The lives of fourteenth-century peasant women

The C-text of Langland’s Piers Plowman contains a long passage in which he discusses who among the poor are most deserving of alms. First, he mentions prisoners in dungeons (‘pits’ – cp. Matthew xxv 36 &c); but then, far more unconventionally, he moves into an account of the lives of the poorest peasant women:

The most needy aren oure neighebores · and we nyme good hede,
As prisones in puttes · and poure folke in Cotes,
Charged with children · and chef lordes rente,
That thei with spynnynge may spare · spenen hit in hous-hyre,
Bothe in mylk and in mele · to make with papelotes,
To a-glotye with here gurles · þat greden after fode.
Al-so hem-selue · suffren muche hunger,
And wo in winter-tyme · with wakynge a nyghtes
To ryse to the ruel · to rocke the cradel,
Bothe to karde and to kembe · to clouten and to wasche,
To rubbe and to rely · russhes to pilie,
That reuthe is to rede · othere in ryme shewe
The wo of these women · that wonyeth in Cotes.

William Langland (fl. c. 1360–1387)

from Piers Plowman [C-text Passus X] (ante 1387)

I don’t know anything else quite like this passage in mediaeval English literature. It never fails to move me, not just with pity but with admiration: it is a portrait of deep poverty, but also of truly heroic struggle.

( Modern English translation )

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