SOURCE: An introduction "The Maiden as an Innocent" and "The Priviledges of the Newly Baptized," in Pearl in Its Setting: A Critical Study of the Structure and Meaning of the Middle English Poem, Basil Blackwell, 1968, pp. 101-03, 104-112, 113-21.

[In the following essay, Bishop finds that the liturgy in use during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries provides important information for understanding the poet's characterization of the Pearl maiden..]

Introductory

In order to represent the apparition of the child's beatified soul, the author has to supply her with a visionary body of appropriate stature and appearance; with suitable clothing; and with arguments that will justify her status in the Kingdom of Heaven and that will console her earthly father.

Scholars have provided explanations of several details of the poet's presentation of her. There is, for example, the fact that, although she died before she was two years old, she appears to the dreamer as a maiden of adult stature. Osgood has observed that this is in accordance with St. Augustine's teaching about the body which those who die in infancy will assume after the General Resurrection.¹ It is true that Osgood seems to have forgotten that the maiden's body has not yet risen from the dead: at 1. 857 she says, referring to herself and the other brides of the Lamb: 'AlþaƷ oure courseƷ in clotteƷ clynge'. But, as it is necessary for her to assume a 'visionary body' in order to manifest herself to the dreamer, it is appropriate that this body should have the appearance of the one which, according to the highest patristic authority, she will assume after the General Resurrection. Together with her adult stature goes the ability to communicate with the dreamer in adult language and concepts. Another observation made by Osgood is that her costume is cut according to the fashions of the later fourteenth century²; she is also appropriately adorned with pearls, and her robes are white because she is included in the procession of the hundred and forty-four thousand virgin brides of the Lamb. She wears the white 'coroun', or aureole, of virginity. There has been disagreement among scholars about the status that the poet accords her in the heavenly kingdom. René Wellek, however, was able to show that the author's opinion on this matter was not heterodox.³ In order to demonstrate this he cites Papal decrees and more or less contemporary theological controversies.

The fundamental reason for the poet's presenting the maiden in the way that he does is that she had died while in a state of post-baptismal innocence. This simple fact, I believe, affords the true explanation of the way in which she is dressed as well as the essential reason for the status that she possesses in heaven. I shall suggest later that the best commentary on the author's intentions is to be found, not in theological disputations, Papal decrees or Biblical commentaries, but in liturgical contexts—both in the text of the liturgy itself and in the principal commentaries on it that were compiled during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Besides providing sources for the details I have just mentioned, these texts and commentaries supply practically all the arguments that the maiden uses in the course of her apologia. It is a reasonable assumption that, if the poet could have encountered these supposedly controversial doctrines in such an uncontroversial source as the text of the liturgy and the standard commentaries upon it, he would probably have taken them for granted. So there is no need to assume that he was familiar with the niceties of contemporary theological controversies on the subject of the salvation of those who die in infancy.

These elements in the characterization of the maiden, which the author could have derived from liturgical sources, are blended with others that belong to the poetic traditions of the later Middle Ages; mainly literary procedures and formulas of imagery and diction, some of which are set forth in the twelfth-century Artes Poeticae, but all of which are commonplace in the Latin and vernacular poetry of the succeeding centuries. He also derives details of characterization from the realm of courtoisie and other secular sources. His blending of the various elements is sometimes quite subtle, but its very success has perhaps been partly responsible for disguising from the modern reader the poem's true sentence.

Throughout the following chapters all references to the text of the liturgy (i.e. to the Missal, Breviary, Processional, etc.) follow the use of Sarum, unless otherwise stated.⁴ Although other medieval English rites existed, the Use of Sarum was the English rite par excellence in the fourteenth century; it was, for example, the one used at Oxford. The liturgical commentary to which I most often refer is the Rationale Divinorum Officiorum by Durandus of Mende.⁵ This work is to liturgical writings what the Summa Theologiae of St. Thomas Aquinas is to theological compilations. It makes use of all previous writings on this subject that are of any importance, and marks the culminating point in the history of this species of commentary. After the composition of the Rationale towards the end of the thirteenth century, no work of comparable importance appeared.⁶ There are, however, two earlier sources (both of the twelfth century) that will be mentioned in this argument, although they were both used by Durandus. The first of these consists of the writings of Honorius (usually known as 'Honorius of Autun'), in particular his Gemma Animae, Sacramentarium, and sermons in the collection Speculum Ecclesiae.⁷ There is a certain amount of material among these writings which is of particular interest for the present argument, but which is not included by Durandus in his Rationale. The other source is the work of Johannes Belethus, rector of the University of Paris, which has the same title as that of Durandus.⁸ Although this work has little of relevance that is not also mentioned by Durandus, occasional references to it are given below, because there is some definite evidence of its being known in England: it was used by Bartholomaeus Anglicus (Bartholomaeus de Glanvilla) in the portion of his encyclopaedia, De Proprietatibus Rerum, that is entitled 'Of Times' (Book 9) in Trevisa's translation. He acknowledges his indebtedness to Belethus in Book IX, chapter 28: 'All this is take & drawe of the sentence of John Beleth, whose auctorite is solemne in holy chirch namely in ordening of office & service of holi chirch.'⁹

The Maiden as an Innocent

(i)THE LITURGY FOR CHILDERMAS

Miss Elizabeth Hart has shown how a knowledge of the liturgy for Holy Innocents' Day will elucidate a certain difficulty in Pearl.¹⁰ She observes that the poet's inclusion of an infant in the procession of the hundred and forty-four thousand virgins of Revelation xiv may be explained by the fact that this passage occurs in the Missal as the Epistle for Innocents' Day. She also notices how Chaucer, in the Prioress's Tale, included his child martyr in this procession¹¹ and a few stanzas later called his mother 'This newe Rachel',¹² alluding to the closing words of the Gospel for the same day: 'Vox in Rama audita est, ploratus et ululatus multus: Rachel plorans filios suos, et noluit consolari, quia non sunt' (Matt. ii). In Pearl there is, of course, no question of martyrdom, but Miss Hart does not fail to notice that the Gospel for the day mentions the age of the Innocents at the time of their death as 'a bimatu et infra' (Matt, ii, 16), and that the dreamer remarks to the child: 'Þou lyfed not two Ʒer in oure þede'. Miss Hart remarks that 'the association of the Innocents with this procession must have been common throughout the Middle Ages, being brought home to the laity by means of homilies and sermons'.

