_The Burial; The Resurrection; The Three Maries; Christ appearing to
Mary; The Pilgrim of Emmaus; The Ascension; The Descent of the Holy
Ghost; The Assumption of the Virgin_; and _Doomsday_, close the series. I
have quoted enough to show that these plays must, in the condition of the
people to whom they were presented, have had much to do with their
religious education.

This fourteenth century was a wonderful time of outbursting life.
Although we cannot claim the _Miracles_ as entirely English products,
being in all probability translations from the Norman-French, yet the
fact that they were thus translated is one remarkable amongst many in
this dawn of the victory of England over her conquerors. From this time,
English prospered and French decayed. Their own language was now, so far,
authorized as the medium of religious instruction to the people, while a
similar change had passed upon processes at law; and, most significant of
all, the greatest poet of the time, and one of the three greatest poets
as yet of all English time, wrote, although a courtier, in the language
of the people. Before selecting some of Chaucer's religious verses,
however, I must speak of two or three poems by other writers.

The first of these is _The Vision of William concerning Piers
Plowman_,--a poem of great influence in the same direction as the
writings of Wycliffe. It is a vision and an allegory, wherein the vices
of the time, especially those of the clergy, are unsparingly dealt with.
Towards the close it loses itself in a metaphysical allegory concerning
Dowel, Dobet, and Dobest.[17] I do not find much poetry in it. There is
more, to my mind, in another poem, written some thirty or forty years
later, the author of which is unknown, perhaps because he was an imitator
of William Langland, the author of the _Vision_. It is called _Pierce the