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The PPEA here presents its first edition of a C version manuscript, Hm 143 (X), as part of our continued project to provide detailed documentary editions of every manuscript witness to a poem that is, from the perspective of both literary critics and textual scholars, among the most demanding and most rewarding works of medieval literature. The editing and publication of several B-text manuscripts has already led to the creation and publication of the B archetype (Bx)B manuscripts. This is a major step in working toward a better understanding of the poet's lost original B version of the poem. As we know, we will never discover with absolute certainty, by recension, the "original" poem, nor are we likely to find a holograph or autograph manuscript bearing the mark of Langland's own hand—should we indeed be able to discover that a given hand was Langland's. Even if we did with certainty discover such a treasure, it would itself likely be full of errors, like all written artifacts, whether produced by hand or by machine. Nonetheless, however varied are scholars' concepts of what actually constitutes the poem, the Archive is bound to uncover ever more mysteries in the transmission of the
However, the work here is not designed merely for facilitating that long-term, ongoing process. Rather, this documentary edition of Hm 143 (X), published in an archive in which the data are available all the way down to the source code, has many immediate uses. Scholarship on the poem can flourish without waiting for the establishment of Cx, as the phenomena recorded in each documentary edition lend themselves immediately to study. There is no need here to explain how changes in medieval scholarship over the last forty years have foregrounded the manuscript as a physical object and have transformed the changes wrought upon the text by scribes from so much cluttering rubbish into the precious artifacts of textual archeology. Medieval textual scholars now sift through manuscript evidence in the hope of revealing a verse, a word, a gloss, or even a single stroke that will develop our understanding of the history of a text, potentially revise previously established readings, or shed light on scribal working methods. Will a whole new
The reading community of
The details of the processes of transmission reveal a nearly endless set of detective mysteries that challenge us linguistically, paleographically, aesthetically, and historically. One only need open the three major modern editions of the C-text in order to witness disagreement about what the text should read. Reading the editors' textual apparatus—and also the sometimes daunting textual analyses that accompany them—reveals the degree of rigorous inquiry and discernment, not infrequently accompanied by ingenuity and sometimes sheer force of will that has gone into forging a particular verse in a modern edition. Gathering all the manuscript readings into a comparative archive will enable comprehensive access to all the manuscript information, inviting ongoing collational analysis of the witnesses, serving whatever purpose scholars, readers, and editors may generate. We want to emphasize as well the pedagogical value of this edition, and of the Archive as a whole. Because this work is freely available to the public, it can serve as a powerful tool in any classroom, bringing the complex world of textual archaeology directly to students who would not otherwise have access to these manuscripts in libraries around the world. We hope that teachers will embrace this democratizing power of the Archive.
The evidence offered in each manuscript, especially a heavily corrected and annotated manuscript like X, is not only of interest as data to be mined or munged in order to forge new critical editions. Rather, the manuscript is an event in itself that reveals hitherto unexamined but nonetheless very real human histories. These human histories, in turn, are the surviving evidence of the world in which
A few salient features of Hm 143 and its hands should, nevertheless, be noted here. One extraordinary aspect of the manuscript is its program of annotations. Many
Although invisible to the general reading public and to the many scholars who lack access to the manuscripts themselves or to documentary editions, these glosses have not, in fact, gone unnoticed. Working from Hm 143 and British Library MS Additional 35157 (Uc), Carl Grindley (2001) has wrought a system of categories of the various functions that the annotations serve in these two texts.
Wood's work and that of the other scholars engaging with Hm 143 underlines the need for access to the manuscript text with its images and annotations. Without such access, it is impossible to engage fully with these annotations solely in scattered journal articles, in theses, and in dissertations. Even full transcriptions of marginalia in printed books such as Benson and Blanchfield's catalogue, however superior as a resource to the complete suppression of glosses in standard editions, unfortunately remove the glosses from their dynamic manuscript contexts. This documentary edition brings high quality color images of manuscripts together with editorial notes, and a rigorously marked up digital transcription of the text and marginal commentary. Short of examining the artifact itself, this digital model permits as close an engagement as possible with this particular manifestation of the poem, and thus with this particular event in medieval literary history. Readers can here engage with the poem in this unique scribal performance and can make their own analyses of the function of the marginalia.
In addition to this type of engagement with the glosses, which are on the margins of the text, readers can also examine here all the corrections to the poem itself, which, despite any edition's critical apparatus, are never comprehensively legible to modern readers. Editing one manuscript at a time in documentary editions provides a degree of detail simply impossible to express when editing the poem as a whole from the manuscripts deemed useful for establishing the archetype. The Archive's work as a whole also responds to the realities of scholarship in a digital age in this regard. Literature is simply not studied any more—or not exclusively studied—abstracted from the historical and material circumstances in which it was produced. Students of cultural studies, political history, labor, and religious reform can exploit productively all of the data found in each of the documentary editions.2, a discarded false start that may be an example of the work of an aging scribe.
We sense that scholarly engagement with the C-text of
Hm 143 has been described before in the Huntington Catalogue by Dutschke (1989) and by all the C-text editors,
Hm 143 (X) of the C text of
". . . when a critical edition of theWe take great pleasure that our edition responds to Chambers' observation that "ifC-textis made, the manuscript which should be used as the base should not be, as it has hitherto been,HM 137, but ratherHM 143.Additional 35157comes very near in value toHM 143, but its erratic spellings would make it a bad manuscript upon which to base a text. The worst fault ofHM 143is its habit of omitting words, and these can be supplied from other manuscripts.
It would appear that, from the point of view of the construction of a critical text,HM 143is the most important of the Huntington Library manuscripts ofPiers Plowman , and that it is, indeed, the most important manuscript of the C-text.R. W. Chambers et al., "The Manuscripts of Piers Plowman in the Huntington Library and their Value for Fixing the Text of the Poem,"The Huntington Library Bulletin 8 (1935): p. 24. https://doi.org/10.2307/3818102.
Even beyond its importance to questions strictly of genetic affiliation among
The dialect of the manuscript has been deemed by M. L. Samuels to be among the closest to that of the poet, a primary reason for its being selected as copytext by recensionist editors. Samuels argues for this identification on three primary grounds: 1 Langland's alliterative practice provides very strong evidence that his dialect was that of south-west Worcestershire, which is then found to tally with the Malvern area of internal evidence.
