Review
Makes this wonderful poem seem more accessible to everyone. MEDIUM AEVUMA well-balanced and well-written introduction to the most important aspects of the social context of the poem, not only for the general reader and for undergraduates and more advanced students but also for the specialist about to undertake a new study of Piers Plowman. ANGLIADu Boulay's object is ...to introduce England and English society as William Langland perceived them... (he) has executed it superlatively well. Whether one is reading Piers Plowman for the first or for the umpteenth time there are rich rewards to be found in this book, not only in its fine scholarship but also in its humane perception of the spiritual dilemmas of a past age. MAURICE KEEN, ENGLISH HISTORICAL REVIEW (6/94)

Book Description
Professor Du Boulay's book is both a highly readable introduction to Langland's work and an original contribution to the history of religious thought. It rejects the view that Langland was primarily a political radical or a prophet of doom and sees him as both a great imaginative poet and a preacher of Christian charity. Writing in an age of intellectual subtlety and shifting social frontiers, Langland expressed deep anxieties yet offered to his fellow-Christians a way of interior repentance and practical love, guided by the enigmatic figure of Piers.

FROM THE PUBLISHER