Piers Ploughman
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''Piers Plowman'' (written 1370–86; possibly ) or ''Visio Willelmi de Petro Ploughman'' (''William's Vision of Piers Plowman'') is a
Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English p ...
allegorical As a literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a hidden meaning with moral or political significance. Authors have used allegory t ...
narrative poem Narrative poetry is a form of poetry that tells a story, often using the voices of both a narrator and characters; the entire story is usually written in metered verse. Narrative poems do not need rhyme. The poems that make up this genre may be s ...
by
William Langland William Langland (; la, Willielmus de Langland; 1332 – c. 1386) is the presumed author of a work of Middle English alliterative verse generally known as ''Piers Plowman'', an allegory with a complex variety of religious themes. The poem tr ...
. It is written in un- rhymed,
alliterative verse In prosody, alliterative verse is a form of verse that uses alliteration as the principal ornamental device to help indicate the underlying metrical structure, as opposed to other devices such as rhyme. The most commonly studied traditions of ...
divided into sections called (
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
for "step"). Like the
Pearl Poet The "Gawain Poet" (), or less commonly the "Pearl Poet",Andrew, M. "Theories of Authorship" (1997) in Brewer (ed). ''A Companion to the Gawain-poet'', Boydell & Brewer, p.23 (''fl.'' late 14th century) is the name given to the author of ''Sir ...
's ''
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight ''Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'' is a late 14th-century chivalric romance in Middle English. The author is unknown; the title was given centuries later. It is one of the best-known Arthurian stories, with its plot combining two types of ...
'', ''Piers Plowman'' is considered by many critics to be one of the greatest works of
English literature English literature is literature written in the English language from United Kingdom, its crown dependencies, the Republic of Ireland, the United States, and the countries of the former British Empire. ''The Encyclopaedia Britannica'' defines E ...
of the
Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
, even preceding and influencing Chaucer's ''
Canterbury Tales ''The Canterbury Tales'' ( enm, Tales of Caunterbury) is a collection of twenty-four stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. It is widely regarded as Chaucer's ''magnum opus ...
''. ''Piers Plowman'' contains the first known reference to a literary tradition of
Robin Hood Robin Hood is a legendary heroic outlaw originally depicted in English folklore and subsequently featured in literature and film. According to legend, he was a highly skilled archer and swordsman. In some versions of the legend, he is depic ...
tales. There exist three distinct versions of the poem, which scholars refer to as the A-, B-, and C-texts. The B-text is the most widely edited and translated version; it revises and extends the A-text by over four thousand lines.


Summary

The poem, a mix of theological allegory and social
satire Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming ...
, concerns the narrator/dreamer's quest for the true Christian life in the context of
medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the Post-classical, post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with t ...
Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
. This journey takes place within a series of dream visions; the dreamer seeks, among other things, the
allegorical As a literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a hidden meaning with moral or political significance. Authors have used allegory t ...
characters Dowel (''"Do-Well"''), Dobet (''"Do-Better"''), and Dobest (''"Do-Best"''). The poem is divided into ''passus'' ('steps'), the divisions between which vary by version. The following summary is based on the B-version of the poem.


Vision 1

Prologue: The poem begins in the
Malvern Hills The Malvern Hills are in the English counties of Worcestershire, Herefordshire and a small area of northern Gloucestershire, dominating the surrounding countryside and the towns and villages of the district of Malvern. The highest summit aff ...
between
Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified Kingdom of England in 927, at which time it was constituted as a county (see His ...
and
Herefordshire Herefordshire () is a county in the West Midlands of England, governed by Herefordshire Council. It is bordered by Shropshire to the north, Worcestershire to the east, Gloucestershire to the south-east, and the Welsh counties of Monmouthshire ...
. A man named Will (which can be understood either simply as a personal name or as an allegory for a person's will, in the sense of 'desire, intention') falls asleep and has a vision of a tower set upon a hill and a fortress (''
donjon A keep (from the Middle English ''kype'') is a type of fortified tower built within castles during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars have debated the scope of the word ''keep'', but usually consider it to refer to large towers in ...
'') in a deep valley; between these symbols of heaven and hell is a 'fair field full of folk', representing the world of mankind. A satirical account of different sections of society follows, along with a dream-like fable representing the King as a cat and his people as rodents who consider whether to bell the cat. Passus 1: Holy Church visits Will and explains the tower of Truth, and discusses Truth more generally. Passus 2: Will sees Lady Mede ('payment') and finds out about her planned marriage to False. Passus 3: Lady Mede travels to the royal court; the King proposes she marry Conscience; but Conscience denounces her. Passus 4: Conscience and Reason convince the King not to marry Mede to False. Will wakes up.


