ABSTRACT
One of the greatest poems of the Middle Ages, Piers Plowman is at the same time one of the most complicated. Various clues suggest that the author, William Langland (ca. 1332–ca. 1400) was born at Cleobury Mortimer (Shropshire), was trained as a priest at the Benedictine monastery at Great Malvern (Worcestershire), took minor orders but acquired no benefice, was married, and lived with his wife and daughter at Cornhill, in London, where he secured a meager income by reciting prayers for benefactors.
