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Updated: June 27, 2025
The note of increasing strain and stress is fully expressed in the earlier forms of The Vision of Piers Plowman, which were composed before the death of Edward III. Its author, William Langland, a clerk in minor orders, debarred by marriage from a clerical career, came from the Mortimer estates in the march of Wales: but his life was mainly spent in London, and he wrote in the tongue of the city of his adoption.
I thank you for them, and you must be good enough to thank her. They were of use, although of a rather sublime indifference for poets generally.... I begin from Langland, of Piers Plowman and the Malvern Hills. The first paper went to the editor last week, and I have heard nothing as to whether it will appear on Saturday or not, and perhaps if it does you won't care to have it sent to you.
But his teaching never quite died, for by giving the English people the Bible Wyclif left a lasting mark on England; and although the Reformation did not come until two hundred years later, he may be looked upon as its forerunner. It is hard to explain all that William Langland and John Wyclif stand for in English literature and in English history.
Of Robert of Gloucester, and William Langland, of Andrew of Wyntown and the Lady Juliana Berners, he could discourse, if not with eloquence, at least with enthusiasm. Chaucer was his favourite poet, and he was supposed to have read the works of Gower in English, French, and Latin. But he was himself apparently as old as one of his own black-letter volumes, and as unfit for general use.
In some respects, the poem is not unlike the Pilgrim's Progress, for the battle in passing from this life to the next is well described in both; but there are more humor, satire, and descriptions of common life in Langland. Piers is at first a simple plowman, who offers to guide men to truth. He is finally identified with the Savior.
The first form of the poem is dated 1362, the year of the second visitation of the Black Death, while the troubles of the end of the reign perhaps inspired the fuller edition which saw the light in 1377. It is a commonplace to contrast the gloomy pictures drawn by Langland with the highly coloured pictures of contemporary society for which Chaucer was gathering his materials.
This state of things is reflected in the Vision of Piers Plowman, written as early as 1362, by William Langland, a tonsured clerk of the west country. It is in form an allegory, and bears some resemblance to the later and more famous allegory of the Pilgrim's Progress.
Although William Langland, a fourteenth-century cleric, pointed out the abuses which had crept into the church, he gave this testimony in its favor: "For if heaven be on this earth or any ease for the soul, it is in cloister or school. For in cloister no man cometh to chide or fight, and in school there is lowliness and love and liking to learn." The rise of the common people was slow.
'Why, then, it must have been Mrs. Langland, and I have a good mind to put her to open shame by asking you to come and see my wretched daubs. Nothing would please him better, declared Thistlewood; and thereupon he accepted an invitation to tea for the following afternoon. Alma asked no one else. She understood that this man was only to be observed under favourable conditions by isolating him.
Some were poets like Langland, some strike-leaders like John Ball, some religious enthusiasts like John Wycliff, some royal officials like Pierre du Bois. His bias is always against religious orders, and, consequently, he favours the suppression of almost every conventual establishment.
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