Introduction:

I. Manuscript Description of Dublin, Trinity College, MS 212, D.4.1 (Vc):

I.1 Date:

s xiv ex. See Doyle (1986), Hanna (1993), George Russell and George Kane (1997).

I.2 Contents:

The manuscript contains 90 parchment leaves. The text is as follows:

• Fol 1r-89r: Piers Plowman C Text:

  Prologue.1 (In assomur seson / wan softe was þe sonne) – Passus 22.87 (Largeliche a legyon / lees þe lyf sone).

  Lacks Passus 7.237-7.284. The gap in the text occurs mid-page on fol. 29r without a gap in the manuscript.

  Note: The above lineation is that of George Russell and George Kane’s Athlone edition (hereafter RK). Text ends mid-page. RK (14, fn 2) suggest that the exemplar was faulty, citing also Ac, which breaks off in the same place.

• Fol 89v:

  Top margin: Latin couplet, written in a fifteenth-century hand later than the main text of the page; it is a version of Walther, Sprichworter 2786. See also Scattergood, 2006, forthcoming.

  Main text: A series of annals for the years 1293-1349, focusing on events near the Welsh border. The hand is not the same as that of the main scribe but is nearly contemporary with it. See Adams (2013).

  Bottom of the page, between the annals and the authorship note below, which predates it: A carol in English, written in a mid-fifteenth-century hand distinct from that which wrote the Latin at the top. The carol is a version of Mooney, et al. Digital Index of Middle English Verse 294. See also Scattergood (1983).

  Bottom of the page: The very famous Latin note on Langland’s family, giving some of the earliest evidence for the authorship of Piers Plowman. The hand is apparently the same as that which wrote the annals above it. See Adams (2013).

  Bottom of the page: A transcription of the authorship note, written in a seventeenth-century italic hand.

• Fol 90r-v: A fragment of the Prose Lancelot, dating to the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century, written in three columns. See Scattergood (1984). This leaf, turned sideways so that its text is oriented perpendicular to that of the rest of the manuscript, was added fairly early in the codex’s history; the same sixteenth-century hand that glosses the main text also included an inventory of the manuscript at what is now the top of the page. The same hand also copied a variant of Vc.4.383-4 below the inventory. The text of the Prose Lancelot corresponds to H.O. Sommer, The Vulgate Version of Arthurian Romances, 5 (Washington, D.C., 1909-1913) 210-15; and to Alexandre Micha (ed.), Lancelot, V (Geneva, 1978-83) 38-47, sections LXXXV.54-LXXXVI.14.

I.3 Collation:

ii + 1-118122 (lacks 2) + one + ii.

Catchwords appear on fols 8v, 16v, 32v, 40v, 48v, 56v, 64v, 72v, 80v, 88v; RK identify traces of signatures, not visible to me, on fols 7r, 11r, 20r, 21r, 27r, 30r, 36r, 38r, 44r, 47r, 48r, 56r, 59r, 63r, 70r, 75r, 76r, 77r, 78r, 79r, 80r. Page numbers in the top right corner of rectos are modern: the first, in ink, skips from 80 to 82; the second, in pencil, corrects the mistake.

I.4 Physical Description:

Size of leaf 275 x 175 mm, size of text block 210-120 mm.

I.5 Arrangement of the Page:

Text block contains 41 lines per page. Ruling is generally only visible in the outside vertical and occasionally horizontal borders of the text block. In the last eight-leaf gathering, some leaves show linear ruling throughout the page (81r, 81v, 82v, 83v, 84r, 88r). Many Latin lines are written in red, often bracketed off, in the margin of the line preceding them; following RK and other editors, this edition represents them as appearing in-text.

I.6 Handwriting: The Main Scribe:

Anglicana formata. The scribe’s hand is neat and regular, very similar to the scribe of W; some of its distinguishing traits and letter forms are noted below.

• A – Exhibits a distinct majuscule form, though often the line-initial A is simply written larger. Compare, for instance, Vc.1.37 and 1.38 on Fol. 1v: .
• C – Double <cc> is indistinguishable from <ct>; this edition represents such instances as <cc>, as in eleccioun (Vc.1.137): .
• N – In minuscule, <n> is occasionally written as distinct from <u> (see the second <n> in sonne, Vc1.14), but the usual forms are indistinguished: .
• R – Exhibits expected variation between straight <r> (usual form: ) and round <r> after <o>, etc.: .
• S – Primarily exhibits three forms: long, sigmoid (), and 8-shaped (), the last of these at the ends of words. Majuscule is generally a larger form of the sigmoid <s> ().
• T – See discussion of <c>, above.
• U – See discussion of <n>, above.
• W – Has no distinct majuscule form; as typical of anglicana, even minuscule <w> rises to the full height of the line: .
• Y – Distinguished clearly from <þ>, with thorn’s descender being a continuation of the left-hand stroke ()and the descender of the <y> being a curved continuation of the right-hand stroke (). <Y> is sometimes dotted but not consistently: .
• Þ – See discussion of <y>, above.
• & - Used very infrequently in the manuscript, which favors writing out and in full. When it is used, the English form is generally distinguished by a nasal tilde above the ampersand (Vc.2.1, fol. 4r: ), whereas the Latin is written without a tilde (Vc.14.5, fol. 49v: ).

Word-final letters, particularly <c>, <g>, <k>, <r>, <s>, and <t>, are often flourished but are not expanded in this edition. See III.1: Transcription of the Manuscript.

For examples of hands in this and other contemporary manuscripts, see Linne Mooney, Late Medieval English Scribes, cited below.

I.7 Decoration and Textual Presentation:

First folio opens with a large, foliate, red and blue capital, now much damaged with the blue faded to green; the text block on the first leaf is surrounded by alternating red and blue flourishes, likewise damaged.

