As the dreamer in Piers Plowman looks down into the ‘deep dale’ beneath the ‘tour’, what at first appears to be ‘alle manere of men … werchynge’ soon thickens into an urban press, the bustle of daily labour along the streets of what is eventually identified as ‘London’. As Langland represents it, this city is less a place than a mass of people, a vast ‘assemblee’ of barons and burghers, bakers and brewers, weavers and tailors, tinkers, and miners, each differentiated from one another by their defining ‘craft’ (Prologue, 217–22). When these people are individualized, moreover, they do not cut particular figures or perform specific tasks; they say typical things. Langland's ‘London’ is not so much seen as heard: