During Edward's reign the first work in English prose may have been
written. It was a volume of travels by Sir John Mandeville, who had
journeyed in the East for over thirty years. On his return he wrote
an account of what he had heard and seen, first in Latin, that the
learned might read it; next in French, that the nobles might read it;
and lastly he, or some unknown person, translated it into English for
the common people. He dedicated the work to the King.
Perhaps the most interesting and wonderful thing in it was the
statement of his belief that the world is a globe, and that a ship may
sail round it "above and beneath,"--an assertion which probably seemed
to many who read it then as less credible than any of the marvelous
stories in which his book abounds.
William Langland was writing rude verses (1369) about his "vision of
Piers the Plowman," contrasting "the wealth and woe" of the world, and
so helping forward that democratic outbreak which was soon to take
place among those who knew the woe and wanted the wealth. John
Wycliffe (S254), a lecturer at Oxford, attacked the rich and indolent
churchmen in a series of tracts and sermons, while Chaucer, who had
fought on the fields of France, was preparing to bring forth the first
great poem in our language (S253).