William Langland begins Piers Plowman
1362
A West Midlands cleric began an alliterative Middle English dream vision in which a plowman named Piers stood for Christian labor and humility. The poem's social criticism - corrupt friars, grasping lords - would make it a handbook of the Peasants' Revolt two decades later and a foundation text of English Protestantism.
In context
Also in 1362 (3 other events on record)
- St. Marcellus's Flood drowns the German coast · Europe · Disaster
- English becomes the language of parliament · Europe · Culture
- Tamerlane wounded in the leg · Central Asia · Politics
Before and after in Europe
Before and after in Culture
Era
Late Middle Ages (1301–1500), one of 874 events from that era on Saeculum.