The present chapter is concerned to support this view by suggesting that the association would have been brought home by even more striking means than homilies and sermons alone, and by attempting to show that the homilies, sermons, and other liturgical pieces prescribed for this particular Feast, will account for other interesting and important details in Pearl.

(ii)THE PROCESSION OF THE INNOCENTS; THE BOY BISHOP; THE LITURGICAL DRAMA

One way in which the association of the Innocents with the faultless company who follow the Lamb would have been brought home in the fourteenth century is through the offices of the Breviary, in which various portions of the Epistle for the Mass appear as Antiphons and Responses. At Vespers on St. John's Day (the Vigil of the Feast in question) a responsorium beginning with the words 'Centum quadraginta …' is chanted; this versicle and other portions of the Epistle recur in every office for the day itself and upon its octave. There is no need to suppose that the poet would have to be a religious in order to become familiar with the Breviary, or that he was less acquainted with his 'Antiphoner' than the schoolchildren in The Prioress's Tale.¹³ Thus, a detail in the Epistle that left only a slight impression would be confirmed by the antiphons, if only for the reason that when a few words are sung or chanted they are—pace Wyclif—apt to call more attention to themselves than when they occur in the middle of a long passage that is read or intoned at a comparatively faster speed. His familiarity with the Breviary could also account for our author's remembering, and expecting his audience to remember, the mere detail in the Gospel narrative about the precise age of the Innocents, since the antiphon between the first and second psalms for Lauds on Innocents' Day consists of the words: 'A bimatu et infra occidit multos pueros Herodes propter Dominum.'¹⁴ It also occurs as the first antiphon for Terce.

The effect made by the text of the Breviary would, in the fourteenth century, have been enhanced by certain ceremonies and customs which were observed on that occasion, particularly by those associated with the institution of the Boy Bishop.¹⁵ In the Middle Ages the feast of the Holy Innocents was recognized as the special property of children, just as St. Stephen's Day was claimed by the deacons as their own.¹⁶ Children played a prominent part in the offices for the Feast, beginning with Vespers on St. John's Day, where the Sarum Breviary gives the following rubric:

Tunc eat processio puerorum ad altare Innocentium, vel Sanctae Trinitatis, cum capis sericis et cereis illuminatis in manibus suis, cantando, R. Centum Quadraginta … etc.¹⁷

Anyone who witnessed this procession could not fail to perceive the association of the Innocents and the company described in Revelation xiv. But what is still more important for my present purpose is the fact that anyone who witnessed this procession (and similar processions on the following day) would be inclined to associate the antiphon 'Centum Quadraginta' and the company of which it sings with children in general.

The celebration of the figure of the child, and of the state of Innocence which it represents, culminated in the practice of electing the Boy Bishop, who normally took office at Vespers on St. John's Day when, during the singing of the Magnificat, the precentro surrendered his staff of office at the reference to the deposition of the mighty from their seat. A child was invested with the authority (within prescribed limits) of a bishop, and even went so far as to preach a sermon. Unfortunately, no text of any such sermon preached before the late fifteenth century is extant, but a reference to the practice is to be found in a will of 1328.¹⁸ Of the three late examples that have been preserved, one (preached in Gloucester Cathedral) takes for its text—as might be expected—Matthew xviii, 3; it dwells upon the Christian new birth and urges the audience themselves to become as little children.¹⁹ Vestments of considerable expense were provided for the boy: an inventory of St. Paul's, London, of 1295 mentions a white mitre embroidered with flowers; another refersto a new white mitre with orphreys, used on these iccasions.²⁰ One of the symbolic functions of the Boy Bishop is indicated in another Sarum rubric concerned with the singing of the responsorium 'Centum Quadraginta' at Vespers on St. John's Day:

Solus Episcopus Innocencium si assit, Christum puerum, uerum et aeternum Pontificem designans incipiat, R. Centum quadraginta … etc.²¹

From this account it can be seen that the feast of the Holy Innocents was made the occasion for the exaltation of the ideas of humility and innocence embodied in the figure of the child, who is, for the occasion, set in authority over his elders to admonish them and to be imitated by them. So, if he was acquainted with these practices, our author would have a clear precedent for putting a discourse on humility, innocence and spiritual renewal into the mouth of the dreamer's former child as well as for placing her in the company which is described in Revelation xiv. Further, it is reasonable to suppose that the impression made by a child, dressed in a bishop's robes with a white mitre set with flowers or gems, would not be forgotten by him or his audience. So it is possible that some part of the characterization of the transfigured child in Pearl, as she appears in 'a pyƷt coroune … HiƷe pynakled of cler quyt perle … Wyth flurted flowreƷ perfet vpon',²² to admonish him, with 'semblaunt sade for doc oþer ele',²³ may have been suggested by these ceremonies.²⁴

There remains to be considered one other development from the liturgy for Innocents' Day that associates the victims of Herod with the hundred and forty-four thousand; namely, the liturgical drama of the slaughter ofthe Innocents. Unfortunately, texts of the liturgical dramas performed in England have not survived, but E. K. Chambers believes that there is evidence that they continued to be performed side by side with the vernacular Mysteries in the fourteenth century.²⁵ Karl Young has shown that the texts of the dramas that have survived all belong to a French development.²⁶ In a version in a service book from Laon Cathedral the choir boys enter in procession, supporting a lamb and singing: 'Ecce Agnus Dei, ecce qui tollit peccata mundi.'²⁷ More interesting is the example in the Fleury play-book (from a thirteenth-century MS. at Orleans).²⁸ It begins with the following rubric:

Ad interfectionem puerorum, inducantur Innocentes stolis albis, et gaudentes [gradientes?] per monasterium, orent Dominum dicentes "Quam gloriosum etc.". Tunc Agnus ex improviso veniens, portans crucem, antecedat eos huc et illuc, et illi sequentes cantent: "Quam gloriosum est regnum./ Emitte Agnum, Domine."

