The Poor Commons: Literature and Social Change

Medieval society was hierarchical; we will start at the bottom, with the poor and underprivileged who made up the majority of it. In this and the next chapter I will be discussing the ‘illiterate readers’ in the countryside and towns, the literature written with this audience in mind, and the literature which (though not necessarily addressed to them) described their changing experience and problems. This first chapter will look at the developments in the lives of the illiterate commoners, at the Black Death and the Great Rising of 1381, and indicate how some of these developments are reflected in the literature, particularly Piers Plowman and Religious Drama. The next chapter will look more closely at other kinds of literature designed for the illiterate poor, and at their educational development and ventures towards dissent in religion. Both chapters will therefore show the commoners experiencing and initiating change, and discuss writing which is in different ways seditious and far-thinking. However, in neither chapter can it be claimed that the rural or urban poor were the sole readers of the literature discussed, for it was written and read by educated people, both clerical and lay, and in the case of the Drama was supported by the very wealthiest and highest groups in society, as well as by the illiterate poor.