These lines, which begin Thomas Hoccleve's Series, have been described as the opening to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales transposed into a minor key. Rather than beginning his poem amid the ‘shoures soote’ of April, Hoccleve chooses as his starting point the withering leaves of autumn. Chaucer begins his poem eagerly awaiting a pilgrimage, whereas Hoccleve lies in bed ‘vexid’ by a ‘Þu3tful maladie’ (1.21). Far from boasting Chaucer's ‘ful devout corage’ (I.22), Hoccleve bemoans his lack of ‘lust’ and his ‘langour’ (1.25–28). By the end of his prologue, he has reversed the tone of Chaucer's opening entirely. He chooses to ‘braste oute on .e morwe’ not because of, but despite his surroundings (1.35). And, unlike Chaucer, who gears up for a pilgrimage, Hoccleve sits down and begins to write. This instance of writing despite the bleakness of one's surroundings serves as a fitting introduction to the Series – a work that depicts the compromised state of English poesie about two decades after Chaucer's death.

Hoccleve was writing the Series between 1419 and 1426, a period of considerable unrest for the English nation. In 1422 Henry V died, leaving the English throne to his nine-month-old son. Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, struggled with John, duke of Bedford, for the title of Protector, while England continued its war with France and its ongoing battle against heresy. Fresh in the collective English memory was the Council of Constance (1414–18), which saw attempts by delegates from Italy, France, Spain, Germany, and England to reform the Christian Church in ‘head and members’, to end the papal schism, and to censure the heterodox views of heretics such as John Wyclif and Jan Hus. As England was ‘home’ to the Wycliffite heresy, it became a political necessity for Lancastrian spokesmen to stress England's ‘return’ to a simpler and more orthodox Christian faith in order to differentiate between the strong, reform-minded English nation and weak, heterodox interlopers such as Wyclif.