(Isa. xvi, 1)

Another direction reads:

Interea Innocentes adhuc gradientes post
   Agnum decantent:
   Agno sacrato pro nobis mortificato,
   Splendorem patris, splendorem virginitatis,
   Offerimus Christo sub signo numinis [MS.
   luminis] isto …

—the (somewhat corrupt) text continues with a reference to Herod. Thus, the Epistle is dramatized as well as the incident that is narrated in the Gospel.

Anyone who believes that Pearl is more a consolatio than an elegy will be particularly interested by another episode in the drama. The reference at the conclusion of the Gospel to Rachel's lamentation and her refusal to be consoled is represented. She appears with two 'consolatrices', who ask her why she weeps for those who possess the Kingdom of Heaven; but she persists in her grief. Eventually an angel appears above the prostrate forms of the slaughtered children, saying: 'Sinite paruulos et nolite eos prohibere ad me venire; talium est enim regnum caelorum' (Matthew xix, 14). At these words, the children rise and enter the choir. The various aspects of the liturgy for the day are amalgamated into this piece, which brings out the association of the children with the Lamb and with the Apocalyptic procession. It is impossible to say whether any representation of this kind was known in England in the fourteenth century, but the example is instructive, in any case, because it illustrates the way in which the liturgy for the day was interpreted, and indicates the kind of ideas and associations that the feast evoked in the Middle Ages.²⁹

In the light of what has been considered in the foregoing paragraphs, it is reasonable to suggest that a fourteenth-century poet, who was concerned with the death of an infant and her fortunes after death, would quite naturally recall the liturgy and customs of this feast when composing his consolatio. This hypothesis is investigated more closely in the following section.

(iii) Lectiones AND HOMILIES

I have mentioned that Miss Hart is aware of a possible objection to her thesis about the child in Pearl³⁰: unlike the Innocents and the boy in The Prioress 's Tale, this child did not suffer a martyr's death. Such an objection is, however, easily answered. The most important reason for the maiden's right to salvation is that she died soon after baptism. Similarly, the Holy Innocents died immediately after their baptism—or rather, simultaneously with it, because their martyrdom constituted their baptism, according to contemporary doctrine.³¹ Thus, in establishing a relationship between the Innocents and the child in Pearl, the proximity of their baptism to their death is of considerable importance; the difference between the two instances is simply that, whereas the former suffered 'fullyng in blode-schedynge', the latter received 'fullyng of fonte', so that the former received martyrs' crowns in Heaven, whereas Pearl does not. The resemblances between the two instances certainly outweigh the single difference, whose significance is still further reduced when another fact is recognized: the child's baptism 'in fonte' is made efficacious only by means of a 'blodeschedynge'— although a vicarious one. Our author shows, in the course of his central argument about salvation by 'innocence' or 'ryƷt' (which, as will appear below, has other affinities with the liturgy for this day), that he is fully aware of this. In ll. 649 ff. he refers to the wound, that Christ received from the spear, as a well or font; and of the water that flowed from it he says:

"Þe water is baptem, þe soþe to telle,
Þat folƷed þe glayue so grymly grounde …"
(ll. 653-54)

These lines are spoken by the maiden herself as she explains the origin of her own innocence through baptism. The part that the Crucifixion plays in this process is emphasized in the middle stanza of the three that carry this explanation.³²

With the single exception of this detail, the Innocents are represented in the liturgy as dying in the same state as Pearl. The fact that the Innocents were within two years of age at the time of their death is also emphasized in a homily in Mirk's Festial. He sees in this fact a special significance:

Þis Innocentes þat holy chyrche syngeþ of, lyueden her wyþout schame, for þay wer all wiþin two Ʒer of age … þes chyldyr lyued not so long forto know þe good from þe euell, but wern jslayne wiþin degre of jnnocentes. Wherfor þay lyuedon here wyþout schame.³³

The homily proceeds to explain the merits of Innocence. In this quotation the Innocents' early death is considered to have been a positive advantage to them, and this corresponds to what the author of Pearl maintains. A whole series of homilies that pursue this development of thought is afforded by the lectiones for Matins in the Sarum Breviary.³⁴ The second lectio is taken from Severianus, and it argues that Christ did not desert these children in permitting their early death, but was, on the contrary, bestowing a particular privilege upon them:

Christus non despexit suos milites sed provexit; quibus ante dedit triumphare quam vivere; quos fecit capere sine concertatione victoriam; quos donavit coronis antequam membris; quos voluit virtutibus vitia praeterire; ante caelum possidere quam terram. Praemisit ergo Christus suos milites non anisit.³⁵

The implications of the word 'milites' in this quotation, as well as all references to martyrdom in those that follow, must be discounted for the purpose of the present argument. The point is that these passages are all concerned with children who suffer death before they are two years old.

The third lectio broaches the subject of salvation by Grace or merit and comes to the conclusion that is presupposed by our author; namely, that infants, who have not the power to earn their glory through meritorious deeds, are saved through Grace, since, for adult and infant alike, eternal life is a divine gift and is not due to human deserts. This homily, like the previous one, is concerned with martyrdom, but allowance can easily be made for that.