Simon Horobin (2005) further refines observations on the dialect seen in Hm 143 by reminding us that Langland would appear to have been resident in London during the composition, early copying, and dissemination of the C text, which left many traces of the language of London in the
2 The C-MSS X, I and Y are, in basis, in south-west Worcester dialect, and the evidence of 1 above at least suggests that that basis is authorial. But the deciding factor is the close correspondence between it and the relict stratum in the B-MSS
3 The reconstruction of Langland's dialect could probably be best achieved by adopting X as the basis and modifying it in a conservative direction.i-group manscripts.
For those whose focus is scribal activity, Hm 143 bears witness to over a thousand instances of deletion, addition, and other forms of scribal correction or intervention, and its extensive program of marginal glosses serves as a record of reader response, witnessing the poem's reception close to the time of composition. Hm 143 (X), then, is of great importance as a site for the archeology of the text.
Thus, unlike many
In relation to the work of correction and thus relevant to our concerns in this edition are Russell's assertions that the initial scribe of X, "had a supervisor who reviewed his work and left evidence of his activity," as part of a "careful and responsible supervised process of copying," accomplished by a corrector who brought "accuracy [to the] text and suppl[ied] its deficiencies," while "verifying his completed handiwork with his mark which appears, usually, as cor, on many of the leaves."
Aware of the abiding interest in this manuscript, and ourselves fascinated by the critical attention it has received already, we offer here a rigorously encoded documentary edition of Hm 143 (X), the base manuscript of all modern editions of the C-text, a manuscript copied in a dialect closest to that of the poet. We can only hope that Hm 143, here manifested, will facilitate further study of medieval English textual history and of the mysterious poem that it has, in defying time and fortune, successfully (if imperfectly) transmitted.
"England, saec. xiv( ex)," as dated by Dutschke (1989). RK indicate late fourteenth or early fifteenth century; Schmidt (2011) dates it "c. 1400" and says its "handwriting places it among the half-dozen oldest copies of C."
See I.6 Marginalia below for the names of early potential owners. According to Dutschke's description, the modern history of the manuscript can be traced "to the Sotheby family by the late seventeenth century."
Written on parchment. Four leaves, not foliated (i modern paper and iii contemporary parchment) + 108 +1 (early modern paper). The manuscript has been trimmed, as is evident from the cropped appearance of the decorative flourish above the ornamented capital on folio
Dutschke (1989): "Bound, s. XVIII, in tan calf by Thomas Elliott, blind tooled in a panel pattern with a carnation at each corner of the panel."
RK provide the following collational formula: i+one+1
8 (lacks 1,3,4,5,6,8) 2-148154+one+i
Quires, folios, and divisions of the text correspond as follows:
Ff. ii recto-iii verso: The first text in the manuscript is an excerpt from Chaucer's
For the
Quires and the Corresponding Sections of the Poem:
The text of
Dutschke (1989) measures the folios of the
We identify the main scribal hand of
Hand 2's corrections are more complex, because he sometimes appears to be repairing the text according to an exemplar superior to that employed by Hand 1; that is, he frequently replaces a unique or minority reading with a majority one. Whether the result may be considered archetypal is a matter to be established when all C manuscripts have been documented. In most cases of correction in X, either Hand 1 erred in copying his text—and thus Hand 2 restored the exemplar's reading—or Hand 2 had a superior text against which to check it. At other times, however, Hand 2 appears to be freelancing. In these cases, he has "repaired" a unique or minority reading with another error, sometimes with a unique reading. In yet other cases he has replaced a majority reading with a minority or a unique error. This extraordinary range of correction—some of which cannot really be called correction at all—indicates either multiple exemplars of varying quality or the inconsistent availability of one or more superior exemplars.
When no hand has intervened to correct a patently unintentional error, we mark up the text with TEI-conformant <sic><corr> encoding.
Scholars have noticed a decline in the rate of correction, which may relate, as Grindley (1992) proposes, to the evolving skill of Hand 1 as a copyist.
Grindley (1992) distinguishes Hands 1 and 2 (his Scribes A and B) thus: Scribe B's hand differs considerably from scribe A's, and can best be described as a documentary hand with some book hand features. In particular, scribe B used an angular 'w' with a left-leaning elongated central loop, while scribe A used a much less spacious character, quite rounded, and which leans to the right. Additionally, there are major differences between the letters 'h,' 'k,' 's,' and 'ȝ.' On the basis of these, and other, letter forms, and ink colour, it is easy to identify scribe B as being responsible for the manuscript's generous supply of annotations.
Many of the corrections in the manuscript, mostly useful bits of local repair, constitute one letter or even one stroke. In these cases, it is difficult to attribute them, based on ink or letter forms, confidently to either hand, which is disappointing because they therefore cannot contribute to the textual profile of the scribes and clarify the layers of text. Hence, we have to attribute these corrections to the noncommittal Hand X. This frustrates us, of course, because the fewer hands one has to posit the better, and we have tried to use Hand X as sparingly as possible. In some cases when Hand 2 has written annotations and has corrected the text on a particular folio, it seems logical via Ockham's razor to associate even a small helpful tick to him, so we suspect that some of our Hand X attributions could have been Hand 2 and vice-versa.
The rubricator is a potential third Hand who wrote both the brown and red ink running headers.punctus elevatus in red at the caesura, and an obelus in the right margin on folio versus.verso ("From Creation to Desecration," p. 8).
We also detect three annotations that appear to be in a completely different hand from Hands 1 and 2, and distinct as well, if he is himself distinct, from the rubricator: Folios // p(ro)ph(ec)ia petri; // p(ro)ph(ec)ia petri; and // prophecia. Grindley (2001) does not distinguish them from the rest of the annotations and thus considers them to be part of the program of commentary by Hand 2. We discuss these three annotations, all concerning prophecy, below in section I.6: Marginalia. Wood (2022), describes the three instances as "the work . . . . of a subsequent reader who, finding no explicit notice of the poem's prophecies (and possibly having access to a manuscript of the p group), supplied his own."p branch of the C-text tradition witnesses such markings concerning the poem's prophecies. And we thank Wood for first alerting us to the fact that these three annotations are in a different hand from the program of annotations by Hand 2.