Vision 2

Passus 5: Will falls back to sleep. Reason gives a sermon to the Field of Folk and the people decide to repent. The
Seven Deadly Sins The seven deadly sins, also known as the capital vices or cardinal sins, is a grouping and classification of vices within Christian teachings. Although they are not directly mentioned in the Bible, there are parallels with the seven things ...
make confession and in penance attempt to go on pilgrimage to St Truth. They get lost, and Piers Plowman makes his first appearance: he will help the penitents if they help him plough his half-acre. Passus 6: Piers and the penitents plough the half-acre. Some people refuse to work, and Hunger punishes them until they work. But once Hunger has been sated, the people return to idleness. Passus 7: Eventually, Truth sends Piers a pardon for the penitents' sins; its main content is 'Do well and have well and God shall have your soul' and 'Do evil and have evil, and expect nothing other than that after your death, the Devil shall have your soul'. When challenged on the pardon's validity by a priest, Piers angrily tears it in two. Will is awakened by their arguing and, musing on his dreams, decides to seek ‘Do-wel’.


Vision 3

Passus 8: Will's search for Dowel begins. He enters into a disputation with Friars. He then falls asleep once more and meets Thought. Thought instructs Will in 'Do well, do better, do best'. Practical interpretation of what these concepts mean is to be provided by Wit. Passus 9: There is an extended allegory featuring Dowel and the Castle of Flesh, exposing the need for people to be governed by their ‘Inwit’. The text discusses poverty and marriage. Wit makes further inroads to understanding Dowel, as active virtue. Passus 10: Will meets Wit's wife, Dame Study. She complains to Will about his ignorance. Will then proceeds to Clergy and Scripture to learn more about Dowel. He considers what use scholarship might have in helping him achieve salvation. Passus 11: Scripture complains about Will's lack of self-knowledge. Angered, Will (who is already dreaming) goes to sleep and has a dream-within-a-dream in which he meets Fortune. He serves her into old age, but she abandons him. Will learns about the salvation of the
Emperor Trajan Trajan ( ; la, Caesar Nerva Traianus; 18 September 539/11 August 117) was Roman emperor from 98 to 117. Officially declared ''optimus princeps'' ("best ruler") by the senate, Trajan is remembered as a successful soldier-emperor who presi ...
and the power of love. Kynde ('character, natural disposition, nature', here understood as an aspect of God) shows Will the world. Will has an argument with Reason: Reason, Will concludes, does not do enough to keep people from sin; but Reason disagrees. Will awakes from the dream-within-a-dream. He now meets Imaginatif, who advises Will to be patient. Passus 12: Imaginatif teaches Will, bringing together and improving his understanding of earlier discussions in the poem. Imaginatif emphasises the need for humility and the importance of Grace.


Vision 4

Passus 13: Will awakens and then falls back to sleep; he dreams of sharing a feast with Conscience, Scripture, Clergy and Patience; he encounters a greedy Doctor of Divinity (who later shows disdain for love) and as well as eating actual food also dines on spiritual food. Piers the Plowman offers a definition of Do Well, Do Better and Do Best. Then Conscience and Patience meet Haukyn the Active Man, who wears a coat of Christian faith which is, however, soiled with the Seven Deadly Sins. Passus 14: Conscience teaches Haukyn to seek forgiveness and do penance; Patience teaches Haukyn about the merits of embracing poverty. Haukyn cries out for God's mercy, which awakens Will.


Vision 5

Passus 15: Will finds himself alienated from the waking world, but Reason helps him to go back to sleep, whereupon Will meets Anima ('spirit'). Anima tells Will off for his pride in wanting to know too much, but goes on to talk about charity, in particular how the Church should care for its flock, but how its priests and monks do not always fulfil this duty. Talking to Anima, Will starts to conclude that Piers the Plowman is Christ. Will realises that he needs to switch from searching for Dowel to searching for Charity. Passus 16: Will falls into another dream-within-a-dream, this time about the Tree of Charity, whose gardener is Piers the Plowman. Will participates in a re-enactment of the Fall of Man and then has a vision of the life of Christ; when this reaches the point where the Devil is defeated, Will wakes up from the dream-within-a-dream. Will goes looking for Piers and meets Faith/Abraham, who is himself searching for Christ. Passus 17: Next, Will meets Hope/Moses, characterised by the tablets of law, who is also in search of Christ. Will learns about the Good Samaritan, the prospect of salvation, and the importance of Love. He wakes up.


