Page "Pierce the Ploughman's Crede" Paragraph 8

Like much political or religious poetry of the Alliterative Revival ( i. e., Piers Plowman, Mum and the Sothsegger ), the poem takes the form of a quest for knowledge.

It is narrated by a layman who has memorised nearly all of the rudimentary texts demanded by the Fourth Lateran Council.

He can read, and is able to recite the Ave Maria and Pater Noster proficiently: yet he does not know the Creed.

He seeks help from the friars, first turning to the Franciscans, then the Dominicans, followed by the Austin friars and the Carmelites.

But rather than learning anything of value, all he hears are imprecations.

Each order savagely attacks one of its rival groups of mendicants: the Franciscans denounce the Carmelites ; the Carmelites denounce the Dominicans ; the Dominicans denounce the Augustines ; the Augustines complete this carousel of invective by denouncing the Franciscans.

The entire poem seems like an uproarious inversion of cantos xi and xii of Dante's Paradiso: just as Dante has the Dominican Aquinas and the Franciscan Bonaventure lauding one another's orders, so the Crede-poet makes the mendicants exchange abuse.