Bonus Episode: Piers Plowman: A Cry for Truth in a Troubled Age.

This is a between-the-seasons bonus epsiode. I shall be back again on Monday to laumch our new season on the book(s) of Kings.Back in April 2025, I read, listening too, and studied. William Langland's Medieval poem "Piers Plowman". As part of a reading group I belong to. This is my reaction,, first made available as a 'Patreon Only' bonus episode  

"Piers Plowman", was first published in 1377 and in it Langland asks the eternal question. "How are we truly saved?"  This urgent question was particularly relevant when it was written 700 years ago because England was in the grip of the Black Death. But the question  is still echoing today.

Join me as I explore a strange and stirring medieval poem that confronts hypocrisy, grapples with sin, and ultimately points to Christ's radical grace.

Langland's riddles aren't just literary; they're spiritual challenges for our time. And asks are we ready to engage?

📖 Get the full devotional insights by reading my substack essay: [https://open.substack.com/pub/jeremymccandless/p/piers-plowman-a-cry-for-truth-in?r=2r7o2c&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true]

Links and Sources:

Piers Plowman Electronic Archive

A 15th-century Piers Plowman manuscript - National Library of Wales

A 15th-century Piers Plowman manuscript – British Library

The Myth of Piers Plowman: Constructing a Medieval Literary Archive by Lawrence Warner (Cambridge University Press, 2014)

Piers Plowman – Wikipedia

Audible Audio Book: https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/Piers-Plowman-Audiobook/1781983240?source_code=ASSGB149080119000H&share_location=pdp

Podcast:

BBC Radion 4 – In Our Time – Piers Plowman. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000nvsl

Reading List:

Anna Baldwin, A Guidebook to Piers Plowman (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007)

Michael Calabrese, An Introduction to Piers Plowman (University of Florida Press, 2016)

Andrew Cole and Andrew Galloway (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Piers Plowman (Cambridge University Press, 2014)

William Langland (trans. A.V.C. Schmidt), Piers Plowman: A New Translation of the B Text (Oxford University Press, 2009)

William Langland (ed. by Derek Pearsall), Piers Plowman: A New Annotated Edition of the C-text (University of Exeter Press, 2008)

Liza Picard, Chaucer's People: Everyday Lives in the Middle Ages (W&N, 2017)

James Simpson, Piers Plowman: An Introduction (Liverpool University Press, 2007)

Emily Steiner, Reading Piers Plowman (Cambridge University Press, 2013)

#PiersPlowman #Devotional #ChristianLiving #Grace #Salvation #Truth #SpiritualGrowth.