Perhaps no character in English Literature commissioned by his author to be the title bearer of his work has fulfilled his commission more effectively than Piers the Plowman. Even to the layman, ungiven to “Lettrure and longe studie,” there is pleasant connotation in the name, while to the scholar, moving in the uncertainties of authorship and text, the title of Piers the Plowman and the central importance of his figure in the poem stand as one thing sure. Still one may ask questions. Just why should this poem of political and religious satire have been called the vision or book concerning Piers the Plowman? From the angle of his presence in the action of the poem, he is but a minor character. Conscience, Kynde Witte, and Longe Wille, any of them are more consistently recurrent. Just who is Piers anyway? And what is his significance in the poem?