Resisting the fantasy of identification in Robert Mannyng's Handlyng Synne -- Devotional submission and the Pearl-poet -- Christ's allegorical bodies and the failure of community in Piers Plowman -- Julian of Norwich's Allegory and the mediation of salvation -- The willful surrender of eucharistic reading in Nicholas Love and Margery Kempe -- John Lydgate and the eucharistic poetic tradition: the making of community -- Conclusion.