Vision 6

Passus 18: Will sleeps again, and experiences the climactic section of ''Piers Plowman''. He experiences Love and the intersection of human and divine time. Will witnesses Christ/the Good Samaritan/Piers Plowman riding into Jerusalem and Christ's crucifixion. He then witnesses the
Four Daughters of God The Four Daughters of God are a personification of the virtues of Truth, Righteousness/Justice, Mercy, and Peace in medieval Catholic religious writing. History and development of the motif The most important contributors to the development and ...
(Truth, Justice, Mercy, Peace) in debate; the Harrowing of Hell; and Redemption. Will wakes again, and now exhorts his family to hear Mass.


Vision 7

Passus 19: During the mass, Will falls back to sleep and meets Conscience once more. Conscience recounts the life and Passion of Christ and how Piers/Peter was given his power by Grace/Christ. Will finds out about Pentecost; once more sees Piers as a ploughman, and witnesses Pride attacking Unity/Holy Church. He wakes up and records his dream.


Vision 8

Passus 20: While awake, Will meets Need. He falls asleep again and now dreams of the Antichrist. Kynde sends Old Age, Death, and Pestilence, to chastise people: Will is attacked by Old Age. He witnesses Holy Church undermined by a hypocritical Friar. Conscience goes on pilgrimage to seek Piers the Plowman, and calls on Grace for helpwhereupon Will wakes up.


Title and authorship

It is now commonly accepted that ''Piers Plowman'' was written by
William Langland William Langland (; la, Willielmus de Langland; 1332 – c. 1386) is the presumed author of a work of Middle English alliterative verse generally known as ''Piers Plowman'', an allegory with a complex variety of religious themes. The poem tr ...
, about whom little is known. This attribution rests principally on the
evidence Evidence for a proposition is what supports this proposition. It is usually understood as an indication that the supported proposition is true. What role evidence plays and how it is conceived varies from field to field. In epistemology, evidenc ...
of an early-fifteenth-century manuscript of the C-text (see below) of ''Piers'' held at
Trinity College, Dublin , name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin , motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin) , motto_lang = la , motto_English = It will last i ...
(MS 212), which ascribes the work to one man, called 'Willielmus de Langlond': ;Translation Other manuscripts also name the author as "Robert or William Langland", or "Wilhelmus W." (which could be shorthand for "William of Wychwood"). The attribution to William Langland is also based on internal evidence, primarily a seemingly
autobiographical An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life. It is a form of biography. Definition The word "autobiography" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English peri ...
section in Passus 5 of the C-text of the poem. The main
narrator Narration is the use of a written or spoken commentary to convey a story to an audience. Narration is conveyed by a narrator: a specific person, or unspecified literary voice, developed by the creator of the story to deliver information to the ...
of the poem in all the versions is named Will, with allegorical resonances clearly intended, and Langland (or Longland) is thought to be indicated as a surname through apparent
pun A pun, also known as paronomasia, is a form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of a term, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use of homophoni ...
s; e.g., at one point the narrator remarks: "I have lyved in ''londe''... my name is ''longe wille''" (B.XV.152). This could be a coded reference to the poet's name, in the style of much late-medieval literature. New evidence suggests that this reverse cryptogram was read as "Will Long Will" by contemporary scribes and that the rebels of 1381 used this name as a pseudonym alongside the name "Piers Plowman". Langland's authorship, however, is not entirely beyond dispute, as recent work by Stella Pates and C. David Benson has demonstrated. In their work, "The Langland Myth", they claim there is not enough evidence to suggest that Langland is, in fact, the author, but instead that it is the work of a man by the name of William de la Rokele. In the sixteenth century, when ''Piers'' was first printed, authorship was attributed by various