In this edition we examine each correction individually and reveal some of its micro-history, as well as it can be discerned and marked up. Russell (1989) has praised Hm 143 as a professional work because of the apparent great care that went into its creation.
This situation sensitizes us to the erratic nature of Hand 2's work, and points to the inability of modern printed editions to express adequately the layers of correction that remain apparent only in the manuscript itself. It also reveals the complexity of determining "what X is," so to speak, for if the original X reading appears as an emendation of the inferior X correction, then a form of editorial chaos ensues. In the work of editing it is fundamentally important to say what any given manuscript reads. Our policy throughout, for clarity of presentation, has been to take the reading of Hand 1 to be the X reading in relation to other witnesses, whenever it is recoverable or apparent, before it was acted upon (converted, erased, corrected) by other hands. In instances where the reading of Hand 1 has been completely obliterated, and Hand 2 or Hand X has supplied a new reading, we inevitably have had to accept that reading as the reading of X.
Capturing all the information for every line in every manuscript, in anything resembling a convenient or accessible fashion, is surely beyond the purview of an editor who wants to produce a finished poem to be read, and it is, additionally, beyond the confining strictures of the printed page. By contrast, this level of specificity is the exact purview of the Archive, as well as the exact function of electronic editing.
Nevertheless, our edition is sufficiently guilty of its own limitations. For example, sometimes the C manuscripts in relation to X, our textual markup—encoded within <app> elements that appear under our stylesheets as highlighted words—are based on RK's textual apparatus. Hence, we rely on them to have determined the readings of all other C manuscripts and to have accounted for those readings that were obtained by correction. But what of those readings not obtained by but rather lost to correction, as in X? The Archive of course here suffers from its own absence, its own current incompletion. That is, to execute a textual note, one needs all the comparative textual data, including the nature of what is gained and lost in correction, from all the other manuscripts. Since X is the first of the C-text manuscripts edited, it can record data, but it has none of its own data beyond X with which to work, as it lacks all the encoded data from all the other, as yet unedited C-text manuscripts. The near Borgesian complexities—if not absurdities—we intimate here, as we start to build a new
As we note locally within the text, corrector's marks, presumably by Hand 2, sometimes appear at quire ends. Many quire ends, however, are not so marked, and in addition, such marks can appear almost anywhere within quires, possibly demarcating the end of a particular stint of the correction that was neither invoked by nor limited to quire boundaries. This adds to the probability that more than one exemplar was in play and that the copying was not being done in conformity to the layout of any one exemplar, by a strict one-to-one casting off of lines. We list all the marks here (an * indicates an instance not listed by RK in their descriptionlegitur),
The scribes use two marks of punctuation: the paraph, and the mid-line virgule. In rare instances—some of them in the course of correction—a punctus and also the punctus elevatus appear. Occasionally, a second virgule appears within the half-line in some cases to indicate apposition in what seems like a practice analogous to modern systems of punctuation. We comment on these features as they occur within the text, in notes. Most lines contain the virgule at the caesura, but dozens of virgules were omitted and some may perhaps have faded into illegibility as well. On occasion, confusion over placement of a virgule, or multiple virgules in the same line, is related to a larger textual problem or a unique non-metrical verse that must have stumped the scribe.
Parasigns appear in the left margin in red or blue, to mark both verse paragraphs and, occasionally, changes of speaker in dialogues, but by no means are all moments of dramatic transition so marked. Placement of paraph markers varies across Piers Plowman manuscripts, is by no means regular or standard, and is of uncertain authority. Hence, they cannot be attributed fully either to the poet or to the scribes. They are universally excluded from modern editions of the poem, though according to Benson and Blanchfield (1997), both Schmidt (1995) and Pearsall (1978) considered the parasigns when devising the paragraph divisions in their editions.nota, reminding us again that different forms of annotation may have a similar effect."
Locations for additional intended parasigns are marked in the margins with an uncolored double slash <//>. Such slashes in ink are still visible under the actual, colored parasigns, so the uncolored <//> marker may indicate either those missed by the rubricator or those added to supplement the existing system of paraphs. Such omissions by rubricators are common in vernacular manuscripts. See folio
We also see some further form of textual division manifested by <cc> marks throughout the text, another practice that closely parallels that found in B manuscripts such as W, L, M, and Hm, and quite prevalent in Ht as well, the latter currently being prepared for publication.capitulo, indicating a means of division by dramatic sequence or "chapter." It must indicate a supplementary system of punctuation added to points in the narrative that seemed to need additional paraph breaks.
Hanna remarks to us that the marginal <//> and <cc> markers both "are trying to mark transitions or argumentative shifts."
Paraphs, either colored or indicated by a <//>, and the <cc> markers as well, which we transcribe as black paraphs, can have a function akin to that of proper annotations in marking events and transitions in the text. Nevertheless, it is also important to distinguish them from the nota, especially in this manuscript where the latter are a distinct part of a particular system of annotation and commentary by Hand 2.nota and the <cc>, generated by any hand, have the similar function of drawing a reader's attention to an event, character, or significant moment in the poem. Ultimately, readers should attend closely to the completed paraphs, to the uncolored <//>, and also to the <cc> marks, to determine their local functions.
In addition to the Sotheby marginal notes and signatures, there are other bits of marginalia unrelated to the text's production. On folio i recto: in modern pencil is the number <15>. On folio i verso: two signatures of John Russell with what Dutschke (1989) calls a "monogram flourish," which RK date to the sixteenth or early seventeenth century.
On folio 107r: an illegible word perhaps ending in <g> by an unknown hand at the top line, center. On folio 107v: The name John Russ appears—likely the John Russell of folio i verso. In the same hand as the Russell signature, the Latin phrase In utra(que) fortuna, fidelis, presumably a family motto, not noticed in previous descriptions. Also on 107v, in an early fifteenth-century(?) hand, the verses, ihesu ihesu ihesu for thyn holy name to be me ihesus. Above that, an apparent attempt at the opening of the poem: In a.
