The Hideous Feet of Langland’s Peacock.

The mention of the peacock’s ugly feet (B. 12.242ff.) is paralleled by BartholoMAEus Anglicus, the fourteenth-century Fasciculus morum, and a late fourteenth-century sermon found in Worcester Cathedral Library MS. F. 10. The usual moralization involves shame or sorrow over sins; WL’s moralization, that the peacock’s feet stand for false executors who do not faithfully discharge responsibilities, has not been traced.