antiquarian An antiquarian or antiquary () is an fan (person), aficionado or student of antiquities or things of the past. More specifically, the term is used for those who study history with particular attention to ancient artifact (archaeology), artifac ...
s (such as
John Bale John Bale (21 November 1495 – November 1563) was an English churchman, historian and controversialist, and Bishop of Ossory in Ireland. He wrote the oldest known historical verse drama in English (on the subject of King John), and developed ...
) and poets to
John Wycliffe John Wycliffe (; also spelled Wyclif, Wickliffe, and other variants; 1328 – 31 December 1384) was an English scholastic philosopher, theologian, biblical translator, reformer, Catholic priest, and a seminary professor at the University of ...
and
Geoffrey Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer (; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for ''The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He wa ...
, amongst others. Some sixteenth- and seventeenth-century persons regarded the poem as anonymous, and/or associated it with texts in the
plowman tradition {{no footnotes, date=September 2009 The Piers Plowman tradition is made up of about 14 different poetic and prose works from about the time of John Ball (died 1381) and the Peasants Revolt of 1381 through the reign of Elizabeth I and beyond. All ...
of social complaint, particularly the Chaucerian
pseudepigrapha Pseudepigrapha (also anglicized as "pseudepigraph" or "pseudepigraphs") are falsely attributed works, texts whose claimed author is not the true author, or a work whose real author attributed it to a figure of the past.Bauckham, Richard; "Pseu ...
''
The Ploughman's Tale There are two pseudo-Chaucerian texts called "The Plowman's Tale". In the mid-15th century a rhyme royal "Plowman's Tale" was added to the text of '' The Canterbury Tales'' in the Christ Church MS. This tale is actually an orthodox Roman Catholi ...
'' and '' Pierce the Ploughman's Crede''. (The latter was appended to Owen Rogers' 1560 edition of ''Piers Plowman'', a degraded version of Robert Crowley's 1550 editions.) The character of Piers himself had come to be considered by many readers to be in some sense the author. The first printed editions by Crowley named the author as "Robert Langland" in a prefatory note. Langland is described as a probable protégé of Wycliffe. With Crowley's editions, the poem followed an existing and subsequently repeated convention of titling the poem ''The Vision of Piers''
r Pierce R, or r, is the eighteenth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''ar'' (pronounced ), plural ''ars'', or in Irela ...
''Plowman'', which is in fact the conventional name of just one section of the poem. Some medievalists and text critics, beginning with
John Matthews Manly John Matthews Manly (September 2, 1865 — April 2, 1940) was an American professor of English literature and philology at the University of Chicago. Manly specialized in the study of the works of William Shakespeare and Geoffrey Chaucer. His eight ...
, have posited multiple authorship theories for ''Piers'', an idea which continues to have a periodic resurgence in the scholarly literature. One scholar now disputes the single-author hypothesis, supposing that the poem may be the work of between two and five authors, depending upon how authorship is defined. Also, scholars like Charlotte Brewer suggest that
scribes A scribe is a person who serves as a professional copyist, especially one who made copies of manuscripts before the invention of automatic printing. The profession of the scribe, previously widespread across cultures, lost most of its promin ...
and their supervisors be regarded as editors with semi-authorial roles in the production of early modern texts like ''Piers Ploughman''.


