William Langland is the putative author of the 14th-century English dream-vision Piers Plowman. A attribution of Piers to Langland rests chiefly on the evidence of a manuscript held at Trinity College, Dublin (MS 212). This directly ascribes 'Perys Ploughman' to 1 'Willielmi delaware Langlond', boy of 'Stacy de Rokayle, world health organization died inside Shipton-under-Wichwood, the tenant of the Lord Spenser in the county of Oxfordshire'. More manuscripts too title andy skinner when 'Robert or even William langland', or even 'Wilhelmus W.' (virtually all probably stenography for 'William of Wichwood'). A verse form itself as well seems to point towards Langland's authorship. At one stage a storyteller remarks: 'We've lyved inside londe...our title is longe wille' (B.15.152). This may be taken as a coded information to the poet's title, in the style of very much late-medieval literature (watch, e.g., Villon's acrostics in Le Testament). Although a grounds to believe could pop up slender, Langland's authorship has been widely accepted by commentators since a Twenties. These are does'nt, all the same, completely beyond dispute, when recent act by Stella Pates & C. David Benson has demonstrated.

About nothing is known of Langland himself. His entire identity rests in the string of conjectures & undefined hints. It would seem that he was natural in the West Midlands: Langland's storyteller receives his number 1 vision when sleeping in the Malvern Hills (between Herefordshire and Worcestershire), which suggests some level of attachment to this metropolitan area. A idiom of the verse form as well implies that its creator originated from either this a share of the united states. Although his date of birth is unknown, there is a hard indication that he died around c.1385-6. The note written by of these 'Iohan however' ('John However') within the fourteenth-century manuscript of the verse form (Rawlinson 137) makes directly information to the demise of its creator: whan this werke was wrouyt, ere Wille myte aspie/ Deth delt him the dent & drof him to the erthe/ & is closed vnder clom ('it used to be that this operate was processed, prior to Might was aware/ Demise struck him a blow & knocked him to the ground/ & at present he is buried under the soil'). Since However himself, based on data from Edith Rickert, seems to own died within 1387, Langland must own died shortly prior to this date.

A rest of my noesis of the poet potty sole exist as reconstructed from either Piers itself. There exists in point of fact the wealth of apparently biographic information in the verse form, however these are hard to understand how else this should exist as treated. A C-text of Piers contains the passage where Might describes himself as a 'loller' sleep in the Cornhill area of London, & refers directly to his married woman & toddler: it likewise suggests that he was swell above norm height, and processed the residing reciting prayers for the dead. Nevertheless, it would exist as rash to choose this episode at face value. A distinction between allegory & 'real-life' inside Piers is not by a blame sight absolute, & a entire passage, when Wendy Scase observes, is suspiciously remindful of the 'faithlessly confession' tradition around mediaeval literature (represented elsewhere per Confessio Goliae and by Fals-Semblaunt in Jean de Meun's Roman de la Rose). The similar passage in the final Passus of the B- & C-texts will bring farther ambiguous details. This likewise refers to May's married woman, & describes his torments by Elde (Geezerhood), when he complains of phalacrosis, gouty arthritis & impotence. This will swell show that a poet got already reached middle age per 1370s: however once more suspicions come aroused per conventional nature and severity of this description (look at, for example, Walter Kennedy's 'In Praise of Aige' & The Parlement of the Thre Ages), and a fact that it occurs towards a prevent of the verse form, after Might's personalized development is reaching its logical guide.

Farther details may be inferred from either either a verse form, however which are actually besides far from elementary. E.g., a elaborate & extremely sophisticated level of religious noesis in a verse form indicates that Langland got a few connection to the clergy, however the nature and severity of this relationship is uncertain. A verse form shows there are no conspicuous bias towards any particular class action or potentially sequentially of churchmen, however is like even-handed within its anticlericalism, attacking the regular & lay clergy indiscriminately. This makes it hard to align Langland sustaining any specific the correct sequence. He is probably better regarded, when John Bowers writes, as a member of 'that sizable class action of unbeneficed clerks world health organization formed a radical fringe of contemporary society...a ill shod May is portrayed "y-robed in russet" travelling just about the countryside, a half-crazed protester showing there is no respect to his superiors'. Malcom Godden has proposed that he lived as an itinerant hermit, attaching himself to the patron temporarily, exchanging writing services for shelter & food.

the tradition that Langland was a Wycliffite, an idea promoted by Robert Crowley's 1550 edition of Piers and complicated by early Lollard appropriation of the Plowman-figure (see, e.g., Pierce the Ploughman's Crede and The Plowman's Tale), is almost certainly incorrect. These are admittedly that Langl& and Wyclif shared many concerns: each wonder a value of indulgences & pilgrim's journey, promote a utilize of the vernacular around preaching, attack clerical corruption, & possibly advocate disendowment. However these topics were widely discussed throughout a late fourteenth century, simply becoming often 'Wycliffite' fallowing Langland's demise. What is more, when Pamela Gradon observes, at there is no point does Langland echo Wyclif's characteristic teachings on the sacraments.

For farther tools, view a article Piers Plowman.

=Information= C. David Benson, 'A Langland Myth', around ''William Langland's Piers Plowman: the book of essays'', ed. by Kathleen M. Hewett-Smith (Up to date York: Routledge, 2001), pp.83-99. ISBN 0815328044

John M. Bowers, 'Piers Plowman & the Law: notes towards a history of the Wycliffite Langland', Yearbook of Langland Studies 6 (1992), pp.One-50.

Malcolm Godden, A Making of Piers Ploughman (London: Longman, 1990). ISBN 0582016851

Pamela Gradon, 'Langl& and a Ideology of Dissent', Redeeming of the British Academy 66 (1980), pp.179-205.

Stella Pates, the Rock & a Plough: John Grandisson, William Langl& and Piers Plowman, a theory of authorship (Cirencester: Fairford Click, 2000). ISBN 01285656999

Edith Rickert, 'John However, Courier & Maker', [http://gallica.bnf.fr/ Modern Philology 11] (1903), pp.107-17.

Wendy Scase, Piers Plower & a Fresh Anticlericalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Click, 1989). ISBN 052136017X