The memorandum is authenticated by knowledgeable local annals dated from 1294 to
1348 in the same hand above it on the page, with clear interest in the Despensers.
Extension of that interest to include the poet's family is indicated by a recent
discovery (Matheson) that his grandfather Peter de Rokele had been in the service of
Hugh le Despenser the younger, indeed had several times been violently and
unlawfully active in his interest, and that, having in April 1327 been pardoned for
‘adhering’ to Despenser, he was within months implicated in a conspiracy to release
the captive Edward II. This Peter held land in and about Wooton Underwood in
Buckinghamshire. His son Eustace (Stacy) appears in local records as a man of
standing in Oxfordshire. Bale's ascriptions call the poet Robert Langland, and have
him born at Cleobury Mortimer in Shropshire. The baptismal name, Robert, was a
mistaken inference from a scribal error which survives in two unrelated copies of the
poem; even without the memorandum Langland's given name would be established
as William by an unmistakable cryptogrammatic signature in the convention of the
genre, in one version of Piers Plowman: ‘I have lived in land, my name is Long Will.’
But his identification of the birthplace, which has been questioned on mistaken
grounds, seems confirmed by records of deeds of gift and grants of land made by
various Langlands between 1399 and 1581 not actually in Cleobury Mortimer but a
bare 5 miles away in the manor of Kinlet and in adjoining Highley. This seems to
have been the poet's mother's family. That he took her name need imply no more
than that he was not in line to inherit through primogeniture. As to proximity, there
are clear indications of Rokayle interest in Shropshire. The surname Rokele may
come from the hamlet Ruckley (earlier Rucklee, Rokeley, Rokele) about 25 miles
north-west of Kinlet, part of the manor of Acton Burnel where the Despensers had
connections by marriage. Continued association is implied by record of a grant, in
1577, of lands named in the earlier deeds to Thomas Longland son of William
Longland, by a Richard Longland of Cuddington, Buckinghamshire, 4 miles from
Wooton and half a day's ride from Shipton under Wychwood. The span of dates
implies a family of substance.