I. Description of the Manuscript

I.1 Date:

s. xv. in. to s. xv. med. Ralph Hanna gives the date s. xv in. for Piers,NRalph Hanna III, Authors of The Middle Ages, 3: William Langland (Aldershot: Variorum, 1993): 39; confirming earlier authorities: George Kane and E. Talbot Donaldson, eds., Piers Plowman: The B Version, 2nd ed. (London: Athlone Press; Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988): 9; A. I. Doyle, "Remarks on Surviving Manuscripts of Piers Plowman," in Medieval English Religious and Ethical Literature: Essays in Honour of G.H. Russell, eds. Gregory Kratzmann and James Simpson (Cambridge and Dover, N.H.: D.S. Brewer, 1986): 40; Consuelo Dutschke, Guide to Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Huntington Library (San Marino: Huntington Library, 1989): 162-163. and he and David Lawton, as editors of The Siege of Jerusalem, date the hands of the Siege and the Good Wife "somewhat later than the others, perhaps s. xv2/4."NThe Siege of Jerusalem, eds Ralph Hanna and David Lawton, EETS 320 (Oxford, 2003): xxiii-iv.

I.2 Contents:

The following texts appear in this volume:

• 1. Prick of Conscience, (the "Southern" recension), ff. 1-16v, 25-32v, 17-24v (these two quires were reversed in binding), 33-94r (94v blank). Heading: Here bygynneþ þe prologe on the Prikke of consciencie þat ferst telleþ of goddes power (NewIMEV 3429). Quires 1-12. Hand A.NThe hand designations here are taken from internal notes made at the Huntington by Captain R. B. Haselden, Herbert C. Schultz, Jean Preston. Consuelo Dutschke used small Roman capitals in place of the letter designations, and Benson and Blanchfield Arabic numbers. See section I.12 Previous Descriptions below.
• 2. Fragment Hm2 of Piers Plowman, B text (Kane and Donaldson, 2.208-3.72 ff.) 96r-v, 95r (95v blank).NOn the reverse ordering of the leaves see R. B. Haselden, "The Fragment of Piers Plowman in Ashburnham No. CXXX," Modern Philology 29 (1932), 391-94. Begins: than drede went wyȝtly and warnede fals | and badde hym fle for fere and his felawes alle." Quire 12. Hands A and B.
• 3. Latin Expositio sequentiarum; commentaries on sequences for Sundays and feast days according to the Sarum usage. ff. 97-112v. Heading: Dominica prima adventus domini sequencia. Cf. STC 16110. Quires 13-14. Hand C.
• 4. Piers Plowman, B text; ff. 113-205r. Begins: In a someres seysoun whan set was the sunne. Quires 15-26. Hands A and D.
• 5. The Siege of Jerusalem; ff. 205r-216r. Heading: Here begynneth þe seege of ierusaleem & how it was destroyed. Quires 26-28, starting on same leaf where Piers Plowman ends. Hand E.
• 6. How the Good Wife Taught her Daughter; ff. 216v-219r (219v blank). Heading: The goode wif thaught hir doughter fele tyme & ofte gode woman for to be. Quire 28. Hand F.

I.3 Foliation:

Vellum, ff. i (contemporary vellum) + 219 + ii (contemporary vellum).NConsuelo Dutschke, Guide to Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Huntington Library (San Marino: Huntington Library, 1989): 162. Foliations are modern pencil, on the right head recto and again more faintly and less formally in the lower half of the right margin. These replaced an earlier foliation that included the first flyleaf, and was subsequently erased, but still visible on occasions on the right head recto, e.g. ff. 128r, 130r. The old foliation including the flyleaf is that used in the earlier published and unpublished descriptions of R. B. Haselden and H.C. Schultz and by de Ricci. The modern right head foliation not including the flyleaf was presumably written after Kane-Donaldson saw the manuscript, though they report and follow the identical folio numbering in the lower margins. Their description, not entirely accurate, misled Benson and Blanchfield to conclude that the manuscript has been "heavily trimmed, apparently since K-D noted foliation."NC. David Benson and Lynne S. Blanchfield, The Manuscripts of Piers Plowman: The B-version (Cambridge, 1997): 109.

I.4 Collation:

There are 27 quires of 8, with a 28th quire of 3 of uncertain structure.NSo Consuelo Dutschke, Guide to Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Huntington Library (San Marino: Huntington Library, 1989), 162; and The Siege of Jerusalem, eds. Ralph Hanna and David Lawton, EETS 320 (Oxford, 2003), pp. xxiii-iv.; revising the collation in Kane-Donaldson. Booklet 1 consists of quires 1-12 (folios 1-96); booklet 2 consists of quires 13-14 (folios 97-112); booklet 3 consists of quires 15-28 (folios 113-219).

Catchwords and quire signatures have been trimmed off, though quires are noted clearly in modern pencil at the start of each quire near the gutter towards the bottom of leaves. See, for example, the facsimile images at folios 129r, 137r and 144r, at the beginnings of quires 17-19.

The quiring of the Hm text of Piers Plowman in the third booklet is as follows:

1.5 Physical Description:

The overall size of the page is 242-248 mm. x 168-170 mm., though absence of pricking, catchwords and quire signatures indicates that the manuscript was trimmed for binding. The text frame is 205 mm. x 135 mm. The manuscript is in good condition, although ff. 213-215 are beginning to tear at the bottom, perhaps due to continual inspection to determine which quire they belong to. Viewed as a whole, the book ended up looking rather a mess, produced by various and conflicting procedures. The two first English texts are set out neatly and ruled for exactly forty lines per page, but article 3 has double columns of sixty-one lines, and article 5, The Siege of Jerusalem, is written in a small hand that gets even smaller and less legible as it proceeds, with at least fifty-three and sometimes up to sixty-five lines per page; article 6, The Good Wife is in a very large and sprawling hand, with 28-30 lines per page. The text of Piers Plowman has 40 lines on every folio except 113r, 114v, 115r, 187r which have 41, and 186v which has 42, all extra lines resulting from erasures and rewritten passages where lines were initially skipped. When starting at the top margin to add lost lines, the correcting scribe wrote the first line half a line higher on the page.

I.6 Sequence of Construction:

Kane and Donaldson point to evidence in the construction of the codex that suggest it was designed as a single volume: "the transitions Piers > Siege and Siege > Good Wife occur within leaves. Thus fols. 113-219 might seem a distinct book. But a general palæographic similarity between The Prick of Conscience, the Piers fragment, and the whole Piers text, suggests a common and contemporaneous origin for items 1, 2 and 4, and therefore also for 5 and 6."NGeorge Kane and E. Talbot Donaldson, eds., Piers Plowman: The B Version, 2nd ed. (London: Athlone Press; Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988): 9, n. 57. However, while The Prick of Conscience, the Piers fragment, and the completed Piers text are contemporaneous, Siege and Good Wife are perhaps some quarter-century later. The most probable sequence of composition is that Hand A began his work with Piers Plowman, copying the first quire (ff. 113-20) and making a start on the second (fol. 96r), before abruptly handing over to Hand B (ff. 96r-v, 95r) while he himself copied The Prick of Conscience (ff. 1r-94r).NThis discussion of the scribal copying of Hm 128 is a modification of Thorlac Turville-Petre, "Putting it Right: The Corrections of Huntington Library MS. Hm 128 and BL Additional MS. 35287," Yearbook of Langland Studies 16 (2002), 41-51. But Hand B soon abandoned his work on Piers Plowman, and the blank leaves were incorporated into the final quire of The Prick of Conscience (as ff. 89r-90r) in such a way that the Piers Plowman fragment Hm2 became the wrapper of that section of the manuscript. The bottom right edge of folio 96v has lost text (affecting the last 12 lines of Hm2, corresponding to Hm.3.38-49) either through erasure (as though someone had started to clean the page for new text) or more probably through rubbing. While Hand A copied The Prick of Conscience, Hand D completed Piers Plowman (ff.121r-205r). Hand A rubricated The Prick of Conscience himself, but rubrication of Piers Plowman is in another hand. Some years after Piers Plowman was completed, Hand E began the Siege of Jerusalem on the lower half of the same leaf (ff. 205r-216r), and when the Siege of Jerusalem was finished, hand F began The Good Wife on the verso (ff. 216v-219r). The third text in the volume Expositio sequentiarum has no necessary connection with the rest of the volume in origin, since it is two independent quires (ff. 97r-112v) copied by a scribe C whose work appears nowhere else in the manuscript. Therefore Kane and Donaldson propose that some kind of "historical division" existed after fol. 97, where this text starts (9, n. 57). Yet Hanna and Lawton argue that the headings in the Expositio sequentiarum are by the same hand as those in Piers as well as the opening heading of Siege: fols. 97r,I 115vI, and 205r,I so they conclude: "The continuity of decorative features indicates that the manuscript, however ad lib the provision of texts at the end, was a corporate product and remained in situ."NThe Siege of Jerusalem, eds. Ralph Hanna and David Lawton, EETS 320 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. xxiv. The rubrication of Expositio sequentiarum, Piers, and Siege seems likely to be contemporaneous, implying that Piers was left unrubricated for a long while.

It is possible that the two main scribes of Piers Plowman, Hand A and Hand D, worked as distinct craftsmen each with his own assignment, not necessarily knowing the other's work or consulting the other, for neither of the main scribes made any contribution to the quires for which the other is responsible. M. B. Parkes and A. I. Doyle discuss a potential analogue to this practice in Trinity College, Cambridge, MS R.3.2 (581). They examines the practice of various scribes copying in stints, in that manuscript indicating that "the exemplar had been distributed in portions among the scribes for simultaneous copying."NM. B. Parkes and A. I. Doyle, "The Production of Copies of the Canterbury Tales and the Confessio Amantis in the Early Fifteenth Century," in Medieval Scribes, Manuscripts and Libraries: Essays presented to N.R. Ker, ed. M. B. Parkes and Andrew G. Watson (London: Scolar Press, 1978), 164. Perhaps, then, some sort of rather loose collaborative effort informed the production of this manuscript in the (probably religious) community in which it was created.

The latest text in the manuscript, Good Wife, seems an anomaly, and may have been added when the volume had been put to new use. However, Felicity Riddy detects a regional and cultural logic in the collection as a setting for a work of domestic counsel. Hm 128, she writes:

is a partly pedagogic collection like the Emmanuel manuscript [Cambridge, Emmanuel College, MS 106] and, like it, is clearly clerical in origin.... Together, the Emmanuel manuscript and the Huntington manuscript suggest that for around eighty or ninety years, at least, "What the Goodwife Taught Her Daughter" was part of the pastoral repertoire of clergy serving the populations of the central and west Midlands towns.NFelicity Riddy, "Mother Knows Best," Speculum 71 (1996):74.

I.7 Handwriting of the Text Scribes in Piers Plowman:

For the purposes of this edition the hands of the text scribes of Piers have been tagged as follows (cf. the designations in I.2 Contents):

Hand1 and Hand2 are anglicana hands with features of secretary. In general appearance Hand1 is rounder than Hand 2 which has more of the angular and upright features characteristic of anglicana formata. The most striking difference is in the forms of the letter <h>: Hand1's <h>, except in rewritten passages on ff. 113r, 114v and 115r, has a sweeping descender that curls back on itself, much larger than Hand 2's, whose <h> has a taller and less rounded top. In other respects they share many features. Both use the <a> of two compartments. Neither scribe makes clear distinction between <n> and <u>. Hand 2's <w> has a large angular head, whereas that of Hand1 is squat and integrated into the body. Both scribes tend to use <th> in preference to <þ>, especially initially; both distinguish quite clearly between a straight and rather small <þ> and <y> with a long, angled descender, tucked back in the case of Hand1. Both use long <s> initially and medially, with the 8-shaped <s> finally, sometimes with an open top in Hand 2. Fisher classes Hand1 as a "Chancery hand,"NJohn H. Fisher, "Piers Plowman and the Chancery Tradition," in Medieval English Studies Presented to George Kane, ed. Edward Donald Kennedy, Ronald Waldron and Joseph S. Wittig (Woodbridge: D. S. Brewer, 1988), 267-78. but the description does not seem appropriate for a scribe apparently working in a provincial religious house.

The character of Hand4 is most simply revealed by a direct comparison of a passage of text copied by him and by Hand2.I Hand 2 is a more controlled and regular anglicana; Hand4 attempts the angled strokes of textura (e.g. the <d> of God, 3.59), but not always successfully (cf. god, 3.64). Secretary features are much more prominent in Hand4, with the single-compartment <a> throughout, and the open <g> and <d>.

For a characterization of Hand3 see II.1.3.2 The Rubricator as Corrector.

I.7.1 Decoration and Textual Presentation of Piers Plowman:

The largest textual division of Piers is the passus, clearly marked with a centred anglicana incipit in red by Hand3. The passus headings are as follows:

Each passus begins with an initial capital in blue with floral infill, and leafy flourishes in red extending into the border.I They are generally of 3-5 lines, though the "I" on 155v is of nine lines, and other "I"s on 168v and 184r are of eight lines. In many of the initials the scribe's tiny guide letters in black ink are still visible under the coloured ink, e.g. the "n" on 121r. The text begins on fol. 113r with an large decorated capital "I" in blue and red of 12 lines, c. 53mm. x 27mm. The first twelve lines have been rewritten by Hand1 to accommodate both a dropped line and a larger initial, so that traces of erased letters are just visible (e.g. to the left of P.12), and the overwritten text extends further to the right than the erasure (P.11-12). In the rewritten text the tails of "y" in P.2 and P.10 are within the frame of the initial, implying that the text was written before the initial was painted.I See II.1.3.1 Self-Correction:

Piers Plowman is divided into paragraphs, initially indicated by the scribe for later coloring with parasigns of blue and red, generally alternating throughout the text, though sometimes colors are repeated for no apparent reason. The frequency of the parasigns varies significantly from one line to over twenty-five lines. Comparison with other texts shows that these indicators of verse paragraphs were a feature of the B archetype.

