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Langland’s Bells of the Resurrection and the Easter Liturgy

1977; University of Western Ontario Libraries; Volume: 3; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/esc.1977.0011

1913-4835

Raymond St-Jacques,

Historical and Architectural Studies

L A N G L A N D ' S B E L L S OF T H E R E S U R R E C T I O N A N D T H E E A S T E R L I T U R G Y RAYMOND ST-JACQUES University of Ottawa I n his Piers Plowman and the Scheme of Salvation, Robert W. Frank writes of Langland's use of dream visions and waking interludes: I have exploited two formal elements peculiar to the work. One of these is its division into a number of dreams. Most medieval poets were content to frame their narrative within a single vision. There are ten in B, including two dreams within dreams, a particularly striking innovation. The only reasonable explanation for this plurality of dreams, I believe, is that the poet used the individual visions as thematic units. He developed a theme within a single vision, ended the vision when he had finished treating that theme, and began a new dream to develop a new topic ... Another formal device in the poem is the interludes in the real world which precede the various dreams ... I believe that some of these interludes are introductions to the vision which follows. They motivate the dreams by grounding them in experiences in the real world. And at times they introduce or point up a theme developed in the vision proper.1 One of the most striking of these waking interludes occurs at the end of Passus xvm when, after witnessing Christ's Passion and victory over Satan in the Harrowing of Hell and the reconciliation of the four daughters of God, Will is awakened by the sound of Easter bells: Til J>e day dawed {use damyseles carolden That men rongen to he resurexion, and riyt wij> hat I wakede And callede kytte my wif and Calote my doghter: Ariseh and reuerencejj goddes resurexion, And crepeh to he cros on knees and kisseh it for a Iuwel For goddes blissede body it bar for oure boote; And it afereh he fend, for swich is he myyte May no grisly goost glide here it shadweh-' (Lines 424-31)2 An examination of this passage in the light of the medieval liturgy of Easter3 reveals that Langland uses allusions to some of the most moving liturgical English Studies in Ca n ad a, iii, 2, Summer 1977 130 ceremonies to evoke the mystery of the Resurrection, Christianity's central belief, and thus provides Will in his waking world with proof of the applicability to himself of all those truths regarding salvation and perfection revealed to him up to now only in dream visions. At the same time, the liturgy leads Will to put into practice what he has already learned, while guiding him and the reader back from the heights of the vision of Christ's victory to the level of human action in the world, the subject of the final Passus of the poem. A study of liturgical prescriptions concerning the ringing of church bells during Holy Week and on Easter Sunday indicates the symbolic significance of these bells for the medieval Christian. The bells were silenced after the chanting of the Gloria during Holy Thursday mass4 until the Easter Vigil. According to Sicard of Cremona, this symbolized the silence of the Apostles who fled in terror when Jesus was arrested: The bells become silent; these bells symbolize the Apostles, who, instructed by the fire of charity ... did not refrain from preaching the name of God. But during the Passion, they not only remained silent but also fled and denied the truth. Whence we enjoin silence on the bells from the moment of vespers when Our Lord was captured, when indeed all the disciples fled, except John who was known to the high priest. Our custom, however, is that from prime on [Holy] Thursday the bells no longer ring.5 The bells were not heard again until the Gloria of the Easter Vigil mass6 announced the joyful tidings of the Resurrection. Because Langland mentions the dawn in line 424 and creeping to the cross in line 428, however, his readers would probably have associated...