Hoc loco attendai auditor, et intelligat martyrium non constare per meritum, sed venire per gratiam. In parvulis, quae voluntas, quod arbitrium, ubi captiva fuit et ipsa natura? De martyrio ergo demus totum Deo, nichil nobis. Vincere dyabolum, corpus tradere, contemnere viscera, tormenta expender, lassare tortorem, capere de injuriis gloriam, de morte vitam, non virtutis humanae, sed muneris est divini.³⁶

The second series of lectiones ('In Secundo Nocturno')are taken from St. John Chrysostom. Before we examine the homilies themselves, it is worth considering the liturgical text with which the first one is associated. The office ('In Secundo Nocturno') begins with the antiphon: 'Norunt infantes laudare Deum, qui loqui nonnoveranti fiunt periti laude qui fuerant imperiti sermone.' This antiphon is followed by Psalm xiv (Vulgate),³⁷'Domine, quis habitabit?', after which comes another antiphon on the same Psalm: 'Exigitur itaque infantium aetas in laudem, quae delictorum non noverai crimen.' This Psalm is used in Pearl at 11. 678 ff., in conjunction with the similar vv. 3 and 4 of Psalm xxiv (A.V.; xxiii in Vulgate), during the argument in which the maiden weighs her own claims (as an infant) against those of the workers in the vineyard who 'stod þe long day stable', and who rely upon the length of their service for their reward. Speaking of one of these, she says:

"Where wysteƷ þou euer any bourne abate
Euer so holy in hys prayere
Þat he ne forfeted by sumkyn gate
Þe mede sumtyme of heueneƷ clere?
And ay þe ofter þe alder Þay were,
Þay laften ryƷt and wroƷten woghe."
(ll. 617-22—my italics)

She is referring to the dreamer's earlier argument in which he upheld the claims of the man

"Þat hade endured in worlde stronge,
And lyued in penaunce hys lyueƷ longe
Wyþ bodyly bale hym blysse to byye …"
(ll. 476-79)

He had argued that it seemed unfair that she should have been rewarded before such a man, and he proceeded to make a comparison of these qualifications with her own—a comparison which was not to her advantage:

"Þou lyfed not two Ʒer in oure þede;
Þou cowþeƷ neuer God nauþer plese ne pray,
Ne neuer nawþer Pater ne Crede."
(ll. 483-85)

The occurrence of the word 'pray' in 1. 484 and that of the word 'prayere' in 1. 618 are significant. The point of the maiden's answer to the dreamer's objection is that, although she was ignorant of the very rudiments ('Pater' and 'Crede') of religious instruction, she could nevertheless 'plese' God, even if she could not 'pray' to Him. The reason for this is—she asserts—that she is undefiled by any fleck of sin, because she has never known any. In fact, she answers to the description, of the man fit to stand in God's holy place, that is delineated in Psalm xxiv, 4 (A.V.). This is precisely the point which the antiphons 'In Secundo Nocturno' make about the Innocents who died before they were two years old. In the lectio (iv) that follows, St. John Chrysostom elaborates this doctrine;

Fiunt interea pueri sine magistro diserti, docti sine doctore, periti sine eruditore. Agnoscunt infantes Christum, praedicant Dominum, non quem persuasio humana docuerat, sed quem divinitas innocentibus inspirabat. Cessant enim humana cum divina tractantur: quia humana ipsa prodesse non poterunt, nisi divinorum solatio subleventur. Necesse est enim terrena succumbere, cum caelestia praedicantur; naturalia silere, cum virtutes loquuntur. Exigitur itaque infantium aetas in laudem, quae delictorum non noverai crimen.³⁸

The liturgy for Childermas goes some way towards accounting for the presence of certain details in the poet's characterization of the maiden, as well as providing a possible source for some of the doctrines about the salvation of those who die in infancy, which are asserted in the debate between the maiden and the dreamer.³⁹ There remain some important details and arguments of which it gives no account. But there are other liturgical writings that supply what is here missing and confirm much of what has already been conjectured.

The Privileges of the Newly Baptized

(i)THE DESCRIPTION OF THE MAIDEN

The maiden is the subject of something like a formal effictio that occurs between ll. 161 and 240. Several of the details of her appearance that are stated there and elsewhere in the poem conform to the paradigm of ideal feminine beauty that is often associated with formal descriptions of ladies in medieval literature: for example, she has golden hair and 'yƷen graye', and her complexion is compared to the 'flour-de-lys'. The whiteness of her complexion is emphasized by two other stereotyped similes: 'Hyr vysage whyt as playn yuore' and 'Her ble more blaƷt þan whalleƷ bon'. But one detail of the regular paradigm is absent: it was customary to mention the blend of white and red in the lady's cheeks and to express this idea by means of a simile about lilies mingling with red roses. In the account of the maiden's 'colour' there is no mention of red roses. The reason for this departure from the usual pattern is, of course, that the poet wishes the maiden to look as much as possible like a pearl. This fact is clearly brought out in ll. 215-16, where her 'depe colour' is compared to that of the pearls that are set in the embroidery of her dress. In fact, the poet is here observing a precept laid down by one of those very rhetoricians whose Artes Poeticae raised the description to the place of honour among methods of amplificatio and helped to establish the almost invariable features of the paragon of female beauty. Matthew of Vendôme stipulates: 'Debet autem qualibet persona ab ilio intitulari epitheto quod in ea prae coeteris dominatur.'⁴⁰ 'White' is the epithet that predominates in the initial description of the maiden, and the final impression of her appearance that we carry away from the poem is of her whiteness: the very last visual impression of the heavenly country that the dreamer receives before his expulsion is of 'my lyttel quene … Þat watƷ so quyt' (ll. 1147-50).