Latin lines are written in the text ink, without rubrication, underlining or boxing, though the names of the seven deadly sins are boxed in black in the margins of ff. 129r,I129v,I 130v,I 132r,I and 133r.I Often the two Hm scribes wrote the Latin within the text in the same script as the English text. Particularly if the passage is short, the scribe often makes no effort to distinguish the Latin text visually, as in Hand1 on fol. 115r "Ve terre vbi puer est rex" (P.189).I At times, however, Latin appears in a script slightly more stylized than the main English text, as on fol. 119r "Sciant presentes & futuri. & cetera" (2.76).I Hand1's most formal script, boxed and upright, is used for "Eadem mensura qua mensi fueritis remecietur vobis" (1.174) as the last line of fol. 117v.I Hand2 displays a similar variety of Latin scripts. On fol. 125r "Conflabunt gladios suos . in vomeres . & cetera" (3.313) is in the usual text-script.I On the other hand, the last two lines on fol. 134r (5.501-2) are written in anglicana formata, with sharply angled minim strokes ("similitudinem") and flourished final <-s> ("deus").I A similar flourished final <s> characterises the hand of the corrector when writing Latin in his additions over erasures, as on 114v (P.130-6), most noticeably at line-end ("pius").I

Hand1 uses capitals at the beginning of Latin lines but rarely elsewhere. Hand2 begins on fol. 121r by using initial capitals, but thereafter they are used mainly at paragraph-heads.

In Hm2 the heading on fol. 96r for passus 3, "Passus tercius de visione," is the work of Hand4.I Despite the unfinished state of the text, the initial capital for the passus is decorated and colored in the same style and quality as those for the main text of Piers. There are no parasigns or indications for them. Hand1 uses no initial capitals in his section of Hm2, while Hand4 begins most lines with a capital.

I.7.2 Decoration and Presentation of the Other Articles in the Manuscript:

The Prick of Conscience, written by Hand1 of Piers, has similar ornamentation and coloration; it has an initial 8-line capital <T>, 50 x 40 mm., blue with red floral infill, and a scroll alternately red and blue down the left margin; the incipits for the seven main sections have smaller 4-line initials, while the subsections within begin with two-line initials.I Rubricated descriptive glosses run in the margins throughout the text; titles and subtitles are rubricated. Parasigns are alternating red and blue. Latin text is in the scribe's more formal script, and is boxed in red, often just on top and bottom. There are running titles in Latin at top of pages, some partially trimmed, "Prima pars," etc.

The Sequentia, in a small anglicana hand with secretary forms, has small and unadorned rubricated initial letters, with red parasigns to begin sentences and rubricated headings for each section.I

The Siege of Jerusalem, in an anglicana hand with some secretary forms, has an initial capital <I> of four lines, red with simple black ornamentation, and a red parasign every four lines.I Small initials begin each new section. A post-medieval hand has added line numbers every fifth line.

The Good Wife has a red initial <D>; the first line is in red, and the initial letter of every line is black touched in red. Every fifth summary line is written in red; the quatrains are bracketed in red, and the explicit is in red.I

I.8 Punctuation in Piers Plowman:

Hand1 begins with a raised point at the caesura, but from the twelfth line on fol. 115r begins to use a punctus elevatus, with which he continues to the end of his stint on 120v and his 22 lines of Hm2 on fol. 96r. This change in punctuation follows the rewritten passage in his own hand at the top of fol. 115r, so he may originally have begun with a punctus elevatus at the top of the leaf. Hand2 uses predominantly a raised point, but with an occasional punctus elevatus interspersed (2.211, 212; 3.5, 11-14, 73, 285). He uses the punctus elevatus for Latin (e.g. 15.40-3). He leaves very little space for the punctuation, especially at first, and it may have been an afterthought. The medial punctuation is sometimes corrected: at 1.160, for example, "for in kynde knowyng in herte there myȝt bygynneth," the defective alliteration leads the scribe to write a punctus elevatus after "knowyng," then crossed through, to write another after "herte," and apparently to write a third, then erased, after "there." Both scribes have a sporadic and possibly unintentional final punctus. Hand4 follows on from Hand1 using the mid-line punctus elevatus throughout his short stint.

I.9 Marginalia:

In addition to the names noted under I.11 Provenance, the following annotations occur within the manuscript.

• 1. The Latin names of the seven deadly sins in the text hand (Hand2) are boxed in black in the right margins of ff. 129r: Superbia, Luxuria, Inuidia";I 129v: Ira;I 130v: Cupido;I 132r: Gula;I and 133r: Accidia.I
• 2. On 143r, to the left of 7.191 ff., a crude pointing finger with the word pardon below it, 15-16c.I
• 3. On 153r some childish and illegible scribbles to the right of 10.424-427, probably same hand and ink as 4.I
• 4. At the top right of 156v in a hand not much later than the scribal hand a rubbed s sou[...]aign.I
• 5. On 177v, to the right of 15.349 the word wonesNThe only occurrence of the spelling wones in Piers is 3.236 on f. 124r. roughly written, with pen trials below to the right of 15.357 and 15.360. 16c.
• 6. In the right margin of 195r a rough drawing of a flower.
• 7. On 217v and 218r rough drawings of two acorns on a stalk and a figure with two heads.

I.10 Binding:

Dutschke reports that the binding is "s. XVI, in English stamped calf over wooden boards; the roll is of Oldham's class HM.a (17-23), two fore edge clasps closing to catches on edge of back cover, one survives; rebacked."NConsuelo Dutschke, Guide to medieval and Renaissance manuscripts in the Huntington Library (San Marino: Huntington Library, 1989): 163. Her reference is to J.B. Oldham, English Blind-Stamped Bindings (Cambridge, 1952).I Since then, we now report that the second clasp has fallen off and is stored in an envelope with the manuscript. The pastedowns are from a manuscript, c. 1400, of John of Salisbury's Epistolae.NIn work currently in progress, Karen Bollermann and Cary J. Nederman are studying the textual history of the pages used as pastedowns in Hm 128 in an attempt to associate them with what has up to now been only posited as an English manuscript of the Letters of John of Salisbury.

I.11 Provenance:

The manuscript is the work of a group of scribes whose language is of southwestern Warwickshire. LALME LP 8040, grid 421 248 places the language of the Prick of Conscience and the opening of Piers in southwestern Warwickshire, and the language of the scribe of Siege in extreme southern Warwickshire, LP 6910, grid 423 238.

Within the manuscript are the names betou(n) brygg(es), s. xv, upper right margin 149r;I Mavde, s. xv, right margin 153r;I Alleksander London, s. xv-xvi, on 101r; cysley, s. xvi?, scribbled at the foot of 144v;I Richard Rychard, s. xvi, on ir;NThe name "Richard Richard", late s. xv, is also written in the fifteenth-century English Brut in Lincoln Cathedral Library MS 70 on f. 5r, and on 13r is written "R Richard." This is perhaps not a signature, since in the same hand at the top of f. 20r is "I love Richard." "Pray for Richard Maydwel" on 17r is probably in a different hand. See R.M. Thomson, Lincoln Cathedral Library. Catalogue of the manuscripts of Lincoln Cathedral Chapter Library (Woodbridge: Published on behalf of the Dean and Chapter of Lincoln by D.S. Brewer, 1989). on the back pastedown John Sarum. In the margins of the John of Salisbury letters on the back pastedown there is another instance of Richard in a sixteenth or seventeenth-century hand, not the same hand as on the front flyleaf.I Under John Sarum and in the same hand as Richard we find the words schall re[ceive](?).

Near the bottom of the front pastedownI are two inscriptions: the first reads "Robert or William langland made pers plough[ma]n." This is probably in the hand of Ralph Coppinger, who writes his name as well as two notes in another Piers, MS Laud Misc. 581, one on Robart langeland and another as a memorandum of a loan of a copy of Piers to Nicholas Brigham.NFor the attribution of the inscription to Coppinger, and for details of his life, see The Piers Plowman Electronic Archive, Vol. 4: Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Laud Misc. 581 (S. C. 987) (L), ed. Hoyt N. Duggan and Ralph Hanna, SEENET. A.6 (Cambridge: The Medieval Academy of America, SEENET, and Boydell and Brewer, 2004): Introduction, section I.10.3. Coppinger, who died in 1551, was a knight of Davington (Kent), appointed in 1546 as second collector of custom and subsidy of wool, leather and fells in the port of London, as a successor to William Thynne, the first editor of Chaucer's Workes. Nicholas Brigham was the source for two of the four ascriptions to Robert Langland in John Bale's Index Britanniae scriptorum.NThese are printed in Ralph Hanna III, William Langland, Authors of the Middle Ages, 3 (Aldershot, Hants., 1993), 27. It is Bale who writes the second inscription on the front pastedown of Hm 128: Robertus Langlande natus in comitatu Salopie in villa Mortymers Clybery in the claylande, within .viij. myles of Malborne Hylles scripsit, Peers Ploughman, li. i / In somer season whan set was sunne.NDiscussed and illustrated by George Kane, Piers Plowman: The Evidence for Authorship (London, 1965), 37-42 and plate 3. It is Bale, also, who notes in the margin the date 1369 given in Hm.13.274, which is evidently the source for his dating in Index Britanniae scriptorum: Claruit A.D. 1369 dum Iohannes Chichestre pretor esset Londini.NRalph Hanna III, William Langland, Authors of the Middle Ages, 3 (Aldershot, Hants., 1993), 27. See also note to Hm..13.274. Crowley's preface has the same form of the attribution, and uniquely shares the reading set with Hm.P.1.

The ownership of Hm is not then traceable until Adam Clarke, but on the verso of the front fly is a table of contents beginning "Tracts in this volume," dated 1751, with the explicit from the Good Wife and an impressionistic drawing of a sun beneath. The same hand has occasionally annotated the manuscript, e.g. on fol. 92, "The other MS ends here." Dutschke points out that this presumably refers to the copy of the Prick in Egerton 657, which breaks off at this point. Egerton 657 was also owned by Adam Clarke, so that it appears that an eighteenth-century owner had both manuscripts before they came into Clarke's possession. It is this hand that writes on 95r "this a continuation of the following leaf,"I and on 96r, "A fragment of Piers Ploughman.I See the 9th leaf" (i.e. fol. 121r, where is also written "Fragment begins here.") To facilitate reference, this hand has also thus marked fol. 121r as "9th" in its upper right hand corner.

Clarke, in whose collection it was numbered CXXIX (hence the number on the spine of the volume), sold the manuscript at Sotheby's on 20 June 1836 as lot 352 to Thorpe the book-dealer. It was subsequently bought by Clifton W. Loscombe, who sold it at Sotheby's 19 June 1854 as lot 1167. It was bought for Lord Ashburnham, whose bookplate is on ir, and it was in his collection when Skeat edited the poem (Catalogue of the Manuscripts at Ashburnham Place, Appendix, no. 130).NAnother copy of Piers, BL Add. 35287 (M) is App. 130 in the same collection. It was sold at Sotheby's 1 May 1899 (lot 78) to Quaritch, Catalogue 193 (1899), item 54, and then owned by Ross C. Winans (his bookplate is also on ir), from whom Henry E. Huntington bought it in 1918, together with a sixteenth-century copy of Virgil's Georgics and the Aeneid, which is now Hm 1036.NMost of these details are from Consuelo Dutschke, Guide to Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Huntington Library (San Marino: Huntington Library, 1989), 163; at http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Scriptorium/hehweb/HM128.html; and The Siege of Jerusalem, eds Ralph Hanna and David Lawton, EETS 320 (Oxford, 2003), p. xxiv.

I.12 Previous Descriptions:

Walter W. Skeat, ed., The Vision of William Concerning Piers the Plowman, Together with Vita de Dowel, Dobet, et Dobest, Secundum Wit et Resoun, Part 2. The "Crowley" Text; or Text B, EETS OS 38 (London, 1869), xxi-xxiii.

The Huntington Information File (unpublished) contains much of interest, particularly by former curators of manuscripts at the Huntington Library from the 1930s: Captain R. B. Haselden, Herbert C. Schultz, and summary annotations and corrections identified by Huntington staff to be by Jean Preston. Haselden was in particular responding to a contemporary administrative controversy about whether to produce a facsimile of the manuscript for publication, and he concluded that it should not be made at that time, mainly because the "erased passages, which have possibly done much to create an interest in this manuscript, are, upon elucidation, very disappointing"(1931).NTheir published work is: R. B. Haselden, "The Fragment of Piers Plowman in Ashburnham No. CXXX," Modern Philology 29 (1932), 391-94; R. B. Haselden and H. C. Schulz, "Note on the Inscription in HM 128," Huntington Library Bulletin 8 (1935), 26-27.

Tauno F. Mustanoja, ed., The Good Wife Taught her Daughter; The Good Wyfe wold a Pylgremage; The Thewis of Gud Women (Helsinki: Société néophilologique, 1948).

Seymour de Ricci, A Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada, 2 vols (1935, rep. New York, 1961), i, 54.

Gisela Guddat-Figge, Catalogue of Manuscripts containing Middle English Romances (Munich: W. Fink, 1976), pp. 303-304.

Robert E. Lewis and Angus McIntosh, A Descriptive Guide to the Manuscripts of the Prick of Conscience, Medium Ævum Monographs, n.s. 12 (Oxford: The Society for the Study of Mediæval Languages and Literature, 1982), pp. 146-147.

George Kane and E. Talbot Donaldson, eds, Piers Plowman: The B Version: Will's Visions of Piers Plowman, Do-Well, Do-Better and Do-Best: An Edition in the Form of Trinity College Cambridge MS B.15.17, (1975, rev. edn. London: Athlone Press; Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988), pp. 9-10.

Consuelo W. Dutschke, Guide to Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Huntington Library, 2 vols (San Marino: Henry E. Huntington Library, 1989), i, 161-63.NFor the on-line version of Dutschke's Guide, with ten images from the manuscript, see the URL http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Scriptorium/hehweb/HM128.html.

David Benson and Lynne S. Blanchfield, The Manuscripts of Piers Plowman: The B-Version (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1997), pp. 108-111, 235-36.

Ralph Hanna and David Lawton, eds, The Siege of Jerusalem, EETS 320 (Oxford, 2003), pp. xxiii-iv.

II. The Text:

II.1 Hm:

II.1.1 Affiliations:

Hm belongs textually to a group that includes W, the Crowley prints (Cr), and the sixteenth-century text S, and M joins that group in the last four passus. In Passus 10-15 Kane-Donaldson posit the relationship <Hm[W(CrS)]> and in 17-20 <[WHm][CrS)M]>; they detect change of exemplar in both W and M. They say "W, Hm, Cr and S may be genetically related in some complicated way" (Kane-Donaldson, p. 45), but in the earlier part of the poem "the evidence is scanty" so that precise relationships were not possible to determine (Kane-Donaldson, pp. 38-44, 49-51).

Kane and Donaldson (p. 21) list numbers of Hm's shared errors with one other manuscript as follows:NThe actual number of unique agreements in error differs from Kane's and Donaldson's report. A search of our text for "<lem wit="Hm F"> produced 111 hits instead of 87. Similar searches for agreement of Hm and W produced 34 rather than 43 instances, Hm and G had 102 rather than 38 (59 of them occurring only in those two witnesses), and agreements of Hm and Cr in error were 42 rather than 20!

