hazard portraits is the Parable of the Tares from Mat-
thew 13: 24–30, which advocates the urgency to work,
accumulate righteous treasure, and grow in goodness.
At the heart of WILLIAM LANGLAND’s vision of society
and religion is their corruption by the desire to accu-
mulate wealth. The reader is invited to see all this con-
fusion of people in relation to the tower and the
dungeon. The Palmer is a pilgrim who comes back
from the Holy Land with a palm. There is no merit in
going on pilgrimages unless it stems from an inner
impulse. Lines 46–86 in the B-text Prologue provides
more examples of money-grubbing by religious orders.
This concern with wealth disrupts the possibility of
penitence for mankind. Langland uses invective lan-
guage such as “losels” (wretches) in line 77 and “boy”
(rogue) in line 80 to convey this. Cupidity is the route
of all evils.
Langland appears to turn the traditional model of
society, the THREE ESTATES (peasants, knights, and
clergy) upside down. Ploughmen appear to be placed
to the fore, created by Kynde Wit (natural understand-
ing) to benefi t the community. This is because Lang-
land is interested in each individual’s contribution and
soul rather than an attempt to promote an alternative
social model. He shares the general anticlericism of the
time, referring to the schism in the papacy of Septem-
ber 1378 in B-text lines 107–111 and C-text lines
134–188. This has led earlier critics and contemporary
readers to associate him with LOLLARDISM and John
Wycliffe. In the C-text, Langland tempers his criticism
of clerics and condemns vagrants and those who per-
vert the traditional order of society, possibly in
response to such a reception.
In the latter B- and C- texts, there are two additional
episodes, a coronation scene and the Rat or “Belling of
the Cat” tale, which raise political and historical issues.
The coronation scene deals with the question of coun-
sel, who should advise the king. The king is offered
various forms of counsel, but only in the B-text is the
common populace allowed to proffer advice (B-text, l.
122, 139–142). In the C-text, the monarch relies on
Kynde Wit and Conscience (C-text, l. 147, 151). The
B-text was written shortly after Richard II’s coronation.
In the Rat fable, Langland censors the community’s
attempts to prevent the cat exercising its authority and
hindering some of their desires. The cat has been com-
pared to Edward III, Richard II, and John of Gaunt, but
it is not defi nitively linked to any of them.
The poem, particularly the Prologue, has been used
extensively as a source of information about social,
political, and ecclesiastical history. Earlier studies tend
to be limited and to overlook what Langland was try-
ing to achieve. They have also tended to try and reduce
everything in the poem to a simple mirror of late 14th-
century society.
Piers Plowman has been considered a vision for
reform. Critics have investigated its generic infl u-
ences—SATIRE, prophecy, vision—and tried to estab-
lish what it is exhorting us to do. Alternatively, one can
take an exegetical approach and access its use of Scrip-
ture and theology. Piers Plowman is such a complex
poem that debates over its text, sources, and the con-
cepts it puts forward are still far from achieving con-
sensus. Current thinking favors looking at Langland’s
handling of literary, theological, political, and histori-
cal sources as well as genres and forms, rather than
defi ning what they are. It is now accepted that Piers
Plowman is not merely a compendium of late 14th-cen-
tury British life and thought; rather, it is an intricate
and enigmatic literary masterpiece.
See also “CROWNED KING, THE”; PIERS PLOWMAN
(OVERVIEW); PIERS PLOWMAN TRADITION.
FURTHER READING
Cooper, Helen. “Langland’s and Chaucer’s Prologues.” Year-
book of Langland Studies 1 (1987): 71–81.
Bonnie S. MillarPiers Plowman: Passus 1 WILLIAM LANGLAND (ca.
1362–1386) Passus 1 from Piers Plowman expands
on the nature of truth. Truth was at the heart of medi-
eval feudalism. It referred to loyalty and the keeping of
faith, exhibited in the duties and obligations of one’s
estate, and was dependent on the honesty and justice
of all parties. A lovely lady comes down from the castle
on the hill to instruct the dreamer. She is dressed in
linen, which is a reference to Revelation 15:6, where
fi ne white linen is linked to the righteousness of saints.
She explains that the lord of the castle on the hill is
Truth, who is the father of faith, and that the other lordPIERS PLOWMAN: PASSUS 1 323