ABSTRACT
The close correspondences Owst has shown in thought and sometimes even in words between Piers Plowman and some of the manuals and sermons seem to me to indicate that Langland is not really in search of anything. Langland is concerned in his poem with the Church Militant in the England of his time, the greater part of which consists of ordinary people living in the world. Contemplation, properly so-called, is the fruit of the supernatural gifts of understanding and wisdom, as, for example, The Book of Virtues and Vices teaches. The traditional teaching is echoed in English manuals and sermons. According to the traditional teaching, then, doing-well, doing-better, and doing-best, in so far as the terms relate to personal Christian perfection, have no essential relation to states or ways of life; and this is surely Langland’s view.