The opening initial of each passus is blue, usually six lines high. Folios 1r-2r have alternating red and blue paraph marks; on folios 2v-3v, only the red paraphs have been filled in. The rest of the manuscript has only double slashes, which RK interpret as place-markers for paraph insertion never completed; this edition represents them as black paraph marks. See III.1: Transcription of the Manuscript.

Latin and French phrases as well as many names are written in red by the main scribe, as are the occasional scribal rubrics (for instance, markers of "prophecies," some distinctiones, and the confessions of the Seven Deadly Sins in Vc.7). No running titles appear in this manuscript.

I.8 Punctuation:

Virgules mark the mid-line caesura on almost all lines, although occasionally a raised point appears instead (Vc.1.25, 4.75, 7.260, etc.); points or raised points are frequent at the ends of lines. Only rarely does the point or raised point seem to function as grammatical punctuation as we would understand it (Vc.11.70, 22.79, 22.310).

I.9 Marginalia:

Marginal notations by the scribe are limited to rubrics and Latin lines relegated to the margin (see above, I.5). Marginal notations by later hands are as follows:

• "Glossator": A sixteenth-century hand, writing in secretary script, prevalent on fols 1-4r and 88r-v. This annotator wrote a brief linguistic and orthographic analysis in the top margin of 1r, now partially trimmed off, and glossed unfamiliar words (sometimes incorrectly), underlining these words in the main text.
• "Glossator2": A sixteenth-century hand, writing in green ink, adding biblical citations, especially on 1v, 2v, 3v, 4v, 5r, 10v, 11r-v, 13v, 14v, 15v, 32v, 35v, 53v, and adding the word envy above the text’s Ire on 43v in an imitation of the scribe’s anglicana formata. This hand also assigned a date of 1412 to one of the "prophecies" in Vc.7, fol. 15v.
• "Glossator3": A hand writing in light brown ink that highlights many passages with marginal brackets, crosses, pointing hands, and especially double slash marks beginning on 13r; this same hand may also be responsible for the phrase The eyes of all thinges Doo look on 84r.
• "Handx": Various other marks, nota symbols, and pointing hands (many highly stylized, like those on 1v), which cannot be connected to an identifiable glossator, are designated "handx." See II.2: Corrections.

I.10 Binding:

Bound in nineteenth-century blind-tooled brown calf (identified by David Pearson) and rebacked in 1983 in goatskin, with two paper endleaves at the beginning of the codex and two at the end. Leaf edges are dyed red, occasionally bleeding onto the surface of the leaves.

I.11 Provenance:

Nothing is known for certain about the manuscript’s early history. It was first listed in John Lyon’s catalog of manuscripts in the library of Trinity College Dublin ca. 1743 (Brooks 144). An early hypothesis regarding provenance suggested that this manuscript was the copy of Piers Plowman listed in the will of Walter de Brugge of Dublin in 1396 (Cargill 35-39), but St. John Brooks (150) suggests, based on the localized interests in the annals on 89v, that Abergavenny is a likely point of origin, at least for the writer of the annals. More recently, Pates (339-40) has argued that the text’s main scribe worked out of the Abbey at Tewkesbury and that the manuscript was originally owned by an aristocratic family in that area. See also Scattergood (forthcoming).

I.12 Previous Descriptions:

Abbott, T.K. Catalogue of Manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College Dublin. Trinity College Dublin: Dublin, 1900. 29.

Adams, Robert. Langland and the Rokele Family: The Gentry Background to Piers Plowman (Dublin Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature). Four Courts Press: Dublin, 2013. Photo of f.89v on p. 29. Discussed pp. 19-28.

Brooks, E. St. John. "The Piers Plowman Manuscripts in Trinity College Dublin." The Library, 5th series, 6 (1951): 141-53.

Kane, George. Piers Plowman: The Evidence for Authorship. Athlone Press: London, 1965. 26-33.

Lyon, John. Catalogue of the Manuscripts of the Trinity College Library, Made by John Lyon. Dublin: Trinity College Library, V.1.20, ca. 1743.

Mooney, Linne, Simon Horobin, and Estelle Stubbs. Late Medieval English Scribes https://www.medievalscribes.com, ISBN 978-0-9557876-6-9, 27 April 2020.

Russell, George, and George Kane, eds. 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 and Berkeley: Athlone Press and University of California Press, 1997. 14.

Scattergood, John. "An Unrecorded Fragment of the Prose Lancelot in Trinity College Dublin, MS 212." Medium Aevum 53 (1984): 301-6.

----. Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Middle English and Some Old English, in Trinity College Dublin Library. Forthcoming from Four Courts Press.

Skeat, Walter W. "Introduction." In The Vision of William Concerning Piers the Plowman: Text C. London: N. Trubner & Co, 1873. xlviii.

II. The Text and Its Correctors:

II.1 Corrections:

There is little evidence for professional corrections beyond those made by the main scribe. A hand slightly later than the scribe, using darker ink than the text, has made corrections as well as additions and occasional deletions throughout the manuscript through Vc.17, but it seems unlikely to be the work of a professional corrector. The corrections themselves could have been made solely on the basis of sense, and the textual additions seem to confirm that their maker was not working from an exemplar, as they are often unique and sometimes non-metrical.

Unique textual interventions likely made by this hand include the following:

Vc.4.1, Vc.4.139 (see note), Vc.4.156, Vc.4.167, Vc.4.170, Vc.5.185, Vc.7.323, Vc.10.269 (see note), Vc.15.46 (see note).

As this hand is unidentified and additions and deletions, particularly of single letters, cannot always be traced reliably to the same hand, such interventions are labeled "handx" throughout.