• HmF 87
• HmW 43
• HmG 38
• HmS 26
• HmCr 20
• HmH 18

II.1.2 Dislocation:

Unique to Hm is the reversal of two blocks of text, so that in Hm the passage corresponding to Kane and Donaldson 11.111-217 follows Kane and Donaldson, 11.218-424, while the passage Kane and Donaldson, 11.425-12.81 precedes it:

• KD.11.111 corresponds to Hm.12.295
• KD.11.217 corresponds to Hm.12.395 (101 lines including Latin)
• KD.11.218 corresponds to Hm.12.89
• KD.11.424 corresponds to Hm.12.294 (206 lines including Latin)
• KD.11.425 corresponds to Hm.11.114
• KD.12.81 corresponds to Hm.12.88 (103 lines including Latin)
• KD.12.82 therefore follows as Hm.12.396.

In consequence, Will's dream-within-a-dream is interrupted at the point where Scripture agrees it is proper to denounce sin, and Imaginative appears to instruct Will on grace, ending with the example of mercy shown to the woman taken in adultery. Following this dislocated passage, Trajan argues for the importance of supporting the poor, and Will is taken by Kind to observe the natural world which Reason rules. Will argues with Reason and wakes from his inner dream. There follows the second dislocated passage, in which Scripture cites the warning that many are called but few chosen, and Trajan appears to demonstrate the value of good deeds. As this summary shows, something has clearly gone wrong, and yet there is no indication that scribes or readers spotted the dislocation. In fact the new junctures are grammatical and make local sense. In Hm.11.113 a narratorial comment moves smoothly to the further comment of Hm.11.114 ff. At Hm.12.88-9 "the clergye" comforted the woman taken in adultery "that fides sua schulde sauyn here · & saluyn her of all synnes." In Hm.12.293-4 Pride and Presumption tell Will that "clergye" has no wish to accompany him, and the text then continues with a paraph and "this was her teme and her texte y tooke full good hede" (Hm.12.295) and the reference to the marriage feast; her should properly refer to Scripture, but it makes sense when taken as plural here. At Hm.12.394-5, however, an attentive reader might wonder why Trajan's words "for what-euere clerkes carpe of crystendom or elles / cryst to a comoun womman sayde yn comoun atte þe feste" are not completed by what Christ said, for what follows is Ymaginatif's "holy cherche knoweth this þat crystys wrytynge sauyd here" (Hm.12.396), even though the lines are seemingly thematically connected. The fact is, though, that even if the scribe had suspected something was wrong, putting it right would have been impossible without comparing another text of the poem.

II.1.3 Corrections:

II.1.3.1 Self-Correction:

The two main scribes correct themselves in long and short passages. Seven blocks of text are erased and rewritten, in every case in order to incorporate a missing line or two, resulting in the appearance of forty-one or forty-two lines on those pages, though leaves are always ruled for forty lines. Four of these blocks are in Hand1, one in Hand2, as follows:

1. Hand1: fol. 113r, P.1-12, incorporating a dropped line as well as moving the text to the right to provide room for a larger initial.I Since the tail of <y> in P.2 and P.10 extend into the decoration, it is likely that the text was rewritten before the initial was painted. There are notable differences in the script of the revising hand, in particular a more restrained descender on <y>, and <h> with a taller open ascender and a straighter descender, but other features, such as the characteristic loop on final <e>, make it evident that this is the same hand.

2. Hand1: fol. 114v, top five lines and the first word of the sixth (P.122-7), incorporating a dropped line.I The use of <þ> is much more frequent in Hand1's correcting script: here it occurs seven times.

3. Hand1: fol.115r, top eleven lines (P.163-173), incorporating a dropped line. Note again the use of <þ> ten times.NHand1 also makes frequent corrections to his copy of The Prick of Conscience, as for example, fol. 1r, ll. 11-12.I

4. Hand1: 116v, last three words and 10 lines at the bottom (1.84-94), incorporating a dropped line.I Note again the use of <þ> 17 times.

5. Hand2: fol. 142r, bottom 12 lines (7.128-39), incorporating a dropped line.I Hand2 uses the same script for this revision, though the ink is slightly different.

We may assume that in rewriting these passages the two main scribes relied upon the exemplar they had used previously. There is nothing in these re-written passages to indicate a non-WCrS-type exemplar. There is a striking agreement with Cr alone in the very first line of the poem with the reading set for softe. On 115r there is again agreement with Cr in the reading his for a (P.169). The agreement with H in P.172 of lyke for list must be coincidental.

II.1.3.2 The Rubricator as Corrector:

Other than the poem's two main hands, the only frequent corrector's hand we can detect with any certainty is that of the rubricator of Piers Plowman, as well as of Expositio sequentiarum and Siege of Jerusalem. The rubricator necessarily worked throughout the poem entering the passus headings and the colored parasigns and underlining Latin quotations in red. He also acted as corrector to the work of both scribes, and in that sense at least was the overseer of the text.NThe rubricator's hand is ubiquitous in The Prick of Conscience as well. He erased and re-supplied a rubric on fol. 10v and supplemented existing rubrication on fol. 35v. On fols. 1v and 2r, he added rubrication in spaces left blank by Hand1.

Because this same hand rubricated three texts, Sequentia, Piers, and Siege, and because the small rubricated initials in the Siege and the Sequentia are in the same hand, and because the rubricator also corrected the Pricke, after Hand1 had written and rubricated it, the manuscript shows much evidence to support Hanna's and Lawton's notion of a "corporate project."NThe Siege of Jerusalem, eds. Ralph Hanna and David Lawton, EETS 320 (Oxford, 2003): xxiv. It will be helpful, therefore, to summarize the complex work of the rubricator throughout the manuscript: though the Prick was rubricated by its text scribe (Hand1), Piers itself (the work of Hands 1 and 2 )may have remained unrubricated and without parasigns until Hand3 compiled the rest of the manuscript, rubricated the various texts he added, as explained, and corrected both the Prick (including even its old rubrication) and Piers. This work by Hand3 may have occurred as many as twenty-five years after the initial composition of the Prick-Piers section of the manuscript, if we accept Hanna's and Doyle's dating of the Siege and Good Wife. Or it might have been more or less contemporaneous. There is no way to confirm a narrative of composition or to determine exactly when Hand3 began or accomplished all his tasks. He may have corrected Prick and Piers (and rubricated the latter) when he gathered up the other texts. In this scenario, those texts, which Hand3 did not work on and are solely the products of Hands 1 and 2, stood unfinished for some time until they somehow came into his hands. But we can also imagine the rubricator working on Prick and Piers with Hands 1 and 2 as part of their initial creation and then, some years later, adjoining these texts, upon which he had labored, to the others, adding then his rubrication to the Sequentia and Siege, bringing in the Good Wife and thus compiling the manuscript as a whole as it still now stands for whatever scholarly, commercial, pastoral, or pedagogical motive he may have had. In any case, some time separates the items in the manuscript, but the items themselves collectively evidence a sole agent, the rubricator, active throughout the book's history.

Three rewritten blocks of text appear in the rubricator's hand:

• 1. fol. 114v: lines 6-12, from to speke to pietate (P.127-33).I Variants in P.133 (ius and vestiri) demonstrate that the exemplar was a beta manuscript (alpha has vis and vestire), and the only variant that is not the standard beta reading is Hoc vt for Hoc quod, a reading shared with G alone.
• 2. fol. 186r, lines 4-14, from "tyl hym" to "virgine" (17.140-50), adding a missing line.I In 17.140 Hm has the C-text reading lykede as against beta loued (R leued, F lyþed). In 143 Hm uniquely reads make for to make, and in 144 telle it who-so it in place of telle who-so, and in 145 a pawme for þe pawme. In 147 Hm shares to with C2F against to the in CrG and til in others. In 150 the Latin quotation is uniquely expanded by the addition of ex maria virgine. The variation, though frequent, is trivial, and there is nothing in these lines to determine genetic affiliation.
• 3. fol. 186v, first 18 lines, from oþer wyse to fyngres ooke (17.178-95), adding two missing lines.I The source is beta, not alpha, which has writen for beta wrythen in 17.178, þe ioyntes for alle þe ioyntes in 179, has two extra lines between the a- and b-verse of 180, etc. Hm shares with WGYC2CB the omission of a line following the a-verse of 185 preserved in LCrRF (and added in M); yet it has line 186 lost in GYC2CB. In l. 179 Hm shares with W alone the reading he for þe paume, and in l. 192 Hm shares to-swolle with alpha and corrected M against the otherwise unexemplified verb to-shullen, "broken," in other manuscripts. Here the variation is more substantial; that shared with W in l. 179 is perhaps coincidental error, and that in l. 192 could well be independent substitution of an easier reading.

II.1.3.2.1 One View of the Matter

From these rewritten blocks we can observe the distinctive features of the hand. They include (on 114v) textura minims as in sum (twice in P.130)I; a flat-topped <d> as in schulde in P.128I and in deinceps in P. 130.I Hand3 alone uses the flat-topped version, though he uses more than one form of <d>; see cowde P.127.I Note also the horned final <s> as in the two instances of regis in P.131;I and the final 2-shaped <r> with tail in for (P.127 and P.129).I For all these features cf. the rubric on fol. 115vI and elsewhere. On 186r-v another feature of his hand can be seen, the first stroke of <þ> with a short top (þe, 17.142) and sometimes a marked backward slope, as in wiþ in 17.141 and lykeþ in 17.144I, and þan in 17.178.INHand3's <y> is distinguished from that of Hand1 and Hand2 with its tail curved up and to the right. In about two dozen instances he appears, in making other, more substantial corrections to a page, to have added a horizontal tick to Hand 2's straight tail on some <y>'s, converting them to something more like his own form (e.g., Hm..5.95, Hm..9.135, Hm..10.194, etc.)

A considerable number of short corrections can be ascribed to the hand of the rubricator, with varying degrees of confidence. Some examples that are worth discussion are as follows:

• f. 114v (P.140) studeat nisi. The reading is shared with G only. Other manuscripts have nisi studet.
• f. 122v (3.102) wiþ ioye. There are no variants, and it is not clear whether the correction is written over an erasure or is an addition.
• f. 122v (3.121) feyþ is perhaps in this hand. The only variant is H flesch.
• f. 128v (5.24) cowde, the spelling shared with GR, against couthe.
• f. 128v (5.31) hood nat agrote, shared with GR, in place of worth a grote in all other manuscripts.
• f. 134v (5.508) at þat. This revised reading is shared with G alone, against for a in other manuscripts. Note the shape of <þ>.
• f. 134v (5.525) þat euer wraþþed þe in þis world; Hm uniquely drops þei before wraþþed.
• f. 134v (5.526) Than hent he, rewritten before vp. As in the previous line, this offers a unique reading; for he vp all other manuscripts have hope.
• f. 134v (5.531) & cryden: only B and F share the <&>.
• f. 134v (5.532) to go wiþ: as all manuscripts except F (R has to god with).
• f. 134v (5.533) cowde, as in 5.24, the form is shared with G, and here also with Cr.
• f. 135r (5.571) hyne rewritten for h{...}. The revision is shared with G (BoCot have hynen), against hewe in other beta manuscripts.
• f. 160v (12.420) Hand2's shorter a-verse has been erased and replaced with and hath non hap wiþ his ax; the first words of the b-verse, his enemye, have been left to stand, following which to hitte has been added over an erasure. Note the thorn in wiþ. The only variant is omission of his before ax in CF.
• f. 163v (13.54) After Hand2's and þanne he brought, another hand, possibly the rubricator, has erased and rewritten forth other mete of miserere mei deus, a reading shared with YGOC2CB. Under ultraviolet light the erased text appears to have read: vs f[....] a [..]s o[.] o[...???...] miserere mei deus. The line in WLMR reads And þanne he brouȝte vs forþ a mees of ooþer mete of Miserere mei deus (R omits deus).
• f. 165r (13.146) The correction quod he & doce & to a briefer phrase is perhaps in the hand of the rubricator. LWMR have quod he doce; OC2F have Hm's revised reading; GCr have quod he doce and.
• f. 165r (13.180) tho moste over erasure. This is the reading of all manuscripts except WCr1 and corrected M which have þow most, and F which rewrites.
• f. 168r (13.393) mygth neuer {thyng conforte me. in the mene} while. Only F shares thyng comforte me, as against me comfort in all other manuscripts. (man me comfort in G). The last word of the line, while, has not been revised and is a WCr agreement. All others, including F, have time. The revising hand is probably not Hand3.
• f. 175r (15.168): Perhaps in Hand3 is no written over erased n.gth to (as read under ultraviolet). Only GF share no.
• f. 179v (15.507-08) A line has been erased to be replaced by two lines written as one. The first word Ac has no parallel (all others have And). In the second line receyuyd is shared with LMGYOC2C against and receyued in WCrB.
• 201v (20.102) that he h{itte} euene {sturidde neuer after}, for which W reads That he hitte euene þat euere stired after. The omission of þat following euene is shared with G, and sturidde neuer with GYC2CB. The revising hand is not certainly that of the rubricator.

Though these examples demonstrate a variety of motives for correction, there is clear evidence that in his corrections the rubricator has used a manuscript from a different family. Erased passages, which we were able to discern with ultraviolet light, sometimes reveal readings in line with W. The corrected readings show a few parallels with F, but more generally are in line with YGOC2CB. In particular, there are readings shared with G alone that are too numerous to be coincidental. The rubricator was therefore using a manuscript which had readings in common with G, though not from G itself which is a 16th-century manuscript. In this light it is significant that the system of rubrication, as already observed in I.7.1 Decoration and Textual Presentation of Piers Plowman, is most closely paralleled in G.

The rubricator, who added the heading to the later Siege of Jerusalem, was active many years after the two main scribes had finished their work on Piers Plowman, and so it is not surprising that he needed a different text of the poem for his rubrics and his corrections.

II.1.3.2.2 A Different View of the Matter

The editors do not agree about the number of exemplars used in the production of Hm. At issue is the interpretation of the evidence to support the conclusion that scribal Hand 3 used an exemplar different from the one used by Hands 1 and 2.

