William (or Robert) Langland is the name most often given in early sources to the mysterious author of the fourteenth-century classic Piers Plowman. Very little about him is certain. The work’s narrator describes himself as living in London with his wife Kit, and says that his name is “Will”—but as he converses with characters named “Wisdom,” “Wit,” “Reason,” “Conscience,” etc., this might possibly be a reference to the human will rather than (or as well as) an abbreviation of “William.”