Other corrections of scribal error may be done by other hands entirely. The correction of temporancie to temperancie three times on 88r (Vc.23.8, 23.22, and 23.23) seems likely to have been done, in an imitation of anglicana, by the primary sixteenth-century glossator, who is very active on this page.

II.2 Classification of the Text:

Vc, though missing the last three hundred lines of the poem, is an important witness of the C text. Its closest genetic relation is Ac, with which it shares, according to RK, 443 readings—the highest incidence of shared readings among the C-text manuscripts. Among these shared readings are the 50-line gap in Vc.8 (RK7.236-85) and the missing ending.

This pair is part of a larger genetic branch made up of P Ec Rc Mc Vc Ac, although Mc is less securely within this group; see RK p. 47-8, where they demonstrate a series of 45 shared readings among the six manuscripts.

Further classification of Vc awaits the completion of the other pending PPEA editions of the C-text manuscripts. These editions are intended to provide reliable collations of variants, allowing for construction of a stemma and a C archetype.

II.3 The Function of the Manuscript:

Because the origins and early history of the manuscript are unknown, we cannot conjecture regarding its initial intended use. It is a neat production but not particularly lavish, probably in the upper mid-range of the turn-of-the-century market. However, by the sixteenth century it fell into the hands of an antiquarian with linguistic leanings, as evidenced by the glossing in the early pages of the manuscript; to this antiquarian, the codex was a source for reconstructing late medieval vocabulary and orthographic practices. See I.9: Marginalia.

III. Editorial Method:

III.1 Transcription of the Manuscript:

This manuscript is only very lightly abbreviated; the scribe favors writing words out in full. His abbreviations, where he uses them, are quite standard:

• with – Written as a <w> with a superscript <t>, used only three times (Vc.2.206, 17.81, and 19.3).
• þat – Written as a thorn with a superscript <t>.
• nasals – Indicated by a bar above a neighboring vowel.
• ra – Indicated with the standard superscript single-barreled <a> in the form of a double <c>.
• ur – Indicated with a superscript gothic <r> in the form of a <c> with an up-tick on the top stroke.
• -e – When following <t> or <r>, indicated with a backwards flourish on the preceding letter. This same mark can indicate <-er> as well; decisions made based on sense. Expanded word-final <-e> is also indicated occasionally by a crossed descender on a word-final long <s> (Vc.1.69, etc.), or a bar in the ascender of word-final <h> (Vc.4.53, etc.).
• er – When following <t> or <r>, indicated with a backwards flourish on the preceding letter (see discussion of <-e>, above). When following a <p>, indicated with a straight-crossed descender.
• er/ar – Because the straight-crossed descender of a <p> can indicate either an <-er-> or an <-ar-> expansion, decisions were made in the case of ambiguity (parson/person, parfit/perfit) based on scribal tendency when writing out the same words in full.
• ro – Indicated by a looped cross on the descender of a <p>.
• re – In this manuscript, only used following <p>, indicated by a loop above the bowl of the <p>.
• ser – Indicated by a looping cross on the descender of long <s>.
• lettre – Indicated by the crossed ascender of the <l>.

The scribe uses standard abbreviations for common Latin words such as Christus, Dominus, habet, omnia, etc. In the case of forms of Christus using the typical Chi-Rho abbreviation ("xps" for Christus, etc.), the entire word is highlighted as being expanded; an attribute has been added to the abbreviation tag specifying what letters are present in the word as written.

The scribe demonstrates a tendency to add otiose tildes over word-final nasals, which are not expanded in the transcription: cache Vc.3.209 (), lemmanes Vc.4.190 (), resoun Vc.4.313 (), etc .

Flourishes that occur on word-final <c>, <d>, <g>, <h>, <k>, <r>, <s>, and <t> are not expanded as an <e> in this edition, based on the scribe’s inconsistent use of grammatically significant word-final <e> (see Linguistic Description IV.2.2), and on the fact that flourishes appear on Latin words that would not take an <e>: caritas Vc.2.84 (), vobis Vc.14.103 (); est Vc.2.191 (), accepit Vc.3.44 (), etc .

Geminate letter form in words such as eleccioun is ambiguous and could be rendered <cc> or <ct>. This edition transcribes it as <cc>. See I.6: Letter Forms.

The scribe does not distinguish between <ȝ> and <z>, but this edition transcribes the letter form as <z> when it represents the sibilant, such as in plurals.

In letter forms in which the scribe makes distinctions between majuscule and miniscule, he generally capitalizes the first letter of each line. Therefore, in letters that have no distinct capital form (like <w> and <ȝ>), this edition represents those letters as capital when they appear at the beginning of a line. However, where distinctions do exist, the letter is represented as written, even if the scribe has written a minuscule line-initially.

Folios 1r-2r have alternating red and blue paraph marks; on folios 2v-3v, only the red paraphs have been filled in. The rest of the manuscript has only double slashes, which RK interpret as place-markers for paraph insertion never completed; this edition represents them as black paraph marks, on the assumption that their function as such would have been understood by both the scribe who wrote them and contemporary readers who encountered them.

The scribe sometimes writes what we understand now to be compounds as two distinct words, in which case the transcription displays a shadow hyphen between the words, indicating the link between them: for example, al-so for also. Likewise, he sometimes writes what we understand to be two distinct words as one, in which case the scribal version is tagged as "original" and the two-word editorial transcription is tagged as "regularized." The scribal form appears in green in the Scribal style sheet and in the Diplomatic style sheet in black or red, depending on the ink color in the original. The regularized form appears in the Critical style sheet, and both forms appear in AllTags.

Foreign language words are tagged with the relevant language, but words of foreign origin that are used in common Middle English parlance are not tagged. For instance, alleluia and pater noster are treated as English phrases.