On 108r, in what RK call an early sixteenth-century hand and Dutschke (1989) calls fifteenth- to sixteenth-century, we see the name Dan Jhon redbery, below which is the fragment designated X2 by Grindley (1997), discussed below at I.9. Also some illegible scribbles below and at mid-page, to the right.
Hm 143 has a full set of marginal annotations by Hand 2, which serve as a running commentary on the poem, alerting readers to topics, naming characters, remarking on moments of anticlerical satire, narrating events and identifying speakers—among a host of other functions. The glosses are usually underlined and marked with a single or a double slash. Grindley (1992 & 1997), and Kerby-Fulton (1999) have written important studies of the annotations.
When were the annotations composed? In an attempt to establish the sequence of labor on the manuscript, Grindley (1992) points to the annotation written over the flourish of the initial capital in quire 6, folio
Many factors are at hand. First, the annotator is also a corrector of the text, so his work of annotation may be part of the intended teamwork of the professional scribes who were charged with producing the text. We currently know nothing, however, about the actual historical circumstances that produced the text. It is traditionally seen as a West Midlands manuscript because of its dialect, but Simon Horobin (2005a) has shown that London scribes were perfectly capable of using SWM forms, either because it was their native dialect or as a willful act of preserving (or restoring) what was perceived to be the poet's own dialect.
Since we conclude that the annotations preceded the decoration of the initial capitals, their addition also cannot in any sense be said to post-date the production of the manuscript, unless the decoration was postponed and occurred later, something for which there is no evidence. Also, the fact that on tithes, was corrected to titles, suggests but does not assure that the annotations may have had a source, against which Hand 2 checked his work, invoking the correction. If he were checking himself against another text, it would mean that the glosses come from another, lost or undiscovered, manuscript. Alternately, he could simply have been correcting his own slip of the pen, after having confused similar words. At this point in the text, Rechelesnesse is clearly discussing not tithes, but rather titles, as at
Scholars have been offering much insightful and provocative analysis of these annotations that is of critical importance to readers of our edition. Kerby-Fulton (1999) sees them as displaying political caution, in contrast to the annotations in Bodleian Library MS Douce 104 (Dc), which she sees as bolder and more engaged with "practical and social theology . . . along with social injustices, political issues, and ecclesiastical affairs."
Bowers (2005) argues for the annotations being "an integral part of the original text-producing project,"was the patron" of the volume, which might indicate the book's production for personal use.was the patron of Hm 143 accounts for its dual nature as a handsome professional product but also a very personalized volume," ("Langland's
Carl Grindley (2001) has made the most elaborate attempt to describe the function of the glosses by designating a number of categories for them: Narrative Reading Aids, Ethical Pointers, Polemical Responses, and Graphical Responses, all of which are then subdivided elaborately. We do not always agree with Grindley's precise categorizations, but they point provocatively to the myriad functions that the annotations might serve as reading aids and commentary on both the content of the poem and on the reader's invited participation in the interpretive process.
Our work in correcting the transcriptions offered by Grindley and also by Matsushita, already has changed our understanding of many of the glosses and more particularly alters some of the categories offered by Grindley. For example, Grindley classifies two notes on folios war, as "Literary Response: Reader Participation,"
We isolate here in the right column the corrections we have made to Grindley's transcriptions, which appear on the left. These include instances where he confused <cc> for nota, citing the line in the poem most proximate to the gloss in question.
At Satan appears in a gloss next to the <cc> mark, and Grindley (2001) takes it as a unified phrase, nota Satan.ordinatio, which was placed near the name Satan, or vice-versa. The two glosses—the <cc> and the word Satan—draw attention to the devil's arrival and speech. (See our codicological note at cc / p(ro)phecia Petri; in this instance, <cc> cannot indicate a new paragraph or plot transition but rather serves to frame the marginal annotation.
Accordingly, these new transcriptions allow us to update Kerby-Fulton's assessment of the annotator (her H, our Hand 2), which she in part bases on the fact that he "shows some awareness of medieval literary theory on the subject of poetic imagery" in his having written the gloss notate imagine at notate omnes, which still draws attention to the verses but does not directly reference imagery? Grindley (2001) reads notate image, taking the second word as English; Matsushita (2010) reads notate image as well.tithes and at tak, but we have not done a complete collation of Matsushita's transcriptions against ours. Our transcription is notate omnes with no reference to a term, in English or in Latin, for imagery per se, though clearly the "image" appears to have caught the interest of the annotator.
Wood's analysis of the running commentary (2017) considers prior scholarship and provides the important revelation that though the scribe's annotations are derived from a previous program, they nonetheless display creative imagination and adaptation. Wood identifies the local, topical energy that seems to motivate individual comments, since: In some cases it is unclear whether the annotator addresses the reader of the manuscript or takes up the authorial pose of rebuke and admonition towards figures within the poem that form the object of the satirist's critique, for example at RK C.5.146 "
/notate Religiosi" (folio /beth war bischoppes" (folio
Wood (2017) confirms as well a similarity in Hand 2's work as corrector and as annotator, for his corrections to the text often demonstrate "the same 'feel' for Langland's vocabulary combined with the same willingness on [his] part . . . to intervene on his own authority—and perhaps also on his recollection of a form of the text he had copied previously," for he was willing "also to adapt the annotations he found in his source to his own ends."
The ongoing scholarship on the function and force of these annotations and the often-feisty controversies they create are a testament to the power of the manuscript as a mysterious witness to a mysterious past.
As mentioned above in I.4 Script and Hands—and potentially distinct from the program of annotations—are three notes concerning prophecy, on folios
Emmerson also points to the powers of prophecy as a form of promise to be fulfilled in salvation history.C texts, contain annotations about prophecy.B manuscripts LRF at B.15.576α.p tradition of C-text manuscripts; Wood says that the hand who wrote these notes may have had access to one of those manuscripts.C, see the monograph by Steinberg (1991), who argues "that
The text of
On hyere cam couetyse to schrefteward. At folio prophecia· petri (
The Latin quotations are underlined in red or brown. Individual Latin and French words and phrases, and other evidently "'important' words" (to use RK's description
Passus Headings
There is no general incipit at the beginning, nor an explicit at the end of the poem.
