right|thumb|Page from a 14th century [[Psalter, showing drolleries on the right margin and a plowman at the bottom.]]

'''''Piers Plowman''''' (written ca. Chaucer's ''Canterbury Tales''. 

==Synopsis==

The poem &ndash; part theological allegory, part social satire &ndash; concerns the narrator's intense quest for the true allegorical characters, Dowel (''"Do-Well"''), Dobet (''"Do-Better"''), and Dobest (''"Do-Best"'').

The poem begins in the donjon'') in a deep valley; between these symbols of heaven and hell is a "fair field full of folk", representing the world of mankind. In the early part of the poem Piers, the humble plowman of the title, appears and offers himself as the narrator's guide to Truth. The latter part of the work, however, is concerned with the narrator's search for Dowel, Dobet and Dobest.

==Title and authorship==
It is now commonly accepted that ''Piers Plowman'' was written by William Langland, about whom little is known. This attribution of the poem to Langland rests principally on the evidence of an early-fifteenth-century manuscript of the C-text (see below) of ''Piers'' held at Trinity College, Dublin (MS 212), which ascribes the work to one 'Willielmus  de  Langlond':

<blockquote>
''Memorandum quod Stacy de Rokayle pater willielmi de Langlond qui stacius fuit generosus & morabatur in Schiptoun vnder whicwode tenens domini le Spenser in comitatu Oxoniensi qui predictus willielmus fecit librum qui vocatur Perys ploughman.''<br><br>

(It should be noted that Stacy de Rokayle was the father of William de Langlond; this Stacy was of noble birth and dwelt in Shipton-under-Wychwood, a tenant of the Lord Spenser in the county of Oxfordshire. The aforesaid William made the book which is called ''Piers Plowman''.)
</blockquote>

Other manuscripts also name the author as "Robert or William langland", or "Wilhelmus W." (which could be shorthand for "William of Wychwood").

The attribution to William Langland is also based on internal evidence, primarily a seemingly autobiographical section in Passus 5 of the C-text of the poem. The main narrator of the poem in all the versions is named Will, with allegorical resonances clearly intended, and Langland (or Longland) is thought to be indicated as a surname through apparent puns; e.g., at one point the narrator remarks: "I have lyved in londe...my name is longe wille" (B.XV.152). This could be a coded reference to the poet's name, in the style of much late-medieval literature. Langland's authorship, however, is not entirely beyond dispute, as recent work by Stella Pates and C. David Benson has demonstrated.

In the sixteenth century, when ''Piers'' was first printed, authorship was attributed by various Robert Crowley's 1550 editions.) The character of Piers himself had come to be considered by many readers to be in some sense the author. 

The first printed editions by Crowley named the author as "Robert Langland" in a prefatory note. Langland is described as a probable protégé of Wycliffe. With Crowley's editions, the poem followed an existing and subsequently repeated convention of titling the poem ''The Vision of Piers'' [or Pierce] ''Plowman'', which is in fact the conventional name of just one section of the poem.

Some medievalists and text critics, beginning with John Matthews Manly, have posited multiple authorship theories for ''Piers'', an idea which continues to have a periodic resurgence in the scholarly literature. One scholar now disputes the single-author hypothesis, supposing that the poem may be the work of 2-5 authors, depending upon how authorship is defined. In keeping with contemporary scholarly trends in textual criticism, critical theory, and the history of the book, Charlotte Brewer, among others, suggests that scribes and their supervisors be regarded as editors with semi-authorial roles in the production of ''Piers Plowman'' and other early modern texts; but this has nothing to do with Manly's argument.

==The text==
thumb|First edition manuscript of the front page.
''Piers Plowman'' is considered to be one of the most analytically challenging texts in Middle English textual criticism. There are 50-56 surviving manuscripts, some of which are fragmentary. None of the texts are known to be in the author's own hand, and none of them derive directly from any of the others.

