Today’s word of the day, thanks to yesterday’s word, is crapulous. Pronounced / ˈkræp yə ləs /, it’s an adjective that means “given to or characterized by gross excess in drinking or eating” or “suffering from or due to such excess” (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/crapulous). Samuel Johnson, in his 1755 Dictionary, defines it as “Drunken; intemperate; sick with intemperance,” and says that it comes from the Latin crapulosus (https://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/views/search.php?term=crapulous).

It first appears in the language in the “1530s, ‘drunken, characterized by drunkenness;’ 1755, ‘sick from too much drinking,’ with -ous + Latin crapula, from or related to Greek kraipalē ‘hangover, drunken headache, nausea from debauching,’ which is of uncertain origin. The Romans used it for drunkenness itself. English has used it in both senses” (https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=crapulous). Etymonline.com provides the related adjective crapulent, “’drunken, intemperate in drinking,’ 1650s, from Latin crapulentus ‘very drunk,’ from crapula ‘excessive drinking’” (ibid.).

Merriam-Webster explains, “Crapulous may sound like a word that you shouldn’t use in polite company, but it actually has a long and perfectly respectable history (although it’s not a particularly kind way to describe someone). It is derived from the Late Latin adjective crapulosus, which, in turn, traces back to the Latin word crapula, meaning ‘intoxication.’ (The decidedly impolite word crap is unrelated; it comes from a British dialect term meaning ‘residue from rendered fat.’) Crapula itself comes from a much older Greek word for the headache one gets from drinking too much alcohol. Crapulous first appeared in print in the 1530s. Approximately 200 years later, its close cousin crapulence arrived on the scene as a word for sickness caused by excessive drinking. Crapulence later acquired the meaning ‘great intemperance especially in drinking,’ but it is not an especially common word” (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/crapulous).

In the late 14^th century in England, about the time when Geoffrey Chaucer was writing and reading his poetry to the court in London, another poet, probably named William Langland based upon some internal evidence, was writing and rewriting a lengthy poem called William’s Vision of Piers Plowman.

Piers Plowman, which is how it is referred to by most people who know it, is a lengthy allegorical poem. As unpopular as allegory is in the 21^st century, it was that popular in the Middle Ages and even later. For instance, John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, 1678, was often figuratively placed alongside the Bible among American pioneers. There are many extant copies of the poem with many variations. Scholars have categorized the variations into three primary texts, labeled A, B, and C. The A-text is the shortest version of the poem, and it is usually dated c. 1367-70. The B-text is a revision of the A-text with a lot of added material so that it’s about three times as long as the A-text. The C-text is a revision of the B-text.

Piers Plowman is part of a literary tradition called estates satire. It focuses on the three estates of medieval society, the clergy, the nobility, and the peasants. The clergy prays for the nobility and the peasants, the nobility protects (think knights) the clergy and the peasants, and the peasants feed the clergy and the nobility. A good member of medieval society knows their place and does their job to the best of their ability, but there are many, many members of all three estates who do not do their job well or even take it seriously.

The poem is a dream vision, like Dante’s Divina Comedia. It begins with the narrator, Will, falling asleep:

IN a summer season, when soft was the sun,
I enshrouded me well in a shepherd’s garb,
And robed as a hermit, unholy of works.
Went wide through the world, all wonders to hear.
And on a May morning, on Malvern hills,
Strange fancies befel me, and fairy-like dreams.
I was weary of wand’ring, and went to repose
On a broad green bank, by a burn-side ;
As I lay there and leaned and looked on the waters,
I slumbered and slept, they sounded so merry.

The translation is by W. W. Skeat, one of the great Victorian scholars (https://dn790001.ca.archive.org/0/items/visionofpiersplo00languoft/visionofpiersplo00languoft.pdf).

The poem is divided into passus, divisions like chapters, and also into visions. The prologue (above) prepares us for the first vision, which occupies Passus 1 through 4. In the second vision, which begins with Passus 5, “Will falls back to sleep. Reason gives a sermon to the Field of Folk and the people decide to repent. The Seven Deadly Sins make confession and in penance attempt to go on pilgrimage to St Truth. They get lost, and Piers Plowman makes his first appearance: he will help the penitents if they help him plough his half-acre” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piers_Plowman).

And it is in this section of the Seven Deadly Sins that we find one of the funniest and most human moments in Piers Plowman, and maybe in all of medieval literature.

Now beginneth Glutton for to go to shrift,
And caireth him to church-ward his coupe to shew.
As Betty the Brewer bade him good morrow
And with that asked of him whitherward he would.
“To Holy Church,” quoth he, “for to hear mass,
And since I will be shriven, and sin no more.”
“I have good ale, gossip,” quoth she, “Glutton, wilt thou assay?”
“Hast thou,” quoth he, “any hot spices?”
“I have pepper and peony,” quoth she, “and a pound of garlic,
A farthingworth of fennel seed for fasting days.”
Then goeth Glutton in, and great oaths after. (https://www.ancientgroove.co.uk/books/Piers_Plowman.pdf).

And Glutton stays at Betty’s brewhouse quite a long while. He had a great time. He never made it to confession. And then it was time for Glutton to leave.

And when he drew to the door, then dimmed his eyes;
He thrumbled on the threshfold and threw to the earth.
Clement the Cobbler caught him by the middle
For to lift him aloft, and laid him on his knees.
As Glutton was a great churl and a grim in the lifting,
And coughed up a cawdel in Clement’s lap.
Is none so hungry hound in Hertfordshire
Durst lap up that leaving, so unlovely it smelt! (ibid.)

Finally, after his wife helps him home, he goes to Confession and asserts that in the future he will listen to his aunt, Abstinence, and will eat fish on Fridays. But one suspects that, once Glutton is over that crapulous feeling, he’ll be back at the pub.

“This twenty-first century image by James Todd includes the figure of death.  After all, they are deadly sins, aren’t they?” I found it at “Black and White Words and Pictures: A blog about Block Prints and Fantasy (Mostly)” by Anne E. G. Nydam (https://nydamprintsblackandwhite.blogspot.com/2017/11/gluttony.html).