If one examines the work of Hand 3 in isolation from the work of Hands 1 and 2, one is struck by the number of readings which agree with readings in the G tradition. If, however, one uses the <app> (= apparatus) tags now available to study the shared HmG readings for the entire manuscript, one finds such agreements throughout the manuscript. Agreement with the G tradition appears quite as often in Hands 1 and 2 as in Hand 3. A total of 102 substantive agreements occur, 59 of them attributable only to Hm and G.NThe reader may search in a word processing program (or use the Elwood browser) for the string <hi rend="it">lem="Hm G "</hi> and <hi rend="it">lem="Hm G"</hi>. The spacing is important. Though these agreements appear with slightly more frequency in the first half of the poem, they occur throughout the manuscript. Proportionally, the shared G readings of Hand 3 are no greater than those found in Hands 1 and 2.NA moment's thought suggests that in the blocks of text analysed above there is no evidence at all that the readings produced by Hand3 are in any respect different from those originally supplied by Hands 1 and 2. Erasure has been nearly complete, and though we know these readings are owed to Hand3's immediate labors, we cannot know whether his exemplar differed from the one used by the first team of copyists. Since the original exemplar had a generous helping of G contaminations, it is likely that it remained in situ and was used by the correcting Hand3 when he picked up the unfinished manuscript and provided the rubrications for the Sequentia, Piers Plowman, and The Siege of Jerusalem There is no logical necessity for concluding that Hand 3 used an exemplar different from the one used by Hands 1 and 2.

The point is of some significance since it has a bearing on the enabling narrative editors have constructed to account for the state in which we find the manuscript, in particular the length of time between Hand2's completion of his stint and the interventions of Hand 3.NSee section I.6 Sequence of Construction above for one such narrative. Casting doubt upon the existence of a putative second exemplar does not, of course, prove Kane's and Donaldson's theory of "a common and contemporaneous origin for items 1, 2, and 4, and therefore also for 5 and 6."NPiers Plowman: The B Version, 2nd ed. (London: Athlone Press; Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988): 9 n. 57. It does, however, raise questions about the evidence for concluding that Hand 3's work occurred at any considerable remove in time from the work of Hands 1 and 2 and involved a different exemplar.

II.1.3.3 Corrections to Spelling:

The rewritten passages are just a small part of the activities of correctors throughout the manuscript. Just about every page has several alterations of a phrase, a word or a spelling; for example eleven minor corrections on fol. 115v,I fourteen on fol. 124v,I fifteen on fol. 127v,I eight on fol. 130v.I It is usually impossible to be certain of the identities of the correctors making these small alterations.NWhen we cannot identify a hand by relating it to another, clearly defined hand in the poem or in the manuscript, we initially labeled it "handx." Readers should note that any number of different yet contemporary hands may bear that designation. On the other hand, Occam's razor suggests that the supervisor/corrector we have called Hand3 is responsible for the bulk of the corrections.

The great majority of these corrections are trivial, altering the spelling of the word, so that the vowel in this is altered (presumably from thes) before peple in Hm.1.5 and 7 in recognition that the noun is singular, feyþe respelt feiþ (1.14), and Peers frequently altered (e.g. 16.18, 21, 24) probably from peris (as in 16.17). The corrector paid particular attention to final <e>. Of the 15 corrections on 127v, for example, only two are substantive. In 4.155 fayle has been written over something longer, probably falle yn, as in most manuscripts including W. The corrected reading is shared with Cr, and M makes the same correction. In 4.168, again as in M, the pronoun (presumably he required for alliteration) is altered to she, probably by the rubricator. The others all erase final e mainly from nouns: Marchaunt and messager (4.131), kyng (137, 144), wrong and world (138), lond (147), mowth (154), wytt (157), cokewold (163), court (165), clerk (167); also from the adverb ȝet (133, altered from ȝette), and from the third-person sg. pret. bad (143, altered from badde). The corrector of final <e> worked to a very simple formula in which there are certain words that should end in <e> and others that should not. It has nothing to do with metrical consequence, since the <e> of wronge (138) and wytte (157), among others, would be assimilated in the following vowel. Where the form of a word varies according to its grammatical function, as in adjectival inflexions, the corrector is lost: on fol. 131v, for example, he made nothing of poore men in one line and poor men in the next (5.259-60) where the <e> would be appropriate on grounds of both etymology and plurality. A few lines further on, suche a name (5.265) is uncorrected, despite the fact that the adjective is indefinite singular, and in of brende gold (5.274), although <e> was erased from the noun, it was left on the past participle. In a fayre feeld (P.17), though <e> is erased from the noun, it remains in the adjective, and similarly hyȝe is not corrected in 5.70, although the <e> is erased from the adjective in a blind hagge (5.193). Recognizing that the noun should not normally end in <e>, the corrector deleted <e> in at hom (7.5), where final <e> is proper since it represents the OE dative phrase.

The activity of correction subsides substantially after passus 15, although on the opening ff. 197v - 198r there are 7 instances. We may take three common words as examples of what happens in the later passus. Up to the end of Passus 10 the word kyng appears with a final <e> in both the nominative and oblique cases, with <e> erased in both cases, and also with no <e> at all in both cases. After the end of Passus 10 it appears without an <e> in 12.171, five times in Passus 18 (18.275, 383, 394, 397, 413), eleven times in Passus 19 and twice in Passus 20 (20.6, 66); while there are four occurrences of kynge (15.452; 17.307; 19.29, 466). The erasure of final <e> from clerke ends at 12.484. Likewise the adverb nowe has its <e> erased in Passus 1-13, but appears throughout the rest of the poem written as now. Thus two things seem to be happening in the second half of the text: the scribe self-corrects his use of unnecessary final <e>, and at the same time the corrector's activity of erasing <e> tails off.

It is significant that none of the rewritten passages has been further corrected, even where correction would be appropriate, such as brode banke (P.8), and the noun weye (P.171). This indicates that Hand1 did not further review these blocks for local correction once they were rewritten and also that Hand3, whenever he did his work, likely unaware that they were re-writtern, found no urgent corrections to make in them. Similarly, Hand3 has not further corrected the passages that he himself erased and rewrote.

In order to gain some understanding of the motives behind these corrections, we need to observe that the same activity takes place in the text of The Prick of Conscience. There are frequent erasures and rewritings in the main hand and others, often apparently just altering spellings, most often erasing final <e>. Most obvious are the corrections of scribal howe and nowe, especially in a rhetorical passage on fol. 16r, where removal of <e> from repeated nowe has left a crude blank line running down the page.

The best metropolitan scribes, such as the W scribe of Piers Plowman, the scribe of the Ellesmere and Hengwrt manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales, the Fairfax manuscript of Confessio Amantis, and Thomas Hoccleve in his autograph copies, recognized that <e> still had syllabic value for the best metropolitan poets and were fairly careful to use final <e> appropriately. Provincial scribes were less accustomed to these conventions and by the end of the fourteenth century tended to use <e> as a way of indicating the length of the tonic vowel or merely as a flourish to complete the word. M is corrected with considerable care so as to bring its use of final <e> in line with best practice, but the correctors of Hm understood very much less of the matter. For provincial scribes perhaps it was rather like the use of the apostrophe today, a written convention that they were in constant danger of getting wrong. That a corrector should have spent such effort erasing otiose final <e>, particularly when he did it so unintelligently and unmethodically, suggests a vain wish to emulate more fashionable scribes. Thus Doyle may be correct in contending that the "number and nature of the conspicuous alterations to Piers Plowman suggests that they were from pedantic rather than commercial motives."N(Doyle in Lawton 94).

II.1.3.4 Later Alterations of the Text:

With regard to later reception, we see some partial evidence linking at least two of the articles in this manuscript in curious glosses and marks in the texts of Piers Plowman and the Prick of Conscience. In two instances in Piers Plowman (5.167, 5.621), the word "pope" is partially erased by someone. Since we do not know who erased it, it is impossible to determine if this were done out of anger or fear that a pro-papal text might offend someone in the owner's Lollard or Protestant community. And of course we do not know the date of the act of scratching. Someone in the sixteenth century may have done the defacing in zealous amplification of the same reformist spirit in which Crowley printed Piers Plowman in 1550. In the Prick of Conscience at fol. 6r seven lines from the bottom the words "the pope" are similarly defaced in the line "Innocent the pope sayþ thus." In fact, in the Prick of Conscience, "pope" appears 10 times in the entire text and is defaced or deleted six times, five of these within a discussion of "pardon," which is itself in its entirety marked for deletion or otherwise defaced with a thin but distinct delete hook in a hand of unknown date, through every folio in this section (38v-42r but final lines of this discussion on 42v and the opening of discussion on 38r are not lined through). Once in this section the word "purgatory" is defaced (38r), and at one point (41r) an entire phrase "pope beretþ þe keies" is crossed out with heavy ink.

The entire discussion of purgatory comprising the fourth part of the Prick of Conscience (fols. 20r-24v. 33r-37v) is marked in this way. In this section the word purgatory is defaced (34r), and in a later discussion it is defaced again (53r. l. 21). Since quires three and four were reversed in binding, the purgatory section now skips from quire three to five, whereas it should flow from four to mid five. The deletion marks are probably not current to the manuscript for two reasons: they run over erased and re-written material, indicating that they at least post-date the correction of the text; further, doctrinal fervor against purgatory is much more a sixteenth than fifteenth-century phenomenon.NIn work in press, Thea Cervone, "The King's Phantom: Staging Majesty in Bale's Kynge Johan," Studies in Medievalism (forthcoming), discusses John Bale's doctrinal antipathy to the doctrine of purgatory, as revealed in his treatment of the ghost theme in his play Kynge Johan. Cervone writes that throughout the play, it was "important for Bale to avoid the suggestion that Imperyall Majestie [a ghostly figure representing the power of royal supremacy] might come from any purgatorial place," and she studies also how "Bale dispenses with common elements of the ghost or saint's tale such as appeals for almsgiving or warnings about purgatory." If this is true, then it is possible Bale, who wrote the inscription on the front pastedown of Hm128, may have himself defaced and cancelled the sections on purgatory in the Prick of Conscience. One cannot but help wonder if the deletion at all relates to the reversal in binding, since the affected sections overlap: perhaps the binders marked the passages or debated eliminating the already marked passages, which would have been difficult in that they are not confined to a single quire. Perhaps the binder set these folios aside while considering their delete marks, finally inserting them incorrectly. In short the sequence of actions, the immediate motivation, beyond reformist anger, and the practical consequences of these deletion marks and their relation to the rebinding remain unclear.

II.2 Hm2:

The abandoned Hm2 on ff. 95r and 96r - 96v was not corrected for spelling, so that it gives us the opportunity to see the uncorrected work of Hand1 followed by Hand4 and also to make precise comparisons between the spellings of Hand1 and Hand2 as they copy the same passage (Hm2.2.1-22; Hm.2.208 - 2.229; KD.2.211-2.232). To recap: Hand1, the scribe of Hm.P.1-207, started a new quire (now fol. 96r), and wrote his version of these 22 lines, then abruptly handing over to Hand4. Hand4 continued to KD.3.73 on ff. 96r - 96v and 95r, before his work was abandoned. Hand2 began afresh with Hm.2.208 on fol. 121r and copied the poem to the end. There is no evidence to suggest that they had different exemplars, though all three scribes introduced their individual spelling patterns. In the passage where Hand2 and Hand4 run parallel (KD.2.233 - 3.73 {Hm2.2.23 - 3.73}), there are seven substantive differences between them. For instance, Hand4 produces the unique readings hem (Hm2.3.12), mercie hem kryde (Hm2.3.20), and serue (Hm2.3.42), while Hand2 has the archetypal readings here in Hm.3.12 and mercyde hem alle in Hm.3.20 (though this must have caused difficulty since he rewrote it over an erasure), and he has the majority reading turne in 3.42. There are six substantive differences between Hand1 and Hand2, copying KD.2.211-2.232. Hand1 begins KD.2.213 (Hm2.2.3) with Whan which is non-archetypal (Kane-Donaldson unnecessarily supply the A-text reading Thanne). Hand2 writes clothes (shared with alpha and H) for cloutys in KD.2.223. In the next line they differ between cherches (Hand1) and cherche shared with YOC2 (Hand2), and Hand2 supplies here (as also in YC) before fayre speche in KD.2.232. There are frequent differences of spelling. In some cases involving final <e>, the abandoned Hand1 is less "correct" (in terms of smart London English), with strong pa.t. 3 sg. badde as against bad (KD.2.212 {Hm2.2.2}), knewe against knew (KD.2.229), pres. 3 sg. dothe against dooþ (KD.2.214), and plural many as against manye (KD.2.219, 220, 229). Hand2 apparently wrote pa.t. ȝafe in KD.2.225, though the <e> was then erased, and he slipped again with an halfe ȝere (KD.2.231) which was not corrected. Both scribes wrote crafte and knewe in KD.2.229, but Hand2's <e>s were erased.

III. Editorial Method:

III.1 Transcription of the Manuscript:

The scribes used many of the standard abbreviations and suspensions characteristic of late medieval literary manuscripts, though somewhat less densely than many others. We have expanded these in accord with the practice of earlier editions in the Archive. In views other than "Critical," resolved abbreviations appear in italics.

In English words all three scribes use a superscript <t> in w(y)t(h).I The spelling with occurs but once in the text (Hm.19.7) with the majority of forms spelled wyth or wyþ. All three scribes used þ(a)t very occasionally (only 38 of over 900 instances), Hand1,I Hand2,I and Hand3.I All three scribes use a superscript vowel to indicate the omission of <r> before <i>, as in sc(ri)pture (Hm.13.37),I p(ri)ue, Hm.11.108;I doct(ri)ne Hand1 Hm.2.110.I Hand1 has no instance of expanded <ra> after <t>, and Hand2 has but a single instance at cont(ra) (Hm.10.304).I That expansion occurs just once after <c> in ypoc(ra)s Hm.12.48I, but more often after <f> in fram;I <g> g(ra)ce (Hand1)I g(ra)ce Hm.19.214 (Hand2),I g(ra)ce Hm.15.427 (Hand3);I and <p> in p(ra)yer Hm.2.203 (Hand1)I and p(ra)ye Hm.20.244 (Hand2),I but with a total of only 22 instances in the manuscript.NThe superscript for <ra> represents <a> alone in walsingh(a)m (Hm.5.232),I Bokyngh(a)m (Hm.2.112),I and Abrah(a)m (16.84).I At the end and within a word, all three scribes make extensive use of <er> which is indicated by a loop, as in neu(er)e Hm.P.12 (Hand1),I Hm.3.274 (Hand2);I man(er)e (Hm.P.18);I Hm.13.433I or mayst(er) (P.61) (Hand1),I Hm.5.622 (Hand2).I

The suspension for <ur> is indicated by superscripting, as in p(ur)pos (Hm.8.120),I and colligit(ur).I A bar or back loop through the descender of <p> represents either <per> or <par>, as in p(er)elously (Hm.P.149)I and p(er)mutacyoun ap(er)tly (Hm.3.262)I; pardener (Hm.P.67) (Hand1),I p(ar)souns (Hm.3.149)(Hand2).I A loop through the descender indicates <pro>, as in p(ro)fit (Hm.P.58) (Hand1),I Hm.13.391 (Hand2),I while <pre> is represented by a backward loop after the <p>, as in p(re)cheth Hm.P.37 (Hand1),I p(re)chen Hm.3.223 (Hand2).I A slanting line through long <s> represents <er> as in s(er)ue P.91 (Hand1),II Hm.19.442 (Hand2).I Nasalization is indicated by a line over the preceding letter or group of letters, and we have expanded as appropriate. We have not recorded instances where it is used without meaning.