The text

''Piers Plowman'' is considered to be one of the most analytically challenging texts in
Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English p ...
textual criticism Textual criticism is a branch of textual scholarship, philology, and of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification of textual variants, or different versions, of either manuscripts or of printed books. Such texts may range in ...
. There are 50–56 surviving
manuscripts A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in ...
, some of which are fragmentary. None of the texts are known to be in the author's own hand, and none of them derive directly from any of the others. All modern discussion of the text revolves around the classifications of W. W. Skeat. Skeat argued that there are as many as ten forms of the poem, but only three are to be considered authoritative—the A, B, and C-texts—although the definition of "authoritative" in this context is problematic. According to the three-versions hypothesis, each version represents different manuscript traditions deriving from three distinct and successive stages of authorial revision. Although precise dating is debated, the A, B, and C texts are now commonly thought of as the progressive (20–25 years) work of a single author. According to the three-versions hypothesis, the A-text was written  1367–70 and is the earliest. It breaks off, apparently unfinished, at Book 11, and Book 12 is written by another author or interpolator. The poem runs to about 2,500 lines. The B-text (Warner's ur-B text) was written  1377–79; it revises A, adds new material, and is three times the length of A. It runs to about 7,300 lines. The C-text was written in the 1380s as a major revision of B except for the final sections. There is some debate over whether the poem can be regarded as finished or not. It entails additions, omissions, and transpositions; it is not significantly different in size from B. Some scholars see it as a conservative revision of B that aims at disassociating the poem from
Lollardy Lollardy, also known as Lollardism or the Lollard movement, was a proto-Protestant Christian religious movement that existed from the mid-14th century until the 16th-century English Reformation. It was initially led by John Wycliffe, a Catholi ...
and the religious and political radicalism of John Ball during the Great Rising of 1381. (Ball appropriated Piers and other characters in the poem for his own verses, speeches, and letters during the Rising.) There is little actual evidence for this proposal, and much against it. Skeat believed that the A-text was incomplete and based his editions on a B-text manuscript (Oxford, MS. Laud Misc. 581) that he wrongly thought was probably a
holograph An autograph or holograph is a manuscript or document written in its author's or composer's hand. The meaning of autograph as a document penned entirely by the author of its content, as opposed to a typeset document or one written by a copyist o ...
. Modern editors following Skeat, such as George Kane and
E. Talbot Donaldson Ethelbert Talbot Donaldson (18 March 1910–13 April 1987) was a scholar of medieval English literature, known for his 1966 translation of ''Beowulf'' and his writings on Chaucer's poetry. Biography Ethelbert Talbot Donaldson was born on 18 March ...
, have maintained the basic tenets of Skeat's work: there were three final authorial texts, now lost, that can be reconstructed, albeit imperfectly and without certainty, by rooting out the "
corruption Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense which is undertaken by a person or an organization which is entrusted in a position of authority, in order to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's personal gain. Corruption m ...
" and "damage" done by scribes. The Kane, Kane-Donaldson, and Russell-Kane editions of the three versions, published by the
Athlone Press Continuum International Publishing Group was an academic publisher of books with editorial offices in London and New York City. It was purchased by Nova Capital Management in 2005. In July 2011, it was taken over by Bloomsbury Publishing. , al ...
, have been controversial, but are considered among the most important accomplishments in modern editorial work and theory in Middle English. A. V. C. Schmidt has also published a parallel edition of A, B, C and Z; the second volume containing a full
critical apparatus A critical apparatus ( la, apparatus criticus) in textual criticism of primary source material, is an organized system of notations to represent, in a single text, the complex history of that text in a concise form useful to diligent readers and ...
indicating his editorial decisions was finally published in 2008, long after the first volume fell out of print. A. G. Rigg and Charlotte Brewer hypothesized the existence of a Z-text predecessor to A which contains elements of both A and C. The Z-text is based on Oxford MS. Bodley 851, which Rigg and Brewer edited and published. It is the shortest version, and its authenticity is disputed. Ralph Hanna III has disputed the Rigg/Brewer approach based on
codicological Codicology (; from French ''codicologie;'' from Latin , genitive , "notebook, book" and Greek , ''-logia'') is the study of codices or manuscript books. It is often referred to as "the archaeology of the book," a term coined by François Masai. ...
evidence and internal literary evidence; consequently, the Z-text is now more commonly viewed as a scribal corruption of A with C elements. More recently, Lawrence Warner has shown that what was thought of as B in fact incorporates matter produced as part of the C-revision: if B circulated before C, it looked nothing like what previous editors had assumed.


Editorial, publication and reception history


14th–15th centuries

John Ball, a priest involved as a leader in the Great Rising of 1381 (also known as the Peasants' Revolt), included Piers and other characters in his writings. If ''Piers Plowman'' already had perceived associations with
Lollardy Lollardy, also known as Lollardism or the Lollard movement, was a proto-Protestant Christian religious movement that existed from the mid-14th century until the 16th-century English Reformation. It was initially led by John Wycliffe, a Catholi ...
, Ball's appropriations from it (assuming he was not referring to a folk character also appropriated by Langland) enhanced his and its association with the Lollards as well. The real beliefs and sympathies at work in Langland's poem and the revolt remain, for this reason, mysterious and debatable. New evidence suggests that in Norfolk the rebels of 1381 had access to the B version of the text and that they used the author-persona's name - Will Long Will - as a pseudonym. No doubt because of Ball's writings, the ''Dieulacres Abbey Chronicle'' account of the revolt refers to Piers, seemingly as a real person who was a leader with Ball in the revolt. Similarly, early in the history of the poem's dissemination in manuscript form, Piers is often treated as the author of the poem. Since it is hard to see how this is credible to those who read the poem, perhaps the idea was that Piers was a mask for the author. Or, as the ideal character of the poem, Piers might be seen as a kind of alter-ego for the poet that was more important to his early readers than the obviously authorial narrator and his apparent self-disclosures as Will. Ironically, Will's name and identity were substantially lost. In some contemporary chronicles of the Rising, Ball and the Lollards were blamed for the revolt, and Piers began to be associated with
heresy Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or religious organization. The term is usually used in reference to violations of important religi ...
and rebellion. The earliest literary works comprising the Piers Plowman tradition follow in the wake of these events, although they and their sixteenth-century successors are not anti-monarchical or supportive of rebellion. Like William Langland, who may have written the C-text version of ''Piers Plowman'' to disassociate himself from the Rising, they look for the reform of the English church and society by the removal of abuses in what the authors deem a restorative rather than an innovative project. The first recorded owner of a copy of ''Piers Plowman'' was the Irish judge Walter de Brugge, who died in 1396.


