Piers Plowman and the Schools.

PPl, a learned and at times self-consciously pedantic work, dwells on skills and knowledge not easily subsumable into traditional medieval curricula. In the “autobiographical passage,” construing “by so y wol contenue” (C.5.39b) as an independent clause describing Will’s present intention contributes to a sense of WL’s self-representation in a realm of learning removed from institutional reification. Technical and professionaJ training, which proliferated outside the fourteenth-century university, is present in PPl in both Will’s desire (B. 15.48) and Study’s caveats (B. 10.220-21). CUL MS. L1.4.14 includes PPl along with scientific and pseudo-scientific treatises that resemble Dame Study’s curriculum.