Jack Upland or Jack up Lande (ca. 1389-96?) is a polemical, probably Lollard, literary work which can be seen as a "sequel" to Piers Plowman

Piers Plowman

Piers Plowman or Visio Willelmi de Petro Plowman is the title of a Middle English allegorical narrative poem by William Langland. It is written in unrhymed alliterative verse divided into sections called "passus"...

, with Antichrist

Antichrist

The term or title antichrist, in Christian theology, refers to a leader who fulfills Biblical prophecies concerning an adversary of Christ, while resembling him in a deceptive manner...

 attacking Christians through corrupt confession. Jack asks a "flattering friar" (cf. Piers Plowmans "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, ca. 1420). The latter text blasts John Wycliffe

John Wycliffe

John Wycliffe was an English Scholastic philosopher, theologian, lay preacher, translator, reformer and university teacher who was known as an early dissident in the Roman Catholic Church during the 14th century. His followers were known as Lollards, a somewhat rebellious movement, which preached...

 as one of history's major heretics

Heresy

Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma. It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause, and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion...

. 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

Sodomy

Sodomy is an anal or other copulation-like act, especially between male persons or between a man and animal, and one who practices sodomy is a "sodomite"...

.

Jack Upland was printed by itself in an octavo

Octavo

Octavo to is a technical term describing the format of a book.Octavo may also refer to:* Octavo is a grimoire in the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett...

 edition ca. 1536-40 by John Gough

John Gough

Brigadier General Sir John Edmond Gough VC, KCB, CMG , known as Johnnie Gough, was born in Muree, India and was a recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.-Background:Gough,...

 (STC 5098). John Foxe

John Foxe

John Foxe was an English historian and martyrologist, the author of what is popularly known as Foxe's Book of Martyrs, , an account of Christian martyrs throughout Western history but emphasizing the sufferings of English Protestants and proto-Protestants from the fourteenth century through the...

's Acts and Monuments

Foxe's Book of Martyrs

The Book of Martyrs, by John Foxe, more accurately Acts and Monuments, is an account from a Protestant point of view of Christian church history and martyrology...

 (1563, 1570) reprinted Jack Upland and attributed it to Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer , known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages and was the first poet to have been buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey...

. Thomas Speght's 1602 edition of Chaucer's Works (STC 5080) included Jack Upland.