victories in France came home to spend their booty in show and
luxury. Yet, for all the splendour around, there was a general feeling
that the times were out of joint, and this feeling was strengthened by
a fresh inroad of the Black Death in =1361=. To the prevalent
yearning for a better life, a voice was given by William Langland,
whose _Vision of Piers the Plowman_ appeared in its first shape in
=1362=. In the opening of his poem he shows to his readers the
supremacy of the Maiden Meed--bribery--over all sorts and conditions
of men, lay and clerical. Then he turns to the purification of this
wicked world. They who wish to eschew evil and to do good inquire
their way to Truth--the eternal God--and find their only guide in
'Piers the Plowman.' The simple men of the plough, who do honest work
and live upright lives, know how to find the way to Truth. That way
lies not through the inventions of the official Church, the pardons
and indulgences set up for sale. "They who have done good shall go
into eternal life, but they who have done evil into eternal fire."
Langland's teaching, in short, is the same as that of the great
Italian poet, Dante, who, earlier in the century, had cried aloud for
the return of justice and true religion. He stands apart from Dante
and from all others of his time in looking for help to the despised
peasant. No doubt his peasant was idealised, as no one knew better
than himself; but it was honesty of work in the place of dishonest
idleness which he venerated. It was the glory of England to have
produced such a thought far more than to have produced the men who,
heavy with the plunder of unhappy peasants, stood boldly to their arms
at Crecy and Poitiers. He is as yet hardly prepared to say what is the
righteousness which leads to eternal life. It is not till he issues a
second edition in =1377= that he can answer. To do well, he now tells
us, is to act righteously to all in the fear of God. To do better is
to walk in the way of love: "Behold how good a thing it is for
brethren to dwell in unity." To do best is to live in fellowship with
Christ and the Church, and in all humility to bring forth the fruits
of the Divine communion.

8. =The Anti-Clerical Party. 1371.=--Langland wished to improve, not
to overthrow, existing institutions, but for all that his work was
profoundly revolutionary. They who call on those who have left their
first love to return to it are seldom obeyed, but their voice is oft