Transcriber's note: A few obvious typographical errors have been corrected: they are listed at the end of the text. In this edition line numbers are displayed on every tenth line--in the printed work they were synchronised to the pagination, with sometimes only one number per page. Lines marked = were printed AND COUNTED as two lines. Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). In the main text of The Vision, the numbers of the original pages are enclosed in curly brackets to facilitate the use of the glossary. Project Gutenberg has the other volume of this work. Volume II: see http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43661 * * * * * Library of Old Authors. [Illustration: Spede the plough & send us korne enough] THE VISION AND CREED OF PIERS PLOUGHMAN. EDITED, FROM A CONTEMPORARY MANUSCRIPT, WITH A HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION, NOTES, AND A GLOSSARY, BY THOMAS WRIGHT, M.A. F.S.A. &c. Corresponding Member of the Imperial Institute of France, Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. _SECOND AND REVISED EDITION._ LONDON: REEVES AND TURNER, 196 STRAND. 1887. _PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION._ It is now thirteen years since the first edition of the following text of this important poem was published by the late Mr. Pickering, during which time the study of our old literature and history has undergone considerable development, and it is believed that a reprint at a more moderate price would be acceptable to the public. Holding still the same opinion which he has always held with regard to the superior character of the manuscript from which this text was taken, the editor has done no more than carefully reprint it, but, in order to make it as useful as he could, he has revised and made additions to both the Notes and the Glossary.