In a previous post I highlighted detail from the January folio of the Très Riche Heures that pointed to the pseudo Plowman’s Tale associated with Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales and the debate between the ‘Pelican without pride’ and the ‘Griffin of grim stature’. The Plowman’s Tale is said to have been sourced from Pierce the Ploughman’s Crede.

Bathélémy d’Eyck makes reference to the latter in this way: The Ploughman is the figure between the Pelican and the Griffin. He ‘borrows’ the last letter from the word Ploughman’s and cleaves it to the word crede or ‘creed’ to make ‘screde’ – screde in its meaning as a strip of cloth; in this instance, the tail or liripipe descending from the figure’s blue hood. So we have the pelican’s beak ‘piercing’ the ploughman’s-crede.

Screed can also refer to the aggressive hanrague the Pelican directs at the Griffin during their debate on Church corruption.

I mentioned earlier the word ‘cleave’. It can mean adhere to or, conversely, to separate. In both cases the word is a pointer to another poet, Thomas Hocleeve, whose Marian ‘miracle’ story called Item de Beate Virgine also found its way at one stage into The Canterbury Tales.

The name Thomas is identified by the communion wafer in the hand of the ploughman. Closer inspection reveals the Host has a bloody hole and is meant to refer to ‘doubting’ Thomas, the disciple of Jesus who would not believe in the resurrection until he could see and put his fingers into Christ’s wounds. The Catholic belief is that the consecrated host is actually the Body of Christ. Hoccleve was a follower of Chaucer and so perhaps explains why he is illustrated turned in the direction of Chaucer and not towards the banquet table set out as representing the tomb of Christ. Was Hoccleve caught between two creeds – that of the Lollards as depicted by the Pelican, and the creed of the Catholic Church as spoken by the Griffin? It’s interesting to see that Barthélémy d’Eyck has covered the eyes of Hoccleve with the Pelican’s beak, perhaps pointing to the warning Jesus gave to his disciples in Matthew’s gospel (16:6)… “Keep your eyes open, and be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”.

It is said that Hoccleve’s Marian miracle story was inserted or ‘cleaved’ in 15th century versions of The Canterbury Tales to counter the Lollard sentiments expressed in the Plowman’s Tale (Complaint of the Ploughman), that is, inserted for a particular purpose or ‘ad hoc’. When we take the reference to ‘Thomas’ and add ‘Hoc’ and ‘Cleave’, we arrive at the name of Thomas Hoccleve.

More on this in my next post and how Hoccleve’s Item Beate Virgine links to the detail shown here and the French chronicler Jean Creton.

When “screed” first appeared in English in the 14th century, it meant simply “a fragment cut or torn from the main piece” or, a bit later, “a strip of torn cloth.” This sense evolved over the centuries to include the use of “screed” to mean “a strip of land” or “a border,” as one might add a fancy border to a piece of cloth or paper. In the late 18th century, this sense of “long strip of something” produced “screed” meaning “a long list, a lengthy discourse or diatribe, or a gossiping letter,” and our modern polemical “screed” was born.

The Word Dictionary

Other posts on the January folio of the Très Riche Heures