Schmidt (2011) reconstructs the proposed Cx schema of rubrics.visio and what scholars (though few manuscripts and certainly not X) call the vita, that is, the search for Dowel, Dobet, and Dobest. Still others observe a tri-partite division in the so-called vita, distinguishing between Dowel, Dobet, and Dobest. Despite useful classification and observable general patterns, these divisions still display variety and hybridism. X appears to reflect closely the Cx archetype offered by Schmidt, because the x tradition from which it comes is closer to Cx than are the p branch manuscripts.B and C manuscripts, making him ponder their potential authority, yet resolving back into caution about how they ought to be used by editors: It therefore seems reasonable to conclude that the main structural outline of the C-text as reflected in its archetypal rubrics does not differ greatly from that of its predecessor. . . . This last consideration strengthens the antecedent probability that the rubrics reflect authorial directions; but as it is not possible to be certain about the details, and all use of the "thematic" rubrics for literary interpretation must remain circumspect, they have been given no prominence in the edited text.
A major feature in this manuscript is not what we would call decoration per se but potentially, defacement. Throughout the text, the name of Piers, most often spelled peres plouhman, is erased.
In this edition we have applied mark-up and (where appropriate) composed further notes for these deletions, describing as best we can the various states of visibility, since the work of erasure is both imperfect and inconsistent. Some names are completely obliterated; some are partially visible; and some are still completely readable despite the attempt at erasure. Some appear more clearly in the 1936 photostat, making us wonder if the past ninety years have led to some fading, or if perhaps the high contrast photography itself enhanced the original graphs. Our transcriptions are based on what we can actually see, but were made in consultation with the photostat, though we did not directly adopt its readings without independent confirmation from the manuscript itself. Throughout the text, the erased name of the poem's title character appears variously as Peres, Peris, Perus, Pers, P ers, with or without the word Plouhman or Plohman, and with the initial <p> in each word rendered variously as upper or lower case. In all instances, we transcribe whatever is still visible, supplying dots for the graphs that are no longer legible. In codicological notes, we try to explain what was likely erased. Readers should be aware as well that in numerous instances the program of erasure was completely neglected (or missed) by the erasing hand. We have not supplied notes alerting the reader to every missed erasure, though we do indeed alert the reader to parts of the text where the lack of erasure seems to be of particular interest. On occasion the erasure extends to the marginalia (e.g. Peres of prydie, who gathers with Gluton and his mates at the pub (
Hm 143 also includes—after the end of the poem, on folio 108r—a four-line version of its opening verses. RK transcribe the lines.
Grindley also examines the stemmatic implications of the fragment, tracing its variants and affinities, particularly its resemblances to "certain members of the P family of Piers Plowman C-text manuscripts," wondering if its affinities to Mc (Grindley's M) could indicate that "some manuscript closely related to manuscript M was the source of X2"
We have done our own independent analysis of the fragment, and have marked it up with <app> tags and textual notes, anatomizing the detailed textual relationships of the fragment to all of the surviving
As we note above, near the fragment is the name Dan Jhon redbery, who may have written the verses and thus been an early owner.
In view of discrepencies between our observations and those of Grindley (1997) and RK, we have marked up fragment X2 from scratch, and in the markup and notes to the X2 transcription, we offer our analysis.
Because, as we have discussed above, this is the Archive's first presentation of a C-text, there is no pool of data from which we can establish an argument about X's textual relationships independent of the editorial work done by Russell-Kane and Schmidt.per se, but they do associate manuscripts according to patterns of shared error, as determined by the Kane (1988) tradition of analyzing scribal practice set forth famously in the A-text Athlone edition. Schmidt (2011) creates a traditional stemma that locates X with manuscripts HcIYc as descended from a shared ancestor y, descended from i, descended from x 1, descended from Cx, descended from C.
From the vast and choppy waters of the textual criticism of C, we want here briefly to guide the readers down one small, manageable rivulet, so that they can contemplate the place of this edition of X within the larger and unfinished labor of editing the poem from all C-text manuscripts. This one issue, here reductively summarized, is that of emendation: the act of a modern editor correcting a reading in the base manuscript and substituting another reading that is shared by some, many, most, or all of the other surviving manuscripts, based on the direct proof or notion that the initial reading is wrong and the emended one is right. One can even seek a reading from another version, rejecting the particular manuscript evidence in favor of what can be argued to be a superior reading in another version. Fundamental to Russell and Kane's philosophy of editing is the scenario they discovered (based in part on Kane and Donaldson's's B-text work) of the C poet working from a flawed copy of his B-text poem and laboring to repair as he revises, having to fix errors that had seeped into the poem. Russell and Kane write about the C-text poet, whom they never, by the way, call Langland: That he never systematically checked his
B manuscript for errors of copying must appear from the number of scribal readings that survived his revision. Whether or not he had the means for such a check, and his use of the scribal copy might seem to imply that he did not, he seems to have read his text so to speak pen in hand, with variable degree of critical attention. A turn of language which he sensed to be not his own, or imperfect alliteration, or nonsense error that caught his eye would sharpen the critical attitude already implicit in the intent to revise, giving local application to general dissatisfaction. Quite often his reaction was to repair by rewriting, even to the extent of incorporating the scribal reading in the revised line or passage.
Nonetheless, as Derek Pearsall (2008) observes, there seems to be a consensus that the copy the C-reviser worked from, however corrupt, was not "in such an advanced stage of corruption as the archetype of all extant B MSS,". . . leads them to think of the poet's holograph not as a fair copy awaiting only a final touching-up in places but as made up of working drafts (
C and the relatively uncorrupt state of the archetype (compared with that of B) encourage editorial caution rather than boldness in its treatment.Ø is designation of an early scribal copy of the B-text, earlier than and superior to Bx, which is itself the ancestor, recently constructed by the Archive, of all the surviving B manuscripts. It is this B-Ø or an early descendant of it that Langland used when he began to revise the C text.