It is not always easy to distinguish between meaningful abbreviations and meaningless ornamentation. Loops and curls on final letters are often difficult to interpret. In particular, there are bars through <-h-> which we take not to have been significant except when the <h> occurs at the beginning of a word or syllable. For instance, we find h(er)emytis, Hm.P.56; reh(er)ce Hm.1.22; as well as several instances of h(er)te Hm.1.41, etc. Hand2 and Hand3, moreover, use a medial barred <h> some seven times to write math(e)u Hm.5.518,I 6.243, etc. Nevertheless, the appearance of barred <h> elsewhere followed by <e> or a consonant shows that all three scribes regarded it primarily as a flourish.IIII

We take the final barred <-ll> (sometimes with a vertical slash) to be a flourish in the segment by Hand2 except on the words ell(es) Hm.5.152,I Hm.6.318, etc.; bull(es) Hm.13.251;I p(ro)uyncyal(es) Hm.7.209;I etc. An initial barred <l> once appears at Hm.5.663 in l(et)res.I Within brevigraphs a barred l is resolved in eccl(es)ia Hm.15.127,I 519, 529; p(o)p(u)l(u)m Hm.15.121;I and often in ier(usa)l(e)m Hm.16.170,I Hm.17.53, etc. Neither Hand1 nor Hand3 uses the abbreviation.

We take the occasional flourishes on final <-c>, <-d>, <-g>, <-k>, <-p>, <-r>, and <-t> not to be abbreviations except in the Latin text, e.g. medic(us) Hm.16.114.I Analysis showing that the scribes lacked awareness of grammatical final <-e> supports that conclusion.

Though it is common in late medieval vernacular manuscripts to find a word- or syllable-terminal <p> with a tilde above it as an abbreviation, it is a flourish when it appears once in Hand2's section (Hm.6.151) and not at all in Hand1 or Hand3.I

The hooked backward loop on final <-r>, common in most late medieval manuscripts, occurs only twice in Hand1's section (e.g., bettr(e) Hm.1.141I and Hm.1.205 betr(e)I and another two times in Hand2's section at Hm.2.180 comyssar(e)I and Hm.14.28 fayr(e)r(e).I

As is customary with late medieval English manuscripts, common Latin words are often radically abbreviated. Thus Cristus,I Cristi,I Cristo,I Cristum;I domini,I dominus,I eorum,I fratris;I gloria;I habeo,I habeat,I omne,I omnes,I patris,INHand2 occasionally writes a somewhat larger and more graceful tilde to patris.III The same tilde on at least one other occasion appears to be an otiose flourish.I quod Hand1,I Hand2,I -cionemI and others are all abbreviated in the standard forms. This list is illustrative and not exhaustive.

We have not distinguished allographic forms, such as the three forms of <s>, or the single-lobed <a> from the double-lobed form. The letters <ȝ> and <z> are not distinguished by the scribes, but we have represented the velar spirant with <ȝ> and the sibilant with <z>, e. g., artz, baptized and dozeyn, etc.

Punctuation at the ends of lines, in particular at the foot of a leaf, is often impossible to distinguish from a flourish on a final letter or other decoration. We cannot claim to have been consistent, but we have marked what appears to be intentional instances of raised point, punctus elevatus, and virgule.

Our capitalization follows the scribal use of litterae notabiliores, although there are some letters, in particular <w> and sigma <s>, where there is no clear distinction. We have interpreted such letters according to their context.

The word-division of the manuscript is followed as far as practicable, though no attempt is made to represent in detail the variety of spacing between words and letters. The interpretation of the scribe's word-division, though it is generally unambiguous, is occasionally a matter of judgment. A shadow-hyphen in the transcription indicates a space in the manuscript within a word, or a compound or phrase conventionally hyphenated today; we have followed OED in doubtful cases. Conversely, some phrases, for example a peny, a man, ful teneful and so lygthly, are written as one word, apeny, aman, fulteneful and solygthly. The scribal form appears in the Scribal style sheet in lime and in the Diplomatic style sheet without any color difference from the surrounding text, the regularized form in the Critical style sheet, and both forms in AllTags in lime and olive respectively.

Proper nouns have been treated as English unless they have a Latin inflection: thus genitive cesares is not given special treatment by the scribe in Hm.1.51, and it is not tagged as being in Latin. However, though in Hm.1.52 Reddite cesari is not treated specially by the scribe (that is, there is no underlining or change of script or color of ink), the text is clearly Latin and so tagged.

Scribal mispellings have been recorded with a <sic> tag and corrected with a <corr> tag; the former shows up in violet in the Scribal and AllTags style sheets, the latter is displayed in purple in the AllTags style sheet and inside square brackets in the Critical style sheet.

III.2 Transcription of Corrections and Erasures:

Wherever possible we have attempted to distinguish between the text as originally written and as subsequently corrected by the main scribe or another hand. Where we are reasonably confident that we can read the erased letters, they are recorded within deletion tags which display in the Diplomatic and Alltags style sheets as deleted letters enclosed in curly brackets. When erased text is illegible, we have indicated this with one punctus per deleted character up to six characters. When longer stretches of text are involved, we indicate deletions with "...?..." and deletions longer than a half line with "...?...?...".

Added text, whether or not written over a deletion, is displayed in dark gray in Scribal and Alltags style sheets.

III.3 Presentation of the Text: Style Sheets

Using XML markup, we offer four different views of the text accessible through four different style sheets: Scribal, Diplomatic, Critical, and AllTags.

The Scribal style sheet's presentation of the text represents as closely as possible both the readings and features of the manuscript text as well as the most information about editorial interventions. Changes of script and style are reflected by changes in the font style. We have represented the Middle English text's anglicana formata in roman letters. For the Latin quotations, both Hand1 and Hand2 often modified their basic scripts in the direction of greater formality and slightly larger characters. We print those by increasing the font size by one point. Resolved abbreviations and suspensions appear in italics. Color in this style sheet serves two functions: red and blue indicate the colors of ink used by the scribe, while any other colors — aqua, dark gray, lime, olive, pink, purple and violet — mark editorial functions. For a detailed key to the conventions we have adopted for identifying editorial functions by means of color shifts, see the Instructions for First Time Users.

The Diplomatic style sheet suppresses all notes, marginalia not in one of the three text hands, and indications of error or eccentric word division. Its text is otherwise identical to that presented in the Scribal style sheet.

The Critical style sheet is designed to indicate the text as it was intended to appear after correction. Since the text displayed is a reconstructed, putative text, it lacks the color features that appear in the more nearly diplomatic transcriptions of the manuscript. We conventionally use italics for Latin and French words and phrases in this style sheet. We have supplied line references to the Athlone B text for the convenience of readers. Eccentric word divisions are silently, at least in the surface display, corrected in this style sheet. That is, apeny appears as a peny. A reader who wishes to find all such divisions can still search for them in the views provided by the Scribal and AllTags style sheets as well as in the underlying XML text.

The AllTags style sheet, as its name implies, is intended to display the full content of markup in XML tags.

An example of the effects of the four style sheets may be offered by the "shadow-hyphen," which we have used to join the elements of compound words that the scribe had left separate. See III.1. In the Scribal style sheet the elements of the compound are joined by a pink hyphen to indicate editorial intervention: so in-to, Hm.P.2. In the Diplomatic style sheet the two words appear as the scribe wrote them: in to. In the Critical style sheet the elements of the compound are joined without a space: into. In the Alltags style sheet the pink hyphen again joins the parts of the compound in-to.

III.4 Presentation of the Text: The Annotations

Four sets of annotations are provided—codicological, lexical, paleographic and textual.

     (a) Codicological: These notes draw attention to physical features of the manuscript and to later additions in the margins such as brackets, names, pointing hands and other drawings. Codicological notes are marked by a red superscripted CSample codicological note..

     (b) Paleographic: These notes comment on letter forms, in particular ambiguous abbreviations, curls and other features. Paleographic notes are marked by a red superscripted PSample paleographic note..

     (c) Lexical or Linguistic: These notes provide brief glosses for unusual, ambiguous, or difficult words, or they comment on items of linguistic interest. Both Lexical and Linguistic notes are marked by a red superscripted LXSample lexical/linguistic note..

     (d) Textual: These notes call attention to unique or shared readings which shed light on Hm's relationship to other manuscripts. In addition to textual notes, we have also supplied in pop-up windows partial listings of manuscript variants of interest. Unique or unusual variants in Hm are identified with white background highlighting in the Critical and Alltags style sheets. The white background is not supplied in either the Scribal or Diplomatic style sheets, though if the cursor is placed over the word, the pop-up window will display. It must be emphasized that these annotations are no more than an aid to the reader of the documentary text of Hm. They do not in any sense constitute a complete listing of variant readings nor anything beyond a first step in establishing the relationship of Hm to other manuscripts. They may imply that one of Hm's readings is not that of the B archetype, though we reserve all judgments about Bx until a later stage of our work, currently in progress. These annotations are, then, an interim statement that will be of limited or no use once the B archive is complete and the variant listings can be electronically generated. The information for these notes is drawn from the listing of variants in the Kane-Donaldson edition which we have checked against those transcripts that are already available in the archive. Since it is not at this stage relevant which of the witnesses share the majority reading against Hm's unique (or just unusual) variant, the majority readings are where possible presented in very simplified form, usually with the designation "other B mss" or "most other mss" or "all other mss." It is true that in most cases this means Bx, but it is important not to prejudge the issue. Textual notes are marked with an icon of a superscripted red TSample textual note..

IV Linguistic Description:

Hm 128 contains several interrelated texts and involves a number of collaborating scribes, two whose dialects have been located in Warwickshire [(LALME LPs 8040 and 6910 Hands A (our Hand1) and E]. The language of Hand D (our Hand2) was not analyzed, but it cannot be far removed. Hanna notes that the manuscript, "given the communal copying by several scribes with congruent Warwickshire dialects, perhaps would be associated with an establishment like Alcester, Warwickshire (OSB) or Evesham, Worcestershire (OSB)."NRalph Hanna III, Authors of The Middle Ages, 3: William Langland (Aldershot: Variorum, 1993): 34. Hanna elsewhere calls Hm 128 "a communal, possibly monastic, product. . . [written in] a localizable up-country dialect (S Warws;)."N"Emendations to a 1993 'Vita de Ne'erdowel," YLS 14 (2000): 193. Doyle calls Hm 128, "a complicated collection of items by a number of collaborating hands," looking "more like the work of a clerical group than of a commercial workshop."NA. I Doyle, Medieval English Religious and Ethical Literature: Essays in Honour of G. H. Russell, ed. Gregory Kratzmann and James Simpson (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1986): 40. He elsewhere calls Hm 128 a "complicated volume" that, despite its south Warwickshire dialect, has textual affiliations with W and M:

The Edinburgh Survey puts the language of the first three poems in south Warwickshire, though its text of Piers is grouped with Trinity College, Cambridge, B.15.17, of which the writing and spelling are close to that of the Ellesmere Chaucer, and British Library Add. 35287 with similarities to both and a degree of minute and extensive correction comparable with HM 128, involving differing exemplars as well as notions of orthography. Do these come from one centre of collaboration and, if so, clerical or lay? An answer may come through pursuit of the hands. The purposes of HM 128 look partly pedagogic.NA. I. Doyle, "The Manuscripts," in Middle English Alliterative Poetry and its Literary Background, ed. David Lawton (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1982): 94. Doyle cites George Kane and E. Talbot Donaldson, eds., Piers Plowman: The B Version, 2nd ed. (London: Athlone Press; Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988): 50-51, on the grouping of HmW, but see Kane and Donaldson, 49ff.]

Samuels finds Hm to be, like C and G, one of those manuscripts "showing varying degrees of dialect mixture and indeterminacy" and which "are not further considered" in his analysis (246, n. 57).

IV.1 Linguistic Description, Hand1:

IV.1.1 Phonology:

IV.1.1.1 Vowels: Hand1

IV.1.1.1.1.1 OE, ON /a/: <a>

IV.1.1.1.1.2 2. OE, ON /a/ before a nasal: <a> ~ <o>

IV.1.1.1.1.3 OE, ON /a/ before lengthening consonant groups: <a> ~ <o>

IV.1.1.1.1.4. OE, ON /a/ + <-nk>: <a> ~ <o>

IV.1.1.1.1.5. OE, ON /a:/: <o> ~ <oo>

IV.1.1.1.1.6. OE, ON /a:/ + w: <ow> ~ <ou>

IV.1.1.1.1.7. OE, ON, OF /o/: <o>

IV.1.1.1.1.8. OE, ON /o/ + lengthening group: <o> ~ <oo> ~ <u>

IV.1.1.1.1.9. OE, ON /o:/: <o> ~ <oo>

IV.1.1.1.1.10. OE, ON, OF /u/: <u> ~<o>

IV.1.1.1.1.11. OE, ON, OF /u/ with lengthening: <ou> ~ <o> ~ <u>

IV.1.1.1.1.12. OE, ON /u:/: <ou> ~ <ow>

IV.1.1.1.1.13. OE, ON /y/: <i> ~ <y> ~ <u> ~ <e>

IV.1.1.1.1.14. OE, ON /y/ before lengthening clusters: <y> ~ ((<i>))(1x)

IV.1.1.1.1.15. OE, ON /y:/: <i> ~ <y> ~ (<uy>) (1x)

IV.1.1.1.1.16. OE, ON /i/: <i> ~ (<y>)

IV.1.1.1.1.17. OE, ON /i:/: <y> ~ <i>

IV.1.1.1.1.18. OE, ON, OF /e/: <e> ~ (<y>)

IV.1.1.1.1.19. OE, ON, OF /e/ before lengthening clusters: <e> ~ (<ee>)

IV.1.1.1.1.20. OE, ON, OF /e: /: <e> ~ <ee>

IV.1.1.1.1.21. OE /ae/: <a>

IV.1.1.1.1.22. OE /ae:/(1) & (2): <e>

IV.1.1.1.1.23. OE /e:a/: <ee> ~ <e>

IV.1.1.1.1.24. OE /eo/, /e:o/ (and OF /ue/): <e>

IV.1.1.2 Consonants: Hand1

IV.1.1.2.1. OE /hw/: <wh> ~ <w>

The spelling whyþ for "with" at Hm.1.206 indicates loss of initial aspiration.

