Peter the Labrador (in English, Piers Plowman, in Latin, Visio Willelmi of Petro Plowman, 1360-1399) is an English medieval allegorical poem written by William Langland in alliterative verses without rhyme.
The poem tells of three visions that the protagonist has when he falls asleep and falls prey to a deep sleep near the hills of Malvern. In the first view, the Catholic Church and the Lady Reward try to seduce the dreamer with riches and all sorts of material goods. In the second, the protagonist contemplates Peter the Labrador, a humble and hard-working peasant who guides a multitude of penitents in search of the Holy Truth. In the third vision the dreamer tries to seek the best and the greatest, but fails in his attempt to die, before achieving it, as a result of hunger and fevers. It seems that the main inspiration of Peter the Labrador by William Langland is found in "Song of the husbandman," a poem where the situation of the peasantry is clearly denounced and the climate of exploitation in who lives.
Unlike other satirical and moral poems of the time, this text is written in the first person in order to make more alive the facts that he denounces in favor of the oppressed peasants and against the exploitadores collected in the figure of the officials of the king.
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