‘As Plouzmen Han Preued’: The Alliterative Work of a Set of Lollard Sermons

This essay argues that close attention to the literary forms of a set of Lollard sermons reveals how reformist concerns about productive labor and effective preaching yield rhetorical practices that often are reminiscent of Langlandian literary modes. In these sermons, poetic modes serve didactic and hortatory ends, rendering scriptural exegesis accessible and familiar through extended description, dramatic dialogue, and passages of rhythmic alliteration interspersed with the expository prose.