ts;
Masons and miners,
And many other crafts.
Of all kind living laborers
Leaped forth some;
As ditchers and delvers,
That do their deeds ill,
And driveth forth the long day
With _Dieu save dame Emme_.
Cooks and their knaves
Cried, 'Hot pies, hot!
Good geese and grys,[7]
Go dine, go!'"

To plead the cause of the poor and weak against their powerful
oppressors, and to protest in the name of religion against the pride and
corrupt life of its ministers, was the object of the monk of Malvern
Abbey; and he did his work well. The blows he dealt were fierce and
strong, and told home. Burgher and baron, monk and cardinal, alike felt
the fury of his attacks. He was no respecter of persons. A monk himself,
he had no scruples in tearing off the priestly robe that covered lust
and rapine. Wrong in high places gained no respect from him. His
invectives against a haughty and oppressive nobility and a corrupt and
arrogant clergy are unsurpassed in power, and it is easy to understand
the hold the poem at once acquired on the attention of the lower
classes, and its influence in directing and hastening the attempt of the
oppressed people to break their galling bonds.

What we have before said in reference to the wretched condition of the
peasantry, as shown by contemporary evidence, is confirmed by the writer
of the "Vision." The peasant was a born thrall to the owner of the land,
and could

"no charter make,
Nor his cattle sell,
Without leave of his lord."

Misery and he were lifelong companions, and pinching want his daily
portion. The wretched poor

"much care suffren
Through dearth, through drought,
All their days here:
Woe in winter times
For wanting of clothing
And in summer time seldom
Soupen to the full."

A graphic picture of a poor ploughman and his family is given in the
"Creed" of Piers Plowman, supposed to have been written by the author of
the "Vision," but a few years later.

"As I went by the way
Weeping for sorrow,
I saw a simple man me by,
Upon the plow hanging.
His coat was of a clout
That cary[8] was called;
His hood was full of holes,
And his hair out;
With his knopped[9] shoon
Clouted full thick;
His toes totedun[10] out
As he the land treaded;
His hosen overhung his hockshins
On every side,
All beslomered in fen[11]
As he the pl