Unambiguously erroneous scribal mistakes have been recorded with a "sic" tag followed by a corrected reading in a "corr" tag. The original reading appears in violet in the Scribal and AllTags style sheets, while the corrected reading appears in purple in AllTags and inside square brackets in the Critical style sheet.

On several occasions (for instance two examples on 13v), an annotating hand has marked a line with a set of three dots arranged in a triangle. Because these hederae are intended to draw attention to the line next to which they appear, they have been expanded as nota, with the abbreviation attribute within the tag ("abbr") being designated as "hedera."

III.2 Transcription of Corrections and Erasures:

In the case of erasures and overwriting within the text, the transcription represents the original reading in "del" tags wherever it is legible. When it is not legible, a single point represents a single illegible character. If the erasure is larger than that, illegible words are represented as "…?...". Erasures of more than a half-line are represented as "...?...?...".

Added text, tagged "add," is displayed in a dark gray in the Scribal and Alltags style sheets.

Where underlining has been done by the sixteenth-century antiquarian linguist, generally to mark something glossed in the margin, it is marked as "ul*" in the highlight tag. However, it does not display differently than scribal underlining in any current style sheet.

III.3 Treatment of Textual Variants:

Apparatus tags record instances where Vc has a unique reading or where the genetic pair Vc and Ac share a reading that is otherwise unique. In these instances, the tag gives the alternate readings present in the other manuscripts of the "P Ec Rc Mc Vc Ac" group. They are listed in this order except where Ac has a reading different from P Ec Rc Mc, in which case it, as a genetic pair with Vc, is listed first. These variants are drawn from the RK Athlone edition in the absence of a fully reconstructed C-archetype.

Obvious mistakes (like Vc.5.23/RK.4.23), marked with "sic" tags, or phrases Vc represents as one word (like Vc.5.11/RK.4.11), marked with "original/regularized" tags, are not recorded in the apparatus tags. Likewise, no apparatus tags are applied to dittography or other errors that have been corrected except where another manuscript shares the error (as Vc.6.44/RK.5.43α, Vc.7.6/RK.6.6). Nor were apparatus tags used where text was damaged by staining (Vc.7.346 ff./RK.6.339 ff.). Apparatus tags were not applied to words altered by a non-scribal hand (as in Vc.13.250/RK.12.231) unless there was disagreement among the "P Ec Rc Mc Vc Ac" group about the reading (as in Vc.13.240/RK.12.221).

III.4 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 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. The Middle English text’s anglicana formata is represented in roman letters. Expanded abbreviations and suspensions appear in italics. Color in this style sheet serves two functions: red indicates the color of ink used by the scribe, while any other colors 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 the text hand, 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 C text (RK) for the convenience of readers. Eccentric word divisions are silently regularized in this style sheet. That is, attese appears as ate ese. 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.

III.5 Presentation of the Text: Editorial Annotations:

The editors use four kinds of annotation: codicological, lexical, paleographic and textual.

Codicological notes point to physical features of the manuscript and written signs not represented visually in XML such as brackets, drawings, etc. Codicological notes are marked by a red superscripted <C>.

Paleographic notes point out handwriting and letter forms, in particular ambiguous abbreviations, tildes, and other features. Paleographic notes are marked by a red superscripted <P>.

Lexical notes gloss unusual, ambiguous, or difficult words or comment on items of linguistic interest. Lexical notes are marked by a red superscripted <L>.

Textual notes mark points in which Vc’s readings are notably different from those of other manuscripts, or where it is missing text found in other witnesses. These notes are by no means comprehensive and do not constitute a formal critical apparatus. Such systematic work awaits the availability of data from other PPEA editions of C-text manuscripts. Textual notes are marked with an icon of a superscripted red <T>.

IV. Linguistic Description:

The language of Vc is recorded as LP 7190 by LALME, 3.147-8, mapped as grid 369 230.

IV.1 Phonology:

IV.1.1. OE, ON /a/ before a nasal: <a> ~ <o> ~ <v> ~ <e> can (78x) ~ con (3x); man (226x) ~ mon (49x) ~ mannes (24x) ~ monnes 17.107; wan. The minority <o> forms of ‘can’ and ‘man’ are WMidl: see LALME ‘man’ 4.27-8, dot maps 94-5. The spellings of ‘answer’ n. and v. are vnswere 7.353, 21.337, onswerede 19.131; these are WMidl. barely extending as far south as Gl; see LALME ‘answer’ dot map 1115 (not recorded in LP). ‘From’ (OE fram, from) is from (14x) ~ fram (5x); the <o> spelling is general, the <a> spelling is southern, and predominant in Gl and south Hrf; see LALME ‘from’ 4.49-50, dot maps 174-5. ‘Many’ has spellings mony(e) (126x) ~ meny(e) (19x); the form meny(e), which the scribe uses as he is ‘working in’, on the first seven occasions (1.1-96), is southern, extending north to Hrf: see LALME ‘many’ 4.26-7, dot maps 90-2.

IV.1.2. OE, ON /a/ before lengthening consonant groups: <a> ~ <o> hand(es) (21x) ~ hond(es) (16x); lond(es) (58x) ~ land(e) (3x); lomb(e) (3x) ~ lamb 18.39 ~ pl. lombren 4.417 ~ lambren 10.265 ~ lambes 17.283; stand(e) (11x) ~ stonde (4x). The <o> spelling is southern. See Jordan, p. 52 and map p. 55, and cf. LALME ‘land’ 4.206. When lengthened in an open syllable the vowel is <a> rather than WMidl <o>: name, schame.

