The Place of the Poor in “the Piers Plowman Tradition”

Surveys the treatment of poverty and the poor in Pierce the Ploughman’s Crede, Richard the Redeless, The Crowned King, and Mum and the Sothsegger. Shows how the most extensive treatment of the poor in ‘The PPl Tradition’ is almost the most Langlandian: in Crede, dealing with the problems of the poor is inseparable from dealing with the privileged eleminosity of the fraternal orders. (HB)