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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Piers Plowman
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(late 14C) Allegorical poem in *alliterative verse by William Langland, about whom nothing is known beyond what can be deduced from this one work; he was possibly a friar or other minor cleric, from the Midlands but living in London. He revised his poem in several versions, some of them amounting to more than 7000 lines. Piers the ploughman is one of a group of characters searching for Christian truth in the complex setting of a dream. The work includes sharply observed details of what Langland sees as the corrupt materialism of his time.
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