Resoun

In The Donet, written in the 1440s, Reginald Pecock agrees that superfluity or extravagance should be avoided by rulers: a prince should govern 'bi resoun and bi feith, and by law is therupon maad to the comune and to ech otheris helpe, forthering and profite'.

"Hooste", quod he, "I am under youre yerde; *authority;control Ye han of us as now the governance, *authority And therfore wol I do yow obeisance, *obey As fer as resoun axeth, hardily ..." *demands

(25) He suggests to Furnival that what he has learned through his self-reflection is that youth should bow to "reuled resoun" as a way to greater social integration.

[God] preeveth folk al day, it is no drede, And suffreth us, as for oure excercise, With sharpe scourges of adversitee Ful ofte to be bete in sondry wise[.] (1155-58) Towards the end of "My Complaint," the personified figure Resoun comes full circle by harking back to the same passage in her words of consolation to a suffering Everyman figure who bears a strong resemblance to Hoccleve: (42)

And also moreouer me thynketh, syre Resoun, Me [Men] sholde constrayne no clerc to no knaues werkes, For by the law of Leuyticy that oure lord ordeynede Clerkes ycrouned ...

in resoun ay so depe / Ne preciously, but help thiself anon"

enformedest my maneris and the resoun of al my lif to the ensaumple of the ordre of hevene?

(86) 1374 For it [intelligence] knowe[thorn] [thorn]e vniuersite of resoun and [thorn]e figure of [thorn]e ymaginacioun and [thorn]e sensible material conseiued.

Women who 'lyuen in ryot daunsynge and lepynge in nyztis and slepe out of resoun on [thorn]e morewe and forzeten god and his drede' (fol.