16th–18th centuries

The most conspicuous omissions from
William Caxton William Caxton ( – ) was an English merchant, diplomat and writer. He is thought to be the first person to introduce a printing press into England, in 1476, and as a printer to be the first English retailer of printed books. His parentage a ...
's press were the Bible and ''Piers Plowman''. Robert Crowley's 1550 editions of ''Piers Plowman'' present the poem as a
proto-Protestant Proto-Protestantism, also called pre-Protestantism, refers to individuals and movements that propagated ideas similar to Protestantism before 1517, which historians usually regard as the starting year for the Reformation era. The relationship be ...
goad to the reformation of religion and society. In the passus summaries in the second and third editions, Crowley emphasizes material in the poem warning of political instability and widespread corruption when the king is a child (as was then the case). Crowley may have made small attempts to remove or soften single references to
transubstantiation Transubstantiation (Latin: ''transubstantiatio''; Greek: μετουσίωσις ''metousiosis'') is, according to the teaching of the Catholic Church, "the change of the whole substance of bread into the substance of the Body of Christ and of th ...
, the
Mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...
,
purgatory Purgatory (, borrowed into English via Anglo-Norman and Old French) is, according to the belief of some Christian denominations (mostly Catholic), an intermediate state after physical death for expiatory purification. The process of purgatory ...
, and the
Virgin Mary Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother o ...
as a mediator and object of devotion (although almost a dozen references to purgatory remain, as well as three significant references to Mary). He actually added a line to his second and third editions that clearly refers to
Marian intercession Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother o ...
(F1r). After 1550, it was not printed again until 1813 except for Owen Rogers' 1561 edition—a cheap knock-off of Crowley's text. The few people who mention ''Piers Plowman'' before 1700 usually attribute it to someone other than Langland, and often it is unclear whether they are referring to Langland's poem or one of the many other texts circulating in print as part of the
Piers Plowman tradition {{no footnotes, date=September 2009 The Piers Plowman tradition is made up of about 14 different poetic and prose works from about the time of John Ball (died 1381) and the Peasants Revolt of 1381 through the reign of Elizabeth I and beyond. All ...
, particularly ''
The Ploughman's Tale There are two pseudo-Chaucerian texts called "The Plowman's Tale". In the mid-15th century a rhyme royal "Plowman's Tale" was added to the text of '' The Canterbury Tales'' in the Christ Church MS. This tale is actually an orthodox Roman Catholi ...
''. Since Piers was
conflate Conflation is the merging of two or more sets of information, texts, ideas, opinions, etc., into one, often in error. Conflation is often misunderstood. It originally meant to fuse or blend, but has since come to mean the same as equate, treati ...
d with the author and dreamer-narrator of the poem at an early date, "Piers Plowman" or a Latin equivalent is often given as the name of the author, which indicates unfamiliarity with, or disbelief of, Crowley's preface. When Langland's poem is mentioned, it is often disparaged for its barbarous language. Similar charges were made against Chaucer, but he had more defenders and was already well established as a historical figure and "authority." Despite the work of Bale and Crowley, Langland's name appears to have remained unknown or unaccepted since other authors were suggested after Crowley's editions. Sometimes "Piers Plowman" was referred to as the author of the poem, and when writers refer to a list of medieval authors, they will often mention "Piers Plowman" as an author's name or a substitute for one. One gets the overall impression that Langland and ''Piers Plowman'' had less existence as author and text than did the fictional figure of Piers, whose relationship to a definite authorial and textual origin had been obscured much earlier. Samuel Pepys owned a copy of ''Piers Plowman''. Milton cites "Chaucer's Ploughman" in "Of Reformation" (1641) when he is discussing poems that have described Constantine as a major contributor to the corruption of the church. The end of ''Piers Plowman'', Passus 15, makes this point at length—but it is also made briefly in one stanza in ''The Ploughman's Tale'' (ll. 693–700). In "An Apology for a Pamphlet ..." Milton refers to ''The Vision and Crede of Pierce Ploughman'', which might mean one or both of these texts. Perhaps it refers to Rogers' 1561 edition which put them together. Henry Selden (1622) appears to have read the poem closely enough to admire it for its criticism of the church as well as its judgment and invention.
John Weever John Weever (1576–1632) was an English antiquary and poet. He is best known for his ''Epigrammes in the Oldest Cut, and Newest Fashion'' (1599), containing epigrams on Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and other poets of his day, and for his ''Ancient ...
(1631) also names Robert Langland, as does David Buchanan (1652). Buchanan, however, makes Langland a Scot and attributes other works to him aside from ''Piers Plowman''.
Thomas Fuller Thomas Fuller (baptised 19 June 1608 – 16 August 1661) was an English churchman and historian. He is now remembered for his writings, particularly his ''Worthies of England'', published in 1662, after his death. He was a prolific author, and ...
(1662) bases his remarks about Langland on Selden and Bale, emphasizing Langland's putative proto-Protestant status. Fuller also notes that '' The Praier and Complaynte of the Ploweman unto Christe'' was "first set forth by Tindal, since, exemplified by Mr. Fox." Since the language of this text is similar to that of ''Piers Plowman'', Fuller attributes it to Langland as well.
Thomas Dudley Thomas Dudley (12 October 157631 July 1653) was a New England colonial magistrate who served several terms as governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Dudley was the chief founder of Newtowne, later Cambridge, Massachusetts, and built the tow ...
, father of Anne Dudley Bradstreet (1612–72), brought a copy of Crowley's ''Piers Plowman'' to America.
Alexander Pope Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 O.S. – 30 May 1744) was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early 18th century. An exponent of Augustan literature, ...
(1688–1744) owned a copy of Rogers' reprint of Crowley's edition of ''Piers Plowman'' with the ''Crede'' appended, and Isaac D'Israeli (1766–1848) wrote in his ''Amenities of Literature'' that Pope had "very carefully analyzed the whole" of the latter text. D'Israeli also mentions
Lord Byron George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and Peerage of the United Kingdom, peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and h ...
's (1788–1824) praise for ''Piers Plowman''.


