and seventeenth centuries, the Crede was usually attributed to Chaucer. The editor of the 1606 edition of The Plowman's Tale, possibly Anthony Wotton, explains his speculations with this gloss: "A Creede: Some think hee means the questions of Jack-vpland, or perhaps Pierce Ploughmans Creede. For Chaucer speaks this in the person of the Pelican, not in his own person." This statement is ambivalent, suggesting that Chaucer could fictionally ("in the person of the Pelican") claim authorship for another text that he may not have actually written (i.e., the Crede), or Chaucer might be referring to one of his own writings (i.e., Jack Upland). Since Jack Upland was definitely (and wrongly) attributed to Chaucer in the 16th century, the editor is likely introducing the possibility of a fictive authorship claim to deal with the possibility that The Plowman's Tale refers to the Crede. In this way the editor may have thought that if Jack Upland is signified by the "crede" reference in The Plowman's Tale, then "Chaucer" is speaking; if the Crede is signified, then it is the "Pelican, not [Chaucer's] own person." The Crede might also have been attributed to "Robert Langland" (i.e., William Langland) because of its inclusion in the 1561 edition of Piers Plowman, although this edition dropped the preface by Robert Crowley that names Langland. One reader of the 1561 Piers Plowman (which appends the Crede) made notes (dated 1577) in his copy that quote John Bale's attribution of Piers Plowman to Langland ("ex primis J. Wiclevi discipulis Unum") in Bale's Index...Scriptorum. Because of differences in language and his belief that Chaucer lived later than Langland, the reader concludes that the Crede alone (and not Piers Plowman) is Chaucer's. Significant contents Like much political or religious poetry of the Alliterative Revival (i.e., Piers Plowman, Mum and the Sothsegger), the poem takes the form of a quest for knowledge. It is narrated by a layman who has memorized nearly all of the rudimentary texts demanded by the Fourth Lateran Council. He can read, and can recite the Ave Maria and Pater Noster proficiently: yet he does not know the Creed. He seeks help from the friars, first turning to the Franciscans, then the Dominicans, followed by the Austin friars and the Carmelites. But rather than learning anything of value, all he hears are imprecations. Each order savagely attacks one of its rival groups of mendicants: the Franciscans denounce