The Dignity of Langland’s Meed

This article examines the scholarly practice of referring to L’s Meed as ‘Lady’ Meed in defiance of L’s own practice. The representation of Meed as an allegorical personification takes its place as a precise if complex element in a systematic argument about the relation of material and spiritual goods (the subject of the first vision). In this respect Meed is to be contrasted and not identified with the ladies of medieval literary allegories, notably the Beatrice and Matilda of Dante’s Commedia and the Lady Holy Church of PPl itself. (GM; adapted from the journal’s abstract)