The Lost History of "Piers Plowman". Lawrence Warner

treated as constituting two great families with an exclusive common ancestor, a single scribal B copy.”¹⁴ Yet such an approach calls for a single edition of those passus, with full display of collations, in the B edition. As it stands, that edition does not indicate whether Kane and Donaldson weighed or even had access to all the C readings, or to what degree C-editor George Russell bore responsibility for the readings printed in their B text. The famous conclusion to their Introduction claims:

      The apparatus supporting that text [sc. their B text] contains all material evidence for determining its original form afforded by the known B manuscripts other than S and Ht. How we have interpreted that evidence, and the evidence of the A and C versions bearing on it, has been laid wholly open to scrutiny in the preceding stages of this Introduction. Whether we have carried out our task efficiently must be assessed by reenacting it.¹⁵