bound by no vows and were allowed to marry, but of course could
never hope to be powerful. Such was Langland; he married and
always remained a poor "clerk."

But if Langland did not rise high in the Church, he made himself
famous in another way, for he wrote Piers the Ploughman. This is
a great book. There is no other written during the fourteenth
century, in which we see so clearly the life of the people of the
time.

There are several versions of Piers, and it is thought by some
that Langland himself wrote and re-wrote his poem, trying always
to make it better. But others think that some one else wrote the
later versions.

The poem is divided into parts. The first part is The Vision of
Piers the Ploughman, the second is The Vision Concerning Do Well,
Do Bet, Do Best.

In the beginning of Piers the Ploughman Langland tells us how

"In a summer season when soft was the sun,
I wrapped myself in a cloak as if I were a shepherd
In the habit of a hermit unholy of works,
Abroad I wandered in this world wonders to hear.
But on a May morning on Malvern Hills
Me befell a wonder, a strange thing. Methought,
I was weary of wandering, and went me to rest
Under a broad bank by a burn side.
And as I lay, and leaned, and looked on the waters