IV.1.3. OE, ON /y/: <u> ~ <y> ~ (<e>) bysy-; brugges 10.32 ~ brygge 8.226; bugge ‘to buy’; churche(s) (85x) ~ cherche (5x); fullen ‘to fill’; gult- (17x) ~ gylt- (2x); hulle; mury(e); murthe(s); kyn(ne) ~ kun(ne) (2x) ‘kin’; synne(s) (96x) ~ sunne 20.33 ~ sunfol 21.405. The <u> spellings are mainly WMidl and did not regularly survive before nasals. Cf. LALME ‘bridge’ 4.135, dot maps 965-6; ‘church’ 4.144-6, dot maps 385-6; ‘fill’ 4.168-9 and ‘hill’ 4.198, dot map 995; ‘sin’ 4.251-2.

IV.1.4. OE, ON /y/ before lengthening group: <u> ~ <y> munde (5x) ~ mynde (2x) ~ mnyde (16.325); kunde n. (18x) ~ kynde (89x) ~ kinde (3.27) (including mankynde); <u> spellings are southern, common in Gl, as far north as Hrf and Wor. See LALME ‘kind etc.’ 4.204-5; dot map 1042.

IV.1.5. OE, ON /y:/: <y> ~ <u> ~ <uy> fuyr(e) ‘fire’; fust ‘fist’; huyre; kythe; kuyn ‘cows’; litul (26x) ~ lytul (9x) ~ lutul (2x) ~ litel (2x) ~ luytulwhit 4.132; muys ‘mice’; pruyde (38x).The <u> ~ <uy> spellings are SWMidl; cf. LALME ‘fire’ 4.170-1; dot map 412.

IV.1.6. OE /eo/ before <l> + consonant: <e> self (76x) ~ selue (64x). There are no <u> spellings usual in Gl; cf. LALME ‘self’ 4.248-50; dot map 521, item map 2.337. The uninflected form self is commonly (8x) used at line-end; contrast the practice in Huntington Library MS Hm 143 (X) which always has –e(n).

IV.1.7. OE /eo/ before <r> + consonant: <e> ~ <eo> herte (40x) ~ heorte (7x); eorþe (6x); kerue 9.66; sterue (5x).

IV.1.8. Late OE /eo/ (< /io/) before velars: <e> ~ <u> ~ (<i>) ~ (<y>) mylke (2x); selk (3x); seluer (11x) ~ seluur (8x) ~ suluer (10x) ~ siluur 3.161. Forms of ‘since’ (OE sioþþan, seoþþan) are: (adv.) sithen (4x) ~ sythen (16x) ~ syþen 22.316 ~ sith(e) (8x) ~ sythe (6x) ~ syþe 8.136 ~ seth (2x) ~ seþe 14.180 ~ sethen 8.197; (conj.) sith(e) (9x) ~ sythe (8x) ~ syþe (2x) ~ syþthe 4.414 ~ syþen (2x) ~ suth(e) (2x) ~ suþe 10.115; (prep.) sith 1.82 ~ sythe 12.59 ~ sythen (2x) ~ seth 11.277. Cf. LALME ‘silver’ 4.251, dot maps 1065-7; ‘since’ 4.69-72, dot maps 237-41; spellings of ‘silver’ with <e> are predominantly SWMidl, with <u> are recorded at the Gl, Hrf, Wor border; those with <i> and <y> are general.

IV.1.9. OE /eo:/: <eo> ~ (<u>) by-fulle pa. t. ‘befel’ 1.7, 7.27 ~ by-feol 19.172 ~ feol pa.t. ‘fell’ (4x) ~ fulle 11.37, 19.128; freo (12x) ~ fre 11.49; creop; deop, deor, ‘dear’; seon ‘see’; þeof; treo. The spellings are generally western; see Jordan, map. p. 113.

IV.1.10. OE /hw/: <w> ~ <wh> ~ (<h>) The spellings <w> and <wh> are in free variation: wat ~ what; wen ~ wan ~ when ~ whan; wer ~ wher; wy ~ why; wil(e) ~ whil ~ whyle; wo ~ who ~ ho; whom (17.149) ~ wom (4.223) ~ wam (2x); wuch ~ whuch. Also reverse spellings: whiþ 7.119. Cf. LALME ‘wh-’ dot maps 274-5; ‘what’ 4.278-9; ‘when’ 4.101-4; ‘where’ 4.92-4; ‘which’ 4.19-23, dot maps 76-81; ‘while’ 4.74-8; ‘who’ 4.283, dot maps 1103-04; ‘whom’ 4.283-4, dot map 1106. The spelling w(h)uch is markedly SWMidl, in Gl, Hrf, Wor and Wrk. The forms of ‘whither’ are: wodur-out 8.190 ~ whodir 19.303 ~ hoderward 7.361 ~ houder 19.187. LALME lists only the first two forms in the LP. Cf. LALME 4.281-2, not recording houder, and listing hoder(e) from a NGloucs copy of South English Legendary (LP 6960).

IV.1.11. OE /hl/: <l> ~ (<lh>) ~ ((<ll>)) The spelling is usually <l>, as expected: loude 21.279; lepe 3.230; lene 11.115; lady, etc. But there are a few cases of <lh> and one of <ll>: lhepen 2.116 (OE hlēapan); a-lhoud 3.136 ~ lloude 19.36 (OE hlūd); lhene 9.270 (OE læne); lheuene 9.286 where other mss. have lene; lhikering 7.401 as a variant of lakeryng (OE hlacerung) ‘unseemly behaviour’, incorrectedly explained by MED s.v. lakeringe. Jordan, p. 179, says that ‘the h was silent generally already about 1000’; however there are examples in another text of Piers C, Digby MS 171 from south Hrf, which writes lhene, lheperes, lhawand, lhened; see Black, Studies, 1.129-30.