RK and Schmidt agree that the C-reviser's manuscript was corrupt, though superior to Bx, and yet the editors interpret this situation differently—RK emphasizing that the corruption licenses intervention and Schmidt (2011) asserting that the "relatively uncorrupt state of the archetype demands editorial restraint."C, and assessing as well the verses that are new to C and which therefore have no source in B, are ongoing and expressly unsettled issues, as readers who compare Pearsall (2008), RK, and Schmidt (2011) will quickly discern, even though X is the base manuscript for all three C editions. The conflicts over whether to emend or not, and how to establish the grounds for emendation, arise from the very pages of parchment that are the subject of this Archive edition. And in many cases, the readings that modern editors struggle over were themselves the source of contention—in so far as it can be measured—among the scribes who produced the manuscript. That is, though Russell (1989) correctly asserts that Hm 143 is a professional production, over which much care was shown, the manuscript nonetheless reveals that a struggle for authority is being played out in the several hundred erasures and "corrections" to the text.
As far as the variants in X go, RK identify 323 errors that were "apparently introduced by its actual scribe."C. It is apparent that many of the errors that RK isolate are clearly production errors, mis-read text, nonsense, repeated words and the like, apparent to any reader—except evidently the X corrector who missed a great many lapsus calami. So even though we are not editing C here, we have no doubt begun the compilation of a new data set that can be drawn from our new transcription, new discovery of erasure and correction, and new hand attributions.
Variants at the level of whole lines—missing lines, line divisions, partial lines—are indicated by the range of line numbers referenced to the line-numbering in RK. That is, each line of the manuscript as it is laid out on the page has a unique line number that is strictly sequential, regardless of the vagaries of line division. For those interested in the markup, this unique number is recorded in the "id" attribute of the "l" (or "line") element. The parallel of each line to the line numbering of RK is recorded in that line's "n" attribute. A single line in X can contain all or parts of two or more lines in RK, or it can contain only a fragment of what RK consider to be the whole line. Occasionally a whole line will be missing set against RK's lineation and some or all other surviving manuscripts, or a line will be present in X and many or even all other manuscripts that RK consider to be spurious. Our aligning of these parallels with RK is in no way intended to represent what X ought to read in our editorial judgment. Rather, it is strictly provided as a means of navigating the relationship of X to the lineations of other manuscripts as recorded in the RK apparatus. Sometimes, we have written a note on a line division in X that is not in accord with RK or with other manuscripts, but we have done so only in instances in which the textual situation is complicated, or in which that situation sheds light on relationships of X to other witnesses. In most of these cases, X will be in agreement with only a minority of manuscripts, which can make shared line divisions an added means of discerning genetic relationships.
For this reason, we maintain that the Archive's presentation of the text, with the images at hand for readers to check, is the very best way of offering textual data to a scholarly public hungry for factual information, and also the tools to examine for themselves any assertions we have made about the hands and about any given reading or correction. In this edition we do not explain the drama or solve the mystery, but we believe we have provided the necessary tools for this venture. The Archive can only hope that its fresh study of X and its new assessment of hundreds of readings and corrections will take its place in this ongoing inquiry, especially as other and eventually all of the C-text manuscripts are entered into the Archive.
Our transcriptional policies are substantially those outlined in the Transcriptional Protocols of the
As a reminder to readers who want to see the text without any of our interventions, this can easily be accomplished by applying the Scribal Stylesheet.
Hand 1 makes numerous anticipatory errors, some of which he corrects by overwriting even before finishing the incorrect graph. In some cases, these erroneous strokes can be mistaken for otiose tildes or curls indicating a suspension that would be out of place. Hence, we mark up such instances with <del> and <add> to indicate clearly the self-correction and its likely motivation.
The <app> elements encode unique readings and those readings shared by X with only a small subset of manuscripts.
An interesting phenomenon here in X, and a very complicated issue for electronic editing in general, arises from trying to establish what the reading of manuscript X really is, and therefore what that reading is compared to other manuscripts. As noted above, we have tried to isolate what the original scribe, Hand 1, wrote, taking that to be the reading of X (I.4.1: The Corrections in the Text). We argue this because sometimes Hand 2, the corrector, revises away from a possibly archetypal or clearly majority reading toward a minority or erroneous reading. In the instances where an error by Hand 1 has been corrected by Hand 2, we identify in our markup and where necessary in notes the success or failure of the repair and its agreement or disagreement with a majority reading. In instances where Hand 1's reading has been completely erased, we have no choice but to accept the addition as the reading of X. Therefore, the ontological status of the X reading in each given instance is a fascinating and sometimes unanswerable question, because it depends on the local work that has been done in deleting and/or replacing any given word or phrase. We invite readers to examine each local situation, analyzing the markup and reading the notes, for we have described each situation as best we can in order to represent precisely what happened.
We have made no attempt to account for every instance of damage to the manuscript—especially where such damage does not interfere with the main text, a header, or a gloss. Rather, we have applied <damage> elements in cases where unintentional erasure or other damage might be mistaken for an intentional erasure.
We have placed these features of the mise-en-page as carefully as possible in their exact physical position on the folio. Especially in the case of <marginalia>, this sometimes places the gloss a little further away from the text to which it appears to be referring. The display of such placements can also appear to be inaccurate as a result of how a browser interacts with a given monitor's screen resolution. Clicking on the marginal gloss will indicate the line to which it has been assigned. Most effectively, this can also be determined by examining the hyperlinked folio image.
Readers will note that determining the distance between letters in handwritten texts can be subjective. We have made every effort to apply <orig><reg> elements only in cases in which two words have clearly been written as one. In cases in which a single word has been rendered as two, we have applied "shadow-hyphens," which appear as modern hyphens in magenta under the All stylesheet.
The application of these so-called shadow-hyphens—actually tagged hyphens encoded in the transcription as <seg type="shadowHyphen">-</seg>—is not intended to correct a scribal error, which would be marked instead with <sic><corr> elements; nor is it intended to record a semantic distinction or distinction in part of speech, though it might at times coincide with such distinctions. Rather, shadow-hyphens join two or more groups of graphs that normally function as morphemic subdivisions of a single word, as in ho so or with oute, where the scribe might have written them in some places as separate units, but in others as an undivided word.
This hyphenation, in turn, is intended strictly to facilitate linguistic analysis and the building of accurate concordances that will be congruent across all documentary editions in the Archive. Hyphenation has been based in previous editions on the headwords of the Holi churche (e.g. holychirche (e.g.