19th–20th-21st centuries

With its old language and alien worldview, ''Piers Plowman'' fell into obscurity until the nineteenth century. Barring Rogers, after Crowley, the poem was not published in its entirety until Thomas Whitaker's 1813 edition. It emerged at a time when amateur
philologists Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined ...
began the groundwork of what would later become a recognized scholarly discipline. Whitaker's edition was based on a C-text, whereas Crowley used a B-text for his base. With Whitaker, a modern editorial tradition began, with each new editor striving to present the "authentic" ''Piers Plowman'' and challenging the accuracy and authenticity of preceding editors and editions. Then, as before in the English Reformation, this project was driven by a need for a national identity and history that addressed present concerns, hence analysis and commentary typically reflected the critic's political views. In the hands of
Frederick Furnivall Frederick James Furnivall (4 February 1825 – 2 July 1910) was an English philologist, best known as one of the co-creators of the ''New English Dictionary''. He founded a number of learned societies on early English literature and made pion ...
and W. W. Skeat, ''Piers Plowman'' could be, respectively, a consciousness-raising text in the Working Man's College or a patriotic text for
grammar school A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching Latin, but more recently an academically oriented secondary school ...
pupils. ''Piers Plowman'' has often been read primarily as a political document. In an 1894 study, J. J. Jusserand was primarily concerned with what he saw as the poem's psychological and sociopolitical content—as distinct from the aesthetic or literary—in a dichotomy common to all modern humanistic studies. In "Le temps des laboureurs. Travail, ordre social et croissance en Europe (XIe-XIVe siècle)" (Albin Michel 2012) historian of medieval labour Mathieu Arnoux devotes particular attention to "Piers Plowman" in a breakthrough attempt to identify theological causes for the growth of agricultural production from the 11th century to the 14th century.


Related texts

Many subsequent texts – at least 14 – use characters from ''Piers Plowman'', most often Piers himself. Many more texts were written with similar themes and characters, though not directly borrowing from ''Piers Plowman'', until around the end of the 16th century. Conversely, ''Piers Plowman'' was preceded by and contemporary with a number of similar works in the 14th and 15th centuries. Together, these are referred to as the "
Piers Plowman tradition {{no footnotes, date=September 2009 The Piers Plowman tradition is made up of about 14 different poetic and prose works from about the time of John Ball (died 1381) and the Peasants Revolt of 1381 through the reign of Elizabeth I and beyond. All ...
".


