Pierce the Ploughman's Crede
Pierce the Ploughman's Crede is a medieval alliterative poem of 855 lines, lampooning the four orders of friars.
The frontispiece of Reyner Wolfe's edition of Pierce the Ploughman's Crede, printed in 1553
Walter William Skeat, was a British philologist and Anglican deacon. The pre-eminent British philologist of his time, he was instrumental in developing the English language as a higher education subject in the United Kingdom.
Skeat at his writing desk, no later than 1895