Concerning the issue of determining whether letters are run together or separated, we remind our readers that scribal spacing is inconsistent in medieval manuscripts. Judgement calls about spacing reside, therefore, with the editors. Since this element of the markup is not intended to facilitate paleographical analysis of scribal spacing habits per se, cases have not been adjudicated with micrometer accuracy. Given that both the folio images and our underlying data are openly available, anyone wishing to re-mark forms according to another standard and/or for another purpose can always do so. In the future, it could be that use of an AI application to make hyper-accurate spacing adjudications will support revision of the present encoding in this and all previous editions, enabling paleographers to rely on the shadow-hyphens to represent a greater-than-x spacing in a single word. In the meantime, representing words broken into smaller components with either a shadow-hyphen or by silently transcribing them as single words will continue to support linguistic analysis.
For text in English, we apply <sic><corr> when we believe that the scribe has made an unintended blunder—the equivalent of a modern typo, which we do not take to represent a genuine variant. Such erroneous readings do not receive <app> markup because they do not represent scribal intention, and because agreement with other witnesses in such cases is likely coincidental.
In Latin, we have marked up with <sic><corr> elements readings in which the scribe in haste has omitted a suspension mark, or has written a word or phrase incorrectly set against a well-known and readily available source such as Scripture or other surviving medieval Latin texts.
In all of these cases the form in the <sic> element is the scribe's original rendering. The supplied reading in the <corr> element is what we take to have been his intention, and therefore the reading of X. The content of <corr> appears only under the All and Critical stylesheets. It is completely suppressed under the Diplomatic stylesheet, and is hinted at only by purple coloration of the <sic> content under the Scribal stylesheet.
This section is not a full analysis of the handwriting in X. Rather, it outlines editorial policies regarding the transcription of Hand 1 in the main text and of Hand 2 in the marginalia and corrections. Every effort has been made to transcribe as capital any letter form that has dimorphism associated clearly with the upper and lower case distinction, regardless of where such a letter may appear. <A>, which is weakly dimorphic by size and sometimes by shape can, because of this ambiguity in its dimorphism, present questionable instances. At
Allographs such as the multiple forms of lower case <g>, <r>, <s>, and <v> common to anglicana hands are transcribed without differentiation. All forms of <u>, <v>, and <w> are transcribed according to the graph rather than according to the phoneme that the scribe intended the graph to represent.
The letters that are strongly dimorphic for case in Hand 1 are <B>/<b>-<G>/<g>, <I>/<i>-<R>/<r>, and <T>/<t>. <H>/<h>, <K>/<k>, and <L>/<l> are strongly dimorphic for case, but Hand 1 rarely uses the capital forms of these letters, even at the heads of lines. As a result, we transcribe the lower-case forms of these letters as capitals at the heads of lines, where Hand 1 overwhelmingly uses capitals, but elsewhere, we transcribe them as capitals only when the upper-case form is clearly present. <V> is dimorphic, but Hand 1 uses the two forms in free variation, unrelated to any apparent sense of capitalization. One of the forms is familiar as a component of the anglicana <W>/<w>—essentially a doubled <V>/<v>—which is often very large, but which nevertheless remains outside of any clear capitalization rule. Like <V>/<v>, <Ȝ>/<ȝ> has two forms—these only slightly different—but we have capitalized it only as a line-initial letter because neither of the forms can be clearly identified as that of the capital or the lower-case. The scribe's <Þ>/<þ> is essentially monomorphic, with only a single instance of a possible dimorphism for case by size (Christus (chi.
In I.4: Script and Hands, we note Carl Grindley's comparison of Hands 1 and 2 (Grindley's A and B).anglicana hands. We have transcribed as capital <H> all instances of the letter in Hand 2 that have a rightward-facing stroke, and as lower-case all those without this stroke. Good examples of these forms can be seen in the glosses at
X is not mapped by
fram; man; many(e) (101x) ~ money(e) (62x) ~ meny (1x); wan. The minority <o> forms are western: cf.
hand(es) (34x) ~ hoend(e) (5x) ~ hond(es) (2x); lond(es) (49x) ~ land(es) (6x) ~ long(e) adj. & adv. (57x) ~ lang (only in the technical expression lang cart lomb(e) (2x) ~ lamb lombren lambren lambes stand(e) (14x) ~ standeth (3x) ~ stonde stondeth
bittere; dryuen; wed(d)ewe(s) (7x) ~ wid(d)ewe(s) (3x).
bisy; brugge; bugge(n) 'to buy' (5x); churche (72x) ~ chirche (16x); fulle 'to fill'; gult(es); hulle; mery(e) (11x) ~ mury(e) (7x); murthe(s) (8x) ~ merthe (2x) ~ myrthe kyn(e) 'kin'; kynde; synne.
The <u> ~ <uy> spellings are western and did not survive before nasals. Cf.
fuyr 'fire'; fust(e) 'fist'; huyre; kuth; muys 'mice'; pruyde (38x) ~ pryde (6x) ~ wischen ~ weschen. The <u> ~ <uy> spellings are south-west Midland; cf.
sulue(n) (72x) ~ sulf(e) (9x) ~ self (6x) ~ selue seluen
mylke; selk(e); suluer (17x) ~ seluer (8x) ~ seluerles (1x) ~ syluer(es) (5x) ~ siluer (3x). Also seth(en) ~ senne(s) ~ senes (OE sioþþan, seoþþan). Cf.
Uncommon in ME, the spelling <ae> is used regularly in some words, usually for ME /a/, especially those that had <æ> in OE. So haen (43x) is more frequent than han (28x), whereas haeth (3x) is much less common than hath; craeft craft, crafty etc. (36x); pa.sg. saet (3x) as often as sat; (y)waer (6x); also schaef shef (OE scēaf), wollewaerd -werd), taek, 'take' (ON), and words of French and Latin origin: kaes 'case', debaet, repaest, samaritaen.
