The Importance of the Psalms of David in William Langland’s The Vision of Piers Plowman.

L’s immersion in the Book of Psalms may be asserted with confidence, given the high place of this most loved of the Old Testament books in medieval exegesis. “Over 100 direct citations from the Psalms” can be found “embedded in the allegory of The Vision of Piers Plowman,” and the Dreamer, “the poet himself,” claims the Seven Penitential Psalms as his tools (15). Wurtele’s paper studies the references made to these seven psalms (nos. 6, 31, 37, 50, 101, 129, 142 in the Vulgate Septuagint) with reference to Nicholas of Lyra’s exegetical postillae on these psalms to show that the psalms command a preeminent place in L’s literary imagination.