Editions

* Kane, George, gen. ed. ''Piers Plowman: The A Version'' (Kane, ed.; rev. ed. London: Athlone, 1988); ''Piers Plowman: The B Version'' (Kane and Donaldson, eds.; rev. ed. London: Athlone, 1988); ''Piers Plowman: The C Version'' (George Russell and Kane, eds.; London: Athlone, 1997). * Pearsall, Derek, ed. William Langland. ''Piers Plowman: A New Annotated Edition of the C-Text'' (Exeter, UK: University of Exeter Press, 2008) (Exeter Medieval Texts and Studies). * Schmidt, A. V. C., ''Piers Plowman: A Parallel-Text Edition of the A, B, C, and Z Versions'' (3 vols.; Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute, 2011). * Vaughan, Míċeál F., ''Piers Plowman: The A Version'' (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011). *


Modernizations

* Donaldson, E. Talbot, ''Piers Plowman: the Donaldson translation'' (Norton Critical Editions, new ed. 2006). * Economou, George, ''William Langland's Piers Plowman: The C version'' (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996). * Peter Sutton, ''Piers Plowman: A Modern Verse Translation'' (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2014)


Adaptations

In 2017, a UK theatre production of the poem was developed by
Tom Chivers Tom or TOM may refer to: * Tom (given name), a diminutive of Thomas or Tomás or an independent Aramaic given name (and a list of people with the name) Characters * Tom Anderson, a character in '' Beavis and Butt-Head'' * Tom Beck, a character ...
, under the moniker 'Fair Field'. It included an exhibition at the National Poetry Library and a series of podcasts published by the ''
Guardian Guardian usually refers to: * Legal guardian, a person with the authority and duty to care for the interests of another * ''The Guardian'', a British daily newspaper (The) Guardian(s) may also refer to: Places * Guardian, West Virginia, Unite ...
''.Natalie Steed,


See also

*
Allegory in the Middle Ages The four senses of Scripture is a four-level method of interpreting the Bible. This method originated in Judaism and was taken up in Christianity by the Church Fathers. In Kabbalah the four meanings of the biblical texts are literal, allusive, a ...


References


Further reading

* Benson, C. D. ''Public Piers Plowman: Modern Scholarship and Late Medieval English Culture'' (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003). * Bowers, J. M. ''Chaucer and Langland: The Antagonistic Tradition'' (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007). * Brewer, C. ''Editing Piers Plowman: The Evolution of the Text'' (Cambridge, CUP, 1996) (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature, 28). * * * Kelen, S. A. ''Langland's Early Modern Identities'' (New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). * * * * * Watson, Nicholas (2007). "''Piers Plowman'', Pastoral Theology, and Spiritual Perfectionism: Hawkyn's Cloak and Patience's Pater Noster". ''Yearbook of Langland Studies'' vol. 21: 83–118. * Thomas, Arvind (2019). Piers Plowman and Reinvention of Church Law in the Late Middle Ages


External links


International ''Piers Plowman'' Society
Website of international scholarly organization for the study of ''Piers Plowman'' and other alliterative poems; includes searchable database of annotations of all scholarship on these poems since 1986. The Society also publishe

which offers access to the most significant and up-to-date scholarship on the poem and its literary, historical, codicological and critical contexts.
''Piers Plowman'' Electronic Archive
A multi-level, hyper-textually linked electronic archive of the textual tradition of all three versions of the fourteenth-century allegorical dream vision ''Piers Plowman''. The PPEA is published by the
Society for Early English and Norse Electronic Texts

Corpus of Middle English Verse and Prose e-text of ''Piers Plowman''.William Langland page at Harvard.
With link to modern English text of ''Piers''.

by John Matthews Manly, vol. 2, The End of the Middle Ages," in ''The Cambridge History of English and American Literature'', 18 vols., Edited by A. W. Ward & A. R. Waller, (1907–21).
''Vision of Piers Plowman''
A complete digital edition of a sixteenth-century copy of the B text in
Cambridge Digital Library The Cambridge Digital Library is a project operated by the Cambridge University Library designed to make items from the unique and distinctive collections of Cambridge University Library available online. The project was initially funded by a donat ...
, unique in containing a table of contents after the main text.
Piers Plowman
discussed on BBC Radio 4's ''
In Our Time In Our Time may refer to: * ''In Our Time'' (1944 film), a film starring Ida Lupino and Paul Henreid * ''In Our Time'' (1982 film), a Taiwanese anthology film featuring director Edward Yang; considered the beginning of the "New Taiwan Cinema" * ''In ...
'' in October 2020. {{Authority control 14th-century poems Christian poetry Middle English poems Narrative poems Visionary poems Allegory Robin Hood Robin Hood books