Medieval Institute Publications

Yearbook of Langland Studies

Volumes 1 through 19 of "The Yearbook of Langland Studies" are available for purchase from Medieval Institute Publications at Western Michigan University. Beginning in 1987, the yearbook was the preeminent venue for scholarship on "Piers Plowman"; on related poems in the tradition of didactic alliterative verse and on the historical, religious, and intellectual contexts in which such poems were produced in late medieval England. Each annual volume contains essays, reviews and an annotated bibliography.

Back issues of volumes 1 through 19 are available through Medieval Institute Publications for $25 per volume. To confirm availability, please contact us here.

Volume 20 and subsequent volumes are available from Brepols.

Articles
  • “The Scribe of Rawlinson Poetry 137 and the Copying and Circulation of Piers Plowman” by Simon Horobin
  • “Allegory Without the Teeth: Reflections on Figural Language in Piers Plowman” by Mary Carruthers
  • “When God Whistled for Chickens”: Birds and Poverty in Piers Plowman B.15.462-82” by Thomas D. Hill
  • “‘Fullynge’ Nature: Spiritual Charity and the Logic of Conversion in Piers Plowman” by Rebecca A. Davis
  • “Promising the Female, Delivering the Male: Transformations of Gender in Piers Plowman” by Masha Raskolnikov
  • “‘Al þe comonys with o voys atonys’: Multilingual Latin and Vernacular Voice in Piers Plowman” by Fiona Somerset
  • “Langland’s Pier’s Plowman in Hm 143: Copy, Commentary, Censorship” by John M. Bowers
  • “[Piers] the [Plowman]: The Corrections, Interventions, and Erasures in Huntington MS Hm 143 (X)” by Michael Calabrese
Book Reviews
  • Text and Controversy from Wyclif to Bale: Essays in Honour of Anne Hudson edited by Helen Barr and Ann M. Hutchison.
    • Review by Christina von Nolcken
  • Public “Piers Plowman”: Modern Scholarship and Late Medieval English Cultures by C. David Benson
    • Review by Mishtooni Bose
  • London Literature, 1300-1380 by Ralph Hanna
    • Review by Ardis Butterfield
  • The Siege of Jerusalem edited by Ralph Hanna and David A. Lawton
    • Review by Andrew Galloway
  • The Piers Plowman Electronic Archive, Volume 3: Oxford, Oriel College, MS 79 (O) edited by Katherine Heinrichs and The Piers Plowman Electronic Archive, Volume 4: Oxford, Bodleian Library, Laud Misc. 581 (L) edited by Ralph Hanna and Hoyt Duggan
    • Review by Simon Horobin
  • The Laborer’s Two Bodies: Labor and the “Work” of the Text in Medieval Britain, 1350-1500 by Kellie Robertson
    • Review by David Aers
  • “Piers Plowman” and the Poor by Anne M. Scott
    • Review by Kate Crassons

Annual Bibliography (2004) by Kalpen Trivedi

Articles
  • “The Nature of Need Revisited” by Jill Mann
  • “Ars or Scientia? Reflections on Editing Piers Plowman” by A. V. C. Schmidt
  • “‘The longe man ys seld wys’: Proverbial Characterization and Langland’s Long Will” by Susan E. Deskis and Thomas D. Hill
  • “Contextualizing Alexander and Dindimus” by Frank Grady
  • “A New Theory of Alliterative A-Verses” by Noriko Inoue
  • “The Dialect and Authorship of Richard the Redeless and Mum and the Sothsegger” by Simon Horobin
Book Reviews
  • Socioliterary Practice in Late Medieval England by Helen Barr
    • Review by Ethan Knapp
  • Gestures and Looks in Medieval Narrative by J. A.  Burrow
    • Review by Helen Cooper
  • Pilgrimage in Medieval English Literature, 700-1500 by Dee Dyas
    • Review by Ad Putter
  • Literary Character: The Human Figure in Early English Writing by Elizabeth Fowler
    • Review by Maura Nolan
  • Interpretation in “Piers Plowman” by William Elford Rogers
    • Review by James J. Paxson
  • Reform and Cultural Revolution. The Oxford English Literary History. Volume 2. 1350-1547 by James Simpson
    •  Review by Larry Scanlon
  • Arts of Possession: The Middle English Household Imaginary by D. Vance Smith
    • Review by Matthew Goldie
  • Lollards and their Influence in Late Medieval England edited by Fiona Somerset, Jill C. Havens, and Derrick G. Pitard
    • Review by Katherine C. Little
  • Documentary Culture and the Making of Medieval English Literature by Emily Steiner
    • Review by Chris Baswell

