ENG 425 Medieval Literatures of Devotion and Dissent: Home

Focusing on six brief, enigmatic texts written by the rebels themselves, Justice places the English peasantry within a public discourse from which historians, both medieval and modern, have thus far excluded them. He recreates the imaginative world of medieval villagers--how they worked and governed themselves, how they used official communications in unofficial ways, and how they produced a disciplined insurgent ideology.

The author re-reads the text making reference to recent theoretical conceptualizations and taking into consideration the figure of Margery Kempe as mystic, preacher and pilgrim. This book looks into the multiple layers of interpretation that this autobiography from the 15th century allows today, highlighting the importance of The Book of Margery Kempe as the first English autobiography, unique surviving example of travel text by a female pilgrim, and socio-historical document.

Piers Plowman is a dream vision which gives an account of one man's ardent quest for personal salvation in a world torn apart by social unrest and economic upheaval. Langland's passionate concern with issues such as social injustice, the use and abuse of learning, church corruption and poverty ensured his poem's wide and immediate following.