame Reason. In Lydgate's Reason and Sensuallyte the Wisdom figure Dame Nature presents the hero to Reason, who will show him the way to the celestial Jerusalem if he will follow her counsel instead of that of Sensuality. Dame Sapience, in the Court of Sapience, attended by Intellygence and Science, represents the knowledge of things divine and human which is necessary for man's salvation:
Hyt ys my part to know diuinite,
My sustyr here hath knowledge diligent
Of creatures in heuen and erthe content,
And Dame Science of thyngis temporall
Hath knowledge pure; thus mayst thou know vs all.
Of vs all thre I am the most souerayn,
And yf the lyste me discryue and defyne,
I am the trew propyr knowledge certayn
Of erthely thyng, and eke of thyng diuyne.(3)
The character Knowledge in Everyman is the Sapience or Wisdom figure who counsels the hero on the right way to salvation. She teaches him how to make his account sure and his reckoning clear. She is like Dame Sapience, who has the “trew propyr knowledge certayn” which will release his Good Deeds and make his soul acceptable to God at the end of his journey. This “trew propyr knowledge certayn” she gives to Everyman as she leads him through the sacraments of the Church in preparation for the return of Death. As a Sapience or Wisdom figure, Knowledge represents two well-defined aspects of the medieval personification of Wisdom: knowledge and good counsel.4
It will be well to examine the role of Knowledge as good counsel first, though the two aspects of Wisdom overlap—good counsel being based on knowledge. After Death's summons, Everyman has a brief time to prepare for his journey—the rest of that day.
He laments:
The day passeth and is almoost ago
I wote not well what to do.
(ll. 194-195)
Not knowing what to do or where to turn, he needs a good counselor who from “trew propyr knowledge certayn” can show him the path to salvation in his special situation. First he tries Felawship, Kynrede, and Cosyn, who are not wise counselors and who refuse him help. Felawship refuses to accompany him on his journey but will help him murder someone if he wishes. Everyman answers:
O that is a symple aduyse in dede,
(l. 283)
Thus Felawship gives the hero evil advice or counsel in his hour of need. Next Everyman goes to Riches or Goods and requests counsel:
Come hyder good in al the hast thou may
For of counseyll I must desyre the.
(ll. 399-400)
Riches refuses to help him; Everyman dejectedly summarizes the refusals of help which he has received from his worldy friends and asks:
Of whome shall I now counseyll take.
(l. 478)
Remembering his Good Deeds, he seeks her counsel:
O good dedes I stande in fere
I must you pray of counseyll
For helpe now sholde come ryght well.
(ll. 489-491)
He asks her to help him make his account clear even if she cannot accompany him on his journey:
Good dedes your counseyll I pray gyue me.
(l. 516)
In reply, Good Deeds introduces the hero to her sister, the Wisdom figure Knowledge, who will help him make “that dredefull rekenynge.” Knowledge promises to go with him and be his guide. As we have seen, she advises him to accompany her to Confession “that clensyng ryuere” and gives him “cognycyon” of where he dwells in the “hous of saluacyon.” She gives him further helpful knowledge in telling him to ask mercy of Confession for he is in “good conceyte with god almyghty.” Confession gives him penance to perform for his sins. Knowledge advises him:
Euery man loke your penaunce that ye fulfyll
What payne that euer it to you be
And knowledge shall gyue you counseyll at wyll
How your accounte ye shall make clerely.
(ll. 577-580)
She informs him after his penance is done that his Good Deeds are now whole and able to assist him in his reckoning. Knowledge has guided him to the right road to salvation—Confession and Penance. She next presents him with the “garmente of sorowe” and Everyman seeks further knowledge from her:
Gentyll knowledge what do ye it call.
(l. 642)
She answers:
It is a garmente of sorowe
Fro payne it wyll you borowe
Contrycyon it is
That getteth forgyuenes
He pleasyth god passynge well.
(ll. 643-647)
From her Everyman is receiving the necessary knowledge for the salvation of his soul. Knowledge is joined now by other counselors: Good Deeds, who suggests calling in Discretion, Strength, and Beauty to aid him in his journey; Fyue Wyttes, suggested by Knowledge, who says
Also ye must call to mynde
Your fyue wyttes as for your counseylours.
(ll. 662-663)
Knowledge of the proper counselors is essential to a man's salvation. Also, being able to receive good counsel and distinguish it from bad is a gift of the Holy Ghost.5
Everyman, being summoned by Death, needs still further knowledge of the path to salvation. The character Knowledge gives it to him in the form of wise counsel:
Euery man herken what I saye
Go to presthode I you aduyse
And receyue of hym in ony wyse
The holy sacrament and oyntement togyder.
(ll. 706-709)
Fyue Wyttes, acting as auxiliary counselor, seconds Knowledge's suggestion and disgresses into a short sermon on the value of the seven sacraments of the church (though Everyman needs only the last two at this time) and the powers of priesthood. After Everyman returns from these sacraments, he gratefully says:
Blyssyd be all thye that counseyled me to take it.