IV.1.1.2.2. OE /xt/: <ȝt> ~ <ght> ~ (<gth>)

IV.1.1.2.3. ME <þ> and <th>:

The forms are freely variable, but word-initial <th> is about five times more common than <þ>, and terminal <th> approximatly ten times more common than <þ>, Only <th> is uses as a littera notabilior.

IV.1.2 Morphology:

IV.1.2.1 Metrical Considerations: The Status of Final <-e>:

There is every reason to think that Langland's retention of both inflectional and etymological <-e> was somewhat conservative, even for London writers.NSee Hoyt N. Duggan, "Langland's Dialect and Final -e," Studies in the Age of Chaucer 12 (1990), 157-191. That position is modified in Duggan's "Notes on the Meter of Piers Plowman: Twenty Years On" (forthcoming). The detritus of that systematic use of final <-e> remains in the work of Hand2, but the evidence is clear that even in monosyllabic weak and plural adjectives the scribes lacked Langland's grammatical knowledge.

IV.1.2.2 Nouns:

Nominative/Accusative Singular: nil

Genitive Singular: <-es> ~ <-s> ~ <-ys> ~ nil

cesares (Hm.1.51); kattys (Hm.P.175); feendes (Hm.2.42); fendes (Hm.1.109) ~ fendys (Hm.1.116); heuene (Hm.P.105);NThe s-less form is owed to the B archetypal form. iudas (Hm.P.34); kynges (Hm.2.190); lyers (Hm.2.44); mary (Hm.2.2);NThe s-less form is owed to the B archetypal form. maydens (Hm.2.45), etc.

The two instances of the his-genitive appearing in the manuscript are lucyfer his hyne Hm.P.38, and belsabub his kenne Hm.2.131. They do not appear at this point in other B witnesses.

Dative Singular: nil ~ <-e>

court (Hm.2.190); dethe (Hm.1.166); kyng (Hm.P.122); plough (Hm.P.20); pryde (Hm.P.22), etc.

Nominative/Accusative Plural: <-es> ~ <-s> ~ <-ys> ~ <-en>

beggers (Hm.P.39); cardynals (Hm.P.103) ~ cardynalys (Hm.P.106); clerkes (Hm.P.112) ~ clerkys (Hm.2.60); gerles (Hm.1.34);NThe form heren "ears" is written over an erasure by Hand3 at Hm.P.77. Hm and F have the <-en> plural in place of the eris of most manuscripts. etc.

Mutated: gees Hm.P.224.

Genitive Plural: <-es> ~ <-ys> ~ (<-ene>)

buschopes (Hm.P.68); kyngene (1x) (Hm.1.101); mennys (2x).

IV.1.2.3 Pronouns:

IV.1.2.3.1 Nominative Singular:

1st Person: y ~ (i) (3x)NHm.P.57, Hm.P.108, and Hm.2.186.

2nd Person: thu (22x) ~ þu (2x)NHm.P.212, Hm.1.36

3rd Person:

 Masculine: he

 Feminine: sche

     Neuter: it ~ (yt) (1x Hm.1.83)

IV.1.2.3.2 Accusative and Dative Singular:

1st Person: me

2nd Person: the ~ þe

3rd Person:

     Masculine: hym (33x) ~ him (3x)

     Feminine: her ~ here ~ (hire) (1x Hm.2.22)

     Neuter: it

IV.1.2.3.3 Genitive Singular:

1st Person: my ~ (myn) (1x)NHm.2.35, before an erasure.

2nd Person: (thi) ~ (thyn) (1x Hm.1.138)

3rd Person:

     Masculine: his ~ (hys) (2x Hm.P.72, 73)

     Feminine: here ~ hure (2x Hm.2.11, 25)

     Neuter: nil

IV.1.2.3.4 Nominative Plural:

1st Person: we

2nd Person: ȝe ~ ȝee (1x) Hm.2.127

3rd Person: they ~ thei ~ (þey) (3x Hm.P.164; Hm.1.193; Hm.2.46) ~ (þei) (1x Hm.P.81) ~ (hy) (1x Hm.1.57)NThe reading is owed to the B archetype.

IV.1.2.3.5 Accusative and Dative Plural:

1st Person: vs

2nd Person: ȝowe (6x) ~ ȝowNHand1's usual form was ȝowe, but a corrector on ten occasions erased the final -<e> (Hm.P.198; Hm.1.2, 14, 17, 56, 170, 198; Hm.2.139, 140, 157. The spelling ȝowsylue appears at Hm.2.39.

3rd Person: hem

IV.1.2.3.6 Genitive Plural:

1st Person: our ~ (owr) (2x Hm.P.167, Hm.1.87)

2nd Person: ȝour

3rd Person: her (17x) ~ here (16x)

IV.1.2.3.7 Personal pronoun with "self":

Pronominal forms with -self ~ sylf and -selue ~ sylue are thi, hym, hem, and ȝow{e}. The distribution of <-e> ~ <-en> forms with those ending in /f/ puts the former mainly in line-terminal position and the latter within the line, though there is some variation.

IV.1.2.4 Adjectives and Adverbs:

IV.1.2.4.1 Definite and Indefinite Adjectives:

The samples primarily take into account historical monosyllables. Although the <-e> ending is dominant where it would be expected in definite and plural constructions (e.g., the merke dale Hm.1.1), it also occurs occasionally for the indefinite usage, e.g. a brode banke P.8; a fayre feeld, Hm.P.17; a lene thyng Hm.P.121, etc. A few inflectionless adjectival forms occur, moreover, for the definite singular and plural, e.g. fayr gyftes Hm.2.150; deep dyches P.16; his good doughter, Hm.2.31; his fals speche Hm.2.43, etc. Dissyllabic weak and plural adjectives carry no inflection.

IV.1.2.4.2 Comparative:

Adjectives and Adverbs: <-er> ~ <-re> ~ <-ere> ~ <-ur>

IV.1.2.4.3 Superlative:

Adjectives: <-est> ~ <-este>

Adverbs: <-est>

IV.1.2.4.6 Adjectives in <-ly>:

The ending <-ly> dominates with only one instance of <-lyche> loythlyche Hm.1.112. There are no examples of <-lye> or <-lie>.

IV.1.2.4.4 Adverbs in <-ly>:

The same endings <-ly> and <-liche> are used as in adjectives with only two instances of the latter in goodlyche Hm.1.178 and vndyuoutlyche Hm.P.97.

The comparative endings <-loker> and <-liker> do not appear.

IV.1.2.5 Verbs:

IV.1.2.5.1 Non-finite verb forms:

IV.1.2.5.1.1 Infinitive: <-en> ~ <-e> ~ <-n> ~ <-yn> ~ nil

Endings derived from OE <-ian> verbs are frequently but not always preserved; hence the following infinitive forms with <-i-> or <-y->: tyllye Hm.P.118; marye Hm.2.58; wonye Hm.2.108; caryen (Hm.2.162), etc. This is a feature of South-Western dialects.NSee M. L. Samuels, "Dialect and Grammar," in A Companion to Piers Plowman, ed. John A. Alford (Berkeley, 1988), p. 217. However, the scribe lacks consistency in this respect.

IV.1.2.5.1.2 Gerund: <-yng(e)>

The predominant ending is <-yng>, though <-ynge> appears in ledynge Hm.2.44 and rewlynge Hm.P.125.

IV.1.2.5.1.3 Present participle: <-yng(e)>

The scribe in general distinguishes most present participles from gerunds with a final -<e> for the former, but his practice is not consistent, representing a tendency and not a rule.NThe single form without a final <e> is entered by Hand3 in Hm..P.58 over an erasure. The same corrector added a final <e> to sowynge in Hm.P.21, possibly to parallel settynge earlier in the a-verse. Other forms such as <-ande>, <-ende>, <-inde> or <-enge> do not appear.

IV.1.2.5.1.4 Weak Past Participles: <-ed> ~ <-ede> ~ <-yd> ~ <-t> ~ (<-th>)NSee IV.1.1.2.2 and IV.2.1.2.3 for the instances of terminal /t/ represented by <th>, particularly in Hand2's section of the text. (with or without <y-> prefix)

IV.1.2.5.1.5 Strong Past Participle: <-e> ~ <-en> ~ <-n> (with and without <y-> prefix)

IV.1.2.5.2 Finite verb forms:

IV.1.2.5.2.1 Present 1st Singular: <-e> ~ nil

As in OE, stems ending in a vowel have no inflection: se, sey, etc.

IV.1.2.5.2.2 Present 2nd Singular: <-est(e)> ~ <yst> ~ <-st(e)>

IV.1.2.5.2.3 Present 3rd Singular: <-eth> ~ <-eþ> ~ <-th> ~ <-yth> ~ <-iþ> ~ <-þ> ~ <-tt>NThe form <-ith> in taxith at Hm.1.157 is owed to Hand3.

With ending derived from OE <-ian> verbs:NIn some dialects of OE the <-i-> was extended by analogy to the 3rd person. See A. Campbell, Old English Grammar (Oxford, 1959), para 757.

OE preterite-present verbs without inflection in the present 1st and 3rd sg. are, e.g.: dar Hm.P.207; may Hm.1.206; schall Hm.P.182; wote Hm.2.122.

IV.1.2.5.2.4 Present Plural (and Subjunctive): <-e> ~ <-en> ~ <-eþ> ~ <-eth> ~ <-ne>.

Forms ending in <-eþ> and <-eth> are not uncommon. Samuels points out that this plural form is very rare in the London English of Chaucer, but is retained in Southern and South-Western areas until after Langland's death. He also comments on the form aren in alliterating position as evidence for Langland's West Midland dialect. NM. L. Samuels, "Dialect and Grammar," in A Companion to Piers Plowman, ed. John A. Alford (Berkeley, 1988), pp. 209 and 216. Some of the <-e> ~ <-en> forms will historically be subjunctives since they occur in contexts where a subjunctive is to be expected.

IV.1.2.5.2.5 Subjunctive Singular: <-e>

The form is the same as the 1st indic. sg.

IV.1.2.5.2.6 Imperative Singular: <-e> ~ nil ~ (<-en>)NThe inflected knowen at Hm.2.48 is unique among B witnesses and probably error.

IV.1.2.5.2.7 Imperative Plural: <-(e)th> ~ <-e> ~ nil

IV.1.2.5.3 Preterite: Weak Verbs:

IV.1.2.5.3.1 Preterite 1st Singular: <-ede> ~ <-ed> ~ <-de> ~ <-te> ~ <yd>

IV.1.2.5.3.2 Preterite 2nd Singular: <-edest> ~ (<-tyst>)

IV.1.2.5.3.3 Preterite 3rd Singular: <-ede> ~ <ide> ~ <-de>

IV.1.2.5.3.4 Preterite Plural: <-ed> ~ <-eden> ~ <-ide> ~ <-de>

IV.1.2.5.4 Preterite: Strong Verbs:

IV.1.2.5.4.1 Preterite 1st Singular: <-e> ~ nil

IV.1.2.5.4.2 Preterite 2nd Singular: No instances.

IV.1.2.5.4.3 Preterite 3rd Singular: <-e> ~ nil

The forms are of course the same as those for the 1st singular, though the scribe preferred the inflectionless form. It is perhaps accepted as a marker of vowel length in forms such as came and stroke.

IV.1.2.5.4.4 Preterite Plural: <-en> ~ <-e> ~ nil

IV.1.2.5.4.5 Preterite Subjunctive Singular: No instances.

IV.2 Linguistic Description, Hand2:

IV.2.1 Phonology, Hand2:

IV.2.1.1 Vowels: Hand2

IV.2.1.1.1 OE, ON /a/: <a>

IV.2.1.1.2 2. OE, ON /a/ before a nasal: <a> ~ <o>

In view of the purported southern Warwickshire provenance of the manuscript, it is perhaps surprising to find few instances of West Midland rounding of OE /a/ before nasals.

IV.2.1.1.3 OE, ON /a/ before lengthening consonant groups: <a> ~ <o>

IV.2.1.1.4 OE, ON /a/ + <-nk>: <a> ~ <o>

IV.2.1.1.5 OE, ON /a:/: <o> ~ <oo> ~ <oi>

IV.2.1.1.6 OE, ON /a:/ + w: <ow> ~ <ou>

IV.2.1.1.7 OE, ON, OF /o/: <o>

IV.2.1.1.8 OE, ON /o/ + lengthening group: <o> ~ <oo> ~ <u>

IV.2.1.1.9 OE, ON /o:/: <o> ~ <oo>~ <oi> ~ (<oe>)

See LALME 1.547, dot map 1165, for the distribution of forms.

IV.2.1.1.10 OE, ON, OF /u/: <u> ~ <o>

IV.2.1.1.11 OE, ON, OF /u/ with lengthening: <ou> ~ <o> ~ <u>

IV.2.1.1.12 OE, ON /u:/: <ou> ~ <ow> ~ (<u>)

IV.2.1.1.13 OE, ON /y/: <i> ~ <y> ~ <u> ~ <e>

IV.2.1.1.14 OE, ON /y/ before lengthening clusters: <y> ~ ((<i>)) (1x)

IV.2.1.1.15 OE, ON /y:/: <i> ~ <y> ~ (<uy>) (1x)

IV.2.1.1.16 OE, ON /i/: <i> ~ (<y>) ~ (<e>)

IV.2.1.1.17 OE, ON /i:/: <y> ~ <i>

IV.2.1.1.18 OE, ON, OF /e/: <e> ~ <ee> ~ (<y>)

IV.2.1.1.19 OE, ON, OF /e/ before lengthening clusters: <e> ~ (<ee>)

IV.2.1.1.20 OE, ON, OF /e: /: <e> ~ <ee>

IV.2.1.1.21 OE /ae/: <a>

IV.2.1.1.22 OE /ae:/(1) & (2): <e>

IV.2.1.1.23 OE /e:a/: <ee> ~ <e>

IV.2.1.1.24 OE /eo/, /e:o/ (and OF <ue> ~ <oe>): <e> ~ <o> ~ <oe> ~ <u> ~< ew> ~ <ie>

IV.2.1.2 Consonants: Hand2

IV.2.1.2.1 OE /hw/: <wh> ~ <w>

The reverse spelling whas for "was" at Hm.7.183 indicates loss of aspiration before [w] in Hand2's dialect.

