One of the best examples of Middle English alliterative poetry, Piers Ploughman is assumed to have been written by William Langland. It is an allegorical work with a complicated diversity of religious topics. 

Before the year 1400, William Langland—who was born around 1330—died. The way that Piers Ploughman transforms monastic notions and terminology into symbols that the average person can understand is one of his finest achievements. Despite some of the author's stark and powerful imagery, the language of the poem is largely simple and informal.

There isn't much information about Langland's biography, although it's thought that he was born somewhere in the Worcestershire area of the Malvern Hills, and if he's to be connected to the "dreamer" of the poem, he might have gone to the Great Malvern Benedictine school. 

Given that references in the poem show that he was familiar with Westminster and London in addition to Shropshire, he may have been a priest in one of the minor orders in London.

Langland was knowledgeable about and devoted to every aspect of medieval theology. He was impressed by St. Bernard of Clairvaux's rigor, and his judgments of the shortcomings of the clergy and nuns of his era are consistent with his orthodoxy.

There is compelling evidence to believe that Langland died in 1385 or 1386.  Death struck him with a blow and sent him to the ground when this work was being created before Will was even aware of it. 

According to a comment written by "Iohan but" (John But) in a fourteenth-century version of the poem, he is currently buried beneath the ground (Rawlinson 137). John But appears to have died in 1387, according to Edith Rickert, indicating Langland died immediately before this date.

The majority of conventional wisdom about Langland has been rebuilt using Piers Ploughman. The narrator refers to himself as a "loller" or "idler" who resides in London's Cornhill district when speaking to his wife and child in a passage of the poem's C text. 

He was described as being significantly taller than average and sustaining himself by reciting prayers for the deceased, according to the report. The distinction between reality and Piers Plowman's metaphor, however, is hazy, and Wendy Scase observes that the entire passage is reminiscent of the medieval literary tradition of false confessions (also found in the Confessio Goliae and Jean de Meun's Roman de la Rose).

The poem demonstrates Langland's relationship with the clergy, however, the details of this relationship are obscure given the poem's intricate and highly developed theological understanding. 

The poem is similarly anticlerical and doesn't show any overt favoritism for any particular sect or order of clergy. It is difficult to match Langland with any particular sequence as a result. He is well known, in the words of John Bowers, for being a member of "the enormous number of unbeneficed clerks who formed the radical fringe of contemporary society.

The ill-shod Will is described as a mad renegade going through the countryside while "y-robed in russet." He shows no respect for his superiors. "According to Malcolm Godden, he traveled as a hermit, briefly residing with a client in exchange for a place to stay and food.

Langland was a student of John Wycliffe, according to the Piers Ploughman edition by Robert Crowley published in 1550. This conclusion is called into question by the early Lollard adoption of the plowman figure, as evidenced, for instance, in Pierce the Ploughman's Crede and The Plowman's Tale. 

Wycliffe and Langland indeed shared a lot of the same worries. Examples include the fact that both men opposed clerical corruption and questioned the effectiveness of indulgences and pilgrimages. They were also in favor of utilizing everyday language when preaching. 

Wycliffe was not publicly associated with these issues until after Langland's passing, as is supposed to have happened. However, during the late 14th century, these topics were the focus of intense dispute. According to Pamela Gradon, Langland also never reiterates Wycliffe's specific views on the sacraments.