Recen 1362, between them have suggested that the poet was born about 1330. Recent
discovery (Matheson) that a William Rokele, who might conceivably be the poet,
received the first tonsure from Bishop Wolstan of Worcester not long before 1341,
suggests a somewhat earlier date, say 1325. Langland's death has long been taken,
almost as a matter of convenience, to have occurred before 1387, on the basis of an
early identification of the John But who signed the A coda, where the poet's death is
reported, as a king's messenger who died that year. The name But, initially thought to
be unusual, has proved fairly common, and about a dozen John Buts have come to
light in the records. Meanwhile the date ‘by 1387’ has been put in serious question by
the reflection of some features of the 1388 Statute of Labourers in a passage new to
the C version (5.1–103). Moreover, having Langland alive after 1388 enables
understanding of veiled, but unmistakably political, allusions in C. A better date for
his death, taking account of fourteenth-century life expectation, would be c.1390.