All modern discussion of the text revolves around the classifications of W. W. Skeat. Skeat argued that there are as many as ten forms of the poem, but only three are to be considered authoritative&mdash;the A, B, and C-texts&mdash;although the definition of "authoritative" in this context is problematic. According to the three-version hypothesis, each version represents different manuscript traditions deriving from three distinct and successive stages of authorial revision. Although precise dating is debated, the A, B, and C texts are now commonly thought of as the progressive (20-25 yrs.) work of a single author. 

According to the three versions hypothesis, the A-text was written ca. John Ball during the Great Rising of 1381. (Ball appropriated Piers and other characters in the poem for his own verses, speeches, and letters during the Rising.) There is little actual evidence for this proposal, and much against it. 

Skeat believed that the A-text was incomplete and based his editions on a B-text manuscript (Oxford, MS. Laud Misc. 581) that he wrongly thought was probably a holograph. Modern editors following Skeat, such as George Kane and E. Talbot Donaldson, have maintained the basic tenets of Skeat's work: there were three final authorial texts, now lost, that can be reconstructed, albeit imperfectly and without certainty, by rooting out the "corruption" and "damage" done by scribes. 

The Kane, Kane-Donaldson, and Russell-Kane editions of the three versions, published by the Athlone Press, have been controversial, but are considered among the most important accomplishments in modern editorial work and theory in Middle English. A. V. C. Schmidt has also published editions of A, B, and C; the promised second volume containing a full textual apparatus indicating his editorial decisions has not yet been published. For now, Schmidt's edition, while invaluable for classroom use and for a different perspective on the poem's textual history, is of less use to textual scholars working on the poem who require a critical edition.

A. G. Rigg and Charlotte Brewer hypothesized the existence of a Z-text predecessor to A which contains elements of both A and C. The Z-text is based on Oxford MS. Bodley 851, which Rigg and Brewer edited and published. It is the shortest version, and its authenticity is disputed. Ralph Hanna III has disputed the Rigg/Brewer approach based on codicological evidence and internal literary evidence; consequently the Z-text is now more commonly viewed as a scribal corruption of A with C elements. More recently, Lawrence Warner has shown that what was thought thought of as B in fact incorporates matter produced as part of the C-revision: if B circulated before C, it looked nothing like what had been assumed <!-- assumed by whom? -->.

There are some scholars who dispute the ABC chronology of the texts altogether, Jill Mann foremost amongst them. There is also a (minority) school of thought that two authors contributed to the three versions of the poem. Neither of these reappraisals of the textual tradition of the poem are generally seen as very robust.

==Editorial, Publication and Reception History==
===14th-15th Centuries===
Great Rising of 1381 (also known as the Peasants' Revolt), included Piers and other characters in his writings. If ''Piers Plowman'' already had perceived associations with Lollardy, Ball's appropriations from it enhanced his and its association with the Lollards as well. The real beliefs and sympathies at work in Langland's poem and the revolt remain, for this reason, mysterious and debatable. 

No doubt because of Ball's writings, the ''Dieulacres Abbey Chronicle'' account of the revolt refers to Piers, seemingly as a real person who was a leader with Ball in the revolt. Similarly, early in the history of the poem's dissemination in manuscript form, Piers is often treated as the author of the poem. Since it is hard to see how this is credible, to those who read the poem, perhaps the idea was that Piers was a mask for the author. Or, as the ideal character of the poem, Piers might be seen as a kind of alter-ego for the poet that was more important to his early readers than the obviously authorial narrator and his apparent self-disclosures as Will. Ironically, Will's name and identity were substantially lost.

In some contemporary chronicles of the Rising, Ball and the Lollards were blamed for the revolt, and Piers began to be associated with heresy and rebellion. The earliest literary works comprising the Piers Plowman tradition follow in the wake of these events, although they and their sixteenth-century successors are not anti-monarchical or supportive of rebellion. Like William Langland, who may have written the C-Text version of Piers Plowman to disassociate himself from the Rising, they look for the reform of the English church and society by the removal of abuses in what the authors' deem a restorative rather than an innovative project.