Annual Bibliography (2003) by Kalpen Trivedi

Articles
  • Special Section: Langland and Lollardy
    • “Introduction: Langland and Lollardy: The Form of the Matter” by Andrew Cole
    • “Langland and Lollardy: From B to C” by Derek Pearsall
    • “William Langland’s Lollardy” by Andrew Cole
    • “John Wyclif: Poverty and the Poor” by David Aers
    • “Expanding the Langlandian Canon: Radical Latin and the Stylistics of Reform” by Fiona Somerset
    • “Langland and Lollardy?” by Anne Hudson
  • “Becket and the Hopping Bishops” by Lawrence Warner
  • “Piers Plowman, Parliament, and the Public Voice” by Matthew Giancarlo
  • “Retaining a Court of Chancery in Piers Plowman” by Kathleen E. Kennedy
  • “Wasting Time, Wasting Words in Piers Plowman B and C” by J. A. Burrow
Forum
  • “The Secular Clergy (again): A Brief Rejoinder to Míċeál Vaughan’s Response” by Traugott Lawler
Book Reviews
  • The Wycliffite Heresy: Authority and the Interpretation of Texts by Kantik Ghosh
    • Review by Christina von Nolcken
  • William Langland’s Piers Plowman: A Book of Essays edited by Kathleen M. Hewett-Smith
    • Review by Joseph S. Wittig
  • The Rock and the Plough: John Grandisson, William Langland and Piers Plowman: A Theory of Authorship by Stella Pates
    • Review by Stephen A. Barney
  • Alliterative Revivals by Christine Chism
    • Review by Ralph Hanna

Annual Bibliography (2002) by Kalpen Trivedi

Articles
  • “The Ur-B Piers Plowman and the Earliest Production of C and B” by Lawrence Warner
  • “Putting it Right: The Corrections of Huntington Library MS. Hm 128 and BL Additional MS. 35287” by Thorlac Turville-Petre
  • “Green and Filial Love: Two Notes on the Russell-Kane C Text: C.8.215 and C.17.48” by Thomas D. Hill
  • “The Secular Clergy in Piers Plowman” by Traugott Lawler
  •             Response by Míċeál F. Vaughan
  • “Hunger, Need, and the Politics of Poverty in Piers Plowman” by Margaret Kim
  • “Two New (?) Lost Piers Manuscripts (?)” by Ralph Hanna
Book Reviews
  • The Place of God in Piers Plowman and Medieval Art by Mary Clemente Davlin, O.P.
    • Review by Jill Mann
  • Piers Plowman: Concordance, Will’s Visions of Piers Plowman. Do-Well. Do-Better and Do-Best by Joseph S. Wittig
    • Review by J. A. Burrow
  • The Book of the Incipit: Beginnings in the Fourteenth Century by D. Vance Smith
    • Review by Christine Chism