IV.2.1.2.2 OE /h/:

The sole indication that initial [h] has been lost in Hand2's dialect occurs at Hm.10.334 in the phrase habbot of habynton.

IV.2.1.2.3 OE /xt/: <ȝt> ~ <ght> ~ <gtht> ~ <ht> ~ (<gth>) ~ (<tht>) ~ (<th>) ~ (<t>)

The spellings abougthe for "about" at Hm.9.154 and slaugth "sloth" Hm.6.145 show the loss of the velar before syllable-terminal /t/ in the scribe's dialect. See also ȝougthe, "youth" at Hm.11.60.

IV.2.1.2.4 OE /š/: <sch> ~ <sc> ~ <ssch> ~ (<sȝ>) (2x) ~ (<ssh>) (1x)

biquassht Hm.18.254; buschop Hm.20.319 ~ busschop Hm.15.551; conscience; englisch Hm.14.284; childysch Hm.15.151; schal; scheep; schulde; sȝe (2x) Hm.3.7, Hm.3.171. The scribe prefers <sch> for initial, medial, and terminal positions, with <ssch> alternating freely. The only instance of <sh> in the manuscript is she Hm.4.168, but it is supplied by Hand3; <ssh> appears only twice in a medial position at Hm.9.14 and Hm.18.254.

IV.2.1.2.5 OE, ON /sk/: <sk> ~ <sc>

asken Hm.3.219; buske Hm.9.145; scolers Hm.7.31; scyppyd Hm.11.111; skathe Hm.15.61; skyll Hm.11.1, etc.

IV.2.1.2.6 OF /ǰ/: <g> ~ <y> ~ <i>

burgeys (3x) Hm.3.162 ~ burieis Hm.15.207, 343 "burgesses";NThe spelling with <g> occurs up through passus twelve. The concentration of <i> ~ <y> spellings in passus fifteen is perhaps of interest, though they are otherwise unremarkable in ME. buriowneþ Hm.15.78; conyouryd Hm.15.14.

IV.2.2 Morphology:

IV.2.2.1 Metrical Considerations: The Status of Final <-e>:

Plentiful evidence shows that Langland's grammar of final -e is conservative, that he retained (and exploited in his poetry) grammatical inflections largely lost to younger speakers of a Midlands dialect.NFor a full discussion of Langland's usage, see Hoyt N. Duggan, "Langland's Dialect and Final -e," Studies in the Age of Chaucer 12 (1990), 157-191. That position is modified in Duggan's "Notes on the Meter of Piers Plowman: Twenty Years On" (forthcoming). The immediate scribe appears to have little or no notion of a role for final <-e> in inflections.

IV.2.2.2 Nouns:

Nominative/Accusative Singular: nil

Genitive Singular: <-es> ~ <-s> ~ <-ys> ~ nil

adammes (1x) Hm.12.383 ~ adamys (1x) Hm.18.227; addre Hm.5.89; fadres (2x) Hm.9.124 ~ fader (Hm.16.90); fendes (Hm.20.76) ~ fendys (Hm.10.247); harlottys Hm.13.405; Iudas (Hm.9.90); kynges (Hm.3.325); lady Hm.18.346 ~ ladyes Hm.20.345; maydens (Hm.18.143), etc.

Dative Singular: nil ~ <-e>

court (Hm.3.31); dethe (Hm.3.271); kinge Hm.3.115 ~ kyng (Hm.4.42);NThe original scribe wrote kynge with a final <-e>. The corrector who made the erasure is not determinable. plough (Hm.6.107); pryde (Hm.14.220), etc.

Nominative/Accusative Plural: <-es> ~ <-s> ~ <-ys> ~ <-is> ~ <-en>

beechis (Hm.5.18);NLALME 1.521, dot maps 956-958. beggers (24x) (Hm.20.230) ~ beggeres (1x) (Hm.14.239); cardynals (Hm.19.423) ~ cardynales (2x) (Hm.19.223); clerkes (55x) (Hm.16.126) ~ clerkys (5x) (Hm.10.111);NThe five instances of this spelling are clustered between Hm.10.111 and Hm.15.450. craftis (Hm.15.49); eiȝen (7x) (Hm.16.174) ~ eiȝyn (2x) (Hm.12.414); gerles (Hm.10.185) ~ gerlys (Hm.18.8); kynges (17x) (Hm.7.9) ~ kyngys (1x) (Hm.19.221), etc.

Mutated: feet (Hm.16.238); gees (Hm.4.50); men (Hm.10.478), etc.

Genitive Plural: <-es> ~ <-ys> ~ <-s> (<-ene>) ~ <-yn>

buschopes Hm.4.123 ~ buschops Hm.8.94; clerkes (2x) Hm.15.71 ~ clerkyn (1x) Hm.4.118; harlo(t)tes (2x) Hm.4.117; kynges (12x) Hm.4.122 ~ kyngene (1x) Hm.19.75; loselles (1x) Hm.17.46 ~ losellis (1x) Hm.15.139 ~ losels Hm.10.52; mennys Hm.5.114, etc..

IV.2.2.3 Pronouns:

IV.2.2.3.1 Nominative Singular:

1st Person: y ~ (i) (1x) ~ I ~ YNThe single instance of minuscule <i> occurring within a line appears at Hm.20.212. The long form of <I> appears otherwise in forty-seven instances but only at line beginnings. A capital <Y> appears twice at the beginnings of lines Hm.2.109 and Hm.4.12.

2nd Person: thu (224x) ~ þu (64x) ~ þow (2x)NHm.5.275, 337.

3rd Person:

 Masculine: he

 Feminine: sche ~ (sȝe)NThis form is not listed by LALME 4.7-8. (2x)NHm.3.7, Hm.3.171. ~ ȝhe (1x)NAt Hm.9.56 this form is added as a correction, possibly a self-correction by Hand2? This spelling appears elsewhere for the adverbial interjection "yea" (Hm.5.256, Hm.17.24) and the second person plural nominative pronoun "ye" (Hm.13.122) Bx at this point must have read he or heo for "she." For this spelling, see LALME 4.8 listing Ex, Ha, London, Nflk, Suffolk, Wrk (including LP 6910), Wlt. ~ she (1x) Hm.4.168.

 Neuter: it ~ yt ~ (ytte) (2x)

IV.2.2.3.2 Accusative and Dative Singular:

1st Person: me

2nd Person: the ~ þe ~ þee (2x)NHm.11.21, Hm.17.134 ~ thee (1x)NHm.13.155.

3rd Person:

     Masculine: hymNAt Hm.10.235 Hm is alone in reading hym for all other witnesses' hem, but a singular meaning is probable there.

     Feminine: here ~ her NThe same spellings appear in free variation for both "her" and "their." ~ hire (6x) Hm.3.10NFive of the seven occurrences of this form appear in reference to Lady Mede. ~ hure (7x)NThe same spellings appear in free variation for both "her" and "their." ~ hyre (1x)NHm.3.8..

     Neuter: it ~ yt ~ ytte (2x) ~ hit (3x)

IV.2.2.3.3 Genitive Singular:

1st Person: my ~ myn ~ myne (9x)

There is one instance of conjunctive myne before a word beginning with a consonant (Hm.5.172), but it otherwise appears only in elision contexts or used disjunctively: e.g., Hm.13.363, Hm.18.285, Hm.18.338, and Hm.18.361. In conjunctive use, my occurs before consonants and myn in elision contexts.

2nd Person: thy ~ thi ~ þy ~ <thyn> ~ þyn (5x) ~ þyne (2x)NThe single instance of þi at Hm.10.368 is an addition by Hand3.

The distribution of conjunctive and disjunctive forms is like that of the 1st person. Spellings such as those in Hm.3.68a show these forms in free variation: And þy coste and thy couetyse .... On the other hand, þyn modifies only singular nouns and þyne only plurals, reflecting archetypal readings.

3rd Person:

     Masculine: his ~ (hise) (3x) Hm.14.279 ~ (hys) (1x) Hm.12.350 ~ (hyse) (1x) Hm.13.255 ~ (is) (1x) Hm.6.273.NA second instance in the manuscript is a correction by Hand3 at Hm.20.60. The collational evidence suggests that the disjunctive forms with final <-e> are owed to Bx and perhaps Langland. ~ hijs (1x) Hm.4.47

     Feminine: here (32x) ~ hure (7x) Hm.3.121NTwelve of the fourteen instances of this spelling appear in Passus 3, referring to Lady Mede, from Hm.3.121 to Hm.3.253. The two other instances occur at Hm.5.659 and Hm.10.151. These spellings appear in free variation for both "her" and "their." ~ her ~ hir (1x) Hm.18.251.

     Neuter: nil

IV.2.2.3.4 Nominative Plural:

1st Person: we

2nd Person: ȝe ~ ȝee (7x) ~ Ȝhe (1x) Hm.17.21

3rd Person: þey (178x) ~ they (143x) ~ (þei) (1x) Hm.15.500 ~ thei (2x) Hm.7.109, Hm.17.183

IV.2.2.3.5 Accusative and Dative Plural:

1st Person: vs (118x) ~ (us) (1x) Hm.13.55

2nd Person: ȝow ~ ȝowe (4x)NThere are 34 instances in which a corrector has erased <e> from ȝowe.

3rd Person: hemNThe spelling hym at Hm.2.287 occurs where most other witnesses have the plural hem.

IV.2.2.3.6 Genitive Plural:

1st Person: our ~ oureNThe thirty-five instances of this spelling appear only from Hm.4.38 to Hm.12.410. ~ (owr)NThe thirteen instances of this spelling all occur after Hm.17.295. The usual spelling our occurs a dozen times in those lines.

2nd Person: ȝour(e) ~ ȝowr(e)NForms with and without <-e> are in free variation with ȝoure appearing 34x between Hm.3.52 and 13.111 and ȝour 30x between Hm.5.590 and 15.519. The spelling ȝowr is about equally common with 34 instances between Hm.7.34 and 20.271, while ȝowre appears only three times in the poem, but widely separated.

3rd Person: her ~ hereNForms with and without <-e> are in free variation, though the former is more common.

IV.2.2.3.7 Personal pronoun with "self":

Forms with -sylue (62x)NSee LALME 1.434-435, dot map 523. ~ sylf (25x)NSee LALME 1.434-435, dot map 520. ~ -selue (9x)NSee LALME 1.434-435, dot map 523. ~ -sylfe (10x) ~ -sulf (1x) Hm.9.212NSee LALME 1.434-435, dot map 521. and -syluen (3x)NSee LALME 1.434-435, dot map 524. appear with my, thi, hym, hem, our, vs, and ȝow{e}. The normal distribution in B witnesses to Piers Plowman of <-e> ~ <-en> forms with the necessarily dissyllabic form occurring mainly in line-terminal position and the elidible form within the line is not a feature of Hm.

IV.2.2.4 Adjectives and Adverbs:

IV.2.2.4.1 Definite and Indefinite Adjectives:

The analysis primarily takes into account historical monosyllabic stems. Although the <-e> ending is dominant where it would be expected in definite and plural constructions (e.g., þyn olde age Hm.12.8), it also occurs occasionally for the indefinite usage, e.g. of grete loue Hm.12.74; by olde tyme, Hm.12.545; wylde wilderness Hm.15.466; a longe tale Hm.9.77; a trewe knygth Hm.12.327, etc.NAt least one instance appears of a corrected indefinite adjective, the corrector removing an unmotivated final <e> written by Hand2: a blynd{e} hagge Hm.5.193. It is not possible to determine what hand made the erasure. A few inflectionless adjectival forms occur, moreover, for the definite singular and plural, e.g. the brod water Hm.8.30; þe trew knygth Hm.12.517; wyld fowles Hm.15.304; þe old lawe, Hm.18.347, 352; blynd men Hm.16.129, etc. Dissyllabic weak and plural adjectives carry no inflection.

This distribution of forms suggests that the scribe copied from an exemplar in which the inflected definite and plural adjectives were marked, but that the distinction was not alive in his dialect, and for him the forms were in free variation.

IV.2.2.4.2 Comparative:

Adjectives and Adverbs: <-er> ~ <-re> ~ <-ere> ~ <-ur> ~ (<-our> 1x)

Superlative:

Adjectives: <-est> ~ <-este> ~ <-yst(e)>

Adverbs: <-est>

Forms with and without final <e> are in free variation for both adjectives and adverbs.

IV.2.2.4.4 Adjectives in <-ly>:

The ending <-ly> dominates, but a few instances of <-lych(e)> appear: fleschlych Hm.19.168; lordlyche Hm.3.160; louelyche Hm.12.571, etc. There are no examples of <-lye> or <-lie>. Both adjectives and adverbs ending in -lych — that is, without final <e> — appear only from Hm.14.290 on.

IV.2.2.4.5 Adverbs in <-ly>:

<-ly> ~ (<-lych(e)>) (5x) ~ (<-liche>) (1x)NThe nonce spelling soþli at Hm..3.5 is probably the work of Hand3. (1x)

The dominant form at all points in the text is -ly (variants -li, -lie, and -lye do not appear).NSee LALME 1.453 dot maps 606-609. Five dozen instances of -lyche appear throughout the stint of Hand2. Beginning at Hm.14.290 and continuing to Hm.20.122, five instances of -lych appear: gladlych Hm.15.227; hongrylych Hm..20.122; proprelych Hm.14.290; purelych Hm.17.177; and hongrylych Hm.20.122. The single instance of -liche is douhtyliche at Hm.18.39.NThe single other occurrence in the manuscript of a -liche form at Hm..18.347 is a correction introduced by Hand3.

The comparative ending <-loker(e)> occurs in seven lines: frendloker Hm.10.237; lyȝtloker Hm.5.590, Hm.15.445, 496 ~ lygthlokere Hm.12.462; and wiseloker Hm.13.341. The variant form <-liker> does not occur.

Instances of the superlative in -est(e) and -lokest appear: hastylokest Hm.19.469; ratheste Hm.5.346; wykkydlokest Hm.10.437;.

