LANG'LAND, WILLIAM (c.1332-1400?). An English poet, born probably about 1332 at Cleo bury Mortimer, South Shropshire. Ile seems to have studied with the Benedictine monks at Great Malvern. He became a tonsured clerk• and early drifted to London, where be lived in per petual poverty. exercising minor funelions in the Church. Toward the end of his life he probably returned to the west. He died about 1400. Very little, however. is known about him beyond what may he inferred from his great poem Piers Plow man. The poem opens beautifully with the plow man falling asleep among the Malvern hills. and seeing in vision a field full of folk engaged in various occupations. The poem is thus an alle gory of life. It contains much vigorous satire on abuses in Church and State. Unlike most of the poems of the time, it is written in the alliterative measure that characterized English verse before the Norman Conquest. into this poem Langland put all his best thought, laboring upon it throughout his life, as is shown by the many variations in the manuscripts, number ing forty-five or more. These manuscripts fall
into three groups, known as the A, B, and C texts, which are assigned respectively to 1362, 1377, and 1392. This poem should not be confounded with the Creed of Piers Plowman, written about 1394 by another hand. Excepting Chaucer, Langland was the greatest English poet of the fourteenth century. Ilis was one of the earliest and most eloquent cries from an oppressed people. Con sult: Skeat's edition of the three texts of Piers Plowman (Oxford, 1336), and his edition of the B text for school use (Oxford, 18SS) : The Vision and Creed of Piers Plowman, edited by Wright new ed. London. 1397) ; Jusserand, l'irrs Plow man, A Contribution. to the History of English Mysticism (trans. New York, 18941 ; id.. A Lit miry ThRtory of the English People (New York, IS95).