First impressions of mediaeval life are usually coloured by the courtly romances of Malory and his later refiners. Chaucer brings us down to reality, but his people belong to a prosperous middle-class world, on holiday and in holiday mood. _Piers Plowman_ stands alone as a revelation of the ignorance and misery of the lower classes, whose multiplied grievances came to a head in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. It must not be supposed that Langland idealized the labourers. Their indolence and improvidence are exposed as unsparingly as the vices of the rich; and Piers himself is not so much a representative of the English workman in the fourteenth century as a character drawn straight from the Gospels. Still, such an eager plea for humbleness, simplicity, and honest labour, could not fail to encourage the political hopes of the poor, and we see in John Ball's letter (p. 160) that 'Piers Plowman' had become a catchword among them. The poet himself rather deprecates political action. His satire is directed against the general slackening of the bonds of duty that marked the last years of an outworn system of society. For the remedy of abuses he appeals not to one class but to all: king, nobles, clergy, and workers must model their lives on the pattern of the Gospels. A. FROM THE B-TEXT, PASSUS VI. Bodleian MS. Laud 581 (about 1400). 'This were a wikked way, but whoso hadde a gyde That wolde folwen vs eche a fote:' þus þis folke hem mened. Quatȝ Perkyn þe plouman: 'Bi Seynt Peter of Rome! I haue an half-acre to erye bi þe heigh way. Hadde I eried þis half-acre, and sowen it after, 5 I w_o_l_de_ wende with ȝow, and þe way teche.' 'Þis were a longe lettynge,' quod a lady in a sklayre; 'What sholde we wommen worche þerewhiles?' 'Somme shal sowe <þe> sakke,' quod Piers, 'for shedyng of þe whete; And ȝe, louely ladyes, with ȝoure longe fyngres, 10 Þat ȝe han silke and sendal to sowe, whan tyme is, Chesibles for chapelleynes, cherches to honoure; Wyues and wydwes wolle and flex spynneth, Maketh cloth, I conseille ȝow, and kenneth so ȝowre douȝtres; Þe nedy and þe naked, nymmeth hede how hii liggeth, 15 And casteth hem clothes, for so comaundeth Treuthe. For I shal lene hem lyflode, but ȝif þe londe faille, Flesshe and bred, bothe to riche and to pore, As longe as I lyue, for þe Lordes loue of heuene. And alle manere of men þat þorw mete and drynke lybbeth, 20 Helpith hym to worche wiȝtliche þat wynneth ȝowre fode.' 'Bi Crist!' quod a knyȝte þo, 'he kenneth vs þe best; Ac on þe teme trewly tauȝte was I neuere. Ac kenne me,' quod þe knyȝte, 'and, bi Cryst! I wil assaye.' 'Bi seynt Poule!' quod Perkyn, 'ȝe profre ȝow so faire, 25