(l. 775)
Knowledge, as counselor, has led Everyman to a safe death with Good Deeds to accompany him to the grave. She predicts a happy reception for his soul and hears the angels singing. She has helped Everyman make his reckoning “crystall clere” as the angel says. Without her counsel he should have been damned. This aspect of the character Knowledge represents good counsel, which was recognized in medieval literature as one of the attributes of personified Wisdom or Sapience, ideally represented by Christ6 but actually often found in lesser Wisdom figures.
It is true that the best counsel was thought to come from Christ, who is the “fontayne of alle sapyence” or wisdom, but good counsel also comes from wise men who represent in the allegories many different virtues: Reason, Conscience, Humility, Mercy, Sapience. Or, as we have seen in Everyman, Fyue Wyttes and Good Deeds act as good counselors. Although the counselors differ in nature, some being divine or semi-divine and some being merely human, they all have in common the attribute knowledge—“trew propyr certayne / Of erthely thyng, and eke of thyng diuyne.” From this knowledge, the counselors instruct man in the proper path to salvation, in the way to the celestial Jerusalem. Chaucer's Parson instructs his audience to this happy city through the Sacrament of Penance though he admits there are other paths. Knowledge, in Everyman, also leads the hero down this path of Confession, Penance, and Contrition toward the heavenly reckoning. She also includes instruction on the other two necessary sacraments—essential for Everyman since he is at the point of death. She is knowledge of the “trew propyr” way “certayn” to Jerusalem.
As a Wisdom figure, full of knowledge, the character Knowledge is obligated to give advice to the man near death. In Caxton's Royal Book (section cxxxj), giving good counsel is listed as one of the spiritual works of mercy: the fourth branch of mercy is to give good comfort and counsel to the sick man, that he despair not, “For at nede is seen who is a frende / and in aduersyte is the good and trewe frende proude.” Knowledge proves a true friend, giving comfort and counsel to Everyman, who is in the position of a sick man. In Ratis Raving, Bk. II, “The Folys of Fulys and the Thewis of Wysmen,” it is shown that man has the duty or obligation of giving good counsel if he has the knowledge:
Quharfor thir men, that has knawleg,
Suld tech that ware of tender age.
For quha conselys wysdome or wyt
And nocht delitis to tech of It,
He synnys mar excedandly,
And offendis god mar grewosly,
Na for tyll hurd gret quantyte
Of gold, that neuer fundyne suld bee.(7)
In Lydgate's Reson and Sensuallyte, Dame Nature, the Wisdom figure, instructs the author in a vision that God has given man two ways of knowing: “Twoo maners of knowlychynge.”8 The first is called “the vertu sensytif” or the five wits and the second is Reason or Understanding (ll. 741-746, 753-754). She advises him to hold to Reason's road, which leads to Heaven, and he goes out to see the world as “nature yaf him counsaylee.” These same two counselors are found in Everyman in Fyue Wyttes and Knowledge. They both give the hero knowledge about the right way to heaven.
In medieval literature, it was customary for wise counselors to advise those seeking counsel to rely on the Sacrament of Penance. In Ratis Raving, Bk. III, “Consail and Teiching at the Vys Man Gaif His Sone,” the counselor advises his son to confess often to a priest and do penance often in order to have the grace of God.9 The divine counselor, Grace Dieu, in Lydgate's Pilgrimage of the Life of Man, also advises the pilgrim to seek out Dame Penance as Death swings his scythe at him.10 In Lydgate's The Assembly of Gods or The Accord of Reason and Sensuality in the Fear of Death, Celestial Sapience, one of the many virtues who battle the Vices under the guidance of Divine Grace, does not advise the sacrament, but another one of the virtues, Conscience, reminiscent of the situation in Everyman when Good Deeds sends the hero to her sister Knowledge, sends Freewill to Humility who
… bad hym go to Confessyon
And shew hym hys master with a piteous look.
Whyche doon he hym sent to Contrycion,
And fro thensforth to Satysfaccion.
Thus fro poost to pylour was he made to daunce,
And at last he went forth to Penaunce.(11)
The audience at the performance of Everyman would have recognized the character Knowledge as a Wisdom figure whose function it was to counsel Everyman wisely from her store of knowledge and to send him to the Sacrament of Penance. But whether she is a divine counselor or a wise human counselor is not entirely clear from the text of the play. After the death of Everyman she remarks:
Now hath he suffred that we all shall endure.
(l. 887)
This would seen to place her in the ranks of sinful men who are subject to death. However, earlier in the play she has promised Everyman
And though this pylgrymage be neuer so stroge
I wyll neuer parte you fro
Euery man I wyll be as sure by the
As euer I dyde by Iudas Machabee.
