“In a somer seson * whan soft was the sonne I shope[17] me in shroudes[18] * as I a shepe[19] were In habite as an heremite[20] — un_h_oly of workes Went wyde in is world — wondres to here Ac on a May mornynge — on Maluerne hulles[21] Me by_f_el a ferly[22] — of fairy me thouss te I was wery for_w_andred[23] — and went me to reste Under a brode bank — bi a bornes[24] side, And as I lay and lened[25] — and loked in e wateres I slombred in a slepyng — it sweyved[26] so merye.”

[Illustration:  TREUTHE’S PILGRYME ATTE PLOW. From a manuscript in Trinity College, Cambridge.]

The language of Piers Plowman is a mixture of the Southern and Midland dialects.  It should be noticed that the poem employs the old Anglo-Saxon alliterative meter.  There is no end rime. Piers Plowman is the last great poem written in this way.

The actors in this poem are largely allegorical.  Abstractions are personified.  Prominent characters are Conscience, Lady Meed or Bribery, Reason, Truth, Gluttony, Hunger, and the Seven Deadly Sins.  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.

Throughout the poem, the writer displays all the old Saxon earnestness.  His hatred of hypocrisy is manifest on every page.  His sadness, because things are not as they ought to be, makes itself constantly felt.  He cannot reconcile the contradiction between the real and the ideal.  In attacking selfishness, hypocrisy, and corruption; in preaching the value of a life of good deeds; in showing how men ought to progress toward higher ideals; in teaching that “Love is the physician of life and nearest our Lord himself,—­” Piers Plowman proved itself a regenerating spiritual force, a stepping-stone toward the later Reformation.

The author of this poem was also a fourteenth-century social reformer, protesting against the oppression of the poor, insisting on mutual service and “the good and loving life.”  In order to have a well-rounded conception of the life of the fourteenth century, we must read Piers Plowman.  Chaucer was a poet for the upper classes. Piers Plowman gives valuable pictures of the life of the common people and shows them working—­

  “To kepe kyne In e field, e corne fro e bestes,
  Diken[27] or deluen[28] or dyngen[29] vppon sheues,[30]
  Or helpe make mortar or here mukke a-felde.”

We find in the popular poetry of Piers Plowman almost as many words of French derivation as in the work of the more aristocratic Chaucer.  This fact shows how thoroughly the French element had become incorporated in the speech of all classes.  The style of the author of Piers Plowman is, however, remarkable for the old Saxon sincerity and for the realistic directness of the bearer of a worthy message.