The number of these chantries was countless; every arch in the aisles of the cathedrals contained some, where the service for the dead was sung; sometimes separate edifices were built with this view. A priest celebrated masses when the founder had asked for them; and clerks performed the office of choristers, having, for the most part, simply received the tonsure, and not being necessarily in holy orders. It was, for them all, a career, almost a trade; giving rise to discussions concerning salaries, and even to actual strikes. These services derived the name under which they commonly went from one of the words of the liturgy sung; they were called Placebos and Diriges. The word "dirge" has passed into the English language, and is derived from the latter.
To psalmody for money, to chant the same words from day to day and from year to year, transforming into a mere mechanical toil the divine gift and duty of prayer, could not answer the ideal of life conceived by a proud and generous soul filled with vast thoughts. Langland, however, was obliged to curb his mind to this work; Placebo and Dirige became his tools:
The lomes that ich laboure with · and lyflode deserve.[636]
Like many others whose will is diseased, he condemned the abuse and profited by it. The fairies at his birth had promised riches, and he was poor; they had whispered of love, and an unsatisfactory marriage had closed the door on love, and debarred him from preferment to the highest ecclesiastical ranks. Langland lives miserably with his wife Catherine and his daughter Nicolette, in a house in Cornhill, not far from St. Paul's, the cathedral of many chantries,[637] and not far from that tower of Aldgate, to which about this time that other poet, Chaucer, directed his steps, he, too, solitary and lost in dreams.
Langland has depicted himself at this period of his existence a great, gaunt figure, dressed in sombre garments with large folds, sad in a grief without end, bewailing the protectors of his childhood and his lost illusions, seeing nothing but clouds on the horizon of his life. He begins no new friendships; he forms ties with no one; he follows the crowded streets of the city, elbowing lords, lawyers, and ladies of fashion; he greets no one. Men wearing furs and silver pendants, rich garments and collars of gold, brush past him, and he knows them not. Gold collars ought to be saluted, but he does not do it; he does not say to them: "God loke yow Lordes!" But then his air is so absent, so strange, that instead of quarrelling with him people shrug their shoulders, and say: He is "a fole"; he is mad.[638] Mad! the word recurs again and again under his pen, the idea presents itself incessantly to his mind, under every shape, as though he were possessed by it: "fole," "frantyk," "ydiote!" He sees around him nothing but dismal spectres: Age, Penury, Disease.
To these material woes are added mental ones. In the darkness of this world shines at least a distant ray, far off beyond the grave. But, at times, even this light wavers; clouds obscure and apparently extinguish it. Doubts assail the soul of the dreamer; theology ought to elucidate, but, on the contrary, only darkens them:
The more I muse there-inne · the mistier it seemeth,
And the depper I devyne · the darker me it thinketh.[639]
How is it possible to reconcile the teachings of theology with our idea of justice? And certain thoughts constantly recur to the poet, and shake the edifice of his faith; he drives them away, they reappear; he is bewitched by them and cannot exorcise these demons. Who had a more elevated mind than Aristotle, and who was wiser than Solomon? Still they are held by Holy-Church "bothe ydampned!" and on Good Friday, what do we see? A felon is saved who had lived all his life in lies and thefts; he was saved at once "with-outen penaunce of purgatorie." Adam, Isaiah, and all the prophets remained "many longe yeres" with Lucifer, and—
A robbere was yraunceouned · rather than thei alle![640]
He wishes he had thought less, learnt less, "conned" fewer books, and preserved for himself the quiet, "sad bileve" of "plowmen and pastoures"; happy men who can