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1 - Scribal Texts and Multivocal Manuscripts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 January 2023

Sarah Wood
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Summary

One scribal form of Piers Plowman A brings together two female characters who never share a scene in any authorial version or edition. On fol. 6r of the late fifteenth century manuscript E, Holy Church speaks over Will’s head to warn covetous clerics that chastity without charity will be chained in hell:

For curatoris at kepys you clene of your bodes

Ye er combyrd with couatyse ȝe can not owt crepe

Swa harde hase auarice happyd you togedyr

Ye trow noght in þe trinite bott of trechory of helle

And ȝe lere lewyd men þe lattere to lere

For þees er þe wordes writtyn in þe euangely

Date et Dabitur vobis for I may dele you alle

(Piers Plowman A.1.169–75, E fol. 6r).

Then, bizarrely, in this manuscript another character takes the stage: Piers Plowman’s wife ‘Dame wyrke qwen tyme is’. The dramatic intrusion of this unexpected arrival results from textual disruption: like two other A-text manuscripts, Passus 1 of E contains a sequence of lines displaced from Passus 7 (A.7.70–213a appears after A.1.182). As a result of this displacement, Holy Church’s mantra about the treasure of truth introduces not the episode of Meed in Passus 2, but part of the ploughing scene from Passus 7. The dislocated lines introduce Piers’s family and his testament and conclude with Hunger’s advice about how to deal with those who will not work:

Forþi I say as I sayd ar be þe text

When al tresours er tried trouth is þe beste

Now haue I tald qwat trouth is no tresour bettre

Dame wyrke qwen tyme is peirse wyff hette

[A.7.71–195 follow]

Now wald I wote if yow wist qwat wer þe best

And how I myght amaistre þaim & make þaim to wirke

Here now quod hunger & hald it for wisdom

Hold beggerys & bydderys þat may noght swete ne swynke

With honde brede & horse brede holde vp þair hertes

And baue þaim with benes for swellynge of þair wombe

And if þe gromys grochen byd þaim go swynke

And shal sope þe better qwen he hase it deserued

And if you fynde ony freke þat fortune hase aparyd

With fyre or with fals men founde sike to knaw

Loue þaim & lenne þaim for so þe law of kynde

And if þou may aspye þat nedy be or nakyd

And noght haue to spende in mete ne in mony

Bot make þi frend þermede & so mathew byddes

Facite vobis amicos wold noght greve god

Forþi I say as I sayd ar be sight of þis text

When al tresours er tried treuth is þe best

(A.1.181–2, A.7.70, 196–205, 207–10, 212–13a, 1.180–1, E fol. 6r, 8r–v).
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Piers Plowman and its Manuscript Tradition , pp. 17 - 36
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2022

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