IV.2.2.5 Verbs:

IV.2.2.5.1 Non-finite verb forms:

IV.2.2.5.1.1 Infinitive: <-en> ~ <-e> ~ <-n> ~ <-yn> ~ nil

Endings derived from OE <-ian> verbs are frequently but not always preserved; hence the following infinitive forms with <-i-> or <-y->: abuyen Hm.3.254; maryen Hm.7.29; tyllye Hm.19.440; wonye Hm.10.439, etc. This is a feature of South-Western dialects.NSee M. L. Samuels, "Dialect and Grammar," in A Companion to Piers Plowman, ed. John A. Alford (Berkeley, 1988), p. 217.

IV.2.2.5.1.2 Gerund: <-yng(e)> ~ (<inge>) (4x)

The predominant ending is <-ynge>, though <-yng> appears not infrequently (10x) and in free variation.

IV.2.2.5.1.3 Present participle: <-yng(e)> ~ (<-inge>) (2x) ~ (<-jng>) (1x) ~ (<-enge>) (1x)NSee LALME 1.391 dot map 347.

The scribe does not distinguish present participles from gerunds. Other forms such as <-ande>, <-ende> or <-inde> do not appear.

IV.2.2.5.1.4 Weak Past Participles (with or without <y-> prefix): <-ed> ~ <-yd> ~ <-id> ~ <-t> ~ <-de> ~ (<-th>)NSee IV.1.1.2.2 and IV.2.1.2.3 for the instances of terminal /t/ represented by <th>, particularly in Hand2's section of the text. ~ (<-ede>) (1x) ~ (<-yde>) (1x) ~ (<-ud>)NLALME 1.551, dot map 1199. For the combination <Vþ> ~ <Vth>, see LALME 1.551, dot map 1198. (1x)

IV.2.2.5.1.5 Strong Past Participle: <-e> ~ <-yn> ~ <-en> ~ <-n> (with and without <y-> prefix)

IV.2.2.5.2 Finite verb forms:

IV.2.2.5.2.1 Present 1st Singular: <-e> ~ nil

Most instances have a final <-e>, but the scribe is by no means consistent.NA correcting hand has added a final -e to mygth at Hm.3.184.

IV.2.2.5.2.2 Present 2nd Singular: <-est> ~ <-este> ~ <yst> ~ <-st(e)> ~ <-xte>

IV.2.2.5.2.3 Present 3rd Singular: <-eth> ~ <-eþ> ~ <-th> ~ <-yth> ~ <-ith> ~ <-iþ> ~ <-þ> ~ <-t>

With ending derived from OE <-ian> verbs:NIn some dialects of OE the <-i-> was extended by analogy to the 3rd person. See A. Campbell, Old English Grammar (Oxford, 1959), para 757.

OE preterite-present verbs without inflection in the present 1st and 3rd sg. are, e.g.: dar Hm.10.143 (9x) ~ dare (3x) Hm.4.51;NThe form without -e appears in Hand1's stint and is Hand2's usual form. An unidentified corrector changed Hand2's dare by erasure at Hm.5.104 but left two other instances. can Hm.12.415; may Hm.3.57; schall Hm.3.97; wote (17x) Hm.5.226 ~ wot (8x) Hm.15.82.

The free variation of forms with and without final -e is consistent with this scribe's practice on other inflections. That is, the <-e> is not an inflection.

IV.2.2.5.2.4 Present Plural (and Subjunctive): <-e> ~ <-yn> ~ <-en> ~ <-eþ> ~ <-eth> ~ <-n> ~ <-ne>.

Forms ending in <-eþ> and <-eth> are not uncommon. Samuels points out that this plural form is very rare in the London English of Chaucer, but is retained in Southern and South-Western areas until after Langland's death.NM. L. Samuels, "Dialect and Grammar," in A Companion to Piers Plowman, ed. John A. Alford (Berkeley, 1988), pp. 209 and 216. Some of the <-e> ~ <-en> forms will historically be subjunctives occurring in contexts where a subjunctive is to be expected.

IV.2.2.5.2.5 Subjunctive Singular: <-e>

IV.2.2.5.2.6 Imperative Singular: <-e> ~ nil

IV.2.2.5.2.7 Imperative Plural: <-(e)th> ~ <eþ>

IV.2.2.5.3 Preterite: Weak Verbs:

IV.2.2.5.3.1 Preterite 1st Singular: <-ede> ~ <-ed> ~ <-de> ~ <-te> ~ <yd> ~ <th> ~ <-id>

IV.2.2.5.3.2 Preterite 2nd Singular: <-(e)dest> ~ <-dust> ~ <-test> ~ (<-tyste>) (1x)

IV.2.2.5.3.3 Preterite 3rd Singular: <yd> ~ <ed> ~ <-ede> ~ <-de> ~ (<id(e)>) ~ (<-ud>) ~ (<-th>)

IV.2.2.5.3.4 Preterite Plural: <yd> ~ <-ed> ~ <-ede> ~ <-yden> ~ <-eden> ~ <-de> ~ <-id(e)> ~ <-te> ~ <-ten> ~ <-tyn>

IV.2.2.5.4 Preterite: Strong Verbs:

IV.2.2.5.4.1 Preterite 1st Singular: <-e> ~ nil

IV.2.2.5.4.2 Preterite 2nd Singular: <-e> ~ nil

IV.2.2.5.4.3 Preterite 3rd Singular: <-e> ~ nil

The forms are of course the same as those for the 1st singular, though the scribe generally preferred the form without final e. It is perhaps accepted as a marker of vowel length in forms such as came and tooke.

IV.2.2.5.3.4 Preterite Plural: <-yn> ~ <-en> ~ <-e> ~ nil

IV.2.2.5.3.5 Preterite Subjunctive Singular: <-e>

V. List of Manuscript Sigils:

For The Piers Plowman Electronic Archive we have introduced a list of sigils that depart in some respects from the sigils used since Skeat's editions. Changes have been made to eliminate ambiguities inherent in the older sigils which, to a considerable degree, reflect the sequence of the discovery of the relationships among them. If we were to use the traditional sigils, we would court ambiguity in an electronic text with identical sigils representing different manuscripts and different sigils identifying single manuscripts. British Library Additional 10574, for instance, has no sigil at all for the A text, is B's Bm, and C's L. We have chosen to represent each manuscript with a unique sigil.

For descriptions of the B manuscripts see George Kane and E. Talbot Donaldson, eds., Piers Plowman: The B Version, Will's Visions of Piers Plowman, Do-Well, Do-Better and Do-Best: An Edition in the Form of Trinity College Cambridge MS B.15.17, Corrected and Restored from the Known Evidence, with Variant Readings, rev. ed. (London, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1988), 1-15; A. I. Doyle, "Remarks on Surviving Manuscripts of Piers Plowman," in Medieval English Religious and Ethical Literature: Essays in Honour of G. H. Russell, ed. G. Kratzmann and James Simpson (Cambridge, Eng., 1986), 35-48; and C. David Benson and Lynne S. Blanchfield, The Manuscripts of Piers Plowman: The B-Version (Cambridge, Eng., 1997).

1. B Manuscripts:

2. A Manuscripts:

3. C Manuscripts:

4. AB Splices:

5. AC Splices:

6. ABC Splices:

VI  Bibliography:

VI.1 Editions:

Brewer, Charlotte, and A. G. Rigg, eds. Piers Plowman: A Facsimile of the Z-Text in Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Bodley 851. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1994.

Kane, George, ed. Piers Plowman: The A Version: Will's Visions of Piers Plowman and Do-Well, An Edition in the Form of Trinity College Cambridge MS R.3.14 Corrected from Other Manuscripts, with Variant Readings, rev. ed. London: Athlone Press, 1988.

Kane, George, and E. Talbot Donaldson, eds. Piers Plowman: The B Version: Will's Visions of Piers Plowman, Do-Well, Do-Better and Do-Best. An Edition in the Form of Trinity College Cambridge MS B.15.17 Corrected and Restored from the Known Evidence, with Variant Readings, rev. ed. London: Athlone Press; Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988.

Russell, George, and George Kane, eds. Piers Plowman: The C Version: Will's Visions of Piers Plowman, Do-Well, Do-Better and Do-Best. An Edition in the Form of Huntington Library MS HM 143, Corrected and Restored from the Known Evidence, with Variant Readings. London: Athlone Press; Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1997.

Pearsall, Derek, ed. William Langland: Piers Plowman. The C-Text, 2d ed., Exeter Medieval English Texts and Studies. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1994.

Rigg, A. G., and Charlotte Brewer, eds. Piers Plowman: The Z Version. Studies and Texts 59. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1983.

Schmidt, A. V. C., ed. The Vision of Piers Plowman: A Critical Edition of the B-Text Based on Trinity College Cambridge MS B.15.17. London, Melbourne, and Toronto: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd.; New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1978; 2d ed., London: J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd.; Rutland, Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1995.

———, ed. Piers Plowman: A Parallel-Text Edition of the A, B, C and Z Versions: Vol. 1. Text. London and New York: Longman, 1995.

Skeat, Walter W., ed. The Vision of William Concerning Piers the Plowman together with Vita de Dowel, Dobet, et Dobest, Secundum Wit et Resoun by William Langland: Part II. The "Crowley" Text; or Text B. EETS, OS 38. London: N. Trübner, 1869.

———, ed. The Vision of William Concerning Piers the Plowman, in Three Parallel Texts together with Richard the Redeless. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1886.

VI.2 Studies:

Adams, Robert. "The Reliability of the Rubrics in the B text of Piers Plowman," Medium Ævum 54 (1985), 215-17.

———. "The Kane-Donaldson Edition of Piers Plowman: Eclecticism's Ultima Thule." TEXT 16 (2006), 131-141.

Benson, C. David, and Lynne S. Blanchfield, with acknowledgements to the work of Marie-Claire Uhart. The Manuscripts of Piers Plowman: the B-version. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1997.

Burton, T. L. "On the Current State of Middle English Dialectology." Leeds Studies in English. New Series 20 (1991): 167-208. And Benskin, Michael. "In reply to Doctor Burton." Leeds Studies in English. New Series 20 (1991): 209-262.

"Carmen Paraeneticum ad Rainaldum." Patrologiae cursus completus: Series Latina 184: 1307A-1314C. Paris: Garnier Frères, 1862.

Coxe, H. O. introduced by K. W. Humphreys. Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Oxford Colleges (Catalogus Codicum MSS. qui in Collegiis Aulisque Oxoniensibus Hodie Adservantur). Vol. 1. Reprint, East Ardsley, Wakefield, Yorkshire: E. P. Publishing, 1972.

Doyle, A. I. "Remarks on Surviving Manuscripts of Piers Plowman." In Medieval English Religious and Ethical Literature: Essays in Honour of G. H. Russell. Ed. Gregory Kratzmann and James Simpson, 35-48. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1986.

———. "The Manuscripts." In Middle English Alliterative Poetry and its Literary Background. Ed. David Lawton. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1982:88-100.

Dutschke, Consuelo W., with the assistance of R. H. Rouse et al. Guide to Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Huntington Library San Marino: Huntington Library, 1989, pp. 161-63. For the on-line version, see the URL http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Scriptorium/hehweb/HM128.html#DeRicci.

Furnivall, Frederick J. Caxton's Book of Curtesye: Printed at Westminster about 1477-8 A.D. and now Reprinted, with Two MS. Copies of the Same Treatise, from the Oriel MS. 79, and the Balliol MS. 354. London: N. Trübner, 1868.

Galloway, Andrew. "Reading Piers Plowman in the Fifteenth and the Twenty-First Centuries: Notes on Manuscripts F and W in the Piers Plowman Electronic Archive." Journal of English and Germanic Philology 103 (2004): 247-67.

Hanna III, Ralph. William Langland. Authors of The Middle Ages 3: English Writers of the Late Middle Ages. Aldershot and Brookfield, Vermont: Variorum, 1993.

Kane, George. "The Text." In A Companion to Piers Plowman. Ed. John A. Alford, 175-200. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988.

The Dictionary of National Biography, founded in 1882 by George Smith; edited by Sir Leslie Stephen and Sir Sidney Lee; from the earliest times to 1900. London: Oxford University Press, [1973].

Lewis, Robert E. and Angus McIntosh, A Descriptive Guide to the Manuscripts of the "Prick of Conscience." Medium Ævum monographs n.s. 12 (Oxford: The Society for the Study of Mediæval Languages and Literature, 1982).

McIntosh, Angus, M. L. Samuels and Michael Benskin. A Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval English. 4 vols. Volume 3: Linguistic Profiles. Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1986.

Mustanoja, Tauno F., ed. The Good Wife Taught her Daughter; The Good Wyfe wold a Pylgremage; The Thewis of Gud Women. Helsinki: Société néophilologique, 1948.

A New Index of Middle English Verse. Ed. Boffey, Julia. London: British Library, 2005.

Parkes, M. B. and A. I. Doyle, "The Production of Copies of the Canterbury Tales and the Confessio Amantis in the early fifteenth century," in Medieval Scribes, Manuscripts and Libraries: Essays presented to N.R. Ker, ed. M. B. Parkes and Andrew G. Watson (1978): 163-210.

Riddy, Felicity. "Mother Knows Best." Speculum 71 (1996): 66-86.

Samuels, M. L. "Some Applications of Middle English Dialectology." English Studies 44 (1963): 81-94. Reprinted in Middle English Dialectology: Essays on Some Principles and Problems by Angus McIntosh, M. L. Samuels and Margaret Laing, edited and introduced by Margaret Laing, 64-80. Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1989.

———. "Chaucer's Spelling." In Middle English Studies Presented to Norman Davis in Honour of his Seventieth Birthday. Ed. Douglas Gray and E. G. Stanley, 17-37. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983. Reprinted in The English of Chaucer and his Contemporaries: Essays by M. L. Samuels and J. J. Smith. Ed. J. J. Smith, 23-37. Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1988.

———. "Langland's Dialect." Medium Ævum 54 (1985): 232-47 with corrections at Medium Ævum 55 (1986): 40. Reprinted in The English of Chaucer and his Contemporaries. Ed. J. J. Smith, 70-85. Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1989.

———. "Dialect and Grammar." In A Companion to Piers Plowman. Ed. John A. Alford, 201-221. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1988.

Thomson,R.M. Ed. Lincoln Cathedral Library. Catalogue of the manuscripts of Lincoln Cathedral Chapter Library. Woodbridge: Published on behalf of the Dean and Chapter of Lincoln by D.S. Brewer, 1989.

Turville-Petre, Thorlac. "Putting it Right: The Corrections of Huntington Library MS. Hm 128 and BL Additional MS. 35287." Yearbook of Langland Studies 16 (2002): 41-65.

Uhart, Marie-Claire. "The Early Reception of Piers Plowman." Ph.D. diss., University of Leicester, 1986.