'''Piers Plowman''' (verf. ca. 1360 bis 1399), auch bekannt als ''Visio Willelmi de Petro Ploughman'' ("Williams Vision von Piers dem Pflüger"), ist der Titel einer mittelenglischen allegorischen Erzählung des Autors William Langland. 

Das Werk wurde in nicht-reimenden alliterativen Versen verfasst, welche in verschiedene „''passus''“, also Abschnitte, unterteilt sind. ''Piers Plowman'' wird neben Chaucer's Canterbury Tales zu den ersten großen Werken der englischen Literatur gezählt.

Das Gedicht - teils theologische Sozialsatire – handelt von der Suche des Erzählers nach dem "wahren christlichen Leben", die Sichtweise entspricht dabei der vorherrschenden mittelalterlichen katholischen Visionen und führt zur Betrachtung dreier allegorischen Charaktere: ''Dowel'' ("Do-Well", also "Tu-gut"), ''Dobet'' (“Do-Better”), und ''Dobest'' (“Do-Best”).

Das Gedicht beginnt in den Malvern Hills, einer Landschaft im englischen Himmel und Hölle erblickt er ein Feld voll mit den verschiedensten Menschen aller Art, diese repräsentieren die Menschheit an sich. Dem Erzähler nähert sich nun ''Piers'', der "Titelheld" des Stückes, welcher sich als Führer auf der Suche des Erzählers nach Wahrheit anbietet. Der letzte Teil des Werkes handelt von der Suche des Erzählers nach den schon erwähnten ''Dowel'', ''Dobet'' und ''Dobest''.

== Titel und Autorenschaft ==
Im allgemeinen wird davon ausgegangen, dass ''Piers Plowman'' von Trinity College, Dublin als "MS 212" vorliegt. In diesem Mansukript des so genannten "C-Textes" wird das Stück einem ''Willielmus de Langlond'' zugeschrieben:

''"Memorandum quod Stacy de Rokayle pater willielmi de Langlond ... predictus willielmus fecit librum qui vocatur Perys ploughman."''

("Man sollte daran erinnern, dass Stacy de Rokayle der Vater des William de Langlond war... der genannte William erschuf das Buch, das Piers Plowman genannt wird.")

Andere Manuskripte nennen als Autor “''Robert''" oder "''William langland''” bzw. “''Wilhelmus W.''” (als Abkürzung für “''William of Wychwood''”).

Die Zuordnung Langlands basiert somit auf textinternen Fundstellen, wie beispielsweise ein scheinbar autobiografischer Abschnitt in Passus 5 des C-Textes. Der Vorname des Erzählers lautet dabei in allen Abschriften ''Will'', und auch ''Langland'' (oder ''Longland'') als Nachname kann aus Andeutungen herausgelesen werden: “I have lyved in londe... my name is longe wille” (B.XV.152). Diese Art der Codierung durch Wortspiele war in der spätmittelalterlichen Literatur weit verbreitet. Dennoch ist die Urheberschaft Langlands auch heute noch nicht abschließend geklärt bzw. unumstritten. 

Als im 16. Jahrhundert die ersten gedruckten Auflagen des ''Piers Plowman'' erschienen, wurde das Werk zunächst bekannten Autoren wie Bauernaufstandes von 1381 um  John Ball. Man nahm an, die Figur des ''Piers'' sei ein Wyclifs. Durch die Drucklegung wird erst im 16. Jahrhundert der Name ''The Vision of Piers [oder Pierce] Plowman'' festgelegt, welcher eigentlich nur der gebräuchliche Name eines einzelnen Abschnittes des Gedichtes war.  

In Teilen der Mediävistik gibt es außerdem Tendenzen, eine multiple Autorenschaft für ''Piers'' zu favorisieren. So wird angenommen, das Gedicht sei das Werk von zwei bis fünf Autoren (je nachdem, wie Autorenschaft definiert wird). Als Kompromiss zwischen "Einzel-" und "multipler Autorenschaft" betont die Textkritik vor allem die Rolle der Schreiber als eine Art "Semi-Autoren".