Date.—The Speculum Hominis stands first in order of the three books enumerated by Gower, and was written therefore before the Vox Clamantis. This last was evidently composed shortly after the rising of the peasants in 1381, and to that event, which evidently produced the strongest impression on the author’s mind, there is no reference in this book. There are indeed warnings of the danger of popular insurrection, as 24104 ff., 26485 ff., 27229 ff., but they are of a general character, suggested perhaps partly by the Jacquerie in France and partly by the local disturbances caused by discontented labourers in England, and convey the idea that the writer was uneasy about the future, but not that a catastrophe had already come. In one passage he utters a rather striking prophecy of the evil to be feared, speaking of the strange lethargy in which the lords of the land are sunk, so that they take no note of the growing madness of the commons. On the whole we may conclude without hesitation that the book was completed before the summer of the year 1381.

Date.

There are some other considerations which will probably lead us to throw the date back a little further than this. In 2142 ff. it seems to be implied that Edward III is still alive. ‘They of France,’ he says, ‘should know that God abhors their disobedience, in that they, contrary to their allegiance, refuse by way of war to render homage and obedience to him who by his birth receives the right from his mother.’ This can apply to none but Edward III, and we are led to suppose that when these lines were written he was still alive to claim his right. The supposition is confirmed by the manner in which the author speaks of the reigning king in that part of his work which deals with royalty. Nowhere does he address him as a child or youth in the manner of the Vox Clamantis, but he complains of the trust placed by the king in flatterers and of the all-prevailing influence of women, calling upon God to remedy those evils which arise from the monstrous fact that a woman reigns in the land and the king is subject to her (22807 ff.). This is precisely the complaint which might have been expected in the latter years of Edward III. On the other hand there is a clear allusion in one place (18817-18840) to the schism of the Church, and this passage therefore must have been written as late as 1378, but, occurring as it does at the conclusion of the author’s attack upon the Court of Rome, it may well have been added after the rest. The expression in l. 22191,

[Pg xliii]

[Pg xliii]

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