The Manuscripts of Piers Plowman

The B-version of 'Piers Plowman' perhaps the only version authorised by Langland is the one most frequently read today and the most influential form of the poem. This catalogue of the extant medieval manuscripts now locaed in Cambridge London Oxford Tokyo and San Marino California offers both individual manuscript descriptions and a record of the annotations. The new and detailed codicological descriptions include information on provenance and ownership a full list of the contents and a description of the physical make-up and the presentation of each manuscript. The first published accounts of the various textual annotations on each manuscript (whether produced by the original scribes or later readers) provides the best record available of how 'piers plowman' was understoon by its earliest audience.Professor C. DAVID BENSON teaches in the English Department at the University of Connecticut; Dr LYNNE BLANCHFIELD is an Associate Lecturer at the Open University.