The Vision and Creed of Piers Ploughman by Thomas Wright Vol I.
 
The history of the Middle Ages in England, as in other countries, represents to us a series of great consecutive political movements coexistent with a similar series of intellectual revolutions in the Mass of the people. The vast mental development caused by the universities in the 12th century led the way for a struggle to obtain religious and political liberty in the 13th. The numerous political songs of that period, which have escaped the hand of time, and above all the mass of satirical ballads  against the Church of Rome, which commonly go under the name of Walter Mapes, are remarkable monuments of the intellectual history of our forefathers…….