Just as the description of the maiden's personal appearance is affected by the poet's desire to make her look like a pearl, so the way in which she is dressed is determined by considerations of symbolic propriety. If we discount the fashionable cut of her raiment and disregard its other ornamental details, we find that her attire consists basically of two things: her white robes and her crown or mitre, 'HiƷe pynakled of cler quyt perle'. She wears the white robes because she belongs to the company that follows the Lamb. But we saw in the last chapter that it is necessary to ask why she is entitled to join that company. The crown has been identified by editors as the 'aureole' that a virgin is entitled to wear in Heaven. Indeed, the maiden herself says that the Lamb 'coronde [me] clene in vergynté' (l. 767). But much earlier in the poem she had stated that He 'Corounde me quene in blysse to brede' (l. 415). That is surely the primary significance of her crown: the debate about her status as queen occupies a far more important place in the scheme of the poem than does the later exchange about her status as a virgin bride of the Lamb. In the next section I shall show that the basis of the maiden's apparel consists of nothing other than the ceremonial dress of the newly baptized. These vestments carried certain symbolic significations that are of considerable relevance to the meaning of Pearl.

(ii)THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE MAIDEN'S 'LIVERY'

Honorius 'of Autun', in the course of a commentary on the baptismal rites celebrated on Holy Saturday, remarks that when the neophyte emerges from the font:

Deinde mitra capiti ejus imponitur, veste alba induitur, quia in regnum et in sacerdotium assumitur. Per mitram corona regni, per albam sacerdotalis dignitas exprimitur, quia videlicet Christi regis et sacerdotis membrum efficitur. Per albam quoque vestem innocentia designatur, quia hanc nunc per Christum in baptismo recipit, quam in primo parente amisit.

(Gemma Animae, III, cxi)⁴¹

The final chapter of the first book of the same work (cap. cxliii) is entitled 'Baptizati albas portant vestes', and reads as follows:

Baptizati autem ideo vestes albas portant, quae amissam innocentiam se recepisse insinuant. Illorum mitra regni coronam, alba vero sacerdotii praefert stolam. Jam enim facti sunt reges et sacerdotes et Christi regis et sacerdotis cohaeredes.⁴²

Honorius is speaking of the baptism of adult catechumens in the days when baptism by immersion was practised. This is because he is not so much concerned to explain the sacrament of baptism itself, or the contemporary baptismal rite, as to consider the liturgical ceremonies of Holy Saturday, for an understanding of which a knowledge of the baptismal practices of the primitive Church is necessary.⁴³ Thus, although the ceremonies that he describes had become generally outmoded by the time at which he was writing, and had been replaced by something much nearer to the modern Roman baptismal rite,⁴⁴ the memory of them was nevertheless kept alive by the liturgy for Holy Saturday and Easter Week. What I would emphasize here is the fact that since the author of Pearl represents the child in Heaven as having acquired full adult stature in body and in intellect, it is fitting that the basis of her 'livery' should be the dress of the adult catechumen rather than the simplified adaptation of it that was placed upon infants at their baptism during the Middle Ages.

The question of the relationship between the dress of the catechumen and that of baptized infants must now be considered. In the baptism of infants, the counterpart to the white robes of the catechumens was certainly the cloth of white linen known as the chrisom, and, since it was placed on the infant's head, it would do duty for the corona or mitra as well. The way in which this adaptation of the catechumen's dress was brought about can be seen from the following remark by Johannes Belethus, which occurs in his commentary on the liturgy for Holy Saturday:

Inuncto chrismate baptizato, imponitur capite ejus chrismale, rotunda quaedam mitra quae coronam vitae significai, vel candida induitur vestis, quae ad similitudinem cuculii ex albissimo panno conficitur filo rubro supertexto. Candida illa vestis innocentiae stolam designat, quae nobis redditur in baptismo …⁴⁵

The detail of the red thread seems to have been only a local addition and need not concern us.⁴⁶ This passage should make it clear how the chrisom is related to both the corona and the alba. The observations of Durandus on the significance of the dress of the newly baptized are still more explicit. He remarks that in certain places the white robe is given to the neophyte in token of priesthood, and 'quaedam rotunda mitra, Signum coronae regni vitae, quia ipse est membrum Christi, qui est rex et sacerdos'.⁴⁷ He shows that there is Scriptural authority for this doctrine in I Peter ii, 9:

Omnes enim veri christiani reges, et sacerdotes dicuntur, unde Petrus Apostolus ait: "Vos autem genus electum, regale sacerdotium". Reges, quia seipsos et alios regunt … etc.⁴⁸

The second verse of this chapter of St. Peter's epistleshows that the apostle was himself thinking of those who have been reborn into the Christian community.⁴⁹ So these liturgical commentators all agree that baptismcarries with it the privilege of kingship in Christ's kingdom. If, therefore, a child were to die soon after baptism, so that it was still within what Mirk calls'degre of jnnocentes' at the time of its death, it would acquire the status of king (or queen) upon entering the Kingdom of Heaven.

This very point is the central subject of the first part of the debate in Pearl; it has also been the subject of controversy among students of the poem. This controversy has ranged in two directions. First, it has been suggested that in the fourteenth century it would have been heretical to believe that a baptized infant could be saved; and, second, that it was heretical of the poet to argue that in Heaven everyone is 'payed inlyche / wheþer lyttel oÞer much be hys rewarde'.⁵⁰ Professor Wellek disposed of both these charges by referring to theological controversies of the time, and it is not intended to renew this dispute here.⁵¹ What is here suggested is that there is no need to suppose that the poet had an expert knowledge of the theological controversies of the time; the essence of his argument can be found in these twelfth- and thirteenth-century commentaries on the liturgy.

