Guillaume de Deguileville

A manuscript of a French prose rendering of the Âme states that Guillaume eventually became prior of Chaalis, but it is not known whether this is true or, if so, when this happened.

Although the surviving manuscripts of the Pèlerinage trilogy render the author's name as "Guillaume de Deguileville", a number of other variants can be found in both medieval and modern sources.

Choosing the easy option he is soon attacked by a series of repulsive old women who personify the seven deadly sins, and despite his lamentations and regrets fails to return to the straight and narrow path.

After some further troubles and instructive encounters, and a prematurely interrupted bath under the Rock of Penitence, the pilgrim reaches the Sea of the World, where Satan fishes and hunts to capture human souls.

The poem ends with the pilgrim's death in the monastery, coinciding with the awakening of the dreamer, who then decides to commit his dream to writing.

[2] The Pilgrimage of the Soul, anonymous but sometimes attributed to John Lydgate or Thomas Hoccleve, is known at least 10 complete and 3 partial manuscripts.

Geoffrey Chaucer's poem ABC is in fact a translation of a prayer to Virgin Mary from Pèlerinage de la Vie Humaine.

This would make ABC Chaucer's earliest work, preceding The Book of the Duchess, an elegy commemorating Blanche's death.

[6]: 18  It is widely accepted that as well as translating a passage from Pèlerinage de la Vie Humaine, Geoffrey Chaucer drew inspiration from all three works, not least in the conception of pilgrimage developed in his Canterbury Tales.

[6]: 18 In 2011, Marco Nievergelt argued that Le Pèlerinage de vie humaine was a significant influence on the Middle English poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.