L.P.1KD.P.1 InL.P.1: The twelve-line ornamental capital is written in blue on an elaborately flourished red ground with oak leaves. The
flourishes run all the way down the left side of the page forming a demivinet. a somer seson whan soft was the sonneL.P.1: The old Laudian shelf mark E.64 is written in the right margin. This front leaf is badly rubbed, and we have had in some instances to corroborate our guesses about the reading with Skeat's
transcription. For instance, at the top of the leaf, on the very edge of the cropped leaf, Skeat found the following words
in red ink: Incipit liber de Petro Plowman. Skeat records that the rubrication was readable in strong sunlight when he worked with the manuscript. However, it is no
longer legible, even under ultra-violet light. We can make out Pe... Plow.an. Beneath that is written in a late sixteenth-century hand .... Robart Langeland borne by malbovrne (or perhaps malbourne?)
. . lles.The first ten lines are boxed with a fine red line.
M.P.1KD.P.1IN a somer seson whanne softe was the s.onne
Cr1.P.1KD.P.1 IN a somer season when sette was the sunne
W.P.1KD.P.1 IN a somer seson . whan softe was þe sonne .
Hm.P.1KD.P.1 IN a someres seysoun · whan setHm.P.1: CrHm read set. Other B manuscripts have soft. Skeat argued that since set was written over an erasure in Hm, the error was introduced after the publication of Cr. See Skeat, xxii and n.1; and xxxiii,
n. 1. However, George Kane, The Evidence for Authorship (London: Athlone Press, 1965), p. 41, n. 3, correctly points out that the first twelve lines were erased and written over
by an early fifteenth-century scribe and thus could owe nothing to the Crowley editions. We cannot agree with Kane's further
contention that the hand is different from that of the original scribe: the revision is probably by the original scribe. However,
Kane is correct that "it is therefore indeterminable whether the agreement of HmCr in reading set resulted from vertical or lateral transmission. But that Hm acquired this reading very early is not in doubt." The fullest
explanation of the causes of the erasure is by Captain R. B. Haselden, who detected no change of hand on this leaf. was the sunne
C.P.1KD.P.1 IN asomera somer seson · whan softe was the sonne
G.1.1KD.P.1 InG.1.1: The <I> is in a different ink from that of the original transcription, and appears to have been added at the same time
as the heading, and therefore probably by WH. See note to head. a someres seyson when soft was the sonne
O.P.1KD.P.1IN a somer sesoun whanne soft was þe sunne
R
[Not found.]
F.1.1KD.P.1AlF.1.1: The ornamental capital is blue with red and white flourishes. Set in gold foil is an image of the sleeping dreamer
with his head in his left hand and an image of a walled city beneath his feet. He wears three-fingered laborer's gloves,
perhaps suggesting that the illustrator has conflated dreamer and plowman.F.1.1: All other B manuscripts begin "In a somer seson . . . ." Though certainty is not possible, the similar ornamental capital in the Ushaw
College fragment written in the same workshop suggests that this lection is intended to take advantage of the workman's skill,
since an <A> offers more scope for the illustration than an <I>. The change in the text is, in this instance, more probably
the work of the immediate scribe than of the F-Redactor. in somer sesoun / whan softe was the sunne