This is an experimental hypertext annotation of Passus Five of Piers Plowman by William Langland. This project was created to fulfil the requirements for the Virginia Tech graduate class in medieval studies taught by Dr. Colaianne. The goal of this project is to create an interactive annotation of the passus. In creating this hypertext document, I have collected both criticism and annotations from secondary sources, while including my own analytical perspective. I have used a medieval version of the passus taken from the University of Virginia's hypertext archive. This project is not an introduction to the entire work, but an inclusive approach to one specific passus. The project is created for a specific audience well-versed in the study of Piers Plowman in its entirety. It is experimental in the sense that the educational process in creating this project is on-going. I have made many mistakes along the way, but I continue to learn and modify. I hope that this project will be useful to future students who may take up the project or a similar hypertext endeavour.
The passus has been divided into pages of text. On each page, there are numbers embedded into the text representing annotations. To view a particular annotation, simply click on the corresponding number. The reader will then be taken to the footnote page. To return to the text, simply check on the same number. When the reader wishes to progress from one page to the following one, he or she should click the highlighted text at the bottom of the scene, such as "Go to page 2". Certain pages have double frames. The annotations in the second frame correspond to the bold text within the poem. These are translations and explanations of Latin and biblical references.