Doctrines that closely resemble those formulated by the commentators in the course of their discussion of the dress of the newly baptized are present in the poem. The 'rotunda mitra' is, according to our commentators, a symbol of the corona of the Kingdom of Heaven. The maiden in Pearl is, of course, not represented as wearing a baptismal head-dress, but this heavenly crown which it symbolizes. She declares that the Lamb 'Corounde me quene in blysse to brede …', although she was of a tender age when she died. The dreamer, aware of the fact that in any given kingdom there can be only one king and one queen, asks her whether she is the Queen of Heaven. The maiden explains that the Kingdom of Heaven has a mysterious 'property' (1. 446), whereby everyone who becomes an inhabitant also becomes a king or queen. The dreamer objects that he could understand her being a countess or 'lady of lasse aray' because she died before she was two years of age without knowing 'Pater or Creed', whereas the positions of greater honour should be reserved for those who have had to endure more on Earth. But these objections are shown to be irrelevant, since 'Of more and lasse in GodeƷ ryche … lys no joparde' (ll. 601 ff.). At this point the maiden clinches her argument by referring to the privileged status of the newly baptized (ll. 613-72), who are in a stronger position by virtue of their innocence than those who have lived longer and had time to lose it (and so to forfeit the privileges acquired at baptism)—even if it is still possible for them to regain it. It is true that in the poem it is never explicitly stated that the neophyte becomes a king by virtue of his baptism, but this idea is clearly presupposed throughout this argument. Since the neophyte is a co-heir with Christ of God's kingdom,⁵² it follows that if a child dies while still in its baptismal innocence, it will, when it goes to Heaven, be 'Sesed in alle hys herytage' (1. 417).

At 11. 457-68 the maiden refers to the doctrine of the mystical body of Christ, in order to illustrate her statement in the previous stanza about the mysterious 'property' of the Kingdom of Heaven. The fact that the poetchooses to put this doctrine into her mouth at this point in her argument provides another link with the status of the newly baptized. It will be recalled that Honorius declares that the mitra and the alba are given to the newly baptized, 'quia … Christi regis et sacerdotis membrum efficitur'— he becomes a king (our author is not concerned in the poem with the priestly status) by becoming 'a longande lym to þe Mayster of myste'.⁵³ The point I would emphasize is that the poet does not simply derive the doctrinal material for this stanza from I Corinthians xii (where, incidentally, there is a directallusion to baptism at v. 13), but uses this text to illustrate and support his argument that the inhabitants of the heavenly kingdom can all be kings without depriving one another of their kingship. This is precisely what the liturgical commentators say, when they discuss the status of the newly baptized.

Having considered the liturgical elements in the poem that are centred upon the signification of the 'coroune', we may now examine those that are associated with the other basic part of the maiden's dress; namely, her white robes. In quotations that have already been made from the three principal liturgical writers who are mentioned in this study, it was stated that the white vestments of the newly baptized signify the innocence which was lost through Adam and restored through the sacrament of baptism. The poet makes no explicit statement about what is signified by the white robes, but the argument of the poem shows that the innocence which the maiden received at baptism is an important element in her characterization. It is the subject of the central portion of the debate about innocence and 'riƷt. As soon as the subject of innocence is introduced at ll. 625 ff., it is associated with baptism, and the two succeeding stanzas discuss the institution of this sacrament through the Crucifixion as a means of restoring what was withdrawn from mankind through Adam's sin. Certainly, innocence is the maiden's principal virtue, comprehending within itself subsidiary virtues such as chastity, virginity and purity.

The maiden's white robes are mentioned for the first time at l. 197: 'Al blysnande whyt watƷ hir beau biys'. In defence of the emendation of MS. uiys, Gordon shows that the line is a rendering of Revelation xix, 8, which states that it was allowed to the bride of the Lamb to clothe herself in shining white bysse.⁵⁴ As that verse from Revelation is unquestionably the source of this line, it may seem an act of supererogation to inquire any further into the significance of the word biys. Nevertheless, it is interesting to see that Durandus associates it with baptism and with the new, super-natural life that is bestowed by the sacrament. Like Honorius and Belethus, he remarks that the alb, or white robe, is the appropriate one for those who are reborn through baptism.⁵⁵ In III, iii, 1, he says that the Alb is made of bysse, or linen, because it is written: 'for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints' (Revelation xix, 8). In the next paragraph he remarks that byssus is an Egyptian linen, whose whiteness is produced by beating—and he goes on to give an allegorical meaning for this. It is not the allegorical signification given here that is of interest to us, however, but the one which is given in 5 of the same chapter, where he observes that the alb, because it is made of linen, is completely unlike the garments made from the skins of dead animals which Adam put on after the Fall, and, therefore, it symbolizes the new supernatural life that is given in baptism, and exemplified in Christ. For the same reason, the white vestments are a fitting dress for Christ, the head of His mystical body, as well as for those who have become members (limbs) through baptism:

Porro, secundum quod capiti, scilicet Christo, convenit alba, quae est lineum vestimentum, longissime distans a tunicis pelliceis, quae ex mortuis animalibus fiunt, quibus Adam vestitus est post peccatum, novitatem vitae significai, quam Christus et habuit, et docuit, et tribuit in baptismo, de qua dicit Apostolus: "[Expelientes] veterem hominem cum actibus suis … et induite novum, qui secundum Deum creatus est" (Eph. iv). Nam in transfiguratione "resplenduit facies ejus sicut sol, et vestimenta ejus facta sunt alba, sicut nix" (Matt. xvii). Semper enim vestimenta munda fuerunt, et candida, quia "peccatum non facit, nee inventus est dolus in ore ejus."

(I Peter ii).⁵⁶

So, when the neophyte puts on the white robe, he assumes, not only the virtue of innocence, but the new, supernatural life as well. Moreover, he also puts on the robes that are worn by the inhabitants of the Heavenly Kingdom and the garments that are, above all, those most fitting for Christ. In fact, he puts on Christ's own livery.