IV.1.12. Plural ‘these’ is spelt theos (25x) ~ þeos (11x) ~ these (8x) ~ thes (3x) ~ þese (2x) ~ þes (14x) ~ thus (8x) ~ þus (4x). Forms with <eo> and <u> are recorded in Gl and surrounding counties. Cf. LALME 4.3-6, dot maps 1-7.

IV.1.13. Forms of ‘each’: ech(e) ~ echone (4x) ~ vchone (2x). The <v> spelling is WMidl; cf. LALME 4.23-5.

IV.1.14. Forms of ‘though’: þauh (70x) þaugh 16.300 ~ thauh (7x) ~ þau (16.84) ~ thau (3x) ~ þaw (2x) ~ thaw (6x) ~ þei 2.129. The þei form is that expected in Gl.; the others are prevalent in Hrf, Wor, Wrk but no further south. Cf. LALME 4.55-9, dot maps 195, 201, 205.

IV.1.15. Spellings of ‘much’ n., adj. and adv. are the SWMidl. forms muche (63x) ~ muchel (8x). Cf. LALME 4.29-32, dot map 104.

IV.1.16. ‘Yet’ has forms ȝut (74x) ~ ȝit (3x) ~ ȝet 4.42; <u> is SW, as far north as Hrf and Wor; cf. LALME 4.73-4, dot maps 242-6.

IV.1.17. Present of verb ‘live’: Besides the usual lyu- is the form libb- (8x), recorded mainly in Gl. Cf. LALME 4.211-13, dot map 468.

IV.1.18. Forms of ‘neither’ adv., conj.: noþur (28x) ~ nothur (15x) ~ noþer (9x) ~ nother (4x) ~ neyþer (2x) ~ neyþur (2x) ~ neyþor 7.93; cf. LALME 4.220-4, dot maps 473-9. Forms of ‘either’ conj. are othur ~ oþur ~ oþer ~ owþur 3.52. Forms of ‘either’ pron. are aythur (5x) ~ ayþur (4x) ~ ayther (5x); cf. LALME 4.157-8.

IV.1.19. For the past tense of witen, ‘knew’, the forms are wust(e) (10x) ~ wist(e) (7x). The spelling with <u> is usual in Gl. Cf. LALME 4.286, dot map 585.

IV.1.20. ‘After’ is aftur (149x) ~ after (16x). Cf. LALME dot maps 50-2.

IV.1.21. ‘Hear’ is here except hureþ 20.224 ~ hure 21.277 ~ huyre 22.3, all near the end of the text. The <u> and <uy> spellings are found in Gl and surrounding counties. Cf. LALME 4.192-3, dot map 1016.

IV.2 Morphology:

IV.2.1. Nouns plural: -<(e)s> ~ -<us> ~ -<z> ~ -<(e)n>, and without ending The plural inflexion is usually -<(e)s>, occasionally -<z>: wondres 1.4; wones 1.18; Bydderes and beggeres 1.41; piligryms 1.47; ferlys 1.63; Elementz 2.17; handez 1.219; though -<us> is not uncommon: schrobbus 1.2; kokus 1.223. Ending in -<(e)n>: oxen 22.266; lambren 10.265; schon 6.18; eyen (20x). ‘Sisters’ and ‘brothers’ are sustren and breþeren 17.309, though susteres is at 7.139. Without ending are schep; (after a numeral or ‘many’) ȝer 5.83, 6.36; wyntur 4.40. Mutated plurals are breche, fete, teþ etc. The ending -<us> is WMidl.; cf. LALME ‘substantive plural’ 4.104-5, dot maps 639-42.

IV.2.2. Adjectives: Final -<e> The distinction between the weak (definite) and strong (indefinite) declension, singular and plural, is inconsistently maintained, with final -<e> sometimes added to strong adjectives of one syllable in the singular. Of 36 instances of uninflected gret, 21 are historically correct (as in 4.22, ‘of gret gold’), but 15 incorrect (as in both instances in 4.21, ‘of here gret godenesse and ȝaf hem gret ȝeftus’). Addition of -<e> is to some extent motivated, with 22 of 26 instances of grete defensible. The adj. long occurs 4x without ending, all correctly; longe is always the spelling of the adv. Without ending old occurs 6x, three of which historically would have -<e>, whereas all 18 instances of olde are historically motivated (olde men 10.180, Austyn þe olde 12.153).

IV.2.3. Personal Pronouns

• IV.2.3.1. Singular:
• IV.2.3.1.1. First Person: y ~ i ~ ich; me ~ my ~ myn(e). Cf. LALME ‘I’ 4.203-04.
• IV.2.3.1.2. Second Person: thow ~ thou ~ þow ~ þou; the ~ þe; thy ~ thi ~ þy ~ þi ~ þin ~ þyn.
• IV.2.3.1.3.Third Person:
• IV.2.3.1.3.1. Masculine: he; him ~ hym; his ~ hys.
• IV.2.3.1.3.2. Feminine: nominative: heo (74x) ~ he 4.218, 12.176, 21.121, 125, 181 ~ scheo (8x) ~ sheo (2x) ~ scho (20x) ~ she (corrected from he) 2.10. The forms with initial <h> are WMidl; scheo and sheo are Wor, Hrf, Sal spellings, extending south to the N.W. corner of Gl. See LALME ‘she’ 4.7-8, dot maps 10-19. Oblique cases: her(e) ~ heor(e) ~ hure (36x); cf. LALME ‘her’ 4.8-9, dot maps 22-3.
• IV.2.3.1.3.3. Neuter: hit; his 20.216.
• IV.2.3.2. Plural:
• IV.2.3.2.1. First Person: we ~ weo (22.364, 366) ~ wo 21.431; vs ~ ous; oure.
• IV.2.3.2.2. Second Person: ȝe ~ ȝeo (16x) ~ ȝee (11x); ȝow ~ ȝou (8x); ȝoure.
• IV.2.3.2.3. Third Person: nominative: ~ þei (230x) ~ þey (9x) ~ they (13x) ~ thei (62x) ~ hy 6.148, 12.226, 15.207, 17.94, 21.88; cf. LALME ‘they’ 4.10-12, dot maps 30 and 36. Acc. and dat.: hem; gen. her(e) ~ heore; cf. LALME ‘them’ 4.12-14, ‘their’ 4.14-17, dot map 59.

