The Givenness of Things: Essays

by Marilynne Robinson

and burned. The poet and priest William Langland, contemporary with these events, wrote in Middle English the long visionary poem Piers the Ploughman, composed between 1362 and 1394. One voice of the poem, describing theologians at dinner, says, “Meanwhile some poor wretch may cry at their gate, tormented by hunger and thirst and shivering with cold; yet no one asks him in or eases his suffering, except to shoo him off like a dog. Little can they love the Lord who gives them so much comfort, if this is how they share it with the poor! Why, if the poor had no more mercy than the rich, all the beggars would go to bed with empty bellies. For the gorges of these great theologians are often crammed with God’s Name, but His mercy and His works are found among humble folk.”