The white garments of the maiden in Pearl have much the same pattern of interrelated functions and meanings. It would be possible to tabulate the various significations of the white robes, both in Pearl and in liturgical practice, according to the fourfold allegorical system of the theologians and Biblical commentators—at least, in a fairly loose, analogical manner. Their 'topological' meaning would be 'innocence'; 'allegorically' they would symbolize rebirth in Christ, whose own livery they are; 'anagogically' they would represent the fact that baptism entitles the neophyte to become after death one of the white-robed company of the New Jerusalem. The liturgical commentators did, indeed, regularly make use of this fourfold method of interpretation.⁵⁷ A particular instance of their doing this will serve to introduce a final observation. The example is not directly concerned with white robes, but it does establish the association between the newly baptized and the hundred and forty-four thousand faultless virgins. Honorius 'of Autun', in the course of his commentary on the liturgy for Holy Saturday, considers the reason for the singing of the canticle, 'Sicut cervus desiderat', during the procession to the font, which was undertaken on that day and was repeated daily throughout the following Easter Week. He sees an anagogical significance in this practice:

Anagoge, id est sensus ad superiores ducens, locutio est, quae de praeteritis, futuris, et ea quae in coelis est vita futura, sive mysticis sive apertis sermonibus disputat; unde catechumenis dicitur in Cantico: "Sicut cervus desiderat ad fontes aquarum". Canticum ideo cantatur, quia ipsi sunt futuri in baptismo de centum quadraginta quatuor milium coetu, qui cantant canticum novum, quod nemo potuerat dicere nisi illi.⁵⁸

Similarly, Durandus observes:

Ideo autem Cantica cantantur, quia catechumeni, quorum est hujus diei officium, futuri sunt in proximo de coetu centum quadraginta quatuor millium cantantium canticum novum (Rev. xiv). Cantatur etiam propter futuram renovationem in veram innocentiam, quasi jam factum sit quod cito futurum sit …⁵⁹

The liturgy for Holy Saturday was instituted at a time when baptism of adult catechumens by immersion was generally practised, and when that sacrament was celebrated only twice a year: on Holy Saturday and at Pentecost—of which the former was, liturgically, the more important occasion. In the fourteenth century, when the candidates for baptism were infants rather than adults, and the sacrament was celebrated independently of these dates, the conditions that originally determined the structure of the liturgy for this season no longer obtained. There could, for example, be no procession of neophytes to the font throughout Easter Week. So certain adaptations were made. Thus, the procession was undertaken by the clergy and choir dressed in albs.⁶⁰ Again, although there may sometimes have been nobody to baptize on Holy Saturday,⁶¹ the idea of baptism retained its pre-eminence in the liturgy on account of the ceremony of the blessing of the font. The liturgy would, normally, no longer be performed for the benefit of the neophyte, but for the edification of adults who had been baptized as infants. So these portions of the liturgy would acquire an allegorical rather than a literal significance. The baptismal ceremonies would provide an annual opportunity for an act of spiritual renewal; the figure of the neophyte would become a symbol, inciting the faithful to return to the state of innocence which they possessed after their baptism.

Similarly, the Epistle in the Mass for the Saturday in Easter Week, originally intended for the exhortation of the neophytes, would serve to impress upon Christians who had been baptized many years earlier a sentence similar to the one that is implied in Pearl. It was taken from I Peter ii and urged its hearers to lay aside guile and envy, and 'like new-born babes, desire the rational milk without guile, that thereby you may grow unto salvation'. The faithful were again urged to imitate the virtues of the infant in the Introit for the following day (Low Sunday): 'Quasi modo geniti infantes, alleluia: rationabile, sine dolo lac concupiscite, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia'.⁶² The day came to be known as 'Quasimodo Sunday'.

Notes

1. Ed. cit., p. xxv, n. 3; cf. De Civitate Dei, xxii, 14 and 15. Dante's assumption (Paradiso, xxxii, 46-47) that children retain their childish faces and voices in Heaven is contrary to the normal medieval opinion.
2. Ed. cit., 63-64; η. on 1. 197.
3. 'The Pearl: An Interpretation of the Middle English Poem', Studies in English, iv (Charles University, Prague, 1933)—esp. pp. 20-24. Reprinted in Blanch, op. cit. (see Bibliographical Note, above, p. 128); esp. pp. 24 ff.
4. All references to the Sarum Missal and Breviary are to the following edd.: The Sarum Missal, ed. J. Wickham Legg (Oxford, 1916); F. Proctor and C. Wordsworth, Breviarium ad Usum Insignis Ecclesiae Sarum (Cambridge, 1879-86), 3 vols.
5. I give references to book, chapter and paragraph. The edition from which I quote is that published at Naples in 1859. Many helpful annotations will be found in the French translation of this work: Rational ou Manuel des Divins Offices de Guillaume Durand, ed. Charles Barthélemy (Paris, 1854), 5 vols. An English trans, of Book I appears in J. M. Neale and B. Webb, The Symbolism of Churches and Church Ornaments (Leeds, 1843), and of Book III in T. H. Passmore, The Sacred Vestments (London, 1899).
6. Durandus acknowledges the fact that his work is a compilation from other sources (VIII, xiv). For a list of some of the authors whom he consulted, see Barthélemy, ed. cit., I, xxv. In V, 467-79, he gives a list of the principal liturgical commentators arranged chronologically.
7. Honorius's works are edited in PL, clxxii.
8. It is printed in the edition of Durandus's Rationale (Naples, 1859) mentioned above. A text of Belethus's Rationale will also be found in PL, ccii.
9. Text from the following edition: 'Bartholomaeus de proprietatibus rerum .. translated from latin into our vulgaire langage by John of Trevisa. Londoni in aedibus Thomae Bertheleti [1535]'.
10. MLN, xlii, 113-16.
11. CT, B.1769-75.
12. Ibid., B.1817.
13. Cf. CT, B. 1709.
14. Sarum Breviary, ed. cit., I, ccxlii. For Wyclif's opinion that muscial settings—among other features of the Salisbury ritual—distract attention from the sentence, see his treatise 'Of Feigned Contemplative Life' in The English Works of Wyclif, ed. F. D. Matthew (EETS, O.S., 74), pp. 187-96.
15. On the Boy Bishop see (apart from primary sources mentioned in subsequent notes): E. K. Chambers, The Medieval Stage (Oxford, 1903), i, 336-71; Daniel Rock, The Church of Our Fathers, new edn. by G. W. Hart and W. H. Frere (London, 1904), iv, 250-56; J. M. J. Fletcher, The Boy Bishop at Salisbury and Elsewhere (Salisbury, 1921); W. C. Meller, The Boy Bishop (London, 1923). Meller does little more than follow Fletcher.
16. See Durandus of Mende, Rationale, VII, xlii, 15, as well as secondary sources mentioned in preceding note.
17. Sarum Breviary, ed. cit., I, ccxxix.
18. See Meller, op. cit., p. 13.
19. Text is given in Camden Miscellany, VII (Publications of the Camden Society, N.S., No. xiv, 1875), pp. 14 ff.; see Fletcher, op. cit., p. 18; Meller, op. cit., p. 14.
20. Meller, op. cit., pp. 12-13.
21. C. Wordsworth, Ceremonies and Processions of the Cathedral Church of Salisbury (Cambridge, 1901), p. 52.
22. Lines 205-7.
23. Line 211.
24. The available evidence suggests that these ceremonies were widespread throughout England during the fourteenth century: see Fletcher, op. cit., pp. 9-10; Meller, op. cit., pp. 10-11.
25. Medieval Stage, ii, 148; English Literature at the Close of the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1945), pp. 7-9.
26. The Drama of the Medieval Church (Oxford, 1933), ii, 102-24.
27. Ibid., p. 105.
28. Ibid., pp. 110-13. Text also given in T. Wright, Early Mysteries and Other Latin Poems of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries (London, 1838), pp. 29-31; E. du Méril, Origines Latines Du Théâtre Moderne (Paris, 1849), pp. 175-79.
29. The Innocents are also associated with the procession of Revelation xiv in hymns, such as that by Bede (Anal. Hymnica, L, p. 102 and see XLII, p. 225); see also the carol by John Audelay, mentioned by Gordon, ed. cit., p. xxv, n. 2. Gordon also refers to the Towneley play of Herod.
30. See above, p. 104.