Annual Bibliography (2001) by Andrew Cole

Articles
  • “What then does Langland Mean? Authorial and Textual Voices in Piers Plowman” by C. David Benson
  • “‘Õe, by Peter and by Poul!’: Lewte and the Practice of Fraternal Correction” by Edwin D. Craun
    • Response by David C. Fowler
    • Response by Lawrence M. Clopper
  • “Langland and Allegory: A Proposition” by Lawrence M. Clopper
    • Response by Ann W. Astell
  • “Sick of Allegory: A Response” by James J. Paxson
  • “The Essential (Ephemeral) William Langland: Textual Revision as Ethical Process in Piers Plowman” by Alan J. Fletcher
  • “Plowing Parallel Furrows? The Textual Cultures of Piers and Preaching: A Response” by Wendy Scase
  • “The Author, the Dreamer, his Wife, and their Poet: Thoughts on an Essential-Ephemeral Langland: A Response” by Judith Dale
  • “Patient Politics in Piers Plowman” by Anna Baldwin
    • Response by Fiona Somerset
  • “Piers Plowman and the Subject of the Law” by Andrew Galloway
    • Response by David Lawton
    • Response by Louise M. Bishop
  • “‘Nevere noon so nedy ne poverer deide’”: Piers Plowman and the Value of Poverty” by Anne M. Scott
    • Response by Bruce W. Hozeski
    • Response by Joan Baker
  • “‘Culture Wars’ and the Persona in Piers Plowman” by Joseph S. Wittig
  • “Culture Wars? All’s Not Quiet on the Langland Front: A Response” by Gregory J. Wilsbacher
  • “‘Dumb David’: Silence and Zeal in Lady Church’s Speech, Piers Plowman C.2.30–40 203” by Thomas D. Hill
  • “The Problem of Synecdochic Flesh: Piers Plowman B.9.49–50 213” by Thomas D. Hill
Book Reviews
  • The Piers Plowman Electronic Archive, Vol. 2: Cambridge, Trinity College, MS. B.15.17 (W) edited by Thorlac Turville-Petre and Hoyt Duggan
    • Review by John T. Sebastian
  • Faith, Ethics and Church: Writing in England, 1360–1409 by David Aers
    • Review by Denise N. Baker
  • Studies in the Harley Manuscript: The Scribes, Contents and Social Contexts of British Library MS. Harley 2253 edited by Susanna Fein
    • Review by Christopher Cannon
  • The Siege of Jerusalem in its Physical, Literary and Historical Contexts by Bonnie Millar
    • Review by David Lawton
  • The Lost Tradition: Essays on Middle English Alliterative Poetry by John Scattergood
    • Review by Maura B. Nolan

Annual Bibliography (2000) by Andrew Cole

Articles
  • “Langland’s Visions and Revision” by A. V. C. Schmidt
  • “Sir Adrian Fortescue and his Copy of Piers Plowman” by Thorlac Turville-Petre
  • “Grace Abounding: Evangelical Centralization and the End of Piers Plowman” by James Simpson
  • “Gestures and Looks in Piers Plowman” by J. A. Burrow
    • Response by Priscilla Martin
    • Response by Sandra Pierson Prior
  • “Langland’s Documents” by Emily Steiner
    • Response by Brian P. Davis
    • Response by Bruce Holsinger
  • “The Pardon Formula in Piers Plowman: Its Ubiquity, Its Binary Shape, Its Silent Middle Term” by Traugott Lawler
  • “Satan’s Pratfall and the Foot of Love: Some Pedal Images in Piers Plowman A, B and C” by Thomas D. Hill
  • “Langland’s Mary Magdalene: Proverbial Misogyny and the Problem of Authority” by Gavin Richardson
  • “Emendations to a 1993 ‘Vita de Ne’erdowel’” by Ralph Hanna
Book Reviews
  • The Piers Plowman Electronic Archive, Vol. I: Corpus Christi College, Oxford MS 201 (F) edited by Robert Adams, Hoyt N. Duggan, Eric Eliason, Ralph Hanna, John Price-Wilkin, and Thorlac Turville Petre
    • Review by Stephen Shepherd
  • The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature edited by David Wallace
    • Review by Anne Hudson

Annual Bibliography (1999) by Sean Tyler and Andrew Cole