IV.2.4.The pronoun ‘who’ (including ‘whoso’) has these forms: nominative: ho (55x) ~ who (8x) ~ wo (10x); accusative and dative: wham (6x) ~ wam 2.45, 187 ~ whom 17.149 ~ wom 4.223; genitive: was 3.17. Cf. LALME 4.283-4, dot maps 1103-9.

IV.2.5. Verbs

• IV.2.5.1. Infinitive: -<e> ~ -<en> ~ -<on> ~ -<i(en)> ~ -<y(en)> Endings derived from OE -<ian> verbs are sometimes preserved: louy 2.147; erien 9.2; wonye 22.201.
• IV.2.5.2. Present participle: -<yng(e)> ~ -<ing(e)> a-bydynge 22.299; sittyng 8.107; slepinge 1.13; wendynge 21.133; (louende 6.8 is error for louede).
• IV.2.5.3. Present 3rd singular: -<(e)þ> ~ -<(e)th> ~ -< uþ> ~ -< oþ> ~ (-< oth>) ~ (-< iþ>) askeþ 1.21; beruþ 17.100; goþ 7.368 ~ gothe 17.75; grypoþ 4.89; loketh 3.214; preyoþ 3.75 semeþ 1. 34; þynkiþ 20.268; wanyeþ 11.42. Syncopated forms are: fynt 5.126; halt 7.427; smyt 14.252, stant 21.43. The endings -< uþ> -< oþ> are predominantly Hrf and Wor; see online LALME item 61-40.
• IV.2.5.4. Present plural: -<en> ~ -<on> ~ -<eþ> ~ -<uþ> ~ (<oþ>) The ending -<en> predominates. For example maken (7x) ~ makeþ 4.197; holden (4x) ~ holduþ 1.30; parton 1.79 ~ parten 9.145 ~ partoþ 12.68 ~ parteþ 16.122. The -<eþ> -<uþ> -<oþ> endings are southern, the -<en> endings Midl. LALME does not record southern forms for this item. Black, Studies, p. 346 writes that -<en> is ‘unlikely to have been part of the general usage of Herefordshire, except perhaps in the far north’, although there are examples in the text of Piers C, Digby MS 171 from south Hrf.
• IV.2.5.5. Imperative plural: -<eþ> ~ -<e> ~ -<0> Examples are gyueþ 20.256; hold 6.198.The form with -<e> is used before a subject pronoun: loke thow 2.151; dyuine ȝe 1.214.
• IV.2.5.6. Weak past participles: -<ed(e)> ~ -<t> (with or without <y>- prefix). The <y>- prefix is quite regularly preserved, so the forms of ‘made’ are mad (5x) ~ made (4x) ~ maked (4x) ~ maket (1x) ~ y-mad (1x) ~ y-made (2x) ~ y-maked (1x).
• IV.2.5.7. Strong past participle: bake; come; y-dronke ~ dronke; founde ~ y-founde; gete; gyue(n); tauht(e); take ~ y-take.
• IV.2.5.8. Present forms of ‘be’: infin. be(n) ~ beo(n); pr. 1 sg. am ~ ham 5.64; 2 sg. art (15x) ~ ert (9x); 3 sg. is ~ beo; pl. ar (17x) ~ are (5x) ~ aren (45x) ~ aron 2.21, 6.58; beoþ (59x) ~ beþ 4.371 ~ beon (74x) ~ ben (5x) ~ beo (26x, not recorded in LP). Cf. LALME 4.32-4, 36. The distribution of form of ‘are’ is significant; see dot maps 118-129: beon and beo (map 127) are limited to a small area of Gl, Hrf and Wor.
• IV.2.5.9. Present forms of ‘say’: Apart from sey(en) ~ seie ~ say, are segge(n) (11x) and sugge(n) (5x). Both forms are SWMidl, the last restricted to north Gl and contiguous counties to the north. For its distribution see LALME 2.324-5, 4.241-2; dot maps 506, 508.
• IV.2.5.10. Past forms of ‘see’: pa.t.sg. seyh (14x) ~ seih (8x) ~ sey (3x) ~ seye 4.330 ~ sauh (11x) ~ saih 1.5 ~ sayh 21.119 ~ sawe (3.58, 4.130); pl. sauh 3.71 ~ seih (13.144, 20.49) ~ seyhen 15.80 ~ seyen 18.316, 19.50; pp. seye 1.176 ~ seyen 12.247 ~ y-seyen 19.248 ~ seyon 4.104. The predominant pa.t. spellings, sauh, seih, seyh, are characteristic of Hrf and Wor rather than Gl. Forms characteristic of Gl, sai, say, sei, sey, do not appear. Cf. LALME 2.330-1, 4.245-8, dot maps 510-16.

IV.3 Dialect:

The language of Vc is south-west Midlands. It is mapped by LALME as grid 369 230, the extreme north-west of Gloucestershire, near the border where Worcestershire, Herefordshire and Gloucestershire meet.

