''Jack Upland'' or ''Jack up Lande'' () is a polemical, probably Lollard, literary work which can be seen as a "sequel" to '' Piers Plowman'', with Antichrist attacking Christians through corrupt confession. Jack asks a "flattering friar" (''cf.'' ''Piers Plowman''s "Friar Flatterer") nearly seventy questions attacking the mendicant orders and exposing their distance from scriptural truth. Two extant works respond to Jack's questions: ''Responsiones ad Questiones LXV'' (before 1396) and ''Friar Daw's Reply'' (Digby 41, c. 1420). The latter text blasts

John Wycliffe John Wycliffe (; also spelled Wyclif, Wickliffe, and other variants; 1328 – 31 December 1384) was an English scholastic philosopher, Christianity, Christian reformer, Catholic priest, and a theology professor at the University of Oxfor ...

as one of history's major heretics. Responding to Friar Daw, an unknown author wrote ''Upland's Rejoinder'', which survives in Digby 41, in the margins surrounding ''Friar Daw's Reply''. ''Upland's Rejoinder'' intensifies the level of invective: Daw is said to recruit the young sons of true-living plowmen to become (paradoxically) "worldly beggars," apostates against true rule, and sodomites. ''Jack Upland'' was printed by itself in an octavo edition c. 1536–40 by John Gough (STC 5098). John Foxe's '' Acts and Monuments'' (1563, 1570) reprinted ''Jack Upland'' and attributed it to

Geoffrey Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer ( ; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for ''The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He w ...

. Thomas Speght's 1602 edition of Chaucer's ''Works'' (STC 5080) included ''Jack Upland''. In 1968 P.L. Heyworth published all three works, ''Jack Upland, Friar Daw's Reply, and Upland's Rejoinder'' in an

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

edition..The three works also appear in the 1972 unpublished doctoral dissertation "The Origins of Subversive Literature in English," by John Roger Holdstock, for the University of California, Davis.

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{{authority control 14th-century books Books critical of Christianity English Reformation History of Catholicism in England Literary forgeries Middle English literature Satirical essays The Canterbury Tales Treatises

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