'One' is usually oen, beside on and oon, and once ooen; woet, 'know(s)' is commoner than wo(o)t. Other examples are (from OE /o:/) cristendoem, foet, stoed, stoel, swoet, toel; (from OE and ON /a:/) hoem, knyhthoed, roes, woen; (from OE /a/ in lengthening group) coeld, foend, hoend; (from OF and OE /o/ with lengthening) coest, loest, moes; also resoen (AN resoun), soercerye (OF sorcerie). The first example is goed at
vch(e) (47x) ~ vcche eche (4x between
ar (54x) ~ or (6x); adv. er eer
The <ar> type is predominantly south-west Midland, <er> is Midland, <or> is widespread; cf.
moche (49x) ~ mochel muche (21x) ~ muchel (3x, first at mechel
The <u> forms are south-west Midland, the other forms are generally southern; cf.
noþer (29x) ~ nother (12x) ~ noyther(e) (6x) ~ neyther (4x); cf. ayther(es) (6x) ~ ayþer (6x) ~ either (2x) ~ eyþer
The spelling of 'yet' is always the south-western form ȝut (WS ȝet). Cf.
The spellings of 'after' are aftur (166x), aftir (8x), after (5x). Cf.
Voicing of initial /f/ is seen occasionally: vorgoers (vayre (velynge (
The plural inflexion is usually -<(e)s> or -<is>, though -<us> is not uncommon, especially following <d>: gomes freres (34x), Freris (1x, prestes Bidders and beggers Of wardus and of wardemotis wayues and strayues gomus gomes stewardus marchauntz oxen lambren kyne shon shoes yes (17x), eyes (5x), eyus shep; ȝere after a numeral ȝeres (9x); pl. 'winter' is usually wyntur, wynter, beside wyntres (2x). 'Brother' has plural bretherne. Mutated plurals are brech, feet, teth, etc. The ending -<us> is west Midland; cf.
The distinction between the weak (definite) and strong (indefinite) declension, singular and plural, is rather inconsistently maintained, with final -<e> sometimes added to strong adjectives of one syllable in the singular. For example, forms of 'great': weak singular: þe grete Clerk his grete myhte grete othes a greet cherl, of gret witte grete nede grete ferly wax grete with childe a grete oeste a greet oest
y, I, ich, ych; me, my, myn(e), myen
thow(e), þou, þow, thou; the, þe, thy, thi, þy, thyn(e), þyn thien
a, he; hym; his
nominative: she (49x), he (44x), hee a a is narrowly south-west Midland; cf. her(e); cf.
hit, it.
we; vs; oure.
ȝe; ȝow, ȝou ȝoure.
Nominative: they (206x) ~ thei (68x) ~ þei (36x) ~ þey (18x) ~ thay þai þay hy a a is rare south-west Midland, hy more generally southern; cf. hem; gen. her(e); cf.
The pronoun 'who' (including 'whoso') has these forms: nominative: ho (78x), who (14x); accusative and dative: wham (5x), whom (2x); genitive: heos hoes
Endings derived from OE -<ian> verbs are quite well preserved: louye louie maky makyn hatien swerien sittien wynnien
abidynge dryuyng sittynge slepynge
ascuth beeþ bereth; goth; maketh; semeþ smyteth; wanyeth. Syncopated forms are: fynt, halt, smyt stant
The endings -<eth> ~ -<en> ~ -<e> are in free variation. For example: maketh (8x), maken (6x), make (2x). With -<eþ> is ryseþ, at
beth cometh gyueth holde holdeth loke ȝe deuyne ȝe
The <y>- prefix is quite regularly preserved, so the forms of 'made' are mad (3x), made (2x), maed (2x), maked (2x), Imade (1x), ymad (3x), ymade (1x), ymaed (1x), ymaked (3x).
bake; come; y-dronke ~ dronke; founde ~ y-founde ~ gete(n); gyue; y-tauhte; take ~ y-take.
infin. be(n); pr. 1 sg. am; 2 sg. art; 3 sg. is, ys; pl. ar(e), aren, beth, beeþ buth ben, been; subj. sg. be; pl. be(n); imp. sg. be; pl. beth. Cf.
pa.t.sg. say (9x), sayh saw (4x, first at seigh seyh (17x), seyhe sye sigh syhe sey (11x); pl. seye sye seyen (2x), y-sey (2x), y-seye y-seyen
The language of X is south-west Midlands, more specifically the Malvern area of south-west Worcestershire, together with forms associated with London.C manuscripts, especially IUcYc. He considered "the most important diagnostic feature for south Worcestershire texts" to be the spelling <oe> for ME /o:/ III.1.9.maed III.1.8, the use of a for 'he' and 'she' III.2.3.1.3.1-2, noyther for 'neither' III.1.13, and ar for 'before' III.1.11. He comments on other forms in X: rounding before nasals as in mony, 'many', recessive in Worcestershire and varying with many, man, can III.1.1; rounded vowels descending from OE /y/ and /y:/, as fuyr, 'fire', pruyde 'pride', buggen, 'buy', except before nasals, so synne, kynde III.1.4-5 variation between ech and vch III.1.10, suluen and siluen, 'self' III.1.6, suluer and seluer, 'silver' III.1.7, beth, buth, ben and aren, 'are' III.2.5.8; variations in the endings -<ur> and -<ir> III.1.15, -<us> and -<is> III.2.1, -<ud> and -<id> III.2.5.6.
On the basis that with two exceptions the C manuscripts "form a dialectically cohesive South-West Midlands group,"i-group of manuscripts, in particular XHcIUcYc, are more typical of London than of provincial scribes. He points to similarities in the form of the rubrics and the explicit at the end of the visio, the particular version of anglicana formata employed by the scribes, and the known London activities of the scribe of I.i-group reflect the language of their common exemplar, which presumably closely represented the language of Langland himself, and that the layer of London features are more likely to reflect the language of the scribes: "The authority of the text these manuscripts transmit demonstrates that their common archetype was close to the poet's holograph, and is thus likely to preserve features of the author's own dialect."
Horobin further observes that the unusual spellings <ae> in words such as haen and craeft oen, hoem, etc. haen at goed at han and gode.
It is significant that such Worcesterisms frequently appear at the same positions in X as in the related manuscripts IHcYcUc, offering further evidence that they are not due to the individual scribes but are relict forms descending from the archetype.many chirche and mery pryde self eche
The following list of sigils of the manuscripts of
For descriptions of the C manuscripts, see A. V. C. Schmidt, "The Manuscripts of