(ll. 784-787)
By identifying herself with the Spirit of the Lord who guided Judas Maccabaeus in his struggles with his enemies, she seemingly takes on a divine nature.
But certainly, she is not contrition or confession or acknowledgment of one's sins in a contrite manner. She is a broader character than these meanings would allow. Everyman calls her “knowledge clere” when he praises God for his good counselors (l. 681). She brings the hero to true contrition, but she herself is not contrition. Rather she represents Knowledge expressed in the form of Good Counsel. The character Confession tells Everyman
I knowe your sorowe well euery man
Bycause with knowledge ye come to me
I wyll you comforte as well as I can.
(ll. 554-556)
Far from confirming the meaning contrition for the character Knowledge, this passage shows that the meaning of Knowledge is knowledge. Confession knows Everyman's “sorowe” well; that is, he is aware of Everyman's tribulation in having to make a reckoning of his life before he is ready to do so. He will comfort Everyman because he comes with “knowledge.” The word “knowledge” here evidently represents the character who has brought Everyman to confession as well as the signification of that character in the play. How would the medieval mind explain the signification knowledge in this context? What kind of knowledge would be of value to a sinner come to confession? Of course, the very fact that Everyman had sought out a confessor would show that he had the proper knowledge of the right way to salvation. But in addition he would be expected to have a detailed knowledge of the seven deadly sins and their many branches and twigs on which the medieval moral treatises dwell at length. For example, in Caxton's Royal Book, a late fifteenth century translation of the Somme le Roi, the necessity of knowing one's sins and of confessing them is emphasized:
here fynysshe thene the dedely synnes & all the braunches that descende of them / and knowe ye for throuthe that who shold wel studye in thys book he myght wel prouffyte & lerne to knowe al maner of synnes & to confesse hym self wel for none may confesse his synnes wel / yf he ne knowe hem not / Now thou oughtest to knowe that he that redeth in this book ought to thynke and take hede dylygently yf he be culpable of ony he ought to repent hym and anone to confesse hym dylygently & to kepe hym to hys power fro other synnes in whyche he is not culpable …
(sec. lix)
A knowledge of sins was necessary for proper shrift for it was desirable that the sinner be the one to bring forth his sins and the circumstances thereof as may be read in Caxton's Royal Book:
Thus thenne ought the synnar to dyscouer hys synnes to hys confessour for to haue mercy … also the synnar ought to confesse hym entyrely and hooly. … For he ought to saye alle hys synnes grete and lytel and all the cyrcumstaunces of the synnes. … For yf he faylle of hys acompte god shall not faylle of his.
(sec. cxxviii)
And in the early fifteenth century collection of sermons called Jacob's Well, it is added that there is less virtue in a confession if the priest must draw out of the sinner an account of the sins he has committed:
thi schryfte be examynacyoun of the preest suffyseth to thi saluacyoun, if thou kunne noght schryue the; but yit thi mede is the lesse, for thou wylt noght studyen ne trauaylen to leryn for to schryue the.12
Because Everyman comes to his confessor with the proper knowledge of his sins and of how to be shriven, Confession promises him comfort.
Thus Knowledge, as the Wisdom figure in the morality Everyman, must be allowed to mean knowledge—knowledge of the correct path to Jerusalem and knowledge of one's sins and the proper method of shrift. She also represents the good counsel which proceeds from such knowledge.
Notes
-
Everyman, ed. W. W. Greg (Louvain, 1904), reprinted from the edition by John Skot.
-
Materials for the study of the Old English Drama, XX, 1-228, “Everyman, A Comparative Study of Texts and Sources” (Louvain, 1947).
-
Quoted by Sister Mary Francis Smith, Wisdom and Personification of Wisdom before 1500 (Washington, D. C., 1935), p. 20, n. 7, from the Court of Sapience, ed. Robert Spindler (Leipzig, 1927), pp. 129-130, ll. 150-158.
-
Sister Mary Francis Smith has analyzed these two aspects, among others, of the Wisdom figure in English literature before 1500. See pp. 19-25, 26-33.
-
Caxton's Royal Book (Sect. cxxix) analyzes the “yefte of counseyl” at length.
-
Ibid.
-
LI. 19-26, 319-324, and 329-330, EETS, OS, no. 43 (London, 1870).
-
Ed, Ernest Sieper Vol. 1, EETS, ES, no. 84 (London, 1901), 1. 689.
-
L1. 1-8. See fn. 7.
-
John Lydgate, The Pilgrimage of the Life of Man, Part II, ed. F. J. Furnivall, EETS, ES, no. 88 (London, 1901), 11. 24807-24828.
-
Ed. O. L. Triggs, EETS, ES, no. 49 (London, 1896), 11, 1143-1148.
-
An English Treatise on the Cleansing of Man's Conscience ed. Arthur Brandeis, EETS, OS, no. 115 (London, 1900), p. 179. Original spelling has been changed because of printing difficulties.
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