31. On baptism by martyrdom, cf. Piers Plowman, B. xii, 282-83:

    'For there is fullyng of fonte . and fullyng in
      blode-shedynge,
    And through fuire is fullyng . and that is
     ferme bileue.'

    (W. W. Skeat, The Vision of William Concerning Piers the Plowman. In Three Parallel Texts—London, 1886—i, 382.)

32. Lines 645-48.
33. Mirk's Festial, ed. T. Erbe, I (EETS, E.S., 96), p. 35.
34. They do not appear in the modern Roman Breviary; neither are they included in the medieval York Breviary: see Breviarium ad Usum Insignis Ecclesiae Eboracensis, i (Surtees Society, lxxi (1880; 1879 on spine), coll. 112-20). The three final lectiones (which do not, in fact, concern us here) are, like the corresponding ones in Sarum, taken from Bede—but they are not identical with them.
35. Sarum Breviary, ed. cit., I, ccxxxiv. The lectio is concerned with the antiphon: 'quare non defendis …'
36. Ibid. col. ccxxxv (by Severianus).
37. Psalm xv in A.V.
38. Sarum Breviary, ed. cit., I ccxxxvi.
39. Moreover, it may also provide a possible source for an important aspect of the poem's didactic sentence. In addition to evidence already mentioned, we may observe an annotation by Barthélemy (see above, p. 143, n. 5) on a passage in which Durandus discusses the liturgy for Holy Innocents' Day. He calls attention to a homily for the Feast by Pope St. Leo the Great [i.e. Leo I] (Barthélemy, ed. cit., v, 342-45). The homily exhorts its audience to become as children and is concerned with the spiritual renewal of life; it urges a return to infancy, not in ignorance, but in harmlessness.
40. Text from Edmond Faral, Les Arts Poétiques du XII^e et du XIII^e Siècle (Paris, 1924), p. 120. This is Matthew's adaptation, for purposes of the descriptio, of Horace's precept about consistency of characterization (De Arte Poetica, II, 120 ff.).
41. PL, clxxii, 673.
42. Ibid., col. 616.
43. See P. Guéranger, The Liturgical Year, the vol. entitled 'Passiontide and Holy Week' in the trans. by L. Shepherd (Dublin, 1870), pp. 614-19.
44. For the form of baptism observed in medieval England, see W. Maskell, Monumenta Ritualia Ecclesiae Anglicanae (London, 1846), i, 22-36. Maskell reproduces the text of the Sarum rite, but in footnotes he observes discrepancies between it and the other medieval English rites.
45. Rationale, cap. cx (PL, ccii, 114).
46. See Durandus, op. cit., VI, lxxxiii, 17.
47. Ibid, 15.
48. Ibid
49. See above, p. 121.
50. Lines 603-4.
51. See above.…
52. See Honorius as quoted above.…
53. … So also Durandus: '… quia ipse est membrum Christi, qui est rex et sacerdos'.…
54. Ed. cit., p. 54.
55. Op. cit., VI, lxxxiii, 16, where he is discussing the significance of the chrisom. See also ibid., III, xviii, 2. This [section] is concerned with the various uses of the four liturgical colours.
56. Ibid., III, iii, 5. The opening of the quotation from Ephesians is a corruption of Ephesians iv, 22: 'Deponere vos secundum pristinam conversationem veterem hominem …' Cf. Colossians iii, 9 and 10.
57. The application of the four allegorical 'senses' to the liturgical text as well as to the vestments and ecclesiastical ornaments is a common feature of the liturgical commentaries. See Durandus, op. cit., I, Proemium, 6-12.
58. PL, clxxii, 749.
59. Op. cit., VI, lxxxi, 13.
60. Sarum Breviary, ed. cit., I, dcccxviii-dcccxxii.
61. But usually, no doubt, there were infants to be baptized on that day. The Sarum Missal makes provision for baptism in the course of the Holy Saturday ceremonies, giving instructions for the putting on of the chrisom (ed. cit., p. 131).
62. Sarum Missal, ed. cit., p. 144.