The Writing Lesson of 1381.

Allusions to PPl in the letters of the rebels of 1381 constitute a misappropriation of a work known to the author(s) only slightly and imperfectly. Some C-text revisions (e.g., deletion of the tearing of the pardon) react against such misappropriation, yet others (e.g., C. Prol. 139-46; cf. B.Prol.112-22) have the effect of marginalizing the common people. Yet, “while the direction of the revisions validates suppression, the text’s mobility simultaneously asserts the temporal contingency of the revised model under which the plowman is as silent and without agency as the Plow.”