I lived from 1330-1390.
I was from Wales, and am in the Olde English category.
William Langland was born in 1332, probably at Ledbury near the Welsh marshes and may have gone to school at Great Malvern Priory. Although he took minor orders he never actually became a priest.
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Having later moved to London he apparently eked out his living by singing masses and copying documents. His great work, Piers Plowman, or, more precisely, The Vision of William concerning Piers the Plowman, is an allegorical poem in unrhymed alliterative verse, regarded as the greatest Middle English poem prior to Chaucer. It is both a social satire and a vision of the simple Christian life. The poem consists of three dream visions:
(1) in which Holy Church and Lady Meed (representing the temptation of riches) woo the dreamer;
(2) in which Piers leads a crowd of penitents in search of St. Truth; and
(3) the vision of Do-well (the practice of the virtues), Do-bet (in which Piers becomes the Good Samaritan practicing charity), and Do-best (in which the simple plowman is identified with Christ himself).
The 47 extant manuscripts of the poem fall into three groups: the A-text (2,567 lines, c.1362); the B-text, which greatly expands the third vision (7,242 lines, c.1376–77); the C-text, a revision of B (7,357 lines, between 1393 and 1398). Most scholars now believe that at least the A- and B-texts are the work of William Langland, whose biography has been deduced from passages in the poem. However, some still hold that the poem is the work of two or even five authors. The popularity of the poem is attested to by the large number of surviving manuscripts and by its many imitators. The 19th-century edition of W. W. Skeat (new ed. 1954) is still standard; the best modern versions are those of Donald Attwater (1930) and H. W. Wells (1935).
Popular poetry
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That [myghte] folwen us ech a foot' -- thus this folk hem mened.
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The Kyng and hise knyghtes to the kirke wente
To here matyns of the day and the masse after.
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In a somer sesun, whon softe was the sonn{.e},
I schop me into a shroud, as I a scheep wer{.e};
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Thanne hadde Wit a wif, was hote Dame Studie,
That lene was of lere and of liche bothe.
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Wolleward and weetshoed wente I forth after
As a recchelees renk that [reccheth of no wo],
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Ac after my wakynge it was wonder longe
Er I koude kyndely knowe what was Dowel.
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Now is Mede the mayde and no mo of hem alle,
With bedeles and baillies brought bifore the Kyng.
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And I awaked therwith, witlees nerhande,
And as a freke that fey were, forth gan I walke
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Thanne as I wente by the way, whan I was thus awaked,
Hevy chered I yede, and elenge in herte;
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Treuthe herde telle herof, and to Piers sente
To taken his teme and tilien the erthe,
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