Phonological evidence for the south-west Midlands is abundant, including the <o> forms of ‘can’ and ‘man’ (IV.1.1), and ‘land’ and ‘hand’ (IV.1.2).The southern half of this area is indicated by <uy> spellings for ‘fire’ and ‘hire’ (IV.1.5). LALME’s more precise localization can more easily be followed by using the online LALME to isolate particular items on the interactive maps. For example, selecting the WMidl form mon for ‘man’ side by side with the southern spelling meny for ‘many’ (IV.1.1) shows overlap in Gl and Hrf. The <u> spellings for ‘mind’, ‘kind’ (IV.1.4) are southern, common in Gl, as far north as Hrf and Wor; while spellings of ‘silver’ with <u> are recorded at the Gl, Hrf, Wor border (IV.1.8). The spelling wust(e) (IV.1.19) is mainly restricted to Gl, as is the form libb- for ‘live’ (IV.1.17). Other forms that indicate Gl and contiguous counties to the north are w(h)uch (IV.1.10), ‘these’ with <eo> and <u> (IV.1.12), and s(c)heo (IV.2.3.1.3.2).

It is, however, apparent that Vc is the most southerly recorded point for several items, which are not the usual Gl spellings at all. The forms of ‘though’ with <au>, þauh, thauh, þau, thau as well as þaw (IV.1.14) are prevalent in Hrf, Wor, Wrk but no further south; the expected Gl form þei only occurs once. The scribe’s forms of ‘are’ (IV.2.5.8) have different distributions, with aren a Midl. form recorded as far south as Hrf and Wor, beoþ mainly in Hrf, Wor and Gl, but beon restricted to a small area of Hrf, Wor and Sal, and beo mapped once in Hrf. The spellings of ‘answer’ with <v>- and <o>- are WMidl, barely extending as far south as Gl (IV.1.8). It may be that the LALME placing is a little too far south, and that south Hrf would better suit the spellings. On the other hand, it is possible that the scribe was copying a more northerly text; he seems initially to have imposed his own form meny before accepting the form mony of his exemplar (IV.1.1).

IV.4 Linguistic Description Bibliography:

Black, Merja Riita, Studies in the Dialect Materials of Medieval Herefordshire, Unpublished diss. Ph.D., University of Glasgow, 2 vols, 1997, 1.129-30.

Hanna, Ralph. "Studies in the Manuscripts of Piers Plowman." Yearbook of Langland Studies 7 (1993): 1-25.

Horobin, Simon. "‘In London and Opelond’: The Dialect and Circulation of the C Version of Piers Plowman." Medium Aevum 74 (2005): 248-69.

Samuels, M. L. "Langland's Dialect." Medium Aevum 54 (1985): 232-47. 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.

McIntosh, Angus, M. L. Samuels and Michael Benskin, with the assistance of Margaret Laing and Keith Williamson, eds. A Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval English. 4 volumes. Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1986.

M. Benskin, M. Laing, V. Karaiskos and K. Williamson. An Electronic Version of A Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval English http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/ihd/eLALME/eLALME.html.

Jordan, Richard. Handbook of Middle English Grammar: Phonology, trans. and revised Eugene J. Crook. The Hague and Paris: Mouton, 1974.

The above Linguistic Description was written by Thorlac Turville-Petre.

V. List of Manuscript Sigils:

The Piers Plowman Electronic Archive uses a set of sigils that departs in some respects from the sigils used since Skeat's editions. The traditional set uses identical sigils to represent different manuscripts and different sigils to identify single manuscripts. For example, British Library Additional 10574 has no sigil at all for the A text, is B’s Bm, and C’s L. To avoid such confusion, the archive represents each manuscript with a unique sigil.

V.1 A Manuscripts:

V.2 B Manuscripts:

V.3 C Manuscripts:

V.4 AB Splice:

V.5 AC Splices:

V.6 ABC Splices:

VI. Bibliography:

VI.1 Editions:

Piers Plowman Vc: None.

Transcription of the annals on 89v:

Pates, Stella. "Piers Plowman Manuscript Trinity College: Dublin 212—The Annals Revisited." Notes and Queries (Sept. 2009): 336-40.

Facsimile of authorship note on 89v:

Kane, George. Piers Plowman: The Evidence for Authorship. Athlone Press: London, 1965. 26-33.

Transcription of the Prose Lancelot fragment on 90r-v:

Scattergood, John. "An Unrecorded Fragment of the Prose Lancelot in Trinity College Dublin, MS 212." Medium Aevum 53 (1984): 301-6.

VI.2 Studies:

Adams, Robert. Langland and the Rokele Family: the Gentry Background to Piers Plowman. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2013.

Cargill, Oscar. "The Langland Myth." PMLA, 50.1 (1935): 36-56.

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

Hanna III, Ralph. Authors of The Middle Ages, 3: William Langland. Aldershot: Variorum, 1993.

Kane, George. Piers Plowman: The Evidence for Authorship. Athlone Press: London, 1965. 26-33.

Pates, Stella. "Piers Plowman Manuscript Trinity College: Dublin 212—The Annals Revisited." Notes and Queries (Sept. 2009): 336-40.

Russell, George, and George Kane, eds. 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 and Berkeley: Athlone Press and University of California Press, 1997. p. 14. (Referred to as RK throughout this edition.)

Scattergood, V. John. "An Unrecorded Fragment of the Prose Lancelot in Trinity College Dublin, MS 212." Medium Aevum 53 (1984): 301-6.

----. Manuscripts and Ghosts: Essays on the Transmission of Medieval and Early Renaissance Literature. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2006.

----. "Proverbial Verses in Trinity College Dublin Manuscript 212." Notes and Queries (Nov. 1983): 489-90.

St. John Brooks, E. "The Piers Plowman Manuscripts in Trinity College Dublin." The Library, 5th series, 6 (1951): 141-53.