Abstract: It was well known that the development of medieval theological theory reached its heyday in Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica of the thirteenth century. Yet starting from the fourteenth century, due to the schism of the Roman Catholic Church and the corruption within the church, various theological theories began to lose their luster. A number of literary works came to criticize the corruption of the church and the futility of theological theory. William Langland's Piers Plowman is such a typical English poem of Middle Ages. Though not a theologian, Langland reexamines and criticizes various theological theories through his creation of many allegorical characters, such as Holy Church, Conscience, Patience, Reason, Clergy, Doctor, and Master. Holy Church returns to the primitive communist ideas of the early church fathers, and criticizes the corrupting function of the private system severely. She repeatedly tells Will, the narrator of the poem, “When all treasures are tried, Truth is the best.” Patience's idealistic interpretation of “charity” exposes the nature of a medieval theological master's hypocrisy and insincerity. The allegorical story of the “Half Acre,” moreover, vividly illustrates the early Christian doctrine and primitive communist ideas, “From each, according to his ability, and to each, according to his necessity” and “He who does not work, neither shall he eat.”

Key words: Karl Marx, William Langland, Piers Plowman, truth, charity, Piers