Reformist Apocalypticism and Piers Plowman.

By Kathryn Kerby-Fulton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Pp. xi + 256. $49.50.

This book's thesis is that Langland's prophetic self-awareness is defined by his indebtedness to "Latin religious prophecy" (p. 2), sources that embody what Kerby-Fulton calls a "new" apocalypticism (i.e., the meliorist exegetical works of Joachim of Fiore and his imitators as well as visionary materials derived from Hildegard of Bingen). These sources share a tendency to project apocalyptic events forward "into a period long before the End of the World" and emphasize the importance of clerical reform and the miraculous renewal of the entire Church. Kerby-Fulton sees them as being in opposition to the older "popular Antichrist lore" (p. 2), which she identifies, somewhat inconsistently, with "the old Augustinian historical pessimism" (p. 205, n. 9; note her concessions that the former was, in fact, "melioristic" [p. 206, n. 16] and that this popular material evolved, during the twelfth century, into her "new" apocalypticism [p. 9]).

Those familiar with the history of this topic in Piers Plowman studies will readily recognize from this preliminary summary that Kerby-Fulton's book represents an effort to salvage the central idea of Morton Bloomfield's classic monograph (1961), by updating his argument and expanding its scope to include much more than "the apocalyptic elements of monastic philosophy" (p. 13). In doing this, she strengthens considerably Bloomfield's very tentative case for regarding apocalypse as a distinctive genre; however, precisely because her discussion is more specific than his, she inadvertently undermines his claim that Piers is a narrative mainly shaped by utopian or chiliastic models.

Three examples deserve close analysis. The first is a description of the lineage of Langland's …