The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866

And looked on the waters,
I slumbered into a sleeping
It swayed so merry."

The first scene in the visions that visited the sleep of the dreaming monk gives a view of the social classes of that time, beginning with the humblest, whose condition was uppermost in his mind. The picture is not only painted with vigorous touches, but affords a better idea of society in the fourteenth century than can be elsewhere obtained. There is the toiling ploughman, who "plays full seldom," winning by hard labor what wasteful men destroy; the mediæval dandy, whose only employment is to exhibit his attire; the hermit, who seeks by solitude and penitential life to win "heaven's rich bliss"; the merchant, who has wisely chosen his trade,—

"As it seemeth in our sight
That such men thriveth."

There are minstrels, who earn rich rewards by their singing; jesters and idle gossips; "sturdy beggars," wandering with full bags; pilgrims and palmers, who

"Went forth in their way
With many wise tales,
And had leave to lie
All their lives after";

counterfeit hermits, who assumed the cloak and hooked staff in order to live in idleness and sensuality; avaricious friars, selling their religion for money; cheating pardoners; covetous priests; ambitious bishops; lawyers who loved gain better than justice; "barons and burgesses, and bondmen also," with

"Bakers and brewers,
And butchers many;
Woollen websters,
And weavers of linen;
Tailors and tinkers,
And toilers in markets;
Masons and miners,
And many other crafts.
Of all kind living laborers
Leaped forth some;
As ditchers and delvers,
That do their deeds ill,
And driveth forth the long day
With Dieu save dame Emme.
Cooks and their knaves
Cried, 'Hot pies, hot!
Good geese and grys,[7 - Pigs.]
Go dine, go!'"

To plead the cause of the poor and weak against their powerful oppressors, and to protest in the name of religion against the pride and corrupt life of its ministers, was the object of the monk of Malvern Abbey; and he did his work well. The blows he dealt were fierce and strong, and told home. Burgher and baron, monk and cardinal, alike felt the fury of his attacks. He was no respecter of persons. A monk himself, he had no scruples in tearing off the priestly robe that covered lust and rapine. Wrong in high places gained no respect from him. His invectives against a haughty and oppressive nobility and a corrupt and arrogant clergy are unsurpassed in power, and it is easy to understand the hold the poem at once acquired on the attention of the lower classes, and its influence in directing and hastening the attempt of the oppressed people to break their galling bonds.

What we have before said in reference to the wretched condition of the peasantry, as shown by contemporary evidence, is confirmed by the writer of the "Vision." The peasant was a born thrall to the owner of the land, and could

"no charter make,
Nor his cattle sell,
Without leave of his lord."

Misery and he were lifelong companions, and pinching want his daily portion. The wretched poor

"much care suffren
Through dearth, through drought,
All their days here:
Woe in winter times
For wanting of clothing
And in summer time seldom
Soupen to the full."

A graphic picture of a poor ploughman and his family is given in the "Creed" of Piers Plowman, supposed to have been written by the author of the "Vision," but a few years later.

"As I went by the way
Weeping for sorrow,
I saw a simple man me by,
Upon the plow hanging.
His coat was of a clout
That cary[8 - A kind of very coarse cloth.] was called;
His hood was full of holes,
And his hair out;
With his knopped[9 - Buttoned.] shoon
Clouted full thick;
His toes totedun[10 - Pushed.] out
As he the land treaded;
His hosen overhung his hockshins
On every side,
All beslomered in fen[11 - Mud.]
As he the plow followed.
Two mittens as meter
Made all of clouts,
The fingers were for-werd[12 - Worn out.]
And full of fen hanged.
This wight wallowed in the fen
Almost to the ankle.
Four rotheren[13 - Oxen.] him before
That feeble were worthy,
Men might reckon each rib
So rentful[14 - Meagre.] they were.
His wife walked him with,
With a long goad,
In a cutted coat,
Cutted full high,
Wrapped in a winnow sheet
To weren her from weathers,
Barefoot on the bare ice
That the blood followed.
And at the land's end layeth
A little crumb-bowl,[15 - Kneading-trough.]
And thereon lay a little child
Lapped in clouts,
And twins of two years old
Upon another side.
And all they sungen one song,
That sorrow was to hear;
They crieden all one cry,