What is William Langland?
[[File:Piers Plowman.jpg|thumb|The first page of one of the manuscripts of ''Piers Plowman'']] '''William Langland''' (c. 1332 – c. 1386) was an English [[poet]]. He wrote a long and complicated poem called [[Piers Plowman]]. The poem is an [[allegory]] about the difficulty of leading a good Christian life when the [[institution]] of the Church is often corrupt. We do not know for sure that this poem was written by Langland. The strongest evidence we have is one [[manuscript]] which says that the poem was written by 'Willielmi de Langlond', son of 'Stacy de Rokayle, who died in Shipton-under-Wichwood, a tenant of the Lord Spenser in the county of Oxfordshire'. Other manuscripts also name the author as 'Robert or William langland', or 'Wilhelmus W.' (probably an [[abbreviation]] for 'William of Wichwood', since Wychwood is the village he probably came from). Another piece of evidence is within the poem itself. At one stage the narrator says: 'I have lyved in londe...my name is longe wille'. [[Professor|Scholars]] agree that this is a [[code]] for the poet's name: Longe-Land, and Wille meaning Will, short for William. This may seem unlikely, but this method of hiding the poet's name within a poem was used in [[Ancient Rome|Roman]] times, and was quite common in late-medieval literature. {{bio-stub}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Langland, William}} [[Category:1330s births]] [[Category:1380s deaths]] [[Category:English poets]]